41 27 willamette week, may 6, 2015

NEWS TANNING SALONS IN TROUBLE. COMEDY BRIDGETOWN COMEDY PICKS WEED FLYING FROM PDX WITH YOUR MEDS. P. 9

P. 40

P. 52

“BRING BACK THE GUILLOTINE.” P. 4 WWEEK.COM

VOL 41/27 05.06.2015

BILLIONS OF TAX DOLLARS GO INTO OREGON SCHOOLS EVERY YEAR. HERE’S WHY IT’S NEVER ENOUGH. PG. 12

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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

FINDINGS

PAGE 26

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 41, ISSUE 27.

There is apparently a law against renting out your driveway as a parking space. 7 Lots of local tanning salons ignore the rules. Authorities closed one after a customer suffered seconddegree burns. 9 Oregon has the nation’s shortest school year. 12 Dirty Dave the Record Slave is back on the air, baby. 24

ON THE COVER:

If you want to try lamb bacon, there is a place. 27 Maya Rudolph and Rivers Cuomo share an ex-bandmate. 29 Panic Room Caution: High Volume Bar is already looking to

sell off the stuff it got from being on TV. 39 They’re hosting comedy shows in the Norse Hall this weekend. 40

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:

Oregon’s own Odd Rod by Kungfutoast. com.

There are still a few places where you can buy a house for $320,000 and bike downtown in only 30 minutes.

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 Enid Spitz Web & Projects Editor Matthew Korfhage Music Editor Matthew Singer Books Penelope Bass Dance Enid Spitz

Visual Arts Megan Harned Editorial Interns Ted Jamison, Anthony Macuk CONTRIBUTORS Dave Cantor, Nathan Carson, Rachel Graham Cody, Pete Cottell, Shannon Gormley, Jordan Green, Jay Horton, AP Kryza, John Locanthi, Mark Stock, Anna Walters PRODUCTION Production Manager Dylan Serkin Art Director Julie Showers Special Sections Art Director Kristina Morris Graphic Designers Mitch Lillie, Xel Moore Production Intern Olivia Tsefalas

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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

3

INBOX DISPUTING OUR ENDORSEMENT OF REGAN Bobbie Regan has done a terrible job and does not deserve to be on the Portland Public Schools board [“New Class,” WW, April 29, 2015]. Her 12 years of rubber-stamping the wills of Superintendents Vicki Phillips and Carole Smith have harmed Portland schools.

Regan has a growing list of people unhappy with her, so she has been getting donations from outside the state.

Amy Kohnstamm has been getting donations from within the state, mostly

from the Portland area, because her campaign is much more genuine than Regan’s.

Kohnstamm fought to stop PPS from shortchanging students, but Regan was one of the board members who repeatedly attempted to stop that.

Regan has allowed Smith to get away with way too much. It is time for her to go.

—“Colin Jones”

HANGING ON TO “OLD PORTLAND”

TURNOVER OF PPS PRINCIPALS

Please stop mentioning the old, best-kept secrets of Portland (in this case, Foster-Powell), or no one will be able to afford to live in this city anymore [“Buy and Bike,” WW, April 29, 2015].

With the sickening gentrification on Division Street, only moments away from where I’ve lived for 10 years, soon nowhere will be safe from “progress.”

Please let’s hang on to Old Portland before it’s New San Francisco.

—“Darka Dusty”

BODY CAMERAS ON POLICE

There needs to be body cams on police to ensure accountability, but is it fair to make every person’s arrest publicly available to view? [“Faceoff,” WW, April 29, 2015.]

Criminal records already damage people’s job prospects—imagine how much worse it would be if employers could look up footage of some of those people’s lowest points in life.

How would you feel if everyone could watch a video of your worst moment in life?

—“Jacob”

We can euthanize animals—even elephants—without incident. “Assisted suicide” seems to work. So why is it so hard to execute convicted murderers that some states are reviving firing squads? —R.T. Actually, R.T., it’s not hard to execute somebody— you will note that everybody the authorities have tried to execute has (eventually) died. The hard part is making it look like a quick, painless act of bureaucracy, like having your passport revoked.

Both assisted suicide and animal euthanasia do sometimes go sideways, just like executions. Some of Oregon’s assisted suicides have taken hours or even days, and several people have survived the process entirely. Meanwhile, the Internet is full of pet owners’ horror stories of euthanasia turning into an ugly and protracted process.

You can’t have these kinds of spectacles, though, if you’re peddling the idea that it’s neither cruel nor unusual for the state to go around killing people. You need the prisoner to die in a quick and orderly fashion, as though one were 4

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

I have spent my 26 years as a teacher running away from bad principals [“Loss of Principals,” WW, April 29, 2015]. You get lucky and have a good four or five years, then the nightmare of a bad administrator kicks in all over again.

We have an administration problem in public education. The bad apples are not held accountable until it’s a grease fire.

—“The guy in the classroom”

CORRECTIONS

In last week’s article about the 1989 movie Drugstore Cowboy, the Portland hospital where a scene was shot was misidentified. It was filmed at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in North Portland.

A recent story about the Troutdale Airport (“Hot Air,” WW, April 22, 2015) implied Troutdale Industrial Park requires further environmental cleanup. It does not. WW regrets the errors.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words.

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Fax: (503) 243-1115. Email: mzusman@wweek.com.

simply switching off a naughty robot.

For a while, we seemed to have achieved this, with a cocktail including barbiturates to knock out the condemned, a paralyzing agent to keep us from being able to tell whether he was suffering, and a heart-stopping agent to definitely, seriously, totally kill.

But a funny thing happened on the way to the death chamber: Europe, our only source for those barbiturates, stopped selling them to us because we were using them to kill people.

This has been the main cause of the Keystone Kops-level of professionalism at recent executions, as prison officials experiment with new ways to induce death. The embargo has also caused a shortage of barbiturates for assisted-suicide and veterinary use (“Penalized by the Death Penalty,” WW, May 21, 2014).

The obvious solution? Bring back the guillotine.

If we don’t have the stomach for that, perhaps we don’t have the stomach for capital punishment.

QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com

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5

TECH: Your driveway is now an illegal source of cash.

7 HEALTH: Tanning salons shine on state regulators.

9 BUSINESS: A litigious hotelier makes a cheeky takeover move. 10 COVER STORY: Billions for Oregon schools—why it’s never enough. 12

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An emotional neighborhood battle from 17 years ago is surfacing in a contentious fight for a Portland Public Schools board seat.

In 1998, PPS board candidate Amy Kohnstamm joined Arlington Heights homeowners to oppose siting a Holocaust memorial in Washington Park. Neighbors worried about crowds and traffic; they lost. Portland lawyer Lisa Kaner sent an April 28 email to memorial supporters reminding them of Kohnstamm’s stance.

“While I believe we must forgive those who opposed the Memorial, my willingness to forgive them does not mean that they are suitable to serve on our public school board,” Kaner wrote. Kaner declined to comment to WW. Kohnstamm says the issue doesn’t belong in a school board race and called Kaner’s email a “sad effort to manufacture controversy.”

Welcome to City Hall!

Now go away. That’s the message Mayor Charlie Hales’ chief of staff, Gail Shibley, has sent City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero. Breaking a longstanding practice, Shibley in December stopped inviting the auditor’s deputy, Sarah Landis, to weekly meetings with commissioners’ chiefs SHIBLEY of staff—a crucial forum where deals are shaped.

Hales spokesman Dana Haynes says it’s an internal meeting just for chiefs of staff. Hull Caballero—whose office watchdogs the City Council—wants the weekly invitation reinstated. “It’s an avenue for communication,” she says.

Metro’s controversial Oregon Convention Center headquarters hotel (see page 10) is now a wedge issue for Republicans— against other Republicans. Former GOP state Rep. Jeff Kropf, who runs Capitol Watch PAC, sent an April 28 letter to Republican legislators attacking Rep. Vic Gilliam (R-Silverton), who recently joined House Democrats in backing a bill to allow the hotel to proceed without voter approval. Kropf—who foresees a fight as Democratic Gov. Kate Brown seeks Republican support for higher gas taxes—says his criticism of Gilliam is a warning to GOP lawmakers not to be “Democrat lite.” “We’re trying to send a signal to Republicans,” Kropf says. “To get back into power, we’ve got to go to war against Democrats.” Gilliam, whose independence drew a GOP opponent in 2014, defends his vote, saying the hotel will boost tourism.

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The Oregonian’s chairman, N. Christian Anderson III, is going south. Anderson announced May 5 he will become editor and publisher of The Register-Guard in Eugene.

Named The O’s publisher in 2009, Anderson took over a paper in serious financial trouble.

He cut home delivery to four days a week, laid off nearly a quarter of the newsroom ANDERSON staff, imposed Web production quotas for reporters and introduced the paper’s tabloid format—moves Anderson called necessary and many readers found disheartening. He takes over for R-G editor and publisher Tony Baker, whose family owns the paper. The O’s editorial pages under Anderson won a Pulitzer and also shifted to the right politically. The R-G’s editorials, among the state’s more left-leaning, will now be under his control.

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A DRIVEWAY MOMENT NEW SHARING APPS HELP YOU RENT YOUR DRIVEWAY. JUST DON’T TELL THE CITY.

BY ANNA WALTERS

awalters@wweek.com

For two years, Steve Gutmann found a way to make a little extra cash. His house sits in Southeast Portland’s Richmond neighborhood, two blocks from Hawthorne Boulevard. He knows parking is a valuable asset in Portland. So he’s rented out his driveway.

His first renter was a New York City transplant living downtown who was willing to rent Gutmann’s driveway to avoid paying higher parking fees elsewhere. Gutmann parked his car on the street.

“I was making enough to take my family out to dinner once a month just to give up my driveway,” Gutmann says.

“So that seemed like a good tradeoff for me.”

In the sharing economy, we’ve opened our bedrooms, loaned our bikes and held open our car doors to strangers.

The driveway was inevitable. Gutmann advertises his driveway on JustPark, which has been around for years.

Now, two homegrown startups—Citifyd and Parkzilla—will offer apps their creators hope will greatly expand the number of Portlanders who rent out their driveways.

But there’s a familiar problem: Renting out your driveway can be illegal. Most homes in Portland are zoned as residential lots, and city rules forbid commercial parking on them.

“There’s no way that it could currently happen legally,” says Jill Grenda, a supervising planner at PARKZILLA APP the city’s Bureau of Development

Services. “It would take a code change.”

With parking apps, the city is faced with the same regulatory dilemma posed by sharing-economy giants Uber and Airbnb: Either crack down on sharing-economy businesses that violate city codes, rewrite the rules, or just ignore the situation.

Portland’s response to Airbnb and Uber shows how City Hall has struggled—and eventually bowed to pressure and demand—when it comes to sharing apps.

The City Council rewrote the rules last summer to allow short-term rentals such as those posted on Airbnb. The new rules require hosts to get licenses and undergo safety inspections, and require Airbnb to collect lodging taxes.

But the city’s enforcement has been spotty at best. It took the city nine months to crack down on rental sites that weren’t registering to pay taxes. (It hit one short-term rental company with a $3,000 fine last month.)

Regulators have also yet to address the estimated 94 percent of Airbnb hosts who haven’t bothered to get city permits or undergo safety inspections. (Mayor Charlie Hales said last week more hosts would seek permits if the city reduced the $180 fee.)

Portland’s ban on Uber and other ride-hailing companies ended April 21, when the City Council approved a fourmonth test period that deregulates for-hire transportation before creating any permanent rules.

Citifyd, Parkzilla and other parking apps pose the same problem Airbnb did: neighbors who object to houses on their street running a business.

“When this zoning code was written, nobody ever imagined that something like that would even be possible,” Grenda says. “Our code is still trying to catch up.”

Neither of the new parking apps have hosts signed up yet. Tim Ashman, 50, is the one-man show behind Parkzilla, which launched quietly last week. Ashman has worked most of his career in IT and came up with the idea during a shopping trip in the summer of 2013.

“I was down in the Pearl with my girlfriend, and you’re doing that circle thing,” Ashman says. “I’m passing all these drive-

ways, and no one’s home, and I’m like, ‘Man, why can’t I just park right there? Why can’t I do that?’”

His app connects drivers looking for parking spaces with homeowners or businesses offering rentals on an hourly, daily or monthly basis.

“Hopefully, people VOSSOUGHI, see it as a VIP thing,” OF CITIFYD Ashman says. “Most people I’ve talked to are willing to pay three, four, five bucks to park if they could schedule it ahead of time, roll in with their girlfriend, park, bam.”

Sohrab Vossoughi, founder of Ziba Design, decided to create Citifyd after having to park 16 blocks away from Providence Park for a Portland Timbers match.

“You think about Division Street,” Vossoughi says.

“All this stuff that is going up without any parking spaces being built and commercial areas that are expanding. First Thursday. Last Thursday. Hawthorne [Boulevard]. There’s always something going on in the city of Portland where you need parking.”

As the Portland Business Journal reported last week, Citifyd has $1.1 million in funding from Ziba, angel investors and Vossoughi himself. It’s currently in beta testing and is scheduled to launch in September.

Michael Liefeld, Bureau of Development Services enforcement program manager, says the city would investigate illegal residential parking rentals only if someone complained. Catching someone doing so would be difficult, he says—not like, say, a neighbor complaining about a fence that’s been built too high.

“The fence isn’t going anywhere,” Liefeld says. “If we’re trying to verify if a vehicle that is parked is a violation—that’s a little more tricky.”

Ashman says he researched city code but struggled to find any reason his startup would be in violation.

“The only thing I think is going to happen is, the city is going to send me big letters in the mailing saying you can’t do this because of some weird ordinance,” Ashman says. “Depending on how popular it gets, [the city is] not going to sit still. They’re going to want something. It’ll be a fun ride.”

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

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ALL LIGHT, NO HEAT THE STATE ALLOWS SCOFFLAW TANNING SALONS TO REMAIN OPERATING.

By BETH SLOVIC

bslovic@wweek.com

The thousands of Oregonians who use tanning salons to get bronzed expect the facilities to follow the state’s health and safety rules.

Most salons do. However, state records show there’s been 81 cases in the past six years when salons failed to get licenses or broke safety rules, such as policing the use of tanning beds by minors and properly sanitizing beds to prevent the spread of bacteria and viruses.

Some fix their problems. Others don’t and just keep operating.

Records show 73 tanning salons with more than $225,000 in unpaid penalties and fees remain open without proof they’ve corrected their problems. Some violations date back years.

That irks Rick Waldenburg, owner of the Portland area’s SunsUp Tanning Centers and a member of the state’s advisory committee for tanning salons. “They can do all this scandalous stuff nobody even knows, and they’re still open for business,” Waldenburg says. “That’s not right.”

The agency, Radiation Protection Services, is part of the Oregon Health Authority. The 18-employee office regulates hospital X-ray machines, the storage of radioactive materials, and Oregon’s 424 tanning salons.

The agency has proven powerless to close salons that don’t follow the rules.

Oregon, meanwhile, has the highest rate of melanoma incidents—and death—among women in the nation, according to national cancer databases. Dr. Sancy Leachman, director of the melanoma research program at Oregon Health & Science University’s Knight Cancer Institute, says an increase in melanoma cases correlates with young women’s use of tanning salons.

“Do I think it’s better if we can enforce [the rules]?” Leachman says. “You bet.”

One chain, Tan Republic, has 64 franchises in Oregon and Washington. According to state records, 14 Tan Republic outlets have outstanding

W violations, such as failing to register tanning beds or employ trained staff.

Some violations stretch back to 2010. The franchises, which are individually owned, collectively owe Oregon $126,995 in fines and penalties, state records show.

In 2013, inspectors cited the Tan Republic on West Burnside Street for operating beds without an adequately trained operator present and failing to maintain records that showed employees had evaluated and kept records of clients’ skin type— a crucial first step toward preventing excessive exposure to ultraviolet rays. The salon’s unpaid fines and penalties have hit $2,900. The Oregon City Tan Republic—cited in 2014 for failing to ensure customers wore protective eyewear and for allowing minors to tan without an approved doctor’s note—has unpaid penalties of $8,125.

Zack Flenniken is a guest relations manager for Lioness Holdings, which owns 25 Tan Republics, including the Burnside and Oregon City locations. He says the salons follow all state rules—including those on record-keeping and training—and fix problems identified by state officials.

Flenniken says penalties have piled up because the salons didn’t know it was their responsibility to tell the state when they had made fixes.

“We try to be the best corporate citizens we can be,” he says.

State regulators inspect salons every three years. Since 2007, the state has charged salons an annual registration fee of $100 for each of the 1,823 tanning beds in Oregon. The Oregon Health Authority wants to raise that fee to $150.

Steven Wagner, an OHA administrator, says the state tries to collect unpaid fines through the Oregon Department of Revenue. Wagner says the state lacks the power to close salons unless they pose an “imminent health risk” to the public.

“When it’s about the fact that they haven’t paid, it is really difficult to go in that direction,” he says.

In 2010, the state ordered the closure of tanning beds at one salon, Loving’s Hair Gallery East & Tanning Works in Northeast Portland, after a customer received first- and second-degree burns when she fell asleep in a bed. Employees failed to wake the customer.

Wagner acknowledges some customers are unaware of the state’s findings against salons.

“There’s some element of buyer beware,” he says.

He says salons that have violations are supposed to post that information for customers.

But what are the chances a salon that’s already ignoring the rules would follow that one?

“I have no data,” Wagner says.

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BUSINESS

HIJACKED HYATT THE FIERCEST OPPONENT OF A CONVENTION CENTER HOTEL NOW WANTS TO TAKE CONTROL OF IT.

BY AARON MESH

amesh@wweek.com

Hotel financier Gordon Sondland has been fighting for a decade to stop construction of a headquarters hotel at the Oregon Convention Center that will compete with his business.

As CEO of Provenance Hotels, Sondland has been waging three lawsuits against a deal led by regional government Metro to build a $213 million Hyatt hotel, saying the publicly subsidized project should be taken to voters.

Now Sondland is trying to take the new hotel for himself.

According to documents obtained by WW, Sondland told Metro on April 20 his company would drop its lawsuits and invest $10 million more in the project than Hyatt. In exchange, Sondland wants to kick Hyatt out so his company can own and run the hotel.

Metro—which has spent more than $350,000 fighting Sondland’s lawsuits—

turned the offer down.

“We’re glad that after years of paying PR firms to attack the idea of a convention hotel, and paying lawyers to file unsuccessful legal challenges, Mr. Sondland seems to have realized that the convention hotel project makes good business sense,” Metro Council President Tom Hughes told WW in a statement. “The proposal that Mr. Sondland offered is not only unrealistic, it is three years too late.”

Sondland’s attorney, Jim McDermott, says the offer is sincere.

“If the government is going to engage in a public subsidy, it should be with a hometown company,” McDermott says.

Sondland, 57, declined to comment for this story. He owns stakes in four downtown Portland hotels: the Lucia, deLuxe, Sentinel and Westin. For more than a decade, Sondland has paid representatives and lawyers to attack a convention center hotel as a threat to all downtown hotels and a risky investment for local governments.

In March 2104, a hotel coalition backed

by Sondland sued to block construction of a Hyatt hotel financed with $78 million from Metro, the city of Portland and Multnomah County. Most of the public subsidy will come from bonds paid off by lodging taxes. The project’s designer and builder, Mortenson Development, has agreed to spend $135 million. Hyatt will buy the hotel from Mortenson for a price that hasn’t yet been set.

McDermott says Sondland’s $10 million investment would cut the public subsidy.

“We’re offering to take less of a reward than

GORDON SONDLAND | MORTENSON DEVELOPMENT

NEWS

SONDLAND GRAB: Hotelier Gordon Sondland (insert) wants to buy the convention center headquarters hotel instead of Hyatt. “It would be owned and operated by a well-respected, locally owned hotelier,” Sondland’s attorney wrote April 20, “as opposed to a multinational corporation.”

the out-of-town companies are offering to take,” he says.

Documents released to WW under the state’s public records law show Sondland’s lawyers sought to settle the lawsuits starting in February.

Two weeks ago, Sondland’s company, in a letter sent by McDermott, proposed that Metro let it take over the planned hotel. Four days later, on April 24, Metro attorney Alison Kean rejected the offer, saying it would break the agreement with Hyatt, increase construction costs and derail the project.

Besides that, Kean told Sondland, Metro wouldn’t go into business with him.

�

“Your client has adamantly and consistently opposed the project, perhaps most notably by questioning the viability of the convention industry in general,” Kean wrote. “This long-stated position is diametrically opposed to the project mission.”

McDermott acknowledges Sondland has painted the convention center hotel project as a loser. He says Sondland’s offer to take control of the hotel would save taxpayers money.

“You might call it brazen,” McDermott says of Sondland’s proposal. “I would call it bridge-building.”

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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

11

YEAR. Y R E V E E E STAT H T M O R LIONS F L I B T E G FAST. G N I W SCHOOLS O R IS GR E B M U N OUGH. N E R THAT E V Y IT’S NE H W S ’ E HER

BY N IGEL JAQU ISS

ILLUSTRATIONS BY KUNGFUTOAST.COM

12

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

njaquiss@wweek.com

$7.2 billion is a lot of money.

It’s enough to buy every Oregonian a new MacBook Pro, iPad and iPhone 6. Or enough to buy every school district in Oregon a $36 million, gently used Gulfstream jet.

It’s also the amount state lawmakers have committed to spend on Oregon’s public schools over the next two years. It’s a staggering number, vastly more than the state has ever spent to finance schools from kindergarten through 12th grade.

But it’s not enough.

Who says so? Virtually every parent, teacher, school board member and lawmaker in the state.

“We’re not where we need to be,” says Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward (D-Beaverton).

“We just held budget meetings around the state, and that’s what we heard.”

It’s a rare consensus that crosses party lines.

Even tightfisted Republicans are calling for more money—nearly a $1 billion more—for education. “If we are going to ask for better results for our schools,” says Sen. Tim Knopp (R-Bend), “we need to fund those schools.”

Oregon students already face among the nation’s worst student-teacher ratios. They have the shortest school year. And they’re less likely to graduate from high school than students in almost any other state.

For many of Oregon’s 571,000 public school students, things are about to get worse. Despite this year’s big funding increase—9 percent more money than two years ago—districts around the state say they will have to lay off teachers and cut instructional days. Again.

That’s because the cost of running schools is increasing faster than tax revenues.

Today, on an inflation-adjusted basis, Oregon spends less per student than it did

in 1990. We spend less per student than the national average but pay teachers more (see charts, page 18).

“Year to year, there’s never enough,” says Sue Levin, board chairwoman of Stand for Children Oregon, an education advocacy group. “People adjust their budgets to match their resources so they don’t have a big shortfall every month.

Oregon hasn’t figured out how to do that.”

It’s a maddening situation for parents.

Last month, Sen. Mark Hass (D-Beaverton) held a meeting with constituents, who feared their schools faced more cuts.

“Parents just pounded us,” Hass says.

Of course, cynics might say, school supporters will always want more money. No number will ever be enough to satisfy them.

But the throngs of parents, teachers and school district officials who descend on the Capitol every two years—marching, demonstrating and raising hell for money—are not wrong.

The Oregon system of paying for schools has become an insatiable beast—by design, accident and neglect. The disconnect between the way we raise money for schools and the cost of running them ensures there will always be a gap between what schools need to succeed and what they get.

This year the beast looks even uglier.

The Oregon economy is booming, and yet school districts are holding budget meetings and trying to explain why they will need to make more cuts. And last week, the Oregon Supreme Court gutted reforms to the state’s pension system that would have slashed one of public education’s biggest costs.

There was one person who had the willingness, the power and a battle plan to tangle with this beast. That was former Gov. John Kitzhaber. Now he’s gone—and the education system is in crisis once more.

This story is going to tell you why.

WHERE THE MONEY COMES FROM THE CREATURE THAT IS OREGON PUBLIC SCHOOL FUND ING IS LIKE THE SPAWN OF A GENETICS E XPERIMENT RUN AMOK. In most states, local and state taxes provide about equal shares of education funding. That’s not true in Oregon.

Before 1990, about two-thirds of the money that paid for schools came from local property taxes. The rest came from the state budget. But in 1990, voters capped property taxes, and later constricted money to schools even more by limiting property tax growth to 3 percent a year.

Without property taxes to fund schools, the burden shifted to Salem.

Today, the state’s general fund provides more than two-thirds of the money for schools. (The K-12 budget for 2015-17, including property taxes, is $10.7 billion. Federal funding will add about another 10 percent.)

The old property tax-based system gave schools a predictable flow of cash. District to district, some local voters were generous to schools, and others barely let schools keep the lights on. But property tax was a steady source, increasing every year.

Local schools stood first in line for the money.

Today, schools are largely funded through the state budget by income taxes, which go up and down with the economy like a roller coaster. Since 2000, Oregon income tax receipts have declined three times—in 200102, for instance, personal income tax receipts plunged 19 percent.

That has whipsawed schools. Don Grotting, superintendent of the David Douglas School District, learned that the hard way five years ago, when he laid off 140 teachers.

“With an income tax system, you’re just riding the economy,” Grotting says. “It’s like going to Vegas.”

In the state’s general fund, schools also must compete for money with health care, social services and prisons.

Senate education committee chairman Arnie Roblan (D-Coos Bay), a former school principal, says ballot measures, mandates and social issues have shrunk education’s share. “It makes you want to cry sometimes, the decisions we have to make,” Roblan says. “What we’re doing for K-12 is not adequate, but it is the fairest we can do, given the other needs.”

Schools haven’t fared well in that competition. Even when the economy is strong, says John Tapogna, president of consulting firm EcoNorthwest, schools get a significantly smaller share of Oregonians’ total income than they did in the 1980s.

And over the past decade, the public schools’ share of the state general fund has shrunk (see chart, this page). That shift alone has cut the allocation for schools by $1 billion.

That’s $1 billion more today than schools would have otherwise had, even after lawmakers gave them a big boost this year.

“We’re underfunding education,” says Otto Schell of the Oregon PTA, “and we’re falling further behind.”

—DON GROTTING

CONT. ON PAGE 15

K-12’S SHARE OF THE STATE’S GENERAL FUND HAS DECLINED

44.8% 42.7% 41.6%

39.7%

$

$

$

$

$

$

38.8% 38.8%

2003 -2005

2005 -2007

2007 -2009

2009 -2011

2011 -2013

2013 -2015

Sources: Oregon School Boards Association; Legislative fiscal office.

“WITH AN INCOME TAX SYSTEM, YOU’RE JUST RIDING THE ECONOMY. IT’S LIKE GOING TO VEGAS.”

