Skip to main contentAround the turning of each year, as the holidays wind down and elliptical-step machines across Portland crank up, WW takes on one of its perennial New Year's resolutions: "Talk less--listen more."
So we turn our pages over to the microphone and tape recorder, devoting the space usually reserved for our cover story to a few in-depth interviews. The idea is to let "ordinary" Portlanders tell their stories--without worrying too much about whether their tales fit together into any kind of theme.
This year, as often happens, we were surprised to find common ground emerging between the lines. Our three subjects all have earned (or endured) a little notoriety, but in very different realms. Though they don't share much, they're bound--and defined--by a determined refusal to compromise.
One, Terry Bean, may be familiar to readers who follow our political coverage. Bean, who co-founded and raises big bucks for the gay-rights powerhouse Human Rights Campaign, talked with WW about the gay lobby's notable successes--and even more notable failures--this year.
Meanwhile, indie music-label owner Greg Glover may not be a stranger to folks who read WW's music section. Glover is part of the endless tide of newcomers who help make Portland an attractive and fascinating place to live. With an impressive slate of up-and-coming bands, Glover's Arena Rock Recording Company has quickly made itself a Portland music force to be reckoned with. He talked with WW about music realities in the iPod age--and about his debt to Portland's junkies.
And then there's Amie Williams, who came to the public eye not through politics or the arts but through a singular act of courage and strength. To help rape victims, Williams volunteered to talk about her recent assault in front of KOIN-TV's cameras--and then, more extensively, with our reporter.
These are three of the Portlanders who will keep the city talking even after the exercise machines fall silent until next year.
AMIE WILLIAMS,
sexual-assault survivor.
BY NANCY ROMMELMANN
Amie Williams says she didn't want to become just another nameless, faceless rape statistic. Like most sex-abuse victims, she knew her attacker, a former boyfriend. As in most cases, he didn't use a weapon. And, like most sexual assaults, the March 2004 attack took place at night.
But there are a couple ways in which Williams, a sales representative, is anything but typical. First, her attacker, former boyfriend Jason Bloom, is behind bars. And, unlike most victims, she doesn't shy away from the camera and insists on using her real name. In fact, when KOIN-TV was airing a segment about sexual assault in late October, she volunteered to tell her story.
A couple of weeks later, accompanied by Megan Wyckoff, a counselor at Portland Women's Crisis Line, she sat down over a cheeseburger and beer to explain to WW reporter Nancy Rommelmann what happened to her, and to talk about why she thinks the response to rape victims is inadequate.
"I've always talked about it," she says. "It's part of me. Those people who know me are OK with it. And if anyone's not OK with it, that's really not my problem."
What happened to you?
I dated a gentleman for a year, and I realized it wasn't working and broke things off, but continued to still be friends. He came to my house intoxicated one evening, and so I took him back to his home, because I didn't want him to drive. I took him upstairs to his apartment, where he became violent and basically held me against my will for six hours before he finally let me go, and after I conceded to some things he wanted me to do.
How did he hold you against your will?
Physically, with his body on top of me. And then if I would try to leave or go for the door, he would drag me across the floor. He's over 6 feet tall, he's a man, and obviously he has a little more upper-body strength than I do.
Did you try to talk your way out of the situation?
Yeah, absolutely. As he became increasingly out of control, I knew that I had to stay more in control, so that meant talking, slowly and softly. And then at times yelling, and then he's putting his hands over my mouth so that I can't breathe, and knowing that I don't ever want that to happen again, so I'm thinking, "What can I do so that this isn't going to be the last night of my life?"
Did he threaten to kill you?
No, he never said he would do that, but.... I think back on it, and think, "I should have kicked him, or done something worse," but in that moment, as you resist him, and he's getting angrier and angrier, and he's putting his hands over your mouth, and you cannot breathe...I've never, ever felt that way in my life, and I hope to God I never feel that way again.
How did you get out of there?
How graphic do you want me to be? [Laughs] We literally sat in front of the door of his apartment for about an hour and a half, with him saying, "Just let me masturbate on you, just let me masturbate on you," and I'm like, "No." He's like, "Yes." "No." "Yes." Seriously, for an hour and a half. So finally I said, "OK. You're telling me if I allow you to masturbate on me, then you're going to let me go?" And he said, "Yep."
So he didn't rape you then?
Yes, he did. Yes. There was no vaginal penetration, but he stuck his penis in my mouth against my will; that's sodomy.
And he let you go?
