It was Geno

Published in the Portland Phoenix

It was the cigarette smoke wafting in from the sidewalk, making Geno’s air still potent that night.

As most night owls know, Geno D’Alessandro was a legendary and pioneering club owner in Portland. His death February 10 was the reason for last week’s memorial, but, as expected, it was more of a celebration.

Geno’s was Geno’s. It was unlike anywhere else, and the memorial was, too: folks barely 21 and senior citizens; punk rockers cleaned up and others still — or again — in the outfits of misfits; musicians just beginning and long since moved on; solo acts representing whole bands and entire groups reunited years later.

It was the punks and horsemen wanting to pay tribute together, greeting Geno’s welcome still hearty that night. Musicians who had never met — and at least one who hadn’t picked up a guitar in years — got up on stage together to play one last song for the man who gave them their start, who gave them encouragement every step of the way, and who, even when a winter parking ban kept any attendees away, was known to give out-of-town bands at least “enough for cheeseburgers and gas money” to get to their next gig.

It was the mourners struck dumb, hearing Geno’s sound still strong that night. Punk songs from the likes of Bates Motel, which hadn’t graced the Geno’s stage in more than a decade, roared from the speakers. His own stories and stories about him; his own words and words about him. Originals composed in his honor; old favorites — among them Sinatra’s “It Was A Very Good Year”; repurposed tributes — like Del Shannon’s “My Little Runaway”; lines scribbled on shreds of paper or printed formally from a computer; tales told, angst wrung out, honor paid.

It was the brave faces, seeing Geno’s look still bright that night. Smiles between strangers, hugs among old friends, the groomed and the rumpled, eyes bright and hands outstretched. In the eyes of a punk-country guitarist, of an impassioned ranter, of a two-man drum crew, of a bombed-out bassist, of old friends, family members, employees past and present, the same expression: happy curiosity. Glad they came, but with no idea what might really happen. And no concern, sure it would all be true, good, and beautiful.

It was stunned players looking through tears, finding Geno’s pool prowess still stiff that night. The light over the pool table shuddered more than once, reeling from hits more solid than the cue ball took. And balls that sank took longer to resurface, perhaps themselves slowing down to remember that the last time they rocketed into that corner pocket, it was at Geno’s hand, and that will not happen again.

It was to drown sorrow, sensing Geno’s thirst still unquenchable that night. The “no beer on stage” rule was too much for some, including a guy who “used to suck the beer out of the rug” of the Brown Street club, a memory drawing both laughs and grimaces from those who remember.

It was no dream, but Geno’s love still alive that night.

Good for you: Chocoholics find their calling in Portland

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Medical researchers — likely motivated by more than just academic curiosity — continue to explore the healing power of chocolate. Researchers from the Netherlands reported just last month that older men who ate chocolate regularly were less likely to die over the course of 15 years than peers who didn’t.

But why wait until you’re older? Sunday’s Chocolate Lovers’ Fling gives you the opportunity to start now, in style, and boasts a better side effect than most foods: it helps a good cause.

The event is the main fundraiser for Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine, which staffs a round-the-clock hotline handling 2500 calls a year, school-visiting prevention and education programs, and support groups for victims of sexual assault. Most of the work, including visits to hospital emergency rooms to counsel recent victims, is done by volunteers.

The need is great: In 2004, there were an average of 260 forcible rapes each day nationwide, according to FBI statistics. In Maine, there were 313 rapes or attempted rapes reported to police in 2004, or one every 28 hours and 4 minutes. Barely half of them — 51 percent — were solved by police, according to state records. And those crimes are only those reported.

But the topic is touchy. “I understand why people don’t want to talk about it,” says Cyndi Amato, the group’s executive director, who admits the chocolate-tasting event is an idea that draws people and donations in, without making them address the complex social issues at the same time. Amato is even taking steps to involve more kids and families, letting kids under 10 in for free for the first time, and creating a “kids corner” where they can decorate cookies that will be judged and win prizes, just like the real chefs in the rest of the event, hailing from restaurants, chocolate shops, caterers, bakeries, and other shops around southern Maine.

