The Plaid Jungle of Anti-establishment.

Friday night was the birthday party for the ex-girlfriend of a chick from Philly who I hadn't met yet, but she left me a sign on the whiteboard I left in an elevator last Saturday night. So, what the hell, right?

My girlfriend (update: I do not have one of these anymore), Isreal, and I met this lovely group of limb-tangled ladies at Blitz Bar, your local shitshow festival. Blitz is not trendy. Blitz does not have a dress code. Blitz is a sports bar where you get drunk with loud animals and sometimes people.

One guy was wearing a Viking helmet while playing drinking games to men's track and field, and I had a 23 minute conversation with another guy who was self-concsious about his mustache because of his friends' ridicule, only he was beaming from tiny sideburn to tiny sideburn after I explained to him how awesomely incredible the authority you instantly obtain while rocking a lip rug is.

I've worn the handlebars a few times in my day. The only way to beat an uncommonly endowed blonde to a bartender's attention is to rock a fantastic mustache. You win every time. It's fascinating.

Mustachio and I ended our conversation with him finishing up his drunken flirt barrage (not even upset, honored) of my girlfriend, and us deciding 'yes' on his purchase of Rogaine to really give that 'stache the full-on fox-tail look.

So back to the ladies who are into ladies. And I don't feel like I really need to bring up their sexuality for any other reason than "I get along so damn well with lesbians." I think it's because our goals are so common. We wear guy pants, talk about sports, and just love diving headfirst into a deliciously tender spread of ... vegetables. Peas, carrots, etc. Macronutrients of the highest order.

Annie and Rachel (two of the said above) were dating in Philly and decided to do what every semi-adverturous 20-something does when Siberian winters and all-too-serious society become our exact replication of hell - retire to Portland.  They moved into a loft in my apartment building, and then decided to break up three weeks later. I'd sooner end my life than live in a room with an ex-girlfriend. On the other hand, they seemed to be doing just fine and are both dating other people. To decrease (or increase, not sure yet) the awkwardness of two sets of lesbians sleeping together in a loft, Rachel got a tent. She dives headfirst into peas, carrots, etc. in a tent, in a loft, six stories up, in an apartment building.*

I'm not sure how this could have gotten any weirder until it was explained to me that Rachel was a professional dog walker...

And then we went to an arcade bar named Ground Kontrol. Yes, the best parts of childhood and your 20s sandwiched into one establishment. Check out the game list: http://groundkontrol.com/arcade/index.php I grabbed a beer and Isreal and I played some NBA jam. You that read correctly as well.

If sports games don't tickle your fancy, next, we loaded up the fake blue and red plastic magnums that reload when you shoot off screen and tackled the zombie apocalypse in The House of the Dead. My girlfriend and I went to war with the zombie apocalypse while drinking local IPA. Suck on that.


We walked around for a bit to check out some more of the barcade. This place is just genius. Remember those nights in college where all your friends went home with chicks, and you were stuck with going home alone and play video games drunk by yourself (just work with me please)?

This place solves everything. You play video games alone? Go to Ground Kontrol and find a friend. You struck out at the club? Ground Kontrol. You eat some mushrooms and get lost in downtown Portland? Definitely go to Ground Kontrol. Find some other dorks and tackle Shaq and Penny with Horace and Scottie or play Demolition Man Pinball.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention - Their whole second floor is filled with old-school pinball machines.  And yes, of course I chose Wesley Snipes and Sly Stallone to watch over me as I slowly transformed into a pinball wizard.

The next morning, Isreal and I had breakfast at the Cornerstone Bakery. I watched as a dog barked for her owner, while in the Pearl District, wearing Pearls on her collar. A little irony and fried egg to start my day. Portland you are b-e-a-utiful.

*The celibacy or lack-there-of pertaining to Rachel or any other ladies is completely assumed by myself. Names and details are changed for the sake of me never having to ask people if I can blog about them. For all I know, these lesbians are born-again Christians. And for all I also know, I'm assuming the prior sentence has never been written before.