Join us at the end of October for a weekend of cosplay, panels, and immersive experiences— don’t miss your chance to be part of the excitement!
Altonimbus Entertainment is proud to continue an annual tradition of bringing fans together for a jam-packed extravaganza of everything that it means to be a fan of anime and Japanese popular culture. Gaining its namesake (kumori) from the Japanese word “cloudy”, Kumoricon embodies the best parts of fandom and what it is to live in the Pacific Northwest. The Kumoricon family is growing with every passing year, making us the largest anime convention in Oregon.
THE TRASH REPORT
BY ELINOR JONES
Hello , and thank you for coming to our very special 25th birthday Trash Report ! I’m Elinor Jones. Normally I’d write about some current news and gossip, but since this issue will cover 25 years, so shall this column. And, because celebrity culture is nothing if not a competition for relevance, I have also ranked the years in importance. Will we agree? We freakin’ better!
#20 2016
This was a consequential year. There was the delightful story of Olympic meathead swimmer Ryan Lochte lying about getting robbed in Rio de Janeiro, and it was also the summer that Taylor Swift briefly dated Tom Hiddleston and he went water-sliding with her friends in a T-shirt with her name on it. However, it was also the year that many beloved celebri ties died, including Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, David Bowie, Alan Rick man, George Michael and Prince , AND Trump won his first election. Overall, a highly cursed year.
#19 2007
While the blog Perez Hilton came onto the scene in 2004, it wasn’t until this year when Britney Spears had a public breakdown and shaved her head, that his site really blew up, turning bullying celebrities online into a national pastime [Which the Mercury joyfully—and now ruefully—joined.—eds] and darkening all of our souls in the process.
#16 2001
This year gave us the first Lord of the Rings movie AND the first of the Harry Potter movies, relaunching the cape manufacturing industry after centuries in decline.
#15 2015
#18 2000
The first year that the Portland Mercury hit the stands is the same year that Elian Gonzalez was sent back to Cuba. Our younger readers may not realize that it used to be a huge deal when children were deported.
#17 2013
We love that when squeaky clean American sweetheart Reese Witherspoon was arrested for being drunk, she gave the cop a “do you know who I am?” Because every last one of us, if we had even the slightest bit of clout, would have done the exact same thing, and she did us a solid by reminding us.
ing Show at this point, and we needed a reminder that not all lesbians who throw on a blazer will offer words of encouragement—some of ‘em are mean
#11 2008
Barack Obama won the election this year. I understand that now he might seem like a marquee centrist, but at the time it felt revolutionary. You think Hamilton is cringe? You think the COVID-era Imagine video was cringe? Most of us spent the bulk of 2008 openly and sincerely weeping to a primary concession speech set to music by will.i.am featuring Scarlett Johansson. The most cynical middle-aged leftist you know was sobbing next to me at the bar when he won, and don’t let them tell you otherwise.
Rachel Dolezal was the top story for admitting that she was a white woman who had assumed the identity of a Black woman. She walked as “trans-racial” so Hilaria Baldwin could run as a Spanish woman from Massachusetts.
#14 2024
Last year was pretty bleak but it’s hard to say what hindsight will reveal, so I had to put it in the middle. I mean, Brat summer was pretty fun.
#13 2009
Kanye West interrupted Taylor Swift at the VMAs and nobody has shut up about it since.
#12 2020
A real mixed bag, what with the onset of a global pandemic, but the absence of people being out and about got us spilling secrets, which is how we finally got confirmation that Ellen DeGeneres was a monster behind the scenes. Remember, we were several years into the Great British Bak -
#10 2017
The #metoo movement took off, which finally made public the despicable behavior of several powerful men, including Al Franken Louis C.K. Matt Lauer , Harvey Weinstein , Kevin Spacey Mario Batali Garrison Keilor, James Franco, and Andrew Cuomo , among many, many others. We also watched a lot of men we know say nothing, and we have not forgotten.
#9 2018
Pete Davidson and Ariana Grande ’s romance crashed onto the scene with tons of media attention and even more quickie tattoos. They fizzled out just as quickly, but I know that if I got a stick-and-poke of a girl in a giant hoodie with a lollipop you’d know exactly what I am referencing. (Should I???)
#8 2012
Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson had barely confirmed that they were an item after filming the Twilight series, and then K-Stew got papped making out with a (married) producer. Donald Trump was heavily invested in this story and tweeted about it frequently, which was fun at the time if you can believe it.
#7 2003
The war in Iraq started; three days later Adrien Brody won the Academy Award for The Pianist and kissed Halle Berry on the mouth.
#6 2023
Gwyneth Paltrow was on trial for allegedly plowing over a dentist on the ski slopes, and when the verdict came down in her favor, she whispered “I wish you well” to the motherfucker who crossed her, forever altering the meaning of the phrase to “try me, bitch.”
#5 2021
One year into the COVID-19 pandemic, just as folks were starting to get vaccinated and back outdoors, celebrity supercouple Ben
Affleck and Jennifer Lopez reunited. The high of making plans to see your friends in person AND seeing that picture of Ben Affleck smoking a ciggie outside a hotel after clearly touching God in the bedroom?! And THEN Britney Spears was released from her conservatorship after 14 years! How many times that year did you say “WE ARE SO BACK!” We were wrong (we aren’t back at all) but it sure felt good.
#4 2005
After months of rumors and speculation, Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston confirmed that they were splitting up, and Brad was in a relationship with his Mr. and Mrs. Smith co-star Angelina Jolie Internet news was barely functional at this point and I had to wait several days to read about it in a magazine. Can you believe how long we used to wait for hot takes? More like room-temp takes.
#3 2004
Justin Timberlake ripping off a piece of Janet Jackson ’s bodice during the Super Bowl halftime show is the whole reason that YouTube exists. Put respect on her name (but not his).
#2 2022
Nearly two decades after Adrien Brody kissed Halle Berry at the Oscars, which seemed like the biggest non-consensual face contact we’d ever see at that event, Will Smith walked on stage and slapped Chris Rock across the face after he told a joke about Smith’s wife. The Academy reportedly has beefed up security so that things like that won’t happen again, not realizing how desperately we want something like that to happen again
#1 2014
Speaking of slaps, the indisputably, most important thing that happened so far this century was when Solange slapped Jay-Z in the elevator at the Met Gala. I know we’ve had to live through a lot of bullshit and sadness in this century so far, but also, we got the leaked footage of Solange slapping Jay-Z in the elevator. Good things have happened, and good things can happen again.
Gratefully,
Louis C.K.
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
KEVIN WINTER-GETTY IMAGES
I’m generally not one to romanticize the past. But that said, during our first 25 years? The Portland Mercury had some really fucking good times!
We also put out a lot of papers, worked our asses off, argued a bit, cried, yelled, lost our way, found it again, made some mistakes, apologized and tried to do better, gained staff, lost staff (fuck you , COVID), and for some unknown reason are still alive and kicking in 2025. I think about those times a lot. But on this, our 25th anniversary of newspapering, I hope you’ll indulge me in celebrating the fun times.
Happy 25th Anniversary, Portland Mercury!
I recently sent out a call to former and current members of the Mercury family, asking for their favorite memories from the past 25 years, and here are just a few. We’ve always considered the Mercury as a group art project that’s fueled by fun, passion, a deep love for Portland—and as you’re about to learn—occasional coked-up drunkenness. Enjoy.
JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD, ARTS EDITRIX (2000-2004): “My main memory is that one time in 2003, when we had a show sponsored by Sparks and people were barfing by 9 pm. I think the Lifesavas performed? Can’t remember the venue, but it had carpet—which made the puke not ideal!”
STEVE RESPONDS: Oh, and that was just one of oh-so-many memorable booze and drug-fueled parties… for example: A Christmas party where one employee stole a car to get there; a former publisher routinely handed out rolled joints along with holiday bonuses; and while returning from one staff party on a school bus (so we could drink more), the smell of vomit became so intense, we were sharing a cherry Chapstick to rub under our noses in order to cover the overpowering stench. Good times!
EZRA CARAEFF, DESIGNER/MUSIC EDITOR (2001-2011): “I know I’m supposed to write some wild tale of youthful indiscretion from my many years at the Mercury—like that time we stole the Willamette Week’s Music Fest NW logo and sent them a pug-themed ransom note—but instead I’ll say that this city is better because of the Mercury. This paper has always cultivated and encouraged so many of us glorious weirdos, it’s truly a blessing. Oh yeah, and Art Alexakis once left me a very angry voicemail. I wish I saved that.”
STEVE RESPONDS: Ooh, what about the time we wrote something slightly negative
The staff of the Portland Mercury, year one.
Celebrating a quarter century of fun, mayhem, and newspapering.
BY WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
about the Dandy Warhol’s Courtney TaylorTaylor, who called us “baby brats” (and “little girls”?) and threatened legal action, claiming he would “own the paper”? In response, we devoted an entire issue to pretending he DID own the paper, and renamed it the Portland Mercury-Mercury! (C’mon, Taylor-Taylor… you gotta admit that was funny-funny.)
ELINOR JONES, COLUMNIST (THE TRASH REPORT), FILM CRITIC, DOCUMENTER OF RACCOONS (2012-PRESENT): “Three memories: 1) Several years ago I wrote a pretty mid review of a documentary about the adult male fans of My Little Pony and the Bronies waged a hate-mail campaign that lasted weeks. I lived, bitch. 2) Once I interviewed Pauly Shore and tried to talk about “wheezing the juice”—he wasn’t having it. 3) Despite writing for this paper for over a decade, including several years with a literal photo of my real human face attached to my column, I’ve been recognized in public exactly one time, and it was when I was in a pharmacy picking up birth control.”
STEVE RESPONDS: The Mercury is no stranger to hate mail—the most we ever received was when we endorsed putting fluoride in the city’s water… and the anti-vax
hippies went BANANAS! But I get it… it’s hard on people who wake up to the sudden harsh reality that they were wrong and we were ABSOLUTELY RIGHT. (Oh, and it didn’t help that we teased those dipshits relentlessly. See page 27.)
KATIE LAKE, COMPTROLLER, AND TOO MANY OTHER MERCURY JOBS TO MENTION (2001PRESENT): “Over the years, a few celebrities have wandered into our office. One of the strangest: Kato Kaelin stopped by, and when asked to sign a knife, he politely declined and signed a football instead. Actor Sam Elliott also strolled in to pick up a copy of the Mercury for his mom. Other celebrities include Aidy Bryant, Patti Harrison, and our walls are decorated with personal autographs from Rihanna, Benicio del Toro, and… Mario Lopez? Mario Lopez!” STEVE RESPONDS: Oh, and don’t forget about an office visit from McGruff the Crime Dog who threatened to arrest employees while waving around a (fake) gun and guzzling PBRs. (It may or may not have been me.)
NED LANNAMANN, MUSIC EDITOR (20082019): “The annual “Best of” issue is a staple of local journalism, and a bonanza for ad sales. But we flipped the concept on its head
and devised our own smartass “Best of” lists that were tremendously fun for the editorial team and a horrible nightmare for the sales reps. My favorite “Best of” issue was “The Best of Enchanted Forest,” where we spent a day at Oregon’s finest theme park doing extensive “research.” (Included: “Best Make-Out Cave #3,” “Best Place to Suffocate a Coworker with a Poncho,” and “Best Self-Gratifying Animatronic Squirrel.”) These were joyful days—in essence, field trips— and brought out the best in all of us.”
STEVE RESPONDS: That was SO… FUN! Despite the fact that a “Karen” accused us of being pedophiles, and Ned was almost suffocated with a plastic poncho on the Log Ride by a co-worker (who may or may not have been me).
JEN “DAVISON” WICK, DESIGNER AND ART DIRECTOR, (2000-2005): “It’s wild that for years it was a ‘tradition’ to auction off the Mercury girls for a date with a stranger. (See “Bad Idea, Right?” page 17.) Irreverence was a core job requirement of the Art Director position. Example: One year, the design department made a full-size, fake issue of Willamette Week, which we distributed during a newspaper conference. Back then it was hard to know the line between mean-spirited and deliciously funny—but it was also the most fun I’ve ever had.”
STEVE RESPONDS: Oh, speaking of that “newspaper conference,” the Mercury attempted to bribe convention-goers into voting us into their alternative newspaper association by giving them pot brownies (still illegal in 2003)—but we were rejected, even though they happily accepted and ate our brownies! However, as one of the last standing alternative weeklies in the nation, WHO’S LAUGHING NOW? (We are. We are the ones who are laughing.)
And we hope to keep laughing and producing fun, powerful work for as long as you’ll have us. You can read even more hilarious memories in the online version of this story, but in honor of the hundreds of beautiful people who have worked at the Mercury and those who read us every day? This issue is dedicated to YOU. Thanks for 25 years. Today and always, we appreciate you.
Yer pal, Wm. Steven Humphrey Editor-in-Chief of the Portland Mercury since 2000—so don’t get any funny ideas. ■
Twenty-Five Years of News, Entertainment, & Trouble
How the Mercury Found Its Niche By Blending Irreverent Commentary With Investigative Reporting
BY COURTNEY VAUGHN (NEWS EDITOR, 2023-PRESENT)
It was the best of times. It was the weirdest of times. Like nearly every Portland Mercury news editor before and after him, Denis Theriault’s memories of working at the paper feel both rewarding and dizzying.
Theriault worked at the Mercury from 2010 to 2015, as Portland’s population was multiplying and the sketch comedy series Portlandia was serving a parodied, overly-wholesome portrait of the Rose City to the world.
Those years also included the emergence of the Occupy Wall Street protests that spurred the prolonged Occupy Portland protest encampment downtown.
“I ended up sleeping in the office when we were on Ash Street, so I could be ready right away on that Saturday,” Theriault recalls of the final days of the Occupy Portland demonstration, about which, at one point, the Mercury provided roundthe-clock coverage.
As this publication celebrates a milestone 25th anniversary, former news editors helped trace its evolution from a punchy, often outlandish alternative weekly to its current iteration as… whatever the hell it is now.
2000-2005
The Mercury launched in 2000 as a spinoff of its Seattle-based sister paper, The Stranger Tailored for a Portland audience, the upstart publication was still finding its identity in a media landscape that already had an alt-weekly ( Willamette Week ), several broadcast stations, and the vanguard of local print news, The Oregonian
Phil Busse had the pleasure and misfortune of being the paper’s first managing editor.
“We came in at a time when Portland felt very complacent,” Busse recalls. At the time, Vera Katz was entering her third term as mayor and getting a little too comfortable.
In one of his columns, Busse reported that Mayor Katz hadn’t stepped foot in Jefferson High for 11 years—signaling a detachment from the type of community engagement typically expected of Portland’s elected leaders.
