September 1999 September 1 September 8 September 15 September 22 September 29 back to Archives home Volume 25, issue 48, September 29, 1999 NEWS Lead Story Buff Daddy: Multnomah county may be able to shut Geoff Thompson down, but it will never be able to shut him up. Web Exclusive Dark and Gloomy: Urban League chief Lawrence Dark resigns in face of continued questions about agency financial practices. Business Nature's Abhors A Vacuum: Hold on to your bean sprouts. A spate of top defections from Nature's Fresh Northwest could signal the start of the tofu wars. Politics Stein's Way: Going after a popular social-service agency does not come naturally to the folks who are pulling their cash from the Urban League. Urban Pulse Daddy's Savage Love: Eighteen months ago, Dan Savage and his lover came to Portland and picked up a son. Now, the Seattle sex columnist is sharing his views on fatherhood, politics and the politics of fatherhood. Letters "One wonders at the lack of responsibility shown by the Portland School Board in recently presenting superintendent Canada with a $15,000 bonus while surely knowing of this information." NewsBuzz Paying The Copper | Let Sleeping Dogs Lie? | Strike One! | Judging The Field | Corrections Scoreboard This week's winner and losers: stargazers and UFO buffs win, Portland's poorest citizens lose. Rogue of the Week For at least two weeks this month, low-income mothers in Oregon are on their own when it comes to feeding their children. The Women, Infants and Children program is just plain out of money. LIFE Feature Just Ducky: A slick uniform redesign by Nike takes Oregon football into the field of fashion. Q & A Doc Burris Shop The Razor's Edge CULTURE Feature Holding Court: The Portland Pythons, the city's professional indoor soccer team, survive on the sweat of their true believers. Dinner Palace of Love Suey Chow's personals column Music Music Column Daydream Nation Music Livin' La Vida Tranquila: The five men of Los Palmeros swapped the rough and tumble of Tijuana for life, liberty and the pursuit of mariachi excellence in Portland. Muchas gracias, guys. Recorded Music Reviews of new releases from Mary J. Blige, Royal Trux, and Genaside II Screen Review Spanking the Saddam: Director David O. Russell's third film is an unsettling, confusing and often hilarious take on the Gulf War. Mash beer column Performance Stage Review God As A Machine: A feminist masterpiece of the theater is given an excellent production. Words BiblioFile Reviews of three new books. Words Voice-over: Ireland's modern literary star Roddy Doyle specializes in convincing first person narratives. Now the man who brought you The Commitments unleashes a heavily researched historical novel. Visual Art Visual Art Honoring Memory: A new gallery show and an unveiling of new work at his sculpture park illustrate why Lee Kelly is still important. Volume 25, issue 47, September 22, 1999 NEWS Lead Story The Killer Inside: Ten years ago, Brian Hessel crushed a woman's skull. He's now wreaking havoc in prison. Why does he expect our mercy? Web Exclusive Another Hat in the Ring: The governor's race is three years away, but both parties are already fielding candidates. Politics Bastard Notions: Think the little guy can't win anymore? Think again. A couple of high-profile battles in Oregon show that the art of activism is still alive and well in America, says author Randy Shaw. Business Out of Sequence: Oregon's second-biggest high-tech company is about to be swallowed by Big Blue. It wasn't the technology that sank Sequent, but its inability to make sales and collect payments. Urban Pulse Burning Questions: Last month's Pearl District blaze was one of the city's most dramatic. But not everyone was surprised when the unfinished apartment building went down in flames. Letters " If your "management objective" is to continue to harvest the remaining original temperate rainforest that exists on public lands, then you are only responding to the demands of the money-powerful, minority timber industry. " NewsBuzz Beleaguered | A River Runs Through Us | Strike Two | The Final Ruling | Taking Aim | Anti-Social Studies Scoreboard This week's winner and losers: migrant farmworker Gabrial Solis wins, Some Central Precinct officers lose. Rogue of the Week Preying on the poor is a time-honored way of making money, and according to state officials in Oregon and Washington, this week's rogue, manufactured-home baron Dean Pollman, is continuing the tradition. LIFE Feature Dreamy! The new Sega Dreamcast delivers speed, gonzo graphics and serious gaming action. But it's not just for video geeks--chicks dig it, too. Q & A Gert Boyle: the seemingly cantankerous taskmistress of Columbia Sportswear Shop Bye Bye, Baby Doll CULTURE Feature Publish or Perish: These days, it means squat to sign a book contract when you can do it all yourself. Some of the hottest names in the self-publishing world converge on Portland to pitch the idea that the 'zine revolution will be televised. Nightlife All Tomorrow's Parties: Take a little fantasy, mix in some abstraction, add a little satire, and you have the fourth annual Dada Ball. Meet one guest you're unlikely to forget--the utterly uninhibited Lady Godada, unofficial mistress of the ab-fab affair. Arts Theory of Creativity: The Portland Creative Conference turns 10 with good intentions