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WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 47, ISSUE 12 Kyle Brewster sprayed a can of hornet pesticide at anti-fascists. 6
Pok Pok is gone, but Andy Ricker ’s other restaurant has just been revived. 18
In four years, Portland fell behind 63 other cities as a desirable real estate market. 6
Unfortunately, Tropicale’s cocktails to go do not come in hollowed-out pineapples. 19
A Portland woman arrested at the U.S. Capitol is an Instagram influencer posting sponsored photos of shampoo. 8
The best weed strain for catfishing MAGA dudes on Bumble is First Class Funk. 20
Oregon seniors will get COVID-19 vaccines two weeks after schoolteachers. 9
The Randy Newman of R&B just released an album called Heaux Tales. 21
“What happens in Sandy doesn’t stay in Sandy.” 12
People are now buying tickets to talk to strangers on the phone. 21
The earliest known recording of Allen Ginsberg reading “Howl” was captured at Reed College in 1956. 16
The last Blockbuster does indeed stock The Last Blockbuster. 23
There’s a reality show about counselors working at a summer camp that turns into an outdoors-themed nightclub on the weekend. 17
The Australian version of Joe Exotic now manages a failing mall in Jasper, Ala. 24
ON THE COVER:
OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:
Democrat Susheela Jayapal and Republican Stan Pulliam, photos by Wesley Lapointe.
Kyle Brewster, convicted in the 1988 killing of Mulugeta Seraw, fought Jan. 6 at the Oregon Capitol.
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DIALOGUE Following protests and public outcry, Powell’s Books announced last week it won’t carry conservative activist Andy Ngo’s new book in its stores but will continue to sell it online. Ngo’s media coverage of Portland protests has been repeatedly criticized for exaggerated and selective reporting, and for sharing the mug shots and personal information of protesters. His book, Unmasked: Inside Antifa’s Radical Plan to Destroy Democracy, is due out from Hachette next month. Powell’s announcement it would not promote the book and would sell it only online did little to deter public dissent or protests outside the store on West Burnside Street. Here’s what our readers had to say: mycentstoo via week.com: “We’ve now come full circle. Remember the good old days when it was the Bible thumpers and do-gooders who wanted books removed from shelves? I really don’t know why the two extremes are fighting with each other. They are the same.” Justin Siewert via Facebook.com: “Just because he wrote a book doesn’t mean they have to sell it. Yes, he certainly has free speech and can write and get it published. It is not his right that they sell it.” Circe2020 via wweek.com: “Ngo is a troll and distorts facts. And Powell’s should carry his book in-store if they carry others like his. They should not give in to bullies on either side of the political spectrum.” Luke Smith via Facebook: “Jokes aside, I think this is some wishy-washy stuff Powell’s is putting
Dr. Know
Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
@TheBots567483 via Twitter: “Look, Powell’s is in some ways problematic. They carry The Turner Diaries online as well. And while I am no fan of Ngo, I think it’s within their right, and I can see how they would feel it is their duty to stock such an item.” Loren Guerriero via Facebook: “Don’t forget that grievance artists like Ngo feed on attention from their persecution narrative. There is nothing interesting about this man other than his success at trolling left-wing activists. Ignore him and his power disappears.” 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
Today on the Tilikum Crossing, I watched a fire department boat cut the anchors and haul away two “ghost” boats. There are dozens of these boats—some inhabited, some not—all along the banks of the Willamette. What is the fate of these boats? —Damn the Torpedoes I sense a note of wistful longing in your letter that suggests you think you may be just a phone call away from a free boat. Before you get carried away with fantasies of cavorting on the poop deck of your very own cutter-rigged sloop, allow me to pour cold seawater on your nautical dreams. The good news is that each of these ghost vessels has a story to tell—stories as wide-ranging and varied as the sea itself! The bad news is that almost all those stories begin with someone like you saying, “Hey, free boat!” and end with a rudderless hulk moldering in the shallows. You see, Torpedoes, boats are like children: Any asshole can have one, it’s taking care of them that kills you. Like children, even the good ones cost a fortune to maintain, and if—as is likely— yours turns out to be one of the shitty ones, you can pretty much kiss your retirement goodbye. Like irresponsible parents, people who take on watercraft they can’t afford to look after have a 4
out. It’s one thing to pretend this is all a big hypothetical trolley problem where Ngo has a right to put out a book somewhere in the world, but that’s not what is being discussed in this article. What’s on the line is a private business seeking out and choosing to sell a book for their own enrichment, as well as the enrichment and signal boosting of a white nationalist grifter. This isn’t a historic document, there is no extra context Powell’s is providing, but they would be getting a paycheck for sales and distribution. This guy has done a lot to undermine and de-legitimize the voices of Black America and the left in his gross little existence the past few years. I’ll be blunt: I don’t think you can stock Ngo’s book and, at the same time, mean it when you say ‘Black lives matter.’ It saddens me to see them take this stance.”
tendency to just walk away, leaving the state holding the bag. Here the analogy begins to break down, since you can’t carve up derelict children and cart the parts off to be recycled (to my mother’s undying chagrin). Nevertheless, that’s the likely fate of the boats you’re describing. The Oregon State Marine Board delegates the responsibility for dealing with abandoned and derelict vessels, or ADVs, to various enforcement agencies. Portland Fire & Rescue is not one of these agencies unless the vessel poses a navigational hazard, as happened to be the case with the boats you saw. It doesn’t really matter which agency is hauling those ADVs off, though; they’d all rather destroy them than give you one. Removing a single ADV can cost the state thousands (or even tens of thousands) of dollars. The last thing they need is for some yahoo to put the damned thing back in the water only to wander off when he gets distracted by some small, shiny object. Save us all some trouble; restrict your cavorting to the dock. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.
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INTERSTATE 205
A WAVE OF COVID DEATHS HITS EASTERN OREGON PRISON: Five inmates at Two Rivers Correctional Institution in Umatilla died between Jan. 14 and 18 after testing positive for the coronavirus, according to the Oregon Department of Corrections. That brings the total number of COVID-related prison deaths statewide to 33. The five men who died were all 55 years of age or older. To date, 639 inmates at Two Rivers have tested positive for the virus and 304 cases are active, making the prison the center of the largest COVID outbreak in the state, according to the Oregon Health Authority. (There were 1,683 inmates at Two Rivers as of Dec. 1, 2020.) So far, more than 3,000 inmates—or almost 25% of the state’s total adult prison population—have tested positive for the virus, as well as over 750 DOC employees. “What we do know presently is mask wearing wasn’t happening. Social distancing can’t happen,” says Juan Chavez, a lawyer who represents Oregon prisoners. “That combo will lead to this kind of mass casualty.” COUNCIL REJECTS HOTEL APPEAL: In one of the most contentious issues to come before the new Portland City Council, commissioners voted unanimously Jan. 14 to reject an appeal by Pearl Neighbors for Integrity in Design to block development of a 23-story Hyatt Place hotel at Northwest 12th Avenue and Flanders Street. PNID objected to the building’s height and its impact on the Flanders Greenway, and said the project would conflict with design guidelines and an adjacent historic district. Mayor Ted Wheeler noted the height is allowed under the Central City 2035 plan and is part of the city’s commitment to land-use planning. “The deal we’ve struck is increased density within the urban growth boundary,” Wheeler said. PNID president Patricia Cliff said the council’s rejection of the appeal was “an indication of
the preference that the new City Council will be giving to developers rather than interests of the community in these stressful and tenuous times.” DEMOCRAT SIGNS ONTO BILL BLOCKING HIGHWAY TOLLING: Rep. Mark Meek (D-Oregon City) has signed onto a bill to prohibit tolling on Interstate 205 unless the funds go toward increasing the number of lanes on the freeway. House Bill 2629 is sponsored by Rep. Christine Drazan (R-Canby), the House minority leader, along with five other Republicans, but Meek says it’s a bipartisan concern in Clackamas County. He opposes congestion pricing, saying it would harm his district. “It will cost more for working families to get to work and even go shopping or go to schools,” Meek says, adding he believes highway tolling will move car traffic into residential neighborhoods. DOJ SETTLES HARASSMENT CLAIMS FOR $190,000: The Oregon Department of Justice reached a settlement Jan. 14 with former senior assistant attorney general Heather Van Meter, who filed a tort claim notice in June 2020 alleging she was harassed in the workplace by Steve Lippold, the department’s chief trial counsel, and Marc Abrams, the assistant attorney in charge of employment litigation for the state. According to the settlement agreement, obtained by WW, the state will pay Van Meter $190,000 for “damages on account of personal injuries.” Van Meter is represented by Portland attorney Sean Riddell, who said, “Ms. VanMeter appreciates the ODOJ’s willingness to resolve her claim.” The DOJ issued the following statement: “We are pleased that this matter has come to a satisfactory resolution, and we wish Ms. Van Meter all the best in her future endeavors.”
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Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
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AUSTIN JOHNSON
NEWS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
SPOTTED
TRENDING
RED STATE: A photo from the Jan. 6 rally shows Kyle Brewster with blood and Milk of Magnesia streaming down his face.
Kyle Brewster
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Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
Portland Is So Over A key indicator of real estate investors’ interest in Portland shows a precipitous decline. BY N IGEL JAQU ISS
njaquiss@wweek.com
At Jan. 5 budget meeting for the city’s Bureau of Development Services, economists advising the bureau on the outlook for new construction presented dismal news: Portland has gone from one of the most desirable locations in the country just four years ago to near the bottom of an 80-city ranking. That ranking was compiled by the Urban Land Institute in a report titled “Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2021.” It shows that a survey of more than 1,300 lenders, investors, developers and other national real estate experts found Portland the third-most desirable real estate market in the nation in 2017. For 2021, it now ranks 66th of 80 cities on the list (see graph below). In a Jan. 8 letter to the Portland City Council, eight local business organizations amplified that finding and the grim assessment of two economists who advise BDS. Tom Potiowsky, formerly the state economist and now chair of the economics department at Portland State University, said at a recent BDS meeting, according to the letter, that Portland was unique: He could not think of another example of “an area that has so quickly fallen into disfavor.” A second economist, Mike Wilkerson, director of analytics at the consulting firm ECONorthwest, echoed Potiowsky, saying that investors’ lack of confidence will stunt the city’s rebound and predicted Portland “will have an impediment to growth until that’s resolved.” That plunge in confidence appears to stem from factors that include widely broadcast images of protests and nearby wildfires. It may be exacerbated by the documented flight of businesses from the city’s core and factors such as the cost of property insurance rising 30% to 50% amid repeated vandalism. But it also fits into a debate over the future of the Bureau of Development Services. Business groups have implored the City Council to resist cutting the budget of BDS, which depends on new permit fees for its funding. The bureau is looking at a 17% budget cut next year, which would mean eliminating 60 of its 358 employees.
Business groups say that’s mistake. Their argument: If investors consider coming back to Portland, a bare-bones permitting agency will hamstring new development. “Significant BDS layoffs threaten to touch off a downward spiral, reducing service levels and increasing permitting timelines, both of which create uncertainty that can hamper recovery in the housing and office development and construction industries,” the letter says. “Slashing BDS’s workforce and hindering permit processing will only reinforce investors’ concerns about the Portland market.” “Everyone agrees Portland is facing challenges—as are many cities around the nation,” says Mayor Ted Wheeler’s spokesman, Jim Middaugh. “That said, Portland remains a great place to live, work, and invest.” Middaugh added that Wheeler and BDS Commissioner Dan Ryan acknowledge developers’ concerns. “We must keep BDS strong to ensure continuity of permitting services through the market cycles that will roll through our economy during the next few years,” Middaugh says. “The mayor looks forward to partnering with Commissioner Ryan and BDS director Rebecca Esau as they develop and propose citywide solutions.”
Portland Falls From Favor: A key indicator of national real estate investors’ sentiment shows Portland plummeting from near the top of 80 U.S. cities. 80 CITIES
Among the right-wing protesters brawling outside the Oregon Capitol on Jan. 6 was a Portland white supremacist who aided in the most notorious hate killing in recent Oregon history. Kyle Brewster, 51, was one of three racist skinheads who attacked a group of Ethiopian immigrants in Southeast Portland on Nov. 13, 1988. While Brewster fought with a 28-year-old airport bus driver named Mulugeta Seraw, his fellow white supremacist Ken Mieske repeatedly swung a baseball bat into Seraw’s skull. Mieske kept hitting Seraw while Brewster, then 19, kicked him with steel-toed boots. Mieske pleaded guilty to murder and Brewster pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in Seraw’s death. Released from prison in 2002, Brewster went back behind bars in 2008 for violating his parole by associating with members of the white supremacist group Volksfront. Except for a few social media posts supporting President Donald Trump, Brewster then remained out of sight until the past year. But on Jan. 6, as Trump loyalists stormed Congress, Brewster joined Proud Boys and other right-wing figures at a rally in Salem. A WW correspondent says he observed Brewster brawling with leftist counterprotesters in a melee on the Capitol lawn. Brewster was also photographed donning a respirator mask and carrying a can of hornet and wasp pesticide, which he sprayed at left-wingers during the clash. Amid the fighting, Brewster and at least three other rightwing brawlers allegedly tackled a single counterprotester and briefly beat that person. Brewster emerged from the dog pile with a bleeding head wound. He attempted to pursue the retreating counterprotesters, but was pulled back by several of his pro-Trump cohorts before troopers with the Oregon State Police ran out from the Capitol building to separate the two sides. The Portland anti-fascist organization Rose City Antifa first identified Brewster online Jan. 9. On his Facebook page, Brewster admitted to attending the Capitol rally, replying to activists who called him a racist and a murderer. “Myself i am racist or racial or whatever you want to call it and i dont give a fuck what anybody thinks about it,” Brewster wrote on Facebook on Jan. 13. “And yep, i was part of a three on three fight with non white immigrants to this country and no part of me is sorry, remorseful or regretful about that. So yeah, racist murderer, all that. Now what? Your ideas are still foul.” Brewster did not respond to WW’s requests for comment. TESS RISKI, AARON MESH and JUSTIN YAU.
