No WAY!

Unbelievable.

My rad friend Tamala is visiting from Los Angeles, and today we soaked in the sights of tiny logging town Shelton, Wa. Aside from murals of logs and loggers, stacks of logs piled everywhere, and giant decorative stumps emblazoned with signs reminding us to 'Keep Washington Green', Shelton's got a pretty unbelievable thrift store scene. Case in point:



Am I the only one who thinks these might be the best found snapshots ever? I mean, homemade Snoopy costume!! Tamala bought a pretty red photo album and didn't even know the hidden treasure it contained inside. Homemade Snoopy Costume is totally getting framed for my wall, pronto.

And as if that weren't enough, I casually passed by a lady with a strange looking tattoo on her leg. I read the cursive banner: "Carol Burnett"!!!!

Me: Is that a Carol Burnett tattoo??!
Her: (casually) Yeah.
Me: Wow!
Her: (very casually) I got another one too. See?
She shows me her arm to reveal a second, unbelievable Carol Burnett portrait tattoo! Shelton is the best. I promise to post the tattoo pics when Tamala downloads them later tonight. Under the title 'No WAY!'

Week in Review

A mini-photo-essay-post-thingy of this week's news!! Featuring: Otis climbs a mountain, Justin takes a scenic pic of a gnarled and gnarly tree, We face North (wait.. is that an emo band?), Enter the Disc Jockey phase of my 30's, and to finish off: last night I continued on my Sean Penn-a-thon with (cue Ice T's theme song..) COLORS- Colors-colors. P.S. Maggie Vail DO NOT read this because I am revealing your birthday present that I made today.. personalized stationery!!

Sack of Fun

Sometimes when you spend large quanitites of days and nights with one person, you experience those moments I like to call 'Psychic Mind-Melds®'. Case in point:


Somehow we both managed to return home yesterday with large plastic bags filled with chocolate maltballs and double-dipped peanuts, from the same bulk bins at the same grocery store. The only difference? Waste-conscious Trosper opted to forgo the twisty-tie.

In less delicious news, look at this crazy slug he came across in the wilderness! Albino? Or just pale?


And on another totally unrelated topic, for those of you in the local area, J.T. and I will be playing records at the QB Lounge tonight: enter the Fun Sack©, a night of punk/soul/reggae/pop/garage/and maybe especially talented singing parrots. 10 pm! We'll be the ones wearing headlamps.

Up on a Cloud

According to Dead Moon's wikipedia page, Fred and Toody Cole are building a shopping center in Clackamas! I can already see it: the Tombstone General Store, Fred's Belt Buckle Emporium, House o' Boots, Aunt Toody's Old Tyme Medicine Shoppe, and the Cole Family Fun Center (complete with with one of those olden-days shooting galleys, the kind where when you hit the piano-player puppet guy he starts pounding away at 'The Entertainer').

And when they're not occupied with the whole land-development thing, the world's most rockingest grandparents are busy making a whole new band:


Pierced Arrows! Huh? I still don't get the name, but it totally doesn't matter.. all that matters is that:


Fred!


And Toody!


Are still doing what they do best.. playing songs that sound like Dead Moon: Straight-ahead rockers with Fred's banshee wail and Toody's tenderness. A little history for those out of the whole Cole Family loop: Fred started putting out records at the age of 16 in 1964, with all kinds of bands: The Lords, Deep Soul Cole, The Weeds aka the Lollipoppe Shoppe (during which time he met Toody, fell in love, and married in 1967), Zipper, King Bee, The Rats (with Toody now playing bass), Western Front and then onto Dead Moon. They lived in the Yukon for a while as homesteaders! And this past Sunday, they came to Olympia to debut Pierced Arrows to a typical Northwest crowd:


Keeping it so real!

Where Beauty Lives

Last night it was pouring. Apparently the Northwest Summer wants to break up with me, as my letter from a few days back has remained unanswered. What to do? How about watching the 1984 masterpiece At Close Range starring (hold onto your hats): Christopher Walken, Sean Penn, Mary Stuart Masterson, Chris Penn, and Crispin Glover. And Kiefer Sutherland! With reccurent theme song 'Live to Tell' sung by Madonna!

It's actually a really good movie. I even teared up a little at the end, when Sean Penn goes up against his evil father Christopher Walken in front of the grand jury. Very dramatic!


As I was looking for images online from the film, I found this little pic of Sean and Madonna. And I got to thinking..


Are we kind of like the Mason County version? Just a little??

My Idea of Fun

Fun.


Fun.


Fun.

Birthday in a Bread Bowl

See that guy in the middle? That's our old pal Brandt, aka BRANDTASY. Not only did he just finish his Masters in Teaching, he also turned 35! We needed to celebrate, Kamilche-Style..


Brandt was the first Unwound drummer, and the only Worst Case Scenario drummer. He also kept the beat in the Young Ginns. Brandt was my roomie at the infamous Olympia punk palace known as The Lucky 7 House. I can't even count all the amazing bands that have played in that basement over the years.


Pre-Casino spread.. olive tapenade, pesto gouda, and goat-cheese stuffed dates (thanks Amanda!)


The whole plan was to go to the amazing fresh seafood bar at the Casino and ingest vast quantities of dungeness crab, mussels, and oysters. But the bar was flooded! We moved on to the classier sit-down restaurant, where the waitress revealed tonight's special: Lobster Penne in a Bread Bowl. Really, in a Bread Bowl?? Yup, pasta in a Bread Bowl. And of course, we had to dress up the Bread Bowl with little shrimp-tail eyes, a spinach tongue, and then proceed to make him talk. Real mature.


