Willamette Week, June 16, 2021 - Volume 47, Issue 33 - Limbo Inn by Willamette Week Newspaper

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FINDINGS JULIE SHOWERS

Stock up on all of your favorite snacks.

MOSHOW THE CAT RAPPER, PAGE 18

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 47, ISSUE 33 Sellwood has reached herd

immunity. 6

The bust of York on Mount Tabor is not actually bronze. 7 Proposed shoulder lanes in the Rose Quarter would be three times wider than those on Presidio Parkway. 8 The Black United Front once patrolled Beech Street. 9 Multnomah County is sheltering 328 homeless people in local motels. 11 It costs $23,000 to pay for someone’s yearlong stay at the Chestnut Tree Inn. 13 There’s a “secret” roller disco at Buckman Elementary School every week. 16 Moshow, Portland’s cat rapper, is coming to Netflix. 18

The goose from Untitled Goose Game is a queer icon. 21

A Portland-made “dad hat” with a “P” embroidered on it will set you back $30. 22 The website for Jerry’s Pizza crashed when 30,000 people tried to place orders. 23 The new Jerusalem Rose Market sells beer from Palestine’s first microbrewery. 24 Pianist Hunter Noack will haul a Steinway from Wallowa Lake to Fox Creek Ranch in Idaho for outdoor concerts this summer. 25 The cannabis strain Poontang Pie is said to taste like…well, take a guess. 26 Oxfordians believe Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true writer of the Shakespeare canon. 28 Rita Moreno won an Emmy for her appearance on The Muppet Show. 29

ON THE COVER:

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:

A place to call home by the day: Portland’s motels for the homeless, photo by Sam Gehrke.

Mayor Ted Wheeler tells WW’s Dive podcast that people confronting him in restaurants are “crossing a whole different line.”

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Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

DIALOGUE 2021 Astoria Sunday Market Sundays 10-3 May 9-Oct 10

Downtown Astoria

In the past year, Portland has seen a dramatic rise in gun violence that has disproportionately affected the city’s Black residents. East Portland’s Hazelwood, the neighborhood with the fourth-highest number of Black residents in the city, has endured more shootings than any other part of Portland. Only 1 in 25 Portlanders live in Hazelwood, but 1 in 13 of last year’s shootings took place there (“Surviving Hazelwood,” WW, June 9, 2021). WW spoke to several residents who have been affected by that violence firsthand, including a father whose 16-year-old son was fatally shot last August. Portland City Hall is locked in a debate whether last year’s disbanding of a police unit focused on gun violence contributed to the increase in deaths, but few people WW spoke to felt that a reduced police presence was the fundamental problem. Here’s what our readers had to say: Marisheba, via wweek.com: “You have to explain why this gang and drug problem escalated so dramatically and sharply in such a short time. Thinking the disbanding of the gun violence reduction team is the full answer gives almost superheroic credit to their effectiveness.” Walter Barrer, via Facebook: “East Portland has long been treated with a combination of neglect and contempt ever since the city annexed it back in the ’80s. It was inevitable that it would come to this.”

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Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

Connie Clemens, via Facebook: “It’s a sad situation. I’d much rather invest in our kids so they grow up healthy than spend money locking them up when they grow up dysfunctional.” Mr Logic, via wweek.com: ‘’Lionel Irving says local officials must do more to save teenagers from violence. ‘We have to take action.’ Agreed. How about a gun violence reduction task force? Like the one this inept city leadership just defunded? If I performed this badly in my job, I’d not only be fired, I’d be sued. And rightly so.”

Dr. Know

Lola, via wweek.com: “Did anyone read the article? Read what the parents said? As a Black woman pushed into outer East Portland due to gentrification, I will give you ANOTHER firsthand account of the problem: There is nothing out here. Nothing but dive bars and mini marts, apartments. Everything that makes up our community—church, events, etc.—is still [Northeast]. We’ve been purposely and strategically uprooted, disenfranchised and scattered, left out of the economic growth that Oregon has had, mainly because we or our homes and property were a key part of that growth. They just needed us out of them, and fast.” Renee Manseau, via Facebook: “Man, it has been so bad out here. This article didn’t even touch on Rockwood, which is just a continuation of this area and has had several shootings in the past month, including shooting up a vigil. 172nd area has been insane. The pandemic definitely seems to be playing a role of sorts. We need so much more community stuff in this area.” Gsptrane, via wweek.com: “I found this article insightful and well written. Stories such as these may inform those who can provide solutions. It won’t be easy. Many cities in the nation are experiencing increasing gun violence, a trend that began in spring last year. Before that, crime had been reasonably stable. Why the change? Opinions differ widely. Timing would suggest that the shutdown and lack of accountability for racist actions and rhetoric contributed.”

CORRECTION

A story on COVID-19 vaccinations (“The Big Number,” WW, June 9, 2021) miscalculated the time it will take for Oregon to reach a 70% vaccination rate at the current pace. The state is on pace to reach 70% in June, not July. WW regrets the error. 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

A guy told me he disposed of dead rats he’d caught by putting them in his curbside compost bin. Is that safe for our gardens? Did the free bag of compost the city gave me in observance of Earth Day contain a decomposing rat? —Sarah R. Not so loud, Sarah; everybody will want one. Anyway, it might seem gnarly to you, but your garden would probably be thrilled to get its grubby roots on a nice, juicy, nutrient-rich dead rat. It’s not like everything else we throw in the compost smells like tuberoses after a spring rain—the more disgusting it is, the better plants like it. Luckily for plants, dead animal composting is enjoying something of a heyday. Oregon now has a facility for composting roadkill, ranchers are increasingly composting (rather than rendering) deceased livestock, and scientists in Canada recently composted an entire whale. You can even compost your pets! For a fee, a Seattle company will reduce your cat to a rich soil in which you can plant a tree, memorializing your beloved pet while providing the dog she never liked with a deeply satisfying opportunity for revenge.

Now the bad news: You still can’t throw dead animals into the green bin. Sanitation workers have to handle your compost, and since dead animals can carry disease, waste haulers won’t accept them as compost. They’ll still take those dead rats off your hands, though—as long as you wrap them in three layers of plastic, seal them with duct tape, and put them in the regular garbage. Or you can try composting your animal pals DIY-style! The internet is rife with people eager to explain how to do this (I’m sure Gwyneth Paltrow has a page about it somewhere), but in general, you just need to put the decedent on a bed of straw, cover it with manure or spoiled silage, top off with more straw, and wait 60 days. Of course, you need to do this in a place that’s inaccessible to raccoons, coyotes and other scavengers, and it might not be strictly legal within city limits. Also, if you’re composting larger animals, don’t forget to cut them open so they don’t explode. But that’s it—it’s that easy! (And you thought you’d never find a use for that spoiled silage!) QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

MURMURS

J U S T I N YA U

JUNE 15 PROTEST AGAINST EVICTIONS

PORTLAND COP INDICTED FOR PROTEST ASSAULT: In what appears to be a first in Portland history, a grand jury has indicted a police officer for assaulting someone at a protest. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office announced June 15 the indictment of Portland Police Officer Corey Budworth on one count of fourth-degree assault—a class A misdemeanor—for “unlawfully caus[ing] physical injury to another person” during an Aug. 18, 2020, protest. The DA’s office says it learned the complainant’s identity—a photojournalist named Teri Jacobs—when she filed a federal lawsuit against “Officer 37” last September, accusing the then-unknown cop of hitting her multiple times with his baton in the back, neck and back of the head. DA Mike Schmidt said June 15 that “no legal justification existed for Officer Budworth’s deployment of force, and that the deployment of force was legally excessive under the circumstances.” The Portland Police Association defended Budworth’s actions, calling him a “decorated public servant [who] has been caught in the crossfire of agenda-driven city leaders and a politicized criminal justice system.” The union said Budworth’s alleged baton strike to Jacobs’ head was an accident. OREGON EVICTION DEADLINE LOOMS: Oregon’s moratorium on residential evictions is set to expire June 30. But there might be a saving grace for some tenants: The Oregon Legislature is discussing an amendment to Senate Bill 278 that would prevent evictions for nonpayment of rent for 60 days after the deadline, if the tenant shows proof they’ve applied for and are awaiting rent assistance. House Speaker Tina Kotek’s office tells WW she supports the workaround. “Speaker Kotek knows a lot of renters are still hurting despite the growing recovery,” says spokesman Danny Moran. “It would be tragic if, in these final months of the pandemic, renters lost their homes because money didn’t reach their landlords in time.” On June 15, about two dozen protesters blocked traffic along Southwest 1st Avenue, demanding the moratorium be extended. “Evictions are not only immoral because of the pandemic, they are immoral every day,” said Colleen Carol, a spokesperson for Don’t Evict PDX. “Every eviction is an act of violence, and that is not a metaphor.” POLICE CONTRACT TALKS GO BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: The Portland Police Association announced Monday that, after 150 days of bargaining with the city, it has initiated private mediation to negotiate their contract. “The city should understand the need to reach finality on a new contract,” PPA executive director Daryl Turner said in a statement. “Pressure breeds progress and results.” Mediation, which happens behind closed doors, lasts for a minimum of 15 days. The announcement means less transparency in talks between the city and the police union on one of the most divisive issues in Portland today: the process by which the city disciplines officers accused of wrongdoing. The City Attorney’s Office said Monday it was “disappointed” by the PPA’s decision to file for mediation but that it respects state labor laws that allow the union to take that step. MAYOR WANTS TO DINE IN PEACE: Mayor Ted Wheeler says repeated confrontations with protesters while he’s dining in Portland restaurants are something he’s come to expect—but not something he will accept. “When somebody comes into a restaurant, shouting and screaming, knocking tables out of the way, that’s crossing a whole different line,” Wheeler tells WW. “And particularly, if I’m with my child, I just call B.S. on that. That is off-limits, and if push comes to shove, I will defend my child.” In an interview on the Dive podcast by WW, Wheeler appeared to describe a June 1 confrontation at Bamboo Sushi on Northwest 23rd Avenue in which someone berated him for the Portland Police Bureau’s use of tear gas on protesters and bystanders. This week’s guest on the podcast is Commissioner Mingus Mapps. Listen at wweek.com. Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

ALEX WITTWER

NEWS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK

SHOPPING LIST

In its semi-annual update submitted in August, the Police Bureau wrote that, because of the laptop purchases, telework had become “the new normal” for non-patrol employees, and that “several professional (non-sworn) units have transitioned out of their offices permanently.”

™ Supplies for the training division’s “Classroom Tracking Camera Project”

In its most recent semi-annual report, evaluating the period of July 1 to Dec. 31, 2020, PPB said the training division acquired supplies for a project which appears to set up a camera that would let officers conduct trainings while the camera followed them around the room. (PPB declined to explain the purpose of the project.) The evaluation does not say how much grant money the bureau actually spent on the project. However, WW obtained an August 2020 purchase order specifically designated for the “Tracking Camera Project in 1927 Classroom,” which shows the bureau bought a $2,404 camera capable of livestreaming and “auto tracking.” That same purchase order also shows receipts for a large hard drive, two pairs of earpads for headphones, and $2,400 paid to Getty Images for “Stock Images/Video/ Illustrations/Music for online learning creation.”

PLEASANT SURPRISE: The Portland Police Bureau received a gift this spring.

Fund the Police How the Portland Police Bureau spent $1 million in COVID relief money. BY TE SS R I S K I

tess@wweek.com

In April 2020, the Portland Police Bureau stocked up. That’s when the U.S. Department of Justice sent the bureau $1 million in COVID-19 relief funding, which it then used to keep officers socially distanced while flying in planes, to decontaminate squad cars, and to buy what appears to be some very fancy camera equipment. The feds disbursed more than $847 million to 1,825 law enforcement agencies nationwide via the Coronavirus Emergency Supplemental Funding Program. The use of that money has been scrutinized in other cities—but not in Portland, where it received a brief mention in budget documents last fall but was never reported in the press until now. Through a public records request, WW obtained copies of the Police Bureau’s grant application, signed by Mayor Ted Wheeler, and semi-annual evaluation reports the city submitted to the DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs. The DOJ granted the funding weeks before the Police Bureau’s budget would shrink by $15 million in June 2020, and as it worked to further reduce its budget by an additional $5 million in accordance with a 5.6% budget cut across all city bureaus’ General Funds due to pandemic-related shortfalls. In that sense, the $1 million offered a slight cushion for the blow from local police defunding and COVID-related reductions. But funding from the DOJ can have strings attached: In court cases stemming from protests dating back to July 2020, including an arson case settled last week, federal prosecutors cited both CESF funding and grants from the Office of Justice Programs—the source of the Police Bureau’s $1 million grant—as justification for asserting federal jurisdiction over city- and county-owned properties. In its application, submitted last April, the Police Bureau said it planned to use the grant money almost exclusively for pandemic-related expenses. For the most part, it appears to have kept its word. 6

Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

That said, the purchases the bureau made, or asked to make, are a revelatory shopping list. They offer a window into how police coped with the pandemic, how fully cops embraced remote work, and a few other details of bureau culture. Here are four notable purchases:

™ $178,840 for employee overtime

In its April 2020 application, the Police Bureau said the funding would provide a cushion for bureau employees “dedicated to preventing, preparing for, and responding to the coronavirus in the city of Portland.” In its first semi-annual report, submitted to the DOJ in August, the bureau wrote that eligibility for overtime was designated to three specific categories: • The bureau’s COVID-19 Incident Command Post. • The Air Support Unit partnering model, “which limited the in-person contact of flight teams with precinct personnel.” • “Patrol teams working with the houseless community.”

™ $88,580 for two “portable decontamination units”

PPB wrote in its application that it wanted to purchase two such units at a cost of $44,290 each, as well as $45,000 for three “fogger decontamination systems”—one for each precinct—at a cost of $15,000 each. “This expense will provide deployable decontamination capability for PPB,” the bureau wrote in its application. “Holding cells within the precincts and investigative units have already needed to be decontaminated because of sick arrestees.”

™ $127,500 for 50 laptops

In its application, the bureau asked for funding for 50 laptops at a cost of $2,550 per unit for teleworking employees. “Every laptop in the bureau was deployed to a teleworking detective, crime analyst, or finance employee,” the application says. “The bureau placed their order for 50 laptops and docking stations with the goal of increasing the number of teleworking detectives thus decreasing personnel in bureau offices.”

CLOCKED

Hunzeker Watch It’s been more than 100 days since the Police Bureau started probing a leak.

92 DAYS: That’s how long ago Officer Brian Hunzeker resigned from his role as president of the Portland Police Association due to what the union described as a “serious, isolated mistake related to the [Portland] Police Bureau’s investigation into the alleged hit-and-run by Commissioner [Jo Ann] Hardesty.” We still don’t know what he did. The mayor’s office says it doesn’t know what he did. Hunzeker has been on paid administrative leave since May 27.

103 DAYS: That’s how long it’s been since the Police Bureau opened an internal affairs investigation into the leak of information that wrongly implicated Commissioner Hardesty in a March 3 hit-and-run crash. It has released no results of its inquiry.