IN THE BASEMENT: Events of the past year left Portland’s reputation in tatters.
PORTLAND’S RANKING AMONG
A Portland man convicted in the killing of Mulugeta Seraw brawls at the Capitol.
1 20 40 60 80
2017
2020
2021
Source: Urban Land Institute
NEWS C O U R T S E Y O F M U LT N O M A H C O U N T Y
PRIORITIES
FINDING
Office of Mayor Ted Wheeler City of Portland DATE:
January 12, 2021
TO:
Dan Ryan, Commissioner
FROM:
Ted Wheeler, Mayor
RE:
Bureau and Liaison Assignments
As I look ahead to 2021, I am very excited to work with you and with our new colleagues on behalf of our community.
MAYOR’S ORDERS: to work.
Portlanders expect and deserve for their City leaders to develop and advance aTime shared to agenda get that is reflective of their values. Our unique form of government presents an opportunity to leverage our collective authority, platform, and leadership to make real progress, quickly, on shared goals. As we have discussed, I look forward to working with you and our colleagues to take advantage of this opportunity.
Nitty Gritty
I have shared that livability, homelessness, and safety are top priorities for me. Thank you for Bureau assignment TedI amWheeler sharing your feedback,memos and for talking withshow me about yourMayor interests and priorities. grateful for your partnership in this important work, and for your leadership with the following bureaus is focused on Paranoid Park and food carts. and liaison responsibilities: • Portland Housing Bureau (PHB) In the run-up to his narrow November Square is a test case for the ability of city • Bureau of Development Services (BDS) reelection victory, Mayor apol- bureaus to work together. “The memos will • Joint Ted Office Wheeler of Homeless Services • Rose Festival Foundation ogized for going it alone too often in his first help us focus,” Schmanski says. • Portland Children’s Levy term and promised more collaboration and Here’s what the mayor wrote: • Home Forward concrete results if he•won a second Multnomah Countyterm. Animal Control A series of memos WheelerYouth wrote show Wheeler to Ryan, commissioner of the • Multnomah Commission • Royal Rosarians both what collaboration looks like—at least Bureau of Development Services: • A Home For Everyone (with Mayor Wheeler) in part, telling colleagues what he needs from My goal is to protect Portland from the worst them—and highlights what Wheeler wants economic impacts of the recession, and help out of the next four years. our economy recover quickly, equitably, On Jan. 12, Wheeler wrote to his four City and sustainably by supporting the unique Council colleagues—two of whom, Commis- aspects of Portland’s economy (for example, sioners Carmen Rubio and Mingus Mapps, food carts) and the entrepreneurs who are took office this month while one, Commis- its heart and soul. I ask that you work with sioner Dan Ryan, assumed his post in Sep- Director Esau, other permitting bureaus, tember. and me to develop and propose emergency Perhaps because he’s working with such steps to speed up permit approval across all an inexperienced crew (the fourth com- categories. missioner, Jo Ann Hardesty, won election in 2018), Wheeler issued more prescriptive Wheeler to Hardesty on permitting and guidance than City Hall staff can recall him Mapps on the Bureau of Environmental handing out in previous years. Services and the Portland Water Bureau: The granular detail of Wheeler’s instruc- And I ask that you continue to seek innovations emphasize a key goal: making down- tive solutions to the public health restrictown Portland a place where people want to tions which have hampered our local retail shop and dine, sooner rather than later. industry—safe outdoor dining, festival The mayor told each of the four com- streets, food cart pods, and others. missioners his top priorities: “livability, homelessness and safety.” Within that, he Wheeler to Rubio, the parks commisoffered some specifics. He wants Ryan, the sioner, and Hardesty, who oversees the city’s point person on housing, to pursue Portland Bureau of Transportation: options for reducing people sleeping on the O’Bryant Square reopening: O’Bryant Square streets, including “additional private sector is fenced off and inaccessible to immediate partnerships, safe camp zones, and increased neighbors and visitors to downtown. [Portacquisition of facilities.” land Parks & Recreation], Bureau of TransAnd he wants Hardesty to move aggres- portation, the Portland Parks Foundation, sively on Portland Street Response, the pilot and community stakeholders have been program aimed at a safer, more effective loosely coordinated in the work to stabilize approach to 911 calls involving Portlanders the block, bring the fence down, reopen the experiencing homelessness or mental illness. space, and move toward a long-term vision. As Oregon Public Broadcasting first report- There are a number of complexities which ed, Wheeler asked Hardesty to “find ways to have slowed the work: restrictions associated move more quickly toward implementation. with the property, the multibureau coordiIn particular, I ask that you consider creative nation required to advance the capital work, staffing models which may be more cost-ef- scarcity of resources. I ask that you partner fective and faster to establish.” with Commissioner Hardesty to ensure that Beyond those big-picture goals, Wheeler’s PPR and PBOT work closely together to fixated on two small-bore goals important advance the project and move quickly toward to the business interests that supported his an interim solution to bring the fence down. reelection: reopening a troubled downtown NIGEL JAQUISS. park and bolstering food carts. Wheeler’s deputy chief of staff, Sonya Schmanski, who oversaw the memos, says the goal was to coordinate council resources. She adds that Wheeler considers food carts a vital part of Portland’s culture and that O’Bryant
DRIVING CHANGE: Multnomah County health workers at a drive-thru COVID-19 testing clinic in North Portland.
The Pulse Oximeter
A common blood oxygen test fails to detect the worst effects of COVID-19 in many Black patients. A pulse oximeter measures blood oxygen levels and is one of the key ways to determine how serious someone’s case of COVID-19 is. But it’s not always a racially equitable device. It can produce inaccurate results for people with darker skin tones. And we know that thanks to an Oregonian. THE FINDING: Michael Sjoding, a pulmonary physician and professor based in Michigan and originally from Salem, Ore., conducted a study on the device, which was published in December. His findings were first noted by the Salem Reporter. The results, which analyzed white and Black ICU patients, revealed that compared to white patients, Black patients had hidden and dangerously low oxygen levels in their blood not detected by a pulse oximetry device at nearly three times the rate of white patients. “The main difference with our paper is, we really focused on the situation when the pulse oximeter was reading normally,” Sjoding says. “Our paper was the first one to show that in this range of oxygen levels, which seem to be normal, the pulse oximeter was potentially missing low oxygen levels more often in Black patients.” WHY IT MATTERS: Sjoding recognized the increasing significance of these tests amid the spread of the COVID-19 virus, which attacks the lungs. But finding an alternative to the oximeter isn’t easy. The test uses a painless device that attaches to the fingertip. The alternative is an arterial blood gas test that draws blood directly from an artery, which is a more invasive and painful procedure. “I wouldn’t advocate for the arterial blood gas test. It’s riskier to draw blood from an artery,” Sjoding says. “The technology needs to change so there’s no more bias. Conversations I’ve had with manufacturers is that there is a way to change the technology. That, by far,
would be the best solution.” Dr. Gopal Allada, an Oregon Health & Science University associate professor and pulmonary specialist, says he’s been having ongoing conversations with his colleagues and students since the study came out. “Within a week after [the study published], I was working in the ICU and we were taking care of a brown person and we were reflecting,” Allada says. “It triggers a lot of conversations within people who use the tool.” The information was disseminated to his division shortly after publication. Allada says the concept has been proven; therefore, further research in Oregon is not exactly the answer. Sjoding doesn’t think so either: “I think there’s no reason to think that the findings would be different.” Dr. Jill Ginsberg, director of North by Northeast, a Portland health care center dedicated to Black health, says patients should trust their at-home readings, and if oxygen levels ever drop, they should check with a health care provider regardless of their skin tone. A critical factor is having enough trust in one’s doctor to ask questions, which can be a challenge in Oregon, where there’s a lack of racial diversity in the medical field. “It’s a limitation of technology—if our health care system wasn’t racist, we would understand that when we use this technology,” Ginsberg says. Sjoding’s study came after he noticed more Black patients being admitted into hospitals than usual as the pandemic emerged. “Now that people are aware of the issue, doctors can be aware that there may be circumstances where it’s misread. I would advise doctors to keep this in mind,” Sjoding says. “There’s a long history of disparities in health care. This is just another example.” LATISHA JENSEN.
Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
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CHRIS NESSETH
NEWS
Social Capitol ABANDON SHIP: Malimon organized Portland’s “Boaters for Trump” event in August 2020.
Kristina Malimon was the social media-savvy future of Oregon Republicans. Then she got a little too famous. BY TE SS R I S K I
tess@wweek.com
Kristina Malimon was everything the Oregon Republican
Party had been praying for. Last spring, the 28-year-old Southeast Portland financial adviser began speaking at Oregon conservative events, according to her social media accounts. Born in Moldova, she told a story of her family’s escape from communism to the U.S.—a welcome rejoinder to Rose City socialists. At those events, Malimon brushed shoulders with plenty of other Oregon Republicans. In fact, it would be hard not to notice her: She often dresses as if she’s attending a black-tie wedding, even when everyone else around her is wearing jeans and flannel shirts. “She is such an amazing young woman,” says Jo Rae Perkins, a former GOP nominee for U.S. Senate who publicly subscribes to the QAnon conspiracy theory. “She blows me away. She is so articulate and smart. And she’s the daughter of an immigrant.” Most importantly, Malimon was social media savvy in sharing her devotion to Jesus and Donald Trump. Her Instagram page includes videos of her and others falsely claiming that Trump won the 2020 presidential election by a “landslide” and a photo of Trump overlaid with the words “One of God’s Finest Warriors,” juxtaposed with images of Bible verses, fashion shoots in Portland high-rises, and sponsored posts for hand cream, phone accessories, activewear and shampoo. Then Malimon became really famous—just not in a way Oregon Republicans wanted to be associated with. On Jan. 6, Malimon was arrested in Washington, D.C., following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. She now faces criminal charges along with her mother, Yevgeniya, for “unlawful entry on public property” after the city’s mayor instituted a citywide curfew. Court records show Malimon and her mother were with four other women who refused to depart from the Peace Circle monument on the east side of the National Mall, in between the Capitol Reflection Pool and the U.S. Capitol Building. Beginning at 7:15 pm, a police officer issued three warnings to leave. All six women “did not obey the warnings,” court records say. “They were stopped and placed under arrest for violation of mayor’s curfew.” There’s no evidence Malimon ever set foot in the Capitol. But her Jan. 6 arrest launched Malimon into the public eye. National media outlets seized on her role as an organizer of a Portland “Boaters for Trump” parade that sank a family’s boat in the Willamette River last summer. But any biography beyond that was a blank. That’s because few of her colleagues in Portland’s conservative circles seem to know much about her. 8
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“Now that I think of it, I don’t know what she did before she came to the Young Republicans,” says Stephen Lloyd, chairman of the Multnomah County Republican Party and the Oregon Young Republicans. Malimon is a member of both, and the vice chair and national committeewoman for the latter. She did not respond to requests for comment. Her family declined to speak to this reporter when she arrived at their house. Lloyd says he also hasn’t heard from Malimon since her arrest. “She’s unreachable. She might as well be on Mars, for all I know,” Lloyd says. “I’ve been trying to get ahold of her ever since. I want to talk to her more than you.” Malimon’s involvement in Oregon conservative politics has been growing for the past year, primarily through social media channels like Facebook and Instagram, where she has nearly 26,000 followers. Malimon, a longtime Portlander, fashioned herself into an Instagram influencer whose floor-length, gem-colored gowns and stiletto heels offered a break from the bearded, rifle-toting far-right groups that flourish in the Pacific Northwest, like Patriot Prayer and the Proud Boys. By contrast, Malimon’s carefully curated social media accounts present anti-democratic extremism through a glamorous filter. In October, Malimon reposted one video titled “The Great Awakening of America”—a calling card for QAnon—and, in July, an infographic about child sex trafficking alongside hashtags synonymous with the conspiracy theory, including #savethechildren, #q, #wwg1wga, #pizzagate, #pedogate2020, #wayfairgate and #pedoring. In another post, Malimon posted a picture of herself holding a pink Bible next to the now-infamous photo of Trump holding up a Bible at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Lafayette Square in June 2020. “Figures like Malimon present a friendlier face to MAGA even though their ideologies are often baseless and anti-democratic,” says Kate Bitz of Western States Center, which tracks extremism in the Pacific Northwest. “That dynamic is driving the entry [into] conspiracy theories, and it broadens anti-democratic trends.” It wasn’t until December 2019 that Malimon uploaded her first overtly political post to Instagram, a photo of herself at a Turning Point USA event in South Florida; before that, her page was mainly about God. Three months prior to that first political post, in September 2019, she made her first federal political contribution to the Republican political action committee WinRed, Federal Election Commission filings show. Since then, she’s donated over $3,000 to PACs supporting Trump.
