by Ryan J. Prado

The joint efforts of the Elder Resource Alliance (ERA) and Senior Housing and Retirement Enterprises (SHARE) foster a common goal for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender seniors in the Portland area. During Pride 2009, the organizations will team up to address housing concerns and offer support for elder sexual minorities.

ERA and SHARE plan a senior resource activity tent to celebrate those “gay and gray” in the community and will host a wide-range of activities, from dancing to craft-making, acupuncture to gardening, according to Mya Chamberlin, program director for the Friendly House Senior Program.

“We plan to incorporate ‘well being’ activities that support the mind, body and spirit,” said Chamberlin.

The two organizations have a history of collaboration, during Pride festivities and others. In addition to partnering for June 13-14’s senior tent, ERA/SHARE staff members – largely volunteer-based – will march together during the Pride Parade.

Chamberlin explained that although ERA and SHARE have unique missions, gay, lesbian, bi and trans seniors are at the heart of the organizations’ basic aims.

“ERA lends their expertise of activities and support for independent living GLBTQI seniors, while SHARE addresses the housing concerns of this vulnerable population,” said Chamberlin. “In addition, ERA and SHARE have an amazing pool of committed volunteers who give of their time to both organizations.”

“We wanted to create a way for all the people in both our organizations to come together for this energizing event, as opposed to having to make a choice to support one or the other.”

For the second year in a row, Q Center (4115 N. Mississippi Ave.) is offering a family-friendly event to launch June’s Pride NW festivities.

Family Pride, held 2-4 p.m. June 7, exists to celebrate the youngest members of the gay community, as children of same-sex households socialize in entertaining activities like arts and crafts, live music sing-a-longs, and interactive games. The event is also an opportunity for parents to socialize with other same-sex caregivers.

Parents are encouraged to bring along a white t-shirt for their children to decorate as a custom-made souvenir. Light refreshments will be served.

As if growing up a Native and African-American female in Greensboro, North Carolina wasn’t hard enough, Jennifer Lanier came of age accepting the truths of her sexual identity as a lesbian. Armed with a dysfunctional Southern military family dynamic and a penchant for the dramatic – she has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the North Carolina School of the Arts – Lanier flipped the script, so to speak, penning an outrageous one-woman show documenting the trials of her youth, and her transition into adulthood.

None of the Above, her award-winning theater performance, makes a special stop at Q Center on June 11 as part of Pride NW. The production has received wide-ranging accolades, including the 2008 Special Achievement Award from the National Association of Black & White Men Together, awards for Best of the Festival and Best Socio-Political Play at the Columbus National Gay & Lesbian Theatre Festival, and nominations for several awards at Harvest Montreal: The International Gay & Lesbian Theatre Festival. Lanier also landed the title of “One of the Funniest Lesbians of 2008” from Curve Magazine.

Her performance has been characterized as “a flash of beauty and inspiration” from New York Times writer Erika Kinetz and is hailed as an emotional and thought-provoking piece of theater from what Q Center organizers call “a living, laughing, loving American complexity.”

The now regular party happening at Someday Lounge, “Portland Is Burning,” will crackle under a more fiery flame on June 12, when organizers Seth Gottesdiener and Coco unleash the white-hot “Portland is Burning for Pride.”

The evening is chock-full of entertainment, with a special appearance from New York City’s DJ Bruno, a SoHo regular who lent a song to the soundtrack of Michael Alig manifesto Party Monster. DJ Automaton will also spin, and the inaugural performance from Gottesdiener’s new group, Boy Joy, at midnight should not be missed – the act features backup dancers and all-original music. Drag sets by notorious local divas Sizzlean Jambon, Vivica Valentine and Sable Scities might normally round out such a torrid evening of debauchery, were it not for the added bonus of attractions like Ms. Renee’s tarot readings, the Butch Queen Beauty Salon and a proposed “vogue off.” Either way you slice it, the excitement will be thick.

“I kind of want ‘Portland is Burning’ to be ‘Gay Education 101’ for straight people or even others gays,” said Gottesdiener, noting that the Pride edition will be no exception. “In fact, it would probably be a two-week intensive in one night. I’m not saying that I have my MFA in gay studies or anything, but I would like the party to be a representation of what I have gathered from my meager 22 years being a gay man living in New York and Portland.”

For the second year, Pride NW will be a carbon neutral event. Thanks to the purchase of a surplus of carbon offsets by Portland General Electric from the Climate Trust of Oregon, the event will be easily able to offset carbon emissions produced by vehicles operating in this year’s Pride Parade.

Pride NW has, since its inception, remained dedicated to producing an environmentally friendly event, and continues to do so under Pride 2009’s “United We Stand” banner. Organizers have teamed up with Portland Events Recycle to decrease garbage output by 40 percent by way of “promotion of recycling at festival entrances and waste stations, and the implementation of composting options for both guests and vendors,” according to a Pride NW press release.

The philanthropy continues with the Pride NW food drive to benefit Our House of Portland. The organization provides care and works with people with advanced HIV/AIDS who have difficulty managing independent living. Attendees are encouraged to bring canned foods to stationed barrels inside all gates throughout Pride NW.

“Last year, we were the single largest donor of canned goods,” said Hank Renfrow, vice president of Pride NW. “Of course we would love to meet that goal again this year, as we have set the bar high. We would like to break that record by at least 10 percent.”

