Would the scooter guy appear so calm if he realized an art van followed closely?

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Saturday, April 27, not the first time I've seen this van. I took these photos in Northeast Portland. The van has evolved quite a bit since I first saw it in July, 2007, when I was set up to try to sell some of my arts and crafts at Last Thursday up on NE Alberta. A man in clown face drove it and had a chimpanzee puppet sitting up front with him, looking out the driver's window. You can see versions of the van from 2009 in some photos at the bottom of this post. The owner has rearranged some of the accoutrement.



Here's a closer view for you. No clown face for the driver on this particular ride--I looked closely at the photo in its original size, just to check it out so I could let y'all know.
 

Pay close attention to the position of the hand on the back window.
 

Pay close attention to the position of the hand on the back window.
 

Pay close attention to the position of the hand on the back window. Yep, it's waving bye-bye!

Here's what I found online, by Googling Portland art car van clown, posted August 31. 2011, at Neighborhood Notes Dot Com:

• The Never Never Van Driven by Extremo the Clown (a.k.a. Scott Campbell) 
•  For many years, Extremo the Clown drove the most noticeable art car in the city of Portland. Extremo—the professional artist Scott Campbell—is known for wearing distinctive clown makeup, driving with performing puppets, singing karaoke, and laughing manically. “Scott has a little bit of a compulsion,” Emily Hall says, “and the compulsion is clown face.” Besides his work as Extremo the Clown, Campbell is a successful and prolific graphic artist. His primary form of artistic expression, and income, is painting advertisements in the windows of local businesses. “Anywhere you go in Portland, you’re going to see these goofy window paintings,” Hall says. “And he makes a really great, straight living off that.” Extremo the Clown maintains an active presence on YouTube, which hosts videos of his local television appearances, and has shown all types of unique art around town. Extremo’s well-known car, the MSV, no longer runs. The Never Never Van, his current work in progress, is based on the story of Peter Pan.   

These next photos were taken downtown Portland, April 25, 2009. The van had not completely become what you see in the photos above. Still interesting, though. Looks like the ladders he uses to paint ads in store windows are up on top of the van, inside that red metal rack.

   

The van is heading west on SW Morrison. The MAX Blue Line is heading west to Hillsboro, Oregon, a suburb of Portland.

 

Two more photos, taken the same day.

 

There's the Never Never. See in the photos that I took last Saturday, the Never Never is gone from the bumper.

 

One last one from April 25, 2009. I wonder if the change in adornment facing vehicles driving behind the van came about because this seems so high as to be a detriment in traffic. Maybe I'll run into him sometime and get to ask.

Felt good enough to go to the Portland Farmers Market Saturday

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Saturday evening I ate a small, fresh-baked baguette--no kidding, I got it at the Dollar Tree in a package of two which you're instructed to bake on the oven rack for 8-10 minutes until golden brown, imported from Holland, of all places--a sensible amount of Pearl Creamery Artisan Goat Cheese, a sensible amount of Rose City Pepperheads' Mango Madness, a sensible amount of Chop's Farmhouse Country Style Pate, and a sensible amount of Unbound Pickling's Bread & Butter Pickles. Wow. Then for a late lunch today, after a laundry marathon, I ate a sandwich on Pearl Bakery's honey wheat bread--with, once again, sensible amounts of goat cheese, pate, pepper jelly and pickles. I eat sensible amounts of these goodies because I want them to last all week. I cannot get over living in Portland where I am allowed to happily spend my hard-earned cash on products produced with pride by locals. I am blessed. See more details about my purchases below. I'll bet your mouth will water, maybe your stomach will growl. Let me know, OK?


My friend Sarah, a recent graduate of University of Gastronomic Sciences in Bra, Italy, has found a great job with the Portland Creamery. She sweetly posed for this photo holding my purchases. I bought Artisan Goat Cheese, Sweet Fire Artisan Goat Cheese (the addition of marionberry preserves adds the sweet, habanero pepper adds the fire), and Cajeta, Artisan Goat Caramel. Swoon city, y'all. Creamy, flavorful, spreadable yumminess. I am very excited to have these products in my frig, even more happy to have them on my plate!
 

Sarah didn't know that I stopped to take this photo. I love the look of concentration on her face as she listens, ready to answer questions and offer tastes of Portland Creamery's products.
 

I bought Bread & Butter Pickles, pure perfection. From their Web site, every word the truth in my opinion: sweetened with blueberries and pear. Bread and butter pickles, subtracting out large quantities of sugar from the formula while adding fresh Willamette Valley blueberries and pear juice to sweeten the taste equation. Perfect on sandwiches and cheeseburgers or add a flavorful and joyous touch to your tuna or chicken salad.
 

