Quickie PDX Roadtrip

Drove down to Portland yesterday, mainly to see a Hillsboro Hops game with my pal Gabe. This is the inaugural Hops season, and they're playing in this nice new ballpark...

They're the area's first pro club since the Portland Beavers left in 2010. It's only single-A ball, but still, much better than nothing. Gabe took this picture of me with Hops mascot Barley...

For the record, the visiting Salem-Keizer Volcanoes won, 6-5.

I've driven between Seattle and Portland dozens of times, but coming home today I finally stopped at some places I've long wondered about, like Kalama's Columbia Inn...

I had the Jack Benny Burger, inspired by this sign...

It wasn't very good. Then in Chehalis I checked out Yard Birds, and it didn't disappoint...

Of all the kooky bird statues around the place, this one's my favorite...

Also stopped by Portland's Sasquatch Brewing Company and Bigfoot's Burritos and Subs at Gee Cee's Truck Stop, both of which I added to my In Search of Bigfoot page. And now I'm home.
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Apropos of Nothing #2

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It Was 38 Years Ago Today: Elvis Says Aloha

Via satellite!

Read more here.
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Pleased to Spoof Me

Pleased to Meet Me by the Replacements remains my favorite album ever of all-time ever, ever since its 1987 release. Above is a riff on its cover art that I recently found, by an artist named Scott Tolleson. But there's been some other variations on the original, like the European "Alex Chilton" 7" E.P...

As well as this bootleg...

And this tribute album...

Of course, the original was itself a spoof, taking after Elvis' G.I. Blues soundtrack...

Which also inspired Seattle's "Mexican Elvis," El Vez...

I, ay, ay!
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Happy Birthday, Elvis!

Had a bloated, doped-up Elvis not died on his bathroom’s shag carpet, gold pajama bottoms around his ankles, face-down in his own vomit, he would’ve turned 72 today.

I wrote this last year -- on what would've been his 71st birtday -- which drew some awesome comments.

Here's a photo from September 1962, taken at the old monorail station in downtown Seattle. In town filming It Happened at the World's Fair, Elvis presents a smoked ham to Washington Governor Albert Rossellini, as a Memphis Mafioso and Col. Tom Parker look on. It was supposedly Rossellini's idea for the film, as he wrote a letter to MGM proposing they use the Century 21 fair a backdrop for an Elvis vehicle.
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