christopher onstott
WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
bring the noise YOUNG AFRICAN-AMERICANS ARE LEADING THE PORTLAND PROTESTS AGAINST POLICE VIOLENCE. BUT CAN THEY MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE? by aaron mesh page 7
wweek.com
VOL 41/06 12.10.2014
NEWS
FOOD
MOVIES
P. 15
P. 29
P. 49
Project censored.
Bamboo’s odd new izakaya.
Reese Witherspoon goes Wild.
2
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
ALLISON KEREK
FINDINGS
Page 53
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 41, ISSUE 6.
The mayor, Charlie, is shook right now. 7
Weezer is the Saturday Night Live of alt-rock. 33
Two-thirds of women in prison are mothers. 10
Two local rappers perform a skit in which they kidnap the cast and crew of Portlandia. 35
Seawater pH has decreased by about 0.02 per decade in the Iceland and Barents seas since the late 1960s. The mainstream
media may have been hiding this from you…until now! 15
Salt & Straw tried to make Earl Blumenauer’s fruitcake tasty, and failed. 28
ON THE COVER:
At least one rural Oregon brewery hosts a Bible study and a knitting group. 47 Chris Rock appears to idolize
Woody Allen. 51
If you would like to see Santa as an ax murderer, there is a place. 53
OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:
A Nov. 25 protest, photographed by Christopher Onstott.
Uber opened for business in Portland without permission and got sued.
STAFF Editor-in-Chief Mark Zusman EDITORIAL Managing Editor for News Brent Walth Arts & Culture Editor Martin Cizmar Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, Aaron Mesh, Beth Slovic Copy Chief Rob Fernas Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, James Yu Stage & Screen Editor Rebecca Jacobson Web & Projects Editor Matthew Korfhage Music Editor Matthew Singer Books Penelope Bass Dance Kaitie Todd
Visual Arts Richard Speer Editorial Interns Gabriella Dunn, Shannon Gormley, James Helmsworth, Miller Resor, Dakota Smith CONTRIBUTORS Nathan Carson, Rachel Graham Cody, Pete Cottell, Jordan Green, Jay Horton, AP Kryza, John Locanthi, Grace Stainback, Mark Stock PRODUCTION Production Manager Dylan Serkin Art Director Kathleen Marie Special Sections Art Director Kristina Morris Graphic Designers Mitch Lillie, Xel Moore Production Intern Daniel Cole
Our mission: Provide Portlanders with an independent and irreverent understanding of how their worlds work so they can make a difference.
Willamette Week is published weekly by
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.
Main line phone: (503) 243-2122 fax: (503) 243-1115
City of Roses Newspaper Company 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210.
Classifieds phone: (503) 223-1500 fax: (503) 223-0388
ADVERTISING Director of Advertising Scott Wagner Display Account Executives Maria Boyer, Michael Donhowe, Kevin Friedman, Bruce Greif, Rich Hunter, Kyle Owens, Matt Plambeck, Sharri Miller Regan Classifieds Account Executive Matt Plambeck Advertising Coordinator Iris Meyers Marketing & Events Manager Steph Barnhart Give!Guide Director Nick Johnson Special Assistant for Promotions and Give!Guide Sam Cusumano DISTRIBUTION Circulation Director Mark Kirchmeier
WWEEK.COM Digital Director Ben Kubany Web Production Brian Panganiban MUSICFESTNW Executive Director Matthew McLean Associate Director Matt Manza OPERATIONS Accounting Manager Chris Petryszak Credit & Collections Shawn Wolf Office Manager/Receptionist Sam Cusumano A/R Credit Assistant Ashley Grether Associate Publisher Jane Smith 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 self-addressed, stamped envelope. Questions concerning circulation or subscription inquiries should be directed to Mark Kirchmeier at Willamette Week. 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. Association of Alternative Newsmedia. This newspaper is published on recycled newsprint using soy-based ink.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
3
LEARN THE ART OF GLASS BLOWING Sign up now for classes starting in Januar y. CLASSES OFFERED IN:
Beginning & Intermediate glass blowing. Beginning & Intermediate solid glass sculpture. 8 week classes in the afternoon & evenings.
P O RTL A N D ’S H OT SH O P! 1979 Vaughn Street, Portland, Oregon 97209 • 503.228.0575 • ElementsGlass.com
INBOX PROSECUTING ANIMAL ABUSE
While no doubt a great fundraising tool for the Animal Legal Defense Fund, this is, however, extremely poor public policy and hardly some “model” for other states to follow [“The Animal Lawyer,” WW, Dec. 3, 2014]. This privately funded prosecutor system effectively institutionalizes animal cruelty offenses as crimes less important than others that the state enacts and enforces. Since Oregon has apparently placed such a high importance on laws protecting animals, those who break them deserve to be prosecuted by public prosecutors on the public’s dime. If this isn’t happening—or not happening nearly enough—then it seems this animal rights group (and others so inclined) should be directing their resources at trying to persuade the public and their elected leaders to properly fund and prioritize the enforcement of these laws, instead of essentially creating a second tier of laws that require the services of their privately funded prosecutors. —“Fluster Cucked” I admit some bias because I feel passionately that animal abusers should be punished. That said, I don’t see how anyone can complain about enforcement of the law, regardless of how it is funded. Sure, the private money makes some laws a higher enforcement priority, but not at the expense of any other priority, which presumably is getting just as much public money, if not more (because there is less need to use it for animal abuse cases). —“wpetio”
Are there still spent fuel rods stored at the site of the former trojan nuclear plant, or were they moved to hanford when the cooling tower was dynamited by PGE? Also, would it be legal for a new nuke plant to be sited in oregon? —Inga As you can tell from my thick, lustrous hair, chiseled abs, and smooth, peaches-and-cream complexion, Inga, I’m clearly much too youthful to remember Trojan myself. But I hear from Grandpa it was a clusterfuck from more or less the get-go. Trojan Nuclear Power Plant opened in 1976, only to be closed for repairs for most of 1978 after regulators realized it wouldn’t survive certain earthquakes. This would be a recurring theme. The facility reopened just in time for the 1979 Three Mile Island accident to give nuclear power a permanent PR problem, and in 1980 Oregon voters passed a ballot measure that effectively banned construction of any new nuclear plants in the state. Trojan was originally slated to operate 4
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
WEST LINN DEVELOPMENT
West Linn community development director Chris Kerr says we are anti-growth [“Don’t Be Dense,” WW, Dec. 3, 2014]. Not true! West Linn citizens are for responsible growth, unlike Kerr and our City Council members, who will let those with the deepest pockets do what they like regardless of what the citizens want. Citizens didn’t agree to develop a town center, but the City Council sure thinks that way. It’s very easy to make unpopular decisions regarding the city center proposal and land use in general when it’s not in your neighborhood. Kerr says skepticism will fade. I wouldn’t bank on it. Soon there will be another City Council election. Let’s see how fading skepticism plays out then. —“Bob Muehe”
IMMIGRATION VOTE IN PORTLAND
I’m part-Mexican, live in inner Northeast Portland, and voted no on Measure 88 [“Border Story,” WW, Dec. 3, 2014]. It’s a matter of law, not multiculturalism. Would I expect to waltz into Canada and get a driver’s license if I weren’t a Canadian citizen? I think not. —“straightup”
CORRECTION
In last week’s story on Suicide Girls (“Suicide Is Pantyless”), Nixon—a model for the alt-porn website since 2002—was misidentified as Neon. WW regrets the error. LEttErs to thE Editor must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words. Submit to: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Fax: (503) 243-1115. Email: mzusman@wweek.com.
through 2011. Plagued by technical difficulties, however, and dogged by activists, it closed for good 18 years early, in 1993. Trojan’s iconic cooling tower, however, continued to stand until 2006, when—as you note—it was imploded with dynamite. (This event, captured on video, probably engendered many sustainable enviro-boners among the anti-nuclear-activist crowd.) The reactor core and assorted radioactive bric-a-brac were shipped in 2005 along the Columbia River to Hanford, Wash. But it is indeed true that the spent fuel is still onsite, near Rainier. To this day, it looms over the landscape in 34 separate 150-ton concrete casks, like the great fossilized turds of a dog you don’t even have anymore. But don’t be too hard on old Trojan. Sure, nuclear power destroys part of your planet whenever something goes wrong—but fossil fuels destroy your entire planet while working precisely as advertised. Pick your poison! QuEstions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
5
426 SE GRAND AVE. PORTLAND, OR. 97214 NEXTADVENTURE.NET 503.233.0706
Mad Rock Alien Avy Probe While supplies last!
THIS WEEK ONLY 25% OFF OF ALL M’s Kavu Oden
LiSt Price $199.99 Our Price
Nordica NXT N3W
Solid binding at a great price
LiSt Price $185.00 Our Price
$99.99
Mega Deal!
LiSt Price $699.99 Our Price
$649.99
LiSt Price $270.00 Our Price
$89.99
$389.99
Volkl Yumi At home on groomers or in the trees!
Atomic Tracker 110 Hike mode! LiSt Price $300.00 Our Price
$239.99
Stout W’s boot w/ hike mode.
LiSt Price $110.00 Our Price
$79.99
Full wood
LiSt Price $170.00 Our Price
$44.99
$24.99
$79.99
Demon Waxing Iron Perfect Gift for skiiers and boarders
Salomon Rhythm 13/14
$109.99
$6.99
Black Diamond Powder Baskets Upgrade your polessnow is coming
LiSt Price $29.99 Our Price
$14.99
Rossignol Attraxion II XC Ski Pole
LiSt Price $105.00 Our Price
$19.99
Smartwool PHD Ski UL The perfect ski sock
OUTDOOR SCHOOL croSS-country Ski LeSSon anD tour Sunday, Dec. 14 mt hood national forest $50.00
Let Next Adventure take you to Mount Hood National Forest for a glide on the snow! Want a bigger thrill on a smaller hill? Cross-country skiing is a fun way to explore the snow-covered foothills of Mount Hood. Free XC Ski gear rental!
SnowShoe Day trip Sunday, Dec. 14 mt hood national forest $50.00
Like to hike? Snowshoeing is a great way to extend your hiking season. Winter’s white mantle transforms the familiar summer hiking trail into a snowy wonderland begging to be explored.
30m=$110 35m=$125
$79.99
LiSt Price $22.99 Our Price
roLLinG cLaSS monday nights 8:15-9:45 columbia pool $55.00 Learn how to roll a kayak for your sea kayaking or whitewater adventures.
BaSic creekinG cLaSS Sunday, December 21st Bull run $95.00 Are you a whitewater paddler looking to take your kayaking to the next level? This is the course for you! In this course we will teach you techniques for maneuvering your boat and mitigating risk to make it down the steep creeks that the Northwest if famous for.
Sea kayak reScueS cLaSS monday nights 8:15-9:45 columbia pool $60.00 Learn how to get back in to your kayak with friends or by yourself.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
Scott Fix Goggles
Adjustable venting
Mad Rock Contact 10.2 Gym Ropes
size MD only
Our Price
Giro Montane
Rockered
LiSt Price $25.00 Our Price
FOOTWEAR
LiSt Price $140.00 Our Price
Sturdy boot for NNNBC binding
Martix Voodoo
Technine WMNS T9 Bindings core
Limited edition Large format Goggle BOMBER
Alpina BC 1550
Crater lake bound!
FiveForty Glowstick Electric EG 2.5 B4BC 13/14
Our Price
$169.99
Alpina Atomic Waymaker Odyssey Carbon 90W Edge
LiSt Price $130.00 Our Price
$169.99
LiStt Price $550.00 Our Price
$499.99
W’s carving ski. Includes bindings
For tiny lil feet!
50% off!
$549.99
LiSt Price $600.00 Our Price
Rossignol Temptation 84
Nordica Fire Arrow Jr. Team 1
Includes binding LiSt Price $170.00 Our Price
LiSt Price $30.00 Our Price
ITEMS UNDER $20
Rossignol Roc Jr.
CLIMBING
SNOWBOARDING
Warm and light women’s boot
$169.99
Tyrolia Attack 13 Binding
Granite Gear Vernon
$99.99
Adventure Medical Kits Trail Hiker First Aid Kit
Our Price
$29.99
Our Price
$14.99
Marmot Trestles 0
Stout and Trail Worthy! LiSt Price $49.99 Our Price
LiSt Price $199.99 Our Price
$179.99
Our Price
Wilderness Technology Wilderness TechnolDragon River Dry Bags ogy Denali 2 Tent
60% OFF!
LiSt Price $30.00 Our Price
$139.99
$99.99
Black Diamond Innova 60
mPowered Luci Lantern Great Gift Idea! Our Price
$5.99
$99.99
Industrial Revolutions Clarus Lantern
$349.99
Starting at
LiStt Price $250.00 Our Price
$14.99
W’s Kavu Ladies Leggings
cOmPare at $149.99 Our Price
Great Gift, Great Value!
LiSt Price $19.99 Our Price
$14.99
M’s Langston
SKIING
CAMPING W’s Kavu Lopez
Our Price
W’s Kavu Zelda Hoody
M’s Kavu Big Joe L/S
W’s Kavu Desolate Zip
AAPPAREL!
This week only LiSt Price $110.00 Our Price
$79.99
Five Ten Spitfire Mid
cOmPare at: $20 LiSt Price
$19.99
$2.99
LiSt Price $90.00 Our Price
$59.99
Merrell Rant Evo LiSt Price $2,999.99 Our Price
$2,399.99
Outdoor Products
Bolle AMP Jr. Goggle Digital Compass great fit great price
Great Stocking Stuffer!
Lightweight Rockered Board
Necky Eliza
Fiberglass version
LiSt Price $90.00 Our Price
$53.99
Merrell Rosella Lace LiSt Price $1,149.99 Our Price
$977.49
Wavesport Recon 70 A unique design that advanced paddlers love
UPCOMING EVENTS
Great Sock Giveaway! Saturday, Dec. 13 Grand Store
All day on December 13th, you get 20% off all socks in-store and online. For every pair that you purchase, we’ll donate a pair to a local charity. Santa and all of his helpers will be at Next Adventure to help out and greet the little ones.
LiGhtweiGht BackpackinG for women tuesday, Dec. 16, 7 pm Grand Store free! Join Gossamer Gear Trail Ambassador Heather Knight for an evening discussion on the principles of lightweight backpacking, gear selection, and creative ways to go light on a budget, specifically geared for the woman adventurer.
Snow pLay with DoGS thursday, Dec. 18, 7pm Grand Store free!
Join Whitney La Ruffa of Allgood’s K9 Adventures to learn how you and your pup can play together safely in the snow.
naviGation cLinic thursday, Dec. 18, 7pm paddle Sports center free!
Join modern day Lewis and Clark Patrick Higgins and Michael Bowersox and learn how to navigate the local waterways of the Northwest.
Get out anD paDDLe Sea kaykinG Sunday, Dec. 21st, 8am cascade Locks free!
Can’t wait for summer to go paddling? Neither can we! Bring your kayak to Next Adventure Paddle Sports Center and the first 9 people to the shop get a free ride to Cascade Locks where we will do a paddle in one of the most beautiful locations in the Gorge. Questions call (503)233-0706
WHERE THE UBER MEETS THE ROAD. Portland, your Uber is arriving—in court. The city of Portland on Dec. 8 sued the ride-sharing company and is asking a federal judge to block Uber from operating here until it’s willing to follow city rules. Uber invaded Portland on Dec. 5 in defi ance of City Hall and ordinances that prohibit the operation of taxi services without a city license. The city threatened to ticket Uber drivers and impound their cars. “There’s nothing sharing about this so-called ‘sharing economy’ company,” City Commissioner Steve Novick says. “They want to profit in Portland without playing by the same rules as existing cab companies.” Uber has tried for nearly two years to break into Portland’s taxi and town-car market—turf defended by longtime companies Radio Cab and Broadway Cab, and tightly regulated by the city’s Private For-Hire Transportation Board of Review (“Them’s the Brakes,” WW, July 16, 2014). The company pledges to keep operating. “We remain hopeful,” says Uber spokeswoman Eva Behrend, “that the city will listen to Portlanders who want safe, reliable, hassle-free ride options now.” Jake Kamins, the nation’s only full-time animal abuse prosecutor, last week saw his hard work on a Columbia County cattle case rewarded (“The Animal Lawyer,” WW, Dec. 3, 2014). On Dec. 5, a judge fi ned William Holdner $107,000, placed him on probation for five years and forbid the cattleman, 88, from owning or raising livestock for commercial purposes. The sentence followed a three-week trial in September after which a jury found Holdner guilty of 124 counts of animal neglect. Student journalists at Grant High School have called out Portland Public Schools for its decision to force most Grant students to travel nearly 10 miles to now-shuttered Marshall High School when a renovation closes their building in 2017. Grant Magazine writers Hunter Stewart and Koji Wieber found district officials barely considered a better option: sending students to Jefferson High School, which is much closer to their Northeast Portland neighborhoods than Marshall, located on Southeast 91st Avenue. “The most disadvantaged [Grant] students are going to have the hardest time getting to school every morning,” Wieber says in a video at grantmagazine.com. “The district as a whole has this equity statement saying they want to meet the needs of every disadvantaged student. This is a decision where they did not do that.” Give!Guide has raised $820,000 and remains on pace to reach its goal of $2.6 million. If you contribute on Dec. 11, you can help us get to $1 million while becoming eligible to win an ice-cream party for 200 from Salt & Straw. We list 136 nonprofits in this year’s G!G. Learn more and make your gift at giveguide.org. Read more Murmurs and daily scuttlebutt.
OREGON HUMANE SOCIETY
LiSt Price $34.99 Our Price
$24.99
6
7 10 12 17
GREAT SOCK GIvEAWAy THIS SATURDAy DEC. EC. 13! EC APPAREL
BUY OF THE WEEK
ACTIVISM: Where will the marches over police violence lead? PUBLIC SAFETY: Killing a prison program that actually works. HEALTH CARE: Moda’s president cheated on a credentials exam. MEDIA: Project Censored, the most overlooked stories of 2014.
NEWS
GOT A GOOD TIP? CALL 503.445.1542, OR EMAIL NEWSHOUND@WWEEK.COM
N ata l i e B e h r i N g
BRING THE NOISE YOUNG AFRICAN-AMERICANS ARE LEADING THE PORTLAND PROTESTS AGAINST POLICE VIOLENCE. BUT CAN THEY MAKE A REAL DIFFERENCE? By AARON MESH
amesh@wweek.com
Glenn Waco had just shut down Pioneer Place. He marched 500 protesters into the downtown mall, pressed through groups of holiday shoppers and led them in a chant of “I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” Then the protesters raised their hands and marked 4½ minutes of silence in memory of Michael Brown. Then Waco went out for cheeseburgers. He sits in the Rialto Poolroom with four compatriots who since Nov. 24 have helped him lead protests of a St. Louis County, Mo., grand jury’s refusal to indict a white police officer in the August shooting death of Brown, an unarmed black teenager. The protests—which at times have drawn as many as 3,000 in Portland—have also called out the failure of another grand jury to indict a New York cop in the choking death of a 43-year-old man, also African-American and unarmed, named Eric Garner. Waco is accustomed to standing before a crowd. He’s a 22-year-old rapper from St. Johns, a tall and magnetic performer who’s gained a local following. But he now finds himself a vocal, visible—and accidental—leader of a protest movement. “This isn’t just people screaming in the streets,” Waco says over his bacon barbecue cheeseburger and fries. “We’re organized. The mayor, Charlie, is shook right now. We need to get new officials elected who will represent us.” Isaiah Spriggs, a 23-year-old in-school mentor at Franklin High School, leans across the table: “A lot of people are like, ‘What is marching going to do?’” Waco replies, “What is doing nothing going to do?” The failure of accountability in the deaths of Brown and Garner have set off protests nationwide. The marches in Portland have continued nearly nightly and show no signs of flagging. Yet the people leading the protests are also reaching a crossroads. The local protest organizers want to turn their outrage into action by pressing City Hall for serious reforms of the Portland Police Bureau. Their demands include more federal oversight of the bureau’s use of excessive force. They want an end to the “48-hour rule” that allows cops to keep silent for two days after a shooting. And they want to strengthen the independent police review process—with the hope that more citizen control over reviewing excessive-force cases will mean a better chance of getting violent cops fired. Yet the protesters are up against years of resistance. For decades, efforts at significant police reform have faltered in City Hall, even when the unarmed have been
WACO UP: Glenn Waco, a 22-year-old rapper from St. Johns, has become a leader in Portland police protests, including a Dec. 6 march on Pioneer Place. “The hardest thing is getting somebody to care,” he says. “People need to disconnect from the Internet and connect back to real life.”
killed here in Portland. Mayors and city commissioners have done little to take on the entrenched police union. Mayor Charlie Hales took office two years ago, promising to make reforms after the U.S. Department of Justice found a “pattern and practice” of police violence against the mentally ill. Hales, who oversees the Police Bureau, has made changes in how officers respond to tense situations. But he failed to keep his promise to do away with the 48-hour rule.
“We’re orgaNized. the Mayor, charlie, is shook right NoW.” —Glenn waco On Dec. 9, Waco and other protesters met with Hales in the mayor’s office. Hales pledged to meet with them monthly for the next six months. Leaders such as Waco and other young African-American men have helped decide where the marches will go, and orchestrate the crowds’ chants and hush the crowds in silent protests. But it’s unclear whether Waco and his allies have the political clout and sophistication to create lasting change. Waco believes they can. “It’s not rocket science,” he says. “Charlie Hales needs to realize that he needs to hold the cops accountable for their actions. All we’re asking for is reality. We want real action.” On Saturday, Dec. 6, 500 people gathered in a light rain outside the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse. Facebook postings from an organization called Don’t Shoot Portland had summoned them for a 1 pm gathering. Handwritten posters read “Black Lives Matter” and “White Silence Is Violence.” One woman held up a lid from a white Rubbermaid tub, with letters in marker: “Murder!! Murder most foul! Body cams now!”
At 2:15 pm, the protesters moved north against the traffic in the middle of Southeast 3rd Avenue. Cars froze as the protesters flowed past. They were all following Waco, who was wearing a black hoodie and military jacket, standing nearly 6 feet and a half tall. He tipped a bullhorn up as he hunched his long, stubbled face toward the mic. “No justice, no peace!” he chanted. “No racist police!” Waco was born Loren Ware. He grew up in St. Johns, attending Roosevelt High School and listening to the music of activist rapper Lupe Fiasco. His first encounters with police were frightening. While in middle school, he and friends walked to a skateboard park where he says a police officer confronted them, assumed they were gang members and threatened to unleash a police dog if they didn’t answer questions. “It fuels the anger,” Waco says. “It motivated me to show people, I’m not this thug. Don’t judge me by the way I look.” Waco started rapping when he was 13 and now appears at venues such as Holocene and Kelly’s Olympian. He released his first record last November. His hip-hop name, Glenn Waco, is an acronym for “We Are Change Overall.” He had taken part in activism before, mostly to push back against Portland police shutting down rap shows (“Hip-Hop Stopped,” WW, March 12, 2014). The day of the Wilson grand jury verdict, Waco quit his job at a hardware store and headed downtown. “How could I miss out on this?” he says. “I don’t want to have my grandchildren asking, ‘Why didn’t you do anything?’ I’m just a man with a voice.” Waco’s voice has the potential to marshal new supporters—and his music gives him a built-in audience. “Seeing me lead people actually inspired people in hiphop to come out,” he says. “People I never thought would even care have hit me up and asked when the next protest is. It’s having a ricochet effect.” coNt. on page 8 Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
7
ACTIVISM N ATA L I E B E H R I N G
NEWS
MARCH FORTH: Most of the people at the Dec. 6 police protest were white. Organizers say that’s fine. “Everybody black is not for you,” Glenn Waco says. “You got to work with what you got.”
As the protesters marched up 3rd Avenue, a man driving a silver Hyundai who had been forced to stop decided to lean on his horn. It blared for two minutes as marchers strolled past, some waving their signs in front of his windshield. The driver was Nick Zukin, co-founder of Kenny & Zuke’s Delicatessen. Zukin later posted on Twitter that he agreed with the protesters’ aims—but not their methods. “[Ninety-nine percent] white PDXers protesting racial injustice & police brutality by blocking the 99% from working and holiday shopping,” Zukin wrote. The crowd was more diverse than Zukin described, but the majority of the people who joined in Saturday’s march were white—like Nicole Leggett, who brought her three sons. “They’ve been oppressing by race for years,” Leggett said. “If you don’t think you’re next, you better get rich. We’re all next.” The protest movement called Don’t Shoot Portland began in August, after Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown. The protests, growing in size and frequency since the grand jury decisions in Ferguson and New York, recall the Occupy Portland movement that took over downtown parks in 2011. Many chants, marching tactics and even the protesters themselves are the same. But public outrage over police violence in Portland stretches back much further. The city’s black community has regularly taken to the streets after high-profi le killings of AfricanAmericans by police—including in 1985, after the city saw a chokehold death here. That’s when Lloyd “Tony” Stevenson, a 31-yearold off-duty security guard, went to a 7-Eleven to play video games on the night of April 20, 1985. He helped clerks collar a man who had shoplifted. But when police arrived, they subdued Stevenson. One officer put him in a “sleeper” hold, also known as a carotid artery hold, that cuts off blood to the head. Stevenson died. Those protests did not result in reforms. An inquest ruled Stevenson’s death negligent homicide, but no one was charged or fired. On the day of Stevenson’s funeral, two cops sold T-shirts stenciled with the image of a smoking handgun and the words, “Don’t Choke ’Em, Smoke ’Em.” They kept their jobs, too. Other police killings of unarmed African-Americans have ignited outrage and brought some changes in training—but not enough for many activists. This new protest is organized by Teressa Raiford, a former City Council candidate, and supported by onetime state Rep. Jo Ann Hardesty (D-Portland). They believe they can succeed 8
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
where others failed because national attention has finally turned to police violence, leaving City Hall little choice but to listen. They are also placing their hope in the energy of young activists like Waco. Waco was on the front lines of a protest Nov. 29, when police fired flash-bang grenades at the crowd. Three landed near Waco’s feet and exploded. That helped push him toward becoming a leader. So did Raiford, who encouraged him and other young men to step up. “That leadership is in their DNA,” says Raiford. “Hip-hop has everything to do with this movement. They’re overcoming the fear that they’ll be shot down—not literally, but that people won’t take what they have to say seriously.” Minutes after leading the traffic blockade, Waco stood on the ground floor of Pioneer Place. The demonstrators around him chanted, “I can’t breathe!”—Eric Garner’s last words. They swarmed onto three stories of the mall’s atrium. Looking up at the mall’s oversized silver Christmas ornaments, he declared the protesters’ intentions to shoppers over a bullhorn. “We’re not looters,” he announced. “We’re not rioters. We’re the American people exercising our right to free speech.” The crowd then stood silent for 4 minutes and 30 seconds, to commemorate the 4 hours and 30 minutes police left Michael Brown’s body lying in a Ferguson street. Moments later, they walked across the street to block the glass entrance to the Apple Store. When an Apple employee asked them to stop disrupting business, the demonstrators chanted, “We’re trying to stop a murder!” Waco stood with his fist in the air and his head bowed, silent. Later, at the Rialto, Waco acknowledges he still doesn’t know many of the details of the Portland Police Bureau policies he wants changed. “I’ve been reluctant to step into a leadership role,” Waco says, “because I don’t feel I’m ready. I need to read more. I had somebody say, ‘Yo, that’s the trick: You’re never ready.’” Waco is constantly on Instagram, the photosharing app that’s his social-media platform of choice. At the Rialto, Waco posts black-andwhite photos of himself at marches. “You look at these pictures in black-andwhite,” says one of the people at the table. “It looks like the civil-rights movement.” “It is the civil-rights movement,” Spriggs says. “This has been happening,” Waco says. “Before Eric Garner, we had a Tony Stevenson in 1985. Portland had its own Eric Garner—on MLK [Boulevard]. This is what we need to stop.” WW intern Miller Resor contributed to this story.
Dentistry In The Pearl That’s Something To Smile About!
New Patient
$74 Exam and X-rays
New Patient
Dr. Viseh Sundberg
$49 Basic
Cleaning
(exam required)
Children’s
$59 Exam
& Cleaning
(new patients age 12 and under)
Professional
$99 Home
Whitening
(exam required)
(503) 546-9079 222 NW 10th Avenue www.sundbergdentistry.com Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
9
NEWS
PUBLIC SAFETY A N N A J AY E G O E L L N E R
HARD TIME GETS HARDER OREGON IS CUTTING AN EFFECTIVE PROGRAM TO HELP MOTHERS IN PRISON STAY CLOSE TO THEIR KIDS. BY B E T H S LOV I C
b s l ov i c @ w w e e k . c o m
In 2008, Eva Guzman arrived at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, to begin a sentence for robbery. Eleven days later, she gave birth. “I had my daughter,” says Guzman, now 33. “And then she was gone.” Guzman was already the mother of two children, 3 and 6. In that way, she was not unique; two-thirds of female prisoners in the United States are mothers, according to the Women’s Prison Association in New York. But Guzman’s story behind bars has an unusual ending. When Oregon prison officials released her in August 2013, she had developed stronger bonds with her children, thanks to an intensive rehabilitation program at Coffee Creek, called the Family Preservation Project. The 4-year-old program encourages and helps women to stay in touch with their children, engage in their lives even while in prison, and learn parenting skills many of the women lack. “If I didn’t have the program, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” says Guzman, who now works as a technician at a residential treatment center in Seaside. A study published in June by Portland Community College called the Family Preservation Project “a laudable and effective approach” and called on the state to keep the program going. Now prison officials are cutting the program. Kim Brockamp, assistant director of the offender management and rehabilitation unit at the Oregon Department of Corrections, says the state agency faces a $37 million shortfall in its current budget, and the program is too expensive for the number of prisoners it serves. Advocates for the program say the decision to cut it is shortsighted; it should be expanded rather than axed. “Women need to keep their bonds with their kids,” says Jammie Sherriff, a 2011 graduate of the program. “I wish the program could be open to more women.” At first blush, the program looks pricey: $300,000 a year for 2½ staff positions, supplies and other expenses. It currently serves just 11 women, 17 children and 22 caregivers— often family members looking after the inmates’ children.
10
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
MOTHERLY LOVE: Emma Moore-Montgomery went to prison when her son, Felipe Gonzalez, was a toddler. A unique program at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility allowed mother and son to spend Saturday mornings together twice a month. Moore-Montgomery, now out of prison, credits the program with helping her maintain a bond with Felipe.
The program has graduated another 23 women, none of whom have returned to prison. Compared with the Corrections Department’s total twoyear budget, however—$1.4 billion and 4,500 employees—the program is tiny. Still, Department of Corrections Director Colette Peters asked her agency to cut spending. The program was one of the most expensive per inmate. “It’s just not good fiduciary responsibility to continue this program,” Brockamp says. State Rep. Jennifer Williamson (D-Portland) says Corrections is cutting the program without offering any alternatives. She’s meeting with prison officials next week to find a possible solution. “Right now, it’s this or nothing, and nothing is unacceptable,” Williamson says. The Family Preservation Project grew out of an Oregon Department of Education program started at Coffee Creek in 2003. Corrections later took it over. Guzman was arrested at age 27 for a crime she committed at 16. Police said she had served as a lookout during a robbery that resulted in a 37-year-old man’s death. Some aspects of the program—the workshops, the parenting classes, the group sessions—almost turned her off. Guzman says she was “a really hard case” because she lacked coping mechanisms, and she recalls she nearly quit. “‘I’m done with this thing,’” she says she told the group during a particularly tough session. “I walked down the hall, and I was crying. I looked back, and I saw they were all smiling. I said, ‘Can I come back in?’” The program allowed Guzman regular visits with her
kids, kept her in contact with their teachers by phone, and helped ease the stress on her children’s caregivers. That’s what drew Guzman to the program—the promise of relationships with her children. “I just wanted to see my kids,” she says. Documentary filmmaker Brian Lindstrom, who directed Alien Boy: The Life and Death of James Chasse, has been filming the Family Preservation Project since April for a film tentatively titled Mothering Inside. He says the project helps women understand how they came to be in prison, and how to break the cycles of poverty, addiction and incarceration that could ensnare their children. “This program is deep and it transforms the lives of not only the women but their families,” Lindstrom says. “I truly believe that if this program were expanded, it would significantly reduce recidivism, and shouldn’t that be the goal?” Emma Moore-Montgomery, 31, went to prison in 2007 for criminally negligent homicide and driving under the influence, crashing the car she was driving and killing her passenger, the father of her 3-year-old son. She was released three years ago after serving nearly a four-year sentence. The Family Preservation Project helped Moore-Montgomery maintain a relationship with her son and work through the pain she had caused the mother of the man she killed. “Coming home would have been hard, because [my son] wouldn’t have had even a partial mother figure,” MooreMontgomery says. “That program helped us still be mothers as much as we could.”
It’s time to support Portland, Portland!
