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“WHAT’S NEXT? HALL PASSES?” P. 3 WWEEK.COM
VOL 46/28 05.06.2020
FEELING STIR CRAZY? YOU’RE NOT ALONE. This drive-thru strip club is one of many ways Portlanders are coping with being cooped up. Page 11
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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
FINDINGS COURTESY OF MOTHERSBISTRO.COM
DIALOGUE
MOTHER’S BISTRO, PAGE 23
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 46, ISSUE 28. The first Portland-area restaurant to defy Gov. Kate Brown is called Pappy’s Greasy Spoon. 4
Curtis Cook got kicked off Twitter
Sarah Iannarone has the most
One Portland restaurateur has dreams of opening a “doughnut
donors of any candidate for Portland City Council. 6 It’s probably legal for a restaurant to take your temperature and phone number. 9 Downtown Portland streets could soon become dining plazas. 10 A North Portland neighborhood alleges a makeshift casino is operating inside a vacant house. 11 A rare plant blossoming in a Southeast Portland garden has become a tourist attraction. 15
for impersonating Dr. Oz and threatening to murder children. 20
tapas bar.” 23
One Portlander plans to spend Mother’s Day making aprons for her mom to wear on her cannabisthemed YouTube cooking show. 25 The voice of the Spanish instructions on MAX is making videos for Milagro Theatre. 26 Director and PSU professor Dustin Morrow is watching Muppets movies to help him through the pandemic. 27
Portlanders have been buying tickets to see movies at one of Oregon’s few drive-in movie theaters—which is four hours away. 15
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unless those barrels are bolted down and there are cops at every road where these are at, people will just move them or toss them to the curb and drive on through.”
Terry Lee Coughran, via Facebook: “As primarily only residents regularly drive along these residential streets, this seems like a good idea. I certainly hope that these slower-paced pathways can become a part of Portland’s permanent ambience.”
GAMBA IS BETTER CHOICE IN 5TH DISTRICT
RJ Shepard, via Twitter: “Cars get so much space! Why not have 1 percent of our roads so nurses, doctors, and essential workers can safely bike to their jobs, and so walkers and kids can safely recreate?” Dustin Ddraig, via wweek.com: “I’m all for social distancing, wearing masks in public, etc. But this is getting to the point where we’re being treated like children. What’s next? Will they be issuing hall passes?” Old man in training, via Twitter: “At least East Portland wasn’t completely forgotten, I guess. Sure would be nice to get some kind of slowdown measure on my sidewalkless street that the neighborhood pot store customers speed down, though.” Carrie Conner Holly, via Facebook: “Nice how Woodstock and Brentwood-Darlington are totally left out of this. We don’t even have sidewalks on most streets, and some are unpaved gravel/mud pits. Come on! Give us some love, Portland!” Jim, via wweek.com: “Signs mounted on the barrels will read: ‘Local access only.’ Yeah, and
Dr. Know
Terry Keeler, via Facebook: “The social experiment of 2020 continues. Keep the masses under control. First the pandemic, then murder bees, now blocking our vehicles and forcing us to the streets.”
The tepid endorsement of Kurt Schrader over Milwaukie Mayor Mark Gamba was disappointing to read [“Democracy, Delivered,” WW, April 29, 2020], and took some serious mental gymnastics to understand. The story that this is a swing district— one Schrader actually lobbied to have during the last redistricting—is put on its head in a year when the R’s don’t have a viable challenger for this seat. As stated by WW, he’s the fifth-most conservative Democrat in all of Congress—no small feat, thought Pelosi was too liberal to vote for her as speaker of the House, and was reticent to impeach Trump until his arm was twisted by House leadership. He’s also a supporter of oil, gas and pharmaceutical interests, who have donated significantly to his campaigns. That’s a person out of touch with the district and our state who has poor values and allies. Not someone worth supporting. Mark Gamba brings new energy and a focus on issues that matter to the 5th District and our state. Attention on the Green New Deal, affordable health care, gun control and affordable housing make him primed to enhance the Oregon delegation if he is elected. Robin Denburg 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
BY MART Y SMITH @martysmithxxx
North Portland BottleDrop landlord deploys armed guards.
They say we may have to shelter in place for one to two more years before a coronavirus vaccine becomes available—but a bunch of vaccines are already being tested! Why do three-phase clinical trials take so long? —The Sheltering Guy
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
It’s mostly Phase III that eats up the clock, Guy. That’s the real-world resistance test, where you give the vaccine to, say, 5,000 people, a placebo to another 5,000, and let everyone go about their business. Eventually (if all goes well), you’ll notice that folks in the placebo group are getting the disease at the same rate as the rest of us schmucks, and those in the vaccine group aren’t. Cue Nobel Prize! Unfortunately, this can take a while. Let’s use Oregon as an example why. Currently, only about 50 of us per day have been testing positive for COVID-19. Let’s assume (generously) that we’re missing some cases, and there are really more like 100 new infections daily. This would mean that, in a given day, only two one-thousandths of 1 percent of Oregonians are getting the virus. Assuming your 5000-strong placebo group is a perfect sample (it won’t be), it’ll have maybe three positives every month. Meanwhile, since even effective vaccines don’t confer immunity on everyone, you’ll probably see some cases in the vaccine
MASTHEAD EDITOR & PUBLISHER
As reported on wweek.com, Portland transportation officials will install more than 80 barrels at intersections this week to discourage car traffic on city streets they hope Portlanders will use for exercise. Cars won’t be entirely banned from the chosen streets, but city officials want to prioritize walking, bicycling and skating, with enough room for people to stay 6 feet apart. That means closing the streets to all but local traffic—that is, drivers who live or work on those blocks. Here’s what our readers had to say:
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group as well. It takes a long time for such numbers to diverge to the point of statistical significance. Wouldn’t it be faster to just deliberately expose all your vaccinated volunteers to the CV right away and see who dies? You bet! This expose-everybody model is called “human challenge.” Unfortunately for the aspiring Josef Mengele in all of us, it’s normally considered wildly unethical to use this method with deadly, incurable diseases. But these aren’t normal times, and some scientists say this isn’t the moment to split ethical hairs. One website has even registered over 13,000 people ready to be Earth’s newest heroes as guinea pigs in a (so far hypothetical) humanchallenge CV study. We routinely let people risk death as soldiers, firefighters and (most recently) grocery clerks. If it’s OK to let asthmatic pizza guys stare down La Rona for $12.50 an hour, shouldn’t it be OK to let a few selfless volunteers do the same for a crack at the Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Benetton contract? QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
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MURMURS helping citizens feel better,” the police report added. “Mr. Merrill agreed to keep his restaurant seating area closed and make orders for takeout only.”
PAPPY’S GREASY SPOON
PAPPY’S GREASY SPOON REOPENS: Not every Oregon restaurant is waiting on Gov. Kate Brown’s OK to reopen dining rooms. Canby police responded to a call May 2 that a local diner, Pappy’s Greasy Spoon, was open and operating dine-in services, the Canby Now Podcast first reported. Officers saw eight to 10 people eating inside the restaurant and a waitress standing over one of the tables taking an order. “Please let us finish our meal before you shut it down,” one
of the diners said, according to a police report. The owner, Mike Merrill (aka Pappy), told officers he knew he was violating the governor’s order, “but the to-go meals were not cutting it and he has bills to pay.” Merrill said he was using every other table to maintain social distancing, and that all utensils and items were sanitized between uses. “Mr. Merrill is under the belief that coronavirus has been blown out of proportion and the government’s attempts to mitigate it are all just a placebo
NO NEW HOME FOR THE HEARINGS OFFICE: Portlanders who want to appeal land use or city code decisions or protest their car getting towed seek justice in front of a city hearings officer. But last August, City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero told the Portland City Council her office could no longer support that function, explaining it was “understaffed and its caseload is increasing.” Responsibility for the office has been a point of contention for years. But on April 29, city commissioners told Caballero, who is independently elected, they couldn’t find a home for the hearings office in other bureaus because of potential conflicts of interest. While quibbling with Hull Caballero’s contention it is underfunded, the council asked her to keep the hearings office until a charter review commission set for later this year can propose a permanent
solution, which would then be put to voters. Hull Caballero says she will respond to the council in writing. “I have been working on this for months,” she adds, “and I have not had any member of council willing to solve the problem.” HERNANDEZ IN MORE HOT WATER: Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland) has called for the resignation of Rep. Diego Hernandez (D-East Portland) after the Oregon House Special Committee on Conduct held a hearing May 4 in which investigators revealed seven women have alleged he sexually harassed them. “The House Conduct Committee’s action today is a very serious development,” said Kotek. “I believe Rep. Hernandez should resign from the Legislature.” The allegations follow earlier accusations by Hernandez’s onetime girlfriend, who sought a restraining order against him before agreeing to dismiss her request. Hernandez says it would be premature to draw conclusions before the investigation is complete.
“I firmly reject the rush to judgment when the House’s independent investigation has just begun and I still have no information about the complaints,” he tells WW. “Tina Kotek threatened my political and professional career when I refused to help her take public employees’ benefits away. Now I know what she meant.” MAJOR DEMOCRATIC DONOR RETURNS: Eric Lemelson, winemaker and heir to a patent fortune, has been one of the state’s most generous Democratic donors (he gave more than $1 million to a 2007 land use ballot measure). He’s been less active in recent years, but records show he loaned $1 million to a new political action committee, Oregonians for 100% Clean Electricity, on March 24. The PAC has not received any other money, and has spent less than $200. Lemelson could not be reached for comment. Brad Reed of Renew Oregon says his group may gather signatures for climate-change initiatives: “That money is meant to support our effort.”
Physically apart, virtually together. Join us on May 17th for the first ever Virtual Girls on the Run 5K! You choose the time and place (following local social distancing guidelines) to walk, run or roll a 5K. Your participation ensures the future of our program and the ongoing support of girls in our communities. Learn more and register at www.girlsontherunpdx.org. 4
Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
TRENDING
Disobeying Orders
AARON WESSLING
NEWS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
SIGNS
Contagious Ideas
Two key indicators suggest more Oregonians are staying neither home nor safe. BY NIG E L JAQ U I SS
njaquiss@wweek.com
Two months after Gov. Kate Brown began shutting down Oregon with school closures, two key indicators suggest more of her constituents are not complying with her “Stay Home, Stay Safe” order. Statewide traffic on Interstate 5, Oregon’s busiest highway, has rebounded significantly from the week after Brown’s stay-home order went into effect. And locally, calls for service to the Portland Police Bureau have also bounced back, exceeding levels typical for this time of year. The bureau says the rise in calls “suggests the stay-at-home order is not being adhered to as closely as it was in prior weeks.” On May 1, Brown said some areas of the state could start reopening May 15 but added “physical distancing will remain part of our lives until we have the security of a vaccine or treatment for this disease.” These two graphs suggest citizens are getting closer to each other.
Interstate 5 Traffic Statewide Has Shown a Big Drop From 2019 Under “Stay at Home,” but It’s Bouncing Back
Source: Oregon Department of Transportation
Average Number of Daily Calls for Service to Portland Police Bureau by Week
Source: Portland Police Bureau
POISON IDEA: A protester displays an antivaccination slogan at a May 2 rally demanding the governor reopen Oregon for business.
Slogans and organizing show the anti-vaxx movement is bleeding into protests demanding Oregon reopen. On May 2, hundreds gathered at the Oregon Capitol in Salem to protest Gov. Kate Brown’s stay-home orders. While the event, called the ReOpen Oregon Rally, was billed as a protest to demand the governor lift her stay-home executive order, attendees advocated for causes that ranged across the conservative agenda. In part, that’s because Saturday’s protest was a marshaling of political sentiments already rooted in Oregon before the virus hit. Although he wasn’t at the Salem rally and said he had no role in organizing it, one of the most vocal proponents of reopening Oregon and other Western states is Republican political consultant Jonathan Lockwood, who came to Oregon from Colorado and also does a lot of work in California. Lockwood, 31, stirred up hornets’ nests in both states, working against stronger vaccine requirements for schoolchildren—and it appears there’s an overlap between the anti-vaxxers and those who are pushing hard to reopen the West from COVID closures. Lockwood formed the ReopenAmerica Project, a social media platform, and got Oregon state Sen. Dennis Linthicum (R-Klamath Falls) and Colorado’s House Republican caucus chair Lori Saine (R-Firestone) to sign on. His role was first reported by The New York Times. Lockwood says the anti-vaxx movement has nothing to do with the ReOpen project. “People try to use slurs and suppress what people like me have accomplished and created because of one extreme bill they opposed,” he says. But he says there is a parallel. “I’ve noticed that the same problem with the complex issue of vaccine policy is present with the issue of reopening,” he says. “We need leaders and policymakers to look at all the data, even that which challenges our assumptions, positions, and even deeply held values and beliefs.” As for who’s funding his latest campaign, he says it’s all him, calling the effort “a solution I created with selfdedicated energy, intention and funding.” One thing is certain: Some of the people attending the ReOpen Oregon Rally are skeptical of vaccines. How do we know? We read the signs. Here are the top seven most common types of signs we saw at Saturday’s protest, plus some specific slogans. TESS RISKI AND NIGEL JAQUISS.
1. Trump-Pence 2020/Keep America Great/MAGA 2. Don’t Tread on Me flags 3. QAnon signs • “Q Sent Me” 4. Signs against Gov. Kate Brown • “Kate Brown for Prison!” • “Down with Dictator Kate!” • “Oregon’s #1 Non-Essential Employee! You’re Fired Kate Brown!” • “I’d rather have COVID than KATE.” • “Gov. Brown I went to Church on Sunday. Please don’t arrest me.” 5. General “Open the State” signs • “My business, my choice. Let Freedom Ring!” • “All done with socialist distancing” • “FLATTEN the…unconstitutional govern ment mandates!” (held by a child) • “CHURCH IS ESSENTIAL! Spiritual food is as important as physical food.” • “I should be at my kids softball and soccer games today!” 6. Liberty/anti-government signs • “Our Constitutional Rights Are Essential.” • “When Tyranny Becomes Law, Rebellion Becomes Duty.” • “My inalienable rights do not end where your fear begins. Open up Oregon!” • “Stop the global takeover of America!” • “Live Free or Die. End Tyranny.” 7. COVID doubters/anti-vaxxers • “Why are COVID-19 Deaths the Only Deaths Which Matter?” • “I’d rather take hydroxychloroquine than drink government KOOL-AID.” • “#bolognaVirus #Plannedemic” • “END THE PLANDEMIC.” • “This is a mass vaccination campaign hosted by Bill Gates, Big Pharma + Fauci. Paid for by our jobs and economy.” • “Build up immune system not vaxx schedule.”
Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
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CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE WEEK
THOMAS TEAL
CHEAT SHEET
May 2020 Endorsements Your ballot has arrived. Here’s how we suggest you use it. CONGRESS
U.S. House of Representatives 1st District Suzanne Bonamici (D) 3rd District | Earl Blumenauer (D) 5th District | Kurt Schrader (D) G. Shane Dinkel (R)
OREGON SECRETARY OF STATE Mark Hass (D)
OREGON LEGISLATURE
Senate District 14 | Kate Lieber (D) Senate District 18 | Ginny Burdick (D) House District 26 | Dan Laschober (R) House District 28 | Wlnsvey Campos (D) House District 33 | Dr. Maxine Dexter (D) House District 35 | Dacia Grayber (D) House District 36 | Dr. Lisa Reynolds (D) House District 37 | Ron Garcia (R) House District 42 | Rob Nosse (D) House District 46 | Khan Pham (D) House District 50 | Ricki Ruiz (D)
PORTLAND CITY COUNCIL Mayor | Ted Wheeler Position 1 | Carmen Rubio Position 2 | Dan Ryan Position 4 | Sam Adams
METRO COUNCIL
District 3 | Gerritt Rosenthal District 5 | Chris Smith District 6 | Bob Stacey
MULTNOMAH COUNTY District Attorney Mike Schmidt
BALLOT MEASURES Measure 26-209 Gas tax renewal Yes Measure 26-210 Homeless services tax Yes 6
Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
Little Gifts Political outsiders are gathering the most individual contributions in their bids for the Portland City Council.
One way to measure clout in elections is by how much money a candidate has raised. This election cycle offers another yardstick: how many donors have made small contributions. The city candidate with the most political donors—and, thanks to Portland’s new publicly financed campaign system, the most taxpayer funding—is a political outsider. Sarah Iannarone, the highest-profile challenger to Mayor Ted Wheeler, has nearly 3,000 donors. Two weeks before election day, she’s amassed the most individual contributions of any candidate—and Portland’s Open and Accountable Elections office will match those gifts. “Far too often, people feel disconnected from their
elected officials because successfully running for mayor requires immense access to wealth,” says Gregory McKelvey, campaign manager for Iannarone. “Now it just takes a wonderful candidate.” It remains to be seen whether Iannarone can turn those donors into votes. Wheeler is not participating in public financing. His campaign says he has had 354 donors this cycle. Data from Open and Accountable Elections shows Iannarone isn’t alone. In three of the four city races on the May 19 ballot, outsider candidates for office have attracted the most donors: Former Office of Neighborhood Involvement staffer Mingus Mapps, who faces incumbent Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, has the most donors in his contest. “I am humbled by the hundreds of Portlanders who have donated to our campaign,” says Mapps. And tenant organizer Margot Black has the most in her race to succeed late Commissioner Nick Fish. “This is what happens when working-class people feel heard, seen and represented,” says Black. “Publicly financed elections have given regular people a voice; having—by far—the most donations shows that I hear that voice, because I am one of them.” RACHEL MONAHAN.
Candidate
Position
Number of Donors
Sarah Iannarone
Mayor
2,958
Carmen Rubio
Commissioner, Pos. 1
849
Candace Avalos
Commissioner, Pos. 1
477
Tim DuBois
Commissioner, Pos. 1
455
Margot Black
Commissioner, Pos. 2
805
Dan Ryan
Commissioner, Pos. 2
717
Sam Chase
Commissioner, Pos. 2
653
Tera Hurst
Commissioner, Pos. 2
632
James Davis
Commissioner, Pos. 2
475
Julia DeGraw
Commissioner, Pos. 2
470
Ronault Catalani
Commissioner, Pos. 2
432
Loretta Smith
Commissioner, Pos. 2
387
Cynthia Castro
Commissioner, Pos. 2
357
Mingus Mapps
Commissioner, Pos. 4 981
Sam Adams
Commissioner, Pos. 4 968
Chloe Eudaly
Commissioner, Pos. 4 604
Seth Woolley
Commissioner, Pos. 4 585 Source: Open and Accountable Elections
ROCKY BURNSIDE
NEWS
Constructive Criticism
Public health experts like Gov. Kate Brown’s approach to reopening Oregon. They also think it could be improved. BY R ACHEL MON A HA N
WE DELIVER: A to-go order gets filled at Po’ Shines Cafe De La Soul in North Portland. When Gov. Kate Brown opens restaurant dining rooms, workers will have greater exposure to the virus.
Open for Whom?
Frontline workers need their jobs the most, but are also the most likely to get sick when the state reopens. BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS
and
RAC HE L M O N A H A N
503-243-2122
Maria Guadalupe “Lupita” Bautista can’t wait to get back to work. It also scares the hell out of her. For the past 25 years, Bautista, 42, has worked as a hairstylist and beautician. Before COVID -19 closed down the shop where she works on Southeast 122nd Avenue, she might see as many as 15 clients a day—and she was one of a dozen stylists in the shop. When she thinks about going back to work, she envisions a lot of people in a small space. “I love my job and making people feel good about themselves,” Bautista says. “But I’m also afraid.” Bautista chose to leave the beauty shop, seeing her last client March 16. She won’t have much choice about going back. She used the money set aside for April’s rent to fill the apartment she shares with her two children, ages 20 and 16, with food. She needs an income. And if she doesn’t fill her salon chair, another contractor will. “I’ve been homebound in a small apartment for 48 days,” Bautista says. “But there, I feel safe.” Gov. Kate Brown is under increasing pressure to reopen Oregon for business. She faces an unenviable choice. The longer shops and restaurants remain closed, the more economic livelihoods are jeopardized. But the sooner Brown lets nonessential businesses reopen, the more she puts people’s health at risk. “I think there’s a real possibility we see more evidence of transmission, including more illnesses and death, as we start to replace physical distancing intervention with contact tracing,” says David Bangsberg, dean of the School of Public Health
at Oregon Health & Science University and Portland State University. “That’s why we need to keep our eye on the data and go slowly.” The dangers and deaths from reopening Oregon will not fall evenly. They will land most harshly on the same people who have been hit hardest by closures and layoffs: blue-collar workers with little education. These service industry workers are disproportionately people of color, who often lack access to health care and suffer from more preexisting conditions. The workers in this economic bracket who weren’t laid off continued to clock in to jobs deemed “necessary.” One result: Latinxs make up 29 percent of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Oregon but only about 13.3 percent of the state’s population. Brown is moving slowly—she won’t reopen rural counties until at least May 15, and says Portland must meet strict criteria before reopening businesses here. Her caution is winning the applause of public health experts and the fury of rural Republicans (see sidebar). John Tapogna, president of Portland economic consulting firm ECONorthwest, says Brown’s choices so far have been correct. He adds that reopening quickly might not have the effect some business owners seek: Shoppers and diners are unlikely to flock back into group spaces. Instead, they’ll let service workers test the waters first. “I’m glad I live in Oregon and not in Georgia,” Tapogna says. “Until we have a vaccine, we have to listen carefully to what the virus is telling us.” As the governor ponders reopening the state, the stakes are highest for Oregonians on the front lines, whose jobs don’t allow
rmonahan@wweek.com
In early March, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown faced an outcry from public health experts and her Democratic allies when she hesitated to close schools and order people home in the face of a pandemic. Now she’s again moving gingerly in deciding when to reopen the state. But this time, her caution is winning better reviews. Experts who spoke with WW mostly praise Brown’s approach—and say she’s following best practices while other U.S. governors rush headlong into catastrophe. “She has outlined really sensible criteria,” says David Bangsberg, dean of the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health. “Whether we’re ready now, I think it’s too soon to say.” Last week, Brown said she could begin approving the reopening of rural counties by as soon as May 15. The governor’s office say any timetable—in Portland or elsewhere—will depend on whether that area meets benchmarks for testing and tracing people who might have the virus. She’s mandating that each county provide a written plan, prove it has enough personal protective equipment, and explain where it will shelter people who get sick. And hospitalizations in any county must have declined over the past 14 days before she’ll consider reopening it. That’s a far cry from states like Texas and Tennessee, which are experiencing surges in cases even as their governors allow widespread reopenings. To be sure, the governor faces criticism from rural counties and five Clackamas County mayors, who on May 5 demanded she move more quickly. “We don’t have time to wait much longer,” said Mayor Keith Swigart of Molalla. “Everything keeps getting pushed forward.…We have businesses now that will probably not open. Things need to change.” But most observers think the success of Oregon’s reentry will depend on ironing out details in the coming days. “WEARING MASKS Oregon State University professor IN PUBLIC IS EVEN Chunhuei Chi likes the plan—but not when it starts. He wants to see OreMORE IMPORTANT gon’s cases shrink even further before THAN SOCIAL the governor lifts the stay-home order. Thirty cases a day in Oregon, DISTANCING.” he says, may be too many—and it’s less than half of what the state is recording now. (Another public health specialist, Carlos Crespo of Portland State University, says the trigger for reopening Oregon should be when no one is dying from the virus.) Chi also argues the state needs to mandate mask wearing in all indoor settings and public transit, citing the success of East Asia in controlling the outbreak. “Wearing masks in public is even more important than social distancing,” he says. “Ideally, we want to do both.” Two other Democratic constituencies also want tweaks. The union representing nurses says the governor’s plan will only work if Brown increases the baseline amount of protective gear a hospital must have in place before reopening. Under a policy that went into effect May 1, hospitals can reopen while reusing masks and gowns. The Oregon Nurses Association says that shouldn’t happen. “Two months ago, if you didn’t discard a mask between patients, you could face discipline,” says Kevin Mealy, a spokesman for the ONA. “The hospitals are relying on unsafe procedures.” Melissa Unger, executive director of Service Employees International Union Local 503, says workers currently face a perverse incentive—a positive COVID19 test could mean financial disaster, so few are eager to take the test. “You’re asking them to get tested,” she says. “What if they have no paid time off?” (A federal requirement to fund 14 paid days off for the virus does not apply to a majority of the union’s workers, SEIU officials say.) Unger says the lack of paid leave is a particular problem at nursing homes and other long-term care facilities, where none of the workers represented by her union has enough paid time off to cover the 14-day quarantine period. “If we’re going to reopen the economy,” Unger says, “we need to make sure they can stay home when they’re sick.”
CONT. on page 8 Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
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NEWS
D I S TA NT VO I C E S Watch our daily interviews with Portland favorites during quarantine
Seidel knows bars may be slow to reopen because social distancing and drinking don’t mix, and she knows that in addition to exposing herself to customers’ illnesses, she’ll face unusual conditions. “I am fearful we are not going to have as many people in the bar—that they won’t be able to hug, shake hands or play pool.” Lisa Davis-Warren is president of the AssociaRenato Quintero, a janitor at Intel’s Ronler tion of Flight Attendants local at Horizon Air in Acres campus, has worked right through the Portland. shutdown. She says planes have never been Quintero, 53, is employed by cleaner, but basic protective a contractor called Somers equipment such as gloves, Building Maintenance, masks, antiseptic wipes and but he’s worked on Intel hand cleaner have been property for 18 years. He hard to come by. “We’ve says in normal times, finally been provided there are 4,000 to masks,” Davis-Warren 5,000 people a day in says. “It’s taken more the buildings where pushing than I would he works. Most are have expected.” working from home Although Brown’s now. Quintero, who executive order didn’t works the day shift, close Portland Internaworries about his safety tional Airport, she didn’t when they all come back, have to. Travel at PDX is as they are expected to down about 95 percent. do when Brown lifts her Davis-Warren, 53, says stay-home order. she and her colleagues He says Intel is conwelcome the work that “I’VE BEEN HOMEBOUND scientious about safety will come as the economy personal protective IN A SMALL APARTMENT and reopens but have one big equipment, but the sheer FOR 48 DAYS. BUT worry: passengers who volume of bodies will knowingly or not get on make social distancing in THERE, I FEEL SAFE.” planes while carrying the hallways, cafeterias and —LUPITA BAUTISTA COVID-19 virus. other common spaces “We still don’t have pasimpossible. “There are senger screening,” Davis-Warren says. “It would be just too many people in one small area,” Quingreat if the airline could ask just a couple of ques- tero says. “That is the big danger I see.” tions, like: ‘Do you have a fever?’” In Hillsboro, where Quintero lives, he says Like the airlines, Oregon’s hospitality indus- there’s a lot of talk about the high incidence of try has been decimated. One the tens of thou- COVID-19 among Latinxs. “Most of the Latino sands who lost their jobs is Jessica Seidel, 46, population—even like me, who have legal status, who’s been tending bar at the Standard in the we work in service jobs and our salaries are low, Northeast Portland neighborhood of Kerns since $13 or $14 an hour,” he says. it opened 13 years ago. Although Quintero has health insurance, he Seidel’s been lucky: Her employer kept her says many Latinxs delay or skip medical treatment, health insurance in place, and unlike many eat poorly and cannot take time off if they are sick. workers filing for relief from the Oregon He says among people he knows, there’s Employment Department, she’s been success- a mixture of excitement and dread about the fully collecting unemployment. But she’s raring state’s economy reopening. to get back behind the bar. “We every day are praying not to get [COVID“I miss my customers and co-workers,” Seidel 19],” he says. “We are really in fear that if we get the says. “That’s my family. I don’t do this job to be disease, it’s going to make it harder for my commucool. I do it because I love it.” nity and our families.” BRIAN BURK
Bill Walton | Former NBA Player
reliable social distancing. If they stay at home, they fall deeper into financial holes. But if they go back to work too soon, they could face a debilitating illness or even death. As WW spoke to workers pondering those risks, we found mixed feelings.
