Portland Oregon Movie Theaters

Free weed, free tunes: US pot bar hosts karaoke

Lights dim. A white-haired man of perhaps 50 approaches the stage. He's wearing a blue suit jacket, open-neck shirt, black leather loafers and sunglasses, indoors, at night. He's got the Sinatra panache down.

Then, the voice, a rich baritone, sweeps over the audience of a couple dozen glazed and grinning pot smokers.

"Day and night, night and daaaaay," he croons the Sinatra standard into a mic in his right hand. "Only you beneath the moon or under the sun, whether near to me or far, it's no matter darling where you are.

"Dum dum, dum dum de-doo-dee-dum."

The audience yelps and coos in appreciation.

This is karaoke night at Portland's Cannabis Cafe, a combination of the bar from Cheers and a street-side pot palace in Amsterdam. It is perfectly legal in this smoky room for medical marijuana patients to burn, eat, rub, filter and roll marijuana.

There are cancer patients, AIDS patients and sufferers of smashed vertebrae and pinched nerves.

There are also those who find refuge under Oregon's "severe pain" allowance -- tell a marijuana-friendly doctor you've got pain, and you've pretty much got weed.

Since the medical marijuana law's passage in 1998, nearly 40,000 patients have gotten access.

The pot in the cafe is brought in by patients or donated by growers. Money doesn't change hands unless it's to buy a sandwich or coffee. The price of admission: a $20 monthly charge and a $5 door fee.

The cafe has farmer's markets of donated weed-laden goodies, a weekly comedy show and even an employees' night. On Thursdays, it's karaoke. An ill-lit stage catches an occasional cloud of puffy white smoke blown from a pipe or a bong or a vaporiser.

The Sinatra crooner, unlike many tonight, has got the goods.

The rest of the evening will be spent alternatively cringing and clapping at the cluster of medical marijuana users who make it their business to be at the cafe when karaoke kicks off at 7 p.m.

From table to table, the stories pour out of them. Most declined to give their names to The Associated Press .

Teresa Sheffer was hit by a train while driving in Alto, Michigan. It broke every major bone on her right side and left her with damage to her spine. Now her pain sometimes gets so severe it forces her to huddle in her house, alone.

But sitting six paces from the stage with a pipe in front of her and a thick pinch of locally grown pot packed into her friend's bong, she's relaxed. If there is a point to the Cannabis Cafe, it is to give people who smoke pot a place to do it together.

“Now Cut That Out!”: Portland Theaters Educate Mel Blanc - Oregon ...

United States – May 13, 2011

This lecture will introduce the world of downtown Portland theaters, a world inhabited by Mel Blanc first as a consumer and later as an entertainer. Because Portland was on the Orpheum and Pantages vaudeville circuits, Mel Blanc saw all the big name acts, live and on stage just as if he had been growing up in New York or Los Angeles.

Guest speakers: Local theater historians Steve Stone and Gary Lacher, co-authors of Theaters of Portland, talk about the Portland Mel Blanc grew up in, with downtown streets lined with vaudeville theaters and movie houses, and a mayor, George Baker, who was himself in show business. Stone and Lacher will describe the Portland audiences who patronized vaudeville, and give a quick overview of the intersection between vaudeville and Hollywood.

Films: Dennis Nyback will show films of some of the vaudeville performers (Jack Benny, Groucho Marx, Eddie Cantor) Mel Blanc would have seen perform live during his Portland years. Later Blanc would perform alongside these same stars on national radio.

This lecture is the first of four. Buy tickets below…

To buy a pass to all four lectures.

To buy a ticket to the June 15 lecture

To buy a ticket to the June 22 lecture

To buy a ticket to the June 29 lecture

Oregon Cartoon Institute was founded in 2007 by Anne Richardson and Dennis Nyback to promote a greater awareness of Oregon%u2019s rich animation and cartooning history. Conceived as a colloquium of interested organizations and individuals, the Institute has no brick and mortar home, and always works in partnership with institutions and organizations which do.

Oregon Cartoon Institute is fiscally sponsored by Oregon Cultural Heritage Commission, a 501 (c) (3) non profit organization.

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