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NEWS: Mayor Tackles Antifa. P. 7 PHOTOS: Eagle Creek After the Fire. P. 18 NEW YEAR: Your 2021 Bingo Card. P. 21 WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
LONG SHOT Ending the pandemic means getting vaccinated. But many Oregonians will be hard to convince. By Rachel Monahan | Page 11
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Our cannabis columnist started her new year off by accidentally putting 10 joints through the wash. 25
A rumor in the Eritrean immigrant community says doctors are trying to inject people with the mark of the beast. 14
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When an international motorcycle racing star hung up his helmet, he became a Portland postal inspector. 26
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DIALOGUE In a press conference on New Year’s Day, Mayor Ted Wheeler pledged a zero-tolerance policy toward property damage by anarchist and anti-fascist demonstrators. The speech followed another night of vandalism downtown, with protesters aiming fireworks at the Multnomah County Justice Center. Wheeler announced he’s asked the Oregon Legislature to increase criminal penalties for repeated property damage offenders, and said he would convene federal, state and local law enforcement to discuss a new approach. “There are some people who just want to watch the world burn,” he said, quoting Batman movie The Dark Knight. Here’s what our readers had to say:
Harley Leiber via wweek.com: “Yeah. It’s time to tighten the tourniquet, ratchet up the enforcement, and lay off downtown. I’m all for protesting, civil liberties, free speech, and the right to peacefully assemble, but these intermittent nightly acts of property destruction are damaging the quality of life for the rest of us. The rest of us have a say. Protest some other way.”
Blind Ivan via wweek.com: “On one hand, I want to give Ted a pass as Portlanders were too easily buying into the destructive behavior during the summer. But leaders have the vision and strength to take difficult positions when it counts. Ted was weak when the most destructive voices were loudest and strongest. A day late and many millions of dollars short, mayor.”
James Ta-Dao via Facebook: “There are just some people on this planet who are too thickheaded and bigoted to see that they are the cause of their own obstacles. There are some mayors who want to watch innocent people get tear gassed instead of making actual changes to their corrupt, racist police force.”
BuckmanRes via wweek.com: “You’re about eight months too late, Ted. You spent last year coddling the rioters, tiptoeing around the protesters who ran interference for them, and doing nothing to support the police or push back against the hysterical demands to ‘defund the police.’ Now you’ve got a boarded-up downtown, a no man’s land that people avoid for fear of their own safety, and who knows how many businesses that will never reopen. Keep up the good work, Ted.”
@markwoolleygallery: Where do I read Willamette Week? At the cabin next to Still Creek, in the afternoon in the Mt Hood National Forest, accompanied by the New Yorker, a beverage and always a pad and favorite pen...... think about supporting local independent journalism by becoming a friend of WW at wweek.com/support!
STAY SAFE, STAY INFORMED. WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER. WWEEK.COM
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Mark Cooper via Facebook: “So [Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt] made the decision not to prosecute property crimes, and the solution to that is to stiffen penalties? What sort of alternative universe are we living in?”
Andrew Neal via Facebook: “‘Should I have actually reformed a murderous police department and addressed racial injustice in the city? No, it’s the kids who are wrong…’” Alexis Gorman via Facebook: “How about we start with real criminal punishments for police brutality?” 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
What’s the best way to revoke someone’s sainthood after they’ve been officially canonized? Is it even possible, or is it more like, “Once a saint, always a saint”? Asking for a friend. —P. Francis Let me preface my remarks by saying that before receiving your question, my understanding of Catholic theology was limited to occasionally wondering whether all the people sentenced to hell for eating meat on Friday got paroled after Vatican II. That said, Francis, I suspect I know why you’re asking. Some readers might have missed it in news-heavy 2020, but late last year it came to light that Pope John Paul II (probably) knew about Archbishop Theodore McCarrick’s sexual abuse history when he promoted him to cardinal in 2001. John Paul himself was canonized in 2014. This revelation has left a lot of folks wishing for celestial backsies, but (as it says in the Bible) tough titty: There’s no reopening the case once someone’s been declared a saint. It’s true that a number of saints’ days were dropped from the liturgical calendar in 1969, including perennial fan favorites St. Christopher, St. Valentine and (gasp!) St. Nicholas, but the Church says they’re still saints (even while
acknowledging that some of them probably never existed). There used to be a rule that the canonization process couldn’t begin for at least 50 years after the allegedly holy person’s death. This gave the skeletons a few decades to make their way out of the closet (and, I daresay, might have prevented this current ecclesiastical contretemps). It was John Paul II himself who, in 1983, shortened this waiting period to five years, saying he wanted to canonize people “relevant to today’s generation.” (St. Rick of Astley, anybody?) John Paul’s successor Benedict waived even that requirement, starting John Paul’s beatification countdown a scant five weeks after his death. Since only the Church can decide who is or isn’t a saint, it looks like we’re stuck with St. John Paul for…well, eternity, actually. However, as nearly as I can tell, what a given saint is the patron saint of can be chosen by popular acclaim. So how about St. John Paul of the Blind Eye, patron of unapprehended sex offenders? If only he’d been around when Neil Goldschmidt* needed him. *And you thought this story had no local angle! QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.
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Willamette Week JANUARY 6, 2021 wweek.com
ON THE STREETS OF PORTLAND’S OLD TOWN
HOMELESS WILL GO COUNTLESS: The Joint Office of Homeless Services is seeking a waiver for the biennial “point in time” count, which takes place every odd-numbered year in late January. That process, in which Multnomah County takes a one-night census of all the houseless people it can find in the county, is part of a federal effort overseen by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The count is a key component to ensure “continued eligibility for state and federal funding” for homeless programs, but late last year, the feds said counties could seek waivers due to the pandemic without endangering funding. The feds have already granted King County, Wash., and Los Angeles County waivers. But Multnomah County’s situation is unusual: Next year will mark the beginning of expenditures from Metro’s $250 million homeless services measure, so this year’s count would have provided a baseline for that effort. If it gets the waiver, the joint office plans to count those in transitional housing and shelters this year and count those unsheltered in 2022. “It’s a difficult decision, but we don’t see a way to conduct as accurate of an unsheltered count as we’ve done in past years without creating additional health risks for thousands of vulnerable people and our provider community,” says Marc Jolin, director of the joint office. “That’s not a trade-off we’re willing to make.” POT SHOP WOES CONTINUE: On Jan. 4, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office filed charges against five suspects accused of robbing a cannabis shop in the Hollywood District. According to the probable cause affidavit, the group—all of whom are under the age of 23—pulled a handgun on the employee Jan. 1 and filled black garbage bags with cannabis products. The incident is the latest in a string of cannabis dispensary robberies and burglaries that date back to May 2020, as WW previously reported. One of the recent robberies turned deadly: On Dec. 14, Portland police say, 44-year-old Michael Arthur, an employee at Cured Green dispensary in North Portland, was killed during an armed robbery. The Portland Police Bureau could not provide an updated tally of cannabis robberies, but a spokesman says the bureau is aware of the issue. “These robberies are on the Police Bureau radar,” says Lt. Greg Pashley. “These shops are
targeted, at least in part, due to all the drugs and money that are on hand with relatively low security. Robberies are difficult to prevent, since among other factors the suspects have the ability to choose the time and place with no notice.” MAYOR’S CHIEF MOVES ON: Kristin Dennis, chief of staff to Mayor Ted Wheeler, will leave City Hall on Feb. 3 to become chief of staff to Metro Council President Lynn Peterson. Dennis, Wheeler’s third chief of staff, was instrumental in negotiating furloughs and compensation freezes with city employee unions last year as the pandemic took hold. She and Peterson know each other from Lake Oswego, where both were city councilors. Metro, which saw voters defeat its $4 billion transportation measure in November, has both big ambitions and an increasingly large and complex mission as it has become a regional funding mechanism for housing and homelessness services, in addition to its traditional roles as owner of the Oregon Zoo and Convention Center. Peterson’s current chief, Paul Slyman, will move to another post inside Metro. Wheeler has not yet hired Dennis’ replacement. SPEAKER CHALLENGE STALLS: State Rep. Janelle Bynum (D-Clackamas) ended her challenge to House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland) on Jan. 4, a week before a scheduled showdown on the House floor. Bynum did not come up with the votes to take Kotek’s job, but wrung pledges from Kotek to improve conditions for lawmakers of color. And Bynum will still chair the powerful House Judiciary Committee. She hopes to move up someday. “I look forward to the day in the near future where Oregon state representatives are able to vote with pride and unity to elect me to lead the chamber,” Bynum said. WILLAMETTE WEEK HAS A PODCAST: With the new year comes a whole new way to experience Willamette Week’s groundbreaking reporting. Tune in every Saturday to hear a new episode hosted by Hank Sanders. For hot takes on top stories, interviews with local legends, and behindthe-scenes insights on the week’s cover story with WW reporters, make sure to subscribe to the Willamette Week podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
BETHANY KERLEY
NEWS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
A CLOSER LOOK
Window Shopping
BLACK AND WHITE IN OREGON
Who Lives and Dies on Portland’s Streets?
Portland’s mayor wants tougher penalties for late-night vandals. Can he get others to buy in? WHOSE STREETS?: Mayor Ted Wheeler wants stiffer penalties for vandals. BY TE SS R I SK I
and
N I G EL JAQ UI SS
503-243-2122
At a Jan. 1 press conference, a visibly angry Mayor Ted Wheeler denounced “radical antifa and anarchists” and pledged a zero-tolerance policy for property destruction, following the continual vandalism of Portland businesses by protesters. The mayor, sworn in for a second term Jan. 1, wants to stiffen criminal penalties for repeat vandals and improve police intel for tracking masked groups moving through city streets. Shattered windows and graffiti scrawls have become a regular feature of late-night protests against police in downtown Portland. Wheeler sees the repeated civil unrest and vandalism as a no-win game for the city. A new year, he argues, demands new rules. But his crackdown will require the cooperation of others. What does Ted want? Wheeler specifically called on the Oregon Legislature to increase criminal penalties for offenders who “repeatedly engage in criminal destruction and vandalism, to ensure that they can be held accountable for the cumulative impact of their illegal actions.” He also wants more surveillance power for the Portland Police Bureau. “We need to look at reforms that improve our ability to video record and otherwise gather intelligence on these small groups of organized criminals,” Wheeler said. In Salem and nationally, the trend in criminal justice has been toward lighter penalties and less incarceration. Wheeler spokesman Jim Middaugh says the mayor is well aware he’s bucking recent trends by seeking stiffer criminal penalties. “That’s a reflection of the fact that deescalation efforts have not been effective,” Middaugh says. “He’s mindful of the challenges but also mindful of the need to try something new.” Will the district attorney help? New Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt rode a wave of reform to overwhelming victory last May, and his handsoff approach to protesters this summer angered police and property owners. But Middaugh says Schmidt sent words of support to Wheeler before the Jan. 1 press conference
against law-abiding individuals who are lawfully assembling and peacefully protesting their government, Floyd would oppose such legislation.” Middaugh says city staff, including the city’s in-house lobbyists, met Jan. 4 to discuss legislative concepts that would include the mayor’s ideas for responding to vandalism. The new City Council was scheduled for a briefing on the city’s legislative agenda Jan. 7, which now may be delayed to add the new concepts. Wheeler might also find opposition there. “Excessive property damage is already a felony under Oregon law,” Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty says. “While these illegal acts require a response, I’m confident our new DA Mike Schmidt will appropriately prosecute those arrested for engaging in destructive activity. I’ve seen the damaging impacts of ‘tough on crime’ legislation like Measure 11, which I vigorously opposed as a state legislator. I don’t want to see us make those mistakes again.”
