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Best of Eugene 2003 What do time travel, mullets, '64 Dodge Darts, Cougar Reservoir and translating on a Soviet canning ship have in common? Absolutely nothing, yet all make an appearance in our 2003 Best of Eugene Readers' Poll. For four weeks in August, we ran a ballot in our paper asking readers to pick their favorites for categories ranging from Best Hairdresser to Best Place To Shake Your Booty to Best Soup. After weeks of tallying hundreds upon hundreds of ballots, winners finally emerged in most of the categories. Some categories had no clear winner. Where possible, we included a first, second and third place. We had some nice surprises, some repeats, some typical Eugene answers and some sarcastic responses. Despite its recent troubles, FOOD for Lane County emerged victorious in two categories: Best Local Cause and Best Non-Profit. The readers say the anarchists are the Best Hope for Eugene and one person rose to the top of two categories: Café Soriah owner and Eugene Middle East Peace Group member Ibrahim Hamide, who won Best Peacemaker and Best Chef. Peace and good food: What's more Eugene than that? Here, we randomly selected a few winners and tossed three questions at them: What was the strangest job you ever had? What was your best out of body or other paranormal experience? And the third was a wildcard. Each winner could ask and answer a question, or we just made one up on the spot and threw it at them. Here are their off-the-cuff responses. Congratulations to all the winners! Click here for the Best Restaurants of Eugene!
Best Hairdresser: Jarrell Flores/Williamsixteen Strangest job: This one, because people listen to me all day. Best out of body experience: When I rafted the Grand Canyon. Wildcard: What are my top three obsessions? My dog, my house and the outdoors.
Best Newspaper Reporter: Bob Welch Strangest job: It's a toss up between raking beans in a Corvallis cannery, which often required me to remove dead mice and snakes from them, and working on a field burning project. There, the machines would always break down and only one guy could fix them. During the down time, two of us would go over the 'Word Power' section of Reader's Digest, testing each other and learning new words. Best out of body experience: That's easy. 1994: Kenny Wheaton running down the sidelines after intercepting a pass against the Huskies to beat them. That was the play that triggered the whole Rose Bowl thing. He ran 97 or 99 yards; it was a wonderfully long 10 seconds as he raced down the field. You knew he was going to score and Washington was helpless and you knew we were going to win. We were hugging people we'd never met before. Wildcard: Are you going to write about this award in your R-G column? No.
Best Female Musician: Laura Kemp Strangest job: When I was a kid in Wisconsin, I worked in a cornfield detassling corn for $2 per hour. Best paranormal experience: I dated a guy for a little while who was a channeler. Hanging out with him while he channeled — that was pretty crazy. He'd go into a trance and you knew it wasn't fake. He'd start speaking a language I knew he didn't know. Wildcard question: Questions like, 'When will your new CD be done?' or 'What do you hope to be doing 10 years from now?' pop into my mind. But I am trying to live in the present moment and keep my life as simple and stress-free as possible. So I'll ask myself this: 'Would you like decaf coffee this morning or fresh ginger tea?' I've got a bit of a cold, so I guess I'll opt for the ginger tea.
Best Male Musician: Dan Schmid Strangest job: Being in the Cherry Poppin' Daddies. Everything about it is strange, from the hours you keep to the places you travel, to the people you meet — mostly the people you meet. Largely, it's the lifers in the music business, like the crusty old stagehands. They've mostly lived late at night around drugs and alcohol and around others who do the same thing. That gives you an overall skewed perspective — your worldview morphs dramatically. For four years that's how I made my living. Best out of body experience: Many years ago, on tour in Aspen, Colorado. I was having an asthma attack that was really profound and I thought I was going to die and had sort of given up after many hours with no relief in sight. I had been sick for days. People around me were bumbling, not knowing what to do and I finally managed to tell them to take me to the hospital. I had to climb up these stairs to the street outside where it was snowing hard, and get into a van with a door that took forever to open, and no one thought to help me walk or climb in. When I got into the van, everything turned an orange/black color and I thought, 'This is it; I'm dying now and that's fine. It's better than this.' I gave up the ghost and completely relaxed and within two minutes was almost completely over my attack. Wildcard: Why after all the success are you waiting tables at High Street in Eugene? I needed to do something to pay the rent. Plus, my manager is really nice and I can take off days when I need to play music (with the Daddies, the Visible Men and Mood Area 52) — which is the focus of my life.
