Whose Bar Is It, Anyway?

[May 31st, 2006] There's many a quirky charm to North Portland, but nothing more so than that some of its drinking hideouts pull double duty as same-sex hookup joints. While I've seen my share of gays at such dives as Mock Crest and Blue Parrot, the queer winner is Porky's Pub.

Located on North Lombard Street, this is the kind of blue-collar bar you'd expect to see in an old-school 'hood like Piedmont. Its no-bullshit approach to getting drunk has appealed to locals for eons (it's been a bar since 1913). That's why it also appealed to a group of queers looking to wreak gender-bending havoc in April of '04.

That's the month "Booty," a "queer party for the pirate-core" planted a rainbow flag firmly in the ass of Porky's. Every Thursday, this "straight" tavern turned into a queer mess. It was awesome, and despite having its share of "moments" (see Queer Window, Dec. 14, 2005), it was the perfect place for queers of all kinds to get their freak on.

That is, until it "officially" became a gay bar on May 1. Things had already started to get a little too freaky for the Booty crew. Booty co-creator "DJ Puppet" Mills says near closing time on April 27 "someone pulled a gun on us" on the sidewalk in front of the bar. Although the cops caught the assailant, the encounter freaked Mills out enough that she requested a security guard for Booty's May 4 show. But according to Pat Lanagan, Porky's new owner (who also owns a local chain of adult bookstores with the best name ever, Fat Cobra), Mills had made no requests directly to him prior to that date. "I had asked her to set up a meeting...to discuss process and procedure. That didn't happen," says Lanagan. On May 11, Mills told Lanagan she'd hired a bodyguard and requested he split the cost. Lanagan, at that time, told Mills if she "didn't feel positive about performing at Porky's, I didn't want her there." That was when Booty split from Porky's.

"We just left," Mills says. Although it'd been in the works to move Booty to Acme, the move was accelerated by the incident. "And I don't ever want to go back."

Others might agree with Mills. On a recent weeknight, I scanned Porky's for signs of life. All I came up with was a cute bartender and a video screen displaying hardcore gay porn. Gone was the jam-packed bar full of gender-fucked boys and girls dancing to queer music. It was replaced by a few barflies (more bear-flies) and soulless satellite disco.

"Although it's a men's bar, women are definitely welcome," says Lanagan. "But I refuse to yield that every gathering place should be neutered. We're a sensual society. My mission is to make Portland a gay-proud city. That's why I'm changing the name of Porky's to Primal Urge [Booty's already been replaced with "Primal Urges Thursday"]."

But Porky's—and Booty, for that matter—was never just about sex. Now that's all that seems to matter. Who knew that any place in NoPo would ever become too gay?