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OH GOD, HERE COMES TRUMP.
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Scenes from a funny, blunt new memoir about raising a daughter with Down syndrome. BY A M Y S I LV E R M A N | PAG E 1 2
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Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
christine dong
Findings
PAGE 50
What we learned from reading this week’s paper vol. 42, issue 41.
Mitt Romney’s top fundraiser in Oregon and Washington is endorsing Hillary Clinton. 10
Portland’s best hip-hop label is based in a mansion in the West Hills. 27
You can’t hang a picture of Hitler in a Portland bar without people raising a big fuss. 22
At Pickathon, you have to pay $10 for a bamboo plate if you want to eat. 37
There’s a really good barbecue cart behind the Sherwin Williams warehouse in industrial Northwest. 24
Ain’t no rave like a St. Louis rave, because at a St. Louis rave they burn American flags. 38
San Pellegrino is demonstrably gross. 25
ON The Cover:
A white woman named Becky thinks Dangerous Minds was racist. 49
Our most trafficked story online this week:
A Portrait of Sophie, Trisomy 21 Study by Monica Aissa Martinez.
The Portlanders who Donald Trump said were hosting his Seattle shindig now say they don’t know any man named Trump.
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 Sophia June Books Zach Middleton
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welcoming the homeless
Thank You Portland! Best of Portland 2016 Winner Best Organic Cannabis Selection “Farma ... is what the future of boutique cannabis will look like.”- WWeek 7.13.16 Winner Best Budtender Emma Chasen/Farma Winner Best Cannabis Farm Newcleus Nurseries
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Do not operate a vehicle or machinery under the influence of marijuana. Keep marijuana out of the reach of children. 4
Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
regulation of pot industry
I have lived in Parkrose for more than 13 years, Portland’s micromanagement of the marijuana belong to the neighborhood association and have industry has never made much sense [“Nipped two children, and I am excited about in the Bud,” WW, Aug. 3, 2016]. It the proactive and positive approach would be easy to jump to the conto the homeless [“Homeless Heavclusion that this was little more en,” WW, Aug. 4, 2016]. than a power and money grab by I have gotten to know Portland city agencies—and yes, a tool for Police Officer Jason Jones and those still trying to dictate the Historic Parkrose director Mingus morality of others. Mapps, and I love the philosophy of Legal is legal and should be treathelping those who have stumbled ed as such. Coffee shops on three and need a hand to get back up. of four corners isn’t a problem to Parkrose has an opportunity to the city. A row of gift shops isn’t help these people get back on their feet, a problem, yet dispensaries must to get identification, to get cleaned up, to “Parkrose be spread out? become a productive part of society again. has an Sure, I don’t want my commer—“Sean” opportunity cial district to be all pot shops. Then again, I don’t want it all coffee shops to help This sucks for us homeowners and either, and nobody has felt the need will continue to suck. Garbage, drugs, these to regulate that. rodents—and these people are on a water people get —Jeff Snavely source—that will only be more compro- back on mised by people living there. Shut down Portland’s extra layer of their feet.” Parkrose is going downhill because of bureaucracy, stop charging duplicait all. I don’t know any homeowner in our neigh- tive fees, lay off all the local marijuana regulaborhood who likes what is going on. Parkrose has tory staff. Let the state system do the job, but pay a big problem, and our safety is being compro- attention to be sure the state is being fair, costmised. effective and efficient. Incidences are rising, and now my children —“Seems2Me” aren’t allowed to go to our neighborhood park thanks to drugs, unsavory behavior and camping. trump coming to portland The city and our police force need a new level of Oh, but we must be present! [“Donald J. Trump Is Coming to Portland This Month,” wweek.com, thinking about this. Aug. 4, 2016.] I wholeheartedly believe we should —Paula Noel Macfie represent Portland for Mr. Trump the same way OK, so this Gilligan fellow works or trades for his we welcomed Misters Bush and Cheney. drugs? I cannot help but believe that the majority —Chaela Ferguson of drug users are thieves by necessity, whether by LEtters to the editor must include the author’s stealing goods or services. street address and phone number for verification. By allowing this to continue, isn’t it called Letters must be 250 or fewer words. “enabling”? Submit to: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: mzusman@wweek.com. —“You Gotta Be Kidding Me”
Q.
After seeing yet another street cut in half to make a lavish bike lane, I caved and bought a bicycle. My new trail guide, however, lists 30-plus-mile trails as “easy.” Madness! I haven’t been on a bike since I was a kid. How far is a real person’s “easy” ride? —Bike Curious
Upon receiving your letter, I decided ( just for laughs, and certainly not because this is how I normally find the answers to readers’ questions) to Google “tips for beginning cyclists.” I have to say, I see what you’re up against. Bicycling magazine’s “Advice for New Cyclists,” for example, clearly doesn’t define “new” the same way I do: “‘Add an extra 10 miles to your longest ride once a week until you reach 80 miles,’ says cycling coach Frank Overton.” I think I speak for both of us, Curious, when I say that cycling coach Frank Overton and his fanny pack full of Clif Bars can fuck right off. He’ll
never understand the unique training challenges faced by folks like you and me, who have the muscle tone of a sherry trifle and can easily pull a hammy tearing open a packet of gummy bears. How far can People of Walmart like us ride? Let’s do the math. As it turns out, casual walking and mellow, carefree, “Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”-style cycling (in both cases, we’re talking about a level of exertion that doesn’t require putting out your cigarette) each burn about 170 calories per hour. If you’re like most Americans, you probably dawdle along at around 2 mph. (This is how we can still manage to get eaten by those old-school George Romero zombies, even though they can barely move and are always having to stop and pick up their intestines.) Putting that same hungover, zombie-level of effort into cycling will get you up to about 10 mph. So basically, you should be able to comfortably ride about five times as far as you can walk, or, in my case, roughly a mile and a quarter. Hand me my yellow jersey, and there better be a bar at the finish line.
Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com
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Jordan Schnitzer Wins Sole Custody of His Son
Portland businessman Jordan Schnitzer has won a round in his court battle to retain sole custody of his son. WW first reported this spring that Schnitzer was being sued by Cory Sause, the biological mother who provided eggs for a surrogate pregnancy (“It’s a Boy!” WW, March 16, 2016). Schnitzer had a written contract with Sause saying he would not accept just any baby—he’d only take a boy. On Aug. 8, The Oregonian first reported that a Multnomah County circuit judge upheld the agreement. “This ruling reassures thousands of Oregonians and hundreds of thousands of Americans annually,” Schnitzer said in a statement, “who rely upon these time-tested documents that allow many to fulfill their dreams of becoming parents.” Sause’s attorney, Thomas McDermott, says she will continue the legal battle. “Ms. Sause is deeply disappointed by the court’s ruling,” McDermott says, “and will continue to fight for her son to know that she is his mother and that she cares for him.”
The Oregonian Praised and Buried by John Oliver
The Aug. 7 episode of Last Week Tonight With John Oliver prominently featured the work of The Oregonian in a 19-minute segment on the demise of print media. Oliver’s HBO series demonstrated how it relied on former Oregonian reporter Harry Esteve and his 2013 series on the Oregon Lottery to produce its own segments about state-sponsored gambling and addiction. Oliver then recounted the cutbacks made by The O’s owner, New
York-based Advance Publications, and Esteve’s departure from the paper. “So his work bolstered our lottery piece, and now the lack of his work has bolstered this journalism piece,” Oliver cracked. “So you can’t say that we don’t use every part of the Harry Esteve.” Esteve, who’s now in the communications department at Portland State University, says it’s “really flattering” to get the HBO spotlight. “But the thing I like most: It inspired a really good conversation about the state of newspapers.”
Homer Williams Wants Ibrahim Mubarak to Run Homeless Campus
The Portland City Council is scheduled to vote this week on the early stages of developer Homer Williams’ proposed 400-bed, $100 million homeless shelter on the Northwest industrial waterfront. Williams’ proposal has been criticized by both the business lobby and homeless advocates. But on Aug. thin k out loud
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8, Williams said he’d recruited two big names to run the campus: Right 2 Dream Too co-founder Ibrahim Mubarak and Union Gospel Mission executive director Bill Russell. Mubarak says he hasn’t agreed to run anything. “I’ll be interested,” he tells WW, “if it gets passed and the houseless community has at least 70 percent say in running the intake facility—with pay.” Mubarak is perhaps the city’s most prominent champion of self-run homeless services. More than a decade ago, he founded the city’s first authorized homeless camp, Dignity Village, then launched Right 2 Dream Too, the city’s most prominent camp, on an empty lot in Chinatown.
NEWS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
JODIE BEECHEM
Workers of the World Oregon runs on immigrant labor. That’s one of the inescapable conclusions of a report released Aug. 3 by a coalition of state government and business leaders demanding Congress enact comprehensive immigration reform. The group, led by Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland) and the Oregon Association of Nurseries, wants Congress to make it easier for immigrants to enter Oregon. It’s an uneasy alliance: progressive politicians and preachers are teaming with the business lobby, which wants more laborers. They face an uphill battle. Even before the groundswell of anti-immigrant feeling that buoyed Donald J. Trump, Oregon voters soundly rejected a 2014 measure to let undocumented workers get driver’s licenses. But the coalition calling itself Reason for Reform isn’t appealing to the higher virtues of Oregonians. It’s aiming its case at the wallet. The group’s report argues that immigrants in Oregon create new jobs and pour $2.4 billion a year into state and federal tax coffers. The 42-page report is jammed with figures from 2014 on legal immigrants and undocumented workers. Here are four questions it addresses. JOHANNA BERNHARD.
10%
1. How many Oregonians were born abroad?
3%
That’s 388,960 people.
3% of Oregon’s population is made up of undocumented immigrants. That’s 114,195 people. (Other estimates place the number closer to 160,000.)
3. Where do they go?
2. Where do Oregon’s immigrant tax dollars come from?
The Oregon cities seeking the most visiting-worker visas. H-1B (high-skilled workers, often in tech jobs) 1. Hillsboro 2. Portland 3. Beaverton
The amount foreign-born workers in Oregon paid in federal and state taxes.
Asia: $950.9 million Middle East and North Africa: $55.2 million
H-2A (agricultural workers) 1. Hermiston 2. Hood River 3. Albany
2
2
1
3
Agricultural workers
Maids and housekeepers Software developers Cooks Engineers, including nuclear engineers Painters and construction workers
SOURCES: THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF NEW AMERICANS IN OREGON, T H E PA R T N E R S H I P F O R A N E W A M E R I C A N E CO N O M Y
3
Occupations with largest share of foreign-born workers.
Industrial truck and tractor operators
Sub-Saharan Africa: $63.4 million
1
4. What do they do?
Hand packers and packagers
Latin America: $599 million
7%
30% 28% 26% 26%
47% 44% 41%
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56%
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megan nanna
NEWS “Do you want to be a Different kinD of crazy that changes the craziness?” —Devontre Thomas
Unshakable NATIVE AMERICAN TEENAGER DEVONTRE THOMAS STARED DOWN FEDERAL CHARGES FOR A GRAM OF CANNABIS. HERE’S WHY HE FOUGHT BACK. By L E A H S OT T I L E
@Leah_Sottile
On Aug. 4, Devontre Thomas learned that federal prosecutors threatening him with a year in prison for a gram of cannabis had backed down and dropped the charges. Thomas celebrated quietly: He worked a nine-hour shift at the Goodwill in Sandy, then ordered in Chinese food with his girlfriend. “I never minded it,” he tells WW. “I knew something was going to happen.” At age 19, Thomas faced a peril that seems obsolete to many Oregonians: federal criminal charges for marijuana possession. But Thomas is Native American, and was accused of trying to buy a joint’s worth of weed at Chemawa Indian School in Salem, a boarding school operated by an arm of the federal government. Two weeks ago, WW told Thomas’ story and asked why U.S. Attorney for Oregon Billy Williams would prosecute the case (“Shakedown,” WW, July 27, 2016). The story went global—picked up by publications from High Times to The Guardian in London—and sparked outcry from Oregon’s congressional delegation. Eight days after WW’s story, the U.S. Attorney’s Office backed down, agreeing to drop the charges against Thomas if he obeys the law and keeps a job for 60 days. Oregon elected officials celebrated the reversal as a blow against cannabis prohibition. “My hope is that this sets a precedent,” says U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D - Ore.), “that federal prosecutors should not be wasting time and resources on low-level marijuana crimes.” The victory happened only because Thomas chose to go to court, rejecting prosecutors’ offered deal that he plead
guilty and get six months of probation. In an exclusive interview with WW, Thomas says he wanted to force the government to prove he’d bought a baggie of cannabis that he never touched. “It’s really hard to prove somebody for possession of marijuana when I wasn’t even possessing it,” Thomas says. “It was like, whatever, make ’em prove it.” Thomas understood the risks: If he went to trial and lost, he not only faced a year in prison and a $1,000 fine, but the denial of federal student loans, public housing and government aid for the rest of his life. But Thomas also saw benefits to a trial: He hoped the publicity would pressure the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to remove cannabis from the list of Schedule I narcotics—the same category as heroin, Ecstasy and LSD. “Schedule I, there’s no medicinal properties,” Thomas says. “If it’s a Schedule II, it has a medicinal purpose. That’s why I was kind of pushing for it. I wanted to be the person to change it to Schedule II.” By pressuring the prosecutors, Thomas received a much better offer than the plea deal he was presented in May. He will have to stay out of trouble for two months, but admits no wrongdoing, doesn’t have to submit to court supervision or urine tests, and has no conviction on his record. The prosecution of Thomas seemed particularly galling because Oregon voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2014. Observers say the prosecution reflects poorly on Williams, whose job as U.S. attorney for Oregon is a presidential appointment. “Several people made serious errors of judgment,” says Portland criminal defense lawyer Bear Wilner-Nugent.
FREEDOM FIGHTER: Devontre Thomas says his public defender, Ruben Iniguez, told him to be honest and hope for the best while facing down federal cannabis charges. “I was like, ‘I’ll be all right.’”
“It ultimately embarrassed the U.S. attorney. It called into question his standing with our senators, and here we are. Nine times out of 10, the U.S. senators make the recommendation of who should be appointed. If it’s January of 2016 and Hillary Clinton’s staff is asking who the U.S. attorney for Oregon should be, [senators are] going to think twice about recommending Billy Williams.” Williams’ office acknowledged it is dropping the case, but declined to further comment. Thomas’ case likely received federal scrutiny because he was enrolled at Chemawa, a school run by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Education. Thomas is a member of the Warm Springs tribe, and grew up on the tribe’s reservation in Central Oregon. He enrolled at Chemawa hoping to escape what he describes as a cycle of poverty and drug abuse on the reservation. “When we were kids, we were smoking bud,” he says. “But it was like, dang, look at your uncle, he’s smoking bud and he’s 30. It’s a really repetitive cycle. Honestly, [Chemawa] helped me or I would be repeating that cycle. I had a lot to overcome to get to where I am now.” Thomas says he holds no grudge against the school administrators and prosecutors who pursued him. “It’s just their job, I guess,” he says. “It’s all good.” Thomas is still happy he went to Chemawa. A teacher at the boarding school taught him gardening, and helped him land an unpaid internship at Ant Farm, a nonprofit farm and cafe in the Clackamas County town of Sandy, where he tends blueberries and huckleberries. With the specter of federal prison gone, he hopes to attend college and study environmental science. He then wants to return to the Warm Springs reservation—and change it. “What I’m looking at doing is to pass on knowledge— the berry plants, the way the salmon run,” Thomas says. “We lost our way. Nothing ever changes there, it only gets crazier. Do you want to be a part of that craziness or do you want to be a different kind of crazy that changes the craziness?”
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A FACE IN THE CROWD: Republican presidential nominee Donald J. Trump speaks in Phoenix in June. He’s planning to visit Portland on Aug. 31.
Ducking Donald TRUMP IS VISITING PORTLAND. MAJOR GOP DONORS ARE RUNNING AWAY. By AA RO N M E SH
amesh@wweek.com
Typically, a presidential candidate’s visit to a city goes like this: The campaign schedules a stop, and as public anticipation builds, major donors line up to host a fundraising dinner. But Donald J. Trump isn’t a typical candidate, and Portland isn’t his city. Last week, the Trump campaign announced the Republican presidential nominee would swing through the Pacific Northwest this month, visiting Seattle on Aug. 30 and Portland on Aug. 31. But over the weekend, those plans ran smack into a Little Beirut backlash—culminating with Trump’s Oregon finance chairman declaring he would have nothing to do with the nominee. On Aug. 6, The Seattle Times uncovered an invitation to a $2,700-a-person fundraising event in Seattle. WW reported that three prominent Portland businessmen were listed as hosts of the Seattle event: hoteliers Gordon Sondland and Bashar Wali, and private equity manager Peter Stott. Within 48 hours of the report, all three men disavowed the Trump campaign, saying their names had been placed on the invitation without their approval, and they would not participate in any fundraisers for Trump. Now the chairman of onetime Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s Oregon and Washington fundraising efforts tells WW he will endorse Hillary Rodham Clinton. David Nierenberg, a Southwest Washington investor, was one of eight original national finance chairs for Romney for President. He says he’s backing Clinton because Trump lacks “the basic human decency” to be president. “I don’t want to bequeath that kind of leader to my kids’ generation,” Nierenberg says. “I owe them better.” Nierenberg has closely watched the GOP donor class fleeing Trump. “We’re now at the point where the most productive fundraising members of our team are not helping the Trump campaign,” he says. “Gordon [Sondland] is a truly prolific fundraiser.”
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The key figure in the mess is Sondland, who owns stakes in five downtown Portland hotels: the Lucia, deLuxe, Sentinel, Westin and Benson. He and Wali, president of Sondland’s company Provenance Hotels, pointed to Trump’s anti-immigrant statements and his war of words with Khizr and Ghazala Khan, the parents of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq. “Historically, Mr. Sondland has been supportive of the Republican Party’s nominees for president,” Provenance spokeswoman Kate Buska told WW in an Aug. 7 statement. “However, in light of Mr. Trump’s treatment of the Khan family and the fact his constantly evolving positions diverge from their personal beliefs and values on so many levels, neither Mr. Sondland nor Mr. Wali can support his candidacy.” But Sondland appears to have been supporting Trump’s candidacy for more than a month. On July 1, the Republican National Committee listed Sondland among 80 Republican donors who had agreed to be “bundlers” for Trump Victory, an independent fundraising committee. As Oregon finance chairman, Sondland would help recruit other GOP donors for Trump. And the Seattle invitation lists Sondland as co-chairman of Trump Victory’s chapter in Oregon and Washington. Sondland’s spokeswoman confirms he initially agreed to be part of the Trump fundraising team. “Mr. Sondland, as a lifelong Republican, fully expected to support the Republican nominee and originally agreed to be listed as such on certain campaign materials,” Buska tells WW. “Once it became apparent he could no longer
support the nominee for the reasons previously given, Mr. Sondland resigned from all campaign-related activities, including the Victory campaign.” Stott, who is a trustee at Portland State University and longtime donor to Republican candidates, says he asked Trump fundraisers to take his name off the Seattle invitation. “While I have been a longtime supporter of Republican candidates and causes, I have no role in the Trump campaign and did not approve the use of my name in conjunction with any Trump campaign event in Seattle,” Stott tells WW in a statement. The flurry of donors distancing themselves from Trump comes as the Republican nominee continues to slide in national polls, following the party conventions and his repeated anti-Muslim screeds, including attacks on the Kahns. The controversy also raises questions about what kind of reception Trump will get in Portland, where protesters have a long tradition of trying to disrupt Republican visits. The Trump campaign told WW last week it hopes to hold a public rally in Portland along with its private fundraising dinner but is still looking for a venue. Trump’s Oregon campaign director, Jacob Daniels, says he doesn’t know much about the retreating donors. “It’s between these particular donors and the fundraising committee,” Daniels tells WW. “My job’s to win votes for Mr. Trump out here in Oregon, not to fundraise.” WW staff writer Rachel Monahan contributed reporting to this story.
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S cenes from a funny, Scenes blunt new memoir about raising a daughter with Down syndrome.
“Sophie is the first person with Down syndrome I ever met,” Amy Silverman writes, “which wouldn’t have been so awkward if she wasn’t my daughter.” In 2003, Silverman woke up from her C-section to discover her doctor was worried her new daughter, Sophie, had been born with an extra chromosome. The genetic disorder is known as Down syndrome, and among other traits commonly includes an intellectual disability. There are 400,000 people in the U.S. with Down syndrome, one of the most common genetic disorders in the world. Silverman’s new book, My Heart Can’t Even Believe It, is a blunt and often humorous telling of how she went from a confessed “spoiled, self-centered brat” who would switch lines at Safeway when she saw she was going to be served by a bagger with special needs into a proud mother and advocate. CONT. on page 15
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I DON’T REMEMBER EVER USING THE WORD “RETARDED” AS A PEJORATIVE, BUT I KNOW I MUST HAVE, BECAUSE YEARS AFTER I STOPPED, UPON THE OCCASION OF SOPHIE’S DIAGNOSIS, I WOULD STILL FIND IT ON THE TIP OF MY
EVIE CARPENTER
TONGUE, FEEL MYSELF CRAVING IT LIKE A CIGARETTE.
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By Am y S i lve rm An
@amysilvermanaz
When she was in third grade, my daughter Sophie became a bit of a tattletale. “Someone used a really bad word at school today,” she told me one evening after dinner. “What word?” “The S word!” “Really?” I said. I was sort of surprised my 8-year-old knew the word shit. Then again, I had taken her to work with me at an alternative newspaper on occasion. “What’s the S word, Sophie?” “Oh, I can’t say.” “C’mon. It’s OK. It’s just us.” “OK,” she said, before stage-whispering her answer. “Stupid.” Immediately, I worried that she was being bullied for her Down syndrome. I blurted out, “Did someone call you stupid?” “No,” she said, looking surprised. It had nothing to do with her. She’d just overheard the word stupid. “That’s not a nice word,” she told me. “You’re right,” I replied. “It’s not.” I hugged her tight, feeling proud of my sweet, sensitive kid—and also a little horrified. Are we raising humanitarians or wusses? I asked myself silently, kissing the top of her head. Pretty soon, there won’t be any words left. n
On a cool winter day in 2003, I went in for an ultrasound—the non-routine, high-definition kind where they can see everything. I was 36 and six months pregnant with my second child and I should have been scared shitless given the serious look on my doctor’s face, but I was oddly calm as I waddled toward the elevator. The ultrasound had been a compromise. A week earlier, I’d sat on another exam table in another medical building a few blocks away, shivering in a paper dress as my obstetrician suggested I get an amniocentesis. A blood test that screens for birth defects had come back showing an elevated risk of Down syndrome, he explained, and amniocentesis would create some certainty. At the time, I really did not understand what Down syndrome was. I think I knew that Corky, the kid from that ’80s TV show, had it, and that the baggers at Safeway—the chubby ones with the round glasses who made me uncomfortable, the ones I always avoided—had it, too. I just knew that Down syndrome was part of the list of things you don’t want your kid to have—right up there with spina bifida and Tay-Sachs—and that my unborn kid had a 1-in-214 chance of getting it, according to this doctor. Those seemed like pretty good odds, but the guy looked so serious I got a little spooked. I called my husband, Ray, and explained the whole thing in a rush, telling him that there is a risk of miscarriage associated with amniocentesis, a procedure where doctors use a long needle to take a sample of the baby’s amniotic fluid. “That, and I don’t really want anyone sticking a needle in my stomach,” I admitted. “If they find out she has it, can they fix it?” “No.” “Then why would you get the amnio?” Ray asked. “You’re six months pregnant. What are you going to do, get a late-term abortion?” Well, when he put it like that—no way. Looking back, I’ll admit that I didn’t get the amnio because I was afraid of a long needle and a painful abortion rather than because I was OK with having a kid with Down syndrome.
