[Find the Mercury's 25th Anniversary Issue (in print) near you by using this handy-dandy map, and read all of our anniversary stories here.—eds.]

The first issue of the Portland Mercury debuted in June 2000, coinciding with a rare alignment of six planets and the introduction of the Nokia brick phone. No, it wasn’t founded in the ‘90s. Yes, that does mean “Oops!... I Did It Again” is almost old enough to rent a car. Condolences on your impending colonoscopy, high school reunion, and/or quarter-life crisis. In those halcyon days of print media and dial-up internet, a scrappy upstart alternative weekly might be expected to engage in what some might call “gonzo journalism” and others “technically crimes.”

“I never felt like things were just gratuitous.” former managing editor Phil Busse says, “It was always coming from a place of curiosity, experimentation, and P.T. Barnum showmanship.” But there’s a but: “There wasn’t always the foresight that someday I’d be 55 and have to have a serious career, and there are photographs of me in women’s underwear holding a nail gun.”

“It shouldn’t be so easy to bury someone alive,” adds Zac Pennington, one of the Mercury’s former music editors.

And these aren’t even the dumbest stunts the Mercury pulled. With a history that now spans the entire 21st century (with a lot of slow news days in between), there were plenty of opportunities for weekly misadventures in the name of local journalism. In honor of the paper’s quadricentennial, here is a comprehensive timeline of the Twentysomething Gray Lady’s more colorful episodes.

July, 2000: The First (of Several) Mercury Reporters Gets Arrested

“AFTER MY SIXTH HOUR IN JAIL, the euphoria of freight train riding wore off.”—Katia Dunn

Not two months in print and the Mercury earned its first employee an arrest record, and for a crime that hasn’t been top of mind for most people since the 1930s. The assignment was a deep dive on modern trainhopping, which included an illicit one-way ride from a Portland railyard to the West Coast National Hobo Convention in Dunsmire, California. The reporter and her mysterious guide, “Rider X,” got nabbed by the bulls just south of the Oregon border and spent the night in lockup. Was it a good idea to send a reporter 350 miles on the back of a grain car, without a ticket, in the company of a mysterious guide named “Rider X”? No, this is not what a good idea looks like.

Wm. Steven Humphrey, Portland Mercury Editor, Responds: Look, it was a different time, okay? In the year 2000, America was fascinated by “hobo culture.” And Katia was a young, plucky reporter trying to make a name for herself in the cutthroat world of journalism—so who am I to deny her the success she so desperately sought? Besides, can we all just acknowledge that I was the true victim in this story? I had to bail her out of jail AND give her $75 for the bus ride home! And for what? Now that you mention it… are you sure this wasn’t in the Willamette Week? 

March, 2004: Three Words: Gang Bang Review

"Last week, when I was at the gang bang..." —Katie Shimer

This is the first of what would be several exposés on Portland’s remarkably resilient sex club scene. The Mercury staffer in question sojourned to “Gang Bang Night” at the Ace of Hearts, a sex club on SE César Chávez in a space that would subsequently become a different sex club, before moving downtown to a space that would then become a third sex club. The rundown included an in-depth survey of the free buffet situation (“gang bang or no, who passes up a free buffet?”) and the relatable, if extremely 2004, observation that, “the last thing I need is some pre-cum rubbing off on my favorite pair of Gap low-rise, boot cut stretches.” Like a lot of sex club coverage, the resulting article is predictably titillating, strangely pedestrian, and almost certainly a major HR violation in any other workplace. 

WSH Responds: Ha-ha! Nice try! The Mercury doesn’t even HAVE an HR department! But, ummm… yeah. Different time.

