This week we will be screening Spellbound at 9:00PM. It's Sarah's pick. There will be mojitos and a live spelling bee at 8:30PM. Come, fun!
Monday, July 28, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Dan's Dad Sends Another Bug
A life was lost this week at the Dude Ranch. Let us mourn.
With much fanfare, he sliced open the packing tape. The box contained one dead beetle. In our fear, we had waited too long.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Friday, July 11, 2008
Freedom Moon Tribe Headlined Movie Night
All you suckers who skipped Movie Night this week missed out BIG TIME. This week was our first to feature an opening musical act. Experimental space rock band Freedom Moon Tribe filled the backyard with three Casiotones + wore make up from Mars + strummed a warbley song from a saw with the aid of a violin bow. It was a unique and humbling experience.
Before the show, the band outlined the directions for how to play their 15-minute long song on a convenient cardboard box (read left ---> right). You can trying playing it yourself at home, but it won't be the same.
Before the show, the band outlined the directions for how to play their 15-minute long song on a convenient cardboard box (read left ---> right). You can trying playing it yourself at home, but it won't be the same.
Monday, July 7, 2008
Dude Ranch Summer Movie Night: Week Two
Come join us. This week we will be screening The Spirit of the Beehive at sunset (9:02 PM). There will also be a special pre-movie performance by the casiotone inspired band Freedom Moon Tribe!
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Friday, July 4, 2008
The Dude Ranch Goes to a Pro-America Rodeo
Today is the 4th of July - America's Independence Day. Since moving here from Iowa a month ago, I've been getting pretty caught up in the Portland lifestyle recently, discussing police brutality and gender by day, drinking wine on my roof by night. I was missing the Midwest a smidge, so I asked one of my co-workers, "I want to spend the 4th of July with people who LOVE AMERICA. Where can I find such people?" The only British guy in the office knew just where to go. "Saint Paul Oregon Annual Rodeo," he said, with finality. Away we went this morning.
Saint Paul is 40 miles or so south of Portland. Its population is only 300, but for one weekend of the year, it becomes a patriotic promised land where you can eat a log of curly fries larger than your head in the shade of a cheap carnival ferris wheel.
The stands are rife with large animals and the folks who ride them. Big bulls, big belt buckles. Copenhagen Smokeless Tobacco and the U.S. Army both had tents right next to a cotton candy stand and the bull pen.
One of the carnival's featured artists was a man who carves bears, salmon, horses and eagles with a chainsaw. I asked him which fearsome creature was the hottest seller. "Everyone wants bears. It can even be an ugly bear. Anything resembling a bear will sell."
Next we snuck into the rodeo by using an ingenious ketchup/mustard mix to mimic the re-entry hand stamp.
And the rodeo began with flag-waving fanfare! Oregon's small army of Rodeo Princesses led a procession of horses around the rodeo grounds. Some carried American flags, others flags emblazoned with the logos of sponsors. The crowd was having a good time, cheering and clapping the rhinestoned women on. Finally, the national anthem and a welcoming announcement from the loudspeakers including the warning: "If we forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be one nation gone under."
One thing I didn't know about rodeos: they're scary. And violent. Out of its holding cage bucked a horse, kicking its legs front and back as the cowboy's head flew forward backward forward backward, smacking against the horse's body until he finally tumbled off. I was terrified. What a Portland liver-bellied city slicker I am. Even the Rodeo Princesses seemed calm and collected during the wildest of rides.
We couldn't handle it for long. After about an hour of intense ride watching, we retired to the Saint Paul Rodeo Bar - the Tack Room. Above my head was a bison head and an American flag reminding me, "Rodeo: America's Number 1 Sport."
Saint Paul is 40 miles or so south of Portland. Its population is only 300, but for one weekend of the year, it becomes a patriotic promised land where you can eat a log of curly fries larger than your head in the shade of a cheap carnival ferris wheel.
The stands are rife with large animals and the folks who ride them. Big bulls, big belt buckles. Copenhagen Smokeless Tobacco and the U.S. Army both had tents right next to a cotton candy stand and the bull pen.
One of the carnival's featured artists was a man who carves bears, salmon, horses and eagles with a chainsaw. I asked him which fearsome creature was the hottest seller. "Everyone wants bears. It can even be an ugly bear. Anything resembling a bear will sell."
Next we snuck into the rodeo by using an ingenious ketchup/mustard mix to mimic the re-entry hand stamp.
And the rodeo began with flag-waving fanfare! Oregon's small army of Rodeo Princesses led a procession of horses around the rodeo grounds. Some carried American flags, others flags emblazoned with the logos of sponsors. The crowd was having a good time, cheering and clapping the rhinestoned women on. Finally, the national anthem and a welcoming announcement from the loudspeakers including the warning: "If we forget that we are one nation under God, then we will be one nation gone under."
One thing I didn't know about rodeos: they're scary. And violent. Out of its holding cage bucked a horse, kicking its legs front and back as the cowboy's head flew forward backward forward backward, smacking against the horse's body until he finally tumbled off. I was terrified. What a Portland liver-bellied city slicker I am. Even the Rodeo Princesses seemed calm and collected during the wildest of rides.
We couldn't handle it for long. After about an hour of intense ride watching, we retired to the Saint Paul Rodeo Bar - the Tack Room. Above my head was a bison head and an American flag reminding me, "Rodeo: America's Number 1 Sport."
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