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TO ADVERTISE ON WILLAMETTE WEEK’S BACK COVER CALL 243-2122 Disorders Marijuana & Criminal Law Eating Free Family and Sufferers Support Groups. MAC REPAIR John Lucy, Defense Attorney 12 Week Treatment Groups. Individual PORTLAND MAC TECH 503-227-6000 • www.Law420.com Counseling. Call for free “Steps To ReFree House Calls • Low Rates cover” brochure. A Better Way Counseling $25 diagnostic fee, $50 per hour. Call 503- Call Medical Marijuana Center 503-226-9061 998-9662 or Schedule an appointment at Card Services Clinic www.abwcounseling.com http://www.portlandmactech.com Our doctors can help. Eskrima Classes 503-384-WEED(9333) Personal weapon & street self-defense Home Buying Classes www.nwfighting.com or 503-740-2666 Home Buying Classes CDPDX At PCC. Details/Resources at Event Space The Best For CD + DVD Duplication. It’s not too late to eliminate debt, protect assets, start over. Experienced, compassionate, top-quality service. Christopher Kane, 503-380-7822 www.ckanelaw.com
WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
Top floor. High design building. Central Eastside. 503-701-5323.
Shelter cats are even more beautiful when they find a home Give generously to the Cat Adoption Team through the Give!Guide
Needed for gentleman’s club. Make $1500-$2500 weekly. Laurie, 503-396-8585
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IT’S MY PLEASURE Inside today’s issue! catadoptionteam.org (503) 925-8903
ACTING CLASSES
Feminist gift store for romance. Classes. www.itsmypleasurepdx.com 503-280-8080.
Kalista Salon & DaySpa Celebrating 11 years Best In Portland Hair Extensions Kalistasalon.com
TAUGHT/FILMED by L.A. Actor/Director/Producer JESSE VINT. Now Enrolling. Go to www.JesseVint.com for details. 360-609-2200.
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Getting registered for medical marijuana needn’t be a counter-culture experience. MAMA: 503-233-4202. MAMAS.org
House, move-in move-out, deep cleaning. AmysCleaningService.com 503-984-0306 Mention WW, 10% off!
MAMA’S MEDICAL Marijuana Clinic
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FREE Consultation. Payment Plans. Experienced. Debt-Relief Agency Scott Hutchinson. 503-808-9032 www.Hutchinson-Law.com
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Improvisation Classes Now enrolling. Beginners Welcome! Brody Theater 503-224-2227 www.brodytheater.com
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wweek.com
VOL 37/01 11.10.2010
P. 45
m i g y. c o m
BACK COVER
NEWS Bond, Big School Bond. DISH The best noodles in PDX. SCREEN Suicide bombers! Ha ha!!
3.772” x 12” Due date 11-5 Run date 11-10 Gerding Theater at the Armory 128 NW Eleventh Avenue
503.445.3700
pcs.org
Join us at Lewis & Clark Now thru Nov. 21 Events are free unless otherwise noted. Parking is free after 7 p.m. and all day on weekends. Through December 12 Tuesday-Sunday 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Hoffman Gallery of Contemporary Art
Alison Saar: Bound for Glory Alison Saar’s art explores race, gender, and identity through a rich diversity of materials, techniques, and cultural aesthetics. go.lclark.edu/bound/for/glory
November 10-12 Templeton Campus Center
An Iliad
EXHIBITION
SEVENTH ANNUAL RAY WARREN MULTICULTURAL SYMPOSIUM
And Justice for All
denis O’Hare & Lisa Peterson direCted by Penny Metropulos Starring Joseph graves Created by
Join three days of lectures, readings, and panel discussions on issues surrounding human rights, racism, and social justice. go.lclark.edu/warrensymp November 12-14 7:30 p.m. Agnes Flanagan Chapel
FESTIVAL
5th Annual Northwest Indian Storytelling Festival Hear many of the Pacific Northwest’s finest traditional and contemporary tribal storytellers. The suggested donation ranges from $5 to $20 for each performance. For more information, call 503-768-6155.
November 13 1 p.m. Griswold Stadium
December 1 7 p.m. Frank Manor House, Armstrong Lounge
December 3 and 4 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Fir Acres Theatre
“A performance that can honestly be described as spellbinding.” —Willamette Week Helen & Jerry Stern
FOOTBALL
Pioneers vs. Linfield College The Pioneers play their season finale against Linfield. General admission $10; children 12 and under free. www.lcpioneers.com/sports/fball
November 19 and 20 8 p.m. Evans Music Center
Photo by Owen Carey.
OPERA WORKSHOP PERFORMANCE
Falstaff’s Fiasco Drama ensues when two student opera companies square off with very different interpretations of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. Presented by the George Bishop Opera Workshop. POETRY READING
Vern Rutsala Rutsala is the author of 12 books, and among his awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship and two National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships. He was a faculty member at Lewis & Clark College from 1961 to 2004.
3 DAY S! & 3 STAGES
of outstanding national talent & regionalbands, plus workshops, vendors, a square dance & lots of jamming!
PERFORMANCE
Dance Extravaganza 2010 Watch an evening of creative and innovative dance produced, choreographed, and performed by Lewis & Clark College students. Tickets cost $7-$10. For more information, call 503-768-7491.
Featuring: western swing supergroup
the Time Jumpers including Vince Gill,
www.rivercitybluegrass.com
Lewis & Clark 0615 S.W. Palatine Hill Road Portland, Oregon 97219
www.lclark.edu 2
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
Dennis Crouch, Paul Franklin, Dawn & Kenny Sears, ‘Ranger’ Doug Green, Jeff Taylor, Rick Vanaugh & Joe Spivey
Peter Rowan Bluegrass Band Guy Clark Tim O’Brien and Bryan Sutton Steep Canyon Rangers Rhonda Vincent & The Rage The Quebe Sisters Band Dave Alvin & The Guilty Women (inc. Cindy Cashdollar, Laurie Lewis, Nina Gerber, Christy McWilson & Sarah Brown) John Reischman & the Jaybirds John Jorgenson Quintet The Infamous Stringdusters Lou Reid & Carolina Dan Crary & Thunderation David Grier & Mike Compton Jackstraw
For tickets go to www.brownpapertickets.com or call 800-838-3006
CONTENT
The Check
Is On Us find �ourse�� in �ot water
Help Us Celebrate Our 8th Anniversary and As a thank you to all of our guests that have supported us throughout our first 8 years, on eight random days during November guests eat FREE* in the Pacific Crest Dining Room. So escape this Fall to Bonneville Hot Springs Resort and Spa. The extraordinary beauty and color of the scenic Columbia River Gorge, soothing Hot Springs Mineral Water, elegant accommodations, over 40 relaxing body treatments, locally crafted wines, and fresh local ingredients are just a few of the many reasons that make Bonneville Hot Springs Resort & Spa the top Gorge getaway.
ELECTION WRAP-UP: How candidates like John Kitzhaber won and how others lost. Page 9.
NEWS
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LEAD STORY
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MUSIC
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CULTURE
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EDITORIAL Managing News Editor Henry Stern Arts & Culture Editor Kelly Clarke Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, James Pitkin, Beth Slovic Copy Chief Kat Merck Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, Peggy Perdue, Sarah Smith Special Sections Editor Ben Waterhouse Screen Editor Aaron Mesh Music Editor Casey Jarman Assistant Music Editor Michael Mannheimer Editorial Interns Christina Cooke, Leighton Cosseboom, Jacob Pierce, Jason Slotkin CONTRIBUTORS Stage Ben Waterhouse Classical Brett Campbell Dance Heather Wisner Visual Arts Richard Speer
Just 35 miles from Portland in the Columbia River Gorge Erik Bader, Ruth Brown, Nathan Carson, Shane Danaher, Robert Ham, Whitney Hawke, Jay Horton, AP Kryza, Nilina Mason-Campbell, John Minervini, Katrina Nattress, Rebecca Raber, Alistair Rockoff, Jeff Rosenberg, Anika Sabin, Matt Singer, Chris Stamm, Mark Stock PRODUCTION Production Manager Kendra Clune Art Director Ben Mollica Graphic Designers Soma Honkanen, Adam Krueger, Carolyn Richardson, Dylan Serkin Production Intern Taylor Schefstrom ADVERTISING Director of Advertising Jane Smith Display Account Executives Sara Backus, Alisha Barnes, Maria Boyer, Derek Henderson, Carrie Hinton, Janet Norman, Kyle Owens Classifieds Account Executives Michael Donhowe, Jennifer Lee Advertising Assistant Ashley Grether Marketing and Events Manager Jess Sword Marketing and Promotions Coordinator Brittany McKeever
Our mission: Provide our audiences with an independent and irreverent understanding of how their worlds work so they can make a difference. Circulation: 90,000 (except during holidays and school vacations.) Though Willamette Week is free, please take just one copy. Anyone removing papers in bulk from our distribution points will be prosecuted, as they say, to the full extent of the law. Willamette Week is published weekly by City of Roses Newspaper Company 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Main line phone: (503) 243-2122 fax: (503) 243-1115 Classifieds phone: (503) 223-1500 fax: (503) 223-0388
Bonneville Hot Springs Resort & Spa 866-743-9718 | www.BonnevilleResort.com
STAFF Editor-in-Chief Mark Zusman
*Applies to food only. Please see website for complete details.
DISTRIBUTION Circulation Director Robert Lehrkind WWEEK.COM Web Production Brian Panganiban MUSICFESTNW Executive Director Trevor Solomon OPERATIONS Accounting Manager Andrea Manning Credit & Collections Shawn Wolf Office Manager & Receptionist Nick Johnson Manager of Information Systems Brian Panganiban Publisher Richard H. Meeker
Willamette Week welcomes freelance submissions. Send material to either News Editor or Arts Editor. Manuscripts will be returned if you include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. To be considered for calendar listings, notice of events must be received in writing by noon Wednesday, two weeks before publication. Send to Calendar Editor. Photographs should be clearly labeled and will be returned if accompanied by a selfaddressed, stamped envelope. Questions concerning circulation or subscription inquiries should be directed to Robert Lehrkind at Willamette Week.
Lite up.
postmaster: Send all address changes to Willamette Week, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Subscription rates: One year $100, six months $50. Back issues $5 for walk-ins, $8 for mailed requests when available. Willamette Week is mailed at third-class rates. A.A.N. Association of ALTERNATIVE NEWSWEEKLIES This newspaper is published on recycled newsprint using soy-based ink.
706 SE MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. BLVD / 503.233.5973 / RIVERCITYBICYCLES.COM / OPEN EVERY DAY Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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Give Mom Emeralds Emerald Obsidianite from Mt. St. Helens
Unusual Gifts for Unusual People
We will rock you! Locally owned and operated since 1989.
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A collection of vintage jewelry , estate engagement rings , artisan creations & other luscious treasures.
INBOX WWEEK.COM READERS SPEAK ON… “MOCK STAR” “The only people who will get offended are the tools and losers who are representative of what she is talking about, and they need to be offended. I totally agree with her and she is spot on. I have been here 20 years and have seen all this bullshit spring up as tools from California, New York etc. moved here and decided to tell us what the way of life should be. Everyone I meet is a musician, fashion designer or artist. No one appears to either have nor want regular job. Don’t get me started on the feminization of men, the passive-aggressive crap or the gaunt, tatted-up zombies I see at New Seasons. There are good things here, but I wish some one would just take this all away.” —Terence “Yeah. It’s amusing when some of those Cali types get on their high social media and order Portland to grow up! Usually because Cali overdressed on a date for something at The Keller and all the jeans scared them, or they don’t get that some restaurants in town choose not to take reservations, and it ushers them straight into a bout of sun-bereft madness.” —Fanny “If you want some material for the show, check out Backspace. Awesome coffee and staff and normally great art, but some of the pieces on display right now are almost vulgar in their selfLETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words.
www.photoposy.com
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
“Why is it that whenever someone does any kind of funny slam, it becomes a pissing match about how f’d up another place is...like oh NYC sucks, and CAs are a-holes...I find this pea-brain mentality, well, pea-brainish. Everywhere has its share of gems and douches. How do you think CA felt when the whole world decided to take over their paradise years ago? Thank God they’re not walking around pissed off all day!” —Liz G “As a longtime Portlander, I thought this article was hilarious. Also hilarious that the comments instantly devolved into wild defensiveness and California-bashing. How Portland. Looking forward to the show.” —LG I thought the article title (“Mock Star”) of this story on Brownstein was dead-on. The namedafter-a-freeway-exit band sounds like a nail file pulled across a chalkboard while a histrionic teen wails about angsty peer misunderstanding. Now dragged kicking and screaming into adulthood and staring down 40, Brownstein makes the same observations that real people make, like—whoa, those tattooed hipster fucks with new children look stupid, and what were we all thinking? —Waaaah, My Angst is So Important
SUBMIT TO: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Fax: (503) 243-1115 Email: mzusman@wweek.com
We still talk about Oregon’s most famous ballot initiatives using their measure number—Measure 5, Measure 9, Measure 11. What happens when those numbers come around again? Do the all-time greats get their numbers retired, like hall-offame athletes, or will we just have to be confused? —Kenny R.
(503)226-0629
satisfaction, and exactly what you’d get if you could find 40 adults still interested in 5thgrade craft projects. There are at least 8 episodes just sitting there half-written.” —Asa
While it’s amusing to imagine Measure 11’s jersey hanging in the rafters of the Capitol rotunda (or rather, it would be, if Measure 11 weren’t the lovechild of evil and stupid), Oregon does not retire measure numbers. In fact, all the numbers you mention have already been reused at least once. Luckily for professional malcontents such as myself, none of the also-ran measures were particularly divisive, sparing us the drudgery of pausing mid-tirade to explain which Measure 5 we’re bitching about. Things used to be even more confusing. For
most of Oregon’s history, there was a new Measure 1 for every election. The system you allude to, where the tally carries over from election to election up to 99 and then starts over, wasn’t instituted until 1993. The following year—a good one for fascists— brought us the infamous Measures 5 and 11. From there, measure numbers rose apace. The great Odometer of Democracy finally turned over in 2000, and the numbers began repeating. Measure 5 Jr., the little pinko, disappointed its famous predecessor by requiring background checks for gun purchases, and Measure 11 redux was a dead-boring bond issue. Still, it seemed inevitable that one day, two major initiatives would wind up with the same number, resulting in mass confusion, failure of the power grid and the collapse of civil society. Thus, in 2002 it was decided that henceforth the numbers would continue to rise. Soon enough, we’ll see the first three-digit ballot measure. Try not to panic. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com
GET ‘EM ON SALE KELLY JOE PHELPS & CORINNE WEST Magnetic Skyline $13.95-cd
Less blues, more folk for Phelps as he teams with vocalist Corrine West for an intricate album with rich lyrics and beautiful harmonies.
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
WW’S YEAR IN REVIEW
TO OUR READERS: You’re where our efforts begin—and end. The 400,000 of you in the Portland metro area who pick up Willamette Week or view wweek.com on the Web—or both— are the reason I issue this report each year. For if this newspaper is to continue to earn your time and attention, as well as your trust and support, you’re entitled to know how we’re doing and what’s in store for the year ahead. So here goes: Two years ago in this space, you used the expression “Yuck!” to describe the economic environment. Last year, you noted WW’s revenues had dropped again. The Oregonian continues to lose circulation after buyouts and layoffs. Just how bad is it out there? The economy still stinks. Our advertising revenues are down another 5 percent. But our situation remains surprisingly sound. That’s because of difficult choices we made in March 2009 to cut pay, lay off staff, reduce circulation, and economize internally. Online revenues are up appreciably, our printing costs have been stable, and we took risks with non-newspaper activities such as MusicfestNW and Restaurant Guide that paid off. As a result, this year’s revenues will fall just short of $5 million— about the same as last year’s total—with overall expenses down. So there have been no more layoffs, and none is contemplated. In May we raised our press run back to 90,000. And this week co-owner Mark Zusman and I committed to raising pay for staff affected by the 2009 pay cuts, effective Jan. 1, 2011. Has the poor economy caused you to scale back your editorial ambitions? I hope not. The biggest single event of the past year was politics, and WW has been fully engaged. This meant an incredible amount of grueling work for the paper’s editors, designers and reporters. How do you know all this attention to politics makes the slightest difference? Here’s a bit of anecdotal evidence: Over the past couple of weeks so many of you told me this consistent message that I lost count: Thank you for your endorsement issue—and for the videos you posted; both were enormously helpful in sorting through the complex array of measures and candidates. And here’s a fact: Market
INGER KLEKACZ
PUBLISHER’S REPORT
NEWS
research consistently shows you to be actively involved in terms of registering to vote and then exercising your franchise. Politics aside, what stories did you produce this year that made a difference? Three cover stories in particular stand out: Beth Slovic’s “A Stitch and Time” (which, among other things, resulted in the donation of a beautiful new cello to the subject of the story, Harun Mustafa); Nigel Jaquiss’ “Oregon’s Scariest Cops” (which detailed the outrageous number of crimes Clackamas County sheriff’s officers have committed against the citizens they’ve sworn to protect); and James Pitkin’s “Saving Ryan” (which showed how a pair of Multnomah County Circuit Court judges, working in an overburdened legal system, made special efforts to help a young drug addict named Ryan Santana). What about those big risks you mentioned a few paragraphs ago? First, WW decided to celebrate the 10th anniversary of MusicfestNW by going outdoors. We rented Pioneer Courthouse Square and hired a couple of big-name acts (the National and the Decemberists) as headliners. We needed good crowds— and good weather—to make things work out. Executive Director Trevor Solomon’s booking (more than 170 acts in five nights) was spot-on, and MFNW enjoyed terrific support from more than 15,000 attendees as well as a healthy number of major sponsors. Second, we chose to honor the maturing local restaurant scene by turning our annual Restaurant Guide into a full-blown magazine inserted in all copies of WW. We ended up with a fabulous guide and enough added revenue to more than cover the extra printing costs. What about that new website? (And is the digital world making WW any money?) Since January we’ve been working with Wehaa, a firm from Milwaukee, Wis., and a local Web architect Eric Hillerns (of pinch.nu). The goal has been to create a better Web presence for our journalism. The new wweek.com should launch early next month. That should be followed in a few months by a new mobile app. The digital world has generated about $150,000 the first nine months of this year—up 60 percent from this time. We also have created an online store (wweek.com/store) at which you can buy everything from copies
MFNW: September in the Square.
TEAM WW
APRIL: Eat Mobile.
of Restaurant Guide and Finder to tickets to WW events to WW-branded thank-you cards, coffee cups and water bottles.
specific local nonprofits. This year we’re shooting for a cool million.
Anything else you want to brag about? Of course! At the beginning of the year, the International Association of Culinary Professionals asked if we would schedule our annual food-cart festival to coincide with its convention in Portland. So we held EatMobile on April 24 and gave IACP’s foodies first shot at Portland’s gift to North American street food—before letting more than 1,000 of you have at the amazing fare at EatMobile’s new location under the Morrison Bridge. Then there’s Team WW. Our ragtag band of softballers won the championship of the 24-team Sunday Softball League. So what have you done for Portland lately? Glad you asked. Starting at the beginning of 2010, a team of seven WW-ers (plus Executive Director Brittany Cornett), with help from folks at the Young Professionals of Portland, OakTree Digital and Momentum Market Intelligence, has been working on this year’s Give!Guide and accompanying Skidmore Prizes. A copy of WW’s annual effort to spur year-end giving to worthy local nonprofits is included in this issue. Please give it a good look, then go to wweek.com/giveguide and let your better angels have the run of your credit or debit card for at least a few minutes. Last year your incredible generosity resulted in more than $900,000 raised to support
What about the overall state of journalism today? Last week’s elections highlighted the single most salient fact of modern American life: This country has come to resemble an oligarchy. Only the ultra-rich have benefited from our economy since the early 1980s, when President Reagan set this nation on a tax-cutting, reinvestment-slashing binge with no recovery in sight. Great wealth has a way of preserving itself, and the growing necessity of obtaining huge sums of money to run for office, especially in light of this year’s woeful U.S. Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, has spawned an increasingly unfair advantage. Along the way, we as a society seem to have chosen to encourage the rich and powerful to exploit the poor and less fortunate. I can’t help but think this is the result not just of a failure of our politics, but of American journalism, as well. That is as big a challenge as a newspaper can face. That’s also why you’re so important. You are the bulwark of Portland, and your continued attention, trust and support give us the wherewithal and motivation to continue to aspire to journalism that makes a difference in local life. Thank you, [signature] Richard H. Meeker Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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ELECTION: The winners, losers and oddities of 2010. SCHOOLS: Portland Public Schools’ Big Bond. NEIGHBORHOODS: Fighting back against cell towers. SPORTS: Remembering Maurice Lucas.
Pet Owners! Animal Lovers! Can this be shelter?
Bring attention to the treatment of animals by Multnomah County Animal Services (MCAS). Convey your personal experiences with MCAS. Local and national animal welfare advocates along with concerned citizens are compiling narratives exposing practices by MCAS. If you care about the treatment of animals by our own public agency, be a part of this important movement. Send us your stories and contact information.
THIS WEEK’S DECISION POINTS. Gov.-elect John Kitzhaber turned to a familiar face to run his transition team that will hire staff and create a budget before Kitzhaber takes office Jan. 10. As first reported on Nov. 8 on wweek.com, the Democrat’s choice is Tom Imeson, once chief of staff to former Gov. Neil Goldschmidt. Imeson also directed the transitions for Kitzhaber during his first round as governor in 1994 and Gov. Ted Kulongoski in 2002. Imeson did not return calls seeking comment.
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
9 10 13 14
On the heels of a damaging financial audit this week that revealed massive cost overruns on a Portland City Hall computer software project, Commissioner Randy Leonard is poised to begin another million-dollar digital development. On Wednesday, City Council likely will approve taking out a $4.4 million commercial bank loan so the Bureau of Development Services can implement a new electronic permitting system. Also on Wednesday, City Council will vote whether to allow Commissioner Nick Fish’s Bureau of Parks & Recreation to borrow $3.8 million for maintenance projects. Commissioner Amanda Fritz (left) has been the only elected official to question the timing of the new borrowing. Portland Public Schools will jump-start its efforts to sell the former Washington-Monroe High School in the Buckman neighborhood just as Superintendent Carole Smith and the board launch a campaign for a $548 million construction bond (see “The Big Ask,” page 10). Washington-Monroe hasn’t been a high school since 1981. But plans in 2008 to convert the building in inner Southeast into condos fell apart amid the recession. Before that time, the 1.3-acre campus was valued at more than $4 million. When the school district issued its official requests for information this week to new developers possibly interested in the site, the campus was valued at $2 million. A potential problem has arisen with Measure 76, which permanently sets aside 15 percent of Oregon Lottery proceeds for parks and wildlife. About 69 percent of state voters supported the measure, which had faced opposition last summer from House Speaker Dave Hunt (D-Gladstone). Hunt agreed to table his opposition if measure supporters agreed to a series of limitations that he planned for the 2011 Legislature to refer to voters. But now that Democrats and Republicans split the House 30-30, Hunt is no position to enforce that deal. Oregon transportation officials are starting a conversation about legalizing lane sharing for motorcyclists. Also known as “lane splitting” or “filtering,” the practice is common in Europe but not in the United States, where it’s legal only in California. The Governor’s Advisory Committee for Motorcycle Safety has released a report on lane sharing and is holding a public meeting Friday, Nov. 19, at 6:30 pm in the Kaiser Permanente Town Hall at 3704 N Interstate Ave. The study says lane splitting may reduce congestion and gas emissions as motorcyclists sneak out of traffic, but it may also put them at risk for collision when drivers change lanes without looking.
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NEWS
YES HE CAN: President Obama’s Portland visit last month netted John Kitzhaber only about $16,000, but helped generate massive Multnomah County turnout that helped the Democratic gubernatorial candidate win.
OUTSIDE THE BALLOT BOX THE WINNERS, LOSERS AND ODDITIES OF THE 2010 ELECTION. BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS
njaquiss@wweek.com
As the losers in last week’s election dry their tears—and the winners’ hangovers wear off—there’s a lot to digest. Here are some highlights of the Nov. 2 election: 1. Measure for Measure: In a light season for statewide measures, one big surprise emerged among the seven on the Oregon ballot: the passage of Measure 71, which establishes annual legislative sessions with limits on the length of those sessions. Although no opposition surfaced, the electorate’s loathing for lawmakers would have seemed enough to guarantee defeat. Instead, the measure passed with 68 percent of the vote. “It’s a real mystery,” says veteran initiative activist Bill Sizemore. Two other measures produced radically different conclusions about money’s importance in elections: First, Kevin Mannix spent less than $4,000 to pass Measure 73, which penalizes repeat drunken drivers and sex offenders. Second, proponents of a private casino spent more than $3 million on Measure 75 and got crushed by more than a 2-1 ratio. Translation? Mannix spent about half a cent per “yes” vote; casino proponents spent $6.83. Mannix’s secret? He says it’s picking a simple issue that resonates with voters. “Grassroots, grassroots, grassroots,” chants Mannix, who says his campaign consisted primarily of sending 125,000 emails. “That’s the new social media.”
2. What Straight Ticket? Voters once again showed a propensity to split their ballots between parties. In Clackamas County, for instance, Republican gubernatorial nominee Chris Dudley trounced Democratic nominee John Kitzhaber by 9 percentage points. But first-term U.S. Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) bested well-financed Republican challenger Scott Bruun of West Linn by 2 percentage points in the same county. Similarly, while many observers have noted Kitzhaber’s decisive 71 percent to 27 percent victory over Dudley in Multnomah County, some local voters turned their backs on other Democrats. Veteran state Sen. Rod Monroe (D-Portland) eked out a 4-point victory over Republican Rob Wheeler, even though Democrats enjoy a 21-point registration advantage in Monroe’s east Multnomah County district. 3. A Reason Tom Hughes Won: Hughes beat two of the biggest names in the environmental movement to win the presidency of Metro: Councilor Rex Burkholder, who founded the Bicycle Transportation Alliance and co-founded the Coalition for a Livable Future, fell in the primary. And Hughes, the former Hillsboro mayor, nosed out former 1000 Friends of Oregon executive director Bob Stacey by about 1,000 votes in the general election. One notable feature of the Hughes-Stacey race: the large number of write-in votes. At last count, 3,062 voters named somebody other than Hughes or Stacey as their choice. That’s a write-in rate six times higher than in the state treasurer’s races and more than three times the rate in the governor’s race. Multnomah County elections spokesman Eric Sample says his agency does not collect the names of write-in candidates unless a write-in
is close to winning. Too bad. One possible explanation for the unusually high write-in total: In October, Lydia Rich, Burkholder’s wife and largest campaign contributor, created a Facebook page titled “I’m Writing in Rex Burkholder for Metro Council President This November.” 4. Unions Win…for the Moment: In the May primary, the state’s two largest public employee unions, the Oregon Education Association and Service Employees International Union, expressed considerable skepticism about Kitzhaber. OEA endorsed Kitzhaber’s opponent, Bill Bradbury. And SEIU issued no endorsement. Both stepped up big in the general: OEA gave Kitzhaber more than $1 million, and SEIU gave nearly $500,000. But Kitzhaber, who faces a $3 billion budget deficit, has said he will ask state agency directors and commission and program heads to resign and totally remake state government. Should he summon the courage to fulfill that pledge, his task will be much easier with a nearly equally divided Legislature. That’s because Democratic lawmakers will be less able to protect their union donors. “A closely divided Legislature makes it possible to create a political center,” Kitzhaber said last Thursday. “That will make it easier to deal with the budget crisis.” 5. This and That: House Speaker Dave Hunt (D-Gladstone) is under fire from colleagues unhappy with inaccurate polling and lousy campaign tactics that included a failed attempt to paint Republican candidates as supporting 30 percent sales taxes. In Portland, City Commissioner Randy Leonard is riding high, thanks to the passage of a $75 million fire bond measure, which Leonard proposed, and the defeat of publicly financed political campaigns, which he opposed. “I think that vote [on public financing] was an opportunity for voters to take a poke at politicians,” says lobbyist Len Bergstein. “It was an anti-City Hall vote.” Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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EDUCATION R O B D E L A H A N T Y. N E T
NEWS
BOND, SCHOOL BOND: Superintendent Carole Smith is betting Portland voters will increase their property taxes for renovated schools.
THE BIG ASK
unknown number of construction jobs beginning next summer, combines both themes. There were several other reasons for which respondents said they would support a tax hike, and those reasons are reflected in the design of the superintendent’s plan. Surveyed voters said they put a high priority on making major renovations to the buildings that need urgent repairs first. As a result, Marysville K-8 School, which burned in a devastating fire last November, forcing students to relocate BY B ETH SLOV IC bslovic@wweek.com to the mothballed Rose City Park Elementary School, will be rebuilt ahead of any other school, Half of recently surveyed voters in Portland said Smith says. the state’s largest school district didn’t do a good Seven other schools, including Roosevelt, job of managing its finances, according to Port- Jefferson and Cleveland high schools, plus Fauland Public Schools. bion, Laurelhurst, Markham and Rigler primary But Superintendent Carole Smith put forward schools, will also get full renovations. Lincoln a new plan Monday to ask Portlanders to raise High School, which sits inside the boundaries their property taxes to support public education of Mayor Sam Adams’ newly proposed urban for 47,000 students anyway. The hit for the aver- renewal zone, would get new architectural age property owner in the school district would designs with money from the bond issue. be about $300 to $350 per year. But to appeal to voters in all neighborhoods, That new plan, if approved by the Portland not just the ones with buildings in the worst School Board on Dec. 13, calls condition, PPS plans to offer for a six-year, $548 million FACT: The Portland School Board will upgrades at all 85 campuses. construction bond measure hold a public hearing on the proposed Those universal improvements bond measure Dec. 1. The board will on the May 2011 ballot. The then vote Dec. 13 whether to forward would include new, modern goal? To rebuild or renovate the measure to voters in May. doors that open with key cards all of PPS’s 85 campuses now and additional accessibility for that the district has finally settled its long- disabled students. awaited high-school redesign with the closure Thirty-seven schools with middle-school of Marshall. grades would get new science labs, and 33 eleSmith’s announcement Monday got a round mentary schools would get covered playgrounds of applause from School Board members, mean- (but no guarantees the district will keep physiing it’s unlikely the members (some of whom cal education programs amid dwindling operacome up for re-election on the same May 2011 tions budgets). ballot) will reject Smith’s plan next month when The school district’s last capital improvement it returns to them for a formal vote. measure came in 1995 and largely paid for seisSo, what will the plan accomplish? And why? mic upgrades at school. Yet many of Portland’s Two months ago, PPS commissioned a schools date to the World War II era and earlier, $21,600 poll by the research firm Davis, Hib- making them on average 60 to 65 years old. bitts & Midghall to weigh voters’ support for “Anyone needs a face-lift after 65 years, I a possible tax measure. The results of the poll think,” says Pam Knowles, co-chairwoman of the suggest 62 percent of voters are likely to support Portland School Board. construction bonds in the neighborhood of $500 If approved by voters, the $548 million bond million. Only 30 percent of surveyed voters said measure would probably be only the first in a they would reject a measure of such magnitude. series of measures in the next 20 to 30 years. “In this economy, people care about jobs and Smith says her goal is to persuade voters to education,” says Adam Davis, firm partner and approve new construction until all of the disthe school district’s pollster. And the district’s trict’s schools have received the overhauls the proposed measure, which would create an as yet district says they need.
HOW PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS PLANS TO WIN YOUR SUPPORT FOR A $548 MILLION BOND ISSUE.