Best Fine Artist: Dan Hitchcock Strangest job: I was the first male stripper in Dallas, Texas. It's true. It was at PT's, a female topless club and they decided to put male dancers out. There were 15 of us and I got the second highest money that night. My wife, May, says the most interesting job I ever had was painting a mural on the Ruth Hall Museum of Paleontology on the Ghost Ranch in Abiqui, New Mexico. Best paranormal experience: Living in physical reality. I'm one of those subatomic people; we're all waves resonating. Wildcard: You've done some of the most beautiful murals around town. How did your career begin? I drew my girlfriend's picture from the annual. My mother entered it in the county fair and it won the sweepstakes. I am self taught; I got my GED and never went to college. I think all kids that will take the time to pick up a pencil, pen or brush and attempt it will be rewarded by persistence. Don't be daunted by the fact that art looks bad until you make it look good.
Best Graffiti Artist: Dylan Freeman Strangest job: Being the lead artist for the city-funded graffiti art program. The idea was to do projects that would curtail illegal tagging in our community. The city advertised it all over the schools and pumped it up like it was a youth sports program. The goal was to target youth at-risk or already involved in illegal tagging, and make this an alternative project for them. But the way it was advertised, it became the cool thing to do and very popular. People who had no experience with art or understanding of the purpose of graffiti became involved, and that wasn't the population we were targeting. At first the city thought it was successful, but it became hard to orchestrate activities with the target youth. A lot of the people we would have wanted to be involved were turned off because they saw it as too establishment. Best paranormal experience: I was staying out of town by a river that I walked to in the morning to do some stretching, when a beaver swam up and started circling in the same spot over and over, making a loud crying and wailing noise and splashing for about 10 minutes. It made a strong impression on me. When I went into town later that day, I found out my grandfather had just passed away. That was pretty intense. Wildcard question: What is the value of graffiti art in our community? Graffiti art is the people's voice. In a culture where we are constantly bombarded with TV ads, flashing signs and billboards, graffiti expresses the emotions and ideas of the people. Even graffiti done in an illegal, objectionable manner often serves our community overall as a nonviolent outlet for frustration. It may also be a sign that there are people in our community whose voices are not heard any other way. Highly evolved graffiti art, as with any other art form, connects us with our true selves and the people around us.
Best Politico: Peter DeFazio Strangest job: Shagging golf balls in the days before driving ranges when I was 12. My father ran a caddy camp for inner city kids. I would dodge them on the fairway, wait 'til I had about 50 and bring them back. I'd usually get paid about $2.50 for every 50. There was risk to the job, but that was before OSHA. The job taught me how to deal with obnoxious rich people. And dodge things. Best paranormal experience: I don't know if it's the best, but it certainly can't be explained through science. It would be listening to U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay talk about DDT or global warming. He thinks removing DDT from the market was a communist plot. And he thinks global warming is a total lie. He used to be a pesticide sprayer. And he asked me, 'How can you think there are problems with DDT? I use to apply it.' To which I just said, 'Mm hmm.' Wildcard: Why do I drive a '64 Dodge Dart? (I just upped it from a '63 that the Dems are gonna auction off.) Because every part was made in America and I know how to fix it. My motto: Dodge Dart guys have more fun.
