BEST LOG ROLLING

In general, we love the Portland Museum of Art. Of course, we only go on Friday nights, because it's free and we're cheap. But we made an exception for the 2005 Biennial because we simply couldn't wait for Friday to arrive once the show had opened. Lauren Fensterstock's spider? Totally cool. Colleen Kinsella showed that what she does for Cerberus Shoal's music isn't her only artistic talent. And we weren't too creeped out by the disembodied women all chopped up and shot at (we're open minded people over here at the Phoenix, and it was just a drawing). Photographer Elke Morris even made Lewiston look pretty - now that's some serious artistic talent. But the highlight of the show, clearly, was by Tad Beck. Thanks to him, we nearly pissed our pants laughing. We're in there, feeling all artsy, doing the chat-chat thing, and then we walk around a corner into the back gallery only to see his video projections of nude guys log rolling. Now that's art! Dicks are flopping all over the place, the water looks friggin' cold, and who the hell goes log rolling anyway? Plus, there's the whole metaphor thing: logs rolling, dicks floppin' - it's like meta-ridiculousness. Only Michael Zheng's half-buried ass could possibly hope to compete. And you know what's sad? When school groups would come through the gallery, Joseph McVetty's pictures of those women with razor blades on their privates were no problem, but the log rolling was strictly verboten. And people wonder what's wrong with society.