A homeless woman in Gresham alleges being Tasered by two Gresham police officers in retaliation for asking for their business cards last April.
LAW ENFORCEMENT SPOT THE DIFFERENCE: An (extremely) artistic impression of possible responses to the question, “May I have your business card?”

Mary MacQuire is suing the City of Gresham and Officers Jeff Durbin and Ted Van Beek, who were rousting homeless people from a homeless camp in Gresham known as “the Swamp” on the morning of April 7, 2006. Durbin and Van Beek approached a group of tents and began telling the people that they had to leave because they were illegally camped. 23-year-old MacQuire was retrieving some of her belongings from a tent, when she alleges seeing Durbin and Van Beek kicking her ex-boyfriend, Greg Schultz. The suit reads:

MacQuire approached Durbin and Van Beek slowly and told them they should not treat Shultz in this manner and asked for their cards. Durbin grabbed MacQuire’s arm. When she tried to pull away, Durbin punched her several times in the stomach. At Van Beek’s command, Durbin grabbed MacQuire by the hair and threw her to the ground while holding her head down. Durbin pinned her to the ground with his knee in her lower back. While she was pinned below him, Durbin electrically shocked MacQuire several times with his Taser gun.

MacQuire alleges being shocked six or seven times by Durbin on her right, upper, back thigh and hamstring while she was pinned beneath him with her face on the ground. She alleges Durbin told her “I could kill you” while she was being Tasered by him.

After being taken into custody, MacQuire alleges being denied appropriate medical attention for her injuries despite asking for help. Durbin cited her for disorderly conduct, offensive physical conduct, resisting arrest and unlawful camping—Macquire was subsequently found not guilty on all those charges.

Macquire is alleging the officers broke her constitutional right not to be subject to unreasonable seizure and unreasonable detention, under the fourth amendment. The case continues and is scheduled to go to jury trial in Federal Court on April 29th 2008.

A call to Gresham Police Department’s Public Information Officer for comment was yet to be returned at the time of posting.

Okay, it’s nearly 3 pm… so certainly we can forgo this whole “No Shopping Day” thingy, and buy the shit out of some stuff! Here are some helpful sale hints happening this weekend. (For those who don’t give two shakes about sales, skip to the video below of Heidi Klum doing funny things with her boobies.)

• You can save 10-30% on all men’s and women’s clothing from now through Sunday, at Portland’s posh Liza Rietz and a Broken Spoke (2305 NW Savier). UPDATE! Whoopsie, this sale is actually next weekend, but it’s a good idea to go in and stake your stuff out now.

• The new and bustling ChapterFour (specializing in streetwear and accessories for the dandy and dandette about town) is having a storewide sale all weekend long (as well as being open late on Saturday with music, wine and snacks)! Check ‘em out at 4702 N Albina.

• Mario’s (806 SW Broadway) is having a designer sale (featuring Prada, Dolce & Gabbana, Jimmy Choo and lots more) FOR WOMEN starting today with selected clothing, shoes and bags 30-40% off.

• Alberta’s Idiom is slashing prices all the way through Monday with 15% off clothing and 10% off accessories. (1600 NE Alberta) Buy me something nice!!

And now, after the jump, Heidi Klum playing with her boobies.

I’ve been having a clandestine little affair with Menomena’s Friend and Foe for the past few months, and am super-excited to see them at the Crystal tomorrow tonight. And apparently openers Tu Fawning ain’t too shabby either.

Here is a rad video of the band performing “Wet and Rusting” in what appears to be a courtyard in Paris. Make sure you watch all the way til the little kids start dancing.

Menomena perform w/Shaky Hands and Tu Fawning at the Crystal Ballroom tomorrow night, $12-15, 9 pm

I’ve already said my share: Did anybody else check it out yet? What did you think?

Welcome to the third in at least four in a series of blog posts entitled Breaking The Law, wherein I come across a lawsuit I feel you’d benefit from knowing a little about, but can’t be bothered to poke too far into it, so I stick it on here “for your interest” and forget about it forever. Last week, it was seriously injuring someone with a mannequin. This week, it’s discriminating against someone because they’re fat. Which is very, very bad.
FAT PEOPLE: HAVE RIGHTS. DON’T DISCRIMINATE… NB: This picture is for illustration purposes only. It does not show the plaintiff in the lawsuit.

Remember: I’m writing about pending litigation that’s not yet been decided in court. So we’re talking about allegations, and not facts. In other words, it may well be true that fat people are disgusting and deserve to be fired. But probably not. In fact, definitely not. Fat people have rights!

Robert J.Caskey of SE Portland is suing Qwest Corporation for at least $100,000, alleging wrongful termination and discrimination. On May 16, 2003, Caskey, who had worked for Qwest and its subsidiaries since 1979, underwent gastric bypass surgery to correct his morbid obesity. He suffered serious and debilitating complications from that surgery including heart problems, sleep apnea, hearing loss, loss of bone in his spine, and occasional confusion. He is disabled under Oregon statute 659A.100, according to his lawsuit.

Caskey was able to work his job in a call center at Qwest, he says, with minor accommodations, including short breaks from sitting to allow him to move around and use the restroom. But he alleges Qwest refused to accommodate his needs, and furthermore, that Qwest’s managers subjected him to ridicule and unreasonable work conditions as a result of his disabilities.

Caskey took medical leave again in late 2004, and returned to work in February 2005, in order to have surgery. When he returned to work, he alleges his managers began questioning him continually about when he would need further medical leaves and asking him about his medical conditions. He told his managers he expected to need another medical leave in December 2005.

When Caskey returned to work, he alleges his managers “began placing unreasonable conditions on his employment. They began writing up disciplinary reports for every infraction they could find. They transferred him to working in residential sales and refused to provide him with training in the new area.”

On December 7, 2005, Caskey’s managers told him he was being suspended without pay for a supposed error in sale. The reason Qwest gave for the suspension was a pretext, Caskey alleges, for Qwest to terminate him wrongfully. Caskey alleges Qwest terminated Caskey wrongfully on December 31, 2005, because of his disability.

The case continues.

Jesus, was yesterday boring or what? After a few scintillating hours doing family stuff, you get released into what? A city that’s boarded down with empty streets and nothing to do. Thanksgiving, you bore the hell out of me. Thankfully (see what I did there?), tonight has a few more options for the restless and cabin-fevered among us. For instance:

As you might have noticed on the front page of the Mercury website, the delightful AIDS Wolf of Montreal is playing Satyricon with Night Wounds, the Get Hustle, and Meth Teeth (ha). AIDS Wolf does a sort of pyscho-psyche-noize-freakout, and have some of the best graphics of any band on the road right now. This is because by day, AIDS Wolf is the badass illustration/design duo better known as Seripop, who do some seriously wicked things.
That show’s at Satyricon, 125 NW 6th, 8 pm, $8, and it’s all ages.

