Where
We Went & Nightlife Picks
Some dude once said that as civilization advances, poetry
declines. But then he said a lot of dumb things.
Poetry. Poets. There, now your humble correspondent Max
just ditched his core audience of 15-year-olds who try to
get into Polly Esther's on fake Thai passports. But come
on now. Would you even bother to go out after dark
if there wasn't the chance--real or imagined--that something
vaguely Kerouac-esque could happen? Aren't all of us nightcrawling
minions mere shadows of our patron, Bukowski?
You know you feel it. David Miller feels it, too.
Miller has honcho'd the jam-packed readings at Coffee
Time since summer '98. He started small on boring-ass
Tuesday night. By this winter, he had 70 people a week at
least, with more would-be Baudelaires stepping to the plate
than you could shake a Louisville Slugger at.
So in the spirit of this new gilded age, it was time to
expand. Miller moved the Coffee Time hoedown from Tuesdays
to Humpdays (that's cut attendance, but he says it's creeping
back toward its madhouse highs). He moved his Tuesday action
to the spacious Viscount Ballroom, where he pairs
the jazz/bop standards band Cat Daddy with boho poets,
in search of that ineffable Beatness of being that's been
America's poetry standard/stereotype for half a century.
Max caught up with Miller between sets last Tuesday, in
the Viscount's blood-red smoking lounge; the other people
in the room were either artfully kicked-back Cat Daddy jazzcats
or mystick questers staring soulfully into the middle distance.
Not Miller. He's an intense and direct presence, and he
let me know about the vitality of poetry on the double-quick.
"It's electric," he says. "When I came to Portland a few
years ago, it seemed like the poetry scene was withering.
There were readings, but if you weren't part of the core
group of people running the readings, you'd be heckled,
booed and slammed. Instead of growing the scene, that attitude
constricted it. Everyone who wants to come to an open mic
and read should be able to.
"Reading in front of people is like a drug. And you take
this new event, with a live band, and you ratchet that feeling
up by 10."
Indeed, when the poetry commenced above Cat Daddy's sight-read
renditions of Miles Davis and Coltrane standards,
you could see that ol' black magic percolating behind the
readers' eyes. A lot of them seemed like beginners, and
a few of their lines tripped the alarm on Max Malt's patented
Pretenz-o-Meter™, but the combo of the Viscount's elegant
oldness, the band's solid sound and the poets' unabashed
freshness was sweet indeed.
"We're trying to bring back a piece of history," one of
the readers exclaimed to your humble N-Crawler. "When it
works, it's a thing of beauty."
WHERE WE WENT
Poetry
Open Mic with Cat Daddy
Viscount Ballroom
722 E Burnside St., 233-7855 9 pm Tuesdays
$3
Poetry Open Mic
Coffee Time
710 NW 21st Ave., 497-1090 8:30 pm Wednesdays
Free
NIGHTLIFE EVENTS
*ww pick*
Sinferno with Kitty Diggins' Go-Go-A-Go-Go
Vintage-style burlesque and go-go dancing
Dante's Caffe Italiano
1 SW 3rd Ave., 226-6630 10 pm Sunday, April 9
Cover
COMEDY
Doug Stanhope
R-RATED! ADULT HUMOR AND EXPLICIT LANGUAGE!
Harvey's Comedy Club
436 NW Glisan St., 241-0338
8 pm Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday, 8 and 10:30 pm Friday,
6:30, 9 and 11:30 pm Saturday, April 5-9
$8-$10
*wwpick* Suzanne Westenhoefer
The first out-of-the-closet
lesbian to have her own HBO Comedy Special performs her
new show, I'm Not Cindy Brady.
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 224-4400 8 pm Friday, April 7
$18 advance, $20 door
ComedySportz
Smashmouth improv
1963 NW Kearney St., 236-8888 9 pm Friday, 7:30 and 9:30
pm Saturday, April 7-8
$10, $9 with a can of food for Oregon Food Bank
Ron Osborne's Church of Comedy
Unholy fun
White Eagle
836 N Russell St., 282-6810 8:30 pm Sunday
$8
Art Krug
Stand-up
Jimmy Mak's
300 NW 10th Ave., 295-6542 9 pm Monday, April 10
$3
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Willamette Week | originally
published April 5,
2000
|