As Busse remembers it: “I got a call the next day from her then chief of staff, Sam Adams, who said ‘Who the fuck do you think you are?!’”
Stories like that came to embody the Mercury’s editorial approach. If the reporting made local politicians squeamish, that
was probably a good thing, as long as it was true. Busse and the rest of the staff became hellbent on challenging the status quo.
The former attorney-turned-editor took that to extremes in 2004 when he launched a tongue-in-cheek bid for mayor.
“It wasn’t meant as a way for me to promote myself or my ego,” Busse says. “It was just this idea of ‘anyone can run… so if I can run, you can run too.’”
To his surprise, Busse came in third, or as he puts it, “I got bronze!” [For more information, see “Bad Idea, Right?” page 14.]
The stunt felt milquetoast compared to other stories he and the rest of the editorial staff cooked up, like a drinking contest wherein different staffers were each assigned one type of booze to see which would yield the most outlandish antics. The night ended with Mercury founder and editor Wm. Steven Humphrey rubbing his bottom on the door handle of the Willamette Week office (depicted above).
Busse cherished the editorial freedom that came with the job, and came to embrace what he calls the merging of “entertainment and information.”
“I was allowed and supported and encouraged to have independent opinions,” he says.
“Your new vegan restaurant—we’ll review it with the same seriousness as The Oregonian reviewing the White Linen.”
Even in its early years of debauchery— before the internet became ubiquitous and transformed the media landscape—covering Portland’s news was still a grind.
“For perceived slackers, we put in a lot of hours, whether that was to go for the punchline or putting together an investigative piece,” he says. “We had a brand of professionalism and that always felt surprising to outsiders.”
2005-2010
By 2005, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were in full swing. Portland’s beloved indie rock bands weren’t so indie anymore, and the city’s allure as a crafty, bike-riding and beer-brewing locale was catching on with national media. Sam Adams had graduated from a staffer in the mayor’s office to a member of the City Council.
The following year, Portland Police were under fire for the heinous death of James Chasse.
“The police beat a man to death while I
Continued on page 11
(Clockwise from top) Phil Busse campaign button, Denis Theriault on Jeopardy, The Occupy Portland movement of 2011 (photo by Natalie Behring/Getty), Alex Zielinski “TP” design, Mercury editor doing unspeakable things to WW door handle, riot cops in 2020 (photo by Mathieu Lewis-Rolland), and center, “Crybaby Vera Katz” by Jack Pollack.
was there,” says Matt Davis, who served as news editor from 2006 to 2010, following the co-editorship of Scott Moore and Amy Jenniges.
Chasse, 42, was experiencing a mental health crisis when he was restrained by police, who later beat him unconscious, breaking more than 20 bones in his body. Chasse died in custody while police were transporting him to a hospital.
“At the time, they did fire a police officer over the death of [Chasse],” Davis recalls. “The Chasse death and the coverage of that was a significant part of my reporting there. I enjoyed really digging into that and the reporting that led to significant change.”
Davis was also notorious for clapping back at readers via the comments section, back when the Mercury still had one. “I told a troll on the blog to fuck off,” Davis recalls. “It was very kind of [Steve] not to fire me.”
There were brighter moments, like interviews with Anthony Bourdain and Gus Van Sant, and an out-of-state weekend staff “retreat.”
“I think I’d been there about three weeks when Steve took the entire editorial staff to Las Vegas for a weekend,” Davis recalls. “I shared a room with the music editor at the time. He bought a bunch of bouncy rubber balls and bounced them up and down the strip. He also won a fair amount of money at the casinos.”
Davis, originally from Southeast London, now runs a public relations firm out of New York.
“All of the staff were really, really interesting,” he recounts. “Bright. Unconventional.” Davis, in particular, was unrelenting.
“Steve encouraged us to be savage dogs. I was a psychopath,” he divulges.
“Steve encouraged it, but backed me every time. He always stood up for me. That’s what Portland needs. It needs a fearless instrument of journalism.”
2010-2015
“Occupy Portland emerged on my watch when I was news editor,” Denis Theriault says, reminiscing about the five years he spent with the Mercury from 2010 to 2015. “We dove in really hard. We wanted to be the paper of record when it came to Occupy Portland. I would put my kids to bed and then head out at night to cover what was happening.”
The former editor recalls permanent camp sites were established, along with “huts, tents, and a commissary in the middle of Chapman Square.”
By then, Sam Adams was the mayor of Portland.
During Theriault’s tenure, he didn’t just embed at the Occupy protest, or appear and win on TV’s Jeopardy for multiple episodes. He spent a week embedded at the Right 2 Dream Too shelter in Old Town. At the time, the newly established, self-managed homeless encampment was leasing an empty lot without the help of any government agency or nonprofit group, but it was also on shaky legal ground.
“The freedom that the Mercury gave me, and its brand, made it easier for Right 2 Dream Too to trust that we were gonna give
them a fair shake,” Theriault said. His stay at the camp, and resulting coverage, shifted the conversation about homelessness within City Hall. It also served as the foundation for his deep knowledge of the region’s complex home less crisis, which came in handy when Theriault later took a job working for Mult nomah County’s communications team.
“You get to have heart,” he says of the editorial experience at the paper. “It’s not bloodless,”
2015-2020
Come 2015, Portland was either thriving or “dying” depending on who you asked.
Food cart owners were making the leap to brick and mortar restaurants. The tech sector had boosted the local tax coffers, but an explosion in home prices pushed out many of the city’s artists and creatives, and the city’s homeless population was growing exponentially.
By 2016, Portlanders were bracing for a historic election, but they also had to contend with a local environmental threat after the Mercury published a series of stories about toxic emissions from a local glass manufacturing plant.
“[The Bullseye Glass story] was huge when it landed—so much so that when I randomly began talking to a Bullseye employee at a bar around that time, he wanted to fight me,” recalls Dirk VanderHart, the news editor at the time. “The Mercury led on that coverage, both in terms of breaking news and in subsequent stories written by freelancer Dan Forbes.”
The reporting on Bullseye Glass led to a class-action lawsuit against the company, but it also reaffirmed the alt-weekly’s ability to capture the zeitgeist of the city with irreverence and snark, while simul taneously breaking sobering, investiga tive stories on politics, police, and public health.
The following year, Jeremy Christian fatally stabbed two men and seriously injured another on a MAX train, after spouting racist and anti-Muslim epithets at two Black teen girls, one of whom was wearing a hijab.
“ [Demonstrators were] mostly focusing their rage at each other,” Zielinski says of antifa and Patriot Prayer. “When the George Floyd protests happened, it was people versus the police.”
and attempt a new physical challenge after each,” he reminisced. “They did not make it to the end.”
2020-present
Twenty years after producing its first print issue, in March 2020, the Portland Mercury ceased all print production. The COVID-19 pandemic’s financial toll on the paper hit hard, resulting in a sizable chunk of staff being laid off and the Mercury pivoting to web-only.
Alex Zielinski remembers the weight of being a news editor during what was arguably the most impactful year for every print publication across the country.
“It was a really destabilizing time,” Zielinski recalls. “Suddenly I was learning about what it means to do advertising and we had no advertising. We were all burnt out and grieving the Mercury as a print product. We didn’t have an office. It was hard to be at a place that was often unserious during really serious times.”
She remembers doodling an illustration of a toilet paper roll unspooled–an homage to the struggles of the moment. The Mercury transformed the doodle into a T-shirt graphic and sold “TP tees” for $25 in 2020.
Three months into the COVID-era lockdown of 2020 came the murder of George Floyd and the widespread racial justice protests that ensued. In Portland, protests became the city’s hallmark.
“So much of the years leading up to the pandemic was just being out in chaotic protest zones, but it was such a different protest than we have now,” Zielinski said. “Mostly they were focusing their rage at each other,” she says of antifa and Patriot Prayer. “When the George Floyd protests happened, it was people versus the police.”
“First thing the next morning, after police released details about the suspect, Jeremy Christian, the Mercury’s Doug Brown instantly recognized Christian from a past protest event he’d covered,” VanderHart recalled. “He was able to put together a post showing Christian throwing Nazi salutes, wielding a bat, and being chased away by event organizers. The story gave additional, horrifying context to the crime at a time when the city was reeling.”
“We tried to be indispensable in terms of City Hall coverage,” VanderHart said, but at the same time, “the Mercury has always been partly about doing dumb shit.”
A recurring segment called “Worst. Night. Ever.” saw staffers forced into awful antics, like a Zach’s Shack hot dog-eating contest VanderHart still regrets. A former music editor was sent to a nudist “Ecstatic Dance party.”
“For the 2015 ‘Weed Issue’ [the Mercury] recruited people for a ‘dabcathalon,’ wherein participants would take 10 mind-shatteringly powerful THC dabs
That year was more than just inhaling tear gas at protests downtown. In October 2020, the Mercury published a story detailing multiple allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of E.D. Mondainé, a prominent local pastor and then-president of the Portland NAACP.
“It was such a tricky time,” Zielinski recalls. “ED Mondainé had just written op-ed in the Washington Post . It was a moment, and it was like, ‘oh, this hero from Portland.’ [But at the same time] there were people telling me their worst stories… who were really scared of this guy with a lot of influence and power.” Mondainé denied the allegations, chalking them up to “cancel culture,” but soon after the story ran, he resigned from the local NAACP chapter.
“It was one of those things that was like, ‘I can’t say no to this story, even if the dynamics aren’t perfect,’” Zielinski said. ` Due to staffing turnover and transitions, the Mercury had three different news editors between 2022 and 2023, but still manages to churn out award-winning journalism on topics the paper has covered for over two decades, like LGBTQ+ rights, transportation/traffic deaths housing and homelessness, and the effects of local government’s decisions on marginalized communities.
In 2023, the Mercury reintroduced its first print issue after a long hiatus. Today, the Mercury publishes nearly a dozen issues each year and has no intention of slowing down—or taking itself too seriously. ■
JACOB CLARY
DOUG BROWN
NATALIE BEHRING / GETTY IMAGES
Occupy Portland “Bat Signal,” 2011.
Right-wing murderer, Jeremy Christian, 2017.
Joey Gibson and Haley Adams of Patriot Prayer, 2017.
Occupy PDX, 2011.
Former Mayor Vera Katz, 2001.
A retrospective of the Mercury articles that (maybe?) should’ve never seen the light of day.
BY BEN COLEMAN
he first issue of the Portland Mercury debuted in June 2000, coinciding with a rare alignment of six planets and the introduction of the Nokia brick phone. No, it wasn’t founded in the ‘90s. Yes, that does mean “Oops!... I Did It Again” is almost old enough to rent a car. Condolences on your impending colonoscopy, high school reunion, and/or quarter-life crisis. In those halcyon days of print media and dial-up internet, a scrappy upstart alternative weekly might be expected to engage in what some might call “gonzo journalism” and others “technically crimes.”
“I never felt like things were just gratuitous.” former managing editor Phil Busse says, “It was always coming from a place of curiosity, experimentation, and P.T. Barnum showmanship.” But there’s a but: “There wasn’t always the foresight that someday I’d be 55 and have to have a serious career, and there are photographs of me in women’s underwear holding a nail gun.”
“It shouldn’t be so easy to bury someone alive,” adds Zac Pennington, one of the Mercury’s former music editors.
And these aren’t even the dumbest stunts the Mercury pulled. With a history that now spans the entire 21st century (with a lot of slow news days in between), there were plenty of opportunities for weekly misadventures in the name of local journalism. In honor of the paper’s quadri-
centennial, here is a comprehensive time line of the Twentysomething Gray Lady’s more colorful episodes.
JULY, 2
The First (of Several) Mercury Reporters Gets Arrested
“AFTER MY SIXTH HOUR IN JAIL, the euphoria of freight train riding wore off.”
—Katia Dunn
Not two months in print and the Mercury earned its first employee an arrest record, and for a crime that hasn’t been top of mind for most people since the 1930s. The assignment was a deep dive on modern trainhopping, which included an illicit one-way ride from a Portland railyard to the West Coast National Hobo Convention in Dunsmire, California.
The reporter and her mysterious guide, “Rider X,” got nabbed by the bulls just south of the Oregon border and spent the night in lockup. Was it a good idea to send a reporter 350 miles on the back of
a grain car, without a ticket, in the company of a mysterious guide named “Rider X”? No, this
trying to make a name for herself in the cutthroat world of journalism—so who am I to deny her the success she so desperately sought? Besides, can we all just acknowledge that I was the true victim in this story? I had to bail her out of jail AND give her $75 for the bus ride home! And for what? Now that you mention it… are you sure this wasn’t in the Willamette Week?
MARCH, 2004:
Three Words: Gang Bang Review
“Last week, when I was at the gang bang...” —Katie Shimer
This is the first of what would be several exposés on Portland’s remarkably resilient sex club scene. The Mercury staffer in question sojourned to “Gang Bang Night” at the Ace of Hearts, a sex club on SE César Chávez in a space that would subsequently become a different sex club, before moving downtown to a space that would then become sex club. The rundown
free buffet?”) and the relatable, if extremely 2004, observation that, “the last thing I need is some pre-cum rubbing off on my favorite pair of Gap low-rise, boot cut stretches.” Like a lot of sex club coverage, the resulting article is predictably titillating, strangely pedestrian, and almost certainly a major HR violation in any other workplace.
WSH Responds: Ha-ha! Nice try! The Mercury doesn’t even HAVE an HR department! But, ummm… yeah. Different time.
APRIL, 2004:
A Mercury Reporter Arranges Her Own Kidnapping
“The scariest part was when I started to run out of air.”—Madam X
Perhaps the paper’s most notorious episode (and that’s saying something), in the spring of 2004 one of the Merc ’s cub reporters arranged her own kidnapping via Craigslist. The response was… polarizing. There were blog posts, death threats, a movie deal, and this was back when there was a Letters to the Editor section, so just try to
on page 14
As it turned out, burying our music editor alive wasn’t the best idea.