Storm Large | Musician
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WINDOW SHOPPING: Portland restaurants have found new ways to serve customers while their dining rooms are closed. 8
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BRIAN BURK
NEWS
Heat Check
Is it legal for a restaurant to take your temperature? Oregon lawyers say, “Open wide.” BY TE SS R I SK I
tess@wweek.com
A Fred Meyer greeter asks for your name and cellphone number before you can grab a cart. The hostess at Tusk checks your temperature before you are allowed to dine. The trainer at your corner gym tells you to wear a mask, even on the stair machine. Three months ago, such practices might have sounded like the dystopian fever dream of civil liberties worrywarts. Last week, they were among the recommendations from the Oregon governor’s office. News media outlets obtained draft copies of Gov. Kate Brown’s guidelines for reopening businesses after the COVID-19 pandemic. Three of the guidelines stood out: Businesses should require patrons to submit to temperature checks, wear masks in stores, and provide names and phone numbers so contact tracers can track down anybody who made contact with a positive case. The draft raised an obvious question: Is any of that even legal? In fact, state documents show the governor’s office was already wondering the same thing. “If a business sets a polWhat the lawyers did agree on is that any executive icy that all employees and customers are required to wear orders need to be grounded in public health and related cloth face coverings,” reads one document, “business management should consult with their legal counsel to deter- directly to the pandemic. If not, the governor could be mine whether or not such a requirement can be enforced overstepping. “Our view is, the government can restrict people’s liberand whether or not the business will provide a cloth face ties in a time of pandemic,” says Stanley of the ACLU. “But covering when a customer does not bring their own.” Shortly before press deadline May 5, The Oregonian if there’s another way to do something that doesn’t infringe reported the governor’s office had drafted new proposals on people’s freedoms, then the government shouldn’t be that no longer included recommendations for diners to infringing on people’s freedoms.” wear masks in restaurants or for patrons to provide perOK, so the government can tell restaurants what to do. sonal information. Does it sound like state officials are confused? Well, local Can restaurants tell me what to do? Oh yeah. Businesses have civil liberties lawyers are also far more authority than the scratching their heads. government in what they “This is a situation that “PRIVATE COMPANIES can require of customers and almost everyone who’s alive employees. That’s because today has never been in CAN REQUIRE YOU TO people have the choice to work, before,” says Jay Stanley, a eat or shop somewhere else. senior policy analyst for the WEAR A SPEEDO IF “Private companies can American Civil Liberties THEY WANT.” require you to wear a Speedo if Union. “The legality is tricky they want,” Stanley says. and unclear, especially when it —JAY STANLEY, ACLU Patrons agree to a contract comes to the government.” of sorts with a business when Let’s take a walk into that they enter a store: I will, for murky legal future. example, purchase your goods or services for the listed Can the governor tell restaurants to take customers’ price. “If they say, ‘I’m going to add a condition to that contract that says you need to have a temperature below temperatures? Probably. The lawyers who spoke to WW were conflicted 103 degrees to get in the door,’ they can choose to do about what the state government can and cannot require that,” Creighton says. If a store was to enforce temperature checks, it would businesses to do. need to ensure that it’s not doing so in a discriminatory Steven Wilker, a Portland lawyer who specializes in constitutional law and civil rights, says he believes it is within fashion. It couldn’t, for instance, check only the temBrown’s power to require businesses to conduct tempera- peratures of the elderly. Employment law is trickier. Typically, a restaurant ture checks, mandate masks and collect customer data. “All three of these things that they’re talking about couldn’t require its workers to use a thermometer to are things that public health officials are recommending clock in. That would constitute what’s known as an that people do,” Wilker says. “Requiring these as condi- “impermissible medical inquiry.” It’s discriminatory tions to operate strikes me as being within the governor’s against workers with health problems. But on March 21, the U.S. Equal Employment Opporpolice powers.” Beth Creighton, a civil rights lawyer in Portland, says the tunity Commission published new rules stating that a governor’s executive powers stop where the U.S. Constitu- pandemic constitutes a “direct threat” to people’s health, tion’s interstate commerce clause begins. “I would say that says Andrew Schpak, an employment litigation lawyer in could be challenged,” Creighton says, “because that affects Portland. So for the time being, employers are allowed to do this. commerce.”
HOT AND COLD: Temperature checks and contact tracing could become the norm for Oregon consumers who enter shops and restaurants.
Schpak says in these uncertain times, he’s advising businesses to err on the side of public health. “As an employer,” Schpak says, “you probably want to err on the side of, ‘OK, sue me for being too safe. Sue me for taking temperatures.’” What if I don’t want to give my name and phone number at the door? No one can make you. But they can probably refuse you entry. Wilker says if a patron declined to give their personal information, have their temperature checked or wear a mask, the business would have the legal right to turn that person away. “If you’re enforcing mask use, and they refuse, I can refuse to provide service to you,” Wilker says. “There’s no constitutional right not to wear a mask in that circumstance.” Not everybody agrees. Schpak, the employment litigation lawyer, says he’s less concerned about the legality of taking someone’s temperature than he is about contact tracing methods whereby the government would ask businesses to keep a log of patrons who visit their stores. In theory, Schpak says, this form of data collection would give the government a list of all the places a person has visited. “It’s similar to ideas of gun background checks: Why does the government have the right to know who I am or where I was?” Schpak says. “Let’s think of the worst-case scenario: Are people going to be excited to write their names on a porn log or a weed dispensary [log]?” In fact, says civil lawyer Michael Fuller, requiring people to enter their names at a cannabis store could be challenged in court—because for many people, cannabis is medicinal. “You’re creating a registry for people’s medicine,” Fuller says. This could be a violation of federal health privacy laws—called the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA—which ensure medical information is kept confidential. The governor’s office says it’s still ironing out the details—including legal questions. “Guidance documents go through a number of reviews—by public health officials, legal staff, and others,” spokeswoman Liz Merah said in an email to WW. “All draft documents are subject to change based on the feedback we receive.” Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
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BRIAN BURK
NEWS
LET THE SUNSHINE IN: A Northeast Portland resident gets fresh air on a patio. City officials are looking for new ways for people to go outside while keeping 6 feet apart from each other.
Outward Bound Portlanders need more ways to get outside. Here are three proposals. BY AA R ON MESH
amesh@wweek.com
On April 28, City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly gave Portlanders some space. She announced the city would close selected residential streets to all but local traffic, allowing people to bike and walk while maintaining 6 feet distance from each other. This week, Portland transportation officials will begin installing more than 80 barrels at intersections across the city, in an attempt to divert cars away from some neighborhood streets. “Our streets belong to all of us,” said Eudaly in a statement, “and these improvements will allow us to safely walk, bike and roll through the city.” The decision was a reversal of City Hall’s initial skepticism of an idea that emerged from Oakland, Calif. (In mid-April, Portland officials said car-free streets would encourage large groups of people to gather, spreading COVID-19. ) It’s also an acknowledgement that even lawabiding Portlanders cannot spend a summer indoors without some pressure release valve. Michael Andersen, a senior researcher at the Sightline Institute, says the push to keep people in their backyards ignores how many Portlanders live in apartments or far from parks. “The official guidelines don’t account for the fact that not everybody has a yard or a cul-de-sac,” Andersen says. “I cannot imagine what it must be like for a single parent trying to maintain any semblance of distancing. I just think our public plans need to acknowledge that. Staying at home is just not an option for hundreds of thousands of us, and we shouldn’t be talking like it is.” On May 5, Gov. Kate Brown further eased the civic claustrophobia, by opening state parks and recreation areas for day use. She followed the lead of Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, just as Eudaly used a model pioneered by Oakland. So what other ideas could Portland steal to access a little more sunshine this summer? Here are three ideas. THE IDEA: Turn golf courses into city parks. WHO’S TRYING IT: San Francisco opened the
Presidio Golf Course for strolling after the Bay Area’s shelter-in-place orders banned golfing. Photos of people picnicking on the fairways went viral; the rolling greens offered plenty of room for parties to remain well apart. Now that orders are relaxed, golf can resume—much to the dismay of San Franciscans who will have a good walk spoiled. “It should be open to the general public at least 10
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until the end of the pandemic,” schoolteacher Mouna Harifi told the San Francisco Chronicle. “Golfers should be patient.” W H AT P O R T L A N D O F F I C I A L S S AY :
Portland’s golf courses never closed. The financial struggles of the city’s five municipal golf courses were the subject of a city audit last year—and have led some Portlanders to question whether revenue requirements are the reason city courses are crowded. Portland Parks & Recreation spokesman Mark Ross says that’s not the case. “Revenue is not a factor,” Ross tells WW. “Portland Parks golf courses are open at this time because Gov. Brown’s executive order allowed golf courses to remain open.” Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office didn’t comment by press deadlines. THE IDEA: Turn city streets into al fresco dining
plazas.
W H O ’ S T RY I N G I T : A city councilor near Vancouver, B.C., is championing a proposal to turn the city’s public plazas, and some of its downtown streets, into de facto patios for restaurants. That city’s business leaders see it as potential salvation for restaurants that would otherwise shutter. “If we don’t do it, we’re going to see a landscape that’s obliterated by the pandemic,” said Charles Gauthier, executive director of the Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, told The Globe and Mail. WHAT PORTLAND OFFICIALS SAY: Eudaly likes the idea. The policy her office has launched already dedicates street space for people to line up for takeout, and her office says she’s planning more. “Commissioner Eudaly is very interested in using the public right of way to expand outdoor dining for Portland’s restaurants,” says her spokeswoman Margaux Weeke. Portland Business Alliance President Andrew Hoan says his members also have “a willingness to support rethinking how commerce continues.” THE IDEA: Issue hiking permits for the Columbia
River Gorge.
WHO’S TRYING IT: We can’t find any recreation
area that’s managing crowds with an advance reservation system. But the U.S. Forest Service already limits hikers in popular spots: You have to get a permit to hike Dog Mountain during wildflower season. The Gorge was flooded by Portlanders in the early days of the pandemic—the traffic jams led the Forest Service to shut trails down. But making a reservation for the woods? That sounds like an elegant solution. WHAT PORTLAND OFFICIALS SAY: Rachel Pawlitz, the spokeswoman for the Columbia River Gorge Natural Scenic Area, says the idea of issuing permits for popular spots like Multnomah Falls and the Cape Horn Trail is being discussed.
More than a month into Oregon’s stayhome order, Portlanders are feeling stir crazy. For six weeks, they have left their homes and apartments for groceries, exercise and little else. The lockdowns stretch on indefinitely; the vaccine might be years away. It could drive anybody mad. In this week’s paper, WW tells stories of people itching to get out. We examine the calculus of employment and health that Gov. Kate Brown must weigh to reopen the state (page 7). We preview the strange new requirements diners should expect before entering restaurants (page 9). We found all the ways Oregonians are entertaining themselves while staying in their cars (page 13). And here, we profile one Portland neighborhood where people got angry, then got together—6 feet apart.
WESLEY LAPOINTE
r e v e F n i b Ca
HONK IF YOU’RE HUNGRY: A Lucky Devil Lounge dancer beckons motorists to its drivethru strip club and food pickup, Food 2 Go-Go.
The House
ALWAYS WINS What happens when the house next door turns into a casino with strippers?
BY MATTHEW SIN GER
NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH: Trevor Gray alleges his nextdoor neighbor on North Blandena Street is running a makeshift casino and strip club out of his home.
msinger@wweek.com
Like clockwork, the cars start arriving around 9 pm at a freshly built three-story home in the Humboldt neighborhood. Audis and Mercedes sports cars, many of them with Washington plates. Luxury Ubers deposit men in expensive-looking suits at the driveway. Women in short skirts pour out of Escalades. They disappear into the house and stay until the wee hours of the morning. Windows are papered over, and some neighbors claim there is a stripper pole in the den. According to five people interviewed by WW, it’s been going on like this for weeks now, on a leafy residential street of modest Craftsman homes in North Portland, ever since Oregon’s governor shut down bars and restaurants across the state. “Now is not the time or place to have people coming into this empty, vacated house for whatever activities they’re doing,” says Andrew DelGreco, 32, who lives on the block. “It feels disrespectful to the people who live here.” The disagreement boiled over April 25, when a high-decibel argument broke out between the homeowner—a burly, blond-haired 58-year-old named Joseph Hughes—and a dozen or so of his protesting neighbors. One of them used his cellphone to take video of the screaming confrontation. “You’re not supposed to stick your ass in Multnomah County when you’re a Clackamas piece of shit!” a woman can be heard shouting. “Keep your mask on, you’re cuter that way,” Hughes fired back. What’s got them so upset?
As the rest of the city has gone dark, the residents of North Blandena Street allege Hughes has transformed his home into a COVID-19 speakeasy. Neighbors have complained to Portland City Hall of loud music, gambling and strippers. And they say it’s happened every single night for the past month and a half. Neighbors have complained 14 times, resulting in 10 written reports. On at least two occasions, Portland Police Bureau records say officers showed up. But no criminal citations have been issued. So the neighbors started to revolt. The tale unfolding on North Blandena Street is not a great scandal. It’s not clear Hughes is breaking any laws—and if he is, those laws are rarely enforced. But it is a remarkably vivid example of how quarantine is ratcheting up the tension in otherwise sleepy neighborhoods, as Portlanders stuck at home become more aware than ever of what’s happening right outside their windows. “[COVID-19] created the situation where they come in,” says Trevor Gray, 47, who lives next door to Hughes. “It’s also created the situation where we’re all here to see it. We all have an excess of energy, because nothing’s happening.” Joseph Hughes doesn’t deny that something odd is happening on his property. He just doesn’t see it as a problem. Hughes’ Clackamas-based company, Homes With Style, built the house at 562 N Blandena Street in 2019, but it never sold. He took the house off the market in mid-February, and claims he began temporarily renting it to an acquaintance, whom he won’t identify. A month later, the state began to shut down. Hughes says he allowed his tenant to host poker games, because “it gives people a little bit of sanity.” Around 5 am on March 17, Trevor Gray and his wife, Andrea Chiavarini, were shaken awake by the Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
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STAY SAFE, STAY INFORMED. WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER.
