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Lately a lot of my friends are starting to take part in this occupy movement as it sweeps over the country and even into my own back yard of down town Santa Rosa, California. The fact is, I don’t stand with these people because they all stand for something different. I’ve yet to see a group of people in these protests all standing up for the exact same issue. They’re standing up for all these different ideals and some of them I do and don’t agree with and if I go and stand with people I don’t agree with then I feel as though I’m wasting my time and being dishonest.

I’m not for the stoppage of drone usage in the middle east. The more drones there are, the safer our troops are and the less of a tactical presence we have to keep on foreign soil. I’m not for the complete removal of a monetary system from our government. Then there are the people who are just at these movements to complain about the media being biased while at the same time trying to get onto those media outlets by being outlandish clowns. I saw one guy who calls himself Bobby Steele, the rebel of Wall Street who is there just to promote himself and get attention. Sure enough Opie from Opie and Anthony goes down to the protest and finds this guy on the day he shows up… Opie called it too… He said this guy was down there because he could get attention, be seen and fit in. Sure enough he’s down there a few days later doing what? Holding up a sign with his own name on it, and a name he’s given himself, “The Rebel of Wall Street”. Oh so you’re the guy? Do we speak to you then? When asked why he was down there he gave some of the most ludicrously vague answers about “supporting his brothers and sisters” but it isn’t until after he wants to make a name for himself that he starts to speak about how he worked on wall street for 35 years. Doing what? What’s your real name? Who’d you work for?

My point is this… Occupy Wallstreet has a good idea behind it. Prosecute the people that destroyed 20% of our economy. Nobody is being punished for their actions which are, in many cases, illegal. They profited, continue to profit, and still have jobs, while a large portion of the population can’t get work. That’s all I want, but that’s not what people seem to be able to say. Wall Street needs regulation and to be monitored and instead we have a bunch of hippies smoking pot outside, doing drum circles, fingering each other and making out… yes fingering each other. A guy named Matt who was on Opie and Anthony seemed incredibly proud of the fact he’d fingered a girl at the protest, in that awful park. Wow really? That’s something you did in public at night and you’re proud of it? Yep those are the people speaking for my generation right now.

Yes money isn’t real anymore, yes it’s all just fake paper, and yes dollar values are based on lies that are built up by a private bank that controls how our economy goes and I get that. But fingering girls, eating free pizza and banging on drums instead of working isn’t a way to solve anything.

For your own sake Occupy Planet Earth, find a spokesperson, a leader, have a goal and follow it through. That’s all I ask. Right now you’re too disorganized to do any good.

The internet can be a scary place and I try to stay away from political commentary online as much as possible… I made the mistake of looking at comments on CNN’s facebook page when the news of Gilad Shalit’s release. Gilad Shalit is an Israeli soldier who was captured and kept captive. One thousand Palestinian prisoners are being released in exchange for him, and the transfer is currently underway. Over 470 have been released so far, with more to come tomorrow. The fact of the matter is, I have no true stake in this war, and my opinion on it is neutral. I can’t put myself in the place of either side, but when I find out some of the people being released are responsible for, and admittedly so, for bombing restaurants, killing children and other terrorist plots, I wonder how 1000 to 1 is a good trade.

It’s not just that this trade is weird to me, it’s that I go on CNN’s facebook page to read the news, which I’m admittedly clueless about and I read that America needs to be wiped off the map, destroyed, we should all be killed and worse. Israeli supporters are saying that this trade just proves that Israelis are in fact worth 1000 Palestinians. I was under the impression that we’re all equal and that it’s our deeds that present our worth in life. I guess I was wrong.

I don’t understand how America is at fault for this action and why I should be killed for it. I can’t comprehend how I’m some infidel and how my actions as a person affect some guy on the other side of the world and why I’m to blame for it. I’m really fucking tired of turning around the internet’s corners and finding all this disgusting filth in it’s back alleys. And now it’s on display, on my facebook thread… not hidden, but in open plain view…

Religion really does suck.

