BEST HISPANIC GAY BAR
BEST FAN CLUB
BEST TECHIES
BEST NEW ENSEMBLE
BEST BLACKBOARD ARTIST
BEST CD ART
BEST USE OF PORN IMAGERY IN ADVERTISING
BEST PLACE TO MEET A RENT CAST MEMBER
BEST SPACE-AGE STAGE COSTUMES
BEST LOCAL 7-INCH RECORD
BEST PRIVATE SCREENING ROOM
BEST KARAOKE PERFORMANCE BY A LOCAL ROCK STAR
BEST NEW WEDDING LOCATION
BEST LOCALLY PRODUCED SHORT FILM
BEST JUKEBOX AT A STRIP BAR
BEST SUBSTITUTE FOR A DEF LEPPARD
BEST HOPE FOR PORTLAND'S DANCE SCENE
BEST SUNDAY NIGHT SPECIAL

Best Hispanic Gay Bar
Praise be, the Gods in homo heaven have smiled down upon gay Portlanders who are tired of Southwest Stark Street's Gold's Gym steroid queens and sometimes foul homogeneous attitude. Open for about four months, Extasis (2845 SE Stark St., 736-9956) has quickly become the favorite hangout for Portland's Latin gay community, especially on Saturday nights. Home to the Mr. Latino contest, the La Femme Latina Pageant, vocalist Benfamin Soto, Salsa-flavored DJ Tony and bartenders Robby Montemayor, Oracio and Jim, Extasis has responded to our city's Hispanic Panic.

Best Fan Club
Portland is home to the official U.S. fan club for the "coolest, most astonishing and nicest film star in the world," according to Bob Engesser. That's right: The official Jackie Chan Fan Club for the United States meets in the City of Roses to honor Chan while raising money for good causes, such as Chinese earthquake relief and a new classical Chinese garden in Portland. The Jackie-crazy group also promotes Chan's films and organizes trips for members to see the star in cities such as Las Vegas and Hong Kong. "We were lucky enough to go on a Hong Kong trip where Jackie entertained club members for six hours," says a beaming Engesser, who has been a club member for the past two years. Whether handing out fliers to promote films or working to persuade TheWall Street Journal to publish articles about Chan, the group always looks forward to celebrating its hero's birthday--April 7--when Chan himself calls to speak with everyone in attendance. "Those with presence of mind ask him questions," says member Nettie Choderis. "Unfortunately, I was so nervous when I spoke to him that I just blabbed the whole time." The club, which has about 600 members nationwide, can be reached at 299-4766 or on the Web at http://www.spiritone.com.

Best Techies
Most of the real artists working in Portland's theaters are quietly creating behind the scenes. Two of the finest technical workers in town are also leaders in their respective realms. As evidenced in Artists Repertory Theater's latest play, many an aborted evening of drama has been salvaged by the lighting wizardry of Jeff Forbes. Forbes has worked in most of the city's main houses, as well as frequently adding polish to fringe efforts. If you are looking for a set designer with intelligence and wit, look no further than Tim Stapleton. Stapleton's scenic work is seldom a disappointment and, more times than not, is astonishing. His sets for ART's Indiscretions were near genius and greatly complemented an excellent production. Sometimes a backstage pass would be preferable to a seat ticket.

Best New Ensemble
Launched in December, Portland Pro Musica is the newest addition to Portland's lively choral scene. Led by the amiable and knowledgeable Christopher Kula, it is committed to the exploration of small-scale, rarely performed works in innovative programs. So far, concerts have included pieces by little-known composers such as Frank Martin and Max Reger, as well as the lesser-known work of celebrated figures, including Stravinsky, Poulenc and Ravel.
 The ensemble doesn't shrink from challenging either its audiences or itself--which says a lot, considering that it counts among its members some of the city's best voices, including soprano Amy Dethman and baritone Richard Lippold. You can hear a sample Pro Musica selection (currently Britten's Hymn to St. Cecilia)
 by visiting the PPM Web site (http://members.aol.com/
 PortlandPM/).