91 DAYS: That’s how long it’s been since the city signed a contract to hire an outside investigative firm to probe the leak. TESS RISKI. Editor’s note: It is unusual for WW to track the timeline of such investigations, but the circumstances themselves are unusual: A veteran police officer and union president abruptly resigned from his union leadership role in connection with information leaked about an elected official. Meanwhile, he was assigned to work the patrol unit in the North Precinct until being placed on administrative leave. We believe Portlanders have a right to know what Hunzeker did that led to his resignation, and we believe it is critical to put pressure on public officials and law enforcement leaders who might prefer that the public forget about it. We will continue to publish this column until we know what Hunzeker did.

NEWS AARON MESH

MAPPED

FACT CHECK

Herd Mentality These Multnomah County ZIP codes have hit a 70% vaccination rate. More than a dozen ZIP codes in inner Portland neighborhoods have hit a key vaccination benchmark. In these neighborhoods, the percentage of residents (not just adults) who’ve had at least one dose of the COVID -19 vaccine has surpassed 70%, according to Oregon Health Authority data. To achieve a level of immunity in the population that would shut down spread of the virus, public health experts set a benchmark of somewhere around 70%. (That benchmark depends partly on how contagious a disease is and how effective the vaccines are. With COVID’s ever-changing variants, that’s a fluctuating target.) Herd immunity means the virus is less likely to be able to find another vulnerable body to infect. Of course, the OHA ZIP code data doesn’t capture how many people commute from other parts of the city or other counties, so it doesn’t fully capture risks. But it’s a notable milestone for neighborhoods from Northwest Portland to Laurelhurst and Sellwood—all places where at least 70% of the residents have received a shot. Vaccine rates still lag among Black and Latinx populations. Rates are higher among older populations, among other groups. The map of herd immunity in part reflects demographics of vaccine acceptance and hesitancy. RACHEL MONAHAN.

SCULPTURE GARDEN: The bust of York atop Mount Tabor.

New York Here’s what could happen to the bust of York atop Mount Tabor. The bust of York covertly erected on Mount Tabor will stay there for a while. And a depiction of him might stay on the volcano forever. In February, an anonymous artist installed the 4-foot bust of York, an enslaved Black man who was a member of the Corps of Discovery, on the pedestal that once held a statue of former Oregonian editor Harvey Scott. The new artwork has drawn adoration—and repeated vandalism. Last week, police cited a Portland woman, Jeanette Grode, for three misdemeanors after she allegedly covered

the statue’s base in purple spray paint. (A woman who gave her name to bystanders as Grode was filmed ranting that it wasn’t right to replace a white man with a Black man.) The incident renewed clamor around the bust, especially after several media outlets reported that York would not stay on Mount Tabor permanently. This week, WW talked to Jeff Hawthorne, arts program manager for the city. He cleared up a few misconceptions about the bust and explained what its future looks like. Here are three key revelations.

The bust isn’t bronze.

Instead, it’s built from wood covered in urethane. That’s a resin, like fiberglass but not as sturdy. The artist then lacquered the bust in bronze paint, giving it the appearance of a forged bronze sculpture. “There was also some painting on the plywood that was affixed to the pedestal,” Hawthorne says, “that made that plywood appear as if marble.”

The city has set no date for the bust’s removal.

Urethane isn’t weatherproof. That’s why the current artwork can’t be included in the city’s permanent collection. But Hawthorne says the bust will stay at Mount Tabor Park until it deteriorates. Nobody knows how long that will be—“perhaps because there aren’t very many public artworks made of that material,” Hawthorne says. It might remain for several years.

City officials know who the artist is.

“Some folks at the Regional Arts & Culture Council had a good guess and were able to confirm the identity of the artist.” That sculptor wants to remain anonymous, and the city is honoring that. But officials have started discussing with the artist the possibility of replacing the urethane bust with a permanent bust of York—this time cast in bronze. AARON MESH.

PARTY TIME: Laurelhurst is at least 70% vaccinated! Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

NEWS

DANIEL STINDT

Cover Charge A contractor’s report fuels demands that state officials shrink and cover a highway through Northeast Portland.

CAP SPACE: Interstate 5 in the Rose Quarter could fit under a neighborhood. BY R AC H E L M O N A H A N

rmonahan@wweek.com

Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

KRISTIE BAXTER

A fight that is stalling the future of highway traffic through the Rose Quarter might be settled for a mere 20-foot span of pavement. WW has learned that an Oregon Department of Transportation contractor, San Francisco-based Arup, has recommended since at least April 28 that ODOT select a narrower highway design for Interstate 5 through the Rose Quarter. In a document obtained by WW, Arup says removing roughly 20 feet of width would reduce the cost of placing a cap over the highway. That’s significant because, for more than a year, a unified front of Portland-area leaders at the city, county and regional levels has lined up behind building a cover over the highway—in order to support redevelopment of the historically Black Albina neighborhood. (Original construction of I-5 in the 1960s partly destroyed the neighborhood.) For that same year, ODOT has resisted any attempt to scale back the highway lanes planned for the $795 million project. One of the local officials lobbying ODOT is Metro Council President Lynn Peterson. She tells WW that the Rose Quarter project must balance “the community’s needs for investment and the state’s needs for transportation”—a gentle but unmistakable signal she won’t accept a project that doesn’t restore the neighborhood above the freeway. “This project is so important and needs clear direction from all levels of state government,” says Peterson. “We want to keep this process moving with some efficiency but also have a meaningful opportunity to push the boundaries of what is possible both in design and restorative justice.” The state’s transportation leaders have not embraced that approach. Instead, the Oregon Transportation Commission, which directs state transportation policy, voted in May to commit to 12-foot shoulders on the inside and outside of the project, in addition to a new 12-foot auxiliary lane in the center of the highway. The commission took that vote even as the formal evaluation of how to proceed with building highway covers was still underway. For most of the Rose Quarter project’s tenure, the highest-profile opponents have pushed ODOT not to widen the highway at all. Now what’s notable is how many local leaders are pushing for the project to work, with some changes. “We need visionary leadership and commitment to bring this all together, but it is clear to me that the pieces are there,” says Multnomah County Commissioner Jessica Vega Pederson. Now the project has entered a critical phase, with pressure mounting on state highway officials to concede a little ground.

Some of that pressure comes from Oregon’s congressional delegation. U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Eugene) recently expressed exasperation with the uncertainty of project as the Oregon delegation stands ready to look for federal funding for it. Now, U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Portland) is also pushing for ODOT to change course. “If we’re able to have the Department of Transportation catch up to where the community is, I think there’s a real opportunity to be able to tie into some of the initiatives of the Biden administration that [have] some resources to heal some of these wounds,” Blumenauer tells WW. “This happened all over the country. I indicated to the governor that the feedback I’ve been getting from the community, I find it encouraging. And this is a priority for me.” As of April, the Biden administration infrastructure plan included $20 billion to help “reconnect” communities of color, The New York Times reported. T h e n e w a s s e s s m e n t , obtained by WW, shows even ODOT’s own contractor has offered the agency a way to deliver the highway caps Portlanders have demanded. The draft Constructability EARL BLUMENAUER and Cost Analysis Report for the Rose Quarter Independent Cover Assessment, dated June 2, estimates covering the highway would cost more than $500 million. Covers that could support five-story buildings would cost roughly $200 million more, depending on which design ODOT proceeds with. The draft report does not include an estimate of how much money could be saved by making the highway more narrow. As of press deadlines, ODOT did not provide any estimates the agency may have. The report does say no comparable highway project in any other city includes the 12-foot inner shoulder lanes that ODOT has included in this project. (According the report, Presidio Parkway in San Francisco has 4 feet, the I-93 Central Artery in Boston has zero feet, and the Alaskan Way tunnel in Seattle has 2 feet.) “Arup recommends a revised approach in line with current precedents for urban highway projects that... reduces impacts on the community (including Harriet

Tubman Middle school) and enhances restorative justice by increasing and improving the quality of development potential on and adjacent to the covers,” the April presentation states. And it says adding width essentially adds expense. “The most significant driver of project cost (initial construction cost as well as ongoing maintenance and life-cycle costs), right-of-way impacts, and development potential on and adjacent to the covers is the cross-section width,” the draft report states, laying out various technical approaches used in other states.“We believe these options can be considered to reduce the tunnel width so as to minimize construction cost and impact to the adjacent properties.” Instead, the report recommends considering interior shoulders of 3 to 8 feet (instead of 12); exterior shoulders of 10 feet (instead of 12), and lanes of 11 or 12 feet (instead of only 12). Such a design could accommodate the demands of the nonprofit championing the effort to redevelop the Albina neighborhood. In a June 9 letter, Albina Vision Trust’s executive director Winta Yohannes and board chair Rukaiyah Adams called on ODOT director Kris Strickler to get back to working with the community. Their request: “Reconnect Portland’s neighborhoods, modernize an important urban transportation corridor and realize a commonly held vision for a community where Black folks and their history are treasured and reflected in the urban form.” (Yohannes declined to comment further when contacted by WW.) ODOT says it’s still working through the process. “We know that there is a ton of work ahead,” says department spokeswoman Tia Williams. But the leaders pressuring ODOT may soon include the agency’s boss, Gov. Kate Brown. In a statement to WW, Brown’s office signaled her strongest support to date for a highway cover that would support neighborhood development. “With the Biden-Harris administration in place, we have a historic opportunity for local, regional and state governments to partner with our federal delegation to ensure the Rose Quarter project reconnects and repairs the historic Albina community,” says Brown’s spokeswoman Liz Merah, “while supporting local businesses, creating good-paying jobs and apprenticeship opportunities locally, and addressing public health and greenhouse gas emissions.”

NEWS ANTONIO HARRIS

Brown discusses his memoir at a virtual event hosted by Broadway Books this Wednesday, June 16. We sat down last week for a conversation about what’s changed in the past 45 years in Portland, and what’s stayed the same. WW: For the past 14 years, you’ve been driving down to the police academy in Salem. What do you do there? Richard Brown: I go down there twice a week, and I get to talk to them about how what they’re being taught is being viewed by the community. Last week, I sat in a classroom where they were talking about the Constitution and all these great things the Constitution means to us. I let them know that when the Constitution was written, it didn’t apply to Black folks. I let them know: “Don’t be mad because people say they hate the police. Try to find out why they’re saying that.” One of the things that really bugs me is how often I hear the statement “Folks want to get rid of the cops.” I don’t see many people on the streets that think we can function without a police force, but down at the academy, not a day goes by that I don’t hear that people want to get rid of the police. And I tell them that’s not the fact. The fact is that people are not satisfied with the way you’re doing stuff.

Hotseat:

Richard Brown He’s been a Black activist in Portland for 45 years. Here’s his advice. BY E M M A PAT T E E

@emmalincolnblog

The relationship between Portland’s Black community and its police force has been broken for as long as anyone can remember. Since the 1980s, Richard Brown has worked to mend it. Brown, now 82, started attending Portland protests as a photographer—chiefly for African American newspaper The Portland Observer (although he freelanced for other publications, including WW). Soon, he found himself crossing over to join the activists—especially the Black United Front, which demanded an end to school busing programs that placed the burden of reintegration on Black children. “I had taken my pictures and was still sitting around, and something was said, and I just said something,” Brown recalls. “It was like the dam broke, and I’ve been saying something ever since.” Where Brown made his voice loudest was around the issue of community policing: the idea that cops needed to get out of their squad cars and become resources in Black neighborhoods, not merely threats to them. For 14 years, twice a week, he has driven to the police academy in Salem and offered advice to recruits. In March, Brown released a memoir of his activism, This Is Not for You. The book couldn’t be more timely: It arrives after a year in which the tactics and aims of protesters for racial justice have been debated with unparalleled ferocity.

For years, you did ride-alongs with the Portland police. In your book, you talk about how hard it was to witness some of those interactions. What was the worst? The worst situation for me was being in the police car and looking at the depths to which people go to survive. We don’t talk about those things. We think the worst thing that happens is that somebody gets shot or somebody gets hurt. The worst thing is that those people are in that situation to start with. It seems like part of what makes you so effective as an activist is that you speak the language of activism and you also speak the language of police. How did that happen? When I was younger, I’d just say what I had to say the way I had to say it and as loud as I wanted to say it. And eventually I learned that it’s easy to minimize and find something wrong with the messenger, and if all I’m perceived as is a loudmouth, it’s easy to minimize me. During anti-apartheid work, South Africa had an honorary consulate here, and we decided that we were going to picket a couple times a week and stop them from working. We sat down with the police and said, “We’re going to do this, and they’re going to call the cops, and you’re going to come and arrest somebody. But we don’t have to have the confrontation. We will tell you who you can arrest if you need to arrest someone, and then everybody will leave.” And we did that until the South African embassy closed down. We rode up the elevator with the cop, got on their desks, wouldn’t let them work, and when they decided they’d had enough, the cop arrested somebody. It was the same cop every time. It got to the point where we could laugh going up and coming down. That let me know that there were police who could deal with Black people just like they deal with white people. What is your take on what’s happening now in Portland? The window smashing and vandalism? It’s the same issue, only different times. We get up in arms about it, and then people go back to sleep and they wake up and raise hell, and then they go back to sleep and they wake up, and it’s just a rehashing of the same thing. The reason there was so much destruction is because it was white people tearing stuff up. It was the children of the people running the businesses downtown, the people who live up in the West Hills, the people who go to the good schools. It was their children and their relatives fed

up with this stuff and finally realizing that this was what Black folks were saying all the time. And if the cops go out there and shoot one of those [white] youngsters, they’ve got hell to pay for that. It wouldn’t have lasted this long if it had been Black people. It pisses me off that it took that. And because the destruction hasn’t stopped, the emphasis isn’t any longer on Black lives. It’s on cleaning up downtown. It’s about getting the economy back together. I don’t care about the economy. I don’t care about downtown being torn up. What accomplishment of your activism are you the proudest of ? In the mid-’90s, we went to the Police Bureau and asked them for the most dangerous area in the precinct. They told us it was Beech Street. The Black United Front decided we were going to do a foot patrol for five hours a night, seven nights a week. Every night for months, we walked. We had people come from Hillsboro, Multnomah Village, Gresham to walk the streets with us. Crimes decreased tremendously. Not only while we were patrolling, but all the time. And it had a ripple effect on other nearby streets. How do you think policing has changed in the past 40 years in Portland, and what’s stayed the same? The changes for me are like grass growing. I don’t notice it, it’s so slow. Are things better? Heck no. And it’s not just police. We don’t address all of the issues that create these problems. There was a riot, so we address the torn-up downtown but ignore the school system, jobs, housing, the ability to live a decent life. All of those things come into play, but we never deal with them, so nothing changes. You’ve been doing this work for so long. How do you keep your morale up and keep showing up every day to do this work? Because when I get discouraged, I sit down to look at the grass and see, “Oh, it did grow a quarter of an inch,” and if I can attach my fingerprint to that quarter-inch of grass, that gets me fired up.

