Yep. Phil Busse, managing editor for the Mercury is actually running for mayor. Up until the local papers started covering the race, it was hard to tell if Busse (rhymes with gussy) was seriously running or not. Given the Mercury’s penchant for bull-shit, it’s hard to believe that any member of the staff would have a genuine interest in politics. But then, there is that one page of local political reporting every week. That section is Phil’s baby. Almost all of his writing can be found on that one page in each issue. Among the running themes in his column you’ll find homelessness, police conduct and protest coverage.

Phil and his campaign staff have come up with the most ambitious platform of any candidate this election cycle. On his website you’ll find a list of 100 things he wants to do in his first 100 days in office. He’s also promised to give $100 a day, out of his own salary, to different non-profit and charity agencies throughout his entire term in office. So what does any of this have to do with music in Portland? Quite a bit, actually. At least, we’re pretty sure there was something in there...

MLP:  You’ve got your list of 100 changes that you want to make here that is being continually added to, and some of them are pretty dubious like, use city lobbyists to encourage same sex marriage legalization and ten year plan to end homelessness. Plus there’s the sheer size of the list and the fact that these are all things you want to get started in your first 100 days. One could look at that and think that this guys is not all that serious, or quixotic at least. How would you respond to that?

Specifically, to use city lobbyists to push for same sex marriages, I really don’t see that as that dubious, especially considering what Gavin Newsome is doing in San Francisco. When the Mayor of San Francisco is issuing out marriage licenses he has set an entire national dialogue right now, just by one simple act, and he’s in the first 100 days of office right now.

The ten-year plan to end homelessness is something that is already under way. Street Roots is pushing it, Erik Sten is pushing it. It’s a matter of stepping into office and bringing these issues to the forefront. I don’t think it’s crazy. I think it’s very doable. The ten-year plan to end homelessness sounds grander than what it really is. The ten-year plan that Sisters of the Road, Street Roots and Erik Sten are pushing is reasonable. Will it truly end homelessness? Not likely, but it will certainly be a better approach than we currently have. Street Roots has some great ideas. They want to start up micro businesses: have tents at Saturday Market where homeless can set out artwork that they have, the yellow bike project, the bike giveaway comeback. Why not have the homeless run that with bike repair? I don’t think these are insane ideas. They’re ideas that we need to be a laboratory for and try out. I mean, if Portland, Oregon is not going to try something a little bit risky, who else is going to do it?

What’s the art incubator?

Before I took the job at the Mercury, I took a job at the Oregon School of Business as the Assistant Director for the Entrepreneurship Center. When I was there I set up something called a business incubator. Students came in with business plans and they pitched it to a panel of pastors and business leaders in the community. If the plan was accepted, they received computers, desks, secretarial help, legal help, accounting. They had one year of support.

That exact same model can be used for artists. Have a band come and audition and be given space to practice for the next year, have an office and management help, legal help. Have rooms open for writers that would have a year to work on a book, or to work on a project. Have painting rooms. With artists, the left side of the brain and the right side of the brain don’t always communicate too well together. I know plenty of good artists who are just terrible business people. Certainly there are people who can do both, but I think this would be an opportunity for the city to give support on the business end of having artists nurtured.

So, with that and all the other ideas, how the hell do we pay for it?

Well, with the artist’s incubator, the city is already redoing Washington High. They’re making it into a community center. There’s going to be a pool there and they don’t really know what else they’re going to do with the other space. It’s a perfect place to have band practice rooms and artists coming through. How awesome would that be, you’re just going to play basketball, and here’s some up and coming band? I think it would give the buzz of the community. How does it pay for that? You have grants, certainly, that pay for Entrepreneurship. You have city funding that’s already paying for a community center, and I think that this is money that’s going to be drawn into our community.

Look at Austin. Look at how much money comes into Austin through South by Southwest. It’s a lot of money. Look at Park City, with the Sundance movie festival. So when people say arts can’t support a city, they’re not looking at the examples that are already out there, and they’re also not looking at the new economy. We’re going to be an intellectually based economy and the sooner that we admit that the better off we’re going to be. Part of it is attitude and part of it is support systems. Something like an art incubator, yeah, it’s going to be some outlay of money, but how many people are going to move here? How many kids that are graduating from Lewis and Clark College and Reed College are going to stay here and not move somewhere else? How many smart people are we going to keep in this town just because we have some kind of place like that?