n
I don’t remember ever using the word “retarded” as a pejorative, but I know I must have, because years after I stopped, upon the occasion of Sophie’s diagnosis, I would still find it on the tip of my tongue, feel myself craving it like a cigarette. Retarded is rich, satisfying in its cruelty. It’s a word that gets its point across, perfect when you’re describing a politician or that guy who just cut you off in traffic. Sometimes there’s no good substitute—and yet it’s gone. Like a former cigarette user offended by secondhand smoke, I became the first with a dirty look or an admonition when I heard someone else use it. Hey, if I can’t say “retarded,” then neither can you. And neither should you. As Sophie’s mom, there’s so much I can’t do to make the world more accepting—but I can make damn sure you quit using that fucking word. But “stupid”? That’s a tough one. Really, I can’t use it anymore? After my conversation with Sophie, I thought about it for days, caught myself every time I used the word, took note when others did. I started thinking about all the other euphemisms for stupid—dumb, idiot, moron, imbecile—and the more creative ones like mouth breather and drooler. And then I felt sick. It’s commonly assumed that people with Down syndrome have above-average-sized tongues, because they often protrude from their mouths. The truth is that there’s nothing different about their tongues; but people with Down syndrome do tend to have smaller mouths, making it appear as though they have super-long tongues. They also can have breathing problems because all of their openings—including nasal passages—tend to be smaller than average. And because they have weaker immune systems, they tend to get more colds. That’s why you’ll often see a person with Down syndrome mouth breathing. Or drooling. I ran across a list on Wikipedia of “disabilityrelated terms with negative connotations.” That’s when I started using the word ridiculous a lot. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. n
For so long, Sophie was my daughter who had Down syndrome. She was cute, I knew I should love her, and I did love her, in some basic way. But she wasn’t just my daughter in the same way our older child, Annabelle, was. It was never that simple, not for many years. I was so busy worrying about the parts that I didn’t let myself consider the sum. When Sophie was born, I abandoned the luxury of simply sitting back and enjoying my kid. Instead, I made doctor appointments and looked for therapists and fought with school administrators. And admonished people who used the word retarded. And then one day around Sophie’s 7th birthday, I woke up and realized Sophie had become her own little person—something I’d long ago decided would never happen. I was wrong. She had ideas and opinions—sometimes even stronger than those of her peers. One day I walked into her second-grade classroom to volunteer; the kids were learning how to use computers. Every other kid was on the
correct screen, learning a basic function. Sophie had found her way to the Target website and was shopping for Olivia the Pig merchandise. The teacher smiled and rolled her eyes, and I suppose I should have scolded Sophie. But I couldn’t. I loved every bit of her. n
Of all the words used to describe people who are differently abled, retarded currently tops society’s list as most offensive. That was not always the case. The word retarded has a slang-free history. For a long time, it simply meant slow. Actual references to retarded intelligence did not come until the 1900s. Tim Shriver, head of the Special Olympics, ties that to the development of IQ tests, which first became popular at the turn of the 20th century. And that led to a whole new toolbox full of terminology. “The words we use in common language— imbecile, idiot, retard—these are medical terms developed around the turn of the last century to classify people with intellectual differences according to their IQ,” Shriver said. “All of a sudden we get classifications, we get labels. They are quite horrible. And the labels lead to this idea that people are somehow lower and lower in the value chain…and become more and more desirable to get rid of.” The terms idiot and imbecile are no longer formally used. But mental retardation remained an acceptable medical term until very recently. And early on, I routinely used mentally retarded to describe Sophie’s medical condition. When I first heard noise about the move to switch the accepted term from mentally retarded to intellectually disabled or cognitively disabled, I balked. I actually liked (and continue to like) the term mentally retarded. I think it does a better job than the others of describing what the situation is. In some ways, Sophie is slower than the rest of us in our house. I can live with that more easily than intellectually disabled—I don’t like either of those words. Plus, I wondered, how long was it going to be before kids were calling each other “cog” on the playground? As a parent of a kid with Down syndrome, I have naming issues aside from how Sophie’s IQ is addressed. How should we refer to a person with her genetic condition? J. Langdon Down came up with the term mongolism, because he believed the condition he’d identified was marked by features similar to those of the Mongol people, and because these people he was working with were slower mentally, he believed this to be sign of racial regression. Gross, huh? And then the syndrome was officially named after him. Why not name it after Jerome Lejeune, the man who put that theory to rest once and for all by discovering the third 21st chromosome? Or just call it trisomy 21? And then there’s the whole “people first” thing. In any case, the R-word train left the station without me. Before I could decide how I really felt about it, there were campaigns everywhere to get rid of it completely. n
I was raised by liberals. We would never, ever make fun of a black person or scorn a Mexican. We were good people—agnostic Jews who believed in the Golden Rule. cont. on page 17 Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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But did that apply to the developmentally disabled? I’m honestly not sure. I only have one family story that has anything to do with that. My mom loves to tell my birth story. As she gets older, Sophie asks to hear it (along with her own birth story, and Annabelle’s) over and over, so I know it well. I was her first baby. She was three weeks from her due date, and it was almost Halloween. She and my dad were at the movies, and suddenly she had an overwhelming craving for candy corn, so he got her some. The next day, her friends threw her a surprise baby shower. They lived in a small apartment complex—think Melrose Place but not as swanky—and there was a giant gong by the pool. To get my mom’s attention, someone banged on the gong. It scared the crap out of her; she swears that’s when her labor began, though to this day she’s not sure whether to blame the candy corn or the gong. Sophie loves the story. She doesn’t know the part my mom and I stopped telling after Sophie was born. A few weeks before I was born, the phone rang. My mom picked it up. It was a strange woman. “Mrs. Silverman?” she asked. “Yes,” my mom replied. “Who is this?” The woman explained that she worked at the state institution for the mentally retarded. “We have a space open for your baby, David Silverman,” she said. Quickly my mom explained that the woman had the wrong number and hung up. But she was haunted by the call. David was the name she’d chosen for me if I’d been a boy. “Ooooooh,” we’d all say when she told it, like it was a ghost story. I like to think it’s more that we were ignorant than horrible. None of us had ever been around anyone with developmental disabilities. It just wasn’t in anyone’s vocabulary in our family.
WORD
was actually meant to supplant imbecile, moron, and idiot—in a good way. And he took issue with Palin’s comparison of retard to the word nigger. “In some respects, the comparison seems overblown,” Fairman said. “The N-word invokes some of the foulest chapters in our nation’s history; ‘retard,’ however harsh, pales in comparison.” And then he recounted a story in which a political staffer was forced to resign after using the term niggardly—an unfortunate choice of words, perhaps, but not technically an offensive choice. Niggardly means stingy or cheap and is supposedly derived from the Norse verb nigla. (The staffer was ultimately reinstated.) Ultimately, Fairman argued, getting rid of the word retard won’t get rid of the sentiment behind it. “If interest groups want to pour resources into cleaning up unintentional insults, more power to them; we surely would benefit from greater kindness to one another,” Fairman concluded. “But we must not let ‘retard’ go without a requiem. If the goal is to protect intellectually disabled individuals from put-downs and prejudice, it won’t succeed. New words of insult will replace old ones.”
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What are you supposed to say when one of your best friends calls and tells you that her baby has Down syndrome? I still don’t know. I definitely didn’t know when Sophie was born. I’d get on the freeway and drive really fast and call my friends on my cellphone and tell them, one by one. “Hey!” the friend would say, “I got your birth announcement! Congratulations! Cute picture! How’s Annabelle liking having a little sister?” I’d hit the gas. “Well,” I’d begin. “We have some bad news. Sophie has Down syndrome.” Silence. Sometimes there’d be sniffling on the other end. This happened maybe half a dozen times before a friend stopped me, midsentence. “You know, it’s not a bad thing,” Becky said. “I’ve worked with kids with Down syndrome, and they’re some of the sweetest, most loving people I’ve ever met.” Um, they are? I had no idea. CONT. on page 19
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Christopher Fairman, a professor at Ohio State’s law school, literally wrote the book on the word fuck. His book, Fuck, is a historical, political and legal account of how the word became taboo—and why, in his view, it shouldn’t be. Fairman, who died last year, felt the same about the word retarded. His article on the topic was published in The Washington Post in February 2010, the month before Tim Shriver’s Special Olympics launched a special awareness day for its “Spread the Word to End the Word” campaign, and months before President Obama signed legislation officially removing the word from federal legal-ese. Just a couple weeks before Fairman’s piece was published, Rahm Emanuel, then the White House chief of staff, had apologized to Shriver and people with disabilities everywhere after The Wall Street Journal reported that Emanuel had called a group “fucking retards” at a private meeting held the previous summer. Conservatives—usually the politically incorrect name-callers—had a field day with this one. A Democrat at the highest level of government dissing members of his own party with such language? Classic. Things escalated, as Fairman explained, when former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who has a son with Down syndrome, “quickly took to Facebook to demand Emanuel’s firing, likening the offensiveness of the R-word to that of the N-word.” Rush Limbaugh said he found nothing wrong with “calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards,” and Palin rushed to his defense, saying Limbaugh had used the word satirically. Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert took her up on it, calling Palin an ‘[expletive] retard’ and adding, with a smile: ‘You see? It’s satire!’” Can you see how the word ridiculous just doesn’t begin to cover it? “I sympathize with the effort,” Fairman said. “It’s not that I’ve come to praise the word ‘retard’; I just don’t think we should bury it. If the history of offensive terms in America shows anything, it is that words themselves are not the culprit; the meaning we attach to them is, and such meanings change dramatically over time and across communities.” He made a good case, mentioning how mental retardation Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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At that point, I didn’t even know the most popular stereotypes. My favorite reaction came from my best friend, Laurie Notaro. I called her during one of my drives and broke the news straight out. She gasped and started crying, saying, “Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh Amy, I’m so sorry.” I thought nothing of it. Frankly, it seemed like an appropriate reaction to me. But her response obviously haunted Laurie, because later that day, I got an email: Listen, I’m really embarrassed about our conversation this morning about Sophie. I didn’t know what to say. And I’ve been thinking about her and you all morning, and I just want you to know that I said the wrong thing. I mean, when I said that I was sorry
about Sophie and Down syndrome, that just came tumbling out. Since then, I’ve realized it was a stupid thing to say, because Sophie is going to be fine. She’s just going to be Sophie. Not long after that email, Laurie came to the house with two Baby Lulu outfits (the expensive ones, not the kind you can buy at Costco) and an apple Danish from the best bakery in Phoenix. She also gave me another gift—my favorite baby gift of all. At the time Sophie was born, Laurie was putting the final touches on her third book of essays. She actually went through that book proof, page by page, and took out the word retarded every time it appeared. “Well,” she later explained, “almost every time. In some places, there just wasn’t another word that worked.”
Amy Silverman BY A D R I E N N E SO
When Amy Silverman gave birth to her second daughter, she and her husband learned that their beautiful little girl also had Down syndrome. It was a moment Silverman, in typically unvarnished fashion, described as “an existential crisis.” “I was one of those people, those people you feel sorry for, those people I wrote about in stories for the newspaper,” she writes in My Heart Can’t Even Believe It, excerpted for Willamette Week before her appearance at Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing. Silverman is managing editor at the Phoenix New Times and a contributor to This American Life and The New York Times. Her book mixes reporting with recollection and covers everything from her daughter Sophie’s first period to Silverman’s failed attempts to interview Crispin Glover. “I wrote the book that my best friend would have read when Sophie was born,” she says, “and trying to figure out what it all meant.” WW: How old is Sophie now? How is she doing? Amy Silverman: Sophie is 13 years old. She is doing really well. She started eighth grade today. She doesn’t get dressed when asked. She also informed me that it’s not appropriate to brush her hair on the first day of school. I appreciate her conundrum. My husband, her sister and I don’t brush our hair, because we all have curly hair. I don’t blame her for being annoyed. In the book, you talk about your worries that elementary school would be “the salad days” and things would just get harder from there with Sophie. Did that happen? Like anything in life, it ebbs and flows. There are some days where it’s awesome and some days where things suck. I see the friends she was closer with in elementary school, and it’s not like they won’t give her the time of day. They’re nice, but they’re just going through the motions. But I see her connecting with people in ways I never thought she would. I’ll see some kids walking up to school at the same time she is, and they’ll really engage with each other. She just goes right up and says “hi.” Nine times out of 10, it works. I’d love to wake up as Sophie for a day, pull a Freaky Friday. There may come a day when it sucks, but she’s the only kid in America excited for the eighth grade.
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Do you have a favorite chapter? There’s an excerpt from the mainstreaming chapter where I talked about her first day of kindergarten, when we brought in rogue aides to help. I felt like that explained a lot about what goes on in public schools, when there aren’t enough resources and you don’t have a supportive principal. I’m too close to it all to have a favorite, to be honest. I like the discussion of the word “retarded.” That’s something I still think about. It seems relevant today, with social media. It’s so easy to offend someone and shut down a discussion by saying something wrong in 140 characters. Sometimes we’re not careful enough. But sometimes, I feel like we’re too careful. One of the things I’ve noticed with talk of intellectual disability, is there are self-appointed gatekeepers. Some disability academics—they teach about disabilities as part of multiculturalism—you can’t say anything
“OH MY GOD, IS THAT WHAT IT’S GOING TO BE LIKE?” without them parsing it. As a word person, I appreciate that. But I’m starting to think it’s part of the reason we don’t talk about people with intellectual disabilities more. It gets awkward when I say that some people can’t speak up for themselves. But it’s true! Sophie is whip-smart, but she can’t engage in a debate about the word “retarded” in a way that a person who uses a wheelchair can talk about the nuances. I find it interesting, where it dovetails with whether or not parents should be writing about kids with disabilities. I read a big argument on Twitter over whether parents of autistic kids should say anything about it. But it’s like the two options are parents saying something and no one saying anything. They think it shouldn’t be spoken about at all,
SILVERMAN
unless it’s someone who has the disability who is very eloquent, like Temple Grandin. But for every person who has autism or Down syndrome, you see something different, and the more it can be discussed in a responsible way, the better. That’s the rub, though. You can’t guarantee people will do it responsibly. Sophie sounds so self-aware. Has she reconciled herself to having Down syndrome? She is self-aware, which is good and bad. This spring, we were flying home from Denver. We were all huddled in the airport and this very sweet woman walks up, points at Sophie and asks, “Does she have Down syndrome?” I completely get it. There’s a part in the book where I talk about how I’m a starer. You’re always watching older people out in the wild, thinking, “Oh my God, is that what it’s going to be like?” This woman was carrying a 2-year-old who had Down syndrome, and she started firing questions at us. Sophie was a wreck after that. She hadn’t asked about it in a while, and she and I went to the grocery store, and she said, “I do not want to have Down syndrome.” How do you answer that? Well, I know how to answer that, but the answer just doesn’t fly. It sucks. But she also has an awesome life. She just did an improv workshop, and she loved that. Having Down syndrome played in her favor. She’ll freeassociate in ways that I won’t because I get frozen. She’s fearless. I do want people to know what Sophie is like, but Sophie isn’t like everyone else. Everyone is different. To be super-politically incorrect, you may end up with someone way awesomer or way less awesome. I just wanted to say, “Here’s this person, and you should know about this thing. It’s the most common genetic defect. You can do with that what you want.” GO: Amy Silverman reads at Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, on Thursday, Aug. 18. 7 pm. Free. myheartcantevenbelieveit.com.
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STARTERS
BITE-SIZED PORTLAND CULTURE NEWS.
VIDEO KILLED THE FASCISM STAR: When it comes to provocation, Portland hardcore legends Poison Idea still have it, even after 3½ decades. The band’s new video for its song “Calling All Ghosts” depicts a Travis Bickle-like character attempting to assassinate Donald Trump after being abducted and brainwashed by a punk terrorist organization. While it might not be the shrewdest idea to imagine a sniper taking a shot at a presidential candidate, Brett Roberts, who co-directed with Long Knife’s Colin Jarrell, says they came up with the concept before Trump was officially the GOP nominee and released it in June, before he was eligible for Secret Service protection. And anyway, it could’ve been a lot worse. “We wanted the end to be obviously blasting the shit out of Trump,” Roberts says, “but due to budget restraints, we couldn’t do it.” As it is, the video ends on an ambiguous note, which should keep the feds off the doorstep of anyone involved…hopefully. MAKE AMERICA HATE AGAIN: In other Trump news, Clinton Street bar Night Light Lounge removed a painting Aug. 6 depicting Adolf Hitler in full Nazi regalia, wearing a “Make America Great Again” baseball cap. The painting by Portlander Matthew Abelman (who paints under the name “Slim Pickins”) had been hung earlier the same day, but was removed after customer complaints, igniting online accusations of censorship. Night Light co-owner Christopher Gutierrez tells WW that customers found the painting disturbing not because of its politics but because it depicted Hitler. “The image of Hitler is strong for some people,” Gutierrez says. “It’s a lot to ask people to enter a space that’s not safe for them.” The artist says there are no hard feelings. “It’s not an art gallery,” Abelman says. “At the same time, there’s that tendency toward censorship that’s pervasive in our society even if it’s just a bar where you go to have a burger.” MOVING PICTURES: One of the best movie programmers in the country is relocating from San Francisco to Portland. Elliot Lavine “is to movies what a feng shui master is to furniture,” gushed the San Francisco Chronicle. Now, Lavine is moving to Portland. Starting next February at Cinema 21—just in time for the historic theater’s 90th birthday—Portlanders can see Lavine’s legendary film noir programming in a series called “I Wake Up Dreaming.” This will be the first time one of Lavine’s festivals screens outside the Bay Area, where he found his calling as a movie programmer for the iconic Roxie Theater in 1990. Portland, unlike most American cities, still has a wealth of indie cinemas, but Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle is confident Lavine will be a game-changer here. “They don’t yet know what they’ve been missing,” he writes in a heartfelt farewell to Lavine. “San Francisco’s loss is [Portland’s] gain.” SEATTLE’S BEST: Portland and Seattle have long been rivals for the title of best coffee city—but Seattle seems to have settled it. Portland wins. In an Aug. 3 poll, readers of Seattle Weekly voted on their favorite coffee in all of Seattle. The winner was Portland-born, Portland-roasted, California-bought Stumptown roasters. “Amid the array of Emerald City roasters and espresso-shot pullers, it might be hard to believe that a Portland-born coffee shop could rule supreme,” wrote SW, “but Stumptown is that good.” 22
Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
Headout
GO: Grand Prix Portland 2016 is at the Oregon Convention Center, gppdx.com, on FridaySunday, Aug. 12-14.
WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE
THE SIX PEOPLE
You Will See at This Weekend’s
Magic Tournament BY WALKER MACMU R DO
wmacmurdo@wweek.com
This weekend, professional Magic: The Gathering returns to Portland for the first time since 2014. About 2,000 people will battle it out for a $10,000 grand prize, while hundreds more will visit to hang out, trade cards and party. Here are six people you can expect to see at the Oregon Convention Center this weekend.
WEDNESDAY AUG. 10 G.L.O.S.S.
[HARDCORE] G.L.O.S.S.’s Trans Day of Revenge EP is a punkrock master class, tapping into the power of classic hardcore, D-beat and crust. But this is not a nostalgia trip. It is a rallying cry for the “burning kids” who have embraced punk as a way to survive and thrive. Bossanova Ballroom, 722 E Burnside St., 503-206-7630. 7 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. All ages.
All Comics Are Bastards
I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y S P E N C E R A F O N S O
[HARD TIMES] Bill Conway from The Hard Times hosts a stellar lineup of local comedians. This is your chance to see Wendy Weiss, Portland’s best stripper-comedian, at a club that used to be a Chinese language school. Hot Pockets will be sold. Kickstand Comedy Space, 315 NW Davis St., kickstandcomedy.org. 8 pm. $5 suggested donation. All ages.
THURSDAY AUG. 11 Movies in Black and White
The Cosplayer
The Grinder
The MTG Bro
Her extraordinarily elaborate costume, whether it be an archangel with blood-soaked wings or a snake-haired wizard. W H E R E TO F I N D H E R : Outside the event hall, swarmed by adoring onlookers asking for selfies. CHANCE OF WINNING: The hearts and minds of attendees? 100 percent.
IDENTIFY HIM BY: Basketball shorts, small-market NBA team cap, wispy facial hair, calm and cool demeanor. WHERE TO FIND HIM: Near the top tables deep into the tournament with his teammates cheering him on. CHANCE OF WINNING: Way better than he thought.
IDENTIFY HIM BY: Black hoodie, flatbrim hat, sleeve tattoos, vape pen. WHERE TO FIND HIM: Outside the event center complaining, between vape hits, to friends that his opponents “got so fuckin’ lucky” to beat him in several avoidable losses. CHANCE OF WINNING: In his mind: 90 percent. In reality: 0 percent.
IDENTIFY HER BY:
[HECKLE] Soul Man (1986) is in the running for Most Racist Movie Ever. That makes it perfect fodder for the Hollywood’s Hecklevision series, where commentary by audience members and a panel of local comedians is shown on the screen. Texting during the movie is encouraged. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-493-1128. 9:30 pm. $9.
FRIDAY AUG. 12 EYRST One-Year Anniversary Show
[NEW PORTLAND RAP] Last summer, former Blazer Martell Webster launched a record label out of his West Hills mansion. It’s produced some of the most future-focused rap music in the area, including projects from Myke Bogan, the Last Artful Dodgr and Maze Koroma. This celebration features the release of Webster’s debut mixtape, ARTT. The Evergreen, 618 SE Alder St., 503-260-2405. 8 pm. $8 with canned-food donation, $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
Lidia Yuknavitch
[BOOKS] In Lidia Yuknavitch’s novel The Small Backs of Children, an image of a little girl enthralls a group of artists, who journey to Eastern Europe to rescue the girl featured in a famous photo of wartime destruction. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.
SATURDAY, AUG. 13 Beaverton Night Market
The Harried Judge
The Professional
The Classic Gamer
Black button-up shirt with sweat-soaked armpits, black dress pants, ponytail. WHERE TO FIND HIM: Running across the event hall, trying to figure out which one of the 300 people screaming “JUDGE!!!” he should help. CHANCE OF WINNING: Those who cannot do, judge.
Above-average physical fitness, T-shirt emblazoned with team logo. WHERE TO FIND HIM: In the event hall, either at a table surrounded by people wearing the same shirt or in the tournament semifinals. C H A N C E O F W I N N I N G : Actually 90 percent.
Brightly colored hair, Doctor Who or zombie T-shirt, general level of excitement. WHERE TO FIND HER: Having a good time playing Magic, having a good time with her friends, having a good time in general. C H A N C E O F W I N N I N G : Who cares? Magic is about having fun.
I D E N T I F Y H I M BY:
I D E N T I F Y H I M BY:
I D E N T I F Y H E R BY:
[FOOD AND DANCE] Sneakily, Beaverton is more diverse than Portland. At the second Beaverton Night Market of the year, expect Japanese taiko, Chinese yo-yo, dance from the Philippines and Bangalore, textiles from the Middle East and so much food. The Round, 12600 SW Crescent St., Beaverton, beavertonoregon. gov/nightmarket. 6-10 pm.
Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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FOOD & DRINK FOOD CARTS MARTIN CIZMAR
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. By MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Editor: MARTIN CIZMAR. Email: dish@wweek.com. See page 3 for submission instructions.
FRIDAY, AUG. 12 Vancouver Brewfest
Vancouver is brewing a hell of a lot of beer these days—and on the heels of the Oregon Brewers Festival, Vancouver is throwing a beer party of its own, with nearly 50 breweries in attendance. They include crossriver brands like Breakside and Crux, along with excellent ’Couvrians like Trusty and Brother Ass that don’t cross the river much. A day pass and 10 tasting tokens are $30, $37 gets you admission all weekend, with additional tastes $1.50 apiece. Esther Short Park, 415 W 6th St., Vancouver, 360-487-8311. 4 pm-midnight. Free.
SUNDAY, AUG. 14
Store k e e W e t amet Th e Wi l l
TreaT yourself wiTh a DubDubDeal!
We’ve got plenty of affordable offers to start the year off right. Find certificate discounts to some of your favorite Portland restaurants.
wweek.com/dubdubdeals
Experience Lebanese cuisine at its best Call us for your event party & catering needs! Belly dancing Friday and Saturday evenings
New Belgium 25th Birthday
Colorado’s New “Fat Tire” Belgium brewery turns 25 this year, meaning it can legally rent a car. It’s celebrating with a ridiculously expansive 25-tap takeover at Green Dragon, with beers you don’t usually find in Portland and one-off collabs with Hopworks, Firestone Walker and others, plus raffles, carnival games and local performance troupe Wanderlust Circus. Green Dragon, 928 SE 9th Ave., 503517-0660. 11 am-6 pm. Free.
MONDAY, AUG. 15 Rip City Rosé Wine BBQ
Rosé is the wine of the Notorious B.I.G. (when sparkling) and summering Frenchmen in linen—which is to say, everyone cooler than you. Andina sommelier Ken Collura is throwing his annual rosé party with 25 pink wines from all over, made from 24 different types of grapes, plus nine grilled dishes from EaT: An Oyster Bar and the much-missed cooks behind Lucky Strike. Pix Pâtisserie/Bar Vivant, 2225 E Burnside St., 971-271-7166. 7 pm. $75, plus tip.
1. Le Pantry
113 SE 28th Ave. This cart is great, and each day is different—with criminally low prices on caramelized short rib or lovely mushrooms in rice gravy. $.
2. Gumba
1477 NE Alberta St., 503-975-5951, facebook.com/Gumbacart. Gumba’s pappardelle ($11) is a some of the best pasta we’ve had all year, served in a rich and earthy short-rib ragu. $.
3. Fukami
4246 SE Belmont St., 971-279-2161, fukamipdx.com. The old Hokusei is probably the finest dedicated sushiya in town, with $65 and $85 many-course omakase and spot-on drink pairings. $$$$.
4. Hat Yai
223 SW STARK STREET PORTLAND, OR 503-274-0010 ALAMIRPORTLAND.COM 24
Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
1605 NE Killingsworth St., 503-764-9701. Hat Yai serves up Thai chicken and curries with fresh, earthy, complex flavors—and some really killer, flaky fried chicken. $$.
5. Wailua Shave Ice
1212 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 808-652-9394, wailuashaveice.com. Get your kickass shave ice sundae in the Lardo parking lot each Saturday. $.
MEAT LOVERS’ BANQUET: Brisket, pulled pork and sausage.