Give!Guide is HeRe! giveguide.org Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
11
HEALTH CARE
MEDICAL ERROR MODA’S PRESIDENT WAS CAUGHT CHEATING ON A RECERTIFICATION EXAM FOR SURGEONS. BY BETH SLOVIC
bslovic@wweek.com
Moda Health made a big splash last year when it shelled out a reported $40 million for naming rights to the Portland Trail Blazers’ arena. The Moda Center, formerly the Rose Garden, is the health insurance company’s most visible mark. It signaled a new brand and identity for Moda—covering 1.6 million people in Oregon, Washington and Alaska—as it shrugged off its old name, ODS. The August 2013 announcement with the Trail Blazers came from Moda’s president, Dr. William E. Johnson, a thoracic and vascular surgeon. Johnson, 52, has led the insurance company into its new era, despite what the state’s medical licensing board in 2010 called “unethical” behavior. Documents from the Oregon Medical Board show Johnson was caught cheating
12
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
on a 2008 recertification exam for the American Board of Surgery, a leading certification organization. The board revoked Johnson’s certification for five years. Board certification is entirely voluntary, but it’s expected of surgeons hoping to practice at major medical centers. Dr. Frank Lewis, executive director of the American Board of Surgery, tells WW he can’t comment on individual cases but says the board doesn’t tolerate cheating. “ We consider that unprofessional and view that as a significant problem in a physician,” Lewis says. Johnson, who earned $409,000 in 2013, tells WW he doesn’t know why he cheated on the exam. He says he doesn’t believe the incident affects his leadership of Moda. “It’s not a direct reflection of who I am,” he says. “Sometimes good people do bad things.” He joined Moda in 2009, when he knew he was facing an investigation for the cheating. Johnson says he did not tell Moda about the incident at the time, but disclosed it after he reached a 2010 agreement for “corrective action” with the Oregon Medical Board, the state’s licensing agency for physicians.
Moda CEO Robert Gootee says he’s not bothered by the fact Johnson didn’t disclose the issue when he was hired. Gootee says Johnson’s work has not been affected by the incident. “His work is what we look at, and his work has been exemplary,” Gootee says. Johnson graduated from the University of Southern California College of Medicine in 1989 and earned his Master of Business Administration from the University of Tennessee in 2010. He practiced surgery in Portland for 13 years before joining Moda as director of medical management. He became president in 2013. According to state documents, Johnson first earned certification from the American Board of Surgery in 1998. The board requires recertification every 10 years, and in 2008 Johnson passed the required test. What happened next is described in records from the Oregon Medical Board. “While preparing for the recertification examination for surgeons, [Johnson] improperly accessed a copy of the American Board of Surgery’s written certification examination, surreptitiously made a copy of the examination, and used that document over the next several weeks to prepare a ‘perfect’ answer for the examination,” Oregon Medical Board records read. “[Johnson] took the exa mination. [Johnson’s] score was so high that it r a i s e d s u s picion s a nd t r ig ger e d a n inquiry by the American Board of Surgery. Upon receiving a telephone call that
ADAM WICKHAM / OREGON BUSINESS JOURNAL
NEWS
DR. WILLIAM E. JOHNSON
questioned his preparation for the examination, [Johnson] admitted that he had inappropriately accessed and misused confidential testing material to prepare for the American Board of Surgery’s certification examination.” The state medical board decided not to level formal discipline. Instead, in May 2010 Johnson agreed to perform 100 hours of community service and undergo psychotherapy. Joh n s on de cl i ne d t o s ay how he obtained the test. He says he’s put the incident behind him. “I’ve taken complete, full responsibility for my actions,” Johnson says, “and I’m moving forward.”
WWEEK.COM MOBILE SITE
• BREAKING NEWS • GEO-LOCATING BAR AND RESTAURANT REVIEWS • CITY GUIDES
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
13
NW 9Th + LOVEJOY PEARL DISTRICT 503.477.8604 WWW.PEARLSPECIALTY.COM
OPEN UNTIL 10PM
14
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
PROJECT
CENSORED OCEAN ACIDIFICATION, TORTURE BY U.S. ALLIES AND THE OTHER TOP STORIES IGNORED BY THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA. BY J O E F I T ZG E R A L D R O D R I G U E Z
2 4 3 -2 1 2 2
A R T & C H A R T S B Y A N S O N S T E V E N S - B O L L E N F O R S A N TA F E R E P O R T E R
Our oceans are acidifying—even if the nightly news hasn’t told you yet. As humanity continues to fill the atmosphere with harmful gases, the planet is becoming less hospitable to life as the vast oceans absorb much of the carbon dioxide we have produced. The news media have increasingly covered the climate weirding of global warming—hurricane superstorms, fierce tornado clusters, overwhelming snowstorms, and record-setting global high temperatures. But our ocean’s peril has largely stayed submerged below the biggest news stories. Largely left out of national news coverage, reporting on this dire situation was brought to light by a handful of independent-minded journalists: Craig Welch of The Seattle Times, Julia Whitty of Mother Jones, and Eli Kintisch of Nova ScienceNow. It’s also the top story of Project
Censored, a n a nnua l book a nd reporting effort that features the year’s most under-reported news stories. Since 1976, Project Censored has worked to unmask censorship, selfcensorship and propaganda in corporate-controlled media outlets. The book, Censored 2015, was released in October. The mainstream media poke and peck at noteworthy events at single points in time, often devoid of historical context or analysis. Project Censored seeks to clarify understanding of real-world issues and focus on what’s important. Context is key, and many of its “top censored” stories highlight deeply entrenched policy issues that require more explanation than a simple sound bite can provide. Campus and faculty from more than two dozen colleges and uni-
versities join in this ongoing effort, headquartered at Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Calif. Some 260 students and 49 faculty vet thousands of news stories on select criteria: importance, timeliness, quality of sources, and the level of corporate news coverage. The top 25 finalists are sent to Project Censored’s panel of judges, who then rank the entries, with ocean acidification topping this year’s list. “There are outlets, regular daily papers, who are independent, and they’re out there,” says Andy Lee Roth, associate director of Project Censored. “There are reporters doing the highest quality of work, as evidenced by being included in our list. But the challenge is reaching as big an audience as [the story] should.” CONT. on page 17
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
15
20%–50% OFF* DISCONTINUED ITEMS Oregon’s highest rated Briggs & Riley dealer.
16
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
*While Supplies Last
CONT.
PROJECT CENSORED
1. OCEAN ACIDIFICATION The rising carbon dioxide in our oceans burns up and deforms the smallest, most abundant food at the bottom of the deep blue food chain. One vulnerable population is the tiny shelled swimmers known as the sea butterfly. In only a few short decades, the death and deformation of this fragile and translucent species could endanger predators all along the oceanic food web, scientists warn. This “butterfly effect,” once unleashed, potentially threatens fisheries that feed more than 1 billion people worldwide. Since ancient times, humans have fished the oceans for food. Now we’re frying ocean life before we even catch it, starving future generations in the process. Too many news outlets are beholden to corporate interests, but The Seattle Times’ Welch bucked the trend by writing some of the deepest coverage yet on ocean acidification. Indeed, though Welch’s story was reported in a midsized daily newspaper, this warning is relevant to the entire world. To understand the impact of ocean acidification, Welch asks readers to “imagine every person on earth tossing a hunk of CO ² as heavy as a bowling ball into the sea. That’s what we do to the oceans every day.” Computer modeler Isaac Kaplan, at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration office in Seattle, told Welch that his early work predicts significant declines in sharks, skates and rays, some types of flounder and sole, and Pacific whiting, the most frequently caught commercial fish off the coasts of Washington, Oregon and California. Acidification may also harm fisheries in the farthest corners of the Earth: A study by the Arctic Monitoring
Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide
CO2
+
More Acidic
H2O
H2CO2 Carbonic Acid
Sea butterflies’ shells become deformed
and Assessment Programme outlines acidification’s threat to the arctic food chain. “Decreases in seawater pH of about 0.02 per decade have been observed since the late 1960s in the Iceland and Barents seas,” the study’s authors wrote in the executive summary. And destroying fisheries means wiping out the livelihoods of the native peoples of the Antarctic.
Acidification can even rewire the brains of fish, Welch’s story demonstrated. Studies found rising carbon-dioxide levels cause clown fish to gain athleticism, but have their sense of smell redirected. This transforms them into “dumb jocks,” scientists said, swimming faster CONT. on page 18
Offering Integrative Health Assurance Packages Monday Group Acupuncture for $25
Need help getting back to You? At Integrative Trauma Treatment Center, we offer Psychotherapy, Reiki, Massage and Acupuncture to help you recover from: • motor vehicle accidents • pet loss • survivors of crime • complex trauma • birth/pregnancy trauma
• domestic violence • sexual assault • depression/anxiety • general stress management
Approaching Therapy with Creativity, Compassion and Hope.
Serving Portland, OR & Vancouver, WA. www.traumacenternw.com • 971.266.6910 Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
17
PROJECT CENSORED
CONT.
PAKISTAN
AFGHANISTAN IRAQ JORDAN
ISRAEL EGYPT KENYA NIGE RIA UG AND A TAN ZAN IA
TAINTED AID THE TOP 10 RECIPIENTS OF US AID MONEY
and more vigorously straight into the mouths of their predators. These Frankenstein fish were found to be five times more likely to die in the natural world. What a fitting metaphor for humanity, as our outsized consumption propels us toward an equally dangerous fate. But the changes caused by ocean acidification are gradual. Sea butterflies are among the most abundant creatures in our oceans, and are increasingly born with shells that look like cauliflower or sandpaper, making this and similar species more susceptible to infection and predators. “Ocean acidification is changing the chemistry of the world’s water faster than ever before, and faster than the world’s leading scientists predicted,” Welch said, but it’s not getting the attention it deserves. “Combined nationwide spending on acidification research for eight federal agencies, including grants to university scientists by the National Science Foundation, totals about $30 million a year—less than the annual budget for the coastal Washington city of Hoquiam, population 8,452.” Our oceans may slowly cook our food chain into new forms with potentially catastrophic consequences. Certainly 20 years from now, when communities around the world lose their main source of sustenance, the news will catch on.
2. TOP 10 U.S. AID RECIPIENTS PRACTICE TORTURE Sexual abuse, children kept in cages, extra-judicial murder. While these sound like horrors the United States would stand against, the reverse is true: This country is funding these practices. The U.S. is a signatory of the United Nations’ Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, but the top 10 18
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
international recipients of U.S. foreign assistance in 2014 all practice torture, according to human rights groups, as reported by Daniel Wickham of online outlet Left Foot Forward. Israel received over $3 billion in U.S. aid for fiscal year 2013-14, according to a Congressional Research Service report. Israel was criticized by the country’s own Public Defender’s Office for torturing children suspected of minor crimes. “During our visit, held during a fierce storm that hit the state, attorneys met detainees who described to them a shocking picture: in the middle of the night dozens of detainees were transferred to the external iron cages built outside the [Israel Prison Service] transition facility in Ramla,” the PDO wrote, according to British newspaper The Independent. The next top recipients of U.S. foreign aid were Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan, Nigeria, Jordan, Iraq, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. All countries were accused of torture by human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Kenyan police in Nairobi tortured, raped or otherwise abused more than 1,000 refugees from 2012 to 2013, Human Rights Watch found. The Kenyan government received $564 million from the U.S. in 2013-14. When the U.S. funds a highway or other project that it’s proud of, it plants a huge sign proclaiming, “Your tax dollars at work.” When the U.S. funds torturers, the corporate media bury the story, or worse, don’t report it at all.
3. TRANS-PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP, A SECRET DEAL TO HELP CORPORATIONS The Trans-Pacific Partnership is like the Stop Online Piracy Act on steroids, yet few have heard of it, let alone
enough people to start an Internet campaign to topple it. Despite details revealed by WikiLeaks, the nascent agreement has been largely ignored by the corporate media. Even the world’s elite are out of the loop: Only three officials in each of the 12 signatory countries have access to this developing trade agreement that potentially impacts more than 800 million people. The agreement touches on intellectual property rights and the regulation of private enterprise between nations, and is open to negotiation and viewing by 600 “corporate advisers” from big oil to pharmaceutical to entertainment companies. Meanwhile, more than 150 House Democrats signed a letter urging President Obama to halt his efforts to fast-track negotiations, and to allow Congress the ability to weigh in now on an agreement only the White House has seen. Many criticized the secrecy surrounding the TransPacific Partnership, arguing the real-world consequences may be grave. Doctors Without Borders wrote, “If harmful provisions in the U.S. proposals for the TransPacific Partnership agreement are not removed before it is finalized, this trade deal will have a real cost in human lives.”
4. CORPORATE INTERNET PROVIDERS THREATEN NET NEUTRALITY This entry demonstrates the nuance in Project Censored’s media critique. Verizon v. FCC may weaken Internet regulation, which Electronic Frontier Foundation and other digital freedom advocates allege would create a two-tiered Internet system. Under the Federal Communications Commission’s proposed new rules,
CONT.
PROJECT CENSORED
corporate behemoths such as Comcast or Verizon could charge entities to use faster bandwidth, which advocates say would create financial barriers to free speech and encourage censorship. Project Censored alleges corporate outlets such as The New York Times and Forbes “tend to highlight the business aspects of the case, skimming over vital particulars affecting the public and the Internet’s future.” Yet this is a case where corporate media were circumvented by power of the viral Web. John Oliver, comedian and host of Last Week Tonight on HBO, recently gave a stirring 13-minute treatise on the importance of stopping the FCC’s new rules, resulting in a flood of comments to the FCC defending a more open Internet. The particulars of net neutrality have since been thoroughly reported in the corporate media. But, as Project Censored notes, mass media coverage only came after the FCC’s rule change was proposed, giving activists little time to right any wrongs. It’s a subtle but important distinction.
5. BANKERS REMAIN ON WALL STREET DESPITE MAJOR CRIMES Bankers responsible for rigging municipal bonds and bilking billions of dollars from American cities have largely escaped criminal charges. Every day in the U.S., low-level drug dealers get more prison time than these scheming bankers who, while working for GE Capital, allegedly skimmed money from public schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes, according to Rolling Stone. Dominick Carollo, Steven Goldberg and Peter Grimm were dubbed a part of the “modern American mafia,” by the magazine’s Matt Taibbi, one of the few journalists to consistently cover their trial. Meanwhile, disturbingly uninformed cable media “journalists” defended the bankers, saying they shouldn’t be prosecuted for “failure,” as if cheating vulnerable Americans were a bad business deal. “Had the U.S. authorities decided to press criminal charges,” then-Assistant U.S. Attorney General Lanny Breuer told Taibbi, “HSBC (a British bank) would almost certainly have lost its banking license in the U.S., the future of the institution would have been under threat, and the entire banking system would have been destabilized.” Over the course of decades, the nation’s bankers transformed into modern mafiosos. Unfortunately, our modern media changed as well, and are no longer equipped to tackle systemic, complex stories.
6. THE “DEEP STATE” OF PLUTOCRATIC CONTROL What’s frightening about the puppeteers who pull the strings of our national government is not how hidden they are, but how hidden they are not. From defense contractors to multinational corporations, a wealthy elite using an estimated $32 trillion in tax-exempt offshore havens are the masters of our publicly elected officials. In an essay written for Moyers & Company by Mike Lofgren, a congressional staffer of 28 years focused on national security, this cabal of wealthy interests constitute our nation’s “Deep State.” As Lofgren writes for Moyers, “The Deep State is the big story of our time. It is the red thread that runs through the war on terrorism, the financialization and deindustrialization of the American economy, the rise of a plutocratic social structure and political dysfunction.” This is a story that truly challenges the mass media, which do report on the power of wealth, in bits and pieces. But although the cabal’s disparate threads are occasionally pulled, the spider’s web of corruption largely escapes corporate media’s larger narrative. The myopic view censors the full story as surely as outright CONT. on page 21 Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
19
Navajo Jewelry by Timber Fox Traders
WILLAMETTE WEEK’S THIRD ANNUAL
Located In Vancouver Mall (Westfield Shopping Center) Off I-205 Vancouver WA - Level 1, next to JC Penney.
50% OFF NATIVE AMERICAN
HAND-MADE JEWELRY
Largest selection of Navajo and Zuni jewelry in the Northwest!
TIMBER FOX TRADERS • 360-904-9161
MISSISSIPPI STUDIOS December 16 5 - 9 p.m. Free Entry
More than 20 local makers of food, drink, craft, and everything in between. Finish (or start) your holiday shopping. Custom cocktails by New Deal Distillery and House Spirits in conjunction with Mississippi Studios RSVP @ http://bit.ly/wwholmark Vendors include:
20
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
CONT.
silence would. The problem deepens every year. “There are now 854,000 contract personnel with topsecret clearances—a number greater than that of topsecret-cleared civilian employees of the government,” Lofgren wrote, of a group that together would “occupy the floor space of almost three Pentagons—about 17 million square feet.”
Network Nightly News Reports on Extreme Weather (1/13 - 9/13)
200 Not mentioning Climate Change Mentioning Climate Change
7. FBI DISMISSES PLOT AGAINST OCCUPY AS NSA CRACKS DOWN ON DISSENT Nationally, law enforcement worked in the background to monitor and suppress the Occupy Wall Street movement, a story the mainstream press has shown little interest in covering. A document obtained in a Freedom of Information Act request by David Lindorff of nonprofit news organization WhoWhatWhy from the FBI office in Houston revealed an alleged assassination plot targeting an Occupy group, which the FBI allegedly did not warn the movement about. From the redacted document: “An identified [DELETED] as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors (sic) in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified [DELETED] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. [DELETED] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles.” Lindorff confirmed the document’s veracity with the FBI. When contacted by Lindorff, Houston police were uninterested, and seemingly (according to Lindorff ) uninformed. In Arizona, law enforcement exchanged information of possible Occupy efforts with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, according to a report by the Center for Media and Democracy titled “Dissent or Terror: How the Nation’s Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership With Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street.” Dimon meant to evade possible protests, and local law enforcement was happy to help. Law enforcement’s all-seeing eyes broadened through the national rise of “fusion centers” over the past decade, hubs through which state agencies exchange tracking data on groups exercising free speech. And as we share, “like” and “check in” online with ever-more frequency, that data becomes more robust by the day.
150
112 100
50
6
8
2
NBC
ABC
CBS
0
8. IGNORING EXTREME WEATHER CONNECTION TO GLOBAL WARMING In what can only be responded to with a resounding “duh,” news analyses have found mainstream media frequently report on severe weather changes without referring to global warming as the context or cause, even as a question. As Project Censored notes, a study by Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting found extreme weather events in 2013 spurred 450 broadcast news segments, only 16 of which even mentioned climate change. National news outlets have fallen on the job as well, as The New York Times recently shuttered its environmental desk and its Green blog, reducing the number of reporters exclusively chasing down climate-change stories. Unlike many journalists, ordinary people often recognize the threat of our warming planet. In September, more than 400,000 protested in the People’s Climate March in New York City, while simultaneous protests erupted across the globe, calling for government, corporate and media leaders to address the problem.
PROJECT CENSORED
“There is a huge mismatch between the magnitude of the challenge and the response we heard here today,” Graça Machel, the widow of former South African President Nelson Mandela, told the United Nations conference on climate change. “The scale is much more than we have achieved.”
9. U.S. MEDIA HYPOCRISY IN COVERING UKRAINE CRISIS The U.S. battle with Russia over Ukraine’s independence is actually an energy-pipeline squabble, a narrative lost by mainstream media coverage, Project Censored alleges. Russian President Vladimir Putin has drawn fire from the media as a tyrant, without complex analyses of his country’s socioeconomic interests, according to Project Censored. As the media often do, they have turned the conflict into a cult of personality, talking up Putin’s shirtless horseback riding and his hard-line style with deftness missing from their political analysis. As Nafeez Ahmed of British newspaper The Guardian reported, a recent U.S. State Department-sponsored report noted “Ukraine’s strategic location between the main energy producers (Russia and the Caspian Sea area) and consumers in the Eurasian region, its large transit network, and its available underground gas storage capacities,” highlighting its economic importance to the U.S. and its allies.
10. WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SUPPRESSES REPORT ON IRAQ IMPACTS The United States’ legacy in Iraq possibly goes beyond death to a living nightmare of cancer and birth defects, due to the military’s use of depleted uranium weapons, a World Health Organization study found. Iraq is poisoned. Much of the report’s contents were leaked to the BBC during its creation. But the release of the report, completed in 2012 by the WHO, has stalled. Critics allege the U.S. is deliberately blocking its release, masking a damning Middle East legacy rivaling the horrors of Agent Orange in Vietnam. But Iraq will never forget the U.S. intervention, as mothers cradle babies bearing scars obtained in the womb, the continuing gifts of our invasion. Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez is a staff writer at The San Francisco Examiner and SF Weekly.
WILLAMETTE WEEK’S
NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY PAGES Ring in the new year with an ad in our NYE Party Pages in our 12/24 and 12/31 issues! 503.243.2122 • advertising@wweek.com Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
21
22
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
HOLIDAYS
PIONEER COURTHOUSE SQUARE, INC.
CULTURE
THE DREAM OF THE 1790s: Figgy Pudding carolers.
BIG SACK OF SPIRIT HOLIDAY EVENT PICKS IN PORTLAND. BRIGHT LIGHTS Peacock Lane Many houses. Many lights. Many pedestrians. Southeast Peacock Lane between Stark and Belmont streets, peacocklane.net. 6-11 pm Dec. 15-30, 6 pm-midnight Dec. 24 and 31. Pittock Mansion Holiday Exhibit Each year, volunteers decorate every room in the gigantic house on the hill. The theme this year is “Christmas Past, Present and Future” in honor of the historic mansion’s centennial. Pittock Mansion, 3229 NW Pittock Drive, 823-3623. Through Jan. 2. $7.50-$10.50, free for members and children under 6. ZooLights The animals of the zoo get in the holiday spirit by decorating their home with a bunch of lights. Oregon Zoo, 4001 SW Canyon Road. 5-8 pm Sunday-Thursday, 5-8:30 pm Friday-Saturday through Jan. 4. $7-$10, free for members and children 2 and under. Christmas Ship Parade Great if you like lights but would prefer the lights to move past you, instead of the other way around. Various locations along the Willamette and Columbia rivers. 7 pm Wednesday-Friday, Dec. 10-12. christmasships.org. Lights at Maddax Woods If a single Christmas tree isn’t enough to satisfy your holiday desire for illuminated trees, Maddax Woods lights up a bunch of ’em. Maddax Woods, 5785 River St., West Linn. 4-9 pm nightly through Dec. 31. Free.
SONG The Dandy Warhols Pagan Christmas The Dandy Warhols’ traditional Christmastime concert is split in two: one playing the score of a silent film during a five-course dinner, and an all-ages show two days later. Dinner at Edgefield Blackberry Hall, 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale: 7 pm Thursday, Dec. 18. $150. 21+. Concert at Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St.: 8 pm Saturday, Dec. 20. $20 advance, $25 day of show. All ages. The Great Figgy Pudding Caroling Competition Downtown gets taken over by teams of carolers. Roaming judges then select the three best groups to compete onstage. Pioneer Courthouse Square, 701 SW 6th Ave. 6 pm Friday, Dec. 12. Tuba Concert at Pioneer Courthouse Square So. Many. Tubas. More than 250 of them will play Christmas songs in unison. Pioneer Courthouse Square, 701 SW 6th Ave. 1:30-3 pm Saturday, Dec. 13.
DANCE White Album Christmas A circus spectacular featuring clowns, belly dancers and acrobats performing The Beatles live. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055. 8 pm WednesdayFriday, Dec. 10-12. $28 advance, $33 day of show.
The Nutcracker Oregon Ballet Theatre stages a version of Tchaikovsky’s ballet with sets right out of the playbook of golden-age MGM musicals. Oregon Ballet Theatre, Keller Auditorium, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 2 and 7 pm Dec. 13-27. $20-$160. A Burlesque Nightmare Before Christmas After aerial acts and juggling, dancers take on Tim Burton roles such as Jack Skellington, Edward Scissorhands and the Corpse Bride. Analog Cafe, 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. 7:30 pm Sundays through Dec. 28. $12. 21+.
STAGE The Santaland Diaries Portland Center Stage’s annual production of David Sedaris’ brutally comedic account of a stint playing wage-slave elf “Crumpet” for Macy’s Yuletide installation. Portland Center Stage, Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Sundays, 2 pm Saturday and Sunday matinee, special showing 2 pm Wednesday, Dec. 24, through Dec. 28. $40, $25 for students. Recommended for 14+, children under 6 not permitted. Rudolph: On Stage Rudolph: On Stage pays loving homage to the longestrunning Christmas TV special in history, tugging on deep-seated nostalgia without devolving into schmaltziness. CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 220-2646. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays through Dec. 20. $20-$24. E.E. Cummings’ Santa A comedically existential take on the holidays in which Santa and Death are twins and anti-capitalist allegories. The Backdoor Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 567-8309, liminalgroup.org. 7:30 pm Thursday-Sunday, Sunday matinee 3 pm, through Dec. 21. $15-$25.
SCREEN A Christmas Story The hilarious tale of a child shooting himself with a gun. Academy Theater, 7818 SE Stark St., 252-0500. Dec. 12-18. $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and kids under 12. VHSXMAS 2 Scarecrow Video unearths footage from obscure VHS Christmas tapes. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 493-1128. 9:30 pm Saturday, Dec. 13. The Muppet Christmas Carol Jim Henson’s take on Dickens’ classic Christmas tale is oddly one of the darker Muppet movies. Academy Theater, 7818 SE Stark St., 252-0500. Dec. 19-25. $4 for adults, $3 for seniors and kids under 12. Silent Night, Deadly Night Santa Claus is watching you. Especially when you’re having premarital sex. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 493-1128. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Dec. 23. Animated Christmas 3 Stop-motion holiday films time forgot—including Will Vinton shorts and a gritty 1985 Kringle origin story based on L. Frank Baum. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 493-1128. 2 pm Saturday, Dec. 13.
GIFTS Crafty Wonderland’s Super Colossal Holiday Sale More than 250 vendors selling handmade goods. Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., craftywonderland.com. 11 am-6 pm Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 13-14.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
23
24
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
STREET
STREET
CHEERY BEERS BIG BEERS AND FUZZY HATS AT THE HOLIDAY ALE FESTIVAL. PHOTOS BY B R IA N A CER EZO wweek.com/street
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
25
FOOD: Bamboo tries the izakaya game. MUSIC: TV on the Radio snaps back. THEATER: Weirdest Santa ever. MOVIES: Reese Witherspoon’s Wild is out.
29 31 43 49
SCOOP
C O U R T E S Y O F C E N TA U R G U I TA R
FINDING NEW FRIENDS THANKS TO WWEEK.COM. LISTEN LIKE THIEVES: A rash of break-ins has left a Northeast Portland guitar store short $10,000 worth of merchandise. Over the course of three consecutive weekends beginning in late October, thieves stole 17 instruments from Centaur Guitars on Sandy Boulevard, according to co-owner Jason Snell. Security camera footage of the first crime shows the suspects came in through the skylights and rappelled down from the ceiling, “like something out of James Bond,” Snell says. The second time, they tripped the alarm and left empty-handed. The following weekend, they entered through an exhaust vent. After the third burglary, Snell says he “totally lost it.” “At this point, my feeling about it is, it’s stuff,” he says. “Guitars are what they are. You can get that stuff back. What’s been really frustrating is not sleeping at night, worrying that someone is breaking into the shop.” Information about the stolen guitars and video stills of the suspects can be found at centaurguitar.blogspot.com. CIDER PRESS: Portland cidery Reverend Nat’s has been at least partly sold to a New York investment company called Rafferty Holdings. “It’s all still being operated and run here,” says owner Nat West. “We’re not moving. We’re not going anywhere.” West declined to disclose any terms of the sale but says the influx of money allows the company to more than triple its production capacity and expand this year into California, Idaho, Alaska and British Columbia, with ambitions for the East Coast. “We’re on the road to being a reputable business,” says West. “Two years ago, I was still in my garage. And now we’re in seven states.”
SEATTLE’S FUNNIEST: Portland comedian Nathan Brannon has won the Seattle International Comedy Competition. Despite what its title might suggest, the annual competition draws contestants from afar, and counts Mitch Hedberg and Portlander Dwight Slade among its past winners. According to The Stranger, Brannon—who grew up in St. Johns and placed third BRANNON in WW’s inaugural Funniest 5 poll last year—“lackadaisically slew the crowd with a litany of insane stories delivered in the manner of a very friendly stealth bomber.” The first-place finish earns him $5,000 and a recording deal with comedy label Uproar. 26
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
INGER KLEKACZ
FUTURE DRINKING: Burrasca, our Food Cart of the Year in 2014, will be shutting down Jan. 1 at Southeast Ash Street and 28th Avenue. Chef Paolo Calamai plans to open a brickand-mortar Tuscan-style Italian restaurant in the spring. In the meantime, the food cart is for sale. >> The former location of the Nest at Northeast 18th Avenue and Alberta Street, which was shut down by fire in October 2012, may be getting new life as a jazz bar called Solae’s Lounge. According to the liquor license application, performances are planned for weekends and Wednesdays.
HEADOUT Cascade Locks’ Magical Spider Web Bushes
45.661376, -121.894023 “I walked through the spider webs, feeling them like magic on my face, pulling them out of my hair. I could hear but not see the rush of automobiles on the interstate to my left.”
The movie Wild, starring Reese Witherspoon and based on a memoir by Portland author Cheryl Strayed, hits theaters Friday. Wild follows Strayed for 1,100 miles along the 2,663-mile Pacific Crest Trail. We’ve bookmarked some of her top Oregon destinations, with comments from the book. All GPS locations are approximate. JAMES HELMSWORTH.
Elk Lake’s Socioeconomic Mirror Lookout Point 43.980627, -121.806193
Ultra-Posh Olallie Lake Resort 44.813740, -121.788983
“Until I’d hiked through Oregon, I’d had a profoundly different idea of what the word resort might suggest. No one was in sight. The 10 primitive cabins scattered near the lake’s shore all looked empty.”
“As I stood there gazing at Elk Lake, it occurred to me for the first time that growing up poor had come in handy. I probably wouldn’t have been fearless enough to go on such a trip with so little money if I hadn’t grown up without it.”
43.520163, -122.149855
The Awe-Inspiring California-Oregon Border 42.002701, -122.910574
“For such a momentous spot, it didn’t look that momentous. There was only a brown metal box that held a trail register and a sign that said WASHINGTON: 498 MILES—no mention of Oregon itself.”
WEDNESDAY DEC. 10 EARTHQUAKE HURRICANE [COMEDY] Kickstand, Portland’s first—but maybe not last—comedy venue in a bike-shop basement, opens with a show hosted by Curtis Cook, Alex Falcone, Bri Pruett and Anthony Lopez. Kickstand Comedy Space, 1969 NE 42nd Ave. 8:30 pm. $5 suggested.
THURSDAY DEC. 11 YOSSI BERG & ODED GRAF [DANCE] Israeli choreographers Yossi Berg and Oded Graf bring five male dancers to Portland for the U.S. debut of BodyLand, which examines technology’s effect on body image and employs glowing jump ropes, colorful balloons and huge inflatable arms and legs. PSU’s Lincoln Performance Hall, 1620 SW Park Ave., 245-1600. 8 pm. $25-$30.
FRIDAY DEC. 12 THE GREAT FIGGY PUDDING CAROLING COMPETITION [CAROL-OFF] Nothing says Christmas like cutthroat competition, which is why more than a dozen caroling groups will be facing off in a battle of vocal chords. It will conclude with a sing-off, which we can only hope will feature a rad-ass remix of “Silent Night.” Also: free hot cocoa. Pioneer Courthouse Square, 401 SW 6th Ave. 6 pm. Free.
SATURDAY DEC. 13
The Famed Diamond Peak Berry Bushes
“No matter what happened...there would be fresh berries along the way. Huckleberries and blueberries, salmonberries and blackberries, all plump for my picking along the trail.”
MAP BY MURPHY PHELAN, WILD MOVIE POSTER BY FOX SEARCHLIGHT ( B O T T O M ) , C H E R Y L S T R AY E D P E R S O N A L P H O T O ( T O P ) .
WILLAMETTE WEEK
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE
Pedicure Point, between Shelter Cove and Sisters 43.808755, -121.866408
“Another one of my blackened toenails was separating from my toe. I gave it a tug, and it came all the way off. I tossed it into the grass. Now the PCT and I were tied. The score was 5-5.”
Crater Lake’s Historic Parking Lot 42.866466, -122.164997
“It was a mad tourist complex that included a parking lot, a store, a motel, a little coin laundromat, and what seemed to be 300 people revving their engines and playing their radios loud, slurping beverages from gigantic paper cups with straws and eating from big bags of chips that they bought in the store…. If I hadn’t known it firsthand, I wouldn’t have believed that I could walk a quartermile in any direction and be in an entirely different world.”
GO: Cheryl Strayed will appear on Live Wire! Radio at Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., on Saturday, Dec. 13. 7:30 pm. Sold out. Minors permitted with legal guardian.
THE LATE NOW: MAS-X SPECIAL [DADA] In this installment of his “avant-variety talk show,” Leo Daedalus promises extreme dreidel, an interview with a mall Santa and carols performed with power tools. Vie de Boheme, 1530 SE 7th Ave., thelatenow.com. 7:30 pm. $5-$30.