Katia Dunn: Fugitive reporter. Continued
Klamath Falls P.D. 39-0956
CHRIS RYAN
UPCOMING FEATURED
DIVA DRAG BRUNCH: PORTLAND SUNDAYS | SWAN DIVE PORTLAND, OR
SHIBARI 101: ROPE FOR EVERYONE
8/9 | PORTLAND SHIBARI SALON PORTLAND, OR ALI SULTAN
8/16 | THE SIREN THEATER PORTLAND, OR
LIZ BLANC + RICCI ARMANI 9/6 | THE SIREN THEATER PORTLAND, OR LIVE WIRE WITH LUKE BURBANK FALL 2025 SEASON
9/18 - 12/11 | ALBERTA ROSE THEATRE PORTLAND, OR
OPEN SKATE FOR ALL 8/5 AND 8/26 | THE MADHOUSE SALEM, OR THE UNDERGROUND: CYBERPUNK 2025
8/16 | JAJA PDX PORTLAND, OR
KIRAN DEOL
8/30 | THE SIREN THEATER PORTLAND, OR
CIDER SUMMIT SEATTLE 2025 9/12 | SLU DISCOVERY CENTER LAWN SEATTLE, WA
TELLTALE PRESENTS: EXIST TO RESIST FEST
9/27 | TWILIGHT BAR AND CAFE PORTLAND, OR
Continued from page 13
imagine what was going on in there. “I was pretty new at the Mercury ,” says Madam X, a former Mercury staff writer who requested a pseudonym so that her Craigslist kidnapping exposé wouldn’t return to haunt her Google results. “I was basically feeling a lot of pressure from Steve to come up with a feature idea. He was really putting the screws to me. I was like ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, I need an idea.’” She says “getting herself kidnapped” didn’t exactly come out of nowhere, though: “I was a literature major and I liked horror. I wound up reading a lot of the Marquis de Sade. [His] writing and philosophy was all about the attraction to risk, to things that are ‘other.’ Death, sex, blood, shit, whatever, why are we fascinated and drawn to things like that?” Why indeed?
Madam X notes that, at the time, there was a “ kidnapping for hire” service operating out of New York, and a number of experimental theater and art projects that blurred the lines of consent and forced confinement. If that was the case elsewhere, then certainly there must be someone local with an interest in kidnapping play? A friend of hers mentioned an odd online ad they’d seen recently and, “sure enough, I found a guy on Craigslist who was looking for somebody to kidnap.”
The kidnapping itself, she says, was a bit of a letdown. “It was ridiculously overbuilt, I felt, in terms of security. We practically had this guy’s DNA. I felt like it was a little bit tame,” Madam X says, “Like, I actually wanted to be scared, and I didn’t really feel scared because it was all so manufactured, and I knew about all of the safety protocols [the Mercury had set up].”
It did involve getting blindfolded, gagged, zipped into a sleeping bag, and shoved into the trunk of a car. Which Madam X wasn’t overly impressed with: “Wasn’t necessary,” she says, “I don’t have that great of a sense of direction anyway.”
Stockholm syndrome didn’t exactly kick in either: “He was definitely interested in fooling around, and I was, like, very clearly not. And he was very respectful of that. So we ended up drinking absinthe, and he took some photos that ran with the article.”
Would she do it again? Yes and no. “I had
a real strong ‘no regrets’ philosophy of life,” she says. “People had a snap reaction to it or whatever, [and] I get it. And yes, that hurt my feelings, but I’m fine.” The risks and rewards of this particular escapade didn’t play out as expected, but that’s not always a bad thing. “I just want to allow it. Like, I don’t regret it. I wouldn’t do it again, but I’m glad that I did when I did.”
WSH Responds: I’m sorry… am I supposed to defend myself here? Okay, fine… ummm… it was a different time. And besides, I figured she would pitch “The Five Filthiest Bathrooms in Portland,” or something like that… not getting fucking KIDNAPPED! But again, I’m a person who believes in the autonomy of women—so who am I to say no? Anyway, I did the right thing—following a legal threat from her mother—and made the experience as safe as possible, up to and including bribing a DMV employee to give me the kidnapper’s address in case we needed to collect the body later. And though she now doesn’t seem to appreciate it at all, YOU ARE WELCOME.
MAY, 2004:
Phil Busse Runs for Mayor “If you decide to vote for someone other than Phil Busse, I’ll understand.”—Phil Busse
A big part of any local paper is to keep a finger on the pulse of local politics, and nothing gets that pulse pumping like a mayoral election. It’s less common, outside of Citizen Kane anyway, to run your managing editor as one of the candidates. But such was the political landscape in 2004 that, not only did the Mercury ’s Phil Busse run, he actually came in third. “There was a certain level of frustration,” Busse says in retrospect. “Mayor Vera Katz was [finishing] her third term, and I thought she really ignored issues that Mercury readers cared about.” Katz declined to run for a fourth, and in the absence of a strong incumbent, 26 candidates from the entire spectrum of Portland weirdness threw their proverbial hats in the ring. “There was the naked guy who was on cable TV,” Busse recalls, “he ended up eighth and died before the election. There was a clown. A literal clown.”
The mysterious “Madam X,” post-kidnapping.
MERCURY
Busse says he didn’t initially harbor dreams of mayoral conquest. “It started, kind of, as a lark,” he says. “I wrote a column. It was called ‘The People’s Bitch.’ [I have absolutely no memory of this—but to be honest I didn’t read everything we printed.— WSH] ‘I will do what you want. Tell me what you want.’ And then some readers contacted me and said, ‘Hey, you should be serious about [running for mayor].”
Access to a media platform and the absence, of a strong incumbent led to some genuine contemplation. “I have a law degree, you know? I do understand local politics,” Busse says, “So six months before the election we took a four-day retreat to the coast and sat there with our laptops and researched and thought about issues that matter.” [“We”?? Who’s this “WE”?? I don’t do anything at the beach except stuff my face with salt water taffy.—WSH] Busse says police accountability, Iraq War-era protests, and environmental issues were all top of mind. That led to a 100-page policy platform “and a little bit” of fundraising.
His campaign, in true Mercury fashion, was aggressively quirky: “I had a person dressed in a penguin outfit who would follow about 10 feet behind me and hand out campaign literature. But I would never acknowledge them,” Busse notes with genuine fondness.
In the end, it wasn’t quite enough. Busse only got 9,870 votes out of the 133,804 cast, though that did technically place him third. Busse’s takeaway from the episode is simple: “I think everybody should run for office once,” he says, “there’s something just wonderful about learning about how much people care about their city.”
Would he do it again with the benefit of hindsight? “At age 35, yeah, I would again.”
Was this one a bad idea? Well, bad in the sense that it didn’t result in an electoral victory. But democracy marches on (for now).
WSH Responds: I honestly have no memory of this. But, sure… whatever… it was a different time.
JULY, 2004:
The Drowning Issue
“Don’t feel like experiencing drowning firsthand? Good call.”—Erik Henriksen Special Mercury editions aren’t anything new, and in the past the paper has themed coverage around popular subjects like local landmarks (“The Best of Enchanted
Forest”) and babies (“The Baby Issue”). Somehow “the concept of drowning” made it onto this list of hot button issues, which in retrospect seems like a questionable assessment of audience sensibilities, then or now. Readers were baffled and advertisers were furious, presumably because none of them sold life jackets. It’s a bad idea to go swimming after a meal… this idea was even worse.
WSH Responds: OMIGOD, what’s with all the negativity? Look, no other news source in America would dare tackle the subject of drowning (those COWARDS). And while it may have been a different time, I still regard “The Drowning Issue” as the greatest—and most successful—editorial decision of my career. If you don’t count “The Benicio del Toro Issue.”
OCTOBER, 2005:
The Mercury Buries its Music Editor Alive “I hummed the Smiths’ ‘I Know It’s Over’ as the dirt collapsed percussively all around me.”—Zac Pennington In the second season of Mythbusters , the team buried co-host Jamie Hyneman alive in a steel coffin. Despite the impressive engineering involved and medics on standby, everyone more or less agreed that particular experiment was one of the less good ideas on the show. In 2005, the Mercury ’s Zac Pennington decided to basically do the same thing with a plywood coffin and a backhoe “someone had.”
“I was about to turn 25 at the time,” Pennington notes ruefully. “Now, being so much older, it feels very silly—but
Continued on page 16
MODEL: JESSE KAMINASH; PHOTO: JESSE CHAMPLIN
COVER DESIGN: JEN DAVISON WICK
COVER ARTIST: RICK ALTERGOTT
I wanted to celebrate my birthday by burying my youth.” Once he pitched the idea, he says it came together remarkably quickly. “There was another Zach, who worked for the Mercury , who built the coffin, which was apparently very easy for him to do.”
They also had the foresight to drill a hole for a PVC air pipe, though they neglected to account for the fact that carbon dioxide
sinks. “It wasn’t until an absence of oxygen set in that it started to really dawn on me that it was a bad idea,” Pennington remembers. Until the oxygen deprivation hit, he says he wasn’t all that concerned. “I have a tendency to push towards bad ideas, I think,” he says. “Also, the fact that, like, there were so many people there made it feel like there was something safe about it. Which should not have been the case. [No one] was in a position to help me. They were all weak newspaper journalists, not
the kind of people you want to be there in a life and death situation.”
Did he learn anything from the ordeal? Not really, no. “I learned nothing from the experience. [It’s] pretty indicative of most of my experiences at the Mercury. I learned nothing at all. I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t do it again, uh, but I also can’t say that I came away a better person for it.”
WSH Responds: Okay, fine… mistakes were made. [There’s a short pause in the interview where Humphrey consults with
the company’s team of lawyers.—Ben] Absolutely no mistakes were made. As we can all see, because of all the extraordinary precautions the Mercury undertook, Zac emerged SAFELY from his coffin and went on to… have some sort of career. The chance of him actually DYING was like… I don’t know… maybe one-in-25, and you cannot get much safer than that. [Humphrey pauses to consult with his legal team again.—Ben] Oh! Also it was a different time.
DECEMBER, 2005:
The Mercury Auctions Off Employees
“The one thing you absolutely will receive is FUN”—Auction Listing
The Mercury ran an annual charity auction from 2005 to 2011, which sounds like the sort of thing that shouldn’t be on a bad ideas retrospective. And yet, and yet. Along with yoga classes and tickets to the HUMP! pornographic film festival, the paper regularly offered up dates with employees in exchange for sweet, sweet charity. In a
“[NO one] was in a position to help me. They were all weak newspaper journalists, not the kind of people you want TO be there in a life and death situation.”
Zac Pennington
vaguely egalitarian move, dates were available for both “The Mercury Girls” and “The Mercury Boys” so, setting aside the blatant enby erasure, there’s that.
Current Mercury comptroller Katie Lake recalls that “dressing up with the gal-pals, [and] ordering one too many cocktails” was a “damn good time”—but also remembers that things didn’t always go as planned: “One year, our drunk date ended the night by pissing in the hallway of [former goth dance club] Noir. Deepest apologies, Noir.”
Is it a good idea for a newspaper to sell, rent, or lease its employees, even for a good cause? No, no it is not.
WSH Responds: What else was I supposed to auction, the printing presses? We needed those. And anyway, it was a different time. [Humphrey seems increasingly more uncomfortable with this line of questioning.—Ben].
JULY, 2015
:
The Mercury Gives Drugs Away for Free “Now that it’s legal, weed is cool!”: Nice try, narc. —Francine Colman-Gutierrez It seems like a distant memory, but Oregon only legalized weed a scant decade ago, and in response, the Mercury was very normal about it . And if weed was legal, why not give away enormous amounts of it? Two days after legalization? Right
“The Mercury girls” were auctioned off for charity on at least two occasions—which
Mercury editor Wm. Steven Humphrey unrealistically feigning concern over the live burial of an employee.
MERCURY STAFF
CHRIS RYAN
Pot columnist Josh Jardine holding a huuuuge bag of dope, prior to the controversial “Weed the People” event.
before the 4th of July? The holiday known for fireworks-related injuries? And on a day where temperatures hit 96 degrees? And so “Weed the People” was born. The paper dispensed the devil’s lettuce to an estimated 2,000 randos, resulting in at least two people passing out from the heat and an unknown number of Doritos consumed. “At one point, I had 30 pounds of weed in my front room,” says Joshua Jardine Taylor, the Mercury’s former weed dealer/ correspondent. He estimates they gave away over 50 pounds in total. Good vibes, bad idea.
WSH Responds: Wait, wait, wait… we gave away WEED? For FREE?? That’s like the best idea ever! But, did we get in trouble for it? Uhhh… if so, different time! [Humphrey begins not so stealthily moving toward the door.—Ben]
MAY, 2025:
Wm. Steven Humphrey Commissions This Article, Thereby Reminding Everyone of All These Things
WSH Responds: Oh, crap. Different time! [Humphrey peels out of the parking lot in a car that does not appear to be his.—Ben]
JULY, 2025:
Now that he’s gone, seriously, what was really going on back then?
“Everybody was allowed to do their thing, to fly their own freak,” Busse recalls. In
the early 2000s, before Twitter launched and Vice pivoted to video, a lot of what’s now considered new media hadn’t quite solidified yet. For Madam X it mostly came down to getting something interesting on the page: “I feel like what people maybe don’t remember is that, in the early days of the Mercury , there wasn’t always that much shit happening in town.” Sometimes, she recalls, that meant becoming the story rather than just reporting on it: “People’s standards of entertainment have changed, but it was fun for us to do. And I know people in the city were actually reading it, because we had a very active dialogue with our readership.” Pennington says that was the vibe for him too: “There was just something in the air, you know? You’re young and dumb, and you want to do something stupid, and [the Mercury ] is going to facilitate that stupid thing and capitalize on it.”
And so, drinking issues, sex club forays, and the occasional kidnapping were all in the service of making sure there was an attention-grabbing cover story each and every week. Even if things didn’t always go as planned (see above), it’s in keeping with the grand tradition of alt-weeklies going where more established papers wouldn’t, even if that’s because more established papers correctly assessed how stupid it’d be. And while the Mercury isn’t quite so young as it used to be, there will always be plenty of new opportunities for dumb. ■
UNLOCK A BIKETOWN
PHOTO COURTESY JOSH JARDINE; COVER DESIGN BY KATHLEEN MARIE BARNETT
Art for Art’s Sake
Our favorite Mercury covers from the past 25 years.
BY WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
I’m guessing the Mercury has published roughly 1000-plus issues since our debut in 2000, and unlike the vast majority of print publications, we feature cover art that rarely has much (if anything) to do with the contents of that particular issue. And no, we don’t do it to confuse you! There is so much gorgeous, powerful, controversial, and occasionally hilarious art being made that
doesn’t get the platform it deserves, which is why for 25 years the Mercury has been featuring the work of local, Pacific Northwest, and national artists on our front page. What follows are just a few of our favorite Mercury covers (SO HARD TO CHOOSE!!) from the past quarter century—and you can find even more in the online version of this story at portlandmercury.com! Enjoy!
The Mercury’s very first cover. Martin Ontiveros, June 1, 2000.
Following the 9/11 attacks on NYC’s World Trade Center. Sean Tejaratchi, September 13, 2001.
