Scoop: River Pirate Blues

A mortar of gossip smuggled over the river.

FINGER
  1. PIRATE PARTY: Yo, you partying at the Waterfront Blues Festival? Look for Finger. The “partial pirate,” whom WW interviewed for this blog post, has docked the boat he lives on just offshore for the show. Finger and his buds will bring partiers aboard their hobo flotilla on a Huck Finn raft and have a stripper pole and plenty of booze just a few feet from Tom McCall Waterfront Park. Finger says women are always welcome on his boat, but dudes should plan to “bring a bunch of girls or beer, or maybe pay five bucks.” “We’re not trying to have a sausagefest,” he says.
  1. DOWNLOAD DUST-UP: In a June 16 NPR blog post titled “I Never Owned Any Music To Begin With,” 20-year-old intern Emily White admits that much of her sizable music collection is pirated. The post continues to make waves on the Web. On June 24, Portland blogger/ex-Gang of Four bassist Dave Allen wrote a response of sorts for his advertising agency/think tank, North, titled “The Internet Could Not Care Less About Your Mediocre Band.” The post praised White for her honesty while also attacking one of her critics, Cracker/Camper Van Beethoven singer-guitarist David Lowery, for being “maudlin” and “mildly talented.” In doing so, Allen angered Portland-based music journalist Peter Ames Carlin, who responded with his own blog post, titled “Famous Internet Pedant Dave Allen Is a Dick.” The fracas led to over 100 contentious comments on Allen’s blog post and an eventual apology (from North’s Mark Ray, not Allen) to Lowery. Allen clarified and expanded on his comments in a lengthy Q&A with WW you can find here. (He asked that his comments not be edited or omitted as a precondition for the interview.)
  1. GROW OR GO: New rules make non-farmers less welcome at the city’s farmers markets. The city recently revised zoning rules to increase access to healthy food. In addition to all the greenspeak, the ordinance also caps the number of “non-farmer” vendors at 20 percent of any market. That means vendors selling shell-encrusted découpage jewelry boxes will have to fight it out for space or be relegated to the Portland Saturday Market. John Eveland of Gathering Together Farm isn’t bothered by the new regulations, noting, “Most of the craftspeople at farmers markets are really not that good at what they do, or they’d be elsewhere.” 
  1. NEW BAG: Word on the street is that Kenny & Zuke’s is looking to expand into Pix Pâtisserie’s space on North Williams Avenue. Pix will vacate both of its current locations for a new eatery on East Burnside Street. Meanwhile, Kenny & Zuke’s has significantly expanded production, scoring the bagel account for all the Portland Whole Foods stores, and dedicating half its SandwichWorks shop to baking and boiling bagels. Whether the proposed future location will be a BagelWorks or another deli, Scoop didn’t hear, though we think either would be a big success.

WWeek 2015

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