April, 2004: A Mercury Reporter Arranges Her Own Kidnapping

“The scariest part was when I started to run out of air.”—Madam X

Perhaps the paper’s most notorious episode (and that’s saying something), in the spring of 2004 one of the Merc’s cub reporters arranged her own kidnapping via Craigslist. The response was… polarizing. There were blog posts, death threats, a movie deal, and this was back when there was a Letters to the Editor section, so just try to imagine what was going on in there. “I was pretty new at the Mercury,” says Madam X, a former Mercury staff writer who requested a pseudonym so that her Craigslist kidnapping exposé wouldn’t return to haunt her Google results. “I was basically feeling a lot of pressure from Steve to come up with a feature idea. He was really putting the screws to me. I was like ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, I need an idea.’” She says “getting herself kidnapped” didn’t exactly come out of nowhere, though: “I was a literature major and I liked horror. I wound up reading a lot of the Marquis de Sade. [His] writing and philosophy was all about the attraction to risk, to things that are ‘other.’ Death, sex, blood, shit, whatever, why are we fascinated and drawn to things like that?” Why indeed?

Madam X notes that, at the time, there was a “kidnapping for hire” service operating out of New York, and a number of experimental theater and art projects that blurred the lines of consent and forced confinement. If that was the case elsewhere, then certainly there must be someone local with an interest in kidnapping play? A friend of hers mentioned an odd online ad they’d seen recently and, “sure enough, I found a guy on Craigslist who was looking for somebody to kidnap."

The kidnapping itself, she says, was a bit of a letdown. “It was ridiculously overbuilt, I felt, in terms of security. We practically had this guy's DNA. I felt like it was a little bit tame,” Madam X says, “Like, I actually wanted to be scared, and I didn't really feel scared because it was all so  manufactured, and I knew about all of the safety protocols [the Mercury had set up].” It did involve getting blindfolded, gagged, zipped into a sleeping bag, and shoved into the trunk of a car. Which Madam X wasn’t overly impressed with: “Wasn't necessary,” she says, “I don't have that great of a sense of direction anyway.” 

Stockholm syndrome didn’t exactly kick in either: “He was definitely interested in fooling around, and I was, like, very clearly not. And he was very respectful of that. So we ended up drinking absinthe, and he took some photos that ran with the article.” 

Would she do it again? Yes and no. “I had a real strong ‘no regrets’ philosophy of life,” she says. “People had a snap reaction to it or whatever, [and] I get it. And yes, that hurt my feelings, but I'm fine.” The risks and rewards of this particular escapade didn’t play out as expected, but that’s not always a bad thing. “I just want to allow it. Like, I don't regret it. I wouldn't do it again, but I'm glad that I did when I did.”

WSH Responds: I’m sorry… am I supposed to defend myself here? Okay, fine… ummm… it was a different time. And besides, I figured she would pitch something like “The Five Filthiest Bathrooms in Portland,” or something like that… not getting fucking KIDNAPPED! But again, I’m a person who believes in the autonomy of women—so who am I to say no? Anyway, I did the right thing—following a legal threat from her mother—and made the experience as safe as possible, up to and including bribing a DMV employee to give me the kidnapper’s address in case we needed to collect the body later. And though she now doesn’t seem to appreciate it at all, YOU ARE WELCOME.

May, 2004: Phil Busse Runs for Mayor

“If you decide to vote for someone other than Phil Busse, I'll understand.”—Phil Busse

A big part of any local paper is to keep a finger on the pulse of local politics, and nothing gets that pulse pumping like a mayoral election. It’s less common, outside of Citizen Kane anyway, to run your managing editor as one of the candidates. But such was the political landscape in 2004 that, not only did the Mercury’s Phil Busse run, he actually came in third. “There was a certain level of frustration,” Busse says in retrospect. “Mayor Vera Katz was [finishing] her third term, and I thought she really ignored issues that Mercury readers cared about.”

Katz declined to run for a fourth, and in the absence of a strong incumbent, 26 candidates from the entire spectrum of Portland weirdness threw their proverbial hats in the ring. “There was the naked guy who was on cable TV,” Busse recalls, “he ended up eighth and died before the election. There was a clown. A literal clown.”

Busse says he didn’t initially harbor dreams of mayoral conquest. “It started, kind of, as a lark,” he says. “I wrote a column. It was called ‘The People's Bitch.’ [I have absolutely no memory of this—but to be honest I didn’t read everything we printed.—WSH] ‘I will do what you want. Tell me what you want.’ And then some readers contacted me and said, ‘Hey, you should be serious about [running for mayor].” 

