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This Is Portland's
Funniest Person. Susan Rice wins our annual poll of comedy insiders. Meet this year’s Funniest Five. Page 12
WWEEK.COM
VOL 42/04 11.25.2015
+ LLOYD CENTER IS THE
NORTHWEST’S BEST MALL. P. 27
+ GIVE THANKS: IT’S A REAL MAYOR’S RACE. P. 7
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WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
ALEX BARRETT
FINDINGS
PAGE 27
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 42, ISSUE 4.
People over 40 should shut up about music, even if they wear a leather jacket and ride a motorcycle. 4
Storm Large is famous locally
Even very wealthy couples get into disputes about proper attire for parties and excessive drinking. 7
If you read the paper, it says
The old folks living next to Duniway Park would prefer you take the bus. 10 If you want to get the city of Portland to enforce rules against a Clackistani trucking tycoon, you’re going to have to sue. 11
ON THE COVER:
because she recorded a single with Dave Navarro for a reality TV show in 2006. 33 nobody likes Everclear frontman Art Alexakis. But only if you read the paper. 42 If you want to visit a 90-year-old shack in the hills that bumps vintage LL Cool J and serves seasoned peanuts out of a tub labeled “DEEZ NUTS,” there is a place. 43
OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:
Susan Rice, photo by Ryan LaBriere.
A black Lewis & Clark College student was reportedly assaulted on campus.
STAFF Editor & Publisher Mark Zusman EDITORIAL News Editor Pro Tem Aaron Mesh Arts & Culture Editor Martin Cizmar Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, Beth Slovic Copy Chief Rob Fernas Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, Madeline Luce Stage & Screen Editor Enid Spitz Projects Editor Matthew Korfhage Music Editor Matthew Singer Web Editor Lizzy Acker Books James Helmsworth
Visual Arts Enid Spitz Editorial Interns Katana Dumont, Lisa Dunn, Coby Hutzler, Walker MacMurdo, Zach Middleton CONTRIBUTORS Dave Cantor, Nathan Carson, Rachel Graham Cody, Shannon Gormley, Jordan Green, Jay Horton, AP Kryza, John Locanthi, Anthony Macuk, Mark Stock, Anna Walters PRODUCTION Production Manager Dylan Serkin Art Director Julie Showers Special Sections Art Director Alyssa Walker Graphic Designers Rick Vodicka, Xel Moore Production Interns Elise Englert, Emily Joan Greene, Caleb Misclevitz, Kayla Sprint
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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A-LIST WINE AT IMPERIAL
Let us live free, for better or worse. The idea On behalf of the Oregon wine industry, I would of handing over more of our lives to the “geniuslike to commend Willamette Week on its selec- es” at institutions like Portland City Hall (who tion of Imperial as 2015 Restaurant of the forgot to put in enough parking when planning Year. In addition to its delicious fare, inventive Division Street) is much more of a problem than cocktails and ever-warm hospitality, Imperial the boogeymen any village idiot can conjure. deserves equal recognition for offering diners —Bob Clark one of the best Oregon wine lists in Portland. Since 2014, Imperial has been named an SOCIAL-MEDIA SURVEILLANCE Oregon wine A-list restaurant thanks to its con- We owe tremendous thanks to Nkenge Hartinued support of the local wine industry and mon Johnson and Erious Johnson for taking sommelier Tom Hebenstreit’s appreciation of on state corruption [“Digital Stakeout,” WW, our state’s diverse regions, grapes and produc- Nov. 18, 2015]. ers. Imperial’s broad selection of Oregon wines I really wanted Nkenge to run for governor, includes a pinot noir that Hebenbut now that I see her doing wonderful work at the Urban League… streit collaborated on with Patton Valley Vineyard in the Willamette well, kudos to her and Erious. Valley exclusively for Imperial. —“Dreamweaver” In April, Imperial chef Doug Adams spoke at the Oregon GovEVERCLEAR’S ernor’s Conference on Tourism SPARKLE AND FADE in Eugene, where he said, “The Great article and a great band [“It’s wine culture [in Oregon] is why a Real Small Town,” WW, Nov. 18, we have such a great food cul2015]. ture.” The Oregon Wine Board I love Portland, but it’s sad how “I love believes that Adams’ and Heben- Portland, there are “cool people” and “notstreit’s continued collaboration cool people,” and sometimes it but it’s sad with the Oregon wine industry is doesn’t really matter what you do, how there are the cool people just aren’t going to one of the key factors that makes ‘cool people’ Imperial a leader in defining accept you. Portland as a unique, world-class Maybe Portland’s a little like high and ‘not- cool dining destination. school in that way. Oh well, I love it people.’” Ellen Brittan, chairwoman anyway. —C.I. DeMann Oregon Wine Board
FUTURE OF OUR PLANET
There are all sorts of imagined boogeymen we could surrender our lives fighting against, and enabling in the process our Big Brother government to herd people like cattle and socialengineer them like the poor boys featured in the classic novel Lord of the Flies [“Dear Future Planet,” WW, Nov. 18, 2015].
Q.
I grew up in the ’80s liking rock ’n’ roll, but lately I can’t stand music with a lot of bass. Every time some whippersnapper drives by, their bass seems really loud. Am I getting old or is this something new?
—Old Fogey
Portland is a poor town in which to be anti-rock, Fogey. Still, let’s look at the facts. You say you “grew up in the ’80s liking rock ’n’ roll.” Does that mean you were on the barrier at the Wipers’ final show? Or does it mean you sometimes listened to the radio on your way to Blockbuster thinking, “Man, that Huey Lewis sure is something”? If (as I suspect) it’s the latter, congratulations. You’re not getting old, you were always old! This is not a criticism—being old at heart is underrated. If all goes well, humans spend half of their adult lives being over 40. If your disposition is well-suited to waving your cane at children 4
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
“It is the best album ever recorded by a Portland band.” No it is not. Not even close to the top 10 best. —Lance Cummins LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words. Submit to: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: mzusman@wweek.com.
while raving about the Depression, you’ll spend the bulk of your life feeling comfortable in your own (increasingly looser-fitting) skin. Conversely, if you’re a 40-something newspaper columnist who still plays in a rock band and spends his weekends hanging out in front of Hot Topic trying to find 21-year-olds to buy him skinny jeans, your life is probably just going to get weirder and weirder. In any case, there are sound scientific reasons for your visceral response to the bottom end. Researchers have discovered that a part of the inner ear called the saccule, which is partially responsible for balance, is activated by loud, low-frequency sound. In the same way that the vestibular canals ( keep up, kids) in the middle ear st i m u l a t e u n c o n s c i o u s muscle activity to keep us upright, vibration of the saccule causes an unconscious urge to, at the very least, bob one’s head in time to the music. From there, it’s just a short step to the mosh pit—or to the motion-sickness pills, depending on your inclination. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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Lewis & Clark College has joined the list of U.S. campuses protesting racial injustice, with students demanding the school’s administration ensure minority students feel safe and included. Events unfolded quickly after students discovered racist comments on the social-media site Yik Yak on Nov. 17. Protests spread from the school’s Southwest Portland campus to the state Capitol. Four days later, a black student reported that three white men had attacked him on campus. Then, a transgender student reported being attacked the same day. On Nov. 24, students occupied Lewis & Clark President Barry Glassner’s office, demanding he acknowledge the campus “was built upon stolen land” and honors namesakes who owned slaves. The students also want the college to diversify its staff. “I am as committed to the issues as they are,” Glassner wrote in a statement. Former state Sen. Margaret Carter is pondering a comeback. Carter, 79, was the first African-American woman elected to the Oregon Legislature. She served in the House and Senate from 1985 through 2009, when she stepped down to take a senior position at the state Department of Human Services. Her replacement, Sen. Chip Shields (D-North/Northeast Portland) announced earlier this month he won’t seek re-election. Rep. Lew Frederick (D-Portland), whose district is part of Shields’, says he wants the Senate seat, but Carter says people are encouraging her to run. “I have not said yes, but I have not said no,” Carter tells WW. “I’m just going to check all my options. If the community CARTER wants me to run, I will do it.” The Oregonian is conducting a new round of buyouts and layoffs that could reduce the newsroom staff by as much as 20 percent. As first reported on wweek.com, multiple sources say Oregonian Editor Mark Katches told staff Nov. 19 that the newspaper is seeking 25 volunteers from the newsroom to take buyouts. The buyouts are being offered to staffers age 55 and older who have worked 20 years or more at the paper, or staffers 65 and older who have worked there at least 15 years. If the paper does not find 25 staffers who want to be bought out, management will conduct layoffs to reach that number. It’s the latest upheaval at the state’s largest media organization, which in 2013 reduced home delivery of its print edition and pledged a new “digital-first” model designed to drive readers to its website. Katches did not respond to WW’s request for comment. Read more news with all the trimmings.
GOT A GOOD TIP? CALL 503.445.1542, OR EMAIL NEWSHOUND@WWEEK.COM
Bailey’s In MULTNOMAH COUNTY COMMISSIONER JULES BAILEY IS PREPARING TO RUN FOR PORTLAND MAYOR. By nig e l jaq ui ss
njaq uiss@wweek.com
Portland voters will get a real mayoral race after all. Incumbent Mayor Charlie Hales announced last month he wouldn’t seek re-election, apparently clearing a path to City Hall for Oregon Treasurer Ted Wheeler. But now it appears Multnomah County Commissioner Jules Bailey will enter the race. He says he will make an announcement shortly after Jan. 1, 2016. “Portland is a progressive town, and we need a progressive mayor,” Bailey tells WW. “I want to be the candidate for people that have to work for a living, not for those that don’t.” Bailey, 36, could make a formidable candidate. He’s a Portland native who, like Wheeler, graduated from Lincoln High School. Bailey graduated from Lewis & Clark College and earned a master’s degree in public affairs and planning from Princeton University. Bailey won a legislative seat in Northeast Portland in 2008, when he was 29, and served three terms in the Oregon House. In three full sessions in Salem, he built a reputation as a savvy lawmaker, chairing the House Energy and Environment Committee in 2013. He regularly scored near the top of WW’s “Good,
“Portland is a Progressive town, and we need a Progressive mayor.” Bad & Awful” survey of metro-area lawmakers, ranking third among House members in 2013. Bailey was elected to the county commission in 2014 to serve the balance of former Commissioner Deborah Kafoury’s term after she was sworn in as county chairwoman. Bailey, who tells WW he has been recruited in part by organized labor, says his priorities will be affordable housing, environmental sustainability, jobs and homelessness—an issue where he accuses Wheeler of peddling simplistic solutions. Bailey’s entry into the mayor’s race is a bit complicated. Multnomah County rules say he must resign his commission seat if he announces his candidacy for mayor before the final year of his term, which is 2016. That means Bailey will not officially enter the mayoral race until January. His likely decision not to run for re-election as commissioner means that his District 1 seat, which covers the westside of Portland and part of the inner eastside south of I-84, will be up for grabs. Bailey says he expects to hire political consultant Stacey Dycus to manage his campaign—and in a nod to a tactic that has become increasingly popular in Portland campaigns, he says he will limit contributions to $250 per donor. “People who care about this city need a debate,” Bailey says. “One candidate running is not good for the city of Portland.” Go to wweek.com for video of Bailey describing how he can win.
A Bad Night A CONSTRUCTION COMPANY CEO AND PRESIDENT OF AN ELITE PRIVATE CLUB FACES DOMESTIC VIOLENCE CHARGES. By nig e l jaq ui ss
njaquiss@wweek.com
It began as a gathering of board members from an elite Portland club. It ended with the club’s president in handcuffs. On the evening of Sept. 29, John Bradley, the CEO of R&H Construction, invited fellow Arlington Club board members to his West Hills home for a small party to thank retiring members of the board. “It was a social occasion to show appreciation for people who had served on the board,” says Judith Clark, one of those outgoing board members. Bradley, 60, is president of the board. From its location on Southwest Salmon Street in the South Park Blocks, the Arlington Club has served as the citadel of Portland business leaders for 148 years. R&H Construction is among the city’s largest contractors, employing 250 people. Under Bradley’s leadership, R&H has built many recognizable Portland buildings, including headquarters for Ziba Design and Keen Shoes, and recently completed a six-story mixed-use project covering a city block in South Waterfront. After Bradley’s guests left his home
Sept. 29, however, the evening soured. John Bradley’s wife, Kim, called 911. Officer Anthony Zanetti of the Portland Police Bureau responded to the call. Zanetti arrested Bradley, who was charged with three misdemeanors: fourth-degree assault, menacing and harassment. Zanetti’s police report was the basis for a probable cause affidavit filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court on Sept. 30. In it, Zanetti said he arrived to witness an argument. “The defendant [Bradley] was waving his hands and yelling at Ms. Bradley and was overheard saying, ‘I come home and you embarrass me.’” Bradley let Zanetti into the house, and the officer wrote that he “found Ms. Bradley crouched on the floor in the kitchen, holding her head and crying hysterically. There was a chair on its side next to her.” Kim Bradley then told Zanetti her version of events. “Ms. Bradley explained that the defendant was hosting a group of people at their
home earlier in the evening, and since she was not dressed nicely, had to stay upstairs during the gathering,” the affidavit says. “When the people left the home, the defendant became angry that Ms. Bradley did not come downstairs to say goodbye to them.” That led to an argument and a discussion of John Bradley’s use of alcohol. “Ms. Bradley said their argument escalated, and evolved into a discussion about the defendant’s drinking.” That discussion soon turned physical, Kim Bradley told Zanetti. “[Bradley] then threw a chair at Ms. Bradley but did not strike her,” the affidavit says Kim Bradley told Zanetti. “Ms. Bradley further elaborated that earlier in the evening, the defendant had thrown her to the ground upstairs. This caused a pain to her arm. She further elaborated that the defendant has left bruises before and choked her, but he has never thrown her to the bradley ground like he did on this occasion.” Bradley has no prior criminal record, according to Portland police. The alleged domestic violence came at a time when Bradley’s professional life was reaching a peak. In addition to being voted president of the Arlington Club board, he was named “CEO of the Year” in the real estate/development sector in January by the Portland
courtesy jules bailey
NEWS
NeW CaNdIdaTe: Jules bailey and his son, august.
Business Journal. Bradley told the Business Journal in a January interview he was ready to slow down and turn over control of R&H Construction, where he became president in 1983 and CEO in 2004. “I am looking forward to playing second string hopefully in the next three years,” Bradley told the newspaper. WW was unable to reach the Arlington Club board members who attended the Sept. 29 party. Michael Dotten, an outgoing member of the board, who was not at the event, says he was unaware of the alleged domestic violence. “That’s extraordinarily surprising,” Dotten says of the incident. Bradley declined to comment. Peter Richter, a longtime friend of Bradley’s, says Bradley is a recovering alcoholic. “As a result of his brother’s tragic suicide this summer and other personal pressures,” Richter tells WW via email, “he had a relapse which led to an incident within his family which he deeply regrets.” Bradley pleaded not guilty to all charges. He was excused from a court appearance Oct. 30, records show, because he was “in in-patient treatment.” Bradley is due in court Dec. 3, when he is expected to change his plea. On the night of the incident, according to Zanetti’s account, Bradley didn’t see the arrest as being his fault. “Look what you did, Kim,” Bradley said to his wife, according to the affidavit. “I’m in handcuffs now.” Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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NEWS lAne ChAngeS: After the city of portland announced a deal with Under Armour to upgrade duniway park near the baltimore athletic company’s new portland headquarters, nike officials complained. they met with, talked to or contacted city officials 38 times between July and September, city records show.
says, she complained she missed an opportunity to donate parking to local kids for a fundraiser. She says Fritz dismissed her concern. “I was trying to solve problems and be positive, and I was met with, ‘You can’t do that,’” she says. Now Stanhancyk is contemplating a run against Fritz in 2016, calling her conversation with the two-term commissioner “the last drop in the cup.”
Track and Battlefield EVERYBODY WANTS TO PUT THEIR MARK ON DUNIWAY PARK. By BE TH S LOV I C
bslovic@wweek.com
TE RIVER
E M AV
Jody StAhAnCyk, portlAnd divorCe Attorney: The law offices of Stahancyk, Kent and Hook sit catty-corner from the park. When a track event took place at the park in August without any notification to neighbors, Stahancyk
WILLAMET
oregon heAlth And SCienCe UniverSity: The state’s largest teaching hospital has expressed alarm that one of the Duniway Park proposals could cause traffic jams at the base of Pill Hill.
ADA
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
neighborS: The city’s plan to upgrade Duniway with Under Armour’s money also includes a proposal to expand parking, increasing the number of spaces from 11 to around 30. Neighbors, including the South Portland Neighborhood Association, the Homestead Neighborhood Association, and residents of the Terwilliger Plaza retirement community, object, saying the park is well-served by public transit. “This seems to be a big step toward fundamentally changing what kind of park it is,” says Jim Gardner, land-use chairman of the South Portland Neighborhood Association. “This seems to be a move toward making it a professional venue.” Meanwhile, neighbors in Lents, where Under Armour plans a second $2.75 million donation, are thrilled. “We’re finally getting some upgrades,” says Jesse Cornett, chairman of the Lents Neighborhood Association. AC SW M
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nike: Between July and September, Nike lobbyists called, emailed or met personally with city officials 38 times to talk about what’s listed ambiguously on city lobbying reports as “Portland parks partnerships.” In a July 29 email to Fritz, who oversees Portland Parks and Recreation, company officials complained that they hadn’t been given a shot at presenting a proposal for Duniway to compete
VD UR BL
Under ArmoUr: The Baltimore company is one of Nike’s emerging rivals in the international sportswear market—and its donation challenges Nike on its home turf. City plans for how to use Under Armour’s gift include a wider track, lighting, an artificial turf field and perhaps a plaza.
ColUmbiA SportSweAr: The 77-year-old apparel company founded in Portland was also displeased that City Hall had hatched a deal with Under Armour behind closed doors—and without notice to existing donors such as Columbia.
D U N I WAY PA R K
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To motorists zipping by on Southwest Barbur Boulevard, Duniway Park looks like an inviting oasis, its running track surrounded by mature firs, cedars and lilacs. To city officials, neighbors and two of the world’s biggest athletic apparel companies, Nike and Under Armour, the park named for famed Oregon suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway is the site of a political tug of war. Portland City Commissioner Amanda Fritz announced in July that Baltimore-based Under Armour would donate about $2.75 million to upgrade the park. Under Armour has leased a nearby building, the old Metro Family YMCA, for its new Portland headquarters. That ticked off Nike, which donated the construction of a track at Duniway Park built with recycled sneaker soles in 1995. Oregon’s shoe giant also inked a deal in 1996 to display its iconic swoosh on the park’s electronic clock. Under Armour’s new agreement erases the swoosh. That’s just the beginning of the fights in Duniway Park. Under Armour’s donation has set off a chain reaction of miffed parties—scrapping over branding, parking and whether the park should be a sports complex or a community space. Here’s who wants to control Duniway Park.
with Under Armour’s. “Given our recent discussions about projects,” says Nike spokesman Greg Rossiter, “we were disappointed we were not provided an opportunity.” Fritz denied a request by Mayor Charlie Hales for a City Council vote on Under Armour’s proposal. (Hales accepted $2,000 in campaign contributions from Nike after winning office in 2012; Fritz doesn’t take any corporate money.) “Allowing Under Armour to do the donation as they had been asking to all along was the right thing to do,” Fritz told WW in September.
SoCCer bUffS: At least one group of Portlanders is happy. The city currently has only six synthetic soccer fields regularly open to the public. Rain doesn’t stop play on artificial turf, meaning the fields are good to go year-round. “There’s huge demand,” says Jeff Enquist, CEO of Portland City United Soccer Club. “Not just for soccer, but for lacrosse and ultimate Frisbee.” He adds: “This increases the opportunity for recreation for everybody for a much longer time.”
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Contempt of Courts NEIGHBORS ASK A JUDGE TO SHUT DOWN TERRY EMMERT’S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTS. BY AA R O N M E S H
amesh@wweek.com
For three years, neighbors living down the street from the Eastmoreland Racquet Club have seethed as their cul-de-sac jammed with cars arriving for basketball and sand volleyball tournaments. But when club owner Terry Emmert started using the outdoor tennis courts as a parking lot for the crowds, that was the last straw for the residents of Southeast Berkeley Place.
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“I don’t care if they play basketball, or pickleball, or any athletic endeavor,” says James Dunn, who lives at the far end of the street from the club. “The problem is the number of people and the amount of traffic. Take a space that was approved for a 7-Eleven, and put a Walmart in there.” In March, a city hearings officer agreed, ruling that Emmert didn’t have the right under city code to use a neighborhood tennis club to host sports tournaments. But nothing changed. The controversial events have continued. Neighbors say city officials are afraid to crack down on Emmert, a Clackamas County heavy-hauling magnate notorious for battling city and county bureaucrats in court. So Emmert’s neighbors have taken an
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Emmert, who did not respond to WW’s calls seeking comment, is one of the Portland area’s most colorful figures. He has been involved in a variety of businesses, including the Arena Football League’s Portland Thunder team, a herd of more than 400 water buffalo outside Oregon City, and a slaughterhouse and meat-packing plant in Sandy (“Touchdown Terry,” WW, March 5, 2014). He bought the Eastmoreland Racquet Club in 1995. A decade later, Emmert repurposed one of the club’s tennis courts as the home floor for the Portland Chinooks, a minor league basketball team he owns. Members of the club raised a public stink in 2005, and later accused Emmert of emptying the club’s swimming pool into nearby Johnson Creek. (Emmert told The Oregonian some neighbors were racially biased against the Chinook players, many of whom were black.) Hostility between Emmert and the tennis club’s neighbors heated up in 2012,
“IT’S KIND OF SAD THAT WE HAD TO GO TO COURT TO GET THE CITY TO ENFORCE ITS OWN DECISION.” —David Hyman SE MC LOU GH LIN B LV D
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extraordinary step: They’re suing the city to compel it to enforce its own rules. “We had to pool our resources,” says David Hyman, an architect and neighborhood resident who helped craft the suit filed Oct. 28 on behalf of the Eastmoreland Racquet Club Estates Home Owners Association. “It’s kind of sad that we had to go to court to get the city to enforce its own decision.” The city’s intentions are unclear. Officials with the city’s Bureau of Development Services declined to comment to WW, saying they can’t discuss pending litigation. But in a Nov. 20 court filing, city attorneys argue that enforcing city code is “discretionary”—meaning the city is not legally obligated to crack down on all people who break its zoning rules.
when Emmert covered the club’s five indoor tennis courts with hardwood flooring for volleyball and basketball. He has since rebranded the facility “The Courts in Eastmoreland.” The club’s website advertises the hardwood courts for rent at $48 an hour, while the sand volleyball courts can be rented for $38 an hour. In 2013, Emmert asked the city for a zoning variance so he could use the club’s outdoor tennis courts as overflow parking for sporting events inside the building. Neighbors seized on his request as a chance to argue that the club had long overstepped its allowed use as a neighborhood athletic club, and had become an event space—essentially operating as a small sports arena. “The Racquet Club’s change of use has
EVERYWHERE A SIGN: Signs at the Eastmoreland Racquet Club urge drivers to go slow, while nearby yard signs demand cars leave the neighborhood. turned a peaceful cul-de-sac into a daylong rush hour of cars, rumbling diesel trucks, RVs, blaring radios, chirping car alarms, glare and trash,” neighborhood resident and former Oregonian reporter David Stabler wrote city officials last year. “Vehicles begin arriving before 7 am on Saturdays and Sundays.” Emmert replied in a letter that by challenging his use of tennis courts as a parking lot, neighbors were only making their traffic woes worse. “The off-site parking will continue unabated during large events if the appellants are successful,” he wrote, “which will, in effect, render the character of the neighborhood exactly the opposite of what the neighbors say they want, e.g. no street parking!” A city hearings officer ruled March 12 that the residents of Southeast Berkeley Place were right: Emmert had changed the club’s use to something entirely different from what the zoning allowed. “To ignore the current uses,” hearings officer Gregory Frank wrote, “such as minor league basketball, regional/national basketball/volleyball tournaments, sand volleyball tournaments…and basketball/volleyball clinics attracting non-neighborhood resident participants would be to ignore the reality of the operation.” Neighbors say they waited in vain for months after the ruling for the city to issue citations against Emmert and the Eastmoreland Racquet Club. When the city failed to act, they filed a legal notice in Multnomah County Circuit Court, asking a judge to make the city enforce its zoning code. “We didn’t see another recourse here,” says Dunn. “It’s very frustrating that we have to coordinate this level of effort to get the city to recognize something obvious.”
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GO:
Willamette Week ’s third annual Funniest Five Showcase is at Alberta Abbey, 126 NE Alberta St., on Monday, Nov. 30. 7 pm. $5. For tickets, visit bit.ly/wwfunniestfive.
Picture the prototypical Portland comedian. You know the guy. He’s a white dude with a well-manicured mustache wearing red Nikes and fancy patterned socks. He’s laid-back, possibly stoned. His jokes mainly center on breeding chickens, masturbation and anilingus. Susan Rice is not that person. Rice, who was voted Portland’s funniest person this year by more than 100 comedy insiders in our third annual Funniest Five poll, is a 64-year-old woman who’s been working at a call center for the last 17 years. Her first open mic was in 1993, when she went onstage at the Leaky Roof in Goose Hollow. In some ways, Rice is an unlikely winner of this year’s poll. But once you see her onstage, you’ll understand why she won. Rice is a career comic who doesn’t let you out of the room until your stomach hurts and
you’re choking with laughter. In a scene with a short memory—people tend to talk about Portland standup comedy as if it started when Ian Karmel and Ron Funches stepped up to the open mic at Suki’s in 2006—Rice is finally getting her due. It is, we think, a testament to how the scene is growing and maturing as a generation of comedians working to hone their craft discover the old guard—people like Rice, the matriarch of Portland comedy, who they probably didn’t know the first time they hopped onstage for an open mic.
But if you came here for an adorable white guy in his 30s, we’ve got that, too—heyyyy, Gabe Dinger (page 23)! Want one of those jokes about tonguing another person’s asshole? See page 19. We’ve also got a guy who presents PowerPoint slides in the guise of a character named Hobo Tom (page 17) and—this is a little awkward, sorry—a movie critic for this very paper (page 21). If you want to see next year’s list before those comedians blow up, start hitting some of the best comedy nights in Portland now (page 21). You won’t see Rice, though—most of her local gigs are at Harvey’s Comedy Club, the Old Town spot that famously bans comics who work blue. Your best bet for seeing her is at our showcase at the Alberta Abbey on Nov. 30. —Lizzy Acker
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BY L I ZZY AC K E R
lacker@wweek.com
usan Rice’s backstory sounds like a lot of other Portland comics’. The Longview native moved to Portland after she finished college, and started doing standup at a small open mic when she was 31. Soon, she was getting paying gigs and name recognition in town and on the road.
The big difference is her timeline: Rice is 64. She started doing comedy in 1983 as a wave of standup rolled across the country, spurring regional scenes. “I never wanted to be a comic,” she tells me from across the table at Grand Central Baking on North Fremont Street. “That was never my idea. It started in New York in the underground—Lenny Bruce. Then it came west and it hit San Francisco—Holy City Zoo, Purple Onion—and it made it to Seattle about 1981 or ’82, and Portland started in 1982, and I got in in 1983.” Rice’s curly gray hair sits like wellbehaved cotton candy on her head, and she wears red cat-eye glasses and an open smile. Her stage presence reflects how she comes off in person. She’s motherly and a bit shy, unassuming, so when she hits you with a joke about having sex with a 17-yearold trick-or-treater in a Halloween costume, part of the hilarity comes from the surprise. In the midst of the current Portland comedy boom, she’s one of a handful of working comics who remembers the first one. “The audiences didn’t know what to expect,” Rice says.” We didn’t know what we were doing. So this whole thing was created on the fly, between the audiences and the participants. “It was truly an American art form. We created it.” Rice’s first gigs were at the Leaky Roof in Goose Hollow, where a promoter named Patricia Campuzano started an open-mic night after visiting standup clubs in San Francisco. “Everybody paid at the door,” Rice says She repeats this into my recorder: “EVERYONE PAID AT THE DOOR TO GET IN. Jesus Christ. It was like $2 or $3, but in 1983 that was three beers.”
