Get it before its gone — Riley’s Market is closing
It had been quite a while since I’d ventured up to Northwest Crossing looking for something sweet to eat. There was Sage Cafe with pastries galore, fresh baked rice krispie treats and decadent brownies, and then there was Riley’s Market with locally baked cookies and–ooh!–frozen yogurt.
Monster Chops: Kate Davis plays bass
In too many music genres, the standup bass is basically a time keeping, “thump-thump” instrument. In the hands of truly great jazz bassists like the late Ray Brown, Leroy Vinegar, Ron Carter or Charley Hayden (as well as talented locals like Michael Scott and John Allen), it is an instrument of great range, depth and…
Win Free Tickets to Pickathon!
Pickathon, the indie roots festival that takes place on a spacious farm just outside of Portland, is now less than two weeks away, in case you didn’t know. Check out the lineup for this year’s festival here, and you’ll see that Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Dr.
See Dusty Rhodes and the River Band Sunday Night…It will be your last chance
Since Dusty Rhodes and the River Band headlined the Bite of Bend last year, they’ve been not only on my radar, but constantly in my ear, with their 2009 record Palace and Stage quickly becoming one of my favorites from the past few years. I even wrote a feature about the band for Jambase.
Dudley Finds Restaurant Owners Are Good Tippers
The Oregon Restaurant Association, a group that’s lobbied for years to restore Oregon’s “tip credit,” has given Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley a pretty generous tip: $50,000. The restaurant owners’ PAC contributed $40,000 Thursday to the Dudley campaign, on top of another $10,000 it gave previously.
PDXchange Program Announces Fall Shows: The Thermals, Blind Pilot, Weinland/Laura Veirs
Three cheers for the PDXchange Program! OK, now that you’ve done the whole “hip-hip-hooray” thing in your mind three times, or perhaps out loud if you’re the sort of person who yells excitedly to yourself, here’s the reason for our collective excitement: Henry Abel, the man behind the PDXchange Program, has announced three more shows…
PDXchange Brings Portland Cello Project and Loch Lomond to the Tower
In last week’s issue, I profiled Loch Lomond, the Portland-based chamber folk pop act that features Bend native Ritchie Young. Tonight, Loch Lomond joins the Portland Cello Project for the latest installment of the PDXchange Program.
Walden Declines to Join the Tea Party
Greg Walden got invited to the tea party, but he says he doesn’t want to come. A group of 35 Republican members of the House, led by ultra-right-wing Rep.
Don’t Bug Me: a visitor’s view of Bend
Earlier this month, friends from Rhinelander, Wisconsin, who were married in Camp Sherman at the Deschutes Land Trust's Metolius Preserve five years ago, came to visit. The husband writes a column for the North Star Journal, Rhinelander's weekly newspaper.
Bend's Balloon Man Plans a Double Event
Bend, Oregon – home of the Pregnant Man, the Clothesline War and the Great Goose Massacre – is about to gain some more notoriety: Kent Couch, our famous Lawn Chair Balloon Man, is going to do it again. And this time it’ll be a twofer.
Tour de France: Tart's French fusion fare finds a welcome and waiting audience
When 28 closed this spring, I shared the sentiments of friends who'd felt broken up with and betrayed. How could one of the best spots to grab a martini and a flatbread pizza be sold out from under a group of loyal patrons? Left to find another hip night spot, I was in a daze.…
Floyd Landis? Really?
In looking at the preview coverage of the now-underway Cascade Cycling Classic, we saw the name Floyd Landis listed among the competitors. This couldn't be that Floyd Landis, the guy who was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France win after he was found to have been doping? Yup, it certainly is and he's riding…
Coming Home: First-time author Sarahlee Lawrence travels the world and finds a new life… on her parents' farm
“I'd never grown a vegetable before. I didn't even eat a green vegetable until I was 18,” says Sarahlee Lawrence while petting her snow peas and lettuces in her thriving greenhouse at Rainshadow Organics, the vegetable farm she started last year in Terrebonne.
Above It All: High Elevation riding is wide open
During the hottest time of the year in Central Oregon some people would rather find activities that don't involve breathing a lot of dust while dodging mosquitoes. For the dedicated mountain biker these are trivial concerns but for others the call of the Coast or the lakes is too great to resist. That's OK. There…
Working With a Surplus : Nature's creatures will survive… or at least most of them will
The photo above that Dick Tipton shot of the Osprey getting hammered by a Western Kingbird is the epitome of what lengths small birds go to in order to protect their home and family from larger birds, whether the threat is real or not. There is no way anyone could convince the energetic kingbird that…
How We Roll: Going through the gears of Central Oregon's cycling scene
July in Central Oregon has cyclists of all affinities putting rubber to pavement and dirt. While I shuddered to see the well-meaning father pulling his toddler up Skyliners Road in a bike trailer a few days ago, mostly I am giddy to see so many people riding bikes of all kinds for so many reasons.…
A Good Night's Sleep:The Dark Knight director is back to break the run of bad summer movies with Inception
One of my personal problems with Facebook is that I have a lot of other reviewers as friends, meaning that when they see a movie long before its release, they often can't help but make their opinion known. One such friend, Ali Catterall, wrote of Inception: “It. Is. Awful. (I will, of course, be one…
My Rejected Mad Men Script
GUYS! I must confess I'm purrrrr-ty disappointed in the creators of Mad Men right now. Not that I dislike the show… in fact, the boner alert in my pants reached orange (the most boner-ific color) after learning the season premiere of Mad Men debuts this week (AMC, Sun July 25, 10 pm). In fact, my…
Adam Schell, Chef/Author, Hosts Cooking Classes at Allyson’s Kitchen
The author of Tomato Rhapsody, Adam Schell, who happens to also be local and a chef, will be teaching a cooking series beginning July 21 at Allyson’s Kitchen in the Old Mill. In the first of weekly lessons, Adam will teach participants how to make some of the meals/recipes found in his book.
