Gossip Should Have No Friends

[November 18th, 2009]

• TOOTH SCARY: Klan Kilgore needs your vote for new choppers. A national “My Smile Bites” contest for a $30,000 dental makeover sponsored by 1-800-Dentist comes as a cavity-free beacon of hope for the 41-year-old Portlander, whose teeth have been degenerating since his late 20s. “In the last 10 years, bits of teeth [fell] out of my mouth,” says Kilgore, a former musician whose non-unionized job as a carpenter doesn’t offer health care. “I’ve gone through the process of flirting with women, and it’s almost like you see the blood drain out of their face when I open my mouth…. I’ve become a hermit because of it.” What would he do if he won the makeover? “Jump for joy,” he says. “Then flirt with a woman. I haven’t kissed a woman in over five years.” Votes for Kilgore can be cast online at 1800dentist.com/my-smile-bites/klan-k-portland-or-dentist-fall09.

• RESTLESS HOPPER: What is Gus Van Sant up to, anyway? WW intern Ali Rothschild found out this past weekend at a big, old house in Laurelhurst, where she snagged a job as an extra in the director’s new doomed-teens-in-love movie. (It used to be called Restless, but now goes by the far more exciting tag Untitled Gus Van Sant Project. ) Turns out the lead couple is portrayed by Mia Wasikowska (the lead in Tim Burton’s upcoming Alice in Wonderland) and Henry Hopper, son of Dennis Hopper. The shoot included 100 local extras who were dressed in elaborate costumes for a party. The extras, including our kinda-undercover reporter, were corralled at the Unity Church of Portland before being taken to the home a few blocks away. There, Van Sant and his production team shot from 7 pm Saturday to 1 am Sunday, the crew using everything from fog machines and strobe lights to one manly extra who stripped to the waist despite the bitter cold.

• BALDWIN WATCH, PART 3: Remember the Great Daniel Baldwin Experiment, in which the most obscure of the four Baldwin brothers would work with Sam Adams to launch a Portland-based movie- and reality-TV studio? Neither did we. But he has remembered. Daniel Baldwin flew into PDX again on Monday night, promising to give the city…well, something. “MOVIES IN PORTLAND !!!!,” he wrote Sunday on his Twitter feed (twitter.com/BALDWINDANIEL). “Imagine the trucks stopping on there [sic] way to Canada, only to dump all of that business into Portland.” His flight apparently landed safely: “To all my Ninja’s in P Town,” he tweeted Monday. “General Zod has arrived.” The general noted that he is in the market for a Lake Oswego four-bedroom home and would appreciate leads.

• XMAS CAROL: Want to go to the Portland Cello Project’s Holiday Spectacular at the Aladdin Theater on Dec. 4, but can’t afford $13 for a ticket? Kevin and Anita Robinson of Viva Voce are on the bill, and the couple is giving away five spots on its guest list. Email therobinsonsmusic@gmail.com (put “Cello show Dec. 4” in the subject field) with a good reason why you should bust out your favorite Xmas sweater and join the rocking cellos.