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will corwin

FINDINGS

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 42, ISSUE 26.

City Commissioner Amanda Fritz has a new scheme for slowing new development . 6

If you like slow-cooked brisket and ribs without spice or smoke, there is a place. 37

Pedicabs take Square now. 14

There is a DJ collective that presents remixes of Fleetwood Mac songs at dance clubs. 40

Don’t park your bike too close to the blue box where you got this paper. 16 If you want waterproof socks, there is a place. 21 H.A. Goodman is the new Leon

Trotsky. 35

ON THE COVER:

A local author wrote a book slamming Beyoncé’s feminism the week Lemonade dropped. Whoops! 53 The name “Tucson” even sounds gross. 49

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:

Aaron and Blaze photo by Will Corwin.

The Morrison Bridge turned purple in honor of prince.

STAFF Editor & Publisher Mark Zusman EdiToriAl News Editor Aaron Mesh Arts & Culture Editor Martin Cizmar Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, Rachel Monahan, Beth Slovic Copy Chief Rob Fernas Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, Maya McOmie Stage & Screen Editor Enid Spitz Projects Editor Matthew Korfhage Music Editor Matthew Singer Web Editor Lizzy Acker Books James Helmsworth

Visual Arts Jennifer Rabin Editorial Interns Karina Buggy, Grace Culhane, Jenna Mulligan ConTriBuTorS Mike Acker, Dave Cantor, Nathan Carson, Peter D’Auria, Alex Falcone, Shannon Gormley, Jordan Green, Jay Horton, AP Kryza, John Locanthi, Mark Stock produCTion Production Manager Dylan Serkin Art Director Julie Showers Special Sections Art Director Alyssa Walker Graphic Designers Rick Vodicka, Xel Moore Production Interns Henry Cromett, Gabi McKenzie, Skylar Nguyen

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TICKED OFF IN TOYLAND

There are a lot of questionable assertions I could What I would strongly dislike is seeing every point out in “Barbie Ain’t Worth Much” [WW, major street in Portland becoming dark canApril 20, 2016], but I’m going to go with the most yons, with five stories on both sides of the empirically wrong. street (see Division). I am a woman who collects vintage toys and We need to zone all neighborhoods for great comics, and I work in a local density. We need garden Portland business selling vinapartments along with a tage toys and comics. It’s very uniform three-story limit all disappointing to see a comacross the city. ment like “[I added the record —“DierkP” room so] girlfriends who have PROPOSAL TO REcars will drive the boyfriends VIVE PUBLIC CAMwho don’t have cars to come PAIGN FINANCING see the toys” from someone I’m happy to see the city who claims to be a profesis apparently so flush with sional in the community. That outdated notion is both cash [“Murmurs: Fritz Aims offensive and just straight-up not “I have to Revive ‘Voter- Owned’ Elections,” true. Roughly half of my custom- experienced WW, April 20, 2016]. Perhaps that ers are female, purchasing toys means the money can be dedicated ageism and to fixing roads, hiring more police, for themselves that span many genres. Of course I have experi- sexism in this and housing some of our tent resienced ageism and sexism in this hobby, but dents before spending it on more of hobby, but only from old white only from old Amanda Fritz’s pet projects. guys making asinine statements white guys.” How about prioritizing for a change? like that, with false perceptions I know, not likely in this city. of their relevance in this ever—“Swpdx” growing female demographic of collectors. Also, bronies don’t buy Generation 1 My Little CORRECTION Ponies. Women do. They’re the perfect size for A story in our Potlander guide, published last week, incorrectly stated that the state has yet our G.I. Joes to ride. —S. Shadwick to address the issue of marijuana use by a passenger in a motor vehicle [“You Just Bought PORTLAND HOUSING PLANNERS Some Weed. Now What?”]. It is illegal to conWhy is there an assumption that density equals sume “in any manner a marijuana item while affordability? [“Apartment Block,” WW, April 20, in a motor vehicle when the motor vehicle 2016.] It’s my understanding that the problem is upon a highway,” according to House Bill is more than the number of units available, but 4014, passed by the Legislature this year. WW rather that the price is too high. regrets the error. Yes, more supply drops rental prices, but that’s only after supply reaches a certain point. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author’s street address and phone number for veriﬁcation. More density is just that, more density. Letters must be 250 or fewer words. It’s not inherently a bad thing, but it’s not a Submit to: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: mzusman@wweek.com. silver bullet for affordability. —Clark Henry

When did every billboard in the Portland metro area become inﬁltrated by the religious right? They are everywhere! —Zory

“AFTER YOU DIE, YOU WILL MEET GOD.” This promise of celestial backstage passes has dominated local billboards for a few months now (along with other similarly Jesusy messages), always urging us to call 855-FOR-TRUTH. In secular Portland? What gives? I don’t drop this often, Zory, but I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness. (Seriously. I’ll let you decide whether this fact is a total shock or completely unsurprising.) I mention this because those who haven’t spent time with the tent-revival set may not realize how important converting unbelievers, for its own sake, really is for evangelicals. When I was a kid, it was basically our No. 1 priority after not having sex. The goal of evangelizing isn’t to get people to hate abortion or vote Republican. It’s not even to save your fellow man from eternal damnation, 4

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

really. It’s just a numbers game: The more souls you rack up, the better God likes you. Like all pyramid schemes, this one provides easy pickings if you get in on the ground floor (I hear the Apostle Paul just bought himself a sick bass boat). Later generations, however— possibly sitting on a garage full of Eternalife® products their co-workers are sick of hearing about—may need to do some open-air advertising if they hope to juice sales. The billboards are up nationwide, and are the work of “Gospel Billboards,” which is in turn an arm of Christian Aid Ministries, which is a real charity. Callers can listen to prerecorded messages explaining the theological points expressed in each billboard, be connected to a live, soul-hungry believer, or listen to a brief (I’m assuming; I didn’t make it to the end) sermon about loneliness. Maybe it’s worth a shot—they say every time God closes a door, He opens a window. Of course, sometimes He forgets to mention you’re on the 16th floor. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com

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Canadian Investors Sue Portland Marijuana Dispensary

After state lawmakers overturned a residency requirement for marijuana investors, speculation has raged about when Big Marijuana would arrive in Oregon. But a lawsuit filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court on April 11 shows that money is already here. The lawsuit—filed by Harvard Properties U.S. Inc. against Cannacea LLC, a Gatewayarea marijuana dispensary—is in one sense a garden-variety rent dispute. Harvard alleges Cannacea owes $86,000 in back rent. But the lawsuit’s more interesting information is that Harvard is the U.S. property arm of an enormous Canadian real estate, insurance and energy conglomerate called the Hill Companies. Harvard planned a joint venture with Cannacea, which would contribute six dispensary licenses, know-how and personnel. Harvard would put up $1.5 million to buy the Northeast Halsey Street building where Cannacea operates, $1.6 million for a “grow site,” and $750,000 for improvements at that site. Cannacea CEO Tisha Siler blames Harvard for the dispute. “Predatory investors are willing to fleece uninformed or inexperienced industry professionals for the prospect of huge returns,” she said in a statement.

Fritz Seeks Big Fees for Construction Noise

Portland Commissioner Amanda Fritz wants to raise another fee on developers. This time it’s the noise variance fee on big construction projects. Under current rules, developers pay a maximum of $850 a year for noise permits. But under a proposal from Fritz’s Oﬃce of 6

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

Neighborhood Involvement, that fee would be between $9,500 and $20,000 annually, depending whether the construction project generated any complaints. The goal of the hike is to increase the funding for Portland’s noise complaint oﬃce without using money from the city’s general fund. Fritz sparked anger last year when she sought higher systems development charges on developers to fund parks. “We need to be able to monitor the conditions we approve,” says Theresa Marchetti, who oversees noise compliance for ONI. “With our current [funding] levels, we can’t.”

Poda Foods Wins PitchFestNW

The winner of the first PitchFestNW contest is Poda Foods, a Portland startup making protein powder from crickets. Poda was among the 50 tech startups from the Pacific Northwest and Canada selected to pitch their nascent companies to a panel of veteran investors at PitchFestNW, an event presented by WW. That field was narrowed April 26 to five finalists: StandTall Desks, a company founded by three high-school students who want to bring standing desks to the classroom; TripGrid, a platform for greater efficiency and organization in trip planning; Cartogram, advertised as “Google Maps on steroids;” Chroma, a new fund model for people to make small-scale, local investments; and Poda Foods, which raises “healthy, happy, GMO-free crickets” on a farm in Molalla.

NEWS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK

Terminal Ills

FOSSIL FUELS HAVEN’T FOUND FRIENDLY PORTS IN OREGON AND WASHINGTON. THOMAS TEAL

njaquiss@wweek.com

Two years ago, the Pacific Northwest looked like a surefire shipping hub for fossil fuels. The price of crude oil in the U.S. had topped $100 a barrel. That made competing fossil fuels such as natural gas and coal look cheap to Asian buyers, who lack sufficient domestic energy sources. Developers planned liquefied natural gas export terminals at both ends of the Oregon Coast. Proposed coal export docks popped up like mushrooms. And a Portland facility for exporting Canadian propane looked like a lock. Not so fast. The price of crude plummeted, going nearly as low as $30 a barrel early this year. Cheap oil—and an outpouring of opposition—has changed everything. Mayor Charlie Hales’ controversial May 2015 cancellation of the Portland propane dock hurt him at the time, but today he looks prescient. In the past month, three proposed export terminals have evaporated, and more are in jeopardy. “The demise of Oregon LNG and other dirty energy projects sends a strong message to fossil fuel speculators,” says Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper. “Northwest communities take our role in combating climate change seriously. And we will fight tooth and nail for clean air and water.” Here’s a scorecard of where terminal plans went up in smoke.

6 3

MARCH 11, 2016: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission denies permits for a proposed $7.5 billion Jordan Cove LNG terminal, near Coos Bay, Ore., eﬀectively killing a project that had strong support from local politicians and trade unions—but not from nearby landowners. In its ruling, the FERC cited an “absence of demonstrated need” for the project. April 15, 2016: Oregon LNG cancels a proposed $6 billion LNG terminal in Warrenton, Ore. The north coast project faced stronger local opposition than the Jordan Cove project, including from Clatsop County commissioners, who last year denied developers a key permit.

WW: How many African elephants are left in the wild? We don’t have the final count yet. The last estimates were around 600,000—four or five years ago. The current gut feeling is between four and five hundred thousand. Places like Tanzania and Mozambique have lost huge numbers of elephants. One reserve alone went from 50,000 elephants to 8,000 elephants in a matter of three years. So that’s industrialscale harvesting of ivory.

MAY 7, 2015: Having previously pledged his strong support for the project, Hales announces his opposition to a $500 million Portland terminal that would have exported Canadian propane to Asia. Hales was the swing vote on the City Council, and his change of heart doomed the project—and sunk support for his re-election from the business lobby.

APRIL 15, 2016: The Port of Vancouver, Wash., extends by eight months the decision deadline for a $210 million crude oil terminal. Oil producers in North Dakota’s Bakken field are desperate for a bigger Pacific Coast rail outlet that would allow shipments to coastal refineries to the north and south, and exports to Asia. But safety concerns after oil-train fires elsewhere have given opponents ammunition to block the massive project.

APRIL 19, 2016: Northwest Innovation Works, a Chinese-owned company, cancels a proposed $3.6 billion methanol plant at the Port of Tacoma. The plant would have converted natural gas into methanol for export to Asia, where it would be used to manufacture plastics. NIW still has two other projects pending on the Columbia River, at the Port of St. Helens, Ore., and Kalama, Wash.

Ted Schmitt Ted Schmitt is Paul Allen’s elephant counter. Allen, the Seattle billionaire and Portland Trail Blazers owner, has many sidelines. Among them: the Great Elephant Census, a $7 million project to count every wild elephant in Africa by plane. Schmitt is a senior program manager at Vulcan Technology. He spoke April 25 at TechFestNW at the Portland Armory on how new technology can help save wildlife. WW had more questions for him after his talk. PETER D’AURIA.

APRIL 29, 2016: Oﬃcials will release a key economic impact statement for a proposed $600 million coal terminal at Longview, Wash. The proposed terminal could export up to 44 million tons a year of Wyoming-produced coal to Asia. Coal prices have collapsed as U.S. utilities switch to other fuels, making exports attractive. But the opposition to coal trains rolling through the Columbia River Gorge is enormous.

G A B I M C K E N Z I E / W W S TA F F

BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS

FOUR QUESTIONS FOR:

How much does it cost to count one elephant? Well, do the math. Let’s say there are 400,000 elephants. The Great Elephant Census was around a $7 million project. So if you round to half a million elephants, what is that, $14 an elephant? Putting four people in a Cessna and flying around is enormously expensive. What we’d like to do is use drones or light aircraft with camera or video and have image

recognition technology that will count those animals. Aren’t there people who depend on elephant tusks for their livelihood? Well, no one depends on elephant tusks, except for traffickers. Many of the poachers are just villagers. When someone approaches them and says, ‘You can get 15 years’ salary for one tusk,’ they’re going to do it. They’re not generally bad guys. It’s the traffickers you want to get. Do you encounter local pushback when Western scientists go to African countries and count elephants? Absolutely. This is why we partner very much with our African colleagues. Tanzanians flew the surveys in Tanzania. If we went in and said, “We’re here to rescue you and save your animals,” that would be a huge problem. You have to work with them.

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

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MAY 5TH

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Don’t Vote until you read WW’s Endorsements.

COMING MAY 4

e m i ly j o a n g r e e n e

NEWS “there are rarely, rarely silver bullets.” —Jules Bailey

ON THE ROAD: Multnomah County Commissioner Jules Bailey, who’s running for Portland mayor, was expected to run to the left of Oregon Treasurer Ted Wheeler. Instead, Wheeler has tacked left, leaving little room for Bailey. “I don’t know if that’s for political reasons or that’s where he is,” says Bailey. “But I do think at the end of the day I’m a more progressive choice.”

Bailey, Left Behind

MAYORAL CANDIDATE JULES BAILEY IS STRUGGLING TO TRANSLATE HIS LEGISLATIVE SKILLS INTO A SUCCESSFUL CAMPAIGN. By BE T H S LOV I C

bslovic@wweek.com

Jules Bailey went silent. The Multnomah County commissioner trailed off midsentence as activist Sara Long approached him at the speakers’ table at a mayoral candidate forum. A video recording of the April 7 confrontation shows Long—who had been occupying a Southwest Portland cedar tree as an act of protest—grabbing Bailey’s name card from the table, then ripping it up. It was not an isolated incident. Since Bailey, 36, entered the mayor’s race in January, his opportunity has been to present himself as the progressive alternative to Oregon Treasurer Ted Wheeler. In most Portland City Council races, the more liberal candidate typically wins, and many observers expected Bailey, a generation younger than Wheeler and the product of a middle-class, eastside upbringing, to make hay with his wealthy opponent’s coziness with the city’s business elite. Instead, it is Bailey rather than Wheeler who has become the whipping boy for Portland’s hard-left activists—who think he’s insufficiently radical in the face of economic inequality and skyrocketing rents. In response to protests, Bailey has seemed dazed and robotic. Bailey has so far squandered the chance to run hard to Wheeler’s left and harness the anger of an electorate mobilized by housing prices and homelessness. “If there was going to be a contrast, it would have to come from the left,” says Portland pollster John Horvick. Limited polling in the mayor’s race shows Bailey badly

trailing Wheeler, despite Wheeler’s West Hills background and admission he’d rather be running for governor. Bailey’s performance is doubly surprising, because in three terms in the Oregon Legislature, he established himself as an excellent lawmaker, skilled at wringing results from Salem’s partisan battles. Interviews with more than a dozen people who’ve worked closely with Bailey suggest his struggle in the mayor’s race is the logical result of his pragmatic approach to politics—one that has always valued consensus and process over telling people what they want to hear. “There are certain elements that can sometimes hope for a silver bullet,” Bailey says. “There are rarely, rarely silver bullets.” Bailey grew up in the Hawthorne District and, after graduating from Lewis & Clark College and Princeton University, was voted into the Oregon Legislature to represent his old neighborhood. House District 42 in inner Southeast Portland is arguably one of the bluest districts in the state. In Salem, Bailey was a quick study. He earned the highest score among rookie lawmakers in WW’s 2009 survey of Portland-area legislators, “The Good, the Bad and the Awful.” He quickly established a reputation as someone who would work with Republicans or fellow Democrats to pass complicated legislation. “The guy did an amazing amount of work, figuring out where there was resistance and making sure to address those concerns,” says former state Rep. Tim Freeman (R-Roseburg). Bailey’s first initiatives included a bill that compelled

power companies to allow homeowners to pay back energy retrofit loans on their utility bills. Rep. Brent Barton (D-Oregon City) worked with Bailey on the legislation, which provided the legal framework for what was then called Clean Energy Works. Barton credits Bailey for bringing opposing groups together to pass the bill nearly unanimously. “Energy work is volatile,” Barton says. “It has lots of competing interests, but he had a gift for moving progressive legislation.” Seven years later, the program is still running, and Bailey boasts it has improved the environment and created jobs. A 2014 report criticized the program for costing more than other retrofit programs by several measures, but Bailey maintains the analysis missed the point by not counting its impact on economic development. If Portlanders in his district saw him as progressive, colleagues in Salem tended to think of him more as a workhorse. Also in his freshman session, for example, Bailey helped craft a sunset provision for tax credits that otherwise needed a three-fifths majority vote to overturn. “He’s one of those people who can take a problem, worry about it for a while, then come up with a solution,” says Rep. Phil Barnhart (D-Eugene). Later, Bailey led efforts to rein in Oregon’s controversial Business Energy Tax Credit, an effort that former Rep. Vicki Berger (R-Salem) likened to “changing an airplane engine in the middle of a flight.” Bailey prides himself on such efforts. “I tended to take on a lot of technical issues that were hard but important,” he says. But Bailey also addressed other, perhaps symbolic efforts that kept him in step with his constituents’ interests. In 2009, he sponsored what became known as the Honest Pint Act to crack down on pubs that sold pints that were in fact less than 16 ounces—so-called “cheater pints.” During the course of a normal health and safety inspection, a pub could volunteer to have its glasses tested. If its pints were in fact “honest,” it would get a sticker to advertise. (It passed the House but languished in the Senate.) “That was a good consumer-protection bill,” says former state Rep. Nick Kahl (D-Portland), “even if it seems inconsequential.” Bailey also championed a bill pushed by the Bicycle Transportation Alliance known as the Idaho Stop bill. The measure would have allowed bicycles to make rolling stops at stop signs. But it failed in the face of lawmaker opposition. “We hadn’t done the outreach,” Bailey recalls, “and there was a lot of misconception that it was going to allow bicyclists to blow through stop signs at high speed.” Yet he fell out of favor with some in the cycling community, largely because he supported the failed Columbia River Crossing after initially opposing it (“Double Crossing,” WW, March 2, 2016). As a Multnomah County commissioner, Bailey’s work has similarly divided his attention between high-profile policies and behind-the-scenes work. County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury tasked Bailey with helping to craft programs to address homelessness and the lack of affordable housing. But she also asked him to help area drainage districts recertify their levees. “Nobody’s going to write news articles about the levee work,” Kafoury says. “It’s not going to get you on TV, and you’re not going to be able to put it in the Voters’ Pamphlet. Some people wouldn’t do it, and he did.” When Bailey announced Jan. 9 he would challenge cont. on page 10 Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

NEWS

E M I LY J O A N G R E E N E

Wheeler to become Portland’s next mayor, it was widely assumed he would stake out the liberal turf that helped Tom Potter defeat Jim Francesconi in 2004 and Sam Adams defeat Sho Dozono in 2008. “I’m a dyed-in-the-wool progressive,” says Bailey, who capped individual campaign contributions at $250. On the campaign trail, however, Bailey and Wheeler have marched in lockstep on most issues. “I’ve been to most of the candidate forums and they have not really been able to distinguish themselves from each other very much,” says Chloe Eudaly, a candidate for the Portland City Council running against Commissioner Steve Novick. Meanwhile, hard-line left-wing activists—and several of the 13 additional candidates seeking to replace Mayor Charlie Hales—have focused their criticism almost exclusively on Bailey. “If you really gave a crap about homelessness or affordable housing,” activist and candidate Jessie Sponberg shouted at Bailey at an April 8 forum, “you wouldn’t be throwing away your position at the county for a mayor’s seat when you’re only polling at 8 percent!” Bailey shrugs off the criticism, saying it’s to be expected when you’re probably in second place and others are trying to make it into a two-way November runoff with Wheeler. (His camp says the poll that put Bailey at just 8 percent is inaccurate.)

OPENING DOORS: Jules Bailey speaks with a voter while canvassing in Southwest Portland on April 23.

But Bailey also fundamentally disagrees with the activists’ specific calls for reform, saying they are unrealistic and perhaps illegal. “People were frustrated with me that I wouldn’t push the county commission to enact immediate rent control, but I don’t believe it’s legal to do that,” he says. “I don’t believe it’s something we have the tools to do. And while I think we should have that debate locally, I think it’s still a debate about whether that’s the most effective way to deal with the housing crisis.” Bailey’s chances of advancing past the May 17 primary depend on finding like-minded voters who are progressive but also pragmatic. He says they’re out there, and on a recent walk through Southwest Portland’s leafy Maplewood neighborhood he unexpectedly proved it. Trudging down the steep hill of Southwest 51st Place, campaign leaflets shielded from a light drizzle under his Army green jacket, Bailey approached a $600,000 house. Dave Drescher, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife employee on the verge of retirement, stood next to his garage sorting items to go to Goodwill. “Hi, I’m Multnomah County Commissioner Jules Bailey and I’m running for Portland mayor,” the candidate told Drescher. Like a lot of voters, Drescher told Bailey he’s concerned about homelessness and housing affordability. He bought his house in 1995. Today, he says, he couldn’t afford it. But he was mostly at a loss for how to address the twin problems. “There are no silver bullets,” Drescher said, bringing a smile to Bailey’s face. “I was just saying that,” Bailey replied. 10

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

M AT T S C H U M A C H E R

drive-thrus in this city,” Carter says in a v ideo show ing her waiting at a Starbucks in North Portland. “You know how hard that would be on people who are disabled, on many senior citizens who have problems walking.” But advocates of the ban say it protects the elderly from cars. “People over the age of 65 in Oregon are three times more likely than any other population to get hit and killed by a car,” says Noel Mickelberry, executive director of Oregon Walks. “They’re more likely to be walking, and if they’re hit, it’s more often fatal. That is the reality for many older adults and people with disabilities.” The argument, first reported earlier this month by the Portland Tribune echoes debates in cities Tribune, across the United States and Canada about enacting rules preventing the installation of new drive-thrus in the name of pedestrian safety. The sites of those arguments range from Carrboro, N.C., to Minneapolis to Montreal—where a borough of the Canadian city banned all new drive-thrus in February. In Portland, Mayor Hales’ office says drive-thrus have already been severely restricted in the central city since the 1990s. Increasing those limits was suggested this winter by Hales as an amendment to the city’s comprehensive plan, which directs Portland’s growth for the next 20 years. The Portland City Council is scheduled to vote on Hales’ suggested rule change May 11. “Drive-thrus are a poor use of land as we grow,” says Camille Trummer, a policy adviser in the mayor’s office. “You could support so many more jobs by having more available prime office space.” Eric Engstrom, a principal planner for the city, says Portland is trying to reduce the number of places where people walking must cross the path of cars. “We’re not really out to try and eliminate drivethrus in the city,” Engstrom says. “We’re aware that people are probably going to be driving well into the coming century. It’s more about where they’re appropriate and where they’re not.” Places no longer considered appropriate under the new rules? The entire central city and four commercial zones—which include places like Southeast Milwaukie Avenue between Center Street and Holgate Boulevard, and parts of Northeast Halsey Street between 114th and 122nd avenues. Carter says she starred in the video—where she wrongly declares the city may “close drivethrus”—because she believes strongly in the convenience they afford. “There are many more ways of helping the environment,” she tells WW, “than putting further limitations on people who don’t have the ability to get out of their cars.” Mickelberry, the president of Oregon Walks, works within walking distance of the Burgerville on MLK. The Lloyd District streets between that restaurant and her office are clogged with drive-thrus. Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard is “definitely the street I’d rather be walking on than Broadway in the Lloyd District,” she says. “You just have a lot less to have to pay attention to.”