State Sen. Dallas Heard (R-Roseburg) says he first met Malimon in the summer of 2020. When asked by WW, he didn’t immediately recognize Malimon’s name, but he recalled seeing her at an event in a brightly colored dress. “The two or three times that I recall speaking with her or listening to her speak, she genuinely seems like a super-sweet, nice person. I’m very troubled to hear that she was arrested,” Heard said. “She seems like an intelligent, hardworking, very well-mannered, very sweet disposition, young servant leader.” Malimon regularly draws on her Slavic roots as the reason she opposes the Democratic Party. In a video posted to her Instagram in October, she tells a story of how her great-grandfather was imprisoned by the KGB and killed at age 29 for refusing to renounce his faith, and how her grandfather was jailed for five years for the same reason. “You perhaps don’t realize what it really means to not have the freedom that America has. I was born in Moldova, which is Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union, which was a socialist country. You are not allowed to believe in a god, you are not allowed to believe in any higher power,” Malimon says in the video. In another video, posted in October to her YouTube channel, Malimon says in Russian that religious freedom in America is under threat. “My dearest Slavs, we all moved to America for freedom of religion. Many of our great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers died as a result of their religious views,” Malimon says in the video, which WW had translated. “Now, in America, there is this moment when freedom of religion is under a big threat and we all need to stand together and vote.” It is unclear when, exactly, Malimon and her family moved from Moldova to Oregon. Multnomah County property records show that her parents purchased their Southeast Portland home in 2005, when Malimon would have been about 13. The 11,175-square-foot property has a trampoline in the front yard and a metal fence in front of the driveway with a sign affixed that warns to “Beware of the Dog.” There is, in fact, a dog: a German shepherd that barks at passersby. On FEC forms, Malimon wrote as recently as November 2020 that she works in wealth management and digital channels at First Republic Bank. Despite her day job, Malimon found ample time to travel during 2020. As the national committeewoman for Young Republicans of Oregon, Malimon in 2020 attended conservative events in Miami Beach, Fla., Keystone, S.D., and Phoenix. In a December video posted by NDT news, Malimon said she volunteered as a poll monitor in Savannah, Ga. Also in December, she attended the Million MAGA March in Washington, D.C. She posed for a photo alongside Roger Stone, whom she congratulated for receiving a pardon. She also took a selfie with Donald Trump Jr. and shot videos within feet of Kimberly Guilfoyle. In August, Malimon organized the Trump boat parade in the Willamette River. The event garnered national media attention when a family’s boat sank amid the swell. “This is what Portland REALLY looks like when the silent majority shows up!” Malimon posted to her Instagram on Aug. 18, 2020, as a caption to aerial videos of boats festooned with Trump paraphernalia gliding along the river below. At that same event, Malimon appears in a video wearing a blue dress on a boat and yelling into a megaphone, “Donald Trump is the best president ever! Long live Donald Trump!” Locally, Malimon has spoken onstage at the Oregon Students for Freedom car rally and a Young Republicans event in October called “Trump Victory Oregon,” where Malimon presented a $6,663 check to the Portland Police Association. She also spoke onstage at another election-related indoor event in November and at two different rallies at the state Capitol in the spring and summer, according to social media posts. Despite her repeated presence at rallies, most Oregon Republicans struggled to recall anything that Malimon did or said. James Buchal, the former chair of the Multnomah County Republican Party, says Malimon stood out at meetings in part because she’s young. “I’ve seen her in a few meetings, and she’s always polite and behaves herself,” he said. “There are people who cause trouble in meetings, and she’s never caused any trouble.”
NEWS M O T O YA N A K A M U R A / M U LT N O M A H C O U N T Y
LET’S GET SHOTS: Health care workers have begun receiving COVID-19 vaccinations across Oregon. Who goes next is a fraught question.
The Sticking Place Gov. Kate Brown reversed herself twice last week on the date elderly Oregonians could get the coronavirus vaccine. BY R AC H E L M O N A H A N
rmonahan@wweek.com
On Jan. 15, Gov. Kate Brown took a parting shot at the outgoing Trump administration: She blamed a decision to move up COVID-19 vaccines for elderly Oregonians and then move them back again on the federal government’s failure to deliver promised vaccine reserves. Three days earlier, the governor had moved seniors to the front of the line for vaccines. When she learned more vaccines weren’t coming, she changed the plan again: Older Oregonians would have to wait another three weeks. “Let me be clear: This is a deception on a national scale,” she said at the Jan. 15 press conference. “I am shocked and appalled that the federal government would set an expectation with the American people on which they knew they could not deliver, with such grave consequences.” The reversal comes with high stakes attached, even as other states have already begun vaccinating seniors. People over 80 account for more than half of Oregon’s deaths from COVID-19, and people over 60 account for 90% of the deaths. As of now, Oregonians over 80 will be eligible for vaccines beginning Feb. 8—after medical workers, firefighters and school teachers get the shots. The state will then lower the age bracket each week until everyone over 65 is eligible. It’s Brown’s last chance to blame Trump—and keep the public’s faith in Oregon’s choppy vaccine rollout. Brown’s double reversal shows the immense pressure the governor faces to return life to normal from COVID19 as soon as possible. But it also exposes the holes in Brown’s plan to get vaccines into the arms of Oregonians. Her decisions on which groups get priority for vaccines are last minute, placing sudden demand on hospitals and threatening to undermine public patience in seemingly arbitrary choices.
Most notably, Brown is pressing to return students to school classrooms by Feb. 15—and assuaging the concerns of teachers unions about that plan by giving them early priority for vaccines. That’s an approach that few other states have tried. “Oregon is in a fairly unique standing throughout the nation in saying that teachers would be part of the Phase 1 rollout,” says Courtney Campbell, director of Oregon State University’s Program for Ethics, Science, and the Environment. Campbell said “health equity” has been a primary consideration for vaccine rollout both in Oregon and nationally—but teachers didn’t seem to fit that standard. Instead, Brown and Oregon’s vaccine advisory committee could include additional considerations, such as saving “the most lives” and “giving primacy to fairness and transparency” to justify the choice. “If you’re going to work only with health equity, then it seems to me it’s hard to justify prioritizing K-12 personnel,” says Campbell. “Personally, I’m more concerned about the decision-making process,” says OSU public health professor Chunhuei Chi. “When you protect the teacher, don’t forget the children; when they come home, they have parents and sometimes grandparents. To be consistent, if the school reopening to in-person is a high priority, then it shouldn’t be just the teachers, it should be the parents.” Brown is undeterred. “Many school districts across the world have figured out how to get their students back into the classroom as safely as possible,” she said Jan. 15. “With the assistance of vaccines, with additional resources, and the work we’re doing on the ground to ensure that school districts have rapid testing capacity, I’m confident we can do this safely.”
On Dec. 23, Brown said she would vaccinate teachers after health care workers, emergency responders and nursing home residents. At the same time, she announced plans to drop her requirements that counties lower the prevalence of COVID-19 before reopening schools, and she set a goal of Feb. 15 for returning students to classrooms. The compromise of giving teachers priority on vaccines while reopening schools as the virus continued to rage didn’t placate the Oregon Education Association, a powerful interest group the governor had sided with at times in keeping schools closed. “Our elected leaders should not and cannot allow political pressures to dictate the manner in which that data is implemented,” said OEA president John Larson on Dec 23. But older Oregonians saw a politically powerful special interest being bumped ahead of them in the line for a potentially lifesaving medical treatment. “Given that older individuals are at a greater risk of death from COVID-19, we strongly urge you to ensure that Oregonians age 50 and older are prioritized to receive a vaccine,” wrote Edward Brewington, volunteer state president of AARP Oregon, on Jan. 11. “These individuals must be given priority access to vaccines, in addition to those individuals receiving care in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.” Then, on Jan. 12, Brown appeared to split the difference by offering both groups the vaccine. The federal government said it was opening its vaccine reserves—and Brown said she would vaccinate Oregonians over 65 beginning Jan. 23, the same day as teachers. The Oregon Health Authority says it projected the feds would send upward of 135,000 doses. But the feds never promised Oregon that number: “Those were our estimates based on the information we had,” says OHA director Pat Allen. Offering those doses to seniors would have created an enormous demand, with less than two weeks to prepare. About 19% of Oregonians are over 65, and all 795,000 would have been eligible to receive the vaccine starting the same day. “We were supportive but skeptical that the supply would meet this massive increase in the number of Oregonians who would become eligible,” said Becky Hultberg, president and CEO of the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems. Not all states made such drastic moves when the feds pledged more doses. Utah, for one, didn’t lower its age limit, though it had already begun to vaccinate older residents. “We don’t have enough vaccine assigned to the state of Utah right now to even cover those who are 70 years of age and over, over the next several weeks,” said Gov. Spencer Cox on Jan. 14, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. Then, on Jan. 15, citing a federal betrayal, Brown returned to her previous position: Older Oregonians (outside nursing homes or institutional settings) would have to wait. Teacher vaccines will begin no later than Jan. 25. That gives Oregon a little breathing room. But it’s still not clear whether teachers will be able to get both vaccine doses before Feb. 15, when Brown hopes schools will reopen. And hospitals noted the state has had an uneven record at planning for vaccinations to date. “From the beginning, the COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been unpredictable. At the 11th hour, hospitals shouldered a huge part of the burden for distribution of the doses, with little outside support,” Hultberg said. “The fact that the playing field keeps changing makes this work even more difficult in the midst of a pandemic, as our overburdened staffs take care of a surge of patients.” As for schools reopening, the more contagious British variant of COVID-19 has arrived in Oregon—and with it the potential for more outbreaks. But on Jan. 19, the Oregon Department of Education further eased the guidelines for reopening schools in communities, including Portland, with higher case counts. Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
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WESLEY LAPOINTE
Indivisible? What can Democrats and Republicans still agree on? We asked Susheela Jayapal and Stan Pulliam. BY NIGEL JAQUISS
and
RACHEL MONAHAN
503-243-2122
On the morning Joe Biden is sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, we wake up in two Americas. Americans, and Oregonians, are more divided than they’ve been in most of our lifetimes. Left and right think the others are extremists, cannot agree on a common set of facts, and are at loggerheads on issues ranging from race and policing to the appropriate response to a pandemic that has killed more than 400,000 Americans. The peaceful transfer of power from President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden feels like no sure thing. On Jan. 6, a mob of Trump loyalists stormed the U.S. Capitol, seeking to stop Congress from certifying the results of the election. Oregon has not witnessed an armed insurrection like the one in Washington, D.C. But right-wing protesters fought with police Dec. 21 in Salem as they attempted to enter the state Capitol. Proud Boys and other armed extremists menaced Salem again Jan. 6. And in Portland, six months of protests against the police have devolved into vandalism that threatens the vitality of this city. 10
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Gov. Kate Brown has weathered five recall attempts; no sooner did Mayor Ted Wheeler win reelection in November than critics began working to recall him. After the November election, the Portland polling firm DHM Research checked in with Oregonians across the state and termed its findings “disconcerting.” “Only 33% of us feel we can come together next year as Oregonians—urban and rural, Republican and Democrat, whites and communities of color—to make progress addressing these challenges and resetting Oregon,” the firm found. Oregon’s turmoil is a microcosm of the split that has turned Washington, D.C., this week into a heavily guarded fortress, with tens of thousands of National Guard troops, federal police and local cops armed to the teeth against those who deny—against all evidence—that Biden won. Civic discourse has rarely been less civil. And the need for it has never been more urgent. So last weekend, WW asked two emerging leaders in Oregon politics—one a Democrat, the other a Republican—to talk to each other. Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal, 58, won a seat on the county board in 2018, becoming the first Indian American to hold office in Oregon. The forthright former corporate lawyer has a personal connection to
the recent assault on Congress: Her sister, U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), contracted the coronavirus while sheltering during the assault with unmasked GOP colleagues. With Jayapal was Sandy Mayor Stan Pulliam, 39. An insurance executive who also won office in 2018, Pulliam knocked off a two-term incumbent to take leadership of one of Oregon’s fastest-growing cities, an hour’s drive east of Portland. Although Pulliam’s office is nonpartisan (as is Jayapal’s), he’s a registered Republican whose outspoken criticism of Gov. Brown’s COVID -19 policies—including leadership of the New Year’s Day movement, in which 300 small businesses agreed to defy Brown’s COVID orders—has put him on the list of possible GOP candidates for governor in 2022. In a spirited conversation, Jayapal and Pulliam argued whether progressives or conservatives were responsible for most of the unrest roiling Oregon. They challenged each other on whether COVID-19 lockdowns have prevented misery in this state or intensified it. But for nearly 90 minutes, they talked—and found issues on which they felt they could work together. You can watch the full conversation at wweek. com. Here are a few of the highlights, edited for brevity and clarity.