Bringing it back to music, you suggested that you want to do city park rock shows. How would that be organized and by whom?

A couple months ago I got the idea that the Mercury should sponsor a couple of concerts in the park. This is not an idea that I think the Mercury has a propriety over but I’m gonna take this idea to city hall as well. We already have opera. We have Shakespeare in the park. How many fucking times do people have to see As I Like It, or As You Like It, whatever it is, or Romeo and Juliet, now done in 80’s style in the goddamn park? Why not having The Shins in the park? Why not having The Decembrists in Laurelhurst? Why not having at Mt. Tabor just a rock show? Why not at Waterfront Park? Why does nobody go to Waterfront Park except people from Gresham? Just because there’s only been one promoter who’s been allowed to get the permits for Waterfront Park? There’s no reason we can’t have local promoters having shows. Sleater-Kinney, for god’s sake, at Waterfront Park, and I’m not sure why that would even seem like an absurd idea.

So that’s how it would work, then? You’d offer other contracts and different promoters would bid for it?

The permitting process for the parks right now is sort of a closed loop. There is one guy that gets all the permits. And that’s because nobody else is asking for it. It’s not that the city wouldn’t do it, it’s that nobody has asked for it.

How does someone, or a group of people who want to put on a show in the park, go through the process? And how do they impress city hall so that they can get the gig?

There’s a permitting board for the parks, and you need to float your idea in front of them. I think the climate is a little bit ambiguous right now, as far as whether they would be allowed to do it or not. Jim Francesconi sits atop the Parks and Rec. He’s setting the tone. Does he want to have these things there? Nobody has really tried it yet, he certainly hasn’t encouraged it, but nobody has really tried to see if they can break this quasi-monopoly on the parks. The city needs to have a band that’s a maverick and steps forward and says we need to have a concert in the park. And that’s not even being a maverick, that’s being neighborly. Let’s have something going on.

Alberta park has their hip hop festival every year, and I know they’ve had trouble getting permits to perform in the park, but they’ve just been really bulldog about it and they’ve gotten in. It’s too bad that the impetus has to come from the band and not from the city without soliciting. I just think it would a kick in the pants to be down in Waterfront Park with some really good bands, not some shitty city jazz festival, with a bunch of city jazz saxophonists from Beaverton.

What do you think about the OLCC controlling how and who can perform where and when?

This is going to sound weird, but this goes hand in hand with same sex marriage. They are state issues that the Mayor should be standing up to. We’re Portland, Oregon. We’re the biggest fucking city in the state. We’re the New York City of New York State. At times we should use that leverage when we see things going wrong. The OLCC is saying that you can’t be under 21 and be in a band and play in club? That’s bullshit. The OLCC determining that strippers need to have certain rules? When did they become the moral police, and why is no one standing up for that? I sincerely think that the city should use its lobbyists to fight back against the OLCC. The Mayor should use his bully pulpit to speak up against the OLCC and say that, one, they’re overstepping their bounds and two, that they’re a left over from the 1930s and are no longer necessary.

Would they be able to? What type of fight is that?

I can say whatever I want, I’d be the Mayor! I would have goddamn press conference and say that I’m against the OLCC. Is that an abuse of power? I don’t think so; not when it’s on moral grounds, not when I’m holding a press conference to say I’m against the idea that our state does not have same sex marriages, I’m against the idea that we have a liquor commission that is determining what’s morally good and what’s morally bad. The question I think you’re asking is, can I do anything about it? I can shout. I can certainly give my position.

Explain the details of the small business grant initiative and what would be required?

The idea is that we want to get the support out to certain small businesses. I think one of the hardest things for a small business to get its name out there. We’re not limiting it to any sort of small businesses, but what we want to do it is have $100,000 worth of grant money and have 50 chunks. So a chunk of $2,000 would be used for marketing purposes. They could use an in-town consultant to provide marketing advice for them. Certainly, it’s not going to be able to give them the whole marketing plan, but they’ll at least be able to get a start and hopefully it would push them in the right direction.

