A portrait of the Half&Half part Deux: The close

The market had crashed long before my supermarket got swept up in job termination. In late August of '09 I joined the rest of the unemployed Portlanders. For two months I lived in the lap of unemployed luxury, by scraping money from my $900 paycheck and my (extremely late) tax return. And what better place was there to go drown my sorrows at then the HALF. Where my losses were rewarded with free drinks, cheapened sandwiches, and hugs from the whole crew.

That Fall brought about the great Half n Half free show, in which former Half employees Sexy Jake and Davy Jones, performed with their band, "Poodle." The hipsters were gathered together outside the half and half in a beautiful, for once smugless, crowd. Mumford, Brian had his fingers clenched firmly in his ears, while Sonic Kayla sat next to me taking in the giant no wave sound reverberating from their guitars, while I puffed away at her Paul Mall lights.

Times were-a-gettin-harder in them last two months of '09. In between moving to felony flats and taking canvassing work, I continued to go to the Half and Half. After meeting Little R and Boy Wonder at a Bike Hospital show, we met up at Half and Half for our first friend date in which Little R. graciously bought me a sandwich, showed me the leaf tattoo on her ear, and Boy Wonder gave me a perfume cigarette.

On New Year's Eve, Alley Frey and I snuck free cups of refills in front of Brian's nose, and she pleaded with me not to move to California. Sayin that when one leaves, things change for the worse. I believed what she said, but speaking from that which is known as my cataclysmic brain stem, perhaps that is not such a sane statement to sign off to.

I continued to go, whenever time and money would allow. And come May, I discovered that the Half and Half would be closing at the end of the month. My sadness was coupled with acceptance. For I was in a position in which I would have to stay or go. And I didn't want to go, still wish not to for the most part, but the fact that Half and Half was closing eased my passionate feelings, just a little bit. For it was one less thing I would have to miss, should Portland ever be taken away from me. It was closing, it was ending. It would be gone forever. And it was sad, but yet, it was good.

Odd, peso/maso-chistic feelings aside, there was no time to waste. I planned a full days worth of Half and Half mourning, just a couple weeks before the official pulling of the plug.

I arrived at around ten in the morning and managed to locate my usual spot, back table next to the bathroom door. While keeping busy doing collage work, a few guests I had invited for the event showed up. Katiebug and Milo came to pay their respects to the place they had never been. Theo came for lunch and allowed me to eat off his table scraps. I gave the workers passionate hugs and said anything that was left to say that I had ever held back or would ever want to say.

On the Half and Half's last day there was a closing party I was invited to by Kombucha Tasha. Tonya unexpectedly invited me over for the night. And since its bros before espressos, I declined the offer. After all, I had said my goodbyes in my own way. And I wouldn't have wanted it in any other.

I can only hope that my words in these past two blog entries have been enough to symbolize and portray my deep feelings for this tiny little coffee creation. Lately I've not been one for dwelling on feelings for two long, but I will no doubt be returning to these posts to make many edits and editions. I feel all there is left to say, is that Portland has over 300 coffee shops. And whether we like it or not, there's always that one place that no matter where else we may choose to go, we find ourselves coming back to that same place that we didn't even know we were headed to. Half n Half, you were my first Portland coffee house. And to this, you will always be my last.
With that, I leave you with the rest of my photos.

And the rain came down...A portrait of the Half&Half Part 1

Good day bloggers. Cereal Man here. Reporting from inside the catacombs of Gresham, where it looks as though I'm marooned for the day. The rain's not letting up, and Ive got precious goods too fragile to get wet. So what better way to use this time than open up another one of Pandora's Portland boxes.

In times like these I like to reflect back on stories that have yet to be told. Stories that have shaped my love for this city and made me part of who I am today. In a city that is synonymous with coffee shops as they are pubs, what better story is there to share on this rainy day than that of the Cereal Man's first discovered Portland coffee shop.

January, 2008. At the time I resided in Gresham (actually based on choice) and was working at the Lloyd Center Marriott. One rainy day, just like this one, a coworker and I decided to go downtown. The Juno soundtrack had just been released and I was on a mission for Everyday Music. On tho the way back, headed to the max my coworker offered to buy me a cup of coffee. I was in no position to turn anything down, and he mentioned this coffee shop that he said was in sync with my style and personality.

