Bill Will

Once, many years ago, I had during one summer a warehousing job affiliated with the Oregon Health and Sciences University.  The university has gone through many permutations since those days, and I have no idea how it functions now, but back then I worked in what was commonly referred to as "stores."

It was a state job, but I was temp-replacement help, unprotected in every regard.

In "stores," I was responsible every day for going up to "Pill Hill" in Southwest Portland, where the hospital/teaching institution rests on a bluff high above the city, and collecting surplus medical and office equipment to warehouse in a couple of storage locations around town.

My boss and I handled everything that needed to come down from OHSU (years later I worked for an outfit that specialized in taking new things such as examination tables and desks, file cabinets, sofas, chairs, etc. up to OHSU).

My boss was the stores' manager, a friend named Bob Langan, who later jumped to his death from Portland's famous Vista (Suicide) Bridge.  Bob and I had a lot of fun on that job, stopping every morning at one bar or another before work to play a little pinball and drink coffee before getting down to the serious business of taking care of OHSU's surplus supplies business.

Bob was often hung over in the morning because he was a downright drunk, so for an hour or two each dawn our routine helped him take the edge off before we set out on our daily collecting, moving and storage chores.  He was a great pinball player, and I could never quite get the hang of it.  We liked a particular table at the long-gone Candlelight Room near PSU called Eight-Ball Deluxe.

Bob hammered that thing most mornings between the bar's opening at 7 a.m. and nine, when we decided to go to work. Bobby was a pinball wizard.

OHSU Stores held a monthly sale of the silent-auction variety, i.e., people came in on selected weekends and placed blind bids on the goodies in the warehouses.  Within a couple of days we'd notify the purchasers to come in and pick up their valuables.

Two characters that came every month were a couple of artists I liked.  One was a filmmaker who bought things to enhance his sets and was particularly fond of any and all of the hospital's film and video equipment. I can't recall his name.  He was a tall, young, blond kid who went to Cannes every season for the annual revealing.  The kid had money. I think his family ran a film processing business.

The other was the artist Bill Will, who was just starting out in those days.  He loved the "stuff" in the OHSU warehouses and bought a lot of it for his projects--mannequins, medical machinery, vials, gloves, stethoscopes, centrifuges, coffee pots, scales--anything you imagine that might be functional in terms of conceptual art, installations, ironic displays of "found art" and juxtaposition.

Will has done well over the years, hatching relationships with the public money art world.

Here's his website.  Watch his videos and check out the rest of it.

As for the whereabouts of the filmmaker whose name I've forgotten? Who knows, though I'll bet you a dollar he's still making the Cannes scene every season looking for a deal.


TS