CARS HELD FOR RANSOM. PEACOCK LANE IS AN EMBARRASSMENT. RUNAWAY CANNABIS PATENTS. P. 9
P. 25
P. 42
WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
“IT FELT LIKE THE KICKOFF TO THE YEAR OF THE WOMAN.”
12 DAYS THAT SHOOK THE CITY
P. 12 WWEEK.COM
VOL 44/08 12.20.2017
THE WOMEN’S MARCH JANUARY 21, 2017
COVER 1/3
CARS HELD FOR RANSOM. PEACOCK LANE IS AN EMBARRASSMENT. RUNAWAY CANNABIS PATENTS. P. 9
P. 25
P. 42
“THE TRAIN SEEMED TO HOLD THE BEST AND WORST OF THIS CITY.”
WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
12 DAYS THAT SHOOK THE CITY
P. 16 WWEEK.COM
VOL 44/08 12.20.2017
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
C O U R T E SY O F R E D FA N G
FINDINGS
PORTLAND’S PISS-SWILLING STONER METAL GODS ARE MAKING REALLY GOOD WINE
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 44, ISSUE 08.
H.P. Lovecraft was a racist. It’s harder to know what’s in Cthulhu ’s heart. 4
Peacock Lane is trash, but we wish a happy Hanukkah to the dreidel bear. 25
City policy charges you $184 for
Mongolian grills aren’t Mongolian. If you want to try real Mongolian food, there is a place. 28
getting your car stolen. 9
This week’s paper has three covers. Collect them all! 11 Portlanders made death threats to the founders of a burrito shop and the kid who set the Gorge on fire. 15
Red Fang is making red wine. 29
At least one regular at the Ash Street Saloon used to piss out a window and aim at patrons of the dance club next door. 31 The patent wars are coming. 42
ON THE COVER: Three days that shook the city. Photos (L-R) Joe Michael Riedl, Gio Hernandez and Chris Liedle
OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:
A small crowd of angry boys stood in the cold to yell at Hillary Clinton.
STAFF Editor & Publisher Mark Zusman
Music Editor Matthew Singer
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 Editor Shannon Gormley Projects Editor Matthew Korfhage
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
3
DIALOGUE Last week, WW reported on wweek.com that a co-owner of the Lovecraft Bar, an LGBTQ-centric goth nightclub in the Central Eastside, was resigning after a social media campaign alleged he sexually assaulted patrons. The campaign against the Lovecraft Bar also objected to its namesake: the cosmic horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. WW columnist Crystal Contreras argued that Lovecraft, who was openly racist and anti-Semitic, should be abandoned to the scrap heap of history. Here’s how the debate unfolded: Crystal Contreras, writing for WW: “Even though most internet commentators would say otherwise, writing is very hard work, and telling a story requires a lot of deliberation. When I think of the time and thought it would take to sit down and craft a story with a cat named after a racial slur for black people, or an entire poem about how black people were only part human and filled with evil, it makes me think that someone who would do that isn’t just going through an unfortunate, momentary lapse in their belief systems.”
the Revolution, the Constitution, and the Letter without embracing their racism? “If so, can’t there be a bar called Lovecraft without it being racist?” Container of Multitudes, via wweek.com: “Wow, you’re not wrong, Crystal. Lovecraft is indefensible. I didn’t realize the depth of his racism. I’m honestly shocked, not by the fact that he is racist, which in itself is unsurprising, but by the magnitude of his racism.”
“Can you embrace the work without embracing the man?”
Nick A. Zukin, via wweek.com: “However, you don’t really engage the most important question: Can you embrace the work without embracing the man or all of the man? And further, can you embrace the work without embracing all of the work? “This seems to be the most important part of these issues we’re currently dealing with. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison—all slaveholders. Yet all of these people accomplished great things and even laid the groundwork for emancipation and racial equality. Even Lincoln, who did emancipate the slaves, was racist. Can we honor the Declaration,
Catherine Spencer-Mills, via Facebook: “This leaves me in a quandary. My mother was racist about people from Mexico. Was it because of when and where she was born? In part. Was it because she was about as self-reflective as a block of wood? In part. Still, she was my mother and accomplished some good things in her life. If we condemned every racist, sexist, misanthropic, head-blind person, there wouldn’t be anyone left that we could admire—including ourselves. I will still enjoy Lovecraft’s stories, the father of Goth.” Harmon Lanager, via Facebook: “Yes, racism was a factor in his stories, but if you think about it, there’s always the message that we are equally screwed. In the Cthulhu Mythos, we are all screwed if the Old Ones return. White, black, Asian, we’ll all be destroyed the same. Because the Old Ones are the very definition of color-blind.” 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 MART Y SMITH
Why do the same old songs keep sucking up all the Xmas oxygen? I want something zippy, fun, hip and different. Where is the new music? —Annette Well, excuse me, Your Highness—maybe you’re not aware that the Christmas song canon did get updated, a scant 38 years ago, with the addition of “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer.” You’re welcome. The unofficial Christmas top 40 actually does change—it just does it so slowly you’ll probably die before you notice. Stays on these charts aren’t measured in weeks but decades—even centuries. “Jingle Bells,” from 1857, isn’t going anywhere. “O Come, All Ye Faithful” (1743) is holding steady. “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” is from the 1600s. Moreover, people want the carols they grew up with. Your new song may be great, but is Grandma willing to give it the slot previously occupied by “The Little Drummer Boy”? And now, as a holiday treat, I’d like to pass along this news clipping that I totally didn’t make up, probably:
Triumphant Moore Declares Victory Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate who has refused to concede defeat despite his opponent’s apparent 20,000-vote lead, today announced he has won Alabama’s Dec. 12 special election. “The fake news media tried to claim we were outvoted, but thanks to your overwhelming support, we are victorious,” said the unshaven, bathrobe-clad Moore. “We mustn’t be taken in by the liberal media’s twisted version of reality,” the candidate continued, appearing to address his comments to small group of pigeons congregating around a halfeaten bagel. “Some of these liars would even have you believe that I’m standing in a Waffle House parking lot right now and not riding a horse to my new office in the U.S. Capitol.” “Giddyup, Sassy,” Moore added, making holding-the-reins motions with his hands. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com
4
Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
The Betterness Issue 2017
Plant based israeli food
Join the rest-o-vus for Festivus!
WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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for legal use of cannabis. But police will still have some obligations: “If a federal immigration law enforcement agency requests emergency cover from the Bureau, members will provide cover,” the policy says. The revised policy will take effect Jan. 18, 2018.
Portland-Bound Amtrak Train Flies Off Rails
At least three people are dead after an Amtrak passenger train headed for Portland derailed from an overpass onto Interstate 5 near Olympia, Wash., on Dec. 18. The crash occurred during the first trip for the Amtrak Cascades along a new, $181 million route designed to speed up train travel in the Northwest. The cause of the crash is still unclear, but National Transportation Safety Board officials say a data recorder shows the train was traveling 80 mph shortly before entering a 30 mph curve. A safety precaution called the “positive train control system,” designed to prevent dangerous speeds, was meant to be installed along the newly opened high-speed route, but Amtrak said the system had not been activated when the train crashed.
Portland Police Sharpen Immigration Policy
The Portland Police Bureau clarified its policies on immigration enforcement this week, specifying what exactly officers may and may not do when interacting with undocumented immigrants. The new rules prohibit officers from asking about someone’s immigration status except when that status might affect the investigation of a crime, such as human trafficking. Officers are also barred from participating in any operation whose sole purpose is to enforce federal immigration laws, and from arresting undocumented immigrants
Neo-Nazi Fliers Strewn Near Portland State
Residents of downtown Portland found a handful of neo-Nazi recruitment fliers littering their neighborhood Dec. 16. The fliers, apparently created by a group called Patriot Front, were found on car windshields and park benches less than a block from Portland State University, suggesting they were intended to recruit college students. Patriot Front is a brand-new white supremacist organization started A L L E N M OT TA R D
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Give!Guide Nears $2 Million in Donations
WW’s annual Give!Guide is live and accepting donations at giveguide.org. Giving has neared $1.9 million. This Thursday, Dec. 21, you could win a 60-guest pingpong ice cream party of your dreams by giving $10 or more to the nonprofit of your choice.
NEWS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
BY THE NUMBERS
How People Die on Portland’s Streets CAUSES OF DEATH
Life on the streets of Portland can be nasty and short. That’s the bleak conclusion of a Multnomah County report examining fatalities among local homeless people. Widely reported: 80 people died on county streets in 2016. The average age of a homeless person who died last year was just 49. A third of homeless people who died were in an outdoor public space. And more than half the deaths had alcohol or drugs as a cause or contributing factor. Here are the primary causes of death. AARON MESH.
80 VICTIMS IN 2016 ACCIDENT (RELATED TO DRUG OR ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION) [20]
NATURAL CAUSES (OTHER, INCLUDING CEREBRAL EDEMA, HEMORRHAGE, SEPSIS AND CHRONIC OBSTRUCTIVE PULMONARY DISEASE) [17]
NATURAL CAUSES (ALCOHOL-RELATED LIVER DISEASE OR ATHEROSCLEROTIC HEART DISEASE) [15]
ACCIDENT (MOSTLY TRAUMA) [13]
UNDETERMINED (INCLUDES DROWNING) [3] SUICIDE [9]
HOMICIDE [3]
4 QUESTIONS FOR
KENNETH BENJAMIN REED
A PORTLAND WOMAN STARTS AN ADVOCACY GROUP FOR PEOPLE ACCUSED OF SEXUAL MISCONDUCT.
When Laurel Jones hears the cry “Me too,” she thinks, “Prove it.” Jones has, like many Portlanders, been watching with alarm as allegations pile up across the country of sexual harassment and abuse by powerful men. But Jones, a 56-year-old market researcher, has reacted far differently than most: She’s starting a nonprofit advocacy group to defend people LAUREL JONES accused of wrongdoing. Her group, Speaking for the Other Side, is a response to what Jones sees as an unaccountable wave of anonymous accusers on the social justice left using Facebook “call-outs” to shame men who are then forced to prove their innocence. False allegations of sexual assault are incredibly rare— only 2 to 10 percent of reported assaults have been shown to be false in multiple studies. But Jones argues the #MeToo movement will be undermined if allegations are used as weapons to destroy enemies. She sat down with WW this week to discuss her against-the-grain advocacy. KATIE SHEPHERD. WW: What inspired you to take on this crusade? Laurel Jones: Many many years ago, I myself was wrongly accused at Portland State University. I was unable to defend myself because there was no formal complaint, no formal procedure to defend myself. And that made me pretty angry, plus the accusations were false. It seems to me that the whole process was a whole denial of procedural rights, and it presumed guilt, not innocence.
JOE RIEDL
Laurel Jones
I don’t have any problem with people coming forward and sharing their experiences and their stories, but when they start naming names and making accusations on social media that they can’t substantiate, that is a total violation of innocence until proven guilty. It basically bypasses and violates all the rights of the accused, who may be innocent. Shouldn’t everyone be held accountable for sexual assault and sexual harassment? Harvey Weinstein can afford a big-time lawyer to go after people, with defamation suits and whatnot, if he were in fact innocent. But local artists in the Portland scene do not have the resources. That puts them on very unequal footing with the bigwigs. And the thing is, the local accusers of these people know that these people can’t afford it, so they feel that they can act with much more impunity. Then what should people who are abused by their non-famous co-workers or acquaintances do? It is a tough question. I can’t really say that I know what they should do. But violating the rights of the accused is not what they should do. As you start your group, how will you keep away actual predators looking to quash authentic allegations? I’m going to have to be very careful of that. I’m still trying to sort through this. I’m going to have to be the final arbiter of who joins and who doesn’t, and just do the best I can. I certainly understand that there’s a danger. But it’s an issue I feel very strongly about, and I’m fighting on behalf of some friends who are experiencing the same wrong feelings of shame and difficulties that I experienced at PSU way back when.
QUOTES OF THE WEEK
HELTER SHELTER “We don’t have a police precinct near. We have a meth and theft problem here. If we have to host this thing, then give us the infrastructure we need.” —Sam Neibi, a Southeast Portland resident, objecting at a public hearing Dec. 18 to a planned homeless shelter in the Mount Scott-Arleta neighborhood “The thought of having to hose down urine off the sidewalk at 10 am is not appealing.” —Dance studio owner Alex Krebs, objecting to the shelter “I know it’s scary to see change, but I have seen the beauty that happens when these people get help.” —Outside In employee Haven Wheelock, supporting the shelter Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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ABBY GORDON
NEWS
COSTLY CRIMES: Portland tow companies have probably made more than a half-million dollars selling back nearly 4,000 recovered stolen vehicles to their owners this year.
Held for Ransom VICTIMS OF AUTO THEFT FEEL AS IF THEY’VE BEEN ROBBED TWICE AFTER PAYING HEFTY TOW FEES TO GET THEIR CARS BACK. BY KAT I E S H E P H E R D
kshepherd@wweek.com
Last month, Josh Leslie walked out of his St. Johns home and realized his car had vanished. Twelve hours later, police found his 1997 Subaru Legacy in the town of St. Helens. When Leslie went to fetch his stolen car, he learned it had been impounded by a towing company called Grumpy’s. To drive his stolen car off the Grumpy’s impound lot, Leslie had to fork over $405, in cash. “Why are businesses allowed to make a profit off of crime victims?” he asks. “There just seems to be something a little bit wrong with that.” Motor vehicle theft is on a steep rise in Portland—in part because an Oregon Court of Appeals ruling impedes prosecutors’ ability to take cases to trial without a confession (“Car Jack City,” WW, Nov. 29, 2017). Portland now has the third-highest car theft rate per capita of any major U.S. city, according to a WW analysis of FBI crime statistics. For many victims, a Portland police policy pours salt in the wound: When stolen cars are found, owners have to pay hundreds of dollars to get them back. And there’s one clear winner amid all the losers of cars: the city’s contracted towing companies, which have made more than a half-million dollars this year alone from storing stolen cars, according to city records. Portland Police Bureau policy is to give owners of stolen cars 30 minutes to retrieve their vehicles once cops find them. Can’t get there in half an hour? Police call for a tow.
Victims are often left to the whims of bus schedules or must rely on a ride from a friend. And bureau policy doesn’t even require a courtesy call to the owner of the recovered car—it merely suggests officers make one. More than one victim told WW the first call they got was from the tow company. Police admit the policy revictimizes owners of stolen cars. “We do recognize that it’s a hardship to have the vehicle towed and need to pay to get it out of impound,” bureau spokesman Sgt. Chris Burley says. “We’d prefer not to do that. We’d prefer the person’s car not to be stolen in the first place.” But police say their hands are tied: The City Council makes the rules, and they just follow them. The rules may be changing soon. When WW informed Mayor Ted Wheeler of the city’s towing policy this week, he pledged to discuss changing the policy with Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw. “Let’s all agree: Making a victim of crime pay $300 or $400 to get their vehicle back is adding insult to injury, period,” Wheeler says. “If somebody wants to pick up the vehicle where it is and they’re able to do that, that’s a common-sense solution. People should at least be able to have that as an option.” Portland’s criminal justice reformers have demanded an end to the criminalization of poverty, noting how fees for minor crimes can ruin people’s lives over a misdemeanor charge. But the crippling impact of such property crimes on low-income victims has received far less attention. The cost of getting a car out of impound can be nearly as much as the value of the stolen vehicle itself. Although
some insurance policies will cover the cost of a tow, many people who own old cars buy policies that cover just their liability. The most commonly stolen cars in Portland are Honda Civics and Accords and Subaru Legacys—mostly models from the late 1990s. Most of those vehicles are worth only several hundred bucks to start with. Grumpy ’s charged Leslie $405. His 20-year-old Subaru is worth only about $1,000, according to Kelley Blue Book. “If [the tow fee] had been less than $200, I would have written it off as bad luck,” Leslie says. “But $400 to get a car that had been stolen for less than a day? It just seemed ridiculous.” Tow companies have picked up 3,967 stolen vehicles this year as of Dec. 15. At a minimum, they have made $729,928 from impounding stolen cars and charging their owners to get them back. The minimum fee that can be charged for towing a stolen car in Portland is $184—that’s a $128 hookup and towing fee, a $38 city fee and an $18 dispatch fee—but it is common for tow companies to tack on additional charges for storage and other costs, especially if the victim can’t retrieve the vehicle right away. Just five companies do the vast majority of the city’s towing: 21st Century Towing, A & B Towing, Newhouse & Hutchins Towing, Sergeants Towing and Speed’s Towing. Tow companies are reluctant to discuss their arrangements with the city. WW called the six most frequently used companies, and five declined to comment on the record. CONT. on page 10 Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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City data shows Portland’s towing companies hauled more than 300 recovered stolen cars to impound lots every month this year. In each case, the owner had to pay the towing company at least $184 to get the car back.