Weirdo rapper Busdriver will be sitting cuckoo rhymes at Holocene tonight, as he is wont to do. In our paper this week, Graham Barey points out that underground rappers are basically trying to out-weird each other these days; I blame the popularity of Kool Keith for a lot of the trend, but remain grateful that MF Doom, Busdriver, et al, stay un-weird enough to show up for most of their concerts. Busdriver raps super fast about zany things—I shudder to even type the phrase “hipster rap,” but if you were looking to start an artistic roster of such a thing, Busdriver would have to be real high on the list.
w/Daedelus, Antimc, DJ Pretty Please; Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison, 9 pm, $8

Finally, for all the dancefloor freaks, the best bet of the night is Eats Tapes, who were just awarded a big electronic music award from the San Francisco Weekly. You can expect crappy (in a good way) drum machines, sequencers, and other wacky tools used to make bleeps, bloops, and bouncy beats. It’s what all the kids are into these days.
Rotture, 315 SE 3rd, 10 pm, $3

Here’s the video for Eats Tapes’ “Magic Carpet Ride,” which is nine kajillion times more interesting than Thanksgiving was.

Just in case you’ve regained your appetite since yesterday:

Doctors say this hairball removed from a woman’s stomach weighed 10 pounds.

HAIRBALL: Appetizing, attractive, serene…

A previously healthy 18-year-old woman who consulted a team of gastrointestinal specialists. She complained of a five-month history of pain and swelling in her abdomen, vomiting after eating and a 40-pound weight loss. “On questioning, the patient stated that she had had a habit of eating her hair for many years — a condition called trichophagia.” The woman underwent surgery to remove the mass of black, curly hair, which weighed 10 pounds and measured 15 inches by 7 inches by 7 inches, the doctors said.

Thanks to Cory for sending me this link. It’s absolutely disgusting, but strangely compelling, at the same time—my favorite kind of nonsense news story.

Do Americans really have the right to keep a gun at home? The Supreme Court will decide.

The line at the Woodburn outlet mall was—I kid you not—backed up onto the freeway by at least a mile in each direction, when we were driving back from Thanksgiving late last night. The rest of the country was just as nuts.

Too bad he didn’t have his camera crew with him: Girls Gone Wild producer Joe Francis is accusing Oklahoma jail guards of abuse.

Weren’t last week’s news reports about violence in Iraq subsiding? Perhaps they jumped the gun—a suicide bomber killed 13 people (and who knows how many animals) in an attack on a pet market.

Anarchy on MAX? The Oregonian “reporter travels the Blue Line” to find out.

Happy Thanksgiving to all… unless of course you were killed by some falling turkeys, as was the case in this classic hilarious clip from TV’s WKRP in Cincinnati.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here’s another episode of Easier Than Reading to listen to while you eat second helpings of stuffing and mashed potatoes. On today’s show, guest host Ned the Intern plays tunes from acts you will find playing around town this week, including Busdriver (pictured above), Tu Fawning, and… Billy Joel? Listen here.

Okay, so Eli Roth’s films make me feel pretty gross and/or self-righteously offended. But still: I’m pretty sure that if I didn’t post this today, I’d hardly be fulfilling my duties as the Mercury’s film editor.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.

Why not read local blogger, Food Dude’s unfolding account of his totally random trip to Italy this week.

“I am sitting in Parma, Italy, not far from Bologna. It has been a cold afternoon, only about 40 degrees, but therein lies the benefit: no tourists. We have just had some wonderful pasta… but I am getting ahead of myself. I’ll start at the beginning.”

FOOD DUDE’S IN PARMA: Bastardo!!!

My favorite comment is the second one. Someone says, simply, “I hate you.” Happy Thanksgiving.

About a month ago, a friend and I were standing on the sidewalk on NW Davis and 5th, having a conversation. He’s got bad knees, so he was kneeling while we talked. But we weren’t blocking the sidewalk. And a PPI officer rode up, aggressively telling us “we had to move.” I asked him why. He said “because you’re blocking the sidewalk for people who might want to walk around.” And my friend pointed out that we weren’t—that there was ample space either side of us to walk around. We got the “officer’s” card. But it was a strange interaction. “This isn’t about sit/lie,” he said. To which I thought, “what is it about, then?”

PPI officers are, in theory, regular citizens in security uniforms. But I didn’t feel that way when he rode up to us on his bike on the sidewalk. I felt like he was trying to intimidate me, and for no good legal reason. We went back to our conversation, although I couldn’t really concentrate. I was angry. I felt more like he was, I don’t know, impersonating a police officer?

I mention this story because there’s an interesting story in this morning’s New York Times about a man who was arrested by a real police officer for standing and not moving on a street corner in Times Square in 2004. That man, Matthew Jones, was chatting with friends at 2am on June 12, 2004. When an officer asked him to move, he refused, and turned away. He was charged, and given a night in jail for his trouble, with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest—a conviction overturned yesterday in the New York Court of Appeals. The judge wrote:

“Nothing in the information indicates how the defendant, when he stood in the middle of a sidewalk at 2:01 a.m., had the intent to or recklessly created a risk of causing ‘public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm,’”

Here’s the pertinent part:

“Something more than a mere inconvenience of pedestrians is required to support the charge. Otherwise, any person who happens to stop on a sidewalk — whether to greet another, to seek directions or simply to regain one’s bearings — would be subject to prosecution under this statute.”

So: the argument you’re “blocking a sidewalk for pedestrians who want to get past” is invalid, as long as there’s room on either side of you for them to get past. Although I can’t believe I’m arguing the legality of the issue, when on sheer blunt principle it’s so obvious the guy was full of it. But at least I’ll have the confidence to challenge his opinion more aggressively next time.

Doug Jenkins, one of the ringleaders of the extraordinarily versatile and entertaining Portland Cello Project (and also a member of Bright Red Paper), will be flexing his bow solo at the Pix on Hawthorne tonight. The Cello Project always puts on a fun show—whether backing other local musicians, playing original compositions, or covering Outkast—and I’d be curious to see what Mr. Jenkins gets up to on his own.

Pix on Hawthorne, 3731 SE Hawthorne, 8 pm, free

Couldn’t find any of the dude’s solo stuff on YouTube, but here’s Bright Red Paper:

Tomorrow is the day when America celebrates family and patriotism by eating pound upon pound of dead bird. But did you know that there’s another country that eats more turkey than we do? Unless you’ve read the new issue of National Geographic (or, as I did, this online article that totally cribs it), you will probably not guess which country it is. (Hint: it’s not Turkey.)