9

OREGON IS THE NINTH-MOST INCOME TAXDEPENDENT STATE IN THE NATION, ACCORDING TO STANDARD AND POORS.

K-12 FUNDING FROM SALEM

68%

2015

28%

1990

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

13

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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

CONT.

WHERE THE MONEY GOES YOU’D THINK BIG INCREASES IN FUNDING FOR SCHOOLS WOULD BUY BIG IMPROVEMENTS: MORE TEACHERS, NEW TEXTBOOKS, AND A LONGER SCHOOL YEAR. That’s not the case. Although some districts are adding positions cut in the past decade, the increased funding allocated in 2013 and this year goes mostly to pay existing staff.

Very little of the funding increase is attributable to enrollment growth. There are only about 20,000 more students in Oregon schools today than there were a decade ago.

Tim Nesbitt, a former adviser to Govs. Ted Kulongoski and John Kitzhaber, recalls how two years ago lawmakers tried catching schools up by increasing the state’s education funding by an unprecedented $1 billion—and it still didn’t seem to make a difference.

“With $1 billion of new money, you had some districts saying it was a ‘cuts’ budget,” Nesbitt says. “That’s frustrating to me. You should be doing more with more.”

Operating schools is a labor-intensive operation: Teachers, support staff and administration account for nearly all the money that goes into K-12.

Teacher contracts are the biggest share. Those contracts typically include cost-of-living increases. But they also include an automatic annual increase—called a “step” increase. In the current Portland Public Schools contract, for instance, the annual step increase is 3.4 percent, on top of a cost-of-living increase of 2.3 percent. That means many teachers get a 5.7 percent pay increase regardless of whether state revenues rise or not.

In many years, personnel costs for public employees have risen faster than state revenues. In 2013, Kitzhaber persuaded lawmakers to slow that trend by cutting retiree benefits. Last week, however, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled a substantial portion of those reforms unconstitutional, blowing nearly a $1 billion hole in the state’s 2015-17 general fund.

EcoNorthwest’s Tapogna has studied school finance for the past decade. He calls the generosity of Oregon’s public pension system a “generational mistake” and says last week’s decision cements a K-12 cost problem.

“It is like an underground water-pipe leak you don’t see,” Tapogna says. “We’re going to spend 10 percentage points more of payroll than Washington [state] is for the next 15 years. Each one of those percentage points is roughly a day of school.”

Meanwhile, even with the state’s robust economic growth, health care costs are still rising faster than tax revenues: In Portland Public Schools, such costs for some employees will rise 8 percent this year—faster than state tax revenues are going up.

“I am definitely frustrated that resources are always being reduced and days being cut from the schedule,” says Gerene Daugherty, head of the parent-teacher club at Hall Elementary in Gresham. “That creates less time learning and less attention from the teachers.”

“IT IS LIKE AN UNDERGROUND WATER-PIPE LEAK YOU DON’T SEE.” —JOHN TAPOGNA, REFERRING TO PERS

CONT. ON PAGE 18

$16,992

THE COST OF HEALTH INSURANCE FOR THE AVERAGE PORTLAND PUBLIC SCHOOLS TEACHER IN 2015-16.

Source: Portland Public Schools.

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

15

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17

CONT.

THE MISMATCH—UNIONS VS. SCHOOL BOARDS OREGON HAS 197 SCHOOL DISTRICTS. THAT’S 197 SCHOOL BOARDS MADE UP OF PART-TIME VOLUNTEERS WHO TAKE TIME AWAY FROM THEIR FAMILIES AND CAREERS TO MAKE CHILDREN’S LIVES BETTER AND THEIR COMMUNITIES STRONGER. One of their biggest tasks is deciding how much to spend on employee pay and benefits.

That’s when these amateur boards often face sophisticated, professional negotiators from the Oregon Education Association, the state’s biggest teachers union.

It’s usually no contest, like pitting a thirdgrade kick-and-chase soccer team against the Portland Thorns.

The union’s job is to get as much as it can get for members. School boards must keep an eye on costs. And in some cases, those conflicting imperatives lead to true fights over contracts.

But often, school board members and the union compete to show parents who values teachers more—and that tends to make the deal teachers get expensive.

“Usually in a contract negotiation, there’s a rock and a hard place,” says Levin of Stand for Children Oregon. “In teacher contract negotiations, there’s a rock, which is the union, but there’s no hard place.”

That can lead local boards to be generous and commit to contracts they later can’t pay for.

Richard Sanders, executive director of the Oregon Education Association, says the lack of coordination between Salem and school boards is not the problem.

“If there’s one overwhelming disconnect,” Sanders says, “it’s the disconnect between the rhetoric about how important education is and lawmakers to do the hard work of investing in education.”

25

OREGON HAS HAD 25 TEACHER STRIKES SINCE COLLECTIVE BARGAINING BEGAN IN 1973. IN OREGON, COPS, FIREFIGHTERS, BUS DRIVERS AND PUBLIC HEALTH WORKERS ARE PROHIBITED FROM STRIKING, BUT TEACHERS REGULARLY USE STRIKE THREATS AS A HAMMER.

This disconnect between what their local district pays teachers and staff, and the money districts get from the state is often invisible to parents, who grow frustrated when they perceive the state failing to fully support their local district.

Chronic shortfalls leave many parents feeling like they are engaged in a never-ending bake sale.

Lisa Zuniga, a Franklin High parent, has been involved in her kids’ schools for 13 years.

She says that each of those years has presented some sort of a crisis.

“Part of the reason we moved here from the Bay Area was for the public schools,” Zuniga says. “But more than half the highschool students in Portland are on part-time schedules. I wonder sometimes if we did our kids a disservice by moving here.”

And that sends busloads of kids, parents and teachers to Salem—and puts more pressure on state lawmakers to shovel in more money.

“It’s really demoralizing,” says David Douglas’ Grotting, “when you are constantly begging the Legislature to help our kids.”

OREGON SPENDS LESS PER STUDENT, BUT…

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

U.S.

Oregon

2012

$10,667

$9,485

Elementary

OREGON TEACHERS ARE PAID MORE THAN THE NATIONAL AVERAGE Oregon

High School

21.6

25.5

24.2

Oregon

26.7

28.8

28.1

Fifthworst

Fourthworst

in U.S.

2013

Middle School

U.S.

Secondworst

U.S.

$56,383 18

STUDENTS PER TEACHER

in U.S.

in U.S.

2011-2012

$58,758 Sources: National Center for Education Statistics, Oregonstrikeinsider.org.

THE RESULT—LOW GRAD RATES, SHORT SCHOOL YEAR, CONSTANT CRISIS THE BEAST EATING AWAY AT SCHOOL BUDGETS HAS ERODED THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION IN OREGON. The chronic K-12 funding problems have contributed to dismal results. Oregon students score poorly on closely watched indicators (see chart, below) and fail to graduate.

The state has never lacked ambitious goals for its schools. In 1991, lawmakers approved the Oregon Educational Act for the 21st Century, to help schools prepare children in a natural resources-based state for a high-tech world.

Since then, Oregon has cycled through a series of educational reforms.

And yet student achievement has declined. In 1990, the year voters approved property tax limits, the number of Oregon eighth-graders meeting National Assessment of Educational Progress standards was 20 percent above the national average.

Today, Oregon eighth-graders are merely average.

Sanders, the OEA boss, came to Oregon from Massachusetts, whose schools lead the nation. He says there’s a spirit of innovation and cooperation in Oregon that he’s seen nowhere else.

“In this state, educators know what works,” Sanders says. “We just don’t have the money to do it.”

Oregon sends money to local districts based almost exclusively on enrollment. Improvements in standardized test scores, graduation rates and other metrics play no role in school funding.

EcoNorthwest’s Tapogna says school funding is inadequate, but Oregon could get more for the money it spends.

“The state ought to pay for the outcomes it wants schools to deliver,” Tapogna says. He notes that school funding in California is tied to attendance, not merely enrollment, as it is in Oregon.

When lawmakers do impose their wills on districts, they often create new costs without seeking to measure outcomes. One example is a new law requiring full-day kindergarten. That step—which experts say is an important educational building block—will cost about $220 million next year. That expense will take up most of the increase the state is sending to schools.

“It just seems like we get a lot more mandates,” says Grotting, “without the money to fund them.”

CONT. ON PAGE 21

OREGON HAS ONE OF THE NATION’S LOWEST GRADUATION RATES

OREGON SCORES POORLY MEETING STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT STANDARDS 74.9% 70.2%

81%

64.8%

Oregon

U.S.

Sources: National Center for Education Statistics, Education Week, Oregon Department of Education.

U.S.

40th in U.S.

9th in U.S.

69%

9

%

THE DECLINE, (IN INFLATION-ADJUSTED TERMS) OF PER-STUDENT FUNDING FROM 1990-91 TO 2012-13.

Washington Oregon Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

19

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20

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

CONT.

CONCLUSION JOHN KITZHABER RESIGNED AS GOVERNOR IN FEBRUARY AMID ALLEGATIONS OF INFLUENCE PEDDLING. THAT COST HIM—AND THE STATE—THE OPPORTUNITY TO TACKLE THE SCHOOL-FUNDING DISCONNECT HE’D DIAGNOSED AND BEGUN TO ADDRESS. Kitzhaber had already made big moves to improve schools, abolishing the office of Oregon superintendent of public instruction in 2012 and creating the Oregon Education Investment Board to push for a more coherent system that would focus on improving outcomes.

His initiatives met with suspicion and hostility from the entrenched educational establishment, and real improvements have been slow.

But Kitzhaber hoped to do much more in his final term, and his plan was spelled out in emails he exchanged with his staff. The emails were among thousands of messages Kitzhaber’s office sought to have deleted from state servers just before he resigned.

The emails include a Sept. 3, 2014, note to Kitzhaber from his labor adviser, Duke Shepard.

At the time, Kitzhaber was running for re-election to a fourth term. Shepard asked the governor for a gut check: Was Kitzhaber really willing to take on the intractable gap between education funding and expenditures—and the OEA—if he won another four years in office?

“This is a TOP priority and intimately related to our whole education agenda,” Kitzhaber wrote back on Sept.

7, 2014. “It is the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the living room (I like this analogy much more than the elephant and all its Republican associations and—once your get past the tusks—have much more formidable teeth).”

Kitzhaber told Shepard he had already begun explaining to legislative leaders how he would propose to end the constant state of education-funding crisis.

“There is no fiscal discipline involved here,” Kitzhaber wrote to Shepard.

He ordered Shepard to move ahead aggressively, even before voters chose between him and his Republican opponent, Dennis Richardson.

Kitzhaber directed Shepard to prepare a memo outlining the problem. “This cannot wait until after November 4,” Kitzhaber wrote. “It has budget and political implications for 2015 and beyond.”

Shepard responded to his boss in mid-September.

“Every new dollar added to schools loses value the very next year,” he wrote. “These deficits lead to shorter school years, layoffs, and the ongoing funding ‘crisis.’”

Now Kitzhaber is gone. His successor, Gov. Kate Brown, built her political career as a prolific fundraiser, leaning heavily on campaign contributions from the OEA to win a Senate leadership position and two terms as secretary of state.

It’s too soon to know whether Brown wants to tackle the beast that is Oregon’s school-funding dilemma.

Nor is it clear how far legislative leaders—including the Democrats of Brown’s own party, who control both chambers—are willing to go.

Brown’s spokeswoman, Kristen Grainger, says the governor believes the budget that lawmakers passed is

“THERE IS NO FISCAL DISCIPLINE INVOLVED HERE.” —JOHN KITZHABER

“insufficient,” and she’s anxious to address graduation rates, class sizes and poor achievement.

“If the data show that a particular model can move the ball forward on these goals,” Grainger says “it should be on the table for discussion.”

Oregon schools—perennially running $1 billion behind where they once were—won’t catch up until the Legislature or taxpayers commit more money.

But lawmakers and districts would have to figure out how to get ahead of escalating costs—or watch new revenue simply feed the current system rather than adding teachers and instructional days.

One idea Kitzhaber wanted to pursue was statewide collective bargaining with teachers, the practice in Washington and Hawaii. Under that approach, the people who control the budget would have more control over how money is spent. It could also remove the bargaining advantage the OEA enjoys over school districts.

$751,000

Kitzhaber wanted to connect school funding to outcomes. And he wanted to revisit a 2011 proposal by Rep. Mark Johnson (R-Hood River) that would tie local district contract increases to the amount of money actually available from the Legislature. That would stop districts from making promises when the money’s not there to keep them.

As a lawmaker and member of the Hood River School Board, Johnson sees both sides of the funding problem.

His Hood River district embodies Oregon’s promise.

The snow-capped Cascades towering over the orchards and windsurfers embody the state’s rugged beauty.

Highly paid telecommuters and the Columbia Gorge’s tech boomlet have driven Hood River County’s unemployment rate to the lowest in the state.

Yet as a school board member, Johnson has stood up in recent weeks in front of his friends and neighbors and explained that despite the soaring property values and a strong job market around them, Hood River schools will have to make cuts for next year.

He says the disconnect between how the state provides school funding and how local districts spend it is crippling Oregon.

“It doesn’t matter who is governor,” Johnson says.

“We have got to take this on.”

THE OREGON EDUCATION ASSOCIATION CONTRIBUTED $751,000 TO STATE AND LOCAL RACES IN 2014.

Source: ORESTAR.

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

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WEED: Flying through PDX with POT.

27 29 47 52

SCOOP THE NAMER GAME: The saga of Portland band the Slants’ ongoing battle with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has taken yet another turn. For five years, the Asian-AmerTHE SLANTS ican dance-rock troupe has attempted to trademark its name, and twice its request has been rejected, on the grounds that the moniker is racially offensive. On April 20, a panel of three federal judges upheld the trademark office’s most recent denial. A week later, however, the U.S. Court of Appeals issued an order negating the panel’s ruling, which will allow the case to be heard in front of the full bench. “This is much bigger than our band,” said frontman Simon Tam in a statement. “It’s about the principle.

This is about doing what is right—not just for us, but for all marginalized communities who have faced administrative battles caused by a lack of cultural competency.”

FAC E B O O K /S T E V I E WO N D E R

UNDER CONSTRUCTION: Last week, the upcoming Bridgetown Comedy Festival lost a venue and a big-name comedian. My Father’s Place on Southeast Grand Avenue is stepping up to host shows because renovations to the newly bourgified Sandy Hut won’t be finished in time for the festival’s May 7 kickoff. “We had high hopes for the Sandy Hut,” says Bridgetown spokeswoman Maura Brown. Seattle’s warbling comedian Reggie Watts, who was expected as a “surprise” guest for the third year in a row, can’t make it. According to Brown, Watts is a fan of the festival and wanted to come, but “his people” say his production schedule is too busy for him to fly to Portland for a day.

NO WONDER: Stevie Wonder canceled his own birthday party in Portland. The soul legend was scheduled to appear at the downtown Embassy Suites Hotel on May 8, at an event billed as a “65th birthday celebration.” (Wonder’s birthday is May 13.) Self-Enhancement Inc., the nonprofit group hosting the $1,000-per-person dinner and fundraiser, announced last week that the event was being postponed “due to contractual obligations set forth

by Stevie Wonder’s management.”

Tony Hopson, the group’s president, says the concert was halted by LiveNation, to whom Wonder is under contract for the run of Songs in the Key of Life concert series.

The group is hoping to reschedule sometime this summer, when Wonder’s contract is up.

OLD IS THE NEW: Oldies radio station KISN is back on the air, 56 years after it first launched. The station, which served the Portland area from 1959 to 1976 and again from 1987 to 2005, is broadcasting on 95.1 FM using a low-power transmitter, reaching Southeast Portland and parts of downtown. “We were inspired by XRAY,” says media manager Tom Hopkins, referring to the community radio station that launched in 2013.

Several former DJs from KISN’s previous incarnations have returned, spinning records from the massive personal collection of program director “Dirty Dave the Record Slave.”

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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

NILINA MASON-CAMPBELL

IF YOU’RE DOWN WITH P, YOU’RE DOWN WITH US.

HEADOUT

GO: Whiskeytown USA is at Northwest 17th and Front avenues on Friday (4-10 pm) and Saturday (noon-10 pm), May 8-9. $28 each day, $45 two-day pass. 21+.

WILLAMETTE WEEK

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE

WEDNESDAY MAY 6

SEC SHELF TANUKI

8029 SE Stark St., 477-6030, tanukipdx.com.

Best known for tentacle porn and tentacled food, Tanuki also stocks every single damn Japanese whiskey you can import through the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. It goes down smooth with the tentacle porn.

TILT

3449 N Anchor St., 285-8458; 1355 NW Everett St., 894-9528; tiltitup.com.

Why would a burger joint need 100 different bottles of whiskey?

There is no way to know. But there are also rye taptails to go with pastrami-stuffed hamburgers.

SWEET HEREAFTER

3326 SE Belmont St., hereafterpdx.com.

This is easily Portland’s best vegan whiskey bar. Next to ostentatiously Prohibition-themed Circa 33 and its stacks of bottles, Sweet Hereafter quietly has a classy 60-bottle selection, with Yamazaki Japanese whiskey ($18 a snifter), Islay and Highland Scotches, and a towering vertical of Michter’s fine small-batch.

BROOKLYN PARK PUB

3400 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-7772.

Amid the kitschy sports knickknacks and beaver shots lining the walls, the chalkboard of this worn-in sports dive is filled with a beautifully well-curated selection of bourbons. Case in point: Among more than 100 whiskeys, they carry only two from Oregon— McCarthy’s single malt and Stein rye. This advertises taste. As do the beaver shots.

THE LEAKY ROOF 1538 SW Jefferson St., 222-3745, theleakyroof.com.

This tiny, little-known pub near Lincoln High School is arguably Portland’s greatest home to Irish whiskey, including reasonably priced vertical flights of Jameson and Bushmills, and broad whiskey jaunts through Éire’s various hillsides.

HOLMAN’S

15 SE 28th Ave., 231-1093, holmanspdx.com.

Since 2011, greasy spoon and bloody mary-infusion center Holman’s has expanded to include a 70-strong selection of whiskey bottles, and if you drink everything from their top-shelf Whiskey Club—with Glenlivet and Laphroaig verticals and multiple Macallans—you get your name on a brass plaque. There are many brass plaques. One of them reads “R.I.P.”

THE HIGHLAND STILLHOUSE

201 S 2nd St., Oregon City, 723-6789, highlandstillhouse.com.

Those who know whiskey know this wonderland of a two-story Scotch bar—with a pages-deep selection as long as anywhere in the nation, overlooking a meandering river and waterfalls. But because the Highland Stillhouse is in Oregon City, we always have to say it: It is wonderful here, and you probably shouldn’t drive.

TOP-NOTCH WHISKEY BARS THAT STAY UNDER THE RADAR. This weekend, the Whiskeytown USA festival will crowd with sulfur-breathed Beavertonites downing half-ounce plastic shots of God-knows-what whiskey that’s probably great. But Portland bars are full of good bottles—and not just Greg Goodman’s high-dollar stash at the Multnomah Whiskey Library or bars with “bourbon” implied by their names. Often it comes at lower cost, and with more interesting people at the next barstool.

Portland has a number of fine under-theradar whiskey spots—dives and vegan bars, places you might not know or expect to have anything good. But dear Lord, they do. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

GLENN WACO [RAP CITY] This local hip-hop showcase features three of Portland’s best MCs, all members of powerhouse St. Johns crew the Resistance.

Waco, a master of delivering hard truths in the guise of warm nostalgia, headlines, but his partners—the cerebral Rasheed Jamal and plainout vicious Mic Capes—could also fill the top spot. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 8:30 pm. $12, 21+.

FRIDAY MAY 8 CHEERS TO BELGIAN BEERS [BEERS] The festival asks local brewers to make Belgian-style beers using the same strain, Wyeast Laboratories’ 1762 Belgian Abbey II™. There’s a stacked roster of 58 breweries this year. Metalcraft Fabrication, 723 N Tillamook St., 5-9 pm Friday, noon-8 pm Saturday. $15 for a glass and five tickets.

SATURDAY MAY 9 ST. JOHNS BIZARRE [STREET FAIR] Our favorite street fair is turning 9! It’s jovial and pure St. Johns: a beer garden sponsored by Occidental Brewing and Barrique Barrel, a Bollywood jam session, a parade, and six blocks of carts and crafty vendors on Plew’s Brews doorstep. St. Johns at North Lombard Street and Philadelphia Avenue, stjohnsbizarre.com.

10 am-7 pm. Free.

SUNDAY MAY 10 R. RING [LO-FI GARAGE] Kim seems to get all the praise when talking the Deal twins, but her twin sister Kelley’s work alongside Ampline’s Mike Montgomery—a combination of gentle drums and guitars that goes from sweet to seething within the course of two minutes—deserves attention. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.

MONDAY MAY 11 NEW SHIT SHOW [MULTIMEDIA] Comedian Amy Miller and a slew of local artists, including poet Andrew Dickson and Emmynominated director Arthur Bradford, will share their new shit, musical shit, videos, comedy, readings and more shit inspired by Portland Center Stage’s musical, The Lion.

Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave. 8 pm. $12 advance, $15 day of show.

TUESDAY MAY 12 STEPHIN MERRITT [SAD MAN WITH GUITAR] The former Magnetic Fields frontman continues to turn out solid pieces of morose, deadpan pop. On this solo acoustic tour, he’ll perform 26 selections from throughout his catalog in alphabetical order. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-9694.

8 pm. $25. Under 21 permitted with legal guardian.

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FOOD & DRINK = WW Pick.

EAT MOBILE W W S TA F F

Highly recommended.

By MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Editor: MARTIN CIZMAR. Email: dish@wweek.com. See page 3 for submission instructions.

THURSDAY, MAY 7 Ethereal Mead Tasting

Mead is the new, ancient frontier in local craft booze. Gary Gross of Ethereal Meads in Battle Ground, Wash., will be on hand at Belmont Station sampling a pair of his honey wines, thought to be one of the oldest types of liquor in existence. “Mist” is a spiced cyser (apple mead), while Ruby Sunset is described as a strawberry-cranberry sweet-tart melomel. Belmont Station Biercafe, 4500 SE Stark St., 232-8538. 5-7 pm.

FRIDAY, MAY 8 Cheers to Belgian Beers

One of the most anticipated beerfests of the year, Cheers asks Oregon brewers to make Belgianstyle beers using the same strain of Wy’east yeast, with relative lightness/darkness or strength chosen by dart throw. The results have led to medal winners in the Belgian or Sour categories at GABF each year since 2008. McFadden’s, 107 NW Couch St., 220-5055. 5-9 pm Friday, noon-8 pm Saturday. $15 for glass and five tickets.

Whiskeytown USA

Two hundred whiskeys, 75 distilleries. Too much whiskey to even look at twice, let alone once, without getting contact drunk.

Luckily, there’s a beer garden to temper the fire in your throat and hundreds of people in your way to stop you from getting that drunk.

But since your admission comes with just three tokens, here are a few tips: Yamazaki, Lagavulin 16, Macallan rare cask. Northwest 17th and Front avenues. 4-10 pm Friday, noon-10 pm Saturday. $28, $45 two-day pass; three tokens with admission.

Where to eat this week.

1. Smokehouse Tavern

1401 SE Morrison St., Suite 117, 971-279-4850, smokehouse21.com.

The new Smokehouse Tavern contends with Podnah’s Pit, with impressive brisket, great drinks and sides, and the best ribs in town. $$.

2. Noraneko

1430 SE Water Ave., 238-6356, noranekoramen.com.

You want the mushroom ramen with two-way chasyu and egg at Biwa’s new ramen-ya spinoff on an industrial corner by the train tracks. $.

3. Bing Mi

Southwest 9th Avenue and Alder Street, bingmiportland.com.

Jian bing is the quintessential Chinese street food, but until now could not be found in Portland.

They’re crepes folded around a cracker, not to mention a riot of ferment and sweet heat. $.

4. Higgins Bar

1239 SW Broadway, 222-9070, higginsportland.com.

Portland’s perfect power lunch: a pint of Fred and a burger made with grass-fed beef served on a house-baked bun with blue cheese dripping onto the side salad. $$.

5. Bang Bang PDX

4727 NE Fremont St., 287-3846, bangbangpdx.com.

Genoa alum Adam Kaplan serves up quirky Thai drinking food, from pungent curries to tendon puffs that are like pork rinds but better. $$.

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TRUCK TREATS: Snacks to go with your tacos at Ely’s.

ELY’S Decades before food-cart chefs competed in reality-TV smackdowns and gave inspirational TED talks, there were the humble food trucks. The “roach coaches” did not specialize, or congregate in pods, or ever hold still for long. Along with sandwiches, you could always get Butterfingers and the fine, fine products of Order this: Tacos ($1.25). Four should do.

Frito-Lay, plus whatever else was wrapped in Saran. These trucks were a whole mini-mart deli case on wheels, and no one thought they were special, even though they always kind of were.

Well, my God, they’re still out there. There’s a New Seasons Market being built close to our office, and every weekday at noon the horn honks at the worksite and in comes the snub-nosed box of Ely’s taco truck, which is immediately surrounded by 20 dudes in hard hats who all know their orders without looking at the menu. It’s magical.

The food at Ely’s is not quite magical, but their $1.25 corn-tortilla tacos are an impossible luxury here in Northwest Portland, where even the rent on a food cart makes that pricing impossible. The carnitas have just a hint of char and are seasoned admirably, the barbacoa is juicy and spicy, the al pastor fatty but better than passable. And the salsa is fiery as hell. For dessert, there are Butterfingers, along with energy drinks and little bags of Mexican wheat snacks.

Sure, the tortas ($6) are sort of useless, with thin, brown floppy bread that is topped with too much lettuce. The burritos ($5) contain much more rice than flavor. Though Ely’s hails from Hillsboro, it is nowhere near the best Mexican food you can get there. But for a shining and brief 20 minutes—the longest the truck stays in one place—the tacos are by far the best available in Nob Hill, Slabtown and the Pearl. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. EAT: Ely’s taco truck, Northwest Quimby Street between 21st and 22nd avenues. Noon-12:20 pm Monday-Friday.

