Route Canal: making a new cycling connection
When I recently blogged about the cyclocross nationals, a reader posted a response adding something to the affect that why haven’t people considered using the roads alongside the various canals as possible bike passageways. That idea drew other positive responses including one from Bend City Councilor Jody Barram praising the idea and also questioning why…
My Top 5 Albums of 2009
With every publication this side of Highlights rolling out their Best of 2009 lists, I figured I should toss out a list of my own. Here is my list of top albums from 2009, in top-to-bottom order, for the most part.
Beating the Vegas Odds
Bend led the nation in declining home prices in the third quarter of 2009, besting (if that’s the right word) even Las Vegas, according to the IHS Global Insight index. Oregonian real estate blogger Ryan Frank writes that IHS’s latest “House Prices in America” report shows home prices in Bend dropping 5.
Wildwood Ave’s Phish-Covering, Big-Sounding Debut and Farewell Concert: Video
Last night, Wildwood Ave. played their first show to a full Silver Moon Brewing Co.
Little Woody Beer Festival Coming Back to Bend in 2010 — With Bourbon!
I just heard from the kind people at Lay It Out Events (who share a building and an owner with the Source Weekly) that the Little Woody Barrel-Aged Beer Festival is coming back for a second go around over Labor Day weekend of 2010. Last year’s inaugural event featured wood-conditioned beers from all of the…
Mississippi, Here We Come
An Oregon State University economist has come out with a report pretty much demolishing the conservative propaganda that Oregon is Tax Hell and two measures on the January ballot will make it much worse. William Jaeger compared tax rates in Oregon with those of other states over a period of 17 years and found that,…
Skate Or Die: Catch a RIDE with Tony Hawk
I'm writing this in a sweat – the cool kind of sweatthat comes from several hours of physical activity in the rancid heat of southern California's L.A. River – which despite its name is really a meandering aqueduct of ridges, ditches, basins and bowls. It'san ideal environment for skateboarding, and Tony Hawk RIDE uses it…
One Last Cyclocross Championship Video
This will be it — our last piece of Cyclocross National Championship coverage. But we got this video from local Beau Killett who made it, he says, for a brother in-law who didn’t make the trip over for the races.
Dudley Announces; Ambien Stock Plunges
After several weeks of non-suspense, former Portland Trail Blazer Chris Dudley dropped the other sneaker this morning and announced that he’s seeking the Republican nomination for governor. Dudley made the announcement in an auditorium at Self Enhancement Inc.
The Beautiful Game: The Damned United takes us back to the days before Beckham
The Damned United is the well-told true story of the rapid rise and crashing fall of Brian Clough, English soccer manager, whose disastrous 44-day stint with top team Leeds United was mythologized by novelist David Peace in his 2006 book of the same title. For many, this one man's life may at first seem a…
What's Brewing In Downtown Bend
It's been what seems like a couple of years since Santiago Casanueva first started pushing yerba maté brews to Bendites and he's won a fair number of converts to his leafy coffee alternative that has long been popular in places like Brazil. Now Casanueva is back in downtown Bend just a few paces from his…
Skin Game: trying to ascend Mt. Bachelor the old fashioned way
Thanks to the efforts of Kevin and Molly Grove, Brian Barry and Lee Stevenson, among others, last night skiers intent on maintaining the right to climb/skin Mount Bachelor had the opportunity to meet face-to-face with Mt. Bachelor, Inc president Dave Rathbun and representatives of the U.
