THE RAGE
The Rage
333 SW Park Ave in the Modish Building [Per email from Lanny Swerdlow 10/9/2021 First called Evolution then renamed The Rage]
503–286–1764
Years: 1997-1998*
Per Lanny [Swerdlow] on 10/23/2021 in an in person interview at his home outside Palm Springs, “the space was called Evolution for a short period of time. It wasn’t catching on, so I changed it to The Rage.”
All flyers and documents are from Lanny’s archives.
Article in Willamette Week newspaper, October 7. 1998
citations & references:
[Evolution then Rage which later became Misfits and then Escape Night Club]
· listed in Ferrari Guides Men’s Travel 1999 Under: Dance Clubs “Mainly under 21 yrs, mixed crowd, alternative music upstairs”
· listed in Damron’s Men’s Travel Guide 2000 As: THE MISFITS Under: Nightclubs
· listed in Damron’s Men’s Travel Guide 2010 As: ESCAPE Under: Nightclubs
There is a quote by Lanny "You cannot be both sane and well educated and disbelieve in evolution. The evidence is so strong that any sane, educated person has got to believe in evolution."
-- Richard Dawkins, in Lanny Swerdlow, "My Sort Interview with Richard Dawkins" (Portland, Oregon, 1996) per https://truedinos.webnode.com/evolution/quotes-against-creation/
Raid Scours Gay Youth Club, Owner's Home (The Oregonian notes Portland police are continuing their search for some way to pin an illegal-drug charge on the producer of Cannabis Common Sense for local cable television. A secret federal search warrant supposedly targeting associates of Lanny Swerdlow who are thought to be involved in child pornography allowed cops to batter down doors to Swerdlow's Portland home and nightclub, the Rage, and haul off two vehicles full of computers, videos, cameras and folders, without arresting him or charging him with anything.)
5-1-98 Raid scours gay youth club, owner's home * A child pornography investigation concentrates on The Rage and Lanny Swerdlow's houseboat By Jennifer Bjorhus and Osker Spicer of The Oregonian staff
Child pornography investigators hauled away a truckload of computer equipment and videotapes Thursday as they raided The Rage, a popular gay youth dance club, and the bright blue houseboat of the club's owner, Lanny Swerdlow.
No one was arrested. Swerdlow said the club would open as scheduled tonight, and he decried the raids as an attempt to shut down his video shows.
Although controversy again swirls around Swerdlow, whose previous club, The City Nightclub, was shut down because of drug activity, he is not the target of this ongoing investigation, said sources familiar with the case. Associates of Swerdlow, not Swerdlow himself, are the targets of the search warrants, the sources said, emphasizing that who might be arrested isn't clear.
Gordon Compton, an FBI special agent, said he could not discuss the contents of the two federal search warrants and the supporting affidavits because they were under court seal.
John Deits, an assistant U.S. attorney, would confirm only that "the subject matter of the raid was essentially child pornography." The Interagency Sexual Exploitation Pro-active Enforcement Team (INTERSEPT) is investigating, Deits said. The group is made up of agents from the FBI, Oregon State Police, Portland Police Bureau, the U.S. Postal Service and U.S. Customs Service.
The raids began at 8:30 a.m. For more than six hours, investigators combed through belongings at The Rage, 333 S.W. Park Ave, and Swerdlow's houseboat moored off Hayden Island at 11670 North Island Cove Lane.
The raid surprised Swerdlow's neighbors.
"They hollered a few times, and no one answered the door," said Rollin Woodruff, who lives next door. "Then they brought their battering ram out and busted through the front door."
Swerdlow, who was in his bathrobe, was home with his roommate.
About 4 p.m., agents hauled out computers, three yellow bags of videos, videocassette recorders, a small television and boxes of folders. They piled evidence into two wheelbarrows and carted them away.
Neighbors said Swerdlow kept to himself but was "nocturnal" and occasionally threw late-night parties.
"You'd see some guys sitting in the hot tubs," said Patti Marcellus, who lives in a nearby houseboat. "When you'd walk by, they'd stand up and flash you sometimes. He'd always have young kids in there, too."
While investigators took over the houseboat, the scene repeated itself downtown at The Rage. By midafternoon, investigators there had stuffed a small sport-utility vehicle with boxes of computer and video equipment, computer software and videotapes.
Swerdlow, who was at The Rage on Thursday afternoon, said the raids were an unjustified attempt to halt production of his four raucous cable TV shows, all shot at the club.
