Scoop: Fear and Loathing Along the Potomac

1. D.C. BE HATIN’: Last week, Washington Post writer Dan Zak slammed the Portlandia stage show in what turned out to be but a warning shot in the brewing D.C.-PDX rivalry. America’s Ottawa then dispatched The Weekly Standard’s Mark Hemingway—he looks like George Will ate George Will—to waddle around downtown for a hit piece. Brief response: Of course Portland’s locavore food is “insufferable” compared to Ben’s Chili Bowl, and we’re sorry our light rail can’t match your circular I-495 parking lot.

1. OUT WITH THE NEW, IN WITH THE OLD: The Trail Blazers dropped second-year point guard Armon Johnson on Monday, Feb. 27, to make room for a familiar face: ex-Blazers center Joel “The Thrilla” Przybilla, a fan favorite whom team officials hope will provide added interior defense. This is also bad news for recent center acquisitions Kurt Thomas and Craig Smith, who will each probably see less playing time. Przybilla had not been made available to media as of WW’s press deadlines. In other news, Greg “Ugh” Oden is still, technically, a Blazer.

1. YOU ARE LISTENING TO LOS ANGELES: Days after Tom Bissell attended a Friday-night Portland International Film Festival showing of The Loneliest Planet (a movie based on one of his short stories), the former PSU prof and WW cover boy is going Hollywood. Or going to Hollywood, anyway: Bissell moves to Los Angeles today to become a screenwriter at a video-game development company. >>> If the “in memoriam” segment at Sunday’s Oscars sounded familiar, that’s because the rendition of “What a Wonderful World” was sung over the dead-celeb faces by Portland jazz crooner Esperanza Spalding. She just keeps overshadowing Justin Beiber, who only got a Billy Crystal montage cameo.

1. VINTAGE 2013: There will be no 2012 Portland Indie Wine & Food Festival. The eighth annual festival of small-batch winemakers had been scheduled for May at the Bison Building. The building was leased this week, though, and rather than host the party elsewhere, organizers are taking a year off.

1. HAPPY BIRTHDAY KANDICE: Scoop would like to send warm birthday wishes to Kandice Kilcoyne, who celebrates her sixth birthday today. The record says Kandice is 24 years old, but, having been born on Feb. 29, 1988, the Lexington, Ky., native only gets a real birthday during leap years. In a story that would no doubt horrify Mark Hemingway, Kandice’s mother, Penny, says her daughter moved to Portland last year on a whim. “She’d never been there, didn’t know anyone there, and yet she packed her suitcases, lined up a ‘sublet’ from Craigslist (scared me to death!) and hopped on a plane.” Mother and daughter celebrate the occasion together in Portland this year. If you happen to see Kandice, buy her four drinks for us.

WWeek 2015