On the Town

Bicyclists plan for a summer of love

By phil stanford

The Portland Tribune, Jun 27, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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Spare me, please. …

This time it’s a Bike Kiss-In at Col. Summers Park at 20th and Belmont — with beaming young people bearing such signs as: “Make Love, Not Traffic.” … Were we that silly? I should hope not. … Just look straight ahead and keep driving, Maude. … Don’t want to give away any state secrets here, but of the several top NBA draft choices interviewed by Blazer management, only Adam Morrison of Gonzaga has been treated to dinner at El Gaucho. … That was last Wednesday, and according to sources, the ’Stache, who sat at a table with coach Nate McMillan and President Steve Patterson, “was polite and well behaved — no concealed handguns or anything.” Well, that’s a plus. … Staff and customers at the Kingston Bar & Grill are broken up over Tommy Peterson, the distinguished white-haired old gent in the coat and tie who came in every day and rolled silverware for free coffee. … Tommy, who came to be the Kingston’s unofficial greeter, lived in a downtown hotel. He was found on Southwest Broadway one morning last week, dead at the age of 79. … You’ll be as delighted as I was to hear that the mayor’s office has arranged for “Vision Quest” questionnaires to be printed in Arabic, Russian and Laotian, as well as English. … That’s some sort of progress by P-town standards, I suppose — although as blogger Jack Bogdanski astutely points out, “If I lived in Portland and I couldn’t communicate in a language other than Arabic or Russian, I’m not sure ‘visioning’ questions on a City Hall form would be high on my list of priorities.” … Best new restaurant rumor: Michael Hebberoy, whose P-town culinary empire (Ripe, Gotham Building Tavern, Clarklewis) recently collapsed around him along with his marriage, might open another restaurant in the chic new Ace Hotel, soon to be completed on Stark at the site of the old Carlyle. … Meanwhile, the rumor continues, Michael, once the darling of local food writers, is traveling about the country in an Airstream trailer working on a book. … “How far the mighty have fallen,” sniffs one kibitzer. Actually, sounds kind of cool to me.

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A few more layoffs like this one and the Oregon Historical Society could be, well, history. … Certainly, the current exhibit on the American presidency, from the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., comes cheap — but it has next to nothing to do with Oregon. … Insiders say the recent resignation of director John Pierce — ostensibly for “personal reasons” — was actually in protest over the board’s bottom-line approach. … Ray Tillotson is waiting by the mailbox for the upcoming issue of Elle magazine, which, he has been assured, will highlight his retro clothing store, Ray’s Ragtime, in a feature on Northwest style. … It’s all about the Courtney Love connection, says Ray — who admits that the troubled rock-n-roll diva, who used to be a P-town street kid, hasn’t dropped by for at least three years. … Author and literary festival mogul Larry Colton claims to be currently sitting on about $6,000 worth of Starbucks gift certificates — all left over from a total of $10,000 in certificates donated to the Wordstock book festival by the public-spirited company. Since no one, not even a writer of Colton’s quality, can drink that much coffee, he’s been using them to treat writers and teachers — “Which, come to think of it,” Larry says, “is why the company donated them in the first place.” … Some days you can’t get away with anything.

Contact Phil Stanford by phone at 503-546-5166 or by e-mail at philstanford@portlandtribune.com