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 BEST
OFF DA HOOK DJ
While the new Jammin' 95.5 isn't shy about proclaiming
its relative off da hook (read: awesome) DJ qualities since
coming to life in March, another platter spinner has been
taking Portland playas to hip-hop nirvana non-commercially
for years. Deena Barnes' show, The Sound Box,
on KBOO 90.7 FM (Wednesdays, 7-9 pm) is a serious dose of
the latest in hip-hop adventure. Inviting guest DJs and
hosting freestyle rap contests, Barnes helped coalesce a
community looking for an outlet to share the love. Ohio
native Barnes describes herself as a hip-hop snob who actually
moved to Portland four years ago to take advantage of its
burgeoning punk scene. She was drawn to doing a hip-hop
show after another guy busted on her for calling KBOO to
request a Tribe Called Quest song. Now she has lost her
grasp of punk and is firmly flying on another trip, one
she describes as "a ride around the goddamn hip-hop world."
BEST
KNOW-IT-ALLS
Get this: Portland has a government employee--actually
four of them--who will never dodge a question. In
fact, they're paid to answer any and every zinger that's
thrown at them. They are the city's official information
and referral specialists--answering the city's 823-4000
information line and fielding questions from the lobby of
the Portland Building.
How do you arrange a family picnic in a city park? Where
do you make a complaint about your water bill? Where's the
best downtown place to eat alfresco? They have all the answers.
And they actually provide service with a smile. "I love
to be put on the spot," gushes David Muir, one of the four.
"It's my job." The toughest queries? "Anything to do with
sewers," Muir says. The simplest? Muir has a "top three"
list of his personal favorites, which he says are asked
almost every day:
1. Does your clock tell time?
2. Do the stairs go up?
3. Do the doors go out?
"We're in the Portland Building, and Portlandia is extending
her hand out in friendship, so she guides people into our
building that are really, well, misdirected," he says. "I
have the ability to help people in whatever they need."
And, thank goodness, so do his intrepid colleagues.
BEST-NAMED
PRESS OFFICER
A press officer's job is to tell reporters what
really happened (or at least some of what happened) and
what's going to happen. The flack best equipped to do the
latter is Crystal Ball of the Bonneville Power Association,
who since 1991 has been explaining the workings of the BPA.
Named after her grandmother, Ball says her name was only
a problem in second grade. "People used to rub my head and
make fun of me," she recalls. Overall, however, she has
found her catchy moniker to be a useful calling card. She
has never capitalized on it commercially, although a few
years ago, a Eugene radio station asked Ball to predict
the outcome of that year's Super Bowl; ignoring the experts,
she correctly said the favored Green Bay Packers would lose.
Ball is getting married at the end of the summer, but don't
worry, she's a liberated woman and will remain Crystal Ball.
"You can't trade this name," she says.
BEST
PROOF THAT ART SAVES LIVES
She was the quietest person in his class, and
he was almost afraid to approach her to critique her work
as the series of drawing seminars came to an end. Then she
displayed her paintings from class and made a confession
to her teacher, Joseph Mann. "I quit my job because
of you," she told him. "I had been dead for years and this
class brought me back to life. Thank you." Though this tale
may seem a trifle melodramatic, it is just one of the many
stories born out of Mann's inspirational teaching style.
The Parsons grad with a sweet Southern lilt has been turning
Portland housewives into avant-garde artists and depressed
arty kids into confident professionals since 1994. His drawing
and painting classes at Pacific Northwest College of Art
and Portland Community College-Sylvania are a collage of
debates about artists' works (don't get him started on Picasso,
he's got "issues" with the exalted abstract painter), wisecracks,
personal anecdotes and free-flowing exercises in drawing
and painting. (He's likely to stand behind you as you paint,
whispering, "Get it, get it, get it.") His own accomplishments
are very infrequently shown at Augen Gallery, because he's
skittish about selling one of his babies to someone else's
crib, but take one of his classes and he'll often show slides
and recount the torturous years it took him to get the leg
just right. Mann is art's most popular lifeguard.
