NEWS: WHO’S TO BLAME FOR THE GORGE FIRE? GOOD RIBBIN’ AT FARMHOUSE. UNCLE TED AMERICA’S UNCLE.
“I WAS A STUPIDER PERSON SO IT WORKED FOR ME.”
DEAD IN THE WATER N E A R LY E V E R Y WEEK, A BODY IS FOUND IN A PORTLAND RIVER.
THIS IS NOT NORMAL.
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FINDINGS
OUTTAKE: FARMHOUSE, PAGE 27
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 43, ISSUE 46.
Instagram is more to blame for the Eagle Creek Fire than unruly teens with fireworks, according to some old dudes. 9 When you see an orange X painted on a Portland bridge, someone jumped from there. 14 The best fried chicken in
Portland will not be disappearing from Division Street after all. 22 The guitarist for Poison Idea once called in a bomb threat to a Ramones show. 30
ON THE COVER:
If you want an artisan bag lunch with a PB&J and a Capri Sun, there is a place. 37 A new play making its Portland premiere features both blackface and whiteface. 38 If you’ve been waiting to catch Hugging Kate Jackson in Killer Bees Sunken in Red Memories in
the theater, you’ll finally have a chance this weekend. 41 Uncle Ted is going to be your new hero. 43
OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:
Dead in the Water, painted by VR Rivera @winterteeth.
A witness says the kids who lit the Gorge on fire laughed while they did it.
STAFF Editor & Publisher Mark Zusman EDITORIAL News Editor Aaron Mesh Arts & Culture Editor Martin Cizmar Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, Rachel Monahan, Katie Shepherd Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, Nicole Groessel Stage, Screen & Listings Editor Shannon Gormley Projects Editor Matthew Korfhage Music Editor Matthew Singer
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DIALOGUE On Sept. 2, the Columbia River Gorge caught fire after a Vancouver, Wash., teenager tossed fireworks off a cliff along Eagle Creek (“Anatomy of an Inferno,” WW, Sept. 6, 2017). Readers were incensed. Krissy May, via Twitter: “I could care less that he is 15. Stop calling him a kid who made a ‘mistake.’ He is now an arsonist. Call him what he is.” Rob, via wweek.com: “Those kids need to put some gear on and join the crews that are fighting the fire. They’ll have a whole new appreciation for what it takes to contain a fire and will hopefully be the voice of reason for their friends in the future.” Michelle Nijhuis, in The New Yorker: “Social media has since lit up with fury at the bombthrower, but FitzGerald points out that the entire group of teen-agers—and a number of passing adults—watched his actions and did nothing. ‘Everyone wants to just nail this kid, but so many people saw this crazy behavior,’ she said. ‘They were all complicit.’ Five days later, the smoke has settled in—a stinking, gritty reminder that the rest of us are complicit, too.” Amy Hearn, via wweek.com: “I want them to see and smell the corpses of the animals, see the people they’ve killed with their cruel mindless stupidity. I want them barfing and weeping and know what they’ve really done. That is consequences.” Marilyn Hudson-Tremayne, via wweek.com: “Look at this devastation. One of the most beautiful spots on earth. They deserve a lifetime of consequences.”
Jesse Morris, via Facebook: “I’m all for a punishment for these kids—they broke the law, destroyed thousands of acres of beautiful forest, put people’s lives in jeopardy, etc.,…but to say that the death sentence should be considered? That’s extremism.” Gerard Biggs, via Facebook: “This comment section is proof that there is no need to release the name.” Cheryl Strayed, via Instagram: “I need to think a good while about what the loss of those trees means to me and to us—us in the Portland area, us in the Pacific Northwest, us in the United States, us in the world. It means something, but it’s too fresh for me to express yet what it is. I can’t spin it into metaphor or meaning; can’t claim that it’s anything but what it feels to me to be right now: a tremendous loss, wrapped around the realization that I was wrong. We won’t always have this.”
CORRECTIONS
Due to an editor’s error, a story about Elevate Inclusive Fund (“Elevated,” WW, Aug. 30, 2017) misstated the amount of private capital raised by the investment fund. It is $800,000, not $800 million. A story about Willie Nelson (“No Place for Me,” WW, Aug. 30, 2017) misidentified the name of the decommissioned nuclear plant near Goble. The plant is Trojan, not Hanford. WW regrets the errors. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words. Submit to: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: mzusman@wweek.com
Dr. Know BY MARTY SMITH
We’ve all watched nervously as wildfire threatens the Bull Run watershed. That said, I suspect many of us aren’t actually sure what a “watershed” is. Is it a spring? A lake? A river? And if it’s water, why do we have to worry about it catching fire? —Bull Runner Don’t feel too bad, Runner—I’m pretty sure that there’s a solid two-figure percentage of Portlanders who believe the watershed is an actual shed, possibly guarded by an old guy in a rocking chair with a shotgun across his lap. Geography 101: Water flows downhill, so any patch of ground will always drain in the same direction, into the same rivulet, which empties into the same creek, which feeds the same river. The full area that drains (“sheds” water, get it?) into a particular waterway is called that waterway’s watershed. The watershed of a major river may also be called a basin, and comprises the watersheds of all that river’s tributaries. The term “watershed moment,” incidentally, comes from the high geographical ridge that separates one watershed from the next. (The Continental Divide is one such ridge; crossing it was no doubt a watershed moment for pioneers.) The watershed of the Bull Run River is protect4
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ed from humans and the many gross things they do. But massive wildfires are a different story. As you note, the river and its tributaries can’t catch fire, but the heavily forested land of the watershed can. If a subsequent rain washed charred trees or other organic matter into the river, public health regulations would require the Portland Water Bureau to switch from Bull Run water to the backup groundwater system, at least until the grit settled. More grimly, if large sections of the watershed completely burned to the ground, the plant roots that keep erosion at bay could break down, leading to muddy, undrinkable water (“turbidity” is the term of art) every time it rained. At press time, fires had reached some of the protected land surrounding the watershed, but not the actual drainage basin itself. We’ll see. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com
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MURMURS
WHEELER
Wheeler Hints at Funding Cuts for City-County Homelessness Agency
In a meeting earlier this month, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler laid the groundwork for cutting funding for the agency responsible for homeless shelters and other services, despite a campaign pledge to provide every Portland homeless person a shelter bed by the end of 2018. Wheeler indicated in a Sept. 5 City Council work session that he was looking for ways to reduce city funding for the Joint Office of Homeless Services, a combined city-county agency. “I don’t think the current service level is sacrosanct,” Wheeler said. “We stretched really, really hard during the last budget process to get to where we thought we were in a good, honorable partnership with the county. But now the target is very, very high for us to be able to continue to maintain it.” Mayoral spokesman Michael Cox says any determinations about a city budget are premature. “There is a process to arrive at the mayor’s proposed budget,” he says, “and we’re not even at the beginning.”
Vancouver Cops Release Man Who Sped Truck Toward Protesters
Police in Vancouver, Wash., say they didn’t arrest a man who sped his truck toward antifascist protesters Sept. 10 because he told them he was frightened and trying to escape the crowd. The man drove his truck, which had Oregon plates and was bedecked with several American flags and a Confederate flag sticker, toward a group of masked demonstrators marching after protesting a far-right rally organized by Vancouver-based right-wing Patriot Prayer. Police let him drive away from the scene. The man, whom Vancouver
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Sirens Wail on County Ambulance Contract
The chase for Multnomah County’s ambulance contract, which covers 90,000 calls a year, just hit a speed bump. On Sept. 8, the unions that represent Portland and Gresham firefighters, who are first responders on medical calls, filed a formal protest with the county. It alleges the Aug. 4 request for bids on the five-year contract is marred by a consultant’s potential conflicts of interest and requirements that bidders use a specific dispatch system and create a new, independent dispatch center. The unions ask the county to start from scratch. “We will be working to respond to these concerns as quickly as possible,” says county spokeswoman Julie Sullivan-Springhetti. M U LT N O M A H C O U N T Y
THOMAS TEAL
police declined to identify, told officers “he was in fear for his life,” says Vancouver police Lt. Kathy McNicholas. “If you were in that truck and being attacked, wouldn’t you want to get out of there?”
SMITH
Saltzman Out, Smith In for 2018 Council Race
Hours after Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman announced Sept. 12 he will retire, Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith announced her plans to seek his seat in 2018. Jo Ann Hardesty, a former state legislator who heads the NAACP of Portland, had already filed to run for Saltzman’s spot. That means two black women will face off in the contest to replace Saltzman. He says he’s satisfied with five terms. “With respect to things I am passionate about, the items on my to-do list largely have check marks next to them,” says Saltzman, who has served on the City Council since 1999.
NEWS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
The Sparks Fly Upward Since ash rained down on Portland last week, the fire in the Columbia River Gorge has grown substantially, tripling in size. But rain and humidity have helped firefighters slow the growth of the Eagle Creek Fire in recent days. Here’s where things stand now. RACHEL MONAHAN.
35,588
THE DEVASTATION OF THE GORGE FIRE, IN PHOTOS AND NUMBERS.
FIREBALL: As a wildfire raced from ridge to ridge above Eagle Creek (right), fire crews worked round the clock last week to save Multnomah Falls Lodge from the flames (above).
Acres burned by the Eagle Creek Fire.
1,822
Number of people evacuated from the Gorge.
4 Number of homes burned in the fire.
905
Total firefighters currently working in the Gorge.
GAINING CONTROL: Multnomah County Chairwoman Deborah Kafoury and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown visited Multnomah Falls on Sept. 6 (below), as more than 900 firefighters began containing the blaze (left).
2 Estimated minimum total weeks the fire will close Interstate 84.
28,200
Daily average trips on I-84 at Cascade Locks in 2015, the most recent data available.
3,000
Estimated number of trees in danger of falling on I-84 that have been cleared to make way for reopening the highway.
500
Minimum number of trees that still need to be cleared.
PHOTOS T O P : TAY L E R S L U M A N A N D T O D D D E W E B E R S E C O N D F R O M TO P : B R I T TA N I E H A N N A - A N D E R S O N THIRD AND FOURTH FROM TOP: THOMAS TEAL BACKGROUND: DANIEL STINDT
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DANIEL STINDT
NEWS “WHAT SURPRISED ME THE MOST IS THE VISCERAL REACTION PEOPLE HAVE HAD TO THE FIRE. FOR SO MANY PEOPLE, IT SEEMED LIKE THE DEATH OF A LOVED ONE.” —KEVIN GORMAN, executive director of the Hood River-based Friends of the Columbia Gorge
TRAFFIC JAM: Smoke hangs over the Bridge of the Gods last week as wildfire spreads.
Gorging Ourselves EXPERTS SAY THE EAGLE CREEK FIRE IS A RESULT OF EVERINCREASING USE—NOT EXCEPTIONAL STUPIDITY. njaquiss@wweek.com
In a 2012 YouTube video, seven hikers from Long Beach, Calif., launch themselves from 80 feet above the bottlegreen waters of Punch Bowl Falls on the Eagle Creek Trail. “Holy shit,” says one, before taking the plunge. “I’m nervous.” She should have been. A year later, four young men from Cincinnati tried the same jump— three were injured and one died. In August 2016, a 20-year-old New Yorker fell from the falls and died as well. At least eight other YouTube videos advertise the lure—and the danger—of the Eagle Creek Trail, “the most popular trail in the Columbia Gorge,” in the words of the U.S. Forest Service. Many Oregonians, including people who have hiked Columbia River Gorge trails for decades as part of their livelihoods, are grieving 10 days after teenager allegedly lobbing firecrackers into a trailside ravine started a wildfire that has now consumed 35,000 acres of forest. “What surprised me the most is the visceral reaction people have had to the fire,” says Kevin Gorman, executive director of the nonprofit Friends of the Columbia Gorge. “For so many people, it seemed like the death of a loved one.”
In the days after the Sept. 2 fire raced from ridge to ridge, enormous public outrage has focused on a 15-yearold Vancouver boy who allegedly threw fireworks suspected of starting the fire—including demands for the juvenile’s name and a torrent of online death threats. But Gorman and other experts say the damage is less the result of exceptional teenage idiocy than increasingly heavy use. “The infrastructure was just not made for this many people,” says Paul Gerald, author of 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Portland and other Oregon outdoor guidebooks. Nobody knows exactly how many visitors use the Gorge trails. Rachel Pawlitz, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service, which oversees the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, says that’s because Gorge parking lots aren’t gated like national parks, so it’s hard to get a count. One telling measure is the number of hikers who need rescuing from their encounters with nature. The Hood River County sheriff ’s search and rescue team, which responded to the injured cliff jumpers and recovered the two bodies, has recorded a sharp increase in serious incidents on the Eagle Creek Trail—from 11 incidents in 2014 to 17 last year, a 55 percent increase. THOMAS TEAL
BY N I G E L JAQ UI SS
The Multnomah County Search and Rescue team, which covers the Gorge from just east of Eagle Creek to the Gorge’s end in Troutdale, has seen a similar increase, from 40 missions in 2014 to 63 last year, an increase of 58 percent. Steve Kruger, a former Oregon State Parks ranger who worked in the Gorge from 2014 to 2016, says visitors who do foolish things in the area are nothing new—there are just more of them now. “There’ve always been challenges with vandalism,” says Kruger, now executive director of Trailkeepers of Oregon. “My biggest concern is the congestion and how that congestion causes a decrease in the quality of visitors’ experiences.” Gorman and others point to several reasons: a booming population in the region, a strong economy, glowing national media coverage, and marketing efforts that lure tourists from all over. “I think it was a steady, incremental growth for several years,” Gorman says, “but in the past two years, it just sort of popped.” Gorman says he thinks YouTube, Facebook and Snapchat have played a role as well. “I have an 18-year-old daughter really interested in hiking,” he says. “I think it’s more social media than my influence.” The national scenic area covers 292,500 acres spread along 80 miles of the river. Friends of the Columbia Gorge describes 92 hikes on its website, and there are many more than that. But hikers ignore most of them, flocking in large numbers to the same few trails—Eagle Creek, Angel’s Rest and Dog Mountain—over and over. Gorman, who joined Friends of the Gorge in 1998 and has seen the nonprofit grow into an organization with 17 employees and $18 million in assets, says growth has brought more inexperienced hikers to the Gorge. The avid outdoorsman climbed Dog Mountain earlier this year, once during the week and once on a weekend, and says he noticed a big difference in who was on the trail. During the week, he says, hikers wore boots, sun protection and carried backpacks laden with water and the “10 essentials,” including maps, sun block, extra clothing and first aid supplies. On the weekend, it was a different story. “I spoke with a group that looked like they were going to a tailgate,” Gorman says. “They were wearing cotton tank tops and sandals. They hadn’t hiked much before, and they didn’t know how far it was to the top.” Government agencies and nonprofits are working to address congestion in the Gorge. There are now shuttle services to address traffic and discussions of building a 200-mile trail network that would link towns and cities to attractions such as waterfalls and lakes so visitors don’t overwhelm existing trailheads. Some would like to make the historic Columbia River Highway one-way and do the same with popular trails. Gorman says the Gorge, created 15,000 years ago by the massive Missoula floods and burned regularly by forest fires ever since, is resilient. “I think the message that Eagle Creek is gone forever and the Gorge will never be the same is wrong,” he says. “This is a place that for thousands of years has dealt with change. What we’ve seen is a tragedy, but we’ll come out of this stronger.” Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
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NEWS
IN PORTLAND, OREGON @ t ha c hersc hmid
DIEGO DIAZ
BY T HACHE R S CHM ID
If Portland’s a sanctuary city, where are all the homeless Latino people? Deportations, sanctuary and a possible end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or “Dreamer,” program are the big issues facing undocumented immigrants in the United States. But people in Portland’s Latino community say immigration often takes a back seat to poverty’s daily grind. “Suben las rentas, y quieren pagar menos, what the fuck?” a man named Marco says, in perfect Spanglish: Rent’s going up, employers pay less. Standing on Aug. 30 outside the offices of workers’ rights organization Portland Voz near the corner of Northeast Everett Street and Grand Avenue and a cluster of tents next to the I-84 freeway ramp, Marco is one of a dozen esquineros who tell a similar story. (The word translates as “guy on the corner,” but also “day laborer.”) Most speak Spanish, or Spanglish, and some decline to give a last name. Some are citizens; others have “green cards” or work visas, or are undocumented. Antonio says he’s renting a living room in Gresham de palabra, by word of mouth, meaning no signed rental contract. “When you don’t speak much English, [apartment managers] take advantage of you,” he says. “They don’t think you’re going to defend yourself.” The esquineros’ words help answer a conundrum found in the most recent homeless count released in June: Despite high poverty levels among Multnomah County’s Latino population, only 10.2 percent of local homeless people counted were Latino—fewer than the group’s 11.1 percent of the county population. The statistics suggest Latinos—the largest immigrant group and largest group of non-native English speakers in Oregon—aren’t often homeless in Oregon’s most populous county. Todo lo contrario, say people in the Latino community. They’re homeless, but less likely to sleep in a tent or doorway. So their struggles may be more hidden. Joaquin Pastor, a manager at El Programa Hispano Católico, says the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development definition of homelessness—sleeping in shelter or places “not meant for human habitation”—counts only the tip of the iceberg. In fact, Pastor says, “a lot of [Latinos] are doubled up,” meaning they have no signed lease, and may be “unauthorized guests,” in property management parlance. Pastor says his organization is encouraging people to share units, “but do it in such a way that they’re actually on the lease, so the landlord is not able to evict them.” Executive director Romeo Sosa of Portland Voz says half his agency’s clients are homeless: 20 percent in shelters, 20 percent on the street, 10 percent in cars. He notes that many travel lightly, with a few basics in a small backpack, rather than 10
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DREAM DEFERRED: Latinos rallied in downtown Portland on Sept. 5 to protest President Donald Trump’s plan to end the “Dreamer” program.
pushing a shopping cart. “Homeless Latinos, they’re always thinking to get a home immediately,” Sosa says. “They just stay on the streets for a little bit, try to get a job and move forward.” Several Latino housing experts point to another factor: The strength of extended family bonds in Hispanic culture makes it more likely someone with unstable housing is living with family, not in a shelter or tent. “We are Latinos, we live in big families, so we help each other,” says Cristina Castaño-Henao, a housing retention coordinator at JOIN. “It is not just one kid. So the struggle is different.” But the same cultural traditions that help keep Latino people off the street also make finding a decent apartment harder. That extended family structure can make it harder for Latinos to access small apartments like “single room occupancy,” studio or onebedroom. Castaño-Henao pointed out that many local affordable housing units have smaller unit sizes. Portland Housing Bureau spokeswoman Martha Calhoon showed WW a breakdown of the bureau’s inventory of affordable units by bedroom size, which shows 26 percent of the apartments are two-bedroom or larger—10 percent are three- or four-bedroom. The draft policy framework for the city’s new $258 million housing bond calls for “50 percent family-sized units (two- to three-bedroom).” Lately, Sosa and others say, housing discrimination has become more frequent, and brutal: “Before, they just like try to hide, but now it’s more I think they can openly discriminate against people who are brown or speak a different language.” The net result may be a city in which Latinos are pushed farther to the urban fringes and more apartments pack more people in. “That’s the future for poor America,” Pastor says. Pepe Quiroz, another esquinero, has been homeless for the past four of his 23 years in the U.S. At the end of August, a man leaned out of the cab of a semi-trailer truck and offered Quiroz, 38, his empty soda can. Quiroz declined. “I say, ‘I don’t need cans, I need a job,’” Quiroz recalls. “He say, ‘Fuck you, go back to Mexico!’” Quiroz reported the interaction to police. “I’ve never seen someone be so racist,” he says.
