A pack of Cigarettes, Four Cans of Pabst and Thou Lisa Miller and the Trailer Park Honeys play honky-tonk music about love, loss and drinking. And no, they will not apologize. It is August, deep in Southeast Portland. Fifty blocks from hipsterville, kids play in dark, humid streets, screaming happily and hysterically at each other. A few dogs scratch around for trouble.
Adults lounge on porch couches, cans of what made Milwaukee famous sweating in their hands.
In this neighborhood, Mr. Plywood and an auto-body shop anchor the business district. This is where Lisa Miller and the Trailer Park Honeys practice, in the living room of Miller's house, a room plastered with punk and country posters, an ad hoc gallery including Wayne Kramer, Golden Delicious and Mojo Nixon. Robert Johnson and Patsy Cline wedge in there, too. A pair of cowboy boots adorned with a thin, fake-gold chain sit orphaned on a low coffee table. On the bookshelf, the Mammoth Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz competes for space with The Art of Homemaking and Marihuana Reconsidered .