MAY

20th: Shakespeare Festival: Take a trip on down to Ashland and check out all the many top notch theatrical productions at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. (See www.orshakes.org for the schedule)

22nd: Hollywood Farmers Market: First day! Stock up on everything from flowers to produce, direct from their source. Runs through October 30th, every Saturday from 8 am to 1 pm. (NE Hancock between 44th and 45th--one block south of Sandy, next to Value Village)

29th: Eco-Dyke Camp Out: Hey Eco-Dykes! Go camping with likeminded ladies and enjoy hikes, art, and restoration work! (through the 31st, Cabbage Lane in Wolf Creek, OR)

JUNE

3rd: Rose Festival: Day one of the epic, citywide madness with music, beauty pageants, rose shows, and fireworks. And you know what else that means saaaaiiiloorss!!!! (Check www.rosefestival.org for specifics, through June 30th)

ALSO: Portland Mini-Golf Art Invitational and Tourney: Holocene wins the prize for cutest event idea ever. Play a little putt-putt in the club, surrounded by art and pretty people. (Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison, 5 pm)

6th: Stumptown Comics Festival! An alternative comic book convention featuring Shannon Wheeler of Too Much Coffee Man fame, as well as over 20 other cartoon peeps, from small locals to big shots. Plus, a cartoon art battle! (The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th, 1 pm, after-party at Backspace, 115 NW 5th, 7 pm)

ALSO: City Of Roses Guitar Show: Guitar heaven for serious collectors and your average drooling axe man. And groupies: this is like the best singles night you've ever been to times a million. (Monarch Hotel, 12566 SE 93rd, Clackamas)

ALSO: Lowrider Evolution Tour 2004: Holy smokes!! All we have to think about all day long today is lowrider cars. Oh, wait, there's going to be a bikini contest too. Can your brain handle it? (Portland Expo Center, 2060 N Marine Drive)

9th: Quintron & Miss Pussycat: Inventors of the "drum buddy" (a crazy drum machine that uses light to make sound) get all crazy and electric on your unsuspecting ass. (Dante's, 1 SW 3rd)

10th: Pedalpalooza 2004 Kick-Off Art-Bike Parade: The first of two weeks' worth of events thrown by Shift. Wear a costume and cobble one together for your bike, too! (Eco Trust Building Farmers' Market, 721 NW 9th, 6:30 pm)

11th: Mercury 4th Anniversary Party: Remember that time when we mortally offended you? Or wait, what about the time when we wrote a nice blurb about your boyfriend's band, except we got the date wrong? Ha ha HA!! Let's have a drink and fogettaboutit. (w/Libretto, United States of Electronica & Swarming Hordes, Sabala's Mt Tabor, 4811 SE Hawthorne, 9 pm, cheap)

ALSO: Skinny Puppy: Don't miss the dark, scary beauty of this classic gothic freak rock. Or they will kill you and use you as a stage prop. (Roseland, 8 NW 6th)

12th: Bike Confidence Building Workshop for Women: Learn about maintaining your bike, commuting, and more, chicas! (Citybikes, SE 8th & Ankeny)

ALSO: Chainsaw Sculpture Championship: Did you know there was such a thing as a professional chainsaw carver? You must see to believe. (In Reedsport, OR, through the 17th)

18th: Hey hippies. For the next three days you will have the opportunity to retreat away from the city and mingle among your own kind. That's right, it's the String Cheese Incident's annual three-day festival, where you can frolic in your horrid tie-dye outfits and no one will even make fun of you (probably). (Horning's Hideout, 21227 NW Brunswick Canyon Rd, North Plains, $135 for a three-day pass, including camping)

ALSO: Pedal-Powered Bike-In Movie: Seven bikes are pedaled to run a movie. Weird! Economically and environmentally sound! (Hawthorne Hostel, 3031 SE Hawthorne, 8 pm)

19th: 2004 Pride Festival: Celebrate gayness for the next two days with edutainment of all kinds! (Saturday & Sunday, noon, Waterfront Park)

20th: Pride Parade: March for diversity! Yay! We love gay people! We love transgendered people! We love all people! Except snobs and hippies! Let's march! (starts at NW 15th & Glisan, 11:15 am)

25th: Rose Garden Fashion Show: Witness the designs of 28 local designers in a lovely outdoor setting. Amazingly, it is free! (Rose Gardens in Washington Park, 7 pm)

26th: Multnomah County Bike Fair: All bikes, all day, including competitions. (Colonel Summers Park, SE 20th & Belmont, $3-5 don)

ALSO: Funkstorung: Everyone can use a little German in their life. Take advantage of this opportunity to check out the German genius of the Funkstorung sound. (w/ENIK & DJ Beyonda, Holocene, $8)

ALSO: Legendary Pink Dots: Indeed legendary, people lose it when these producers of experimental bliss come to town. (Roseland)

