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BEST
PERSONAL PROPAGANDA TECHNIQUE
It's worked for despots and dictators around the
world, so why shouldn't a local band plaster its image across
the side of a building in Stalinesque proportions? Honey
Ryder did, in an Old Town mural. The visage of HR vocalist
Cristie Chambers peers down from its perch above the Tacoma
Cafe (22 NW 3rd Ave.), lips parted in a slightly seductive
pout, face offset by the dates of her group's upcoming shows
(you can catch them July 30 at the Paris Theatre). It's not
the most modest method of self-promotion, but in the Machiavellian
world that is the Portland music scene, radical measures are
required to ascend in the hipster oligarchy.
BEST
PLEDGE PITCH
After 10 years of trying to separate Oregon Public
Broadcasting listeners from their cash, Virginia Breen pretty
much operates on autopilot during pledge drives. Her usual
on-air tactic is to wear people down with her piercingly
perky sales pitch. "I try to get people tired enough so
that they call, without getting them so tired that they
get disgusted," says the station's vice president. During
May's beg-a-thon, however, she improvised a bit. Co-host
Gray Eubank noted that all but two of the volunteers one
morning were women while most OPB listeners are men. Where
Eubank saw a simple demographic curiosity, Breene saw opportunity.
"OK men," she jumped in, "245-2345, 'Call-A-Chick.'"
Despite Eubank's on-air prediction of retribution from
the PC police, Breene says she received nary a protest.
"I guess when a feminist says 'Call a chick,' it's OK,"
she says.
BEST
QUIET STORM IN THE MORNING
Most people aren't particularly thrilled when
they roll out of bed to prepare for yet another day's work.
Those who turn on the tube for the latest news, weather
and traffic conditions are in for a particularly jarring
arousal. The clowns on KPTV Channel 12's Good Day Oregon
offer tasty news tidbits and local guests from around town
(someday, everyone in Portland will have appeared on the
show), but their delivery is so goofy, it's like peeking
into a junior-high boys' locker room. And then there's loudmouthed
Lars Larson, on KOIN Channel 6, who does his best to incite
outrage in those who choose to listen or call in to his
talk-adio-inspired Buzz program. But there's a calm
respite in this roiling sea of frenzied broadcasters. KGW
Channel 8's Brenda Braxton and Carl Click offer a low-modulated
version of the morning particulars from 6-7 am every weekday.
The anchors' composed demeanor and mellow delivery act as
verbal Prozac and may even reduce road rage on the morning
commute.
BEST
PRESS RELEASE
A kitsch overload makes us kvetch as much as
the next retro reformist, but when kitsch is your schtick,
it's best to pull it off with wholesale gimmickry. Last
fall, a press release from the 1201 Cafe & Lounge
announced the bar's Sept. 16 Makeover Madness with whole-hog
fanfare: Included in the package were razorbacks (tiny plastic
pigs glued to pennies), to be used as drink tokens. Dime
store candy, a miniature toy food processor, a fork-shaped
writing utensil and other Made-in-China trinkets were also
featured in the press package, which otherwise would have
been just a print jobbie on hot-pink paper. To cap it off,
there were Service Industry Cards entitling the bearer to
half-price drinks every Monday night. While the touted "super
glamourous decor" and "brand-spanking new stage" were much
the same as those of the old 1201, the menu had been reconsidered
to recall Airstream high life: six kinds of meatloaf, a
10-ounce T-bone, casseroles and tuna melts. The cuisine,
which wasn't so hot, has since gone Italian, but the fancy
press release stays with us.
BEST
PORTLAND BOOKMARKS
It's hard to capture that certain je ne sais
quoi that enlivens city streets in cold binary code.
To find a closer approximation of the weirdness of life
in this 'burg online, you have to dig a little deeper. Here
are a few Web pages that evoke some of Portland's trademark
spunk.
There's something about flags that touches our inner dork.
What better online rest stop for nerds like us than www.elmersflag.com,
the Internet home of Elmer's Flag and Banner (located at
1332 NE Broadway in the real world). Elmer's page features
full-color renditions of every banner of the United Nations
member states and a few from wannabe nation-states as well,
plus a database of flag-flying holidays from around the
world. If you didn't know that July 2 was Flag Day in the
Netherlands Antilles, well, now you do.
The whiskey-rock tough guys (and woman) in Dead Moon practically
founded Portland's musical underground, and their Web site
contains a vast compendium of photos, stories, lyrics and
facts from their 15-year crusade. Appropriately enough,
the city's most phantasmic band's site is buried deep in
one of the Net's most nondescript servers. Find it at www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Venue/7980.
Finally, what cruise of the Web would be complete without
a little obsessive-compulsive sports fan action? Some University
of Michigan student has devoted way, way too much time to
paying tribute to the Trail Blazers' Lithuanian lug, Arvydas
Sabonis. This hyper-enthusiastic page (www-personal.umich.edu/~swleung/funvydas.html)
sings the Artist's post-Soviet praises in effusive, randomly
italicized prose. Funvydas? You bet.