Book Review: Nightlight by The Harvard Lampoon
Nightlight By The Harvard Lampoon Vintage Books
Nightlight, The Harvard Lampoon's parody of the Twilight series, opens when Belle Goose first meets her dad at the airport when arriving in Switchblade, Oregon. She trips over a toddler, runs into a keychain rack, falls down the escalator and somersaults over her rolling luggage. “I get my…
A Neon Sign of the Times: Slopeside fashion and function collide at The Bend Ski Club
One of the reasons I started snowboarding was that the clothes were way cooler. Growing up skiing with my dad in the early '90s, I witnessed an embarrassing number of ski-related fashion mishaps. My father would routinely rock the acid-washed jeans/suspenders/neon jacket/cowboy hat combo. Since most of the other skiers on the slopes seemed to…
The Adverse Weather Conditions Bowl
It's pre-bowl season now in the college sports world, the period when your Saturdays are spent clicking aimlessly between non-conference college basketball matchups and TNT's weekly screening of Independence Day. The only other thing of note occupying your time is the ongoing assail of the BCS system. But the truth is you're wasting your time.…
Freewheelin' In the Old Mill: A pictorial retrospective of last week's Cyclocross Nationals
We're abandoning our usual format this week for a visual recap of the massively successful Cyclocross National finals. The event was held over four days in Bend and reportedly drew around 6,000 people and set new attendance records for the event, which will return again next year to Central Oregon. Thanks to Outdoors correspondent Pam…
Porcupines on a pedestal: They don't throw their quills, so settle down, people
In our part of the country, where trees are thought of as a cash crop, porcupines are not thought of as heroes, or worthy of being placed on a pedestal. I can recall back in the '50s when there were signs nailed to trees and poles all over the forest around Bend stating: “PLEASE KILL…
Pucker Up: Disney's The Princess and The Frog brings hand-drawn animation back to life
There is a void in the world of children's film, a land cluttered with CGI squirrels, superheroes and flyaway houses that leaves today's kids missing something. That void comes from a lack of hand-drawn animated Disney musicals. Sure, most kids have seen The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast on DVD, if their parents…
Come for the Food, Stay for the Atmosphere: Round Up a Good Time at El Rodeo
The first time I visited El Rodeo it was on a whim. Running errands on Business 97 and completely dejected having failed to accomplish anything on my list, I was tired, hungry and desperate for shelter from strip mall world. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted El Rodeo. Though a pretty standard-looking…
Come for the Food, Stay for the Atmosphere: Round Up a Good Time at El Rodeo
The first time I visited El Rodeo it was on a whim. Running errands on Business 97 and completely dejected having failed to accomplish anything on my list, I was tired, hungry and desperate for shelter from strip mall world. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted El Rodeo. Though a pretty standard-looking…
Little Bites: What's Brewing In Downtown Bend
It's been what seems like a couple of years since Santiago Casanueva first started pushing yerba maté brews to Bendites and he's won a fair number of converts to his leafy coffee alternative that has long been popular in places like Brazil. Now Casanueva is back in downtown Bend just a few paces from his…
On Their Own Island: The Dirty Words might head to indie-rock-friendly Portland but first they're making an epic music video
Oh, the music video. The revered opportunity for rock stars to be actors and actors to hang with rock stars. It's a chance for a band to get the faces behind their music out to the people and for fans to see a different side of their act. Or, perhaps it was those things before…
Recordings you need to hear that you may have missed: Louis Jordan and his Tympany 5
Louis Jordan and his Tympany 5 Go Blow Your Horn Released 1957
You might think you've been having fun, but if you haven't heard a good dose of Louis Jordan lately, you're a bore. Louis Jordan is the connection between the Big Band era of the '40s and the rise of R&B. At one point…
Our Picks for 12/16 – 12/24: The Shoemaker Brothers, Bill Keale, A Christmas Carol and more
RiffTrax Live: Christmas Shorts-Stravaganza wednesday 16 Remember that show Mystery Science Theater 3000 where that dude and the two robots would sit through old movies for the mere purpose of mocking them? Yes, it was awesome. Well now the stars of that show are joined by parody master Weird Al Yankovic as they rip apart…
Running Dry: The Rainbow Market is the last spot to buy alcohol before the Warm Springs reservation, but the OLCC wants to change that.
A woman sets a case of beer on the counter of the store, but waves the customer behind her to take a turn at the register. “I'm not done,” she says, smiling. She returns to a wall of coolers, one of which, like something out of television advertisement, is filled from floor to ceiling exclusively…
The Farm Bureau Gets Down in the Muck
Everybody loves the family farm. According to the conventional wisdom it's the bedrock of American values, the repository of the sturdy virtues of hard work and thrift, the beating heart of the heartland. So who could possibly have any problem with an organization called Friends of Family Farmers whose aim is to help family farms…
In Their Own Words: Barry O, Berlusconi, and Family Ties that bind
The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is reporting from a nearby Christmas display, protecting baby Jesus from fascist secularists, on assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.
What a week it has been for sound bites and babble! President Obama baffled all of…
Bulletin vs. Environmental Center Rd. 3
Regular Bulletin readers know that the paper's almost comically conservative editorial page has been waging a campaign against the Bend-La Pine School district's arrangement with the Central Oregon Environmental Center, a local non-profit, to put on an environmental education program in local classrooms. This past week, Editor in Chief John Costa chose to take direct…
It's A Dog's Life
Dear Readers, Last weekend we adopted “Yellow Dog” who is one of nine dogs recently rescued from Harney County and brought to Bend. Initially we had concerns about his mental and physical condition as a result of him being kept in such an abusive environment so I had to write and get the word out…
Duck Or Goose?
Dear Bend, Hello, we are the ducks of your town. We understand there is a fresh call for our genocide and we'd like to address that. First of all, though, we do have to agree with one point made by our would-be executioners. PLEASE DO NOT FEED US BREAD. Now, there are others of you…