In April, 2003, Iraqi civilians and American military toppled a statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, inspiring this parody (which too many people surprisingly believed). Burk Jackson & Jen Wick, April 17, 2003.
A perfect representation of the human condition at 3 am. Angela
An entire issue devoted to Spider-Man. Jeremy Eaton, May 2, 2002.
A gorgeous cover which also advertises the chance to “Win a Video iPod.” Michael Brown, July 7, 2006.
Cash, August 10, 2006.
Our 2008 “Halloween Dress-up Issue” which earned us a very nice “cease & desist” order from the real National Geographic. Mark Searcy, October 30, 2008.
Rest in
A dynamic duo. Ron English,September 7, 2006.
So many “Queer Issues”... this was one of the best. Ray Gordon, June 4, 2009.
peace, Queen. Ana Benaroya, February 25, 2010.
Bitch, please. Getty Images, March 29, 2012.
The gorgeous Maarquii, as photographed by Aaron Lee. June 6, 2019.
A Mercury reader actually got our logo tattooed on his back. ACTUALLY!!
Photo: Liz Devine, Tattoo: Michael A. Freeman/Oddball Tattoo Studio, February 3, 2011.
The Mercury documents the brunch revolution. David Reamer, June 28, 2012.
That time when everything changed. Kathleen Marie, January 18, 2017.
Mercury readers were given prompts and crowd-sourced this one-of-a-kind cover. Mercury readers, Andrew Zubko, April 15, 2010.
INSIDE THE ORIGINAL MERCURY… CIRCA THE LATE 1800s
The Lurid History of the “Unspeakably Offensive” Sunday Mercury.
By Joe Streckert, Illustrations By Noah Van Sciver
Little known fact: The Portland Mercury takes its name from one of the most notorious weeklies from the dawn of Oregon history. During the latter half of the 1800s, the Sunday Mercury was widely known and beloved for its devotion to scandal and sensationalism. In 1893, the apparently jealous Oregonian went as far to call it “a particularly disagreeable enemy of public order,” a tradition the present-day Mercury is proud to carry forward.
The late 1800s was the Wild West for Oregon journalism. It was also literally the Wild West for everything else.
In the 1800s you didn’t need a huge investment to start a newspaper. “Papers did not have a high barrier of entry,” says Randy Stapilus, a writer for the Oregon Capital Chronicle and co-author of New Editions: The Northwest’s Newspapers As They Were, Are, and Will Be. “Early on the cost of setting up a paper basically equated to the cost of a printing press, which was not a large item at the time.”
With the low cost of setting up publications, the relatively new state of Oregon was swarming with daily and weekly newspapers.
“There were a lot more of them [than today],” says Stapilus. “Even very small communities would have two, or even three newspapers.” This included immigrant communities. According to Richard Engeman, a retired archivist and author of The Oregon Companion: An Historical Gazetteer of the Useful, the Curious, and the Arcane, Oregon in the 1800s had newspapers in many languages, including German, Swedish, and Chinese.
Engeman is quick to note that this diversity of publications isn’t reflected in what’s been preserved. “Much of that has not survived. We have a full microfilm and digitized record of the Oregonian,” he says, “but that wasn’t the only newspaper people were looking at.”
These publications tended to be openly partisan.
“There were many cases where political parties, or business people aligned with these parties, would underwrite newspapers,” says Stapilus. Engeman also notes that most newspapers were political to an extent that exceeds almost all modern media, and emphasizes that there was not even the pretence of objectivity.
One of the papers was called The Sunday Mercury , and it was a delightfully trashy rag with a bad reputation—one that would eventually send their editor and publisher to jail.
Violent barbers, nudity, and getting eaten by sharks.
The Sunday Mercury first started in Salem in 1869 as a weekly newspaper. According to amateur historian and blogger Dan Hackenow, it was strongly affiliated with the Oregon Democratic party.
Unlike today, Democrats at the time were in favor of segregation and generally aligned with the old Confederacy. They also tended to oppose the capital and industrial interests that Republicans
favored. According to amateur historian and blogger Dan Hackenow, the Mercury was supported by Democratic interests who wanted a paper that would work contrary to Republican-aligned publications like the Oregonian , which supported establishment members of the GOP, and the Bulletin , which was aligned with Radical Republicans—who confusingly are more aligned with the progressives of today.
The Mercury might have started as a Democratic mouthpiece, but its day-to-day reporting was all about sensationalism, lurid stories, gossip, and—frankly—some really weird shit. This is just a small sample of their typical reporting:
“Mrs. Gourly of Albany put strychnine in dough and left the stuff where rats could help themselves. Her little son, Sammy, played rat and came very near dying.”
“In passing up Ninth Street near B the other evening a Mercury reporter and several other gentlemen glanced up at a chamber window…. In the room within stood a woman in perfect nudity.”
BREAKING NEWS HEADLINE: “ A Steamboat to Run 25 Miles Per Hour!”
“A Newport man captured a sea serpent last week and has put it alive in a glass jar. It falls far short of the descriptions usually given to the mysterious animal.”
(Editor’s note: It was most likely an eel.)
“A young man... is serving a sentence of 250 days in the county jail for exposing an obscene picture.”
“Townsend, the Ashland barber, who chewed a Frenchman’s nose, is under $400 bonds. The Frenchman is recuperating at the hospital.”
“Van Tassell the balloonist… dropped from his balloon with his parachute at Honolulu, alighting in the ocean. He was eaten by sharks.”
All of this, plus daily updates on gossip and goings-on—or, as the Mercury put it, “News of a Busy People.” It seems like just about every affair, argument, infidelity, or instance of a shitty husband pawning his wife’s clothes to buy gin, ended up in the Mercury
Dirty laundry and gossip wasn’t just limited to ordinary citizens. According to Hackenow, the Mercury also started publishing a serialized satire of a local wealthy industrialist called “The Life of Ben Holladay,” which lampooned the robber baron and put his various personal peccadillos on display for all to see. The Merc of the day never finished the series, however. Hackenow speculates it was because Holladay paid off Eugene Semple, the then-editor, to stop the column in its tracks—or that’s the rumor anyway.
Libel, raids, and obscenity. The problem with being a trashy, lurid, paper that airs everyone’s dirty laundry is that sometimes you piss off the wrong people, and it gets you convicted of libel.
In 1893 the Mercury ran a racy story about prominent attorney C.E.S. Wood, which Wood alleged was libelous. He sued the paper, and the legal battle went all the way to the Oregon Supreme Court. The court found in favor of Wood. The
Cops raided the Mercury’s office later that same year. The district attorney at the time said he found several obscene articles, including one called “Under the Teacups” that ran afoul of Oregon law. Police attempted to keep the offending publication away from the public.
Mercury’s management was sentenced to a year in jail and the publication was turned over to a receiver who promised to “make a decent paper of it.” He did not.
According to George Turnbull’s 1939 book, History of Oregon Newspapers, cops raided the Mercury’s office later that same year. The district attorney at the time said he found several obscene articles, including one called “Under the Teacups” that ran afoul of Oregon law. Police attempted to keep the offending publication away from the public. But, Turnbull writes: “Three newsboys managed to get through the police with nearly 100 papers, which they sold at 75 cents to $1 a copy.”
Once again the Mercury ’s management was thrown in jail—and according to research conducted by the current Mercury ’s editor, this time they were joined in the hoosegow by the circulation manager, the pressmen, and all 56 of the aforementioned newsboys.
The Oregonian crowed at the time at the Mercury ’s legal entanglements. A November 1893 editorial called the paper “a particularly disagreeable enemy of public order” and “insidiously demoralising as well as unspeakably offensive. It
is not probable that the Mercury will ever resume publication.”
But? The Oregonian was proven wrong. The Mercury limped along in one form or another into the twentieth century until it gradually faded away. Until….
New Century, New Mercury
Obviously, the Mercury still exists. It sprang back to life 25 years ago, lurching from its coffin at the start of the millennium and—carrying on the name and “take no prisoners” style of its predecessor—ready to once again spit trash and obscenity at Portland… but with a few changes.
Is the Mercury still blatantly political? Obviously. But this time around it’s because they’re actually principled, as opposed to being underwritten by old-timey Democrats.
Do they still air everyone’s dirty laundry? My dears, there’s literally a column called The Trash Report
Do they tell you where to view “perfect nudity?” Absolutely: At the HUMP pornographic film festival! But that now includes people of all genders, and is 100 percent less weird than creeping on naked ladies in windows.
Will they still report on sea serpents and balloonists getting eaten by sharks? Of course! The Mercury is your number one, and most reliable, source for oceanic peril here in the Great Pacific Northwest.
And if any local rich guys want to pay them off so they won’t write mean things about them…well, have you ever read the Mercury? It’s not the 1800s anymore, and there are some things money just can’t buy. ■
For the last quarter century, the Mercury has produced an untold number of “rhymetitled” columns for reasons that continue to baffle their readership (or conversely, anyone with a brain). Here, from January 30, 2020 is perhaps the most embarrassing example. Frank Cassano
NEW COLUMN!
TIP HER A FIVER!
BY ADAM DRIVER
If you’re anything like me—Adam Driver, two-time Academy Award nominee, NBD— you’d be�ter know how to tip!
Funny story: Just a�ter I finished Girls (for which I received three consecutive Emmy nominations, NBD), I accepted a groundbreaking role in BlacKKKlansman. (Did I mention I got Oscar and Golden Globe noms for that? In any case, NBD.)
We filmed in Colorado Springs and stayed at the Garden of the Gods Resort & Club (a four-star hotel as determined by Yelp, NBD), and director Spike Lee (who won the Grand Prix at Cannes, NBD) wondered aloud how much he should tip the hotel concierge for not only picking up and delivering his dry cleaning, but going back to the cleaners and demanding starch in his collars.
“Common courtesy dictates tipping at least $20 for one trip to the cleaners,” Spike noted, “but two trips? I’m thinking $50–75.”
“Or you could tell him you’re Adam Driver,” I told him, “and tip him a fiver!”
He thought that was funny. I’m not sure why. I’m Adam Driver, and I tip everyone a fiver.
In fact, I once told an Uber driver to wait for me outside the Hollywood mansion of Joaquin Phoenix (who just won the Screen Actors Guild Best Actor award for Joker, NBD) so I could quickly drop o�f a basket of bloody thorns— which I commissioned from conceptual artist Yayoi Kusama, at a cost of $1.2 million, NBD— and ended up making the driver wait 17 hours. (We were doing some stu�f.) Long story short, I apologized profusely, and said, “For being so patient, I’d like to tip you $500... but I can’t. I’m Adam Driver, so here’s a fiver.”
Here’s my point: It’s easy to overthink gratuities! So the next time you’re wondering, “How much should I tip my Christmas tree stylist or co�fee enema barista?” Don’t deprive her! Tip her a fiver. My name’s Adam Driver.
A look back at the Mercury’s most unsuccessful “New Columns.”
By Frank Cassano
Hello, fuck-faces. My name is Frank Cassano—former author of “The Imbecile Parade,” the only truly successful column this shit-rag of a newspaper has ever produced. For the Mercury’s undeserved 25th anniversary, the drug-addled editors of this embarrassing failure of a publication asked me to round up the very best of their “New Columns”—which, as longtime readers already know, routinely flopped on a weekly basis. While I clearly informed these blithering dullards that searching for even ONE
successful Mercury column (other than my own, of course) would be like trying to locate a turd within a mountain of turds, they were unsurprisingly, and idiotically insistent. And so, here are just a few—out of literal thousands—of ridiculously embarrassing attempts at “New Columns” that at best withered on the vine, and at worst would make a syphilitic donkey vomit up his soup. I would say “enjoy,” but you won’t. Also, fuck you.
Frank Cassano
AFnd you thought Savage Love was a mind-numblingly stupid toilet of “expert advice”? Once again the imbecilic Mercury tops itself with this abysmally and oh-so-deeply moronic column from February 14, 2019. Frank Cassano
or years these repeated (and increasingly moronic) “New Columns” have left Portlanders slack-jawed and dumbfounded by the pure idiocy and sheer uselessness of their unnecessary existence. But then? Occasionally, even from the deepest pile of shit, emerges a speck of gold. Meet Francine Colman-Gutierrez—the only Mercury columnist to ever receive the “Frank Cassano barely noticeable nod of near-approval.” From August 1, 2019. Frank Cassano
In May 2013, a bunch of dirt-foot hippies spent all their dope money on a campaign to stop Portland from fluoridating its water. They were successful… and the result?
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is now the Health Secretary of the United States. Hope you’re happy, you anti-science dipshits (and put on some deodorant). Frank Cassano
To say that Mercury editors are a bunch of asthmatic, bespectacled, buck-toothed nerd children is a deep insult to nerds, children, as well as the fakers who claim they have asthma. Proof in point, behold this column (which unbelievably and unfairly ran for nearly as many years as my own) from May 13, 2015. Frank Cassano
In 2020, scientists stunned the world by mapping the human genome. And on February 7, 2020, the Mercury published their newest “New Column”—perhaps the only thing worse than COVID-19. Frank Cassano
And finally… from April 25, 2002, the only Mercury column—or anything the Mercury has ever or will ever produce—worth the diarrhea-stained toilet paper it was written on. Have a “blessed” day, you drippy-dick bunch of slack-jawed IMBECILES. Frank Cassano
FRANK CASSANO’S
NEW COLUMN!
“Should Colin Powell continue to engage in peace talks with Yasser Arafat?”
Absolutely not. It’s a waste of time and as it says in the bible, “It does no good to charm a snake after it has bitten you.” Ecclesiastes 11:11.
“Is ‘Wade’ a good name for a cat?”
Noooooo! Ha! Ha! That’s not a good name! I’ve got a kitty and her name is Tum-Tum!
Ooooooh! Look, everybody! The imbecile quoted from the bible! I guess that must make you right, huh? As if quoting some dusty sentence from a prehistoric book dreamed up by bipolar zealots means you win the argument. Face facts, IMBECILE! Nobody believes in the bible anymore!! God, what a dumbshit.
Oh… I see. And just because you’re seven, you think you can go through life being a fucking imbecile? MY cat’s name is “Wade,” stupid. And if i had a kid who was idiotic enough to name her cat “Tum-Tum,” I’d probably blow my brains out or drink myself to death.
“Are you a believer in vegetarianism?”
Look, asshole. I’ve read your stupid column. And no matter what I say, you’re just going to call me an “imbecile.” So why don’t you go fuck yourself?
What?? Now, see here! You can’t tell me... this is MY column! And if anyone is going to fuck himself, it’s YOU!! So why don’t you go and do that? Go fuck YOURself because my column isn’t stupid! It’s great! And you... you foul-mouthed crackhead, are an IMBECILE!!!
