Now Permanently Attached To Sam Adams’ Ass

[November 19th, 2008]

MILK MEN: Pansexually smoldering actor James Franco may not be gay (even if he is this month’s Out cover boy, and the first dude to kiss Sean Penn), but he was surrounded Friday by just about every gay player in Portland. At the Schnitz premiere of Gus Van Sant’s gay-rights biopic, Milk, Franco was seen in a silver suit, hobnobbing with Van Sant and Todd Haynes, as well as Pink Martini bandleader Thomas Lauderdale, former WW Queer Window columnist Byron Beck (we miss you!) and Mayor-elect Sam Adams. They mixed it up in a crowd of more than 2,200 who paid as much as $71.75 a ticket to see Milk and benefit Outside In.

DON’T H8: Then, on Saturday, several hundred LGBTs and straight allies gathered at PSU’s downtown campus to make some noise protesting Prop. 8, California’s recently passed same-sex marriage ban. The problem? The sound system malfunctioned. That meant speakers including Mayor Tom Potter, Mayor-elect Sam Adams and incoming City Commissioner Amanda Fritz were forced to use a handheld megaphone to make their speeches, and the colorful crowd could only understand about 10 percent of what was being said. Still, everyone cheered enthusiastically and waved creative signs like “Can I vote on your marriage?” and “That 8in’t Right.” In other news, the nearby Portland Farmers Market got a huge boost in sales—apparently civil-rights supporters just can’t get enough market-fresh, organic produce.

PADDED CELL: More than 700 people got trashed at Wonder Ballroom last Saturday at the third annual Junk to Funk Recycled Fashion Show. The DJ pumped Project Runway beats while Mayor-elect Sam Adams and Tara from KNRK 94.7 FM traded barbs about dresses made from hair collected from salons. Reality wasn’t far behind. Outfits careened from plastic Franz bread-bag flamenco dresses to records and bubble wrap. Judges bequeathed the golden Barbie trophy to “Broad Shoulders,” a frock constructed of used shoulder pads by local nanny and landscaper Addy Kessler. Later that night the artist’s mom let it slip to Scoop that she and Kessler’s aunt had collected the shoulder pads over the past 20 years.

ALL YOUR BANDS BELONG TO US! It’s no a surprise that the Thermals left Seattle’s influential Sub Pop label last week, as singer/guitarist Hutch Harris had hinted at the band’s impending departure for some time. But it is somewhat of a shocker that the infectious local garage rock trio signed with Portland’s own Kill Rock Stars. The move makes the Thermals labelmates with current local acts New Bloods, Horse Feathers, Panther and the Shaky Hands, and in a long lineage of great Portland acts associated with the label, including Sleater-Kinney, Team Dresch, Elliott Smith and the Decemberists. The band’s next album, Now We Can See, drops on April 7, 2009.