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sound of thumping club music. It was one night could still hear the stomping.” after Gov. Kate Brown ordered all bars in the state Other neighbors have kept their distance; at to close indefinitely. least 10 reports have been filed stretching back The couple, who’ve lived together on Blandena to late March, alleging “suspicious activity” at Street for two years, suspected Hughes might be the house, according to Portland Police Bureau living in the ostensibly empty house next door. (He records. says he’s stayed there overnight on occasion, but The complaints continued through April. it is not his “everyday residence.”) Neither Gray Bureau spokeswoman Lt. Kristina Jones connor Chiavarini had interacted with him before, firms police are investigating allegations of illegal but they had heard him, standing out on his porch, activity on the property. But when it comes to talking loudly on his cellphone. enforcing the stay-home order, “there is discreChiavarini assumed that whoever was inside tion in enforcement, and education is our first had simply fallen asleep with the stereo playing. approach,” she says. All Gray observed when he looked out his window Gray also wrote to Mayor Ted Wheeler. “It were flashing, purplish lights dancing on the ceil- defies reason that in the midst of a statewide ing. shelter in place order that someone can run what “Other people in the neighborhood see things amounts to a strip club in the middle of a quiet happen,” he says, “and I hear them happen.” neighborhood,” he wrote in an April 15 email. Police reports paint a picture of what Gray Wheeler’s office sent him a reply recommending he couldn’t see. contact Oregon Occupational Safety & Health. “Complainants think this residence has been “Does OSHA have jurisdiction over underconverted into a makeshift strip club,” reads a ground gambling operations in residential properreport from March 30. “Lots of females inside. ties?” he responded. He received no reply. Stripper pole visible on the second floor.” Representatives for Wheeler did not respond to A pattern developed: During the day, the place WW’s request for comment. would be empty. Around 9 pm, according to neighbors WW spoke with, Hughes would arrive in a After the shouting match April 25, Hughes decided white Ford truck, along with three associates. Cars to call the cops on his neighbors. would gradually fill the street, and cabs dropped off The officer who showed up seemed bemused by people no one had seen there before. the scene. (He left after warning Hughes’ neighThe neighbors began piecing things together. bors to make sure cars had enough room to pass.) They developed a theory, which they still hold: He said it resembled a block party. Hughes had moved into his unsold home, and was About a dozen neighbors sat in lawn chairs capitalizing on the statewide ban on public gather- around a metal fire pit planted in the middle of the ings by transforming it into a makeshift casino and street, sipping beers wrapped in koozies. A small strip club. speaker pumped out a playlist of old-school soul Hughes denies installing a stripper pole in the and funk jams. house. He wouldn’t directly a n sw e r a q u e st i o n a b o u t whether dancers perform on his property. He did, however, sanction the card games, as long as the hosts adhered to “the pandemic rulebook” and limited attendance to 10 people. The games were never publicly advertised, he says, and everyone who showed up knew the tenants. In short, he says, his tenants were hosting private parties— at a size less than the limit set by the governor. Hughes says he is not a gambler himself and would only stop by occasionally. WW has learned through business HERE, KITTY KITTY: Neighbors claim the house at 562 N Blandena St. (left) hosts nightly poker games that fill the filings, however, that Hughes street with mysterious cars and last until 5 am. previously had a financial interest in Ace of Spades, a now-shuttered poker Occasionally, a car with Washington plates room on Southwest Barbur Boulevard. would roll down the street, slowly navigating around the fire pit. At one point, a 30-something On April 21, Gray and Chiavarini, along with staggered out of a Radio Cab and asked if this was Chiavarini’s 14-year-old son, were once again where “the poker game” was happening. awakened, this time by loud stomping—they Gray and Chiavarini weren’t sure exactly what thought it sounded like a stripper’s platform heels their “socially distanced protest” would entail. hitting a wooden floor. Mostly, it took the form of passive-aggressive “It sounded like they were dancing on my roof,” admonitions—hooting and hollering as guests Gray says. showed up and cheering their “adherence” to social Gray went next door to complain. What hap- distancing. pened next is documented in a complaint he later The point was just to let Hughes know they sent to police, which WW has obtained. He was were watching him and knew what he was up to. greeted “by a young Asian man who does not live And to that degree, it seems to be working: Hughes on this street,” according to the account. Another tells WW he’s starting to think he doesn’t need man, described as “mid- to late 30s, white, obese,” such “negative energy” in his life, and he’s conapproached the door, and attempted to convince sidering shutting the games down and letting the Gray he couldn’t be hearing what he swore he was house stand empty. hearing. Hughes says he was not at the house at the The residents of North Blandena Street would time. consider that a victory. “This man then told me there was no stomping, “It is oddly a neighborhood-unifying thing,” as though he was a Jedi Knight,” Gray said in the Gray says. “That is the weird thing—that Joseph police report. “The Force was not with him, as I has created a neighborhood.”
Now accepting online pre orders for weekend brunch! Check out our menu and specials for Mother’s Day at jamonhawthorne.com 12
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Let’s Go
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FOR A RIDE
From old-school drive-ins to drive-thru strip clubs, Oregonians are relieving cabin fever by getting in their cars. For much of the 20th century, the automobile was an unmistakable symbol of freedom. More recently, though, our cars have felt less like machines of liberation and instead a form of confinement—laps logged while traveling from home to work, and work to home, in a cage of steel and glass. But in the new reality constricted by a deadly pandemic, where our jobs, schools and social lives have been compressed into our living quarters, we’ve started to look at those vehicles with fresh eyes. Whether it’s taking a spin through a pop-up strip club or reembracing the drive-in theater, Oregon is improvising ways to satisfy our innate desire to socialize with others—and right now, the safest way to do that is from behind the wheel.
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WESLEY LAPOINTE
Lucky Devil Lounge Food 2 Go-Go
On a recent Friday night, a spectacle unfolded in the parking lot of Lucky Devil Lounge. Within the confines of a tent set up beside the strip club on Southeast Powell Boulevard, four dancers swiveled around poles set up on makeshift platforms, wearing slightly more than they normally do on the venue’s stage: pasties, fishnets, short shorts and spring 2020’s hottest accessories—face masks and rubber gloves. A line of vehicles, meanwhile, passed between them. A Honda Fit filled with young women in beanies bounced in place as the DJ spun a soundtrack. Two people in Russianstyle fur hats perched in the back of a convertible Mercedes, like princesses readying their parade waves. From a freshly waxed Corvette to burly full-sized trucks, you might have confused the scene with an old-fashioned cruisein—or some sort of defunct car wash converted into a post-apocalyptic disco. “This is the future, right here!” owner Shon Boulden bellowed over the music. Lucky Devil is quickly becoming known for its creative pivots to keep business going during the pandemic. First, there was the club’s food delivery service, which made national
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headlines. Now, you can also come to the club to pick up your steak bites and chicken strips— and get a slightly longer show than you would on your stoop. Tip jars are attached to metal barricades in front of the platforms, though dancers are also armed with long pincers to grab bills directly from customers’ hands. After two songs in the tent, drivers are ushered out the other side of the parking lot where their order is waiting—and, as two men who drove from McMinnville specifically for the diversion learned, no, you cannot hang out and eat your food there. But really, the meal is just a pleasant perk. “So many people are just excited to see other people,” Boulden says. “Everyone just needs this.” And apparently, so do dogs. At one point, two bouncers lifted the tent to provide just enough clearance for a bulky camper van to roll inside. As the dancers on either side gyrated and spun, a white pooch stuck its head out the passenger window and cocked it to one side. “ We l c o m e t o t h e s h o w ! ” t h e D J announced. “I love your dog! He knows what’s up.” ANDI PREWITT.
A to Zoo The Oregon Zoo is closed, and one can only watch cat videos for so long before craving actual communion with nature. But if you want to see a dugong or a narwhal or a fairy penguin, there is a place—a front yard in the North Portland neighborhood of Vernon. Don’t worry, this isn’t a Tiger Kingstyle attraction. The animals are all made of wood. Former preschool teacher-turnedfull-time illustrator Mike Bennett found an audience in 2019, when his plywood carvings of well-known memes and cartoons went viral on Portland social media. These days, he’s busy working 12-hour shifts on his latest installation, which he calls the A to Zoo—26 plywood animals, one for every letter of the alphabet. The idea for a drive-by zoo took shape when a dozen wood-cut characters were stolen from his yard in the middle of the night. Disheartened, he brought the rest of his work inside for safekeeping. Then his neighbors began reaching out, wanting to know when
his creations would reappear. “I don’t think I quite realized to what level families relied on this stuff,” he says. So far, he’s created over 16 zoo animals, but don’t expect your typical lions, tigers and bears. “While those animals are incredibly important and amazing, I really wanted to focus on some lesser-known animals,” Bennett says. “I’m trying to throw some curveballs, but I’ve got some classics in there, too.” Bennett prefers to keep his address obscure, hoping visitors will explore the city to figure it out on their own. But if you miss this round, Bennett notes more is on the way. He says the sequel will be A to Zoo Two: Extinct, featuring dinosaurs, megafauna and ice age mammals. “And if we’re still in quarantine,” he adds, “I’m already designing my third one, which will feature cryptid and mythological animals.” CAMERON VIGLIOTTA.
Monty, the 20-Foot-Tall Agave Montana Lance is tired of talking about the rare plant currently flowering in his yard. No, literally—so many people have visited his home at Southeast 28th Avenue and Gladstone Street to ask about it, he briefly lost his voice. The interest is understandable. According to the retired city of Portland horticulturist, who declined to give his last name, the 20-foot-tall agave montana could be the first of its species to bloom in the Pacific Northwest. He calls the plant Monty, and its status as a pandemic tourist attraction is warranted. He’s a looker, with crimson flowers blossoming from flourishing branches emerging from a gray-blue bulb. Last Friday alone, Lance counted over 300 visitors to his garden. To save his voice, he tied an FAQ sheet to Monty’s stalk. He’s installed bamboo poles to keep visitors from wandering into Monty’s spiky leaves and from trampling his other plants.
“This has been like an open garden every day, with people I don’t know and can’t control,” Lance says. “You just hope people don’t start pulling on things.” Lance’s full garden has over 500 exotic plant species. His sidewalk alone includes Monty, an iris bed, a smaller agave of another species, and two towers of jewels—brushes of pink flowers with green tendrils native only to the Canary Island of Tenerife. He says with the right attention, any of the tropical or desert plants in his garden can grow anywhere in Portland, and Lance hopes Monty inspires people to plant something weird to increase the city’s biodiversity. “There’s nothing in this parking strip that’s so weird that it couldn’t grow anywhere in Southeast Portland,” he says, “or in much of Portland.” ANDREW JANKOWSKI.
Milton-Freewater Drive-In Theater On the first weekend of every April, Mike Spiess opens one of Oregon’s only remaining drive-in movie theaters on a 4-acre plot in the town of Milton-Freewater. But this year, instead of kicking off the season with al fresco double screenings, Spiess hosted a pop-up takeout restaurant, two church services and a wedding. He considers all that a dress rehearsal for getting the projector back up and running. “We were approved to open April 3, but we thought hard about that,” says Spiess, whose family has been running the drive-in since 1961. “I said, ‘Let’s go food only for the first couple weekends and see what it’s like. We can practice our social distancing.’ After we got through [Easter] weekend, my wife and I thought, OK, let’s try this.” Three weeks ago, people in Northeast Oregon left their homes for the evening to bed down in the back of pickups and open hatchbacks to watch Harrison Ford and his CGI canine companion in The Call of the Wild. “It’s working out well,” says Spiess. “I think we’re providing an opportunity for people to do something, a family activity that’s kinda normal, and doing it in a unique way.” Not everything is exactly “normal,” though. For one thing, guests must stay in their cars—no sprawling out in lawn chairs or blankets. Drive-in workers wield a 7-foot segment
of PVC pipe to ensure nobody gets too close to one another. And whereas a busy weekend in the past might see anywhere from 250 to 300 cars parked in front of the giant screen, Spiess will now take only somewhere in the range of 100 to 125. Not that he’s turning cars away—the largest turnout has been 80 vehicles on the Friday he reopened. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a demand. Spiess originally launched the COVID-19 version of the theater with an online reservation system, which booked within minutes and drew inquiries from as far away as Portland, Eugene and Yakima, Wash. Many don’t realize how far they’ll have to travel to watch the latest Pixar flick until Spiess mentions the drive time. He’s since switched to a first-come, first-served model— but he won’t turn valley-dwellers away if they happen to make the trip. “We’re not trying to get people coming here from a distance. That’s not what anybody’s supposed to be doing right now,” Spiess says. “Now, if a guy’s sitting in his car in line and I’m walking down there saying, ‘Hey, we’re full,’ and they say they came from Portland, I’ll find a way to get them in there. I’m not gonna tell them to turn around and go home.” ANDI PREWITT.
PARKED LIFE: The Milton-Freewater Drive-In in the time before the coronavirus. Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
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HOME Robin | NE Art from friends is a daily reminder of all the good things.
Cristin | NE I’m spending a lot of time browsing my own good-looking shelves.
Wesley | NE While my girlfriend works, I’ve been super-grateful for Winston’s company.
WHAT PART OF YOUR HOME HAS BROUGHT YOU COMFORT DURING THE STAY-HOME ORDER?
Sam| SE My corner of collectibles.
Thomas | SE Over the past month, my home office has gone through a bit of an upgrade, with a dedicated corner for shooting still life.
Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
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GET INSIDE Q( UA RA N TIN E ) & A
WHAT TO DO WHILE YOU'RE STUCK AT HOME
Curtis Cook
Formerly Portland-based comic and WW columnist WW: How have you been spending quarantine? Curtis Cook: I got lucky and, right before the city shut down, I ordered a harmonica, trombone and one of those Suzuki method fifth-grader books. So I’ve been practicing those, much to my neighbors’ chagrin. I’m super into low-rent action movies where I can mostly look at my phone. Last night, I watched Next with Nicolas Cage, where he can only see a few minutes into the future and has to stop a nuclear bomb. You also joined TikTok. That was probably the worst mistake I’ve made so far. I thought it was going to be fun. Turns out it’s just teenagers dancing, and I can’t find the button that says I don’t want teenagers on my phone. I’ve never been too old for something before, and it feels kind of good, actually. I don’t want that world. They can have it. You’re in L.A. now. How different would quarantine be if you were still in Portland? I think I’d be sadder about the quarantine in Portland. Because L.A. is always beautiful, so the fact I’m trapped inside is just a health issue. But Portland is only beautiful for four specific weeks in the summer, and you’re missing them. It’s so sad. What a horrible city. But thank you for having me. You also recently got put in Twitter jail. What happened there? I had a verified account for a period of time. I changed all my information to say I was Dr. Oz, and then I sent a tweet that said, “I’d kill your kids myself if they’d let me.” I guess it’s OK if you’re the actual Dr. Oz, but you can’t pretend to be him and say it.