BEST
DOG WALKER
Some dog walkers get a huge, multi-pronged leash,
attach as many barking pups to it as possible, and simply
wait for the critters to do their duty. Not Karina Eversten,
the canine lover behind the one-woman business I'll Take
the Lead (241-2590). Evertsen, who looks like a cross between
Steffi Graf and Elizabeth Shue, customizes her walks to
the needs of each client: Do they prefer city streets or
parks? Jogging or running? Solo or buddy treks? Often her
"walks" are actually hikes through Forest Park or 45-minute
jaunts around the city. Before moving to Portland, Everston
ran a dog-rescue operation in Northern California, so you
know your pet is in expert hands.
BEST
COOK WHO QUOTES THE BIG LEBOWSKI
AD
INFINITUM
"You think the rug pissers did this?" Jeff Lebowski
wheezes, a poof of pot smoke escaping his lips. Lebowski
is the stoned, mid-'80s shanty-hero in the Coen brothers'
1997 send-up of Raymond Chandler's crime fiction, The
Big Lebowski--possibly one of the greatest movies of
the decade. If you listen closely--and at neighborly, noisy
Muu-Muu's (612 NW 21st Ave., 223-8169) you must listen especially
closely--you will likely hear 24-year-old cook Josh Pryor
utter dead-on Lebowski-isms at some point during his shift.
"I've got a beverage here, man," the burly Pryor
might offer one minute, authentically mimicking Jeff's burned-out
Slow-Cal dialect, before invoking the villains' mock-German
accent a moment later: "Ve're nihilists, Lebowski, ve don't
believe in anyzing." As adept at summoning cinematic one-liners
as he is at turning out a deeply flavorful bowl of fried
Szechuan noodles, Pryor is certainly not just another culinary
dude in a white lab coat.
BEST
WINTER HAWK FANS
The first clue is the dog. After all, what kind
of a name is Dennis Holland for a miniature Doberman pinscher?
"If you know anything about the Winter Hawks," explains
his owner, Artie Johnson, "you know Dennis broke
all the records." To say that Johnson follows Portland's
hockey team is like saying Bob Packwood paid attention to
his female staffers. The 69-year-old Northeast Portlander
has been a season ticket-holder since 1982. Along with her
74-year-old sister, Julia Johnson, she listens to
practically every road game on KUPL-AM. Johnson didn't know
a blue line from a blue moon until 1980, when her pastor
at Parkrose Christian Church invited her and Julia to a
Winter Hawks game. They've been hooked ever since. "We go
because we love the team," says Johnson, who'll be back
in her front-row seat in September. "They're just kids.
They're not making big bucks. They're just playing hard
and learning."
BEST
NICOTINE ENABLER
Scot Seng operates the register like he's
one part executive secretary and one part pinball king.
"I've been called everything from 'Data' to 'fingers of
fury,'" he says, laughing. His right hand is so fast on
the 10-key, in fact, that he has to use his left hand at
home so he doesn't jam his microwave. There's no explaining
his persistent optimism, but he makes a gas stop at the
Southeast 39th Avenue and Belmont Street Arco fun. He has
to be the only gas-station attendant who offers drive-though
cigarette service, and if you walk in (most people do) he'll
have the correct brand and number of packs on the counter
before you make it inside. He estimates he's memorized the
preferred cigarette brands of at least 700 regular customers.
Seng says math is the universal language (art is second),
so it's no wonder he can add the cost of three packs of
cigarettes and let you know exactly how many gallons your
four bucks got you before you can say, "Unleaded."
 BEST
PERSONAL STYLE AT WORK
Have you ever sold clothes at Buffalo Exchange
(1420 SE 37th Ave., 234-1302) only to have your past purchasing
mishaps evaluated by a guy in a halter top, tight zebra-striped
pants and Spice Girl platforms? His name is Cherry Sprout,
and he's asking you to question your definition of clothing.