This is a photo of two men in their mid-30's, high-fiving across the table with their Bread Bowl lids.


Could the night get any more overindulgent? Oh yes.

AM/PM

I'm living a double life. And it rules!

The daytime belongs to painting and nature adventuring.. J.T. and I went down to the beach at low, low tide and did some specimen identification for the Kamilche Natural History Guide to Everything:


That's one sexy amateur biologist. Check out those legs! Justin is already sporting what might be called 'Community College Science Professor Shorts'.. trendsetter.


Here we have the Oregon Beach Crab,


And some kelp known as Fucus. Those little puffy things are called bladders! You learn something new everyday. This little guy was hanging out on the beach trail.. can you see him?


Pacific Tree Frog. I discovered that I am scared of frogs, judging by my rapid heartbeat that took over when it hopped out onto the walking path.. there's something about all that erratic jumping that I find unsettling. And speaking of erratic jumping:


Here comes the night! Downtown at the Sisters/Sex Vid/Thrones show. The pit was going off for Sex Vid.. they're really good. Judd, the singer, has all that pent-up anger/frustration that comes with being the Record Store Guy. He really lets it rip!


Joe Preston took us to beard-land with his heavy, heavy jams. Stacks of cabinets, a rumbling force of low-end, and millions of pedals. All wielded by such a nice, soft-spoken man with a tiny white bass.


Across the street, The Old Haunts were playing a dueling show! Basically, in Olympia you can't throw a rock downtown without hitting an awesome show, a vietnamese restaurant, or a seagull. I grew up here, and after living in Los Angeles, I didn't really think I needed to come back. But I'm enjoying it.. the slowness, the freaks, the beauty of the Puget Sound. It's a good place to get a lot done.

Gonna Find a Cave

Last night we headed up to Tacoma, to attend a prom-style fundraiser for sick kiddies. What to wear? My vast wardrobe of jeans, tshirts, more jeans and more tshirts wasn't cutting it..


Good thing my mom runs a vintage kimono shop! She saved the day.. Justin looked rather like Obi-Wan Kenobe in his man-kimono. Ki-man-o. But the best part of his outfit was the tiny ponytail:


We passed this place on the way to the prom:


CLUB IMPACT! That is some serious signage. Inside the prom, there were beautiful dahlias everywhere..


..and Girl Trouble played! Keeping it real for 24 years, northwest-style. They were so good!

Desperately Yours

Dear Northwest Summer:
It seems like you've been acting a bit weird for.. oh, maybe two months now. You used to be so warm and perfect, and now all you do is kind-of sulk and tease a bit and then retreat into a dull grey apathy. Is it just me? I remember all those perfect July/August days of years past; I used to wake up and say 'Yes! This is what I've slogged through 7 months of doom rain for! The perfect two months of brilliant blue skies and moderate temperatures!'.. now I simply check the sky and shake my head with a sad sigh. Is it the global warming? Are the glaciers melting so fast that the ocean is sending it's surplus water into the sky of the Puget Sound, to be dumped down on us as freak summer rain? Or maybe you're testing my loyalty.. seeing if I'll run back into the arms of Los Angeles' permanent summer. Never!
Come back to me. I need you.
Love Always,
Sarah

Stuff n' Stuff

The Kamilche scene has been heavily guest-infested in the past few weeks, and we like it that way! Last night we got a quickie visit from Sara Lund-erpants and her hubby Aaron: we grilled oysters, made cocktails with fresh mint from the garden, got our Bananagrams on, and discussed the weirdness/radness of this bizarre Unwound fan video (warning: strobe lights and cardboard standies dominate).. I decided that what with the revolving-door of visitors we have at our little cabin, I should make some sort of souvenir for each guest. I also finally took a letterpress intro workshop at Community Print, the amazing co-op that is housed beneath my painting studio.. and look what I made!


A place to jot down your nature observations.. i.e. 'Ate blackberries. Nearly stepped on jellyfish. Met large white spirit coyote, the Great Otis'.

Then today, after pizza and goodbyes downtown with the Lund-Beams, I headed over to Buyolympia.com headquarters to finish up some designs for new tshirts.. this process CMYK owl one is a fave:


Keep a lookout in September for that little number, a public-transport tee for babies, and a tattooless-pride type of shirt for those of us that have managed to remain uninked into our 30's (anyone else out there?). So much to do!

Word Up

This is what a ROTTEN BANANA looks like:


When you play Bananagrams and shout 'BANANAS!' or 'I win', it means you are the winner: you are confident that you have beat all the others in the 'bunch' by making delightful, ACCURATE, anagrams. Amanda (our visitor this week from Los Angeles) declared 'Bananas!' and perhaps even gloated a bit about her win, until we inspected her words further. She had great words like 'gleaners' and good words like 'cribs', but then Justin and I noticed:

1. SOG
2. QUANT
3. VUE

Girl, Puhleeease! The first being some sort of unknown water-logged condition, the second appearing as a word of science, and the third a model of Saturn cars and perhaps a band.. we had a dictionary challenge on our hands! Sure enough, these words do not exist, and not only did Amanda have the shame of being labled as the Rotten Banana, she had to wear the Rotten Banana hat as further punishment.

On a side note, since I mentioned Bananagrams on my blog a few days ago, this little game in the yellow pouch has sold out at Oly's local specialty toy shop. The power of bloggggs!!