GO: Richard Brown discusses This Is Not for You in a virtual event at 6 pm Wednesday, June 16. Free. To register, visit broadwaybooks.net.

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L I M B O INN

One week inside three motels at the edge of homelessness. BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com Photos by Sam Gehrke

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n a queen-size bed in a Ramada Inn deep in Southeast Portland, Juli Cornett is reading A Wrinkle in Time with her 11-year-old son. A tie-dye lampshade glows by the bedside, and the boy’s teddy bear sits at the foot of the bed. Cornett and her son stretch their legs into the downy white bedspread. This is her home for four more days. For the past three years, Cornett, 47, has bounced on the fringes of homelessness. In June, she contracted a case of COVID-19 that lingered nearly seven months. In October, she lost her job at an Amazon shipping dock. The unemployment checks stopped in May. She could no longer afford to pay $120 a month to stay in a camper van in a Portland backyard. For the past two weeks, her home has been this Ramada, a red-painted cube between a nail salon and the northbound on-ramp to Interstate 205. “In the nick of time, this saved me from being in a tent on the side of the freeway,” Cornett says. Her son visits her on Saturdays. (The other nights he’s with his dad, also in Southeast Portland.) She buys him bacon and waffles at the Elmer’s across Stark Street from the motel. Their possessions—blankets, chairs and toys—sit in a storage locker 3 miles away. “[He] said to me, ‘Mom, no wonder relatives think you’re homeless. You bounce around so much,’” Cornett tells WW. “I need to show my son I can stand on my own two feet. And I’m going to figure it out.” Cornett hopes she can soon unpack. She’s apartment hunting, looking for something under $900 a month, which is what a Portland nonprofit has agreed to subsidize. In the meantime, JOIN, a nonprofit that has a contract with Multnomah County, paid for her stay at the Ramada. For Cornett, who has experienced housing insecurity across Oregon for three years, the motel room is a way to hit the pause button on an escalating personal crisis. The room offers her what she needs most: time and a secure space to steady herself and find housing. Cornett may not stay in a tent downtown or in the few tent shelters the county has established across Portland since COVID descended. But she has nowhere to live—just like the 4,000 people Multnomah County considers homeless. That official tally captures only a portion of the people in the Portland area who are uncertain where they’ll sleep next. In its expanded definition of homelessness, which includes those teetering on its edge, the county estimates the number is over 16,000. Many of those on the streets have drug addictions or mental illnesses, are fleeing abusive relationships, or are working part-time or minimum-wage jobs.

For about 328 of them, perhaps the lucky ones, the county is paying for long-term rooms at seven motels, at a cost of $1.4 million a month. Other government and private funds pay for shorter stays at the Ramada and a handful of other motels. When the pandemic hit, Multnomah County needed somewhere to send people most vulnerable tp contracting the virus in group shelters. County officials chose seven motels across the city: three in Southeast Portland, one in Gresham, one each in North and Northeast Portland, and one in Southwest Portland. With tourism all but vanished, the operators—including for this Ramada Inn—are happy to have the county government rent rooms or, in some cases, entire motels.

These shabby inns on Portland’s commercial strips have become a refuge: the last places people cling to before falling out of housing, or the first lifeline they cling to as they climb back in. One year later, the operations are still going. It’s become one of the tourniquets local officials apply to a problem they’re nowhere near solving. “It’s not cheap. There are other ways of providing shelter that cost less,” says a spokesman for the Joint Office of Homeless Services, Denis Theriault. “But they don’t provide the same safety to the folks who are sheltering. I don’t think anyone is surprised what it means for someone to have a room of their own.” These shabby inns on Portland’s commercial strips have become a refuge: the last places people cling to before falling out of housing, or the first lifeline they cling to as they climb back in. For the past two weeks, this reporter has visited three motels—two perched side by side above I-205 traffic, another behind a Chinese restaurant in the Southwest Hills—to understand more about the Portlanders who found themselves in motel rooms across the city this year. They are anxious, afraid, healing, resilient and hopeful. And for stretches as long as a year or as short as two weeks, they are neighbors.

REST: Juli Cornett sits on her queen-size bed at the Ramada Inn.

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“I’m hopeful that Caleb will make it through this. I don’t have much hope for myself. It’s been four years and I’m exhausted.” — Jessi Hart

LAST CHANCE: Jessi and Caleb Hart stand outside the motel, the place they’ve called home for the past 14 days.

hree flags whip in the wind outside the Ramada Inn, just a stone’s throw from Mall 205: for the United States, Oregon and Ramada. The inn has few amenities. Cereal in the lobby, microwave dinners for sale at the front desk. But it does offer something more important to Portland’s homeless: a door between them and the world. “That’s the thing that keeps coming up for people: It gives me that space to breathe, I can relax, and I feel safe,” says Jess Gibly, a director at Do Good Multnomah, a nonprofit that operates three motels under contracts with the county. The Ramada Inn is one of the motels that allows nonprofits to house people for short stays as a stopgap keep them off the streets. That’s where Jessi Hart, 41, has been living for 14 days with her 12-year-old son, Caleb, who’s on the other queen bed, in their second-floor room at the Ramada Inn. The room is strewn with backpacks. It smells faintly of cat litter— their cat Loki jumps from bed to bed, eager for affection. Hart has been housing unstable, in various ways, since 2016. She says her housing insecurity started when she began to transition from male to female. “I never cross-dressed or anything; for all intents and purposes I was the man’s man. But I led two lives. I knew since I was 8,” Hart says. “Being in the wrong body is sickening. It’s like you’re caught in a diseased coat that you just can’t get out of.”

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When she announced her transition, she says, she lost everything: her construction company, her family, and her house. The story of how she lost her business could not be independently verified, although state records show she was the registered agent of a Hillsboro construction firm until it was dissolved in 2017. She lived at Bradley Angle, a women’s shelter, for eight months. Then in an apartment, at a friend’s house and in motels. She says Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare placed her in another room at the Ramada for 15 days, which is being funded through her medical insurance. In those two weeks, she’s searched for jobs online, helped Caleb with virtual school, and tried to figure out where to go next. She keeps the motel feeling like home by cooking what she can—mostly microwaveable meals like tamales and corn dogs. “I’m hopeful that Caleb will make it through this. I don’t have much hope for myself,” Hart says. “It’s been four years and I’m exhausted. I went from not having anything to worry about, taking him to Disneyland every year for his birthday, to nothing.” Tomorrow, they have to leave. Hart is in the process of carting all their belongings to a nearby storage unit. Anything that’s left must fit in her small black Saab. The motel isn’t ideal, but Jessi says it’s the only thing keeping her from sleeping in her car. “It’s not bad,” she says. “It’s better than a car.”

ot far from Juli Cornett’s room is where Memphis has been living for the past week, often in the company of a Labradoodle named Franklin. Memphis is 5-foot-10, with piercing blue eyes and a smile that reveals his yearslong meth addiction. Memphis, whose real name is Jason Jaudon, is 38 but looks much younger, despite the ravages of drug use. “It destroyed me, it rewired my brain. I used to be a thug and now I’m a softie,” Memphis says. “I have PTSD, epilepsy, diabetes, anxiety and severe depression.” A number of studies indicate that most homeless people either have a mental illness, an addiction to drugs or alcohol, or both. Memphis fits the pattern. He says he started using meth, heroin and cocaine heavily after he lost his father to suicide, his brother to an overdose, and his mother to cancer—all within a month in Memphis, Tenn. He moved to Portland to stay with a friend that same year, 2016. That fell apart. He’s been homeless for the past four years, crashing for short stints on couches and in shelters. Three months ago, Memphis was assaulted on the street. He had surgery on his eyes at Oregon Health & Science University last month and then stayed in Central City Concern housing for a month. He was approved to stay at the motel for two weeks in preparation for two other eye surgeries. “I’m diabetic and epileptic, so having a room means a lot,” Memphis says. “I feel blessed to have it.” Memphis has no plans to find an apartment, and no money to afford one. He expects when his stay ends in eight days he’ll sleep on the street again. “I watch South Park, that’s what’s up,” Memphis says. “But I know that the discharge day is coming up, so what am I going to do then?”

ROOM R ATES Putting up homeless people in motels is a clever solution. It’s also expensive.

ne block west from the Ramada, tucked between Stark Street and a parkour studio, the Chestnut Tree Inn has no vacancy. The county has been buying up the entire motel, every night, for homeless women struggling with various health issues. For a lot of the people living in these longer-stay motels, it is the first time in a long time they’ve felt safe. That’s true for both Shannon Brandt, 49, and Tanji Deffendal, 46. The two women met at Chestnut Tree Inn after both were transferred from group shelters earlier this year. The county-funded motel, operated by Human Solutions, houses 58 women. Residents can stay until they find permanent housing. Brandt’s favorite part of her room is the two giant mirrors. For most of her life, she says, she avoided mirrors. “I didn’t like to look at me,” she says. “I felt ugly and small.” But now she says she’s learning to be her own friend again. Brandt, who grew up in Portland, started using intravenous drugs at age 11. At 18, her 1-year-old daughter swallowed too many iron pills and died—she’s buried at a cemetery nearby, and she and Deffendal drive there every week to plant flowers. Brandt says she is now drug free. At age 44, Deffendal got hooked on meth. Last November, she got clean. But she relapsed in January, lost her job after surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome in her hands, and started sleeping in churches and spending days in her daughter’s car. This spring, she asked for help at a women’s shelter and was sent to Chestnut Tree. The two women have become fast friends. Both say the motel gave them the space they needed to heal from abusive past relationships. They attend church together. Last week, Brandt plopped her favorite book on Deffendal’s lap while she was smoking outside under a white tent: It’s The Body Keeps the Score, about how trauma lodges itself in the body.

SPACE TO HEAL: Shannon Brandt and Tanji Deffendal visit Brandt’s baby daughter’s grave once a week.

The relief they feel here makes the two women giddy. Two days ago, Brandt saw a rainbow above Division Street. So they hopped in Deffendal’s Honda Civic, which she uses to make DoorDash deliveries, and went looking for the best view. It’s the third time this week they’ve chased a rainbow. “If people don’t know trauma, they’d think we were whacked out on drugs, but sometimes we have to make light of it,” Brandt says. Deffendal adds: “We’re out there laughing, and when we’re doing that, we’re not even thinking about our trauma. We’re out there just being young little girls.”

For a lot of the people living in these longerstay motels, it is the first time in a long time they’ve felt safe.

For the better part of a month, Portland and Multnomah County officials have argued bitterly over how to spend $52 million in taxpayer money that voters approved last year for housing services. In short, the argument boils down to whether most of the money should go to short-term shelters or county-funded monthly rent for apartments. Motels provide an ideal middle ground between the two: They offer the flexibility and group setting of shelters, with the privacy afforded by individual dwellings with doors. There’s just one problem: Renting motels by the night is expensive. On top of paying $64 a room per night across six different motels, Multnomah County must pay nonprofit partners to run and staff them. (It owns a seventh motel.) The total bill for its seven motel shelters: $1.4 million a month. Take the Chestnut Tree Inn, for example, where 58 women stay each night. The county pays $111,000 a month just for the rooms, not including staffing and food costs. It would cost the county $23,000 to fund one person’s stay at Chestnut Tree Inn for a year. By contrast, it costs $12,000 a year to house someone in a congregate shelter. “It’s about $2.4 million a year [for each motel]. They are quite expensive,” says Denis Theriault, spokesman for the Joint Office of Homeless Services. “To operate a congregate shelter, it’s between $1 and $2 million per year. Motels are quite a bit more expensive.” It’s even more costly to send homeless people to motels, like the Ramada Inn featured in this story, which aren’t rented in blocks but room by room, as needed. “It’s an expensive resource to utilize, especially with not having block rooms or contracts,” says Katherine Moore, a director at Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare, which normally places three to five people in rooms each week for short stays. There is, however, a cheaper way to turn a motel into a homeless shelter: buy it. Multnomah County did that once already in the past year, purchasing the Days Inn on Northeast 82nd Avenue for $4.2 million using federal CARES Act money. That raises the question: Why didn’t county officials try to buy all seven motels, at the moment when their fortunes were at a historic low ebb? County Chair Deborah Kafoury says they did. “We actually sought to negotiate purchase options on all of the motels that we leased last year,” she says, “but not all owners were interested at the time.” Buying real estate is also complicated, Kafoury says, and the county needed rooms for the homeless fast. “It was an emergency and we didn’t have the luxury of spending months undertaking due diligence and purchasing properties. People needed safety right then, not three or four months down the road,” she tells WW. “Not all of the motels are necessarily a good purchase investment, and we knew our funds for purchase were limited. We continue to look at potential motel purchases, both the ones we are currently using as shelter, and others.” The county aims to purchase two more motels by the end of the year. Leasing documents provided by the joint office show the county’s motel leases were set to be expire in May, but the county decided to extend them until Dec. 31. That means four motels will revert to taking paying guests in 2022. Current tenants will be moved back to group shelters if they’re not placed in permanent housing by then. And when is that? “At some point, after the pandemic,” Theriault says. “We don’t know when that will be, but it’s not imminent.” SOPHIE PEEL.

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he hopeful feeling is even stronger at a motel on the opposite edge of the city. Here, a temporary place to stay has turned into an improvised neighborhood. Every morning, Larry Young hops on a used stationary bike in his motel room at the Portland Value Inn and cycles for over an hour. The beige building where he’s lived along Southwest Barbur Boulevard for the past seven months is quiet. “Man, I love this room,” Young says as he opens the curtains to a view from the top of a staircase. “Look at my scenery. I can hear the birds squeaking in the morning. It’s just beautiful.” Since December, the county has housed 48 homeless people at the Value Inn who have medical conditions that place them at higher risk from COVID-19. The contract is set to expire in December, and it’s one of the motels at risk of closing if the county doesn’t buy it outright. On a June afternoon, the 70-year-old Young—who moves like he’s much younger, with a buoyancy in his step—plays his favorite jazz song through his speaker. It’s “Softly, as in a Morning Sunrise” by George Benson. Young was a Marine and then spent decades doing construction work. In California, he developed a cocaine habit but has been clean for years now. He’s proud of that. He lost his job at the beginning of the pandemic, unable to find contracts doing housing construction. At his age, the physicality of manual labor wears on him. Since the beginning of the pandemic, he has been homeless, living mostly in California before relocating to Portland. But in December, after living at Do Good Multnomah’s Wy’East shelter for two months, he was offered a motel room here. He felt something unfamiliar: joy. “I am joyous, for the first time,” Young says. “I was living life foolishly. I gave it to God, and now I’m as peaceful as can be.” Much of that comes from having his own space, which he’s decorated with knickknacks: a bear statue, a clock with birds on it, a mini foosball table. But it’s also that he has developed a community with the others living here. Earlier this month, two residents got married at Young’s motel, in front of 15 other guests. An ordained motel resident officiated. A motel resident picked flowers along Barbur for bouquets. Young drove to Winco to get five different kinds of soda pop and ice. A resident named Mary sang gospel. “She was in a white dress and he was in a suit,” Young remembers. “I said, ‘Man, in this place?’” Andy Goebel, who works at Do Good Multnomah, which runs three of the shelters, says the motels worked far better than anyone expected in stabilizing people. “The community becomes incredibly important,” he says, “a survival line.”

