Posted for Shelby Little, Source freelance writer extraordinaire

Thursday night I was one of forty or so folks who crammed into the Tin Pan Theater to witness the first Armchair Live Storytelling Night.

Like the Moth in New York City, Armchair features a series of storytellers who tell never-before-shared, true stories without the use of props or cues.

The theme was trespassing: a word that is steeped in treachery. I’ve only trespassed a few times in my life, experiences that were rites of passage in college, or moments of stolen entitlement in forbidden places.

What moments of mischief, brushes with the law, or forbidden places had these nine storytellers experienced?

In the suspenseful interlude between the doors opening and the beginning of the show, one storyteller, Pauly, shared with me that he had moved from a glamorous little ski town in Colorado to Bend because he wanted to live in a city with a soul.

This event proved to be the most intimate experience I have witnessed in Central Oregon. It was as if I were hearing stories from strangers that are usually reserved for close friends, late at night; well after a bond of trust is established. Some were gripping, others filled with hilarity, and a few evoked dread. If our city had a diary, pages would be lined with the stories from this event.

Each storyteller interpreted trespassing differently. There were the literal translations of trespassing: to wander where you are not wanted.

A member of a collegiate baseball team in Arkansas, Greg Bolt, told a heart-thumping account of being hazed by upperclassmen. They blindfolded and bound the arms of he and his freshmen teammates and drove them deep into the rural hills before stopping their trucks on a private farm. As the freshmen ran through cotton fields to flee dozens of eggs that the upperclassmen were firing at them, an angry farmer and his dogs retaliate. Bolt shared four sounds you never want to hear while trespassing on a farm at night: a door open, a dog bark, the command “get ‘em”, and the sound of a shotgun.

Others interpreted trespassing as the invisible divisions between social groups. Shelley Anderson’s story also occurred some years earlier while she attended college in Boulder. In her mischievous story, she and her friends use their beauty and wit to steal a keg from a fraternity party, trespassing in a social function in which they were not invited.

Tracy Treu’s story also dealt with social trespassing. Treu is a small-town Nebraska girl and women’s study major who somehow fell in love with a star football player. When her husband entered the NFL, she entered the NFL wives club. Initially she was swept up in the glamour and glitz, but after a run-in with the star quarterback’s wife, she realized she was treading where she did not belong.

René Mitchell gave a bold an unapologetic account of the day her husband committed suicide. Before she went onstage she told me, “I feel the need to share my story as a way of survival.” She displayed a rare and brilliant strength as she debunked many assumptions about suicidal people. He was not depressed. They were happily married. There were no warning signs.

“He was bright and beautiful. Maybe he was too beautiful for this world.” Mitchell’s story captivated everyone in the room, but what was the connection to the night’s theme? Was she inviting the audience to intrude into her life with a brutally intimate and frank story? Or is suicide a socially taboo topic, especially if the victim is at the top of his game and there is no clear explanation? “Silence is dangerous,” said Mitchell.

The Armchair Live Storytelling Event was put on by several of Bend’s creative all-stars: Cassondra Schindler, Matt Ebbing, Jordan Elliot, Gretchen Raynack and the night’s MC, Sara Yellich. The next event is planned for the fall with a tentative theme of Up All Night.

The council is talking about these things tonight:

Visit Bend’s Business Plan and Budget. This could be interesting because of the debate over Visit Bend and Central Oregon Visitor’s Association needing to resolve some sort of conflict. And also because Visit Bend has floated a proposal for changing how tourism groups are financed, which may have something to do with that potential conflict. You may also want to hear about how it appears Visit Bend has been kicking some ass on the tourism marketing front. Our tourism revenues are up.

That whole false alarm thing where people and businesses will likely soon be required to register their alarms and pay for times when it goes off and there’s no real danger. Bend PD estimates they spend $111,000 on false alarms every year.

A new noise ordinance, which will likely be approved by council. New rules specify no loudness between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. and sets specific decibel limits on said loudness. Should make life easier for concert organizers, residents and police because now everyone knows what to expect.

Putting the breaks on sewer upgrades because of financial constraints. Guess what! They want to hire a consultant to figure out how to do that, and create a “citizen stakeholder group” to help with the whole process.

We had our eye on a few key races during the May 15 election. These are the unofficial results from those contests as of 9 p.m. Tuesday night, with all precincts reporting, according to the Deschutes County Clerk's Office. Full election results for Deschutes County can be found here.

United States President

Rick Santorum—6.18%

Ron Paul—8.89%

Newt Gingrich—5.31%

Voting for the May 15 election closes in 2 hours and 41 minutes.

It's time to find your ballot under the pile of mail you've been ignoring, fill it out and get it down to any of the drop boxes listed below before 8 p.m. tonight!

Bend

Deschutes Service Center Drop Box

Visit Bend leaders have declined a request from Deschutes County Commissioner Tammy Baney to sit down with Central Oregon Visitors Association for a one-on-one meeting between the organizations.

Baney, who is also a board member of COVA, hoped to bring leaders of the groups together at a sort of tourism summit on June 5 to discuss what appeared to be a degree of conflict over coordination, redundant efforts and tourism industry funding that’s come to a head in recent months, according to Baney and other sources.

Baney had proposed a morning meeting of Visit Bend and COVA, and an afternoon session with the other three tourism marketing groups in Deschutes County at the summit. Those groups are located Sisters, Redmond and La Pine. All groups receive transient room tax dollars to market our region to visitors.

While Visit Bend leaders said they are looking forward to getting all five tourism groups together, Visit Bend Director Doug LaPlaca said the proposed meeting between just COVA and Visit Bend would be inappropriate and that there is no conflict between the two organizations.

Jodie Barram, a member of Visit Bend's board of directors and a Bend city councilor, had emailed with Baney about frustration over some aspects of the meeting last week as reported in The Bulletin. Baney learned of the group's determination not to attend on Tuesday, she said in an earlier interview.

Dude with Cascadia Forest Defenders climbed 80 feet up a flagpole outside the Capitol building in Salem today, hung a banner and camped out for about an hour and a half.

Perry Thompson Graham, 23, from Eugene, was promptly arrested by Oregon State Police after descending the pole voluntarily.

The banner he left behind reads "Schools vs Trees? We want both!"

The legislature is not currently in session and it's not clear exactly to what Perry was referring.

He’s been charged with disorderly conduct, criminal trespass and criminal mischief and booked in the Marion County Jail.

Good day to be an American.

Whoa, that's a lot of pot.

Still, we feel for Brandon James Manger, 23, who was caught with it all in his SUV last night just north of Klamath Falls by Oregon State Police. Manger is from the Bend area, according to OSP.

I mean, maybe he gets really bad headaches and that's his medicine. Definitely looks like he might have a headache.

Expensive medicine, though. Troopers estimate the herb's value at $250,000 minimum. 

So, last week we threw up that blog about police potentially cutting back critical services if the department didn’t get more money. Read it here.

You all jumped on the “that’s total bs” bandwagon and dished left and right about your frustration with government, etc.

I had a talk with Bend Police Chief Jeff Sale after all that and we agreed that the information we posted was incomplete.

I didn’t do a good enough job of telling you all why they needed more money.

Here’s the deal: Bend Police Department staff believe requests for help will increase at a rate of around seven to nine percent each year in the coming years. But the city is budgeting only a two percent increase in money for BPD each year over that time frame, hence the need for more money or a reduction in services, said Sale. 

F'ing sad.

Check out this Rolling Stone article for details on the cancer that killed Adam Yauch at 48.

In the meantime, here's a little story I got tell about three bad brothers you know so well..