They, the small business, would have $2,000 to use in the city as far as hiring a consultant?

Right, so the idea is you take city money and you spark the marketing economy. $100,000 is being flooded into advertising consultants and marketing firms and at the same time helping out 50 businesses to get a marketing plan launched. Right now, the city has done some good, but potentially half-assed plans. Like this thing, they have a restaurant initiative. I’m not even sure how the math works but they have a $100,000 and they’re giving out $15,000 grants. The multiplication doesn’t quite work, but the grants are being used for the infrastructure for a start-up restaurant. It’s a great idea, but the way that they did it was first come first serve. Basically, the first seven restaurants that showed up got $15,000. We would want to put in is an advisory board. Different restaurant owners, lawyers, accountants, five people that look at the plan and say you could use the help, you’re going to be a viable business. I think that gives us at least a safeguard.

What about a business like ours? Self-publishing in Portland is huge. And it’s not necessarily the kind of business that needs marketing help, initially. To get started with publishing, you need to be able to develop your catalog. You’re saying you want to be able to give out $2,000 increments to people to be able to use for consulting and marketing, but if your problem is getting up enough material to have for sale, can you use it for that?

What do you mean, enough material?

Well, if you wanted to sell zines or if you wanted to go out and find a bunch of poets and you want to sell their books, they need to have books, and you need to have a catalog of their material. You need to be able to get the money for a website, you need to be able to pay somebody to go out and shop the books around. You don’t necessarily need to take out ads, you don’t necessarily need to do marketing as much, because you just need to develop your store. Whether it’s in your house, or it’s an actual storefront.

Can I do that on my 101st day?

So you’re saying that the small business marketing initiative is strictly for marketing small businesses?

That’s the way that we set it up, but we set it up as pilot program. How can we do other things? How can we also offer legal services? How can we also offer accounting services? We want to pin point each type of help that a business needs. You’re saying some fairly unique issues, and I don’t see why the city wouldn’t be able to give help in that regard. One of the things that we’ve talked about is having a mentor program, where the city would sort of serve as the Chuck Woolery of the business world, where we have the publisher from the Oregonian, who knows business, he’s going to be your mentor. Why can’t we take the expertise there and try to set up a conduit? I don’t see why our business bureau is not setting up services like that. I think, one, it would be fun, and two, it’s happening already in cities across the country. We’re just one of the cities that it’s not happening in.

That’s something that’s going to cost money. How does all this stuff get paid for?

It’s a matter of reallocating our bureau’s money. I’m not saying that city employees aren’t working hard, but I do think there are some comfortability issues that need to be examined. And that means a bump as far as work time, and what projects are actually being done. I mean, you’re a mid level manager at the city and suddenly you have a cool project, for fuck’s sake, if that’s not inspiring to you, you’ve got to get the fuck out of this city. I don’t mean to sound like a jerk about it, but these are people that are being paid good money to run our city. They should be thrilled to have a project that they can be 100% accountable for and that’s an inspirational project. So, I think the answer to your question is that, yes, that will take money, but that will also take human ingenuity and human inspiration.

I have one final question and that is the city health plan, is that for city workers, is that for city residents, what is it?

Well, we’re still researching that. I think that with the Oregon Health Plan, after Measure 30 failed, 50,000 people are going to be bumped from the Oregon Health Plan. The city needs to figure out how it can sponsor a bulk rate health plan that people can buy into for cheaper rates. That is imperative upon the city to do. As far as preventative measures for people being homeless, or people finding jobs, having a health plan that will cover the majority of low-income working class people in this town may be one of the best things that I can do. Something like 30% of people in Portland are one paycheck away from being homeless. That’s a frightening thing. If you’re in an accident, and you can’t work, or you have hospital bills, then it’s going to bump you. And I think that putting together a health plan is not only the humane thing to do, but that it is the smart thing to do, economically, in the long run.

For more information, if you’d like to volunteer, or if you think Phil needs a piece of your mind, go to:

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