Dolorean, almost

Got to see Al James, the lead singer of Dolorean, play an opening set at Mississippi Studios last night. He performed some material from the upcoming release, "The Unfazed," which focuses on turning 30. That - coupled with my liking of his band, which wasn't playing - was the big draw. Friend Dan was kind enough to come out for the show, too.

James did some of the "Unfazed" songs, read some poetry by Robert Bly and apologized to his mother - who was sitting behind us - for playing some songs with curse words. He talked a lot - in words and music - about the challenges of reaching 30 as a musician who hasn't got that big break but who keeps plugging away for something he's clearly passionate about. And really, what's life without something you're passionate about?

In a weird twist of fate, Oklahoman Garth Brooks, retired country music superstar, played a show in Los Angeles last night. Part of it was televised live on CBS. Thing is, Brooks doesn't exactly need the money. In fact, he was donating proceeds from that and a few other shows to firefighters who battled the wildfires in Southern California last year. That crowd on CBS last night - which I caught a bit of before heading to Mississippi Studios - was going absolutely berserk for that old guy who, for the most part, was playing 10- to 15-year-old material.

So it was kind of bittersweet when James started talking about watching all these younger bands in Portland making it, and how he'd taken - for one day - a job in a cabinet-making shop, but quit after having a box dropped on his hand and shooting a nail in his finger. Kind of a bum deal for a guy who plays guitar. Then, amid a set of gorgeous mostly new material (and a sweet Dylan cover), he said it all made him want to play, of all things, a Garth Brooks song that's always been distinctly country to me, but last night seemed decidedly less so: "Much Too Young (To Feel This Damn Old)."

The chorus pretty well sums it up:

And the white line's getting longer and the saddle's getting cold
I'm much too young to feel this damn old
All my cards are on the table with no ace left in the hole
I'm much too young to feel this damn old

So go check out his stuff if you haven't already. As the headliner, Barton Carroll, said in his set: CDs are available in the back, for those of you who still buy them. If you don't, if you get your music free online, maybe you can buy me a coffee sometime. Like a six-dollar cappuccino. I mean, I drink two-dollar coffee, but I gotta make a living here.

Viva, Part II: Las Vegas

Everyone knows Las Vegas in Nevada, but we're convinced it really is in a foreign country. They should require passports to get in and out. Marrakesh is wild, but Vegas is flat-out crazy. I haven't seen so many people - including people entirely too old to be doing this stuff - drinking before noon this side of a OU-Texas tailgate party.

That said, we had a great time there, where we stayed at the MGM Grand, even though the first 12 hours or so were complete culture shock. After that first night, though, we were mentally prepared for the rest of the trip and had been upgraded to a nice suite with a good view. Having a quiet place to retreat from the chaos and smoke was, for us, key.

The view from our room on the 26th floor.

Walk a little ways down the street from our hotel and, boom, you're in Paris. See? Foreign. Didn't even have to deal with the TSA.

Here Amy enjoys the late-afternoon glow of the sunset in Venice. Or maybe it was the painted ceiling of the Venetian.

Stroll out the doors of the MGM and just like that you've arrived in New York, New York.

Caught a couple of great shows: Spamalot (funny) at the Wynn and Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity (funny and sexy and, ultimately, sweet and romantic) at New York, New York.

While we were at the Wynn, we hung out in the sports book before the show started and caught the end of the Packers-Giants NFC championship game. Cracked me up to hear the Voice of God of Gambling come over the intercom with seconds left in regulation to say overtime betting would be available if the game went that far. And then, no more than 45 seconds after the winning field goal in OT, the Voice of God of Gambling returned to tell us all the initial Super Bowl spread and say that bets were now being taken.

Of course, at that point a Giants fan's celebration had gotten so out of hand that a Packers' fan was on the verge of kicking some ass. This was about five feet from where we sat.