I was listening to my favorite interviewer, Ron Bennington today, and he was speaking with Sean Dunne, director of a new short film: American Juggalo. It’s impossible not to leave your preconceived notions of what a Juggalo is behind before stepping into this documentary, which is available to watch for free online at AmericanJuggalo.com. Featuring a non-narrative story structure, the documentary is just people talking about what it means to be a juggalo to them, at their gathering that’s held every year. For that reason, and because of how well it’s shot and edited, I believe it is a much watch film for anyone who’s a fan of the documentary format.

The biggest thing you’re going to walk away from when watching American Juggalo is that these people believe they’re a family so strongly, and you can see it in how they act. At the same time you’re going to see them acting very foolishly, making poor life choices, and in some cases not just for themselves. There’s a moment in the film when a young pregnant mother is explaining that it takes a village to raise a child, and this (the gathering) is the village she wants to raise her unborn child in. At the same time she’s smoking a cigarette.

Another scene is a group of three Juggalos (Well two juggalos and one Juggalette) hanging out by their camp site and doing whip-its (inhaling nitrous oxide). They’re talking about how they’ve barely known each other, but they feel like family. They also talk about how they’ll quit jobs to come out to the gathering every year if they can’t get time off. It’s during this discussion that one of them does a whip-it and almost passes out, and the other two keep on blathering on.

Juggalos may feel as though they have a sense of family, and the gathering is a place for them to come together, but it’s their behavior that is questionable. No matter how uplifting they may feel while being around each other, the film shows several people making bad life choices, and then being ignorant about it, encouraging each other to do more.

One man simply states “We’ve got alcohol and we’ve got explosives. Let me show you how great we are!” Tossing the explosive onto grass and watching it explode, the sound resonating through the entire field with a loud bang. This is the village a girl wants to raise her family in? The one where the neighbor is drinking cheap beer, doing drugs and tossing around explosives?

I understand that the Juggalo culture is filled with people who feel like they’re outcasts, and they bond, not over the music, but the idea of being outcasts. There are no shots in this film where people are talking about the music, of the stage, or even involving ICP themselves. This is about the fans and how they reinforce each other’s lives through a bond of ignorance… Ignorance is bliss, but I don’t see many of these people living past 40 as a result.

I should have stated this at the top, but let me say this… this isn’t a review of the film, American Juggalo. It’s impossible to review this film for me because I dislike the people in it, I feel sorry for them, and I want them to get some common sense… but the movie itself I feel is important. When there’s a group of people, 20,000 strong who feel the need to travel to middle america, camp out in a field for four days and be together, they deserve to have a voice, and director Sean Dunne has given them that voice, if only for a half hour.

Watch this movie and understand what these people are like.

Kickstarter is one of my favorite things in the entire world. Why? It’s brilliant. All these small business brainiacs from across the world have been able to find a niche for themselves by having a great idea, throwing it out there and seeing if it sticks, and if it does they’re able to fund their dream. If it doesn’t stick, they’re able to go back to the drawing board, rework it, retool and it throw it back out into the world and see if it’s something we want, need or just think is cool.

The more I look at Kickstarter and find solutions for every day problems or even specialty problems, I get inspired. I see people like the guys who made The Glif, a product I just ordered. These two guys came up with an idea for a small attachment for the iPhone 4 that allows it to be mounted to a tripod. This is actually exactly what I needed for my new vlogging project and these guys were able to fund their project ten times over. Take a look at their site for more details by CLICKING HERE.

Looking through the videos by the guys who made The Glif I find another solution to attach a smart cover for an iPad 2 to an iPad 1 using rare earth magnets and a long piece of plastic that you simply glue to the side of an ipad one, creating a very elegant looking ipad cover. Personally I’m doing this as soon as possible because I hate the design of the ipad 1 cover.

But it’s guys like this, Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt that inspire me. Their next project is The Cosmo, a stylus for iPhone and iPad like devices that is conductive and is meant to feel like a sharpie. Brilliant. I wonder what that kind of success feels like. Finding a need in the market and finding out that ten times the amount of people you need to like it, in fact do like it and want it. Looking again I find that it’s in fact 13.7 times as many people.

