Gossip Should Have No Friends

[July 12th, 2006] F.A.T. = Felon Appears on TV Come Saturday night, the Oxygen network will unveil its second season of the super-plus-sized beauty pageant Mo'Nique's F.A.T. Chance. With P-towners popping up on several of this summer's biggest reality hits, it's no surprise that Portland's own Shawnti Eaden will join jelly-filled hostess-comedian Mo'Nique , vying with nine other contestants for the title of "Ms. F.A.T." (Fabulous and Thick). But wait, there's more to this story: According to her F.A.T. stats, acquired by Scoop, the 175-pound, 35-year-old Eaden comes to the contest "after a history of trouble with the law ." No shit. Scoop did just a little digging into Eaden's past and found out she has a police file thicker than her midriff with time behind bars for a laundry list of crimes including repeated thefts , DUIs and a host of driving violations (don't get in a car with this "Big Kim"). Scoop just hopes that Eaden doesn't steal the F.A.T. Chance crown, too.

PAPER PUNK'D Talk about artistic license! Days after WW visual arts critic Richard Speer interviewed local comics artist Ryan Alexander-Tanner for a story on his Sequential Gallery show The Prisoner (see "Life Drawing," WW, July 5, 2006) the artist divulged that he'd lied about the show's central conceit . Alexander-Tanner had touted The Prisoner as a chronicle of his correspondence with an inmate in the Oregon Corrections system, whose identity was being kept secret to protect confidentiality. But at the show's First Thursday opening, and later by email, Alexander-Tanner admitted to Speer and Scoop that he had totally made up his incarcerated pen pal . What?!? He wrote that he was aiming to create "a satire about the self-imposed limitations of the comics medium." (Whatever the hell that means.) Upon learning he'd been punk'd, Speer responded: "I guess this is payback for the excesses of Jayson Blair and Dan Rather.... Certainly there are local artists who have the credentials to perpetrate aesthetic fraud (Brad Adkins and Harrell Fletcher come to mind), but Ryan Alexander-Tanner is not among them.... As noted in my review, the show's eponymous Prisoner is the personification of banality. Now we learn that this banality issues not from an actual inmate, but from between the artist's own ears. Note to Alexander-Tanner: In the unlikely event you get the chance to lie to the press again, at least make your lies more interesting ."

PACKAGE DEAL When local filmmaker James Westby (Film Geek) began shooting his new film, The Auteur, this week, his crew was graced with the presence of an unexpected guest on set. It seems legendary porn star Ron Jeremy was doing an in-store appearance at Fantasy for Adults Only's new outlet in Clackamas last weekend. At Jeremy's Fantasy meet-and-greet, Westby approached the hedgehog about making a cameo in his film, which coincidentally also takes place in the world of porn. The XXX-rated thespian accepted the last-minute offer. And yes, Jeremy reportedly keeps it in his pants for this role.

IN MEMORIAM Tom Stormont, age 52, died of a heart attack on June 28. Stormont was a local photographer best remembered as one of the sassy, longtime servers at Rose-Marie Quinn's beloved Vat & Tonsure, the erudite, downtown watering hole that for years was the quintessential hangout for Portland's most cultured classes. He and the Vat are part of a passing generation of Portland that knows what it means to enjoy good conversation and a good glass of wine at the same time. They both are missed.