Michael MacNeal, 37, Real Estate Agent, Southeast Portland
Jenny Harcourt, 7, student, Northwest Portland
Danny Gunther, 24, bike messenger, North Portland
Frank Cassano
Frank Cassano
Frank Cassano
The Best of the Worst of I, Anonymous
Twenty-five years of your anonymous rants, confessions, and chaos.
BY ANONYMOUS
[For 25 loooong years, the Portland Mercury has published your most bizarre rants and intimate confessions (anonymously!) in print and online under the banner of “I, Anonymous.” Though it’s like flypaper for the most terrible, petty people on the planet, this long-running, casually disgusting column also exhibits the occasional flash of humanity. That’s why we’ve chosen to share our picks for the most insane, hilarious, filthy, and heartfelt I, Anonymous postings of all time—and remember: If these people weren’t blowing off steam here they’d be blowing it in your face. (Got a rant or confession? Drop it off in the I, Anonymous Blog at portlandmercury. com —where both souls and bottoms are bared.)—Eds.]
The Rules of Life
Rule 1: Always use your turn signal. Rule 2: DON’T EVER USE MY FUCKING TOOTHBRUSH! Why? Because it’s MY fucking toothbrush! Just because I brush my teeth in the shower, it doesn’t give you the right to use it without asking. Do you think it’s fine just because we kiss? IT IS NOT THE FUCKING SAME! Sure, when we’re kissing, we’re balls deep in each other’s DNA. However, we’re not licking each other’s teeth . Using someone else’s toothbrush is exactly the same as chewing used dental floss. And that’s really fucking gross to me! Rule 3: Don’t text during movies. —Anonymous
Penis Pump Toss
To the three people who yelled, “Hey, catch!” and threw an unopened penis pump our way: My buddy and I thought it was hilarious. We were next to Sheridan’s, so you may have come from Taboo? Either way it was truly a nice gesture, dear fellows.
The following night, when my girlfriend came over I told her the story. She asked if I kept it, and where it was. It was under the bed and we tried it out. She used it on me. I don’t quite know what the fuck those things are supposed to be used for, but we had the best sex we’d had in a long time. So thanks, guys and gal! Keep throwing random shit at people!— Anonymous
Dear Japanese Tourists
Welcome to Portland. I’m honored that you’ve chosen our city as your vacation destination; however, I would like to address one little thing: Do not fucking insult us in Japanese. Some Portlanders, like myself, speak it quite fluently, and I understood all the crass shit you said about me. When you said my ass is huge, and you wanted to get lost in my crack, I understood that. When you said that I look like a cow and you wanted to drink my milk, I fucking understood that, too. You’re rude as hell and that’s why I called you out by the bus stop
near Powell’s. That look of utter shock on your face when you realized I understood you was absolutely priceless, and I could tell you were embarrassed as fuck. Good. I’m glad. So maybe don’t call me “a dumb American” ever again.—Anonymous
I Don’t Want to Hear About Your Period. Period.
We aren’t “girlfriends”—we are coworkers. While I appreciate the work you do and your generally pleasant nature, I’m a little confused as to how I warranted the discussion of your period in the short two months we’ve been working together. A simple allusion to your time of the month is fine, but saying things like, “I am leaking EVERYWHERE today!” or “After today, just a little brown spotting and then it’s done” is disgusting, and it’s especially gross when these shared tidbits come out arbitrarily. Saying “good morning” is not an invitation for you to tell everyone within earshot, “Well, not when you’ve had to change your pad three times in an hour!”
Just because we both have a uterus and a vagina does not make it appropriate. We all have anuses, but do you hear me talking about my latest case of explosive diarrhea? No, you don’t, because that’s what’s known as “unsolicited information.”— Anonymous
Confessions of a Peeper
It was the night I moved into my new studio apartment. It was a pretty sweet setup—with floor-to-ceiling windows facing
another building with floor-to-ceiling windows. As I unpacked, I looked out and spied an attractive heterosexual couple, naked, engaging in sexy activities. What’s this? Did I win the sex peeper lottery? I wasn’t getting internet installed for another week, so I figured, “why not?” I poured myself a glass of wine, sat by the window, and watched. They obviously wanted me to, right? Their shades were WIDE open. Anyway, I took a break to smoke a bowl during the BJ—because, boring—and also because the guy did that awful king-of-the-castle, hands-behind-his-head move. They continued their sexcapades occasionally. Once, they even had what looked like a light BDSM session, with a short kitty whip and blindfolds (she was whipping him , which I appreciated). But after a while, their sexcapades became less frequent. I was genuinely worried! Was their relationship okay? A few months later, they moved out. Now some boring guy who collects bonsai plants lives there. And let me tell you right now: NOT AS INTERESTING.— Anonymous
Squirrel Murder, She Wrote Dear neighbors a few houses down: From my back porch I can see both of you, putting peanuts on the road around rush hour. The squirrels get run over, you shovel them into a bucket, and then disappear. What the hell are you doing with all those dead squirrels? Taxidermy? Making potpies? Don’t get me
Continued from page 29
wrong, I’m all for it. I hate squirrels. Just curious, that’s all!—Anonymous
Sock Romance
We both work as servers in a restaurant. I have a thing for you, but you don’t even notice me. In fact, when we do work together, you’re mean and bossy (which I kinda dig). Lately we’ve been working different shifts, and I miss that, but I’ve found a way to reconnect: You leave your silky socks in your locker, which I wear in your absence. Previously I would just sniff and occasionally fuck them in the bathroom—but now I full on wear them. You wash them several times a week, so I’m careful not to mess them up. The way I see it, if we aren’t going to work together as much anymore, I need something to keep me on my toes.—Anonymous
Queen of the Bees
I’m an asshole—so be it. But do you know what it took to get where I am today? A lot of fucking ass-kissing, that’s what. I’m the boss now and apparently people don’t like it. Do I care? Not really. Listen up folks: I put in my time, I did what I had to do, I FUCKING compromised myself in more ways than one to rise to the top. So if you think I’m going to give two shits about how you feel about me, you’re fucking wrong. And yeah, okay, sometimes I’m in a pisspoor mood because of the SHIT I’ve had to go through, and I’ll take it out on your sorry ass. But you know what? There isn’t a goddamn thing you can do about it. You are the worker bee and I am the fucking queen. Get it? If you want to get anywhere in life, you need to start kissing up. And you can begin with MY ass.— Anonymous
Note to Self: Make Appointments BEFORE Their Lunch
To my gynecologist: I can handle small talk about your vacation in the Caribbean with your wife and kids. However, I DRAW THE LINE AT YOU ROARING A BURP INTO MY VAGINA, REGARDLESS IF YOU HAVE A MEDICAL MASK ON OR NOT! I laughed so hard, my vagina clenched down on the speculum, and I think it pinched my cervix.—Anonymous
A Crime Against Humanity
When you are born, you learn to cry to get attention. Then you learn to crawl so you can walk, become mobile, and eventually get a job. But the most important thing you can ever learn? NEVER FUCKING MICROWAVE FISH AT WORK!! What the hell is wrong with you??!?!?!—Anonymous
I (May Have) Impregnated My Sister My sister, whom I live with, just told me she may be pregnant. We’ve been roommates for over a year, and she’s not dating anyone. So here’s what I’m afraid of: Sometimes, after pleasuring myself, I take a dump before showering. My fear is that I might’ve left some spooge drops on the toilet and... fuck, I don’t know... maybe she could have gotten pregnant from it? I know she hasn’t dated anyone in a few months, so what else could it be? Do I tell her? How could I? If I tell her now, it will be the most fucking dis-
gusting conversation we’ve ever had! But if I wait too long, and my suspicion proves true, then it’ll be even worse! Yes, I know: This is some fucked up shit. But tell me, WHAT DO I DO?— Anonymous
Paying It Forward (and Backward)
This is for the young woman behind me in line at the grocery store. You did not know me. You did not know I was suffering from a migraine that almost put me in the hospital. You did not know my husband was let go from a 16-year job, which leaves us short on money sometimes. What you did know was that my debit card wasn’t accepted. And when I told the cashier that I’d run home to get the money, you said you’d pay for them. When I thanked you, you said someone had done the same for you. I wanted to give you a hug and tell you how grateful I was. I have tears in my eyes right now thinking of your generosity. What you did could be considered a small gesture— my grocery bill was a little over $20—but it will reverberate in my life for a very long time. Thank you.— Anonymous
use the restroom, knowing full well I was lying to you.
By the time I made it back to my place you had texted 10 times; initially with cute faux concern, followed by sincere worry, and finally disappointment. I had no idea how to respond, so I did what I do best: absolutely nothing. Is it too late to say sorry?— Anonymous
Fuck You, Wizard Hater
Fuck you. Yeah, you : the asshole who took time out of your miserable day to tell me how much you hate my wizard murals. You probably don’t have a single drop of artistic sense in your hate-mongering soul. Want to get rid of all the world’s wizard murals?
Here’s an idea: You can stick every one of them up your ass.— Anonymous
Boss Naked
I want to fuck my boss. In fact, my vibrator is called “Boss Naked.” Of course he’s married, and so am I, which is why it’s never going to happen. But when I’m going to sleep at night, I think of him slowly
Sorry for the Shitty Date
I left you at the movies in the middle of our very first date and I thought you should know why: I shit my pants.
I don’t know what I ate that wrecked my digestive system, but I wasn’t going to let it keep me from spending time with you. I was convinced it was just gas, and held it in as long as possible. When you got up to use the restroom, I wasted no time venting the pressure cooker inside my bowels. That’s when I realized, to my horror, that what I mistook for simple gas was instead a foul jet of the blackest fecal matter. It smelled like hot roadkill and sulfur, and was sticking to the inside of my pants. I panicked. Grabbing my sweater I tied it around my waist, and walked briskly toward the exit, just as you were coming back in. I mumbled something about having to
them in the garbage so no one will know. If there’s no garbage can in your bathroom, I’ll put them in a pocket until I leave your house. Like a recovering alcoholic, I can’t keep them in my home—but at your place I go into relapse mode. Thank you for keeping your Q-tip supply stocked. I really need that 30 seconds of bliss. —Anonymous
Special Delivery
Dear pizza delivery man: I’m sorry you caught me masturbating on my couch. Normally I don’t pleasure myself in the living room, but I was relishing a night alone. Agreed, it was a horribly awkward situation, but to be fair, you did arrive before the estimated delivery time. Since when do pizzas arrive early? At least it made your night more exciting. However, I do wonder one thing: It was my dog who first noticed you standing there… so why didn’t you knock or ring the doorbell?— Anonymous
Tool Justice
My truck has been broken into twice in the last week, so here’s what I did last night: I left the canopy unlocked and put in a cardboard box weighed down by a couple of bricks. I left the box slightly open and then inside, on top of the bricks, I set two rat traps. I didn’t hear anything during the night, but this morning the canopy was open, and there was blood on the bricks. The box had been ripped and one of the traps was missing. Ha! Ha! Take that, you goddamn thieves! The cops ain’t doing shit in this drug-riddled town, but I got me some justice… rat trap justice!— Anonymous
Pogo Stick It Up Your Ass
To the douchebag pogo-er of SE 35th and Morrison: You have got to be the only person in Portland over the age of 10 who owns a pogo stick and uses it on a daily basis. And you are seriously way too serious about this bullshit. Maybe if you gave the impression that you were fucking around, and maybe if this were not a habitual thing, it wouldn’t be so bad. But I can honestly say that I have never seen someone so goddamn serious about hopping around shirtless on a fucking pogo stick. What are you, almost 40? FORTY! Get a real hobby, dude. And worst of all, you wear what strongly resembles a pair of JNCO jeans—which I didn’t even know were still available for purchase.—Anonymous
touching me. In his office, I imagine him bending me over his desk and taking me from behind, hard and fast. I like my job and don’t want to get a different one, but it’s really hard to endure this torture. How do I stop thinking of my boss naked? I’m not sure how much longer “Boss Naked” will satisfy me. —Anonymous
Here’s a Tip
When I use the bathroom at your house, I snoop around in medicine cabinets and under the sink until I find what I’m looking for. I’m not looking for medication, or weird infection creams. I don’t want to take anything. I just want to feel the light scrape of a cotton-covered stick against my inner ear. I love Q-tips. I use them compulsively and have damaged my ears at least twice. After using yours I bury
Town Crier
Brad, get off the heroin! I say that on behalf of the entire block, and your girlfriend, who was screaming at you on her cell phone while sitting on her front stoop at 6:45 this morning. She’s screaming at you, Brad, and you won’t take this seriously. Brad, don’t you realize all she’s “done for you”? You’re “not even listening” to her. We’re all listening to her now, Brad. We have to listen. She’s screaming at the top of her lungs, Brad. “Why the fuck did you do it?” Why, Brad? She is “so angry right now!” She’s waking up the entire street for you, Brad, and you don’t even “get it”! She can’t believe you’re laughing! The neighborhood’s not laughing. We’re all concerned about your drug problem. We have to be. I don’t
Continued on page 33
RICKYPEE PEE
think the neighborhood can believe you would do this to her. Think about it, Brad: Your girlfriend is hot. She’s so together. If you don’t change your ways, I think the neighborhood might make a move and steal her away from you. But that’s just between you and me, and the neighborhood she woke up at 6:45 am.—Anonymous
Crime & Punishment (& Dick Size)
Yes, you saw me chasing kids down the street. And yes, I may have been a little rough when I caught ‘em. So, being the concerned neighbor you are, you called the police on me. But here’s what you DIDN’T see: These little shits kept buzzing the front door of my apartment, asking me how big my dick is, and then hanging up. And here’s something else you DIDN’T SEE: While I was waiting in handcuffs, the cops questioned those kids—and found stolen wallets, checkbooks, credit cards, and cell phones in their backpacks. That’s when the cops told me I was free to go and they were going to send these little criminals to juvie. So before congratulating yourself for rescuing some little shits from a bad man, maybe you should take a look at the police report! And just in case you’re wondering, my dick is a very normal size!— Anonymous
I tried to initiate sex again, and that’s when you dropped a bomb: You play funk bass… at a Christian church. And you’re celibate?!? WTF?!?
