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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 17, 1999)
december 17. 1999 - jaasft ML37 ‘7,7 5* ..................▼....................... No excuse for boredom supportive, incredible family. I’ve got a fag for a hunch of different circles, which is entertaining father and three adopted siblings—everybody’s and good,” he says. super liberal, very open and We sit and talk for a while with his friends, honest,” he says. “They outed then we walk a few blocks down to the Pacific me, actually, when I was in Northwest College of Art to see the Senior high school. They made Preview show. He knows everyone there, too. jokes about when was I going We hit the streets again after seeing the to bring a boy home; they show, eating dinner and talking with friends. tried to make me feel really On the drive back to his loft, Lauderdale shares comfortable.” some thoughts on life and a few of his theories We pull into a parking on being queer. space beside the Federal “I think John Waters says it best when he Express office. Before going says, ‘Being gay is not enough.’ 1 think, in this inside, Lauderdale balances by K aty D avidson era, it’s really about being post-gay.” Lauderdale his already-lit clove cigarette hums between sentences. “It doesn’t matter on the window ledge to await who you’re sleeping with—gay people are just his return. as boring as straight people. I want to go to din Lauderdale, who began ner parties where everyone is different,” he says. playing piano at age 6, spent He tells me he’s worried we’re not talking to his school years in the moist each other enough as a culture, much less grip of Portland. He says he singing and dancing enough. This culture is was a closet case over-achiev based on silence and denial, he says, and sexu er in the Grant High School ality is a part of that. class of 1988. “Hopefully what we’re generating right now 1 Í jf “There was always tension is a culture which is smarter, willing to talk because I wasn’t comfortable openly, willing to get more complicated. Hope • with myself. I chose to do a fully there’s a growing awareness and a comfort SiBr' whole bunch of hyper with living inside the whole idea of contradic activities—I got involved tions,” he says. with every single thing I pos Lauderdale appears to bask in a perpetually sibly could,” he says. “People warm glow. His movements are accented by his work their stuff out in surroundings as though his life is set to Euro homas Lauderdale’s presence in Portland The group’s many artists, who play every strange, different ways.” pean mood music. He perfectly melts into the is undeniable. thing from xylophones to trumpets, squint at When his high school years came to a close, mismatched style of his loft, a beautiful clash of He is small in stature, well-built and the sheet music and mouth the syllables in Lauderdale’s academic prowess earned him a many cultures. Lauderdale’s record collection has a healthy shine. He has the face of a Japanese. At first it sounds like atonal gibber spot in Harvard’s class of 1992. He describes his spans our great planet. Some might say the cherub and the clothes of a post-trendsetter. ish, then Lauderdale chimes in on piano and college experience as an extension of high scope of his vision spans our planet, too. He is the guy you’ve seen smoking cloves and the chaos evolves into a cohesion of sound, school, but it was “more about developing the “My feeling is that if I’m living exactly as I putting along Bumside Street in a 1959 Nash both clunky and elegant. theme of fun," he says. want to live, I won’t have any issues—I can Metropolitan, jumping in puddles downtown, It’s easy to tell this is the same adventurous “I mostly threw parties in college,” he ; run around with a clear conscience,” he says. or taking an early morning walk in Waterfront group that created Sympathique. explains. “I lived in a really artsy dormitory, I “We can be whomever we want to be. Some Park with Heinz, his lumbering Labrador- The album, which was released in 1998, is a paraded around in my dresses—I created will love it and others may not, but that’s cer golden retriever mix. fantastic blend of many languages and sounds. atmospheres of fun.” tainly not our problem.” In the past, he has assisted city commission It moves from the dark, quirky tones of He moved back to Portland after graduating ers, helped organize Queer Night at LaLuna “Amado Mio” to the self-deprecating “Sympa with degrees in history and