Jayapal: What I saw, by and large, was peaceful protest. Over the course of the summer, there were relatively small numbers of people engaging in what we would both agree was destructive activity. More recently, there are people for whom property destruction was on the top of their list. But violence happened when right-wing extremists came to town. That was when somebody died.
SUSHEELA JAYAPAL
WW: Joe Biden said the attack on Congress did not represent who we are. But Commissioner Jayapal, you wrote in a recent newsletter, “It is who we are.” What did you mean?
WESLEY LAPOINTE
Susheela Jayapal: This is very much who we are. It’s not all of who we are. But some of us stormed the Capitol. Some of us believed and spread white supremacist values that directly led to the storming of the Capitol. It wasn’t the only example of trying to overturn a relatively free and fair election. And if we don’t confront it, if we try to pretend that that’s not part of our present, then we never address it. I believe in unity, but I think unity based on falsehood and based on avoiding reality isn’t actually unity. It’s a pretense.
Pulliam: Well, when you look at what happened in Washington, D.C., I think you would have many people say that, for the most part, there were people that showed up looking for a peaceful protest and there was an extremist element within that group that stormed the Capitol. We have extremist elements that hijack peaceful protests. When we did see violence in Portland, it was a member of antifa that actually shot and killed a member of the right-wing protest groups. So, I think we’ve got to watch out for the double standards and all stand against violence.
Stan Pulliam: I need to push back a little on the term “right-wing extremism.” The events in Washington, D.C., were outrageous. But we also need to recognize that this happens on both sides—there is extremism on the right and there’s extremism on the left. We’ve seen that over the summer and fall and Portland, in the recent riots and violence. We need to call out extremism on both sides. Jayapal: I didn’t talk about right-wing extremism. I talked about white supremacy. I talked about false narratives about the election. However, if we’re going to talk about extremism and where the balance of extremism sits, the storming of the Capitol was absolutely right-wing extremism. If you look at what our intelligence agencies across the country have identified as the biggest threat, it’s white supremacy. It’s not left-wing extremism. Creating an equivalence between the two is absolutely contrary to all of the evidence that we’ve seen.
STAN PULLIAM
WW: Stan, you were at a Timber Unity rally in February of last year. You said in a video, “Kate Brown and the extreme left, you’ve bit off more than you can chew.” What did you mean by that?
J U S T I N K AT I G B A K
WESLEY LAPOINTE
Pulliam: A lot of people that live in the Portland metropolitan area would disagree, especially the small business owner who watched her storefronts get vandalized and people be scared to come out of their homes during the protests and riots. We’ve seen groups take over entire blocks on Mississippi Avenue during the Red House deal. Extremism and violence and mass riots are nothing new to us in the Portland metropolitan area. I just think we need to call it out on both sides.
You think about all the cap-and-trade restrictions that were coming against them and all the restrictions in their industry over the last decade. It’s corporate America that can afford to reinvest in their businesses. But these working folks, they don’t have the capital. So when I say, “You bit off more than you can chew,” I think working families and small business owners throughout the state, they’re sick and tired of it, and they’re ready to push back.
NO DIRECTION HOME: Oregon conservatives protested Gov. Kate Brown’s stay-home orders at the Capitol last May.
Jayapal: I think we agree on some of that. There’s no question that small businesses and working families have been hit devastatingly hard by the pandemic. You and I would agree that there is too much corporate power. I’m not sure we agree about the role of government. To me, public health, which is what we’re talking about in a pandemic, that is the arena in which government should be engaged. When the federal government has abdicated, as it has over the course of the pandemic, and you have individual states doing their individual things, it’s proven disastrous. That’s the danger that I see in the notion that if we disagree with the policies that the governor has enacted, that’s it’s up to each of us to decide that we’re not going to abide by them. Pulliam: If we’re talking about the New Year’s Day movement [to resist Gov. Brown’s shutdown of some stores and indoor dining], I very much view that as peaceful dissent against mandates that were never passed through the state Legislature. Where people start to get upset is when they see double standards. People don’t understand why it’s OK to attend mass protests all throughout the summer but we can’t work out at our local fitness centers with sanitation and social distancing and mask wearing. We don’t understand why we can go to the mall during the holidays and shop but we can’t sit down and have a hamburger at a local Main Street mom-andpop small business. And so if we’re going to be putting down such strong restrictions, I think people certainly deserve to know the evidence that shows that we should be supporting bigbox corporate America over these Oregonians.
Pulliam: The Timber Unity movement is one that’s very close to my heart. I grew up in a house of small business owners. I’m a bit of a political nerd, and for years I would drag my dad around all these different political events. But that Timber Unity rally was the first time that my dad said to me, “Hey, Stan, I’m going to get in my truck and I’m going to get involved.” Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
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ALEX WITTWER
has been taken from them. I think that leaders should be looking at the totality of the impact of their decisions. Jayapal: The economic consequences absolutely have been devastating in some cases. But the way to get the economy back on track is to stop the spread of COVID. We can’t actually get the economy back on track if we don’t stop the spread. WW: Stan, you told The New York Times in August you were “scared to death that what’s happening in Portland will ever come out to where we live.” What did you mean by that? Pulliam: At the time of that interview, I think we were right around a hundred days straight of protests after the tragic killing of George Floyd—and much of the protesting was very peaceful, absolutely. But we also saw statutes being torn down and burned and all kinds of things. We just had to turn on the local news. Certainly, people in our community would be nervous about that reaching our community.
ALEX WITTWER
NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE: A “Wall of Moms” at the federal courthouse in downtown Portland last summer.
Jayapal: The governor has the authority to do what she’s done. I agree with you that people need to understand policy. Public health policy works better if people understand the why. And I agree with you that the state has not been consistent or clear through the course of the pandemic about setting out a set of principles and a rationale, and then explaining to people how we got from the principles and the rationale to the policy that was enacted. I have been puzzled by nail salons and hairdressers remaining open while other kinds of establishments are closed. But we can’t have everybody making their own decision about what they think is safe. What happens in Sandy doesn’t stay in Sandy. I mean, a virus doesn’t respect municipal boundaries. Pulliam: I would again ask where’s the evidence that these shutdowns are of businesses that contributed to the spread? And what I’d also like us to concentrate on a bit is our future. WW: Are you saying you believe COVID is not really a serious threat? Because in Sandy, that’s not what we’re all about. We stand in solidarity with our local police departments that work so hard to keep us safe. And we certainly don’t want to see our small businesses being destroyed with vandalism. That’s not what we’re all about. And quite honestly, it’s not what Portland used to be all about.
Pulliam: I believe it absolutely is serious, but there’s still a very high percentage chance that people are going to survive who come down with COVID-19. Jayapal: That’s no comfort to the folks who actually have died. And it ignores the fact that there’ve been long-term consequences even if you survive. ROUGH RIDING: A statue of Theodore Roosevelt was removed from the South Park Blocks after being toppled by rioters in October.
Pulliam: Yeah, certainly. And there’s serious consequences that those individuals that are still living and are put out of work and not able to get their unemployment checks and have found that everything that they’ve worked for their entire lives ALEX WITTWER
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Jayapal: I think we’re probably not going to agree on the characterization of what happened and is happening in Portland. The picture of Portland as a hotbed of violence and vandalism just doesn’t reflect the reality of what has happened here over the past many months. I am incredibly proud of the way that Portlanders stood up and spoke out about the murder of George Floyd and about racism and about Black Lives Matter. For a hundred days, they put themselves on the line, went to the Multnomah County Justice Center, took on tear gas. So if we’re going to talk about calling out violence, we also need to call out police violence. Pulliam: I think a lot of the violence and destruction that we saw coming out of the city of Portland was quite embarrassing, for most of us in the state. A lot of these small businesses along the main streets of Portland, they weren’t closed because of COVID. A lot of them were closed because of the violence going on in Portland. And I continue to hear people wanting to come down on what happened in D.C. and the right-wing protests while just turning a blind eye to the destruction and violence that happened in Portland as part of these protests. I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. I’m guessing that we would both agree that the people that stormed the Capitol should be prosecuted and put in prison. And if we agree on that, do we believe that the folks found to do violence and destruction in Portland should be prosecuted as well?
PORTLAND IS BURNING: A mattress fire across the street from the Portland Police Bureau’s North Precinct.
SAM GEHERKE
WW: Do you think Trump bears any responsibility for the attack on Congress? Pulliam: I absolutely do. I think in his speech he definitely helped incite violence. Jayapal: Probably no shock, I would’ve voted to impeach. I don’t believe we can have unity if we don’t have accountability. And I believe that he was responsible not just for the events of the day and inciting people in that time, but for all of the events that led up to the storming of the Capitol, including spreading false narratives about the election. WW: If you separate out the pandemic, are things moving in the right direction in Oregon or the wrong direction?
BACKING THE BLUE: A right-wing protester demonstrates against a “Black Lives Matter” flag in Gresham.
Jayapal: It is really almost impossible to separate out the pandemic. But what’s happening at the Legislature has not been going in the right direction: the walkouts, the inability to get any business done in the last session. And it’s not clear what the next session is going to look like. On a local level, many things are going in the right direction. In the Multnomah County area, we’re talking about housing and homelessness and things I believe will go in the right direction with the passage of the supportive housing services measure.
Jayapal: I am going to push back really hard on the equivalence between storming the United States Capitol with weaponry, putting members of Congress in danger [and Portland vandalism]. So I really can’t even respond to that question because it’s a false equivalence.
Pulliam: I think what we just heard here was an elected leader from the left say that she believes that things are going for the most part in the wrong direction. And when I think back on who’s had control of this state for the last three decades, we’ve only had one party in control of the governor’s office for the vast majority of that time. You know, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result. Oregonians are tired of being last in everything.
Pulliam: What about an antifa member shooting a member of the right? Jayapal: I condemn that shooting. Absolutely. But you made a direct equivalence between, should we prosecute the folks who stormed the Capitol with weaponry and put members of Congress in risk of their lives and with what we have seen in protest in Portland. So that is the equivalence I absolutely cannot buy.
Jayapal: You are putting words in my mouth that I did not speak. I said things were going in a difficult direction at the Legislature because of the walkout by the Republicans.
WW: Last week, the House voted to impeach President Trump for the second time. If you had been a member of Congress, how would you have voted?
WW: Mayor, do you, as someone who lives in Sandy, feel safe when you come to Portland? And Commissioner, as someone who lives in Portland, do you feel physically safe when you go out to Clackamas County?
Pulliam: I would have voted no—for the sole reason that we’re supposed to be unifying this nation right now. Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States. But I saw the other day that 34% of Americans believe that there was fraud in this last election. I’m not sure what impeachment really accomplishes other than sticking your finger in the eye of the other side.
Pulliam: Yeah, I feel safe when I go into Portland. Then again, I’m only traveling to Portland during certain times and hours. But I certainly feel safe.
SAM GEHERKE
Jayapal: There are parts of Oregon and parts of the country where I would not feel safe. I would not feel safe because I would be very conscious of the fact that I am an immigrant and I am brown. We can’t shy away from the ugliness that does exist in the country. It’s not because of the kind of violence or behaviors that we’ve been talking about on the streets of Portland. It’s because of race-based anger and violence. Pulliam: I think we all want a state where people don’t feel fearful. I think we want female, family-wage jobs and economic prosperity while also balancing that with a healthy and vibrant environment. And if we could just back up and go to that thousand-foot view, we would find that, as a country and as the people, we get along a lot more than we disagree. Jayapal: I’m an immigrant. I chose to come to the United States, and I then chose to become a citizen of the United States. And so that does reflect optimism. I think it reflects some of what Stan was talking about—that we can be better and that we can continue to make progress to being that vision of ourselves. I think I see much more of the division because of my identity and because of who I am. So I see the obstacles to coming together pretty clearly as well.
SOCIAL DISTANCING: Riot police are regularly called upon to keep dueling demonstrators from injuring each other. Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
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STREET
“If you were elected president, who would be in your Cabinet?” Photos by Trevor Gagnier On Instagram: @trevorgagnoire
I don’t know all the cabinet positions, which is a problem. Stacey Abrams, No. 1. She’s truly the only person I can think about when asked this question.”
“Michelle Obama. I think C.S. Lewis would be a good problem solver.” 14
Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
“I couldn’t give you names, but it would have to be people that have experience, first of all. Their own knowledge of the issues depending on the [position], whether it be in education or security or whatever, so I couldn’t possibly give you a name. Being rational, of sound mind, and able to weigh the consequences of any particular decision— No matter what you choose, you have good and bad.”
“I would find a lot of people who were a lot smarter than I am to fill it out—experts in their field that really know what’s going on. They can give great direction for the best way to solve the issues at hand. You want my dog in the photo?”
“If I was elected president, I wouldn’t be, because I’m more down to establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.”
STREET
“It’d be the hugging saint [Mata Amritanandamayi]. And I want a futurist, but I don’t know which one because the one I’d choose is dead—his name is Jacques something. Just to round it out and make it three, I’d probably do Bumpy Kanahele, from the sovereignty of Hawaii.”