I’d consider myself a creative person, but in the world of story telling and the more I look at Kickstarter the more I think this is the place for me to get my next big set of stories. I want to go onto Kickstarter, find the biggest success and talk to them, document it and make it a film. Kickstarter has changed the lives of a lot of people, and now I want to find out how, why, and what the ups and downs have been.

What would be perfect is if my story, my idea, my project could in fact be started on kickstarter. Would you be an investor? Best part is, it costs nothing to throw this idea out and see if it sticks.

Find out more about the guys behind The Glif and Cosmo by going to their website StudioNeat.com

I went and saw Real Steel this past Friday with my mom. We went to see it in D-Box of course, as has been our monthly tradition (seeing D-Box movies that is). If you want to read my review CLICK HERE. It’s interesting how people don’t seem to grasp the idea of D-Box and feel as though they should be allowed to just take whatever seat they want in the theater still. They wouldn’t act that way at a concert, but in the theater it’s apparently totally fine.

Let me explain. When you go see a D-Box movie there are usually two, sometimes three rows of seats that are reserved for paying patrons. You pay an extra fee, get a primo seat, and your seat happens to move with the movie like you’re on your own personal Star Tours. It’s pretty awesome actually (sometimes anyway). When you buy your ticket they ask you what seats you want and those are YOUR SEATS. The seats don’t move unless they’re activated by paying for them. All the seats say RESERVED on them in big letters right on the head rest. That doesn’t seem to matter to a lot of people either.

While my mother was out getting snacks and I was just chilling, texting and such, a group of guys grabbed several d-box seats in the back. I instantly knew by how psyched they were that they were “open” that they had NO CLUE how it worked. Suddenly a group who just purchased those seats comes in and they need to get an employee to explain that these seats are reserved… it was awkward.

The same thing happens once more directly behind us as two guys are asked to move because they’re in the seats of a pair of older men. Right before the movie is about to start, a father and son sit down at the end of our row in two more of the d-box seats. Two young brothers, not much older than 10 ask the man if he has a ticket to sit there, not thinking that some one would just grab a seat, but rather that there just MIGHT BE a mix up. The man says “yeah I got these seats.” This guy was trying to punk two, pre-teenage boys out of the seats they paid TWICE what he paid for them. I had to actually get involved and say “HEY! These kids paid extra for these seats and you need to move!”

The guy looks at me, and his son tries to move down one into the seat next to me, and the father snaps at him telling him to move. The father and son happen to move to the seats directly in front of my mother and I and that’s when things went from awkward to disgusting.

I’m an affectionate guy. I hug my family, friends, give high fives all around and I’m generally just not at odds with being close to some one… but I would NEVER be comfortable acting the way these two acted during the movie… It was so touchy feely, so uncomfortable and the kid got so upset at one point by it that he got up and left the theater…

Yeah I honestly think I saw a child molester out on a date with his young, teenage boyfriend. How do you confront something like that? Before I even got the chance, they got up and left, almost before the credits were rolling. Was it to avoid confrontation with me because I had to yell at him earlier, did they just want to beat the rush out of the theater, or was it more? I don’t know.

This guy had his hands all over this kid during the movie, tickling him and pulling him close, putting the arm rest up and wrapping his arm around him… he couldn’t NOT be close. At one point the boy put his legs over the man’s lap and kind of cuddled with him there liket that. This just doesn’t seem like the kind of thing a father and son do.

Maybe I’m wrong, and believe me I hope I am, but I don’t know what to think, and it’s been bothering me for two days now.

Beyond that… if he is his son, they are just touchy feely in a way that’s weird to me, then fine. BUT he needs to teach his kid some fucking manners for when being in a theater. PUT YOUR FUCKING PHONES AWAY! Whatever you have to say, tweet or talk about can wait 90 minutes until the god damn movie is over. Don’t want to be disconnected? Then go home and wait for the movie to be on video. I’m sick and tired of people texting during movies. That shit is DISTRACTING.