Pay at the Last Window

MAYOR CHARLIE HALES WANTS TO BAN NEW DRIVE-THRUS IN PORTLAND’S LOW-CAR FUTURE. BY CO BY H UTZ L E R

@Chutzlore

The Burgerville drive-thru near the Oregon Convention Center snakes between the restaurant and a brand-new apartment building. Customers at the Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard franchise say they might not stop there without the all-American convenience of ordering milkshakes from their cars. “When you’re dragging a kid around, you don’t want to have to take them out of the car,” says Sabrina, 46. “Especially during the rainy season, I just don’t want to go inside.” If Mayor Charlie Hales gets his way, this drive-thru will soon be an endangered species. Hales has introduced a proposal to ban the construction of new drive-thrus in the central city and along Portland’s busiest shopping streets—including this stretch of MLK in the Lloyd District. The new rules would significantly expand the map of places where idling minivans are being wiped out of Portland’s low-car future. The fierce debate over Hales’ idea reveals how Portland is still wrestling with competing visions of whether cars help or harm vulnerable people. Hales’ proposal, scheduled for a vote next month, won’t force existing drive-thrus to close—but that hasn’t stopped the state’s restaurant lobby from howling. The Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association enlisted former state Sen. Margaret Carter (D-Portland) to star in a Facebook campaign decrying the ban. “I hope to God that you guys will not close

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ELISE ENGLERT

A B

D C

J H G

F K I

A. Biker Bars We visited Hopworks Urban Brewery’s bike-happy Bike Bar and six other bikethemed places to get spun, page 22. B. Community Cycling Center Mural Northeast 17th Avenue and Alberta Street One of the first in the country to do so, the CCC is a nonprofit devoted to getting bikes to people who otherwise wouldn’t have access, teaching repair skills and bringing biking to a broad range of communities. The two-story bike mural fronting the shop is a testament to its vision, with bikes ascending to outer space. 12

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

C. Start of First Bike Path in Portland North Williams Avenue and Rosa Parks Boulevard Back when Williams was a plank road, Portland made its very first bike path in 1897, starting at this corner and heading north to Vancouver. Eight hundred people paid for it, but 6,000 used it—beginning a network of bike paths that were all converted to car streets by 1917. D. The Alberta Clown House (RIP) Northeast 25th Avenue and Alberta Street Once home to bonfire parties, drag races and just about every 20-foot-tall welded

bike in town—a standing bike-centric Burning Man localized to just a single yard—the former base of Dingo Dizmal and the Clown House troupe is now…just a house.

F. Erased Portland Bike Capital Wall Southwest 2nd Avenue and Ash Street Here is the wall that once proudly proclaimed “Portland Is America’s Bike Capital.” Thanks, Amanda Fritz.

E. People’s Bike Library of Portland (aka Zoobomb Pyle) Southwest 13th Avenue and Burnside Street This pyramidal pile of tiny-wheeled bikes is used by speed freaks to bomb down the hill from Washington Park. Their lock-up point has been permanently enshrined as a piece of city-sanctioned art.

G. Drunk Bros Who Need a Pedicab We spent a Saturday night as a pedicab driver in Timbersland, page 14. H. Here Be Thieves Downtown Learn how to identify a safe bike rack, page 16.

THE BIKE ISSUE

BIKE LANDMARKS OF PORTLAND, PLUS WHAT’S IN THIS ISSUE.

A H

I. Naked Bike Ride Mural Southeast 9th Avenue and Division Street This mural features naked animals on bikes, near the edge of the Tilikum Crossing and entrance to the Springwater Corridor. Because naked animals on bikes. J. Citybikes Annex Mural Southeast 7th Avenue and Ankeny Street Portland’s original worker-owned and run bike shop, since 1990, has had so much art on its locations’ walls—from simple bike to New York-subway-style graffiti—it’s hard to keep track. The most impressive are the annex’s crows in the spokes of giant bike wheels.

Portland’s bike roots run deep—and more people bike to work here per capita than in any other city in the nation. You can quibble about whether our status as a unique bike utopia is deserved. Local activists fought in 2015 to downgrade Portland’s “platinum” bike-friendly rating by the League of American Bicyclists, arguing that our bike roads are far from perfect, our streets are full of bike thieves (see page 16), and our community is full of anti-bike backlash that shouts down new bike spending—like some folks on Southeast Foster Road are doing right now (see page 19). But Portland’s bike history goes back as far as any city’s, from its very first bike paths in the 1890s to the first modern citywide bike plans in the 1970s—which means the city has built up years of bike landmarks both triumphant and mournful, stretching back to our earliest years as a metropolis. Consider this map and issue a celebration of Portland’s layered, complicated relationship with bikes, warts and all.

K. Hawthorne Bridge Bike Counter West end of Hawthorne Bridge More important than it looks, this cycle counter puts hard numbers on the approximately 30,000 cyclists who cross the Hawthorne Bridge each day—a constant reminder to policymakers that cycle commuters are a major constituency in this town. L. Matthew Schekel Memorial Shrine Southeast 37th Avenue and Taylor Street A 10-foot-tall stone lighthouse and two multicolored wheel sculptures still stand at the otherwise quiet intersection of 37th and Taylor, where cyclist Matthew Schekel

in 1998 was struck and killed by a delivery truck that ran a stop sign—galvanizing bicycle activists to the notion that cyclists are vulnerable even in quiet neighborhoods. M. The State of Bike Activism The Clinton Bike Corridor is a focal point for today’s bike activism, page 19. N. The Unnamed Ghost Bikes of East Portland Northeast 108th Avenue and Weidler Street, Northeast 126th Avenue and Halsey Street Ghost bikes are grave markers for cyclists

who’ve been struck and killed by automobiles. Often they are marked with plaques, and their sites are recorded at ghostbikes. org/portland. But these two lonely bikes within 20 blocks off each other, unmarked with the names of the victims, are as haunting as tombs to unknown soldiers. O. Bike for Speed We raced across the city by bike, bus, taxi, Car2Go and Lyft, page 15. P. Tykes on Bikes We asked an expert the safest way to transport a kid by bike, page 17. Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

JULIE SHOWERS

“BE AWARE OF YOUR SPACING WITH YOUR 4-FOOT ASS!” —PAPA BEAR KYLE

My Night as a Pedicab Driver

WHAT’S IT LIKE TO BE A COG IN THE MACHINE OF PORTLAND AT NIGHT?

BY L I ZZY AC K E R

lacker@wweek.com

In the United States of America, we don’t like to think about the people doing the physical labor that keeps us comfortable. We leave when the housekeeper shows up and try not to make eye contact with the lady doing our nails. In other parts of the world, it’s normal for the affluent to relax in comfort, not risking a stubbed toe or bead of sweat, as someone less lucky grunts away to save them the trouble of walking. But not here. That’s why Portland’s pedicabs are such an anomaly. Humans transporting other humans on the strength of their muscles alone is not something the good people of America should abide. It’s sadistic torture tourism if you think about it, which might be why most passengers are either drunk or on vacation. Before last weekend, I had ridden in pedicabs twice. Once, on an unusually warm summer day in Victoria B.C., a man pulled my mom and me up a hill. And last summer, in Salt Lake City, I drunkenly piled into a pedicab to go from one bar to another bar. Both times I felt sorry for the person pedaling away while I did nothing but add considerable inert resistance. If a pedicab passenger feels lazy, guilty and a little bit rich, what is it like on the other side? To be the blameless, sober, hardworking pedicab driver? Well, it’s hard—interesting, unglamorous and hard. 14

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

“It’s not a race,” says Kyle, who calls himself the “Papa Bear” of PDX Pedicab, during my training on a Monday afternoon. Kyle is the sort of warm but no-bullshit guy who can get away with calling himself Papa Bear. At PDX Pedicab’s warehouse under the Hawthorne Bridge in Southeast, I nervously get on a 200-pound tricycle with an orange cab over the back wheels. “Be aware of your spacing with your 4-foot ass!” he yells as he leads me out into the parking lot. Slowly, I get a feel for the bike. It turns more sharply than you’d think, and it won’t tip over when you stop or turn quickly. Kyle seems impressed when I manage to get the cab up the nearby steep hill on my first try. Soon, he’s in the back of the cab and we’re headed for the Eastbank Esplanade. Kyle tells me that girls do well as pedicab drivers because they have less ego. For two hours, we pedal across Old Town and the Pearl. On the return trip over the Hawthorne Bridge, Kyle tells the story of another trainee whose pedicab slipped off the edge of the sidewalk, dumping Kyle into oncoming traffic. By Saturday night, the soreness is gone from my legs but not from my underparts. To help, I wear padded bike shorts under cutoffs. PDX Pedicab drivers are independent contractors and, as such, can wear whatever they want. I’ve opted for layers. I

pregamed with a Santa Cruz burrito. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be. When I get to the warehouse at 6 pm, Kyle is waiting. He sets me up with my cab for the night. It’s smaller and lighter than the training bike. I download an app so I can talk to other drivers, check my fanny pack for tire irons, wrenches and my phone with Square, and pull out into a beautiful spring night. Almost immediately I pick up two slightly drunk women and a very large man on the Esplanade near OMSI. They are lost. I take them the equivalent of two blocks before they get bored of taking selfies of me, using their selfie stick. They get out and attempt to pay me in weed, but I tell them not to worry about it—I have enough weed, and I don’t want to carry theirs around all night. I ride to Deschutes Brewery in the Pearl and meet up with another driver, Ryan, as the sun sets. Ryan says it’s a slow night and no one seems serious about getting a ride, so I take off to troll the Pearl, which is full of people who don’t want rides. I slowly make my way up the big hill to Providence Park to catch the end of the Timbers game. Ryan is already in front of the stadium, eating a slice of pizza. We sit in our cabs until a tipsy woman approaches us, a man trailing her.

“Are you guys just going to sit there? Should I drive?” she says. Ryan lets me take the fare, even though cabby rules state that it is technically his, since he got there first. The couple wants to go to a bar, and Ryan suggests Momo. On the ride there, which turns out to be basically downhill, the woman tells her date, “they only work for tips,” and I don’t contradict her—we’re supposed to agree on a fare before starting, which I keep forgetting. When I drop them off, the woman palms me a $20. I ride back up Morrison Street, and the crowd is streaming out from the stadium. Quickly another couple gets in my cab. They tell me they want to get “shitfaced.” Feeling confident in my new knowledge of how to ride to Momo, I says it’s $10 before taking them there. The man pays me $12, and as I get ready to head back toward the stadium, I hear a voice yelling for me to stop. It’s the first couple, drunker. They want to go to Rialto, so I take them down the hill, and the man gives me $15. With the Timbers crowd mostly gone— and the hill looking steep—I cruise toward Chinatown. I stop on a side street downtown to fix my lights and gulp water. A white sedan with deeply tinted windows pulls up next to me, almost boxing me in. The window is cracked open. “Oh, am I in your way?” I ask. “No,” says a gruff male voice. The car doesn’t move, so I jump on the bike, panic rising in my chest, and pedal off as quickly as I can. The white car follows me for a block and a half until I can turn onto a big, busy street. I am creeped the fuck out. Jittery with adrenaline, I get on the radio and ask another driver, Lars, where he is. He tells me to meet him at OMSI. I ride down the wrong street, nearly get hit by a car and barely make it over the Hawthorne Bridge. Lars and Michella, also a driver, meet me in front of OMSI, where OMSI After Dark is winding down. Lars and Michella lament the slow night. People try to buy cigarettes off us. Lars gets a fare and takes off. I overhear a group of girls say, “Damn! Surge pricing!” “We don’t have surge pricing!” I say. “Where are you going?” They are young, a little buzzed and headed to White Owl Social Club. Michella and I each take two of them, and we pedal slowly away from the river. The uphill is gradual but terrible. The girls laugh and apologize, and I make jokes about how it’s better than spin class. But there is a moment when I wonder what would happen if I give up, jump off the seat and abandon the cab. The girls pay me $35. My legs are so tired, I’m not even sure I can make it back to the warehouse, let alone back over the bridge, so I’m relieved when Lars calls and says the night is too slow and he’s heading in. We buy some beer, and the night ends with me $82 richer, minus $25 I have to pay PDX Pedicab for using its bike and $5 for two Hamm’s tallboys. The three of us sit in our cabs in the parking lot of the warehouse, drinking our beers, waiting for someone to open the door. We play a game Michella calls “Medium-Sized Animal,” where you just name medium-sized animals. It’s way more fun than you’d think.

Bikes the World

THE GREAT PORTLAND TRANSIT RACE.

M A P : W W S TA F F ; I L L U S T R AT I O N S : D AV I D C H E L S E A

THE BIKE ISSUE

Car2Go Bike Lyft/Taxi Bus 15 & 77

How fast and cheap is biking? As a form of transit for carfree Portland living, we’ve always believed it’s the best option for most people. But as Portland’s impending bikeshare program turns bicycles into a mass-transit option, we decided to test it out. So we set up a race across town, pitting a cyclist against Car2Go, Lyft, a taxi and the bus. The trip began at the Willamette Week office in Slabtown and ended at Roadside Attraction, the pleasant patio bar on Southeast 12th Avenue. The race began at 2:48 pm on a sunny Wednesday afternoon. Everyone took their phones out at the same time— the person whose phone was not charged was condemned to ride the bus. Our findings? Probably what you’d expect. Taxis are very expensive. Buses are very slow. Biking is both very fast and basically free.

FASTEST! CAR2GO

TIME: 18 minutes total, including two minutes to find a car, 14 minutes of driving and two minutes of parking and walking. COST: $6.47

Anyone who has used Car2Go knows there’s always one right across the street on a leisurely Sunday and never one within five blocks when you’re about to miss a flight. Well, this was an exception—the little white buggy was waiting less than a block away, already cued up with Katy Perry’s “Firework.” Moderate afternoon traffic meant the freeway was moving slow but steady. Driving a Car2Go over 55 mph is, for me, a little uncomfortable. Happily, I crossed the Fremont Bridge at a breezy 28 mph. The downsides are obvious. It holds only two, you have to drive yourself, you have to find parking—and why does the brake pedal have only two settings—“not slowing” and “bring me to a dead stop right the fuck now”? But given that it’s three times as fast as a bus and only twice as expensive, it’s always a solid option. MARTIN CIZMAR.

A Roadside Attraction

nation and you always have a nagging fear that somebody is in the middle of stealing your bike. Even though technically this wasn’t as fast as Car2Go or Lyft, it basically took the same amount of time and, guess what, Car2Go and Uber both have bike-rack options. Clearly, bike is best. LIZZY ACKER.

ALSO PRETTY FAST! LYFT

Time: 19 minutes. We waited for a few minutes outside New Seasons. Total time in the car with Sukhwant, our driver, was 13 minutes and 11 seconds. Cost: $11.14

No fumbling paper bills, finding parking or getting directions. The joy of Lyft and Uber is that you can travel near and far without FREEST! any hassle. They’re also fast, depending on Time: 22 minutes total, including a four-minute wait on how much your driver cares about his waxed Northwest Naito Parkway for an Amtrak train to pass. Were Nissan, your well-being or a five-star rating. it not for the train, or if I had decided to take the Broadway Sukhwant had two ripe tangerines in his cup Bridge instead of the Steel Bridge, the bike might have won. holder. I thought maybe they were for us because some Cost: Free if you have a bike. The city of Portland says its new drivers almost force cool, refreshing water on you in a desbike-share program, BikeTown, will cost an average of $2.50 perate quest for that five-star rating. The tangerines were per half hour. The bikes will be placed throughout the city at not for us. But the car was air-conditioned, the radio was stations but also at special bike racks, more like Car2Go than ambient, and Sukhwant told us tales about how he bonds other bike-share programs. with certain riders who somehow keep ending up in his car, and the ad exec who sits in the back seat and chants with Unlike every other person in this race, I Indian prayer beads on her way to work. ENID SPITZ. spent zero time waiting or looking around, forlornly, for a car or bus. Also, this all happened on a totally magical, beautiful spring SLOWER AND MORE EXPENSIVE! day. So I put the address in Google Maps on Time: 23 minutes. my phone, turned Taylor Swift way up and Cost: $17 with tip. took an easy ride to Naito Parkway, across the Steel Bridge and along the Eastbank Esplanade. It was espeHey, remember taxis? cially pleasant, the ideal of Portland bike travel. Very few It seems silly now, but in the days before stop signs, a gorgeous river view, the comedy of Swift’s “Bad we could summon a chauffeur with Blood”—her takedown of Katy Perry for stealing her backup the light graze of a button, you had to dancers—and the feeling that, unlike my co-workers, I was call a dispatch center in the hope that doing something good for my body and the world. someone would answer and, failing that, There are almost no downsides to spring bike commuting wait on a street corner, hoping to spot an in Portland, except that you arrive a bit sweaty to your desti- unoccupied yellow sedan quick enough to flag it down.

BIKE

TAXIS

What a wacky time, huh? Like using a rotary phone or going to the library to use a reference dictionary, though, sometimes it’s fun to revisit outdated technology, just to prove how far we’ve come as a civilization. MATTHEW SINGER.

IF YOUR TIME IS NOT MONEY! THE

BUS

Time: 51 minutes total, including about 22 minutes walking and 15 minutes waiting. Cost: $2.50

First, allow me to note that I did this wrong: My phone was dead, leaving me unable to check schedules, and I walked foolishly to the wrong bus stop. The 15 bus would have delivered me 17 minutes sooner, and with no transfers—though I still would have arrived 10 minutes after everyone else. I instead hoofed it to Northwest 21st Avenue until the No. 77 caught me at Everett Street. I boarded sticky with back sweat, wet beneath my waistband, my forehead barely dry before I hopped off in Old Town. Morning and evening commutes, despite overcrowding, can be almost pleasant. But I had forgotten who rides the bus in midday. The Burnside bus stop for my transfer was filled on its sidewalk with dozens of people arguing whether they’d been waiting 15 minutes or 30. This included a man who kept offering a developmentally disabled woman puffs off his cigarette while calling her “babe,” along with many others for whom time didn’t seem to be in any meaningful exchange with money. The mood of this bus, when it arrived, was not hopeful. A baby couldn’t stop crying. There were too many walkers for the available bus slots for walkers. I hopped off into bright sun, relieved, and walked the eight blocks to Roadside Attraction—tired, angry for no reason, and held up twice by construction worker trucks that couldn’t negotiate city streets while tearing up the old St. Francis Park. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

Street lamps for night surveillance.

NICE RACK

SOME BIKE RACKS ARE BETTER THAN OTHERS. HERE’S HOW TO FIND THE BEST LOCK-UP SPOTS TO DETER BIKE THIEVES.

Double U-lock, motherfucker.

Nonstandard city racks or private racks with thin metal parts. Never, ever lock up to a street sign.

Loose or missing bolts on the bottom of rack.

Behind ground cover like trees or blue Willamette Week boxes.

Using a cable lock.

WHITNEY SALGADO

Busy intersection with plenty of people nearby. Find a Salt & Straw or Voodoo Doughnut!

BY JEN N A MU LLIGA N

No shrubs blocking visibility of bike.

Steel crossbar indicates new power-saw-proof city design with a steel cable in the middle; it takes upward of an hour to saw through.

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

Nice, tight bolts grounded to concrete.

Near a 24 Hour Fitness. For whatever reason, the police department’s annual stats show thieves prey on bikes near the Pearl District and Hollywood 24 Hour Fitness. Other spots to avoid: the Burnside Bridge, anywhere downtown, college campuses, Powell’s Books, Lloyd Center, the Fred Meyer by Mall 205, and Grant High School.

Tykes Bikes

BY M A RT I N C I Z M A R

mcizmar@wweek.com

What’s the safest, fastest, smoothest way to transport a young kid by bike? We asked Sara Davidson, new director of Kidical Mass PDX, a group modeled on Critical Mass that plans familyoriented bike rides, to discuss the options. She ranked them based on safety, speed and a factor we call squirm and squeal—basically, how comfortable the kiddo is on each contraption. Because safety is obviously the most important factor, we assigned it 50 points. The other two categories are each 25. Biking with kids under age 5 is something any casual cyclist can do. And for the hardcore rider, there’s really no minimum age—Davidson started biking with her newborn when she was just 3 weeks old. No matter what accessory you choose, remember helmets for the kids, which, as Davidson says, are “never going to hurt.” And if you want the support of other families, the next Kidical Mass ride is May 22. The ride leaves at noon from the People’s Food Co-op, 3029 SE 21st Ave., and travels to the OHSU tram.

TRAILERS

Safety: 40 points (out of 50) Speed: 20 (out of 25) Squirm and squeal: 25 (out of 25) Total: 85 Price: A good one goes for $300 new, or about $175 on Craigslist.

Trailers from brands like Burley, Thule and even Schwinn aren’t just good for cross-country bikepackers and can collectors, they can also be used to haul kids. According to Davidson, they’re “absolutely the best choice for someone eager to try family biking without investing a ton of money.” They’re safe and comfortable, and if you get a good one, they might not slow you down as much as you think. Davidson bought a special insert from Germany to start biking with her newborn daughter at 3 weeks old. “Ideally, pick a nicer one like a Burley that won’t tip over even if your bike does, and use the big flag that comes with it,” she says. “They’re also really easy to buy used—just make sure to clean off the unavoidable gunk. My family likes both slow and fast biking, so we’ll sometimes put the kids in the trailer and go for long rides out to places like Kelley Point. Supercomfortable for kids—mine always fall fast asleep. Great for winter, too, to keep everyone warm and dry.”

TRICIA HIPPS

WHITNEY SALGADO

THE BEST WAY TO GO BY BIKE AND WITH CHILD.

CARGO BIKE WITH SEAT (LONG TAIL)

Safety: 30 Speed: 20 Squirm and squeal: 20 Total: 70 Price: $1,000 & up new, about the same on Craigslist.

children between ages 1 and 3, and obviously, it’s hard to handle more than one kid. But these seats are the most inexpensive route, and they can travel fast—if you feel comfortable. Davidson says it’s better-suited to “more confident riders.” “Putting a heavy seat and a kid on the back of a standard bike will drastically change the way the bike rides, making it more prone to tipping, so give yourself time to get used to it before you go far,” she says. “Speed will be as high as you’re comfortable going, since you haven’t added a ton of weight to your bike. It’s a comfortable option for younger kids who may still want to sleep while they ride.”

BAKFIETS Kids are a lot like a case of beer—at least when you’re loading them onto the back of a long-tail cargo bike. Davidson says they’re “a fun choice” that can be “nicer than pulling a heavy trailer.” They typically require that the child be old enough to hold on, but for younger kids you can get bars that hold them in place. “Having your kids right next to you can also feel much safer than having them on the ground behind you, but if you tip over, they’re going too,” she says. “Your riding speed will depend on your comfort on the bike, the construction and quality, and how much load you carry—but it can be quite fast, once you’re used to it. Bigger kids absolutely love to sit on the back. This kind of bike is better for bigger kids who are less likely to fall asleep.” Beware, though, you need the right fit for the bike— especially if the kids are wiggly.

CHILD SEAT

Safety: 25 Speed: 15 Squirm and squeal: 20 Total: 60 Price: $175 new, $75 on Craigslist.

There are many options for seats that attach to the back of a bike, where a cargo rack would normally go. The most popular seats attach to the back of the bike, but there are some for smaller children that are designed to sit on the handlebars. Many are only for

Safety: 50 Speed: 10 Squirm and squeal: 25 Total: 85 Price: $4,500 new, $2,000 on Craigslist.