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DEAD IN N E A R LY E V E R Y W E E K , A BODY IS FOUND IN A PORTLAND RIVER. T H I S I S N O T N O R M A L.
CONTENT WARNING: THIS STORY CONTAINS DISCUSSIONS OF SUICIDE AND VIOLENT DEATH. BY NATA L I E O ’ N E I L L
@inkonthepad
T
here was something in the water. Mike Johnson was with a friend in his 19-foot aluminum sled boat on the afternoon of June 12. They were on the Columbia River, just east of Government Island, fishing for pikeminnow. Johnson had just reeled in an empty line when he saw what looked like a bent buoy bobbing in the water. Johnson, 49, motored closer. As he neared the strange lump, his heart sank. It was a bloated corpse. “It looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon,” Johnson says. “My mind was reeling.” The dead man wore only cut-off jean shorts and a wed12
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ding ring. His fingers were splayed out stiffly. On his back was a cluster of barnacles. Johnson called 911. “It upset me more than I thought it would,” he recalls. “It took a couple days to shake.” The creepy discovery wasn’t unusual. It was the kickoff to one of Portland’s most grotesque traditions: the summer of floaters. During the next 10 weeks, at least seven more bodies would be found bobbing and drifting in Multnomah County waterways. On Aug. 21, two dead men surfaced within an hour of each other, one beneath the Broadway Bridge, the other in the Columbia River near Chinook Landing Marine Park. That’s just the beginning. A total of 45 human corpses— many of them “floaters” that rise up from the depths—
were pulled from Portland’s two major rivers between July 2016 and July 2017, according to the Multnomah County River Patrol. That’s nearly one body a week found in the water. It’s more people than die in car crashes on Portland streets annually and more than twice the number of Portlanders murdered last year. And it’s not an anomaly. In the past three years, river cops say, the Willamette and Columbia rivers have coughed up an average of 36 bodies a year. The Willamette and Columbia are among Portland’s most cherished features, drawing citizens to stroll their banks, boat on their waters and, increasingly, jump in for a swim. In the summer, as sun-starved Portlanders flock to
DANIEL STINDT
THE WATER
docks and beaches, more bodies bubble up than at any other time of year, according to river police. Warmer water causes decomposing corpses to fill with gas, bloat and become buoyant—sometimes surfacing within yards of blissed-out swimmers and boaters. No national statistics for bodies pulled from water exist, but other cities Portland’s size find far fewer bodies in their rivers. Pittsburgh—at the famed confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela and Ohio rivers—recorded nine drownings in its rivers last year. Austin, Texas, one-third larger than Portland and located on Lake Charles and the Colorado River, recorded 11. Columbus, Ohio, home to the Scioto River, recorded just two.
Observers are mystified by Rip City’s aquatic body count. “That’s an enormously high number compared to other places,” says Dr. Alison Osinski, owner of Avalon, Calif.based Aquatic Consulting Services, which offers expert testimony in drowning accident investigations. The mystery points to this city’s love of the outdoors and its entrenched social ills—especially homelessness and untreated mental distress. Portland’s easy river access, abundance of bridges, and weather-related highs and lows are a perfect storm for claiming lives, say police, marine experts and county mental health workers. Most of this year’s dead have been ruled suicide or drowning victims, according to police and county medi-
cal examiners. They include a 20-year-old who vanished, a Wilsonville mom who was killed in a boating crash and a desperate man who threw himself from the Burnside Bridge. Their tragic tales touch the lives of the strangers who find them, the police who investigate, and the heartbroken family members they leave behind. And for one man—a Multnomah County River Patrol officer who hauls many of these soaked and broken bodies from the water—the deaths have become a haunting ritual. “It’s sad,” says River Patrol Sgt. Stephen Dangler. “And it’s an incredible toll on taxpayer resources.” CONT. on page 14
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D
angler points to the surface of his silver police boat. “I can’t tell you,” he says, “how many dead bodies have been on this floor.” He and two other cops are zipping south on the Willamette River near the Broadway Bridge on a muggy Thursday in August. It’s 102 degrees outside. Dangler, a trim, barrel-chested man with smile lines around his eyes, has just pushed the boat off a dock near a River Patrol boathouse near the Pearl District. The police radio is silent, so Dangler takes his 31-foot vessel on a tour of bad memories. Nearly every bridge Dangler passes under—the Burnside, the Morrison, the Hawthorne—has been the site of a recent suicide jump. “It happens more than you’d ever imagine,” Dangler says. “So much they all bleed together.” Between July 2016 and July 2017, police and fire officials responded to a total of 1,376 cases on the water, ranging from boating accidents to bridge jumpers, according to a report by the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. Many of those calls were benign—boaters needing help freeing their vessels or revelers cited for public intoxication. But jumpers and attempted leaps into the Willamette and Columbia rivers made up at least 117 of those cases, according to county data. The dramatic events cause first responders—including Portland police and fire officials—to rush to the scene, Dangler says. When a call comes in reporting a bridge jumper, Dangler and his team speed to the location by boat. If the person has already leaped, they get off the boat and search the bridge for a “point of entry”—the exact spot from which he or she jumped—and mark it with spray paint. “If you see an orange X on a bridge, that’s not graffiti; it’s a point of entry,” Dangler explains. “It helps puts us right at the spot where the jumper splashed in.” Jumpers commonly remove their shoes right before taking the final plunge. So cops often drop a rope down from the shoes on the bridge into the water, and begin a search for the body in a radius around that point. If conditions are safe enough—the water isn’t too high or the currents too swift—a dive team suits up. Sonar technology helps them locate objects below the surface, but in the Willamette River, the chances of recovering a corpse underwater are slim. Divers must squint through “black water,” which renders it impossible to see more than a foot or two, and cope with powerful 55-foot-deep channels and debris. They’re sometimes forced to grasp blindly at what might be a chunk of trash, part of a boat or a human body. “It’s like this,” Dangler says, closing his eyes and pawing at the air to demonstrate. “Sometimes you bump into something and it feels like a foot and that’s how you know you got it.” On the off chance a jumper survives the impact, he or she is usually sucked under the river and swept away by powerful currents, only to surface days, weeks or months later as a floater. It’s Dangler’s job to collect those bodies. “If people saw what their bodies turned into after decomposing in the river for weeks, they would probably never jump,” he says. There are some things he wishes he could unsee: a woman’s skull splattered against the Willamette River seawall. Maggots. Gaping head wounds. And the smell. “It can be brutal,” he says. “It gets in your nostrils and on your clothes.” Dangler’s team fishes a body from the waterway with a long yellow pole and a coffin-shaped cage. One side of the sheriff’s
THE BOAT: Multnomah County River Patrol looks for mariners in trouble—and bobbing corpses—from a 31-foot Sheriff’s Office boat. THE COP: River Patrol Sgt. Stephen Dangler hauls bodies from the water. “It happens more than you’d ever imagine,” he says.
PHOT0S BY DANIEL STINDT
boat folds down, making it easier to hoist a corpse onto the vessel floor, which is later scrubbed with chemical cleaners. Medical examiners also rush to the scene to gather details about the cause and manner of death. River debris sometimes cuts up floaters, but if there’s no sign of bleeding, it’s clear the injuries happened postmortem. If a death is ruled a homicide—as in a handful of cases in recent years— medical examiners pass the case off to sheriff’s detectives. “We look at what witnesses, police and family members say. We never operate in a vacuum,” says Dr. Karen Gunson, a pathologist at the Multnomah County Medical Examiner’s Office. If nobody witnessed the death on the water, Gunson and other pathologists perform tests on bodies, some of which are in bad shape. She recently performed an autopsy on a fisherman whose body spent 18 months bobbing in a river. “We get decomposed bodies frequently,” Gunson says, “but we are sort of lucky here because the water is cold.” The low temperature preserves the corpses, allowing examiners to perform accurate autopsies more than a year after death. River accidents and suicides are almost always ruled drownings. “Lethal water trumps just about everything,” Gunson says, “because had it been on dry land, the person may have survived.” Passing under the Fremont Bridge, a small crease forms on Dangler’s brow. A couple years ago, a friend of his killed herself by jumping from the 381-foot-tall span, Dangler says. She left her car behind before leaping; he picked it up at a towing yard soon after. Dangler pauses and looks out toward the water. He recalls how, in the months before her death, he begged his friend to reconsider. “I told her, ‘Please, please don’t jump—we might never recover you.’”
I
t was just after lunchtime on May 17, when a young man walked to the center of the Burnside Bridge. He peered out toward the gray water below, which reflected the drizzly clouds above, as cars sped by. He paused for a moment. Then he took a few steps back and made a running leap. His body smashed into a concrete platform below, killing him instantly. River cops were at the scene along with Portland police. “It was gruesome,” Dangler says. In Portland, it makes sense why the hopeless flock to bridges. There are more than a dozen of the spans, many of which are pedestrianfriendly and have low guardrails. The more mystique a place has—like the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco—the more likely it is to become a hub for suicide, suicide prevention workers say. This year, more jumpers and attempts were reported on the Fremont Bridge—16 cases— than on any other bridge in the county. The Burnside Bridge ranked second-most popular, with 15 cases, according to county figures, followed by the Hawthorne Bridge. “There’s a common myth that suicide happens here because it’s Oregon and it’s rainy, but that’s just not the case,” says Leticia Sainz, a crisis program manager for the Multnomah County health department. “It’s pretty well documented that it’s actually more tied to changes in weather.” Sainz adds, “If you’re depressed and the sun comes out, everyone else might be feeling better—but that may make you feel worse.” Bridge barriers, such as fences, may be one way to stop jumpers. CONT. on page 17
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Tonight, we honor the work of important leaders among us. Tonight, we reimagine justice. The ACLU's annual Liberty Dinner is your chance to be a part of the resistance and help us build a better future. Join us for an inspiring evening including dinner, auction and keynote speaker Angela Davis for a compelling chance to reconnect with the ACLU of Oregon.
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Willamette Week Date, 2012 wweek.com
PHOTO BY DANIEL STINDT
“SUICIDE IS LARGELY A MATTER OF CONVENIENCE, SO THE MORE ACCESSIBLE, THE MORE PEOPLE ARE GOING TO DO IT.”
GOOD FENCES: Mental health workers say barriers could reduce suicide attempts on Willamette River bridges.
“We know that the more you can separate the impulse to jump from the ability to do it, the more time there is for someone to intervene and prevent a suicide,” Sainz says, adding that barriers should be paired with outreach and treatment. More suicide prevention signs and call boxes could also help, says Meghan Crane, suicide prevention coordinator for the Oregon Health Authority. “What we are really talking about here is promoting places where people can talk about it—then connecting them with health care in the community,” she says. The Vista Bridge—the former Goose Hollow suicide magnet—is proof that such an approach works, says former City Commissioner Steve Novick, who pushed to install fences on the historic arch in 2013. The number of suicides on the Vista Bridge peaked in 2013, when five people leaped to their deaths that year. After Novick pushed to install the fences, the number dropped to zero. “People have not jumped to their deaths since we put up the barrier on Vista Bridge,” he says. “Suicide is largely a matter of convenience, so the more accessible, the more people are going to do it.” He adds, “I think barriers on other bridges would work, if it’s financially and structurally feasible.” But suicides are only part of the problem.
H
eidi Knight, 46-year-old Wilsonville mom with a bright smile, was cruising on the Columbia River in a friend’s boat on May 22 when he lost control. The boat’s pilot, Steven Schalk, 55, slammed into a tower supporting the Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge. The boat sank. Knight, a dental assistant, was rushed to PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center, where she died. “It’s been three months and I cry every day,” says her husband, Mitch McBane. “I see a whole counter full of her perfume and she’s not here. I’m mad at myself that I wasn’t there to protect her.”
Schalk was charged with manslaughter for allegedly speeding. “He a reckless guy,” her husband says. “I think that’s what he deserves.” Boating and drowning accidents account for less than half of the total bodies fished from Portland’s rivers—but that number tends to spike in the summer, river cops say. Water temperature, strong currents and widespread recreational river use play a role. “Portland rivers are beautiful, but they are cold and wild. People don’t understand the currents or how river waves work,” says Aquatic Consulting Services’ Osinski. “The high-risk spots are the cold-water rivers because people are also dying of hypothermia.” Dangler adds: “When people hit the cold w a t e r, i t ’s a shock to their system. People a r e ov e r c o n fident in their swimming abilities.” Alcohol, along with other forms of river rule-breaking, is also to blame. Marlon Bump, harbormaster HEIDI KNIGHT at Riverplace Marina, is one of the people who have reported finding a dead body in the past year. The man he found under a dock in late December was one of the many who drowned after drinking alcohol on the water, he says. “The experience was surreal,” Bump recalls. “It was not a great day.” Too many people drink while boating, says Bump. Portland’s “ hobo pirates”—homeless people who live on boats in the Willamette River—tend to party even harder and pay the price, says Bump. In cases in which suicide or an accident does not seem to be the cause, the deaths remain a mystery. CONT. on page 19
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
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WILLAMETTE WEEK’S 5th annual
PRO/AM
BLACK KIDS TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19TH AT 6PM Black Kids burst onto the indie rock scene following the release of a highly successful EP and first album. They return following a quiet few years with an infectious new record “Rookie”.
HOWARD IVANS
Saturday October 14th noon-6pm
30 + Beers + ciders you can’t taste anywhere else
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 23RD AT 3PM “Beautiful Tired Bodies”, the newest album from Howard Ivans, is a stirring collection of neo-soul and soft-edged funk songs.
JOSH RITTER
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 25TH AT 7PM ALBUM RELEASE SHOW! Critically acclaimed singer-songwriter Josh Ritter comes to Music Millennium to celebrate the release of his new record “The Gathering”. Pre-buy the new album for guaranteed admission.
JD MCPHERSON FRIDAY, OCTOBER 6TH AT 6PM ALBUM RELEASE SHOW! Rocker JD McPherson will play a release show for his third album “Undivided Heart & Soul” on October 6th. Pre-buy the new album for guaranteed admission.
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Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
Swept Away FIVE PEOPLE WHO DIED IN PORTLAND WATERS THIS SUMMER. J o n at ha n J . Wa l k e r
GONE: Rakesh Nath disappeared in May. His body was found in the Columbia Slough nearly a month later. NOT FORGOTTEN: Nath’s mother, Sandhya, keeps memorials to her son, including a photo collage (below).
P H O T 0 S B Y S O F I E M U R R AY
“HE WAS SUCH A
On Aug. 2, the Multnomah County River Patrol pulled the 18-year-old Jesuit High School graduate’s body from the Columbia River near Sauvie Island’s Walton Beach. Walker was a popular student who played baseball and was active in the Catholic school’s ministry program. On the day he died, Walker and some friends had jumped off a boat anchored 30 feet from shore. He was swept away within minutes. None of the teens was wearing a life jacket. “John was a seasoned traveler, including stops in the Cayman Islands and Australia,” his family later wrote in an online tribute. “His last stop will be his final resting place in West Africa.”
GOOD PERSON.
A
nil Nath felt the first flicker of dread in late May, when he realized his son hadn’t come home. Days passed with no word from Rakesh, a 20-year-old Wendy’s manager and Roosevelt High alum. On weekends, he would stay out late with pals, listening to hip-hop or watching sports—but he had never been gone so long without a call or a text. Days turned into weeks. “When he was missing, I’d walk over to his closet and look at his shoes,” Nath says, gesturing toward a pair of his son’s white Nike sneakers. “I’d think, if he ran away, wouldn’t he at least come back, climb in a window and get them?” Nath took time off from his job with United Parcel Service to conduct his own search—questioning Rakesh’s former girlfriend, visiting his local haunts and plastering missing-person posters around town, he says. On June 17, nearly a month after Rakesh disappeared, a boater spotted his body floating in the Columbia River Slough. His face was unrecognizable, but officials used an image of a cobra tattoo on his arm to identify him. His death was ruled accidental by county coroners. (They declined comment.) Anil Nath says medical examiners said there were no signs of foul play. But as with many unwitnessed deaths on the water, the tragedy leaves his family grasping for closure. “It hits you right here,” Nath says, grabbing his chest. “He was such a good person. How can you
take someone away like that— at such a young age? I didn’t even get to see him married,” he says. Nath says there were no outward signs his son was mentally ill or even unhappy. “If he was depressed, he never told me,” he says. The family is now awaiting the results of a toxicology report, which may reveal whether the death was linked to drugs. “We want it investigated, Nath says. “ We have no idea what happened.” Rakesh’s tearful mom, Sandhya, adds simply, “I miss my baby.”
HOW CAN YOU TAKE SOMEONE AWAY LIKE THAT—AT SUCH YOUNG AGE?”
On July 31, the 20-yearold was paddling a rented boat with a woman on Blue Lake, when it began taking on water. Tajik, who hadn’t learned to swim, struggled and went under. A good Samaritan managed to save Tajik’s passenger but not him. The Multnomah County sheriff ’s dive team recovered his body after a 40-minute search. Tajik had been on a family vacation.
—ANIL NATH R a k e s h N at h After the 20-year-old’s body was found in the Columbia River Slough, his death was ruled accidental, according to his family. They are awaiting the results of a toxicology report.
A
few days after Mike Johnson spotted a corpse bobb i n g n e a r G ove r n m e n t Island, he learned who the dead man was: John David Martin, a 50-year-old family man from Portland. The day he found Martin, Johnson followed alongside the body in his boat to make sure it didn’t drift away. “I felt an obligation to his family to help them get some closure,” he says. As a boater, Johnson says, it’s easy to misjudge the power and intensity of Portland’s rivers. The gut-wrenching discovery now serves as a personal reminder to Johnson: Wear a life jacket and skip the beer. “It really drove it home: You have to respect the river,” he says. Dangler, who spends his days ferrying the dead to a coroner, says many of the deaths he sees could be prevented—especially if people feeling distress knew they could talk to someone.
N o o r u l l a h Ta j ik
J o hn D avid M a r t in
“Don’t be afraid to talk about y o u r f e e l i n g s,” D a n g l e r s a y s. “Nobody is perfect.” He says anybody spending time near the Willamette and Columbia should know the rivers’ deadly strength. “Know your limitations and be self-aware,” he urges. “This is powerful water.”