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NEIGHBORHOODS
NEWS J O N AT H A N H I L L
BAR TOOL
for Oregon’s rowdier liquor-selling establishments. Under the proposed change, business owners who fail to directly and immediately address consistent or serious liquor law violations, from excessive noise to bar fights, could face the same punishment as those committing a first-time offense of serving alcohol to a minor—a $1,650 fine or a 10-day license suspension. While OLCC regulators can ticket bar owners for serving alcohol to minors, problems like overserving a customer or unruly customers who spill out into a neighBY JAS O N SLOT K I N jslotkin@wweek.com borhood are difficult, if not impossible, to ticket. And that leaves closing a bar down as the only enforcement tool The 720 Room and its rowdy patrons caught the attention OLCC inspectors have for such problems. But state regulators must document a history of “serious and persistent” of liquor regulators back in 2008. Fights, excessive noise and, at one point, reports of problems, such as frequent violence or illegal activity. And gunshots prompted the city to impose restrictions on the it can take years to get the needed documented history of bar’s hours and manner of operations in inner-Southeast complaints to support this kind of closure. The calculus behind the new proposal is that the OLCC Portland. And the Oregon Liquor Control Commission spent about a year trying to get owner Michael Pifher to could act faster, with attention-grabbing penalties short of a shutdown, such as the $1,650 fine or curb the disturbances. 10-day license suspension. When that failed, the state took away FACT: The Nov. 16 meeting of “If something happens that ensures the 720 Room’s liquor license in May the OLCC begins at 9 am at 2010. Pifher had closed the club around the agency’s office at 9079 SE and strengthens this process, that’s that time, but only after stretching the McLoughlin Blvd. in Milwaukie. great,” says Sue Pearce, who’s developed patience of businesses in the Hosfordagreements similar to compliance plans between the Hosford-Abernethy neighborhood assoAbernethy neighborhood to the breaking point. “We found bullets and a lot of empty liquor bottles,” ciation and bar owners, including the new owner of the says Jeremy Washburn, manager of nearby Advanced Let- renamed Club 720. Theresa Marchetti, who tracks alcohol-related comterpress shop. For cooling Oregon’s trouble-causing liquor establish- plaints for the City of Portland, supports the OLCC’s proments, this has been the state’s process: unenforceable posed change. “There’s a potential for problems to be solved and taken recommendations that drag on until problems reach care of at an earlier date,” says Marchetti. extremes. The city gets about 1,000 complaints a year from PortOn Nov. 16, the Oregon Liquor Control Commission will meet to discuss a new proposal designed to deal landers about alcohol-related crimes and disturbances, sooner with such problems by using “compliance plans” on top of thousands of police reports. Marchetti says only
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about 5 percent to 10 percent of Portland’s 2,600 OLCClicensed businesses are responsible for most complaints. Portland police spokeswoman Lt. Kelli Sheffer says the Police Bureau supports the OLCC proposal. Kara Thallon, spokeswoman for the 3,500-member Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association, fears businesses would be forced into plans for problems like litter. The problem isn’t rules, she says, but too little staff or money to document and prove repeated violations. “They have plenty of ways to go after problem establishments,” Thallon says.
TOPPLING TOWERS SOUTHEAST NEIGHBORHOODS BAND TOGETHER AGAINST CLEARWIRE. DOES IT MATTER?
legal weight, are similar to a recent ordinance passed recently in Hempstead, N.Y. (In April, Glendale, Calif., also acted by creating a minimum buffer zone of 15 feet between property lines and poles in the public right of way.) BY PAT R I C K G U I L D pguild@wweek.com This Monday, Nov. 15, those three Portland neighborhood groups are holding a About 75 concerned Southeast Portland workshop to help cell-tower opponents residents crowded into Duniway School’s citywide mobilize against towers they say auditorium last week to protest a proposed are ugly and noisy, lower property values Clearwire wireless tower next to a church and emit harmful microwave radiation. and about 20 feet from the nearest home. Independent studies have found health When asked by a resident at the Nov. 2 risks from the towers. Industry-funded meeting who could block the 90-foot pole studies have not. The only undisputed fact from being built on the quiet residential is that cell towers are polarizing. And regulating the towers is complistreet, Clearwire representative Stephen W. Topp’s answer was simple: “Nobody.” cated by a 1996 federal law that bars local governments from prohibiting telecom Maybe, maybe not. Neighborhood associations are unit- providers the right to provide service based on health concerns. ing to keep wireless towers Cities may use zoning by looking to regulations FACT: The Nov. 15 workshop laws to keep towers in enacted by other cities on will begin at 6:30 pm at the commercial or industrial the federally protected tele- SE Uplift headquarters at areas, but have limited say com giants. Last month, the 3534 SE Main Ave. in public rights of way like Woodstock, Mount Tabor and Westmoreland neighborhood associa- on utility poles. The issue is hot because city officials tions passed resolutions to keep Clearwire towers 2,000 feet away from schools, say Clearwire plans to blanket Portland homes and playgrounds—no small limit in with wireless antennae in the next several years to meet demand. a densely populated city. Commissioner Amanda Fritz, who The resolutions, which don’t carry any
manages the city’s Office of Cable Communications and Franchise Management, has worked to enact guidelines limiting additions to 15 feet above the original utility pole and forcing telecoms to hold public forums when they want to erect a tower. But residents like Frank Spillers, a spokesman for the No Tabor Tower neighborhood group, say that’s not good enough. “We recognize they’ve done something,” he says. “What we need is for them to go faster, harder and stronger in pushing regulation against Clearwire.” When asked about what other cities like Hempstead and Glendale have done, Fritz policy adviser Tim Crail says the city’s attorneys have said there’s not much more
that can be done. “We’ve gone as far as we can without inviting a lawsuit,” Crail says. (In Oregon, Bend also is working on an ordinance that cites aesthetics instead of health to propose a ban on certain towers in residential areas and to keep them off historic buildings. Crail says that wouldn’t work in Portland because “Portland’s large tracts of residential areas make it difficult to find commercial spaces to put poles.”) Crail compares the towers’ output to safe TV frequencies, but he does acknowledge widespread fears. “We should address those fears,” Crail says, “by trying to get them as far away from people as possible.” Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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SPORTS TAY L O R S C H E F S T R O M
NEWS
REMEMBERING LUKE THE LATE BLAZER WHO “BULLIED THE BULLIES.” BY HE N RY ST ERN
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
hstern@wweek.com
The loss of Maurice Lucas made several large men get weepy on Monday. But their recollections of the former Portland Trail Blazers power forward also made them smile at the public memorial service for Lucas on Nov. 8 at the Memorial Coliseum. They recalled Lucas, who died Oct. 31 at age 58 after a battle with cancer, as a tough guy on the floor but one who was a well-rounded, fun-loving and generous friend off the court. “Gone too soon,” said a visibly upset Nate McMillan, who both played with Lucas in Seattle and had him as an assistant coach in Portland. Atypical of most memorials, many of the several hundred mourners wore Blazers caps and jerseys. But befitting the fact that 33 years have passed since Lucas averaged 20.4 points and 11.4 rebounds per game for Portland’s only NBA championship team, many of the mourners were older, walking gingerly up and down the stairs of the team’s former home. Speakers shared the stage with the banner of Lucas’ retired No. 20 that normally hangs from the Rose Garden. A large screen showed photos and footage of Lucas with family and friends, playing at Marquette University, and then pro ball as the mustachioed, mutton-chopped enforcer in the now-defunct American Basketball Association with the Spirits of St. Louis. And, of course, there were photos of Lucas with Portland in the NBA: shooting his trademark jumper over Los Angeles Laker Don Ford and celebrating the title with teammate Bill Walton— such a good friend that Walton named a son Luke after Lucas. Lucas averaged 14.6 points and 9.1 rebounds per game in a career that began in 1974 in the ABA and ended with Portland in the 1987-88 season. But it was on the Blazers championship team that Lucas is most remembered. “He was the heart of that team,” said Jack Ramsay, who coached the title team. Ramsay recalled meeting Lucas after the Blazers acquired him in the ABA dispersal draft. Ramsay liked the idea the Blazers were adding a tough guy, since he thought the team was soft. He told Lucas it was OK to get in fights, because the Blazers would pay any fines the league might assess. “As I described that,” Ramsay said, “his smile got broader and there was a twinkle in his eyes. He said, ‘I think I can do that.’” But Ramsay talked about more than Lucas’ toughness—he recalled Lucas’ confidence in asking for the ball in the low post and his skills as a rebounder who’d throw half-court outlet passes with the style and accuracy of a baseball pitcher. A shaken McMillan had a tough time getting through his recollections of Lucas, one of which was from McMillan’s rookie year as a player in Seattle. McMillan recalled when a 7-foot teammate tried to bully McMillan into fetching him a soda. “Luke said, ‘Don’t mess with my rook,’” McMillan recalled. “He was that type of guy. He bullied the bullies.”
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I LLUSTRATI O NS BY M I GY
Ken Kesey could have been America’s greatest writer. He had the talent. Certainly he was the finest novelist Oregon ever produced. By age 26, he had penned two canonical novels: the mental-ward parable One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1962 and the Faulknerian logging saga Sometimes a Great Notion in 1964. Then he decided he didn’t want to be a writer anymore. He wanted to be a messiah, traveling the nation in a multicolored bus and preaching the new gospel of acid. Nine years after Kesey’s death, former WW reporter Mark Christensen has written a book on the man, his times and his drug of choice. Acid Christ: Ken Kesey, LSD and the Politics of Ecstasy dives into
the shimmering Kesey legacy and finds strange, disturbing shapes underneath. Christensen takes us on a bumper-car ride through Kesey’s fantasyland. He follows the novelist from his boyhood as the son of a dairy family, through wrestling stardom at the University of Oregon, and then to grad school at Stanford University—where Kesey volunteered for government-run tests of LSD. Soon after those experiments, Kesey wrote Cuckoo’s Nest, which imagined all of America as a mental hospital: The book’s narrator, the schizophrenic Chief Bromden, came to Kesey in a peyote high. Kesey’s second novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, was even more ambitious, a sprawling, multiperspective saga of stubbornly libertarian Oregon loggers. Needing to appear in New York to promote the book, Kesey gathered a busload of acolytes—The Merry Prankers—
tripping on LSD across the country as Kesey filmed them and Tom Wolfe took notes for his New Journalism book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. From there, it was counterculture stardom: Kesey went to jail on weed possession charges, fled to Mexico, was immortalized in Wolfe’s reporting, and began holding court from his farm outside Eugene. Christensen shows how Kesey’s gifts began to drown in drugs, booze and disappointment (he felt especially betrayed by the film adaptation of Cuckoo, even though it won five Academy Awards). But he became a magnet for artists, poets and burnouts, and he showed them flashes of brilliance, including an experiment in participatory government called Bend in the River. WW has exclusive excerpts from Acid Christ, which melds Christensen’s memoirs of the ’60s—he was there and, yes, he remembers it—with an investigation of the high-stomping farm boy who made himself a prophet of psychedelics. The book is a helter-skelter mind-popper of a biography, skirling through the detritus the Merry Pranksters left behind in their bus and asking the question: Did acid free Kesey’s genius or destroy it? AARON MESH. EXCERPTS begin on page 19
C LY D E K E L L E R . C O M
P H OTOS BY CLYD E K ELLER
THE ELECTRIC KOOL-AID AUTHOR TEST: Mark Christensen and the famous bus in 1976. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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A Christ figure who quit his day job as the new Norman Mailer to deliver millennial baby boomers the psychedelic New Jerusalem, Ken Kesey’s super hero career began with the biggest bang ever. Not even Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer or John Updike had, by age 28, enjoyed the double-whammy of two literary and commercial smash hit novels—only to then ditch literature to rescue mankind, hoping to “stop the coming end of the world.” “The Chief” was an archetypical American Fair-haired Boy (sub-species Son of the West) madman for all seasons, as profoundly American as John Wayne, Hugh Hefner, Sonny Barger or Britney Spears. Writer, artist (Kesey’s illustrated jailhouse journal reveals a master of caricature), Olympic class (almost) athlete, musician (his frog voiced “Jimmy Crack Corn” ranks with, if not “White Rabbit,” at least “Double Shot of My Baby’s Love”), lady’s man, magician, thespian, friend to those who had no friends, social architect, jail bird, original hippie cum great white father, the Great Truth Teller as consummate bullshit artist, he was that rare soul who had a talent for everything.
Kesey was a man of kaleidoscopic extremes—wildly imaginative in the smallest details of his life but otherwise about as free-spirited as a speeding ticket. Fair-haired farm boy turned messianic jock Apollo, Kesey sold himself as Mister Sixties. Rousseau’s Natural Man for a postMachine Age. But like most evangelicals, what Ken liked most was god and girls, an ethos at odds with the unalloyed idolatry he inspired as author of the new utopia that became the starry heart of the young national imagination. That said, it’s likely most everything people think they know about Ken Kesey is wrong. His decision to ditch literature was (or at least could have been) as brilliant and misunderstood as the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and he never burned out—at least not in the sense that he lost his talent. The talent remained, if in later years reserved more often for the paragraph
ACID CHRIST C LY D E K E L L E R . C O M
CONT.
MASTER OF CEREMONIES: Ken Kesey appears onstage at his Poetic Hoo-Haw. This photo, along with the images on the following pages, were taken at the gathering on Kesey’s farm in 1976.
than the page. It was his concentration that became a problem. Kesey represented the Freest American Ever, a man who embraced Open Marriage in a way it rarely had been embraced before, and the soul of a lost civilization that flourished, however briefly in the time between the Summer of Love and Deep Throat. As the Man Behind the Curtain, if not the Hero with a Thousand Faces, Kesey was a savant with failures more brilliant than a lesser savant’s triumphs, but who as a man whose life ended mired in booze, drugs and litigation, had created his own moral Mars-scape and left a wake of those who felt both inspired and betrayed.
Flip open the 1956 University of Oregon yearbook to gaze upon—rank and file—the class photographs, the black and white pictures of gray to grayer nineteen-year-
BARN DANCE: Among the happy hippies on Kesey’s land is tall, mustachioed Gary Ewing, whose light-show artistry lit up Portland’s Crystal Ballroom.
old old maids. Young women who with pale faces and crimped hair already look like elderly spinsters. Another reality. Ancient and distant as Oz. Here we find the 21-year-old Ken Kesey; pretzeling an opponent in a wrestling match; beaming confidently beside fellow staff members on the school newspaper. Flip a few yearbook pages and see Kesey on stage in Macbeth. A man-child for all seasons. Kesey: “The guys on the wrestling team used to say, ‘You write? You act? What the hell you doing over there with those people?’ Over in the drama or writing department they were always bugging me about associating with a gang of thumpheads.” So what were his motives? The best of both worlds, he was the center of attention in either realm.
[In 1958, Kesey enrolled in Stanford University’s graduate program in creative writing and soon volunteered to be a test subject in a CIA-sponsored study of the effects of psychedelic drugs.] For everything was about to change. Thanks to the good offices of the nearby Menlo Park Veterans Hospital, where the medical powers that be were employing the lesser academic locals to audition a new elixir miraculous. “I had a neighbor,” Kesey recalled, “a psychologist booked to do the experiments (one) Tuesday, he chickened out.” So for twenty dollars a session, Ken Kesey was presented with a kaleidoscopic array of mind-blowing drugs. For six months. Kesey waxed philosophical. “The government said we’ve discovered this nice room, we need somebody to go in and look it over…Eight o’clock every Tuesday morning I showed up…ready to roll. The doctor deposited me in a little room on his ward,
dealt me a couple of pills or a shot or a little glass of bitter juice.” Then the doctor locked the door, but popped back every forty minutes to see if Kesey was “still alive.” He took some tests, asked some questions, left leaving Kesey to “study the inside of my forehead, or look out the little window in the door. It was six inches wide and eight inches high, and it had heavy chicken wire inside the glass.” Sub nirvana but the road to nirvana still, and, thanks to Federal Government LSD, the best Kesey ever had. “They gave me mine—paid me and quite a few other rats both white and black…to test it for them, started it so to speak, then, when they caught a glimpse of what was coming down in that little room full of guinea pigs, they snatched the guinea pigs out, slammed the door, locked it, barred it, dug a ditch around it, set two guards in front of it, and gave the helpless guinea pigs a good talking to and warned them—on threat of worse than death—to never go in that door again.”
To the extent great novels usually evolve from a trinity defined by character, place and action, Cuckoo’s Nest was—its inverted locale and red hot lone anti-hero notwithstanding—about the latter, less about describing the symptoms than initiating the cure. By the time Randle McMurphy had worked his martyred magic in Big Nurse’s loony bin, Holden Caulfield had spent at least ten years reminding adolescents that the sane were crazy and the crazy were sane. Before and after Catcher in the Rye, which was published in 1951, The Day of the Locust and On the Road had celebrated magnificent empty energy and the terminal restlessness of a motor-headed, CONT. on page 21 Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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CONT.
empty-hearted Vacuityville that was all about getting drunk on the lost dream of the West and going nowhere fast. Cuckoo wasn’t so much a portrait as, like Christ’s ministry, a call to action. As novelist Gurney Norman claimed “when Chief Broom throws the control panel through the insane asylum window…that was the first shot of the revolution.” Add that to reality as a conspiracy, psychedelics as reality, institutionalized insanity, wow. The time was right. Something exciting was in the air.
It is perhaps symbolic—or fitting—that the classic comic tour de lunacy, Animal House, which was filmed largely around Kesey’s old Beta Theta Pi fraternity house at the University of Oregon, was set in 1962—the same year Cuckoo’s Nest was published, and the same year that future Oregon Governor Tom McCall produced a film documentary, Pollution in Paradise, that revealed an Oregon being destroyed by industrial waste, a film that initiated the national environmental protection movement. It was a year later that the Kingsmen recorded the new national anthem, “Louie, Louie,” for $36 in the basement of a Portland restaurant. In the years that followed, Cuckoo’s Nest went on to sell 7 million copies in 66 editions and has never gone out of print, a perennial bestseller long after its message of liberation and misogyny and enlightened schizophrenia helped open the Pandora’s Box that was the 1960s. And Kesey’s next novel, Sometimes a Great Notion, made Oregon, or at least the idea of an Oregon, the protagonist; a wild dark-souled wilderness alive with spirits and horrors.
“The job of the writer,” Kesey once said, “is to kiss no ass, no matter how big and holy and white and tempting and powerful.” So, on to Act Two. Sometimes a Great Notion was a veritable paean to not kissing ass…transforming a dysfunctional family of union-buster loggers into transcendent symbols of American individuality. Especially given that it was such an unhappy book, driven by images of drowning, death and suicide—which came to
MEATBALLS: Kesey (second from right) turns the camera on a KVAL television crew while a young Bill Murray (second from left) holds a microphone.
haunt Kesey, who having returned to Oregon from Stanford, and before moving to the coast, began Notion in the lakefront home of a family friend who had recently committed suicide.
Huxley, Leary, Kesey. It is important to bear in mind that those psychedelic seers were at the very least almost a decade older than the sheep. Abbie Hoffman, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, Frank Zappa, The Beatles, The Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Country Joe, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, the Doors, all had at least five years on the audience they were playing to. Kesey was a grown man about to lead a children’s crusade; he and his band of acid-dropping shepherds were old enough to have been baby-sitters for their baby boomer sheep. Giving a new twist to the term in loco parentis.
And his Boswell? Tom Wolfe wasn’t even a liberal druggie. Wolfe was about as left wing as the America’s Cup. Of his one rather dainty 125 milligram acid trip, he recalled: “It was like tying yourself to the railroad track and seeing how big the train is, which is rather big.”
By the Summer of Love Kesey—already on his way to becoming both a cause and casualty of the 1960s—had gone from writing the Word to spreading it. “I think,” Robert Stone later observed, “he believed that he could somehow invent a spiritual technology, somewhere between Silva mind control and the transistor, that would spare all the humiliating labor that went into the creating of art.” Or maybe Kesey just once again took a long hard look at the ghost of his literary father Ernest Hemingway, and figured: what America wants was not a new writer, but a protagonist. A Man Among Men. A charismatic leader—athletic, fearless, solipsistic, no servant to the usual gravities.
For God and the novel were dead, Gore Vidal said so—and even if the novel wasn’t it was, worse, still in the hands of adults— and how was Kesey to compete with the grown up likes of Saul Bellow and Norman Mailer on the long literary haul? Besides, there was no way in Helvetica the novel was up to delivering the new Word. Just go ask Marshall McLuhan now that he was ten feet tall. Movies—Kesey’s super-sacramental cinema-verite in particular—would be the new literature. Far out.
ON OR OFF: “Further,” Kesey’s cross-country acid test bus.
Besides, it was a lot easier to dress up as a cross between Captain Hook and an Easter Egg than sit behind a typewriter. Especially if you held in your hands, courtesy Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, the keys to the kingdom. LSD was first-rate fairy dust for the man on the make. And an even better one for making, in Kesey-speak, “boogity, boogity, boogity.” Up to forty miles of film. Eventually that’s how much the Pranksters shot. The Movie would change everything. Save the aforementioned world. Recoup Kesey’s hundred grand. But complications soon arose. Namely because: a) Just because you are a genius of the very words you are abandoning, doesn’t mean you’ll be a genius at film—no more than Babe Ruth could have been a great quarterback in the NFL. b) As Kesey was about to discover: Making a great movie about the wonders of acid while on acid is tough. Trying to make a great movie about being fucked up while you are fucked up means you’ll fuck up. But Kesey, who bought the illusion that LSD was the end of illusions, was too fucked up to see that.
Kesey further explained to Burt Wolfe his decision to quit writing novels. “Well, like take McMurphy. He was just there, like antimatter. I didn’t have to create him; the patients built him for me. But the Indian was different. I don’t own the soul of that Indian. He just appeared while I was on peyote, and the first chapter of that book was written by him. So, that makes me wonder am I as talented as I might think or as others think? Or am I an instrument picked to make a statement, and after the statement is made, should I assume I’ve CONT. on page 22 Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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ACID CHRIST
CONT.
got the right to make endless statements? Oh, I like to write. I will write a poem for a friend on the occasion of getting married and I will put everything into it. If I were to write longer things now, I wouldn’t sign them. I’d just write them and send them in to the publisher and have him put them out there for anybody to read. See, I know now that the Indian in Cuckoo was not my Indian. He was brought into being by some higher power to tell America where it’s at. “As for my children, I consider myself a devoted father. I’ve given my kids acid several times, so now they know what it is, they know where it’s at, and they don’t even want to take it now…I’ve put them in with the Pranksters so I know there will always be someone to take care of them no matter how high I am, and I am often high. They think they can keep me from getting high by putting me in this jail. They don’t understand that anything that gives you a sudden flash is dope. I’ll take a flash wherever I can get it: from acid, pot, people, music, jail, anything.”
[In 1974, Kesey organized Bend in the River, a council intended to revolutionize American politics by deciding referendums at statewide symposiums.] “All kinds of people are being elected delegates—farmers, housewives, city councilmen, longhairs. Human affection is being
put on the line at Bend. I’m betting we can all stand each other’s body odor, that we all like each other more than we dislike each other.” This would be accomplished at the intimate tactical level. “All the delegates will be living in dorms. By the conference’s end—well, if you took all these people and boiled them in water, and if you drank the water, you’d get one of the greatest highs God has ever known.” Delegates wrote up a ten-point “media referendum.” When the Bend Women’s Caucus asked the “full conference” to stand behind a call for free abortions, Kesey announced, “I’m not against women. I’m defending the small. As a nation, we take the life of the small. Any woman who feels she wants an abortion because she can’t take care of the child can give me the child.” Kesey’s stand on abortion ran against the tide. “I feel abortion to be probably the worst worm in the revolutionary philosophy, a worm bound in time to suck the righteousness from the effort we are engaged in.” His wife Faye agreed, “Even if I were raped, I wouldn’t get one.” Kesey wrapped the issue up with: “You don’t plow under the corn because the seed was planted with a neighbor’s shovel.” But Kesey’s message, however reinforced by additional rape analogies, was otherwise pretty much eco über alles. At a Portland recycling meeting May 9, 1974, at Couch Grade School, he resorted to Old Time Reli-
WRITING THE ACID GOSPELS WW: Do you think Ken Kesey squandered his talent, or was his talent the kind of thing that was inherently meant to be squandered? Mark Christensen: That is the million-dollar question. There’s that old saying that leaders don’t create movements, movements create leaders. I think that Kesey, even without acid, would have been a freaking major writer. If you look at the archives at University of Oregon at his second [unpublished] novel Zoo that got him into Stanford—fucking good. He bought into what he thought was literally an elixir miraculous, almost like a metaphysical communion wafer. To cut to the chase: Acid giveth, and acid taketh away. I think you could argue that as he argued; I mean, he bet his life. But I don’t think there was anything dishonest about the way he set off to step away from literature finally because he thought LSD was the bigger thing, that literature was the tail and not the dog of enlightenment. Acid was literally the secular version of the Catholic communion wafer. He clearly saw it as a sacrament. An absolute sacrament, I think! Did he find anything in there? That’s part of the deal I get into in the book. You know, when I was a kid, before I had ever heard of Ken Kesey— in fact, before the world had ever heard of Ken Kesey—there was actually some CHRISTENSEN stuff that came out 22
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JUNKIE: Mark Christensen (left, in blazer) watches as William S. Burroughs holds court on Kesey’s turf.
gion: “Please don’t mess up the earth. The rape of the earth is like the rape of a woman.”
After the Academy Awards in which Cuckoo’s Nest was nominated for nine Oscars and won five, including statues for Best Picture and Best Actor, Kesey was quoted by Bob Greene as saying he “felt pride and hurt at the same time” and that he didn’t even want to see the movie after his rotten experience in its creation. He further
about acid. I think it was in Life magazine or somewhere. And my dad was into it, and he was interested. He was an eye surgeon at the medical school, and he said, “Here’s my guess: LSD will evoke the waking dream state and provoke schizophrenia in the early onset of those susceptible to schizophrenia.” And I’ve never heard a better capsule description of LSD in my life. I took acid a bunch of times, and I definitely achieved the waking dream state, and thank God I wasn’t down to be a schizophrenic. What have you found out about Ken Kesey that is going to distress his fans? That he was a god with feet of clay. When I was around him, I thought he was about as freethinking as a traffic ticket. He was a control guy. [One woman] lived next door to him for years and said that he was basically a high-school jock who came to a new idea, but the basic thing was: highschool jock. To me, he was a prototypical alpha male. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with that. I suppose Barack Obama is too. And his mantra of liberation—“You’re either on the bus or off the bus”—to me was never much more than, “My way or the highway.” Sometimes he reminds me more of the guy who is running the all-night kegger and won’t let you go home. There you go! I look at him as a theater person, and I think that’s the way he looked at himself. But to be cute about it, he was almost terminally gregarious. Somebody once said he was a man who could not stand to be alone in a room with goals. As a writer, you’re supposed to be. It’s very hard to write books, or anything. If I’m going to take the image of Acid Christ, that he had apostles or whatever, and they were his followers—he literally had followers. I was down with him at the farm when I was like 26 or so, and it was like the head goose in a flight of geese above your head with a V of lesser geese behind him. He would literally have people follow him around, and I thought that was interesting.
lamented the fact that while the tale of Big Nurse and her sorry charges grossed between $40 million and $60 million, all he’d got out of the deal was a long gone $28,000, which he’d been paid 14 years previously. “That’s the last money I’ve seen from it. Right now I’m broke. It’s a beautiful day out here today. If I had $300 for fertilizer, I’d be out fertilizing my fields.” Kesey claimed he did not even receive an invitation to the Academy Award ceremony and that, further, “It was made very clear to me that if I showed up, I was going to have
He comes close to being a tragic figure. I am not from the temperance union or anything like that. But a guy who goes to his grave site saying, “It’s not over until the fat lady gets high,” I mean, when you’re a 16-yearold—what does that mean to you? It means go get loaded. And in terms of tragic figure, the thing that finally killed him—it wasn’t acid. It was alcohol. In some ways he died a very old-fashioned death. Yeah, by drink. And I’m kinda cute in the book by saying he was a genius in so many things, but he was a genius best at outsmarting himself. But I never considered that guy a burnout at all. Just before he died, it was right after 9/11, he did a brilliant story in Rolling Stone. I mean literally, he’s on his death bed, I think. I’m not sure. It came out days after his death. He may have written it a month before when he was feeling relatively fine, but this guy wasn’t the walking wounded in any kind of classic way. He was brilliant to the end. There’s no doubt about that. It’s just—he made some curious choices. But if he wanted to be David Lean, maybe he could have been David Lean, but David Lean didn’t drop acid. How hard was it to get people to talk honestly about this guy? People would literally want to talk on tape and then want to recant it. You could say in a simple way, you never trust a prankster. These are the original noble bohemians of America. And most of them, they’re very smart and everything. But the rule is there are no rules. And so that was difficult. Every time I go talk to somebody or go to a bookstore or whatever, I hear the same versions of my story: I’m here, but my friend’s not. There’s not a lot of codified medical research out there, that I found, that tries to nail down to what extent psychedelics are found to be almost fatally damaging. But in my experience, if you haven’t dropped acid, I just wouldn’t.
C LY D E K E L L E R . C O M
CONT.
ACID DAD: Ken Kesey and his son Zane.
a hard time getting in. I’m just not a part of their Hollywood fraternity.” For the legendary frat boy BMOC this was a bitter comedown. Kesey watched the Academy Awards on TV while playing poker—which he lost. “No artist wants to be raped; no artist wants to be poor. I’m broke as hell. It should be one of the great days of my life, like my wedding. What I’m working on now is gnashing my teeth and railing at the sky.” When the producers called to inquire if he’d like to attend the premiere of Cuckoo’s Nest in Oregon, Kesey said no thanks.
“That’s like calling me and saying, ‘Hey, we’re raping your daughter down here in the parking lot, would you like to watch?’” Kesey claimed he couldn’t afford a ticket to go to the Eugene premiere of Cuckoo and regarding his lawsuit against the producers: “It would have been great if the subpoenas could have been slipped into the winning Best Picture envelope.”
Well…in 1997 Kesey fobbed off his 1947 bus
on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, where it was parked between John Lennon’s Rolls Royce and Janis Joplin’s Porsche. A shameless Kesey declared, “I kind of feel bad about it because it’s going to be so much more beautiful than the other rock and roll cars.” Not long after, in 1998, he was interviewed by Nick Hasted of The Independent who wrote: “His face looks suddenly noble and serious; his eyes are revealed as piercingly, beautifully blue.” Kesey declared he no longer had any aspirations as Great American Novelist. “I’m not gonna bark after that dog any more. There’s plenty of books. I don’t want to be Stephen King, and just do that because I can. A lot of my writer friends were hard-ass solid revolutionaries, but somehow they got off on the mezzanine, and they started writing fiction and novels. I see the internet as what’s happening outside. This is the new way to speak, the way the shaman always would. I think it’s very righteous, because it’s mechanical, nothing else. It’s not insidious. It’s not a thing that’s going to drain our minds.” He did not have optimistic words for himself and his. “The truth is, we’re losers. You make enough fuss and you attract the real forces down on you. And then you have to hide.
ACID CHRIST
We’re always gonna be in the minority, and we’re always gonna lose. We’ve always lost, all through history. We’re the divine losers. And I keep inviting all these young, smart people: ‘Come with us. Lose with us. Lose beautifully. We’re not meant to win.’”
