Perfect days happen. Yesterday was one of them.

Too bad that on Friday, Little Miss Airhead at the Doubletree Hotel didn’t tell me that all needed was to get back on the light-rail for a couple more stops to get to what I now realize is the real – and totally hip – Portland. She wasn’t very with it, because she never even checked me in, as I found out today. To them I was a ghost with a working key. I could have ordered Veuve Clicquot from room service and walked right out the door. Oh well. I’m not really that kind of person so it doesn’t make much sense to ruminate on what I could have done.

Yesterday morning, when I was writing in the hotel business center, there was another dude in there with a bunch of tattoos. We both sort of stuck out in Corporateland Hotel as not exactly corporate types so we started talking. Turns out he is in a band (actually I think he IS the band) called The Violet Burning. He gave me a CD and his phone number and told me to call him after the Eels show, plus he told me some cool areas to check out. I took this interaction as an excellent sign.

From there, I just wandered. I have visited Portland once, but I was working, then I got the flu there, so it wasn’t altogether successful as a pleasure journey; still, I remember the Saturday Market there, because I bought a bean bag lizard that sits on the dashboard of my VW Bug. That market is COOL. They have food stalls there from all over the globe – Egyptian, Himilayan, all kinds of weird shit. I ate a killer taco al pastor and watched a steel drum band. Then I walked some more, stopped in a pub for a drink, then went to an oyster bar and had oyster shooters and clams. It was hot and humid, and I never did make it to the carnival, because I wanted to take a nap before the Eels show.

This is where the day left Pretty Awesome and entered Totally Killer. I knew I wanted to go to a wine bar, but I didn’t know where one was, so I looked in the phone book and found a place called Vino Paradiso that was not too far from the venue. So I headed there. There was some festival of lights parade last night so the streets were lined with people waiting. Portland is a really cool city to walk in. I was getting pretty enamored at this point.

So, made it to Vino Paradiso where I ordered up a Pinot flight and a salad of Arugula and Seared Duck. There was a couple next to me that just moved to Portland from San Jose, California. In fact MANY of the people I met were transplantees from California. And they all love it there. So we talked and drank and I ate my salad (which was awesome.) Then Timothy, the owner, comes over and started talking to me. By now it was well known that I had come to Portland to see a show, so the owner told me he was in a band.

“Which band?” I asked him.
“Pink Martini,” he said.

HOLY FUCK. HOLY FUCKING FUCK. My jaw dropped and I swear, I almost fell off my barstool. “DUDE.” I said. “DO YOU REALIZE I AM LIKE, YOUR BIGGEST FAN IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE????”

I then proceeded to tell him everything about everything, including my blog entries on Pink Martini and China Forbes. He told me that someone had printed them out and they all read them! PINK MARTINI READ MY BLOG!

Well, after that I was totally convinced that this journey was all very, very good and that the music gods were indeed smiling down on me. I had not only found a killer wine bar, I had found one owned by one of the dudes in one of my favorite bands! I am seeing the band in three weeks, and I told Timothy that if he gets me backstage I will bring some great wines to drink. “Not too many of them drink wine,” he said. “That’s OK!” I said. Please oh please oh please….

I left there almost reluctantly, but with great anticipation to see if Mark Oliver Everett, otherwise know as E, would succeed in totally blowing my mind once again. This was the real reason I came to Portland, after all. I walked to Roseland, the venue, down streets filled with marching bands waiting to be in the parade. It was fairly surreal. Outside the venue, the parade was going by, marching band after marching band.

Roseland is one of those places that discriminates against us drinkers and makes us go upstairs and sit down to get a cocktail. Normally this would have totally bugged, but since I was on a mission to remain somewhat conscious, I didn’t care so much. I went up and got a drink and settled in for the opening band, Smoosh. There were two dudes next to me, and I tried in vain to tell them what they were in for. I said I would be leaving for the floor as soon as Eels came on and one of the guys said “why do you want to go down THERE?” But when Smoosh came on I could tell that THEY wanted to go “down there.” Smoosh is comprised of a twelve-year old girl drummer and a fourteen-year old girl keyboardist. I have never seen so many riveted dudes as I have seen during Smoosh. It’s kind of freaky, really. But it’s there.

Smoosh is good. But they are unformed. They don’t know how to act, talk or dance yet. In a description of Smoosh in one of the free Portland weeklies, the following: “When the army of young girls on my block hit the preteen mark, an unexplainable heaviness oozed over our neighborhood like “The Nothing” in The Neverending Story. Saturday night slumber parties became whirlpools of maniacal giggling and tears, powered by overactive imaginations, blossoming sex drives, and crushing self-doubt.” DUDE. At last I know where my real problem is – I never really matured past the age of thirteen. You are describing ME.

But I digress. Smoosh finished their set, I finished my drink, and I was on the floor as soon as Eels hit the stage.

Part of the reason I wanted to see this show again is, last weekend when I saw them I was pretty buzzed. As in, I remember it was a fantastic show, and I remember bits and pieces, but I had shit on my mind and that combined with the buzz messed me up. Last night I was fairly sober. So I remember it all. The guy with the “Security” T-shirt who stood glaring out at the crowd, but then in the course of the night proceeded to dance, do kung-fu moves, squirt whipped cream into people’s mouths (and then wipe them off with a tissue – TWISTED), play keyboards, make random announcements before songs, and at one point, take over the guitar from E while he went backstage. Security Guy was just a little tidbit that made one go “holy fuck, this show is INSANE.”

So then… it was so good I almost started crying a couple of times. E was dressed in some crazy jumpsuit with airplane goggles and longish hair sticking out from a cap with another pair of goggles, and there was a wind machine blowing on him… the effect was quite striking, and I think I am in love again. There were moments of great beauty, and moments of two guitars about to rip your head off. The girls from Smoosh were right next to me on the floor and were jumping up and down like they were on pogo sticks, because like I said they haven’t learned to dance yet. The crowd, though somewhat sparse, was appropriately enthralled and respectful. I think I love Portland.

Then, sadly, it was over. I didn’t bring my phone so I couldn’t call Michael from The Violet Burning, but I walked out into the rain and uptown to one of two bars he had said they would be at. It was a club, and definitely one where people were going to be taking drugs. I didn’t see him so I got out of there quick before I could get myself into trouble. See! Even I, Shannon Essa, can sometimes be good.

Out in the rain, I walked aimlessly trying to get a cab. Finally I got one and the driver got so lost he did not want to charge me. But I made him take money. Portland has cute cab drivers too, by the way.

This morning I dreamed about Mark Oliver Everett. He was at my house and I asked him what the scoop was with Security Guy. Then he looked at my CDs and asked me to put on the Living Blue. I was happy that all my Eels CDs were in plain view. “This band sucks,” E said. The rest of the dream involved unsuccessful sex and my grandmother, but I’d rather not elaborate.

During that show I had this image of myself crucified on an electric guitar. I can’t think of anything that makes me quite as happy. And I am glad.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 4th, 2006 at 3:03 pm and is filed under Adventures in Rock and Roll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.