DRANK

STRAIGHT RYE WHISKEY (STEIN) Stein Distillery makes straight rye the cowboy way, with rye grown in their own fields near Joseph, Ore., plus 25 percent corn they buy from farmers 150 miles west in Hermiston. It’s aged just the minimum two years, but like a lot of things out in the country, it grew up fast. There’s not much good whiskey distilled in Oregon, and still less made in the high desert—Stein claims to be Eastern Oregon’s first microdistillery— but this rye is one of the best bottles of whiskey we’ve ever had from our state. It’s smoother and dryer than you’d expect from such a young rye, with fruit and vanilla notes that allow it to be mixed into a fine Manhattan. If this thing ages a little more, it’ll be one of the best ryes in the nation. Maybe it already is. Recommended. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

FOOD & DRINK Happy Hour

REVIEW C H R I S R YA N P H O T O . C O M

Monday–Saturday 4–6pm & 8pm–close

Brunch Saturday & Sunday

La Calaca Comelona 2304 SE Belmont | 503-239-9675 4-10pm Mon–Sat

WE SELL DRINKS

OPEN TILL 2:30AM DAILY libertyglassbar.com

ANOTHER COUNTRY: Ya Hala’s Lebanese country breakfast plate.

HALA BACK

the fairuz ($8), a cucumbery, minty blend of yogurt and vodka with the consistency of whole milk. If you want something stronger, go for the bloody miriam, with the customary cartoonishly large skewer topped with lombardi peppers and bright red pastrami-like meat called basturma.

Get a drink and a croissant filled with super-rich chocolate halva—it’s tasty but a little denser than

BY M A RT I N C I Z M A R mcizmar@wweek.com most, with a gooey layer of half-cooked dough around the halva—and you’ll settle in comfortably.

When it comes to the entrees, I’m partial to Bacon or sausage?

Before you answer, consider that neither of the the more traditional offerings. Houmous balila two breakfast meats at Ya Hala’s new Lebanese ($9)—finely ground house hummus topped with brunch bears much resemblance to the familiar whole chickpeas and a forest of pine nuts—is a wonderful vegan breakfast. versions found down the street I also liked the shakshuka at Country Cat. Order this: The fairuz ($8), houmous ($13). It’s a favorite across the The bacon is made of lamb, balila ($9), shakshuka ($13).

Middle East, eggs cracked into smoked in-house. It lacks the Best deal: The burger ($12). tomato sauce and poached in a tautness of regular ol’ pork I’ll pass: Fried chicken, parfait. ceramic pan, topped with feta bacon, but it does have a nice hint of gaminess. The plump little beef sausages, and served with pita bread suitable for scooping.

A small portion of unbreaded and mildly seacalled soujouk, have a nice kick from red pepper and cumin and fall in the middle of the continuum soned Moroccan fried chicken ($14) did nothing between Italian salumi and Jimmy Dean. It’s a for anyone at our table. But, on the side comes a damned fine breakfast sausage, and one of the thick and creamy couscous gratin that conjured highlights of Ya Hala’s new half-traditional, half- nostalgia of Sunday suppers long past, even fusion weekend brunch. though the dish was new to me. If it was available Ya Hala chef Mirna Attar is the daughter of as a side, we’d have all ordered it.

Nicholas and Linda Dibe, who opened one of the And then there was the haloumi plate ($12), city’s first Lebanese restaurants on Southeast with two pan-fried squares of Cyprus’ famous Grand Avenue back in 1986. Attar also owns Bar- salty cheese, two of those gorgeous eggs and a bur World Foods. Her sister, Hoda, has a place bunch of skinned whole carrots. The carrots were on Southeast Belmont Street. In my exhaustive the flop: The sticky-sweet pomegranate demisurvey of Lebanese food in Portland (“Eye of the glace was nearly indistinguishable from ketchup.

Shawarm,” WW, Sept. 25, 2013), I found the offerOne unqualified flop was a “parfait” of wheat ings middle-of-the-pack, probably in part because berries served with two dollops of yogurt, finely Attar was so busy with her other projects. chopped dates and figs, plus candied garbanzo It’s been a good year for brunch in Portland, beans that didn’t work at all. The proportions highlighted by Smallwares and Boke Bowl rolling were all wrong and those Easter egg-colored canout fresh Asian-fusion menus. And a new brunch died garbanzos were hard little mothers that had menu brings Attar’s focus back to Montavilla, me running my tongue over my fillings. where you can order the Lebanese country breakChances are more people opt for the burger fast ($14) and get both lamb bacon and sausage, ($12), anyway. And it’s a good one: kofta patty, along with two gorgeously poppable sunnyside-up tahini-mustard sauce and fried eggplant on a eggs, a few whole cherry tomatoes pan-fried with brioche bun. It comes with a basket of delicate, the sausages and a pile of diced potatoes fried with bendable fries, and for $2 you can add that housemint. Not everything on that plate is good—the made lamb bacon. Sure, you’re curious about mint potatoes are a little like oily toothpaste—but lamb bacon. So get it here—because if you’re ever it’s different than anything else in town. asked to choose between it and the sausages, you That’s the pattern here: While the drinks and want the latter. baked goods are all very nice, most of the platters EAT: Ya Hala, 8005 SE Stark St., 256-4484, include at least one “aha!” and one “meh.” yahalarestaurant.com. Brunch 9 am-2 pm Among the drinks, we were most impressed with Saturday-Sunday.

Springwater Farm

Morel Season is ON

LAMB BACON AND YOGURT COCKTAILS AT YA HALA’S LEBANESE BRUNCH.

Portland Farmers Market 8:30–2:00 Sat

MUSIC PG. 29

Springwaterfarmer@gmail.com

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may 6–12 PROFILE

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

BRANTLEY GUTIERREz

MUSIC

Prices listed are sometimes for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and socalled 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, MAY 6

THURSDAY, MAY 7

Dead Men Walking, Barb Wire Dolls, the Creepshow

Too Slim & the Taildraggers, Monti Amundson

[OLD PUNX] Featuring members of the Damned, the Alarm, the Stray Cats and the Living End—and occasionally featuring guest appearances from the likes of Duff McKagan and Fred Armisen—Dead Men Walking is play exactly what you’d expect: straightforward, ‘70s-style pop-punk with hints of glam and rockabilly. Though primarily a cover band, the supergroup just put out a new original studio album, Easy Piracy, but c’mon: You’re coming in hopes of hearing “Smash It Up,” “New Rose” and/or “Rock This Town.” You’ll probably get both. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 9 pm. $15. 21+.

Alchemy: Murlo, Knomad, Lincolnup

Geographer, Idlehands

[ORCHESTRAL INDIE POP] Geographer brings its arena-ready, indie-pop sound to the Northwest, hot off the heels of its newest fulllength, Ghost Modern, released in March. The past few years have found Michael Deni’s group boosting its visibility with some high-profile gigs, playing with Freelance Whales and Tokyo Police Club and, based on Ghost Modern, apparently doing little to change its orchestral and occasionally overwrought complexion.

Deni’s buoyant tenor vocals are no doubt impressive, but the result is that the whole thing ends up sounding a bit like Michael Bublé collaborating with the Shins, which, in case you’re having trouble imagining, isn’t necessarily a good thing. CASEY HARDMEYER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $12.

21+.

Glenn Waco, Mic Capes, Rasheed Jamal, Mikey Fountaine

[RAP CITY] Even in this more enlightened, inclusive era of Portland music, local hip-hop showcases at clubs that hold more than 100 people are still a rarity. Tonight, all three members of St. Johns powerhouse the Resistance get solo sets. Glenn Waco, a master of delivering hard truths in the guise of warm nostalgia, headlines, but either of his partners—the cerebral Rasheed Jamal and plain-out vicious Mic Capes—could take the top spot as well. And don’t miss Mikey Fountaine, who you should be hearing a lot more about this year.

MATTHEW SINGER. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 8:30 pm. $8 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.

Dan Deacon, Prince Rama, Ben O’Brien

[HIGH-FRUCTOSE ELECTRO-POP] Imagine a dance party fueled by nitrous and discounted Easter candy, and you’re nearing Dan Deacon’s wheelhouse. On this year’s Gliss Riffer, the Baltimore native’s symphonic spazz pop is an endless cascade of neon synths and pulverizing drum machines, and although it’s not much different live, you can count on Deacon to play grand master of a synchronized sugar high that’s of equal interest to EDM kids and schwilly Oregon Country Fair-goers who bummed a ride and would happily dance to a 10-minute remix of the Woody Woodpecker theme if that’s what were available— which is exactly the kind of thing Deacon has in his bag of tricks. PETE COTTELL. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm.

Sold out. 21+.

[BLUES EXPLOSION] In February, a host of Northwest blues talent rallied to the aid of one of their own, Spokane slide-guitarist Tim “Too Slim” Langford, who’d been fighting a cancer diagnosis. This concert from the man himself should have a slightly different tone: Langford was recently given a clean bill of health. Now it’s time to party— while still feeling a little bit sorrowful. It’s still the blues, after all. Peter’s Room, 8 NW 6th Ave., (971) 230-0033.

7:30 pm. $15. 21+.

[DEGREASER] Grime—the genre setting South London rhymes over dissonant, stuttering rhythms—has evolved into one of the most violentsounding styles in all of music. But then there are producers like Murlo, whose beats glow with peace and love. The affectation has garnered him releases on Brooklyn dancehall label Mixpak as well as London underground kingmaker Rinse. Murlo’s Jasmine EP flirts with Caribbean riddims, while utilizing female vocals in club constructions as well as anyone since Kelela. MITCH LILLIE. The Liquor Store, 3341 SE Belmont St., 421-4483. 9 pm. $10. 21+.

A NEW LEASE MATT SHARP REVIVES THE RENTALS— BUT DON’T EXPECT IT TO END UP LIKE HIS OLD BAND.

FRIDAY, MAY 8

By PETE COTTELL

Tipper, Kayla Scintilla, Tal National

If Weezer lost your love and affection after its divisive second record, Pinkerton, consider yourself in good company. The group’s original bassist, Matt Sharp, left the band in 1998 during a period of limbo, when frontman Rivers Cuomo was too busy attending Harvard to further capitalize on the group’s meteoric rise to fame. Rather than sit on his hands and wait for him to return, Sharp plotted a different course—one inspired by girl-powered vocals and Moog synthesizers.

“Rivers went to college in the middle of when things were really rolling,” Sharp says, “and I was not interested in sitting around and waiting. If I was gonna do something else, why would I do exactly the same thing? Why would I get three other guys and go and try to start another band and sit in our garage and have fart jokes and do exactly what Weezer was doing?”

And so began the Rentals.

Before hitting paydirt with “Undone—The Sweater Song” and “Buddy Holly,” Weezer frequently crossed paths with the girl-driven pop band That Dog on the L.A. club circuit. Enamored with the group’s sisterly duo—Petra and Rachel Haden—and their mastery of draping the bittersweet vocal harmonies and lilting violins over giddy, fuzzy power pop, Sharp championed the group on- and offstage, until the Hadens joined him in the studio. The result was 1995’s Return of the Rentals, a slick synth-pop roller coaster of a record whose first single, “Friends of P.”, piggy-backed perfectly on Weezer’s runaway alt-rock radio success.

Sharp defected to Europe and followed up with 1999’s Seven More Minutes, this time employing Elastica’s Donna Matthews to fill the role the Haden sisters occupied on the first record. (Around this time, pre-SNL Maya Rudolph also had a stint in the band.) The record was a letdown for Weezer

[GLITCH-HOP] Not many could name an artist other than John Williams they’ve listened to through Surround Sound, but sound design—whether for DualDisc or his specialized MP3 format—is Tipper’s cornerstone.

Long a fixture in U.K. turntablist and drum-and-bass circles, Tipper has fully embraced the Internet, dropping glitchy break albums nearly every year since the CD died. His past—which includes a tour through festivals with a renegade 10,000watt sound system built on two 1970 Dodge Challengers—isn’t totally behind him, though: The glitch-hop on his Tipper EP is as loud as any.

MITCH LILLIE. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047. 9 pm. $20 advance, $28 day of show. 21+.

Helmet

[LIQUID METAL] The past, they say, is an alternative nation. To und erstand the early ‘90s sudden embrace of divergent leanings, look beyond the outsized popularity of Helmet’s major-label debut Meantime—droptuned riffage from dressed-down New Yorkers going gold on the back of MTV hit “Unsung”—and gaze in wonderment at the creative control its follow-up indulged. Fully tapping the formalist background and experimental tastes of frontman-guitarist Page Hamilton, Betty incorporated jazz textures, bluesy dynamics and uncompromising noise jams that quickly stilled the act’s commercial momentum. Yet, with fans still thrilling at the chance to hear the album played start to finish, it was was soon considered their masterwork.

Technically, of course, Betty’s 20th anniversary occurred last summer.

But for an enlightened metal benchmark of surpassing maturity, isn’t celebrating its 21st birthday more appropriate? JAY HORTON. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 9 pm. $17. 21+.

CONT. on page 31

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fans who looked to the Rentals for a more satisfying Blue Album sequel than Pinkerton, which turned out to be Sharp’s final interaction with the group besides a 2002 court battle over unpaid royalties.

Sharp was largely absent during the emo boom of the early 2000s, which saw bands like the Get Up Kids and the Anniversary gain substantial followings with introspective, synth-heavy guitar rock that owed considerable debts to both Pinkerton and Return of the Rentals.

It wasn’t until Sharp revisited Barcelona after years of obscurity in a remote town outside Nashville that he was compelled to stir the Rentals from a 15-year hiatus. While last year’s Lost in Alphaville, featuring Patrick Carney of the Black Keys on drums and Jess Wolf and Holly Laessig of country-rock quartet Lucius, feels more ambitious, Sharp says it’s the potential personnel available to work with that stokes him to revisit the project after all these years.

“As time went on, the Rentals became an excuse to work with people I really wanted to collaborate with who I was excited about in the moment,” he says. “Since then it’s carried on to a point where working with women who inspire me is a through line in my life.”

The current touring version of the Rentals is now a who’s who of Portland’s indie scene, with Shawn Glassford of Starfucker on bass and Elisabeth Ellison and Patti King of Radiation City on vocals and keys. Considering his old band toured as a glorified cover band on the 2010 “Memories Tour,” Sharp is keenly aware of the hesitation savvier music fans may have in approaching a group as unequivocally ’90s as his resurrected synth-pop group. He laughed loudly before declining to comment on said Weezer tour, before insisting that the Rentals 2.0 are all about the future.

“I have no interest in going back to recapture the feeling of records I’ve made before in the past,” Sharp says. “It’s all about the people who I really desire to work with now, like Patrick Carney or the girls from Lucius, who’ve made the most extraordinary debut album I’ve ever heard. Now it’s all about getting on to this thing and going some place none of us have ever gone.”

SEE IT: The Rentals play Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd., with Radiation City and Rey Pila, on Sunday, May 10. 7 pm. $15 advance, $18 day of show. 21+.

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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

FRIDAY–MONDAY

[FOLK METAL] Some pagan metal bands craft music appropriate for lighting candles during a ritual under the full moon. Then there are bands such as Helsinki’s Ensiferum (Finnish for “sword bearing”) that are aimed at those who grew up on reruns of The Smurfs and Fraggle Rock. That’s not necessarily meant as a dis. Ensiferum has mastered the art of charging from a breakneck, melodic death-metal gallop into an honest-to-goddess jig. With fl utes. Ensiferum’s sixth and latest album, One Man Army, is appropriately titled, since guitarist-vocalist Markus Toivonen is the sole original member. NATHAN CARSON. Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE Cesar E. Chavez Blvd., 233-7100. 6:30 pm. $23 advance, $25 day of show.

All ages.

Horse Feathers, Thanks

[WILDER HORSES] After coming off tour for 2012’s Cynic’s New Year, Horse Feathers’ Justin Ringle began spending more time at home. He gave up music for a few months and attached himself to a more domestic existence. When he began to play music again, he tried to reinvigorate his enthusiasm by playing with diff erent people, and began shaping what would become the band ’s newest album, So It Is With Us. The tempos are breezier, with more major chords accompanying Ringle’s hushed croon, and even slower, more brooding numbers such as “The Knee” exude a newfound expansiveness and sense of optimism. BRANDON WIDDER. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., Suite 110, 288-3895.

8 pm. $17 advance, $20 day of show. Under 21 permitted with legal guardian.

They Might Be Giants

[NERDY DAD ROCK] As unlikely as They Might Be Giants’ brush with fame felt in the twilight years of the ’90s college-rock era, John and John’s nerdy hero quest into pop culture’s fabric has always felt like a safe bet to endure and endear. This year’s Glean is a tad more straightforward as far as TMBG records go—the cartoonish fanfare and scientifi c esoterica that helped 1990’s Flood go platinum is dialed back in favor of a trad-rock sound most Decemberists fans would immediately glom onto. But the duo’s penchant for smart-sounding rock anthems about planets and dickhead neighbors is still right upfront as usual. MITCH LILLIE. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 224-2038.

9 pm. $22. 14 .

Shivas, weirdo rapper Sapient, and St. Johns native Mic Capes, one of the best young voices in Portland ’s burgeoning hip-hop scene. St. Johns Bizarre, North Lombard Street and Philadelphia Avenue. 10 am. Free. All ages.

SUNDAY, MAY 10 Dylan Lee Johnston

[LONESOME FOLK] Intentional or not, it’s fi tting that Dylan Lee Johnston’s name pays homage to two musicians from which the singer-songwriter draws inspiration. His bare acoustic tunes revel in the kind of traditional blues and folk music that epitomized Robert Johnson and early Bob Zimmerman, shuffl ing with a rawness best suited for coff ee shops and small venues such as Al’s Den. His forthcoming fulllength, Just Like Rain, looks to expand on the frail heartbreak and sense of uncertainty lining his last two demos, presumably bringing bass and fi ts of percussion into the mix courtesy of the Nashville scene, where he’s recording. BRANDON WIDDER. Al’s Den at the Crystal Hotel, 303 SW 12th Ave., 972-2670. 7 pm. Free. Nightly through May 16. 21+.

Nellie McKay

[UNDERCOVERED] Nellie McKay’s new album, My Weekly Reader, sports well-curated ’60s covers but off ers oddly enervated takes on them. McKay’s lilting delivery fi ts best on Herman’s Hermits’ “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter,” but that song harked back to an earlier, cornier era.

Sure, the sunny insouciance she brought to Doris Day material on 2009’s Normal as Blueberry Pie would be inappropriate for the Kinks and Zappa, but she replaces it with a tone that sounds like she’s

commenting on the songs from an ironic remove. It’s a lesson in the limitations of savviness as an artistic persona. JEFF ROSENBERG. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055. 8 pm. $20 advance, $25 day of show. Under 21 permitted with legal guardian.

R. Ring, Hurry Up, Bed

[LO-FI GARAGE] Kim seems to get all the praise when talking the Deal twins—blame it on the Pixies. But her sister Kelley Deal’s work alongside Ampline’s Mike Montgomery in R. Ring remains as pivotal to the music as her eff orts with the Breeders. The collection of singles the duo has issued since 2012 is far more spare, though, laced with gentle drums and guitars that goes from sweet to seething within the course of two minutes. Kelley’s innocent humming is at the forefront of it all, sometimes backed by towering distortion and other times by tender acoustics that could lull one to sleep. BRANDON WIDDER. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show.

21+.

MONDAY, MAY 11 Other Lives, Riothorse Royale

[CHAMBER ROCK] A tour with Radiohead is generally a good omen; having Thom Yorke’s Atoms for Peace project remix your best song is a recipe for greatness. Other Lives has experienced both in its relatively short career, calling Portland home for about the last year while working on its newest record. The group, which hails from Stillwater, Okla., produced the beautifully ethereal Tamer Animals in 2011, an alt-rock record that is symphonic, haunt-

CONT. on page 33

PREVIEW GAIL O’HARA

Ensiferum, Korpiklaani

MUSIC

SATURDAY, MAY 9 Supaman, DJ Wicked, Mic Crenshaw, Stryk-9, Komplex Kal

[RESERVATION RAP] Like Canadian electronic dance troupe A Tribe Called Red, Supaman merges Native American musical traditions with modern urban sounds—in his case, hip-hop.

Expressing the concerns of America’s indigenous youth (often while wearing traditional garb), the Montana-based MC born Christian Parrish Takes the Gun adds another under-observed perspective to the rap canon. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave., 248-2700. 9 pm. $10. 21+.

St. Johns Bizarre: Tango Alpha Tango, Mic Capes, the Shivas, Sapient, Tezeta Band

[STREET FAIR] Our favorite street fair is turning 9! If any neighborhood can keep gentrifi cation at bay, we hope jovial St. Johns, with its beer garden sponsored by Occidental Brewing and Barrique Barrel, Bollywood jam session, annual parade, six blocks of carts and crafty vendors and, of course, its stellar local music lineup, which this year includes Ethiopian-style funkateers Tezeta Band, bluesrockers Tango Alpha Tango, K Records surf-garage heroes the

Stephin Merritt, Darren Hanlon [ABECEDARIAN LOVE SONGS] While some avant-garde karaoke nights (cue Baby Ketten) would make a killing with Magnetic Fields songs, the recent audiences for the band and its glum, glam tunesmith Stephin Merritt may have noticed a reverse phenomenon. The voice is familiar, but the instrumentation of famously synth-heavy pop baubles is stripped-down acoustic to protect the singer’s tinnitus-plagued ears. On a solo tour, Merritt’s songs—composed in the daylight hours of empty gay bars—could grow even more hushed and heartbreaking. This is the eighth stop on a 13-city trip where he’s playing 26 songs, each starting with a different letter of the alphabet. Your move, Sufjan. AARON MESH. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-9694. 8 pm Tuesday, May 12. $25. Under 21 permitted with legal guardian.

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Monday ing and heavily textured. newest effort Rituals may not pack quite the same punch, but other Lives has maintained its unique ability to let classical instrumentation thrive alongside ghostly vocals and sweeping rock crescendos. the Radiohead love is deserved for this remarkable trio. MARK StocK. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $14 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.

Wolf Alice, Gateway Drugs

RHIAnnA FEEnEY

[InDULGEnt RocK] When “Giant Peach,” the first single off Wolf Alice’s debut full-length, My Love Is Cool, was released last month, the music press declared the U.K. band was bound to take over American airwaves. critics praised its previous EPs, referenced its Best Breakthrough Artist win at the U.K. Festival Awards and described its hybrid of moody folk and hard rock with breathless hyperbole.

Hype is overhyped, but it can’t be denied that “Giant Peach” is fucking rocking, with growling guitars building toward vocalist Ellie Rowsell’s total freak-out. the band’s own description of the single, though, sums it up better than any critic: It’s “a song to lose your shit to.”

SHAnnon GoRMLEY. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show. 21+.

MUSIC

Less Than Jake, Reel Big Fish, Pacific Dub

[SKA PUnK] Less than Jake’s 1995 debut, Pezcore, was one of those post-Green Day checkpoints through which suburban teenagers had to pass before moving on to the supposedly more legitimate punk interior.

A lot of people would probably rather forget it ever held a cherished spot in their nascent collection, but the album sounds surprisingly alive in 2015. Even though the Gainesville, Fla., ska-punk mainstay hasn’t done itself any favors with its last few albums of Warped tour grist, the band’s early work deserves a place on that nostalgia shelf between noFX and operation Ivy. or close to that shelf. oh, just let Less than Jake see the goddamn shelf once in a while. cHRIS StAMM. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 224-2038. 7:30 pm. $22.50 advance, $25 day of show. All ages.

Sólstafir, Ancient Wisdom

[IcELAnDIc PoSt-MEtAL] Fans of early Sólstafir could be forgiven for failing to recognize its latest album, 2014’s Ótta, as being from the same band. What

cont. on page 35

INTRODUCING COCO COLUMBIA Who: coco columbia (vocals, keyboards), Grant Sayler (guitar), Micah Hummel (drums).

Sounds like: A weed-fueled weekend in candyland.

For fans of: Stereolab, Dirty Projectors, Sia, Lorde.

It took a while for Coco Columbia to climb from behind the drum throne into the spotlight—several years, in fact. After spending her youth as a drummer, she studied music at the University of Oregon and Portland State University with other jazz-obsessed musicians, rehearsing for hours a day, all while quietly yearning to take center stage.

“I always wanted to sing,” she says. “I guess I just didn’t feel comfortable yet.”

After dropping out of PSU in 2012, she began tinkering with different programs and MIDI-produced sounds at home. “I was really just experimenting for the first few months, recording my voice and trying out different effects, just to see what my voice could sound like,” Columbia, 24, says. “It’s scary at first, you know, because when you first hear yourself—what you really sound like—it’s kind of a nightmare.”

Once her confidence grew, she brought them to some of her former classmates to fortify the ideas she heard in her head.

The Weight, her first album, was self-released last August. The roominess of the arrangements offers a canvas that’s often painted in a vast array of textures. There are wispy flourishes of piano keys that shift in time to synthesized drumbeats and Columbia’s expressive musings. To call it “soul” wouldn’t be wrong, but there’s something fresh and daring to the songs, too.

“We got called ‘prog rock’ recently,” Columbia laughs. “It’s not a bad thing, necessarily.”

Together with drummer Micah Hummel and Grant Sayler on guitar, the trio will soon record a follow-up, When the Birds Begin to Walk, and are currently promoting a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the recording.

“I want to have more of a rock presence on this one,” she says. “I’m hiring some jazz guys in town to come in, but playing live, I realized I want to bring that punk attitude into the studio.” CRIS LANKENAU. SEE IT: coco columbia plays Rontoms, 600 E Burnside St., with Rare Diagram, on Sunday, May 10. 9 pm. Free. 21+.

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MUSIC

SEENA HADDAD

MONDAY–TUESDAY/CLASSICAL, ETC.

#SQUAD: (From left) Mic Capes, Rasheed Jamal, Glenn Waco and Mikey Fountaine play Holocene on Wednesday, May 6. began as serious Icelandic metal in the mid-‘90s has matured into serious Icelandic pop rock. Ótta delivers nearly two hours of epic and emotional tunes that alternate between big riff s and plaintive piano. Some bands soften with age in search of success. Sólstafi r is still the same band, only older, wiser, and not content to repeat its past glories. NATHAN CARSON. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. 8 pm. $10. 21+.

TUESDAY, MAY 12 Today Is the Day, Lazer/Wulf

[MATH METAL] It’s been a tough run for Steve Austin. He formed the noise-metal project Today Is the Day just as grunge started getting soft. Since then, he’s had several bands’ worth of members graduate through the ranks, including Mastodon drummer Brann Dailor. Austin survived a devastating van crash in November 2014 that involved injury and a near total loss of van, equipment and merchandise. Twenty-three tour dates were canceled. Luckily, Austin is a fi ghter, a survivor and a lifer. He’s coming to town with a brand new rhythm section, the new album Animal Mother—his fi rst for Southern Lord and 10th overall—and excellent support from Atlanta instru-metal trio Lazer/ Wulf. NATHAN CARSON. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 9 pm. $15. 21+.