JACK HACKETT
What has quarantine taught you about yourself ? I feel I’m really middle-of-the-roading it right now. I’m stressed and I’m unsure, but I’ve not yet reached a place where I have to be completely horrified of what comes yet. Life comes as it comes, and either you die or you don’t. Everything else is just how it goes. See the full interview at wweek.com/distant-voices. HERE'S A N I D E A
Learn How to Tell a Joke! Remember when we set goals for 2020? What a time that was! With many of us now spending more time at home these days—make that all our time—it’s hard not feeling like time is being wasted and that our dreams and plans don’t matter anymore. But honestly, there’s probably no better time for self-exploration…no, not that kind of selfexploration, though, y’know, that too. A few weeks ago, I took an introductory comedy course online. Learning standup has been an interest of mine the last couple of years, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend the money and time necessary for a multiweek class. Plus, making other people laugh, with my own material, just didn’t seem possible, no matter how intense the training. And then COVID -19 happened. Suddenly, laughter really did seem like the medicine I needed—better than injecting disinfectant, anyway. The class I took was through Helium Comedy Club 20
Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
and taught by comic Alex Falcone, who left Portland for Los Angeles in December to further his comedy career. It consisted of four two-hour sessions held over Zoom for about a dozen students. I quickly learned that writing standup isn’t about being funny—it’s about being interesting and having ideas worth sharing. The majority of the class was spent learning how to structure jokes. Every joke, we were told, needs a defined point of view and must include necessary background information in order for the audience to fully appreciate the punchline. After some brainstorming, we presented our material. The stakes might be lower performing to a virtual crowd than on an actual stage, but it’s still deeply awkward. On top of exposing my secrets and insecurities to strangers, I was doing it in front of a literally muted audience. I also learned that weaving politics and comedy together is risky—let’s just say my attempt to compare Trump’s idiotic confidence to a White Claw buzz fell flat. The good news is that taking the course didn’t scare me away from comedy. If anything, I want to keep learning. I’m also glad I took this time to go after one of my longtime goals. But, if nothing comes of it, joke’s on me. ANYA REHON. DO IT: Alex Falcone offers private classes and small group lessons through his website at alexfalcone.ninja.
STANDUP FOR YOURSELF: Alex Falcone will teach you how to be funny.
MAY 6-12 C RA F T T HI S
CO LO R T H IS
How to Design Your Own Mother’s Day Bouquet BY M A N U TO R R E S
Step 1 Gather common flowers from your garden or a friend’s—blooming rhododendrons, lilacs, California poppies, roses and peonies, to name a few. The more, the merrier. Step 2 In a clean, medium-short vase ¾ full of fresh tap water, use clear tape to create a plus sign or a grid across the mouth of the vase. Step 3 Strip your flower cuttings of all foliage.
Step 4 Place larger blooms at an angle while covering the mouth of the vase. Create a loose circular or triangular shape. Trim stems accordingly to achieve this. Feel free to mix them or group by type. Step 5 Sprinkle the smaller blooms throughout the arrangement to create a range of gestures and add color contrast to your composition. Manu Torres is a Portland florist known for creating colorful and hypercreative flower arrangements. See more of his work at instagram. com/uunnaamm.
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y PAO L A D E L A C R U Z
Hey, remember doing things? So do we! Relive some of your favorite Portland activities through the miracle of coloring. Color this image—hell, even add your own art—and let us see it on social media with the hashtag #colorthispdx.
P L AY T HI S
the ragtag trio out to stop it. (A single player can assume all three roles, making one-on-one games possible.) The first part is set on a rendering of Amity Island, and plays out like a bloodier version of Battleship: As the shark, your goal is to clandestinely gobble up swimmers—score 2 points for finishing the job on Chief Brody’s kid—while the other players use deductive reasoning to track your movements. That sets up A board game based on a 45-year-old movie might not seem Act 2, a tête-à-tête aboard the Orca, where the opposing sides to have much to say about our current predicament, but the take turns attacking one another via action cards and dice prescience of Jaws shows itself every time some governor in a rolls, until either the boat sinks or Ol’ Big Mouth gets blown cheap suit goes on television to argue it’s safe to go back in the to smithereens. It serves as both a devilishly entertaining distraction from the moment and a topical allegory about the water, or the Baskin-Robbins, or the Hobby Lobby. Ravensburger’s 2019 tabletop adaptation of Steven Spiel- dangers of reopening your proverbial (and literal) beaches berg’s immortal chomper also asks a relevant question: Do too soon. Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women, from a you want to be part of the problem or part of the cure? In this CDC-mandated distance! MATTHEW SINGER. case, that means choosing to play either the shark or one of
Jaws: The Board Game (Ravensburger)
BUY IT: Available for order at Target for $29.99.
Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
21
TECH
JOHN DEMPSEY
Complex Thought
Self-isolation is exacerbating mental health challenges, particularly for teenagers. A Portland startup aims to help. BY MATTHEW SIN GER
GET DAILY UPDATES ON HOW CORONAVIRUS IS AFFECTING PORTLAND
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msinger@wweek.com
When McKenna Dempsey was 19, she asked her father a question that would set the path of her life up to now: “Why am I crazy?” “He said, ‘You’re not crazy, you’re just complex,’” she says. “And it completely changed how I think about mental health.” To that point, Dempsey, now a project manager at a Portland web developer, had struggled to comprehend what was going on inside her brain. Most of her life, she’s battled depression, anxiety and severe mood instability. In high school, she suffered a psychotic break and spent time at a psychiatric facility. That single conversation with her father shifted her understanding of herself. And that message—that you’re not crazy, or broken, but complex—is an idea she wants to impart to teenagers going through their own mental health struggles. With her startup Kamber, she hopes to give young people some of the tools she didn’t have growing up. The app, which is out for beta testing this week, combines several coping strategies and educational platforms in one place. Users can set intentions and goals for each day. If someone is experiencing a moment of high anxiety, they can press a button to access breathing exercises. If the crisis is more intense, it can quickly connect them to suicide prevention hotlines. There are educational platforms, art therapy programs and stabilization techniques. “We’re not trying to change them, we’re not trying to say there’s anything wrong with them,” Dempsey says. “We’re just giving them the tools to be who they are.” WW: Explain what Kamber is trying to accomplish. McKenna Dempsey: We are focused on building mental health experiences that shift the perspective from “I am broken” to “I am complex.” Our focus is on teenagers, so we’re building a mental health platform that provides education and resources for teens in the palm of their hand as a way to navigate the things they’re going through on a day-to-day basis, whether that’s depression, anxiety, mood instability, bipolar disorder, and help them find techniques to live the life they want to be living. What’s been your own experience with mental health issues? I’ve lived with anxiety and depression my entire life. High school was a really challenging time for me. I had severe mood instability and was put on several medications that didn’t quite fit well with my brain. I didn’t understand what was going on with me, and I couldn’t explain that to those who were helping me. It ended
MCKENNA DEMPSEY, CEO AND CO-FOUNDER OF KAMBER
up causing a psychotic break, and I ended up spending some time in an in-patient psychiatric facility. It sent me on this journey of learning about who I am. It’s been me learning over the last 10 years about how I think of my brain as being this complex feature about me where I can interact with the world in a different way and it doesn’t make me crazy and it doesn’t make me broken. Do you feel tech has lagged behind in addressing mental health? I feel like it’s really lagged behind when it comes to adolescents specifically. There are a lot of good mental health apps out there, but they can either be too complex, too in the weeds of what’s going on, or too fluffy. For teens, there’s a lot of really good in-person programs that exist, but they don’t know how to get there. As much as the stigma is shifting and starting to fall away, it’s still there, from a lot of the teens I’ve talked to. How has this pandemic been exacerbating mental health issues, particularly for teens? When you don’t have the option to get out and see your friends and do the things that make you feel whole, it can put you in this place of questioning things about yourself. If you’re a high-anxiety extrovert, I honestly can’t imagine what that’s like right now. That being said, I think our access to technology is really powerful right now. If we take this time to find ways to balance and love ourselves through the mental health challenges we’re facing, ultimately we’ll come out of it understanding ourselves better. Find an extended video interview with McKenna Dempsey at wweek.com/distant-voices. See kamberhealth.com for more on Kamber.
FOOD & DRINK
Editor: Matthew Singer / Contact: msinger@wweek.com
TAKE ME OUT
Dough, Boy! BY JAS O N CO H E N
@cohenesque
Brandon Weeks is a big fan of fried dough. Before opening his brunch restaurant HunnyMilk in downtown Portland, he’d planned to open an ice cream and doughnut shop. He also had a pop-up, Outer Darkness Doughnuts, inside Southeast Clinton Street restaurant Jacqueline. And now, in the wake of COVID -19, Weeks has effectively reverted back to a doughnut pop-up. On April 26, Weeks reopened HunnyMilk’s West Burnside location with a Sundayonly to-go menu of what you might call “composed doughnuts.” “It’s kind of like doughnut-themed brunch dishes,” says Weeks, who previously worked as a pastry chef at Renata and Urban Farmer, among other restaurants, “the theme being: Everything is fried.” Weeks’ takeout concept isn’t all that different from what you’d normally find at
TOP 5
HOT PLATES
Burnside brunch spot HunnyMilk’s new doughnut dishes are mountains of decadence.
HunnyMilk. There’s a prix fixe menu, with “sweet” and “savory” columns. But instead of biscuits and gravy or French toast with elaborate accompaniments on cast-iron skillets, you get “cheesy herb biscuit holes,” or a Monte Cristo “fritter” with elaborate accompaniments, self-contained in to-go boxes. And instead of charging $23 per person for two dishes and a beverage, it’s $20 for two doughnuts and two coffees, period. The food is made to order for five customers every 15 minutes—HunnyMilk’s tworoom space, in the former Bitter End Pub, has room enough to properly distance—and has sold out in advance the past two Sundays. The menu items are as over the top as you’d expect from someone who’s also done a “wake-and-bake” brunch. The sweet options include a brioche donut stuffed with both blueberry yogurt and Key lime curd, and a Saigon cinnamon churro with whiskey apples. The savory portion of the menu includes biscuits with chorizo gravy, Mama
Where to get delivery or takeout for Mother’s Day.
Lil’s peppers and a spicy maple drizzle, a popcorn chicken-and-waffle dish, and huevos rancheros using the restaurant’s hush puppy batter in place of corn tortillas. In a perfect world, Weeks would like to turn the concept into a second brick-andmortar restaurant—a kind of doughnut tapas bar, with cocktails and evening hours. “This is kind of like a dry run for that,” he says. “Beta-testing the food and just putting it all together and seeing how it all looks and tastes.” But given the current state of the world, where to-go items and socially distanced dining may still be a restaurant’s only option for the next few months, this might also be HunnyMilk’s permanent menu, at least for the time being, as well as the thing that finally gets Weeks to partner with one or more of the delivery apps. Here’s how one of HunnyMilk’s doughnuts, the Monte Cristo-Nut, breaks down.
CORN FLAKE FRENCH TOAST FRITTER
MANCHEGO FONDUE
It’s really straight-up French toast: Grand Central Bakery Pullman brioche soaked in sweetish batter, breaded with corn flakes, “frittered” in the deep fryer. “We can get away with calling it a fritter,” says Weeks. “It sounds good to get the alliteration in there.”
Weeks uses a stalwart culinary trick for this mornay sauce, which is actually made with three different kinds of cheese—manchego, Parmigiano, cheddar—as well as butter, flour, milk and roasted garlic. It is held at temperature using an immersion circulator, and aerated in a whipped cream siphon. “We squirt that out to order, so it’s nice and hot,” Weeks says. The same technique is used by HunnyMilk and other restaurants to serve hollandaise for eggs Benedict.
3808 N Williams Ave. No. 122, 503-281-1222, eatoysterbar.com This N’awlins-inspired raw bar serves classic Cajun comfort food, including a po’boy and, naturally, oysters. But the $45 Sunday brunch box—made up of beignets with whiskey sauce, biscuits and gravy, goat cheese-filled quiche and smoked bacon—is a truly gluttonous way to say, “I love you and I’m sorry for that time I ran away in high school.” How to order: See website.
4. Quaintrelle
JASON COHEN
Tails and Trotter ham, julienned and flash-fried. “A little fresh thyme on top and call it good,” Weeks says.
2. Mother’s Bistro 121 SW 3rd Ave., 503-464-1122, mothersbistro.com. Sure, it’s a little on the nose, but moms really do love Mother’s, probably because it reminds them of the food their own mothers used to make, and then probably made for you, like the velvety meatloaf doused in gravy and the five-hour braised pot roast. And don’t forget the pie! How to order: See website.
3. EaT: An Oyster Bar
3936 N Mississippi Ave., 503-200-5787, quaintrelle.co. Bar manager Camille Cavan says she’s a gift giver by nature, and her latest creation is a much-needed present to a stressed-out city and a stressedout parent: a DIY cocktail kit. The $20 boxes contain all the ingredients to make four servings of a mixed drink— with the exception of the alcohol. Pair it with a bottle of the appropriate liquor, and Dad’s gift can be to actually make the thing. Everybody wins! How to order: Call the restaurant or see website. Also available for delivery through Caviar and Tock.
GREEN PEPPER MARMALADE SMOKY HAM AND THYME
1. Pix Pâtisserie 2225 E Burnside St., 971-271-7166, pixpatisserie.com. Known to most as a macaron and flourless chocolate cake palace, the East Burnside patisserie also boasts one of the most sophisticated sherry and Champagne lists on this continent—and for this quarantined Mother’s Day, it’s putting an entire afternoon tea service in a box. For $40, Mom gets a sachet of tea from Jasmine Pearl Tea House and a tapestry of sweet and savory noshes, including a raspberry almond teacake, a soft-boiled, prosciutto-wrapped quail egg and, of course, one of those famous macarons. How to order: Call restaurant or email pix@pixpastisserie.com.
Made with green bell peppers, and more sweet than spicy, this condiment is normally served with HunnyMilk’s most popular side dish: jalapeño hush puppy donuts. “We had some stockpiled in the fridge, so I was just trying to make something new out of it,” says Weeks. “And the Monte Cristo usually gets a jam.”
ORDER: HunnyMilk is open for takeout orders 9 am-1 pm Sundays at 1981 W Burnside St. $20 for two donut dishes and two coffees to go. Visit instagram.com/hunnymilkpdx for menu and ordering information, or email brandon@hunnymilk.com.