SUNDAY DEC. 14 A BUBBLY SPECTACULAR [WINE] To prep for the holiday where your taste in bubbly will be judged oh so closely, Bar Vivant will host a massive tasting with access to up to 60 sparklers, plus popcorn, oysters for sale, and lessons in how to open bottles with knives. Knives! Bar Vivant, 2225 E Burnside St., pixpatisserie.myshopify.com. 4-7 pm. $20-$35. 21+.
TUESDAY DEC. 16 SAVES THE DAY, SAY ANYTHING, REGGIE & THE FULL EFFECT [REMEMBER THE EMO] This tour is a veritable Voltron of early 2000s emo that’s yet to be matched in pop appeal and headbanging urgency. Check the hoodie and current significant other at the door—the opportunity to hear these bands’ most classic respective albums in their entirety is guaranteed to whip the inevitable flock of 30-somethings into a white-hot frenzy. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 2848686. 7:30 pm. $21.99 advance, $25 day of show. All ages.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
27
FOOD & DRINK EAT MOBILE DANIEL COLE
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Editor: MARTIN CIZMAR. Email: dish@wweek. com. See page 3 for submission instructions.
THURSDAY, DEC. 11 Breakside Sour Beer Night
Breakside breaks into Bazi with 10 sours, including a gin barrel-aged double wit and an apricot. Bazi Bierbrasserie, 1522 SE 32nd Ave., 234-8888. 6-9 pm.
FRIDAY, DEC. 12 The 25 Chairs
The Meadow opens its new backroom space—lit up pink by illuminated salt blocks—with a six-course dinner by chef Brandon Gregga. The Meadow on 23rd, 805 NW 23rd Ave., 305-3388. 7 pm. $70 per person, $85 with wine.
SATURDAY, DEC. 13 Humbug Lager Fest
EXPERIENCE LEBANESE CUISINE AT ITS BEST
In obvious reaction to spiced-up holiday ales, Occidental will host a massive tap list of local lagers, lagers and more lagers. Occidental Brewing Co., 6635 N Baltimore Ave., 719-7102. Noon-10 pm.
Call now to book your holiday party. We specialize in catering for all events and occasions.
I
SUNDAY, DEC. 14 A Bubbly Spectacular
Bar Vivant will host a massive tasting with access to up to 60 sparklers, plus popcorn, oysters for sale, and lessons in how to open bottles with knives. Knives! Bar Vivant, 2225 E Burnside St., 971-2717166. 4-7 pm. $20 for 40 tastes, $35 for access to 60 tastes.
223 SW STARK STREET PORTLAND, OR 503-274-0010 ALAMIRPORTLAND.COM
TUESDAY, DEC. 16
Shandong Holiday Marketplace
A holiday marketplace sponsored by Willamette Week, with wares from www.shandongportland.com over 20 local businesses, including House Spirits, Oma Chocolate, Pistils Nursery, Soul Hot Sauce and plenty of fashion and jewelry sellers. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 5-9 pm.
Shandong
Where to eat this week. 1. Smallwares 4605 NE Fremont St., 971-229-0995. Ever had ramen for breakfast? Smallwares’ beef meatball ramen opens your sinuses with horseradish and then fills them with uberbeefy broth.
www.shandongportland.com
2. Acadia 1303 NE Fremont St., 249-5001, creolapdx.com. Adam Higgs’ head-on barbecue shrimp is a seafood version of Chex party mix and crazy good, especially when you suck the heads.
Jobs for the Food and Drink Industry Staffing solutions for owners and managers NYC/ CHI/ SFO/ SEA /PDX/ AUS
28
Untitled-2 1
3. Haan Ghin Southwest Park Avenue and Harrison Street (on PSU campus). Haan Ghin’s trademark mii gai is brilliant: a sweet-sour egg noodle vermicelli crisped up with fried shallot and chicken skin. Terrific. 4. Zaatar 1037 NW Flanders St., 477-8237, zaatarnw.com. Tony Karam’s baba ghanoush has as much smoke as many pork shanks. 5. Chongqinq Huo Guo 8230 SE Harrison St., Suite 315, 971-803-7999. This soup spot doesn’t dull its spicy broth for Western palates. Get a half-and-half spicy and mild broth.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
6/10/12 9:41 AM
RUSSIAN JUNK FOOD: Ponchiki and chicken wings Kiev.
RUSSIAN HORSE A Russian horse must be no-nonsense and a hard worker, built for terrible winters. But at Russian Horse food cart, stick with snacks and desserts—food for dawdlers and wastrels. The Sellwood cart began as a no-nonsense pierogi slinger. Its dumplings (three for $5) are serviceable if unexciting, with traditional innards of farmer’s cheese and potatoes, and options on kielbasa, heavy garlic or add-ons such as asparagus. The pierogi are fried a bit tough, and the rubbery dough must either be drenched in broth ($1.50 extra) or livened with juices from the accompanying caramelized onions. Go for the junk food instead, on a menu that’s been slowly expanding into capitalist decadence since the cart opened in March. The chicken wings Kiev (four for $7.50) are a clever casualfood update on the old Russian chicken-breast dish. The wings are deep-fried in heavy breading, Order this: Chicken wings Kiev, doused in herbed garlic butter and potato pancakes, ponchiki. tanged up by lemon. It’s arteryI’ll pass: Savory pierogi. tightening bar food for old-country hockey fans, and it’s great. The potato pancakes ($6.50), meanwhile, are slathered in housemade applesauce—alongside onions and sour cream—for a beautifully sweet-savory, crisp treat. Get the desserts, however, and you’re golden. The pierogi are best ordered with a magma flow of dark chocolate inside (three for $5), and lately the cart has been serving a rotating array of little tarts filled with ganache and peppermint, pumpkin or pecan. The syrniki (three for $2.50) are basically tiny Dutch pancakes, powdered with sugar and touched with lemon zest. But perhaps my favorite are the most humble: Ponchiki (three for $3.50) are yeasty tennis balls of fried dough made with farmer’s cheese—cakier, creamier versions of a sour-cream doughnut. They’re terrific. So forget Russian horse. Get lazy. Russian show pony. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. EAT: Russian Horse, Southeast 13th and Lexington streets, 971-599-1346, russianhorse.com. Noon-8 pm WednesdaySaturday, noon-3 pm Sunday.
DEVOUR
EARL BLUMENAUER’S FRUITCAKE ICE CREAM (SALT & STRAW) Every year, bow-tied U.S. Congressman Earl Blumenauer sends fruitcake to friends, family and favored local news outlets. This year, there was a twist. Local ice-cream monolith Salt & Straw made fruitcake ice cream with Blumenauer’s recipe, and Blumenauer put on a green bow tie and red shirt to deliver his normal fruitcake, plus his new fruitcake ice cream, to local media, including The Oregonian, The Portland Mercury and…well, not Willamette Week. Oh, Earl. While those outlets dutifully reported on the Blumenauer-flavored ice cream, WW was in the enviable position of being allowed an unbiased review. So we did what no one ever does, ever, which is go out and buy a fruitcake. Except we bought it in ice-cream form at Salt & Straw. What we found was, you shouldn’t take a notoriously hard, gummy, bitter dessert and freeze it. The fruitcake was all of those things, but also cold, and a little dry, and a textural nightmare amid milky, corn-syrupy ice cream. But, hey, it’s for charity—proceeds go to buy bikes for kids. So, uh, go to the Community Cycling Center and buy a kid a bike. Then go get an ice-cream cone at What’s the Scoop? on North Williams Avenue. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.
FOOD & DRINK j e r e k h o l l en d e r . c om
review
Robt Sarazin Blake & The put-it-all-down-in-a Letters get pickled: Black cod and pickled bok choy (center) with shochu and sake cocktails.
Cod Is Great
dabs of saekyo miso and yuzu. The cod is politely flavorful, tender, and livened heartily by pickle and spice. It’s the most fully realized and creatively conceived dish on the menu. But though the wide variety of meat is well cared for both in life and death, most dishes contain little brightness, and no heat—no wow, in short. The flavor comes mostly from variations in soy and sticky-sweet accents, with maybe fried BY M AT T H E W KO R F H AGE mkorfhage@wweek.com shallots or ginger to provide sharpness. But in a Done right, the Japanese izakaya is a party slight Iberico de Bellota pork-collar plate and a that makes you forget the indignities of the veggie ramen, ginger nonetheless overpowered 14-hour workday with a barrage of bold flavors dishes with otherwise minimal depth. The resand bolder liquor. Portland is drunk with them taurant’s midtoned décor is largely mirrored in lately, from Miho to Biwa to multiple Shigezos. the dinner fare. The brunch, on the other hand, is a sort of So, of course, the sleekly modern Bamboo Sushi has jumped into the drinking-food racket. But bonkers ’90s-style fusion: vinegar-sauced eggs Bamboo Izakaya overshoots the cocktail mixer Benedict with pork collar ($13), or a Bizarro and ends up as straight-up art collage. The place World version of steak and eggs ($11). It’s all is an oddly postmodern experience, equivalent somewhere between winking pastiche and a hunt to the Portland Building in its muddle of styles for Carmen Sandiego. In the steak and eggs, a skirt skewer is paired with runny scrambled eggs that and hand-waving gimmickry. The interior is a knick knack-cluttered, seem quixotically bent on approximating mudalmost Middle American version of Orientalist dled tamago. Meanwhile, 7-spice potatoes are a marvel of texture, beautifully crisped décor, right down to the tiki flair with delicate softness within—as of a backroom bamboo hutch and Order this: Black cod, mackerel, shochu flight. expertly torched as any patatas brareams of kanji-printed paper lanI’ll pass: Oversweet vas. We mention without comment terns. Meanwhile, in the hall leadBrussels sprouts, veggie a five-piece, $12 bacon flight. Breaking to the restrooms, an 8-foot-tall ramen (so far). fast cocktails include a togarashiscroll of painted text drills down Bamboo company policies in sans-serif English. kimchee bloody “maria” ($9) made with jalapeño “Create WOW!” employees are importuned, sake—an overloaded, wearying flavor bomb that before receiving a reading on kaizen, the phi- tries too hard to prove it’s a small world after all. losophy of continuous improvement that is the The rest of the cocktail menu is arranged Nipponese equivalent of Six Sigma. Employees on similar fusion principles—plum and sake are also told to have fun. One feels, guiltily, like and shochu dropped into Euro-American stylings—most successfully in the Emperor an eavesdropper. Kaizen was still in play until recently on the ($14), a smoky 12-year Japanese whiskey menu, which is settling into place with the addi- with pepper-infused sake and bitters. Avoid tion of ramen. Two items should not change—and cloying novelties like a Sake-rita ($8). Most sakes are served either singly or in 720 ml both play to Bamboo’s background in seafood. First is the salted mackerel ($15), which bottles, but instead get flights of shochu, a arrives magisterially whole—its skin charred, its Japanese liquor that offers surprising variety meat moist and pungent—with a side of crisply of flavor because made from different starches. tangy ponzu sauce. It’s a revelation in both sim- In the end, one arrives at a restaurant with plicity and generosity, and a pointer to what the no singular vision, but occasional wonders—an restaurant does best: Meat is treated with rever- uncurated museum box of two continents. But ence on the house robata grills, arriving with its with a little citrus, and a little more chili, the cocktail might be a lot more intoxicating. edges crisped and its insides tender. Second is the Oregon Coast black cod ($12), which is elegantly presented and eloquently EAT: Bamboo Izakaya, 1409 NE Alberta St., 889-0336, bambooizakaya.com. 5 pm-midnight conceived, with lightly pickled bok choy, Monday-Thursday, 5 pm-1 am Friday-Saturday. pickled Fresno pepper, and nouvelle cuisine Brunch: 9 am-2 pm Saturday-Sunday.
Bamboo Izakaya is a weird take on japanese, but the fish is divine.
Al’s Den –Crystal Hotel Dec 14-20 7pm no cover Guests14 Corwin Bolt 15 SPUR! 16 The Heligoats 17 John Elliott 18 Catherine Feeny 19 Nick Jaina 20 The Reverie Machine
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
29
ARCTIC MONKEYS
DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
The band’s initials, a new morning, an analogue radio frequency and an existential statement - the title of Arctic Monkeys’ fifth album AM suggests all of those things and more.
English Oceans, the 12th release by Athens, Georgia’s Drive-By Truckers, is an elegantly balanced and deeply engaged new effort that finds the group refreshed and firing on all cylinders.
AM ON SALE $9.99
ENGLISH OCEANS SALE PRICED $10.99
ERIC CLAPTON & FRIENDS
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW
THE BREEZE: AN APPRECIATION OF JJ CALE ON SALE $12.99
SALE PRICED $10.99
Eric Clapton has often stated that JJ Cale is one of the single most important figures in rock history. To honor JJ’s legacy, Clapton gathered a group of like-minded friends and musicians for the album.
This is music that’s pitched to the rafters in the best way: Sweetly cynicism-free enthusiasm is crucial to how Old Crow Medicine Show performs. Like a big, friendly sheepdog that just can’t help itself, it’s music that bounds right up to you and licks your face.
BOY & BEAR
CHRISSIE HYNDE
The second album by Australian indie rock-folk music ensemble proves to be one of the great surprises of 2014.
Despite a decades long and critically acclaimed career with The Pretenders, ‘Stockholm’ is the first album released under Chrissie Hynde’s own name.
HARLEQUIN DREAM ON SALE $10.99
STOCKHOLM SALE PRICED $8.99
THE PACK A.D.
BLACK PRAIRIE
DO NOT ENGAGE ON SALE $10.99
FORTUNE SALE PRICED $12.99
Long celebrated on the fringes of Canada’s endlessly fruitful indie-rock scene as a feral live act nonpareil and a band destined to eventually make that one record that finally puts it over the top, this album, genuinely, puts it over.
By now, Portland band Black Prairie has clearly outgrown its roots as a casual side project, solidifying into a primary, creative focus for its members a band with its own internal momentum, genuine character and style.
HURRAY FOR THE RIFF RAFF
SALLIE FORD
SMALL TOWN HEROES SALE PRICED $9.99
SLAPBACK SALE PRICED $11.99
Small Town Heroes is about New Orleans. But it’s not about the Crescent City of yore. It’s about Alynda Lee Segarra, the band’s founder and sometimes sole member, missing the bar where she can play her guitar quietly in the corner.
The latest from Portland based alt-roots upstart Sallie Ford, Slap Back features an all-girl band and is bursting with the femme-punk spirit of Kim Deal, Joan Jett, and Debbie Harry.
BEST OF YEAR SALES END 12/31/14
THE BEATLES
VS
THE STONES SALE
Save 20% off all Beatles and Stones CDs
Please Please Me
The Early Beatles
Abbey Road
England’s Newest Hit Makers
Got Live If You Want It
Exile On Main Street
Dirty Work
With The Beatles
Help!
Hey Jude
Between The Buttons
Goats Head Soup
“Still Life”
12x5
Meet The Beatles
Rubber Soul
Let It Be
Flowers
It’s Only Rock ‘n Roll
Singles Collection
The Beatles Second Album
Yesterday & Today
1962-1966
The Rolling Stones No. 2
Their Satanic Majesties Request
Metamorphosis
Steel Wheels
The Beatles First
Revolver
1967-1970
Flashpoint
Beggar’s Banquet
Something New
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
The Beatles In Mono
The Rolling Stones, Now!
Made In The Shade Black And Blue
Voodoo Lounge
Out Of Our Heads
Through the Past Darkly
Love You Live
Stripped
December’s Children (And Everybody’s)
Let It Bleed
Some Girls
Bridges To Babylon
Emotional Rescue
Forty Licks
Tattoo You
Live Licks
Undercover
A Bigger Bang
A Hard Day’s Night The Beatles Story Beatles For Sale Beatles ‘65
Magical Mystery Tour The White Album Yellow Submarine
The Beatles (The Original Studio Recordings) And more!
Big Hits (High Tide And Green Grass) Aftermath
Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out Sticky Fingers Hot Rocks 1
Rewind
ENDS 1/7/15 30
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
MUSIC
C o u R T e S y o f T h e f u N S TA R
THE BIG SNAP-BACK AFTER A TRAGEDY IN ITS RANKS, TV ON THE RADIO IS BORN AGAIN. BY M AT T H E W S I N G E R
msinger@wweek.com
TV on the Radio guitarist Dave Sitek lives by the overarching philosophy of “What if?” What if he had a band that blended all the music he loved, from punk to prog to soul, to the point that it became impossible to categorize, yet remained broadly accessible? What if, as a producer, he deliberately did the opposite of what a listener might expect a song to do? What if he started a label that signed artists without pre-existing hype, and let the audience come to them? As he put it recently, “I pursue the question mark, not the exclamation point”—an ideology which, somewhat ironically, is precisely what’s made his band one of the most consistently exciting of the past decade. Coming off the road for its last album, though, the question looming over TVOTR was whether or not to go on. Soon after the release of 2011’s Nine Types of Light, bassist Gerard Smith succumbed to lung cancer at age 36. The surviving members soldiered through the promotional cycle, but once the tour ended, they were just as likely to fade from existence as make another record. “I don’t think we were really thinking about the future,” says Sitek over the phone from Los Angeles. “It’s impossible for me to put it into words in any meaningful way. That subject is really complicated. But at the end of that tour, we didn’t know what was going to happen. We were left to our volition to figure things out.” Three years later, TVOTR is touring again, in support of Seeds, its fifth album. How it rebounded from such a crushing personal tragedy remains a complicated subject for Sitek. He is still hesitant to discuss Smith’s death and its impact on the band, and doesn’t like to talk much about the group’s internal process. (The only reason he agreed to this interview, he admits, was at the behest of Natasha Kmeto, the Portland electro-R&B singer he just signed to his imprint, Federal Prism; see sidebar, this page.) It goes back to the idea of “pursuing the question mark”: He’s big on leaving things to the listeners’ imaginations. But when it comes to Seeds, how it came together is just as much of a mystery to Sitek as anyone else. During its hiatus, TVOTR split from Interscope, its longtime label, so there was no one pushing the band members back into the studio. At some point, the rest of the band—singer Tunde Adebimpe, guitarist-vocalist Kyp Malone and drummer Jaleel Bunton—reconvened at Sitek’s home in L.A. and started writing and recording, almost out of sheer, instinc-
from lEfT: TV on the radio’s Tunde Adebimpe, Jaleel Bunton, Kyp malone and Dave Sitek.
tual compulsion. “We’re creatures of intuition,” Sitek says. “We’ll start working on something, and if we feel like we’re supposed to still work on something, we do. Then, when we get to eight or nine songs, we go, ‘Oh, maybe there’s a record here.’ That’s really what it was like with this last one, because we didn’t have a label, so it was really left to us.” As one might expect, Seeds plays like an emotional exorcism. Adebimpe’s first words, hollered over elliptical percussion and chanting on opener “Quartz,” are “How much do I love you?,” and many of
“If We ReAlly WANTeD To TAlK ABouT The meANINg of STuff, We’D pRoBABly Be NoVelISTS, NoT muSICIANS.” —DAVE SITEK the early songs are unambiguously about confronting loss and struggling to let go. “Could You,” a pulsing psych-rocker sung by Malone, wonders if moving on is even possible, while on the zippy “Happy Idiot,” Adebimpe confesses to numbing himself into blissful ignorance “to keep my mind off you.” On the album’s second half, ushered in with the rising-sun wash of “Ride,” the mood begins to lift, along with the tempo: The power chords of “Winter” and the poppunk bounce of “Lazerray” are worthy of
the Ramones. By the concluding “Seeds,” there’s a sense of coming to terms with the heartbreak of the past, and a determination to start over. “Rain comes down like it always does,” Adebimpe sings. “This time, I’ve got seeds on the ground.” What’s unclear is how much of the album is actually about the band’s grief over Smith; lyrically, it could just as easily be about the end of a romantic relationship. Good luck getting any clarity out of Sitek—he won’t even comment on the sequencing. “If we really wanted to talk about the meaning of stuff, we’d probably be novelists, not musicians,” he says. But even if he won’t speak in specifics, Sitek acknowledges the album’s concept of rebirth isn’t just a poetic metaphor for psychic healing. With Seeds, TVOTR is “setting the scale back to zero,” he says. It has a new label, a new sound and a new understanding of its bond as friends and creative partners, where even its arguments make them stronger. “Any organization that has creative people, there’s going to be some butting of heads, but now we realize that’s an asset,” he says. “It’s like a rubber band. You pull it in all these different directions, and the moment it snaps back together is what the band is. That snap is how it all works.”
DAVE SITEK ON NATASHA KMETO: “I heard her on satellite radio. I was listening to her, and the part in the song I thought was going to be the chorus, where all these other things would come in, she took everything out, and I thought that was the most modern decision I’d heard in 20 years. I stopped my car, befriended her on Twitter, and as soon as she friended me, I direct messaged her and said, ‘Whatever it takes to help you, I’ll do it.’ I might be dating myself, but I remember the first time I heard Sonic youth. my first thought was, ‘holy shit,’ and my second thought was, ‘I can’t wait to play this for my friends.’ Natasha gave me the same feeling, and you don’t really get that a whole lot. I was shocked she didn’t have 150,000 listeners. how is this not the biggest thing right now? It takes a while to build something like that. TV on the Radio spent 10 years building, and is still building. With her, I can’t imagine where she’ll be in three years, considering how blown away I am now. What will that turn into if she has the resources and the help?”
Natasha Kmeto’s debut for Federal Prism Records, Inevitable, is due out in early 2015.
SEE IT: TV on the Radio plays Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., with Natasha Kmeto, on Thursday, Dec. 11. 8 pm. Sold out. All ages.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
31
32
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
dec. 10–16 = WW Pick. Highly recommended. Prices listed are sometimes for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply. Event lineups are subject to change after WW’s press deadlines. Editor: MAttHEW SInGER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, go to wweek. com/submitevents and follow submission directions. All shows should be submitted two weeks or more in advance of event. 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: msinger@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 10
slight, wavering, piano-dominated droning. It’s something like pianist Erik Satie’s work, if bolstered by subtle electronics and occasional strings. Released by the venerable noiseniks at Kranky Records, also home to some of Wiltze’s earlier work, Atomos dismisses some of neoclassical music’s complications in lieu of stately swells and meticulously developing statements, balancing heady intellectual music with minimalism’s tranquility. DAVE cAntoR. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $15. 21+.
Spoon, Future Islands, A Giant Dog
[VIctoRY LAP] Let’s put an old cliché to rest: there is nothing boring about consistency. When Spoon dropped They Want My Soul in August, the narrative focused on how the band is often overlooked because, well, it doesn’t really have any great story—no intraband turmoil, no tragic loss, no drastic reinvention—to tie around another stellar set of memorable, bright rock songs. But in a year without one big defining record, it’s time we stopped overlooking Britt Daniel and company for always being good and started recognizing them as the best (yes, the best) rock band of the past decade. tonight’s show is a victory lap for a landmark group, complete with opener Future Islands, who also tout an album of the year contender in Singles. MIcHAEL MAnnHEIMER. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047. 8 pm. Sold out. All ages.
Weezer
[tHE BEIGE ALBUM] Weezer is the Saturday Night Live of alt-rock bands: Everyone complains about the declining quality yet continues to check in with each new album, either out of sheer compulsion or the undying hope that it’ll get better. Even the band regards itself with a level of compunction. this year’s Everything Will Be Alright In the End was marketed not only as a “return to form” but also an outright apology for the last decade of ironic detachment and soulless pandering to the top 40. It’s oK. But the truth is, Weezer, like SNL, will never return to the form its oldest fans want. times have changed, sketch comedy isn’t the revolution it was in the ‘70s (or even the ‘90s) and Rivers cuomo is no longer the lvy League nerd writing songs about pining over an 18-year-old girl from a small city in Japan. You have to either appreciate them for
[tAnGELo DREAM] Founder of ‘80s-besotten avant-kitsch collective Valerie and composer/producer/ dean of college’s retro synthscapes, David Grellier’s nagel-gazing electronica divertissements unexpectedly found another gear once 2011’s cold-brewed anti-anthem “A Real Hero” sparked the cannes-feted, hipster-approved Ryan Gosling vehicle Drive. that collaboration with Electric Youth’s chanteuse, though, strayed far from the Gallic gadfly’s central thesis of defiantly instrumental, chic-ly soulless, artfully disposable aural installations. Distilling the digitized vocabulary of Reagan-era film scores as stylized commentary, albums like last year’s Heritage throb with a skillful familiarity-bordering-on-contempt of bygone tropes most reminiscent of another movie cliche: the suave, erudite transfer student whose post-ironic embrace of a garish, dunderheaded American pop culture confounds our corn-fed hero and briefly charms his gal. JAY HoRton. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $13 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
Dream Police, Mercury Living
[PSYcH BLUES] You’d think releasing five albums and two EPs in the span of five years would be enough to satiate any band’s creative drive, but apparently not for the Men’s Mark Perro and nick chiericozzi, who formed Dream Police as a side project in 2010. Dream Police started as a name to accompany a couple of songs Perro and chiericozzi wrote but that didn’t seem to fit with the rest of their main project’s catalog. Instead of taking a break after the Men’s 2013 tour, the songwriting duo decided to put their creative energy into a full-length Dream Police album. the result: their other band’s classic rock and country influences with drum machines and a pronounced psychedelic haze. SHAnnon GoRMLEY. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 2397639. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Hildur Gudnadottir
[coMPoSItIonAL tRAnQUILItY] Adam Wiltze’s connection to the ambient Stars of Lid and Dustin o’Halloran’s composerly background combine for A Winged Victory for the Sullen’s ethereal second album, Atomos. Divided into 12 distinct pieces, it comes off as more than
H o L LY A n D R E S
College, DoublePlusGood
MUSIC
what they are now, flaws and all, or change the channel. MAttHEW SInGER. Roseland Theater, 10 NW 6th Ave., 224-8499. 9 pm. Sold out. All ages.
THURSDAY, DEC. 11 Phone Call, Purse Candy, Fringe Class
[cASUAL SEX] Synth-pop romantics Phone call’s official Facebook page describes the band’s sound as “nu soul,” but a more applicable tag for anyone who lived in Portland between 2005-2011 or so might be “nu Strength.” Strength was possibly our finest party band, a trio of musicians who took their love of Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall, cheap drum machines and Mick Jagger’s strut straight to many a basement, living room and legit venue. When guitarist Patrick Morris left to become a full-time member of Starfucker, singer Bailey Winters and keyboardist Johnny Zeigler continued on as a duo. Phone call’s urgent R&B conjures images of both chromeo and the boys’ beloved Elvis costello, who they pay homage to with a spirited cover of “Pump It Up.” MIcHAEL MAnnHEIMER. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
FRIDAY, DEC. 12 The XRAY FM Holiday Dance Party featuring Vinnie Dewayne and Modern Kin
[RADIo RADIo] community radio station XRAY FM puts the Santa cap on one hell of a good year for them with a show featuring brilliant St. Johns rapper Vinnie Dewayne, alt-rock firebrands Modern Kin and sets from a slew of the station’s DJs. Rotture, 315 SE 3rd Ave., 234-5683. 8 pm. $5 for XRAY members, $10 general admission. 21+.
cont. on page 35
MIC CHECK TUNE-YARDS
BY MAttHEW SI n GER
Portland always knew Merrill Garbus was special. Even before her Tune-Yards project had fully metamorphosed into the highdefinition art funk of 2011’s Whokill and this year’s Nikki Nack, the Stumptown music scene embraced the 35-year-old native New Englander, who released her debut, the ultra lo-fi Bird-Brains, on local label Marriage Records in 2009. Soon after, indie heavyweight 4AD reissued the album, leading to national TV appearances, festival gigs and Garbus’ coronation as one of the most imaginative artists of her generation. As Tune-Yards returns to town for the second time this year—following a wild, Technicolor-bright set at MusicfestNW in August—WW spoke to Garbus about what Portland has meant to her career. “Portland was where everything changed. I went on this epic solo tour where I kind of covered the country alone in my Chevy. People were picking up on the album [Bird-Brains]. I was giving it away for donations online, so a lot of people had access to it, and people were seeing the show, and it felt like the stirring up of this big pot. When I got to Portland, I did a show at the Artistery, performing in front of the Dirty Projectors, who were a huge inspiration of mine at that point, and they were there with Curtis [Knapp] and Jordan [Dykstra] from Marriage, and playing that show meant that I got my first record deal. I didn’t know whether I wanted to say yes to it, I didn’t know if I wanted anyone to release the album, but it was the first time that was even an option. Up to that point, I was hoping people would be interested in it enough, but it never got to that point. That relationship with Marriage was short in a lot of ways because 4AD made an offer soon after. It felt like I was jumping two steps ahead from where I thought I had been even a month before that. But for me, Portland is magic. It’s always been good for me. It’s always been this kind of creative and spiritual paradise.” SEE IT: tune-Yards play Roseland theater, 8 nW 6th Ave., with cibo Matto, on Friday, Dec. 12. 8 pm. $25. All ages. Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
33
34
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
FRIDAY–SATURDAY
Haerts, Mikky Ekko
[PROM ROCK] Ohio-born, Munichbred and Brooklynite by the grace of an overweening ambition, Haerts frontwoman Nini Fabi somehow lived on the crest of vintage chic until that old New Wave broke at the premium pricing point like so many discarded satin jackets. However Hughesian her synth-pop combo’s shimmering anthems, Haerts’ just-released eponymous debut depends too much upon the hot Nicks contours of Fabi’s estimable pipes to fully bury themselves in ’80s inanities. Should we be surprised that teen jams so relentlessly retrofitted come across as adult contemporary? JAY HORTON. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. 9:30 pm. $15. 21+.
Hillstomp, the Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit, Jeffrey Martin
[APPALACHIAN BLOOZ] Portland’s self-described “junkbox blues” two-piece Hillstomp kicks out its rootsy thrift-store punk jams. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686. 8 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
SATURDAY, DEC. 13 Say Hi
DREW MARTIN
[FUTURE TWEE] Goth-lite journeyman Eric Elbogen faced a peculiar recession-era conundrum that ended up capturing far more
MUSIC
of the era’s zeitgeist than most critics will give him credit for. After being priced out of Brooklyn in 2008 because his home-recorded synth-pop ditties about vampires weren’t paying the bills, the artist formerly known as Say Hi to Your Mom de-snarkified his stage name, moved to Seattle and graduated to an undulating sound that’s somehow lighter on the Buffy fanfiction themes and heavier on the wry navel-gazing that one would expect from a dude who’s not likely to age out of Casio-flavored diary pop anytime soon. PETE COTTELL. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., 894-9708. 10 pm. $12. 21+.
KMRIA
[BOGUS POGUES] ‘Tis the tribute season in Portland. But alongside the Next Waltz and White Album Christmas shows comes a covers act that’s sat out a few rounds since its last appearance in 2012, Pogues celebrants KMRIA. The name, which stands for “Kiss My Royal Irish Arse,” is a nod to the Celtic punk-folkers’ original fulllength handle, Pogue Mahone— Gaelic for “kiss my ass.” The music ticks all the boxes of the originals’ deceptively complex arrangements, breakneck pace and all, but never so slavishly as to not leave room for some of McGowan and company’s boozy chaos to intrude. Beloved locals such as
PRIMER
CONT. on page 36
BY M ATTH E W S INGER
LOAD B Who: Rappers Milc and Brill. Sounds like: A rap-game John Belushi busting into a church party with strippers, guns and a plate of drugs. For fans of: Odd Future, early Eminem, Ghostface Killah, Licensed to Ill-era Beastie Boys, Lil B, M.O.P. Why your care: What happens when Portland hip-hop stops being polite and starts getting nasty? Load B, that’s what. A glance at the duo’s album titles—Debauchery, The Scumbag Tape and the upcoming Escape From Snortlandia—gives a pretty good indication where its priorities lie. Suffice to say, these dudes are never going to be the subject of a classy photo shoot against the backdrop of the St. Johns Bridge, and that’s cool with them. “Portland rap, and Northwest rap in general, it’s so safe,” says Ben “Milc” Johnson. “I used to listen to rap strictly because that shit made me feel dangerous.” Friends from their days playing pickup basketball in North Portland, Johnson and Devin “Brill” Boss began rapping together in high school. Back then, the subject matter was less gleefully transgressive than total fantasy. “I had a million dollars in this world,” Johnson says. “I was a mob boss,” Boss adds. Over time, the music has become more honest to their give-no-fucks attitude—celebrating drugs, partying and general irresponsible activity—though not necessarily to their daily lives. “I don’t have prostitutes in the basement cooking dope, but it sounds so fucking good,” Boss says. “And as long as I continue to mix it all up, you’ll never be able to tell what’s real and what’s not.” Such antisocial behavior, real or imagined, isn’t likely to go over well in a city that marches against plastic bags and genetically modified kale. But Load B isn’t completely lacking a social conscience. Johnson and Boss are as concerned about the gentrification of their hometown as their peers, they just choose to address it in a different manner: Escape From Snortlandia, for instance, opens with a skit in which they crash the Portlandia set and take the cast and crew hostage. Hey, it’s desperate times. And if that’s too extreme for the Portland rap audience, well, you can guess what Load B thinks about that. “They don’t want hip-hop unless it has a soul beat and you’re calmly rapping about talking to a girl in a coffee shop,” Johnson says. “Our rap is trying to blow that coffee shop the fuck up— throw a Molotov in there and piss on the ashes.” SEE IT: Load B plays Kelly’s Olympian, 426 SW Washington St., with Naturally Grown Misfits and Mikey Fountaine, on Thursday, Dec. 11. 9 pm. $5. 21+.