What’s the legacy? Walt Curtis says, “There was something about the man that I really trusted at a sort of primordial existential Alan Watts kind of level, Jesus Christ kind of level, Jesus Christ acid freak kind of level. I wrote, ‘When I looked into those sky blue eyes, I felt the jolt of eternity. Ken Kesey was a warrior of the spirit.’” Perhaps. At a time in his life, long after the flash and glow of Cuckoo’s Nest, when he spent all night every night sitting awake in front of his typewriter waiting if not begging for the muse, Kesey had wondered, “It’s ‘why me?’ What is it about me, my family, my father, this part of the country that caused me to be the one who wrote Cuckoo’s Nest? It is not something I set out to do. It’s as though all the angels got together and said, ‘Here’s a message that America desperately needs. Now let’s pick him to do it.’”
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NOV
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+ “STAY TUNED”
11/3 Brie & Jedi Mindf#ck 11/4 Lovetones + Federale 11/5 Lyrics Born 11/6 Rolling Stones Tribute 11/7 Sinferno+Missionary Position 11/8 Karaoke From Hell 11/9 The Ed Forman Show 11/10 Mark Growden 11/11 Fitz & The Tantrums 11/12 Rob Daiker 11/13 Raise The Bridges 11/14 Mac Lethal + Sinferno 11/17 Eric McFadden 11/18 Shaman’s Harvest 11/19 Beatallica 11/20 Zepparella 11/21 Christian Kane+Sinferno 11/27 Unsane 11/28 Sinferno+Twangshifters 12/1 The Queers 12/3 Robots & Nurses Ball 12/4 Cherry Poppin’ Daddies 12/5 Sinferno+Twangshifters 12/8 Dick Dale 12/10 SCHISM 12/11 Appetite For Deception 12/16 Buzzov-en 12/18 Jesus Presley Xmas 12/19 Sinferno + Krotch Rockit 12/30 The Dwarves + Zeke 12/31 FLOATER 1/8 The Slants 1/28 Led Zepagain 2/4 Super Diamond 3/27 Electric Six TICKETS AVAILABLE @ DANTE’S, SAFEWAY, MUSIC MILLENNIUM 800-992-8499 AND TICKETSWEST.COM
RDAY SATU V 20
SQUARE PEG CONCERTS PRESENTS
THREE BAD JACKS & THE TWANGSHIFTERS — SINFERNO CABARET AT 11PM
So You Wanna Be A ROCK STAR ?
KARAOKE WITH A LIVE BAND
8pm --MAC LETHAL 8pm
SUNNODVA14Y WITH F. STOKES — SINFERNO CABARET AT 11PM 10pm $3
THE ED FORMAN SHOW Special Guest
DSL
open mic comedy with hostess dirt starr love
WE17DNESDAY
COMING SOON
NOV
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ERIC MCFADDEN MICHAEL DEAN DAMRON THU18RSDAY
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NOV
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11/3 Brie & Jedi Mindf#ck 11/4 Lovetones + Federale 11/5 Lyrics Born 11/6 Rolling Stones Tribute 11/7 Sinferno+Missionary Position 11/8 Karaoke From Hell 11/9 The Ed Forman Show 11/10 Mark Growden 11/11 Fitz & The Tantrums 11/12 Rob Daiker 11/13 Raise The Bridges 11/14 Mac Lethal + Sinferno 11/17 Eric McFadden 11/18 Shaman’s Harvest 11/19 Beatallica 11/20 Zepparella 11/21 Christian Kane+Sinferno 11/27 Unsane 11/28 Sinferno+Twangshifters 12/1 The Queers 12/3 Robots & Nurses Ball 12/4 Cherry Poppin’ Daddies 12/5 Sinferno+Twangshifters 12/8 Dick Dale 12/10 SCHISM 12/11 Appetite For Deception 12/16 Buzzov-en 12/18 Jesus Presley Xmas 12/19 Sinferno + Krotch Rockit 12/30 The Dwarves + Zeke 12/31 FLOATER 1/8 The Slants 1/28 Led Zepagain 2/4 Super Diamond 3/27 Electric Six TICKETS AVAILABLE @ DANTE’S, SAFEWAY, MUSIC MILLENNIUM 800-992-8499 AND TICKETSWEST.COM
RDAY SATU V 20 NO V
TICKETSWEST $12 Adv
SQUARE PEG CONCERTS PRESENTS
+ OXCART
CHRISTIAN KANE
TICKETSWEST $13 Adv 8pm Showtime
THREE BAD JACKS & THE TWANGSHIFTERS — SINFERNO CABARET AT 11PM
RDAY SATU V 27 NO V
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DEC
NO V
TICKETSWEST $12 Adv
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KEPI GHOULIE + THE RIPTIDES + THE BLOOD TYPES
NESDAY WED 8
WEDNESDAY
DEC
DEC 1
AY NESD WED 24 C8
PART
NESDAY WED 1
RDAY SATU V 27
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CD RELEAYSE!
MONNODVA15Y
8pm Burlesque, Firedancers time& Debauchery! Show DJs, Magic
••• CABARET & VAUDEVILLE•••
NOV 21
CHRISTIAN KANE
CHICHARONES
MIKE PINTO
SUNDAY + OXCART
DE C
RUNAWAY PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS
FromHellHell Karaoke From Hell SINFERNO Karaoke
Special Guest
TICKETSWEST $8 Adv
TICKETSWEST $13 Adv 8pm Showtime
TICKETSWEST $6 Adv
No Cover 8pm Show
open mic comedy with hostess dirt starr love
NOV
NO V
NOV
NO V
THE ED FORMAN SHOW
DNESDAY WE17
AY SUND V 21
SAT13URDAY RAISE THE BRIDGES
TUE16SDAY V
WITH F. STOKES — SINFERNO CABARET AT 11PM
TUE16SDAY V 16 No Cover 8pm Show
CHRISTIAN BURGHARDT
TICKETSWEST $8 Adv 8pm Showtime
TICKETSWEST $8 Adv 8pm Showtime
NO V
TICKETSWEST $8 Adv
SUNNODVA14Y
DAY MON NOV 15
SINFERNO
NOV
PART
MIKE PINTO 8pm Burlesque, Firedancers time& Debauchery! Show DJs, Magic
DAIKER ROB BLACK HAZE
AY FRID 12
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KEPI GHOULIE + THE RIPTIDES + THE BLOOD TYPES
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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+ LANA REBEL
+ LANA REBEL
T S U TO M U TA K A S U
ROB DAIKER BLACK HAZE
NOV
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DOUBLE TEE PRESENTS
TICKETSWEST PHILLY’S PHUNKESTRA $10 Adv THE LOVE LOUNGERS UNIVERSAL DJ SECT
PHILLY’S PHUNKESTRA THE LOVE LOUNGERS UNIVERSAL DJ SECT
AY FRID 12
NO V
THURSDAY NOV 11
DOUBLE TEE PRESENTS
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TEAM “WE’D WATCH COCO, BUT WE CAN’T AFFORD CABLE.”
WITH REED MCCLINTOCK
WITH REED MCCLINTOCK
NOV
SCOOP
MICHAEL PAN
BURNSIDE HYPNOTIC SOCIETY PRESENTS
BURNSIDE HYPNOTIC SOCIETY PRESENTS
TICKETSWEST $10 Adv
DNESDAY WE10 V V Showtime NO9pm
V Showtime NO9pm
NOV
w w w. da n tes l i ve . c o m
MAYBE HE’LL PLAY FOR THE TIMBERS? NAH: English soccer star Wayne Rooney visited Portland last weekend to work with Nike staff at the shoe company’s headquarters. Which meant the notorious British tabloids weren’t far behind: The Daily Mail issued a breathless report Monday that the bullet-headed, thuggish Manchester United striker had been photographed by a paparazzo Sunday with Nike “chaperones” leaving Irving Street Kitchen in “the strip club capital of the U.S.” This is a big deal to the London gossip rags because Rooney is really famous there (like, almost David Beckham famous), because he apparently cheated on his wife with two prostitutes this one time, and because they are a fallen empire with nothing better to write about. Leave Wayne Rooney alone! DON’T FALL IN LOVE: Javier Solis is bringing sexy back to the Imago Theatre with Copacabana, a new salsa club on the third floor of the Southeast Portland building. The opening party this Friday and Saturday will feature performances by Ritmo Latino Dance Company, Journey Dance Company, Nonsense Dance Company, Rico Bravo Jr. and Johnny Bravo. Best of all, Solis has applied for a liquor license for the venue. With any luck, you will soon be able to see Tony sailing across the bar. LONG GOODBYE: The local music scene just can’t catch a break. On Monday night, Berbati’s Pan owner Ted Papaioannou died, just weeks after the announcement that the club will stop hosting concerts starting next year. Papaioannou, 56, immigrated from Berbati, a village near Argos, Greece, in the Peloponnesus, when he was 12 years old, and was one of the principals who opened the Berbati restaurant (his entire family helped out) in 1987. Funeral-service details to be announced soon. ICE DREAMS: Is Whiffies Fried Pies about to enter the ice cream game? Two weeks ago, @Whiffies announced on Twitter it was headed to L.A. on a “fact-finding mission,” apparently sampling more than 60 flavors of regular and vegan ice cream “for science.” The following week, it began tweeting names and pictures of its own creations, including port roasted fig with anise and clove, chocolate with dark chocolate peanut butter cups, fresh mint, and goat’s-milk caramel. Deepfried pie and housemade ice cream? Yes, please.
GREGG ABBOTT OF WHIFFIES
ROGER BONG
Tel. 503-226-6630 • Open Daily 11am-2:30am •
TICKETSWEST $10 Adv
HEADOUT: Did you see that punk? 25 DISH: Noodle love. 27 ONLINE: Tour Diaries and free music galore on WW’s localcut.com.
Live Live Music, Music, Cabaret, Cabaret, Burlesque Burlesque && Rock-n-Roll Rock-n-Roll
Live Music, Music, Cabaret, Cabaret, Burlesque Burlesque && Rock-n-Roll Rock-n-Roll Live
GIVE ROCK: We’re kicking off our sixth Give!Guide with a giant party. Give! It Up PDX! will feature the city’s Robert Palmer cover band/supergroup Heavy Nova and BOAT. So go dance and learn about dozens of fabulous local nonprofits. Give! It Up PDX! at Left Bank Annex, 101 N Weidler St. 7 pm Thursday, Nov. 11. $10. 21+. All proceeds will go to participating nonprofits. Tickets at wweek.com/store.
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE
29 41 43 44 47 WILLAMETTE WEEK
HEADOUT
MUSIC: Child’s play. STAGE: Evil Julia Child will eat you! GALLERIES: Old and new. BOOKS: Punks will inherit the earth. SCREEN: You can’t stop a train.
WEDNESDAY NOV. 10 [VIS ARTS] ALEXIS MOLLOMO In Look Behind You, painter Alexis Mollomo deploys recurring symbols to weave complex and sometimes unsettling narratives. The figures in her tableaux are on journeys of self-discovery, confronting demons that lurk within. Worksound, 820 SE Alder St., worksoundpdx.com. Show runs Nov. 5-29.
THURSDAY NOV. 11
“When research for this book began,” writes Zack Carlson in Destroy All Movies!!!, a brain-splittingly comprehensive guide to every single appearance of a punk rocker on film, “it was clear that we were going to have to trudge through some severe cinematic sewage to create the most complete listings possible.” He’s not kidding: Among the 1,100 titles cataloged, mocked and celebrated by Carlson and co-editor Bryan Connolly in this future coffee-table classic are Hack-O-Lantern, Rock and Roll Mobster Girls, Revenge of the Nerds IV and Invasion of the Mindbenders, none of which you have seen, of course, but all of which you will desperately want to experience after dipping into Connolly and Carlson’s obsessive-compulsive masterwork. If you ever wondered what it would be like if the “Psychotronic” section of sleazebag anti-classics at Movie Madness grew a brain and then threw up on you, well, here’s your chance. If you stop by Carlson and Connolly’s Reading Frenzy appearance on Tuesday, you might have the opportunity to be the first to hip them to Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam, Omar Majeed’s invigorating document of the burgeoning Muslim punk music movement galvanized by Michael Muhammad Knight’s novel The Taqwacores, a prescient fictional account of a Muslim punk house and a sort of sacred text for the nascent scene Majeed lovingly records. “Taqwá” means “God-consciousness,” while the “core” half of the portmanteau takes agitated jabs at what, exactly, such consciousness means for pissed-off suburban teens caught between religious tradition and a deep need to get blitzed and fight the power. The film focuses on the Kominas, a rowdy quartet from Boston that eventually travels to Pakistan with Knight to foment a little Taqwacore chaos and smoke a whole lot of hash. Here’s hoping there will be a second edition of Destroy All Movies!!!—the boys in the Kominas would appreciate such ignominious company. CHRIS STAMM. GO: Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam will be screening at Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 8 pm Saturday, Nov. 13. $5. Zack Carlson and Bryan Connolly will be signing copies of Destroy All Movies!!! at Reading Frenzy, 921 SW Oak St., 274-1449. 6:30 pm Tuesday, Nov. 16. They will be presenting a screening of Rock ’n’ Roll High School at the Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 281-4215. 9:30 pm Tuesday, Nov. 16. $7.
[MUSIC] THIRD ANGLE The new-music ensemble plays Tan Dun’s haunting, theatrical Ghost Opera, in which a violinist plays an enormous glass bowl of water with a gong floating in it, plus George Crumb’s Black Angels. Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 331-0301. 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday, Nov. 11-12. $10-$30. [SCREEN] FILMUSIK Portland’s ever-imaginative Galen Huckins composed original new scores, performed live by a chamber ensemble, for this double feature of Oscar-nominated Claymation films from Portland’s own Will Vinton Studios. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 877-4808. 7 pm Thursday-Friday, 2 pm Saturday, Nov. 11-13. $10-$12.
FRIDAY NOV. 12 [SCREEN] FOUR LIONS Easily the best slapstick comedy ever made about Islamist terrorism. Probably the only one, come to think of it, but it’s still hilarious. Regal Fox Tower Stadium 10, 846 SW Park Ave., 221-3280. Multiple showtimes. $7.50-$10.50. See review on page 45.
SATURDAY NOV. 13 [DRINK] BREWING UP COCKTAILS In the second edition of Brewing Up Cocktails, mixologists Jacob Grier of Liquidity Preference and Ezra Johnson-Greenough of the New School explore the art and craft of producing beer cocktails like Tea Party, Lovers Quarrel, NW Wassail and Son of the Furburger. The Hop and Vine, 914 N Killingsworth St., 954-3322. Drinks individually priced.
MONDAY NOV. 15 [MUSIC] TORO Y MOI Tired of hearing about “chillwave”? Toro Y Moi is easily the best band to get lumped in with the poorly named genre. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 8:30 pm. $12. 21+.
TUESDAY NOV. 16 [MUSIC] DANZIG Glenn Danzig! Alive and in the flesh. Killing you softly. With his words. Roseland, 8 NW 6th Ave., 224-2038. 6:30 pm. $25 advance, $28 day of show. All ages. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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Now open every day-- Mondays, too! 26
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
More info at facebook.com/H5Obistro. 50 SW Morrison • 503.484.1415
DISH REVIEW LEAHNASH.COM
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. PRICES: $: Most entrees under $10. $$: $10-$20. $$$: $20-$30. $$$$: Above $30. Editor: KELLY CLARKE. Email: dish@wweek.com. See page 3 for submission instructions.
DISH EVENTS THIS WEEK Wine & Swine Dinner
Oregon Culinary Institute students (and one instructor) will prepare a fivecourse meal with three lovingly raised hogs—two from a pen at Sweetbriar Farms in Eugene, the other from a pasture at Heritage Farms Northwest. The Wine & Swine dinner, tailored to complement wines from Chehalem Winery, will feature side-by-side comparisons of the pasture- and penraised pork. The goal of the project is to increase students’ respect for food by showing them what’s involved in production, says lead OCI instructor Dan Brophy. The organic CSA Wealth Underground will provide the produce for the meal, which will benefit Ecotrust’s “Farm to School” program. CHRISTINA COOKE. Oregon Culinary Institute, 1701 SW Jefferson St., 961-6200. 7 pm Wednesday, Nov. 10. $75 per dinner. Call 961-6205.
Game Night at Cafe Nell
What makes playing Scrabble, Backgammon and Yahtzee even more fun? Eating! (Doesn’t eating make everything more fun?) In collaboration with Cynthia Nims, author of the recently released book Gourmet Game Night, Cafe Nell hosts…a gourmet game night. Chef Andrew Garrett will prepare recipes from the cookbook in addition to items from the bistro’s regular menu. Nell will supply a stack of games and dice, pencils and a pad of paper to each table, but it’s also BYOG (bring your own game). Come alone or with friends. CC. Cafe Nell, 1987 NW Kearney St., 295-6487. 6-8 pm Wednesday, Nov. 10. Free.
BridgePort Ale Nightcap Release Party
BridgePort introduces its newest big brew line: Nightcap Winter Ale. It’s a “malt-driven brew that begins with the enjoyable bitterness of Chinook hops and finishes with strong hints of vanilla.” A third of the brew was aged for a year in Maker’s Mark oak barrels, giving it warm and spicy undertones. Be one of the first to taste and, if you’re lucky, take home a commemorative glass. CC. BridgePort BrewPub, 1313 NW Marshall St., 241-7179. 5:30 pm Thursday, Nov. 11. Free.
Brewing Up Cocktails
We all know the saying “beer before liquor, never been sicker,” but if you know what you’re doing when you mix the two, you can produce some downright tasty creations. The Hot Scotchy, for example, a mixture of steamheated wort (unfermented beer), a shot of Scotch and a farmhouse pale ale, topped with a dollop of housemade cream. In the second edition of Brewing Up Cocktails, mixologist Jacob Grier of Liquidity Preference and blogger Ezra Johnson-Greenough of the New School explore the art and craft of producing beer cocktails like Tea Party, Lovers Quarrel, NW Wassail and Son of the Furburger. CC. The Hop and Vine, 1914 N Killingsworth St., 9543322. 6-10 pm Saturday, Nov. 13. Drinks individually priced.
People’s Food Co-op Turns 40
People’s turns 40 this week, and it wants you to come to its birthday party. You’ll find natural foods, a cake in the shape of the store (not just a rectangle, people) and a “People’s Co-op Through the Ages” presentation. T-shirts bearing the winning design of a T-shirt contest will be for sale. CC. People’s Co-op, 3029 SE 21st Ave., 2329051. 5-8 pm Saturday, Nov. 13. Free. RSVP by calling 232-7116.
Your Garden Cookbook Show
Portland-based artists, gardeners and cooking enthusiasts Lexa Walsh and Nicole Penoncello want to make you a cookbook. Through their program
Your Garden Cookbook, they will assess your garden and then make a custom, handmade cookbook designed to use your garden’s bounty to its fullest. RILEY HOOPER. Fieldwork, 2505 SE 11th Ave., No. 106. The show runs through Nov. 15, with a gardening workshop on Nov. 13. Free. Info at yourgardencookbook.wordpress.com.
UPCOMING THANKSGIVING BUFFETS AND DINNERS Thanksgiving Feast at Paley’s
Vitaly Paley serves up spit-roasted turkey breast and confit of leg, bread pudding, mashed potatoes and cranberry-orange compote as well as festive specials like creamed Brussels sprouts and curried butternut squash and pear bisque this Turkey Day. KELLY CLARKE. Paley’s Place, 1204 NW 21st Ave., 243-2403. 2:30-8:30 pm. Regular menu prices. Call to reserve seats.
Thanksgiving Dinner at the Heathman Restaurant
An overwhelming assortment of traditional Northwestern eats, from roasted turkey with sage stuffing and pumpkin cheesecake to seared ahi and poached salmon, for both sit-down eaters and buffet lovers. KATE WILLIAMS. Prix fixe dining-room service 11 am-9 pm. Holiday buffet 11:30 am-5 pm. The Heathman, 1001 SW Broadway, 7907752. $46.50 per person ($18 for kids under 12) for prix fixe dining. $46.50 per person ($18 for kids under 12) for the buffet. Call to reserve seats.
Thanksgiving Dinner at Meriwether’s
Chef Earl Hook prepares a familystyle feast with ingredients from the restaurant’s own Skyline Farm this Thanksgiving. KW. Meriwether’s, 2601 NW Vaughn St., 228-1250. 1:30-5:30 pm. $45 per adult, $25 children under 9. Call 228-1250 to reserve seats.
Thanksgiving Dinner at Salty’s on the Columbia
Nothing says “Thanksgiving” like Dungeness crab, prawns and seafood chowder. Get your seafood on with a mega-holiday buffet at this riverside classic. Don’t worry—there’ll be turkey and all the trimmings as well. KW. Salty’s on the Columbia, 3839 NE Marine Drive, 288-4444. 10:30 am-6:45 pm. $45.99 per person, $52.99 with bottomless Champagne. Call for reservations. To-go orders must be placed by Nov. 21. Visit saltys.com for menu.
Thanksgiving and Black Friday at Urban Farmer
In case you need to stuff yourself twice in two days, Urban Farmer offers a three-course T-Day dinner plus a giant “Black Friday” brunch (which includes goodness like fried chicken and waffles and eggs Benedict with Tails & Trotters ham). The T-Day three-courser boasts eats like kuri squash soup, Oregon honey- and spice-roasted turkey and apple-rosemary streusel tart with hardcider ice cream. Oh, gluttony. KC. Urban Farmer, 525 SW Morrison St., 222-4900. Thanksgiving prix fixe meal noon-9 pm. $49 per person. Black Friday brunch 6:30 am-3 pm Friday, Nov. 26. Call or visit opentable.com to reserve seats.
Peruvian Thanksgiving at Andina
Have a cross-cultural Peruvian meal this year. You can snack on a giant array of different tapas plates, Peruvian entrees or their own special take on turkey—served with quince-huacatay chutney. For dessert? Think outside the box and grub on the yam-aji Amarillo crème brûlée topped with white-chocolate biscotti. KW. Andina, 1314 NW Glisan. 228-9535. 1-9:30 pm. $50 per person ($25 for kids between 5-11; kids under 5 free). Call to reserve seats.
Thanksgiving Feast at the Country Cat
Gorge yourself on chef-butcher Adam
FIRST LADY OF THE NOODLE: Frank Fong’s wife, Ying Jun Gao, stretches a batch of the couple’s amazing noodles.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CHEW FRANK’S NOODLE HOUSE IS THE REAL DEAL.
with crunchy pickled daikon, kimchi and soup. Go ahead and spring for a plate of housemade steamed dumplings ($4.25), too. Packed with BY KELLY CLA R KE kclarke@wweek.com juicy, sesame-perfumed ground pork and tons of chives, they’re so tender they make similar dishes For the past seven years, Frank Fong has been the around town taste like gummy hockey pucks. Portland metro area’s king of noodles—chubby, Not everything is so pleasing: The Chinese springy, chewy wonders he creates from wheat herbal sliced beef is a pile of tough-to-chew flour, eggs, water and one pair of hands. The west- chilled beef shank, cabbage and cucumber covern China native says his mom taught him how ered with a 2-inch mound of raw garlic—it almost to hand-pull those noodles—working the dough, seems like you should take it home and stir-fry stretching it out over and over like an accor- it yourself rather than try to eat it as served. The dion player on speed—when he was just a kid. He Americanized Chinese specials, like broccoli beef pulled his tasty wares in a and kung pao chicken, are tiny Korean-Chinese kitch- Order this: Dumplings ($4.25) and hand-pulled a snooze. Plus, although en in Beaverton called Du noodles with squid and spicy sauce ($12.95). the new dining room is Kuh Bee until earlier this Best deal: A lunchtime mountain of noodles roomy and kindly, Fong with veggies is only $6.95. summer, when he parted himself attends to the I’ll pass: The Korean barbecue beef and pork ways with Bee’s co-owner are savory, but the chicken gizzards ($9.95) tables, the hidey-hole and opened Frank’s Noodle taste like squeaky rubble. thrill of watching him and his helpers pull noodles House a few blocks away from Lloyd Center in a converted house on North- three feet in front of your face like they did in the east Broadway. The locale may have changed, but tight confines of Du Kuh Bee is sorely missed. the noodles have not. The relatively spacious new kitchen, only visible The fresh noodles (Fong or his wife Ying Jun through a cracked door behind the front counter, Gao take an hour to make them by hand every hides the magic. But, really, you came to eat the noodles, not to single morning) are quick-boiled and then tossed into a hot wok with a variety of proteins—thick ogle them. Crack open a super-sized bottle of icy bits of pork belly or toothsome squid are my cold Hite ($6.50) and just dig into that mess of favorites—along with crisp bell peppers, cabbage, gluten-y magic in front of you. Oh, the chew. onions and a smoky Korean chile sauce ($7.95$12.95 at dinner). Minutes later, they’re on your EAT: Frank’s Noodle House, 822 NE Broadway, 288-1007. Lunch and dinner 11 am-9:30 pm plate; seconds later, in your gullet. Portions are Monday-Thursday, 11 am-10 pm Friday-Saturday. big enough to share, especially since orders come $ Inexpensive.
Sappington’s brined, smoked and braised turkey with “Granny Criss’ stuffing” and locally sourced soul food like chanterelle soup and truffled deviled eggs. KW. The Country Cat, 7937 SE Stark St., 408-1414. 2-7:30 pm. $40 per person. Some sides are $5 extra. Call to reserve seats.
Huber’s Thanksgiving Dinner
Dining room seats at Portland’s oldest restaurant are already booked for Thanksgiving Day, but you can still get the full Huber’s experience (sans the Spanish coffee) to go this year. The restaurant’s offering a takeout package for 10 to 12 people featuring an entire roast turkey, two quarts each of its mashed spuds, gravy and dressing; a pint of
cranberry sauce, an entire pumpkin pie and a loaf of beer bread for $199.95. Or get a takeout meal for one for $24.95. Plus, Huber’s still does first-come, firstserve Thanksgiving Day seats at both its dining room and bar counters. KC. Huber’s, 411 SW 3rd Ave., 228-5686. Takeout meal $199.95 (or $24.95 per person). Takeout pick-up available Wednesday-Thursday, Nov. 24-25. Call to order. Dining room waiting list available.
Kenny & Zuke’s
You won’t get any pastrami with your turkey, but you can trust the sandwich-makers to throw together a killer dinner. They’ll be offering turkey stuffed with wild mushrooms, along
with sides like cornbread stuffing, twice-baked truffled potatoes and three different pies. Call 222-3354 or visit kennyandzukes.com for full menu. Orders must be placed by 3 pm Monday, Nov. 22.
Random Order Pies
This season, Random Order Coffeehouse is ready with desserts like its Travel + Leisure magazine-lauded vanilla salted-caramel apple pie and more. Nine-inch rounds ($33) serve about six to eight people. KC. Random Order Coffeehouse, 1800 NE Alberta St., 971-340-6995. Orders must be placed by Sunday, Nov. 21. Visit the shop or call to order. Check out pie list at randomordercoffee.com.
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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TOMORROW NITE!
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DEcEMbER 2ND • PETER’S ROOM @ ROSELAND • 8PM • 21+
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the daylights
DEcEMbER 7TH • ROSELAND • 8PM • ALL AGES
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NOV. 10 - 16 Q&A
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
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Prices listed are sometimes for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply. Addresses for local venues are listed in WW’s Clublist column, page 40, or online at blogs.wweek.com/music/clublist/ Editors: CASEY JARMAN, MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, enter show information at least two weeks in advance on the web at wweek.com/submitmusic. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Please include show or release date information with all physical mailings. Email: cjarman@wweek.com Fax: 243-1115.
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 10 Doomtree (P.O.S., Dessa, Sims, Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, Lazerbeak, Paper Tiger), Rafael Vigilantics, L Pro & Destro
[HIP-HOP] Rapping is a great way to meet new some friends. And while most MCs probably wouldn’t admit that being part of a hip-hop collective is a great way to get over their personal insecurities, Minnesota’s Doomtree might just cop to it. The label-turned-supergroup—think of them as the Minneapolis version of Sandpeople; affiliated artists who make beats, rap, release records and tour as one multi-tentacled unit—is exceptional precisely because its members (both alone and acting in concert) share a punk-rock-esque commitment to truth in their music and in the means of production. Plus they are very, very good. While P.O.S. is the highest-profile member of the group, superproducer Lazerbeak has put out some fantastic, genre-bending material and Dessa is one of the nation’s premier MCs (she can sing, too). The collective has been quiet as a group as of late, but its 2008 self-titled disc showed that even the most emo MCs the Midwest has to offer can write some party jams when they need to. CASEY JARMAN. Berbati’s Pan. 8 pm. $10 advance, $13 day of show. ALL AGES. Also see Top 5, this page.
Free Energy, Hollerado, guests
[THAT ‘70s SHOW] Philadelphia’s pedigreed five-piece Free Energy loves the bombast of glammy ‘70s-style rock ‘n’ roll. The band, which released an excellent, James Murphy-produced debut, Stuck on Nothing, back in May on Murphy’s tastemaking DFA label, captures the swagger of Bolan and Bowie, but with the bluster and anthemic hookiness of Thin Lizzy. It should be a blast to see live, and with such theatrical music on stage, tonight’s show is guaranteed not to be boring. REBECCA RABER. Doug Fir Lounge. 9 pm. $13 advance, $14 day of show. 21+.
Sublime with Rome, Sexrat
[SHAMEFUL TRIBUTE] For most artists, death is usually a great career move. Croaking prematurely can turn the promising into legends and the pretty good into gods. In the case of Sublime and its late singer Brad Nowell, however, that posthumous deification didn’t happen. Not critically, anyway. “Serious” music fans never thought much of the group, even though it drew from a palette of respectable influences—’80s punk,
‘60s rock, classic reggae, old-school hip-hop, Two Tone ska—and in the 14 years since its frontman succumbed to a heroin overdose, Sublime’s three albums of beachy stoner eclectica have yet to receive any sort of reappraisal. It’s kind of a shame: At the very least, Nowell was a deft genre hybridist who sang with genuine soul. But even his detractors have to admit that this “reunion”—replacing Nowell with a 22-year-old imitator—is quite a way for the surviving rhythm section to take a shit on their former bandmates’ legacy. MATTHEW SINGER. Roseland. 8 pm. $35 advance, $40 day of show. All ages.
Tomutonttu, Grouper, James Ferraro, Eye Myths, DJ Charles Berlitz, DJ Rocco Martini
[PERFECTLY IMPERFECT] Like all good sound collagists, Tomutonttu is impossible to pin down. His maskingtape-and-hot-glue-constructed works don’t follow a particular template. Instead, he listens to his inner muse, letting any fanciful whim lead the way. If that means superimposing the call of the loon with a reedy half-melody, buried spoken word, and the intrusion of crowd noise broadcast on television, then so be it. What he may lose in what many would consider listenability, he makes up for by forcing you to pay close attention to every jagged edit and sweeping gesture. ROBERT HAM. Rotture. 9 pm. $8. 21+.
THURSDAY, NOV. 11 Blue Giant, Bobby Bare Jr.
[TRIPPY COUNTRY] Nashville’s tragicomic bard Bobby Bare Jr. has played so many Portland gigs of late (MFNW, LiveWire!, etc.) that he might as well call it his home away from home. His latest album, A Storm, a Tree, My Mother’s Head and its title song take their name from a true incident in Bare’s childhood wherein the first item causes the middle one to strike the latter. His father, meanwhile, is old country star Bobby Bare, with whom Junior has collaborated on another recent project, Twistable, Turnable Man: A Musical Tribute to the Songs of Shel Silverstein, featuring the definitely adult-oriented songs of the late writer more famous for his children’s books. Blue Giant, which follows, is the rootsy, trippy local band led by Kevin and Anita Robinson of esteemed duo Viva Voce. That it shares its name with a term for bloated and dying stars is either a wry
TOP FIVE
CONT. on page 30
BY D O O M TREE
THE TOP FIVE TOP FIVES 1. The Jacksons 2. U.N. Security Council Permanent Member Countries 3. Fingers on Your Left Hand 4. Power Rangers 5. Love Languages SEE IT: Doomtree plays Wednesday, Nov. 10, at Berbati’s Pan, with Rafael Vigilantics and L Pro & Destro. 8 pm. $10 advance, $13 day of show. All ages. Also see listing, this page.