“YOU WANT IT TO B E F U N N Y. Y O U WANT PEOPLE TO BE POUNDING O N T H E TA B L E GASPING FOR A I R . T H AT ’ S W H AT Y O U S H O U L D W A N T. IN MY OPINION.”
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Rice was a professionally trained actress working at a bank, and when she started doing standup she tripled her salary. It was a golden age for comedy, in Portland and nationally. In 1985, Rice quit her day job. She was touring and playing at the clubs popping up all across town. “By June of ’83, there was a month’s worth of paid work in town, because we were the new it. We could work every night.” The scene included names you might have heard: Dwight Slade, Dave Anderson, Art Krug, Johnny Johnston, Dawn Green, the late Mike “Boats” Johnson, and Robert Jenkins, whose son Dylan Jenkins is an up-and-comer in the Portland comedy scene. “We counted it once,” Rice says. “There were 26 of us who started at the Leaky Roof tavern in 1983.” Slade is one of the few originals who is still a touring comic and still lives in Portland. He remembers the first time he saw Rice perform. “I went up to her and said, ‘You remind me of this guy in Houston, Sam Kinison,’” Slade says. “I’ve rarely seen any comic be able to get a crowd rolling and rocking like she does. I mean literally rocking back and forth with laughter. She’s just in that caliber of performer.” In 1986, Rice moved to Los Angeles in search of sitcom spots and TV specials. “In the country, there were only about 20 female standups,” she says. “So I was torn between being in demand on the road or starving in L.A., and I tried.” Despite appearing in cable comedy shows— Rice was one of the first comics on Pat Sajak’s short-lived talk show, where she was a guest with Charlie Sheen, who insisted he stay on the panel during her set and made rude comments about her ass—she never did get a sitcom job. “I probably didn’t play the game right,” she says. “I got onstage with Jerry Seinfeld. My first night at the Comedy Store, I stood in a conversation with Richard Belzer, Sam Kinison, Robin Williams, Sandy Hackett, Louie Anderson.” “The bottom fell out in 1993,” she says. “The boom was over.” In 1996, Rice came back to Portland and got a job that she still has, at the call center for Hanna Andersson, an upscale children’s clothier that gave her schedule flexibility and health insurance. She never stopped working. “Hanna saved my life in a lot of ways,” she says. “I am almost 17 years this week. If I have a gig, I go. They’ve been very accommodating.” Two years ago, Rice celebrated her 30th anniversary of doing comedy in Portland. Some people thought it was her retirement show. “I don’t do club work as much anymore,” she says. “Harvey’s is about the only one I do.” Instead, she does a lot of corporate gigs, for everyone from Microsoft to the Red Hat Society. “Basically, they’re just club patrons in a business setting,” she says. “It takes some getting used to.”
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SUSAN RICE IN THE ’80s
At clubs, her jokes can be a little more racy, and she can say things like, “I was a Girl Scout. You didn’t go to the grocery store [to sell cookies], though, you had to go to the pedophile’s house.” And while Rice is no longer one of only 20 women doing comedy in America, being a woman in comedy still isn’t easy. She knows she’s being paid less than male peers. “[I told one male comic], and he goes, ‘You gotta ask for it, you gotta ask for the money,’” she says. “I said, ‘I’ve asked for the money. And I don’t get hired.’ I just don’t get hired if I ask for the guys’ money. And that’s 20 years of experience. You can bang your head against the wall, but you still have to work.” The money isn’t the only difference. Rice can’t think of many women she’s worked with who have had children or stay married. “It’s really hard,” she says. “It’s hard for men, but men have a better shot at it because women are so forgiving.” Rice doesn’t have children: “I was a comic. You had to make a decisions. That’s the other elephant in the room.” She has, however, been a mentor to many young comics. Stephanie Purtle, who organized a voting drive to put Rice at the top of this year’s Funniest Five poll, is one of them.
“Susan’s command of the stage is phenomenal, and as a comic, when you watch her perform you realize how much you have left to learn,” Purtle says. “Every time I’ve seen her perform, I’ve been blown away. We’re so lucky to have her in Portland.” Shane Torres, a veteran of Portland’s first Funniest Five poll who moved to New York last year, is another Rice fan. “She is encouraging and knowledgeable, and has a world of experience,” he says. “She shares it with comedians who are willing to listen.” Bri Pruett, another Funniest Five alum and a native Portlander, says Rice is an elder statesman in the local comedy community. “I describe her as my comedy fairy godmother,” Pruett says. “I don’t know if she knows what an impact she’s made on me. I’m six years in, and I still don’t think someone should pay a ton of money to see me, because I don’t feel like a master yet. But Susan always encourages everybody to really value what you do and to make sure other people are valuing what you do.” Pruett has many stories about Rice supporting her, as a young comic and as a woman who doesn’t fit Hollywood’s idea of skinny blond beauty. It’s easy to get misty-eyed talking about Rice, really. But the comedian isn’t nostalgic or sentimental, and she isn’t opposed to dishing out tough talk to the kids. “I’m always beating them over the head,” she says. “There’s a difference between standup comedy and verbal blogging.” Rice takes issue with a few things happening in Portland: the free comedy shows and the fact that sometimes shows get packed with so many comics, they aren’t fun. “It’s supposed to be about laughter,” she says. “Not about applause, not about agreeing with a subject. It’s about, ‘Is it funny?’ You want it to be funny. You want people to be pounding on the table gasping for air. That’s what you should want. In my opinion.”
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PHILIP SCHALLBERGER BY JO H N LO C A N T H I
INSTEAD OF ROASTING OTHER COMEDIANS, HE’D R AT H E R R O A S T ROASTS.
@HuekahJohn
Earlier this month, Helium Comedy Club held a roast. The idea of the Dirty Roast was to pit local comedians against each other in a bracket-style tournament. Comics launched acerbic barbs at each other in a gladiatorial battle to become the last comic standing. Philip Schallberger took a more literal approach: He placed two pork roasts on opposing sides of the stage. Cannons sent volleys of carrots and celery at each side as the two hunks of meat went at it. When it was all said and done, one pork roast had slipped off its plate. The dirtiest roast of the night. “I’m bored with straight standup,” Schallberger says. “It’s been done—and done well— for a long time, but I like doing something different.” “I felt kinda bad about ruining that roast,” he adds. Schallberger has carved out a reputation as the Portland comedy scene’s resident oddball. He’s crafted erotic Matlock fan fiction. He’s choked a man-horse onstage for two minutes. He’s led an audience in singing “I Need a Ride” to the tune of “Auld Lang Syne.” Schallberger weaves together PowerPoints and audio files and bizarre characters to tap into the creative id of Portlanders. At Cup & Bar on Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, the lanky 26-year-old stands wearing a gray hoodie and jeans. An eccentric onstage, Schallberger in person is a down-to-earth, unassuming comedy nerd. He’s just as excited to talk about Eagleheart or Andy Daly’s Comedy Central show Review as he is his own material. Schallberger has been doing comedy for 8½ years, dating back to his days as a high-school kid performing in coffee shops.
“I wasn’t the class clown,” he says. “I wasn’t popular enough. I was just a funny guy.” He counts Peter Serafinowicz, Eugene Mirman and Daly as some of his greatest influences. He says seeing Mirman perform in Portland while he was in high school was one of the defining moments of his early comedy career. Schallberger’s act has evolved significantly through the years. His set at Sketchfest Seattle in 2013 revolved around a 15-minute audio file that ran through a series of seemingly unconnected, self-effacing self-promotions, commercial and film-trailer parodies, and even a knockknock anti-joke from his high-school days. Sometimes he delivered the jokes, sometimes they came from the file playing on his phone. These days, he’s been incorporating PowerPoint presentations. It takes him several hours to put together these presentations—he prefers to write his material at least a week in advance—but the results are well worth it. Hobo Tom, one of Schallberger’s most endearing characters, is a composite of several people he’s met, including his uncle. Schallberger adopts a gruff, guttural voice as the lights go out and the blue type of his PowerPoint presentation is projected on a black backdrop. It’s time for the Hobo Tom Show. The slides switch seemingly at random from audience instructions (“APPLAUSE”) to Hobo Tom’s excitement (“Yaay”) to the show’s sponsors (“snakes, the number two-ty three”) to three-part acronyms. This cavalcade of
absurdity culminates in the aforementioned sing-along about Hobo Tom’s need for a ride home that changes tempo from “Auld Lang Syne” to a rapid patter with a thumbnail of Hobo Tom bouncing from word to randomly placed word on the screen. The seven-minute set moves so quickly that the audience has no time for each slide to sink in before Schallberger moves on. And that, in a nutshell, is Schallberger’s humor. He likes to keep the audience off-balance, such as when he choked Klaus Klaus the Shame Horse onstage for two minutes earlier this year. Schallberger abhors violence as comedy, but he wanted to see how the audience would react. And instead of roasting other comedians, he’d rather roast roasts. “I’m not sensitive to how other people act when I’m onstage,” he says. “If a joke doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.” The low-key, offbeat and inventive nature of Schallberger’s humor has endeared him to Portlanders. Whether he’s announcing that tonight’s performance is brought to you by the Snake Council or he’s launching carrots out of a cannon at a pork roast, you get the feeling that not only is this delightfully absurd, but you may never see it again. At Sketchfest Seattle two years ago, Schallberger ended his set by ripping off his plaid button-up shirt to reveal the same shirt underneath. A friend later told him a comedian had done a similar joke with pants shortly before. Schallberger hasn’t performed the joke since. “It’s just parallel thought,” he says. “I’m happy to let [the other comedian] own the joke. I’d rather just keep trying to do new things.”
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ELEMENTS GLASS GALLERY PRESENTS
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Weekends in December & the full week leading up to Christmas Day 10am - 6pm $40 PER ORNAMENT Advance payment and registration required. Register at elementsglass.com 1979 NW Vaughn Street, North of Lovejoy (NOLO) www.elementsglass.com - 503-228-0575 Portland’s Hot Spot!
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JASON TRAEGER MOUTH-SHAPED SEX TOYS, ART SCHOOL AND THE LIFE-AFFIRMING PLEASURE OF TONGUING A WOMAN’S ASSHOLE.
BY WA L K E R M AC M UR D O
@walkermacmurdo
Jason Traeger’s best jokes work like booby traps. “When I was a child, I liked nothing more than Hostess blackberry fruit pies. They were my absolute favorite food,” says Traeger, luring the audience into complacency. “Now, if you had told me when I was a child that when I grew up to be a man that I would find Hostess blackberry pies and things like them inedible, something I wouldn’t eat if you handed me one, but that I would take deep, abiding, life-affirming pleasure tonguing a woman’s asshole…” That sucker punch leaves the audience in breathless hysterics for a good 25 seconds. Then, he goes in for a deadpan kill. “…I would say that I don’t think I would have believed you.” Traeger’s comedy evokes Michael Ian Black’s descents into quotidian horror, Mitch Hedberg ’s deadpan, and Moshe Kasher’s hypersexualized foppishness. Small, evocative gestures—a wave of the hand or a slow nod—conjure laughs out of thin air.
Clean-cut and bespectacled, Traeger, 47, could pass for 32. He wears a flannel shirt and jeans—a popular combo for emerging Portland comedians—and carries himself with an air of deliberateness that takes years to master. He has come a long way from being a high-school dropout immersed in ’80s West Coast punk culture. Born and raised in Seattle, Traeger dropped out of high school and moved to San Francisco when he was 17. “I was kind of a San Francisco/Los Angeles kid in my teen years,” he says. “I started going to punk shows in ’82.” A roadie for punk godfathers like 7 Seconds, Traeger got involved in a scene of now-legendary artists, working for punk record label Alternative Tentacles. “I worked for [former Dead Kennedys frontman] Jello Biafra for a number of years in San Francisco. That was the first job I ever had; I was like 18.” Traeger moved to Portland to attend art school in 2003. Here, he developed a penchant for simultaneously working as a solo artist and as part of a group, a duality that he continues today with his comedy. He found a knack for oil painting as well as performance art, as a member of a collective called the Oregon Painting Society. That project is pure art-school indulgence: A group of aggressively cool, sunglass-wearing youngsters fill a dimly lit gallery with mournful noise as Traeger manipulates a tangle of wires in the background. “We did some pretty good things—we went to London and performed at the Tate Modern [art gallery]. That was my main ‘art world art time,’ maybe 2004 to 2011.” Traeger dabbled in comedy in the early 2000s, continuing his run of being exposed to craft-defining artists during formative times. “The first comics I ever saw live were Mitch Hedberg and Marc Maron in 1999,” he says. “I saw them in Olym-
pia with, like, 15 people at both shows. Those were the two shows that got me to go to an open mic for the first time in Seattle, at the Comedy Underground.” Traeger returned to the stage in Portland about 3½ years ago. Today, his biggest inspirations are his colleagues in Portland’s comedy scene. “When I started,” he says, “you could see a world-class comic like Ron Funches, Ian Karmel, Shane Torres or Sean Jordan any night of the week. When you see them developing alongside yourself, it’s a cool thing to witness and reflect on.” Alongside his solo work, Traeger collaborates with fellow Portland comedians Paul Schlesinger and Milan Patel to produce off-kilter sketch and musical comedy performances under the moniker “American Comedy.” “We make videos and do a show at Holocene once a month,” Traeger says. “It goes a little differently than most comedy shows. I love working with both of those guys.” After watching Traeger talk about making out with a mouth-shaped sex toy onstage (“for practice”), American Comedy’s aggressively deadpan alternative comedy appears to be an outlet for his more abstruse comedic concepts. “I look at reality and seek visions in whatever way I can,” he says. “I want to understand something about who I am, and what the world is, and what life is. Ultimately, I take it out through comedy in particular, and put it in front of people and see what translates.”
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Lunch and dinner everyday Live music 5 nights a week 1101 NW Northrup, Pearl District streetcarbistro.com | 503.227.2988
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A ONETIME HIGH-SCHOOL POKER HUSTLER WORRIES ABOUT SECOND P U B E R T Y. COMEDY EVENTS Comedy shows have become a mainstay of Portland’s cultural landscape. Any night of the week, there is something funny happening here. Though not a comprehensive list, we’ve got a breakdown of some of the best recurring comedy nights in the city.
Boiler Room Open Mic Boiler Room, 228 NW Davis St., 227-5441. 9 pm every Monday. Free. 21+.
BY R E B E CC A JACO BSO N
@rebjacobson
Alex Falcone is not Mormon. People sometimes suspect he is, given the 31-year-old is married to his college girlfriend, and he doesn’t drink or do drugs. He also doesn’t eat meat. But you’ll never hear him talk onstage about his teetotaling or vegetarianism—Falcone likes the room to feel at ease. But not in a “hey-friend-would-you-like-abook-about-Jesus-hanging-with-Native-Americans?” way. Falcone just wants people to feel comfortable. “I have this weird belief that’s not shared by a lot of comedians, which is that comedy should be light, it should be fun,” Falcone says. “You’re not there to have your beliefs challenged. People go to comedy for entertainment, so I like an audience to be comfortable.” And he achieves it, in part by presenting himself as an affable, unthreatening, doughy dweeb. “I know I look like a vice principal,” says Falcone, whose neat side-part and black-frame glasses could definitely pass him off as a middle-school administrator. His style is self-deprecating, but very gently so: He’ll describe going for a jog in his “running pajamas,” or recall the time he chipped a tooth while enthusiastically eating a piece of pie. As a teenager in Reno, Nev., Falcone (who, full disclosure, writes movie reviews for WW and also contributes to other Portland media) was already learning to downplay himself to get what he wanted. During his senior year of high school, he took an economics class at the local community college. One of his classmates was a motorcycle gang leader—a big guy who smoked cigars and sipped top-shelf tequila while his buddies downed Corona—and a former drug dealer. Falcone found his way into the group’s weekly poker nights. “The leader had a rich family member who was like, ‘If you go straight, I’ll pay you whatever you were making as a drug dealer,’” Falcone says. “He picked up pretty quickly that I was way smarter than any of his friends, but he loved it because the money didn’t mean anything to him. His motorcycle gang were idiots. I won every week.” Falcone, the middle child and only son of an elementary-school music teacher and newspaper editor, won enough to drop $6,000 on a ’94 maroon Saturn and buy lots of high-end audio equipment, CDs and DVDs. But he makes very clear he wasn’t cheating or counting cards: He was just downplaying his skills.
In addition to his poker hustle, Falcone spent his high-school years doing improv and performing at poetry open-mic nights at a jungle-themed coffee shop in Reno. “We thought it was poetry, but we were all trying to be funny,” he says. Falcone continued improv while studying philosophy at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., a liberal arts school that Falcone says only accepted him because he’s a good test taker. His SAT scores were in the low 1500s, he says, with a coy but slightly proud grin—while also insisting he was a lazy student who spent his senior year enrolled in nothing but guitar and tennis. But if Falcone was lazy in the classroom, he made up for it elsewhere. His freshman year at Whitman, he ran a pool scam with a buddy from Seattle who went by Tallahassee Mike. Falcone would—surprise— downplay his own pool skills to clean up against unwitting frat guys in $5 and $10 games. He also taught himself Web design and programming, and in 2007, soon after graduating and moving to Portland, he started doing freelance work for a company that built Facebook games. Six months later, the company had been sold to a Silicon Valley firm, which Falcone says made him enough money to devote the next year to comedy and performing: everything from studying improv in Chicago to teaching classes at ComedySportz to dressing up as a bird and singing songs about recycling for an educational theater program. These days, he’s still very busy: He performs standup, hosts a monthly late-night talk show, produces a podcast, writes for radio variety program Live Wire!, teaches comedy classes, and appears in Carr Chevrolet commercials. Eight years later, it’s that omnipresence that helped land Falcone on this list. By his own admission, he’s a “pretty pedestrian comedian,” but he’s everywhere. “If you watch me do comedy 100 times, you would see between a 7 and a 7.5 every time,” he says. “I’m never going to be a 9, but I’m never going to be a 5. I feel like my material is very safe and accessible because I’m not doing anything that isn’t super-safe and accessible. I’m working on a joke about my second puberty, about looking at WebMD every day and replacing all my underwear with broken elastic. All the excitement is gone, and now I’m just married and boring and eating a lot.”
ALEX FALCONE
The open mic at Boiler Room is touted as the longest-running open mic in the Pacific Northwest, and like Suki’s famous but defunct open mic, it occupies a special place in Portland’s comedy history. Also, it once hosted sets performed by then-Blazer Jared Jeffries. Hit Boiler Room on the right night, and you might see Nathan Brannon slay an empty room. You’ll for sure see up-and-comers like Ed Black and Thermals frontman Hutch Harris working out new material. “A lot of the best comics work out there, but it’s also popular with firsttimers, so you get to see the full range of comedy skills,” says local comedian Seth Johnston. “Plus, host Kevin-Michael Moore plays a trumpet at people if they go over their allotted time too much, which makes me laugh every time.”
Helium Open Mic Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 8 pm every Tuesday. Free. 21+.
Every Tuesday night, comedians and comedy fans from Portland and the surrounding area flock to Helium for a free show that displays the best the comedy scene has to offer. With rotating hosts pulled from the upper echelon of local comedic talent, Helium runs a tight show with the first comics up, those with less experience, getting about three-minute sets, and the more seasoned, well-known comics getting longer sets as the evening progresses. On any given Tuesday, a Helium lineup includes up-and-comers like Dylan Jenkins and Ali Reingold. Offering two hours of free comedy, with a full bar and kitchen, the Helium Open Mic is the best place to start digging into local comedy.
Earthquake Hurricane Velo Cult Bike Shop, 1969 NE 42nd Ave., 922-2012. 9 pm every Wednesday. Free. 21+.
A comedy show in a bike shop that sells craft beer? Surely Portlandia’s writing team is ready to pounce. But those imaginary hack comedy writers don’t have to, because four of the city’s funniest folks created it before they could. Curtis Cook, Bri Pruett, Alex Falcone and Anthony Lopez have brought many high quality young comedians to Portland, putting up a weekly showcase with outstanding lineups top to bottom. “We only book two or three other comedians per week,” says Falcone, who is also a WW contributor. “Because it’s a small number, we can be highly selective. We book only the best comedians in the city and traveling through the country.” Since launching in December 2014,
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Earthquake Hurricane has hosted sets from Ron Lynch and Geoff Tate, and continues to bring in comedians on the rise from cities across the country, while showcasing the city’s best comics every week.
Control Yourself Alberta Street Pub, 1036 NE Alberta St., 284-7665. 9 pm every other Sunday. Free. 21+.
“What makes a block party fun, besides the potato salad?” JoAnn Schinderle asks. “It’s hot dogs. That was a weird way to say that we get a lot of ‘hot’ and ‘top dog’ comedian bookings and drop-ins.” Entering its second year, Schinderle’s showcase hosts both regional and local talent. “Control Yourself is a free show that brings in the likes of Sara Schaefer, Jared Logan, James Adomian, Emily Maya Mills,” Schinderle says. “Sunday nights should no longer be viewed as an evening to ‘Netflix and chill.’”
Midnight Mass Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 8416734. Midnight monthly. Free. 21+.
Amy Miller, the first winner of Willamette Week’s Funniest Five poll and the current champion of Helium’s annual funniest person contest, gathers her compatriots for a crazy midnight show. “The most unique thing about Midnight Mass is that it starts at midnight, and has a vaguely religious theme,” Miller says. “We take confessions from the audience, and have the crowd stand and meet their neighbors at the top of the show. It’s also the only show in town that has featured people like Dave Attell, Norm MacDonald, W. Kamau Bell, T.J. Miller and more...all for free!”
BY M AT T H E W S I N G E R
msinger@wweek.com
Like a lot of comedians, Gabe Dinger knew from an early age what he wanted to do with his life. He wanted to work at Blockbuster. A miserable student—he ditched class so much he got sent to an alternative high school in “almost Gresham,” near where he grew up—Dinger dropped out his senior year to live the dream of generous overtime pay and five free rentals per week. “I was making more money than my teachers were,” he says. “I was kind of like, ‘Why do I need school? I love working here. I’ll become a district manager. Boom! I got the job thing figured out.’” Somehow, though, that plan didn’t quite work out. After a few years, he got fired on a “technicality.” He kind of, sort of, stole the store’s copy of the Beverly Hills Cop trilogy. “I was devastated,” Dinger says. “I had dropped out of high school to work at this place!” Left floundering at age 21, he found his way to comedy soon after. It’s a wonder someone with the name Dinger—“a German word that means ‘whimsical erection,’” as he puts it—didn’t realize his true calling sooner. He always knew he was funny, but only because he had to be. It was a defense mechanism, a way of deflecting taunts aimed at a kid who, well, has a euphemism for an erection as his last name. It took a dare to get him onstage— from another comic he drunkenly heckled at a Beaverton open mic—but the moment of clarity hit him immediately. “I remember grabbing the microphone, finishing that first line and getting that laugh, and it was almost like everything stopped,” he says, “and I was like, ‘Oh. This is why I’m Gabe Dinger.’” A decade later, Dinger, 32, still looks more like a teenage video-store clerk than a grizzled standup vet. He’s grown a mustache, but it can’t hide his baby face—or, as he calls it, “nice-cop face”—and his squinted eyes make it seem like he’s at least a lit-
“I WANT TO MAKE PEOPLE NOT FEEL LIKE SHIT FOR MOVING HERE.”
It’s Gonna Be OK
GABE DINGER
EastBurn, 1800 E Burnside St., 236-2876.
tle high all the time, which usually has a 50-50 chance of being true. It’s a look that fits his comedy: casual and conversational, like a guy you end up talking to on the MAX, or who keeps you hanging around the counter at the convenience store after you’ve already made your purchase. In truth, Dinger is about as “old hand” as Portland comedy gets. He’s a regular at Helium and Bridgetown, neither of which were around when he started. He went on the road early, and learned how terrible it is touring the Midwest in the winter. (He took up improv so he could stay home during the cold months.) He’s played prisons and old-folks homes, and an amateur cage fight in Kelso, Wash., along with such rites of passage as Sketchfest and Bumbershoot. He’s shared martinis with Bob Saget, and got “the talk” from Norm Macdonald. And yet, if you ask Dinger, it wasn’t until recently that he actually figured out what the hell he’s doing. “I probably didn’t start liking my comedy until four years ago,” he says. His early material was almost exclusively about masturbating, because “that’s the only honesty you have at that age.” The first bit he felt had any worth was about his black stepfather making him watch Roots, and how for years afterward he couldn’t watch Reading Rainbow without crying. “That joke alone kept me going for the next three years,” he says, “until I wrote another joke that was kind of on that same level.” The jokes come easier now. These days, a lot of them are about Portland—specifically, how much better it is today than when he was a kid. He points out that the city used to be overrun with neo-Nazis, and suggests some “historic” homes are better off being demolished. “The house I grew up in was built in 1908,” he said at a recent gig. “It was more spider than house.” “I want to make people not feel like shit for moving here.” GO: Willamete Week’s third annual Funniest Five Showcase is at Alberta Abbey, 126 NE Alberta St., on Monday, Nov. 30. 7 pm. $5. For tickets, visit bit.ly/wwfunniestfive.
8 pm every Monday. Free. 21+. It’s Gonna Be OK is former Portland Mercury columnist Barbara Holm’s primary showcase, and, as she explains, “has a progressive, feminist slant with lots of super-smart, quirky, nerdy comics.” Running every Monday for free at EastBurn, It’s Gonna Be OK regularly showcases locals like Bri Pruett and has hosted traveling comics like Kyle Mizono from San Francisco. Holm recently launched a second showcase. Every month, she and co-host Chris Khatami put on a show called Quirktastic at Ford Food and Drink, focusing on the quirky side of Portland’s comedy scene, and mixing sketch with standup and musical comedy.
Garbage People The Waypost, 3120 N Williams Ave., 3673182. 8 pm monthly. $6.66-$10. 21+.
Garbage People builds off the idea of telling true stories, and puts an interesting twist on the standard overshare. “Garbage People takes the villain of the story, which is usually some terrible boss or neighbor or ex, and puts them onstage like Richard III confessing his mistakes and motivations to the audience,” says host Brodie Kelly. “Tell the story where YOU are the bad ex, where YOU fuck up.” Kelly recruits storytellers from open mics both in and out of town, and likes to mix bigger-name local stars with lesser-knowns who might have a story to tell that Portland comedy audiences have never heard before.
Minority Retort Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 9:30 pm fourth Friday of the month. $7-$10.
Hosted by Jeremy Eli, Minority Retort is the region’s only comedy showcase dedicated to comedians of color. “Our goal has been to provide a platform for comedians of color to freely speak their mind, as well as reach the diverse audience we believe exists in the so-called ‘whitest city in America,’” says organizer Jason Lamb. Lamb and Eli have showcased a wide range of comics, including locals like Adam Pasi, Venu Mattraw and Freddie Walker, and they’ve hosted visiting acts like Mona Concepcion and Wilfred Padua.
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“WE CARE”
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Edward E. Ward,
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Master Academy of General Dentistry
Book online: DrWardInterstateDental.com
Murmurs P.6
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
24 Hour Care Line Weekend Appointments On Max and Bus Lines
STREET
SATURDAY MARKET THE COATS ARE COMING! PHOTOS BY R ACHA EL R EN EE LEVASSEU R wweek.com/street
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open 11-10
Antoinette Antique & Estate Jewelry
everyday
500 NW 21st Ave, (503) 208-2173 kungpowpdx.com
2328 NW Westover Rd. AntoinetteJewelry.com
“I wanted a place to make my own in a walkable neighborhood with a big yard for my dog, and space to build an ADU. Success!”