and the men were scheduled to meet for a drink Jan. 5. Brent Weisberg, a spokesman for the DA’s office, says the mayor’s office has not communicated to them specific details about plans to increase penalties for repeat offenders who destroy property. “The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office continues to work with law enforcement to identify, investigate and prosecute criminal conduct, including property destruction and violence, that sometimes occurs during mass demonstrations,” Weisberg said. “It is our current and continuing policy to prosecute these offenses whenever possible, using all legally obtained evidence submitted to our office for review.” Since racial justice protests began in late May, law enforcement has referred 140 protest-related property destruction cases to the DA’s office. The office has pursued charges in 51 of those cases, according to its online dashboard, and rejected 69. Another 20 are currently pending. Do Ted’s ideas have a prayer in Salem? In June, the Legislature passed a package of criminal justice reform bills during a special session. Stiffening penalties, as Wheeler suggested, would be a move in the opposite direction. Still, lawmakers are open to “improv[ing] Oregon’s criminal justice system,” according to state Sen. Floyd Prozanski (D-Eugene), longtime chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Prozanski says he’s not aware of any legislative concepts reflecting Wheeler’s suggestions and it’s not clear that the current penalty structure for property destruction crimes is insufficient. “If Mayor Wheeler is suggesting mandatory minimum sentences, [Prozanski] would be firmly opposed,” says Kevin Moore, a legislative aide to the senator. Prozanski also disagreed with Wheeler’s suggestion that lawmakers need to give police more leeway to video record and gather intelligence on groups that destroy property. “[Prozanski] believes law enforcement already has the necessary ‘tools’ under current state law to conduct surveillance and gather evidence against organized criminals,” Moore said. “If the mayor wants to extend those same tools to conduct surveillance and gather evidence
Black residents of Multnomah County face a greater risk of homelessness. Multnomah County’s most recent homeless counts show Black people are more likely to sleep on the streets of Portland—and they regularly die there. The county’s 2019 point in time report shows Black people made up 16.1% of the houseless population—more than double their share of the general population in Multnomah County, which is 7.2%. Marisa Zapata, who researches homelessness at Portland State University, says this disparity should come as no surprise. “Homelessness is best described as a collection of all massive systemic failures in society,” she says. “We see a series of racial disparities in homelessness for all of the reasons we see racial disparities across the board for people of color, in particular for those who are Black and Indigenous: because that’s the foundation of the country.” The annual domicile unknown report compiled by Multnomah County and Street Roots, keeps track of those who died while houseless. The most recently released report shows that 82% of the 97 people who died on the streets whose ethnic background could be identified were white. The second-largest racial demographic to die on the streets were Black people, with eight deaths, or more than 8%. That isn’t a statistically significant disparity: It’s within a percentage point of the Black population size, yet it’s still an overrepresentation. But the outsized number of Black people sleeping outside helps explain why Multnomah County is prioritizing people of color in both its distribution of federal CARES Act funds and a homeless services tax passed by voters last spring. The disparities faced by Black Portlanders have been exacerbated by a pandemic that has reduced employment options for the poorest Oregonians. “We see people of color are being impacted by COVID in a number of ways: with higher disease incidents and worse disease outcomes, also with loss of wages and less of an ability to pay rent in the coming months. That is all compounded by race,” Zapata says. “Unless we take dramatic intervention, we’re going to be in a worse situation.” LATISHA JENSEN. Willamette Week JANUARY 6, 2021 wweek.com
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NEWS THE BIG NUMBER
John Foote Oregon’s most outspoken prosecutor steps down. When Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote retired Dec. 31, after 20 years in office and more than 30 as a prosecutor, Oregon’s criminal justice reformers lost their most determined opponent. For the past decade, as progressive lawmakers moved to reduce incarceration and decriminalize drugs, Foote made powerful, data-driven arguments in opposition. He produced reports that showed Oregon’s criminal justice system focused more on locking up violent felons than nearly any other state and pointed to the stubbornly high rate of recidivism that continued after Oregon shifted to shorter sentences in the 2013 Justice Reinvestment Act. Foote’s parents grew up in Japan, the children of missionaries, and a moral streak ran deep in his conviction that the justice system exists to serve the public and, in particular, victims. Ironically, although Foote, 70, is the grandson, son and brother of ministers, his office’s highest-profile prosecutions held to account a fundamentalist Oregon City sect, the Followers of Christ, who allowed several children to die because of their belief in faith healing. We caught up with Foote for an exit interview in his final days in office. His answers have been edited for brevity and clarity. NIGEL JAQUISS. Over the past 25 years, crime rates in Oregon and nationally have plummeted. Why? Contrary to what anyone has to say today, enforcement reduces crime and incarceration reduces crime. Everything else is much less effective. When somebody is in a prison cell, they are not burglarizing your house or stealing your car or committing rapes or murders. The question is, what is the balance we want? Criminal justice reformers say incarceration needlessly destroys many inmates’ lives. Your response? When they talk about crime, the advocates often talk about criminals as if they are the victims. It’s very alluring. I’m not denying that people who commit crimes also have a human story. But in the crime they committed, they are not the victims. Whatever happened to you is not an excuse for you doing something horrible to somebody else. There’s been a lot of pushback against Oregon’s sentencing laws, particularly Measure 11.
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You wrote a report in 2016 that argued for those laws. What was your case? In Oregon at that time, we had among the highest percentage of any state of its inmates in prison for violent crime. And our incarceration rates were well below the national average. There were tens, or maybe even more, of thousands of victims who those laws saved from violent crimes. We were doing many things right, including giving victims a much more powerful voice in the system. We were completely out of balance before the voters and victims started pushing for reforms. And that I think is what caused the drop in crime. Some people say poverty causes crime. There’s just no statistical evidence to show that’s true. So what does drive crime? It’s impulsive acts, it’s anti-social thinking, and it’s the lack of enforcement and no fear of consequences. If you are right, why have anti-incarceration advocates won the day in Oregon? I think that the vast majority of people don’t know the world of crime, what it’s really like and how it impacts victims. And they are very susceptible to platitudes about easy solutions that ease their conscience about having prisons. I mean, these advocates never use the words “crime victim.” Your office’s most famous cases involve prosecuting the Followers of Christ for the deaths of several children. What happened? I am not an enemy of religion. This was not about faith. This was about children. When I took office, I heard about the deaths. And I knew that it had never been prosecuted and that the church up there believed authorities were not going to do anything. So I asked my chief deputy, Greg Horner, to meet with the leadership and warn them that that was no longer true. These were unique criminal cases. When the medical examiner and law enforcement would show up at the scene, it could be 50 to 150 people in the house and nothing would be preserved. Second, everyone who was interviewed would say: The child exhibited no symptoms before dying. But, of course, they were all there praying over the child because they knew the child was dying.
17.5 Hours That’s how much time Janet Woodside, an occupational health nurse who works for Portland Fire & Rescue, had to get ready for the arrival of 1,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccine. “I didn’t expect a lot of notice,” Woodside says, “but it would have been nice to know sooner when the vaccines were coming.” The tight time frame caused a scramble at the fire bureau, whose primary function these days is emergency medical response. The short notice may go some way toward explaining why, according to Bloomberg, Oregon ranks among the lowest five states for percentage of vaccine doses administered so far. OHA did not respond to a request for comment. In fact, fire bureau officials say, they would have received even shorter notice if not for a coincidence. Woodside, a 20-year fire bureau veteran, says she happened to be chatting with a contact at American Medical Response late in the afternoon of Dec. 29, when the AMR staffer mentioned the company had gotten notification through an Oregon Health Authority computer system that its vaccine allocation was on the way. Woodside decided she’d better check the system also. When she logged on, a message told her to be ready. “I was ecstatic,” she says. The doses arrived in a Federal Express box at 10:30 the next morning.
D AV E K I L L E N | O R E G O N I A N P H O T O P O O L
FIVE QUESTIONS FOR
BIG SHOTS: The fire bureau erected tents at its training center for vaccinations.
The fire bureau applied for vaccines Dec. 8 and put a plan in place to hold a “truck rodeo” that would cycle fire engines and trucks through the bureau’s training center on Northeast 122nd Avenue to allow for inoculations while maintaining required staffing at stations around the city. Woodside says that about 80 to 90 percent of the firefighters on duty got the shots—about 350 the first day and half that many the second. (Those who declined, she says, expressed concerns about the lack of research on the long-term effects of the vaccine. See page 10.) When the bureau is finished inoculating its personnel, it will share the remainder with the Portland Police Bureau and 911 operators. Portland Fire & Rescue is a hierarchal organization with 140 paramedics who can administer shots—and yet it was still a logistical challenge to deal with the vaccinations of its own members. Woodside says she’s seen reports on Oregon’s challenges in getting people vaccinated and wonders if a little more time and direction from OHA would help, particularly when the vaccine begins to flow to the general public. “It’s an arduous process to meet all the requirements and get everything ready,” Woodside says. “I think more assistance would be good.” NIGEL JAQUISS.
NEWS BRIAN BURK
Werstein adds that the district is attempting to accommodate concerns about screen time. “Hosford (and all of our schools) are providing online information, readings, and other materials in paper packets for families who have asked for that understanding not everyone can be (or maybe doesn’t want to be) online all day,” she says.
NO MORE BOOKS: Students away from Portland Public Schools classrooms often lack textbooks.
Hit the Books Parents and teachers decry Portland Public Schools’ decision not to distribute textbooks during the pandemic. BY L ATI SH A J E N S E N
ljensen@wweek.com
Since the pandemic closed schools in March and virtual learning became the norm, Kevin Rudiger’s son spends all day staring at a computer screen. His sixth grader, Isaac, attends Hosford Middle School in Southeast Portland. Portland Public Schools provides Isaac and its nearly 50,000 other students with Chromebooks and online resources such as PDF documents. Rudiger, 47, says his son finds switching back and forth from PDFs and other online materials to worksheets challenging. They’d both prefer less screen time and access to physical textbooks—which Isaac and his classmates do not have. “His mom and I often feel like having a textbook would be helpful,” says Rudiger. “All resources are online, and we’re left poking around YouTube trying to find something that explains this question in biology.” But Rudiger says Hosford isn’t distributing textbooks. Although he’s requested textbooks, the school staff, including Principal Caitlin Klenz, pointed him to online alternatives.
Across the district, families and teachers are struggling to adjust to life without textbooks. In a year of unparalleled challenges for students and their teachers, PPS’s textbook policy has added an additional layer of difficulty for some families—particularly for those with students who learn best with the aid of an old-fashioned hardcover book or have additional learning needs. Chris Riser teaches eighth grade social studies at Ockley Green Middle School in North Portland. He says that although teachers are often skeptical of textbooks, families should have access to them. “Everybody’s rhetoric is that ‘care comes first,’ but when we actually say, ‘Well, OK, I’m going to take care of this rhetoric by delivering this kid a book,’ now you’re out of compliance and that’s against the rules,” Riser says. “The district is never going to do the right thing, but schools and educators could be doing what they need to do.” PPS spokeswoman Karen Werstein says the textbooks at Hosford don’t match the online instruction the school is providing. “We are in comprehensive distance learning so all of our curricula must be online right now,” Werstein wrote in an email.
The district’s pandemic policy on textbooks appears to be patchwork. There’s no single set of rules about who gets textbooks—and, in some cases, parents don’t know if the books even exist. “I know different schools are doing different things depending on their class offerings,” says Werstein, “and it varies widely by elementary, middle and high school.” The district’s website provides some information about the status of textbooks for 81 schools. For some courses, including social studies for middle schoolers like Isaac Rudiger, the website says “digital licenses have been purchased and printed notebooks will not be delivered to schools.” For many courses, however, the status of textbooks is listed as “unknown.” Teachers, who faced a crash course in how to deliver curricula to their students online, say they find the lack of clarity and conflicting policies around school supplies contradictory and limiting. Elizabeth Thiel, president of the Portland Association of Teachers, says her union sent a list of proposals to the district in August listing materials—including books—that students would need to be successful. Thiel says the district did not respond, and the union has continued to push that point during current contract negotiations. “One of our asks in bargaining is asking for textbooks, art supplies, basic school supplies,” Thiel says. Werstein says because PAT and PPS are currently negotiating a contract, she is unable to comment. Even when books are made available, they aren’t always easy to obtain. Don Rose, an English teacher at Jefferson High School, says teachers are not allowed to deliver supplies, including books, to students’ homes. At his high school, families can pick up school materials only during the lunch pickup window, which is open for two hours twice a week. “You put your job at stake if you deliver what a kid needs,” Rose says. “Making text bigger, highlighting and underlining actually help kids with complex texts, especially kids who are learning English as a second or third language. It makes it easier to see that rather than being on a screen.” Nancy Arteaga, a sixth grade language arts teacher at Lane Middle School in the Brentwood-Darlington neighborhood, says her students didn’t receive basic supplies until 12 weeks into the school year. She says it’s unclear why or who is to blame. “Is it Lane? Is it the district itself ? There’s not one central thing, it’s all left to interpretation.” Arteaga says. “I just think it’s upsetting that getting pencils and any materials to students isn’t happening. We were told students would get all these resources and have access to things, and then when those weeks came around, students got nothing.” Rudiger worries the district’s textbook policy has deprived students of a basic learning tool and shifted responsibility onto parents, who may lack the time, resources or skills to help. “Middle school for a lot of kids is a step up in academic intensity,” Rudiger says. “My personal take is, I’m not a trained educator.” Without books for Isaac, he’s pondering another solution. For now, he’s settled on one: a larger computer monitor.
