A crash course in scuttlebutt.

[June 23rd, 2004] * A routine trip to the DMV nearly turned into a fatal encounter last Friday when motorist Janeen Bacon, 25, pulled into the parking lot of the Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services field office in Gladstone. Exactly what happened remains unclear, but within a few seconds, Bacon's lime-green 1994 Nissan Altima had plowed into the DMV, shattering windows, splintering walls and colliding with a driver knowledge testing machine. "It happened so fast," Bacon told Gladstone police officer Mike House. Miraculously, no one was injured, and Bacon, who was giving a ride to a friend needing a license, was able to fill out her accident report form on the spot.

* For years, Portland activist lawyer Alan Graf (KBOO host/Toyota Prius owner/police watchdog) has portrayed himself as a sensitive, progressive guy. But Murmurs has learned Graf played a crucial role in the birth of Kiss, the quite un-P.C. band that just wrapped up a Portland gig. As a teenager in NYC's Jackson Heights neighborhood, Graf persuaded fellow band member Gene Klein to play bass guitar, and for months gave him lessons. Graf's tutelage had a fateful result: Klein later formed Kiss under the name Gene Simmons. Graf, asked to comment, dismissed Kiss as "trash rock."

* The normally routine confirmation of gubernatorial appointees promises a bit of drama Thursday when Multnomah County Sheriff Bernie Giusto is up for reconfirmation to the TriMet board. Giusto once served as Gov. Neil Goldschmidt's driver and has said he heard "rumors" about Goldschmidt's sexual abuse of a minor. Sen. Vicki Walker (D-Eugene), one of the few elected officials willing to criticize Goldschmidt, will hammer Giusto for what she sees as his less-than-diligent efforts to bring his former boss's deeds to light.

* Things are tense at SAIF Corp. these days as its chief competitor, Liberty Northwest, continues to press the state's largest worker's-comp insurer for disclosure of its business practices. Former SAIF head Kathy Keene, though not charged with any crime, has now taken the step of hiring one of Portland's top defense lawyers, Stephen Houze.

* City Council candidate Sam Adams is entering his fall runoff unhitched. Adams told friends last week that he and Greg Eddie, his partner of 11 years, have separated. (The couple didn't get married this spring but had registered as domestic partners in February 2003--see Hitched, WW, March 19, 2003.) Adams described the parting as amicable.

* Oregonian columnist Steve Duin is often the harshest internal critic at the daily newspaper. But he felt Ted Kulongoski went too far in a June 17 KGW interview in which the guv denied the paper's contention that he was told about Neil Goldschmidt's sex-abuse years ago and then trashed Duin's employer for missing the story. (For details, go to kgw.com and type "kulongoski flatly denied" into the search field.) Duin was irked enough to leave the following voicemail message--which WW obtained via a public-records request--with Kulongoski spokeswoman Mary Ellen Glynn on Friday morning:

Hey, Mary Ellen, Steve Duin at The Oregonian. Mary Ellen, with all due respect, are you totally inept down there? I mean, where does the governor's idiocy end and yours begin? I'm really curious. I mean, is this your media strategy? Calling in KGW for their--in all seriousness, I'm just trying to figure this out. Are you part of this? Are you part of this total idiocy? Or is this all the governor's? You gotta let me know. Call me back: 221-8517.