Live it off the wall

Hey everybody! Mayor Dud Wheeler and former Mayor Creepy have declared downtown Portland safe for partying. So they want you to get on down there for this weekend's "grand reopening." We're out of crisis! We've turned the corner! We moved some food carts!

And just to show you how safe and fun it's going to be, the police are pulling what few cops they have left from other parts of town and putting them downtown this weekend. Maybe that way, nobody else will die in the gang shootouts that happen when the bars close. Even the FBI is going to be there! Nothing says party like the FBI, right? Remember J. Edgar Hoover? That guy was Portland weird.

You may as well go downtown, because with no cops anywhere else, you can be sure the blood is going to flow over on the east side. Last night three people were shot, and one seriously wounded, at the Venture Inn, a bar in the no-man's-land out by Costco. The shooter got away. It was one of at least two shooting incidents last night in northeast Portland. Another was at 60th and Killingsworth.

But hey, it's been five days since anyone was shot dead downtown. So come on, party people in the house, get down with the Sam-Dud Twins this weekend. Pink Martini! And no rioters (scheduled to appear)! Admission is free, but there's a suggested donation of two cans of CS gas.

If you go, and survive, let me know how it went.