Duke's Landing, 2715 SE Belmont St, Portland, Oregon... I'm gonna be mean

Reasons why I won’t be going back to Duke’s Landing:
1) The guy who has the 4’ dread hanging off of his balding head and who clocks in at about 5’ 5” but is wearing the flannel shirt made for a guy who is 6’ 3” gave me the menu and said,
“Here’s our menu, the cook is doing the special a lot these days.”
“What’s the special?”
“I don’t know… it’s on the board out there.”
I looked ‘out there’ and saw that I had seen the specials sign before as it was actually painted on the sign for the restaurant. The special was two eggs, hash browns, and toast for $4.35. I looked at the menu and opted for the ham and cheese omelet and a cup of coffee. Rasta man took the “menu” (two pieces of 8.5 x 11” paper stapled in the upper left corner), sighed, ran his finger down the sheet until he found the ham and cheese omelet, looked at me like I just asked him to solve an insanely complicated math question using only an abacus and a box of toothpicks.
He walked out the front door, down the stairs, and into the basement of the building. The only other person in the place at the other end of the bar piped up and said,
“Hey, what’s up? You getting the special? I’m the cook.”
“Uh, no. I was thinking about the ham and cheese omelet.”
He was dejected.
“Oh.”
I quickly decided that either they had no food, only knew how to cook one thing but made a menu to look like they knew what they were doing, or they were lazy dick-brained mongoloids.
The Rasta guy came back up and said, “Sorry, had to see if we had ham.” He then told the cook in whispered tones what the order was, they both looked sad, then The Cook sulked upstairs.
“OK, anything else with that?”
“Uh, yeah. Coffee would be great [because, you know, I may have changed my mind from my original order of coffee and a ham and cheese omelet].”
2) The coffee was more water than flavor, but it came with a refill, so with the 40 ounces of coffee I drank I probably got the equivalent of one normal cup of coffee.
3) While I sat waiting for my food, two other people came in separately and inquired about breakfast. Rasta informed them about The Special, which he still didn’t know, and didn’t offer a menu. He must have learned from me that if you give someone a menu that there is a slight chance that they’ll want something that is printed on it. The nerve. They asked for menus nonetheless and one opted for The Special, the other wanted a veggie omelet and yet another search into the basement, followed by a pained conversation with The Cook and heavy sighs as they begrudgingly agreed to make said omelet.
4) My food came and The Cook took his seat again at the end of the bar to look at his laptop (he looked a bit like Lazlo, the genius closet dwelling burnout from “Real Genius”). So, there was TOO much butter on the toast, and even better was the fact that the butter had turned. Even better that THAT was that everything on my plate was cooked in this butter. Yum. I had the plate for only about 15 seconds, didn’t even unroll my fork from the napkin, and The Cook looked up and asked with too much perk in his voice, “How’s that omelet?”
“I don’t know… haven’t tasted yet. I’ll let you know in a minute, after I start eating.”
He looked back to his computer before I stopped talking.
5) After eating all the somewhat rancid food (thank God for the cast iron stomach!) I gave Rasta my card. He ran it and gave me the receipt and my card. Then he said, “Oh, that’s our copy.” I watched him spend two full minutes shuffling dollars around and picking up various trays in the register, trying to find the most feng shui location for the receipt. Then it struck him, “Oh, you need to sign this.”
“Yeah, I was wondering about that.”
He gave the receipt back and mentioned something about there being no space for a tip.
“Don’t sweat it, I’ll take care of it. I might need a pen though.”
“Oh… yeah.”
He handed me a pen and I took the receipt, noticing that there was indeed a place for a tip, so I gave a too generous tip because people with special needs shouldn’t be punished for their disability.
I filled it out, signed it, and handed it back. He looked at it and stalled.”
“Oh, uh, you put the tip on here?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“Oh… how do I get it off of here? And I only did the card for the food total, not the tip. Will the machine know?”
“What? I don’t know, man. Someone probably runs batches or something at night? I don’t know anything about that shit.”
“Oh.” He stalled and looked at the receipt.
“Why don’t you just cross out the tip and give me the tip in cash.”
I looked at him, blinked once, blinked twice, folded my tongue up in front of my left eyetooth in an expression of confusion.”
“Look, I don’t have any cash. Just, fuckin’… I don’t know what to tell you. This is all very basic stuff.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “We’ll figure it out later. A lot of work for three bucks though.”
“Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you, dude. Thanks for the food.”
And then I left.