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NUMBER OF STOLEN CARS TOWED TO IMPOUND LOTS PER MONTH
HENRY CROMETT
Clark Tenney, president of 21st Century Towing, says his company has towed vehicles for the city for about 20 years—and the owners of stolen cars have always had to pay to retrieve the cars. He says he agrees with victims: The city’s policy puts people in a bind. “There’s a few [owners] that get a little frustrated,” Tenney says. “You always get a couple REPEAT CUSTOMER: Candace Starks had to pay about $300 to get her 1990 Toyota Camry out of a tow lot who say it’s unfair. We agree, but after it was stolen in Northeast Portland—twice. what else can you do?” In fact, there are other ways to handle recovered cars. ity the person who stole the vehicle may return Seattle police leave recovered cars where and drive away in the vehicle or the vehicle may they find them unless they are illegally parked not be able to be secured and could be tampered or pose a threat to public health or safety, or the with by other people.” owner asks to have the vehicle towed. That’s cold comfort to Candace Starks. “It sucks getting your car stolen,” says Seattle She’s had to pay towing companies to get her police Detective Patrick Michaud. “Paying a few 1990 Toyota Camry back—twice. hundred dollars just to get your car back seems The first time, in early 2015, police found a little bit silly.” her Camry a few blocks from her Northeast Part of the reason Seattle police don’t tow Portland house—and the tow cost her about stolen cars: They don’t want to penalize low- $287. The second time, the Toyota disappeared income victims of crime. from the parking lot of Cascade Station shop“If that owner doesn’t want to incur that cost, ping center in Northeast Portland. A tow truck we don’t want to force that issue because some picked it up in an empty field across the state people might not have the money to get [their line in Washington, and Starks shelled out cars] back,” Michaud says. another $300 to get it back. “They don’t care that your car was stolen,” Portland police say they don’t follow Seattle’s example because the recovered cars could be Starks says. “It’s super-frustrating because something already messed up happened to you stolen again. “The Police Bureau does not leave a recovered and you’re having to deal with paying to get stolen vehicle unattended after it is located,” your car back. It’s kind of cruel.” Burley says, “because there is the possibil-
12 BY WW STAFF
DAYS THAT SHOOK THE CITY
503-243-2122
Say what you will about 2017: The Big One never hit Portland. It just felt that way. Few years in recent memory had so many moments that brought this city to a halt. Events unfolded on a scale that felt epic: Tens of thousands marched through the streets in protest, gangs of political extremists brawled in parks, and a pair of rush-hour killings left citizens weeping in horror. The biggest stories of the year also felt apocalyptic: a blizzard and ice, then fire and ash. The world didn’t actually end. But some of Portland’s illusions did. As our staff looked back on the year’s turning points, we found two themes repeating, at odds with one another. First, 2017 was a year when Portland confronted ugly truths about its character. This city entered the year defiant, pledging to resist the presidency of Donald Trump. Yet events occurred that kept shaking Portland’s notion of itself: a failed safety net for its most vulnerable people, racists living next door, and everyday disagreements escalating into violence. Another theme was more hopeful. Portland became a more diverse and welcoming place. People of color took a more prominent place on the civic stage, and the city made tentative steps toward greater justice. That process was often painful, but it holds the promise that this city can be more than a bubble of privilege for people who all look the same. Portland went through upheaval in 2017. It is not the city we thought it was. But it can become something better. Here are the 12 events that shook us up.
Your eyes aren’t playing tricks on you: This week’s edition of WW has three different covers. The covers depict three of the most momentous events of 2017: the Women’s March on Portland, the slayings on a MAX train, and the Columbia River Gorge fire.
JANUARY 9
Police find a dead infant with his homeless mother at a Portland bus stop. W H A T H A P P E N E D : Portland police responded to a 911 call just after dawn, made from a bus stop on Southeast Powell Boulevard. They found a woman, whom an officer described as “very mentally ill.” Partially clothed in the icy aftermath of Portland’s worst winter storm in years, the woman clutched a newborn baby. An ambulance rushed the child to Oregon Health & Science University Hospital, but staff could not revive him. Initial reports suggested the infant had lived for a short while, although the medical examiner later ruled he had been “stillborn.” The boy never had a name. A neighbor said the woman lived in a homeless camp adjacent to the Chuck E. Cheese’s restaurant at 9120 SE Powell Blvd., even as temperatures plunged below freezing and more than a foot of snow covered the ground. JOE MICHAEL RIEDL
WHY IT MATTERED: Dozens of people die on Portland’s streets each year—80 in 2016. But most of them are adults at the end of a long plunge through the city’s social safety net. This death followed a disastrous week of snow and cold that caught local officials flatfooted: Four homeless people died of exposure in the first 10 days of 2017. Newly sworn-in Mayor Ted Wheeler told WW the infant’s death was a “damnation” of the city’s response to mental illness and homelessness. The boy’s mother was civilly committed after his death. But the moment echoed long after, with vigils, impromptu memorials and protests at City Hall—all of them asking why this city could not protect its most vulnerable citizens. The death occurred in the district of state Rep. Alissa Keny-Guyer (D-Portland), who chairs the House Human Services and Housing Committee. Keny-Guyer says she will introduce legislation in February to increase the recording fee on legal documents such as property deeds to increase state funding for housing. “It is heartbreaking to know that the death of that baby was preventable,” she says. “This tragic death is a reminder of how far we have to go in putting a permanent system in place to ensure that people have access to affordable housing and the services needed to keep them stable and give them a chance to thrive.” NIGEL JAQUISS. Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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JANUARY 21
JOE MICHAEL RIEDL
The Women’s March on Portland shows the scale of resistance to President Trump and sexual harassment.
WHAT HAPPENED: The day after Donald Trump’s inauguration, at least 100,000 people filled the city’s rain-slicked streets in a powerful show of defiance to a president who had bragged about obtaining sex by force. The event, called the Women’s March on Portland, was a departure from the confrontational protests that became a normal part of life in the city in 2017. Women and their supporters flooded the streets in our city, wearing pink knit “pussy hats” and posing for photos with police officers. Emily Evans, executive director of the Women’s Foundation of Oregon, says nothing could have kept her from marching that day—not even the fact that she was ill with pneumonia. “There was this universal sense that if there was going to be resistance,” Evans says, “it was going to come from women and other traditionally oppressed groups.” WHY IT MATTERED: The Portland Women’s March was one of hundreds like it in U.S. cities that day that spurred
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women across the country to run for elected office. (Portland’s march was among the best attended.) Without it, Evans says, “I don’t know that we’d have three women of color running for the open City Council seat.” The day was the first wave of a radio signal of rage that would become the #MeToo movement. It was a surge of solidarity that has helped women and men in a vast array of professions call out bosses who abused them for years. The march sparked a movement that is toppling one powerful abusive man after another. And it shows no sign of slowing. As U.S. Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) lamented in his whiny resignation speech, our abuser-in-chief still holds his position, but for how long? Grayson Dempsey, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon, says the march signaled that women would not sit quietly through oppression. “It felt like the kickoff to the year of the woman,” Dempsey says, “but in a very different way than those of us who hoped Hillary would be elected were expecting.” KARINA BROWN.
FEBRUARY 2
Chloe Eudaly forces landlords to pay moving costs for many evicted tenants. WHAT HAPPENED: For years, Portland tenants’ rights activists demanded that City Hall slow the rent hikes driving people out of the city. A month and a day after entering office, City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly did just that. At Eudaly’s urging, the City Council unanimously passed an ordinance requiring landlords to pay the moving costs of tenants if they evict them without cause or increase rent by 10 percent or more. On the 2016 campaign trail, Eudaly offered radical ideas to address Portland’s problems with affordable housing—including, at its most extreme, imposing rent control in Portland in defiance of state law. Once in office, Eudaly pivoted toward the practical. Her ordinance requires landlords to pay between $3,300 and $4,500 to tenants they kick out (or price out) of an apartment. “This is the only tool the city of Portland has to protect renters,” Eudaly said, “and we are using it.”
CI T Y C O M M IS SIO N E R CHLO E E U DA LY WA S E L E C T E D IN A WAVE OF F R U S T R AT IO N O VE R HO U SIN G C O S T S.
W H Y I T M AT T E R E D : The moving-costs requirement was the most meaningful renter protection City Hall had passed in decades—and signaled how huge a gain in political power tenants made with Eudaly’s election. The ordinance isn’t quite so dramatic as rent control— but it provides a financial disincentive to make landlords think twice about raising the rent or kicking a tenant out for a more well-heeled replacement. Before this rule, City Hall’s biggest reform was making landlords give tenants 90 days’ notice before a big rent hike—merely delaying the inevitable. “It’s hugely significant,” says Margot Black, an organizer for Portland Tenants United. “For Chloe to come in and [pass] this ordinance is not a silver bullet, but it financially helps tenants and also gives them psychological protection.” In 2016, buildingwide no-cause evictions were common, advocates say. This year, they’ve been rare. “I’ve observed the important and critical impact the relocation ordinance has had,” Legal Aid attorney Christina Dirks testified to the council on Oct. 4. “Before the relocation ordinance, we would get a call about a no-cause notice 1 in every 3 calls. Since the passage of relocation, we get very, very few calls [on no-cause evictions].” Yet the power shift hasn’t reached the state Capitol. This spring, the Oregon Legislature rejected bills that would have banned no-cause evictions entirely and allowed cities to establish rent control. RACHEL MONAHAN.
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FEBRUARY 27
Rod Underhill moves to defelonize possession of small amounts of hard drugs.
W H A T H A P P E N E D : The most meaningful criminal justice reform in Oregon occurred quietly on the streets of Portland. And it came from the most unlikely of places: a prosecutor’s office. Multnomah County District Attorney Rod Underhill made possessing small amounts of drugs like methamphetamine and heroin a misdemeanor, a step aimed at reducing prison populations and diverting drug addicts into treatment instead of jail. While he could not change the law, Underhill changed the way his office charged people caught with small amounts of drugs, altering the application of the law in Portland. Underhill says he was persuaded by the argument that sparing people caught with small amounts of meth or heroin from felony charges would reduce racial disparities in who serves prison time and who gets access to treatment. “One of the things we saw was a disproportionate number of individuals of color being brought into the criminal justice system charged with a felony crime,” Underhill says. “That appeared to be unfair.” WHY IT MATTERED: Underhill’s decision illustrates the power and influence that district attorneys can wield in the justice system—not just to put criminals in jail but to make the system more accountable and fair. Following his lead, Oregon lawmakers expanded the defelonization policy statewide in August. The new law became the signature victory of a criminal justice reform movement that gained momentum in Salem for the first time in years. It also marked the rare occasion when reform advocates and some of the state’s most prominent prosecutors were in step with one another. The fact that Underhill adopted the policy first was a boon for activists whose biggest opponents on such measures tend to be district attorneys. About 75 people have avoided prosecution for lowlevel drug charges since Underhill’s pilot program went into effect. The treatment-first program has diverted sentencing for hundreds more. “Any felony conviction for small-scale drug use is too harsh because it ruins people’s lives,” says David Rogers, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. “And even though people use drugs at the same rates across racial groups, people of color are more likely to be convicted of possession. We’re proud of Oregon for taking a smarter approach.” KATIE SHEPHERD. 14
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MAY 17
WW reviews Kooks
Burritos, and a war over cultural appropriation breaks out.
T HE S E B U R R IT O S B E C A M E T HE TA R G E T O F A SO C IA L J U S T IC E C A M PA IG N .
WHAT HAPPENED: WW reviewed a weekend breakfast burrito pop-up in Buckman called Kooks Burritos. The two women who started Kooks Burritos, Liz Connelly and Kali Wilgus, described their inspiration for the tortillas, which were based on those served from lobster stalls in the coastal Mexican town of Porto Allegre. “They wouldn’t tell us too much about technique,” Connelly said, “but we were peeking into the windows of every kitchen, totally fascinated by how easy they made it look.” We posted the story to our Facebook page on May 17. Then the internet exploded. A loosely organized online campaign accused Connelly and Wilgus of “cultural appropriation” by stealing from the tortilla chefs in Porto Allegre. Within two hours, the women received death threats on their Instagram pages, then death threats on their personal cellphones. They closed Kooks before the following weekend. It didn’t stop there. Local activist Alex Felsinger and Broadspace co-founder Kristin Goodman created and circulated a list of white-owned businesses that should be boycotted for stealing culture, even though many of them were actually owned by people of color. Then the conservative media picked up on this story and Kooks’ closure, and a second wave of people from all over the country got pissed off at the first wave. Soon, national and international news outlets from The Washington Post to the London Daily Mail picked up on this story. Everyone was very angry.
WHY IT MATTERED: The luckless founders of Kooks had stumbled into a longstanding battle between progressive activists and their right-wing foils over cultural appropriation. For years, tensions had simmered about racism in Portland’s restaurant industry, particularly regarding white chefs profiting from the cuisines of non-white cultures. Kooks’ founders were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and WW’s positive review of their popup, ironically, didn’t help. “Why is it these girls, right now?” Anh Luu, owner of Vietnamese-Cajun restaurant Tapalaya, said in an interview with WW. “Lots of people of different races have been opening up restaurants that are not of their own race. I feel like if two white dudes had opened a burrito truck, saying, ‘We spent a few months in Mexico speaking broken Spanish,’ people would be like, ‘Oh, cool, brah! That’s awesome!’” The Kooks controversy was one of the ugliest scuffles over appropriation seen in Portland or in the U.S. this year. But it was hardly the last. The same ingredients—hashtag activism, a heightened sensitivity to racial injustice, and the thrill of online righteousness that quickly shades into bullying—appeared again and again as America tried to deal with its collective political anger. Wilgus and Connelly are no longer on social media and could not be reached for comment. WALKER MACMURDO.
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MAY 26
E M I LY J O A N G R E E N E
JESSICA ELDER
Jeremy Christian slays two men who interrupted his racial ranting on a MAX train.
WHAT HAPPENED: The nation recoiled in horror as the blood of three good Samaritans was splashed across the inside of an eastbound rush-hour MAX train pulling into the Hollywood Transit Center. After a brief chase, police arrested the slasher who had stabbed three men 11 times in 11 seconds, cutting their throats. His name: Jeremy Christian, 35, a disturbed lover of comic books who’d earlier spent eight years in prison. Witnesses told police Christian had verbally abused two teenage girls of color, one of them wearing a hijab. “Go home, we need American here,” he said to the girls, according to court records. “I don’t care if you are ISIS.” When three men tried to intercede, Christian whipped out his knife and attacked. One man, Micah Fletcher, survived. Rick John Best, 53, a city of Portland employee, and Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, 23, a recent Reed College graduate, died on the train. Christian, whose trial won’t start until 2019, faces aggravated murder charges. His defense team
will argue he was a man whose mind was destroyed by the prison system, that he was cornered and shoved by some of the men he attacked, and that he was upset in part because his mother had demanded he find a new home for his 15,000 comic books. W H Y I T M A T T E R E D : The attack transfixed Portlanders and people across the nation because the train seemed to hold the best and worst of this city. The courage of the three men who stepped in to protect the two women intersected with an unhinged man with ugly, extremist views. Jo Ann Hardesty, a longtime civil rights activist who heads the NAACP of Portland, says the killings revealed hatred in our midst that many people had tried to ignore. “This incident,” says Hardesty of the MAX killings, “is much more of who we are than we might have thought.” But the full ramifications of the killings would only be made clear one week later, on June 3. NIGEL JAQUISS.