The Dutch go everywhere by bike, so it makes sense that their style of cargo bike, typically called a bakfiets, is well-suited to child-rearing and grocery shopping. These cargo bikes normally have a large front bucket for children and groceries. They’re not cheap, and they’re not fast, but they are good at what they do. “A bakfiets is the gold standard of cargo bikes,” Davidson says, “and an absolutely wonderful choice. They’re really safe—kids are low to the ground, in front of you, belted in, surrounded by a big box.” Some have electric assist to help you pedal faster, but at that point you’re spending as much as a cheap car. You could, however, bring a newborn home from the hospital in one of these. “They’re absolutely the most comfortable—custom rain covers will keep passengers dry in the winter, and cushy seats are great all year,” Davidson says. “Bakfiets is also the best way to transport a very small baby—you can just easily bolt in a car seat and still have room for your groceries.” More inexpensive versions have a box in the back. Portland also has several options for bespoke bakfietsen, at both high and low price points. Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

SUNDAY AUGUST 28 SATURDAY AUGUST 27

DURAN DURAN ICE CUBE

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UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA PARQUET COURTS / SHEER MAG HOP ALONG

/ DIARRHEA PLANET / TENEMENT

WATERFRONT PARK PORTLAND, OR 21+

TICKETS ON SALE AT

PORTLAND.PROJECTPABST.COM

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

WHITNEY SALGADO

THE BIKE ISSUE

PARADES ARE OUT. CONE BOMBING IS IN. HERE’S THE NEW WAVE OF BIKETIVISM. BY M AT T H E W KO R F H AGE

mkorfhage@wweek.com

In years of greenways, green bike-box turn lanes and green-faced Mayor Charlie Hales riding wobblingly across Tilikum Crossing just to prove he’s down, it may seem like the bike activist wars are over. But after years of being “America’s Bike Capital,” anti-bike backlash has left Portland falling behind cities like Minneapolis in the hearts and minds of cyclists—and new breeds of biketivists are adopting guerrilla tactics to get their point across.

CONE BOMBING

Cars sometimes veer into bike lanes or are confused into believing they are, in fact, very tiny car lanes. The solution? Make their borders solid and orange and cone-shaped. A “middle-aged” anonymous bike activist who calls himself “Agent 1” has taken to dropping cones onto crosswalks and bike lanes so they’re more visible—or less passable—to cars whizzing by. You can see the results on Twitter account @PBOTrans. Or you can just drive down North Williams Avenue.

SI GN B O M B I N G

IPPS TRICIA H

Cars trying to avoid the construction tangle and traffic snarl of Southeast Division Street have been speeding down parallel Clinton Street instead, now barricaded with reinforced diverters that look like a suspicious Third World roadblock. Cone bomber Agent 1 got hooked up with sign-making companies and put up legitimatelooking speed-limit signs that read: SPEED 20 IS PLENTY. They are not legally binding. Asked by WW, he said he’s just doing what the Portland Bureau of Transportation would do if it could get away with it. “The state won’t let them,” he told WW in March. “I’m just helping them.” This seems to be true-ish: “The message we agree with,” says PBOT spokesman Dylan Rivera, “but we can’t condone the tactics of making their own signs.”

C AR S H A M I N G

Remember the Beaverton plumber fired by his boss after being filmed yelling anti-Hispanic, racist insults at an Americanborn woman of Jordanian descent?

Well, this is the bike version—employing social media to shame bad car parkers and road ragers. Sometimes the offenses are dangerous—as in August 2015, when BikePortland reported that cyclist Tony Tapay caught a car on camera passing him recklessly at high speeds and almost running over another cyclist. Other times, it’s the stuff documented by Twitter activist Kyle Rohr (@antipex), who takes pictures of cars and Sysco delivery trucks parked across or very close to bike lanes and tags them “Entitlement.” He apparently also calls police to report improperly parked cars so they get tickets, and documents this on Twitter.

PROT E S T S IGNS

Southeast Foster Road is currently home to a faceoff involving bright signs for and against a planned lane reallotment. A group of stores along Foster, led by EuroClassic Furniture owner Jon Shleifer, has been plastering their windows with multicolored butcher-paper signs to protest the introduction of bike lanes to the busy street. The “road diet” will also expand pedestrian space on sidewalks and add trees. “It Will Be a Mess. Foster Cut Down To 2 Lanes. Call Mayor” reads a sign at Euroclassic. Other signs have popped up at Lucy’s Hair Salon, Sew & Vac, and the vacant building across the street from EuroClassic. But now there’s a counter-protest by businesses that want bikes and sidewalks and pretty trees. Matthew Micetic of Red Castle Games made his own signs and gave them to a few local businesses. A sign at beer bar N.W.I.P.A. reads simply “Slow Down and Shop Foster.” At Fo st e r R o a d b a r s S t a r d ay a n d O’Malley’s, the signs are mostly nonsense: “Loud Noises.” “U.S. Out of FoPo.” “Save the Whales!” O’Malley’s owner Glen Wallace says he’s just making fun of the late protest to the city plan—which was approved by the City Council in 2014. “My signs are a ridiculous response to a ridiculous response,” Wallace says. “I thought of the two dumbest things I could think of.” Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

Turn Turn Turn LOCAL BIKE GEAR FOR THE PORTLAND SPRING. BY G R AC E C U L H ANE

GCULHANE@WWEEK.COM

BIKE BANDANNA $ 18.50

by Little Lark, etsy.com Hand-painted and -printed on organic textiles, these bike bandannas rep your preferred mode of transportation hard.

6-PACK FRAME CINCH $ 32

by Walnut, walnutstudiolo.com. Have you ever tried to swing a doublebagged six-pack from one side of your handlebars on your way to the park, with your bike listing hard to one side until a beer falls out? Of course you have—because you understand the spirit of summer. This bad boy lets you strap that sixer right to your crossbar. Genius.

SEAT BARREL BAG $ 132

DOOBIE TUBE $ 28

by Walnut, walnutstudiolo.com. The stylish leather back-of-seat cylinder bag was inspired by the brandy barrels carried by St. Bernard mountain dogs in the Swiss Alps. Surely a design concept this esoteric wouldn’t be complete without hand-stitched details featuring “waxed sailmaker’s thread on highest quality American vegetable-tanned leather.” And for perhaps the most precious cargo you’ll transport in your Seat Barrel Bag, the folks at Walnut have produced another elegant adornment you never knew you needed. Their leather and brass “Doobie Tube” spares your joints the embarrassment of public nudity.

GROCERY PANNIER

$ 59

by North St., northstbags.com Each of these made-to-order panniers—which sort of look like construction worker vests for your rutabaga—is created out of recycled waterproof materials, including salvaged banner vinyl and truck tarps.

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

THE OWL CAGE $ 20

WATERPROOF WOOL CREW SOCKS $ 39

by Showers Pass, showerspass.com. Waterproof, breathable socks are pretty much the holy grail of socks in Portland. Wool is magic.

by Portland Design Works, ridepdw.com. Owls on T-shirts are so Brooklyn 2003. Now, in 2016? Owls on bikes! The lightweight alloy body of these owl cases screws onto your bike, and its wings keep your water in place.

I BIKE PDX TEE $ 23

by MatleyInk, etsy.com. The city’s most iconic sign that’s not a stag is probably a dude biting hard on MAX or streeetcar tracks–as has just about every rider at least once. Here’s the memento, from MatleyInk on Etsy. Matley Ink has a T-shirt design that celebrates both your hometown pride and the fearlessness with which you ride.

NARD GUARD $ 25

CLUB CONVERTIBLE 2 PANT $ 150

by Black Star, black-star-bags. myshopify.com. The Portland bike messenger who started Black Star began with a line of handmade waterproof bags. Now the company offers a range of bike products, including nard guards in an array of colors so that your safety doesn’t have to interfere with style. Made especially for bike polo riders and others subject to sudden stops, it’s a solution to the first problem that occurred to every crotchsensitive person who’s mounted a bike.

by Showers Pass, showerspass.com. Rain jackets have their limits; specifically, that limit is the pelvic area. If you’ve ever finished a bike ride with your soft, unprotected underside completely soaked, you know why you want these lightweight convertible bottoms that fit over your street pants.

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

HENRY CROMETT

Biker Bars BICYCLE-THEMED SPOTS TO OIL YOUR GEARS.

VELO CULT

HOPWORKS BIKE BAR

SPOKE AND VINE

CORSA CAFE AT WESTERN BIKEWORKS

1969 NE 42nd Ave., 503-922-2012, velocult.com. At this bike shop, you can get a beer or kombucha and watch one of the best local standup comedian showcases in town, while guys in custom screenprinted tees fix your flat. It’s a bar, an indie venue, and a bike shop selling custom-made commuters. It has Christmas lights and a disco ball—and it used to have a theater downstairs, until the fire marshal shut that down last March for violating safety codes. In short, it’s nearly everything “Portland” cemented into one shop. It guarantees a 24-hour turnaround for most repairs, and holds enough beers, bikes and beards to keep you entertained for at least that many hours.

1451 N Skidmore St., 503-287-1700, spokeandvine.com. The pristine farmhouse tables, house-marinated Castelvetrano olives and Mason jar flower arrangements at this year-and-a-half-old wine lounge stand out on Interstate Avenue, with the Palms Motor Motel sign glowing just a few blocks down. You’d expect a bike theme inside, based on the bottle shop’s sign: a wheel with a bottle in the center. Instead, it’s a New Portland shop dedicated very loosely to the idea that people in Oregon like both drinking and bike riding. This notion shows up in a bicycle triptych next to the fireplace and little else. There’s no lack of events, though—Friday night tasting, craft night, fundraisers for the Lymphoma Society and yoga in the vineyard—making it a welcome pit stop if karaoke at the Alibi doesn’t spin your wheels.

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

3947 N Williams Ave., 503-287-6258, hopworksbeer.com. Hopworks Bike Bar is in many ways even more thoroughgoing than Portland’s beery bike shops in incorporating bicycles into every aspect of the experience; from a bar top loomed over by countless bike frames, to spokes and hubs on the wall, bike-named beers like Gear Up IPA, and a pair of stationary bikes allowing you to pedal some energy back into the bar for no real reason we can fathom other than to make you feel good about yourself. And why not? It’s a feelgood place: family-friendly, bike-friendly and eco-friendly, with low-cost food and a solid beer selection that includes small-batch Belgian tripels and reliable IPAs and Pilsners.

1015 NW 17th Ave., 503-342-9985. This tiny respite inside Western Bikeworks is much more cafe than bar—but it’s also a weirdly pleasant spot to get an after-work IPA in a still-industrial Slabtown neighborhood, and an even better one to get a $5 cheapie cup of sangria, in what’s otherwise a very functional and very friendly bike shop with a heavy local focus. The decor is sparse: an understated chain-and-sprocket mural, old-school cycling posters, and a few geometric panels on one wall made from repurposed, shined-up bike chains.

LUMBERYARD

2700 NE 82nd Ave., 503-252-2453, lumberyardmtb.com. Lumberyard is a massive indoor mountain-bike park, sure, if you’re into doing flips and ramps and tricks on two wheels, with a bar to cool down at after. But it’s also a form of beer and dinner theater if you’re into watching other people do

LUMBERYARD

the tricks instead. The pleasant bar inside the park is a bikekid parent’s dream, but also a remarkably decent beer spot in general for its desolate strip of 82nd Avenue—with nearweekly tap takeovers by small local breweries. In addition to its cracker-thin-crust pies, former food cart Pulehu Pizza serves hot dogs made with sausages from Sheridan Fruit Co., one of the city’s most underrated butchers.

BACKPEDAL

GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!

1425 NW Flanders St., 971-400-5950, facebook.com/BackPedalPDX. We’ve all seen beer enthusiasts pedaling away on those trolley-style vehicles that roam from brewery to brewery. Well, last year, Portland’s premier bike-based beer tourism company decided to get in the brewing game itself with the opening of BackPedal Brewing. Walk past three parked BrewCycles into a cozy garage that houses what now claims to be the smallest microbrewery in Portland. It’s a throwback to the days when a taproom was just a room with some taps. Drink the tribute to Portland’s late favorite pseudo-son “Rowdy” Roddy Piper: Piper’s Pit, an unconventional spiced Scottish ale with nutmeg and cinnamon.

ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10AM

APEX

1216 SE Division St., 503-273-9227, apexbar.com. When the sun comes out, seemingly the entire nation of Canada appears at the city’s most famous beer patio to partake in its massive digital tap list. The cash-only bar is also famously surly, refusing even to look at the dude in an LSU cap trying to pay with a card. But it’s very friendly to bikes, with something nearly unheard of: a long row of bike parking inside the fence containing the patio, plus a little piece of bike neon above the door and a tandem bike hung from the ceiling.

GESTALT HAUS

FULL FESTIVAL LINEUP INCLUDING

COMEDY, WORDS & IDEAS, ARTS & CULTURE & FOOD LISTED AT

BUMBERSHOOT.COM

Design horsepowerdesign.net

HENRY CROMETT

3584 SE Division St. The owners of Gestalt—a bike-obsessive San Fran bar so well-loved that bikemaker Marin named a line of bicycles after it—moved to Portland this year. They brought the bar with them, which will open in the space formerly filled by Eugenio’s. Expect sausages “from vegan to veal,” a beer list splitting time between authentic German and local craft, German apéritifs from Underberg to Jäger, and some very serious one-of-a-kind bicycles hanging from the ceiling that will actually be for sale on the bar’s food menu. One of the two owners works at River City Bicycles, so expect plenty of bike events and bike rides to jump off here.

LINEUP SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE

VISIT BUMBERSHOOT.COM FOR PASSES

HOPWORKS BIKE BAR Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

Willamette Week Presents

Willamette Week’s Annual Summer Camp Guide is a great resource for Portland parents who are deciding where to send their children for summer activities. Day camps to overnight, arts, sports, music, and everything in between.

Your child will surely ﬁnd something fun to do in Portland!

For information about advertising in this section, Call Matt PLambeck 503-445-2757

ART + DESIGN �AMPS AGES 4-14

SUMMER CAMP

4 week long day camps. For all girls ages 8 - 17 Form a Band, Write a Song, Perform Live!

(tuition assistance available, no girl turned away due to lack of funds) For dates & registration visit www.girlsrockcamp.org/programs

Ages 8-18

MAKE ART, HAVE FUN All-Day, Week-long, June 27 - July 22. PA�IFI� NORTHWEST COLLEGE OF ART

July 11-28 Make a SFX Poster • Design a Comic Book Cover • Draw a Comic Strip

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

971-227-1608

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

River Ranch Summer Pony Camps!

The oldest & best riding camp for young people.

Summer Pony Camps Ages 5-7 Weekly Sessions beginning June 13th Moderate Price • Safe & Fun • Small Groups

16000 NE Eilers Rd., Aurora, OR 97002 25 minutes from downtown Portland 503-678-5478 • RiverRanchHorses.com

Do you love to act, sing and dance? Do you want professional training in a fun, friendly and emotionally safe environment? Do you have Summer plans? Spend a week, or two, or three or four at the Columbia Gorge School of Theatre. Study Acting, Singing, Dancing, TV/Film Acting and the Biz with professionals from across the country! Be in a show and make new friends from around the world! Located at Lewis & Clark College • Scholarships Available

www.TheatreCamp.com

Come Join us this summer!

We help kids avoid brain drain and stay sharp with their math skills during active play! Classes: Gr 1-6/Math Gamers Active July 25-29 Uplands, Lake O Aug 8-12 CPRO, Newberg New! Gr 2-5/Measuring Baxter the Dog July 18-22 Taborspace, Portland Aug 1-5 CPRD, Newberg

503-880-4988 • www.mathgamers.net

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

It is an experience of a lifetime!

2016 Summer Day Camp

Tryon Creek State Natural Area Half day for 4 - 6 yr olds Full day for 1st â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 5th graders

tryonfriends.org

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

Summer Camp!

Ages

3-6!

Camp Vida 2016: Fur, Fins & Feathers June 20—August 26 www.portlandmontessori.org info@portlandmontessori.org

Horsemanship Day or Overnight Camp

For all Levels, Ages 5-18 Horse Care & Safety from Head to Tail 30 Years’ Experience June 20-24 • July 18-22 August 8-12 Horsemanship Certiﬁcate, Hands-on Experience, Games on Horses, Horse Crafts, Daily Riding Lessons, Swimming, Barn Sleep-Over & Cook out, plus much more!

503.743.3704 www.Fantasyfarms.net

Summer Camps at Marylhurst Creative Arts Day Camp

For kids with or without special needs $170 | July 11 - 14: ages 5 - 10 July 18 - 21: ages 11 - 17

Marylhurst Choir Camp For high school and community college students $150 | August 1 - 5

Learn more: MARYLHURST.EDU/camps16

Campus is located just 10 minutes of Portland between Lake Oswego and West Linn.

CRAFT SOMETHING WONDERFUL THE JORDAN SCHNITZER FAMILY

art

ADVENTURES SUMMER ART DAY CAMPS FOR PRE-K THROUGH PRE-COLLEGE

enroll now ocac.edu

OREGON COLLEGE OF ART AND CRAFT 28

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

Girls. Power. Tools. $350 per week Scholarships available

July 18 - 22 for girls 11 - 16 July 25 - 29 for girls 8 - 12

Hammering. Drilling. Painting. Framing. Fun.

1/2 DAY SUMMER CAMPS where tinkers & makers become innovators

science, technology, engineering, art, & math

3D Printing Drawing & Drafting STEM Investigations Intro to Coding Ages 5-8 Ages 9-11

June 13-17 July 11-15

www.artofstem.com/registration

PH 503.206.6214 or info@artofstem.com Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

HEADOUT P.35 30

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

STREET

FASHION CYCLE OUR FAVORITE BIKE LOOKS THIS WEEK. P H OTOS BY B R IDGET B A KER AND HEN RY CR OMETT www.wweek.com/street

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

“I’m sitting around the pool watching Downton Abbey and he’s going on Grindr dates.” page 54

STARTERS

BITE-SIZED PORTLAND CULTURE NEWS.

NEWER COPPER PENNY: Infamous Lents nightclub the New Copper Penny, which announced its sale April 1 to an apartment developer that received an $8.1 million loan from the Portland Development Commission, may not go away entirely. The family that owns the club at Southeast 92nd Avenue and Foster Road has applied to open yet another huge sports bar, pool hall and restaurant— right across the street, at 9213 SE Foster Road. PDC spokeswoman Anne Mangan had called the New Copper Penny sale “a great outcome for Lents.” In its 40 years, the New Copper Penny has towered over Lents nightlife, for good and bad—hosting weddings and parking-lot shootings, karaoke and burlesque nights, and enough visits from authorities that it was cited by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission for “a history of serious and persistent problems.” According to the liquor license application, the new spot will have a “family-friendly atmosphere for young and old to have fun while being respectful, and an asset to the community.” EVEN BETTER THAN THE REAL THING: Last week, several people reported seeing U2 singer Bono in Portland. A clerk at Exiled Records claimed Bono briefly shopped for records April 16 at the tiny vinyl shop on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard. That same day, a Saturday Market patron snapped a photo of someone who indeed looked a lot like the rock legend. Alas, it was not Bono, but perhaps the next best thing: Pavel Sfera, the self-proclaimed “leading Bono tribute artist,” who’s fooled everyone from foreign dignitaries to concert audiences. Contacted through his website, Sfera, who lives in Los Angeles and fronts a U2 tribute band, confirmed he was in Portland visiting a friend. “I’m not a trickster,” SFERA he tells WW. “There has to be a definitive line of decorum with regards to interconnecting and exchanging with the public.” So why go out and let people believe they’ve just met one of the most famous frontmen in rock? “There’s a lot of really cool and interesting people out there in this world I would otherwise never get to know unless the conversations have started,” he says.

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

C O U R T E S Y O F PAV E L S F E R A

N ATA L I E B E H R I N G

HANDS OFF THE STASH: In a lawsuit ﬁled April 20—an irony so dire it feels like April Fools’—Tigard tea giant Stash Tea Company has claimed trademark infringement against tiny Beaverton dispensary Stash Cannabis Company, which opened in September 2015. The lawsuit asserts “concerted, systematic infringement of trademarks owned by Stash Tea.” The 40-year-old Stash Tea—purchased from the late local tea legend Steven Smith by Yamamotoyama Tea Company of Japan in 1993—owns a trademark extending to the sale of “dried plants and tea.” Stash Cannabis Company owner Chris Matthews says he has hired a trademark lawyer. “My feeling is, we’re diﬀerent industries,” Matthews says, “and there are a thousand businesses with the name Stash. Just because we sell pot, they think we’re hurting their brand.”

Headout

SOC SOCIIA ALLIISSTT

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE

Socialism is having a moment. Bernie Sanders has been the first credible socialist U.S. presidential candidate since Eugene V. Debs. A generation of Americans is waking up to the fact that the whole system is rigged to screw them out of money and power. And yet, this neosocialism is different from the old paleosocialism we learned to fear in grade school. For May Day, the day of the worker that is not Labor Day, we have created a list of what’s so hot right now in proletarian spring fashion.

THURSDAY APRIL 28 The Benefits of Gusbandry Season Finale

Chic THE HOTTEST TRENDS IN NEW DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM, WHICH IS NOTHING LIKE LAME OLD-SCHOOL SOCIALISM.

[BINGE-WATCH] The Portland version of Broad City is this YouTube show about a 40-year-old who acts like a 20-year-old and trolls sex shops and family dinners with her “gusband.” Binge-watch the first season and see the final episode premiere, hosted by the cast and creator Alicia J. Rose. Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park Ave., nwfilm.org. 7 pm. $9.

Bombino

[DESERT GUITARS] Africanborn singer-guitarist Omara Moctar has siphoned a life of uncertainty and exile into billowing instrumental theatrics. On his new album, Azel, the solos and supremely plucked melodies are so expressive it doesn’t matter if you understand the Tuareg language he sings in. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave., startheaterportland. com. 9 pm. $20. 21+.

SATURDAY APRIL 30 Che

Face of the movement

Headgear

Berets

Hugo Chavez of Venezuela

Charismatic socialist leader of an emerging American nation

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Literary foundation

Graffiti

Propaganda tool

Detroit

Symbolic city

Homebrew Battle for the Columbia Bernie

Big furry Russian hats

Justin Trudeau of Canada

The Speech: A Historic Filibuster on Corporate Greed and the Decline of Our Middle Class by Bernie Sanders Facebook meme Detroit

Pinko!

Greatest insult

#BernieBro!

Leon Trotsky, people’s commissar of military and naval affairs

Pre-eminent spokesperson

H.A. Goodman, unpaid columnist for Salon.com

[BEER FOR HERE] To benefit the Columbia River Estuary Program, 15 homebrewers will bring their hard-brewed concoctions to Columbia River Brewing. Taste beers, vote for winners, and some water maybe stays cleaner. Columbia River Brewing Company, 1728 NE 40th Ave., columbiariverbrewpub.com. $15 for tastes. 21+.

Bechdel Test Burlesque

[LADY THINGS] Naked and nerdy touring strippers perform a body-positive strip show at Portland’s clown-themed bar, celebrating “thrill-joy feminism.” Bechdel herself said it was “fucking awesome”— while talking to another woman about women. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 503841-6734. 9:30 pm. $15-$25. 21+.

Cultivation Classic

[ORGANIC HERB] The Cultivation Classic is the first statewide competition for organic-style, no-synthetic weed—certainly the first judged by both Duane Sorenson and a Dandy Warhol—and there will be beer within 10 paces, along with a lot of tacos, burgers, beet wraps and a U.S. congressman. The North Warehouse, 723 N Tillamook St., wweek.com/cultivationclassic.com. Noon. $40 advance, $55 at the door. 21+.

North Korean cult of personality

Slight embarrassment

Vermont’s $9.60 minimum wage

Pinkertons

Bad guys

Superdelegates

International Workers’ Day rally at Shemanski Park, Southwest Park Avenue and Salmon Street. Noon-4 pm Sunday, May 1. Free.

May Day Celebration

Bloody Mary “Bloc Party” beginning at Kachka, 720 SE Grand Ave., kachkapdx.com. 11 am-2 pm Sunday, May 1. $30 for five bloody marys and five breakfast bites at bars along Southeast Grand Avenue. Tickets at eventbrite.com.

SUNDAY MAY 1 Floating Points

[GROOVE SWEET] Though technically dance music, this ensemble project’s new album, Elaenia, finds the project realized as a full-fledged band, and the result is a dancefunk masterpiece that electrifies as a future shock in the vein of Herbie Hancock’s astral jazz. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 503-231-9663. 9 pm. $15. 21+. Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

Bold FlAvor vegan Friendly

open 11-10

Antoinette Antique & Estate Jewelry

= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Editor: MARTIN CIZMAR. Email: dish@wweek.com. See page 3 for submission instructions.

everyday

Moving in Sale until 4/30

500 NW 21st Ave, (503) 208-2173 kungpowpdx.com

FOOD & DRINK

7642 SW Capitol Hwy 503-348-0411

THURSDAY, APRIL 28 Imperial and Pfriem Dinner

Doug Adams is leaving Imperial— for parts unknown, but hopefully to make some Southern stuff like barbecue or fried chicken. But this will be one of your last chances to toast our 2015 Restaurant of the Year chef at Imperial, and you’ll do so with some of the finest brews in all of Oregon from Pfriem. Adams will make a many-course meal to pair with Belgian beers, and when you finally say “prost,” it will be with tears in your eyes. Imperial, 410 SW Broadway, 503-228-7222. 6:30 pm. $85.