So, I know times are tough for small businesses. I know supplies might run low. I know that 35-year old men who wear their giant father’s shirts as mumus and have hair that makes me think of a cat puking up a massive hairball are sometimes not as smart as I would like to give them credit for. But here’s the deal:
- In West Africa I’ve eaten goat liver off of a bike spoke, kebab style, that was cooked directly on coal, giving the experience a little more grit. This was cooked, more often than not, by various 300-year old toothless women who more than once outwardly displayed a lot of TB symptoms. But they were nice.
- In Nice, France, I ate Chinese food that tasted like it was cooked in spit.
- In East Africa I ate prawns that tasted like a foot.
- I have ended up with goat balls and what I believe to be a fish brain or air bladder in my mouth.
- I have damn near busted a tooth on numerous occasions on various sized bits of rock and gravel that have fallen into my food bowl.
- I have eaten a chicken chwarma in Senegal and then spent the next 5 hours puking and shitting in the bathroom and puking on my balls and shitting the bed.
- I have been served by people who have unapologetically stuck their fingers in my coffee, by people who, for no reason, have openly loathed me, and by people who barely could grasp the fact that I was alive and that they were there to take an order.
Take all of this into consideration and know that when I say that eating at Duke’s Landing was STILL the worst dining experience of my life, well, damn… it must have sucked.
Dear Duke’s Landing,
Please stop.
Not your friend,
P. Royale
No X’s, no O’s

Oh Jesus, Really?!

Am I a nit-picking dick? Should I not be heartbroken at the sheer number of misspellings on this thing?
-Hugh
-Movig
-Nick nats
-Multnoah
-Exersise
-Cloths
-the unnecessary apostrophe PLUS a misspelling on "collectibles"
For the love of lil' baby Jesus! Call me a dick, I don't care. There is just no excuse.
And there was another one down the street with ALL THE SAME MISTAKES!

Free Art, Bitches! #2

Plan B, SE Portland
"Had I known they were going to Crossover, I would never have got this damned tattoo!"

Free Art, Bitches #1

Beulahland, SE 28th and Couch-ish, Portland, on the ceiling, bitches!

Untitled #[W.7 and Three-Fourths Point (as in ., not pointing because that is rude) Orange]

We told one another sweet and tender things in French, something far removed from our mother tongue. It didn’t seem as scary in a different language, the laying open of hearts for potential flayings and seemingly terminal papercuts. She had a firm grasp of the language; educated and smooth, flowing easily from her ridiculously perfect lips. My French, on the other hand, was clunky, angular and something akin to an accidental gang rape. If a native speaker had to endure the sounds that poured out of me for even one minute I’m sure that would be my last day on Earth.
But she humored me, and I was capable of understanding only about 5% of what she was saying. In fact, she could have been telling me how to make chicken potpie while I stumbled through trying to tell her that she tasted like sunshine dust.
Whatever the case, we made it work and we worked together, it was ours and it felt nothing short of righteous.

Glub XXII

Quotes from Camping, 8/7/2009

So, I went camping which some of you may realize is out of character for this city kid.
But what else is one to do when an atrociously cute girl says, "Hey, you wanna go camping?"
One says, "Yeah."
When a cute girl says something like "Hey, wanna slam your junk in a heavy duty filing cabinet drawer?" the only answer is also, "Yeah."
It's hard to tell how hardcore a new crew is about such things. When the inevitable "Let's hike around the lake!" proposal popped up I was ready to hesitantly though with great vigor hike up a mountain and try not to die. Then someone opened a beer for "hydration purposes" during the hike and I knew all would be well.
It was a great time and thanks to all who made it as such. Here are some quotes, names reduced to initials for the sake of maintaining the integrity of others.