At a whopping 34 pounds of turkey a year per capita, the winner is Israel!

Come on Americans, do your part tomorrow. We can be number one if we all set our minds to it.

I went to a screening at Fox Tower on Monday afternoon. Here’s what happened:

COLLEGE-AGE SIGNATURE-GATHERER ON STREET CORNER: Yo, bro, want to join Greenpeace?

ME, IN A HURRY, AND HAVING GIVEN NO INDICATION WHATSOEVER I HAVE TIME TO TALK AND/OR ANY INTEREST IN JOINING GREENPEACE: Nope!

COLLEGE-AGE SIGNATURE-GATHERER ON STREET CORNER, NOW CALLING AFTER ME LOUDLY: Oh, just walk away? Oh, that’s real cool. Hey, you know who else isn’t a member of Greenpeace? GEORGE W. BUSH!

And then this happened today, after a screening at the same theater:

ANOTHER COLLEGE-AGE SIGNATURE-GATHERER ON A DIFFERENT STREET CORNER, ATTEMPTING TO SHAKE MY HAND: Hey, man, what’s up? I’m Seth!

ME, IN A HURRY, AND HAVING GIVEN NO INDICATION WHATSOEVER THAT I HAVE TIME TO TALK OR AM AT ALL INTERESTED IN SHAKING HANDS WITH SETH, OR IN SIGNING ANYTHING HE WANTS ME TO SIGN: Nope, sorry.

SETH: Pfft.

SETH’S BUDDY, WHO IS ATTEMPTING THE SAME SHTICK NOT FIVE FEET AWAY, RUNNING UP TO ME: Man, isn’t saying “no” so much less fun that saying “yes”?

ME, FEELING GUILTY: Fine. What are you selling?

SETH’S BUDDY, SLIPPING INTO USED CAR SALESMAN MODE: We’re trying to educate little kids and keep them outta brothels, man! How cool is that, bro?

ME, NOT FEELING GUILTY ANYMORE: You know what? I honestly don’t give a fuck.

Which was a lie. If asked if I give a fuck about kids in brothels, I’d suppose I’d say I’m against it. I guess. Anyway, hell, walking downtown this past week has been like dodging a minefield of sleazy, desperate, guilt-tripping assholes who’re soliciting money for whatever cause, and being total douchebags about it to boot.

This methodology has to work—otherwise places like Greenpeace and The How Cool Is Keeping Children Out of Brothels, Bro? Association wouldn’t keep sending their employees out to accost random people on the street—but isn’t there a more effective way to use this manpower? Where the hell are these places getting these shameless kids for employees? Who the fuck is telling them that it’s okay to intercept people on the street and then make them feel like shit if we don’t want to give them money? Are these kids such pricks because they’re getting paid on commission? Is Greenpeace or wherever aware that this shit makes me want to go out and club baby seals just for shits and giggles?

In conclusion, downtown signature-gatherers and salesmen: Pretend for five minutes like we’re in a real city, and stop taking advantage of how friendly a city Portland is, and try to comprehend the common courtesy of walking on a busy street: Unless I make eye contact with you, don’t fucking approach me, don’t try to shake my hand, don’t ask me questions with obvious answers re: kids in brothels, and, lastly, do us both a favor and don’t liken me to George W. Bush if I don’t have time for your bullshit. Thanks.

Now I know I’m not a girl, but I’d really like to spend this Thanksgiving in a closet… with my mother… discussing the effectiveness of douche… and how the bottle’s shaped?

All together now… EWWWWWWWW!!!!

circa 1986.

In the boozy recesses of my pickled brain, I remember a bartender once telling me that the night before Thanksgiving is the biggest night of the year for bars. At the time, I accepted this as indisputable fact and thought nothing further of it. But today I am wondering: is this right? After about four minutes of careful internet research, I discovered the answer is: “Maybe.” And it may depend upon where you live. There’s actually a lot of good reasons for Thanksgiving Eve to be a blowout: no one works the following day, kids are home from college, everyone is bracing to spend an entire meal with their families, some people are unwinding after a shitty day of travel.

So my questions to you, fair blog readers, are these: Hittin’ the sauce tonight? Going to the neighborhood local, or do you have bigger plans? Are you going to be reunited with some old friends, or are you just looking for an excuse to get out of the house? Any Thanksgiving Day hangover horror stories? (One year, I had to excuse myself from the table to barf.)

Like a lot of people, I’m sure, my heart jumped pretty hard when I saw that the legendary Wu Tang Clan was going to be at the Roseland this New Years Eve. The Wu hasn’t done a full blown tour in years, and seeing as how they’re one of the most seminal hiphop groups ever (not even debatable), a New Years Eve concert should be one of the hottest shows of the year. But then reality came flooding back in.

1. The Wu Tang Clan’s best years are long behind them. Everyone’s stoked for the new 8 Diagrams album, even though their last, Iron Flag, was an indefensible mess. I love Ghostface more than the average reader, but I think even his game was better during the Iron Flag era than now (even if his persona and hype machine wasn’t). Supreme Clientele > Fishscale. And if Ghostface’s skills are even a tad less than what they used to be, it doesn’t bode well for Inspectah Deck and U-God.

2. Wu Tang has a well-deserved reputation as one of the worst live shows in hiphop, which is a truly astounding title. The very embodiment of too many mic’ed rappers onstage at once, the members step all over each other’s line, cuffing their microphones, and barking lines while the DJ kills the momentum with nonstop rewinds.

3. This is the biggie—The Wu Tang Clan can barely get their shit together for a middle-of-the-week gig in NYC and show up as an entire unit. Anyone who thinks that all their favorite members will show up in Oregon on New Year’s Eve has obviously never paid for a Wu concert, only to be told 45 minutes into it that Method Man (or whoever) “couldn’t make it tonight.” Even if his name remains on the marquee outside.

I hope I am wrong about every single point I make here. I’ll even concede that the first, about their artistic quality, isn’t worth skipping a show for. They’re legends. But several people have asked me if I was stoked for the show, and having been burnt one too many times, I have to annoyingly kill the enthusiasm by relating my own experiences.

In case you haven’t already heard it, here’s their first singleoff the new album, which feature George Harrison’s son on guitar, John Frusciante, Erikah Badu, and a bunch of other people I don’t give a shit about. I may be Wu Tang Clan “for life,” but I’ve also got to be pragmatic about the whole thing.

Wu Tang Clan, Cool Nutz, Sandpeople, Lilla D’Mone play the Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th, Dec 31, 9 pm, $40

Wow.