Could a finale be more underwhelming and be a bigger tease at the same time? Probably not. In the finale we learn that Vince wants to marry Sofia the girl he’s known for one week. Turtle is rich, Drama has his TV Show and of course then there’s the drama between Sloan and E. I already warned you… spoilers! E and Sloan fly off together into the sky, but that’s not really what this season has been about at all… in fact while the title of the show has always been Entourage, this entire season has been thematically about super agent Ari Gold figuring out what to do with his life.

All season Ari Gold and his wife have been arguing and split up. There was the chance romance with Dana, the studio exec who Ari’s wife has always suspected him of sleeping with and honestly that relationship worked, which says a lot about the state of the world when a happy ending could mean a man leaving his wife and kids because divorce frankly isn’t that big of a deal. Instead we get the Jerry Maguire moment where Ari quits his job, grabs his lucky horse shoe, family photo and leaves the building while opera music plays.

Yes it’s cathartic, it feels good to see Ari get away and choose his wife and kids. Ari promises the world, or at least living in Florence for a year. With that we see the entire gang together in the private hanger of a private jet, ready to leave and say their goodbyes. Vince is about to fly to France to marry a woman, his friends are coming with and E flies off on another jet with Sloan who is pregnant. Meanwhile Scott is questioning of E is really quitting his job or coming back or moving to NY with Sloan… and that’s the crux of the whole episode… there’s no real finality to this show and never would be.

Scott questions E’s resolve and E isn’t exactly sure if he’s done with the business of representing actors either. E flies away with the pregnant love of his life and Ari boards with Vince, Turtle and Drama and we see the two jets take off setting off for the future… and that could almost be enough… but it’s not and the fact that we KNOW an Entourage film is on the way only makes what happens after the credits that much more frustrating.

The finale of the show isn’t the true finale. This is the start of the movie. We see Ari and his GORGEOUS, smokin hot wife laying out in the sun on the pool area of their new home in Florence. She’s wearing a sexy bathing suit, he looks like a pimp, they’re in love… it’s GREAT! Then the phone rings… why wouldn’t it ring. Ari’s wife Melissa goes into the house to grab another bottle of wine and Ari answers the phone and of course he’s offered the job of CEO at a major corporation where he’d be Dana’s boss and run 3 tv networks and a sports franchise and more… he’d be the head of a company that made 4 billion dollars the year before. But this of course goes against everything he promised his wife… a year away.

Ultimatum given, Ari has a week to decide, cut to black, and the show isn’t really over.

The thing is, I’m not exactly sure I want an Entourage movie. The show is about making movies, but not really. It’s about what actors and their friends do when they’re NOT making movies. How many times did we actually since Vince on set shooting something? Aquaman, that movie about the fire fighters in the woods, the action sequence of that shitty movie where the director was in the car? Yeah ok… So 3 in 8 years of the show being on the air. That’s not a lot. Maybe 1 1/2 seasons were about how movies truly get made and the rest is just the filler between that.

Yes that stuff is interesting, but can it carry into a major motion picture? When Ari Gold, Jeremy Piven is the side character and he’s the most famous actor on the show, it doesn’t bode well for a movie based on all these characters. If an Entourage film was made and it was all about Ari Gold it could work as a comedy vehicle but the show really isn’t THAT funny.

A true finale would have been smarter. The after the credits moment should have been the shot of the wedding, not the question that leads to the movie. Essentially we got the Entourage version of the teaser at the end of Thor or Iron Man or Captain America… ENTOURAGE ASSEMBLE!

This is going to have spoilers. There’s no way for me to truly express exactly how I feel about Red State without talking about the last ten minutes. Seeing as how the film is widely available for rental on OnDemand services including iTunes (although it does come with a full price movie ticket fee), you should probably go see it before reading my diatribe on how it has one of the biggest missed opportunities in recent film history.

Kevin Smith truly has broken away from his conventional film making style. While Red State does contain jokes, it is a dark and twisted story about religion, hate, government and terrorism. Red State kicks off as a story about three boys from a backwards hick town wanting to get laid. The leads here is Travis played by Michael Angarano and his friend Jarod played by Kyle Gallner. They bring around their friend Billy-Ray played by Nicholas Braun who has such a beautiful mullet that I was taken aback by it.