Access to a media platform and the absence of a strong incumbent led to some genuine contemplation. “I have a law degree, you know? I do understand local politics,” Busse says, “So six months before the election we took a four-day retreat to the coast and sat there with our laptops and researched and thought about issues that matter.” [“We”?? Who’s this “WE”?? I don’t do anything at the beach except stuff my face with salt water taffy.—WSH] Busse says police accountability, Iraq War-era protests, and environmental issues were all top of mind. That led to a 100-page policy platform “and a little bit” of fundraising. 

His campaign, in true Mercury fashion, was aggressively quirky: “I had a person dressed in a penguin outfit who would follow about 10 feet behind me and hand out campaign literature. But I would never acknowledge them,” Busse notes with genuine fondness.

In the end, it wasn’t quite enough. Busse only got 9,870 votes out of the 133,804 cast, though that did technically place him third. Busse’s takeaway from the episode is simple: “I think everybody should run for office once,” he says, “there's something just wonderful about learning about how much people care about their city.”

Would he do it again with the benefit of hindsight? “At age 35, yeah, I would again.”

Was this one a bad idea? Well, bad in the sense that it didn’t result in an electoral victory. But democracy marches on (for now).

WSH Responds: I honestly have no memory of this. But, sure… whatever… it was a different time.

July, 2004: The Drowning Issue

“Don't feel like experiencing drowning firsthand? Good call.”—Erik Henriksen 

Special Mercury editions aren’t anything new, and in the past the paper has themed coverage around popular subjects like local landmarks (“The Best of Enchanted Forest”) and babies (“The Baby Issue”). Somehow “the concept of drowning” made it onto this list of hot button issues, which in retrospect seems like a questionable assessment of audience sensibilities, then or now. Readers were baffled and advertisers were furious, presumably because none of them sold life jackets. It’s a bad idea to go swimming after a meal… this idea was even worse.

WSH Responds: OMIGOD, what’s with all the negativity? Look, no other news source in America would dare tackle the subject of drowning (those COWARDS). And while it may have been a different time, I still regard “The Drowning Issue” as the greatest—and most successful—editorial decision of my career. If you don’t count “The Benicio del Toro Issue.”

October, 2005: The Mercury Buries its Music Editor Alive

“I hummed the Smiths' ‘I Know It's Over’ as the dirt collapsed percussively all around me.”—Zac Pennington

In the second season of Mythbusters, the team buried co-host Jamie Hyneman alive in a steel coffin. Despite the impressive engineering involved and medics on standby, everyone more or less agreed that particular experiment was one of the less good ideas on the show. In 2005, the Mercury’s Zac Pennington decided to basically do the same thing with a plywood coffin and a backhoe “someone had.” 

“I was about to turn 25 at the time,” Pennington notes ruefully. “Now, being so much older, it feels very silly—but I wanted to celebrate my birthday by burying my youth.” Once he pitched the idea, he says it came together remarkably quickly. “There was a guy named Rob, who worked for the Mercury and built the coffin, which was apparently very easy for him to do.”

They also had the foresight to drill a hole for a PVC air pipe, though they neglected to account for the fact that carbon dioxide sinks. “It wasn't until an absence of oxygen started to set in that it started to really dawn on me that it was a bad idea,” Pennington remembers. 

Until the oxygen deprivation hit, he says he wasn’t all that concerned. “I have a tendency to push towards bad ideas, I think,” he says. “Also, the fact that, like, there were so many people there made it feel like there was something safe about it. Which should not have been the case. [No one] was in a position to help me. They were all weak newspaper journalists, not the kind of people you want to be there in a life and death situation.”

Did he learn anything from the ordeal? Not really, no. “I learned nothing from the experience. [It’s] pretty indicative of most of my experiences at the Mercury. I learned nothing at all. I wouldn't say I wouldn't do it again, uh, but I also can't say that I came away a better person for it.”

