The Keg Tavern: How’d it Go?

Travelling without a laptop forces one to be creative as to where and when uploads and posts can occur.  I have pictures and video to upload.  However, finding the time and the proper ports to use can be challenging.  So be patient and pictures and video will come soon.  For now, here is a preview of the venue I play tomorrow night.  If you’re in Portland, come on by… You know me, It’s free!

The Globe is located aty:

2045 SE Belmont St.

The Globe BarCafe:

To sum up Portland, Oregon in an unassuming and plainly profound way one can do it in one word: “Community.”  Long since heeding the unspoken mantra, “Community not Competition” Portland Oregon’s foodie, drinkie, and music scene have all been nurtured and flourished by a populace that understands it’s food, loves it’s music, and welcomes new ideas.

The torch is passed gracefully in this town from the die-hard old-school restaurants and pubs to the new youthfully exuberant restaurant concepts staffed with young talent behind the stick, or in the kitchen.  There is enough room for everyone in this town, and Portlanders decide if you get to stay and play.  They raise their expectations and proprieters deliver.  If not, it’s back to the other side of the bar, Chef-fy.

On SE Belmont, my friend and chef Marc Brazeau and his team are in their first year of staking their claim in the infinite frontier of The Portland Oregon Scene.  The deed has been written and The Globe BarCafe is fervently supported by this little neighborhood in SouthEast they call home.
Following the cycle of the day The Globe BarCafe evolves.  At Sunrise, a place to get a hot cup of coffee and read, By the Mid-day Sun – a quick-serve lunch counter, At Dusk a dinner-spot, In the witching hours – a Bar.  Not to get all linen-shirted and Guru about it, but I forsee many sunrises on The Globe BarCafe.

The Luckey’s Show: How’d it go?

Lucky, Lucky,Lucky, Luckey Me, again:

We left Phoenix at 7:30 am.  We had just finished packing no more than two hours ago.  We landed in Eugene in a short two-and-a-half hours.  I say we, because along on this trip I have My lady (Jimmie) and our friends Maggie and Jim.  We all are going to attend the Churchill/Teeters wedding on the banks of beautiful Lake Odell – (One hour and 20 minutes southeast of the town of Eugene, Oregon).   And we are all heading into Eugene for the show at Luckey’s.

Come August 5th; there was a wedding, jetlag, and a 3 hour drive and a great show.  In my experience, I have had show’s with only the staff in attendance.  I have had shows where there was only one person at the bar facing a way from me and…tapping their toe?  At Luckey’s I have had a show where I was in an unfamiliar town, with three of my most valued friends, the staff and a few stumble-in’s.  Everyone at the wedding asked: “How’d the show go?”  My answer?  “Good.”  True.  It was good.  But the process, the journey, us driving 3 hours plus, missing hitting a deer on the highway, making an illegal u-turn in front of the first cop I have ever seen in the Northwest, and getting away with it.  Us going through ‘the process’ was great.

One great process deserves another, and now me and my girl are posted up at a life-long friends beautiful house in West Eugene.  Ralph is one of those friends among those that I can count on one hand.  One of those people you meet in life that stick.  Friends for life.  He and Karen have welcomed us into their home and we are hunkered down until tomorrow night.  Tomorrow I play at the Keg Tavern in Eugene.

August 9th: The Keg Tavern in Eugene, Oregon

The Keg Tavern and Steakhouse in Eugene, Oregon is one of those quintessential, useful bars.  My friend Ralph helped me book a show here and when he said to me a few weeks ago “you should play at my bar”.  I didn’t know if he owned the place, bartended here, or just drank here.  The words “my bar” can mean all of those things.  I thought that was all right and I didn’t ask him to clarify.

There is a book called The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg, and a short-story on the same theme called A Clean Well Lighted Place by Ernest Hemmingway.  Both works speak to the fact that we need a good pub.  A warm place close-by that always leaves the neon light on for you.  Serves you a hot plate of food, and a cold glass of suds, or a three-finger pull of fire-water.  Puts you under, picks you back up, and throws your drunk ass out cause it’s good for ya.  The Pub will forgive you the next day and welcome you back in with open arms when you are a little hungry or thirsty.   Daughters get married here, Lovers get found here, and some get lost here.  The bar truly is a beautiful place.

http://www.vicklet.com

The Ride

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.  -  Robert Louis Stevenson

Before it was utilized as a marketing slogan by InBev, this is the point where I would say something like, “Here We Go.”  It is the first day of Northwesticles: A Public Transit Tour. The longest and biggest tour I have yet undertaken, so, a more complex statement is in order.  “Joy is the fruition of a journey rooted in the heart”.  I fain trust that will not end up in a beer commercial anytime soon.

Little Rock

This little painted rock in my hand was given to me by an old friend.   Not directly however.  Victoria, an acquaintance of mine from The Unlikely Theater Company makes these.  I hadn’t seen her in many years and I stumbled across her booth at an art festival on Grand Avenue.  There she was surrounded by a host of items she has made by hand.  Things like the artist: Simple,  quirky, fun.  There is no other way I would have happened upon an artist like Vickey when I hadn’t seen her in years.  You don’t bump into people like Victoria at the grocery store.  You don’t realize suddenly that you are standing behind her in a record shop.  Not that she doesn’t go to those places.  But, when you have worked as an artist with other artists, you tend to find them again as they were when you knew them.  You see them when they are creating.   Because a true artist is always creating.  Victoria Safriet is a true artist.  I bought this little rock from Vickey, we chatted, and occasionally her and her guy have come to see some Quixote shows.  We know each other through our art.

As we were, we are.  Creating.  Doing.  And just being.  Somewhere in every city there are those hunkered down putting their hands and hearts to make something from nothing.  To take something and change it.  To touch the world.  To leave that indellible print.  The following twelve days will be me doing just that, and just doing that.

Zero Hour 7:30 AM

Today I climb into that rocket tube and they fire it off with the trajectory and intention of landing in Eugene, Oregon in a few short hours.  Tonight at Luckey’s I strike the first note on the Northwesticles Tour.  Noone knows what will happen when those wheels touch the ground in Eugene, but I am sure of one thing: “I’m gonna YouTube the s#@% out of this thing.”

So, borrowing the now trademarked words of everyone’s ‘favorite’ American Beverage, “Here We Go!”

Luckey, Luckey, Luckey, Lucky me again.