It was one of those days where I just had to get out of the house.
Didn’t know where I would be going or what I would do once I got there.
However, as the cliche goes, it wasn’t the destination that mattered.
After a bit of wandering I found myself walking the streets of North
Mississippi. It was a pleasant change to experience the neighborhood
during the day as all my previous trips had been at night to the many
wonderful restaurants in the area. It is amazing what you discover by
the light of day.

Places like Video Verite!

Finally, a movie rental establishment with some class! Look, I love
the neighborhood that I currently reside within. However, my only
rental option within walking distance is a rental company that was
recently made famous for their ever-so slightly fraudulent “No more
late fees!” campaign, to say nothing of their reputation for editing
films that they determine to be too obscene or profane. Thank the
deities that corporate America wants to protect my sensibilities!

Anyway, this is not about them. This is about the fine rental establishment that is Video Verite!

I was thrilled to find this well-stocked collection on Mississippi.
I know this may upset some of you Luddites out there, but with VHS
going the way of cassette tapes and 8-tracks, Video Verite traffics
solely in crisp and clear DVDs. While I still own a VCR, its days are
numbered. As soon as Barney Miller makes the transition to DVD, I can
send my tape player to the thrift shop along with my rapidly
deteriorating bootleg recordings of the series.

The folks at Video Verite love movies. They feature a carefully
curated selection that has nothing to do with carrying a dozen copies
of the Spongebob Squarepants movie. Video Verite is better known for
offering a diverse range of quality films. Within a few minutes I was
able to find copies of out of print and rare films that have eluded me
for many, many years. However, don’t think you won’t be able to find a
copy of the latest Hollywood release; Video Verite carries a little bit
of everything, a concept that is sorely lacking in most video rental
locations.

Video Verite also encourages their patrons to stick around once
they’ve made their media selections. A lounge area in the back of the
store encourages visitors to stay a while and play board games or talk
about films. Their knowledgeable and friendly staff also makes Video
Verite a pleasure to browse. It was evident after speaking for just a
few minutes with the staff at Video Verite that they love to talk about
and study films. When a staff member sees a movie in your hand and
offers up another title based on your current choice, they are doing so
because then genuinely believe you will like the film; not because they
were told to promote a certain product.

Video Verite wants to do more then rent videos to their customers.
They also want to get people talking about and enjoy films. In doing
so, Video Verite has prepared a small screening room in the basement of
their store. Following a sign in the back of the store and a short set
of stairs down you will discover a modest screening room in which Video
Verite organizes movie nights. Although small, the screening room has
the feel of an intimate art house theatre with its short rows of
original theatre seating. A small but well stocked concession supply
next to the checkout counter ensures you can bring home all the
comforts you expect during a night at the movies.

Video Verite is a wonderful alternative to the cookie cutter video
rental stores that have been slowly engulfing the American landscape
over the years. Stop by Video Verite or contact them at 503-445-9902.
You’ll be surprised and pleased at what you find!

Video Verite
3956 N Mississippi Avenue
Portland, OR 97227
503-445-9902

Chin Yen Lounge
18 NE 28th Ave
Portland, OR 97232
(503) 231-7781

The brunette with the cute Drew Barrymore lisp rocks with pleasure. “I LOVE IT when I get bought beers by guys who are leaving in cabs!”

She is, too ” loving it ” with two bottles of Miller High Life in front of her and a bucket-sized shot of whiskey on the way. She giggles and sputters and obviously loves to tell the story about how she dropped out of high school to travel Europe on five hundred dollars. The night is off with a bang.

As the Radio City black-and white-pulls away, I turn to the other woman at our table, a midwestern dirty-blonde with wide rangy eyes, in the hopes of securing an unspoken connection in the midst of this one-woman crazy-with-life-revue. Her eyes grow even more expressive and the message is clear, and promising: this is just the barest taste of what regulars in this bar enjoy on a nightly basis. I ready myself for the details tonight I seek the secrets of the Chin Yen Lounge.

Ah, the Chin Yen it has been a year and a half since my last visit and the place is still the same motel hallway I (barely) remember. A clear case of function ruling form; the proper Chinese restaurant adjoining might as well be in another country.

