Mark Maynard | 2011 | August

The food carts of Portland

By Mark | August 29, 2011

I didn’t get to Reading Frenzy, like I’d hoped, but I was able to poke around Portland a little this afternoon, eat some good food, and visit with some Ypsi expatriates, who were kind enough to answer a few of my questions about why they chose to leave Michigan for Oregon. I’ll tell you more about that later, but, for now, I wanted to share a few poorly shot videos about Portland’s thriving food cart culture. The first is of me talking with my friend Dave, who lives in Portland, about the explosion of food carts here over the past several years, and the second is of me discussing an idea that I’ve got for a cart of my own, which would be called, “Smoke It, or Fry It.”

I should mention that the idea of a restaurant where you can bring your own food items to be deep-fried isn’t completely original. I’ve heard of a place where there’s a cook who will deep-fry anything, regardless of what it is, for a dollar. I don’t know, however, if this activity is sanctioned by management.

[Our most recent discussion on food carts in Michigan can be found here.]

Posted in Food, Mark's Life | Tagged Alaska, Dave Miller, deep frying, elk sausage, exit interviews, farmers market, food carts, Hollis, Matt Krizowsky, meat smoking, Portland, Reading Frenzy, Smoke It Or Fry It, wild game | 7 Comments

Ape Canyon… the adult version

By Mark | August 29, 2011

Last night, I told you about a place near Mt. St. Helens called Ape Canyon, where, in 1924, a small group of gold miners claim to have been set upon by a band of fierce, boulder-hurling bigfoot. Well, this afternoon, while being shown around a very cool Portland video store called Movie Madness, which, among other things, is home to famous film props like the over-sized, hair-covered ear found by Kyle MacLachlan in Blue Velvet, and the wooden prop knife used by Anthony Perkins to kill Janet Leigh in Psycho, a friend drew my attention to a film called… of all things… Ape Canyon. This may not, in and of itself, be all that surprising, if not for the fact that it was located behind the red swinging doors of — the “adult” section.

As distasteful as this may be to some of you, it would appear that, hidden somewhere beneath the world that you and I both dwell in, there exists a subculture of “bigfoot rape” fiction enthusiasts. At least that’s the sense that I get having just read an interview conducted by Jim Goad with the film’s director, Jon Olsen. At any rate, as we just discussed Ape Canyon last night, I felt compelled to mention it. For the record, though, I’m not suggesting that anyone either watch or purchase this film. I realize that it might be difficult to convey consensual bigfoot relations on film, but I have to draw the line somewhere, and I choose to draw it at rapetainment.

Here’s a clip from Jim Goad’s interview with the man behind the film, which goes into a little detail on the history of the genre:

JIM GOAD: Is it fair to say that Ape Canyon, if not the world’s first Bigfoot-rape movie, is probably the world’s first Bigfoot-rape comedy?

JON OLSEN: Definitely the first comedy, as far as I know, but not the first Bigfoot-rape movie. I have a bootleg copy of a movie called The Geek that a friend gave me after Ape Canyon was made. It’s something else. The stoned nitwit playing Bigfoot can’t get it up when he gets his chance to wax pale, human asses. He spends most of his precious humping time yanking his little wang in a vain attempt to get it stiff. All he succeeds in doing is smearing black shoe polish (used to give him a more Sasquatchy complexion) all over his dick and all over the woman’s vagina. As it is, the woman falls asleep with her bare ass jutting up in the air, waiting for forcible ape-entry that never comes.

And this is ironic, since it would have been impossible to tell if he was actually penetrating her or not—you wouldn’t be able to tell with that fur coat in the way.

Another notable Bigfoot-rape movie—probably the one that supplied the bulk of inspiration for Ape Canyon—is Night of the Demon. There’s this inbred girl who’s constantly being beaten and raped by her daddy, until Bigfoot lumbers out of the woods, kills daddy and rapes her but good. Then she has a stillborn Bigfoot-hybrid baby. In another scene, Bigfoot grabs a guy in a sleeping bag, twirls him around his head, and tosses him through the air, impaling him on a twig. I more or less ripped that scene off in my movie, but I feel the Ape Canyon version is an improvement on the original. By far the most memorable scene is one in which a motorcyclist stops to take a piss by the side of a lonely road. Bigfoot’s hand lunges out of the bushes and rips the man’s penis off! The poor guy moans in despair and drapes himself over his bike, bleeding to death on screen for a full ten minutes…

