I had some fun today. It was the Crystal Ballroom's annual "birthday party" (94, for anyone who's keeping score). I know that sounds weird for a venue that's comparable to First Avenue in size, shows, and scope (the Crystal has more hippie shows, but when the big-name indie bands come through town, they play there). But I got the hour-plus tour the McMenamins Staff Historian puts on (how the hell do you get a job like that???), and it makes some sense.
The ballroom apparently opened (owned and run by a man named Ringler) in 1914, and for 20 years or something like that, it had jazz dances and ballroom dances. Ringler himself was a longtime athlete and the athletic director of the local YMCA, and he thought these dances were harmless, wholesome ways for the young folks to get physical exercise and learn social comportment. However, the Portland Police Department had just hired Lola Baldwin, the first female police officer in the nation, to head the "female protection" division. She was in charge of protecting young women from things like alcohol and prostitution (it was kind of a wild-west town at the time), but spent much of her time focused on dance halls, regulating things like how close dancing couples could stand and whether she should put her hand on his shoulder or his arm. Ringler's operation was targeted repeatedly, and he was eventually run out of business and out of town. The pub downstairs from the Crystal is Ringler's Pub (and Ringler's Annex is down the block, though he never had any involvement in that particular property), and (she'd love this, don't you think?) the little second-room venue at the Crystal is called Lola's room. Her portrait is also painted on one of the big vessels in the Crystal's brewery.
Okay, so I learned all that on today's tour. I heard most of this story while also listening to Nick Jaina and his band sound-check in Lola's Room, but I was hooked on the history and followed the tour instead of sticking around for the show. He's got a couple more shows in town before he heads out on tour, and I'll go see one or both of those. But the tour ended in Ringler's Annex, where they were tasting three McM's-roast coffees, four McM's wines, and two of their liquors. I remembered last year, when I was seriously buzzed by 6:00, so I was selective in what I sampled and didn't finish most of them. But I learned that the McM Syrah tastes ridiculously like licorice, and in my opinion could stand a year or two in a cellar. The McM Longshot Brandy is a clear brandy that is sort of like a grappa, and though the guy doing the tasting pointed out strong notes of black pepper, what I noticed (and several other people did as well) was that it tasted amazingly of pears. Particularly the sharp flavors of Bosc pear skins. The McM IPA brewed at the Crystal is spicy/floral and yummy, and it isn't that good everywhere (I learned that last year too) and the Oatmeal Stout is better on regular tap than it is on nitro (really, only Guinness is any good on nitro). And french press coffee is impossible to compare to drip coffee, so I can't tell you much about the coffee. This all sounds dry and boring. It wasn't. At least, it's the sort of thing I find incredibly fun (architectural and social history, comparative liquorology, discussions of where grapes and beans come from) but can't describe that way, and really, I have more fun doing it by myself because other people don't get why I'm having so much fun, and they think it's kind of dry and boring. Oh--and this fascinated me, and you probably don't care at all: The chandeliers in the Crystal, two amazing, colorful, hand-blown huge cascades of organically-shaped shine and sparkle, aren't made by the McM staff glass folks (yes, they have a staff of artists, including a woodcut-print artist, a ceramicist/mosaicist, several painters, and a glass blower--and yes, this is a chain of bars). They were made in Italy in the '20's or '30's, and were used in a bank in Seattle starting in the '40's. The bank was renovated and the things were put in storage for 10 years or so until Mike McMenamin found them as he was renovating the Crystal. There's apparently a third one incongruously gracing a strip-mall McM joint in Gresham. I don't quite get how a strip-mall space would have the room for one without it brushing the floor.
So after all that, I remained relatively sober (go me! because that took some work) and hooked up with my bowling team. I didn't bowl particularly well tonight, but I did discover that the Widmer '08 is out already, and this year, unlike the past two, it isn't a variety of IPA. It's a wheat, but with a rich, dark color and a name that describes it well (it wasn't russet wheat or ruby wheat or red wheat, but it was an r-word that indicated a rich, dark-red color). Pretty good, but not helped by the fact that all the bowling-alley glasses (and we were so excited to get glass instead of plastic with our pitcher!) smelled like feet. [Name redacted] Lanes out in [suburb redacted] also doesn't require any ID or other deposit to rent a pair of shoes....hmmmm. Do I need new bowling shoes? What do I think of the red-olive-black leather scheme? For now, one pair of stolen bowling shoes should be plenty, but I'm still tempted.
