Portland: First Impressions (Guest Editorial)

Here's the first of (hopefully) many future posts by a featured guest. If you are interested in writing for our blog, send a sample post to either Jeff or myself.

This one is courtesy of our friend Anto, and was originally featured on his blog, 10 Days & 10 Nights, detailing his first visit to Portland in the summer of last year.

============================================

Friday, June 09, 2006
First Impressions: Portland

Where do I begin? I guess it would have to be with the word vagine, pronounced, vajeen. I was greeted at the airport by rain and 80 degree weather, a combination I had yet to experience in life, and I had to say, it was good. I met the green one at around 8:00 pm and went directly to a hole called Ole Ole, and had the best fuckin' taco I've had in my life and was greeted by two other friends, Old and Kesia. So far so good, as I ate my taco I could see Green plotting on what kind of touristic fairy adventure he was going to take me on next, the Rose Garden....no, too late. One of the 78 bridges that occupy Portland.....no, he knew I wouldn't go for that. So he took me to a place he knew I would love...a bar [Doug Fir Lounge -Ed.]. This wasn't no ordinary bar, at least not one I'm accustomed to, no this bar was weird, not weird in a bad way not at all, but almost....too good to be true and here's why: We didn't get arrested, and get this, we didn't even get kicked out!!!! Let me explain why this doesn't make sense. Old called out 4 girls to fight me like he was fuckin' Don King and I was Tyson, it didn't happen but by the looks on the girls' faces and the speed at which they left, they well knew that it could have. 45 minutes later I made an executive decision to break a beer bottle on someones hotel door, 25 yards away, it had to be done. 30 minutes after that I tried my darnedest to convince K.C. to throw one at a girl's head, all in honor of the word of the week, Vagine. Shortly after, I remember, vaguely, throwing a girl to the floor to test her wrestling skills, she was nothing, as I crushed her easily, then realized she didn't even work with Green, and she just wanted to get man-handled. As you could imagine, I was promptly cut off from the bar service.....now here is where it gets weird, we didn't even drink that much. Now, I know what your thinking "that much"? I have been known to consume more alcohol than the average and have a knack for getting those around me drunk. Here is what was on the manifest: 2 shots of whiskey, 2 jagermeister, 1 homosexual concoction, and about 5 beers....are you fuckin' kidding me????? I usually drink that much on the way to the bar just to wet the ol' whistle, but I was acting like a drunken nutcase and that usually calls for at least a fifth of something. I woke the next day with questions, Green & Old had no explanation, they threw up profusely the night before so I know they felt my confusion, but seemed not to question it as much. Was it the altitude? Something in the drinks? Borat? What gives? This was beautiful, I saved at least $300 that night as opposed to Bay Area drinking, and had Old not fucked with the POS system at the bar to "check his e-mails" we might not have been cut-off and experienced a near death alcoholic experience, ( I love those ) with only a handful of drinks....????!!!!! Where was I? It seems The Lord created a perfect little city up there. Day two was uneventful and not worth discussing, except of course for Ethiopian food [at Blue Nile Cafe - Ed.], a contradiction in itself, but rather yummy, and as for day three, well, I'm going to have to pass the mike to the Mick and let him tell his side because my side was, to say the least, blurred. All in all, I had a blast and want to thank the natives for showing a Bay Area boy a great time, thanks Green, Old, Kesia, Cassie, K.C. (doesn't that get confusing?) I'll see you guys soon enough. Out.