TA L IE S IN M YR D D IN NAM KAI-M ECH E ( T O P ) A N D R ICK J O H N BEST W ER E K IL L E D IN A M AX T R AIN STABBING.
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Portlanders confront white nationalists over free speech.
WILLIAM GAGAN
JUNE 3
WHAT HAPPENED: Eight days after the MAX stabbings, Portlanders stood united against a movement that thrived on hate. For months prior to the May 26 killings, an American fascist movement grew in the Northwest. Members of the “alt-right”—a loose coalition of Trump-supporting nationalists, internet provocateurs and white supremacists—had been organizing rallies and marches across Portland and its suburbs. Those protests often attracted opponents in the form of masked antifascist activists, or Antifa. By May, Portland rivaled Berkeley, Calif., as the most politically violent city in the U.S. In the wake of the MAX slayings, the alt-right called for its biggest rally yet, a “free speech” protest scheduled for June 3. While the event was attended by alt-right fans and their masked Antifa foes, the demonstration, for the first time, was overwhelmed by a thousand everyday Portlanders, who surrounded the park where a few hundred right-wing protesters gathered. “Nazis, go home!” the crowd shouted. WHY IT MATTERED: The scale of the defiance punctured the aura of menace that the alt-right had cultivated. It showed that free speech was a two-way street: Come into Portland breathing hate, and citizens would have something to say about it. One of the out-of-town alt-right protesters, a Los Angeles man named John Turano, who dressed in a Roman centurion’s helmet with red, white and blue plumes in the crest, said questions asked of him by Portlanders made him abandon the nationalist movement. “It just made me feel bad,” Turano told the Portland State University Vanguard in July. “I hadn’t really been paying attention; I just thought we were surrounded by all these people who hated us. But I met some people that seemed so nice.” Alexander Reid Ross, a PSU instructor who studies antifascist movements, says ordinary citizens turning out to protest was a turning point. “Confronting them,” he says, “has been successful.” AARON MESH. Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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Aminé makes the cover of XXL magazine.
N ATA L I E B E H R I N G
WHY IT MATTERED: As with everything else Aminé has accomplished in his brief career, his cover appearance helped raise the profile of the entire city. Only three years ago, hip-hop in Portland was invisible on the national stage, and practically outlawed within the city itself. Cops policed rap shows to such a degree it prompted an internal police review. With each milestone Aminé checks off, the notion of a “Portland rapper” seems less of an oxymoron. The XXL cover wasn’t the only highlight of Aminé’s year. In July, he released Good for You, his debut studio album on Republic Records. A hit with critics, it made good on the promise of “Caroline,” establishing him as a joyful smartass
AM INÉ PER FO R M S AT T H E R O SELAND LAST D ECEM BER .
HENRY CROMETT
JUNE 13
WHAT HAPPENED: In 2016, Aminé put Portland hip-hop on the map. This year, he put it on a magazine. In June, the 23-year-old Benson High School grad appeared on the cover of XXL with the rest of the magazine’s annual Freshman List spotlighting the top breakout acts of the year. Given his other achievements—going tripleplatinum with the outta-nowhere viral hit single “Caroline,” signing to a major record label, performing on The Tonight Show—it probably seems minor. But making the Freshman List of XXL, a leading hip-hop magazine, is a status symbol in the rap world. In some cases, it’s a kingmaker: Past honorees include Chance the Rapper, Travis Scott and Future. It is a source of fervent debate every year. And if you’re part of that debate, it means you’ve arrived.
in the mold of a young Kanye West. Whether his success will have a trickle-down effect on the rest of the scene remains uncertain. But for Aminé, that’s certainly the plan. “I definitely want to bring so much light into Portland,” he told XXL. “There’s a lot of Black culture that’s been taken from Portland. There are Black neighborhoods that are getting gentrified right now. If I could gather Black communities in Portland more, that would mean so much.” MATTHEW SINGER.
AUGUST 2
Shoukhrat Mitalipov edits embryo genes at OHSU. W H A T H A P P E N E D : Nature magazine published a scientific paper announcing an astonishing breakthrough. A team of scientists at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland were able to successfully edit the genes of human embryos. Using a gene-splicing technology called CRISPR, the team led by researcher Shoukrat Mitalipov was able to remove a genetic mutation known to cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart defect that affects 1 in 500 people and affects millions worldwide. If brought to term in a mother’s womb, a resulting baby would be free of the life-threatening disease. The OHSU team was not the first to attempt embryonic genetic modification—there were three previous studies in China. But Mitalipov says the success and scale of his study were unprecedented. “It was done on quite a few embryos,” Mitalipov tells WW. “We were able to successfully repair [the genome] in 50 to 60 percent of cases. In previous studies, this type of repair happens in 1 percent of cases.” WHY IT MATTERED: For most of the 150 years since the discovery of genes, your biological heredity was considered an immutable fact of existence: DNA was destiny. An inherited genetic predis-
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position toward Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s or heart disease meant your life was a time bomb with an uncertain fuse. But Mitalipov’s research promises the possibility of eradicating genetic disease one embryo at a time—a lead foot on the gas pedal of evolution. The editing of a human embryo also challenges assumptions about what it means to be human. The U.S. intelligence community has listed CRISPR genesplicing technology as a potential “weapon of mass destruction.” Congress, fearing designer babies and unintended consequences, has banned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration from approving studies that would allow gene-edited embryos to be brought to term. Mitalipov says we shouldn’t halt progress on a cure because of hypothetical abuse, adding that his technology can only eliminate known mutations that cause diseases. “If we believe changing genes for enhancement is bad, it can be regulated,” he says. “[Gene editing] can eliminate the suffering of a child. This could benefit millions. It’s still a concept, but we think this will be one of the huge medical developments of the future.” MATTHEW KORFHAGE.
T H E FIR E LEAP T FR O M R ID GE T O R ID GE O V ER LABO R DAY W EEKEND.
SEPTEMBER 2
T R I S TA N F O R T S C H
The Columbia River Gorge catches fire.
WHAT HAPPENED: In the late afternoon hours of a Labor Day weekend, a 15-year-old Vancouver, Wash., boy tossed a firecracker into Eagle Creek Canyon. It started a brush fire. Within hours, the fire spread out of control through a dry Columbia River Gorge. East winds whipped the fire west from ridge to ridge, igniting the nation’s most scenic waterfall district. Ash rained on Portland, and the sky was choked with smoke for nearly a week. The fire burned nearly 49,000 acres and closed 135 miles of trails. The teenager who started the inferno has been charged by the Hood River district attorney with reckless burning, depositing burning materials on forest lands, unlawful possession of fireworks, criminal mischief and recklessly endangering other persons. His trial will be open to the public.
WHY IT MATTERED: Oregon has seen bigger fires, and more devastating ones. But never before in modern Portland memory has a wildfire burned so close to the city—and damaged such a beloved wilderness. Many locals compared the devastation of places in the Columbia Gorge to the eruption of Mount St. Helens in 1980. “If you go back to September and try to relive that, it was a traumatic experience for everyone throughout the region,” says Michael Lang, conservation director at Friends of the Columbia Gorge. “You didn’t have to live in the Columbia River Gorge to feel the impact of the soot raining down. People have described it as posttraumatic stress disorder, really, that feeling of anxiety and anxiousness that won’t go away.” And few events have ever summoned so many fears at once: climate disasters exacerbated by global warming, the sense that Portland has grown too fast to manage newcomers enjoying the beauty that drew them here,
and the infuriating thought of vandals failing to respect sacred places. (The boy who threw the firecracker has not been named by officials because of threats—including lynching—made against him and his family.) On a more prosaic level, the flames erupted at the start of one of the biggest weekends for the small businesses that line the Columbia River Gorge. The lost revenue from Labor Day weekend was a major financial hit for the area. “September is the big time of year when a lot of local businesses really make or break it,” Lang says. “They really go into the black in September, particularly over the Labor Day weekend. But they were cut off from having any business at all.” Now that Interstate 84 is open again, officials are encouraging people to visit the businesses that lost out on the busy late summer season. But it’s unlikely that many trails will reopen until next summer—if then. KATIE SHEPHERD. Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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OCTOBER 14
The Thorns win their second national championship.
WHAT HAPPENED: The Portland Thorns beat the North Carolina Courage 1-0 in Orlando, Fla., to win their second National Women’s Soccer League Championship. Thorns superfan Jonanna Widner was one of nearly 200 Portlanders who flew across the country and crowded into budget motels to see the Thorns win the national championship. “Considering the atmosphere that we’re living in right now,” Widner says, “seeing the strength and confidence of women achieving something and really owning it unapologetically—that keeps me going.” W H Y I T M AT T E R E D : The passionate dedication of Thorns fans is nothing new. They’ve been packing Providence Park since the team was founded in 2012, at rates that dwarf the number of supporters of any other women’s soccer team in the world. But 2017 was rough. Through it all, those matches were a beacon of feminist solidarity— a place where even the losses were worthy of celebration, a respite for little girls or anyone who needed to see the strength of women in action. And on Oct. 14, the Thorns repaid their fans for all that support, delivering the kind of win that had eluded the city’s better-known professional sports teams. Widner recalls one moment that helps explain fans’ extreme loyalty. After scoring in a game during the regular season, Thorns forward Nadia Nadim turned to the crowd and beat her chest with her fists. “To see that, in the face of Donald Trump, in the face of the #MeToo movement, to see a woman own her own power—the crowd feeds off that,” Widner says. “And then imagine a 12-year-old girl in the stands who sees that and understands that it’s OK for her to do too.” KARINA BROWN. 20
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NOVEMBER 10
NOT IN MY BACKYARD.
THE THORNS CE L E BR AT E R E A CHIN G THEIR GOAL.
DANIEL STINDT
COURTESY OF PORTLAND THORNS
Tim Boyle challenges Portland over homeless camping.
WHAT HAPPENED: Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle took to The Oregonian’s editorial page to issue a notso-veiled threat: Either Portland City Hall puts more beat cops on downtown streets, or he’s taking his employees elsewhere. “Our employees have had so many car break-ins downtown that we have started referring to parking in Portland as our ‘laptop donation program,’” Boyle wrote in his op-ed. He added that he would spend the next 90 days considering whether he had erred earlier this year when he established a headquarters for Columbia’s Sorel brand of shoes downtown. Progressive critics had a field day with Boyle. But it’s hard to fault his basic concern. Columbia moved its corporate headquarters from Portland to unincorporated Washington County in 2001, a blow that successive mayors have sought to reverse. There’s a tension for companies that employ young creatives: The real estate is cheaper and the taxes lower outside the city, but the restaurants, nightlife and other amenities are better downtown.
WHY IT MATTERED: At 68, Boyle, Oregon’s second-wealthiest man, would appear to have nothing in common with the unnamed baby boy whose January death horrified the city. Yet the baby and Boyle, in radically different ways, brought focus to Portland’s failure to address the pervasive homelessness on city streets. Robert Liberty, director of Portland State University’s Urban Sustainability Accelerator, says Boyle’s employees are experiencing the result of the city’s failure to plan for growth. “We’re seeing the arrival of wealth in the form of higher paying jobs—lots of them,” Liberty says. “How is this being expressed other than a Tesla dealership opening?” As the city booms and property and business taxes flood in, Mayor Ted Wheeler has warned of budget cuts. Liberty says that while the city isn’t equipped to address mental illness and addiction, there’s no reason it cannot tackle the third driver of homelessness—the housing shortage. “ We have the tools and the capacity,” he says. “ We have to do better.” NIGEL JAQUISS.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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STREET
(Left) “Hang out with family and wear pajamas all day.”
“Spending time with family. My parents will be in town from North Carolina and I’m always so happy to get to see them and hang out.”
“Thank God for his blessings and spend time with family and friends.”
PHOTOS BY SAM GEHRKE @samgehrkephotography
WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON DECEMBER 25TH ? “Smoking a fat blunt!”
OUR FAVORITE LOOKS THIS WEEK.
(Left) “Get under a blanket and be cozy! Stuff like that.” (Right) “Hang out with my family and the dogs.”
“Going down to Los Angeles to see my friends and hang out.”
“I’ll be eating cookies and going to Ireland to visit my boyfriend.”
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C J M O N S E R R AT
STYLE
E Z O BO TAKEN FOR GRANTED: Give and Take
What Was Old Is New Again AN END-OF-YEAR ROUNDUP OF PORTLAND VINTAGE SHOPS THAT HAVE CAUGHT MY EYE. BY WA L K E R M AC M UR D O
wmacmurdo@wweek.com
It’s the biggest shopping season of the year, so you’re probably broke as hell as you’re reading this. I like fancy, new clothes as much as the next guy, but every so often you need to take a break from the new and spend an afternoon sorting through the old and inexpensive. Portland has a lively vintage market, and the new wave of curated vintage shops and projects have nicely complemented the goodold-fashioned neighborhood Goodwill. Here are three vintage spots that are worth checking out.
I AM THAT 3623 SE Hawthorne Blvd., iamthatshop.com, Instagram: iamthat_shop Minimalism isn’t just about having cute pottery and a cuter Instagram: It’s about not buying new stuff because the old stuff is just as good, if not better. With a large inventory of inexpensive, elevated womenswear—think a maraschino cherry red mohair coat from the 60s for $64—strikingly arranged by color and an adorably sparse aesthetic, Hawthorne’s I Am That chops a lot of money off of Portland’s look du’jour.
GIVE AND TAKE RESALE 8128 N Denver Ave., giveandtakeresale.com, InsPDX PLUGD AT COMPOUND GALLERY tagram: giveandtakepdx 107 NW 5th Ave., pdxplugd.com, Give and Take isn’t new: They’ve been kicking Instagram: pdxplugd around as a good-old-fashioned secondhand First there was no Supreme and no Bape. resale shop since 2012. But on a chance wander Then in 2017, there was all of it. Last week we through on a recent visit to Kenton, I discovered spoke to the guys at Heir a treasure trove of second(515 Southwest Broadway) hand steals that’d make any about their new streetwear picker weep. Multiple pairs resale den, but earlier this of Frye boots just sitting year, long-running bouthere for the taking? Check. tique Compound Gallery A used pair of Bred Air Jorquietly converted part of dan 11s for less than $200? their upstairs space in Old Check. Perfectly distressed Town to a new consignCarhartt and Polo Ralph ment project stuffed full of Lauren? Check. Old punk vintage shark hoodies and tees? Check. I’m definitely Bogo tees, a throwback to blowing up someone’s spot, their roots as an importer but the blow-up comes for of Japanese pop-culture every secondhand store ephemera. worth its salt. Give and Take’s time has come. @ I A M T H AT _ S H O P I N S TA G R A M Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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ANKE GLADNICK
THE BUMP
A
GRINCH’’S
GUIDE TO
P D
! E N A L K C O EAC
PATHETIC. IS ” T E E R T S S A RISTM LAND. H T C R “ O P ’S , Y R E IT T C T E E H B T K LA N E . D O C O C A E P , R E T T O BE
BY M A RT I N C I Z M A R
mcizmar@wweek.com
Peacock Lane bills itself as “Portland’s Christmas Street.” You can’t really argue the point. Every year, a street of reproduction Tudors in the Sunnyside neighborhood hangs Christmas lights. Every house on the block participates, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The attraction draws so many visitors that the street is closed to cars for the first weekend the lights are on, and the neighborhood erects a hot cocoa stand to collect “donations.” TV crews interview people in parkas. Choirs stroll through singing carols. This year, a Santa who appeared to be homeless brought his two pitbulls and set up outside the entrance to solicit funds for “a women’s shelter.” Earlier this year, in what may go down as the greatest accomplishment of NIMBYism in Portland history, Peacock Lane parlayed the goodwill around the event into a successful drive to get the street added to the National Register of Historic Places. This was done to prevent someone from building much-needed housing—during a housing crisis—that didn’t fit in with style of the street. But, in a town without much nationally significant architecture, a street of repros built in the ’20s is apparently worthy of preservation by our federal government. But there’s something that’s mostly gone unsaid: Peacock Lane is pathetic. While a few of the houses show a little creativity and serious commitment (shalom to you, inflatable dreidel bear) most of the “decorations” on this street look like they were the product of about an hour of
work and $46 of decorations from the Boxing Day leftovers at Kmart. Many of the houses are barely decorated at all—one house appeared to have literally three strands of lights, plus some glowing Santas in the windows. Maybe in times of power-hungry incandescent bulbs the muted display was charming. But cheap LED Christmas lights have been available for a decade now—not that anyone on Peacock Lane appears to have updated anything since Elf came out in 2003. It’s for the children, they tell me, and the children love it. Let’s not sell our children short. I have a 2-and-a-half-year-old daughter. She loves Christmas lights, and I want her to expect more from the world. The idea of a “Christmas Street” is not unique. Many major American cities have them. What is unique is the lackluster scale. When I lived in the suburbs east of Phoenix, I visited single-family homes that literally had more lights than the entirety of Peacock Lane. I
don’t want my daughter to be a pathetic rube who thinks this low-wattage street is all the world has to offer her—I want her to see a “Christmas street,” where she’s awestruck by the ambition, creativity and gaudy display of excess. Which brings us to the most ambitious setups on Peacock Lane. Rather than demonstrate any genuine creativity, they all incorporate bootleg cartoon characters with all the restraint of a Tijuana street vendor. Not only are the bootleg cartoon characters one lawyerly letter away from disappearing, they haven’t been updated in a generation. Today’s toddlers have never seen Linus or Gonzo. If Peacock Lane’s residents actually cared about kids, you’d see a bootleg Elsa and Olaf. Look, I have been to Peacock Lane all seven years that I’ve lived in Portland, and I’ll probably go next year. I live nearby, and in a town short on tradition, why not pop by? But let’s stop pretending Peacock Lane isn’t a pathetic, half-assed display of Christmas cheer, and a fossil of a time when this was a smaller and less worldly city.