Willamette Week JANUARY 6, 2021 wweek.com
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NEWS
H . L . I .T. / F l i c k r
No Questions Asked
The Oregon Department of Justice cleared two lawyers of harassment claims. Then a key witness asked why he wasn’t interviewed. BY TESS R ISKI
tess@wweek.com
On Nov. 20, the Oregon Department of Justice released a report that mostly cleared two of its top attorneys, both men, of allegations they had harassed or discriminated against a female co-worker. There was just one problem: The DOJ failed to interview its former human resources director, who says his input would have changed the investigation’s outcome. That revelation comes from an email sent by the former HR director and obtained by WW. “I was never contacted regarding this investigation,” Bob Koreski wrote in the Nov. 30 email to Deputy Attorney General Fred Boss. “I am concerned that I was intentionally excluded from providing input into this investigation. I strongly believe that my input would have significantly changed some of the findings.” Koreski’s complaint casts a shadow on an extensive report that mostly cleared the officials of wrongdoing, and had seemed to close an awkward chapter at the DOJ, an agency that says workplace equity is a top priority. Karynn Fish, a spokeswoman for the DOJ, says the department does not know whether Koreski had been contacted and that it was the responsibility of the outside investigator to contact witnesses. “DOJ has no reason to believe Koreski was intentionally excluded from the investigation,” Fish says. The DOJ’s investigation, conducted by a consultant named Lori Watson, was completed Oct. 30 and resulted in an 83-page report. It cleared Marc Abrams, the assistant attorney in charge of employment litigation for the state, and mostly cleared Steve Lippold, the agency’s chief trial counsel, of allegations detailed in a June 2020 tort claim filed by Heather Van Meter, a former senior assistant attorney general. She had accused Abrams of kissing her without her consent on two occasions, and said Lippold blocked her rise in the agency because she was a working mother. According to the final report, the investigator interviewed nearly 30 witnesses, including more than a dozen assistant and senior assistant attorneys general, the manager of the Department of Human Services, and three employees from the Department of Administrative services. In the report, Watson wrote that Koreski “did not respond to request for interview.” But in the Nov. 30 email obtained by WW, Koreski wrote to Deputy AG Boss that neither the DOJ nor Watson ever contacted him during the monthslong investigation. (Koreski did not respond to WW’s request for comment.) Koreski did not specify in his email how his input 10
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might have changed the outcome of the investigation. But having headed the HR department for the 1,300-employee agency between 2014 and 2020, according to his résumé, Koreski would have been privy to a significant portion of complaints against staff during his tenure. Koreski departed from the agency while the investigation was being conducted. As WW previously reported, Koreski resigned from DOJ in August 2020 after a separate investigation determined he’d had an affair with another DOJ employee. His exclusion could well have been an accident. He wrote that the investigator later told him DOJ said it had texted him in early October and that he didn’t respond. “Ms. Watson told me that DOJ sent me a text message on Oct. 7,” Koreski wrote. “I did not receive a text message on Oct. 7 nor did I ever receive a telephone call or email from Ms. Watson or DOJ regarding this investigation. DOJ has record of all of my personal contact information.” Fish said Watson, the outside investigator, has now interviewed Koreski following his Nov. 30 email to Boss, and that it will be up to her whether to amend the report following the interview. Watson did not respond to an email from WW with questions about the investigation. Any new information from Koreski could affect the outcome of Van Meter’s tort claim notice. The only claim against Lippold and Abrams that was substantiated in the report was Van Meter’s allegation that Lippold berated her in August 2017 because he learned she had filed a human resources complaint against him days earlier. As a result, Boss reprimanded Lippold in a Nov. 16, 2020, letter, requiring him to pair up with an “executive coach who will partner with you to conduct an assessment and develop a plan for improvement and professional growth.” Van Meter’s attorney, Sean Riddell, declined to discuss whether the new revelation impacts his client’s tort claim. “We’re exploring all legal options,” he said.
LONG SHOT
Ending the pandemic means getting vaccinated. But many Oregonians will be hard to convince.
BY RACHEL MON A HA N
rmonahan@wweek.com
WESLEY LAPOINTE
As Oregonians wait to get a COVID-19 vaccination, many overlook that we are all waiting on our fellow Oregonians to get vaccinated as well. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, recently estimated that as many as 85% of Americans need to get the vaccine to bring the pandemic under control. Without that kind of vaccination rate, the virus can still spread rapidly, and even people who’ve been vaccinated aren’t fully guaranteed they’re safe. The challenge: In Oregon, the percentage of people who say they won’t get the vaccine is too large. Some 25% of Oregon women and 21% of men say they won’t get the shot, researchers at the University of Oregon found in a December survey. Another one-third of Oregonians say they aren’t sure. Their fears include that the vaccine might have side effects, or it could even give them COVID-19. Such numbers are largely consistent with the rest of the nation. Among the Oregonians hesitating is Zia McCabe. The longtime bassist for the Dandy Warhols, McCabe actively fought the campaign in 2012 to fluoridate Portland’s water. And she’s not eager for a COVID-19 shot. “I’ll wait as long possible,” she says, “to see what happens to the people at the front of the line. I’m in no hurry, would be the best way to put it.” That might seem surprising. But it shouldn’t. Oregon is fertile ground for vaccine skeptics. In the 2018-19 school year, for example, parents of 7.7% of Oregon’s kindergartners claimed an exemption from at least one vaccine for their children. Tied with Idaho, Oregon had the highest exemption rate in the nation, according to an analysis by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And less than 39% of Oregon adults under 50 got the flu shot last season. “We’ve not done a great job in the U.S. at large at getting people to take vaccines,” says Dr. David Bangsberg, founding dean of the joint Oregon Health & Science University-Portland State University School of Public Health. “Some communities here in Oregon, the vaccination rate is down to the 30-to-40-percent range. After vaccination levels dropped to that level, we saw several measles outbreaks. The historical precedent suggests [acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine] will be a challenge.” Not everybody who opposes vaccination does so for the same reasons. WW has talked to more than a dozen local experts— including academics, epidemiologists, public health officials, and nurses who care for specific Oregon communities—about who is and isn’t enthusiastic about rolling up their sleeves. They identified key groups whose opposition to vaccination is significant and could stall the state’s and the country’s emergence from COVID-19. These groups, and others, will need to drop their opposition to vaccination for the shots to work statewide. Persuading them is the task Oregon must accomplish if grandparents and the medically infirm are to stop dying in shockingly large numbers, if you and your neighbors are to burn your masks in a backyard bonfire, hug your aging mothers, or engage with abandon in whatever socially undistant freedom you so desperately crave.
CONT. on page 12 Willamette Week JANUARY 6, 2021 wweek.com
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KURT ANDERSON
ORGANIC MOVEMENT: A coalition of leftists and conservatives banded together to defeat the fluoridation of Portland’s water on the ballot in 2013.
CRUNCHY PORTLAND EARTH MOTHERS
I
t isn’t just Republicans from rural Oregon who worry about vaccines. It’s Portlanders’ natural oils-loving neighbors who send their kids to Waldorf schools. In 2018, researchers identified 15 “hot spots” across the U.S. where a significant portion of schoolkids in a major metro area didn’t receive childhood vaccinations. Portland had the fourth-highest rate of nonmedical exemptions of any major U.S. city. “There’s definitely vaccine skeptics in my area of the world, for sure,” says state Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland), who represents one of the most left-leaning districts in the state. “They tend to be people that favor more naturopathic medicine.” Many of them, says Nosse, are moms. “They are smart women,” he says. “They’re not dummies. For them, it’s about a different approach to science and medicine; it’s not about church and Jesus.” Nosse had a close encounter with these moms in 2019, when he backed a bill that would have no longer allowed them to claim a philosophical reason not to have their school-aged children vaccinated. Among Nosse’s opponents: naturopaths and Waldorf parents. (The bill failed.) Portland is a hub of naturopathic medicine, with three area colleges that train doctors in the alternative medicine. (A dozen naturopaths testified against Nosse’s bill.) WW contacted six Portland naturopaths. Four didn’t respond. One said he’ll follow CDC guidance and the other said she’d take a case-bycase approach with patients. Among the schools in Multnomah County with unusually low vaccination rates are Waldorf schools, which promise a free-range education for children of progressive parents. Four of Oregon’s eight official Waldorf schools are in the Portland area, and every one has a nonmedical vaccine exemption rate higher than 1 in 4 students. At Portland Waldorf School, a private
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school in Milwaukie, every other student has an exemption from at least one vaccine. The high concentration of unvaccinated kids in private and charter schools is a reason why 17 percent of the Oregon schools without herd immunity to measles are in Multnomah County. “The schools are points of accumulation. If you’re going to put your kid in a Waldorf school, you might be driving from all over the region,” says Steve Robison, the Oregon Health Authority’s immunization epidemiologist. “They draw like-minded people. Either they don’t like immunization or they don’t like being told what to do.” But does this mean crunchy progressives won’t get the COVID -19 vaccine? Ask Sandra Ganey, 55, a yoga teacher and water fluoridation opponent who lives in the South Tabor neighborhood. In the past month, she’s posted a string of warnings about the vaccine on her Facebook page, including a Jan. 3 post about how coronavirus vaccines have caused “animals to die at a high rate” in past studies. But she won’t talk to WW. “Nobody trusts you to do fair reporting,” she said. “Maybe you could learn more about these important issues with some reading.” McCabe, the Dandy Walhols bassist, says she is seeing some crossover from the coalition that fought water fluoridation. In 2013, an alliance of environmentalists, libertarians and others successfully overturned a plan by the city of Portland, backed by public health officials and equity groups, to add fluoride to the water supply. Portland voters rejected fluoridation by a 20-point margin. “A doctor can’t force you to take something even if it’s going to save your life,” McCabe says. “I try to take each [decision] case by case, be really patient, and make my own decision. I am certainly not on any Western medicine bandwagons.”
THE NUMBERS PORTLAND
had the fourth-highest number of nonmedical exemptions of any major U.S. city,
WALDORF SCHOOLS
Every one of Portland’s Waldorf schools has a nonmedical vaccine exemption rate higher than 1 in 4 students.
according to a 2018 study.
4
Four of Oregon’s eight official Waldorf schools are in the Portland area.
ONE
+
IN FOUR
36% The high concentration of unvaccinated kids in private and charter schools is a reason why 17%
Among the schools in Multnomah County with unusually low vaccination rates are Waldorf schools.
ONE IN SIX
At Portland Village School, a Waldorf charter school, the rate is 36%.
of the Oregon schools without herd immunity to measles are in Multnomah County.
AARON WESSLING
STICKING POINT: As early as last May, conservative protesters of COVID-19 shutdown orders expressed their distrust of vaccines at the state Capitol.
ANTI-MASK REPUBLICANS The highest-profile opponents of vaccination are a large subset of supporters of President Donald Trump, many of whom doubt COVID-19 is a deadly disease. Just half of Republicans say they will take the COVID-19 vaccine, according to Gallup’s most recent national poll, a number that has not changed in the past three months. On Sunday, Sept. 27, five weeks before Trump lost reelection, a crowd of 150 Oregonians gathered at the steps of the state Capitol to hear speakers warn of the dangers of vaccines. All but a handful opted against face coverings of any kind—at least one speaker referred to masks as “muzzles.” A vendor in the crowd sold T-shirts with Gov. Kate Brown’s face altered to include a Hitler mustache. The advocacy group Oregonians for Medical Freedom sponsored the event with the American Patriot Society, a far-right group that has roughly 25 members but was actively recruiting outside the Capitol. Brian Price, a mild-mannered father, manned the Oregonians for Medical Freedom table. He hasn’t had his 9-year-old daughter vaccinated for any diseases, for philosophical reasons: “We believe the body has an immune response,” he says, objecting in part to the number of vaccines children receive. “That is outrageous, that many vaccinations.” Price said he’s a Republican, a conservative and a Christian but that the movement isn’t about one party: “We will attend a Democrat rally.” Before COVID -19, there was little daylight between Republicans and Democrats in public opinion polls on vaccination. But those in the GOP who want the right to refuse
the shots are fervent and lobby lawmakers insistently. “They know their issue,” says John Swanson, a former chief of staff for Sen. Chuck Thomsen (R-Hood River), the lone Senate Republican to sponsor the 2019 legislation to get rid of philosophical exemptions to school vaccines. “If you are a state legislator, unless public health is your background, you don’t not enter the building as a public health expert. It comes down to who you trust. When it comes to public health, you really don’t know if you’re on the right side of history.” Perhaps no Republican in Oregon plays a more pivotal role standing in the way of vaccine acceptance than state Sen. Tim Knopp (R-Bend). He’s led much of the recent opposition to legislative attempts to increase vaccination rates. “We are going to learn to live with the virus just like we live with other viruses,” he tells WW. Knopp, a moderate who is pro-mask, says he’s still unsure whether he’ll get the COVID19 vaccine and he wants more information, “specifically regarding ingredients and reactions/injuries and deaths,” he said. “I’ve seen the summary data. If they are looking to build trust with the public, they need to release more data.” He doesn’t buy the argument that Oregonians will look to him to decide whether to vaccinate. “Oregonians will choose to receive the vaccine based on their own research and trust in the actual product,” Knopp says. “I don’t believe Oregonians are going to buy political photo-op policy on the COVID-19 vaccine.”
WHY NOT VACCINATE?
