The night was young. (the real story)

The options for Fox students on a Friday night go something like this.
1. play Call of Duty
2. do homework
3. go to Portland if you are from Oregon and aren't scared of one-way streets
4.do more homework
5. head to the coast (in the fall it's more aptly named the rain)
6. go to bed at 8:30

After having explored all other options this semester, myself and my mates: John from Penn 1, Alex, Sergio, and Keenan were left with but one option; brave the one-way, biker infested, bus and max-train molested streets of Portland. Bridgeport Village and the premier of 2012 were our first stop.

Now normally I would peg myself as an optimist. Usually, I can find at least something funny to think about, even in the worst of scenarios. But on this occasion, I consider it morally irresponsible of myself to find something positive about that movie. Not that it was bad in the moral sense of depicting indecent situations or inappropriate themes, but more in the way that a dog hotel in Los Angeles is. It is a grievous waste of money for all parties involved: actors, producers, studio, and viewers. For my sanity's sake I shall not suffer the pain of reliving that atrocity of film, but I shall leave this thought with the mentioning of the most important part of that experience: I felt like I threw ten dollars in the trash.

The night was looking grim at that point in our journey, so we headed into the heart of Portland with no plan to see if fate would guide us to compensation for our time and money. While looking for parking, we were almost ran into by a gang of instrument carrying transvestite musicians who were running out of the building faster than the run in their red pantyhose.

"hmmm...." I thought. "That's interesting. Not entirely unusual for this part of Portland, but interesting nonetheless." We parked the truck and began to walk in the direction of the transvestite parade. It was a little too cold for us, and we all were kinda sick, and had to go to the bathroom, and were annoyed by our loss of money, but the night would have much more in store for us.

As we crossed Burnside street, we crossed in front of the Roseland Theater. By the look of the crowd of 14 year old girls, we could tell that it had to be some sort of effeminate boy band-type emo group playing that night. Sure enough, it was All Time Low. As we got to the back of the theater we noticed yet another gaggle of tweens chattering excitedly like an experiment on the effects of caffeine and sucrose on the diet of chipmunks gone awry. "It's All Time Low!!!" I screamed as I sprinted across the street with mocking enthusiasm.

"No it's not," said a rather short, stout and multi-colored little girl. "It's WeTheKings!"

"Oh yes my favorite!! I yelled with a little more enthusiasm. "Myspace Pic!". We pushed through the crowd right up to the band and started posing with them. I'm not sure if it was Travis or Hunter, Dan or Drew (names courtesy of wikipedia) but I got my arm around one, and boy was he high.

After our attention span for mocking ran short, we continued on our journey to reclaim our ten dollars. Just down the road was Ford's. The little cafe had a few extremely Portland looking people, chewing and talking loudly about the drunk woman who had stumbled down the stairs in a red cocktail dress. We pretty perfectly fit the part of George Fox students in Portland, so you don't have to have too great of an imagination to guess how we were treated by the man (or suspected [by me] serial killer) at the counter. The bathroom was full, and even if it wasn't it was only for paying customers he quickly informed us. But we were hungry and male, so there were few things that would deter us from that magical aroma wafting from the kitchens perfectly seasoned grill, no matter what this man would tell us. We ordered and waited. We were sure that the man was spitting or at least coughing in our food. But after the first bite, all fears and trepidation were replaced with pure ecstasy. The bacon avocado burger I ordered was perfect. Pink in the middle, thick pepper bacon, avocado applied tastefully. It was a dream. We were starting to feel our wallets getting just the tiniest bit thicker from money reclaimed this night.

After leaving the restaurant, and the best burger I have ever had, the only option to finish off such a meal was clear to all of us. Coffee. I knew of a place just a few doors down that served Stumptown coffee late at night, so we decided to give it a go. The lights were off and it looked like it was closed, but just as we looked through the glass door, we began to hear music being made within. Sergio pushed open the door and we found what would be the best part of our night. A funk-fusion jazz hip-hop group was having a jam session this lucky Friday night, and we weren't going to miss it for all the Call of Duty in the world. The band was decent when we first arrived, but more than anything, they were interesting. We were the only people in the place it seemed besides the man at the counter and the group. As more people came in, the music felt like it was being fed by the energy of the people coming through the door. Within a half an hour there was about twenty-five people listening. We heard several different free-style rappers hit the mic, including a guy by the name of Joe Cool. Joe Cool was pretty cool, as his name dictated. He wore a bright white sweater vest and rapped a little incomprehensibly; as he set the mic down, another picked it up. The next guy was dressed like he was on his way to a business meeting in 1930. He was as dapper as I've seen and when he rapped, we listened. He talked about pertinent things like life as a student, and the choice of paying for your education for the rest of your life or paying for not getting an education for the rest of your life. We never learned his name, but he was real.

Unfortunately, as the music progressed, so did the volume of beer consumed by the audience, which led to a compulsion from said audience members to take the mic and mumble-rap swear words until they were too dizzy to talk anymore, at which point they would sit down just long enough to drink more beer and rap more. Obviously this led to a decrease in the quality of the music, so we departed, but we knew were leaving with the remainder of our ten dollars. We had got our money's worth after all, so we headed home, heads filled with dreams of someday starting our own funk fusion jazz hip-hop group, and mouths filled with freestyles about our oppression from the Newberg Police Department.