The council voted down Potter’s ordinance to rename Interstate, 3-2.

Then Saltzman moved to table his ordinance for a “new process” so the council could rename 4th.

The council approved that—with several giving apologetic speeches on how renaming 4th was a “well meaning but not a good” idea.

Then, Saltzman moved to re-evaluate last week’s resolution to rename 4th—they did, and unanimously voted it down.

Where does that leave us? It’s “time to heal,” several commissioners and the mayor said.

Addressing the Chávez committee, Saltzman said “if you want to work with the existing process with either one of those streets, I’d be open to that.”

In other words, the council just called for a complete do-over.

UPDATE @ 2 pm: It was Maria Rojo de Steffey’s idea to retreat from all of the rename proposals. She issued a press release this morning, just before the meeting, and made the rounds at city hall. At “9:31,” Commissioner Erik Sten says, the commissioners realized they were all the on same page, and willing to go with de Steffey’s suggestion.

Also, I asked Marta Guembes if she planned to run for political office—I’ve heard plenty of speculation to that effect. She laughed, and said “you’re making that up!”

The Boss announced some tour dates this morning, including a show right here at our very own Rose Garden on March 28th, 2008. (It’s a Friday!) You have been informed, so start planning appropriately. Tickets go on sale December 8th, and they will probably cost a fortune.

• Hillary Clinton refuses to cross the writers’ strike picket line for a Democratic debate. Oh, snap, Obama!

• “The Saudi judiciary on Tuesday defended a court verdict that sentenced a 19-year-old victim of a gang rape to six months in jail and 200 lashes because she was with an unrelated male when they were attacked.” Finally, a good reason to go to war with the Middle East.

• “Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.” How long will it be before Lynn Cheney turns on them?

• “Federal investigators were able to successfully smuggle components for making explosive devices past security checkpoints at 19 different domestic airports.” Have a great Thanksgiving flight, everybody!

Today at city council, the mayor and commissioners are slated to either vote on or procedurally kill Mayor Tom Potter’s ordinance to rename Interstate for César E. Chávez (they already procedurally killed the resolution that precedes the ordinance). They’re also going to discuss and vote on Commissioner Dan Saltzman’s ordinance to recast the process for council-initiated renames, to clear the path for a rename of 4th Avenue.

But just you wait!

Council chambers is nearing capacity, filled with representatives of Old Town/Chinatown—reportedly at the behest of Maria Rojo de Steffey, who met with Chinatown leaders earlier. I can’t imagine, if they’re coordinating with Interstate-rename allies like de Steffey, that they’re here to outright oppose Chávez. Rather, I’m expecting testimony of solidarity with the Chávez committee, asking the council to redirect the rename back to Interstate (and off of 4th).

First we’re going to “Accept 2006-2007 Annual Report for the Portland Watershed Management Plan,” then zip through the consent agenda, then the smoking ban on city properties, and THEN we’ll get to rename related items. Hopefully.

Dilemma: I was going to do a post today about Jamie Rich’s reading tonight at Powell’s on Burnside, but after Matt drew my attention to David “I’m the only relevant journalist in Portland” Walker’s OMI post yesterday, I kind of don’t want to anymore. Is that petty? Sorry, Jamie. (I swear that this has nothing to do with you telling me, in light of my positive response to Southland Tales, that I should stick to reading YA fiction.)

So instead:

Tonight, at the Umpqua Bank! Storytime for Grownups presents The Worlds of Dr. Seuss, selections from the Theodore Geisel cannon read by prolific local writer/performer David Loftus, plus coffee, tea, and cookies. 1241 SW 10th Avenue, 7 pm, free

William Shatner, you will never not be awesome.

Watching the Shatner and Mr. T hilariously shill for World of Warcraft is pretty much the highlight of my day. Or any day, really. Check it out here.

Thanks, Kotaku and Blizzard.

I can’t say pinpoint the exact reason that Borat doesn’t interest me in the least these days. (Surely I’m not alone?) Is it because the character’s reached that Napoleon Dynamite stage of rotting saturation, in which we’re one step shy of finding discounted Borat talking keychains at the Walgreens checkout? Is it because the movie’s awkward, scripted infrastructure undermined what made Borat so funny in the first place? Maybe it’s because the satire has loped the cultural line, and it feels like we’re supposed to laugh directly Borat, rather than his interviewees. Or maybe that George Saunders piece struck a nerve.

Why do I even care? Because last week, almost a year to the day after the Borat movie came out, I received his Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan book, which I promptly tossed in the “will realistically never read” pile, and figured that somebody at Doubleday ought to be fired before they published Snakes on a Plane: The Novelization. Today the Powell’s blog gave us the following promotional video, which somehow made me care even less about the book. (I couldn’t make it to the end.)

If I’m a sillyass idiot who is missing the whole Borat thing, tell me why in the comments. (If you think I’m a sillyass idiot for other reasons, hold that thought for a later date.) The most convincing Borat defender gets this timely book (provided you come to the Mercury offices and pick it up, of course). If I’m not swayed in the least, my grandmother gets the book for Christmas. Don’t everybody answer at once.

Should your landlord get to tell you not to smoke in your apartment? Blogger stockboy at Neighborhood Notes hails the Wyatt’s new non-smoking policy in the Pearl:

”The policy bans smoking inside apartment units and common areas, including balconies and patios, and within 25 feet of the building. Prospective residents must sign a no-smoking agreement upon leasing a unit and will be responsible for enforcing the policy within their apartments.”

I’m all for not smoking. In fact, I’m all for my neighbor not smoking—the stink walking past his door on the way to the elevator is disgusting. But there’s part of me feels it’s, I don’t know, a little judgmental to impose limits on what one’s residents choose to inhale in the privacy of their homes, let alone on their balconies, or within 25 feet of the building. Prometheus, the company managing the Wyatt, manages most of its properties in California. They’re in love with these no-smoking policies there, apparently. But is this a trend we want to see in Portland? And what next? Outlawing anything fatty within 25 feet? NO TO CRISCO!?

NO SMOKING: Or chocolate. Or sex…

Hometown boys Blitzen Trapper lit up our day with their new video for “Wild Mounting Nation,” a song that pumps some new lifeblood through the weakened body of ’70s fuzz rock. The fantastic video was made by Portland’s Orie Weeks III (formerly of East Coast Panic), who harkens back to the old days of afterschool MTV and Terry Gilliam for this one.

Need some more Blitz in your life? The sextet will be opening for Stephen Malkmus at the Doug Fir, Fri Dec 21.

