God I love that song. I think it's the "doo do doo doo" that really does it for me.

You are right Carla, I'm so glad I left Texas. Now only if I wasn't extremely allergic to grass pollen...

Funny how Portlanders pretend that they like their gray, dizzly climate, but go into ecstasy every time the sun comes out for a day or two.

I actually prefer the mist and the silvery blue to the heat. Call me a turncoat native Oregonian. I like the mud, the mist, the moist intimacy.

How about the Beatles, huh? Every now and then it hits me again in a new way. This is supposed to be their 3rd best lead singer - meaning the 2 backup vocals were lead singing legends in their own right? Absolutely incredible. Plus, this is the 3rd best song writer in the band? And he writes this song with it's sophisticated breaks and overall excellence. Where do you begin to calculate the odds of the Beatles forming?

  Finally, how about the drums? It was once considered standard humor to make fun of Ringo's drums but the greatness in the drums on  a song like this just grows more and more obvious as the years go on.

  One good move I made as a Tribune columnist was to parlay it into being just offstage at a Ringo concert at the Schnitz. It was really mind-blowing to watch Ringo rock out especially with Sheila E on "Glamorous Life". Ringo is a beast on the drums - a great artist.

  I looked out at the crowd and everyone was smiling. That's all you could see from the first row back. Thousands of smiles. Sort of like yesterday.

  God, I love this group and I love Portland even when it rains. You know the lyrics talk about a "long cold lonely winter", but this year it was a long cold lonely Spring! But "here comes the sun, and it's all right."

When I was young I loved the Beatles but was very technique oriented as a fan. That meant drummers like Billy Cobham, Mel Brown, and Steve Gadd. There is no way you could argue that Steve Gadd isn't a better drummer than Ringo. He can play it all from touring with Clapton to drum/bass funk solos with Stanley Clarke. So there's that way of looking at it for sure.

  But as I got older I started hearing the greatness in Charlie Watts a lot more clearer. I stepped back from the technical comparisons and ultimately began hearing the drummer's spirit or soul. This last time at the Rose Garden he was magnificent. Good technical finesse for sure, but a deep spirit as well. He was saying something and it was great art.  
   If you judge it like that, Ringo is incredible. His spirit is outstanding and it's in these tracks. In fact, it's not a drum track so much as he's playing the song. You could call it simple drumming but it's very deep in other ways. He's taking pieces of wood and skins and breathing life into them. I now realize Ringo is a Hall of Fame drummer. Just listen to Day in the Life. Those are not drum fills as much as drum voices.

Great state but paradise? Honey you ain't never been to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. -Orygun native; UNC alumni-

Yes, Bill: yes yes yes yes YES! He is not a great or genius drummer. But he fit the bill.

Spazzed out and hit send.

I am reminded of the brown paper bag eloquence of some of the Cherokee elders I spent time with. They'd say in six plain words what would take you an entire few days to cipher... grasping for the is-ness the way your entire body grapples for the Truth of pure water straight out of the spring. REally.

Thanks, Carla. Lovely bright spot in a difficult day.

Two things to remember, IMHO. Landscape complexity that stimulates primate interest (read: "purty") is directly proportional to the degree that it is geologically active. We may only have a big earthquake once every 300 years, but when we do, it will be the largest one recorded for hundreds of years. Of course, earthquakes don't kill people, buildings do. Our codes are woefully inadequate, we have so much legacy/exempt structure as to make them of no consequence anyway, and when a 9.5 hits it won't be pretty.

Second, hell is other people. Paradise full of Americans is an even more acute hell. This area was much better off, and owes ALL IT'S CULTURAL UNIQUENESS to it's pre-US days, when it was British until well into the 19th century. Put another way, when the bridges come down in the big one, name ONE THING that will entitle the typical crap-as-usual American city on the West bank to call itself "Portland"? Without SE, there is no "Portland". Cheney does his midnight rendezvous routine here with just as much impunity, with just as much waste of tax dollars, as he does in any other city. You can shut your eyes and imagine you're in paradise anywhere.

So, it could be paradise. The population will make sure it isn't, but then, I think of that first consideration I mentioned as a possible paradise. De gustibus non est disputandum, I guess.

I should have mentioned that I agree 100% with Carla's sentiments, particularly the green onion bit. I can tell you that I've been mighty chuffed over my head lettuce this week. Regularly I get out of state job offers and have to say no to very cushy arrangements, because all my life technologies would break down horribly without our mild weather and local advantages.

I was just saying that that usually happens in spite. Along with that sentiment, there's something else, and Kevin drove that nail right through the other side of the board!

OK, to the tune of "Rule Britannia" , "Rule Cascadia, Cascadia holds the key, When you think there's no way out recall your history"

Oh, with so many Beeb listeners on BO, I should mention that, yes, that IS the classic BBC sign-off that was permanently retired 4 years ago.

Oh, come on Paul. Get over your savanna mentality! I have a simple test of judging claims about perfect weather. Apricots. They are the ultimate judges, and ours are damned good. Why do you think Texas and Georgia grow so many peaches?

Seriously, an awful lot of consumer energy waste has to do with making places that are nothing like savanna look and feel like it. Personally, I'm a radical on the point, and say that if you can't live someplace without central heat and/or air, then you shouldn't live there. And anyone that chooses to have it, when they don't need it...AHHEMMM, like HERE...just doesn't give a shit about the right things.

So, I'm saying that the sentiment behind the original post is actually good for the environment. If you can love Oregon's weather, you take the pressure off everywhere else!

One other environmental note for like minded radicals. Days like yesterday, when it hit 77, feel just as nice as the tropical-over-30 days, but allow an interesting consumer test. Shop around your favorite establishments on those days. Note who is running the AC. Then, factor that into where you spend your money. Hey, it's the only criteria by which you'll note that Trader Joe's and Hummer share a common marketing strategy. They both think that having really high ceilings is totally awesome. Then they have to heat/cool all that surplus air...because it looks awesome, screw the environment. The fact that it's no bigger a problem at TJ's than at Hummer, shows the depth of personal environmental action and consciousness.

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