Kenny Rogers Convention

It is November 2, 2010.  

The Monarch Hotel in Portland is buzzing with the political fervor of patriots and anti-establishment types. A moral fervor that can be difficult to discern from the lusty appetite of the Republicans, also in attendance.

It’s like a Kenny Rogers convention in here. My fifty-seven year old father, Ed, is camouflaged in a crowd of silver hair, blue jeans and LL. Bean.

       Dusty junk and junkies on dust. Value Village on just an average day is a fiendish freak show of desperate creatures. A purgatory for discarded garments and discounted wares. I wonder how much of this junk once belonged to dead people. When a person expires, their loved ones feverishly devour their valuables and donate the leftovers to merchants of death like Value Village. I had the misfortune of being there right before Halloween night. It was a low budget consumerist orgy of ghouls and goblins only making themselves redundant by donning scary masks, makeup and costumes. 

It was a dark and dreary Halloween night. I quickly pieced together an 80’s outfit mostly using clothing I still wear today which made me wonder if I might need to update my wardrobe. Or maybe the world really just needs to slow down. I heard the angry horn blast of an approaching train mingled with the far off scream of sirens. I hightailed it out the door, navigating my black beast of a bicycle through wet weather. Soaked with pink electricity, the neon expectation of a good night  was waiting for me at Jonathan’s, downtown by the Elsinore Theatre. Shaking off the cold, I was met by a thirsty throng of 80’s throwbacks and assorted night crawlers all waiting to board ‘The Party Bus.’