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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 17, 2003)
40 Juat o u * ' January 1 7 .2 0 0 3 DIVERSIONS Dive right in orking this job, you wouldn’t believe how often I hear it “it’s too smoky,” “1 don’t like the music,” “the bartenders aren’t very nice," “this town should have another dyke bar.” Women, we have another dyke bar. I here by proclaim The Dive, 3145 S.E. Hawthorne Blvd., to be Portland’s new dyke bar. A few years ago, 1 was in a pub called The Beehive in Birth, England. (It only seems like I’m getting off topic here.) It was a lirtle differ ent from the other traditional hardwood-style pubs— more cement floor and vinyl. But what 1 remember most about T he Beehive was the jukebox. It didn’t have your run-of-the-mill classic rock and new country selections; it had stuff you really wanted to hear, like The Amps, Velvet Underground, The Smiths and T he Jam. So imagine my delight when 1 stepped into The Dive for the first time and found a jukebox with The Amps, Velvet Underground and The Smiths! There’s also your popular retro choices Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, plus Elliot Smith, Iggy Pop, T he Beatles, The Pretenders— the hip hit list goes on and on. W ith a clearly dyke bartender (friendly! chatty!), a smoke-free atmosphere (and lovely patio for smokers, too), a decent menu of meat and veggie choices and a clever underwater theme (The Dive, get it.7), I thought, “This is where it’s all going to happen.” Turns out that bartender was co-owner W Catie Curtis will be your valentine exy and solid lesbian songstress Catie Curtis brings her new retrospective album Acoustic Valentine— featuring the self-proclaimed gay anthem “Honest World"— from Boston Harbor to Portland’s Aladdin Theater on Jan. 21 and Eugene’s Wild Duck on Jan. 22, her first West G jast solo tour since 1995. After the release of her 1989 indie disc From Years to Hours and 1995’s Truth from Lies, Curtis was spotted by EMI/Guardian, which rereleased the latter while assembling her namesake album, Catie C urtis, which would assist the folk popster in future song- writing endeavors— television exposure on both Daicson’s C reek and C hicago H ope, vari ous radio spots and even joining Lilith Fair on occasion. Transitions in both her labels and life gave birth to the stunning A Crash Course in Roses in 1999, and, after a brief hut important tour with Dar Williams, her collaborative nature took the reins with the release and internation al band-touring of 2001’s My Shirt Looks G ood on You, where she teams up with some of Boston’s finest, including Mary “Sugar Cane” Gauthier, mandolinist Jimmy Ryan and Mor phine’s Billy Conway. The album also includes a previously unreleased song by late Morphine frontman Mark Sandman. Tickets for Curtis’ Portland and Eugene shows are $15. Deh Talan opens both shows. S A bump in the road ore than 50 people tell their stories to four playwrights, who write 30 charac ters in 20 scenes by seven actors in one play called / Thmk About Life, Bump in the Road Theatre’s premiere production, which M runs Jan. 24 to Feb. 8 at Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center. “Bump in the Road deals with nontradition- al subjects head on— death and dying, aging, care giving, long-term illnesses, all or any of those things which constitute a ‘bump in the road’ of life," says theater hoard member Vivian Lyman. Each season, she explains, the group will “approach a different ‘bumpy’ theme.” I Think About Life presents a collage of scenes inspired by first-person accounts gath ered through interviews with people facing life- threatening illness, death or loss. Portland play wrights attended workshops with people from Hopewell House, a hospice; Swan House, a home for people with HIV/AIDS; and Com passionate Friends, a support group for grieving parents. The stories from the workshops served as a launching point for the fic tional scenes in the play. ¿gy- Tickets for I Think About Life are $12-$ 15. Call 503-750-1439 for reservations. Plasticware, plastic girl he Guild Theatre will show P hranc’s A¿ventures in Plastic along with The Phranc knows Sweetest Sound at 7 p.m. her Tuppè rwa re Jan. 22 as part of its Jewish Film Festival, which runs through Feh. 11. In the one-hour Plastic, the all-American, Jewish, lesbian, flat-top-wearing folk singer decides to abandon the crazy Los Angeles punk-rock music scene and settle down to a stable family life. This means, of course, she must don an apron and leam all there is to know about Tupperware, and her enthusiasm borders on mania. Meanwhile, Clinton Street Theatre is the place for The Portland Mercury’s Winter Prozac Films Series, which at 10 p.m. Jan. 2 4 presents The Care Bears Movie. Who gives a shit, you say? You will, because after the Care Bears will he a very special screening of an infamous short film by a local queer director about a famous singer with a sad, sad eating disorder. Take our word for it and go. T lady Jackie Ayling, and she’s 100 percent responsible for the selections on the jukebox. In fact, she won’t let anyone else have any say, much to the con sternation of her partner (life and business), Bobbi McAllister. T he two have clearly had words about it, and I won’t air their dirty laundry here, but take my advice: Don't bring it up, just enjoy it. (And, get this, Jackie is originally from Eng land! No doubt she spent many a long night at T he Beehive.) The couple opened The Dive last October after a fruitless search for a “real” dive. “We looked at this one bar, and Jackie's like, ‘It’s perfect! It's right next to this giant trailer court, and it has no windows and squishy carpet and everything.' 1 asked her, W hat’s it called now? and she was like, T don’t know, it’s a total dive bar.’ And 1 was like* . ; T h at’s what we’re going to call i t The Dive? ” Except the space they ended up with isn’t exactly a squishy carpet kind o f place. So they kept the name and went in another direction. Since Jackie got her way with the jukebox, Bobbi got her way with the decor. Their land lady, who used to own the Lanai Café (the space’s previous occupant), lives next door. In fact, the patio is her front lawn. “She says as long as she’s in the house, we can use the patio,” smiles Jackie. “In October it was still warm, and we had a lot of fun out there. Peo ple playing guitars and stuff, hanging out.” The Dive will begin serving breakfast soon on weekends, again with an array of meat and veggie choices. “Bobbi’s vegan,” says Jackie. “Sire learned us all in the vegan ways.” The women manage to pull this off even though they both work full-time day jobs, and Jackie owns the Northeast eatery Bogart’s. They hope the restaurants eventually will be their only gigs. The way to make this happen is to fill The Dive with dykes, o f course. “That’s fine with us, absolutely,” says Jackie. “We would not mind being the new dyke bar. We, of course, enjoy that kind of company. It would be a blast for us.” / Now all you have to do is go. JTT In this Lifetime? ifetime Television gives veteran actresses and gay faves Debbie Allen and Sally Struthers queer time on its Sunday police drama T h e Division. The two will be intro duced on the Jan. 19 episode as a long-term lesbian couple whose rela tionship is about to go splitsville. The two will play the adoptive mothers of series regular Taraji P. Henson— which means it’s possible they could both be hack for more. “Isn’t it a sign of the times,” Struthers says via a press announcement, “that the public knows me best as Meathead’s wife,’ and now I am going to he Debbie A llen’s r JT1 L Compiled by L isa B radshaw and M arie F leischmann Sally Struthers and Debbie Allen’s marriage is on the rocks in Lifetime Television’s T h e Division