If you’re struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts, Multnomah County has counselors who can talk with you at any hour. Call 503-9884888.
On June 12, the body of John David Martin, a 50-year-old family man from Portland, was found near Ackerman Island in the Columbia. Martin had been swept away while trying to retrieve his boat after it became unanchored and drifted away on July 28, 2016. Search efforts were suspended the next day. “Our family is devastated by the loss of John. He was everyone’s very best friend,” his loved ones said soon afterward. “His loss will ripple through this and future family generations.” His death was ruled accidental.
R o b e r t R u a (PHOTO N O T F O UN D )
On June 4, a boater at Captains Moorage on North Bridgeton Road near Williams Avenue spotted the body of a man floating near one of the boat slips. Little is known about Rua. His death was ruled accidental. NATALIE O’NEILL.
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
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Stree t
BY SA M GEHR KE
@samgehrkephotography
“Any of them would fit, because Portland is so accepting of everybody!”
WHICH COMIC CHARACTER WOULD FIT BEST IN PORTLAND? “We’d both say Squirrel Girl, because she’s so laid-back, but weird enough to fit in here. She’s a cool college kid, but also part squirrel— Portland seems perfect for her.”
OUR FAVORITE COSPLAY AT ROSE CITY COMIC CON. SEE THE FULL GALLERY AT WWEEK.COM.
“I’m pretty new to this area, so it’s hard for me to say. I’m gonna just go with Deadpool.”
“I am Groot!”
#wweek #wweek
C I S U M 20
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
Portland’s feast is a massive, decadent smÖrgÅsbord of foodie overindulgence. Print this page before visiting the fest, get drunk and play feast blackout.
TRICIA HIPPS
Feast
The Bump
Drunk Server From Your Favorite Fine-Dining Restaurant
Pork-Belly Finger Sandwich
New York Yankees Dad Hat
Karen Brooks
Byron Beck Taking Your Picture
Ostentatious Display of Pig Parts
Really Intense Restaurant Beer-Pong Team
Confusing Intersection of Food Lines
John Gorham
Patron Dropping Plate While Balancing Drink
Water Buffalo and/or Bison
Widmer: The Original American Hefeweizen®
Damian Lillard and/or Blaze the Trail Cat
Lamb Charcuterie
Chance to Sign up for a New Credit Card
Chef in Sweaty Bandana
Tipsy Couple in Rickshaw
Abandoned Swag Bag
Free Space Excitable Local TV News Crew
Really Weird Salt & Straw Ice Cream Flavor
Highbrow Knockoff of Fast-Food Item
Patron Stuffing Bag With Perriers
Instagram-Famous DJ
Random Use of Liquid Nitrogen
GO: Feast Portland 2017 takes over half the city Sept. 14-17. Many events sold out—see remaining events and buy tickets at feastportland.com. Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
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STARTERS
RICK VODICKA
B I T E - S I Z E D P O RT L A N D C U LT U R E N E W S SHOCK BLOCK: Despite protests, “rape rock” band the Mentors played in Portland. About 50 people showed up at Rock Hard PDX on September 8 to oppose the band, according to a representative from In Other Words, the feminist bookstore that arranged the protest. Despite rumors that members of a right-wing militia group were patrolling outside, the protest went without incident. The protest dispersed around 11 pm, before the Mentors took the stage. In Other Words considered the action a success. “We informed the community about an unsafe band,” they tell WW. “We also certainly cost the venue a lot of money in security, and considering their capacity is only about 100 people, it seems likely they took a loss in the process of establishing themselves as a terrible trash pile of scumbags.”
’ROUND AGAIN: The Jantzen Beach carousel is poised to return. The historic 1904 carousel hadn’t been seen by the public since 2012, when it was removed from the mall during renovations. Last week, Restore Oregon announced it had acquired the carousel and are currently storing it until it finds a suitable place. “With all the tragedy of the Gorge and the fire, we’re excited to talk about something so completely positive,” executive director Peggy Moretti of Restore Oregon told WW. “It’s one of those things that means so much to people.” The group is now looking for a new home for the carousel. STILL REELING: Portland landmark fried-chicken dive Reel ’M Inn will not be redeveloped when its lease expires in 2019, restaurateur Kurt Huffman tells WW. In February, Reel ’M Inn owner Paul Meno told WW that when the bar’s lease expired, it would be the end of the bar “unless the landlord has a change of heart.” At the time, Meno said, his landlord had told him a mixeduse building was planned for the site. “He’s set in stone there,” Meno told WW. But in April, Chris Briggs, Huffman’s partner at Loyal Legion beer bar, bought the Reel ’M Inn property and filed exploratory paperwork to place a brewery in the adjoining machine shop. Huffman says all plans for the property are up in the air, with one exception: “The only thing that is for sure is that he has no intention of doing anything with Reel ’M Inn,” says Huffman “It’s amazing the number of people who have contacted me in a full panic about what was happening.” OUR HERO: I, Tonya, the long-awaited biopic of Olympic figure skater and Portlander Tonya Harding, premiered last weekend at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film stars Margot Robbie as “Oregon’s Sweetheart,” and tells the story of the Nancy Kerrigan attack as a faux documentary. It showed up to the festival without the backing of a distributor, but emerged to garner praise from the likes of The Guardian and Vanity Fair, who included it in their list of “movies that could dominate awards season.” Directed by Craig Gillespie (Lars and The Real Girl), the dark comedy is set 20 years after Harding’s exhusband bludgeoned Kerrigan’s knee to prevent her from competing against Harding in the 1994 Winter Olympics. The film depicts Harding as a woman trapped in a cycle of abuse. After the premiere, I, Tonya was purchased by a distributor. 22
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
W E D N E S D AY
9/13
SUPER TANTRUM
DORK HORSES
In their new work, Angélica Maria Millán Lozano and Maximiliano Carlos—the two Portland artists behind the art collective Cvllerjerx—will give a rambunctious performance that’s part poetry, part dance and part madcap fashion show. PICA, 15 NE Hancock St., pica.org/tba. 10:30 pm. Free.
The goth-themed standup showcase is hosted by a long list of Portland standup favorites like Adam Pasi and Wendy Weiss. For this edition, they’ll be joined by the surprisingly dark humor of Jason Traeger and Dan Weber, whose material is as metal as their aesthetic. Fixin’ To, 8218 N Lombard St., facebook.com/ dorkhorses. 9 pm. Free.
9/14
T H U R S D AY
BULLY
Five years in, Feast remains the most monstrous and decadent and all-consuming festival Portland’s ever seen—a mess of finger-food street bazaars, overblown industry parties and ultra-exclusive backroom dinners that overload the imagination of every food whore in town for four straight days. Through Sept. 17. Mostly sold out. See schedule and buy tickets at feastportland.com.
Get Busy
9/15
TIA FULLER
TIA FULLER F R I D AY
FEAST PORTLAND
Grunge is dead, but don’t tell Bully frontwoman Alicia Bognanno, who’s carrying the crown of scuzzy angst forward into the new millennium. On forthcoming sophomore album Losing,, Bognanno continues to knock the wind out of guitar rock’s boys club with earnest lyrics about growing up and getting even. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 503-288-3895, mississippistudios.com. 9 pm. $3 with RSVP at redbullsoundselect.com, $10 without. 21+.
Saxophonist Tia Fuller is known in the jazz world as one of the heaviest-hitting reed players on Earth. Tonight, she leads an all-star quartet through a selection of tunes from her four solo albums, a musical assortment that will run the gamut from swinging bebop to heavy-hitting funk and beyond. Fremont Theater, 2393 NE Fremont St., 503-946-1962, fremonttheater.com. 7:30 and 9:30 pm. $25 advance, $30 day of show. All ages.
WHERE WE'LL BE GORGING ON SAUSAGE AND HELPING TIE UP STRANGERS THIS WEEK.
BUNNY Created by Australian dancers Luke George and Daniel Kok, Bunny is more like a plotless theater production or a public bondage ritual than a traditional dance show. They perform their kink-inspired trust exercise with the help of audience participation and lots of neon rope. Brunish Hall, 1111 SW Broadway, pica.org/tba. 8:30 pm. $25.
SEPT. 13–19
S AT U R D AY
9/16
KELLS SUMMER SMOKER
SZA
Watch Irish people and others knock the living crap out of each other with their fists at the first-ever summer smoker at Kells—it's apparently USA vs. the entire world, which lately seems to be what the USA is all about. Anyway: Boxing! Kells Irish Pub (back parking lot), 112 SW 2nd Ave., 503-227-4057, kellsportland.com/summersmoker. 6 pm. $20-25 general admission.
The first lady of Top Dawg Entertainment endured a long road of delays before her debut album CTRL arrived earlier this year. To say it was “worth the wait” is an understatement—taking a kaleidoscopic approach to her mix of funk, pop and soul, with lyrics that don’t shy away from interpersonal drama, it’s a frontrunner for R&B album of the year. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 971-230-0033, roselandpdx.com. 9 pm. Sold out. All ages.
9/17
S U N D AY
STAMMTISCH OKTOBERFEST Starting Friday, Stammtisch will shut down the street and turn the German beer bar into a whole block full of sausage and picnic tables and dirndls. The best German beer in Portland Oktoberfest will be here. We’re told there will also be face painting, as there was in more Teutonic times. Stammtisch, 401 NE 28th Ave., 503-206-7983, stammtischpdx.com. Starts September 15.
THE HAMILTON MIXTAPE CABARET A cabaret adaptation of a rap musical about a founding father sounds...interesting. But if anyone can pull it off, it’s Portland company Miss Alex Kennedy’s Burlesque, whose previous unconventional burlesque shows include a Bob’s Burgers tribute. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside, danteslive.com. 8:30 pm. $15-$20.
M O N D AY
9/18
LA CHINOISE
NEW SWEARS
The most action-packed movie to come out of the French New Wave movement, La Chinoise is about Maoist French college students who plot the assassination of a Soviet ambassador. It screens as part of NW Film Center’s new Monday experimental film series. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park Ave., nwfilm.org. 7 pm. $9.
Add New Swears to the long list of great bands that have inexplicably made Ottawa, Canada, the capital of modern-day guitar pop. On their new album, And the Magic of Horses, the quartet lets some country-rock haze drift into its bright and bouncy sound, and the result is one of the strongest collections of power-pop anthems in years. The Liquor Store, 3341 SE Belmont St., 503-754-7782. 9 pm. $8. 21+.
T U E S D AY
9/19
THE MOTH: MASTERY
CIRQUE DU SOLEIL
More Moth franchise than actual Moth storytelling series, this “storyslam” at Holocene is also a combo adult talent show—after spending 5 minutes telling you the origin story of some arcane ability they’ve mastered, the people onstage will show you their cherry-stemtying, souffle-baking, autofellating or one-hand-clapping skill…whatever it is. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 503-239-7639, themoth.org. 8 pm. $10. 21+.
The French-Canadian circus’ new show, Kurios, is themed as a big-top steampunk cabinet of curiosities. But aside from a man-bun mad scientist and crazy mechanical men, this seems to follow the Cirque’s usual deal—human bodies in wild-ass costumes doing lots of things the human body should never, ever do, not even on a dare. Portland Expo Center, 2060 N. Marine Dr., cirquedusoleil.com. 8 pm through Oct. 8. $37-$125. Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
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WILLAMETTE WEEK’S 5th annual
PRO/AM
Saturday October 14th noon-6pm
30 + Beers + ciders you can’t taste anywhere else
BEER
Commons People ONE OF PORTLAND’S MOST CELEBRATED BREWERIES, THE COMMONS, ANNOUNCED IT’S CLOSING. WHAT HAPPENED?
BY MA RT IN CIZ MA R
mcizmar@wweek.com
The loss of the Commons was, as the saying goes, a shock, but not a surprise. The brewery was once one of the city’s most romantic success stories. The operation started as a nano in the Southeast Portland garage of owner Mike Wright, who sold his beer doorto-door to bars on Division Street. He quit his day job as an IT manager for Multnomah County and opened a 7-barrel brewhouse in an intimate nook of industrial Southeast, and in 2015, the Commons moved up to a massive 15-barrel showhouse at the eastern edge of the Morrison Bridge. In retrospect, the move was a mistake. In July, WW reported that the Commons head brewer Sean Burke had departed. Rumors suggested the brewery was being sold, which brand manager Josh Grgas denied when WW asked. Turns out, the Commons is not being sold. Rather, it’s vacating its space at the end of this year to make room for California’s Modern Times, which plans to lease the space to open a “Fermentorium” complete with a coffee roaster and a full food menu. We were among the Commons’ earliest and loudest supporters, naming its Urban Farmhouse as Beer of the Year in the first edition of our best-selling beer guide magazine. But we were also among the first to flag problems with the Belmont Street space. What went wrong? Beer bloggers had plenty of theories. Jeff Alworth, the nationally renowned Portland beer writer, described the Commons as “the Velvet Underground of breweries,” which made “exceptional beer most people didn’t understand.” His published theory was that the Commons failed to market itself well enough, which other bloggers and geeks quickly embraced. We wanted to hear from the experts: successful brewery owners and the publicans who sold the Commons’ beer. So we reached out to them, along with other beer-industry observers. Because Portland is a small town, we granted them anonymity in exchange for their honest appraisal of the situation. We don’t want to heap trouble on the Commons, but to move the conversation forward with an unsparing assessment of what went wrong, so that hopefully others can avoid this fate. The Commons wasn’t selling enough beer. Seems obvious, right? But, it’s worth looking at the specifics. Brian Yaeger, a longtime Portland Mercury beer writer, bemoaned “disloyal” drinkers. “It speaks volumes, and poorly, of us as beer patrons that we didn’t spend enough money on their beer,” he wrote on Facebook. “If the Commons can’t move enough product locally, perhaps no one outside of Breakside can.” This is not what the brewers we talked to said. “The publicly available numbers in the OLCC beer reports made it clear that things were not going as great even by the end of 2015,” said brewer No. 1. “Between the end of 2014 and 2015, The Commons only grew in-state sales by about 100 barrels or 8 percent...in a year that they undertook a big expansion and 24
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
CHRISTINE DONG
WRIGHT AND WRONG: The Commons taproom.
buildout. How can you pay the debt from that off if you’re selling hardly any more beer than you were beforehand?” In 2016, the Commons signed a wholesale agreement with a distributor. Sales did not jump. By the midpoint of 2016, they were on track to do about 2,000 barrels—the same as much-less prominent breweries like Golden Valley and Klamath Basin. Distribution cut into their profit margin, but they were not selling significantly more beer. The Commons’ wine-style 750 milliliter bottles were popular with local fine-dining restaurants because they’re cheap, do well in storage and pair well with food. But those large, shareable bottles were a turnoff to more casual craft drinkers. “[ Wine-sized bottles] of well-balanced farmhouse-type beers have a limited audience, no matter how popular you think the style is right now,” wrote brewer No. 2. “Urban Farmhouse is a wonderful, well-priced, multiple-award-winning beer… [but] we’re in an age of consumers wanting new, new, new all the time.” “Consumption of saison is down. It peaked a few years ago and has been trending downward,” wrote brewer No. 1. “They were trying to push an increasingly unpopular style in an increasingly unpopular format, and they had expanded in a way where they had to move a decent quantity of beer to stay afloat.” We shared these opinions and the others here with Wright, who questioned whether exterior perspectives can be of any help, writing that “If there is a sincere desire within the beer community to learn from the Commons experience, then I am happy to speak with my colleagues one-onone, and would be willing to conduct some sort of Oregon Brewers Guild forum.” Their tasting room didn’t work. Everyone agreed what the Commons was doing with their new, large taphouse wasn’t working, but there was no consensus on a better direction. “Lacking air conditioning and outdoor seating is a big limiter to traffic in their tasting room,” said an industry insider. Brewer No. 2 would have favored a full kitchen: “People love to eat out in this town, and their beers are so well suited to pairing with a proper meal.” Others didn’t see any hope once the Commons moved into their new space. “Sure, more seating, a patio, a real kitchen—any of those would have helped,” said brewer No. 1. “But even some of the busiest brewpubs in the city
barely move more than 2,000 barrels onsite. Realistically, given the space, I don’t think they were ever going to move more than 600-800 barrels onsite in a year, so even in an ideal situation, I’d argue that they needed to sell about 2,500 barrels [outside their brewery] in order to [break even].” A second industry insider we talked to said the math was wrong. “There isn’t enough seating to turn over enough plates at an ‘affordable’ price point with their fixed costs,” they said. One respected local beer writer was more unsparing. “Classic overreach, driven by ego and a poor business plan,” they said. “Their success in the little space on Stephens lulled them into thinking they needed more space and production capacity. It was a mirage.” Almost to the end, they didn’t make IPAs. The Commons was famously resistant to making IPAs. It won them plaudits from hop haters like Portland Mercury food critic Andrea Damewood, but once they were in an area frequented by bar crawlers and tourists, it seemed odd. Brewer No. 1 had little patience for brewers who don’t want to make what customers want. “Some brewers view making an IPA as pandering,” they said. “To me, that’s crazy. Selling IPA is what can allow a brewer to subsidize and support all their other projects. Would a brewery making lots of IPAs on the same equipment in the same space with the same food options have had a higher likelihood of staying in business? I think so. ” “The brewers would love to make something more interesting than another IPA,” says brewer No. 3. “Then again, we all like being able to cash our paychecks.’” The second industry insider thought the lowhop strategy could work if they’d put more effort into marketing it; for example, by throwing more release parties. “Regardless of our personal opinions on [release parties], they matter long-term,” they said. “Those don’t make a business, but slowly get people out of their comfort zone.” But brewer No. 1 says brewers don’t have to make it their main mission to push unpopular styles. “Can you imagine a chef saying that they won’t put a chicken dish on their bistro menu because there is an overabundance of coq au vin in Parisian bistros?” says brewer No. 1. “You’re at a French bistro, you serve coq au vin. You’re a brewery in Portland: Make and serve the IPA.” Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
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FOOD & DRINK = WW Pick. Highly recommended. By MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Editor: MARTIN CIZMAR. Email: dish@wweek.com. See page 3 for submission instructions.
THURSDAY, SEPT. 14 Feast Portland
Five years in, Feast remains the most monstrous and decadent and all-consuming festival Portland’s ever seen—a mess of finger-food street bazaars, overblown industry parties and ultra-exclusive backroom dinners that overloads the imagination of every food whore in town for four straight days. Through Sept. 17. Mostly sold out. See schedule and buy tickets at feastportland.com. Various locations (see description). All day.
FRIDAY, SEPT. 15 Stammtisch 2017 Oktoberfest
Starting Friday, Stammtisch will shut down the street and turn the German beer bar into a whole block full of sausage and picnic tables and dirndls. The best German beer in Portland Oktoberfest will be here. We’re told there will also be face painting, as there was in more Teutonic times. Stammtisch, 401 NE 28th Ave., 503206-7983. Through Sunday.