Smart Pork
To the young, horny couple that decided to have sex at 10 am on a weekday on the roof of the SW 4th and Taylor Smart Park: Today was my birthday, and from the tower across the street, my coworkers and I were eating cake, watching you kids do the nasty, and laughing our asses off. What, you thought we wouldn’t notice a guy holding a girl up against the wall with his dick? I guess you didn’t notice that horrified old lady in her car, because it was pure comedy when you realized you weren’t alone on the roof. And you provided the perfect ending when you ran for the stairs while trying to pull your pants up, falling flat on your face. Sincerely though, thank you for the free, live porn. It was hot, exciting, hilarious, and by far the best office birthday party ever. Anonymous
The Milk of Human Selfishness
Ewww! Stop trying to sell your “fresh” breast milk on Nextdoor! It’s nasty, weird, and at 50 cents per ounce, pretty goddamn expensive. Plus, it’s been frozen? That’s not “fresh,” you idiot! Maybe I should show up with a mini growler, and ask if you’ll take some of my “fresh” dandruff in trade!—Anonymous
Curse of the Fry Girl
Dear Christian Funk Bass Player
To the Christian funk bass player I met on Bumble: You are misrepresenting yourself! On our first date, we were making out for over an hour at the bar when I asked you to come back to my place. I figured it was obvious that I wanted to have sex. Yes, I said it—”sex.” Yet when I started unbuttoning your shirt, you became overcome by inner turmoil and called for an Uber. I should’ve been offended, but instead, I fell hard. You opened doors, had a Texas accent, and wore boots. So on our next date I tried to initiate sex again, and that’s when you dropped a bomb: You play funk bass… at a Christian church. And you’re celibate?!? WTF?!? Next time you decide to date, please do the world a favor and write “Celibate Christian Funk Bass Player” on your profile. Because Jesus hates liars.— Anonymous
That Sinking Feeling
I’ve always been a sink pisser—but only in single occupancy bathrooms, of course. There’s something about being able to whip it out, gaze at my own reflection, and take a luxurious piss in a sink. See, I hate having to contend with toilet seats. With sink pissing, you don’t really have to aim; just zip, plop, and whizz. Plus, you’re reducing waste by not flushing away gallons of water! The environment wins, I win, and YOU win. Join the sink pissing revolution!— Anonymous
You stupid wannabe witch. You didn’t think I saw you trying to put a curse on me at McDonald’s, did you? Listen, I don’t have time to wait 10 minutes while you deal with all the cars in the drive-through. I have a REAL job to get to, Esmerelda. So yeah, I complained to your manager! But instead of apologizing, you wiggled your spindly fingers at me and mumbled some sort of made-up hex under your breath. Well, you’ll be sad to know that your curse didn’t work. Because newsflash, dummy: WITCHCRAFT IS NOT REAL! Because if it were, you wouldn’t be working at McDonalds! —Anonymous
Go Get ‘Em, Gay Tiger
To the dad and son at a local coffee shop: I apologize for eavesdropping, but I was very interested in your conversation. You, overeager father, were sharing encouraging words with your teenage son, slapping him on the back, and giving that classic dad pep talk: “Go on... just walk over and say hi. You can do this! You have to put yourself out there, son. Now go! This is your chance!” I watched as the young man slowly got up, walked over to the sexy bearded cashier, and started flirting. I was awestruck. I looked back to see the dad beaming and his son doing his best to stay cool. I love living in this bubble of a city where you can witness a dad talking his son into hitting on another guy. Hats off to you, dad, and way to put yourself out there, young guy. THIS is how thi ngs should be.— Anonymous ■
Twenty-Five Years of Questionable Music Taste
New album reviews by former Mercury music editors!
BY NOLAN PARKER
Portland has gone through myriad musical peaks and valleys since the founding of the Mercury in the year of our lord, 2000. Bands, venues, festivals, labels, and record stores have come and gone in the last 25 years, though what has remained a constant is Portland’s intense DIY music spirit. It’s an energy that waxes with the likes of Aminé, Black Belt Eagle Scout, Dead Moon, Gossip, Grouper, Macintosh Plus, Michael Hurley, and the Thermals receiving acclaim outside of Portland, but wanes
Peril & Panic by The Intima
The Intima was, lowkey, Portland’s (and Olympia’s) best band of the early 2000s— all beautiful guitar whorls and percussive violin—a tight melange of post-punk chaos that encapsulated the dissonance of the post-WTO, post-9/11 Iraq War era. They were also prescient: Peril & Panic was a warning about the climate emergency to come, three years before
due to unwelcome things like Portlandia , a population boom (due in no small part to Portlandia ), skyrocketing rent, poor government stewardship, the pandemic, etc.
Thankfully for us all, the music editors at the Mercury have been there through thick and thin. I remember pouring over Ezra Ace Caraeff and Ned Lannanmann pieces when I first moved to town trying to find the best bands, the best venues… anywhere where one could see good live music and drink copious amounts of booze. Though
Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth tried to wake up the US public to the fact that fossil-fuel dependence will soon burn all living species to a crisp. This was an era in Portland in which activists were setting fire to Humvees and chaining themselves to trees; in which many in the Pacific Northwest were woken up to the
atrocities in Gaza after Olympia resident and peace activist Rachel Corrie was killed there by an IDF bulldozer; in which the best shows were in random basements and backyards and art spaces that probably weren’t up to fire code, because everyone was really focused on making music a community, not a commodity. The Intima embodied the spirit of grass -
those drinking days are over (for me), I would never take back seeing Pierced Arrows at the Know, or Scout Niblett at Valentine’s, or Guantanamo Baywatch at East End.
Thanks to all of the past Mercury music editors, a lot of us were exposed to music we’d never have heard otherwise. And because we still love them, we asked the whole gaggle if they had any interest in writing an album review for a record that dropped during their tenure. We got a few takers, here’s what they whipped up:
roots activism, DIY punk, fierce intellect, and pure rage that was animating Port land at that moment. It sounded apoca lyptic because it felt like it, too. I saw the Intima play maybe a jillion times in so many basements, totally transfixed by their intensity and beauty, but Peril & Panic sounded muddy and never really captured that feeling—until a recent remastering and reissue on PostPresent Medium , a now-crucial LA label first created in 2001 to release a 7” by the Intima. This music deserved this treat ment, each instrument clear and sham bolically precise the way I remember them—a band whose discordant guitars could have spiraled off into chaos if not for the super-tight rhythm section of bassist Themba Lewis and drummer Alex Neerman. And after two decades I can finally understand vocalist/guitarist Andrew Neerman’s lyrics? So thank you for that. “From exile / we visit / a well packaged attraction / air-conditioned detachment,” he sings as if wailing into a bleak and empty night, on “From Exile”— one of their best songs and a signature of their Y2K shows. Across the album, Nora Danielson’s warm harmonies remind us that amid the band’s tornado impulses, this is music rooted in profound humanness. Great fucking album.
Descending Shadows by Pierced Arrows I think about death a lot. My apologies, I feel like some clarification is needed here: I think about death as much as anyone else, I suppose. But being of that age where I am firmly bookended with both the endless life of a young child and caretaking for an elderly parent who I
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd (2000 - 2004)
Ezra Ace Caraeff (2007 - 2011)
The Intima’s Peril & Panic, 2003.
am slowly losing to the unforgiving grasp of dementia, the spectre of death never seems to linger too far.
Fred Cole died in 2017. If you are reading this, specifically this, you are already well aware of his legacy in Portland music. Or perhaps, you just know Dead Moon as a logo on the most omnipresent T-shirt in our town. Both are perfectly acceptable.
Fifteen years ago this paper dispatched me deep into Clackamas to sit at a kitchen table with Cole and his wife Toody, the pair behind Dead Moon (the band and the shirt) and, at the time, their offshoot Pierced Arrows. The latter of which is the criminally underrated final chapter of their longtime love affair with both punk rock, and each other. We talked about what ended up being their final album, the excellent Descending Shadows , but mostly we talked about life. And death. And they showed me the sweetest pictures of their grandkids. I expected the very bedrock of punk rock, but what I got was a gentle conversation at a kitchen table. Plus, if memory serves, there were cookies.
It’s been nearly a year since that moment, but my daughter’s Dead Moon T-shirt is still her favorite.
Last year, I took my then 9-year-old to see Waxatchee at Pioneer Courthouse Square. Toody Cole opened. Her solo shows are a rare treat in the wake of her husband’s passing, but there she was, singing songs for a crowd that seemed casually unaware of what was happening at that moment. And after Cole’s set, my daughter summoned me to the merchandise tent, where I assumed she’d want some sort of Waxatchee trinket to take home. With the firmest resolve of a child skillfully extracting souvenirs from a parent, her steadfast demand was for a T- shirt. It’s been nearly a year since that moment, but my daughter’s Dead Moon T-shirt is still her favorite. And while
she’s never screamed along to “It’s O.K.” at a sweat-soaked Satyricon show, nor is she aware of the abrasive glory within Descending Shadows, I feel like the Cole’s would approve of this moment: This bookend that we’ll all, if we’re lucky, feel some day.
Ned Lannamann (2011 - 2015)
DRRT by Lost Lander
“You can never go home,” sings Matt Sheehy during the climax of “Afraid of Summer,” a familiar warning about the dangers of revisiting the past. It’s one of several songs from DRRT—the 2012 debut album from Sheehy’s band Lost Lander— that grapple with finding one’s place in the universe and locating the balance between past, present, and future.
When I call Sheehy to talk about the album, he just happens to be on a walk with DRRT ’s producer, Brent Knopf. Back then, the two spent months turning Sheehy’s rough demos into DRRT ’s expansive, art-rock panoramas, then enlisted more than a dozen musician friends to add to the canvas.
“The main thing that I remember from
that time period is just how much of a paradise Portland was for artists,” says Sheehy. “And I’ve wondered if that was just the time of life that we were in, or if there was something special about the city at that time—or maybe both.”
On DRRT , the folk-inflected sound of Sheehy’s 2008’s solo album Tigerphobia
is leavened by purposeful electric guitar, fuzzed-out bass, drums that traipse or thunder at the appropriate moments, and the occasional orchestral flourish, topped by Knopf’s sophisticated array of keyboards. It was easy to imagine Sheehy, a professional forester by day, conceiving the album’s reflections on mortality while roaming deep into the Northwest woods, where old- growth trees conceal ancient mysteries and constellations peer down from overhead.
“There was this idea that got latched onto with DRRT , of mixing the synthetic world with this very earthy, sort of, soul— the acoustic-guitar-in-the-forest kind of thing,” says Sheehy. That rough theme of a natural world colliding with a technical one—the CD package even folded out into a make-it-yourself planetarium, flashlight not included—came at a particular inflection point in Sheehy’s own life; his mother had recently passed away, and his engagement broke up right as the sessions were concluding. “I was like, ‘Hey Brent, can I sleep on your couch?’” says Sheehy.
DRRT was self-released in January 2012, and more than 100 live shows followed that year, with Lost Lander morphing into a band that included keyboardist/vocalist Sarah Fennell, whom Sheehy married in 2016. “I feel like I achieved a lot of dreams with this record,” says Sheehy. “I got to live these peak experiences with these people that I love very much, and it was all because things came together around this record.”
Nolan Parker (2025 - ???)
Unlawful Assembly by C Powers Portland is alive right now in ways it hasn’t been for over a decade. Music gatherings like Homie Fest and Project Pabst are back after extended sabbaticals, new venues are popping up left and right, old venues including Shanghai Tunnel and Black Water are getting new leases on life (literally), and that most beautiful of Portland occurrences
has slowly but surely begun again: Portland’s 5 pm Eastside band practice barrage. In the early to mid-2010’s you couldn’t walk more than a couple blocks without hearing a practicing band or a DJ pulling together a new mix. It was truly magical hearing the vocals and clarinet of Holland Andrews, FKA Like A Villain, ascending to loftier heights just a few short blocks away from Yob almost blowing stacks in search of deeper vibrations.
Though I’ve only held the music editor position since February, there has been a grip of powerful new Portland releases in that time, both by seasoned vets and new kids on the block: Alien Boy, Bleach, Buddy Wynkoop, Casual Hex, Conspire, Crystal Quartez, Darci Phenix, Dreckig, elijah jamal asani, Herr God, House of Warmth, La Isla Electronica, Larry Peace-Love Yes, Left On Read, Machine Country, Manslaughter777, Patricia Wolf, Roseblood, Swinging, and Trans Panic to truly name only a few.
The album that feels most attuned to this exact moment, this massive swell of Portland energy is Unlawful Assembly by C Powers. Relatively new to Portland, Cecilia “C” Powers is not only a prolific artist, she is also profoundly active in various abolition movements, tenant organizing, and the fight for Palestinian liberation. Released March 19, 2025 on New York’s Sorry Records , Unlawful Assembly is a demand for Palestinian liberation, as well as the abolition of government-funded terrorist organizations including ICE, the police, and the prison and military industrial complexes. Powers uses field-recorded samples collected from recent Portland protests emphasizing not only police brutality, but the collective power of proletariate organizing as well. The resonant samples are laid on top of EDM ranging from the Arca-esque trance of album opener “Defund and Abolish,” to the UK garage protest anthem “I Will Not Live In A Fascist State.” One can only assume that the repeated refrain of “fuck the police” on her “Lombard” track was sampled from a protest on Portland’s iconic N. Lombard Street—and that is an exceedingly beautiful thing.
C Powers and Portland music are just getting started, see you out there! ■
Pierced Arrows’ Descending Shadows, 2010.
Lost Landers’ DRRT, 2012.
C Powers’ Unlawful Assembly, 2005.
Twenty-Five Years of Portland Caring About Art
A timeline of Mercury arts coverage and behind-the-scenes tales.
BY SUZETTE SMITH
When the Mercury joined Portland’s cultural cache, it entered at an artistically fertile time. Now as we look back on 25 years of the Mercury caring about art and culture, we realize it’s more accurate to say these were 25 years of Portland caring about art and culture—we just wrote about it.
2000
“Arts Editrix” Julianne Escobedo Shepherd was working at both Powell’s and Reading Frenzy before she signed onto the new paper’s slim outfit. Music was the main thing readers wanted to know about, so Shepherd saw it as her job to get to know every music act in Portland. “All of these musicians were coming up, and a lot of them became nationally known… I remember when Colin Meloy came to the steps of the Mercury, and handed me a burned CD-R of his music. He was just a singer-songwriter, and then he started the Decemberists. Then, within a couple years, they were super famous.”
Novelist and comics writer Chelsea Cain was also an early Merc adopter, writing humor columns, such as a “wholly uncorroborated” list of actor Benicio Del Toro sightings around town. Del Toro was playing a survivalist “gone rogue” in a William Friedkin action film, The Hunted (2003). The film’s producers tried to close the Hawthorne Bridge for three weeks (!) and the city eventually gave them four weekends wherein Tommy Lee Jones could hunt Del Toro to his heart’s content.
2001
A group of no less than ten zinesters organize the first Portland Zine Symposium which is still going and now in its 25th year.