JUST A FRIEND
THE DIABOLICAL BIZ MARKIE IS BACK—AND THE KIDS LOVE HIM. BY CASEY JA R MA N
cjarman@wweek.com
Biz Markie is everywhere. Not just in Radio Shack commercials, viral videos, VH1 and the hippest kids show on TV, Yo Gabba Gabba! (where he hosts “Biz’s Beat of the Day,” a beatboxing tutorial for kids). I mean he’s everywhere in your life. He was your crazy uncle, the kid next to you in highschool detention and the eccentric guy who pours his heart out to get the whole karaoke bar. Biz Markie—born Marcel Hall; a permanent teenager whose mouth always seems agape and prepared to explode in maniacal laughter—is a personality so strong you feel like you know him before he spits a rhyme, beatboxes or spins a record. From his untouchable hip-hop cred (“Picking Boogers” and “Vapors” were cracking up the underground long before “Just a Friend” made it to the suburbs) to a recent past speckled with reality-TV appearances and movie cameos—Biz is always Biz. WW spoke with the legend via telephone. WW: Did you get in trouble when you were a kid, or were you a good kid? Biz Markie: I was in between. I just never got caught. In high school—I can say it now, since I’m out of high school—I made a cake. But you remember when Ex-Lax used to come in chocolate? So I put a couple of bars and melted all the chocolate down and made a chocolate cake. And I put it on the principal’s desk, saying it was from the cheerleaders. Everybody had diarrhea all week. I’ve always been a class clown. Did you know early on that your music would appeal to kids as well as adults? I always did everything for the kids anyway, mostly. I never really did no adult—I mean, my skills I did for adults; I had to keep my relevance in rap—but all my stuff was for kids and teenagers. None was really provocative and grown-up. My sisters and brothers are doctors, lawyers and cops. So I wanted to have a great job. They didn’t think rap was going to be big.
Why does it take you so long to release albums? When I put it out I want it to have feeling to it. When Yauch gets better, from the Beastie Boys, we’re gonna do an album together. I’m doing it because we boys. It’s like if you go outside and throw the ball around or you play flag football— no matter how old you are, you’re still gonna get them youthful feelings. It isn’t about the money, it’s about connecting with good times. That’s how my parties be. Whenever I leave this earth, I want people to say, “When Biz was there, we had some fun, yo. He did some bugged-out stuff.” You’re not going to work with some hot new producer because he can get you back on top? Nah, I do my own stuff. I know the sound that I want. I don’t want to try to convert to new, I just wanna be me. It ain’t like I’m trying to be Lil Wayne. Lil Wayne is great—I’m not one to talk junk against the new school or nothing like that. But when you first heard Ol’ Dirty Bastard, did you think, “He’s been listening to my records”? No, I knew Dirty before [he made] records. I met him in ’83 or ’84...Dirty Bastard has always been like that—it isn’t like he bit anything—he was always crazy. Rest in peace. Do you consider yourself crazy, too? No, I just consider myself different. Everybody’s scared of the unknown in the beginning. Did you know that Yo Gabba Gabba! was going to be big? I had a feeling, because I looked at the show and it was so different than everything else. It was on blogs in the beginning, and people was killin’ me, like, “Yo, why’s he doing the beatbox like that?” And I’m thinking, “It’s for kids, stupid.” [The live show is] incredible. It’s like popcorn: Everybody likes popcorn. Speaking of snacks, what’s your weakness? Everything [laughs maniacally]. SEE IT: Biz Markie performs (mostly a DJ set with some MC’ing) at Branx on Saturday, Nov. 13, with Rev Shines and DJ Gemo. 9 pm. $10. 21+. He also appears with the Yo Gabba Gabba! tour at Memorial Coliseum on Sunday, Nov. 14. 2 and 5 pm. $24.75-$49. All ages. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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THURSDAY
joke or an unfortunate coincidence, as the Robinsons are surely in the prime of their luminescence. Bare also performs Wednesday, Nov. 10, at 6 pm at Music Millennium. JEFF ROSENBERG. Alberta Rose Theatre. 9 pm. $12. 21+.
PROFILE MACKINTOSHBRAUN.COM
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[CARBON-COPY ROBOTS] Austinbased electro-rock-funk duo Ghostland Observatory has taken an absolute bollocking from the hipster media over the past few years, panned as “Daft Punk for frat boys” by Pitchfork and “a poor-man’s Freddie Mercury” by PopMatters. It’s true, the band has abandoned its grittier, more experimental early days for an extremely populist dance-pop sound that sits somewhere between the Scissor Sisters and Electric Six on new record Codename: Rondo, and its live show includes flares, silver capes and lasers. Innovative it ain’t. But it is catchy, silly and good fun. If anyone needs me, I’ll be at the frat house. RUTH BROWN. Crystal Ballroom. 9 pm. $20 advance, $25 day of show. All ages.
Fitz and the Tantrums, Philly’s Phunkestra, The Love Loungers, Universal DJ Sect
UPCOMING EVENTS
> NOV 11-14
> NOV 14
[GAYE PRIDE] The great soul revival (reanimation?) of the aughts shares many of the troubles faced by oldtime and swing outfits—prizing authenticity without pandering to archivists, exploiting found nostalgia without nudging kitsch—but Silverlake’s Fitz and the Tantrums, like all young, fashionable troupes borne from Stax/Motown collections, have rather a unique cross to bear. Our frontman Fitz looks every bit the dashing young hipster of privilege, and every review of debut LP Pickin’ Up the Pieces feels obligated to mention his, ahem, blueeyed appeal. Much as the Tantrums may insist their reverential (horns and organ replacing guitar) take on ‘60s R&B should be considered no more a museum piece than garage rock, one can’t entirely remove color and social messaging from the idiom without also diminishing the transcending importance of even the sappiest love songs, and however soulful Fitz’s chops and sincere his meaning, tracks like “Dear Mr. President” seem twice as mawkish this time around. JAY HORTON. Dante’s. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
Candye Kane
> NOV 15
> NOV 19
MOTORCYCLE
ICE RACING
> DEC 3
> DEC 23-26
[BLUES POWER] An ass-kicking feminist blues singer who has gone, in recent years, from being a BBW to just a BW (the beautiful stayed intact; the big was dropped after dieting and cancer treatment), Candye Kane has been fighting the good fight for 20-plus years and 10 albums. As well-versed in punk as she is in the blues (the section where her albums get filed at the record store), Kane released one of her finest albums to date in last year’s Superhero. This is her second visit to Portland in 2010, but each ballsy, blaring show is unique. CASEY JARMAN. Duff’s Garage. 9:30 pm. $12. 21+.
Miss Martha Reeves joins the Mel Brown B3 Organ Group
> JAN 21
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
See Primer, page 35. Jimmy Mak’s. 7 pm (all ages) & 9:30 pm (21+). $20$25. 21+.
Give! It Up PDX!: Boat, Heavy Nova, DJ Safi
[DEPARTMENT OF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION] What’s better than a Thursday-night show with Portland’s best Robert Palmer cover band (Heavy Nova) and lovable Seattle shamble-pop quartet Boat? A Heavy Nova and Boat show where all the money goes to local nonprofits! Willamette Week and the Young Professionals of Portland are teaming together for this show, a benefit for WW’s Give! Guide and your only chance this fall to see Joggers drummer Jake Morris put
CONT. on page 33
MACKINTOSH BRAUN FRIDAY, NOV. 13 [DANCE POP] As a kid, Ben Braun sometimes went to work with his father. Normally, these would be torturous experiences for a boy— but things are a bit different when your dad’s job is touring drummer for the likes of Todd Rundgren, Michael McDonald and, for 20 years, Hall and Oates. “My dad would bring me onstage at Madison Square Garden when they were playing. He’d put headphones on me and sit me behind him,” Braun says from his rehearsal space in Northwest Portland. But even while giving his son a front-row seat to the peak of success in the music business, Braun’s father encouraged him not to take the same path. “As a young kid, my dad was like, ‘Be a producer, be a writer. Don’t be a player, don’t be a side guy. Have a piece of it.’” Where We Are, the second album from the younger Braun’s project with multi-instrumentalist Ian Mackintosh simply dubbed Mackintosh Braun, is his shot at taking a piece of success for himself. Combining Braun’s background as a hip-hop producer with Mackintosh’s longtime love of electronic music, the record is full of swooning synths, dance rhythms and processed vocals that make them sound like lovesick androids. Taking cues from acts like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Depeche Mode, the album manages to be machine-driven while still beating with a human heart. Like Braun, Mackintosh grew up in a musically inclined family, harmonizing with his siblings in what Mackingtosh refers to as “the super-white Jackson 5.” As a teenager, his tastes shifted toward harsh industrial noise. He moved to Portland in his early 20s to join a band with his high-school friends from California, but found himself being treated like a hired studio hand. Wanting creative autonomy, he quit to focus on his drum-’n’-bass-influenced solo project. In 2006, impressed by the material on Mackintosh’s MySpace page, Braun called him up and found they shared similar ideas of fusing electronic textures with pop songwriting. “I’ve waited to work with somebody with the same vision, and who wanted to do stuff with samples and really intricate songs— something that makes you get into a groove and is a really emotive collection of sounds,” Mackintosh says. Having hit it off, the pair moved into a one-room loft on Alberta Street that doubled as their studio. That launched a prolific creative period for the two, culminating in the release of their independent first record, The Sound. A publicist at Minneapolis firm Tinderbox enjoyed the disc enough to offer to promote the group practically for free. She got the band’s songs on NBC’s Chuck, then to the desk of Atlantic Records subsidiary Chop Shop. After signing to the label, Mackintosh and Braun sequestered themselves in their home studio for more than a year to make Where We Are. And now that it’s out, the duo is focusing on something it wasn’t able to do all that much during the lengthy recording process: integrate itself into the Portland scene. “I don’t feel like we’re unaccepted, I just feel like certain things take time,” Braun says of his group. “I love what Portland does and I love what’s going on [here]. I want to be part of it.” MATTHEW SINGER. The local electropop band swings for the fences and signs to the majors.
SEE IT: Mackintosh Braun releases Where We Are on Saturday, Nov. 13, at the Alberta Rose Theatre, with Copy and Oracle. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
THURSDAY - FRIDAY on his finest suit and belt out all the Palmer hits you wish you could sing at the karaoke bar. Get ready to dance, laugh and support a good cause. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Leftbank Annex. 7 pm. $10. 21+.
FRIDAY, NOV. 12 Simon & Garfunkel Retrospective
[SALUTING THE SOUNDS OF SILENCE] Specializing in the powerhouse duo’s formidable years, AJ Swearingen and Jonathan Beedle aren’t trying to fill Simon & Garfunkel’s enormous shoes. Instead, the partnership of almost 20 years is committed to keeping those shoes polished and tapping, embodying the original group’s soft but serious demeanor and unruffled sound. Strikingly similar—and if anything, a pinch more countrified—the Retrospective is worthy of musical masterpieces such as “Mrs. Robinson” but boldly enters the lesser-known and scenic terrain of “A Poem on the Underground Wall” and “April Come She Will.” It’s nice to be reminded just how good Simon & Garfunkel were. MARK STOCK. Aladdin Theater. 8 pm (minors accompanied by parent). $20 advance, $23 day of show. All ages.
Watain, Goatwhore, Black Anvil
[BLACK METAL] When Watain graced Rotture with its glorious stench back in 2008, the smell of death literally permeated Southeast 3rd Avenue down to the street level. The band covered itself in animal blood, and placed a gruesome array of animal heads and parts on spears and chains. In fact, guitarist Pelle Forsberg was infected and hospitalized by that very blood on the same tour. But as vocalist Erik Daniellson says, “The Devil always wins.” So here comes Sweden’s purest blackmetal sideshow, fit as fiddles to promote latest 2010 album Lawless Darkness. For those who care more for music than theatrics, NYC’s Black Anvil is the real attraction. These three guys graduated from the hardcore scene to play grim and classic metal in the vein of Celtic Frost. Relapse smartly snatched them up, and thank Satan the band is finally on the road to hell. NATHAN CARSON. Branx. 10:30 pm. $13. All ages.
David “Honeyboy” Edwards
[BLUES] Chances are pretty good, if you’re a member of WW’s usual demographic, that you weren’t born when recent Lifetime Achievement Grammy winner Honeyboy Edwards started playing the Delta blues. In fact, your parents probably weren’t born yet, either. But Edwards, 95 years old and still touring the U.S. with his songs—which alternate between the sentimental (“Eyes Full of Tears”) and the slightly raunchy (what, are you going to tell Edwards “Big Fat Mama” is politically incorrect?)—and stories of fleeing Southern squalor for Northern fame. Maybe you can’t always understand every word that tumbles soulfully from Honeyboy’s mouth, but you can certainly feel them. The early innovators of America’s first great music are getting to be few and far between, but then, the spry Honeyboy Edwards doesn’t seem like he’s going anywhere anytime soon. CASEY JARMAN. Duff’s Garage. 6 pm. $20.
Junip, Sharon Van Etten
[GOLDEN VOICE] Every few years a new voice comes along that’s so confident, so self-assured, it almost borders on hubris. It’s not like Brooklyn’s Sharon Van Etten is battling Circe or the Laestrygonians, but the way her voice completely dominates—and owns—every single minute on her new record, Epic, you would think she overcame some great odds just to get to the studio. The 29-year-old Van Etten reminds me of nothing more than a
CONT. on page 34
MUSIC
MAKE IT A NIGHT Present that night’s show ticket and get $3 off any menu item Sun - Thur in the dining room
ALBUM REVIEWS
THE TREE PEOPLE IT’S MY STORY (GUERSSEN) [MINIMAL FOLK] Following up a great album is hard to do. Following it up after a 26-year recording hiatus is just dumb. And yet, the Tree People have picked up right where they left off. The Portland-via-Eugene psychedelic folk group’s reunion disc, It’s My Story, is an album that showcases the same off-kilter beauty of its predecessor, Human Voices, a disc released in 1984 and widely considered a lost folk gem until its reissue last year. The Tree People are a hard outfit to explain, because on paper the music sounds like your standard country fair fare: They’re called the Tree People, for chrissakes, and the instrumentation includes stand-up bass, panpipes, penny whistle and “throat singing.” But the band—multi-instrumentalists Stephen Cohen, Jeff Stier and Rich Hinrichsen—share a vision that’s more Sendak than Tolkien, and more Van Morrison than Donovan. This is especially true of the vocal tracks: The title track proves that the group’s singer-songwriter, Cohen (a guy who can pull off a beret), remains an expert of vocal pacing and delivery. “The Change in Kate” has the jazzy feel of Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” (“You can hear soulful singing when she talks/ You can see joyous dancing where she walks,” he sings) without the heroinchic. Cohen’s strength is in a childlike wonder and charm that hasn’t diluted over the years. In fact, if the disc has a weakness, it’s that we could use a little more of Cohen’s striking vocals. “X Times Y”—a Danny Elfmanesque psych-folk instrumental with strings that sound like pigeons overhead or the upstairs neighbors’ squeaky box spring—fares well without a voice, as does the touching “Melody for 3,” but “Sunday” and “Hearing Test” feel like freak-funk jams without the funk, and will probably leave pop-oriented listeners hitting skip. Still, Cohen uses his limited time on the mic to its fullest. “More Than Yoko” is a 30-word beat poem set to song, and it comprises two of the album’s strongest minutes—another reason the Tree People deserve your attention. CASEY JARMAN.
YOUR RIVAL 360 DEGREE SOUND! (SELF-RELEASED) [YOUTHFUL POWER POP] On the Bandcamp page for local power-pop group Your Rival, there’s a mention below the tracklist for the 360 Degree Sound! EP that notes the songs are “largely a one-man affair—which is hopefully not how I’ll record in the future.” That one man is young songwriter Mo Troper, and his confession is both a sincere statement and a total shock: The six songs on here sound like the work of a band that’s been cutting records for close to a decade. It’s almost uncanny how much these sturdy, catchy pop songs sound like Supertramp or Weezer before Rivers Cuomo enrolled at Harvard. Troper’s voice is a little higher than many rock singers, somewhere between a shout and all-out falsetto as he sings a set of energetic anthems. “King of Bicycles,” despite a few silly bits (maybe ax the kazoo next time, bro), is like Cheap Trick’s version of Big Star’s “In the Street” for the emo set, with a bopping melody and confident lead vocal. Even better is “Can’t Fool Me!” with its “ba ba ba” backing vocals and slippery chorus: “No one will come out to play/ What’s a boy to do?” Your Rival rounds out to a quartet for its live performances, but most of these songs would stand out with just Troper and an acoustic guitar. It’s a testament to the power of his songwriting, really; and even though these songs are sort of predictable, I still want to listen to them over and over again. With a little bit of seasoning, and a better recording budget, Troper and his band could really be onto something. Music styles and genres come and go like LaMarcus Aldridge’s post game, but solid power pop is always here to stay. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. SEE IT: The Tree People’s It’s My Story is out now. They play the Old Church on Sunday, Nov. 21. Your Rival plays Dunes on Friday, Nov. 12, with the Shivas and the Midnight Callers. 9 pm. Cover. 21+. It plays Artistery on Saturday, Nov. 13, with Tango Alpha Tango and the Shivas. 8 pm. $6. All ages.
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+THE LONELY FOREST
EARLY ALL AGES MATINEE! Doors at 4:30pm, Show at 5pm
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 13 • $12 ADVANCE ALL-FEMALE SUPERGROUP FEATURING MEMBERS OF SLEATER-KINNEY, QUASI, HELIUM & THE MINDERS
+SHARON VAN ETTEN
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 12 •
$13 ADVANCE
CLASSIC-ROCK MEETS ROOTS-PUNK FROM COLUMBUS
TWO COW
GARAGE I CAN LICK ANY SONOFABITCH IN THE HOUSE +OLIN & THE MOON
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 14 •
$8 ADVANCE
CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED SINGER/SONGWRITER
DAVID DONDERO THE MOANERS +ALAMEDA MONDAY NOVEMBER 15 • $8 ADVANCE HEARTSTRUNG POP FROM INDIANAPOLIS COMBO
MARGOT & THE NUCLEAR
WILD FLAG ROYAL BATHS +KELLI SCHAEFER LATE SHOW! Doors at 9pm, Show at 9:30pm
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 13 •
$11 ADVANCE
POST-PUNK REVIVAL ROCK FROM LIVERPOOL
CLINIC
THE FRESH AND ONLYS +WAX FINGERS
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 17 • $13 ADVANCE RESONANT AMERICANA GREATNESS FROM LA QUARTET
SO AND SO’S
JOOKABOX +BURNT ONES THURSDAY NOVEMBER 18 • $12 ADVANCE
THE MOONDOGGIES +THE ROMANY RYE
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 19 •
$12 ADVANCE
AFGHAN WHIGS/TWILIGHT SINGERS FRONTMAN
GREG DULLI +SHAWN SMITH
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 20 •
$18 ADVANCE
LITTLE DRAGON 1/10 THE HANDSOME FAMILY 1/21 THE RADIO DEPT. 2/13 ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO UFO 3/26
FREELANCE WHALES 11/21 • THE LEGENDARY PINK DOTS 11/22 • THE QUICK & EASY BOYS 11/24 CLIMBER 11/26 •WORLD’S GREATEST GHOSTS 11/27 • WESTERN FAMILY 11/28 MARCO BENEVENTO 11/30 • THE SHIVAS 12/1 • WATER & BODIES 12/2 • HORSE FEATHERS 12/3 & 4 ADVANCE TICKETS AT TICKETSWEST 503-224-TIXX - www.ticketswest.com, MUSIC MILLENNIUM, JACKPOT RECORDS • SUBJECT TO SERVICE CHARGE &/OR USER FEE ALL SHOWS: 8PM DOORS / 9PM SHOW • 21+ UNLESS NOTED • BOX OFFICE OPENS 1/2 HOUR BEFORE DOORS • ROOM PACKAGES AVAILABLE AT www.jupiterhotel.com
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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MUSIC LIVE MUSIC FULL BAR FOOD FUN
Thursday Nov 11th
Alan Jones Quintet 8pm Friday Nov 12th
Devin Phillips Band 9pm Saturday Nov 13th Wy’East 9pm
Thursday Nov 18th
Curtis Salgado Alan Hager Duo 8pm same great menu same great beer list music 6 nights a week Portland’s best happy hour 5-7 upstairs • 6-8 downstairs All day sunday 3341 SE Belmont thebluemonk.com 503-595-0575
FRIDAY - SATURDAY
young Cat Power; a quiet, diminutive figure who’s slowly worked her way from writing sparse songs in Tennessee three years ago to having Bon Iver cover Epic’s highlight, “Love More,” in concert this year. “Love More” is just the tip of the iceberg, though, as Van Etten comfortably shuffles between the country jangle of “Save Yourself” and hushed material like “DsharpG,” a track so beautiful it doesn’t need much more than Mellotron and Van Etten’s intimate coos. My advice: Get in line now before she’s headlining the Crystal in two years. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Doug Fir Lounge. 9 pm. $13 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
Magick Daggers, Black Ice, Chambers, Bellicose Minds
[HALLOWEEN HANGOVER] This stellar survey of the darker end of the post-punk spectrum constitutes one of those rare get-thereearly-and-stay-till-the-bitter-end affairs. Portland’s black-clad legion represents with Bellicose Minds’ churning darkwave (think Bauhaus if Bauhaus wanted to beat you up) and the sinister sultriness of Magick Daggers (think Bauhaus if Bauhaus wanted to beat up Portishead), with Black Ice and Chambers coming correct on the Bay Area’s behalf. The former traffics in synth-soaked, candlelit moroseness suitable for teen-suicide snuff-film soundtracks, while the future rock stars in Chambers tweak the formulas of their former projects (the Holy Kiss, the Death of a Party) to fashion a maddeningly perfect hybrid of New Wave moves and punk agitation. Prediction: We’ll be paying 20 bucks to see ‘em this time next year. CHRIS STAMM. East End. 9 pm. $8. 21+.
Velella Velella, Dat’r, The Bran Flakes
[FUTURESEX] Velella Velella comes from the future (OK, Seattle), bringing with it the gift of highly danceable, groove-heavy space funk and trippy beats that add a bit of umph to the psychedelic dance floor. And it’s sexy as fuck. Thumping away on guitar, synth and drum machines, the band plays puppet master to the audience with its penetrating sound, forcing bodies to move at its whim as beats switch from thumping bangers to floating tripouts seamlessly. Few Northwest bands hold the kind of clout on the dance floor Velella does—so let’s all hope the band has a new album on the horizon. AP KRYZA. Mississippi Studios. 10 pm. $7. 21+.
SATURDAY, NOV. 13 Mackintosh Braun, Copy, Oracle
See profile, page 30. Alberta Rose Theatre. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
PDX Pop Now! Fall Benefit: Guidance Counselor, Onuinu, Starparty
[DANCE FOR A GOOD CAUSE] For the second year in a row, the good folks at PDX Pop Now! are holding a fundraiser to raise money to, among other things, purchase a P.A. system and stage a series of shows and workshops at local schools. But this year PPN! is doing something different: aiming for the kids. Instead of holding the show at a 21-plus venue, this year’s fall benefit is at Backspace, and all the music—from Guidance Counselor’s goth-dance beats to Onuinu’s downcast chillwave—is perfect for the dance floor. This is a night of fun, bouncy tunes that children and their parents can get down to. Now that’s a good cause. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Backspace. 8 pm. $6. All ages.
Biz Markie, Rev Shines, DJ Gemo
See music feature, page 29. Branx. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
Built to Spill, Le Fleur, Lords of Falconry
[GUITAR HERO] What makes an indie-rock institution flower? For Boise’s Built to Spill, which has filled an almost-20-year career with epoch-defining albums (like Perfect From Now On and There’s Nothing Wrong With Love), the keys to its success have been low-key guitar virtuosity and an often-grueling road schedule (this is the band’s second show in Portland in less than six months). Not to mention that, unlike many of its ‘90s peers, the band has continued to release competent albums (witness last year’s There Is No Enemy). But given its new Bob Odenkirk-directed video for “Hindsight” and bassist Bret Nelson and frontman Doug Martsch’s recent goofy synthpop collection of reimagined BTS songs (The Electronic Anthology Project), humor and levity also help. REBECCA RABER. Crystal Ballroom. 8 pm. $20 advance, $23 day of show. All ages.
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, The Lonely Forest
[PLEASANTVILLE POP] I’m not going to lie: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin is a personal favorite of mine. The group plays a sticky brand of early rock that outperforms even its wonderful name. The quartet just released the harmony-hoisted and terribly tender Let It Sway, recorded live with the help of Sparklehorse’s Beau Sorenson and overdubbed right here in Portland at Chris Walla’s (Death Cab) studio. With Philip Dickey’s slightly plugged-up vocals, heaps of high octave, sweet-ashoney guitar riffs and an effervescent pop, SSLYBY has more than earned its high-profile production team. MARK STOCK. Doug Fir Lounge. 5 pm. $12. All ages.
Wild Flag, Royal Baths
[CAST A SPELL ON ME] What exactly does Wild Flag sound like? Well, we don’t know just yet. As of press time, no music from the new supergroup exists, so I’ll have to rely on what I do know: The quartet is composed of members of two of my favorite bands ever, Sleater-Kinney and Helium. It’s the first music that Carrie Brownstein has made since S-K disbanded in 2006, and the first time that Helium’s Mary Timony has made any noise since the Mary Timony Band released The Shapes We Make in 2007. But despite the time off, there’s really no way this isn’t going to kick major ass for two reasons: (1) Brownstein and Timony’s 1999 EP as the Spells stands among the finest sinewy guitar albums ever put to wax, and (2) Janet Weiss is the best drummer on the planet. For reals. You know sometimes when a music critic goes all fanboy on you? I just did that. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Doug Fir Lounge. 9:30 pm. $11 advance, $13 day of show. All ages.
Brandon Flowers, Fran Healy
[THE SANDS] Without irony and deathlessly sincere yet still smarmy, brashly aggressive and thinskinned, essentially artless while carelessly mastering all that’s infectious and affecting and, for want of a better word, pop about this business we call show, the Killers aren’t just from Las Vegas, they’re of Las Vegas, and it takes a hard heart to ignore the guilty pleasures of soaring choruses and comped drinks. For his recent solo debut, Flamingo, the Killers’ frontman, Brandon Flowers, pieced together discarded band tracks with his usual dream team of producers. With Flowers’ drivetime croon and distinctly impersonal lyrics— the unending list of tropes composing “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” seems less song than game of Password—one would expect Flamingo to be Killers Lite (Tahoe, say), but absent the underlying
SATURDAY - SUNDAY riffs and ghosts of rockers past inhabiting the platinum albums, the effect’s just more Branson. JAY HORTON. Roseland. 9 pm. $27.50 advance, $30 day of show. All ages.
John Wesley Harding, Matt the Electrician
[SINGER-SONGWRITER] British expatriate and short-lived Seattleite John Wesley Harding has belatedly followed the 1996 collection of outtakes and demos from his early career, Dynablob (an anagram for Bob Dylan, with cover graphics patterned after the Dylan album from which he lifted his stage name—deservedly, though, as his given name is Wesley Harding Stace) with a new pair of acoustic discs covering his last 15 years, John Wesley Harding Sings to a Small Guitar. A clever but hardly prolific songwriter, Harding’s released a mere four albums of new material over the past dozen years—including last year’s Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, with Portland’s own the Minus 5—so any addition to his catalog is welcome. His unique persona only intermittently comes across in recordings, which perhaps accounts for that sparse discography, and bodes well for the stripped-down demo versions. But live, he expertly blends songs both serious and hilarious with stage banter tending firmly toward the latter. JEFF ROSENBERG. The Woods. 9 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show. 21+.
SUNDAY, NOV. 14 Gobble Gobble, Ghost Animal, Craft Spells, TBA
[SO NICE THEY NAMED THEMSELVES TWICE] You knew it was only a matter of time before all manner of Animal Collective knockoffs started clawing their way out of the muck with samplers and vintage keyboards strapped to their backs. But, like any habit-forming influence, some of the bands actually end up worth
MUSIC
paying heed to. Such is the case with the Canadian outfit Gobble Gobble. Daring enough to turn Pixies classic “Where Is My Mind?” into a squelching house track, and playful enough to make its original music even more cut-andpaste and nervy, Cecil Frena and company are circuit benders par excellence. ROBERT HAM. Dunes. 9:30 pm. $5. 21+.
The Intelligence, Nucular Animals, Spurm, Terraform
[FRANKENROCK] The Intelligence mastermind (and former A-Framer) Lars Finberg doesn’t so much write songs as he assembles them like some deranged scientist shoving body parts together. Crunching riffs, smashing drums, screeching synth, blips, bleeps, theremin and heavily distorted vocals swirl into a bizarre cacophony and land in a strange place between industrial angst, surf rock and the soundtrack to a sci-fi movie on both last year’s Fake Surfers and the band’s latest album, Males. That the Intelligence can practically drag fingernails across a chalkboard while keeping its audience engaged is one thing. That it can do it while keeping a pop sensibility intact in quite another. AP KRYZA. East End. 9 pm. $8. 21+.
Bar Bar Lounge & Patio Now Open Daily !
An evening with enchanted singer-songwriter
• Live Music •
CONT. on page 37
• Great Food • NO COVER
+OR, THE WHALE
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 10 $15 Adv
EMILY KATZ
Legendary Great Late-Night Dining! Lunch • Dinner • “Happy” Menu
626 SW Park Ave. at Alder • 503-236-3036 br asserieportl and.com • myspace.com/brasserieportland
“I HAVE A CRUSH ON YOU” ART OPENING 6-8pm in the Mississippi Studios Foyer Gallery
FREE!
WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 10
An intimate Bar Bar Apt. show with singer-songwriters
adam shearer (of weinland)
cheyenne marie mize EARLY SHOW • Doors 6:30/Show 7pm • IN BAR BAR APT.
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 11
HUGE DANCE FLOOR
$10 Adv
Unstoppable folk-fired rock from critically acclaimed combos
HEY MARSEILLES
SAT 11/13
KUPL $5 HOOT ‘N HOLLER SHOW @ 8PM
FEATURING JAMES OTTO, STEVE HOLY, & SPECIAL GUESTS DUE WEST!