Located just off the intersection of 28th and NE Burnside a corner anchored by the popular Laurelhurst Theater this charmingly inauspicious lounge affords passersby little sidewalk splash, just a pinball machine standing up front by the floor-to-ceiling windows. Inside is even more drab. Upon entering, a bottle-stuffed bar back against the wall and a smattering of pre-fab Chinese tradition is all that saves the space from total aesthetic obscurity. Essentially, the Chin Yen (and I shudder for the phrase) “is what it is” a place for locals to gather and get hammered.

And as such, we can expect that there are stories to learn and details to glean, and to that end, tonight I’ve enlisted a friend the woman with the wide rangy eyes to impart a few choice tidbits. Of course, she is not alone her friend, so happy to hold court at our table, joins in frequently. This is how my notebook reads, such that it ever is.

- The girl with wide rangy eyes confesses that seventy-eight percent of her time in the Chin Yen has been spent on the floor in front the bar. I have a hard time believing that.

- She also claims that all the regulars have seen her breasts. How many times? “How do I know, it’s not like I was there!”

- Bartender J is evil. Good evil, as in, lighting a candle between two strangers at the bar in hopes that they start making out evil.

- Candles are not required for regulars. There’s lots of indiscriminate making out in the Chin Yen.

The women at my table estimate that they’ve made out together in the Chin Yen at least a half dozen times.

- The Chin Yen has no set Happy Hour; there is no need. Drinks are cheap and the pours heavy. Devastatingly leaden.

- The unisex bathroom in the back is said to have been recently the site of a very odd presentation of human waste, bundled like a present. That is, thankfully, rare. Take comfort in the fact that the bathroom is much more likely to be used for displays of nakedness and hurried sex acts.

- Regulars really can’t get ‘86-ed from the Chin Yen. Cut-off, yes. A line seems to be drawn at farting in pint glasses, stealing bar stools and horsing around with the free-standing Chin Yen sign on the sidewalk.

- In one case, a bartender showered a regular with a bucket of water, and then cut her off.

- Chin Yen bartenders get what they ask for, purposefully re-filling shot glasses when a favored regular’s back is turned.

The strength of the Chin Yen drink is daunting and debilitating. The girl with the wide rangy eyes only drinks beer there now. “I like a heavy pour,” she explains, “but not to the point of being killed.”

The brunette with the cute lisp disagrees, shaking her head, eyes in her lap. “Whiskey is yummy.”

“Yeah,” Wide Eyes responds, “but not in PINTS.”

By this point, that seventy-eight percent figure is starting to sound reasonable.

Portland for free? For freeee? I would shriek my old neighbor, for free they’re not even gonna give you a kick nowadays.

I heard her before, but this time I am set to find out all kinds of activities that one can do for free in Portland as well as a lot of things that one can have for free.

To start, there are plenty of parks where one can play basketball or tennis without shelling out one penny. Last summer, some friends visited me from Europe, and they were stunned by the fact that we don’t have to pay a dime to play tennis. In Europe they have to pay for playing tennis: 10 euros an hour, nearly 15 dollars and that in the cheapest places, my friends told me. Well, here in Portland we can have that for free. Just buy your rackets which you can find for nearly free at any Goodwill store, by the way, and you are set to become the next Agassi or Kournikova, for free. 

If you want free food, you can have that too in Portland. Just go to any Zupan, or Wild Oats market and, by the time you are finished tasting their cheeses, their gourmet bruschetta toppings, their cold cuts, their wines, you have had dinner, and what a dinner!

After dinner do you want entertainment? There’s plenty of that free too. Reed College offers, very often, concerts of classical music that are free to anyone. Just check with them. Another college that offers free music is Warner Pacific on SE Division and 69^th Avenue.

The Old Church, which by the way is not longer a church but an event hall, downtown, offers a free concert every Wednesday at noon. Just put your lunch in a brown bag and off you go. They are called the brown bag concerts, and they always feature all kinds of musicians and even opera singers.

Recently they have held concerts also at night followed by receptions. At these receptions, they offer gourmet cheeses and wines, veggies and fruits to please any palate, all kinds of chips and dips of organic nature, not to offend anyone’s stomach.

PSU is also offering freebies sometimes. Check with the music department at Lincoln Center, and you will find out about all the concerts performed by the music school graduates. Those concerts are, you guess, free.