SATURDAY, SEPT. 16 Vegan Nigerian Brunch
Chef Salimatu Amabebe will be serving up a vegan BYO-booze breakfast feast featuring the flavors of her home country of Nigeria. This means collard greens and coconut gravy, cassava fries, black-eye pea stew, plantains and pineapple cornmeal pancakes, all for $35. Tickets at eatfeastly.com. Feastly PDX, 912 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 10:30 am-12:30 pm.
Mexican Independence Day
You know Cinco de Mayo? It’s a fraud. El Grito de Independencia is the actual Independence Day celebrated by, you know, actual Mexicans—with mariachi, salsa, cumbia, Aztec dancing and tons of food and drink. Rose Quarter, 1 N Center Ct St #150, 11 am-11 pm.
SUNDAY, SEPT. 17 David Thompson at Pok Pok NW
The first Thai-food chef to score a Michelin-star was Aussie chef David Thompson at Nahm London, closely followed by Portland’s Andy Ricker in New York (Ricker’s star faded this year). Both Michelin stars will be cooking together at Pok Pok NW in a rare $120 Thai-food farangstravaganza that, at press time, somehow isn’t sold out. So get some. Pok Pok NW, 639 NW Marshall St., 971-351-1946. 8 pm.
Where to eat this week:
1. Aviv
1125 SE DivisionSt., 503-206-6280, avivpdx.com. Aviv pretty much revolutionized hummus in Portland, with eight distinct preparations including hatch chile, zhoug and harissa versions. $$.
2. Ara Restaurant
6159 SW Murray Blvd., 503-747-4823. After 10 pm on a Saturday, this may be the most hoppin’ Korean spot in all of Portland. $$.
3. Dil Se
1201 SW Jefferson St., 503-804-5619, dilsepdx.com. A restaurant co-owned by a former chef of Chennai Masala brings great Indian to downtown, with killer masala dosas. $$.
4. Chin’s Kitchen
4132 NE Broadway St., 503-181-1203, chinskitchenportland.com. This 49-year-old standby now has seriously excellent NortheasternChinese-style hand-pulled noodles and dumplings. $$.
5. Fukami
2215 E Burnside St. (inside Davenport), fukamipdx.com. Sundays and Mondays all September, sushi pop-up Fukami will serve a surf and turf supplemented by legendary A5 wagyu. $$$$.
LIZ ALLAN
DRANK
— W i l l a m e t t e We e k P r e s e n t s —
RestauRant Portland’s Guide
Hellsner Fresh-Hop Helles (Baerlic)
Publishes October 25th
Portland’s definitive annual look at the best of the robust culinary selection our city has to offer. Featuring our Top 100 Restaurants as well as the Restaurant of the Year. Contact advertising@wweek.com or 503.243.2122.
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Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
Fresh-hop lagers are usually a bad idea. The wild hop aromatics often come on more like adulterant than enhancement to a beer style usually best loved for its cleanliness and malt character. But fresh off a Great American Beer Festival gold medal for their fresh-hop ESB, Baerlic Brewing rolled the dice with a fresh-hop helles. Weirdly, it works: The earthy and citrus notes of Santiam hops come on as a complementary accent to the beer’s breadiness, with a lot more balance and control than you’d get from a volatile, back-loaded fresh-hop IPA. Consider it a hemp loaf—a bit of farminess with the grain. If it isn’t as revelatory in its hop flavor as Breakside’s Simcoe, it’s a beer that crackles with Teutonic intelligence. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.
THOMAS TEAL
I
REVIEW
I
Sha
www.sha
Shandong www.shandongportland.com
EAT YOUR COLORS: Farmhouse makes wildly colorful food.
Thai’d Up Tight
Fillmore Trattoria
Italian Home Cooking Tuesday–Saturday 5:30PM–10PM closed Sunday & Monday
FARMHOUSE KITCHEN IS VERY GOOD THAI. BUT CAN IT STAND OUT IN SUCH A SPOILED CITY?
BY M A RT I N C I Z M A R
mcizmar@wweek.com
In another bubble of the multiverse, Farmhouse Kitchen was just named the Oregonian’s restaurant of the year. Farmhouse comes from San Francisco, where the Michelin Guide named it one of the Bay Area’s best inexpensive restaurants—inexpensiveness being a relative descriptor for a restaurant that charges $10 for vegan salad rolls. In May, Farmhouse took over from another ambitious Thai spot, Nakhon, bringing traditional dishes like tom yum soup, spicy papaya salad and the famous ricebattered fried chicken from the city of Hat Yai. In an alternate universe, Oregonian food critic Karen Brooks, entering her third decade at the local daily, praises the Portland Farmhouse’s wild, new Thai dishes as “epicly swoon-worthy.” Over there, Trump is still scamming everyone involved in the condominium trade and Pok Pok’s Andy Ricker is still working as a house painter and playing bass in bands that sound like Elliott Smith. Without Ricker, Thai food in Portland looks like Thai in Sacramento or Boise. Thanks to Ricker, we have not only Pok Poks aplenty, but had a smooth runway for Langbaan and Nong’s Khao Man Gai. Our current timeline is dark—the Oregonian’s critic didn’t name a restaurant of the year in his annual food issue, and Karen Brooks is writing about vegan push-pops for the littleread city magazine—but at least Portland has long had gobsmacking Hat Yai fried chicken coated in crushed peppercorns and fried shallots then dipped into the Malay-style house curry. You can get a whole bird with sticky rice for $23 at Hat Yai on Northeast Killingsworth. Which is all to say Portland is spoiled when it comes to Thai. We might even have the country’s second best Thai food scene after Los Angeles. I’ve been to Farmhouse five times and been impressed, but the best Thai meal I’ve had this year was at the new Pok Pok Northwest. The one true breakout star at Farmhouse is a rustic recipe befitting its name, a slow-cooked beef short rib called panang neua ($25.95). It’s served bone-in, Flintstones-style, over a bed of bright blue jasmine rice and dressed with a punchy
orange panang curry. It’s a beautiful and imposing plate, with fall-apart tender beef getting outrageous depth from the hot and nutty curry. That same meaty rib makes an appearance in my favorite soup, the “24 hours beef noodle soup” ($21.95), which is built off veal broth and egg noodles, then brightened with herbs. Another must-order is the “herbal rice salad” ($13.95), also known as “khao yum,” in which you toss up a list of almost a dozen ingredients, most prominently shredded green mango, bright blue jasmine rice, crispy shallots, toasted coconut, peanuts and cilantro. The dressing of kaffir lime, tamarind dressing and lemongrass makes it outright addictive. For an ideal meal, order the rib with the salad and an appetizer of the spicy larb tuna ($12.95), which uses tuna and sour mango plus herbs to be dipped with wonton chips. If Farmhouse’s owners had surveyed the city and found other such niches, it could really be a standout. Unfortunately, much of the menu covers well-trodden ground, served at premium prices but without the superlative flavors to match. That starts with the Hat Yai chicken ($20.95), which has undergone a few iterations. They’re on the right track, as the most recent version was the best: a flattened boneless breast in a thick but brittle batter that recalled Long John Silver’s (in the good way). It’s satisfying with the roti and yellow curry, but lacks the intense depth of flavor you get from the Hat-Yai-brand Hat Yai chicken. And then there are the curries—none are failures, but none have the depth I want in small portions at $14 plus a buck or two for meat. The same is true of the lineup of classic Thai dishes like pad Thai and pad see ew. I’m no snob; I love a good pad kee mao. But at Farmhouse you tend to get slightly overcooked noodles with a few basil leaves and some shredded carrots. It’s college-town Thai, and it doesn’t fly in Portland. Not in this universe, anyway.
1937 NW 23RD Place Portland, OR 97210
(971) 386-5935
GO: Farmhouse Kitchen, 3354 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-432-8115, farmhousepdx.com. $$-$$$. Monday, Wednesday and Thursday 11 am-2:30 pm and 5-9pm. Friday 11 am-2:30 pm and 5-10 pm. Saturday 11 am-10 pm. Sunday 11 am-10 pm. Closed Tuesday. Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
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MUSIC PROFILE
All Mixed Up PORTLAND’S ANDRÉ ALLEN ANJOS MADE HIS NAME REMIXING SOME OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST ARTISTS. CAN HIS OWN MUSIC EVER MEASURE UP? msinger@wweek.com
Winning a Grammy changed a lot of things for André Allen Anjos, not the least of which being that it finally gave his parents something they could brag to their friends about. “The notoriety of that name means a lot, especially in non-music circles,” says the 32-year-old Portugal-born, Portland-based electronic musician, who took home a golden gramophone in February for his moody remix of Bob Moses’ “Tearing Me Up.” “You can talk to friends and family and say, ‘Pitchfork picked up my new single,’ but they don’t care. You say you won a Grammy, that’s very different. It’s something my parents’ friends get now, like, ‘OK, it’s not just a little hobby he has.’” In fairness to his parents’ friends, until recently, Anjos’ career did not appear drastically different from someone presiding over a particularly active Etsy store. While attending college in Greenville, Ill., in 2007, he started the Remix Artist Collective out of his bedroom, recruiting other producers he met online with the idea of creating, in essence, a remix-for-hire business. By the time he moved to Portland two years later, he’d shed the other members, adopted the group’s acronym, RAC, as a solo moniker and earned a burgeoning reputation for not so much remixing songs as fully reinventing them. But even then, his success was “THE TRUTH IS, IF A mostly defined by the abstract REMIX IS BAD, IT JUST terms of the internet, measured in Soundcloud plays, Hype Machine DISAPPEARS. WHEREAS rankings and Stereogum excluIt turned out to be a fun, sives. When he won the Grammy IF YOU PUT OUT A BAD for Best Remixed Recording this candy-coated electro-pop year—his second nomination in record. But in form and funcALBUM, YOUR CAREER tion, Strangers didn’t stray the category—it didn’t just give CAN BE OVER.” terribly far from that of his Anjos an accolade he could show remixes. While theoretically off to his family. It brought him — RAC’s André Allen Anjos a collaborative effort, with the kind of legitimacy that opens various artists, including doors blog hype can’t. But proving your worth as a remixer is one thing. Yacht, Tegan and Sara and Bloc Party’s Kele Okereke, Convincing the world you can write your own music lending their voices to his arrangements, much of the is quite another. work was done over email—a process Anjos describes as In July, Anjos released Ego, his second album of all- “purely transactional.” In fact, he still hasn’t met some original material. And while he’s taken on huge projects of the contributors in person. before, remixing the likes of U2 and Lady Gaga and helpTo make the next album, Anjos knew he had to get ing produce the last Linkin Park record, he knows the bar out of his comfort zone. Specifically, he had to leave for failure is much lower when your name is on the cover his studio. rather than in the credits. “I knew that I wanted to make something bigger “The truth is, if a remix is bad, it just disappears. It’s and more emotional and more connected to the kind of not career-shattering,” he says. “Whereas if you put out a music I really like,” he says. “With this new album, it was bad album, your career can be over.” a lot more of me going to work with these other artists Considering he got to make another one, Anjos’ first in their space, in their studios, and writing the songs in album, 2014’s Strangers, should probably count as a success. person. I think that is noticeable in the songwriting, at Talking about it now, though, Anjos admits he went in with least for me.” little conception of what an RAC album should sound like. Indeed, Ego feels like RAC’s first true statement of “When I think back on that time, I really have no idea purpose. As the title implies, the album is “an exploration what I was going for,” he says. “I was just trying stuff and of self,” as Anjos puts it, but it is hardly an exercise in letting songs come out naturally. Which worked out, but navel-gazing. Like its predecessor, it features a bevy of there wasn’t a clear vision.” guest vocalists, many drawn from the indie-pop world. But
CLAIRE MARIE VOGEL
BY M AT T H E W SI N GER
this time, instead of simply sending them a demo to sing over, Anjos met with his collaborators face-to-face, and allowed their conversations to shape the finished product. He spent two days with ex-Vampire Weekend member Rostam Batmanglij, himself an in-demand producer, and their creative push-and-pull resulted in buoyant highlight “This Song.” He got to live out his teenage alt-rock fantasies, writing “I Still Wanna Know” with Rivers Cuomo, who Anjos talked into contributing not just his signature yearning vocals but a very Weezerish guitar solo as well. Sequenced like a dance mix, with a continual pulse throughout, the mood is uniformly upbeat, bursting with sticky melodies, bright synths and big choruses. But as with his remixes, Anjos isn’t interested in making typical club bangers, and songs like “Heartbreak Summer” and “No One Has To Know” slip enough melancholy under the surface to ensure that any euphoria derived from them is hard-won. After years of servicing the vision of other artists, with Ego, Anjos thinks he’s gotten closer to figuring out exactly what it is he wants to say himself. But he admits the process is still ongoing—a fact he embraces. “I think I’ll be doing this for a long time,” he says. SEE IT: RAC plays Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., with NVDES, on Saturday, Sept. 16. 8 pm. $23 advance, $25 day of show. All ages.
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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.
Greg Graffin, Chuck Westmoreland
[PORCH PUNK] Like a lot of aging punk rockers, Greg Graffin has gone country. Millport, the Bad Religion singer’s second roots-flavored solo album, trades speedy power chords for mellow banjo and his trademark wordiness for a more direct form of lyricism. It isn’t terribly convincing, to be honest, as Graffin’s raspy holler doesn’t really work over more subdued songwriting. If it succeeds at all, it’s likely due to his ace backing band, with includes members of Social Distortion and Los Lobos, two bands with a tight grasp on the connections between punk and Americana. Let’s hope they’ll be joining him onstage here. MATTHEW SINGER. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 503-288-3895. 9 pm. $25 advance, $30 day of show. 21+.
Shannon & the Clams, The Shivas
[SURF-GARAGE] Garage acts seem to come a dime a dozen nowadays. Even so, Shannon and the Clams have managed to command attention better than most the last few years. Since 2009, the Oakland-based foursome has dished out tuneful, doowop-tinged tracks, led by the wailing vocals of Shannon Shaw. The band’s last album, Gone By The Dawn, saw them at their most lyrically vulnerable, with songs centered around the fallout from two bad breakups within the group, but the heartbreak is masked by a steady supply of rhythmic grooves and catchy melodies. CERVANTE POPE. White Owl Social Club, 1305 SE 8th Ave., 503-236-9672. 8 pm. $15 advance, $18 day of show. 21+.
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THE FIVE CRAZIEST STORIES FROM THE POISON IDEA DOCUMENTARY
Early in their career, Poison Idea played an ill-conceived concert at Beaverton High School for “Punk Rock Awareness Day.” Frontman Jerry A swung from the gym rope, flipped off teachers, antagonized the jocks, then invited the whole auditorium to party at the band’s clubhouse in downtown Portland. It only took about four songs before the cops were called. Jerry says he hasn’t been to Beaverton since. 2 Poison Idea’s first show out of Portland was in Eugene, “opening” for a screening of the classic punk doc The Decline of Western Civilization. A near-riot ensued, with the band fighting off local frat boys. A beer bottle got thrown through the screen, and the movie theater curtain may or may not have caught on fire. 3 As a teenager, late guitarist Tom “Pig Champion” Roberts got barred from seeing the Ramones play a local club because he was underage, despite having bought a ticket. So he did what any vengeful kid might do—he drank a case of Lowenbrau, ate some hash and called in a bomb threat. It didn’t work, but points for effort. 4 Jerry A claims that, at the band’s chaotic peak, he used to throw lit M-80s into the crowd. One time, he accidentally blew up a sound booth. “We stopped doing that because somebody got a digit blown off,” he says. “He took it in stride.” 5 By the time Poison Idea got invited to play Bud Clark’s annual Mayor’s Ball, their reputation preceded them. A phalanx of riot cops waited outside the convention center; while inside, Jerry A busted out his favorite parlor trick, blowing a fireball over the audience’s heads. Allegedly, the fire marshal kept a photo of that particular moment framed on his desk. MATTHEW SINGER. SEE IT: Poison Idea: Legacy of Dysfunction screens at Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave., on Thursday, Sept. 14. 7 and 9 pm. $9.25. 21+. See review on page 42. 30
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C O U R T E S Y O F B A N D C A M P. C O M
WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 13
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
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6 SW THIRD NEXT TO VOODOO
THURS SEPT 14 9PM EIDOLON ENT. PRESENTS:
DOOZY, CHENBEAR, STRITCH, MUTAGEN
PUNK TUESDAYS: COMING SOON
THURS SEPT 21 9PM EIDOLON ENT. PRESENTS:
MIKE-ILL, TORBJORN & CALI BEHR
THURSDAY, SEPT. 14 Red Bull Sound Select: Bully, Black Belt Eagle Scout, Surfer Rosie
[FEMME FUZZ] See Get Busy, page 23. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 503-288-3895. 8 pm. $3 with RSVP at redbullsoundselect.com, $10 without. 21+.
Conner Youngblood
[CINEMATIC BLUES] Texas native Conner Youngblood plays somewhere between 15 and 20 instruments, and it shows in his lush soundscapes. A singer-songwriter at heart, Youngblood has orchestration and arrangement chops, shepherding brass, keys, woodwinds and more into vast, cinematic compositions. The only catch is that he’s often performing alone, looping sounds that create a rich backdrop for his mildly bluesy guitar work. His last record, The Generation of Lift, was released in 2015 and reflects a deep love for Scandinavia, both lyrically and in terms of its ambient, boreal sound. MARK STOCK. The Old Church, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 503-222-2031. 8 pm. $12. All ages.
FRIDAY, SEPT. 15 Deerhoof, Christina Schneider’s Genius Grant, Mayya and the Revolutionary Hell Yeah!
[EXPERIMENTAL ROCK STARS] All hail Deerhoof, the most underrated band to survive the aughts blog bubble indie-rock boom. Since forming in San Francisco in 1994, the prolific art-rockers have released 14 albums—all of them good, all different than the preceding record—with a few transcendent songs every year or so. Released this month, Mountain Moves is one of the band’s more
accessible jaunts, stuffed to the brim with spiky guitar lines, Greg Saunier’s deceptively straightforward and funky drumming, and the clearest vocal melodies of its career. It’s also jam-packed with guest appearances from friends, including Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner, Juana Molina, Xenia Rubinos and rapper Awkwafina, who finally helps push the band’s love of hip-hop to the surface. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Mississippi Studios, 3939 Mississippi Ave., 503-2883895. 9 pm. $15 advance, $17 day of show. 21+.