BEST
EXPLANATION OF WHY THE BLAZERS HAVEN'T BLOWN UP
It's all about chemistry, baby. The Portland
Trail Blazers largely put their egos aside in coasting to
the Western Conference finals last season despite a lineup
logjam that left most players with decreased minutes. How'd
they do it? Consult Professor Dunleavy's Science Kit--a
Blazer promotion sent out to the media touting Mike Dunleavy
as the NBA's top coach that explains Portland's success
in elemental terms. Each player is depicted as an element
that fits into a hoop-shaped periodic table. For example,
Damon Stoudamire (Ds) stands for Assistite, while Greg Anthony
(Ga) represents Stealium and Brian Grant (Bg) Reboundium.
The promotion, which got play in ESPN magazine and
on TNT, worked in more ways than one: Dunleavy was awarded
Coach of the Year for his ego-management skills, and by
avoiding any major chemical reactions, the Blazers made
it past preliminary playoffs for the first time in six years.
BEST
CAMPAIGN FOR ROGUE OF THE WEEK
It isn't exactly tough to make our "Rogue of
the Week" column. In fact, we're proud to say we'd rogue
just about anybody or anything. We've given the mantle to
sport utility vehicles, a peeping tom who had videotaped
the action in portable toilets, Isaiah Rider, and, on too
many occasions to count, Oregon legislators. Heck, we've
even given ourselves this dubious distinction. But
we have to commend Critical Massers for the effort
they put into trying to persuade us last December to rogue
the Portland Police Bureau. The officers' alleged roguishness
lay in arresting a number of cyclists involved in a Critical
Mass bike ride in late November and charging them with disorderly
conduct. They called. They wrote. They showed up at our
front desk. They got their lawyers to call. And then they
did it all over again, continuing until we finally relented.
No, we didn't name the police rogues that week. (That honor
was reserved for a greedy loan company.) Instead, we wrote
a longer piece on the group and followed it up later with
a story about the charges being dismissed. Who says twentysomethings
are rootless and lazy?
BEST
NEW YORK POWER PLAY, PART 1
Most fiction writers struggle for years before
their work is finally published--if it ever gets published.
But one Portlander got her novel published simply by listening
to her mother. Myrlin Hermes wrote Careful What
You Wish For, a book about women living in a repressed
southern town during the 1960s, as her senior thesis at
Reed College. After several drafts, Hermes graduated and
never wanted to see the manuscript again. But her mother
begged her to come home to Hawaii for a visit, offering
her a ticket to the Maui Writers Conference as a bribe.
At the conference, Hermes encountered New York agent Laurie
Liss, who was on her way back from the pool. Liss, the agent
who turned The Bridges of Madison County into a modern-day
publishing miracle, agreed to represent Hermes and eventually
sold her novel to Simon & Schuster. Now that Hermes
is a published novelist, she doesn't plan to escape to New
York any time soon. "This is a place where I could settle
down and live my life," she says of her hometown, although
at the tender age of 23, she isn't making any promises.
For the time being, anyway, Hermes plans to be hanging out
at her house in the Hawthorne District, working on her next
novel: a retelling of Hamlet from his mother's point
of view.
BEST
NEW YORK POWER PLAY, PART 2
Under normal circumstances, this "Best of Portland"
guide would not make a fuss about a show in New York City.
But when the talented Portland performance artist Miranda
July is involved, the event warrants a mention. Last
winter, PICA sponsored July's one-woman multimedia extravaganza
Love Diamond. The two-act show alternately embraced
and scurried away from topics related to surveillance as
it amazed, confused and bewildered packed houses two nights
in a row at the Hollywood Theatre. While in NYC for a small
part in a movie, July cajoled Gavin Smith, coordinator of
the New York Video Festival and editor of Film Comment
magazine, into accepting Diamond as the first live,
multimedia installation at the prestigious festival. Portland
musician Zac Love will orchestrate the show's music. Unfortunately
for the non-jet-setters among us, the gig takes place July
22 at NYC's Lincoln Center.
BEST
FLY GUY
Reporting from news helicopters has become one
of the most annoying trends in Portland. But it can also
be life-saving. Last May, while searchers were combing the
Columbia River Gorge backcountry for 20-year-old hiker Jason
Neville, KOIN-TV television reporter and pilot Warren
Petrie followed his gut feeling and, with photographer
Dale Birkholz, veered out of the search area. Neville, the
grandson of former Louisiana Governor Dave Treen, had been
missing for three days when Birkholz spotted him holding
a cooking pot to the sky to reflect sunlight up to the helicopter.
Neville was picked up within hours and reunited with his
family. Though choppers crowd the city skies, Petrie is
the only pilot-cum-journalist, which, according to KOIN-TV
Assistant News Editor John Ray, gives Petrie an edge. Instead
of having a slick-haired reporter get in the way, the camera
aims at Petrie and he broadcasts as he flies. Sometimes
that means breaks in the narration as Petrie keeps one ear
on air traffic, but Ray says that adds to the authenticity
of the reporting. When the oil tanker New Carissa
was grounded off Coos Bay last February, Petrie logged about
100 hours in the air during the four weeks the boat refused
to sink. Petrie's background in commercial flying, which
includes loading and unloading ships, helped him bring the
scene closer to home for the viewers--and sweep the ratings.
