Todd Patrick keeps
the all-ages rock scene alive at his club, 17 Nautical Miles.
We caught up with the 23-year-old Schlitz enthusiast to discuss,
among other things, the size of Casey Kasem's thumb.
Willamette Week: Where does your appreciation
of sea-faring life come from?
Todd Patrick: My appreciation of sea-faring...oh, you mean
because of the title [of the club]. Actually that was more
the influence of my former partner. Erin wanted to name
it something like "The Ship" or "The Barnacle" or something
like that, and I wasn't so into that. I wanted to call it
"The Weather Radio."
The what?
The Weather Radio. Being from Texas, there are a lot of
hurricanes and tornadoes and that kind of crap, and hail
and all kinds of scary flash thunderstorms and stuff, and
I wanted to call it "The Weather Radio" because I remember
in my youth I used to listen to the weather radio, sort
of an outdated government broadcast done by these guys who've
done it all their lives--very mundane, very old technology
on this weird, crappy AM band. These people that talk like
(cups hands to make echoing sound): "Expecting a flash flood
between Collin and Denton counties for the next four to
five hours."
Really part of the culture down there.
Exactly. When I moved to Oregon, the broadcasts were, of
course, quite different. But we couldn't figure out a name,
and we were getting frustrated about it, so I turned on
weather radio because it's really relaxing. So first they
went on their whole spiel about, like, "snow in the western
Willamette Valley" and "expecting winds up the Columbia
River Gorge," and then they went "predicting four-foot-high
wave crests at up to 17 nautical miles, so it was the perfect
compromise: She likes the sea, and I like the weather radio;
therefore something on the weather radio regarding the sea
fit both of our aesthetics quite well.
Do you know how many feet are in a nautical mile?
A nautical mile? I do believe it's longer than a regular
mile. What's a regular mile? Like 1,063 feet or something.
For some reason I think it's 5,280.
That's entirely possible.
But we're both English majors--we're not expected to
know that. Moving on, your club is situated conveniently
to Reed. Can you describe the typical Reedie that comes
into your club?
The Reedie that does come into my club is what other Reedies
might call "coolies."
Coolies?
The Reed term for hipster. Which I'm quite more into than
the average Reedie, at least in terms of musical taste and
having an interest in the arts. The average Reedie that
would come into my club probably has some more adventurous
sexual identification, dresses very fashionably but
doesn't necessarily have a lot of money, and is very personable
and popular among their scene, and is trying--well, usually
succeeding--to find out about the greater Portland scene
rather than just the Reed scene, which is a little closed.
So you don't get many Birkenstocks with socks?
No, we don't get many hippies. It's not a hippie kind of
spot. And it's funny because we are near Reed, and one of
the reasons I located it there was because I thought Reedies
would come, because there isn't that much to do. And I've
been to shows at Reed, and people come, but the difference
is that at shows at Reed you can drink beer. And Reedies
are fond of that. They're also into other things, which
I won't go into too much. And you can't [drink beer] at
17 Nautical Miles.
Is it possible for you to describe your fashion style?
I'd say I'm an incredibly low-key attempt at being a mod.
Unfortunately my style ends up being more of a prep-school
look. I have a great eye for fashion. I know what I like;
I just can't necessarily recreate it. I think I dress more
conservatively than I am.
Who wins a thumb wrestling match between Dick Clark
and Casey Kasem?
I say Dick Clark could kick Casey Kasem's ass. Casey Kasem
is like this tall (holds hand at table height).
But he might have enormous thumbs.
He might have enormous thumbs, but he's a bit of a wanker.
Dick Clark would kick his ass. Dick Clark's like 8 feet
tall.
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Willamette Week | originally
published June 16, 1999
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