If you were in Bend on Saturday night there were plenty of options for entertainment. Roller derby, people beating the crap out of each other, ska music, rock music; you name it, it was going on in town on Saturday.
Video of Eric Tollefson Live at Silver Moon on Saturday Night
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Weekend Wanderings
In between telecasts of the Winter Olympics, I spent much of the past week following the fascinating saga of Matt Wingard's plagiarism.
Wingard, a Republican state representative from Wilsonville, rose to his feet in the House last Friday to deliver some remarks casting doubt on the reality of global warming.
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Medal Time: awards for the best and the worst from week one of the Winter Olympics
It's time to award platinum medals to the best and lead medals to the worst the past week at the Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver
Platinums for guts go to Petra Magjic, Annya Pearson and Lindsey Vonn.
Slovenia cross-country racer Madjic took a horrific fall into a ditch during training for the women's sprint competition and was airlifted to the hospital.
Posted inOutside
Big Time: They don’t come any bigger than the great gray owl
It’s true – just as the title of this story says – when it comes to owls of the New World, they really don’t come any bigger than the great gray owl, Strix nebulosa, or, for the sake of brevity, GGO. The adult has a wingspan that averages about four-and-a-hall feet; the female being larger then the male (a physical trait among all the owls and diurnal raptors). They stand about 30-inches tall and weigh in at around four pounds – and are armed with very large, strong, needle-like talons on very large powerful feet!
The species name, nebulosa, is the Latin for “misty” or “foggy,” the coloration of the owl’s feathers that help to conceal them when roosting during the day. Those same feathers are so soft in texture they make the owl’s flight almost silent.
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A Conversation With The Men Behind the Beard and Moustache Championships Coming to Bend
In the event that you’re habitually are slow on the uptake when it comes to facial-hair-related news, the Beard Team USA National Beard and Moustache Championships are taking place in Bend this year.
In advance of the Championships, which are slated for June 5 at the Les Schwab Amphitheater during the Balloons over Bend festival, the founder (and “self-appointed captain”) of Beard Team USA, Phil Olsen and two-time defending Natural Full Beard World Champion Jack Passion stopped into the Source offices yesterday to chat about the event.
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Monk and Pops: Two American masters profiled in new biographies
When it comes to musicians who left an indelible imprint on America music, jazzmen Louis Armstrong and Thelonious Monk come to mind. Yet both have, to a greater degree, been widely overlooked and/or misunderstood by the general public.
Posted inMusic
Sweeping Up the Ska: Talking three decades of rebel music with The Toasters
“I feel like the ska janitor, you know? I'm coming through with a broom and cleaning up everybody's mess,” says Rob “Bucket” Hingley, the front man and sole remaining original member of The Toasters.
His metaphor is more than apt. While it's difficult to know for sure, The Toasters were most likely the first ska band to come out of America back in 1981. Now, some 30 years later, they are one of the most well-known bands of that genre still on the touring circuit. Sure, they benefited from the ska explosion of the mid-1990s, but whereas so many of those horn-laden, suspender-wearing acts faded into oblivion (you just don't hear people talking about Save Ferris anymore, do you?) the Toasters, or at least Hingley, has survived. And if he has to clean up the genre, then so be it.
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Our Mini-Documentary of the Bend WinterFest Weekend
The Source Weekly’s calendar editor/video magician Anne Pick took all the largely cattywompus video I shot during the three days of Bend WinterFest last weekend and quilted it into a nice little documentary.
Take a look and relive the joy that was WinterFest.
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Still Some Air in the Bubble?
The Federal Reserve has released a report that seems to show Bend home prices have moved more or less back in line with those in other Oregon cities.
The report, titled “Trends in Delinquencies and Foreclosures in Oregon,” includes a bunch of interesting graphs, including one that tracks the rise and (in Bend’s case) precipitous fall in home prices from 2000 through the end of 2009 in the cities of Portland, Salem, Medford and Bend.
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Hippie Jams, Michael Cera and Problem Stick: What happened last night
I arrived at McMenamins Old St. Francis School last night and quickly discovered that there were a couple hundred other people who also thought it clever to take in a free show from Blue Turtle Seduction.