5. Memoz Dessert Cafe 3494 N Williams Ave., 503-477-6030, memozcafe.com. Some may argue food is an impersonal gift. Not here. At this charmingly intimate build-your-own dessert spot, guests can customize their own confections by choosing from over 40 mix-ins, including mint chips, caramel bits, blue cheese, black pepper and sweet corn, and finish it off with a topping of baked Alaska, ganache or flat icing. How to order: See website.
Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
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FOOD & DRINK SNACK REVIEW
Farmstand Ranch Kettle Chips
SAM GEHRKE
In this fraught era, munching on potato chips isn’t just a guilty pleasure—it’s practically a patriotic duty. In neighboring Idaho, the loss of the restaurant market resulted in a tater surplus. One farmer dumped 70,000 spuds and marked the pile “Free.” Many have rotted. It’s a travesty, and a call for us to uphold our end of the Ore-Ida bargain. Fortunately, we have Kettle Chips. The Salem-based snack manufacturer rose to the occasion last month, debuting a new Farmstand Ranch flavor. It’s actually a normcore choice by Kettle standards—the company launched maple bacon, red curry and dill pickle flavors before giving us a ranch chip. The key to a good ranch dressing is onions. If they aren’t an aggressive part of the flavor profile, the condiment turns into a sugar bomb. Kettle’s Ranch powder has a heavy onion bouquet, complemented by generous parsley flakes. The result is a much fresher tang than you get from a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, which taste mostly like preservatives. I confess I’ve always found Kettle’s rough-hewn chips a bit of a chore to eat—like chewing through pine bark—but the result here was a pleasant surprise. The vegetative sourcing makes the otherwise corny “Farmstand” branding ring true. Get some. Think of the potato farmers. Recommended. AARON MESH.
UPRIGHT BREWING
TOP 5
BUZZ LIST
Where to order beer this week.
1. Upright Brewing 240 N Broadway, Suite 2, uprightbrewing.com. Alex Ganum’s brewery has captured numerous awards over the years and earned a stellar reputation among hardcore fans. Nonetheless, Upright remains relatively undiscovered by many. That’s probably a symptom of its location in the basement of the Leftbank Building—not the easiest place to find, even with GPS. Casual drinkers will enjoy refreshing standards like Engelberg Pilsner or Supercool IPA. To-go orders are available Saturdays only between noon and 5 pm.
2. Laurelwood Brewery 5115 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-282-0622, laurelwoodbrewpub.com. Laurelwood’s core brews are shelved at most grocery stores in town, but
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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
its flagship location is the best place to order from an extensive selection of seasonals that runs the gamut of saisons, IPAs and even the occasional kombucha or gin collaboration—and luckily, during These Uncertain Times, they’re doing crowler fills.
3. Ancestry Brewing 4334 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-7649574, ancestrybrewing.com. Ancestry Brewing dropped anchor in a beer desert three years ago, and has been throwing out life preservers to parched neighborhoods ever since—most recently, the far reaches of Southeast Hawthorne. Although Ancestry has been connecting a good portion of its taps to well-executed, less-trendy styles, including an award-winning Irish red, the IPAs are the standouts. The hazy Aussie bobs ebulliently between bitterness and gushes of mango fruit, while Ancestry IPA is pine forward.
4. Little Beast 3412 SE Division St., 503-208-2723, littlebeastbrewing.com. Little Beast has come a long way in
a short time—from a back-of-thehouse brewery space subleased in Beaverton to a full-fledged craft brewery in Clackamas, while snapping up the Lompoc Hedge House for its pub and beer garden to reach more drinkers. Its cozy abode is closed for the time being, but you can now get a Bes Tart Wheat ale or another Belgian-inspired specialty brought to your own home. Minimum purchase $20, plus a $5 service fee.
5. Threshold Brewing and Blending 403 SE 79th Ave., 503-477-8789, threshold.beer. After brewing at home since 2010, Jarek Szymanski and David Fuller decided to take the plunge and go pro, and in early 2019 Threshold celebrated a year of operation. Szymanski and Fuller have done a nice job generating an eclectic list of pleasing beers, including Grandma’s Loaded, a boozy imperial stout brewed for the 2019 Holiday Ale Festival.
C O U R T E S Y O F TA R A P H I L L I P S
POTLANDER
High, Mom! Seven Oregon stoner moms tell how they’re spending their ideal quarantined Mother’s Day. BY BRIA N N A W H E E L E R
If there were ever a year for moms to unapologetically lean into their namesake Hallmark holiday, 2020 is that year. Mother’s Day was created to celebrate mothers and maybe—just maybe—give them one solitary day of rest. But what does “rest” even look like during a global pandemic? Mothers and primary caregivers nationwide are homeschooling their children for the first time while simultaneously juggling everyday family stresses and attempting to maintain some semblance of normalcy. Further destigmatizing parental cannabis use feels especially meaningful right now. It may be a strange time to be alive and an incredibly trying time to be a parent, but at least the ganja is plentiful. I spoke to a few of Portland’s other canna-moms about medicated spa indulgences, spiked cocktails and, most importantly, making time to celebrate ourselves—but not without a little help from our favorite strains.
Tacarra Shaw
Founder, DiversifyOregon.org Cannabis advocate Tacarra Shaw’s Diversify Portland events have included Family Days, Kids Days, and panels in which parents and children talk candidly about the risks and benefits of cannabis use. Even her yearly National Cannabis Diversity and Awareness Convention counts all three of her children as co-founders. So it’s no surprise that when asked about her plans for Mother’s Day, she prefers family togetherness rather than solo pampering. “We’ll be with Nana [Shaw’s mother] making aprons for her new YouTube cooking show, Cooking With FIYA!—you know, like fire,” she said. “And then we’ll sneak off to smoke a joint.” That joint is likely to contain Shaw’s current favorite strain, White Papaya. Shop those faves: AmeriCannaRX, 8654 NE Sandy Blvd., 971-254-4581, americannarx.com.
Susan and Tara Phillips
Owners, Phillips Field Facility Another family proudly heralding cannabis normalization is the mother-daughter team at Phillips Field Facility, a micro-tier craft cannabis farm in Eugene. Together, Susan Phillips and her daughter, Tara, will spend Mother’s Day elbows deep in farm work. “We’ll be adding amendments to our topsoil, transplanting our plant babies into bigger pots, and finishing off the day by harvesting garden veggies and having dinner in the sunshine,” Tara Phillips says. Naturally, the duo’s top recommendation for a Mother’s Day toke is one of their farm’s most popular strains. “We’ve been loving our Harle-Tsu, which has 4.6 percent total terpenes,” Susan Phillips says. It’s notably high in beta myrcene and terpinolene, both of which are associated with relaxation and lowered anxiety. “It’s been a powerful ally during these uncertain times,” Susan Phillips says. Shop that strain: Oregon’s Own, 7881 SW Capitol Highway, 503-244-1273, oregonsown.com.
Bria Bronwyn and Ashley Mack
Dopeafide Marketing There is a very specific, enthusiastically feminine subculture within the cannabis industry that Dopeafide is
THE FAMILY STONED: Tara (left) and Susan Phillips of Phillips Field Facility stand in front of last year’s crop of Durban Poison.
steadfastly creating content for. And since two-thirds of its team are mothers themselves, it’s easy to presume their Mother’s Day plans would be prime social media fodder for influencers and private gallery revelers alike. “The women of Dopeafide are kicking off our Mother’s Day with a FaceTime mimosa and smoke sesh,” says Bronwyn. “Then Ashley and I are both treating ourselves to some quiet self-care time.” For Bronwyn, that means some athome spa action complemented with a pre-roll of Garlic Cookies, a euphoric indica with a velvety body high and coolly relaxing head high. For Mack, a medicated soak from Cannabombz is on the agenda, along with and a supply of Tav flower from Sound Cannabis. Shop those faves: Green Hop, 5515 NE 16th Ave., 971301-5859, gogreenhop.com.
Casey Wiser
Chief administrative officer, Tokeativity Since the national cannabis sorority’s beloved Mother’s Day social has transitioned to an online happy hour, Wiser hopes to enjoy her day from the comfort of her own backyard, weather permitting. “I’m crossing my fingers for sun,” says Wiser, “so I can hang outside and enjoy a Magic Number canna-tail and several joints.” Her canna-tail recipe is simple and classic: “I usually do 30 mg with soda water, which is lovely, but if I have juice on hand I add a splash to jazz it up.” Her strain suggestions, Silver Hawk and Durban Poison, are both energizing sativas, which she loves for “keeping my mood up and my house clean during all of this.” Same, girl. Same. Shop those faves: Pacific Green, 710 NE Killingsworth St., 971-242-8535, pacificgreenpdx.com.
Jade Daniels
Founder, Ladies of Paradise The Ladies of Paradise branding agency has a signature girl-gang vibe that has become a ubiquitous presence in the Portland cannabis industry. This is most easily referenced by its website’s staff portraits. Each image glistens with feminine mystique, but it’s Daniels’ portrait that holds the most weight, with the founder posed tenderly holding her infant son to her chest. By featuring, rather than downplaying, her motherhood, Daniels sends a
clear message: She’s one badass mother. “Nothing makes me happier than a scenic drive,” she says, “so for my first Mother’s Day, I’ll be going on a little Oregon road trip and staying in Bandon with my family.” True to her brand, Daniels will be enjoying a pack of Ladies of Paradise’s Lady Lady Jay pre-rolls—specifically, the one packed with Cake Bomb strain from Tree Top Farms. Shop those faves: Electric Lettuce, multiple locations.
Leona Thomas
Co-owner, ReLeaf Health Thomas expressed perhaps the most common Mother’s Day fantasy of Lockdown 2020: “No Kids Allowed!” “With the quarantine, momming has been taken up a notch,” she says. “So I plan to be pampered to the fullest. I am enjoying breakfast in bed, naps, and to-be-determined movies.” Her Mother’s Day product of choice is Cherry OG Live Resin. While it’s not a replacement for bistro brunches or macaroni picture frames, it is a smooth vape her store currently has in stock. Shop that vape: ReLeaf Health, 3213 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 971-255-1447, releafhealth.green.
Sam Montanaro
Founder, Prism House As the founder of 420-friendly event space Prism House, Samantha Montanaro makes motherly cannabis consumption her literal business. Prism House hosts monthly events specifically for canna-moms, and though Mama Sam, as she’s known, is missing her matriarchal stoner community, she is enthusiastically looking forward to spending her day however the heck she feels like. “Mother’s Day is a day I try to truly do what my heart desires, and I ask my home and work life to respect that,” she says. Montanaro’s indulgences will include a fat Meraki pre-roll and her favorite CBD cocktail. “I love ending the day with a cocktail,” she says. “My favorite recipe lately has been Crater Lake Vodka, ginger beer and a few drops of the rose-flavored CBD bitters from ZVeda. Shake and add a splash of lemon.” Shop that pre-roll: Gram Central Station, 6430 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 503-284-6714. Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
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PERFORMANCE
Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com
REVIEW
BOOKS
Written by: Scout Brobst / Contact: sbrobst@wweek.com
FIVE NEW BOOKS YOU SHOULD BE READING RIGHT NOW Breasts and Eggs, Mieko Kawakami
VIVA MILAGRO: The theater company has launched an online series in place of live plays during the pandemic.
Riding Into the Digital Frontier Latinx theater company Milagro fights the pandemic blues with YouTube shorts. BY BE N N E T T C A M P B E L L FE RGUS O N
“If I go, if this gets me, what do I leave behind?” That’s what Enrique Andrade wondered as the coronavirus pandemic transformed his life. A play he had planned to appear in at Milagro Theatre was canceled, which felt like a gut punch as theatrical companies across the city folded their productions. But his work as an interpreter for the Oregon judicial system qualified him as “essential personnel,” increasing his risk of exposure to the virus as well as his anxiety about the uncertainties surrounding the health crisis. “I felt a certain sense of abandonment,” Andrade says. “I’m not a military guy, but it almost felt like I was in the vanguard of an attack, waiting for the bombs to start falling.” Then Andrade was asked to contribute to Nueva Frontera (“new frontier” in Spanish), a series of interviews and YouTube shorts featuring Milagro artists—an opportunity that he embraced with zeal. “I started recording and speaking from the heart,” he says. “Once they said, ‘Go ahead and create something,’ I thought, ‘This is it,’ and it came together.” Andrade—whose voice you’ll recognize as the Spanish version of the safety instructions on TriMet’s MAX trains—wasn’t the only Milagro artist who answered the call. Many of the Latinx company’s contributors have shared their stories via Nueva Frontera, which features acting, singing and even an art class. For audiences missing Milagro’s beautifully brash and colorful productions, the platform has helped preserve its presence while the stage lies empty. Nueva Frontera sprouted from a question: “What can we offer,” says the series’ main programmer, Miguel Acuña, “if we’re not going to be able to offer a physical space anymore?” The answer arrived “when we found that we wanted the series to be about the people of Milagro,” says Farah Haidari, marketing and communications associate, “because when we’re not a space, we are still the people involved in Milagro.” Haidari is in charge of distributing Nueva Frontera’s content online, and Acuña, who is also Milagro’s community engagement coordinator, focuses on developing episodes. He has assembled a lineup that includes actorplaywright Jonathan Hernandez reading from his play 26
Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
Mijo, Milagro co-founder Dañel Malan teaching the art of self-portraiture, and Andrade narrating a montage of behind-the-scenes photos and footage from Milagro’s canceled production of Beto O’Byrne’s new play, The Corrido of the San Patricios. Abandoning the play— which is based on the true story of 200 Irish immigrants who deserted from the U.S. Army in 1846 and fought for Mexico during the Mexican-American War—was traumatic for Andrade. “You not only have the frustration of not seeing the final work product, not seeing this creation happen,” he says, “but you can’t touch anybody anymore, you can’t hug anybody, you can’t be your full human being.” Watching Nueva Frontera is both cheerful and sobering. The artists’ enthusiasm is palpable—Emily Hogan’s performance of the Christmas song “Noche de paz” is particularly buoyant—but it’s painful facing the reality that the series may be all that Milagro can offer during the next few months. “There’s a lot of conversation about potentially live streaming events or shifting entirely to a virtual space in the future, just because there’s a lot of uncertainty about when theaters will be open and when people will feel comfortable and safe in those spaces again,” says Acuña. “It’s still an ongoing discussion, just as it is with every facet of society at the moment.” Despite the unsettling of the universe that is Portland theater, Milagro appears energized. Acuña and Haidari have more episodes of Nueva Frontera to unveil—including a cooking demonstration by Tamale Boy founder and CEO Jaime Sotero, a Milagro board member—and Andrade has found solace in sharing his passion for The Corrido of San Patricios via video. Even though Milagro couldn’t perform the play, he believes that its tale of hard times and hard choices remains relevant. “I wanted the video to be one thing that could be left as a record of my existence here on earth,” Andrade says. “I think what the pandemic is showing us is that in our normal lives, we were very distracted and we could not figure out what was essential or important for existing. And in the play, war makes it very clear what is important to the characters, who is important in their lives, what their beliefs are, what they are fighting for.” SEE IT: Nueva Frontera streams for free on YouTube. You can find links to the videos at milagro.org.