Rack ’Em
Texas ribs are underrated. Brisket gets top billing, but if you want the real indicator of the Lone Star State’s supremacy, look to dry-rubbed ribs, which at their best shame rivals in the American barbecue belt. Which is why the pepperrubbed and extra-smoky racks Order this: Two-meat plate with ribs ($17 per pound) at Botto and brisket ($10). Barbecue got me so excited. They’re the finest I’ve had in this city, with a thick, smoky black bark that slides off the bone like a banana peel, bones that’ll bite in two, and a beautifully limber texture. Those ribs are just part of the show at Botto, which popped this spring in a barbed-wire lot behind the Sherwin-Williams warehouse in the industrial maze on the fringes of Slabtown. The meats come by the pound on butcher paper, the music tends toward country, and Cokes and Topo Chicos come in heavy Mexican glass. The owner, who goes by Darren and tells us he was “Obamacared out of a job” in health insurance, decided to open a cart modeled on the Texas ’cue he ate while living in Austin in the mid-’90s. Botto pretty much nailed it. I could do without the chili— which gets very little out of its smoked turkey—and the regular bratwurst, which has very little character. But I was impressed with everything else I had in four visits. Sausages are an important metric with all ’cue, and the housemade, cheese-stuffed hot links at Botto are wonderful. They’re also key to one of the cart’s unique offerings: meat-filled kolaches ($4), a nod to the Czech roots of the cuisine made in partnership with Belmont Street’s Happy Sparrow Cafe. But if you’re at Botto for a two-meat plate ($10 with two sides— preferably the acidic slaw and creamy, yellow potato salad), get those ribs and the brisket, which also has thick bark, an impressive pink smoke ring and just enough moisture. Yeah, it’s great brisket. Maybe it’s not yet equal to Matt’s, the city’s other great Texas-inspired barbecue cart, but it’s closing fast. MARTIN CIZMAR. EAT: Botto Barbecue, 2204 NW Roosevelt St., 503-354-7748, bottobbq.com.
DRANK
Amerikaner in Berliner Weisse (PINTS)
Despite the abundance of local summer session beers labeled Berliner Weisse, it’s nearly impossible to find the real deal in Portland. Fact is, most breweries opt to make a faster, less-tart version of the classic style for summer consumption—kettle-soured brews that often include fruit. Pints’ Amerikaner in Berliner Weisse is the genuine article. Named for head brewer Alan Taylor’s time in Germany’s capital, it’s traditionally fermented and aged for more than 10 months with three strains of yeast from Berlin’s Schultheiss brand, imported by Taylor himself. The biting tartness of this pale, 2.8 percent ABV brew is perfectly cut with a splash of sticky green woodruff syrup. The result is a full-bodied beer that tastes like sourdough bread topped with marshmallow candy, a perfect summer ale that will have you wondering why others bother making the fake stuff at all. Recommended. PARKER HALL.
TASTE-OFF
Tiny Bubbles W W S TA F F
WE BLIND-TASTED EVERY SPARKLING WATER WE COULD FIND IN PORTLAND. BY M AT T H E W KO R F H AGE mkorfhage@wweek.com
Sparkling water is the new Coke. In 2016, bottled water is set to overtake syrupy soda pop in U.S. sales for the first time. And while Portlanders who drink uncarbonated water out of anything but the tap should be shunned, sparkling water is not only flavorful and refreshing, but natural mineral versions have theoretical healing powers for the gullible. The wildly popular La Croix is just the gateway drug, as it turns out— there are better sparkling waters, and a wide difference between them. A team of five staffers tasted 19 sparklers, all the carbonated water available at World Foods, New Seasons, Tienda el Campesino and multiple co-ops. Here are the results—from the best to the very surprising worst.
1. Mineragua Score: 87 points
Jarritos, man. The Mexican company’s Toronja is a better Squirt, and its Mineragua club soda—essentially seltzer with minerals like sodium salts added—is bright, refreshing and balanced enough to knock out all of the natural mineral waters. Tasters praised its clean, consistent effervescence. It’s also got more sodium than many of the waters we tried. What can we say? Turns out salt is delicious. Mineragua is not in many grocery stores, but you can usually pick it up at any taqueria that also sells Jarritos soda. Tasting notes: “Little bubbles dancing on your tongue.” “Flossy.” “Fresh, light minerality.” “Super-bright effervescence, minimal aftertaste. Nice.”
2. Voss Score: 84
Voss water—an imposing column of Norwegian mineral water called “bullshit” by renowned and highly respected online food-criticism source Vice—looks ridiculous and costs twice as much as water should. A documentary in its home country alleges Voss fills its bottles from local tap water—a claim the company CEO has vociferously denied from behind expensive spectacles, declaring it came from a southern Norwegian aquifer “free of contact with the air or other pollutants.” Well, you know what? It’s fucking delicious. Elle magazine and all those throwback club-bros with popped collars were totally right about it, and you were wrong and so was Vice. Sorry, America. Tasting notes: “Light and bright, like a mountain spring—super-clean.” “Dry and steely in a good way.” “Nice alkalinity. Refreshing.”
3. Perrier Score: 81.9
We tasted the original yuppie water twice in the blind test—as a control to see if we were just making things up. It scored about the same both times—80 the first time, 83.8 the second. It was also the only water any taster identified by name from a blind tasting. A natural mineral water bottled from an artesian spring in Vergèze, France,
Perrier has large, satisfying bubbles and a pleasing minerality. It’s also owned by Nestlé, which means it’s inherently evil and probably causes its drinkers to become evil over time. Tasting notes: “Fizz magic!” “This one is upgraded. Better bubbles.” “Like a massage inside my mouth.”
4. Smeraldina Score: 80.4
Smeraldina is bottled from an artesian spring that emerges on the isle of Sardinia, where the inhabitants live to be, like, a hundred something. “This is not by chance,” says Smeraldina’s ad copy, which seems to imply that this water preserves you in amber made of gold. Either way, the water’s natural granite filtering makes it taste distinctively mineral while remaining gentle, with a bit of natural salt to keep it lively. It is the finest of the Italian waters. Tasting notes: “This is what clouds feel like when they’re excited.” “Mild, nice, delicious.” “A little salty.”
5. Natural Directions Score: 75
As a name, Natural Directions sounds like either a pyramid vitamin scheme or a hospice that doesn’t believe in painkillers—and as a label, it looks like a generic club soda for vegans. But it’s spring water from the Apennines in Italy, full of mineral flavors and quite lovely. Tasting notes: “Some light minerality with medium bubbles that linger.” “Dry, gently mineral with a smooth finish. Very pleasant.”
6. Radenska Score: 68.6
Radenska comes from Slovenia, in a part of the world where mineral water is as prized as vodka—and every bit the source of national pride. Well, suck it, Georgia and Russia. Slovenia kicked your butt with a clean brightness one taster described as “steely.” Its logo is three red hearts, meant to symbolize the health properties of minerals. Tasting notes: “Cold, hard steel.” “A little sterile, but overall pleasant.” “Bright, refreshing, nice.”
7. Vichy Catalan Score: 65
Spain’s Vichy Catalan comes from a mineral spring that’s served as health spa to Moors, Spaniards and Romans since ancient times—and the mineral content is pretty much off the charts. This proved divisive, with some loving the intensity of flavor, and others making faces. Tasting notes: “This is some health-spa shit.” “Full of flavors. Minerals galore!” “Crazy sweet and salty and vivid.”
9. Crystal Geyser
Score: 60
The sparkling version of Mt. Shasta spring water—as local as it got in this tasting—just barely edged into the top half of the voting, providing a bit of aesthetic validation to every company picnic in Oregon. But it merely managed inoffensiveness. Tasting notes: “Big, flabby bubbles. A little saline.” “Fine. It doesn’t make me smile.” “Hollow. Missing something.”
8. Topo Chico
10. Lurisia
Mexico’s most famous mineral water— sourced and bottled in Monterrey for 120 years, and the drink of choice for Texans everywhere—scored pretty high. But as with Vichy Catalan, the intensity of both minerals and carbonation proved polarizing. Topo Chico doesn’t just refresh; it damn well lets you know it’s there. Tasting notes: “Pop Rock and volcanic!” “Very active volcano water.” “Tastes like a wrung-out sponge.”
The still version of Lurisia mineral water—from the Piemont region of Italy—wins awards for its cleanliness, neutrality and balance. The sparkling version, on the other hand, was a bit gentle for some palates—and some detected a lot of sweetness. Tasting notes: “Flat and soft.” “Like lightly sugared granite.” “Very sweet.”
Score: 64.4
Score: 59
11. Borjomi Score: 58
This might as well be the national mineral water of the country of Georgia, harvested from its namesake river’s gorge—as salty and sour and intense as the nation itself. It proved divisive. Tasting notes: “Dry, chalky—weirdly and interestingly subtle.” “Round and dry; extremely interesting.” “Salt water straight from the ocean.” “Fucking SpongeBob soap. Gross.”
Score: 57
Field Day is like the Maggi of nonGMO, organic, hippie-mart fare— the only sparkling water stocked by People’s Food Co-op. The blue-plastic-bottled, “triple-filtered” sparkling water, harvested from “the Apennines of Italy,” was…not great. Tasting notes: “Like sweet chlorine.” “Tastes artificially filtered. Gross.” “La Croix?”
13. Mountain Valley Score: 55
Mountain Valley spring water—an ancient brand that began bottling in 1871—is like a lot of things from Arkansas. Which is to say, there’s not much to it. Tasting notes: “Light…airy…whatever.” “No mineral content. Tastes like carbonated Bull Run water. “Blah.”
14. Hap3ah/Narzan Score: 54
15. Gerolsteiner Score: 52.2
Gerolsteiner will pump you the fuck up. The only German entrant, it had carbonation and mineral levels that were the equivalent of a full chemical peel—almost everybody seemed to be tasting something different, perhaps because our taste buds were pressurewashed clean away. Tasting notes: “A weird off -fl avor upfront—almost good, but gross.” “Explosive fizz, like Coke and Mentos.” “Aluminum foil.” “It stings.”
16. La Croix Score: 52
There was a weird gender gap in opinions on the favored flavor water of many WW staffers. The two women in the tasting liked the unflavored version, while the three men disliked it almost aggressively. But all agreed it tasted like tap water. Tasting notes: “Chemical.” “Crisp, refreshing—like tap water with little bubbles.” “Oddly chemical, like treated water.” “A light garbage-water flavor.”
17. Jermuk Score: 47.2
12. Field Day
WINNER
taster, who found it “intriguing,” we didn’t value its properties. Tasting notes: “Is there sand in this? It tastes grainy.” “Warm riciness—like spoiled sake.” “Like where the river meets the sea. Plus fish.”
The essence of Russian Narzan, according to its website: “It takes future Narzan 6 years to travel from the glassier to the spring and in this journey Narzan is acquiring its highly valued properties.” Aside from one
Had we done research before drinking, we would have discovered that the FDA warned against drinking Armenian-sourced Jermuk in 2007. Because of arsenic. We’re like Madame Bovary up in this piece. Tasting notes: “Hard to get down. Punchy, spicy, aggressive, harsh.” “Swampy.” “Like piranhas in your mouth.”
18. Cadia Score: 39
Cadia, labeled as a natural Italian spring water, is a generic, non-GMO, do-gooder food brand. But it was way worse than Field Day. Tasting notes: “Hose water. Like a carbonated puddle.” “Mildewy.’
19. San Pellegrino Score: 30
A week before this tasting, a friend asked, out of the blue, “Hey, did you notice San Pellegrino has gotten really terrible lately?” Belatedly, we will answer yes. The terrible performance of San Pellegrino surprised us—but it was also unanimous. Despite coming in a glass bottle, it tasted like a plastic one. Tasting notes: “Big toilet, plastic-bottle shit.” “Rusty toilet seat.” “Tastes like the bottle.”
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Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
MUSIC FEATURE TIM SLEW
Rare Treat
FIVE ESSENTIAL EYRST RELEASES
HOW A FORMER BLAZER AND VISIONARY PRODUCER CREATED PORTLAND’S BEST RAP LABEL. @MBSchonze
The West Hills of Portland are alive with the sound of hip-hop. The secluded, McMansion-laden neighborhood of Forest Heights is clearly not rap’s natural habitat. Among the sweeping views, the only trace of what’s bubbling beneath the surface here is a matte-black Escalade with the letters “EYRST” scrawled across it. The SUV marks the home of former Blazers swingman Martell Webster, and by extension the budding independent record label he started a year ago out of the studio annexed aside his home. The 29-year-old native of western Washington lives here with his wife and children—and, occasionally, producer Neill Von Tally, EYRST co-founder and creative mastermind, who recently tweeted security footage of him tucked in a sleeping bag, headed to bed on the studio’s IKEA couch, time stamped at 3:30 am. “It’s OK to not sleep as much right now,” Von Tally says, slouched on that same couch. “We have a fucking studio.” That sleeplessness has started to pay off. In the past year, EYRST (pronounced “airst”) has produced some of the most progressive music coming out of Portland—hip-hop or otherwise. The label focuses on pushing sonic boundaries to test what’s possible on wax, and its roster of artists has few peers locally in creating futureforward sounds at such a consistent clip. To be fair, though, not many artists have the resources to do so. Few have an NBA player as a benefactor. The EYRST studio was built back when Webster was playing for the Blazers after getting drafted in the mid-aughts, as a space to indulge his hobby. (ARTT, Webster’s debut, came out last month.) With a studio full of advanced recording equipment, the team is able to experiment constantly, toying with drum machines, keyboards and synths to create intricate, deeply layered soundscapes. But while Webster’s funding has been crucial, the label’s vision has mostly been steered by Von Tally. As a bedroom beatmaker active for years in the local hip-hop community, he yearned for a platform to support and promote his contemporaries. He first connected with Webster through Webster’s younger brother, who tapped the producer to teach him the way around the studio’s soundboard. After months of coming and going, Von Tally began producing for Webster during the NBA offseason. “I definitely didn’t imagine I would be up here very often,” Von Tally says of that first summer spent at the studio. But he became comfortable in his new office, and increasingly
Rare Treat, Myke Bogan, the Last Artful Dodgr and Neill Von Tally DOING WORK: EYRST co-founders Martell Webster (above) and Neill Von Tally.
voice—smooth and dexterous, sharp and playful—makes an ideal pairing with Bogan’s flexible flow, which ebbs and bends around Von Tally’s enticing, dimly lit beats.
DEVIN TOLMAN
BY M AT T H E W S C H O N FELD
“IT’S OK TO NOT SLEEP AS MUCH RIGHT NOW. WE HAVE A FUCKING STUDIO.” —NEILL VON TALLY reluctant to return to daily life. “By the end of that summer, it was like, ‘Well, I need to be able to be here everyday after you go back and keep playing. So what are we going to do?’” With Webster giving the nod, Von Tally began to work his local connections. He recruited R&B singer Blossom and rapper Ripley Snell, then Epp and Calvin Valentine of the group TxE. Maze Koroma, of North Portland’s psychedelic Renaissance Coalition, followed, along with the Last Artful Dodgr, perhaps the city’s most exciting emerging artist. Acid-washed wordsmith Myke Bogan also came aboard early on. A rapper long on the verge of breaking out of the Northwest bubble, Bogan found something in EYRST he hadn’t yet come across as he worked to get his career off the ground. “For a label to give you complete creative control and not want to change you, but just give you the financial backing and the help that you need to get to the next level as an artist,” Bogan says, “it’s amazing.” It wasn’t just financial security that attracted him, but also the access to a family of collaborators. Bogan was first charmed by a visit to the studio with Blossom and Von Tally that bore “Acouasm,” a minimalist, sunsoaked sample of a casual EYRST session. In June, the label released Rare Treat, a collaborative EP between Bogan and Dodgr and produced by Von Tally. It serves as an ideal introduction to the label’s sound. Dodgr’s
The EYRST aesthetic is reflected in its recent videos as well. Ripley Snell’s seven-minute, Grand Theft Auto-inspired music video, “Underwater Series,” takes viewers along on the dark, self-destructive night crawls of a suitwearing, baseball-bat-wielding character. Von Tally’s ethereal, brooding soundtrack plays as the internal radio dial of Snell’s mind, scanning across soul-searching scribbles, pensive verses, and sober melodies. The visuals to “I’m Ripe,” a standout from Webster’s ARTT mixtape, features the original label team—Von Tally, Blossom, Bogan, and Snell—in a selfconstructed set of mirror-paneled walls. Each artist’s own scene is designed to embody their individual style: Bogan’s floor is littered with PBR cans; Blossom sits in a garden; Snell’s pouring coffee; and Von Tally has his snare drum. It’s a collective video for a Webster track, and a symbol of EYRST’s united philosophy. Following Rare Treat and ARTT, EYRST has a wave of releases set to hit in the coming months. The studio’s vault is filled with nearly finished projects from almost every artist on the label, including full-lengths from Webster, Bogan and Dodgr. “We’re sitting on a lot of music, and that’s a hard thing to do,” Von Tally says. “But one of our objectives is to make it so the artists can be financially independent based on their art, which means sometimes we have to sit on the music so it can be released properly and get the right shine it deserves.” Having a benefactor like Webster with the passion and deep pockets to fund a business and studio is rare for budding independent labels, and the EYRST team acknowledges its anomalous situation. It’s what motivates them, and why they refuse to take time off. But they aren’t just working for themselves—they’re working to turn heads toward Portland hip-hop as a whole. “‘Portland’ and ‘hip-hop’ aren’t often heard in the same sentence,” Von Tally says. “Let’s be a part of changing that.” SEE IT: EYRST’s one-year celebration, featuring performances from Martell Webster with Jake One, the Last Artful Dodgr, Blossom, Maze Koroma, Ripley Snell and Calvin Valentine and Epp, is at the Evergreen, 618 SE Alder St., on Friday, Aug. 12. 9 pm. $8 with canned-food donation, $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
The 10-minute EP from EYRST’s A-team is indeed a treat. The trio’s chemistry is contagious, combining Von Tally’s billowing, ultramodern beats with Dodgr’s silk-soft delivery and Bogan’s snappy wit, but it is a mere nibble of their potential.
Casino Carpet, Myke Bogan
The Southern California native’s debut EYRST project elevates his established style. Full of sun-soaked, samplefree production, Bogan rides the mic more agile than ever before. Released in August 2015, it hints at future collaborations to come, with Dodgr offering an assist on the dog-day anthem “Sundress” and Blossom adding her sultry voice to the meditative, honey-dipped “How We Do.”
ARTT, Martell Webster
Webster opens his debut with a song called “Irony of it All,” acknowledging in the first breath, “I’m new at this.” It’s a hat-tip to critics who say Webster should have stuck to basketball. The jab is potent, as the label co-founder dives directly into his music, producing a record deep in range that alternate between bounce-driven boasts to laidback reflections.
Osiris, Maze Koroma
North Portland wordsmith Koroma’s first official album introduces listeners to his modernistic brand of alternative hip-hop. Beats consist of sci-fi synth sounds and vintage video game intros, while Koroma waxes passionately about young love and the struggles of city life.
“Sass” and “Wavves,” Blossom Blossom’s songs soothe the soul. Her mesmerizing vocals—delicate and direct—mesh naturally with Von Tally’s soulful and bright beats. She’s stirring and smooth in a way that can be dangerously endearing.
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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.
Chastity Belt, So Pitted, Mini Blinds
[STRANGE PUNK] It’s time to stop thinking of Seattle as the lame-ass Portland of the North and accept the city with open arms—at least for tonight. The musicians of the Emerald City’s own Chastity Belt in no way take themselves too seriously, each contributing her silly personality to the group’s grunge-punk albums. But they’re mild in comparison to fellow Space Needlers So Pitted, who put post-punk down, flip it and reverse it with an element of brooding anger. Mini Blinds offer the lighthearted local feel, rounding out this showcase of contem-
porary Pacific Northwest sounds. CERVANTE POPE. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St. 9 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show. 21+.
Jackson Browne
[EASY LISTENING] Thirty-four years after his eponymous début introduced soft-rock’s poster boy, Jackson Browne’s pipes may sound a little more ragged, but the glorious mane remains suspiciously unchanged. He’s bringing along a six-piece backing band, including super-sessionist Greg Leisz, for this summer’s
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BRIAN BOWEN SMITH
WEDNESDAY, AUG. 10
FIVE 311 SONGS THAT ARE HONESTLY TOTALLY PRETTY GOOD “Beautiful Disaster”
@WillametteWeek
Although it appears on Transistor, an album of cosmological dub rock that stands as the greatest outlier in the 311 discography, the Omaha-bred brohams’ finest moment finds them in their sweet spot, hitting the precise balance of heavy guitars and melodic lightness that often eludes them—and putting the rapping on hold certainly helps.
2 “Homebrew” Again, the band is at its best when it taps an exact mix of crunch and melody, and the leadoff track to sophomore effort Grassroots is the first time it got the balance right. The funk-metal verses open into a cloud-clearing chorus, featuring frontman Nick Hexum waxing nostalgic about a teenage acid trip. And by the standards of 1994, the rapping isn’t too embarrassing. 3 “Don’t Stay Home” 311’s self-titled album went multiplatinum on the strength of the posi-mosh bro-down “Down,” but two decades later (geez), this is the single that’s aged the best, even if Hexum’s advice to “don’t break the mold, kid, just eat around it” remains…curious.
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4 “Come Original” All right, so the concept is pretty laughable, with Hexum employing a dancehall patois and shouting out what he considered the artistic vanguard of the late ’90s: Mr. Vegas, NOFX, the Black Eyed Peas in their pre-Fergie phase. But if you listen to 311 enough, there’s a point where the band’s cluelessness trips over into being weirdly charming, and this song is precisely where the line is drawn. 5 “I’ll Be Here Awhile” Sure, it’s a ska song recorded long after everyone stopped listening to ska, based on an acoustic-guitar pattern you’d imagine Jason Mraz noodling around with at a beach campfire. This is what 311 is capable of, though—delivering something a band with more self-awareness would never attempt, then leaving it humming somewhere inside you, entirely against your better judgement. MATTHEW SINGER. SEE IT: 311 plays Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., on Tuesday, Aug. 16. 8 pm. $32.50 general admission, $50 reserved balcony seating. 21+. Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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MUSIC INTRODUCING coURtESY oF BRIxton AGEncY
tour, though he’s reportedly still allowing setlists to be overtaken by audience requests. For a singersongwriter trailing such a daunting legacy, Browne does have a repertoire light on universally-hummable hits (“Running on Empty” and “take It Easy” aside) and not notably strengthened by recent efforts: 2014’s politically-themed Standing in the Breach something of an elegaic op/ed piece. But then, the designated nice guy of ‘70s Laurel canyon debauch has perhaps always cared too much. JAY HoRton. Edgefield, 2126 SW Halsey St. 6:30 pm. Sold out. All ages.
Souvenir Driver, Ice Queens, Sinless
[nEW ALBUM] two years ago, Souvenir Driver released its third album, Living Water. It was the band’s most ambient yet repetitive and infectious work so far, showcasing the band’s ’80s-influenced shoegaze at its best. this show celebrates the follow-up to Living Water, and the band seems aware of its ability to wield the anticipation: It’s going to play the album straight through, which will be your only time to hear it for an undetermined amount of time after that—though it’s a fair assumption that the album will feature more of the moody, subtle guitar pop Souvenir Driver’s become known for. SHAnnon GoRMLEY. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St. $5 advance, $7 day of show. 21+.
Hard Working Americans
[tAnGLED RootS] If their combined star power seems more than a few watts shy of full supergroup status, the Hard Working Americans collective does trail a daunting array of Bonnaroo fides nonetheless. three years ago, alt-country singer-songwriter (and native Portlander) todd Snider brought together a murderers’ row of likeminded instrumentalists—chris Robinson Brotherhood’s guitarist, Great American taxi’s keyboardist, Widespread Panic’s bassist and drummer—to record and tour a collection of politically tinged, left-field covers that couldn’t quite overcome the frontman’s vocal limitations or his bandmates’ expansive tendencies. For newly released followup Rest in Chaos, Snider unfurls an array of originals eschewing economic critique for picaresque narratives of capitalism’s victims. But even with sidemen trying their damnedest to approximate straightforward country rock, a whiff of quixotic novelty lingers about the project. While seamless interplay of prodigious talents might serve as a tidy metaphor for progressive ideals, jam bands will not soundtrack the revolution. JAY HoRton. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., No. 110. 8 pm. $32.50 advance, $35 day of show. 21+.