It’s nice to see Street Roots director Israel Bayer in a confrontational mood:

Two Portland Patrol Inc. security guards just walked into Street Roots, and asked two of our vendors (one of whom slept in our doorway last night) and then me if we wanted to sign up for a trespass enforcement agreement with the Portland Police Bureau. They are going door-to-door in the neighborhood.

What does this mean? It means that the Portland Patrol funded by the Portland Business Alliance and the Portland Police Bureau continue to offer a stick without a carrot. They walk a big talk, and offer money for direct service in the guise of caring about homeless people. Where’s the carrots, folks?

Street Roots and others have kicked, screamed, reported and advocated over the years in a myriad of different ways, offering why criminalization is costly, ineffective, a form of torture and does nothing to solve the problem of homelessness.

Still, the reality is year after year after year, the police and now private security sweep, ticket, exclude and harass poor people, while bureaucrats continue to set on the sidelines, and offer the 10-year plan to end homelessness as step in the right direction.

We call bullshit, once again.

Read the whole thing here.

Every year it’s the same thing: I need a calendar, yet I HATE every calendar I see! In order for me to NOT go completely insane, I need a calendar that is creative, bizarre and I can look at every day without tossing up. For example? Here’s a calendar I received a couple years ago, which is both hot and hilarious, and they’re printing another edition for 2008. It’s called… WOMEN IN WADERS, featuring… well… WOMEN IN WADERS. Here’s Miss March.

While this calendar is super awesome, I actually prefer this company’s sister calendar called GUNS AND CAMO— because hunting is always better in a bikini. Hello, Miss April.

Unfortunately for the world, the 2008 version of Guns and Camo is already SOLD OUT. And since I’ve already done the fish ‘n’ bikini thing, I need a new calendar.
ANY SUGGESTIONS?

Despite the fact that I rolled in an hour late today due to being out all night convincing some out-of-town friends that Portland is better than L.A. (easy), I’m actually heading out to my Cali homeland of San Francisco (also better than L.A.) tomorrow morning for Thanksgiving and my 10-year high school reunion (I KNOW. It’s going to be just like this:)

Anyhow, I am driving for, like, 8 hours and the radio sucks and I only have a tape deck. Inconceivably, my cassette tape collection has diminished somewhat since 10th grade and I’m really looking for something more absorbing… I want books on tape! I’ve been on a non-fiction kick for the past few years, so factually edifying books on tape would be a bonus. I don’t want any annoying character voices. Who’s got a recommendation? If you can tell me a good one that’s about animals you get extra points.

I was just downtown for a press conference at the Police Bureau, and grabbed a coffee on my way out at this place on the corner of SW 2nd and Jefferson. It seems to be a family-run place—the line was non-existent, and honestly, I’d just come from the Starbucks a block West, where the line was 10-long. But here’s the thing: it smelt like Thanksgiving in there. They were carving multiple fresh roast turkeys in the back, for lunchtime sandwiches. If I worked downtown, I know where I’d be going for my lunch.

Pfft. Guitar Hero is so old and boring. The “new hotness,” as the kids say, is Rock Band, where you not only get to pretend to play guitar, but you also get to pretend to play drums and sing! Why, it’ll be just like you and your lazy friends had the ambition and time to commit to learning real instruments—except instead, you’ll just get drunk and pound on a bunch of plastic ones! (Obviously, this is so much better than being in a real band, for a whole slew of reasons—not only will you not suck, unlike roughly 98 percent of real bands, but you’ll also avoid common pratfalls that plague almost all “real” musicians, such as snapped strings, missed gigs, inter-band drama, Yoko Ono, and aggressive strains of herpes.)

But if you don’t have a copy of Rock Band—or if you don’t have the friends to play it with because you were such an arrogant jackass when you all played Halo 3 that one time—you’re in luck. We just got an email from the kind folks at Ground Kontrol, who’re having a Rock Band release party tonight:

Rock Band is the most awesome combination of music and gaming since… well, since Ground Kontrol installed a rock stage and became the only arcade-slash-live music venue on the planet. That’s just our opinion, but there’s no denying it’s a great place for you to get first crack at the most anticipated music videogame of the year.

That’s right, we’re hosting a Rock Band release party and YOU are invited. Take your pick of drums, lead guitar, bass, or mic on stage in front of a projection screen. Add show lighting, vocal and instrument monitors, and mic and guitar stands, and you have the ultimate rock star experience.

Form a band with your friends, jump into a pickup group on the spot, or simply wave your cell phone during the power ballads… just be there, and be ready to ROCK!

Should be fun. Tonight at 9 pm at Ground Kontrol (511 NW Couch). Oh, and shit—it also sounds Ground Kontrol just got Konami’s arcade version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in, too, so if you feel like taking a break between rock numbers, you and your pals can go after those assholes Be-Bop and Rock-Steady instead. Man, I hate those guys.

1.IRAQ!! Newspapers all over America carry news that Baghdad is safer than it was in February. Although the improvements appear to be modest:

…while there are still no-go zones, more Iraqis now drive between Sunni and Shiite areas for work, shopping or school, a few even after dark. In the most stable neighborhoods of Baghdad, some secular women are also dressing as they wish. Wedding bands are playing in public again, and at a handful of once shuttered liquor stores, customers now line up outside in a collective rebuke to religious vigilantes from the Shiite Mahdi Army.

God forbid you’re a secular woman trying to buy liquor for the wedding band in a less stable neighborhood of Baghdad. But still…
BAGHDAD: Less dangerous than a swarm of sharks, a minefield, AND Britney Spears’ umbrella, combined. But is it “safe?”

Meanwhile, a US general tells troops in Iraq: “A good way to prepare for operations in Iraq is to watch the sixth season of ‘The Sopranos.’”

2.IRAQ!! US prosecutors have issued grand jury subpoenas to some of the Blackwater rent-a-cops who shot 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians back in September. This means prosecutors believe there is enough evidence of wrongdoing by the firm to warrant a thorough criminal investigation. Although it’s not clear whether the civilians they shot were secular-dressed, liquor-buying wedding band fans, or regular oppressed, terrified casualties of a horrifying civil war engendered by the failure of this country to hold its fascist government accountable for engineering a hedge fund war. But still…

3.IRAQ!! The Iraqi military detained 43 rent-a-cops working for a Dubai-based firm contracting with the American military, following the shooting of an 18-year-old girl in central Baghdad on Monday. Seriously. What timing.

4.STOP THE MADNESS!! Let’s rename 42nd Avenue after a dead middle-aged white male. Remember, this is not about race, but honoring a hero to middle-aged white men. Douglas Adams, if I remember rightly, died on a Nordic ski machine, of a heart attack, following an exercise binge. How much whiter can you get?!