You don’t like classical music? No problem! Get thee to the library downtown and go up to the music room, where you can hear anything for free from the most sophisticated baroque music to the newest hard rock and rap pieces that send teenagers in a frenzy. All you have to do is find the CD or the tape and wear the headphones, and you are in for a lot of free entertainment.

Free medical care? You cannot believe this? Well, this is America: no free medicine for anyone! Wrong! At SE Clinton and 19^th Avenue, MD doctors will take care of anyone’s illness for free at their homeopathic clinic. Homeopathy is that branch of medicine that cures illness with a small dose of the same (homos is Greek for same) agent that causes the illness and it works. In Germany and all over Europe many doctors use this practice.

The library doesn’t offer only books and annoying scholastic tomes, but also magazines, just about all the ones that are being published in America and even some foreign ones. I have already talked about the free music, and that is not all; you can even borrow art from the library. Let us say you have a party with important people and you want to impress them and show them how sophisticated and educated you are, you go to the library and borrow all the prints you want from the most famous painters in the world and you can instantly transform your dumb house into an intellectual paradise.

You want to know about books but don’t want, or you don’t have the time to, read?

Powell’s Books on 10^th and Burnside, as well as other bookstores in town, offers writer readings, where you not only get to know a book without reading it, but you can also shake hands with famous writers and poets, all for free.

On Sundays just about all churches give out free breakfast complete with fruit, doughnuts and coffee and many different kinds of tea. If you go to the Holy Trinity Orthodox Greek Church on Glisan and 35^th , you can even have an organic breakfast with wheat kernels and yogurt.

Check out the churches for concerts too. They often host full orchestra concerts inside their sanctuaries, and you may attend for free.

In summer you can swim for nearly free at many community centers such as Montavilla and Creston Park. The cost of swimming is a few dollars, which I consider a freebie compared to the prices of swimming pools in Europe, as reported by my friends.

Are you so bored one day that you wouldn’t know were to turn for solace and human contact? Go to NE Alberta Street. That is where art is down to earth and the artists really human. While in the Pearl District you never meet the artists, and the art is kind of stuck up, Alberta is a breath of fresh air for many reasons. You find great art yes, but also art of a more humble kind, like jewelry and clothing and walking sticks, made by artists with an eye to please the common public, not just rich art collectors. Visiting all the artist coops is an adventure and a pleasure, and you can go home with some nice piece that is not only functional but also beautiful.

At the Saturday Market, under the Burnside Bridge, you usually find entertainment for free for your kids provided by various clowns, puppeteers, Elvis impersonators, and so forth. That is every Saturday and every Sunday from March to December.

If you care to check, all throughout the year there are Festivals of this or that nature where food vendors will offer a taste of their goods. These are people who make the food, and sell it on their own, without intermediaries, so you not only find the freshest quality at the best prices, but you also get to eat enough for free to fill you up for a dinner, because all vendors offer

free samples of each one of their products.

Theater is expensive? You bet, but all the same I have seen just about all the plays by Shakespeare for free last summer in all the parks around town and they weren’t shabby either. The costumes were great, and the actors all future Hollywood stars in my book.

Want to dance? That too is offered for free too. At the Polish Church in Overlook Park on Interstate Avenue, every Friday they have free dancing. They dance Polka, Mazurka, and the Polonaise, which is the Polish Waltz, but better.

Other dance groups such as contra-dance, Irish dance, and so forth also offer free classes before every dance.

All that I have described until now is going on all year round.

During the holiday season, starting from Halloween until Christmas and New Year’s Eve, one cannot even count the many free events. Pumpkin patches, haunted houses, free candies and chocolates are all over town. The fun continues until the new year with free concerts, pageants, free theatre shows, for the joy of children and grownups alike.

Last , but not least, senior citizen can have a free lunch in any community center, all year round, offered by Loaves and Fishes. All you have to do is sign up and be 65 or over.

1. Council Crest Park:

Well worth the winding drive, Council Crest is blessed with panoramic views of Portland and the many mountains beyond. Located 1037 feet up, the park has a few benches, a handy identification guide for the peaks you are looking at, and nice grass for a blanket. On windy days, bring a kite (watch for trees!). When you are finished with your picnic, explore some of the trails that crisscross the park- don’t walk to far, though, or you’ll end up downtown.