Yeah, and when I got my keys and left, I remember him looking out the door at me. He said, "This is it, isn't it?" And I said, "Yep, this is it." And he goes, "I'm never gonna see you again." And I said, "Nope, you're never gonna see me." And he said, "You know what? I'm gonna have a cigarette and wait on the deck for them to come."
Meaning the cops?
Yeah. And I walked down the stairs, and when I got to the sidewalk, I started to walk very quickly, and then I rounded the corner, and I started to run. And all of a sudden, I heard him scream my name, and he was standing at the corner. I started running--in my flip-flops, at 5 o'clock in the morning--down the street. He lived over by Providence Hospital, and a security guard came by and pulled right up next to me and said, "Are you OK?" And I remember thinking, "Hmm, no; I'm not OK." And then I just started to cry. There's a cop shop, a precinct, right there on the corner, and all of a sudden, I was standing in front of it and there were, like, six cops around me, and they're asking me who it was, and where he lived, and all of a sudden I look across the street and I'm like, "Well, there he is, right there," and they're like, "What?" And I'm like, "Yeah, there he is, in that car"--he'd gone back and gotten his car and followed me. They just pulled him right over, handcuffed him and took him away."
Do you think he wanted to be arrested?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. He confessed to everything that day. He knew what he was doing was wrong, and I don't know if that makes it better or it makes it worse.
He was arrested--where did you go?
I went into the precinct and sat on the sofa for an hour and a half while they asked me questions, and they were asking him questions at the same time 'cause they had him in custody. And, you know, I wasn't allowed to call anyone, I was very confused as to what was going on. I just remember them looking at me with a flashlight a lot.
Was there a part of you that said to yourself, "Well, he was my boyfriend, and we're going through this bad breakup, so, maybe this is a fucked-up situation," as opposed to, "This is rape."
No, I knew it was more than just a fucked-up situation.
But at the time you weren't thinking it was rape?
It felt like, "My story wasn't as bad as everyone else's, so maybe it wasn't rape." I got out; I didn't have a black eye.
What happened to Jason?
He was sentenced to 50 months in prison and 10 years' probation. [Bloom was convicted of first-degree sexual abuse, first-degree attempted sodomy and strangulation.] He will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life; he'll have to go through anger management and drug and alcohol treatment.
How would you make the system better?
Megan [Wycoff] or someone in her organization [Portland Women's Crisis Line] should be called when the woman is at the hospital, or at the precinct, or at the home, or wherever this takes place. I think it needs to begin with this organization, because you needed consistency; you need to be able to know who you're talking to. It's very confusing as it is; you want to be able to have one point person that you can talk to, because all of a sudden, you're given all these business cards: Here's the doctor that does this, here's the detective that takes your statement; here's the card for the Multnomah County Sheriff's Department, where you're supposed to call to make sure he's still in jail; here's the card for the Rape Victim's Advocate, who's really not going to be your advocate because there's no money.
What do you mean?
This happened on a Friday night; the RVA was there Saturday morning when I was taken to OHSU. She gave me a whole bunch of pamphlets and said, "I can't assign anyone to you because of budget cuts, but here are some pamphlets. So if you think you can read them and take the time and make the phone calls, there's help for you!" She didn't say those words, but that's essentially what was happening.
And one of the pamphlets was from the Crisis Line?
Yeah. Monday I spent the whole day in the courthouse, which was a complete disaster. So I called the Crisis Line on Tuesday and they say, "We'll have an advocate call you back," and within a few moments, Megan calls me.
What do you think of the practice of not naming victims of sex crimes?
I am not ashamed about what happened to me. I will go on TV. You do not have to put me in a silhouette. You do not have to make my voice weird or not use my name. Doing that just perpetuates that whole feeling that it's not OK to talk about it, that it's not OK to look at a person, or to have them look directly at you and say, "You know what? This happened to me. Let's think about ways to make this better for somebody else, because it's gonna happen again."
You seem quite resilient.
Oh, yeah, but I've had to be. My husband was killed when he was 31 years old; that was three years ago. I became someone different after that happened. He basically gave me more tools to deal with the rape than I would have had before. Resilient? Yes. Because I realize that I am not dead. I lived through my husband's death and I lived through Jason, and by God, I will live my life the way that I believe I can.
GREG GLOVER,
indie-rock kingpin, record-store clerk.
BY MARK BAUMGARTEN
When Greg Glover left New York's ultra-hip Williamsburg neighborhood early last year, he chose Portland because it felt "comfortable." As a respite from the hectic city where he had worked as an A&R man for London Records until that label dissolved in 2003, the Rose City was an ideal spot for the 35-year-old Birmingham, Ala., native. In addition to his girlfriend, Dawn, his cat and a dresser full of vintage rock-'n'-roll T-shirts, the Southern gentleman arrived also packing some serious cultural cachet in the form of his highly respected independent music label, the Arena Rock Recording Company.