All Roar and No Score: As in real life, this Tiger is less than perfect
I'm not Mario. I need to make my shots seriously stronger if I want to send the ball sailing over the sand dunes and water ponds that look like they were salvaged from an overhaul of Everquest. In order to strengthen my swings, improve my putt and increase all of those other golf statistics, I…
Boy-Man Problems: Cyrus provides a touching emotional battle of the wills
Mark and Jay Duplass, the directing/writing team of the Puffy Chair (winner of Bend Film's Jury Prize in '05) and the offbeat horror comedy Baghead, venture out of super indie mumble-core mode to semi-mainstream mumble-core mode in their newest flick Cyrus. The signature style of the Duplass bros somewhat mesmerizing in Cyrus, mainly because it…
Tour de France: Tart's French fusion fare finds a welcome and waiting audience
When 28 closed this spring, I shared the sentiments of friends who'd felt broken up with and betrayed. How could one of the best spots to grab a martini and a flatbread pizza be sold out from under a group of loyal patrons? Left to find another hip night spot, I was in a daze.…
Little Bites: Eat, Drink, Man and Woman: Our Happy Hour preview
Blame it on the recession or our enlarged livers, but Bend has a happy hour scene that rivals most towns two or three times our size. It seems you can't turn around in downtown Bend without running into a drink special or a discount appetizer. But where to find the deal that's right for you?…
Click For Us, Please: The Bend natives of Adventure Galley have a solid new EP, and now they're in a big-time music contest
A lot of bands enter contests. This typically means a high-school battle of the bands, or perhaps engaging in a larger affair, like the recent Last Band Standing. But with the Internet, music competitions take on an entirely new style and scope. In other words, electronic-based contests are a new and different world. This is…
Dark Night of the Soul
DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse Capital Records
If you only dig music that makes you feel good, you might want to avoid Dark Night of the Soul, the recently released collaboration between Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse. Not that there aren't shiny, bright hooks, but the album's underlying sense of despair gnaws…
Bend's Brothels: The Sin-Dustry That Built Our City
“This is the road to travel, but wives take care of your spouses, and keep them at home, for I assure you there are a host of bright eyes on the way to Boise.” – from C. Aubrey Angelo's 1866 book, Sketches of Travel in Oregon and Idaho
Two streets along the tracks, a town…
Derrick Brown: The Witty Poet Performs Two Shows Tonight
Derrick Brown, the Long Beach-based slam poet who’s as funny as he is sharp with his words, is giving Bend two shows tonight. Before becoming one of the most lauded touring poets you’re likely to find, Brown was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, making him probably the only ex-military performance artists you’ll see this…
Tammy Baney Takes a Stand
In politics, going along to get along is often the easiest and safest course. Nowhere is that more true than within the cozy confines of the Deschutes County Commission, where there are only three members and anybody who doesn't go along is a conspicuous minority of one. Last week Commissioner Tammy Baney refused to go…
Our Picks for 7/21 – 7/29: West Wind Ranch Americana Music Festival, Los Lonely Boys, Dusty Rhodes and the River Band and more
Derrick Brown wednesday 21 If you're one of Bend's many slam poetry fans, you should hustle to the Poethouse where Derrick Brown, the acclaimed slammer and performer who was once a paratrooper, but is now an accomplished author. All ages. $7/general, $5/student with ID. 7pm. Poethouse Art, 55 NW Minnesota Ave. Adventure Galley thursday 22…
Ain't No Party Like a Tea Party
The author is wondering when all of the competitive bikers will stop being here. Seriously, those shorts aren't flattering, few of you are really sponsored, and it's too hot to not just cruise, roll around town on a single gear, a fat seat and no risk of colon cancer, just chillin'.
A Good Start
I'm so tired of reading about these idiots so broken up about the thinning of the geese flock. Do they realize they got eaten? I was in Drake Park this weekend and it was awesome not to have to wipe goose sh*t off my kids flip-flops every ten feet. They're still geese everywhere, by the…
Keep Wildlife In the Wild
In the parking area of Todd Lake I met the parents of two boys (aged between 8 and 10) who had filled a Ziploc bag with tadpoles and frogs. As they climbed into their giant SUV, I asked what would become of the frogs and the father said, “Oh, we don't know, the joy is…
Klondike Kate: “Our Destitute Prostitute” or “Aunt Kate”
Given our checkered history of only outsiders being arrested for prostitution and government officials being recalled for being too cozy with the sin-dustry, our only and erroneous image of this era is “Klondike Kate” – lovingly called “our destitute prostitute” (a misnomer by most accounts) or “Aunt Kate” during her 30 years in Bend, where…
Our Toxic Times
I just finished reading an article about polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination of the Hudson River drainage (Harper's Magazine, Dec. 2009). To make a long story short, General Electric dumped millions of gallons of PCBs into the river, geology, and groundwater for decades, leaving a toxic legacy that is impossible to fix. PCB's are synthetic oils,…
Don't Blame the State for Wolf Problems
I look forward to wolves re-establishing themselves throughout Oregon. I take a keen interest in each new sighting, the expansion of their territory, and the environmental benefit they bring. I also think you may have missed the boat giving the boot to the Oregon Department of Fish & Wildlife (ODFW). The agency spent years crafting…
