Gossip Should Have No Friends

[November 7th, 2007] SOUR GRAPES: All-ages venues and Portland just don’t mix. Southwest Portland venue Grapedrink closed down for good last Saturday , citing pressure from investors and the OLCC. Last week, Grapedrink co-owner Weston Sanaee learned investors would pull the venue’s funding because of plans to change admission from all ages to 21 and over. Until then, Grapedrink admitted minors to all shows but hosted a bar for patrons over 21. According to Sanaee, the OLCC was “not happy” he was managing Grapedrink, since he’s only 20 years old, so he and the other owners decided to make Grapedrink 21 and over. This switch meant Sanaee would no longer be allowed in the venue . When investors learned Sanaee was hiring a replacement to manage Grapedrink for him, they no longer wanted their money involved. “Our investors said they’d like us to close as early as possible,” said Sanaee. He hopes to reopen Grapedrink in the same location next fall—after he turns 21. When the venue reopens, minors will no longer be allowed .

RUFFLING FEATHERS: What to do when your resident performance home, Portland State University’s Lincoln Hall , is slated to be out of commission for renovation for two full seasons? If you’re PDX’s dance presenter White Bird , you fly the coop. Scoop’s just caught wind of the group’s awesome-sounding “White Bird: Uncaged” series for the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons, when dancemakers usually confined to Lincoln Hall will fly free in performance spaces and nontraditional sites around PDX , with prospects like the Wonder Ballroom, St. Mary’s Academy and some site-specific indoor-outdoor work. We hear postmodern dance icon Trisha Brown may be one of the choreographers involved in the series.

SAVE THE DATE: What becomes a Portland legend most? Perhaps it’s the new Portland (and Oregon) Icons calendar , which debuted last Sunday. Not only does it feature Police Chief Rosie Sizer eating a Voodoo Doughnut and Storm Large getting wet, it also features absurdist images of former Mayor Vera Katz getting flashed by Bud Clark and Tom Potter (who’s irrelevant now, bitch?), and the entire City Council covered in paint . The brainchild of local portrait artist Charles Waugh , the new calendar is available at New Seasons Markets ($19.95). Proceeds benefit the local nonprofit Artful Education. Waugh shot the PDX celebs for the calendar over the past several weeks. The hardest image to create? He says it was of former Miss America Katie Harman Ebner posing like an airbrushed outtake from Titanic on a 90-foot yacht, which was Photoshopped into the Willamette River. Portland is weird.

GEOGRAPHY LESSON: A Music listing for the Voices for Silent Disasters concert series in last week’s newspaper stated the event was a benefit for Darfur. The event actually raised funds for Northern Uganda . WW regrets the error.

MOTHERHOOD: More celeb minutiae! Scoop’s learned that while shooting her latest flick, i]Management[/i] , in PDX, Jen Aniston has been fixated by Mother’s Bistro . Continuing her grazing tour (Aniston’s been spotted everywhere from 23Hoyt to, uh, Paragon), she dined in the Velvet Lounge just last week where sources overheard Aniston coo to Lisa Schroeder , “Oh...I love you!” after the chef-owner delivered one of her favorites: a Greek salad. The only mama drama that occurred during dinner was when Aniston’s server inadvertently spilled a drink all over the star. (Gasp!) Since then, the star has been sending a go-fer to get more of Mother’s gourmet comfort food delivered to her hotel room, including a Cobb salad, “no yolk, hold the bacon.”

EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER: STAGE EDITION: Portland Center Stage can breathe a little easier. After nearly nine months without an administrative leader, PCS will welcome Californian Greg Phillips as its new exec director in January 2008. Phillips’ varied résumé includes a 15-year stint as founder of the S.F. Bay Area CenterStage at Osher Marin Jewish Community Center, a season as head of the San Francisco theater company “Broadway by the Bay,” and a gig as host of a TV remodeling show called, uh, Grin and Repair It . That last skill might come in handy at PCS, where the Armory renovation fundraising campaign limps along, with nearly $9 million still needed to complete the project.