Finding a strange woman on a hook up site who demands that she sleep with all of them at the same time or none of them at all, they embark on late night drive where they scrape by a Sheriff who’s partaking in some homosexual activity which eventually brings on the entire action centric portion of the film.

Turns out the boys were brought to this backwards town of Cooper’s Dell in order to be drugged, kidnapped, put on display and killed as an example of what God hates in America. This starts with the brutal execution of homosexual and only gets crazier from there. It isn’t long before the Sheriff sends out his deputy to find the car that dinged up his which brings him to the Five Points compound where our three horny teenagers are being kept hostage.

This is when everything gets a little crazy. Leading the church which happens to be his whole family is Michael Park’s Abin Cooper. Cooper preaches fire and brimstone, blames homosexuality for ruining america and the media and is clearly crazy. His preaching is well acted but the words are forgettable. I buy Michael Parks in the part of Abin Cooper but something about the dialog here felt forced, rambled on for far too long. Maybe it’s my natural hatred of this kind of person that kept me from soaking it is, but I just didn’t absorb what he was saying at all.

It isn’t long before the ATF is called in John Goodman saves the entire film as Agent Joseph Keenan. Goodman plays a middle ranking officer who’s given an impossible task and it’s believable. He’s put into one of the shittiest situations anyone could every be in, and his superiors are telling him to do something he doesn’t agree with. They’re placing on his shoulders the responsibility of killing everyone in this compound and keeping the media out of it. Around the middle act of the film it becomes clear that Goodman is actually the central character and that the three boys aren’t really all that important. They’re either dead by the center of the film or off screen so much that they simply do not matter.

Goodman drives the rest of the film, but it’s a shame he doesn’t get any time with Abin Cooper. Your protagonists and antagonists share no time together. All the action in the film is done from either sides of a giant wall and bullets are traded back and forth four the last third of the movie with certain characters who aren’t important are killed until an event happens that could have been the most brilliant way to finish the film… and then doesn’t.

Just as the Cooper gang are about to make their last stand and the ATF has broken the fence line, and are pushing in with guns blazing (killing off Kevin Smith’s wife in the process) a miracle seems to happen putting a halt to the action. A horn sounds from the skies and it seems as though just maybe it’s the end of the word as written in the book of revelation. The horns from the heaven sound the end of the world as 1000 years of yadda yadda yadda. Basically it seems as though the end of the world is here, the earth is about to be punished and Jesus Christ is coming back.

The book of revelation has always been one of my favorites. It’s so crazy sounding and insane that I would LOVE for a film to actually try and interpret those ideas. I was watching this film and thinking that just for a second this could be the end of the world and Kevin Smith has elevated this film into something truly incredible where the audience is obviously on the side of the ATF, thinks these psychos are just that and then proves they’re right, God comes back and we see the end of the world take place. WRONG! Instead it turns out that the horns were a prank from some eco-hippies across the valley.

Yep. Kevin Smith writes this moment where everyone feels as though the world is going to end and then takes it from everyone and ends the film with a boring piece of dialog between John Goodman and a couple agents asking what happened. We don’t even see how this thing goes down in the end… we hear about it in a debriefing. After that we get a joke and Kevin Smith gets the last word in the film.

BUT I did enjoy Red State. It doesn’t feel like a Kevin Smith film because it’s not a comedy. It’s got humor and that humor works, but it’s mostly just a b-horror film with a few deaths and a few moments of real suspense and action and people die in realist ways. I don’t mean realistic as in how the violence is portrayed but rather people die in the film when you least expect it and the film moves on. I got the same feeling from some of the deaths as I did with some of the deaths in The Wire. They’re on screen, they happen and the people have to move on. Nobody lingers over a body.

The film doesn’t really say much about protestors as the movie is quick to say that the Coopers are NOT the Phelps and that they shouldn’t be confused. It doesn’t say much about fire arms and the second amendment either as all the shooting is started from the side of the government. In fact many of the cold blooded murders are done on the side of the ATF. In that way the film isn’t preachy. It doesn’t condemn anything, or say that any view point is right either.

