Live, from Portland Oregon’s Jade Lounge, it’s My Real Portland! MRP features the best of Portland entertainers, storytellers, musicians, authors, comics, and more.
Iva Blanche Willard Bishop Memorial
Mar 14, 2019
Show notes
My Great Aunt Iva passed away March 10th, 2019. I've put together this video of her life from 3 months old in 1921 to a 2010s selfie with my Aunt Lucy.
Season 2 Episode 1: Shrista Tyree, Barbara Dudley, and Mic Crenshaw
Mar 13, 2019
Show notes
A comedian, an activist, and a musician walk into a bar. They grab microphones and together we attempt to change the world. Well, at least give you something to laugh at, something to move to, and something to get you amped up to help change your world.
Season 2 Promo!
Feb 26, 2019
Show notes
That’s right My Real Portlanders! My Real Portland returns March 10th at the Jade Lounge at 6PM. Featuring Shrista Tyree, Barbara Dudley, and Mic Crenshaw!
Jade Lounge is at 2342 SE Ankeny Street right next door to the Slide Inn.
Happy Hour begins at 5:30 so get there early!
Free Admission - Cash recommended for food & drinks
Born on the Southside of Chicago, and raised both there and in Minneapolis, Michael Crenshaw is a world class MC and poet who has emerged on the national - and international stage. As a teen in the late 80's, Mic was embroiled in the violent streets of Minneapolis, leading groups to physically confront white supremacist gangs that were enforcing their will at local parks and social scenes. After beating back the neo-nazis, the violence remained, both in the streets and from authorities. Crenshaw decided it was time to escape it all and moved west to Portland, OR. Crenshaw says, "I wanted something new. [At the time] my ties with the streets were still pretty strong, and my social life involved drinking and fighting. I was ready for a change."
In Portland, he quickly became one of the most respected artists in the Northwest. Beginning in '94, Crenshaw was the front man for the beloved Portland live Hip Hop band, Hungry Mob. In 2001, Crenshaw won The Portland Poetry Slam Championship and went on to finish as a national finalist.
In Portland, Mic's community efforts expanded from the local - to the global. At the close of a Human Rights conference he attended in Rwanda, Crenshaw was confronted by local activists. They said that in America there are computers and they need his help to get them computers. As a result, upon returning to Portland, he enlisted help from an educational colleague, Morgan Delaney. As a result, Globalfam was born.
Globalfam is now a full entertainment company, record label and lifestyle company in one. It houses and produces Crenshaw's music. As well as, partners with the non-profit Education WithOut Borders (EWOB) to manage the community projects that Crensahw and Globalfam are involved in. Crenshaw now serves as EWOB's President. Seven years later, the request for computers has blossomed into a full computer education center in Burundi, Central Africa. Over 800 people have received training, and the center is now expanding, generating revenue and creating jobs by adding a computer repair shop. It is 100% locally managed and staffed. EWOB and Globalfam, along with its supporters, have been the sole outside sponsor
EWOB helps education, music and art initiatives in Portland and their work in Africa, as well serving as an umbrella for the Portland Books For Prisoners Chapter. Crenshaw is currently the Political Director of Hip Hop Congress and the Lead U.S. Organizer for the Afrikan Hip Hop Caravan. The Caravan toured six African cities in 2012 and will tour 10 cities between Cape Town and Cairo in 2014. The Caravan engages each city with a show in the city center, a Hip Hop Symposium and a free show for the youth in a township or ghetto. Crenshaw was invited to be part of the Caravan after playing the Shoko International Festival in Harare Zimbabwe in 2012.
Since 2012, Mic has released 3 EP’s expanding his musical presentation into metal and other rock inspired sound. The EP " Superheros"(2014), which features Dead Prez on its title track solidified Mic's place in Hip Hop worldwide and as an activist/educator. Bionic Metal” (2014) features signature wordplay in line with motivating sonic backdrops . Hope and Danger (2016) heightens the introspection and critical analysis of race, class and culture in modern society. Mic recently released a new project entitled "EarthBound", which explores out modern social condition through the lens of ecological responsibility, economic violence and the sociopathic tendencies of our political landscape.