5.OBAMA AVENUE!! Thank God, Barack Obama tops Hillary Clinton in Iowa polls. He’s more likable and genuine, they say. And I’m with them. Let’s rename a street.

Good day!!

As in, David Walker at Oregon Media Insiders is one? Discuss.

Ps. I’ve been resisting the urge to call people names today. Almost a whole day, you’ll notice. I’m proud of myself. And I’ve tried to phrase this particular name-calling in terms of a discussion, or debate. To involve you in it. Rather than just do it for the sake of it. Which I guess is progress, of a kind. Ish.

Some of the Mercury’s ad-sales team took time out of their busy schedules this afternoon to, er…well, to do this:
BAD SANTA: No Stairway, dude…

Another way the Mercury office is fucked in the head? We’ve got, like, a billion pugs running around this place. I’m serious. No other kind of dogs… just pugs. I suppose they’re nice enough, I just don’t like any dog where I can look in one end, and see straight through to the other side. Anyway, here’s the most horrifying pug video in the world. If any dogs in our office learn how to do this? I’m going to start a pug-ocaust.

R.I.P.’s go out to one of TV’s fave character actors, DICK WILSON, who died today at the ripe old age of 91. While he had a good career playing drunks and other characters on shows such as Bewitched and Hogan’s Heroes, Wilson is most famous for portraying the persnickity MR. WHIPPLE in over 500 “Don’t Squeeze the Charmin” commercials. I always loved the air of sexual repression in these ads, and here’s one of my favorites, where Mr. Whipple hires Robby the Robot to protect his Charmin toilet paper display from those grabby housefraus. Dick Wilson, you will be missed.

I just chatted with Aaron Duran, the guy behind the fledgling movement to rename 42nd Avenue for Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. (In the book, the “Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything” is 42, hence the choice of streets.)

Duran concedes that the idea began as a joke. He and several friends were discussing the César E. Chávez rename issue over beers a few weeks ago, and wondered if anyone could try to rename a street. “Can you just name anything after anyone? What if someone wanted to make a street after Douglas Adams?” Duran says.

But after they researched Adams a bit more, “It makes sense. He was real big in global conservation, a huge advocate of bringing technology to everyone, and a support of the free flow of education—the idea that educating people could help solve issues like global poverty,” Duran adds. In other words, Adams might as well have been a Portlander, his values dovetail so well with our city’s. Meanwhile, Adams—who died in 2001 at the age of 49—”enjoyed his spirits and his fine beers.”

“It’s something that’s possible and something the city could be proud of,” Duran says.

So they started a website for the effort, and Duran just got a copy of the official rename process application today. “As pedantic and annoying as bureaucracy can be, you can’t put yourselves above the rules—even if you’re the mayor,” says Duran, who lives off of 43rd. He and the rest of the 42nd rename team plan to follow the official rename process to the letter, he says. “Since we’re not on the council we can’t really strong arm this one, and we don’t want to,” he says. They’re about to start raising the money needed to file the application, and they’ve reached out to Adams’ widow to see if they can get her blessing.

I also spoke with Clarance Larkins, head of the NE 42nd Avenue Business Association.

“Is this a joke?” he asked. I assured him that as far as I could tell, it is not, and I directed him to the website.

“Whoever’s in charge of that, probably needs to come to a [business association] meeting,” he says. “They haven’t even talked to us about it. I think they’re going about this the wrong way.” Uh oh.

Larkins, who hadn’t heard of Adams, adds that this sounds different than the Chávez effort. “That’s a real person,” he says. “Here we’re talking about galaxies and whatever.”

I know this may be old news to some of you, but for those of you who haven’t seen this yet, prepare to waste the rest of the afternoon at your desk going through each one of these photos and chuckling to yourself. Rock & Roll Confidential’s Hall of Douchebags is an impressive collection of really terrible (and hilarious!) band photos.

Tough-guy scowls? Check.
Tattoos and billy-goatees? Check.
Kid from Deliverance? Check.

This, of course, makes a nice companion to the ever-popular Hot Chicks with Douchebags.

Join us a week from tomorrow as we host what’s sure to be our most intense Debate Club to date: Should the US go to war with Iran?

Arguing that the US should mind its own business (or, at least, not bomb Iran) is Dr. Goudarz Eghtedari of the American Iranian Friendship Council.

And making the case that the US need to intervene to stop Iran’s nuclear program, is Larry Oeth, Treasurer of the Multnomah County Republican Committee.

At the very least, the November 27 debate will give you a good primer on the issues at hand, so you can make heads or tails of the political spinning happening on all sides. Or, you might emerge from rontoms ready to launch an anti-war protest, or prepped to write a letter to President Bush urging swift action.

See you there: 7 pm, November 27 at rontoms, 600 E Burnside

I was not aware until last week that Periodicals Paradise had moved up to the Hollywood District (from the spot on Hawthorne that is now solely occupied by House, that big vintage flea market-y place). I think it happened forever ago. No one told me. In case any of y’all are equally out of the loop, they’re now at 1928 NE 42nd. Check out how many Lurlene McDaniel books they had:

Goodbye Doesn’t Mean Forever, I Want to Live, Until Angels Close My Eyes… Eugh.

I took home the elusive Final Friends 1: The Party, by Christopher Pike (which Powells SAYS they have in stock but I have been repeatedly unable to locate on the shelf—and dude needs to make a comeback, he’s the Judy Blume of YA horror), and backup copies of books 2 and 3 in the His Dark Materials trilogy, all for $1 apiece. They also had every single Piers Anthony book I am embarrassed to have read, plus loads of cheap, non-sucky sci-fi as well.

As promised, details on the candlelight vigil mourning Dan Callaway: Tomorrow (Tuesday), 8 pm, Q Center, 69 SE Taylor. Please bring candles. From the press release:

Tuesday’s gathering will be an opportunity for the community to come together and support Dan’s partner Jonny Shultz and family, mother Karyn Callaway and father Phil Callaway of Philomath; and younger brother Jesse Callaway of Portland. Dan, who worked as a cancer researcher in the Oncology department of Legacy Good Samaritan, will be remembered as a community activist, avid bike commuter, the life of the party and an expert in the art of practical jokes. Jonny and those close to Dan need the love and support of their community during this sad time.

Fans of the 2001 short story collection Dogwalker tend to walk around as if they’re ferreting a juicy secret, which, in a way, they are. Arthur Bradford’s miniature fictions about men fighting over a breadloaf-sized slug, an antagonist nicknamed Catface for very literal reasons, and a narrator who impregnates his girlfriend’s dog, were oddly casual dramas where men become canine like it’s no big thing. 2001 was also the watershed year for McSweeney’s (who counts Bradford as an early contributor), and Dogwalker was part of that early millennium wave of lo-fi surrealism, where “no stories about couples in Manhattan” seemed to be the only rule.