Best
Actor (male): Stephen Speidel Strangest job: When I was 15, my dad had all the hotdog and hamburger stands inside Pacific Ocean Park. One of the guys who ran the rides gave me a couple of bucks once in a while to put on a costume, go inside the ride and hide next to where the cars would go, and jump out and scare people. I'd really scare them, too. The bulldog machine that was supposed to come out and scare them was broken. Best out of body experience: When I'm in the zone onstage and there's nothing else except what's happening in the play with my fellow actors and myself. We live for those moments. Wildcard: What's been your favorite role up to this point? That's really hard — it's probably the role I'm doing at the time (Currently, that's Stage Manager of Our Town at VLT). But some roles stay with you; they linger and become friends and sometimes enemies in your inner dialogue as you go through your life. My two favorites would probably be Uncle Vanya and Peck (Drive). They were total opposites: Peck was night and Vanya was day.
Best
Actor (female): Lyn Burg Strangest job: I was an actress at King's Table for their management team. I was a theater student at the UO and it paid great. I pretended to be someone who was sexually harassed at work, in tears and crying. I performed with another actor. They'd put out a big buffet and we'd perform in this huge conference room. I had to go in, be fine, then break down and start bawling. That's pretty weird. I was also a dishwasher at Casa Toltec.
Best out of body experience: I was an exchange student in Turkey when I was 17 and I went back three years later to visit the family I had stayed with. But the mom had died and I didn't know. I shared a bedroom with my host niece, who was 3 years old. I fell asleep and began dreaming. I went through a time tunnel and things were coming toward me really fast like Turkish artifacts and in the distance I saw the mom's face and she came closer and closer and just before she was about to embrace me, the 3 year old screamed in her sleep; she just started freaking out. The next day her mother said that my dead host mother was trying to greet me and it was good the girl screamed and woke me up because the mother would have given me the kiss of death. Wildcard: Your favorite role of all time? Miss Adelaide from Guys and Dolls. But my favorite role is always the last one I've done. For Adelaide, I got to use my singing, acting and dancing.
Best
Director: John Schmor Strangest job: Working as a translator on a Soviet fisheries canning ship in the Bering Sea, where the temperature of the water is so cold it would only take four minutes to die if you fell in. The Soviets canned what the American fishermen caught. The boat was antiquated and constantly undergoing repair. I had to translate to get two three-ton bags of fish from the small American boat onto our ship. If I'd given the wrong directions, the Americans could have been towed right into the water, so I had to have good grammar.
Best paranormal experience: Waking up one day on the boat and the whole ship was empty. I went to all the decks; no one was anywhere, and everything was encompassed in a thick, heavy fog, so I couldn't see beyond the railing. I thought, 'uh oh.' Turns out the night before there had been a terrible storm and everyone was up all night working, so when it abated the captain gave everyone the day off. Wildcard: What experience have you had in the theater that was most like the foggy ship one? Last year, when I had to suddenly play the nurse in Romeo and Juliet, because Mindy Nirenstein was sick. Corey (Pearlstein, former managing artistic director of Lord Leebrick) called and said they couldn't afford to cancel another show, and I was the only one who knew the part and the blocking. Three hours before showtime, I was madly memorizing lines.
Best Mail Carrier: David Harmon Miller Strangest job: I was in the military during Vietnam, and it was weird in that I guess I was unprepared for what was going on there. I went from being sort of a moderate supporter to not supporting at all. A lot of things that went on nationally, internationally and personally made it a weird experience.
Best out of body experience: I'm an epileptic, even though I haven't had an episode for 15 or 20 years. I got that in the service, too. It's not really the best, but it gives you these strange experiences — you can't believe these things are happening to you. Wildcard question: Why me, for life? I try to understand my whole experience here and I realize that for me — whatever higher powers there are — it's not preordained, but just an experience.
Best Mullet: Dean Grazier-DelCastillo Strangest job: I've always been an entrepreneur and rarely worked for anyone; I've always had my own businesses, like Spiderman Tree Service, my current one. Best paranormal experience: I've had dreams that have come true and have thought questions of people but I didn't speak and they answered me. Like once, my girlfriend was walking across the living room and I thought, 'Would you please bring me my hairbrush?' and she did. I asked her why she did it and she said because I asked her to. She thought I had said it aloud. We even argued about it. Wildcard: How am I going to get past this point in my life? That's been troubling me lately. I've got serious back problems stemming from a childhood injury. I need to have surgery; if I don't, I'll become crippled. But if I take the time off work to have surgery, my wife and I will lose everything. I have no answer to that.