WSH Responds: Okay, fine… mistakes were made. [There’s a short pause in the interview where Humphrey consults with the company’s team of  lawyers.—Ben] Absolutely no mistakes were made. As we can all see, because of all the extraordinary precautions the Mercury undertook, Zac emerged SAFELY  from his coffin and went on to… have some sort of career. The chance of him actually DYING was like… I don’t know… maybe one-in-25, and you cannot get much safer than that. [Humphrey pauses to consult with his legal team again.—Ben] Oh! Also it was a different time. 

December, 2005: The Mercury Auctions Off Employees

“The one thing you absolutely will receive is FUN”—Auction Listing

The Mercury ran an annual charity auction from 2005 to 2011, which sounds like the sort of thing that shouldn’t be on a bad ideas retrospective. And yet, and yet. Along with yoga classes and tickets to the HUMP! pornographic film festival, the paper regularly offered up dates with employees in exchange for sweet, sweet charity. In a vaguely egalitarian move, dates were available for both “The Mercury Girls” and “The Mercury Boys” so, setting aside the blatant enby erasure, there’s that.

Current Mercury comptroller Katie Lake recalls that “dressing up with the gal-pals, [and] ordering one too many cocktails” was a “damn good time”—but also remembers that things didn’t always go as planned: “One year, our drunk date ended the night by pissing in the hallway of [former goth dance club] Noir. Deepest apologies, Noir.” 

Is it a good idea for a newspaper to sell, rent, or lease its employees, even for a good cause? No, no it is not.

WSH Responds: What else was I supposed to auction, the printing presses? We needed those. And anyway, it was a different time. [Humphrey seems increasingly more uncomfortable with this line of questioning.—Ben]

July, 2015: The Mercury Gives Drugs Away for Free

"Now that it's legal, weed is cool!": Nice try, narc.—Francine Colman-Gutierrez

It seems like a distant memory, but Oregon only legalized weed a scant decade ago, and in response, the Mercury was very normal about it. And if weed was legal, why not give away enormous amounts of it? Two days after legalization? Right before the 4th of July? The holiday known for fireworks-related injuries? And on a day where temperatures hit 96 degrees? And so “Weed the People” was born. The paper dispensed the devil’s lettuce to an estimated 2,000 randos, resulting in at least two people passing out from the heat and an unknown number of Doritos consumed. “At one point, I had 30 pounds of weed in my front room,” says Joshua Jardine Taylor, the Mercury’s former weed dealer/ correspondent. He estimates they gave away over 50 pounds in total. Good vibes, bad idea.

WSH Responds: Wait, wait, wait… we gave away WEED? For FREE?? That’s like the best idea ever! But, did we get in trouble for it? Uhhh… if so, different time! [Humphrey begins not so stealthily moving toward the door.—Ben] 

May, 2025: Wm. Steven Humphrey Commissions This Article, Thereby Reminding Everyone of All These Things

WSH Responds: Oh, crap. Different time! [Humphrey peels out of the parking lot in a car that does not appear to be his.—Ben]

July, 2025: Now that he’s gone, seriously, what was really going on back then?

“Everybody was allowed to do their thing, to fly their own freak,” Busse recalls. In the early 2000s, before Twitter launched and Vice pivoted to video, a lot of what’s now considered new media hadn’t quite solidified yet. For Madam X it mostly came down to getting something interesting on the page: “I feel like what people maybe don't remember is that, in the early days of the Mercury, there wasn't always that much shit happening in town.” Sometimes, she recalls, that meant becoming the story rather than just reporting on it: “People's standards of entertainment have changed, but it was fun for us to do. And I know people in the city were actually reading it, because we had a very active dialogue with our readership.” Pennington says that was the vibe for him too: “There was just something in the air, you know? You're young and dumb, and you want to do something stupid, and [the Mercury] is going to facilitate that stupid thing and capitalize on it.”

And so, drinking issues, sex club forays, and the occasional kidnapping were all in the service of making sure there was an attention-grabbing cover story each and every week. Even if things didn’t always go as planned (see above), it’s in keeping with the grand tradition of alt-weeklies going where more established papers wouldn’t, even if that’s because more established papers correctly assessed how stupid it’d be. And while the Mercury isn’t quite so young as it used to be, there will always be plenty of new opportunities for dumb.