SATURDAY, APRIL 30 Traditional taste, contemporary nourishment. The only all gluten-free, Middle Eastern lunch buffet in town. Delicious vegan and meat dishes. Signature cocktails with Middle Eastern herbal infusions. Join us! 320 SW Alder St. darsalamportland.com M-F 11:30 a.m.- 9 p.m. Sat. 12:30 p.m. - 9 p.m.

LITTLE BIRD

Simple ApproAch

Homebrew Battle for the Columbia River

To benefit the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership, 15 homebrewers will bring their hardbrewed concoctions—fittingly enough—to Columbia River Brewing. You taste the beers, you vote in the winners, and maybe some water gets a little cleaner. Columbia River Brewing Company, 1728 NE 40th Ave., 503-943-6157. 1 pm. $15. 21+.

SUNDAY, MAY 1 Bloody Mary Bloc Party

Admit it: Brunch is boring. It’s like the food equivalent of white bread. But this? This is the best brunch event we’ve seen in ages. Kachka’s newly bottled, always wonderful New Deal horseradish vodka will be used in the bloody marys of five bars on Grand: Oso Market, Dig a Pony, Bit House Saloon, Slow Bar and boozestirrer-maker Bull in China (at Kachka’s bar), with brunch bites at each spot. Then the champion will be judged at Bit House. Best socialist holiday ever. Passports cost 30 bucks. Kachka, 720 SE Grand Ave., 503-235-0059. 11 am-2 pm. $30.

1. Little Bird

215 SW 6th Ave., 503-688-5952, littlebirdbistro.com. Just when we think we couldn’t like Gabe Rucker’s French bistro Little Bird any more, they go and make an all-day happy hour Sunday. That means $5 double-stacked brie burgers, $1.50 oysters, and $3 oﬀ their wonderful cocktails, all damn day. $ at happy hour, otherwise $$$.

2. Chesa

2218 NE Broadway, 503-477-9521, chesapdx.com. Paella is the center of Jose Chesa’s new menu, but we’re here to say ribs. The Costilla—Iberico pork rib conﬁt—is perhaps the most beautifully textured rib we’ve ever had, a marvel of softness and crispness. Match it with a uniqueto-Chesa aged Lacuesta Reserva vermouth, rich with coﬀee and plum notes that bloom to berry when loosened with soda. $$$.

3. Marukin

609 SE Ankeny St., 503-894-9021, marukinportland.com. The lines are long, but the ramen is very, very good, especially the tonkotsu shoyu, paitan shio and miso. And at the Pine Street Market location downtown, Tokyo executive chef Sakai is making the ramen personally for a short span. $.

4. Wiz Bang Bar

126 SW 2nd Ave., 503-384-2150, saltnstraw.com. Tyler Malek didn’t remotely “reinvent soft serve,” as he boldly announced on the Vice Munchies site. But he did make a pretty damn amazing Ritz pie sundae, with apple-juice-soaked apples that taste more intensely of apple than fresh apple. So get that. $.

5. Mad Greek Deli

1740 E Burnside St., 503-232-0274, madgreekdeli.com. Get the Greek deli-style sub, deep-laden with meat and cheese—plus Greek fries that are deﬁnitely not french fries. $.

DRANK

Maine Squeeze

(10 BARREL)

Consumer-driven trends are rare in craft beer. Typically, brewers and suppliers hammer out what’s possible, practical and potentially profitable, and the rest of us drink it up. That pipeline has lately sprung some leaks—it’s hard to imagine any brewer getting excited about alcopop root beer until it started selling like crazy. In Portland, most of the best breweries have been slow to adopt the new juicy, fruity, light-bodied and oftencloudy Northeast-style IPAs, tending to prefer the piney, ultrabitter versions native to the Northwest. Well, the fuss created by the new Great Notion on Northeast Alberta has inspired some other takes. Fat Head’s and Breakside collaborated on a loosely Vermonty beer called Pulp Free, which I found too bitter and clear. At 10 Barrel in the Pearl, Whitney Burnside made a one-off IPA called Maine Squeeze. It’s just a little hazy and drinks like reduced-sugar orange juice—lightly citrusy without the sweetness of Great Notion’s standard-setting Juice Jr. It’s a great beer, especially when the sun is shining on the new rooftop patio. Here’s hoping we get even more versions before summer arrives. Recommended. MARTIN CIZMAR. 36

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

THOMAS TEAL

REVIEW

SKEWERED: The Coop’s rotisserie-cooked birds.

Yankee ’Cue BY M A RT I N C I Z M A R

mcizmar@wweek.com

The Coop has a setup any new-school barbecue joint would envy. It serves along busy Interstate Avenue, but the back patio is a little oasis, shaded by a big, leafy maple and giving way to neatly manicured patches of crisp, green grass. There’s even a ladder-ball set—you know, for kids. They mostly play Motown. Slow-cooked beef and pork are stacked high on cafeteria trays. Cocktails are $7, and they make a mean plate of greens with crispy bacon bits. The one thing the Coop doesn’t have? Smoke. Now, I know, it’s o bv i o u s l y u n f a i r t o judge the Coop as a barbecue joint, because it’s not. They do rotisserier o a st e d ve r s i o n s o f brisket, pork butt and chicken. Those meats are g enerously portioned. It’s not owner Solomon Florea’s fault that I’ve been conditioned to start salivating for smoke when I see a big pile of brisket and ribs. There are, obviously, many valid ways to slowcook slabs of meat. But in my visits, the Coop is missing the flavors—heat, sweet, smoke, maybe all three— that make a huge hunk of meat desirable. This is the type of food Southerners think Yankees eat when they’re complaining about Yankees. It’s like all the strong flavors were applied by a picky child or an Englishman—which is probably why it’s attracting big family crowds. Let’s start with that brisket, which comes on a single-serving platter for $12, or as part of a meat sampler that will serve two hungry diners for $28. It’s plenty tender, like pot roast, and if you douse it in the house’s sweet, acidic, salsa-ish “cock sauce,” it’d pass for mediocre ’cue. Same with the pulled pork—the flavors in three sliders on the

lunch plate were undetectable. They promised a jalapeño honey sauce, but no one at my table detected it. We just got…meat. Then, some lightly dressed slaw and more meat. I shook on some Frank’s RedHot, and ended up happy enough. The same problem plagued a side of root vegetables. The beets were beautiful shades of purple and fiery orange. But there’s just no seasoning on them—no discernible salt, let alone the sort of subtle spice blend that would really elevate them. The fried-chicken plate ($12), on the other hand, was simply overthought. Three pieces of dark meat were covered in an airy, tempura-style batter. It falls off at the first bite. The golden flakiness wasn’t entirely unpleasant, but it lacked the buttery, almost nutty note that I look for. A brisket sandwich made into a Philly cheese st e a k ( $ 1 1 ) w o r ke d better. The stewy meat benefited greatly from grilled onions and peppers, plus fontina cheese. Get it with a side of sauteed kale—this is the Coop’s version of greens—with a generous sprinkle of crispy bacon. And get a cocktail. The Coop serves admirably stiff and restrained drinks for $7 to $8. They’re not mixologist quality, but in a town where too many restaurants are charging $11 for cocktails made by waitresses with no training as bartenders simply referencing the ingredient list, they’re a nice change of pace. In health-conscious Portland, there’s probably a large market for diners who prefer kale to collards, and who don’t want to subject their colon to smoked meat. Well, Coop it up. However, if you’re one of those people who carry hot sauce in your bag—like Hillary Clinton or Beyoncé—this is not your spot. THOMAS TEAL

COOP’S NON-SMOKING BARBECUE SHOP.

EAT: The Coop, 6214 N Interstate Ave., 503-208-3046, thecooppdx.com. Noon-9 pm Tuesday-Thursday, noon-10 pm Friday, 10 am-10 pm Saturday, 10 am-8 pm Sunday.

Sha

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Shandong www.shandongportland.com

BESIDES YOUR FAMILY… AND YOUR HAPPINESS… AND WORLD PEACE,

SANDWICHES ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING GOING ON RIGHT NOW!

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COMING MAY 9th: A NEW PORTLAND SANDWICH TRADITION BEGINS @ MARTHAS Portland’s Happiest Happy Hours Daily From 4–6pm 1300 SE Stark St. @ Revolution Hall marthaspdx.com :: 503.288.3895 7 days: 7am–10pm Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

MUSIC

Starman Memories

H O WA R D P I T KO W

HOTSEAT

They had just got together, and he said, “You don’t need the band, lose them.” So we never actually went on tour. We never promoted it, we never went on Top of the Pops, we never went on Old Grey Whistle Test. We just dissolved the band, which was insanity after working that hard and being that committed for three, four months. It was a deep low.

PRODUCER TONY VISCONTI TALKS RECORDING, FALLING OUT AND REUNITING WITH DAVID BOWIE. BY DAV E D E P P E R

Did you have a falling out with Bowie at the time over that, or was it, like, business is business? We did have a falling out. We had a disagreement over Defries. I didn’t want to be [Bowie’s] producer anymore as long as he was with [Defries], because I had the strangest feeling I would never get paid. In the end, he took lots and lots of David Bowie’s money from him. I told David that would probably happen, and I was right.

503-243-2122

As a kid, Dave Depper’s parents got him a David Bowie box set for Christmas. He’s still not quite sure why. It’s not like they were huge Bowie fanatics looking to indoctrinate their son. Maybe they figured that, having absorbed the Beatles, it was the next logical step in his pop music education. Either way, that’s where the obsession started—not just with Bowie, but the entire constellation of musicians and producers orbiting around him. When the Starman went back home in January, Depper, a longtime Portland session player who currently plays guitar in Death Cab for Cutie, mourned as deeply as anyone, penning an eloquent remembrance for The Talkhouse blog. So with Bowie’s closest collaborator, producer Tony Visconti, bringing him and drummer Woody Woodmansey’s Holy Holy project to town, to play 1970’s The Man Who Sold the World in full, we invited Depper to interview Visconti about the Thin White Duke’s early career. See the extended Q&A at wweek.com. MATTHEW SINGER. Dave Depper: For context about The Man Who Sold the World, I wanted to go back a few years before, to when you first hooked up with Bowie, in 1967. You’re presented with this opportunity to work with David Bowie, who at the time just wrapped up an impressive string of failures in terms of getting songs on the charts. Did you immediately sense the potential with him, or was this just like, “Here’s this minor artist I’m being saddled with because I’m a novice producer”? Tony Visconti: No, I never felt like that with any artist. I was just so attracted to his voice and his writing. I told the person who suggested we work together that every song he played was completely different from the last. I said, “He’s bouncing all over the wall here.” He said, “Well, that’s why we’d like you to work with him, because you seem to be a specialist in weird artists.” Those were his exact words, because I’d worked with Marc Bolan in his young infant band, Tyrannosaurus Rex. You have to give Great Britain credit: They do respect the eccentric person. So they hadn’t abandoned David, they just wanted someone to make him profitable. That was the idea: How can we sell this strange person? What did you think you needed to bring to what Bowie had to offer? After we met and we spoke about many things, I felt his strength was his 12-string guitar. I heard what he could write on his 12-string guitar and accompany himself. As a standalone artist, he had a good sound and good style. I based my production around that. We had a very minimal rhythm section, and he was capable of doing his own backing vocals. So that’s how we started. And The Man Who Sold the World was my big idea for him. So less than a year later, you and Bowie are recording The Man Who Sold The World, which is almost like the work of an entirely different artist. What do you credit this to?

Well, we didn’t get immediate success. “Space Oddity” was a success, but it was more the record than the artist. When he made that, I told him, “You’ll get a hit. It’s kind of a novelty record, the astronaut in space and all that, but you don’t write that way normally, that just came out of the blue.” But there was something in there, something very inventive, that he didn’t do normally with his 12-string guitar, and it started edging toward another style of writing. And we realized if we’re going to pull this off, we need a better band. We can’t just work with ordinary people. We need to find an extraordinary band. Through the old drummer we were using, we found [guitarist] Mick Ronson. After jamming with him for just 20 minutes, we said, “You’re the man.” I think it was the introduction of Mick Ronson that changed the whole plan. And, of course, Mick recommended his friend, Woody Woodmansey, [to play drums], as a quartet. That was the nucleus. We knew absolutely where we were going from that point onward. And, yes, it sounded like an entirely different artist.

“You have to give Great Britain credit: They do respect the eccentric person.” —Tony Visconti I’m interested in the environment in which you recorded The Man Who Sold the World, in terms of the record company and feeling pressure to build on the success of “Space Oddity.” Did you feel any pressure, like this was your one shot? We didn’t have the kind of A&R men who came much later, which dictated every chorus, every guitar chord, all that ridiculous interruption. I think we had only one visit from an A&R person, who stood there for 15 minutes with their mouth agape, and then said, “OK, carry on boys! Sounds great!” and left. But that wasn’t the problem. They liked the album, they released it, it got great reviews. But it didn’t sell well, for one simple reason: We were actually fired—not by the label, but by Tony Defries, who was David’s manager.

I’m curious about the period between 1980’s TONY VISCONTI Scary Monsters and 2002’s Heathen, when you weren’t working together. This included several albums that are considered to be the low point of Bowie’s output. Was it frustrating for you? Were you thinking, “If only I was behind the boards, this could be avoided”? I did, actually. We didn’t communicate during that period. He went into another one of his sequestered periods where he was only speaking to a small circle of people, and I was left out of that circle for a while. I did look on in amazement on how those records were turning out. They weren’t very good, although there were some great songs. I was so happy when I got that phone call for Heathen, and we were together more or less since then. Did you find it was like riding a bike with him? Had your work habits changed much? No, I think that’s why it works. We got back together and resumed right where we left off. He’s an old friend, so I never quaked in fear when I worked with him, like a lot of younger producers would. “Oh my God, it’s David Bowie.” I always respected him from the day I met him, but at that point in his life he needed that, instead of having a fanboy fawning all over him. He needed to feel relaxed to create a masterpiece like Heathen. Touring with Holy Holy, is there any song you were lukewarm about the first time around that’s come to life playing it this time? We decided to do a medley he did once in 1973. Other members wanted to do it, but it didn’t even sound good to me in 1973. It started out with “Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud” and went into “All the Young Dudes” and ended with “Oh! You Pretty Things.” It was a really complicated attempt to do something like that back then, and I thought, “We’re going to mess this up.” But I wrote it all out in a chart, and I rehearsed them. The first two times we did it, I thought, “I don’t know if we’re crazy trying to do this thing.” But now we do it like an operetta, and it really works. It’s one of the high points of the show. SEE IT: Tony Visconti and Woody Woodmansey’s Holy Holy plays Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., with Jessica Morgan, on Sunday, May 1. 7:30 pm. $29.50 general admission, $44.50 reserved balcony seating. All ages. Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

MUSIC = WW Pick. Highly recommended. Prices listed are sometimes for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply. Event lineups are subject to change after WW’s press deadlines. Editor: MATTHEW SINGER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, go to wweek.com/submitevents and follow submission directions. All shows should be submitted two weeks or more in advance of event. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Please include show or release date information with all physical mailings. Email: msinger@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.

Wild Nothing, Whitney

[DREAM POP] Lately, it seems as if Jack Tatum, the driving force behind Wild Nothing, is more concerned with the feeling of his music than the words. He’s always been known for placing his ’80s-style palette at the forefront, sure, but each subsequent release following his illustrious debut ﬁnds the focus on sound come at the expense of his writing. The disco-tinged Life of Pause is another example. The hazy guitars, the marimba patterns, the knotty conglomerate of synths—all show up center stage, while a wealth of existential pondering ﬁlls the background. Fortunately, it’s easy to get lost in the plush textures and aloof noodling. BRANDON WIDDER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 503231-9663. 9 pm. $15. 21+.

somehow both intimate and majestic. Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally are so good at their niche that their work never needs a wholesale reinvention, just small tweaks to keep things interesting. Both albums the band released last fall, Depression Cherry and the surprise Thank Your Lucky Stars, take the perfect Beach House template—spiraling guitars, organ drone, pitter-patter drummachine soul—and add a little extra edge. If anything, the feedback-laden “Sparks” and the constant chug of “One Thing” show oﬀ a bolder, louder version of the band. It’s still not quite rock music, but it will break your heart nonetheless. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 503-2250047. 8 pm. Sold out. All ages.

CONT. on page 42

THURSDAY, APRIL 28 Beach House, Skyler Skjelset

[HEAVEN OR BALTIMORE] Seasons change, but the world’s best dream-pop band stays the same. I’m being slightly facetious here, but for the past 10 years, Baltimore duo Beach House has perfected a certain sound, a slow-motion longing that’s

TOP

COURTESY OF FLEETMAC WOOD

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27

FIVE GREAT FLEETWOOD MAC DANCE REMIXES, BY DJ ROXANNE ROLL “The Chain” (Antenna Happy Acid Pit Stop mix)

That killer bassline gets dipped in acid by U.K. producer Antenna Happy, and is always a heady moment at our parties.

2 “Dreams” (Psychemagik remix) Premiered at our first party in London in 2012, this delicate reworking exemplifies what we love about remixes done well. Stevie astral-travels to a disco in an alternate universe and hugs the bass bin. Cosmic crystal visions ensue. 3 “Never Going Back Again” (Cosmic Kids edit) Slow and full to the brim with layered Lindsey Buckingham acoustic guitar, this is an unexpected hit on the dance floor that gets everyone stomping and flinging their arms in the air. 4 “Edge of Seventeen” (The Starkiller’s Seventeen Lightyears remix) Slow and brooding with an epic build. Who knew it was possible to add even more drama to a Stevie Nicks song?

5 “You Make Loving Fun” (Trail mix) Deep and cosmic, this version of Christine McVie’s Rumours classic gets sexier every time we play it. Roxanne Roll is the founder of Fleetmac Wood, a DJ collective dedicated to throwing parties based on remixes of Fleetwood Mac songs. SEE IT: Fleetmac Wood presents Tango in the Night Disco at Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., with DJs Roxanne Roll and Smooth Sailing, on Saturday, April 30. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+. 40

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

MUSIC Bombino, Last Good Tooth

[TUAREG JAMS] First introduced to Western audiences through Sublime Frequencies’ Guitars From Agadez series, Bombino has siphoned a life of uncertainty and exile into billowing guitar theatrics. That his voice is relayed in the Tuareg language is of almost no concern—meting out solos or supremely plucked melodies in counterpoint to his singing is enough. As his latest, Azel, vacillates between behind-the-beat rhythms and pieces clearly gleaned from adoration of American rock, it’ll occur to folks that it doesn’t matter who Bombino’s studied with, opened for or recorded alongside. He just seems destined to be onstage with guitar. DAVE CANTOR. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. 9 pm. $20. 21+.

DATES HERE

FRIDAY, APRIL 29 Curtis Salgado

[PORTLAND BLUES] Our mayoral and gubernatorial races rage on, but were it also election season for chief executive of Oregon’s blues scene, the incumbent candidate— Mr. Curtis Salgado—would be swept back into office on the strength of his new album, The Beautiful Lowdown. His eighth collection overall, this is the first where Salgado himself grabs a writing credit on almost every song, and the depth of his emotional investment in the material is evident. The songs are brought to life with vivid, layered production, perfectly poised between raw and polished, as Salgado stuns with his full array of vocal techniques. This stuff deserves a place in music collec-

SHANNON CONRAD

INTRODUCING

Saola WHO: Elliot Jay Cunningham (bass, vocals), Ethan Conrad (guitar, vocals), Zack Trani (guitar, vocals) and Malcolm Luis (drums). FOR FANS OF: Melvins, Black Sabbath, Sleep. SOUNDS LIKE: Baby whales pushing a nuclear submarine into the Mariana Trench. Once upon a time, being a teenager in a heavy-metal band would have been a cause for alarm for parents and schools. Not anymore. “It’s still kinda cool to be in a metal band, but it’s not the same effect as it used to be,” says Ethan Conrad, 17, “especially in Portland, because everyone is in a metal band.” Still, Conrad’s metal band, Saola, is pretty special. In an age bracket that considers the compact disc a medieval format, these four young men have forsaken metalcore and thrash to focus on de rigueur leaden riffage with a level of musicianship far beyond most shredders 20 years their senior. “I got introduced to the Melvins by my dad,” says singerbassist Elliot Jay Cunningham, whose father was an early member of death-metal cultists Black Witchery. Conrad’s gateway was a bit different. “Oh God, it was all bad,” he laughs. “The game Rocksmith got me into ‘diet metal.’ That’s what I call it. Three Days Grace. I got into Avenged Sevenfold.” This summer, Saola will release its debut album, Black Canvas. It’s still in the mixing phase, but even the rough versions display confidence and vision. Guitarist Zack Trani brings bluegrass finesse to the opening arpeggios of “Cosmonaut,” which tumbles into a waltz of descending riffs that recall doom darlings Pallbearer. “The Deep,” on the other hand, is pure pummel, with a wall of sound that lumbers along without straying into the sounds of suburban metal. The only problem: What happens to the band once everyone graduates? “Well, that’s what we’re all kinda worried about,” Conrad says. Drummer Malcolm Luis is moving to Europe this summer, and Trani is going off to college. But the band is resourceful. “We have a hopeful replacement lined up,” Conrad says, referring to the open guitar slot. “He’s a freshman right now. He’s really talented. I taught him lessons for a while. And he, like, looks up to us a lot.” NATHAN CARSON. SEE IT: Saola plays the Black Water Bar, 835 NE Broadway, with Year of Nothing, Gidrah, and Where Lovers Rot, on Sunday, May 1. 7 pm. $5. All ages. 42

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

DATES HERE PROFILE LESTER TSAI

tions nationwide, alongside the best work of Boz Scaggs or Van Morrison. Up next: Salgado for President! JEFF ROSENBERG. Jimmy Mak’s, 221 NW 10th Ave., 503-295-6542. 8 pm Friday-Saturday, April 29-30. $20 advance, $30 reserved seating. Under 21 permitted until 9:30 pm.

!A PLACE FOR FRIENDS AND FUN!

Tortoise, Life Coach

[POST-ROCK PIONEERS] The breezy, enigmatic, mostly instrumental groove Tortoise has employed through almost three decades is a genre completely its own. Combining elements of post-rock, dub, jazz and electronic music, the band has released inventive and wholly original records consistently throughout its career. Spoiler alert: Tortoise’s latest, The Catastrophist, is another dense, rewarding masterpiece. With its back catalog recently reissued on vinyl, it’s an optimal time for anyone unfamiliar with them to dive deep into a stellar discography. CRIS LANKENAU. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., No. 110. $18 advance, $20 day of show. 21+.

SATURDAY, APRIL 30 Bleached, No Parents

[RAW POWER] The three women of Bleached pride themselves on the three-chord simplicity of their music. That’s not a slight, but a compliment, rooted in Jessica and Jennifer Clavin’s keen ability to pair direct melodies with feel-good mantras that tackle disillusioned youth, like a modern Joan Jett hell-bent on exposing the clichés and follies of L.A. millennials. There’s a steely conﬁdence to the group’s second garage-pop venture, Welcome the Worms, which, when pitted against the crunching guitars and the album’s surprising optimism, might lead one to believe they’ve been at the game longer than just a few years. BRANDON WIDDER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 503-2319663. 9 pm. $12. 21+.

Portland Cello Project

[CANON BELLE] Although members of the Portland Cello Project have been devout supporters of the Old Church throughout their miraculous rise from chamber-music novelty act to classically-trained, rawk-tested phenomenon over the past decade— using the deconsecrated hall to record instrumental Kanye covers for a 2011 Kill Rock Stars EP—the local troupe’s spiraling fame typically requires a larger stage these days. But such intimate environs should prove ideal for a pair of programs showcasing the disparate sensibilities of two leading lights from the talented collective. Continuing along the more thoughtful approach of 2013 album Winter, Friday’s concert promises an improv-fueled elaboration of works by Richard Thompson sideman, Denmark composer and PCP mainstay Gideon Freudmann, and Saturday’s cello-centric renditions of orchestral evergreens should allow symphonic soloist Diane Chaplin to, ahem, take a bow. JAY HORTON. The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave. 8 pm Friday-Saturday, April 29-30. $25 day of show, $40 reserved seating. All ages.