but mixed results. Dinner Palace of Love Suey Chow's personals column Music Music Column Daydream Nation Recorded Music Reviews of new releases from Marianne Ronez, Tricky, and The Magnetic Fields. Screen Review Foul Ball: Though auteur Sam Raimi directed, For Love of the Game is a Kevin Costner vehicle through and through. Review Real Death: Blending fantasy with a documentarian sensibility, Hirokazu Kore-Eda's After Life presents an unusual view of the next world. Performance Stage Review Blood Relationships: The first of two productions of Lorca's beautiful tragedy is an imaginative success. Words Bibliofiles Reviews of three new books. Volume 25, issue 46, September 15, 1999 Showtime Our 1999 Fall Arts Preview reflects on the last 25 years of arts in Portland. We interview older artists and ask them to pick what they want to see this season. Our time lines track the history of important moments in each discipline over the last two and a half decades. You can also look forward to listings of don't-miss events you'll want to mark in your calendar immediately. NEWS 500 Words Dr. Maybe: What happened to our governor? Lead Story The New School: These people are changing Portland's artistic landscape. If you don't know of them already, you soon will. Politics A League of Their Own: Urban League officials fail to meet Beverly Stein's deadline and may now lose county funds. Web Exclusive Out of Their League? Multnomah County sends the Urban League of Portland $1.1 million per year. Now, County Chairwoman Beverly Stein wants the nonprofit to account for itself. Web Exclusive Complete text of Multnomah County's review of the Urban League's fiscal compliance. Health Care Numbing the Pain: One of the world's most addictive drugs is staging a dramatic comeback--and nowhere in the country is its use more widespread than in Oregon. Environment The Beaver Estate: A city engineer makes a dam mess of things in Johnson Creek. Letters "How generous of Willamette Week to sponsor a nine-page advertisement for radical environmentalists]. " NewsBuzz Jail Birds | Downtown Willie Brown | Hoop Schemes | The Alpenrose Files | Congressional Backgrounder Scoreboard This week's winner and losers: Freightliner Corp wins a tax break, school testing enthusiasts lost. Rogue of the Week Ed Snook, publisher and legal sleuth, has managed to sully the reputations of two trades--journalism and jurisprudence. LIFE Feature If You Want to Destroy My Sweater...Turn it into a Hat: A local designer takes Goodwill cardigans into the afterlife. Q & A Terry Currier: He may look like Weird Al Yankovic, but there's nothing odd about Music Millennium owner Terry Currier's business acumen. For 27 years, he has directed one of Portland's most successful retail stores. Shop Boob Tubes: The real queen of the sports bra is that take-it-to-the-hoop, double-D-flappin' fly girl who prays for the day she doesn't need to wear two bras to batten down her buoys. We look at tops specifically designed for the full-figured girl who got game. CULTURE Feature Blue-Light Special: Deciding whether to pick cable or DirecTV for your home viewing pleasure? Our brave writer tests the limits of human capacity as he holes himself up for 48 hours armed only with junk food, booze and satellite television for company. Dinner Palace of Love Suey Chow's personals column Music Music Column Daydream Nation Interview Black Elvis at Warp Speed: Kool Keith, the hip-hop chameleon, brings his latest incarnation--and his full-tilt mindset--to Portland. Interview 'Niggas Is Universal': The Genius, intellectual powerhouse of the Wu-Tang Clan, drops his views on staying underground while living on a hip-hop planet. Recorded Music Reviews of new releases from Puff Daddy and The Fall. Screen Review Justify My Love: It looks like a video that Madonna might have made 10 years ago, but Stigmata is actually a thought-provoking, truly romantic thriller. Performance Classical Review Not Your Same Old Song: Seattle's Tudor Choir asks us to slam the brakes on our 24-7 world and quietly relish the sound of the human voice. Words Bibliofiles Reviews of three new books. Play Review Let 'Er Buck: The Pendleton Round Up marks the end of summer--and the proud traditions of a dwindling way of life. Volume 25, issue 45, September 8, 1999 NEWS 500 Words Trustworthy, Loyal...And Lost: Listen carefully: You can hear the groans of an organization whose roof is straining under the weight of its own fears. Lead Story Head of the Class: Linda Harris' rise to the top of Portland Public Schools doesn't quite add up. Politics Jump Start: A group best known for free towing and travel maps is taking on some turbocharged political interests over a measure aimed at fixing up Oregon roads. Politics Out of Their League? Multnomah County sends the Urban League of Portland $1.1 million per year. Now, County Chairwoman Beverly Stein wants the nonprofit to account for itself. Urban Pulse Onward Krishna Soldiers: Young devotees of an Eastern spiritual leader, dressed in colorful clothes, are looking to buy some rural Oregon property for a religious compound. Return of the Rajneeshees? No, it's just the Krishnas. Letters "AT&T has tried to be a responsible, contributing and valuable corporate citizen… being referred to as the "Dark Side" by a city administrator is offensive. " NewsBuzz Brue Who? | Smells Like Tea