2002
Eleven professional comics writers and artists, working on books for both large publishers and locals, like Dark Horse and Oni , form a co-working space—initially named Mercury Studio (flattering!) before becoming Periscope in 2007, and incorporating as Helioscope LLC in 2016. Over the years, it grows to be the largest of its kind in the US, offering internships and mentorship to less connected artists.
One of Miranda July’s sound installations makes it into the Whitney Biennial. At the time, we were as likely to label her a “performance illustri-ess” as we were to call her a filmmaker, but her works appeared regularly in Matt McCormick’s Peripheral Produce experimental film series. July narrates McCormick’s The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal—a short whose continuing relevance will make you question the passage of time. Just before moving to LA, July and social practice artist Harrell Fletcher launch Learning to Love You More , a website that provides creative prompts and posts documentation of the works sent in response—and appears in the 2004 Biennial.
2003
We start off 2003 by encouraging readers to get high and watch Care Bears Movie II: A New Generation (1986) at Clinton Street Theater, as part of the pub’s Winter Prozac Film Festival , which notably includes a “Super Secret Short Film” by local director Todd Haynes ( Velvet Goldmine , Carol ). Editor-in-chief Wm. Steven Humphrey promises “if you bring in something belonging to an ex-lover, we’ll destroy it for you onstage!”
Soon to be arts editor, Justin Sanders proves his worth by profiling the newlyopened gay bathhouse Steam as if it were any other business. “Steve made me do that,” Sanders recalls. “He delighted in sending me things that made me uncomfortable. Once I was there, it was completely fine,
which is why the piece sounds so rudimentary.” Sanders also fondly remembers a feature he wrote about riding TriMet buses for 24-hours, saying: “That was the mostread thing I ever did; it was all downhill from there.”
Graphic novelist Craig Thompson puts out Blankets, a nearly-600 page work that is widely acclaimed by critics and comics fans. Sanders remembers this as a “canonical work” both in Portland and the wider comics scene. “Plenty of comics artists were making work outside the superhero genre, but Blankets showed—to a really wide audience—that you could do these little intimate, personal stories on a grand scale.”
“[PDX Pop NOW!] has always put on a good party. They’ve kept it free, kept the incest nil, and picked crowd pleasers over naked emperors.”
Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA) unveils its immediately-iconic Time-Based Art (TBA) festival, which we
later describe as “an exhausting 11-day whirlwind of international performing arts.” A lot of really cool artists perform (July is back, pre-Me You and Everyone We Know), and there’s even a talent show. Soon to depart for New York, Shepard asks: “Seriously, what kind of asshole doesn’t love a talent show?”
2004
PDX Pop Now! explodes into Southeast Industrial, bands banging it out in the baking alley streets of SE 3rd. In 2006, music editor Adam Gnade writes , “the committee behind the fest has always put on a good party. They’ve kept it free, kept the incest nil, and picked crowd pleasers over naked emperors.”
Also in its first year, Stumptown Comics Fest reportedly draws just 150 attendees to the Old Church. By its third, it’s at the Oregon Convention Center and has become a place of live comics art battles and harrowing portfolio reviews. Stumptown starts out with a focus on small press titles and auteur creators, but arts editor Alison Hallett also observes “an appetite for a more pop-culture minded show, attracting people more likely to dress up in a Spider-Man unitard than to seek out obscure small-press titles.” In 2013, organizers announce that Stumptown
Continued on page 41
JILLIAN BARTHOLD
PORTLAND ZINE SYMPOSIUM
will fold into Portland’s big new pop culture show, Rose City Comic Con
2005
Literary arts fest Wordstock debuts with a hot roster of authors like John Irving, Norman Mailer, and Susan Orlean. In 2014, nonprofit Literary Arts rebrands the fest with an extremely literal name: Portland Book Festival
Immersive theater shows, like Sleep No More , are the hot new way to stage plays, and some Portland theater groups are nontraditional-curious. Arts editor Justin Sanders skewers those doing it poorly and lauds ensembles like Sojourn for inventively staging the audience as town meeting attendees in The Visit . About performance group Liminal , whose 19th century murder mystery The Resurrectory is partially told through archival materials and maps, which can be examined at length, he writes, “indefinitely and constantly find fresh things to observe.”
“[Director Kelly Reichardt] captures the subtle nuances of being in Portland, what it feels like to wake up and walk around and live here.”
2006
In late June, Sleater-Kinney announce an indefinite hiatus and play their last show at the Crystal Ballroom on August 12. Music editor Ezra Caraeff seeks counseling for a piece about getting past his Post SleaterKinney Breakup Syndrome.
Critics warmly receive Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy, which is based on a short story by local author Jon Raymond. Film editor Erik Henriksen raves that Reichardt, “captures the subtle nuances of being in Portland, what it feels like to wake up and walk around and live here.” Reichardt goes on to collaborate with Raymond on a number of other films, among them Wendy & Lucy (2008) and First Cow (2020).
The Mercury completely ignores the Portland Horse Project—which affixed small toy horses to the artifact metal rings embedded in some city sidewalks. Even now, former arts editor Chas Bowie thinks the conceptual art piece is “twee and populist.”
2008
Comedians Andy Wood and Matt Braunger, along with improviser Kimberly Brady , pull together a weeklong comedy fest in a theater on SE Hawthorne, and call it Bridgetown Comedy Festival
According to Brady, the first year works because Patton Oswalt shows up. In 2017, the last year of the fest, playing a tent in the parking lot of the Jupiter Hotel is a highly competitive endeavor. Bridgetown doesn’t just draw good comedians, it draws people who hire good comedians, and this makes Portland a place performers move to.
2009
Upstart theater company Atomic Arts adapts an episode of original series Star Trek and stages it for free, calling the show Trek in the Park . Critic and notable Star Trek fan Erik Henriksen declares it “the most fun you’ll have watching a play all summer.” Eventually it becomes so popular that calendar editor Bobby Roberts pens a list of tips ‘n’ tricks for how to sit within hearing range.
2011
The beginning of the end for some, Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen premiere their skit show Portlandia on the Independent Film Channel. Wm. Steven Humphrey points out that the show succeeds best as a series of brief clips, but hammers the same
five days, to defray moving costs. It’s worth noting that when a new business moves in, the lobby stays the same size. Reading Frenzy moves to the Mississippi neighborhood and Eudaly successfully runs for a city commissioner seat in 2016, based on a platform of renter’s rights, affordability, and inclusion. As she takes office she has to close up her store because Portland law prohibits elected officials from holding other jobs.
The city’s voters widely approve an annual $35 arts tax to support arts education in Portland-area schools. Lawsuits, site crashes, and administrative costs ensue.
2014
Likely due to the legacy of Bridgetown , Portland continues to grow as a comedy city.
jokes relentlessly when consumed as whole episodes.
Monologist Mike Daisy delivers a 24-hour performance at what was then still “decrepit old” unused Washington High School (in 2015, it would reopen as Revolution Hall), and the editorial staff bands together to (semi) live blog the experience. Four months later, journalists expose exaggerations and fabrications in parts of Daisy’s The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs
2012
Reading Frenzy owner Chloe Eudaly announces that her building wants to expand its lobby, and therefore her store has to move. Emblematic of Portland’s once thriving indie print culture scene, the shop now faces being priced out. Eudaly is able to raise $50,000 in
Kickstand’s basement shows, saying that the building isn’t permitted for “assembly.” Bad Reputation’s Shelley McLendon opens the Siren Theater in the scrappy Old Town Chinatown neighborhood, and rents them the school-style rooms above it.
2016
After 13 years of using other spaces for performance, PICA shifts the hub of its TBA festival to a 16,000 foot space former skateboard spot in Northeast Portland—after a patron buys it and gifts the organization 10 years of free rent.
2017
The Hollywood Theatre launches an effort to purchase the collection of the city’s iconic movie rental shop Movie Madness from its retiring owner Mike Clark . The crowdfunding effort succeeds in nine days and also partially raises a stretch goal amount to build a micro theater in the video store.
2019
Artists Repertory Theatre (ART) announces a massive renovation plan for its Goose Hollow property, selling half to developers to build a 21-story apartment building. The company plans to tour other performing arts venues during the construction, reopening in its rebuilt theaters in stages. This plan has the very poor fortune of unfolding during the pandemic, but ART eventually reopens in 2024.
2020
Oregon’s government shuts down the state’s schools, venues, and basically any gathering place it can think of in a desperate attempt to curtail the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone is forced to adapt to streaming, with mixed levels of success. Portland’s venues aren’t permitted to reopen until mid-2021.
PICA takes TBA:20 programming outdoors, but September wildfires cause hazardous air quality.
2021
Kickstand Comedy partners with Portland Parks and Rec to hold Friday comedy shows in Laurelhurst Park—Comedy in the Park Success isn’t immediate, but in subsequent years, it draws crowds numbering in the thousands.
Hallett decrees “improv comedy is having a moment,” when likable improvisers Jed Arkley, Leon Anderson, and Erin O’Regan found Stumptown Improv Festival . By winter, we have a comedy speakeasy. Kickstand Comedy boldly holds shows in the basement of a bike shop.
Reese Witherspoon plays local author Cheryl Strayed in a feature adaptation of Strayed’s best-selling memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail The Mercury covers it exhaustively, and when it came time to critique the film, call it “striking and intense.” Strayed and company hold a red-carpet Portland premiere at Cinema 21.
2015
In the spring, the fire marshal shuts down
2023
Darcelle XV Showplace and feminist clothing brand Wildfang team up and set a new world record for longest drag artist stage show: 48 hours, 11 minutes, 30 seconds. The Mercury liveblogs the event , and sets a new personal record for the number of drag performer names in a single blog.
Comedy theater the Siren moves from Old Town Chinatown to the Mississippi neighborhood . Music venue Doug Fir announces it will renovate and open a venue in a shuttered restaurant space in SE Industrial. Portland Art Museum opens Tomorrow Theater in the old adult movie house, Oregon Theatre. Our Fall Arts Issue proclaims that the post-pandemic Portland arts scene is rebuilding. ■
(Above) Movie Madness. (Below) Mike Daisy performing at Washington High School.
WILL CORWIN
PATTI MCGUIRE / PICA
BY MERCURY STAFF
DO THIS, DO THAT Your Top Entertainment Picks for August 2025
Through August 31
Summer of Celluloid
The Hollywood screened 70mm prints of several flicks in July, but August’s slate of 35mm offerings still promises a lush, crackly quality that’ll satisfy analog purists. Not that one really needs a reason to sit in the dark with the air conditioning blasting come August, but Summer of Celluloid’s schedule is solid, with a mix of obvious audience faves ( There Will Be Blood, Purple Rain ) and some interesting selections ( Cape Fear, 12 Monkeys ).
(Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy, various times, $10-$12, hollywoodtheatre.org, all ages)
LINDSAY COSTELLO
July 31–August 3
Pickathon
There’s a special place in my heart for campout festivals and Pickathon is for sure one of the region’s premiere examples. Tucked back into the woods at Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, Oregon, I frequently hear Pickathon described as magical, immersive, and so, so sweet. The lineup this year is pretty nail-on-the-head Portland with bigger names including local heroes Portugal. The Man and the once Portland-based dreamer Haley Heynderickx. One thing Pickathon is especially good at is booking heaps of local talent to complement the headliners—some of this year’s favorite smaller acts include Jenny Don’t and the Spurs, Dougie Poole, and J.R.C.G. If there’s a lineup conflict where two bands you’re dying to see are playing at the same time, don’t worry: every act plays twice so you’ll be able to catch everyone you’re trying to see! I would be remiss not to mention that the person I was most looking forward to this year has now split the scene forever: Michael Hurley passed away in April and will be sorely missed at this year’s festival. Beyond the fun lineup, Pickathon is full of art, a wildly diverse selection of food, and truly just a good time. PRO TIP: Our Arts & Culture editor Suzette Smith is a big fan of biking out to Pendarvis! She tells me that biking is a great way to a) beat traffic leaving the fest, b) get some exercise, and c) help Mother (Earth). (Pendarvis Farm, 16581 SE
Suppose somebody wanders up to you and says, “Hey! What scares you?!” If you can see yourself responding, “The heteronormativity embedded in the fabric of Hollywood filmmaking,” then perhaps consider shrieking alongside others at this year’s Queer Screams Film Festival. The annual fest will curate LGBTQ+ horror shorts, screenings of screamheavy classics (Bride of Chucky and Seed of Chucky this year), and a chat with Chucky franchise creator Don Mancini. Post up across the street at Dots for a horror-themed afterparty, too. (Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton, various times, $15-$25, cstpdx.com all ages) LC
25 hours! | Celebrating 25 Years
Performance Works Northwest is an artist-focused incubator housed in an unassuming little building off Foster Road. It functions as a consistent reminder that accessing interesting performance art can be easy, even if you live in the outer southeast area. The organization (founded by arts champions Linda Austin and Jeff Forbes) will celebrate its 25th anniversary with three days of workshops, parties, and improvisations, including Tahni Holt’s somatic class It’s a Fucking Miracle and an edition of Danielle Ross’ “nomadic multi-disciplinary performance series,” Public Nature You’ll find me there, probably sitting on the floor. (Performance Works Northwest, 4625 SE 67th, various times, $11-$131, pwnw-pdx.org, all ages) LC
Pickathon
July 31–August 3
August 2
Aloe Blacc
Lovers of classic ‘70s soul are probably already aware of the smooth vocals of Aloe Blacc, who first graced the ears of fans in 2010 with such great hits as “I Need a Dollar,” and then in 2014 with “The Man.” Currently he’s touring to support his latest double EP called Rock My Soul, in which he performs new, soulful interpretations of indie rock hits, including Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” Nirvana’s “Lithium,” No Doubt’s “Don’t Speak,” and more—following in the footsteps of other classic soul singers who put their own spin on rock classics. An intriguing night of sweet soul music—with a twist. (Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, 8 pm, $43.76-$67.36, revolutionhall.com, all ages) WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY
Obon Festival
Obon is a summertime Japanese festival that pays tribute to one’s ancestors. The Oregon Buddhist Temple celebrates Obon annually on the first Saturday of August with food, dance, memorial visits, lantern hanging, and other joyous festivities. The highlight of
Purple Rain
Margo Cliker WARNER BROS.