THE CHAD WILLIAMS BAND CLOSING OUT THE NIGHT ALL PROCEEDS BENEFIT THE AMERICAN CANCER SOCIET Y
FRI 11/19 @ 9PM
Candy Claws, Chaingang of 1974, Eux Autres
[WOODSMEN] During September’s MusicfestNW, Colorado’s Candy Claws graced Backspace with what was easily one of the festival’s oddest performances. Decked out in masks that resembled everything from an LED tuber to a recently summoned bear spirit, the quartet played through a set that was, for all the gimmicks, a surprisingly earnest oddity. Candy Claws plays a diaphanous, Animal Collective-influenced series of chants. The tracks on this year’s Hidden Lands sound ritualistic— songs that wouldn’t be out of
CHRIS PUREKA
COYOTE CREEK
WINTERSLEEP +PARLOUR STEPS
FRI 11/26 @ 9PM
CONCRETE COWBOYS
THURSDAY NOVEMBER 11
$10 Adv
Shimmering dreamy pop from Cincinnati art-rockers
SAT 11/27 @ 9PM
POMEGRANATES
FLEXOR T
LOTS OF FREE PARKING
At Jubitz Travel Center 10350 N. Vancouver Way Portland OR, I-5,Exit 307
+OH NO OH MY
EARLY SHOW •
www.ponderosalounge.com
Doors 6:30/Show 7pm
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 12
$9 Adv
A co-headline dance party with PDX party starters
VELELLA VELELLA
BATTLEFIELD BAND DAT ,R
+THE BRAN FLAKES (SEATTLE) LATE SHOW • Doors 9:30/Show 10pm
PRIMER
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 12
$7 Adv
A visually explosive uninhibited queer dance party
MICHAEL MANNHEIMER
MRS. Sunday Best
MARTHA REEVES Born: July 18, 1941 Sounds like: The perfect R&B star. For fans of: The Ronettes, the Crystals, and all the recent nusoul stuff like Amy Winehouse and Sharon Jones. Latest release: Home to You (2004), featuring songs written for Billie Holiday and an updated version of her hit “Jimmy Mack.” Why you care: Though often lost in the Motown retrospectives behind the Supremes and the Marvelettes, there are few pop music catalogs as vast and fulfilling as that of Martha and the Vandellas. For a four-year period between 1963 and 1967, the trio—led by Martha Reeves—was untouchable, releasing a string of the best R&B songs ever recorded, including “Dancing in the Street,” “Nowhere to Run” and “(Love is Like a) Heatwave.” And though the Holland-Dozier-Holland team was behind most of those songs, there’s no other singer that could own the moment quite like Reeves—“Heatwave” in particular is a legend-making showcase for Reeves’ brassy, show-stopping voice, and is the one song guaranteed to get me up in the worst of times. After her Motown stint, Reeves recovered from a long bout with drug addiction, became a born-again Baptist and released a string of underrated solo albums, including 2004’s Home to You. She just ended a four-year run serving on the Detroit City Council. Is there anything this woman can’t do? Tonight she joins Portland’s own legend Mel Brown—whom Reeves introduced to the Motown family—for two special shows.
DJ BEYONDADOUBT DJ TRANS FAT & DJ IL CAMINO WITH SPECIAL GUESTS
BULIMIANNE RHAPSODY & MELODY AWESOMAZING!! PHOTOBOOTH BY BLOODHOUND PHOTOGRAPHY
MONTHLY EVENT •
$5 Adv
Hot to trot electronic pop from up and coming indie artists
CANDY CLAWS CHAIN GANG OF 1974
SEE THEM LIVE SUNDAY 11/14 8pm @ THE ALBERTA ROSE THEATRE 3000 NE Alberta Street
ZAMA ZAMA
TRY YOUR LUCK ON SALE $12.99 CD
With ‘Zama Zama - Try Your Luck,’ Scottish traditional music legends Battlefield Band explore the greed, disasters, human resilience and victories inherent in the search and exploitation of different sources of wealth. After more than three decades performing on the international stage, inspired by their rich musical heritage and fired by the strength of the modern Scottish cultural scene, this powerful album illustrates that Battlefield Band continue to forge ahead as pioneers for contemporary Scottish traditional music. OFFER GOOD
SEE IT: Martha Reeves plays Jimmy Mak’s on Thursday, Nov. 11, with Mel Brown. 7 pm (all ages) and 9:30 pm (21+). $20-$25.
9pm to 2am
SATURDAY NOVEMBER 13
THRU 11-23-10
+EUX AUTRES
SUNDAY NOVEMBER 14
$8 Adv
Chiseled songcraft from North Carolina native
TIFT MERRITT
+ELIZABETH & THE CATAPULT MONDAY NOVEMBER 15 $16 Adv
Dusky songcraft from golden-throated SF folkster
SEAN HAYES
+SEAN FLINN & THE ROYAL WE
TUESDAY NOVEMBER 16
$15 Adv
TICKETS FOR ALL SHOWS AVAILABLE AT BAR BAR MISSISSIPPI STUDIOS.COM AND JACKPOT RECORDS
UPCOMING SHOWS
Themes 11/18 • Mr. Gnome/Two Ton Boa 11/19 Soul Vaccination 11/20 • Tommy & The High Pilots 11/21 The Original Queer Night 11/22 • April Smith 11/23 Champagne Champagne 11/24 • Diamond Rings 11/26 Baby Ketten Karaoke 11/27 • Pigeons 11/28 Doors 8:30pm, Show 9pm and 21+ unless otherwise noted
3939 N Mississippi • 503-288-3895 Lighting graciously provided by
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
Less Talk.
More Tacos. Our drinks are pretty awesome too.
CRUZROOM
Never a cover!
Since 1974
ALBERTA ROSE THEATRE WED 11/10
GAP
MUSIC IAN MCNEIL
SUNDAY - TUESDAY
SIX STRING SOCIAL
W/ MATTHEW LINDLEY & GUESTS
(ACOUSTIC SONGWRITER) 9PM
THURS 11/11 CRAIG CAROTHERS
(SONGWRITERS IN THE ROUND) 9PM $10 @ THE DOOR
FRI 11/12
BIG CITY SMILE
Brent Amaker and the Rodeo, Future Historians, Love Loungers
[GOOD-NATURED COUNTRY ROCK] We don’t care how hip, detached or post-everything you think you are: If you’re incapable of cracking a smile during a Brent Amaker performance or recording, there’s something seriously wrong with you, and you should consider seeking professional help. This Seattle-based country-western troupe is all about Johnny Cash-inspired, tongue-incheek, salt-of-the-earth chicanery. New album Please Stand By is a catalog of meaty growls, hypnotically rustic clop-clop-clop pacing and broad winks. “Don’t ask me to quit/I’m the man who writes the country hits,” Amaker intones on “I’m the Man.” Who are we—or you—to argue against the truth? RAY CUMMINGS. Mount Tabor Theater. 9 pm. $5 advance, $8 day of show. 21+.
MONDAY, NOV. 15 Nosaj Thing, Toro y Moi, Jogger, Fair Enough
[CHILLEST OF WAVES] Chazwick Bundick, relaxed mastermind of Toro y Moi, seems like the result of a highly funded government program tasked with creating the coolest mother-effer alive. Based in Columbia, N.C., Bundick has spent the past year in rapidly expanding notoriety. Everything about Toro y Moi seems effortless, from Bundick’s much-lauded style, to the sample-based mess of reverb he has manipulated into a collection of narcotically overlapping hooks. It’s called “chillwave,” if you want to be coy about it. Toro y Moi has two releases this calendar year (the full-length Causers of This and the Leave Everywhere 7-inch), and both are impeccable soundtracks to a summer spent in stylishly contemplative abandon. L.A.’s Nosaj Thing makes glitchy, avant electro and hip-hop beats that aren’t the least bit chill, but like friend Flying Lotus, they will still freak you out and get you dancing. SHANE DANAHER. Holocene. 8:30 pm. $12. 21+.
Bad Religion, Bouncing Souls, Off With Their Heads
[DINOSAURS WITH THESAURUSES] Growing old agrees with Bad Religion. As angry young men, there was little to distinguish the band from the hundreds of other punk groups raging across Southern California
WED NOV 10TH
SAT 11/13 VIOLET ISLE, HEMA & SONS OF LOVERS
TOTAL TEAM EFFORT: Boat plays the Leftbank Annex on Thursday. place at the meeting of a Druidic cult. Masks, palm fronds, and other such histrionics come with the eccentric territory. SHANE DANAHER. Mississippi Studios. 9 pm. $8. 21+.
(POP ROCK) 9PM
BUFFALO
NE 24th & Alberta • cruzroom.com
(INDIE ROCK) 9PM
in the early ‘80s. Aside from singer Greg Graffin’s hyper-linguistic lyrics—seriously, the dude writes like he’s competing in a Scrabble tournament—its hardcore spleen-venting was about as by-the-numbers as you can get. Somehow, though, as it outlasted one peer after another, that sound became its own. Sure, the band has basically been playing the same song over and over for 30 years, but now it plays it with greater authority than anyone else. See also Words listing, page 44. MATTHEW SINGER. Roseland. 8 pm. $22.50 advance, $25 day of show. All ages.
SUN 11/14
THURS NOV 11TH
BLUE GIANT, BOBBY BARE JR.
BREAKFAST SERVED UNTIL 1PM!
TUES 11/16 OPEN MIC CONTEST
WIN $50 SIGN UP @ 8:30
HOSTED BY: SCOTT GALLEGOS
TUESDAY, NOV. 16
FRI NOVEMBER 12TH
Tennis, The Rainy States
[ROMANTIC POP] There’s pop music that sounds romantic, and then there’s pop music made by people who would die for each other. For Denver husband-andwife duo Tennis, all it took was a trip across the sea (not a metaphor!) to inspire a set of noisy, alluring indie-pop songs. Last year Patrick Riley and Alaina Moore bought a sailboat and left on an eight-month voyage along the Atlantic coastline, only to come back with a fresh batch of tunes that sound kinda as if Daniel Johnston produced a demo of Shangri-Las covers in his basement. Tennis just signed to Fat Possum, and if this year’s small releases (including my favorite cassette of the year, a selftitled six-song affair on Sixteen Tambourines Records that I paid $12 to ship from Japan) are any indication, this is one buzz band that will be easy to stay in love with. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Holocene. 8:30 pm. $8. 21+.
Danzig, Possessed, Marduk, Toxic Holocaust, Withered
[HOW THE GODS KILL] Though Glenn Danzig’s glory days are long past, the little big man still has a few tricks left in his black mesh shirt. When he’s not being ridiculed online for being punched out or photographed by paparazzi while returning home from the pet store with bags of kitty litter, he’s writing comics, producing a bluesy new album, Deth Red Sabaoth, and curating the Blackest of the Black touring festival. In tow this year are early deathmetal luminary Possessed, blasphemous Swedish black-metallers Marduk, and Portland’s own retrothrashers Toxic Holocaust. But do yourself a favor and arrive assearly to hear Atlanta’s U.S. blackmetal highlight Withered play tracks off its brand-new albumof-the-year contender, Dualitis. NATHAN CARSON. Roseland. 6:30 pm. $25 advance, $28 day of show. All ages.
KELLI SCARR, HARLOWE & THE GREAT NORTH WOODS
UPCOMING IN-STORE PERFORMANCES
Indie Pop All Stars: BRYAN FREE, THE DIMES, PANCAKE BREAKFAST
TONIGHT!! BOBBY BARE, JR. WEDNESDAY 11/10 @ 6PM TONIGHT!!
DEKLUN AND PACE THURSDAY 11/11 @ 6PM Together, Portland-based Deklun and Pace have years of experience as soloists in almost every performing scenario imaginable. Each has made strides independently to stand beyond the confines of their chosen instrument: Pace with the trumpet, Deklun with the computer. They came together to revisit the way music is performed. Spoken. Shared. Interdependently. Deklun and Pace don’t play music. They make it.
SAT NOV 13TH
MACKINTOSH BRAUN, COPY, ORACLE
FRAN HEALY (of TRAVIS) SATURDAY 11/13 @ 3PM ‘Wreckorder’ sees the singer and songwriter of the beloved Scottish band, Travis, striding a new creative path that allows his incomparable songs to shine in an altogether different light. Healy set out to craft an intimate series of recordings trying to capture what he felt was sometimes misplaced or lost in translation in the journey from Dictaphone to recording studio.
BRENT AMAKER & THE RODEO
SUN NOV 14TH
SUNDAY 11/14 @ 5PM Brent Amaker and the Rodeo hail from Seattle, where it’s not always cool to be a cowboy. Dressed in black from head-to-toe, the Rodeo offers up original country music classics à la Johnny Cash but delivered in the spirit of Devo, David Bowie and many others who still believe that a live show should be, well a show. The new album ‘Please Stand By’ includes a free graphic novel, a digital download of the album with a bonus track of Kraftwerk’s ‘Pocket Calculator.’
BEATALLICA THURSDAY 11/18 @ 6:30PM Forged from the influences of two of history’s greatest bands, Beatallica are the world’s first live mash-up or “bash-up” band. Beatallica destroy the boundaries of creativity and reveal how original compositions of music can be crafted for those who identify with humor and biting commentary. All the while, they show appreciation and reverence to The Beatles and Metallica, grandfathers of their respective genres.
THE BATTLEFIELD BAND
UPCOMING: 11/16/10 •NICK JAINA, GRAND HALLWAY 11/18/10 •BEYOND AND BACK 11/19/10 •LIVE WIRE! RADIO 11/20/10 •BRAD CREEL AND THE REEL DEEL/LINCOLN CROCKETT DOUBLE CD RELEASE 11/24/10 • ACOUSTIC EVENING WITH FERNANDO, MIKE COYKENDALL AND MICHAEL JODELL 12/02/10 •EDIE CAREY/BETH WOOD DOUBLE CD RELEASE, CHRISTINE HAVRILLA 12/03/10 •BLACK PRAIRIE, OLD LIGHT, RITCHIE YOUNG
TICKETS Available at
ALBERTAROSETHEATRE.COM or Call 503-427-8201
Great Food, Beer, & Wine Selection
3000 NE Alberta Street
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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MUSIC CALENDAR
[NOV. 10 - 16] After Nothing Ends, Bring The Dead
Editor: Michael Mannheimer. TO HAVE YOUR EVENT LISTED, enter show information at least two weeks in advance on the web at wweek.com/submitmusic. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: mmannheimer@wweek.com. Find more music: reviews 29 | clublist 40 For more listings, check out blogs.wweek.com/music/calendar/
Slim’s
Nick Saume Trio
Doug Fir Lounge
Junip, Sharon Van Etten
The Knife Shop
Duff’s Garage
Cicada Omega, The Cosmic Marvels
The Woods ADAM KRUEGER
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen
Gracious Reed, GawkyLu
Empty Space Orchestra, Eric Tollefson, The World’s Greatest Lovers, Ex-cowboys
Tiger Bar
Karaoke From Hell
Tonic Lounge
Illmaculate, 33 Deep, PK, Inferno, Front Street, P-Dirt
Tony Starlight’s
Pete Petersen Septet
Twilight Cafe & Bar
The Born Again Heathens, The Lustkillers, Levi
Aladdin Theater
Simon & Garfunkel Retrospective
Alberta Rose Theatre
Kelli Scarr, Harlowe and the Great North Woods
Aloft
Adrian Bourgeois
Andina
Toshi Onizuka
Andrea’s Cha Cha Club Cubaneo
Ash Street Saloon Monoplane, Office Driving, Anopechi
Beaterville Cafe
Shug Mauldin & Riders in the Round
Beauty Bar
Holocene
DJ Beyonda, DJ Sexy Cousin, Golden Retriever, Boo Jays, E*Rock
Jimmy Mak’s
The Mel Brown Quartet
Kennedy School
The Two Man Gentlemen Band
Know
The Makai
LaurelThirst Public House
Piano Throwers (9 pm); The Parson Red Heads (6 pm)
Lola’s Room at the Crystal Ballroom
Twilight Cafe & Bar
Pineapple Cracker, The Brave Chandeliers, Surf Insanitizers
Vino Vixens 6bq9
White Eagle
Duff’s Garage Candye Kane
East End
TRMRS, Guantanamo Baywatch, Sons of Huns
Ella Street Social Club
Camaro Island
East End
Magick Daggers, Black Ice, Chambers, Bellicose Minds
Hawthorne Theater Lounge Rockstar Karaoke
Hawthorne Theatre
Almost Is Nothing, Dusks Embrace, From Ashes, Beyond the Red Horizon
Naomi LaViolette
River Twain, The Caps Band
Jimmy Mak’s
Jazz Society of Oregon Hall of Fame Night
Dustin Ruth, The River Empires
Andina
Wonder Ballroom
Goodfoot
Brazilian Jazz
THURS. NOV. 11 Alberta Rose Theatre
Left Coast Country, Jim the Bad Goat
Hawthorne Theatre
Chin Up Rocky, The Subtle Way, A Shattered Hope, Aleen, Monsters Scare You!, Casino Madrid
Heathman Restaurant & Bar
Habitat For Humanity’s “House of Rock”: Zumba
Blue Giant, Bobby Bare Jr.
P.O.S., Dessa, Sims, Cecil Otter, Mike Mictlan, Lazerbeak, Paper Tiger, Rafael Vigilantics, L Pro & Destro
Mississippi Pizza
Greg Wolfe Trio
Biddy McGraw’s
Chris Pureka; Or, the Whale
The Mercury Tree, Static Parallel, New Mecca, SexRat
Mount Tabor Theater
Beaterville Cafe
Miss Martha Reeves joins the Mel Brown B3 Organ Group
Berbati’s Pan
LaurelThirst Public House
Baby Ketten Karaoke
Berbati’s Pan
Little Sue
Brasserie Montmartre Kit Taylor
Camellia Lounge
Maeve Gilchrist, Will Coca
Duncan Ros
Mississippi Studios
Andina
Ash Street Saloon
Bottleneck, Hard Corn, Brad and Mimi
DC Malone and the Jones
Music Millennium
Desert Noises, Parlor Hawk
Bobby Bare Jr.
Clyde’s Prime Rib
Papa G’s Vegan Organic Deli
Biddy McGraw’s
Dante’s
Plan B
Alan Jones
Dez Young Folk Trio Mark Growden, Michael Pan
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen Laura Cunard
Doug Fir Lounge
Free Energy, Hollerado
Duff’s Garage
Suburban Slim’s Blues Jam (9:30 pm); Chris Olson’s High Flyers (6 pm)
Ella Street Social Club Petoskey, Bryan John Appleby, Siren & the Sea
Goodfoot
The Man Dies, Whoarfrost, School, On the Stairs
Hawthorne Theatre
Mayday Parade, Breathe Carolina, Every Avenue, Artist vs. Poet, Go Radio, The Victorious Secrets
Heathman Restaurant & Bar Shirley Nanette
38
Billy Kennedy
Bryan Minus & the Disconnect, Raised by Television, The Encounters
Press Club
Swing Papillon
Pub at the End of the Universe
Brian McGinty, Byron and Shelley
Roseland
Sublime With Rome, Sexrat
Rotture
Tomutontuu, Grouper, James Ferraro, Eye Myths, DJ Charles Berlitz, DJ Rocco Martini
Someday Lounge
The Ex Girlfriends Club, The Blacklights, Black Stilts
The Country Inn Dub DeBrie Jam
The Knife Shop Heal
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
Morgan Grace
Blue Monk Brasserie Montmartre Ben Darwish
Buffalo Gap Saloon
Johnny Martin Trio
Holocene
Natasha Kmeto, Graintable, Nicky Mason
Jimmy Mak’s
King-Grand Blues Band (9:30 pm); Lewi Longmire Band (6 pm)
Mississippi Pizza
Teresa Storch (9 pm); Mo Phillips & Johnny Keener (6 pm)
Mississippi Studios
Kites & Crows, Rey Villalobos
Hey Marseilles, Wintersleep, Parlour Steps (9 pm); Cheyenne Marie Mize, Adam Shearer (7 pm)
Chapel Pub
Mother Maybel’s
Steve Kerin
Erin Dickinson
Corkscrew Wine Bar
Mount Tabor Theater
Craig Carothers
Camellia Lounge
Wayward Vessel
Crystal Ballroom
Ghostland Observatory, DJ Jack
Dante’s
Fitz and the Tantrums, Philly’s Phunkestra, The Love Loungers, Universal DJ Sect
Doc George’s Jazz Kitchen
Ron Steen’s Invitational Jazz Jam Session
Doug Fir Lounge
Nico Vega, Saint Motel, Imagine Dragons
New Monsoon, 5 Eyed Hand
Music Millennium Deklun and Pace
Original Halibut’s Terry Robb
Paddy’s Bar & Grill
Funk-Jazz Jam Session
Papa G’s Vegan Organic Deli
Andrew Orr, Jen Howard
Plan B
Greenriver Thrillers, Beringia, ((A))Wake, Rolling Through the Universe
LaurelThirst Public House
Bad Mitten Orchestre, Wayward Vessel (9:30 pm); Woodbrain (6 pm)
Mississippi Pizza
Hello Electric, Logan Cael, The We Shared Milk, Syran
Combichrist, Aesthetic Perfection, iVardensphere, God Module
Carpenter, One Day
Alberta Street Public House
Mark Alan’s Acoustic Night Sambafeat Quartet
Arrivederci Wine Bar Artistery
Soul Vaccination
LaurelThirst Public House
Neural Sturgeon, James Low, Hobo Nephews of Uncle Frank (9:30 pm); Tree Frogs (6 pm)
Mock Crest Tavern
Local Lounge
Aloft
Jimmy Mak’s
White Eagle
East Burn
Bryan Free, The Dimes, Pancake Breakfast
Margo Valiante Quartet (9 pm); Mikey’s Irish Jam (6 pm)
The Splash Downs, Wavesauce, Don & the Quixotes
Ryan T. Jacobs, Ailsa
Z’bumba (9 pm); Ric Rac (6 pm)
Know
FRI. NOV. 12
Twilight Cafe & Bar
Jade Lounge
Terry Robb
Midnight Callers
Jade Lounge
Lew Jones
Signatures and Tony Starlight Sing Mercer and More
Barbara Lusch
Dunes
White Eagle
Wine Down East
WED. NOV. 10
Heathman Restaurant & Bar
Midnite Mayhem, Fancy Pants, The Flailing Inhalers
Twilight Room
Heathman Restaurant & Bar
Ehren Ebbage, Joshua English (8:30 pm); Tanner Cundy Band (5:30 pm)
Alberta Rose Theatre
Tonic Lounge
Nile, Ex-Deo, Psycroptic, Keep of Kalessin, Pathology
Los Cowtones (9:30 pm); David Honeyboy Edwards (6 pm)
Vino Vixens
Greg Thelen Band
TREEPEOPLE: Honeyboy Edwards plays Friday, Nov. 12, at Duff ’s Garage.
Hawthorne Theatre
Sugar Sugar Sugar, The Broken Promises
Tony Starlight’s Red Room
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
The World Famous Kenton Club
Noah Peterson Soul-Tet Back Porch Revival (9 pm); Quality Shine (6 pm)
Mississippi Studios
Velella Velella, Dat’r, The Bran Flakes Pomegranates, Oh No Oh My
Mock Crest Tavern
Dawn Fitzgerald & the Dents
Zero Effect
Vino Vixens Charming Birds, Pinehurst Kids, The Interlopers (9:30 pm); Reverb Brothers (5:30 pm)
SAT. NOV. 13 Alberta Rose Theatre
Mackintosh Braun, Copy, Oracle
Alberta Street Public House Sewblue (9:30 pm); Ayurveda (7 pm)
Andina
Toshi Onizuka Trio
Artichoke Community Music Ellen Stapenhorst with Richard Colombo
Ash Street Saloon
Ace of Spades, Shotgun Overdose, Run for Cover
Augustana Lutheran Church
Augustana Jazz Quartet
Backspace
PDX Pop Now! Fall Benefit: Guidance Counselor, Onuinu, Starparty
Beaterville Cafe
Lorna B. and Band
Berbati’s Pan
Ezra Carey, Quiet Life, Mike Coykendall
Biddy McGraw’s
Power of County, The Redeemed (9:30 pm); Twisted Whistle (5 pm)
Blue Monk Wy’East
Branx
Biz Markie, Rev Shines, DJ Gemo
Mississippi Pizza
Donna and the Side Effects
Mt. Tabor Dementia
O’Connor’s Vault
Dave Fleschner Trio
Oak Grove Tavern
Useless-N-Pointless, Amy Bleu, Apache Trail, Mangled Bohemians
Original Halibut’s Lloyd Allen
Ponderosa Lounge
James Otto, Steve Holy, Due West, Chad Williams Band
Proper Eats Cafe
The Disappointments
Red Room
Devil Riding Shotgun, Keel Over, Blastfemur, Final Offense
Roseland
Brandon Flowers, Fran Healy
Secret Society Lounge Melao de Cuba
Sellwood Public House David Ward
Slabtown
The Madison Concrete, The Satin Chaps, The Tezeta Band
Someday Lounge
Doc Martin, Cee White, Dlyte
The Knife Shop
We’re From Japan, Westfold, Palo Verde
The Springwater Grill Zenda Torrey and Neal Mattson
The Water Heater
Adventures! With Might, Radiation City, Holy Tentacles, Matt Alber
Malaikat Dan Singa, JP Jenkins-J Krausbauer, Helll, Hungry Ghost
Mount Tabor Theater
Brasserie Montmartre
Ash Street Saloon
Head for the Hills, Sugarcane String Band
Original Halibut’s
Buffalo Gap Saloon
Papa G’s Vegan Organic Deli
Camellia Lounge
John Wesley Harding, Matt the Electrician An Evening with the Liberators
Clyde’s Prime Rib
The World Famous Kenton Club
Pseudophiles, Ill Lucid Onset, Hema, Love Lies Dying
Backspace
Water & Bodies, Aloud, Deepest Darkest, This Fair City
Beaterville Cafe
Drive By Empathy
Berbati’s Pan
Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers
Biddy McGraw’s
Student Loan Newgrass Band, Wy’East (9:30 pm); Billy Kennedy & Jimmy Boyer (6 pm)
Bipartisan Cafe
Greg Clarke & Doug Sammons
Blue Monk
Devin Phillips Band
Branx
The Ghost Inside, First Blood, Deez Nutz, Hundredth, Lady of the Lake Watain, Goatwhore, Black Anvil
Brasserie Montmartre
Courtney Freed & Reece Marshburn
Buffalo Gap Saloon Big City Smile
Camellia Lounge
Brian Copeland Trio
Carefree Bar and Grill The Shatterbrains, The Bittersoundfase
Crown Room
LOL Boys, Lincolnup, Ben Tactic, Monkeytek
Dante’s
Rob Daiker, Black Haze, Chris Burghardt
King Louie Trio
Lynn Conover
Plan B
DI, The Tanked, The Anxieties, Secret Army
Press Club
John Vecchiarelli, Leonard Mynx and Friends
Proper Eats Cafe Weaver
Red Room
Droplaw, Chokeout, Titarius, Betrayed By Weakness
Roseland
Twiztid, Blaze, MicLordz & Sauce Funky, DJ Clay
Secret Society Lounge The Stolen Sweets, Rose City Shimmy, Nina Nightshade, Swing Time
Sellwood Public House Chris Harris
Slabtown
Ports Will Call, The Friendly Skies, Gunfighter, Age Sex Occupation
Someday Lounge
Philly’s Phunkestra, Gretchen Mitchell Band
The Knife Shop
Hawkeye, The New Up, Donovan Breakwater
The Water Heater
Ivy Ross, Fast Rattler, Carley Baer, Rychen, Jackie Sauriol
The Woods
Hutson, Norman, Ezra Carey
Mike Winkle Trio
Violet Isle, HEMA & Sons of Lovers Ricky Sweum
Norman Sylvester
Crown Room
Evidence, The Love Loungers, Serge Severe, DJ Nick Dean
Crystal Ballroom
Built to Spill, Le Fleur, Lords of Falconry
Doug Fir Lounge
Wild Flag, Royal Baths
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, The Lonely Forest
Duff’s Garage
Becki Sue & Her Big Rockin’ Daddies
Dunes
Unlearn, Kruel, Nerveskade, Free Radicalz
East Burn
Carley Baer, Folk N Spoon, Elke Robitialle
East End
The Thorns, Dinner for Wolves, Axxicorn
Elevated Coffee
Cody Weathers & The Men Your Mama Warned You About
Goodfoot
Joey Porter’s Tribute to Herbie Hancock
Hawthorne Theater Lounge
Bess Rogers, Allison Weiss, Lelia Browssard, Will Coca
The Woods
Plants
Tonic Lounge
My New Vice, The Spittin’ Cobras, Flexx Bronco
Twilight Cafe & Bar
Gravesight, Andy Macc, amerakin overdose, ConCrete, Bobby Sick
Twilight Room
Kissing Potion, The Excellent Gentlemen
Vino Vixens
Steven Hall Quintet
White Eagle Mighty Ghosts, Erin Leiker and Friends (9:30 pm); The Student Loan (4:30 pm)
Wonder Ballroom
Eisley, Ives the Band, Christie DuPree
SUN. NOV. 14 Aladdin Theater Keller Williams
Alberta Rose Theatre The Battlefield Band
Andina
Pete Krebs Trio Danny Romero
Ash Street Saloon
Fjord, The Atomic Bomb Audition, Aerial Ruin, Aranya
Biddy McGraw’s
Danny O’Hanlon (6 pm)
Brasserie Montmartre Ramsey Embick
Clyde’s Prime Rib
Ron Steen Jazz Jam
Dante’s
Sinferno Cabaret, Mac Lethal, F. Stokes
Doug Fir Lounge
Two Cow Garage, I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House, Olin and the Moon
Dunes
Gobble Gobble, Ghost Animal, Craft Spells
East End
The Intelligence, Nucular Animals, Spurm, Terraform
Ella Street Social Club
Harlowe and the Great North Woods, Shallants, Rey Villalobos
Hawthorne Theater Lounge Justin Stark and the Elicitors
Hawthorne Theatre
Timberline, Panic Disorder, By Which We Age, Dead Wall Street, Real Age, El Swampo, Coldfire, Jonny V, The Log Bees, Joe McMurrian
Jade Lounge
Mississippi Pizza
Fanno Creek, Drums and Color, Moonshine and the Drugs (9 pm); Film Screening (6 pm)
Mississippi Studios
Candy Claws, Chaingang of 1974, Eux Autres
Mount Tabor Theater Brent Amaker and the Rodeo, Future Historians, Love Loungers
Music Millennium
Brent Amaker and the Rodeo
Red Room
Nocturnal Slaughter, Compulsive Slasher, Cemetery Lust, Bone Sickness
Rontoms
Poison Control Center, Writer
Valentine’s
Benoît Pioulard, Cinema Verite, Charles Stanyan, Pioneer
Vino Vixens
Kites & Crows
MON. NOV. 15 Alberta Street Public House Justin Klump
William Scott Browning, Galen
Aloft
Kennedy School
Andina
Songwriters in the Round: Craig Carothers & Special Guests
Know
Murderess, Hazzard’s Cure
LaurelThirst Public House Billy Kennedy & Tim Acott (9 pm); Freak Mountain Ramblers (6 pm)
McMenamins Edgefield Winery Billy D
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern Brognaene Griffin
Martini Scott Head
Ash Street Saloon
Open Mic, Portland’s Finest Family
Beauty Bar Archeology
Berbati’s Pan
The Satin Peaches, El Rey, Charming Birds
Biddy McGraw’s Eric Tonsfeldt
Branx
Outbreak, Hour of the Wolf, Reignition, Cursebreaker, Old Ways
Brasserie Montmartre D.K. Stewart
Doug Fir Lounge
Tube
Duff’s Garage
Twilight Cafe & Bar
David Dondero, The Moaners, Alameda Big “D” Jamboree (8:30 pm); Chris Miller Band (6 pm)
Dunes
Think Twice, Raw Nerves, Peroxide
Holocene
Nosaj Thing, Toro y Moi, Jogger, Fair Enough
Lesbian, Burials, DJ Nate C The Twangshifters, Moonlight Howlers, Matt Mayhem One Man Band
Valentine’s
Tearist, Wampire, The Cysts
White Eagle
Oakhurst, Growler
Jimmy Mak’s
The Upper Left Trio
Know
TUES. NOV. 16
Leaders, Basement Animal, Cruddy
Aladdin Theater
LaurelThirst Public House
Alberta Rose Theatre
Kung Pao Chickens (9 pm); Little Sue & Lynn Conover (6 pm)
LV’s Sports Bar Miriam’s Well
Mississippi Pizza
Lost Creek Bluegrass
Mississippi Studios
Tift Merritt, Elizabeth and the Catapult
Mount Tabor Theater SunSpot Jonz, MTHDS, Members of Living Legends
O’Connor’s Vault Julie and the Boy
Plan B
Basia
Nick Jaina, Grand Hallway, The Mukluks
Alberta Street Public House Focus Focus
Andina
Neftali Rivera
Andrea’s Cha Cha Club
Rumberos del Caribe
Ash Street Saloon Trout and Parrot, Rainstick Cowbell
Beaterville Cafe Arthur Moore’s Harmonica Party
Blue Monk
Steel Drum Music
Samothrace, Megaton Leviathan, Absense of Light
Brasserie Montmartre
Roseland
Aan, Light for Fire
Bad Religion, Bouncing Souls, Off With Their Heads
Secret Society Lounge
Colleen Raney, Ezra Holbrook
Slim’s
Open Mic
The Knife Shop
Whale Revolution, Lilac Limes, Paul Avion
The World Famous Kenton Club
S.I.N. with Podunk, BFE
Skip vonKuske
Bunk Bar Dante’s
The Ed Forman Show, DSL Open Mic Comedy
Duff’s Garage
Dover Weinberg Quartet (9:30 pm); Trio Bravo (6 pm)
Ella Street Social Club
Little Teeth, The Ocean Floor, Kusikia, Herr Jazz
Goodfoot
Scott Pemberton Trio
Holocene
Hawthorne Theatre
Anjali, E3, The Incredible Kid, Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam
Hey Monday, Cartel, The Ready Set, This Century, We Are the In Crowd
Holocene
Lola’s Room at the Crystal Ballroom
Tennis, The Rainy States
Jimmy Mak’s
Jai Ho! Pure Bollywood Dance Party
The Mel Brown Septet (8 pm); The Metropolitan Youth Symphony Jazz Orchestra (6:30 pm)
Groove Suite
Beauty Bar
Matador
Justa Pasta
Ground Kontrol
Tronix: Silver Wizard
Foggy Notion
Mississippi Studios
Anson Wright & Tim Gilson
LaurelThirst Public House Jackstraw
Living Room Theaters
Frightening Waves of Blue
Local Lounge
Pamela Jordan Band
Mississippi Pizza
Baby Ketten Karaoke (9 pm); Tori Sparks (6 pm)
Mississippi Studios
Sean Hayes, Sean Flinn & the Royal We
Mock Crest Tavern David Gerow with Twisted Whistle
Plan B
Visions, Marlena, Ragged Jubilee
Roseland
Danzig, Possessed, Marduk, Toxic Holocaust, Withered
The Knife Shop
Sussurus Station, The Corespondents, Night Mechanic
WED. NOV. 10 House Call
Hall of Records Saucebox
DJ Aquaman’s Soul Stew
Star Bar
After Dark
The World Famous Kenton Club
Journeys By DJ: DJ Muggy Stuck, DJ Epor
Tube
DJ Chelsea Starr, DJ Lifepartner
Valentine’s
Lola’s Room at the Crystal Ballroom
DJ Upsidedown Astronaut DJ King Fader DJ Gregarious
Eye Candy VJ
Awesome Racket Plaid Dudes: DJ “Chains” Crumley and Kid Midnight
THURS. NOV. 11
Wonder Ballroom
Zane Lamprey, Steve McKenna and the JustTones
Holocene
Built to Spill after-party with DJ Doug Martsch and Sweet Jimmy T.