GO: Peacock Lane’s meh Christmas-light show runs through December 31. Nightly, 6-11 pm. peacocklane.org. Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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STARTERS
C O U R T E SY O F OV E R LO O K FAC E B O O K
B I T E - S I Z E D P O R T L A N D C U LT U R E N E W S
OVERLOOK DOWN: The Overlook Restaurant at North Skidmore Street near Interstate will close January 21 after 43 years in business. Rumors had hovered around the restaurant’s closing for almost two years, after a developer filed an early assistance application for a five-story building on the property. Owners Jane and Jim Sassalos told WW two years ago they would consider offers. The project that’s actually moving forward is more complicated than the original proposal—a two-building, 158-unit project from Holst Architecture, with 59 spaces of parking including underground parking. Both buildings will include retail space. A Facebook group, Displaced Overlook Restaurant Patrons, has been started for Overlook patrons to “continue the wonderful relationships this venue helped us create.”
HAMP ARCHITECTS
DUMPLING KING: Downtown will get a gigantic new 3,000-square-foot dim sum and Taiwanese dumpling restaurant by January, says co-owner Yet Wang Eng, who comes from near Hong Kong. Yong Kang Street Dumpling and Noodle House will open in the food court of upscale shopping mall Pioneer Place on Southwest 5th Avenue, as part of a renovation that will also include a taco and Sonoran-dog joint called Bad Hombres. Yong Kang is a franchise of a chain started in Las Vegas, serving up a 20-deep selection of dim sum alongside Taiwanese noodle soup, lobster rice and forays into pho and ramen. The Oregonian was first to note their signage in the mall. Eng says he and his partners will include items not on the menu elsewhere. ROTHKO AND CO.: Last Wednesday, City Council approved the Portland Art Museum’s plans for the Rothko Pavilion. As WW reported, the museum raised $27 million for the new gallery space without securing permission from PORTLAND ART MUSEUM the city to enclose a public walkway. The pavilion, which was announced last fall, will house new gallery space and works by Mark Rothko, who grew up in Portland. It will also connect the museum’s main building to its contemporary gallery, which is currently only accessible by an underground walkway. “Even as an able-bodied person, I have found it extremely difficult to navigate the two buildings,” said Commissioner Nick Fish at the council session. “The public interest overwhelms the inconvenience this may cause to some people.” WINE UP: Stumptown’s former vice president Matt Lounsbury is now in the wine business. Along with Michael Etter of Underwood and Union Wine, the pair have started a canned wine company called Free Public. Assisted by Ron Penner-Ash, who sold his family’s namesake winery in 2016, Free Public buys and blends wines from grapes grown all over the West Coast, blending them to fit a specific flavor profile. “To my background,” Lounsbury says, “it’s like my approach to blends in coffee, hitting a profile year round that we know we’re going to like.” He also says Penner-Ash’s connections have helped the wine company gain access to good-quality grapes. Three-packs of wine—which add up to a 750-milliliter bottle—will sell for $12 starting this week at area stores. 26
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W E D N E S D AY
12/20
CHEER THE FUCK UP: AN OK CHORALE SING-ALONG
<< COOL KIDS PATIO SHOW Half standup show, half concert, Cool Kids is one of the most glorious comedy showcases in the city. It usually only runs during the summer, but it’s coming back for a yearend show with some of the funniest people in Portland, like Becky Braunstein and Shain Brenden, plus music by wacky krautrock-cumbia duo Dreckig. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., dougfirlounge.com. 8:30 pm. $10-$12. 21+.
OK Chorale is a way for average Portlanders to convene in the name of harmony. Everyone knows at least a few Christmas songs, so you might as well stop by and shout along to "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" with a few cans of Rainier in your system, right? Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 503-288-3895, mississippistudios.com. 7:30 pm. $22 advance, $25 day of show. 21+.
12/21
EROTIC CITY HOLIDAY PRE-FUNK
One of Portland’s most joyous holiday traditions, Clinton Street annually screens their print of the Coen Brothers’ absurd masterpiece and serves sakebased “rice Russians.” Even if you’ve already seen this portrait of a lovable slacker tons of times, you’re missing out if you’ve never seen it on film. Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., cstpdx.com. 7:30 pm. Through Dec. 26. $8.
F R I D AY
12/22
MARK O’CONNOR’S APPALACHIAN CHRISTMAS
BECKY BRAUNSTEIN | PHOTO BY HILARY SANDER
T H U R S D AY
THE BIG LEBOWSKI ON 35MM
Prince didn’t write many Christmas songs, but that hardly matters. When it comes to getting funked up before a long weekend of eggnog and family time, ain’t no better option than Portland’s best Prince tribute band. The Liquor Store, 3341 SE Belmont St., theliquorstorepdx.com. 9 pm. $7. 21+.
Get Busy
Though he was born in Seattle, fiddler Mark O'Connor has plenty of bluegrass cred, which will offer Portlanders a window into the lively and lonesome sounds of An Appalachian Christmas tonight. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 503-248-4335, portland5.com. 7:30 pm. $18-$105. All ages.
WH E R E WE ’ LL B E J I N G LE B E LL FU N KI N G AN D D R U N K C AR O LI N G TH I S WE E K
D EC . 20 –2 6 .
ELF Will Ferrell’s relentlessly naive Elf is a brief antidote to this whole shitty, cynical year. The Mission will be serving up the sweetest of cocktails—maple whiskey and ginger ale—to accompany the very sweetest of Christmas movies. Mission Theater, 1624 NW Glisan St., 8:45 pm. $11 includes Elf cocktail.
S AT U R D AY
12/23
CANDI POP: ALL I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS EDITION They say there's no such thing as a guilty pleasure, but for those of us who enjoy "Last Christmas" a little more than we'd care to admit publicly, poptimist dance party Candi Pop's night of guilt-ridden Christmas cheese is the safe space you’re looking for. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 503-239-7639, holocene.org. 9 pm. $5 before 10 pm, $8 after. 21+.
ANIMATED CHRISTMAS For those who like their Christmas illustrated and/or weird, Re-Run Theater will screen a curated selection of 16mm, seasonal animated shorts that range from heartwarming to bizarre. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., hollywoodtheatre.org. 2 pm. $6.
S U N D AY
12/24
THE NUTCRACKER Savaged by critics and ignored by audiences upon its 1892 debut in St. Petersburg, this Christmas ballet of rats, toy soldiers and confectionary sprites was saved from the dustbin of history thanks to its Tchaikovsky score, and is now one of the world's best-loved Christmas traditions. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 503-248-4335, obt.org.
SHIFT DRINKS SUNDAY SUPPER Every other Sunday, downtown’s best cocktail spot Shift Drinks offers up a free meal—and for Christmas Eve, it’s beef bourguignon alongside an all-night happy hour menu of $7 simple drinks. Lucky you, Christmas orphan. Shift Drinks, 1200 SW Morrison St., 503-922-3933, shiftdrinkspdx.com. 6 pm-midnight.
M O N D AY
12/25
HEADWATERS CHRISTMAS BUFFET
DRINKING AT THE RADIO ROOM
Celebrate Christmas like a long-haul trucker—at a buffet with shrimp! Vitaly Paley’s swanky Heathman Hotel seafood spot will serve up his Grand Buffet of upscale comfort fare on Christmas day. Headwaters, 1001 SW Broadway,: 503-790-7752, headwaterspdx.com. Grand Buffet served 11 am-4 pm. $62 adults, $38 kids 12 and under, all inclusive.
Almost as firmly entrenched as Chinese food and a movie, boozing it up at the Radio Room’s all-day Christmas miracle of Bloody Marys, rabbit pot pies and surf’n’turf burgers is a Portland Xmas refugee tradition. Who needs a family? Radio Room, 1101 NE Alberta St., 503-287-2346, Radioroompdx.com. 9 am-2 pm.
T U E S D AY
12/26
CALL ME BY YOUR NAME
DIE HARD
The story of a love affair between Elio, a teenager summering in Italy with his scholarly parents, and a grad student named Oliver, Call Me By Your Name follows in the footsteps of last year’s Moonlight as a smoldering queer love story rendered with remarkable depth of feeling. Fox Tower, 846 SW Park Ave., 844-462-7342. Various showtimes. $11.95.
Celebrate the end of Christmas and the (maybe) last days of Bazi Bierbrasserie—bought this fall by bar chain the Thirsty Monk—with John McClane’s no good, very bad day and a $10 burger, fries and beer special. Bazi Bierbrasserie, 1522 SE 32nd Ave., 503-234-8888, bazipdx.com. 7 pm.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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FOOD & DRINK THOMAS TEAL
REVIEW
CHEF'S CUT: Shysei Gyo makes noodles in his cart.
Yurt Life CARTLANDIA’S TASTE OF MONGOLIA IS ACTUALLY A TASTE OF MONGOLIA. Most Portlanders probably think they’ve sampled Mongolian food. And most of them are wrong. Those long-ago-trendy buffet-style Mongolian barbecue places aren’t Mongolian at all—the concept was developed by the Taiwanese, who invented a story about Mongolian warriors stirfrying meat on their shields as a way of capitalizing on the love of Japanese Teppanyaki. If you want to encounter Mongolian food as it’s known to actual Mongolians, there’s a little red truck at Cartlandia that brings you out to the proverbial yurt on the grassy steppe. Taste of Mongolia opened in July under the supervision of chef Shysei Gyo. The menu has everything from the rouga bun to chow mein to pepper-sauced chicken with rice. I was not a fan of the rouga, also called a Chinese hamburger. The same cuts you typically find finely ground in a burger are chopped thick and packed loose, cooling and coming apart on a dense, dry bun that recalls an English muffin. (This is how it’s supposed to be, because it was meant for people who were traveling.) The reason to go see Gyo is the hand-cut noo28
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dles and dumplings. Best of all are the dumplings, jiao zi in Mongolian, on the menu, which is entirely in English. Perhaps this is because there are only about 25,000 Mongolian immigrants anywhere in this country, most of whom reside in Denver. Those dumplings are meatheavy pockets of thin, slippery dough served by the dozen ($9). There are pork and cabbage, beef and carrot and veggie versions available, all of which are hearty and warming on cool winter nights. You’ll also do well with the basil chicken ($8) with handcut noodles. They’re short on basil, which would provide welcome spice and color, but the combination of lightly grilled chicken and chewy noodles is deeply satisfying. Be aware that the spicing and seasoning on everything here tends to be mild, but when you’ve got chewy hand-cut noodles from a tradition rare on our shores, that’s a trade-off I’m happy to make. MARTIN CIZMAR. GO: Cartlandia, 8145 SE 82nd Ave, WednesdayMonday noon-9 pm
DRANK
Horns Up, Pinkies Up BY M AT T H E W KO R F H AGE
mkorfhage@wweek.com
Red Fang is not exactly known for liking the finer things. The Fang are Portland’s piss-swilling stoner-metal gods—power-chord peddlers whose first music video in 2009 showed them beating up LARPers in the park while wearing armor made of Tecate cans. In another, they escape in a PBR truck from a horde of beer-swilling zombies. When PBR needed a soundtrack for their official pinball machine, Red Fang was the band they asked. But like Slayer before them—whose Reign in Blood wine is apparently really big in South America—Red Fang is getting in on the grape game. Next month, Portland urban winery Teutonic will release 65 cases of Red Fang Red ($25), a fruitily acidic blend of pinot, skin-contact gewürztraminer and tannat, a big-bodied grape winery co-owner Olga Tuttle declared the most metal of grapes. On the bottle’s label, the band’s trademark skull is stained red with pinot, with text declaring the wine “perfect for a hot bath or a night of headbanging.” It turns out the drummer, John Sherman, is the wine hound in the band; singer Bryan Giles still drinks PBR. “I think what people think of the band comes from the videos,” says Sherman. “But you know, they’re not documentaries. They’re extreme exaggerations of whatever characters we were at the time. And at the time that first video came out in 2009, we were drinking a lot of PBR. If people want to hate us because we’re not those guys anymore, well...” “John had been coming to our winery tasting our wines,” says Teutonic’s Barnaby Tuttle. “One of their videos, there’s actually a scene where John is drinking wine, a scene where they’re doing soundcheck—he’s over at a table swirling pinot and being a douche.” “Wine is the best of all three things I like,” says Sherman. “Gambling, because you have to decide whether to sit on the bottle and you might open it at the wrong time. I like to get buzzed, and I like food. All of those, I guess, are a buzz.” Sherman had first read a magazine piece about Teutonic, which makes distinctive Alpine-style wines. “It seemed like they were really making wines a different way from everybody else,” he says. “When I walked into their tasting room the first time they were blasting Saxon, Tad and the James Gang. I thought, not only are they making excellent wine, they’re really cool.” After Sherman kept coming into the winery, eventually the Tuttles figured out what he did for a living and asked him whether he wanted to make a wine with them. But according to Sherman, after the band filed down to the winery to taste different wine barrels, they unanimously decided to let Barnaby and Olga do whatever they wanted.
WINE HOUNDS: Teutonic’s Barnaby and Olga Tuttle with Red Fang (left to right)
The band did, however, bottle the wine that bears their name. Giles filled the bottles, and Sherman put the cork in. The result is a strangely layered wine: Even with the low bass notes of tannat, the minimalist pinot that forms the wine’s backbone is almost German in its austerity, wild-fermented in neutral oak and made acidic and bright with the lightness of the orange-wine gewurz. Different sips bring out different notes, whether deep and almost plummy or a bit tart. This August, Red Fang traveled to the Wilsonville vineyard Teutonic terraformed from an old gravel pit, to help with the winery’s grape harvest. Wyatt Wahlstrom, a 16-yearold aspiring drummer JOHN SHERMAN who’d been helping the Tuttles harvest grapes since he was seven, apparently didn’t know Red Fang was arriving. “That was the high point of the day—that kid,” Barnaby Tuttle says. “He’s a pretty stoked 16-yearold already. The double take and the look on his face was priceless. He plays the drums, he plays their songs. That’s his favorite band in the world. He’d invited his friends to come pick and they said it didn’t sound like fun. They were pretty bummed when they found out who showed up.”
