Portland Pride Stands Up For Orlando

After the shooting at the Pulse night club in Orlando, leaders of Portland Pride and community members have organized several candlelight vigils, and many artists, arts groups and pride parties are re-configuring their plans to lend their support to the victims of the tragedy. We talk with Don Horn, the founder of Triangle Productions, a theater well-known for producing LGBT plays. Currently, they're sending a percentage of ticket sales for "American Idiot" (June 9–July 2) to the Orlando's LGBT community Center.

Portland Music Distributor Closes Doors, Leaving Hundreds of Bands And Labels In The Lurch - 1:50

Several hundred small music labels and recording artists around the world — including Portland's Pink Martini, Cappella Roman, Three Leg Torso, and more — are faced with buying their own music back from Portland distributor, Allegro Media Group. Several labels and artists affected by the liquidation told OPB they were not notified by the company about what was happening, and have been desperate to get information.

Writer Lindy West Takes On The Trolls With Humor - 8:15

Lindy West started her writing career focused on comedy and popular culture at “The Stranger,” a Seattle weekly. But a funny thing happened on the way to a career of movie reviews and standup listings. West started writing about things she couldn’t avoid any more: About being fat. About finding rape jokes offensive and culturally corrosive. And about the vicious responses she got to her outspoken feminism. She captures her hilarious, and at times troubling, experience in "Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman."

Darcelle XV Shines As America's Oldest Drag Queen - 18:44

Oregon-native Walter Cole had no idea when he opened a small, lesbian-geared bar in 1967 that it would become a drag club, least of all what's widely believed to be the longest-running drag show west of the Mississippi. Since he first put on a gown, he's gone on to perform two shows a night, five nights a week for decades, transforming his bar into an institution that has influenced generations of Oregonians.

Writer Mary Roach On Maggots And Penis Transplants - 24:38

Mary Roach has made a name for herself for bringing humor to the darker corners of science with books like "Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers" and "Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex." Now she takes on the science of modern warfare with "Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War,” plumbing into why diarrhea is a threat to national security and how maggots became and FDA-approved medical device.

opbmusic Big SXSW Discovery: Big Thief - 34:19

When opbmusic producers stumbled on to Big Thief at South by Southwest this year, they couldn’t wait to get the word out. Just a week later, the folk-tinged indie rock band from Brooklyn trekked to Portland for its first ever radio session. The band’s first album, “Masterpiece,” was released by Saddle Creek Records in May.

Peter Sagal Takes Us Behind The Scenes On "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" - 44:45

There’s likely no one in less need of an introduction to public radio listeners than NPR host Peter Sagal, who is bringing "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" back to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on June 23–24. We got Sagal on the phone to talk about what it was like to transition from writing plays to comedy, why he has to write 20 jokes just to get one good one, and why it's so hard to poke fun at Donald Trump.