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, We Are Hex

[BLUES RAWK] Long before Jack White was appropriating the spirit of the Delta and shoving it through a fuzz pedal, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion was preaching the sermon of the blues to whomever would listen via its raucous, high-energy stage show. Its new one, Freedom Tower, pays tribute to a foregone era of New York City, with nods to classic hip-hop, doo-wop, early NYC punk and, of course, its inimitable brand of the blues. CASEY HARDMEYER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 8 pm. $18. 21+.

Willis Earl Beal, Like a Villain, Skin Lies

[ANTI-CORPORATE BLUES] Let’s take a moment and commend nu-blues singer Willis Earl Beal for escaping the bullshit hamster wheel that is the modern music industry. Beal, who fi rst came to prominence a few years ago when he self-branded himself as an outsider maverick like his hero Tom Waits, churned out a pretty solid

major-independent debut with 2013’s Nobody Knows, a set of soft blues crooning that even featured a Cat Power cameo. But when he decided to work on his follow-up, Beal gave up his deal on XL Recordings and moved from the East Coast to Lacey, Wash., a suburb of Olympia. Free of the constraints of the industry, he can now release mixtapes and EPs like Experiments in Time and this year’s upcoming Noctunes.

Beal’s voice is strong enough to power any release, and hopefully the self-release strategy means we’ll be hearing it more often in the years to come. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 9:30 pm. $8 advance, $10 day of show. 21+.

CLASSICAL, JAZZ & WORLD Marc Ribot

[GUITAR EXPLORER] For the past three decades, Marc Ribot has eff ortlessly veered back and forth between roots-oriented pop sideman (for Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, even Alison Krauss) and less conventional explorations. It’s hard to imagine any other musician working with Solomon Burke, Allen Ginsberg, Joe Henry, Neko Case, the Black Keys, T Bone Burnett and Elton John. That varied experience gives Ribot plenty of material to draw on in his famous improvisations, which he’ll demonstrate in a solo show Friday. He will also conduct a group free-improv workshop for musicians 5 pm Saturday and lead a free mini-concert with participants that night.

BRETT CAMPBELL. Marylhurst University, 17600 Highway 43, 699-1814. 8 pm Friday, May 8. $20 advance, $25 day of show. All ages.

Sax and the Symphony

[SAX IN THE CITY] The saxophone is a neglected symphonic instrument. The product of a mid-19thcentury Belgian inventor, it took until the 20th century for composers to be convinced of its usefulness. Legendary New York jazz musician James Carter joins the Oregon Symphony to perform the products of that revelation, with songs in works ranging from Bernstein’s West Side Story to Barber’s Adagio for Strings , all showcasing Carter’s beaming musical confi dence, a big shiny sound that matches the look of his horn. PARKER HALL. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 pm Saturday-Sunday, 8 pm Monday, May 9-11. $22-$99. All ages.

Musica Maestrale

[O.G. AMERICAN MUSIC] Portland is lucky it can hear European Baroque music more frequently than most cities, but it’s all the more refreshing to hear the historically informed ensemble Musica Maestrale off er a fascinating program of colonial American music for dancing, drinking—and even listening! Much of it is drawn from an amateur club of Maryland singers and players who probably were too busy imbibing hard cider to appreciate the fact that they were making some of the fi rst American chamber music. BRETT CAMPBELL. First Christian Church, 1314 SW Park Ave., 228-9211. 7:30 pm Saturday, May 9. $10 students, $15 seniors, $18 general admission.

All ages.

Portland Percussion Group

[PROGRESSIVE PERCUSSION] Some of the most exciting music of the past century has been written for versatile percussion instruments alone. Portland Percussion Group is extending the tradition by premiering the three winners of its call for scores, along with a couple classics: French composer Andre Jolivet’s incantatory Concert Suite for Flute and Percussion, and the bongo-fi rst movement of American genius Steve Reich’s 1971 minimalist masterpiece, Drumming, which is heavily infl uenced by the Ghanaian drumming he was studying at the time. BRETT CAMPBELL. The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 222-2031. 2 pm Saturday, May 9. $10. All ages.

Peter Brötzmann-William Parker-Hamid Drake Trio, Not Bitter

[SPONTANEOUS JAZZ] From his defi ning moments of the late’60s continental free-jazz scene to obtusely titled albums brimming with squalid reverence for Albert Ayler, German reedist Peter Brötzmann is a consummate improviser, and the American rhythm section he’s worked with for about 20 years propels those ecstatic fl ights of freedom. Bassist William Parker, a Charles Gayle compatriot, and Hamid Drake, a guy as comfortable playing island rhythms as he is dashing them against improvisations, make for an ample backing band. The set might seem to have no center, but it’ll be loud and endlessly passionate. DAVE CANTOR. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 7 pm Tuesday, May 12. $12 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.

For more Music listings, visit

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MUSIC CALENDAR

[MAY 6-12] Jimmy Mak’s

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

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.

221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown B3 Organ Group

Kells Brewpub

For more listings, check out wweek.com.

210 NW 21st Ave. Sami Live

LAST WEEK LIVE

Laurel Thirst Public House

ANNE BARRETT

2958 NE Glisan St. Jack Dwyer, Heartwood (9:30 pm); Lewi Longmire and the Left Coast Roasters (6 pm)

Magnolia’s Corner

4075 NE Sandy Blvd Inky Shadows

Mazza’s Restaurant and Bar

3728 NE Sandy Boulevard First Thursday Sessions With John Dover

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Liz Longley, Anthony D’Amato

Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave. Too Slim & The Taildraggers

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Hats Off, Hautahuah, Sancho

The Liquor Store

3341 SE Belmont St. Alchemy: Murlo, Knomad, Lincolnup

WaXaHaTCHee

FRIENDLY COMPETITION: Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield is incredibly confident. Or slightly mad. Whatever her motivation, Crutchfield’s tour in support of last month’s Ivy Tripp betrays real bravery, for she has chosen to take the extraordinary Girlpool on the road with her, and I can’t imagine the band’s bar-raising and potentially show-stealing performance at Doug Fir Lounge on May 1 was a fluke.

Girlpool is amazing, and my life is better now that I have crossed paths with the weird, sweet sounds made by Cleo Tucker and Harmony Tividad. So yeah, Waxahatchee ran the risk of delivering an hourlong anticlimax, and opening with a quiet dirge like “Breathless” only confirmed the suspicion that the night peaked early.

Which isn’t to say it’s a bad song. It’s a great song, a killer soundtrack for wallowers intent on following sadness into deep and dark places. Once she got “Breathless” out of her system, though, Crutchfield jettisoned dourness and got down to the lifeaffirming business of putting on a perfect rock show. Onstage and backed by a full band, Crutchfield is a straight-up blast, her songs louder, shorter, faster and simply more fun than their studio twins. But the hurts and heartaches that make Ivy Tripp and 2013’s Cerulean Salt such affecting albums are still there, because Crutchfield’s striking voice is still there, piercing through the bright noise and hitting all the best and most tender spots. It’s phenomenal. CHRIS STAMM. See the full review at wweek.com/lastweeklive.

Wed. May 6 al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. David Gerow

aladdin Theater

3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. An Evening with Howard Jones Solo

alberta Street Public House 1036 NE Alberta St. Local Roots Radio Live Concert Recording

Blue diamond

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

The Fenix Project

dante’s

350 W Burnside St Dead Men Walking, The Creepshow

doug Fir Lounge 830 E Burnside St. Geographer

duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave Blues Jam, Arthur Moore’s Harmonica Party

Firkin Tavern

1937 SE 11th Ave.

Firkin Full of Eye Candy

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Glenn Waco, Mic Capes, Rasheed Jamal, Mikey Fountaine

HOMeBaSe Coffee

2620 SE Powell Blvd.

Fred Van Vactor Show

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown Quartet

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. The Christopher Brown Quartet

Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. The Hill Dogs, Device Grips

Laurel Thirst Public House

2958 NE Glisan St. Grand Lake Islands, the Mondegreens, Richard Duke (9 pm); Redwood Son (6 pm)

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave.

Dan Deacon, Prince Rama, Ben O’Brien

The Old Church

1422 SW 11th Ave Beethoven’s Odyssey, with pianist Gregory Partain

The Tonic Lounge

3100 NE Sandy Blvd.

Young Hunter & Owner, Crime Wit, Pediment, Michael Schenker Group, Gundriver

White eagle Saloon

836 N Russell St. Chris Marshall and the August Light, Reverb Brothers

Wilf’s Restaurant & Bar 800 NW 6th Ave. Ron Steen Band

THuRS. May 7 al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. David Gerow

alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St.

Listen To Your Mother

alberta Street Public House

1036 NE Alberta St. Freddy and Francine, Jeffrey Martin, Anna Tivel

ash Street Saloon

225 SW Ash St. hopelandice & PS-AX Live

Blue diamond

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

Ben Jones and Friends

Cadigan’s Corner Bar

5501 SE 72nd Ave. Cadigan’s Thursday Night Jam, Kenny Lee and Ken M

duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave Tough Love Pyle

edgefield

2126 SW Halsey St. Matt Brown (of Ruby Hill)

Hawthorne Theatre 1507 SE 39th Ave. Rittz, Kxng Crooked, Horse Shoe Gang

The Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Sleepy Eyed Johns

The Old Church

1422 SW 11th Ave Beethoven’s Odyssey, with pianist Gregory Partain

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. Ensiferum and Korpiklaani, Trollfest, Anonymia

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge

1503 SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd.

Old Mill, Wilkinson Blades

Hollywood’s Hot Rod Bar & Grill 10810 NE Sandy Blvd.

Mike Branch

Jimmy Mak’s

FRi. May 8 al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. David Gerow

alberta Street Public House

1036 NE Alberta St. An Evening With Fanno Creek

arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

1037 SW Broadway Joe Bonamassa

Clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant & Bar

5474 NE Sandy Blvd.

Muthaship

Crystal Ballroom

1332 W Burnside Street Tipper & Kalya Scintilla, Tal National

dante’s

350 W Burnside St Helmet ‘Betty’ 20th Anniversary Show

duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave Talking Heads Tribute, Life During Wartime, Jawbone Flats

edgefield

2126 SW Halsey St. Will West & The Friendly Strangers

First united Methodist Church 1838 SW Jefferson St. Star-Crossed Lovers

alberta Street Public House 1036 NE Alberta St. Foxy Lemon, Smokey Brights, The Domestics

alhambra Theatre

1037 SW Broadway Sax and the Symphony

Liberty High School

2522 SE Clinton St. The Clinton Street Stomp, High Water Jazz Band, Zach Bryson, The Moonshine

2958 NE Glisan St. John Prine Singalong (9:30 pm); Joe McMurrian and Woodbrain (6 pm)

Marc Ribot Solo Concert

Metropolitan Community Church of Portland 2400 NE Broadway St. New Ways to Dream

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Pura Vida Band, Dance Party 3939 N Mississippi Ave. Cash’d Out, Josh Kelley

Plews Brews

8409 N. Lombard St. Radiowolf

Rock Creek Tavern

10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. Alexa Wiley & the Wilderness

Roseland Theater

8 NW 6th Ave. They Might Be Giants

St. david of Wales episcopal Church

2800 SE Harrison St. Peter Rowan, Frank Solivan & Dirthy Kitchen

Star Theater

13 NW Sixth Avenue Clyde Lewis

The Buffalo Gap

6835 SW Macadam Ave. Ill Onset

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Divers, Unwelcome Guests

The Old Church

1422 SW 11th Ave Beethoven’s Odyssey, with pianist Gregory Partain

The Secret Society 116 NE Russell St. Pete Krebs and his Portland Playboys

Torta-Landia

4144 SE 60th Ave. Live Music

White eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Erotic City

Wilf’s Restaurant & Bar 800 NW 6th Ave. H-Qtet

Rae’s Lakeview Lounge

1900 NW 27th Ave DJ Gray

Reed College

3203 SE Woodstock Blvd.

Spring Dance Concert

Rock Creek Tavern

10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. Folkslinger

Smart Collective

13 NW 6th Ave. Supaman

dante’s

17600 Pacific Highway (Hwy. 43)

10350 N Vancouver Way Hang Em’ High, Nash Brothers

Clinton Street Theater

Magnolia’s Corner

Marylhurst university St. anne’s Chapel

Ponderosa Lounge

6923 SE Foster rd.

Us Lights, Bike Thief, The Wherewithals

Clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant & Bar

4075 NE Sandy Blvd The 78 Griots

Michael Manning and the Jack Forrest Band

arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

21945 NW Wagon Way Spring Concert, The Westside Community and Youth Orchestra

Mississippi Studios

836 N Russell St. Whim Grace, Willow House, 23window

303 SW 12th Ave. David Gerow

Laurel Thirst Public House

210 NW 21st Ave. Sami Live

The Tea Zone and Camellia Lounge

White eagle Saloon

SaT. May 9 al’s den

Kells Brewpub

221 NW 10th Ave. John Nemeth: Memphis Grease Tour

Mississippi Pizza

510 NW 11th Ave. Intown Jazz

128 NE Russell St. Kodaline

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

One Love Reunion featuring Brad Vachel, Aquaman, Manoj, Doc Martin

The Secret Society

116 NE Russell St. 12th Avenue Hot Club, Baby & The Pearl Blowers

Wonder Ballroom

5474 NE Sandy Blvd.

Elite 350 W Burnside St Motorbreath (Metallica), Crazy Train (Ozzy), & Sonic Temple (The Cult)

dublin Pub

6821 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Hwy. Han’s & the Wanted, Don’t Tell Mary

duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave Kenny Blue Ray

edgefield

2126 SW Halsey St. Anita Margarita and the Rattlesnakes

First Christian Church Portland

1314 SW Park Avenue We The People: Music of Colonial America

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. Boudica, Ritual Healing, Path To Ruin

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge

Star Theater

Starday Tavern

6517 SE Foster Road The Wherewithals, The Hex Tremors & Ghost Country

St. Johns Bizarre

North Lombard Street and Philadelphia Avenue Tango Alpha Tango, Mic Capes, the Shivas, Sapient, Tezeta Band

The Buffalo Gap

6835 SW Macadam Ave. The Shedmen

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Hot Victory, Spacebag, Honduran

The Marino adriatic Cafe

4129 SE Division St. B’Angle Bazaar; Hafla & Drum Circle

The Secret Society 116 NE Russell St. Jacob Miller and the Bridge City Crooners

The Tonic Lounge

3100 NE Sandy Blvd.

Millions of Dead Cops, Death Wish

Tony Starlight Showroom

1125 SE Madison Back To Bacharach, Celebration of Burt Bacharach

1503 SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd.

Kool Stuff Katie, Cut Cut Paste, The Scree

Torta-Landia

Hollywood’s Hot Rod Bar & Grill 10810 NE Sandy Blvd.

Mike Branch

1420 SE Powell Blvd.

The Lovesores, The Ransom, Complaint Dept, The New Not Normals

Jimmy Mak’s

Velo Cult

Kells

WhiskeyTown uSa

Kells Brewpub

White eagle Saloon

Laurel Thirst Public House

Wilf’s Restaurant & Bar

221 NW 10th Ave. The Bobby Torres Ensemble 112 SW 2nd Ave. Pipes & Drums 210 NW 21st Ave. Sami Live

2958 NE Glisan St. Acoustic Guitar Project Showcase (9:30 pm); Kris Deelane and the Hurt (6 pm)

Marylhurst university St. anne’s Chapel

17600 Pacific Highway (Hwy. 43) Marc Ribot Improvisation Workshop

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Weekend Assembly

Peter’s Room 8 NW 6th Ave Kyle

Plews Brews

8409 N. Lombard St.

4144 SE 60th Ave. Live Music

Twilight Cafe and Bar

1969 NE 42nd Ave. Urban Barn Dance & Silent Auction 2030 NW 17th Ave Blitzen Trapper

836 N Russell St. Garcia Birthday Band

800 NW 6th Ave. Linda Michelet

Winona Grange No. 271 8340 SW Seneca St. The Syncopaths

SuN. May 10 al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. Dylan Lee Johnston

alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St. Nellie McKay

CONT. on page 38

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

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MUSIC CALENDAR Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

1037 SW Broadway Sax and the Symphony

Blue Diamond

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

Kevin Selfe and the Tornadoes Jam Session

MAY 6–12

Tony Starlight Showroom

1125 SE Madison Mother’s Day Brunch, Fred Astaire Tribute

White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Rob Johnston

Cadigan’s Corner Bar 5501 SE 72nd Ave. Portland Casual Jam

Christ United Methodist Church

12755 NW Dogwood St Dhvani Presents Dhrupad Vocal by Pt. Uday Bhawalkar

MON. MAY 11 Al’s Den

303 SW 12th Ave. Dylan Lee Johnston

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall-

Corkscrew

1037 SW Broadway Sax and the Symphony

Edgefield

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

Hot Tea Cold

1665 SE Bybee Ave. Live Music

Blue Diamond

2126 SW Halsey St. Lewi Longmire and Anita Lee Elliott

Corkscrew

Grand Central Restaurant & Bowling Lounge

Dante’s

808 SE Morrison St Soul Bowl

Hawthorne Theatre 1507 SE 39th Ave. The Rentals, Rey Pila

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge

1503 SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd.

Dog Fashion Disco, Beebs And Her Money Makers

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Dev

Kells

112 SW 2nd Ave. Traditional Irish Music

Laurel Thirst Public House

2958 NE Glisan St. Open Mic (9 pm); Freak Mountain Ramblers (6 pm)

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave. We Are Brothers, Dark Oz, Malachi Graham Band

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. R. Ring

Rontoms

600 E. Burnside St. Sunday Sessions

Skyview High School Concert Hall 1300 NW 139th Street Portland Youth Philharmonic Postlude Concert

The Firkin Tavern 1937 SE 11th Ave. Open Mic

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. 1776, Trabants, Chris Newman

The Muddy Rudder Public House

350 West Burnside Karaoke From Hell

Doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. Other Lives, Riothorse Royale

Edgefield

2126 SW Halsey St. Groovy Wallpaper

Grand Central Restaurant & Bowling Lounge 808 SE Morrison St Service Industry Night

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE 39th Ave. Cartel, Team, Driver Friendly, Hydra Melody

303 SW 12th Ave. Dylan Lee Johnston

Aladdin Theater

3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. Stephin Merritt (of the Magnetic Fields), Darren Hanlon

Alhambra Theatre

4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

Luke Wade

Blue Diamond

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

A.C. Porter and Special Guests, Blue Tuesday

Cadigan’s Corner Bar 5501 SE 72nd Ave. Soul Provider, Naomi T

Dante’s

350 W Burnside St Today Is The Day, Lazer/ Wulf

Doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, We Are Hex

Duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave Johnny Ward and Friends

Duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave HiFi Mojo

Edgefield

2126 SW Halsey St. The Earnest Lovers

Ford Food & Drink 2505 SE 11th Ave (at Division), Pagan Jug Band

Gerding Theater

Jimmy Mak’s

128 NW Eleventh Ave. The Lion

Kelly’s Olympian

1001 SE Morrison St. Willis Earl Beal, Like a Villain, Skin Lies

221 NW 10th Ave. Jane Bunnett & Maqueque 426 SW Washington St. Eye Candy

Mississippi Pizza Pub.

3552 N. Misssissippi Ave Mr. Ben

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Wolf Alice

Plews Brews

8409 N. Lombard St. Med Monday

Pub at the End of the Universe 4107 SE 28th Ave. Open Mic

Roseland Theater

8 NW 6th Ave. Less Than Jake, Reel Big Fish and Pacific Dub

Star Theater

13 NW 6th Ave. Solstafir

The Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Lloyd Jones

White Eagle Saloon

Holocene

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown Septet

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Peter Brotzmann, William Parker, Hamid Drake Trio, Not Bitter

Rock Creek Tavern 10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. Open Bluegrass Jam

Rock Creek Tavern 10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. Bob Shoemaker

The Old Church

1422 SW 11th Ave Beethoven’s Odyssey, with pianist Gregory Partain

White Eagle Saloon

836 N Russell St. The Hex Tremors, Denim Wedding and Trick Sensei

836 N Russell St. Greyhounds

Wonder Ballroom

128 NE Russell St. James Bay, Elle King F R A N K H A M I LT O N

8105 SE 7th Ave. Irish Jam

1665 SE Bybee Ave. Open Mic

TUES. MAY 12 Al’s Den

HOT BOX: Dan Deacon plays Mississippi Studios on Wednesday, May 6.

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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

may 6–12

MUSIC CALENDAR Emma BrownE

BAR REVIEW

Where to drink this week.

1. N.W.I.P.a.

6350 SE Foster Road, 971-279-5876, nwipapdx.com.

It’s best to be at this Foster road hop kiln early on a monday night. Go hungry. ask what they have to eat and get the special . Get an IPa taster flight. Enjoy.

You’re welcome.

KAISER PERMANENTE OHSU PEACEHEALTH

2. Stammtisch

401 NE 28th Ave., 206-7983, stammtischpdx.com.

Stammtisch, our Bar of the Year, is slavishly dedicated to the German bierkeller experience—German-made beers served in their native glassware, little-known Bavarian schnapps, and the city’s best currywurst.

But it’s also an incredibly warm and inviting room, the sort of place you run into people you know with alarming frequency.

At the above facilities, psychiatrist shock the brain with high voltage electricity for up to 8 seconds, to induce grand mal seizures.

3. The Liquor Store

3341 SE Belmont St., 421-4483, theliquorstorepdx.com.

Everything at the Liquor Store is damn good: solid local taps, a truly excellent gin and housemade tonic, and a weathered casualluxe room that makes you feel like you’ve already been drinking there for years.

4. Brooklyn Park Pub

3400 SE Milwaukie Ave., 234-7772.

Go for the whiskey, and stay as long as you can without inadvertently insulting someone from Jersey and making it awkward. The huge whiskey selection deserves special notice (see page 25).

5. Black Water

835 NE Broadway, 546-1682.

This spot opened just after Slabtown gave up the ghost, proving you can’t kill Portland vegan punk-rock bars, you can only make them cross the river. This spot has black walls, vegan cheesesteaks and is a madhouse when there’s a show scheduled.

PANIC, DON’T PANIC: “I’m just here to punch Jon Taffer in the face!” says the guy in line. The 30-year-old music venue Tonic Lounge is being filmed for the terrifyingly awful cable show Bar Rescue, which Taffer hosts. Except it isn’t the Tonic anymore. Glowing above the sidewalk is a yellow-and-black sign that reads Panic Room Caution: High Volume Bar (3100 NE Sandy Blvd., 238-0543, tonicloungeportland.com). It is, truly, the worst sign in Portland— already a citywide landmark of bad taste. Two weeks after the show filmed, the new coat of gray slate paint inside the bar is already peeling in places—it’s been rebranded from its former retro-luxe red walls to go with the loose theme of “place of last resort.” Bars agree to appear on these shows to maybe get a few things repaired, but instead the Bar Rescue people installed four tiled flat-screen TVs—which now go unwatched, although one of the cooks jokes about using the screens to play YouTube. The aging sound system was left alone, in favor of a useless lighting stack that presumably looked good on TV. But the lights are on four-month lease; they’ll get repoed after the show airs.

Panic Room Caution: High Volume Bar also got a new—unnecessary, says the bartender—Panic Room Caution: High Volume Bar-branded point-of-sale system. The bar is hoping it can sell it to get money for needed repairs. The new cocktails—gross concoctions made with sponsored liquors—go unordered. Bar Rescue removed food items that the bar (and patrons) wanted to keep, so the bar is quietly bringing them back. Instead, the show added a weird metal prison cafeteria-tray gimmick called the Ration ($10.95), with Hungry Man-style Salisbury steak, soggy corn on the cob, Buffalo wings, mashed taters, salad and a really nice blondie cookie bar. It’s like the last meal of a Texas inmate—and again, the kitchen is already trying to find ways to fix it, maybe by spicing the steak so it doesn’t taste like “grandpa food.” Bar Rescue will come next for Bossanova Ballroom. In the meantime, support the poor people at the new Panic Room Caution: High Volume Bar. Because they invited the devil Jon Taffer in the front door, but the devil done fucked them. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Lola’s room

1332 W Burnside 80s Video Dance Attack

rae’s Lakeview Lounge 1900 NW 27th Ave DJ Robo Pat

Wed. May 6

Thurs. May 7

Kelly’s Olympian

holocene

Plews Brews

The Lovecraft

426 SW Washington St. DJ Flight Risk 8409 N. Lombard St. Wiggle Room

1001 SE Morrison St. DJ Short Change 421 SE Grand Ave. Shadowplay

The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. Event Horizon, Industrial Dance Night

The Whiskey Bar 31 NW 1st Ave Branchez

Fri. May 8 holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Dance Yourself Clean

The Whiskey Bar 31 NW 1st Ave NGHTMRE

saT. May 9 holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Heroes X Villains & GANG$IGN$, De Ham Boyz, Suspect, Quarry

Lola’s room

1332 W Burnside Come As You Are, 90s Dance Flashback

Mississippi studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Mrs. Presents Queen, DJ Beyonda, Ill Camino

The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. Musick for Mannequins, Volt Divers Synth Party

• Procedure often results in permanent extensive memory and cognitive losses • Now done to children in OR as young as 12 and also done in pregnancy • No longer used as a last resort Electroshock has NEVER been tested for safety nor effectiveness by the FDA. PHYSICIANS, how can you ask for true informed consent when you do not know the benefits and risks that testing reflects?

May 16th, 2015 International Day of Protest Against Electroshock 28 cities and 9 countries.

The Whiskey Bar 31 NW 1st Ave EDX

Trio Club

909 E Burnside Portland INFERNO

See ectjustice.com for a protest site near you

MOn. May 11 The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. Departures, DJ Waisted and Friends

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

39

PERFORMANCE

COMEDY

FUNNY KNOWS FUNNY

WE ASKED PAST FUNNIEST 5 COMICS TO PICK WHAT’S BEST AT THIS YEAR’S BRIDGETOWN.

NATHAN BRANNON

KRISTINE LEVINE

7 Minutes in Purgatory at Doug Fir Lounge, 7 pm Saturday. $20.

Ian Abramson created this show, where comedians do their standup set in a soundproof room to see how they perform without knowing the audience’s reaction.

Great idea! It also has an awesome lineup with Andy Kindler, Jonathan Katz, Baron Vaughn.

Andy Kindler’s Particular Show at Norse Hall, 8 pm Friday. $25.

Kindler is like the New York deli of comedians. You always know he’s going to be fantastic, fresh and very Jewish. He’s a legacy and he’s put together the most “Portland” show of any comedian at Bridgetown. Every act is ironic, quirky and gut-punch funny.

JOKES OF BRIDGETOWNS PAST

I’m the queen of getting pregnant and then not having babies. —Kristine Levine

at Doug Fir Lounge, 2014.