Sarah Knight, Broker 971.506.7109 scoutportland.com sarah@scoutportland.com Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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“Storm Large peed on me! With a penis!” page 33
15 SW 2nd Ave. • 4 pm–Close • 503.790.9090 • www.barfifteen.com
POINT BREAK: Breakside is coming to Slabtown, opening a 5,000-square-foot satellite brewpub at the corner of Northwest 22nd Avenue and Raleigh Street. The third Breakside location will serve “elevated pub fare with local ingredients” and make its own lineup of beers, some of which may be bottled in small runs. “The master plan for the neighborhood is exciting, and the renovated space we had the opportunity to move into was too good to pass on,” says Breakside owner Scott Lawrence. Why not just open a pub? “People like to drink where the beer is made, and we wanted to have another brewery to have fun with,” he says. “Opening just a pub would have felt like an unoriginal money grab.” The well-regarded local brewery opened its first location in Woodlawn in 2010 and added a production brewery with a taproom in Milwaukie in early 2013. It’s won a ton of awards, most notably a 2014 gold medal for IPA at the Great American Beer Festival in Denver, in what was then the most competitive category ever at North America’s largest and most prestigious beer competition. The new brewery should be open by early summer and will be designed by local company Green Gables Design & Restoration. (Full disclosure: Breakside head brewer Ben Edmunds works closely with WW on the Oregon Beer Awards.)
WE SELL DRINKS
OPEN TILL 2:30AM DAILY libertyglassbar.com
DIP ’N’ DOUGHS: Having survived Peak Doughnut, Portland will get its first high-end churro shop in December. Ataula chef Jose Chesa and partners will open “Portland’s first dedicated xurreria,” which is called 180 in honor of the degrees Celsius at which the curly-fry-shaped fritters are made. The shop will be at 2218 NE Broadway and will feature a churro-making machine imported from Spain that produces fried dough intended to be dipped in housemade chocolate sauce.
CO U R T E SY O F T R A N S L I N G U I ST I C OT H E R
Movie Times P.55
IGNORANT NO MORE: It’s been the year of name-shaming in the indie-rock world, and Portland is not immune. Canadian post-punk act Viet Cong came under fire for naming itself after the regime responsible for killing thousands of Vietnamese civilians. The band eventually agreed to change its name. Local stoner rockers Black Pussy inspired an online petition, several think pieces and at least one show cancellation. So maybe it was only a matter of time before people caught up with Swahili, the Portland psychedelic space-funk group that does not feature any members from Southeast Africa. Rather than wait to face the scourge of scandalized hashtivists, the band has decided to head off any possible controversy, announcing it has played its final shows under what it called a “culturally ignorant” moniker. “We just felt like it was time to be done with Swahili,” says member Troy Micheau. “Lot of baggage and history with that name. We’re working on a new record right now, and the name will reflect the direction that project takes.” SWAHILI
OPT OUT: At this point, it’s pretty much universally acknowledged that Black Friday is a horror show for shoppers, retail workers and humanity. But our culture is changing. First, REI decided to close on Black Friday to give employees a chance to get outside. Then, state parks in California opened for free on Black Friday. Now, Oregon’s state parks are following suit, waiving their usual $5 parking fee on Black Friday. 26
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
OF XURRERIA
Named Portland Monthly’s ten things to devour in 2014
STARTERS
BITE-SIZED PORTLAND CULTURE NEWS.
COURTESY
Gonzo @ Bar XV. Middle Eastern selections served at Happy Hour, 4pm -7pm daily.
Left to my own devices, I would not know what a Tanasbourne was. I know this because most of my co-workers are blissfully unawares. And yet, because my wife’s lifestyle requires containers from a store that sells nothing but, and because she wanted to at least pop into the Nordstrom bridal store in Seattle, I have been to pretty much every notable mall in the Pacific Northwest—even Clackamas Town Center. In fact, I have been to Clackamas Town Center four times in my life. How many people who voted for Obama can claim that? But there is only one mall I go to willingly. That is Lloyd Center, our region’s greatest shopping mall. There are many places you could shop during this holiday season, but only one where you should. Here’s why.
GO: Buy all your Christmas presents at Lloyd Center, 2201 Lloyd Center, 282-2511, lloydcenter.com.
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25 Oneohtrix Point Never
[ICONOCLASTIC ELECTRONICA] Garden of Delete, the new album from the avant-garde sound architect born Daniel Lopatin, is informed by the time he spent on tour with Nine Inch Nails. As such, it’s different from his past psychedelic tapestries: heavier, more abrasive and, especially, more human. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 231-9663. 9 pm. $20. 21+.
THURSDAY, NOV. 26 Imperial Thanksgiving
[FOOD] Lazy? Forgetful? Don’t compound your faults. Have Thanksgiving at our Restaurant of the Year, which will offer a greatest-hits menu along with roasted turkey, cranberry sauce, oyster or sausage gravy, Dungeness crab salad and a whole mess of pies. Reservations recommended, and please don’t root against the Cowboys within earshot of chef Doug Adams. Imperial, 410 SW Broadway, 228-7222. 11 am-9 pm.
IN APPRECIATION OF LLOYD CENTER, THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST’S BEST SHOPPING MALL.
FRIDAY, NOV. 27 A K.B.N.B. Kristmas Karol
It has perfect lighting. A mall should channel a VHS home video of Tiffany’s ’87 tour; it should feel like your turn on the once-popular board game Mall Madness. Like Roxette, those bright white corridors of Lloyd Center got the look.
It’s a little weird. Lloyd Center’s lineup is quite dynamic, and there are plenty of odd details. Why is there a Turkish store? What is Chicken Connection? Why is there a college inside the mall? Would it really be that hard to have a full McDonald’s instead of a McDonald’s Express? There’s some room for improvement. Everyone needs a little space to dream of a better future for themselves, for their children. In a more perfect world, the Lloyd Center Marshalls is a T.J. Maxx. Can you imagine, fellow Maxxinistas? The chains are owned by the same company and, yes, are essentially the same. And yet, Marshalls sucks. Why, if you have the technology to operate a T.J. Maxx, would you instead operate a Marshalls? I have no idea. It would be like In-N-Out making Big Macs. And yet…
[THEATER] Bag & Baggage might be the best entertainment in Hillsboro, and the troupe stays true to form with this 1940s radio show parody that skewers A Christmas Carol. K.B.N.B. radio is doomed thanks to TV’s rise, but the cast goes out with a bang. The Venetian Theatre, 253 E Main St., Hillsboro, 693-3953. 7:30 pm. $27-$32.
Thanksgiving Weekend in Wine Country
[BOOZE] This is the weekend almost every Oregon winery cracks its doors. You can find our full list of picks at wweek. com, or just pop into Carlton Winemakers Studio, which brings together some of the best small producers, like Andrew Rich, Mad Violets and Hamacher. Carlton Winemakers Studio, 801 N Scott St., Carlton, 852-6100, winemakersstudio.com. 11 am-4 pm Friday-Sunday. $15.
ALEX BARRETT
It has all of the best stores. Lloyd Center has everything from H&M to a Sears with hardware. Do you need something they don’t sell at Lloyd Center? Is it some bougie bullshit? Is it a crack pipe? Lloyd Center has everything 98 percent of us need. Of the remaining 2 percent, half are 1%ers in the Occupy sense, and the other half are 1%ers in the biker-gang sense.
WILLAMETTE WEEK
HEADOUT WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE
There are walls. Why would anyone build a stupid open-air mall in Oregon, where it rains about half the year? Phoenix is a good place for a Bridgeport Village-type lifestyle center with a California Pizza Kitchen and a Crate & Barrel, because no one jogs to the car to avoid getting sun on them. In Tualatin, it is an absurdity. There’s plenty of parking. Have you ever had trouble parking at Lloyd Center? Me neither. On Black Friday, I might finally expect to see what the third level of the parking structure looks like. Is there a fourth level? I honestly have no idea, because I’ve never needed to go past the second.
You could hardly want for more options in a food court. Hawaiian plate lunch? Check. Fifties diner? Teriyaki? Check. Cinnabon? Check. There’s something that used to be better which insiders can complain about. Time was, the Lloyd Center Applebee’s had a secret menu of artisanal Jell-O shots. No more. You really had to be there, man. It has an ice rink. Yup. It has history. Olympic figureskating great Tonya Harding learned to skate on that very rink!
It’s not unsafe, but it is racistresistant. I like a mall that keeps it a little street, because it wards off the undesirables (rural folk, Volvo drivers, Apple Watch owners) and because it’s pretty much the only place I can check out what style of clothing youths are favoring. Lloyd Center has some street cred from a non-injurious gang shooting inside the mall in 2010, but I’ve always found it very welcoming. If you live close-in on the eastside, you may hear neighbors denigrate Lloyd Center. These are your typical purveyors of classic liberal soft-racism, the Stop Demolishing Portlanders who file complaints about bars that book hip-hop DJs and oppose development of new apartments that increase density. These people don’t go to Lloyd Center, and Lloyd Center is better for it. —Martin Cizmar
SATURDAY, NOV. 28 Puscifer
[TOOL IN THE DESERT] Somewhere between Amphetamine Reptile noise and Thom Yorke bleep-bloop lies the most recent project from Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan. Puscifer’s new album, Money $hot, captures the “everything all at once” vibe of underground ’90s rock. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 248-4335. 8 pm. $40. All ages.
SUNDAY, NOV. 29 The Nightmare Before Christmas Burlesque
[SCARY SEXY] This tribute to Tim Burton is a risqué frightfest presented by the only Portland bar that gives out free weed. Analog Cafe & Theater, 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 206-7439. 6 pm. $12.
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FOOD & DRINK = WW Pick.
FOOD CARTS K AY L A S P R I N T
Highly recommended. By MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Editor: MARTIN CIZMAR. Email: dish@wweek.com. See page 3 for submission instructions.
FRIDAY, NOV. 27 Black Beer Friday
At least here, at the end of the lines on Black Friday, there is beer. More than 25 versions of blackness will be on tap, including black IPA, bourbon-barrel stout, aged coffee stout, peppermint stout and a black Brett. Green Dragon, 928 SE 9th Ave., 517-0660. 11 am.
I
Urban Wine Thanksgiving
This event offers the Willamette Valley Thanksgiving experience within Portland city limits. Try pours of 20 wines from eight wineries, and a big turkey nacho buffet. Current Southeast Wine Collective resiwww.shandongportland.com dents include Division, Jasper Sisco, James Rahn, Fullerton, Welsch, Ore Winery, 51 Weeks and Laelaps. Southeast Wine Collective, 2425 SE 35th Place, 208-2061. 3 pm. $25.
Shandong
Shandong www.shandongportland.com
AN INTERNATIONAL MARKETPLACE
Cantonese Rice Salad Bring the flavors of Asia to your holiday dinners. Fubonn Supermarket has all the ingredients and ideas to create a great asian inspired dish. Ingredients:
to cool
3 tablespoons soy sauce
½ red pepper (capsicum)—diced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
½ green pepper (capsicum)—diced
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 scallion (spring onion)—thinly sliced on the diagonal
½ teaspoon superfine (caster) sugar ¼ teaspoon ground black pepper 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger 1 clove garlic—minced (crushed) 1 cup long grain rice—cooked and left
4 button mushrooms—halved and thinly sliced 1/3 cup green peas ½ cup roasted cashews
MIX together the soy sauce, sesame oil, lemon juice, sugar, pepper, garlic and ginger in a small bowl. PLACE the remaining ingredients in a large bowl, drizzle the dressing on top, and toss everything together until well combined. Tip: Add chilled cooked shrimp or chicken to make this dish a meal!
OREGON’S LARGEST ASIAN MALL
ONE STOP SHOPPING Groceries · Housewares · Gifts · Jewelry · Restaurants Interested in leasing space at Fubonn Shopping Center? email leasing @ fubonn.com
2850 S.E. 82nd Ave.
www.fubonn.com 28
503-517-8877
9am-8pm seven days a week
*Restaurant Hours may vary from mall hours
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
SATURDAY, NOV. 28 La Fete du Macaron
Pix Patisserie is back with its annual ode to the fancy cookie sandwich, with 30 goofball flavors on hand. Cookies are $2.25 each, but if you’re broke you can show solidarity by stomping on a cupcake to get a free one. Pix Patisserie, 2225 E Burnside St., 971-271-7166. 2 pm.
1. Coquine
6839 SE Belmont St., 384-2483, coquinepdx.com. Just a few months ago, this tidy mountainside cottage felt like our own little secret. The city’s gotten wise, but French-trained chef Katy Millard is earning all the praise she’s received.
2. Next Level Burger
4121 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 719-7058, nextlevelburger.com. The Pita Pit next to the city’s pre-eminent bong retailer is no more. In its place is a bustling vegan burger bar with superb sweet-potato fries.
3. The Maple Parlor
3538 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 206-4757, themapleparlor.com. After you get your bloodless patty at Next Level, you come here for dessert. This Hawthorne shop caters to even our most modern of dietary restrictions, with cold, creamy substances that are Paleofriendly, vegan and gluten-free.
4. Old Salt Marketplace
5027 NE 42nd Ave., 971-255-0167, oldsaltpdx.com. You can settle in for a meal— they’ve been making fresh-fried weekend doughnuts lately—or you can get some meat to go. Old Salt’s tasso recently won our blind tasting of local hams.
5. Gyro House
8140 SE Cora St., 206-8000, thegyrohouse.com. If, God forbid, you find yourself door-busting for a $32 70-inch TV at some big-box retailer on 82nd Avenue this week, check out Gyro House.
WE HAVE A MOLE: With rice and salad.
Mole Prehispanic Cuisine At the foot of the massive green wall of Forest Park, along a fast-moving highway of trucks hauling scraps of toxic garbage from here to there, sits a little white dot, a solitary food truck, that’s like a lamb lost from its pod. This is Mole Prehispanic Cuisine, and it serves some of the best Southern Mexican moles and empanadas in town. Chef-owner Luis Ochoa’s cart draws from a lifetime Order this: Mole negro ($8). in the restaurant industry, starting with his parents’ Baja California beachside restaurant to his time as chef de cuisine at Cibo on Division Street. Inside, he crafts four distinct indigenous-style moles, none of which resembles the chocolate-sweet concoctions you see poured over enchiladas at family joints in the suburbs. The lamb-based mole Coloradito (all are a ridiculously reasonable $8, including sides) is red as brick and has a sweet-hot note of cinnamon and clove on the finish, and the mole de Castilla is a hearty brown chicken mole with a touch of cocoa. Ochoa says his most popular dish is the mole verde, a bright-green sauce made with lightly acidic roasted tomatillos that contrast nicely against fatty Carlton Farms pork. While the mole verde is the hit, Ochoa’s favorite is the mole negro, and I’m with him on that. The mole negro is, true to its name, soot-black due to the laborious process of charring each ingredient before it’s ground into the sauce. This beef-brisket dish is rich and nutty with a smoky flavor all its own, more smoldering autumn leaf pile than Carolina smokehouse. Each mole is served with two handmade tortillas, a quinoa-and-rice mix and salad. The whole dish is then covered with neon-pink strings of pickled onion and yellow cubes of pineapple salsa, creating a synesthetic tessellation Escher would envy. On the sides menu, there are fried plantain chips ($3) that shatter like glass, and two types of empanada ($3), including the El Jefe, which is filled with corn and poblano peppers, and the daily special, which on my visit had kabocha squash and fresh chanterelle mushrooms wrapped in buttery, golden-brown dough. Ochoa says he plans to add a vegetarian mole option to the menu. My only quibble with Ochoa’s work is that I wish he offered a salsa with a little more heat. The salsa borracha (drunk sauce) is creamy and delicious, but is relatively tame. For now, Mole’s location is lost among racing Highway 30 traffic and rail-yard noise pollution. But Ochoa says he’s looking for a spot closer to town, somewhere with some foot traffic and a lunch crowd. Maybe Mississippi Avenue, maybe Montgomery Park. Wherever it lands, look for us. ZACH MIDDLETON. EAT: Mole Prehispanic Cuisine, 5885 NW St. Helens Road, 875-9134. 11 am-4 pm Monday-Friday.
Crushing Beers, Crunching Numbers We live in an era of big data and even bigger acquisitions. Last week, San Diego craft brewery Ballast Point was purchased by massive conglomerate Constellation Brands for an unprecedented $1 billion. It’s the fourth major West Coast craft brewery to be sold. Seattle’s Elysian and Bend’s 10 Barrel were recently snapped up by AnheuserBusch InBev, the world’s largest brewery. Heineken, the world’s third-largest brewery, bought a 50 percent stake in Lagunitas in September. We wondered which behemoth got the best beer for its buck, and which craft brewery took its purchaser for the proverbial ride, so we crushed some beers and we crunched some numbers. We awarded breweries up to 1,000 points each based on everything from medals won and barrels produced to subjective grading of their branding and how well their pubs fare on Yelp. What did we find? Based on our market valuation, InBev got a great deal on Oregon’s 10 Barrel.
Branding We consulted experts from two marketing firms, Leopold Ketel and Murmur Creative. Each agency ranked the four breweries on a scale of 1-50.
52 pts.
74 pts.
12 pts.
“I don’t understand why the type is shaped like that. The hop illustrations don’t meld with the type too well. Leaf shapes are funny. But it has good intentions.”
“10 barrel feels strong, masculine and modern. The type is distinctive and sharp and sharp serifs and rough edges give it an edgy vibe.”
“The stuff nightmares are made of.”
“Ballast Point does a pretty good job of ripping off 1980 packaging design from San Francisco.”
56 pts.
Geek Cred Average rating of the breweries’ three mostreviewed beers on BeerAdvocate.com
86
Elysian
88
10 Barrel
91
96
(Night Owl, Immortal and Dragonstooth)
BY WA L KER MACMU RDO @walkermacmurdo
Industry Cred
How the breweries fared with judges at the Great American Beer Festival for the past three years, allotting 15 points for each gold medal, 10 points for silver and five points for bronze, up to 100 points total.
Elysian
10 Barrel
15 pts.
50 pts.
(Apocalypse, Suede and Island Creek)
Lagunitas
(Hop Stoopid, Lagunitas IPA and A Little Sumpin’ Sumpin’)
Lagunitas
Ballast Point
0 pts.
30 pts.
Ballast Point
(Sculpin, Grapefruit Sculpin and Victory at Sea)
Volume
Pub Love
We awarded 20 points for every star their brewpubs have on Yelp.
Total barrels produced was judged on a curve. We allocated 100 points to the brand that made the most beer in 2014 and gave the others points proportionally.
700,000 barrels
Elysian 65 pts.
125,000
10 Barrel 80 pts. Ballast Point 85 pts.
50,000
Lagunitas 90 pts.
Quality
Lagunitas
Ballast Point
100 pts.
17 pts.
We bought some beer and drank it. Since IPAs currently account for 27 percent of the total craft beer market, we allotted up to 300 points for each brewery’s flagship IPA, and up to 100 points each for a dark beer and a wild card.
IPA Elysian Immortal: 131 pts.
Lagunitas Maximus: 146 pts.
10 Barrel Apocalypse: 194 pts.
Ballast Point Sculpin: 208 pts.
Dark 10 Barrel Sinister Black Ale: 24 pts.
Lagunitas Imperial Stout: 34 pts.
Elysian Dragonstooth Oatmeal Stout: 58 pts.
Ballast Point Victory at Sea Imperial Porter 65 pts.
Wild Card Elysian Night Owl Pumpkin Ale: 60 pts.
Lagunitas Hop Stoopid Ale: 60 pts.
10 Barrel Joe IPA: 71 pts.
Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin: 71 pts.
Elysian
10 Barrel
7 pts.
5 pts.
Final Gravity Total Points
40,000
Reported Sale Price
Dollars Spent per Point $126,582
Elysian
474
$60 million
10 Barrel
586
$50 million
Lagunitas
533
$500 million
$938,086
Ballast Point
628
$1 billion
$1,592,356
$85,324
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MUSIC FEATURE
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
S TO R M L A R G E . C O M / W W S TA F F
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.
The Bricks, Strange Wool, Wicked Shallows
[DINGY GARAGE] Just when you thought garage rock was a worthless corpse, fleeced too many times to count…well, it still is. But the Bricks pull some moves akin to Clorox Girls, or a stripped-down Woolen Men, in that there’s just enough punk injected into all that garage to get over. Strange Wool offers up a spacier vibe than the headliners, adding some keyboard to better fill out its reasonably sparse rock action. And opening the evening, Wicked Shallows seems to have picked up on whatever all those Epitaph bands put down when everyone thought slowing compositions and adding a fiddle made them adroit songwriters. DAVE CANTOR. Kelly’s Olympian, 426 SW Washington St., 228-3669. 9 pm. $5. 21+.
Jackson Boone, Souvenir Driver, Boone Howard
[COSMIC ROCK] Jackson Boone’s Natural Changes is a formidable local record of the year candidate, built of experimental folk and floating psychedelia. Recorded at the Oregon coast, the album sounds like many of the titles suggest (“Strawberry Vibes,” “Secret Capricorn,” “Moonbeam”). Pioneering psych-rock acts like the Zombies and Roky Erickson can be heard in Boone’s mushy, kaleidoscopic
CONT. on page 35
TOP
5
Largesse JON DUENAS
WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25
FIVE AWESOME REMIXES BY ANDRÉ ALLEN ANJOS Cornelius, “Tender” (by Blur)
It’s more about his body of work. He started doing these remix albums, and I would credit those albums as a big reason I started doing remixes, or why I thought it might be a viable creative outlet. He did “Tender” by Blur—which, if you have to pick one, I’d go with that one—and that Moby track “We Are All Made of Stars,” and even like a Sting song, a Tahiti 80 song. It was the first time I heard a remix that wasn’t a club mix at all. That whole realm of work he did really inspired me, not in the sense that I was trying to rip off his style, but more conceptually, of what you can do with a remix.
2 Classixx, “Psychic City” (by YACHT) They took that song to another level—another place. It was really smooth compared to a lot of the stuff from that time, which was really big and abrasive, like Justice—which is great, too, but at the time it came out, it was just really nice. Like, oh, it doesn’t have to be loud and annoying. 3 Jacques Renault, “Beam Me Up” (by Midnight Magic) He made it slightly faster. He didn’t mess with the song a lot, but he changed the pattern of the piano and made it a lot groovier. He cut out a weird bridge part that was always really strange when DJing the original. It just moves more fluidly. 4 Four Tet, “Leave a Trace” (by Chvrches) I’ve always loved Four Tet’s work, but he really outdid himself on this one. It’s simple and focused. He dialed in the glitchiness and used reverb really tastefully. It’s driving and beautiful at the same time. 5 RAC, “Home” (by Edward Sharpe) Not that I think it’s an amazing remix or anything, but it made a huge impact on my career. Going back to that Cornelius thing, I realized you don’t have to do a four-on-the-floor dance remix. It was the first time I felt like I was finally able to break away from the dance thing and do a remix I thought was appropriate for the original song, which is basically a folk song. André Allen Anjos is a Portland electronic artist who performs under the name Remix Artist Collective. SEE IT: RAC plays Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., with Big Data, Karl Kling and Filous, on Wednesday, Nov. 25. 8 pm. $25 advance, $30 day of show. All ages.
A STORM LARGE PRIMER FOR NEW PORTLAND. BY MATTHEW SIN GER
msinger@wweek.com
One of the first distinctly Portland things I encountered after moving here was Storm Large and her secret penis. It was October 2008, and I was flipping through the channels in a motel near Portland State when I came across Candidates Gone Wild, the electionyear variety show put on by my future employer. One of that year’s gags included a filmed sketch in which then-City Commissioner Randy Leonard tracks Mayor-to-be Sam Adams in an attempt to “out” him as not actually gay. In the final moments, Leonard follows Adams to his house, where he’s found canoodling with Large, who is blond, buxom and seemingly female. Leonard busts in, hoping to catch them in the act, only to find Large in the bathroom, peeing standing up. “Storm Large peed on me!” Leonard yells. “With a penis!” Although it was only my second night in town, the context of all this was clear. I had just one question: Who is Storm Large? Seven years later, I’m still not totally clear on that. Sure, I know who she is in the literal sense. It’s the phenomenon of Storm Large that still mystifies me. She’s written a memoir, starred in a stage play based on her life at Portland Center Stage, and headlined the Schnitz with the Oregon Symphony. She’s appeared on the cover of this paper three times in 11 years—pretty good for someone who isn’t a disgraced politician. And yet, I don’t know if I could adequately explain why, exactly. If you moved here after I did, you’re probably even more confused. Like Pink Martini, of which she is now a member, Large’s main appeal these days is with a specific demographic—namely, people who still buy CDs, and drop $150 for tickets to the lone concert they attend each year—and if you’re outside it, her popularity can seem mystifying. With her annual (sold-out) holiday shows approaching, I’ve heard the question “Who is Storm Large?” a few times recently. Here is the primer I wish someone would have given me.
So, who is this person? In the simplest terms, she is a singer. She started with a weekly show at Dante’s, singing loungey versions of punk and metal songs. Oh, so she’s like Richard Cheese? Sort of, except with a drama-kid-gone-bad aesthetic and big, Broadway-level pipes. So, more like Amanda Palmer meets Rock of Ages meets Samantha from Sex and the City. OK, but that sounds a little gimmicky for someone who’s so popular with the West Hills crowd. What else has she done? Well, in 2006, she was a contestant on Rock Star: Supernova. Say what now? It was like the hard-rock American Idol. In her season, Large competed to front a band consisting of Tommy Lee and castoffs from Guns N’ Roses and Metallica. She didn’t win, but she recorded a single with Dave Navarro, which is the rock equivalent of winning a year’s supply of soap on The Price Is Right. Doesn’t Portland hate people who were on television? You’ve got to remember, this was pre-Portlandia. Back before blaming a TV show for Portland’s changing socioeconomic realities was de rigueur, Large’s run was much more of a “local girl does good” kind of thing. So, why does Portland love her so much? Well, her voice is pretty stunning. She’s also plotted her career well, going from playing the “brassy broad” singing about her vagina to doing standards with the symphony. As Lady Gaga proved, well-to-do liberals love that kind of juxtaposition, and she started down that road a little earlier. Wait, “her vagina”? Yeah. It was called “Eight Miles Wide.” People were pretty into it. I thought you said she had a penis? Oh, no. I should probably clarify that she is a woman, which made the whole “She’s got a dick!” punch line extra funny. Portland—so weird, right? SEE IT: Storm Large’s Holiday Ordeal is at Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 27-28. 8 pm. Sold out. Under 21 permitted with legal guardian. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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JAMES REXROAD
MUSIC
Gaytheist plays Bunk Bar on Saturday, Nov. 28. sound. It’s a hypnotic, fluid acidtrip of a record late-era Beatles lovers would be wise to procure. MARK STOCK. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave. 9 pm. $5. 21+.
FRIDAY, NOV. 27 The Next Waltz
[ALL-STAR TRIBUTE] The Last Waltz is a legendary affair, due to Martin Scorsese’s cocainefueled rockumentary and the concert’s star-studded roster. Here, a who’s-who of Portland musicians will attempt to re-create the Band’s 1976 farewell for the fifth year in a row on behalf of the Jeremy Wilson Foundation and the Oregon Food Bank. Local stalwarts such as the Decemberists’ Jenny Conlee, Ural Thomas and Scott McCaughey of the Minus 5 dot the bill, while various house bands round out tunes penned by Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell and a host of other artists who now spend their time covering pop standards. BRANDON WIDDER. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 719-6055. 8 pm. Through Nov. 28. $28 advance, $32 day of show. Under 21 permitted with legal guardian.
Dirty Revival, Philly’s Phunkestra
[BIG BRASS] Portland’s Dirty Revival just released its self-titled debut. An energetic mix of soul, hip-hop and plenty of brass, it’s a boisterous, hard-to-contain sound that resides somewhere between the Roots and Sharon Jones. The quintet draws from jazz, funk and big-band routines as well, affording a depth and quality that can’t quite be time-stamped. Frontwoman Sarah Clarke has the pipes of a massive church organ, throwing powerful gusts that will knock the beanie right off your head. MARK STOCK. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 2319663. 9 pm. $12 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
The Domestics, Esmé Patterson, Sunbathe
[INDIE FOLK POP] This showcase features three local bands with extra-Portland reach. The Domestics have since been heralded as one of the best new bands in town, based on its earnest narratives and textured arrangements, while Esmé Patterson, one of the founding members of Americana septet Paper Bird, has released two solo albums—the raw All Princes, I in 2011 and concept record Woman to Woman in 2014. She’s since moved from Denver to Portland, and has earned a reputation through collaborating with Shakey Graves on last year’s And the War Came. Finally, Sunbathe represents the solo project of Genders’ Maggie Morris. Although the altrock trio—a Best New Band finalist in 2013—has toured with bands like Built to Spill, Morris’ solo
Headout P.27
work shows a softer, more emotional side to the singer-guitarist. HILARY SAUNDERS. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
Slim Jesus, Drae Steves, Coma Boys, SQD, Catxscan
[LET’S NOT GET IT] The video for Slim Jesus’ viral single, “Drill Time,” instills the same feeling of panicked, ass-clenching embarrassment one endures while witnessing a stranger break into song in public. A simulacra of Chicago drill rap circa 2012, Slim Jesus does an excellent job of replicating Lil Durk’s flow—and his “let’s get it” ad lib—over knockoff Young Chop beats, with crass references to gun violence that he has since admitted in interviews having no actual experience with. After bearing the brunt of a tidal wave of extraordinarily violent dis tracks in the aftermath of “Drill Time,” it is hard to imagine anything good can come of this show. WALKER MACMURDO. Peter’s Room at Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 971-230-0033. 8 pm. $20 advance, $40 VIP. All ages.