Bradford is also the mind behind How’s Your News?, a documentary about handicapped adults traversing the country, creating their own newscasts as they headed for the Pacific Ocean. Bradford worked at Camp Jabberwocky with disabled adults for years, and earned the massive trust required to organize this roadtrip with a van full of amateur newscasters whose cerebral palsy, downs syndrome, and other afflictions had essentially inhibited them from seeing anything beyond their own city limits.

But Bradford has been quiet for the past several years. I saw him talk at Reed in 2002 or so, where he turned one of his Dogwalker stories into a song that he performed on his acoustic guitar. Other than that, it’s been all quiet on the Bradford front.

Tonight he’s at Fifth Avenue Cinemas (510 SW Hall) and will presumably tell us about some of his recent creative misadventures. I’m hoping the words “new book” are involved. Here’s How’s Your News scene-stealer Sean Costello reporting from Texas:

Bradford talks at 7:30 pm tonight, and as always, it’s free.

On today’s show, Magenta does a good job of keeping Matt together as he waxes poetic on the new Joe Strummer movie. The duo play word association with the decades, discuss being auctioned off, and pull out some nuggets from the 90’s. Music by Sly and the Family Stone, Eels, Beck, We Are Scientists, and more. Welcome to episode 46 of Pure Pod for now People!

Sometimes I like movies that a lot of other people don’t like and my reaction is surprise and anger: “Why don’t you like this? Are you stupid? Are you naïve? Are you a cinematic illiterate? Well, I do say, good sir, that one thing is quite certain: You are no one that I want as my friend. Good day.” And then sometimes I like movies that a lot of other people don’t like and my reaction is a bit more quiet, sympathetic: “Oh, totally. Yeah, I see your point. Uh-huh. Well, fair enough, friend. Fancy getting an alcoholic beverage or two?”

Falling into the latter category is Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, which I saw Saturday, which has been greeted by general ambivalence from the moviegoing public, and which has been gleefully, mercilessly eviscerated by plenty of critics (including the Mercury’s own Wm. Steven Humphrey, whose review is right here). About 15 people were at the screening I attended Saturday afternoon, and at least three of them walked out before the end credits. I fully expect the film to bomb (ouch), to never be heard of again, to—at best—show up at used DVDs sales and be occasionally referenced by snide film critics making too-easy jokes. Which is probably what will happen, but that also makes me sad, because I really, really liked Southland Tales.

It’s not great, and it has some pretty major problems, but I can’t help but think that Southland—which, from its infamously poor reception at Cannes in 2006 to its underwhelming/botched release in the States to its reliance upon three prequel graphic novels that no one has read—is getting a raw deal. While I’m hesitant to say why this is, exactly—I’m hesitant because, to be entirely honest, I really don’t think I understood much of the film at all—I’m gonna take a few guesses.

Going in to Southland, I only knew a few things: That it was the long-delayed second feature from Donnie Darko director Kelly, that it had practically been booed off the screen at Cannes, that its amalgamation of genres (sci-fi, comedy, musical) had the potential to be noxious (or at least obnoxious), that it had one of the strangest casts I’d ever seen, and that reviews had been mixed at best. I hadn’t read any reviews in particular, other than the Mercury's, I hadn’t read Kelly’s prequel comics, and I hadn’t exposed myself to any plot threads or spoilers. I like to go into films pretty much blank; the knowledge that Donnie Darko is one of my favorite films and that Southland Tales was Kelly’s follow-up was enough to get me stoked, while knowing how the film had been received was enough to make me warily prepare for the likelihood of disaster.

A disaster is exactly what most people are calling Southland Tales, actually, and hey, fair enough. A lot of how one views the film is dependent on whether or not one’s willing to give Kelly the benefit of the doubt--at a great number of points in the two-and-a-half hour Southland, it’d be really easy to be overly critical and assume that Kelly is lost, guessing, flailing. But I think he knows exactly what he’s doing, for the most part. Southland plays off of a lot of elements of contemporary American culture that Kelly’s obviously angry about/critical of, and a lot of them are, artistically, the very worst elements: reality TV, internet overload, the sexualization of any and everything that can be sexualized, from women to SUVs. (Also factoring in to Southland’s labyrinthine plot: color-coded terror warnings, Iraq, technology, infidelity, fame, corporate omnipotence, the Book of Revelations, government surveillance, Republicans, something indecipherable about a Fourth Dimension and/or a perpetual motion machine, and enough references to the poems of T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost to give any English major a hard-on.) Kelly’s themes are deeply rooted in both the ham-fisted pop culture and the current status of America, which are confusing, frustrating, annoying, cheesy, loud, even dangerous--and I think a lot of the reason Southland’s detractors are having such a field day is the fact that Kelly pretty much perfectly captures what it feels like to surf the internet, to listen to politicians, to watch the news, to read an autobiography by Jenna Jameson. (Points to Kelly for capturing the details of all of this, but it’s thankless task--in capturing them so perfectly, he gives the impression that his film is either a symptom or example of the shoddiness of American culture, and not a critical analysis of it.) The Los Angeles that Kelly has created is an unholy mix of Blade Runner and Entertainment Tonight, and culturally, it feels right on--it doesn’t feel like a fine film, rather it feels like a hodgepodge of current events. To get back to the point: Whether you enjoy the surreal Southland or walk out of it, I think, depends on whether you think Kelly meant Southland to feel the way it does, or Southland feels the way it does out of Kelly’s indulgent incompetence. Against the popular tide, I’m gonna vote for the former. There are enough chunks of laugh-out-loud humor and visual beauty in Southland to let you know that Kelly knows exactly what he’s doing--but what he’s doing is something that hasn’t been done before, and it’s something that looks too much like American television or pop music to appeal, one suspects, to the usual critics or audiences of intelligent cinema.

The pop music thing is apt, since Southland is soundtracked by the likes of the Pixies and Radiohead and Moby (whose score is close enough to this to make me happy). More importantly, it’s also narrated by Justin Timberlake (who has one hell of a surreal musical number in the film's later half), and the rest of Southland’s cast is also appropriately pop: In a role that’s hardly a stretch, The Rock plays a likeable-if-befuddled action movie star, while Sarah Michelle Gellar plays a half-witted porn star entrepreneur and Seann William Scott plays a bewildered cop. (Yeah, there's a theme of confusion, which is pretty appropriate for a film that's... well, confusing.) Wallace Shawn, Jon Lovitz, Cheri Oteri, Mandy Moore, John Laroquette, and an unrecognizable Kevin Smith all turn up, too, in addition to very other character actor you’ve ever seen, ever--shit, even the fucking Highlander shows up, as a dude who sells guns out of an ice cream truck. It’s that sort of movie, but in Kelly’s Los Angeles (which is in a panicked, post-9/11 sort of mindset following two nuclear terrorist attacks in Texas) it all feels appropriate, chaotic, desperate, and--this is important, and something that a lot of people are missing--funny.