Started in 1997 with money he and partner Dan Ralph squirreled away while working at London Records (a subsidiary of Warner Bros.), Arena Rock gained national recognition when the band Harvey Danger--rescued from Warner's cutting-room floor by Glover--struck modern-rock gold with the single "Flagpole Sitta." Glover sold the band's album to Slash Records and put the cash back into Arena Rock, a diverse collection of up-and-coming bands that belie the label's name.
Glover had already made an investment in the local scene when he signed the Swords Project (now known as Swords) in 2003, but his move here solidified his place in the Portland music community. Since setting up shop in the city's east industrial district, he has signed more Portland bands, including Talkdemonic, Ovian and Room. He has also managed to find time to co-host KNRK's post-Marconi morning show, aptly named "Alternative Mornings with Sarah and Greg." And he even works the floor at Music Millennium.
In the course of three interviews--during which Glover wore T-shirts for the Electric Light Orchestra, Aerosmith and Pat Benatar--Willamette Week spoke with the jack of music trades about "selling out," the debt he owes to Portland junkies, and what he wants to be when he grows up.
WW: Is living in Portland what you expected it to be? Are there as many creatives, hipsters and junkies as you thought there would be?
Glover: I'd heard about the city's drug problem prior to moving here. And in a way, I've actually benefited from Portland's heroin problem. Druggies always end up losing their record collections to the great record shops around town so they can get cash to score more dope. I love record shopping. Because of that, my vinyl collection has grown immensely since moving here. So I'd personally like to thank all the Portland junkies.
As a newcomer, what do you see as the biggest difference between Williamsburg's hip youth culture and Portland's hip youth culture?
Money. The kids in New York seem to have money coming from somewhere, and I was never one of them.
But you had money--you were supported by major-label money.
I made no bones about working for a major label, and I think a lot of bands on my label benefited from that. I made a really good salary, and I put every single bit of that money back into Arena Rock. And, you know, I could have probably bought a house five years ago. Instead, I sunk it back into Arena Rock. I was like the indie-rock Robin Hood. I would take money from the big guys and funnel it back down to the bands. I would have probably never been able to have the money had I not had that major-label job, 'cause I've never had an investor in the label.
With a business ethic like that, Arena Rock will never be self-sustaining. Or do you think the label will always be subsidized by your other work?
It has to be subsidized by something. If someone knocks on my door at Arena Rock and says, "I'm an investor and I just need somewhere to put all my money, and you still get to call all the shots," well, that sounds perfect to me. But usually what happens with investors is that you're accountable to them because they're giving you the resources. I'm not accountable to anyone but myself and my bands, and that's a good feeling.
So you don't get screwed over by investors. But what about your bands? Have you ever been screwed over by one of them?
I sunk a lot of money into a band called the Mink Lungs. Their live show still is one of the best live shows I've ever seen. And they were a bit nutty. They like to experiment with substances, and they weren't the most responsible people. I gave them a bunch of CDs on credit, and when they got back from tour, they were supposed to pay me back. They didn't get that concept. They never paid me back for a lot of CDs that they had sold on the road, and that's when I got upset. I can understand bands going, "Fuck that, it's Warner Bros. Fuck them," but I take it personal, because every dollar that has gone in and out of this label is from me and from my pocket. You won't find them on the Arena Rock website anymore.
Don't you feel like your bands would have a better shot if you tried to hook up with a major label or an investor?
There are times when I shake my head and it makes me mad because I know these bands are great and I believe in them so much and I wish I had more to put behind them. But it's not like I'm sitting around doing nothing. I'm working my ass off to pay my rent and do this label. I'm not one of these "indier than thou" people. But I wouldn't go out there and knock on doors for investors. I'd want someone to recognize us for being a better label.
That sounds like a fairy tale.
So does playing rock music and making a living off of it.
Is it unsettling to have your life centered on the music industry?
Yeah, especially because of the state of the industry these days. I know lots of people who have signed hit acts that are no longer in the music business. So it's scary. The industry is scary. So maybe it would have been better had I learned how to be a bank teller. Maybe.
What do you think is wrong with the music industry?
I started doing my A&R job in the mid-'90s, right before the bottom fell out. I had a really nice salary and a really nice expense account. But I actually think that people were making too much money. There was a guy who had a corner office down the hall from me at London Records, and between him and his assistant he was making well over half a million dollars a year. You take that into consideration, plus the health insurance and the expense account. That corner of that office was a million dollars of overhead. And was this person worth it? I don't think anybody's worth that, personally.