Which brings me to what our friend Terry describes as the Ugly American syndrome of Vegas. They're everywhere - not just at Toby Keith's bar at Harrah's, though I'm sure they're overwhelming that place, too. Basically, it's cheap to get to this big-time party town (not so cheap once you're there, though) so it draws a broad cross-section of Americana. High-class, middle-class, low-class, no-class, they're all there. And most of them are drunk out of their minds, smoking like chimneys and throwing cash around like they just won Powerball. Our favorites, though, were the ones who brought their kids -- from those in strollers to those actually old enough to walk.

And kids were everywhere. Hannah Montana was playing the MGM Grand the weekend we arrived - apparently John Mayer was backstage, selling out what sliver of a soul he might have had left. We didn't see Miley Cyrus' dad, Billy Ray, but we did see plenty - PLENTY - of mullets.

So the people watching was plentiful. As were the eating options, but I'll boil those down to two can't-miss stops. On the Strip, check out L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon inside the MGM. Spendy, but fun, especially with the inside-the-kitchen view you get while sitting at the counter and talking to the servers. Off the Strip, as confirmed by our server at L'Atelier, the must-visit place is Rosemary's Restaurant, about 10 miles to the northwest. It's in a strip mall, but America's Vancouver is proof fine dining can co-exist with strip malls (Roots, 360, etc.) Rosemary's has exemplary service, a great beer selection (all the nicer after all the swill they serve on the Strip) and terrific food. Best money we spent in Vegas, I'd say.

Great trip, good timing (avoided the fire yesterday at the Monte Carlo) and lots of fun. That said, it's very nice to be home.

Viva, Part I: La transportación

We're back from a long weekend in Las Vegas. I'm not sure where to start describing it, but in the end we had a very good time.

After backpacking around Mexico and Morocco on recent vacations, we wanted something with a taste of adventure and a little of the unknown. Somehow, we settled on Vegas. It's adventuresome, no doubt, but in an entirely different way than those previous trips. And it was certainly an unknown to both of us. Still another selling point: it would be faster - and cheaper, we hoped - than another international trip.

First, though, bounce back to last Saturday. After a snowy week in the Boston-Cambridge area, the wakeup call came around 4 a.m. On the heels of a long farewell night out with the Maynard crew, that O-Dark-Thirty ringing of the phone was particularly cruel.

The Chips Quinn Scholars contingent was seven-strong at Maynard Media Academy. From left: Erin McKinney, Maynard; Kara Andrade, Maynard; me; LaSharah Bunting, The New York Times; Minal Gandhi, St. Louis Post Dispatch; Jon Perez, Rocky Mountain News; Staci Brown Brooks, Birmingham News.

Thankfully, though, that call ensured I got to Logan for a 6-something flight to, of all places, Dallas, Texas. That's the city - for reasons both real and imagined, fair and unfair - I despise more than any other on the planet. As travel writer Chuck Thompson said in a hilarious book I finished in this day of marathon flying: "... it's perhaps only outsiders who can completely appreciate the magnificent sense of relief and elation you get watching that fucking town disappear in your rearview mirror."

Now, my apologies in advance for what will turn out to be roughly a four-paragraph aside.

I think the stomach-churning emotion I feel toward Dallas stems from my issues with my own hometown's longstanding discomfort with itself. Hank Stuever has previously summed up that sentiment, however, much more eloquently than I could ever put it. Stuever, the Washington Post journalist extraordinarie and an alum of the same private high school my childhood next-door neighbor attended, was a finalist for the Pulitzer for a piece he wrote upon going home in the wake of the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. In that piece, he wrote:

"There were dreams about getting out of here. ... What you need to know about that urban heartland is how it can weigh upon you. What you need to know about the Bible Belt is how tightly it can cinch. What you need to know about a comfortable place is how discomforting predictability can be. Some of us did move away. Others stayed in Oklahoma, opting for a literal and emotional 'Okay,' ... Here is a metropolis that in its wildest dreams that aspired only to be more like Dallas."

So, yeah, I hate Dallas. And I'm reminded of it each time I feel my body tense up when I fly or drive through there. I hate it for all its ego and money, gridlock and greed, sprawl and silicone, peroxide and politics, and the fact that some of my high school classmates went on to embrace all that like lemmings marching over the cliff. At its core, I think, the draw was this: It was just far enough to seem different, big enough to feel like somewhere and money-driven enough to appeal to our baser selves, all while being close enough to crawl home if you fucked it up.

