Night Cabbie | Murmurs   Sparing Us the Gore Last week, WW political reporter Patty Wentz joined the presidential media pack when Democrats Al Gore and Joe Lieberman came to town. Here¹s her notebook dump. Gore Notes 8/30/00 Portland State University Cast (in order of appearance) Big Dog: Neil Goldschmidt, former Portland mayor and Oregon governor Colin Fogarty, OPB radio State Rep. Jo Ann Bowman Multnomah County Chairwoman Bev Stein Oregonian political reporter Jeff Mapes Oregonian columnist David Sarasohn Marc Abrams, former chairman of the Oregon Democratic Party State Sen. Avel Gordly State Sen. Kate Brown State Rep. Dan Gardner State Rep. Ryan Deckert Port of Portland chief Mike Thorne U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (Portland) U.S. Rep. Brian Baird (southwest Washington) GB: GOP presidential candidate George W. Bush It wasn¹t nearly as interesting as I thought it was going to be. The local D¹s told us to be there at 9. Not knowing any better I arrived at 9:30 and was still way too early. The courtyard next to the Smith Center was fenced off and there were cops everywhere. Big Dog was standing near the front of the entrance, inside the gate but not yet through the airline-style metal detector. There were a few halfhearted Nader people there, but I didn¹t think they had the kind of energy that merited the coverage The Chicago Tribune gave them, frankly. Next to the metal detector was a cop with a springer spaniel. I can¹t imagine what that dog is trained to do. I am intimately familiar with a springer and she has no talents bred into her other than fetching. Images of Millie, the Bushes¹ White House dog, also come to mind. It was a bad choice of guard dog all around. Wait outside with other press. No one I recognize. Talk to Colin, wander down the line of people waiting to get in. Bowman is there, impeccably dressed, as always. Bev. Lots and lots of old people. A small, curly-haired person takes the press in in groups of 10. She¹s New York tense, but not in a bad way. She doesn¹t smile ever but is matter-of-fact friendly. She tells us if we want to leave the town-hall room for any reason, even to go to the bathroom, we¹ll have to get an escort. Inside, she tells the local press that they have to sit in the back rows because the front rows are saved for the traveling press corps. She tells us we won¹t be able to ask any questions. Mapes tries to get past the rope and talk to people in the audience before it¹s started, and they won¹t let him, although mysteriously, Sarasohn is allowed in. The local D¹s come filing in. Marc Abrams, Bowman, Gordly, Brown, Gardner, Deckert, Stein. Didn¹t see Thorne, but I would swear he was there. Blumenauer. Brian Baird. He has a very phony wave. Wyden does an introduction. Introduces all the prominent D¹s in the audience. It¹s depressing. Like they all know they¹re supposed to be chipper. Wyden¹s best quote: ³I¹ve been on a scavenger hunt to find GB¹s plan to lower prescription drug prices, and I can¹t find it.² Big Dog is near the ropes talking to reporters. I don¹t get close enough to hear what they¹re talking about. Sarasohn lurks. I get bored in the back and go up to where the cameras are on an elevated stand and start chatting with a cameraman. He¹s been traveling with the press corps for two weeks. He works for NBC and also feeds CNN. He¹s in a constant battle with his producer because he shoots a lot of film. She says it¹s too much. He says his job is to catch whatever might happen on film. Who knows. A gunman, a protester. It could be anything. He takes his job as a recorder of history very seriously. I¹m standing among all the cameras, and no one makes me get down. I can¹t figure out why none of the other print reporters are doing it. I like TV cameramen. They¹re a gregarious group. The camera man says traveling with the VP sucks. He has a 19-month-old son who has learned to say ³I miss you Daddy² since he¹s been on the road. Lieberman comes out. No God talk. He¹s much smaller than I anticipated. Makes a joke about how it was the second time he¹d seen Blumenauer without a bow tie. It¹s all very casual. Wyden has on a red sweater, Lieberman plaid. Gore, green. (Like the forest he won¹t mention.) Gore comes out. It¹s true what they say: His body is as stiff as a FrankenGore. As if his spine were fused. Makes you wonder what his workout schedule is like and if he couldn¹t benefit from a little yoga. He doesn¹t look comfortable in his clothes. I have a hard time paying attention to both Lieberman and Gore. Their voices blend into the white noise. There is nothing stimulating or interesting. Again, I¹m struck by how cardboard-cutout and canned the process is. Lieberman makes the outrageous statement that thank goodness his and Al¹s mothers are still alive. While they¹re unusually blessed (he means financially) it¹s still true that Medicare is their base coverage. I can¹t believe he says this. Deckert is visibly supportive of everything that¹s said. Lots of head nodding. First guy to speak is an injured worker. Says he has a bum arm and talks about his difficulties getting health care. Then the stroke woman. She talks about the problems with her recovery. Asks the vice president if she shouldn¹t be on Medicaid instead of Medicare. Gore goes into a description of the difference‹health coverage school. The 10-year-old with diabetes. The woman with breast cancer talking about how screenings like mammograms are not covered. Dr. Josiah Hill talks about lead poisoning. The thing seems to go on forever. David Chai promises me it will be only 10 more minutes. Don Sampson of the Intertribal Columbia Council gets up from his seat, and I go to talk to him over the ropes in the back. He says he kept raising his hand to ask about health care on the reservations, but he couldn¹t get called on. When it¹s over, the press leaves quickly. Most go to the second-floor filing room. I go outside find breakfast at 2 pm, or whenever it was. Big Dog is again there by the gate. He puts his hand on my back to let me pass. I don't introduce myself‹he has been so gracious I don¹t want to ruin it. Plus, he looks a little lost without a bunch of people around him.   