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DECEMBER 7. 2007
iustout
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NEWSMAGAZINE
Founded 1983 • Jay Brown and Renée LaChance
PUBLISHER & MANAGING EDITOR
Marty Davis
NEWS EDITOR
Jaymee R. Cuti
ARTS AND CULTURE EDITOR
Jim Radosta
STAFF WRITER
Julie Sabatier
ART DIRECTOR
Anabel Ramirez
PRODUCTION & AD DESIGNER
Barb McClendon
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR
Larry Lewis
ADVERTISING REPRESENTATIVES
Roger Curtis, Ben Nystrom, Lynda Wilkinson
ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGER
Jedidiah Chavez
CONTRIBUTORS
Yvonne R Behrens, Stephen Blair, Teresa
Coates, Meryl Cohn, West Duncan, Jemiah
Jefferson, Timothy Krause, Tony LeTigre,
Patricia L. MacAodha, Gary Morris, Rebecca
Ragain, Floyd Sklaver, George Winborn, Rex
Wockner
EDITORIAL INTERNS
letters
Tiara-Shaking Good Times
To the E ditor :
We, the youth of the Sexual Minority Youth
Resource Center, are writing in response to the
letter “SMYRC Youth Underwhelmed” in the
Nov. 2 issue. Here is why we love SMYRC:
SMYRC is governed hy a youth steering
committee, which is open to all youth. We invite and
encourage every youth who accesses the space to vote
on all issues, rules and activities. Rules are proposed
and written hy us and are approved or changed hy at
least an 80 percent youth majority. We propose rules
we feel are necessary in order to create a safer atmos
phere. SMYRC is open to all youth 23 and younger,
and we strive to create a hate-free zone with our first
rule being “Respect for all people at all times.”
At SMYRC we have access to countless free
resources, including counseling and crisis interven
tion, f<xxJ, clothing, educational and informational
workshops, support groups, exercise programs, drag
shows, open mikes and more fun than you can shake
a tiara at!
SMYRC has saved hundreds of youth during the
past 10 years, serving and empowering approximate
ly 1,000 youth a year. Nowhere else in Portland have
we cried this much, laughed so hard and cried so
much from laughing so hard. Together we’ve built
rhe biggest and most supportive family any of us
have ever had.
Melanie Altaras, Alex Baldino, Julius
Calasicas, Neethu Ramchandar, Julie Stegall
DISTRIBUTION
Harry Bonfill, Youme Inhofe, Pat Kilmer-
Cramer, Chance Schwartz, Dan White
Just Out is published on the first and third Friday
of each month. Copyright © 2007 by Just Out.
No part of Just Out may be reproduced without
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Editorial guidelines: Letters to the editor
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in letters to the editor, columns and features are
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T ori S cott , A aron G uerrero , D om B olds ,
A my C lark , E li C orbin , M olly N orris ,
M artha S mith , A ngel V erdugo , C onnor
G reene , E nreche B uckner , G rae
O berhausen , C hris K ing
SMYRC Youth
Raves for the Rose City
To the E ditor :
1 read with shock the recent piece in just Out
regarding two gay travel writers and their proposed
boycott of Portland (“Thom of the Rose,” Nov. 16].
Did they visit the same Portland I have? Did
they interact with the same staff at the Portland
Area Visitors Association that I did? 1 can’t see how
that’s possible, given their article.
I’m the editor in chief of The Out Traveler, the
world’s largest publication serving gay and lesbian
readers (with 275,000 subscribing households), as
well as the corporate director of travel media for
PlanetOut. As such I oversee all travel content at
the world’s largest media and entertainment com
pany for gays and lesbians. PlanetOut’s combined
media network gets approximately 5 million unique
monthly visitors.
In addition, as a widely respected gay travel
expert, I am invited to speak about the subject
frequently (including travel shows sponsored by
The Miami Herald, The Atlanta Journal Constitution,
The Boston Globe and The New York Times). I have
regular radio show segments on Sirius Satellite
Radio, XM and WFNX in the Boston area. 1 also
oversee three syndicated newspaper columns.
In my visits to Portland, I’ve never had anything
short of a completely delightful time. The neighbor-
hoods that 1 visited, including the Pearl, were vibrant
and interesting. The welcome I received from kx:als
and official tourism representatives alike werewarm
and friendly.
The folks at POVA were the utmost profession
als. In fact, Deborah Wakefield is widely regarded
in the industry as one of the smartest, nicest and
most helpful and responsive executives in the busi
ness. If she said she didn’t receive their e-mails, I’d
take her at her word and trust she’d bend over
backward to accommixJate their (or any visitor’s)
reasonable needs.
E d S alvato
The Out Traveler
Praise of POVA
To the E ditor :
1 was astounded to read about travel writers
Don Pile and Ray Williams’ boycott of Portland
and their complaints about the Portland Oregon
Visitors Association. As a travel writer and editor
with some of the most widely read LGBT publica
tions, I have been fortunate enough to visit hun
dreds of cities. I rate Portland as one of the most
LGBT-friendly destinations in the United States.