THE MOST COMMON REASONS OREGONIANS GAVE FOR NOT WANTING A COVID-19 VACCINE LAST MONTH I AM ALLERGIC TO VACCINES I DON'T LIKE NEEDLES I’M NOT CONCERNED ABOUT GETTING SERIOUSLY ILL FROM THE COVID-19 VIRUS I’M CONCERNED ABOUT GETTING INFECTED WITH THE COVID-19 VIRUS FROM THE VACCINE I’M CONCERNED ABOUT SIDE EFFECTS FROM THE VACCINE I DON’T THINK VACCINES WORK VERY WELL VACCINES DO NOT ALIGN WITH MY PERSONAL OR RELIGIOUS BELIEFS THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK IS NOT AS SERIOUS AS SOME PEOPLE SAY IT IS OTHER Source: University of Oregon Institute for Policy Research and Engagement
Willamette Week JANUARY 6, 2021 wweek.com
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COURTESY OF MCHD
IMMIGRANT COMMUNITIES A group of Eritrean immigrants recently discussed with WW a social media rumor swirling in their community: It says the vaccine is a means to inject them with the biblical mark of the beast, a medical twist on the Book of Revelation. “There’s a theory that connects the vaccine with the number 666, and people are saying...that the government has put something else in the vaccine,” says a woman who identifies as Ms. Weldekidan, 68, who was a social worker in Eritrea who made sure people got the polio vaccine. She moved to Portland four years ago, and works at Goodwill. “I don’t know the contents of the vaccines,” adds Mrs. Tadesse, 40, a mother of four who told WW she is also reluctant to get the vaccine. “I have read in the Bible, it states at the end of the world how people get 666 or the number of the beast. I have heard it on social media.” Such rumors fit a pattern that health experts see in several immigrant communities: viral online conspiracy theories about the sinister intentions of their new home’s government. Marina Kuzmenkova, a Multnomah County nurse, says a number of her Russian-speaking patients will not take the vaccine. She says many of them traffic in conspiracy theories, including that the vaccine contains DNA from aborted fetuses. Like many vaccine-skeptical groups, they get much of their health information on Facebook and Instagram. Two years ago, the Russian-speaking population was at the center of a local measles outbreak that sickened 71 people in Clark County, Wash., and another four in Multnomah County. Sara McCall, a lead nurse epidemiologist for Multnomah County, has been studying vaccine hesitancy among Russian speakers in Oregon. At least 50,000 immigrants from the former Soviet Union reside in the Portland area, where Russian is the third-most-spoken language. “The themes we heard were a general mistrust of government and, in particular, how health care and government were entwined,” McCall says. In other words: Soviet immigrants left a nation where vaccinations were mandatory. Strong-arming them isn’t likely to work. “You think about the culture they came from, where they were oppressed and government had a lot to do with that,” says Kuzmenkova. “It translates into a worldview.” 14
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Even two Multnomah County nurses from the Russian-speaking community told WW they were initially unsure if they’d get a COVID-19 shot. “Coming from a country that was communist, there was very specific persecution, and you didn’t really have a choice to get vaccinated,” says Irina Grigorov, a clinical nursing supervisor with the county’s Communicable Disease Services. “You were in school, a nurse came in and vaccinated all the kids without the parent’s permission. “Not providing the information, how is that different from saying, ‘Get in line, we’re going to give you something’?” she asks. “We don’t know what’s in it. We don’t know what the side effects are.” Latinxs, who make up the largest minority group in Oregon, are also less likely to get annual vaccinations. Less than half of adults in Oregon got the flu vaccine. But fewer than 1 in 3 Latinx adults in Oregon got it. And Latinx Oregonians are disproportionately impacted by COVID-19, with the virus four times more prevalent among Latinxs than non-Latinxs. State officials last year identified seasonal farm workers, many of them Hispanic, as a group that will be difficult to reach with a COVID-19 vaccine. The reason? The logistics will be complicated for getting the two doses required to people who travel from state to state picking fruit. But there’s also another problem. Many undocumented workers distrust the feds. “I think that mistrust stems from years and years of policies that have hurt families,” says Eva Galvez, a doctor with the Virginia Garcia community clinic. “Particularly in the last few years, we have seen anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies that are coming from our federal government.” Galvez herself feels a pang of anxiety about a shot that was rapidly approved. “I’m getting this vaccine and I’m excited,” she says. “But this is the first vaccine that I can honestly say that I will be getting with maybe just a little bit more trepidation. All of the medications that I prescribe have been vetted for years. This is new for even physicians.” In fact, distrust of the new COVID-19 vaccine is now so intense, some doctors say their patients no longer want their annual flu vaccines. “I’ve heard people say, ‘I’ve heard they can inject a bad virus,’” says Galvez. “That’s been really challenging this year.”
FRONT LINES: An outdoor clinic at Portland Community College’s Cascade campus offers COVID-19 tests and flu shots in one parking lot. The flu vaccination drive is seeking Black Oregonians and immigrants.
COURTESY OF MCHD
BLACK OREGONIANS Rachelle Dixon, 53, is a Black community organizer and vice chair of the Multnomah County Democrats. She will not get a COVID19 vaccine for as long as possible—ideally, two years. She’s concerned about side effects from a vaccine granted speedy federal approval. But she’s also concerned that the U.S. often treats Black people as disposable. “It hasn’t been a pretty couple hundred years,” she says. “All along this timeline, the medical community has shortchanged Indigenous and African American people time and time again.” State numbers show that Black Oregonians are among the groups with the lowest vaccination rates (see chart at right). What does Dixon think about the Black community not taking a potentially lifesaving vaccine after the pandemic has hit them the hardest? When asked, she responded: “I think you are asking the wrong question,” she says. “To say we don’t have legitimate reasons, it’s irresponsible—it pushes the community away. It’s condescending and disenfranchising. There is a lot of pressure on Black people to abandon what’s right for their own body so they can protect white bodies. That’s highly problematic to me.” Danaya Hall, a nurse who founded the Alliance of Black Nurses Association of Oregon earlier this year, says she will get vaccinated, but she understands Black Oregonians’ hesitancy. “Black bodies have historically never belonged to black bodies,” she says. “When you have a person telling you to get a vaccine and at the same time they’re not very nice to you or treating you like you don’t know how to take care of yourself because you have diabetes and hypertension, this person is going to lose credibility. That’s a lot of healing that needs to happen.” Such healing is the work of Charlene McGee, Multnomah County’s program man-
SAVING LIVES: Charlene McGee says she understands Black Oregonians’ doubts about vaccines, and wants to allay fears as she inoculates people.
ager for a flu vaccination drive focused on Black people and African immigrants. This isn’t her first epidemic. In early 1990s, when McGee was in sixth grade, she and her family fled a civil war in Liberia and came to Portland. McGee later returned to serve in the administration of Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. But when Ebola hit, her aunt bought her and her young son airline tickets out. “She was like, ‘You are getting out of there,’” McGee recalls. She returned home to Portland and is here to fight this health disaster, persuading one Black Oregonian at a time to vaccinate. That challenge was in evidence on a recent Wednesday afternoon, as a line of cars and pickup trucks snaked out of a COVID-19 testing site in a parking lot at Portland Community College just off North Killingsworth Street. At the tent where they checked in, patients who’d scheduled a coronavirus test got an offer: a chance to receive a free flu vaccination, too. But the offer of a free shot didn’t generate a lot of interest. Only one car pulled into the flu shot line, while more than a half-dozen waited for a COVID-19 test. The unenthusiastic response felt like a signal: A lot of Oregonians don’t trust vaccines. And they won’t be eager to try one to eradicate COVID-19. “We took this work on very much aware of the mistrust between our community and government, and our community and vaccines,” says McGee. “We also recognize vaccines as one of the greatest achievements in public health.” Rachel Monahan reported this story with the support of the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism, a program of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2020 National Fellowship.
VACCINES IN BLACK AND WHITE Previously unreleased data obtained by WW from the Oregon Health Authority show a gap in vaccination rates between Black snd white elementary school students in Oregon.
Black students age 6 to 10 who received all required vaccines
“These small differences can still be meaningful for herd immunity,” says Steve Robison, the state immunologist. “Black kids have lower immunization rates across most areas than do others.”
84%
89%
All students age 6 to 10 who received all required vaccines
SIMILARLY, THERE IS A GAP AMONG BLACK ADULTS WHEN IT COMES TO THE ANNUAL FLU VACCINE. Oregon adults under 50 who had a flu vaccine last season
ONE IN
THREE ONE IN
FOUR
Black Oregon adults under 50 who had a flu vaccine last season
Source: Oregon Health Authority. School vaccination data as of March 1, 2020. Flu vaccination data from 2019-20 season.
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GRAY & LOVING IT Photos by Justin Katigbak On Instagram: @jusin.katigbak
Hot looks from a wet New Year’s weekend on Hawthorne.
Willamette Week JANUARY 6, 2021 wweek.com
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TRAIL LOOKIN’ GORGE Photos by Wesley Lapointe On Instagram: @wlapointe_photo
On Jan. 1, the Eagle Creek Trail—the epicenter of the devastating 2017 wildfire that burned 49,000 acres of the Columbia River Gorge—welcomed back hikers for the first time in three years. Here’s what reopening weekend looked like.
18
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TRAIL
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19
STARTERS
Portland has no NBA-approved restaurants for visiting teams. B R U C E E LY / T R A I L B L A Z E R S
LOCAL
RIDICULOUS
CHRIS ALLMEID/WIKI COMMONS
SUPPORT
T H E MOST I MP ORTANT TH I N G S I N PO RT LA N D C U LT U R E T H E H O LI DAYS — G R A PH E D. YOU MAY H AV E MI SS E D OV E R TH
Damian Lillard teaches Cardi B how to ball on the rapper’s new web show.
I LY EN E
M T. H O O D M E A D O W S
JOAN-GRE
ChefStable is John Gorham’s “Tasty” restaurant brand…in Lake Oswego.
EM
INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM
WIKI COMMONS
BECOME A FRIEND OF WILLAMETTE WEEK
Mt. Hood Meadows says it will suspend season passes of guests who refuse to wear masks.
MAGNUS HOLMES
AWFUL
Portland is officially getting a Shake Shack. VIVIAN JOHNSON
AWESOME
WWEEK.COM/SUPPORT
Jefferson Smith steps down as XRAY.FM’s executive director.
A suspect is indicted for setting fire to Reo’s Ribs.
WESLEY LAPOINTE
D AV I D L I I T TSC H
W AG
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R
Eagle Creek Trail finally reopens (see photos, page 18).
Author Barry Lopez RIP.
SERIOUS 20
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GET...INSIDE
STUFF TO DO WHILE YOU’RE STILL STUCK AT HOME.
FUN(?) AND GAMES
Well, sure glad that’s over with—“that” being 2020, of course. It was, by consensus, the worst year in at least a century. (Sure, there are other strong contenders, but any year that has both a pandemic and GLOW getting canceled gets the edge.) But that doesn’t mean it can’t get worse—you’ve just got to get creative.
What Could Go Wrong? Make your own 2021 bingo card!
First, there were murder hornets. Now welcome _________________!
Before leaving office, President Trump starts a war with __________________. __________________
Oh no!
The worst side effect of the COVID-19 vaccine turns out to be
Cannabis has been federally decriminalized, but
_________________ has alt-right sympathies!
____________________. _____________.
____________________ is now a Schedule I drug.
Damian Lillard quits basketball to play professional
Your favorite bar gets torn down and replaced by ___________________.
__________________. _____.
The next COVID surge creates an inexplicable shortage of ________________.
Jesus returns,
just to say “________________.”
Last year, whenever something weird or calamitous happened, it became popular to refer to your “2020 bingo card.” Of course, no one went into 2020 with an actual bingo card. So we decided to correct that for 2021. Fill in the blanks, throw it on social media with the tag #ww2021bingo, and we’ll share the best entries on Instagram—but just hope, for the sake of humanity, you don’t actually win. MATTHEW SINGER.
The Proud Boys rebrand as the
__________________ business.
Leftists call for a boycott of No megaquake, but there is a super-
_________________.
___________________.
FILL IN YOUR OWN DISASTER HERE.
Remember those monoliths? Turns out it was viral marketing for
__________ Boys. ____________________. ____________________
_________________ starts falling from the sky. Thanks, climate change!
The first scandal of the Biden administration is known as
Portland’s next big food trend is
______________-gate.
_____. _________________.
Right-wingers call for a boycott of
A ___________________ escapes from the Oregon Zoo and wreaks havoc downtown.
Ted Wheeler resigns as mayor to start a
________________ is the next person to get caught in a
compromising Zoom incident.
____________________.
_________________ is revealed as the president of antifa.
To stay open, a local strip club combines strippers with ____________________.