"We all have to cover with clothes for moral and legal reasons,
so we may as well have fun," declares the Buffalo Exchange
employee. Inspired by MTV and bad gothic movies, Cherry
Sprout is breaking down the rules of fashion. Often clad
in see-through shirts and an occasional skirt, he isn't
a reactionary dresser, rather an inspired ensemble artist.
Sick of the banal inquiries, "Aren't you hot?" and "How
do you walk in those?" Cherry Sprout eagerly awaits the
day that people stop referring to his attire as outrageous:
"Why 'costume'? or 'men's' or 'women's'? It's all clothes,"
he says.
BEST
FEMME FATALE
She's one of the best doctors in town, but you
wouldn't want to be her patient. For the past 14 years,
Karen Gunson has been cutting, slicing, drilling
and probing her way through a career in the traditionally
male field of forensic pathology--the art and science of
figuring out what made a stiff stiff. It's tough work: Gunson
can sniff out cyanide at six paces and knows the tell-tale
scars of a crescent wrench from the marks of a tire-iron
bludgeoning. In April, the blue-eyed, blond-haired 45-year-old
Bend native was appointed Oregon's interim state medical
examiner, making her one of the only women to hold such
a position anywhere in the country. When she's not busy
sizing up cadavers, Gunson enjoys touring high schools with
her macabre slide collection, divided into such categories
as asphyxiation, cutting and stabbing, drugs, gunshot wounds
and blunt force. Oh yeah, she's a killer on the golf course,
too.
BEST
PROOF THAT OUR SCHOOLS STILL
MAKE SENSE
In this age of schoolyard tragedies, high schooler
David Howland has proven that all has not been lost
in the classroom. After vandals trashed a computer room
at McCoy East School, an alternative institution in Gresham,
the senior-to-be took things into his own hands. "At first
I was thinking, 'Why did they even bother vandalizing and
taking these computers?' because they were ancient," he
recalls of the June 21 theft. Then, he took action. Armed
only with a small inheritance from his father, Howland purchased
four PCs, a printer and a scanner worth nearly $3,500 and
donated them to the school. Howland, who was a student at
David Douglas High until February, when he transferred to
McCoy, has excelled at the alternative school and reminded
us of one very important thing: School spirit isn't dead.
 BEST
LIFER COCKTAIL WAITRESS
Folks head to the Mallory Hotel's Driftwood Room
for several reasons: the darkly paneled decor, which seems
to have remained unchanged since 1958, the complimentary
cheese popcorn and, of course, the hefty drinks. But for
more than eight years, many people have been going there
for an entirely different reason: Ruth Newson. The
64-year-old cocktail waitress shuffles around the small
lounge Wednesday through Saturday, dispensing martinis,
bowls of 'corn and friendly, non-discriminating "hons" to
a host of thirsty travelers. Newson often brings in dahlias
from her garden, sprucing up the bar with some and handing
out others to regulars. "I'm all golf and flowers," says
the slight, grandmotherly Newson (who regularly hits the
links) before adding, "Oh, and work, I love to work." Since
starting with one shift a week at the Driftwood Room, Newson
is now the bar's veteran staff member. We can only hope
she continues to love her work, because we absolutely do,
too.