“It’s gotta be some peace and love. The Dalai Llama?”
“Bernie Sanders.”
“I’d try to do probably what Biden’s doing: keep it really diverse, get people from different walks of life and different sides of the aisle so you can get a better representation of the American people.”
“I would want Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders in my Cabinet. Those are really the only American politicians I can think of.”
“Bill Maher.” Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
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STARTERS
T H E MOST I MP ORTANT T H I N G S TH AT H A PPE N E D I N P ORT L AND C U LT U RE TH I S WE E K , G R A PH E D . S I LV E R FA L L S S TAT E P A R K
RIDICULOUS
Oregon State Parks reopens camping reservations…before its online system crashes.
s saturday nightsessiingon live!
Australian authorities decide not to euthanize a racing pigeon originally thought to be from Oregon after determining its identifying leg band is counterfeit.
portland's hottest jazz- stream
M I C H I E L H E N D RYC K X / W I K I CO M M O N S
A sports memorabilia store on Southeast Hawthorne is tagged with references to Indigenous sovereignty— despite being Native-owned.
CHRISTOPHER BROWNTRIO
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Hit “Mexicajun” cart Nacheaux is going brick-and-mortar, sharing space with newly opened Blind Ox Taphouse on Northeast 48th Avenue.
WESLEY LAPOINTE
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The earliest known recording of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl,” captured at Reed College in 1956, is finally getting a public release.
AWFUL
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ANDTHEEVERYDAYMYSTICS
AWESOME
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The Eagle Creek Trail closes two weeks after reopening for the first time in three years due to heavy rains.
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biamp PDX JAZZFESTIVAL FEBRUARY18-27 all shows 7:30pm doors/ 8pm show tickets available@ www.jacklondonrevue.com
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Legendary Portland author Ursula K. Le Guin is getting her own stamp.
SERIOUS
Jessica Campbell, Freaks and Geeks and Election actor who later opened a naturopathic clinic in Vancouver, Wash., dies at 38.
GET INSIDE
WHAT TO DO WHILE YOU’RE STUCK AT HOME THIS WEEK.
SAM GEHRKE
thanks to the three greatest words for shit candidates in the electoral lexicon: low voter turnout. As Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s follow-up to Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the premise is a bit pedestrian, but it bears the 30 Rock hallmark of satire and silliness, and the chemistry of the cast—which also includes Holly Hunter, Vella Lovell and early MVP Bobby Moynihan— suggests it’ll eventually cohere into something great. Plus, three episodes in, Danson has already assaulted the L.A. Kings mascot while high on a weed gummy, so that’s additionally promising. New episodes air Thursdays at 8 pm on NBC.
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CHANTI DARLING
� Stream: Rhythm Nation Inauguration Celebration
For its inauguration night livestream, music and activism podcast Rhythm Nation is focusing on local victories. Panelists from the successful campaigns to decriminalize drug possession, legalize psilocybin, and fund universal preschool will talk about what they’re planning to do next. And if you’re totally burned out on electoral politics, progressive or otherwise, there’s something for you, too. Some of Portland’s most beloved DJs—headlined by house and funk acolyte Chanti Darling—will spin sets after the hourlong panel. 7 pm Wednesday, Jan. 20. Stream on twitch.tv/holoceneportland. Free, donations accepted.
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Watch: Small Axe
Academy Award-winning director Steve McQueen, best known for 2013’s 12 Years a Slave, recently created a film series titled Small Axe. Each of the five installments depicts a different slice of Black British culture in the ’60s and ’70s, and all are streaming on Amazon Prime. One of the anthology’s standouts is Mangrove, named after a Caribbean restaurant that was targeted by multiple racially motivated raids by Notting Hill police. Local Black activists peacefully took to the streets in protest, leading to unfounded arrests for “riot incitement” and the highly publicized trial of the Mangrove Nine. Letitia Wright of Black Panther stars as reallife leader of the British Black Panther movement Altheia Jones-LeCointe. Stream on Amazon Prime.
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Catch Up On: Camp Getaway
If you’ve worked your way through all three branches of Below Deck and need new glossy escapist programming but the thought of committing to the tawdry lives of The Real Housewives makes you queasy, Bravo has another option. Camp Getaway is basically Below Deck on land, only the ranking chart is far less rigid and staff are encouraged to fraternize with the guests. Set in the bucolic Berkshire Mountains, the show follows eight counselors who work at the camp on weekends, after it has transitioned from wholesome children’s outdoor classroom to an adult after-hours
club set in the woods, with traditional activities like archery and hiking thrown in for good measure. Is there drunken skinny dipping? Yes. Drunken themed costume parties? Yes! Drunken arguments followed by drunken hookups? Yes, yes, yes! Whether you love drama or just miss the summer camps of your youth, you’ll want to book a stay by the end of the season. Stream on Bravo and Amazon Prime.
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Drink: A Hot Toddy from Produce Row
When the governor allowed bars and restaurants to resume patio dining in early December, most owners who had valuable sidewalk or streetside real estate immediately flipped on the propane heaters and welcomed back customers. But Produce Row Cafe decided to stay on pause—until now. The inner eastside restaurant has long been popular for its spacious outdoor, year-round terrace, and as of Jan. 13, you are welcome to use it once again. Produce Row also used some of its time off to convert its parking lot into additional seating, where you’ll find a new tent set up. Order a locally made beer from one of its 24 taps or warm up with the signature PRC Hot Toddy, garnished with a cinnamon stick. Produce Row Cafe, 204 SE Oak St., 503-232-8355, producerowcafe.com.
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Hear: Heaux Tales by Jazmine Sullivan
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Watch: Mr. Mayor
Jazmine Sullivan is R&B’s answer to Randy Newman, an alternately wry and sentimental songwriter who challenges you to make up your mind about how to feel about the characters in her songs. Her new project, Heaux Tales, is her first release since 2015’s Reality Show, one of the best-written pop albums of the past decade. Like that album, it explores the intersection of sex, politics and power, translating spoken-word interludes into rich character pieces driven by a brassy, raspy voice that equals her songwriting. Stream on Spotify.
Another year, another sitcom for Ted “The Network God” Danson. In Mr. Mayor, he plays a billboard impresario who runs for mayor of Los Angeles to impress his woke teenage daughter and ends up winning
Watch: You Will Die at Twenty
Shot on location in the Sudanese village where director Amjad Abu Alala’s parents are from, this existential coming-of-age drama is the first film from that country ever submitted to the Academy Awards for Best International Feature—it’s also only the eighth Sudanese film ever made, as the country hasn’t had a cinema industry since Omar al-Bashir’s military coup in 1989. Considering these parameters, and the fact that the Sudanese Revolution began during filming (the picture is dedicated to the movement’s victims), Alala’s groundbreaking feature-length debut about our protagonist’s assumed fate as prophesied by a shaman is even more impressive. Stream at Virtual Cinema.
� Stream: Noah Simpson at the Jack London Revue
After hosting its first livestream just last weekend, Jack London Revue is back with a second week of shows. This time, it’s a set from one of the downtown jazz venue’s pre-COVID regulars, trumpet player Noah Simpson and his quartet. Best known for their modern takes on bop standards and deep cuts, for this show, they’ll also include a tribute to the late trumpeter Roy Hargrove. 8 pm Saturday, Jan. 23. jacklondonrevue.com. $12.
� Read: The Portland Book of Dates
Dating? In this global health crisis? On the one hand, this book, by Portland Monthly editor Eden Dawn and her romantic partner, multihyphenate creative Ashod Simonian, couldn’t have been published at a worse time: As a compendium of day trips and nights out for both new couples getting to know each other and old ones trying to avoid a rut, many of the suggestions may currently be off-limits or no longer even exist. It’s a conundrum acknowledged in the introduction, tacked on just as the pandemic hit: “Will any of these beloved places be around when the book is released? Will we?” But then, if it ends up being somewhat useless as a guidebook, it may take on greater importance as a historical text, the same way Chuck Palahniuk’s city guide Fugitives & Refugees did in 2003—a snapshot of Portland as it was just before it changed forever, again. $19.95 at powells.com.
Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
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CHRISTINE DONG
FOOD & DRINK
TAKE ME OUT
Second Life
ORDER: Ping, 2131 SE 11th Ave., 503-875-0527, pingportland.com. 11:30 am-8:30 pm Thursday-Tuesday.
Pok Pok founder Andy Ricker’s other restaurant is reborn and ready for reappraisal. BY M IC HA E L C . Z U SM A N
@mczlaw
Nostalgia messes with your mind. Bygone days grow all warm and fuzzy. Love was more passionate, music more melodious and, of course, the food was better. It’s tough to compete with a memory. But sometimes it’s worth a try. When word drifted out earlier this COVID -cursed winter that Ping restaurant was soon to be resurrected, decade-old memories came cascading back. It was 2009 and Andy Ricker was at the peak of his creative powers. John Jay, a revered Wieden+Kennedy executive, and his wife, Janet, were looking to revive Old Town, and Kurt Huffman was testing his mettle as the consummate restaurant dealmaker. It didn’t hurt that Portland had become a national food media darling, enjoying one idiosyncratic success after another. From this crucible came Portland’s original “pan-Asian izakaya,” as Huffman terms it. Writing in WW’s 2011 Restaurant Guide, Aaron Mesh spoke for hardcore Ping fans: “It is blasphemy to suggest that any establishment surpasses Pok Pok for Asian cuisine, but I’ll go ahead and say it: Andy Ricker’s second restaurant, Ping, is more ambitious and even better than its older, more popular sister.” Though I don’t fully subscribe to that sentiment, I understand it. At Pok Pok, Ricker produced a string of regional Thai food hits never before seen in American restaurants. But the breadth of his culinary mastery was never more in evidence than at Ping. I was dumbstruck to see dishes that might as well have come from Singapore 18
Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
REOPEN FOR BUSINESS: Chef Michael Kessler teamed with Kurt Huffman to bring back Ping, Andy Ricker’s other restaurant.
Available for pickup by phone or ordering directly from the website. Delivery by Caviar.
hawker centers, Tokyo ramen shops, and street stalls in Taipei or Penang. Grilled stuff on sticks was a particular pleasure at Ping: bacon-wrapped quail eggs with spicy mayo, simply salted chicken hearts, little pork meatballs, baby octopi dressed in a tongue-searing chile-lime sauce. There was also laksa, a Malaysian seafood noodle bowl, and bak kut teh, or “pork bone tea,” a popular soup in Singapore and Malaysia. But the standout dish, which wasn’t even on the original menu, was muu thawt. This was a hefty pork knuckle seared, braised and then dropped into the deep fryer before serving, accompanied to the table by tart pickled mustard greens, a sour-hot chile sauce and the boldly flavored braising liquid. It was a sight to behold and enough to feed three. A sputtering economy, stubbornly awful location and financial split that took Ricker out of the equation left Ping in a precarious spot and forced its closure in 2012. Still, Huffman never lost his passion for the project. “It was too good to live such a short time,” Huffman says now. Mike Kessler, a Ping kitchen hand in 2011 and its chef today similarly maintained a fiery affection for the bygone spot. He moved on to learn butchery, trained in the sushi trade, then spent years in the Toro Bravo orbit. “But I always wanted to get back to the Ping idea,” Kessler says. After the pandemic closed fine-dining restaurant Holdfast, Huffman and Kessler united to reprise Ping’s glorious past in the now-empty space on Southeast 11th Avenue. Recently opened on a pickup- and delivery-only model, the new Ping remains a work in progress. Several of the old dishes are available along with a handful of others. The
laksa ($17) still wows: bits of chicken breast, slices of fish cake, clams, prawns and boiled egg join rice noodles in the mild curry coconut milk base pepped up with a bit of sambal. A delicious stewed duck leg ($16)—kuaytiaw pet pha lo, also from the original menu—is another high achiever. The leg is bathed in a dark, slightly sweet and aromatic braising liquid. The bowl also includes rice noodles, umami-rich shiitake mushrooms and pickled mustard greens. You can add a little fire with the same sour-hot chile sauce that came with the marvelous muu thawt. Hokkien mee ($14), popular in Singapore and throughout Southeast Asia, relies on thin round wheat noodles, shrimp and more in a broth flavored with soy, sesame oil and sambal. Ping 2.0’s biggest problem so far, Kessler acknowledges, is that many Ping favorites don’t travel well, which explains the now-abbreviated menu. There are four skewers to sample: pork belly, shrimp, chicken satay and pork shoulder. These are, unfortunately, the kind of item that suffers most from the interval between fire and table. Kessler is adamant that he wants to re-create the entire original menu once circumstances permit. Huffman says outdoor dining is slated for “once the weather is decent enough,” and the move indoors whenever permitted and prudent. More PPP money could help smooth the path. In the meantime, Adam Robinson, bar manager at Deadshot, is slinging cocktails to go to align with Ping’s food—a little galangal and pandan here, turmeric infusion or green chile liqueur there—while we wait to see how close this Ping comes to capturing the magic of the original.
