WCKR SPGT on the trail

Yesterday my wife went to a birthday party for our friend. They were making a beef cake. Boyo and I took advantage of the beautiful afternoon to visit the new library and then to take a little hike.

The idea of the beef cake, of course, got the WCKR SPGT song "Marriage at 30,000 Feet" stuck in my head pretty bad:

I got married at 30,000 feet
to the woman I love
for the parcel of meat
she had strapped to her back
made a horrible parachute.
Don't use meat for a parachute.
Meat chute
Wife lose.
I love you.
We traded our vows and the rings on our fingers.
A union sanctified by God.
In the marriage at 30,000 feet 

In case you were wondering, singing "MEAT! CHUTE! WIFE! LOSE! I LOVE YOU!" on the trail is perhaps the most mortifying thing you can do in the presence of a 9-year-old.

That whole album (Everybody's Dead (Oh, No)) is full of indescribable moments that get stuck in my head at the weirdest moments. As is, I guess, their whole discography. And it is always a joy to rediscover their webpage whenever I get one of those songs stuck in my head and I have to verify that, yes, that song does indeed contain the phrase "Meat chute/Wife lose/I love you."

 

Foster Soiree / Bridge Pedal

Yesterday we went to the eternally rapidly gentrifying Foster Road for the Foster Soiree. Always interesting to see what's coming in and pushing out the sketchy businesses that dotted the area when we lived there. We got to hang out with Friend of Tape Mountain Alison D, whose Xtreme Twee business empire continues to get weirder and greater, get very nice kulfi-flavored ice cream (dairy for JL, non- for me), check out a new record store (not my thing) and the new-ish book store Word Virus (very much my thing).

Today I did Bridge Pedal, in which one bikes across most of Portland's bridges and tries not to crash into bicycles in front of one. Today JL and the boy also did the kids' ride - he needs a bigger bike very much - and I was able to catch up with them after I finished the main ride. I was so proud of how well he was keeping to his lane and not running over smaller children. It felt good. 

People had speakers on their bikes, which is... a choice. Here are my awards for best and worst songs overheard:

BEST: When I got to the finish line, someone was playing Shonen Knife's "Cycling is Fun" (the original and better version) Obvious choice, right, but a delightful song and the timing couldn't have been better. I shouted "hey!" along with them and startled another rider.

 

Left-field choice: Someone was playing Buffalo Springfield's "Broken Arrow" on the Marquam Bridge, a mysterious twisty banger from my dad's record collection, and somehow not among the top search suggestions on YouChoob:

WORST: Mötley Crüe's "Girls, Girls, Girls," the audio equivalent of shitting in the pool. 

Decades Week / Moomin / In the Mood for Love

It is Decades Week at my son's summer care camp. Yesterday was Sixties Day, so when I pulled up on the bike, he and his friend were hugging trees and saying "I'm a hippie!" Today was Seventies Day. The googly eye fell off his pet rock Alexander, and on the way home he mentioned that disco didn't suck, disco was great. I've taught him well.

Thursday is apparently Nineties Day. His comment: "That's when everyone was rich!" JL and I both had to explain that, no, not everyone, dear.  

We've been going through Tove Jansson's Moomin books as bedtime reading. Man do they hold up well. So delightful, so timeless. Revisiting great kids' books decades later with a great kid is just the best.

Cinema 21 is showing the 25th anniversary restoration of In the Mood for Love. We got babysitting from my mom and caught it on the big screen. Gorgeous, super sad, and the soundtrack sounded great. So interesting to see it 25 years later with that much more life experience under my belt.