ROUTINE: Larry Young rides his stationary bike every morning in his motel room. 14

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DINNERTIME: Staff at the Portland Value Inn on Barbur Boulevard serve up barbecue for dinner.

motel is a bed for the night. It’s temporary. That’s part of why these inns have proven such a valuable tool for Multnomah County—a quick fix. But it also means every person we meet at each motel can sense the clock ticking on their stay. On a warm June evening, just as it’s getting dark, Juli Cornett and Jessi Hart stand outside the Ramada and talk about what they hope will happen next. “As soon as I’m in stable housing, I’m champing at the bit to go back to work,” Cornett says. “I’ll go back to the ship dock. It was hard work, it was very physical, and I loved it.” Hart just wants stability for Caleb. “I’ve been excommunicated from society,” she says. “I don’t want him to be on the struggling side because of a stupid decision I made.” The next day, Hart has to leave the motel. She drops Caleb off at a friend’s house, where he’ll stay for a few days, and she sleeps in her car. Cornett fares better. Ten days after WW first spoke with her, Cornett had been relocated to another motel. On June 15, she leaves that hotel—the Roadway Inn—for an apartment. Her new place is subsidized by JOIN, but she’ll need to find a job soon to keep it. “I feel safer here than I have for a couple years, and I don’t have to figure out how to pay tomorrow’s room rate,” Cornett says. She’s ready to move into her new place: “I need to move so I can have a place for my son. I need to have a home again. I need to get stuff out of storage and put our pictures on the wall.”

NO VACANCY: The Portland Value Inn has 48 rooms available. They’re all currently filled.

DOGS ALLOWED: Residents of the Barbur motel hang out in the common area. Pets are encouraged here. Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

STREET OUT & ABOUT Who we found hanging out downtown and at the weekly Secret Roller Disco at Buckman Elementary School. PHOTOS BY CHRIS NESSETH @chrisnesseth

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STREET

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STARTERS

THE MOST IMPORTANT PORTLAND CULTURE STORIES OF THE WEEK—GRAPHED.

R E A D M O R E A B O U T TH E S E STO R I E S AT WW E E K .CO M .

RIDICULOUS

SUPPORT

JULIE SHOWERS

LOCAL

CHRIS NESSETH

Moshow, Portland’s resident cat rapper, is the subject of an upcoming Netflix docuseries about cat lovers.

WW ARCHIVES

INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

The brand-new Flanders Crossing gets tagged with graffiti four days after opening—in this case, promoting an upcoming single from a Seattle rapper.

J U S T I N K AT I G B A K

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Disjecta art gallery is now known as the Oregon Center for Contemporary Art.

Mimi’s Fresh Tees launches a brick-and-mortar store.

RIS

TINE DONG

J E S S I C A VA N T E R P O O L

PGF OWNER BRITT HOWARD

Police arrest a suspect in the arson that burned down the Portland Garment Factory.

HN RICARD

A woman is caught on camera defacing the York bust in Mount Tabor.

Portland-born author Mitchell S. Jackson wins a Pulitzer Prize for an article about Ahmaud Arbery and racism in the culture of running.

SERIOUS 18

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AARON MESH

D U N C A N R AW L I N S O N

Ground Kontrol is reopening after being closed for more than a year.

AWFUL

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2 Oregon’s state song has been updated to remove lyrics celebrating the state’s racist history.

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GET BUSY

STUFF TO DO THIS WEEK, INDOORS AND OUT.

C A N N E S F I L M F E S T I VA L

KNIFE + HEART

WATCH: Cruising and Knife + Heart We’re now halfway through Pride Month, so keep the celebration going with a screening of some stellar LGBTQ+ films—and because not everything is sunshine and rainbows, make it a double-feature night with these dramas that explore the dark side of desire. In Cruising, Al Pacino stars as an undercover detective assigned to catch a serial killer targeting gay men in New York’s underground S&M scene. Directed by The Exorcist’s William Friedkin, this controversial 1980 crime thriller was criticized for its portrayal of gay culture upon release, but has since found a devoted cult following. Majorly influenced by Cruising and giallo cinema, Knife + Heart (2018) is a surreal NC-17 horror movie that centers on a gay porn producer (Vanessa Paradis) who decides to make an ambitious new film after her girlfriend-editor leaves her. But when one of her actors winds up murdered, she’s thrust into a bloody, perverse mystery. Streams on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Criterion Channel, Google Play, Kanopy, Shudder, Vudu, YouTube.

WATCH: Church of Film presents The Devil Queen After 15 long months, Church of Film is back at the Clinton Street Theater. Hosted by local film curator Muriel Lucas, the series is devoted to off-the-radar arthouse gems that have never been distributed in the U.S. Church of Film’s second screening since returning to the Clinton promises to be particularly worthwhile. The Devil Queen is a violent, brightly colored 1970s Brazilian flick that follows a power-obsessed femme queen crime boss and her plot to protect one of her crew members from the police. If you can’t make it in person, or if you’re not yet up for sitting indoors with strangers, The Devil Queen is already streaming for free on Church of Film’s Vimeo page. Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., cstpdx.com. 8 pm Wednesday, June 18. $6.

Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

STREAM: Second Annual Digital Pride Parade & Dykes on Bikes Rally This year’s digital Pride Parade and Dykes on Bikes Rally are being recorded on June 4 at Portland International Raceway. Whether that’s because of downtown doom mongers or the ongoing pandemic is unknown, but it’s at least a fresher take on a pre-recorded parade than last year’s Zoom talent show and archival footage of the Gay Pride 1999 parade. See feature, next page. Visit portlandpride.org for streaming information. 11 am Sunday, June 30. Free. All ages.

☛

GO: A Celebration of Pride at the Lot Most of this year’s high-profile Pride events are still taking place online, so this gathering, held at Portland’s newly launched socially distanced outdoor entertainment venue, is effectively standing in for the big shebang that typically takes place up the river at Waterfront Park as 2021’s centerpiece celebration. Stones-y rockers Ashleigh Flynn and the Riveters “headline,” while local legend Poison Waters leads a midafternoon drag performance and Bollywood masters DJ Anjali and the Incredible Kid open with a set of worldly dance jams. Just remember: Keep the groove to your designated pods, please! The Lot at Zidell Yards, 3030 S Moody Ave., thelotatzidellyards.com. 6 pm Sunday, June 20. $35-$50 per person. All tickets sold as two-, four- and six-person seating pods. VIP seating pods available. All ages.

☛

GO: KayelaJ Before the pandemic, Kelly’s Olympian established itself as one of the best places in town to catch sets by up-and-coming Portland hip-hop artists. So it only makes sense that the venue’s first in-person show in over a year would be packed with local emcees. Headlined by confessional rapper KayelaJ, the lineup showcases a diverse array of artists, from Jordan Fletcher’s hard-hitting social commentary to DJ Chuckk Pasta’s R&B and house-centric sets. Kelly’s Olympian, 426 SE Washington St., kellysolympian.com. 8 pm Friday, June 18. $8. 21+.

☛

GO: Juneteenth Oregon Livestream from Jack London Oregon lawmakers only recently voted to officially recognize Juneteenth—the day in 1865 when Texas finally heeded the Emancipation Proclamation and thus confirmed the end of slavery in the United States—as a state holiday, but commemorative events have been occurring in Portland for almost a half-century. This year, nonprofit Juneteenth Oregon partners with the Jack London Revue to mark the day with a jam-packed concert livestreamed from the downtown basement jazz club. Performers include veteran Portland rappers Cool Nutz, Libretto and Mic Crenshaw, sound artist Amenta Abioto, R&B singer Parisalexa, and Portland Trail Blazers DJ OG One, with appearances by Gov. Kate Brown, U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley and jazz legend Mel Brown, among others. Streams at juneteenthor.com and pdxjazz.com, and on Facebook and Instagram. Jack London Revue, 529 SW 4th Ave. 1-6 pm Saturday, June 19.

GO: It’s Brittany, Buddy Pedalpalooza Ride Now that a decade-plus of fan protests to end Britney Spears’ conservatorship is about to culminate in a court hearing, it’s obviously a very stressful time to be a Britney stan. Thankfully, on the eve of the pop icon’s Zoom court testimony about her father’s legal control over her life and finances, you can commune with the very specific demographic of people who love Britney as much as they love biking. Part of Pedalpalooza, this leisurely 5-mile loop will, of course, be packed with timeless tunes by the Princess of Pop. But it’ll also include stops for snacks and discussion about the #FreeBritney movement and disability justice. Ladd Circle Park and Rose Garden, Southeast Harrison Street and Ladd Avenue, shift2bikes.org. 6 pm Tuesday, June 22. ALEX WITTWER

SAM GEHRKE

STREAM: Don’t Quill the Messenger Grants Pass-based podcast Don’t Quill the Messenger invites listeners down the rabbit hole of what host Steven Sabel politely calls “the Shakespeare authorship question,” which suggests William Shakespeare, the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon, England, did not pen the Western world’s most famous plays. Sabel is a member of the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship, an international organization that posits Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true writer of the Shakespeare canon and rightful source of the pen name “William Shakespeare.” While it’s a belief dismissed and deemed either far-fetched or beside the point in most academic circles, Don’t Quill the Messenger makes its case by interrogating what it views as an undocumented and invented history of Stratford’s Shakespeare and plumbing the life of de Vere for textual connections. Agree or disagree, it’s still a fascinating listen. Streams at dragonwagonradio. com/dontquillthemessenger.

DO: Pride Night Monster Ball Drag queens and DJs pay tribute to Lady Gaga, serving the best of Mother Monster’s discography along with a group listening party for Chromatica, which dropped in the midst of the pandemic and has thus never been properly celebrated—you’ll finally hear “Chromatica ii” transition into “911” in a loud, sweaty room, just as God intended. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. 8 pm Saturday, June 19. $10. 21+.

2020 JUNETEENTH RALLY AT PIONEER SQUARE

GET OUTSIDE Six Grands Who should lead Portland’s digital Pride Parade? We have some ideas.

BY A N D R E W JANKOWS K I

@AndrewJank

Portland’s Pride Parade is digital for the second year in a row, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. After all, the queer community has deep ties to technological innovation, whether it’s Wendy Carlos’ work on the Moog synthesizer to Darcelle XV’s foray into 360 video. Who will lead this year’s parade as the digital grand marshal? We won’t know until June 20, when Pride Northwest posts a twoweek-old parade recording to their YouTube channel after a Zoom launch party. But with a wide imagination and budget to match, we can imagine who we want.

Untitled Goose Untitled Goose Game’s titular fowl has the strongest hometown claim to Portland’s virtual Pride, given that the 2019 breakout video game was published by a local company. The goose is also the most fearsome of all the candidates on this list, eschewing all established gender norms and committed only to the pure ecstasy of mayhem and upending civilized society. The goose sees people enjoying themselves at Pride, and the goose must become the center of attention at all costs. All hail Untitled Goose.

Lady Dimitrescu

Digitally Added Tig Notaro

The Resident Evil girlboss is a glamorous, hardworking single mother only a few feet taller than our own drag giant, Miss Inanna. She might not be perfect—we presume that “lady” means “landlord”—but the gays have a long history of adopting beautiful ghouls. Plus, getting overhyped and underutilized is a major queer experience, is it not? In the community with Tom of Finland gays and “bottoms and tops all hate cops” queers, Lady Dimitrescu reigns supreme as Portland Pride’s problematic fave.

Tig Notaro isn’t the first person to digitally replace a scummy creep at the last second, but her addition to Zack Snyder’s zombie epic Army of the Dead (taking the place of accused predator Chris D’Elia) was still groundbreaking. She proved queer people can be reliable members of action ensembles while remaining true to ourselves. Also, Notaro’s casting absolutely ended Caitlyn Jenner’s reign over LGBTQ+ helicopter enthusiasts.

Aloy The Horizon Zero Dawn protagonist’s sexuality is ambiguous, but she’s been embraced by the queer community, she’s used to West Coast hellscapes, she’s voiced by LGBTQ+ ally Ashly Burch—who’s voiced several other queer video game characters—and she just weathered ridiculous criticism over whether she looks “feminine enough,” a type of harassment too familiar for many trans and cisgender people. We’re not here to gatekeep Aloy’s identity and features. We’re here to celebrate achievements in the field of pissing off bigots. Hopefully, in a historic crossover feat, Aloy shares her platform with the queer survivors from The Last of Us, who really just deserve something nice after surviving their own airborne pathogen horror.

Lil Nas X He might be a real person, but pop’s reigning meme king is an obvious choice to lead virtual Pride in America’s strip club capital. Squadrons of Portland’s exotic dancers could follow the “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” singer through his eponymous VR fantasyland. Taco Bell could host cyber queer clubs to promote his new single, “Sun Goes Down,” and celebrate its drive-thru’s status as the hottest nightlife spot of the past 18 months. Some high-profile City Hall employees could hand over the keys to their social media handles for a legendary takeover. The possibilities are as vast as Lil Nas X’s imagination.

Brood X Sure, the cicadas of Brood X are “not even from here,” as my boyfriend likes to remind me, but we, as gay people, get to choose the inhuman swarms personifying our innermost hearts. Brood X is shrieking, starving, fucking in public, freaking out straight people, and are so chaotic they’ve been blamed for at least one car crash and disrupting Air Force One’s mechanics. That’s gay rights as hell. And while they’re apparently pronounced “brood ten,” I know Brood X are really saying, “Stream Allie X!” with their dying breaths, like the true stans they are. STREAM: The Second Annual Digital Pride Parade streams at 11 am Sunday, June 20. See portlandpride.org for streaming information. Free. All ages. Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

CULTURE S A LT & S T R AW

TREVOR G AGNIER

For my first Father’s Day, I tried to find out: How much of a dad am I?

