Gossip should have no friends

[May 7th, 2008]

HEART OF GLASS: Ira Glass ain’t the only star singing a tune on Showtime’s This American Life. The second season, which premiered last Sunday, features songs from PDX musician Sarah Dougher . Last fall, Dougher sent her music, based on a play by Euripides, to TAL’s music supervisor, who immediately fell in love with it. Dougher was able to leverage the first-time TV appearance into a grant from the Oregon Arts Commission to get the music recorded for her album, featuring Dougher and local actor Pat Janowski. The CD, Orestes, will be released this fall.

LOVE BITES: More TwilightMOM weirdness! After reading WW’s story last week on the Twilight book series and PDX-based movie’s most ardent vampire admirers, Madison High School English and journalism teacher Gene Brunak wrote WW about his own efforts to keep frenzied Twilight fans at bay while director Catherine Hardwicke filmed in his classroom last month. “Because of the fear of the bizarrely obsessed fans...we worked diligently to hide the fact that hundreds of Hollywood types were on [Madison’s] campus,” Brunack told WW. The teacher also revealed his own interesting Twilight theory: “Author Stephenie Meyer is an active Mormon,” says Brunak. “I and some other FoMo [‘former Mormons’] recognize the Twilight vampires as thinly veiled metaphors for an idealized version of Mormons : They are misunderstood, very loyal, have extremely attractive Aryan features, are very cultured and are not sexually promiscuous. So it didn’t surprise me to read that the kingpin of the TwilightMOMS was from Utah.” All righty.

FUZZY RECEPTION: As reported on wweek.com last Friday, Jammin 95.5’s The Playhouse “definitely will survive,” says P.K., ringleader for the popular morning drive-time show that’s getting the boot from its flagship radio station May 12. The potty-mouthed Playhouse has been one of PDX’s most popular radio franchises for a while now. But the show was put into local limbo with news that Portland’s only true hip-hop station is going all sports. The program’s listeners, called the PlayhouseMafia, stretch from Portland, Ore., to Portland, Maine, and the show is broadcast to 15 different markets nationally. “It will definitely remain on in all our syndicate markets,” said P.K. “We’re looking for other major markets, but as far as [Portland, Ore.] is concerned, I can’t say anything.”

LET’S TRY THAT AGAIN: In last week’s special gardening section, we neglected to mention that, when making Marc Boucher-Colbert’s pillow-pack planters (“Try This at Home”), you must punch drainage holes in the bottoms of the bags. If you don’t, you’ll get root rot. And nobody likes rotten roots. Also, in last week’s edition, the opening date of Old Town Pizza’s new Northeast outpost was incorrect. The new biz opens Thursday, June 5. WW regrets the errors.