May the record reflect that I blame my bad games tonight on getting knocked off my bike a couple days ago. Okay, not actually knocked off my bike, but I was on my bike for the first time in six months, and really only the second time in five years, and I was almost smooshed by a car that wasn't paying any attention, but I swerved out of the way. Apparently my defensive biking skills leave something to be desired. I hit the curb completely flat-on, both tires at the same time, and went over like a sack of potatoes. I bruised both palms (seriously black and blue, ugly as all hell), bruised my left knee and right elbow, scraped up my right hip, have a giant, deep-black bruise and a major scrape on my tailbone (how I managed this without any damage to the jeans I was wearing, I couldn't tell you), and my neck is sore from whatever instinctive maneuver kept me from hitting my head. That's probably bugging me the most, the sore neck (okay, the tailbone makes comfy-couch-reclining nearly impossible too). But I guess I'm glad the collision was me-sidewalk, not car-me. It could have been tons worse, but that won't stop me from whining until I'm not sore anymore and the ugly black-and-blue marks go away. I didn't notice while I was bowling, but my wrist (my left hand sustained the most serious bruising) is a bit sore now.
After bowling, we headed down the street to a brewpub called the Raccoon Lodge. I pictured something like an Elks Lodge or American Legion, with shitty, fleur-de-lis-patterned puke-scented carpet, fake-wood-paneled walls, and skunky taps. But no, it was a decent-though-suburban brewpub with overpriced food (and American-Legion-borrowed tables and chairs, a step above folding tables and chairs, you can't picture it now but if I pointed them out to you, you'd say "oh, totally, it's like a crappy '70's wedding!" even if you'd never set foot in an American Legion), in a big wood faux-mountain-lodge room with big glass windows overlooking the little brewery operations. To get to the bathroom, you had to walk through keg storage, though I couldn't figure out a way to secret one out with me. Luckily, they had a great 9-til-close happy hour, and the smoked german sausage was awesome even if the bartender did keep making fun of me for ordering the german sausage without the sauerkraut or the mustard. The pale ale was iffy at best. Next time, if there is a next time, I'll get the belgian Trippel, but knowing it was still early, I'd been drinking in at least small quantities since mid-afternoon, and I had a show to go to, I figured 8.6% was out of my range (and it also wasn't on happy-hour special).
Finally, I headed over to the Crystal Ballroom again, for The Long Winters (free!). I caught the last song from Bobby Bare Jr. and band, and while I sure wouldn't have wanted to hear the whole set (described as "unique rock"...ugh...influenced by the '60's and '70's and country-rock) the one song I heard was a terrifically fun cover of...well, it was mostly The Cars' My Best Friend's Girl, but I was rather surprised how well that song weaves seamlessly into The Who's (?) Teenage Wasteland. Though I'm sure I would have hated the band, I've explained here before how I feel about covers. So that was fun. Then The Long Winters. The crowd cleared out quite a bit after BBJ, which surprised me. There were so few people that I did what I never do at the Crystal, and got right down by the barrier between the 21+ area and the stage, which left me about 30 feet from John Roderick and Co. It filled in again a bit by the time TLW started, so I didn't feel bad that they didn't have a crowd at all. In fact, they had enough of a crowd that Roderick didn't seem to feel comfortable heckling us. He wasn't as funny as usual. The only guy he heckled was a drunk easy mark that the Crystal security immediately escorted out (I wondered whether to tell them that a guy that shouts at Roderick is playing into his hands, but declined to, because the drunk guy was kind of annoying). Once, as Roderick announced that the next song was from When I Pretend To Fall, I shouted, questioningly, "Nora?" knowing it wouldn't be. He responded, though. "No, it's not Nora. I don't play that one anymore. At least, not until the next tour! I need a Steinway here next to me. It's because of the writer's strike. Or...well, no, it's not." Roderick is usually funnier! Though he did ask, "I've let myself go. I haven't cut my hair. All you Portland hippies out there, how the hell do you keep it out of your face? It's driving me nuts!" He listened to people shout. "Cut my hair? Oh, that's the Marines recruiter who follows me around everywhere." "Oh, let it get dirty? A little patchouli oil and it'll stay out of my face. Gotcha." Just not up to par, banter-wise. The songs were stellar, if kinda long-winters-play-the-mainstage-ish. They did all the...what, hits? All the favorites, anyhow, Honest and Fire Island and Cinnamon (the WIPTF one after I'd asked if it'd be Nora) and Blue Diamonds and Stupid. The one that really grabbed me was Hindsight. The rest kind of merged into their album versions, though louder, messier, and more visceral. That one really struck me, though, and I can't quite describe how it was different.