Best TV Talking Head: John Fischer Strangest job: I used to work for a guy with a garden when I was in high school in Spring (pronounced Sprang), Texas, and he grew 20 times more of everything than what he needed. I'd help him grow it, then harvest it all and I'd wander the neighborhood and give all the extra food away. (Obviously, being a weatherman is the weirdest possible job: Wherever I go people recognize me — and I didn't do this to be famous). Best paranormal experience: It's amazing how frequently, if I forget to knock on wood, the bad thing will happen. A couple of weeks ago at work (KEZI-TV), all the computers were down but mine. I said how glad I was, but I didn't knock on wood, and the next day mine went down. Wildcard question: What do strangers always say to me? Thanks for the weather, or they blame it on me.
Best Yoga Instructor: Glen Tippin Strangest job: When I was a college student and I went to a McDonald's orientation, because I was always a health-conscious person. But I never showed up for work. I was working as a mechanic at the time and it seemed like a better move, but I never quite made the switch from greasy alternators to greasy hamburgers. Best out of body experience: I went on an equinox excursion to Egypt. While there, I did this meditation and saw myself cruising over the temples in the heydey of ancient Egypt. I was out of body and as I traveled, I watched rituals and saw the details of the temples. Wildcard: Who was the most influential person in my life? The one who put me on this path is my mom, Lorilynn Imbler. She teaches yoga and gave me my spiritual background. The most important thing she's taught me is it's OK to be yourself. Also, it's OK to question authority.
Best Tattoo Artist: Dr. Julien Strangest job: That's a tough one to answer. My favorite job was working as a pastry chef for a French restaurant. The strangest — and maybe scariest — tattoo job I've ever done was for a mob boss, henchmen standing by and everything. Best out of body experience: Hmm, there have been so many. There's the alien abduction, and tattooing for hours at a time every day, sometimes I lose all feeling in the lower half of my body, which feels kind of out of body. Wildcard: Do you have a tattoo that you would undo if you could? Actually, I'm trying to undo one now — a wedding ring tattoo. Undoing a tattoo is almost more difficult than undoing the marriage. Plus, you have to undo two of them.
EW
Staff Picks Best Way to Replace UO Fields Lost to the New Basketball Arena The UO's new basketball arena will likely displace scarce UO playing fields for softball and intramural sports. What better place for replacement fields than the riverside property the UO owns? The UO's push to develop the area as a research park for corporations has wasted millions of dollars and been opposed for decades by the majority of students and faculty who want the river side preserved for open space. Here's a true win-win solution
Best Way for Neighbors to Stop the New Basketball Arena Form a group, Citizen Rage Against Phil (CRAP) to protest the influence of Nike CEO Phil Knight at the UO. Demonstrate at every home basketball and football game with large banners that can be seen on TV with anti-sweatshop slogans. Agitate for the UO to join the Workers Rights Consortium. Organize a large anti-sweatshop conference at the UO. Circulate petitions on campus and gather thousands of signatures against Nike sweatshops. Have a swoosh bonfire with shoes and apparel. Phil Knight will become so enraged he'll pull funding for the arena. Problem solved.
Best Fundraiser In Portland, the annual Bridge Pedal draws tens of thousands of cyclists to enjoy a car-free ride over the city's Willamette River bridges. The $20 ride raises money for charity and is a fun community event that promotes pollution-free transportation. Eugene could do the same. Visualize thousands biking across the I-105 bridge!
Best Place to Get Sconed Ruthie B's just across the bridge in Springfield offers enough clotted cream on its scones to seize your heart. Put on a feather boa and frumpy hat from inside the antique store and head out to the lovely garden tables for tea next to Day Island Park. Inside, it's like dining in your grandmother's attic. Better go soon, the old whore-house Ruthie's inhabits is threatened by development of an apartment building.