Twelve years after its original publication, beloved Japanese writer Mieko Kawakami’s novel Breasts and Eggs has been made available to English-speaking readers in an expanded and reworked edition. The book is what it says on the tin: It tracks the stories of three women—one who develops a fixation with breast implants, another who develops a fear of puberty, and a third who explores sperm donation in her desperation to have a child. Kawakami is known for her manipulation of language, and in Breasts and Eggs the body is just another given, with tenderness traded for candor.
Lurking, Joanne McNeil If there were ever a book designed for quarantine reading, this is it. In Lurking, cultural critic Joanne McNeil dissects the strange world of online activity, a world we are all currently beholden to, for better or for worse. McNeil is interested in the internet’s contradictions, and there are a lot of them, including the thirst for public visibility that perilously coexists with the anxieties surrounding online privacy. In the story McNeil tells, search engines and fake accounts have defined the past quartercentury, building the web just as it builds us. We may as well get to know the house we live in.
Exciting Times, Naoise Dolan For those who have gone headfirst into the new Netflix series Normal People, based on Sally Rooney’s book of the same name, it is worth noting that the first excerpt of Exciting Times was hand-plucked by Rooney herself for the Irish literary magazine The Stinging Fly. The company you keep is no accident—Exciting Times, the debut novel by Naoise Dolan, folds Dolan into the swell of young Irish authors rising in the literary world. The book involves a high-flying millennial love triangle in the bustle of Hong Kong, but Dolan’s writing—and her indifference toward pleasing the masses—brings it down to earth.
Why Fish Don’t Exist, Lulu Miller Science reporter Lulu Miller’s debut novel is, in essence, a nonfiction biography addressing the taxonomy of fish. It’s also an aggressively human story about what happens when you absolutely refuse to listen to every beck and call of the universe. Why Fish Don’t Exist follows American naturalist David Starr Jordan, a man whose dedication to discovering and recording species of fish was foiled by lightning, fire and just about every other element—including the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which left a thousand of Jordan’s findings in shards of glass. He rebuilt, carefully, and a century later, Miller has brought his story to the page.
Hurricane Season, Fernanda Melchor Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season, now published in an English translation three years after its debut, is gory and indulgent in all the ways you want a gothic crime novel to be. The novel centers on a folkloric witch in small-town Mexico whose violent death is discovered by a group of kids near the irrigation canals, leaving far more questions than answers. The witch is one thing—the abducted women, callous mothers, drug dealers and addicts are another, with each collapsed together within Melchor’s rich, winding prose. It’s hardly a comforting read, but maybe we’ve had enough of those for one pandemic.
MOVIES SCREENER
COURTESY OF HEMDALE RELEASING
G ET YOUR REP S I N
Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com
While local rep theaters are out of commission, we’ll be putting together weekly watchlists of films readily available to stream. In honor of Mother’s Day, this week’s theme is dedicated to the joys (and pitfalls) of motherhood.
20th Century Women (2016)
COURTESY OF ORION PICTURES
Director Mike Mills’ ode to the women who raised him chronicles the coming of age of 15-year-old Jamie, as well as his bonds with his zealous mother, Dorothea (Annette Bening), the tenants (Greta Gerwig and Billy Crudup) in the boarding house she runs, and his crush (Elle Fanning). Tender, funny and achingly authentic. Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, Kanopy, Netflix, Vudu, YouTube.
My Essential Watchlist:
Dustin Morrow
MIRACLE MILE
The director and PSU professor is relying on slow-paced docs, ’70s and ’80s action movies, and the Muppets to get him through quarantine. Mermaids (1990) Cher headlines this dramedy as a freespirited single mother who moves with her daughters—perpetually embarrassed teen Charlotte (Winona Ryder) and young Kate (Christina Ricci)—every time she goes through a breakup. After settling in a small Massachusetts town, Charlotte and her mom find love, upending the family dynamic for both better and worse. Tubi, Vudu.
Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again (2018) Set five years after the original 2008 jukebox musical messterpiece, this prequel/sequel follows Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) as she preps for her Greek hotel’s grand reopening. Through flashbacks—and a plethora of delightful ABBA numbers—she learns how her mother came to meet her three dads that fateful summer of 1979. Amazon Prime, HBO, Hulu, Vudu, YouTube.
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004) The second installment of Quentin Tarantino’s martial arts revenge series is less action-packed and more personal than the first, instead focusing on the relationships of Beatrix “The Bride” Kiddo (Uma Thurman) with Bill and her daughter. Deadly assassins can be moms, too! If you wanna catch up on the ass-kicking events of Vol. 1, it’s also streaming. Amazon Prime, Google Play, Hulu, Vudu, YouTube.
Autumn Sonata (1978) Swedish auteur Ingmar Bergman’s penultimate drama is also one of his most acclaimed, centering on a self-effacing daughter (Liv Ullmann) as she confronts her cold and neglectful pianist mother (Ingrid Bergman, in her final film role) whose affection she’s always craved but never received. This one goes out to all those whose relationships with their moms are strained, to say the least. Criterion Channel, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube.
BY C H ANC E SOLEM-PFEIFER
@chance_s_p
“The best of these one-actor movies is probably The Guilty (2018). It’s a Danish film about a 911 operator and tracks him for 90 minutes as he takes calls. He gets a call from a woman who’s apparently been kidnapped and is with her kidnapper, and they’re trying to communicate in such a way that doesn’t give away that she’s talking to a cop. It’s shockingly riveting.”
Cinephiles tend to be indoor creatures—by nature, by trade or both. Relatively speaking, then, a pandemic isn’t the worst conceivable interruption…minus that one giant misfortune of indefinite theater closures. So like many film devotees, director, author and Portland State University professor Dustin Morrow is still consuming movies like mad this ’70s and ’80s spring. For him, there’s genre movies the professional side of “I’m working on a book the task: He’s researcha b out how Hollywood ing both a book project and took what was being done in MORROW creative ways to follow up his drive-in, exploitation movies and, 2019 film Blackpool, a black-and-white after looking down on them for decades, thriller set almost entirely in a basement. started to adopt and apply A-list budgets to Then, there are the necessary destressors: them, giving birth to contemporary action meditative documentaries, Hitchcockian and horror movies.” thrillers and the Muppets. We conferred with Morrow about his From this extremely deep pool of flicks, Morwatchlist, with a few recommendations for row recommends: • Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) yours, in the times of COVID-19.
One-actor movies
“My last movie had only three actors in it, and I wondered if I could take this even further and cut my cast by 60 percent. Can you make a one-actor movie that’s actually compelling? I was thinking about this before COVID-19 struck, but…maybe this is one of the ideal things you could do in the midst of a pandemic, as far as independent film. “Buried (2010) is set entirely inside a coffin. [Ryan Reynolds] is a civilian contractor in the Middle East who’s been buried alive by the Taliban. It’s really visually interesting for a guy being on his back in a box throughout the whole movie.
• • • • •
Sorcerer (1977) Over the Edge (1979) Southern Comfort (1981) Night of the Comet (1984) Miracle Mile (1988)
Charade (1963)
“It’s the best Hitchock movie that’s not made by Hitchcock—essentially a twisty spy thriller, but light and fluffy. The dialogue is great. Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn are amazing. It’s a lot like North by Northwest with a little more humor.” More “Hitchcockian movies for people who’ve exhausted all the Hitchcock”: • Wait Until Dark (1967)
• Blow Out (1981) • Road Games (1981) • Frantic (1988)
Frederick Wiseman documentaries
“Kanopy, which everyone in Portland with a library card can access, has probably half the Wiseman movies. They’re relaxing because they’re so slow. Wiseman was the father of direct cinema documentary, or cinéma vérité. There’s no commentary, no music, no fast cutting. He just points the camera at things and lets whatever happen. I just watched [The Store]. It’s about a shopping mall and is one of the most ’80s things I’ve ever seen. It’s slow and meditative, but also, like, ‘Oh yeah, this is what life was like before the pandemic.’ And, hopefully, it’ll someday be this boring again.” More Wiseman recommendations: • High School (1968) • Central Park (1990) • In Jackson Heights (2015)
Gurinder Chadha movies
“Her most famous is Bend It Like Beckham. Her movies are a ray of sunshine, but with substance to them—full of culture and music. She had a movie out last fall called Blinded by the Light, which was an adaptation of this guy who was obsessed with Bruce Springsteen and grew up in a working-class city in Great Britain.”
The Muppets
“I’m always happy to endorse the Muppets. With Disney+, you can go to town. The Great Muppet Caper is my favorite. Charles Grodin has one of the funniest performances I’ve seen in a movie. I’ll put it up against anything. He plays a jewel thief who falls in love with Miss Piggy. It’s fabulous, man.” Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
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May 6-12 C O U R T E S Y O F L I O N S G AT E
MOVIES OUR KEY
: T H I S M O V I E I S E XC E L L E N T, O N E O F T H E B E S T O F T H E Y E A R. : T H I S M O V I E I S G O O D. W E R E C O M M E N D YO U WATC H I T. : T H I S M O V I E I S E N T E R TA I N I N G B U T F L AW E D. : T H I S M O V I E I S A P I E C E O F S H I T.
TOP PICK OF THE WEEK
Arkansas If you know Clark Duke only as the bespectacled fourth wheel of the Hot Tub Time Machine movies, you might not assume he has a Southern noir in his bag, much less one with the crime-movie literacy of Donnie Brasco and a Flaming Lips soundtrack. Duke’s directorial debut, a Lionsgate release redirected to VOD this month, fields a stacked cast of Arkansas drug runners: Liam Hemsworth and Duke as our two flunky protagonists, and Vince Vaughn, John Malkovich, Vivica A. Fox and Michael K. Williams as compelling higherups. And what this adaptation of John Brandon’s 2009 novel lacks in production value—shot with the overly digital flimsiness of so many streaming originals—it more than makes up for with well-tuned dialogue and acting that embraces a Southern gentility right up until it’s bashing those good manners over the head. Replacing the near-gothic seriousness of a True Detective is the looney banality of drug-smuggler movie nights, sweaty man buns, fireworks emporiums and Vince Vaughn spending probably half the movie’s budget on flamboyant Western button-downs. Despite an epic structure that jumps through time, Arkansas remains light on its feet and successfully normalizes criminal life by presenting the same unreliable co-workers, thankless chores and finite shelf lives of any other profession. R. CHANCE SOLEMPFEIFER. Amazon Prime, iTunes, On Demand.
ALSO PLAYING Bad Education Midway through this school embezzlement saga based on a true story, Cory Finley’s sophomore film (following 2018’s Thoroughbreds) breaks out its version of a Goodfellas montage. Elvis Presley croons “Blue Christmas,” but in lieu of cocaine packing, we see PTA baskets stuffed. And instead of cash counting, a PowerPoint presentation shows off early-decision college acceptance rates. It’s a dash ironic, but the HBO original is critically revealing how corruption can guzzle accomplishment as its fuel. Embodying that consumption is charismatic superintendent Frank Tassone (Hugh Jackman), who strives to keep his Long Island school district’s reputation gleaming despite a brewing scandal. Backed by Allison Janney and Ray Romano, Jackman inhabits his best mode here: a gifted ringleader with a dry rot problem. Every lie is wrapped in an ideal, and it takes the full film to figure out which came first: the ideal or the lie. And while there’s not a gun, narcotic or punch in the entire film, Bad Education is a crime movie with guts. After all, it’s easy to critique conspicuously wealthy South Shore hypocrites, but connecting those trappings to more widely accepted American aspirations—blue-ribbon public schools and the high-achieving students they produce—well, that’s a far more bitter pill. There hasn’t been a smarter streaming original this quarantine season. TV-MA. CHANCE SOLEMPFEIFER. Amazon Prime, HBO.
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Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution The opening moments of the new documentary Crip Camp are immediately heartwarming: We see kids with disabilities jumping and rolling with joy as Richie Havens’ iconic ad lib Woodstock anthem “Freedom” plays in the background. Before the title card even appears, you’re already inspired by Nicole Newnham and James Lebrecht’s archival-footage film. The origin story of the disability rights movement in the 1970s has largely gone untold until now: It all began with Camp Jened, a summer getaway in the Catskills for disabled youth, who were encouraged to use the time to explore their interests and identities. Co-director Lebrecht was a camper at Jened, and intentionally uses the term “crip” in the title as a way of reclaiming the slur. The camp was also a place where teens and young adults could simply let their guard down: They played baseball, pranked each other, smoked pot with the counselors, and sometimes even had sex. But before long, the filmmakers expand their narrative arc by illustrating how youths were empowered by their experiences there, particularly Judy Heumann, a former camper who went on to become a disability rights activist and helped pass the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The ultimate message is, revolution can start with the young, which aligns perfectly with the opening song’s theme of liberation. R. ASHER LUBERTO. Netflix.
Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
ARKANSAS
Blow the Man Down While trapped at home under quarantine, it’s only natural to look for ways to escape. Right now, it seems one of our only options is using streaming services as virtual trips to new places. Amazon Prime’s new release Blow the Man Down takes audiences to Maine, where the atmosphere washes over you with its chilly blues and frosty whites. In a gritty fishing village called Easter Cove, director of photography Todd Banhazl captures the hardscrabble lives of its residents by using a lot of natural lighting and digitally re-created Super 8 footage of the town. Things get darker once bodies start washing ashore. The police are Fargo-level dumb. And that’s actually good for sisters Priscilla (Sophie Lowe) and Mary Beth (Morgan Saylor), who end up stabbing a rapist with a harpoon and stealing his bag of cash. “Someone’s going to miss this,” says Mary Beth. Duh. Don’t go fishing for meaning why this neo-noir flips gender roles, with two girls pulling the strings, but it’s a refreshing twist. Blow the Man Down may not be the idyllic vacation you’re looking for, but it sure is fun. R. ASHER LUBERTO. Amazon Prime.