I think Red State could have been better… but I’m glad I watched it, and if you’ve been a fan or Kevin Smith or followed his career you should check it out too.

It’s been a crazy week! Getting ready for PAX, getting extra sets of passes for last minute friends, planning our sleeping arrangements with my friend Emily, and of course this also happens to be the week where we have to plan for next month’s event Fantastic Fest. I can’t explain how fortunate I am to be doing what it is that I’m doing. To have PAX and Fantastic Fest so close together and having been lucky enough to go see Courtney and Thomas in Portland. It’s like nerd life over load.

So here’s what we’re looking at really… I go up Wednesday to try and spend time with Emily, get a bite to eat, set up for the festival, and maybe record something for PAX that lays out our schedule. I know that DJWheat wants to hang out since he’s doing the festival solo. It’s such a weird line up. There are bands and yeah I do want to see some of them, but with Friday night alone having Indie Game: The Movie showing AND the full length version of I Got Next starring my good friend Gootecks, it’s a little hard figuring out how we’re going to make it all work.

What I’m worried most about right now is Emily being able to pick up Matt and Bridgette from the airport Thursday morning at 10:30.. I’m pretty sure she can pick me up, but even now I just called her and now I’m not so sure because she’s not picking up her phone. It’s far too late to get a hotel… oh bother. I have no clue what I’m going to do. I still have to line up stuff for Fantastic Fest and figure out where we’re going to stay this year. I want to get a time share from Micah, but I don’t know if that’s possible because it’s so late. We’ll have to find out soon.

I can’t express in enough words how blessed I am to have spent this past week with my good friends in Portland. Meeting new people, seeing new places and finding a city that I truly think could be my second home. On August 1st, I left with my friends Sully (Patrick Sullivan) and Sean to go up to Oregon. They both live in Salem and the plan was to meet my friend Thomas there and continue my drive one hour north to Portland. The drive itself was uneventful but fun. Listening to Stand up Comedy the entire way made the trip seem less of a chore and was entertaining. Lots of talk about movies, music and more kept the ride upbeat. It’s hard to be in a car with people for twelve or more hours and not get into an argument but it never happened. Truly lucky for that.

My time with Sean was, as I said, uneventful, but good. It didn’t feel long enough at all, but in that close space I think we said everything we needed to… at least until we meet up again. Once in Salem I met up with Thomas and we continued our drive and he explained to me about all the cool things Portland had to offer. We got there pretty late and we went out to get some food at a place called Roxy’s. This was downtown not far from Powell’s books and the Living Room Theater. Very cool, friendly and nice gay bear of a server gave us our meal and I had the Quinten Tarantuna sandwich on rye bread. Delicious but ultimately destructive… the bathroom experiences for the next day were NOT pleasant.

We wandered around Powell’s for a bit. This book store is amazing. Giant comic book/graphic novel section, board games and more. Totally cool, easy to get lost in, great art, and the big book of penises IN 3D! I mean just a GIANT BOOK FILLED WITH COCKS! It was AMAZINGLY HILARIOUS! I know what I’m getting Thomas for his birthday. In fact I might just order it for him now and send it as a present. That’s “The Big Penis Book”. Easy to find on Amazon…ooooo and I get free shipping.

Seeing Thomas’ wife Courtney again was fantastic. She’s one of the nicest people in the world and I absolutely adore spending time with the two of them. They really are an amazing couple. They argue sure, but they work thinks out in a logical and lovely fashion. Watching them argue is great because you can tell there’s true love there and when they work things out it’s incredible to see. They have two boys, Elliot and Tetris. Tetris is two months and Elliot is coming up on 2 years… which means he’s a complete terror.

In fact here’s a picture of Elliot and myself just hanging out. The little guy is absolutely one of the craziest kids I’ve ever met. he just loves to run around like a berserk animal and do flips, go flying and take dives off the couch. It’s incredible to see how active and brave he is. He’s like the Honey Badger, he just doesn’t give a shit.