THE SPOTS

Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist: a 20th Anniversary Celebration at Revolution Hall, 7 pm Thursday. $30.

I used to watch Dr. Katz on Comedy Central as a kid. I loved watching the cartoon versions of my favorite comedians—Maron, Attell, Kightlinger, Chappelle—on the couch opposite Katz’s dry doctor demeanor. So many strange confessions and complaints in delightfully crude Squigglevision! Now to see it live is kind of a dream. Janeane Garofalo is also making her Bridgetown return there, and she’s a legend in her own right. Definitely a really rad show!

DOUG FIR LOUNGE

ROTTURE

TOP SHOWS: Festival kickoff, 7 pm Thursday, $20.

TOP SHOWS: Secret Stash at Rotture Upper,7 pm Friday, $15.

New Negroes: Redux at Rotture Lower, 9 pm Saturday, $20.

830 E Burnside St., 231-9663, dougfirlounge.com.

Bridgetown’s base camp is again this log-lined bunker on Burnside. There’s good late-night eats upstairs if you imbibe a little more than you need to.

Blaria, 9 pm Friday, $25.

The Dana Gould Hour, 5 pm Saturday, $20.

REVOLUTION HALL

1300 SE Stark St., Suite 110, 2883895, revolutionhallpdx.com.

New to the festival and the city, Revolution Hall will host the biggest shows in the old Washington High School, which was remodeled into a 830-seat theater by the owners of Mississippi Studios and Aladdin Theater. The full lounge and bar will open in early June, but for now, food carts show up for events.

TOP SHOWS: Dr. Katz, 7 pm Thursday, $30.

Live Wire, 7:30 pm Saturday, $30.

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NARIKO OTT

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

315 SE 3rd Ave., 234-5683, rotture.com.

Rotture and Branx are normally two separate clubs behind the industrial inner-eastside Office Max. For Bridgetown, they become Rotture “Upper” and “Lower.”

BOSSANOVA BALLROOM

722 E Burnside St., 206-7630, bossanovaballroom.com.

As classic as its name, this ballroom on Burnside is a suave, velvet-curtained main stage with a brick-walled standup spot in the basement. The ballroom hosted our Funniest Five show last year, and it proved an ideal venue for comedy. If you see something you like on the marquee, plan to hit it.

TOP SHOWS: The Grawlix, 9 pm Friday, $20.

The CrabFeast podcast, 2 pm Saturday, $20.

Festival closing, 9 pm Sunday, $20.

CHRISTIAN V. RICKETTS Roustabout at Norse Hall, 10 pm Friday. $25.

Watching Kurt [Braunohler] do standup is like actually getting to be at that one party from a year ago that your friends still talk about but you couldn’t make it to. He makes every show better. [Other comics at Roustabout: Dana Gould, Karen Kilgariff, Chris Fairbanks, Drennon Davis, Andy Wood, Matt Donaher.]

NARIKO OTT’S SETLIST

AMY MILLER Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist: a 20th Anniversary Celebration at Revolution Hall, 7 pm Thursday. $30.

Dr. Katz! Dr. Katz! Dr. Katz! I am deeply saddened by the lack of fame that precludes me from being a guest on this show, but I am completely geeked out to watch it live, and in Portland’s brand-new, repurposed, high-school venue.

“Don’t leave your set lists where any comics can get their hands on them. You’ll come back to find things like a swastika made of dicks.” —Nariko Ott

BOOGIE’S BURGERS AND BREW

K BAR

TOP SHOW: Late Night Boogie, 11:30 pm Friday, $10.

TOP SHOWS: Brew HaHa, 11 pm Saturday, $20.

Birthday Bunk Bash, 9 pm Sunday, $15.

NORSE HALL

MY FATHER’S PLACE

910 E Burnside St., 972-8780, boogiesburgersandbrew.com.

As Bridgetown consolidates its venues into a tight Southeast area, it’s booking spots like Boogie’s, the divey burger joint on Burnside, which will get a platform stage out back for a rolling list of standup acts. You’ll sit on picnic tables in the lot and eat tater tots.

111 NE 11th Ave., 2363401, norsehall.org.

This massive, ornately painted ballroom stage is new to the festival. This is a rare chance for the public to peek into the building, which looks a little like a Masonic hall and usually hosts Viking pancake breakfasts and Scandinavian dance lessons.

TOP SHOWS: Andy Kindler’s Particular Show, 8 pm Friday. $25.

Roustabout with Kurt Braunohler, 10 pm Friday, $25.

1028 SE Water Ave., 328-2865, bunksandwiches.com.

A sandwich shop by day, the bar transforms into a rock club by night—and by “transform” we mean they remove the tables from the knee-high stage and turn on Christmas lights. Expect debauchery, especially at the Brew HaHa show.

523 SE Grand Ave., 235-5494, myfathersplacepdx.com.

Valiantly stepping in to cover for the Sandy Hut, which is not yet finished with the bourgie facelift that’s ripping out its stage to turn this classic rocker bar into a contemporary hipster bar, this musty institution hasn’t hosted much of anything since Elliott Smith stopped drinking there. We’re promised a stage and a microphone, at least, and they serve liver and onions for dinner and hamburger with eggs for breakfast.

Top shows: Dad’s Favorite with Bryan Yang, 9:30 Saturday, $10. Keep Everywhere Weird, 7:30 pm Sunday, $15.

comedy

PERFORMANCE

The first year of the fest, Taboo Video was a sponsor and they gave DVDs as performer gifts.

A lot of people left them behind, so there was a shitload of smut left in the green room at Mt. Tabor Theater, and a few comics threw it into the crowd. Still have my copy of Fuck, the Musical.

CURTIS COOK

BRI PRUETT

SEAN JORDAN

Brew HaHa: The Comedy Show Drinking Game at Bunk Bar, 11 pm Saturday. $20.

Possibly my favorite event of all time. The entire show is set up as a drinking game for both the comics and the audience. Everyone imbibes as Brad Silnutzer guides the drunken mayhem. With booze, jokes, and killer comics like Kurt Braunohler, Chris Fairbanks, Barbara Gray and Ben Bizuneh, this is definitely worth checking out.

They even make sure there are cabs available once you’re plastered, and that’s professional as fuck.

The Grawlix at Bossanova Ballroom, 9 pm Friday. $20.

Grawlix is a three-man team that presents a smattering of sketch, standup and other stuff, a lot like Portland’s beloved Earthquake Hurricane. Denver is a similar scene to Portland’s, but it’s a pain in the ass to get to for us brokeass comics, so I’ve never seen this show live before. But I’ve always loved these comics individually, and Portland’s own Curtis Cook is representing us.

The CrabFeast Podcast at Bossanova Ballroom, 2 pm Saturday. $20.

It’s not scripted, it’s just comics being naturally funny, and off-thecuff storytelling can be the best and truest comedy. Ryan [Sickler] and Jay [Larson] bring out the best stories in their guests. They’re so natural together and play off each other. I listen to the podcast and make a fool of myself laughing out loud on the bus. It was easily the best show I saw at the festival last year. I believe one of the guests is [former Portlander] Ian Karmel too, so that’ll make it extra special for a Portland crowd.

JOKES OF BRIDGETOwnS

STEVEN WILBER

SHANE TORRES

The K Ohle with Kurt Braunohler at the The K Ohle Bus at Boogie’s Burgers and Brew, 2 pm Saturday. $20.

This is going to be the most batnuts-bonkers thing at Bridgetown.

Kurt’s going to blindfold his audience, put them on a bus and travel to an undisclosed location with a secret guest. They’ll be out in goshknows-where doing gosh-knowswhat with one of the best comics around. The rest of us unlucky saps who missed the boat (bus), will have to stare longingly into the afternoon sky and wonder, “What if, y’know? What if I actually got my shit together instead of losering my way onto the sidelines like some stupid fucking loser?”

PAST

I had a realization recently that I grew up upper-middle class. I realized it because we had the dopest mustard in our fridge. If you’re able to make economic decisions about your mustard, you’re doing all right for yourself.

—Ian Karmel at Doug Fir Lounge, 2014.

p H oTo S B y DA N I E L C o L E ; M AT T W o N G ; I N G E R K L E K A C z

—Shane Torres

Blaria at Doug Fir Lounge, 9 pm Friday. $25.

Full disclosure: I am on this show.

But, here are two great reasons why you should go: Phoebe Robinson (Late Night with Seth Myers, Broad City) and Jessica Williams (The Daily Show). These two host Blaria monthly in N.Y.C. with a perpetually stacked lineup. This is sure to be one of the most wellattended shows at the festival. So get there early.

“Doesn’t MailChimp sound like something your racist grandpa would call his mailman?

—Shane Torres at Analog Cafe, 2014.

THE PERFECT SCHEDULE

THURSDAY 5/7

FRIDAY 5/8

SATURDAY 5/9

SUNDAY 5/10

DR. KATz, pRofESSIoNAL THERApIST: A 20TH ANNIVERSARy CELEBRATIoN

TALK SHoW: THE GAME SHoW

THE CRABfEAST poDCAST

THE oKCUpID SHoW

BLARIA

THE DANA GoULD HoUR

THAT’S SoME REAL SHIT WITH NATHAN BRANNoN

at Revolution Hall, 7-10 pm. $30.

BAKED

at Doug Fir Lounge, 11 pm-midnight. $25.

at Bossanova Ballroom, 7-8:30 pm. $20.

at Doug Fir Lounge, 9-10:30 pm. $25.

at Bossanova Ballroom, 2-4 pm. $20.

at Doug Fir Lounge, 5-6:30 pm. $20.

at Doug Fir Lounge, 3-4:30 pm. $15.

at Rotture Lower, 7-8:30 pm. $15.

HIGH-fIVE

at Bunk Bar, 11 pm-midnight. $25.

7 MINUTES IN pURGAToRy at Doug Fir Lounge, 7-8:30 pm. $20.

BIRTHDAy BUNK BASH! at Bunk Bar, 9-11 pm. $15.

NEW NEGRoES: REDUx at Rotture Lower, 9-10:30 pm. $20.

Any whistle could be a rape whistle, except for a slide whistle.” —Dana Gould, 2013.

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

41

may 6–12

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

NEW REVIEWS

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: ENID SPITZ. Theater: ENID SPITZ (espitz@wweek.com).

Dance: ENID SPITZ. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: espitz@wweek.com.

THEATER OPENINGS & PREVIEWS Buffy: A Parody Musical

From the comedy crew that brought you Flair: An Office Space Parody comes Buffy: A Parody Musical, Funhouse’s newest illogical repurposing of something you really loved in the ’90s. The original is still enticing, do we need more? Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 841-6734. 7 pm Thursday-Saturday through June 6. $16-$20.

How to Stop Dying

Sarah, who has a ghost-hunting reality show, is mourning the death of her father when she gets a call from a rural Oregon funeral home claiming to have a photo of his ghost. This comedic hunt for meaning in the great beyond is the culmination of director Noah Dunham’s year-long pondering and five-month workshop with the cast, which is substantial for a troupe accustomed to improv. But then, death is kind of a big thing. Action/ Adventure Theatre, 1050 SE Clinton St. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday through May 30. $18.

Listen to Your Mother

Call your mother. Now you can, guiltfree, listen to not-your-mothers tell endearing stories of their toddlers, trials, tribulations and triumphs. Or, cajole your mommy friend group into a night of sympathizing and self-indulgent storytelling at Portland’s version of this nationwide show. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 7196055. 7:30 pm Thursday, May 7. $15.

The Lion

Guitarist Benjamin Scheuer’s one-man show is a bildungsroman of fatherand-son stories, set to music. Scheuer, wearing business-casual slacks on a plain stage, alternates between six guitars and sings folksy ballads about banjos, cookie tins and other heartwarming things. Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 pm Tuesday-Sunday, noon Thursdays, 2 pm Saturday-Sunday through June 14. $25-$50.

Mame

Depression-era eccentric Mame Dennis introduces her nephew to a free-wheeling lifestyle of parties with washed-up actresses and unfortunate Southern gents like Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside. We’re supposed to find that “life’s a banquet” in this encouraging musical from the Lake Oswego theater, which will pelt you with famous jingles like “We Need a Little Christmas” and “Bosom Buddies.” Lakewood Center for the Arts, 368 S State St., Lake Oswego, 635-3901. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2 pm and 7 pm Sunday, through June 14. $37.

New Shit Show

Portland Center Stage’s Entertainment for the People is putting on a variety show inspired by the coming-of-age themes in its main stage production, The Lion. WW’s Funniest 5 comic Amy Miller, the host of Back Fence PDX, local artists and writers, including poet Andrew Dickson and Emmy Awardnominated director Arthur Bradford, will share their new shit, in the form of music, videos, comedy and readings.

Gerding Theater, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 8 pm Monday, May 11. $12 advance, $15 door.

Our Country’s Good

A crew of Royal Marines and its convict charges wax theatrical after mooring in the jailhouse colony Great Britain made of Australia. Optimism and comfort are hard to come by, so one aspirational lieutenant hatches a plan to stage a

42

comedy with the thieves and murderers as the cast. A little historical and unabashedly meta-fictional, this play is a more serious selection from Hillsboro’s slapstick Bag & Baggage crew. Venetian Theatre, 253 E Main St., Hillsboro, 693-3953. 7:30 pm ThursdaySaturday, 2 pm Sundays through May 31. $26-$30.

Pulp Gulp: Sassy Sci-Fi

This Friday’s lineup for Sip D’Vine’s recurring theatrical series sounds like an episode of Doctor Who. “Sassy Sci-Fi” is the theme, with five short plays from local writers, including My Heart is a Quadratic Equation and They’re Made Out of Meat. It promises forbidden love among aliens, but we go just for the pinot. Sip D’Vine, 7887 SW Capitol Highway, 977-9463. 8 pm Friday, May 8. $5-$10.

American Night: The Ballad of Juan José Richard Montoya’s play is an inventive satire about Juan José (Osvaldo González), a lovably innocent Mexican immigrant who falls into an imaginative dream world when he falls asleep in the middle of studying for his American Citizenship exam. José journeys through a comedic re-imagining of American history, strung together like Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.

Montoya’s writing uses side-splitting humor to deliver his social critique, and the play is at its best when it is thoroughly outlandish. When the production attempts earnest emotion, like in the cheesy ending musical number, it feels awkward and flat. The dream trip is an entertaining premise, but the production’s forced emotion doesn’t

quite satisfy. IAN CLARK. El Centro Milagro, 525 SE Stark St., 236-7253.

7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, through May 23. $24.

Show Boat Despite a rousing “Old Man River” with preternaturally low notes from bass Arthur Woodley, Portland Opera’s Showboat couldn’t surmount the musical’s inane plot. Oscar Hammerstein’s lyrics are inherently cornball, leaving the treacly aftertaste of a Doris Day film. Jerome Kern’s score is redundant; the second act does little more than reprise the first. And although a gifted tunesmith, Kern did not write well for the voice. While Showboat’s handling of race might’ve been progressive when it premiered in 1927, now it’s cringe-worthy. The audience was palpably uncomfortable at the

repeated N-words and a costume that looked lifted from Aunt Jemima ads.

On a positive note, the Portland Opera Orchestra played vivaciously. Because the orchestra was on stage rather than in the pit, Conductor Hal France’s fluid, graceful movements were on full view.

Watching him bounce, bop and sway was one of the evening’s few unmitigated pleasures. RICHARD SPEER. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 800-745-3000. 7:30 pm various days through May 9. See portlandopera. org/production/show-boat. $31-$144.

ALSO PLAYING Grease

As over the top and ostentatious as you’d expected from Broadway Rose

CONT. on page 43

REVIEW OWEN CAREy

PERFORMANCE

Ramona Quimby Portlander Beverly Cleary’s obnoxious yet somehow beloved third-grader is up for big adventures. In Oregon Children’s Theatre’s play about the very average Quimby family on Northeast Klickitat Street, Ramona gets in sisterly tiffs and navigates the big world of grade-school drama. Newmark Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 2 pm and 5pm Saturdays 11 am and 2 pm Sundays through May 31. $18-$30.

Sir Cupcake’s Queer Circus Goes Back in Time

The mustachioed, gender-bending Sir Cupcake curates this vaudeville show about going back in time. Accidentally transported into the 1930s, Cupcake encounters two star-crossed acrobats, his own circus ancestor and Seattle burlesque artist Pidgeon Von Tramp in this tireless string of acts as frivolous and decadent as a cupcake. Echo Theater, 1515 SE 37th Ave., 231-1232. 8 pm Friday-Saturday, May 8-9. $15.

Static

Sound is its own character in this introspective drama from Third Rail about a woman whose deaf husband unexpectedly dies, leaving her a perplexing mixtape. A message from beyond or an unfortunate copy of tween infatuation? In a rare move, the play is written for both spoken English and American Sign Language, reminding us that diversity isn’t just about skin color.

Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave., 2313959. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Saturday, 2 pm Sundays, through May 24. $24-$47.

Storefront Revue: The Babes are Back

Storefront Actors’ Theatre staged phalluses with tinsel pubic hair, fiercely antiwar street shows, a nearly naked black Spartacus and children’s musicals with lyrics like “He offers you a candy bar, don’t get in his car.”

Triangle Productions founder Don Horn dug up and cut-and-pasted the controversial theater’s scripts into a new show that stomps its way from the Kent State shootings, through the ’80s and the AIDS pandemic, to Storefront’s 1991 fizzle-out. Sanctuary at Sandy Plaza, 1785 NE Sandy Blvd., 239-5919.

7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday through May 30. $15.

The Undiscovered Country

Portland playwright DC Copeland puts a magnifying glass to the human mind with three intertwined stories of addiction. But her real focus is the heart and soul, trying to make the taboo topic more relatable in this reprise of last year’s premiere with the experimental Defunkt Theatre. Back Door Theatre, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd, 481-2960.

7:30 pm Thursdays-Sundays through June 20. Pay-what-you-can Thursdays and Sundays, $15-$25 Friday-Saturday.

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

a long ride: Vana o’Brien and Joshua Weinstein.

4000 MILES (ARTISTS REPERTORY THEATRE) AMY HERZOG’S PLAY HITS A FEW BUMPS ALONG THE WAY. Realism can be rough. When a play has a simple set and minimalist dialogue, it takes well-tuned performances to create a sublime show. Amy Herzog’s 4000 Miles, a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize, should be poignant. Unfortunately, Artist Repertory Theatre’s new production tramples the script’s subtleties, leaving audiences just a passing glimpse of what could have been.

Leo (Joshua Weinstein) is a millennial, selfdescribed “hippie” who unexpectedly lands with his radically communist firecracker of a grandmother, Vera (Vana O’Brien). The 91-year-old welcomes him into her Manhattan apartment at 2 am, without her dentures or hearing aid in, and the generations immediately clash over Leo’s bicycle trek from Seattle. He pushes his touring bike in nervous circles around the living room and almost right back out the door, threatening to cut short the relatable dialogue we expect from Herzog.

As Leo settles in to sort out his own life and supposedly care for Vera, the production starts losing air. Leo mostly slouches and reads political books on Cuba while Vera folds his underwear. The rest of the time, he spends the allowance from his mother on rock climbing.

Slowly, Herzog reveals the grit of Leo’s ride. What Leo planned as a double-date escape from civilization turned into just him and his best friend taking shadow selfies when their girlfriends backed out.

After a tragic accident, Leo finished the ride solo.

Herzog’s writing is fiercely realistic: Vera is constantly replacing forgotten words with “whaddyacall-it” and Leo’s lines are pocked with spaced-out sentence fragments. But handled clumsily, the minimalist dialogue comes across as annoying, not endearing. Weinstein’s Leo has just lost his best friend and been dumped by his girlfriend (Carolyn Marie Monroe), and he’s estranged from his parents.

Instead of simmering emotion, we get Weinstein futzing with his long hair.

With the exception of Danielle Ma—a sloshed fashionista in 8-inch heels who plays Leo’s onenight stand gone wrong—the cast does not rise to the challenge. Weinstein’s jester’s smile is a bit too wide. We want to wipe it off his face when he refuses the banana Vera offers by yelling: “Jet fuel! No such thing as a local banana.” O’Brien holds her own with some of the funniest lines—“none of my husbands did anything for me in bed”—but overemphasizing her jittery hands and stiff joints distracts from her performance.

Like with family, we might have overlooked these quirks to sympathize with Leo’s eventual progress. There are glimmering high points: Leo’s ex-girlfriend endearingly offers to finish the last cross-country miles with him. And Leo and Vera get high on her antique couch and muse about Marxism.

But even these moments don’t quite have the right gearing to propel Herzog’s script. CONOR EIFLER. see it: 4000 Miles is at Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm TuesdaysSundays, 2 pm Sundays through May 24. $41-$59.

may 6–12

Leapin’ Louie Lichtenstein

Leapin’ Louie Lichtenstein is a familiar Portland character: a loner with a German name who juggles and unicycles. This is his family-friendly Western show, but you could also take the kids on a walk around Saturday Market and spend $12 on parking. Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., 238-8899. 1 pm Saturday, May 2 and 9. $12.

The School for Lies

Theatergoers sit in the social parlor of sharp-tongued widow Celimene (Stephanie Cordell) for Theater Vertigo’s comic exposé of forced, 17th-century frilly civility. Frank—a magnetic and constantly irked Nathan Dunkin—rails against superficiality, and the script is dense with heady wordplay. But then comes Celimene freestyle rapping. The play’s modern additions already seem outdated, but it’s more successful as a whimsical show. Flying pastries and rogue glasses of wine break the fourth wall to let us in on the joke. RIHANNA WEISS. Shoebox Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., 971-2443740. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, April 10 through May 9. $20.

Terrifying Shrubbery

Clowns could be the one thing to actually bring the fear factor back to the Brothers Grimm’s overworked fantasies. But Nomadic Theater Company and CoHo Theater director Philip Cuomo are going for sincerely funny. Their slapstick take on the dark forests and fairy godmothers is goofy, red noses and all. Sounds like a terrifying experience, truly. Headwaters Theatre, 55 NE Farragut St., No. 9, 289-3499. 8 pm Friday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday through May 10. $8-$12.

Twelfth Night

Director Cassandra Boice goes all out with slapstick skits like drunkard Sir Belch exorcising Artistic Director Ty Boice, who’s sports canary yellow tights. Viola disguises herself as a boy under the alias Sebastian and promptly falls in love with the Duke, who loves Olivia, who falls in love with Sebastian...and around in the Shakespearian rat race of twins, slapstick comedy and ukelele singa-longs we go. Chip Sherman is in drag as the idyllic Olivia. While lesser characters feel canned, Sherman convinces us his role was meant for drag. Post5 mainstay Jessica Tidd as the disguised Viola switches sexes seamlessly; Portland veteran Jeff Gorham is a deliciously disgusting drunkard; and Boice, the pathetically lithping Malvolio, steals the show. If Post5’s mission is Shakespeare for the masses, this is Bard 101, little brain required. Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971258-8584. 7:30 pm Friday-Sunday through May 16. $20.

SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm Monday, May 11. $10.

COMEDY & VARIETY Am I Right, Ladies?

Jen Tam’s regular roundup of radically feminist comics this month promises secret Bridgetown guests and hallucinatory electronic crooning from local musician Faith Twain.

Ford Food and Drink, 2505 SE 11th Ave., 236-3023. 8 pm Saturday, May 9. $5.

Bats in the Belfry

Like a delightful romp through posttraumatic stress disorder, Bats in the Belfry promises an “improvised adventure” comedy about mental illness, delving into how we’re all crazy and should probably be medicated into sanity. But let’s laugh at ourselves instead. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 8 pm Saturdays through May 30. $12.

Bryan Callen

You might know this podcasting MTV comic and Will Farrell protégé as the token Middle Eastern gunrunner (he’s a Philippines-born American) from The Hangover Part II. Here he’ll need heavy ammunition to battle for Bridgetown fans.

Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 8 pm Thursday, 7:30 and 10 pm Friday-Saturday, May 7-9. $22-$30. 21+.

The Comedy Bull

Portland comics are generally very loving and supportive. The churlishly avuncular Anatoli Brant brings some heat to the scene with this competitive show, which requires standups to respond to surprise topics and improv challenges. The funnier they are, the longer they remain onstage.

Brant recently expanded the show to Helium: Every three months, the six strongest comedians will duke it out. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 9:30 pm every second Friday. $8.

Funny Humans vs. the Wheel

If you go to enough shows around town, you start to memorize comedians’ sets. Think of this weekly show, hosted by silly duo Adam Pasi and David Mascorro, as an antidote to all that repetition: Comedians start out with a planned set, but halfway through, they have to spin a wheel to determine what comes next—crowd work, one-liners, maybe even a heckle battle. Bar of the Gods, 4801 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 232-2037. 9 pm every Sunday. Free.

21+.

Gilbert Gottfried

Imagine Aladdin’s parrot telling dirty jokes and you have Gilbert Gottfried, the squinty-eyed, grinning comic fired from voicing the Aflac duck after his insensitive jokes about Japan’s devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami. If the threat of deafness is no deterrent, subject your eardrums to his

jarring, iconic standup before he’s totally lost to washed-up shows like The Celebrity Apprentice and Food Network. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 7 and 9:15 pm Wednesday, May 6. $20$28. 21+.

Helium Open Mic

Generally regarded as the best open-mic night in town, Helium’s sign-ups fill quickly. Show up between 6 and 7 pm to snag some stage time. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 8 pm every Tuesday. Free with a twoitem minimum. 21+.

DANCE Impressive Taiwan: Love from Formosa

Taiwanese American Heritage Week comes every May. The Hwa Kang Dance Troupe is celebrating this year with its contemporary take on Taiwan’s aboriginal Hakka and Hokkein dances. They range from lyrical ballets to sword-flinging numbers with an army of dancers on stage. Winningstad Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 pm Thursday, May 7. $20.

Ouroboros

This Ecdysiast Pole Dance Company show is named after an ancient Greek symbol of a serpent eating its own tail. That’s fitting for this surprisingly serious, semi-annual show that muses on the connectedness of humanity and universal experiences like stress, joy and nostalgia. It’s pole dancing with a master’s degree in philosophy. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055. 8 pm Friday-Saturday, May 8-9. $24.

Reed College Spring Dance Concert

Reed College’s Contemporary Performance Ensemble and Dance Troupe inaugurates its recently renovated Greenwood Performance Stage with works by guest choreographers including Conduit Dance director Alexander Dones, exBroadway dancer Laura Haney and James Healey, a Shen Wei Dance Arts founder known for using bold colors and Chinese techniques.

Reed College Dance Gym, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. 7 pm FridaySaturday, May 8-9. $3.