THURSDAY, AUG. 11 Globelamp, Tashaki Miyaki
[PSYcH oPS] Reclaiming the Globelamp persona she’d originated before entering into an ill-starred collaboration with buzzy art-retrorock duo Foxygen, Elizabeth Le Fey endured the famously brutal break and ensuing indie media scrum to unfurl a beguiling vision perhaps less ambitious than her former bandmates’ widescreen ravings but rather more affecting. Sophomore album Orange Glow, first issued on cassette last year and just recently given a proper release, indulges a ‘70s sensibility steeped in the glammier fringes of bucolic psych while resolutely grounded within a 21st century lo-fi aesthetic. the olympiavia-Socal songstress’s alluringly theatrical phrasing begs comparisons—slow-burning Kate Bush, say, or freak-folk Lana Del Rey—yet manages to tease a beguiling identity all her own. JAY HoRton. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
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Honey Bucket Who: Vince Skelly (bass, vocals), Matt Radosevich (guitar, vocals), Jon Grothman (drums). Sounds like: Jonathan Richman reuniting the Modern Lovers for a one-night-only gig in the basement of a coffee shop. For fans of: Twerps, C86, Flying Nun Records, the Fall, Woolen Men. According to the members of Portland garage-pop trio Honey Bucket, there are certain advantages to naming your band after a portable toilet manufacturer. For instance, you don’t have to worry about coming up with your own schwag. “I wrote to Honey Bucket and I was like, ‘I’m in this band. Can you guys send us any merch we could give out at our shows or whatever?’” says singer-bassist Vince Skelly from a booth at Alberta Street Pub. “And they sent us this box of, like, T-shirts, mouse pads, patches, mugs, big stickers—” “That’s, like, my most coveted shirt,” adds drummer Jon Grothman. “Anytime I wear it, people are like, ‘Where the hell did you get a Honey Bucket shirt?’” Of course, branding yourself with a name that invokes post-traumatic stress in anyone who’s ever attended a musical festival has its drawbacks, too. For one thing, it’s easy to be misunderstood. Early on, the band, which came up through the Portland house-show scene, fell in with Gnar Tapes, the goofball stoner-pop label where you might expect an act that ripped its moniker off the side of a plastic shithouse to land. But while its lo-fi aesthetic and affection for guitar pop’s simplest pleasures jibed with the label’s tastes, the group’s more specific reference points—the Clean, the Fall, Brian Eno—reflected a greater sophistication than the association might let on. With any luck, new album Magical World should correct the record. Released on Skelly’s own See My Friends imprint, the album finds Honey Bucket reconciling Skelly and singerguitarist Matt Radosevich’s twee-punk melodicism with their artier inclinations, to charming effect. On songs like “This That,” the band cuts its sweet jangle with a sudden free-jazz sax solo, while Skelly’s lyrics—loaded with in-jokes about a friend’s badly drawn Devo tattoo and a woman who takes her cat for walks—give the tracks a surrealist tint. Recording was a laborious process, at least in comparison to the tossed-off method of the group’s previous tapes, and the final product satisfied the trio enough to go out and hire a publicist to help promote it. By the members’ own admission, their ambitions haven’t grown any grander—Skelly still calls it an “after-work project”—but the record is a reminder that just because you don’t take anything else about your band too seriously doesn’t mean the music has to suffer because of it. “It was the hardest thing as a band we’ve probably ever done, and I’m super-proud of it,” Skelly says of Magical World. “That’s why we did the publicist thing. I just want to see if this thing we put so much energy into, if anyone else likes it.” MATTHEW SINGER. SEE IT: Honey Bucket plays the Know, 2026 nE Alberta St., 503473-8729, with Woolen Men and Wave Action, on Saturday, Aug. 13. 8 pm. contact venue for ticket information. 21+. Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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MUSIC [MEtAL] Fresh from destroying the hearing of the Pendarvis family horses as the first metal band to ever perform at the Pickathon festival, exemplary West coast thrashers Vhol—featuring Mike Scheidt of YoB and members of Agalloch, Hammers of Misfortune—return to an environment they’re more accustomed to, without a dreadlocked hula-hoop dancer in sight. High Water Mark, 6800 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. 8:30 pm. $10. 21+.
FRIDAY, AUG. 12 Soul Clap: SiR, Ronnie Wright
[FUnK’n’SoUL] Having recently established a new hip-hop monthly (Mic check) at one unlikely McMenamins property (White Eagle Saloon), longtime promoter Starchile is staying busy, kicking off yet another monthly event at a McMenamins venue to known for soulfulness. this one, called Soul clap, is dedicated to R&B and funk, and for its inaugural edition features sets from L.A.-based postDilla crooner SiR and Portland singer Ronnie Wright. Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan St. 9 pm. $15 advance, $20 day of show. 21+.
White Lung, Greys
[PoSt-PUnK] White Lung is one of the few punk bands to cross over from dive-bar obscurity to festival stage without sacrificing the integrity of its sound. the musicians started out mixing post-punk angularity and regular old punk hooks, and while they’ve incorporated a bit of spooky goth rock into their wheelhouse, they’ve avoided cleaning up their act even as their fan base has grown. Frontwoman Mish Way is a prolific writer and lyricist, not to mention an excellent singer, but it’s the guitar work of Kenneth Williams that makes White Lung shine. See new LP Paradise for proof. BRAcE BELDEn. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave. 9 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show. 21+.
SATURDAY, AUG. 13 Courtney Marie Andrews, Barna Howard, Birger Olsen
[SInGER-SonGWRItER] First off, let’s move beyond the fact that courtney Marie Andrews was once moonlighting as a backup singer for Jimmy Eat World. on her own, the Seattleite’s rootsy music shares more in common with the work of Joni Mitchell and contemporaries like Damien Jurado. Her forthcoming LP, Honest Life, picks up where her last left off, melding her country croon with sublime bits of pedal steel and weary piano that are designed to wring both sorrow and optimism throughout the course of every song. She’ll be in good company here beside Mama Bird labelmates Birger olsen and Barna Howard. BRAnDon WIDDER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
Culture Club, Groves
[PoP-PoURRI] call it nostalgia if you want, but if culture club was ever going to launch a reunion tour, there hasn’t been a more appropriate time than right now. Led, of course, by the oft-troubled but inimitable Boy George, the U.K. outfit was blending breezy island sounds into contemporary dance and pop music back when the phrase “tropical house” only conjured images of thatch huts. the group hasn’t released a new album in almost two decades—though one has been teased for a while now—but this current iteration features the entire original lineup, and George appears to be in better shape, mentally and physically, than he has been in for years. MAttHEW SInGER. Edgefield, 2126 SW Halsey St. 6:30 pm. $59.50-$118. All ages.
This is Portland Not Portlandia Fest
[tHE REAL PoRtLAnD] According to many Portlanders, carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen ruined Portland. trying to put all those hard feelings aside, the scene is attempting to take back the city with a new day of appreciating some of the places and bands that wouldn’t be caught dead sucking the teet of IFc’s leading sketch “comedy” show. offering 29 acts at places not normally thought of as “the bomb place to be” on any given night, this Portland not Portlandia centers around Southeast Foster. Get heavy with Fruit of the Legion of Loom at Starday tavern, cuss up a storm with the Fucking Fucks at o’Malley’s, go to BitchSchool at Double treble and lust over chuck thrust at Da’Hui, plus so much more. cERVAntE PoPE. Multiple venues. 5:30 pm. $5 for all-venue access. 21+.
Vans Warped Tour
[REcKLESS YoUtH] the annual traveling punk circus, featuring the current vanguard of emo and posthardcore acts no one under the age of 25 has any reason to have heard of—and, for some reason, Waka Flocka Flame—ends this year’s jaunt at the Expo center. If you need to know more, go to the nearest mall, stand outside Hot topic and yell your questions until someone responds. Portland Expo Center, 2060 N. Marine Dr. 11 am. See vanswarpedtour.com for ticket information and complete schedule.
MONDAY, AUG. 15 Hockey Dad, Muuy Biien, Mr. Bones
[BEAcH RocK] Hockey Dad’s garage rock is so beachy, one listen leaves water in your ears and sand
between your toes. the Australian duo comprises longtime pals Zach Stephenson and Billy Fleming, who play guitar and drums, respectively. After a successful few years in their native country, the band is set to release its debut LP, Boronia, via Kanine Records, and the sunny, carefree and incredibly summery sound makes a fitting soundtrack to all kinds of tomfoolery during the dog days of August. MARK StocK. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
Broods, Jarryd James
[SYntH PoP] Broods’ music has the kind of sound which in 20 years we’ll come to define as the pop music of this decade: highproduction, “written in a bedroom, made for the club” synth pop. the new Zealand brother-sister duo gained almost immediate popularity with the release of 2014 debut single “Bridges.” two years later, they’ve followed up with sophomore effort Conscious, worked with the likes of Lorde and opened for Ellie Goulding—fitting contemporaries, considering Broods’ music is essentially a direct combination of the euphoric, dense, dreamy electronics of the latter and the breathy vocals of the former. SHAnnon GoRMLEY. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave. 8 pm. $21.50. All ages.
TUESDAY, AUG. 16 The Kominas, Starz of Da Bizzare
[ISLAMDAncE] Borrowing rationale and the “taqwacore” genre tag from a 2003 novel breathlessly predicting a vibrant stateside Muslim punk scene, the Kominas emerged as immediate cause célèbre a dozen years ago. From
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PREVIEW c o U R t E S Y o F B A n D c A M P. c o M
Vhol, WILL, Iron Scepter
dates here
G.L.O.S.S., Firewalker,
Pure Disgust, Franky, In Flux
[GIRLS LIVING OUTSIDE SOCIETY’S SHIT] G.L.O.S.S.’s 2015 demo might go down in punk history as one of the great debuts of all-time. Setting its sights on hardcore’s “straight-boy canon” and the noxious patriarchy of our damaged and dangerous world, G.L.O.S.S. (Girls Living Outside Society’s Shit) came out firing for “the fighters, psychos, freaks and the femmes” with 10 minutes of urgent hardcore that renounced fear and despair in favor of sheer revolutionary rage. Remarkably, the Olympia quintet’s new EP is even better. Like its predecessor, Trans Day of Revenge is a punkrock master class, with G.L.O.S.S. tapping into the power of classic hardcore, D-beat and crust to achieve maximum ferocity. The likes of Los Crudos, Detestation, Poison Idea and Antischism come to mind, but G.L.O.S.S. lead singer Sadie Switchblade doesn’t settle for the comfort of old things. This is not a nostalgia trip. This is not a safe tour of punk poses. It is a call to “give violence a chance.” It is a call to “boot the fucker” who beats a woman. It is a call to “break the cycle with revenge.” It is a rallying cry for the “burning kids” who have embraced punk rock as a way to survive and thrive. And it is fucking great. CHRIS STAMM. Bossanova Ballroom, 722 E Burnside St. 7 pm Wednesday, Aug. 10. $10 advance, $12 at door. All ages. Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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KONGOS
SHARON JONES & THE DAP-KINGS Miss Sharon Jones $10.99 CD
The soundtrack to the film, directed by two-time Academy Award winner Barbara Kopple, which follows the dynamic frontwoman through her 2013 battle with cancer and her triumphant return to the stage around the 2014 release of Grammy-nominated album Give The People What They Want.
25 $11.99 CD
How does a down-to-earth rock band follow up a runaway pop hit? Fans who fell in love with the band’s vibrant sound—the slide guitar, accordion, and bounce-house rhythms—will be thrilled that KONGOS stayed true to themselves on Egomaniac. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
VAN MORRISON
Recorded during his San Franciscan residency of the early ‘70s, with his ambitious Caledonia Soul Orchestra, this double album documents Morrison at an early vocal peak and benefits from a set list culled from his early solo masterpieces, including Moondance and Astral Weeks.
Featuring the smash single “Hello”, the album is a reflection of her life and frame of mind at 25 years old, 25 is a “make-up record”. The album’s lyrical content features themes of Adele “yearning for her old self, her nostalgia”, and “melancholia about the passage of time”
ELVIS PRESLEY
It’s Too Late To Stop Now.. $12.99 CD
The most complete and comprehensive collection of Presley’s final studio recordings ever assembled in one anthology, “Way Down In The Jungle Room” brings together, for the first time in one collection, master recordings and rare outtakes laid down during two mythic sessions in Presley’s jungle-themed basement studio.
Written and recorded over 4 years, split between Las Vegas and Gonjasufi’s home in the California desert, ‘CALLUS’ is arguably the musician’s most soul-baring and cathartic collection; an album of embracing hurt and anger to create something.
Dust & Bones showcases Hoey’s Fender Stratocaster-driven fury alongside open-D-tuned resonator guitars plugged into half-stacks. The massive sonic attack was essential for paying sincere and appropriate homage to some of Hoey’s influences, including Johnny Winter & Robin Trower.
BORIS Pink $13.99 CD
Boris are a Japanese metal trio which defies categorization. Each album is a kind of microcosm, a musical biome with its own flora, fauna and weather patterns. The only common denominator is Heaviness. On the 10th Anniversary of it’s original release, Boris reissue their landmark album Pink.
BLINK 182 California $11.99 CD
Blink-182 get reinvigorated with the help of a new member—Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba. Packing blistering pace and surprising range, California soars. Crisp guitar tones and hum-worthy melodies take front seat, but there’s plenty of pop-punk silliness along the way.
WALTER TROUT
Dust & Bones $12.99 CD
Hit Reset expands on the band’s established sound: dancier in spots and moodier in others, with girl group backing vocals and even a touching ballad closer. Kathleen Hanna’s vocals are empowered and her lyrics are as pointed and poignant as ever. It’s the sound of a band who have found their sweet spot.
The piano man holds nothing back on an ambitious second outing. With a notably brighter sound, the muchfancied Brit seeks to transfuse his keyboard indie from moody music halls to giddy arenas. He’s successfully switched sides.
Callus $11.99 CD
GARY HOEY
Hit Reset $10.99 CD
Wrong Crowd $8.99 CD
GONJASUFI
Way Down In The Jungle Room $12.99 CD
THE JULIE RUIN
TOM ODELL
ADELE
Egomaniac $11.99 CD
RUSSIAN CIRCLES
Alive In Amsterdam $12.99 CD Walter Trout has never sounded so alive. The date is November 28th, 2015. The location is Amsterdam’s opulent Royal Theatre Carré. And the occasion is a live performance of the blues-rock legend at full-throttle. ‘ALIVE in Amsterdam’ is the sound of a man announcing his resurrection after a period on the ropes.
PAT METHENY The Unity Sessions $16.99 CD
In 2013, for the first time since 1980, Metheny recorded with a band that highlighted tenor saxophone. The resulting Unity Band, which went on to win him his 20th Grammy Award, featured Chris Potter on sax and bass clarinet, longtime collaborator Antonio Sanchez on drums, and Ben Williams on bass.
Guidance $10.99 CD
With their sixth album Guidance, Russian Circles carry on in their quest to conjure multi-dimensional dramatic instrumental narratives and to scout out new textures from their respective instruments. Songs aren’t constructed out of highbrow concepts; they’re forged out of gut instinct and base emotional response.
ALLEN TOUSSAINT American Tunes $14.99 CD
American Tunes is the final recording from Allen Toussaint. Produced by Joe Henry, the album features solo piano recordings made at Allen’s home studio and others made with musicians Jay Bellerose, Bill Frisell, Greg Leisz, Charles Lloyd, David Piltch, Rhiannon Giddens, and Van Dyke Parks.
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MUSIC seemingly the moment their first few tracks popped up on MySpace, the Boston-bred Pakistani-American quartet won headlines nationwide, inspired a worshipful documentary, and generally fulfilled the dearest hopes of every cultural critic eager to subvert the dominant Desi narrative and/or reaffirm old-school hardcore as relevant music of dissent. But despite an enduring reign as media darlings, the band itself has increasingly resisted the narrative built up alongside its principled-yetwacky garage stomp. With latest album Stereotype expanding toward dub textures and surf licks, the group feels no longer solely punk, nor—as they chafe against the constraints of organized religion in a manner tastemaker pundits ordinarily encourage—fully defined by their Islamic heritage. JAY HORTON. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. 8 pm. $10. 21+.
CLASSICAL, JAZZ & WORLD Chico Freeman
[UNSUNG JAZZ HERO] Secondgeneration tenor player Chico Freeman may have started his career deep in the shadow of his father, legendary hard-bop reed player Von Freeman, but after 40 years in the jazz world’s pinball game, he’s made his own name. A virtuosic expat who has spent the past decade performing in Europe, Freeman steps on home soil in belated celebration of his 2015 album, Spoken Into Existence. The record is a deep amalgamation of improvisations and classic-style swing melodies, thoroughly rooted in the groovy post-Coltrane era. PARKER HALL. Jimmy Mak’s, 221 NW 10th Ave. 7:30 and 9:30 pm Friday, August 12. $20 general admission, $25 reserved seating. Under 21 permitted until 9:30 pm.
Portland Festival Symphony [PASSING THE BATON] For 35 years, conductor and former PSU prof Lajos Balogh has presented free classical music concerts in various parks—an essential Portland perennial. Now, he’s turning over the baton to former Oregon Symphony resident conductor Gregory Vajda. This year’s mix features classics by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, Bizet, Vaughan Williams and more, including the inevitable kid-participatory “Toy Symphony.” The Washington Park concert, the last of the summer, also boasts the world premiere of a new piano concerto composed by well known Portland pianist Michael Allen Harrison. BRETT CAMPBELL. Washington Park Amphitheater, 410 SW Kingston Ave. 6 pm Sunday, Aug. 14. Free.
Al-Andalus Ensemble
[MIDDLE EAST MEETS WEST] Tarik and Julia Banzi’s veteran Portland world music quintet has been scarce in its hometown—this is its first local performance in three years. No band better exemplifies fruitful cooperation among Muslim, Christian and Jewish cultures than Al Andalus, whose name harks back to 15th-century Spain’s flourishing multiethnic and religious mix. Moroccan-Canadian Boujemaa Razgui, who performs often with Boston Camerata, knows all about the need for cultural cooperation— he made international headlines when customs agents destroyed his priceless ney flutes during an inspection a few years ago. BRETT CAMPBELL. Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, 147 NW 18th Ave. 7 pm Sunday, Aug. 14. Free. All ages.
For more Music listings, visit
DATES HERE ALBUM REVIEWS
Wooden Indian Burial Ground
HOW’S YOUR FAVORITE DREAMER? (Exag’) [SERIOUSLY STRANGE] I t ’s h a r d t o b e a truly weird psychrock band these days, considering there’s just so damn many of them. But on its latest album, How’s Your Favorite Dreamer?, Wo o d e n I n d i a n Burial Ground succeeds in creating an all-out freakfest. The album is a trippy, chaotic foray through a funhouse maze of guitar feedback, glockenspiels, organs, squawking saxophones, horror-movie screams and odd noises. Even the lengths of the songs are all over the place, ranging from under 90 seconds to over six minutes. The most traditional song is the Black Angels-style “Burnout Beach,” but even that veers into a void of feedback and wind chimes. As a whole, How’s Your Favorite Dreamer? is more in the spirit of kraut legends Faust than the current wave of riff-obsessed psych rockers, more interested in experimenting with the boundaries of the genre than crafting immediate hooks. At times, the album feels aimless, but it’s always unhinged, and the commitment to unchecked weirdness is what makes it so gleefully shambolic. SHANNON GORMLEY. SEE IT: Wooden Indian Burial Ground plays the Spare Room, 4830 NE 42nd Ave., with Ice Queens and Old Unconscious, on Friday, Aug. 12. 9 pm. $5. 21+.
Minden
SWEET, SIMPLE THINGS (Hit City USA) [SODA AND BONDAGE] On Swe e t , Si mple Things, Minden trades the jazzy touches of its previous albums for pure, clean-cut pop. As a result, songwriter Casey Burge is able to show off his knack for infectious hooks more than e v e r, e f f o r t l e s s l y blending shimmery disco rhythms, intricate percussion, dreamy keys and funky basslines, and making it all sound effortless. As implied by the album’s opener, “Real Sugar”—whose lyrics of longing for sugary soda could be interpreted as Minden’s mission statement—Sweet, Simple Things is a thoroughly sweet album, and if your palate isn’t inclined toward sugary stuff, the cutesiness can start to grate. At times, it sterilizes the band’s funk influence, lending a coy irony to songs like the glittery title track and “Never Spayed,” despite references to bondage and pet play. Nonetheless, Minden fans will at least appreciate hearing the band they’ve watched grow from Kansas City obscurity to Portland staple manage to hone its songwriting craft so finely. SHANNON GORMLEY.
PETER KASEN
SUNDAY, AUGUST 14TH AT 5PM Peter Kasen is a Guitarist, Singer and Songwriter who began his solo music career in 2005. Having studied music theory and arranging at Berklee College of Music in Boston, dynamic shifts and changes in a single piece of music, and the time signatures that accompanied those shifts, became a minor obsession, to later take form in Peter’s songwriting in use currently.
AMY HELM
TUESDAY, AUGUST 16TH AT 7:30PM
Although the personally charged, organically soulful Didn’t It Rain is her first release under her own name, Amy Helm has been making music for most of her life. She’s already won widespread praise as a singer, songwriter and live performer, first as a member of the celebrated alt-country collective Ollabelle and subsequently for her extensive work with her father, musical icon Levon Helm, who passed away in 2012.
SEE IT: Minden plays Rontoms, 600 E Burnside St., with Reptaliens, on Sunday, Aug. 14. 8 pm. Free. 21+.
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Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
MUSIC CALENDAR WED. AUG. 10 Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St Purple Frankie, Panther Car
Bossanova Ballroom
722 E Burnside St. GLOSS, Firewalker, Pure Disgust, Franky, In Flux
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Chastity Belt, So Pitted, Mini Blinds
Edgefield
2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Jackson Browne
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Souvenir Driver, Ice Queens, Sinless
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. The Christopher Brown Quartet; Mel Brown Quartet
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St. Attic Empire
LaurelThirst Public House
Edgefield
Duff’s Garage
Hawthorne Theatre
Edgefield
High Water Mark Lounge
Evergreen
2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Songs for Lisa 1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd. Amplify Love Tour
6800 NE MLK Ave Vhol, Will, Iron Scepter
High Water Mark Lounge
6800 NE MLK Ave Vhol, WILL, Iron Scepter
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Hosannas, No LaLa, Fog Father, DJ/VJ set by Incidental Music
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown B3 Organ Group
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St. Black Fruit, The Toads, Variants
LaurelThirst Public House
2958 NE Glisan St Jonah Luke / Willow Steps; Ural Thomas & the Pain
2958 NE Glisan St Anita Margarita & the Rattlesnakes; Dunnoy w/ Mike Coykendall; Ural Thomas & the Pain
Mississippi Studios
Mississippi Pizza
Portland Cider House
Revolution Hall
The Analog Cafe
3552 N Mississippi Ave Tallulah’s Daddy 1300 SE Stark St #110 Hard Working Americans
The Analog Cafe
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. The Lost Project, Neon Culpa, One Winged Hero; Turnaways, Secnd Best, Black Fruit, Mike Moldy and The Shenanigans
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St Shafty
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St, BlackWater (HolyLight), Maybe Baby & the Bitch Boys, Dog Dreams
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Dismantled, Vile Augury, [product]
The Old Church
1422 SW 11th Ave Youth Life presents Sawyer; Rebecca Reese & Andrew Bonner
Valentines
232 SW Ankeny St Children of Pop
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St JP Harris & The Tough Choices
THURS. AUG. 11 Alberta Street Pub 1036 NE Alberta St Michael Howard
Ash Street Saloon 225 SW Ash St Khemmis, Hands of Thieves
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave. Mattress, Dubais, Love Fuck
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St Shooter Jennings
Doug Fir Lounge 830 E Burnside St. Globelamp
Duff’s Garage
2530 NE 82nd Ave Ray Goren
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Left Coast Country, The Blackberry Bushes Stringband 3638 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Shane Brown 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Waking Things, Captain Wails & the Harpoons
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St Newen Afrobeat
The Know
2026 NE Alberta St Little Dowager, Haunted Head, Heartless Magnus
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St, Vum, Rolodex, Patricia Hall
The Lovecraft Bar 421 SE Grand Ave Introflirt
The Secret Society
116 NE Russell St Thursday Swing! Featuring Hot Club Time Machine, Swinging Doors
Turn! Turn! Turn!
8 NE Killingsworth St Longriver and Travis Champ
Valentines
232 SW Ankeny St Drunk on Pines with Bevelers, Blue Blue Windows
FRI. AUG. 12 Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave Sarah Jarosz
Alberta Rose
3000 NE Alberta St Kalimba - The Spirit of Earth Wind & Fire featuring Soul Vaccination
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St Red Forman, Invalids, The Lunch, The Hague
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave. Bunk Bar presents: Howard Kremer
Dante’s
350 West Burnside Mickey Avalon
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. No Vacancy 024 feat. Bit Funk
2530 NE 82nd Ave Vinyl Gold; Warthog Stew: Last Entree
For more listings, check out wweek.com.
[AUG. 10-16]
LAST WEEK LIVE BRIDGET BAKER
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
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.
2126 SW Halsey St Troutdale OR 97060 Michael Franti & Spearhead 618 SE Alder St. EYRST One-Year Anniversary
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. Chico Freeman
LaurelThirst Public House
2958 NE Glisan St Scratchdog Stringband / King Columbia / Lickdog Disputes; Woodbrain w/ Tevis Hodge, Jr. & Blind J. Wakins
Marylhurst University 17600 Pacific Highway 3 Leg Torso
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave Ky Burt; Down Home Music
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. White Lung, Greys
Panic Room
3100 NE Sandy Blvd Arachnid, Magnabolt, Blood Freak, Sarcalogos, Rotting Slab, and Demon’s Bell
Spare Room
4830 NE 42nd Ave pdx or 97218 Wooden Indian Burial Ground, Ice Queens, Old Unconscious, DJ Babymakers
Star Theater
13 NW 6th Ave. A BOWIE/BYRNE WEEKEND with Bowie Vision and Life During Wartime
Star Theater
13 NW 6th Ave. BowieVision, Life During Wartime
TABORSPACE
5441 SE Belmont St, Kai and Kelly Talim
The Analog Cafe
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. School of Rock Concert; Garcia Birthday Band
The Firkin Tavern
1937 SE 11th Ave Michael Howard & The Magic Powers
The Know 2026 NE Alberta St Atriarch, Alaric
The Old Church
1422 SW 11th Ave Friday Night Live: A New Way Home
The Secret Society
116 NE Russell St Pete Krebs and his Portland Playboys; Pacific Mean Time, Among Authors
The TARDIS Room
1214 N. Killingsworth Ave., Loop Madness
Tony Starlight Showroom
1125 SE Madison St, The Tony Starlight Show
Valentines
232 SW Ankeny St SURFACE NOISE VINYL INVITATIONAL HAPPY HOURS
Wonder Ballroom 128 NE Russell St. ALO, Polecat!