Best Blackboard Artist
Most artists work best in a solitary environment--an empty, echoing warehouse or perhaps a cozy turret. How many could produce in a bar, with an audience of swilling bike messengers and barflies? Eona Skelton has no room for prima donna-ish privacy. Each week she gives the Monday afternoon crowd at Berbati's Pan (231 SW Ankeny St., 248-4579) an eyeful when she hops up on a wine chest and creates a new chalkboard mural. Using vivid chalk pastels, she spends between two and four hours fleshing out scenes featuring her signature naughty nymphs. A cabaret performer and former member of God's Favorite Pussy, Skelton is accustomed to working with an audience, even taking inspiration from her onlookers: The lewd leprechaun she penned for St. Patrick's Day was modeled in part after two drunken Scotsmen who ribbed her with saucy comments as she worked. Aside from the publicity, the best thing about the unusual gig is that it forces her to produce. "It keeps me in touch with my art," Skelton says. "If I did a painting this size every week, I'd have a gallery of work by now." Luckily Skelton takes photographs for her portfolio before she erases each board. Soon you'll be able to see her work in more permanent form on Berbati's matchbooks and labels for the bar's own ale, Berbati's Pan Amber.

Best CD Art
Local musician/performance artist/filmmaker/fashion plate/hair role model Miranda July's The Binet-Simon Test(Kill Rock Stars) isn't just a great listen, it's also fun: The cover art folds out into a poster that combines Miranda-isms with snippets from archaic personality quizzes. For example, the reader is given a set of three words--for example, disco/hope/ apocalypse, wake/up/bitch or slap/slap/slap--and asked to use them in a sentence. Test your own trustworthiness, hand-mouth coordination and popularity against Miss Miranda's.

Best Use of Porn Imagery in Advertising
The clacking Furies bent on hounding James Canfield out of town may want to cast their moral indignation onto Portland Opera next. The opera's poster for The Student Princecan only be described as lewd. A dissolute youth, seductively slouched in a chair, fingers a spuming beer stein lodged between his parted legs. It's schoolboy Freud, but effective marketing. A list of the opera's hits "Come Boys" and "Golden Years" are juxtaposed with the yeasty money-shot spillage. This complements the opera's coy bumpersticker promising passion with no regrets in the morning. Still, one will need to clean up afterwards.

Best Place to Meet a Rent Cast Member
...or performers in any other touring show, for that matter. The newly remodeled Mark Spencer Hotel (409 SW 11th Ave., 224-3293) houses the casts from Broadway productions like Grease and Tap Dogs, and touring musicians like it, too. Maureen McGovern, Erik Estrada, Alan Thicke and members of Cuba's Los Van Van have all stayed there recently. The rates are reasonable ($76 for a standard room) even if you're not part of a giant group, and it's the only downtown hotel with in-room kitchens--nice after weeks of Taco Bell and deli plates. One drawback for star spotting: no lobby bar.

Best Space-Age Stage Costumes
Just as the Smurfs litter their vocabulary with their species' name, the band Knodel appears regularly on Portland stages to play songs like "We're Knodel," "Knodel Dance Party" and "Knodel World." But what's more intriguing about this local trio is its costumes: all-white suits that wouldn't look out of place on a dapper race of visitors from outer space. Adding to their aesthetic, Knodel's keyboardist plays a Casio perched atop an illuminated, translucent stand straight out of a Star Trek episode. Dressing head to toe in white ensembles isn't the cleverest of shticks, but take into account the band's appropriately New-Wave sound and its peculiarly detached sense of humor, and you've got something unabashedly, well, Knodel. Or, as the trio states in its manifesto, "A flash of interstellar light flashing on a concert stage. A master communicator reaching out and touching with music. Rock and Roll. Rock and Knodel."

Best Local 7-Inch Record
In the true punk-rock tradition, Portland's the Weaklings are more interested in kicking ass than kissing it, but the four lads still like a smooch as much as the next guy. That's why the band's latest release is a 7-inch record pressed on pink vinyl and packaged in a cover decorated with lipstick kisses. Those familiar with the quartet's raucous live and recorded output will be pleased to know that the Weaklings haven't taken a turn toward writing make-out songs. The four tracks on the record zip by like a bullet train with Joey Ramone at the wheel, bursting with punk fury yet maintaining the toe-tapping melodies that have marked the band's previous work. And in case music fans need a reminder that the Weaklings haven't gone soft, there's a note on the sleeve encouraging listeners, presumably female ones, to send nude photos to a local P.O. box. Still, it's probably the only record to list a credit for "lipservice."

