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"The last time I fixed was also the first time I overdosed. It was mid-March in the Blue Moon Tavern at Northwest 21st Avenue and Glisant Street. I'd had a few beers, and I'm pretty sure the alcohol was the added pharmacological element that tipped me off the toilet into unconsciousness. A customer apparently was the one who found me, doing my best to look hip, lying on the bathroom floor." --Michael Brennan, WW, Sept. 13, 1995 Michael Brennan, an HIV-positive, often-homeless Portland heroin addict who attained streaks of brilliance as a writer, died Feb. 26 of a heart attack. He was 38, and he was a friend of mine. I met Mike in 1995, just after he'd written an autobiographical cover story for Willamette Week ("Junkie: My Life on the Streets of Portland," Sept. 13, 1995). When he was clean (he sometimes went a whole year without using), we met frequently in taverns. We'd throw 'em back, Brennan and I, as we cursed and celebrated the writing life, sharing a friendship that seemed essentially Irish: witty, melancholic and Guinness-inspired. Many times he frustrated me. He was a thief who racked up countless shoplifting charges. But he was also a decent guy, a gentle and philosophical soul who was truly repentant (when he was clean) and admiring, always, of his large, supportive Catholic family in Connecticut. His life was a constant struggle to transcend his sins, to shake the addiction that began in his teens and realize his potential as a writer. Mike moved to Portland in 1993. He started freelancing while he was living in Cambridge, Mass., sleeping in a cemetery. He typed his earliest articles clandestinely, in the student computer labs at Harvard. "I figured if John Harvard didn't mind me sleeping on his grave, he wouldn't mind me educating myself at his school," he wrote in an essay, "even if I couldn't afford the tuition." The quip--wry, personal and pain-acquainted--contains all the elements of Mike's finest work. He proved himself not as a beat reporter, but as a writer of searingly honest, and frequently comic, memoirs. In one of my favorite stories he recalls spending Christmas in jail, hearing the strains of "Silent Night" come from a fellow inmate. "His voice is aloft and sweet," Mike wrote. "I smile, remembering when he burned me for a bag of dope." His work included a 1992 Newsweek article about his disenchantment with the recovery movement, a 1997 Oregonian feature about his adventures as a cabbie and an interview with the elusive Carlos Castaneda, published by Utne Reader in 1998. Mike's first-person stories typically ended with an almost cosmic enunciation of hope. He was an unrelenting optimist, never relinquishing the belief that he would pull himself together, or at least reach a clear understanding of his tumultuous life, through writing. Even this winter, he envisioned a book: a Studs Terkel-like collection of interviews with junkies. But the book never happened. In the end, as Mike himself might have written, the smack won. He spent his final weeks on the streets. The last time I ran into him, on the No. 14 bus, he was gaunt, his face hollow and dull. Our eyes locked, fleetingly, before we both looked away. There was nothing I could do: He was alone. The bus roared on. --Bill Donahue Memorial donations can be sent to Project Quest, 3117 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Portland 97212
Price War Brewing? On March 1, Goebel announced plans to gain tap handles in the Widmer-dominated hefeweizen market by discounting Nor'Wester's kegs of the popular wheat beer to $69 ("Hefe-Weight Challenger," WW, March 3, 1999). This week he got some company when Redhook Ale Brewery lowered the price of a keg of its hefeweizen to--surprise!--$69. Goebel declined to comment on the development, which was confirmed by local distributor Maletis Beverage. Talk around town is that a price war may be brewing. But this isn't a local battle; Redhook's involvement reveals the looming presence of a much larger player in the equation. Anheuser-Busch, a part-owner in both Widmer and Redhook, appears to be dropping the price of Redhook so that Maletis, which distributes both brews, has a low-cost alternative to offer clients who are thinking of abandoning Widmer in favor of Goebel's beer. After all, Widmer or Redhook, it's still an Anheuser-Busch tap as far as the folks in St. Louis are concerned. --Jeff Alworth
Battle of the
Teenage Overacheivers MAX FISCHER JENNIFER FLETCHER Age: will be 17 on March 23 Why, There Oughta Be a Law...HOUSE BILL 4008 * RELATING TO NEW DRIPS BE IT ENACTED BY THE PEOPLE SECTION 1: Whereas all Oregonians have the right not to be subjected to constant complaints about wet, gray, soggy, yet totally predictable weather: (a) It shall be unlawful for non-native residents of less than two (2) years to express displeasure, discontent or general dissatisfaction in any manner (verbal or nonverbal) with any aspect of the meteorological occurrences within state boundaries. Any resident observed so dissing shall be forced to sit in an REI rain room dressed in pure cotton for a period of not less than 48 hours and then shall be expelled from the state permanently. All Gore-Tex apparel shall be confiscated and retained. (b) Any non-native residents of more than two (2) years observed complaining about the weather shall be forced to relocate east of the Cascades and forbidden from entering the Willamette Valley except during Rose Festival. (c) These restrictions do not apply to native Oregonians, since they never complain anyway. This week's amateur legislator, Bill Hasan of Hillsboro, wins dinner
for two at Sweetwater's Jam House. FOLLOW-UP When giant telephone companies do battle nowadays, they like to have a grassroots group on their side--even if that means making one up. Just look at the fracas over Senate Bill 142, a sweeping piece of legislation that would prevent state regulators from lowering US West's rates for local calls. Last week, officials from a group called Citizens for a Sound Economy testified in Salem on behalf of SB 142, saying the bill would help consumers by giving them higher quality, more accessible services. Citizens for a Sound Economy, which has 5,000 members in Oregon, claims to be a grassroots group that wants lower taxes and less government. In truth, CSE is as homegrown as the Texas company that now owns Portland General Electric. The group is based in Washington, D.C., and receives funding from the country's largest corporations, including Coors, R.J. Reynolds, General Electric, Mobil and, oh yes, US West. Cathy Epley, the new director of the Oregon chapter of CSE, says the group will open a Portland office by the end of the month. Epley says she didn't know US West was a backer of her group but insists CSE will cross the phone company on other issues. AT&T, meanwhile, has set up a competing group, Consumer Alliance for Advanced Telephone Services, to oppose SB 142 ("Consumer Frauds," March 3, 1999). It's a strategy AT&T has used before--in New Mexico, Idaho and Maryland. And, like the organizations the communications company backed in those states, the Oregon group feels more like AstroTurf than grassroots. CAATS has a Portland address, but it's only a mailbox next to a tanning salon. It has a toll-free phone number, but it's answered by a company in either Arizona or New Mexico--Evan White, director of the alliance, isn't sure which. White, a former administrator at the state Public Utility Commission, believes the ends justify the means. "I'm willing to align myself with anyone who shares the objective of stopping US West's legislation," says White. "I wouldn't say AT&T is better in the end. However, in Oregon, they don't have a monopoly." Phony grassroots groups are sprouting up all over corporate battlefields. "A number of corporations have adopted the strategy of creating front groups that have a citizen veneer," says Tarso Ramos, research director at the nonprofit Western States Center. "It's a modest investment, and it buys them more than sending another slick lobbyist to the Capitol." --Bob Young correctionsIn our story on Ohm ("New Club on the Block," March 3, 1999), we incorrectly stated that ohm was a measure of electrical current. It is actually a measure of resistance. In the same story we said "Black Dahlia" was inspired by a 1930s serial murderer when the name refers to a single murder in the 1940s. WW regrets the errors.
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