SAT. AUG. 13 Alberta Rose
3000 NE Alberta St
INTO THE WOODS: A certain Pickathon first-timer texted me upon arrival Saturday evening, a bit bewildered. He was there exclusively to see Jeff Tweedy, and hadn’t acclimated to the surroundings. “My favorite thing is all the dudes in Wilco shirts just as confused by everything as I am,” he wrote. “It’s like we all landed on an Ewok planet together and are like, ‘Wait, a plate for $10? Oh, OK.’” With Pickathon, there’s so much emphasis on “the experience”—the camping, the reusable plates and cups, the different stage environments—it’s hard to imagine a less-committed attendee spending only a few hours there and understanding why multiyear regulars, such as myself, rhapsodize over it so much. Almost certainly, my acquaintance wasn’t alone, especially this year—the combination of Tweedy, Beach House, Yo La Tengo, Ty Segall and the reunited Wolf Parade likely brought out a lot of newbies. As a result, Pendarvis Farm felt just a little more squeezed, in the food lines and the barns and at the Woods Stage, which at their most crowded were even more claustrophobic than usual. But while this was the biggest iteration of the festival yet, what really makes Pickathon great is only partly related to the things that happen onstage. It’s the small moments, the ones that happen back at camp—the ones that don’t make it into a review, because they would be far too indulgent to share. Maybe Pickathon isn’t any more “magical” than any other music festival. Maybe it’s just a great fucking time. Either way, I’ll take it. MATTHEW SINGER. Rock ‘n’ Roll Camp for Girls Presents Summer Camp Session 4 Showcase
Bossanova Ballroom 722 E Burnside St. OEM Showcase Party
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave. Rio Grands, Two Moons
Dante’s
350 West Burnside Ian Moore with Chris Newman Deluxe Combo
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Courtney Marie Andrews, Barna Howard, Birger Olsen
Rats Gone to Rest; Lorna Miller
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Stephen Ashbrook
Panic Room
3100 NE Sandy Blvd Gleam Garden (Japan), Divers, Arctic Flowers, The Lonely
Portland Expo Center 2060 N Marine Dr, Vans Warped Tour
Star Theater
Duff’s Garage
13 NW 6th Ave. A BOWIE/BYRNE WEEKEND with Bowie Vision and Life During Wartime
Edgefield
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Sister Carol, Steady Riot, Trinity Soundz ; The Floors
Hawthorne Theatre
1937 SE 11th Ave PAC NW Showcase: The Forever Agos, Low Flyer
Jimmy Mak’s
2026 NE Alberta St The Woolen Men, Honey Bucket, Wave Action
2530 NE 82nd Ave Warthog Stew; The Goon Squad 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Culture Club, Groves 1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd. King Lil G 221 NW 10th Ave. The Paul Creighton Project
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St. Pretenser, The Pretty Flowers, Last Good Sleep, Tallwomen
LaurelThirst Public House
2958 NE Glisan St Billy Kennedy; Rose City Kings; Kris Deelane & the Hurt
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave
The Analog Cafe
The Firkin Tavern
The Know
The Liquor Store
SUN. AUG. 14 Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave Boys of Summer
Ash Street Saloon 225 SW Ash St Finally North
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Pickin’ On; Jay Brannan
Hawthorne Theatre
1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd. Texas Hippie Coalition 1001 SE Morrison St. Ampersan, Lo Steele
LaurelThirst Public House
2958 NE Glisan St Freak Mountain Ramblers;; The Hollerbodies
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave The Yacolt Burn, Jeff Hamilton, Low Key; Low Long Jug Band
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave Yacolt Burn
Rontoms
600 E Burnside St Rontoms Sunday Sessions: Minden, Reptaliens
The Secret Society
Star Theater
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St The National Parks, Jenn Blosil, Paper Gates
Crystal Ballroom
Trinity Episcopal Cathedral
Edgefield
147 NW 18th Ave. Al-Andalus Ensemble
Washington Park Amphitheater
410 SW Kingston Ave., Portland Festival Symphony
White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St Danielle Nicole Band
Holocene
3341 SE Belmont St, Infinite Vision: Fritz Carlton 116 NE Russell St The Jenny Finn Orchestra
Mike Coykendall, Norman Baker, William Surly, Matt Green
13 NW 6th Ave. Voltaire, Stoneburner
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St Fred Wesley and Object Heavy
The Secret Society 116 NE Russell St
MON. AUG. 15 Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St Dwight Church, Dwight Dickinson, G.I.N.A.H., Brisket Love-Cox
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Hockey Dad, Muuy Biien, Mr. Bones
High Water Mark Lounge 6800 NE MLK Ave Autarch, Slather
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. Dan Balmer Trio
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave Mr. Ben
Roseland Theater
8 NW 6th Ave Broods, Jarryd James
TUES. AUG. 16 Ash Street Saloon 225 SW Ash St The Bougies
1332 W Burnside St The Used 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Jesse Dayton as part of Great Northwest Music Tour
Hawthorne Theatre
1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd. Periphery
Jimmy Mak’s
221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown Septet
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St. Showdeer presents: Hard Sulks
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave dKota
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Ben Sollee
Roseland Theater
8 NW 6th Ave 311
Star Theater
13 NW 6th Ave. The Kominas
The Analog Cafe
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Ultra Magnetic; James Wolfglen, The Moaning Lories
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St Boys II Gentlemen
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St, The Savage Family Band / The Needs / The Weird Fangs
Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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MUSIC N AT H A N I E L YO U N G
needle exchange
Ben Tactic Years DJing: Seventeen years—almost half my life, which is crazy to think about. My first gig was playing drum-and-bass at a house party in Lawrence, Kan. Genre: I follow a lot of different genres, but as of late I’m mostly playing disco, Afrobeat, house, garage, acid and jacking techno. Where you can catch me regularly: Third Fridays at the Liquor Store for my party Spend the Night with my bud Graintable, and random weekends at Holocene for Love in This Club with Nathan Detroit. Craziest gig: In 2002, I played an incredibly illegal warehouse party in downtown St. Louis. The organizers had broken into a space that was occupied by a bunch of squatters and just set up this rave. The act before me was playing Cattle Decapitation records while running around with a ski mask on and waving what I hope was a fake gun at everyone. The worst part was when he set an American flag that had been soaked in kerosene on fire, creating a huge fireball. Everyone thought they were gonna die. I got to play one record before about 40 cops showed up to bust it. My go-to records: Midland, “Final Credits”; Fela Kuti, “Shakara” (Ossie’s Bump Edit); Gunnar Haslam, “Overcomplete”; Mouzon’s Electric Band, “Everybody Get Down”; Marlon D, “Jesus Creates Sound.” Don’t ever ask me to play…: I don’t have a huge problem with requests, but chances are if I’m in the middle of a hands-in-the-air disco set I’m not gonna play Drake for you. And no, DJs don’t care if it’s you or your friends’ birthday. NEXT GIG: Ben Tactic spins at Spend the Night at the Liquor Store, 3341 SE Belmont St., on Friday, Aug. 19. 9 pm. $10. 21+.
FRI. AUG. 12 Black Book
20 NW 3rd Ave The Cave w/ Massacooramaan (rap)
Crystal Ballroom
WED. AUG. 10 Black Book
20 NW 3rd Ave Flavors (hip-hop, r&b, throwbacks)
Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St. TRONix (electronica)
Killingsworth Dynasty 832 N Killingsworth St Free Form Radio
Sandy Hut
1430 NE Sandy Blvd. DJ Joey Prude
The Embers Avenue 100 NW Broadway Knochen Tanz (oonz oonz)
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Event Horizon (darkwave, industrial)
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Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
THURS. AUG. 11 Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave. A Train & Eagle Sun King (vintage cumbia)
Gold Dust Meridian
3267 SE Hawthorne Blvd. DJ Buzzkill
Killingsworth Dynasty 832 N Killingsworth St DJ Deena B / Ill Trill
Moloko
3967 N. Mississippi Ave. Jackal (lounge tech)
The Embers Avenue 100 NW Broadway Thursday Electronic
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Shadowplay w/ DJ Carrion & friends (goth, industrial)
1332 W Burnside St 80s Video Dance Attack
Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave. Tim Zawada, Maxx Bass, Bobby D (boogieoogieoogie)
Euphoria Nightclub
315 SE 3rd Ave TrollPhace, Lil Clark, Gutta
Gold Dust Meridian
3267 SE Hawthorne Blvd. DJ Tiger Stripes
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Dance Yourself Clean (indie pop)
Moloko
3967 N. Mississippi Ave. King Tim 33 1/3 (aqua boogie, underwater rhymes)
Where to drink this week.
1.
megan nanna
bar review
Bazi Bierbrasserie
1522 SE 32nd Ave., 503-234-8888, bazipdx.com. Bazi is showing the Olympics every day— including every U.S. women’s national team soccer match, with block parties for the late matches.
2.
Century
930 SE Sandy Blvd., centurybarpdx.com. Century is the sports bar with the best hair in all of Portland, and also the best shirts and pants, the best roof, and the best late-hours nightclub.
3.
Craft Pour House 16055 SW Regatta Lane, No. 700, Beaverton, 503-747-5864, craftpourhouse.com. Well, hold the goddamn phone. Craft Pour House might be Beaverton’s first true nerd-out, beer-geek bar—with great, weird and interesting brews.
4.
Honky Tonk Taco
3384 SE Division St, 503-384-2259, honkytonktaco.com. The new Tex-Mex spot’s tacos are tiny and cost a lot—but on sunny days, drink a boozy, slushy margarita and ease into a Merle Haggard tune.
5.
Division Wines
3564 SE Division St., 503-234-7281, divisionwines.com. One of the finest wine shops and bars in town—especially if your tastes run toward the natural, oddball and aperitif.
Saucebox
214 N Broadway St Chelsea Starr
The Embers Avenue
100 NW Broadway Friday Night 80’s & Top 40 w/ DJ Jens
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St Soul Stew w/ DJ Aquaman (funk, soul, disco)
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St, Believe You Me: MD, Ginko and Andy Warren (house, techno, disco)
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave NecroNancy w/ Buckmaster & Lord Baby (queer dance party)
SAT. AUG. 13 Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St Come As You Are 90s Dance Flashback
Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave.
PLAYING ITS LAST CARD: If downtown’s Lotus Cardroom & Cafe (932 SW 3rd Ave, 503- 227-6185, lotuscardroomandcafe.com) makes your Sazerac with too much pastis, part of you wonders whether it’s supposed to be that way; the Lotus has been making the world’s oldest cocktail since before it was legal, in the bar’s bathtub-whiskey years. The 92-year-old saloon, lunch counter, former den of bootleggers and onetime illegal gambling parlor will hold its farewell party Aug. 20, after nearly a year of stayed execution, and will be replaced by 21 floors of boutique hotel. Somehow, even though I grew up about 8 miles from the Lotus, I never managed to darken its door; nearly every local I asked under age 40 told me the same. It’s a shame. The cherry-wood bar is surprisingly well-preserved, as are the deco saloon-style mirrors and the metal-topped midcentury lunch counter with a chalkboard announcing soup specials. Voluminous $13.95 meatloaf is wrapped in bacon and smothered in gravy, and tastes like one big, wet peppercorn. The hamburgers come, improbably, with both cheddar and blue cheese—a combination weirdly mild and pleasant. And the beer selection is a generations-spanning mix of old and new, with both Widmer hefe and Breakside Pilsner gracing the taps. On our visit, the card room was closed. And nobody sits at the old lunch counter in the back of the bar anymore. “Well, sometimes they do,” says the bartender. “But it’s awkward.” The old-timers have been trickling in to say their goodbyes—but only one or two at a time—to the place they knew from its glory days, when it was wild. “Was it all that wild?” we asked. “Oh yeah,” the bartender says emphatically, but the details seem to have already gone lost. That cherry-wood bar top, on the other hand, is currently for sale. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Montel Spinozza (the noise, the funk)
Euphoria Nightclub
315 SE 3rd Ave Wolfgang Gartner, Gabriel Driscoll, Sacha
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Verified w/ Tommy Kruise (rap)
Killingsworth Dynasty 832 N Killingsworth St Cake (hip hop)
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Jump Jack Sound Machine
Moloko
3967 N. Mississippi Ave. DJ Cuica
Sandy Hut
1430 NE Sandy Blvd. DJ Cecilia
The Embers Avenue
100 NW Broadway Saturday Top 40 Remixed w/ DJ Jens
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St Get On Up w/ Takimba and DJ Saucy (funk, soul, hip hop)
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Musick For Mannequins w/ DDDJJJ666, Magnolia Bouvier & DJ Acid Rick (eclectic dance)
Valentines
232 SW Ankeny St Devil’s Pie w/ DJ Wicked (feel-good jams)
SUN. AUG. 14 Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave. Sunday Selects (throwback rap, r&b)
MON. AUG. 15 Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave. Lamar (boogie, edits, modern dance)
Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St. Reagan-o-mix (new wave, hip-hop, soundtrack)
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Black Mass (dark dance)
Turn! Turn! Turn!
The Embers Avenue
8 NE Killingsworth St Lee Hazelwood Vinyl Night w/ DJ Whippoorwill & DJ Ricky Pang
The Lovecraft Bar
The Embers Avenue
100 NW Broadway Latino Night w/ DJ Leo (latin, cubono, salsa) 421 SE Grand Ave Glam Rock Trash Bash
White Owl Social Club
1305 SE 8th Ave East We Got This: Deejay Theory (tropical bass)
TUES. AUG. 16 100 NW Broadway Recycle w/ DJ Tibin (dark dance)
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Mood Ring (electronic, dance)
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave. Tubesdays
Dave Alvin 8/25 • 7:30pm
with Phil Alvin, eliza gilkyson, & Butch hancock Plus rick Shea, christy McWilson & cindy cashdollar
Brian Cutean 8/26 • 8pm
featuring lewi longmire, Jason Montgomery, Simon lucas & Nancy tannler
The Lowest Pair 9/1 • 8pm
featuring the duo banjo picking of Kendl Winter & Palmer t. lee Upcoming Shows: 10/7 Curtis Eller’s American Circus • 10/21 Dan Bern 10/22 Woody Guthrie Tribute • 11/4 Amanda Richards 11/5 Wordstock • 12/9 JD Wilkes
theoldchurch.org Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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TICKETS ON SALE AT
PORTLAND.PROJECTPABST.COM
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Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
SUNDAY AUGUST 28 SATURDAY AUGUST 27
21+
DURAN DURAN ICE CUBE
/ NATHANIEL / RATELIFF
STRFKR / & THE NIGHT SWEATS A$AP FERG / ANDREW W.K. / LIZZO THE COATHANGERS / KYLE CRAFT
TAME IMPALA / WEEN / DRIVE LIKE JEHU
UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA PARQUET COURTS / SHEER MAG HOP ALONG
/ DIARRHEA PLANET / TENEMENT
WATERFRONT PARK
PORTLAND, OR
OWEN CAREY
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 OPENINGS & PREVIEWS The Lion King
See people prance and sing in intricately designed animal costumes when The Lion King, Broadway’s most successful aggregation of Disney content, comes to the Keller Auditorium this week. Come for the nostalgia, stay for the Tony Award-winning production. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 503-2411802. 7:30 pm Tuesday-Friday, 2 pm and 7:30 pm Saturday, 1 and 6:30 pm Sunday, Aug. 10-Sept. 4. Additional show 1 pm Thursday, Aug. 11. $30$150.
ALSO PLAYING A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum
Broadway Rose Theatre continues their love for Sondheim, staging Forum right after their production of West Side Story. Broadway Rose founding-General-Manager Dan Murphy will make an appearance as Pseudolus alongside Ethan Crystal—who just finished up his run in Triangle Production’s American Idiot—and Eugene native Kaitlyn Sage. This show follows a Greek slave trying to gain his freedom by helping his master get the girl of his dreams. The Deb Fennell Auditorium, 9000 SW Durham Road, Tigard. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2 pm Sundays, through Aug. 21. Additional shows 2 pm Saturday, Aug. 13 and 20. $20-$28.
Jesus Christ Superstar
It has been 11 years since Jesus Christ Superstar was staged by a Portland company. This summer, the once-controversial musical is not only onstage, it is in an old church in Sellwood. Longtime Portland actor-director Michael Streeter, who describes himself as a “recovering Catholic,” wants Superstar to be controversial again. While this production at Post5 Theatre is not likely to spark hot-button buzz, it is goddamn entertaining. Streeter’s update tries to bring the edge back by casting women as Apostles and actress Ithica Tell as Judas. This Superstar is best when Lloyd Webber’s addictive music is given free rein. Even as lepers swarm, Judas cries and Jesus explodes with anger, the audience cannot help but manically bob its collective head. If star-power moments like these sound too big for a small theater, it’s because they are. Superstar is meant to be performed big. In Sellwood’s theater, it feels like a squeeze. Talent sweeps every staging issue under the rug, though. When Tell is singing as Judas—one of the most difficult roles in musical theater, with a vocal range spanning two octaves—you forget that it’s 90 degrees and the actors are trying not to trip over each other. Verses were chopped, lines were dropped, helping the show clock in at a comfortable two hours. What’s uncomfortable is honoring the program’s request that you refrain from singing along. See the full review at wweek.com. Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971-333-1758. 8 pm Thursday-Sunday, through Aug. 20. $20.
The Music Man
Clackamas Repertory Theatre produces the classic musical about a
traveling salesman who cons the parents of a small Iowa town into buying his instruments by promising to start a marching band. He plans to skip town before making good on that promise, but when a feisty librarian catches his eye, he decides to stick around for awhile. Clackamas Repertory Theatre, 19600 Molalla Ave., Oregon City, 503-594-6047. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2:30 pm Sundays, through Aug. 28. $10-$18.
DANCE Anything Goes
Local striptease connoisseurs Dee Dee Pepper and Wanda Bones do a slapstick and showy burlesque that’s sexy in its “I don’t give a fuck what you think about my mouse costume” way. It’s tittering as much as titty-showing. This month’s special guests include boylesque cabaret star Johnny Nuriel and Black Lodge Burlesque’s Meghan Mayhem. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., funhouselounge.com. 9:30 pm Saturday, Aug. 13. $12. 21+.
By the Light of a Different Moon
Under the stars and trees of Mary S. Young Park, members of A-WOL Dance Collective will fly through the air on aerial apparatus, incorporating strength techniques, acrobatics and dance to an original soundtrack of Dirty Elegance’s downtempo, emotional trance beats. Every year, A-WOL’s Art in the Dark performance transforms a park into an evening of circus-like spectacle. Mary S. Young Park, 19900 Willamette Falls Drive, West Linn. 8:30 pm Friday-Sunday, through Aug. 14. $15-$28.
Death of Glitter
The runner-up for Best Drag Show in WW’s Best of Portland Readers’ Poll, Crush’s monthly show goes Disney-themed this time. Special guests, including Portland mainstay Zora Phoenix, will dress and dance the parts of animated favorites. The cover charge helps fund TransActive’s youth programs. Crush Bar, 1400 SE Morrison St., 503-235-8150, crushbar.com. 9:30 pm Saturday, Aug. 13. $5-$10.
JamBallah Northwest
The biggest bellydance festival we’ll get all year takes over Artists Repertory Theatre with vendors, master classes and workshops all weekend. Assuming you’re not a professional fusion dancer attending for career advice, pop into one of the showcases to see a huge lineup of colorful acts like Gypsy Heart Tribal and Wicked Thorns. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., jamballahnw.com. 7:30 pm Friday, 12:30 and 8 pm Saturday and 3:30 Sunday, Aug. 12-14. $5-$40. All ages.
NWDP Summer Dance Intensive Showing
From across North America, young dancers tried out to begin Northwest Dance Project’s summer training program. After four weeks of training under Princess Grace Awardwinners like Andrea Parson and Ching Ching Wong, they’ll take the stage in dances choreographed specifically for them. Lincoln Performance Hall, 1620 SW Park Ave., 503-421-7434, nwdanceproject.org. 7:30 pm Friday, Aug 12. $25.
CONT. on page 43
A TRAILER PARK ULYSSES: Bruce Burkhartsmeier and Karen Trumbo.
REVIEW
How to Forgive an Abusive Ex ANNAPURNA IS AN ODYSSEY FOR GRACE AND FRANKIE FANS.
was so shit-faced that he doesn’t remember any of this. So, for twenty years, he thought that Emma left because she was a cold-hearted bitch who thought she could do better. He was wrong, and in fact, her The first thing you will see in Third Rail’s latest new husband is abusive too, but towards her. production is a naked, middle-aged man wearLove makes people do stupid things. Some audiing only a cloth crotch guard, Tarzan style. Next, ence members might consider leaving one abusive there will be a lot of heated babbling between husband to crawl back to a different one pretty two old people who you correctly assume are ex- dumb. But Karen Trumbo sells Emma as a woman lovers. This play is a lot like an episode of Grace who is suffering vicariously through her son’s daddy and Frankie set inside a cluttered trailer, but its issues. With frank tenderness, she makes Ulysses a two characters are worth a trip to the theater. sandwich and also insults him for morphing into There’s a phrase that people who fail at getting an oafish pariah. Though Bruce Burkhartsmeier’s over someone love to resurrect: If you love Ulysses is difficult to forgive at times, the actor something, set it free, and if it comes himself is nearly faultless. His chemistry back to you, it’s yours. In some ways, with Trumbo is so apparent through Annapurna is a textbook example dialogue alone that the audience “YOU of this commonly Googled quote. doesn’t even need, or want, a kiss. BOUGHT Emma, a woman ambiguAnd they won’t get one. ously around 55, leaves her It is clear that Emma loves MEAT AT new husband to drop in on her Ulysses, but reuniting is not easy. THE DOLLAR unwelcoming ex, Ulysses, who Many of us say that we never lives in a trailer in the mountains want to see a former lover again STORE?” where the threat of cockroaches is (or God help us, we’ll…). In reality, —Emma (Karen so high that he hides his inhaler in we probably have a deep desire to Trumbo) a cookie jar. Ulysses is life-threatenrehash and dissect our separation over ingly sick and appears to be on his way a La Croix. Annapurna is largely a catharout. Though Emma left Ulysses in the middle tic experience. The theater toyed with giving of the night twenty years prior, the fact that she still away tickets, free drinks and even a hotel stay to loves him is an elephant in the room so visible it attendees who brought their ex to the show, but practically sprays the audience with sewer water. So, decided against that idea. why did Emma leave 20 years ago with the couple’s For Ulysses and Emma, their reunion seems com5-year-old son? Keyword here: son. He is the crux of plicated, but the play’s solution is not. As Annapurna the play, though he doesn’t once appear on the stage, makes us question what is more sacred—motherly which looks like the interior of a 1980s trailer, clut- instinct or true love—the play reminds us that forgivetered with plastic bags and dirty clothes. ness is just as important as anger. All of the feelings, Turns out that Ulysses had a drinking problem, good and bad, grow out of love. That is what makes which made him insanely agro. One night, Emma the pain so great to begin with. JACK RUSHALL. returned home to find Ulysses blacked out, huddled over her son’s bed where the boy was so badly beaten SEE IT: Annapurna is at Imago Theater, 17 SE 8th Ave., 503-235-1101. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday that he became permanently deaf in one ear. Ulysses and 2 pm Sunday, Aug. 5-27. $25-42.50. Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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BEER PRO/AM SAVE THE DATE!!!
WILLAMETTE WEEK’S 2016
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 15 Noon–6 p.m. 27 new beers you can only try here! Portland’s original home and pro brewer collaboration festival! bit.ly/FBwwbeerproam
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Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
PERFORMANCE Al’s Den Comedy Night
A laste night weekend showcase of comics, mostly local stand-up comedians and Seattleites passing through. Sometimes the best part is watching Crystal Hotel guests awkwardly sidle by the stage, wearing only a swimsuit and towel, on their way to the pool behind this basement bar. Al’s Den, 303 SW 12th Ave. 10:30 pm Fridays and Saturdays. Free. 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.
Chris Fairbanks
The co-host of Almost Genius on truTV, Chris Fairbanks is a native Montanan who started driving people around in cars and filming it long before Michelle Obama slid into James Corden’s passenger seat. His upcoming comedy film Still Punching the Clown comes out this year. Until then, he’s freelance-illustrating educational textbooks and touring places like Portland. Hosted by Stacey Hallal. Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Blvd. 7:30 pm Friday, Aug 12. $20.
Comedy and Cocktails
Jason Traeger hosts a roundup of local comedians like Becky Braunstein and Wendy Weiss— Portland’s best stripper comedian— at New Deal’s monthly showcase. Cocktails start at 7, show at 8 pm. New Deal Distillery, 900 SE Salmon St., 503-234-2513. 7 pm Friday, Aug 12. Free. 21+.
Curious Comedy Open Mic
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., 477-9477. 8 pm Sundays. Free.
