Just out., June 17, 2005, Page 34, Image 34

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Story and photos
by Sarah Dougher
Etc tke «¿¡felt at a (jCttj KSWApapCtC, June is a
convulsion of Pride. The parade, tne festival grounds,
the bars, the alcohol swirl and blur through the week­
end, spitting us out at the end and leaving us very much
where we started. The Pride celebration feels very urban,
because it is in urban places that queers have found one
another, and found a mass large enough to (momentari­
ly) fend off bigotry and violence. We have a sense of
security living in the city, that we will be safe here,
together.
For this year’s Pride issue, Just Out decided to take a
new direction by ftKusing our coverage on queers living
outside the Portland metro area. We wanted to know
how and why queer people decide to live in the country
and small towns. We wanted to know about the chal­
lenges they encounter and the triumphs they celebrate.
At the same time I was touring the state in early June,
Senate Bill 1000 was summarily ripped asunder, so its
integrated demands of civil rights and civil unions were
parted, leaving civil unions to face an uncertain fate in
the Senate as SB 1073. This and other legislation affects
all Oregonians, and this is tn part why for Pride, I went
statewide.
Their show is a sonic tangle with periodic thickets of
melody. It is difficult, physically challenging and at times
desolate. The album cover features an adaptation of a
painting by Portland artist Michael Brophy, whose land­
scapes explore the relationship between the natural and
built environments, and the iconic features of Northwest
history and culture.
Just as Brophys paintings take the viewer into scenes
of unresolved conflict (the logger and the land, the
native and the colonizer), the music surrounding me and
the scene before me present startling contrast. Even in
this most urban of environments, it is the wtxxls that
the band sings for, and conjures, and the wildness of the
Heidi Thorstad walk in the field behind the home that
Cahill and Groff share.
woods is what the queers long for. There seem to be col­
lective questions surging through the crowd: Where can
1 go to feel free? Where can 1 go to lose myself? Where
can 1 go to get the respect 1 demand and deserve? Is it
here? Is it in the wilderness?
As I left the Willamette Valley and headed up rhe
Columbia River Gorge early on a Sunday morning in
June, the pelting rain gave way to broken cloud cover
and the rocky, dry landscapes of the eastern Gorge. The
wtxxJs were behind me, but a far more complex land­
scape loomed ahead.
SETTING OFF: INTO THE WOODS
It is late on June 1. 1 kxik out the window of the
Crystal Ballroom down onto Bumside, and to Stark
Street beyond. People are weaving their ways through
the paths of the Portland night, and behind me about
500 queers, plus 500 others, are screaming for an encore
as local indie-rock heroines Sleater-Kinney re-emerge
onto the stage. Their new album is called The W cxm I s .
THE TEACHERS
Cover of Michael Brophy Paintings/Essay Charles
D'Ambrosio. Courtesy of www.clearcutpress.com.
1 was traveling toward Milton-Freewater, or rather to
a place outside Milton-Freewater, to the home of Liz
Cahill and Diane Groff.
I first encountered CaBill and Groff in Salem, when
they had Kith taken their only remaining leave day from