SATURDAY, NOV. 28 Gaytheist, Acid Tongue, Ice Queens
[CHAOS THEORY] One of the finest, noisiest acts in all of Portland, Gaytheist is a firebreathing force to be reckoned with. To be both tongue-in-cheek and sonically ferocious is quite a task, and the local trio does both with ear-bursting results. The band’s newest release, Gay*Bits, a split album with fellow noise-mongers Rabbits, is more of the same, which is to say it’s face-melting, metal-inspired hard rock that leaves only busted equipment and satisfied faces in its wake. Seattle garage-rockers Acid Tongue join the madness. MARK STOCK. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., 328-2865 9 pm. $7. 21+.
Puscifer
[DESERT ROCK] Somewhere between Amphetamine Reptile noise rock and Thom Yorke bleepbloop electronics lies Puscifer, the most recent project of Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan. Puscifer’s new album, Money $hot, captures the “everything all at once” vibe of half-underground ’90s rock without sounding like it, filtering that eclectic energy into polished, spaced-out desert rock. Keenan recently came under scrutiny for calling his fans “retards” in an interview with the Phoenix New Times, but don’t expect that to keep them from the Keller. Look forward to white people with dreadlocks as far as the eye can see. WALKER MACMURDO. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 800273-1530. 8 pm. $40-$65. All ages.
CONT. on page 37
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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Willamette Week’s 3RD ANNUAL
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Funniest
5
Showcase
Save the Date! MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30 • 7 P.M. • $5 1433 NE Broadway • 503.493.0070 • Hours: Mon-Sat 10-6; Sun 11-5
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MUSIC [PRAISE MUSIc] JoJo is the greatest musician of all time. one day, when this world has become just and pure, her venerated corpse will be encased in platinum and melted down into wafers, and we will literally ingest the gilded flesh of JoJo when we take communion at the altars dedicated to our new God. Is the rent late? Do you not make any money? Are you worked to death by the exploiting boss class, the eternal enemy of the working poor? Stare into the mirror at your own yellow, jaundiced eyes, scream and scream “JoJo!” 1,000 times and you will be saved. If I were JoJo I would name my album Music for Walgreens and spend all my money on one very expensive dog. But I am not JoJo. only JoJo is JoJo, and at JoJo’s perfect feet I will pray. BRAcE BELDEn. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 2848686. 8 pm. $20 advance, $28 day of show. All ages.
SUNDAY, NOV. 29 Tanlines, Blossom, DJ Bobby D
[SYntH-PoP] tanlines drummer Jesse cohen bursts through the door with a giant burlap bag labeled “cocaine” and a six-pack of beer. It’s the first in a series of shenanigans involving cohen and singer-guitarist Eric Emm in the duo’s music video for the song “Palace.” though the band’s upbeat, carefully crafted dance pop is meant to be taken seriously, comedy is a major part of its multimedia presence. You’ve got to have a sense of humor, considering some of the things they’ve been through, including a technical disaster that destroyed their ability to write songs on a computer—their normal fashion—and use regular old guitars and drums. As a result, Highlights, their second album, sounds vast and full, partly from the space provided by more traditional instrumentation that blends with idiosyncratic, lighthearted synth hooks, and partly from Emm’s theatrical vocals, which were recorded as he belted them from the balcony of a century-old Brooklyn church. SHAnnon GoRMLEY. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St. 8:30 pm. $15. 21+.
Seance Crasher, Little Star, Haste
[PoP WItH cHoPS] Despite their age, brothers Kevin and Daniel Rafn know how to manufacture a solid pop gem grounded in the analog tradition. the young duo—Kevin, in particular—constitutes the heart of Seance crasher, and the group has recently released City Bus EP. the homespun collection serves as dreamy prelude to the band’s forthcoming sophomore LP, capitalizing on Kevin’s love of vintage drum machines and warbling monophonic synths without ever sounding forced. the bouncy rhythms and slacker lyricism are simultaneously weird and wonderful, and just like the band’s live act, it results in a taut mix that channels some of the best new Wave Rontoms could muster without resorting to well-known standards on Spotify. BRAnDon WIDDER. Rontoms, 600 E Burnside St., 236-4536. 8:30 pm. Free. 21+.
TUESDAY, DEC. 1 Bobby Bare Jr., Star Anna
[coUntRY-ISH] Bobby Bare Jr. was born into country music. His mother was a singer, his father was country Music Hall of Fame artist Bobby Bare, and he even grew up next door to country star George Jones. over the course of his own seven-album career, however, Bare has established his own style of altcountry that’s equally influenced by electric bombast and acoustic sentimentality, with lyrics filled with pop-culture humor. Bare’s collaborators span from the late children’s
poet Shel Silverstein to fiddlerguitarist-songwriter-expert whistler Andrew Bird. His most recent studio album, 2014’s Undefeated, is a self-described “breakup record,” and he also released a live soundtrack for his tour documentary, Don’t Follow Me (I’m Lost), earlier this year. HILARY SAUnDERS. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $12. 21+.
Warren Haynes & the Ashes and Dust Band, Chessboxer
[tHE otHER ALLMAn] Warren Haynes isn’t the most recognizable figure on the jam-band circuit these days, but he’s probably one of the busiest. Yet, in between gigging with Government Mule
and various Dead off-shoots, he’s managed to find time to flesh out a decent solo album, backed by the bluegrass-leaning Railroad Earth. titled Ashes and Dust, it plays on his virtuosic strengths as a guitarist, stretching cuts about troubled friends and the status quo with wisps of banjo and mandolin that emulate celtic folk. His latest tour has been nothing short of eclectic, interpreting everything from Allman Brothers staples to Radiohead’s most seminal work. BRAnDon WIDDER. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 971-2300033. 7:30 pm. $28.50 general admission, $40 reserved seating. 21+.
cont. on page 41
INTRODUCING coURtESY oF MontHS
JoJo
dates here
Months WHO: Wilson Vediner (vocals, guitar), Aaron Robert Miller (guitar, vocals), Courtney Sheedy (bass), Will Hattman (drums).
SOUNDS LIKE: Thurston Moore crashing Fugazi’s tour van into Ben Gibbard.
FOR FANS OF: Sonic Youth, Fugazi, Yo La Tengo, Seam. For several summers, Wilson Vediner, Aaron Robert Miller and Courtney Sheedy offered counsel to young musicians at Pendleton Rock Camp in Eastern Oregon. Each had their own respective musical project throughout—Point Juncture, WA; Deer or the Doe; Swim Swam Swum—but eventually, their shared experience led to collaboration. Months’ self-titled debut has spent a couple of years in various stages of production. The band labored intensely over Months with engineer-producer Victor Paul Nash at his studio, fleshing out Vediner’s Sonic Youth homages into democratically composed pieces. The product is an elegant ramshackle of controlled chaos. Vediner sings in an almost whisper; when the chord progression shifts, the tone changes with Miller’s growl and jagged guitar sound. The official running length clocks in at just under 40 minutes, but in that short space it feels as if you’ve traversed a great distance. While Vediner and Miller are excited about the new record, they’re even more excited about the one written in the meantime, as a full-fledged band. “I don’t think anyone comes in with something completely finished anymore,” Miller says. “There’s no one telling us how to do it, Vediner adds. Miller chimes back in: “I can’t imagine there ever will be anyone who has any say besides us.” CRIS LANKENAU. SEE IT: Months play Mississippi Studios, 3939 n Mississippi Ave., with Bitch’n and tents, on Sunday, nov. 29. 9 pm. Free. 21+.
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Ian Karmel is a homegrown Portland comedian whose style zig-zags between the eclectic and the universal. Currently a writer for CBS’ The Late Late Show with James Corden (previously E’s Chelsea Lately), with appearances on Portlandia and Conan. Ian’s debut album, ‘9.2 on Pitchfork’, has just been released on Kill Rock Stars.
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
GOLDENDRAGONCLUB
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SALE PRICED CD $11.99 What was to become Youngblood was never originally planned as an album. He whittled down dozens of songs written over a period of hitchhiking, with a wide instrumental palette and contributions from some of LA’s most sought after session musicians helped Dane’s ideas come to life.
So There
SALE PRICED CD $10.99 The three movement Concerto which closes the album was initially conceived as the result of a commission from the Nashville Ballet along with the Nashville Symphony and Minnesota Orchestra, to create original music for a new ballet.
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EZRA FURMAN
Over the course of the five songs on their new EP, Rod match serious rock melodies to rhythmic tenacity, with sweet and emotive vocals chronicling observations of self, friends, and family, human and otherwise. Rod have blushed at comparisons to Built To Spill, Dinosaur Jr., and even Neil Young, all favorites of the group.
The opening lines of my records tend to be summary statements,” says Furman. “Every year has been restless, physically and even more internally.” Hence the title Perpetual Motion People, “That’s who it was made by and that’s who it’s for. People who feel they can never settle.
@GOLDENDRAGONPDX
324 SW 3rd Avenue • LocAted doWntoWn 503-274-1900 • goLdendrAgonpdx.com
Youngblood
ROD
ALWAYS HIRING ENTERTAINERS
After HourS pArty tiLL 6Am
KOREY DANE
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1ST AT 6PM
FOOD CARTS OPEN LATE NIGHT
18 AND over
BEN FOLDS
Street P.21
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2ND AT 6PM
MUSIC
dates here
cOurtESy OF WiNDiSh AgENcy
PROFILE
Oneohtrix Point Never WEDNESDAY, NOV. 25
In 2014, Daniel Lopatin spent the summer living out an unlikely rock-’n’-roll fantasy. Tapped to open for Nine Inch Nails and Soundgarden in amphitheaters across the Midwest, the avant-garde electronic producer known as Oneohtrix Point Never kicked off each show with 20-minute sets of noise, confounding audiences who’d come to worship at the altar of Trent Reznor. “I wish I could point to one thing [revelatory] about the tour,” Lopatin says. “But each day was weirdly repetitive. Wake up at a Holiday Inn Express. Travel for a long time, listen to a bunch of hesher jams on the radio, hopefully find a Chipotle.... There are things I picked up from those bands technique wise, but I think soaking up the American Midwest like that was also helpful.” Inspired—and funded—in part by the large-scale industrial sound design of the tour, Lopatin holed himself up in a windowless basement studio somewhere in Brooklyn last winter for up to 17 hours a day, working on his seventh studio album, and second for Warp Records, Garden of Delete. Preceded by an elaborate PR campaign—including an “interview” with a humanoid adolescent alien named Ezra and the creation of a fictional “hyper-grunge” band known as Kaoss Edge—the record is nevertheless the most “human” of Lopatin’s career. While his past compositions have generally specialized in a proggy ambient chill, Garden of Delete wound up sounding more like Slipknot than his New Age psychedelic tapestries of yore, full of staccato nu-metal MIDI drum rolls and piercing Auto-Tuned lyrics. After a decade of crafting instrumental soundscapes, Lopatin finally has something to emote—even though lyrics like “potassium/Dagger Prometheus” read like an Infinite Jest footnote for the rest of us. “Having lyrics makes it easier to be clear on the meaning behind songs,” he says. “Generally I feel like writing songs these days, and part of that means having something personal to say, which I’m excited about.” Composing with MIDI was also transformational for Lopatin. In the run-up to the album’s release, he made some material available for the public to remix. It was a way to connect with his fans, but he says it was also cathartic to “acquiesce control.” In terms of his live show, Oneohtrix Point Never is also switching things up. His performances have always been a spectacle of audio-visual synchronicity, thanks in part to co-conspirator Nate Boyce, who is responsible for rendering Lopatin’s sonic environments with 3-D animation. This time around, Boyce joins Lopatin as a musician, playing guitar while also doing the video for the show. Always a master iconoclast of electronica, Lopatin has reached a point of taking an arresting hold on synth-based music. “It doesn’t need to be any one thing or pander to lifestyle or genres,” he says. “It can be what you want it to be.” WYATT SCHAFFNER. An avant-garde master gets human.
SEE IT: Oneohtrix Point Never plays Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., with James Ferraro, on Wednesday, Nov. 25. 9 pm. $20. 21+. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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Introducing...
k Store e e W e t t me The Willa
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
Our an n ual guide to h o liday sho pping in Po rtland publish ed to day. Call 503.2 43.2 1 2 2 or email adv ertising@wweek.co m t o reserv e space in th e 1 2 /9 I ssue.
MUSIC CLASSICAL, WORLD & JAZZ The Curtis Salgado Band
[DAD BLUES] Curtis Salgado has a super-massive soul. The blues singer became the inspiration for The Blues Brothers after meeting John Belushi as he was filming Animal House, and his cool, collected stage presence is the stuff of local legend. Now an elder statesman on the Portland scene, Salgado’s gravelly tenor and clean harmonica tone pair well with his bowling shirts. He plays the sort of blues that your dad puts on while telling you about the good ol’ days. It’s not groundbreaking stuff, but the classics are well-executed, and the band is filled with some of the heaviest hitters in the region. PARKER HALL. Jimmy Mak’s, 221 NW 10th Ave., 295-6542. 8 pm Saturday, Nov. 28. $20 general admission $25 reserved seating.
dates here
Calder Quartet
[CALIFORNIA CLASSICAL] The young, L.A.-based Calder Quartet has forged relationships with two of its hometown’s top composers. Thomas Adès, the greatest living English composer, has lived there part-time for years, and Andrew Norman, who made his rep in Brooklyn’s hot new music scene, now teaches at USC and is one of many 20- and 30-something composers who cite the 44-year-old Adès as a major influence. On Tuesday, the Calders will play one of Adès’ breakthrough works, the dramatic Arcadiana— written when Adès was 22, and inspired by vanished or vanishing places like Venice—along with
Leos Janácek’s poignant second string quartet (“Intimate Letters”) and Schubert’s piercing “Death and the Maiden” quartet. On Monday, they’ll play a quartet arrangement of Norman’s short, ethereal solo viola piece Sabina, plus Benjamin Britten’s searing 20th-century landmark, the second string quartet he wrote in 1945 after meeting Nazi concentration camp survivors, and a Beethoven masterpiece, his Op. 127 quartet. BRETT CAMPBELL. Lincoln Performance Hall at Portland State University, 1620 SW Park Ave. 7:30 pm Monday-Tuesday, Nov. 30-Dec. 1. $30-$47. All ages.
For more Music listings, visit
ALBUM REVIEW
Oregon Symphony Holiday Pops
[HOLIDAY HITS] What better way to celebrate the sounds of the season than to hear them performed by a full orchestra, and accompanied by a massive children’s choir? Conductor Jeff Tyzik and the Pacific Youth Choir join the Oregon Symphony to perform Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies,” a jovial version of wintertime classic “Sleigh Ride” and will finish off the night with a symphonic version of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s neoChristmas classic “Christmas Eve/ Sarajevo 12/24.” Bundle up and take your grandmother—she’ll love everything but the last bit. PARKER HALL. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 228-1353. 3 pm Sunday, Nov. 29. $23-$105. All ages.
Trans-Siberian Orchestra
[PSYCHEDELIC ROCK OPERA] The Trans-Siberian Orchestra is both a holiday staple and an arena favorite. The prog-rock group began in 1996 as a project by composer, producer and lyricist Paul O’Neill, with a rock opera titled Christmas Eve and Other Stories that marked the first in a holiday trilogy spanning three years. Since 1999, Trans-Siberian Orchestra has helmed an annual tour through the holiday months that blends all the best elements of a capella, Broadway, classic rock, heavy metal and childhood story time. With an enormous band comprising vocalists, narrators, guitarists, bassists, percussionists and string players, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra manages to unite all of its performers and audience through its insane, multisensory live shows, featuring blinding lights and sights and sounds that just barely miss the mark of overstimulation. HILARY SAUNDERS. Moda Center, 1 N Center Court St. 3 and 7:30 pm Sunday, Nov. 29. $35-$73. All ages.
Ramana Vieira and Fado Ensemble
[FADO REVIVAL] You might think of the two century-old genre called fado as a kind of unique Portuguese blues, originally sung by society’s shady outcasts, but replacing American blues’ feistiness with an accent on hopelessness, mourning, cruel fate and other woe-is-me poses. The music has evolved and expanded in range through several revivals in the 20th century, the last led by the famous Queen of Fado, Amália Rodrigues, who died in 1999. Portugal’s Mariza is probably the reigning monarch of fado, but one of today’s rising stars, Bay Areabased singer Ramana Vieira—an American of Portuguese extraction— pays the late queen tribute on her new album, Luso Sol. She injects modern influences (and English as well as Portuguese lyrics) and even non-traditional instruments like cello, bass, drums and accordion into her original compositions, while maintaining most of the weepy melodrama. BRETT CAMPBELL. Vie de Bohème, 1530 SE 7th Ave., 360-1233. 7 pm Sunday, Nov. 29. $10 advance, $15 day of show. Under 21 permitted until 9:30 pm.
Blitzen Trapper
ALL ACROSS THIS LAND (VAGRANT) [HIGHWAY SONGS] On paper, Blitzen Trapper’s new album is built for the road. These are 10 short tracks of souped-up Americana, about first loves, hard work, vices and trusty old cars. Frontman Eric Earley narrates the journey in his familiar, weathered voice, his tortured vocals suggesting he’s been to hell and back more than once. Not long after the needle hits the band’s eighth studio album, however, things take a turn for the plain. The dramatic peaks and valleys of the opening title track—a near-perfect blast of toothy Southern rock that rivals the band’s runaway hit, “Furr”—give way to the endless ubiquity of power lines and flickering lights. To the band’s credit, the sound is tight and clean throughout. Earley wrote the record in a relatively concentrated period, and many of the tracks have a thematic feel as a result. Nods to the greats are plentiful, from Tom Petty (“Lonesome Angel”) to Bruce Springsteen (“Nights Were Made for Love”) to the Band (“Let the Cards Fall”). Earley is accompanied by the empathetic sounds of heartbroken Americana, played on the harmonica, lap steel and carefully plucked acoustic guitar. Lyrically, the message tends toward classic country mantras: the regret of taking things for granted, heavy drinking, cherished guitars. One of the best songs, “Cadillac Road,” takes advantage of Blitzen Trapper’s many pieces, with a coasting guitar riff caught in a delightful tug of war between sky-high keys, weeping steel and grounded, pulsing drum work. There is comfort in domestication, but also the danger of dullness. Talk of wild hearts and the fist-pumping gospel of rock ’n’ roll feel caged by safe hooks and melodies. Like any road trip, All Across This Land has its moments, but without a lead foot, the journey feels arduous from time to time. MARK STOCK.
Deschutes Brewery gift cards make a great gift this holiday season. With amounts ranging from $5 to $500, it’s the perfect gift for any type of beer drinker. Dine in, fill a growler, or buy some Deschutes swag from our pubs and tasting room. For every $100 gift card purchased, you get a $10 “thank you” gift card, on us.
SEE IT: Bltizen Trapper plays Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., with Barna Howard, on Saturday, Nov. 28. 9 pm. $20 advance, $25 day of show. 21+. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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MUSIC CALENDAR
Editor: Matthew Singer. 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. For more listings, check out wweek.com.
[NOV. 25-DEC. 1]
LAST WEEK LIVE RICK VODICKA
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave. Gaytheist, Acid Tongue, Ice Queens
Classic Pianos Recital Hall 3003 SE Milwaukie Ave. MOSTLY BRAZILIAN Holiday Concert
Clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant & Bar
5474 NE Sandy Blvd Norman Sylvester
Dante’s
350 West Burnside Abney Park
Jade Lounge
2348 SE Ankeny JD Dawson’s Songwriters Showcase
Keller Auditorium
222 SW Clay St. Puscifer
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St Machine, Coloring Electric Like, Chocolate Cool But Rude
Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Fluid Spill, Pill Brigade and The Brandon Sills Project.
Mississippi Pizza Pub 3552 N Mississippi Ave The Alphabeticians
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave Tony Furtado Band
Panic Room
3100 NE Sandy Blvd FARM ANIMALS / KINGS AND VAGABONDS / CADET / DESIGN DRIFT DISTANCE
Refuge PDX
WED. NOV. 25 Analog Cafe & Theater
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd Roam, Handguns
Biddy McGraw’s Jenny Sizzler
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St RAC
Dante’s
350 West Burnside Sepiatonic and the Deadlurk Dollymops: Super Succulent Spanksgiving Ed
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St Oneohtrix Point Never with James Ferraro
Edgefield
2126 S. W. Halsey ST. Kris Deelane’s Sun Celebration: Night before Thanksgiving
Goodfoot Pub & Lounge
2845 SE Stark St THANKSGIVING EVE with SHAFTY
Hawthorne Theatre 1507 SE 39th Venom Inc. , Necrophagia
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2348 SE Ankeny Mathew Zeltzer Hosts
Justa Pasta
1336 NW 19th Ave Anson Wright Duo
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St. The Bricks, Strange Wool, Wicked Shallows
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Jackson Boone, Souvenir Driver, Boone Howard
Roseland Theater
8 NW 6th Ave Fiji + Drew Deezy w/ Finn Gruva
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St QUEER AGGRESSION
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont Marmits + Havania Whaal + Faxes + GOOO
The White Eagle
836 N Russell St Heavy Gone Acoustic
THURS. NOV. 26 Edgefield
2126 S. W. Halsey ST. Eric John Kaiser
LaurelThirst Public House 2958 NE Glisan St
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
Mississippi Pizza Pub 3552 N Mississippi Ave Red Yarn kids show
Ranger Station
4260 SE Hawthorne Blvd Open Mic- Hosted by Dave Kelsay
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St THE ORANGE REVIVAL (SWE) // IS/IS // THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD
FRI. NOV. 27 Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave The Storm Large Holiday Ordeal
Alberta Rose Theatre 3000 NE Alberta St. The Next Waltz
Analog Cafe & Theater
Clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant & Bar
5474 NE Sandy Blvd Cool Breeze
Doug Fir Lounge
1937 SE 11th Ave The Hoons + TBA
The Secret Society
830 E Burnside St. Dirty Revival, Philly’s Phunkestra
116 NE Russell St Pete Krebs and his Portland Playboys with DoveDriver
Edgefield
The Secret Society
2126 S. W. Halsey ST. Dickens Carolers; Mark Alan
Jade Lounge
2348 SE Ankeny A Night with BB and Friends; Hammerhead, Molly Dechanne
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. The Curtis Salgado Band
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St Perfect Families, The Yacolt Burn, Echo Pearl Varsity
Mississippi Studios
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd Hot Tub Fantasies, Teresa Topaz, Stolen Rose & 3 To Breath
3939 N Mississippi Ave. The Domestics, Esmé Patterson, Sunbathe
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash Bolts and Conversation
3100 NE Sandy Blvd Beneath Oblivion, WILL (first show!)
Clinton Street Theater
Peter’s Room at Roseland Theater
2522 SE Clinton St The Amazing Bubble Show Returns
The Firkin Tavern
Panic Room
8 NW 6th Ave. Slim Jesus, Drae Steves, Coma Boys, SQD, Catxscan
116 NE Russell St Secret Society Soul Revue: Asher Fulero Band, DoveDriver, Condition White, DJ Klavical
The White Eagle
836 N Russell St Nevada Backwards
Turn Turn Turn
8 NE Killingsworth St Black Friday: Doom w/ Disenchanter & Mammoth Salmon
116 SE Yamhill St Sungrown Cannabis Festival
Revolution Hall
1300 SE Stark St #110 Blitzen Trapper
Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave 3LAU + SNBRN
Star Theater
13 NW 6th Ave Rock the Awareness III
The Blue Room Bar/ Cartlandia 8145 SE 82nd Ave The Main Squeeze Featuring Royal Blue with Special Guest Teresa Topaz
The Firkin Tavern 1937 SE 11th Ave Folkslinger + TH-Thunder
The Secret Society
SAT. NOV. 28 Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave The Storm Large Holiday Ordeal
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
1037 SW Broadway Oregon Symphony Holiday Pops
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash The Streakin’ Healys
Corkscrew Wine Bar 1665 SE Bybee Blvd Adlai Alexander Solo
Edgefield
2126 S. W. Halsey ST. Mary Flower
Esther Short Park
1001 SE Morrison St Tanlines
1507 SE 39th The Royal Concept & Parade Of Lights
Lewi Longmire & the Left Coast Roasters
5474 NE Sandy Blvd Ron Steen Jazz Jam
Edgefield
Hawthorne Theatre
Jade Lounge
Clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant & Bar
Columbia St & 6th St Hot Buttered Run (5K and Half Marathon)
2126 S. W. Halsey ST. Moody Little Sister
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
225 SW Ash Temper & Hold
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St World’s Finest with The Giraffe Dodgers
ALL FADE, LITTLE SPARKLE: Art Alexakis looks great for age 53. The Everclear singer, who is on tour with a new crew to honor the 20th anniversary of the band’s landmark album, Sparkle and Fade, has stayed fit and allowed his bleach-addled hair to fade from blond to a distinguished gray, growing a goatee to match. Unfortunately, based on the show at Wonder Ballroom on Nov. 18, his voice hasn’t held up as well. Maybe it’s been a long tour, or his vocal cords have grown rigid with age, but Alexakis couldn’t snap off the high notes that made his twangy rasp the foil for so much teen angst. Banter-wise, Alexakis was as advertised. He mentioned local newspaper reports (“This is fucking awesome! It sucks because if you read the paper, it says nobody likes me in Portland”) and offered an extended commentary on his own dumbness (“Ask my three ex-wives”). The band itself was good, though some songs were muddled with two or three guitar parts playing on tracks meant for only one. While this tour could’ve been an occasion to reunite the band’s classic lineup and reap the goodwill of a warm reconciliation, it’s instead another chance for Alexakis to repeat the now-familiar chorus that he is Everclear, and the two other guys whose childhood photos adorn the cover of the record he’s playing were simply in the right place at the right time. Maybe that’s true. Maybe, without Art, there is no Everclear, and if Art is there, it’s Everclear. If so, why doesn’t Art just play guitar and hire a new singer, someone who can hit the high notes? [Note: Willamette Week was not allowed to take photographs at this concert because Everclear’s publicist was unhappy with our advance coverage. Instead, we have an artist’s rendering of the show.] MARTIN CIZMAR.