What about file sharing and burning CDs?
I think that burning CDs has hurt, and I think that it has hurt the small companies just as much as the big ones. A lot of people say, well, you can sample music that you never would have bought before. And that's all good and fine if everyone was really doing that. But how many burned CDs do you see people with all the time?
You chose to move here from Brooklyn. What do you think of Portland's music scene?
People say there's a Williamsburg scene with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol and the Strokes. You know, that whole garage-y thing. I think the good thing about Portland is that there's not just one certain genre. I mean, the Decemberists, for Christ's sake--no one's doing what they're doing. The Swords--no one is doing what they're doing. The reason I love them is I feel like they touch all the bases. I think that they encompass all of it, the indie rock, the prog, the punk, the electronic, and then you got someone like M. Ward. Try to put those three together. There's no rhyme or reason. No one's trying to necessarily put on a skinny tie.
What would you talk about if you couldn't talk about music?
I'd probably just sit by myself and not talk and read an article on Little Feat or something. I don't know. I'd rather not talk about music and just read about it. I don't talk about politics; I don't like talking about politics. Politics have never really interested me. I would never understand why anyone would want to be president. I can't identify with that. I'd rather be president of my own record label than president of the United States.
TERRY BEAN,
gay-rights moneyman.
BY MARK ZUSMAN
Ask those in the know to list the most powerful people in the gay-rights movement in this state, and Terry Bean's name will be in everyone's Top 3. As a co-founder of the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, this country's most powerful gay-rights lobby, Bean, 56, raises and spends significant amounts of money on behalf of the gay agenda. (He raised $350,000 for the Democratic National Committee last year.)
Bean grew up in Lake Oswego and went to the University of Oregon--he's a huge Ducks fan. The lucrative real-estate portfolio he's carved out allows him the indulgence of a home in the Heights (decorated with photos of Bean with Whoopi, Bean with Spielberg, Bean with Howard Dean), another place in Palm Springs, and the free time to devote to electing his kind of politicians.
WW: The first campaign contribution the Human Rights Campaign ever made was in 1980 to Oregon congressman Jim Weaver. In those days, was it controversial to get a campaign contribution from a gay-rights organization?
Terry Bean: Yeah, in those days, it was sometimes tough to find people that wanted our checks. And that's only 24 or 25 years ago.
Do you remember at which point it became acceptable?
A defining moment, truthfully, was AIDS during the '80s. Because the Reagan administration didn't want to give us any money to fund research. And someday books will be written about the courageousness of the gay and lesbian community taking care of their own--things the government would do for any other disease. Doing research on its own.
I believe, too, that another watershed was Bill Clinton running for president. He was the first presidential candidate to openly talk about gay rights. There'd never been a presidential candidate who talked about the need for gay rights. Today, in the Democratic Party, it's just assumed that you're going to be for some form of gay rights. But in '91, Bill Clinton made it acceptable. He said, "You're part of the fabric of America, and I want to end discrimination."
We've come a long way. Now we have 40-plus co-sponsors for ENDA [the Employment Non-Discrimination Act], which still has not passed. Most people don't know that it's still legal to fire someone in 36 states just because you think they're gay or lesbian. The vast majority of Americans think that's wrong. But the leadership will not let it come to a vote in the U.S. House. It would probably pass. But we need to have people stop living in fear of being found out on the job. Because America needs its workers to be confident and strong.
So today, Human Rights Campaign raises and contributes how much money?
Well, our budget's about 30 million dollars. But we raised an extra $7 million this year just to fight the federal marriage amendment, which we felt very successful in defeating. [In July, the Senate killed a proposed constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.]
Let's talk about the Multnomah County Commission. Did its decision to allow gay marriages ultimately work against those who were trying to further gay rights, given the backlash it provoked, including the passage of Measure 36, which banned gay marriages in Oregon?
I think they did the right thing. I'm not going to go into tactics, or timing, or hearings. I don't know. But I do know that because Multnomah County got to see thousands of warm, open, celebratory, committed marriages performed here--I think that's the reason Oregon did better than Ohio or any other states [that had a gay-marriage ban on the ballot].
It's important for people to know that most gay people don't think you should vote on individuals' rights any more than you should vote on slavery or interracial marriage.