SUNDAY, MAY 1 Floating Points, Idris Ackamoor and the Pyramids

[GROOVE SWEET] Though technically dance music, Floating Points, led by Sam Shepherd, stylistically ebbs through atmospheric synthphonics, contrasted with grooving uptempo numbers. After a series of EPs that teased at Shepherd’s ambition, Floating Points’ debut LP, Elaenia, released via David Byrne’s Luaka Bop imprint, showcases the project realized as a full band, fusing disparate session musicians and producers, including members of Hot Chip, iconic Ethiopian lounge-jazz maestro Mulatu Astatke and Matthew Herbert. The resulting product is a

CONT. on page 45

No Cover Charge

COASTLANDS

The NW Post-Rock Collective THURSDAY, APRIL 28 It’s usually lame to ask musicians to describe their “sound.” It oversimplifies something that they’ve probably agonized to perfect, and most musicians have an aversion to being labeled at all. The NW Post-Rock Collective, on the other hand, is a network of several local bands that all identify wholeheartedly with the “post-rock” genre and seem to have no problem standing in solidarity under its umbrella. But then, that poses another question: How exactly do you describe “post-rock,” anyway? “Traditional rock instruments used to make music that’s not traditional rock” is Jordan Householder of Coastlands’ definition of the style, which is typically instrumental. “It’s more about the music than a conventional band with a singer who’s driving it or an ego driving it.” The term is usually ascribed to two different kinds of bands. There’s the high-volume, orchestral, melodic branch pioneered by Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. Then there’s the jazzier, more progressive kind purveyed by the likes of Tortoise. The common characteristic seems to be bare-bones, simplistic melody in its most reductive, melancholic form. Some emphasize the effect of a few notes with volume, others with precise repetition. Many use extended song lengths to heighten the gravitas. Most are instrumental. To put it one way, if post-punk is nihilistic atheism, post-rock is agnostic Buddhism. Regardless of the specifics, every one of the NW Post-Rock Collective’s dozen members passionately embraces the concept as a whole. The group was created with a specific agenda: not only to find other like-minded musicians with similar aesthetics, but also to correct misconceptions and promote an oftenmisunderstood genre on a local level. “It’s a little avant-garde. It can be a little more challenging to access sometimes,” says Dayna Sanders of A Collective Subconscious. “We knew there had to be people out there making this music.” After the creation of a Facebook community through which various musicians and bands could network and promote shows, the group’s ambitions grew in proportion with the page’s membership. “We’re very intentional in terms of pooling resources, label activity, booking shows, cross-promotion, compilation albums, putting out vinyl,” Sanders says. Long Hallways’ Joseph Chamberlain says Elephant 6—the psychedelic Athens, Ga., artist collective that thrived in the ’90s and produced Neutral Milk Hotel and Olivia Tremor Control— was a key inspiration. “They put a logo on it,” he says. “If someone finds a band, they look at the logo and ask, ‘What is this all about?’ and from there you discover other music. I wanted the group as a whole to benefit each other. If one person succeeds, everyone comes along a little bit. That’s the intention of the collective. America is programmed to identify branding imagery with success. So why not give ourselves that?” CRIS LANKENAU.

Meet the Elephant 6 of post-rock.

Karaoke nightly till 2:30am www.chopstickskaraoke.com

(503) 234-6171 3390 NE Sandy Blvd 535 NE Columbia Blvd

SEE IT: The NW Post-Rock Showcase featuring Coastlands, Long Hallways, A Collective Subconscious, Another Neighbor, Disappeared and Compass & Knife is at Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., on Thursday, April 28. 7 pm. $7. 21+. Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

MUSIC dance-funk masterpiece that electrifies as a future shock in the vein of Herbie Hancock’s astral jazz, which will be represented through a sevenpiece band. WYATT SCHAFFNER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 503-231-9663. 9 pm. $15. 21+.

TUESDAY, MAY 3 Napalm Death, Melvins, Melt-Banana

[FAST, SLOW, HEAVY] Napalm Death made its name as one of the fastestplaying bands in the world. In contrast, Melvins practically invented the idea of playing molten rock music at painfully slow tempos. Both bands continue to push boundaries and release creative new music. This tour is a brilliant study in contrasts and a celebration of longevity. Opening the show is Japanese spastic art-grind duo Melt-Banana, another uncompromising stalwart. NATHAN CARSON. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave. 8 pm. $20 advance, $25 day of show. All ages.

CLASSICAL, JAZZ & WORLD Oregon Symphony: The Music of John Williams

[MOVIE MAGIC] Once all the boomers kick the bucket, John Williams will be the most popular classical composer of all—and that’s probably a good thing. A legendary sonic scrapbooker, Williams borrowed heavily from Holst and Stravinsky for Star Wars, Howard Hanson for E.T. and Tchaikovsky for Home Alone, and that makes him an important musical trickster. The elder composer, whose music will be played to an unusually young audience at the Schnitz, is classical music’s compost. Williams stupefies audiences with new takes on vintage sounds, and curates a deep love for varied classical composers that will help his beloved genre stay alive forever, whether fans realize it or not. PARKER HALL. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 503-248-4335. 7:30 pm Friday, April 29. Sold out.

Nik Bärtsch’s Mobile

[EURO JAZZ] A Swiss composer whose swirling, experimental compositions are aptly described in his band’s chosen surname, Nik Bärtsch and his Mobile demonstrate the heady sounds that come as a byproduct of longstanding quality music education in Europe. As much an obvious fan of Steve Reich as he is of Thelonious Monk, the pianist and his band explore with a purpose, highlighting the place where contemporary classical music and groovy jazz rhythms easily combine. A virtuosic ensemble leader with deep musical ideas perfectly performed onstage, Bärtsch’s third album, Continuum, is a sort of magical gobetween—as equally suited to an art gallery as festival stage. PARKER HALL. Alberta Abbey, 126 NE Alberta St. 7 pm Sunday, May 1. $20 advance, $25 day of show. All ages.

Fear No Music presents Corey Dargel and Cornelius Dufallo

[PSYCHOCLASSICAL] By day, Cornelius Dufallo is a psychotherapist in New York. But sometimes, he transforms into a new-music violinist with adventurous ensembles like Ethel or the Flux Quartet. Both professions will come in handy when he performs in the Portland premiere of the half-hour original song cycle, Every Day Is the Same Day. Written by new-music ensemble Fear No Music’s other guest, composer and singer Corey Dargel, it deals (humorously and otherwise) with depression, loneliness, love and its opposite. BRETT CAMPBELL. Alberta Rose, 3000 NE Alberta St. 8 pm Sunday, May 1. $10-$30. Under 21 permitted with legal guardian.

For more Music listings, visit

dates here ALBUM REVIEWS

Kyle Craft DOLLS OF HIGHLAND (Sub Pop) [DYLAN OF THE DIVE] Yo u c a n t a k e a m a n out of Shreveport, but whatever’s in the water there tends to stick. The Louisiana town is the birthplace of Lead Belly and helped nurture Jerry Lee Lewis, and it’s also where troubadour songwriter Kyle Craft started out. Now he’s settled in Portland, where he realized his first full album, Dolls of Highland. But while Craft may have left his hometown, he brought some of that spunky bayou spirit with him. The record gives the traditional breakup song a Dylanish parlor-room treatment, thanks to familiar guitar hooks and lively piano riffs. Craft’s monstrous delivery is that of a true frontman—slightly glammy and theatrical. It’s a voice capable of crushing everything in its path, including, in certain instances, his bandmates—perhaps his only liability. Mainly, it’s the rattled howling of someone who’s seen a million truths, set to jangly, chest-beating, after-midnight folk rock. There’s the melancholy, accordion-adorned ballad “Lady of the Ark” and country-inspired “Jane Beat the Reaper.” Meanwhile, raucous and timeless “Future Midcity Massacre” sounds like something that would have exploded minds during a prominent 1960s folk festival. There’s a daydreaming, nomadic feel to Dolls of Highland that’s probably a reflection of Craft’s own experience. Hopefully he’s here to stay. MARK STOCK. SEE IT: Kyle Craft plays Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., with Máscaras and Animal Eyes, on Friday, April 29. 8 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.

N e t w ork - CoNNe Ct - Share New and used, vintage and collectable acoustic and electric guitars, basses, amplifiers, and more! Special Guest Artist Appearance’s, Door Prizes, Gourmet on the Go Food Truck, and you. SuNDAy, MAy 1ST, 2016 10am to 4pm Washington County Fair Complex 873 NE 34th Ave. Hillsboro, OR. 97124 Westside MAX line—Fair Complex Station facebook.com/oregonmusicexpo

NEWS CULTURE MAPS REVIEWS

ThePotlander.com

Mo Troper and the Assumptions BELOVED (Good Cheer)

[GEEK RAGE] Mo Troper is mad as hell, and he’s not going to take it anymore. What is “it,” exactly ? Well, what do you got? Jerkwad concert promoters with overinflated egos? Artists of medium talent thriving in a world of lowered standards? Maybe his own lame-ass friends, always looking for the next party when he just wants to go home and watch Star Wars? While his previous projects edged too close to emo revivalism for his own comfort, on his debut album under his own name, Troper repositions himself as Portland’s angry young man, venting his spleen over classic, big-chord power pop that nods to the Raspberries and Rubinoos in its pleading melodies and Elvis Costello in its intellectual viciousness. “You’re not smart, you’re not funny/You’re pretentious and humorless/ But don’t worry, you’re still pretty,” he howls on “Somebody Special,” to an ex long out of earshot, his strained adolescent whine accompanied by only a low-pulsing bassline. It’s the sort of hurtful thing you feel bad about in the morning, but Troper is done disguising his worst impulses. “You’re gonna be disappointed/ When the paint starts peeling away,” he sings on “Paint,” a song he’s said is about the exhaustion that comes from concealing one’s flaws. With Beloved, Troper makes no attempt to cover up the ugliest sides of himself. And you can’t be disappointed with that. MATTHEW SINGER. SEE IT: Mo Troper and the Assumptions play the Know, 2026 NE Alberta St., with Blowout and U Sco, on Sunday, May 1. 8 pm. $6. 21+. Troper also plays Velo Cult, 1969 NE 42nd Ave., with Mr. Bones, Little Star and Alien Boys, on Monday, May 2. 7 pm. $5. All ages. Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

MUSIC CALENDAR

WED. APRIL 27 Alberta Street Pub

1036 NE Alberta St Dove Driver • Fresh Tracks

Al’s Den at Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave Kory Quinn

Corkscrew

1665 SE Bybee Blvd Laura Cunard Trio

Dante’s

350 West Burnside SCOTT BIRAM & Jesse Dayton with Guests

Doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. Wild Nothing, Whitney

High Water Mark Lounge

6800 NE MLK Ave Hang The Old Year, Slow Code, Brave Hands

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. HOUSE OF AQUARIUS PRESENTS A TRIBUTE TO ERYKAH BADU

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. The Christopher Brown Quartet; Mel Brown Quartet

Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. The Secret Sea, Whales Whailing, Matthew Fountain and the Whereabouts

Landmark Saloon

4847 SE Division St, Miller and Sasser’s Twelve Dollar Band; Jake Ray and the Cowdog’s

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave Tallulah’s Daddy

The Goodfoot

2845 SE Stark St BUDDY JAY’S JAMAICAN JAZZ BAND, THE BANDALUS

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St CINDERBLOCK (Boston) // DEAD HUNT // MACHO BOYS

The Old Church

1422 SW 11th Ave 45th Parallel presents The Florestan Trio and Friends

THURS. APRIL 28 Aladdin Theater

3017 SE Milwaukie Ave Three Nights, Todd Snider

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

[APRIL 27-MAY 3]

For more listings, check out wweek.com.

The Analog Cafe

RICK VODICKA

NOTHING COMPARES: (This is an excerpt from a review of Prince’s final Portland concert, at Roseland Theater on April 21, 2013.) At about 11:40 pm, the lights lowered, the curtains drew back, and there he was: All 5-foot-something of him, a few odd creases lining his otherwise immaculately preserved 54-year-old face, sporting a short Afro that basketball fans might refer to as “the young Kobe.” Over monstrous chords from his threepiece, all-female backing band, Prince sauntered forward, whipped off his overcoat, picked up the guitar and joined in on what was revealed to be a lurching, chopped-and-screwed mutation of 1984’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” It sounded nothing like the synth-gospel original, but it didn’t matter: Once the overwhelmed crowd realized what it was hearing, it sang along with a mix of orgiastic, rafter-rattling glee and sheer, slack-jawed awe. Stripping his usual R&B orchestra down to rock-band size, the purpose of this West Coast club tour—and the songs he’s recently leaked featuring his newly assembled supporting trio, 3rd Eye Girl—is for Prince to reintroduce himself as a God of Thunder, and he hardly separated from his ax the entire set, never going more than a few seconds, seemingly, without unleashing a skin-breaking solo. It was such a rare, wild treat that the actual set list is besides the point. No matter how wanky things got, Prince himself was never less than captivating. He didn’t talk much, instead communicating through smirks and suggestive glances. Toward the end, he was loosened up enough to briefly hand over his beloved guitar to the front row. You couldn’t leave saying you knew Prince any better, but you could certainly say you spent some time with him. MATTHEW SINGER. See the full review at wweek.com.

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.

720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. EMERY

The Analog Cafe

720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Kris Delmhorst

The Firkin Tavern

1937 SE 11th Ave Each Both//Color Bar

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St ThirstyCity

The Old Church

1422 SW 11th Ave Mississippi Studios present Portland Cello Project – Innovation: Featuring Gideon Freudman

The Secret Society

116 NE Russell St The Pearls

Valentines

232 SW Ankeny St Die Robot + Kill Frankie + Queen Chief

White Eagle Saloon

836 N Russell St Fergheart hosted by Paul Trubachik, Dr. Soll & the Squids

Wonder Ballroom 128 NE Russell St. Say Anything

SAT. APRIL 30 Alberta Rose

3000 NE Alberta St Heart Like a Wheel: Linda Ronstadt Tribute Concert

Al’s Den at Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave Kory Quinn

Clinton Street Theater 2522 SE Clinton St Rock N Roll Mamas

Dante’s

350 West Burnside THAT 1 GUY

Doug Fir Lounge

830 E Burnside St. Bleached, No Parents

Duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave Boyd Small Band

Hawthorne Theatre

Alberta Rose 3000 NE Alberta St An Evening with Gene Luen Yang

Al’s Den at Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave Kory Quinn

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

1037 SW Broadway Mohsin Hamid

BRIX Tavern

1338 NW Hoyt St BRIX TURNS 5!

Bunk Bar

1028 SE Water Ave. Michael Nau

Crush Bar

1400 SE Morrison Brassy Butterfly Presents: No Gravity

Crystal Ballroom

1332 W Burnside St Beach House

Doug Fir Lounge 830 E Burnside St. The Subways

Hawthorne Theatre

1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd. Natural Vibrations

High Water Mark Lounge

6800 NE MLK Ave Antecessor/Lone Elder/ Ruidoso

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. NW POST-ROCK SHOWCASE

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown B3 Organ Group; Chance Hayden

Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. The Rakes

Landmark Saloon

4847 SE Division St, Rachel Mann Band

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave Red Yarn; Hungry Hungry Hip Hop

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Blackbird Blackbird, Chad Valley

Star Theater

13 NW 6th Ave. Bombino, Last Good Tooth

The Analog Cafe

720 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

THE CITY HALL, THE COFOUNDER

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

The Goodfoot

1037 SW Broadway Oregon Symphony: The Music of John Williams

2845 SE Stark St SCOTT LAW BAND, RABBIT WILDE

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St Acapulco Lips, Ronnie Haines, The Goobs

The Secret Society

116 NE Russell St Thursday Swing featuring Doug & Dee’s Hot Lovin’ Jazz Babies, Stumptown Swing

Valentines

232 SW Ankeny St NOURISH THE YOUTH with ALKI, Aspen Koch

White Eagle Saloon

836 N Russell St Laney Jones & The Spirits

FRI. APRIL 29 Alberta Rose

3000 NE Alberta St Sepiatonic presents Bridge The Gap

Alberta Street Pub

1036 NE Alberta St Scratchdog Stringband

Bossanova Ballroom 722 E Burnside St. The Heavy

Dante’s

Aerial Ruin, Horse Cult, Solace, Gwydion Sun, Ilana Hamilton

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Curtis Salgado

Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. The Hot LZ’s

1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd. Urchin, San Lorenzo, Exkizofrenia & My First Mind at Hawthorne Theatre Lounge 4/30

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Curtis Salgado!

Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. Radio Hot Tub Presents: Kool Stuff Katie, Comanche Joey, Trick Sensei

350 West Burnside THE RUNDOWN with Speaker Minds, Bad Habitat, Cool Nutz, and Sleep

Landmark Saloon

4847 SE Division St, Aarun and Jonathan; Red Simpson tribute with Mario Carboni

Landmark Saloon

Doug Fir Lounge

Mississippi Pizza

Mississippi Studios

830 E Burnside St. Kyle Craft

Duff’s Garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave Johnny Boyd

First United Methodist Church 1838 SW Jefferson St. Portland Columbia Symphony

Hawthorne Theatre

3552 N Mississippi Ave John Rankin; Echo Pearl Varsity 3939 N Mississippi Ave. Day Wave

Panic Room

3100 NE Sandy Blvd Lightning Rules, Reason to Rebel, Hutson

Revolution Hall

1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd. Duncan Trussell

1300 SE Stark St #110 Tortoise, Life Coach

High Water Mark Lounge

13 NW 6th Ave. Gin Wigmore, Matthew Santos

6800 NE MLK Ave

Star Theater

4847 SE Division St, Johnny 7 & The Black Crabs; Pistol Creek 3552 N Mississippi Ave Chuck Cheesman; Bellows Bridge 3939 N Mississippi Ave. Hippo Campus, Riothorse Royale

Roseland Theater

8 NW 6th Ave DigiTour Spring Break 2016

Star Theater

13 NW 6th Ave. PHREAKSHOW

The Analog Cafe

720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. BOLLYWOOD DANCE PARTY

1937 SE 11th Ave Drunk on Pines, Primary Structures

The Goodfoot

2845 SE Stark St Object Heavy & Asher Fulero Band

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St Death Eyes (CA) // Rabbits // Heavy Hands

First united Methodist Church

1838 SW Jefferson St. May Day Worker’s Cabaret

landmark saloon

4847 SE Division St, Ian Miller and Friends!

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave Thomas Price, Ragon Lindell; Honey Divers

116 NE Russell St The Moth StorySLAM Portland at The Secret Society

Valentines

232 SW Ankeny St TAJI with Sympathy and the Lion, Johanna Warren

Tues. MAY 3

The Old Church

Mt. hood Community College

Alberta street Pub

The secret society

Panic Room

dante’s

Rontoms

duff’s Garage

1422 SW 11th Ave Mississippi Studios presents Portland Cello Project – Virtuosi: Diane Chaplin 116 NE Russell St The Sportin’ Lifers,The Midnight Serenaders, Bridgetown Sextet

Turn! Turn! Turn!

8 NE Killingsworth St Jagula/Rllrbll/The Welfare State

Valentines

232 SW Ankeny St QUAZ

white eagle saloon 836 N Russell St Garcia Birthday Band

suN. MAY 1 Alberta Abbey

126 NE Alberta St Nik Bärtsch’s Mobile

Alberta Rose

3000 NE Alberta St fEARnoMUSIC presents Corey Dargel and Cornelius Dufallo

Arlene schnitzer Concert hall

1037 SW Broadway Portland Youth Philharmonic Spring Concert

Black water Bar

835 NE Broadway Saola, Year of Nothing, Gidrah, Where Lovers Rot

Bossanova Ballroom

26000 SE Stark St., Gresham, Oregon 97030 Portland Columbia Symphony 3100 NE Sandy Blvd Shattered Union 600 E Burnside St RONTOMS SUNDAY SESSIONS: Planned Parenthood Benefit Show with Bitch’n, Mope Grooves, Susan[LA]

Roseland Theater

8 NW 6th Ave Tony Visconti & Woody Woodmansey’s Holy Holy, Jessica Morgan

The Know

The secret society 116 NE Russell St 7 on 7

Valentines

232 SW Ankeny St BRUT

MON. MAY 2 dante’s

350 West Burnside KARAOKE FROM HELL

landmark saloon

dante’s

Mississippi Pizza

830 E Burnside St. Floating Points, Idris Ackamoor and the Pyramids

duff’s Garage

1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd. Kvelertak

high water Mark lounge

6800 NE MLK Ave WORKDEATH // The Body // Redneck // Gordon Ashworth

221 NW 10th Ave. Dan Balmer Trio 4847 SE Division St, Lorna Miller and Walter Cryderman 3552 N Mississippi Ave Mr. Ben

Mississippi studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Seratones

The Analog Cafe

720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. “FREE MARIJUANA MONDAYS” w/ Gothique Blend

The Goodfoot

221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown Septet; Grant High School Jazz Band 4847 SE Division St, Honky Tonk Union

laurelThirst Public house 2958 NE Glisan St Lee Bob & The Truth

Mississippi Pizza

3552 N Mississippi Ave Jonathan Pierce; Baby Ketten Karaoke

Mississippi studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Octopus Books Turns 10 Fundraiser

Panic Room

3100 NE Sandy Blvd The Convalescence, So This Is Suffering

Roseland Theater

8 NW 6th Ave Napalm Death, Melvins, Melt-Banana

star Theater

13 NW 6th Ave. THE VON TRAPPS

The Analog Cafe

720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. “ULTRA MAGNETIC”

The Goodfoot

2845 SE Stark St BOYS 2 GENTLEMEN (Free!)

The Old Church 1422 SW 11th Ave

2845 SE Stark St Sonic Forum

Where to drink this week. 1. Bible Club

6716 SE 16th Ave., 971-2792198, bibleclubpdx.com. Bible Club is a theme bar so dedicated it flips the script and becomes oddly authentic, with just about every item in the bar a pre-Prohibition artifact, from tables to antique crystal to a pinking device used to make orange twists. And the cocktails are flawless.

2. Teutonic Wine Co.

3303 SE 20th Ave., 503-235-5053, teutonicwines.com. Some of the finest and most singular urban wine, from riesling to complex pinot noir, is now available in a handmade bar, and often served by its winemakers and owners to the soundtrack of ambient Stereolab or German butt rock.

3. Neat

2637 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-267-2800. The former Prettyman’s General opened out its space, got seating that made sense, and has begun filling its bar with barnwood, portraits of mustached ladies and a vast selection of well-made cocktails and very fine whiskeys. Canadian whiskey is banned, but Pappy 12-year is $18.

4. Railside

5301 NE Portland Highway, 503-282-8000. Railside is a beautiful sleeper of a dive bar nestled next to passing sleeper cars on nearby train tracks, with cheap-as-sin Buoy beer that’s $3 at happy hour and a Camaro on jacks permanently pointed at the bar’s patio like a drawing on a PeeChee.

5. Pop Tavern

825 N Killingsworth St., 503-206-8483. Pop Tavern has a solid $5 tap list featuring Pfriem and the Commons, a $6.50 burger (with fries!) that’s meaty as hell, and a back patio. Like the bar equivalent of a good rug, Pop Tavern really ties the neighborhood together amid Ardor, Dynasty and Florida Room, so maybe you can say “Killingsworth” the same way you already say “Alberta.”