Seasons of a Woman

Mother’s Day audiences get homemade food and drinks along with this eclectic performance by the all-female company the Soul. The dances celebrate womanhood and the seasons with a jazzy spring piece, hip-hop for summertime, a lyrical winter, some burlesque in fall, and female empowerment all over.

Lenora’s Ballroom, 615 SE Alder St., 816-2824. noon and 5:30 pm Sunday, May 10. $15.

For more Performance listings, visit A R N I S TA P H OTO G R A P H Y

Theater, Grease gives the audience pure and simple entertainment. Stars Peter Liptak (Danny Zuko) and Claire Rigsby (Betty Rizzo) ham it up with deafening musical numbers but are also convincing in their angsty, teenage vulnerability. Despite its campy tone and dated subject material, the play is like an irresponsible spin in a flashy car: innocent, overly-optimistic and really, just fun. IAN CLARK. Broadway Rose New Stage Theatre, 12850 SW Grant Ave., Tigard, 6205262. 7:30 pm Thursday-Friday, 2 pm and 7:30 Saturday, 2 pm Sunday through May 24. $30-$42.

PERFORMANCE

Our New Girl

Corrib Theatre, the local labor of love from Gemma Whelan, only occasionally stages shows. But when its Irish-themed works take the stage, they’re worth taking in.

This reading of a Dublin playwright’s psychological drama follows the stressed and pregnant Hazel through parental drama. With a doctor husband doing good in Haiti and a strange new nanny taking over at home, Hazel’s plight has all the marks of dark Irish wallowing. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515

Sir CupCake’S Queer CirCuS GoeS BaCk in Time Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

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VISUAL ARTS

may 6–12

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

By megan harned. 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: mharned@wweek.com.

show, which asks us to consider how medium structures the message.

Through May 17. Melanie Flood Projects, 420 SW Washington St., No. 301, 862-7912.

Mothmeister’s Wounderland: Surreal World of Imagination, Nightmares and Taxidermy

mothmeister is an artistic, taxidermy-loving duo based in antwerp, Belgium. They anthropomorphize their bestial preserves with outfits and masks as a reaction against the dominant exhibitionism of selfie culture and beauty standards marketed by mass media. Is it a lot of contemporary affect to justify playing with dead animals, or is there real critique of our ever present narcissism and surveillance state? Through June 9. Paxton Gate, 4204 N Mississippi Ave., 719-4508.

Opening reception with artists 6-9 pm Saturday, May 9.

New York Salon

untitled by motHmeister

Blazermania

a group art show themed around, you guessed it, the Portland Trail Blazers. Come for art, come for basketball, come for 30-plus artists from Portland and beyond celebrating rip City. Promising a diverse array of media and styles, Blazermania is here to remind us we don’t have to choose between physical and artistic creativity. Through May 30. Gallery 135, 135 NW Park Ave., 312-4856. First Thursday reception.

Cash For Your Banksy

CFYB is the brainchild of artist and curator “mad One.” The project began in late 2013 in response to the ongoing attention to the artist known as Banksy and to an art market that treats paintings and sculptures as investments similar to real estate and gold. Through stickers, stencils, plastic signs and installations, Cash For Your Banksy has been a subtly hilarious part of the urban landscape and the art market for the past couple of years throughout Portland and other major cities. Through May 30. Future Shock, 1914 E Burnside St., 327-8473.

Dazed and Glazed

greenberg might have called it kitsch, but back in the heyday of the ’50s and ’60s everyone had a boldly designed smoking dish on their coffee table. In light of marijuana’s upcoming legalization, Thurman Street Collective is bringing us decorative ashtrays by local artist Brett Stern that combine his industrialdesign training and ceramic skills.

With a variety of glazes and shapes that are fun to stare at while stoned, Dazed and Glazed embraces the rituals inherent to the smoking-forpleasure process. Through June 5.

Thurman Street Collective, 2384 NW Thurman St., 971-803-7970.

Emily Counts: The Ins and Outs

holes, perforations, and protrusions dominate the surfaces of emily Counts’ ceramic sculptures in her exhibition of new work. although largely abstract, her forms have a bodily presence— those repeated interruptions recall pores, faces and sexual organs.

By playing with scale and materials, Counts pushes traditional symbols of celebration and condolence into complex, unwieldy icons. are they Freudian, feminist or just weird? You’ll have to see and decide for yourself.

Through June 1. Nationale, 3360 SE Division St., 477-9786.

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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

Fluid

Ceramic pieces, whether utilitarian or purely aesthetic, start out with soft, wet, pliable clay and end up hard and fragile. But the artists in Fluid, Peter Christian Johnson and Bobby Silverman, carry clay’s initial wet look over into their finished pieces, with sometimes disconcerting results. To see a ceramic artwork that appears to have water, slime, honey or molten lava flowing across it, is like looking at something that ought to be impossible. not only is it a technical feat, it also sets up a cognitive dissonance that bids us re-examine our preconceptions of the medium itself. Through May 30.

Eutectic Gallery, 1930 NE Oregon St., 974-6518.

Julia Oldham: Farewell Brave Voyager Farewell Brave Voyager is an installation of video, animation, music and drawing that memorialize two doomed space explorers, one fictional and one historical. While two screens playing different narratives could easily be overwhelming in the small space, their differing scales and angles complimented each other instead. The animated piece, Laika’s Lullaby, told the story of an early Soviet space dog. Laika, man’s best cosmonaut, pants, sniffs, and looks out on earth from the solitude of her grand voyage and coffin, set to a haunting composition by Lindsay Keast. Farewell Brave Voyager played on a smaller, perpendicular screen. There were moments when the actors seemed to be looking at the great emptiness of space alongside our canine hero. Such moments coalesce the two films into a single installation. Through May 23. Portland ’Pataphysical Society, 625 NW Everett St., No. 104.

Justin James Reed: Shining Bodies

In Shining Bodies, Justin James reed starts with medieval reliquaries—originally used to house spiritually significant bones, shrouds and other relics—but divests them of content to draw our attention to the ideas they represent, as framing devices that endow objects with mystical powers. The works are made of glass, referencing ideas of holy light. The show also includes experimental photographic work incorporating laser etching on paper, which burns away the surface layers to reveal a hidden image below. Traditional black-andwhite photographs round out the

after a recent trip to new York City, mark Woolley rounded up five new York photographers and curated them into an invigorating group show at his Pioneer Place gallery.

In addition to Kyle rudd, david hanlon and Patrick arias, the show features two artists more familiar to Portland art lovers. noah and nathan rice, formerly known as the Christopher Twins, were longtime staples at Woolley’s gallery before they moved from Portland to new York five years ago. Working as a team, the twin brothers blend elements of photography, painting and collage. In works such as This City Is a Dagger, they overlay images drawn from film, cartoons and cityscapes, resulting in an enigmatic, Pop-flavored mélange. Through May 10. Mark Woolley Gallery @ Pioneer, 700 SW 5th Ave., 3rd floor, Pioneer Place Mall, 998-4152.

PICA: Celebrating 20 Years, Reflecting on the First Decade

how long has PICa been an artistic mainstay? Twenty years, according to the curated retrospective of the first decade, from 1995 to 2005. Those early years were led by founder Kristy edmunds, whose unique vision included emerging and established regional, national and international artists. her legacy lives on in the annual Time-Based art Festival that includes visual, sound, dance and performing arts. at 5 pm Wednesday, may 6, elizabeth Leach gallery will host a conversation with edmunds and Kristan Kennedy, PICa’s visual art curator. May 7-June 27. Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., 224-0521.

The World Is Not the Earth

This is a group show that includes James Castle, austin eddy, John O’reilly, Blair Saxon-hill and Timmy Straw. The works all develop a highly personal, complex narrative using collage and appropriation. Blair Saxon-hill was included in last year’s Portland Biennial at disjecta, and also has a concurrent solo exhibition at Fourteen30 Contemporary.

Through May 30. Adams and Ollman, 209 SW 9th Ave., 724-0684.

Tiffany Calvert

Tiffany Calvert uses images to juxtapose the historical and the contemporary. her arrangements and mark-making conceal the subject, reveal voids and release new meanings. The works coalesce into the subject’s energy while leaving the subject itself behind. They’re paintings, by the way. Through May 31.

First Friday reception 6-10 pm May 8. Carl & Sloan Contemporary, 8371 N Interstate Ave., Suite No. 1, 360608-9746.

For more Visual arts listings, visit

BOOKS

MAY 6–12

= 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, MAY 6 Mary Louise Kelly

As a former correspondent for NPR, Mary Louise Kelly launched the intelligence beat, which covered war and terrorism and regularly reported on spy agencies such as the CIA and NSA. Kelly brings the same level of intrigue to her new novel, The Bullet, about a woman who mysteriously has a bullet removed from the base of her skull and finds her past crashing down around her. Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, 800-878-7323. 7 pm. Free.

and Our World, as he shares both new research from the Stanford School of Medicine and his own contemplations from years spent with the Dalai Lama.

So he’s got that going for him.

Kaul Auditorium at Reed College, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd. 2-5 pm. $10-$20.

The Bards Deluxe

Portland-based literary journal The Bear Deluxe, which fosters a cultural dialogue on environmental issues, recently hosted a poetry contest with winners selected by Oregon poet laureate Paulann Petersen and published in its current “Poetry of Place” edition.

The winning bards, Laura Dunn, Megan Freshley, Heidi Greenwald, Marj Hogan and Ross Robbins, will read their work. St. Johns Booksellers , 8622 N Lombard St., 283-0032. 3 pm. Free.

Steven Quartz

Go ahead and claim that your new smartwatch is a practical investment for your technologically driven life, but deep down you just want to be cool (by wearing a smartwatch?). Philosopher and neuroscientist Steven Quartz brings together new evidence in brain science, evolutionary biology and economics to offer a theory on consumerism and the social reasons behind our spending habits in his new book, Cool.

Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.

THURSDAY, MAY 7 Press Gang Release Party

Publishing collective Press Gang will celebrate the release of three new comics with one big party.

Farel Dalrymple will release the finale to his Eisner Awardnominated series with It Will All Hurt #3, Zack Soto will release Secret Voice #2 from his original comic series set in the underground troll kingdom, and Jason Leivian will present his comic writing debut with The Yankee #1, featuring artwork by Ian MacEwan.

Floating World Comics, 400 NW Couch St., 241-0227. 6-10 pm. Free.

Traci Leigh Taylor

After her son came out as gay at age 15, Traci Leigh Taylor spent the next four years conducting interviews with more than 50 LGBTQ individuals from across the country and around the world. The result is her new book, Voices From the Rainbow, which collects comingout stories, unsent letters and tales of love, heartbreak and redemption. Taylor will read from the book along with several contributors to offer us all a taste of the rainbow.

St. Johns Booksellers , 8622 N Lombard St., 283-0032. 7:30 pm.

Free.

SATURDAY, MAY 9 Thupten Jinpa

It’s easy to be skeptical of the self-help/self-improvement genre.

But when the person offering the advice is Thupten Jinpa, internationally respected thought scholar and longtime English translator for the Dalai Lama, you might want to listen up. Jinpa will speak for the presentation Fearlessness and Compassion: Cultivating the Courage to Transform Our Lives

MONDAY, MAY 11 Sassafras Lowrey

Reimagining the tale of Peter Pan from a queer punk perspective, Sassafras Lowrey’s new book, Lost Boi, parallels the struggle of belonging and purpose with the Lost Boys’ battle against growing up. Author and artist Cooper Lee Bombardier will join Lowrey in conversation about the book.

Powell’s on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 800-878-7323.

7:30 pm. Free.

TUESDAY, MAY 12 Tell It Slant Reading Series

Spiritual teachings tell us that it is the silence around the noise, the space between the form, where consciousness is truly found.

Cultivating that space in between the lines, the Tell It Slant reading series will curate an evening of writers and musicians for a night of “fourth genre” performance, blending literature, music and visual elements. Performing in the now will be Dao Strom (We Were Meant to be a Gentle People), musician and producer Adam Selzer, musician and poet Barry Brusseau, and writer Sidony O’Neal. Alberta Street Public House, 1036 NE Alberta St., 284-7665. 7:30-11 pm. $5 suggested donation.

Carlos Reyes

Portland poet, writer and improbably named Irish-American Carlos Reyes went in search of his ancestral roots in 1972 and wound up the owner of a 300-year-old stone cottage in western Ireland. Over the course of the following 40 years, Reyes found himself welcomed as family by the people of Letterkelly. His new book, The Keys to the Cottage: Stories From the West of Ireland, explores the life and history he discovered there. Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, 284-1726. 7 pm. Free.

For more Books listings, visit

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

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SATURDAY

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FOSTER THE PEOPLE

BEIRUT

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ALL AGES! TICKETS ON SALE NOW!

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

MUSICFESTNW.COM/TICKETS

FRIDAY

DAYS OF MUSIC

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AUGUST 21-23

MISTERWIVES MILO GREENE LOST LANDER

BELLE AND SEBASTIAN TWIN SHADOW BATTLES TITLE FIGHT CAYUCAS TALK IN TONGUES SALES ALIALUJAH CHOIR

THE TALLEST MAN ON EARTH DANNY BROWN THE HELIO SEQUENCE LADY LAMB STRAND OF OAKS PURE BATHING CULTURE DIVERS BEAT CONNECTION

May 6–12

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

Editor: ENID SPITZ. 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: espitz@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.

OPENING THIS WEEK Felix and Meira

rie that develops when a group of men is bound by a single, self-destructive compulsion. The Lusty Men eventually stumbles into a tragic finale that it hasn’t engaged us enough to earn, but it’s hard not to love something with Mitchum’s impossible face all over it. NR. CHRIS STAMM. Northwest Film Center.

B- Director Maxime Giroux plays it safe in this character study of a Hasidic woman’s un-Orthodox extramarital affair with a sad bachelor. The film stays on familiar emotional terrain, going just far enough to reach a bittersweet truth. We sadly discover that even great passion can’t liven up the ambivalent human heart. Giroux should have let the film thrive on this simple revelation. Instead, he couldn’t resist overreaching with melodramatic moments: a montage set to Leonard Cohen (“Famous Blue Raincoat,” if you must know), the blindingly obvious comparison of characters’ thoughts to a rat in a trap, and an unfortunate scene involving fake sidelocks. It’s all too much, but it will be interesting to see what Giroux can do when he gets out of his own way. R. CHRIS STAMM. Living Room Theaters.

B+ Nicholas Ray’s 1951 crime drama is a dark trip charged with masochistic energy and rife with bleak confessions.

Like Ray’s noirish 1950 masterpiece, In a Lonely Place, it takes the basic ingredients of a potboiler—a hardened New York City cop is sent upstate to investigate the murder of a young girl— and cooks it down until only despair remains. The redemptive conclusion is a cop-out. But it doesn’t matter, because all the dark wind-up already has viewers feeling properly battered and bruised. NR. CHRIS STAMM. Northwest Film Center.

Hot Pursuit

Welcome to Me

Screened after deadline. See wweek. com for Alex Falcone’s review. PG-13.

Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Cinetopia, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Theater.

In Country

A- For one weekend each year, a fictitious regiment of veterans, Portland brewmasters and high-school students convenes to relive one of America’s greatest failures. Director Mike Attie’s documentary explores why the Delta 2/5(R) company deprives itself of sleep, eats out of cans, and walks miles in the rain for this annual Vietnam re-enactment somewhere in a forest in rural Oregon. The soldiers shoot only blanks, but the film is a powerful mix of masochism, fantasy and therapy. Attie’s mix of no-frills, over-the-shoulder shots of the reenactment weekend with vintage Vietnam footage and fuzzy handycam material from the vets’ tours in Iraq and Afghanistan raises a lot of questions, and deftly offers some answers, about the underbelly of war. NR. TED JAMISON. Living Room Theaters.

Lambert & Stamp

B+ Life comes at you fast. One day you’re an assistant director at Shepperton Film Studios. Then you’re managing a band smashing guitars in sold-out stadiums. Then the band is suing you, and your co-manager is too busy riding a white pony around his Venetian palazzo to help. Lambert & Stamp, a documentary about Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, managers of the Who, has enough drama for several episodes of Behind the Music.

But it offers something much deeper: authenticity. We follow Stamp and Lambert from when they first stumbled on the Who in London’s Mod scene to their bitter separation under charges of mismanagement. There’s enough archival footage to almost make up for the absence of three principal figures (Kit Lambert, drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle all passed away too early). What you have is a story about how a band of unphotogenic people who didn’t like each other, managed by people who had no idea what they were doing and no money, came to be one of the defining rock-and-roll acts of the 20th century. R. JOHN LOCANTHI. Fox Tower.

The Lusty Men

B+ One of two 1952 films directed

by Nicholas Ray, The Lusty Men stars Robert Mitchum and Arthur Kennedy as a pair of saddle tramps entrenched in the glory and heartbreak (and legbreak and ribbreak and neckbreak) of the rodeo. It doesn’t quite measure up to Ray’s best work, but the film’s long middle stretch offers a compelling and even touching portrait of the homosocial tensions and prickly camarade-

On Dangerous Ground

surprisingly modern. Supernaturally ageless Adaline Bowman (Blake Lively) starts by picking up secretidentity paperwork and heading to a lair in San Francisco’s Chinatown.

Though the wisp of a plot could never achieve the epic romance trailers promise, this is the nearest chick flicks have come to the superhero blueprint.

Adaline doesn’t fight her way out of trouble but dominates through unerring good taste and a particular set of skills (like conversational Portuguese).

Her foes, beyond the government agents following her, are all overeager suitors until Ellis Jones (Michiel Huisman) wins her over. Their love is pleasant, if pointless, until a weekend trip to meet Ellis’ parents brings Adaline face to face with an old beau (Harrison Ford), who happens to be her new beau’s father. This is typical 20th-century cinema, and the charac-

ter of Adaline isn’t especially rewarding either. Over the century, shouldn’t she have developed more than a large wardrobe and a flair for Trivial Pursuit?

The film follows the familiar practice of putting an impossibly glamorous gloss on workaday banality its audience can recognize. It’s a shame that she didn’t have more of a life, but, as the younger Ford muses, who does?

PG-13. JAY HORTON. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Cinetopia, Living Room Theaters, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron

A- If you loved The Avengers: You’ll squee all over yourself each time a familiar character appears. You’ll be slightly annoyed whenever Joss Whedon takes liberties with the canon, but you’ll forgive him because,

’71

D Behind Enemy Lines, as seen through the eyes of an abandoned British soldier in the midst of the Troubles of 1971 Belfast. Despite myriad explosions, onscreen deaths, and visceral emotional stereotypes associated with action thrillers, ’71’s excellent pacing and a well-crafted, character-driven plot manage to evoke comparisons to films like Scorsese’s Departed. It’s an accomplishment that shows tremendous respect for its subject. R. PARKER HALL. Academy, Laurelhurst Theater.

Adult Beginners

C- We meet Nick Kroll’s Jake, a Manhattan tech financier, as he bleeds friends to fund his doomed product launch. The film quickly downslides into a pity party for the newly jobless, friendless Jake. He’s forced back to his family’s New York mansion, with his estranged sister (Rose Byrne), adorably hunky brother-in-law (Bobby Cannavale), and their neglected toddler. Kroll feels forced into the role, too. His gross miscasting as Adult Beginners’ loathsome, miserable protagonist takes down the film. Some bits of humor do fly, and Kroll handles his sitcom-like scenes with satisfying familiarity, but an effervescent Joel McHale as Jake’s buoyant cokehead chum gives Adult Beginners its actual life. R. JAY HORTON. Living Room Theaters.

The Age of Adaline

B For such a determinedly backwardleaning film, The Age of Adaline is

CONT. on page 48

REVIEW

B- Kristen Wiig proves her relatable allure and comedic timing once again, hypnotizing us as Alice Klieg, an Oprah fanatic with borderline personality disorder who wins the lottery.

Empowered with a “new life,” Alice stops taking her meds and is “managing her moods with a high-protein lifestyle.” Her dream is to host a two-hour talk show with no theme but herself, and she finds a failing TV station to agree. Segments include five minutes of Alice eating meatloaf made to look like birthday cake and a re-enactment of her college friend’s betrayal, which closes with the credits rolling over Alice as she bawls, “Fuck you to death, Jordana!” At first, director Shira Piven’s pacing is refreshing, challenging us to face our own stereotypes about money and mental health. But writer Eliot Lawrence’s increasingly uncomplicated plot line falls flat compared to the magnetic strangeness of Wiig’s character. You’re left not caring about her relationship with Gabe or whether she’s being a bad friend to Gina; like the fans of her show, we just want to see what Alice does next. R. LAUREN TERRY. Kiggins Theatre, Cinema 21.

STILL SHOWING

man, everything looks so cool! You’ll love the portrayal of Ultron from the ramshackle first appearance to the smooth and witty version with even more personality than in the comics.

It’s so much fun! C+ But…if you got dragged to the movie: Buckle up, it’s gonna be a long ride. Between giant, smashy fights, each of the 2,000 characters gets a dark past, a love story, a moment of self doubt, and a separate resolution. It takes a while.

Whedon also decided now would be a good time to add even more Avengers. In between, there’s lots of fighting. Sometimes it’s exciting, but too often it’s just two indestructible characters bashing each other into stuff. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Pioneer Place, City Center, CineMagic, Lloyd Center, Bagdad, Bridgeport, Movies on

H I L A R Y B R O N W Y N G AY L E

MOVIES

BaNaNa BOaT: James Marsden and Jack Black.

THE D TRAIN JACK BLACK AND JAMES MARSDEN HOOK UP FOR THEIR HIGH-SCHOOL REUNION. High-school reunions are a golden opportunity to meet old friends, wax nostalgic and show the popular kids that you’re totally not a loser anymore. This is by no means a new trope. The D Train surprisingly finds a new angle on it. But once the film has Jack Black and James Marsden making out, it’s not sure where to go.

Dan Landsman (Jack Black) is an alumni committee chairman trying to round up the class of ’94 for its 20th reunion. He wasn’t popular. He puts on hip airs—using faux slang that would make Diablo Cody blush—but none of the former classmates he calls can remember him. Even the rest of the committee makes fun of him.

But Dan gets an epiphany late one night when he sees a Banana Boat commercial. He’s going to bring the star of that commercial, the coolest kid in the class of ’94, to the reunion. By roping in Oliver Lawless (James Marsden), Dan is convinced he’ll finally earn the acceptance he has craved for 20 years.

So Dan swindles his laughably analog boss (Jeffrey Tambor) into approving a business trip to L.A.

to sweet-talk Lawless. And then he fucks him. Or is fucked by him. There’s a lot of gray area here, which directors Andrew Mogel and Jarrad Paul mine for both rape jokes and a jilted-lover storyline. Either way, it was a mistake. The chain-smoking, cokesnorting Lawless agrees to fly out to the reunion and stay with Dan, his wife and his teenage son in their suburban Pittsburgh home.

To The D Train’s credit, it rarely ventures into outright homophobia. Lawless eschews labels like “gay” or “bi.” He’s just a guy who everyone wants to sleep with and is usually more than willing to oblige.

“I could’ve fucked either of you guys this weekend, but I didn’t,” Lawless tells some former classmates.

The film is just as lawless. Marsden and Black frequently get fucked up, sneaking off to snort coke. Dan’s fake business trip fucks up his business.

It fucks up his family: His son’s girlfriend tries to finagle a threesome. With so much going on, The D Train can’t tie it all together. The ill-fitting ’80s soundtrack doesn’t help.

Maybe there’s no way to pull it off. Instead of trying to make something meaningful out of its mound of plot material, The D Train retreats into the warm embrace of cheap laughs. It’s an odd film that mostly exists to show Jack Black make out with James Marsden. JOHN LOCANTHI. C SEE IT: The D Train is rated R. It opens Friday at Fox Tower, Clackamas, Lloyd Center, Cedar Hills and Bridgeport.

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MAY 6–12

TV, St. Johns Cinemas, City Center, Clackamas, Cedar Hills.

Birdman

B- If Birdman’s message is that Hollywood a place of debased, greed-driven entertainment, Alejandro González Iñárritu doesn’t make a convincing—or even amusingly satirical—argument. R .

REBECCA JACOBSON . Laurelhurst.

Black Souls

B Ancestral passions run deep as a trio of Calabrian mobster brothers—a fi ghter, a thinker and a melancholic farmer—undertake a longstanding vendetta with a rival mafi oso. Veering away from the caricature of mafi a men as just ruthless, overly passionate pasta lovers, director Francesco Munzi’s dark Italian drama meanders through the catacombs of a family with a shared history but deeply divided present. The fi lm juxtaposes the eldest brother’s choice to raise goats and make wine in their withering ancestral enclave with his brothers’ contemporary lives in posh Milan, surrounded by leather jackets and ravishing women. This melancholy plot exposes suppressed emotions and social stagnation in rural Italy, where crime is the only way for peasants to become kings, and trust is hard to come by. NR. PARKER HALL. Cinema 21.

B+ “My work is my life’s reason,” says king of couture Christian Dior in this decadent look at the work—or work of art—that is high fashion. From the introduction of House of Dior’s new creative director, Raf Simons, to its crowning spring fashion show, the fi lm does not suggest a debate in the signifi cance of fashion; it shows it.

Dior was only with his eponymous house for 10 years, but in that time he grew haute couture from a trivial seed after the war into a validated art form. Seamstresses even say they can still feel his presence inspecting their work.

Director Frédéric Tcheng reveals the behind-the-seams brainstorming, fabric cutting, and copious amounts of coff ee people endure to see a single clothing line produced. It’s a world made tangible with inspiration from tropical

gardens, a woman’s silhouette, paintings by the “gangster Rothko,” and a romantic notion of old mixed with new. Dior and I successfully shows us a dress and makes us see a people’s life reason. NR. KATE PEIFER. Fox Tower.

Ex Machina

B- Frankenstein’s monster is easy on the eyes in Ex Machina, a sexualized science-fiction movie that comes right out and addresses what many of its forebears merely danced around: that robots will eventually be hot, and attraction is inevitable. Alex Garland’s tale of a coder named Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), whisked away by his genius boss (Oscar Isaac) for a topsecret project, is familiar. But we’re enticed enough to follow along anyway. R. MICHAEL NORDINE.

REVIEW JOANNA BOLME

MOVIES

Chappie

B- Essentially a mashup of Short Circuit, Robocop and assorted direct-to-video action films from the ’80s. It’s all to say that Chappie is pretty fucking stupid. But if you lower your expectations, it’s also kind of a blast. R. AP KRYZA. Avalon, Vancouver.

Cinderella

D+ Kenneth Branagh’s tiresome

live-action retcon of Cinderella, PG. JOHN LOCANTHI . Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Empirical, Bridgeport, Movies on TV.