BEST
THING TO SOFTEN A BILL'S BLOW
Portland General Electric's Update
newsletter, a double-sided handout that boasts "Connecting
People, Power and Possibilities," makes the bill-paying
process a little lighter. A monthly feature for the past
three years, Update earned the Portland Public Relations
Society of America's Spotlight Award in 1996 for its information
about safety, energy-efficient practices and products, and
issues such as Y2K. But it also offers fun stuff like recipes
and rebates to take your mind off the dough you owe. "We
go to our customers once a month, and this is a perfect
way to have an ongoing relationship with them," says Update
coordinator Gail Baker. Blockbuster discounts and lawn mower
rebates only help to sweeten the relationship.
BEST
LOCAL TALENT IN A NATIONAL AD
Back in May, New York advertising agency Dinoto
Lee called on Portland photographer Lars Topelmann to collaborate
on a print campaign for Deja.com, a new Web site that tracks
consumer comments on various products. When he saw that
the layout called for two large, shirtless, helmeted men
jumping into the air with laptops strapped to their barrel
chests, Lars knew exactly who to call. Out of hiding came
the Brothers E, Portland's very own Elvis-impersonating
duo whose occasional live shows are masterpieces of accuracy
and mid-'70s Presleyan excess. "Little E" and "Big E"
(a.k.a. Satan's Pilgrims drummer Ted Miller and Towncraft
drummer Mike Hughes, respectively) rose to the challenge.
The ad--which has run full-page in The Wall Street Journal,
Time, Forbes and Business Week --is
hysterical. Autograph hounds can find Ted at his new shop,
Home Ec (2745 NE Broadway, 287-7675), and Mike at La Cruda,
where he presides as unofficial mayor of Southeast Clinton
Street.
BEST
BRAGGING RIGHTS
Well, there are the obvious boast-worthy fixtures:
roses, microbrews, rain and Mount Hood. More and more, however,
Portland is gaining recognition for the tireless efforts
of a number of persistent individuals battling the odds.
For the second year running, Bicycling magazine
named Portland the No. 1 cycling city in the United
States in its March 1999 issue (only Montreal topped the
Rose City for the North American title). Cycling infrastructure
(bike lanes, municipal bike racks, bicycle access to bridges
and public transportation, existence of a local government
bicycle coordinator, cycling advocacy efforts and bike-safety
programs) as well as cycling culture (existence of races
and informal group rides, access to trails, quiet roads,
good bike shops and active cycling clubs) were considered
to determine rankings. Thanks to the efforts of organizations
like the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, the Community
Cycling Center and an active network of area bicycle dealers,
Portland continues to set leading pedalability standards
for the rest of the nation.
BEST
VARIETY SHOW FROM BELOW SEA LEVEL
Charles De Greef scowls and pretends to spit
into a wastebasket as he mimics the reaction most Americans
have to real Dutch licorice, which isn't red or sweetened.
De Greef immigrated to the United States from the Netherlands
in 1972, and the 72-year-old has been playing Dutch music
on KBOO 90.7 FM ever since. He says it's easy having Portland's
best Dutch-language radio program: His is the only such
live show in the United States. He's sent tapes of his show
to stations throughout the country--and even to the Netherlands'
ambassador to the United States, Joris Michael Vors. The
"Holland Hour" offers a patriotic booster shot to
homesick Nederlanders--De Greef regularly plays the
anthemic "Piet Hein"--but the music is fun for licorice
novices as well. Catch the show every other Sunday at 9
am. Even if you don't understand Dutch (De Greef uses only
the occasional English phrase), the barrel organ is easy
to warm up to; it sounds like a carnival.
BEST
USE OF WW AS PERFORMANCE ART
This spring, when a reader asked about the "tacky
sex-ad fliers" inserted in copies of WW, we had
no idea what he was talking about. We hadn't cut any insert
deals recently. When he showed them to us, our curiosity
was piqued: The spelling, art and typography were so bad
it had to be intentional, we thought, a sophisticated joke
riffing on shady businesses. "I exite wemen, and you know
I do!" a Sears catalog-style illustration of a man in shorts
taunted on one of the neon half-sheets. "Why RENT OWN! Hmless
family on street! Own Hm.," another promised. "ZERO Dn!
Thanks Data! By obtaining zero dn hm prog plus if needed."
Was this another prank by Swallow Press, the artists who
had mystified members of the arts community a few years
back by mailing nonsensical and anonymous fliers to their
homes? Just when we were ready to proclaim the fliers brilliant
works of parody, we learned the truth: An early-morning
MAX rider reported seeing an older man in a plaid fedora
running back and forth across Pioneer Square at 7 am every
Wednesday with scissors, copies of WW and stacks
of brightly colored paper. The Plaid Guy, as MAX riders
came to call him, was working in earnest to promote his
business ventures. While his creative marketing strategy
was impressive, it was also illegal. After WW pointed
this out in a few phone calls to the number on the fliers,
the Plaid Guy ceased his activities--and MAX riders lost
their weekly brush with unintentional street art.
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Willamette Week | originally
published July 21, 1999
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