11 GREAT GIFT IDEAS
MARS RED SKY STRANDED IN ACADIA SALE PRICED $ 11.99
INCANTATION
DIRGES OF ELYSIUM SALE PRICED $ 11.99
With their incredibly heavy and hypnotic performances, MARS RED SKY have been considered as one of the most thrilling live acts among the international stoner rock scene.
WHILE NO ONE WAS LOOKING TOASTING 20 YEARS OF BLOODSHOT RECORDS SALE PRICED $ 15.99
Marking 25 years in the metal scene, the new album is a must have for all Incantation fans, and for lovers of stripped back, no holds barred, death metal.
38 songs from the Bloodshot catalog reemerge covered by friends and heroes of ours in oft-head-craning styles from gritty punk to back porch folk, dark bedroom new wave to straight up honky tonk, and lush power pop to new emo.
DEL BARBER
MATT ANDERSEN WEIGHTLESS SALE PRICED $12.99
PRAIRIEOGRAPHY SALE PRICED $ 12.99
Matt Andersen has been steadily building his sizable following through word of mouth about his electrifying live shows. On ‘Weightless’, Andersen’s command of the blues and his distinctive soulful voice have been captured on record as never before.
Born out of a love for the Canadian prairies, its people and their stories, Prairieography is a bit of a departure for Winnipeg’s Del Barber, venturing farther yet into traditional country music.
THE ROYS
ELIZABETH SHEPHERD THE SIGNAL SALE PRICED $ 12.99
THE VIEW SALE PRICED $ 12.99
Credited as one of the young forces pushing the boundaries of jazz, Shepherd creates her own unique, artful, soulful and hip brand of music with The Signal, covering topics as wide– ranging as Monsanto and motherhood, witchcraft and war.
Award winning brother sister duo return with another album of sacred bluegrass, this time backed by their newly assembled band.
ARCTIC MONKEYS AM SALE PRICED $ 9.99
The band’s initials, a new morning, an analogue radio frequency and an existential statement - the title of Arctic Monkeys’ fifth album AM suggests all of those things and more.
DAVE KOZ
DAVE KOZ & FRIENDS: THE 25TH OF DECEMBER SALE PRICED $ 12.99 Dave Koz returns to celebrate the holiday season, joined by a who’s who of acclaimed musicians (including Johnny Mathis, Kenny G, Trombone Shorty & Gloria Estefan) to bring the heart and soul back to Christmas.
PUP
PUP SALE PRICED $ 9.99 What sets PUP apart in the booming Toronto scene is their ability to fuse raw punk energy with catchy earworms, big hooks, and screamalong choruses.
HILLIARD ENSEMBLE TRANSEAMUS:English Carols and Motets SALE PRICED $ 14.99
Having recorded more than 20 albums since the mid-’80s, the Hilliard Ensemble caps its sublime discography before retirement with a final release.
Offer Ends January 4th
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
35
MUSIC
SATURDAY–TUESDAY
Scott McCaughey, Casey Neill, Ezra Holbrook and the Decemberists’ Chris Funk and Jenny Conlee help make up the ensemble. Kiss their arses as they kick yours. JEFF ROSENBERG. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $15. 21+.
Critters Buggin, Master Musicians of Bukkake
[CAN’T KNOCK THE HUSTLE] Local jangle-punk band the Woolen Men is quick to dispel the notion that democracy in music is a bad thing. Each of the group’s three members—Raf Spielman, Alex Geddes and Lawton Browning— sing and share instrumental duties, but all three are terrific songwriters, with distinct quirks and vocal styles that complement each other perfectly. This year’s Quick Trips EP included some of their best songs yet, including the bouncy “Walking Out,” the brisk “Real FX,” and the Geddes-sung “Emily,” which sounds just like something you’d slot on a mixtape to your New Wave girlfriend in 1983. This show celebrates the release of the band’s new live Banana Stand session. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $5. 21+.
Sponge, Rodeo Clowns, Dead Remedy
Haas Kowert Tice, There Is No Mountain
Sallie Ford, Old Light
[RETRO ROCK] A year after Sallie Ford and the Sound Outside broke up, Ms. Ford has her dream band, in which she’s backed by an all-girl lineup and gets to play lots of loud guitar. Though it’s sad to see the end of the Sound Outside’s swinging punk, Ford’s debut solo album, Slap Back, shows she is as versatile as ever. While there’s still plenty of nostalgia in the band’s sound, Ford no longer seems confined to her old band’s niche. Slap Back branches out to include a bunch of different brands of rock: surf rock, garage rock and good ol’ ’50s rock ’n’ roll. SHANNON GORMLEY. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 284-8686. 9 pm. $14 advance, $15 day of show. All ages.
SUNDAY, DEC. 14 Devin the Dude, Clemm Rishad, Dubble-OO, Stevo the Weirdo, DJ Fatboy
[KUSH OGS] With the steady and stoned guidance of Snoop and Dre, many commercial rap mystics anticipated Devin the Dude to emerge from the early 2000s as the heir apparent to Nate Dogg’s empire of feature-appearance omnipresence. While his silkysmooth flow and striking resemblance to Outkast’s earlier hotbox bangers gained Devin a strong cult following among hip-hop enthusiasts with a taste for the kushy stuff, a perch outside the mainstream has suited him well. He’s
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
The Woolen Men, Lithics, Grandhorse
[ECLECTIC ELECTRIC] Well, that’s a bit of a step down. In September 2001, Seattle skronkers Critters Buggin had the privilege—and challenge—of backing centuries-old Moroccan legends Master Musicians of Jajouka on a tour fraught with post-9/11 paranoia, including an indelible Crystal Ballroom appearance. Now, instead, they’re appearing alongside offensively-named fellow Seattleites Master Musicians of Bukkake (Google with care). Still, the return of the genre-pulverizing combo of pathbreaking sax man Skerik, in-demand drummer and multi-instrumentalist Matt Chamberlain, his fellow ex-New Bohemian Brad Houser on bass and percussionist Mike Dillon will offer an instrumental orgy sure to transcend juvenile porn references and jam-jazz circle-jerks alike. JEFF ROSENBERG. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave., 345-7892. 9:30 pm. $15. 21+.
[POST-GRUNGE] With Scott Stapp bankrupt and living in a Motel 6 somewhere, it may finally be safe to revisit some choice nuggets from the post-Nevermind feeding frenzy that are probably collecting dust in the trunk of your Chevy Corsica at this very moment. You’ll be delighted (or horrified, or both) to know Detroit’s Sponge is still chugging along two decades after the Candlebox-Bush boom went bust, though the overcooked butt rock of 2013’s Stop the Bleeding is best left alone if you’re keen on preserving the lukewarm memories you may have of playing the Empire Records soundtrack standout “Plowed” at unreasonable volumes while your parents nagged you about turning down the heavyhanded racket and finishing your damn math homework. PETE COTTELL. Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy Blvd., 238-0543. 8 pm. Call venue for ticket info. 21+.
36
spent the past decade lining the fringes with album after album of heavy-lidded grooves with more bounce to the ounce than your average stoner-rap careerist. PETE COTTELL. Alhambra Theatre, 4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 610-0640. 9 pm. $17 advance, $20 day of show. All ages.
MONDAY, DEC. 15 [HAUTE AMERICANA] Fiddler Brittany Haas (Crooked Still), bassist Paul Kowert (Punch Brothers) and virtuoso guitarist Jordan Tice clearly aspire to ends beyond soundtracking the odd hootenanny. But the instrumental prodigies’ combined powers unfurl such hellzapickin’ ferocity that the resulting master class should still captivate jam-band devotees unaware Flatpicking Guitar magazine even exists. You Got This, the trio’s debut, reveals a roots tradition transplanted to the conservatory and granted such expanse as to nudge adventurous classical, orchestral jazz and the sorts of world music earning both the appreciative nod and ecstatic slap. JAY HORTON. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $13 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
Dillon Francis
[BIG ROOM BORING] Dillon Francis is a cautionary tale about failure to commit. His debut album, Money Sucks, Friends Rule, checks all the necessary, big-festival EDM boxes: exponentially increasing snare hits; half-time breakdowns and tepid vocals. Tiny glimmers of hope emerge throughout the album— the arpeggiated chug that grounds “Love in the Middle of a Firefight,” and some instances of novel pitch-shifting. But the novelty of Dillon Francis seems to be that he’s goofy. He plays up the wacky quotes in his music more than other producers and surely puts more effort into his online presence. There’s nothing wrong with a gimmick, but there’s also nothing novel about humor in mainstream EDM. So pick a thing and run with it, lest ye share the fate of sad Dillon. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 224-2038. 8 pm. Sold out. 18+.
TUESDAY, DEC. 16 Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas, Rio Grands, the Fur Coats
[VOODOO ADELE] Jessica Hernandez could win American Idol hands down, but she’s too cool for that. The Detroit musician possesses a rich and resounding voice, which her sizable band, the Deltas, skilled as they are, struggle to keep up with. Hernandez has every right to be a diva, but she’s preoccupied with knitting old soul, country, jazz and blues into a textured tapestry of dark and twisted pop. The group is coming off a strong debut
TUESDAY/CLASSICAL, ETC. full-length in Secret Evil, an album akin to Adele after making a deal with the Devil. MARK STOCK. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 2319663. 9 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show. 21+.
Saves the Day, Say Anything, Reggie & the Full Effect
[EMO 101] Whatever your preferred soundtrack for doing doughnuts in your ex-girlfriend’s yard may have been a decade ago, the powers that be have assembled a veritable Voltron of early 2000s emo ascendancy that’s yet to be matched in pop appeal and headbanging urgency. Be sure to check the hoodie and the current significant other at the door—the opportunity to hear Saves the Day’s Through Being Cool and Say Anything’s …Is a Real Boy in their entirety is guaranteed to whip the inevitable flock of 30-somethings into a white-hot frenzy. PETE COTTELL. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 2848686. 8 pm. $21.99 advance, $25 day of show. All ages.
CLASSICAL, JAZZ & WORLD A Swingin’ Affair: Dex @ 90
[JAZZ-GIANT TRIBUTE] Tenor saxman Dexter Gordon was one of the giants of jazz, and not just because he stood 6-foot-6. One of the early beboppers inspired by Charlie Parker, Gordon, who died in 1990, also pioneered the subsequent hard-bop era with a series of classic Blue Note albums in the early 1960s that sound just as magnificent today. In this PDX Jazz concert, a passel of Portland jazz titans—David Evans, Charlie Porter, George Colligan, Tom Wakeling and Alan Jones—will celebrate the sophisticated giant. BRETT CAMPBELL. The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 222-2031. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Dec. 10. $15 general admission, $20 reserved seating.
Rebecca Kilgore
[FAMILY JAZZ] Ezra Weiss is not only one of Portland’s most impressive jazz composers and pianists. He is also devoted to making the music accessible to more than the usual audiences. Along with a different Portland jazz eminence each month, Weiss’ new concert series includes normal lighting, spacious seating and other features designed to make the concerts welcoming to listeners on the autism spectrum or who have other sensory needs. Anything that lets more Portlanders hear the divine singing of this month’s star, local legend Rebecca Kilgore (with veteran colleagues David Evans, Randy Porter and Tom Wakeling), is a gift to the community. BRETT CAMPBELL. Cedar Hills United Church of Christ, 11695 SW Park Way, 721-0262. 3 pm Saturday, Dec. 13. $5 suggested donation. All ages.
Cascadia Composers
[COMPOSERS AT PLAY] There’s a reason we “play” music, and in this ingenious event, Cascadia Composers invites kids and audience members into the creative process through homegrown new pieces inspired, or even constructed, by playful means. Local composers Gary Noland, Jennifer Wright, Ted Clifford, Art Resnick, Paul Safar and Daniel Brugh will show how they arrange and improvise music (in jazz, classical and other traditions) for piano, toy pianos, singer, accordion, trumpet, poetry, narration and electronic soundscapes, including one piece featuring a dancer, another a live painter and one in which playing cards randomly chosen by audience members help shape an impromptu new work. BRETT CAMPBELL. Community Music Center, 3350 SE Francis St., 823-3177. 7 pm Saturday, Dec. 13. $5-$15, children under 12 free. All ages.
For more Music listings, visit
MUSIC
ALBUM REVIEWS
USNEA RANDOM COSMIC VIOLENCE (RELAPSE) [DOOM METAL] On its self-released debut, Usnea offered a psychedelic nightmare of twisted riffage and effects abuse that set the band a comfortable parsec apart from the Portland metal pack. Sophomore albums can be nerve-wracking to compose, though, particularly for a big-time label such as Relapse. With Random Cosmic Violence, Usnea chose to adhere to its own formula. Four songs take just under an hour to unravel. The members trade vocal duties, with bassist Joel Williams providing the deep cleans of opening track “Lying in Ruin,” a paean against the folly of religion, while guitarist Justin Cory takes the lead on “Healing Through Death” with shrieks that recall an animal caught in a trap. From there, it’s just more bleak, misanthropic metal, tempered by a few quiet interludes and a thesaurus-worth of minimalist gothic lyricism and hopelessness. The album’s title track describes our insignificance in appropriately cosmic terms: “Sights seen in new dimensions/ Matter crushed to quantum beginnings/ Parties shifted, planes upended/ At the edge you see no ending.” In the end, though, this album is a small step for Usnea, not a giant leap. NATHAN CARSON. SEE IT: Usnea plays White Owl Social Club, 1305 SE 8th Ave., with Lord Dying and Cold Blue Mountain, on Saturday, Dec. 13. 8 pm. Free. 21+.
COTTON THE WHITE EAGLE (SELF-RELEASED) [DIY FOLK] At Dub Narcotic Studios in Olympia, less is more. Calvin Johnson’s audio office is a place for artists to bask in their idiosyncrasies, and it’s a fitting context for Portland’s J. Han, who plays bony DIY folk as Cotton. The White Eagle is a sparse and daydreamy sort of record, made up of two-minute-plus vignettes too brittle for a big studio. Built primarily around an acoustic guitar and Casio riffs, Cotton’s newest work is honest, impure and playful. The subject matter strays from love and mortality to farts and weed, and it’s as impulsive and erratic as a conversation around a campfire. Opening track “Seasons of the Heart” feels like a Woody Guthrie tune, while “Green” touts a whimsical, Ween-ish kind of vibe. Highlights “Lilium” and “Knot” demonstrate Han’s ability to uproot four-chord country waltzes and, with the help of his expressive vocals, arrive on a different plane. It’s an extremely intriguing and downright human take on modern folk. MARK STOCK. SEE IT: Cotton plays White Eagle Saloon, 836 N Russell St., with Toyboat Toyboat Toyboat and Raymond Anderson, on Sunday, Dec. 14. 7 pm. Free. 21+.
SHADOWHOUSE HAND IN HAND (MASS MEDIA) [GOTH PUNK] Like so many of its peers in the increasingly crowded post-punk revival tent, Shadowhouse is an unabashed tomb raider. But the Portland quartet knows that you know retrospection is the name of the game. So the question posed by its debut album, Hand in Hand, is pretty straightforward: Does this batch of songs tweak your nostalgia knobs in ways that please you? If grandiose melancholy is your bag, the answer is yes. Hand in Hand splits the difference between the Cure’s early monochrome masterpieces and the Chameleons’ slightly rowdier odes to despair. And while the mannered signification occasionally devolves into mere mood music, Shadowhouse transcends its station with undeniable pop songwriting chops. Singer Shane McCauley’s syrup-soaked baritone and the requisite waves of flange it rides on might seem borderline parodic on first spin. But for every stretch of funereal grief, Shadowhouse has antidotes waiting in its soaring choruses, which transform dourness into triumph as they deliver the strange thrill one might occasionally find at the end of a crying jag, when agony briefly becomes a secret power. And then you cry some more. CHRIS STAMM. SEE IT: Shadowhouse plays the Know, 2026 NE Alberta St., with Lunch and Papal Order, on Sunday, Dec. 14. 8 pm. 21+.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
37
38
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
MUSIC CALENDAR = ww Pick. Highly recommended.
[DEC. 10-16] crystal Ballroom
Editor: Mitch Lillie. TO HAVE YOUR EVENT LISTED, send show information at least two weeks in advance on the web at wweek.com/submitevents. 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: music@wweek.com.
1332 W Burnside Street TV On The Radio, Natasha Kmeto
For more listings, check out wweek.com.
350 W Burnside St Down Gown and the Drawing Board, Bubble Cats
LAST WEEK LIVE
dante’s
RACHELLE HACMAC
doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Bluetech, Manatee Commune, East Forest
duff’s Garage
2016 NE Sandy Blvd. Norman Sylvester
Hawthorne Theatre Lounge
clinton Street Theater
Al’s den
303 SW 12th Ave. Sean Badders
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. Andy McKee
Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St. White Album Christmas
Alberta Street Public House
doug Fir Lounge
1111 SW Broadway 1964: The Tribute
830 E Burnside St. College, Doubleplusgood
duff’s Garage
2530 NE 82nd Ave Suburban Slims Blues Jam, Arthur Moore’s Harmonica Party
1036 NE Alberta St. Local Roots Radio Live Concert Recording
edgefield
Analog cafe & Theater
Holocene
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Peep Show
Andina Restaurant 1314 NW Glisan St, Toshi Onizuka
2126 SW Halsey St. Michael Berly and Friends 1001 SE Morrison St. Dream Police
Jimmy Mak’s
Blue diamond
221 NW 10th Ave. The J-Fell Winter Band Hang
Boon’s Treasury
715 NW 23rd Ave George Colligan Trio
2016 NE Sandy Blvd. The Fenix Project 888 Liberty St. NE The Folly
cadigan’s corner Bar
Jo Rotisserie & Bar
Justa Pasta
1336 NW 19th Ave Anson Wright Duo
5501 SE 72nd Ave. Danny Hay Davis & The Rat Pack
Kells
clinton Street Theater
LaurelThirst Public House
2522 SE Clinton St. Album Release Party for Alexa Wiley and The Wilderness
crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside Street Spoon, Future Islands, A Giant Dog
Mississippi Studios
112 SW 2nd Ave. Sammi
2958 NE Glisan St. Redwoon Son (9 pm); Big E and the Stomp (6 pm)
Lincoln Performance Hall
1620 SW Park Ave. Think Lincoln Noon Concert Series: The PSU Orchestra
Newmark Theatre
Rock creek Tavern
10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. Billy D
Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave. Weezer
Sandy Hut
1430 NE Sandy Blvd. More Hell, Bad Future
The GoodFoot Lounge 2845 SE Stark St. Shafty
The Lodge Bar & Grill 6605 SE Powell Blvd. Pete Ford Band
The Old church
1422 SW 11th Ave. A Swingin’ Affair: Dex @ 90
The Secret Society
116 NE Russell St. Funemployment Radio Comedy Showcase
The Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Burning Rain, Garden of Eden
Trail’s end Saloon 1320 Main Street Big Monti
white eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. The Hill Dogs
800 NW 6th Ave. Ron Steen Band
Al’s den
303 SW 12th Ave. Sean Badders
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. Hot Rize, Cahalen Morrison & Eli West
Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St. White Album Christmas
Alberta Street Public House
1036 NE Alberta St. Nathaniel Talbot, Lincoln Crockett, Anna Tivel
Andina Restaurant 1314 NW Glisan St, Neftali Rivera
Biddy McGraw’s
6000 NE Glisan St. Hot Club of Hawthorne
Blue diamond
2016 NE Sandy Blvd. Ben Jones and Friends
cadigan’s corner Bar 5501 SE 72nd Ave. Thursday Night Jam
chapel Pub
430 N Killingworth St. Steve Kerin
clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant & Bar
5474 NE Sandy Blvd. Mesi and Bradley
2522 SE Clinton St. Toxic Zombies
club 21
2035 NE Glisan St. Glitter Wizard, Sons of Huns
clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant & Bar
5474 NE Sandy Blvd. Muthaship
dante’s
350 W Burnside St Supersuckers, I canlickanysonofabitchinthehouse, the Dead Volts
Magnolia’s corner
doug Fir Lounge
4075 NE Sandy Blvd Jeff Cochell
Mississippi Studios
830 E Burnside St. Augustana, Scars on 45
duff’s Garage
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Phone Call, Purse Candy, Fringe Class
2530 NE 82nd Ave Randy Oxford Band
Pub at the end of the universe
2126 SW Halsey St. Scott Gallegos, Dickens Carolers
4107 SE 28th Ave. Thursday Night Community Jam
Ringlers Pub
1332 W Burnside The Windshield Vipers
Rock creek Tavern
10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. Pagan Jug Band
The Firkin Tavern
1937 SE 11th Ave. The Folk Slinger, Soul Progression, Jake Capistran
The GoodFoot Lounge
THuRS. dec. 11
6000 NE Glisan St. Fire Weeds, Thin Rail
2958 NE Glisan St. Redray Frazier
LaurelThirst Public House
3939 N Mississippi Ave. A Winged Victory for the Sullen, Hildur Gudnadottir
1037 SW Broadway Gospel Christmas
Blue diamond
112 SW 2nd Ave. Sammi
350 W Burnside St A Giant Dog and Love Cop, Dandelyons andSwamp Devils
Arlene Schnitzer concert Hall
2126 SW Halsey St. Red and Ruby
Kells
wilf’s Restaurant & Bar
1314 NW Glisan St, Sambafeat (Quartet)
edgefield
221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown B3 Organ Group
dante’s
Andina Restaurant
Biddy McGraw’s
Jimmy Mak’s
wed. dec. 10
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Smoke Season, Coco Columbia, When We Team Up, Stanley and the Search, Divides, Orgncs, Initiatives, Hollywise
2530 NE 82nd Ave Eddie Turner, Tough Love Pyle
1503 SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd. Side O’Slaw, Snarl
CELLIOTT: It’s hard to believe that Elliott Smith has been gone for 11 years. But that sad fact is a bit easier to wrap your head around when his material is being covered by the small chamber orchestra otherwise known as the Portland Cello Project. The gorgeous medleys of his songs performed at the Aladdin Theater on Dec. 5—the first of two sold-out shows that weekend—sounded immediately ancient. “Between the Bars” was lush and haunting, with intricate finger-plucking standing in for Smith’s vocals, while “Needle in the Hay” transformed into a brass-led number riddled with tension, marching percussion and a triumphant finale. The rest of the night was an entertaining study in gear-shifting, jumping from Future Islands’ “Seasons Change” (with special guest Ural Thomas on vocals) to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off.” Throughout, the PCP flaunted its agility, tackling a diverse range of music with the ease of an artist playing its biggest hit for the 20,000th time. MARK STOCK.
Alhambra Theatre
2845 SE Stark St. Asher Fulero Band
The Lehrer
8775 SW Canyon Ln. Soul Commander
The Lodge Bar & Grill 6605 SE Powell Blvd. Ben Rice B3 Trio
The Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Josiah Payne
The Secret Society 116 NE Russell St. Jacob Miller and the Bridge City Crooners
The Spare Room
4830 NE 42nd Ave Goldfoot
Turn! Turn! Turn!
8 NE Killingsworth St. Cloud City Cars, Ethernet, DeLyria, Kendall Station
white eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Big How, Chris Baron & Friends
FRi. dec. 12 Al’s den
303 SW 12th Ave. Sean Badders
Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St. White Album Christmas
edgefield
First united Methodist church 1838 SW Jefferson St. Oregon Repertory Singers
Freedom Four Square church 660 SE 160th. Ave. Eastside Bluegrass Christmas Concert
Hawthorne Theatre
1507 SE 39th Ave. Exodus, Spazztic Blur, Season of Suffering, Cemetery Lust, Sarcalogos
Hawthorne Theatre Lounge
1503 SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd. Equipto, I.L.A.M., Dirtbag Dan, Broke The MC, Knothead, NYQE Unorthodox, Mic Mar, Stefi Steez
High water Mark
6800 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Thornes, Lovesores, VWO
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. Tyrone Hendrix & Friends
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. Flight of Earls
LaurelThirst Public House 2958 NE Glisan St. Emma Hill, Small Souls (9:30 pm); Joe McMurrian and Woodbrain (6 pm)
Magnolia’s corner
4075 NE Sandy Blvd Chuck Cheesman
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Assembly of Dust, Doobie Decibel System
Ponderosa Lounge
10350 N Vancouver Way Carrie Cunningham
Rock creek Tavern
10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. Peter Pants
Roseland Theater
8 NW 6th Ave. tUnE-yArDs, Cibo Matto
Rouge Pub
31500 NW Commercial St The Lesser Three
Saint Honoré Boulangerie
3333 SE Division St Heather Keisur and Steve Christofferson
Sandy Hut
1430 NE Sandy Blvd. Schroeder Bomb, Lost Bombers, Ghost Aliens
St. Francis church
15651 SW Oregon Street Christmas with The Glory Singers
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. NW Natural Holidays with the Trail Band
Alhambra Theatre
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Rock Collection
Andina Restaurant 1314 NW Glisan St, Toshi Onizuka
Arlene Schnitzer concert Hall
1037 SW Broadway Gospel Christmas
Biddy McGraw’s
6000 NE Glisan St. The Payback, Redray Frazier and Ezra Holbrook
Blue diamond
2016 NE Sandy Blvd. The Sportin’ Lifers
Boon’s Treasury
Star Theater
888 Liberty St. NE Sky Bound Blue
The Firkin Tavern
1028 SE Water Ave. Say Hi
13 NW 6th Ave. Haerts and Mikky Ekko 1937 SE 11th Ave. Nature Thief, San Densmore, & Jared Olivas
The Foggy Notion 3416 N Lombard St. Guyve
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St. Motrik, Terwilliger Curves, The Harvey Girls
The Lehrer
8775 SW Canyon Ln. A Ken DeRouchie Christmas
The Melody Ballroom 615 SE Alder Italy in December, A Benefit Dance Party Featuring Ray Massa’s EuroRythms
The Muddy Rudder Public House
8105 SE 7th Ave. The Sportin’ Lifers Trio
The Secret Society
116 NE Russell St. The Barn Door Slammers & Cahalen Morrison, Pete Krebs And His Portland Playboys
The Spare Room
4830 NE 42nd Ave Garcia Birthday Band
The Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. A Very Punk Rock Xmas, The Angry Snowmen, The Rescendents, The Mormon Trannys, God Bless America
Bunk Bar
cedar Hills united church of christ
11695 SW Park Way Rebecca Kilgore
club 21
2035 NE Glisan St. P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S., Don’t, Serpent’s Call
clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant & Bar
5474 NE Sandy Blvd. Elite
community Music center
3350 SE Francis St. Cascadia Composers
curious comedy Theater
5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr Blvd. Mixology
dante’s
350 W Burnside St Zepparella, All Female Tribute To Led Zeppelin with The Shrike & Daniele Gottardo
doug Fir Lounge 830 E Burnside St. KMIRA
edgefield
2126 SW Halsey St. Mark Alan, Dickens Carolers
Gateway elks Lodge 711 NE 100th Ave Thrill Ride Band, Baby Boomers Social Club Christmas Party
Tony Starlight Showroom
Hawthorne Theatre
Torta-Landia
Hawthorne Theatre Lounge
1125 SE Madison It’s a Tony Starlight Christmas 4144 SE 60th Ave. Live Music
Trail’s end Saloon 1320 Main Street Big Monti
Turn! Turn! Turn!
8 NE Killingsworth St. The Saxophones, Jeremy Lee Faulkner and the Final Dorm, Mojave Bird
white eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. The Lonesomes, The Low Bones, Reverb Brothers
wonder Ballroom
128 NE Russell St. Hillstomp, The Good Luck Thrift Store Outfit
SAT. dec. 13 Al’s den
1507 SE 39th Ave. Stick to Your Guns, Being as an Ocean, Trial, To the Wind
1503 SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd. Joe Vickers, Chris Baron
High water Mark
6800 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Landlines, The Whines, Pass, Bobby Peru
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. The Rae Gordon Group, Merry at Maks
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. Flight of Earls
LaurelThirst Public House
2958 NE Glisan St. Life During Wartime, the Colin Trio (9:30 pm); Water Tower (6 pm)
303 SW 12th Ave. Sean Badders
CONT. on page 40 Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
39
MUSIC CALENDAR Metropolitan Community Church of Portland 2400 NE Broadway St. Winter Wonders
Northwood Public House and Brewery 1401 S.E. Rasmussen Blvd. Butterfly Breakdown
Ponderosa Lounge
10350 N Vancouver Way Whisky Union
Reed College
3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. Winter Dance Concert
Rock Creek Tavern
10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. 23window
Sandy Hut
1430 NE Sandy Blvd. Secnd Best, Raw Dog and the Close Calls, The Brass, Angry Lions
Star Theater
13 NW 6th Ave. Critters Buggin, Master Musicians of Bukkake
The GoodFoot Lounge 2845 SE Stark St. Polecat, The Hilldogs
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St. Big Crux, Dark/Light
The Lehrer
8775 SW Canyon Ln. Mitch Kashmar’s Harmonica Summit, Hank Shreve, Jim Wallace, Jimi Bott
The Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Alan Hagar
The Secret Society
116 NE Russell St. The Breaking CD Release, Screens, Spirit Lake, Davy Jay Sparrow & His Western Songbirds
The Tonic Lounge
Andina Restaurant
The Waypost Coffeehouse & Tavern
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Scofflaw Soiree with Pink Lady & John Bennett Jazz Band 1314 NW Glisan St, Ryan Walsh
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall 1037 SW Broadway Gospel Christmas
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Rock For A Reason Holiday Toy Drive!, Austin Lucas, Ryan Sollee, Ty Vaughn, Ike Fonseca
Duff’s Garage
2530 NE 82nd Ave Rhythym Renegades
First United Methodist Church-Portland
1838 SW Jefferson St. Oregon Repertory Singers
Hawthorne Theatre Lounge
1503 SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd. Z-Man & True Justice, Vocab Slick, Pure Powers, Metric, 4Trees
Hollywood Theater
4122 NE Sandy Blvd Celebration of Frank Wesley
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. Bill Tollner
LaurelThirst Public House 2958 NE Glisan St. Pretty Gritty, Powerhouse (9 pm); Freak Mountain Ramblers (6 pm)
Lincoln Performance Hall 1620 SW Park Ave. Simone Dinnerstein
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave. Anthemtown Open Mic
The Tea Zone and Camellia Lounge
3939 N Mississippi Ave. The Woolen Men, Lithics, MVM Student Showcase
The Tonic Lounge
8409 N. Lombard St. Open Mic
510 NW 11th Ave. Mark Simon Quintet
Mississippi Studios
Plews Brews
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Sponge, Rodeo Clowns, Dead Remedy
Reed College
Torta-Landia
Rock Creek Tavern
4144 SE 60th Ave. Live Music
Trail’s End Saloon 1320 Main Street Rocky Martin
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
147 NW 19th Ave A Blaze of Brass & Song
Turn! Turn! Turn!