I walked in and wasn't immediately overcome with Portland bohemian bliss. Which if a coffee shop is done right, that's usually the initial reaction. However, there were certain things about it whose appeal couldn't be easily dismissed. The strange art on the main wall, which only got stranger as the years went on. The 50's pin up meets Gentle Ben ranch look. And the array of zines which hung in a row just underneath the art pieces. The...odd?...selection of sundries such as Mao pins, tampons, shower caps, aspirin, and chicosticks. As the months went by I found myself going back to this place as often as I could. After all, I new how to get there, and again at the time, it was the only Portland coffee house I knew.

I began making friends with some of the baristas, give or take all of them. Kiersten, and her Andy Warhol in his prime look alike boyfriend.

Linda and Davy Jones: Who were as cute as the cuff links on a ventriloquist dummy.

Paul, the polite lesbian barista who allowed me to call her so.

Sexy Jake.

Fatally attractive Brian

Kombucha Tasha.

Mumford, Brian

and of course, Jeff. For what would a coffee shop be without it's owner? (Apparently gone)

I began taking pictures of the common folk that frequented the haunt. With their permission of course. "May I take you portrait?" I would ask. My young mind so full of life, riding on the coattails of Diane Arbus. As though I were a real photographer with my kodak digital. I wrote (though looking back on it now, mostly my worst) poems upon poems while the rain refused me that gracing period of running to catch the blue line home. I would drag my Gresham friends there, and my mother when she came to visit.
And in that time between January and July, more coffee shops came into discovery, yet somehow none of them were able to hold a candle to the Half. It was always the first place I thought of and the last place to hit for every downtown day.

Time ticked on by. In the summer of '08 was when I made the big move. Away from Gresham, and into the heart of downtown. Imagine my excitement when I realized I was now only a mere six blocks away from my most favored coffee drip. It was overwhelming like a never ending honeymoon. It was about this time that I suddenly began to discover the other things Half and Half had to offer besides coffee with first free refills. Half and Half had sandwiches. Sandwiches with names such as the Green Goblin, the Zac Efron. Grilled tempeh sandwiches, nutella sandwiches, breakfast sandwiches named after cars. Why, the place could have been very well declared Portland's Earl of Sandwich. There were deviled eggs sold .75 cents per shell. Ass Sweet Tea serving as the best tea over ice ive ever wrapped my lips around.

In the summertime, we, that is the marshmallows to my lucky charms, would congregate outside to smoke upon yellow chairs. Where there, we discovered the neighbor dog. Who the fed ex's would stop and fee with dog treats, and the hipsters would attempt to pet, before she would slowly scamper away.

I began making friends. Which, and mark my word, I would never have even been aware of their existence had it not been for Half & Half. Here was where I met Olivia Mick, and her unbearable lightness of hipster being. Theo, whose presense was as regular as the puppy dog's. Alley Frey, soon to be famed music journalist. This girl has interviewed the Arctic Monkeys, bowled a few rounds with Hutch Harris, and is know for throwing summer parties in winter, and winter parties in summer. And of course the long llost, Alice Wonderland. Who upon first glance was draped in zebra stripes, and firmly grasping a menthol with a deadly smile.

Memories began to form. On the day of Gay Pride in June of '08 while digging though the little cubby pockets of the sundrie wall, I discovered a glowing orange condom. Jeff said to me, "You found the prize!" I asked how much it was, but he let me have it for free. Well bloggers, that was they very same condom that ended up taking the Cereal Man's virginity. So you could say, in a sense, that Half & Half popped my cherry.

Half and Half was my musical rehydration station on the night that Ernie Boy and I attended the flight of the YYY show. As well as the day I attended the free Thermals show with Jazibee. AS WELL as the day Sonic Youth were in town and I got to meet Thurston Moore at Jackpot Records. That was when I met a lovely looking Magic Gardens stripper who hated all music except for Hall & Oates.