Southland Tales is a comedy more than anything else--a ridiculous, sprawling bit of both social commentary and slapstick, and the fact that Kelly doesn’t differentiate between what’s commentary and what’s slapstick gives the film a tone unlike anything I’ve experienced before. (The closest equivalent I can think of, and it’s not that close, is Vonnegut’s wackier stuff, where sometimes the most important stuff that’s happening is also the silliest.) At times melodramatic and at times damning, Southland Tales, like its setting and subjects, is hardly subtle: Orwellian national security forces monitor everyone all the time, oblivious celebrities party with oblivious politicians, out-of-control feminists/hippies threaten to bring down the government, and Gellar’s porn/pop star (her catchy single is “Teen Horniness is Not a Crime”) is the closest thing the film has to a heroine, and that’s largely just due to her naïveté. But throughout the candy-colored Southland, you can hear Kelly darkly snickering, feel him jokingly elbowing you in the ribs: Sure, Southland is bloated and stilted and ridiculous and overpopulated, but so are the very things it’s about, and more than a few hilarious moments in Southland attest to the fact that the smart, imaginative Kelly’s in control, unlike the people and events he’s capturing.

Kelly’s willingness to go all-out--to be difficult, to be silly--is something that differentiates himself from a lot of filmmakers. Anyone who says they totally understood Donnie Darko the first time they saw it is a goddamn liar, and I’ll wager only a few really get it after the third, fourth, fifth viewings. (Those few do not include me, just FYI. One of the reasons I love Darko so much is that while I’ve seen it six or seven times, it still feels fresh, weird, scary, and funny every time I put it in.) But in addition to its challenging plot, Darko perfectly captured what it felt like to be a teenager coming to grips with how the world works. If Darko’s plot is heady and tricky, though, Southland’s might as well be nonexistent: Convoluted and confusing, I can honestly say that I don’t fully comprehend any single element of it, at least not after seeing it once. (Some of this, I think, was intentional, but Kelly doesn’t get off the hook entirely--there are some fairly serious and glaring missteps in Southland, and a ton of clunky and ill-advised points, all of which could be tightened up, clarified, or wholly expunged, and Kelly’s refusal to do so either means he wanted to make a movie that people would walk out of or no one advised him about how to clear things up. The case is probably the latter, which is too bad; had Southland been a bit more reliable in its plot and less broad in its humor, it might not be in the derided position it is now.) But tonally, like with Darko, Kelly absolutely nails what he's going for. If you’re looking for narrative coherency, I’d recommend looking elsewhere; if you’re okay with a rambling, semi-abstract tone poem that riffs on the current (and likely future) state of America and its citizens, I’d have a hard time thinking of a better film.

(Especially if you’re young. I’m not sure what it is exactly, but Southland Tales seems directly targeted at the younger segment of America, those weaned on cyberspace and vague, far-away conflict in the Middle East. Thanks to both to its plot’s dissonance and its staccato, channel-surfing sort of random pop sensibilities, I have a hunch that Southland is going to resonate a lot more with the text messaging/MySpace/PlayStation crowd than it will the usual attendees of the Fox Tower, or even those with more rigid expectations of what films can or should provide.)

I’m not entirely ready to give myself up to Southland Tales, to shout its praises, to encourage everyone I know to go see it in the undoubtedly limited time it’ll still be playing in town. It has some serious flaws, and a lot of people really hate it, and fair enough. But I will say that I, at least, really enjoyed the film, that I found it funny and smart and cool and pretty, and I’m looking forward to seeing it again. But if you aren’t going to see it again--or if you have no interest in seeing it in the first place--I totally get it. Can't blame you for it at all. We’re still cool.

Three shootings took place this weekend in North Portland. The police hadn’t given any indication that the three events were related, but it has just been revealed that two of the victims are siblings. Patricia Louise Andrews was found dead near N Killingsworth and Minnesota early Saturday morning, and her brother Ricky Janell Andrews was shot on N Williams last night as he was riding his bike.

The first shooting happened Friday night. Charles Daniel Callaway was found by his partner (it has so far been reported that he was Dan’s “roommate”—I’m hoping the insult is unintentional) Jonny Shultz.

Coincidentally, I was with Shultz, who is a local fashion designer and agent for the Q6 talent agency, on Friday, not long before he went home and found his partner shot—it looks likely that Callaway interrupted a burglary. His car was also stolen, and later recovered.

Friends of the couple are organizing a candlelight vigil tomorrow night. Check back for the details, which I’ll post as soon as I have them.

In the meantime, see Fox 12 and the Oregonian’s reporting on the crimes here and here.

(Dan and Jonny)

By all accounts the Grindhouse Film Fest at the Hollywood Theater this weekend was a pants-wetting success. But for those who missed it, our good friend Dan from the HT sends us this trailer for the 1978 film STUNT ROCK which made the audience go ba-zonkers! Sez Dan…

Watching it this way doesn’t come close to seeing it on 35mm with a packed house. I had to keep cranking up the audio over the thunderous audience reaction. The movie that it’s for is a big letdown, there’s no way they could live up to what this trailer delivers.

NO WAY INDEED. Get ready for two-and-a-half minutes of some of the most awesome rock (provided by 70’s glam group SORCERY) you’ve ever seen, plus bizarro stunts (including dog attacks) and a completely superfluous wizard. I have no idea what this is about… but I love it!

Pakistan’s Supreme Court threw out challenges to last month’s election, allowing President Pervez Musharraf to leave the army and run the country as a civilian. Of course, these are the judges Musharraf installed on the court when he threw a hissy fit and declared emergency rule a few weeks ago.

The exodus continues: Bush’s top terrorism advisor, Fran Townsend, resigns.

A new report from the National Endowment for the Arts reports “plummeting levels of reading among young people.”

Demonstrators in DC demand “a federal crackdown on hate crimes,” arguing that the feds currently leave it to the states, who don’t always give a shit.

A North Portland cyclist was shot last night on N Williams near Beech. It was the third shooting of the weekend in North Portland—the other two were fatal.

With the Interstate brouhaha somewhat dying down, I was worried I wouldn’t have any snowballing controversies to write about anymore, at least for awhile.

Good thing someone’s thinking about renaming 42nd Avenue for Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

(Thanks to Vanportlander for the heads up.)