the fest is a dance called bon-odori, and while it will be led by Japanese dance groups, all are invited to join and celebrate ancestors and family members who have recently passed. (Oregon Buddhist Temple, 3720 SE 34th, 2–9 pm, free, oregonbuddhisttemple.com, all ages) SHANNON LUBETICH
August 3
Jessica Pratt/Helen
Jessica Pratt is known for her otherworldly, strippeddown acoustic folk songs which sound simultaneously of the past and the future. Her 2012 self-titled debut has a magical quality that’s hard to name—her voice echoes like a mermaid humming in a damp alcove or a fairy singing her friends a lullaby. Pratt’s new album, Here in the Pitch, enters the world of the 1960s with orchestral pop songs reminiscent of Marianne Faithfull, the Walker Brothers, and Dusty Springfield. (Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, 8 pm,$43.76, revolutionhall.com, all ages) AUDREY VANN
August 8
Lucy Dacus
I started listening to Lucy Dacus’ solo work after falling in love with Boygenius’ eponymous debut EP. And while some listeners don’t like to choose favorites and others might lean towards melancholy indie superstar Phoebe Bridgers, Dacus is far and away my favorite of the supergroup trio. If there is a silver lining to Boygenius’ indefinite hiatus, which was announced early last year, it’s that Dacus has had time and space to settle into a romantic relationship with bandmate Julien Baker (never forget when they served their iconic Ariana Grande/Pete Davidson Halloween couples’ costumes) and release her major label debut Forever Is a Feeling. Giving an intimate look into the couple’s relationship, Dacus’ tender but powerful vocals shine brighter than ever in a beautiful portrait of queerness. LA-based multi-hyphenate Jay Som will open. (Edgefield, 2126 SW Halsey, Troutdale, 6:30 pm, $66-$86, edgefieldconcerts.com, all ages)
JANEY WONG
August 10
Portland Thorns vs Seattle Reign FC As with the Pacific Northwest cities themselves, the Cascadia rivalry between soccer teams runs deep, certainly with the Timbers and Sounders, but also applying to the NWSL teams the Portland Thorns and Seattle Reign. The Reign defeated Portland during the teams’ last non-friendly meetup back in April
at Lumen Field, but we’re currently (as of publication time) one point ahead of Seattle in the league standings, so it’s safe to say the Thorns will be prickly and out for blood this go around. I know it’s summer, but wrap that red scarf ’round ya neck and go support. (Providence Park, 1844 SW Morrison, 1 pm, $33+, thorns.com, all ages) JW
August 15
Simon Gibson and Joshua Turek
Former Portlander (and hilarious comedian) Simon Gibson returns to his hometown for a night of standup, pairing up with also-very-funny guy
Joshua Turek. Pre-pandemic, Gibson occasionally popped into town to guest star on the Mercury’s I, Anonymous live show, and absolutely wrecked the audience with his manic, boisterous observations on the ridiculousness of life. Conversely, Turek goes the deadpan route with whipsmart (and often devastating) reflections on shitty landlords, angry drivers, and being called “sir” (“Not my preferred pronoun”). Get ready for a bang-up evening of yin and yang comedy. (Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi, 8 pm, $26.05, mississippistudios.com, 21+) WSH
August 15–24
Terrain: A Land Art Experience
With a stated goal of “fostering environmental awareness” and a stacked roster of exhibiting artists (Intisar Abioto, Daniela Naomi Molnar, Amanda Triplett, and many others), Terrain: A Land Art Experience pays homage to the ground on which it stands in the Industrial Northwest district, the former home of Guild’s Lake and Willamette River wetlands. New artworks ponder Building 5’s environmental history through a variety of materials and mediums, from
photography to willow stems. Proceeds from your sliding scale ticket go directly to artists, or you can pay $75 for the “golden hour experience” on August 14 to rub elbows with the show’s creators and curators. (Building 5, 2516 NW 29th, Fri-Sun Aug 15–24, free$75, tickettailor.com/events/terrainlandartexhibition, all ages) LC
August 16
Portland Timbers vs. FC Cincinnati
The two teams have gone head-to-head only three times previously, but FC Cincinnati is fierce competition, taking two wins, with another matchup resulting in a draw. Statistically, they also have a leg up, so our guys in green and gold will have their work cut out for them. Aside from what’s sure to be a riveting 90+ minutes on the field, here’s another reason not to miss the match: 20,000 fans will score bobbleheads of beloved longtime midfielder and team captain Diego Chará. The Timbers are celebrating their 50th anniversary as a club in 2025, making it a golden season to cheer them on. RCTID!
(Providence Park, 1844 SW Morrison, 7:30 pm, $40+, all ages)
August 16–17
Northwest Hardcore Fest
Portland and the greater Pacific Northwest bioregion plays host to some of the best hardcore punk music in the world, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that our fair city hosts Northwest Hardcore Fest. Since 2023, under the programming direction of Chip Nooo, the fest has been bringing the best and brightest (AKA toughest and loudest) touring hardcore bands to Portland while simulta
18–31
neously giving platform to the region’s smartest and wittiest (AKA fastest and most punishing) acts. This year, Chip has teamed up with Friends of Noise and the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) to present a summit of hardcore like we’ve never seen and are likely never to see again (at least until the next fest). New Jersey’s Bayway, the Bay Area’s Outta Pocket, and SLC’s Mask are confirmed and ready to rip some heads off while regional bands like Eugene’s Boltcutter with Portland’s Dry Socket and 2 The Teeth are ready to chop it up over the two days in mid-August. Don’t look like a n00b—get your battle vests ready, lace up those New Balances, and always remember… WALL TO WALL OR NOT AT ALL! (PICA, 15 NE Hancock, various times, $10-$80, 777booking. com/tickets, all ages) NP
August 18–31
Hanabi Film Festival
For a third year, Hanabi Film Festival celebrates summer and venerates Japanese cinema with a tight schedule of award-winning classics, weird-yet-perfect cult favorites, and mind-bending anime on the screen of Clinton Street’s community-focused indie-plex. New this year, Clinton Street will host the US premiere of rock drama , and the Portland premiere of Kazuya Shiraishi’s Bushido, a 2024 samurai film that Japan Times called a “meticulously executed throwback that revitalizes the genre.” (Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton, various times, $10 per film, cstpdx.com/hanabi, all ages) SUZETTE SMITH
August 19
Josh Johnson
Sometimes I think comedian Josh Johnson is not real. One of The Daily Show’s best correspondents, Johnson
Hanabi Film Festival August
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
COURTESY PORTLAND THORNS
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
COURTESY A24
Bushido
Simon Gibson
Josh Johnson
is unbelievably capable of changing up his standup set on a dime, instantly improvising gut-busting takes on stuff that happened… earlier that afternoon. And even more shocking, he does it with the sharpest of timing and a brilliant comedic structure that verges on calculus in its complexity. Every time I swipe up on TikTok, there he is again with a brand new video, saying something about an event that happened that day, which I probably knew nothing about. That’s all to say, even if you’ve seen Johnson a billion times, get ready for a brand new set full of surprises. (Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 7 pm, $50-$74, portland5.com, all ages) WSH
August 22–24
Taylor Tomlinson
Zooming up the ranks of comedy royalty is Taylor Tomlinson, who not only can brag about being the only female network late-night talk show host ( After Midnight , CBS), but has racked up an impressive three Netflix specials ( Quarter-Life Crisis , Look At You , and Have It All ). Plus she’s got all you need for a sparkling night of comedy: a brash, relatable style; sharp, incisive takes on everything from religion to her queer siblings; and the kind of crowd work any standup would sell their soul for. And in this, her “Save Me” tour, Tomlinson goes the extra mile with a set-ending segment called “Crowd Confessions” in which she and her openers take on questions and confessions from the audience—so prepare for an evening of devastatingly funny comedy. (Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, Fri 7 pm, Sat 4 & 7 pm, Sun 7 pm, $55-$173, portland5.com , all ages) WSH
August 23
Wheels of Justice vs. Arch Rival Portlanders rarely get to root for a local sports team that actually wins championships—but here’s our chance! This is one of the can’t-miss games in this year’s Hometown Throwdown tournament, hosted by our own Rose City Rollers. It presents a rare opportunity to see Portland’s own Rose City Rollers Wheels of Justice (ranked number one in North America’s western division, as well as global rankings) face one of their top opponents, St. Louis, Missouri’s Arch Rival Roller Derby All Stars (number one ranked in the North American eastern division and second globally).
Taylor Tomlinson
August 23
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
Put that all together, and you’ve got two of the world’s top-ranked roller derby teams going head-to-head for a thrilling faceoff. (The Hangar at Oaks Park, 7805 SE Oaks Park Wy, 6 pm, $25 [six-and-under free], rosecityrollers.com, all ages) COURTNEY VAUGHN
August 24
One Table, Many Roots: African & Vietnamese Culinary Traditions
Shared Across the Table
Does a seven-course, al fresco meal prepared by two of Portland’s most exciting chefs sound like a phenomenal summer dinner to you? Of course it does. One Table, Many Roots, the first farm-to-table experience hosted by Happiness Family Farm, brings together Fatou Ouattara of Akadi and Thuy Pham of Mama Đút for a taste of the “intersection between African and Vietnamese culinary traditions.” Although the menu won’t be shared in advance, the family-style dinner promises to be rich in flavor and identity, taking place right where the ingredients are grown. The evening will also feature live music and a self-guided farm tour, with a portion of proceeds going toward food equity nonprofit Growing Gardens. (13901 NW Howell Park, 4-7 pm, $150, lu.ma/ HFF-FarmToTable, 18+) JW
August 31
Jordan Klepper
For those who love the sharp comedy of the Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper, it would behoove you to see him as soon as possible (for example his appearance at the Aladdin Theater) before you are forced to pay much more to see him later at much bigger venues. Klepper’s keen style is always on brilliant display hosting the Comedy Central show, but his standup reveals a more thoughtful aspect of his personality, as he recounts his travels deep into MAGAland while sharing his heroic attempts to understand why the opposition gets so sucked into Trump’s cruel circus. You may not come away with solid answers, but you will definitely feel entertained, and a wee bit wiser. (Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie, 10 pm, $43.73$62.21, aladdin-theater.com, all ages) WSH ■
The Portland Mercury HALL OF FAME!
Celebrating the
many
people who
brought the Mercury to life (and keep it going strong).
WAaron Beam
Adam Gnade
Alex Zielinski
Ali Reingold
Alison Hallett
Amanda Bigos
Amanda Killoran
Andrea Damewood
Andrew Michaan
Angela Webber
Anna Bond
Anna Nelson
Ann Romano
Amy Rosko
Amy Ruiz
Anabel Ramirez
Autumn Webring
Ben Coleman
Blaine Moore
Blair Stenvick
Bobby Roberts
Brad Buckner
Brad Grace
Brahmani Houston
Brian Cannarozzi
Brian Gjurgevich
Brian Yaeger
Bri Brey
Bri Pruett
Bridget Cross
Brodie Hylton
Bryce Black
Campy Draper
Cassie Ridgway
Cat Cole
C.D. Skehan
Char Harris
Chas Bowie
Chelsea Cain
Chipp Terwilliger
Chris Lopez
Chris Onstad
Christine Blystone
Christopher Astheimer
Cindy the Erotic Pleaser
CK Dolan
Conrad Crespin
Courtenay Hameister
Courtney Ferguson
ith our deepest gratitude we’d like to thank the scores of employees and regular columnists who over 25 years shared their talent, time, sweat, and brilliance to the Portland Mercury . This issue is dedicated to you.
Courtney Vaughn
Daniel Olson
Dave Bow
David Wilson
Demo Fregosi
Denis C. Theriault
Dirk VanderHart
D.K. Holm
Donna Pluta
Doug Brown
Elizabeth Mollo
Eliza Sohn
Emily Prado
Eric Cole
Erik Henriksen
Erin Rackelman
Evan James
Ezra Ace Caraeff
Flannery Smith
Francine ColmanGutierrez
Frank Cassano
Ian Karmel
Isabella Garcia
Jacob McMurray
James Deeley
Janey Wong
Jay Williams
Jemma Burkett
Jen Davison-Wick
Jenna Lechner
Jenna Roadman
Jenni Moore
Jennifer Durham
Jen Ritson
Jen Slay
Jerry Masterson
Jessica Troiano
Joe Davis
Joe Streckert
Joetta Velasquez
John Dooley
Joseph Oguiza
Josh Jardine
Josh Shelton
Joshua Blanchard
Josh Shelton
Julianne Shepherd
Justin Sanders
Justin “Scrappers” Morrison
Karrin Ellertson
Kathleen Marie Barnett
Kathryn Henshaw Jarrell
Katie Shimer
Katia Dunn
Katie Lake
Katie Peifer
Kelly Kenoyer
Kevin Fort
Kip Berman
Lance Chess
Lauren Short
Leanne Marshall
Lindsay Costello
Logan Sachon
Loren Chalmers
Madeline Carroll
Mae Costello
Maria Perala
Marie Martin
Marissa Sullivan
Marjorie Skinner
Mark Searcy
Mason Davis
Matt Davis
Matt Eder
Matt Stanger
Mckenzie Glynn
Megan Burbank
Megan Nanna
Megan Zimmer
Mel Heywood
Mica Grohn
Michael Macdonald
Michael Svoboda
Michelle David
Mike Williams
Minh Tran
MJ Skegg
Molly Savory
Monet Hampson
Monica Drake
Mx. Dahlia Belle
Mykle Hanson
Nami Bigos
Nathan Gilles
Nathan Karnes
Ned Lannamann
Nick Olmstead
Nicole Lavelle
Nicolle Farup
Nicole Warren
Noah Dunham
Nolan Parker
Patrick Coleman
Pete Cornell
Phil Busse
Rachael Olmstead
Rachel Miller
Ren Little
Rob Crocker
Robert Ham
Rob Thompson
Russell Hodgdon
Ryan J. Prado
Santi Elijah Holley
Sara Daley
Sarah Elliott
Sarah Shay Mirk
Scott Moore
Scott Radke
Scott Wagner
Sean Clancy
Sean Tejaratchi
Shanna Moore
Shannon Kidd
Shauna Morris
Shelby King
Shelly Hennessy
Sita Benedict
Soiled Mattress Down
By River
Soon-Yi (the pug)
Stephan Kamph
Suji Allen
Susan Beal
Suzette Smith
Taylor Griggs
Tessa Millhollin
The Incredible Hulk
Thomas Ross
Tony Perez
Tonya Ray
Vince Sliwoski
Virginia Thayer
Wm. Steven
Humphrey
Ximena Quiroz
Zac Pennington
Zach Hull
And these names are just the beginning! Also owing to the Mercury ’s success are the many freelance writers, artists, photographers, interns, advertisers, donors, fans, and of course, our dear readers. With all our heart, WE THANK YOU! ♥
AND FINALLY… THE BEST THING THE MERCURY HAS EVER PUBLISHED. AND FINALLY… THE BEST THING THE MERCURY HAS EVER PUBLISHED.