Like Slayer before them, Red Fang is getting in on the grape game.
GO: Red Fang’s bottle release party will be January 13 at Teutonic Wine Company, 3303 SE 20th Ave., teutonicwines.com. 6 pm. $25 includes a glass of the wine, a metal-horns wine glass, a house-made corn dog with house-made sausage a bag of Fritos. Red Fang will be in attendance.
BRYAN GILES
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P H OTO S C O U R T E SY O F R E D FA N G
PORTLAND’S PBR-LOVING, STONER-METAL BAND RED FANG HAS A REALLY GOOD WINE NOW FROM LOCAL WINERY TEUTONIC.
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
A A R O N PA R E C K I
MUSIC Portland hip-hop legend Mic Crenshaw: If a venue could be a family member, I would consider the Ash Street my favorite rambunctious-but-reliable cousin who stayed downtown—always there to support and have a good time. Battin: The Ash Street was always a place that any band could play. It wasn’t a metal club. It wasn’t a punk club. It wasn’t a hippie club. They catered to everybody. If you were rolling through town, your show fell through and you needed a place to play, you could always hit up the Ash Street to jump on a bill. Capt. Ankeny’s bartender Brian Cook: I mean, there’s been a lot of crazy shit that’s happened down here through the years—a lot of weird fights. Some kid got his head kicked through the window. Drive-by shootings. We were all working the night there was a shooting at Kells. One night, I came in here mid-shift to have a drink, and Kenny G. was sitting at the bar.
Ashes to Ash Street DOWNTOWN PORTLAND’S DIRTIEST ROCK BAR IS ABOUT TO CLOSE. HERE’S HOW REGULARS WILL REMEMBER IT. BY JAY H O RTO N
When tales are told of the downtown “rock blocks” that once cultivated a burgeoning Portland music scene, the Ash Street Saloon doesn’t often take center stage. Open-door booking policies, a roadhouse-express atmosphere and signature events of a keening silliness—bacon wrestling, pirate festivals—somehow failed to inspire the romantic reveries that sustain the legend of other bygone venues. Ash Street would never boast Satyricon’s unassailable punk cred, nor attract the glittering alt-heroes of Berbati’s Pan. But soldiering on for decades with genre-spanning live acts 363 days a year served a function just as vital—and one, we suspect, far harder to replace. As the venerable club enters its final week of shows, we asked a few former mainstays to share favored memories of Old Town’s last gleaming. Former Ash Street bartender Ashley McGarr: Before it was the Ash Street, I believe the space was a Korean karaoke bar. It was just the bar room with a small stage over by the windows. That [brick archway] was just a wall. Street performer John “Elvis” Shroder: They did have a small stage there where the tables are now, but the venue side used to be a card shop. Current Ash Street bartender Mandy Freund: Camel had paid for a mural [on former brick wall] to encompass the whole club, so there was a woman onstage with a guitar and a cigarette sticking out. When the wall came down, people wanted to take a swing at that ugly fucking mural. McGarr: The backyard’s always been there. When I was first working here with Megan and Amber, people had to ring a bell out on the bar if they wanted a drink because we’d all be on the roof suntanning.
Nyari: Norman Stanley, our psychotic homeless neighborhood friend, would come in, and we’d make him check his weapons at the bar—then he was allowed to have a drink. Apparently, as the story goes, he used to be around here in the late ’80s, and a bunch of the bar owners around town all threw in money to give him a one-way bus ticket to Miami. They sent him out of town, and it took him like 10 or 15 years to get back. He’s missed. Lefty is missed. Biker Nick is missed. There are plaques at the end of the bar for those guys. Freund: I was in here having drinks on a Sunday afternoon a couple weeks ago, and some crazy, crazy lady lost her shit and threw a mug at the mirror over the bar. That’s terrible for the bartender, but it kind of warmed my heart to know there’s still that crazy left in this neighborhood. I don’t want them to be able to push it all out. I don’t want Old Town to be all families waiting in line for Voodoo Donuts.
Freund: There used to be stairs that led up to the roof in the backyard.
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McGarr: I can’t remember the woman’s name, but she took a tumble and that was the end of the stairs and the deck. Legally, I’m sure we weren’t even supposed to be up there.
Freund: [The landlords] don’t want a place with music and won’t renew the venue. They have a different vision.
Former Ash Street bartender Tracy Nyari: People would come here for years and have no idea that back patio is there. It’s a goddamn gem in downtown, [whereas] the green room looks like you’re crawling into a fireplace. Freund: When Bar 71 was next door, a lot of the bands would go up the staircase to the green room and make fun of the people down on the dancefloor and kinda throw shit at them. Weaklings/P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S. frontman Bradly Battin: I used to like opening up the window in the green room...and peeing on the people dancing at the club next door. That was always a good time. Nyari: At this point, we’ve all discussed plans for the couch. Maybe we should just donate it to OHSU, and they can do some testing. Seriously, I don’t know how they’ll get it out of there. How’d they even get it in? Freund: That’s a mystery because the staircase that’s there now didn’t then exist. I think it probably should be preserved, if you could figure out a way to decontaminate. That is a disgusting fucking couch.
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McGarr: Ankeny’s lease was up before this place, and they just wouldn’t let ’em re-sign. Bacon Cup impresario Ray McMillin: There are venues that put up with industrial music, venues that put up with joke rap, venues that put up with strippers, wrestling, even lard. Thanks to the closing of Ash Street, finding a venue to allow all of these things at once will no longer be a possibility. Crenshaw: It’s been a fearless pillar of support for punk, hip-hop, metal and underground music. We need places like Ash Street for organic culture to thrive. Cook: I mean, I’ve got to be honest, some of the worst music I’ve ever seen has been played at the Ash Street, but it was kind of awesome that any band could get a chance. Even if you have a terrible show, you might be going somewhere good down the road, and you need that opportunity to play. That’s going to be a hard fucking void to fill. I don’t know where you’ll get a show now without much of a reputation. Battin: Downtown’s losing another open-minded, no-frills venue able to put up a band any night of the week. We’re losing another small, cozy venue, which sucks for bands that ain’t gonna fill up a 500-person place. The Ash Street had music seven days a week, so we’re losing that, exactly that, and there’s not much more of that going around. SEE IT: Ash Street Saloon’s final week of shows begins Tuesday, Dec. 26. See ashstreetsaloon.com for a complete schedule.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
MUSIC = WW Pick. Highly recommended. Prices listed are sometimes for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply. Event lineups are subject to change after WW’s press deadlines. Editor: MATTHEW SINGER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, go to wweek. com/submitevents and follow submission directions. All shows should be submitted two weeks or more in advance of event. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Please include show or release date information with all physical mailings. Email: msinger@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 20 Weeed, Aan, Night Heron
[PSYCH-INDIE] Heavy and hardrocking in a way that recalls older styles of psychedelic stoner rock, Bainbridge Island’s Weeed are quickly becoming a frequently seen name on concert bills around the Pacific Northwest. Earlier this year, the trio released the epic Meta, filled with screeching reverb, ambitious shredding and a 25-plus-minute title track. Even at the album’s longest point, Weeed’s big riffs needed another platform, so as a bit of a gift, they’re celebrating the release of another LP, This, just a couple days after this show. Preceded by trippy indie act Night Heron and Aan’s louder, faster version of indie rock, it’ll be a guaranteed overload of sound. CERVANTE POPE. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., 503-328-2865. 9:30 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
Cheer the Fuck Up: An OK Chorale Sing-along with Ben Landsverk and the Enough With the Bells! All-Stars [GROUP KARAOKE] See Get Busy, page 27. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 503-288-3895. 7:30 pm. $22 advance, $25 day of show. 21+.
THURSDAY, DEC. 21
Rooms will be releasing a new EP, so consider the entire night is an observance of some of the best underground sounds in Portland. CERVANTE POPE. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 503-226-6630. 9 pm. $7. 21+.
Banana Stand Media’s 10th Anniversary: 1939 Ensemble, Psychomagic, Kulululu
[THE BASEMENT TAPERS] Somehow, in a city that’s changed as radically as Portland over the last decade, Banana Stand Media’s concept of recording local bands in a live, house-party environment has managed to survive for 10 years. Their backlog of Iive albums forms of an archival history of the Portland underground music scene as it existed in the late aughts—in certain cases, those recordings are the only proof certain acts existed at all. As such, tonight represents an especially well-earned anniversary party, with post-rock instrumentalists 1939 Ensemble, wild-eyed garage rockers Psychomagic and all-around weirdos Kulululu lending their specific brands of noise in tribute to a true DIY institution. MATTHEW SINGER. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 503-288-3895. 9 pm. $5. 21+.
SATURDAY, DEC. 23 Borgeous
[SOUTH BEACH BANGERS] John Borger, aka Borgeous, has come quite a way since “Tsunami,” his 2012 colab with DVBBS, leaped to the forefront of club culture like the second-coming Darude’s “Sandstorm.” The Miami-based producer has incorporated elements of dubstep, house and his hometown’s neon-inflected club sounds, highlighted by a banner year filled with singles like “Sweeter Without You” and “Over the Edge” that have obvious appeal to fans of bigger acts like the Chainsmokers and Martin Garrix. PETE COTTELL. 45 East, 315 SE 3rd Ave. 10 pm. $20 advance, $25 day of show. 21+.
Karma Rivera, Blossom, Wynne
[HIP-HOP] Karma Rivera has established herself as one of the brightest rising stars of the Portland hip-hop scene through a combination of strong performances and killer singles. Lyrically, Rivera’s calling card is her rare ability to balance keeping it real with being clever. Part of what makes her such a refreshing presence in Portland is her ability to turn up a crowd while bluntly offering her perspective as a female MC. “They say be Madonna/ Don’t ever be the hoe/But why be a saint when she’s never in control?” she raps on “Good 4 U.” Tonight, she joins two other emerging local talents—viral sensation Wynne and tropical R&B queen Blossom—to put a bow on a banner year for women in Portland hip-hop. BLAKE HICKMAN. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 503-231-9663. 9 pm. $10 advance, $12 day of show. 21+.
CONT. on page 35
PREVIEW
Tom Petty Tribute
[HEARTBREAKER] It will take a lot of us the better part of 2018 to fully mourn the death of Tom Petty. But first: a proper send-off by an all-star local act. Assembling for two days only, the band includes Jay Cobb Anderson and Tyler Thompson of heartland rockers Fruition, along with John Craigie, Brad Parsons and alt-rock stalwart Lewi Longmire. The hits will no doubt be delivered, but a band with this kind of versatility is likely to stray into some fun B-side territory. MARK STOCK. Alberta Street Pub, 1036 NE Alberta St., 503-284-7665. 9 pm. $15. 21+.
Mama Bird’s Winter Wassail with Nick Delffs, Haley Heynderickx, Matt Dorrien
[INDIE SPECTACULAR] Indie labels throw some of the best parties in the business. Tonight, PDX’s own Mama Bird Records puts some of its most talented musicians onstage, creating what amounts to a veritable mixtape plus banter. Performers include doom-folk artist Haley Heynderickx, the Nilsson-inspired work of Matt Dorrien and former Shaky Hands frontman Nick Delffs, whose most recent solo work is both cerebral and stirring. Expect a few surprise guests at this local showcase. MARK STOCK. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 503-288-3895. 8 pm. $10. 21+.
FRIDAY, DEC. 22 Shadowhouse, The Secret Light, Sex Park, White Rooms
[POST-PUNK] Portland’s post-punk scene is thriving, with no shortage of acts contributing to the genre’s favorability. One of those at the forefront of the movement is Shadowhouse, who’ve spread their motto of “play loud, dance slow” for half a decade. The fivesome are still going strong, and this show marks both the release of another single and the kickoff of another tour. On top of that, newcomers White
Mark O’Connor & the O’Connor Band’s Appalachian Christmas
[FOLKY HOLIDAY] Seattle native and probable World’s Greatest Fiddler Mark O’Connor may have worked with some of the world’s most renowned musicians, from Yo-Yo Ma to Earl Scruggs to Wynton Marsalis, but the multiple Grammy winner, fiddle champion and studio stalwart really enjoys playing with his family and friends. What better time to do that than during the holidays? For the past five years, his O’Connor Band—wife, singer and fellow fiddler Maggie, champion mandolinist son Forrest, Forrest’s fiancé and fellow fiddler Kate, national flatpack champ guitarist Joe Smart and banjoistbassist Geoff Saunders—has toured giving a warm, bluegrass-folk inflection to a program of carols and other holiday standards. Following the tremendous critical and commercial success of their 2011 An Appalachian Christmas album, the band just won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass album. This final Portland performance of the familyfriendly holiday show also features Oregon Symphony cellist Nancy Ives playing Yo-Yo Ma’s parts and an opening set from another family act, Seattle trumpeter and pianist Allen Vizzutti and Laura Vizzutti. BRETT CAMPBELL. SEE IT: Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 503248-4335. 7:30 pm Friday, Dec. 22. $18-$105. All ages. Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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MUSIC ALBUM REVIEW
Brown Calculus Live at the Map Room (SELF-RELEASED) [COSMIC SOUL] “I feel like we’re in a living room, like y’all just came over to our house or something,” says singer Vaughn Kimmons a few minutes into the debut EP from her alt-R&B project, Brown Calculus. Well, technically it’s a recording studio, but yeah, that’s pretty much the vibe. Recorded, indeed, at the Map Room in Southeast Portland, the album comes off less like a proper introduction than an inthe-moment lark—as if the friends heard applauding, laughing and chatting in the background were hanging out one night and convinced them to just press “record” and see what happens. But then, that feeling of improvisatory intimacy appears to be what the band is aiming for. “Self-Care,” the lone studio track available on the group’s Bandcamp, is a free-floating cloud of interstellar soul, and the six other songs take on a similar amorphous shape. Producer Andre Burgos lays out a star-bed of jazzy keyboards and analog space sounds for Kimmons’ fluttering alto, which she uses to lament digital age romance, affirm her blackness and gush over the cherry blossoms that sprout along the waterfront in spring. Much of the EP’s charm is in its off-the-cuff moments, like when Kimmons reveals she lifted a lyric from a jingle for hair relaxer, or her jokes about delivering an encore of only the most obscure Hall and Oates songs. It might be more of a tease than a true coming-out, but if this is Brown Calculus mostly messing around, the official record should be exceptional. MATTHEW SINGER. SEE IT: Brown Calculus plays Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., with Indira Valey and Forest Veil, on Saturday, Dec. 23. 9 pm. $5. 21+.
SUNDAY, DEC. 24 Neo Soul Sunday Party featuring Thankusomuch and Michal Angela
[NEO SOUL] Contrary to what luxury car commercial messaging tells us, this is not a December to remember. This time of year is utter hell. So here’s an idea—reward yourself for surviving the holidays by watching Portland’s burgeoning neo-soul band Thankusomuch and jazz singer Michalangela for the holiday edition of Jack London’s weekly Neo Soul Sunday Party, hosted by singer-rapper (and former WW employee) Rich Hunter. They and a few special guests will be crooning their way through Christmas Eve. It’s the most enjoyable way to endure the holiday. JUSTIN CARROLL-ALLAN. Jack London Revue, 529 SW 4th Ave., 503-2287605. 9 pm. $7. 21+.
TUESDAY, DEC. 26 Ducky Pig
[NORTHWEST NOODLERS] Featuring Portland-based members of jam-band heavyweights ike Leftover Salmon, Phil Lesh & Friends and Laurelthirst legends the Freak Mountain Ramblers, Ducky Pig’s emergence from hibernation is a rare event that’s not to be missed by any true fan of bluegrass and Americana. PETE COTTELL. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 503-231-9663. 9 pm. $10 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
CLASSICAL, JAZZ & WORLD Ryan Meagher
[COOL HAND] Maybe it was years spent in New York among the finest modern jazz musicians on earth, or maybe it’s the warm weather vibes he was raised on in San Diego, but local guitarist Ryan Meagher is among the most casually virtuosic—and community focused—of Portland’s toptier cats. Warm, tender guitar lines swirl inside his contemporary jazz compositions, with the guitarist using his instrument to calmly illustrate the modern musical landscape in a way that’s compelling to all, jazz nerds and newcomers alike. PARKER HALL. Jack London Revue, 529 SW 4th Ave, 503-2287605. 8 pm Wednesday, Dec. 20. $7. 21+.
