Nightlife Picks
Biddy McGraw's
Irish Pub
6000
NE Glisan St.,
233-1178
A Nightcrawler's life is a busy one. So many ports for
such a restless sailor, savvy? Last I checked, there were
still a few lingerie-modeling places as yet undarkened by
Max's shadow. And that just won't do.
But I do find time to crack open a newspaper now and again.
As much as possible, I mix brushing up on current events
with my Hobby Prime: inspecting the interior of local pint
glasses. Often the combo grows into multisensory
learning experiences--sort of like what my peacenik elementary
teachers were into. Except that I get drunk and have fun.
This week, for example, I found myself comfortably installed
in the spanking-new digs of Biddy McGraw's Irish Pub,
stacks of dead tree at hand. The stalwart Hibernian/hippie
hang recently pulled out of the Hawthorne Wasted Jay-Walking
Zone to homestead the frontier at Northeast Glisan and 60th.
The move is entirely to the good. The old Biddy's was, frankly,
a pain in the ass. Crowds of reggae groovers and Keltik
Kwesters invariably made it hard to get to the bar; once
there, you could often expect to wait longer for a Guinness
than Ulster has for freedom. Or somethin' like that, shur'n'begorrah!
Biddy's mercifully lacks the cheeseball blarney of corporate
efforts like Tir Na Nóg, which feels like
Epcot Center's take on an Irish pub. You won't find ponderous
renderings of the Book of Kells here. Instead, Sinn Fein
propaganda plasters virtually every wall of the newly spacious
pub. And I have no problem with that, although such stuff
often rallies the big talk of America's scads of armchair
Provos, who usually don't know the first of Northern Ireland's
subtleties.
But anyway. I ordered up a pint of the black stuff. It
was a little overfoamy, despite the brewery-issue "perfect
pint" certificate behind the bar, but tasty. And I commenced
to read.
And what do you know? As if planned to match the "DISBAND
THE ROYAL ULSTER CONSTABULARY!" poster by Biddy's door,
here was news that the Brits might do just that. A giant
picture of bearded Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams presides
over every pint at the bar--and there was Adams on the page,
wrestling with those damned Unionists over the suspended
Northern Ireland Assembly. My God, the thrill of news and
venue in harmonic convergence! Practically virtual! Close
to authentic!
And that, of course, is as much as you can ask from a Hibernophilic
place on this side of the pond. I couldn't help but hope,
though, that in six months or a year a similar scan of the
news will make Biddy's blustering array of less of an active
political statement and more of a museum piece. In the meantime,
though, the pub has much to recommend it, starting with
what it puts into its pint glasses.
NIGHTLIFE EVENTS
Comedy
Brad Upton
A former fourth-grade teacher from Seattle
works it funny-wise.
Harvey's Comedy Club
436 NW 6th Ave.,
241-0338
8 pm Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday,
8 and 10:30 pm Friday, 6:30, 9 and 11:30 pm Saturday, May
24-28
$8-$10
ComedySportz
Improv showdown.
1936 NW Kearney St., 236-8888
9 pm Friday, 7:30
and 9:30 pm Saturday, May 26-27
$10, $9 w/ can of food for the Oregon Food Bank
Brainwaves Improv Group
"Making Portland audiences
laugh."
1516 SW Alder St.,
796-9550
8 pm Tuesday, May 29
$7
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Willamette Week | originally
published May 10,
2000
|