CABLE UNRAVELS Just two months ago, Portland was set to be the test bed for how much competition regional broadband cable markets could handle. Many cities, from New York to San Diego, have only one or two providers who offer high-speed cable Internet, video and telephone services down a single fiber pipeline. Portland, by comparison would have four challengers fighting AT&T for customer loyalty. Now, it appears that consumers can kiss those dreams good-bye. WW has learned that two of the four upstart broadband providers are dead in the Portland market. Open Access Broadband went out of business Sept. 1, and Wide Open West is expected to announce any day that it is pulling out of Portland altogether. For both, shaky capital markets have made it impossible for them to raise needed financing. That leaves RCN and Western Integrated Networks to keep AT&T on its toes, and they won't hook up their first residential customer for at least six months. "I knew they wouldn't all last," says City Commissioner Erik Sten, who oversees the city's cable franchise office. "It's just sooner than I thought." Meanwhile, AT&T is licking its chops. By the time RCN lights up area computers next spring, AT&T/@Home may have the market locked up. The company is currently hooking up 1,400 homes a week in Portland, according to Kevin Mulligan, an AT&T spokesman. It began service on the west side of the Willamette River in June and on the east side in the last three weeks. Mulligan says AT&T can offer broadband services to 60,000 westside and 46,000 central eastside homes now; it will extend its services to 40,000 more in the Gateway district next month. The dwindling competition in Portland may spell bad news for consumers. AT&T has been roundly criticized after its @Home service turned into a nightmare for home users in the San Francisco Bay Area. --Philip Dawdy Bad George: RIP The 63-year-old inmate who died in his jail cell Aug. 28 wasn't your average barfly. The man, who was brought in on charges of trespassing and drunken driving, was George S. Conners--better known to local poets and Gus Van Sant fans as "Bad George." Cafe Lena co-owner Leanne Grabel remembers Conners "egging her on" at her first open-mic in Portland in the mid-'70s. Satyricon owner George Touhouliotis says Conners was a regular at his club. Conners, he said, would hang out with anyone who would buy him a drink, but was a particular favorite of all the young poets. As the poetry scene shifted to Cafe Lena in the late '80s, Conners continued to provide enthusiasm and support for the poetry community. One of Bad George's signature poems, "It's Hell to Be Poor," bespoke his working-class identity. Indeed, even when Conners, a former X-ray technician, made it to the big time in cult favorite My Own Private Idaho, he was true to life, starring as Bad George in a street scene with Bob, Mike and the gang. Local poet Walt Curtis described Conners as a "beloved, sincere and effective barroom bard. He was an icon of our outsider literary community." Although the medical examiner has not yet determined the cause of Conners' death, there are no allegations of excessive force at the jail. In addition to having been a long-time smoker and drinker, Conners also reportedly struggled with heart disease and had undergone bypass surgery. --Joanna Burgess Murmurs IDLE GOSSIP, RANK SPECULATION & BIZARRE QUOTES* Mike Thorne won't leave his $194,000 job as executive director of the Port of Portland until December, but already people are speculating about who'll replace him. Among those mentioned, Tri-Met boss Fred Hansen and City Commissioner Charlie Hales say they're not interested. Gov. Kitzhaber's chief of staff, Bill Wyatt, was unreachable. Commiss-ioner Erik Sten said it was too early to speculate about his future. * Portland rock scene-sters found themselves raising glasses to a departed comrade Sunday. Terry Grob, the one-man propaganda factory, fixer and arranger who booked bands at EJ's, died Saturday night, felled by what friends describe as an epileptic seizure. Grob was a well-known and beloved Northwest rock icon, having booked shows in Spokane, Wash., for years before relocating to Portland. Ironically, Sunday night's EJ's show featured three bands--the Makers, the Fireballs of Freedom and the Real Pills--who owed Grob big-time from his Spokane days. All offered blazing tributes to Sunday's sardined crowd. "Terry was a brother," said one band member. "He had his knife to the throat of the music industry, and he'll be missed." * Yiddish spoken here: After face time with vice-presidential aspirant Sen. Joseph Lieberman last week, Mayor Vera Katz reports that the Connecticut Democrat was stunned by the number of "mazeltovs" he got from Portlanders in the Hilton Hotel receiving line. * It's (almost) official: After 33 years of unwedded bliss, Walter Cole (a.k.a. Darcelle XV) and Roxy Neuhardt (a.k.a. Roxy Leroy) will saunter over to City Hall this week to register as domestic partners. Cole says the two men, who will be joined by a few other couples, wanted to make a statement. "We wanted to say this is a step in the right direction," he said, "and let people know that we are a family and we might even have a value or two, like monogamy." Night Cabbie BY Willie Milkis willie_milkis@hotmail.com EARLY IN MY SHIFT I pick up a girl at her house. She comes out with a little bag that means stripper and, sure enough, tells me to head to a strip club I know well. I'm always very friendly to strippers, and just trying to be conversational, I say, "Well, you can't be one of the twins, because there's only one of you." As a cabbie I assume a lot of leeway in stupid opening lines, just to start a conversation. She'd seemed friendly at first, but now she gives me a look and says, "There aren't any twins that work there." Well, I think, maybe they don't work there anymore. She takes a call on her cell phone and seems friendly enough to her caller. After a bit I try again. "So what's your job like?" She returns an icy stare. "I suppose it depends on your perspective," she says, and stares pointedly out the window. Now I can't resist provoking her a little--and besides, I hate silent cab rides. "So what's yours?" She looks at me, all annoyed. "I don't choose to discuss it." OK, so she's just a bitch. We get to the club and she pays me with two dollars and a big handful of change. Cabbies hate change, just like strippers. I give her a measured look. "Maybe I'll give this back to you later in tips." She stares at me like she wants to kill me with her eyes alone, then slams the door and gives me one last evil look before going inside.