Westerly

After a day at home in Manhattan, I had to fly off to Portland, OR to start rehearsals with my newest employers, the Dandy Warhols. Because of the ridiculous price of flights these days, I got stuck flying JetBlue. Most people I know like JetBlue, and for short stuff I don’t mind so much, but I’m not generally a fan. The one thing I was excited about was that, since they have DirectTv on board, I could watch the Celtics/Lakers game on the plane. Can someone help me understand how they have a channel called “Big 10” which shows reruns of Ohio State basketball games from the 80s, but they don’t have ABC? They have every network EXCEPT ABC. After being delayed 3hrs on the runway, we were off, arriving in PDX at around 2:30am. I picked up a car and drove to the too-hip-for-it’s-own-good Jupiter hotel; my home for the next 8 nights. I could go off on a rant about this hotel, but I’ll just say that they have wireless internet, but not that reaches the rooms. Oh and they thought it a good idea to hold a lesbian rave in the courtyard outside my room. The Djs only went until 2:30am though, so that was thoughtful of them. Oh, and they did it 2 nights in a row.

At least there was a view...

Hotel annoyances aside, being in Portland was pretty sweet. The weather was stellar the whole time and I got to spend some quality time with some old friends. The Dandys folks are all really cool and they have an amazing headquarters/rehearsal space/recording studio/clubhouse (dubbed The Odditorium). I can’t really begin to describe the place, and somehow I didn’t take any pictures, but it was a great place to work all week. They’re very conscious of aesthetics and every room & nook had it’s own vibe. The week culminated with an amazing dinner, prepared by a couple chef friends in their semi-pro kitchen, with about 15 of us around a big wooden table. Suffice to say, I like their style.

After rehearsals we had the weekend off which I spent hiking around out in the Columbia River Gorge, one day with Amy, one day by myself. It was a bit crowded as it was the weekend and beautiful weather, but it was beautiful anyway. We climbed up, around and under various waterfalls, basking in their misty goodness and trying to remember why I would want to live in a place where the only wildlife gives you the shivers when it darts across your path and into a pile of trash bags.


Horsetail Falls...
Top of Horsetail falls...

The Footbridge...

Standing On The Edge....

The next day I got in a van with Travis & Nicole for the drive/ferry to Victoria. It was a pleasant enough drive, complete with the best strawberry milkshake ever (thanks Mrs. Beesley!) and the ferry ride was great. It was sunset and the water was as smooth as any ferry ride I’ve ever been on (certainly no Irish sea in winter!).


Our little warm-up mini-tour took us to Victoria, Vancouver & Seattle, all nice places to be in summer. Things went well and the shows were fun. All in all I feel pretty good about running around with these guys for a few months. I had a couple days off in Portland on the tail end (made a day longer when JetBlue cancelled my flight home) which was nice. Then it was off to NYC for about 5 days at home before a 7-week stint that has me doing a month in Europe with the Dandys, then straight to Australia & Japan with team Albert Hammond, Jr. In fact, I write this 35,000 feet above the Atlantic en route to Amsterdam where I’ll have a couple days to myself and a Radiohead show to see before I jump down to Paris to meet up with the Dandys and head to Spain for our first Euro show. Forget about the ball team from Harlem, we are the true Globetrotters. Good times ahead...