SUN. NOV. 29 Ash Street Saloon
116 NE Russell St Tin Silver CD Release, Sean Flora
The White Eagle
836 N Russell St Garcia Birthday Band; Nick Foltz and the Tattered Patches
Tony Starlight Showroom
1125 SE Madison St Tony Starlight’s Neil Diamond Experience
Wonder Ballroom 128 NE Russell St. JoJo
Holocene
Jade Lounge
2348 SE Ankeny Keegan Heron
McMenamins Al’s Den 303 SW 12th Ave Saul Conrad
McMenamins Rock Creek Tavern Lindsay Straw
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave Months, Bitch’n, Tents
Moda Center
1 N Center Court St. Trans-Siberian Orchestra
Moreland Presbyterian Church 1814 SE Bybee Blvd 6th Annual Benefit Concert with Michael Allen Harrison
Newmark Theatre 1111 SW Broadway Jim Brickman
Rontoms
600 E Burnside St. Seance Crasher, Little Star, Haste
Star Theater
13 NW 6th Ave Aurelio Voltaire with the Dream Painter
Tango Berretin
6305 SE Foster Rd. Baksana CD Release Party
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont TOADS + Daisy Deaths + Naverone Bandit
The White Eagle 836 N Russell St Redwood Son
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral 147 NW 19th Ave Advent Lessons & Carols
Turn Turn Turn
8 NE Killingsworth St Grand Style Orchestra
Vie de Boheme 1530 SE 7th Ave. “An Evening In Portugal” Fado-inspired Internationally nominated Artist: Ramana Vieira
MON. NOV. 30 Dante’s
350 West Burnside Karaoke From Hell
Edgefield
2126 S. W. Halsey ST. Groovy Wallpaper with The Adequates
Goodfoot Pub & Lounge 2845 SE Stark St Sonic Forum
Jade Lounge
2348 SE Ankeny Fourth Tuesdays with Edward Cohen & Friends
Lincoln Performance Hall
1620 SW Park Ave Calder Quartet
Roseland Theater
8 NW 6th Ave Zappaa Plays Zappa Live in Portland
Roseland Theater
8 NW 6th Ave Zappa Plays Zappa with Dweezil Zappa
Saint David of Wales Church 2800 SE Harrison Street Everyone Welcome Community Choir
The Liquor Store 3341 SE Belmont Tomten + TBD
The Waypost
3120 N. Williams Ave The Waysiders, The Secret Sea
TUES. DEC. 1 Ash Street Saloon 225 SW Ash DogHouse
Goodfoot Pub & Lounge
2845 SE Stark St BOYS II GENTLEMEN (Free!)
Hawthorne Theatre 1507 SE 39th Authority Zero; The Hour That Stretches (lounge) Landmark
Saloon
4847 SE Division St Honky Tonk Union
LaurelThirst Public House 2958 NE Glisan St Jackstraw
Lincoln Performance Hall
1620 SW Park Ave Calder Quartet
McMenamins Edgefield
2126 S. W. Halsey ST. Lindsay Straw
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Bobby Bare Jr., Star Anna
Portland Community College 17705 NW Springville Road PCC Rock Creek Chamber Ensemble Presents Free Concert
Raven and Rose
1331 SW Broadway Na Rósaí - Traditional Irish Music
Roseland Theater
8 NW 6th Ave. Warren Haynes & the Ashes and Dust Band, Chessboxer
The Historic Old Church
1422 SW 11th Ave Little Ears presents The Nutcracker
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont Faded Pages + Neon Culpa + Salvo Idly
The White Eagle 836 N Russell St Motel Lights
MUSIC Where to drink this week. 1. Chopsticks
3390 NE Sandy Blvd., 234-6171, chopstickskaraoke.com. Old friends in Portland don’t disappear. They just move farther from the river. The new Chopsticks location just needs a little time to get lived in.
E M I LY J O A N G R E E N E
BAR REVIEW
2. Green Dragon
928 SE 9th Ave., 517-0660, pdxgreendragon.com. This Rogue property spent an entire year amassing black beers for Black Friday. These are beers that people on Internet trading forums refer to by initials and nicknames: Chocolate Yeti, Biscotti Break, Big Bad Baptist, Creme Brulee, Don Vanuchi and more.
Willamette Week’s 4th Annual
3. Zoiglhaus
716 SE 92nd Ave., 971-339-2374, zoiglhaus.com. In Bavaria, the Zoiglhaus is a community brewery where members gather to brew together. At his brand new brewery, Pints’ Alan Taylor isn’t going to invite the people of Lents in to monkey with his kettles. That…seems wise to us.
4. Hawthorne Strip
3532 SE Powell Blvd., 232-9516, hawthornestrip.com. Joining the illustrious ranks of Apizza Scholls and Belmont Station, this strip club has an old name and new digs on Powell. It’s pretty classy, as far as strip clubs on busy roads go.
5. La Moule
2500 SE Clinton St., 971-339-2822, lamoulepdx.com. St. Jack’s cross-river companion bar is a fine place to drink and eat mussels beneath a portrait of black-eyed Serge Gainsbourg, while Television plays in a bar without a television.
SHE WAS RAISED OUT IN BROOKLYN: The new and very slightly improved Skyline Tavern (8031 NW Skyline Blvd., 286-4788, skytav.com) looks like a bar that would be featured in a movie starring Burt Reynolds. Nestled deep in them there Northwest hills, the 90-year-old shack has “SALOON” painted front and center above a moss-smothered veranda that looms over neon beer signs. Just across the road from the gravel parking lot is access to Forest Park’s hiking trails. Inside, you are treated to classic bar tchotchke décor, set off by an expansive view of the mist-shrouded 2-acre property on which the tavern sits. Recently purchased and revamped by environmentalist filmmaker Scott Ray Becker, Skyline Tavern isn’t the rowdy road bar it appears to be. We arrive to the dulcet sounds of LL Cool J’s 1995 hit “Doin’ It,” and enjoy two free games of pool to a soundtrack of early-2000s club rap classics. We are served bar nuts from a clear, plastic tub labeled, appropriately, “DEEZ NUTS.” Our beers come from a tap list of Portland craft classics—Breakside’s IPA, Occidental’s Hefeweizen, to name a few—backed up by PBR for when times are tough. The food, served on speckled blue enamel camping plates, is an eclectic mix of the greatest hits of pre-made local snacks. Think Ruby Jewel ice-cream sandwiches and Gluten Free Gem cookies, along with grilled cheese sandwiches and housemade hummus served with corn chips. The Taj Mahal, an “Indian turkey Reuben with curry kraut & mango chutney,” was a tangy, sweet and rich standout sandwich. Skyline Tavern has an atmosphere that cannot be replicated through decoration, staffing or menu curation. “When you come in here,” the bartender tells us when we ask about the usual clientele, “it’s normally millionaire, millionaire, poor person, construction worker, millionaire, all of them just hanging out together.” It is effortlessly welcoming, unpretentiously cool and irreplaceably unique—a wornin baseball glove of a bar. It is primordial Portland brought into the 21st century with Mrs. Meyer’s hand soap in the restroom and Hi-Ball energy drink behind the bar. WALKER MACMURDO. Monkeytek & Friends (dub)
Goodfoot Pub & Lounge 2845 SE Stark St SOUL STEW with DJ AQUAMAN AND FRIENDS
WED. NOV. 25 Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St DJ Honest John
Dig A Pony 736 SE Grand Ave HOLLA ‘N OATES (rap)
Pub At The End Of The Universe
4107 SE 28th & Gladstone Wicked Wednesday 18 year Anniversary Party
THURS. NOV. 26 Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Shadowplay (goth/darkwave)
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont Thanksgiving Jive Turkey Disco
Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave THANKSGIVING! W/ MONTEL SPINOZZA
FRI. NOV. 27 Holocene
SAT. NOV. 28 Analog Cafe & Theater
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd ANDAZ Bhangra Bollywood Dance with DJ Anjali and The Incredible Kid 3341 SE Belmont Booms and Claps (bass)
Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Darkness Descends w/ DJ Maxamillion
The Liquor Store
Service PDX
Moloko
3967 N Mississippi Ave
736 SE Grand Ave “Do Right Sunday” - A BENEFIT FOR COMMUNITY CYCLING CENTER
There Be Monsters 1001 SE Morrison Dr Luv! (disco)
Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Unchain The Night
The Liquor Store
1001 SE Morrison St Dr. Adam (‘90s) 3341 SE Belmont FLIGHT (techno)
SUN. NOV. 29 Dig A Pony
2319 NE Glisan st No Vacancy 020 feat. Jason Burns, Gold Casio, Generative Art
MON. NOV. 30 Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave CRAMBONE (garage, soul)
Holiday Marketplace December 8th 5pm–9pm
Revolution Hall 1300 SE Stark Street
Free 30 Vendors Art + Beauty Studio Bevel Black Star Bags Brew Dr. Kombucha Chloe Derderian-Gilbert David Friedman Eau Face Eso Esto Ceramics Findlay Hats Flipside Hats Genkisu Grafletics Green Front Farms House Spirits Marshall's Haute Sauce Masala Pop New Deal Distillery Nutcase Helmets Olympia Provisions Portland Bitters Project Raft Botanical Red Duck Foods Revolution Design House Smashed Boozy Jams Sticks & Stones Tabor Tavern The Athletic Thomas & Sons Distillery Time + Oak Townshend's Tea Woodblock Chocolate
Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Rock with Cory
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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Find gift certificates to your favorite portland restaurants at wweek. com/dubdubdeals
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
PERFORMANCE C O U R T E S Y O F S P I E G E LW O R L D
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. Most prices listed are for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply, so it’s best to call ahead. Editor: ENID SPITZ. Theater: ENID SPITZ (espitz@wweek.com). Comedy: MIKE ACKER (macker@wweek.com). Dance: ENID SPITZ (dance@wweek.com). TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: espitz@wweek.com.
OPENINGS & PREVIEWS The Book of Mermen
Kicking off it’s 26th season, Triangle asks: What happens when two door-todoor Mormons go knocking and find the musical comedy queen Ethel Merman? A few titles come to mind—”Anything Goes”, “I Get a Kick Out of You” and “Some People”. Or maybe “Turn it Off” and “I Am Here for You”. The notoriously flamboyant and bedazzled Triangle Productions! stages playwright Leo Schwartz’s parody of a parody, which played for four months in Chicago. If this seems like an odd holiday offering, all religion aside, Triangle promises that it’s heartwarming to see salvation-peddlers go head-to-head with the songstress. It’s all about acceptance—amen? Triangle Productions!, 1785 NE Sandy Blvd., 2395919. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, through Dec. 19. $15-$35.
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast
Broadway, in Portland’s newest tour, brings dancing teacups and promiscuous feather dusters in Beauty and the Beast. True, it’s nothing new, but watching grown men high-kicking while wearing fork costumes can’t be too dull. To their merit, the U.S. Bank performances always deliver sparkle, And for a children’s spectacle, this isn’t a bad bet to start the holiday season. By the end of caroling trees and too many Tiny Tim’s, an angry band of villagers battling spoons might seem refreshing. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 241-1802. 7:30 pm TuesdayFriday, 2 pm and 7:30 pm Saturday, 1 pm and 6:30 pm Sunday, Dec. 1-6. $35-$155.
A K.B.N.B. Kristmas Karol
C O U R T E S Y O F S P I E G E LW O R L D
Traditionally retro and light-hearted, Hillsboro’s Bag & Baggage troupe stays true to form with this 1940s radioinspired parody of A Christmas Carol. In this holiday-themed world premier, the stars of the fictional K.B.N.B. radio station are facing the end of classical radio and their careers as television moves in. For one final hurrah, the cast puts on a wild show, getting characters like a German sound designer and an eager TV boss in addition to returning ones from Bag & Baggage’s first two radio-themed shows. Finishing the retro trilogy it began with It’s A (somewhat) Wonderful Life and A Miracle on 43rd Street, the company promises a feisty start to the holiday season. And if tradition holds, this’ll be your best bet for festive theatre, especially before the carols start grating. The Venetian Theatre, 253 E Main St., Hillsboro, 693-3953. 7:30 ThursdaySaturday and 2 pm Sunday, Nov. 27-Dec. 23. $27-$32.
Night of Ashes
The Cleveland High School theater department, called the Company of Warriors, successfully kickstarted this live-action Pathfinder production. Billed as a prequel to the Hell’s Rebels roleplaying game, where the Silver Ravens fight to free their homeland Kintargo from the evil House of Thrune and Church of Asmodeus, it promises both some backstory and a bunch of teens fake sword-fighting. Winningstad Theater, 1111 SW Broadway, 248-4335. 7:30 Friday-Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, Nov. 27-29. $20.
NEW REVIEWS The 3rd Floor XXXIII: The Final Chapter
After 20 years of comedy shows and racking up an alumni list of more than 55 actors, Portland’s longest-running sketch troupe is calling it quits. Mainstay Ted Douglass remembers calling other team members on a pay phone to ask if they liked the name The 3rd Floor back in 1995, when the core founders came up with it during a picnic at the International Rose Test Garden. After mourning the death of founder Andy Buzan this October, the troupe’s final show is a hilarious love letter not only to his memory, but to the entire extended family of 3rd Floor and the Milagro Theatre that has housed it since 1999. “We kind of have a revolving-door policy—people come and go,” says Douglass, explaining that they’ve held only three auditions. This is a group of friends and insiders just having fun, and it shows in The Final Chapter, a night of quick-turn sketches with plenty of Easter eggs for longtime groupies (and there are plenty of them, judging by audience catcalls on opening weekend). Alternating from physical skits about personal trainers to a Mary Poppins parody, an obnoxious commercial for the Cot Lot and a recurring PBS documentary about the hunt for Benji the movie star dog, The Final Chapter might have a few wrinkles. It’s low-budget (as comedy goes), and a few parodies, like Die Hard with cellphones, fall flat. But as with a lifelong friend, you just have to love it, saggy bits and all. ENID SPITZ. Milagro Theatre, 525 SE Stark St., 236-7253. 8 pm FridaySaturday. Through Dec. 19. $16-$19.
ALSO PLAYING
Empire of the World
MISS A IN A BUBBLE: Lucia Carbines.
You said that diet affects your flexibility?
An international circus debuts in PDX.
’Tis the season for spectacles, and Spiegelworld’s adult circus is nothing if not a visual feast. Pitching tent in Portland for the first time this December, the Cirque du Soleil competitor brings a Ukrainian acrobat duo called Lime Green Lady and Carrot Man, a Russian rollerskater and Japan’s Yasu Yoshikawa—aka “Half Naked Asian Dude Wearing Pigtails.” Lucia Carbines is one of many Aussies on the team. As Miss A in a Bubble, the 21-year-old contortionist—whose widely spaced vertebrae let her fold like rubber—performs in a floating orb made of two submarine windows. ENID SPITZ.
WW: Doctors had to teach you how to not bend as a child? Lucia Carbines: With my bendy spine, my “lazy” stance was a completely arched back so exaggerated that it was comical. My family physiologist had to teach me to engage my core so that I could stand up straight.
Has your unusual spine been useful in other ways? It’s come in handy with pranks and on Halloween, when I can freak people out by pretending I’m broken.
Ain’t Misbehavin’
Raunchy, swinging piano battles and hedonistic Cotton Club acts inspired by the life of jazz piano legend Fats Waller make this Tony Award-winning musical a nostalgic trip from the Harlem Renaissance through to World War II. Portland Center Stage got permission
to amp up the play from what it was on Broadway and in the West End, augmenting the cast with Third Rail, Artists Repertory and Portland Playhouse veterans, plus a few London, New Orleans and New York talents like Andre Ward— who did Rock of Ages on Broadway— and David Jennings—who starred in the Broadway version with American Idol’s Ruben Studdard. That’s a lot of namedropping, even for PCS. But it’s worth a mention that this may be the largest black cast we’ll see on any stage this year. Though early critics decried the show’s lack of dialogue, in a play that once starred the Pointer Sisters crooning songs like “’Tain’t Nobody’s Bizness” and “How Ya Baby” that’s probably an insubstantial fault. Gerding Theater at the Armory, 128 NW 11th Ave., 445-3700. 7:30 Wednesday-Friday, noon Thursday, 2 pm and 7:30 pm Saturday-Sunday, Nov. 25-29. $30-$75. 12+.
Dogfight EMPIRE
A trio of ballsy Marines go out for a raucous last hurrah before deploying to
I inherited my parents’ sensitivity to dairy, gluten and sugar. When I eat those foods, it gives me inflammation and reduces the mobility in my spine, so I cut them out. I like to still eat out from time to time, so I do the 80-20 ratio of avoiding those foods and then letting myself have a treat.
What made you want to perform in this bubble?
I’ve always been an aerialist and a contortionist on the ground, so when I first saw the bubble act, I thought it was a wonderful way to combine the two. And loved the apparatus.
Any malfunctions?
At a previous show, we had a lightning machine, and during one of the performances something went wrong, so it sounded like the entire tent was being blown up by electricity. All of us performers scattered offstage thinking we were about to be blown up. It was definitely an unexpected finale.
Which act is your favorite to watch in Empire?
The Adole brothers—I could watch them flip all day long. I still can’t comprehend how it’s possible. SEE IT: Spiegelworld’s Empire is at the Rose Quarter Benton Lot, 542 N Broadway, 800-745-3000. 7 pm Tuesday-Sunday and 9 pm Friday-Saturday, through Dec. 27. $25-$99.
Southeast Asia in 1963. But this is a good old-fashioned love story, not the formatbuster about a female drone pilot that CoHo itself staged with Grounded last season. Staged!—an Artists Repertory resident company—is putting on this offBroadway play based on Peter Duchan’s book and the Warner Brothers film, where Corporal Eddie Birdlace discovers the naive waitress Rose on the eve of deployment. The rest is hIstory, as they say. No performance Thanksgiving Day. CoHo Productions, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 220-2646. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, Nov. 26-29. $15-$29.
COMEDY & VARIETY 7 on 7
A showcase like no other, 7 on 7 puts standup and improv on one stage. A number of the city’s leading standups will perform sets, and some of Portland’s best improvisers will follow with riffs on the themes and ideas
presented by them. It’s sure to be a hoot. This month’s 7 on 7 features the Tunnel improv team, and performances by Jacob Christopher, Paul Schlesinger, Caitlin Weierhauser, Marcus Coleman and surprise guests. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 2242227. 9:30 pm Friday, Nov. 27. $8.
The Comedy Bull
The Comedy Bull has come to Helium. This intense and highly entertaining comedy game show gives comics a chance to demonstrate their best prepared material while also dealing with unexpected improvisational challenges, interacting with audience members and giving on-the-spot observations. The comics are competing, but the audience always wins. This installment of the Comedy Bull is hosted by Neeraj Srinivasan and features Hutch Harris, Nariko Ott, Cameron Mazzuca, Adam Pasi, Nathan Brannon, Ben Harkins and
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PERFORMANCE Earthquake Hurricane
Portland’s four-hosted comedy monstrosity is closing out the month of November in style. Pre-game for Thanksgiving with hosts Curtis Cook, Bri Pruett, Anthony Lopez and Alex Falcone, who welcome to the bike shop Monica Nevi and Mike Coletta, a radial comedy duo from Seattle. Velo Cult Bike Shop, 1969 NE 42nd Ave., 922-2012. 9 pm Wednesday, Nov. 25. Free ($5 suggested donation). 21+.
The Fall
Even improv comedy can get predictable, so some of Portland’s bravest improvisers have set out on a mission to break expectations and shatter preconceived notions. This unique show features Brody’s level five students, and follows the tenets of Sound Improv to create stories that are deeply engaging and unlike anything you’ve seen before. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 9:30 pm Saturday, Nov. 28. $5.
it means to have a sense of place through aerial arts, dance and stunts set to live music in their own home— the silent-movie house turned theater on Hawthorne. Echo Theater, 1515 SE 37th St., 231-1232. 7:30 pm FridaySaturday, 1 pm Sunday. Through Dec. 6. $25.
Thanksgiving Weekend with the Portland Ballet
Traditional ballet seems tailor-made for the Holidays—classical themes, festive costuming, family values (mostly) and twinkling light. Reprising it’s annual Thanksgiving weekend show, the Portland Ballet and PSU
Orchestra will dance a Russian fairy tale called Firebird that’s set to Stravinsky and choreographed by John Clifford. The star of the night will be the world premiere of Day by Day, an “everyday” ballet, by the newlyinstated artistic director Anne Mueller, who’s back to ballet after a brief stint managing Hillboro’s Bag & Baggage Theatre company. PSU’s Lincoln Performance Hall, 1620 SW Park Ave., 452-8448. 1 pm and 4 pm FridaySunday, Nov. 27-29. $35.
For more Performance listings, visit
REVIEW
COURTESY OF ARLIE CONNER
Caitlin Weierhauser. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-6438669. 8 pm Wednesday, Nov. 25. $10-$18. 21+.
Hive Five
Need a good way to recover from eating too much turkey? Five of the city’s most skilled improvisers take on two very different improv styles to create one great show. Bring your houseguests and enjoy a wild evening of off-the-cuff comedy. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 7:30 pm Friday, Nov. 27. $12.
Ian Karmel
One of Portland’s funniest native sons is coming home for the holidays. Ian Karmel currently writes for The Late Late Show with James Corden, has appeared on Conan, wrote for Chelsea Lately and recently released his debut album 9.2 On Pitchfork. Local comedy standouts Amy Miller and Sean Jordan will be appearing alongside Karmel, who will be donating the proceeds from his shows to Planned Parenthood. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 7:30 and 10 pm FridaySaturday, Nov. 27-28. $23-$31. 21+.
Minority Retort
The Northwest’s only standup showcase focusing on comedians of color is kicking off the holiday season with a special “Black Friday” event. Hosted by Jeremy Eli, this month’s Minority Retort features the comedic talents of Monisa Brown, Lee Hinton, Jamal Harrington, Belinda Jiles, the Real Hyjinx and Debbie Wooten. Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 9:30 pm Friday, Nov. 27. $7-$10.
Who’s the Ross
One of Portland’s longest-running, late-night talk shows is back at Dante’s. Kicking off the month of December, host Aaron Ross welcomes musical guest Trimp (Berg Radin from And And And), comedian Adam Pasi and Tana the Tattooed Lady. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 226-6630. 10 pm Tuesday, Dec. 1. $3. 21+.
DANCE The Nightmare Before Christmas Burlesque
If your eyeballs didn’t burn off thanks to last weekend’s Al-stravaganza! Weird-Al burlesque, this one’s for you. The third-annual holiday-themed burlesque tribute to Tim Burton is all things creepy, striped and involving Johnny Depp. Is there really any other way to spend the Sunday evening after Thanksgiving than at a risqué frightfest co-presented by the only Portland bar that gives out free weed every Monday? Analog Cafe & Theater, 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 206-7439. 6 pm Sunday, Nov. 29. $12.
Other Names for Home
Locally-born and internationally-touring, Do Jump! acrobatic company takes everyday ideas and turns them upside down or throws them in the air. Playing with the idea of home, Robin Lane’s company will interpret what
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
A WHOLE PALACE OF FUN: Sydney Weir.
A Little More, Please Achieving cult status doesn’t happen overnight, particularly for those creative projects that fall within the so-bad-it’s-good category. Sometimes a show needs a few years in the cellar fermenting to bring out the pungent qualities that make it an acquired taste, loved all the more for its quirks. That’s almost the case for the self-aware vampire musical Bite Me a Little. First introduced as a staged reading at the Fertile Ground Festival in 2012, Arlie Conner’s Bite Me is now enjoying a fully produced theatrical run at Post 5 Theatre. This time, it’s a little dirtier, a lot louder and still appreciably rough around the edges. Looking for a venue to host his high-school reunion, the lovable dweeb Ben Davies (Brian Burger) books Dr. Hurt’s Palace of Fun, unaware that it’s actually a vampire night club and sex dungeon. Initially keen to win back his high-school sweetheart, Jenny (Chrissy Kelly-Pettit), Davies immediately becomes enamored with the club’s sultry singer Raven (Sydney Weir, the only original cast member), and renounces Jenny as a tease in the show’s catchiest musical number, “Fuck Jenny.” Meanwhile, a parallel plot line follows detective Joe Brookhyser (Jim Vadala) on the case of a serial killer, leading him to the Palace of Fun, too. There’s plenty going on, but the runtime ends up feeling about 20 minutes too long. While Burger plays the nerdy Davies to a T—complete with sweater vest, inhaler and spastic, Rick Moranis energy—Vadala’s character is a gumshoe trope played mostly for laughs, and those are hit or miss. Raven’s breathy “Bite Me a Little” and Dr. Hurt’s (Nathan Dunkin) bluesy “To Hell With Everyone Else” showcase Conner’s talent as a composer and songwriter, but too many numbers fall flat both in tune and relevance to the plot. The main problem is the humor, though, with jokes that feel too obvious (references to True Blood) or too easy ( jabs at Donald Trump). Where Bite Me redeems itself is with subtler dialogue between characters and by embracing its own campiness. That’s the point, anyway. This is not highbrow theater, nor is it trying to be. This is a vampire drag queen performing high-stepping musical numbers. It is Plan 9 From Outer Space meets Showgirls. In fact, Bite Me a Little might even benefit from eschewing the little decorum that it maintains. All it needs is some gratuitous nudity and a little financial backing for a few hundred gallons of spewing blood, and it could be the next cult classic. PENELOPE BASS.
Bite Me a Little is fun, but it could cut deeper.
SEE IT: Bite Me a Little is at Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971-258-8584. 7:30 pm Thursday-Sunday. Through Dec 12. $20.
STEVE EARLE
HELIO SEQUENCE
It is Earle’s 16th studio album since the release of his highly influential 1986 debut Guitar Town. As its title suggests, the album is very much a blues record, a third of which was written while Earle toured Europe alone for five weeks with just a guitar, a mandolin and a backpack.
The Helio Sequence is a renewed push forward for the band, depending on an effortless kinetic energy. There’s a delightful candor, an openness that is a rare and special feat for a band about to enter its third decade.
TERRAPLANE $12.99 CD | DELUXE CD EDITION $19.99
DAWES
HUB
ALL YOUR FAVORITE BANDS $10.99 CD
Produced by David Rawlings at Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville, Dawes recorded these new songs after they had already been road-tested in front of live audiences in intimate venues from Sonoma to Santa Barbara, with Rawlings in tow.
HELIO SEQUENCE $10.99 CD
SLEATER-KINNEY
NO CITIES TO LOVE $10.99 CD
No Cities to Love is the first album in 10 years by Sleater-Kinney, who came crashing out of the ‘90s Pacific Northwest riot grrrl scene, setting a new bar for punk’s political insight and emotional impact.
PANDA BEAR
SILVERSUN PICKUPS
Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper is the fifth studio album from Animal Collective founding member and critically acclaimed solo artist Noah Lennox, a.k.a. Panda Bear.
Silversun Pickups is among the most dynamic and creative rock bands of the modern era, hailed far and wide for their inimitable merging of ethereal melodies and pure sonic force.
DAVE RAWLINGS MACHINE
KAMASI WASHINGTON
Nashville Obsolete, the highly anticipated second album from Dave Rawlings Machine, was recorded on analog tape at Woodland Sound Studios in Nashville, TN, and features seven original compositions written by Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings.
Kamasi Washington is responsible for much of the arrangement on Kendrick Lamar’s peerless To Pimp A Butterfly, but now he’s striking out on his own. “The Epic” is a 172-minute, triple-disc masterpiece, featuring Kamasi’s ten-piece band “The Next Step” along with a full string orchestra and full choir.
BJORK
NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS
PANDA BEAR MEETS THE GRIMM REAPER $12.99 CD
NASHVILLE OBSOLETE $10.99 CD
BETTER NATURE $10.99 CD
THE EPIC $17.99 3XCD
VULNICURA $12.99 CD
CHASING YESTERDAY $10.99 CD
Bjork returns with her ninth, arguably finest album, co-produced by Bjork and Venezuelan producer, Arca. Bold, defiant, personal, with signature kaleidoscopic exuberance, this is a truly extraordinary work of art.
Noel Gallagher’s second full-length solo release was self-produced by the former Oasis singer/guitarist and features a guest appearance from Johnny Marr (The Smiths, Modest Mouse).
FAITH NO MORE
UNCLE ACID & THE DEADBEATS
The music of Faith No More has lived through five presidents, endless wars, economic booms and busts, global meltdown and revolutionary rebirths, and now in the 21st century, the legendary band has evolved once more to return with a powerful new album, Sol Invictus, and a new focus.
Contained within are ten tracks of the type of sonic psyche-frazzling heaviness and blood-drenched pop that have made Uncle Acid & the Deadbeats one of Britain’s great cult bands.
WATKINS FAMILY HOUR
PATTY GRIFFIN
Born of a long-standing monthly jam session curated by Sean & Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek, the album features contributions from many outstanding musicians, including Greg Leisz & Fiona Apple.
Grounding itself in the natural world and finding patterns there which speak both to human experience and to the call of the spirit, Griffin’s new album weaves an elemental spell out of the stuff of life.
BOZ SCAGGS
RICKIE LEE JONES
His most compelling work to date in a celebrated and prolific career, this new collection of songs boasts Scaggs trailblazing blend of rock, soul, jazz and R&B taken to new heights and is the next chapter in the storytelling for which he is beloved.