Best Private Screening Room
It has held an Ellen coming-out party, boxing matches, private viewings of favorite Christmas movies, 40th-birthday roasts and previews of Scott Thomason commercials. Poets have read there, clients have been wooed there. It's the Screening Room (925 NW 19th Ave., 294-7153). The refurbished 1930s-style theater screened new releases for private groups from 1933 to 1981, as well as rushes from films made in the Portland area. The room was gutted in the late '80s, but it has since been restored and is now available for a variety of parties, screenings, performances or business events. There's seating for 40, a podium with microphone, projection capability from computer, laser disk, TV, pay-per-view or VHS tapes and a full bar--making this the perfect place for that private Nick and Nora Charles retrospective you've been craving.

Best Karaoke Performance by a Local Rock Star
Rock stars aren't always better karaoke singers, but they often are. Janet Weiss of Sleater-Kinney and Quasi wins the gold metal for Portland karaoke. Weiss' most startlingly lovely performance was at the Galaxy Room in late December, where she sang an emotional rendition of Duran Duran's Ordinary World. Sunset Valley singer Herman Jolly comes in second, with his raspy, masculine version of Kim Carnes' Bette Davis Eyes, which he sang at Chopsticks Express in March.

Best New Wedding Location
Do you really love Portland? Then get married at City Hall. The recently reopened historic building is now better able to withstand earthquakes and has expanded its capacity for weddings and receptions. The council chambers offer a seating capacity of 180 and a 6-by-8-foot projection screen, allowing guests to see the faces of the bride and groom during the exchange of vows. The first-floor public area is open to catering, dancing or any other reception desire. With low hourly rates (depending on the size of your group) for a conference room, the council chambers or the entire facility, City Hall is the best new wedding location. The staff at the Bureau of General Services (823-6947) gives tours to interested parties.

Best Locally Produced Short Film
One weekend last fall, local director Todd Korgan took a break from making Scott Thomason commercials to have some fun with a 16mm camera and microphone. Korgan, cameraman William Johnson and actress Jamie Tolbert shot a seven-minute mockumentary titled Have You Seen Patsy Wayne?, about the fictional love child of Patsy Cline and John Wayne. "We had no script at all," Korgan recalls, "and nothing set in stone." Despite its quick-and-dirty creation, Patsy Wayne has impressed virtually every audience that has seen it. In November, it won the Jury Award at the Northwest Film and Video Festival, and it has shown in more than a dozen other festivals this year, including Sundance. Korgan is as surprised as anyone at the success of a film that cost him "50 bucks and a plate of pancakes."

Best Jukebox at a Strip Bar
Portishead followed by Simon and Garfunkel may sound like what you'd find in the chill-out room of a retro rave rather than at a strip bar full of feisty young folks. But the dancers at the Magic Garden (217 NW 4th Ave.) use mellow, classic tunes to show off their slinky, occasionally balletic moves. Jane's Addiction, the Stones and Bow Wow Wow add bounce to the superb, Top 40-free selections on the Garden's jukebox. You can almost get away with saying, "I just went for the tunes."

Best Substitute for a Def Leppard
Popewyrm's homemade costumes, props and special effects turn an average bar gig into a small-scale arena show. Bass-player Dawn sometimes performs in only plastic, a G-string and fake blood; the lead singer, Jason, can throw up on command. At most shows at least one band member sports makeup that crosses Marilyn Manson with a '50s horror movie. Popewyrm's New Year's Eve show was a tour de force, as topless female fire breathers swung flaming wands around their heads.

Best Hope for Portland's Dance Scene
After moving here from Manhattan, arts patrons Walter Jaffe and Paul King discovered that Portland's healthy dance scene had room for more growth. So they formed their own production company, Whitebird (named after their cockatoo). Their first year brought successful shows by Bodyvox and the Stephen Petronio Company. Whitebird's program for next year includes performances by Gregg Bielemeier, the Trinity Irish Dance Company, Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo and the Limón Dance Company. Call 245-1600 for a schedule.

Best Sunday-Night Special
Rudy Tutti (a.k.a. Rudy Grayzell) sets up his guitar, drum machine and microphone every Sunday evening around 7 pm at the Jolly Roger Restaurant and Lounge (1340 SE 12th Ave.). Lacking a real stage--he's stuck between the bar and the door--or a backing band, he nevertheless expertly works his way through sets of classics by the likes of Jimmy Buffet and Neil Diamond. When he's not at the Jolly Roger, Tutti can be found shaking his hips, posing and flirting with the crowd as part of the rockabilly outfit the Volcanoes. His niche is making any music fresh, dangerous and exciting--the way it must have been when he was recording songs at Sun Records in the '50s with Roy Orbison and Elvis. He may not have earned the same degree of fame as these other entertainers, but you can tell that he's a legend.