Deerskin The latest from French DJ-turned-director Quentin Dupieux begins with a man shelling out 8,000 euros for a used deerskin jacket. The fringe-fronted coat doesn’t really even fit Georges (Jean Dujardin, Oscar winner from The Artist), but he’s obsessed nonetheless. What follows belongs to a very specific subgenre: Cherished object takes hold of its owner. Think Lars and the Real Girl with Ryan Gosling or William Goldman’s Magic. While those titles are set in something like our reality, Deerskin follows a man trying to rid a remote French mountain town of all its other jackets. In the process, Georges begins accidentally making a DIY art film with a local barkeep (Adèle Haenel of Portrait of a Lady on Fire). Given that ridiculousness, the tone is a small miracle. Dujardin keeps Georges innocent, almost paternally daffy, as he shuffles toward madness, trying to goad strangers into discussing his new David Crosby-esque duds. Granted, Deerskin at some point simply runs out of ideas or tricks (or both) and
shrugs into its destiny as a 75-minute curio. But that’s not the worst sin for a bit of absurd diversion. Two of France’s biggest stars sell the material for, let’s say, 7,950 euros more than it’s worth. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Greenwich Entertainment at Home: Kiggins, Liberty.
Vanilla I’m typically wary of any indie romantic comedy that has “quirky” in the synopsis, but Vanilla writer, director and star Will Dennis manages to infuse the film with enough self-awareness and charm to keep the eye-rolling at bay. The story centers on Elliot (Dennis), a well-meaning elder millennial whose trust fund keeps him aimless; Kimmie (Kelsea BaumanMurphy), a free-spirited (and, dare I say, quirky) would-be comedian; and the New York City-to-New Orleans road trip they suddenly find themselves on together. A large part of the film’s success lies in Dennis’ skewering of Elliot’s false wokeness, whether via his square reaction to sex work or the use of that golden emblem of pseudo-hip guys around the globe: a copy of David Foster Wallace’s magnum opus, Infinite Jest. Bauman-Murphy possesses a magnetic screen presence and affability on par with the Broad City crew, making her the perfect vehicle for the audience to share “man dudes are stupid” laughs with. Like any good road movie, Vanilla features a fair amount of philosophical discussion—the philosophy here being white, cis men are often cluelessly presumptive, selfishly unaware and, well, vanilla. Wisely presenting a story about communication between the sexes from the perspective of Kimmie, Vanilla is among the rare romcoms that smartly dissects our evolving ideas of gender roles. NR. DONOVAN FARLEY. On Demand.
Butt Boy With an unruly midnight movie setting unavailable, the time seems ripe for demented schlock at home— like, say, a half-spoof about a serial killer addicted to sticking objects up his butt. Just by themselves, the title and premise of Tyler Cornack’s Butt Boy earn your double take. Cornack co-stars as Chip, an IT guy anesthetized by the drudgery of work and family until a prostate exam stirs some-
thing deep within (one guess where). Chip’s descent into anal fixation is committed and hilarious, but parody isn’t the larger aim here. No, Butt Boy aspires to be a straight cat-and-mouse thriller—with Tyler Rice as a dogged, alcoholic detective—that belies the absurd comedic hysteria of the setup. That (perhaps noble) genre aspiration runs the film up against a litany of banal low-budget problems, unbecoming of the insanity you want from a movie called Butt Boy: shaky dramatic acting, unnecessary night driving and a POV imbalance that handicaps suspense. (Nobody wants a Mindhunter episode that’s 65 percent BTK interludes.) The execution of Butt Boy is a little like holding court with a one-of-akind dirty joke but pausing constantly to insist it’s not a joke. The punchline may still kill, but the approach is a little up its own ass. NR. CHANCE SOLEMPFEIFER. On Demand.
The Sound of the Wind While increased mental health awareness is an unequivocal positive for society, the jury is still out on how it impacts our movies. After all, if cumulative awareness equaled improved storytelling, Deadpool 2 would be the best movie ever made. On paper, The Sound of the Wind knows what it’s up to, mounting a stock thriller premise: Man finds a bag of money, believes he’s pursued by its shadowy owners, skips town; but is this all in his head? Only that last question isn’t a question. Writer-director Jared Douglas tamps down all the thriller possibilities. Instead, we infer from the jump that the bag’s finder, Lucio (Christian Gnecco Quintero), is suffering from paranoid delusions. On the one hand, that’s a socially responsible choice. On the other, we’re then stuck for 80 minutes watching an unwell man willfully misinterpret gestures from strangers and loved ones that aren’t enough to convince the audience of any conspiracy. No one would doubt the effort here. Douglas is clearly stretching the film’s last dime, tumbling into harrowing reaches of California mountains and desert, and Gnecco Quintero gives as committed a performance of pure agony as you’ll ever see. It’s just…committed to what? He’s a vessel for unambiguous pain, not a character. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. On Demand.
FLASHBACK
E X AC TLY 2 0 Y E A R S AG O, I N WI LL A M E T TE WE E K . . .
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Spotlight
COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
Featured artist: Alex Shahverdiloo
An infographic on defunct British label, Factory Record’s iconic visual branding and communication strategy. instagram @alexmelodymaker Be a Willamette Week featured artist! Contact us at art@wweek.com.
FACTORY TOP TEN 1. A Certain Ratio Knife Slits Water
6. Stockholm Monsters Partyline
2. Section 25 Looking From a Hilltop
7. 52nd Street Can’t Afford to Let You Go
3. Joy Division - Disorder
8. Happy Mondays Kinky Afro
4. The Names - I Wish I Could Speak Your Language 5. New Order The Perfect Kiss
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Willamette Week MAY 6, 2020 wweek.com
by DJ Melodymaker
9. Electronic Getting Away With It 10. Swamp Children Tender Game
Share your own Top 10 playlist! ART@WWEEK.COM
JONESIN’
Week of MAY 6
©2020 Rob Brezsny
by Matt Jones
"Fresh Air" - for your sunshine days, or not.
ARIES (March 21-April 19)
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
According to Aries author and mythologist Joseph Campbell, "The quest for fire occurred not because anyone knew what the practical uses for fire would be, but because it was fascinating." He was referring to our early human ancestors, and how they stumbled upon a valuable addition to their culture because they were curious about a powerful phenomenon, not because they knew it would ultimately be so valuable. I invite you to be guided by a similar principle in the coming weeks, Aries. Unforeseen benefits may emerge during your investigation into flows and bursts that captivate your imagination.
In the course of my life, I've met many sharp thinkers with advanced degrees from fine universities— who are nonetheless stunted in their emotional intelligence. They may quote Shakespeare and discourse on quantum physics and explain the difference between the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, and yet have less skill in understanding the inner workings of human beings or in creating vibrant intimate relationships. Yet most of these folks are not extreme outliers. I've found that virtually all of us are smarter in our heads than we are in our hearts. The good news, Libra, is that our current Global Healing Crisis is an excellent time for you to play catch up. Do what poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti suggests: "Make your mind learn its way around the heart."
TAURUS (April 20-May 20) "The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious," says businessperson and entrepreneur John Sculley. You Tauruses aren't renowned for such foresight. It's more likely to belong to Aries and Sagittarius people. Your tribe is more likely to specialize in doing the good work that turns others' bright visions into practical realities. But this Year of the Coronavirus could be an exception to the general rule. In the past three months as well as in the next six months, many of you Bulls have been and will continue to be catching glimpses of interesting possibilities before they become obvious. Give yourself credit for this knack. Be alert for what it reveals.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20)
Across 1 It's built for accessibility 5 Rainless 9 Graceful fowl 13 The Beehive State 14 Curiosity rover launcher 15 Fern's seed 16 Start of a path, which traces the opening lyric from a "Brady Bunch" song
44 One of Universal's classic movie monsters
26 Sketched
47 "___ & Juliet" (2011 animated film)
28 "___ fun!" (catchphrase from the BBC's "Miranda")
50 Hat stat
29 Ivy extension?
51 Lyric verse 52 Parts partner
30 Antony who eulogized Caesar
53 End of the path
31 Answer, in court
55 Signs
33 Something to look up to
56 Perceive
35 Shakespearean compilation
18 Film director Pier ___ Pasolini
57 Singer Rexha
19 "A Woman Speaks" writer Anais
59 Grand Ole ___ (venue broadcasting live streams)
20 "M*A*S*H" actor Alan 21 Sonic Youth bassist/ singer Kim 22 Winter warmers 24 Vientiane's country 25 Cartoon tavern that's very susceptible to prank calls 26 Hat removers, quaintly 29 Filtered communication 31 College teachers, familiarly 32 Neighbor of Liech.
58 Bonus item
60 "Nailed It" host Nicole
36 Lawn layer 38 Shaq's former team 39 ___ in comparison 41 Jazz bandleader/ drummer and son of Thelonious
Down
42 In a snug manner
1 Archaeological attractions
44 Less naive
2 Place to store antiques
45 Photoshop company
3 Classic "Muppet Show" song with that "do dooo do do-do" refrain
46 More recent
4 Golden ratio symbol 5 Where some bracelets are worn 6 Steals from, as a fridge
34 "The BFG" author Roald
7 Actress Fisher of "The Great Gatsby"
35 Pilot light, e.g.
8 East Indian lentil stew
36 Watch sound
9 Hardly dense
37 Container for coffee
10 Lumber material
38 Chain that merged with AMC Theatres
11 "Alice's Restaurant" chronicler Guthrie
39 It's not the same as assertive
12 "Open" sign element
40 Language of Andorra and Barcelona
17 Belly button
42 New Facebook reaction emoji
23 Churn
43 Tire mark
27 Ask for support, in a way
15 Parodies 21 Blunder 24 Appears menacingly
©2020 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JNZ987.
47 Disgusting goo 48 Handle 49 Above, in Augsburg 50 Part of a recipe 53 Craft in videos recently released by the Pentagon 54 Lessen gradually
last week’s answers
For 148 uninterrupted years, American militias and the American army waged a series of wars against the native peoples who lived on the continent before Europeans came. There were more than 70 conflicts that lasted from 1776 until 1924. If there is any longterm struggle or strife that even mildly resembles that situation in your own personal life, our Global Healing Crisis is a favorable time to call a truce and cultivate peace. Start now! It's a ripe and propitious time to end hostilities that have gone on too long.
CANCER (June 21-July 22) Novelist Marcel Proust was a sensitive, dreamy, emotional, self-protective, creative Cancerian. That may explain why he wasn't a good soldier. During his service in the French army, he was ranked 73rd in a squad of 74. On the other hand, his majestically intricate seven-volume novel In Search of Lost Time is a masterpiece—one of the 20th century's most influential literary works. In evaluating his success as a human being, should we emphasize his poor military performance and downplay his literary output? Of course not! Likewise, Cancerian, in the coming weeks I'd like to see you devote vigorous energy to appreciating what you do best and no energy at all to worrying about your inadequacies.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) "Fortune resists half-hearted prayers," wrote the poet Ovid more than 2,000 years ago. I will add that Fortune also resists poorly formulated intentions, feeble vows, and sketchy plans—especially now, during an historical turning point when the world is undergoing massive transformations. Luckily, I don't see those lapses being problems for you in the coming weeks, Leo. According to my analysis, you're primed to be clear and precise. Your willpower should be working with lucid grace. You'll have an enhanced ability to assess your assets and make smart plans for how to use them.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Last year the Baltimore Museum of Art announced it would acquire works exclusively from women artists in 2020. A male art critic complained, "That's unfair to male artists." Here's my reply: Among major permanent art collections in the U.S. and Europe, the work of women makes up five percent of the total. So what the Baltimore Museum did is a righteous attempt to rectify the existing excess. It's a just and fair way to address an unhealthy imbalance. In accordance with current omens and necessities, Virgo, I encourage you to perform a comparable correction in your personal sphere.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Aphorist Aaron Haspel writes, "The less you are contradicted, the stupider you become. The more powerful you become, the less you are contradicted." Let's discuss how this counsel might be useful to you in the coming weeks. First of all, I suspect you will be countered and challenged more than usual, which will offer you rich opportunities to become smarter. Secondly, I believe you will become more powerful as long as you don't try to stop or discourage the influences that contradict you. In other words, you'll grow your personal authority and influence to the degree that you welcome opinions and perspectives that are not identical to yours.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) "It's always too early to quit," wrote author Norman Vincent Peale. We should put his words into perspective, though. He preached "the power of positive thinking." He was relentless in his insistence that we can and should transcend discouragement and disappointment. So we should consider the possibility that he was overly enthusiastic in his implication that we should NEVER give up. What do you think, Sagittarius? I'm guessing this will be an important question for you to consider in the coming weeks. It may be time to re-evaluate your previous thoughts on the matter and come up with a fresh perspective. For example, maybe it's right to give up on one project if it enables you to persevere in another.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) The 16-century mystic nun Saint Teresa of Avila was renowned for being overcome with rapture during her spiritual devotions. At times she experienced such profound bliss through her union with God that she levitated off the ground. "Any real ecstasy is a sign you are moving in the right direction," she wrote. I hope that you will be periodically moving in that direction yourself during the coming weeks, Capricorn. Although it may seem odd advice to receive during our Global Healing Crisis, I really believe you should make appointments with euphoria, delight, and enchantment.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Grammy-winning musician and composer Pharrell Williams has expertise in the creative process. "If someone asks me what inspires me," he testifies, "I always say, 'That which is missing.'" According to my understanding of the astrological omens, you would benefit from making that your motto in the coming weeks. Our Global Healing Crisis is a favorable time to discover what's absent or empty or blank about your life, and then learn all you can from exploring it. I think you'll be glad to be shown what you didn't consciously realize was lost, omitted, or lacking.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) "I am doing my best to not become a museum of myself," declares poet Natalie Diaz. I think she means that she wants to avoid defining herself entirely by her past. She is exploring tricks that will help her keep from relying so much on her old accomplishments that she neglects to keep growing. Her goal is to be free of her history, not to be weighed down and limited by it. These would be worthy goals for you to work on in the coming weeks, Pisces. What would your first step be?
EXPERIMENT: To begin the next momentous healing, tell the simple, brave, and humble truth about yourself. Testify at FreeWillAstrology.com Check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes
freewillastrology.com The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at
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