BEST
DOCTOR TO THE DOWN AND OUT
Flesh-eating bacteria. Refugees from the federal
witness protection program. Psychotics who sign their names
in undecipherable glyphs. From his examining room in the
Old Town Clinic (219 W Burnside St., 241-3836), Neal
Rendleman, M.D., has seen it all--and then some. His
first love was German literature (his dissertation concerned
one of the authors of the Communist Manifesto), but
he eventually switched to medicine. "I wanted to use medicine
as a lever for social change," he says in a distinctive
rasp. Since 1983, the 49-year-old graduate of Columbia University
has cared for Portland's poorest and sickest citizens, handing
out doses of mordant wit with his prescriptions. Along the
way, he has collaborated on dozens of projects to improve
public health. When a study revealed high death rates among
infants in Old Town, he developed a program to encourage
homeless women to seek ongoing care for their kids. Frustrated
by the constant parade of infected feet, he hands out clean
socks. Most significant, he was instrumental in Portland's
pioneering Blue Card program, which fights tuberculosis
in homeless shelters (his grandfather, also a doctor, died
from the disease). Medical work is only one facet of his
contribution to Portland. With such dedication to his profession,
his fascination with the ecology of the underclass and his
ever-present pipe, Rendleman is two parts Marcus Welby,
two parts George Orwell, and one part Sherlock Holmes--a
classic Burnside figure in his own right, and a powerful
tonic for that most insidious of social diseases: indifference.
BEST
PAD THAI SLINGER
Lee Blair's enthusiasm for the food of
her homeland never flags. Even during the noontime rush
at her downtown lunch spot, Suriya Thai Deli (1101 SW 4th
Ave., 228-1509), she maintains a buoyant friendliness, engaging
in conversation with each patron. "I love vegetables!" she
says, as she piles a veggie stir fry on your plate. "Put
some hot sauce on. It tastes goooooood!" If you're having
a downer day, or if you miss your mom, Blair's energy is
the perfect pick-me-up. Like a loving mother, she wants
you to eat well and enjoy life--but unlike some moms, if
you accidentally drop your plate in the trash can, she won't
show the slightest upset. "Don't worry!" she'll say, smiling.
"It's OK. Don't worry, be happy!"
BEST
PROFESSOR OF HARDBALL
Earvin Latincsics, an occasional barkeep
at the Lutz Tavern, is talking about his favorite subject.
"Football is a game of power. Basketball is a game of skill.
But baseball, baseball is a game of spirit," he says,
quoting a Reed professor friend of his. Born in the Bronx
and raised in New Jersey, Latincsics (pronounced "LA-tin-tich,"
though some just call him "Jersey Earv") discovered baseball's
spirit at a young age. Growing up, he encountered it everywhere--kids
played it in the streets, the older fellows discussed it
in the bars and groceries. "As a young boy, I didn't think
there was anything better than a pennant race," he says.
It's clear that there remain few things that can move the
36-year-old Ridgefield High School math teacher and wrestling
coach like our enduring national pastime. "We understand,
especially on the East Coast, that sports is really about
suffering," he says with an accent that makes "god" come
out "gawd," as in "Keith Hernandez? Oh my gawd, what a player!"
As a lifetime New York sports fan--of the Knicks, Rangers,
Giants and particularly of the Mets--Latincsics has had
ample occasion to suffer. Why just last year, he says, "When
the Mets lost their last five games and missed the playoffs,
I was in agony." But then there are years like 1986, when
the Mets won the series. Latincsics spent so much time at
Shea that season, he was put on academic probation for missing
classes at Rutgers. A walking baseball encyclopedia, Latincsics
can tell you who was the last out of the 1969 World Series
(Davy Johnson) and why Mookie Wilson is among the most popular
Mets ever ("because he loved to play and the fans saw that").
Ball fans and non-fans alike are encouraged to scout him
out at the Lutz for the most lively history lesson of their
lives.
BEST
SHOULDERS
The finish line is a blur in the distance. Your
lungs burn. Your legs scream. You can't see where you're
going. Welcome to the world of Lisa Schlenker (far
right), a master of the ancient art of sculling--better
known to landlubbers as rowing. Take a look at the arms
and shoulders of this Lake Oswegan and you have an inkling
of the incredible dedication she brings to her sport: On
a typical day, she starts training at 6:30 am, spends six
hours on the water, rows about 60 kilometers and drifts
off to sleep at night visualizing her stroke. Formerly a
downhill skier, Schlenker took up rowing eight years ago,
and despite her 34 years--which make her, she says, an "old
lady" by rowing standards--she's getting faster all the
time. Last year she won a silver medal in the World Rowing
Championship's lightweight women's quad race, and in April
she set a new world record for lightweight women (125 pounds
or less) on an ergometer (a rowing machine), clocking 2,000
meters in a staggering 6 minutes 59.5 seconds. Now she's
training for the next world competition, to be held in St.