I bought a loaf of totally wonderful, great textured honey wheat bread (see the one still there with the big white label in the low basket to the right) and one satisfyingly sweet little pastry called a rugelah, I think that's how they spelled it. I decided to eat it slowly; it's small enough to be gone in two bites, but that would be plain stupid. I made it last for five bites. Yea for me! It's in the case on the top shelf, right, as you look at the photo. The lady had just helped me and had a smile on her face--I caught her in this photo with what I'm sure was a passing moment of farmers-market-been-there-since-probably-6:30-a.m. fatigue. I took the photo at 1:03 p.m. 
 

I bought my all-time-favorite pepper jelly, Mango Madness. My gosh. That stuff is so good! Sweet and spicy, a nice-to-the-tooth-and-tongue consistency. Spreads like a champ!
 

I bought a couple of pears, green and red anjou, if I remember right. I know they're going to be good because every other single piece of fruit I've bought here over the years has been. I trust fruit from Draper Girls.
 

When I go to the Farmers Market, I have to have enough money with me to get a box of Cherry Country Dried Cherries & Milk and Dark Chocolate. So outta sight good, melting chocolate and chewy cherries. I can eat them one at a time without cheating myself by eating them more quickly. I really can! There are 20 in the eight ounce box. I like to get the mixed chocolate because variety is the spice of life. I also got a jar of Montmorency Tart Cherry Jam. I shall have Pearl Bakery honey wheat toast and Cherry County jam for breakfast this week. I am blessed.
 

I bought Farmhouse Country Style Pate, to which I readily admit I am addicted. You can see tidbits of it there on the edge of the cutting board, right in front of the Chop man. In my haste to get into the package, I tore through the label, rendering it unreadable. To tell you the truth, I'll be buying it again before too long; I'll be more careful so that I can share the ingredients with you--I'll even take a photo of the slab inside the butcher paper.
 

Finally, I bought a bunch of both the yellow irises and the purple irises. I stopped by the Blue Diamond on the way home and left them for the sweetest bartender in town, Janessa. Her birthday is this Wednesday, so those flowers are her birthday happy from me.

I've been sick for a few days, and now I'm sick at heart.

After what's happened in Boston, I cannot focus on photos.  

April 11 movement--a pedestrian in my NE Portland neighborhood

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April 2 I stopped after I had passed this young woman so that I could take a photo of her as she crossed NE Sandy at NE 20th. Can you guess what first brought her to my attention? Was it the heavy shopping bags? Her jacket that says Devil Woman on back? Her hat? Nope, it was those platform shoes. I used to wear platform shoes, open-toe sling-backs. Never platform boots. Oh, did you notice the home of Oregon Children's Theatre in the background? Or the yellow Mini Cooper?
 

Here's the original photo, for comparison.

April 10, the movement of pigeons and automobiles. Where have they gone?

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On January 26, 2013, I noticed the pigeons once again swirling above the intersection of NE MLK and East Burnside, at the west end of the used car lot. I've seen them off and on since I moved to Northeast Portland in January, 2011, flying in all directions at this intersection, sitting on the wires between utility poles and on the billboard above the mid-century roof of the used car lot. Once I had seen the pigeons being fed by a man as I stood at the bus/streetcar stop just a few steps to the right, out of this photo. On this particular day, I happened to discover that the man feeding them came out of the office at this used car lot. See several photos on this topic, below.
 

The evening of March 23, on my way home after the members' party at the Oregon Rail Heritage Center which is south of here, imagine my surprise when I saw this sight  from the bus shelter on East Burnside. No used cars beneath the roof, just a few left at the back edge of the lot, far from the street. When had someone moved the cars? Why? A quick Google revealed no online evidence of going out of business connected with this business. A mystery.
 

Here's a photo that I took on March 29, trying to capture the vast emptiness of the lot. I like that the Big Pink towers in the background, several blocks past the other end of the Burnside Bridge, less than a mile from where I stood to take this photo.



Back to the pigeons and their movement. The original billboard, pigeons perched, taken on January 26. 
 

The pigeons take flight because the man who feeds them has come out of the office and is walking west, to feed them across MLK, just south of the bus/streetcar shelter where I had seen once while I waited to transfer from one bus to the other. Can you see him? He's towards the bottom left corner of this closely cropped photo, smack dab between two poles. 



Once he's tossed all of the bird food onto the sidewalk, the man crosses the street and goes back to the office. The pigeons ignore his movement, way more interested in eating  than in following him. I suppose the actions of these pigeons prove that they are capable of learning. 
 

