- BRINGING SEXY BACK: Turns out Oregon’s Pennie Lane isn’t the only world-famous band-worshipper in the Portland area. VH1’s new rockumentary, Let’s Spend the Night Together: Confessions of Rock’s Greatest Groupies, premieres Wednesday, Dec. 15, and features 59-year-old Michele Overman. She’s a Northwest Portlander who also happens to be the ex-girlfriend of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. WW caught up with Overman to talk about how she once helped put the “sex” in “sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll” (read a Q&A at wweek.com). She was only 16 when she dated Aerosmith’s frontman. “He was really cute and really charming,” she says of Tyler, who was over 18 at the time. “He’s one of those people who are so over-the-top talented with no brakes, no filter. You could tell he was going places.”
- SOCIAL CLIMBERS: Take Portland’s claims to fame—most microbreweries within a city limits, most strip clubs per capita—and add another: Last weekend, the Circuit Bouldering Gym officially opened one of the—if not the—largest bouldering gyms in the world (gym owners aren’t too exact about calculating the area of their walls). Circuit Assistant Manager Quinn Dannies is excited about the extra-large, ropeless rock-climbing playground. “Even if I didn’t work here, this would be one of the coolest gyms I’ve ever seen,” she said. The location at 410 NE 17th Ave. is set in a 14,000-square-foot former car showroom. It features 17-foot boulders and three walls that top out, rather than requiring climbers to down-climb. “One of them [is] the size of an entire house,” says Dannies.
HUNDREDS OF HOS: Chris Willis really, really digs Santa Claus. In fact, the Southwest Portland artist is so taken with St. Nick he’s collected 150 vintage light-up effigies of the jolly old elf; specifically, blow molds from Empire Plastics Corp., a “now-defunct Tarboro, N.C.-based company that produced the joyful figures from 1968 to 1985.” (He’s also got snowmen, angels, reindeer and elves.) Bask in the electric glow of his obsession this month at East Burnside’s bSide6 building, where his epic “Santa army” will be on display from 5 pm to midnight through Jan. 1.- GIVE IT UP: Have you given your favorite local nonprofit some love yet this holiday season? WW’s Give!Guide wants to help you with that. Portlanders raised more than $900,000 for local nonprofits through the guide last year and have given nearly $400,000 so far this year since Nov. 17. Visit wweek.com/giveguide to get the scoop on 79 of our favorite worthy groups. Now go give your little heart out: The deadline for donations is midnight Friday, Dec. 31.