Catharines, Ontario. Why does she do it? "It's about seeing
how deep you can actually go," she says. "You think, 'I'm
not going to make it,' then you dig even deeper."
 BEST
MANHANDLER
Licensed massage therapist Tracy Burkholder
(233-7404) doesn't think a person necessarily needs man-hands
to become a proper masseuse, but it sure doesn't hurt. Burkholder's
paws are extraordinarily large and strong (she claims they're
bigger than her boyfriend's) and a Swedish massage session
with her (she works out of her home) is like being groped
by a very knowing King Kong. Naturally large-mitted, Burkholder
maintains that her training and work helped her earn her
strong stripes--"I grew my man-hands," she says.
BEST
ONE-MAN MARIACHI BAND
Not all people who play music on the bus mall
are deserving of your spare change. But the mariachi
trumpeter who plays on downtown street corners is worth
every quarter you can muster. The sweet and joyful strains
of Latino music that come tooting out of his trumpet have
done more to entertain those waiting for buses than every
free issue of AutoTrader and Furnish magazines
combined. Day in and day out, our musical hero sits on nothing
more than an old crate, playing his heart out for all who
happen to be standing around doing nothing more productive
than waiting.
BEST
BIG-HEARTED MECHANIC
Narendra Rathod says he's heard about
the bad reputation mechanics have, but he doesn't seem to
give it much thought. Cars have been a lifelong hobby for
Rathod, who once raced the back roads of East Africa. His
longest race was the 3,000-mile East African Safari, what
he calls "the toughest race in the world." Rathod opened
H&H Auto Center and Transmission (11643 SW Pacific Highway,
Tigard, 620-9806) in 1983, where selected letters from customers
stunned by his honest approach chart a rough time line of
auto heroism along his office wall. Not one to rob you,
Rathod will get your car started for cheap with a potion
of baking soda and water--a mixture that cleans up corrosion--if
he can. He once took an $800 hit because he wanted to do
work on a woman's car even though she couldn't afford it
(the car was in a dangerous state of disrepair, and she
regularly used it to transport her children). Also a licensed
soccer referee, Rathod dispenses advice that doesn't have
anything to do with alternators. He was giving Women's World
Cup star Tiffeny Milbrett tips when she was still in baby
teeth.
BEST
SUTURIST
A three-hour wait in a hospital emergency room
is never pleasant, particularly when you need just a few
stitches after a collision in a basketball game. But if
sutures are in your future, we've found the perfect person
to sew you up. His name is Dennis Grey, a nurse practitioner
at Providence Medical Center--and he can talk philosophy
and movies while shooting you up with Lidocaine and closing
a gash with a fancy "horizontal mattress" suture. Did you
know, for instance, that there are only two kinds of jobs
in the world--"wet" and "dry"? Bet you never thought of
your daily grind that way, but it sure is important to a
suturist like Grey. Want to be distracted while needle and
thread are tugged through your flesh? Well, Grey's got the
fix--a discourse on the best films of Sigourney Weaver's
career that segues neatly into a debate about the works
of John Sayles. Is Return of the Secaucus Seven overrated?
Is David Strathairn America's most underrated actor? Was
Lone Star really better than Eight Men Out?
By the time you ponder these questions, and a few others
posed by Grey, you'll be stitched, swabbed, salved and on
your way home. Now, if he would just be a little more generous
with the Vicodin...