Portland erects a statue of Aliens invade, looking to take control of our vast supply of
__________________. It is immediately defaced.
___________________.
Willamette Week JANUARY 6, 2021 wweek.com
21
GET...OUTSIDE? MICHELLE HARRIS
OUTDOORS
Directions: From Portland, take US 26 west about 29 miles and then turn right on OR 47 north. Drive another 4 miles and make a right at the sign for L.L. Stub Stewart State Park. You’ll soon pass the visitor center on your right. Drive another mile and then turn left when you see the sign for Mountain Dale Cabin Village.
Mountain Dale Cabin Village L.L. STUB STEWART STATE PARK
47 Dairy Creek West
CABINS IN THE WOODS: The Mountain Dale Cabin Village at L.L. Stub Stewart State Park has 15 cabins and amenities like fire pits, picnic tables and a woodsy setting (bottom right).
Visitor Center
Stub Hub You don’t need to stray far from Portland for cabin camping. BY M IC HE L L E H A R R I S
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GO: L.L. Stub Stewart State Park, 30380 NW Highway 47, Buxton, 503-324-0606, stateparks.oregon.gov.
47 Buxton
L.L. Stub Stewart State Park North Plains
26 Hillsboro
Portland Beaverton
MICHELLE HARRIS
When you pull into your spot at the cabin village in L.L. Stub Stewart State Park, there’s one thing you’ll notice immediately: panoramic views that sweep out toward the Oregon Coast Range. Even if the views weren’t spectacular, as one of the few parks with cabin rentals available while many remain closed due to COVID-19 and/or the winter season, it makes for an easy getaway. Though some cabins along the coast are starting to reopen, Stub Stewart is only 33 miles from Portland, offering a quick retreat for those looking to beat the pandemic-surge blues. After being holed up in our homes for months on end, a cabin stay might be just what you need to recover from…well, “cabin” fever. Opened in 2007, the park has come a long way from its former days as a tree farm. The sprawling recreation area was the first new fullserve state park to open in Oregon since 1972, with year-round camping that includes tent sites, cabins and RV parking. The park takes it name from lumberman Loren LaSells “Stub” Stewart, who served on the State Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee as well as the Oregon Parks and Recreation Commission. Stewart was given the nickname “Stub” by his friends since he was always the shortest person in class, and for most of his life was simply known as Stub Stewart. He was also owner and president of Bohemia Lumber Company, and many of the park trails have names that reflect the area’s logging history. Set atop a forest hillside, the Mountain Dale Cabin Village is a cozy enclave with 15 cabins and all the camping-related fixings—fire pits, picnic tables, a woodsy setting—but unlike tent camping, you have a heated room with electrical outlets and lighting, as well as beds that don’t require an air pump. (Just make sure to bring your own bedding or you’ll be in for a chilly night.) Five of the 15 cabins are pet-friendly if you want to bring your fur baby along. Also FYI, you must book a minimum of two nights for a cabin stay. Nearly 30 miles of trails open to hikers, bikers and horseback riders wind through second-growth forest. If you want to keep your hike within close range of the cabin village, take the
trailhead for Barberchair Trail, located just down the stone steps and you can hike a short loop to Boomscooter Pond and back. At the time of this writing, there is some construction along these trails, so some parts are a bit uneven. Be prepared for muddy ground, too. The trail network also connects you with the 21-mile Banks-Vernonia State Trail, a paved path that cuts through L.L. Stub Stewart State Park for 4 miles. Certain trails are specially designed for mountain bikers as well, if that’s more your thing. Another trail leads to two disc golf courses, one that’s beginner-friendly and the other more advanced. You can make the trip as long or short as you like, since the trail system loops all around the park, though check the map for trails that are closed during the week for logging. Once back at your cabin for the night, you can sit on your porch with a drink and enjoy the views. While the cabins are a step up from tent camping as far as comfort goes, there are no kitchens, televisions or bathrooms inside the cabins, though you have the option to cook outside by the fire ring. Be prepared for wet weather if staying during the rainy season—in which case you might want to have some sandwiches ready. Luckily, there’s a public restroom just steps away from the cabins, so you won’t be stumbling around in the dark—just be careful not to stub your toe on the parking blocks if venturing out while half asleep. As of right now, the showers are closed due to COVID restrictions. Though modest, the cabins are a nice welcome from the chilly weather, especially after you crank up the heat. Wood-paneled interiors and vaulted ceilings make the place as cozy as ever. In keeping with the rustic lifestyle, there is no Wi-Fi, so you’ll want to bring your own electronics if you’re set on a late-night movie binge. Or you can just pass out. All in all, if you’re looking for a place that’s far enough to feel like a proper getaway but not too far, a cabin retreat at L.L. Stub Stewart State Park is worth the trip. Just whatever you do, don’t watch any horror movies set in log cabins while you’re there. Especially if you anticipate making late-night bathroom trips.
Dairy Creek East
FEATURE
FOOD & DRINK
Opening Time Yes, new restaurants are coming to Portland in 2021. Here are the ones we’re most excited about. BY M AT T H E W S I N G E R
msinger@wweek.com
For obvious reasons, you’re right to expect a down year for Portland food. The slate of upcoming new restaurants going into 2021 is, let’s say, a bit dry. Still, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to get excited about—it just means we might have to get a little more excited about new chains moving into town than we normally would. Here’s a quick rundown of our most anticipated openings.
TOP 5
HOT PLATES
Tasty
Corner of Southwest Boones Ferry Road and Kruse Way, inside the new Mercato Grove development. What is it? A resurrection of the recently defunct John Gorham brand, minus Gorham. Why the excitement? Toro Bravo got the national plaudits and probably convinced your mom to come visit you, but true heads know that the trio of Tastys—Tasty n Alder, Tasty n Sons and later Tasty n Daughters—were the real standouts of the Gorham empire before his recent fall from grace. Now, two Toro Bravo Inc. alums, along with Kurt Huffman’s ChefStable group (because you’re no longer allowed to open a restaurant in this town without them, apparently), are opening a new version in Lake Oswego. What can’t you wait to eat? No specific items have been confirmed, but it’s said to include “classics” from Tasty’s brunch and dinner menus, but baker Katherine Benvenuti’s pastries alone will almost certainly be worth going to the ’burbs for. When does it open? June 1.
Kann
831 SE Salmon St., kannwintervillage.com.
What is it? What, did you grow up on Mars—or just in the Midwest?
Toki
580 SW 12th Ave., 503-312-3037, instagram.com/tokipdx. What is it? A downtown spinoff of Han Oak, the acclaimed Korean restaurant. Why the excitement? Anything chef Peter Cho does is worthy of intense anticipation. In this particular case, he’s moving across the river, into the former Tasty n Alder space, and using it to craft the classic, traditional Korean meals—bibimbap, bulgogi, kimbap—he’s generally avoided at his main spot. What can’t you wait to eat? All of it, really. When does it open? According to Instagram, any minute now.
Feel Good
1120 SE Belmont St., 971-279-2731, feelgoodpdx.com. What is it? A new “health food that doesn’t suck” venture from the guy behind Mama Bird and Stacked Sandwich. Why the excitement? Chef Gabriel Pascuzzi is carving out a niche for himself in Portland for making healthy dining low-key exciting and high-key delicious. He did it with Southern-style grilled chicken at Mama Bird—and got yelled at for smoking out his neighbors in the process. At Feel Good, he’ll do it with grain bowls. It’s all cauliflower rice and quinoa, pickled vegetables and Ota tofu, arranged with a downright painterly eye for the pretty. What can’t you wait to eat? The Painted Hills Bowl, a blend of jalapeño cilantro vin, charred broccoli and pineapple, sweet potato and grapefruit, among several other things. When does it open? First quarter of 2021.
10565 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, Beaverton.
Why the excitement? Only California kids will understand. It’s become fashionable to declare In-N-Out “overrated”—to dis its soggy fries, the corny not-so-secret menu items, and the hidden Bible verses on the wrappers. But if you ate there even once as a child—whether it was on a family beach vacation or there was a franchise in your hometown—then you know it is, for reasons both unquantifiable and above criticism, the greatest fast-food chain in existence. We will not be taking questions at this time. What are we most excited to try? An Animal Style double-double. When does it open? TBD.
Shake Shack 1016 W Burnside St.
What is it? The East Coast version of In-N-Out—a franchise with a cultish following whose reputation is driven more nostalgia than anything. Why the excitement? Honestly, it’s hard to say. As several local burger mavens have opined, Portland has many places that took its slightly upscale interpretation of a fast-casual burger and scaled it up even higher, so it’ll be, like, the 10th-best version of itself in the city when it opens. Many New Yorkers, however, will probably yell that you’re not a real city until you’ve got a Shake Shack. Could be the promised outdoor ping-pong table, too. What can’t you wait to eat? Shake Shack likes to come up with regional specials when it opens in new markets, so we’re really excited to try the Salmon and Doughnut Hazy IPA Burger. When does it open? TBD, though another planned location at Cedar Hills Crossing in Beaverton is already listed on its website as “Coming Soon.”
T
H
O
AL
When does it open? The “village” launched in December and runs through March, with hopefully more clarity on the future of Kann to follow.
120-A NE Russell St., 503-333-6923, lottieandzulas. com. 8 am-4 pm Tuesday-Saturday. Breakfast all day, lunch 10:30 am to close. Takeout and delivery only. Toro Bravo is gone, replaced by a punky sandwich window with New England roots. The heart of Lottie & Zula’s breakfast menu are bolo levedos, or “Portuguese muffins”—something like a cross between an English muffin and a King’s Hawaiian roll, which makes their version of a McGriddle extra satisfying.
TE
In-N-Out
Lottie & Zula’s
S
What can’t you wait to eat? The menu is prix fixe, and tickets cost $210 per person, so for now we’ll just have to dream about the beef short ribs stewed in habanero and thyme.
2017 NE Alberta St., 971-865-5160, grindwittryz. square.site. Instagram: @grindwittryz. Noon-8 pm Tuesday-Saturday. As a food cart, GrindWitTryz was a near-instant sensation, its crowds and wait times harking back to the early days of Salt & Straw or Apizza Scholls, and the lines have only grown longer since owner Tryzen Patricio moved into the former Bunk space on Alberta. The most popular dish by far is the ono chicken: 12 pieces of crispy, sweet-glazed fried chicken thighs—more than a pound of meat— piled onto a double-portion bed of furikake-topped rice.
A
Why the excitement? Well, to be frank, there’s good news and bad news here. The bad news is that Gourdet’s previously announced plan to open his own brick-and-mortar restaurant has been temporarily scuttled by the pandemic. The good news is, he’s innovated a stopgap measure: the Kann Winter Village, an enclave of 10 private “dining yurts” set up in the parking lot of the Redd in Southeast Portland, offering a preview of what’s hopefully to come when he finds a permanent space.
GrindWitTryz
M
DOUG KENCK-CRISPIN
What is it? Renowned Departure chef and Top Chef alum Gregory Gourdet finally strikes out on his own and cooks the Haitian cuisine he grew up eating.
Where to get food in Portland this week.
Malka
4546 SE Division St., 503-984-1580, malkapdx.com. The long-awaited Malka is the restaurant version of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Each dish is a madcap mélange of a dozen or more ingredients that, on paper, couldn’t possibly work together, yet invariably do. While its visually engrossing dining room is shut down, many of chef Jessie Aron’s highlight meals are still available for takeout, including creative creations like the Important Helmet for Outer Space, a rice bowl with too many ingredients to list here.
Nak Won
4600 Watson Ave., Beaverton, 503-646-9382. 11:30 am-2 pm and 5-8:30 pm Monday-Thursday, 11:30 am-2 pm and 5-8 pm Friday-Saturday. One of the area’s best Korean spots is back—finally. After a prolonged reopening process following the initial statewide pandemic lockdown, Nak Won has returned, now just a pot sticker’s throw from Old Town Beaverton’s impressive new outdoor dining hall that features several Portland standouts. Despite the new neighbors, though, Nak Won remains the king of the ’hood, serving authentic, tasty bites, along with the best soup names in town: Comfort Buttercup, When Miss Piggy Met Hot Potato, etc.
Aybendito
Order at aybenditopdx.com. Ataula co-owner Cristina Baez’s tiendita is designed with the pandemic in mind, operating on a family-friendly take-and-make model. The online marketplace is stocked with the street food Baez grew up with in Puerto Rico: sofrito canéles to replace your stale bouillon, chimichurri, limited-availability pernil and pollo guisado, flan, and the staple pastelillo. Willamette Week JANUARY 6, 2021 wweek.com
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FOOD & DRINK CHRIS NESSETH
BAR FEATURE
TOP 5
BUZZ LIST
Five spots to get a cocktail to go.
