Congratulations to sometime Mercury freelancer Stephen Marc Beaudoin for organizing last night’s benefit for Haiti, which is likely to have raised $180,000 for MercyCorps. The high number is in large part due to a matching donation agreement by the Ray Hickey Foundation, and a $23,000 donation from American Steel’s Howard Hedinger. It’s a remarkable achievement and I already feel vindicated in calling Beaudoin a “person to watch” this year in last week’s Street Roots, as a result. I’m also proud of the Mercury‘s co-sponsorship of the evening.
“But it’s really important to really really recognize the Ray Hickey foundation,” says Beaudoin. “What they did and what Linda Hickey did is unbelievable.”
- PHOTO BY CARLA AXTMAN
- BEAUDOIN
You can read a rather kiss-assy, back-patty round up of the evening at the Oregonian, so I’ll spare you the meat and potatoes. But I did want to share a few delightful moments that weren’t covered over there—mainly because I feel sure that Beaudoin would almost certainly have done so in his own days as a scratchy arts critic, before stepping into the big time.
Firstly, the Oregonian‘s Margie Boule: She spent most of the evening scrapping for microphone time with KOIN weatherman Tim Joyce, insisted on showcasing her “bling” to the audience—some incredibly expensive-looking bracelets and what looked like a ruby choker that could probably have tripled the evening’s take, if she’d donated it—then described the developmentally disabled adults from the PHAME academy choir as “like the Special Olympics of the performing arts.” Claaaaang. All this was topped by Boule’s cattish looks in Storm Large’s direction—at one point she bared all her teeth in a smile so insincere I thought I might get sunburn if she’d turned it on the audience.
“I love that Margie and Tim were doing this together,” says Beaudoin. “Because Margie is kinda hammy and she’s delightful, and she’s been around forever, and I mean that in the best way, and Tim’s young and inexperienced, and I thought the combination of the two of them working together was delightful.”
Delightful!
- PHOTO BY CARLA AXTMAN
- STORM LARGE
A 10-piece choir led by Janice Scroggins, featuring vocalist Linda Hornbuckle, was absolutely incredible and should have headlined the night. Watching the crowd clap, scream, yell and go crazy for the music made me think we Portlanders all need to cut loose with the gospel a little more often.
Storm Large, herself, was ridiculous. But then, she always is. Given top-billing—which I guess she demanded in place of a fee—her melodramatic and scratchy rendition of “Axis Bold As Love” was only topped in the cheese stakes by her part in the concluding rendition of “Amazing Grace”—the same song she sang on her knees to the mayoral recall protesters outside city hall last year. Irony of ironies, I don’t think Large may have seen Beaudoin’s production last year of The Beggar’s Opera. In it, a pop star character named “Lucy Lockett” was shamelessly drawn to any hint of controversy or civic distress as an opportunity to promote and enrich herself.
“I’d never met Storm until last night, and I feel like I’m coming away with a very different impression of her now than I had,” says Beaudoin—who admits that the character of Lockett was based partly on Large.
Lucy Lockett’s character was the daughter of Officer Randy Lockett—a character based, loosely, again, says Beaudoin, on City Commissioner Randy Leonard. “But just as the Randy Lockett character wasn’t entirely based on Randy Leonard, neither was Lucy Lockett entirely based on Storm Large,” he continues. “It was also sending up an archetype of the self-absorbed pop star, and I think Storm showed last night that she’s anything but a self-absorbed pop star.”
Perhaps. Although I was surprised at the conspicuous absence from last night’s proceedings of Storm-chronicler extraordinaire, Byron Beck. Rumor is, he can’t stand Beaudoin, and perhaps, like me, Beck is jealous of all the exposure Beaudoin has been getting over the benefit. But you’d think he could suck it up for charity, at the very least. Still, there’s no mention of the benefit on his blog this morning.
- BABY BOOM PLUS: THE DEMOGRAPHIC BOUGHT THEIR BOOKS TO READ
“I have so much love for our city this morning. SO much love,” says Beaudoin.
Me, too.
I think the best part of the evening was watching the old couple in front of me, who had actually bought along their books to read, before things got started, jumping around and throwing gangster signs while “Terrance ‘Cool Nutz’ Scott,” as he was introduced by Boule—she just couldn’t wrap her mouth around the straight-up “Cool Nutz,” it seemed—rhymed repeatedly about “putting the funk in the slot.”
Beaudoin says the initial goal for the evening was to raise $25,000. I’ll donate another $30 this afternoon if he can bring himself to speak to me again after reading this.
Update, 1:36 Beaudoin called. I donated another $30. Although I think the less written about our conversation for the time being, the better.
“I think Storm showed last night that she’s anything but a self-absorbed pop star”
I kinda doubt that.
A big congrats to Stephen and everyone who made this event possible. It’s great that Portland rallied and raised so much for such a important cause. Thanks to everyone who also re-posted the link to the event I put on my Facebook and Twitter pages. I really appreciate that. Sorry I couldn’t make the event.
Byron Beck
I’m glad there’s all this effort to raise money for Haiti. But goddamn it, where are these people when there isn’t a charitable cause celeb? The Oregon Food Bank had record low donations this year. $90,000 buys a lot of tins of beans and soup for people starving right here.
@tcraighenry: I hear you. Part of my problem with Hati is that the attention/money will dry up in a few months. Hati, by most accounts, had failed long before the earthquake, a century and a half of poor farming practices has resulted in a country that can not feed itself. They imported 60% of their food and yet a significant portion of the country is too poor to buy it and resorts to eating mud. Since they don’t produce any exports to speak of, the money to buy the food mainly comes from people that have left the country sending money back home. Add a not too distant coup, significant corruption, and the skilled workforce leaving, (they send money back home, but nobody is passing on the skills to the younger generations,) and you just have a permanent disaster area, even before you knock down the cardboard shacks that people called home. So caring for the wounded, some clothing, and some food for a few month is great, but without a long term solution, the long term impact is nothing.
I wish it wasn’t true, I wish that we had an ability to actually dedicate long term attention/money to dealing with problems, but look at New Orleans. They were moderately successful until they got hit by a hurricane, and by all standards are a much simpler problem to deal with than Hati, and yet we still haven’t fixed the levies so that the city doesn’t flood again. Now, maybe it will be better in Hati because a significant portion of the aid will come from the Europeans, which don’t have as short of an attention span as we do, but still…
Re: Storm – “Given top-billing—which I guess she demanded in place of a fee—”
Is this journalism? You “guess”? So are you saying she did this, based on information you have because you did your research (a.k.a. your job) as a journalist, or you’re assuming she did this? Because this sounds decidedly uncharacteristic of the Storm I know. The Storm I know says “yes” to virtually every cause in Portland that she cares about – and there are a lot of them – and pretty much never asks for anything in return. And, in fact, she DID say yes to the person putting on this benefit after he penned a scathing caricature of her just months before because she cares more about Haiti than holding a grudge. If Storm is ridiculous, it’s because she’s responding to this ridiculous town that’s alternately begging her to help with their causes and telling her how much she sucks.