8 NE Killingsworth St. Chrome Mole Monocle, Consumer, Brumes
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Michele Ari, Levity, Naomi Tee and Josh Makosky Trio, Soul Saturdays with DoveDriver
White Owl Social Club
1305 SE 8th Ave. Lord Dying, USNEA, Cold Blue Mountain
Winona Grange No. 271
8340 SW Seneca St. Kathryn Claire, 2nd Saturday Community Concerts
Wonder Ballroom
128 NE Russell St. Sallie Ford, Old Light
SUN. DEC. 14 Al’s Den
303 SW 12th Ave. Robert Sarazin Blake
Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. NW Natural Holidays with the Trail Band
Alhambra Theatre
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Devin the Dude, Clemm Rishad, Dubble-OO, Stevo the Weirdo, DJ Fatboy
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
Analog Cafe & Theater
The Spare Room
4830 NE 42nd Ave Norman Sylvester
40
DEC. 10–16
3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. Winter Dance Concert 10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. Irish Sundays
Rontoms
600 E. Burnside St. Old Age, Blue Skies For Black Hearts
Slabtown
1033 NW 16th Ave. Grand Style Orchestra
St Matthew Lutheran Church
10390 SW Canyon Road Big Horn Brass Holiday Concert
Star Theater
13 NW 6th Avenue Sister Mercy CD Release
Star Theater
13 NW 6th Ave. April Brown and Sister Mercy, Jennifer Smieja
The Cleaners at Ace Hotel
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Barfly Christmas Party: Paul Brainard’s Fun Machine, John Elvis Shroder, DJ Meow
3120 N Williams Ave. Anna Fritz & Anne-Marie Sanderson
Tony Starlight Showroom 1125 SE Madison It’s a Tony Starlight Christmas
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
147 NW 19th Ave A Blaze of Brass & Song
Vie De Boheme
1530 SE 7th Ave. Brothers of the Baladi Holiday Party,with Belly Dancer, Zahara
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Toyboat Toyboat Toyboat, Cotton and Raymond Anderson
Winona Grange No. 271 8340 SW Seneca St. Music Jam
MON. DEC. 15 Al’s Den
303 SW 12th Ave. Robert Sarazin Blake
Alberta Rose Theatre
3000 NE Alberta St. Mezclamericana: Edna Vazquez, Mariachi Perla de Portland, Diana Gameros
Andina Restaurant 1314 NW Glisan St, Pete Krebs
Blue Diamond
2016 NE Sandy Blvd. Hot Tea Cold
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside Street Big Data, Joywave, Hustle and Drone
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St Crosby Tyler
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Haas Kowert Tice
Edgefield
2126 SW Halsey St. Groovy Wallpaper with Kathryn Claire
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. The Alex Koehler Quintet
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. The Dan Balmer Trio
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. Bill Tollner
Lake Theater & Cafe 106 N State St. Ellen, Gene & Jean
Lan Su Chinese Garden 239 NW Everett St. Music in the Teahouse
LaurelThirst Public House 2958 NE Glisan St. Kung Pao Chickens (9 pm); Copper & Coal (6 pm)
LaurelThirst Public House
403 SW 10th Ave Publication Fair
2958 NE Glisan St. Kung Pao Chickens (9 pm); Copper & Coal (6 pm)
The Firkin Tavern
Plews Brews
1937 SE 11th Ave. Open Mic
The Foggy Notion 3416 N Lombard St. Open Mic Sundays
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St. Shadowhouse, Lunch, Papal Order
The Muddy Rudder Public House
8409 N. Lombard St. Med Monday
Portland Metro Records PO Box 6793 Fire Monday’s
Pub at the End of the Universe 4107 SE 28th Ave. Open Mic
Rock Creek Tavern
8105 SE 7th Ave. Irish
10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. Bob Shoemaker
The Oregon Garden
Roseland Theater
879 W Main St. Christmas in the Garden
8 NW 6th Ave. Dillon Francis
The GoodFoot Lounge 2845 SE Stark St. Sonic Forum Open Mic
The Lehrer
8775 SW Canyon Ln. Organic Blue Monday, Ed Neumann
The Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Mark ‘The Shark’ Schatzkamer
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Singer Songwriter Showcase, Eric John Kaiser
TUES. DEC. 16 Al’s Den
303 SW 12th Ave. Robert Sarazin Blake
Alberta Rose Theatre
3000 NE Alberta St. Adam Hurst World Cello CD Release Concert
Analog Cafe & Theater 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. People’s Ink Weekly
Andina Restaurant 1314 NW Glisan St, JB Butler
Blue Diamond
2016 NE Sandy Blvd. The Gretchen Mitchell Band
Cadigan’s Corner Bar 5501 SE 72nd Ave. Soul Provider, Naomi T
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside Street Alt-J, Great Wilderness
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Jessica Hernandez & the Deltas, Rio Grands, the Fur Coats
Duff’s Garage
2530 NE 82nd Ave Wingtips
Edgefield
2126 SW Halsey St. Matt Meighan
Ford Food and Drink 2505 11th Ave #101 Pagan Jug Band
Hawthorne Theatre
1507 SE 39th Ave. Jar of Flies, Outshined, 13 A Salute To Black Sabbath, $intax
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. The Moth Portland Storyslam
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. The George Colligan Quartet
Kells
112 SW 2nd Ave. Bill Tollner
LaurelThirst Public House 2958 NE Glisan St. Jordan Anderson, Nicholas Clark (9 pm); Jackstraw (6 pm)
Midnight Roundup
345 NW Burnside Rd. Open Mic Jam Session, Hosted by Sacred Road Country Band
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. WW’s Holiday Marketplace
The Lehrer
8775 SW Canyon Ln. Hot Jam Night, Tracey Fordice and The 8-Balls
The Oregon Garden
879 W Main St. Christmas in the Garden
Tony Starlight Showroom 1125 SE Madison It’s a Tony Starlight Christmas
Triple Nickel Pub
3646 SE Belmont St. Eye Candy
Vie De Boheme 1530 SE 7th Ave. Salsa Night
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St. Blues Jam with Travers Kiley
Wonder Ballroom
128 NE Russell St. Saves the Day, Say Anything, Reggie & the Full Effect
dec. 10–16
MUSIC CALENDAR Daniel Cole
BAR SPOTLIGHT
Where to drink this week. 1. The Knock Back 2315 NE Alberta St., 284-4090, theknockback.com. The Knock Back has added top-notch bartender Jesse Card to make an unlikely transition to fine cocktail bar, with whiskey cocktails using pumpkin, quince or Madeira as mixers. 2. The Big Legrowlski 812 NW Couch St., 206-6481, biglegrowlski.com. Mostly this is an understated little tap nook on the edge of Chinatown. The Chinatown crowd is not the issue—no rich fucks, no fucking strumpets waltzing around, just a black-and-white rendering of the rug that tied the room together and Bowling nixon in the restroom. 3. Lucky Horseshoe Lounge 2524 SE Clinton St., 764-9898, luckyhorseshoepdx.com. Taking over the space previously occupied by the Workshop Pub, the loosely Western-themed lucky Horseshoe keeps a neon horseshoe in the window, its bottles in a metal tub on the bar, and its occidental or Gigantic beers on tap at a cool $4. 4. The Ranger Station 4260 SE Hawthorne Blvd, 894-8455, rangerstationpdx.com. The former (short-lived) Thorne lounge is now a tiny bluegrass and jazz bar that looks like a Rooseveltera public works cabin, from picnic-table-style wooden benches to slatted lawn chairs. 5. Prettyman’s General 2637 SE Hawthorne Blvd., prettymansgeneral.com. This dandy little pub and market has all the trappings of contemporary Portland culture: antlers, sheepskin-adorned leather sofas, oil landscapes, Courtney Barnett records, super-fancy tuna salad sandwiches.
LITTLE CHINATOWN: Why give Old Town caviar when spicy chicken fingers will do? Easy Company, the space’s former ChefStable bar, had heady ambitions for the old Ping restaurant space, slinging fancy cocktails, craft taps and highbrow sandwiches straight from the Lardo prep kitchen. Easy Company folded in September, after only a few months in business. The same owners are rebooting with the ’80s-movie-themed Big Trouble (329 NW Couch St., bigtroublepdx.com), which knows its booze-drenched, club-happy neighborhood a little better. On a recent Saturday, a DJ in a T-shirt emblazoned with “Boogie” in Helvetica font worried the mixer with hilariously Cocktail-worthy flair while segueing from “Chinese Star” to a James Brown instrumental, for a bewildering mix of svelte 22-year-olds and middle-aged soul fans. A photo of Kurt Russell, Big Trouble’s patron saint, presides over a red-lit, Chinese-themed space also adorned by a cracked Hung Far Low sign, upside-down umbrellas and various arrangements of chopsticks. Urban decay is signified by gaps in the plaster covering the wooden lath. But for all the faux-Asian kitsch and wedding-party dance music, the $5 menu items are very tasty trash fare—from Mae Ploy-flavored chicken fingers to an egg foo young sandwich—and the $7 cocktails are well-balanced, in particular a subtle, house-infused spicy margarita called Hung Far Below. Ask for a “Tall guy, weird clothes,” and you’ll get a can of Narragansett beer with a shot of Fireball. Draft beers—including Worthy and Breakside—are a mere $2 at happy hour. But you could always just walk up to the bar, look them square in the eye, and say, “Give me your best shot, pal. I can take it.” MATTHEW KORFHAGE.
rotture
315 SE 3rd Ave. XRAY.FM Holiday Dance Party, Hosted by Heavy Breather
Mrs. Presents Queen: DJ Beyonda
The whiskey Bar 31 NW 1st Ave Oliver
The whiskey Bar
wed. dec. 10 Moloko Plus
3967 N Mississippi Ave. King Tim 33 1/3
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St. Stag Party: Blap DJs
The Lovecraft
421 SE Grand Ave. Event Horizon, Industrial Dance Night
Thurs. dec. 11 holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Body Party: Holla N Oates, Barisone
Moloko Plus
3967 N Mississippi Ave.
Strictly Vinyl, DJ Strategy
The Lovecraft
421 SE Grand Ave. Shadowplay
The Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. House Call: Gene Hunt, Demetre Baca, DJ Tony Stewart, Mr. Romo, Josh D, Joepamine
fri. dec. 12 Branx
320 SE 2nd Ave. Marc Kinchen (MK)
holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. DJ Cooky Parker & DJ Gregarious
31 NW 1st Ave Liquid Stranger
saT. dec. 13 Beulahland coffee & alehouse 118 NE 28th Ave. DJ Roane
Mon. dec. 15 cadigan’s corner Bar 5501 SE 72nd Ave. Fight Church TV, Jessie
The Lovecraft
421 SE Grand Ave. Departures, DJ Waisted and Friends
Branx
320 SE 2nd Ave. Portland Masquerade Ball: RJD2, Bird of Prey, The NW Fresh All Stars
holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Verified: Nadus, GANG$IGN$, SPF666, Demonslayer, Quarry
Tues. dec. 16 The Lodge Bar & Grill 6605 SE Powell Blvd. DJ Easy Finger
The whiskey Bar 31 NW 1st Ave Bass Cube
Mississippi studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
41
Phoebe Rich, MD
Oregon Dermatology and Research Center
Psoriasis? Oregon Dermatoloy and Research Center is conducting an investigational medicine study for participants over the age of 18.
Qualified participants may receive: • STUDY RELATED CARE BY A BOARD CERTIFIED DEMATOLOGIST • STUDY DRUG • COMPENSATION FOR YOUR TIME AND TRAVEL
Interested persons should call AND visit our website:
(503) 226-3376
www.phoeberichmd.com
SIGN UP FOR WILLAMETTE WEEK’S NEWSLETTER
Next week’S editioN featureS a chaNce to wiN free
amtrak caScadeS ticketS rouNd trip from portlaNd to eugeNe Sign up @ wweek.com/promotions
42
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
dec. 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: REBECCA JACOBSON. Theater: REBECCA JACOBSON (rjacobson@wweek.com). Dance: KAITIE TODD (dance@wweek.com). TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: rjacobson@wweek.com.
THEATER OPENINGS & PREVIEWS BioGRAYph: Why Theatre? Why Suicide? Matthew Mathis performs an original monologue about Spalding Gray, the tortured actor and writer who died in 2004 of an apparent suicide. Black Door #1, 3324 SE Waverleigh Blvd. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Dec. 12-13. 971-207-5804. Donation suggested.
Boxes, Coins and New Noses
Portland Storytellers Guild presents an evening of tales about gifts. Hipbone Studio, 1847 E Burnside St., portlandstorytellers.org. 7:30 pm Saturday, Dec. 13. $8-$10.
The Eight: Reindeer Monologues
The St. Johns-based Twilight Theater Company presents a staged reading of Jeff Goode’s dark comedy, which finds Santa’s reindeer spilling the dirt about ol’ Kris Kringle—and making some damning charges of sexual assault. Central Hotel, 8608 N Lombard Street, 847-9838. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, Dec. 12-13. $10.
Frogz
Imago’s long-running extravaganza, which has toured the world and spent time on Broadway, returns for the holidays. It’s a family-friendly, fantastical show featuring elaborate costumes and impressive acrobatics. If you’re raising kids in Portland, it’s basically required viewing—and for good reason. Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave., 231-3959. Many showtimes through Jan. 4. See imagotheatre.com for schedule. $17.50-$34.50.
It’s A Wonderful Life
For the third year running, Stumptown Stages presents a musical adaptation of Frank Capra’s classic movie. Brunish Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Saturdays-Sundays through Dec. 28. $30.75-$44.75.
Love Stories and Lullabies
Bilingual musician Joaquin Lopez weaves together stories and songs about Prada shoes, learning to be Latino and ill-fated romance. Lopez will be joined by his father, accordionist Salvador Lopez, as well as by folk guitarist Susan Jacobo, and by several actors from Hand2Mouth. Drinks and dancing to follow. Shout House, 210 SE Madison St., Ste. 11, 235-5284. 8 pm Saturday, Dec. 13. $20-$35.
The Mystery Box Show
The storytelling series returns with more true tales of all things sex. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 7 pm Saturday, Dec. 13. $14-$16. 21+.
The Play’s the Thing
Wendy Wilcox, who used to belong to an all-women Shakespeare company in San Francisco, directs an allwomen reading of Hamlet’s Act II, Scene II—the tragedy’s longest scene, which includes Hamlet’s reunion with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and the arrival of the players. Blackfish Gallery, 420 NW 9th Ave., 971-266-3787. 8 pm Friday-Saturday, Dec. 12-13. $8.
A Tuna Christmas
It’s not the holidays unless every theater company in town is rehashing a long-running Christmas show. At least Oregon Repertory Theatre’s selection, set in a rabidly conservative small town in Texas, has some flawlessly executed costume changes and a few good zingers. Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays, Dec. 12-21. $28.25-$50.25.
NEW REVIEWS The Maid’s Tragedy
Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher’s rarely staged 1619 revenge play The Maid’s Tragedy, like Jacobean tragedy more generally, anticipates film noir in both its fixation on female sexuality and its resolutely bleak atmosphere. Hapless hero Amintor (Steve Vanderzee) faces a situation as simple and ferocious as a bear trap: He discovers on his wedding night that his new marriage is a sham, cooked up by the wicked king to preserve his own secret affair with Amintor’s bride Evadne (Brenan Dwyer). In Northwest Classical Theatre’s incisive production, the poisonous atmosphere is apparent even before Amintor and Evadne face off beside their marriage bed. From the opening scene, as stalwart war hero Melantius (Tom Walton) declares himself unsuited to the peacetime life he’s reentering, the spectacle of unchecked violence pulses underneath each well-turned witticism and polished manipulation. Under Barry Kyle’s assured direction, the company stages a feverish party en route to the charnel house. The supporting cast, sporting increasingly pallid and expressionistic makeup, offer some diverting turns—particularly memorable are Melissa Whitney as spurned lover Aspatia, sullenly blocking out her environment with headphones, and Matthew Dieckman as giddy courtier Diphilus. Walton and Vanderzee seethe at the corruption surrounding them, but it’s Dwyer as Evadne, alternately haughty and tormented, who makes this production incandescent. JOHN BEER.Shoebox Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 971-244-3740. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Jan. 4. $20-$22.
The Mystery of Irma Vep
Third Rail’s The Mystery of Irma Vep leaves little doubt about one thing: Co-stars Isaac Lamb and Leif Norby have got chops. Charles Ludlam’s 1984 cross-dressing romp—two actors, seven characters, countless costume changes—requires its performers to juggle wildly divergent accents and attitudes across a nonsensical storyline that draws from Hitchcock’s Rebecca, Wuthering Heights, schlocky horror movies and Victorian penny-dreadfuls. There are werewolves, vampires and one very horny Egyptian mummy. And Lamb and Norby, two Portland stalwarts, gallop through the proceedings with remarkable ease and evident glee. But for all its giddiness, the show doesn’t go anywhere. In his director’s notes, Philip Cuomo describes Irma Vep as ridiculous, but there’s little here that actually qualifies as such. Unlike, say, Noises Off—Third Rail’s comedic caper of choice last winter— Ludlam’s play fails to build. Instead, it relies on knowingly terrible puns and campy mugging, and Lamb and Norby are only too happy to oblige: In the second act, they crawl across audience members’ laps and steal sips of wine (“Don’t worry, I don’t have Ebola,” quips Lamb). Despite a few exuberant moments, including some amusing repetition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart,” the real mystery of Irma Vep remains unsolved: Why would the normally savvy Third Rail bother with such a shopworn clunker? REBECCA JACOBSON. Winningstad Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 235-1101. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Jan. 10. $24-$47.
ALSO PLAYING 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The answer doesn’t matter much to the main characters in 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche, as long as there are eggs, and plenty of them. Set in 1956
in an unnamed town, the comedy— written by Evan Linder and Andrew Hobgood and presented by Triangle Productions—centers on the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein. As the play begins, the society’s five officers—all self-proclaimed “widows”—are preparing for their annual quiche competition. Amid bold proclamations about never allowing meat to enter a quiche (yep), a nuclear holocaust hits, rendering those in the meeting hall as the last possible hope for humanity. 5 Lesbians started off as a 10-minute play, and it might have been better suited to a shorter format. The humor feels heavy-handed and repetitive by the end. Still, it’s not always without charm, mostly due to the cast, who bring winking amusement to the script’s many double entendres. KAITIE TODD. Sanctuary at Sandy Plaza, 1785 NE Sandy Blvd., 239-5919. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Dec. 20. $15-$35.
As You Like It
You don’t have to give Macbeth a lightsaber, turn Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into Mafiosos or set Twelfth Night at an office party in Tigard to reimagine Shakespeare. Making the Bard accessible is largely a matter of carefully breaking up the language and using blocking to reinforce its meaning. In this production of As You Like It by Post5 Theatre—which recently made the move from a lowslung space in Montavilla to a much larger, converted church in Sellwood— that’s exactly what director Ty Boice does, to fantastic result. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971-258-8584. 7:30 pm Fridays-Sundays through Dec. 13. $15; Sundays “pay what you can.”
Blithe Spirit
Death is entirely a laughing matter. At least, that’s the case in Artists Rep’s production of Blithe Spirit, directed by Christopher Liam Moore. Noël Coward’s 1941 comedy finds well-to-do author Charles (Michael Mendelson) inviting the spacy psychic Madame Arcati (Vana O’Brien) to his home for a séance as research for a novel he’s writing. But the séance accidentally summons the spirit of Elvira (Sara Hennessy), Charles’ bratty first wife. Charles is the only one who can see or hear her, which leads to a slew of gags wherein his current wife, the stern Ruth (Jill Van Velzer), mistakes his jabs at Elvira for comments directed at her. Posh accents and a lavish set all denote that it’s a period piece, but the brisk pacing allows this production to skirt Merchant-Ivory languor. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm Wednesdays-Sundays and 2 pm Sundays through Jan. 4. $25-$55.
A Christmas Carol
Portland Playhouse brings back its adaptation of Charles Dickens’ classic tale, which picked up a Drammy last June for best play. Portland Playhouse, 602 NE Prescott St., 488-5822. 7 pm most Wednesdays-Saturdays and 2 and 5 pm most Sundays through Dec. 28. For additional showtimes, see portlandplayhouse.org. $20-$36.
A Christmas Survival Guide
Broadway Rose’s holiday production A Christmas Survival Guide—a “tonguein-cheek revue”—aims to help relieve the stress of the season. Because what better way to alleviate those holiday headaches than with two solid hours of jokey adaptations of Christmas tunes and sentimental treacle? There is no pretense of a plot as the four performers seek advice from a selfhelp book to get through the holidays, then illustrate said advice with rousing musical numbers (of which at least two have been recycled from a previous Broadway Rose Christmas show) and middle-school pageant choreography. Through no fault of the performers, no one comes out a winner shackled to this Polar Express train wreck. PENELOPE BASS. Broadway Rose New Stage Theatre, 12850 SW Grant Ave., Tigard, 620-5262. 7:30 pm Wednesdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Saturdays-Sundays through Dec. 21. $30-$41.
CONT. on page 44
REVIEW SUMI WU
PERFORMANCE
yule be WatcHing over me: Jeff marchant (right) as mr. claus.
SANTA (LIMINAL PERFORMANCE GROUP) Santa Claus is in rough shape. His suit is smudged with soot. He rings his bell like the world’s most depressed Salvation Army volunteer. Trudging onstage into a stark shaft of light, he wails and thuds to his knees, crumpling into a fetal position. The sad (or bad) Santa isn’t an unfamiliar trope. But this particular specimen is the creation of E.E. Cummings, a writer known more for oddball typography than allegorical drama. In Santa Claus, one of four plays he wrote, a glum Kris Kringle encounters Death, who convinces him to trade places. The play is short, yet strange and layered. It’s not only a battle between human understanding and loveless science—it’s subtitled “A Morality,” referring to medieval-era instructional plays that pitted good against evil—but also a tale of reunion and reconciliation a la It’s a Wonderful Life. (Both came out, incidentally, in 1946.) It would seem a good fit for the experimental-leaning Liminal Performance Group, whose 2013 production of Our Town struck harmony between similar strains of warmth and menace. But despite bursts of humor and ingenuity, this hourlong show feels inchoate. The action unfolds on an entirely bare, black stage: a fittingly bleak backdrop for Santa’s existential crisis. Things seem to pick up for Santa (Jeff Marchant) once the rakish Death (Leo Daedalus) persuades him to become a scientist—or, in Death’s own words, a “knowledge salesman,” hawking nonexistent products called wheelmines. Cummings equates capital-S science with heartless materialism: a consumerist project that thrives on people’s greed. And Liminal captures this deftly, projecting an Amazon-esque website, complete with a big yellow “BUY” button, onto the walls during Santa’s sales pitch. It’s blunt but effective. Same goes for the snippets of closed-circuit video. Other projections fall short. Director John Berendzen has slid several Cummings poems between scenes, occasionally with text beamed onto the walls. These words flash by too quickly to be legible, but not so swiftly they seem intentionally obscured—instead, the effect is just frustrating. A few poems are buried by overlapping voices or delivered with such velocity that Cummings’ language slips away. (Meanwhile, the audience’s squeaky chairs intrude into the soundscape like whiny kids at a Christmas party.) As Santa, Marchant pulls off an on-the-dime transition from dejected to dauntless, and we feel for him when the mob (portrayed by a single actor, Alex Reagan) turns on him. But Daedalus, who yielded such casual power as the Stage Manager in Our Town, vamps uncomfortably, striving for stylization but coming off as something of an awkward lech. Reagan, sporting a soccer jersey and a ’70s pornstache, behaves as too much of a dunce to be threatening. Then there’s the matter of Cummings’ script. Rejecting science as the key to progress may have felt edgy in 1946, but it’s ponderous today: “Knowledge has taken love out of the world, and all the world is joyless joyless joyless.” That line comes from Carla Grant, playing a lonely woman in a red dress and black veil. It’s not a spoiler to say Santa builds to a reunion—Cummings wrote the play after being reunited with his daughter, whom he hadn’t seen in 20 years. And redemption, of course, is a familiar theme in Christmas tales (looking at you, Dickens). Here, though, it’s a jarring and unearned change of course. In its mere strangeness, Santa offers more than most tinsellarded schlock being peddled in town. But it’s hard not to exit the theater without that day-after-Christmas pang of emptiness. REBECCA JACOBSON. It’s a not-so-wonderful life.
see it: Santa is at Back Door Theater, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 567-8309. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 3 and 7:30 pm Sundays through Dec. 21 (no show Dec. 13 or at 7:30 pm Dec. 21). $15-$25. Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
43
PERFORMANCE
dec. 10–16
CHRISTOFFER ASKMAN
Thursdays-Saturdays through Dec. 27. $20 general, $40 VIP, $50 two-person table; $140 five-person booth.
It’s Gonna Be Okay
Hosted by the ever-chipper Barbara Holm, this twice-monthly showcase is a prime spot to catch Portland’s top comics, as well as the occasional outof-towner. EastBurn, 1800 E Burnside St., 236-2876. 8:30 pm every first and third Monday. Free. 21+.
The Late Now: Mas-X Special
Leo Daedalus returns with another installment of his “avant-variety talk show,” an intellectually anarchic blend of interviews, music and comedy. This month, he gives the holidays an irreverent spin: Expect extreme dreidel, an interview with a mall Santa and carols performed with power tools, among other things. Vie de Boheme, 1530 SE 7th Ave., 360-1233. 7:30 pm Saturday, Dec. 13. $5-$30.
Lez Stand Up GYM CLASS HEROES: Yossi Berg and Oded Graf’s BodyLand runs Dec. 11-13 at PSU’s Lincoln Hall.
Eh Things: A Clown Show
In Post5 Theatre’s clown show, written and directed by Cassandra Boice, a gaggle of absent-minded clowns sings some tunes and scrounges for cardboard and chocolate. Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971-258-8584. 9:30 pm Fridays-Saturdays through Dec. 13. “Pay what you will.”
Mary Poppins
Northwest Children’s Theatre presents a musical version of the classic tale. NW Neighborhood Cultural Center, 1819 NW Everett St., 222-4480. Noon and 4 pm Saturdays-Sundays (and some Mondays and Tuesdays) through Jan. 4. $17-$23.
A Miracle on 43rd Street
In the green- and red-tinted pantheon of Christmas classics, Miracle on 34th Street is perhaps one of the more poignant tales. Which, of course, makes it fodder for a spoof. Hence A Miracle on 43rd Street: A Holiday Radio Massacre, the second installment in Bag & Baggage’s 1940s radio-themed Christmas shows, again directed by Scott Palmer. KBNB station manager Winston Whiteside (Gary Strong) has assembled a star-studded cast to perform the tale of Kris Kringle’s magical turn as a Macy’s Santa Claus. Unfortunately, his two leads (Chase Fulton and Clara Hillier) are in the middle of a messy separation, and a mob boss (Luke Armstrong) picks this night to surprise his ex-girlfriend (Jessica Geffen)—who also happens to be Whiteside’s wife—with a rather inopportune visit. Prepare yourself for a lot of corpse gags, sound effectsrelated humor and bouncing boobs— because nothing says “the birth of Christ” like the kind of cleavage that would accommodate all three wise men. DEBORAH KENNEDY. Venetian Theatre, 253 E Main St., Hillsboro, 6933953. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Dec. 23. Additional performances 7:30 pm Monday-Tuesday, Dec. 22-23. $22-$32.
Rudolph: On Stage
Bad Reputation Productions revives its live-stage adaptation of the 1964 stop-motion TV special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. The show pays loving homage to its source material, tugging on deep-seated nostalgia without devolving into schmaltziness. CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 220-2646. 8 pm Thursdays-Saturdays through Dec. 20. Kids’ matinees at 2 pm Saturdays, Dec. 13 and 20. $21-$24.
She Loves Me
Lakewood presents a 1963 musical about feuding perfumery clerks in ‘30s Budapest who don’t realize they’re infatuated pen pals. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 7:30 pm ThursdaysSaturdays; 7:30 pm Wednesday, Dec. 10; 2 pm Sundays, Dec. 14 and 21. Through Dec. 21. $37.
44
Six Characters in Search of an Author
Portland Actors Conservatory launches its 30th-anniversary season with of Luigi Pirandello’s classic absurdist play, adapted here by Steve Moulds. It’s a meta-theatrical ode to the stage, which finds a family busting in on a play rehearsal, looking for someone who can complete the narrative abandoned by their original playwright. Local favorite Todd Van Voris joins the cast of second-year conservatory students. Portland Actors Conservatory, 1436 SW Montgomery St., 274-1717. 7:30 pm Thursdays-Saturdays and 2 pm Sundays through Dec. 21. $5-$25.
The Peppermint Bear Show: Peppermint Bear and the Toy Elves
Another round of kid-friendly breakfast theater, with this year’s story involving a con man who tries to turn the elves into life-size toys. Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 9 and 11 am Saturdays through Dec. 20. $12.
The Santaland Diaries
Like Santa Claus and Rudolph, this stage adaptation of David Sedaris’ stint as a Macy’s elf will never die. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm TuesdaysSundays and 2 pm Saturdays-Sundays through Dec. 28. $25-$60.
The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs
The teenage actors in Oregon Children’s Theatre’s Young Professionals program stage a musical adaptation of the muchloved picture book by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, a sendup of the classic fable that asks if the wolf might just be a misunderstood dude. Oregon Children’s Theatre Young Professionals Studio Theatre, 1939 NE Sandy Blvd., 228-9571. 10 am Fridays and 11 am and 2 pm SaturdaysSundays through Dec. 20. $10-$12.
Twist Your Dickens
In a move of stunningly bad taste, Portland Center Stage brings back this spoof of A Christmas Carol. Though the show boasts a seal of approval from Chicago improv behemoth the Second City, last year’s production left an aftertaste worse than that of spoiled eggnog. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm Tuesdays-Sundays, 2 pm SaturdaysSundays and noon Thursdays through Dec. 24. $29-$69.
COMEDY & VARIETY The 3rd Floor’s War On Christmas
Oversold with keening desperation, this endless succession of jokeless death marches scarcely bothers to craft a recognizable comic premise. With performance intensity cranked to 11, it instead relies on the unsinkable hilarity of either pre-verbal fixations
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
or woefully dated celeb impressions. War, as they say, is hell. JAY HORTON. Miracle Theatre, 525 SE Stark St., 9081141. 8 pm Fridays-Saturdays through Dec. 20. $15-$18.
The 4 Play(ers)
A gaggle of improvisers, fresh off their training at Brody, hit the stage for a night of spontaneous scenes. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 9:30 pm Saturday, Dec. 13. $5.
Adam Newman
With standup that swings from silly to intellectual, Newman has risen quickly in the New York comedy scene. His official bio also makes a big deal of the fact that he’s lived in New Hampshire, Georgia and Brooklyn. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 8 pm Wednesday-Thursday, 7:30 and 10 pm Friday, and 10 pm Saturday, Dec. 10-13. $15-$29. 21+.
The Comedy Bull
Host Anatoli Brant’s competitive show requires standups to respond to surprise topics and improv challenges. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 9:30 pm every second Friday. $8.
Down to Funny
In this installment of host Katie O’Brien’s twice-monthly standup showcase, five comics take the mic: JoAnn Schinderle, Kristine Levine, Jason Traeger, Adam Pasi and Steven Wilber. Analog Cafe, 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. 9 pm Thursday, Dec. 11. Donation. 21+.
Earthquake Hurricane
What does every bike shop need in its basement? A comedy venue, of course. Kickstand Comedy Space— the new downstairs neighbor to Hollywood neighborhood bike shop/ bar Velo Cult—has its soft launch this week, with tonight’s standup showcase hosted by an army of impressive Portland comedians (well, four of them: Curtis Cook, Alex Falcone, Bri Pruett and Anthony Lopez). Four other locals—Sean Jordan, Whitney Streed, Nathan Brannon and Sean Connery—will also perform sets. Kickstand Comedy Space, 1969 NE 42nd Ave., 937-219-1334. 8:30 pm Wednesday, Dec. 10. $5 suggested.
Flying Fruitcake
Curious Comedy isn’t kidding with the “flying” thing: In addition to original sketch comedy, improv and musical spoofs, this holiday revue also features aerial displays. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 7:30 pm FridaysSaturdays through Dec. 20. $12-$15.
Golden Girls Live Christmas Special
’Tis the season for men to don fluffy wigs and oversized glasses to play the four Miami gals for this live stage adaptation of two holiday episodes of the TV show. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 841-6734. 7 pm
Standup with a feminist bent. Kirsten Kuppenbender hosts, with sets from Amy Miller, Bri Pruett, Caitlin Weierhauser, Becky Braunstein and Laura Anne Whitely. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 7:30 pm Thursday, Dec. 11. $8-$10.
Loose Mics Start Fights
Comedy becomes a cage match at this monthly show hosted by Eric Cash. Each contestant gets 15 minutes to do their standup thing—meanwhile the other comedians are seated onstage with microphones of their own, free to heckle and holler as they wish. The setup sounds potentially insufferable, but this month’s three comedians are great: Nathan Brannon, Sean Jordan and Kristine Levine. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 9 pm Sunday, Dec. 14. $5. 21+.
Picture This!
Standup meets Pictionary: Comics perform their sets while being drawn live by artists. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 4779477. 9:30 pm every second Friday. $10.
Random Acts of Comedy
Curious Comedy puts on a freewheeling show that brings together sketch, standup and improv. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 9:30 pm Saturdays through Dec. 27. $7-$10.
A Something Kind of Musical
Domeka Parker and Aden Kirschner put on an improvised musical that they promise will boast Broadwaystyle bravado. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 7:30 pm Saturdays through Dec. 27. $9-$12.
Standup at the Corner Bar
Andie Main hosts a twice-monthly standup showcase featuring comedians performing 20-minute sets. Rialto Corner Bar, 401 SW Alder St., 2287605. 10 pm every second and fourth Saturday. Free.
Who’s the Ross?
Aaron Ross hosts a late-night talk show, with different comedians and musical guests each week. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 10 pm every Tuesday. $3. 21+.
DANCE Anything Goes Burlesque
Dee Dee Pepper and Wanda Bones combine forces yet again for their annual winter variety show. This staunchly not-Christmas show features performances by Baby Le’Strange, Zora Von Pavonine and contemporary—and often naked—dancer Tod Alan. Hosts Pepper and Bones plan to play a variety of interactive audience games in between acts. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 841-6734. 10 pm Saturday, Dec. 13. $10. 21+.
BRR-lescape!
This edition of the monthly burlesque and boylesque show celebrates
the “Holla Days,” with acts like Ivana Mandalay’s “Dirty Christmas Blues,” Angelique DeVil’s “Carol of the Boobs” and Bayou Bettie’s “Rockabilly Ms. Claus.” Judy Patootie will hit the stage with white silk fans and a headdress that blows fake snow, while Lascivious Lenore returns with her celebrated (and highly scatological) South Park-inspired humor act, “Hankey the Christmas Poo.” Crush, 1400 SE Morrison St, 235-8150. 9 pm Friday, Dec. 12. $10. 21+.