BEST
KNITTER
Here's a quietly extraordinary situation: Every
Monday knitters gather at Anne Hughes Kitchen Table Cafe
(400 SE 12th Ave.) and pay Barbara Adams to
hang out and knit with them. Adams learned to knit in a
California department store when she was eight. She's owned
a yarn store and worked in most of Portland's yarn shops,
including the famous purple Knotting Chamber on Hawthorne
Boulevard. Her Kitchen Table acolytes, knitters she's met
over decades of teaching, say she's "non-critical" and "sets
a relaxed, peaceful atmosphere." And, naturally, after 70
years of experience, she can untangle any knitting problem
under the sun. After decades of a sometimes deservedly bad
rap (think beer-can hats and toilet-paper dolls), knitting
is enjoying a grassroots renaissance. In another country,
Adams might earn an annual pension and be designated a National
Living Treasure in honor of a life spent perfecting her
craft. Here, the rewards are less tangible but nonetheless
compelling: To a small group of followers, Adams is an undisputed
master.
BEST
KITTY PRINCESS
Eileen Shatrosky believes we all have
our mission in life, and a whole clan of cats is glad she
found hers. In January, Shatrosky came to the rescue of
more than 100 cats when the Pet Pride Cats of Oregon Shelter
closed shop. She had been a volunteer at the shelter for
six years when the owner retired and shut its doors. Her
directive became clear: Reclaim the cathouse. Shatrosky
changed the shelter's name to House of Dreams and kept scads
of near-homeless kitties off the street. Shatrosky and several
other House of Dreams volunteers now care for the cats at
the Northeast Portland location. They are always looking
for adoptive homes, as the cat population is currently maxed
out. Here are the numbers: 88 cats in a 900-square-foot
house, eight volunteers, 43 litter changes a day, 365 days
a year. Anyone who enters the meowfest will be greeted by
a welcoming committee of at least 15 friendly felines. For
more information about House of Dreams call 262-0763.
BEST
WATCHDOG
In a media world increasingly dominated by self-important
zealots on one side and hand-wringing apologists on the
other, it's all the more important to recognize Susan
Emmons as one of Portland's most valuable civic assets.
As executive director of the Northwest Pilot Project, a
social-service agency dedicated to the thousands of low-income
elderly and disabled people who live downtown, the 51-year-old
Emmons has orchestrated a remarkably effective series of
publicity campaigns highlighting the erosion of affordable
housing in the central city. For example, after two low-rent
hotels were demolished to make room for the new Mark O.
Hatfield Federal Courthouse, Emmons led the fight to replace
the lost units. Hatfield complained that he could barely
go into Powell's without someone mentioning the issue. (Little
did Hatfield know that Emmons' husband worked at the store
and had encouraged co-workers to lobby the former senator.)
Astonished by the claustrophobic dimensions of apartments
in a new low-income project, Emmons wrote an editorial comparing
them to parking spots. But Emmons' advocacy is refreshingly
free of lumbering rhetoric and rigid ideology--if anything,
it is characterized by a warm sense of humor: She once served
customized fortune cookies to the city council. "My goal
is to see if you can change the hearts and minds of people
who have been rigid in their thinking," she says. "I always
believe in the possibility of change."
BEST
PUBLIC-TRANSPORTATION ADVOCATES
Most people use public transit to get from point
A to point B. But for a pair of suburban retirees, the new
Westside MAX line offered a half-day of cheap adventure
last fall. Shortly after 3 pm on Oct. 6, Ann Usher
and Verla Porterfield (pictured above) drove from
their homes in Beaverton to the Hatfield Government Center
Park & Ride at the end of the MAX line in Hillsboro.
They boarded a gleaming new light-rail car and rode it all
the way to Gresham, where they stopped for some ice cream
before returning to Hillsboro at 7:15 pm. "We really enjoyed
it," says Usher, a retired Tektronix inspector. "But I haven't
been back on since. I really don't have any reason to leave
Beaverton."
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Willamette Week | originally
published July 21, 1999
|