In Mulieribus presents Noël!
[REAL OLD-SCHOOL XMAS] Most holiday concerts feature music from a fairly narrow range of times and places. Not In Mulieribus’s annual winter shows. The seven-woman vocal ensemble ventures much farther back in time, and sings those ancient songs sublimely. This year, along with just enough familiar holiday faves to placate traditionalists, they’re singing medieval French carols and other works associated with the nativity written by some of the greatest French and Franco-Flemish composers of the era, including Gilles Binchois, Guillaume Dufay, and even a stray Englishman, John Taverner. BRETT CAMPBELL. St. Mary’s Cathedral, 1716 NW Davis St. 8 pm Friday, Dec. 22. $25. All ages.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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MUSIC CALENDAR = WW Pick. Highly recommended.
Alberta Street Pub 1036 NE Alberta St Tom Petty Tribute
Ash Street Saloon 225 SW Ash St A Weird Farewell to Ash Street
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave Weeed, Aan, Night Heron
Matt Brown & Friends Holiday Homecoming Show
Alberta Street Pub 1036 NE Alberta St Tom Petty Tribute
Edgefield
Kennedy School
Jack London Revue
529 SW 4th Ave Ryan Meagher
Justa Pasta
1336 NW 19th Ave Anson Wright Duo
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St S.S. Curmudgeon, Splash
LaurelThirst Public House 2958 NE Glisan St Elke Robitaille & The Midnight Darlins
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave Cheer the Fuck Up: An OK Chorale Sing-along with Ben Landsverk and the Enough With the Bells! All-Stars
Mister Theater
1847 E Burnside St Paul’s Juicy Jam
Star Theater
13 NW 6th Ave Italian Xmas Show
Teutonic Wine Company
3303 SE 20th Ave Noah Hocker Quartet
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St JoyTribe, Lost Ox
The Know
3728 NE Sandy Blvd Healersss, New Modern Warfare, Institute For Creative Dying
The Old Church
1422 SW 11th Ave Christmas at the Old Church
The Secret Society 116 NE Russell St Wednesday Night Zydeco
Turn! Turn! Turn!
8 NE Killingsworth St Outset Series: CMG Ad-Hoc Improv Night
White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St Tigers of Youth, Shae Altered at White Eagle
THURSDAY, THU. DEC. 21 Alberta Rose Theater
3000 NE Alberta St
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SouthFork
4605 NE Fremont The Paul Mazzio Trio
St. Mary’s Cathedral
1716 NW Davis St In Muleribus presents “Noël!”
Lan Su Chinese Garden
239 NW Everett St Intimate Concert
The Firkin Tavern 1937 SE 11th Ave Jet Echo VS Gooo
Mississippi Studios
The Fixin’ To
3939 N Mississippi Ave Mama Bird’s Winter Wassail with Nick Delffs, Haley Heynderickx, Matt Dorrien
8218 N. Lombard St Erotic City (Prince tribute)
The Know
3728 NE Sandy Blvd Wave Action, Loveboys
Spare Room
4830 NE 42nd Ave Harvey Brindell & The Tablerockers
The Secret Society 116 NE Russell St The Pranksters Big Band Holiday Show feat. Claudia Knauer
The Fixin’ To
8218 N. Lombard St Danny Dodge & The Dodge Gang, Savage Family Band, Verner Pantons
Turn! Turn! Turn!
8 NE Killingsworth St The Cabin Project, Gazelle(s), Anothernight
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St 1000 Fuegos, WORTH, Jacob Westfall
Zarz On First
814 SW 1st Robbie Laws Band
The Liquor Store
SATURDAY, SAT. DEC. 23
3341 SE Belmont St Erotic City Holiday Pre-Funk
Alberta Street Pub
The Secret Society
1036 NE Alberta St Dogwood String Band; greaterkind, Unsafe Dartz, Saguaro
116 NE Russell St Thursday Swing featuring Gaucho, Pete Krebs and the Rocking K Ranch Boys
Bluehour
250 NW 13th Ave. Shelly Rudolph
FRI. DEC. 22
Doug Fir Lounge
Alberta Rose Theater
830 E Burnside St Karma Rivera, Blossom, Wynne
3000 NE Alberta St Magical Strings Celtic Yuletide Concert
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
1037 SW Broadway Mark O’Connor & Friends present An Appalachian Christmas”
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St Shadowhouse, The Secret Light, Sex Park, White Rooms
Edgefield
2126 SW Halsey St, Troutdale Nicole Campbell (The Winery Tasting Room)
Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
4605 NE Fremont The MST Quartet
3939 N Mississippi Ave 1939 Ensemble, Psychomagic, Kulululu
2025 N Kilpatrick St Murderbait, Masonique, Polygris
1036 NE Alberta St Holy Smokes & the Godforsaken Rollers, Splash; Matty Charles & Katie Rose
Jack London Revue
Mississippi Studios
Kenton Club
Alberta Street Pub
3939 N Mississippi Ave Brown Calculus, Forest Veil
816-820 N Russell St BP Presents: Maxwell Cabana, Amirah, and Bad Panda
5736 NE 33rd Ave Extra Credit
Mississippi Studios
611 N Tillamook Street Fluff and Gravy Holiday Party featuring Anna Tivel, Jeffrey Martin, Evan Way
Local Celebrity
Kelly’s Olympian
Edgefield
Fluff and Gravy Records
529 SW 4th Ave Ty Curtis
2126 SW Halsey St, Troutdale Kris Deelane (The Winery Tasting Room) 426 SW Washington St GLMG Presents: Lit for The Holidays
2126 SW Halsey St, Troutdale La Rivera (The Winery Tasting Room)
[DEC. 20-26]
LAST WEEK LIVE
830 E Burnside St Cool Kids Deluxe Show feat. Dreckig
Doug Fir Lounge
For more listings, check out wweek.com.
SAM GEHRKE
WED. DEC. 20
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.
SouthFork
The Firkin Tavern
1937 SE 11th Ave Grammerhorn Wren, Star Garbage, Rain Cult
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St Garcia Birthday Band
The Secret Society 116 NE Russell St The Krebsic Orkestar feat. Turkish Power House Demet Tuncer
The Secret Society 116 NE Russell St The Newport Nightingales
SUN. DEC. 24 Al’s Den at Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave Dan Sheron, Blind J. Watkins
Edgefield
2126 SW Halsey St, Troutdale The Stomptowners (The Winery Tasting Room)
Jack London Revue
529 SW 4th Ave Neo Soul Sunday Party featuring Thankusomuch and Michal Angela
Tapalaya
28 NE 28th Ave Solo Guitar
MON. DEC. 25 Al’s Den at Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave Dan Sheron, Blind J. Watkins
Dante’s
350 W Burnside Karaoke From Hell
Edgefield
2126 SW Halsey St, Troutdale David Kelley (The Winery Tasting Room)
Spare Room
4830 NE 42nd Ave Cool Breeze
Edgefield
GAME HOVA: Jay-Z killed himself to live. At Moda Center on Dec. 14, the 48-year-old rap monolith opened his set with a video of his face burning in effigy, an extension of the selfexcoriation that frames this year’s 4:44. The show that followed was hardly funereal, but it did feel a bit like a resurrection—or at least a reminder, of who he is, what he’s accomplished and what he’s still capable of. Dressed most of the night in a hoodie and sweatpants, he circumnavigated his octagonal stage, knocking out hit after hit with leisurely precision. With the in-the-round staging bringing him within spitting distance of the floor seats, it was about as up-close-and-personal as you could hope to get. In such a cavernous setting, though, the intimate new material still struggled to connect. Songs like 4:44’s contrite title track and the conversational “The Story of O.J.” were begging to be strung together into their own section of the set rather than getting dropped between the bangers. But if the venue felt too big for those quieter moments, when it came to the old bangers, it barely seemed big enough. “99 Problems” is still a better arena-rock song than any actual rock band has mustered in a decade. “Niggas in Paris” knocked so hard it even seemed to catch Jay by surprise—he had his band run back the intro so he could remove his jacket and get properly hyped. In all, he played more than 30 songs, and still didn’t include everything he could have. Simply put, there’s no one else in the rap game on his level. And while we might sometimes forget that, he’ll surely keep coming back to remind us. MATTHEW SINGER.
2126 SW Halsey St, Troutdale JT Wise Band (The Winery Tasting Room)
Jack London Revue 529 SW 4th Ave Q Morrow
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St Fotoform, Vibrissae, Visiting Diplomats
Local Celebrity
816-820 N Russell St Farrago
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave Benefit for Jeremy Wilson Foundation Lisa Lepine Musicians Fund
TUE. DEC. 26 Al’s Den at Crystal Hotel 303 SW 12th Ave Dan Sheron, Blind J. Watkins
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
1037 SW Broadway Portland Youth Philharmonic
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St Ash Street’s Farewell to Dwight Church
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside St Ducky Pig
Edgefield
2126 SW Halsey St Troutdale Swingali (The Winery Tasting Room)
C J M O N S E R R AT
BAR REVIEW
TOP 5
BUZZ LIST Where to drink on Christmas.
1.
Spare Room
4830 NE 42nd Ave., 503-287-5800, spareroomrestaurantandlounge. com. Opens 7 am. Spare Room is a bowlingalley-sized Christmas village of cheap drinks and meatloaf, with a live R&B band late.
2.
My Father’s Place
523 SE Grand Ave., 503-235-5494, myfathersplacepdx.com. Opens 8 am. Every year, MFP whips up a special Christmas dinner to go with the cheap, stiff drinks the holiday always requires.
3.
Radio Room
1101 NE Alberta St., 503-287-2346, radioroompdx.com. Opens 9 am. Radio room is tradition for Christmas orphans—with Christmas-themed cocktails and a surprisingly elaborate holiday dinner.
4.
Mary’s Club
129 SW Broadway, 503-227-3023, marysclub.com. Opens 4 pm. It’s the holiday, after all. Spend it at Portland’s oldest strip club.
5.
Bar Bar
3939 N Mississippi Ave., 503-288-3895, mississippistudios.com. Opens 5 pm. Because even on a cold Christmas, smoking on the patio warms you from the inside.
GENTLE WAVES: The retail-store bar is usually an iffy prospect. Too often, it’s an overlit afterthought sporting empty barstools and unmanned taps of slowly oxidizing beer. But North Killingsworth’s Up North Surf Club (1229 N Killingsworth St., 503-706-5932, upnorthsurfclub.com) is riding a whole different wave. Since opening this past January as a resource for Portland’s budding surf culture, it’s turned into an honest-to-god neighborhood hang with good vibes and 10 taps of damn good beer. Sure, there’s a rainbow of boards for sale next to the low lounge seating and bar tables, alongside a wealth of fins, hoodies and spume-filled coffee-table books. And if you lean over the pine bar to ask friendly co-owner Martin Schoeneborn—who first surfed in Sheboygan, the Malibu of Wisconsin—you’ll hear plenty of gnar stories about a severed deer head being left in a tourist’s car at the locals-only point break near Seaside. And yes, the two women next to you might have some strong opinions about the current scene at Short Sands. It’s the end of the year, after all—peak season for wave seekers in Oregon. But on a recent chilly Sunday, the packed house of 20 or so beanie-capped regulars was a lot more concerned with the disrespect Jacksonville fans were showing their beloved ’Hawks. The mood at the appropriately dim-lit bar is a lot less locals-only than permanently chill, helped along by the tap of Ablis CBD soda you can choose to mix into a $5 pint of excellent local helles or hard-to-find Arch Rock gold lager. But to eat, you’ll have to order a fried chicken sandwich from newly opened Haymaker next door, or pick up pulled pork nachos from Bark City BBQ in the cart pod a block away. Food is one thing Up North doesn’t sell. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.
The Advent
The Lovecraft Bar 421 SE Grand Ave DoublePlusDANCE
The Paris Theatre
WED, DEC. 20 Beulahland
118 NE 28th Ave Wicked Wednesday (hip-hop)
Elvis Room
203 SE Grand Ave DJ Joey Prude
The Paris Theatre
6 SW 3rd Ave L.Y.F.E. (hip hop, r&b)
THU, DEC. 21 Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave Papi Fimbres (afro punk, latin)
Killingsworth Dynasty 832 N Killingsworth St Post-Punk Discotheque
Maxwell Bar
20 NW 3rd Ave Ascension
Moloko
3967 N. Mississippi Ave Nik Nice & Brother Charlie
The Paris Theatre
6 SW 3rd Ave Eidolon Prersents: Fo’ReaL
FRI, DEC. 22 45 East
315 SE 3rd Ave Bonnie x Clyde
Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St DJ Nate C. (anthem rock, metal)
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St The Way Up: Afro/Caribbean Dance Party
Killingsworth Dynasty 832 N Killingsworth St Questionable Decisions
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St
6 SW 3rd Ave Shake The Halls 7
Tryst
19 SW 2nd Ave Decadent 80’s w/ DJ Non
SAT, DEC. 23 45 East
315 SE 3rd Ave Borgeous
Bossanova Ballroom
722 E Burnside St Blowpony: Christ-Mess
Whiskey Bar
31 NW 1st Ave Daedelus, Free The Robots
SUN, DEC. 24 Maxwell Bar
20 NW 3rd Ave Dubblife
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave A Softcore Mutations Christmas w/ DJ Acid Rick (new wave, synth, hunkwave)
MON, DEC. 25 Star Bar
639 SE Morrison St Xmas w/ Smooth Hopperator
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St Candi Pop: All I Want For Christmas Edition
Killingsworth Dynasty
832 N Killingsworth St Dynamo Night! (soul, mod)
Moloko
3967 N. Mississippi Ave Lamar Leroyw
TUE, DEC. 26 Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave Emerson (hiphop, r&b)
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Sleepwalk (deathrock, goth)
Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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ARTS PERFORMANCE
I M A G O T H E AT R E
REVIEW
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. Most prices listed are for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply, so it’s best to call ahead. Editor: SHANNON GORMLEY (sgormley@wweek.com). TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: sgormley@wweek.com.
THEATER OPENINGS & PREVIEWS Magic Mirror
For its Christmas show, Scarlet Sails Theatre is staging a play that’s basically a mashup of Russian folklore: a mirror that makes anyone who walks through it younger, an aging Father Frost, a nefarious Baba yaga and a bunch of woodland creatures caught between good and evil. More importantly, it’s not A Christmas Carol. The actors will speak Russian, but if you don’t, Scarlet Sails’ next production will have English subtitles. Beaverton City Library, 12375 SW 5th St., facebook. com/groups/sstheater. 12 pm and noon. $15.
A Christmas Carol: A One-Man Ghost Story
Convincingly playing every single character in Dickens’ Christmas classic is a daunting task, but actor Philip J. Berns pulls it off. One moment, he’s wide-eyed and flailing his arms to portray a child. In the next scene, he chillingly locks eyes with the audience as Scrooge, and you feel palpably inadequate just as Dickens intended. The sheer complexity of memorizing pages of Victorian London dialect is an accomplishment on its own, and his zealous portrayal of an endless procession of personalities is what makes the interpretation both endearing and innovative. This year, Berns is performing a theater-only version of his annual show alongside his sold-out dinner theater performances at Picnic House. JACK RUSHALL. Shoebox Theater, 2110 SE 10th Ave., theatrevertigo.org. 7:30 pm Through Dec. 23. $20.
ALSO PLAYING A Christmas Carol
In Portland, you have many annual options if you want to see Charles Dickens’ classic tale about three ghosts teaching a man the true meaning of Christmas. But if you’re looking for the most traditional, pristinely produced version, the Portland Playhouse show is the way to go. Its annual production manages to use enough creative staging to satiate adventurous theater-goers without throwing off traditionalists. Hampton Opera Center, 221 SE Caruthers St., portlandplayhouse.org. 7 pm TuesdaySunday, through Dec. 30. $34-$59.