Perhaps that's all some psychoanalytical self-loathing in what could've been the rearview mirror of my life at one point in time. And maybe my friends and family - good folks all - who have lived in or survived Dallas can convince me otherwise. But that was neither here not there when I hit DFW five hours into my long-haul-trucker day of travel. Dallas was no destination. Rather, much like for the bewildered old Amish family fearfully searching for a bathroom in Terminal C, it was nothing more than a piss-'n-go stop.


After a mercifully short layover and a four-plus hour flight, I was happily back in Portland. And as if on cue, our flight touched down in that steady, soft, cleansing winter rain that turns the sky here the same shade of gray as the Columbia River. I swear, upon landing one woman on the plane started talking loud enough for all to hear about how much she'd missed this sweet, sweet rain.

Amy picked me up, we ran home, I unpacked a week's worth of work clothes, did some laundry and repacked some proper vacation clothes. Less than four hours later it was back to the airport for the two-hour flight to what we soon would learn would be a foreign vacation destination after all: Vegas.

But that'll have to be for tomorrow. It's getting late, and we're all - Wiley included - looking forward to sleeping in our bed in our house together for the first time in almost two weeks.

More from Maynard

Today was our short day, running from 8-3. On our lunch break I ducked into the room at the Lippmann House that is named for Robert C. Maynard. He's the man behind the institute that runs this program, and he was one of the great journalists of our time.

It was nice to grab a few minutes in there, seeing the face and mementos about a legendary man. Then, to cap the moment, I found the names of two editors of The Oregonian while I was reading a plaque on another wall in that room. They were listed among people who have been key supporters of the institute over the years.

After we wrapped for the day, I dumped my bag back at the hotel and went for a long walk around Cambridge until sunset. Came across this scene late in the day in a park across from campus. Pretty site.

Finally, capped the night with a trip to the movies to see Daniel Day-Lewis' dominating performance in "There Will Be Blood." One of the best I've seen in years.

Hah-vad

Lippmann House is our home away from home this week. This was how it looked as we finished the walk over this morning. All this snow makes things even more beautiful.

We had a great day of sessions, including one led by Francisco de Asis Martinez-Jerez, an assistant professor of business administration at the business school here. Wow. He was the most engaging and enlightening professor I've ever witnessed. I can't imagine what this place is like if all the professors are that stunning. We talked about organizational systems, how they're structured, how they work and how they break down. And how leadership drives all of that. I loved every minute of it.

It's been years since I've thought of going back to school, but this professor left me thinking how much fun it might be to get an MBA.

Tomorrow we have a short day, so I'm hoping to get to see more of campus and maybe cross the Charles and check out a bit of Boston. The Trail Blazers are in town tomorrow night, too. Hmmmm.

So this is what they call a Nor'easter

A little more than six hours later, it looks like this out my window.

At least it blew in after I did.

Boston.com, somehow, is taking it in stride. Back in the Northwest, we'd be on virtual lockdown and talking about BLIZZARD '08.

Who'd have thunk it?

So I am at Harvard for the week. Frightening thought, no? It pretty well scares the bejesus out of my dumbass.

I'm here on a business trip and will get to come back for another week in March, all in the name of journalism education with some young, diverse managers (really, is there possibly a more uninspiring word than "manager"?) from around the country. Should be a special week if I don't let the surroundings overwhelm me.

Funny thing: When I was wrapping up high school I applied here on a whim (there was no way in hell I would have been able to pay the tuition, much less cut it here). Funnier thing, though: I got in. I filed that acceptance letter away in a box somewhere when I went across town to start at the University of Oklahoma. Now, nearly 13 years later, I have to laugh a bit at it all.

The view from my room ahead of a blizzard that's expected to hit in about an hour. They're saying we could get up to a foot of snow tomorrow.


No, really. I am here. The letterhead proves it. I'm still scratching my head, though. As one of the speakers said tonight at dinner: Consider yourselves lucky - you're at Harvard and you didn't even have to take a test.