A Burlesque Nightmare Before Christmas
Analog Cafe’s annual holiday series salutes the movies of Tim Burton. A pre-show circus kicks things off, featuring aerialists, juggling and other circus acts. Later, dancers—Layne Fawkes, Johnny Nuriel, Alice Faeland, Jasmine Rain and others—take on roles like Jack Skellington, Edward Scissorhands and the Corpse Bride. Analog Cafe, 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. 7:30 pm Sundays through Dec. 28 . $12. 21+.
CTRL-ALT-Striptease
Produced by Critical Hit Burlesque and Zed Phoenix, this new monthly burlesque show focuses on geek-themed acts inspired by TV shows, sci-fi and video games. This month’s performers include Layne Fawkes, Scarlett Thrustmore, Endymienne and Jasmine Rain. Crush, 1400 SE Morrison St, 235-8150. 8 pm Tuesday, Dec. 16. $10$12.50. 21+.
The Nutcracker
You already know the story, but the holidays are a time to celebrate tradition, right? Oregon Ballet Theatre is one of only six companies in the country granted permission to stage George Balanchine’s famous version of Tchaikovsky’s ballet, and every year it pulls out the extravagant sets and costumes to tell the classic tale of dancing candy canes, pirouetting snowflakes and sword-wielding mice. This year’s versionsees soloists Candace Bouchard and Martina Chavez sharing the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy, with a live orchestra at six of the performances. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 222-5538. Many showtimes through Dec. 27. See obt.org for schedule. $25$144.
Chrismahanukwanzakah
Portland’s longest-running monthly burlesque show is laying down its tassels for good. This fifth annual Chrismahanukwanzakah show is the Phoenix Variety Revue’s final installment, and it’ll be a big one, with burlesque, belly dancing and comedy acts poking fun at the holiday season. Nothing is sacred tonight—with frisky irreverence and a teasing gaze, performers Ivana Mandalay, Lacy Knickers, Ophelia Bouche, Paige Rustles, Penny Paperback and Aleksandra take aim at holiday shopping, the winter solstice and A Charlie Brown Christmas. Kelly’s Olympian, 426 SW Washington St., 228-3669. 7:30 pm Sunday, Dec. 14. $10. 21+.
Yossi Berg and Oded Graf
Since first collaborating in 2005, Israeli choreographers Yossi Berg and Oded Graf have developed a reputation for thought-provoking work that features strikingly powerful contemporary movements as well as quirky props, like Mexican lucha libre or stuffed deer. For White Bird’s 15th annual Uncaged series, Berg and Graf bring a company of five male dancers to town for the U.S. debut of BodyLand. This contemporary work examines body image and how it’s affected by our focus on technology, raising questions of nature vs. nurture and societal preconceptions. Of course, fitting right in with their penchant for odd props, these questions are addressed with a jump-roping sequence (with ropes that leave streaks of light in the air), spokenword “body maps,” colorful balloons, and huge inflatable arms and legs. Lincoln Hall, Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave., 245-1600. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, Dec. 11-13. $25-$30.
For more Performance listings, visit
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
45
VISUAL ARTS
dec. 10–16
= 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.
All Play & No Work
A disciplined and savvy artist with a sophisticated sense of humor, Calvin Ross Carl has quietly established himself as one of the Northwest’s most noteworthy visual thinkers. Finessing the lines between conceptual and commercial, knowing wit and sheer visual pleasure, he never condescends to the viewer. In All Play & No Work, he’s joined by Matt Jacobs for a twoperson exhibition that challenges our conception of artists as freewheeling bohemians. Through Dec. 31. HQHQ Project Space, 232 SE Oak St.
Central~Lattice Tool Array
Brenna Murphy returns to Upfor with a suite of diminutive sculptures, some of them printed with a 3-D printer and others finished with a black, lacquerlike sheen. The sculptures are displayed on a bed of silvery, reflective foil, alternating with prints of abstract vegetal motifs. With their calligraphic contours, the sculptures resemble kanji characters. Murphy supplements the installation with a video loop in which an orchid seemingly swells and dissolves into psychedelic tracers. The artist calls her exhibition “a glyphic, labyrinthian, hyper-dimensional circuit,” whatever that means. “I am building systems,” she says, “and pouring my mind through them like thread through a loom.” That’s colorful language that the show doesn’t quite live up to. In fact, the show suffers by comparison to Murphy’s 2013 collaboration with Birch Cooper, Liquid Hand. That exhibition featured similar imagery but more interactive elements, such as viewer-controlled buzzers and colored lights. Through Jan. 17. Upfor Gallery, 929 NW Flanders St., 227-5111.
Elizabeth Malaska: When We Dead Awaken
In her second solo show at Nationale, Elizabeth Malaska makes a spirited feminist critique of men’s domination of the realms of modern and contemporary art. The women who populate her mixed-media paintings often wield machine guns, standing defiantly in rooms filled with iconic modernist furniture. These women are mad as hell, not going to take it anymore, and are storming the boys-club establishment. Watch out for some righteous retribution. Through Dec. 31. Nationale, 3360 SE Division St.
Emily Hanna Wyant: Gotta Make Money to Make Money
Earlier this year, as artist Emily Hanna Wyant tells it, she was pitching her conceptual artwork to local galleries. She kept getting the same polite “no thanks” from gallerist after gallerist. “We love what you do,” they said, “but it’s not work we could sell in a gallery.” So Wyant decided to turn the meta-
phorical lemon into lemonade, creating a new body of work critiquing the object- and sales-obsessed gallery system. Tongue firmly in cheek, she has churned out dozens upon dozens of faux gold bricks, as if to flip galleries a collective bird. “Here you go,” the installation seems to shout, “a pile of tangible objects with a fixed monetary value—will that do?” This installation, entitled Counterfeit Gold Bricks, is comprised of “gold bullion” made out of spray-painted wood and cement. Through Jan. 16. Nisus Gallery, 8371 N Interstate Ave., Suite 1, 806-1427.
Gabriel Liston: Get All That Is Coming to You
Painter Gabriel Liston is at the top of his form in a suite of small and medium-sized paintings inspired by historical subject matter. The paintings chronicle the ecological travesties committed from 1905 to 1908 by a Colorado miner named Lafe Pence, who decimated many of Oregon’s lakes and forests for profit. Liston deploys his formidable technique in images that show the landscape before and after Pence raped it. In an ambitious grid of 29 paintings, the artist accents lush vegetation with delicate flecks and glances of paint. It’s a neo-rococo sensibility melded with a generous helping of nature worship and righteous environmental indignation. Through Dec. 13. Froelick Gallery, 714 NW Davis St., 222-1142.
Michael Vahrenwald: The People’s Trust
A century ago, when money was money and banks were spelled with a capital “B,” architects built banks with towering columns and statuary to communicate the ideals of stability and tradition. Today, many of the great banks of the last century have closed, their headquarters replaced by cheap shops and restaurants. Photographer Michael Vahrenwald has captured images reflecting this incongruity: staid former bank buildings, their names still chiseled in granite, now inhabited by pawn shops, Payless stores, an El Rancho Mexican restaurant and shops for auto parts, wigs and liquor. The pictures fit firmly into the “ruins-porn” genre, in which photographers fetishize cities such as Detroit, whose once-bustling economies have given way to urban decline. Through Jan. 3. Hap Gallery, 916 NW Flanders St., 444-7101.
Poetic Ghost
Artist Cassandra Straubing and singlemonikered fashion designer Babette collaborate in a sprawling exhibition entitled Poetic Ghost. Using cast glass, Straubing creates sculptures in the shape of blouses, a motif she associates with women’s ascent into the workforce at the turn of the last
century. It’s fascinating to see folds of soft fabric translated into the cold, hard medium of glass. That Straubing handles the translation so naturally is a testament to her superb technique working with a notoriously prickly material. Babette’s clothing designs are the basis for the sculptures, as well as for pieces that feature fashion sketches on paper. There’s also an interactive element, in which viewers are invited to get up close and personal with chunks of glass and swaths of fabric. Through Dec. 23. Bullseye Gallery, 300 NW 13th Ave., 227-0222.
Sightings
If you’ve ever been to one of those cheesy rotating restaurants on top of a tall building, you’ll understand the conceit behind Messica Mallios’ video installation, Tower of the Americas. Mallios has set up a camera in front of the window of a rotating observation tower in San Antonio, Texas. The camera focuses not on the view outside, but on the glass window itself, with all its smudges, cracks and dried Windex drips. By honing in on these imperfections, the artist invokes a dreary bathos: the intrusion of mundanity into an otherwise exalted vista. Paired with Kevin Cooley’s video installation, Skyward, Mallios’ contribution makes for a strong double bill in curator-in-residence Rachel Adams’ second show at Disjecta. Through Jan. 4. Disjecta, 8371 N Interstate Ave., 286-9449.
The Lost Secrets of the Bennett-Brackett Portfolios
Artists Jessica Brackett and Tom Richards collaborate in the logorrheically titled show, The Lost Secrets of the Bennett-Brackett Portfolios: Getting to the Roots of a Botanical Mystery. The gallery has been turned into a maze of real and fake plants, punctuated by drawings, sketches, scientific journals and esoteric brica-brac, all calculated to confuse and intrigue the viewer. Through Dec. 31. The Faux Museum, 139 NW 2nd Ave.
You Don’t Know Me
There are four artists in PDX’s December show, You Don’t Know Me: Michael Horwitz, Susie J. Lee, Marne Lucas and Corey Lunn. Of these, Lee’s work stands out the most. When you first look at her large portrait, The Fracking Fields: Atom, you’re apt to see it merely as a photograph of a bearded man. Then the guy’s eyes blink. Turns out it’s a high-definition “video portrait” on a short loop. With his tattooed arms and rubber boots, the man stands implacably, looking at you so intensely, you almost think he can actually see you. This piece is like those eerie portraits in haunted houses, where the eyes follow you across the room. And yet there’s an airy openness to the subject’s expression. Through Dec. 27. PDX Contemporary Art, 925 NW Flanders St., 222-0063.
For more Visual Arts listings, visit
WILLAMETTE WEEK’S
NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY PAGES Ring in the new year with an ad in our NYE Party Pages in our 12/24 and 12/31 issues! 503.243.2122 • advertising@wweek.com 46
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
REVIEW
swim 8750 by francInE flEIScHEr
FRANCINE FLEISCHER, SWIM The landscape of Mexico, wrote D.H. Lawrence in The Plumed Serpent, “seems to emit a deep purring sound, too deep for the ear to hear, and yet audible on the blood.” Lawrence’s musings hint at the mystical qualities he sensed in Mexico’s plains, volcanic peaks and native spiritual traditions. That confluence lies at the heart of photographer Francine Fleischer’s exhibition at Blue Sky Gallery, Swim. For this series, the New York-based Fleischer traveled to the Yucatan to photograph people swimming in a popular “cenote,” a water-filled sinkhole of limestone bedrock. Anthropologists believe this cenote was once used for Mayan rituals—a fittingly dramatic locale, given the calderalike pool, inky-black water and web of vines overhanging from the jungle above. The artist took almost all of her photos from far above, gazing down at bathers young and old as they splashed and frolicked. In the print Swim 3502, a girl glides beneath the surface, her legs a graceful blur of motion. The boy in Swim 8491 looks up at the camera’s lens, his torso distorted by the refraction of light through the water. Lightplay, in fact, is key to these images’ appeal. It filters down through the canopy, glinting and glancing off the dark waters in exquisite contrasts of reflection and absorption. In Swim 8750, light slices the waves into jagged shards, which interlock and surround the swimmers like puzzle pieces. The way the photographer offsets light’s immateriality with the dark gravity of the water is masterful. So impenetrably black is this water, the woman and children climbing out of it in Swim 8549 may as well be emerging from the River Styx. There’s a welcome incongruity to these scenes of kids and grownups whiling away halcyon afternoons in vaguely sinister vats born of geologic collapse and steeped in Mayan lore. It’s a rich metaphor, this maw left when earth gives way, beckoning with cool waters lapping its circumference, murky, unfathomable, fearsome. It is a hole with hell at its bottom, and Fleischer lets us gaze into it as deeply as we dare. RICHARD SPEER
Off the beach, into the cenote.
SEE IT: Swim is at Blue Sky Gallery, 122 NW 8th Ave., 225-0210. Through Dec. 28.
BOOKS
DEC. 10–16
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By PENELOPE BASS. 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.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 10 Garth Stein
Fourteen-year-old Trevor Riddell is visiting his family’s historic mansion for the first time as his father intends to sell the house and property for development. But among its secret stairways and rooms, he uncovers a lingering spirit. Twist! Intertwining actual ghosts with the demons of a family’s past, author Garth Stein (The Art of Racing in the Rain) will read from his anticipated new novel, A Sudden Light. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.
THURSDAY, DEC. 11 Cindy Williams Gutiérrez
In her debut collection of poetry, The Small Claim of Bones, Cindy Williams Gutiérrez explores her cultural identity through a collage of worlds and Mexican history. Special guests Ivonne Saed, Juan Antonio Trujillo and Greg Simon will each present an aspect of the book and then engage with the author and audience. Literary Arts Center, 925 SW Washington St., 227-2583. 7-8:30 pm. Free.
FRIDAY, DEC. 12 A. Molotkov
Russian poet and fiction author A. Molotkov moved to the United States in 1990, began writing in English in ’93 and has since been published in a variety of literary journals. He will read a selection of his work as the featured author of the ongoing Glyph Cafe art and literature series. Related ephemera from Molotkov’s work will be on display in the venue’s shadow boxes through the month. Glyph Cafe & Arts Space, 804 NW Couch St., 719-5481. 5-7 pm. Free.
Robbie Rogers
With the headlines about the personal lives of athletes focusing mostly on drug and/or spousal abuse, it’s nice when someone has a positive, life-affirming story to share. Robbie Rogers, professional soccer player with the Los Angeles Galaxy, came out in February 2013 and became the first openly gay man to compete in a major professional sports league in America. His new book, Coming Out to Play, Rogers explores his struggles and victories. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.
SUNDAY, DEC. 14 The Studio Series
Monthly poetry reading and open mic the Studio Series will feature the collaborative poetry art project of Emily Pittman Newberry and Shu-Ju Wang. The art book Water depicts Wang’s work exploring the transformative nature of water, accompanied by Newberry’s poems. Joining them will be Portland poet Shelley Reece. Stonehenge Studios, 3508 SW Corbett Ave., 224-3640. 7-9 pm. Free.
MONDAY, DEC. 15 Richard McGuire
When Richard McGuire released his six-page comic Here in a 1989 issue of Raw magazine, it was recognized as something transformative for the comic medium. Now 25 years later, after McGuire has had his work published in everything from The New York Times to Le Monde, written and directed two omnibus films,
designed a line of toys and founded the band Liquid Liquid, he returns to Here. The expanded book experiments with the concept of time, as multiple panels represent different times at one location over the course of hundreds of thousands of years and our connections between those years. McGuire will be joined in conversation by author Karen Russell (Swamplandia!). Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.
TUESDAY, DEC. 16 Shaft #1 Screening and Signing
Everyone knows that Shaft is a bad motherfucker. But how did he become the private dick who’s a sex machine to all the chicks? Exploring Shaft’s origin story for the first time in comic format, writer and artists David Walker, Mike Oeming and Matt Haley will conduct a Q&A and sign copies of Shaft #1 after a screening of the 1972 film Shaft’s Big Score. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 281-4215. 7:30 pm. $6-8 ($4 for the comic).
For more Books listings, visit
REVIEW
BRIAN YAEGER, OREGON BREWERIES You can write only so many guidebooks to Stonehenge or Machu Picchu, which have remained unchanged for centuries if not millennia, surviving societal collapse and U.S.-backed military coups. Any local beer guide has the opposite problem—breweries are subject to the whims of Yaeger’s shot. personalities and economic cycles in ways large rock objects aren’t. Which is why the standard-bearing Craft Beers of the Pacific Northwest by Lisa M. Morrison feels dated after four years in which so much has changed. Major players like Gigantic and Base Camp didn’t exist, Breakside gets less than a sentence and the now-iconic Boneyard RPM IPA isn’t mentioned at all. Enter Oregon Breweries (Stackpole Books, 416 pages, $19.95), a straight-ahead guide with listings on each and every brewery in Oregon from local beer writer (and occasional WW contributor) Brian Yaeger. As one ought to expect from someone who also runs a B&B branded “Beervana,” it’s full of detailed information about Oregon beer—who makes it, where to get it, and what it tastes like. Yaeger deserves kudos for putting this last element in simple terms. There’s none of the pretentious “grown on a south-facing slope” bullshit, as Yaeger describes flavors in accessible terms, relating them to molasses and brown sugar (Arch Rock’s State of Jefferson Porter), for example, or Juicy Fruit (Pints’ Tripel Whammy). The real draw of Oregon Breweries, however, is that by providing so much background on breweries, Yaeger offers a fascinating view of the state. The book’s introduction offers a thorough account of Oregon brewing history, starting with Liberty Brewery in 1852. This perspective pops up elsewhere in the individual entries for breweries. Boring Brewing’s informs readers that the city is named after Civil War vet William H. Boring, not the general mood of Portland exurbs. Pendleton’s Prodigal Son Brewery is located in “a former auto dealership, which explains why it’s big enough to drive a truck through” and “hosts everything from watching football to B-movie screenings to a Bible study and a knitting group.” Yaeger actually visited every brewery in the state, so the entries provide vivid descriptions of them all (so many McMenamins!) as well as their atmosphere and culinary options. They’re also populated by endearing portraits of individuals like Cascade Brewing Barrel House’s Ron Gansberg, who “bears a resemblance to Dick Cheney but uses his powers for good.” Some entries are more interesting than others, but with more than 150, they can’t all be gems. The book would also benefit from a stronger sense of scale—too many large breweries don’t get the space they deserve while many small ones are padded. And it could use another proofreading. But these shortcomings are outshined by the accessibility and sheer breadth of Yaeger’s book. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
47
48
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
dec. 10–16 REVIEW
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
ANNE MARIE FOx
MOVIES
Editor: REBECCA JACOBSON. 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: rjacobson@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
OPENING THIS WEEK The Barefoot Bandit
[TWO NIGHTS ONLY, DIRECTOR ATTENDING] Four years ago, Washington teen Colton Harris-Moore made headlines by teaching himself to fly—and then stealing five airplanes (as well as two cars and a boat). This new documentary from Carly Bodmer tells his story from the perspectives of the FBI, his captor and his mother. Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Monday-Tuesday, Dec. 15-16.
Comet
D Comet, the debut feature from writer-director Sam Esmail, breaks new ground in unoriginality. It unabashedly cribs not just themes and archetypes from preceding romantic dramas, but visual aesthetics and plot points as well. The boy is Dell (Justin Long), a cynic whose self-consciousness has convinced him he’s a victim, though really he’s just an asshole. The girl is Kimberly (Emmy Rossum), a bookish but free-spirited beauty whose eccentricities both charm and vex Dell. The two meet in line for a comet-viewing at a cemetery. From there, the film zigzags across time and space to four other notable points in the relationship, woven together with a tacky, fauxVHS digital effect. If this sounds familiar, good. The leading duo deserves some credit for giving the talky script a pulse: Despite clunky lines, Long makes Dell’s anger at Kimberly’s infidelity feel real. But mostly, the fastpaced dialogue is just sound and fury, shoehorning in references that beg the audience to find the couple witty. “Sartre was right, Hell is other people,” Dell says. And seconds later: “You were telegraphing like Samuel Morse.” It’s shallow, nonsensical and bizarrely exposition-rich. “You have terrible taste in men because you’re superficial,” Dell tells Kimberly. Most damning, however, is what’s left out. For all his characters’ navel-gazing rhapsodies on love, Esmail forgets to show any onscreen. R. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Laurelhurst Theater.
Crocodiles: All for One
[ONE DAY ONLY] German cultural organization Zeitgeist Northwest presents a screening of a 2011 familyfriendly adventure film about a gaggle of kids going to great lengths to get their pal a liver transplant. Clinton Street Theater. 2 pm Sunday, Dec. 14.
De-Gentrifying Portland
[TWO DAYS ONLY] A trio of collaborators—Know Your City, Portland African American Leadership Forum and artist Sharita Towne—spent last summer working with local youth of color to create short films about gentrification, which will be shown over the course of two nights. Their films will be accompanied by work from other Portland artists and filmmakers. Wednesday’s screening is at the Rosewood Initiative, 16126 SE Stark St., while Saturday’s is at the Sons of Haiti Grand Lodge and Masonic Temple, 3503 N Mississippi Ave. 7 pm Wednesday and 2 pm Saturday, Dec. 10 and 13.
Exodus: Gods and Kings
C- The most moving bit in Exodus: Gods and Kings isn’t part of the movie itself, but rather the first words that appear onscreen once the film has ended: “For my brother Tony Scott.” Nothing in Ridley Scott’s spin on the tale of Moses and Ramesses is as moving as that brief tribute to his late brother, though the fraternal connection does help explain what may have drawn Scott to this sibling rivalry in the first place. Christian Bale plays Moses, while a guylinered Joel Edgerton is Ramesses. You’d think this kind of casting would be a relic of ages past by now, but here we are. More frustrating than this historical whitewashing is that Exodus is too silly and overwrought to ever
fully suspend disbelief: This is what a parody of a biblical epic might look like on Entourage. The film is best when the ridiculous outpaces the selfserious, as when crocodiles with an appetite for Egyptian flesh turn the Nile red with blood and Ramesses chills in his palace with a coiled snake around his shoulders. As with most epics, there are a lot of speeches and dead horses—all in needless 3-D—but not enough genuine emotion to actually make any of it feel, well, epic. PG-13. MICHAEL NORDINE. Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen Parkway, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy, St. Johns Theater.
Homegrown DocFest
[ONE NIGHT ONLY] A new collection of locally produced short documentaries from students at NW Documentary, with subjects ranging from cougar attacks to barbershop quartets to female comedians to foraging. Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Saturday, Dec. 13.
Japanese Currents: Disconcerto
B+ [TWO DAYS ONLY] From The Big
Lebowski to anything and everything Judd Apatow can get his hands on, the weirdo on the societal fringe is a staple of American film. Turns out the weirdo has a place in Japanese cinema, too. Disconcerto, showing as part of the NW Film Center’s Japanese Currents program, centers on Keisuke Tada (Eita). A “do-it-all man” in a fictional Tokyo suburb—he does everything from delivering groceries to verifying bus timetables—Tada decides to take on a new assignment: watching a child. This does not sit well with his assistant, Haruhiko Gyoten (Ryuhei Matsuda), a former classmate whom Tada houses out of guilt over a mysterious incident that caused Gyoten to lose a finger. Disconcerto certainly has its gags, but its tone is more somber than most American slacker fare—both Tada and Gyoten were driven to eccentricity by disturbing turns of events. The pacing is a little odd, and some subplots seem tacked-on. But these flaws are vastly outweighed by the subtle performances of Eita and Matsuda, who speak volumes without saying a thing, and the beautiful camerawork from director Tatsushi Omori, who transforms the suburban setting from bleak to beautiful with slight adjustments in lighting. Disconcerto is technically a sequel to 2011’s Tada’s Do-It-All House, but it’s perfectly accessible to viewers who haven’t seen the earlier film. The world that Omori creates is so rich you can’t help but be drawn in. JAMES HELMSWORTH. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Friday and 1:30 pm Sunday, Dec. 12 and 14.
KBOO at the Clinton: 5 Broken Cameras
A [ONE NIGHT ONLY] Emad Burnat lives in Bil’in, a Palestinian village in the West Bank, flanked by the Green Line and an Israeli settlement creeping ever closer. In 2005, on the occasion of the birth of his fourth son, he acquires a video camera and begins filming his community’s efforts to fight the fence being erected between the settlement and their village, and their clashes with Israeli soldiers. In doing so, he unwittingly sets about making this documentary, capturing five years of struggle and triumph in the village, alongside the growth of his son. It is, of course, the very definition of one-sided, but it is also a brave, raw, honest portrayal of one man’s experience, existing somewhere between citizen journalism, activism and video memoir. 5 Broken Cameras is rough, grisly viewing at times, but it is also deeply engaging, and a valuable contribution to the ongoing coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. RUTH BROWN. Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Thursday, Dec. 11.
CONT. on page 50
HEavy BaGGaGE: Reese Witherspoon heads into the woods.
HOMEWARD BOUND THE FILM ADAPTATION OF CHERYL STRAYED’S WILD BLAZES A POWERFUL TRAIL. BY ReB ecca jacoB son
rjacobson@wweek.com
On the Pacific Crest Trail, hikers speak of the “green tunnel” that greets you in Oregon. This tunnel—lush layers of moss and ferns and Douglas fir—rarely breaks for views and drenches those who enter. As Reese Witherspoon trudges north in Wild, the new film adaptation of Portlander Cheryl Strayed’s best-selling memoir about hiking 1,100 miles from scorched California to soggy Oregon, it’s hard not to anticipate this green tunnel—and its accompanying downpours—like a kid counting down the days till summer vacation. Here’s some good news for Oregonians: Wild gets our state right, and it does so without a single artisanal letterpress studio or gluten-free doughnut shop. It’s also a rich and affecting piece of filmmaking, independent of any book. For those who’ve been, uh, in the wild, Wild recounts how in 1995, a 26-year-old Strayed undertook a solo trek on the Pacific Crest Trail, the track that wends itself from Mexico to Canada. Her mother had died of cancer a few years earlier, her marriage had crumbled, and she was self-destructing with the help of heroin and promiscuous sex. I’ll admit I read the book with reluctance, wary of its premise— shattered young woman hikes herself to redemption and self-actualization—and of the Oprah’s Book Club sticker on the front cover. But despite its occasional self-seriousness, the clear-eyed prose and lack of self-pity won me over. The film, directed by Jean-Marc Vallée of Dallas Buyers Club, keeps this spirit intact. It opens, as the memoir does, with Strayed (Witherspoon, who optioned the book and serves as a producer) watching in horror as one of her boots tumbles down a cliff, never to be worn again. As in the book, she responds by flinging its mate into the same abyss. It’s tough to question her behavior: Those toosmall boots are responsible for gnarly blisters and detached toenails, which the film doesn’t flinch at. From here, Wild follows a path far more meandering than the PCT. This isn’t a straightforward north-to-south journey, and Strayed’s three-month
hike is punctuated by flashbacks. Sometimes this means a mere glimpse of a bruised and bloodied eye, or a quick shot of a needle entering a vein. At other times, we get a more fully developed scene with Strayed’s mother—a near-angelic Laura Dern—or ex-husband Paul (Thomas Sadoski). Just as with real memories, moments rewind and recur and fade, occasionally knitting themselves together and at other times defying such patchwork logic. What keeps us engaged isn’t fear about whether Strayed will survive, but the alchemy of physical toil and emotional turmoil, and the way past traumas and current challenges illuminate one another. As for what happens on the trail itself, much is what you’d expect: cruel slogs across the Mojave, precarious river crossings, unfriendly collisions with low-hanging branches. Vallée, to his immense credit, doesn’t traffic in nature porn. The scenery looks great, to be sure. Yet despite its beauty, the landscape tends to become background noise—just as it does when you’re actually hiking and focused far more on your feet or your thirst or how you’re carrying way too much stuff (there’s a reason other hikers called Strayed’s backpack “Monster”). What rarely becomes background noise is the wonderfully evocative score. It’s the mixtape radio station in Strayed’s head, dipping in and out of Simon & Garfunkel and Leonard Cohen, at times distorted in eerie ways or mixed with Witherspoon’s own humming or half-singing. Other sounds, often ones related to immediate physical needs, are heightened: Water glugs loudly down a parched throat, a spoon clangs against a metal bowl, lungs gasp desperately for air. The effect is visceral, overwhelming. Wild isn’t perfect. The screenplay, by Nick Hornby, allows too many voice-over intrusions, particularly when Strayed ends her odyssey at the Bridge of the Gods. Vallée could have stood to cut a few close-ups of Witherspoon looking pensive. There’s some heavy-handed symbolism surrounding a fox (with creepily human-looking eyes) that keeps appearing on the trail. But the film—in large part thanks to Witherspoon’s nervy, funny and emotionally rich performance—transcends such flaws. And the Oregon rain, of course, helps to wash some of the others away. A- SEE IT: Wild is rated R. It opens Friday at Bridgeport, Cinema 21.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
49
DEC. 10–16
Life Partners
Two 29-year-old women (Leighton Meester and Gillian Jacobs) try to remain BFFs, even as lovers and careers threaten to get in the way. R. Kiggins Theatre.
The Thanhouser Studio and the Birth of American Cinema
[ONE NIGHT ONLY, DIRECTOR ATTENDING] Ned Thanhouser screens a new hourlong documentary about his grandparents’ independent silent-movie studio, which was founded in 1909 and produced more than 1,000 silent pictures. One of the original Thanhouser films will be played with live organ accompaniment by Nathan Avakian. Hollywood Theatre. 7 pm Monday, Dec. 15.
Viva la Libertà
The great Toni Servillo stars as twin brothers—one an AWOL opposition leader, the other a mental patient— in a political comedy that’s so far gotten middling reviews. Living Room Theaters.
STILL SHOWING Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
Steve Carell and Jennifer Garner star in a Disney adaptation of the popular kids’ book. PG. Academy, Kennedy School, Mt. Hood, Valley.
Big Hero 6
A Shelving wordy cleverness for its
Exodus: Gods and Kings XD-3D (PG-13) 12:00PM 3:30PM 7:00PM 10:30PM Hunger Games: The Mockingjay, Part 1 (PG-13) 11:15AM 11:50AM 12:20PM 1:00PM 2:15PM 2:55PM 3:20PM 4:00PM 5:15PM 5:55PM 6:20PM 7:00PM 8:15PM 8:55PM 9:30PM 10:00PM Interstellar (PG-13) 11:10AM 2:50PM 6:30PM 10:10PM Theory Of Everything, The (PG-13) 10:50AM 1:45PM 4:40PM 7:35PM 10:30PM Horrible Bosses 2 (R) 11:00AM 11:45AM 2:25PM 4:35PM 5:05PM 7:45PM 9:40PM 10:25PM Penguins Of Madagascar, The (PG) 10:50AM 12:30PM 1:20PM 3:00PM 3:50PM 5:30PM 6:25PM 7:55PM 9:00PM 10:20PM Pyramid, The (R) 10:45AM 1:10PM 3:30PM 5:50PM 8:10PM 10:35PM
Nightcrawler (R) 10:55AM 1:40PM 4:30PM 7:25PM 10:15PM Penguins Of Madagascar, The 3D (PG) 2:10PM 7:10PM Big Hero 6 (PG) 10:55AM 11:40AM 1:35PM 4:20PM 5:10PM 7:05PM 9:50PM 10:35PM Chaar Sahibzaade (PVS) 3D (NR) 1:35PM 7:20PM Fury (R) 1:05PM 4:15PM 7:20PM 10:25PM Big Hero 6 3D (PG) 2:25PM 7:50PM Exodus: Gods and Kings 3D (PG-13) 10:45AM 2:10PM 5:35PM 9:00PM Exodus: Gods and Kings (PG-13) 11:30AM 3:00PM 6:30PM 10:00PM Chaar Sahibzaade (PVS) (NR) 10:45AM 4:30PM 10:15PM Dumb And Dumber To (PG-13) 11:00AM 1:50PM 4:30PM 7:25PM 10:05PM
Penguins Of Madagascar, The 3D (PG) 1:05PM 6:05PM
Big Hero 6 (PG) 11:00AM 1:40PM 3:00PM 4:20PM 7:00PM 8:25PM 9:40PM Birdman (R) 11:00AM 1:50PM 4:40PM 7:30PM 10:20PM Hunger Games: The Mockingjay, Part 1 (PG-13) 10:35AM 11:35AM 1:35PM 2:35PM 4:35PM 5:35PM 7:35PM 8:35PM 9:35PM 10:35PM Big Hero 6 3D (PG) 12:20PM 5:40PM Exodus: Gods and Kings (PG-13) 10:30AM 2:00PM 5:30PM 7:15PM Horrible Bosses 2 (R) 11:45AM 2:25PM 5:05PM 7:45PM 10:25PM Dumb And Dumber To (PG-13) 6:35PM Exodus: Gods and Kings 3D (PG-13) 12:15PM 3:45PM 9:00PM 10:45PM
John Wick (R) 11:10AM 1:55PM 4:35PM 7:10PM 9:50PM Interstellar (PG-13) 11:00AM 2:40PM 6:20PM 10:00PM Theory Of Everything, The (PG-13) 12:10PM 3:20PM 6:25PM 9:30PM Nightcrawler (R) 11:05AM 2:00PM 4:50PM 7:40PM 10:30PM St. Vincent (PG-13) 11:00AM 1:35PM 4:15PM 7:00PM 9:40PM Penguins Of Madagascar, The (PG) 12:15PM 1:30PM 2:50PM 5:15PM 6:30PM 7:45PM 10:15PM Penguins Of Madagascar, The 3D (PG) 11:00AM 4:00PM 9:00PM
Big Hero 6 (PG) 11:05AM 12:50PM 1:45PM 4:40PM 6:15PM 7:30PM 10:20PM Big Hero 6 3D (PG) 3:35PM 9:10PM Hunger Games: The Mockingjay, Part 1 (PG-13) 11:45AM 1:15PM 2:45PM 4:15PM 5:45PM 7:15PM 8:45PM 10:15PM Dumb And Dumber To (PG-13) 11:15AM 2:05PM 4:55PM 7:50PM 10:30PM Horrible Bosses 2 (R) 11:30AM 12:55PM 2:15PM 3:40PM 5:00PM 6:25PM 7:45PM 9:20PM 10:25PM Exodus: Gods and Kings (PG-13) 1:15PM 8:15PM Exodus: Gods and Kings 3D (PG-13) 11:30AM 3:00PM 4:45PM 6:30PM 10:00PM
Linga (Tamil) (NR) 11:00AM 2:30PM 6:00PM 9:30PM Linga (Telugu) (NR) 11:30AM 3:00PM 6:30PM 10:00PM Theory Of Everything, The (PG-13) 10:50AM 1:45PM 4:40PM 7:35PM 10:30PM Interstellar (PG-13) 11:25AM 3:05PM 6:45PM 10:25PM Penguins Of Madagascar, The (PG) 10:05AM 11:50AM 2:20PM 3:35PM 4:50PM 7:20PM 8:35PM 9:50PM Pyramid, The (R) 10:50AM 1:10PM 3:30PM 5:50PM 8:10PM 10:30PM Met Opera: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (2014) (NR) 9:00AM
FRIDAY 50
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
own sake, ignoring parental intrusion, and allowing moral lessons to develop organically through a simplified storyline, Big Hero 6 is that rarest thing: an animated children’s adventure designed purely to delight its target audience. Based on a Marvel comic about repurposed Japanese mutant-villains, this Disney feature drops all references to a larger Marvel world and scales back the well-worn superhero textures to best serve the needs of a slightly harder-edged kids’ cartoon. Big Hero 6 opens in the mean streets of San Fransokyo, where Tadashi narrowly saves his little brother Hiro from a beating after the 14-year-old prodigy wins fistfuls of cash during back-alley ‘bot fights. The first third of the film concerns itself solely with the orphans’ attempts to land Hiro enrollment at a whiz-bang university. The appeal of superherodom isn’t even suggested until an explosion kills Tadashi, but, upon discovering a nano-tech project has been stolen for shadowy ends, what’s a boy to do but weaponize his brother’s adorably puffy health care robot and outfit his goofball lab mates as newly minted misfit warriors of science? PG. JAY HORTON. Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Indoor Twin, Oak Grove, City Center, Hilltop, Movies on TV, Sandy.