SATURDAY, SEPT. 16 Fleet Foxes, Natalie Prass
[CACOPHONOUS FOLK] Much has already been made about Seattle folk-rock outfit Fleet Foxes’ return this year after a six-year absence, but the time off wasn’t just spent practicing vocal scales and getting haircuts. Songwriter Robin Pecknold has always championed more experimental, outre music, and with the band’s impressive new record, Crack-Up, he’s combined the group’s layered harmonies and classic indie-rock propulsion with a newfound sense of noise and ambience. These are not simple folk ditties—the 11 songs here are winding and elliptical yet still hummable, filled with blank spaces, atonal string arrangements and inventive percussion. Fleet Foxes have lost some of its dorm-room charm, but sound all the better for it. MICHAEL MANNHEIMER. Edgefield, 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale, 503-6698610. 6:30 pm. Sold out. All ages.
SZA, Smino, Ravyn Lenae
[EMPOWERING R&B] See Get Busy, page 23. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 971-230-0033. 8 pm. Sold out. All ages.
PREVIEW C O U R T E SY O F FAC E B O O K
THE NEW PARIS THEATRE
MUSIC
FRI SEPT 22 8PM
SEPIATONIC & HIGH STEP SOCIETY AT THE PARIS FRI OCT 6 8PM LIVE AT PARIS THEATRE FT.
HANNAH LEMONS & DECADENT 80’S W/ DJ NON
EVENT INFO
(503)847-9177 WEB
THEPARISPDX.COM FACEBOOK.COM/
THEPARISPDX 32
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
TOKiMONSTA [GLOBAL GLITCH] To understand the emergence of Jennifer Lee, aka TOKiMONSTA, one should consider the ongoing influence of the Low End Theory, the weekly DJ event in Los Angeles billed as “a showcase for glitch, IDM, avant-rap and more.” With electronic-based music rooted in bugged-out samples and hip-hop beats serving as the event’s umbrella, it’s only natural that Lee’s mind-bending palette of global rhythms, infectious earworms and sky-punching club bangers has fueled her ascent from dorm-room obscurity to opening slots for Grimes and Skrillex. Though they seem spastic at first, Lee has mastered the art of cranking out manically genius EPs that dance all over the line between meticulous, laptop-assisted assembly and the crackling analog warmth of forebears like J Dilla and Dr. Dre. Last year’s Fovere glides seamlessly between the Anderson .Paak-driven trap cut “Put It Down” and the slow-burning anthem “Heart on the Ground.” The EDM bubble is likely to burst any time now, but Lee’s vast influences and impeccable taste have all but guaranteed her continued success. PETE COTTELL. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 503-239-7639. 9 pm Friday, September 15. Sold out. 21+.
DATES HERE
TBA: Death Dance
[ART RAGE] If you’re not mad, you’re not paying attention— or just too privileged to care. In either case, this TBA showcase, curated by indigenous activist and artist Demian DinéYahzi´, probably isn’t for you. With sets from selfdescribed “angry pop-punk” trio Weedrat and Chicano riot grrrls FEA, plus videos and poetry, it’s a night dedicated raging against white supremacy in all its forms. PICA at Hancock, 15 NE Hancock St., pica.org. 10:30 pm. $5 sliding scale. All ages.
PROFILE C O U R T E S Y O F B A N D C A M P. C O M
SUNDAY, SEPT. 17
MONDAY, SEPT. 18 New Swears, Patsy’s Rats, The Goobs
[POWER POP] See Get Busy, page 23 The Liquor Store, 3341 SE Belmont St., 503-754-7782. 9 pm. $8. 21+.
TUESDAY, SEPT. 19 Tennyson, Photay
[DIGITAL JAZZ] Brother-sister duo Tennyson are making some of the most inventive electronic music out there. The Canadian twosome specializes in weaving found sounds into pulsing, jazzinspired electronica with a sense of organized chaos that has some already comparing the act to Aphex Twin and Flying Lotus. A series of EPs, including 2015’s beguiling Like What, hinted at prodigious talent from a band whose members are barely old enough to drink. Musically minded folks who have caught themselves drumming along to car alarms or microwave beeps will have a special place for this rising act. MARK STOCK. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 503-284-8686. 8:30 pm. $14 advance, $16 day of show. All ages.
CLASSICAL, JAZZ & WORLD Changing Places: A Light, Music, and Art Installation
[FOUNTAINS OF MUSIC] With construction making its usual Washington Park home off limits, the annual Portland SummerFest is temporarily relocating to what’s now being branded as the “Fountain District”—the sequence of open spaces designed in the 1960s by famed architect Lawrence Halprin to soften the scars wrought by Portland’s illconceived, car-centric “urban removal” of the South Auditorium area. Some years ago, Third Angle showed how those spaces can be used for effective performance, and this time, a diverse group of dancers, musicians and visual artists will activate those spaces. Recorded soundscapes featuring the voices of Halprin and his even more famous wife, choreographer Anna Halprin, play at the little Source Fountain. Inventive Cascadia Composers and pianists Dan Brugh and Jennifer Wright play their own new music for peace at Lovejoy Fountain. A trio of local opera singers accompanied by pianist Chuck Dillard sing arias at Keller Fountain (illuminated by trippy colored lights), and more. Dancers cavort in the spaces between the spaces. BRETT CAMPBELL. Fountain District, SW Lincoln and SW Market Streets. 5 pm Wednesday, Sept. 13. Free. All ages.
Tia Fuller
[SAX QUEEN] See Get Busy, page 23. Fremont Theater, 2393 NE Fremont Street, 503-946-1962. 7:30 and 9:30 pm Friday, Sept. 15. $25 advance, $30 day of show. All ages.
Prophets of Doom ON THEIR THIRD ALBUM, USNEA’S DYSTOPIAN METAL IS SOUNDING A LOT LIKE REAL LIFE.
O
regon is burning, record-breaking hurricanes are pummeling the Southeast, North Korea is threatening nuclear war—Usnea really couldn’t have timed the release of their new album better. Portals Into Futility, the crushing, Portland’s doom-metal fourpiece’s devastating sophomore effort, reeks of impending chaos and unforgiving defeat. Not only that, it reminds us how helpless our whole species is in the face of cosmic forces. “We wanted to make the next album more about dystopian scifi,” says singer-guitarist Justin Cory, “and it felt really correct with what’s going on in the world, too.” Space-themed metal used to fixate on aliens and other untold terrors that may or may not lurk beyond our reaches, but nowadays, there’s enough source material in our current sphere of knowledge to inspire opuses of planetary decay. In the eyes of singer-bassist Joel Williams, some of the band’s favorite sci-fi is becoming less fiction and “more prophecy.” “It went from Lovecraftian to, ‘Oh, we’re fucked,’” he says. Portals’ lyrics were inspired by heady sci-fi fare like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun series, and matching them is a sound that’s alternately oppressive, dizzying and haunting. Prior to forming Usnea in 2011, most of its members were veterans of various genres in the punk and metal spheres. And while the music is based in the unrelenting crunch of doom, it draws from outside those realms as well. “I grew up playing classical violin,” says guitarist Johnny Lovingood. “So I love the long, drawn-out, no-fucking-chorus type of stuff that we do. There’s a movement to it—it starts here, it ends there and rarely does it repeat in the middle.” On their third album, Usnea continue unlocking the possibilities of glacially slow arrangement by patiently ebbing from ominous, swirling post-rock to pitch-black sludge, evoking gradual but cataclysmic shifts of the natural world and cosmos. The biggest change from the band’s first two albums—apart from a longer gestation process, three years compared to the 18 months between their first two albums—is a “willingness to include clean vocals,” Cory says. Don’t expect skyscraping, Pallbearer-style vocal leads. But there are moments when the storm briefly breaks and Cory guides us through the eye of the hurricane with plaintive singing that offers respite from his bloodcurdling shrieks and Williams’ guttural howls. Nowhere is this more effective than on 19-minute closer “A Crown of Desolation,” which begins by describing the chaotic overthrowing of a tyrannical regime and ends with the forlorn realization that we’re doomed to repeat history. With Portals Into Futility, Usnea offer earthly defeatism that gives way to cosmic indifference—and, after enough listens, some twisted form of hope. “Humans are inconsequential in terms of the universe,” Cory says. “If the earth explodes, the only ones who are gonna mourn us are ourselves. But at the same time, we are the stardust looking back and being sentient of itself, and as far as we know, there’s no other example of that.” PATRICK LYONS. SEE IT: Usnea plays Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy Blvd., with Thrones, Hands of Thieves and Ninth Moon Black, on Friday, Sept. 16. 8 pm. $7 advance, $10 day of show. 21+. Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
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Willamette Week Date, 2012 wweek.com
MUSIC CALENDAR THU. SEPT. 14
LAST WEEK LIVE
Catfish Lou’s
WED. SEPT. 13 Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave. An Evening with George Winston
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave. Korgy & Bass, Mic Crenshaw, Knablinz/ Infinityface
Catfish Lou’s
2460 NW 24th Ave. Robbie Laws Jam Session
Doug Fir Lounge 830 E Burnside St. The Living End
Edgefield
2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale The Old Yellers (The Winery Tasting Room)
Fountain District
SW Lincoln and SW Market Streets Changing Places: A Light, Music, and Art Installation
Fremont Theater
2393 NE Fremont St. Trio Uncontrollable
Hawthorne Theatre 1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd. Stiff Little Fingers, Death By Unga Bunga, The Lovesores
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. Tender Age, WL, See Through Dresses, Drowse
Jack London Revue
529 SW 4th Ave. Oz Noy, Ozone Squeeze
Justa Pasta
1336 NW 19th Ave. Anson Wright Duo
Kenton Club
2025 N Kilpatrick St. Cougar, Wax Edison
LaurelThirst Public House 2958 NE Glisan St. Bahttsi
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Greg Graffin, Chuck Westmoreland
Revolution Hall
1300 SE Stark St #110 Al Di Meola
Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave. Zomboy
2460 NW 24th Ave. Hurricane Fundraiser:Jonn Del Toro Richardson, Clint Morgan
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St. Saint Mesa, courtship (Lola’s Room)
Turn! Turn! Turn!
8 NE Killingsworth St. Comet Talk, The Social Stomach, Sea Moss
White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Ghosts Like Us
White Owl Social Club 1305 SE 8th Ave. Shannon & the Clams, The Shivas
Wonder Ballroom 128 NE Russell St. A Tribe Called Red
836 N Russell St Cow Paddy Stompers
MON. SEPT. 18
1001 SE Morrison St. Blockhead
Catfish Lou’s
2460 NW 24th Ave. Terry Robb Duo
Mississippi Studios
PICA at Hancock
15 NE Hancock St. Champagne & Honey: Stakes Is High
The 1905
830 N Shaver St. Nica’s Dream
The Fixin’ To
8218 N. Lombard St. Colin Jenkins, Jah’di Levvi, Leroy Jerome
Crystal Ballroom
BIG COUNTRY: Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit are the kind of band that, until their most recent album, The Nashville Sound, made music perfect for smoky billiard halls in Texas hill country populated by forklift drivers and farmhands. They’ve clearly outgrown those venues over the past five years. On Sept. 11, Isbell and his band took to Keller Auditorium and played to a sold-out crowd. With the larger stage comes a bigger, showier production than what many Isbell fans might be used to. A large, color-changing display of Isbell’s logo—an American flash-tattoo-style anchor and swallow—was the stage’s big visual aid, which seemed like a symbol of what headlining this type of venue signifies: Isbell, who made his name initially as a member of Drive-By Truckers, is becoming a larger star than ever before. The band kicked off the show with the large-hearted anthem “Hope the High Road,” which left the room seizing with energy, and kept the breakneck pace with a few songs from the new record before bringing it back down with the slower-paced country ditty “Codeine.” The chemistry of the band was tight and warm; Isbell often turned to his bandmates to share a smile between songs. One cost of Isbell’s new notoriety is that, from a stage that big, it’s hard to feel emotionally connected to the band, even during the gutwrenching “Elephant” or the beautiful “If We Were Vampires.” Still, Isbell and the band proved they’re up for the challenge of playing larger venues and meeting the hype created by the new record. JUSTIN CARROLL-ALLAN.
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St. Asher Fulero Band
The Know
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Black Seas Of Infinity, Sleeping With The Earth
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St. Shadowlands, Moon Tiger, Masonique
The Old Church
1422 SW 11th Ave. Conner Youngblood
The Secret Society
8 NE Killingsworth St Hunter Gather, The Crenshaw, Paper Gates
The Goodfoot
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Bitwvlf, Essex, Jvnitor, Miss Cleo
White Eagle Saloon
Holocene
Turn! Turn! Turn!
The Know
8 NE Killingsworth St. Plankton Wat, Sahba Sizdahkhani, Pulse Emitter
1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd Youngboy Never Broke Again
The Analog Cafe
2845 SE Stark St. Excellent Gentlemen, Tyrone Hendrix
Turn! Turn! Turn!
Hawthorne Theatre
116 NE Russell St Thursday Swing featuring The Juleps, 12th Avenue Hot Club
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Armors, Smoke Season, Patternist
116 NE Russell St. The Secret Light, We Are Parasols
2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Sonny Hess (The Little Red Shed)
13 NW 6th Ave. GoGo Penguin
Star Theater
The Secret Society
Edgefield
8105 SE 7th Ave. Whiskey Deaf
FRI. SEPT. 15 Alberta Street Pub
1036 NE Alberta St. TENTS, Championshps, PJENKS
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave. Vandella, Risley, Paper Brain
Catfish Lou’s
2460 NW 24th Ave. Lisa Mann & Her Really Good Band
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St. Marshall Crenshaw y Los Straitjackets
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St. Skylar Spence, Jonah Baseball
13 NW 6th Ave. The Nth Power, GhostNote
879 W Main St., Silverton Oregon Guitar Quartet
830 E Burnside St Rare Diagram, Sheers
Muddy Rudder Public House
Star Theater
The Oregon Garden
Doug Fir Lounge
1 N Center Ct St. Hank Williams Jr.
8105 SE 7th Ave. Dan & Fran
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Havania Whaal
350 W Burnside St. BassMint Pros
Moda Center
Muddy Rudder Public House
The Know
Dante’sC
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Bully, Black Belt Eagle Scout, Surfer Rosie
[SEPT 13-19]
For more listings, check out wweek.com.
THOMAS TEAL
= 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.
Doug Fir Lounge
The Analogue Cafe
Doug Fir Lounge
The Firkin Tavern
830 E Burnside St. Marv Ellis & We Tribe 830 E Burnside St. Mighty Oaks
Edgefield
2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Mark Alan (The Winery Tasting Room)
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Guldukat
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave. The Prids, Møtrik, Pacific Latitudes
1937 SE 11th Ave. Drunk On Pines, Jonny Ampersand, Great Niece
Catfish Lou’s
The Fixin’ To
Classic Pianos
8218 N. Lombard St. Fronjentress, Thee Last Go Round, Kelly Bauman
2460 NW 24th Ave. The Sportin’ Lifers 3003 SE Milwaukie Ave. George Whitty and Mike Prigodich
Fremont Theater
The Lovecraft Bar
Holocene
The Old Church
2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale Fleet Foxes, Natalie Prass
The O’Neil Public House
2393 NE Fremont St. Berahmand, Laryssa Birdseye, Camp Crush
2393 NE Fremont St. Tia Fuller 1001 SE Morrison St. TOKiMONSTA
Jack London Revue 529 SW 4th Ave. Mark Lewis Quartet
Lewis & Clark College
0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd. Two Yosemites: An Environmental Opera
Local Celebrity
820 N Russell St. Another Afternoon, Stranger Than Fact, Dim Wit
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Deerhoof, Christina Schneider’s Genius Grant, Mayya and the Revolutionary Hell Yeah!
Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave. Wintertime
Starday Tavern
6517 SE Foster Rd Mr. Musu
The Analog Cafe
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd James Counts Band, Adam Pedersen
421 SE Grand Ave. Stoneburner, Terror Apart 1422 SW 11th Ave. The Offbeat Carnivale:
6000 NE Glisan St RoughCuts
The O’Neil Public House
6000 NE Glisan St. Zach Bryson and the Meat Rack
The Secret Society
Edgefield
Fremont Theater
Hawthorne Theatre
1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd. Venom Inc, Goatwhore
Jack London Revue
529 SW 4th Ave. The Mike Dillon Band & Mark Lettieri
116 NE Russell St. The Sportin’ Lifers feat. Erin Wallace; Clawfoot Slumber, 1939 Ensemble
Local Celebrity
White Eagle Saloon
Mississippi Studios
836 N Russell St. Garcia Birthday Band
Wonder Ballroom 128 NE Russell St. Corbin + Shlohmo
SAT. SEPT. 16 Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
1037 SW Broadway Oregon Symphony’s Opening Night with George Takei
820 N Russell St. Star Ghost, Molten Salt, No Aloha 3939 N Mississippi Ave. Jessica Hernandez and the Deltas, Candace
PICA at Hancock
SouthFork
4605 NE Fremont St. Tom Grant and Shelly Rudolph
The Analog Cafe and Theater
The Firkin Tavern
7101 N Lombard St. Benefit Show for Undocumented Families
1937 SE 11th Ave. Eric Lovre Band, Piefight, The Lo-Hi
The Fixin’ To
8218 N. Lombard St. Millstone Grit, Plastic Shadow, High Five Danger
The Know
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Brian Ellis, Zackey Force Funk, Dan Dan, On One Posse
The Lovecraft Bar 421 SE Grand Ave. Sex Park, Voight
The Old Church
1422 SW 11th Ave. Moody Little Sister
The Secret Society
116 NE Russell St. Melao De Cuba Salsa Orchestra; James Mason & The Djangophiles
Tonic Lounge
Poshette’s Cafe
Turn! Turn! Turn!
8 NW 6th Ave. SZA, Smino, Ravyn Lenae
3000 NE Alberta St. An Evening with Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra
Al’s Den at Crystal Hotel
15 NE Hancock St. TBA: Death Dance
Roseland Theater
Alberta Rose Theater
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd. The Ongoing Concept, Eidola, Save us From The Archon, Vow of Volition, Fighting Casper
3100 NE Sandy Blvd. Usnea, Thrones, Hands of Thieves, Ninth Moon Black
7015 N Greeley Ave. Bill Coones, Adam Rea, Duncan Branom Trio
SUN. SEPT. 17
8 NE Killingsworth St. Ripe Red Apple, Ms. F’s Messy Ann Band, The Variants
Wonder Ballroom
128 NE Russell St. RAC
303 SW 12th Ave. Austin Quattlebaum
Anarres Infoshop
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave. Astro Tan, Slow Corpse, Mood Beach
Doug Fir Lounge 830 E Burnside St. Willie Watson
Fremont Theater
2393 NE Fremont St. Trashcan Joe
High Water Mark Lounge
6800 NE MLK Ave. Ox, Cockeye, Paper Thin Youth, Hoarder
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St. ARIZONA
Jack London Revue
529 SW 4th Ave. Amirah featuring Spencer Shay, DJ Deena Bee
Maryhill Winery
9774 WA-14, Goldendale, Wash. Goo Goo Dolls, Phillip Phillips
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave. Andrew Belle
1332 W Burnside St Manchester Orchestra
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St. Karaoke From Hell
Mississippi Studios 3939 N Mississippi Ave Deerhoof, Christina Schneider’s Genius Grant, Mayya and the Revolutionary Hell Yeah!
Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 Se 7th Ave Lloyd Jones
Revolution Hall
1300 SE Stark St #110 She, Hair Puller, Carrion Spring, Phantom Family (Assembly Lounge)
The Firkin Tavern
1937 SE 11th Ave Fells Acres, Kurt Gentle, Daylon Phillips
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St New Swears, Patsy’s Rats, The Goobs
TUE. SEPT. 19 Bossanova Ballroom
722 E Burnside St. Orphaned Land, PAIN, Voodoo Kungfu, Divitius
Catfish Lou’s
2460 NW 24th Ave. Billy D & Kathryn Grimm
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St The Last Bandoleros
Jack London Revue
529 SW 4th Ave. Avishai Cohen Quartet
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave The Domestics, Kyle Craft, And And And
Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave. Gov’t Mule
The Know
3728 NE Sandy Blvd. Prude Boys, Melt, Frenz, Plastic Cactus
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St. Shape Pitaki, DoublePlusGood, Mood Beach
The Ranger Station
4260 SE Hawthorne Blvd. Bluegrass Tuesday
Wonder Ballroom 128 NE Russell St Tennyson, Photay
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
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MUSIC C O U R T E S Y O F D J K L AV I C A L
NEEDLE EXCHANGE
DJ Klavical Years DJing: 21 years solo and in bands like Sick Mediks, Abangatang, Mic Crenshaw, Redray Frazier and DoveDriver. Genres: Original breaks, hip-hop, funk, soul, future funk. Where you can catch me regularly: Third Fridays at Swift, second Saturdays at Moloko, third Saturdays at Laurelthirst with Redray Frazier. Craziest gig: 1999 Gibson Island near Vancouver, B.C. Crazy party in the woods with thousands of drunken Canadians. I played on a stage 50 feet in the air with a net in front to prevent beer bottles from hitting me. There must have been 10 fights—people kept getting knocked out next to my car. My go-to records: “Rock Steady” by The Whispers. Don’t ever ask me to play…: Absolutely anything from your phone. And no, I don’t download during my set. Go listen to it in your car, get pumped and go home. NEXT GIG: DJ Klavical spins at Swift Lounge, 1932 NE Broadway St., on Friday, Sept. 15. 9 pm. Free. 21+. Moloko
3967 N. Mississippi Ave Rap Class (slow disco, deep jazzy house cuts)
The Lovecraft Bar
WED, SEPT. 13 Elvis Room
203 SE Grand Ave DJ A-Train
Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St TRONix: Popcorn Mixed Signals
Killingsworth Dynasty 832 N Killingsworth St Electronic Night w/ DJ A.C.
The Embers Avenue 100 NW Broadway Knochen Tanz (ebm, industrial)
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Event Horizon (darkwave, industrial)
The Whiskey Bar
31 Northwest 1st Avenue Latin Dance Night
Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd Death Throes (death rock, post punk, dark wave)
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Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave Dubblife
THU, SEPT. 14 45 East
315 SE 3rd Ave Netsky
Black Book
20 NW 3rd Ave Ladies Night (rap, r&b)
Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave Gwizski (new jack swing)
Double Barrel Tavern 2002 SE Division St Montel Spinozza
421 SE Grand Ave Shadowplay (goth, industrial, 80s)
The Paris Theatre
6 SW 3rd Ave Doozy, Chenbear, Stritch, Mutagen
White Owl Social Club 1305 SE 8th Ave East Taken by Force
FRI, SEPT. 15 45 East
315 SE 3rd Ave Manila Killa & Robotaki
Black Book
20 NW 3rd Ave The Cave (rap, r&b, club)
Crystal Ballroom
Elvis Room
1332 W Burnside St 80s Video Dance Attack: Prince VS Michael!
Ground Kontrol
Dig A Pony
203 SE Grand Ave DJ Atom 13 511 NW Couch St DJ Rob F Switch / DJ EPOR
Killingsworth Dynasty 832 N Killingsworth St Max Capacity
736 SE Grand Ave Doc Adam (hip hop, r&b)
Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St DJ ROCKIT - The Excellence of Traxicution
Where to drink this week. 1. Woodsman Tavern
CHRISTINE DONG
BAR REVIEW
4537 SE Division St., 971-373-8264, woodsmantavern.com. Woodsman is kicking off fall with a nutty experimental Coffee Loves Beer beer fest this Saturday— including a coffee gose from Breakside and other wild coffee beers from Cascade and the Commons. Because it’s the Woodsman, there will be oysters.
LIVE MUSIC FRIDAY KARAOKE SATURDAY Classic Rock Hour M-F 2-6pm 304 SW 2nd (& Oak) // 971-242-8725
2. Jack London Revue
529 SW 4th Ave., jacklondonrevue.com. Jazz is back on the westside, in the no-nonsense velvet-curtained basement of classic pool hall Rialto, lit up with candles and Christmas lights and outfitted with deep vinyl booths.
3. Elvis Room
2327 NW Kearney St., thewaitingroompdx.com. The upstairs at already-hidden bar, the Waiting Room, is a double-hidden ode to old New Orleans, with absinthe paraphernalia and classic crystal glassware holding some seriously evolved cocktails from barman Chazz Madrigal.
ASH IN THE OCEAN: In a month when motes from the Gorge fire swirl unhealthily in the air, a place called Ash Bar (575 NE 24th Ave., 503-206-4085, nomadpdx.com) would seem an unlikely refuge. But the pristine backroom space next to Providore Fine Foods is the closest thing Portland has to a boutique speakeasy, so obscure it doesn’t even have a Yelp page. Getting to Ash requires you to take two tight left turns upon entering the unmarked door of $100-a-meal Nomad restaurant. There you find a miniscule room where two driftwood branches hang like antlers above a horseshoe bar fitted tightly to the space, with acoustics so damped I scared the crap out of the bartender when I arrived while her back was turned. But for such a small and hidden space, the options are vast. The boozy, 11-deep cocktail menu ($10-$14) is loaded with esoteric ingredients: grapefruit-oolong bitters, Braulio amaro or Singani 63 Bolivian muscat. The latter is paired with bubbles, smoky vermouth and amaro for a lightly effervescent No Time to Tango ($13) that’s near-lethal with liquor. Meanwhile, there are two separate food menus—a “breakfast for dinner” menu with a padrón-pepper scramble ($9) and Taylor ham and egg sando ($10), plus a bar menu with $9 beef-tendon chicharrónes and a $9 umeboshi burger. On special, however, was an $8 peanut butter and jelly sandwich, served with airily whipped peanut butter mousse and blueberry jam on spongy toasted brioche. “It makes every other PB&J I’ve had taste like crap,” our bartender said. She wasn’t really wrong—and it arrived as a twee brown-bag dinner with rye-shortbread cookies, a Capri Sun and a nice little note from the kitchen scrawled on a napkin, as if from an alcoholic mother. It was easy to forget that outside, the world was dying by fire. There is no ash in Ash Bar. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.
Killingsworth Dynasty
Black Book
203 SE Grand Ave., 503-235-5690. Consider the gilded-mirror, white-walled upstairs of the Elvis Room a beltbuckled pelvic thrust of budget extravagance.
4. Les Caves
1719 NE Alberta St., 503-206-6852, ovumwines.com/les-caves. Les Caves is a dark, denlike winery bar in a literal underground cave—with some of the most adventurous and rarest wines from all over the world— often at surprising discounts on “off ” years less valued by collectors.
5. Lafitte’s
832 N Killingsworth St Strange Babes
The Lovecraft Bar
Moloko
Crystal Ballroom
421 SE Grand Ave Sabbath (darkside of rock & electronic)
Quarterworld
Dig A Pony
232 SW Ankeny St Signal: Trinity Soundz
The Goodfoot
Holocene
The Liquor Store
Jade Club
3967 N. Mississippi Ave Sappho & Friends (disco) 4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd Soul Spectrum 2845 SE Stark St Soul Stew (funk, soul, disco) 3341 SE Belmont St Bizarre Ride (80s & 90s hip hop & party jams)
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave DoublePlusDANCE w/ DJ Acid Rick & DJ Carrion (new wave, synth, goth)
Valentines
232 SW Ankeny St Decadent 80’s w/ DJ NoN
Whiskey Bar
31 NW 1st Ave Thelem w/ Innit, AcidBass, Exin, Bodie & Pace Moccasin
SAT, SEPT. 16 45 East
315 SE 3rd Ave Kill The Noise
20 NW 3rd Ave The Ruckus (rap, r&b, club) 1332 W Burnside St 90’s Dance Flashback 736 SE Grand Ave Maxamillion (soul, rap, sweat) 1001 SE Morrison St Slay 315 SE 3rd Ave BlackGummy
Killingsworth Dynasty 832 N Killingsworth St DJ Just Dave
Moloko
3967 N. Mississippi Ave Jackal (lounge tech)
Quarterworld
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd DJ RoCKiT (kayfabe)
The Analog Cafe
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd It’s LIT
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St Tropitaal: A Desi-Latino Soundclash
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St Spend The Night
Valentines
Whiskey Bar
31 NW 1st Ave Justin Campbell (Desert Hearts)
SUN, SEPT. 17 Black Book
20 NW 3rd Ave Flux (rap, r&b, club)
Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave Emerson (hip hop, r&b)
Kit Kat Club
231 SW Ankeny St HIVE (goth, industrial)
Produce Row Cafe
204 SE Oak St Global Based: Fin de Verano
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Kawaii Party Presents: Dansu Katamari!
White Owl Social Club 1305 SE 8th Ave East The Way Out (reggae, dancehall)
MON, SEPT. 18 Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St Reaganomix: DJ ROCKIT
Sandy Hut
1430 NE Sandy Blvd DJ Major Sean
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Black Mass (goth, post-punk)
TUE, SEPT. 19 Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave Noches Latinas (salsa, merengue)
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St Party Damage: DJ The Grand Yoni
Killingsworth Dynasty
832 N Killingsworth St Eat Yr Heart (goth, industrial)
The Embers Avenue 100 NW Broadway Recycle (dark dance)
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Sleepwalk (deathrock, gothrock, post-punk)
Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd Toxic Tuesdays (goth, postpunk, spooky)
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
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PERFORMANCE R U SS E L L J. YO U N G
REVIEW
MELODRAMA: Alex Ramirez de Cruz and Joseph Gibson.
Rogue Reinvention AN OCTOROON QUESTIONS EVERYTHING.
BY SHA N N ON GOR MLEY
sgormley@wweek.com
The simplest way to describe An Octoroon is to call it a comedy. Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ 2014 script is a satirization of a 1859 melodrama, The Octoroon. (Jacobs-Jenkins is black; the original playwright, Dion Boucicault, was white.) Wearing whiteface, actor Joseph Gibson plays George, a slave owner who’s just inherited a bankrupt plantation and who’s in love with a woman named Zoe (Alex Ramirez de Cruz). Zoe is in love with him too, but the antebellum South has outlawed their potential marriage because Zoe is oneeighth black. Gibson also plays another slave owner, M’Closky, who’s distinguished from George by his handlebar mustache. The skeezy, violent M’Closky is obsessed with Zoe, and is determined to marry her, despite her objections. Premiering in Portland at Artists Repertory Theatre, An Octoroon is punctuated by absurdities. Whenever Zoe says the line “I’m an octoroon,” she drapes the her hand across her forehead. Eventually, M’Closky and George get into a fist fight, which requires Gibson to sling punches at a mustache on a stick that he holds up in front of his face. And that’s just the play within the play. Along with George and M’Closky, Gibson also portrays Jacobs-Jenkins, who starts off the show wearing nothing but a white tank top, underwear and black socks. He tells us that he plays so many characters because the white guys he hired kept quitting. They all refused to play a slave owner who doesn’t have a speech about how they don’t “want to be racist” but it’s “just so hard.” He’s interrupted by a stumbling, drunk Boucicault (Michael Mendelson), who covers his face in red makeup while his assistant (John San Nicolas) covers his with black makeup. Boucicault explains his casting method—he decided that his assistant in blackface was a “more convincing” black man than the black men who came to audition. When Boucicault’s monologue ends, An Octoroon is constructed before our eyes. Beyoncé’s “Formation” blasts over the theater’s speakers as the cast cover 38
Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
the stage with cotton that looks like chunks of insulation, and pull out from behind the curtains a large wooden platform, which functions as a porch. An Octoroon is a dense, complicated play. But you’re willing to follow along through all of its meta twists partly due to Gibson, who effortlessly switches from satirical theatrical to utterly candid. An Octoroon requires a big cast, most of whom play multiple characters. Thankfully, Artists Rep has filled every supporting role with highly competent actors. Kailey Rhodes is hilarious as Dora, a plantation heiress vying for George’s affection. As Dido and Minnie, two slaves who gossip in modern language, Josie Seid and Andrea Vernae craft a compelling side plot. An Octoroon always seems like it’s one step ahead of you—it constantly wonders aloud about its own limits. Just as the melodrama is about to reach its climax, Gibson as Jacobs-Jenkins pauses the plot to address the audience. He tells us that he struggled to update this part of the play, since its big reveal involves a camera. That would have been surprising in the 1800s, since cameras were a new and exciting technology. Now, it seems cliche. “The theater is no longer an experience of novelty,” says Gibson. If anything, An Octoroon’s message is to point out that need for constant questioning. It pushes back against the language we have for discussing race in more ways than just dramatic punctuation of the word “octoroon.” It tests our cultural lexicon, too. An Octoroon doesn’t all come together in the end. Instead, it sends you through trap door after trap door, until you slam onto solid ground and confront the tragedy that’s been lurking behind all the comedy. After one particularly chilling scene, the lights in the theater go black. From the darkness comes the voice of San Nicolas: “Anyway, the point was to make you feel something.” It’s tempting to take his word, but by now, it doesn’t feel like things can be explained in a single sentence. SEE IT: An Octoroon is at Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison, 503-241-1278, artistsrep.org. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Sunday, 2 pm Sunday, through Oct. 1. $25-$50.
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: SHANNON GORMLEY (sgormley@wweek.com). TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: sgormley@wweek.com.
THEATER
REVIEW COURTESY OF TRIANGLE PRODUCTIONS
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
Cannabis Issue Publishes OctOber 4
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OPENINGS & PREVIEWS Ghost Rings
Part play, part concert performed by a fake band, the new performance by Brooklyn’s Half Straddle tells a story of two siblings formerly united by a childhood band who are now estranged in adulthood. Told with glittery costumes and animal puppets, it’s based off artistic director Tina Satter’s own relationship with her sister. Satter grew up in Portland and started her career at Imago Theatre, but this will be the first time the company has performed Ghost Rings in Satter’s hometown. JACK RUSHALL. PSU: Lincoln Performance Hall, 1620 SW Park Ave., Room 75, pica. org/tba. 8:30-9:30 pm, WednesdayThursday, Sept. 13-14. $25.
ALSO PLAYING The (Curious Case of the) Watson Intelligence
Coho Theater’s season opener is a timehopping play that tells the stories of three different Watsons. And yes, that includes the Watson who was sidekick to Sherlock Holmes, plus another that’s a robot. Coho Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., cohoproductions.org. 7:30 pm. Through Sept. 30. $25-$32.
DANCE Hamilton Mixtape Cabaret
See Get Busy, page 23. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside, danteslive.com. 8:30 pm. $15-$20.
Cirque du Soleil: Kurios
The only thing surprising about Cirque du Soleil going steampunk is that it didn’t happen sooner. Kurios has the distinction of being hailed as the company’s strongest show in years. That seems fair enough, as the Victorian age of innovation proves fertile ground for creative costumes, set pieces and off-kilter storytelling. MARTIN CIZMAR. Portland Expo Center, 2060 North Marine Dr., expocenter. org/events/cirque-du-soleil-presentskurios. 8 pm Tuesday-Saturday, 4:30 pm Saturday, 1:30 pm and 5 pm Sunday, through Oct. 8. $29-$280.
COMEDY Cat Patrol
Cat Patrol is the Ape Theater’s first long-form scripted work. Cat Patrol is less interested in telling a story than it is in showcasing the chameleonic talents of Alissa Jessup and Brooke Totman, the show’s only actors. The show offers jolts of joyous silliness and canny satire of gender roles from show writers Jessup andTotman, who have a cheerful but gutsy way of sending up sexism. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Ape Theater, 126 NE Alberta St., catpatrols.com. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, through September 16. $15 in advance, $20 at the door.
Dork Horses of Comedy
See Get Busy, page 23. Fixin’ To, 8218 N Lombard St, facebook. com/dorkhorses. 9 pm. Free.
OVER YOUR SHOULDER: Clockwise from center: Caleb Sohigian, Sarah Lucht, Mark Schwann, Colton Ruscheinsky, Olivia Weiss.
Sock Therapy
A FOUL-MOUTHED SOCK PUPPET RISES IN HAND TO GOD.
M
idway through Hand to God, a pink sock puppet attempts to bite off a classroom bully’s ear. By this point in Triangle Productions’ recent Tony Award-winning play, the act of savagery isn’t especially shocking, since the puppet, Tyrone, has already insulted a man’s penis and indulged in some unsettling sexual harassment. More than just a vicious monster, Tyrone is the embodiment of the rage and grief of Jason (Caleb Sohigian), a fatherless teenage boy. Set in Texas, Hand to God is a comedy, but it’s also the portrait of a child driven to the edge of sanity by the loss of a parent. In a sort of Frankenstein riff, Tyrone voices truths that Jason, his creator, is too afraid to speak. Those truths bring chaos to the Christian Puppet Ministry, where Jason’s mother Margery (Sarah Lucht) teaches. It’s a land of cutesy religious propaganda—including a Coca-Cola-style poster that reads, “Enjoy Jesus.” But the Ministry’s wholesome facade is shredded when it’s revealed that Margery has had sex with Timothy (Colton Ruscheinsky), one of her students, a revelation that triggers brutal outbursts from Jason. Tyrone becomes his mouthpiece for the repressed, volcanic anguish that’s been brewing inside Jason. During the traumatic scenes that follow, Sohigian brilliantly sustains the illusion that Jason and Tyrone are two halves of one soul, trying to balance a need for control with a longing to strike out. Yet the dialogue still hits some false notes that the production can’t quite overcome. Particularly frustrating is the play’s refusal to acknowledge how disturbing it is that Margery would have sex with a teenage boy—there’s even a line that goes so far as to include a joke about Margery and Timothy breaking a sink in a fit of passion. Yet whenever Hand to God loses you, it pulls you back in, often with its potent sound design. From the music on the car radio while Margery drives to the sound of crickets while Jason lies in his sleeping bag, every noise immerses you in the story, making you feel as if you’re within Jason’s world as he wrestles with whether he is going to overcome his worst instincts or surrender to the devil that clings to his arm. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. SEE IT: Hand to God is at The Sanctuary at Sandy Plaza, 1785 NE Sandy Blvd., trianglepro.org. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, September 7-September 30, 2:00 pm Sunday, September 17-24. $15-$35. Willamette Week SEPTEMBER 13, 2017 wweek.com
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VISUAL ARTS
BOOKS
REVIEW C O U R T E S Y O F S AYA W O O L FA L K
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. BY MATTHEW KORFHAGE. 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, SEPT. 13
SATURDAY, SEPT. 16
Denise Chanterelle DuBois
Poetry! Finnegan Menzies, Zosia Wiatr & Coleman Stevenson
THURSDAY, SEPT. 14 Kate Carroll de Gutes
A VIDEO STILL FROM SAYA WOOLFALK’S THE EMPATHETICS, WHICH IS ALSO FEATURED IN (SELF).