CAITLIN PEEL

Dad Becomes Me

Baerlic Brewing’s Dad Beer If there was truth in advertising calibrated to my personal experience growing up, then this would simply be a can of Michelob Light. Alas, this is a craft brewery’s interpretation of the kind of “easy drinkin’” lager dads presumably enjoy while fixing the lawnmower or tarring the roof or whatever, so it’s still a bit more complex than anything your own dad actually drank. The label clarifies that this beer is actually closer to what “your great grandpappy used to drink in the 1880s,” which doesn’t exactly jibe with the “notes of ripe fruit, fresh cut spring flowers and citrus” it also advertises. (Remember, Pabst was considered a “blue ribbon beer” in the 1880s.) In any case, my IPA-chuggin’ days are far behind me, and that 4.8% ABV is much more along the lines of what I’m looking for these days. Get it from: Baerlic Brewing, 2239 SE 11th Ave., 503-477-9418, baerlicbrewing.com.

msinger@wweek.com

PORTLAND GEAR

Last November, I became the proud owner of a brand-new tiny human child. That’s to say, I’m a dad now. But have I actually become a dad in the transformative sense? Is it my identity? I suppose that’s not entirely up to me to determine. Fatherhood just sort of happens to you, even if it was planned well in advance. And if you do it right, it’s supposed to fundamentally alter your DNA. Certainly, I have changed in several tangible ways over the past seven months. I was already a very tired person, but now I start at exhausted and decline from there. I have no qualms left about getting covered in basically any body fluid. I hear phantom crying everywhere I go. And I’m far less self-conscious about being a doofus in public—if it makes my son laugh, I’ll make whatever weird-ass noise required. Also, I proudly wear a pastel-pink Babybjörn to the park a few times a week. No one can tell me shit. But still: Have I truly become a dad, or am I merely exhibiting dadlike behavior? Father’s Day seems like an ideal time to make a determination. So I decided to try some products marketed specifically at dads—some local, others universal—to see if they hit different now that my life is controlled by a smiling, screaming, 2-foot-tall sack of sentient mashed potatoes.

Get it from: saltandstraw.com

DADGRASS.COM

BY M ATT H E W SI N G E R

Dad Grass CBD Pre-Rolls Similar to Dad Beer, the idea behind Dad Grass is that it’s an interpretation of the weed our parents used to smoke—meaning, not that potent. But while previous generations were forced to make due with whatever bag of sticks and pencil shavings they could get their hands on, in the rec era, when THC levels continue to bound upward, barely-there highs are a selling point. I’ve never had much success with CBD, nor have I necessarily cared to: I’ve smoked exclusively to zonk myself out enough to get to sleep, and if I’m going to step foot in a dispensary, I’m going to pick up something that’ll at least make Saturday Night Live funny. But despite being below the THC threshold to be federally legal, these joints actually made me feel something—a gentle tingle along the lines of a hot tub soak, with just the faintest trace of a head change. It’s pretty much exactly how I’m looking to feel in the three hours between the kid’s bedtime and going to sleep myself, which is much easier than it used to be. My daily life is a fog now as it is—I don’t need to make it any cloudier. Get it from: dadgrass.com

Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

Salt & Straw’s Pack of Cold Ones Is ice cream inherently a dad thing? My own father was more of a cookie man. Perhaps to make its nationally popular wares more palatable to the patriarchy, Salt & Straw has partnered with five breweries for a limited-edition set of beer-infused ice cream. Modern Times’ Nola Coffee Stout, for instance, uses stout wort and cacao nibs, while Breakside Brewery’s Half and Half Crunch incorporates the same grains from its barrel-aged Dark Cabaret stout. As much as I’ve dunked on Salt & Straw’s overly complicated approach to ice cream over the years—I’ve made enough “arugula-lavender with goat’s blood and crushed diamonds” jokes for one career— most of the collabs work great. Well, except for Wynwood Brewing’s Mango Habanero flavor, whose fruitiness does little to cut the spice. My suddenly old and fragile palate couldn’t handle it.

Portland Gear’s Dad Hat When you no longer have the time or energy to think about how you dress, fashion becomes purely functional, which is how you end up wearing a floppy baseball cap with an adjustable strap in the back every day until the kid graduates high school. Like nearly all of Portland Gear’s merch, this one simply has a letterman jacket-style “P” embroidered on it, which could stand for “Portland” or “Papa Roach” or “Pizza Rolls.” Who the hell cares? As long as it keeps the sun out of your eyes at the local playground or on the Jimmy Buffett cruise, it’s doing the Lord’s work. Although $30 is pretty steep for something you could buy at a tackle shop for $10. Get it from: Portland Gear, 627 SW 19th Ave., 503-437-4439, portlandgear.com.

Steely Dan Still don’t get it.

FOOD & DRINK FEATURE

BREAKDOWN:

THE JERRY’S SPECIAL ($26) THE CORNMEAL: Under each pizza

is what Benedetto calls a “fuck ton” of cornmeal. While it’s usually used in a lesser amount to slide the pizza off the peel into the oven, Benedetto says he uses more, as it adds flavor and texture. He also says it’s fun—he’s watched patrons draw doodles in the yellow grains and then lick their fingers.

EAT:

Jerry’s Pizza at Bear Paw Inn, 3237 SE Milwaukie Ave., jerryspizzapdx.com.

Humble Pie

4-9 pm Monday-Thursday, preorder only.

Jerry Benedetto’s Chicago-style pizza is a Portland food phenomenon. Get it if you can. BY A N D R E A DA M EWO O D

@adamewood

It’s easier to get a hold of Jerry’s Pizza these days than it used to be. That doesn’t mean it’s raining pies, though. Jerry Benedetto—who developed an 18-month waiting list for his thin-crust Chicago tavern-style pizza while making them in his home kitchen during quarantine—is now operating out of the tiny kitchen at the Bear Paw Inn near the Aladdin Theater. But it’s still a one-man operation. And don’t expect to roll up and order at the bar: Jerry’s holds a ticketed sale once a week. On a recent drop, 30,000 hopefuls crashed his restaurant’s website, all hoping to get one of the 25 to 30 pizzas Benedetto is able to put out each of the four nights he’s open. “I just laughed,” Benedetto says. “I honestly felt bad, like I wasted their time.” The scarcity isn’t to build hype. Rather, Benedetto says he’s taking it slow. The Chicago native doesn’t have a background in the restaurant industry—he taught himself to make what he calls “the real pizza” of the Windy City at the start of the pandemic because it didn’t exist in Portland. The pizzas struck a nerve, and what started as a passion project expanded into online sales via Instagram, initially to friends, then strangers. Benedetto spent a few months figuring out how to re-create the square-cut pies in a commercial kitchen and opened at the Bear Paw Inn in mid-May. “It’s still just Jerry,” he says, smiling underneath what’s become his signature thick mustache and ubiquitous Chicago sports teamwear (in this case, Bears hat and White Sox jacket). “I’ve got a pizza in the oven

as I’m making a pizza, while delivering a pizza to a table. It’s definitely not sustainable.” The draw for many of his customers is the taste of home, but even those who didn’t eat Chicago pizza growing up still find something nostalgic about it: The thin crust, the slightly sweet sauce, the salty pepperoni and fennel-tinged sausage evoke a powerful pizza memory even for this native Oregonian. I’m about to tell Benedetto what his pizza tastes like to me, but before I even get the chance, he says it himself: “It’s a quality Totino’s.” Sometime soon, Benedetto says he plans to hire help, and when he’s ready, he’ll open a spot of his own. But while Benedetto is the first to joke that “it’s just pizza,” know that he’s also deadly serious about making sure the pies stay perfect as he scales up, and he refuses to go faster just to capitalize on the buzz. As a newcomer to the food world, starting at the Bear Paw provides little to no risk and a chance to make mistakes, before spending the hundreds of thousands of dollars it can take to open a restaurant, he says. Benedetto’s goal is to have a place “like fuckin’ Cheers,” where families can come after kids’ sports games, drinks are served in those red plastic cups every pizza joint had in the ’90s, and there’s pizza and buckets of spaghetti and meatballs on demand. “My ultimate goal is pizza, but it’s so much more than pizza,” Benedetto says. “I love watching strangers talk. I see people share pizzas. I want to bring people from all different backgrounds together into a space.” So what, exactly, goes into the upscaled Totino’s? We had Benedetto break down an audience favorite.

THE DOUGH: It’s a two-day process to get the thin crust just right. Handmade with all-purpose flour, it rests overnight, rises for an hour at room temperature, and then goes into the cooler for one night. “Ratios are critical, especially when you’re making a thin crust,” Benedetto says. “It’s a vehicle to get sauce, cheese and toppings to your pie hole. It has to hold them.” THE SAUCE: It’s the sauce that really ties a Jerry’s pizza together. Bright and fresh with a touch of sweetness, it’s a riff on his Grandma Pat’s pasta sauce recipe. Canned whole tomatoes and Romano and Parmesan cheeses are involved, and that’s all he’ll say. THE CHEESE: Wisconsin mozzarella and a touch of Parmesan at the end. ’Nough said. THE PEPPERONI: 51 mm Old World slices (not cups) from Ezzo Sausage Company in Columbus, Ohio. THE SAUSAGE: Benedetto makes it by hand, using ground pork, fennel and oregano, and he uses a method of pinching and pulling the sausage with one hand to get just the right amount on each pie. Benedetto also pushes each piece into the crust, so as the pizza bakes, the fat renders into the crust and sauce for even more flavor.

THE MUSHROOMS: They’re canned

and Benedetto is proud of it. He says they add a spongy texture while fresh mushrooms tend to dry out.

THE BAG: If you order to go, Jerry’s

pies are sent away in a paper bag instead of a pizza box, which he says is the more traditional and authentic way these tavern-style pizzas are served.

Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

FOOD & DRINK MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

Shelf Life

TOP 5

BUZZ LIST

Where to get drinks this week.

1. Raven’s Manor

235 SW 1st Ave., ravensmanorexperience.com. 5-11 pm Wednesday-Monday. Creatures of the night, be forewarned: Portland’s newest goth bar isn’t all that goth. Sure, there are spooky sights in view as soon as you enter Raven’s Manor, from creepy dolls to dusty grimoires. But don’t go expecting the westside version of the Lovecraft. Instead, think Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. Important note: The Grave Water is hands down the best drink. Its rose water, though fragrant, is perfectly balanced with elderflower liqueur and vodka.

2. Holy Goat Social Club

Jerusalem Rose Market showcases the breadth of the Palestinian experience. BY E L I Z A R OT H ST E I N

@saltynectar

Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

™ GO: Jerusalem Rose Market, 2948 NE

Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 503-805-2963, instagram.com/jerusalemrosemarket. 9 am-7 pm Tuesday-Sunday.

5. Vendetta

4306 N Williams Ave., 503-288-1085, vendettapdx.com. 3-11 pm daily. This is a classic garage-door hipster refuge: Barflies smoke cigarettes under a canopy of umbrellas and trees, “Thriller” booms on the speakers, and a pint of pFriem Pilsner is $6. Vendetta took the pandemic seriously and is only letting people sit outside, under the supervision of “COVID Cops.” The effect is a little like visiting a Museum of Normalcy. But Vendetta was a time machine anyway. The nostalgia just cuts deeper now.

3. StormBreaker

832 N Beech St., 971-703-4516, stormbreakerbrewing.com. Noon-9 pm Monday, noon-10 pm Tuesday-Thursday, noon-11 pm Friday, 11 am-11 pm Saturday, 11 am-9 pm Sunday. StormBreaker has made awesome outdoor spaces part of its growing brand. The original location, though, is still the best and, during the pandemic, got even better by expanding into the adjacent side street and adding about a dozen picnic tables extending halfway down the block. As for the beer, name a style and StormBreaker makes a damn fine version of it.

TOP 5

HOT PLATES Where to get food this week.

1. Buddy’s Steaks

5235 NE Sandy Blvd., 215-694-8095, buddyssteaks.com. 3-8 pm Friday and Monday, noon-8 pm Saturday and Sunday, or until sold out. What’s a cheesesteak without cheese or steak? Vegan cheesesteaks are all over Philadelphia, but Buddy’s exists because co-owners Buddy Richter and Angela D’Occhio hadn’t found any meatless cheesesteaks that lived up to their own pre-vegan, Philly native memories. The “steak” is made in-house by Richter, and the cashew- and coconut-based whiz is available as either “provolone” or “cheddar,” which is an especially radioactive-looking orange.

4. Nacheaux

4765 NE Fremont St., nacheauxpdx.com.Noon-8 pm. One of 2020’s hottest food carts has hit the big time. Anthony Brown has brought his Mexi-Cajun fusion to the former Alameda Brewhouse on Northeast 48th Avenue, sharing space with Blind Ox Taphouse. Hitching Southern food and Cajun-Creole flavors is not unheard of, but it’s a rare concept in Portland. The “Nacheaux nachos” start with a big pile of fresh-fried chips and also feature carnitas that could just as easily be cochon au lait, while a cheesy “crunchwrap” comes stuffed with red beans, dirty rice and fried chicken. WESLEY LAPOINTE

On a single shelf inside Jerusalem Rose Market, you’ll find apricot fruit leather from Syria, a murky green tub of Jordanian balady olives and Palestine’s Al’ard black seed paste. Owner Ramzy Farouki built that shelf himself, and a few more, to hold dips, grains, spices, sauces, oils, candies, teas and preserves at his new Northeast Portland storefront. Most items come from nations in Southwest Asia and North Africa. Some hail directly from cities in the occupied West Bank: Ramallah, Nablus, Taybeh. A smaller number are from U.S.-based Palestinian makers, and fewer still are from Farouki’s own kitchen in Portland, where his mother whips fresh labneh, mashes ful medames, and blends hummus and moutabal to stock the market fridge. “It’s a Palestinian market, but that means it has Iraqi, Syrian, Lebanese, Northern African goods,” he says. He then points to a value-size rectangular tin of Holy Land Olive Oil. “There’s the stuff from back home [in Palestine], but then this is from Palestinians like me. They’re in Minneapolis, so they’re Palestinians in the diaspora.” Farouki grew up in a proud Palestinian community in St. Louis, Mo. In 1948, Zionist paramilitary groups forced his family from their home in Jerusalem. After seeking refuge in Ramallah, then Kuwait, the family moved to the United States in 1970. At a young age, Farouki understood the concept of displacement. “It was a common topic,” he says. “I knew that something had happened to us and we couldn’t engage in our family history.” Even so, Farouki’s St. Louis community was rich with shared Palestinian culture, foods and language. He remembers coming home to his grandfather’s cooking and carpentry projects, reading his grandmother’s poems and listening to her oral histories. He also recalls sprinting to the back of his favorite Arabic market, Farid’s, to see which of the mountain of VHS tapes was playing that day on the decades-old television set. Those memories live on the walls of Jerusalem Rose Market. Framed sepia prints of

Farouki’s ancestors dot the wood panels near the register, and a boxy 1994 TV perched atop a doorway plays Farouki’s favorite Arabic flicks. And then there’s the stuff you can actually buy. In the fridges sits bottled beer from Taybeh, Palestine’s first microbrewery. Below them, Baghdadi Pepsi knocks hips with slender bottles of Mission, an Iraqi orange drink that fizzes on the tongue like a dissolvable vitamin C tablet. Slabs of Ackawi cheese floating in brine snuggle up to containers of dips made by Farouki’s mother, the “Jerusalem Rose’’ after whom the market is named. Since its grand opening in late May, the market racks have been fully stocked and Farouki hasn’t tired of looking at them. “Arabic product design is so fire. Are you kidding me?” he asks, pointing at a red and yellow box of Egyptian El Arosa Tea. “This thing looks like a Marlboro packet! Who copied who!?” Farouki himself is as critical a fixture in the market as the shelves he built. If not straightening the family photos or chatting with an interested patron about the etymology of “halawa,” he’s sitting behind the cashier’s counter. Lifting his mask to take sips of coffee from a small glass thimble, he catalogs old family photos and prepares for upcoming “Weekly Palestine” educational sessions, which he runs on the Instagram page of the market’s neighbor, the Center for the Study and Preservation of Palestine. Though a natural market owner, Farouki is foremost a Palestinian cultural preservationist. He built the market to be both an avenue to educate folks about Palestinian culture, and a way to fund independent research at the CSPP. “Between the CSPP and the market, I want to share and preserve everything that is the Palestinian identity. The intangible things like knowledge and history, but also the physical things,” Farouki says. “By supporting Palestinian makers, you’re solidifying their existence.”