He did what all Barsuk bands seem to do these days, and stopped a couple of songs before the end, and told us he doesn't do encores. Just imagine they'd left the stage, and they were coming back onstage, and they'd do a couple more songs. I appreciate that a ton, except that it means that once they're done I can't hope for more. What he did that most headliners don't do (and none at the Crystal ever do) was promise to be at the merch table after the show. And there he was. I was shy. I bought a sticker and let all the other girls thank him for the show first. (Sheesh, he's pudgy, with terrible teeth, awful hair, and the ugliest glasses ever. Don't girl over him. Honest. It's alright to be a singer. But don't you love a singer. At least not this one.) Anyhow, I waited until all that was over, then blushed like a little girl (okay, fine...it's damn hard not to girl a little, but I kept it toned down, so there) and told him I'm the one that always shouts for Nora. I thanked him for playing it at the Doug Fir when he did the solo show a few months ago. He pointed out that he screwed it up at first (at that show, he said he never plays it, but he'd give it a try, and though he did have to start a second time, he pulled it off beautifully after that), then told me they'd practiced it as a band, but hadn't played together live for a while (they're busy recording a new album!), so he didn't think they could pull it off. But he told me, "I'll think about you, and remember that one for next time."
"Don't you love a singer, whatever you do, whatever you do." I won't, I promise. He's kinda icky-looking. But can I love that he at least pretended to take me seriously about Nora? Next time, I'll shout, "you promised!" and I bet he'll remember.
I can't remember if I've told you my funny John Roderick stories, and I'm too lazy to go look. He's always bantering with the audience, and often heckling them (us). Once, everyone was shouting, "Stupid! Stupid!" He answered, "Are you asking me to play Stupid? Or are you...I end up with all these people shouting "stupid" at me! I should have named that song something else. Like 'scintillating'. That would have been better." Someone totally quick in the audience responded, "You could call it that!" ("Stupid, you could call it that, stupid, but you have no idea how stupid I would feel, if fifteen years from now I see her and she says, 'why didn't it happen between us...") Another time, he had just finished Honest ("it's alright to be a singer, but don't you love a singer, whatever you do...") and joked, "That song is about Ben Gibbard." The audience cracked up. "No, I was kidding. Seriously, that song's about...Colin Meloy." The crowd laughed even harder. "No, seriously...that song's about...Colin Meloy." Even funnier, that he joked as if he meant it that time. But funny, intentional on Roderick's part, or just weird...Colin Meloy was standing three feet to my right at that very moment (the only time I've ever seen him in public in Portland, too). He ducked his head as if trying to hide under his baseball cap. I spent a half-hour working up the guts to go playfully ask him, "is that song about you?" knowing it wasn't but it'd be a conversation-starter....but then once I thought I had the guts to do it, I looked over, and he was gone.
There were a very few tiny snowflakes that didn't stick, falling in front of my headlights as I headed home from bowling, but it's been snowing for real since just after I got home about two hours ago. It's a novelty to most locals, but for me it's just a charming, comforting end to a fun, playful day. It makes me wish I had a sled here, though it looks like an inch so far, and I bet there won't be anything left by 10 am tomorrow. Happy dregs of winter, all.
