NEW
SALVO IN MAY
DAY MELEE
After weathering weeks of criticism in the aftermath of
the May Day melee, the Portland Police Bureau on Monday
released several "supplemental," or rewritten, reports of
arrests made during the ill-starred May 1 confrontation.
The new reports, ordered by top Police Bureau brass, include
detailed accounts of most of the 19 arrests made that day,
as well as offering reasons to justify the use of force.
In one of the supplemental reports, for example, Officer
R. Bustamante recounts shooting protester John Paul Cupp
with beanbag rounds.
Cupp's shooting drew considerable attention after a videotape
of the incident, made by a protest observer, was aired on
local television. The video shows Bustamante firing several
rounds into a fleeing crowd on the edge of Waterfront Park.
In an interview with WW in early May, Chief Mark
Kroeker said he would review that incident in particular.
According to Bustamante's supplemental report, released
Monday, Cupp was singled out for arrest after he allegedly
hit a police horse with a wooden stake.
Other reports similarly explain actions that have drawn
criticism. Some, for example, describe arrests of marchers
who refused to clear the street, an action that was not
recorded on any videotape.
Assistant Chief Bruce Prunk told WW that it is not
unusual for supervisors to request supplemental reports.
He says such requests are often prompted by complaints or
requests from prosecutors seeking additional information.
He also says that the delay (some of the reports were written
as late as May 18) was not uncommon.
The reports, along with additional information about the
May 1 police response, will all be forwarded to Kroeker.
He told WW that he expects to deliver his report
to City Council by the end of the month.
Missing
the Beat
Goodbye, Gina. Ciao, Cort. Au revoir, Rebecca.
KBBT FM Portland, known to listeners as "The Beat @ 107.5,"
spun its last disc--and fired all its employees--as of noon
Friday, June 2.
The CBS-owned station then quietly changed its call letters
and format to KVMX, "The Mix 107.5...'80s and More!"
In a press release, General Manager Dave McDonald said
the station's owner had decided that "The Beat was unlikely
to achieve the kind of ratings performance we think is necessary
to grow the business."
What a shame. One of the first local stations to embrace
the alt.rock scene, KBBT burst onto the AM radio dial in
the early '90s with a robot DJ, before migrating to more
listener-friendly FM airwaves and humanoid disk jockeys.
The new format will rely heavily on the sounds of the decade
of greed, including gems from R.E.M., Talking Heads and
Frankie Goes to Hollywood. The corollary is that listeners
will also be subjected to Phil Collins, REO Speedwagon and
Huey Lewis and the News.
The biggest losers in this ratings-driven gamble, besides
devotees of alterna-lite, are the drive-time troika of Gina,
Cort and Rebecca, who will no longer grace the morning airwaves.
That's not only a loss for local radioheads, it's a blow
to the local gay and lesbian community. Although they never
explicitly divulged any bedroom leanings, their gay-friendly
program had a clear message: At The Beat, sisters were doing
it for themselves.
Gina, who kids that she's looking for work this summer
as a dog-walking DJ, says she and Rebecca have no plans
to try the airwaves elsewhere. "Portland is home," she says.
"We're not leaving."
--Byron Beck
CALIFORNIA
DREAMING
They are their own species, these lowrider fanatics. Even
if that wasn't apparent milling through the throng at the
Expo Center showroom Sunday, gawking at cars, trucks, motorcycles
and even--gulp--bicycles tricked out with hydraulic
suspension, custom paint jobs, plush interiors and gleaming
hub caps, it became obvious when the MC tried to pump up
the posse for the car-hop
contest.
"How 'bout them Blazers?" the microphone man called. The
crowd responded with a few whistles and boos. "How 'bout
them Lakers?" he tried. The crowd screamed--an ominous portent
for the hometown team set to face Shaq and Co. later in
the day.
Lowriders are a California thing. The trend began in California,
and the Golden State remains the mecca for devotees of the
Cult of the Lowrider. But it doesn't really matter where
you're from: If you can get your car to jump 60 inches using
a hydraulics system, you win the audience's admiration.
The Expo show was sponsored by Lowrider magazine,
which for the last two decades has been the bible of the
hot-rod set. Since its humble beginnings, the movement has
now swelled to epic proportions--more than 10,000 people
came to Sunday's show.
And the field now embraces women as well men. Mandy Lopes,
a payroll manager, and her sister Shawna Carter have been
showing off their greased lightnings for about five years,
and both met their husbands at these kind of events. The
Oregon City women are part of the Ridin' IV Life car club;
they work on their cars every weekend and sink thousands
of dollars into the hobby. Carter and her husband have a
cherry late-1960s Impala. With its open hood seductively
revealing a polished chrome V-8 engine, the car is more
Venus than vehicle. In a way, the whole show is about auto
porn, and this is the beaver shot.
When pressed about what inspires them to invest so much
in their four wheels, Lopes shrugs. "Most of our friends
show cars," she says. "It's what we do."