FOOD & DRINK CHRISTINE DONG
DRINK MOBILE
tively simple trifecta that many nouveau Portland bars struggle with: good vibes, good food and damn good drinks. You can now get those drinks to go— from well-made standards to house cocktails, such as the fruit-forward Paper Tiger—and pair them with the under-the-radar burger. The vibes, though? Those are up to you for now.
TOP 5
BUZZ LIST
Where to get drinks this week, one way or another.
1. GlüBar
2006 NE Alberta St., 503-954-2021, imperialbottleshop.com/glubar. 4-10 pm Wednesday-Friday, noon-10 pm Saturday-Sunday. Inspired by the outdoor Christmas markets in Northern and Western Europe, Imperial Bottle Shop & Taproom’s new curbside pop-up makes patio drinking in the dead of winter not only feasible but downright jolly. The lineup of mulled drinks changes about once a week, but whatever options are available, always spring for something that can be set on fire.
3. Tiny Bubble Room
2025 N Lombard St., 503-208-2660, tinybubbleroom.com. 3-10 pm daily. Growing up in Northeast Portland, Jeremy Lewis remembers family dinners at the Lung Fung Chinese restaurant. Now, the place is his. His new bar, Tiny Bubble Room, is named for Lung Fung’s adjoining oldschool lounge and gives Arbor Lodge and Kenton a “not-so-divey dive” similar to Roscoe’s in Montavilla, which Lewis also owns.
CHRIS NESSETH
4. Hale Pele
2733 NE Broadway, 503-662-8454, halepele.com. 3-8 pm Thursday-Sunday. A faux-Polynesian fever dream rigorously appointed in layers of vintage South Pacific kitsch, Hale Pele is generally considered one of the best tiki bars in the country. Sadly, the simulated thunderstorms and volcanic eruptions are unplugged right now, but at least you can take the drinks home—heavy on the rum, of course, with bags of crushed ice on the side.
5. Bink’s GO: TROPICALE, 2337 NE GLISAN ST., 503-894-9484, TROPICALE.CO. NOON-9:30 PM WEDNESDAYSUNDAY.
Tropicale’s Oaxaca Forever It looks like a frat party, tastes like the playa. BY AN D I P R E W I T T
aprewitt@wweek.com
2. Tulip Shop Tavern
825 N Killingsworth St., 503-206-8483, tulipshoptavern.com. Noon-10 pm daily. While the building has seen quick turnover in recent years, Tulip Shop Tavern feels like a neighborhood staple that’s been around far longer than not even three years. It’s achieved that by hitting the decep-
3. GrindWitTryz
TOP 5
HOT PLATES Where to get food in Portland this week.
1. Gumba
1733 NE Alberta St., 503-975-5951, gumba-pdx.com. 4:30-8 pm Wednesday, 4:30-8:30 pm Thursday-Monday. As a food cart, Gumba punched above its weight, serving fresh pastas, handmade burrata and ambitious snacks that made you want to linger at an outdoor table. Now it’s a brick-and-mortar in a time of takeout only—but you’ll still want to break out the candles, placemats and cloth napkins once you get the food home: No meal provides more of a “this feels like we are in a restaurant” frisson than Gumba’s beet, cabbage and endive salad, pappardelle with braised beef sugo, pan-roasted steelhead trout, and eggplant olive oil cake. CHRIS NESSETH
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.
4. Prey + Tell
Delivery available through Uber Eats and Grubhub. 4 pm-2 am Wednesday-Sunday, preyandtell.com. Diane Lam’s Sunshine Noodles pop-up was one of the breakout successes of the quarantined summer, but the buzziest item wasn’t a noodle dish—it was the lime pepper wings. So while Sunshine is on a break, Lam is returning to her roots as the chef at dearly departed Korean cocktail bar Revelry, with a delivery-only project focused entirely on fried chicken, with Cambodian-inspired sauces and leaf-wrapped rice packs.
5. Lottie & Zula’s
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.
2. Toki
580 SW 12th Ave., 503-312-3037, tokipdx.square.site. 4-8 pm Friday-Sunday. Anything Han Oak chef Peter Cho does is worthy of intense anticipation. In this particular case, he moved across the river, into the former Tasty n Alder space, and is using it to craft the classic, traditional Korean meals—bibimbap, bulgogi, kimbap—he generally avoided at his main spot. It’s open now for takeout-only weekend dinners. Order through the website.
TREVOR GAGNIER
If you ever want to guess how inclined someone might be to abandon all inhibitions, simply try assessing the audaciousness of their glass. The bigger the beer stein, tiki mug or rum barrel, the more likely the person holding it is to shrug off responsibility and carouse until the bar lights come up. Once you start hollowing out oversized fruit to use as a chalice, though, all bets are off. That is unleashed, OOO, vacation-mode drinking—freedom at its finest. For years, Alfredo Climaco has provided Portland with that tropical indulgence by serving piña coladas in pineapples at Portland Night Market and random street fairs. While you can now get his signature beverage in kit form from the new Northeast Glisan Street bar Tropicale, I prefer to leave the mixing to the experts. Although the piña colada is not among the limited lineup of drinks made to order, that gives you the perfect excuse to try something new and discover Climaco’s skill with mezcal. The clear, plastic Solo cups the Oaxaca Forever ($14) comes in are more frat party than playa, but the layers of flavors nevertheless transport you to that Mexican beach—first through a subtle wood smoke that wafts in the background like a bonfire on the sand, then by a swell of grapefruit that crashes against a dash of warming cinnamon. The name of the drink is a nod to the home state of Climaco’s father, which also happens to be the world capital of mezcal. The assertive spirit is typically made with the cooked core of the agave plant, which Oaxaca boasts the most varieties of in Mexico thanks to its diverse terrain and climate. Climaco, who grew up in the neighboring state of Puebla, developed his passion for mezcal during trips to Oaxaca with his dad, where they would work their way through flights at the region’s numerous mezcalerias. I have yet to travel that far south in the country, but if Oaxaca is anything like its namesake cocktail—dark and sultry yet refreshing and as sunny as a morning glass of OJ—it’ll be the first trip I book, post-pandemic.
2715 NE Alberta St., 503-493-4430, binksterpdx.com. Order Wednesday for Friday delivery. Alberta’s homiest bar has launched its own home delivery service. At binksterpdx.com, you can order bottled bloody marys, slushy margaritas in plastic pouches, and six-packs of Portland beer, plus homemade ravioli, flower bouquets arranged in Mason jars5., CBD gummies, even wall art. But don’t overlook the signature take-and-bake pizzas, maybe the most underrated bar food in the neighborhood.
Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
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POTLANDER
Hail to the Kief What to smoke to ease your Inauguration Day anxieties. BY BRI ANNA WHEELER
In the days surrounding the inauguration, it’s not outrageous to expect some variation of redcapped chaos—in fact, it’s closer to being an inevitability. If you’re feeling anxious over the current state of affairs, maybe now is a good time to get stoned to the bone and astro-travel to the utopic Portland of the future. This week, between catfishing MAGA bros on Bumble and turning them over to the feds and group-hacking Parler to expose insurrectionists, check out one of these super-psychotropic selections. Instead of cursing our comic book villain ex-president, tap into the higher consciousness and get to manifesting a future with actual liberty and justice for all.
For the Emotionally Exhausted: Apple Mac
For the Idealistic Reconstructionist: Durban Poison
Apple Mac is cross-bred from the giggly, therapeutic MAC1 and the CBD-rich Trophy Wife, which both produce euphoric, stress-relieving highs. The resulting cultivar is a balanced, responsive hybrid, It has a low-key zip that makes it great for day use and a cashmere-soft head high that also makes it a nice end-of-day smoke—truly, an all-purpose flower. Apple Mac’s sour-sweet perfume has a peppery edge and a tangy exhale. The buds are wicked dense and resinous, making even a one-hitter bowl last through several sticky inhales.
Getting into a sunny headspace at this moment can be a challenge, but Durban Poison has been turning frowns upside down since the 1970s. Durban Poison is one of a few pure landrace strains, distinguishable from modern cultivars by its pure DNA. The majority of users find this phenotype to be illustrative of a true sativa: euphoric and energetic. When getting lifted is the order of the hour, Durban Poison is a dependable magic carpet ride, with a terpene profile heavy in limonene, providing a tangy nose and herby mouthfeel.
Get it from: Oregrown, 111 NE 12th Ave., 503-477-6898, oregrown.com.
Get it from: Chalice Farms, all locations, 503-477-7626, chalicefarms.com.
For the Dating-App Vigilante: First Class Funk
For the Nervous Hand-Wringer: Wappa
First Class Funk is a complex mashup of sativa hybrid Jet Fuel Gelato and indica hybrid Garlic Cookies. This intensely stank cultivar’s genetics favor a potent indica: The reported high is intensely relaxing, euphoric and introspective, which might be a nice reprieve from hate-baiting trash-ass baby men. First Class Funk’s perfume is gassy, peppery and loud enough to alert any stoners in the vicinity of its presence. The exhale is a spicy, herbal, dense cloud, so prepare your smoke space with the appropriate incense, sage or robust ventilation lest the skunk permeates your walls.
If watching a snake eat its own tail makes your heart flutter with anxiety, a few hits of Wappa can shake loose some of those heebie-jeebies with a super-intense, swooning onset. The creeper high comes on slowly and evenly, developing the type of syrupy body high associated with deep indicas, and the uplifted, sunny, head high of an introspective sativa. When the tension of the nation creeps into your sanctuary, Wappa is the ideal strain for massaging away nervous butterflies. Uses skew heavily therapeutic, as relief for depression and chronic stress. Expect a candy-sweet nose with a hot streak of diesel funk and a fruity pine exhale.
Get it from: Weed Land, 4027 N Interstate Ave., 541-904-0000.
Get it from: Budding Culture, 6802 NE Broadway, 503-719-6192, buddingculturepdx.com.
For the Disillusioned Nihilist: Gucci OG
For the Determined Hacker: Lemon Kush
Gucci is such a balanced cultivar that in small doses, its effects reportedly skew heavily euphoric and cognitively galvanizing, while heavier intake does pivot toward more debilitating intoxication that can lock users deep in the recesses of their couches. If you’re already of the opinion that life is empty, this strain can fortify that attitude in the best way. “Is existence meaningless or is it a metaphysical vessel waiting to be filled with your personal brand of foolishness?” Take a dab to the dome and think about it. Gucci OG’s fragrance is brightly piney and citrusy, with a faint sweetness to the exhale.
Lemon Kush is a balanced hybrid genetically, but resultswise, expect a decidedly deep intoxication. Smart dosing aside, this is a potent strain. A wide swath of users report feelings of focused euphoria and rubbery relaxation that lend themselves to stationary creative projects. If you’re looking for a strain that will usher you into a flow state, Lemon Kush might be a good place to start. As the name suggests, this strain reeks of lemon essence, but users can also expect traces of pepper and pine that round out the nose. The exhale is herbaceous, earthy, and lightly floral.
Get it from: Truly Pure, 1006 SE Grand Ave., No. 104, 503-719-6018, trulypure.com.
Get it from: Mongoose Cannabis Co., 3123 SE Belmont St., 541-933-8032, mongoosecannabis.com.
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Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
PERFORMANCE
Editor: Andi Prewitt | Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com M A R I A B A R A N O VA
MUSIC Written by: Daniel
Bromfield
| @bromf3
Now Hear This
Listening recommendations from the past, present, Portland and the periphery. SOMETHING OLD Sea shanties were all the rage on TikTok this past week, appropriate in a world where everyone’s resolve is being constantly put to the test. But this isn’t the first time this briniest and crustiest of folk music traditions has crossed over. Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys (2006) finds everyone from Bryan Ferry to John C. Reilly singing the songs of the sea. Weirdly enough, this was intended as a tie-in to Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, but its rousing, ribald songs are far from family-friendly. HOLD THE PHONE: An immersive theatrical experiment connects strangers via telephone, where they learn about the seemingly mundane details of each other’s lives.
