Prettier Than The Portland Building

BALDWIN WATCH, PART 2: More than a month into the Great Daniel Baldwin Experiment, and we still haven’t seen any sign of the promised Portland television studio, Grilletto Entertainment Company. Baldwin’s Twitter feed (twitter.com/BALDWINDANIEL) offered a glimmer of hope Sunday, Oct. 11, when the actor announced that on Oct. 22, “The shooting of the funniest reality show on television will begin.” The series, he wrote, is called Rent a Baldwin. But it was a false alarm: PDXposed host Jon Olson, one of Baldwin’s Portland partners, tells WW that Rent a Baldwin is a project Baldwin is shooting in Los Angeles “with his brother.” (We’re guessing Billy.) Olson says he and Baldwin are still discussing “possibly doing a movie about a bank robbery together.”
JAMES ELLROY EATS PORTLAND ALIVE: It was, in hindsight, extraordinarily obvious—James Ellroy and Portland go together like oil and a dude who likes pissing in oil. In town less than 24 hours for Wordstock, the combative “Demon Dog of American crime fiction” joined Chelsea Cain on the Live Wire! stage to banter about Ellroy’s past tragedies and their role in his literature. The ultimate goal of his writing? To use language to explain “how women get dead.” Earlier that morning, in the lobby of the Benson Hotel, Ellroy greeted WW’s Aaron Mesh by declaring how much he disliked Portland: “I’ve always hated it,” he said. “Have you ever seen so many pissed-off dykes?” (Read more of his interview with a helplessly smitten Mesh at wweek.com.) Finally, Ellroy appeared at his Wordstock reading Saturday, where he praised himself, called Portlanders a bunch of cocksuckers and cunt lickers, and took questions. “ I was disappointed to learn recently that you are right-leaning in your politics,” said the first questioner. “How do you feel about the fact that a lot of left-leaning people like your work?” His response: “Take your insult and shove it up your ass.”

HAIRY DOUGHNUT: A new Voodoo Doughnut ad scheduled to run in Bitch magazine got turned down by the Portland-based quarterly. The ad depicts a woman’s midsection in a pair of underpants, with just “a little bit of pubic hair” showing, says Voodoo owner Tres Shannon. He says Voodoo created its first ad promoting Voodoo’s clothing for Bitch because he thought the publication, like the ad, was “edgy and about female power.” But Bitch spokeswoman Jaymee Jacoby says the mag’s executive team felt the ad objectified a woman’s body and would offend readers because it clashes with the organization’s mission to be anti-sexist.
OATS UPDATE: For the first time in the history of Scotland’s Golden Spurtle competition, an American has taken the title of World Porridge Making Champion. That’s right, local grain connoisseur Matthew Cox of Bob’s Red Mill has beaten out all of the Scottish oatmeal experts to take home the coveted Golden Spurtle trophy. As WW reported last month, Cox entered the competition armed with a locally made myrtle spurtle (a stirring rod used to prevent lumpy porridge) to defend the honor of American oatmeal eaters nationwide.

WWeek 2015