Best Way to Brighten Eugene Colorful buildings. Why are buildings in Eugene so drab? Is it to match the eight months of gray skies we have here? The new library sports gun-metal gray highlights, the Hult Center is a gray concrete monolith and downtown's parking garages and other buildings are mostly monochrome. No wonder there's so much graffiti.
Best Way to Get Stopped by the EPD Be a young black man driving around Whiteaker in a VW bus with a bunch of Hispanic friends and Oregon Country Fair Stickers in the window.
Best Boondoggle Eugene Weekly readers picked changing Centennial to MLK Boulevard as their choice for this category. But remember how opening Broadway was supposed to create a renaissance downtown? After millions of dollars spent on ripping out the old pedestrian mall and tall trees and planting a road and new tiny trees, much of the mall remains vacant or underused. It would have been cheaper paying for full UO scholarships for the dozen or so mall rats that the bulldozer project was aimed at.
Best Rube Goldberg Machine The library's new check-in machine. Books stacked up as high as librarians after the new library opened and the $2.2 million system of electronic eyes, hands and belts choked. Ten months after opening, the talking book return slots are just starting to work right. But the contraption still chokes on children's puppets, leaving tikes pining for their cuddly friends. Instead of paying for the book terminator, the city could have hired an army of unemployed Eugeneans at minimum wage to sort books for years.
Best Thing to Happen in Years Walk into Eugene's airy and bright new library and it's hard to remember the cramped dark hole where Eugene used to stuff its books and book lovers. The new building has become a major city attraction and over the years should do a lot to boost local enlightenment. Best of all, it's free.
Best Way to Stop Beer Riots Declare the UO an alcohol-free institution of higher learning. To show the university is serious, set a modest example of no tolerance by hiring the EPD SWAT team, backed up by a National Guard tank, to swoop down on Autzen tailgaters with tear gas and pepper spray to enforce open container laws. Have LTD ready to transport mass arrests to Mac Court for processing. Expel any students caught and rip up any alum's season tickets.
Best Wheeeee! With Taxes The city is planning two big new riverside playgrounds in Alton Baker and Skinner Butte Parks. The playgrounds will be the biggest in the area and a top tot destination. Creative input could make for some uniquely Eugene fun. To help design the chutes, ladders, go rounds and monkey bars, call 682-4915.
Best Evidence Eugene is Not a Democracy The most important decision the Eugene City Council makes is hiring a city manager, the most powerful person in the city. The most important decision the city manager makes is hiring a police chief, the second most powerful person in the city. Unlike many other cities, in Eugene both of these vital hiring decisions are made in secret meetings.
Best School Fundraiser Whoever thought of hooking kids on caffeine and calorie-loaded corporate Coke in the midst of an obesity epidemic to raise a few bucks for schools from captive kids was a genius! Here's another modest proposal: Make Starbucks the monopoly provider of coffee and lattes to school staff and administrators. Pressure teachers to meet a weekly quota of Starbucks for school bucks. Dawn meetings could help here. Then, and here's the real genius, install pay toilets in all restrooms used by school employees.
Best Birth Control for Chad Remember all the problems those pregnant chads caused in the 2000 presidential election? Well, three years later, Lane County voters are still punching hanging and pregnant chads and trying to remember to punch number 9 for no on Measure 8. Almost every other county in the state has moved to optical vote scanners, which don't rob hundreds of voters every election of their constitutional rights. Lane County says we'll have to practice unsafe voting for at least a couple more years before they'll bother with prophylactics.
Best Newspaper Fluff Check Go online and search The Register-Guard archives for "duck" and then search again for "city of Eugene." The result shows just how much the paper invests in covering sports fluff over serious city issues with real impacts on the community. As more and more sports stories spill out of the sports section and onto the front page and city sections, the fluff to news ratio at the R-G now stands at four to one. Click here for the Best Restaurants of Eugene!
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