Quotes from camping, 8/7/2009 in a much-inebriated P.M.

“Well, it used to be nothing NOW!”
- L. forgetting how to use tenses

“Who is this Jesus everyone is talking about?”
- J. after enough J-Bombs were dropped in regards to the haze of mosquitoes

"What the FUCK?! SAVE IT!”
- ?, i have no idea what this is in reference to

“Mosquitoes everywhere… but not a drop to drink.”
- L. & J., self-explanatory

“No, I didn’t get stabbed with a dirty needle… in the face.”
- J., referring to 5 mosquito bites on one face

“The chicken’s gonna start.. fuckin’… JUMPIN’.”
- R., in reference to the chicken cooking particularly well on the fire

“Like a moth to an iPOD.”
- ?, and ?


The ‘Dear Whiskey’ sessions:

Dear Bushmills,
You’re Protestant crap!
XXOO
Love,
- J.

Dear Southern Comfort,
You’re not very comforting.
Yours,
- J.
XXOO

Dear Glen Livett,
You’re harsh and that sucks! It doesn’t matter if you’re 12 or 15.
Love,
- J.

SE Francis and 27th

A lovely ex-housemate, Roz K., dropped this pic in my inbox. We all know I LOVES me some radio. Thanks Roz, hope your days and nights squeal with delight!

Home Depot in New Jersey

One of my lovely exes, Christi, sent this to me. It's amazing because in Oregon all of the paint cans are locked up TIGHT. Racking this shit would be a lot easier out east, which is strange as they have had graffiti problems a hell of a lot longer than we have had out this way.
How punkish is it to tag the effing floor in front of the paint cans... though if you're gonna call an area yours this is a good place to lay claim to.
Thanks, Christi. Hope all is well out in Brooklyn.
Missing ya!

HOMEWORK ESSAY: Four People I Would Invite to Dinner

Ghandi, Jesus, Mohammed, and you. But I’d tell the other three that we were meeting in the Middle East at a hookah bar. It’d be a trick for sure, but hopefully they’d take a moment whilst in the area to tell everyone to chill the fuck out. Then you’d show up at mine, look around, and say “Hey, where’s Jesus?” and I’d say something like, “Look, with our schedules being what they are these days we just don’t get a lot of quality time anymore. We’re always bouncing all over the place like frogs on a hotplate. You’re always volunteering at the children’s burn unit, I’m tied up freeing puppycats and kittydogs from bear traps all day. So I thought I’d just have you over, light a coupla candles, open a bottle of wine, put something mellow on the stereo, and just take some time to get reacquainted. It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to leisurely tell you how beautiful you are.”
Then the other three would show up all pissed off and bust up my house.
But not before I kissed you and we conquered a little corner of the universe that we could call our own.

-[Untitled #Q.12/Orange]-

It had only been 10 hours or so since we last said goodbye, but we kissed like it had been eons.
We separated our lips, our tongues; we smiled and held hands with fingertips. You let go of one of my hands and pulled up your shirt, exposing a soft white belly that I live to rest my face on—the one action that I can positively and without a doubt say I was born to do.
You made a mischievous ‘whoops’ smirk. I looked down and saw a rash of sorts. It took only a second, a quick troll back through fresh memories to put two and two together and come up with ‘rug burn.’
My eyes got big and I returned the mischievous ‘whoops’ smirk.
We both blushed, we both laughed, and then the sky opened up we didn’t let the night end until we gave it permission to. Sleep would come, suns would rise and tiny stars would go supernova, but it was all going to be on our terms, no doubt. This world, this darkness, was ours to command.

07 Lover, You Shouldve Come Over.mp3 -

7 Inches of Jujo, Moloko Plus

Unsanctioned Art Gallery, Mississippi

Mississippi Blur, Photoshop Need Not Apply

Mississippi Love Stick

Uh Huh

And THIS is why I don't go on dates. Girls are insane, as are women... and men... and me. I need a new button-up I suppose.