The Other Side of Desire was written, recorded and rooted in the city of New Orleans, where Jones lives on the opposite side of the street made famous by the Tennessee Williams play.
THE NIGHT CREEPER $10.99 CD
SOL INVICTUS $12.99 CD
WATKINS FAMILY HOUR $10.99 CD
TOSOD Music
THE OTHER SIDE OF DESIRE $10.99 CD
A FOOL TO CARE $12.99 CD
ALABAMA SHAKES
SERVANT OF LOVE $11.99 CD
BEST COAST
ATO
SOUND & COLOR $10.99 CD
CALIFORNIA NIGHTS $9.99 CD
Sound & Color demonstrates the tremendous strides made by a group of musicians who had only been playing together for a few months when they recorded their first album.
SALE GOOD THROUGH 11/25–12/31
California Nights is a brighter, more sparkly, more sophisticated, more psychedelic Best Coast album across the board, embodying the rich lightness and stinging darkness of a California state of mind. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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VISUAL ARTS By ENID SPITZ. 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: espitz@wweek.com.
An Opera for One
Tracing the multifaceted career of Kartz Ucci, this retrospective exhibition delivers a fitting tribute to the late artist and her work. A professor at the University of Oregon, Ucci taught while creating her own digital, text, sound and installation art. The works at the Art Gym are a diverse mix of color and light, sound and text, that form poignant statements about the convergence of everyday life and the digital realm. The titular video work, “An Opera For One,” is on display in a quiet viewing room. It’s best experienced on a slow day when you can lose yourself in the gentle pulse of color without being interrupted. GRAHAM W. BELL. Through Dec. 5. The Art Gym, Marylhurst University, 17600 Pacific Highway, 699-6243.
Back to the Sea
Portland-based artist Gwen Davidson’s paints collage-style acrylic works on canvases covered with layered strips of paper. Returning to Froelick Gallery for the second time, her new series tries to capture the Oregon Coast and the Columbia River Gorge. She uses natural colors like taupe, deep blue and slate grey to create moody-colored horizon lines that look like abstract waterscapes. After Davidson lays paint to the strips of paper, the canvases naturally warp, wrinkle and shrink, meaning that her art takes on a trajectory of its own. KYLA FOSTER. Through Nov. 28. Froelick Gallery, 714 NW Davis St., 222-1142.
B.I.B. 999
Toronto-based graphic artist Allister Lee sketched 999 black markers—a glass-barrel Magic Marker, a plastic Crayola jumbo grip and a classic Sharpie—and titled it B.I.B. (Black is Beautiful). It may not be obvious at first why you’d want to see 999 black markers at a gallery, but when you see it for yourself—it’s worth it. Not only does Lee present 1:1 scale illustrations of every black marker he owns, but the actual markers are displayed in a hand-made, super fresh, black vitrine centered in the gallery. Taking into consideration that the markers vary in size, and to ensure that they each are displayed to perfection, the artist commissioned custom laser-cut acrylic holders. The holders slightly lift each marker, transforming them into art-objects. Lee is serious about his merch—each vitrine is padlocked, which makes you even more interested in the objects inside. KYLA FOSTER. Through Nov. 30. One Grand Gallery, 1000 SE Burnside St., 212-365-4945.
Close to Home
Oregon-based artist Jeffrey Conley imparts his zeal for the natural world with a collection of blackand-white photographs. Some, like the aptly titled “Trees in Blizzard,” are quintessential landscape vistas. Others—such as a close-up shot of a crystallized dandelion—are exercises in abstraction. Dynamic pieces like “Crashing Waves” lend a touch of the sublime to an otherwise tranquil subject. Returning for his second show at Charles A. Hartman, Conley presents over 20 platinum palladium prints that try to capture the solace found in nature, whether in the icy forests of the Pacific Coast or his own backyard. The small, uniform scale of his photos invites you to come in close and meditate on the details. HILARY TSAI. Through Nov. 28. Charles A. Hartman Fine Art, 134 NW 8th Ave., 287-3886.
Everything Is Water
Using vintage and contemporary imagery inspired by fairytales and
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High Traffic
Camels and crack pipes show up at The Silk Road.
If a renegade sewing machine on a Tetris kick PENINSULAR took over your grandmother’s favorite floral rug, it might look something like Mark R. Smith’s largest work on display at Elizabeth Leach Gallery. But unless your grandmother ruled an illicit textile trade on the darknet market, there’s something more sinister behind this display than matronly textiles. Mashing grade-school history and online drug dealers, Smith’s double entendre show meditates on both Silk Roads. The famous one was a trade route between China and the Mediterranean that functioned from somewhere around 130 BCE, during the Han Dynasty, until roughly the 16th century. It earned the nickname “Internet of antiquity” from none other than Yo-Yo Ma. The infamous Silk Road traded opioids, child pornography and assassinations through a Tor hidden service on the darknet and earned its founder life in prison without the possibility of parole. Camels cozying up to glass pipes don’t pop up in many fine art galleries, but here Smith pairs disparate relics from both defunct roads—and it works. The show is essentially a Jekyll-and-Hyde exhibit with two parts: massive canvases of laser-cut textiles in bright, geometric patterns and small, pixelated screenshots of black-market goods collaged with Asian artifacts. Alternating pieces as large as living-room rugs with ones the size of Macbook Air screens forces visitors to constantly zoom in and out. Ironically, the largest pieces are the most abstract and clean-cut. Spiritual and Practical (aka your grandmother’s rug) is over 6 feet of miniscule stitch-work that’s cut pristinely by lasers. The 13-by-11inch Bronze Pony and Filtered Pipe shows actual black-market pieces. WATER PIPE But it is so blurry that it seems like a Web page worth force-quitting. If you go expecting just ancient history, it’s almost unnerving to learn this show’s backstory. Suddenly, the 4-foot-wide textile Focus on God’s Eye—a huge swatch of interconnected rectangles in rosy pinks and Seahawks green—looks less like a protective Greek evil eye and more like Big Brother’s piercing Internet surveillance. ENID SPITZ. SEE IT: The Silk Road is at Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., 224-0521. Through Jan 2.
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
COURTESY OF MARK R SMITH / ELIZABETH LEACH GALLERY
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
fables, artist Melody Owen’s pieces are collages of prints that look stolen from Gray’s Anatomy (the book), vintage aeronautical reports and diagrams of sea creatures. She says the point of her minimalist, abstract cutaways and collages, is that every action is like a ripple in a pond. These are her visual interpretations of the wildly different results each action creates. “We are all connected,” her tree-clock-egg-eyeball mash up seems to say. KYLA FOSTER. Through Jan. 2. Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., 224-0521.
In the City
Screenprints on glass tiles of everyday objects like dumpsters, mopeds and storefront mannequins by Portland artist Stacey Lynn Smith, Nathan Sandberg’s glass and concrete tiles that are dot printed to mimic the unnoticed textures of asphalt and Scottish artist Karlyn Sutherland’s kiln-formed glass rectangles combine at Bullseye Project’s In the City collective show. Using urban landscapes as inspiration, the show ranges from Sandberg’s “Paver 6”—a small square of concrete lined with cracks—to Smith’s screenprints reminiscent of fliers and ads that collage street corners, including things like a canary yellow food truck. Juxtaposed with the detail in Sandberg and Smith’s work, Sutherland’s clean, 17-inch tall glass rectangles on the wall are a minimalist tribute to the skylines of her home country. KYLA FOSTER. Through Dec. 23. Bullseye Gallery, 300 NW 13th Ave., 227-0222.
Interior Views
Bright, South American-style colors dominate the series of paintings, glass works and textiles themed around “hiding in plain sight” by Portland’s Mary Josephson. Her portraits are mediumsized oil paintings on wood, glass mosaics in ornate frames or vibrant embroidery on felt. The textures and intricate patterns in her works are just as front-and-center as the women with thick, black eyebrows that she chose as subjects. Josephson’s interest in dreamscapes, secrets and imaginary worlds comes through in the reflective gazes of her subjects, and her intent is to make viewers just as self-reflective. ASHLEY STULL MEYERS. Through Nov. 28. Laura Russo Gallery, 805 NW 21st Ave., 2262754.
Internalized Forms
The Sockeye ad agency studio may seem like an odd venue for a solo show, but its first collaboration with Worksound International makes us hope there’s more to come. Jason Vance Dickason’s acrylic paintings are abstract with a cool, muted palette that hints at the sobriety of an internal office space. But imaginative shapes and swoops keep the work from appearing too clinical. Most visitors are drawn to the large-scale piece at the front entrance, but the real star is an untitled triptych that’s strategically placed on a blank wall and features dark, abstracted window blinds with just a touch of luminous sky peeking through. It’s ingenious how these architectural paintings hint at the space around them. HILARY TSAI. Through Feb. 28. Sockeye, 240 N Broadway, Suite 301, 226-3843.
The Last Road North
For five years, Alaska-based photographer Ben Huff traveled along America’s northernmost thoroughfare, the Haul Road. Built as a supply route for the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, the road extends 414 miles and is traversed primarily by truckers transporting supplies to and from the oil fields. Huff is sharing his visual journey, inspired by the captivating Alaskan landscape and the individuals and machines who navigate it. His photographs capture the paradoxes of the Haul Road—beautiful, snowy mountains in the wilderness, juxtaposed with miles of snaking pipeline and abandoned, rusty oil barrels. KYLA FOSTER. Through Jan. 2. Newspace Center for Photography, 1632 SE 10th Ave., 963-1935.
The Liminalists
The simple-looking works, full of bright geometric shapes or sinuous graphite blobs, belie artists Amy Bernstein and Patrick Kelly’s strict attention to process and composition. Kelly’s graphite forms look like metallic rain clouds, undulating with a shiny sheen, and
Bernstein abstract strokes and shapes pop vibrantly off their white backgrounds. Both artists’ works stay firmly anchored in two dimensions on their surfaces, but the hues and forms are striking enough they threaten to break through into physical space and hit you in the face. GRAHAM BELL. Through Dec. 4. Nationale, 3360 SE Division St., 477-9786.
No Specific Region
“How do I keep something I’ve made from looking like I’ve made it?” Artist D.E. May attempts to answer this question by working with ready-made objects and unlikely materials. No Specific Region will utilize cardboard, canvas, wood, graphite and other sculptural fragments in works that are meant as templates. Ranging from tiny cardboard pieces that look like mini architectural renderings to postcard- or calendar-sized boards of layered wood and graphite, May’s works are minimalist and mostly beige. But like the vague title of this show, they suggest that they’re on the way to something bigger. ASHLEY STULL MEYERS. Through Nov. 28. PDX Contemporary Art, 925 NW Flanders St., 222-0063.
Seeing Nature
The stunning new exhibition from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation has all of the hits no one has ever seen. The only reason these works aren’t in the art history books is because they haven’t been in a public collection.These aren’t the pinnacle works of any artist’s career but there is still a healthy selection from Monet to Moran, O’Keeffe to Richter. Some might be disappointed that none of the pieces are recognizable masterworks, but that’s precisely what makes this show so important. We see Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire, Monet’s water lilies and the explosive power of Volaire’s Vesuvius, but also the fleshy flora of O’Keeffe and the blurry photo paintings of Richter. Accompanying the show are some well-produced, if not slightly distracting, videos that give you an inside look into the installation process and the science of sight. GRAHAM W. BELL. Through Jan. 10. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Ave., 226-2811.
TATTARRATTAT
The first artist in an exhibition series titled Thinking through Photography, Leif Anderson will respond to how the gallery’s architectural space is arranged and used through photography and large format inkjet printing at a near 1:1 scale. The printed and shaped photographs will be plied, mounted, stuffed, draped and folded in ways to play with and mimic the physical attributes of the gallery, in order to examine the boundary between the image as photograph and the image as object. MEGAN HARNED. Through Dec. 4. Melanie Flood Projects, 420 SW Washington St., No. 301, 862-7912.
Throw Me the Idol I Throw You the Whip
In between ribbons of explosive color, we glimpse the painting’s surface. Grant Hottle’s new solo show at Carl & Sloan is a feast of abstract energy and brooding counterpoints. Introducing a new dose of illusionism into his paintings, the works in Throw Me the Idol I Throw You the Whip are all about layers. Each swath of color roils over the other in a frenetic dance, but the real prize is that bit of mottled surface peeks through the composition. Once seen, that bit acts as a keyhole to unlock the illusionary space created by Hottle and give the works a whole new depth. Pieces like “Once So High Now Below,” one of the largest in the show, exhibit clean patches of red and white that seem to hover over a scumbled, stained background. Others, like “Stolen Kiss” and “Bury Me In Black,” strip away the swirl of shapes and make that underlayer the focal point, while drawing allusions to the frottage of Max Ernst and the smoky seduction of the Northwest School. GRAHAM W. BELL. Through Dec. 13. Carl & Sloan Contemporary, 8371 N Interstate Ave., No. 1, 360-608-9746.
For more Visual Arts listings, visit
BOOKS = WW Pick. Highly recommended.
ALISON PICARD
By JAMES HELMSWORTH. 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.
NICOLE GEORGES
SATURDAY, NOV. 28 Indies First Day
Reading Frenzy helps celebrate Indies First Day, a national campaign to support independent bookstores. Reading Frenzy’s celebration will be headlined by Nicole Georges, author of the graphic memoir Calling Dr. Laura, and Invincible Summer, an anthology of autobiographical comics. Reading Frenzy, 3628 N Mississippi Ave., 971-271-8044. 11 am. Free.
works at the roller rink, the narrator works in a bookstore, and Rosie doesn’t have to work. John is Rosie’s ex—and maybe the narrator loves him? Mairead Case tells the story in a series of poems. She’ll be joined by former Erase Errata guitarist Sara Jaffe, whose book Dryland came out this year. Reading Frenzy, 3628 N Mississippi Ave., 971-271-8044. 7 pm. Free.
TUESDAY, DEC. 1 America Dancing: From the Cakewalk to the Moonwalk
Look, dance in America is a whole lot like everything else in America: the product of a mishmash of cultures and riddled with racism. Megan Pugh, a lecturer at UC Berkeley, traces American dance from the colonial times to the present in her new book, America Dancing, with guest spots from the likes of Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, Ginger Rogers, Fred Astaire and Michael Jackson. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651. 7:30 pm. Free.
Willamette Week’s 3RD ANNUAL
Funniest
5
Showcase
AT ALBERTA ABBEY
MONDAY, NOV. 30 Ryan and Lucy Berkley
If you’re into pictures of animals wearing suits, then you’ve already seen a whole lot of Ryan Berkley’s work—he’s the guy that draws all those pictures of owls in suits and stuff. Now, some of these animals are compiled in a book, Social Animals, with backstories by his wife, Lucy. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 228-4651. 7:30 pm. Free.
Scott Nadelson
Paul goes from being a cool, young Manhattan guy to a suburban New Jersey dad, as we all will—well, substitute New Jersey with McMinnville or something. In Between You and Me, Scott Nadelson finds the beauty and terror in these subtle suburban moments, like taking kids to the movies or waiting for the car to be repaired. Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 228-4651. 7:30 pm. Free.
We polled Portland comedy insiders on the best fresh faces in standup comedy. The top five perform live at this showcase hosted by Sean Jordan.
Randall Munroe Book-signing
Founder of the webcomic xkcd, Randall Munroe has a thing for graphs and explaining stuff. In Thing Explainer, he does just that, using drawings and the 1,000 most common words in the English language to explain everything from airplane cockpits to tectonic plates. The book-signing is limited to the first 500 people who buy copies. Powell’s at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., 228-4651. 5 pm. $24.95.
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30 • 7 P.M. • $5 Alberta Abbey (126 NE Alberta Street) bit.ly/wwfunniestfive
See You in the Morning
Rosie, John and the narrator of See You in the Morning live in a small Midwestern town. John
For more Books listings, visit Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
ELISE ENGLERT
MOVIES = 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 The Good Dinosaur
Delving again into the never-ending gold mine of stories about adorable, lost children, Pixar tells the story of little dino Arlo. In this world, dinosaurs weren’t wiped out, but when a big rainstorm sweeps Arlo away from his parents (voiced by Jeffrey Wright and Frances McDormand), he must team up with a Neanderthal named Spot (Jack Bright) to find his way home. AP Kryza, professor’s AP Film Studies column, author of WW’s anticipates “Pixar’s war on the tear ducts” at the screening, which happened too late for this week’s issue. See wweek. com for the review. PG. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Edgefield, Lake Theater, Milwaukie, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Roseway, Sandy, St. Johns Theater.
Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict
A In the tradition of Grey Gardens,
filmmaker and fashion addict Lisa Immordino Vreeland throws viewers into the closeted, batshit world of the woman who imagined London’s first modern art museum, slept with Samuel Beckett, commissioned Jackson Pollock’s largest-ever work for her front entry, and once had an original Dalí delivered to her in bed. A black sheep of the world’s most famous family of curators, Peggy Guggenheim was an oddball—she shaved her eyebrows at school just for the hell of it, chats nonchalantly in interviews about her dozens of abortions and was so notoriously cheap that she served shitty wine and old pasta to Picasso at her art parties. But the film captures her insanity with sympathy (and a budget that’s obviously bigger than most arthouse biopics’). Yes, we get black-and-white photos of her childhood with the Ken Burns effect applied and too many stills of Pollock and Picasso. But the stories accompanying this film’s footage of 1940s London street scenes and color home movies of Peggy in Venice are so interesting that you could listen to Peggy Guggenheim with eyes closed and still be stunned by it. Audio of Peggy’s long-lost, last interviews and talking heads like Clement Greenberg and New York’s New Museum curator tell lurid tales of countless Guggenheim heirs killing themselves, sex scandals with the likes of literary critic John Holms, and how Peggy eventually got the last laugh when the Louvre honored her after many rejections. Even the most casual art users could easily be hooked by the story of this enfant terrible. NR. ENID SPITZ. Living Room Theaters.
The True Cost
B+ In the past decade, mainstream America became almost obsessed with analyzing food safety and sustainability. So why is the global clothing trade— which abuses and kills humans rather than animals—still so rarely discussed? It even comes with an equally dire environmental toll. Director Andrew Morgan found himself asking that same question after the disastrous Rana Plaza garment factory collapse in 2013. His journey to find answers took him to countries like Uganda, Bangladesh and China, and the resulting film is a stunning mix of real-life dystopian imagery and harsh interrogation of the “fast fashion” world. We meet inspiring people, mostly women, fighting for living wages and environmental reforms, but the only solution offered
CONT. on page 52
Are You Ready? CREED IS A KNOCKOUT MOVIE WITH A ROCKY PREMISE. BY ALE X FALCO NE
@alex_falcone
Rocky is almost entirely a good movie. Most of the sequels are mostly good, while some of them are almost not bad. Creed—the seventh movie in the Rocky franchise—is more like the original Rocky than its sequels because it’s mostly good, but also because it’s almost entirely the same movie as Rocky. Creed centers on Adonis Johnson Creed, the son of Rocky’s enemy-turned-friend Apollo Creed (Carl Weathers), who died in the ring in Rocky IV. That was the one where Rocky has a pet robot and defeats communism by flipping over tractor tires. Adonis was born of an affair that Apollo had and kept secret. He ends up a Faceless Man bouncing between foster homes and juvie, where he fights a lot because this movie posits that boxing is genetic. It starts to feel a lot like Rocky when the reigning champ’s match gets scrapped at the last moment and he goes looking for a young challenger in America he can easily beat. He picks Adonis Creed, who asks a grizzled Rocky Balboa, “Can You Take Me Higher?” Rocky reluctantly agrees to train Creed from Human Clay into the chiseled marble of a real fighter. Creed falls in love with a girl (Tessa Thompson) during training, runs through the streets of Philadelphia, asks “Who’s Got My Back?” and then puts up a Good Fight against the champ. As his girl runs to the ring With Arms Wide Open, we’ve come Full Circle in this uplifting story about the champion who lives
AIN’T NO REMATCH: Sylvester Stallone, Michael B. Jordan and Tessa Thompson.
Inside Us All. Normally it would annoy me to see a movie that is such a blatant copy, but in this case, Creed feels more like an apology for the mediocre Rocky movies we’ve endured. It’s more like a series reboot than a sequel, featuring a stronger young actor in Michael B. Jordan (the kid in The Wire who really should’ve stayed at his grandma’s house). And it does all this while still paying respect to its predecessors, even the bad ones. Sylvester Stallone’s aging Rocky holds his own, returning the character to his charming, steak-faced mumblecore roots that went missing for a couple of decades. Here’s the real problem, though: The world is different now. Boxing’s popularity has continued to decline, ranking behind hockey in the Unites States. How can a sport be less popular than Canadian ice polo? And the decline seems justified. It’s a sport from a different era, with a referee in a bow tie, a blood bucket and a guy whose entire job is to cut open the swollen eyes of competitors. And yet, this is the second boxing blockbuster of the year, after Southpaw. Both wrapped in HBO Boxing promotion, they’re long advertisements for a sport that’s at least gross and at most too immoral to support. When Creed’s trainers help him subvert required safety measures, it’s designed to show his dedication, but it mainly shows wilful disregard for the lives of participants. Then, the classic outdated sportscasting makes a joke of Creed’s concussion symptoms: “He doesn’t even know which corner to go to! Ha-ha.” Ha-ha, brain damage! Maybe in the ’70s, when Rocky first came out, a boxing movie ignoring chronic traumatic encephalopathy was fine. But we know too much now. Creed succeeds in restoring the former glory of a sport with a blood bucket, but maybe it shouldn’t have. A- SEE IT: Creed is rated PG-13. It opens Wednesday at Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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is a bit reductive: eliminating global capitalism altogether. Still, a few bumper-sticker sentiments can’t detract from this compelling film, which is, above all else, a badly needed conversation-starter. PG. CASEY JARMAN. Hollywood.
Legend
B- They used to say a cup of tea could fix anything in England back in the 1960s, which is when racketeering brothers Ronnie and Reggie Kray (both played by Tom Hardy, who is hard not to enjoy) started ruling London’s criminal underworld. Unfortunately, Earl Grey can’t fix the scattered scenes and haphazard plot of the new feature written and directed by Academy Award-winner Brian Helgeland (L.A. Confidential, A Knight’s Tale). Hardy is it’s saving grace, valiantly dual acting in the roles of the very different twin brothers. He’s perfectly conflicted as Ronnie and charming as Reggie. Helgeland might be known for building suspense, sure, but the two-hour wait for something climactic turns this movie into a ramble of thick East End accents and too many unrealized plotlines. We get Reggie’s wife, Frances (Emily Browning), pushing him to drop the gangster act, the drama of Ronnie Kray being gay, the twins fighting to rule the London underworld while struggling to run multiple booze-filled nightclubs—it all offers some vibrant action, like when Reggie stabs a gangster repeatedly with a butter knife. But it’s mainly loose ends the movie tries to tie up with some good old gangster violence. Sorry, Hardy. R. AMY WOLFE. Fox Tower.
Victor Frankensein
C- Any time you watch a “rei-
magining” of a story in the public domain, you do so at your own peril. This retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein answers the question, what if the main character was Igor, but with a straightened back, pretty hair and a girlfriend, and played by Daniel Radcliff? Harry Potter does a herculean job of making Igor interesting, and the steampunk world is fun to look at, but neither of these can overcome the absolutely bonkers plot. There are too many villains and conflicting themes, and the finale takes place over a five-story fire pit, for no apparent reason. It’s almost as if (I’m sorry, I can’t help it) the movie were a bunch of bad ideas sewn together so it can walk and talk but is never truly alive. Just remember, Frankenstein isn’t the monster; 20th Century Fox making another movie about Frankenstein is the monster. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Living Room Theaters, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy.
STILL SHOWING Ant-Man
B+ Ant-Man is a largely self-contained, breezy, hilarious and gorgeous heist film that manages a feat few recent superhero films do: It stands up well on its own. Ex-con Scott Lang (a beefedup Paul Rudd) invades the home of Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and finds a weird-looking suit that can shrink its wearer to insect size while granting super strength and the ability to control ants telepathically. He’s nobody’s favorite superhero, but director Peyton Reed is fully aware of this dopiness, and just runs with it. If it were a comic book, it wouldn’t be the kind you put in a Mylar bag. It’d be one that you read with greasy fingers and childlike relish. PG13. AP KRYZA. Vancouver, Valley.
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ALEX BAILEY
MOVIES When Mind drops the whiz act and focuses on Nathan’s fear of holding his mother’s hand—that’s when the figures check. AMY WOLFE. Living Room Theaters.
Brooklyn
A- Based on the title alone, you’d assume that Brooklyn is about a group of artists opening a boutique that sells only dog hoodies. It’s not— Brooklyn is a lovely period romance about a young Irish woman trying to make her way in 1950s New York—but since it’s set in the ’50s, everybody’s dressed exactly like they are now and listens to music the same way. Based on the novel by Irish author Colm Tóibín and adapted by Nick Hornby (High Fidelty, About a Boy), Brooklyn is just the sweetest VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN thing. Saoirse Ronan (Atonement) makes an adorable couple with Emory Cohen (Smash), and I could A- Much like the city’s other exports, watch them court for hours, espeBoston’s gangster flicks vary in cially their awkward dinners with quality from genre-shattering genius Cohen’s Italian family. Portlanders (The Departed, most ’90s bands, will especially love the more subtle the people who invented America) message: Untold wonders await you to mind-numbing pantomimes of if you leave your shitty small town misogyny (The Boondock Saints, and move to New York’s coolest Boston sports fans, Mark Wahlberg). borough. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Scott Cooper’s Black Mass is the Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, latest cinematic try. It tells the story CineMagic, Cinema 21, Bridgeport, of Boston’s most notorious crimiMovies on TV, St. Johns Cinemas. nal, James “Whitey” Bulger (Johnny
Black Mass
Depp) and the deal he made with the FBI’s John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) that ensured he could do whatever he wanted for decades. R. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Academy, Laurelhurst, Vancouver, Valley.
Bridge of Spies
B- Steven Spielberg was born to convey viewers through weird and wonderful alternate realities. Even though history is nearly as illusory as a dinosaur theme park, the director’s gift just doesn’t shine as brightly when he contends with humanity’s past. Bridge of Spies, starring Tom Hanks as an insurance lawyer recruited by the U.S. government to negotiate a spy-for-spy trade with the Soviet Union, benefits from a caustic screenplay by the Coen brothers. While Spielberg is pretty good even when he’s on auto-pilot, there is little here that doesn’t feel perfunctory. PG-13. CHRIS STAMM. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Forest Theatre, Hollywood, Living Room Theaters, Movies on TV, Tigard.
A Brilliant Young Mind
C+ The formula for genius moviemaking is “underdog - loving parent + conflicted mentor = successful public performance.” Exhibit A: Step Up. The math in A Brilliant Young Mind may be more cerebral, but the movie isn’t. Autistic genius Nathan (Asa Butterfield) struggles with expressing emotions. After losing his father, Nathan pairs up with his pot-smoking tutor, Mr. Humphreys (Rafe Spall), who’s experiencing setbacks of his own—especially sexual—from living with multiple sclerosis. Humphreys coaches Nathan to qualify for an International Mathematical Olympiad in Taiwan, where Nathan dreams of joining a team of painfully annoying, young intellectuals. This fiction version of director Morgan Matthews’ 2007 documentary is a coming-of-age film that goes nowhere for all its globetrotting. What the film does offer is an intimate look at living with autism. The quality acting comes from Sally Hawkins as Julie, perfectly frustrated as she struggles to get Nathan’s lunch perfect—every item must be a prime number. Witnessing Nathan’s “special powers,” as his dad called them, may give the film its spectacle, but its soul is in the relationships Nathan struggles to build.
By the Sea
D The latest film from the pen and camera of Angelina Jolie-Pitt is a painfully slow drama about the dark subtleties of married life, but it’s also a two-hour reminder that watching beautiful people be beautifully bored in beautiful southern France does not equal a real story. Set in the 1970s, Roland (Brad Pitt) is a writer who has run out of words, and his glamorous wife, Vanessa (Jolie), is a pill-popping parade of chiffon nightgowns and silent tears that rarely affect her makeup. Their dysfunctional relationship becomes slightly more interesting when they make a habit of peeping on the neighboring honeymooners through a hole in the wall, but that minor plot progression is eclipsed by the numerous scenes of Vanessa’s trembling hands attempting to steady her cigarette. Jolie ultimately fails to create tension, relying on the breathtaking cinematography of Christian Berger to legitimize this artistic presentation of upper-class woes. R. LAUREN TERRY. Clackamas, Fox Tower.
