Shad Lambert Photography

I haven’t been back to Portland in like 4 years, so when Shimizu invited us up to shoot some stuff I was hyped. Snagged a fancy Shimeezee portrait for this little book project I’ve been procrastinating on, film cameras can be moody bastards, I love ’em.

Shimizu live’s in Ethan Fowler’s house, this is the back yard, the garden grows green, fast, and around things.

Weird things you notice while walking through Daniel’s neighborhood.

So we stroll to the Daniel’s local bar, we order 3 beers and two drinks for only seven dollars and pool was free! I was trippin’, I’m used to LA prices way too much.

Then the bar “brain games” came out. Daniel tells me there’s a way to get the heart out.

After 45 minutes and two drinks.

Then Shimeezee tells me, “make a full box out of this by moving only two matches.”

After about 30 minutes of staring at these silly sticks, it finally hits me, ” B O X”. Ha, clever. I’m officially the weird guy who stares at the bar now.

So Mike starts telling us that we’re all invited to go camp and party on Gay Bear Island for Thor’s birthday party rager and how awesome it’s gonna be. At first as was like camping sucks, then I was like, “Why the hell is called Gay Bear Island?” But Mike said, “Only people who go to Gay Bear Island, know why it’s called Gay Bear Island.” Add to that the fact that this island is literally right next to Portland airport, they’re making a slip and slide down hill with a launch ramp at the end, and you have to take a boat about half a mile across the river get there. It basically made it sound so ridiculous we now wanted to go.

Anyway, back to weirdo guy solving match stick puzzles. Daniel tells me, “Make this equation equal 139 by moving one match stick.” Damn it! How???
Finally! This took me seriously forever, I need to go back to school.

Dan likes sleeping in the basement.

Is this a dream catcher? Sweetest dream catcher ever… for Lizard.

Next morning I find out what Mike’s $3500 fix gear Hufnagel bike looks like. I tell him that seems like a lot of dough for a fancy gold fixed gear bike. He just laughs and is like, “It’s worth it.” ***Later that night when last call hit he got multiple calls from girls who were asking, “Hey I’m by your bike, where are you?” Okay, maybe that makes it worth it dude. I also asked more questions about Gay Bear Island, all he said was that we were going to be picked up by the boat this evening.

So we decide we better get some god damn camping gear to camp on god damn Gay Bear Island!

We also decided we needed a bunch of god damn beer to drink on god damn Gay Bear Island!

Then we roll up right next to the airport, right next to the landing strip. We can see campfires across the river, people raging lighting off fireworks. Then Mike calls Thor and … and … the boat is broken down! We decide we’ve bought so much gear and beers we got to get to the island of gay bears now. We hit a local bar called the Sectant and talk try to talk drunken boatsmen into taking us across. One guy almost takes us on his house boat, but then he claims the wind and choppy waves is to rough, and well, doesn’t want to risk losing his house.

So we do the only thing we can do—steal trashed wood palates from home depot for firewood and camp in Shimizu’s back yard!

We had some FUBAR visions going through our heads, and were going to spray paint Thor Funkin’ Blows! also, but that never happened. So Kale made some sticks for us to grill some dogs.

Tent art.

Amy and Daniel kicked out some jams. Daniel has gotten really good at guitar and Amy has a great voice, I was really impressed. We were having so much fun camping in the back yard we got the cops called on us. At some point we passed out in the tents.

The morning after. Basically the best Portland trip ever, thanks Shimeeeezzzeeee!