“I love chocolate and it’s a really, really good cause,” says Mary Paine, owner, chef, and manager at Pepperclub, 78 Middle Street, Portland. She is making a vegan and wheat- (gluten-) free chocolate cake made with tofu, soy milk, and brown rice syrup, as well as something that might be called “anti-vegan,” a Ghirardelli-chocolate cheesecake including eggs, cream cheese, and butter.

“I eat chocolate every single day,” Paine says, but she has had to do without this year — she gave chocolate up for Lent, and swears that in all her preparatory mixing and baking, she has not tasted a drop.

Paine is less competitive, and by her own admission less artistic, than many of the folks who enter complex structures of chocolaty goodness into the event’s competition, of which I will be one of several judges.

Christian Gordon, for example, will represent the restaurant where he is general manager and corporate executive chef, Federal Jack’s Restaurant and Brewpub in Kennebunk (owned by Sea Dog Brewing) with a cinnamon white-chocolate ginger-beer float using Sea Dog’s Eli’s Ginger Beer and hand-made ice cream.

In the past he has entered chocolate flourless tortes, a chocolate banana spring roll, chocolate raspberry raviolis (“that lost”), and chocolate nachos (“a big hit”). Like Paine a longtime participant in the event, Gordon sees it as a way to help out an organization that has assisted some friends of his through the hotline.

“I don’t really eat chocolate,” he says. “I like playing with it, making stuff with it.”

Chocolate Lovers’ Fling | March 26, 1-4 pm | Holiday Inn By The Bay, 88 Spring St, Portland | $20, free for children under 10 | 207.828.1035 | confidential hotline at 1.800.313.9900

On the Web
Sexual Assault Response Services of Southern Maine: www.sarsonline.org

Alehouse goes . . . country?!

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Late one night a while back, Russ Riseman, owner of the Alehouse on 30 Market Street, in Portland, was writing “country” on the board listing his club’s upcoming shows, while across the room a metal band was packing up. They looked over, saw the word, and started laughing. Riseman was worried, but only for a second.

The band members told him, Riseman recounts, that they listen to country music at home, in their cars, wherever they are. Even though they play heavy metal, country is what they grew up with and love.

Now, one night every other week at the Alehouse, there’s a chance for rockers of all kinds “whether they want to put on their plaid flannel clothes” or not to come into the Old Port and go a little bit Western. The events start Thursday, March 23, with a show by Maine native Mark Knight, who has been performing in Nashville for a while.

The Alehouse gigs will “introduce the largest genre in the country to one of the smallest cities in the country,” Riseman says, but it’s really just a pilot project for his dream: by the end of the year, Riseman wants to open a “full country bar,” complete with a mechanical bull, a bathtub full of ice and beer bottles, a horseshoe bar, and a big stage, somewhere a few miles out of the city.

And while he’s not talking about closing the Alehouse (though moving it is a possibility, if he can find a new spot with more room and a different landlord [see “Good Soundbreaks Make...,” by Jeff Inglis, January 20]), Riseman recognizes that “the potential for me as a businessperson is greater ... with country music,” given its wild popularity both nationally and locally.

The Toby Keith concert at the Civic Center March 2 sold out in minutes, and a pre-party hosted by radio station WPOR at the Old Port Tavern was well attended.

But for country to succeed here, Riseman says, “an emotional door needs to be open,” so Portland’s city folk can reveal their down-home secrets. “Nobody in a city wants to admit that this is your favorite form of entertainment,” maybe not even the metal bands.

City Council flexes muscles

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Using a new tactic to control bars in the Old Port, the Portland City Council last week overruled the objections of the city’s police department and renewed the entertainment license of the bar 188 Bourbon Street, which also operates a banquet hall called the Pavilion, both located at 188 Middle Street.

But the council, whose ability to restrict liquor licenses is limited by state law, used a city law targeted at outdoor entertainment to limit the bar's indoor live music and dancing.

Any business holding an entertainment license — a special addition to a liquor license that expires the moment a bar’s liquor license does — must still obey city noise restrictions, requiring relative quiet after 10 pm from any source, indoors or out. But the council went further, allowing 188 Bourbon to stay open and continue to serve alcohol until 1 am under its liquor license, but requiring the bar's entertainment to stop at 11:30 pm on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights.