‘80s Video Dance Attack
Matador
S.I.N.: Gregarious, Flight Risk, Colin Sick
Star Bar
DJ Mumu
The Perfect Cyn: Unclassified
Second Variety: DJ Noah Fence
DJ Paultimore
Hall of Records
DJ L Train
Valentine’s
DJ Lord Smithingham
Valentine’s
Dusu
DJ Drew Groove
Ground Kontrol
Railside Pub Rotture
Someday Lounge
The Fix: Rev. Shines, KEZ, Dundiggy
Star Bar
DJ Avery (The Cool Cat)
Valentine’s
Bill Portland
Rotture
Ground Kontrol
Saucebox
Video Disco With VJ Dantronix
DJ Beyonda, DJ Trans Fat, DJ Ill Camino, Bloodhound Photography DJ Medic, DJ Brad
Blitz Ladd
Thursdays are Gay
DJ Donny Don’t
Groove Suite
Mother’s Bar
DJ Beyondadoubt
White Eagle
Goodfoot
Beauty Bar
Tony Starlight’s The Golden Hours, Orca Team, Charts
DJ Remy the Restless Bent: Jodi Bon Jodi, Roy G Biv
DJ Nate C
Nancy King
FRI. NOV. 12
SAT. NOV. 13
Saucebox
Valentine’s
SUN. NOV. 14 Ground Kontrol
Black Sunday: DJ Metal Matt, DJ Shining Armour
Plan B
Hive: Gothic, Industrial, Darkwave
Saucebox
DJ Sappho: Queer Nite
MON. NOV. 15 Hall of Records DJ Green Mango
Saucebox
DJ Lionsden
Star Bar
Beauty Bar
Amateur DJ Night
Groove Suite
Old Country Night with Billy Lee
Bottle Rocket Dancing Club Soulstice
Ground Kontrol
Reaganomix: DJ Spencer Daran, DJ Flight Risk
Hall of Records DJ Tigerstripes
The World Famous Kenton Club
TUES. NOV. 16 Know
Eye Candy Video DJ hosted by Rev. Norto
Saucebox
DJ King Tim 33 1/3
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
39
Thereʼs only one Gem Faire. Be there!
SPOTLIGHT
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FRI 12-7 | SAT 10-6 | SUN 10-5
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Convention Center Exhibit Hall E, 777 NE MLK Jr. Blvd. PORTLAND
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*Clip & bring this ad to redeem. Discount applies to $7 general admission. One coupon per customer. Cannot be combined with other offer.
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OVER 50 ARTISTS! PREVIEW THE AUCTION EXHIBITION—GALLERY HOURS:12-5 PM OCT30+31, NOV5-7,12
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BEN
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40
GALLERY CHIC: The neighborhood bar is an ever-evolving concept. Some new establishments stockpile flat-screen TVs and poker machines, while the established watering holes try to hook a following without quite so many bells and whistles. The Free House Bar (1325 NE Fremont St., 331-2000), despite two discreetly placed televisions, feels like a cross between the dining hall at a Buddhist monastery and an Alberta Street art gallery. Everything—save for the urban/psychedelic art on the wall—is lovingly crafted woodwork and wide open spaces. Long communal tables facilitate conversations that echo up to the high ceilings, while cheap drinks (lots of $5 cocktails; delicious $4 Bayern Pilseners on draft; $2 cans of PBR and Old German), sandwiches and board games keep this classy joint informal enough to kick back in. Who needs Golden Tee? CASEY JARMAN.
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
ALADDIN THEATER 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-9694 ALBERTA ROSE THEATRE 3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055 ALBERTA STREET PUBLIC HOUSE 1036 NE Alberta St., 284-7665 ARTISTERY 4315 SE Division St., 803-5942 ASH STREET SALOON 225 SW Ash St., 226-0430 BACKSPACE 115 NW 5th Ave., 248-2900 BEAUTY BAR 111 SW Ash Street., 224-0773 BERBATI’S PAN 231 SW Ankeny St., 248-4579 BIDDY MCGRAW’S 6000 NE Glisan St., 233-1178 BLUE MONK 3341 SE Belmont St., 595-0575 BRANX 320 SE 2nd Ave., 234-5683 BRASSERIE MONTMARTRE 626 SW Park Ave., 236-3036 BUNK BAR 1028 SE Water Ave., CROWN ROOM 205 NW 4th Ave., 222-6655 CRYSTAL BALLROOM 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047 DANTE’S 1 SW 3rd Ave., 226-6630 DOUG FIR LOUNGE 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663 DUFF’S GARAGE 1635 SE 7th Ave., 234-2337 DUNES 1905 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 493-8637
EAST BURN 1800 E. Burnside., 236-2876 EAST END 203 SE Grand Ave., 232-0056 ELLA STREET SOCIAL CLUB 714 SW 20th Place., 227-0116 GOODFOOT 2845 SE Stark St., 239-9292 GROUND KONTROL 511 NW Couch St., 796-9364 HALL OF RECORDS 3342 SE Belmont St., HAWTHORNE THEATRE 3862 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 233-7100 HOLOCENE 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639 JIMMY MAK’S 221 NW 10th Ave., 295-6542 KNOW 2026 NE Alberta St., 473-8729 LAURELTHIRST PUBLIC HOUSE 2958 NE Glisan St., 232-1504 LOLA’S ROOM AT THE CRYSTAL BALLROOM 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047 MISSISSIPPI PIZZA 3552 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3231 MISSISSIPPI STUDIOS 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895 MOCK CREST TAVERN 3435 N Lombard St., 283-5014 MOUNT TABOR THEATER 4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd., MUDAI 801 NE Broadway., 287-5433 PLAN B 1305 SE 8th Ave., 230-9020 PONDEROSA LOUNGE 10350 N Vancouver Way., 345-0300
PRESS CLUB 2621 SE Clinton St., 233-5656 RONTOMS 600 E Burnside St., 236-4536 ROSELAND 8 NW 6th Ave., 219-9929 (Grill), 224-2038 (Theater) ROTTURE 315 SE 3rd Ave., 234-5683 SECRET SOCIETY LOUNGE 116 NE Russell St., 493-3600 SLABTOWN 1033 NW 16th Ave., 223-0099 SOMEDAY LOUNGE 125 NW 5th Ave., 248-1030 STAR BAR 639 SE Morrison St., THE KNIFE SHOP 426 SW Washington St., 228-3669 THE TWILIGHT ROOM 5242 N Lombard St., 283-5091 THE WATER HEATER 750 N Fremont., 720 206 5469 THE WOODS 6637 SE Milwaukie Ave., 890-0408 THE WORLD FAMOUS KENTON CLUB 2025 N Kilpatrick St., 285-3718 TONIC LOUNGE 3100 NE Sandy Blvd., 238-0543 TONY STARLIGHT’S 3728 NE Sandy Blvd., 517-8584 TUBE 18 NW 3rd Ave., 241-8823 TWILIGHT CAFE & BAR 1420 SE Powell Blvd., 232-3576 TWILIGHT ROOM 5242 N Lombard St., 283-5091 VALENTINE’S 232 SW Ankeny St., 248-1600 WHITE EAGLE 836 N Russell St., 282-6810 WONDER BALLROOM 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686
NOV. 10-16
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. Most prices listed are for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply, so it’s best to call ahead. Editor: BEN WATERHOUSE. Stage: BEN WATERHOUSE (bwaterhouse@wweek. com). Classical: BRETT CAMPBELL (bcampbell@wweek.com). Dance: HEATHER WISNER (dance@wweek.com). TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: bwaterhouse@wweek.com.
STAGE ¡Viva Don Juan!
[NEW REVIEW] Miracle Theatre’s annual Day of the Dead show is always enjoyable, bilingual, populist entertainment, with music and dance and humor strung together by a thin plot or theme. This year’s installment, directed by Olga Sanchez, is more coherent than most and, while less artistically ambitious than some of its predecessors, it is more consistently entertaining. The ghost of Don Juan (James Peck, an excellently hammy Portland newcomer), upset that his poor reputation has left him with no one to build him an altar on El Día de los Muertos, makes a deal with the devil to return for one day to join a production of a play about his life and set the record straight. There follows some philandering, some swordplay, some mockery of bourgeois cultural pretension, a lot of bawdy humor and a few very well performed songs. A good time, all told. BEN WATERHOUSE. El Centro Milagro, 525 SE Stark St., 236-7253. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Thursday, 8 pm FridaySaturday, 2 and 7 pm Sunday, Nov. 10-14. $14-$25.
Alice & Wonderland
Oregon Children’s Theatre and “rock opera” aren’t two concepts that ordinarily go in the same sentence. But the children-focused company’s one-act treatment of the Lewis Carroll classic in a genre popularized by ’70s-era shows like Tommy largely works because the show’s songs rock to clap-along levels and because its dancing is high-energy. HENRY AND BEN STERN. Newmark Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 2 and 5 pm Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Nov. 21. $13-$26.
Back Bog Beast Bait
Defunkt’s take on this surreal Sam Shepard creature feature, in which a widow hires mercenaries to protect her from an unseen pig-beast, is pure camp. The Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 481-2960. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 11-13. $10-$15, Thursdays and Sundays are pay-whatyou-will.
Chesapeake
Profile Theatre continues its season of the works of Lee Blessing with his play about a controversial performance artist who seeks revenge on a Southern senator eager to neuter the National Endowment for the Arts and winds up becoming his dog. Third Rail Rep’s Scott Yarbrough directs Todd Van Voris in this one-man show. Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., 242-0080. 7:30 pm WednesdaysSaturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Nov. 21. $15-$28.
Cinderella
Tears of Joy Puppet Theatre presents a puppet production of local composer Mark LaPierre’s musical adaptation of the Grimm tale. Winningstad Theatre, Portland Center for the Performing Arts, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-0557. 11 am Saturdays, 2 and 4 pm Sundays, 7:30 pm Friday, Nov. 12. Closes Nov. 28. $18, $15 children.
woman who sees a man die, then steals his cell phone, is no exception. She answers the phone, lying to everyone who calls in hope of alleviating their grief. Eventually, she finds out more about the dead man than she bargained for. Then the script gets flabby, pulling in unneeded stuff about the afterlife and a slapstick gunfight. Theatre Vertigo’s production makes the most of the scant material. BEN WATERHOUSE. Theater! Theatre!, 3430 SE Belmont St., theatrevertigo.org. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 11-13. $15, Thursdays are pay-what-you-will.
The Fall of the Fourth Wall
Readers Theatre Repertory pokes at the audience with “The Actor’s Nightmare” by Christopher Durang, “Caught in the Act” by Bruce Kane and “Captive Audience” by David Ives. Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th Ave., 234-2634. 8 pm Friday-Saturday, Nov. 12-13. $8.
The Foreigner
Lakewood Theatre Company turns to Larry Shue’s comedy about a shy man whose attempts to avoid conversation by feigning ignorance of English do not go well. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 7:30 pm ThursdaysSaturdays, 7 pm Sundays Nov. 14-21 and 2 pm Sundays Nov. 14 and 28 and Dec. 5 and 12. Closes Dec. 12. $24-$27.
Hammil-Town, Ohio
Spring 4th Productions’ fall show is a profile of a town that loves brownies. Shoe Box Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 477-8255. 7:30 pm Thursdays and Sundays. No show Thanksgiving Day. Closes Dec. 5. $10-$12.
Heart Beatings
A new musical by local composer Mark LaPierre, presented by CoHo Productions, comprising six purportedly comedic vignettes about love and sex. The CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 205-0715. 8 pm ThursdaysSaturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Nov. 20. $20-$25. Thursdays are pay-whatyou-will.
An Iliad
A ragged storyteller (Joseph Graves) stumbles onto the stage in what looks like a highway underpass, the stone walls inscribed with the names of millennia of soldiers. He is drunk, unkempt. He doesn’t seem to want to tell you his war stories, but he is compelled. When Graves finally gets to do battle, he is extraordinary, wrenching forth the whole, miserable mess of Hector’s needless death and the rage of Achilles in a performance that can honestly be described as spellbinding. BEN WATERHOUSE. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays, noon Thursdays, alternating 2 pm Saturday and 7:30 pm Sunday performances, Sept. 28-Nov. 21. $18-$40.
The Little Prince
The Merely Players perform the compressed canon. Shoe Box Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 971-244-3740. 7 pm Friday, 2 and 7 pm Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, Nov. 12-14. $15-$18.
This 90-minute adaptation of the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry classic children’s book is not for the squirmy kid. But if your child can sit still for a story that doesn’t fly along, this production directed by Samantha Van Der Merwe is charming. There’s enough sweetness and mystery to the relationship between the Little Prince (Annabel Cantor) and the aviator (Erich England) to create the sort of wonderment that engages a child. HENRY AND BEN STERN. Shaking the Tree Studio, 1407 SE Stark St., 235-0635. 7 pm Friday, 2 and 7 pm Saturday, Nov. 12-13. $15-$20.
Dead Man’s Cell Phone
Medusa
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)
Sarah Ruhl’s plays tend to start with a halfway compelling premise, then go completely off the rails in the last 30 minutes. This one, about a mousy
The Working Theatre Collective reexamines the battle between Perseus and Medusa. Eff Space, 333 NE Hancock St., Studio 14, theworkingth-
eatrecollective.com. 8 pm ThursdaysSaturdays. Closes Nov. 20. $10-$15.
Oregon Stories of War
In the Telling Project, a performance piece organized by Austin, Tex. writer Jonathan Wei, veterans are interviewed about their experiences at war, receive acting coaching and then perform their own stories. Portland Center Stage has invited Telling participants—two Marines (Jeremy and Joshua Coombs), a sailor (Shirley Cortez) and a National Guardsman (Jeremiah Washburn)—to share their stories again. They perform with confidence and vigor, even though dredging their memories for us is obviously not easy. The show is very entertaining when it isn’t distressing, but its thrust boils down to this: We can’t know what it’s like to have walked in their shoes, and we should stop pretending, through bumper stickers and patronizing speeches, that we do. When soldiers choose to share their stories, the least we can do is to listen. BEN WATERHOUSE. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7 pm Monday, Nov. 15. Free.
CLASSICAL
4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 877-4808. 7 pm Thursday-Friday, 2 pm Sunday, Nov. 11-12 and 14. $10-$12.
Consonare Chorale
A diverse program of music inspired by letters sent during wartime, including sacred texts set by Maurice Durufle and a gospel version of “John the Revelator.” First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park Ave., 228-7219. 7:30 pm Friday, Nov. 12. $12-$18.
Filmusik
Galen Huckins composed original new scores, performed live by a chamber ensemble, for this double feature of Oscar-nominated Claymation films from Portland’s Will Vinton Studios: The 1979 Claymation version of The Little Prince and Vinton’s version of Rip van Winkle. Hollywood Theatre,
Oregon Symphony
Shakespeare-inspired music by English composers Edward Elgar and William Walton. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 228-1353. 7:30 pm Saturday, 8 pm Monday, Nov. 13 and 15. $20-$90.
Third Angle
An enormous glass bowl perches on a pillar. Lit from below, it projects dazzling reflections of the water within. A gong hangs in the water. A violinist approaches the bowl, draws his bow across it and “plays” the water with his
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REVIEW C O R Y W E AV E R / P O R T L A N D O P E R A
PERFORMANCE
ScratchPDX
A monthly showcase of new performance art. Hipbone Studio, 1847 E Burnside St., scratchpdx.com. 9 pm Saturday, Nov. 13. $10.
Sealed for Freshness
Triangle Productions! presents a parody of 1960s domestic perfectionism. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 239-5919. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Nov. 28. $15-$35.
Violet
[NEW REVIEW] Violet is a girl with a deformity; some call her “Axe Face” due to the blade that halved her head at age 13. A sassy North Carolina mountain girl, she’s on a mission to Tulsa, Okla., in search of a televangelist to heal her scar. Staged!’s Oregon premiere of the musical Violet, directed by Elizabeth Klinger with musical direction by Jeffrey Childs, is snappy and earnest, its scope surprising in the small space of the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center. The gospel, rock ’n’ roll and country score is excellent, but there’s a whole lotta schmaltz on display, mainly in the flashback scenes featuring accident-aged Violet and her father. But this is a musical, after all, and Violet excels most in transforming the mundane—Greyhound bus rides and nightclub soirees—into music. Its more traditional love triangle and obvious, Wizard of Oz twist grate when compared with such unexpected fun. CAITLIN McCARTHY Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center, 5340 N Interstate Ave., stagedpdx.org. 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Nov. 21. $21-$25.
COMEDY Greg Behrendt
The co-author of He’s Just Not That Into You does standup at Helium. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 8 pm Thursday, 7:30 and 10 pm Friday-Saturday, Nov. 11-13. $20-$30. 21+.
Levi Rounds and Cody Eden
The men named the best- and secondbest comedians in Utah by Salt Lake City Weekly perform at the Weird Bar. Weird Bar, 3701 SE Division St., 2368689. 9 pm Thursday, Nov. 12. $6.
The Liberators
The excellent comedy quartet is joined by pianist Ralph Huntley for improv comedy and musical mayhem. The Woods, 6637 SE Milwaukie Ave., 8900408. 7 pm Saturday, Nov. 13. $10-$13.
Paradise on Earth
A stand-up comedy showcase featuring out-of-towners Nate Jackson, Rodasan and Scruncho, plus locals Andre Paradise, Rissa Riss and Seeznin’, with music by DJ George. T&A Event Center, 300 NE Multnomah St., 544-0612. 8 pm Saturday, Nov. 13. $15-$50.
MAUREEN MCKAY AND SANDRA PIQUES EDDY
HANSEL AND GRETEL (PORTLAND OPERA) Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel has always been an oddity in opera. Its music owes as much to the larky simplicities of folk songs and musical theater as it does to Wagnerian Sturm und Drang; Adelheid Wette’s German libretto splits itself between the knocking, banging, mischievous schnick-and-schnack wordplay of a Max and Moritz comic strip and a sort of pious idealization of children that stirs up darker fears that what is pure will be sullied. Productions over the years have been downright schizoid, swerving from God-drenched Disneyfications to wry Freudian parables that have cast both mother and witch as the same singer. The opera is a primed canvas on which to paint the producer’s private fixations. In this particular case, the fixation is cake, cake and more cake. The version currently being performed by the Portland Opera is a free-swinging modern update bent on showing the dark side of foodie obsessions. David Pountney’s liberally adapted English libretto is less interested in the opera’s fearful pieties than in the characters’ seemingly constant, aching hunger and the violent anarchy of language in play. Richard Jones’ lush staging owes deep debts to the shock-andawe dreamscapes of Guillermo Del Toro, Terry Gilliam and JeanPierre Jeunet. The effect, overall, is to make the opera into a sort of hyperaestheticized, food-obsessed black comedy. In the show’s most arresting setpiece, the 14 angels who guard the children in their sleep are shown as a pack of benignant creeps who resemble, more than anything, the cooks from Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen. The forest’s trees are men with branches for heads and berries in their pockets. The witch is played in drag by tenor Allan Glassman—who manages to maintain both sinister force and manic comic lightness—as a sort of off-her-hinges, cannibalistic Julia Child. Maureen McKay’s Gretel is a petulant Sally Draper, and Hansel, as performed by Sandra Piques Eddy, is in near-constant jape almost frightening in its abandon. Weston Hurt’s Father is a charismatic buffoon and drunken wifebeater whose portrayal teeters happily toward caricature. In effect, the production is lyricism played with a wink, wonder made childlike, darkness less inhabited than cynically assumed: It’s shallow good fun. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.
Have your cake and be it too.
SEE IT: Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 241-1802. 7:30 pm Thursday and Saturday, Nov. 11 and 13. $26-$150. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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NOV. 10-16
hand. Another violinist, cellist and violist softly play music from J.S. Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, while a woman sings a Chinese folk song, plucking on a pipa lute. Suddenly, the music intensifies; over the next half hour or so, the five performers move deliberately around the stage, contributing not just strings but also wails, whispers, the clack and clang of stones and cymbals to the mysterious atmosphere. That’s the setting for Chinese-American composer Tan Dun’s haunting, theatrical 1994 Ghost Opera, which the Northwest’s finest new-music ensemble will play this week in one of the most compelling music events of the season. Third Angle will also play George Crumb’s kaleidoscopic 1970 Black Angels, in which echoes of the Vietnam War, religious conflict and other ’60s turbulence swirl into a statement of overwhelming intensity. The program also boasts the premiere of a new quartet by the dean of Northwest composers, Portland’s Tomas Svoboda, whose late-career purple patch of extraordinary compositions happily shows no signs of abating. Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 3310301. 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday, Nov. 11-12. $10-$30.
is led by TV, film and video-dance celebs Mia Michaels, Wade Robson and Tyce Diorio (So You Think You Can Dance), Brian Friedman (America’s Got Talent), Laurie Ann Gibson (Lady Gaga, Making the Band), Desmond Richardson (Complexions), Cris Judd (Your Mama Don’t Dance), Dave Scott (Stomp The Yard, Step Up 3-D) and Gil Duldulao (Janet Jackson). Registration ain’t cheap, and it’s sure to be jammed with hundreds of teenage girls, but fame costs, and here’s where you start paying. Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 2357575. 8 am Saturday, Nov. 13, 8:30 am Sunday, Nov. 14. $220 individuals; group rates vary.
Teeth
At what point in a relationship do you become “we” rather than “I”? Choreographer Angelle Hebert and composer Phillip Kraft, creators of the contemporary performance
group Teeth, wrestle with questions of singular and plural identity in their new evening-length duet Home Made. In it, dancers Noel Plemmons and Keely McIntyre are a couple whose relationship is a shifting tableau of spooning and sparring, caressing and careening. The stark white walls of the company’s studio offset the pair’s often striking movement, while a video camera situated between them broadcasts their respective vantage points against the back wall. As with most relationships there is confusion, anger, tenderness and nudity; due to that last part, the show is recommended for mature viewers only. The Mouth, Inside Zoomtopia, 810 SE Belmont St., 8 pm Thursday-Friday, Nov. 11-12, 2 and 8 pm Saturday, Nov. 13, 7 pm Sunday, Nov. 14. $12-$15.
For more Performance listings, visit
REVIEW I M A G O T H E AT R E
PERFORMANCE
Venerable Showers of Beauty Gamelan
Lewis & Clark College’s community gamelan orchestra celebrates its 30th anniversary with guest director Ki Midyanto, a former leader of the group, and musicians from Seattle’s Gamelan Pacifica and the College’s Friends of Rain New Music Ensemble, playing music by the late Portland composer Lou Harrison. Venerable Showers of Beauty’s instruments were made in Central Java a century ago, and came to the college in 1980. BEN WATERHOUSE. Lewis & Clark College, 0615 SW Palatine Road, 768-7460. 8 pm Saturday, Nov. 13. $10-$15.
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DANCE A-WOL Dance Collective
Superheroes are supposed to fly, and they do in A-WOL Dance Collective’s aerial dance piece Zip Zap Zoom. Inspired by a local fifth-grader’s contest submission, the show is populated by a colorful array of female superheroes and villains, including Tornado Girl, Out of This World Girl and Elasti-Woman. An epic battle of good vs. evil unfolds in this familyfriendly production, where dance, storytelling, aerial work and a light show intersect. A-WOL Studio, 2303 N Randolph., 201-9798. 8 pm Friday, 9 pm Saturday, Nov. 12-13. $10-$20.
Circle Science 2010
You will most certainly get served at the 2010 Circle Science: This street-dance extravaganza serves up every style you can name, plus a few you probably can’t: popping, locking, breakin’, voguing, housing, waacking, krumping and a variety of club styles. Bossanova Ballroom, 722 E Burnside St., 206-7630. 5 pm Sunday, Nov. 14. $15.
Human Nature Dance Theatre
Contrasts—feral vs. domestic, human vs. animal, feminine vs. masculine, manners vs. primal urges—provide the thematic framework for Animal Etiquette, a collection of new and best-off works from Human Nature Dance Theatre. The company is a collaborative venture among contemporary dance artists from various Western states, including Water in the Desert’s Mizu Desierto, who is presenting the company’s Portland premiere. (Nude-o-phobes, take note: The company’s stripped-down aesthetic does involve some dancing in the buff.) The Headwaters, 55 NE Farragut St., No. 9, 8 pm ThursdaySaturday, Nov. 11-13. $8-$18.
The Pulse
Ohmygodohmygodohmygod! Touring dance convention the Pulse is coming to town and you’re invited! This weekend marathon of classes
STAGE LEFT LOST (IMAGO THEATRE) Jerry Mouawad doesn’t much seem to care whether audiences understand his work. Though he is the co-creator of the immediately accessible Frogz and Biglittlethings, Mouawad’s shows for adults are often opaque, leaving viewers puzzling over what they’ve just seen. It’s an attitude I like in a director, and it has served his recent series of “Operas Beyond Words”—short, movement-based plays without dialogue—quite well. The first three of the series expanded on a simple concept with an ambiguous narrative: bees as military; missile crisis as dinner party; typing school as prison. In Mouawad’s latest work, though, I sensed that there was a plot to be followed, but could not find it, leaving me less intrigued than befuddled. Stage Left Lost begins backstage at a theater during a production of Othello, which the audience observes from seats behind the curtain at stage left. Actors assemble, are pushed around by an anxious stage manager and prepare for the performance. Two of them, including the actress playing Desdemona, have been recently married. Then something goes terribly wrong: During the murder scene, Desdemona actually winds up dead. What ensues could be a play within a play or maybe just a play, as a man is convicted of the killing and the fallout of the horrible deed wrecks a few more lives; it’s easy enough to follow, right up until the end, when there’s a transition I just do not understand and the plot I’d constructed collapsed. It was baffling. That said, the show is pretty great. Mouawad’s wordless version of Desdemona’s murder is more effectively staged than most spoken productions I’ve seen. The parade of seduction and suicide and menacing ghosts that follows it has the quality of a really engrossing dream with a particularly good sound track. The cast, which includes Matthew Dieckman and Carol Triffle, conveys the action of each scene lucidly. So what if the links between those scenes are obscure? A little bafflement is no reason to miss this show, and plenty of reason to see it twice. BEN WATERHOUSE. Mr. Mouawad, I am confused.
SEE IT: Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave., 231-3959. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 pm Sundays. Closes Nov. 21. $10-$12.
VISUAL ARTS
LEARN THE ART OF
NOV. 10-16
GLASS BLOWING
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By RICHARD SPEER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit show information—including opening and closing dates, gallery address and phone number—at least two weeks in advance to: Visual Arts, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: rspeer@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115. Emailed press releases must be backed up by a faxed or printed copy.
Disjecta’s Bid at the Bunyan
For the fourth year in a row, Disjecta mounts its ever-popular art auction to raise funds for its programs. This year, the auction block will abound with work by artists such as Crystal Schenk, Calvin Ross Carl, Josh Smith and Ryan Pierce, to name only a handful out of the 50-plus artists to be featured. Dave Allen and Andrew Dickson will make for a colorful auctioneer team, while music quartet Church No. 9 will provide sonic stimulation. Unlike the Cascade AIDS Project’s annual auction, which has an overarchingly chichi, West Hills vibe, Disjecta’s auction crackles with a younger energy. This nonprofit has beaten the odds and endured in a dismal economic climate to mount programming that’s better than ever. Show Disjecta some love, support the local arts community, and wind up with some cool art on your walls. Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Ave. 7-11 pm Saturday, Nov. 13. $20. Buy tickets at disjecta.org.
With a monolithic interior rectangle of inky black framed by washes of ink and graphite, the piece has charisma to burn: a kind of Darth Vader minimalism that is seductive, fierce and utterly compelling. PDX Contemporary Art, 925 NW Flanders St., 222-0063. Closes Nov. 27.
CLASSES OFFERED IN:
Beginning & Intermediate glass blowing. Beginning & Intermediate solid glass sculpture. 8 week classes in the afternoon & evenings.
For more Visual Arts listings, visit
PROFILE ANSEL ADAMS
SPECIAL EVENT
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Alexis Mollomo
In Look Behind You, painter Alexis Mollomo deploys recurring symbols to weave complex and sometimes unsettling narratives. The figures in her tableaux are on journeys of self-discovery, confronting demons that lurk within. Worksound, 820 SE Alder St., worksoundpdx.com. Show runs Nov. 5-29.