8668 Crosby Road NE, Woodburn, 503-982-5166, topwirehop.com. 11 am-8 pm Thursday and Sunday, 11 am-9 pm Friday-Saturday. The state’s most secretive beer garden is hidden among the crops at Crosby Hop Farm in Woodburn. Follow the half-mile gravel road that runs between the bines and you’ll wind up at a 40-foot-long shipping container repurposed as a serving station pouring from 10 rotating taps exclusively featuring batches made with the hops growing around you.

CHRISTINE DONG

RISING STOCK: Jerusalem Rose Market owner Ramzy Farouki.

1501 NE Fremont St., 503-282-0956, holygoatpdx.com. 2-10 pm Monday-Saturday. It’d be inaccurate to describe Holy Goat as a “new” bar. Longtime residents of the Sabin neighborhood will remember the tiny watering hole as Daddy Mojo’s, and though its undergone a change in ownership and name, the rebrand mostly amounts to more of an aesthetic upgrade than a full-scale remodel. Regulars will still find what they’re looking for: a drink menu consisting of stiff takes on old classics, soul music on the stereo, and soul food in the kitchen.

4. TopWire Hop Project

2. Everybody Eats

138 NW 10th Ave., 503-318-1619, everybodyeatspdx.com. 11 am-3 pm and 5-11 pm Tuesday-Saturday. Launched as a catering service on the outer eastside, Everybody Eats has moved into the heart of the Pearl District, bringing a menu inspired by co-owner Johnny Huff Jr.’s family roots in Texas and Louisiana. The showstopper is the Ultimate Seafood Mac-and-Cheese: shrimp, lobster and crab mixed in with cheese sauce and noodles, with half a lobster tail, two prawns and lump of crab meat on top.

3. Prey + Tell

3560 N Mississippi Ave., 971-220-1997, preyandtell.com. 4-11 pm Wednesday-Sunday. If you’re looking to ease back into an IRL social life, eating crispy chicken wings and sipping on a mango slushie on the patio at Psychic Bar is about as close as you can get to feeling a party vibe without going to an actual house party. Chef Diane Lam has brought her perfectly crispy, gluten-free, Cambodian-style wings to Psychic’s ample outdoor space. Even though they’re great at home, those flats and bats are obviously at their finest freshly delivered to your table and paired with her aromatic ranch or lime Buffalo sauce.

5. Momo Master

1533 NE Alberta St. 11 am-9 pm daily. Regulars at Alberta’s Bantu Island pod have an appetizing new option: the Momo Master. To try all of the titular Himalayan dumplings, get the “Plattery,” a sampler of the three styles the cart offers. The veggie dumplings made with Impossible Burger aren’t to be missed— generously packed into chewy dough folded like a fishtail, the sweet curry edge waits to be cut with the bright sesame oil tomato chutney that comes with it.

Editor: Andi Prewitt | Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com ZACH LEWIS

PERFORMANCE

MUSIC Written by: Daniel Bromfield | @bromf3

Now Hear This

Listening recommendations from the past, present, Portland and the periphery. SOMETHING OLD

PIANO MAN: Hunter Noack hauls his Steinway to far-flung destinations, turning the state’s most dramatic landscapes into stages.

Keys to the Wild Pianist Hunter Noack brings classical music into nature with a traveling summer concert series. BY BE N N E T T C A M P B E LL FERGUS O N

Hunter Noack understands not wanting to sit still during a classical music concert. “When I was a kid and I would go to classical concerts, I loved to draw, or sometimes I would write,” he says. “It felt like I wasn’t supposed to be doing those things in a concert hall, so I had a bunch of frustrations as a listener.” Seeking freedom from frustration, Noack decided that the solution was to stick a Steinway on a trailer and hit the road. Since the start of his outdoor concert series In a Landscape in 2016, he has performed across the Pacific Northwest, braving heat, rain and brutal cold to bring classical music to expansive environments that evoke his outdoorsy childhood in Sunriver. “You see a cloud and it’s beautiful,” Noack says. “There are a bunch of things that are happening with the light and the color that make you think, ‘That’s beautiful.’ It’s sort of infinitely complex and simple at the same time, and I think there is a parallel with classical music.” Noack studied at London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where the first seeds of In a Landscape sprouted. For a 2014 performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s string sextet “Verklärte Nacht,” he chose to invoke the composer’s inspiration—a Richard Dehmel poem about a couple walking through a moonlit forest—by filling the room with foliage. “I had a black box theater and we brought in trees and we kind of transformed the space into this nighttime forest,” Noack recalls. When he returned to Oregon, he decided to further mix music and nature by bringing his performances to the state’s natural landscapes, which he calls “gazillion-dollar sets basically just waiting for music.” While COVID-19 curtailed some of In a Landscape’s rituals—before social distancing, people were allowed to lie under the piano so they could feel its vibrations when Noack played Frederic Rzewski’s “Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues”—the basic architecture of the concerts remains intact. At each location, audiences don wireless headphones, then either sit or roam while the music reverberates in their ears.

According to Noack, “Because of the way the music is experienced through the headphones, it is like a soundtrack to your own movie.” In his case, it can be a horror movie. At a concert in Big Sky, Mont., it became so cold he had to cover himself with hand warmers and wear fingerless gloves. “I’m not usually that cocky of a person, but I felt so invincible playing [Franz Liszt’s ‘La Campanella’] in zero degrees that it was just fun,” Noack remembers. “And I was so full of joy to be able to not just share the music, but share the feat of doing that thing that seems unreasonable and unlikely and impractical.” In a Landscape, which will journey from Wallowa Lake State Park to Fox Creek Ranch in Idaho this year, is not a one-pianist operation. Noack works with guest artists (including Thomas Lauderdale, his partner), and the concerts are masterminded by a team that includes executive director Lori Noack, who is Noack’s mother. “There’s a great misperception that I am doing this to lift up my son and show the world how proud I am of him,” says Lori Noack, also former executive director of the Sunriver Music Festival. “He could be in many places around the world doing what he does. He has chosen Oregon and chosen to work with me and with our team and to have a family operation.” In a Landscape attempts to democratize an art form that can seem stuffy and inaccessible (free and reducedprice tickets are available). That’s why it isn’t surprising when Noack says that his most passionately received performances are at county parks and other modest locations. “They were at places where people were just comfortable, like a town square or just next to a creek in a little park,” he says. “Whether you live in the city and you’re wealthy or whether you live in the city and you’re broke or whether you live seven hours from the nearest town, I get equally excited by the idea of everybody getting to experience classical music in the wild.” SEE IT: In a Landscape’s sixth season begins June 17 at Summer Lake and ends Sept. 11 at Victor, Idaho. Additional dates, venues and ticket prices can be found at inalandscape. org.

The early history of techno was defined by the mutual exchange between Berlin and Detroit, and the newly reissued 3MB personifies the trans-Atlantic meetings of the minds that created today’s machine music. The 1992 album is notable just for the pedigree of the musicians involved (Detroit legend Juan Atkins, dub-techno pioneer Moritz von Oswald, the Orb’s Thomas Fehlmann), but today it stands strong for its sterling sound design and elegant vision of the future. SOMETHING NEW Jenny Hval, that delightfully ribald and academic art pop prankster, joins forces with fellow Norwegian Håvard Volden on Menneskekollektivet, their debut as Lost Girls. Looser and jammier than the tightly constructed and intellectually rigorous music on Hval’s 2019 apex, The Practice of Love, the five tracks on Menneskekollektivet find the sweet spot between dance music and psych rock, not least thanks to Hval’s thought-provoking yet sublimely goofy monologues. SOMETHING LOCAL Like many aging, increasingly grouchy millennials, the members of Picante have been on a Steely Dan deep dive recently. But if “Strawberries and Cream” is as inspired by “Dirty Work” as they say, it’s bright enough to turn Walter Becker and Donald Fagen to stone, replacing the New Yorkers’ tart-tongued wit with earnest soul singing, spoken word and a chintzy electric piano sound that it’s safe to guess didn’t require 20 state-of-the-art microphones to record. SOMETHING ASKEW Philadelphia’s Pontiac Streator and Ulla Straus are best-known on their own for fogged-out ambient music, but on their 2019 collaborative album, 11 Items, they venture into wilder and woollier territory somewhere between Frank Zappa’s Lumpy Gravy and something you’d hear over the baby monitor in a horror movie. If the continuous chatter of disembodied alien voices doesn’t creep you out too much, 11 Items makes for a neuron-rearranging and continually surprising listen.

Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

POTLANDER

BIG

Papa Puff The best dad strains for Father’s Day. BY BRIA N N A W H E E L E R

Shout-out to all the righteous dads out here. Y’all are about more than just lawn care, thermostat stasis and grill accessories. I’m talking about diaper-changing, boo-boo-kissing, tea-party-having-ass dudes who cry at graduations and throw coming-out parties. I’m talking about hand-holding active listeners who unconditionally love and support their children as the unique humans they are. I’m talking about patient role models who are breaking generational cycles of trauma and who also maybe wear cargo pants that zip apart into shorts. Father’s Day is for you, and you deserve top-shelf all day. This Father’s Day, whether celebrating your significant other, your father figures, or your damn self, consider indulging in at least one of these father-approved top-shelf cultivars.

For the Complacent Gamer Dad:

CAKE CRASHER

This hybrid of Wedding Cake and Wedding Crasher is a deeply stoney couchlock cultivar that has a meditative head high well suited for self-care. For the video game dad who wants to spend the day dusting his progeny at Mario Kart or the tabletop gamer dad eager to start an epic new campaign, a few draws of Cake Crasher might provide the necessary balance of headin-the-clouds euphoria and immovable-object perseverance to level up the holiday game play in a very dadlike way. Expect a bright, gassy perfume with funky fruit notes and a suggestion of citrus. The exhale is a commensurate mouthful of sweet, potent funk, so puff it outside or by a window lest you stank up the whole house. Get it from: The Kings of Canna, 1465 NE Prescott St,, 971-319-6945, thekingsofcanna.com.

For the Domestic Diva Dad:

STEEL BRIDGE

Steel Bridge is a phenotype exclusive to Pruf Cultivar, a hybrid of Golden Goat and TH1 that leans into its sativa genetics with a tenderness that uplifts the body without overstimulation and quiets the mind without smothering the user’s cognition. For dad types who embrace the homemaker roles they either manage exclusively or share with their partners, a sparkling bowl of Steel Bridge and an afternoon of wholesome kitchen shenanigans resulting in celebratory snacking might be the best recipe for the day. Pro tip: Medicate a few of your snacks post-baking with a squirt of tincture or infused oil so you can prolonged your high and freely snack the night away. Expect a familiar citrus-pine nose, a gassy, candy-sweet exhale, and a pleasantly lingering, woody aftertaste. Get it from: Five Zero Trees, 909 NE Dekum St., 503-954-3844, fivezerotrees.com.

For the Rugged Outdoor Adventure Dad:

POONTANG PIE

This cross of Tropicanna, Grape Pie and Papaya is aptly named for its transcendental flavor profile, which many users describe as similar in taste to a goddess’s genitals. Genetically, this cultivar expresses dominant indica traits, but the inherited sativa of Tropicanna balances the stonier head high with a fizzy body buzz that arrives in a shuddering onset but eventually mellows to effervescent relaxation. This is a great phenotype to take on a low-stakes hike that ends with a picnic, beach lounge, river dip or any other activity that calls for cutoff jeans or embarrassingly teeny dolphin shorts. Expect a complex perfume of pink peppercorn, tropical fruit, wet wood, and dank pine that softens into a cottony exhale of overripe fruit and sweet lemonade. Get it from: Oregrown, 111 NE 12th Ave., 503 477 6898, oregrown.com.

Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

For the Scatterbrained Stoner Dad:

For the Unflappable Armchair Philosopher Dad:

For fathers who just want some time to focus on their own self-care, be it home improvement, landscape maintenance or qigong and breath work, J1 is the strain to provide some much-needed laser focus. This hybrid of popular sativas Skunk #1 and Jack Herer serves a clearheaded, sheer psychotropic high and manageably brisk body buzz in smaller doses, but bigger tokes will likely require an easygoing project to keep the high from becoming frenetic. So reserve the dabs for creative enterprises and/or artistic endeavors. Expect a sweet, fruity perfume and a grassy, resinous exhale that makes for a robust and flavorful concentrate.

For the dads who are happy just to get high and hang out with minimum expectations, a cultivar like Jah Goo has an appropriate balance of chipper euphoria and cashmere relaxation. Jah Goo was bred from a cross of Asian strains Purple Jasmine and Afghan Goo, both having reputations for long-lasting, relaxing highs with gauzily energetic undertones. Jah Goo delivers on its genetics: The body high is expectedly heavy without being incapacitating, and the head high is dreamily joyful. This is reportedly an easygoing high dads across the board can appreciate, whether they prefer to spend the day cracking dad jokes from a reclined easy chair or ping-ponging their focus between the laziest of weekend dad tasks. Expect a sweet, fruity, woody perfume reminiscent of hash, and a piney-sweet exhale with a rich, earthy aftertaste.

Get it from: Lemonnade PDX, 6218 NE Columbia Blvd., 971-279-2337, thereallemonnade.com/pdx.

JAH GOO

Get it from: Weedland, 4027 N Interstate Ave., 541-904-0000.

YOUR BACKSTAGE PASS TO THE WWEEK NEWSROOM Join the Dive podcast every Saturday as we quickly cover the week’s headlines, and then dive deeper into the big stories of the week. Host Hank Sanders sits down with the paper’s staff as well as the biggest names in Portland to discuss the city and the events that change lives. The Dive podcast by Willamette Week is the best way to stay up to date with Portland’s news, sports, arts, and culture.

Available anywhere you get your podcasts

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Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com D R AG O N WAG O N R A D I O

screener

MOVIES

GET YO UR REPS I N While local rep theaters are out of commission, we’ll be putting together weekly watchlists of films readily available to stream. We’re now halfway through Pride Month, so it’s time to roll out a fresh batch of LGBTQ+ films to keep the celebration going. This week, we explore the dark side of desire with a series of disturbingly excellent thrillers and dramas. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows!

