Portland folk rockers Weinland dropped some sweet melodies and kicking rhythms on a much appreciative crowd at McMenamins on Wednesday night. Here’s a clip of the band from last night.
Video from Weinland at McMenamins
Posted inNews
Bend Tea Party Sizzles, But Rhetoric Fizzles
The Wandering Eye had a nice, steaming dish of crow to eat for breakfast today. We predicted that the "Tax Day Tea Party" in Bend would fizzle, but we have to admit the tea partiers put on a pretty impressive show.
Posted inOpinion
Mr. Saturday Night Special
This afternoon, I thought of writing a letter pointing out that every gunman responsible for his share of last month's carnage had the legal right to own a gun. The officers killed in Pittsburgh? Their shooter was a registered gun owner. The eight killed at a nursing home in North Carolina? He owned his gun legally. The family of five killed in Washington? The ten in Alabama? The shooters were all signed off as responsible citizens with full rights to their firearm.
But we've all heard the comebacks: guns don't kill people, people do. If someone set someone else on fire with gasoline, do you outlaw gasoline? I thought, yah, enough of that debate. It never goes anywhere.
Posted inOpinion
Rent Vs. Reality
I start by saying I love the Source Weekly-it brings some great things to light. Like the article a couple of weeks ago about homelessness in Deschutes County.
Posted inCulture
Laughing in L.A. L.A. land: Randy Liedtke finally returns from Los Angeles to give us some comedy
He wants you to know he doesn't always wear a bow tie.Randy Liedtke is a funny guy. But when the hefty, fire-red bearded
Redmond-raised comic talks about his new life in Los Angeles and says
that he got a day job as a prep cook at a gay bar in West Hollywood, he
isn't joking.
After hosting a string of packed shows in the winter of 2007-2008
at the Summit Saloon and Stage, Liedtke packed up and headed south to
Los Angeles in the hopes of making a career out of his quirky
one-liners. It's now been more than a year since Liedtke left Central
Oregon and his show at the Summit on April 22 is his first trip back to
town. Why so long between visits? Well, he's been busy hosting a
monthly comedy show at the famed Knitting Factory that has featured
names like Janeane Garofalo, Sarah Silverman and Patton Oswalt while
also appearing in cable television comedy sketches and is currently
being considered for an appearance on a Comedy Central program. And
that's on top of his West Hollywood cooking duties, of course.
Posted inOutside
Be a Draft Dodger
Oh come on, relax. We're not being unpatriotic, but
are rather talking about the NFL draft, which although not until next
weekend has already overtaken the sports websites and taken up entire
hour-long segments of valuable ESPN2 time which could easily be used to
air "Sports Century: Charles Barkley" in its entirety.
We here at
the Left Field desk do indeed care about the results of the NFL draft,
it's the draft itself that we just simply can't invest our valuable
sports-watching hours in. Sure, we might watch to see who the Lions
take as the overall number one pick and what unheard of offensive
lineman the Seahawks squander their first-round pick on, but we just
can't justify watching the whole damn thing. But as for the rest, we'll
just pick up a newspaper and see who went where and call it good until
training camp starts up.
Posted inOpinion
A Slippery Slope
Ostensibly, the potential implementation of DUI checkpoints/roadblocks in Oregon is a righteous moral mission undertaken by the state to liberate sober drivers from the overwhelming threat of tyrannical, legally drunk drivers on the road and unburden taxpayers of the associated costs of consequent accidents. Similarly, the pretext for the U.S. invasion of Iraq was to liberate oppressed Iraqi individuals, spread democracy, displace a brutal, threatening dictator and encourage freedom across the globe.
In both cases, these claims look great on paper. But anyone who hasn't surrendered or atrophied her natural capacity for critical thought and who has but a vague awareness of historical events beyond the weekly conclusions of American Idol, can see that beneath these official motives lies a thinly cloaked impetus of some kind.
Posted inOutside
In Its Place: Land Trust is putting Whychus Creek back where it belongs
Monday, March 23rd was a big day for the Land Trust's Camp Polk
Preserve; tour leaders and docents met at the preserve to learn the
details of the restoration of Whychus Creek, a project that will be
kicking into high gear this spring and summer. Crews are slated to
begin breaking ground to restore the historical meandering creek
channel, after which the meadow will be hopping with activity
throughout the summer and fall.
Back in 1964, over Christmas time,
Whychus, then known as Squaw Creek, went on a rampage when lots of warm
rain fell on a wet snow-pack resulting in the creek going over its
banks, flooding Sisters, killing 7 people and costing around $157
million to repair the damages.
Needless to say, that got a lot of
people upset and as the saying goes; the "stuff" hit the fan. The
"government had to do something!" In those dark ages, fish habitat,
stream health and riparian zones were terms very few people understood,
or cared about. Like old growth forests that would be around "fo-ever,"
"fish would be forever as well, so the Powers-That-Be said, 'Lets fix
that creek so it won't flood no more!'"
Posted inOutside
Spreadin’ the Love: Aloha Spirit and the “Shave & Taper”
Whew, taxes are filed-time to play! Forget about 1040s and Schedule Es
and feel the love for Central Oregon and all it has to offer.
HOORAY FOR
THE BUBBLEHEADS
Corduroy Carpet to Moon MountainKudos
to the Sisters Sno Go-Fers Snowmobile Club. Last Friday night they
groomed the #6, #7 and #8 roads linking Dutchman Flat to the Three
Creeks Sno-Park. Skier Larry Katz circulated an e-mail around the
nordic community earlier in the week and by Saturday morning I had
scored a ride to Dutchman and a pickup at Three Creeks from a friend.
Another group of skiers we passed coming the other way had orchestrated
a key exchange, somewhere around Moon Mountain, I suppose. By getting
an early start, we were all treated to 18 miles of idyllic white
corduroy winding through spectacular Cascades backcountry. With the
Nordic center closing Sunday and Meissner grooming coming to an end, it
was a wonderful grand finale to skate season. The diehards still have
the PPP course and crust cruising, but I'm happy to finish on a high
note and get out some other toys.
In regards to the snowmobilers,
Katz said, "Several of us have met them on the trail and they are good
people and are happy to share the trail with us." I want to echo that
sentiment. I'm all about human-powered recreation. More than anything
else, I ski at Wanoga with my dog all winter and 99.9% of my encounters
with snowmobilers have been positive. We step off to the side of the
trail and wave and they slow down and signal how many in their group.
I'm grateful for the friendly permission from the Moon Country
Snowmobile Club to share their groomed trails. Yeah bubbleheads!
Posted inCulture
Warm Fuzzies: New Crystal Chronicles draws from the best
"I'm dead."
"Just a minute, I'll be right there. I have to kill these… things."
The
things in question are cute, furry orange creatures with fox-like
tails. Called mu, they aren't very dangerous. They mainly hop around,
pouncing on me at inopportune moments. But a gang of them murdered my
friend, and I don't want to resurrect him until the threat is gone.
Mu,
like most monsters, can be vanquished in a variety of ways. There's the
standard beatdown, which is accomplished while standing next to them
(and thereby allowing them to beat me back). I can also jump on top of
them, whacking at them beneath me. And (perhaps most entertainingly)
there's the grab-and-bash, which involves picking up a monster and
whacking them against a nearby wall.