I had a life altering moment with Tetris. He was crying, laying there screaming and Thomas was working on dinner and Courtney was at work and Thomas asked me to pick him up. I really didn’t think that’d do anything but he just calmed down and I rocked him back to sleep and I felt for just a second that “I could be a great dad one day.”

Over the week I went to Ground Kontrol, an amazing arcade/bar filled with retro games and even had a perfect working cabinet for Street Fighter III: Third Strike. Had a lot of fun playing that and was better than I thought I’d be. Still suck at that basket ball return mini-game. There’s DDR, a DJ, X-Men, Nintendo Play Choice 10 and more. It’s such a sweet place. Oh and upstairs is just packed with like 50 pin ball machines, all of them working and all of them great.

I had a really cool experience playing this 4 player VS Pac-Man game with Thomas our friend Chris and this really cute blonde girl. She was there with her boyfriend who was clearly a sober douche. Now I’m not saying being sober is a bad thing at all. Thomas is completely sober, never drinks at all, and he’s an amazing person. This guy was just NOT HAPPY to be in an arcade. She was totally into it and he was pointing out shit in the arcade and saying how dumb it is. How is it that cute nerdy chicks wind up with the biggest, wettest drips of all time? So lame. Also they happen to be from the bay area and were on my returning flight. We didn’t speak much but I gave her my card… he was NOT happy about that.

Another place we went was this really great grill called “The Portland City Grill” which is on the 30th floor of this tower called “Big Pink”. It’s not really called that, but it’s pretty much what everyone calls it. From there we had a great view of the entire city, the river that divides it and all the bridges. 3 dollar sushi and 5 dollar drafts (including Stella… YAY!). It was an amazing night. Voodoo Doughnuts rounded out the night and it was cool but 100% totally over rated. The 2 hour line that can exist just to get a tiny confectionary treat is just not worth standing through. OH and the homeless people are ass holes… excuse me while I take this rude divergence:

Hey homeless girl? Yeah you. The one holding up a giant sign that says “IGNORE ME! I’M DIRTY!”. Yes you. I have a question. HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO IGNORE YOU WHEN YOU’RE HOLDING UP A SIGN!? Don’t try to fucking guilt trip me into giving you money! It’s not hard to get a job in Portland. I saw plenty of places with Help Wanted signs in the windows and they all seemed really fucking cool. Even the diviest of pizza joints had character. Calm your tits, take a shower and go work. Thanks <3

Ok back to the trip at hand:

We went to the Laurelhurst Theater where Thomas and I watched an original print of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I’d always wanted to see it on the big screen. It was classic. Big dirty smudges and marks, scratches and audio pops. It was great. Exactly what I wanted. Sure I want to see that movie cleaned up beautifully like it was new, but at the same time this was special. Some one has been caring for this thing for 34 years and they’ve done a great job.

Now Voodoo Doughnuts… Hi. Your lines are long… your prices are a little bit higher than they should be and your doughnuts? Yeah you have a lot and yes they are crazy, but do you deserve the reputation you have? Not really. There are few things that make Voodoo Doughnuts suck ass and one of them is the location and the people that hang out in front of it. I don’t hate on street kids. I have street kids who are friends… but when their entire goal is to fuck with tourists in a touristy place, they’re just ass holes and I can’t respect them. I understand the freedom of being off the grid and choosing that life style. I really do… but why oh why do you feel as though you have the right to fuck with people or be in their way? I just don’t understand it. That having been said yes it was tasty, yes it was an experience, but no I will never go there again and if I move to Portland I’ll ignore the place like the plague.

Since I’ve mentioned Voodoo I guess I should talk about other Portland food I experienced. Laughing Planet cafe seems like a cool place, but I didn’t really get to eat anything there. I can’t wait to go back and chow down on one of their burritos. Elephant Deli has an AMAZING tomato and orange soup and for 5 bucks you can get it and a grilled cheese that is just fantastic. Cool little place, quick lunch that is very filling and unique. Great texture on the soup. Cascade Brewing Co has a large selection of sour beers that are mind blowingly good. I got a smoked chicken sammich there that had the perfect smokey and savory flavors, paired with their Apple Pie beer (yes it sounds weird but is AMAZING) it’s a great lunch/dinner. They don’t really have a lot of food sadly.