Crimson Peak
B+ There are all manner of ghosts
in this gorgeous, tragic tale, but to call it a horror film is to completely mislabel Guillermo del Toro’s meticulously crafted, old-fashioned tale of twisted souls and timeless longing. Scary isn’t really the point. The things that go bump in the night are not nearly so terrifying as the people who walk the earth, and the film is so immersive and gorgeous that the plot is secondary. The film is a little too slow-moving for those expecting something more jolty and probably a little too obvious for those looking for a deep mystery. While it’s not del Toro’s most compelling work, it’s very surely his most beautiful. R. AP KRYZA. Eastport.
Everest
B+ In 1996, a stranded group of
climbers, including New Zealand mountaineer Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) and writer Jon Krakauer (Michael Kelly), met a massive storm at the top of the world. Today’s CGI and 3-D technology puts the viewer on the mountain in a visceral way. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Academy, Empirical, Laurelhurst, Vancouver, Valley.
B+ There’s a twist at the cold heart
of German directors Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz’s Goodnight Mommy that most viewers will probably see coming, but that doesn’t kill any of the tension in this deeply troubling horror show. Set in an isolated lake house, the film centers on twin brothers Lukas and Elias, whose mother (Susanne Wuest) comes home from facial reconstruction surgery with a head wrapped in bandages and a newfound malevolence toward her sons. R. AP KRYZA. Laurelhurst.
Goosebumps
A- It’s easy to be skeptical about a
2015 Goosebumps film in 3-D. Jack Black plays R.L. Stine, who joins forces with a couple of cute kids to fight every monster he’s ever written about and save the town. PG. ALEX FALCONE. Academy, Avalon, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, Division, Movies on TV.
Grandma
C+ Like a feminist companion piece to last year’s Bill Murray feature St. Vincent, Paul Weitz’s Grandma tells the tale of Elle (Lily Tomlin), who takes her neglected granddaughter (Julia Garner) under her wing when the teenager comes asking for money for an abortion. An out-of-work poet and widow who just broke up with her young girlfriend (Judy Greer), Elle sees the situation as a chance to bond with her entitled granddaughter. So she takes the girl on a journey through L.A., visiting people from her past to raise funds for the procedure. Tomlin is great as the wise but stubborn Elle, doling out f-bombs and sagelike lessons in equal measure, but despite flashes of genuine emotion, Grandma eventually buckles under its heavy-handedness. It would have made a great play. Instead, it’s an all right movie with a fantastic central performance. R. AP KRYZA. Academy, Laurelhurst.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2
B Mockingjay Part 2, the conclusion of the Hunger Games series, looks spectacular. The burned-out shells of future mega-city the Capitol set a perfect mood, the costumes are inventive and cool, and the acting is almost too good since it results in many great actors having only a couple lines. AND YET all that solid artistic work almost, but not entirely, distracts from the fact that MJP2 is a supremely goofy movie. Set during the conclusion of the revolution started in Catching Fire, Katniss Everdeen leads a group of rebels against the Capitol, which has been booby trapped with hot oil, lasers, and an army of lizard people. It’s… silly. If you’re on the fence about seeing Mockingjay 2, you’ll just need to decide if you like great acting more than you hate lizard people. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Bagdad, Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Milwaukie, Moreland, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy, St. Johns Cinemas.
Inside Out
COURTESY OF ONE RACE FILMS
A- Pretty much everybody in the theater was sobbing at some point during Inside Out. It’s sad. Crushingly, relentlessly sad. And absolutely brilliant from writerdirector Pete Docter (Up). It’s not about depression per se. It’s about young Riley, who has to
move across the country for her dad’s job, and the tiny people in her head who represent her emotions. The main story seems aimed more at parents and, to a lesser extent, older kids. There’s a talking elephant made of cotton candy to help occupy the littles, but you will love it, because it’s great. And since you’re paying for it, screw them. PG. ALEX FALCONE. Academy, Avalon, Empirical, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, Vancouver, Valley.
The Intern
B+ Nancy Meyers’ latest film successfully tells a funny, intergenerational story without relying on health scare or a youthful makeover for Ben (Robert De Niro). As an active widower and retiree in need of something to keep himself busy, Ben applies to a senior internship program at “About the Fit,” a Topshoplike online clothing site founded by the dedicated Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway). Besides taking place in a squeakyclean, caucasian version of Brooklyn, this movie doesn’t shy away from the less-glamorous details of being a female CEO in a society that is still playing catch-up, at one point showing condescending glances from Jules’ fellow mothers at her daughter’s school. De Niro does a terrific job embodying the amused patience his generation must adopt to survive in a millennial’s world. He wears a suit every day out of habit, but his unquestioning admiration of Jules’ tenacity is a refreshingly modern concept, serving as a reminder that the timeless art of being a gentleman begins with respect. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Lake Theater, Living Room Theaters.
The Last Witch Hunter
D- The Last Witch Hunter attempts a lot of twists and turns, and it all ends up rating lower than Vin Diesel’s voice. Diesel grunts and groans as Kaulder, an immortal witch hunter fighting to save civilization. The rare sparks of talent here are Michael Caine as an elderly priest and Elijah Wood, who stays wide-eyed, airy and Frodo Baggins-like for the entire movie. The greatest disappointment of all is that the ending promises an unfortunate sequel. That comes off like a threat. PG-13. AMY WOLFE. Movies on TV.
The Martian
B- Take the buzz surrounding The
Martian with a boulder of salt. It’s just a pretty good sci-fi yarn based on Andy Weir’s book that stumbles on its own ambition. When a massive storm hits the Martian exploration project and Watney’s team leaves him for dead, the skilled botanist realizes that the only way to escape starvation and space madness is to “science the shit” out of his situation. As always, Scott’s direction is spot-on. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Forest Theatre, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood.
Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation
A The newest installment in the Tom Cruise-led series is top-of-class for the genre. Sure, James Bond had his Walther P99 pistol-equipped surfboard, but Rogue Nation uses cool spy gadgets to perfection, like the sniper rifle built into a bassoon for all your opera-hall assassination needs. And Tom’s aging actually plays well in the movie without becoming a huge deal. The only thing missing is the mushy, romancy stuff. But that’s another appeal of the franchise. It’s not sappy. It’s a tight action movie focused on talented people working together for the good (or harm? You have no idea!) of the world. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Vancouver.
THE LAST WITCH HUNTER
Mr. Holmes
C- There’s a reason we don’t often
PREVIEW
follow our heroes into the sunset: Retirement is pretty boring and aging is depressing. In Mr. Holmes, the great Sherlock (Ian McKellen), a celebrity thanks to Dr. Watson’s embellished accounts, spends his days at a rustic estate struggling to remember his last case, allowing his health to deteriorate and tending to his beehives. Without Ian McKellen, this would be the story of a boring old man doing boring, old-man things. PG. ANDY KRYZA. Academy, Laurelhurst.
B R I T I S H A R R O W S AWA R D S / W W S TA F F
Goodnight Mommy
Pan
Director Joe Wright (Atonement, Hanna) remakes the iconic children’s story as a modern-day action flick with Hugh Jackman and Rooney Mara. Screened after deadline. PG. Academy, Avalon, Kennedy School, Mt. Hood, Vancouver, Valley.
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension
B+ Eight years ago, Jason Blum’s cheapo horror empire began with a $15,000 festival filler. The sixth and final installment of his “found footage”fueled franchise, Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, arrives bearing the same tricks as its predecessors. Alas, the effects may suffer from firstrun showings at Living Room Theaters and the Avalon Theatre since Regal Cinemas—like many chains—was frightened off by the producer’s unholy alliance with an all-too-apropos threat: video on demand. R. JAY HORTON. Avalon.
The Peanuts Movie
A bald child named Charlie battles questionable fashion choices, impossible odds and burgeoning hormones. G. Bagdad, Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Lake Theater, Milwaukie, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy, St. Johns Theater.
Phoenix
A Since its debut at the Toronto
International Film Festival last summer, the nominations keep coming for this concise, moving neo-noir set in postwar Germany. Nelly (Nina Hoss) has just returned from a concentration camp, her face disfigured beyond recognition. After recovering from reconstructive surgery, she learns of her massive inheritance, but is only concerned about finding her husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld). “I no longer exist,” she says after seeing her unfamiliar reflection, but her search for Johnny spirals into a far more twisted tale of what remains of her sense of self. Director Christian Petzold crafts this stylish period piece without relying on dramatic lighting or odd angles, instead thickening the mystery with jarring cuts that keep the audience guessing. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Laurelhurst.
Room
B+ In this riveting adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s novel, an abducted woman must raise her son in a confined space, To maintain a stimulating setting, Ma (Brie Larson) creates a social environment with anthropomorphized characters named Bed and Lamp. R. LAUREN TERRY. Fox Tower, Hollywood.
Rosenwald
B- Director Aviva Kempner dives right into the humanitarian work of Julius Rosenwald, who became known for creating Rosenwald schools. You can’t help wishing this documentary was in Drunk History format for its East Coast accents and lively, detailed storytellers. It’s jam-packed with all the philanthropy that the Jewish entrepreneur did for the African-American race he felt so much in common with. An inspiring film, it offers an ounce of hope for our selfish society rather than aiming for a reaction. Rosenwald chose to give rather than bathe in his wealth, and that’s a little-known piece of history we should toast our Manischewitz to. NR. AMY WOLFE. Cinema 21.
WE BUILT THIS CITY: Three Mobile’s #SingItKitty by Wieden+Kennedy.
Advertising for Anglophiles Every year, Portland’s NW Film Center screens 80-plus minutes of British TV commercials as fine art. The British Arrow Awards gets a three-night run, which is more than Citizen Kane for the center’s upcoming “Orson Welles at 100” series. In the States, the equivalent of the Arrow is the Association of Independent Commercial Producers Awards. Here’s how we compare in some very artistic categories:
The NW Film Center shows British TV ads as art.
Fat Girls Working Out
U.K.: “I kick balls, deal with it,” the English say. Sport England’s manifesto “I jiggle therefore I am” in This Girl Can pitches a fuckyou hardball to fitspo with 90 seconds of thunder thighs jogging, love handles at Zumba, and freckled gingers in tight swimsuits. U.S.: “When my life went one way, my butt would go the other,” laments America’s successful, suburban mom. Weight Watchers’ My Butt follows her ass to a black-tie gala, Bikram yoga and this lifealtering epiphany: “My relationship with my butt had nothing to do with my butt and everything to do with my brain.”
Celebrities Drinking
U.K.: Channeling a Samuel Beckett protagonist, drunk Jeff Bridges swirls Kahlúa and tells a tall tale about a cosmonaut crash-landing in the desert and saving him from speeding villains in The White Russian. U.S.: An old Hollywood Jude Law sips whiskey on a yacht in Johnny Walker’s The Gentleman’s Wager. He also masters tap and jazz piano, and performs with a chorus of retro bombshells in a custom-tailored suits. Before returning to the yacht.
Domestic Violence
U.K.: The Arrows love hidden-camera ads. Spying on parkgoers’ reactions to a fighting couple, Mankind Initiative’s Violence Is Violence shows two types of submissive men. When a guy pushes his girlfriend, a posse of women (and one miniature dog) berate him, threaten to call the police and tell the girl she deserves better. Rewind. When the roles are reversed, people chuckle and raise eyebrows as the girl hits her boyfriend. U.S.: Hide yo dildos, hide yo guns. In Evolve USA’s Playthings, soccer mom No. 1 fetches her son from a playdate and asks, “Did Kyle behave himself?” The boys come out sword-fighting with massive dildos. Soccer mom No. 2: “They’re angels.” ENID SPITZ. SEE IT: The 2015 British Arrow Awards screen at NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium, nwfilm.org. 7 pm Friday-Sunday, Nov. 27-29. $9.
Secret in Their Eyes
C Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is an earnest
FBI investigator determined to convict the man who murdered the daughter of his colleague Jess (Julia Roberts). After initially failing to arrest the killer, Ray has spent the past 13 years poring through hundreds of mug shots in hopes of building a case, and he may have just found the killer. Flashbacks from the tense days following the murder reveal the suspect was an FBI informant from a supposed terrorist cell. Unfortunately, any thoughtful commentary on the paranoid state of post-9/11 America is lost in the film’s confusing timeline. Scenes from the
past and present blend into one big chase, but this one is at times even less believable than the one in Taken. Ejiofor’s dedication is intense enough to make us follow along, even when the loose ends tie up just a little too neatly to be realistic. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy.
CONT. on page 54
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
53
MOVIES R. ALEX FALCONE. Fox Tower.
clay animation, Shaun the Sheep Movie tells a fresh story with the familiar painstaking imagery that makes Aardman Studios the “English Pixar.” Steeped in the tongue-in-cheek charm of the original Wallace & Gromit, parents will find as much in store for them as their children. PG. LAUREN TERRY. Laurelhurst.
Straight Outta Compton
A- In a vibrant return to traditional
Sicario
A Emily Blunt (The Devil Wears
Prada) is a talented FBI agent specially recruited into a task force fighting a brutal war against Mexican drug cartels. She spends the whole movie confused and on edge while taking orders from the mysterious Benicio Del Toro (Snatch), who manages to act without ever fully opening his eyes or mouth. As the real mission of the task force slowly takes shape, so do beautiful sweeping helicopter shots of the border zone and heartbreaking vignettes of all the people affected by drug war. R. ALEX FALCONE. Academy, Hollywood, Laurelhurst, Fox Tower.
Spectre
C+ How do you like your James Bond? Brooding and brutal, or breezily throwing out quips? Should he drink craft cocktails or Heineken? Spectre—the 26th Bond film—has it all, and more. The one thing it doesn’t have is the ability to leave a lasting impression. We walk out of the theater neither shaken nor stirred. Following the impressive Skyfall, director Sam Mendes returns to the director’s chair. Buildings crumble, helicopters do barrel rolls, and Daniel Craig nonchalantly causes millions in property damage. But from the minute Sam Smith’s grating theme music starts, the movie slides downhill. Most disappointing is Christoph Waltz—so perfect in Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained—who just sneers, cackles and hunches. Sure, there’s fun to be had—Bond drives a tricked-out ride through Rome’s narrow streets and engages in an Alpine plane chase before the anticlimactic conclusion (extremely uncommon for the series) lands with a dull thud. Considering everybody who’s involved in Spectre, the very last reaction anybody expected was “meh.” PG-13. AP KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Cornelius, Oak Grove, Cinema 99, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, Tigard, Wilsonville, Sandy.
Spotlight
A- Spotlight inverts the usual compar-
ison: It’s a movie that feels like prestige television. Specifically, it feels like The Wire. (Director Tom McCarthy played the fabricating reporter Scott Templeton in season 5 of the HBO series.) An Oscar favorite recounting how a Boston Globe investigative team uncovered an epidemic of pederast priests abetted by the Archdiocese, Spotlight borrows the rhythms of a propulsive TV procedural. It resists the temptation for self-congratulation. Instead, there’s a pall of communal guilt (much of it Catholic), an acknowledgement that a Pulitzer Prize won’t erase decades of conniving at rape. Spotlight is endurable because the actors, a White Guys in Khakis hall of fame including Liev Schreiber, Michael Keaton and Mark Ruffalo, decline to grandstand. They convey through small gestures—a twitch, a sigh, a pause in scribbling notes—how each revelation presents both a horror and another puzzle to solve. The highest compliment I can pay Spotlight: I would watch this on TV. R. AARON MESH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Bridgeport, Evergreen, Fox Tower.
Steve Jobs
B This is the more high-profile and undoubtedly better of the two movies, with Danny Boyle at the helm and Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave) in the lead role instead of Ashton Kutcher (Dude, Where’s My Car?). Never seeming quite human, Fassbender’s Jobs oscillates between enthusiasm for his own ideas and outrage that the world can’t keep up with him, in exactly the way that people close to the genius described him.
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AP FILM STUDIES RICK VODICKA
Shaun the Sheep Movie
C Telling the greatest story in the history of popular music—full of actual violence and sex and death and betrayal and redemption and brotherhood—wasn’t going to be easy. Especially since it attempts to follow three main story lines, as Dre, Cube and Eazy-E all get major play, with DJ Yella and MC Ren rightly relegated to bit-player status. As best I know, it’s a fairly faithful telling of the story, but it’s not the movie N.W.A. deserved. R. MARTIN CIZMAR. Academy, Laurelhurst, Vancouver.
Theeb
A- In the desert of the Ottoman Empire circa 1916, the young Theeb lives in a man’s world—shooting guns, gambling and watching for enemy attacks. When a British guest comes to his village searching for a local guide and decides on Theeb’s brother, the tiny, sad-eyed waif follows their perilous journey. The plot may be unsurprising—the travelers’ lives are endangered, and Theeb fearlessly acts with wisdom beyond his years and saves the day—but this Bedouin Western is anything but boring beige, for all its sand-dune scenery. The desert is a stunning backdrop for the cast of unknowns, including Jacir Eid Al-Hwietat as Theeb. And with one look from his bottomless eyes, we believe that greatness can come in all shapes and sizes. NR. Living Room Theaters.
Trainwreck
C Amy Schumer stars as Amy, a
version of herself as a magazine writer instead of a comedy writer. R. ALEX FALCONE. Academy, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst.
Trumbo
C+ Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad) is cooking up something other than meth in Trumbo. Cranston delivers a stellar performance as Dalton Trumbo, a rebellious screenwriter who despite being the highest-paid in the business in 1947, can’t stay out of trouble. He and nine other artists are blacklisted and jailed for refusing to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee while conniving gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Helen Mirren) fuels the media fire. With the glowing Diane Lane looking better than ever as Trumbo’s wife, Cleo, and John Goodman adding comedy to the role of a questionable film producer, the pronounced cast tries their best through the sometimes vague, sometimes triumphant events that played out in bigscreen history. The majority of the movie is spent wanting to like the film, the acting far surpassing the storyline that fails to deliver a memorable message. This may just be all the right ingredients, but a bad batch. R. AMY WOLFE. Clackamas, Hollywood, Bridgeport, City Center, Fox Tower, Movies on TV.
The Visit
B- M. Night Shyamalamadingdong has lost the luster of his early career, so it’s no surprise he’s making little $5 million found-footage horror movies. But this entry into cheap-shaky horror movies doesn’t add much to the genre. The Visit is told from the points of view of an unbelievably precocious 15-year-old who’s making a documentary about her first trip to meet her estranged grandparents, and her 12-year-old brother, whose rapping is so bad it makes me want bad things to happen to him much faster than they do. The movie is packed full of jump scares and gross-outs (vomit, poop, old people naked) and a cast of people you’ve probably never heard of. The film’s got some tense scenes, but the humor, even though it’s unintentional, makes it hard to stay in the moment. “Little kid, will you climb into the oven please?” We’ll give it to M. Night, he does make us feel trapped in an uncomfortable spot. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Vancouver.
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
Organ Grinder A WURLITZER AND NOSFERATU KEEP CINEMA’S OLDEST TRADITION ALIVE. BY A P KRYZA
apkryza@wweek.com
In the latest horror hit, spring’s teen sex creeper It Follows, there’s a scene in which the heroine goes on a date at an old movie house and an organist plays a live score for the Cary Grant-Audrey Hepburn classic Charade. It recalls a forgotten era of cinemagoing and gave the film a feeling of temporal displacement for many viewers. Those viewers probably do not belong in Portland, where live organ scores are becoming normal. Or normal-ish. The Hollywood Theatre has long been a landmark unstuck in time, playing movies from every era, and often in their original formats. It brings out all the bells and whistles, sometimes literally, as is the case with the Columbia River Theatre Organ Society’s Saturday screening of F.W. Murnau’s eternally creepy Nosferatu. Live scoring the granddaddy of vampire films is not new, but CRTOS is nothing if not rooted in tradition. Here, tradition dictates that organ virtuoso Dean Lemire present a wholly original live score on the theater’s Beverly Ruth Nelson Memorial Organ, an old-school Wurlitzer pipe organ currently being restored (for the time being, it’s augmented digitally). While the concept of theater organists might seem a flourish, back in the silent era (and beyond), they were essential to movies. Organists provided the score and sound effects, bringing it all to life for audiences in real time. “It’s a misnomer that they’re called silent movies. There’s nothing silent about them,” says Lemire. “You’re creating the emotions. You’re setting the scenes. It’s not just playing through a song like an orchestra does. It brings the soul to the movie.” The Organ Society has struck up a fantastic partnership with the Hollywood, featuring films as wide-ranging as Nosferatu’s brother-in-expres-
sionist-horror The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to Buster Keaton’s The General, and often accompanying them with vintage animated shorts. The pipe organ—along with the restored marquee and recent introduction of 70 mm projection— is another step toward transforming the Hollywood into one of the nation’s greatest and purest movie houses. It’s offering audiences the chance to experience movies the way they were meant to be seen, in this case a spooky-ass vampire movie that seems custom-made for the haunting sounds of a pipe organ played by a passionate traditionalist. “The best compliment I can get is: ‘I’m sorry. I wasn’t really listening, I was into the movie,’” says Lemire. “You don’t draw attention to yourself as the organist. You play like you walked into a theater in the 1920s.” SEE IT: Nosferatu screens at the Hollywood Theatre. 2 pm Saturday, Nov. 28. ALSO SHOWING:
Weird Wednesday spends Thanksgiving eve with The City of the Dead, a Christopher Lee-starring tale of witchcraft that was rated “adults only” when it was released in 1960 and features the kind of moral depravity nowadays banned from network TV until about noon. Joy Cinema. 9:15 pm Wednesday, Nov. 25. Before David Gordon Green burst out with a series of stoner comedies (Pineapple Express being a classic, Your Highness being the opposite of “classic”), he was making quiet indie dramas, highlighted by 2003’s All the Real Girls, a small-town romance laced with an oddball sensibility that transcends its mumblecore brethren. 5th Avenue Cinema. 7 and 9:30 pm Friday-Saturday, 3 pm Sunday, Nov. 27-29. With news of a Ryan Gosling-starring sequel ramping up production, now’s the perfect time to revisit the final cut of Ridley Scott’s breathtaking Blade Runner. Clinton Street Theater. 7:30 pm Friday-Sunday, Nov. 27-29. Sure, it’s fun to watch football on Thanksgiving. But you know what’s even more fun? Watching Tommy Wiseau and his crew toss the ol’ pigskin in black tie for no reason whatsoever in The Room. Cinema 21. 10:45 pm Friday, Nov. 27. Movies in Black & White teams up with Hecklevision for a screening and discussion of the truly atrocious Catwoman, a film that manages to be ugly and uninteresting despite the fact that it stars one of the world’s most beautiful women in a leather bikini thingy. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Saturday, Nov. 28.
