Gossip Should Have No Friends

[November 30th, 2005] BOUTIQUE G A new Goodwill outlet has opened, and as one of its publicity flacks put it so eloquently, "this is not your granny's Goodwill." The Goodwill on the corner of Southwest Taylor Street and 10th Avenue features the best upscale cast-offs money can buy, including Louis Vuitton and Prada —with prices to match ($100 for used Gucci , anyone?). Beyond the prices, there's another disturbing trend: The developmentally disabled workers who are the backbone of the Goodwill brand are nowhere to be found at this chic outpost. According to a G-employee, the "space is too small" for them. Ouch.

MISSING IN AURA Maya Arulpragasam , a.k.a. M.I.A. , is somewhat of a Oregon geography nut. Last Wednesday night, the dancehall diva performed four songs at downtown club Aura after opening for Gwen Stefani at the huge Memorial Coliseum, switching around her lyrics to give shout-outs to Salem , Eugene and Portland . The 30 or so Jammin 95.5 listeners who knew who M.I.A. was "went crazy" according to Shayla Hason, a.k.a. DJ Safi. "Then all the blond, grown-up teenyboppers figured it must be important or 'cool,' and they got all excited, too," Hason adds.

CANADA LOVES PORTLAND In a Nov. 28 article titled "Indie's Newest Epicentre," Canada's The Globe and Mail—which boasts an average of 1,307,000 readers—heralded our town as rock's next "it" city. The story mostly boasts the success of the Decemberists and Sleater-Kinney. Along the way, reporter Alexandra Gill encountered WW music editor Mark Baumgarten. We skimmed those parts, but she dropped our own media whore's name a total of six times. This might give our Northern neighbors the impression he's the authority on all things P-town/indie—which, of course, he is. Take that, Montreal: We're just as cool as you—WW says so itself.