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NOW SHOWING Imprimere
In the two-person show Imprimere, Diane Avio-Augee presents the free, intuitive gestural abstractions that won her praise for several years at the Mark Woolley Gallery. Joseph C. Blanchette displays evocative realist paintings of cityscapes by night, replete with dramatic light- and shadowplay. Nowhere is this more vividly evinced than in Russian Hill Night, with its streetlight blazing through otherwise nondescript tree limbs, turning a mundane scene into a gasp-worthy moment that recalls the tactics of the Italian Renaissance master Caravaggio. Finally, while not part of the show proper, Trevor Woolf’s elegant furniture designs deserve note. Blending groovy, late1960s Pop colors with austere 1970s minimalism, they are functional, gorgeous objets d’art. ANKA, 325 NW 6th Ave., 224-5721. Closes Nov. 26.
Carolyn Cole
One of the Northwest’s most widely collected painters, Carolyn Cole has a distinctive formula: vaguely rectangular swaths of color in loosely cruciform compositions, laid down over highly saturated color (mostly blue, green and red-orange). As a base atop her canvases, she uses a grid of recycled envelopes, a nifty gimmick that links the paintings with the once-pervasive art of personal corrspondence, now in precipitous decline. Too abstract to be neo-Impressionist, too neo-Impressionist to be Abstract Expressionist, the works simultaneously balm and pique the eye. Cole’s style, while reliably satisfying, has not particularly evolved over the past decade. It would be refreshing to see the artist strike out and do something erratic. Butters, 520 NW Davis St., 248-9378. Closes Nov. 27.
Justin L’Amie
Justin L’Amie’s diminutive insect drawings skew toward the precious side of the cute/cutesy dichotomy. Fortunately, this two-person show is rescued by Arnold Kemp’s ambitious abstractions. The artist, who heads the M.F.A. program at the Pacific Northwest College of Art, displays his gift for rectilinear abstraction in a suite of small works on Chinese paper, deploying minimal chromaticism and form into elemental permutations for maximum effect. However, it is his nearly 6-foot square, Tonight’s Day, that shows his talent to greatest impact.
ANSEL ADAMS’ CLEARING WINTER STORM, YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA AT CHARLES A. HARTMAN
ANSEL ADAMS/VANESSA RENWICK When an artist with an exceptional eye finds something exceptional to look at and interpret with that eye, watch out. In the 16th century, Leonardo had his Mona Lisa; in the 19th century, John Singer Sargent had his Madame X; and in the 20th century, photographer Ansel Adams had no less exceptional a subject than the Great American West. Like all artists accorded the adjective “iconic,” Adams (1902-1984) is easy to view through a musty, sepia-tinted monocle—a trend that Ansel Adams: Photographs 1920s-1960s does much to dispel. Crisply matted and framed in immaculate white, the prints incorporate close-up and medium-shot imagery, not just the expansive vistas that made Adams famous. Even those wide panoramas—witness the transcendent Clearing Winter Storm, Yosemite National Park—come across in a different light. Is this due to the art world’s current post-ironic reappraisal of “oldfashioned” artists such as Adams, Norman Rockwell and Maxfield Parrish, or because contemporary viewers behold Adams’ pristine ecospheres from the vantage point of increasing ecological devastation? Ponder that as you lose yourself in the photographer’s moody moonrises, cloudscapes, mesas, rivers and mountains. Unlike Adams, Portland-based filmmaker and installation artist Vanessa Renwick is very much alive and kicking, and has an unimpeachably contemporary sensibility. Like Adams, she reveres the American West to the point of obsession. In particular, she has made the Pacific Northwest a region of fond and profound study. In her exhibition, As Easy as Falling off a Log, she has created perhaps the most effective multimedia installation show to be mounted in a commercial Portland gallery over the past five years. Its elements—a small mountain of chopped wood appointed with bean bags and headphones, an audio-visual installation projected onto the ceiling, two cheeky neon pieces, a poignant short film titled Woodswoman, a hanging sculpture of blackened wood, as well as prints and photographs—demonstrate a virtuosity with materials anchored in a sound conceptual base. Working with lo-fi equipment (the projected films are grainy, the camera movements jerky), she nevertheless captures the grandeur of nature in a way that makes us all too aware of our human transience and vulnerabilities. RICHARD SPEER. Two artists set their sights on the Great American West.
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GO: Ansel Adams at Charles A. Hartman Fine Art, 134 NW 8th Ave., 287-3886. Closes Nov. 27. Vanessa Renwick at PDX Across the Hall, 925 NW Flanders St., 222-0063. Closes Nov. 27. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
43
AN INTELLIGENT SCI-FI FILM
“
THAT IS ABSORBING, THRILLING AND ULTIMATELY MOVING.
WORDS
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
Impressively assured debut for Gareth Edwards that succeeds on pretty much every score.”
By CHRISTINA COOKE. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit lecture or reading information at least two weeks in advance to: WORDS, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: words@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
- MARK ADAMS, SCREEN INTERNATIONAL
“‘
NOV. 10-16
MONSTERS’ EFFORTLESSLY COMPELS. A wonderfully atmospheric, dreamy love story-cum-road movie nestled inside a science fiction scenario.” - JEANNETTE CATSOULIS, THE NEW YORK TIMES
THURSDAY, NOV. 11
“Let's come right out and say it upfront:
MONSTERS’ IS THE BEST MONSTER MOVIE OF THE MILLENNIUM.”
‘
Phil Stanford
- MARC SAVLOV, AUSTIN CHRONICLE
Portland journalist Phil Stanford takes another look at a double homicide that’s remained unsolved for 50 years. The Peyton-Allan Files is the second book in Stanford’s proposed Rose City Trilogy about two teenagers, Larry Peyton and Beverly Allan, who were necking in a car on the edge of town when they were slaughtered by someone who had no apparent motive and left behind no physical evidence. A former columnist for The Oregonian and the Portland Tribune, Stanford digs into the files of the detectives who worked on the case. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651. 7:30 pm. Free.
AFTER SIX YEARS, THEY’RE NO LONGER ALIENS. THEY’RE RESIDENTS.
What’s Up Down There?
Ever wondered if pubic hair is supposed to be the same color as the hair on your head? If little old ladies still have sex? In What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend, gynecologist Dr. Lissa Rankin tackles these questions and many more. “Imagine sitting next to a warm, charming, funny gynecologist on a seven-hour flight where they’re handing out free cocktails,” says author Mary Roach. “Reading What’s Up Down There is that sort of experience: delightful, giddy, memorable and illuminating.” Nia Technique Inc., 918 SW Yamhill St., 4th floor, 6-8 pm. Free. Rankin also appears at In Other Words, 8 B NE Killingsworth St. at 7 pm on Wednesday, Nov. 10.
NOW, IT’S OUR TURN TO ADAPT. WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY
GARETH EDWARDS
WWW.MONSTERSFILM.COM
EXCLUSIVE ENGAGEMENT HOLLYWOOD THEATRE STARTS FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 12 Portland (503) 281-4215
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FRIDAY, NOV. 12 Armistead Maupin
Mary Ann in Autumn should excite anyone who gets nostalgic over San Francisco and interconnected lives. Maupin’s new novel is the eighth book in his Tales of the City series, and a fresh look at the now aged “character that started it all.” Bold and modernly sassy, Mary Ann Singleton’s struggle to “reengage with life” gives readers a curious look into the human condition. LEIGHTON COSSEBOOM. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651. 7:30 pm. Free.
CORDIALLY INVITE YOU AND A GUEST TO A SPECIAL ADVANCE SCREENING
Magnolia
SATURDAY, NOV. 13
3.772 x 5”
National Kidney Foundation Author Luncheon
WILLAMETTE WEEK Wednesday: 11/10 ALL.MON-A1.1110.WI as
as
RT
Passes may be picked up at 1048 Lloyd Center, Portland Starting at 10 am on Wednesday November 10th 127 HOURS is rated R for language and some disturbing violent content/bloody images. Under 17 not admitted without parent or guardian. Seats are first-come, first-served basis. One pass per person. Each pass admits two. No phone calls. W hile supplies last. NO PURCHASE NECESSARY. Employees of all promotional partners and their agencies are not eligible.
IN THEATRES NOVEMBER 19 44
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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Six bigshot authors take the stage at the Portland Hilton for the National Kidney Foundation’s inaugural author luncheon: Julie Powell (author of Julie & Julia), Armistead Maupin (author of the Tales of the City series), Stacy Schiff (regular contributor to the New Yorker and The New York Times), Tom Lichtenheld (author of children’s books including What Are You So Grumpy About?), Jacqueline Winspear (author of the Maisie Dobbs mystery novels) and Condoleezza Rice (you might have heard of her). They speak, then mingle with guests. Proceeds benefit dialysis and transplant patients and people at risk for developing kidney disease. Hilton Hotel, 921 SW 6th Ave., 226-1611. 10 am-3 pm. $65 per person; $650 per table; table sponsorships $1,750+.
SUNDAY, NOV. 14 Northwest Indian Storytelling Festival
Native American storytellers from Washington, Oregon, California and Alaska will share their tales at the fifth annual Northwest Indian Storytelling Festival this
weekend. The theme of this year’s tales? Canoes, the vessels that have carried tribe members from one place to another for generations. Lewis & Clark College, 0615 SW Palatine Road, 768-7000. Agnes Flanagan Chapel. Master Storytellers 7:30-10 pm Friday and Saturday, Nov. 12–13. Emerging Storytellers on Sunday, Nov. 14, 1-4 pm. Suggested donation of $5 to $20.
MONDAY, NOV. 15 William Powers
Forget 2.5 kids and white picket fences. William Powers lived off the grid in a 12-by-12-foot cabin and
writes about his struggle to find “a meaningful life with a smaller footprint” in Twelve by Twelve: A OneRoom Cabin off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream. Powell’s on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 228-4651. 7:30 pm. Free.
TUESDAY, NOV. 16 Bruce Forster and Chet Orloff
Bruce Forster’s and Chet Orloff ’s newly released photography book Above Portland features aerial and ground-level photos of PDX and its surrounding areas, plus six essays by local experts on history, architecture, urban planning, transportation and sustainability. Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, 284-1726. 7 pm. Free.
For more Words listings, visit
REVIEW
GREG GRAFFIN ANARCHY EVOLUTION On Bad Religion’s seminal 1988 album Suffer, thesauruswielding frontman Greg Graffin offered this decidedly straightforward declaration of empiricist independence: “Hey, I don’t know if the billions will survive, but I’ll believe in God when one and one is five.” A We’re here, it’s weird, fairly pedestrian gob of punk get used to it. ambivalence, really, but as we learn in Anarchy Evolution (It Books, 304 pages, $22.99), Graffin’s autobiography-cum-evolution primer, such sentiments were (and still are) only the whipping tail end of Graffin’s academic pursuits, which now find him balancing his legendary band’s touring and recording schedule with a part-time gig teaching life sciences and paleontology at UCLA. That Graffin’s book tour coincides with a Bad Religion jaunt confirms it: This man is going to vacuum as much meaningful experience out of life as he possibly can. And Graffin wants the same earthly happiness for us. He might as well have appended this subtitle to Anarchy Evolution: “We’re here, it’s weird, get used to it.” He still doesn’t know if the billions will survive; he doesn’t expect one and one to ever equal five; he views evolution as a chaos of Darwinian competition, random tragedy and accidental glory; but he is certain that humans have evolved into stewards of this tiny speck of the cosmos, and that the fate of this teeming happenstance is best left in the hands of those who’ve adopted a naturalist position, which is, according to the author, “the only perspective that can secure both our happiness as individuals and our survival as a species.” Anarchy Evolution’s first half is a wall-eyed mess of everythingfor-everyone: a history of Bad Religion, an introduction to evolution, a sentimental bildungsroman, and a self-congratulatory celebration of Greg Graffin’s capacity for writing songs and books. Punks who ditched high school halfway through sophomore year (me!) will get a lot out of the first few chapters, which find Graffin dishing on 1980 A.D. punk and 540,000,000 B.C. archaeocyathids, but anyone who stuck it out through biology class instead of dropping out to listen to Minor Threat will either know too much about science or not enough about the Germs (band, not thing that makes you sick) to care. However, the book evolves (ahem) into a rather touching and even rousing manifesto: We might not know everything, but we know enough to know that we should be treating this world and its inhabitants with a bit more foresight and compassion. Some of us (me!) just need a little punk rock to help the inspirational message go down. CHRIS STAMM. READ: Greg Graffin reads at Powell’s on Hawthorne, 3747 SE Hawthorne, 228-4651. 6 pm Tuesday, Nov. 16. Free.
NOV. 11-18 REVIEW
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
DRAFTHOUSE FILMS
SCREEN
Editor: AARON MESH. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, send screening information at least two weeks in advance to Screen, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: amesh@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
37th Northwest Film and Video Festival NEW
[FOUR NIGHTS LEFT] Of the films showing in the regional filmmaking festival’s second weekend, The Adults in the Room has the most buzz. In certain Portland circles, Andy Blubaugh’s autobiographical docudrama is one of the most anticipated premieres of the year; WW proclaimed Blubaugh the city’s filmmaker to know in 2010. The director has put much care into re-creating his teenage affair with a man twice his age, and he may in fact have kneaded all the leaven out of his story—the picture is about as inert as a movie where a 15-year-old boy offers a 30-yearold man a blow job can be. It stalls in the extensive meta-sexual scenes where Blubaugh consults with various writers and critics about his uncertainty over what his experience means, and whether it has anything to do with Sam Adams, and what his movie should say. Nobody gives him the proper advice: Stop dithering, and tell your story. AARON MESH. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. WednesdaySaturday, Nov. 10-13. The Adults in the Room screens at 7 pm Saturday, Nov. 13. See full listings at nwfilm.org.
Buried
31 You’ve seen Tom-Hankson-an-Island and Colin-Farrellin-a-Phone-Booth, now see Ryan-Reynolds-in-a-Coffin! Or don’t. Unlike those other high-concept movies, this Spanish production is a Sundance thriller with no faith in humanity. Reynolds plays an American who wakes up in a wooden crate buried in Iraq, where his civilian convoy came under attack. Using a handy cell phone, he is soon having panicky arguments with various authorities concerning his dwindling supply of oxygen. Director Rodrigo Cortés simply shows off how much he can move his camera within a confined space, and since we never know more than the hero does, there is little suspense. The screenwriter, Chris Sparling, exploits wartime despair for sadistic shock value. R. ALISTAIR ROCKOFF. Hollywood Theatre.
Catfish
A documentary follows New York photographer Nev Schulman, who receives an email from 8-year-old Michigan wunderkind painter Abby. Or does he? PG-13. AP KRYZA. Living Room Theaters. 74
Conviction
This should go without saying, but it is rather gratifying to experience a range of predictable emotions triggered by basic cinematic conventions over a finite stretch of time, and Conviction, ably directed by Tony Goldwyn, is humbly smart enough to limit its ambitions to providing just such an agreeable experience. If that sounds like an overly clinical way to praise a work of art, well, Conviction might as well have been written by a solar-powered calculator, and the autonomic responses to its rigorously graphed narrative are more akin to cell-level absorption of nutrients than aesthetic revelation. This simple tale of sibling chivalry stars Hilary Swank as a blue-collar mom who pursues a law degree in the hopes of one day representing her wrongly convicted brother, played by Sam Rockwell with his usual high-tension-wire reactivity. The hurdles come at Olympic-standard intervals, scenes last just long enough to impart a single salient detail each, none of the actors forgets a line or laughs at inappropriate times, and I felt emotions like sadness, relief and happiness. R. CHRIS STAMM. Clackamas, Bridgeport, City Center, Fox Tower. 72
NEW
Cool It
Bjorn Lomborg’s 1998 book The Skeptical Environmentalist made him a pariah to most climate-change experts. A way-too-neat summary of Lomborg’s cost-benefit stance is, “Yes, 64
mankind is affecting climate but there are much better ways to deal with it than energy-efficient bulbs or capand-trade.” (Certainly he’d get agreement from U.S. House Democrats who blame their 2009 vote for cap-andtrade in part for their party’s majority melting worse than the polar ice cap.) This film follows the affable and articulate Lomborg—a casually dressed Dane who’s director of the wonderfully named Copenhagen Consensus Center—around in his mission. And the 88-minute documentary is crisp and easy enough to watch for most of us who are science idiots. But the admittedly high bar for any science documentary—especially one that ridicules Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth for oversimplification—is to prove its complicated case. That means going beyond interviews with a lot of seemingly smart guys who agree with Lomborg, and obvious juxtapositions of wellmeaning white youngsters obsessing over the future perils of global warming vs. African kids with more immediate concerns like staying alive. This documentary by Ondi Timoner does include Lomborg critics and examines alternative strategies such as algae fuel and wave energy. And that allows it to at least surmount a lower bar—challenging conventional wisdom. PG. HENRY STERN. Fox Tower. NEW
DDR/DDR
[ONE NIGHT ONLY, DIRECTOR ATTENDING] Amie Siegel has made a documentary about the former East Germany that combines Stasi surveillance footage with a lot of moldering architecture. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Tuesday, Nov. 16. Amie Siegel will attend the screening.
Due Date
54 Here’s Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis in Due Date, which feels like the spiritual equivalent of smashing your funny bone against a door frame, popping a couple Vicodin, then smashing your funny bone again really hard. It’s a rehash of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, which you already knew from the World Series ads—but it’s Planes, Trains and Automobiles for a meaner, angrier America. Most of the movie’s interactions culminate in assaults and bloodletting. From the movie’s opening shot (a Downey monologue about a nightmare he’s had about a bear), it feels wired, frayed: It’s like director Todd Phillips’ last flick, The Hangover, if everybody had been chugging Four Loko and woke up the next morning with their hearts racing. Galifianakis’ character is the usual good-hearted simpleton, but with a perm and every boorish tic the screenwriters can load on him: He spends all his money on weed, he laughs helplessly at Downey’s backstory of parental abandonment, he masturbates while his traveling companion is trying to sleep. Near the end of the picture, I was convinced Downey was going to try to throw him into the Grand Canyon. He instead just slams Zach’s face into the door of a truck. Again, this isn’t really a punch line except in the most literal sense. Hardy har har oh my god I am clawing at my own face. R. AARON MESH. Broadway, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, CineMagic, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Lloyd Mall, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Roseway, Sandy, Sherwood, St. Johns Twin Cinema-Pub, Tigard.
Enter the Void
We’ve been pummeled by Gaspar Noé before, but now we graduate into a shared awareness. We are inside of Oscar’s head. Oscar does drugs, deals drugs. His eyes are our eyes, his thoughts our thoughts. When he blinks, the screen blinks. When he thinks, we hear it, seem to think along with him as his gaze wanders the tiny Tokyo apartment he shares with his sister. It is a 93
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TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA MARTYRS: Kayvan Novak, Arsher Ali and Riz Ahmed gesture, while Nigel Lindsay hits the wall.
SUICIDE BOMBING IS PAINLESS FOUR LIONS IS A JIHADIST THREE STOOGES. BY AA R ON MESH
amesh@wweek.com
In his book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, Lawrence Wright tells the story of how, in 1996, the Taliban captured the Afghan capitol of Kabul and began enforcing an insanely draconian interpretation of Sharia law. Not content to ban alcohol, chess and firecrackers, or to jail any man whose beard wasn’t longer than the grip of his hand, the zealots turned their attention to the animals in the Kabul zoo. One young man hopped into a cage and sliced off a bear’s nose, because the creature’s “beard” was too short. “Another fighter,” Wright reports, “intoxicated by events and his own power, leaped into the lion’s den and cried out, ‘I am the lion now!’ The lion killed him.” I thought back to this story quite a bit while watching Four Lions, and not merely because of the title, or because the cell of bumbling British jihadists in Chris Morris’ divine new comedy end up disguised as a turtle, an ostrich and a bear, or even because their understanding of the natural world is so limited that one of them repeatedly mistakes a chicken for a “rabbit with fucked-up ears.” No, the reason is simpler than that. It’s because they’re morons. Their idiocy isn’t entirely caused by their embrace of radical Islam, though (as is the case with any religious fundamentalism) it doesn’t help. Seeking their 72 virgins, the five men who call themselves the Four Lions behave like the Three Stooges. Their aim is suicide bombing. They’ll probably manage the suicide part. Offended yet? Chris Morris is no novice at finding sacred cows and opening a slaughterhouse. He’s not as well known stateside as Sacha Baron Cohen, but he practiced a similar satire on the BBC—though his lampooning went further. Much further. His 2001 Brass Eye “special report” on child molestation, Paedogeddon, sent up sensationalist TV journalism by reporting a pedophile had been blasted into space in a prison satellite—but an 8-year-old boy had been accidentally shipped with him. (“This is the one thing we didn’t want to happen.”) For his feature film debut, he’s brought with him screenwriters Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, who pen the U.K. sitcom Peep Show, specializing in angry, dim young men.
As in Peep Show—and last year’s snarling British political farce In the Loop—the one thing everybody in Four Lions is pretty adept at is insults, often with a tinge of barnyard Pashto and Urdu. (My favorites, though I wouldn’t want to limit them, include “you monkey-bollock duster,” “you floppy camel sphincter” and “pajama-wearing cockerel dicks.”) Most of these lines are delivered by Omar (Riz Ahmed), the cell leader, a family man and the nearest thing to a cool head. The other conspirators include Faisal (Adeel Akhtar), who raises crows for aerial attacks, terrible rapper Hassan (Arsher Ali), and convert Barry (Nigel Lindsay), who hopes to usurp power in the group with his master plan to bomb a mosque
“PAJAMA-WEARING COCKEREL DICKS!” and blame the Jews. The cast is uniformly brilliant, but my favorite is Kayvan Novak as Waj, who looks a little like Ashton Kutcher and who understands martyrdom as the spiritual equivalent of cutting to the front of the line at a theme park: “Rubber dinghy rapids, bro.” Does this seem a hair too…worldly? Here’s the funniest thing about Four Lions: Though its mockery is unsparing and its conclusion unflinching, it humanizes Islamist terrorists in a way that no movie has even attempted before, because it understands they’re made from the same selfishness and stupidity as anybody else. In an interview with WW, Morris says his strongest inspiration was Dog Day Afternoon, and Four Lions is true to that source—it poignantly suggests its criminals are trapped in an action they misjudged at the outset. They’re not entirely different from the police snipers who shoot first, then argue over whether the costumed corpse below is a Wookiee or a bear: “It must be the target, because I shot it.” A similar anti-logic is employed by jihadist Barry, who argues against empty gestures by driving his car into a brick wall. “Was that a gesture?” he asks. “That was for real, brother. Are you as for real as that?” Four Lions is for real. It’s the bravest cinema of the year. 96 SEE IT: Four Lions is rated R. It opens Friday at Fox Tower. Read an interview with Chris Morris on Friday, Nov. 12, at wweek.com.
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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THIS FILM HAS NOT BEEN RATED. Please note: Passes received through this promotion do not guarantee you a seat at the theatre. Seating is on a first come, first served basis, except for members of the reviewing press. Theatre is overbooked to ensure a full house. No admittance once screening has begun. All federal, state and local regulations apply. A recipient of tickets assumes any and all risks related to use of ticket, and accepts any restrictions required by ticket provider. Screen Gems, Willamette Week and their affiliates accept no responsibility or liability in connection with any loss or accident incurred in connection with use of a prize. Tickets cannot be exchanged, transferred or redeemed for cash, in whole or in part. We are not responsible if, for any reason, recipient is unable to use his/her ticket in whole or in part. All federal and local taxes are the responsibility of the winner. Void where prohibited by law. No purchase necessary. Participating sponsors, their employees and family members and their agencies are not eligible. NO PHONE CALLS!!
OPENING EVERYWHERE THIS THANKSGIVING
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SCREEN GEMS WILLAMETTE WEEK WEDNESDAY 11/10 ALL.BLQ-P-A1.1110.WI.PDF TS TS
featuring intervie ws with: Margaret Atwood Steve Almond George Saunders & David Sedaris
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
3.772" X 6.052"
NOV. 11-18
Fair Game
More left-wing celebrity grand7 standing from studio Participant Media, Fair Game is a tribute to compromised CIA officer Valerie Plame and her diplomat husband Joe Wilson. They are played by Naomi Watts and Sean Penn as weepy victims of the Bush administration’s march to war. Time to haul out that news footage of George and the gang, so that Sean Penn can scowl at the television and “Milk” the political glamour for all it’s worth. It’s not worth much. The movie is ridiculous and elitist, reducing the war to one Beltway couple screwing over another. Scooter Libby and Karl Rove are the evil couple who smirk; Plame and Wilson are the indignant couple who shout. The official who actually blew Plame’s cover is nowhere to be seen. Is it because he, too, opposed the administration? Maybe this is Plame’s Hollywood revenge: You’re either with her or against her. Director Doug Liman favors globehopping plots and bland staging. He shows the Wilsons arguing in front of their innocent children, so as to justify a triumphant lecture circuit. “Mr. Wilson!” shouts an admirer. “Mr. Wilson! We came all the way from Portland!” The next sound you hear will be that of about seven moviegoers cooing in unison, as their egos—both regional and partisan— are ruthlessly tickled. PG-13. ALISTAIR ROCKOFF. Bridgeport, Fox Tower.
A Film Unfinished
A vital record extracted from the most repugnant source material, Yael Hersonski’s documentary offers an uncomfortably close reading of one reel of film shot in the Warsaw Ghetto, by Nazi propagandists who seemingly planned to use it as “evidence” their subjects were unfit to live. Hersonski conducts a deconstruction of the deceptive images with detail that often recalls Errol Morris’ best work in this field, but the Nazis themselves confirmed the unintentional testimony of the footage by dumping the reel in a bunker. Viewing it now is extremely painful: Here is European Jewish society being slowly crushed, packed into a 3-square-mile slum, battling for food and the final tatters of dignity. AARON MESH. Hollywood Theatre. 84
NEW
Filmusik: The Little Prince
[ONE NIGHT ONLY, REVIVAL, LIVE SOUNDTRACK] Portland’s everimaginative Galen Huckins composed original new scores, performed live by a chamber ensemble, for this double feature of Oscar-nominated Claymation films from Portland’s own Will Vinton Studios, The Little Prince and Rip Van Winkle. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Thursday, Nov. 11.
For Colored Girls
64 Tyler Perry’s contemporary staging of Ntozake Shange’s 1975 play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf is crass, cringe-inducing and compelling—but that’s the mixed result you can expect when you use your movie to host a marathon poetry slam. It’s like a musical, but the dramatic incidents are links between not songs but recitations. Even Perry’s many detractors should concede that his adaptation is beautifully performed and often adroitly staged, but it hinges on Shange’s venerated poems, which are sometimes eviscerating but more often incomprehensible. You already know whether an evening of sexual assault, spousal beatings and maternal abuse would be useful to you, and
the drama loses momentum every time a character gears up for a soliloquy, but the tenaciousness of the acting isn’t easily dismissed. (Janet Jackson and Thandie Newton both work outside their expected range, but it’s Kimberly Elise, Loretta Devine and Phylicia Rashad—as a wisdom-dispensing landlady not that different from Mrs. Huxtable—who own the show.) Perry pursues all his ideas with a fearless disregard for good taste, and for everything that doesn’t work—like an exorcism scene between Whoopi Goldberg and Tessa Thompson that plays like a black remake of De Palma’s Carrie—there’s another scene that shakes you: Thompson’s visit to a terrifying and sympathetic abortionist played by Macy Gray, or a rape that shatters the audience as well as the victim. You may leave feeling that you were, like two small children midway through the movie, dangled out of a window. But that was kind of the idea. R. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Division, Lloyd Mall, Tigard. NEW
The Freebie
Let me take this opportunity to say that if I were married to the breathtakingly lovely Katie Aselton, I would not be angling for a hall pass to sleep with other people. But here’s Darren (Dax Shepard) waking Aselton’s Annie in the middle of the night to fret that their marriage contains more crossword puzzles than copulating, and maybe a one-night experiment in polyamory would put the spark back in their sex life. You’d think they might try some light bondage or role-playing or feathers first, but that would keep the movie from zipping to its gimmick. Joshua Leonard shows up for an early scene, and that’s another clue that this movie is strongly inspired by Humpday, except instead of featuring two characters making a dare to fuck each other, it has two characters making a dare to not fuck each other, if you see what I mean. Anyway, the movie lives up to all the dreadful stereotypes of mumblecore—privileged urban whiteys failing to communicate!—while adding an unexpected hectoring streak. The Freebie quickly descends into a cautionary tale, mostly because Darren is written as a hypocritical dolt, and honestly I don’t understand what the purpose is of making a movie about experimenting with an open relationship if your only point is, “Don’t experiment with an open relationship.” I was hopelessly infatuated with Aselton, but the movie bored and annoyed the living shit out of me, and most of the blame must go to the director, who is… Katie Aselton. Oops. R. AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters. 35
NEW Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould
Glenn Gould was one of classical music’s first rock stars. The erratic Canadian pianist was infamous for canceling live performances, no-showing to big gigs and generally hating the concert life, bouncing from city to city playing unfamiliar pianos for different directors who didn’t understand his pure artistic vision. He’s been the subject of many documentaries over the years, but Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould, tries—and almost succeeds—in extrapolating information about something far more intriguing than his prodigal childhood: Gould’s relationship with painter Cornelia Foss, wife of composer Lukas Foss, in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Directors Michèle Hozer and Peter Raymont spend much of Genius Within interviewing Foss and focusing on the love triangle, but it paints an unfinished portrait of a man torn between women, music and a deep passion for the absurd. Indeed the best moments of the film are the simple, weird revelations, like Gould’s strange curiosity with pop singer Petula Clark and a scene where he goofs off on the beach, but ultimately we’re left with an unfocused document. Will the real Glenn Gould please stand up? MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Cinema 21. 59
Heartbreaker
81 A French romantic caper starring the simmering Romain Duris as a chaste,
principled gigolo hired by families of women to give them enough confidence to leave their jerky boyfriends. AARON MESH. Living Room Theaters.
Hereafter
22 In Clint Eastwood’s wretched new film, Matt Damon is a medium: He conveys the final, consoling messages of the dead, who would like their families to know that they are happy, and weightless, and sorry if they ever touched them in their bathing-suit areas. All of this unspools agonizingly slowly, in hushed, bleak houses. At times the actors’ pauses are so prolonged I wondered if they were looking for line cues. “What happens after we die?” they ask each other, and Damon, and Google. I don’t know, you guys—but could something, anything, happen before you die? None of Hereafter would be worth talking about (it would be a basic-cable movie) except Eastwood clearly thinks this credulously inept picture is profound. PG-13. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Fox Tower, Lloyd Mall, Oak Grove.
17 years before. BEN WATERHOUSE. Living Room Theaters.
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole
36 Turns out a Zack Snyder children’s movie is exactly like any other Zack Snyder movie: The director of 300 and Watchmen brings to the story of battling barn owls his trademarks of bronze sheen, gratuitous slo-mo, lavish violence and complete incoherence. In its first five minutes, Legend of the Guardians does manage to deliver the howler of the year: “Through our gizzards, the voices of the ages whisper to us.” PG. AARON MESH. Clackamas.
Life as We Know It
16 Katherine Heigl continues her strange career of playing sour, judgmental prigs who need the touch of a man’s man—here, it’s Josh Duhamel, and they are thrown together when their best friends (Christina Hendricks and Hayes McArthur) are killed in a car wreck, bequeathing them said baby. It is exactly like every Katherine Heigl movie, but with the addition of a baby in the background. R. AARON MESH. Clackamas, Bridgeport, City Center, Hilltop, Sherwood.
