I’ve followed singer/songwriter Stephen Wrabel for years now. If you’re like me and follow him on Twitter and Instagram, you’ve probably seen him cry more than once, either in a video full of gratitude, or because something rough had happened. You’ve seen his doodles outlining his insecurity, what’s occupying his mind, or his dreams for the future. You’ve seen his impulsive shopping habits. You’ve seen him fiercely advocate for his friends and fans. I first heard him as a fea

I’ve listened to Leon Bridges album before, yet somehow his debut album's final track was missed by me. In episode 2 of the series, it t

Visiting his old blog was a late-night, instinctual sort of stumbling. A way to reconnect with someone I had imperceptibly missed lately. That someone lived in Porto Alegre, on the southern tip of Brazil, and we had formed a connection through text and video conversations over Whatsapp, a messaging app. [Link to Part 1] The connection with Felipe fell in that zone between friend and romance which I took fairly unseriously and met hopefulness on his part with a joke or a laugh

On January 30th, 2017, I attended the Oregon Symphony’s performance of Romeo & Juliet, which was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. That Monday evening at Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall followed a weekend of turmoil, coinciding with the President's (despicable) travel ban. Uncertainty, isolation, and a thick fear of what’s next, has persisted since the election. These emotions are almost palpable everywhere you turn, and because of this, I had decided that night

That awkward moment when the cruise singer is one of the best live performances you've ever witnessed.

If it’s lucky, a place gets three wishes. The Aladdin Theatre, built in 1927, located in Portland’s now-gentrifying southeast quadrant, got four wishes and hasn’t needed a djinni since. People know The Aladdin today as a concert and comedy venue, capacity 620, with its few surviving touches of vintage décor and its reputation for intimate shows, all barely hinting at its colorful (and sordid?) past. The word, intimate, is the giveaway. The Aladdin’s third wish was for a porno

The scene is set for something dark and slow – the camera follows the silhouette of a man making his way through a small crowd. Slow claps of rhythm begin and the man finds his match – a woman in the audience with a shock of red hair. As the music begins to unfold he turns to her with purpose, gives a look that could almost be menace. What we know for sure is that these two are not strangers. She closes her eyes as the next beat hits. The song pushes forward and the camera c

When I woke up one night, around 2 am, to see that I had 7 new photo likes and a new follower in the form of my ex-boyfriend (let’s call him

In 1996, I was twelve years old. Pokemon the cartoon debuted, before smartphones, before Pokemon Go, before you could catch ’em virtually. It was also the same year that my little brother and I were obsessed with the anime series, Gundam Wing. My parents bought and ran a restaurant at the Hillsboro Airport named after the World War I fighter ace Eddie Rickenbacker. My family made good money for the first time in our whole lives – serving white people juicy cuts of prime rib –

In March of 2011, at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre on West 49th St in New York, “The Book of Mormon: The Musical” opened to packed theatres and rave critical reviews after eight years of development and workshops. Its creators, South Park showrunners Trey Parker and Matt Stone, along with Avenue Q composer/co-lyricist Robert Lopez, called it “an atheist’s love letter to religion”—this to Katharine Whittemore of The Boston Globe, in a 2011 article about the Broadway’s relation to