Earthquake Hurricane
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., 2349999. 8pm Mondays. Free.
The Hard Times Presents: ACAB
All comics are bastards, but especially these people this month: David Mascorro, Wendy Weiss (is it just us, or is she suddenly everywhere?), Kenny Calisota, Dylan Jenkins and Nicky Moon. Bill Conway and the Hard Times host a showcase of dick jokes in a former Chinese language school. Kickstand Comedy Space, 315 NW Davis St., kickstandcomedy. org. 8:00 pm Wednesday, Aug. 10. $5 suggested donation.
Howard Kremer
“Dragon Boy Suede,” aka the guy who once interviewed Zach Galifianakis for his weekly music podcast “Who Charted?,” takes a break from the strip-club circuit and Comedy Bang! Bang! to headline Bunk. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., bunksandwiches.com. 9:30 pm Friday, Aug. 12. $15. 21+.
Ian Karmel and Sean Jordan
They moved away, then came back, then went away and returned—now, after a small hiatus from Portland, they are popping in again. If you don’t know them already, you’re probably not from around here, are you? Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., No. 110, 503-288-3895, revolutionhallpdx.com. 9:30 pm Friday, Aug. 12, $25, all ages. 7 pm Saturday, Aug. 13, $35, 21+.
It’s Not Me, It’s Me
Lady comedians JoAnn Schinderle and Barbara Holm are bringing back their speed-dating show. They tell jokes while you drink and attempt small talk with other singles vying for prizes like free condoms. Alberta Street Pub, 1036 NE Alberta St., 503284-7665, albertastreetpub.com. 8 pm Friday, Aug. 12. Free. 21+.
G R E G PA R K I N S O N
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+.
Open Court
Poké Jokes
Expect lures, incense, battery packs and gym badges. There will be jokes for entertainment in addition to laughing at people running into each other with their iPhones glued to their faces. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 503-841-6734, funhouselounge.com. 8 pm Sunday, Aug. 14. Free. 21+.
The Ranger Station Open Mic
Sign ups start at 8 pm for a weekly open mic night hosted by Victor Johnson, set in the whiskey-heavy bar WW once compared to “a Roosevelt-era public works cabin.” The Ranger Station, 4260 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 894-8455. 8:30 pm Wednesday. Free. 21+.
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.
Throwing Shade
Ever wanted to learn about pop culture and politics, but not take it too seriously and mock it relentlessly? Bryan Safi and Erin Gibson are here to scratch that itch. Throwing Shade is a popular podcast from the Maximum Fun network that has been selected as a top 20 comedy podcast by <em>Rolling Stone</em>, and will arm you with everything you need to be super snarky about what’s in the news, both real and celebrity. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 503-288-3895. 8 and 10 pm Wednesday, Aug. 10. $20. 21+.
Thursday Night Throwdown
Curious’ twice-monthly competition pits teams that apply in advance online against one another for a chance to compete in Friday Night Fights the next week. It’s first come, first served, and every groups gets 17 minutes. Curious Comedy Theater, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 9:30 pm every second and fourth Thursday. Free.
Todd Glass
Author of The Todd Glass Situation, Todd Glass has done standup for more than 30 years and has all the credits to show for it: Evening at the Improv, Last Comic Standing, Preston and Steve. Recently, Glass might be best known for coming out on WTF with Marc Maron, or for hosting the off-the-wall podcast The Todd Glass Show. If you’ve seen Getting Doug With High, you know he loves weed, which should make performing five shows in three nights right above a dispensary pretty interesting. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-6438669, portland.heliumcomedy.com. 8 pm Thursday, Aug. 11, 7:30 and 10 pm Friday-Saturday, Aug. 12-13. $15$23. 21+.
For more Performance listings, visit JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR
REVIEW
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., 477-9477. 7:30 pm Thursdays. $5.
D AV I D K I N D E R
COMEDY & VARIETY
HeLP: Amanda Mehl and Ahna Rose Dunn-Wilder.
BDSM on a Budget Portland’s startup theater struggles to stage a raunchy Maids.
In a recent London production of The Maids, stars from Orange Is the New Black and Downton Abbey appeared in the play about the sister maids who murder their mistress. On a set resembling a giant four-poster bed strewn with pink rose petals, the sisters acted out BDSM power play between two women who are both trapped in and transgressing their station. Their mistress wore Alexander McQueen gowns. That same show from Portland’s newest theater company, Public Citizen Theatre, drags on in a way that anyone acquainted with playwright Jean Genet’s inflammatory works would hardly believe. Watching it opening weekend, I felt like the freaky maids’ mistress, woefully upset over the accumulation of small disappointments. On a triangular stage in Southeast’s warehouse-turned-theater, the mistress complains: “too many flowers, it’s death.” But the meager flower arrangements are out-of-season plastic blossoms. The wardrobe looks like a tacky mix of items that were never in style and pulled from clashing decades. That impossibly narrow dressing room chair is cute, but enough of these low-budget attempts at bougie dressing-room realism! If I wouldn’t buy it on sale, I don’t buy it onstage. The stage is restrictive on purpose, but it backfires. Audiences spend the intermission-free show facing a corner of the mistress’ private room. While the directors’ intent was to mimic the characters’ claustrophobia, instead, all sound gets sucked up into the ceiling or muffled by the air conditioner. But don’t dare turn the AC off. Instead, the actors should project and annunciate, and stop shouting. It is true that the cast had technical control of the demanding language in Martin Crimp’s translation—perhaps too much control. The line “My jet of spit is my spray of diamonds” deserves some slobber. It’s clear early on that this show was never going to go there. After the play, my date and I searched online for the film Murderous Maids, based on the same scintillating true story of the Papin sisters. The sex and scorn in that three-minute trailer raised my pulse higher than Public Citizen’s production ever managed. In his director’s note, Aaron Filyaw promises this production will be funny. One of the maids (it’s so hard to keep them straight) says to the other, “We should be laughing or our tragedy will blow us out the window.” A sense of humor can help one through many trying circumstances, such as servitude, strangling or seeing this play. Is it hateful to be so harsh, or harsh to be so hateful? The audience can be a cruel mistress, but as the play points out, she is also “the excuse for all your ridiculous play-acting.” JESS DRAKE. see it: The Maids is at Shaking the Tree Theatre, 823 SE Grant St., 503-235-0635. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, through Aug. 21. $15-$25. Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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BOOKS
= 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: espitz@wweek.com.
Amanda Leigh Evans and Anastasia Greer
Certain mediums in art are commonly gendered as female, and they tend to be more craft-based or functional in nature. Women are great at making quilts and throwing pots! In a joint show, Amanda Leigh Evans and Anastasia Greer play with these forms and with our preconceived notions of them. Evans’ smallscale, minimal ceramic sculptures are delicately hand-built, consisting of far more negative space than positive space, but they convey great sturdiness. The pieces echo functionality, as though constructed out of nothing but handles with which to pick them up and use them, but they serve no purpose other than an aesthetic one. Greer uses the traditional gridded patterns from quilting, but mounts her sewn fabric onto rigid substrates, stretching them as you would canvas over a frame. Greer then paints over them, her organic brush strokes breaking up the staid geometry of our expectation. Nationale, 3360 SE Division St., 503-477-9786. Through Aug. 28.
Anniversary Group Show
Now seems to be the time for anniversary group shows. Last month, PDX Contemporary celebrated its 21st with an exhibition of 2-D and 3-D pieces from the well-known artists it represents, and this month Butters Gallery joins the ranks, celebrating its 28th anniversary with a collection of work from its roster of artists. Without anything to tie the work together other than the gallery in which they are shown, these types of shows can sometimes feel disjointed. But if you approach them as a way of getting to know the personality of a gallery, its aesthetic, and the type of work it tends to show, it can be an excellent way for collectors or potential collectors (I’m looking at you, whoever you are; remember you only need $90/month to buy art) to decide if a gallery is one you want to keep going back to. Butters Gallery, 157 NE Grand Ave., 503-248-9378. Through Aug. 27.
Crafting the Future
In the minds of some, fine art and craft exist on opposite sides of a great chasm. This group exhibition aims to show us where the Venn diagram overlaps, highlighting the significant role of craft in the practice of contemporary fine art. On its face, Crafting the Future can feel impenetrable, which is why it’s important to ask questions when you’re at the gallery. The answers will turn inaccessible works into pieces that will send chills up your arms. For example, you will discover that the design on a hand-quilted wall hanging near the front door reflects the gravitational pull of galaxy superclusters. You will learn that in order to make her muted gouache on paper, artist Ellen Lesperance searched through archive images of protests, and when drawn in by the image of a particular female protestor, Lesperance re-created on paper the knitting pattern of the activist’s sweater. Elizabeth Leach Gallery, 417 NW 9th Ave., 503-224-0521. Through Aug. 27.
Freedom
Portland Art Museum dedicates multiple galleries to artist Josh Kline’s disquieting vision of a near-future dystopia. Kline became interested in how technology shapes the political and social landscape during the Occupy movement, when he saw police officers film a crowd of activists instead of detaining them. Using facial replacement software in multiple video installations, Kline shows us what might be possible if law enforcement officers could steal the faces, and therefore identities, of activists; or if regular people could credibly impersonate public figures. In what is the most arresting and moving piece of the exhibition, Kline uses facial replacement software (and the help of actors) to create a video of politicians apologizing for their crimes. One by one, Condoleezza Rice, George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld appear in a prison cell, crying, offering
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their remorse in a virtual reality that we wish could be made real by our desire. Portland Art Museum, 1219 SW Park Ave., 503-226-2811. Through Nov. 13.
Old Ways
COURTESY OF STEPHANIE SPEIGHT
VISUAL ARTS
BY ZACH MIDDLETON. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit lecture or reading information at least two weeks in advance to: WORDS, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: words@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
WEDNESDAY, AUG. 10 Floyd McKay
From the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, Oregon became a national leader in environmental policy. Working as a journalist for the Oregon Statesman and an analyst for KGW, Floyd McKay covered major policies such as the Oregon Bottle Bill. McKay looks back on his time in the state’s history in his new book, Reporting the Oregon Story. Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, 284-1726. 7 pm. Free.
Some of artist Victor Maldonado’s largescale paintings evoke arched stained glass windows. The smaller pieces look like violent colorful abstractions. What they all have in common is the recurring theme of the Mexican wrestling Luchador mask, which symbolize to Maldonado “the struggle to be free, body and soul, from the grips of oppression.” The telltale dome can be almost completely obscured in certain canvases, but once you know what you’re looking for, it becomes a thrill to follow the lines and patterns to identify the form that ties all of the work together. Froelick Gallery, 714 NW Davis St., 503-222-1142. Through Aug. 20.
THURSDAY, AUG. 11 Kaui Hart Hemmings
How to Party With an Infant, the newest novel from Kaui Hart Hemmings (author of The Descendants), explores the calamity of modern family life. A single mother attempts to turn her experiences and those of her friends in the San Francisco Mommy Club into a recipe book. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.
Serious Play
Picasso said, “Art is a lie that makes us realize truth,” and it is this truth that photographer Grace Weston is aiming for. Weston works in deliberately contrived miniature—that’s the lie part. But she reveals the truth by superimposing the darker psychological landscape of adulthood onto scenes of childlike fantasy. In one composition, a giraffe wearing three bowties and a cravat stands, businesslike, against a softly clouded sky. A dirigible flies close to his skyscraper-high neck. The child in me sees only whimsy; the adult remembers 9/11. Weston’s skill is in revealing this tension and contradiction that lives inside of each of us. Oranj Studio, 726 SW Gaines St., 503-719-5338. Through Sept. 30.
Sentient Spaces: The DSM-5 Illustrated
In Sentient Spaces: The DSM-5 Illustrated, Jo Lundberg merges her experiences as a child and family therapist, an art therapist, and an artist to create a series of 2-D and 3-D works that each encapsulates a psychiatric diagnosis. Marrying statistical data with her own clinical observation, Lundberg is able to elicit a visceral response in the viewer that mimics the state of each illness. A framed portrait of a screaming young girl represents Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder, and would be disquieting on its own—but Lundberg installed the painting on a white wall, which she then raked dirty handprints over, originating from the center of the portrait, as though its subject is in the midst of a violent tantrum that stretches all the way to the electrical socket in the room. Lundberg’s piece about Major Depressive Disorder feels like walking into a black hole that requires effort to walk out of. Wolff Gallery, 618 NW Glisan St., Suite R1, 971-413-1340. Through Aug. 28.
Tokens, Gold, & Glory
You may remember Wendy Red Star as one of the three contemporary Native artists included in Portland Art Museum’s recent Edward Curtis exhibition. Hers is an important voice in contemporary art and Portland is lucky to claim her as one of its own. This month, employing a wry wit, Red Star fills Hap Gallery with golden headless deer decoys atop AstroTurfcovered palettes. It is a comment on our plastic culture, that has us so distracted by shiny things that we often focus on what is insignificant (the head to hang on our wall) and ignore what really matters (the body). In addition, Red Star has hand-beaded a limited series of trucker hats, showing us with a single object the arresting visual disparity between cheap mass production and work that requires great care. (These hats are a great example of how a beginning collector can affordably acquire work from an important artist.) Hap Gallery, 916 NW Flanders St., 503444-7101. Through Aug. 28.
For more Visual Arts listings, visit
Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
FRIDAY, AUG. 12 Lisa Alber RAIN
REVIEW
Making It Rain
Stephanie Speight’s enticing new exhibit was inspired by her work at New Seasons.
Inside Blue Sky Gallery, a separate artist-run space called Nine Gallery exhibits the work of its members. It’s a particularly tough room. The two main galleries in Blue Sky show some of the most consistently compelling work in town, making them stiff competition. This month, artist Stephanie Speight’s installation Rain proves that Nine Gallery is capable of giving Blue Sky a run for its money. Thin and white translucent ribbons flecked with black horizontal lines stream down from the ceiling at varied heights, like a rainstorm in suspended animation. There is an immediate and overwhelming desire to run through the installation, to feel the material on your skin, to find out what sound it would make all around you. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to do this. The genesis for Rain came three years ago when Speight, whose day job is at New Seasons Market, was swapping out spools of spent labels and replacing them with new ones in a labeling machine. She was taken by the pattern on the used backing: a black line every four inches along the length of pristine white vellum. Not knowing why, she started taking the spools home instead of throwing them away. “I grew up during a time in which people made do with materials at hand,” says Speight. “Making something out of nothing was imprinted on me at an early age.” She experimented with the paper—trying everything from washing it to twisting it—but it wasn’t until she took out her mom’s old rag cutter that the idea for the installation began to crystallize. She passed each length of vellum through the machine five times, creating 1/8-inch strips. “I began to get excited about what I saw piling up on the floor, and the rest is history.” Speight used tools from her background in textiles to join the seemingly endless strips into continuous loops. She creates the final effect by securing each cascade to the ceiling with a piece of a conveyor belt that she purchased at a garage sale for $4. “I find myself looking to unmask a hidden beauty in some very mundane materials, to take something out of the world as opposed to adding to it.” As a visitor to Rain, I would argue that, by taking something out of the world, Speight has added many things to it, including but not limited to our collective awe and delight. JENNIFER RABIN. SEE IT: Rain is at Nine Gallery, 122 NW 8th Ave., 503-225-0210. Through Aug. 28.
In Whispers in the Mist, a murderer and a monster of local lore called the Grey Man merge as Detective Sergeant Danny Ahern attempts to unravel who is responsible for the death of a teenager. The second County Clare mystery comes from Portland author Lisa Alber. Annie Bloom’s Books, 7834 SW Capitol Highway, 503-246-0053. 6:30 pm. Free.
Lidia Yuknavitch
In Lidia Yuknavitch’s new novel, The Small Backs of Children, a group of writers, artists and filmmakers journey to Eastern Europe to rescue the little girl featured in a famous photograph of wartime destruction. The book garnered Yuknavitch both the Ken Kesey Award for Fiction and Readers’ Choice Award at the 2016 Oregon Book Awards. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.
SATURDAY, AUG. 13 SMART Author Fair
If you’re a teacher, or the parent of a child who doesn’t make vulgar hand gestures at you when you mention trading reading a book for time on the phone, the SMART (Start Making a Reader Today) Author Fair may be for you. The event brings together some of the best authors in children’s, middle-grade, and young-adult lit. Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, 800-8787323. Noon. Free.
MONDAY, AUG. 15 Murder in Linn County, Oregon
Serial killers, murder-suicides, whatever you call what happened in The Shining—foul play and the Pacific Northwest are common bedfellows in the popular imagination. Cory Frye writes in his new book, Murder in Linn County, Oregon, about the 1922 murder that left a sheriff, a reverend and a moonshiner dead. Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.
TUESDAY, AUG. 16 Wendy N. Wagner
Portland author Wendy N. Wagner reads from her new novel, Starspawn. Powell’s Books at Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, 800-878-7323. 7 pm. Free.
FEATURE
COURTESY OF DIANA SCHUTZ
The Dark Horse Rises
FOR ITS 30TH BIRTHDAY, AN ORAL HISTORY OF THE LEGENDARY COMIC COMPANY’S SECRET ORIGINS. BY JAY H O RTO N
@hortland
Milwaukie’s Dark Horse Comics is now a juggernaut, with its feet wet in Hollywood (Hellboy, The Mask, American Splendor) and a whole world of licensing (Aliens vs. Predator, Star Wars). But 30 years ago, it was just a dream by founder Mike Richardson and a comic store called Pegasus Fantasy Books—now Things From Another World. On July 23, 1986, Dark Horse published its first issue of Dark Horse Presents, featuring the brutal Black Cross and a weirdly arty comic called Concrete. In honor of Dark Horse’s 30th anniversary, WW asked artists and early staffers to share memories of how the company got started. Bob Schreck, Dark Horse editor-marketing director, 1990-97 Mike Richardson had his dream. And, you know, he had this thing about horses. Pegasus was his comic-book store, and Dark Horse was, eventually, his comics-publishing empire and film division. Jacob Pander, writer-artist, Exquisite Corpse, Girlfiend They knew the culture. They understood inherently that pulse of what somebody comes into the comic-book store is asking for. Arnold Pander, writer-artist, Exquisite Corpse, Girlfiend In 1983 or ’84, there was this kind of collective of some of the core pre-Dark Horse creative people who had gettogethers with live art and live models. They had this magazine they would print for themselves. It was almost like they ran it off on a Xerox machine. Shannon Wheeler, writer-artist, Too Much Coffee Man Dark Horse Presents was just amazing. It felt like an indie comic, but it was professionally done. They were reprinting some of the Europeans–I was really into Moebius—and then The Mask started coming out. And Bob the Alien. I loved Bob the Alien. Jacob Pander: Mike Richardson sensed that indie comics could be a hybrid between Marvel and the more contemporary stuff like Fantagraphics. That’s where Dark Horse filled a space for creatives who grew up reading Spider-Man and Iron Man but also Zap and Heavy Metal—finding that sweet spot that wasn’t strictly superheroes or something really raw. Diana Schutz, Dark Horse editor, 1990-2015 Dark Horse also provided an opportunity for creators to own their own work. And though Dark Horse was hardly the first publisher to do that, it was still a relatively new option for creators at the time, and, politically, one that many of us believed in pretty strongly. In 1990, as competitor Comico folded, Mike Richardson courted two of its key players, Diana Schutz and Bob Shreck. Schreck: He flew us up from California on a rainy March afternoon, took us to the top of Washington Park so we could look down on the city from the amphitheater, and said, “Yeah, let’s do this.”
DIANA SCHUTZ AT A DARK HORSE DESK, 1993
Arnold Pander: Suddenly, all these really great books that were with Comico—like The Rocketeer and Grendel and Jonny Quest—migrated over to Dark Horse.
By 1989, Dark Horse had begun making comics based on the space-horror movie Aliens, and quickly moved on to Predator. Aliens vs. Predator couldn’t be far behind.
bar right down the street for some beers. Mike Richardson usually paid the whole tab, and we’d just sit and talk and draw and exchange ideas. We did that almost every weeknight for quite a while.
Schreck: We were the No. 3 publisher within… a year?
Beeson: Mike Richardson had his toes in the movie industry, and I think he realized there was money to be made licensing movies and television.
Schutz: By the mid-’90s, the company was no longer the cozy little family it had been. Maybe even before that. I think once we hit 40 employees, that’s when the rolls of toilet paper started disappearing.
Matt Wagner, writer-artist, Grendel At that point, Dark Horse was a tiny little closet of its current incarnation. Schutz: My sense of Dark Horse in the mid-’80s was that it was a very promising company, but, man, they could not get their books out on time! Steven Birch, Dark Horse graphic designer, 19891993 I remember some of the ads. They looked like they were done by somebody who shouldn’t be doing ads. But they were just scrappy, you know? Schutz: Schreck and I were employees Nos. 11 and 12. Aside from the receptionist, I was the only other female employee. Certainly the only female editor. The day before I started, Mike had the guys take down all their Playboy (or whatever) pinups. S chreck: It was really one office behind and to the side of the small retail store on that very same corner where the actual office is—not down the block where you see the Predator standing. Jacob Pander: You walk into the lobby and there’s a monolithic concrete statue. Schutz: I don’t remember when the statue appeared, though I do remember the time some dick tried to steal it. He had Predator hanging out the back of his open car trunk, like no one would notice. Chris Beeson, Dark Horse product development manager, 1997-2003 I think Dark Horse basically was downtown Milwaukie for a long time. Birch: There was not shit there. Lunch meant we were gonna go to Pietro’s. Wheeler: As soon as I started having to FedEx them artwork, I was, like, “Milwaukie? What the hell? And why is it spelled wrong?” Schutz: I’m not sure anyone had even heard of Portland back then. Arnold Pander: I feel like a lot of people discovered Portland through Dark Horse.
Schreck: Dark Horse had already announced Aliens vs. Predator by the time we got there, but, after almost two years, it hadn’t come out. Fortunately for Dark Horse, every time they resolicited [comic stores], the sales went higher. AVP No. 1 ended up selling something like 450,000 copies. Arnold Pander: Why Dark Horse was really able to survive and do all of these great experiments was having those licensed books—having Star Wars, having Aliens, having Predator. Wagner: Mike was already a businessman. A lot of guys in the ’80s got into pushing comics due to their sheer love of the medium, but it didn’t necessarily mean they had any business savvy. Wheeler: My comic is a stupid comic called Too Much Coffee Man, and it appeals on the lowest level. So, I’ve never been snobby in that way. Going to Dark Horse as they started arranging licensing deals…I don’t know, I liked Aliens vs. Predator. I like aliens. I like predators. Birch: Most comic companies buy a franchise and just have hacks shit out a bunch of books, and they’re basically just selling a title like Star Wars as much as they can before it all peters out. Mike’s whole take was, “We’ll get this and then make stories that are as good as the movies we love.” Wagner: The first thing I did for Dark Horse was called Terminator: One-Shot and featured a pop-up—you open it and the Terminator rears up out of the book riding a motorcycle and shooting down a cop. It was Mike’s idea. He just got this bee in his bonnet. He really wanted to do the first comic book with a pop-up. Dark Horse’s success in licensing—not to mention its budding movie business in Los Angeles— led to a dramatic expansion of the Milwaukie headquarters. Jacob Pander: Dark Horse suddenly ramped up their employees and did an entire remodel. It was like walking into an airport terminal. There were multiple offices, two floors, and you really sensed how huge Dark Horse had become. Schreck: We had a lot of fun times, especially in those early days. For the first year or so, we’d work all day and eventually go down to this crappy little
Schreck: When you have a company grow as quickly as Mike had, there are growing pains. I just got frustrated in my editorial position and quit. I couldn’t take the bureaucracy anymore. Birch: The problem comes when you go from 14, 15, 16 people up to 100. They hired a number of middle people [who] didn’t know what the fuck they were doing. Pretty much every designer quit or was fired over the next couple years. [The company] obviously figured it out, but that was real rough for a lot of us. Man, I loved that job. Wagner: That’s the problem with big corporations. They tend to become somewhat soulless. I think Dark Horse has fairly well managed to avoid that trap. They keep it homey and welcoming to both talent and their administration. Schutz: Mike is the single most important reason for that company’s success. If and when he finally steps down, it’ll be interesting to see how that changes things. He’s been the captain of that ship right from the start, and I find it tough to imagine how it would survive without him at the helm. Schreck: As long as there’s air pumping through Mike’s lungs, Dark Horse will be there. Wheeler: Mike Richardson genuinely loves comics, and a lot of the decisions he makes are terrible because he loves comics. He’ll publish somebody like me—underground, indie. I don’t draw as well, and he’s really been supersupportive. Arnold Pander: There are a few companies that champion the notion of creator-owned work, and Dark Horse is still out there pushing that. The internet’s truly the Wild West, and Dark Horse understands the Wild West because that’s what they were born out of. When a company like that succeeds and evolves, a part of its DNA is that rebel spirit, and I think that’s what we’re still seeing today. MORE: Check out wweek.com for an extended Dark Horse Comics history— including Simpsons toys, negotiations conducted with guns, and Schreck’s head getting kicked in by Jessica Alba. Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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COURTESY OF SONY PICTURES
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 Anthropoid
B- Though its title suggests a sci-fi thriller, Anthropoid instead transports us to the cobbled streets of Nazi-occupied Prague. The story is based on the reallife assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking Nazi who was a chief architect of the Holocaust. It follows exiled soldiers Josef Gabcík (Cillian Murphy) and Jan Kubis (Jamie Dornan) as they parachute back into their homeland of Czechoslovakia on a secret mission named Operation Anthropoid. Muddled by inept Slavic accents and a monotonous buildup toward the anticipated assassination of Heydrich, who was nicknamed the “Butcher of Prague,” the film doesn’t build suspense until its second half. “Boredom may be the biggest enemy we have here,” says one character in a line that rings painfully true. R. MICHELLE DEVONA. Clackamas, Fox Tower.