The original billboard, minus the pigeons along its top edge--they're over to the right on the utility wires. I bet they're wondering what's happened to the man who used to come out of that yellow structure with the blue roof, carrying an orange bucket of bird food for them. 



Another surprise. The new billboard, photographed on April 2. One pigeon perched.

April 7-8, the movement was me, out and about and/or at work, so no post. April 9, the movement is a young Trail Blazers' fan on the court to greet the players!

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I HOPE YOU ENJOY ALL 10 OF THESE PHOTOS!




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No. 9

  

No. 10

April 6, the movement of the Portland Trail Blazers' mascot, Blaze

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Blaze runs out onto the court and circles center court several times, all the while with this huge flag flying out behind him. At the April 5 game against the Houston Rockets, I took this photo, which I particularly like because both of Blaze's feet are off the court for just the split second that it took for the Nikon D50 to take the photo. Cool, if you ask me.

April 5, the potential movement of Ratty Caddy, in all its new, customized glory--close-ups.

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Ratty Caddy, close-up #1.





Ratty Caddy, close-up #2.
   

Ratty Caddy, close-up #3.




Ratty Caddy, close-up #4.




Ratty Caddy, close-up #5.




Ratty Caddy, close-up #6.

April 4, the potential movement of Ratty Caddy, in all its new, customized glory.

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Seen at the Portland Roadster Show at the Portland Expo Center, Saturday, March 16, 2013. When I got off the MAX Yellow Line to walk across the huge parking lot to buy myself a ticket for the show, I had two goals. Find Ratty Caddy. Hang around long enough to see Marti Brom's rockabilly show. Around seven hours later, I had accomplished both goals and once again walked across the parking lot, to catch the MAX back downtown so that I could make my connection with the homeward bound bus. I had a blast. 

The highlight of the car show, when Ratty Caddy's owner Dave recognized me although we've only seen each other in person once, back on July 16, 2011, when he had Ratty Caddy at the Cars in the Park, Multnomah Hot Rod Club show as part of the Portland Art Museum's tribute to their exhibit known as The Allure of the Automobile. We talked then, I admired the car, he said it was OK for me to get in the driver's seat for a photo, and I asked if we could be Facebook friends. Dave agreed and we've been keeping up with each other and our love of well-designed automobiles, be they customized or not, ever since. 

So, when I walked up beside the car at the Portland Roadster Show and took a few photos, waiting for him to finish visiting with another admirer before I got his attention, lo and behold he saw me and said, "Lynette!" and reached out to give me a hug, going on to say how glad he was that I had come to the show and that I needed to get behind the wheel again for a new photo. You see one of the three that he took with my Nikon--thanks, Dave!

Come back tomorrow for some close-ups and other views. Plus, if I could get the link to work, I'd set you up to see Ratty Caddy as it looked in 2011. It won't work, but if you are curious--and I certainly hope that you are--please go to the search box at the top left of the blog and type Ratty Caddy. You should get the chance to see it in all is former, customized glory.

P. S. I'm wearing the Twisted Car Club T-shirt that Dave had sent to me by U. S. Mail. Thanks--I love that shirt!

April 3, the movement of a couple dancing to rockabilly from Levi Dexter and the band

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Seen at the Portland Roadster Show at the Portland Expo Center, Saturday, March 16, 2013. This guy danced with two women at once later on, a couple of times. This particular time, he reached into his right hip pocket, pulled out his comb, and made certain that his rocking and rolling had not ruined his modern-mixed-with-vintage-almost-ducktail.

April 1, the movement of pedestrians. April 2, the movement of vehicles.

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Saturday night, March 16, I first rode the MAX Yellow Line from the Portland Expo Center where I had enjoyed the Portland Roadster Show - yea, Ratty Caddy - and some fine rockabilly - yea, Marti Brom and Levi Dexter. I got off the MAX at SW 5th and Pine, walked around the corner and waited for the bus home on West Burnside, at the stop in front of the 76 station, known as the SW 4th Avenue bus stop. 

Here comes the 12 Sandy Blvd., my bus. I've tried many times to get a good photo of an approaching bus at night--success, finally. 

And I like how the photo shows the width of West Burnside. Here's what I found online at the city's Web site about the widening of the street: By 1931, the need for more roadway space led to a street widening project on both East and West Burnside. On the west, Burnside was widened from the bridge approach to the Park Blocks. Building fronts were chopped off and rebuilt at the new sidewalk line to add an extra lane. On the east side, the first floor of many buildings became an arcade to accommodate a new sidewalk as the old sidewalk gave way to another traffic lane.



Here's the photo, cropped a bit, just because I am so excited about how great the headlights and tail lights look, how swell it is to be able to read the number and the name of the bus.