Birdman
B- In Birdman, our protagonist is
Riggan Thomson (Michael Keaton), a washed-up actor who once wore wings as the titular superhero. But in this film, directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, the real thing with wings is the camera, which soars and swoops through narrow stairwells and bustling Manhattan streets. The effect is that of a single, continuous take. But just as the camera floats along, so too does much else in this self-consciously clever film skate along the surface. Decades ago, Riggan struck gold as a Hollywood superhero, and he’s now trying to rebuild himself by adapting, directing and starring in a Broadway play. It’s of course a wink-nudge role for Keaton, 63, who wore the Batman suit more than 20 years ago and whose career has wobbled since. If Birdman’s message is that the theater is the home of high art and Hollywood a place of debased, greed-driven entertainment, Iñárritu doesn’t make a convincing—or even amusingly satirical—argument. R. REBECCA JACOBSON. CineMagic, Hollywood, Lake, Oak Grove, City Center.
The Book of Life
B- A transcendent flourish of fourcolor splendor and kinetic verve, new animated feature The Book of Life arrives overstuffed with artisanal delights, including the world’s grandest piñata. But, while the picaresque drollery will surely draw crowds, the film is still hollow, disposable and a shameless waste of candy. Following a none-too-subtle framing device in which adorable suburban delinquents are forcibly introduced to the glories of Latin American culture, first-time director Jorge Gutierrez and producer Guillermo del Toro stretch the mythology to encompass every south-of-the-border stereotype, while also torturously underlining three Disneyfied moral lessons of benevolent inanity. PG. JAY HORTON. The Joy.
The Boxtrolls
C+ As in Laika’s previous two efforts—the fantastical Coraline and playfully supernatural ParaNorman— The Boxtrolls boasts a scrupulously crafted world. But its overstuffed screenplay lacks humor, and it could use a great deal more fun. PG. REBECCA JACOBSON. Academy, Empirical Theatre at OMSI, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, Mt. Hood, The Joy, Valley.
Boyhood
A Boyhood took 12 years, in film as
in life. For 12 years, director Richard Linklater shot the movie for a few weeks each summer as both the main character, a boy named Mason, and the actor, Ellar Coltrane, came of age, from 6 to 18. The epic undertaking has resulted in one of the most honest and absorbing representations of growing up ever put to film: all the tedium, all the wonder. R. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Laurelhurst.
Dear White People
A- When Justin Simien began
work on Dear White People, early drafts of the screenplay included an over-the-top college party featuring white students in blackface. At some point, though, he ruled it too outlandish and slashed it from the film. Then came the Compton Cookout at the University of California, San Diego, in 2010. The invitation promised chicken, watermelon and purple drank. Students showed up in heavy gold chains, oversized T-shirts and, yes, blackface. Simien quickly revived the party in Dear White People, and it’s one of many pieces that makes this college-set race satire so smart, gutsy and relevant. R. REBECCA JACOBSON. Academy, Laurelhurst.
Dumb and Dumber To
B Twenty years after Dumb & Dumber entrenched the Farrelly brothers as keepers of a frat house of filmic offense, the directors return to their first heroes for the sequel just about nobody demanded. As if there were any doubt, Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) and Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) remain resolutely unchanged. By means of a long-mislaid postcard, Harry finds out he has a daughter, and, as happens, he needs a kidney while Lloyd wants to bone her. What results is a fusillade of absurdist puns and scatological taunts amid a Lifetime picture about two mildly disabled friends on an amiable, misguided quest. It all should feel tragic—few things age more poorly than the charms of an arrested boyhood—but the film takes pains to resist portraying Harry and Lloyd as sympathetic characters. Moreover, as filmmakers famously steeped in the comedy of ugliness, the brothers take special delight in the increasingly desiccated visage of Carrey, aging into a cross between Ruth Gordon and a gnarled bedpost. PG-13. JAY HORTON. Eastport, Clackamas, Forest, Oak Grove, Hilltop, Movies on TV, Sandy.
The Equalizer
C Antoine Fuqua’s revenge thriller The Equalizer could easily have been downright awful. Instead, it’s merely mediocre, which is testament to the immutable charisma of Denzel Washington: Few others could have made such ultraviolent silliness even halfway engaging. R. MICHAEL NORDINE. Movies on TV.
Fury
C Brad Pitt makes an inglorious return to Nazi-killing movies in Fury, David Ayer’s would-be epic about tank warfare in the waning days of World War II. Ayer sets up Fury as a gritty depiction of the Nazis’ “total war” period, when all civilians were ordered to aid in their country’s desperate efforts—which would be more effective if the director didn’t use these atrocities as little more than action-movie set pieces. COURTESY OF FILMMAKERS, INC.
MOVIES
JAPANESE CURRENTS: DISCONCERTO
dec. 10–16 R. MICHAEL NORDINE. Clackamas, Movies on TV.
Gone Girl
B+ Gone Girl might be David
Fincher’s battiest work. The director has taken a lurid suspense yarn—the wildly popular novel by Gillian Flynn—and emerged with a film that deftly straddles the line between brilliant and stupid. It’s a media satire and a meditation on a volatile marriage that masquerades as the kind of plop you’d find Ashley Judd starring in back in the ’90s. It’s mesmerizing. The film centers on Nick and Amy Dunne (Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike), a couple whose relationship is dying, though who’s to blame is a matter of debate. Following Amy’s disappearance, the couple’s
MOVIES
story is told in flashbacks via Nick’s interrogation sessions and Amy’s diary entries. According to Nick, Amy is a cold, friendless sociopath. She says he’s an abusive, adulterous asshole. Her vanishing sparks a national media circus, but what starts as a procedural mystery goes bonkers after a midfilm twist that transforms the tale into perhaps the most expensive, wellacted Lifetime movie ever. R. AP KRYZA. City Center, Movies on TV.
Horrible Bosses 2
B Three years after a trio of professionals conspired to murder their employers, Horrible Bosses 2 finds the B-list wolfpack (Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis, Charlie
CONT. on page 52
A L I PA I G E G O L D S T E I N
REVIEW
walking and talking: Rosario dawson and Chris Rock.
TOP FIVE Chris Rock took way too long to play himself in a movie. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say he took far too long to make a movie that sounds like he does. That’s the immediate thing to leap out about Top Five, the third film the comic has written, directed and starred in but the first to come across as a true Chris Rock joint: The dialogue has the tone, pacing and detonation of his standup. In the opening scene, Rock, playing a comedian and actor named Andre Allen, strolls down a New York street with Rosario Dawson and explains why America will never vote an “out-handicapped” candidate into the White House: “You run for president, you don’t roll for president!” Rock has never been a great actor, but like Louis C.K. and Larry David, he’s finally discovered that the trick is to make it so you hardly have to act at all. Allen isn’t Rock’s precise analog: The real man has never had a franchise as successful as Hammy, a series of buddy comedies starring Allen as a wisecracking cop…who also happens to be a bear. Like Michael Keaton in Birdman, Allen hopes his turn as a serious auteur, in a film about the Haitian slave rebellion, will shift critical perception and silence the chorus of “Hey, Hammy!” that follows him wherever he goes. Such artistic fidgeting is familiar to Rock, who’s gone from producing Pootie Tang to remaking Eric Rohmer, yet has never transcended his standup specials. “I don’t feel funny anymore,” Allen tells Dawson, playing a New York Times reporter. Rock isn’t coy about his Woody Allen worship, and this is unabashedly his Stardust Memories, minus the flights of surrealism—though there are a few moments toward the end, with cameos no one should spoil, that might qualify. Top Five’s plot bends toward rom-com conventionality in its third act, with a twist you could see coming from space. Up until then, it’s a loose, engaging walk-and-talk, something like Before Sunrise meets Seinfeld, energized by interjections of hip-hop brashness. (The film’s title is a reference to Andre Allen and his siblings’ penchant for ranking their favorite rappers.) And even after, Rock proves that, for truly hilarious people, funny always finds a way, whether they’re feeling it or not. “Please lower your expectations,” Allen tells the crowd at the Comedy Cellar when he stops by for an impromptu set. As a filmmaker, Rock has just raised ours. MATTHEW SINGER. chris Rock makes a true chris Rock joint.
A- SEE it: Top Five is rated R. It opens Friday at Bridgeport, Division, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
51
MR. PEEPS ADULT SUPERSTORES DVD RENTALS/SALES ~ ADULT TOYS & GIFTS ~ PRIVATE VIEWING ROOMS ~ ARCADE DISCREET PARKING!!!
ALL LOCATIONS OPEN 24HRS/7 DAYS
MR. PEEPS TOO
A WEEK !!!
MR PEEPS
13355 SW HENRY STREET BEAVERTON, OREGON 97005
20625 S.W. TV HWY ALOHA, OREGON 97006
503.643.6645
503.356.5624
THE PEEP HOLE
709 SE 122ND AVE. PORTLAND, OREGON 97233
503.257.8617 WWW.MRPEEPS.COM
MOVIES
DEC. 10–16
Day) again nudged toward criminal vengeance upon rather more marketable co-stars. This go-round, Christoph Waltz and Chris Pine play father-and-son catalog magnates out to steal the boys’ new invention—a shampoo- and soapdispensing showerhead—through altogether legal and fairly logical machinations. But, as soon as the 1-percenters threaten to ship manufacturing jobs overseas, our heroes are begging Jamie Foxx for felonious pro tips. Where the original blanketed any satirical edge beneath formulaic conventions and indulgent star turns, new director Sean Anders’ unrepentant hackiness dispels any semblance of narrative construct. Instead, he throws all his energies behind his leads’ banter-driven interplay, which works undeserved miracles. Lord only knows what the three could make of a decent script and competent direction . R . JAY HORTON . Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, City Center, Hilltop, Movies on TV, Sandy.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1
B- When last we met Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), the bow-wielding heroine was being rescued from the eponymous death match and thrust into the role of reluctant revolutionary. Now, in the fi rst half of The Hunger Games ’ concluding installment—thanks for making that standard practice, Harry Potter— Katniss’ outlying District 12 has been reduced to ashen rubble. The surviving insurrectionists gather in a drab underground bunker where their president (Julianne Moore, rocking a shock of straight gray hair) tries to enlist an unwitting Katniss into their noble cause. The Games are conspicuous in their absence. The latent cruelty of that tournament is responsible for nearly all of the franchise’s most indelible moments: That feeling of lambs going to slaughter is both exhilarating and tragic, and shorn of this, the new fi lm has no real hook. PG-13 . MICHAEL NORDINE . Bagdad, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, City Center, Hilltop, Movies on TV, Sandy, St. Johns Theater.
Interstellar
C+ Christopher Nolan is Hollywood ’s most masterful huckster: a blockbuster auteur who uses incredible sleight of hand to elevate into art what other directors would leave as garbage. He is the king of making you think his fi lms are smarter than they actually are. So it makes perfect sense that Nolan takes us to another galaxy with Interstellar. In space, nobody can hear you scream, “Wait, that doesn’t make sense... but holy shit, did you see that?!” The plot fi nds former pilot Cooper (Matthew McConaughey) raising his kids and crops on a blighted Earth. He’s enlisted by a speechifying Michael Caine to captain a space expedition: He must either fi nd a new planet for the remnants of humanity to call home or—if time runs out—fi nd a place to incubate a stash of embryos, thus preventing the extinction of mankind. At nearly three hours, Interstellar could easily chop an hour off its runtime and remain an exhilarating piece of escapism. Instead, Nolan overcomplicates things with indecipherable equations and endless exposition. Add a twist ending that’s ludicrous and self-important to the point of hilarity and you’ve got a lot of strained goodwill. PG-13 . AP KRYZA . Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Hollywood, Moreland, Oak Grove, City Center, Hilltop, Movies on TV, Sandy.
John Wick
A- John Wick treads familiar
52
ground: A retired hit man is roped back into the life. But this is the rare fi lm that excels as much for what it puts on display as for what it holds back. It oozes style, yet
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
avoids showy slow-mo and CGI. It’s birthed from cliché, yet populated with unpredictable characters. And it’s bloody terrifi c. It’s also brutally effi cient. John Wick opens with the titular character (Keanu Reeves) in mourning, having just buried his wife. That leaves him with only his tricked-out Mustang and a new puppy. Pity, then, when sadistic Russian thug Iosef (Alfi e Allen) and his cronies jack his ride and kill his dog. It’s only a matter of time before Wick comes knocking. What unfolds is the kind of old-school action we rarely see in this age of gargantuan spectacle. As directed by David Leitch and Chad Stahelski—the latter was Reeves’ Matrix stunt double— the action unfolds without confusing jump cuts. Whenever the story approaches redundancy, the directors pull out another stylistic fl ourish. Unburdened by exposition, Reeves is free to do what he does best: be one of his generation’s best action stars. John Wick is a perfect vehicle for him. Which is to say, it’s one of the best action fl icks to come along in years . R . AP KRYZA . Eastport, Movies on TV.
The Judge
D+ Having reluctantly fl own home to rural Indiana to attend his mother’s funeral, high-powered lawyer Hank Palmer (Robert Downey Jr.) is forced to confront his estranged father (Robert Duvall), the gavelwielding patriarch of the title whose every utterance makes Hank feel inadequate and unloved. The two are barely on speaking terms for reasons that take too long to reveal and aren’t especially interesting, but Hank’s forced to stick around when the old man gets accused of murder—which, by the way, is only one of the fi lm’s many silly plot twists. Watching Iron Man work out his daddy issues for well over two hours proves painful for everyone involved, especially viewers, so drawn-out and overwrought is every torturous detail. R . MICHAEL NORDINE . Valley.
The Maze Runner
Because there just aren’t enough fi lm adaptations of dystopian young-adult novels out there, here’s another one, about—as you might have gleaned from its title— kids trapped in a maze . PG-13 . Empirical Theatre at OMSI, Mission, Mt. Hood, Valley.
Nightcrawler
B+ With eyes bulging from his
gaunt skull like a Chihuahua trapped in an industrial vise, Jake Gyllenhaal is an unnervingly strange sight to behold when he walks onto the screen in Nightcrawler. And that’s before his character, Lou Bloom, even opens his mouth. Once Lou starts chattering, what emerges is one of the slimiest, most disarming sociopaths to hit theaters in some time. Gyllenhaal’s character is terrifying. The title of Dan Gilroy’s debut feature refers to the lecherous freelance cameramen who prowl city streets, their ears trained to police scanners so they can get to gruesome crime scenes before help arrives and shoot the carnage, tragedy and response as it all unfolds. After witnessing one particularly soulless photographer in action, petty thief Lou invests in a camcorder and a scanner, and promptly crosses police lines in order to tape a grisly accident. He rushes to a trashy TV station to sell the footage, quickly striking up a professional relationship with an equally emotionless TV exec (Rene Russo). What makes Lou such a fascinating and terrifying beast isn’t rooted in traditional cinematic tropes of violence. In reality, he’s quite docile. No, it’s his extreme disconnect and lack of conscience: He sees nothing wrong, for example, with moving a stillbreathing victim into better light to improve his shot. R . AP KRYZA . Eastport, Clackamas, City Center, Hilltop, Movies on TV.
Ouija
A supernatural thriller about...you guessed it . PG-13 . Movies on TV.
Penguins of Madagascar
The besuited birds are back, trying to prevent an evil octopus from taking over the world. Sorry, WW was too hung over to make the Saturday-morning screening . PG . Eastport, Clackamas, Cornelius, Oak Grove, City Center, Hilltop, Movies on TV, Sandy.
Pride
B+ Politics make strange bedfel-
lows. That was certainly true of gay activists and mineworkers, who formed an unlikely alliance during a British labor strike 30 years ago. Their story is dramatized in Pride, Matthew Warchus’ unabashedly crowd-pleasing but not overly saccharine fi lm. It’s 1984, and gay activists in London realize they share a trifecta of enemies with their working-class brethren: the police, the right-wing tabloids and her majesty of supreme ghastliness, Margaret Thatcher. What is there to do, then, but run through the pride parade, clanging buckets and collecting money for the unions? Though Pride hits the expected beats—the soundtrack swells and a little old lady asks if all lesbians are vegetarians—it’s so ebullient that it just feels shrewish to resist. R . REBECCA JACOBSON . Acad emy, Laurelhurst .
The Pyramid
A team of American archaeologists travels to Egypt, where they fi nd a lost pyramid. Hang on: How does someone lose a pyramid? Anyway, this one was lost, and then it was found, and now it’s haunted . R . Clackamas.
St. Vincent
B- Freshman director Theodore Melfi is a very, very lucky man. Under most circumstances, his debut, St. Vincent, would be blasted for its contrived, overwrought plot. Does the world really need another story about a mean old bastard who fi nds redemption and purpose thanks to a kid? But luckily for Melfi , that crusty bastard is played by Bill Murray, who takes what could have been a geriatric riff on About a Boy and turns it into a showcase of his everevolving comedic prowess. PG-13 . AP KRYZA . Eastport, Lake, City Center, Movies on TV, Sandy.
The Theory of Everything
B- A brief history of Stephen Hawking’s 30-year marriage to Jane Wilde, The Theory of Everything fits a tad too snugly into the biopic tradition. Anyone who’s seen Errol Morris’ expressionistic 1992 documentary on Hawking knows a conventional approach isn’t ideal for the ALS-afflicted genius—which isn’t to say James Marsh’s new film doesn’t succeed on its own more modest terms. Here, Hawking’s contributions to the fields of physics and cosmology take a backseat to the story of his and Wilde’s courtship, marriage and eventual divorce. That’s no surprise: The Theory of Everything is based on Wilde’s memoirs, so anyone expecting a disquisition on Hawking’s theories should seek out the Morris doc instead. Eddie Redmayne and Felicity Jones do a superb job bringing Hawking and Wilde to life, like two shining stars revolving around the same tragic center of gravity. Hawking’s mind never slows as he deteriorates physically, nor does his wife’s resolve to stick with him—until it does, that is. The film glosses over the inconvenient details of their parting, making it clear that Hawking married his nurse while declining to say much more. The Theory of Everything might not live up to its ambitious title, but there’s still much to admire in this visually arresting portrait of a long and unique relationship. PG13 . MICHAEL NORDINE . Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, City Center.
ALLISON KEREK
AP FILM STUDIES
The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) Kermit and company offer up the least frightening take on Dickens’ horrifying holiday tale…and it’s still kind of scary. Not even Gonzo can tone this shit down! Cheer factor: 8. It’s the Muppets, for God’s sake. Yuletide message: Even a harrowing tale of a wasted life can be made better with a bad Fozzie joke. Academy Theater. Dec. 19-25.
THE HOLLIEST, JOLLIEST MOVIES AT BEER THEATERS. apkryza@wweek.com
In December, resisting Christmas movies is impossible. But this is Portland, dammit, which means you’ve got more options than watching Charlie Brown deal with his manic depression from the solitude of your couch. Instead, get into the spirit at one of Portland’s boozy movie theaters, where you can watch Bruce Willis commit terrorist genocide, witness Santa punish the naughty with an ax, or take a psychedelic odyssey into the ’70s, all with a beer in hand. Oh, and there’s some genuinely schmaltzy stuff, too, if you’re not completely cynical. Ho ho ho! Christmas in Space Amid the cocaine and glam rock of the ’70s, there was also Christmas. And as your black-sheep uncle can tell you, Christmas and cocaine mix well, as evidenced by this collection of disco-era holiday oddities, which includes aliens, Dr. Zaius and maybe, just maybe, a look at a certain George Lucas-produced Christmas special we shall not name. Cheer factor: 8. Did I mention the aliens share traits with the Magi? Also, cocaine! Yuletide message: The Christmas spirit transcends time, space and consciousness. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Wednesday, Dec. 10. A Christmas Story (1983) Sure, you could watch Ralphie lust after a Red Ryder BB gun on a 24-hour loop on cable, but Scut Farkus’ yellow eyes are much more terrifying on the big screen. Cheer factor: 9. If this movie doesn’t make you smile, you have a heart three sizes too small. Yuletide message: Don’t shoot your eye out. And watch your fudgin’ mouth. Kiggins Theatre; opens Friday, Dec. 12. Academy Theater, Dec. 12-18. Mission Theater, Dec. 19-25. Elf (2003) Will Ferrell’s first headlining role as a man-child in a goofy outfit is still among his best. That’s mainly because there’s not an ounce of malice in his character, a man who grew up as an elf and then leaves the North Pole to spread cheer to the most miserable folks around: New Yorkers in winter. Cheer factor: 9. Your mom can’t stand Will Ferrell. Your mom loves Elf. Yuletide message: Be yourself, even if being yourself means wearing tights snug enough to give David Bowie package envy. Kiggins Theatre. Opens Friday, Dec. 12.
Home Alone (1990) Long before the Pizza Underground, Macaulay Culkin was obsessing over (cheese) pies in this tale about a crafty young sociopath who basically almost murders two burglars…and learns about love of family in the process. Cheer factor: 7. C’mon. It has John Candy in a U-Haul playing polka clarinet Christmas songs. Yuletide message: Cherish your family, because you never know when they’ll be gone—probably because child services arrested them for gross negligence. Laurelhurst Theater and Mission Theater. Dec. 12-25. Animated Christmas 3 Rudolph and Frosty get all the love, but there are other stop-motion holiday films. Just look at these true misfits, which include A Christmas Gift and The Littlest Angel from local animator Will Vinton, plus a 1985 Kringle origin story based on L. Frank Baum’s The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, which only aired once. Cheer factor: 6. Even terrible stop-motion Christmas films— which is most of them—give you the warm-and-fuzzies. Yuletide message: Santa, like all superheroes, deserves a gritty origin story. Hollywood Theatre. 2 pm Saturday, Dec. 13. VHSXMAS 2 Scarecrow Video dusts off a series of Christmas videos from an era time forgot: the VHS era. That means weird, poor-quality films about elves, magical Christmas trees and, of course, Mannheim Steamroller, whose music has strangely become a holiday tradition. Cheer factor: 7. The night contains a “controversial” origin story for elves, possibly made by North Pole Birthers. Yuletide message: If you hadn’t thrown away your VCR when you got a DVD player for Christmas in 1998, you wouldn’t be paying to watch this stuff. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Saturday, Dec. 13. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) You know the story: George Bailey tries to kill himself after getting robbed by an old curmudgeon and then is shown what life would be like if he’d never been born. This results in his wife mistaking him for a rapist. Then he comes back to reality, still poor but not a presumed sex offender. Merry fuckin’ Christmas. Cheer factor: 3. Seriously, this is two hours of misery capped with five minutes of cheer. And the bad guy gets away. How is this a classic?! Yuletide message: If you see $8,000 sitting on a counter, just take it. You’ll be fine. Hollywood Theatre and Kiggins Theatre. Dec. 19-25.
Die Hard (1988) Trapped in a skyscraper full of Eurotrash terrorists on Christmas Eve, detective John McClane learns the value of life by killing scores of bad guys, in the process winning back the love of his estranged wife and children. Cheer factor: 10. Yippee-ki-yay, Father Christmas. Yuletide message: Whether you’re looking to rekindle romance or guilt-ridden about accidentally killing a kid, nothing can reinvigorate you quite like shooting somebody in the face while Christmas songs play. Laurelhurst Theater, Dec. 19-23. Mission Theater, Dec. 19-25. White Christmas (1954) In National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, when Clark Griswold spoke of “the hap-hap-happiest Christmas since Bing Crosby tap-danced with Danny fuckin’ Kaye,” he was referring to this movie. There’s a lot of tap dancing. Cheer factor: 2-7, depending on your feelings about tap dancing. Yuletide message: Throw Grandma a bone here. Just watch it with her. She gave you a nice card, and accidentally put an extra zero on that Christmas check. Kiggins Theatre. Opens Friday, Dec. 19. Silent Night, Deadly Night (1982) Basically, it’s Friday the 13th. But with a dude in a Santa suit instead of a hockey mask. And more boobs. It’s wonderful. Cheer factor: 1-10, depending on your feelings about naughty people being ax-murdered. Yuletide message: Santa Claus is watching you. Especially when you’re having premarital sex. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Dec. 23. C O U R T E S Y O F WA LT D I S N E Y P I C T U R E S
REEL CHRISTMAS CHEER BY AP K RYZ A
MOVIES
ALSO SHOWING: The 1982 British oddity The Draughtsman’s Contract centers on an artist contracted—under an unusual set of circumstances—to create 12 drawings of a wealthy couple’s estate. North Star Ballroom. 9 pm Wednesday, Dec. 10. The Hollywood’s Critic’s Choice series continues this week. On Thursday, Dec. 11, Oregonian critic Marc Mohan presents the obscure Alan Arkin-directed black comedy Little Murders, while on Friday, Dec. 12, KGW’s Shawn Levy screens the Robert De Niro baseball drama Bang the Drum Slowly. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday, Dec. 11-12. Hecklevision unleashes Theodore Rex, starring Whoopi Goldberg as a cop. From the future. Whose partner is a talking dinosaur. It’s worse than it sounds. Trust me. I’ve seen it. Three times. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Friday, Dec. 12. Want your kids to stop singing “Let It Go”? Take them to this surreal, tripped-out 1986 Finnish take on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen and tell them it’s the story Frozen is (very loosely) based on. That’ll shut ’em up for a day or two. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Monday, Dec. 15. Portland writer David Walker and artists Mike Oeming and Matt Haley debut their new Shaft comic book in the only way that makes sense: with a screening of Shaft’s Big Score. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Dec. 16. Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
53
MOVIES
DEC. 12–18
COURTESY OF MGM
TALE OF IYA Sat-Sun 07:00 2014 SAPPORO SHORTS PROGRAM Sun 04:15 2014 BRITISH ARROW AWARDS Wed 07:00
St. Johns Theater
8203 N Ivanhoe St., 503-249-7474-6 EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 05:00, 07:55 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1 Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 04:30 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES TueWed 03:50, 07:00, 10:00
Academy Theater
GRAVE MATTERS: Shaft’s Big Score plays at 7:30 pm Tuesday, Dec. 16, at the Hollywood Theatre.
Regal Lloyd Center 10 & IMAX
1510 NE Multnomah St. EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS Fri-Sat 07:00 TOP FIVE Fri-Sat-Sun 12:25, 03:10, 06:30, 09:30 THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NURNBERG Sat 09:00 WHITE CHRISTMAS 60TH ANNIVERSARY Sun-Mon 07:00 THE HOBBIT MARATHON IMAX 3D Mon 01:00 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES -- AN IMAX 3D EXPERIENCE Tue-Wed 11:30, 03:15, 07:00, 10:30 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES Tue-Wed 12:10, 03:55, 07:40 ROYAL BALLET: ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND Tue 07:00 THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NURNBERG ENCORE Wed 06:30
Bagdad Theater
3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-249-7474 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1 FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:00, 03:15 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES Tue-Wed 11:30, 03:00, 07:00, 10:45
Clinton Street Theater
2522 SE Clinton St., 503-238-8899 NW DOCUMENTARY’S HOMEGROWN DOCFEST Sat 07:00 THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW Sat 11:59 CROCODILES: ALL FOR ONE Sun 04:00 THE BAREFOOT BANDIT Mon-Tue 07:00 LITTLE MISTAKES Wed 07:00
Laurelhurst Theatre & Pub
2735 E Burnside St., 503-232-5511 HOME ALONE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:15 DEAR WHITE PEOPLE Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:30 COMET Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 06:45 THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 08:50 BOYHOOD Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:00 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:00, 09:00 PRIDE Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 06:15 THE BOXTROLLS Fri-Sat-Sun 04:00
Mission Theater and Pub
1624 NW Glisan St., 503-249-7474-5 THE MAZE RUNNER Fri-
54
Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:20 HOME ALONE FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:00 THE HOLIDAY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:30
Moreland Theatre
6712 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503-236-5257 INTERSTELLAR Fri-SatSun-Mon 05:00, 08:30 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES TueWed 05:30, 08:30
Roseway Theatre
7229 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-282-2898 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES 3D Tue-Wed 01:00, 04:30, 08:00
CineMagic Theatre
2021 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-231-7919 BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 05:30, 08:00
Kiggins Theatre
1011 Main St., 360-816-0352 A CHRISTMAS STORY FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 08:30 ELF Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 04:30 LIFE PARTNERS FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 06:30
Century 16 Eastport Plaza
4040 SE 82nd Ave. ST. VINCENT Fri-Sat-SunTue 11:00, 01:35 BIG HERO 6 Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 11:05, 12:50, 01:45, 04:40, 06:15, 07:30, 10:20 BIG HERO 6 3D Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 03:35, 09:10 INTERSTELLAR Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 11:00, 02:40, 06:20, 10:00 DUMB AND DUMBER TO Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 11:15, 02:05, 04:55, 07:50, 10:30 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1 Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue 11:45, 01:15, 02:45, 04:15, 05:45, 07:15, 08:45, 10:15 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:15, 01:30, 02:50, 05:15, 07:45, 10:15 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR 3D Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 11:00, 04:00 HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 11:30, 12:55, 02:15, 03:40, 05:00, 07:45, 10:25 NIGHTCRAWLER Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 11:05, 02:00, 04:50, 07:40, 10:30 JOHN WICK Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue 11:10, 01:55, 04:35, 07:10, 09:50 THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 12:10, 03:20, 06:25, 09:30 EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 01:15, 08:15 EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS 3D Fri-Sat-
Sun-Mon-Tue 11:30, 03:00, 04:45, 06:30, 10:00 THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NURNBERG Sat 09:00 WHITE CHRISTMAS 60TH ANNIVERSARY Sun-Mon 07:00 HOBBIT MARATHON 3D Mon 01:00 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES TueWed 11:10, 02:30 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES 3D TueWed 12:00, 03:20, 05:50, 06:40, 09:10, 10:00 THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NURNBERG ENCORE Wed 06:30
Kennedy School Theater
5736 NE 33rd Ave., 503-249-7474-4 THE BOXTROLLS Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:30 ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 05:30 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 07:30
Empirical Theatre at OMSI
1945 SE Water Ave., 503-797-4000 WALKING WITH DINOSAURS 3D Fri-Sun 11:00, 03:30 WILD OCEAN Fri-Sat-Sun 02:30 BEARS Fri-Sun 01:00 D-DAY: NORMANDY 1944 FriSun 12:00 FLIGHT OF THE BUTTERFLIES FriSat-Sun 10:00 GREAT WHITE SHARK Fri 05:30 THE POLAR EXPRESS Fri-Sat-Sun 04:30 THE MAZE RUNNER Fri 08:30 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Sat-Sun 06:30 THE BOXTROLLS Sat 04:30
Hollywood Theatre
4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-281-4215 BIRDMAN OR (THE UNEXPECTED VIRTUE OF IGNORANCE) Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 06:45, 09:15 INTERSTELLAR Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:15 BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY Fri 07:30 THEODORE REX IN HECKLEVISION Fri 09:30 ANIMATED CHRISTMAS 3 Sat 02:00 A CHRISTMAS STORY Sat 07:00 REAL ESTATE WORK IN PROGRESS SCREENING Sat 04:30 VHSXMAS II Sat 09:30 ON WITH THE SHOW Sun 02:00 FRANK’S SONG Sun 07:00 THE SNOW QUEEN Mon 09:30 SHAFT’S BIG SCORE! Tue 07:30 THE TENANT Wed 07:30
NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium 1219 SW Park Ave., 503-221-1156 DISCONCERTO FriSun 01:30 UZUMASA LIMELIGHT Sat 01:30 MY MAN Sat 04:00 THE
7818 SE Stark St., 503-252-0500 DEAR WHITE PEOPLE FriSat-Sun-Tue-Wed 07:10, 09:30 THE TALE OF THE PRINCESS KAGUYA Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:30, 09:15 ALEXANDER AND THE TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 05:15 PRIDE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:20, 09:00 THE BOXTROLLS Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:35 GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 02:05, 06:40 A CHRISTMAS STORY Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:15, 06:55
Century Clackamas Town Center and XD
12000 SE 82nd Ave. BIG HERO 6 Fri-Sat-SunMon 10:55, 11:40, 01:35, 04:20, 05:10, 07:05, 09:50, 10:35 BIG HERO 6 3D Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon 02:25, 07:50 INTERSTELLAR FriSat-Sun-Mon 11:10, 02:50, 06:30, 10:10 DUMB AND DUMBER TO Fri-Sat-SunMon 11:00, 01:50, 04:30, 07:25, 10:05 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 1 Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon 11:15, 12:20, 01:00, 02:15, 03:20, 04:00, 05:15, 07:00, 08:15, 09:45, 10:00 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR FriSat-Sun-Mon 10:50, 12:30, 01:20, 03:00, 03:50, 05:30, 06:25, 07:55, 09:00, 10:20 PENGUINS OF MADAGASCAR 3D FriSat-Sun-Mon 02:10, 07:10 HORRIBLE BOSSES 2 FriSat-Sun-Mon 11:00, 11:45, 02:25, 04:35, 05:05, 07:45, 09:40, 10:25 FURY Fri-SatSun-Mon 01:05, 04:15, 07:20, 10:25 NIGHTCRAWLER Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon 10:55, 01:40, 10:15 THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING Fri-SatSun-Mon 10:50, 01:45, 04:40, 07:35, 10:30 THE PYRAMID Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon 10:45, 01:10, 03:30, 05:50, 08:10, 10:35 EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS Fri-Sat-SunMon 11:30, 03:00, 06:30, 10:00 EXODUS: GODS AND KINGS 3D Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon 10:45, 12:00, 02:10, 03:30, 05:35, 07:00, 09:00, 10:30 CHAAR SAHIBZAADE FriSat-Sun-Mon 10:45, 04:30, 10:15 CHAAR SAHIBZAADE 3D Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon 01:35, 07:20 THE METROPOLITAN OPERA: DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NURNBERG Sat 09:00 WHITE CHRISTMAS 60TH ANNIVERSARY Sun-MonWed 02:00, 07:00 SAVING CHRISTMAS Mon 07:30 HOBBIT MARATHON 3D Mon 01:00 ROYAL BALLET: ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND Tue 07:00 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES TueWed 12:00, 03:20, 06:40, 10:00 THE HOBBIT: THE BATTLE OF THE FIVE ARMIES 3D Tue-Wed 11:20, 02:40, 06:00, 09:20
SUBJECT TO CHANGE. CALL THEATERS OR VISIT WWEEK.COM/MOVIETIMES FOR THE MOST UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION FRIDAY-THURSDAY, DEC. 12-18, UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED
END ROLL
THE WAITS ARE TOO DAMNED LONG. I’ve been covering this beat for a year now, and it’s astonishing how far Portland’s dispensaries have come in just that time. Like a blooming jug of kombucha, the city’s medical marijuana shop fronts are developing a heady stew of business sense. That’s encouraging! The stores are clean and well-designed, given tasteful, naturalistic names and stocked with a broad swath of medicinals to combat a host of maladies. So much to be glad for! But there’s one thing not to be glad for, and that’s how long it takes to get your weed. I realize this city is stacked with starry-eyed ingenues who just want to ride the wave of life, and efficiently handing me the strain of weed I asked for isn’t their top priority in life, but I’d really like my stops for refills to last less than 30 minutes. I get it. Everyone involved in the transaction is probably at least a little stoned, a state of mind not especially conducive to efficient action. There’s an excited urge to discuss the product itself, including a panoply of effects for each strain, a unique and general air of mystery about new strains, and whether the new crop of Blackberry Kush is as good as the last. But I see trouble coming. Right now, lines are still pretty short. Thanks to legalization, those days won’t last forever. So what does the Weed Slinger of Tomorrow look like?