Call Me Maybe
An interactive phone call connects isolated audience members in A Thousand Ways. BY BE N N E T T C A M P B E LL FE RGUS O N
Forget Zoom. For Abigail Browde, the best weapon against loneliness during the pandemic is a phone. “I think there’s truth in being on the phone together,” she says. “I’m not pretending to be with you. I’m not pretending to see you. All I’m doing is listening. I feel like I’ve both been transported and been here, simultaneously.” That’s the feeling Browde fights to capture with A Thousand Ways, a worldwide theatrical experiment she dreamed up with her partner, Michael Silverstone, the other half of the performing duo 600 Highwaymen. It’s an audacious fusion of virtual theater and audience participation that begins with (Part 1): A Phone Call, which asks ticket buyers to talk on the phone with a stranger (the conversation is guided by a robotic female voice). With A Phone Call’s final Portland weekend approaching, Browde spoke to WW about the creation of A Thousand Ways—and what she learned when the next phase of the project, in which participants spoke to each other while separated by glass, debuted in Seattle and Germany. WW: Could you talk about why you chose a phone conversation to be the foundation of A Thousand Ways? Abigail Browde: In a pedestrian way, a phone call is the way that we summon togetherness when we can’t be together, right? I think as the coronavirus came upon us, all of us found ourselves more glued to our Zoom meetings, one after the other, and something was lost. Even though we could see the faces of who we were “with,” it put you in this nonspace. You were not really together, but you were simulating being together in an uncomfortable way. How did you approach the writing, which had to work for different people and different cultures? It started with us getting two people—maybe we knew them, maybe we didn’t, but we knew they didn’t know each other—and we would just do a conference call. And it started with me narrating, reading a list of instructions or questions or prompts, and getting people to respond to them. Now it is no longer my voice giving the instructions— it’s a prerecorded, automated robot system, and that limitation is part of the piece. The narrator can’t repeat, go back, or modify based on your response. Our hope is that
as a result of those limitations, the humanity of the two live people on the call—the ticketholders—comes to the forefront. What were some of the questions you had to retire? It seemed questions like “What are you like?” were almost too on the nose, as opposed to “I learned what you were sitting on and I learned what’s hanging on your wall, and I learned the name of someone you went to elementary school with—and now, all of a sudden, I actually can draw a complex picture of what you’re like.” Could you share a story or two that you heard from people who participated in A Thousand Ways? We had someone who called in yesterday and left us a message and said: “I live alone. I haven’t really spoken to anyone who I didn’t know in almost a year. And I have a feeling of love for this person I don’t know. I also am experiencing a tremendous amount of loss because I’m not going to find them again.” I also heard from someone who said they had a dream about their person—a dream that they met and they became friends in real life, which I thought was pretty incredible. What did you learn from seeing the production advance to (Part 2): An Encounter? I think it has been powerful for folks so far. Because of the pandemic, we are viewing proximity to other people’s bodies as a threat. If you come close to me, I equate that with danger. (Part 2) happens at a table, and there is a pane of glass between the two people attending—and, obviously, until we’re safe to do otherwise, the folks attending wear masks. Why do you think the simple facts of our lives have a power to connect us in ways that a grander statement can’t quite manage? When you describe the Grateful Dead poster you have on your wall or the framed photo of your grandmother’s hand, it’s incredibly specific. We use a rubric to categorize each other and size one another up all the time. It just feels like maybe there’s more poetic space in details, rather than in the stuff that thwarts us on a daily basis. PARTICIPATE: You can access A Thousand Ways (Part 1): A Phone Call at boomarts.org. Thursday-Sunday, Jan. 21-24. Sold out. (Part 2): An Encounter takes place in spring 2021.
SOMETHING NEW Jazmine Sullivan is R&B’s answer to Randy Newman, an alternately wry and sentimental songwriter who challenges you to make up your mind about how to feel about the people she writes about. Her new project, Heaux Tales, is her first release since 2015’s Reality Show, one of the best-written pop albums of the past decade. Like its predecessor, the new record explores the intersection of sex, politics and power, translating spoken-word interludes into rich character pieces driven by a brassy, raspy voice that equals her songwriting. SOMETHING LOCAL “Fuck Willamette Week” rapper Swiggle Mandela and his brother, Jasey, meet Westside Boogie and Kenai from L.A. for a collaboration that expands the definition of “West Coast” beyond the narrow strip it usually refers to in hip-hop regional politics. “Needed” leans south—it’s one of those sun-baked anthems that seems to melt into the pavement as it plays, and the interplay between the rappers and Kenai’s undulating vocal take is sublime. SOMETHING ASKEW Nobukazu Takemura designed the sounds for the robot dog AIBO in the early 2000s, and his music has plenty of bark and bite. 2001’s Hoshi no Koe (“Voice of a Star”) epitomizes the free-for-all spirit of the new millennium’s dawn, when experimental producers were realizing the greatness of the Beach Boys at the same time as they were figuring out how to make the gnarliest noises with computers. This means you’ll get pieces like the 13-minute bliss-out “Anemometer” and tracks that sound like a microwave on the fritz. Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
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MOVIES
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Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com T H E L A ST B LO C K B U ST E R
SCREENER
at that time—they were kind of caught off guard—and we stuck with it. Back in early 2018, as they became the last Blockbuster in the state, the country, the world, there was a huge media boom. The store became part of the zeitgeist—all over the news, the late-night shows—and we were there filming. How long did the others stay alive? There were still 12 Blockbusters left when we started. Honestly, the whole time, I thought for sure Alaska would be last. Everybody did. They didn’t have high-speed internet, so DVDs made sense. We wanted to film up there for our ending, but interviewing their owner, he said all the stores were closing next week. They weren’t making money, and we went from four Blockbusters to one very quickly. Why was Bend’s Blockbuster the last? In part, it’s just the dumb luck of other stores happening to close, but it really comes down to the people running the place. Watch the movie, you’ll see manager Sandi Harding’s love for the store and the kids who work there. It’s not, you know, a super-profitable business—more a passion project—but, as long as the owners feel they can break even, they’re going to keep providing jobs through this community hub.
LAST STAND: The world’s only remaining Blockbuster, in Bend, makes at least half of its revenue from candy and merch sales.
Discussing the origins of new documentary The Last Blockbuster, director Taylor Morden is kind, rewinds. BY JAY H O RTO N
@hortland
To answer the most obvious question: The last Blockbuster does indeed stock The Last Blockbuster. Taylor Morden’s engaging portrait of the once-ubiquitous video giant’s final extant franchise may have debuted atop the iTunes chart for streaming documentary rentals, but Bend-area viewers swinging by the sole survivor could also search the shelves for copies on DVD or Blu-ray. Later this month, following extended negotiations with (post-bankruptcy rightsholders) Dish Network to replicate the chain’s gaudily branded thick, plastic storage cases, it’ll also carry a VHS edition—the first official Blockbuster Exclusive since 2011. A native Oregonian who’d formerly helmed a pair of music docs, Here’s to Life: The Story of the Refreshments and Pick It Up!—Ska in the ’90s, Morden spoke with WW about the humble origins of his long-standing pet project, the challenges of hosting a COVID-era premiere and the surprising ease of enlisting celebrity commentators (Kevin Smith, Ione Skye, Jamie Kennedy). “We just had to reach out and say we were making a movie about the last Blockbuster,” Morden laughed. “They all were shocked that any were still left.” WW: How did this all begin? Taylor Morden: I’d found a Blockbuster Video here in Bend that was open and fully functional. It was like stepping through a ’90s time warp. I just asked if we could bring cameras around. Nobody had taken much interest
Did you have any screenings? With all the theaters shut down, it was a rough year to put out a movie. People tweet at us all the time now about the irony of renting the film on iTunes or watching it on Amazon. Instead of the indie-theater run we wanted, we did a handful of drive-ins. BendFilm [Festival] had a popup series all summer that was really cool. We played at that a few times, and our world premiere was there. That was the fun one. We sold out, I think, three screenings in a row? For us in Bend, that was the first time we’d left our houses and gathered for anything since March. It was my first time at a drive-in since the late ’80s—very surreal. Do you believe there’s something intrinsically valuable about the video store? Oh, of course. That’s kind of our mission statement. We’ve traded so much for this sense of convenience, but what have we lost in exchange? It’s a part of our culture that’s slipping away. We’ve lost that sense of community, purpose, these physical objects that used to hold movies. Thank goodness for places like this Blockbuster and Movie Madness and, you know, the few stores hanging on. It’s not about access to the films, then? The people we talked to about Blockbuster Video have all these fond memories of the rental experience, but almost never mention the movies. It was a date night, or the family was fighting, or they went with their grandparents, or they took the kids. Those are the things that stick out and resonate. We still have all the movies. Back to the Future II isn’t gone just because the stores went away. The experience of picking it out with your family and rewinding the tape and taking it back to Blockbuster…that’s what’s gone. SEE IT: The Last Blockbuster streams on Amazon Prime, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube.
Mangrove (2020) After a series of racially fueled raids by Notting Hill police at a Caribbean restaurant named Mangrove, local Black activists peacefully take to the streets in protest, leading to unfounded arrests for “riot incitement” and the highly publicized trial of the Mangrove Nine. Letitia Wright of Black Panther stars as real-life leader of the British Black Panther movement Altheia Jones-LeCointe. Amazon Prime.
Lovers Rock (2020) This gorgeous romance centers on one night at a house party and its effect on several intertwining relationships. Here, guests drink, smoke joints and dance to a form of reggae called “lovers rock,” finding pure joy and sacred refuge from the constraining tension of a white-dominated West London. Amazon Prime.
Red, White and Blue (2020) FILMINC.ORG
Video Chat
How does it stay afloat? They still sell tons of snacks—candy, Red Vines, fancy local popcorn—and they’re doing a lot of sales online with T-shirts, shot glasses, souvenirs. We sell our movie poster there. Last time I asked, only about half of their revenue came from renting DVDs. There’s just much more demand for getting a picture taken in front of the Blockbuster sign. There’s enough memorabilia for a museum, and nostalgia’s so strong right now that the store was becoming a tourist attraction.
While local rep theaters are out of commission, we’ll be putting together weekly watchlists of films readily available to stream. Academy Award-winning English director Steve McQueen, best known for 2013’s 12 Years a Slave, recently created a film series titled Small Axe. Each of the five installments depicts a different slice of Black British culture in the ’60s and ’70s, and all are streaming on Amazon Prime.
John Boyega of Star Wars fame stars as Leroy Logan, a London man who, after seeing his father assaulted by police at a young age, joins the Metropolitan Police in an attempt to reform the institution from within. This searing biopic probes the complexities of choosing between assimilation versus rebellion. Amazon Prime.
Alex Wheatle (2020) Another biopic, this one following the turbulent life of the titular author Alex Wheatle. After growing up feeling alienated in a mostly white children’s home, Wheatle eventually finds community in Brixton, where he’s able to get in touch with his Jamaican identity and his love of music before his involvement in the Brixton uprising unjustly lands him in prison. Amazon Prime.
Education (2020) In this coming-of-age story, Kingsley, a brilliant 12-year-old Black boy with a passion for astronomy, is suddenly transferred to a suspicious school for the “educationally subnormal.” This unofficial segregation policy systemically prevents Black children from receiving the education they deserve—luckily, a kindhearted psychologist appears to offer Kingsley a glimmer of hope. Amazon Prime. Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
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AMAZON.COM
MOVIES TOP PICK OF THE WEEK
Jasper Mall
Demonized by generations of filmmakers as the physical manifestation of predatory commercialism and fad-chasing consumerist vapidity, the American mall, with its newfound obsolescence, calls for a more complicated analysis. Should we cheer the extinction of a Main Street-devouring invasive species or mourn the loss of any communal hub? Jasper Mall’s elegiac portrait of its titular shopping center’s steep decline evades easy answers. By withholding any historical details or regional context, we’re forced to walk the small-town Alabama mall alongside the unhurried pace of locals getting their exercise inside the vaguely alien architecture of its long corridors. No matter how artful their shot compositions, documentarians Bradford Thomason and Brett Whitcomb (Lost Weekend; County Fair, Texas) hardly shy away from moments worthy of trending reality TV, but they never lean into the easy joke or sacrifice empathy for spectacle. Our de facto tour guide Mike, the mall’s security guard, facility manager and maintenance man, only reveals his Joe Exotic-esque backstory as a former private zookeeper in Australia at the film’s midpoint. When the Jewelry Doctor plugs in his electric guitar to drum up business for his struggling retail sales and repair shop, the riffs echoing through the empty concourse feel more joyous than desperate. It’s a scene that highlights Jasper Mall’s ability to showcase all that is valiantly ridiculous about the fight to keep the shopping center open in a tone that is both warm and dignified. NR. JAY HORTON. Amazon Prime, Google Play, Pluto TV, Vudu, YouTube. OUR KEY
JASPER MALL
: 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 Promising Young Woman Carey Mulligan often delivers her best work in unexpected places: snooping quietly through a BBC detective series, overlooked in a Paul Dano family drama, ripping Llewyn Davis a new one. But Promising Young Woman, the debut feature from Killing Eve scribe Emerald Fennell, feels designed to showcase Mulligan. She plays Cassie, a mysteriously reclusive barista who exposes men’s sex crimes by night. Across from a cast typically connoting standup dudes (Bo Burnham, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Sam Richardson, Max Greenfield, Adam Brody), Cassie knowingly awaits their heel turns, and Mulligan is as malleable as this tone-shifting movie, seemingly flicking the light in her eyes on and off at will. Distracting though the leaps from gonzo thriller to credible rom-com to edgy character study may be, the ambition of Promising Young Woman is impressive. Perhaps Fennell’s shrewdest move is suggesting the film’s bad men are actually too guilty to let these more earnest genres take hold of her film. So, thriller it is. And a riveting one throughout, even if the film’s taste for neatness and resolution cleaves off a full exploration of Cassie’s catharsis and damage. A distinctly #MeToo film, Promising Young Woman knows well (to the point of icy mockery) the tricks men use to justify predatory behavior. And in Mulligan, you couldn’t ask for a better actor to grind this ax. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. On Demand. 24
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+.