You know, when the ban on interracial marriage was overturned--when the Supreme Court said you can't have laws against interracial marriage, and that was 1967--at that time, they did a poll and the vast majority of Americans still thought there should be laws against interracial marriage. That's less than 40 years ago. And now, people don't know there were laws against interracial marriage. Now it was less than 100 years ago--80 years ago--women didn't have the right to vote.
You're taking the long view.
Oh, sure, as Martin Luther King said, the arc of justice is long, but always, always bends toward equality.
How about the HRC's decision to endorse [Oregon Sen.] Gordon Smith, which proved to be very controversial?
The Human Rights Campaign endorsed Gordon Smith because he was one of the five people in the U.S. Senate' Democrat or Republican, that worked the hardest on our issues. He didn't just vote correctly. He took a leadership position on AIDS funding. He took a leadership position on hate crimes. He took a leadership position on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act.
On gay marriage? I'm disappointed in Gordon. [Smith has stated his opposition to gay marriage.] He knows that. I was disappointed. He told us from the beginning, he wouldn't support marriage.
Were you surprised at the heat you got?
No. Only by some of my close friends who should've understood the process better. Sometimes people don't understand the intricacies of how you get things accomplished on a national level.
Weren't you also being practical? There's no way [Smith's challenger, Secretary of State] Bill Bradbury was going to win, with or without your help.
That's not the reason we did it. Bill Bradbury has always been there for us. Bill Bradbury's a close friend of mine. But the Human Rights Campaign has to endorse incumbents who are leaders on our issues. Otherwise, why would any Republican support us if we just dump them the minute they ran for re-election?
Is there anything you've been associated with, as it relates to politics, that has been as controversial?
Oh, yeah. On a national level, the endorsement of [U.S. senator from New York] Al D'Amato four years before, over [challenger Charles] Schumer--that was much more controversial.
They had identical voting records [on gay issues]. I didn't like D'Amato, personally, nor did a lot of people at the Human Rights Campaign, but his office worked closely with HRC.
Shortly after the 2004 election, HRC president Cheryl Jacques resigned. Some have said that this was because of dissension within the HRC leadership about your organization's election strategy and its support for same-sex marriage.
Not true. Her resignation had nothing to do with our strategy. It was purely an internal matter.
The Bush administration--compare and contrast it to others.
George Bush is the first president in the history of the United States to seek to permanently put in the Constitution one group of people as second-class citizens--obviously, purely for political reasons. Through the White House, they organized the 11 marriage bills in states they thought they wanted the Christian Right to turn out.
So we're going to change some strategies. To some extent, we're going to focus on what the Bible really says. You know, there has not been an attempt to put on the ballot measures to outlaw football playing, even though the Bible says that to touch the skin of a pig is a mortal sin. [NFL footballs, incidentally, are now made of cowhide.] There haven't been ballot measures to outlaw any company that sells clothing of mixed cloth, even though the Bible says that.
You know, the Bible was used to justify slavery. The Bible was used to justify women not having the right to vote. The Bible was even used, at one time, to justify that only landowners should be able to vote. The Bible was used to justify the ban on interracial marriage. And some day we will look back and say, "What was that about? Why do we discriminate against people?"
A lot of gay people still get up in the morning, go to work and wonder if this is the day their boss is going to find out and they could be fired. People think it doesn't happen, but it happens every day. I believe that over half of gay people are still closeted at work.
So many people think that coming out is an aggressive act. Coming out is just the absence of lying. "What did you do last night?" "Well, I went to a movie with my boyfriend." Heterosexuals talk about their sexuality every day: "My wife and I," "Look at that good-looking girl over there."
In order to stay closeted, you have to lie on a consistent basis. That's why the rule is so stupid and absurd in the military. For somebody not to find out, you have to constantly lie. It's not don't ask, don't tell. It's don't ask, and make sure you lie.
When did you come out? High school?
No. I had a very difficult time coming out. I had a nervous breakdown, tried to kill myself. I came out as a senior in college.
I had a very, very, difficult coming out. Afraid I might talk in my sleep and somebody might find out. But when I did come out, I immediately got involved in gay-rights politics. To this day, I could remember the self-hatred. I could remember the fear and those awful feelings of despair. That's what drives my work for gay rights more than anything else. I could still touch into those feelings. And I don't want kids growing up that way anymore.
A gay kid still has four to seven times as likely a chance of committing suicide as a straight kid. That's because they grow up being taught that they're not only just morally evil, but that they're psychologically sick--neither of which are true. And the pressure to hide the very essence of who you are. I try and ask non-gay people to think about trying to grow up in a society where they'd have to hide their heterosexuality on a daily basis and be made to feel horrible about those basic, human thoughts.
WWeek 2015