Clouds of Sils Maria

DISH PG. 26

B- Directed by Olivier Assayas (Paris, je t’aime), this meta-narrative about an immensely talented, and uncomfortably aging, actress named Maria is as foggy as its titular clouds. Juliet Binoche as Maria and the ineffably relaxed Kristen Stewart as her savvy assistant, Valentine, wax philosophical and run lines for Maria’s next role, a new part in a revival of a lesbian relationship drama that once made her famous. With a modern Hollywood starlet (Chloë Grace Moretz) shining in Maria’s original role, Maria grapples with her waning fame. The film gets lost in laborious self-study at times.

You can only watch two women talk about lesbian undertones in a romantic chalet, oblivious to the ones in their own lives, for so long. But it’s saved by the refreshingly tantalizing experience of watching these three women play the film’s key roles as bizarro versions of themselves. R. KELLY MCCRILLIS. Living Room Theaters.

Danny Collins

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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

B This simultaneously hackneyed and likable rock-’n’-roll redemption tale follows Al Pacino as Danny, a music celebrity who, 40 years after the fact, discovers John Lennon wrote him a letter telling him to stay true to his art. Danny is living high on his own legacy, performing greatest hits for the AARP demo, when the belated arrival of Lennon’s letter sends him to a sleepy New Jersey Hilton where he hopes finally to connect with his neglected son Tom (Bobby Cannavale). Pacino has verged on self-parody in recent decades, but he turns Danny’s showmanship into a character trait, a reflexive instinct to connect with and charm everyone he meets, from entire concert halls to gobsmacked parking valets.

Pacino makes even the shortest moment of banter feel genuine, true to his art. R. SEAN AXMAKER. Movies on TV.

Dior and I

XO: Elliott Smith.

HEAVEN ADORES YOU The title is wrong. It sounds like a soft-focus TV movie about an angel who dreams of being a runway model. But Heaven Adores You is the most complete, least icky attempt to date at telling the story of late singer-songwriter Elliott Smith.

The film gratefully leaves did-he-or-didn’t-he questions to Internet message boards and spares us the usual rock-doc pitfalls: the attention-grabbing celebrity cameos, the bawling teen fans who weren’t even born before Smith passed, and the pissing contests over which superfan loved Either/Or the most.

We get meditative, straightforward accounts of what it was like to be Smith’s friend, his contemporary, or his bandmate. There are many Portlanders, such as bandmate Tony Lash and Jackpot Studios’ Larry Crane, who seem relaxed in their interviews and fully trusting of director Nickolas Rossi. Rossi is, in turn, patient enough to tell Smith’s story more fully than anyone has yet.

If anything, Rossi’s film offers too much: We hear from some dude who danced in some Heatmiser video, the pudgy New York bar owner who served Smith drinks, the teary-eyed ex-guitar tech who makes an unfortunate John Lennon comparison. But the filmmakers keep it poignant without feeling trite or sentimental.

Again, the name is wrong.

Maybe it should be called Elliott and Portland? The film is mostly long shots of our bridges and tree-lined streets during telling audio clips from Smith’s public-radio appearances. It feels like Smith’s spirit has somehow seeped into the sidewalks, train tracks, and freeway overpasses of his magical, adopted city. There are, needless to say, no shots of the new construction on Southeast Division. Smith would probably find the street he sang about unrecognizable now.

Heaven Adores You cuts through the Elliott Smith mythology to remind viewers that it took a lot of money, hard-working hired hands, and dedicated friends to make Steven Paul Smith into Elliott. And shit, it didn’t turn out too great. CASEY JARMAN. Elliott Smith’s story told by his Portland compatriots.

A- SEE IT: Heaven Adores You opens Thursday, May 7, at the Mission and Clinton Street theaters.

MAY 6–12 Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Hollywood Theatre, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV.

Fifty Shades of Grey

D Fifty Shades turns what was supposed to be a torrid aff air into an overly serious episode of Beverly Hills 90210 with some timid softcore erotica thrown in. R . JOHN LOCANTHI . Academy, Eastport, Kennedy School, Valley.

Focus

B- Great con-man movies—a subgenre old as cinema itself—strike a diffi cult balance between breezy capers and deeper examinations of character motives. Focus hits most of the right notes. It’s a picture that’s light on its feet and mostly forgettable, but it still manages moments of intrigue. R . AP KRYZA .

Kennedy School, Mission Theater, Vancouver.

Furious 7

A- Furious 7’s action and ridicu-

lousness make it perhaps the best yet. Its tribute to Paul Walker, who tragically died (in a high-speed car wreck) before the film wrapped makes it one of the most affecting movies about things exploding ever made. The central chase scene is frantic and ludicrous and Dwayne “The Rock” Robinson flexes his sinewy biceps so hard that he breaks a goddamned plaster cast. This time, the team takes on terrorists and Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), PG-13. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Bridgeport, Division, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV.

Get Hard

C+ Get Hard is a movie about a rich white guy hiring a poor black guy to get him ready for a stint in prison. R. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Clackamas, Division, Movies on TV.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

of this too hard. The fi lm is essentially one long fi ght with occasional changes of scenery. PG-13 . JOHN LOCANTHI . Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Bridgeport, City Center, Fox Tower, Movies on TV.

It Follows

A- When your guard is lowered,

something truly terrifying like It Follows can burrow into your psyche. We meet Jay (Maika Monroe), a normal 19-year-old girl falling for dreamboat Hugh (Jake Weary). Following their fi rst sexual encounter, Jay awakens in an abandoned warehouse, bound to a wheelchair. That’s when Hugh lays it all out: When they had sex, he passed along a curse. Until she sleeps with somebody else, she will be followed by a malicious force. For most of the movie, you’ll be too nervous to think about allegories—and too busy looking over your shoulder. R . AP KRYZA. Hollywood, Clackamas, Living Room Theaters.

Jupiter Ascending

B A wholly illogical fairy-tale denouement that leaves little expectation of sequels. PG-13 . JAY HORTON . Vancouver, Valley.

Kingsman: The Secret Service

A- Remember when spy movies were fun? Kingsman: The Secret Service does. R .

Academy, Clackamas, Laurelhurst, Bridgeport, Valley, Movies on TV.

Kumiko: The Treasure Hunter

B+ A lost soul in Tokyo who takes

her fascination with Fargo to dangerous extremes. She sets off to unearth Fargo’s fictional buried treasure. In a lesser film, Kimiko’s innocence and her bunny, Bunzo, could easily devolve into the precious but

MOVIES

hollow quirks typical of indie features. But the trajectory of Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter is too tragic for precociousness or to inspire much laughter. NR. MICHAEL NORDINE. Living Room Theaters.

Little Boy

B- This home-front family drama of friendship and faith from Roma Downey and Mark Burnett (The Bible and Son of God) is set in a Norman Rockwell-style 1940s California seaside where 8-yearold Pepper (Jakob Salvati) misses his dad (Michael Rapaport), a POW being held by the Japanese. So: The earnest, comic-book-crazy kid takes Bible parables literally, inspires the townsfolk and makes everyone believe in miracles. Oh, and Little Boy also overcomes racism. It’s biggest fault is how—like so many religious dramas—it rewards innocent faith with miracles. But Little Boy does wear its halo lightly, forgoing sermons, which is great for secular audiences who, rather than movies strewn with sex and foul language, may prefer nostalgia and heartwarming affirmation.

PG-13. SEAN AXMAKER. Clackamas, Bridgeport.

The Longest Ride

D+ Bullriding champ Luke (Scott Eastwood) and budding art gallery intern Sophia (Britt Robertson) take handheld strolls across North Carolina resortland. This is not Mr. Sparks’ first rodeo. PG-13. JAY HORTON. Clackamas, Bridgeport, Division, Movies on TV.

Man From Reno

B Dave Boyle’s bilingual neo-noir, completed with Kickstarter assistance, burns so slowly in its first act

CONT. on page 50

VAN SANT SERIES C O U R T E S Y O F F I N E L I N E F E AT U R E S

A- Writer-director Ana Lily

Amirpour’s A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is an eclectic cinematic mishmash: an Iranian noir-spaghetti Western-love story…with vampires.

And yet, somehow, it all works. For all its spaghetti Western flourishes, this is a quiet film about loneliness at heart. The minimal dialogue and an understated romance leave the viewer with something rare: a movie quiet enough you can soak in the imagery and be bowled over by the propulsive score. NR. JOHN LOCANTHI. Academy, Laurelhurst.

Home

A technicolor extraterrestrial descends to Earth. Children learn acceptance of all critters, no matter their gummy-bear hue. It’s basically Up, with more tech specs and less soul. PG. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Theater.

The Imitation Game

B As geniuses often are, British

mathematician Alan Turing was an odd duck. Turing pioneered the field of computer science and helped crack Nazi codes. And there’s something to be said for a drama as sturdy and watchable as The Imitation Game. With a story this compelling and a cast this good, it’s difficult not to play along. PG13. Academy, Laurelhurst, Mission Theater, Joy, Valley.

Insurgent

C- A dumb action movie, except

with the traditional gender roles reversed. The second fi lm in this series picks up where the fi rst left off : Our hero, Tris (Shailene Woodley), is still reeling from the death of her mother (Ashley Judd), the destruction of her mother’s faction and the near annihilation of her own faction at the hands of Jeanine (Kate Winslet). Tris has an aptitude for multiple factions and is therefore “divergent,” which is bad. It’s best not to think about any

THE COMING OF THE WHITE MAN: Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix.

Avengers: Age Of Ultron (XD-3D) (PG-13) 11:30AM 3:15PM 7:00PM 10:25PM It Follows (R) 11:50AM 2:35PM 5:15PM 7:50PM 10:10PM Kingsman: The Secret Service (R) 12:40PM 7:05PM Hot Pursuit (PG-13) 11:45AM 2:10PM 4:35PM 7:05PM 9:25PM Unfriended (R) 11:00AM 1:20PM 3:40PM 6:00PM 8:20PM 10:45PM Home (PG) 11:25AM 1:55PM 4:25PM 7:00PM 9:35PM Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (PG) 12:20PM 2:55PM 5:25PM 7:55PM 10:30PM The D Train (R) 11:55AM 2:40PM 5:20PM 8:00PM 10:40PM Monkey Kingdom (G) 10:50AM 1:10PM 3:30PM 5:50PM 8:10PM 10:30PM Little Boy (PG-13) 11:05AM 1:50PM 4:30PM 7:15PM 9:55PM Longest Ride, The (PG-13) 10:40AM 1:40PM 4:40PM 7:40PM 10:40PM

MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO

Monkey Kingdom (G) 10:55AM 1:10PM 3:25PM

Why it’s Portlandy: What’s not Portlandy about a collective fever dream of eating Chinese noodles at Lamthong on Broadway (RIP) with a narcoleptic prostitute and Pre-Raphaelite Keanu Reeves? Before it was cool.

Woman In Gold (PG-13) 11:05AM 1:45PM 4:25PM 7:05PM

Falsetto’s notes: “The sexual energies and longings of these lost characters, as well as their search for home and family, are what make this a document of its era. River Phoenix’s performance is thoroughly lived, reminiscent of James Dean’s in the ’50s.”

Van Sant said: “There was a certain kind of recklessness that [River Phoenix] couldn’t overcome. I mean, you can be a drug addict for 60 years, and I’ve known them. Something happens and goes wrong. It’s death by misadventure.”

Best quote from the movie: “Scott? I just know that I have been on this road before.”

SEE IT: My Own Private Idaho plays at NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park Ave., on Thursday, May 7.

7 pm. $9.

Avengers: Age Of Ultron (3D) (PG-13) 12:00PM 12:00PM ® 3:45PM 3:45PM ® 5:30PM 7:30PM 7:30PM ® 10:50PM 10:50PM ® Avengers: Age Of Ultron (PG-13) 10:45AM 1:15PM 1:45PM 2:30PM 5:00PM 6:15PM 8:30PM 9:15PM 10:00PM Avengers: Age Of Ultron (PG-13) 10:45AM ® 2:30PM ® 6:15PM ® 10:00PM ® Get Hard (R) 12:05PM 2:45PM 5:10PM 7:45PM 10:20PM Age Of Adaline, The (PG-13) 10:40AM 1:45PM 4:30PM 7:25PM 10:20PM Ex Machina (R) 11:05AM 1:50PM 4:35PM 7:20PM 10:05PM Furious 7 (PG-13) 12:40PM 3:55PM 7:10PM 10:25PM Divergent Series: Insurgent, The (PG-13) 3:50PM 10:15PM Cinderella (2015) (PG) 10:40AM 1:30PM 4:20PM 7:10PM 10:00PM

10:30PM

Avengers: Age Of Ultron (3D) (PG-13) 10:00AM 11:20AM 12:00PM 1:20PM 2:40PM 4:40PM 6:00PM 8:00PM 10:00PM Age Of Adaline, The (PG-13) 11:00AM 1:45PM 4:30PM 7:15PM 10:00PM Home (PG) 12:05PM 2:35PM 5:05PM 7:35PM 10:05PM Avengers: Age Of Ultron (PG-13) 10:40AM 12:40PM 2:00PM 3:20PM 4:00PM 5:20PM 6:40PM 7:20PM 8:40PM 9:20PM 10:35PM Furious 7 (PG-13) 10:00AM 1:10PM 4:20PM 7:30PM 10:40PM Ex Machina (R) 11:15AM 2:00PM 4:45PM 7:30PM 10:15PM Cinderella (2015) (PG) 11:05AM 1:50PM 4:35PM 7:20PM 10:05PM

Home (PG) 11:35AM 2:10PM 4:40PM 7:20PM 9:55PM

Avengers: Age Of Ultron (3D) (PG-13) 11:00AM 12:15PM

Get Hard (R) 12:20PM 2:50PM 5:20PM 7:50PM 10:20PM

1:45PM 3:15PM 4:45PM 6:15PM 7:45PM 9:15PM 10:30PM

Unfriended (R) 11:15AM 1:30PM 3:45PM 6:00PM 8:15PM

Age Of Adaline, The (PG-13) 11:10AM 1:55PM 4:40PM

10:30PM

7:45PM 10:30PM

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (PG) 12:45PM 3:10PM 5:35PM

Furious 7 (PG-13) 12:35PM 3:55PM 7:15PM 10:35PM

8:00PM 10:25PM

Divergent Series: Insurgent, The (PG-13) 11:05AM

Monkey Kingdom (G) 12:20PM 2:35PM 4:50PM 7:05PM

1:55PM 4:45PM 7:35PM 10:25PM

9:20PM

Cinderella (2015) (PG) 11:00AM 1:55PM 4:40PM 7:25PM

Hot Pursuit (PG-13) 12:10PM 2:40PM 5:10PM 7:40PM

10:10PM

10:10PM

Avengers: Age Of Ultron (PG-13) 11:30AM 1:00PM

Hot Pursuit (PG-13) 10:00AM 12:20PM 2:45PM 5:15PM 7:35PM 10:00PM 9:45PM Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2 (PG) 10:00 AM 12:25 PM 2:50 PM 5:15 PM 7:40 PM 10:05 PM While We’re Young (R) 5:45PM 8:15PM 10:40PM Uttama Villain (Tamil) (NR) 10:15AM 2:00PM 5:45PM 9:30PM The D Train (R) 10:00AM 12:30PM 3:00PM 5:30PM 8:00PM

Ex Machina (R) 11:05AM 1:50PM 4:35PM 7:30PM 10:20PM

2:30PM 4:00PM 5:30PM 7:00PM 8:30PM 10:00PM

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MAY 6–12

that it threatens to go out altogether, but Man From Reno rewards patience with its subtly skewed take on familiar narrative conventions. Depressed mystery writer Aki Akahori (Ayako Fujitani) bails on her career to nurse her sadness in San Francisco, where a dalliance with a handsome stranger implicates her in a missing-person case being investigated by local sheriff Paul Del Moral (veteran character actor Pepe Serna). Boyle doles out the ensuing feints and revelations with a sure hand, and even though the surprises aren’t all that surprising, it’s fun being guided through them by a pro.

NR. CHRIS STAMM. Fox Tower.

McFarland

Having previously assisted underdog baseball and football teams, Kevin Costner now coaches an underdog 1980s track team. There are ethical epiphanies about race relations and being true to oneself. PG. Avalon Theatre, Kennedy School, Mission, Valley, Vancouver.

Monkey Kingdom

Baby monkeys actually look like a fetal Bruce Jenner, but we still love letting these critters to swing from our heartstrings. PG. Eastport, Clackamas, Bridgeport, Fox Tower, Movies on TV.

Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2

Kevin James takes his daughter to Vegas and saves the world on a Segway. PG. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place.

The Salt of the Earth

B Sebastiao Salgado’s still photos are more alive than most moving pictures.

The UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador honed in on Indian coffee harvesters and Brazilian gold miners, and now The Salt of the Earth follows the economist-turned-photographer to Africa.

His equally beautiful and disturbing photographs do their job on the bigscreen, holding a magnifying glass that isn’t too sentimental to the massive scope of our social and ecological responsibility. NR. KATHRYN PEIFER. Fox Tower.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

B Old people . PG . JOHN LOCANTHI .

Academy, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst.

Song of the Sea

Saoirse, the last Selkie seal-child of Ireland, frees lovable creatures from a Celtic curse in this mystical fable from Academy Award-nominated Tomm Moore (The Secret of Kells).

PG . Academy, Empirical, Hollywood.

Still Alice

A- Still Alice charts a linguistics professor’s descent into early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. The fi lm is somewhat hampered by an overly dramatic score and a few lackluster performances, though Kristen Stewart’s work as Alice’s free-spirited daughter is a refreshing turn for the usually stoic Julianne Moore. PG-13 . BLAIR STENVICK . Laurelhurst Theater.

True Story

B- Disgraced New York Times reporter Michael Finkel (Jonah Hill) gets a shot at redemption in this true story based on his 2005 book.

Jobless after fabricating the subject of a cover story for newspaper’s Sunday magazine, Mike is back in Montana with his girlfriend (Felicity Jones, The Theory of Everything) when news breaks that wanted Oregon murderer Christian Longo (James Franco) was using his name when he was arrested in Mexico for killing his wife and three kids. Mike hopes to exploit the scoop to make a comeback. Hill has a knack for portraying earnest, awkward characters (in The Wolf of Wall Street and Jump Street movies). But as Mike lectures Chris, he falls back on the secondhand tropes of a desperate journalist. The language feels right, but it isn’t original. Meanwhile, Franco gives the superior, quieter performance.

This rather pat and schematic movie drags toward Chris’ trial and betrayal of Mike, and Mike keeps insist-

50

ing on getting his “second chance,” making you wish the movie weren’t so aligned with that dubious goal. R. BRIAN MILLER. Academy, Laurelhurst, City Center, Fox Tower.

Unfriended

B Unfriended ingeniously reboots

the tired, teen horror genre, employing a daunting menu of low-fi horror strategies to make fear incarnate in an uncloseable browser window. A group of frenemies virtually hanging out gets an uninvited guest using the screen name of a deceased classmate, Laura, who committed suicide after an anonymously posted video exposed her drunken misadventures. The plot line is nothing new, but a stock story and characters—the usual Bitch, Jock, Slut, Gamer—give director Leo Gabriadze and screenwriter Nelson Greaves more room to pile on the horrifying trickery and play on our digital anxieties.

It’s a damn effective way of hacking depth, so maybe you can teach an old medium new tricks. R. JAY HORTON. Clackamas, Division, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place.

better to just let things go. R . JOHN LOCANTHI. Living Room Theaters .

The Wisdom Tree

D From the opening quotations from the Upanishads and theoretical physicists, the film follows the quest of idealistic, sitar-strumming Dr. Tisha Rao (Sheetal Sheth) to revive brain-dead Steve (Patrick Alparone) and elevate the world’s collective consciousness.

Unfortunately, this involves actors staring glassy-eyed toward distant horizons, gesturing at whiteboards strewn with incomprehensible scrib-

bles, and embarking on strangely expressionless conversations filled with cheesy dialogue: “I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and I’ve seen a lot of brains!” The film may strain for metaphysical revelations, but it is ultimately as brain-dead as its protagonist. NR. IAN CLARK. Fox Tower.

Woman in Gold

C+ Holocaust escapee Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) and her lawyer nephew Randol (Ryan Reynolds) take the Austrian government to court to reclaim a painting of Altmann’s aunt

that the family commissioned from Gustav Klimt. It was stolen by Nazi art thieves (Nazis are the worst!).

Mirren proves yet again she could play a toaster and still entertain.

Unfortunately, director Simon Curtis sucks out any emotion or shine. R. Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Fox Tower.

For more Movie listings, visit

AP FILM STUDIES COURTESY OTTO PREMINGER FILMS

MOVIES

The Water Diviner

D+ Actor-musician Russell Crowe adds another tragic hyphen to the CV with his feature directorial debut, a dumb and overwrought mess that aims for the heart with a sledgehammer. And misses. Repeatedly. For two long hours. Crowe stars (of course) as Joshua Connor, a recently widowed water diviner (not just a poetic title!) who treks to Turkey to retrieve the remains of his three dead (or are they?) sons from the World War I battleground of Gallipoli. This gives Crowe the rare Acting Opportunity to look sad while courting the most beautiful hotelier in Istanbul. He gets the girl. We get nothing. R. CHRIS STAMM. Bridgeport, Fox Tower.

What We Do in the Shadows

B+ The last thing pop culture needs

is another vampire fl ick. The secondto-last is more reality TV. Leave it to a pack of Kiwis—including Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords fame—to give us both and somehow make vampires and reality TV feel fresh. JOHN LOCANTHI . Cinema 21.

While We’re Young

A- This Gen-X midlife-crisis movie is a career-best comedy for both Ben Stiller and Noah Baumbach. Filmmaker Josh (Stiller) and producer wife Cornelia (Naomi Watts) are stalled in careers and marriage. More than a generational clash, this is a satire of an entire class of narcissists (the director included). R. BRIAN MILLER. Cinema 21, Hollywood, Bridgeport, City Center.

White God

C The revolution is televised in Kornél Mundruczó’s White God. And it’s adorable. The film is an immigration allegory in the guise of a story about a girl and her dog. Pup Hagen is loathed by the Hungarian authorities and his nosy neighbors because he’s mixedbreed. When Lili’s father makes her get rid of her pet, Hagen is cast out among unsavory characters on the streets and Lili sets off to reclaim him.

What starts as low-key, even neorealist storytelling turns into something far more fantastical by film’s end, when all the mutts and strays confined to the pound liberate themselves and descend upon the city. Presumably meant to be hard-hitting, it’s mostly just cute—these impressive canines deserve a better master R. MICHAEL NORDINE. R. Kiggins Theatre.

Wild

A- Reese Witherspoon takes a walk.

R. Academy, Laurelhurst, Joy, Valley.

Wild Tales

B+ Don’t let the dark subject matter fool you: Director Damián Szifron mines the humor out of all six stories in Wild Tales. He fi nds the smirk in a chef suggesting rat poison and even squeezes a few laughs out of a millionaire’s attempts to buy his drunken-driving son’s way out of prison after he kills a pregnant woman. The fi lm even has an Aesopian moral: Sometimes it’s

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

GOLDEN ERA: The Man With the Golden Arm plays Friday, May 8, at 5th Avenue Cinema.

MEANWHILE, IN PORTLAND KUNG FU LEGENDS, TV CULT CLASSICS AND EVEN MORE ARNOLD.

The Laurelhurst’s monthlong series of classic adventures by old-school auteurs continues with John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre. Laurelhurst Theater. May 8-14.

BY A P KRYZA

Frank Sinatra was, by all accounts, many things, among them a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king. He was also a pretty fantastic actor.

And if his appearance in Cannonball Run II doesn’t prove it, then his work as a heroin addict struggling to stay clean in Otto Preminger’s often overlooked The Man With the Golden Arm certainly will. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7:30 pm Friday, May 8.

apkryza@wweek.com

Editor’s note: AP Kryza has once again disappeared, leaving behind only a cryptic Google search history.

We’re still trying to ascertain his whereabouts from phrases such as “Swayze etymology,” “Doritos puree,” “sprundlecroft” and “rhymes with meconium.” In the meantime, a carrier pigeon did deliver his roundup of what’s playing on Portland’s indie screens.

ALSO SHOWING: The Room makes a leap from Cinema 21 to the multiplex, marking a rare opportunity to see those steamy Tommy Wiseau sex scenes in digital HD. Century Clackamas Town Center. 8 pm Wednesday, May 6.

John Carpenter’s classic redneck truckers vs. ancient Chinese mystics yarn, Big Trouble in Little China, gets a giant-screen revival to showcase all its goofy, over-the-top, culturally insensitive mayhem in all its mulleted glory. Century Clackamas Town Center. 2 and 7 pm Wednesday, May 6.

Cartopia’s Night Movies continues with Twin Peaks season one, featuring Agent Dale Cooper’s first fever dream and an introduction to the Bookhouse Boys. Though probably unintentional, it must be said: What sick bastard would screen Twin Peaks where the late Whiffies used to sell those damn fine fried pies? Cartopia. Dusk Sunday, May 10.

Every director hits a rut at some point. But considering that Wes Anderson’s weakest effort is the heartfelt and incredibly weird The Darjeeling Limited, it’s safe to say that sometimes, one artist’s slump is still better than many of his contemporaries’ best work.

5th Avenue Cinema. 7 and 9 pm Friday-Saturday and 3 pm Sunday, May 8-10.

In light of thawing relations between Cuba and the U.S., Church of Film is showcasing the works of Cuban filmmakers Santiago Álvarez and Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, including Cold War-era documentaries and Alea’s acclaimed sociopolitical drama Memories of Underdevelopment. North Star Ballroom. 8 pm Wednesday, May 6.

If the Hollywood simply unspooled a rare 35 mm print of the 1975 martial arts classic The Man From Hong Kong, it would be reason to celebrate. But, ever the overachievers, the programmers managed to book Brian Trenchard-Smith, the cult director behind the mayhem. He’s also the auteur behind BMX Bandits, which he’d probably prefer to forget. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, May 12.

The Human Rights Campaigns Equality Film Series presents Edie & Thea: A Very Long Engagement, the story of the 42-year relationship between a pair of lesbian activists spanning from the early ’60s to their wedding day. Concessions from Sweet Cakes by Melissa will not be served. Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Thursday, May 7.

This summer, Terminator: Genysis will attempt once again to reboot the franchise, this time by recreating the events of James Cameron’s 1984 classic with new twists. A better bet would be just to watch the digitally restored original. Hollywood Theatre.

May 8-12.

MOVIES

courTeSy oF MMM FilM

may 8–14

LET’S HAVE A LOOK: Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Filmed Look at Breasts and Vulvas plays May 11-12 at the Clinton Street Theater.