The council has often limited events to certain hours, but usually as part of an permit for outdoor entertainment, like the speakers at Natasha’s, which are not allowed to be on until after 5 pm, according to Amanda Berube at the city clerk’s office. In that case, the restriction is because Natasha’s is surrounded by businesses that might be disturbed if the tunes came on too early, Berube says.

“It’s just been more of a recent” move to limit indoor events, she says. So recent, in fact, that no minutes of any council meeting in 2005 — and only last week’s meeting in 2006 — even show councilors moving in that direction.

And it happened twice in the same meeting. The first time, in the discussion for the Tree’s new license, the motion, by councilor Karen Geraghty and seconded by councilor Will Gorham (the council’s lead dog on controlling the bars), failed.

But councilor Jim Cloutier, who abstained from the debate on the Tree, liked the idea so well he proposed it for 188 Bourbon Street shortly thereafter. He did not return a phone call seeking comment on his motivation. The council also tried — but failed — to block outside seating, though it succeeded in forcing 188 Bourbon to renew its license in six months, instead of granting the usual year-long permit. That, too is “something that they’ve started to do” recently, Berube says.

“They’ve curtailed what they see as a problem on our Ladies Night,” which draws 300 to 500 people on Wednesday nights, says Jim Albert, the club’s owner. While he admitted the problems were from his patrons, they were “outside the club, after closing,” and therefore should be handled by the police, he says.

Albert thinks it is “hypocritical” for the city to charge a bar-stool tax to support police presence in the Old Port, and then penalize bars for the work police officers have to do. Further, he says his lawyer told him 188 Bourbon bouncers should not be dispersing crowds on public streets, citing liability concerns.

“Maybe it’s time for the patrons that cause the trouble to be accountable,” by being arrested or summoned to court, Albert says.

The council also subjected Albert to another form of discipline — as promised in December, when Gorham, chairman of the council’s public safety subcommittee, said he would move all entertainment- and liquor-license renewals to the end of council meetings, rather than have them early in the evening.

The club’s permit was not even taken up for discussion until 9:30 pm, and debate finished just before 11 pm. Albert, who didn’t bring his attorney to the 7 pm meeting — thereby avoiding having to pay for four hours of an attorney’s time to get 90 minutes of help — remembered having his business addressed more in the middle of the meeting the last time he had to renew his license.

Gov. Baldacci faces in-party challenge

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Chris Miller, a progressive Maine Democrat who has tried to push the party to the left, has filed papers to unseat Governor John Baldacci, and said he will announce his candicacy later this week or early next. Miller was elected vice-president of the Maine Progressive Caucus in 2004, helping lead an organization that described itself as trying to work within the Democratic Party to return it "to its populist roots." (The group's Web site is no longer in existence.)

Miller told a caucus meeting in 2005 that "the Democratic leadership [in Maine] really is clinging to the large corporations."

As an activist, last year he tried unsuccessfully to strip from corporations their abilities to support candidates in elections, to fund petition drives, and to refuse to testify against themselves – rights people have that were also granted to companies in an 1886 Supreme Court ruling. He also backed legislation to require companies to act in the public's best interests, which also failed. (See"Campaign 2008" by Lance Tapley, May 13, 2005; and "Legislative Matters" by Sara Donnelly, June 3, 2005.) PeopleFirst!Maine – a group dedicated to those ends – is headquartered at Miller's home.

The Web site for the business he runs, a Gray-based Internet-service provider called Maine Street Communications, is filled with links to progressive news and opinion sites, and includes a blog sub-site with columns from many of Maine's populist and progressive activists.

Miller's own postings are there, too, addressing Iraqi civilian casualties, national Democratic politics, privacy, corporate accountability to society, and slamming Baldacci policies.
Miller said his positions as a candidate will follow the lines on his blog, but did not want to give more specifics until launching his effort to get the required 2000 to 3000 signatures on his nominating petition to force a primary runoff with Baldacci.