Pete’s Dragon
A We are in the doldrums of a misera-
ble summer movie season. That explains why this remake of a forgotten Disney property is winning headlines, though you’d expect it to slide by unnoticed except by nostalgic parents. But Pete’s Dragon deserves the hype. It is indeed a rare jewel. Effortlessly evoking the triumphant emotions of Disney’s best liveaction outings, it also provides a somber examination of the death of innocence, set among a magical pastiche of misty 1980s forest towns straight out of E.T., or the more recent Stranger Things. The adults do fine work, and it’s fun to see Karl Urban struggle in a rare turn as the villain, but the real stars here are a smart screenplay that does take its young audience for granted, and, of course, the giant CGI dragon. The constant pull on your heartstrings is balanced with just enough comic relief, and the computergenerated dragon effects are thoughtfully designed and seamlessly executed. Your kids will cry through the majority of the film, and you probably will too. PG. MIKE GALLUCCI. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Lloyd, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Vancouver.
Sailing a Sinking Sea
B+ Visions of turquoise water and
tropical pink sunsets serve as the backdrop in Olivia Wyatt’s doc about the Moken people of Burma and Thailand. It is enough to invoke wanderlust in even the most dedicated couch potato. The film offers a surreal glimpse into the lives and mythologies of the largely unknown Moken, a seafaring people whose entire belief system centers on water. Though touted as an “experimental documentary,” there is hardly anything experimental here. But the ethnographic film does transport viewers to a fascinating culture they otherwise would have known nothing about. Prepare to be enchanted and possibly lulled into a dreamlike state as the sounds of lapping waves and rhythmic drumbeats produce a hypnotic effect. Or it may just make you want to get high. PG-13. MICHELLE DEVONA. Hollywood, 7 pm Sunday, Aug. 14.
Yarn
B- Yarn keeps the world spinning, or so you’d think from Una Lorenzen’s documentary, which highlights the importance of the spun thread. The film spotlights four yarn-spinning experts across the disciplines of crocheting, knitting and weaving. Polish artist Olek crochets entire costumes that look like the familiar green man at music festivals. Tinno, a yarn graffiti artist, travels the world to display her art in urban settings like a park bench or a Barcelona beach.
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Tilde, co-founder of the yarn-based performance group Cirkus Cirkör, presents an entire show centered on the string. And Toshiko, born in Japan in the 1940s, crochets giant play structures for children that look like art installations. With a narrator who sounds borrowed from an episode of Sesame Street, the film delves deeply into the backstory of yarn, from a sheep being sheared to the fibers being spun, but it’s the artists’ masterpieces that stitch it all together. NR. AMY WOLFE. Clinton Street Theater.
STILL SHOWING Absolutely Fabulous
C For fans of the old BBC series, the further adventures of buffoonish publicist Edina Monsoon (Jennifer Saunders) and perma-soused fashion editrix Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley) shouldn’t seem all that different from a favored punk band’s reunion tour. As Edina flounces around her normcore daughter Saffron (Julia Sawalha), dismissive “Mother” (June Whitfield) and assistant Bubble (Jane Horrocks), little seems changed at first. The interfamilial barbs still sting, and while Hollywood’s relaxed attitudes toward drugs and drinking might blunt the impact of Edina’s debauchery, the film’s fat-shaming, transgendermocking, racially insensitive gags still hit. But the film version lingers cruelly on slower stretches and magnifies the inabilities of Britcom director Mandie Fletcher to stage set pieces, and sketch queen Saunders to craft a proper screenplay. The fashion-backward wardrobes and attitudes are no help. Lacking any connection to the surrounding culture or satirical intent, we’re left with just a pair of rapacious, self-centered monsters seeking fun. Strangely, that’s almost enough. They’re still larger than life. It’s the tweets that grew small. PG-13. JAY HORTON. Bridgeport, Cinema 21, Vancouver.
Bad Moms
C Hangovers loom large in the films of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore (21 & Over, The Change-Up, The Hangover). Not just actual ones, but the lingering haze as youthful passions awaken to the throbbing responsibilities of adulthood. Bad Moms opens with one of our titular heroines reciting her daily litany of First World problems. Motherhood doesn’t complete her. After one bad day’s accumulated frustrations force Amy (Mila Kunis) to flee a glorious marriage, job and the PTA, she forms a boozedrenched MILF pack with slatternly Carla (Kathryn Hahn) and wallflower Kiki (Kristen Bell). Cue the inexplicably raucous party, supermarket-destruction montage, dreamy young widower (Jay Hernandez) and chief antagonist (Christina Applegate as supermom Gwendolyn). It’s a simple formula, one that Lucas and Moore unfold briskly by sacrificing storyline for the sake of leftfield guest stars (Wanda Sykes, J.J. Watt) and one-liners. The film so completely ignores genre format—the character arcs read like seismographs—that we’re hardly surprised when Bell reshapes her marriage with a single phone call. When confronted with such fundamental emptiness of vision, there’s little sense getting angry. We’re just very, very disappointed. R. JAY HORTON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Vancouver.
The BFG
B- Like all Roald Dahl books, it’s an ecstatic mix of the sentimental and cruel—the story of a young orphan named Sophie abducted by a lovable Big Friendly Giant who catches and releases dreams. It is also a cavalcade of
Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
ALWAYS USE CONDIMENTS: Sausage Party.
REVIEW
Fresh Produced SAUSAGE PARTY IS A 90-MINUTE DICK JOKE FROM THE COMEDY GODS.
With Sausage Party, the writers take on the Disney format, and the setup is essentially Pixar roulette. At night in the grocery store, food items take on lives similar to Disney characters, rangBY A P KRYZA @APKryza ing from Inside Out’s emotions to the thinking racial stereotypes of Beauty and the Beast and Sometimes, a dick joke is just a dick joke. On the Aladdin. The horrific tropes front and center: surface, writers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s There are fabulous fruits, bro-y sausages, randy Sausage Party—in which a phallic hot dog (Rogen) bottles of tequila. Every stereotype is allowed to and a strong, vaginal bun (Kristin Wiig) get the come fully to life in ways that would be offensive Toy Story treatment—is a straight-up dick joke. were it not for the film’s keen awareness of It’s easy, you see, because sausages look like dicks exactly what it is taking down. and buns look like vaginas. The catch here is that every food seeks accepBut sometimes, a dick joke can be an existen- tance, none more than Rogen’s Frank and Wiig’s tial meditation on atheism butting up against Brenda, but there is something suspicious about organized religion, false gods and politics. It can the food’s longing to be selected by the fat-assed be the basis of a talking bagel and a foul-mouthed gods that stroll the aisles and be taken to the lavash overcoming their differences in a groPromised Land. All hope of paradise is dashed by cery aisle standing in for Gaza. a soothsaying bottle of honey mustard, That’s where Rogen and which was purchased, scooped out and Goldberg’s Sausage Party tranreturned half suicidal. This throws scends other R-rated animated Frank into a spiritual journey of the provocations (Fritz the Cat, highest order, where he traverses Heavy Metal) to become somegrocery aisles that are each like thing more. This is a thinking different realms. It resembles person’s 90-minute dick joke. This Is the End, but mated with And shit, if we can’t ponder MOTHERFUCKER.” Toy Story and Rogen-Goldberg’s big issues while giggling at the manic AMC series Preacher. It —MR. GRITS sight of a talking, used condom is sweet and tender one minute, (CRAIG ROBINSON) or a sentient douchebag with the bathed in filth the next. voice of Nick Kroll, maybe we’ve lost To say more would spoil the magic that something in society. the duo has managed to wring from a oneEver since Superbad—the closest thing mil- note premise. Let it suffice to say that, between a lennials have to their own Dazed and Confused— foray into intravenous drugs and a yen for increasGoldberg and Rogen have used sophomoric ingly graphic violence, no nerve is left untouched. humor to speak to larger themes, growing more This is a film that starts out funny and ambitious as they’ve reluctantly grown up. With ratchets up the insanity until a bugfuck final 15 the help of David Gordon Green, they trans- minutes of blissful depravity, with pop-culture formed Pineapple Express into a commentary on references and visual gags littering each frame action cinema cloaked as a stoner buddy flick, and gut-busting performances by Apatow elite like Lethal Weapon with Riggs and Murtaugh like Bill Hader, Danny McBride, Jonah Hill and recast as bumbling potheads. With the brilliant a fantastic Michael Cera. It’s a rare comedy that This Is the End, the duo refitted the concept gets better as it progresses. And it is proof that, of the apocalyptic horror flick as a lens into sometimes, an easy dick joke can give life to a celebrity hubris, casting real-life celebs as exag- vibrant, intelligent comic master class that chalgerated versions of themselves to comment on lenges its audiences but doesn’t pull punches on the inherent sins of the TMZ generation. That’s the crowd-pleasing gags either. to say nothing of The Interview, which caused an A- SEE IT: Sausage Party is rated R. It opens Friday international incident without even trying. at most Portland-area theaters.
“WE’RE THE NONPERISHABLES,
Cafe Society
C- In Woody Allen’s 47th feature, the doe-eyed Bobby arrives in 1930s Los Angeles looking more for an experience than a calling. New York is no life. His mother and father bicker. His sister is married in the suburbs. His brother is a two-bit gangster, though everyone looks the other way. In California, he knows no one but his uncle Phil (Steve Carrell), an in-demand film agent, though he soon begins rubbing elite shoulders and courting Phil’s assistant, Vonnie (Kristen Stewart). The annual Woody Allen production machine has assembled 90 very recognizable minutes here, with selfaware industry commentary, platitudes about New York and L.A., Jewish parentage, infidelity and a male ingénue looking for approval. As those spill onto the screen, Café Society unfolds more like a biography of the quintessential Allen protagonist than a comedy. It’s calm and reflective to the point of drowsiness, like a very old man (Allen is now 80) dreaming the trivial life of a young one. Bobby’s ultimate revelation, after he’s fallen in, out and back into love with Vonnie, is that time has passed. He can’t rewind, and he’s going to stare into the middle distance about it. That seriousness makes Café Society less dainty than Allen’s 21st-century Parisian or Mediterranean tourism movies, but there’s no body in this shell. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport, Fox Tower, Hollywood.
Captain America: Civil War
extreme mountain man role in the new Cannes favorite Captain Fantastic— mud-splattered, idealistic, good at killing things. But this time with six kids in tow. Mortensen plays the idealistic patriarch as a drill sergeant with believable heart. He raises his kids in isolation in the Pacific Northwest, schooling them in killing deer, the Bill of Rights, and the banjo. When he leads the brood into society for their mother’s funeral, the film becomes a quirky, emotional quest that outshines Little Miss Sunshine. Watching homeschooled children eat grocery-store rotisserie chicken, show up at a funeral in a dinosaur costume, and experience a first kiss is hilarious. Because it has pried you with cuteness, the film’s tear-jerking moments hit hard. As Mortensen relinquishes control, you realize that this is no Fellowship, it’s a film about the naked truth of parenting. R. ENID SPITZ. Bridgeport, City Center, Clackamas, Fox Tower.
Central Intelligence
C A buddy action comedy that relies on cheesy stunts, penis jokes and bro buffoonery—like most of its genre brethren—Central Intelligence is a far cry from anything resembling intelligence. Dwayne Johnson, once the overweight target of bullies in high school, shows up 20 years later as a steroid-ridden CIA agent who recruits former classmate Kevin Hart, now a number-crunching desk jockey, to help him solve a case. PG-13. MICHELLE DEVONA. Avalon.
The Conjuring 2
B- First thing’s first: The Conjuring 2 is often very scary. The story of a downtrodden British family in Enfield tormented by the vengeful spirit of an old cockney man ups the voltage slowly but steadily. Never mind that the true story is reportedly a hoax: Scary’s scary, and for at least its first hour, C2 delivers an old-school haunted-house experience of the Poltergeist variety. Thing is, we’ve seen this before. In between creating the Saw series and launching Vin Diesel off a skyscraper in Furious 7, director James Wan has more or less been revisiting the same funhouse during the course of the Insidious and Conjuring films, which are essentially interchangeable except for Conjuring’s ’70s setting. Still, Wan seems content painting over the same canvas, adding flourishes that are richer and scarier with each pass. If he wants to keep tinkering, we’ll keep coming, because when Conjuring 2 is scary, it’s in a class of its own. R. AP KRYZA. Valley, Vancouver.
COURTESY OF DISNEY
A- Captain America: Civil War, though, is proof you can jam pretty much every superhero in your roster into one film and still let individuals shine. In pitting team Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) against Team Cap (Chris Evans) over a suspiciously fascist registration law for “enhanced humans,” directors Joe and Anthony Russo could have just put the heroes in a big-ass sandbox and let them duke it out. They do that, and it’s spectacular. But there’s nothing redundant in the action here, from a Bourne-esque opening chase to close-combat thrills reminiscent of The Raid to a surprisingly subdued and heartfelt finale. The Russos have heard your complaints about universe-building at the expense of story. Civil War is fun. It’s smart. It’s coherent. And, most importantly, it allows its heart to beat strongly amid the chaos. Your move, DC. PG-13. AP KRYZA. Academy, Jubitz, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, Valley, Vancouver.
Captain Fantastic
A Viggo Mortensen reprises his
Don’t Think Twice
A- The newest feature from come-
dian Mike Birbiglia follows members of a comedy troupe yearning to get on Weekend Live, a thinly veiled SNL surrogate. It might me their big break, and this film might be Birbiglia’s. It has already been called Birbiglia’s Annie Hall, and with the help of Keegan-Michael Key and Gillian Jacobs, this movie brings together a group of talent on the verge of superstardom. In the film, Birbiglia plays a improv comedy teacher with a receding hairline and predilection for boning his young students. He definitely didn’t commit the sin of writing himself as the star. For the star role, Birbiglia enlisted Key, whose reputation has grown with his brilliant comedy on Key & Peele and his speech at the 2015 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, where he told a room full of dweeb journalists to “hold onto your lily-white butts.” While Key’s virtuosic comedic talent is fully on display, we also get one of our first looks at his dramatic chops, which are substantial. Birbiglia himself says he never expects to get on SNL, but now, after decades of work in improv, in standup and off Broadway, it looks like things might come together for Birbiglia. R. ZACH MIDDLETON. Cinema 21.
The Infiltrator
A- Riddled with cocaine, bullets to the head and Bryan Cranston, The Infiltrator is a delightfully bloody mess splattering the silver screen and an action-packed, gripping ride. Based on a true story, the action follows undercover agent and family man Bob Mazur (Cranston), who poses as a fraudulent banker cozying up to the big names in the Colombian drug-trafficking industry. Flying stacks of bills from Florida, Central America and Europe, The Infiltrator sure makes cartel life look cushy. R. AMY WOLFE. Fox Tower.
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REVIEW
Finding Dory
B+ The sea has become a little more existential since Nemo got found. For 13 years, the entire world eagerly awaited Pixar’s sequel and the return of Ellen DeGeneres as the forgetful Dory. This time, Dory is on a quest to find her family. There’s tears to fill a tide pool, wit to keep adults amused, and laughs for any audience with a short attention span. You will (hopefully) remember a majority of this film. PG. AMY WOLFE. Bridgeport, Clackamas, Tigard.
Ghostbusters
A It’s been 32 years since the release of the original, and the Ghostbusters reboot has no chill. The script from Paul Feig and Kate Dippold hammers home the message that it’s 2016 and rebooting a classic Dude Comedy with an all-female cast will make people mad. Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones bring to the plate what they always have. Wiig is slightly frenetic, McCarthy has a Roseanne Barr-esque appeal, McKinnon is Harpo Marx with a functioning voice box, and Jones is loud and brash. There are fart jokes, self-referential jokes, vagina jokes, race jokes, comedy nerd jokes, showbiz-insider-Arrested Development-type jokes, all presented in a mille-feuille of irony. The movie is maximalist. When it fails, well, it fails in seizure-inducing, herniating, mind-numbing glory that makes you sort of giggle and fart anyway. It’s glorious, and if it ruined your childhood, sorry bro. PG-13. ZACH MIDDLETON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Lloyd, Oak Grove, Tigard, Vancouver.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
B+ Foster care is a less-than-ideal situation. Ricky has been bounced from family to family for a while now, and his foster care agent takes no time to inform the new family of his long history of running away and petty crimes. And just when it looks like Ricky has found an ideal situation, his new foster mother dies. Ricky and his reluctant foster father, Hec (Sam Neill), run off into the woods. This latest offbeat film from Taika Waititi, of What We Do in the Shadows fame, searches for humor and hope in this tragic setup, with just enough bloody boar slayings, militarized foster care agents and conspiracy theories from a bumbling trailer dweller to make a coming-of-age-in-the-wilderness story feel like something you haven’t seen many times before. PG-13. JOHN LOCANTHI. Cinema 21, Hollywood, Kiggins.
Ice Age: Collision Course
PETE’S DRAGON
watching a tragic effort to re-create the humor and entertainment one could find in say, a Looney Toons clip. The fifth installment of an already lustless franchise, Ice Age: Collision Course brings back Sid and the gang, this time on a quest to save the world from a deadly asteroid heading toward Earth. A cacophony of brazen, shrill characters coupled with a predictable and tedious plot certainly makes it seem as if that asteroid couldn’t hit soon enough. PG. MICHELLE DEVONA. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Vancouver.
LOREY SEBASTIAN
bodily functions rendered funny and an encyclopedia of brutality at the hands of other, evil giants like Bonecruncher and Fleshlumpeater. PG. MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Eastport.
C- Watching saber-toothed squirrel Scrat bounce about the cosmos in pursuit of the coveted acorn is like
THE ODD COUPLE: Jeff Bridges and Gil Birmingham.
A Country for Old, Racist Men Was No Country for Old Men too smart and slow for you? Loved the gunfights and the misanthropic cowboy glamour, but maybe Javier Bardem’s haircut made you uncomfortable? Try Jeff Bridges’ new Western genre vehicle, Hell or High Water. Like its predecessor, it’s set in economically depressed West Texas and features desert car chases, jaw-dropping cinematography and a trigger-happy sociopath ex-con. But this time there is a “that’s what she said” joke and bigger explosions. After his mother dies, Toby Howard (Chris Pine) is desperate to stop the Texas Midlands bank from foreclosing on his family ranch. He enlists his wild-card brother Tanner (Ben Foster) to help him rob a string of Midlands branches. By stealing small bills and switching them out at a casino after every heist, Toby hopes to avoid detection and hold onto the property long enough to cash in on its wealth of newly discovered oil. But the brothers’ plan is complicated by another odd-couple pairing. Marcus (Jeff Bridges), a racist curmudgeon of a detective, is investigating the robberies as his final case before he’s forced to retire. Which means it is also the last case where his half-Native American, half-Mexican partner Alberto (Gil Birmingham) will have to submit to Marcus’ near-constant racial abuse, which ranges from “half breed” insults to Mexican jokes. The script tries hard to emphasize the edginess of Bridges’ political incorrectness, and at first, that feels like a shortcoming. It would be, if the jabs were included only to amuse a certain segment of the audience and scandalize another. But the nearly divine stoicism Alberto shows in the face of Marcus’ nastiness hints at something more. In a Skype interview with WW, Birmingham said the hardest part was figuring out how his character would respond to being taunted. Marcus’ racism represents “paradigms of thought that people still hold onto,” Birmingham says. “Sometimes they’re generational, sometimes they’re regional.” Standout acting elevates what could have been a clumsy script from writer Taylor Sheridan (the former Sons of Anarchy star). Bridges and Birmingham find nuance in their pigeonhole of reluctant partners in crime-fighting, and Foster’s brand of ruthless charisma as Tanner forces the audience to constantly re-examine its allegiances. The result is a film that never quite goes where you expect. GRACE CULHANE.
Jeff Bridges is perfectly non-PC in Hell or High Water.
B+ SEE IT: Hell or High Water is rated R. It opens Friday at Fox Tower. Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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MOVIES Jason Bourne
Me Before You
issue. Robert Ludlum’s series has always been the real-world response to a genre of CGI stunts—no Aston Martin, no suits, hardly any sex. For the fifth installment, director Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon make a welcome return and deliver on-brand thrills via hand-held footage of riots in Athens, a motorcycle chase down a gazillion nard-punching stairs and, of course, many scenes in which assassins splash cold water on their faces and reflect in a mirror. But something is off. This time, there’s a very next-gen storyline involving a tech startup, an app the government hacks to steal your personal data, and a wrinkled Tommy Lee Jones, who represents…Nixon? It feels like writers sitting in a conference room asked, “What’re the kids into these days? Ah, the Facebook.” PG-13. ENID SPITZ. Beaverton, Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Living Room Theaters, Lloyd, Moreland, Oak Grove, St. Johns Pub and Theater, Tigard, Vancouver.
nessed the train wreck that is Me Before You. Based on Jo Jo Moyes’ bestselling novel, it’s no surprise the film’s death with dignity plot is already suffering backlash ranging from angry twitter hashtags to picketing outside film screenings. Spontaneously ditzy Lou (Emilia Clarke) is hired to care for Will Turner (Sam Claflin), a job that includes trying to convince Turner he shouldn’t end his life because of a disability he suffers from since an accident years ago. PG-13. AMY WOLFE. Vancouver.
D Take me back to before I wit-
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates
C Based on a true story of hardpartying brothers Mike and Dave Stangle (Adam DeVine and Zac Efron), this summer comedy is a
frat fantasy in which the Stangles use Craigslist to find parent-friendly dates for their sister’s wedding. Writers Andrew Jay Cohen and Brendan O’Brien rely on the dynamic between Efron’s straight man and DeVine’s screeching tantrums, but their lack of comedic chemistry fails to carry the simple storyline. Anna Kendrick plays the neurotic sweetheart, Alice, whose best friend (Aubrey Plaza) sees the Hawaiian wedding as a free vacation. They play their girl-next-door parts well, until marijuana smoke starts rolling out of their room. But switching the roles would’ve been funnier here, with Kendrick as the bad girl who trades oral sex for Rihanna tickets, and Plaza as a twittering mess who falls for DeVine’s soft side. R. LAUREN TERRY. Living Room Theaters, Valley, Vancouver.
REVIEW CO U R T E SY O F PA R A M O U N T P I C T U R E S
A- Bourne never had an identity
The Jungle Book
B+ Director Jon Favreau may have been out to show off the latest in special effects, but his reverence for the classic 1967 cartoon shines through all the digital rendering. He probably should’ve thought twice before having Bill Murray sing a warbly, soulless version of the “Bare Necessities,” but even I felt a shiver of childhood nostalgia when the familiar drum beat played in the opening credits. PG. LAUREN TERRY. Avalon, Kennedy School, Vancouver.
The Legend of Tarzan
Googling Hozier’s music video—a sad man at a piano spliced with softcore porn and animal nuzzling— will give you a good idea. PG-13. Academy, Avalon, Division, Kennedy School, Vancouver.
Life, Animated
A- The Little Mermaid teaches autistic children writing skills in director Roger Ross Williams’ Disney doc. For most of us, Mermaid was an under-the-sea sing-along and The Lion King our entree to the circleof-life lesson, but for Owen Suskind, animation was vital for developing his reading, writing and communication skills. PG. AMY WOLFE. Bridgeport.
Lights Out
C+ There are stylish horror films, and there are horror films with stylists. Lights Out is the latter. It’s actually a well-made haunter with some effective jump scares and a couple of great laughs. A general audience will be unnerved, occasionally scared out of their wits, and probably satisfied by this old-fashioned exploration of fear of the dark. Horror enthusiasts will bemoan this tepid, overly safe foray that expands debut director David F. Sandberg’s awardwinning three-minute short into a Hollywood cakewalk. Hopefully, he’s proven himself a capable studio lapdog and will be given a longer leash in the future. PG-13. NATHAN CARSON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Vancouver.
The Lobster
B+ The Lobster is one of those dystopian sci-fi movies that needs to spend the first 30 minutes laying down the ground rules of the setting. David (Colin Farrell) is single, which is outlawed, so he goes to a singles retreat. But there is one catch: If you don’t find a mate within 60 days, you will be turned into an animal. On the plus side, you get to pick your animal. David chooses the lobster. Interesting concept, though this vision of the future mostly involves Farrell, John C. Reilly, Rachel Weisz and the rest of cast speaking in a dull, passionless monotone. R. JOHN LOCANTHI. Academy, Laurelhurst, Valley.
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SWEET, SYPHILITIC SONGSTRESS: Meryl Streep.
