URGENT BULLETIN TO PORTLAND'S S&M COMMUNITY:

Attention, "doms!" All "subs" have changed their "safeword" to, oh, "antidisestablishmentarianism."

Thank you, "doms."

Don't you hate white people?

"Gimme an 'S!' Gimme an ampersand!" Shut up.

Well, the sad, dismal X'd-out red neon long-stemmed martini glass is once more solemnly aglow from atop the sylvan hills over Portland State, reminding us that the Christmas, I mean "holiday" season, has come again to Portland. Party down!

And do you think smoke knows to stay in the smoking section? Well? Do you?

At every turn here, you're reproved and chastened. Your pity's solicited, your guilt's in someone's crosshairs, you're on the spot.

"Do you want your Bugles, Ding-Dongs, and Fiddle Faddle in paper or plastic, sir?"

"Whichever you think will most benefit mankind, miss."

It's a time for taking stock and giving thanks for all there is to be grateful for here in the City of Roses (not that we have anything against other flowers):

The temperate climate, the arbitrary witch-hunts, lattés.

Anarchy in the streets, racist skinheads, and crisp apple strudel.

Sleater-Kinney, Johnny Limbo and the Lugnuts, Smegma.

Alcoholism, masochism, suicide--we're number one!

The strident, petulant foot-stamping of coddled, favored special-interest groups; pizza with potatoes on it.

Those rapt, avid readers posing like thoughtful mannequins in the windows at Powell's, surreptitiously aiming what they're reading at us.

"Lao Tzu? He's good!"

The prissiness, the preciousness, the xenophobia.

The 1971 mind-set.

The rigid caste system.

All of it reflected so vividly in our autocratic, ruling-class-run print media: The gated community that is "the press."

Soon, Willamette Week will be publishing gift suggestions which no one who works at Willamette Week except publisher Richard Meeker and editor Mark Zusman will be able to afford, despite an inordinate ad-to-copy ratio.

The Portland Mercury will likely do something wacky for the holidays, maybe even SHOCKING. They're so different from everyone else, it isn't funny.

That hepcat Portland Tribune will probably recommend Naked Lunch for a stocking stuffer. Or maybe a nice ball-gag.

Trib columnist Bill McDonald sez: "Sleater-Kinney rocks."

You know that Phil Stanford over there? He likes Jimi Hendrix.

The Portland Alliance will decry crass commercialism and capitalist consumption, then try to sell you a Mumia Abu Jamal fondue set.

The Oregonian...Let's be honest. I've never read it.

The happy-go-lucky editor of Just Out will tell us why the holidays are a time for hysteria, melodrama, self-pity, bitterness, and boycotts. And it's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTmaaas...

In Portland.

Thought For The Day: What if Huck Finn said "faggot" 200 times? Portland loves its Derry Jacksons.

Did you see where that freakazoid extra-from-a-Fellini-film mayor-woman proclaimed "Leather Pride Week" last year, promoting "safe, sane, consensual" S&M?