Regal Lloyd Center 10 & IMAX
1510 NE Multnomah St. THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 2 -- THE IMAX EXPERIENCE Wed -Thu 12:20, 3:40, 7:00, 10:20 CREED Wed-Thu 12:10, 3:30, 6:40, 9:55 THE GOOD DINOSAUR Wed-Thu 11:30, 4:50, 7:30 THE GOOD DINOSAUR 3D Wed Thu 2:10, 10:10 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 2 Wed-Thu 11:50, 3:10, 6:30, 9:50 VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN Wed-Thu 12:40, 4:20, 7:20, 10:10 THE NIGHT BEFORE Wed-Thu 11:55, 2:35, 5:10, 7:50, 10:30 SECRET IN THEIR EYES Wed-Thu 12:30, 3:55, 7:10, 10:00 SPECTRE Wed Thu 11:35, 3:20, 6:50, 10:15 THE PEANUTS MOVIE Wed Thu 12:00, 5:00, 7:35 THE PEANUTS MOVIE 3D Wed -Thu 2:30, 10:05 THE MARTIAN Wed-Thu 11:40, 6:20 THE MARTIAN 3D Wed-Thu 3:00, 9:40
Regal Vancouver Plaza 10
7800 NE Fourth Plain Blvd. PAN Wed-Thu 1:45, 3:40, 4:30, 7:00, 9:30 BLACK MASS Wed Thu 1:50, 4:40, 7:20, 10:00 EVEREST Wed-Thu 2:05, 4:45, 7:25, 10:05 MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS Wed Thu 1:20, 4:10, 7:05, 9:55 THE VISIT Wed-Thu 1:00, 4:15, 6:10, 9:05 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Wed-Thu 1:10, 6:25, 9:35 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE ROGUE NATION Wed -Thu 1:35, 6:50, 9:50 ANT-MAN Wed-Thu 1:30, 4:05, 6:40, 9:20 INSIDE OUT Wed -Thu 1:00, 3:30, 4:25, 6:00, 8:55 JURASSIC WORLD Wed -Thu 1:15, 3:55, 6:35, 9:15
Regal Division Street Stadium 13
16603 SE Division St. CREED Wed-Thu 12:00, 3:15, 6:30, 9:45 THE GOOD DINOSAUR Wed -Thu 11:20, 1:50, 4:20, 7:00, 9:35 THE GOOD DINOSAUR 3D Wed-Thu 11:50, 2:20, 4:50, 7:30, 10:05 VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN Wed -Thu 11:40, 2:20, 5:00, 7:40, 10:20 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 2 Wed-Thu 11:15, 11:45, 12:15, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30, 6:15, 6:45, 7:15, 9:30, 10:00, 10:30 THE NIGHT BEFORE Wed -Thu 11:30, 2:15, 4:55, 7:25, 10:10 SECRET IN THEIR EYES Wed-Thu 11:25, 2:05, 4:45, 7:35, 10:20 SPECTRE Wed Thu 11:40, 3:10, 6:35, 9:55 THE PEANUTS MOVIE Wed -Thu 11:55, 2:20, 4:50, 7:20, 9:45 GOOSEBUMPS Wed-Thu 11:50, 2:30, 5:00, 7:45, 10:15 THE MARTIAN Wed-Thu 12:10, 9:45 THE MARTIAN 3D Wed -Thu 3:25, 6:35
Regal Movies on TV Stadium 16
COURTESY OF WISEAU-FILMS
2929 SW 234th Ave. THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 2 Wed Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun 11:30, 12:20, 2:40, 3:50, 6:40, 7:10, 9:50, 10:30 CREED Wed-Thu-FriSat-Sun 12:40, 4:00, 7:15, 10:20 THE GOOD DINOSAUR Wed Thu-Fri-Sat- Sun 11:20, 1:50,
4:20, 6:50, 9:30 THE NIGHT BEFORE Wed-Thu 12:05, 2:35, 5:10, 8:00, 10:30 VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN Wed-Thu-FriSat-Sun 11:45, 2:25, 5:05, 7:45, 10:25 THE GOOD DINOSAUR 3D Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun 11:50, 2:20, 4:50, 7:20, 10:00 SECRET IN THEIR EYES Wed-Thu 11:35, 2:15, 4:55, 7:35, 10:15 SPECTRE Wed-Thu 11:55, 3:40, 6:55, 10:10 THE PEANUTS MOVIE Wed Thu 11:25, 2:00, 4:30, 7:30 THE PEANUTS MOVIE 3D Wed -Thu 9:55 TRUMBO Wed-Thu 12:10, 3:40, 6:55, 9:55 BROOKLYN
Wed-Thu 12:25, 4:05, 7:25, 10:10 THE LAST WITCH HUNTER Wed-Thu 11:40, 2:45, 6:30, 9:40 BRIDGE OF SPIES Wed-Thu 12:10, 3:55, 7:05, 10:15 GOOSEBUMPS Wed -Thu 12:30, 4:10, 7:40, 10:20 THE MARTIAN Wed-Thu 12:00, 9:55 THE MARTIAN 3D Wed -Thu 3:30, 6:45
Avalon Theatre & Wunderland
3451 SE Belmont St., 503-238-1617 SCOUTS GUIDE TO THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE Wed Thu 9:15 PARANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION Wed-Thu 9:00 PAN Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 11:30, 1:30, 5:10 INSIDE OUT Wed-ThuFri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 5:00 GOOSEBUMPS Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 1:00, 3:00, 7:00, 9:00 MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 7:10, 9:35
Laurelhurst Theatre & Pub
2735 E Burnside St., 503-232-5511 MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL Wed 9:00 GRANDMA Wed Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 6:45 GOODNIGHT MOMMY Wed 9:15 MR. HOLMES Wed 6:45 TRAINWRECK Wed-Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 7:00 BLACK MASS Wed-Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue 9:15 MEET THE PATELS Wed 6:30 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Wed-Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 8:40 INSIDE OUT Wed-Fri-Sat-Sun 1:30 NO FILMS SHOWING TODAY Thu MERU Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue 7:15 EVEREST Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 6:30 SICARIO Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 9:00 FARGO Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 9:35 SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE Fri-Sat-Sun 2:00 GOOSEBUMPS Fri-Sat-Sun 1:15, 4:30
St. Johns Cinemas
8704 N Lombard St., 503-286-1768 BROOKLYN Wed-Thu-FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 5:00, 7:30, 9:50 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 2 Wed Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue 4:00, 7:00, 10:00
CineMagic Theatre
2021 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503231-7919 BROOKLYN Wed-Thu-Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 4:40, 7:00, 9:20
Regal City Center Stadium 12
801 C St. CREED Wed-Thu 11:40, 3:00, 6:10, 9:20 THE GOOD DINOSAUR Wed-Thu 11:30, 2:00, 4:30, 7:00, 9:35 THE GOOD DINOSAUR 3D Wed Thu 11:05, 1:35, 4:05, 6:35, 9:05 VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN
Wed-Thu 12:15, 3:15, 5:55, 8:40 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 2 Wed Thu 11:00, 12:00, 2:10, 3:10, 5:20, 6:20, 8:30, 9:30 THE NIGHT BEFORE Wed-Thu 1:20, 3:55, 6:45, 9:15 SECRET IN THEIR EYES Wed-Thu 12:05, 2:55, 5:40, 8:25 SPECTRE Wed-Thu 11:45, 2:45, 6:00, 9:25 THE PEANUTS MOVIE Wed-Thu 1:30, 3:50, 6:25 THE PEANUTS MOVIE 3D Wed Thu 8:45 TRUMBO Wed -Thu 11:15, 2:30, 5:45, 9:10 THE MARTIAN Wed-Thu 11:10, 8:55 THE MARTIAN 3D Wed -Thu 2:20, 5:35
Kennedy School Theater
5736 NE 33rd Ave. INSIDE OUT Wed-Thu 5:30 TRAINWRECK Wed-Thu 7:45 PAN Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun-Tue 5:30 THX-1138 Fri-Sat-Sun 10:15 MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS Fri-Sat-Sun 12:00 GOOSEBUMPS Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 3:00, 8:00
Hollywood Theatre
4122 NE Sandy Blvd. 503-281-4215 SICARIO Wed -Thu 7:15 ROOM Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun 2:00, 4:30 DR WHO: GENESIS OF THE DALEKS Wed 7:30 TRUMBO Wed-Thu-Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 6:30, 9:00 BRIDGE OF SPIES Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 6:45, 9:30 NOSFERATU Sat 2:00 THE CITY OF LOST CHILDREN Sat 7:00 CATWOMAN Sat 9:30 HECKLEVISION: HECKLEVISION Sat THE ROYAL TAILOR Sun 7:00 THE TRUE COST Mon 7:00 THE MOVIE QUIZ Mon 9:30 I COME IN PEACE Tue 7:30
Regal Fox Tower Stadium 10
846 SW Park Ave. BY THE SEA Wed-Thu-FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 3:20, 9:30 LEGEND Wed-Thu-Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 12:00, 3:40, 7:00, 10:00 THE NIGHT BEFORE Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 1:10, 4:10, 7:15, 9:45 SECRET IN THEIR EYES Wed-Thu-FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:45, 4:30, 7:10, 9:40 LOVE THE COOPERS Wed-ThuFri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue
3:45, 9:00 SPOTLIGHT Wed Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:00, 1:00, 3:00, 4:00, 6:20, 7:00, 9:10, 9:50 TRUMBO Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue 12:30, 3:15, 6:40, 9:30 SUFFRAGETTE Wed-Thu-FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:40, 3:40, 6:45, 9:15 ROOM Wed-Thu-FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 4:40, 7:20, 10:00 STEVE JOBS Wed-ThuFri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:10, 6:50 SICARIO Wed-Thu-FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:20, 6:20
Regal Pioneer Place Stadium 6
340 SW Morrison St. CREED Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 11:45, 3:00, 6:30, 9:50 THE GOOD DINOSAUR Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue 11:10, 4:40, 7:30 THE GOOD DINOSAUR 3D Wed Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 2:00, 10:15 THE HUNGER GAMES: MOCKINGJAY, PART 2 Wed-Thu 11:00, 12:00, 2:30, 3:30, 6:00, 7:00, 9:30, 10:20 SPECTRE Wed-Thu 11:20, 3:15, 6:45, 10:10 THE MARTIAN Wed-Thu 11:30, 9:40 THE MARTIAN 3D Wed-Thu 2:45, 6:15
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BEER WINE PIZZA 4 SCREENS LAURELHURSTTHEATER.COM
2735 E BurnsidE st • (503-232-5511) • LaurELhurstthEatEr.com
St. Johns Theater
8203 N Ivanhoe St. THE GOOD DINOSAUR Wed Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 1:00, 4:00, 7:00, 9:45
Academy Theater
7818 SE Stark St., 503-252-0500 PAN Wed-Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue 11:35, 4:15 BLACK MASS Wed-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 9:00 GRANDMA Wed-Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 5:25 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Wed 12:00, 8:50 MR. HOLMES Wed 2:05, 7:15 TRAINWRECK Wed 11:50, 9:30 INSIDE OUT Wed-FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 3:10 THE HUDSUCKER PROXY Wed 4:55, 9:20 NO FILMS SHOWING TODAY Thu GOOSEBUMPS Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 2:00, 6:40 SICARIO Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 2:20, 7:00, 9:35 EVEREST FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:35, 7:20 THE IRON GIANT Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue 12:15, 4:55, 9:55
Living Room Theaters
341 SW 10th Ave., 971-222-2010 A BRILLIANT YOUNG MIND Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:20, 2:50 BRIDGE OF SPIES Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 12:30, 2:15, 4:00, 5:00, 6:30, 7:00, 9:15 MERU Wed-Thu-FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue 11:55, 5:30 PEGGY GUGGENHEIM: ART ADDICT Wed-Thu-Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue 12:00, 2:10, 4:30, 6:40, 8:45 THE INTERN Wed Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 11:50, 4:20, 9:45 THEEB Wed-ThuFri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 1:50, 7:30, 9:40 VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 11:45, 2:00, 4:10, 6:50, 7:45, 9:10, 10:05 SUBJECT TO CHANGE. CALL THEATERS OR VISIT WWEEK.COM/MOVIETIMES FOR THE MOST UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION
Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, The (XD) (PG-13) 12:40PM 4:00PM 7:20PM 10:35PM Martian, The (PG-13) 12:05PM 3:35PM 7:05PM 10:25PM Night Before, The (R) 10:45AM 12:00PM 2:40PM 5:15PM 8:00PM 8:30PM 10:40PM Victor Frankenstein (PG-13) 11:15AM 12:45PM 2:05PM 3:35PM 5:00PM 6:25PM 7:50PM 9:15PM 10:40PM Love The Coopers (PG-13) 11:30AM 2:15PM 5:00PM 7:45PM 10:30PM Peanuts Movie, The (G) 11:40AM 2:10PM 4:40PM 7:15PM 9:55PM Spotlight (R) 10:10AM 1:15PM 4:20PM 7:25PM 10:35PM Trumbo (2015) (R) 10:05AM 1:05PM 4:10PM 7:10PM 10:10PM Secret In Their Eyes, The (2015) (PG-13) 11:05AM 1:55PM 4:45PM 7:40PM 10:30PM Spectre (PG-13) 11:55AM 1:25PM 3:30PM 4:55PM 7:00PM 10:25PM
Brooklyn (PG-13) 10:55AM 1:45PM 4:35PM 7:25PM 10:15PM By The Sea (R) 1:20PM 7:35PM Bridge of Spies (PG-13) 10:05AM 4:15PM 10:30PM Creed (PG-13) 10:00AM 1:10PM 4:20PM 7:30PM 10:40PM Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, The (PG-13) 10:10AM ® 11:50AM ® 1:30PM ® 3:10PM ® 4:50PM ® 6:30PM ® 8:10PM ® 9:50PM ® Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, The (PG-13) 10:10AM 11:00AM 11:50AM 1:30PM 2:20PM 3:10PM 4:50PM 5:40PM 6:30PM 8:10PM 9:00PM 9:50PM Good Dinosaur, The (3D) (PG) 12:10PM 2:45PM 5:20PM 7:55PM 10:30PM Good Dinosaur, The (PG) 10:00AM 10:55AM 1:30PM 4:05PM 6:40PM 9:15PM
Night Before, The (R) 11:45AM 2:25PM 5:05PM 7:45PM 10:25PM Peanuts Movie, The (G) 11:00AM 1:30PM 4:00PM 6:30PM 9:00PM Victor Frankenstein (PG-13) 11:45AM 2:25PM 5:05PM 7:45PM 10:25PM Martian, The (PG-13) 3:40PM 7:05PM 10:20PM Spectre (PG-13) 12:20PM 3:40PM 7:00PM 10:15PM Spotlight (R) 10:00AM 1:00PM 4:00PM 7:15PM 10:25PM Secret In Their Eyes, The (2015) (PG-13) 11:25AM 2:15PM 5:00PM 7:45PM 10:30PM Size Zero (Indo-Tech) (NR) 5:00PM 10:00PM Brooklyn (PG-13) 11:00AM 1:45PM 4:30PM 7:15PM 10:00PM
Creed (PG-13) 10:00AM 1:05PM 4:10PM 7:15PM 10:20PM
Martian, The (PG-13) 12:15PM 3:35PM 6:55PM 10:10PM Love The Coopers (PG-13) 1:45PM 9:15PM Victor Frankenstein (PG-13) 11:05AM 1:50PM 4:40PM 7:30PM 10:15PM Night Before, The (R) 11:30AM 2:15PM 5:00PM 7:40PM 10:25PM Spectre (PG-13) 11:15AM 12:00PM 2:40PM 3:30PM 6:00PM 7:05PM 9:30PM 10:30PM Secret In Their Eyes, The (2015) (PG-13) 11:00AM 1:50PM 4:40PM 7:30PM 10:20PM Peanuts Movie, The (G) 11:15AM 1:40PM 4:20PM 6:55PM 9:40PM
Creed (PG-13) 12:45PM 4:00PM 7:10PM 10:30PM Brooklyn (PG-13) 11:00AM 2:00PM 5:00PM 7:45PM 10:30PM Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, The (PG-13) 10:00AM 11:10AM 12:20PM 1:20PM 2:30PM 3:40PM 4:35PM 5:50PM 7:00PM 8:00PM 9:10PM 10:15PM Crimson Peak (R) 10:10AM 1:15PM 4:10PM 7:10PM 10:05PM Hotel Transylvania 2 (PG) 11:25AM 4:30PM 6:50PM Good Dinosaur, The (PG) 11:00AM 1:40PM 4:20PM 7:00PM 9:40PM Good Dinosaur, The (3D) (PG) 10:00AM 12:30PM 3:00PM 5:40PM 8:20PM
Love The Coopers (PG-13) 11:15AM 2:00PM Bridge of Spies (PG-13) 11:55AM Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, The (PG-13) 10:00AM 11:00AM 11:40AM 12:30PM 1:10PM 2:10PM 2:50PM 3:40PM 4:15PM 5:20PM 6:00PM 6:50PM 7:20PM 8:30PM 9:10PM 10:00PM 10:25PM Inji Iduppazhagi (Indo-Tech) (NR) 7:30PM Good Dinosaur, The (3D) (PG) 10:00AM 12:30PM 5:30PM 8:00PM 10:30PM Good Dinosaur, The (PG) 10:05AM 11:30AM 2:00PM 3:00PM 4:30PM 7:00PM 9:30PM
FRIDAY
FRIDAY-THURSDAY, NOV. 27-DEC. 3, UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED
OH, HI!: The Room screens at Cinema 21 at 10:45 pm Friday, Nov. 27.
Drank P.29 Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
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ADAM WICKHAM
END ROLL
NW Cannabis Club BY TYLER HU R ST
Cannabis news, culture & reviews from Portland. 56
potlander.com Willamette Week NOVEMBER 25, 2015 wweek.com
@tdhurst
One day we’ll be able to stroll up to a bar, buy a dab or bong rip or Volcano-produced vapor bag, consume it right there or take it back to our table with friends, and laugh about how people used to be so scared of legal cannabis. Today is not yet that day. Until then, places like NW Cannabis Club (1195 SE Powell Blvd., 2 pm-midnight daily) will do just fine. NWCC is located in a former strip club-turned-nightclub next to a 24-hour coffee shop, and its Seattle owners are proud to share the success of their NW Cannabis Market with Portlanders. “Our goal is to normalize access and not treat cannabis users like criminals,” says Aiden Powell, a NWCC manager who moved from Seattle. “This is something we’re proud of and helps fill a need we helped preserve in Seattle.” NWCC has everything you’d expect in a lounge—leather chairs and couches, mounted TVs, a small stage and a massive bar upstairs—along with a basement being remodeled with more tables and seating for private events. There are board games, at least one Sega Genesis emulator (Altered Beast, bitches) running on the PlayStation 3, and 50 mbps Wi-Fi that should keep everyone but the most dedicated PC gamers satisfied. Like the World Famous Cannabis Cafe and the Other Spot before it, NWCC doesn’t sell cannabis onsite. Like WFCC, there are sealed snacks and soda available for purchase. Like TOS, members are free to bring or order food. Like both places, alcohol is prohibited. On our first visit, we were greeted by the butler-polite J.T., who checked our IDs and
explained the daily and monthly membership pricing, reminding us that they did not sell cannabis, and leading our party to a MacGyver’ed bar either left over from the previous nightclub or grabbed at a closing sale. While functional, it stands out like a relic in a space designed to be experienced in low light. The bar stools look new, and the plethora of options available at the bar made me forget how much the white shelf and marble bar clashed. Dab rigs were ready with hot e-nails or torches to light, bongs were within an arm’s reach, and a Volcano vaporizer loomed on the other side. Pre-rolls from local dispensaries were also available, and flower with paper were available to use on a joint roller. The bud/dab tender was especially proud of the Sacred Extracts rosin made from the Fresh Connection flower, though he was more handsoff during the dabbing process than expected—unlike the full service of Steve Shumate at WFCC, these guys scraped the dabs and handed me the stick. The low bar height and rig-mouthpiece angle made dabbing on my own slightly awkward, though this should only be an issue for novices or those like me used to more hand-holding and a customheight dab bar. The building’s former occupants were nice enough to leave intact a corner stage, where Powell says they plan to host events like Cottonmouth Comedy Night. NWCC offers three entry-fee options: six months for $150 plus $1 per day, one month for $20 plus $5 daily, or $10 for one day. It’s free for new visitors. Parking is next to nonexistent, so plan to park south across Powell Boulevard or take transit. Actually, given the dab situation, plan on transit.
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ROBERT FRANK “BOB” SHIRE St. George, Utah-, 64, died Saturday Nov 14, 2015 in Salt Lake Hospital. Bob saw many occupations in his life, most well-known in the Portland Metro Area was from the Ace of Hearts and Angels Social club. If you know what these are, chances are you met/knew Bob. Bob was also a Police Officer for several years in Portland, Oregon back in the 1970’s. Bob was born & raised in Denver, Colorado until he was 15 when they moved to Portland, Oregon. He graduated J.Marshall High School (1969), a year early. Enlisting at age 17, Bob joined the US Coast Guard, Retired after 26 years of service. Bob held a Bachelor of Science from Portland State University (‘78) and a Masters of Science from University of Portland (‘81). . Bob was a man known for his sense of humor, pranks and funny voicemails. Those dear to him will tell you of his kindness. He was an extremely hard worker, even up to the day he died. Bob enjoyed brightening other peoples’ day, and always was quick to help a friend. Bob also loved good company, good times. In the last 3 years of his life Bob took much pleasure in his young twin daughters with enduring story telling, all snuggled up together. Bob loved nothing more then playing silly games with them, making up funny songs and yogurt-treat outings. He is survived by his wife of 18 years, Angel and their 5 children Memorial services will be Sunday, November 22th @ 5pm Floyd’s 118 NW Couch St., Portland. This is a fundraising event to help the family to cover the unexpected expenses of his death. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Paypal.me/AngelShire for more info contact Chris Manion chris@venusrendezvous.com
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55 Turntablists, familiarly 58 Bout before the main event 61 Dye holder 62 The next batch of flour being from the same common grain as the last? 65 Cherry discard 66 “Wait, let me wash up first!” 67 Rain hard? 68 Like some winks and grins 69 Like some poker games 70 Naysayer’s view
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Across 1 Watch chains 5 “I Love a Rainy Night” country singer Eddie 12 ___ deferens 15 Farmer’s measurement 16 Team with the football 17 “Bravo, bullfighter!” 18 Flour sorters that form patterns? 20 Pack member, for short? 21 This evening, in ads 22 “___ me, that’s
who!” 23 Go over some lines? 25 “Well, lah-di-___!” 26 “LOSER KEEPS ___” (billboard seen before the U.S.Canada gold medal hockey game of 2014) 27 Particle in a charged state 29 I, in Munich 32 Borneo ape, for short 34 Motors that are better suited for flour mills? 40 Test giver’s call
41 Dormant 42 Kunis of “Black Swan” 43 Giant bodies of flour and water that won’t rise? 46 Marshmallow holiday candies 47 “I don’t wanna know about your infection” initials 48 Elly May Clampett’s pa 49 Check to make sure 52 Annual MTV bestowal 54 “Help!” actor Ringo
Down 1 Hard to catch 2 Cuatro plus cuatro 3 Staples or Hooters, e.g. 4 Antique photo tone 5 One of the “Golden Girls” 6 Movie buff’s org. 7 Lifelong pals, less formally 8 ___ noire (bane) 9 Gospel singer Andrews 10 Co. that introduced Dungeons & Dragons 11 Mic check word 12 Some English homework, casually 13 Writer Munro 14 “Against the Wind” singer Bob 19 Principle of good conduct 24 Current government 26 Paperback publisher named for a small fowl 27 “It ___ laugh” 28 Psych suffix
30 Pursued 31 Approach for money 32 Pitcher Hershiser 33 Stopwatch button 35 “(Don’t Fear) The ___” (1976 Blue Oyster Cult hit) 36 White-tailed coastal birds 37 Stealthy-sounding (but subpar) subprime mortgage offering 38 “Waiting For the Robert ___” 39 Anti-DUI gp. 44 Top-five finish, perhaps, to an optimist 45 Joie de ___ 49 Invitation replies 50 Net business, as seen in crosswords but not in real life 51 Ramshackle 53 “A.I.” humanoid 55 Cope 56 Actress Gertz of “The Neighbors” 57 Cherry discard 58 “Ahem” relative 59 “Down ___” (Nine Inch Nails song) 60 1551, to ancient Romans 63 Insurance option that requires referrals 64 “___ said before ...” 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 #JONZ755.
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Week of November 26
– ARIES (March 21-April 19) – “We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange,” wrote novelist Carson McCullers. “As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.” I’m guessing that these days you’re feeling that kind of homesickness, Aries. The people and places that usually comfort you don’t have their customary power. The experiences you typically seek out to strengthen your stability just aren’t having that effect. The proper response, in my opinion, is to go in quest of exotic and experimental stimuli. In ways you may not yet be able to imagine, they can provide the grounding you need. They will steady your nerves and bolster your courage. – TAURUS (April 20-May 20) – The Pekingese is a breed of dog that has been around for over 2,000 years. In ancient China, it was beloved by Buddhist monks and emperors’ families. Here’s the legend of its origin: A tiny marmoset and huge lion fell in love with each other, but the contrast in their sizes made union impossible. Then the gods intervened, using magic to make them the same size. Out of the creatures’ consummated passion, the first Pekingese was born. I think this myth can serve as inspiration for you, Taurus. Amazingly, you may soon find a way to blend and even synergize two elements that are ostensibly quite different. Who knows? You may even get some divine help. – GEMINI (May 21-June 20) – Author Virginia Woolf wrote this message to a dear ally: “I sincerely hope I’ll never fathom you. You’re mystical, serene, intriguing; you enclose such charm within you. The luster of your presence bewitches me . . . the whole thing is splendid and voluptuous and absurd.” I hope you will have good reason to whisper sweet things like that in the coming weeks, Gemini. You’re in the Season of Togetherness, which is a favorable time to seek and cultivate interesting kinds of intimacy. If there is no one to whom you can sincerely deliver a memo like Woolf’s, search for such a person. – CANCER (June 21-July 22) – Some people are so attached to wearing a favorite ring on one of their fingers that they never take it off. They love the beauty and endearment it evokes. In rare cases, years go by and their ring finger grows thicker. Blood flow is constricted. Discomfort sets in. And they can’t remove their precious jewelry with the lubrication provided by a little olive oil or soap and water. They need the assistance of a jeweler who uses a small saw and a protective sheath to cut away the ring. I suspect this may be an apt metaphor for a certain situation in your life, Cancerian. Is it? Do you wonder if you should free yourself from a pretty or sentimental constriction that you have outgrown? If so, get help. – LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) – “Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted,” wrote Leo author Aldous Huxley. That’s the bad news. The good news is that in the coming weeks you are less likely to take things for granted than you have been in a long time. Happily, it’s not because your familiar pleasures and sources of stability are in jeopardy. Rather, it’s because you have become more deeply connected to the core of your life energy. You have a vivid appreciation of what sustains you. Your assignment: Be alert for the eternal as it wells up out of the mundane. – VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) – In their quest to collect nectar, honeybees are attuned to the importance of proper timing. Even if flowering plants are abundant, the quality and quantity of the nectar that’s available vary with the weather, season, and hour of the day. For example, dandelions may offer their peak blessings at 9 a.m., cornflowers in late morning, and clover in mid-afternoon. I urge you to be equally sensitive to the sources where you can obtain nourishment, Virgo. Arrange your schedule so you consistently seek to gather what you need at the right time and place. – LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) – Are you willing to dedicate yourself fully to a game whose rules are constantly mutating? Are you resource-
ful enough to keep playing at a high level even if some of the other players don’t have as much integrity and commitment as you? Do you have confidence in your ability to detect and adjust to ever-shifting alliances? Will the game still engage your interest if you discover that the rewards are different from what you thought they were? If you can answer yes to these questions, by all means jump all the way into the complicated fun! – SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) – I suspect your body has been unusually healthy and vigorous lately. Is that true? If so, figure out why. Have you been taking better care of yourself? Have there been lucky accidents or serendipitous innovations on which you’ve been capitalizing? Make these new trends a permanent part of your routine. Now I’ll make a similar observation about your psychological well-being. It also seems to have been extra strong recently. Why? Has your attitude improved in such a way as to generate more positive emotions? Have there been fluky breakthroughs that unleashed unexpected surges of hope and good cheer? Make these new trends a permanent part of your routine. – SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) – From the dawn of civilization until 1995, humans cataloged about 900 comets in our solar system. But since then, we have expanded that tally by over 3,000. Most of the recent discoveries have been made not by professional astronomers, but by laypersons, including two 13-year-olds. They have used the Internet to access images from the SOHO satellite placed in orbit by NASA and the European Space Agency. After analyzing the astrological omens, I expect you Sagittarians to enjoy a similar run of amateur success. So trust your rookie instincts. Feed your innocent curiosity. Ride your raw enthusiasm. – CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) – Whether or not you are literally a student enrolled in school, I suspect you will soon be given a final exam. It may not happen in a classroom or require you to write responses to questions. The exam will more likely be administered by life in the course of your daily challenges. The material you’ll be tested on will mostly include the lessons you have been studying since your last birthday. But there will also be at least one section that deals with a subject you’ve been wrestling with since early in your life -- and maybe even a riddle from before you were born. Since you have free will, Capricorn, you can refuse to take the exam. But I hope you won’t. The more enthusiastic you are about accepting its challenge, the more likely it is that you’ll do well. – AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) – For $70,000 per night, you can rent the entire country of Liechtenstein for your big party. The price includes the right to rename the streets while you’re there. You can also create a temporary currency with a likeness of you on the bills, have a giant rendition of your favorite image carved into the snow on a mountainside, and preside over a festive medieval-style parade. Given your current astrological omens, I suggest you consider the possibility. If that’s too extravagant, I hope you will at least gather your legion of best friends for the Blowout Bash of the Decade. It’s time, in my opinion, to explore the mysteries of vivid and vigorous conviviality.
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– PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) – Are you available to benefit from a thunderbolt healing? Would you consider wading into a maelstrom if you knew it was a breakthrough in disguise? Do you have enough faith to harvest an epiphany that begins as an uproar? Weirdly lucky phenomena like these are on tap if you have the courage to ask for overdue transformations. Your blind spots and sore places are being targeted by life’s fierce tenderness. All you have to do is say, “Yes, I’m ready.”
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I am an experienced, compassionate attorney who can help you find the right solution for you. Stop garnishments, stop foreclosure, deal with tax liabilities and rid yourself of debt. Let me help you find your path to financial freedom. Call Christopher Kane at 503-380-7822. chris@ckanelaw.com or ckanelaw.com
Comedy Classes
Top 1% Portland Agent
Cultivate health and energy www. nwfighting.com or 503-740-2666
Stephen FitzMaurice, Realtor Home Selling Specialist 12+ Years Experience 4.5% Max Commission Stellar service and marketing. Broker in OR at Premiere Property Group. 3636 NE Broadway St. 503-975-6853. RealEstateAgentPDX.com
WHERE SINGLES MEET
CASH for INSTRUMENTS
Improv, Standup, Sketch writing. Now enrolling The Brody Theater, 503-224-2227 www.brodytheater.com
Qigong Classes
Browse & Reply FREE! 503-299-9911 Use FREE Code 2557, 18+
Tradeupmusic.com SE - 503-236-8800 NE - 503-335-8800
Non-Profit Law Firm
Garnished? Eviction? Foreclosure? We can help. Call 503-208-4079 Bankruptcy - Tenant - Sliding-Scale www.communitylawproject.org
OMMP CARDHOLDERS GET 25% DISCOUNT!
Quick fix synthetic urine now available. Your hookah headquarters. Vapes. E-cigs, glass pipes, discount tobacco, detox products, salvia and kratom Still Smokin’ Glass and Tobacco 12302 SE Powell 503-762-4219
Marijuana Store & More *971-255-1456* 1310 SE 7TH AVE
4911 NE Sandy Blvd. Portland, OR 97213 503-384-WEED (9333)
SO, YOU GOT A DUII. NOW WHAT?
$Cash for Junk Vehicles$
Ask for Steven. 503-936-5923
AA HYDROPONICS
9966 SW Arctic Drive, Beaverton 9220 SE Stark Street, Portland American Agriculture ï americanag.com PDX 503-256-2400 BVT 503-641-3500
A FEMALE FRIENDLY SEX TOY BOUTIQUE FOR EVERY BODY SHEBOPTHESHOP.COM • Check Website for Classes!
NOW AT TWO LOCATIONS!
3213 SE DIVISION ST AND 909 N BEECH ST PORTLAND
Get help from an experienced DUII trial lawyer Free Consult./ Vigorous Defense/ Affordable Fees David D. Ghazi, Attorney at Law 620 SW Main St, Ste. 702 (503)-224-DUII (3844) david@ddglegal.com
Eskrima Classes
Personal weapon & street defense www.nwfighting.com or 503-740-2666
NORTH WEST HYDROPONIC R&R
We Buy, Sell & Trade New and Used Hydroponic Equipment. 503-747-3624
MEDICAL MARIJUANA Card Services Clinic
503-384-WEED (9333) www.mmcsclinic.com 4911 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland Mon-Sat 9-6
503 235 1035
New Downtown Location! 1501 SW Broadway www.mellowmood.com
4119 SE Hawthorne, Portland ph: 503-235-PIPE (7473)
Pizza Delivery
Until 4AM!
www.hammyspizza.com