Plug Your Ears
After Kelly Clarkson, William Hung was the most memorable American Idol contestant. He didn’t get in the competition, but that didn’t matter. He started a trend. But where Idol found a mean-spirited laugh, Florence Foster Jenkins finds courage. Director Stephen Frears’ 1940s dramedy opens with St. Clair (Hugh Grant) performing a monologue from Hamlet at the Verdi Club in New York City. He isn’t particularly good, but he charms the elderly, well-heeled crowd nonetheless. Shortly thereafter, his wife, the titular socialite (Meryl Streep), is lowered onto the stage as a band plays. She does not sing, and it’s not long before we find out why. There is singing flat. There is off-key caterwauling. Then, there is Mrs. Jenkins’ operatic singing. Search YouTube for recordings of her real-life singing, as words will never do it justice. In the film, Streep has a great deal of fun as she tries to hit the sharp high notes of the “Queen of the Night” aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute. The pianist Cosme (Simon Helberg) hired to accompany her is less excited. Her singing instructor is paid handsomely, more to encourage her than to actually instruct her, and the loving St. Clair pays off attendees and hides reviews to shield her from the truth. Making fun of terrible singing is cheap and easy, but Florence Foster Jenkins avoids cheap shots after the first practice session. In between performances, we see St. Clair removing her hairpiece and lovingly tucking his frail, syphilitic wife in at night before sneaking out to meet with his mistress. She is not long for this world and wants to share what she loves with the public. And it feels genuine—the joy, mockery, pain and sadness. Florence Foster Jenkins is a fun period piece. If you ever wanted to see 50-something Hugh Grant swing dance in a double-breasted suit, you’ll find that here. Or two men running through hotels and city streets to buy every copy of the New York Post, that’s here too. If you ever wanted to see Meryl Streep have the time of her life, Florence Foster Jenkins delivers. But at its heart, it is a film about the lengths we go to protect the ones we love. Jenkins was an unquestionably terrible singer, but that does not mean we shouldn’t listen to her sing. JOHN LOCANTHI.
Hugh Grant and Meryl Streep play a saint and a singer in Florence Foster Jenkins.
B SEE IT: Florence Foster Jenkins is rated PG-13. It opens Friday at Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport.
camera for $100? How about hang from a construction crane for internet fame? The new film Nerve asks what happens when you combine Periscope-like live video with a democratized game of truth or dare in which the consequences are life-threatening and the rewards are fame and fortune. When a bookish high school girl (Emma Roberts) gets swept up in the game with the help of a mysterious stud on a motorcycle (Dave Franco), it seems they’re in for a night of harmless fun. But when the dares posed by the internet mob turn dark, the pair must fight for their lives. With an EDM-tinged soundtrack, lots of desktop computer screen shares, and visuals that meet somewhere between Tron and Spring Breakers, this one was made for a younger generation. And yet, rarely do teen movies get the benefit of a stellar idea to build on. PG-13. ZACH MIDDLETON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Lloyd, Oak Grove, Tigard, Vancouver.
The Nice Guys
A- The Nice Guys exists in some
weird, hyperviolent mirror image of Los Angeles—one that looks a lot like Atlanta. It’s like Roger Rabbit’s Toontown, but populated with cartoons that bleed. The movie plays like a 1970s spiritual sequel to writer-director Shane Black’s 2005 Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, a winking landmark of self-aware grit that revitalized Robert Downey Jr.’s career. And it’s kind of perfect. The plot is inconsequential, involving a dead porn star, a bunch of gangsters, a missing student, some more gangsters and the auto industry. But all of that is just an excuse to get its perfectly cast stars lobbing insults.This movie starts at full speed and never stops. R. AP KRYZA. Laurelhurst.
and candy-colored like Minions, with Kevin Hart as the cherry on top. PG. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Lloyd, Milwaukie, Oak Grove, Tigard, Vancouver.
The Shallows
C+ In spite of the worrying combination of Blake Lively, a computergenerated shark, and director Jaume Collet-Serra (House of Wax), many critics welcomed The Shallows as a relief from the sequels and summer superhero flicks. But drone shots of an aquamarine coastline do not a good film make. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Vancouver.
Star Trek Beyond
The 13th Trek movie has been heralded as a return to good, old-fashioned fun for the series. Not screened for critics. PG-13. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, St. Johns 1 & 2, Tigard, Vancouver.
Suicide Squad
C- As the saying goes, you either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become Ben Affleck. Or something to that effect. Ever since Christopher Nolan made gazillions weighting the Batman franchise with brooding gravitas, comic-book films have relentlessly, and often with grave seriousness, pondered the thin separation between heroism and villainy. Following the dismal Batman v Superman with Suicide Squad, DC seemed intent on injecting some Slurpee-colored mischief back into its monochromatic veins. Now, more than
D AV I D AY E R M O V I E S
Now You See Me 2
C- A hyperbolic spectacle more than anything else, Now You See Me 2 supersedes its predecessor on every level of absurdity. Jesse Eisenberg leads the Four Horsemen in his usual irritatingly haughty fashion as the gang goes on a mission to steal a computer chip that can control the world. Trying too hard to be cool with a string of tricks each more ridiculous than the next, the flashy caper proves anything but magical. PG-13. MICHELLE DEVONA. Vancouver.
Popstar
C Essentailly an SNL movie from the music parody trio the Lonely Island (Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, Akiva Schaffer), the mockumented rise and fall of fame-mongering musician Conner4Real is a sketch’s sensibility spread thinly, or simply repeated, across a film’s length. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Laurelhurst.
The Purge: Election Year
C- This third installment finally deliv-
ers the fleshed out storyline the Purge series deserves, but our violent reality offscreen makes this fiction a lot less appealing. Veteran director James DeMonaco this time broadens the story, but its one-dimensional characters just spew health insurance reform and Trump rhetoric. R. LAUREN TERRY. Valley, Vancouver.
The Secret Life of Pets
Louis C.K. voices a pampered terrier who gets sucked from his NYC home into a tough gang of pets set on punishing the people who’ve wronged them. It looks heart-rending like Pixar
SOUL MAN
Affirmative Action Flicks PORTLAND COMEDIANS ON THE MOST RACIST MOVIES SINCE SOUL MAN. BY A P KRYZA
Nine Lives
Trapping Kevin Spacey inside a tabby cat’s body so he can’t continually ignore and bone his gorgeous wife (Jennifer Garner) is a delightfully feminist and felinist plot in itself. Casting Christopher Walken as an eccentric pet store owner named Felix Perkins is the cherry on top of this family comedy from a niche French film company. Not screened for critics. PG. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Oak Grove, Tigard, Vancouver.
AP FILM STUDIES CO U R T E SY O F T H E S T E V E T I S C H CO M PA N Y
Nerve
B+ Would you kiss a stranger on
a decade into an era of popular culture that’s obsessed with the concept of the antihero, is the idea of criminal saviors really that novel? Maybe it’s the fact that we’ve become accustomed to protagonists with questionable morals. Maybe it’s the film’s PG-13 rating. Either way, Suicide Squad hardly makes good on its subversive promise, rushing through an overstuffed, incoherent two hours and pureeing everything into a slush of clichés, albeit one rendered in the garish palette of a Warped Tour merchandise table. PG-13. MATTHEW SINGER. Bagdad, Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, CineMagic, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Milwaukie, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Roseway, St. Johns 1 & 2, Tigard, Vancouver.
X-Men: Apocalypse
B+ The latest in the X-franchise proves that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is not the only home for A-grade superhero fare. With Apocalypse, writer Bryan Singer has finally steered the ship back on course, crafting one of the greatest comics pictures to date. Factions on the internet will inevitably find reasons to hate this movie. The Egyptians will be too pale for some. The question is: Do you want to have fun and enjoy a comic book turned into a quarter-billion-dollar feature film or would you rather stay home reading Proust? PG-13. NATHAN CARSON. Academy, Avalon, Jubitz, Valley.
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In 1986, teen heartthrob C. Thomas Howell took on the role of a lifetime in Soul Man, starring as a rich kid who pretends to be black to get into Harvard, painting his face and donning a Jheri curl wig. Hollywood learned from its mistakes, with only a Jar Jar Binks or two slipping through the cracks of blockbuster racism nowadays. Well, this week, Hollywood Theatre will host Soul Man in Hecklevision (in collaboration with Movies in Black & White), with the audience tweeting live commentary about the racist film. The organizers asked local comedians (mostly white) to join founder Jason Lamb and tweet jokes. We wanted to know what the panel’s experts—again, we had nothing to do with them being mostly white— what other racist movies deserve the Hecklevision treatment.
Crash (2004)
This is a straight-up racist movie. It’s racist that we lend it any gravity. It’s full of thinly drawn stereotypes illustrating how racism pervades society but how “we’re all the same, gosh darn it,” inspired by an incident in which writer-director Paul Haggis’ Porsche was carjacked. It’s like the Academy wanted to prove they had at least one black friend. I’m pretty sure it karmically laserfocused in on and obliterated Brendan Fraser’s career. That’s on us, for rewarding Crash.
—Jon Washington, host of These Are the People podcast
District 9 (2009)
It’s supposedly an allegory about apartheid, yet has white actors playing nearly every significant role. In fact, the only black actors you see on screen are either drug dealers, pimps or prostitutes. That every single extra at all of the government offices is white is insane, especially considering the movie is set in a post-apartheid South Africa.
—Dan Weber, host of Reading the Bible With Dan podcast
Dangerous Minds (1995)
I don’t know that I’m qualified to comment on race issues, since I’m very white and my name is Becky, but I remember when Dangerous Minds came out. That movie had an ick factor about it. I mean, watching a white lady with an intermittent regional accent swoop down to save everybody (except Emilio) from the cruel jaws of the streets by shoehorning them into the library with the promise of a hot meal for reading a poem felt a little weird, even then.
—Becky Braunstein, comic and Fat Animals illustrator
Norbit (2007) Eddie Murphy plays a sniveling “nice guy” who hates his lover, Rasputina (also Murphy), who is the most misogynistic, fat-phobic she-devil to ever fart up the silver screen. Murphy also plays Mr. Wong, the most offensive, dog-eating, heavily accented Chinese person imaginable. Most of the time, Norbit can’t decide if it hates fat women or Chinese men more. We reach a climax of sorts, where Plot A of sexist fat phobia meets Plot B of casual racism: Mr. Wong grabs a loose spear and attempts to stab Rasputina through her hideous, fat body. It basically says: “You can’t stop Chinese people from whale hunting! And fat bitches = whales.” Rimshot. Ellipses. Crickets. —Carolyn Main, cartoonist
True Lies (1994)
I don’t know if it’s intentionally racist, but I can’t help but think James Cameron really enjoyed coming up with horrific and ridiculous ways for Arabs to die.
—Jason Lamb, founder of Movies in Black & White SEE IT: Hecklevision and Movies in Black & White screen Soul Man at the Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Thursday, Aug. 11. ALSO SHOWING:
Like an Eastern take on Alice in Wonderland, Hiroyki Okiura’s A Letter to Momo is a colorful look at a young girl’s adventures with the fantastic. Clinton Street Theater. 7 pm Thursday, Aug. 11. The Hollywood’s 90th anniversary celebration continues with the shot-in-Oregon Buster Keaton classic The General, featuring a live score from Portland composer Mark Orton. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Friday, Aug. 12. See more Also Showing at wweek.com. Willamette Week AUGUST 10, 2016 wweek.com
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The First Couple of Pot AN INTERVIEW WITH SHESMOKESJOINTS AND TONY GREENHAND.
When Courtney shared her first picture of cannabis buds under the name SheSmokesJoints, she had no ambitions for social-media fame. But with legalization in Oregon, the fast-growing Instagram audience for a female cannabis photographer should come as no surprise. What does shock her and Tony Greenhand—her joint-connoisseur boyfriend—is when their dog gets recognized at Petco. With over 366,000 Instagram followers between them, they’re household names among toking millennials. In addition to her cannabis photography, Courtney puts out joint-rolling tutorials and markets twaxed joints— joints wound in gooey hash oil. Tony’s intricate, 3-D joints can take the form of peacocks, the Prince symbol, or a 4.2-pound watermelon. His smokable art sells for as much as $7,000 to customers that have included hip-hop artists B.o.B, the Flatbush Zombies, and B-Real of Cypress Hill. The pair sat down with WW to talk about their joint empire, desexifying cannabis media, and the downside of freebies. LAUREN TERRY. WW: Were you hesitant to post pictures of marijuana before it was legal? Tony Greenhand: No, and my pictures were so blurry and dark, I don’t think it mattered. It all started when someone suggested that I post one of my joints on a 12-person Reddit thread three years ago. I shared a picture of my Sherlock Holmes pipe joint, and it blew up. Courtney: I only posted photos of buds at first. Once I started interacting with followers, I was exposed to concentrates and smoke tricks—that was perpetuated with legalization and the rise of cannabis media companies.
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Do you have day jobs? Courtney: This is our only job. We consult different companies to help with growing and marketing, I take stock pictures and sell prints, and I have a collaborative business between me and the CO2 Company that creates twaxed joints. Greenhand: Besides rolling the custom joints, I am a professional breeder for Crown OG. I also developed a strain called Clorox, aka Chardonnay, for its crisp scent of white grapes. She helps me tend the garden, because I often travel for consulting gigs.
I hear Tony sees quite a few orders from celebrities for custom joints? Courtney: When it comes to Tony, they are in awe that he can do things that no one else can do. He’s had a rapper approach him at a festival just to shake his hand. Greenhand: Celebrities will go out of their way to directly connect with me, because I think they like seeing someone that takes rolling as seriously as I do. It’s like someone telling you they like your music. Do you get sent a lot of promo freebies? Courtney: I don’t want free stuff. I like to work for what I get. Greenhand: I once received a machine that theoretically vibrated and put out a frequency in the air that scared away spiders and mites, miraculously upped your yield, allowed you to harvest earlier, etc. It was this weird pendulum thing that spun really quickly and killed all my plants. What are the less pleasant elements of pot fame? Courtney: The way cannabis is still widely marketed like alcohol, with a lot of empty sexual imagery. I get it, I saw how many more likes I got when I took a selfie with a lower-cut shirt. But those extra likes aren’t worth 100 guys jacking off to you on the hour. Greenhand: I’ve started a campaign to desexify the feed of [Instagram account] Weed Humor. I think it’s harder for girls to take the high road through talent rather than body. Pulling the sex card is like taking candy from a baby. Do you get recognized on the street? Courtney: We’ve been playing Pokémon Go in Albany, where we’re looking for a house, and people have stopped us a few times. We’ve been yelled at on the freeway. Greenhand: On the way to Hempfest last year, someone even recognized our dog! We’ve been eliminating the pictures of us on our Instagram accounts. I don’t want people bugging me when I’m in the bathroom stall.
TRICIA HIPPS
B Y N AT E WA G G O N E R
When East and West Tugged for Best
Cat and Girl
BY DR. MITCHELL MILLAR
2220 NW QUIMBY STREET, PORTLAND, OREGON
I was at a tavern the other day watching two of my favorite Olympic events, fencing and racewalking, but was unable to muster even a smidgen of excitement. I couldn’t stop thinking about a quadrennial tradition that used to occur in our beloved town. I was filled with a small, cold ball of melancholy, and an overwhelming urge to finish my drink and go home. I am speaking, of course, about The Great City Tug of War. How many of you full-blooded Portland natives remember going as children to either side of the river, sitting on a blanket and watching The Great City Tug? How many of you can claim you were one of the tuggers? How many of you brag that you were a tugger, even if you weren’t? (Shhhh, I won’t say anything.) The Great City Tug of War pitted West Portland’s strongest against East Portland’s sturdiest. They tugged across the width of the Willamette. For transplants who never saw it, The Tug was an awesome affair and truly colossal in scale. The rules were that each side could field 167 tuggers at a given time, but was also allowed a taxi squad of 75 tuggers who could tag in to relieve tired teammates whenever they wished. The rope was 3 miles long, and fastened around the waist of one person per team who stood 100 feet ahead of everyone else. A winning team was declared when it pulled the other team’s front person into the water. I was proud to tug for East Portland twice many years ago while still in my prime. I wasn’t chosen because I was a muscular Casanova—I was wiry and had excellent footing. Years ago, residents of the losing side were made to evacuate their half of the city for a full 24 hours, during which residents of the winning side were invited to come over and “good-naturedly” loot and vandalize any buildings and property they wished. Human nature being what it is, the looting and vandalism always seemed to go beyond “good-natured,” so it was decided instead that each resident of the winning team would receive a $250 Visa gift card redeemable at any business within the losing team’s side of the city. Many of you will remember the thrilling Tug of 2004—“The most exhilarating Tug in years,” it was said—until a tragic series of events ruined it all. A recent California transplant was piloting his yacht nearby. Apparently, he thought it would be humorous to get as close as possible to the suspended rope and try to leap from the boat to grab it and dangle from it. He was successful in this stunt, but as we all realized and watched in horror, he had forgotten to thrust down, and the yacht kept going, plowing into a boat of schoolchildren on a field trip. Thankfully, most of the children were rescued, but the accident is the reason we won’t have a Great City Tug of War this year, just as we did not have one four years ago and four years before that. Dr. Mitchell R. Millar is president of the Olde Portland Preservation Society, and has perhaps embellished his own athletic feats, but just a little.
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Across 1 Change cities, in realty-speak 5 Some Volkswagens 11 Blackberry byproduct, maybe 14 “Pictures ___ didn’t happen!” 15 Patton of the “Comedians of Comedy” tour 16 Disc in a tabloid photo 17 Like a piccolo’s range 18 17-mission space program 19 Min.’s opposite
20 Levels of command 22 Rookie’s teacher 24 Quattro minus uno 25 Setting for many movies, for short 26 Rapper/actor ___ Def 28 Adjusted letter spacing, in printing 32 Bubble tea thickener 36 Rio Grande stuff 38 Auto dealership offer 39 Dosage unit 40 Flippant 41 Pumpkin spiced
beverage, usually 42 Noteworthy times 43 “Take ___ Church” (Hozier song) 44 “___ Witch” (2016 horror sequel) 45 Muse’s instrument 46 Geometry class calculation 47 Never-before-seen 49 Striped blue ball 50 Risque 52 “Huh??” 54 “Where the Wild Things Are” author Maurice 57 Highbrow highlights of some
Down 1 Le Corbusier contemporary Mies van der ___ 2 “Change the World” singer Clapton 3 Honeymoon quarters that lets the sun in? 4 Last check box, often 5 Bossa nova legend ___ Gilberto 6 Sister network of ABC 7 Counting by ___ 8 Jazz guitarist ___ Farlow 9 Permit tractor pioneer John? 10 Absolut rival, familiarly 11 Get visibly startled 12 “Bearing gifts, we traverse ___” 13 Psychobilly rocker ___ Nixon 21 Albanian currency 23 Put to rest, as a rumor
25 Hyatt alternative 26 Igneous rock’s source 27 Lascivious looker 29 Kay, if you do the math? 30 “Is that so?” 31 Birth-related 33 Ethereal author of “Honor Thy Father”? 34 Piercing look 35 Mary-Kate or Ashley 37 On a cruise liner, e.g. 48 Hulk Hogan’s ‘80s-’90s org. 51 “Fanfare for the Common Man” composer Copland 53 Places that are all abuzz 54 GM’s Swedish subsidiary 55 ___ Cooler (“Ghostbusters”themed Hi-C flavor) 56 ___ : 2003 :: Dory : 2016 57 Annapolis inst., e.g. 58 Part of the theater industry? 59 ___ off (annoyed) 60 Friend, in Fremantle 61 Poetry competition 64 157.5 degrees from N last week’s answers
©2016 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JONZ791.
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Week of AUGUST 11
ARIES (March 21-April 19) Using scissors, snip off a strand of your hair. As you do, sing a beloved song with uplifting lyrics. Seal the hair in an envelope on which you have written the following: “I am attracting divine prods and unpredictable nudges that will enlighten me about a personal puzzle that I am ready to solve.” On each of the next five nights, kiss this package five times and place it beneath your pillow as you sing a beloved song with uplifting lyrics. Then observe your dreams closely. Keep a pen and notebook or audio recorder near your bed to capture any clues that might arrive. On the morning after the fifth night, go to your kitchen sink and burn the envelope and hair in the flame of a white candle. Chant the words of power: “Catalytic revelations and insights are arriving.” The magic you need will appear within 15 days. TAURUS (April 20-May 20) This would be a good time to have a master craftsperson decorate your headquarters with stained glass windows that depict the creation stories of your favorite indigenous culture. You might also benefit from hiring a feng shui consultant to help you design a more harmonious home environment. Here are some cheaper but equally effective ways to promote domestic bliss: Put images of your heroes on your walls. Throw out stuff that makes you feel cramped. Add new potted plants to calm your eyes and nurture your lungs. If you’re feeling especially experimental, build a shrine devoted to the Goddess of Ecstatic Nesting. GEMINI (May 21-June 20) You Geminis are as full of longings as any other sign, but you have a tendency to downplay their intensity. How often do you use your charm and wit to cloak your burning, churning yearnings? Please don’t misunderstand me: I appreciate your refined expressions of deep feelings -- as long as that’s not a way to hide your deep feelings from yourself. This will be an especially fun and useful issue for you to meditate on in the coming weeks. I advise you to be in very close touch with your primal urges. CANCER (June 21-July 22) Be vulnerable and sensitive as well as insatiable and irreverent. Cultivate your rigorous skepticism, but expect the arrival of at least two freaking miracles. Be extra nurturing to allies who help you and sustain you, but also be alert for those moments when they may benefit from your rebellious provocations. Don’t take anything too personally or literally or seriously, even as you treat the world as a bountiful source of gifts and blessings. Be sure to regard love as your highest law, and laugh at fear at least three times every day. LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Let’s assume, for the sake of fun argument, that you do indeed have a guardian angel. Even if you have steadfastly ignored this divine helper in the past, I’m asking you to strike up a close alliance in the coming weeks. If you need to engage in an elaborate game of imaginative pretending to make it happen, so be it. Now let me offer a few tips about your guardian angel’s potential purposes in your life: providing sly guidance about how to take good care of yourself; quietly reminding you where your next liberation may lie; keeping you on track to consistently shed the past and head toward the future; and kicking your ass so as to steer you away from questionable influences. OK? Now go claim your sublime assistance! VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Although you may not yet be fully aware of your good fortune, your “rescue” is already underway. Furthermore, the so-called hardship you’ve been lamenting will soon lead you to a trick you can use to overcome one of your limitations. Maybe best of all, Virgo, a painful memory you have coddled for a long time has so thoroughly decayed that there’s almost nothing left to cling to. Time to release it! So what comes next? Here’s what I recommend: Throw a going-away party for everything you no longer need. Give thanks to the secret intelligence within you that has guided you to this turning point.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) Here comes a special occasion -- a radical exemption that is so rare as to be almost impossible. Are you ready to explore a blessing you have perhaps never experienced? For a brief grace period, you can be free from your pressing obsessions. Your habitual attachments and unquenchable desires will leave you in peace. You will be relieved of the drive to acquire more possessions or gather further proof of your attractiveness. You may even arrive at the relaxing realization that you don’t require as many props and accessories as you imagined you needed to be happy and whole. Is enlightenment nigh? At the very least, you will learn how to derive more joy out of what you already have. SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) In the coming weeks, I suspect that Life will attempt to move you away from any influences that interfere with your ability to discern and express your soul’s code. You know what I’m talking about when I use that term “soul’s code,” right? It’s your sacred calling; the blueprint of your destiny; the mission you came to earth to fulfill. So what does it mean if higher powers and mysterious forces are clearing away obstacles that have been preventing you from a more complete embodiment of your soul’s code? Expect a breakthrough that initially resembles a breakdown. SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Maybe you know people who flee from the kind of Big Bold Blankness that’s visiting you, but I hope you won’t be tempted to do that. Here’s my counsel: Welcome your temporary engagement with emptiness Celebrate this opening into the unknown. Ease into the absence. Commune with the vacuum. Ask the nothingness to be your teacher. What’s the payoff? This is an opportunity to access valuable secrets about the meaning of your life that aren’t available when you’re feeling full. Be gratefully receptive to what you don’t understand and can’t control.
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CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) I placed a wager down at the astrology pool. I bet that sometime in the next three weeks, you Capricorns will shed at least some of the heavy emotional baggage that you’ve been lugging around; you will transition from ponderous plodding to curious-hearted sauntering. Why am I so sure this will occur? Because I have detected a shift in attitude by one of the most talkative little voices in your head. It seems ready to stop tormenting you with cranky reminders of all the chores you should be doing but aren’t -- and start motivating you with sunny prompts about all the fun adventures you could be pursuing. AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) What you are most afraid of right now could become what fuels you this fall. Please note that I used the word “could.” In the style of astrology I employ, there is no such thing as predestination. So if you prefer, you may refuse to access the rich fuel that’s available. You can keep your scary feelings tucked inside your secret hiding place, where they will continue to fester. You are not obligated to deal with them squarely, let alone find a way to use them as motivation. But if you are intrigued by the possibility that those murky worries might become a source of inspiration, dive in and investigate. PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) Are you ready for your mid-term exam? Luckily I’m here to help get you into the proper frame of mind to do well. Now study the following incitements with an air of amused rebelliousness. 1. You may have to act a bit wild or unruly in order to do the right thing. 2. Loving your enemies could motivate your allies to give you more of what you need. 3. Are you sufficiently audacious to explore the quirky happiness that can come from cultivating intriguing problems? 4. If you want people to change, try this: Change yourself in the precise way you want them to change.
Homework What do you foresee happening in your life during the rest of 2016? Make three brave, positive predictions. Truthrooster@gmail.com.
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