S H Aw N B R A C K B i L L

2530 NE 82nd Ave Bakersfield Rejects; Boyd Small Band

hawthorne Theatre

landmark saloon

Crystal Ballroom

doug Fir lounge

2530 NE 82nd Ave Dusty Rust

The Old Church

Jimmy Mak’s

350 West Burnside CLOUD CITY CIRCUS VARIETY SHOW! followed by Sinferno Cabaret

350 West Burnside JABBA THE WHUTT?

Jimmy Mak’s

722 E Burnside St. May Monthly Music Showcase

1332 W Burnside St A Special Night with Andy Mineo

1036 NE Alberta St Siren & The Sea • Eugene Ugly • There Is No Mountain

2026 NE Alberta St Mo Troper and the Assumptions, Blowout, U Sco 1422 SW 11th Ave The Glory Singers presents España – Spain Kickoff Concert

BAR REVIEW

The secret society

HENRY CROMETT

The Firkin Tavern

FIFTH ATTEMPT: When we walked to the Nob Hill side-street oyster and friedchicken bar The Waiting Room (2327 NW Kearney St., 503-477-4380), there were three dudes parked on their keisters out front, slushies in hand, so sun-baked they looked as if they’d been there for days. “What the hell is that place?” one asked, pointing to the neon pelican sign. “Isn’t that the sixth place in that spot in like four years?” Well, no. It’s actually only the fifth place in six years—after Northwest Public House, Huckleberry Pub, and the Peddler and Pen all quickly closed in the wake of Laurelwood at the out-of-the-way location. And the Waiting Room has already had to change its name. The former pop-up, staffed by two former chefs at downtown’s Red Star Tavern, was Pelican’s Waiting Room until Pelican Brewing sued for trademark infringement on its grand-opening day. The Waiting Room has painted every corner bright, upgraded the stools and tables to Victorian-luxe, and thrown down handmade pottery for plates, eliminating the odd dreariness of Peddler. It’s now a sunny-day nook featuring fried chicken and oysters and high-end cocktails, not to mention a pleasant $4 charred cauliflower appetizer. The oysters aren’t listed by type, just by preparation—$3 apiece for half-shell, barbecue or “Northwest style” with smoked salmon and wasabi. The grilled oyster comes in a much larger shell than it was born in, swimming in acidic sauce that comes across stewy. There’s a decent selection of sparkling wine by the glass, with an effervescent, dry Italian for $8. The cocktails are all double digits, with a Buffalo Trace and Miller High Life pony boilermaker hiked inexplicably to $10, while a refreshing grapefruit-Aperol-Tanqueray Pelican’s PickMe-Up justified the same price—a sunny-afternoon drink suitable for the domestic spot’s patio. But not quite hungry enough for the whole fried chicken ($25), we didn’t linger long at the Waiting Room. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

The lovecraft Bar

421 SE Grand Ave Taurus Party with DJs Carrion and Miz Margo

sAT. APRil 30 The lovecraft Bar

wed. APRil 27 dig A Pony

736 SE Grand Ave. The Ambassador (soul, Latin, Brazilian)

The lovecraft Bar

421 SE Grand Ave Psychopomp with Ogo Eion (drone, eclectic non-mainstream music)

ThuRs. APRil 28 dig A Pony

736 SE Grand Ave. Discogs and XRAY.fm present For the Record with Morning Remorse, Cuica, Rev Shines

Moloko

Beach house plays Crystal Ballroom on Thursday, April 28.

3967 N. Mississippi Ave. Benjamin

421 SE Grand Ave Shadowplay (EBM, goth, industrial, darkwave)

FRi. APRil 29 dig A Pony

736 SE Grand Ave. Battles and Lamar (freestyle, electro, boogie)

holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. SNAP! ‘90s Dance Party with Dr. Adam, Colin Jones, Freaky Outty

Moloko

3967 N. Mississippi Ave. Monkeytek & Friends (Jamaican music)

The Goodfoot

2845 SE Stark St Soul Stew with DJ Aquaman and Friends (funk, soul, disco, break beats)

dig A Pony

736 SE Grand Ave. Maxx Bass

holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Fleetmac Wood presents Tango in the Night Disco

Killingsworth dynasty

DigiTour Spring Break 2016

The lovecraft Bar 421 SE Grand Ave Glam Rock Party

suN. MAY 1 Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. KPSU presents Live DJs (bar)

The lovecraft Bar

421 SE Grand Ave DJ Buckmaster presents Sad Day

MON. MAY 2 Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. Eye Candy VJs

The lovecraft Bar 421 SE Grand Ave Murder Mass Dance Party

Tues. MAY 3 The lovecraft Bar

421 SE Grand Ave BONES w/ DJ Aurora

832 N Killingsworth St. Electric Dreams w/ DJ Drew Groove & DJ Acid Rick (new wave, synth, disco, boogie) The liquor store 3341 SE Belmont St, SubSensory Presents SONESubSensory Showcase with Sone

Moloko

3967 N. Mississippi Ave. Lamar LeRo

Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

Music. The perfect gift for Mother’s Day ALL TITLES JUST $ 4.99

Mozart For Your Mind Puccini And Pasta Mozart For Meditation For Your Baby For the hopeless Romantic For A Sunday Morning Mozart For Mothers To Be Beethoven For Bedtime Debussy For Day Dreaming Mozart At Midnight Bach For Breakfast Rachmaninoff For Romance Bach At Bedtime Mozart In The Morning Beethoven For Babies More Mozart For Your Mind Baroque At Bathtime Beethoven For Books

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

Chopin And Champagne Mozart For Morning Coffee Bach For Babies Tchaikovsky For Tea Time Brahms At Bedtime Mozart For Mornings Liszt For Lovers Mozart For Monday Adagios For Afternoons Debussy At Dawn Baroque For Beauty For Your Wedding For A Quiet Evening For A Rainy Day For Book Lovers For When You’re Alone For Yoga For Your Soul

E M I LY J O A N G R E E N E

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

THEATER & VARIETY OPENINGS & PREVIEWS Bella Culpa

Family-friendly, physical-comedy duo A Little Bit Oﬀ channels old-school silent ﬁlms in this show about a butler and a maid. Dressed like Downton Abbey servants in clown makeup, they do vaudeville and slapstick antics like Charlie Chaplin. Echo Theater, 1515 SE 37th Ave., 503-231-1232. 7:30 pm Saturday, April 30. $20.

NEW FOREVER: Kristine Levine in front of the immortal New Copper Penny.

Levine Town

The Devil and Billy Markham

Shel Silverstein’s one-man show about Good versus Evil is back. Local thespian Jonah Weston reprises his pet project, which he’s been touring for the last six years. It’s an intimate show that feels like dark story time in an even darker bar, where Weston tells you about a regular Joe who beats the devil. He plays God, Satan and sleazy scum-bags in the Silverstein poem that ﬁrst published in Playboy in the 70s. Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971-333-1758. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, April 29-30. $12-$15.

Into the Beautiful North

Narcotraﬁcantes threaten a tiny Mexican village in this comi-drama based on Pulitzer-nominee Luís Alberto Urrea’s novel of the same name. A plucky heroine, Nayeli, is the crux of the action. She leaves home in search of the strongest ﬁghters to protect her town, following the female-lead trend that Milagro Theatre’s riding this season. Decorated D.C. playwright Karen Zacarías, who won the National Latino Playwriting Award for Mariela in the Desert, penned the script, and she’s currently working on a play for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival while this adaptation debuts in Portland. GRACE CULHANE. Milagro Theatre, 525 SE Stark St., 503-2367253, 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday and 2 pm Sundays, April 28-May 28. $30.

Peter and the Starcatcher

This belly-laughing Broadway show traces Peter Pan’s origin story. It’s all pirates gags and mermaid coves, with the Playhouse decked out like the decks of two ships, The Neverland and The Wasp. We’d expect to gag on a “swashbuckling, family-friendly” show that’s “like a love song to the power of the imagination,” according to the codirector, until you read the credits. Co-directors Brian Weaver and Rebecca Lingafelter pilot a cast including Third Rail leader Isaac Lamb, Crumpet the Elf aka Darius Pierce, Duﬀy Epstein and the infallible Chip Sherman. Portland Playhouse, 602 NE Prescott St., 503-4885822. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Saturday, 2 pm Sundays. April 30-May 29. $20-$36.

Worth My Salt

Drag-clown queen Cherdonna Shinatra puts on a spectacle of dance-theatercomedy. Wearing a wig that looks like a troll doll, a crocheted gown with pom-pom breasts and glitter eye shadow up to her hairline, Shinatra seems like an explosion of kitsch. The premise is deeper, though; inspired by Carl Sagan and Diane Keaton, this Seattle act is meant to explode gender norms. Portland Center Stage, 128 NW 11th Ave., 503-4453700. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday and 5 pm Sunday, April 29-May 1. $15-$40.

CONT. on page 50

KRISTINE LEVINE KNOWS WHY HOMELESS PEOPLE DON’T CARE ABOUT THEIR POOP. BY M ARTI N C I Z M A R

mcizmar@wweek.com

Kristine Levine thinks she may have done this to herself. Well, partly. She is not responsible for the rheumatoid arthritis that half-prompted her move to Tucson this week. But the blue-collar comedian—it’s not unfair to call Levine a blond, post-millennial Roseanne Barr—may have some complicity in the rising rents in Lents, the deep-Southeast neighborhood where she’s spent most of her life. As a regular character on Portlandia, she’s done her part to raise the city’s profile and draw an influx of newcomers. “Me being on the show, maybe I helped gentrify myself out,” Levine says. “Maybe I contributed to my own leaving. I worked on the show for six years. I helped get people to move in who love it as much as we do—and now they’re here, and I have to go. Seems like bullshit, doesn’t it?” A lot of Levine’s life seems like a slog through bullshit. Her recently completed TV pilot is called Life Is Ass, and it’s hard to argue with the perspective. In a comedy scene dominated by bearded guys in corduroys telling jokes about cats, pot, Tinder and Applebee’s, Levine is an outlier. As a little girl, she says her mother left her in the car in the parking lot of the nearby New Copper Penny while Mom got drunk and picked up guys. Levine’s pilot is about her life after splitting from her husband, who left her for a woman he met on StarTrek.com, and about how she supported herself as a clerk at a neighborhood porn store. She speaks fondly about Lents—even the old-school motorcycle gang clubhouse. “Like, a real one!” she says. “A real badass motorcycle gang.”

But she recently left the neighborhood’s Facebook group after a flame war about the Springwater Corridor, “the Avenue of Terror” that passes one of the city’s largest and roughest homeless encampments. A neighbor posted a photo of garbage and needles along the path with a derogatory comment. “Everyone was telling this man, ‘Hey, these are homeless people!’” Levine says. “They were being very Portlandy about it. ‘Hey, we’ve gotta get help from the city!’ and ‘Why don’t you just try to do some outreach? If you got to know them…’” Levine was not having any of it.

“Do meth for ﬁve years, then talk to me about caring where your poop goes.” —Kristine Levine

“I’m like, ‘Hey, these are not just families that are displaced and have nowhere to go. We’re not talking about that—those people get help,’” she says. “And it was like, ‘Wow, I’m a big asshole.’ A lot of blocking, a lot of flaming. It got ugly. So I showed myself the door.” And it’s not like Levine lacks empathy. “I’ve been homeless, so I understand,” she says. “But, again, there is a criminal element, there are drug problems, there are mental health issues. Going out and meeting them is not going to help them clean up their rigs or their lifestyle or their poop.” But might it make them better neighbors to those with housing? “Have you ever been on drugs?” Levine asks. “Why don’t you do some meth and get

back to me. Do meth for five years, then talk to me about caring where your poop goes.” Soon, Levine will be away from all this— in Arizona, where ain’t no one is going to argue that neighborhood outreach is any kind of solution to the homeless problem. And she’ll be able to help those cat comedians, just like she has been doing at her weekly Critical Comedy nights, where she dispenses tough love to a generation of would-be local standups. When we met at Lents brewery Zoiglhaus, even our waiter was an alum. “Portland comedians used to tour,” she says. “The experienced comedians would take the younger people out. All these little runs where Portland comics go out to Spokane or Walla Walla, that’s gone. Maybe Portland thinks it’s above that now, but that’s where you learn to be a real comedian. You learn that jokes that work in Portland don’t work out there. And that’s how you get to craft that perfect joke. I’ve been telling people, ‘Come down to Tucson, and I’ll get you set up on a little run.’ Because that mentorship that we used to have, where Portland comics took newer people out on the road with them, that’s gone.” Tucson, Levine says, should be gentrification-proof. She’s already lined up a nice little house near downtown for half of what she’s paying to live in Lents. “There’s no talk of vegans, there’s no talk of [affirmative consent],” she says. “And no one will ever move there because it’s so hot. The weather is such shit, no one’s ever going to say, ‘Hey, let’s all move to Tucson!’ Even the name sounds gross—Tucson.” SEE IT: Two Broke(n) Girls—A Farewell Beneﬁt for Kristine Levine and Veronica Heath is at Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., on Wednesday April 27. 8 pm. $15. 21+. Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

PERFORMANCE A Doll’s House

You’re seated inside a human-sized dollhouse with see-through walls in the newest production from Shaking the Tree. And it feels like you shouldn’t be there. From the living room, you witness a domestic scandal unfold in the turn-ofthe-century Norway home of an uptight lawyer named Torvald and his little wifey Nora. Unbeknownst to Torvald, Nora borrowed a huge sum of money and is being dogged by a greasy debt collector. Each room in their house is lit up a pop art color that would never hold up in late Ibsen’s Norway: Torvald’s study is blue, Nora’s room is pink, the dining room is purple and the entryway is red. As you peer around the stove to witness Torvald and Nora’s juiciest fight, Samantha Van Der Merwe’s genius staging makes you feel like a fly on the wall. This is playing house, grown up and gritty, and all the more fun. SOPHIA JUNE. Shaking the Tree Theatre, 823 SE Grant St., 503-2350635. 7:30 pm Thursday-Sunday, April 14-May 7. $25.

Hay Fever

It’s a carefree Saturday in June when unexpected visitors descend on the Bliss family’s English country home, where papa Bliss is attempting to finish writing his latest novel. Tea time with flappers goes to Wilde-like shit when the socializing devolves into melodrama and fainting. This 1920s comedy of manners by Noel Coward is the first spring show from Vancouver’s community theater. Magenta Theater, 1108 Main St., Vancouver. 7:30 pm ThursdaySaturday April 15-29; 2 pm Saturdays April 23 and 30. $18.

Love and Information

More than 100 characters dash through 57 micro-vignettes about things like dating computers in British playwright Caryl Churchill’s 2012 play. Theatre Vertigo accomplishes this with a cast of 12 and no small amount of ingenuity in their tiny Shoebox Theater. On a pullapart stage with a set that folds out from the walls, nameless characters wax philosophical about the meaning of God; they make awkward first-date small talk; they tell secrets. Friend One doesn’t understand why Friend Two is dating a computer. “She’s just information!” exclaims One in exasperation. Two replies, nonplussed: “Aren’t we all?” The vignettes are hit-or-miss, some cleverly amusing and others painfully obvious or purely nonsensical. But taken as a whole, the play is a fairenough representation of a society suffering from information overload and seeking that titular holy grail, um…love? PENELOPE BASS. Shoebox Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday and 2 pm Sundays, April 8-May 7. $20.

The New Electric Ballroom

As Irish as theater comes and as talented as a Portland cast gets, Third Rail’s New Electric traps you inside the dingy cottage of three spinster sisters in a coastal fishing village. The sisters spend every day reenacting one fateful night when they biked to the new electric ballroom and had their sexual desires crushed by a traveling rock star. The birdlike Breda (Lorraine Bahr) and frumpy Clara (Diane Kondrat) take turns undressing on stage and dolling themselves up like they did when they were teens, all the while telling their tragic tales. This story time is perpetually interrupted by Todd Van Voris as the bumbling fishmonger. It looks like a quaint fairy tale about family, but then Breda mimes being fingered and Clara calls the Virgin Mary a bitch. This is a haddockscented Goldilocks and the Three Bears with a black Irish heart. ENID SPITZ. Imago Theater, 17 SE 8th Ave., 503-235-1101. 7:30 pm WednesdaySaturday and 2 pm Sundays, April 13-30. Under 30 $38. General $42.50.

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

The Pianist of Willesden Lane

Grammy-winner Mona Golabek plays Bach, Beethoven and Chopin on a concert grand, backed by 1930s portraits of her Jewish family in massive golden frames. She’s playing her own mother, the aspiring Jewish pianist Lisa Jura, who watched her dreams burn when the Nazis invaded her hometown and wiped out thousands of Jewish residences in a few hours during 1938’s Kristallnacht, the “Night of Broken Glass.” Part recital, part survival story, it’s about musical inspiration and 10,000 child refugees who were first denied entry into England. Gerding Theater at the Armory, 128 NW 11th Ave., 4453700. 7:30 pm Tuesday-Friday; noon Thursdays; 2 and 7:30 pm SaturdaySunday. April 8-May 1. $25-$75.

The Sound of Music Sing-Along

Four great-grandchildren of The Sound of Music’s Georg and Maria make up The von Trapps, a Portlandbased quartet that started touring internationally when the youngest, August, was just 7 years old. The von Trapps’ 15-year run ends in Portland this spring, culminating in a sing-along Sound of Music at Cinema 21 and one last concert at Star Theater in May. Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave. 7 pm Friday-Saturday, April 15-16, and 2 pm Saturday-Sunday, April 16-May 1. $15.

COMEDY

Extra Cheese

Brodie Kelly’s weekly pizza party/ comedy showcase gives locals a tight 5 for standup, and coincides with happy hour: $2.50 pints. Hotlips Pizza, 2211 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 234-9999. 8pm Mondays. Free.

Jen Kirkman

Jen Kirkman’s comedy bona fides are second to none: a regular on @ midnight, writer and frequent guest on Chelsea Lately, voiced Nurse Kirkman on Home Movies. Kirkman comes to Portland to promote her newest memoir I Know What I’m Doing and Other Lies I Tell Myself in a special-release extravaganza that will include readings from the book, stories not from the book, and a Q&A. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-493-1128. 7 pm Saturday, Apr. 30. $20.

Mike Lawrence and Nathan Brannon

Curious Comedy Theater and Kill Rock Stars are coming together to bring a whole bunch of funny folks to Portland. This new series kicks off with New York City-based comic Mike Lawrence and ex-portlander Brannon as a special guest. A performer of standup on Conan and Late Night with Seth Meyers and a staff writer for the upcoming season of Inside Amy Schumer, Lawrence is the kind of comedy that serious comedy fans should probably get to know. Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 503-477-9477. 7:30 and 9:30 pm Friday, Apr. 29. $12.

Open Court

C O U R T E S Y O F B O B S A G E T. C O M

ALSO PLAYING

This weekly, long-form improv show combines performers from many Portland theaters and troupes. Newbies are welcome and teams are picked at random, then coached by an improv veteran before taking the stage. Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 4779477. 7:30 pm Thursdays. $5.

Bob Saget

That the good-natured, good-hearted father of three, Danny Tanner, was in reality the foul-mouthed club comic Bob Saget, was one of the true secrets of pre-Internet pop culture. Now that everybody knows Saget as who he really is, a practitioner of outstanding adult humor, Danny Tanner is back! Although not on TV, because that would be too ‘90s. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 7:15 and 9:30 pm Thursday-Friday, Apr. 28-29, 7 and 9:15 pm Saturday, Apr. 30. $35. 21+.

The Brody Open Mic

Twice-weekly, Portland’s most prolific improv venue opens its stage to everyone for 3-minute bits. Sign up online day of before 1 pm. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 8:30 pm Tuesday-Wednesday. Free.

Sunday School

Workshop students, veteran crews and groups that pre-register online perform long form improv every Sunday. Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 6 pm Sundays. $5 suggested donation.

Supernova

Brody’s students showcase their improv, sketch and standup skills— a different class each week. Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 7:30 pm Thursdays. $5.

DANCE Bechdel Test Burlesque

Curious Comedy Open Mic

Feminist strippers from around the Pacific Northwest unite for a bodypositive show at Portland’s clownthemed bar. It’s thrill-joy feminism that says f-you to masculine ideals of sexuality while keeping it light with riffs on pop culture. Expect equal parts tits and tirades against the patriarchy. Rally your red tent brigade. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 503-841-6734. 9:30 pm Saturday, April 30. $15-$25. 21+.

Curious Comedy Playground

Dance of the Dream Man: A Twin Peaks Story

Sign up start at 7:15, and every comic gets a tight three minutes onstage in this weekly show hosted by Andie Main. Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 4779477. 8 pm Sundays. Free.

It’s basically free time for comedians. Acts run the gamut, from improv to video and musical comedy, and you never know who’s coming out to play. Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 9:30 pm every first, third and fifth Thursday. Free.

Earthquake Hurricane

Some of WW’s favorite funny Portlanders showcase famous and not-so-famous, local and not-solocal comedians. Hosted by Curtis Cook, Alex Falcone, Anthony Lopez and Bri Pruett inside a pretty epic bike shop. Velo Cult Bike Shop, 1969 NE 42nd Ave., 922-2012. 9 pm every Wednesday. Free, $5 suggested donation. 21+.

Trip the Dark’s theater-dance hybrid should hold diehards over until the Twin Peaks reboot, which is haunting the internet with rumors of a 2016-17 release date. This show, staged in a theater that looks like a railcar next to North Portland’s train tracks, includes tap dance, burlesque on Fridays and the show’s token drink: coffee. Friday shows include Black Lodge Burlesque (21+). The Headwaters Theatre, 55 NE Farragut St., No. 9. 7:30 pm ThursdaySaturday, April 21-30. $15.

For more Performance listings, visit

R O B Y N V O N S WA N K

HOTSEAT

JEN KIRKMAN

Jen Kirkman’s Other Lies The Chelsea Lately panelist drops another book about laughing at pain.

Depending on which waters you swim in, Jen Kirkman is most famous as a panelist on Chelsea Lately, a narrator on Drunk History, a podcaster, a comic or a nonfiction writer. While there’s plenty of overlap between those disciplines, very few comics have translated their writing into a full-length book as skillfully as Kirkman has. Her first title, I Can Barely Take Care of Myself: Tales From a Happy Life Without Kids, topped The New York Times best-sellers list. Now she’s got another one. Kirkman will be reading from I Know What I’m Doing and Other Lies I Tell Myself and speaking at the Hollywood Theatre this weekend. ALEX FALCONE.

Are you secretly super-competent at life? Do you play up your mistakes or moments when you aren’t the hero to stay with a theme? Of course I play up those moments. It’s my job as a performer—it’s literally in the job description. I think audiences would be getting sorely ripped off if they bought books or paid for tickets for shows that weren’t played up. It’s an emotional experience that results in the main goal: laughter at pain! I’m very competent in many areas, just like everyone. I’m complex!

Do people who know you from Chelsea or Drunk History react differently from people who know you from books or podcasts? Yes, that’s definitely a phenomenon. There are people who prefer the standup or podcast me, WW: Of all the paths comics can take, why and I’ve had experiences—back in the heyday did you choose New York Times bestof Chelsea Lately—where 20-something selling author? drunk girls showed up to my standup shows screaming out Chelsea’s Jen Kirkman: I just love writing. Long form, short stories, catch phrases and asking me to call her on stage for them. One etc. I’ve been writing short “SHE WOULD stories since I was a kid. I time I was just honest with secretly wanted to be an these two girls and I said, “She HATE YOU.” author, but put most of my would hate you.” It was so evil —JEN KIRKMAN [laughs], but they interrupted energy towards performing because that’s my bigger love. my set so that’s what they get. Now, I realize a person can do One of them very unironically both, and I hope to continue to do said, “Um, rude.” As if she had been both until my hands fall off. Even then, an example of polite behavior. I’ll use voice-to-text to keep writing books. This show isn’t exactly standup, but it’s You tell a lot of embarrassing stories. What is not a traditional book reading either. What it about embarrassment that interests you? should people expect? I’m not embarrassed by anything I put out there. It’s standup, but it’s broken up into six short I think people who are less extroverted than me stories, and there is more depth to them. It’s might find them embarrassing, but I don’t know like a funnier one-woman show, or a more feelhow people live that way, being so fragile and ing standup set. worried about what others think. What I’m truly embarrassed by are my personal shortcomings SEE IT: Jen Kirkman presents I Know What I’m Doing and Other Lies I Tell Myself at the in my personal life, and those tales are private Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., because I do have some boundaries. 503-493-1128. 7 pm Saturday, April 30. $20.

SONGWRITER’S CIRCLE

w/ Wayne Richards, Josh Malm & Jack McMahon Monday, May 2nd at 7PM

TERESA TOPAZ THURSDAY, APRIL 28TH AT 6PM

Teresa Topaz is a musical artist and composer, with an appreciation of every genre and style of music– along with the ability to put it all together in a unique, ever-changing combination. It makes for an extraordinary musical experience.

CURTIS SALGADO SATURDAY, APRIL 30TH AT 2PM

With a career spanning forty years, award-winning soul, blues and R&B vocalist/harmonicist/songwriter Curtis Salgado is a one-of-a-kind talent whose music is as compelling as his story. From co-fronting The Robert Cray Band to leading his own band (and recording nine solo albums) to helping transform John Belushi into “Joliet” Jake Blues to touring the country with Steve Miller and Santana, he is a true musical giant. The Beautiful Lowdown, Salgado’s new Alligator album, is the singer’s most fearless and adventurous release to date.

