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