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REVIEW ROBERT ZUCKERMAN
POV experiment with precedents— Lady in the Lake and the opening of Strange Days come to mind—but when Noé adds dimethyltryptamine to the formula via Oscar’s glowing glass pipe, which we toke on along with him, the world breaks and recoheres into something more than a nifty optical illusion—something more like a drug movie that actually drugs you; or a movie about death that feels like dying; or a reincarnation fable that feels like being born; or, really, a movie that doesn’t feel like a movie, but a long, sublimely damaged life crammed into just over two hours. CHRIS STAMM. Living Room Theaters.
SCREEN
NEW Hump: Portland Mercury’s Amateur Porn Festival
The Merc invites you to meet your fucking neighbors. Not screened for critics because, well, it’s a bunch of local people having sex onscreen, and there are some security issues. Cinema 21. 7 and 9:30 pm and midnight Friday-Saturday, Nov. 12-13.
Inside Job
Inside Job, a primer on securitization and other Wall Street follies, amounts to a wonk-on-wonk assault. Before Charles Ferguson directed the sober Iraq war documentary No End in Sight, he scored a fortune in Internet software development, and he has a fundamental gripe with bankers. It’s not that they’re rich. It’s that they don’t make anything. That is, they don’t make anything except ornately convoluted and exponentially risky methods of speculation—new ways of betting on loans, and betting on other people’s bets on loans. What makes Inside Job worth squinting at, then, is Ferguson’s gusto in calling out the regulators and academics—like Columbia Business School professor Frederic Mishkin, paid $124,000 by the Icelandic Chamber of Commerce for authoring a paper praising the country’s doomed banks—who pretend to be watchdogs when they’re actually lampreys. In the salad days of Iceland, Inside Job notes, a third of the nation’s bank regulators quit their jobs to go work for the banks. What a quaint system! In America, they don’t need to quit their jobs. PG-13. Eastport, City Center, Fox Tower. 71
Jackass 3-D
The Jackasses do what they do because their bodies, like our bodies, like all bodies, will be over soon, too soon, and when Chris Pontius tethers a remote-controlled helicopter to his dick, or when Ehren McGhehey ties his tooth to a Lamborghini’s bumper, or when Ryan Dunn antagonizes a grumpy ram—basically whenever any member of this mad troupe does his Wile E. Coyote dance over the abyss— what he is doing is imagining and then enacting an absurdist invasion of the very scary place where everything falls apart before going dark forever. What will I do without them? R. CHRIS STAMM. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, Lloyd Mall, Sherwood. 90
NEW
Krooked 3-D
[ONE NIGHT ONLY] A 3-D skateboarding film. Clinton Street Theater. 7 and 9 Thursday, Nov. 11.
Last Train Home
Every year, some 150 million Chinese migrant workers head home for the Lunar New Year, in an unimaginably huge mass migration. In this grim and beautiful documentary, director Lixin Fan follows one broken family over the course of several New Years, as Mr. and Mrs. Zhang make their annual trek from a smoke-filled city through snow-covered hills to visit the family they abandoned some 89
I’VE BEEN WORKING ON THE RAILROAD: Denzel Washington.
UNSTOPPABLE Runaway train, never going back.
Tony Scott’s last two films starred Denzel Washington, as a righteous ATF agent who travels back in time to stop the terrorist bombing of a ferry (Deja Vu) and as a kindly subway dispatcher who foils an armed robbery in a remake of a ’70s thriller (The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3). They were both terrible. So it doesn’t come as a great shock to find Scott’s new movie, Unstoppable, starring decent Denzel foiling a transportation disaster, and it’s even less surprising that the picture is a throwback. It could have been released in 1973 under the title Runaway Train. It is nothing more than a runaway-train picture. But—against all expectations and its own dreadful marketing campaign—it is a really good runaway-train picture. In its direct, steaming way, it is the most satisfying genre exercise Scott has ever made—easily the equal of The Last Boy Scout or Enemy of the State. Like the fateful engine accidentally loosed from its railyard, Unstoppable gains momentum with a beautifully slow build. Its first 30 minutes are little else than an on-the-job instruction course in how freight gets carted through the rusting industrial wasteland of southern Pennsylvania, juxtaposed against an unfolding scenario of how freight should never be carted through southern Pennsylvania. Veteran engineer Washington is teamed with new hire Chris Pine (young Kirk in the Star Trek reboot), and they don’t like each other at all. And then here comes that runaway train going the wrong way on a one-way track, toward them, crashing into horse trailers and loaded with highly combustible molten phenol (“used in the manufacturing of glue,” someone helpfully notes), and if you can’t see the appeal of this scenario being performed with real stunts and a minimum of CGI and two actors who play the material straight and true, then the pleasures of Unstoppable are not your pleasures. But if you are the slightest bit intrigued, let me add that there’s a scene where a guy is lowered from a helicopter down to a train chugging along at some 80 mph, and another scene in which Denzel tells a sneering corporate flunky he is going after that train, but “not for you…I’m not doing it for you,” and both scenes made me feel a little better about the state of contemporary moviemaking. And if you are wondering what the higher value in all this is, I’d respond it’s of no more value than that Lumière brothers short, L’arrivée d’un Train en Gare á La Ciotat, that supposedly made everybody run away thinking the train was heading for them. It’s the value of observing men at work who understand what their machines are capable of. PG-13. AARON MESH. 90 SEE IT: Unstoppable opens Friday at Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard and Wilsonville.
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
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mett
her
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”
– Alison Bailes, MORE MAGAZINE
A SOLID PIECE OF ... FILMMAKING with deep emotion that will capture the “
receptive viewer with surprising force.” – Marshall Fine, THE HUFFINGTON POST
POWERFUL!’’
“
– Robert Levin , am NEW YORK
“Kristen Stewart’s intense, courageous and
AWARDS-CALIBER
performance is really something special.” – Lou Lumenick, NEW YORK POST
OFFICIAL SELECTION
SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2010
SCREEN NEW
NOV. 11-18
Lifecycles
[ONE NIGHT ONLY] A documentary on the making and wearing down of a bicycle. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Tuesday, Nov. 16.
Louisiana Story
[ONE NIGHT ONLY, REVIVAL] The latest selection by Cinema Project couldn’t be timelier, even though it hails from 1948. Robert Flaherty’s Louisiana Story comes generations before oil companies set their sights on Deepwater Horizon, but it shows both a wildcat drilling debacle and the resultant PR campaign—actually, it is the PR campaign, since the documentary was financed by Standard Oil. Flaherty is most famous for 1922’s Nanook of the North, with its Inuit family in staged peril, and a couple of decades didn’t solidify his commitment to verisimilitude: Louisiana Story follows a cherubic Cajun named Napoleon, who divides his time between bestowing good luck on the oil derrick and trying to avenge the apparent death of his best friend, a raccoon named Giorgio, at the jaws of an alligator. So yeah, it’s The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou Sponsored by BP. But it is also exceedingly beautiful, packed with elegant black-and-white compositions and iconic shots of heavy industry. Flaherty’s work sits at the strange crossroads between capitalist propaganda and transcendent art, and you can almost see why the director sold his soul to Standard. AARON MESH. Clinton Street Theater. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Nov. 10. 87
Megamind OFFICIAL SELECTION
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Poor Megamind. Its writers must’ve thought they had a really clever idea—“What if we make an animated superhero movie with the villain as the protagonist?”— until Despicable Me came out this summer and became a sleeper hit built on that very conceit. Outside that basic premise, they’re not the same film, but the two will now be inextricably linked until the end of time—or at least until Megamind is completely forgotten, which should happen before this review even appears in print. Ironically, it’s actually the superior picture—it has better characters, explores the subjectivity of good and evil with greater insight, and doesn’t resort to fart jokes or forced cutesiness—but Despicable Me will endure longer because it reveled in old-school cartoon anarchy in a way most kiddie flicks don’t anymore. Megamind, by contrast, does little to ensure it’ll survive in anyone’s memory beyond its 96-minute runtime. Sure, it’s got some decent voice work from Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, Jonah Hill and David Cross (despite his top billing, Brad Pitt’s appearance is basically a cameo), nice visuals (though the 3-D is unimpressive) and a couple of good gags, the best being Ferrell’s titular giant-headed criminal mastermind illustrated Shepard Faireystyle on a poster emblazoned with the phrase “No You Can’t.” But it all feels stultifyingly typical. PG. MATTHEW SINGER. 3-D: Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, Cornelius, Division, Lloyd Center, Lloyd Mall, Pioneer Place, Sandy, Sherwood. 2-D: Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Lloyd Mall, Oak Grove, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard. 66
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 10, 2010 wweek.com
NEW
Morning Glory
Morning news shows are made tolerable only by the grogginess of a pre-work stupor, and they grow more irritating with each sip of coffee. As such, they’re ripe for skewering, and at times Morning Glory nails the parody while getting at the heart of why people watch this tripe every day. Rachel McAdams is a plucky producer steering a fourth-place Today Show knockoff back into relevance. To do so, she hires a disgraced journalist (Harrison Ford, playing a grumpy 51
ART APPROVED AE APPROVED CLIENT APPROVED
Harrison Ford-y cross between Mike Wallace and Dan Rather) as lead anchor. Sparks immediately fly between Ford and co-anchor Diane Keaton, a Katie Couric type whose crowning achievement is a story in which she has her pap smear filmed. This should sound familiar to anyone who has ever watched Regis Philbin come close to slapping Kelly Ripa, and there’s some biting satire in the mix (like Broadcast News for teenage girls). But director Roger Michell (Notting Hill) dumps all sorts of NutraSweet into the mix, forcing in a dull romance and loads of McAdams acting quirkily. Morning Glory even-
tually becomes the equivalent of watching a two-hour morning show—one that gets more obnoxious with each sip of cheap pandering and sentimental sludge. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Living Room Theaters, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard.
Never Let Me Go
64 With its focus on an inseparable trio of British boardingschool students raised for their organs, Never Let Me Go feels like a Harry Potter movie for the clini-
REVIEW MAGNOLIA PICTURES
A DON T- MISS MOVIE!
“
THEY CAN’T SEE ME IF I WEAR THIS MASK: Whitney Able.
MONSTERS Last summer, District 9 proved to be a science-fiction film palatable for audiences outside the nerd domain. Like Cloverfield, it employed political allegory and that Blair Witch-y hand-held camera effect that can make the fantastical seem relatable and turn run-of-the-mill sci-fi films into classics. At first glance it seems that Monsters, written and directed by newcomer Gareth Edwards, aspires to be in the vein of those films, but it becomes apparent the movie’s low equipment budget (a staggeringly small $15,000) hasn’t provided the resources to wow the way a sci-fi film is expected to; instead, the movie does a weak imitation of Lost in Translation, only with giant octopuses wandering around. Even with a few thrilling moments, the film falls short in both its political and romantic storytelling. Monsters imagines that a space probe containing alien samples crashed over Central America in 2006, and its contents have caused half of Mexico to be quarantined as an “infected zone.” Andrew Kaulder (Scoot McNairy) is a photojournalist who is entrusted with sending tourist Sam Wynden (Whitney Able) safely home after she is injured in Mexico, and inevitably they must pass through the infected zone to do so. The low budget would be impressive if it weren’t so glaringly obvious throughout the film. Simply put, a movie called Monsters should not skimp on the monsters—especially when the two leads are not nearly engaging enough to make up for the lack of action. To Edwards’ credit, the monsters are pretty cool: They’re half octopus, half woolly mammoth; their floating, glow-in-the-dark tentacles make them both mesmerizing and menacing. If only we got to see them more. In their place is a hollow story of two strangers in a strange place, as told with minimal dialogue and a lot of thoughtful-sounding music. The camera is kind to Able, but her grating voice and lack of chemistry with McNairy will keep you impatiently waiting for the next monster to appear. Even when the danger of these creatures seems near, the film’s slow, meditative tone doesn’t jibe with the threat of a monster attack enough to maintain drama. And by the time our two adventurers near the American border and one muses, “It’s different looking at America from the outside in,” you want to slap your forehead for the lame, last-minute attempt at a political statement. In a filmmaking era when a camera costs more than all the equipment on this film, Edwards should be given his due—his abilities as a director are inarguable. As a writer, he could use some help, and though this movie falls into the forgettable category, perhaps his next movie will allow him a budget worthy of his talents. ALI ROTHSCHILD. Didn’t you say there were going to be monsters?
56
SEE IT: Monsters opens Friday at the Hollywood Theatre.
PA R A M O U N T P I C T U R E S
NOV. 11-18
SCREEN
The Tillman Story
The last words of Pat Tillman, uttered in an Afghani canyon in the last moments before one of his fellow American soldiers blew his head off, were a desperate, enraged assertion of identity: “I’m Pat fucking Tillman!” In the days following the death of the star NFL safety, who left the Arizona Cardinals to enlist as an Army Ranger, the military began a campaign to erase all traces of that individuality. This movie restores it. AARON MESH. Broadway. 85
UNFORGETTABLE.
“
HANDS DOWN AMONG THE FUNNIEST AND
MOST TRANSGRESSIVE MOVIES OF THE YEAR .” Todd Gilchrest, WALL STREET JOURNAL
A SHOCKINGLY HILARIOUS, STILETTO-SHARP SATIRE.”
“
A.O. Scott, THE NEW YORK TIMES
“
THIS IS AN EXTRAORDINARY FILM.
‘FOUR LIONS’ WILL PROVOKE RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION, SERIOUS THOUGHT – AND LAUGHTER.” Michael Ordoña, LOS ANGELES TIMES
A FILM BY
CHRIS MORRIS
Tommy
[ONE WEEK ONLY, REVIVAL] That deaf, dumb and blind kid sure plays a mean pinball. Clinton Street Theater. 7 and 9:15 pm FridayThursday, Nov. 12-18.
MORNING GLORY cally depressed. R. AARON MESH. Fox Tower. NEW
Night and the City
[THREE NIGHTS ONLY, REVIVAL] Richard Widmark gets chewed up and spit out of this 1950 noir. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7 and 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, 3 pm Sunday, Nov. 12-14.
Paranormal Activity 2
36 How many Paranormal Activities does it take before they become…normal? Paranormal Activity 2 is a prequel, which rather hurts the illusion that, once again, this is “real footage” of a “real family” tormented by “real horrormovie clichés.” Characters from the first Paranormal Activity drop in, maybe so you’ll buy that one on DVD. R. ALISTAIR ROCKOFF. Broadway, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cornelius, Division, Hilltop, Lloyd Mall, Oak Grove, Sherwood. NEW
Priceless
[ONE NIGHT ONLY] A documentary on campaign-finance reform. Eliot Chapel at First Unitarian Church, 1011 SW 12th Ave. 7 pm Tuesday, Nov. 16.
Red
Turns out the AARP Team of Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and John Malkovich is as contrived as The A-Team. You know the drill: Retired CIA spook Willis is marked for death and spends two hours “getting the band back together” to kill people. Yet the biggest surprise of Red is how much fun the familiar can be. Most of the joy in Red (“retired, extremely dangerous”) comes from watching the cast let the ham juice fly. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Moreland, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Sandy, Sherwood, St. Johns Twin Cinema-Pub, Tigard. 82
NEW
Rock ’n’ Roll High School
[ONE NIGHT ONLY, REVIVAL] The Ramones invade a high school in 1979. Screened with a book signing for Destroy All Movies!!!, a guide to punks on film. See preview on page 25. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Tuesday, Nov. 16.
Saw 3-D
Jackpot dismembers in an additional dimension. Not screened for critics. R. 3-D: Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Bridgeport, Sandy. 2-D: Sherwood.
Secretariat
38 Beaverton screenwriter Mike Rich and the other collaborators on Secretariat aren’t just slathering on gratuitous religious language; they’re using it as a dog whistle for the target audience, which will recognize that this is a sanctified underdog story in which the underdogs own horse stables. Verily, I say unto thee: Horseshit. PG. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cornelius, Division, Hilltop, Lake Twin, Living Room
Theaters, Lloyd Mall, Oak Grove, Sherwood, Tigard. NEW
Skyline
Aliens beam helpless humans into their spaceships. Critics are not invited. Look for a review on wweek. com. PG-13. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, Cinetopia, City Center, Cornelius, Division, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Sandy, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville.
The Social Network
The early critical dispute over The Social Network, the Facebook origin movie (directed by David Fincher! Script by Aaron Sorkin!), is whether it is a cyberpunk Citizen Kane or a geek Gatsby. And The Social Network actually is superior entertainment. It is the most intellectually electrifying cinema of the year. Say what you will about Sorkin, who seemingly hits the “like” button on himself daily, but his script recognizes that rage is our culture’s prevailing mood. Even the haves feel themselves to be have-nots. PG-13. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Bridgeport, City Center, Lake Twin, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, Tigard. 94
Something’s Gonna Live
A documentary looks at friendship between octogenarian filmmakers, including the great cinematographers Haskell Wexler and Conrad Hall. Hollywood Theatre.
Tamara Drewe
Writing—or at least typing— always looks a little silly onscreen, but Stephen Frears (The Grifters, The Queen) makes the craft look especially preposterous in the opening minutes of Tamara Drewe, which find the denizens of a British writer’s retreat clacking out inanities on laptops. They are no more dignified in their lives. “Can I tempt you?” the colony’s proprietress (Tamsin Greig) asks as she passes around a tray of biscuits, and of course nobody can say no to any carnal appetite— especially not after the homecoming of Tamara (Gemma Arterton), a local girl who returns with her nose smaller and other places grown significantly. The movie, based on a comic by Posy Simmonds, is the sort of barbed romantic farce Kingsley Amis used to specialize in. Everyone in the picture—even the tabloid-perusing schoolgirls— wants something they haven’t got, and everyone is just horrible enough that you’re dying to know what their comeuppance will be. (It involves cows. Lots of cows.) As the season of bloated, tony films starts its boring trudge, Frears has snuck in a deliciously toxic little bonbon. R. AARON MESH. Fox Tower. 84
Taqwacore: The Birth of Punk Islam NEW
A documentary on Pakistan’s burgeoning punk scene. See review on page 25. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 8 pm Saturday, Nov. 13. $5.
NEW
The Town
70 You know a movie has a wicked sick codependency with the city of Boston when it culminates with a robbery of Fenway Park. The Town’s climactic heist—probably the first time Ben Affleck has snuck into a Red Sox game incognito—is every Massachusetts townie’s fever-pitch dream, with machine-gun fire spattering across the stadium’s greenpainted concrete pillars. But the movie suggests, at least as much as did Affleck’s last directing entry, Gone Baby Gone, that Beantown loyalty is something like a disease of inbreeding. R. AARON MESH. Broadway.
Waiting for Superman
Waiting for “Superman” 61 is not a bad way to spend two hours. The documentary from Davis Guggenheim, director of An Inconvenient Truth, introduces viewers to five cute kids on the precipice of academic failure and follows them and their struggling parents as they try to enroll in what they think are better schools. But the solutions the film offers are too limited, too neat. BETH SLOVIC. Fox Tower, Hollywood Theatre.
WRITTEN BY CHRIS MORRIS JESSE ARMSTRONG & SAM BAIN DIRECTED BY CHRIS MORRIS
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MEGAMIND’ IS MEGA , MEGA”, MEGA FUNNY!
ONE OF THE BEST ANIMATED FILMS OF THE YEAR!”
“
“‘
FOX-TV, KEVIN McCARTHY
FOX5 NEWS NEW YORK, PAT COLLINS
Welcome to the Rileys
Stop me if you’ve heard this one: James Gandolfini walks into a strip club. Wait, wait—it’s not the Bada Bing, and Gandolfini isn’t Tony Soprano. He’s Doug Riley, a plumbing-supply salesman from Indianapolis, and his first instinct when confronted in New Orleans with a foul-mouthed, propositionhappy hooker (Kristen Stewart) is to move onto her couch and take care of her as the daughter he lost to a car wreck. Instead of a Bad Lieutenant, he’s a Good Plumber. Somehow the movie, directed by Tony Scott’s nephew Jake Scott, skips past or directly addresses most of the creepiness and schmaltz in this scenario, and it also offers a wonderful concurrent movie, a slowmotion comedy of Doug’s wife, Lois Riley (Melissa Leo), emerging from her shut-in existence to find her husband. As for Stewart, she refers to her “cooter” a lot, and her dark, glowering performance will be a revelation to anybody who hasn’t seen a Kristen Stewart movie in the past four years. Still, she’s never uninteresting to watch sulk, and Gandolfini shows an authentic decency no director has allowed him to reveal before. R. AARON MESH. Fox Tower. 68
MAGNOLIA
3.772 x 3.5”
WILLAMETTE WEEK Thursday: 11/11 ALL.FLN-A1.1111.WI jm
jm
RT
RT
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger
60 Isn’t life beautiful and ironic?” murmurs Antonio Banderas as an oblivious art dealer—and, this being a Woody Allen movie, the second half is correct. This being an evennumbered year, Allen sets the film in Europe, with a narrator. A roundelay of Britons engage in varying shapes and degrees of self-deception: Gemma Jones sees a fortune-teller who offers platitudes and Scotch; Anthony Hopkins marries a prostitute (Lucy Punch); Naomi Watts mulls an affair; her husband Josh Brolin has more success as an adulterer, while failing as a novelist. “Christ, no one wants to get old!” Jones cries in a panic. “I don’t want to get old!” More Scotch? R. AARON MESH. Fox Tower.
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Academy Theater
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“A Hilarious Comedy.” *472122* -Caryn James, Marie Claire
THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH GRANDMA: Discussion question: Why are Swedish rape movies so popular with retirees? The other day I was in my local library branch, dropping off my ballot, and overheard the silverhaired librarian discussing the movie version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. “It was so…” she said, searching for a word, “so…so…beautiful.” Well, that is one way to put it. Anyway, the Stieg Larsson adaptation starting a second run this week isn’t Dragon Tattoo but The Girl Who Played With Fire—but it replays the rape scene from the first movie, so you can take your grandmother and feel uncomfortable while she doesn’t mind one bit. AARON MESH. Academy, Laurelhurst. Best paired with: BridgePort Hop Harvest. Also showing: African-American Film Festival (Bagdad).
“A Smart, Sparkling Comedy.” -Glamour
DOWNTOWN
“The Feel Good Movie Of The Year!” -Shawn Edwards, FOX-TV
Broadway Metro
1000 SW Broadway, 800-326-3264 DUE DATE 2:30, 4:45, 7 Fri 9:30 Sat 9:30 Thu 9:45 HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 Thu 12:01 PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 2:45, 5:15, 7:30 Fri-Sat 10 THE TILLMAN STORY 2:15, 4:30, 7:15 Fri 9:45 Sat 9:45 Thu 10 THE TOWN 2, 5, 7:45
Fox Tower Stadium
846 SW Park Ave., 800-326-3264 CONVICTION 12:30, 5:20 Mon-Thu 10am Fri 10 Sat 10 Sun 10 COOL IT 12:20, 2:40, 4:50, 7:15, 9:35 FAIR GAME 12, 2:25, 2:55, 4:45, 7:10, 7:45, 9:40 FOUR LIONS 12:10, 2:30, 4:55, 7:30, 9:50 HEREAFTER 12:45, 4:10, 7, 9:45 INSIDE JOB 12:40, 3, 5:25, 7:50, 10:10 NEVER LET ME GO 2:50, 7:40 TAMARA DREWE 12:15, 2:45, 5:10, 7:35, 10 WAITING FOR SUPERMAN 12:05, 2:35, 5, 7:25, 9:55 WELCOME TO THE RILEYS 12:25, 3:05, 5:30, 7:55, 10:15 YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER 12:35, 5:15 Mon-Thu 10:05am Fri 10:05 Sat 10:05 Sun 10:05
Living Room Theaters 341 SW 10th Ave., 971-222-2010 CATFISH 12:10, 2:40, 4:50, 7, 9 ENTER THE VOID 12, 4:30, 8:45 HEARTBREAKER 2:10, 7:30 LAST TRAIN HOME 12:30, 3, 5:15, 7:45, 9:45 MORNING GLORY 11:50am, 2:20, 4:40, 7:15, 9:30 SECRETARIAT 1:20, 4, 6:40, 9:15 THE FREEBIE 3:10, 5, 6:50, 9:50 Fri-Tue 12:20
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8704 N Lombard St., 503-286-1768 DUE DATE 5:30, 7:30, 9:30 Sat-Sun 1:30, 3:30 RED Fri-Sun, Tue-Thu 5:55, 8:30 Mon 8
NORTHEAST Laurelhurst Theater
2735 E Burnside St., 232-5511 THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE Fri-Sun 4, 9:05 Mon-Thurs 9:05 DESPICABLE ME Sat-Sun 1:40 THE AMERICAN FriThurs 6:45 GET LOW Fri 7:30 Sat-Sun 1:10, 7:30 Mon-Thurs 7:30 SCOTT PILGRIM Fri-Sun 4:30, 9:45 Mon-Thurs 9:45 INCEPTION Fri 7 Sat-Sun 1, 7 Mon-Thurs 7 MACHETE Fri-Sun 4:15, 10 Mon-Thurs 10 COOL HAND LUKE Fri-Thurs 9:30 WINTER’S BONE Fri 4;40, 7:15 SatSun 1:30, 4;40, 7:15 MonThurs 7:15
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Lloyd Center Stadium 10 Cinema
1510 NE Multnomah Blvd., 800-326-3264 DUE DATE 11:50am, 2:15, 2:45 Fri 12:20, 4:45, 5:15, 7:15, 7:45, 9:45, 10:15 Sat 4:45, 5:15, 7:15, 7:45, 9:45, 10:15 Sun 12:20, 4:45, 5:15,
7:15, 7:45, 9:45, 10:15 Mon 12:20, 4:45, 7:15, 9:45 Tue 12:20, 4:45, 5:15, 7:15, 7:45, 9:45, 10:15 Wed 12:20, 4:45, 5:15, 7:15, 7:45, 9:45, 10:15 Thu 12:20, 4:35, 5:15, 7:45, 10:15 HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 Thu 12:05 LES MISERABLES: 25TH ANNIVERSARY LIVE FROM THE O2 Wed 7:30 MEGAMIND 12, 2:30, 5 FriTue 7:30, 10 MEGAMIND 3D 11:30am, 2, 4:30, 7 Fri 9:30 Sat 9:30 Sun 9:30 Mon 9:30 Tue 9:30 Wed 9:30 Thu 9:20 MORNING GLORY 11:40am, 2:25, 5:05, 7:50, 10:25 RED 12:40, 3:45, 6:45, 9:35 SKYLINE 11:45am, 2:10, 4:40, 7:10 Fri 9:50 Sat 9:50 Sun 9:50 Mon 9:50 Tue 9:50 Wed 9:50 Thu 9:30 THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: DON PASQUALE Sat 10am THE SOCIAL NETWORK 12:30, 3:55, 6:55 Fri-Wed 10:05 UNSTOPPABLE Fri 11:35am, 2:05, 4:50, 7:25, 9:55 Sat 11:35am, 2:05, 4:50, 7:25, 9:55 Sun 11:35am, 2:05, 4:50, 7:25, 9:55 Mon 11:35am, 2:05, 4:50, 7:25, 9:55 Tue 11:35am, 2:05, 4:50, 7:25, 9:55 Wed 11:35am, 2:05, 4:50, 7:25, 9:55 Thu 12:10, 2:50, 5:25, 8, 10:30
Lloyd Mall 8 Cinema
2320 Lloyd Center Mall, 800-326-3264 DUE DATE 12:15, 3:20, 6:25, 9:10 FOR COLORED GIRLS 11:55am, 12:30, 2:55, 3:30, 6:05, 6:30, 9:05, 9:30 HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 Thu 12:01 HEREAFTER 12:05, 8:55 JACKASS 3D 12:10, 3:25 Fri-Wed 6:20, 9:25 MEGAMIND 12:35, 3:35, 6:35, 9:35 MEGAMIND 3D 12, 3, 6, 9 PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 2 12:20, 3:05, 6:15, 9:20 SECRETARIAT 3:15, 6:10
Roseway Theatre
7229 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-282-2898 DUE DATE 2:30, 5:15, 8
NORTHWEST Cinema 21
616 NW 21st Ave., 503-223-4515 GENIUS WITHIN: THE INNER LIFE OF GLENN GOULD 4 Sun-Thu 7 Sat 2 Sun 2
3451 SE Belmont St., 503-238-1617 DESPICABLE ME 12:45, 5:05 INCEPTION 2:25, 6:50, 9:25 THE EXPENDABLES 9:20 THE OTHER GUYS 3 TOY STORY 3 1, 5 WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS 7
Bagdad Theater
3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-249-7474 BADAGWELL IN ACTION Fri 7:30 DESPICABLE ME Sat 5:15 FLAGS, FEATHERS AND LIES Sat 5:45 FREEDOM RIDERS Fri 5 GOOD HAIR Sat 8:20 IMAGINING HOME Sat 2 INCEPTIONSun 7:35 Mon 6 STUBBORN AS MULE! Sun 2 THE OTHER GUYSSat 10:45am Mon 9 THE WALKING DEAD Sun 10am UP FROM THE BOTTOMS: THE SEARCH FOR THE AMERICAN DREAM Sat 3:40 WHY US? LEFT BEHIND AND DYING Sun 12
Century at Clackamas Town Center
12000 SE 82nd Ave., 800-326-3264 CONVICTION 3:35, 9:05 Fri-Sun 10:15am DUE DATE 11:10am, 12:30, 1:45, 3, 4:15, 5:30, 6:45, 8, 9:15, 10:30 Fri-Sun 10am FOR COLORED GIRLS 1:05, 4:05 Fri-Tue 7:05 Fri 10am, 10:05am Sat 10am, 10:05am Sun 10am, 10:05am Mon 10:05 Tue 10:05 Thu 10:05 HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS: PART 1 Thu 12:06 JACKASS 3DFri 8:55 Sat 8:55 Sun 8:55 Mon 8:55 Tue 8:55 Wed 8:55 Thu 8:40 LEGEND OF THE GUARDIANS: THE OWLS OF GA’HOOLE 3DFri 12:10, 2:45, 5:15 Sat 12:10, 2:45, 5:15 Sun 12:10, 2:45, 5:15 Mon 12:10, 2:45, 5:15 Tue 12:10, 2:45, 5:15 Wed 12:10, 2:45, 5:15 Thu 11:55am, 2:25, 5 LES MISÉRABLES THE 25TH ANNIVERSARY Wed 7:30 LIFE AS WE KNOW IT 11:25am, 2:05, 4:45, 7:35, 10:20am MEGAMIND 12:20 Fri 2:55, 5:35, 8:15 Sat 2:55, 5:35, 8:15 Sun 2:55, 5:35, 8:15 Mon 2:55, 5:35, 8:15 Tue 2:55, 5:35, 8:15 Wed 2:55, 5:35, 8:15 Thu 2:50, 5:20, 7:55 MEGAMIND 3D 11:05am, 11:45am, 1, 1:40, 2:25, 5, 7:40, 10:15am Fri 10:20am, 3:40, 4:25, 6:20, 7, 9:40 Sat 10:20am, 3:40, 4:25, 6:20, 7, 9:40 Sun 10:20am, 3:40, 4:25, 6:20, 7, 9:40 Mon 3:40, 4:25, 6:20, 7, 9:40 Tue 3:40, 4:25, 6:20, 7, 9:40 Wed 3:40, 4:25, 6:20, 7, 9:40 Thu 3:30, 4:15, 6:10, 6:40, 9:10 SUBJECT TO CHANGE. CALL THEATERS OR VISIT WWEEK.COM/MOVIETIMES FOR THE MOST UP-TODATE INFORMATION FRIDAY-THURSDAY, NOV. 12-18, UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED