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Art of the Northwest
Coast
Tom Gonser
600 Selkirk Road
Sandpoint ■ Idaho 83864
208-265-4428 Ph &Fax
Two Raven C
PAUL SKEETER
2509 First Street
Tillamook. OR 971-41
(503) 842-3846
Museum Quality Wood Carvings
© a a fle
© a rp e t
CANNON BEACH LIBRARY
© leaning
131 North Hemlock
P.O Box 486
Cuxnon Beach, OR 9.1 1 0
•*CT2-4¿
DONALD THOM
P.O. BOX 773
CANNON BEACH Ofl 97110
Owned and operated by the Library
and Roman's Club o f Cannon Beach
436*1114
North Coast Pride Network
Live, from Los Angeles, California...
Pete’s Wicked pint in fist, I settle dainty
as I can be on the top stair of my apartment’s
front stoop. I often sit like this musing. I like
to watch the blue shadows of late afternoon
grow softer, darker, longer, run together.
Between sips of ale I pull strips of sticky’ fruit
roll-up off plastic, twirl them around my index
finger, and (not so primly) plunge that finger
into my mouth. I am flooded with an
unexpected contentm ent, surprisingly
unrelated to the beer or the juicy goo melting
on my tongue. It is, instead, the waning light,
and the idea that all the little lives we lead run
together like the shadows. An evening at “the
Derby” exemplifies this.
Northeast of “House of Pies” in Los Feliz
is the dimly lit swing club of which I speak. I
really dig it. At “the Derby,” the little lives
(normally separated by place, time, or
circumstance) merge. Quite possibly it is an
anomaly in the space-time continuum.
Stepping across the threshold one is
transported back in time to the 40s swing era.
Formerly the “Holly-wood Brown Derby,” the
club has recently been restored to its past
splendor.
Super swank (admittedly pretentious)
clientele come dressed in rags their
grandparents would have worn fifty years ago.
They are a more romantic mob than those
frequenting L.A.’s retro-discos. Certainly they
squander the opportunity’ of aimlessly shaking
ones booty’ “like a funky chicken” (word).
They somehow find solace, however, in the
regulated steps of swinging, pretzeling, and
Lindy-hopping. Swing cheered and consoled
this nation through the Great Depression and
WWII. The same eighth note patterns are now
brightening the evenings of not a few
embittered and bereaved Generation (gag me
with a label) X-ers. They come for the
atmosphere, and for the music of the king cats
of swing, the “Royal Crown Review.”
The driving horns, slick guitar, bopping
base, dig-me drums, and suave crooning of the
“Crown" set the crowd near swooning. The
band sways casually in their pastel zoot suits
and wing tips. The singer, Eddie-looks-just-like-
James-Cagney-Nichols, advises the kids of a
break after the next number. They play a
resounding rendition of “Hey, Pachucho” made
famous by their appearance in The Mask. As
regulars (a euphemism for ‘groupies,’ I think)
my friends and I generally drift toward the bar
at this point. Even at the divine Derby some
social evils are constants.
There is this oldish square w ho’s distinct
super power is his ability to make eye contact
with a girl, after which he pounces on her for a
painfully pungent spin around the dance floor.
One martini in him and he w on’t let a dame
alone. “Your boyfriend's looking this way, “
my friend warns, and w’e skiddaddle for a
drink.
Eyeing the bartender with interest, my
anonymous friend Shelley asks, “Do you think I
should tell him he’s foxy?” “A splendid idea! A
really, really good idea, but, um, hold on till
he’s tended to my spiritual needs, would you?”
We run into kids from work, and even,
incredibly, come across someone I knew in
high school. Everyone is quite polite- some
try ing a bit too hard to stay in character.
(Pardon me, daddio, but you’re stepping on my
pant cuff with those fine looking
Hushpuppies.” “Excuse me, cat, my mistake.
Allow me to light your cigar? ”)
Perhaps the 90s will only be considered
the decade of stolen fads. The rediscoveries,
, however, are no less effective because they are
unoriginal. Swing lives, just as Thoreau does,
when the shadows run together: “Both place
and time were changed, and I d w t'i nearer to
those parts of the universe and to th ?. * eras in
history which most attracted me." T1 ^reet
nearly dark in the twilight now, I dra mv
beer, crumple up the plastic from my fruit roll
up, and head inside to put on a Louis Jordan
CD.
•A n n e O sb o rn e
P.O. Box 2798
Gearhart, OR 97138
(503) 738-0215
•--------- »
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The Columbia Pacific Region's lesbian, gay,
transgendered, bisexual group standing firm
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the Gay Film Festival Galore.
Philip Thompson
* architect
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Personalized custom designs for your unique site.
a r c h ite c tu r e & e n v iro n m e n ta l p la n n in g
25925 N.W. St. Helens Rd., Scappoose, OR 97056
(503) 543-2000
CANNON BEACH
BOOK COMPANY
The beginnings and endings of all human
undertakings are untidy.
John Galsworthy
R O Box 634
132 Norlh H»wVock
Cannon Booch, 436.1301
American Indian
Association of Portland
1827 NE 44th Suite 225
Portland, O R 97213
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B om 502. N. Hemlock St.
Cannon Beach. Oregon 97110
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