Gossip Should Have No Friends

[October 31st, 2007] NO, HE’S REALLY NOT THERE: The NW Film Center’s visions of Bob Dylan have turned to Desolation Row after the cancellation of a Monday, Nov. 5, sneak preview of hometown boy Todd Haynes’ Dylan movie I’m Not There —two weeks before the film opens in Portland. Early peeks at prestigious films are one of the main perks of joining the Film Center’s Silver Screen Club. Weinstein Company PR liaison Laura Bobovski claims the studio never agreed to a date for a Film Center screening. “It was very wishful thinking,” she says. “They decided to run with something that was a complete maybe.” Bobovski says Haynes and the Weinsteins have focused their efforts on a private, sold-out Cinema 21 screening Sunday, Nov. 4, to benefit Outside In.

JUST IN: Frustrated with what he told Scoop he sees as Just Out ’s outright “emasculation of gay men,” North Portland bar owner Pat Lanagan has taken his message to his gay bear bar’s reader board. In the past week, the sign hanging high above the Eagle Portland has read “Just Out, Your Emasculation of Gay Men Is Just Wrong,” and a few days later: “Just Scary: Is Just Out Bedeviled by Its Portrayal of Gay Men?” As documented in both WW and Just Out , Lanagan, who also owns Fat Cobra Video, has accused the region’s biweekly queer publication in the past of not showing enough positive images of out gay “masculine” men. When contacted via email, Just Out publisher Marty Davis didn’t seem to take Lanagan’s outburst too seriously, writing Scoop: “WW , 2007! Yawn, Breaking News Pat Lanagan doesn’t like Just Out.”

CAN DO: The gods have smiled on Portland’s foremost toilet activist. Carol McCreary —who works as the head of PHLUSH (Public Hygiene Lets Us Stay Healthy) to improve Portland’s public loos—jetted off to Delhi, India, last Friday on an all-expenses-paid visit as the U.S. representative to the World Toilet Summit , the world’s biggest (only?) international restroom symposium. (This year’s theme: “Toilets for all.”) “I’m really excited about talking to other people,” McCreary says. “The issue of sanitation is really on the radar.” On the home front, McCreary and PHLUSH are still working with Portland Mayor Tom Potter toward their ultimate goal of opening a multipurpose “comfort station” somewhere in Old Town.

WRAP ’N’ ROLL: As is the way with silent things, you may not have heard about Slabtown’s monthlong rock ’n’ roll photo show and silent auction . The westside garage-rock haven is wrappin’ things up this coming Tuesday, Nov. 4 . Curator Howard Higgens (Howie and the Hotknives) opened his 36-piece photo collection —featuring mostly live shots of local bands and DJs taken by Chrystaei Branchaw (Exploding Hearts , Nice Boys) and Pasha Productions (Storm Large , Morgan Grace), to name a few—to beer-swigging, riff-loving patrons back on Oct. 4 for (shhhh) silent bidding. Join Howie for a not-so-silent bash during the auction’s final hours (8 pm, free, 21+). Every stinkin’ penny benefits the Rock ’n’ Roll Camp for Girls —so shut the hell up and get bidding!