You Will Die at Twenty The first image of You Will Die at Twenty is that of a dead, decomposing camel, splayed in the Sudanese desert. Its carcass serves
Willamette Week JANUARY 20, 2021 wweek.com
as a ghastly portent of our protagonist Muzamil’s assumed fate: As a baby, the village shaman prophesied that he would die at the tender age of 20. Now, Muzamil is 19 and the threat of imminent death looms over his head like a fog, affecting his behavior, life choices and relationships. The only person who doesn’t treat him like a pariah is an eccentric old man on the outskirts of the village, and through him, Muzamil learns that oppressive religion and fate are both escapable. Shot on location in the village where director Amjad Abu Alala’s parents are from, this existential coming-of-age drama is the first Sudanese film ever submitted to the Academy Awards for Best International Feature—it’s also only the eighth Sudanese film ever made, as the country hasn’t had a cinema industry since Omar al-Bashir’s military coup in 1989. Considering these parameters, and the fact that the Sudanese Revolution began during filming (the picture is dedicated to the movement’s victims), Alala’s groundbreaking feature-length debut is even more impressive. NR. MIA VICINO. Virtual Cinema.
My Little Sister Lisa (Nina Hoss) is a playwright struggling with writer’s block. She hasn’t been able to write since her twin brother and muse Sven (Lars Eidinger) was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia— he lives in Berlin as an acclaimed theater actor, while she has reluctantly moved to Switzerland at the behest of her husband Martin’s career. With Sven’s condition worsening and Martin’s job offering him a five-year contract, Lisa finds herself torn between living with her family in one country and caring for her brother in another. Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond’s German-language cancer drama is Switzerland’s official Oscar submission for Best International Feature. Though the formidable actors give
compelling performances that elevate the thin script, the biggest problem is that Lisa is so relentlessly stubborn to the point that it’s difficult to have much sympathy for her. Hoss is excellent as always in the role, but it’s unclear why she can occasionally be so caustically cruel: In one scene, she berates her director friend for rightly refusing to let the weakened Sven exhaust himself to death by playing Hamlet onstage. Despite some genuinely tear-jerking moments, My Little Sister ultimately boils down to a navel-gazing, surface-level study of an insufferable privileged family. NR. MIA VICINO. Virtual Cinema.
Pieces of a Woman Pieces of a great film don’t necessarily make a great film. While Kornél Mundruczó’s haunting saga of a home birth gone bad unleashes a deluge of wondrous performances, it isn’t as profound as it wants to be. Vanessa Kirby (The Crown, Mission: Impossible— Fallout) plays Martha Weiss, a woman who descends into the haze of grief after the death of her baby. The birth scene is a master class in artful traumatization—it unfolds in a 24-minute shot that seems to drill every ounce of Martha’s agony into your body. Unfortunately, the film’s narrative discipline slackens as Martha’s anguish deepens. Rather than offer a nuanced portrait of a grieving family, Kata Wéber’s screenplay abruptly turns Martha’s partner (Shia LaBeouf) into a philandering villain and forces Martha’s mother (Ellen Burstyn) to deliver guilt-tripping lines so heavy-handed that even the formidable Burstyn almost breaks beneath their weight. Pieces of a Woman improves when Martha’s midwife (Molly Parker) is unjustly tried for manslaughter, but when Kirby and Parker wordlessly
forge an emotional connection across the courtroom, they remind you what the film should have been about—two women painfully and intimately united by tragedy. R. 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.
FLASHBACK
THIS WEEK IN 2002
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ART N’ COMICS!
JACK KENT’S
Jack draws exactly what he sees n’ hears from the streets.
IG @sketchypeoplepdx
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JONESIN’
Week of January 28
©2021 Rob Brezsny
by Matt Jones
"Cashing In"--a puzzle with some redeeming value. ARIES (March 21-April 19)
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)
In the 1950 film *Harvey*, James Stewart plays a middle-aged man named Elwood whose best friend is a tall invisible rabbit named Harvey. The relationship causes problems with the people in Elwood's life. At one point a psychiatrist tries to convince him to "struggle with reality." Elwood replies, "I wrestled with reality for 40 years and I am happy to state that I finally won." I'm happy to tell you this story, Aries, because it's a good lead in to my counsel for you: I suspect that one of your long wrestles with reality will yield at least a partial victory in the coming weeks. And it will be completely real, as opposed to Elwood's Harvey. Congratulations!
The 17th-century Libran polymath Thomas Browne had a brilliant, well-educated mind. He authored many books on various subjects, from science to religion, and was second only to Shakespeare in the art of coining new words. He did have a blind spot, however. He referred to sex as the "trivial and vulgar way of union" and "the foolishest act a wise man commits in all his life." Most of us have pockets of ignorance like that—aspects that qualify as learning disabilities or intellectual black holes. And now and then there come times when we benefit from checking in with these deficiencies and deciding whether to take any fresh steps to wisen them up. Now is such a time for you.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20)
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)
The light of the North Star takes a long time to reach us, even though it's traveling 186,000 miles per second. The beams it shows us tonight first embarked when Shakespeare was alive on Earth. And yet that glow seems so fresh and pure. Are there any other phenomena in your life that are metaphorically comparable? Perhaps an experience you had months ago that is only now revealing its complete meaning? Or a seed you planted years ago that is finally ripening into its mature expression? The coming weeks will be an excellent time to take inventory of such things, Taurus. It will also be a favorable phase to initiate innovations that will take some time to become fully useful for you.
GEMINI (May 21-June20)
ACROSS 1 Palindromic title (even with the apostrophe) 5 Dutch-speaking Caribbean island 10 Gum blobs 14 Prefix that means "both" 15 Littlest bits 16 Chain with stacks and syrups 17 "How You Remind Me" rock band 19 Croft of the Tomb Raider games 20 Pointer by another name 21 Place to get drinks before you turn in, maybe
62 Monty Python member Idle
31 1970s teen idol Garrett
63 Like bottles and cans, in some states (or what five long Across answers all literally contain)
33 Poker player's giveaway
66 Delany of "China Beach" 67 Hospital figure 68 Luxor river 69 Out in the open 70 Secretly watch
32 Genesis brother 34 Motivations 35 High, in Haiti 36 Dakota Fanning's younger sister 37 "Classic Concentration" puzzle type 38 Tennis star Naomi
71 Sailed through
42 Initials that may be collecting dust in your TV room
DOWN
44 "Phineas and _ _ _"
1 _ _ _ Panic (hair color brand that's still around)
45 Pillowcase material
2 Protein-building acid
47 Lt. Tuvok, for one 50 Does sock repair
23 "Take This Job and Shove It" singer David Allan _ _ _
3 Start of a popular children's song
24 "QuÈ _ _ _?" ("How's it going?")
53 Like 8, 27, and 64
27 Area near NYU
4 (Soon-to-be) former VP name (depending on when this is published)
28 Dressed like a judge
5 Have a cold, perhaps
55 Chariot horse
30 Nocturnal newborn
6 Shoplift
56 Canvas shoe brand
34 Monopoly token until 2017
7 Ogden's locale
57 "Dies _ _ _" (Latin hymn)
39 Language suffix
8 Maple go-with, in some recipes
58 A, to Germans
40 Equal share, often
9 Seek permission for
41 Wall crawlers 42 Apothecary's container 43 "The King and I" star Brynner 44 Get red in the face and shy away, maybe 46 First "Blue's Clues" host 48 Willie Nelson's son who leads the band Promise of the Real
10 Ron Howard fantasy film of 1988 11 Moby-Dick captain 12 Bilingual TV explorer 13 Practice for a boxing match
52 Remained on the shelf
26 Remain's counterpart in Brexit
60 Most Nunavut inhabitants
59 "It's worth _ _ _!" 61 Grandma, informally 64 Show stager for GIs 65 Neurotic cartoon chihuahua
last week’s answers
22 Website for DIYers with instructional steps 25 "Steal This Book" author Hoffman
56 Smoked Polish sausage
54 Coupe de _ _ _ (old Cadillac model)
18 Endorse enthusiastically
49 An official language of Pakistan 53 Drugstore with long receipts
51 Consume
In 1971, astronaut Alan Shepard had the great privilege of landing on the moon in a spacecraft, then walking on the lunar surface. How did he celebrate this epic holy adventure? By reciting a stirring passage from Shakespeare or the Talmud? By placing a framed photo of Amelia Earhart or a statue of Icarus in the dirt? By saying a prayer to his God or thoughtfully thanking the people who helped put him there? No. Shepard used this sublime one-of-a-kind moment to hit a golf ball with a golf club. I'll ask you not to regard him as a role model in the coming weeks. When your sacred or lofty moments arrive, offer proper homage and honor. Be righteously appreciative of your blessings.
CANCER (June 21-July 22) William Shakespeare worked with another playwright in creating three plays: *Henry VIII*, *The Two Noble Kinsmen*, and *Cardenio*. The lucky collaborator was John Fletcher, who was popular and influential in his era. I propose that we name him one of your role models in 2021. Here's why: You will have an enhanced potential to engage in fertile partnerships with allies who are quite worthy of you. I encourage you to be on the lookout for opportunities to thrive on symbiosis and synergy.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Canadian journalist Nick Ashdown is amazed that white people in North America are so inhibited about revealing their real feelings. He writes, "How bizarre that in English, the word 'emotional' is used pejoratively, as though passion implies some sort of weakness." He marvels that the culture seems to "worship nonchalance" and regard intense expressiveness as uncool or unprofessional. I'm going to encourage you to embody a different approach in the coming days. I don't mean to suggest that you should be an out-of-control maniac constantly exploding with intensity. But I do hope you will take extra measures to respect and explore and reveal the spirited truth about yourself.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) Virgo actor Ingrid Bergman appeared in three movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In *Notorious*, set after the end of World War II, she played the daughter of a Nazi spy. During the filming, Bergman had trouble with a particular scene. She explained her doubts to Hitchcock, saying, "I don't think I can do that naturally." Hitchcock seemed receptive to her input, but in the end had an unexpected response: "All right," he told her. "If you can't do it naturally, then fake it." I'm going to suggest that you follow Hitchcock's advice during the next two weeks, Virgo. "Fake it till you make it" is an acceptable—probably preferable—approach.
"There is no sunrise so beautiful that it is worth waking me up to see it," declares actor and comedian Mindy Kaling. Is that an unromantic sentiment? Maybe. But more importantly, it's evidence that she treasures her sleep. And that's admirable! She is devoted to giving her body the nurturing it needs to be healthy. Let's make Kaling your patron saint for now. It's a favorable time to upgrade your strategies for taking very good care of yourself.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) All of us go through phases when our brains work at a higher level than usual. I'm guessing that you're about to enjoy one of these times. In fact, I won't be shocked if you string together a series of ingenious thoughts and actions. I hope you use your enhanced intelligence for important matters—like making practical improvements in your life! Please don't waste it on trivial matters like arguments on Facebook or Twitter.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Today the Capricorn artist Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) is regarded as an important and influential painter. Early in his career, though, he was rejected and even ridiculed by critics. One reason was that he loved making still-life paintings, which were considered low art. Of his 584 works, about 200 of them were of inanimate, commonplace objects. Fruit was his specialty. Typically he might spend 100 separate sessions in perfecting a particular bowl of apples. "Don't you want to take a vacation from painting fruit?" he was asked. In response, he said that simply shifting the location of his easel in relation to his subject matter was almost more excitement than he could bear. That's the kind of focused, detailed attitude I hope you'll cultivate toward your own labors of love during the coming weeks, Capricorn.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) "We all want everything to be okay," writes author David Levithan. "We don't even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough." To that mediocre manifesto, I reply, okay. I accept that it's true for many people. But I don't think it will apply to you Aquarians in the coming weeks. According to my assessment of your astrological potentials, you can, if you want, have a series of appointments with the fantastic, the marvelous, and the outstanding. Please keep those appointments! Don't skip them out of timidity or excess humility.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) DON'Ts: Don't keep scratching an old wound until it bleeds. Don't try to snatch away the teddy bear that belongs to the 800-pound gorilla. Don't try to relieve your tension by pounding your head against a wall. Don't try to convince a stone idol to show you some tenderness. DOs: Do ask supposedly naive questions that may yield liberating revelations. Do keep in mind that sometimes things need to be a bit broken before you'll be motivated to give them all the care they need and deserve. Do extinguish the fire on a burning bridge, and then repair the bridge.
HOMEWORK: Homework: I believe that you can't get what you want from another person until you're able to give it to yourself. Do you think that's true? FreeWillAstrology.com.
28 NFL official 29 It gets boring pretty quickly
©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.
Check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes
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CASH for INSTRUMENTS
“WE’D SPRAY AND VACUUM, BUT NOTHING’S PERFECT.’’ P. 28
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TASTE BUDS ARE WRECKED.� P. 22 “TIRED OF“MY WHITE SUPREMACY? WELCOME “I WANTED THEM TO SEE WHAT THEY'RE SHOOTINGTO AT.�THE P. 20CLUB.� P. 21
COPS: TRUMP'S POLICE OCCUPY DOWNTOWN. NEWS: REMEMBER TERESSA RAIFORD’S NAME. P. 9 NEWS: AN ELECTION? THIS ECONOMY? RESTAURANTS: WHO’LLIN STOP THE RAIN? P. 21
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