RE: "Crowdfund" [Everything as Fuck, Oct 1], in which columnist Ian Karmel gives notice that he won't be contributing to frivolous crowdfunding requests—using a terrible movie he once made and thinly veiled vacations as examples of undeserving projects.
DEAR IAN [KARMEL]—I'm sorry to hear about your movie. Don't worry. We all make mistakes. I'm just writing to say, "It's okay," you know, about not "Kickstarting my vacation" or "paying for my move" or "funding my novel." I don't want to move anywhere else. I'm not even sure I want to leave for vacation. A vacation is just a bunch of free time, and when I have free time I like to go to my favorite bar. If I went away on vacation I'd just have to find another beer/pinball facility. [And] no matter the splendor, the majesty, the rock bottom-touchin' prices of this "vacation place," it still wouldn't be as great as my favorite place in Portland. Firstly, it would be farther away. Secondly, when I have bouts of "low self-esteem" about "frittering away" the time I could spend working toward my dreams, I know that I am supporting a person/people who is/are working very hard to keep their own dream alive. This would be the dream of a club that holds all-ages shows. Not just any all-ages shows—the kind of obscenely, loud raucous shows that aren't going to happen in a coffee shop, or bookstore, or park. They hold the kind of shows that I (adult with disposable income for things like food and beer and cover charges over three dollars) would do many things to avoid and that I (when I was a teenager growing up in Portland) needed. Thirdly, every time I happily un-fund my teenage dream with one more beer, I know I'm funding the home of the Church of Rock and Roll. It's a (more literal) nonprofit for youth to learn about the music business. It mitigates most of my guilt about having a good time at the expense of my ambitions. So Ian, about the "vacation"—it's no big. As long as Slabtown stays open, I can't think of a single reason I would ever ask for crowdfunding from you or [anyone else].
Please Save Slabtown
RE: "A Reel-y Musical Fest" [Film, Oct 8], an overview of the annual Reel Music festival, which includes documentary films about Elliott Smith (Heaven Adores You) and the closing of a Seattle punk club.
DEAR NED [LANNAMANN]—I've read a bunch of great reviews of Heaven Adores You, which I am excited to see as soon as it comes out on video. (I like movies a lot better when my couch is involved. There's more back support and I don't have to fake like my cat is a service animal.) I have to say your review was especially enjoyable because you mentioned another documentary about a recently deceased Seattle club. [Razing the Bar, about punk venue the Funhouse]. You are dead-on when you mention this documentary's relevance to Portland, and in the spirit of staying at home and great music venues, I'd like to mention a few documentaries available on video. Satyricon: Madness and Glory: a documentary about a longtime Portland club, now closed. As well as X-Ray Visions: A Look Inside Portland's Legendary X-Ray Café: a documentary about a Portland club, also closed. The X-Ray documentary was recently screened at a club called Slabtown. It's a small Portland music venue that upon extinction will undoubtedly make an excellent documentary. While Slabtown needs donations to continue its existence, the documentaries I mentioned are completely free with your Multnomah County library card.
Pay 4 Places B4 Places 4 Pay
RE: "To Stalk and Creep" [I, Anonymous, Oct 8], an anonymous admission by someone who admits to following women home, but insists he's not a stalker.
Here's how you know if it's stalking or not: Would you be okay if some random gay dude you don't know did this to you? Because he was attracted to you? And it works, like, 25 percent of the time? Would you appreciate him doing that? Watching where you work, and finding out where you live? Would it bother you at all? Especially if he was much larger than you and could easily subdue you and/or assault you if he wanted to? How does it sound now? Still sound good? If so, you're fucking crazy.
posted by Ursula Goff
THANK YOU for breaking that down, Ursula. You win this week's Mercury letter of the week! That earns you two tickets to the Laurelhurst Theater, where—luckily—most of the stalking takes place on the screen and in the imagination.