Eem
3808 N Williams Ave., Suite 127, 971-295-1645, eempdx. com. 11 am-9 pm daily. A big part of what’s made Eem the buzziest Portland restaurant of the past two years are the creative beverages dreamed up by co-owner Eric Nelson. Eem sold mix-it-yourself kits before the law changed, but let’s face it: a drink is always better when it’s made for you. The restaurant now offers four cocktails to go in what look like recycled Odwalla bottles, including the popular bourbon-hibiscus Acid Test for $13.
Bubbling Up A neighborhood Chinese restaurant in North Portland is reborn as a beer and cocktail bar. BY JAS O N CO H E N
@cohenesque
Jeremy Lewis now owns a piece of his childhood. Growing up in Northeast Portland, Lewis remembers family dinners at the Lung Fung Chinese restaurant on North Lombard Street. Now, the place is his. His new bar, Tiny Bubble Room, is named for Lung Fung’s adjoining old-school lounge. It is something like a NoPo version of Roscoe’s, the Montavilla craft beer bar Lewis and co-owner Quyen Ly opened in 2006. “I have a cousin that lives like three or four blocks away who’s been saying repeatedly, ‘We need a Roscoe’s in that neighborhood,’” says Lewis. “And I agreed. It’s a great neighborhood already, with a lot of amazing spots. Our goal is to give it our own twist.” Originally slated to open in March 2020, the bar made its COVID-delayed debut in October. Like Roscoe’s, Tiny Bubble Room has a Cajun-Creole-leaning menu, and 30 taps of mostly Northwest beer, as well as more in bottles. But the new spot has a cocktail, wine and whiskey focus, giving Arbor Lodge and Kenton something in that same don’t-call-it-a-dive bar category as the Fixin’ To, the Old Gold or Tulip Shop. Lung Fung and Tiny Bubble Room, which closed in March 2019 after more than 50 years, were two distinct businesses: a Chinese restaurant you could take the family to, the other a bar you definitely wouldn’t. The new place flips the script. What used to be Lung Fung is Tiny Bubble Room, with painstakingly restored red banquette booths, a black-cushioned bar and new wood floors, while the lounge, which still has its original gold booths, is slated to become a separate sushi restaurant. (Lewis and Ly also operate Miyamoto next to Roscoe’s.) The formerly white exterior is now dramatic black decorative cinder block. The original vintage rooftop clock sign has been updated with the new name, which Lewis also hopes to get the clock spinning again. Saving the building itself was a big part of the appeal. “I really like the old-school Chinese restaurants,” Lewis says, “and hate seeing that a lot of them are just getting torn down.” Of course, neither indoor room is being used right now. But Tiny Bubble Room is weathering the winter with an elaborate outdoor setup, including a big tent with picnic tables and three shipping containers with roll-up doors and individual dining pods. 24
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With former Tasty n Alder chef de cuisine Jacob Mitchell in the kitchen, the menu shares such items as jambalaya, gumbo, po’boys, mac and cheese, and “wonut” waffles (donut batter in waffle iron) with Roscoe’s. Another Tasty veteran, Jeremy Mielen, runs the front of the house—you might recognize the Improved Whiskey Cocktail ($7), a concoction of bourbon, maraschino, absinthe, Boker’s bitters, which is currently on tap. The bar also inherited an extensive stock of whiskey from another ex-John Gorham property, Tasty n Daughters. Current beers include Wayfinder Hidden Hand, Breakside Strata Strata Strata, and StormBreaker Pecan Pie (all $6), with cellared or barrel-aged options from such breweries as Breakside, Alesong, Midnight Sun (Alaska) and Dogfish Head. When the weather warms up, expect beer and cocktail slushies too—and, soon, cocktails to go. “The goal is to make it somewhere that everyone feels comfortable,” says Lewis. “A place that people can come and hang out where nothing is out of reach financially, and you don’t mind coming back a couple of times a week.” DRINK: Tiny Bubble Room, 2025 N Lombard St., 503-208-2660, tinybubbleroom.com. 3-10 pm daily.
PATIO SPECS Number of tables: Eight to 10 picnic tables under a 20-by-50-foot tent, each with their own tabletop heaters. Three black shipping containers with roll-up doors provide an additional six dining pods. Space between tables: Six feet or more between the picnic tables, with walls between each shipping container pod. Additional safety measures: QR menu; new HEPA filtration system inside; sanitizer dispensers both inside and out; masks required when ordering and any time customers are standing or not at a table. Peak hours: Early evenings and weekend afternoons.
The Old Gold & Paydirt
Order online at drinkinoregon.com and paydirtbar.com, respectively. Before voluntarily shuttering his four properties in November, owner Ezra Ace Caraeff had a whole takeout drink program ready to roll if it ever became legal. Now that it is, he’s reopened two of his bars for to-go orders only, with old fashioneds, Manhattans and other classics served in 4-ounce glass bottles that make them resemble medicine—because that’s sort of what they are.
Tropicale
2337 NE Glisan St., 503-894-9484, tropicale.co. Noon-10 pm Tuesday-Sunday. Nothing combats long Pacific Northwest winters like the drinks that remind us most of summer, and that’s precisely what this recently opened Latin American fusion joint specializes in: piña coladas, margaritas, etc. Sadly, the to-go cocktails are not served in pineapples as they are in person, but rather plugged bottles so big the law requires that you purchase three food orders to go with them. Call or order through the website.
Shine Distillery
4232 N Williams Ave., 503-825-1010, shinedistillerygrill. com. 4-8 pm Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday; 3-8 pm Friday-Saturday. This brewpub-style distillery came up with one of best pandemic pivots: the “drag-thru,” where customers could watch an appropriately distanced drag show while waiting for their takeout orders. Now, you can watch an appropriately distanced drag show while waiting for bottles of its signature cocktails, mixed with housemade vodka and whiskey. Who says there’s no silver lining to a global health crisis? Call or order through the website.
Botanist House
1300 NW Lovejoy St., 971-533-8064, botanisthouse. com. 4-10 pm Tuesday-Saturday. In November, the Pearl District gin bar threatened to go rogue and start selling mixed drinks to go as an act of “civil disobedience” but called off the protest once legislators announced a special session to consider changing the law. So how much credit can we give Botanist for the takeout cocktail revolution? Hard to say, but it deserves some patronage just for sticking its neck out. The bar has said it will soon begin selling liquor-based cocktails through its self-created alcohol delivery service, At Your Door, but for now you can order drinks containing previously sanctioned elements like wine and vermouth. See atyourdoor.co/collections/ botanist-house to order.
POTLANDER
Green New Year Now that we’ve turned the page on 2020, here’s what Portland cannabis professionals hope happens next. BY B R I ANNA WH EELE R
On the last day of 2020, I bought a 10-pack of joints, slipped them into my jacket pocket and forgot about them. Later that evening, I threw said jacket in the washing machine with the rest of the laundry. The weed had clogged my dryer’s lint trap by the time I’d realized what happened, and all the laundry smelled like skunk. My New Year’s resolution was made then: Ease off the autopilot and pay more attention to what you’re doing, stoner. My resolutions are always broad and simple, so my success rate is relatively high. When self-care is just part of your everyday life, it’s never a make-or-break scenario, just a small gift you give yourself. But that’s just one professional stoner’s opinion. WW reached out to a handful of 2020’s distinguished cannabis professionals to get their resolutions for 2021, in and out of the industry. Hammond Potter, founder of Pot Mates Cannabis Delivery My New Year’s Resolution is to be more involved in the fight for social equity within the cannabis industry. Whether that’s mentoring or helping bring awareness to the issue, I want to help right the wrongs brought about by the War on Drugs and give people of color the confidence and knowledge they need to get into this industry. Liv Vasquez, cannabis chef and educator I think this year we all were reminded that cannabis is health care, life is precious, and that we have a lot of heroes in our lives. My focus has switched from business to staying mentally and physically healthy in 2020, and honestly I’d like to keep that going into the next year. Megon Dee, founder of Oracle Infused Wellness Co. My plan is to simply keep it pushing. 2020 taught me that not having expectations is literal freedom—accept everything for what it is and nothing less. This will eliminate the opportunity for disappointment. Growth comes naturally with time, so I look forward to expanding Oracle Wellness Co. and continuing to thrive in my purpose of helping others through plant medicine.
Jesce Horton, founder of LOWD Cannabis The industry should resolve to keep environmental sustainability and social justice as cornerstone principles of cannabis legalization. Kim Lundin, executive director of the Oregon Cannabis Association Personally, I’m going to cherish every second I get to spend with my incredible fiancé, which means much better work boundaries. Professionally, I’m focusing on the power of a unified voice. We’re part of a coalition effort to pass the Oregon Cannabis Equity Act, which focuses on reinvestment in the communities most harmed by the War on Drugs. It’s a big lift, and we’ll only succeed by bringing all stakeholders together, presenting a united voice, and demanding change. Cambria Benson Noecker, founder of Serra I’m the person whose mind runs a million miles an hour in all directions and I’m constantly multitasking. I’m setting the intention to be more present and mindful in order to make the moments I have more impactful. I want to slow down, listen more and savor the fleeting moments. Also, act with more kindness, learn something new every day, waste less, exercise more—and put down the ice cream after the edibles! Carrie Solomon, founder of Leif Goods Stop burning garlic when I cook, which means “be more patient.” Eat bananas before they get overripe, which translates to “be more disciplined.” And “take walks,” which for me means “stop looking at screens and connect more with my body and start taking control, damn it!”
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NED THANHOUSER
SCREENER
MOVIES
Ticket to Ride
A native Portlander became one of the world’s greatest motorcycle racers. A new documentary short aims to give him the modern-day recognition he deserves. BY C H A N C E SO L E M - P F E I FER
@chance_s_p
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In the 1930s, as now, speedway racing in the U.S. was a niche sport. But throughout Europe and Australia, Tauscher (dubbed “Tauser” by the newspapers of the day) was a celebrity and box office draw. “Just look at 50,000 spectators in Wembley Stadium who paid money to watch people turn left,” Thanhouser says of Tauscher’s 1931 championship win in London. Despite the overseas hook, the film centers on an authentically Portland figure. Tauscher was born here, raised here, convalesced from riding injuries here and retired here. As a young man, Tauscher grew up at Southeast 8th Avenue and East Burnside Street, attended Washington High School and cut a daring figure as a multisport athlete and early 20th century thrill-seeker. In an East Portland setting that Thanhouser compares to modern-day Gresham in terms of space and pace, Tauscher and his brother, Jack, grabbed media attention with stunts ranging from parachuting to motorcycle polo. “I think young kids were looking for headlines back then,” Thanhouser says. “Today those kinds of extreme sports are more organized, more commercial.” Perhaps the strongest elements of Thanhouser’s film are its evocations of a now-distant sports culture—where the line was humbly thin between star athlete and local everyman. In Tauscher’s case, he was an international racing star one decade and a Portland postal inspector the next. The documentary depicts a gentleman daredevil who knew how to grin when flashbulbs were pointed his way but was modest enough to hide photos of his female flames until the very last page of his private scrapbook, Thanhouser shares with a laugh. “He was a player, obviously!” he says. “But we weren’t trying to make him a braggadocio.” In addition to his film’s forthcoming festival appearances in Italy and France, Thanhouser hopes one outcome could be Tauscher’s belated enshrinement in the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame. Tauscher’s résumé seems unimpeachable. Thanhouser points out that the hall’s three auto racing inductees—Monte Shelton, Hershel McGriff and Len Sutton—were all respected champions on the regional and national circuits. “Here with Ray, we have a world champion! But as with any organization, you’ve got politics,” Thanhouser explains. “The fact that [Tauscher] is not around to accept the award…maybe they want someone who can stand up and say thank you.” For now, this doc is the closest Tauscher—who died in 1981—comes to speaking for himself in 2020. In the film, Portland voice actor Richard Moore endows Tauscher with a folksy, genial tone that occasionally opens the throttle a little—like in this quote Tauscher gave to The Oregonian circa 1932: “Unless you have that natural feel for handling a motorcycle under the most nerve-tingling conditions, keep off the tracks.” NED THANHOUSER
Sugar Ray Robinson’s 1950. Tiger Woods’ 2000. Serena Williams’ 2015. Few people know Ray Tauscher, or that his 1931 accomplishments could fit on this list, but the Portland motorcycle racer’s 12-month tear reached similar historic levels of solo athletic performance. That was the year Tauscher captured four world championships across Australia, England and France. “He really had the perfect year,” says local documentarian Ned Thanhouser, who (alongside his son Michael) directed a new short film about Tauscher’s racing career and Oregon ties. Ray Tauscher: America’s Forgotten World Champion Motorcycle Racer attempts to reclaim a dirt-track dynamo’s legendary status from nearly a century ago. Building the legend isn’t all that difficult, given Tauscher’s own biography. His life begins with a mythic rise in the Northwest, intersects with an Australian racing master (Frank Arthur) and bumps up against rivals with names like “Broadside” Vic Huxley. Thanhouser’s latest documentary was birthed from a bankers box of memorabilia passed down through his local motorcycle club, the Flying Fifteen. Before his death in 2010, the club’s historian, Peter Fritsch, kept a Tauscher archive and nominated him for induction into the Oregon Sports Hall of Fame. With this film, Thanhouser picks up the mantle of excavating a forgotten Oregon athlete and follows up on his prior motorsports documentaries, like 2016’s The Monkey and Her Driver.