ALSO: Tillamook County Rodeo: In addition to watching people be hurled around by large, scared animals, you can also check out the June Dairy Parade today in downtown Tillamook! (parade at 10:30 am, rodeo June 26th & 27th, Tillamook County Fairgrounds, tillamookrodeo.com)

JULY

1st: St. Paul Rodeo: That's right cowboys, it's time to buck shit up again! Oh, I kill me! (St Paul Rodeo Arena, St Paul OR, through July 4th, stpaulrodeo.com)

2nd: MC5: Woah. An MC5 reunion tour? Awesome! Sure it's not the complete original lineup, but they have Mark Arm (yes!) and Evan Dando (huh?) filling in the vocals. (Roseland)

9th: PDX Pop Now! Festival: The first of three days' worth of over 50 bands that you people voted for! Come see who won! (Meow Meow, 320 SE 2nd)

ALSO: Oregon Country Fair: Day one of a three-day event, with tons of booths filled with bizarre activities. Eat some mushrooms and laugh at the fact that people are dressed like fairies and monkeys. (Veneta, OR, through July 11th)

ALSO: Portland International Beerfest: Some like it because of the opportunity to sample beers from all around the world. Others like getting drunk in the sun. (North Park Blocks, through July 11th)

10th: The Gorge Games: Head up the mountain for this festival of extreme sports, dude. (Columbia River Gorge, Oregon & Washington, check www.gorgegames.com for event schedules and locations, through July 18th)

11th: Yachats Smelt Fry and Music Festival: Every year, unsuspecting smelt fish come to this seaside town to spawn. Then we fry and eat them while we dance to "San Francisco musicians" and laugh for three consecutive days. (through the 13th)

ALSO: Warped Tour - NOFX, Bad Religion, New Found Glory, Thursday, Taking Back Sunday, Coheed & Cambria, Alkaline Trio, Bouncing Souls, Anti-Flag, Guttermouth, Flogging Molly, The Vandals, Atmosphere, The Sounds, Story Of The Year, The Early November, Senses Fail, Rise Against, My Chemical Romance, The Casualties, Lillix, Ima Robot, Mae, The Red West, Hazen Street, Letter Kills, Pulley, Pepper, Go Betty Go, God Awfuls, The Beautiful Mistake, The F#'k Ups, and lots of Vans sneakers. (Columbia Meadows, 63701 Columbia River Highway, St Helens, OR, 1 pm, $27.50)

16th: Robin Hood Festival: If you're craving something a little surreal, go play with a bunch of wingnuts in "Nottingham." Learn to play new games like archery, jousting, and juggling, and wear your best metal. (Sherwood, OR, July 16th & 17th)

17th: Southern Oregon Kite Fest: Chances are it's a beautiful day, so why not spend it staring at the clear blue sky? So wholesome! (Brookings, OR, July 17th & 18th)

23rd: Scissor Sisters: Totally bitchin' electro boy duo tryin' to pull the wool over our eyes with the "sisters" thing. Don't be a fool; go dance it off! (Berbati's, 231 SW Ankeny)

30th: DuneFest: It's ATV season, baby!! Check the drag races, exhibitions, and blast some sand around. (Winchester Bay, OR, through August 3rd)

31st: The Portland Adult Soapbox Derby: Watch drunk people careen down a hill, and often crash! Always fun to watch. (Mt Tabor, 10 am)

ALSO: Red Bull Flgtag: See what happens when average joes strap themselves into their homemade flying machines and jump. Conveniently, we have rivers for this. (Waterfront Park)

ALSO: Watermelon Festival: Yum, yum. Spend the day celebrating this big loveable fruit by gorging yourself, browsing the vendors, and filling watermelons with gallon jugs of cheap vodka. Festive! (Irrigon, OR)

AUGUST

1st: Crab Bounty Hunt: Crabs seem like pretty harmless creatures, which makes them easy targets. So let's slap a ridiculous amount of money on their heads (top prize: $10,000) and get catchin' already. (Winchester Bay, through August)

7th: Homowo Festival of African Arts: Learn about dance, drumming, and all manner of visual arts and music from Africa. Go white boy go white boy go! (PSU Park Blocks, August 7th & 8th www.homowo.org)

11th: Tillamook County Fair: A "Bull-A-Rama" rodeo and a weird race called "Pig-N-Ford" that employs Model T Fords and defenseless pigs. Yeeeha!! (Through August 14th)

14th: Oregon Trail Fiddle Contest: Grab your fiddle and show the world that you're a champion at this old timey fiddle showdown. It's going to be bloody. (La Grande, OR, August 14th & 15th)

26th: Oregon State Fair: Something for everyone. State fairs are really, really weird but totally edutaining. Especially the livestock! They smell bad! (State Fair & Expo Center, Salem, OR, www.oregonstatefair.org for directions, through Spetember 6th. Also check www.pigwings.com for info on bazillions of county fairs all summer long)