East coast adventures: Part 1

I’ve been back home for a week and a half and yesterday was first day I left more than a mile radius of my house…it was also the first day I felt caught up enough to do so. I guess I didn’t post while I was gone so I’m gonna make a run down of our trip here:

September 21-26 Philadelphia, PA

Webly, Paul and I left Portland on a red eye on September 21st headed to Philadelphia. We were stoked to go to Riot Fest to make our inner 15 year old happy with some awesome bands like: The Dead Milkmen, Weston, and Plow United. We stayed with my friend Max and his housemate, Will, in West Philly.  Max lives around the corner and down the street from the Dock Street Brewing, which was our favorite brewery from the entire trip, probably because it tasted like NW ales.

Max has a muppet like dog named Sprocket. She’s a ball of energy bouncing all around and sitting in laps. The most ridiculous thing was her behavior with the cat, Lewis. Sprocket would try to play with the cat who would vacillate  between fighting back with paw swats or just  ignoring it. This would amount to the dog literally putting the cat’s head in its mouth and the cat would just let it. It was so weird! Occasionally the cat would retreat to the dog free space behind the West Philly window bars on the inside.

kitty jail is a safe space free of dog slobber.

Other amusing sites in West Philly:

I'm assuming this is what the east coas thinking being greee means? Small cap = less waste... uh hu, sure.

Stolen Skerple Revolution? I'm still kicking myself for not buying these! So ridiculous!

We checked out a bunch of awesome vegan restaurants and even tried to take a silly haunted tour. It didn’t end up being a haunted tour. It was more of a tour about the history of brothels and how there are dead bodies buried in all the parks. It was interesting, but not what we expected. On top of that we got caught in an east coast downpour and of course we didn’t have unbrellas. Oregonians don’t use umbrealls….but oregon doesn’t get rain that is like someone dumped a bucket on your head.

Oh! How could I forget! We went to the Mutter Museum! it’s a museum of medical oddities and it was pretty rad and totally worth the price to get it. The fetal skeletons and syphilitic brains and skulls were freaky. I totally suggest you check it out if you are in Philly.

Riot Fest was fun. It was like the Warped tour for adult punks in bootlegged Operation Ivy shirts. We tried to play a game of figuring out the ratio of  Black Flag tattoos to Misfits tattoos…but we gave up. Here are some photos:

Weston! I haven't seen them since 1995 in the basement of DV8. This big dumb stage was a far cry from that, but I still enjoyed it.

Paul and I sat on some bleachers and looked at a big dumb stage.

Philly sunset

Who in a million years would every have thought that Plow United would have been on a jumbotron?

Dead Milkmen in their hometown. It was excellent! I believe in swordfish!

More to come….

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Chicago: Day 1

Greetings from Chicago! Paul, Webly, and I got in last night. Webly got a direct flight but Paul and I got stuck in Denver for 2 hours. At least there was a brewery in the airport! It felt really holiday like there. It was snowing and everyone was all bundled up in in jackets.

The past week has been crazy busy. The zine retreat at our family cabin was fun. There were less people that expected but I think it worked out better that way. I thought I would be able to finish a zine but I didn’t. It just wasn’t all coming together the way I wanted. Hopefully I’ll get that and another zine done once I’m in Halifax.

I spent several days making copies of zines, finishing up button orders, running errands, having the first meeting of the Portland Zine Symposium, cleaning and packing and spinning myself out with stress. I had no idea what to pack to wear. Chicago, Halifax, Richmond and points in between. Autumn can be a unpredictable time to travel so what to bring? i went with multiple layers from long johns to jackets.

I ended up in Chicago walking around in the rain with leaky shoes. I guess I didn’t realize how beat up my earth shoes are. So, Webs and I spent this morning looking for shoes and ended up with the same boots that happened to be vegan by default. It is sort of amusing how there are several things that Webly and I both have that are similar and not bought by our mother. We have a strange similar but vastly different styles that do intersect at points.

We also swung by Quimby’s Books where I met Liz and Niel who has matching tattoos with my friend and fellow Portland Zine Symposium organizer, Blue. It was neat to drop by Quimby’s. I hadn’t been there in years. I got paid some money and also Picked up the newest version of  the Another Dinner is Possible cook book by my friend Isy.

Speaking of Isy from Morgenmuffel, she  asked me to write the intro to her zine anthology. I’m really honored to have the opportunity to do something like this. I have bunch of ideas but I don’t really have time to pull it together just yet because I have been walking around Chicago in the rain with leaky shoes.

Tonight we are going to see the Dead Milkmen at the Congress theater which happens to be a few blocks from where we are staying with my long time zine pen pal, Nicole. Good times!

Ok, Webs and Paul are taking naps. Maybe I should take on too.

Symposium, riot fest, ssr, stuff

Things have been busy! The Portland Zine Symposium is this weekend and I feel like I have had a meeting every other day! I missed the 24 hour Zine Challenge last weekend. I hear they had live streaming video and chatted with folks from ZAPP who were also having a zine challenge i nSeattle. That’s pretty rad! I thought that if  Iwent my body wouldn’t be able to recover for this weekend. Last year I was super sick at the symposium so I’m not letting that happen again!

I was interviewed by someone from Reading Local about the Symposium and Stolen Sharpie Revolution here. It was a pretty good interview with some questions I have never been asked before, which is refreshing!

My sister asked me to go to Riot Fest in Chicago with her in October. I bought tickets for Paul and I to go. I figure I’ll jsut stop off there on my way to Halifax for my zine residency at the Anchor Archive. My sister and I are most excited to see The Dead Milkmen! I never got to see them. I was 12 or 13 the last time they played in Utah and my mom wouldn’t let me go to shows then. It will be so awesome to go with my sister and it will be cool to see Screeching Weasel, another band I have never been able to see live. Looking at the line up though it seems like such a dude fest. What really can you expect from that genre of music. I guess it just shows me how far away I have gotten from it but that it still holds a special place in my heart.

Anyway, Today I have to put together the program for the symposium, finish a rush button order and go grocery shopping with Paul. Paul has a house show tonight with his new band the Tagalongs withour housemate Marc. I have been hearing them practice in the basement and I really like them! I just hope that I can get all my work done so that I can go!

Hey, wanna do me a favor? Go to the Amazon page for Stolen Sharpie Revolution and write a nice review of my book, I mean, if you happen to like it. Or walk into any book store and order it with this ISBN 978-0981794105. With and ISBN you can order any book in the world. It is sort of magical, especially because it doesn’t have to be a barcode!