Cruising (1980) Al Pacino stars as an undercover detective assigned to catch a serial killer targeting gay men in New York’s underground S&M scene. Directed by The Exorcist’s William Friedkin, this controversial crime thriller was initially criticized for its portrayal of gay culture upon release but has since found a devoted cult following. Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Criterion Channel, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube. LETTERBOXD

TO BE OR NOT?: The Oxford Fellowship proposes that the 17th Earl of Oxford was the true writer of the Shakespeare canon.

Debating the Bard

A Southern Oregon podcast dives into the theory that William Shakespeare did not write the works accredited to him. BY C H A N C E S O L E M - P F EI FER

@chance_s_p

Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

SEE IT: Don’t Quill the Messenger streams at dragonwagonradio.com/dontquillthemessenger.

Knife + Heart (2018) Majorly influenced by Cruising and giallo cinema, this surreal NC-17 horror movie centers on a gay porn producer (Vanessa Paradis) who decides to make an ambitious new film after her girlfriend-editor leaves her. But when one of her actors winds up murdered, she’s thrust into a bloody, perverse mystery. Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Kanopy, Shudder, YouTube TV.

Stranger by the Lake (2013) On a nude beach in France known to be a cruising hot spot for gay men, regular visitor Franck is immediately beguiled when a handsome, mysterious new visitor named Michel appears. Is it a coincidence that a freshly drowned corpse happened to be discovered right after Michel showed up? This drama-thriller is a contemplative probe into the dynamic relationship between eroticism and fear. Amazon Prime, Kanopy, Shudder.

Monster (2003) Before director Patty Jenkins hit the mainstream with Wonder Woman (2017), there was Monster. Charlize Theron won an Oscar for her transformative performance as infamous real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a lesbian sex worker who killed several of her male clients: the first in self-defense, the rest for their money. Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Crackle, FilmRise, fubo TV, Google Play, Hoopla, Philo, Plex, Pluto TV, Roku, Tubi, Vudu, YouTube. IMDB

Mention William Shakespeare in Southern Oregon and Ashland’s famous theater festival likely springs to mind before you reach “-speare.” But 40 miles northwest of the world-renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival, a Grants Pass-based podcast is exploring a controversy that those who haven’t experienced King Lear or Romeo & Juliet since 11th grade English may not even know exists. Don’t Quill the Messenger invites listeners down the rabbit hole of what host Steven Sabel politely calls “the Shakespeare authorship question,” which suggests William Shakespeare, the Bard of Stratford-upon-Avon, England (perpetually imagined as that mustachioed balding fella), did not pen the Western world’s most famous plays. “Everyone should be fascinated by this topic,” says Sabel, a longtime theater actor, producer and director. “It’s the greatest literary mystery of all time.” Sabel is a member of the Shakespeare Oxford Fellowship, an international organization that posits Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, was the true writer of the Shakespeare canon and rightful source of the pen name “William Shakespeare.” Such skeptics are known as “Oxfordians” and have historically included the likes of Sigmund Freud and Orson Welles. While it’s a belief dismissed and deemed either far-fetched or beside the point in most academic circles, Don’t Quill the Messenger makes its case by interrogating what it views as an undocumented and invented history of Stratford’s Shakespeare and plumbing the life of de Vere for textual connections. “I understand why people are so attached to [the Stratford] myth,” says Sabel, highlighting its aspirational qualities. “It’s a very beautiful fairy tale, but it is not history and it’s not true. And there’s not a historian in the world that can say it is.” Three years in, the podcast’s mystery crux helps endear Don’t Quill to its network, Los Angeles-based Dragon Wagon Radio, which just recorded its 3 millionth download. The show itself isn’t so much Oxfordian evangelism as amateur sleuthing, deep reading, and a genuine helping of Shakespeare appreciation. For his part, Sabel hosts with a welcoming, polished stage presence, conversing with guests like author Michael Blanding, former Washington Post journalist Robert Meyers, and many members of the Oxford Fellowship.

So what happens to someone once they believe Shakespeare wasn’t actually that Shakespeare? Well, if Sabel is any indication, they still adore the works. The Grants Pass podcaster helmed Southern California’s Redlands Shakespeare Festival for nine seasons and is staging A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the seventh time in his career in August—this time for his local Barnstormers Theatre. Even one of Shakespeare’s most accessible works is enlivened, Sabel says, when he tells performers how it functions as an allegory for the English court, reported from de Vere’s intimate perspective. “The layers of political intrigue in that play come to light,” he says. “When the actors know that, they can play the humor that much better.” Now, because it asserts, in part, that “the Stratford man” (as Oxfordians dub the broadly accepted Shakespeare) had neither the education nor the cultural vantage to pen plays with extensive knowledge of royalty, Italy and pursuits like falconry, the Oxfordian interpretation is sometimes derided as classist by its detractors. Sabel retorts that de Vere’s story reveals a “totalitarian” English monarchy hell-bent on silencing him; there’s little affection for aristocratic power here. And if the Oxfordian view could loosely be termed a conspiracy theory, Sabel assures it’s not a gateway to believing Michelangelo didn’t paint the Sistine Chapel. “Historians are the unsung heroes who need to embrace this mystery and help us find the truth,” he explains. “Not literature majors, historians. They know how to follow a proper scientific question. They know how to conduct proper research.” As for how Sabel and the Oxford Fellowship coexist with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival just down I-5, they’ve happily participated in OSF panels and forums. And while Oxfordians certainly seek the eventual validation of de Vere, Sabel touts the larger benefits of Ashland’s festival, or any other, engaging generally with the authorship query that sparked his podcast and inflects his entire artistic life. “I believe every Shakespeare festival in the world that embraces the question—they don’t even have to take a position; let audiences decide for themselves—will watch those audiences come to those plays looking for clues,” he says. “That’s a great marketing hook.”

Bad Education (2004) The great Pedro Almodóvar directs this introspective, stylized drama about a film director (Fele Martínez) whose life is upended when a trans woman claiming to be his childhood friend (Gael García Bernal) shows up at his door with a short story she wrote, hoping for a part in his next movie. Told using metafiction, flashbacks and effective narrative twists, this is one of Almodóvar’s greatest triumphs. Amazon Prime, Google Play, HBO Max, YouTube.

MOVIES A U S T I N H A R G R AV E

TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It “Damn the shadows and here’s to the light.” When Rita Moreno speaks those words in Mariem Pérez Riera’s excellent documentary Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It, she isn’t just talking. She’s revealing the inner strength that sustained her from her childhood in Puerto Rico to an acting career that led her to face the triumphs of stardom and the evils of discrimination and abuse. The documentary is a chronicle of her experiences and a corrective for moviegoers who have seen only her Oscar-winning performance as Anita in West Side Story. Did you know she won an Emmy for The Muppet Show? That she played a nun working in a prison on Oz? That she unleashed unscripted fury on her toxic former lover, Marlon Brando, in the 1969 film The Night of the Following Day? Just a Girl Who Decided to Go for It revels in these victories, but it also listens to Moreno’s recollections of her most harrowing hours, from onset jellyfish stings to being raped by her agent while she was menstruating. Riera’s documentary is about how Moreno lived through those horrors and transcended them. A series of animations imagines her as a living paper doll, but the movie shows you that she was (and is) nobody’s plaything. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Cinema 21.

OUR KEY

: T H I S M O V I E I S E XC E L L E N T, O N E O F T H E B E S T O F T H E Y E A R. : T H I S M O V I E I S G O O D. W E R E C O M M E N D YO U WATC H I T. : T H I S M O V I E I S E N T E R TA I N I N G B U T F L AW E D. : THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE.

ALSO PLAYING Censor

In 1980s England, an unassuming woman named Enid (Niamh Algar) works as a film censor of “video nasties,” a British term for exploitation horror. Still reeling from her sister’s disappearance years ago, her noble goal is to protect the Thatcher-era public from gruesome images, potentially preventing trauma and violent crime. But when Enid is assigned to censor an eerily familiar film from a controversial director, repressed memories about her past are unlocked. As her grasp on reality gradually slips, well-intentioned obsession mutates into dangerous delusion—she becomes convinced her long-lost sister is alive, working as a video nasty actress. But Censor isn’t so much a traditional missing-person mystery as it is an experimental psychological character study. Writer-director Prano Bailey-Bond, in her feature debut, films the action from Enid’s disoriented perspective, with frenetic editing and hallucinatory lighting. Sure, it’s a bit unfocused and murky, but perhaps that’s intentional. The horror here is derived from an inability to cope, to gain closure, to accept that, despite what mainstream movies tell us, not every loose end in life ties itself up in an immaculate bow. Sometimes, the question is more chilling than the answer. NR. MIA VICINO. Cinema 21.

Profile This latest entry in the emerging screenlife cinema format, which filters all action through a laptop screen, might seem oddly ambitious given that the micro-

genre is still hovering perception-wise between the formalist pretensions of feature-length single takes and Blumhouse’s found-footage schlock. Based on a French reporter’s exposé of how extremists recruit young women to join the Islamic State only to sell them into sexual slavery, Profile uses the trappings of a ripped-from-theheadlines story and elevates it into an effective little thriller steeped in modern social media and a catfishing pas de deux. Just as Brian De Palma’s Blow Out (1981) and Body Double (1984) updated Hitchcockian voyeur tropes with advancing technology, Profile director Timur Bekmambetov maintains a fusillade of ADHD diversions to enliven the more mundane aspects of newspaper reporting while preying on the tensions of our Not Safe For Work-braving, right-swiping age. Really, though, he just sets the minimal stage for freelance journalist Amy (Valene Kane) and terrorist-as-21st-century-rock-star Bilel (Shazad Latif) to promote their precisely curated brands. The result is a film that features just enough manipulative carelessness and toxic aggression to remind audiences that some personae are best left virtual. R. JAY HORTON. Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube.

The Sparks Brothers At first glance, the cult rock band Sparks seems a bizarre subject to receive the epic rockumentary treatment. Ron and Russell Mael’s long-tenured art pop group, whose visual impact John Lennon allegedly described as something akin to Hitler playing piano for English musician Marc Bolan, released 24 and counting chart-nudging albums that flirted with relevance during the glam

and disco periods before retreating toward a decidedly niche appeal in the past few decades. Nevertheless, The Sparks Brothers wrings ecstatic appreciation from a murderers’ row of commenters, ranging from obvious acolytes (members of Erasure, Squeeze, Duran Duran) to further afield well-wishers (Beck, Flea, Weird Al) to friendly faces perhaps just passing by the studio that day (Mike Myers, Neil Gaiman, Patton Oswalt). As multimedia homage to a deserving band, there’s a desperate allure to the hyperkinetic blend of monochromatic celeb testaments, sweaty ’70s concert footage and animated re-creations of what few stories emerge. Clearly a passion project for first-time documentarian Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver), his all-encompassing ardor tries its best to breathe life into the inevitably less than compelling tale of talented brothers who overcame loving parents and SoCal golden-boy origins. At its best, the doc plays out like a star-studded listening party thrown by a manic superfan asserting the Sparks’ rarefied charms, and the sheer breadth of luminaries gathered diverts attention for a while. Well before minute 150, though, even the guests of honor might wish to hear something else. R. JAY HORTON. Cascade, Cinema 21, Living Room.

The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard With a title resembling an SAT question on the possessive form, this sequel to 2017’s The Hitman’s Bodyguard follows up one of the least-discussed studio hits of the past five years. This round again pairs Ryan Reynolds, a rule-abiding bodyguard, with Samuel L. Jackson, a hitman who loves to yell “motherfucker,” this time on a mission to save that little old world. Reynolds, we’re reminded, is one of Hollywood’s most reliable stars in any context, with a comedic bounce that bolsters this chaotic sequel’s surprisingly strong bones. The delight of Reynolds’ relentless thwarting, drugging and battering from hyperactive and hypervio-

lent Jackson and Selma Hayek (the hitman’s wife who was foretold) is so thorough that the rest of the movie can mostly be as loud, crass and ridiculous as it likes. That said, director Patrick Hughes’ action is dreadfully incompetent. Frank Grillo and Antonio Banderas spearhead a nonsensical world-domination plot that delivers some of the shoddiest visual effects in recent memory. Though placating 2021 attention spans might explain the film’s needlessly panicked clip, The Hitman’s Wife’s Bodyguard looks warmer through the lens of action-comedy ancestors like Midnight Run and The In-Laws. God knows why it’s shot and edited like a drunken Bourne movie. R. CHANCE SOLEMPFEIFER. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Clackamas Town Center, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Eastport Plaza, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place.

La Dosis Like a giant shouldering the weight of the planet, Marcos (Carlos Portaluppi) lumbers through this Argentine thriller, which is simultaneously sinister and lethargic. Marcos is a nurse in an intensive care unit, but he doesn’t just heal the sick—he quietly puts them out of their misery when he believes it is necessary. He’s a murderer, but not like Gabriel (Ignacio Rogers), a slick nurse who kills not out of compassion, but for kicks. La Dosis is essentially a morbid duet performed by these two men. One considers taking lives to be a solemn duty, and one revels in the unholy thrill of playing God, but they are both symbols in writer-director Martín Kraut’s medical parable. La Dosis is a portrait of health care workers who are so brutally demeaned and exploited that they can’t feel in control unless they shatter their most sacred oath. It’s a perverse and audacious idea, but the film built around it is punishingly slow and lacks conviction. Kraut seems afraid to decide whether the psychological battle between Marcos and Gabriel is a showdown between good and evil or if they are just devils in slightly different dis-

guises. Despite its impressively dark premise, La Dosis doesn’t end with a shock. It ends with a shrug. NR. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. On Demand.

Wrath of Man Whether playing the obligatory human among action figures (The Fate of the Furious, The Expendables) or driving his own all too literal vehicles as a humble functionary pushed too far (The Transporter, The Mechanic), Jason Statham attained a frankly bewildering stardom with weaponized competence. However unlikely the stunts, something about Statham seethes stolid believability, which made him the perfect tent pole for Guy Ritchie’s stylized Cockney capers. Transplanting the action to Los Angeles for their latest collaboration, alas, proves disastrous. Shelving the film school trickery and dumbing down dialogue to grunted tropes, this remake of 2004 French shoot-’em-up Le Convoyeur inexplicably leans into Statham’s dour and dull character named “H.” He’s the new man on the armored car security team whose 24/7 moping and unexplained proficiency in the violent arts betray a hidden vendetta against the crew of robbers responsible for his son’s death. Separated into four chapters, Wrath of Man shoehorns a heist flick into the traditional revenge yarn, but a shotgun marriage of the genre’s hackneyed plotlines further dims investment in the succession of charmless dolts (hapless guard Josh Hartnett, smooth ringleader Jeffrey Donovan, and loose cannon Scott Eastwood). This may be best understood as Ritchie’s American film, and he doesn’t seem too much like us. R. JAY HORTON. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cinema 99, Clackamas Town Center, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Eastport Plaza, Stark, Studio One, Vancouver Mall, Vancouver Plaza.

Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

ART N’ COMICS!

Be a Willamette Week featured artist! Any art style is welcome! Let’s share your art! Contact us at art@wweek.com.

FEATURED ARTIST: RENZO AMONI-DARO Hi, I’m Renzo Amoni-Daro. I was born 12 years ago in North Carolina. I like drawing, playing baseball, trading baseball cards, riding my bike, and watching movies directed by Jafar Panahi. My dream day would be having sushi for breakfast and sushi for brunch, and then doing a Draw-Your-Food bike ride. I used to sell drawings of vegetable characters in front of the coop on 21st and Tibbetts, until a lady told me it wasn’t allowed. Let me know if I can draw something for you: vincidaro@gmail.com. You are welcome to join the Draw Your Food Pedalpalooza bike ride on Thursday June 24th.

JACK KENT’S

Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

Jack draws exactly what he sees n’ hears from the streets. IG @sketchypeoplepdx kentcomics.com

JONESIN’

Week of June 24

by Matt Jones

"Just Ir-ish"--oh, whatever.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Author Albert Camus advised everyone to "steal some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self." That's excellent advice for you to heed in the coming days. The cosmos has authorized you to put yourself first and grab *all* the renewal you need. So please don't scrimp as you shower blessings on yourself. One possible way to accomplish this goal is to go on a long stroll or two. Camus says, "It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter." But I think you are indeed likely to be visited by major epiphanies and fantastic new meanings.

Author Aslı Erdoğan writes, "It had been explained to me from my earliest childhood that I would know love—or that thing called 'love'—as long as I was smart and academically brilliant. But no one ever taught me how to get that knowledge." I'm sorry to say that what was true for her has been true for most of us: No one ever showed us how to find and create and cultivate love. We may have received haphazard clues now and then from our parents and books and movies. But we never got a single day of formal instruction in school about the subject that is at the heart of our quest to live meaningful lives. That's the bad news, Libra. The good news is that the rest of 2021 will be one of the best times ever for you to learn important truths about love.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) Robert Mugabe was Zimbabwe's leader for 37 years. In the eyes of some, he was a revolutionary hero. To others he was an oppressive dictator. He was also the chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe, where his wife Grace received her PhD just two months after she started classes. I suspect that you, too, will have an expansive capacity to advance your education in the coming weeks—although maybe not quite as much as Grace seems to have had. You're entering a phase of super-learning.

GEMINI (May 21-June20) “We were clever enough to turn a laundry list into poetry,” wrote author Umberto Eco. Judging from astrological omens, I suspect you're now capable of accomplishing comparable feats in your own sphere. Converting a chance encounter into a useful new business connection? Repurposing a seeming liability into an asset? Capitalizing on a minor blessing or breakthrough to transform it into a substantial blessing or breakthrough? All these and more are possible.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) ACROSS 1 Concession stand drinks

50 Bearded zoo animal

26 Self-help Internet site

53 Intent

27 Disappointing "Save Me" singer-songwriter?

6 Tugs

54 Pop soloist familiar with the Egyptian underworld?

11 Shot in the arm

56 "Don't text and drive," e.g.

30 "What am _ _ _ do?"

14 Authoritative decree

57 Optimal

31 Mail motto word

15 "You're _ _ _ and don't even know it"

58 Come together

32 "F9" actor/producer Diesel

16 Need to square up with 17 Compliant "Transformers" director? 19 Milliner's product 20 Printer refill 21 Coast-to-coast vacation, maybe 22 "(You're) Having My Baby" singer Paul

59 RR stop 60 Teacher's summons 61 Printer refill DOWN 1 Big rig 2 Mythological deity with two ravens

28 File on a phone

33 Reggae Sunsplash adjective 34 Taboo 36 Biol. or ecol. 39 Prom piece 40 Foments 42 Pest greeting

“I was so flooded with yearning I thought it would drown me," wrote Cancerian author Denis Johnson. I don't expect that will be a problem for you anytime soon. You're not in danger of getting swept away by a tsunami of insatiable desire. However, you may get caught in a current of sweet, hot passion. You could be carried for a while by waves of aroused fascination. You might find yourself rushing along in a fast-moving stream of riled-up craving. But none of that will be a problem as long as you don't think you have something better to do. In fact, your time in the cascading flow may prove to be quite intriguing—and ultimately useful.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) In my opinion, psychology innovator Carl Jung, born under the sign of Leo, was one of the 20th century's greatest intellects. His original ideas about human nature are central to my philosophy. One of my favorite things about him is his appreciation for feelings. He wrote, "We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling. Therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only half of the truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy." I bring this to your attention, Leo, because the coming weeks will be a favorable time to upgrade your own appreciation for the power of your feelings to help you understand the world.

3 Nickname for Nixon

43 Vegas game with rolls

23 Sheepish sounds

4 German grumble

44 Raise, as a flag

24 Orchestra woodwinds

5 Illuminated, as at night

45 Battle royale

25 Beach atmosphere

6 "Big Three" conference site of 1945

46 George Peppard TV series, with "The"

7 "To reach _ _ _, we must sail ..." (FDR quote)

47 Mode of fashion

8 "Dona _ _ _ pacem" (Mass phrase)

50 Hang on tight?

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

9 Hold onto

51 "Last _ _ _" (The Strokes song)

10 Mess of a spot

52 Tablet owner

11 Unfortunate tractor inventor?

54 Prefix with information

For the indigenous Ojibway people, the word *Adizokan* means both "story" and "spirit." In fact, story and spirit are the same thing. Everything has a spirit and everything has a story, including people, animals, trees, lakes, rivers, and rocks. Inspired by these thoughts, and in accordance with cosmic omens, I invite you to meditate on how your life stories are central elements of your spirit. I further encourage you to spend some tender, luxurious time telling yourself the stories from your past that you love best. For extra delightful bonus fun, dream up two prospective stories about your future that you would like to create. (Info about *Adizokan* comes from Ann and John Mahan at SweetWaterVisions.com.)

28 Sapphire novel on which the film "Precious" was based 29 T, e.g. 30 Allowed past the door 35 "Lara Croft: _ _ _ Raider" 36 Showing little emotion 37 Roman emperor after Claudius 38 Mixed vegetables ingredient, maybe 40 Laundry day target 41 Distant lead-in 42 Car accessory 43 _ _ _ pastry (eclair basis) 45 Five-iron nickname 48 Architect Ludwig Mies van der _ _ _ 49 Casino customer

12 Up 13 Software versions still being tested 18 At any point 22 Kind of ballot 23 Potato chip flavor 24 In circulation 25 They haven't flown for 18 years

49 "I'll _ _ _ my time"

55 _ _ _ nutshell

last week’s answers

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Before he journeyed in a spaceship to the moon in 1971, Scorpio astronaut Alan Shepard didn't think he'd get carried away with a momentous thrill once he arrive at his destination. He was a manly man not given to outward displays of emotion. But when he landed on the lunar surface and gazed upon the majestic sight of his home planet hanging in the sky, he broke into tears. I'm thinking you may have similar experiences in the coming weeks. Mind-opening, heart-awakening experiences may arrive. Your views of the Very Big Picture could bring healing upheavals.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Sagittarian author Clarice Lispector observed, "In a state of grace, one sometimes perceives the deep beauty, hitherto unattainable, of another person." I suspect that this state of grace will visit you soon, Sagittarius—and probably more than once. I hope you will capitalize on it! Take your time as you tune in to the luminescent souls of the people you value. Become more deeply attuned to their uniquely gorgeous genius.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Trailblazing Capricorn psychoanalyst Ernest Jones (1879–1958) said, "There is no sense of contradiction within the unconscious; opposite ideas exist happily side by side." In other words, it's normal and natural to harbor paradoxical attitudes; it's healthy and sane to be awash in seemingly incongruous blends. I hope you will use this astrologically propitious time to celebrate your own inner dichotomies, dear Capricorn. If you welcome them as a robust aspect of your deepest, truest nature, they will serve you well. They'll make you extra curious, expansive, and non-dogmatic. (PS: Here's an example, courtesy of psychologically savvy author Stephen Levine: "For as long as I can remember the alternate antics of the wounded child and the investigations of the ageless Universal played through me.")

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Aquarian guitarist Django Reinhardt was a celebrated jazz musician in occupied France during World War II. Amazingly, he was able to earn good money by performing frequently—even though he fit descriptions that the rampaging Germans regarded as abhorrent. Nazis persecuted the Romani people, of which he was one. They didn't ban jazz music, but they severely disapproved of it. And the Nazis hated Jews and Blacks, with whom Reinhardt loved to hang out. The obstacles you're facing aren't anywhere near as great as his, but I propose we make him your role model for the next four weeks. May he inspire you to persist and even thrive in the face of challenges!

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) Piscean author Richard Matheson believed we've become too tame and mild. "We've forgotten," he wrote, about "how to rise to dizzy heights." He mourned that we're too eager to live inside narrow boundaries. "The full gamut of life is a shadowy continuum," he continued, "that runs from gray to more gray. The rainbow is bleached." If any sign of the zodiac has the power to escape blandness and averageness, it's you Pisceans—especially in the coming weeks. I invite you to restore the rainbow to its full vivid swath: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. Maybe even add a few colors.

HOMEWORK Describe what you're doing to heal the world. Newsletter@freewillastrology.com Check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes

©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.

freewillastrology.com The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at

1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700 Willamette Week JUNE 16, 2021 wweek.com

NEWS: REMEMBER TERESSA RAIFORD’S NAME. P. 9 RESTAURANTS: WHO’LL STOP THE RAIN? P. 21 CANNABIS: WHAT WE LOST IN THE FIRES. P. 25

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co Wel . P. RY: ngle TO Ju HIS Pizza the

NEWS: OREGON IS ON FIRE. P. 6

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P. 24

WWEEK.COM

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VOL 46/46 09.09.2020

By Nigel Jaquiss | Page 13

Buying, selling, instruments of every shape and size. Open 11am-7pm every day. 4701 SE Division & 1834 NE Alberta.

Wanted: Christmas Wreath Makers

Our firm is looking for experienced makers and also suppliers of Noble Fir and Western Red Cedar. Chris M. 1-888-954-6453

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NEWS: Ted Wheeler Still Wants This Job. P. 9 • KAYAKING: Holy Toledo! P. 22 • CANNABIS: Strains for Late Summer. P. 25

“DO I WANT TO DROP DEAD NEXT WEEK? NOT REALLY.” P. 29

TRADEUPMUSIC.COM

WAR MOVIES By Aaron Mesh | Page 12

Sarah Iannarone?

VOL 46/47 09.16.2020

WILLAMETTE W

A cadre of helmeted guerrilla filmmakers is coming to you live from Portland’s flaming streets.

Portland voters are fed up with Ted Wheeler. But are they ready for

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WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

“SHOCKINGLY, STILL SINGLE AND WAY TOO BORED.” P. 21

CASH for INSTRUMENTS

NOT TED “GOOD THING CLIMATE CHANGE IS A HOAX LIKE COVID.” P. 4

503-243-2122 mdonhowe@wweek.com

WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

GOOD

“MY TASTE BUDS ARE WRECKED.” P. 22

MICHAEL DONHOWE

FUL L ISSUE S ALWAYS AVAIL AB L E O NL INE

WILLAMETTE W

WWEEK.COM

VOL 46/43 08.19.2020

THE MAGIC IS IN MEL’S HOLE. page 22

W A

A V

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O VI

WWEEK.COM

VOL 46/42 08.12.2020

O A

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JAMMED

’S

D EV EN RO TH LL ER EP SK AN AT YO DE ING UR MI C. GU IDE . PA GE 11

NEWS: BLOODSHED ON THE SIDEWALK. FOOD: PIZZA! AT THE STREET DISCO. MOVIES: MARCHING WITH JOHN LEWIS.

VOL 46.40 07.29.2020 WWEEK.COM

PAGE 9

WWEEK.COM

IN MEMORIAM

SIR

'S S

ONG

STIT

WILLAMETTE WEEK

10 ARTISTS

LOCAL MUSIC INSIDERS SAY YOU'VE GOT TO HEAR. PAGE 10

WWEEK.COM

VOL 46/37 07.08.2020

VOL 46/39 07.22.2020

PAGE 24

P. 6

WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

BEST NEW BAND

WWEEK.COM

Goodbye, BarFly

MAITA PAGE 11

MUSIC'S ROLE IN THE PROTESTS: 4 SCENE LEADERS SPEAK OUT PAGE 16

WWEEK.COM

VOL 46/36 07.01.2020

Distant Summer

Think everything is canceled? We’ve got 16 adventures that will help you salvage this season. PAGE 10

“IT MADE IT EASIER TO RISK IT FOR THE BISCUIT.” P. 11

STAY INFORMED. WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER.

PAGE 22

NEWS: A LITTLE POLICE REFORM. P. 9 BUSINESS: LAST CALL, AGAIN? P. 23 FOOD: TONARI, WITH LOVE.

P. 27

“BRING BACK THE HORSE COPS.” P. 4

STAY SAFE, sunlanlighting.com

OUTDOORS

Cape Disappointment Does Not Disappoint

P. 8

In a nation succumbing to COVID-19, where does Oregon stand? These 9 charts will show you.

Sunlan cartoons by Kay Newell “The Lightbulb Lady” Facebook / Twitter Instagram / Google

DS:

PLUS CAUGHT COVID?

Boss Says "Too Bad"

VOL 46/41 08.05.2020

PORTLAND

VOL 46/38 07.15.2020

REA

By Tess Riski Page 11

WWEEK.COM

WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

WWEEK.COM

By Latisha Jensen | Page 13

P. 23

By Rachel Monahan Page 13

Night after night, Portlanders confront Trump’s violent police in downtown. It feels like a party, and the end of the world.

That’s also where Portland's housing is the most overcrowded.

PORTLAND’S NEWSWE

INTO THE GAS

People are more likely to catch COVID east of 82nd Avenue.

WILLAMETTE W

WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

“IT'S A CATFIGHT, MAN. THE FUR WILL FLY.” P. 52

OUTDOORS

P. 26

Essential Business Hours 9:00 to 5:30 Monday Friday | 11:00 to 4:00 Saturday

“I’M GETTING GASSED IN MY OWN HOME.” P. 8

3901 N Mississippi Ave. 503.281.0453

NEWS

FEDS VS. A FIRESTARTER. page 9

“YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE YOU’RE KILLING YOUR BRAIN.”

For all your lightbulb fixtures & parts

“I WANTED THEM TO SEE WHAT THEY'RE SHOOTING AT.” P. 20

Lighting

“WE’D SPRAY AND VACUUM, BUT NOTHING’S PERFECT.’’ P. 28

Sunlan

WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

SHE’S

WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

“TIRED OF WHITE SUPREMACY? WELCOME TO THE CLUB.” P. 21

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VOL 46/34 06.17.2020

"THEY KILLIN AND Y' MISS A PARAD

Seven queer bl Portlanders sp out on what Pr means to them Page 12