GET YO UR REPS I N While local rep theaters are out of commission, we’ll be putting together weekly watchlists of films readily available to stream. Ringing in the new year is a time of reflection, of reinvention, of resolution. To celebrate the death of 2020 and the birth of 2021, here are five films that exemplify the annual lie we tell ourselves: “New Year, New Me.”
Phoenix (2014) In the aftermath of World War II, an Auschwitz survivor/cabaret singer named Nelly has facial reconstruction surgery following a disfiguring bullet wound, rendering her unrecognizable—even to her shifty husband, who may have ratted her out to the Nazis. This slow-burning, suspenseful German drama chronicles Nelly’s rise from the ashes with calculated aplomb. Criterion Channel, Google Play, iTunes, Sling TV, YouTube.
LETTERBOXD
MOTORCYCLE COWBOY: Portlander Ray Tauscher won four world racing championships in 1931.
Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) Susan Seidelman’s jaunty screwball comedy follows Roberta (Rosanna Arquette), a dissatisfied young housewife who becomes obsessed with Susan (Madonna, on the precipice of superstardom), an endlessly cool and elusive drifter whom she reads about in the personal ads. When Roberta is mistaken for Susan, a madcap adventure about identity and desire ensues. Amazon Prime, HBO, HBO Max, Hulu, iTunes, Vudu.
The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) When con man Tom Ripley (Matt Damon) is hired to bring a rich man’s son (Jude Law) home from Italy, he finds himself enamored with his target. So enamored, in fact, that he plots to steal his identity. New country, new Ripley! Amazon Prime, Google Play, HBO Max, Hulu, iTunes, Vudu, YouTube.
Gloria Bell (2018) In this English-language remake of Sebastián Lelio’s Chilean drama Gloria (2013), Julianne Moore stars as a free-spirited divorcée who spends her nights dancing in clubs around L.A. When she meets fellow divorcé Arnold (John Turturro), the two hit it off, but she soon discovers romance won’t validate her—only she can do that. Amazon Prime, Google Play, Kanopy, Vudu, YouTube.
Things to Come (2016)
SEE IT: Ray Tauscher: America’s Forgotten World Champion Motorcycle Racer streams at raytauscher.com.
Essentially the French version of Gloria Bell. A philosophy teacher’s life is upended when she loses her mom, her book deal and her cheating husband all at once. Laden with a newfound and unbridled freedom, she aims to reinvent herself in this introspective drama. Amazon Prime, Criterion Channel, Google Play, Hulu, iTunes, Sling TV, Vudu, YouTube.
MOVIES
INDIEWIRE.COM
TOP PICK OF THE WEEK
Soul
After plunging into the human mind in Inside Out and then the afterlife in Coco, Pixar Animation Studios takes us into both in Soul. It’s a psychedelic journey through the life of Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), a middle school band teacher who ascends to the “Great Beyond” on the eve of a potentially career-making jazz gig. Desperate to return to Earth, Joe strikes a bargain with 22 (Tina Fey), a cranky soul who hasn’t been assigned a body. Soul was directed by Pete Docter (Monsters Inc., Up, Inside Out), who is a master of sublime surrealism. When Joe enters the Great Beyond, we see countless souls on a staircase that extends into the cosmos—a beautifully terrifying vision of consciousness entering the void. Joe believes he doesn’t belong there, and Soul wants us to share in his desire for earthly delights like pizza, street music and fresh haircuts. The film saves some of its wonderment for Joe’s musical aspirations, but Docter seems convinced the ecstasy Joe experiences when he plays the piano before an audience can’t compare to the simple joy of watching a whirligig fall from a tree. He fails to acknowledge that passion and ambition have the power to connect human beings—and that they’re forces that fuel entrancing movies like Soul. PG. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Disney+.
Wander Darkly
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.
ALSO PLAYING The Last Hot Lick In the mid-2010s, the Pacific Northwest became a playground for director Mahalia Cohen and musicians Jaime Leopold and Jennifer Smieja, who traveled everywhere from Portland to the Painted Hills to make this exquisite emotional odyssey. Leopold—a veteran of the jazz and rock band Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks—plays Jack Willits, a guitarist whose crumbling career reignites when he teams with Bobby (Smieja), a woman whose passion for singing is matched only by her hunger for heroin. As they traverse the region, Cohen tells a tale of rising and falling artistic fortunes without indulging in the melodramatic tropes of musical biopics. There’s no room for actorly vanity in The Last Hot Lick. Each moment—from Jack combing his thin hair to Bobby apathetically pleading for forgiveness after she skips a gig—feels captured, not created. It’s a poignant film, and it became even more meaningful after Leopold’s death in 2018. To see him sing “Daddy Cut Wood Up on the Mountain,” a song he wrote about his childhood, is to see the line between performer and character vanish. The Last Hot Lick may have been the first and last film that Leopold acted in, but it’s a swan song with the weight and beauty of an entire career and is finally available to stream. NR. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Amazon Prime.
SOUL
Mank In his first movie in six years, filmmaker David Fincher (Fight Club, The Social Network) hasn’t lost his ability to beguile, fascinate and vex. Working from a screenplay by his late father, Jack Fincher, the director has concocted a superb cinematic portrait of Herman “Mank” Mankiewicz (Gary Oldman), co-writer of Citizen Kane. In 1940, a bloated Mank drunkenly dictates the script to his formidable transcriber, Rita Alexander (Lily Collins). He’s preparing the project for Orson Welles (Tom Burke) to direct, but flashbacks insinuate that Citizen Kane is powered by a personal grudge Mank holds against William Randolph Hearst (Charles Dance). Tormented by his tacit participation in a Hearst-backed smear campaign against the writer and liberal California gubernatorial candidate Upton Sinclair (Bill Nye), Mank models the megalomaniacal Charles Foster Kane on Hearst. Was Citizen Kane’s origin that simple? Hardly, but you don’t have to buy the theory to dig the movie. Beneath the seductive sheen of Erik Messerschmidt’s black-andwhite cinematography lies Fincher’s conviction that Hollywood—like the melting ice sculpture of an elephant at a party Mank attends—should be liquefied for its sins. Mank may not be cheery, but no one goes to Fincher for good vibes. Gleeful pessimism is his drug of choice, and for us, it can be an improbable and exhilarating high. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Netflix.
Adrienne and Matteo (Sienna Miller and Diego Luna) are not-sohappy new parents. They fight at home, at parties, in the car…until a head-on traffic collision cuts their final argument short. This propels Adrienne into an out-of-body experience, trapping her in a limbo where she’s forced to silently and invisibly observe the paramedics fail to revive her, and her subsequent funeral. And then she wakes up. She’s not dead, but she’s convinced she is, triggering an existential crisis that causes her to reflect on the truth behind her relationship with Matteo. This is the point where the film becomes visionary, evoking dreamy Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind-esque reveries across memory in order to pinpoint where their love began to fade. In these retrospective journeys through the most salient events of their relationship, Adrienne and her imagined version of Matteo communicate frankly about their ups and downs—something they struggled to do in the real world. Reminiscent of a less esoteric She Dies Tomorrow (another three-star 2020 release), this confident directorial debut from Tara Miele is a psychological probe into the ways we reckon with trauma, effectively blurring the malleable lines between reality and memory. R. MIA VICINO. On Demand.
Greenland The latest Gerard Butler vehicle doesn’t add much to the global disaster genre. Hell, it doesn’t add much to the year that was 2020. In fact, you might see Greenland’s exploding comets turning the sky orange and think, “I saw that color of sky this fall; do we really need to pretend this shit anymore?” Granted, the Gerry Butler industrial complex (with its unpretentious geostorms and dens of thieves) can be charming as he holds up the fading action mantle of gruff transplants like Liam Neeson and
Mel Gibson. As John Garrity, Butler plays a slightly sensitive oak of a family man, fleeing Atlanta for non-exploding pastures. This whole comet apocalypse might actually help him patch things up with the estranged missus (Morena Baccarin), assuming their diabetic son doesn’t need insulin at the worst possible time. While director Ric Roman Waugh deserves credit for illustrating just how achingly unfair any disaster scenario would be (or is) to the populace, those details don’t render Greenland particularly fun, or gripping either. In fact, it wedges the movie in a no man’s land—a Greenland if you will—between, say, The Road and Armageddon. Its best wrinkles are oddly authentic, even anti-escapist, but who comes to a Gerard Butler planetary extinction movie for the reality check? PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Amazon Prime, Google Play.
The Midnight Sky Don’t give up on George Clooney yet. He may have directed multiple duds (remember The Monuments Men or don’t), but there are flickers of greatness in The Midnight Sky, his seventh feature as a filmmaker. The film stars Clooney as the absurdly named Augustine Lofthouse, a scientist struggling to survive in the Arctic in 2049. A crisis known as “the event” has decimated Earth, forcing Lofthouse to trek to a distant antenna with enough power to warn a returning crew of astronauts not to land. The Midnight Sky, which is based on a novel by Lily Brooks-Dalton, wants to be a sci-fi riff on The Revenant, but it lacks the necessary visceral brutality—Martin Ruhe’s slick cinematography makes the Arctic look about as treacherous as a Coke commercial. Yet after searching for gravitas for over an hour, the film finds it in a climactic conversation between Clooney and Felicity Jones, who plays one of the astronauts. The scene—which unearths tender and transcendent hope in
the face of the apocalypse—may not be enough to salvage this stale slog of a movie, but it gives us a reason to root for Clooney to succeed the next time he sits in the director’s chair. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Netflix.
Wonder Woman 1984 Romantic, idealistic and ebullient, Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman is one of the most beautiful superhero films ever made. It should have been a springboard for a brilliant series, but that hope dims in Wonder Woman 1984, a garish, garbled sequel that leaves the franchise on life support. Gal Gadot returns as Diana, the Amazon princess who defends mortals from godly threats. Her newest nemesis is Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), a deranged tycoon who uses a magic rock to unleash global chaos during the Cold War (no, I’m not joking). Jenkins returned to direct 1984, but the sleek narrative momentum of the first film has vanished. For 151 minutes, we’re pummeled with clunky violence, limp lectures and Lord’s obnoxious antics (Pascal’s frantic, Jim Carrey-aping performance is excruciating to behold). By the time the film forces poor Gadot to deliver a nonsensical speech about the importance of telling the truth, you start to wonder whether Jenkins has anything meaningful left to say about Wonder Woman. She shows more interest in supporting characters like Cheetah (Kristen Wiig) and Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), but even their charisma can’t buoy a movie this bloated, exhausted and depressingly wonderless. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. HBO Max.
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MOVIES
MUSIC
Felling Big Trees
Now Hear This
Director Steve McQueen returns with Small Axe, an anthology about being Black in Britain.
H U LT S F R E D
ROLLING STONE
Listening recommendations from the past, the present, Portland and the periphery.
SMALL AXE BY BE N N E T T C A M P B E L L FE RGUS O N
In the most memorable scene from director Steve McQueen’s Shame, a man jogs through Manhattan at night. His journey is filmed in a minuteslong tracking shot, allowing us to fully savor the sight of him passing illuminated windows, then fading into the shadows. His run keeps taking him into darkness, but he is forever racing toward the light. That scene encapsulates McQueen’s ethos. He has made movies about hunger strikes (Hunger) and slavery (12 Years a Slave), but he doesn’t wallow in suffering. He faces harsh truths because he believes honesty will lead us to the promise of a better world—the promise etched on the face of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) when he is reunited with his family after more than a decade of torment in 12 Years. With Small Axe, McQueen’s five-part meditation on Black life in Britain, now streaming on Amazon Prime, there’s never been a better time to be a fan. All of his work is personal, but this is the first time he has made films that directly reflect his experience as a London-born son of Grenadian and Trinidadian parents. Here are reviews of the five installments of Small Axe, all of which are alive with confrontation and aspiration—the aspiration of a storyteller speaking from his soul.
Mangrove Mangrove takes its name from The Mangrove, a Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill that was terrorized by police for decades. When the restaurant’s owner, Frank Crichlow, protested against the repeated abuses of power, he and eight other activists were falsely accused of inciting a riot. Without the clichéd triumphalism of courtroom dramas, Mangrove re-creates the 1971 trial of the Mangrove Nine. There are soaring speeches, but the core of the film is the wounded, weathered gaze of Crichlow (Shaun Parkes)—a reminder that the Mangrove Nine won the trial but not the war: The restaurant continued to face police persecution and closed in 1992.
