Gossip should have no friends

[June 25th, 2008]

• HAIR, THE MUSICAL: Back in 2003, Portlander Kevin Moyer created Live From Nowhere Near You, a compilation of well known artists (Spoon, Five Fingers of Funk) performing alongside Northwest street musicians that raised funds for local homeless-youth center Outside In . Since then, Moyer—who now works for Wieden & Kennedy—has been slowly collecting tracks for a second disc, which is rumored to feature new material from the Shins, the Strokes and Modest Mouse, as well as a previously unheard Elliott Smith song . While Moyer won’t confirm tracks, the second comp will benefit Outside In. In 2007, Moyer announced that he wouldn’t cut his hair until he had all the album’s tracks recorded. Last Friday, Bishops shaved his head and sent the hair to nonprofit Matter of Trust, which uses human hair to help clean up oil spills (!). Moyer’s goal is to release Nowhere Near You Volume 2 by the end of 2008.

• BISTRO A GO-GO: As downtown continues to churn out boutique hotels faster than we can check in—Ace, Modera, the Nines—there comes news of yet another hotel attempting to cater to both tourists and locals. The Four Points by Sheraton at 50 SW Morrison St. is now, thanks to its current $7 million makeover, Hotel Fifty . The chic digs will debut its swanky-casual H50 Bistro & Bar in July. The breakfast, lunch and dinner dining room will feature a menu by chef Nicholas A. Yanes , formerly a chef de cuisine at the Lone Star State’s Dallas Fish Market.

• BATTER UP: Vancouver, Wash.-based insurance broker Tim Bias , best known to WW readers as “Mr. Gay Softball” (see Queer Window, WW, April 25, 2007), says he’s dropped the bat and balls and is goin’ national in a competition to see who is “America’s Gay Bachelor 2008” at mypartner.com. “Uncle Timmy” says after years of bachin’ it in Oregon he knows can become America’s No. 1 Gay Bachelor. “Yes, there are cuter ones than me,” he told Scoop. “But hell, they’ll get married, so vote for me .”

• MEDIA WATCH: It’s summertime—time for publications around the globe to join the chorus of why Portland is such an awesome place: Local rock writer Douglas Wolk’s “Portland: Indieville, USA,” for Q, “Britain’s Biggest Music Magazine,” brought shout-outs to Gus Van Sant, Voodoo Doughnut and Powell’s Books, as well as WW. On June 8, The New York Times’ Sunday Styles section had “famous” dads spouting off about their dream Father’s Day gifts. David Netto (president of David Netto Design) wanted “three days with my whole family at the Ace Hotel in Portland, Ore.” Weird. The July issue of Paste chimes in that Music Millennium is “Best Place to Buy the Latest Shins Disc While Watching Them Play a Live Set Overhead,” and in its July “Metrograde,” Men’s Health rated PDX motorists the third “greenest drivers” in the country. Our fave? Cult website stuffwhitepeoplelike.com reposted a May 30 NYT story on progressive P-town’s racial tensions. Note that a whopping 11 “white people like” topics were mentioned in the 1,200-word article, thereby cementing our status as—we don’t have a poll to back us up on this one—the most vanilla city in the galaxy.