Dave Knows Portland

Stumptown Stories: Oregon’s Top Five Dirtiest Elections

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Five Dirtiest ElectionsThe Stumptown Stories: Free Tuesday Lecture Series, geared to anyone who is curious about the world and community in which we live and loves to learn new things, takes place most Tuesdays at Jack London bar (basement of the Rialto, SW 4th and Alder). Free to get in, but must be 21 or over – there’s a full bar!

This Tuesday, September 11, 2012 Finn John, author of the Offbeat Oregon column and recently published book, Wicked Portland: The Wild and Lusty Underworld of a Frontier Seaport Town, presents Oregon’s Top Five Dirtiest Elections: We’ve been through some crappy times before.

Join Finn J.D. John as he discusses the dirty politics of 1890s Oregon.

Including a “hold-up session” – a 40 day drunken party Jonathan Bourne threw to stop Senator Mitchell from being sent back to Washington.

Why would anybody want to prevent Senator Mitchell from going back to Washington? Find out more on Tuesday, September 11th.

The presentation begins at 7:30 p.m. Always free. Always fascinating.

“One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” 50th Anniversary Party (16-September-2012)

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One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest Join the Kick Ass Oregon History crew and the fine folks from Nestucca Spit Press on Sunday, September 16, 2012 as they present the “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” 50th Anniversary Party at Mississippi Studios (3939 N. Mississippi) – the celebration begins at 7:30 p.m.

In 1960 or so, Ken Kesey was volunteering to take hallucinogenic, psycho-active drugs while working the night shift at Menlo Park Veterans Hospital. He would talk to the mentally ill, and drop acid, and write. Kesey began to play with themes of sanity and insanity, society and the fringes, The Combine and non-conformity. He set his novel in the Oregon State Hospital in Salem, and the narrator was a Native American from Celilo, who’s life was irreversibly changed with the damming of the Columbia River at The Dalles.

Fifty years ago this novel was published. Oregon is an inseparable component of this selection. So on the eve of what would have been Ken Kesey’s 77th Birthday, we are going to have one big fuckin’ party!

The celebration includes readings from the book, discussions with Matt Love and Doug Kenck-Crispin, live music by the 1939 Ensemble, a trivia contest (with lots of prizes – grand prize is a night stay in the Kesey room at the Sylvia Beach Hotel!), AND to finish off the evening, after everyone has had a share of adult beverages, Matt Love will lead us in a classroom debate worthy of your senior year American Lit class!

Tickets are a mere $8 at the door, and $6 in advance. Find more details about this event, the novel and film, and Oregon’s sordid history when it comes to taking care of the mentally ill at OrHistory.com and at the Nestucca Spit Press website.

Kick Ass Oregon History Vol 5 #4: The Oregon State Hospital

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KAOH5.4: The Oregon State HospitalKick Ass Oregon History is the latest series of podcasts from the enthusiastic historians behind ORHistory.com.

And volume 5 #4 just dropped: The Oregon State Hospital.

In which we learn that Oregon has a history of treating the mentally ill as less than human, even in death. Featuring excerpts from “One Flew Over The Cukoo’s Nest,” by Ken Kesey.

The brains behind this Kick Ass project are the crack hustlers of Oregon History Doug Kenck-Crispin and Andy Lindberg. Doug is a graduate student studying Public History and Pacific Northwest History at PSU, and Andy, though a Portland native, is currently working as an actor in New York City. Doug does most of the research and writing for the podcasts with input from Andy, who voices the broadcasts with a thespian’s flair.

The Kick Ass Oregon History podcast covers just the good stuff: Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll and Earth Shattering, Devastating Destruction.

Ultimately, our goal is to take Oregon History out of the hallowed halls of the academy, get folks excited and enthused about this shared history, and get them out into the state, digging it and experiencing it. Get them to embrace it, and get their boots muddy in the process. It’s all OUR History; nobody owns it.

Visit ORHistory.com and stay tuned to @Oregon_History on Twitter for further details on specific episodes and the series. Catch up on missed episodes at the Kick Ass Oregon History archives.

Sidewalk Sale at the Oregon Historical Society (4-August-2012)

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Oregon Historical SocietyThe Oregon Historical Society‘s annual Sidewalk Sale takes place Saturday, August 4, 2012 from 10am to 4pm at the museum at 1200 SW Park Avenue.

The Oregon Historical Society is holding a Sidewalk Sale of duplicate and out-of-scope books from the Research Library, along with sale, discontinued, and clearance items from the Museum Store.The Museum Store sale merchandise will include jewelry, art prints, apparel, gift items, books, and so much more! Pricing will be reduced between 30% – 90% off original retail, with most items priced over 50% off. Also available will be a wide selection of used picture frames, most priced at only one dollar.

All of the books being sold from the research library duplicate existing OHS holdings or are outside the OHS collecting scope. Nothing from the Society’s permanent collections is being sold.

Stumptown Stories: Bigfoots in Oregon (19-June-2012)

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Bigfoots in OregonThe Stumptown Stories: Free Tuesday Lecture Series, geared to anyone who is curious about the world and community in which we live and loves to learn new things, takes place most Tuesdays at Jack London bar (basement of the Rialto, SW 4th and Alder). Free to get in, but must be 21 or over – there’s a full bar!

This Tuesday, June 19, 2012 join Kick Ass Oregon History‘s resident historian Doug Kenck-Crispin as he presents Bigfoots in Oregon.

You see, June is BigFoot month at OrHistory.com

“So Sasquatch?” you rightfully ask, respectfully skeptical Ass Kicker. “Do we even know if Bigfoot is real, for realz?” And that is a great question to ask. In fact, we THANK YOU for asking such a question. And the answer to that question is, to quote Brandt, “well Dude, we just don’t know…”

If we dig deeper behind the methodology of the question, we might wonder that if something is not real, let’s say a One Eyed, One Horned, Flying Purple People Eater, then can it really be called “History?” And I, the Resident Historian of this learned site, counter with a resounding… “Maybe…”

We don’t know if there are Bigfoots. We do know that Native Americans in the area have disparate oral traditions of things that might be considered Bigfoot-esque. We also know there have been some crazy big prints found, some difficult to identify scat and hair, and almost innumerable sightings reported. But we don’t have a (thank God) Sasquatch in a cage, a body in the woods, or even a portion of the aforementioned to really examine and prove existence definitively. So in a sense, I feel it is a fair statement to proclaim that we don’t have a real history of this beast to present.

But there is NO disputing that there is a phenomenon that is called “Bigfoot.” Thousands of sightings have taken place of this gentle giant of the woods, and he (or the lactating “shes”) have left their imprint on the legacy of Oregon’s History.

The presentation begins at 7:30 p.m. Always free. Always fascinating.

And don’t miss the Bigfoots of Oregon Kick Ass Oregon History podcasts – part 1 and part two are live!