DR. SCOTT’S ELECTRIC HAIRBRUSH THURSDAY, MAY 5TH AT 6PM

With a blended medley of Folk, Rock, Latin and Blues, Dr. Scott’s Electric Hairbrush transports listeners through the depths of his soul. There you will find a cure for all that ails you. Come see the doctor and be healed.

PAT METHENY

The Unity Sessions $16.99 2xCD

“The Unity Sessions” finds Pat at the helm of one of his best bands ever as they wrap up a 150+ date world tour with an intimate studio performance in a small New York City theater. Metheny is well-known as a musical collaborator, and the record features friends and colleagues with whom he has worked for years, including Chris Potter, Antonio Sanchez and Ben Williams.

SALE PRICE VALID 4/27-5/25

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

COURTESy OF PETER BROWN LEIGHTON

VISUAL ARTS = WW Pick. Highly recommended. By JENNIFER RABIN. 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: jrabin@wweek.com.

2016 Contemporary Northwest Art Awards

A tilted monolith of concrete, wood, foam and metal greets you in the gallery of Portland Art Museum’s biennial awards exhibition for Northwest Art. Work from eight regional artists, in every medium from etched glass to neon, wait for you beyond. The photorealistic drawings of post-apocalyptic scenes by the collaborative duo known as Lead Pencil Studio are a standout, as are the haunting faceless figures, drawn on paper by Samantha Wall, that give the impression that they might dissolve at any moment should you stand in front of them too long. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Ave., 226-2811. Through May 8.

Artifact

In Artifact, photographer Delaney Allen uses himself as a model, obscuring most of his body with tribal shrouds, muppet-like suits, and elaborate costumes. The features that remain—lips, eyes, hands—are often manipulated and feminized to create a race of otherworldly, androgynous desert creatures. In addition to his photographs of this imagined civilization, Allen has created 3-D works that give the viewer a sense of the primitive objects its citizens might have used. The codirectors of the gallery have done something clever by also showing a stack of artist proofs of the photographs in the series that wouldn’t fit in the gallery. As a viewer, we get the feeling of stumbling onto images and tools left behind that we get to pick through for increased understand-

ing. Nationale, 3360 SE Division St., 503-477-9786. Through May 9.

Hidden Narratives

Four glass artists present work that combines printmaking techniques with kiln-glass, further pushing the boundaries of both processes. Michelle Murillo explores her ancestry and identity in a standout installation comprised of rows and rows of ghostlike pieces of identification—travel documents, driver’s licenses—that are missing the faces of the people to whom they belong. Each was made by screenprinting glass powder and then kiln-firing it, resulting in objects so fragile, they look like they might dissolve if you touched them. Bullseye Projects, 300 NW 13th Ave., 503-227-0222. Through June 18.

Inventing Problems and Congratulating Myself for Solving Them

Sculptor Shelby Davis investigates the way that things intersect. Sometimes the materials are divergent, like the river of soft pewter that Davis inlays into a slab of unyielding concrete. In other pieces, meticulously finished wood planks pierce weathered hunks of gnarled wood painted to resemble concrete. The same material takes on different properties, and the point of intersection makes them alien to each other. Davis also uses humor as part of his visual language, so don’t be surprised to find a concrete casting of Romanesco broccoli, sitting like a curiosity atop one of the sculptures. Alexander Art Gallery at the Niemeyer Center, 19600 Molalla Ave., Oregon City, 503-594-3032. Through April 29.

WHEN PRAYER FAILS, PArt OF MAN LIVES THROUGH PLUTONIUM BLAST

I want to do to you what spring does with the cherry trees

In this month’s group show from PDX Contemporary, a knotted black cord hangs on a wall with a price tag of $6,000. Across the gallery, a white ceramic elephant covered with gold flowers sits atop a pedestal. Black and white beads fill two shallow ceramic dishes. It is likely that these pieces have interesting stories that would engage us and help us to appreciate the work, if the gallery was willing to tell us more about it. But, sadly, in an information vacuum, this is the type of show that makes people who are genuinely interested in art feel like it doesn’t pertain to us. And, worse yet, it makes us not care. PDX Contemporary, 925 NW Flanders St., 503-227-5111. Through April 30.

Man Lives Through Plutonium Blast

COURTESy OF AUDRA OSBORNE

Artist Peter Brown Leighton creates dystopian 21st-century images by digitally combining black-and white snapshots from the mid 20th century. A man and a woman in ‘50s bathing suits stand on a beach, plumes of ominous smoke billowing behind them. Four Leave It to Beaver-era brothers crowd around the family TV, the headline announcing “AN ATTACK IS TAKING PLACE.” A woman in a white nursing outfit walks past a deserted picnic area wearing a gas mask. Because Leighton’s digital manipulation is so seamless, it is often difficult to know what is real and what Leighton has imagined, which makes the series all the more disturbing, foreboding, charming, bizarre and hilarious. Blue Sky Gallery, 122 NW 8th Ave., 503-225-0210. Through May 1.

Now I Am Myself

AVALANcHE by AudrA OsbOrne, PArt OF NOW I AM MYSELF 52

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

For its grand opening, Wolff Gallery is presenting a group show of five female photographers whose portraits of themselves and other women subvert the male gaze. In so doing, the work excludes the dominant perspective, the lens through which representations of women have always been presented to us. That said—and here’s the tricky part—in order to change the culture, in order to shift the balance and give female artists their voice, it is imperative that we evaluate Now I Am Myself, not as work made by women, but as work made by artists. Wolff Gallery, 618 NW Glisan St., Suite R1, 971413-1340. Through May 13.

Patterns and Series

Bonnie Bronson’s enameled steel wall sculptures look two-dimensional from across the gallery. On closer inspection, parts of the rectilinear pieces recede, overhang, or jut out. The work speaks to the way things fit together—sometimes perfectly in Bronson’s more puzzle-like sculptures; other times, parts miss each other slightly, creating gaps. At turns, the work calls to mind a scaled breastplate or the folded paper cootie catchers of our youth, waiting to be opened. Bronson’s work succeeds in creating a feeling of movement, flexibility, and possibility out of a rigid and fixed material. Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., 503-224-0521. Through April 30.

Paul Green

Paul Green’s paintings appear precious at first, because of their small size and quality of magical realism. Birds and snakes are pulled from men’s chests while disembodied heads blow cloud bubbles in the sky. But the veneer of sweetness belies some of the more disturbing imagery, like a man awakened from slumber, pulled off his pillow by a fishhook through his forehead, or a barebreasted woman licking the head of her naked marionette-sized companion. Throughout his paintings, which often look like wood etchings, Green folds in influences that are as far apart as the Bible is to Van Gogh, creating a collection of work that is strange, curious and engaging. Froelick Gallery, 714 NW Davis St., 503-222-1142. Through April 28.

Recent Work

Some of Michael T. Hensley’s abstract paintings look like what you might expect to find inside Hensley’s head, if you were able to unzip it and have a peek. Frenetic graffiti-esque marks spanning the color palette shout over one another for attention. Other canvases are comparatively subdued, like whitewashed chaos, hinting at the muted madness underneath. The occasional naïve doodle—discernable as a Christmas tree or a pyramid or a hand with six fingers—gives the work a childlike quality and a lack of self-consciousness. Hensley has established an unmistakable visual language all his own, and if you’ve seen it once, in his paintings or in one of his public murals around town, you will recognize it immediately. Mark Woolley Gallery, 700 SW 5th Ave. Suite 4110, 503-998-4152. Through May 15.

Ruth Gruber

The International Center for Photography (ICP) presented the Lifetime Achievement Award for photojournalism to Ruth Gruber on her 100th birthday. Now approaching her 105th birthday, a retrospective of her work, curated by the ICP, has made its way to our fair city. The exhibition unfolds the story of her serendipitous career, from her assignment to shoot the then-unknown Alaskan frontier, to being sent by the Department of

the Interior on a secret mission to bring back a thousand refugees from Europe. She photographed everything along the way, often sneaking into places she wasn’t allowed. The most affecting photos from the exhibition are those that document the unfathomable conditions that the refugees were subjected to on their way to finding a permanent home. Though the images were captured 70 years ago, they are painfully relevant during the current refugee crisis. Oregon Jewish Museum and Center for Holocaust Education, 1953 NW Kearney St., 503-226-3600. Through June 13.

Shape Shifting

Lauren Mantecón’s abstract paintings make you feel like you’re in the middle of an interplanetary dream. Faded orbs hover in the background while clusters of tiny dots, like constellations, pop with bright color in the foreground. Up close, you can see the wax and paint, and can even read the newsprint she uses to create texture, but view the work from the other end of the gallery and Mantećon has left you drifting out into the cosmos. She plays with the density of her surfaces, sometimes building up thick layers of material onto which she gouges quick hatch marks or meandering tributaries. In other pieces, Mantećon uses a wash of pigment so faint that the grain of the wood panel shows through. Mark Woolley Gallery, 700 SW 5th Ave. Suite 4110, 503-998-4152. Through May 15.

Symbolic Autobiography

Photographer Ann Mansolino’s blackand-white portraits are not meant to capture something personal about her subjects, but to represent Mansolino’s own internal states of mind. In one photo, a woman stands in a field of stones so endless that it disappears into the horizon. The subject, her head cropped out of the frame (Mansolino obscures the faces of all of her subjects so as to de-emphasize the importance of the individual), stands in the close foreground burdened by her own heavy armload of stones. Through her subjects—usually women, sometimes herself—emotions are made manifest, embodied in physical form. And though the medium and largeformat images are carefully staged, the backdrop of the outdoors lends them a naturalistic quality, leaving us free to lock into the feeling that Mansolino is trying to convey without distraction. Sage Gallery, 625 NW Everett St. No. 106, 541-206-2560. Through April 28.

For more Visual Arts listings, visit

BOOKS

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 27 Kristen Proby

Listen to Me is a romance story for the New Seasons set: Five gal pals start a restaurant in Portland called Seduction, whose rising success they must juggle with their steamy love lives. What will they do when a dreamy burnout musician applies for a job at Seduction? Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, 800-878-7323. 7 pm. Free.

From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

The past few years have seen a new wave of organizing against police brutality. In this new book, Princeton professor, Jacobin contributor and activist Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor explores the structural inequalities that motivated these movements and how they might become part of a greater push for black liberation. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-8787323. 7:30 pm. Free.

THURSDAY, APRIL 28 Marie Bostwick

Marie Bostwick is the pre-eminent voice in quilting ﬁction. Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, 800-878-7323. 7 pm. Free.

Weed: The User’s Guide

If you need a user’s guide to enjoy pot, you’re probably doing it wrong. Luckily, David Schmader, former associate editor of The Stranger, can help you not do it wrong with Weed: The User’s Guide. Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.

Jim Lynch

The Johannssens were once a sailing powerhouse, the mother teaching physics, the father designing sailboats, and the children racing throughout Puget Sound. But when the most talented child blows an Olympics bid, they drift apart. Can one last race bring them together? I haven’t read Before the Wind, but probably. Right? Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.

SATURDAY, APRIL 30 International TableTop Day

Shut up, books: It’s time for games’ moment in the sun. Presented by Geek and Sundry, actress and writer Felicia Day’s media company, International TableTop Day is a day to celebrate RPGs, board games and the like—you know, games that can be played atop a table. You are not too cool for it—even the Green Bay Packers play Catan. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-8787323. 11 am-7 pm. Free.

SUNDAY, MAY 1 Wayne Pacelle With Earl Blumenauer

Business relies on the exploitation of animals, argues Humane Society president and CEO Wayne Pacelle. But, in his new book, The Humane Economy, he argues they don’t have to. He’ll speak with Portland’s congressman, Earl Blumenauer, who was voted “Most Likely to Get Shoved in a Locker by That Republican Rep Who Used to Play for the Eagles” for three straight sessions. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800878-7323. 2 pm. Free.

MONDAY, MAY 2 The Philosophy of Childing

Look, nobody likes it when you’re 23 and still act like you’re in freshman year. But how does one act one’s age? In his new book, The Philosophy of Childing, Christopher Phillips blends philosophy, neuroscience and social science to explore and redeﬁne the diﬀerences between childhood and adulthood. Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.

TUESDAY, MAY 3 The Gunning of America

The Founding Fathers said every American should own a submachine gun, right? It turns out even those slaveholders had better judgment

than that. Pamela Haag re-examines our country’s love of guns, which has a lot less to do with the Constitution and the 18th century and a lot more to do with gun manufacturers and the 20th. Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, 800-878-7323. 7 pm. Free.

A Burglar’s Guide to the City

Geoﬀ Manaugh runs BLDGBLOG, a widely read architectural blog I assume is read by guys who know what “selvedge” is. Through conversations with the LAPD, the FBI and burglars, he details how housebreakers see a city, including secret pathways ideal for robbing banks. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.

For more Books listings, visit

REVIEW

Is Beyoncé a Feminist?

ASHLEY MACRINA

= WW Pick. Highly recommended. 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.

On April 23 Beyoncé, Queen of Pop and Probably the World, dropped Lemonade, a visual album in which she dramatically took control of the narrative about her relationship with Jay Z. (Sample: “Ashes to Andi Zeisler ashes, dust to side chicks.”) Twitter lost its collective mind with joy, calling it empowering, brilliant art. But there’s one Portlander who may have sighed and thought, “This again?” We Were Feminists Once (Public Affairs, 304 pages, $26.99), by Andi Zeisler, co-founder of local feminist magazine Bitch, grapples with the meaning of the new coolness of feminism. Zeisler criticizes pop-star brands like Beyoncé, whose “marketplace feminism” she sees as a superficial co-opting of the movement. “Marketplace feminism,” writes Zeisler, “tells us that we should be happy with what we’ve got, because we still don’t have enough power to ensure that what we’ve got won’t be taken away if we push for too much more. That’s not feminism, that’s Stockholm Syndrome.” $ I am a feminist from a long line of feminists, and I love what Bitch does. Zeisler and I agree $ $ $ that feminism still has a long way to go and much $ work to do. But we disagree on Beyoncé. It is my humble feminist opinion that art like Lemonade disproves Zeisler’s theory that marketplace feminism has “convinced people that feminism can be accomplished by dressing up the status quo in slogan T-shirts and I-do-it-for-me heels.” When talking about Beyoncé’s use of the word “feminist” in her 2014 MTV Video Music Awards performance, Zeisler concedes that Beyoncé’s feminism is “confident, compelling, powerful, beautiful and loud.” But she also thinks it’s grounded in nothing, lacking history and toothless, and “part of a host of other aspirational products already associated with the Beyonce brand.” But Lemonade has a mouth full of sharp points. It’s a tear-down of the idea that a woman with an unfaithful spouse is weak, unattractive, at fault, a victim. Women publicly telling their stories, from Lena Dunham to Beyoncé—in a way that is extreme, loud, entertaining and financially rewarding even—isn’t “empowering,” it’s empowering. Look at the domino effect of Bill Cosby’s victims coming forward or the number of women who have felt safe to talk about their experiences with abortion after #ShoutYourAbortion. To imply that Beyoncé’s art is uncomplicated, or will have no impact on women and girls, and that it isn’t the direct result of pop music and culture, which has slowly begun allowing women to speak for themselves, is short-sighted and a bit condescending. If feminism is marketable—just like Zeisler’s book, on sale even at Walmart—then that means its audience is so large it can’t be ignored. If Beyoncé can teach girls they have a right to tell their stories, I don’t care what you call it or how pure it is. We’ve still got a long way to go, but—as the old ad says—we’ve come a long way, too. LIZZY ACKER. $

GO: Andi Zeisler will read from We Were Feminists Once at Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 503-228-4651, powells.com. 7:30 pm Monday, May 2. Free. Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

C O U R T E S Y O F T H E B E N E F I T S O F G U S B A N D R Y. C O M

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 Keanu

Key and Peele take in the cutest stray kitten and then become gangsters. Real-life Keanu voices the kitty in a scene where Peele gets really high, which Reeves recorded via Skype from Rome after his little sister convinced him that this movie is the fucking next coolest thing ever. Screened after deadline. See wweek.com for a review. R. JAMES HELMSWORTH. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Vancouver.

Mother’s Day

Director Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman, The Princess Diaries) directs an ensemble of three generations’ sweethearts: Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston and Kate Hudson. Their stories intersect as they repair their fractured maternal bonds just in time for brunch. Screened after deadline. See wweek.com for a review. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Vancouver.

Sing Street

B- Sing Street is a New Wave rock’n’-roll fairy tale set in early-’80s Dublin. Fans of quality nostalgia fare like Freaks & Geeks will revel in its references. A 15-year-old boy (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) seeks to escape the harsh reality of his brutal schoolmasters and splintering home. Under the tutelage of his hash-smoking, dolesurfing older brother, he discovers Duran Duran videos and Cure albums. In an effort to woo an aspiring model named Raphina (Lucy Boynton), the young man conspires to start a band of his own. She gives him the stage name Cosmo and agrees to style and star in all of the band’s no-budget videos. The group is a ragtag assembly of students with little talent or concept, played more than admirably by mostly unknown Irish actors. The story is about as believable as Almost Famous or School of Rock, but that’s not the point. This film fondly recalls John Hughes, tips its hat to Wes Anderson, and repeatedly nods to Back to the Future and “Thriller.” Aside from a touch too much sentimentality in the third act, Sing Street is a heartwarming achievement in the modern (retro) rock musical canon that is held back from a place on the top shelf only because it stands on the shoulders of giants. PG-13. NATHAN CARSON. Fox Tower.

STILL SHOWING 10 Cloverfield Lane

C+ The motto of J.J. Abrams’ latest thriller is, basically, don’t text and drive. Also, don’t break up with your fiance, or else you’ll get in a terrible car accident, be abducted by a Lolita-inspired murderer and watch your whole family die in the alien apocalypse—in one night. 10 Cloverfield Lane falls victim to the usual thriller clichés: It doesn’t come close to passing the Bechdel test and contains numerous gratuitous shots of Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) in her underwear, a cheap thriller soundtrack and, of course, aliens. Despite the clichés, Abrams shows for the first hour and 20 minutes that he’s almost capable of a smart psychological thriller. The last 10 minutes, however, confirm he’s not. The majority of the film creates a claustrophobic, paranoid world inside a bunker designed to survive the apocalypse, and Howard (John Goodman) is the seemingly friendly

ringleader. The bunker is surprisingly homey, equipped with games, DVDs and enough food to last for years. For a second, you wonder: Is this really so bad? That’s a question Abrams makes sure to answer. PG-13. SOPHIA JUNE. Clackamas, Fox Tower, Hollywood, Lloyd.

Barbershop: The Next Cut

D It’s been 14 years since we first entered Calvin’s Barbershop in South Side Chicago, and along with shiny, bald additions like Common, J.B. Smoove and Nicki Minaj’s bosom, there’s a new “No Guns Allowed” sign on the wall. The third chapter in the saga of Calvin (played by the intrepid Ice Cube) and the adventures at his old-school barbershop takes a somewhat darker tone, framed by Cube’s personal ties to his Windy City hometown and its surge in gang violence. Unfortunately, the writing is too childlike to make an impact or come close to the subtle wit that brought up themes of masculinity, black America, and class conflict in the original Barbershop. I’m not sure which is less natural: hearing the characters exclaim, “#BarbershopSaves TheNeighborhood is trending on Twitter,” or Calvin calling a red bandanna “gang paraphernalia” when talking to his son about his new friends. LAUREN TERRY. PG-13. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Vancouver.

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

D Batman and Superman are fighting, and it’s hard to choose a side. The new Superman is boring and out of place in the 21st century. Batman, on the other hand, has been reinvented as a huge dickhead. Played by Ben Affleck with a characteristic lack of gravitas, Batman walks around in a silly metal suit killing people. You know how Batman never kills people? He does now. Even when he doesn’t have to. He even tries killing Superman because, you know, “he might be bad later.” With nobody to root for, BvS:DoJ is just an unconscionably long slugfest simultaneously attempting too much and accomplishing almost nothing. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Vancouver.

The Big Short

A We’re in a bubble of movies

about the financial crisis, but The Big Short is the first good one. It’s based on the book by Michael Lewis, who’s known for making complicated financial topics into compelling stories, and adapted by Adam McKay, who is known for Talladega Nights and the “More Cowbell” sketch. Surprisingly, this combo works. R. ALEX FALCONE. Laurelhurst.

Born to Be Blue

B+ Rather than awkwardly cramming

Chet Baker’s entire life into a film, Robert Budreau focused on a period in the 1960s when Baker’s career saw a rebirth following his brief recovery from heroin addiction. It opens with black-and-white footage of Baker’s dark hallucinations and the temptations of sex and heroin, but those scenes are just the setup for a big f-you for anyone expecting another customary biopic. A little improvisation here works just fine. R. CURTIS COOK. Living Room Theaters.

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

KILLIN’ IT: Brooke Totman.

Happy Birthday, Gen X THE BENEFITS OF GUSBANDRY CELEBRATES A SEASON OF YOUTUBE SUCCESS.

It was depressing to come back to Portland, so Rose started her YouTube series to answer the question, “What am I going to do with my life?” Rose is already killing it in Portland’s “creative” spheres—almost all of them—and it turns out being well-connected helps when you’re self-producing a BY En id SP itz espitz@wweek.com crowd-funded TV show and giving it away online. She Portlandia and Grimm are Rose City poster chil- photographed the Decemberists’ Picaresque album dren on national TV screens, but we haven’t had cover and Naomi Pomeroy cuddling a slaughtered a truly indie comedy series worth watching for a piglet. She directed Menomena’s “Taos” video and while. The Benefits of Gusbandry may be Portland’s four videos for Bob Mould, including his recent closest equivalent to Broad City or Kimmy Schmidt, sad walk across the Tilikum Crossing. And she just a grassroots YouTube series based on the life of local dropped a debut EP with her band, Moon Tiger. “Huge is a matter of perspective,” she says. photographer and filmmaker Alicia J. Rose. This Thursday, Gusbandry drops the finale of its “Maybe, for Portland.” Gusbandry mines Portland comedy clubs for the first season with a binge-watching party on the big best cameos: Bri Pruett, Sunshine Girl Paige McKenzie, screen at the NW Film Center. Gusbandry is crowd-funded and filled with Portland’s Scott Engdahl, and Michael Fetters from the Aces. top sketch and standup comedians, and it’s essentially They’re recognizable faces from the Siren Theater or Velo Cult’s comedy night, and they appear in Rose’s diary. “The first 12 ideas literally vomrecognizable places like the Fantasy for ited out in a flurry,” she says. Adults Only store or Salt & Straw. But The 10-minute episodes follow this is not Portlandia. Jackie (MADtv’s Brooke Totman) “I’m sitting “You and I know when we’re and her gay BFF, or “gusband,” around the pool being sold something,” Rose says. River (Wild’s Kurt Conroyd) “Someone tells you, ‘Oh, I’ve got through their misadventures, watching Downton this show for women,’ and you like explaining gaybies to Abbey, and he’s going want to punch somebody in the Jackie’s parents, binge-eating fucking nose. I don’t want to be pot brownies while cleaning on Grindr dates.” sold something.” the fridge, shopping a hipster’s —Alicia J. Rose Instead, she released the series in taxidermy collection and hotreal time, online, for free. She crowdboxing an acquaintance’s bathsourced talent via Facebook and filmed in room at a house party. public places like the Woolley Gallery on the “It’s for the 40-something, Generation X set that’s still going to concerts and leading the third floor of Pioneer Place mall, an art gallery that closed life we did in our 20s,” says Rose, who uses words its doors this week after the rent went up. Portland is a like “douchebaggery,” drinks at the Bye and Bye and wonderful place for growing a show, she says. “It’s an embarrassment of riches,” Rose says of begrudgingly admits to being 46. The pilot opens on Jackie waking up to friends the talent pool. “Nobody is moving to Portland to doing lines off her cleavage at her 40th birthday party. make it rich. You’re moving here to breathe clean “It’s for the late bloomer in all of us,” says air…well, the glass factory.” “I don’t know anybody who moves here for Rose. She thought up the show when she first used the hashtag #thebenefitsofgusbandry on an money,” she adds. “It’s because they can’t stand Instagram shot of herself and her own husband, the misery of living somewhere else.” Somewhere Lake. They’re cuddling by a lily pond with Angkor like Hollywood, for example, the hometown that Rose fled from 20 years ago. Wat at sunrise in the distance. “Our trip to Cambodia on Valentine’s Day was like IT: The Benefits of Gusbandry finale party is at the honeymoon I’ve never had, just without the hus- See NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park band,” she says. “I’m sitting around the pool watching Ave., thebenefitsofgusbandry.com. 7 pm reception, 8 pm screening Thursday, April 28. $9. Downton Abbey, and he’s going on Grindr dates.”