Spirit | Non Compos Mentis | The PDX Channel Scoreboard This week's winner and losers: Oregon tots win; bus riders lose. Rogue of the Week When the US Congress passed the Telecommunications Act of 1996, they spawned more rogues than Elizabethan London. LIFE Feature Slow Food for Fast Times: An international epicurean movement aims to counter the Big Mac attack. Q & A Missy Samiee: Smack-dab in the middle of the Pearl District sits Exit Real World, a new skateboarding and snowboarding shop whose owner, Missy Samiee, knows what it's like to be the odd girl out. Shop Got That Not-so-Fresh Feeling? When's the last time you dipped a garlic-herb bagel chip into a tub of hummus, sipped on some coffee and then lit up a Winston Ultra Light? If the answer is yesterday, you need a breath mint. Here are our picks, from foul to fresh. CULTURE Feature Walk This Way: Who needs to plunk down serious cash to hide indoors at a museum when Portland is a veritable farm of public art? Grab a bike and a lunch and follow along with this guide to some of the city's undiscovered masterpieces. Nightlife Fashion, Passion and Plastic Hair: Wig Out gives glam rockers, drag queens and club kids an excuse to let their hair down. Dinner Palace of Love Suey Chow's personals column Music Music Column Daydream Nation Preview/Profile Some Assembly Required: Portland's Sensualists deploy a hodgepodge of salvaged keyboards, retooled organs, old-fashioned drums and turntables to build their atmospheric electro-lullabies. Recorded Music Reviews of new releases from The Aluminum Group and Nigel Ayers, Randy Greif and Robin Storey. Screen Review The Beat Goes On: Takeshi "Beat" Kitano is the best Japanese action filmmaker you've probably never heard of. The days of limited distribution of his films are mostly over, though, and you can finally catch his first feature, Violent Cop, here in Portland. Review Deep Throat: What could have been a standard ethnographic video account of a remote culture becomes a simultaneously beatific and frightening journey into a man's soul. Dish Restaurant Review Breakfast on Belmont: When you're not dodging hippie families and development projects, Belmont Avenue is a swell place to hunker down to some breakfast. Play Review Russian Rasslin': Now that our country is no longer grappling with the Evil Empire for world domination, we can go one-on-one for fun. Meet Sambo, the Soviet way of kicking ass. Volume 25, issue 44, September 1, 1999 NEWS Lead Story Out on A Limb: For the past 129 days, a ragtag team of young environmental activists has been sitting 150 feet in the air, holding the front line in the new War of the Woods. Politics The Politics of Puppy Chow: Beverly Stein thought her staff had given her a good solution to the vexing problem of funding the county's animal-control services. Then she learned the truth about cat- and dog-food taxes. Health Care The Guinea Pigs' Rebellion: The movement for the rights of mental patients is gaining momentum as "survivors" and "consumers" join forces. Letters "I'm appalled by the inroads evangelists are making into our population and politics, as well as by the positive press Luis Palau specifically is getting from the Oregon media. " NewsBuzz Lethal Force | Dry Tech | The Bicycle Thieves | The Game Within The Game | Isle Blazer | Faster than a Stalled Elevator | Corrections Scoreboard This week's winner and losers: Marshall Glickman wins; bowling fans and nostalgia buffs lose. Rogue of the Week Cornelius City Councilor Steve Hawkes believes it's nobody's business how he earns his keep. LIFE FEATURE High And Dry: Think there are heaps of advantages to being tall? Naturally adept at hoops, screwing in light bulbs and reaching the top shelves in grocery stores, you say? True, but try finding a decent pair of pants. Q & A Blake Nelson: Writer Blake Nelson grew up in Portland and went on to pen Girl, the definitive fictional account of this city's burgeoning all-ages music scene in the early '90s. Shop Original Greaser: As greaser culture reasserts itself after decades of hair spray-fouled darkness, we put burly-man pomades to the test. CULTURE FEATURE The Chuck Wagon: Portland writer Chuck Palahniuk's got what many wannabe scribes dream about as they stare out of the window at their dreary desk jobs: three novels, rave reviews and a major-motion-picture adaptation starring A-list Hollywood actors. Dinner Palace of Love Suey Chow's personals column Music Music Column Daydream Nation International Preview Sweet Soul Music: Global warming hits Portland as Morocco's Master Musicians and Hungary's Ökrös Ensemble deliver ethnic cleansing--the good kind. CD Reviews What You Won't Hear: Just in time for fall classes! Here's the hot-weather hip-hop you need to check out to get schooled, from Gang Starr's basic primer to Rahzel's advanced studies. Recorded Music Reviews of new releases from Belle and Sebastian, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Quasi. Screen Review Obscure Object of Desire: Restored and re-released in its British version, Carol Reed's The Third Man remains one of the greatest films ever made. Performance Review Dancing in the Streets: There are lots of reasons to see Tahni Holt's newest choreographic piece, Here is my arm. I want to live. It's free. It's outside. You were just walking by. Words BiblioFile Reviews of three new books.