Personal Themes
IN THE GROUP EXHIBIT (SELF), ARTISTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES. BY S HA N N O N G O R M L E Y
sgormley@wweek.com
When you go to an art show, the person who has the most control over how you interpret the works isn’t you or the artist, it’s the curator. Take Paige Powell’s work, for example. Working as photographer for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine in the ’80s, the Portland artist amassed a collection of personal photos of Warhol, New York art world parties and of her partner, the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. Two years ago, Powell debuted her personal photographs of her years in New York in a solo exhibit at the Portland Art Museum. Under a disco ball, her photographs wallpapered a corner of the exhibit. For most people, the photos were a voyeuristic, behindthe-scenes look at a much romanticized place and time. There were copies of photos you could take home with you, including one of a grinning, young-ish Bill Cunningham, his camera around his neck as poses with a drag queen. It was easy to forget that for Powell, they’re personal memories. But in the group exhibit (self ), on Reed College’s campus as part of this year’s Time-Based Art Festival, they look like they’re from a scrapbook. Arranged in a long glass case, she’s labeled portrait subjects by their first names in crayon. There’s one of Warhol that Powell outlined with silver marker and captioned “Behind every cloud is a silver ...” and a series of postcards Basquiat sent Powell from Italy, with blobs of paint instead of words. Curated by Stephanie Snyder and Samiya Bashir, (self ) contains works by a large group of local and national artists. If “self ” sounds like a vague theme for an art exhibit, that’s intentional. Usually in group exhibits, an individual artist’s work serves a larger theme of the show. But each installation in (self ) feels like its own world. Across the room from Powell’s case is Truth Library, by Portland duo the Nat Turner Project. NTP has basically installed a living room: a plush couch, a wooden coffee table and chairs on a fuzzy grey rug. Mounted on the wall behind the couch are shelves stocked with books and albums: a 40
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copy of Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention , LPs of DAMN. and The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, a DVD of Friday. It’s warmly inviting—you are actually supposed to sit on the furniture and read the books—and brilliantly simple. Brooklyn artist Nona Faustine’s Mitochondria is a series of photos that depict the artist, her daughter and Faustine’s mother. Some look like they could be candid, like the photo where Faustine carries her daughter on her back through waves off an ocean shore. But even the photos that are staged are just as overwhelmingly tender. In one, Faustine throws a punch, naked except for white fabric wrapped around her fists. Faustine’s daughter hugs her mother’s leg, and with her eyes closed, gently rests her head on Faustine’s stomach. (self ) allows you to engage with each artist’s work separately, instead of as part of a whole. But what’s just as important is that (self ) acknowledges that even the most personable art can only skim the surface of the artist or experience behind it. That’s best summed up by an installation by New York artist Dave McKenzie: two typed and framed letters, both addressed to an unknown driver who almost hit McKenzie as he was crossing the street. In one letter, he had the right of way. “You made the decision that your needs were more important than my life” he writes. In the other, the driver had the right of way. “In that moment, I decided that my needs were more important than the potential consequences of my actions,” he writes, and ruminates on the possibility that the driver could have tried to swerve out of the way and end up fatally injured. McKenzie doesn’t offer the false promise that he has learned a lesson. Instead, he ends his second letter by acknowledging the person that exists behind a momentary, emotional exchange: “I hope you realize that I am not oblivious to you.” SEE IT: (self) is at Reed College’s Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, 3203 SE Woodstock Blvd., pica.org. Through Oct. 1.
The Oregon Book Award-winning author of Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear, about the transformational qualities of bow ties and her painful divorce from her wife—is back with the Authenticity Experiment, a book about the year she spent being utterly truthful on social media at a time her world was falling apart: Her mother, her editor and her best friend all died within months of each other. Tickets to the release party are free, but RSVP at broadwaybooks. net. Fremont Theater, 2393 NE Fremont St., 503-946-1962. 7 pm.
SFWA Pacific Northwest Reading Series
Book readings are greatly helped by easy proximity to beer—and so the Lucky Lab will host both the quarterly meet-up and reading for the local chapter of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, featuring readings from Nebula-award finalist Daryl Gregory (Spoonbenders), Seattle writer Leah Cutter (The Immortals’ War) and undead-happy author Jennifer Brozek (Never Let Me Sleep). Lucky Labrador, 915 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-236-3555. 7-8:30 pm. Free.
Survivor Cafe
From the Armenian genocide to the fate of the Kurds, the deniers and ignorers of atrocity often outlive the survivors. Structured around three trips to the death camp of Buchenwald with her father, Elizabeth Rosner’s Survivor Cafe explores how to make sure that horrors like the killing fields of Cambodia and the bombing of Hiroshima aren’t forgotten, and repeated—including that high prince of never forgetting, September 11. She’ll be joined by novelist and death penalty investigator Rene Denfeld. Powell’s Books on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.
Portland’s most idiosyncratic and obsessive local bookstore, Mother Foucault’s, will host a reading of three equally individual poets. Transgender poet and teacher—and FIN zine publisher—Finnegan Menzies will read from his new poetry collection Brilliant Odyssey Don’t Yearn. Poet Coleman Stevenson will roll in with a new tarot book called The Dark Exact Tarot Guide—and encourages patrons to bring in their decks. Poet Zosia Wiatr is founder of a new French/English poetry journal, Abricot, upon her return from France. Mother Foucault’s, 523 SE Morrison St., 503-236-2665. 7-10 pm.
SUNDAY, SEPT. 17 Bored and Brilliant
Childhood used to be boring. Adulthood used to be boring. And in many ways, Manoush Zomorodi argues in Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive and Creative Self, it was probably better boring. The shortcircuiting modern brain, crutched by smartphone, has lost the creativity afforded by spacing out and letting thoughts wander to unknown places. So on her podcast Note to Self, she helps people unplug and tap into whatever Thoreau and Emerson had that you just plain don’t, you poor, constantly entertained, boring-butnot-bored schmuck. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 West Burnside, 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.
TUESDAY, SEPT. 19 By the Smoke and the Smell
Way more than you think, “craft liquor” is a marketing-driven scam, —a world of rebranded neutral grain spirits and Indiana industrial whiskey “blended and bottled locally.” But in his new drinking memoir By the Smoke and the Smell, liquor writer Thad Vogler is on a sodden vision quest to save the ancient “grower spirit,” the ancient traditions of booze like mezcal and Jamaican rum raised from the soil into nuanced, traditional spirits that can’t be replicated in the massive industrial stills of the great American midsection. Stop buying fake liquor. Get the good stuff. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 West Burnside, 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.
C O U R T E SY O F FAC E B O O K
Long before the country even knew what a transgender-friendly bathroom was, there were pioneers like Denise Chanterelle DuBois. DuBois wasn’t born Denise—and becoming her was a hell of an effort. In her new memoir SelfMade Woman, DuBois recounts her boyhood in deeply Polish, old-school 1960s Wisconsin, a life of hard drinking, sex that didn’t seem so smart in retrospect and time spent addicted to drugs or in prison, on the long, often difficult and unhappy path to becoming herself. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 West Burnside, 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.
KATE CARROLL DE GUTES
MOVIES COURTESY OF COLIN MANNING
Screener
GET YO U R REPS IN
Death Becomes Her (1992)
Before Meryl Streep turned to more “serious” films, she was a zombie actress in a black comedy with Goldie Hawn and Bruce Willis. Mission Theater, Sept. 13.
The Holy Mountain
(1973)
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s nonlinear film is filled with the kind of freaky, unsettling imagery that will probably haunt your dreams for a couple of nights, if not for the rest of your life. Loosely about an alchemist’s spiritual journey, The Holy Mountain is a masterful hallucinogenic vision. NW Film Center, Sept. 16.
La chinoise
A FILM COLLAGE BY COLIN MANNING.
Memory Experiment
Office Space
PORTLAND’S MOST IMAGINATIVE FILMMAKER YOU’VE NEVER HEARD OF IS GETTING A RETROSPECTIVE. BY DA N A A L STO N
dalston@wweek.com
Calling Colin Manning ’s work “tough to describe” is a bit of an understatement. Instead of a film in the traditional sense, Manning’s work is more like amorphous forms of color and sound. The Portland-based artist’s films are essentially collages: disparate films, patterns and advertisements projected on top of each other. That may sound unusual, but unusual is exactly what Manning wants. “I’m not trying to reach anyone specific,” he tells WW. “Generally, I’m just trying to reach people who have open minds.” Manning’s work is getting a retrospective at NW Film Center on September 14. The show includes music from Guillotine Boys and Doug Theriault before screening a collection of Manning’s early work. The performance caps off with a new piece that combines “diary-based animation” with video collage. Retrospectives like this don’t happen often, because it’s rare to encounter an artist with a body of work large enough to warrant one. Manning, however, has two decades worth of work. Mostly collage and projection-based multimedia pieces, his films are highly imaginative, and his prolific portfolio includes collaborations with the likes of Yoko Ono and Ariel Pink. But Colin Manning isn’t a name many will recognize in Portland. If you reach his voicemail, he mentions his holiday lighting business, which helps pay the bills. His YouTube channel viewership hovers around 500.
Manning’s work might be niche, but Los Angeles and San Francisco turned out to be the perfect hub for it. After graduating from the San Francisco Art Institute, Manning took jobs running projections for dance clubs. He eventually relocated to LA, and has since worked with musicians like Consumer, creating projections for concerts and using their music in film installations. “I didn’t mean to work directly with musicians,” he says. But collaborations with musicians lead to the creation of much of Manning’s work, and the psychedelic quality of his art makes the combination with dance music seem inevitable. While San Francisco helped him birth his unique vision and LA provide a market for his work, he calls Portland “as artsy a city as you can find anywhere.” Since moving here five years ago, he’s integrated himself into the art scene and worked with Portland-based artists like harpist Sage Fisher. “Categorized by money, and how much money you can make [with art], LA is far more important,” he says. “But I knew I could feel a little more free and happy [in Portland], and have the time to work on my art...I have a lot more space for making art and making a mess. I just felt more freedom.” Yoko Ono remains Manning’s most famous collaborator, though Manning is modest about the whole experience. “That was a long time ago,” he says with a laugh. Manning ’s contribution amounted to projecting simple phrases onto a white wall for one of Ono’s
(1967)
The most action-packed movie to come out of the French New Wave movement, La chinoise is about Maoist French college students who plot the assassination of a Soviet ambassador. It screens as part of NW Film Center’s new Monday experimental film series. NW FIlm Center, Sept. 18.
exhibits during a retrospective. “It wasn’t like we hung out and talked a lot,” he says. “I was just told, ‘She wants this,’ And then we met at the party afterward and she said thank you.” In Manning ’s videos, images and film scenes— which seem to originate from practically anywhere—are overlaid on top of each other. The result is a beautifully complex sensory experience. In one piece titled Hugging Kate Jackson in Killer Bees Sunken in Red Memories, sepia-toned footage is flipped upside down on either side of serene scenes of construction and a couple walking through the woods. “I’m always collecting film,” Manning says. “I’m looking for subject matter that’s intriguing...but I’m also looking at the actual aesthetic quality of it. I’m trying to create an actual dynamic form on the wall that’s not just a collection of squares, but has some sort of interlocking intrigue.” When asked whether his art is trying to “say” anything, Manning answers with equivalent of a shrug. “There’s a very mental way of viewing art, which is like ‘Oh, this is communicating this idea,’ and there may be very specific things,” he says. “My art is very open-ended, and has to do with psychology in general. The only requirement to understand it is to have an open mind and let the art do what it will.” SEE IT: Memory Wave Sediments: Films and Projection Performance by Colin Manning, NW Film Center, Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park Ave., Sept. 14, 7pm, $9.
(1999)
Mike Judge’s tale of suburban white-collar drudgery launched both a thousand forays into the back catalogue of the Geto Boys and a thousand teenage boys doing the “Oh face” scene at one another. Mission Theater, Sept. 13-16.
Temple of Doom
(1984)
Since we’ve agreed as a society to forget the revival with Shia LaBeouf and all those aliens, Temple of Doom is basically the worst Indiana Jones movie. But it’s also the weirdest—full of blood potions, evil spells and magic rocks. Plus, it’s pretty fascinating when the cult leader pulls a heart out of a sacrificial person’s chest with the help of some not-so-great special effects. Joy, Sept. 13-14.
ALSO PLAYING: Academy: Network (1976), Sept. 15-21. Clinton: A League of Their Own (1992), Sept. 18. Hollywood: Gleaming the Cube (1989), Sept. 14. Laurelhurst: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Sept. 13-14. Weird Science (1985), Sept. 15-21. Joy: Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958), Sept. 13. Kiggins: Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), Sept. 16-18. Mission: Clueless (1995), Sept. 14-24. NW Film Center: The Secret Garden (1993), Sept. 16. Night School (2016), Sept. 17-23.
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MOVIES : This movie sucks, don’t watch it. : This movie is entertaining but flawed. : This movie is good. We recommend you watch it. : This movie is excellent, one of the best of the year.
NOW PLAYING 47 Meters Down
In this shark thriller, a recently dumped Lisa (Mandy Moore) thinks an Instagram post during a trip to Mexico will get her boyfriend back. That gives you a pretty solid idea of the movie’s depth. Still, those seeking the heart-pumping adrenaline of a summer shark flick won’t be disappointed. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Vancouver.
A Ghost Story
In David Lowry’s emotional exercise in magical realism, we’re treated to fine performances from Affleck and critical darling Rooney Mara in a time-hopping story about a ghost and the house where he lived. Lowry’s vision is on full display here, and the result is one of 2017’s most powerful films. R. DANA ALSTON. Academy, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst.
Atomic Blonde
An adaptation of the Oni Press graphic novel Coldest City, Atomic Blonde depicts Berlin at the Cold War’s last gasp. Charlize Theron plays a British secret agent set to meet up with James McAvoy’s rogue operative and rescue a vital informant from East Germany. Even with the playfully stylized flourishes teasing coherency from a pointlessly complicated narrative, the film has a giddy devotion to its own daft momentum. R. JAY HORTON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport, Fox Tower, Lloyd, Tigard, Vancouver.
Baby Driver
It takes a scant five minutes for Baby Driver to feel like one of the best car-chase films of all time. At the wheel is Baby (Ansel Elgort, whose face really sells the “Baby” business), who combats his tinnitus by constantly pumping tunes through his earbuds. Every sequence plays out perfectly to the music in Baby’s ears. This is a movie where violence and velocity are played up to surrealist levels while remaining relatively grounded in reality. It’s hysterically funny, but not a straight comedy. It’s often touching, but seldom cloying. It’s the hyper-stylish car chase opera the world deserves. R. AP KRYZA. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Division, Fox Tower, Tigard.
Brigsby Bear
We meet James Pope (Kyle Mooney), superfan of a show called Brigsby Bear Adventures, which is like if you mixed Buck Rogers with a firstgen Teddy Ruxpin doll. James lives in an underground fallout bunker. As it turns out, James was kidnapped when he was an infant and the bunker and Brigsby were merely tools to distract him from his imprisonment. So when James learns there is no such thing as Brigsby—aside from those episodes produced by Ted, now in prison —he sets out to finish the story. Brigsby Bear is whimsical, sweet and ambitious. Is it funny? Sort of. Brigsby Bear is not a film for most people, but if you suspect it might be for you, I encourage you to go and find out. PG-13. R MITCHELL MILLER. Bridgeport, Fox Tower, Kiggins, Vancouver.
Despicable Me 3
Conventional Hollywood wisdom dictates that animated children’s movies must vigorously trumpet the merits of kindness (good!) and condemn the evils of selfishness (bad!). But this anarchic entry in the Despicable Me franchise eschews forced wholesomeness and delivers a truckload of dumb fun. PG. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Division, Empirical, Milwaukie, Tigard, Vancouver.
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Detroit
The beginning of Detroit, we’re in a war zone, but it’s Detroit, not Baghdad. Looting and destruction are inflicted by some, not all, and there are good cops and monstrous cops, and it’s not easy to tell what’s what. We meet Larry Reed (Algee Smith) and his R&B group the Dramatics at the Fox Theater. Just as they’re about to go onstage, the announcement comes that the show has been canceled due to rioting. Larry heads to his $11 room at the Algiers Motel. One thing leads to another, and the Detroit police come to believe they’re under attack by the Algiers guests. What happens there is harrowing, and will leave you feeling emotionally drained. Perhaps the filmmakers thought it was too harrowing because the Algiers incident comes to an abrupt end and the last 30 minutes of the film deal with the aftermath. Despite a third act that doesn’t really fit with the first two, there’s a lot to like about Detroit, notably very strong performances by Smith and Poulter. R. R MITCHELL MILLER. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Living Room Theaters, Vancouver.
Dunkirk
In Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. we get to follow a few soldiers and pilots and civilians at sea, but they’re more like stand-ins for the other 400,000 like them marooned on the beach or assisting in the rescue effort. That’s fine, though. This movie doesn’t really need characters, and wasting time on distracting details like what’s waiting at home for these boys would only slow down the headlong pacing of the operation. I don’t think this film will win Best Picture at next year’s Oscars, but it’s a shoo-in a handful of technical nominations. PG-13. R. MITCHELL MILLER. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Hollywood, Oak Grove, Tigard, Vancouver.
The Glass Castle
The last time actor Brie Larson and director Destin Daniel Cretton worked together, it was on 2013’s Short Term 12—a wrenching, beautiful movie about a young woman working at a group home for troubled teens. Yet while The Glass Castle reunites the pair, the fervent honesty of their first collaboration has been eclipsed by speed and gloss that seem out of place in a film adaptation of Jeannette Walls’ memoir about growing up with her nomadic, alcoholic father. In the film,Despite the story’s nightmarish passages, the film often feels insubstantial. Cretton breezes through plenty of traumatic incidents, but his storytelling is too superficial to fully convey the psychological impact of any of them. Only in a late scene where Larson and Harrelson simply stare at each other and chat do we get a tantalizing whiff of a more thoughtful movie that might have been—and proof that as a team, Larson and Cretton still have cinematic gifts to give. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Living Room Theaters, Lloyd, Tigard, Vancouver.