A Christmas Carol the Musical
If you like Dickens’ story about a capitalist curmudgeon who learns the true meaning of Christmas with the help of some ghosts, but wish it had even more holiday cheer, the sing-song adaptation at Brunish Theatre is probably for you. The Brunish Theatre, 1111 SW Broadway, portland5.com. 7:30 pm ThursdaySaturday, 2 pm Sunday, through Dec. 24. Sold Out.
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Twist Your Dickens
Created by Second City, the semi-improvisational parody of A Christmas Carol returns to Portland Center Stage where it will be performed by some of the city’s best comedic actors. Portland Center Stage, 128 NW 11th Ave., pcs.org. 7:30 pm Tuesday-Sunday, 2 pm Saturday-Sunday, through Dec. 31. $25-$75.
Charles Dickens Writes A Christmas Carol Bag and Baggage Theatre’s A Christmas Carol fanfiction imagines Charles Dickens struggling to write his famous play, just in case you can’t get enough Dickens during the holidays. The Vault Theater, 350 E Main St., bagnbaggage.org. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, through Dec. 23. $32.
DANCE The Nutcracker
Savaged by critics and ignored by audiences upon its 1892 debut in St. Petersburg, this Christmas story of rats, toy soldiers and confectionary sprites was saved from the dustbin of history thanks to its Tchaikovsky score, and is now one of the world’s best-loved Christmas traditions. Oregon Ballet Theatre’s production is the new American standard version by choreographer George Balanchine, the one which introduced the show to the US and which remains popular with children partly due to all the kids on stage. It’s straightforward and charmingly traditional. MARTIN CIZMAR. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 503-222-5538 obt.org. 7:30 pm Thursday-Sunday, 2pm SaturdaySunday, through Dec. 24. $23-$105.
Sultanov Russian Ballet Winter Show
Founded by St. Petersburg expat Artur Sultanov, the Beavertonbased Russian Ballet Academy prepares dancers from ages five to 19 for professional careers. Their annual winter showcase is a mix of contemporary and classical ballet. Lincoln Performance Hall, 1620 SW Park Ave., russianballetacademy. net. 1 pm and 5 pm. $19-$25.
COMEDY Cool Kids Patio Show
Half standup show, half concert, Cool Kids is one of the most glorious comedy showcases in the city. It usually only runs during the summer, but it’s coming back for a year-end show with some of the funniest people in the city, like Becky Braunstein and Shain Brenden, plus music by wacky krautrock-cumbia duo Dreckig. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., dougfirlounge.com. 8:30 pm. $10-$12. 21+.
Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
THEY’RE DOING CHOREOGRAPHY: Kayla Banks
Identity Crisis
HOTEL GONE IS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN A PLAY AND A DANCE SHOW. BY R MITCHELL MILLER
out a wordless love triangle. H.G. and Schmit Hotel Gone starts in chaos. Actor Amy Katrina take turns dancing with Banks, but after she Bryan emerges in a dark theater and sits down at retreats from both, H.G. stabs Schmit. It’s an a drum kit on the stage. When she starts to play a affecting moment, but those recognizable charbeat, five other actors frantically dance onstage in acters evaporate shortly after they materialize. their undergarments. They change into dresses and Hotel Gone seems more interested in re-imagsuits in front of you, thereby assuming their first of ining itself than probing the depths of its choices. many shifting identities. Later, Schmit, who has been clad in a suit for most Imago Theatre’s new play only gets more wild of the play, dons a bright red cocktail dress. It from there. Hotel Gone has no dialogue, and the seems like it’s meant to be a subversive revelation, characters are all nameless. Created by Imago but with a lack of consistency in character developartistic director Jerry Mouawad, it’s as much a ment, it plays out like a simple costume change. dance show as it is a play, partially There’s something to be said set to live music performed by the about live theater built on uncer“HOTEL GONE actors. The cast members change tainty and abstraction. Not fully in and out of clothing on the two grasping what you see can force SEEMS MORE racks that frame the stage, allowyou to piece together your own INTERESTED IN ing Hotel Gone to swiftly shift definition. But ambiguity needs RE-IMAGINING from one strange scene to the to be balanced with accessibility. next. In one moment, ensemble In order to make us want to do ITSELF THAN member Nathan H.G. dances the work of figuring it out, a play PROBING THE alone onstage with a top hat and has to be willing to reach out to DEPTHS OF ITS cane. Later, the cast stand in place its audience with an access point and shuffle their feet in what looks that offers some emotional payoff. CHOICES.” like a punk version of Riverdance Hotel Gone has no such set to “Holiday in Cambodia.” access point. The characIt’s as manic as it sounds. Everything in Hotel ters shift so often, it’s as if they have no idenGone is a blank canvas. The only indication that tity rather than a shifting identity. The result the performance is set in a hotel room comes from is a muddled mashup of characters you end up its title and the program notes. What’s actually referring to as “the one with the top hat” or “the onstage could have been lifted from a nearby thrift one who started singing ‘As Time Goes By.’” store–cluttered clothing racks, a couch and some Hotel Gone is the kind of show that could exist chairs around a table. Like the characters, the set with or without an audience. It seems more interis also malleable, and the cast frequently move ested in pure experimentation than finding emoaround the wheeled furniture during the dance tional common ground with its audience. sequences. Occasionally, recognizable characters emerge. SEE IT: Hotel Gone is at Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave., imgaotheatre.com. 7:30 pm ThursdayEarly on, H.G., Leif Schmit and Kayla Banks act Saturday, Dec. 21-23. $10-$20 sliding scale.
VISUAL ARTS
IN ANOTHER WORLD: Cloud of Petals features video and VR installations.
REVIEW
Miracle of the Rose CLOUD OF PETALS USES ALGORITHMS AND ROSES FOR MEDIUMS.
BY S HA N N O N G O R M L EY
sgormley@wweek.com
To create her exhibit Cloud of Petals, New York artist Sarah Meyohas assembled 10,000 roses and a team of 16 men. Over several days in 2016, those men sat at desks in the central atrium of Bell Works Labs in New Jersey. They pulled apart each rose, selected the petal that they deemed the most beautiful, then photographed that petal. The 10,000 photographs were analyzed by a self-learning algorithm that use the data to generate digital rose petals. The tedious process resulted in something that’s effortlessly sublime—VR programs that place you in the middle of a black void, surrounded by the digitally generated petals. They’re on display in Disjecta’s Kenton gallery, along with a video that abstractly depicts the data collection process. There are wide shots of the men silently sorting the rose petals, of Meyohas trying to balance dead flies on electrical cords and of plump, yellow pythons slithering through petals on the atrium floor. Cloud of Petals premiered earlier this year at a gallery in Manhattan. There were large photographs, sculptural pods lined with mirrors and electrical wires, a mosaic of petals displayed behind glass and two more VR programs. The Portland iteration, which opened the week the Manhattan show closed, is much smaller than its predecessor. But it hardly feels like a downgrade. Without the photography and sculpture, Cloud of Petals almost seems more radical—it’s reduced to video and VR created by a self-learning algorithm. For the exhibit, Disjecta’s white walls have been painted black, and the space is dimly lit by the glow of the video and a small spotlight over each headset. Turning the gallery into a dark, cavernous space seems crucial to making the Portland iteration feel like not just an abridged version, but something more intimate. In the dark room, the works are like tunnels out of a void.
If nothing else, the VR programs are worthwhile purely for their aesthetic value. They place you in a black vacuum full of petals that float above your head and down below your feet. In one program, there’s a carpet of petals that fly up into the air when you look at them, as if they’ve been disturbed by a leaf blower. In another, the petals float around the space in a violent swarm that looks like bees around a hive. But as an appendage of the video, they’re also deeply intriguing. At first, the video seems like some kind of Gestalt joke about attempting to dissect and quantify beauty. It’s slightly absurd watching bouquets slowly and meticulously reduced to individual petals placed on numbered pieces of card stock, arranged in a grid on trays and then slotted into tall metal shelves. Still, it doesn’t feel like Cloud of Petals hopes to use its scientific impulses to make any specific discovery. Like exponential decay, it examines each rose on a smaller and smaller level without ever getting closer to discovering where its beauty runs out. There’s a shot of a digital petal on a computer screen that zooms in so much, it becomes a grid of red hues. A fly crawls across the screen, unable to distinguish the color of a digital rose petal from a real one. The video starts the same way it ends—a digital rose petal reduced to the primary colors of light pulsing in each tiny pixel on a giant screen. All those rose petals and all those hours of pulling them apart can be reduced to just red, green and blue. On the other hand, those three colors can build 10,000 intricate, unique petals. In that way, a self-learning algorithm and VR programs feel like a totally natural art medium, more suited to illustrating infinity than pinning it down. GO: Cloud of Petals is at Disjecta Contemporary Arts Center, 8371 N Interstate Ave., disjecta.org. Noon-5 pm Friday-Sunday, through Jan. 13. Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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MOVIES C O U R T E S Y O F L A U R E L H U R S T T H E AT E R
Screener
GET YOUR REPS IN
Animated Christmas
(various)
For those who like their Christmas illustrated and/or weird, Re-Run Theater will screen a curated selection of 16mm, seasonal animated shorts that range from heartwarming to bizarre. Hollywood, Dec. 23.
The Big Lebowski
(1998)
One of Portland’s most joyous holiday traditions, Clinton Street annually screens their print of the Coen Brothers’ absurd masterpiece and serves sake-based “rice Russians.” Even if you’ve already seen this portrait of a loveable slacker tons of times, you’re missing out if you’ve never seen it on film. Clinton, Dec. 21-26.
Elf
Make War, With Love
(2003)
Will Ferrell’s relentlessly naive Elf is a brief antidote to this whole shitty, cynical year. On Saturday, the Mission will be serving up the sweetest of cocktails— maple whiskey and ginger ale—to accompany the very sweetest of Christmas movies. Mission, 20-23.
WYRD WAR’S TWISTED FILM SERIES CONTINUES WITH THE MAFU CAGE. BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON
In one of the most disturbing moments of the 1978 psychological thriller The Mafu Cage, Cissy (Carol Kane) beats her pet orangutan to death. Afterwards, she demands that her sister Ellen (Lee Grant), with whom she has an incestous relationsip, find her a replacement pet, declaring, “You get me what I want or I will assassinate myself right now!” It’s the kind of all-out freakiness that’s typical of a screening organized by Portland film presenters and record label, Wyrd War. Programmed by partners Dennis Dread and Tiffany Kenaley, Wyrd War mostly screens films that have faded into VHS obscurity, often because they’re absurdly violent. Their last screening, held in October at the Hollywood Theatre, was of Rocktober Blood, a 1984 horror film about a heavy metal frontman (Tray Laren) who goes on a gruesome killing spree. In one of the first few scenes, he slits one sound engineer’s throat and impales another with a coat hanger. But according to Dread, Wyrd War isn’t just a blast of pure, unadulterated brutality. “It’s a war,” he says, “Against the gentrification of the soul.” That may sound fire and brimstone, but sitting in Southeast Grind on a Thursday night, that’s clearly not the case. Dread and Kenaley speak through warm smiles, and they’ve brought their 20-year-old daughter, Kallisti, who sells Wyrd War merchandise. The two clearly have a sense of humor, as evidenced by their decision to make an 40
Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
album of music from the Enchanted Forest theme park. But they also like to eject audiences from their comfort zones by exposing them to challenging, frightening movies. The Mafu Cage certainly fits the bill. Directed by Karen Arthur, the film delves into the tortured lives of two siblings, played by Kane and Lee Grant. It prominently features incest, overacting and, eventually, violent murders, but Dread describes it in almost academic terms. “[The movie] juxtaposes the two sisters as wildness versus this sort of domesticated professional who’s actually able to go into the outside world and be successful and have a partner and a career,” says Dread. It’s from the same era as Godzilla vs. Megalon, Mommie Dearest and Jaws—the kinds of pulpy movies that ignited Dread and Kenaley’s passion for cinema. In the ’90s, Dread and Kenaley were among the earliest Movie Madness disciples. Yet it wasn’t until 2014 that they founded Wyrd War. They refused to confine their programming to any single director, era or genre. “We’ve never really spoken out loud what the Wyrd War ethos is,” says Dread. “Certainly one of the core values of everything we’ve done with Wyrd War is exposing people to things they may not have been exposed to already.” Hence the decision to screen one of the Halloween series’ less-heralded installments—the notoriously Michael Myers-free Season of the Witch—with its composer and sound designer, the legendary John
Carpenter collaborator Alan Howarth, in attendance. It’s all part of Dread and Kenaley’s vision of the movie theater as a communal space. For their screening of witchcraftinfused horror flick Eyes of Fire, Kenaley made corn-husk dolls to give to audience members. “Sometimes it scares people and disorients them,” says Dread. “They don’t fully understand why they’re getting a free gift that looks kind of strange.” But Wyrd War hopes its audience continues to grapple with that strangeness long after they leave the theater. That can be a lot to ask—one of the most recent movies that Wyrd War screened was the 1986 monster slasher Rawhead Rex, which is about an ancient demon that looks like a “9-foot-tall phallus with teeth” that goes on a gory killing spree through the Scottish countryside, and in one scene, pisses on a priest. “Recently, the head programmer of the Hollywood told us, ‘You know, we’ve never had any complaints about any of your Wyrd War films,’” Kenaley says. “And Dennis and I both, at the same time, went, ‘Really?’” Dread seems to recognize that it’s possible to push an audience too far. “People need to feel that there are places they can go to be safe,” he says. “But I would say that for Wyrd War, we believe art is not that space.” SEE IT: The Mafu Cage is at Laurelhurst Theatre. 2735 E Burnside St, laurelhursttheater. com. 9 pm Wednesday, Dec. 20. $5.
Die Hard
(1988)
Yippie-ki-yay, motherfucker. Mission, Dec. 24-27.
It’s A Wonderful Life
(1946)
The best Christmas movie about suicide is screening at basically every independent theater in the metropolitan area. Academy, Dec. 22-28. Clinton, Dec. 25. Hollywood, Dec. 24. Mission, Dec. 23-24. Joy, Dec. 20-21. Kiggins, Dec. 22-24.
ALSO PLAYING: Academy: Home Alone (1990), Dec. 22-28 Clinton: The Monkey King (1960), Dec. 20. Laurelhurst: Home Alone (1990), Dec. 19-21. Joy: A Christmas Story (1983), Dec. 20-21. Santa Claus (1959), Dec. 20. Kiggins: White Christmas (1954), Dec. 22-24. West Side Story (1961), Dec. 55-28. Mission: A Christmas Story (1983), Dec. 22-24.
@WillametteWeek
: 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.
REVIEW @WillametteWeek
COURTESY SONY PICTURES CLASSIC
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: wmacmurdo@ wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.
@wweek
NEW REVIEWS All the Money in the World
In 1973, oil billionaire J. Paul Getty was the richest man to ever walk the planet. All the Money in the World follows the kidnapping of his grandson, which was a tabloid sensation of its day—despite his wealth, Getty wouldn’t pony up a ransom, allowing his grandchild to languish for half a year with his captors. But the story chronicled in All the Money in the World, At this point, the Ridley Scottdirected film is best known for its last-minute reshoots. In just nine days of work, Christopher Plummer replaced the disgraced Kevin Spacey as Getty, playing the oil billionaire as 30 years older and (we can only imagine) 99 percent less snide. Getty’s distraught daughter-in-law (Michelle Williams) and private security contractor (Mark Wahlberg) spend most of the movie hopelessly negotiating with the Scrooge archetype and then getting creative in their rescue plans. The stakes could scarcely be higher, but none of it is particularly thrilling to watch. It’s a mediocre epic that lands on the level of Scott’s Robin Hood or Gods of Egypt—a good-looking, well-acted film with no pressing reason to exist. The characters here are merely chess pieces in a plot you could just as easily read about on Wikipedia. R. CHANCE SOLEMPFEIFER. Fox Tower.