Regal Division Street Stadium 13

St. Johns Cinemas

16603 SE Division St. HOT PURSUIT Fri 12:15, 02:35, 05:00, 07:20, 09:45 maD maX: FURy ROaD maD maX: FURy ROaD 3D PITCH PERFECT 2

8704 N Lombard St., 503-286-1768 aVENGERS: aGE OF ULTRON Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 04:00, 05:30, 07:00, 08:30 maD maX: FURy ROaD

Bagdad Theater

CineMagic Theatre

3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-249-7474 aVENGERS: aGE OF ULTRON Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 11:40, 03:00, 07:00, 10:35

2021 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-231-7919 aVENGERS: aGE OF ULTRON Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 04:00, 07:00

Cinema 21

1011 Main St., 360-816-0352 WHITE GOD Fri-Sat-Sun 04:00 WELCOmE TO mE Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 06:00, 08:00 mONSTERS: DaRK CONTINENT Fri-Sat 09:00 ROaR Sat-Sun 08:15

616 NW 21st Ave., 503-223-4515 WELCOmE TO mE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:30, 07:00, 09:00 WHaT WE DO IN THE SHaDOWS Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 08:45 WHILE WE’RE yOUNG Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 04:00, 06:30 THE HUmaN EXPERImENT Wed 07:00 BEST OF HUmP

Clinton Street Theater

2522 SE Clinton St., 503-238-8899 HEaVEN aDORES yOU: aN ELLIOT SmITH PROJECT Fri-Sat-Sun 07:00 aNy Day Fri-Sun-Mon 09:00 THE ROCKy HORROR PICTURE SHOW Sat 12:00 NO FILmS SHOWING TODay Tue TO LIFE! Wed 07:00 SymPHONy OF THE SOUL

Laurelhurst Theatre & Pub

2735 E Burnside St., 503232-5511 THE TREaSURE OF THE SIERRa maDRE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:40 KINGSmaN: THE SECRET SERVICE Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 07:00, 09:20 ‘71 Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:00 WILD Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 06:30 a GIRL WaLKS HOmE aLONE aT NIGHT Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 09:45 THE ImITaTION GamE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:10 TRUE STORy Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 09:35 THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC maRIGOLD HOTEL Fri-SatSun 01:00, 03:45

Mission Theater and Pub

1624 NW Glisan St. mCFaRLaND, USa Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 05:30 HEaVEN aDORES yOU: aN ELLIOT SmITH PROJECT Fri-Sat-Sun 08:30 FOCUS Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 08:30

Kiggins Theatre

Kennedy School Theater

5736 NE 33rd Ave., 503-249-7474 NO FILmS SHOWING TODay Fri mCFaRLaND, USa Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 05:30 FOCUS Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 02:45 FIFTy SHaDES OF GREy Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 08:20

Empirical Theatre at OMSI

1945 SE Water Ave., 503-797-4000 WaLKING WITH DINOSaURS 3D FriSat-Sun 01:00 SECRET OCEaN Fri-Sat-Sun 11:00, 02:00 JOURNEy TO SPaCE Fri-Sat-Sun 12:00, 03:00 BEaRS Fri 04:00 CINDERELLa Fri-Sat-Sun 04:00 JamES CamERON’S DEEPSEa CHaLLENGE 3D Fri-Sat 04:00 INTERSTELLaR Fri-SatSun 06:00 SONG OF THE SEa Sat 05:00 FLIGHT OF THE BUTTERFLIES Sat-Sun 10:00

5th Avenue Cinema

510 SW Hall St., 503-725-3551 THE DaRJEELING LImITED Fri-Sat-Sun 03:00 THE maN WITH THE GOLDEN aRm Fri 07:30 NO FILmS SHOWING TODay MonTue-Wed

Forest Theatre

1911 Pacific Ave., 503-844-8732 CINDERELLa Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 01:35, 04:05, 07:00 UNFRIENDED FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:30

Hollywood Theatre 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-281-4215 EX maCHINa Fri-Sat-

Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:15, 09:30 maGGIE FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:45 THE TERmINaTOR Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 09:00 SHORTS I Fri 07:00 FamILy FRIENDLy Sat 01:30 SONG OF THE SEa Sat 03:30 SHORTS II Sat 07:00 STRaNGE & SEXy Sun 01:30 UNTIL SBORNIa TaKES US aPaRT Sun 03:30 SHORTS III Sun 07:00 SELF/LESS Mon 06:30 THE maN FROm HONG KONG Tue 07:30 BUCK ROGERS Wed 07:30 QDOC

Regal Fox Tower Stadium 10

846 SW Park Ave., DIOR aND I Fri-Sat-Sun 12:00, 02:20, 04:50, 06:50, 09:00 LamBERT & STamP Fri-Sat-Sun 11:20, 01:30, 04:10, 07:00, 09:40 THE WaTER DIVINER Fri-SatSun 11:40, 02:10, 04:00, 06:45, 09:50 mONKEy KINGDOm Fri-Sat-Sun 11:30, 02:00, 04:40, 06:30, 08:45 EX maCHINa FriSat-Sun 11:45, 02:15, 04:45, 07:20, 10:00 FURIOUS 7 Fri-Sat-Sun 12:30, 03:30, 06:40, 09:20 THE SaLT OF THE EaRTH Fri-SatSun 11:15, 01:45, 04:20, 07:15, 09:45 WOmaN IN GOLD Fri-Sat-Sun 11:15, 01:50, 04:30, 07:00, 09:30 THE DIVERGENT SERIES: INSURGENT Fri-Sat-Sun 12:20, 03:20, 06:20, 09:10

Regal Pioneer Place Stadium 6

340 SW Morrison St. HOT PURSUIT Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:45, 03:45, 06:45, 09:45 PITCH PERFECT 2

St. Johns Theater

8203 N Ivanhoe St., 503-249-7474-6 HOT PURSUIT Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:00, 04:00, 07:00, 09:45

Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 & IMAX

7329 SW Bridgeport Road HOT PURSUIT Fri-Sat-Sun 12:10, 02:30, 04:50, 07:15, 09:40 maD maX: FURy ROaD PITCH PERFECT 2 maD maX: FURy ROaD 3D

Academy Theater

7818 SE Stark St., 503-252-0500 THE SECOND BEST EXOTIC maRIGOLD HOTEL Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:15, 06:45 ’71 Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 09:50 FIFTy SHaDES OF GREy Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:20 KINGSmaN: THE SECRET SERVICE Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 01:40, 07:00 TRUE STORy Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 05:10, 09:40 SONG OF THE SEa Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:50 WILD Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-

Wed 04:20 SOmE LIKE IT HOT Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 02:40, 07:20

Valley Theater

9360 SW BeavertonHillsdale Highway, 503-296-6843 THE SPONGEBOB SQUaREPaNTS mOVIE FriSat-Sun 12:20, 02:25, 04:30 amERICaN SNIPER Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:30 THE ImITaTION GamE Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:10 mCFaRLaND, USa Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:10 KINGSmaN: THE SECRET SERVICE Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 08:50 FIFTy SHaDES OF GREy Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:50 WILD Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 09:20

Century Clackamas Town Center and XD

12000 SE 82nd Ave. KINGSmaN: THE SECRET SERVICE Fri 12:40, 07:05 mONKEy KINGDOm Fri 10:50, 01:10, 03:30, 05:50, 08:10, 10:30 CINDERELLa Fri 10:40, 01:30, 04:20, 07:10, 10:00 THE DIVERGENT SERIES: INSURGENT Fri 03:50, 10:15 HOmE Fri 11:25, 01:55, 04:25, 07:00, 09:35 GET HaRD Fri 12:05, 02:45, 05:10, 07:45, 10:20 FURIOUS 7 Fri 12:40, 03:55, 07:10, 10:25 THE LONGEST RIDE Fri 10:40, 01:40, 04:40, 07:40, 10:40 UNFRIENDED Fri 11:00, 01:20, 03:40, 06:00, 08:20, 10:45 aVENGERS: aGE OF ULTRON Fri 10:45, 02:30, 06:15, 10:00 aVENGERS: aGE OF ULTRON 3D Fri 12:00, 03:45, 07:30, 10:50 PaUL BLaRT: maLL COP 2 Fri 12:20, 02:55, 05:25, 07:55, 10:30 THE aGE OF aDaLINE Fri 10:40, 01:45, 04:30, 07:25, 10:20 HOT PURSUIT Fri 11:45, 02:10, 04:35, 07:05, 09:25 EX maCHINa Fri 11:05, 01:50, 04:35, 07:20, 10:05 IT FOLLOWS Fri 11:50, 02:35, 05:15, 07:50, 10:10 THE D TRaIN Fri 11:55, 02:40, 05:20, 08:00, 10:40 LITTLE BOy Fri 11:05, 01:50, 04:30, 07:15, 09:55 STEEL maGNOLIaS SunWed 02:00, 07:00 2015 LEaGUE OF LEGENDS mIDSEaSON VIEWING PaRTy Sun 01:30 BaCKSTREET BOyS: SHOW ‘Em WHaT yOU’RE maDE OF Wed 07:00 PITCH PERFECT 2

SubjecT To change. call TheaTerS or ViSiT WWeek.coM/MoVieTiMeS For The MoST up-To-daTe inForMaTion Friday-ThurSday, May 8-14, unleSS oTherWiSe indicaTed

Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

POT 243-2122

Earlier this year, for a trip to Arizona to see my beloved Seattle Mariners at spring training, I packed the kind of contraband that has ruined lives, has seen people shot, and is nearly totally legal in four states: cannabis.

In mid-March, midweek and midafternoon, I approached the security line at Portland International Airport. I was armed with a convenient “Flying out of Portland with Medical Cannabis” letter that included words from Port of Portland assistant general counsel Wendy Hain. The port has no official policy on pot—the letter says that, clearly—but Hain has done her best to dissuade the Transportation Security Administration agents from hassling us.

“Marijuana is not seized from a passenger who holds a valid Oregon Medical Marijuana card when boarding an aircraft at the Portland International Airport as long as the passenger is not carrying a quantity that exceeds an amount that he or she is lawfully authorized to possess,” she wrote.

Still, I braced myself to be whisked away to some dark, windowless room to have my bags and body searched.

Over and over again, I reminded myself exactly what I was carrying, which was three Squibs and a packet of Shrapnel from Lunchbox Alchemy. Packed in my see-through toiletry bag with all my liquids and OMMP card, the products were in their original packaging because transferring them to prescription bottles felt like I was exposing myself to the kind of debacle that befell an Oregon woman who was arrested in Japan, where she lives, for mailing herself prescription Adderall in non-original packaging. I figured my best bet was to be open and honest.

But I didn’t feel open and honest. I felt scared.

I worried that my wife, also at the airport for a flight, would get in trouble with me. All I wanted was an enjoyable, pain-free plane ride, followed by a few days of relaxed fun in the sun.

The relatively short line, previously a welcome sight, made me worry that security agents would be bored and have plenty of time to teach

W W S TA F F

Summer Guide 2015

PDX

me a lesson about carrying cannabis.

I waited and hoped I didn’t sweat too much.

After seven excruciating minutes that had me picking prison nicknames and promising myself that I’d learn to fight on the very first day I did time, I made it to the boarding-pass check.

With a dismissive wave, he shooed me over to the TSA pre-check section, the only lane open on this slow afternoon. I paused, sure I’d been caught, only to be told to keep walking by the next guard. I looked back for my wife, but couldn’t see her.

Carry-on-sized bag in hand and laptop bag on shoulder, I passed this next guard and heard him tell me to keep my shoes on, keep all my items in my bag, to put both bags on the conveyor belt, and to take out my cellphone.

Oh no, this was it. I was fucked. Not only did they know I was carrying cannabis, they probably assumed I had cannabis in my system and didn’t want to even bother with the formality of checking my bag before showing me that windowless interrogation room.

I stepped forward, and what next came out of my mouth shocked even me. “But what about my toiletries? I have some med—” I said, while fighting the urge to go all Tyler Durden on myself.

The guard cut me off, repeated his previous requests, and I froze. Was this for real? Did he know? Oh my God, what was about to happen?

I walked through the standard metal detector, took two steps, turned left, and grabbed my two bags and phone. Next, I walked over a bench, unzipped the outer flap, removed my see-through bag, looked through it to make sure everything was still there, and repacked it in the main compartment. After texting my wife, I walked to my gate, and took a small bit of Squib in preparation for a long flight.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, after a second or so, nothing continued to happen.

Why can’t every flight be like this?

CLASSIFIEDS

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MCMENAMINS EDGEFIELD is now hiring ALL POSITIONS!

We are conducting a HIRING FAIR on THURSDAY MAY 7TH at the Power Station Pub on the Edgefield property. Applicants should check in at the north end of the pub between 2 and 4 PM. Managers will be on site to interview and answer questions about the various opportunities available.

Qualified apps must have an open & flex sched including, days, eves, wknds and holidays. We are looking for applicants who have prev related exp and enjoy working in a busy customer service-oriented enviro. We are also willing to train! We offer opps for advancement and excellent benefits for eligible employees, including vision, med, chiro, dental and so much more!

In addition to attending the hiring fair, you can also apply online 24/7 at www. mcmenamins.com or pick up a paper app at any McMenamins location.

Feel free to join us at Edgefield on Mail to 430 N. Killingsworth, Portland OR, 97217 or fax: 503-221-8749. Call 503-952-0598 for info on other ways to apply. Please no phone calls or emails to individ locs! E.O.E.

MCMENAMINS GRAND LODGE is now hiring EXPERIENCED BARTENDERS!

EVENTS

HAULING/MOVING

Qualified apps must have an open & flex sched including, days, eves, wknds and holidays. We are looking for applicants who have prev related exp and enjoy working in a busy customer service-oriented enviro. We are also willing to train! We offer opps for advancement and excellent benefits for eligible employees, including vision, med, chiro, dental and so much more!

Please apply online 24/7 at www. mcmenamins.com or pick up a paper app at any McMenamins location.

Mail to 430 N. Killingsworth, Portland OR, 97217 or fax: 503-221-8749. Call 503-952-0598 for info on other ways to apply. Please no phone calls or emails to individ locs! E.O.E.

Pandit Vidyadhar Vyas, Vocalist with Satish Tare on Tabla & Vivek Datar on Harmonium

MCMENAMINS SHERWOOD is now hiring PUB STAFF!

The Old Church

Qualified apps must have an open & flex sched including, days, eves, wknds and holidays. We are looking for applicants who have prev related exp and enjoy working in a busy customer service-oriented enviro. We are also willing to train! We offer opps for advancement and excellent benefits for eligible employees, including vision, med, chiro, dental and so much more!

Please apply online 24/7 at www. mcmenamins.com or pick up a paper app at any McMenamins location.

Mail to 430 N. Killingsworth, Portland OR, 97217 or fax: 503-221-8749. Call 503-952-0598 for info on other ways to apply. Please no phone calls or emails to individ locs! E.O.E.

BULLETIN BOARD WILLAMETTE WEEK’S GATHERING PLACE

MEN’S HEALTH MANSCAPING Bodyhair grooming M4M. Discrete quality service.

503-841-0385 by appointment.

SHAMANIC MEDICINE

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“You Are The One You’ve Been Waiting for” Awakenings Wellness Center 1016 SE 12th Ave, Portland 1016 SE 12th Ave. • Portland

MCMENAMINS CORNELIUS PASS is now hiring SERVERS, LINE COOKS, HOSTS, DISHWASHERS, BARTENDERS

TREE SERVICES Presents

Vocal Concert

Qualified apps must have an open & flex sched including, days, eves, wknds and holidays. We are looking for applicants who have prev related exp and enjoy working in a busy customer service-oriented enviro. We are also willing to train! We offer opps for advancement and excellent benefits for eligible employees, including vision, med, chiro, dental and so much more!

Please apply online 24/7 at www. mcmenamins.com or pick up a paper app at any McMenamins location.

Mail to 430 N. Killingsworth, Portland OR, 97217 or fax: 503-221-8749. Call 503-952-0598 for info on other ways to apply. Please no phone calls or emails to individ locs! E.O.E.

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.

1422 SW 11th Avenue, Portland, OR

Saturday, May 16 • 2015 7:30 pm Tickets are $20 for non-members in advance and available through www.kalakendra.org or may be purchased at the door for $25 Students $15 and children $12:50 ($15 at the door).

2014-15 Friends of Kalakendra and members are admitted free. Membership is available at the door.

SERVICES BUILDING/REMODELING

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Close in East Side 222 SE 8th Ave $250,000 912 Sqft (+/-) Bank Owned Work/Live Zoned Street Level Retail Call Paul or Josh 503-222-5100 Doug Bean & Assoc REAL ESTATE

PETS FOR SALE AKC, ICCF REGISTERED CANE CORSO- ITALIAN MASTIFF PUPPIES Have 7 males,and 5 female Cane Corso puppies that are 7 weeks, dew claws removed, and tails docked.

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ADOPTION ADOPTION Adoring Christian couple in 30’s, hugs & kisses. Fulltime mom, beaches, travel, loving extended family and happy home awaits your baby. Expenses paid. 917-6587293 (call/text) www.paultara.com Paul and Tara.

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MISCELLANEOUS TRINITY: Go...Baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (Mat 28:19) For these Three are One: The Father, The Word (Jesus), and the Holy Ghost (I John 5:7) Even as man was made in God’s Image (Three-In-One) Spirit, Soul (mind), and body. (I Thes 5:23)

STEVE GREENBERG TREE SERVICE Pruning and removals, stump grinding.

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IMPROVE REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE WITH CULTURAL COMPETENCY TRAINING: Working with Diverse Populations in Maternal and Child Health May 13, 2015, 10:00AM-5:00PM in Portland, OR; Register at www.shafiamonroe. com or call 503-281-1688.

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MCMENAMINS ROCK CREEK TAVERN is now hiring LINE COOKS!

Qualified apps must have an open & flex sched including, days, eves, wknds and holidays. We are looking for applicants who have prev related exp and enjoy working in a busy customer service-oriented enviro. We are also willing to train! We offer opps for advancement and excellent benefits for eligible employees, including vision, med, chiro, dental and so much more!

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Mail to 430 N. Killingsworth, Portland OR, 97217 or fax: 503-221-8749. Call 503-952-0598 for info on other ways to apply. Please no phone calls or emails to individ locs! E.O.E.

POTENTIAL PHARMACEUTICAL GROW SITE FOR SALE/LEASE 6729 SE 162nd Ave, Portland OR Rare Find! Multiple Possibilities.

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CALL TO LIST YOUR PROPERTY 503-445-3647 Willamette Week Classifieds MAY 6, 2015 wweek.com

53

TO PLACE AN AD CONTACT:

MATT PLAMBECK

503-445-2757 • mplambeck@wweek.com

CHATLINES

Find your Flame on

JONESIN’

by Matt Jones

“TL;DR”–I couldn’t get past the beginning.”

56 Concern 57 Was told 60 Vardalos or Long 61 Students take them 62 Impressive lineup 63 DC ballplayer 64 Sitcom starring Sonny Shroyer 65 “Auld Lang ___”

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Across 1 Coin flip 5 Nuremberg number 9 Agent Emanuel 12 ___ Chris Steak House 14 “They went this way” sign 15 Pops 16 Farm refrain 17 Novelist Pier ___ Pasolini 18 Bother 19 Opening of “Anna Kareni...”

(TL;DR)

Catcher in the R...”

(TL;DR) 43 Evergreen State sch.

44 “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” character 45 Bro’s sib 46 Remove, like a rind 49 Gp. that awards the Oscars 51 Opening of “Moby-D...” (TL;D... wait, I think I got the whole thing!)

55 Keats offering

22 “Kate & ___” (‘80s sitcom) 23 Toxic condition 24 Sports car protector 25 Daybreak 28 Prominent stretch 29 Opening of “A Tale of Two Cit...”

(TL;DR) 35 Gravy dish 36 They have a flower logo 37 “Come right ___!”

38 Opening of “The

Down 1 Three, in Turin 2 Arles agreement 3 Take off slyly 4 Shameless salesperson 5 Get ___ on the knuckles 6 Trim the borders of 7 Francis I’s jurisdiction 8 Some sweet deals 9 #2 of 44 10 Spokes 11 Winners of a certain show 13 Pool side 14 Shrink’s org.

20 Spiciness 21 “This Is 40” director Judd 22 Trump’s “The ___ the Deal” 24 Netanyahu nickname 26 “This is an awesome ride!”

27 Country hit by a recent earthquake 30 “Don’t forget to bring ___!” (“South

Park” catchphrase) 31 “American Hustle” actor 32 Paid periodically 33 Last word of some films 34 Explosive materials 39 Offer from a sharing friend 40 Makes a decision about, in court 41 “Kinsey” star Neeson 42 Company that makes motorcycles, guitars, and snowmobiles 46 Home of the Huskies 47 Gymnastics great Comaneci 48 Crease 50 Jury members 52 What a colon may mean 53 Takes to court 54 Guys 58 Operated, as machinery 59 Turn purple, perhaps

last week’s answers

©2015 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 #JONZ725.

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BACK COVER CONTINUED...

© 2015 Rob Brezsny

Week of May 7

TO PLACE AN AD ON BACK COVER CONTINUED call 503-445-2757

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Benedictine monks observe the Latin motto Laborare est Orare. The 19thcentury abbot Maurus Wolter interpreted these words to mean “work is worship” or “work is prayer.” He was trying to impress upon his fellow monks that the work they did was not a grudging distraction from their service to God, but rather at the heart of their devotion. To do their tasks with love was a way to express gratitude for having been blessed with the gift of life. I propose that you experiment with this approach in the coming weeks, even if your version is more secular. What would it be like to feel contentment with and appreciation for the duties you have been allotted?

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Here’s one of the best things you can do for your mental and physical health: Withdraw your attention from the life that lies behind you, and be excited about the life that stretches ahead of you. Forget about the past, and get wildly inventive as you imagine the interesting future you will create for yourself. Forgive everyone who has offended you, and fantasize about the fun adventures you’ll go on, the inspiring plans you’ll carry out, and the invigorating lessons you hope to learn.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In the children’s book The Little Engine That Could, a little blue engine volunteers to pull a long chain of train cars up a steep hill, even though it’s not confident it has the power to do so. As it strains to haul the heavy weight, it recites a mantra to give itself hope: “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” The story ends happily. The little blue engine reaches the top of the hill with its many cars in tow, and is able to glide down the rest of the way. As you deal with your own challenge, Gemini, I recommend that you use an even more forceful incantation. Chant this: “I know I can, I know I can, I know I can.”

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Here’s a confession: I have taken a vow to foster beauty, truth, love, justice, equality, tolerance, creativity, playfulness, and hope.

To do this work is one of my life goals. I approach it with the devotion of a monk and the rigor of a warrior. Does that mean I ignore difficulty and suffering and cruelty? Of course not. I’m trying to diminish the power of those problems, so I sure as hell better know a lot about them. On the other hand, my main focus is on redemption and exaltation. I prefer not to describe in detail the world’s poisons, but rather to provide an antidote for them. Even if you don’t normally share my approach, Cancerian, I invite you to try it for the next two weeks. The astrological time is right.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): The hill where I take my late afternoon hikes is teeming with the six-petaled purple wildflower known as the elegant cluster-lily. Every one of them -- and there are hundreds -- lean hard in the direction of the sun in the west. Should I deride them as conformists that follow the law of the pack? Should I ridicule them for their blind devotion? Or should I more sensibly regard them as having a healthy instinct to gravitate toward the life-giving light? I’ll go with the latter theory. In that spirit, Leo, I urge you to ignore the opinions of others as you turn strongly toward the sources that provide you with essential nourishment.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Am I reading the astrological omens correctly? I hope so. From what I can tell, you have been flying under the radar and over the rainbow. You have been exploiting the loopholes in the big bad system and enjoying some rather daring experiments with liberation. At this point in the adventure, you may be worried that your lucky streak can’t continue much longer. I’m here to tell you that it can.

It will. It must. I predict that your detail-loving intelligence will paradoxically guide you to expand your possibilities even further.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): According to the three science fiction films collectively known as The Matrix, we humans suffer from a fundamental delusion. What we think is real life is actually a sophisticated computer simulation. Intelligent machines have created this

dream world to keep us in suspended animation while they harvest our energy to fuel their civilization. Now as far as I can tell, this scenario isn’t literally true. But it is an apt metaphor for how many of us seem to be half-asleep or under a spell, lost in our addiction to the simulated world created by technology. I bring this to your attention, Libra, because now is a favorable time to diminish the hold that the metaphorical Matrix has on you. What can you do to at least partially escape your bondage? (Hint: A little more contact with nature could do the trick.)

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In the coming weeks, you may be as alluring and intriguing and tempting as you have been in a long time. I suggest you capitalize on this advantage. Proceed as if you do indeed have the power to attract more of the emotional riches you desire. Assume that are primed to learn new secrets about the arts of intimacy, and that these secrets will make you even smarter and more soulful than you already are. Cultivate your ability to be the kind of trusted ally and imaginative lover who creates successful relationships.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Physicist Frank Wilczek won a Nobel Prize for his research into quarks, the tiny particles that compose protons and neutrons.

The guy is breathtakingly smart. Here’s one of his operating principles: “If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake.” Let’s enshrine his advice as your meditation, Sagittarius. I think you’re strong enough and brave enough to go hunting for some new super-rich dilemmas. Yes, they may lead you to commit some booboos. But they will also stretch your intelligence beyond its previous limits, giving you a more vigorous understanding of the way the world works.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In 1934, Capricorn baseball player Dizzy Dean was named the Most Valuable Player after winning 30 games. It was a feat that no National League pitcher has repeated ever since.

After Dean retired, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Never shy about acknowledging his own prowess, he declared that “if you can do it, it ain’t bragging.”

It is in this spirit that I invite you to freely expound on your talents and accomplishments in the coming week.

You won’t be boasting. You will simply be providing information. And that will ultimately result in you being offered an interesting new opportunity or two.

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AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): There has rarely been a better time than now to refine the art of being your own mommy or daddy. You’re finally ready to take over from the parental voices in your head and assume full responsibility for raising yourself the rest of the way.

What do you want to be when you grow up? You may feel a giddy sense of freedom as it becomes clear that the only authority who has the right to answer that question is you.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): The universe has always played tricks on you. Some have been so perplexing that you’ve barely understood the joke. Others have been amusing but not particularly educational. Now I sense a new trend in the works, however. I suspect that the universe’s pranks are becoming more comprehensible. They may have already begun to contain hints of kindness. What’s the meaning of this lovely turn of events? Maybe you have finally discharged a very old karmic debt. It’s also conceivable that your sense of humor has matured so much that you’re able to laugh

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