"I think this is the government trying to shut down my programs that they disapprove of," said Swerdlow, wearing a T-shirt that read: "Here Comes Trouble . . . I'm Baack!"
The message was oddly appropriate.
For more than 20 years, Swerdlow has fought critics who suspected his no-alcohol teen clubs were drug dens and a convenient place for older gay men to meet gay teens.
Swerdlow has argued that The City Nightclub, Evolution and The Rage offer havens for gay teens who otherwise end up vulnerable and unsupported on the street. He has blamed his problems on police homophobia.
His strongest defenders have been young club patrons, straight and gay, who praised the former City Nightclub as an enjoyable nightspot and one of the few places Oregon's gay teens felt comfortable.
Swerdlow's weekly programs, too, have stirred concern.
Shows explicit
Aired on local public-access channels and broadcast over the World Wide Web, the shows are shot at The Rage. They include "Outrageous," "Night Scene," "Cannabis Common Sense" and "Bunk Busters: Local Atheists." Some of the videos contain teen-agers acting out violence, drug use or simulated sex, he
said. Some videos, for example, show 16-year-old boys kissing men orteen-agers in lewd positions, he said.
Swerdlow said that he considers the programs spontaneous art and that from 50 to 100 young people are involved in producing them.
"It's like a catharsis for them," he said. "They're the kids' own creations. I don't tell them what to do or what not to do.
"Some people may look at these shows and say that this is out of line, but I don't. Young people are up there acting out fantasies. There are a lot of guys in dresses, girls kissing guys and guys kissing guys. . . . But people don't appear nude on our stage."
Swerdlow acknowledged that he's not always present when the shows are being shot and doesn't always know what goes on.
He explained that many of the show's producers and performers offer dramatic interpretations of significant issues and concerns of the day, including murder, drugs, rape and similar controversial themes.
"We produce a show about atheism, and a lot of people get very upset about it," he said.
The Rage is in the same four-story building that housed the Alternative Health Center, a medical marijuana club that police raided in September. The building's owner, Robert N. Magid, said that Swerdlow always has conducted his business with integrity and that there was no connection between the marijuana club and Swerdlow's operations.
News of Thursday's raids shook two club regulars who insisted that for gay youth statewide, The Rage is much more than a dance club.
"I can be myself"
"The surroundings make me feel like I can be myself," said Seth Robins, a 19-year-old from Ashland who lives at the Street Light Youth Shelter in Portland. Robins and his friend Chris, 20, who wouldn't give his last name, described the club as a social ritual. It's a place they could go without being hassled, hear good music and get a quarter-pound burger, fries and a coke for $1.50. The two said they stay at the club every Friday night until the 4 a.m. closing.
Robins and Chris described Swerdlow as a type of father figure, a friendly man in jeans and flannel shirts who was always there and showed an interest in their lives. Although Swerdlow often made sexual remarks to them, he never propositioned or threatened them in any way, they said. They were both shocked that he or the club might be involved in child pornography.
"He's an old pervert," Chris said. "Nobody's threatened by him."
The two said The Rage had much better security and was more orderly than its previous manifestations as Evolution and The City Nightclub. They estimated that four guards were on duty Friday nights and that the bathrooms were checked as often as every five minutes. They saw no evidence of child
pornography and did not hear talk about it, they said.
Drunk "trolls" -- street lingo for older men seeking much younger sex partners -- strayed in occasionally, but security guards quickly swept them out, they said.
The thought of The Rage closing upset Robins and Chris.
"I'm nervous," Chris said. "I don't want to see this club close."
Staff writers Ashbel S. Green, Maxine Bernstein and Peter Farrell and researcher Gail Hulden contributed to this story.
On website http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/080896.html an update: City Nightclub Update
As reported in the July 18 Portland NORML news release, the city of Portland wants to shut down the gay-oriented, all-ages City Nightclub without a trial on the grounds that the owner has allegedly let the alcohol-free space become a drug house - which the owner, Lanny Swerdlow, strongly denies. Reportedly a judge was about to make a summary ruling July 12 based solely on police testimony, but according to Swerdlow, a jury is now scheduled to rule on the matter in mid-September, and the case will probably be put over until October or November. Swerdlow hopes to address the Portland city council about the issue on Aug. 21, and invites anyone who would like to discuss the City Nightclub's problems and how to fight city hall to call him at (503) 283-3906.