If it was easy to interpret the allure of Portland femme fatales Felina’s Arrow, it’d be difficult to justify the group’s main stage slot on June 13 for Pride NW. As it stands, the duo’s deftly layered influences aren’t worn on its collective sleeve, but rather underneath a cloak of musical shades, striking a chord of diversity for an audience teeming with it.

Poeina Suddarth and Felicia Figueroa connected in drizzly Seattle in 2002, sputtering cross country in a VW van for four years. Venues ran the gamut from sidewalks to theaters while they carved out the crux of their sound. The bond still resonates today.

The band’s been stationed in Portland for two years now, and has garnered a sizeable following for rollicking interpretations of songcraft both melancholy and spry. They offer a self-description of “glam, pain and harmony,” and it’s very nearly true. Songs like “Phantom,” from their 2006 album Let Me Tell You a Story, navigate operatic melodies and heartbreaking lyricism with minimalist guitar accompaniment, while “Pirate Song,” from a collection of live recordings, dishes up a peppy, swashbuckling, mariachi groove. Covering such a spectrum of sound all but guarantees intrigue for whoever might be listening.

As part of Pride NW’s main stage roster on June 13, Felina’s Arrow will be sandwiched in between a litany of great acts, including Sophie Lux, Katie Sawicki, The Big Package and headliners Uh Huh Her. The band takes the stage at 6:30 p.m. Check out the complete schedule of Pride NW live entertainment at pridenw.org.

With so many Pride celebrations, dance nights, live music offerings, art shows and fashion galas, there’s no way of determining which will emerge as the crème de la crème from this year’s batch of entertainment. That said, “A Pinker Shade of Gay,” hosted June 6 at Backspace (115 NW Fifth Ave.), will almost certainly be the loudest.

Organizers have amassed an impressive array of local and regional talent for the one-night-only affair, billed as a Pride month kick-off party and featuring a curated queer visual arts show, live music and DJs L-Train and Femme Bomb spinning throughout the evening. All proceeds benefit the Sexual Minority Youth Resource Center (SMYRC).

In an ear-piercing show of queer solidarity, the diverse live music lineup boasts a varied range of artists:

» Local improv-metal duo Palo Verde exact sludgy guitar riffs and spot-on progressive heaviness with a tight musicality that belies the very nature of improvisation.

» Play/start, also from Portland, dip into garage-punk with a riot grrl bent, brewing a concoction of fun but moody New Wave rock.

» Seattle’s The Redwood Plan ooze Gossip-esque Northwest dance-rock, awash in synthesizers and meaty hooks that will coax those joints to swivel and sway in utter abandon. The band made a recent splash at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas and hit number 1 on Seattle indie radio station KEXP’s Northwest Charts.

» Portland-by-way-of-LA rockers Magic Johnson blaze a sloppy, slippery and downright addictive chasm of Spanish-sung punk. They at “Pinker Shade of Gay” armed with more local buzz than a Mt. Tabor beehive.

» Minimalist art-rockers Minerva wield a soft-edged musical sheen, rounded out by warm cello, distant guitars and therapeutic vocals from singer Jana Cushman, while drummer Jason Drost backbones the whole shebang with stoic rhythms. “A Pinker Shade of Gay” offers a taste for every show-goer in Portland. The benefit begins at 7 p.m. and continues until midnight. Admission is all ages, and there is a sliding scale of $3–$10. Organizers emphasize that no one will be turned away. Earplugs not included.

Moms of every race, creed, color, sexual orientation and age routinely take the stage at the Airplay Café’s “TIME OUT” series, and June 11 will be no exception.

Billed as a safe, fun forum for moms to vent, perform and get a much-needed break, the event has lured performers from every corner of motherhood. Among past talents, Tara Dublin from 94.7 FM and former stand-up comedian Jacki Kane, as well as author Beren deMotier (The Brides of March: Memoir of a Same-Sex Marriage), whom Kane heralded as “a smash at the last TIME OUT.” Airplay Café is a relaxing eatery during the day, but when the sun sets, the café turns venue with live music and performances.

“Because Airplay Café is more of a family venue, it draws the perfect audience,” said Kane. “As a former stand-up comedian, I really didn’t think comedy club audiences would ‘get’ mom humor. After getting introduced at [Portland comedy club] Harvey’s as ‘that middle-aged lady,’ I knew I was right. The other mom performers are thrilled to let their parental angst fly, [and] everyone in the room relates.”

The June 11 edition features both Dublin (sharing her experiences growing up in a New Jersey high school in the ‘80s) and DeMotier. Joining them are Sharon Wood Wortman, author of The Portland Bridge Book, and Kristina Martin (the “Ten Minute Missive” blog), espousing motherly wisdom under the umbrella title “I Was A High School…What Were You Anyway?” The forum relates the flashbacks involved when you have children attending school.

The themes applied to the series are as diverse in scope as the performers themselves. The results are often hilarious insights into what it means to be a mother – in this generation or any other. “TIME OUT strives to celebrate and have fun with all parents, regardless of configuration, age or anything else, really,” explained Kane. “We’ve never turned away moms; however, two moms did drop out for fear that they’d cuss too much on stage.”

There will also be an expanded day show on June 17, dubbed “What to Escape When You’re Expecting,” from 1-2 p.m. Tickets are $5.