Get Out
Yes, this movie is as good as everyone says it is, enough so that it makes you ask why other horror movies aren’t better. R. Laurelhurst.
Good Time
Constantine Nikas is positive his little brother shouldn’t be institutionalized for his mental disability. And that’s all we learn about the hyperactive Queens street tough (Robert Pattinson) before he and his brother rob a bank. This pacing is crucial to the Safdie brothers’ forceful new thriller. As movies about robbery and the ensuing
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chase go, it’s more like being dragged behind the getaway car than observing from the passenger seat. Amid the chaos, Pattinson as Constantine cuts a fascinating figure. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Clackamas, Fox Tower, Hollywood.
Ingrid Goes West
Title character Ingrid Thorburn (Aubrey Plaza)’s social media addiction has a dark side, as evidenced by that time she crashed a wedding and maced the bride, a stranger who snubbed her on Instagram. After a brief stay in a mental health treatment facility, Ingrid wipes her slate clean by finding a new Instagram celebrity to stalk: the cool and worldly Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen). This is the best part of the film, as Ingrid does whatever it takes to try to meet and impress her new friend. But once she does, Ingrid is no longer consumed by checking Instagram every moment of every day, and the film becomes less of a dark satire about social media addiction and fame. It devolves into more of a conventional comedy about quirky millennials.. R. R MITCHELL MILLER. Clackamas, Fox Tower.
Wind River
Wyoming’s Wind River is a hell of a place to examine an ignored America and a fitting setting for a noir thriller. In the directorial debut from Taylor Sheridan (writer of Sicario and Hell or High Water) a game tracker (Jeremy Renner) discovers the frozen body of a young Native woman. A hardscrabble investigation unfolds, and the tracker joins forces with an FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen), the tribal police chief (Graham Greene) and myriad snowmobiles. There are constant references to predators and prey, and it’s fueled with male aggression and female pain. But while those pitfalls are common, Wind River’s
unexplored geography, depth of spirit and honoring of survivalism are not. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Fox Tower, Vancouver.
Wonder Woman
I never thought I’d get a lump in my throat watching a superhero movie, but here we are. Patty Jenkins’ telling of Diana Prince’s (Gal Gadot) WWI origin deftly balances action, romance, comedy and emotional heft like no other in genre has. PG-13. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Milwaukie, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Vancouver.
REVIEW COURTESY OF POISON IDEA
Editor: SHANNON GORMLEY. 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: sgormley@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
The Hitman’s Bodyguard
Films like The Hitman’s Bodyguard live and die on the addled chemistry between mismatched leads, and the endlessly enjoyable sparks that fly between Reynolds and Jackson render further criticism irrelevant. R. JAY HORTON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Twin Cinema & Pub, Tigard, Vancouver.
Logan Lucky
In his comeback heist film, Steven Soderbergh seems actively disinterested in challenging his legacy. This story of a supposedly cursed West Virginia family, The Logans, ripping off the Charlotte Motor Speedway, nickname themselves “Ocean’s 7-11” on an in-movie newscast. As the Logan brothers, Channing Tatum and Adam Driver, are laconic and weatherbeaten, gentle roughnecks who need a win in this life. And as explosives expert Joe Bang, Daniel Craig’s brilliance is in appearing like a maniac but never detonating. Soderbergh is perhaps Hollywood’s finest technician, and it’s a pleasure to watch him tour his Vegas act through Appalachia. PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Bagdad, Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Cinemagic Theatre, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Lloyd, Oak Grove, Roseway, St. Johns Twin Cinema & Pub, Tigard, Vancouver.
Patticake$
Patricia Dombrowski aka Killa P aka Patticake$ is an aspiring rapper. She’s undeniably talented, but she doesn’t fit the template of what the music industry expects a rapper to look like—she’s a fat white girl. The “chasing your dreams” picture is not a new idea. Within that framework, director Geremy Jasper’s first feature film is pretty entertaining. As Patt, Australian actress Danielle Macdonald gives one of those performances where it would be difficult to imagine anyone else playing them now: like Tony Soprano or Napoleon Dynamite. The story takes place in a fully developed world of suburban New Jersey’s hell of highways, parking lots and gas stations. Jasper, who also wrote the script, imbues the world with subtle attention to detail and tough love for his characters. Ultimately, Patticake$ is a simple story done well, with lively performances and positive energy. R. R MITCHELL MILLER. Cinema 21, Hollywood.
Rough Night
In Lucia Aniello’s first feature film about millennial women behaving badly, five college friends reunite for Jess’s (Scarlett Johansson) bachelorette weekend in Miami. The cast is packed with America’s stoner, foul-mouthed sweethearts, including Ilana Glazer from Broad City, Jillian Bell (Workaholics), SNL’s Kate McKinnon and Zoë Kravitz. Rough Night doesn’t revolutionize wild weekend movies, but it’s a smart skewering of the bro’d out black comedies that have dominated the R-rated genre. R. LAUREN TERRY. Vancouver.
PICK YOUR POISON: Poison Idea in 1990.
Nothing Is Final
A DOCUMENTARY CAPTURES THE GLORY AND MADNESS OF POISON IDEA.
F
or a group of nihilistic miscreants, Poison Idea reached stratospheric heights. The Portland hardcore band played the Mayor’s Ball at the Memorial Coliseum in 1988, and Nirvana demanded PI for main support at the infamous No On 9 Benefit show at Portland Meadows. But after 37 years of albums, tours and lineup changes, Poison Idea finally threw in the towel on January 1, 2017. That makes Mike Lastra’s documentary overview both timely essential. Poison Idea: Legacy of Dysfunction is as DIY as its subject. The best quality footage is from recent interviews with the band’s many surviving members. But Lastra began shooting footage decades ago, when his band Smegma shared the stage with PI (Poison Idea founder and vocalist Jerry A (Lang) cut his teeth as a teenage bass player in Smegma). That inbred local spirit permeates this film. Interspersed between the many video-quality concert clips are archival interviews with the likes of Tom “Pig Champion” Roberts, the mountain-sized guitarist from the band’s heyday. “The hardcore thing was, I think, for a younger crowd. A stupider crowd,” he says in one interview. “But I was a stupider person so it worked real good for me.” In another interview, Lang’s wife Mary Lang comments that calling the debut album “Kings of Punk was a lot better than ‘the fattest junkies in the world.’” Substance abuse aside, Lang kept the band alive long after Robert’s retirement, leading to the film’s recurring joke: “And then that lineup folded.” In Lang’s own words, “I felt like I was getting fucked, so I might as well fuck everyone else at the same time.” Lastra’s documentary captures the madness of Poison Idea, but also the band’s glory. Melvins guitarist Buzz Osborne recalls, “[Poison Idea] at their absolute zenith were as good a live band as anyone I’ve ever seen. They were terrifying.” By the film’s end, Lang looks the healthiest he’s been since his youth. But of course, one must wonder how long it will be until he puts a new lineup together. In case that never happens, there’s an immortal catalog of albums, and this film. NATHAN CARSON. SEE IT: Poison Idea: Legacy of Dysfunction is at Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave, cinema21.com. 7 pm and 9 pm Thursday, September 14. $9.25.
ROSIE STRUVE
end roll
A Brief Guide to Getting High in Public BY M AT T STA N G E L
A few months back, I was at a friend’s wedding and witnessed something of both glory and horror. A bridesmaid, riding the energy of the night, exited the dancefloor mid “Single Ladies” and broke out a dab rig and torch—going to work on some shatter like a welder as the bride’s horrified aunt from Georgia looked on. It got me thinking: There’s a lot of dumb shit stoners do, especially in public. Sure, you know it’s illegal to light up while driving. You probably know an OLCC-regulated bar will get a massive ticket if you’re seen toking there. But what about the grayer zones? That’s why I put together this guide to getting high in public. Tear this page out and laminate it if you find yourself wondering… DABS AT A W EDDI NG? No. You don’t need to go there: Plenty of companies make hash oil cartridges that are just as strong and far more stealth than the traditional dab gear. You walk by these convenient oil pens every time you enter a dispensary. So pick one up. ED I BL E S ON A P L ANE ? N ot u n l e s s y o u’v e g ot your shit dialed in. Case in point: In the summer of 2008, I moved from Richmond, Va., to Portland to finish a record with a buddy from college. When I got to Dulles International Airport with a duffel bag and a guitar (so romantic!), I was in possession of a Rice Krispie treat made by a notoriously heavy-handed chef: If he told you to eat half, eat a quarter of it and that’ll likely be a journey. So that’s what I did, standing in the security line. Then I got nervous. I didn’t want to get arrested for possession on my way to the promised land. A half-dozen bites, and the edible was gone. Two hours later, I was one hour into a five-hour flight, convinced that I was having a heart attack. Of course, I told no one, and powered through the most terrifying high of my life. D OO BS A RO UN D K I DS? There’s a home video of my childhood best friend at a family reunion at the age of three. His uncle hands him a red Solo cup and sends him to the keg to refill his beer. The toddler stumbles across the lawn, fills the cup at the keg, takes a long drink off its frothy
head and then returns. “Here’s your beer, Uncle Ted,” he says with a slur, handing over the cup before falling over. He’d apparently been playing bartender for other adults all day. The moral? While we should make a point of exposing youths to responsible cannabis use so as to destigmatize and set a good example, maybe get a sitter for the times when you’re gonna be so high that you’ll have your kid packing your bowls for you. GETTING STONED AT SHOWS? Even if security guards aren’t morally opposed to weed, they still have to represent the interests of the venue. I’m reminded of this time I was in Camden, N.J., seeing an iteration of the post-Jerry Garcia Grateful Dead. The band was about 45 minutes into their classic improvisation piece, “Drums/Space,” when a local Deadhead got frustrated, stood up from the mostly seated crowd, and decided that he was now the voice of the people. “Quit joikin’ us off and play a song,” he catcalled, repeating the phrase between gulps of Miller Lite and exaggerated pulls off a loud-smelling joint, unaware that the security guards just 20 feet up the hill indeed had noses, too. They calmly snuck up behind him, put him in cuffs and whisked him off to Sad Town. Should’ve saved that moment of defiance for the parking lot.
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BEING HIGH AT WORK? There’s nothing less impressive than a person who can’t do their job because they’re high. If that happens to be you, no matter how many times you tell yourself, “They don’t know I’m baked,” they probably do, and they’re probably annoyed that you’re staring into the milk steamer, transfixed by the bubbles that should already be the foam atop their latte, while the distinct scent of burning milk wafts across the counter.
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Across 1 Leave out 5 Manufacture skillfully 10 "Dear" columnist 14 Austrian physicist Ernst 15 Vietnam's capital 16 Like leafless trees 17 Burn-soothing plant 18 Beermaking phase 19 BBQ side dish 20 Puts the past behind with fond memories
23 Dorm floor supervisors, for short 24 Driveway goo 25 Brownish eye color 28 Curve in the water? 34 Annoyed persistently 35 Certain collars or jackets 36 Dict. spelling designation 37 "Who is John ___?" ("Atlas Shrugged" opener) 38 Rattles off
39 Say nay 40 Jackie O's husband 41 It's propelled by a paddle 42 Europe's "The ___ Countdown" 43 It's usually used to cross your heart 45 Bohemian 46 Chicago hub, on luggage tags 47 Green Day drummer ___ Cool 48 Hightail it 56 Shiraz, for one
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mockumentary 28 Isabella II, por ejemplo 29 "Let's do this!" 30 Cast ballots 31 Decathlon tenth 32 Moms' moms, affectionately 33 In a boring way 38 "Well, ain't that just something!" 39 Ice Age canid that shows up on "Game of Thrones" 41 PC key below Shift 42 Subway rider's payment 44 "I kid you not!" 47 Number of bears or pigs 48 Multiple awardwinner Moreno 49 Dram or gram, e.g. 50 McKinnon of "The Magic School Bus" reboot 51 Love, personified 52 Bills picturing Hamilton 53 Megacelebrity 54 Delightful 55 Drained down to 0% 56 "Impressive!" last week’s answers
©2017 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 #JONZ823.
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57 Egger-on 58 "Garfield" beagle 59 Musical Redding 60 Make amends (for) 61 "Livin' La Vida ___" (#1 hit of 1999) 62 Brightness measure 63 "Siddhartha" author Hermann 64 Ran away Down 1 "The Wire" character Little 2 Bamako's country 3 Computer program symbol 4 Epithet for Alexander, Peter, or Gonzo 5 Mass confusion 6 Barilla rival 7 Have ___ to pick 8 Times New Roman, e.g. 9 Uses an Allen wrench, maybe 10 Suck up 11 Shagger's collectible 12 Country singer Paisley 13 Archery bow wood 21 Caramel addition, in some ice cream flavors 22 Corn purchases 25 "Horrible" Viking of the comics 26 Arcade console pioneer 27 1983 Woody Allen
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Week of Septmeber 14
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Two animals are pictured prominently on Australia’s coat of arms: the kangaroo and the large flightless bird known as the emu. One of the reasons they were chosen is that both creatures rarely walk backward. They move forward or not at all. Australia’s founders wanted this to symbolize the nation’s pledge to never look back, to remain focused on advancing toward the future. The coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to make a similar commitment, Aries. Is there a new symbol you might adopt to inspire your intention?
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
*he Simpsons is an animated sitcom that will soon begin its 29th consecutive year on TV. During its run, it has told over 600 stories. The creators of another animated sitcom, South Park, once did an episode entitled “Simpsons Already Did It,” which referenced their feelings that it was hard to come up with new tales because their rival had already used so many good ones. I bring this up, Taurus, because I suspect your life story will soon be spinning out novel plots that have never before been seen, not even on The Simpsons or South Park. You could and should be the Best Storyteller of the Month.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
Love won’t exactly be free in the coming weeks, but there should be some good deals. And I’m not referring to risky black-market stuff obtained in back alleys, either. I mean straightforward liaisons and intriguing intimacy at a reasonable cost. So if you’re comfortably mated, I suggest you invest in a campaign to bring more comedy and adventure into your collaborative efforts. If you’re single, wipe that love-starved look off your face and do some exuberant window-shopping. If you’re neither comfortably mated nor single, money may temporarily be able to buy you a bit more happiness.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
The current state of your fate reminds me of the sweet confusion alluded to in Octavio Paz’s poem “Between Going and Staying”: “All is visible and elusive, all is near and can’t be touched.” For another clue to the raw truth of your life right now, I’ll quote the poet William Wordsworth. He spoke of “fleeting moods of shadowy exultation.” Is the aura described by Paz and Wordsworth a problem that you should try to fix? Is it detrimental to your heroic quest? I don’t think do. Just the opposite, really: I hope you can hang out for a while in this pregnant mystery -- between the yes and the no, between the dark and the light, between the dream and the reality. It will help you learn what you’ve been too restless to tune in to in the past.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
The imminent future will be a favorable time for refurbished models and revived originals. They are likely to be more fun and interesting the second time around. I suspect that this will also be an auspicious phase for substitutes and alternatives. They may even turn out to be better than the so-called real things they replace. So be artful in formulating Plan B and Plan C, Leo. Switching over to backups may ultimately bring out more of the best in you and whisk you toward your ultimate goal in unexpected ways.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)
In the coming weeks, you might want to read the last few pages of a book before you decide to actually dive in and devour the whole thing. I also suggest you take what I just said as a useful metaphor to apply in other areas. In general, it might be wise to surmise the probable outcomes of games, adventures, and experiments before you get totally involved. Try this fun exercise: Imagine you are a psychic prophet as you evaluate the long-range prospects of any influences that are vying to play a role in your future.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
“Dear Dr. Astrology: I’m feeling lost, but am also feeling very close to finding my new direction. It hurts! It would be so helpful if I could just catch a glimpse of that new direction. I’d be able to better endure the pain and confusion if I could get a tangible sense of the future happiness that my pain and confusion are preparing me for. Can you offer me any free advice? -Lost Libra.” Dear Libra: The pain and confusion come from the dying of the old ways. They need to die a bit more before the new direction will reveal itself clearly. I predict that will happen soon -- no later than October 1.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Welcome to “Compose Your Own Oracle,” a special edition of Free Will Astrology. Departing from tradition, I’m temporarily stepping aside so you can have the freedom to write the exact horoscope you want. Normally, you might be in danger of falling victim to presumptuous arrogance if you imagined you could wield complete control over how your destiny unfolds. But in the days ahead, that rule won’t be as unyielding, because cosmic forces will be giving you more slack than usual. Fate and karma, which frequently impel you to act according to patterns that were set in place long ago, are giving you at least a partial respite. To get the maximum benefit out of “Compose Your Own Oracle,” identify three plot developments you’d like to weave into a selffulfilling prophecy for your immediate future. Then start weaving.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Almost two-thirds of us confess that if we are alone, we might sip milk directly from the carton rather than first pouring it into a glass. Fourteen percent of us have used milk as part of our sexual activities. One out of every five of us admit that we have “borrowed” someone else’s milk from the fridge at work. Most shockingly, four percent of us brag that we have blown milk out our noses on purpose. I expect that in the next two weeks, you Sagittarians will exceed all these norms. Not just because you’ll be in the mood to engage in mischievous experiments and playful adventures with milk, but because you’re likely to have a loosey-goosey relationship with almost everything.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
The coming weeks will an excellent time for you to raise funds in support of political prisoners, or to volunteer at a soup kitchen, or to donate blood at a blood bank. In fact, any charitable service you perform for people you don’t know will be excellent for your physical and mental health. You can also generate vivid blessings for yourself by being extra thoughtful, kind, and generous toward people you care for. You’re in a phase of your astrological cycle when unselfish acts will yield maximum selfish benefits.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
In his novel The Jungle, muckraker Upton Sinclair (1878-1968) exposed the abominable hygiene and working conditions of the meat-packing industry. The uproar that followed led to corrective legislation by the U.S. Congress. Sinclair remained devoted to serving the public good throughout his career. He liked to say that the term “social justice” was inscribed on his heart. Drawing from his inspiration, Aquarius, I suggest you decide what your soul’s main motto is -- and imagine that it is written on your heart. Now is a perfect moment time to clarify your life’s purpose, and intensify your commitment to it; to devote even more practical, tender zeal to fulfilling the reason you were born.
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PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
You know that “patch of bothersome weeds” growing right in the middle of your life? Is it really a patch of bothersome weeds? Or is it perhaps a plot of cultivated blooms that once pleased you but has now turned into a puzzling irrelevancy? Or how about this possibility: Is it a chunk of languishing beauty that might flourish and please you again if it were cared for better? Those are excellent questions for you to pose in the coming days, Pisces. According to my interpretation of the astrological omens, it’s time for you to decide on the future of this quizzical presence.
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20595 SW TV Highway. Aloha, OR 97006 503-746-4444
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503 235 1035
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