Posted in Art and Culture, Mark's Life, Other, sex, Uncategorized | Tagged Anthony Perkins, Ape Canyon, bigfoot, bigfoot rape, Janet Leigh, Jim Goad, Jon Olsen, Kyle MacLachlan, Mount St. Helens, Movie Madness, Night of the Demon, porn, Portland, Psycho, rapetainment, Sasquatch, severed ears, The Geek | 18 Comments

On finding myself in the Oregon darkness, not far from Ape Canyon

By Mark | August 27, 2011

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by the prospect that we were surrounded by bigfoot. I had a ton of books about the evidence of their existence, and I spent a good deal of time traipsing around in the woods, thinking about them. Maybe it was all the episodes of In Search Of that I’d watched with my dad. Or maybe there’s just something about the hairy humanoid creatures that resonates with kids. For whatever reason, I ate the stuff up. The height of my obsession probably came in 1977, when I convinced my parents to let me go with my friend David Spivey to see the movie Sasquatch, the Legend of Bigfoot. I can’t remember the exact timing of events, or which movie came out first, but Star Wars also made its big screen debut that summer, and, like most kids of my generation, I’d eventually become hooked, deciding to put aside childish things, like bigfoot, in favor of science fiction… but not before having the shit scared out of me one last time by the mythical wild man of the Pacific Northwest. The following scene from the movie, was absolutely seared into my brain that afternoon. It’s probably been 30 years since I’ve seen it, but I find that my memory of it is surprisingly accurate, down to my recollection of the bigfoot’s posture at the top of the ridge. It’s weird what you choose to keep in your mind, and what you lose with age, isn’t it?

But, somehow, up until last night, I hadn’t made the connection that I was a stone’s throw from the place where this scene, which had played such a big part in my young life, had transpired. And actually it wasn’t me who made the connection – it was my friend, Matt. We were walking down the highway last night, in the dark, taking a break from recording, when he uttered the phrase “Ape Canyon.” And that’s when everything came flooding back. I’m not sure what the 8 year old me would say if he knew that, when he grew up, he’d be staying in a cabin not far from the scene of Fred Beck’s 1924 attack by a band of enraged Sasquach. There’s something kind of poetic about that, I think. Of course, the 8 year old me wouldn’t see the poetry. He’d just be shitting his pants in terror.

[It’s a very short clip, but, for those of you who are interested, you can hear Fred Beck talking about the giant, slender-hipped creatures that attacked him and his gold-mining friends, here.]

Posted in Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Tagged 1924, Ape Canyon, bigfoot, cabins, cryptozoology, David Spivey, docudrama, Fred Beck, gold miners, gold mining, Mount St. Hellens, Oregon, pant shitting, rock throwing, Sasquatch, Sasquatch: the Legend of Bigfoot, Washington State | 17 Comments

Bernie Sanders introduces bill to end payroll tax cap, ensuring full Social Security funding for nearly 75 years

By Mark | August 25, 2011

Most people, I suspect, don’t realize that rich Americans don’t pay payroll taxes on their entire incomes, like the rest of us. They don’t. If Senator Bernie Sanders gets his way, though, all of that may stop. Word is that he’s submitting legislation that would remove the payroll tax cap, thereby insuring the future of Social Security, without cuts, for the next 75 years. The following clip comes from Think Progress.

…To keep Social Security strong for another 75 years, Sanders’ legislation would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year… Under Sanders’ legislation, Social Security benefits would be untouched. The system would be fully funded by making the wealthiest Americans pay the same payroll tax already assessed on those with incomes up to $106,800 a year…

Here’s a link to Bernie’s press release. And, assuming you agree, you can contact your Senators and ask them to support Sanders, by clicking here.

Posted in Politics, Uncategorized | Tagged Bernie Sanders, social security, taxes, taxing the rich, the plight of the overtaxed rich | 8 Comments

Monkey Power Trio to record tomorrow in Oregon wilderness

By Mark | August 25, 2011

As best as we can figure, it’ll be our 17th year/day as a band. Wish us luck… Here we are, about to eat lunch, after hiking up to Tamanawas Falls. Right now, we’re setting up instruments and getting ready.