2. Tom McCall Waterfront Park:

Sometimes everyone else liking it means you will too. A Portland trademark since it opened in 1978, Waterfront Park offers a perfect blend of fantastic people watching, beautiful riverscapes, and large expanses of space. Plan ahead during the warm days of summer- the park is frequently used for events and prime picnic spots go quickly when the sun is out.

3. Pittock Mansion:

On the west hills outside of Portland sits a grand old mansion with grand landscaping and both available for public enjoyment. Surrounded by gorgeous flower beds and scenic trails, the front lawn of the mansion is perfect for a picnic. Enjoy the quiet of the countryside while admiring the city from afar; it’s clear why building the house in 1912 was well worth the hassle. Leave time to explore the mansion, something everyone should do at least once; call 503-823-3624 for information.

4. Nansen Summit:

Not formally recognized as a park, this is a lovely place that nobody wants you to know about. Very small and private, Nansen Summit sits at the very top in the middle of a residential neighborhood. Technically in Lake Oswego, you can access it from Capitol Highway in Portland, just follow the signs. With nothing but grass and a couple of benches, Nansen Summit is still the best place in town to watch a sunset.

5. Peninsula Park:

The original Portland Rose Garden, Peninsula Park is now largely forgotten. Located in North Portland off of Ainsworth Street, there is plenty of room to roam. With terraced levels, fountains, and unbelievable roses, Peninsula Park is a reminder of years gone past. They just don’t design parks like this anymore and Peninsula Park will make you wish they did.

We don’t mind the rain in Portland and like walking  in it. It changes the way things look and the way people react. We have tons of great coffee houses and a good cup of coffee tastes that much better when the air is crisp and slightly damp. We understand if you should choose to use an umbrella, we won’t hold it against you. But when given the chance to walk on a sunny spring day in Portland the smells and the fresh air are intoxicating. Many  unique and interesting shops are all over downtown that are so easily missed by car, and if necessary there is a light rail, buses and  cable cars to help you cover a little more distance when necessary. Take a stroll along the river, there is often activity there and entertainment to take in. Summers here are mild and we often have about two minths with 0 rainfall, so forget what you have heard about it raining all the time, I think that was a campain to keep people away. Finally walking allows contact with Portlanders who are indeed an interesting lot, so take time for a stroll when visiting downtown Portland so you can go away having really experienced this fine city.

The Lucky Lab lives up to its name: there is an assortment of Labrador dog pictures lining the back wall and on a nice day, everyone sitting outside has brought their own lucky dog with them. At a convenient location near downtown, but not in the heart of congestion… the brewpub is a nice place to gather after work or on the weekends. A large roomy interior and covered exterior gives one a variety of seating options. The food is mostly grilled bento style dishes that taste great with their superb selection of micro brewed beers.

I always enjoyed the play on word for the Laurelthirst pub in the Laurelhurst neighborhood. It is an excellent place to satisfy your thirst at many levels. While it is quite small, the setting is cozy. As long as the crowd isn’t too big, you can sit and relax while enjoying a beer and listening to music. But be warned if the event is going to bring a large crowd avoid it or show up early and grab a table and enjoy the atmosphere before the crowds set in.

Oswego Point is a fancy brewpub with an amazing view. My favorite spot is in one of their round booths by the bar area, near the large windows looking over the river. We love to snuggle into the cushions savoring a rich brew looking out over the Willamette. Happy hour is the best time to visit, as the restaurant can really get hopping at dinnertime. The service was consistently decent and the food reasonable, but the beer and atmosphere kept us coming back for more.

Let the ol Irish leprechaun come out in you at Kells. It is no surprise that this restaurant and bar is hopping on St. Patrick’s Day, but is also a nice stop any time of year. Traditional Irish food and a large overflowing beer selection is standard fair at this pub. Imagine the taverns from the highland movies and create the perfect image in your mind of the atmosphere at Kells. Long wood tables encourage group conversation, combined with a pint of suds; there is no clear direction in where the night might take you.

Ever used to dream of cracking open a beer in class? Maybe just pulling out a hamburger and fries while you listened to the teacher lecture! Even if you were the smiling apple in school, there is something intriguing about drinking and eating at your local schoolhouse. You will find this experience in force at McMenamins Kennedy School. Once again the brothers have done an outstanding job of transforming an old building into something truly unique. Tour the halls of paintings, stay the night in the remodeled classrooms, watch a movie in the gym, what ever your pleasure, you can find it here.

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