6, Lanagan's own birthday, due to what Wilgus calls "inappropriate behavior" that is no longer tolerated in his club (read: sex). He was kicked out twice-first during the summer of 2006 and again on Saturday, Jan. Which Wilgus thinks one of the real reasons Lanagan is "stealing" his business's name isn't so much about the actual word-a word he admits he may never use again-but because Pat had been ousted from the Eagle.
He believes the Eagle is for a dwindling older audience and scares more young gay people than it attracts. "The Eagle has served its purpose, but I think leather bars are dying," said Wilgus about his fetid fetish space. I talked to Wilgus, 43, who has owned the club for the past two and a half years, on Tuesday about what he felt prompted this current state of gay bar affairs. The second email, which landed in my inbox a half-hour later, announced Casey's, a new "all-inclusive" gay bar Wilgus plans to open in an intriguing Old Town venue next month that'll be nothing like his Eagle. The first one was an all-out attack on "bottom dweller" Lanagan, including the info that Wilgus had reregistered the Eagle as his business name even though he's planning to close the Eagle as early as the middle of next month. That's when Wilgus sent out two emails to local media. That's despite the fact another bar owner, Karl Wilgus, is already using that name for his downtown leather-friendly men's bar (QW, "Flipping the Bird," Dec. 10, before hading to an adult-video expo in Vegas. Things came to a head a few weeks back when I reported Pat Lanagan, a 48-year-old NoPo bar owner, had registered four variations of "Eagle" with the state so he could change the name of his bar Urge to Eagle Portland, which he did on Wednesday, Jan. And it's more than just a fight over a name it's also a fight over what a gay bar is-or, well, was.