Mitchell, Oregon presents Hugh Reed

Until 'recently,'* Hugh Reed, 70, lived in a tree house. These days, he lives in a house with electricity with his 'pretty young thing' of a wife -- Skeeter, 49. They run the Oregon Hotel together, and Hugh spends his days drinking coffee or Keystone Light while running the town's one gas pump or selling ice out of a little shack. He is also the owner of Henry, a bear who was declawed as a cub. Henry likes to eat dog food one kernel at a time. Hugh says Henry also likes for Hugh to put his hand in his mouth and scratch the back of his tongue. I did not get physical proof of this.

Ask anybody in town about Hugh and they'll roll their eyes. If you listen to him, his own mom would, too. He insulted her once by asking her if she was raped by Big Foot -- "Look at me," he told her. "I look half animal. Plus, I was born in Roswell, New Mexico, where anything is possible."

Hugh offered to teach us 10 minutes worth of self-defense, but we never got around to it. He did show us a callous that he says is a result of an upward palm jab to the nose.





*I suspect 'recently' is actually 26 years.

Painted Hills

I went to the desert:

MJ

The night Michael Jackson died, I went around town looking for dance parties. The night started auspiciously at the foot of the Steel Bridge with about 100 bikers dancing. Here are two videos I made from that night, including one gorgeous eulogy about what MJ had to do with biking anyway:

The day Michael Jackson died: A cyclist's eulogy from Casey Parks on Vimeo.

Portlanders dance to Michael Jackson songs from Casey Parks on Vimeo.

Also, if you're interested, here are a few mash-ups between MJ songs with some famous rappers:

Jay-Z over Don't stop till you get enough

Lil Wayne over I want you back

Nas over You rock my world

They reminisce over you

As a shout-out to my best B, I carved a letter in the samosa baby pie. Everyone made fun of me, said they could have carved one better, but I'm not artful in the ways of cutting and carving, and this is not news to you. The photo also isn't focused, but I hope you'll see my love either way:

The blues will never go out of fashion

After a week of taking the bus, I rode my bike again today. It’s hot in Portland — both suffocating and burning if you’re out there long enough — and I had to concentrate so that my lungs got their rhythms back just right. But my legs are still strong, my balance still steady.

Somehow I was surprised.

I keep seeing Portland in new ways. All along I have thought I would be here temporarily, like any day now some great newspaper job would invent itself in the South, and I would run happily back. I’d be tan and eat snowcones and see my brother whenever I damn well please.

Newspapers being where they are, that is serious dreaming, but here’s the thing: Lately, I’m not even dreaming for it anymore.

Maybe I’m just carrying it with me? Talking more thickly, cooking red beans and rice and sharing more stories.

Or maybe I’m just loosening up, learning to look at Portland, eyes-wide-open. This has happened twice this week. Once, I was riding the bus over the Broadway bridge. I was a reading a New Yorker piece about something or another and listening to Tupac. I looked across the river and realized that I am, still, wholly myself. What a gift.

Then again, today, biking over the Hawthorne Bridge, I looked down and saw so many sail boats docked alongside the blues festival. It’s no Subway Lounge — the Mississippi club where I went in college. It didn’t open till midnight, and you could get in with any ID (literally, I frequently used a 45-year-old black man’s ID), and if you wanted beer or hot dogs, you had to go to a house next door. It stayed open till 4 a.m. till one day it all came crashing down and the musicians (formerly sweaty and crammed into such small spaces) moved down the road to Schimmel’s, a fancy, open-spaced, air-conditioned joint — but the blues festival on the river was a nice little reminder of home.

Anyway, I looked out at the river again and felt like I actually love being here.

I keep thinking I have lost something (myself, my muscles), but it’s always there. My essential truths are all in tact.

Everything I hold takes root.
I remember what the world was like before -- t. hayes

Music in the woods

I spent last weekend in the mountains of White Salmon, Wash., just a few miles away from the Columbia River Gorge, making a music video with a crew of about 20 people. I'll post the video here when it's out, but for now, here are some shots from the weekend:

Nine months later, life as wrecking ball

You'll find me revved like a motorboat, gliding [chugging?] over water. Did I make those waves? Were they there before? And what of motion? Does it mean anything at all?


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