Lovers Rock Can one dance party drive an entire movie? McQueen gives it a shot in this poetic, imperfect film set in West London in 1980. It’s free of backstory—McQueen wants us to focus on basking in beautifully kinetic moments, like a roomful of people rocking out to Carl Douglas’ “Kung Fu Fighting.” There isn’t enough of a narrative to sustain an hourlong movie, but McQueen captures the joy of movement and the pain of stillness palpably and perfectly. 28
Willamette Week JANUARY 6, 2021 wweek.com
Red, White and Blue Early in Red, White and Blue, Leroy Logan (John Boyega) announces, “I’m thinking of joining the force.” “You’re going to be a Jedi or something?” a friend asks. It’s a cheeky nod to Finn, the swashbuckling ex-stormtrooper Boyega played in Star Wars, but we’re light years away from that galaxy. Logan was a real person—a child of Jamaican parents who joined the London police force after his father was assaulted by officers in 1983. Logan believed he could reform the organization from within, a dream that Red, White and Blue portrays as noble and naive. McQueen makes the case that the problem wasn’t a lack of people of color on the force—it was (and is) the force itself.
Alex Wheatle Alex Wheatle has written over a dozen books and was awarded an MBE—one of the classes of appointment to the Order of the British Empire—for services to literature, but McQueen’s brief cinematic biography is not about that Alex. It’s about the Alex who was jailed for his part in the 1981 Brixton uprising and found a literary mentor in his cellmate, a Rastafarian named Simeon who changed his life by introducing him to The Black Jacobins, a history of the Haitian Revolution. McQueen tells the tale with fluidity and compassion, but it can’t help feeling unfinished. Now that the man Wheatle was has been immortalized onscreen, someone should make a movie about the man he became.
Education Imagine you’ve been forced into a school deemed “educationally subnormal”—an institution where a teacher’s (very bad) performance of “House of the Rising Sun” counts as a lesson. That’s the fate that befalls 12-year-old Kingsley (Kenyah Sandy) in Education. It is inspired not only by McQueen’s childhood, but by countless stories of children of African and Caribbean descent whose lives were tarnished by criminally bad British schools. The injustices onscreen make you want to shriek with fury, but McQueen isn’t simply asking for your rage. He’s begging you to understand that education and liberation are often one and the same. SEE IT: Small Axe streams on Amazon Prime.
MF DOOM BY DA N IEL B ROMF IEL D
@bromf3
SOMETHING OLD News of the passing of two reclusive veterans of their respective genres came last month: ambient composer Harold Budd, 84, and masked rapper MF DOOM, 49. Budd’s discography boasts gems across four decades, but the best showcase for his architectural vision of ambient music is The Pavilion of Dreams (1978), produced by Brian Eno. And if you haven’t heard the stoned, strangely beautiful sample trip of DOOM’s magnum opus Madvillainy (2004) yet, get on that.
SOMETHING NEW Lindstrøm and Prins Thomas’ III is their first collaboration since 2007’s II, which was arguably the crown jewel of the Norwegian space-disco movement. The latest album is more than a worthy follow-up. Both explore the intersection of dance music and the ambitious ’70s definition of rock, but where II was woolly and weed-scented, III is a gleaming, perfect product with a welcome hint of audiophile fetishism.
SOMETHING LOCAL Expanded from her Bisexual Space Magic EP, local artist Amie Waters’ Cosmos of the Soul is a “cosmic synthwave epic” that visualizes her journey of self-discovery as a nonbinary trans woman. Her synths light up eagerly like the control panels on a journey across the stars. It’s like the soundtrack to the best, bravest, queerest ’80s action movie that never existed.
SOMETHING ASKEW Joshua Chuquimia Crampton is one of the country’s most interesting new experimental guitarists. Listening to his New Year’s Day release, 4, is like watching a musician perform with a thought balloon over his head. On one level, we’re involved in what his fingers are doing on the frets and what his feet are doing on the pedals. On another, we’re engaging with the weird, volcanic architecture his music generates.
FLASHBACK
THIS WEEK IN 2003
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ART N’ COMICS!
JACK KENT’S
Jack draws exactly what he sees n’ hears from the streets. IG @sketchypeoplepdx | kentcomics.com
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Willamette Week JANUARY 6, 2021 wweek.com
JONESIN’
by Matt Jones
"Must Be '21 to Enter"--happy new year to you!
Week of January 14
©2021 Rob Brezsny
ARIES (March 21-April 19) As you ripen into a more fully embodied version of yourself, you will summon ever-greater discrimination about where to seek your inspiration. I trust that you will increasingly divest yourself of any tendency you might have to play around with just any old mediocre fire. More and more, you will be drawn to high-quality blazes that provide just the right amount of heat and light—neither too much nor too little. And you will steadfastly refrain from jumping into the flames, as glamorously dramatic as that might seem—and instead be a master of deft maneuvers that enable you to get the exact energy you need.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Denstu is a major Japanese advertising agency headquartered in Tokyo. Annually since 1925, its new employees and freshly promoted executives have carried out a company ritual: climbing 12,388-foothigh Mount Fuji, Japan's tallest peak. The theme of the strenuous workout is this: "We are going to conquer the symbol that represents Japan more than anything else. And, once we do that, it will signify that we can do anything." In anticipation of what I suspect will be a year of career gains for you, Taurus, I invite you to do the following: Sometime in the next six weeks, go out in nature and perform an equivalent feat.
GEMINI (May 21-June20)
ACROSS
49 1994 and 1997 U.S. Open winner Ernie
26 Half a 360
1 "21 _ _ _" (2003 Sean Penn film)
50 Icicle lights locale
29 Starting on
6 Go on and on
53 "Skyfall" actor Rapace 55 Place to play Twenty-One
27 Neutral, blah color 30 Less numerous
62 Penguins' milieu
32 Murphy of 2021's "Coming 2 America"
14 Quick text that's usually abbreviated even more
63 Former "Whose Line" host Carey
33 Former One Direction member Horan
15 Pilot's prefix
64 "Spunk" author Zora _ _ _ Hurston
34 Markets successfully
66 Present prefix
40 "Back to the Future" director Robert
10 1982 movie with a 2010 sequel
16 Mandlikova of tennis 17 "Raging Bull" boxer Jake La _ _ _ 18 Person, place, or thing, in grammar
67 "Rondo _ _ _ Turca" (Mozart piece) 68 Casual goodbyes
37 Public TV chef Ming _ _ _
41 $100 bill, in old slang
19 One of many for "Game of Thrones"
69 Calamities
42 Fleet-footed heroine of Greek myth
70 Bigfoot's Tibetan cousin
47 It's milked in Tibet
20 Band whose album "No Need to Argue" features the track "Twenty One" (followed by their biggest hit, "Zombie")
71 Singer with the Grammywinning album "21"
51 Truman declaration of 9/2/45
DOWN
52 Country-blues guitarist Steve
23 _ _ _ de los Muertos
1 Workout facility
54 Draw _ _ _ on (take aim at)
24 Largest continent
2 Square or cube follower
55 Waxing target
25 Trivia locale, once (and hopefully in the future)
3 Short story-writer?
56 Chauffeur-driven vehicle
4 Inaudible on Zoom, maybe
28 "Frozen" snowman
5 Full of legroom
57 Rice who writes of vampires
31 "Great British Bake Off" fixtures
6 "Munich" star Eric
35 Ending for suburban 36 Rattled 38 Actress Falco of "The Sopranos"
7 Florida explorer Ponce de ___ 8 Caribbean island near Venezuela 9 Skeletal makeup
58 Ancient British Isles settler 59 "The Bridge on the River _ _ _" 60 Hurrying, maybe 61 Airline to Jerusalem 65 Language suffix
Today I received a new email from a Gemini friend who lives in London. It was date-stamped January 15, 2015. Weird! In it, she talked about applying for a new job at a publishing company. That was double weird, because February 2015 was in fact the time she had gotten the editing job that she still has. Her email also conveyed other details about her life that I knew to be old history. So why did it arrive now, six years late? I called her on the phone to see if we could unravel the mystery. In the end we concluded that her email had time-traveled in some inexplicable way. I predict that a comparable event or two will soon happen in your life, Gemini. Blasts from the past will pop in as if yesterday were today.
CANCER (June 21-July 22) Eugene Sue (1804–1857) was a popular French author whose stories often offered sympathetic portrayals of the harsh living conditions endured by people of the lower economic class. Writing generously about those downtrodden folks made him quite wealthy. I'd love to see you employ a comparable strategy in the coming year. What services might you perform that would increase your access to money and resources? How could you benefit yourself by helping and uplifting others?
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) The beautiful and luxurious fabric known as silk comes from cocoons spun by insect larvae. Sadly for the creatures that provide the raw material, they're usually killed by humans harvesting their handiwork— either by being stabbed or boiled alive. However, there is a special kind of silk in which manufacturers spare the lives of their benefactors. The insects are allowed to mature into moths and escape. I propose that we make them your spirit creatures in the coming weeks. It's an excellent time for you to take an inventory of everything you do, and evaluate how well it upholds the noble principle of "Do no harm."
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) "Any time that is not spent on love is wasted," declared the Italian poet Torquato Tasso. Although I am sympathetic with his sentiment, I can't agree that acts of love are the only things ever worth doing. Sometimes it's healthy to be motivated by anger or sadness or skepticism, for example. But I do suspect the coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to be in intense devotion to Tasso's counsel. All the important successes you achieve will be rooted in an intention to express love and compassion.
39 1950s news involving Charles Van Doren and "Twenty-One"
10 Poem with the line "Darkness there and nothing more"
43 Primal calling
11 "Mr. Robot" actor Malek
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
44 Holiday spread
12 "The joke's _ _ _!"
45 Kind of wind or will
13 Some House votes
46 Opposite combatant
21 "Lord of the Flies" leader
I heard a story about how a music aficionado took a Zen Buddhist monk to a performance of Beethoven's *Symphony No. 5*. The monk wasn't impressed.
48 "Live!" cohost for 20+ years
22 2014 World Cup final city 25 Irritated state
©2021 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 #JNZ990.
last week’s answers
"Not enough silence!" he complained. I'm puzzled by that response. If the monk were referring to a busy intersection in a major city, I might agree with him, or the cacophony of a political argument among fanatics on Facebook. But to want more silence in one of history's greatest pieces of music? That's perverse. With this in mind, Libra, and in accordance with astrological omens, I encourage you to seek extra protection from useless noise and commotion during the coming weeks—even as you hungrily seek out rich sources of beautiful information, sound, and art.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) "Some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal," wrote Scorpio author Albert Camus. If you're one of those folks, I'm happy to inform you that you have cosmic permission to relax. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to explore the pleasures of NOT being conventional, standard, ordinary, average, routine, prosaic, or common. As you expansively practice non-normalcy, you will enhance your health, sharpen your wits, and clarify your decisions.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Our lives tend to be shaped by the stories about ourselves that we create and harbor in our imaginations. The adventures we actually experience, the problems we actually face, are often (not always) in alignment with the tales we tell ourselves about our epic fates. And here's the crux of the matter: We can change the stories we tell ourselves. We can discard tales that reinforce our pain, and dream up revised tales that are more meaningful and pleasurable. I believe 2021 will be an excellent time for you to attend to this fun work. Your assignment: Be a self-nurturing storyteller.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Capricorn author Edgar Allen Poe named "four conditions for happiness: life in the open air; love of another human being; freedom from all ambition; creation." I'm accomplished in three of those categories, but a failure in being free of all ambitions. In fact, I'm eternally delighted by all the exciting creative projects I'm working on. I'm VERY ambitious. What about you, Capricorn? I'm going to contradict Poe and speculate that your happiness in the coming months will require you to be at least somewhat ambitious. That's what the planetary omens are telling me. So what are the best goals and dreams for you to be ambitious about?
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) It's time to launch Operation Supple Watchdog. That means you should be tenderly vigilant as you take extra good care of everyone and everything that provide you with meaning and sustenance. It means you should exercise rigorous but good-humored discernment about any oppressive or demeaning ideas that are flying around. You should protect and preserve the vulnerable parts of your life, but do so with toughminded compassion, not ornery overreactions. Be skeptical, but warm; breezily resilient but always ready to stand up for what's right. (P.S. The better you shield yourself against weird surprises, the more likely it is you'll attract interesting surprises.)
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) The atoms that compose your body have existed for billions of years. Originally created by a star, they have been part of many forms before you. But they are exactly the same in structure as they have ever been. So in a very real sense, you are billions of years old. Now that you know that, how do you feel? Any different? Stronger? More expansive? More eternal? I bring these thoughts to your attention, Pisces, because 2021 will be an excellent year for you to come to a more profound and detailed understanding of your true nature. I hope you will regularly meditate on the possibility that your soul is immortal, that your identity is not confined to this historical era, that you have been alive and will be alive for far longer than you've been taught to believe.
HOMEWORK: What's the first adventure you will embark on when the pandemic subsides? 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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