Mic will be on the March 10th episode of My Real Portland.
Barbara Dudley received her BA in Political Science with honors in Social Thought from Stanford University in 1967, and her JD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971. Ms. Dudley was a Lecturer in the UC Berkeley School of Criminology in 1973 and 1974. She practiced law in California with California Rural Legal Assistance and with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board.
In 1983, she became the President and Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild headquartered in New York City; from 1987 to 1992 served as Executive Director of a New York based Unitarian Universalist charitable foundation; from 1992 to 1997 was Executive Director of Greenpeace USA; and in 1998 was appointed Assistant Director for Strategic Campaigns of the national AFL‑CIO.
In 1999, Ms. Dudley moved to Oregon where she has been a partner in a family business, Bethel Heights Vineyard, since 1978. She is also a founder of and Senior Policy Advisor to the Oregon Working Families Party. She currently serves on the Portland Workers Rights Board as well as the boards of the Oregon Center for Public Policy, Family Forward Oregon, the National Lawyers Guild Foundation.
Ms. Dudley has been an adjunct assistant professor at Portland State since 2000. Ms. Dudley is a Senior Fellow at the Hatfield School’s Center for Public Service.
Barbara will appear on the March 10th My Real Portland.
Shrista Tyree is a Comedian, host, rapper and also a Part time Petco employee. Currently chasing the dream of being a stand-up comedian, rapper and whatever else She so happens to fall in love with. People always ask me what has inspired me to chase my dreams, who do I look up to? But in all honesty, I am my own inspiration. I was raised by a Single mother who suffered with drug addiction. Everyday as a kid i aspired to do and be everything people told me i couldn’t. I graduated high school, because they told me i couldn’t. I got a Bachelor's Degree because they told me i couldn’t. Now i’m chasing a dream people are telling me is a waste of time. Everyones a rapper, you won’t make it. Everyones a comedian, you wont make it. Comedy is my main goal but I’d rather give stand up comedy a chance then to be sitting in front of TV watching Kevin Hart and wishing i tried that “Comedy thing”. Nothing inspires me more than my own story.
Shrista will appear at the March 10th, 2019 My Real Portland.
Episode 7: Brooks, Charmian Creagle, and Jonah Willbach
Oct 15, 2018
Show notes
Recorded October 9th, 2018 at Jade Lounge.
Episode 6: D Martin Austin, Stacey Rice, and Nikole Potulsky
Oct 12, 2018
Show notes
Recorded September 11th, 2018 at Jade Lounge.
Brooks
Oct 09, 2018
Show notes
Brooks
Caryn Brooks (just “Brooks” to many who know her...except for her family, because that would be weird) is a Portlander by way of Philadelphia and still has the attitude to prove it. Her career has spanned both journalism and politics. Her writing has been published in Rolling Stone, Time Magazine, New York Magazine, and many other financially unstable bastions of the fourth estate. These days she’s a civil servant with a stand up comedy habit as a member of the feminist killjoy comedy collective That's What She Said. She is on the board of the Pride Foundation, an lgbtq community org that funds the movement in the Northwest. Free time activities include playing softball, bicycle riding, driving around town in her Lezbaru, walking her rascally mutt Duchess, and wondering how she got to be such a stereotype. Upcoming appearances: Nov 9: That’s What She Said “Get Stuffed” show benefitting Equi at Siren Theater. December 6 Back Fence PDX: RUSSIAN ROULETTE
Jonah Willbach
Sep 13, 2018
Show notes
Jonah Willbach is the co-founder of Portland’s Lents Chicken Beauty Contest with his wife Maggie. He’s an accomplished Mandolin player and plays with band Postwar Radio. Jonah and I cowrote a musical in 1991 with 30 other young actors and performed at Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center.
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