--Caryn B. Brooks
Another
Plug from
the Department of SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION
The International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors last
month awarded WW's publisher, Richard Meeker, its
Golden Quill award for an editorial column lambasting US
West for trying to get itself declared exempt from state
regulation ("Operator, Please!," WW, March 17, 1999).
Meeker looks forward to calling the phone company to gloat,
as soon as the lines aren't busy.
The Several
Talents
of Dan
Savage
Cheering multitudes erupted into Portland's streets last
Thursday upon discovering that Savage Love, a syndicated
sex column by Seattle writer Dan Savage, took up a significant
share of editorial space in the debut of The Portland
Mercury, a quick-reading new weekly owned by a Seattle
millionaire.
Savage Love, which features totally rad words like
"fuck" and "cock," first appeared in Seattle's The Stranger
in 1991. Now, the 35-year-old family man makes the whimsical
claim that his column appears in 3,512 newspapers in 25
countries, and on every continent except Africa.
"Not that there's anything wrong with Africans," says the
enlightened Savage. "They're a charming collection of peoples."
Although Savage Love, by its own proclamation, aims
to snare "young readers" with cool descriptions of cutting-edge
lubricated acts, a broader range of age groups will be delighted
to learn that Savage has become a one-man conglomerate appealing
to all demographics. Savage co-authors a column, Savage
Family Advice, with his mother, Judy Sobiesk, for the
Web site Onhealth.com. The column isn't exactly racy, but
it does explore important topics such as what to
do when elderly parents need help with their mortgage.
Before moving to Onhealth.com, Savage contributed an advice
column (which he has, in the past, described as "defanged"
and "kinder and gentler") to ABCnews.com. In that column's
promotional material, the aging-yet-clever Savage identified
himself as "a 30-year-old male Ann Landers."
This kind of mind-blowing wit sometimes lands Savage in
trouble. He was recently arraigned in Iowa on criminal charges
of voter fraud stemming from an article he wrote for Salon.com,
in which he claimed, among other things, to have licked
doorknobs at the campaign headquarters of GOP presidential
hopeful Gary Bauer in an attempt to give Bauer the flu.
Savage, who pleaded not guilty, now says he mostly made
the story up.
"It was a joke I told at my own expense," he says.
Mercy! What a card!
--Zach Dundas
Murmurs
100% TUNA-FRIENDLY
* Thanks to brewmasters Kurt and Rob Widmer, Oregon
hop-heads will have a reason to attend this summer's state
fair after all. Draconian budget cuts by Katie Cannon, the
fair's new director (and recent WW Rogue of the Week),
had eliminated the annual homebrewing competition.
But the Widmers, longtime supporters of basement brewers,
agreed to pick up the tab, which last year was $6,700.
* The House Democrats have a new candidate. Weighing in
at 8 pounds, 6 ounces, Alexander Stephen Blosser, heir to
the Kafoury political dynasty, was born last Sunday to Rep.
Deborah Kafoury and her husband, Nik Blosser.
Since you have to be 21 to serve in the Legislature, where
all Kafourys traditionally get their start, little Alex
can't run until 2022. Maybe by then the Dems will have taken
back the House.
* In her quest for the all-natural, activist Donna Harris
has filed a citywide initiative that would require the labeling
of all genetically engineered foods sold in Portland.
Harris has until July 7 to collect the 21,000 signatures
required to make it onto the November ballot. If the proposal
passes, Portland would be the first city in the nation to
require such labeling.
* Teamster Tom Leedham, the reform-minded secretary-treasurer
of Local 206 (warehouse, UPS and public employees), is going
after the big prize again. Having run a surprisingly close
second to Jimmy Hoffa Jr. in the 1998 national election
for Teamsters general president, Leedham announced last
week he'll try again next year.
* This just in: Fire chief Robert Wall is being
sued in federal court by an 18-year veteran of the bureau.
Firefighter Gordon Hovies claims that, despite placing at
No. 20 on the bureau's promotional list for lieutenants,
he has been passed over by seven other firefighters in retaliation
for challenging the accuracy of the bureau's promotional
tests in 1996 and 1998. Hovies has asked U.S. District Court
Judge Janice Stewart to order the city to promote
him. Wall was unavailable for comment.
* Local Props:
If you thought last year's blowout to mark the re-opening
of the Hawthorne Bridge was pretty cool, you weren't
alone. The National Association of County Information Officers
(now there's a group that knows how to have fun!)
deemed it the best county-sponsored bash in the nation.
* Kudos go out to endurance-test winner Gyrid Hyde-Towle,
who hangs up her bow after a staggering 47 seasons with
the Oregon Symphony. The 67-year-old violinist--who saw
six music directors come and go and took cues from egos
as large as Dmitri Mitropoulos, Arthur Fiedler, Igor Stravinsky
and Aaron Copland--retires to cooking, gardening and grandmothering.
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