JUST A LITTLE HIGH: Oregon’s Finest has pondered pre-weighed packages to alleviate the process of sorting, labeling and weighing. Ultimately, though, counter-service workers must avoid the socialized quicksand that kicks in when they get Too Damn High. Think of it this way: No one wants a purple-toothed and stumbling sommelier, but if she’s got a light buzz, that’s cool. HAS BEEN HIGHER, THOUGH: We’re still at the point where even the majority of imbibers don’t understand the vast differences in marijuana genetics and effects. To stick with the sommelier comparison, the language of grapes had to start somewhere, even if it was just some guy who thought, “Hey, this tastes like wood!” Besides understanding different products’ effects, the dealer should have a rough idea of which effects combat which symptoms. An insomniac wouldn’t want Green Crack, unless he just wanted to make Adult Swim more enjoyable. Pure Green has focused on hiring smart, friendly staff. BUBBLY HIGH, NOT ZONED OUT AND AWKWARD: A good sommelier connects with buyers, learning over time what they like and what they don’t. One of the challenges of translating cannabis for a broader audience will be helping new customers navigate an intimidating and intentionally abstract field of products. It’s nice shopping at places where the people enjoy their work, where they smile and look you in the eye and ask how they can help. Dispensaries are learning this lesson faster than many glass shops, but there’s still ironing to be done.
For more information on John Callahan’s memorial, see ffojohncallahan.tumblr.com. Willamette Week DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
55
CLASSIFIEDS DIRECTORY
DECEMBER 10, 2014
56
WELLNESS
56
STUFF
56 MOTOR
56 SERVICES
56 BULLETIN BOARD
ESTATE 56 REAL & RENTALS
57
JOBS
57
MUSICIANS’ MARKET
57
58 JONESIN’
59
59 BACK COVER
LANGUAGE
LESSONS
TO PLACE AN AD CONTACT:
WELLNESS COUNSELING
MATT PLAMBECK
& MATCHMAKER
SERVICES
REL A X!
INDULGE YOURSELF in an - AWESOME FULL BODY MASSAGE
BUILDING/REMODELING
CLASSICAL PIANO/ KEYBOARD THEORY. PERFORMANCE. ALL AGES. PARTY ENTERTAINMENT PORTLAND 503-227-6557
BULLETIN BOARD WILLAMETTE WEEK’S GATHERING PLACE
Charles
NON-PROFIT DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE.
503-740-5120
lmt#6250
ADOPTION PREGNANT? THINKING OF ADOPTION? Talk with caring agency specializing in matching Birthmothers with Families Nationwide. LIVING EXPENSES PAID. Call 24/7 Abby’s One True Gift Adoptions. 866-413-6293.
CLASSES HEALTH CLEANING HYPNOSIS
TOTALLY RELAXING MASSAGE Featuring Swedish, deep tissue and sports techniques by a male therapist. Conveniently located, affordable, and preferring male clientele at this time. #5968 By appointment Tim 503.482.30
STILL SPINNING YOUR WHEELS? HYPNOSIS CAN HELP • • • •
Elevate Your Self Esteem Bust Thru Old Blocks Stop Procrastinating Get Your Mojo Back!
LEXI PARROTT
Clinical Hypnotherapist 503-267-9353 lexiparrott.com
MEN’S HEALTH MANSCAPING Bodyhair grooming M4M. Discrete quality service. 503-841-0385 by appointment.
56
PREP YOUR YARD FOR WINTER! Landscape Cleanups, Pruning, Hauling, Mulching, Eave Cleaning, Maintenance, Design Ideas Free Estimates - Friendly Service Call John 503-274-7939 NW.Plantscapes@yahoo.com
STUFF
HAULING/MOVING LJ’S HAULING ANYTHING Removal of Metal/Cars free 503-839-7222
HOME FURNISHING
BEDTIME
TWINS
MATTRESS
79
$
COMPANY
FULL $ 89 (503)
QUEEN
109
$
760-1598
7353 SE 92nd Ave Mon-Fri 9-5, Sat 10-2
Custom Sizes » Made To Order Financing Available
MOTOR AUTOS WANTED CASH FOR CARS: Any Car/Truck. Running or Not! Top Dollar Paid. We Come To You! Call For Instant Offer: 1-888-4203808 www.cash4car.com WANTED PORSCHE 356 911 OR 912 1953-1987 Porsche Project/Apart OK. Local Cash Buyer. 503-572-8459
Willamette Week Classifieds DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
STRUGGLING WITH DRUGS OR ALCHOHOL? Addicted to PILLS? Talk to someone who cares. Call The Addiction Hope & Help Line for a free assessment. 800-978-6674
LEGAL NOTICES
GARDENING
PETS UP FOR ADOPTION PG. 57
Trasformational Hypnotherapy
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY
CONTINUED
503-445-2757 • mplambeck@wweek.com
MASSAGE (LICENSED)
call
PETS
LAWN SERVICES BERNHARD’S Residential, Commercial and Rentals. Complete yard care, 20 years. 503-515-9803. Licensed and Insured. No Job Too Small!
ESTATE OF BETTY JEAN SANFORD NOTICE TO INTERESTED PERSONS CASE NUMBER: 14PB02169 Notice: The Circuit Court of the State of Oregon, for the County of Multnomah, has appointed the undersigned as Personal Representative of the Estate of Betty Jean Sanford, deceased. All persons having claims against said estate are required to present the same, with proper vouchers to the Personal Representative at 11732 NE Stanton St., Portland OR 97220 within four months from the date of first publication of this notice as stated below, or they may be barred. All persons whose rights may be affected by this proceeding may obtain additional information from the records of the court, the Personal Representative, or the Attorney for the Personal Representative. Dated and first published November 26th, 2014. PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE Dennis Heisler 11732 NE Stanton St., Portland, OR 97220 ATTORNEY FOR PERSONAL REPRESENTATIVE Maret Thatcher Smith 312 NW 10th Ave #200 B 971-284-7129 maret@thatchersmithlaw.com OSB # 105103
MISCELLANEOUS AUTO INSURANCE STARTING AT $25/ MONTH! Call 855-977-9537
SEMINARS AIRBRUSH MAKEUP ARTIST COURSE 40% OFF TUITION - SPECIAL $1990 Train & Build Portfolio . One Week Course Details at: AwardMakeupSchool.com 818-980-2119
SUPPORT GROUPS FEELING POLYAMOROUS?
REAL ESTATE REAL ESTATE
Looking for Residential or Commercial Property Listings? Visit nwhpr.com View Homes, Commercial, and Business Property for Sale and Lease, in Oregon & SW Washington.
OR JUST POLY-CURIOUS POLYAMORY CIRCLE CALL LAURY 503-285-4848
RENTALS ROOMMATE SERVICES ALL AREAS - ROOMMATES.COM. Browse hundreds of online listings with photos and maps. Find your roommate with a click of the mouse! Visit: www.Roommates.com.
BANDIT HATS 40% OFF
PAINTING/WALLPAPERING COLORFAST PAINTING Interior/Exterior, Wallpaper Removal, Texturing, Power Wash Licensed/Insured #160585 503-312-5049
TREE SERVICES STEVE GREENBERG TREE SERVICE Pruning and removals, stump grinding. 24-hour emergency service. Licensed/ Insured. CCB#67024. Free estimates. 503-284-2077
ADULT CARE CAREGIVER AVAILABLE 27/7 Honest and trustworthy, will provide care in your home for your loved one. Criminal background check available, please contact Kay 503-449-3077
is now accepting registrations for its next conference, July 13 - 17, 2015. The course is held in the exquisite town of Oceanside, Oregon. There will be five experienced authors (YA, MG, nonfiction, picture book, poetry), two children’s book editors (from major NY houses), and one children’s book agent. A number of our students have been published. We’d like you to be the next. Please go to www.occbww.com for much more information. Or contact us at authilus@teleport.com
CALL TO LIST YOUR PROPRTY
503-445-2757
TO PLACE AN AD CONTACT:
MATT PLAMBECK
503-445-2757 • mplambeck@wweek.com
JOBS
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
PETS FOR SALE
HOSPITALITY/RESTAURANT
Changing the image of rescue, one animal at a time... Interested in adopting from the Pixie Project CALL 503.542.3433
TOBY
SAPHO
SPON SORED BY
SPONSOR E D BY
www.petsonbroadway.com
naturespetmarket.com
MOLLY
TED
SP O N SO R E D BY
SPON SORED BY
The historic McMenamins Gearhart Hotel & Sand Trap Pub
is hiring a Hotel & Sales Mgr. Located on the beautiful northern Oregon coast, just blocks from the ocean and adjacent to the Gearhart Golf Course, this prop. features a hotel, bustling pub, event spaces and onsite catering. This position is responsible for managing hotel-related ops, as well as booking and planning events and catering. The Hotel & Sales Mgr is also expected to be active in the community, promoting and representing McMenamins at various local events. McMenamins is looking for someone who is interested in growing the overall year-round business at this pristine coastal location. Qualified applicants must have a min. of 2 years hosp. mgmt. exp.; hotel and/or sales exp. Pref.; enjoy working in a busy customer service-oriented enviro; have an open and flex. sched., incl. days, eves., wknds. and holidays; and be comfortable using computers. We offer a first-rate work enviro., along with a competitive benefits package. We are interested in people who want a long-term career in the hospitality industry. To apply, mail your cover letter and resume to Attn: Human Resources at 430 N. Killingsworth St., Portland, OR 97217. Call 503-952-0598 for information on other ways to apply. Please no phone calls or emails to individual locations. E.O.E
HOLIDAY EMPLOYMENT
PETS
www.ExtrasOnly.com 503.227.1098 AFRICA, BRAZIL WORK/STUDY! Change the lives of others while creating a sustainable future. 1, 6, 9, 18 month programs available. Apply now! www.OneWorldCenter.org (269) 591-0518 info@OneWorldCenter.org
MUSICIANS MARKET FOR FREE ADS in 'Musicians Wanted,' 'Musicians Available' & 'Instruments for Sale' go to portland.backpage.com and submit ads online. Ads taken over the phone in these categories cost $5.
INSTRUMENTS FOR SALE TRADEUPMUSIC.COM Buying, selling, instruments of every shape and size. Open 11am-7pm every day. 4701 SE Division & 1834 NE Alberta.
CHIHUAHUAS Puppies!, Call for pricing. Financing Avail. Adult Adoptions Also. Reputable Oregon Kennel. Unique Colors, Long & Short Haired, Tiny to Hearty sizes. Health Guaranteed, UTD, Vaccinations/Wormings, Litterbox Trained, Socialized. Video/Pictures/Virtual Tour: www.chi-pup.net References Happily Supplied! Easy I-5 Access. Drain, OR. Umpqua Valley Kennels, Vic & Mary Kasser 541-459-5951 ENGLISH MASTIFF PUPPIES!!! House raised with our family. Variety of colors. Large, sweet, gentle giants. Call to see our cute babies. $900. 360-562-1584
MUSIC LESSONS DON’T JUST LEARN TO PLAY THE PIANO... LEARN TO ROCK THE PIANO Beginners to Intermediate, kids to adults! Conveniently located in the Pearl! Call Kris 860-368-7121 or email krispianolessons@gmail.com LEARN PIANO ALL STYLES, LEVELS With 2 time Grammy winner Peter Boe. 503-274-8727. VOICE INSTRUCTION Anthony Plumer, Concert Artist/Voice Teacher. www.naturalvocalarts.com 503-299-4089.
WWEEK.COM
MINI AUSSI PUREBRED PUPPIES FAMILY RAISED Smart, Sweet, Loving, Parents are Family Pets, 1st shots, wormed, declawed and tails removed. Many colors. $450 & Up 360-261-3354 Vanc ROTTWEILER AKC PUPPIES Imported, excellent temperament and pedigrees. Large, blocky heads. Family raised. Parents sweet and gentle. $1200 each. 720-326-5127
www.antoinettejewelry.com
JULIUS
CALVIN
SPON SORED BY
SPONSOR E D BY
www.fetcheyewear.com
503-283-8337
If you or your business would like to sponsor a pet in one of our upcoming Pet Showcases,
contact:
MATT PLAMBECK
503-445-2757 WE’VE GOT THE JOB FOR YOU WWEEK.COM Willamette Week Classifieds DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
57
TO PLACE AN AD CONTACT:
MATT PLAMBECK
503-445-2757 • mplambeck@wweek.com
CHATLINES
JONESIN’
REAL PEOPLE REAL DESIRE REAL FUN
by Matt Jones
Gimme All Your Lovin’–hugs and kisses all around. before the euro 66 Destroy 67 Emcee’s delivery 68 Sandler on guitar 69 “Nurse Jackie” star Falco 70 Posh neckwear 71 Is the author of
CHATLINE TM
503.416.7098 Try for FREE
Ahora en Español
For More Local Numbers: 1.800.926.6000
www.livelinks.com
Teligence/18+
Find your Flame on
LiveMatch
Across 1 Little bites 5 Full of snark 10 Bill dispensers 14 Frigg’s husband, in Norse myth 15 Be loud, like a radio 16 Brush off 17 Succumb to gravity 18 Spanish guy who joined a Germanic tribe? 20 “I just thought of something!” 21 “___ my heart open...” (Papa Roach
lyric) 22 Vegetarian option 24 Academic aides, briefly 27 Hidden beneath the surface 30 Avant-garde composer Glass 33 Big house fixture 34 Like many actresses on “Baywatch”? 38 Modeler’s moldable medium 39 Devious little devil 40 Less complicated 42 Eisenhower’s
WWII command 43 “J’adore” perfumier 45 Author of “The Watergate Diaries”? 47 Actress Pompeo 49 Assumes the role of 50 Infrequently 52 Opening piece? 53 Produce 57 Bassoons’ smaller relatives 59 Swing in the ring 60 The most onesided line in US history? 65 Money in Milan,
Down 1 Health food claim 2 “Famous Potatoes” state 3 Rice side 4 “Celebrity Jeopardy” broadcaster, for short 5 Network Stephen Colbert is moving to 6 Carte or mode preceder 7 Levy 8 “Star Trek” counselor Deanna 9 Streisand movie 10 Afro-___ languages 11 Song that goes “So whyyyyyy don’t you use it?” 12 Item stating “World’s Greatest Dad” 13 Nestle’s ___-Caps 19 It’s sealed with a shake 23 Code for a scanner 24 It’s below the femur 25 Reunion attendee 26 Beer buy 28 “Hey, that’s cool!” 29 Model, like clothes 31 Dept. formerly headed by Kathleen
Sebelius 32 Well-behaved 34 ___ one’s time (waits) 35 “Germinal” author Zola 36 Mission that included a moonwalk 37 Cluttered up 41 Genetic info carrier 44 Leon who sang the theme to “Mr. Belvedere” 46 School of thought 48 Hands-together time 51 News outlets 54 Tolerate 55 Holy book 56 Major tests 58 Serious sevensome 60 Beats by ___ 61 Diaphragm alternative 62 “Senses Working Overtime” band 63 “___ y Plata” (Montana’s motto) 64 “Uh-uh!” 65 Once around
last week’s answers
©2014 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JONZ705.
ENTERTAINMENT
TRY IT FREE!
Free CHATROOMS & FORUMS
Talk About A Good Time
Portland 503-222-4020 Vancouver 360-314-CHAT
Seattle 206-753-CHAT • Tacoma 253-359-CHAT • Everett 425-405-CHAT
or WEB PHONE on LiveMatch.com
MAN to MAN
Free group chatrooms 24/7! 503-222-CHAT
Classified
Try it for free
503-416-7436 More local numbers: 1-800-550-0618 Ahora en Español/18+ www.interactivemale.com
58
Willamette Week Classifieds DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
wweekdotcom wweekdotcom wweekdotcom
TO PLACE AN AD CONTACT:
MATT PLAMBECK
503-445-2757 • mplambeck@wweek.com
BACK COVER CONTINUED...
©2014 Rob Brezsny
Week of December 11
TO PLACE AN AD ON BACK COVER CONTINUED call 503-445-2757
Research: New Discovery
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Through the scientific magic of grafting, a single tree can be altered to grow several different kinds of fruit at the same time. One type of “fruit salad tree” produces apricots, nectarines, plums, and peaches, while another bears grapefruits, lemons, oranges, limes, and tangelos. I’m thinking this might be an apt and inspiring symbol for you in the coming months, Gemini. What multiple blooms will you create on your own metaphorical version of a fruit salad tree? CANCER (June 21-July 22): No other structure on the planet is longer than the Great Wall of China, which stretches 3,945 miles. It’s not actually one unbroken span, though. Some sections aren’t connected, and there are redundant branches that are roughly parallel to the main structure. It reminds me of your own personal Great Wall, which is monumental yet permeable, strong in some ways but weak in others, daunting to the casual observer but less so to those who take the time to study it. Now is an excellent time to take inventory of that wall of yours. Is it serving you well? Is it keeping out the influences you don’t want but allowing in the influences you do want? Could it use some renovation? Are you willing to reimagine what its purpose is and how you want it to work for you in the future? LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The Arctic Monkeys are British rockers who have produced five studio albums, which together have sold almost five million copies. Rolling Stone magazine called their first album, released in 2003, the 30th greatest debut of all time. Yet when they first formed in 2002, none of them could play a musical instrument. I see the current era of your life, Leo, as having a similar potential. How might you start from scratch to create something great? VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Alan Turing (1912-1954) was a British mathematician and pioneering computer scientist. After World War II broke out, he got worried that the German army might invade and occupy England, as it had done to France. To protect his financial assets, he converted everything he owned into bars of silver, then buried them underground in the countryside north of London. When the war ended, he decided it was safe to dig up his fortune. Unfortunately, he couldn’t recall where he had put it, and never did find it. Let’s draw a lesson from his experience, Virgo. It’s fine if you want to stash a treasure or protect a secret or safeguard a resource. That’s probably a sensible thing to do right now. But make sure you remember every detail about why and how you’re doing it. LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Even if you are not formally enrolled in a course of study or a training program, you are nevertheless being schooled. Maybe you’re not fully conscious of what you have been learning. Maybe your teachers are disguised or unwitting. But I assure you
Kick Drugs and Alcohol with NO pain – NO Withdrawal - NO Craving
Opiates, Heroin, Oxy, Cocaine, Suboxone, Methadone Positives Side effects include:
Anti-Aging, Anti-Oxidant, Anti-Viral, & Higher IQ
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): You now have a special ability to detect transformations that are happening below the threshold of everyone else’s awareness. Anything that has been hidden or unknown will reveal itself to your gentle probes. You will also be skilled at communicating your discoveries to people who are important to you. Take full advantage of these superpowers. Don’t underestimate how pivotal a role you can play as a teacher, guide, and catalyst. The future success of your collaborative efforts depends on your next moves.
Cures:
Depression, PTSD, Acne, & Memory loss 1-888-462-1164 • Peter 541-490-3492 Ibogaineyoutube.com www.ibogaineclinic.com
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In the ancient Greek epic poem the Odyssey, Odysseus’s wife Penelope describes two kinds of dreams. “Those that that pass through the gate of ivory,” she says, are deceptive. But dreams that “come forth through the gate of polished horn” tell the truth. Another ancient text echoes these ideas. In his poem the Aeneid, Virgil says that “true visions” arrive here from the land of dreams through the gate of horn, whereas “deluding lies” cross over through the gate of ivory. Judging from the current astrological omens, Capricorn, I expect you will have interesting and intense dreams flowing through both the gate of ivory and the gate of horn. Will you be able to tell the difference? Trust love. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Your chances of going viral are better than usual. It’s a perfect moment to upload a Youtube video of yourself wearing a crown of black roses and a V for Vendetta mask as you ride a unicycle inside a church and sing an uptempo parody version of “O Come All Ye Faithful.” It’s also a favorable time for you to create a buzz for you and your pet causes through less spectacular measures. Promote yourself imaginatively. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): At age 80, author Joan Didion has published five novels, ten works of non-fiction, and five screenplays. When she was 27, she wrote, “I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be.” That wasn’t a good thing, she added: “We are welladvised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind’s door and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends.” I recommend her counsel to you in the coming months, Pisces. Get reacquainted with the old selves you have outgrown and abandoned.
Homework Forget what Time magazine thinks. Who is your “Person of the Year?” Tell me at Truthrooster@gmail.com.
check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes
freewillastrology.com
The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at
1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700
Ibogaine by David Dardashti
5th Annual
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Harper Lee was born and raised in Alabama. At the age of 23, she relocated to New York City with hopes of becoming a writer. It was a struggle. To support herself, she worked as a ticket agent for airline companies. Finding the time to develop her craft was difficult. Seven years went by. Then one Christmas, two friends gave her a remarkable gift: enough money to quit her job and work on her writing for a year. During that grace period, Lee created the basics for a book that won her a Pulitzer Prize: To Kill a Mockingbird. I don’t foresee anything quite as dramatic for you in the coming months, Sagittarius. But I do suspect you will receive unexpected help that provides you with the slack and spaciousness you need to lay the foundations for a future creation.
Geek the Halls Holiday Bazaar presented by PDX Browncoats
Over 40 vendors selling art, tasty treats, jewelry, and all manner of handcrafted items. Within walking distance of Red and Blue MAX lines and the Oregon Convention Center.
December 14th • Lloyd DoubleTree exhibit hall • Doors open at 10am & close at 5pm
LIGHTING, INC. “We light up your life” Visit the Light Bulb Play Room We have your Bulbs
Round bulbs
Small bulbs Fancy Bulbs
407316.041912 SL
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Whenever I lost one of my baby teeth as a kid, I put it under my pillow before I went to sleep. During the night, the Tooth Fairy sneaked into my room to snatch the tooth, and in its place left me 25 cents. The same crazy thing happened to every kid I knew, although for unknown reasons my friend John always got five dollars for each of his teeth -- far more than the rest of us. I see a metaphorically comparable development in your life, Taurus. It probably won’t involve teeth or a visit from the Tooth Fairy. Rather, you will finally be compensated for a loss or deprivation or disappearance that you experienced in the past. I expect the restitution will be generous, too -- more like John’s than mine.
that the universe has been dropping some intense new knowledge on you. The coming week will be an excellent time to become more conscious of the lessons you have been absorbing. If you have intuitions about where this educational drama should go next, be proactive about making that happen.
wweek.com
ARIES (March 21-April 19): Lord Byron (1788-1824) was an English poet who loved animals. In the course of his life, he not only had dogs and cats as pets, but also monkeys, horses, peacocks, geese, a crocodile, a falcon, a crane, and a parrot. When he enrolled in Trinity College at age 17, he was upset that the school’s rules forbade students from having pet dogs, which meant he couldn’t bring his adored Newfoundland dog Boatswain. There was no regulation, however, against having a tame bear as a pet. So Byron got one and named it Bruin. I think it’s time for you to find a workaround like that, Aries. Be cunning. Try a gambit or two. Find a loophole.
And Much More! 503-281-0453
Visit us at Facebook.com/sunlanlighting & 3901 N Mississippi Ave • www.SunlanLighting.com hting com Hours: Mon-Fri 8:00 to 5:30 Sat 10:00 to 5:00 Willamette Week Classifieds DECEMBER 10, 2014 wweek.com
59
TO ADVERTISE ON WILLAMETTE WEEK’S BACK COVER CALL 445-2757
BANKRUPTCY
Stop Garnishments, Collections Call Now: 503-808-9032 FREE Consultation. Payment Plans. Scott Hutchinson, Attorney www.Hutchinson-Law.com
A FEMALE FRIENDLY LLYY SEX TOY BOUTIQUE for every body
Specialty Care for Pets and Their People
CLASS INFO AT SHEBOPTHESHOP.COM
SURGERY • INTERNAL MEDICINE • RADIOLOGY
909 N BEECH / 3213 SE DIVISION
cascadevrc.com 503.684.1800
Atomic Auto atomicauto.biz 2510 NE Sandy Blvd. (503) 969-3134
Love a great Christmas story? See some very happy endings at CascadeVRC.com facebook.com/CascadeVRC twitter.com/CVRCvet
11140 SW 68th Parkway, Tigard, OR
$$$ CASH FOR DIABETIC TEST STRIPS $$$ Paying up to $30/box. Help those who can’t afford insurance. Free pickup in SW WA and Portland Metro. Call 360-693-0185
$Cash for Junk Vehicles$
COMING SOON!
Ask for Steven. 503-936-5923 Licensed/Bonded/Insured
5425 NE 33rd Ave. Portland, OR 97211
Therapeutic, Non-sexual cuddling, TeamCuddlePDX.com text 503-862-9046
WHERE SINGLES MEET Comedy Classes
AA HYDROPONICS
9966 SW Arctic Drive, Beaverton 9220 SE Stark Street, Portland American Agriculture ï americanag.com PDX 503-256-2400 BVT 503-641-3500
December 13th and 14th
Glass Pipes, Vaporizers, Incense & Candles
Holiday Stress? Get Cuddled
Improv, Standup, Sketch writing. Now enrolling The Brody Theater, 503-224-2227 www.brodytheater.com
featuring local artists and handmade items
BUY LOCAL, BUY AMERICAN, BUY MARY JANES
Guitar Lessons
Personalized instruction for over 15yrs. www.danielnoland.com 503-546-3137
Browse & Reply FREE! 503-299-9911 Use FREE Code 2557, 18+
Please join us for our 1st ANNUAL SANTA SATURDAY & CRAFT FAIR
Top Portland Agent
Stephen FitzMaurice, Realtor Sell your home fast, for less. Full service. Unbeatable marketing program. Join hundreds of satisfied Portland home sellers. Licensed Broker in OR, Premiere Property Group, LLC. 3636 NE Broadway St. 503-975-6853 RealEstateAgentPDX.com
Stephen’s Home of the Week
Eskrima Classes
Personal weapon & street defense www.nwfighting.com or 503-740-2666
MEDICAL MARIJUANA Card Services Clinic
503-384-WEED (9333) www.mmcsclinic.com 4911 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland Mon-Sat 9-6
503 235 1035
On Saturday Santa will be with us from 12 to 6pm, and Mr. Ben will do a special performance at 1pm
1425 NW 23rd 17937 SW McEwan Rd. Portland, OR 97210 Tualatin, OR. 97224 (503) 841-5751 (503) 746-7522
3142 NE 55TH AVE. 3bed, 2bath, 2572sq, $479,000 RealEstateAgentPDX.com
Christmas Trees Available December 3rd (all sizes and many varieties)
JEFF BECK, MICHAEL JACKSON
guitarist Jennifer Batten offering January guitar lessons. Contact battenposse@earthlink.net
BAMBOO CRAFTSMAN COMPANY in KENTON 2104 N Willis, Portland, 97217 503 285 5339
Nonprofit Attorneys Bankruptcy
JiuJitsu
Tax, Tenants, Small Business, More Payment Plans - Sliding-Scale (503) 208-4079 www.CommunityLawProject.org
Opiate Treatment Program
Oregon Medical Marijuana Patient Resource Center *971-255-1456* 1310 SE 7TH AVE
Ground defense under black belt instruction www.nwfighting.com or 503-740-2666 Evening outpatient treatment program with suboxone. CRCHealth/Dr. Jim Thayer, Addiction Medicine http://belmont.crchealth.com 1-800-797-6237
CASH for INSTRUMENTS
Tradeupmusic.com SE - 503-236-8800 NE - 503-335-8800
Cost Plus 10% On all New Commercial Setups! Hydroponics-Organics-Grow Lights
Open 7 Days www.ommpResourceCenter.com
NORTH WEST HYDROPONIC R&R
We Buy, Sell & Trade New and Used Hydroponic Equipment. 503-747-3624
SMOKE SIGNALS ON SANDY
Vaporizers, hookahs, glass pipes, tobacco, gift items 3554 NE SANDY BLVD. 503-253-0504
OMMP CARDHOLDERS GET 25% DISCOUNT!
Quick fix synthetic urine now available. Your hookah headquarters. Vapes. E-cigs, glass pipes, discount tobacco, detox products, salvia and kratom Still Smokin’ Tobacco For Less 12302 SE Powell 503-762-4219
MARIJUANA STORE Com Co me in ffo or a chance to win a $1,00 000 0 shoppin ng spre ree in our Holiday ay Give ve Aw Aw wa ay ay y..
www.m www w.mellow owmo moo od.co com m
4119 9 SE E Ha aw th horn ne, Porr tland d
4612 NE Sandy Blvd Open M-F noon-7 pm, Sat noon-6 pm
Pizza Delivery
Until 4AM!
www.hammyspizza.com