There are few ways that you can attempt not to pay for your drinks. While the bartender has your attention, you can break your neighbor's highball so that she has to clean up ice cubes, slivers of glass, and spilled whiskey and seven. And while her head is turned, you can play Houdini and disappear. Or you can give her a bunk credit card to open a tab. Or you can wad up your money up so tight that it takes so much time to unfold it that when she is aware she has been shorted, you have gone awol. But if that she is me, I will find you and make you pay, Nothing makes me madder than someone trying to pull the wool over my eyes. I have pursued unpaid bar tabs to other bars, I have filed charges against people with stolen or fraudulent credit cards, and I have even hunted down two grown men to find them huddled blocks away in their tiny barren apartment to make them pay me for two Irish Car Bombs.
Collateral Damage
The Way of the Frank: Dweezil Zappa on learning, teaching and accurately dishing out his dad's face-melting tunes
Here's perhaps the most rock star attribute to be deduced from a 20-minute interview with Dweezil Zappa – the dude uses an alias when checking into hotels. You just don't hear about quintessentially rock star stuff like that these days.
But even with his rock royalty lineage and '80s-'90s celebrity status, that's about where the rock staredness ends with Zappa these days. He seems more akin to a devoted musical student (or teacher) than a guitar god, or the sort of public figure he was as a “VJ” on MTV, back when MTV played music videos rather than “reality” soap operas.
Powered by Women: Chicks with Picks
A glance at Central Oregon's local music landscape might give you the impression that men dominate the scene. Well, if you think that, you're kind of sexist. Sorry, but it's true.
In fact, there is plenty of female musical prowess to be found in the greater Bend area and now there's a full night of music to feature this talent. This show, dubbed “Chicks With Picks,” is a benefit for Saving Grace, the local non-profit that provides services for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence, and features a diverse musical scope of the female talent we have here.
Beware The Oregon Civil War Scams
How hot are Civil War tickets this year for the nationally televised Oregon – Oregon State game that will likely determine which of the two teams goes to the Rose Bowl? So in demand that the Attorney General wants you to be aware of ticket scams.
AG John Kroger issued a media alert this morning advising Beavs and Ducks to be on the look-out for bogus ticket deals, offering a list of tips for fans who want to protect themselves.
Our Picks for 11/25 – 12/3: Toys for Tots, Hillstomp, Chicks with Picks and more
Toys for Tots featuring Ruckus
friday – saturday 27 & 28
Local rock band Ruckus is playing this two-night engagement at the Riverhouse to benefit the Toys for Tots program. They're asking you to bring new and unwrapped toys or canned food to the shows that you can deposit before rocking out to one of Central Oregon's longtime local bar bands. 9pm. Crossings Lounge at the Riverhouse. 3075 N. Highway 97. 389-3111
Hillstomp, Larry and His Flask
friday 27
For the second year running, Portland's Hillstomp is coming to town to help you shake off the Thanksgiving gravy hangover with what we guarantee to be a raucous show. Hillstomp, as many locals know, combines north Mississippi style blues with a punk rock ethos that they deliver care of wicked slide guitar, junkyard drums and CB-radio-style vocals, and Bendites tend to freak out for these guys. Opening the show is Central Oregon's own Larry and His Flask, home for the holiday before venturing out on yet another West Coast Tour. 9pm doors, 9:30pm show. $8. All ages, bar w/ID. Domino Room, 51 NW Greenwood Ave.
Poet. Friend. Killer?: Jason Centrone went from a talented artist to a homeless man accused of murder in just 18 months
It was just after Easter of 2008 when Jason Centrone left Portland. He had canceled his cell phone and e-mail account. There were no goodbyes to speak of. Not to his best friend or the members of his poetry group or the production team with whom he was working to make a film. He had mentioned in an e-mail to a friend that he was thinking of heading to Central Oregon, but that was as much of a clue as he left.
As one friend put it, he had erased himself. The quick-witted, outdoor-loving artist had left behind a life in Portland marked with a few close friends and an array of artistic ventures, but he was also shadowed by mounting medical bills and lawyer fees from a bicycle accident. He never called or wrote and there were times when those who knew him as a friend wondered if the talented 37-year-old was still alive.
The Bulletin Uncovers a Hidden Menace
We believe Bend's Only Daily Newspaper deserves appropriate recognition for alerting our community to an insidious threat to our children: advocacy groups using the public school classrooms to push their dangerous, radical agendas.
Specifically, The Bulletin's editorial page last Friday revealed that representatives from The Environmental Center (you know, that hippie hangout on Kansas Avenue) “have visited Bend-La Pine classrooms on more than 40 occasions to give so-called EarthSmart presentations.”
And just what are these so-called EarthSmart presentations?
Leonard's Flight Suit Moment
Most news savvy Oregonians saw the recent dramatic footage of the Marysville school fire that featured flames leaping out of the top of the school building. What most people didn't see is Portland City Commissioner Randy Leonard donning a fire suit and scrambling onto the roof of the still-burning building to “assess” the situation.
Got Us By the Sachs: Turkey with Bernie, spilt milk and Gov. Sanford's black book
The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is reporting from a couch in New York in a tryptophan haze, hopeful of a long nap and no more food for at least a week, on assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.
How's this for an apology? “There's also people who feel – and are right – that there's some meaningful things where we may have – not may have, certainly our industry is responsible for things. And we're a leader in our industry, and we participated in things that were clearly wrong, and we have reasons to regret and apologize for.” Gee, thanks! I feel better, don't you? Those were the words of Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, speaking at a New York forum for corporate board members this week. Blankfein made $73.2 million last year and recently said bankers are doing “God's work.” Good thing God wanted Goldman Sachs to take $12.9 billion in bailout funds only months ago (then report a nearly $3 billion profit) after selling $40 billion in risky bonds without telling investors it was also betting on a housing market collapse. Good upstanding Americans, capitalists and philanthropists: While apologizing for using us like a fluffer on a porn shoot, Blankfein announced a $500 million program for small business, which is 2.5 percent of the $20-plus billion in estimated bonuses Goldman Sachs will pay its felons/employees this year.
The Lethal Method
The proposal by the city of Bend is ludicrous! They propose to use the lethal method to cut down on the number of Canadian geese in the parks. Come on people of Bend, Oregon, USA, stand up and protect the geese! Nomenclature is being used to try to disguise the truth: “lethal method” equals execution, killing and murder of wildlife. What kind of precedent does this set for our city, our future and our children?
Wildlife a problem? Kill it!
Don't like the smell of the skunk prowling by your house? Kill it! Don't like the blue jays making their racket? Kill them! Don't like all those deer eating your flowers? Kill them! Don't like those squirrels eating your nuts? Kill them!
The Canadian goose is a game animal, hunters purchase hunting licenses and hunt them in their hunting season, and our bountiful city of Bend wants the right to kill them for no other reason than poop? Ludicrous, and at the heart of it, illegal!