The Boss

hourlong meeting—and manages to extrapolate from those few hours a completely different version of these icons than you’re used to seeing. Kevin Spacey plays a charming and smart Nixon who seems like he’d be fun to hang out with. Meanwhile, Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire) plays a brooding, gun-obsessed Elvis between his heyday and Fat Elvis phases who seems as if he would be a bummer to be around. Despite what the phrase “based on a true story” leads you to believe, Elvis & Nixon is fascinating and really fun. R. ALEX FALCONE. Bridgeport, City Center, Clackamas, Living Room Theaters, Lloyd.

B- After Tammy, pretty much any-

Criminal

D To be remotely successful, Criminal needs to realize the absurdity of its premise. A CIA agent’s memories are injected into the frontal lobe of a nothingto-lose convict (Kevin Costner). Complete with the prisoner going rogue from government grasp, it’s a plot worthy of ’80s Stallone or Schwarzenegger face-lifted by an overqualified cast (Gary Oldman, Tommy Lee Jones, Gal Gadot) and updated with a few cybercrimes. Looking a haggard 61 with an involuntary growl, Costner refuses to wink at the preposterous proceedings, playing it deadly serious or unhinged as his character reckons with a surgically enhanced consciousness that makes him feel normal human emotions. Criminal lands as a transparently bad action flick, housing an unintentional tragedy about this violent homeless man lost in London. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Lloyd, Oak Grove, Tigard, Vancouver.

Deadpool

B Within the first 10 minutes. the titular “merc with the mouth” slaughters a baker’s dozen of goons to a soundtrack of “Shoop,” breaks the fourth wall by talking to the audience, punches multiple scrotums, drops more f-bombs than Tony Montana and takes a bullet directly up the butthole while giggling about it. Deadpool doesn’t reinvent the wheel. But it does teabag it. And sometimes that’s enough. R. AP KRYZA. Beaverton Wunderland, Bridgeport, Clackamas, Division, Fox Tower, Vancouver.

The Divergent Series: Allegiant, Part 1

D Undistinguishable from its counterparts, Part 1 ’s excessively dull proceedings are punctuated by generic action scenes in which the Bureau of Genetic Welfare uses a bunch of weirdo army shit to kidnap little kids and wipe their brains clean. If you are over 17, there is exactly zero reason for you to waste your money on this. PG-13. MIKE GALLUCCI. Avalon, Beaverton Wunderland, Clackamas, Division, Kennedy School, Tigard.

Elvis & Nixon

A- In 1970, Elvis Presley showed

up at the White House asking to meet President Richard Nixon. He had decided to become a federal agent for the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, and to lend support to the country in any way it needed. That meeting went better than expected. What’s great about this story is that it focuses on a very short period of time—a couple of days, culminating in an

Everybody Wants Some!!

A- Richard Linklater’s newest film doesn’t have a plot. But you’ll hardly realize it—and you probably won’t care. Everybody Wants Some!! says “fuck that” to Hollywood convention, which makes sense for the filmmaker who stunned the world with Boyhood’s artful filmmaking techniques that still broke the box office. This “fuck it” attitude also makes sense for a film that follows a college baseball team in 1980s Texas through the three days before school starts. R. SOPHIA JUNE. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, CineMagic, City Center, Fox

CONT. on page 56

REVIEW

Murmurs P.6

COURTESY OF SUNSTONE FILM PRODUCTIONS

thing written by Melissa McCarthy and her husband-director, Ben Falcone was bound to be an improvement. This time, McCarthy stars as Michelle Darnell, a selfmade tycoon whose confidence is rivaled only by the height of her turtlenecks. After getting caught doing a little insider trading, it’s bye-bye to the shirtless pilots of her private helicopter and hello to couchsurfing with her assistant, Claire (played by Kristen Bell). While joining Claire’s daughter at a Girl Scout-inspired Dandelion meeting on cookie sales, Michelle sees dollar signs around this unpaid sales force. Although crude in comparison to more polished McCarthy films, it is fair to say it is her funniest project without Paul Feig at the wheel. R . LAUREN TERRY. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Lloyd, Oak Grove, St. Johns 1 & 2, Tigard, Vancouver.

CHEERS, PAPA: Adrian Sparks and Joely Richardson.

Gone Fishing

The first Hollywood production filmed in Cuba since 1959, Papa Hemingway in Cuba is one of those biopics that depicts its star through an audience surrogate. In this case, it’s legendary writer Ernest Hemingway in his later years living in Cuba before the revolution in 1959. The audience’s surrogate character is real-life journalist Denne Bart Petitclerc, who wrote the book and screenplay that the film is based on. It’s a touching tale: Petitclerc describes Hemingway as the father he never had, and the film is the story of Petitclerc’s experiences befriending Hemingway and his wife Mary just before everything goes to hell in both their lives. While Giovanni Ribisi does a decent job playing Petitclerc, it’s hard to overlook the fact that he’s a 41-year-old playing a young journalist who is often referred to as a “kid” and spends most of his time struggling to find his voice and commit to his girlfriend. Adrian Sparks as the mature Hemingway is like a one-man play, but on film. Sometimes he hits his stride, at other times it feels as if he is reading lines to a casting director. It does not help that a lot of the dialogue is written for the audience: “We will be your family now, kid!” With its dead-end story, the flick needed a good director, great performances or a solid script. First-time director Bob Yari is decent at setting up scenes, if uninspired, but the editing is jarringly terrible, with a feeling that whole conversations or connecting scenes are missing. And for a film written by a Hemingway protegé, you would expect better than “The faces of the dead are always the same, just fuckin’ kids.” Then again, Petitclerc died in 2006, so I doubt he was very hands-on during production. The actresses make this dull, male-centric story more watchable. Minka Kelly brightens up scenes with her inherent charm but gets stuck saying terrible lines like, “If I got that letter, I would fall in love with you instantly!” She deserves better roles. Joely Richardson as Mary Hemingway has the meatiest role as a former journalist whose warm, motherly personality has a gravitational pull equal to Ernest’s macho bravado storytelling. She is not afraid to call him out, either. There is no more to recommend. It’s hard to make a film about writers without good writing. Instead, Papa feels like a decent off-Broadway stage production and a grand excuse to go to Cuba. EZRA JOHNSON-GREENOUGH. Papa Hemingway in Cuba doesn’t do the subject, the actors or the country justice.

C SEE IT: Papa Hemingway in Cuba is rated R. It opens Friday at Fox Tower.

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C O U R T E S Y O F WA R N E R B R O S .

MOVIES

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KEANU Tower, Vancouver.

Eye in the Sky

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C+ The year’s first movie on the ethics of drones, and the last film featuring Alan Rickman, misses its mark. British Col. Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) tracks infamous terrorists to a house in Nairobi, Kenya. To stop the suicide bombing they’re planning, Powell orders a Predator drone to destroy the house. The only problem is a small, hula-hooping neighbor girl. The plot arc is more of a plot sine wave, with the withering Lt. Gen. Frank Benson (Rickman as a wandless Professor Snape in olive drab) throwing up his hands and staring down the people who just refuse to blow that little girl up already. It’s not Rickman’s fault (RIP) that his dry humor is out of place in a movie about the ethics of vaporizing people with missiles. R. ZACH MIDDLETON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Living Room Theaters, Tigard.

The First Monday in May

A- Top celebrities in red carpet regalia swarm the Metropolitan Museum of Art in this real behindthe-scenes version of Robert Altman’s Ready to Wear. It’s a look inside the annual celebrity gala at the Met that’s put on in May by Anna Wintour, Vogue’s famously demanding editor in chief, and Andrew Bolton, the curator extraordinaire who still feels lucky to have the job of his dreams. “Jennifer!” one reporter shouts at Jennifer Lopez. “Jennifer!” another one shouts to Jennifer Lawrence. Inside, they sing along with the headliner, Rihanna. Happy May Day. NR. ESTER O’FEARGHAIL. Living Room Theaters.

Gods of Egypt

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D It’s ancient Egypt like you’ve never seen it before: bigger, shinier and chock-full of deities punching each other. The gods are distinguishable from the normals because they’re a bit taller, they transform into shiny animal robots and—despite being in Africa 5,000 years ago— they’re white as crystal meth. They’re led led by Nikolaj CosterWaldau (Game of Thrones) as Horus, god of light, and Gerard Butler (Olympus Has Fallen) as Set, god of beard stubble. The motto of the almost entirely CGI film seems to be, “Why not?” and everything has a weird yellow glow as if the crew illuminated the whole movie with piles of burning money. Shown but never explained: giant flying beetles; a 3,000-foot water-

fall; removing and putting back somebody’s glowing blue brain; a flaming pyramid; ridable, giant fire-breathing snakes, and why they’re all so white. This is Egypt! PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Vancouver.

Green Room

B+ Patrick Stewart plays the big

bad leader of a backwoods gang of white supremacists. He is intimidating, menacing and scary as hell without snarling like an X-Men baddie. The punk-rock band that falls into his clutches is loosely led by Anton Yelchin (Scotty in the new Star Trek films), and the band is on an unsuccessful tour, taking a detour to play a paying gig at a neo-Nazi compound. There, the band witnesses a murder that these guys won’t let them walk away from. Saulnier ratchets up the tension after the band’s members lock themselves in the titular Green Room, with a dead girl they were not supposed to see and a bouncer they take hostage. Outside, the white supremacists engage them in negotiations to leave the room, where we know they are likely to be murdered. The characters on both sides are loosely drawn but smart enough not to make stupid decisions, which makes the delay of action last longer than expected. Like Akira Kurosawa, Saulnier finds the anticipation of violence more cinematic than its outcome, which are brief but gratuitous acts that leave a stain. The outcomes are unpredictable, shocking, grisly and really fun. PG-13. EZRA JOHNSONGREENOUGH. Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, Clackamas.

Hail, Caesar!

B+ From the opening scene, in which Capitol Pictures “fixer” Eddie Mannix (a gruff Josh Brolin) skips out of confession, it’s a quick 27-hour shitstorm through high drama as movie star Baird Whitlock (George Clooney) gets abducted. The Coens’ funniest film since The Big Lebowski combines a zany caper, a communist plot, ’50s studio politics and a touching story about one man’s calling in life into a cohesive, lighthearted and quip-heavy comedy. It’s a neat package like only the Coen brothers can tie up. PG-13. JOHN LOCANTHI. Academy, Laurelhurst.

Hello, My Name is Doris

B Enter the mind of Doris, where

20-something men with waxed chests rip off their shirts and slam her passionately against the wall. Until someone wakes her from the daydream. Doris is a whipsmart comedy that pokes fun at

the ultra-curated youthful lifestyle, while avoiding the recent trope of seniors finding a place amid the nostalgic fascination of millennials. You can almost feel John trying not to laugh as he offers customblended artisanal cocktails to Doris during Friendsgiving at his place. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. City Center, Clackamas, Lake Theater & Café, Living Room Theaters, Tigard, Vancouverr.

A Hologram for the King

B You might’ve expected a film aimed at politically centrist and optimistic parents from Tom Hanks’ production company (Larry Crowne, Charlie Wilson’s War). A fish-out-of-water tale about an obsolete American salesman peddling IT to Saudi royalty, the film’s telegraphed cultural clashes aren’t xenophobic or exploitative, just safe and sentimental. Quips about forbidden alcohol in the Kingdom here, a polite misunderstanding about the CIA there. If you can buy the tone—and Hanks is doing his everyman damndest to convince you of this endeavor’s beating heart—it falls back on the clever flourishes of Dave Eggers’ source material. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Bridgeport, City Center, Clackamas, Fox Tower.

The Huntsman: Winter’s War

B It’s been called an unnecessary sequel. And it may be, but as a steadfast lover of swords and sorcery films, I must steadfastly protect it like the Citadel Guards of Gondor. This sequel functions as both a prequel and sequel to the first film, and it actually does a competent job of completely leaving out Snow White. That makes it feel trite at first, and for some a waste of time. The thing is, Kristen Stewart as Snow White was the worst thing about the first film. She functioned almost solely as a lightly emoting MacGuffin with too much screen time. Snow White’s absence is more than made up for by a very game Jessica Chastain as the huntsman’s feisty partner, who is a lot of fun as a badass warrior, and Chris Hemsworth does Hemsworth well as the over-cocky, macho title character. Huntsman’s tone bounces between action, drama, comedy and romance like a classic Spielberg adventure flick. That’s not to say this film is anywhere near that quality. It’s dopey and an obvious rip-off of Frodo’s company in Lord of the Rings. The characters might not be deep, but they do excellent banter. And while the costumes

The Invitation

B+ This dinner-party thriller evokes

the Manson murders in present-day L.A., where Will and Kira attend a grating dinner party thrown by Will’s ex-wife and her new husband—at Will’s former home. Will’s irking suspicions balloon into psychological thrills, neatly edited and dimly lit by director Karyn Kusama (Aeon Flux, Jennifer’s Body), with a not so subtle nod to Scientology, too. This film’s mind games play rough, though the action drags at times. See a Q&A with Kusama on page 46. PG-13. MERYL WILLIAMS. Laurelhurst.

Kung Fu Panda 3

A- It’s been five years since Kung

Fu Panda 2, and Jack Black hasn’t been in anything even close to that good since. PG. Academy, Avalon, Kennedy School, Lake Theater & Café, Vancouver.

Midnight Special

B The premise of a magical boy running from the government sounds trite. But add a clever, light-handed screenplay, take away the kitschy magic, and include a dark take on the increasing flow of data through satellites, and you’ve got a fresh, modern science-fiction film. Writerdirector Jeff Nichols (Mud) uses sparse dialogue to maintain an air of mystery around the calm, young Alton (Jaeden Lieberher), carefully using every word and glance to tell a little more about this electromagnetically charged child. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Cinema 21.

Miles Ahead B

Fans looking for a solely reverent portrait of Miles Davis won’t get it in Miles Ahead, the new, loosely biographical film on the jazz legend. Instead, Don Cheadle, who wrote, produced, directed and stars in the film, delivers a more complete picture of Davis as a groundbreaking musician who was also an abusive drug addict. The film waxes buddy action flick, as Davis, clad in a silk paisley shirt, accompanied by a Rolling Stone journalist (Ewan McGregor), traverses the city trying to get his new session tape back from record execs. But Cheadle also uses artistic flashbacks, pairing scenes of Davis’ personal struggles with ones of him on his entrancing trumpet. Whether he’s snorting cocaine, shattering a glass table during a fight with his wife or being arrested and beat up by a policeman for smoking in public, the audience is reminded of Davis’ best and worst moments all at once. R. SOPHIA JUNE. Bridgeport, Cinema 21, City Center, Hollywood.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2

Fourteen years after the big fat wedding bells, Nia Vardalos and John Corbett are back, with a ton of familiar faces. Remember Joey Fatone of ’N Sync in the original? Neither did we. PG-13. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Fox Tower, Oak Grove.

Spotlight

A- Spotlight inverts the usual comparison: It’s a movie that feels like prestige television. Specifically, it feels like The Wire. Recounting how a Boston Globe investigative team uncovered an epidemic of pederast priests abetted by the archdiocese, the 2016 Oscar winner for Best Picture borrows the rhythms of a propulsive TV procedural and resists the temptation for self-congratulation. R. Academy, Laurelhurst.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

A- If there’s one thing we know about Star Wars fans, it’s that they’re as resistant to change as any religious zealot. And so, the best thing that can be said about The Force Awakens is that it’s almost oldfashioned. PG-13. Academy, Avalon, Empirical, Laurelhurst, Mission, Valley, Vancouver.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

C+ Tina Fey stars in this light

comedy about the war in Afghanistan, based on the book The Taliban Shuffle by Chicago Tribune writer Kim Barker, who was sent to cover Afghanistan with no prior experience in a war zone. Fey’s portrayal of Barker is the same as other characters you’re used to seeing from her, bumbling yet surprisingly competent, awkward in life, awkward in love. She’s funny for sure, but something just feels off with the 30 Rock-style humor interlaced with the horrific violence of Kabul circa 2004. Mix in some friend drama with Margot Robbie (The Wolf of Wall Street) and a really uncomfortable sexual encounter in which Bilbo Baggins puts his fingers in her mouth, and WTF ends up an awkward teenager of a movie, not sure who it is or why it feels the way it does. It’s occasionally brilliant but never seems comfortable. R. ALEX FALCONE. Academy, Fox Tower, Jubitz Cinema, Laurelhurst, Valley, Vancouver.

Zootopia

B Leave it to Disney to sneak powerful, adult messages into a PG-rated movie. A modern-day Morocco, the Zootopia of the title is a metropolitan melting pot, where predator and prey live in perfect, fictional harmony. Every dynamic, doe-eyed character in this animated adventure brings laughs for the kids, and hope for adults that their children won’t adopt Donald Trump ideals. A small-town bunny with big dreams, Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin), escapes her carrot-farming future by becoming the first rabbit to join Zootopia’s police force. Little does she know, when predators mysteriously return to their ferocious, prey-hungry ways, her hometown’s small-mindedness multiplies throughout Zootopia faster than bunnies during breeding season. Judy befriends a clever but con-artist fox, Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman), and the unlikely pair fight for equality and understanding while saving the city from savages. There’s a lesson under every hoof, inside every snout, and behind every bubbly buttocks. This movie puts supremacists to shame with its mere, motivational, furrycoated message PG. AMY WOLFE. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Vancouver.

The Revenant

A- Leonardo DiCaprio finds his

trapping party on the receiving end of a bear attack. R. Academy, Empirical, Joy, Jubitz, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, Valley, Vancouver.

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AP FILM STUDIES C O U R T E S Y O F P O L A R E N T E R TA I N M E N T C O R P O R AT I O N

of the first film were more stylish, Huntsman has better world-building, like Queen Freya’s frozen castle and the horned goblins so obsessed with gold they decorate themselves in it. Compared to similar genre entries recently, like The Last Witch Hunter, 47 Ronin and Seventh Son, it’s practically a masterpiece, and if I was 13 years old, it might be my favorite film. PG-13. EZRA JOHNSONGREENOUGH. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Moreland, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, St. Johns 1 & 2, Tigard, Vancouver.

Turner Classic Movies KATHLEEN TURNER SCREENS PEGGY SUE FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD. BY A P KRYZA

apkryza@wweek.com

Oscar-nominated film star Kathleen Turner has been a lot of things during her four decades in the spotlight. She was a sex symbol in her breakout film, Body Heat (1981), and as the voluptuous Jessica Rabbit. She romanced Steve Martin in The Man With Two Brains and Michael Douglas in, well, Romancing the Stone. She’s been a suburban mother, a murderer, a PI and everything in between. Now, Turner’s legacy as a political advocate is beginning to rival her status on the silver screen. She’s chairman of the board of advocates for Planned Parenthood, and next Tuesday she’s hosting a Planned Parenthood benefit showing her most beloved—and seemingly disparate—films: Francis Ford Coppola’s ’50s fantasy Peggy Sue Got Married (featuring Nic Cage talking like Gumby’s pal Pokey) and the John Waters media satire Serial Mom, in which Turner plays a cross between June Cleaver and Hannibal Lecter. WW: Planned Parenthood is a hot button. Does your fame help your message reach people? Kathleen Turner: Without a doubt. I think that because of the film work, I’m held in affection by people, which is sweet and wonderful. As politically active as I am, they still seem to like me. Do you ever go back and watch these films? Never. Occasionally, if I’m flipping through on TV and I see a piece of one of my films, I’ll watch a couple minutes just for fun, but I never go back and look at them. Been there done that. You’ve been working with Planned Parenthood for decades. Has anything changed in the discourse? It’s extraordinary to me. I was listening yesterday to a news show that had Ted Cruz saying he was going do away with Obamacare because he didn’t want any government to come between him and his doctor. Well, what about women? Isn’t that exactly what you are doing? My mind does not grasp what makes men think they have the right to dictate what a woman does with her body. That will remain a mystery. It seems like you spend a lot of time trying to speak to people who don’t want to listen. I was in Texas—God help me, but somebody had

SERIAL MOM

to go. And I was saying to this educated, seemingly successful woman, “You realize Texas passed a 72-hour waiting period between the exam and the ultrasound and a woman being able to have the procedure?’ She said, “No, no, that’s just silly.” Here’s an educated, capable woman who obviously makes her own choices and has for a while, and she’s unaware of the laws of her state. It’s not that unusual. You took a break from acting due to rheumatoid arthritis. But then you returned for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Graduate onstage. Isn’t that more demanding? They told me I’d be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. I told them they were fired. It’s an Olympic athlete time [to be onstage]. Everything you do goes toward that 8 o’clock curtain: how much you work out, what you eat, how much you talk on the phone. It’s all-consuming. It’s also the most extraordinary sense of being alive. I was very surprised to see you on The Path. I haven’t seen it yet! They said, “We just want you to be this alcoholic monster,” and I said fine. I came onto the set after they dressed me in my dead husband’s clothes and smeared grease in my hair. Every surface was covered in empty liquor bottles and ashtrays. I turned to the set guy and said, “You don’t think you overdid this, do you?” Would you consider doing more television? I could never do a sitcom, honest to God. The idea of doing badum-bum, badum-bum month after month—I’d kill myself. I love comedy, but that doesn’t mean it should be canned. SEE IT: Kathleen Turner hosts Peggy Sue Got Married and Serial Mom at Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Tuesday, May 3. $30. To see what’s ALSO SHOWING, visit wweek.com. Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

t e G e r Mo WW in r u yo A New Classic ! x o inb 11 REASONS TO COME OUT TO THE FIRST CULTIVATION CLASSIC. BY WW PROMOTIONS

WW NeWsletter Devour local cut

1. You will be part of world history. According to our research, there has never before been a competition or event exclusively celebrating cannabis grown free of synthetic chemicals. 2. You might see former Trail Blazer Cliff Robinson. Or Zia McCabe, keyboardist for the Dandy Warhols, Duane Sorenson, founder of Stumptown Coffee, or Alex Ganum of Upright Brewing. Our 60-member judging panel features Portlanders with renowned palates. 3. Free stuff, including cannabis. Every

http://bit.ly/wwnewsletter 58

Willamette Week APRIL 27, 2016 wweek.com

7. A funky science lounge awaits. The

team at Cascadia Labs, which tested all 100 entered samples for pesticides, mold and cannabinoids, are bringing in some of their lab equipment for you to play with, and see how they prep a sample for intense testing in the first place.

8. Two words: Drip. Drop. The team at Drip Ice Cream debuts its drip-drop chair. Have a sample and get in for the drip trip. (Also, learn what a drip trip is!)

guest will get a canvas goodie bag preloaded with a few surprises, and meant to be filled up with swag and product throughout the day.

9. Munchie on some tacos, burgers, or beet

4. There’s beer! You can finally drink and

10. Dispensaries in domes. Serra dispensary, which is opening soon on Southeast Belmont, has transformed the inside of a geodesic dome into a “feelings zone.” You may also encounter bean bag chairs filled with trim, pain-relief activities, and happiness/energy/ relaxation/creation stations.

smoke in the same general area. Thanks to River Pig Saloon’s mobile beer truck, Cultivation Classic guests are no more than 10 strides from a hops fix.

advocates and will speak during the Cultivation Classic awards at 5:15 pm.

5. Speakers you’ll actually want to hear. It’s not just a party—there will also be speeches from professors, authors, growers, soil-science and lighting experts working on “chemical-free cannabis production” and why it matters. 6. ...including a U.S. congressman. Earl Blumenauer is one of Oregon’s biggest cannabis

wraps. Onsite food vendors include Taco Pedaler, PDX Sliders and Eatin’ Alive.

11. Free copies of the new edition of the Potlander. Get a free copy here before they go on sale at Powell’s for $5. GO: The Cultivation Classic is at the North Warehouse, 723 N Tillamook St., wweek.com/ cultivationclassic. $40 advance, $55 at the door. 21+.

SKYLAR NGUYEN

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