Rogue Brewing Co was a massive disappointment. The service was poor, our food sat under lamps for nearly 10 minutes and their beer, while good wasn’t my style. I prefer dryer/smoother beers with a sour hint to them. Rogue seems to be especially happy with how bitter their beers our. Their Morimoto Soba was fantastic though. A great Japanese import style that hit the spot. I love fish and chips with beer but mine came to me cold and therefore weren’t anything special. Never put a first time waitress on during a busy sports night at a brewery. It’s just not smart.

If you’ve watched my youtube videos then you probably know that I’m a fan of hookahs. I love them. I have 7 or 8… maybe even 9 myself. Thomas also loves hookah and I wanted to smoke with him since it’d be the first time we had in a year. We went to a place called King’s Hookah Lounge… NEVER GO TO THIS PLACE. Let me just explain with my Yelp Review.

DO NOT GO HERE! Go to the Pied Cow instead!

17 dollars to smoke in a hot room with zero ventilation AND EAR WIGS INFESTING THEIR SOFAS! Yes there are BUGS EVERYWHERE in this gross place.

This is a place that used to be a convenience store and is now an over prized hookah lounge. 17 dollars for dirty smoke, slow service and zero air. Keeping a place ventilated is incredibly important when smoking. Walking into this place I felt as though there was zero oxygen left in the air. There’s a contamination of smoke flavors. It’s hard to tell what you’re smoking because you’re smelling and breathing the second hand smoke from the other people in the building.

Went to the Pied Cow later for great service with amazing ventilation and  a real outdoor option, also cleaner hookahs as well as drinks and food. Oh and did I mention it was cheaper?

Yeah that’s right go to the Pied Cow. After going to the sour beer hall, Cascade, Chris, Thomas and myself wanted to get a smoke so we went to Pied Cow on Belmont. OH MY GOD IS THIS PLACE AWESOME OR WHAT?! The Pied Cow is a house that’s been turned into a Greek restaurant as well as a hookah lounge. We sat outdoors at a great big wooden spool that’s been turned into a table. For 16 bucks we got a big melon flavored hookah to share. They also had great beers and ciders on tap as well as a cool selection of food and a drink that turns your mouth numb called kava. It’s a really great place. It didn’t hurt that it has the most gorgeous women working there that I’ve ever seen. They’re all tall, slender and dress like pin ups… oh and they have sexy tattoos. God I love a woman with great skin and ink. The Pied Cow could be my favorite place on earth right now.

At the living room theater where I saw Cave of Dreams in 3d (terrible movie, walked out), I met this dude Michael who is friends with Thomas and room mates with Chris and his girlfriend Maria. After Pied Cow we ended back at their place and there was a fire pit, Mint Juleps and beer. I met Michael’s girlfriend Narayani. We all talked about film a lot, got into a debate about sci-fi vs space opera and which Thomas preferred (he likes the more grounded sci-fi like X-Files or Fringe). It was just a great night that ended with the bowl game… a game where people put names, phrases, movie titles, sentences relating to nothing on pieces of paper. Those papers are put into a hat/bowl or in this case a bowler hat (FANCY!), the people are split up into teams and some one has to grab a piece of paper and describe what’s on the paper without acting it out or using any of the words on the paper. This is a lot of fun if people are tipsy or like Phillip are actors. I was surprised by Michael’s lacking ability in this game… I’ll chalk it up to the drink and the smoke.

Everyone seems to want me to move… and I think I might have to. I really love the city and now it’s all about convincing my partner Matt that it’s a good idea. I mean there’s so much to do there and The72Pins could really become something cool and have a local movement there. I can’t wait to go back. I already miss Tetris and Elliot and Courtney and Thomas and Chris and Mike and Narayani and everyone else… it’s such a cool place. MUST RETURN SOON!