literature, then to ■ P1NK M artini ’ s New Year’s Eve party begins at (where he met photographer and filmmaker thique” to the loud, inquisitive yearning of New York for a self-described “summer of find 6 p.m. Dec. 31 at Union Station, 800 N.W. George Calvo, whom he has been dating for ing peace.” After a few more moves, he made “Donde Estas, Yolanda?” Sixth Ave. Opening acts include Satan’s Pilgrims three and a half years), and even penned a reg his way back to Portland again. Now, Laud It’s clear that Pink Martini is a cultured and the Lions of Batucada. Tickets are $ 100 and ular entertainment column for Just Out under erdale has the city in his grip. group, thanks to the effort and enthusiasm of are available through Fastixx. the alter ego of Miss Betsy Hunt, “a profession He half-jokingly sums up Portland in two Lauderdale. al business woman, on the go, with no time for A deeper understanding of Lauderdale’s psy words: “It’s Mayberry.” But Lauderdale knows better than games.” che comes while spending an afternoon with to be dissatisfied with the city Aside from all that, he happens to be one of him the day after the practice—we talk while he lives in. He says the most the city’s most creative and talented musicians. running errands together, drinking coffee and important thing to do here is At a mere 29 years of age, he occasionally observing art. be a tourist everyday, to look “There’s no excuse for boredom,” he says, invigorates the Portland Symphony with at the city with new eyes and revving the engine of his stylishly ancient youthful spunk, and he is the charismatic disregard its limitations. leader of Pink Martini, the ensemble that automobile. “A lot of people are really scared “I wish more people were of having a good time. A lot of people wouldn’t released the hit album Sympathique and will out later,” he says, referring to have fun if it sat on their face.... Wow, that ’ s a perform at a high-profile party at Union Sta the city’s early-to-bed habits. really crass thing to say, isn’t it?” tion on New Year’s Eve. “But Portland is an amazing Just after hitting the streets of Portland, we Lauderdale says the idea for the party came city to live in right now hear a frantic call from the sidewalk: “Thomas!” to him because it sounded romantic and he because it’s so accessible. You Lauderdale screeches to a halt in the middle wanted to play somewhere that evoked ideas of can walk down the street and both leaving and arriving in Portland. of a three-lane downtown street. A curly- see the mayor.” haired woman runs up to the passenger-side Deep down, who is this guy who brings a “Why are you here?” I ask. big city mentality to our sleepy streets? The window and asks Lauderdale how he s doing, “Because I want to make then invites him to a dance. They chat, then catch about Lauderdale is that there is no the city better. I also want to catch; for the most part, he is what he seems to we move on. make my life better,” he says, be. It’s an understatement to say Lauderdale is “Where are you from?” I ask. “1 want to create beautiful brimming with ideas and emotion. Most of all, “I don’t know,” he replies. music that I’m really proud he says, he just wants to live fully and have “Where were you bom?” I ask. of.” fun. “Oakland,” he says, “but I feel like I’m a After more errands, Laud cross between a Midwestern boy, a Portland erdale takes me to the Giant boy and a Boston boy. Actually, I feel at home get my first glimpse into Lauderdale’s life Steps coffeehouse on North while observing Pink Martini practice amid wherever I am.” west Glisan Street. By now Lauderdale is the oldest—“and the tiniest," the wonderful clutter of his loft. Beside tall, I’ve learned not to be sur he quips—of four adopted siblings. His descrip rain-splashed windows and underneath the prised that he knows every tions of family life defy convention and are warm glow of hanging lights, nine musicians sit one there. strange and wonderful all at once. His parents •n a misshapen circle. Lauderdale teaches the I ask him how he’s become got divorced when his father came out at age Ktoup a Japanese folk song, “Chrysanthemum familiar with so many people. 42; now Kerby and Linda Lauderdale are best Forever, which he would like them to perform “ It’s a small town—super and include on the new album, slated to be friends. small. I also run around in a “I come from a really amazing, fantastic, released next year. The fun. never stops out on the town with Thomas Lauderdale of Pink Martini f ■ ■ ■ ; V"I-?.- • I