Darkest Hour
If this fussy, grandstanding biopic is too believed, Winston Churchill’s crusade against Adolph Hitler consisted primarily of shouting and smoking his weight in cigars. That’s the narrative that director Joe Wright (Atonement) tries to sell with help from Gary Oldman, who glowers and yowls mightily as Churchill. He and Wright attack the movie with palpable bravado, but in their enthusiasm yields not a humanizing portrait of the venerated prime minister, but a history-book myth that treats him more like a statue to be dusted off from time to time than a human being. The film begins with the fall from grace of Churchill’s loathed predecessor, Neville Chamberlain (Ronald Pickup), and inevitably builds to a rousing climax where Churchill stands before Parliament and declares, “We shall fight on the beaches! We shall fight on the landing grounds!” Those words were also recited at the end of Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk, yet while Nolan’s film felt vital and lived-in, Wright’s is suffocated by cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel, whose graying images are so prettily faded, the film looks like a stylish page from Vanity Fair. “Hardly seems like there’s a war on at all,” one character remarks. He’s right about that. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Clackamas, Living Room Theaters.
ROOM OF ONE’S OWN: Armie Hammer and Timothée Chalamet
Male Gaze CALL ME BY YOUR NAME MOVES AT A SMOLDERING SPEED. In many ways, Call Me By Your Name is a classic summer awakening. Directed by Luca Guadagnino (I Am Love, A Bigger Splash), it’s almost like Dirty Dancing but with Italian villas, a slew of wordless long takes, and musings on Bach replacing “The Time Of My Life.” Set in 1983 , it depicts a love affair between Elio (Timothée Chalamet), a teenager summering in Italy with his scholarly parents, and Oliver (Armie Hammer), a grad student studying with Elio’s father. The film patiently traces their relationship from watchful strangers sharing a house into a fraternal bond defined by squabbling over music and competing for the attention of Professor Perlman (Michael Stuhlbarg). Even the scene where Elio makes his romantic interest in Oliver known—a crucial turning point in the film—is deeply understated. The two circle a wartime monument in the town square of Crema. Elio recites the statue’s history, but he professes to craving some carnal knowledge, of “things that matter.” It’s a euphemism—Elio desirously stares down Oliver, who’s strolling around the far side of the statue. Guadagnino lets the innuendo-filled scenes breathe as a matter of both storytelling and mood. The film’s smoldering pace prompts your curiosity and affords you enough time to search for details, like the line of a quadricep, a housefly hovering in the muggy air, or Sufjan Stevens’ note-perfect soundtrack. Most importantly, the negative space gives you time to read the body language of Chalamet and Hammer’s remarkably intimate performances. Chalamet portrays Elio’s desire to be invisible and noticed as a quintessentially teenage contradiction. Elio always seems to be either departing social situations or squirrly dancing back into them. Meanwhile, Hammer implies Oliver’s appetite for pleasure—sexual and experiential—which he deems impolite to really let show. Though its backdrop couldn’t be more different, there’s a chance Call Me By Your Name could follow in the awardsseason footsteps of Moonlight this winter—a queer love story free from dominate social narratives. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. SEE IT. Call Me By Your Name is rated R and opens Friday, Dec. 22, at Fox Tower.
R E V NE S MIS A BEAT
#wweek Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
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W W S TA F F
POTLANDER
CLONE WARRIOR: JESSE PETERS IN ONE OF ECO FIRMA’S GROW ROOMS.
Puff, Puff, Patent
SHADOWY BIOSCIENCE FIRMS ARE TRYING TO LOCK UP THE CANNABIS MARKET WITH PATENTS—PORTLANDERS ARE TRYING TO STOP THEM. BY MAT THEW KORFHAG E
mkorfhage@wweek.com
In a former nursery on the outskirts of Canby, next door to filbert orchards and the constant gunshots of a firing range, Eco Firma Farms’ Jesse Peters believes he’s helping fight a war for the future of cannabis. “The patent wars are coming,” Peters says. “It’s top secret strategic shit going on to take over large swaths of the genetic IP to all cannabis plants. It’s crooked shit. If we don’t do something right now to protect ourselves, we’re all gonna be screwed.” He’s standing in an LED-light-filled veg room halffilled with baby plants of Cherry Pie OG and Voodoo Child and tens of other strains, an indoor-grow facility designed to be the most ecologically sustainable in Oregon if not the country. He’s 90 percent of the way to being completely carbon neutral with congratulatory letters from PGE to prove it. His 12 grow rooms are stacked double-decker like Lego bricks to save on both space and energy. But all his efforts to become the first fully carbonneutral farm in Oregon, the entire shared vision of sustainable cannabis in Oregon, will mean nothing if 10 years from now he’s not allowed to grow any of his plants—or pays so much in patent licensing fees that small farms like his can’t survive. In an August 23 article, GQ writer Amanda Chicago Lewis spent a year going down a rabbit hole: A secretive company called Biotech Institute LLC had begun registering patents to become the Monsanto of weed, claiming ownership of vast categories of cannabis plants. Three have already been granted, and according to patent blog Patent Docs they’re already enough to cover an estimated 50-70 percent of cannabis currently on the market. But the company didn’t exist except as a patent-trolling shell. The writer found ties to former 42
Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2017 wweek.com
TV show host Montel Williams, cosmetics millionaire Shawn Sedaghat and a lawyer who always seemed to be out of town. But Lewis’ rabbit hole began with a tip from Portland scientist Mowgli Holmes, whose company Phylos Bioscience may also help offer the key to stopping Monsanto or shadowy companies like Biotech from controlling the cannabis future—by genetically testing weed strains to prove they’re already in use.
“I’M TRYING TO GET ALL OF US TO COME TOGETHER AS AN INDUSTRY, TO PROTECT OUR FUTURE. THE MORE OF US GET TOGETHER TO DO THIS, THE MORE OF A CHANCE WE WON’T ALL GET TRAPPED IN SOME BULLSHIT PATENT GAME.” Holmes says that even the first patent Biotech received—for plants with at least 4 percent THC and CBD, without the cannabinoid myrcene—would lock up a “huge, huge portion” of the cannabis market. Eco Firma’s Peters is joining other growers in his plan to have all 62 strains he grows tested at Phylos, which alongside a nonprofit called the Open Cannabis Project is putting together the largest public database of cannabis genetics in the world. Peters is also encouraging other growers to do the same.
One of the goals of the Open Cannabis Project is to document “prior art”—essentially proving that these cannabis strains were already in common use before the patents were filed. “I’m trying to get all of us to come together as an industry, for all of us to protect our future,” Peter says. “The more of us get together to do this, the more of a chance we won’t all get trapped in some bullshit patent game where Monsanto owns 90 percent of the patents.” Still, Holmes says the fight won’t be simple—and challenging a patent after it’s been granted is extraordinarily complex and difficult. “Patents can be challenged, but it’s not easy. The easiest way to challenge a patent,” he says, “is to infringe on it and make them sue you. But it’s risky.” Peters is game for the fight. Even after testing through Phylos revealed that a strain he bred, Voodoo Child, leaked out of his nursery and has been sold by other growers—mistakenly as a different strain called Gorilla Glue—he doesn’t believe in patenting weed plants. “We ran these genetics through public domain, so it belongs to everybody,” he says. “I’m not going to patent any strains we have. I’m just trying to make sure no one can take them away from me. Or anyone else, for that matter.” In the meantime, Peters is forming a new genetics company to bank seeds not covered by the patents, in case the legal challenge doesn’t go his way, and is now breeding now strains that fall outside of the patents that were granted. “The strain banking that’s going on here is epic,” he says. “We’ll just keep stomping footprints out there in the 30 percent that’s not covered by their patents. We’ll populate the whole planet with that stuff until the 30 percent is the 70 percent.”
COMICS
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SKip
a Manicure.
Give
a homeless family a place to stay tonight.
Visit giveguide.org to learn how. Follow @GiveGuide Illustrations by LEAH MALDONADO
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Across 1 Actor Oscar of "Ex Machina" 6 Like some potato salads 10 Rating unit 14 "That Girl" actress ___ Thomas 15 Felt bad about 16 It works in the wind 17 Carrie Underwood's 2005 debut album 19 Apple that turns 20 in 2018 20 The next U.S. one
will be in 2020 21 Donizetti work, e.g. 22 "___ you serious?" 25 66, for one (abbr.) 26 Uncooked 28 Where pagers were worn 29 Showtime series about a killer of killers 31 Cash, slangily 33 Figure at the pump 34 Slippery, as winter roads 35 "One" on some coins
38 Go pop 39 Word that I guess is hidden in the theme answers, but whatever 40 Scribbled down 41 Picked-over substances 42 Animal in the Bacardi logo 43 Magna ___ (1215 document) (var.) 44 Field docs 46 "Annie" star Quinn 47 Low digit? 49 Stamp pad stuff 50 Montana hrs.
51 Like some wines 52 One of the Coen brothers 54 Overdid the acting 57 Footfall 58 Dwelling with a skeleton of timbers 62 Type of year 2020 will be? 63 Letterman's rival, once 64 Earliest stage 65 What turns STEM to STEAM? 66 See 3-Down 67 Cold weather range Down 1 Contacts via Skype, maybe 2 ___ TomÈ and PrÌncipe 3 66-Across's location 4 Current "Match Game" host Baldwin 5 Making sense 6 Get rid of 7 Spiritual advisor of sorts 8 Makes a lot of dough 9 Fabric measures (abbr.) 10 Leave out 11 Long-standing, like many traditions 12 Pong creator 13 Sum up 18 ___ nous (confidentially) 21 Be indebted 22 Marinade in some Spanish cuisine
23 Make a comeback 24 Health problem on some summer days 27 Random quantity 30 CafÈ au lait container 31 Regimens that may be faddish 32 Out in the country 36 Say 37 John Irving's "A Prayer for Owen ___" 39 Holy fish? 40 Glowing brightly 42 Coal receptacle 43 Rigid social system 45 "You're a better man than I am, Gunga ___!": Kipling 47 Elon Musk's company 48 Sleek river swimmer 50 Jason of "Game of Thrones" 53 Smartphone programs 55 Michael who directed "Miami Vice" 56 Over it 58 Reason for a shot 59 Expend 60 Title for Doug Jones of Ala. 61 Aliens, for short last week’s answers
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Week of December 21
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
Your life in the first half of 2018 will be like a psychological boot camp that’s designed to beef up your emotional intelligence. Here’s another way to visualize your oncoming adventures: They will constitute a friendly nudge from the cosmos, pushing you to be energetic and ingenious in creating the kind of partnerships you want for the rest of your long life. As you go through your interesting tests and riddles, be on the lookout for glimpses of what your daily experience could be like in five years if you begin now to deepen your commitment to love and collaboration.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
You’ll soon have a chance to glide out into the frontier. I suggest you pack your bag of tricks. Bring gifts with you, too, just in case you must curry favor in the frontiers where the rules are a bit loose. How are your improvisational instincts? Be sure they’re in top shape. How willing are you to summon spontaneity and deal with unpredictability and try impromptu experiments? I hope you’re very willing. This may sound like a lot of work, but I swear it’ll be in a good cause. If you’re wellprepared as you wander in the borderlands, you’ll score sweet secrets and magic cookies. Here’s more good news: Your explorations will position you well to take advantage of the opportunities that’ll become available throughout 2018.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
These days it’s not unusual to see male celebrities who shave their heads. Bruce Willis, Dwayne Johnson, Seal, Tyrese Gibson, and Vin Diesel are among them. But in the 20th century, the bare-headed style was rare. One famous case was actor Yul Brynner. By age 30, he’d begun to go bald. In 1951, for his role as the King of Siam in the Broadway play The King and I, he decided to shave off all his hair. From then on, the naked-headed look became his trademark as he plied a successful acting career. So he capitalized on what many in his profession considered a liability. He built his power and success by embracing an apparent disadvantage. I recommend you practice your own version of this strategy in 2018. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to begin.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
In the Northern Hemisphere, where 88 percent of the world’s population resides, this is a quiescent time for the natural world. Less sunlight is available, and plants’ metabolisms slow down as photosynthesis diminishes. Deciduous trees lose their leaves, and even many evergreens approach dormancy. And yet in the midst of this stasis, Cancerian, you are beginning to flourish. Gradually at first, but with increasing urgency, you’re embarking on an unprecedented phase of growth. I foresee that 2018 will be your Year of Blossoming.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
If you’ve had an unfulfilled curiosity about genealogy or your ancestors or the riddles of your past, 2018 will be a favorable time to investigate. Out-of-touch relatives will be easier to locate than usual. Lost heirlooms, too. You may be able to track down and make use of a neglected legacy. Even family secrets could leak into view -- both the awkward and the charming kinds. If you think you have everything figured out about the people you grew up with and the history of where you came from, you’re in for surprises.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22):
Most of us regard our ring fingers as the least important of our digits. What are they good for? Is there any activity for which they’re useful? But our ancestors had a stronger relationship with their fourth fingers. There was a folk belief that a special vein connected the fourth finger on the left hand directly to the heart. That’s why a tradition arose around the wedding ring being worn there. It may have also been a reason why pharmacists regarded their fourth fingers as having an aptitude for discerning useful blends of herbs. I bring this up, Virgo, because I think it’s an apt metaphor for one of 2018’s important themes: A resource you have underestimated or neglected will be especially valuable -- and may even redefine your understanding of what’s truly valuable.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
In fairy tales, characters are often rewarded for their acts of kindness. They may be given magical objects that serve as protection, like cloaks of invisibility or shoes that enable them to flee trouble. Or the blessings they receive may be life-enhancing, like enchanted cauldrons that provide a never-ending supply of delicious food or musical instruments that have the power to summon delightful playmates. I bring this up, Libra, because I suspect that a similar principle will be very active in your life during 2018. You’ll find it easier and more natural than usual to express kindness, empathy, and compassion. If you consistently capitalize on this predilection, life will readily provide you with the resources you need.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
Like all of us, you go through mediocre phases when you’re not functioning at peak efficiency. But I suspect that in 2018 you will experience fewer of these blah times. We will see a lot of you at your best. Even more than usual, you’ll be an interesting catalyst who energizes and ripens collaborative projects. You’ll demonstrate why the sweet bracing brightness needs the deep dark depths, and vice versa. You’ll help allies open doors that they can’t open by themselves. The rest of us thank you in advance!
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
The blunt fact is that you can’t be delivered from the old demoralizing pattern that has repeated and repeated itself -- until you forgive yourself completely. For that matter, you probably can’t move on to the next chapter of your life story until you compensate yourself for at least some of the unnecessary torment you’ve inflicted on yourself. Now here’s the good news: 2018 will be an excellent time to accomplish these healings.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
In 2018, one of your primary missions will be to practice what you preach; to walk your talk; to be ambitious and masterful in all the ways a soulful human can and should be ambitious and masterful. Live up to your hype in the coming months, Capricorn! Do what you have promised! Stop postponing your dreams! Fulfill the noble expectations you have for yourself! Don’t be shy about using exclamation points to express your visions of what’s right and good and just!
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
Years ago, when I started my career as a horoscope writer, my editor counseled me, “Always give priority to the Big Three. Romance, money, and power are what people care about most.” After a few months, he was disgruntled to realize that I wrote about how to cultivate psychological health and nourish spiritual aspirations as much as his Big Three. He would have replaced me if he could have found another astrology writer whose spelling and grammar were as good as mine. But his edict traumatized me a bit. Even today, I worry that I don’t provide you with enough help concerning the Big Three. Fortunately, that’s not relevant now, since I can sincerely declare that 2018 will bring you chances to become more powerful by working hard on your psychological health . . . and to grow wealthier by cultivating your spiritual aspirations . . . and to generate more love by being wise and ethical in your quest for money and power.
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PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
What binds you? What keeps you closed down and locked up? I urge you to ponder those questions, Pisces. Once you get useful answers, the next step will be to meditate on how you can undo the binds. Fantasize and brainstorm about the specific actions you can take to unlock and unclose yourself. This project will be excellent preparation for the opportunities that the coming months will make available to you. I’m happy to announce that 2018 will be your personal Year of Liberation.
Homework Write a parable or fairy tale that captures what your life has been like in 2017. FreeWillAstrology.com. check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes
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