I have nothing but praise for POVA. Every call
or e-mail 1 have ever made to Deborah Wakefield
and her staff has been returned within hours. They
are a pleasure to work with. 1 have visited Portland
dozens of times, including on two POVA-hosted
gay press visits. The POVA staff could not have
been more attentive, helpful and enthusiastic about
showing me their city.
I would be most interested to know where these
“celebrity travel" columns appear. I’ve been writing
about travel for more than a decade and have nev
er heard of either of these writers. I eventually
found a column in Palm Spring’s Talk magazine. In
rhe column Mr. Pile and Mr. Williams complain
about many things in Portland, including people
reading books, talking on cell phones or using
a “lap top (sic]” in bars when, they prix:laim, “the
purpose of going to a bar is for social interaction.”
As one who has happily whiled away hours on my
laptop and read Powell’s purchases in Portland’s
bars, 1 hang my head in shame.
They go on to comment on “homeless and poor
people right downtown on the streets and sidewalks
and sleeping in door entry ways (sic] with their
grocery carts, etc.” and then declare this “a rather
disgusting site (sic] to see.” If people this shallow
chixise to boycott Portland, it doesn’t seem like a ter
rible loss.
A eea M ulholland
Vancouver, British Columbia
Loving the Locale
To the E ditor :
As a widely published gay travel journalist who
visited Portland for the first time earlier this year
and instantly fell in love with the place, my only
thoughts upon reading “Thorn of the Rose” (high
lighting a Missouri couple’s recent sour take on the
city) were a) how very bizarre and b) how very
wrong. Not only did I find Portland denizens to be
overtly LGBT-friendly, but the folks at POVA were
honestly among the most responsive and indulgent
I’ve ever encountered.
Of course, people experience different places
differently, and travel writing is consequently often
subjective. But many of Pile’s and Williams’ highly
personalized perceptions about Portland were
either seriously skewed, downright offensive or
both. To wit, regarding the pxn and homeless they
comment, “One would think that the City (sic]
would do something about that as they do in other
cities." (And that “something” would be? Run
them out? Snuff them out?) The men also came to
the unusual conclusion after reading about
Portland’s two especially gay-friendly districts that
the rest of the city must therefore be queer-hostile.
Apart from making no sense, this betrays a certain
blindness to contemporary American civic life,
wherein forward-leaning and inclusive cities like
Portland no longer need to concentrate all of their
gays into old-sch<x>l ghettos.
The gents are certainly entitled to their opinions,
and other than their “thousands” of readers, no one
would have been the wiser were it not for their ludi
crous threat of calling for a national gay boycott of
the city. Rather than draw gay attention to their pur
ported “quite dreadful” nature of Portland, however,
it seems the men have done little more than to draw
Portland’s (and POVA’s) attention to the quite dread
ful nature of some gays.
D an A llen
New York
Opinions from Amateurs
To the E ditor :
I am writing in response to the article about
“award-winning" gay travel writers Donald Pile and
Ray Williams and their negative experience in
Portland.
Personally, 1 have never heard of these guys.
I did a search on the Web for them to find out what
kinds of awards they claim to have won, how they
are famous, etc. I could barely find anything other
than a tetter from Elizabeth Taylor on the couple’s
35th anniversary. I did find their Web site,
www.hometown.aol.com/gaytravelers. I think their
amateur-kxiking Web site speaks for itself.
It sounds to me that they didn’t get the “star
treatment” they were looking for, but to boycott
a city because they didn’t get their asses kissed
seems a bit ridiculous!
D ebbie C aselton
Portland
Bring in the Clowns
To the E ditor :
So you’re telling me that—based on the insular
experiences of two upper-class, fuddy-dud queens
crowning 60, looking like Corky St. Clair from
Waiting for Guffman and dressed like the Prom King
from 1976’s Carrie— Portland should be boycotted
as a gay destination?
Their evident distaste arises solely from non-
immediate and sycophantic service from a city
agency and their negative experience on a guided
tour. Admittedly, they were working on some mis
information if their packet of gay-friendly destina
tions did not include Nob Hill or—apparently—any
bars on Stark Street. And did they assume rhe hous
ing costs are high in Portland based upon only their
experience talking to a bunch of other older, upper-
middle-class queens living beyond their means?
1 live in the excluded Nob Hill neighborhood,
in between two of the trendiest shopping streets
in Portland (guess which two), and 1 pay as much
in rent as I paid back in Boise, Idaho. All over,
magazines have praised Portland’s cheap housing
prices and cited them as a lure for artists and
young people.
The fact that they only consider the status of
upper-middle-class homeowners is exactly Don
Pile’s and Ray Williams’ problem. Did they consid
er the experiences of teen, 20-, 30-, 40-something
queers, many of whom move from conservative
surrounding states such as Idaho or Montana? Were