Willamette Week, July 27, 2022 - Volume 48, Issue 38 - "The Mystery of the Taft Home"

Y R E T S Y M E TH

WILLAMETTE WEEK

PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

Why does a historic hotel

“They didn’t care

meant to house

about none of us.”

low-income seniors

Josephine Allen,

stand empty in the

former resident

heart of Portland?

By Sophie Peel, Page 12

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Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

FINDINGS J O R D A N H U N D E LT

NEXT ADVENTURE CHENNAI MASALA, PAGE 17

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 48, ISSUE 38 Our news editor can’t tell the difference between Fred Meyer and Safeway. 4 Tik Tok Restaurant and Bar

is the highest-earning lottery retailer in Multnomah County.

6

You can make renewable diesel out of timber slash. 7 A weed robbery getaway driver ran a stop sign and crashed in front of a cop. 9 Portland’s shredded tires are now aboard a ship somewhere off the coast of San Diego. 11 A West End hotel with 70 beds sits vacant during a housing crisis. 12 Employees of the Taft Home did not check on the welfare of

The Breakfast Club inspired Wellspent Market ’s newest event. 16 Looking for hard-to-find Indian sweets? There’s a deli case in Beaverton. 18 If there ever were an appropriately dystopian weed strain to pair with this summer, it would be 24k Gold. 19 The Sandlot is a regular fixture in Sharon Van Etten’s home. 20 George Clinton still throws a better party than just about anyone else. 20

Just say “huh?” to Jordan Peele’s Nope. 23

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:

Displaced Taft Home resident Josephine Allen, photo by Danny Fulgencio.

In 2005, a lakefront brawl poisoned Oregon’s most exclusive waters.

Masthead Mark Zusman

EDITORIAL

News Editor Aaron Mesh Arts & Culture Editor Andi Prewitt Assistant A&C Editor Bennett Campbell Ferguson Staff Writers Anthony Effinger, Nigel Jaquiss, Lucas Manfield, Rachel Monahan, Sophie Peel News Interns Ekansh Gupta, Helen Huiskes, Ethan Johanson Copy Editor Matt Buckingham

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Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

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DIALOGUE

• •••• ••••

A T R E A LRBO S ER E T •••• A E H T bringing contemporary energy to Hawaiian classics

JUL 27

WAIPUNA Booklover’s Burlesque

JUL 29 DOT HALFORD, VIA WWEEK. COM: “I own a retail business

a midsummer night’s tease

JUL 30

a 15-piece tribute to

Frank Zappa

featuring AUG 4 a night of comedy

CHRIS FAIRBANKS + Sean Jordan

AUG 11

TIM O’BRIEN + JAN FABRICIUS TOO SLIM & AUG 18 THE TAILDRAGGERS

Ike Willis

CALL ME AUG 5 AUG 6 A PUSSY a one-woman circus about burlesque

Laura Stokes

+ Glitterfox (5th) + Kris Deelane (6th)

one of Mexico’s funniest

AUG 13

MARIO AGUILAR Montavilla Jazz Festival 22

AUG 19

PJCE’s The Heroine’s Journey

Marilyn Keller, Darrell Grant, & Rebecca Sanborn

TY CURTIS

AUG 26

AUG 20

an evening of contemporary Hawaiian music

DARRELL SCOTT

PAULA FUGA

+ Stephanie Schneiderman

UPCOMING SHOWS

•••••••••••••

8/27 • CABARET DES ARTS A FUSION OF VISUAL ARTS & BURLESQUE 9/3 • FANNA FI ALLAH 9/10 • I PUT A SPELL ON YOU - NINA SIMONE TRIBUTE W/ LARHONDA STEELE & THE ADRIAN MARTIN SEXTET

•••••

albertarosetheatre.com

3000 NE Alberta • 503.764.4131 Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

downtown with a 17-year track record of success. I’ve considered closing the business because of the same issues. It’s incredibly fatiguing and often dangerous to be dealing with mentally unstable and drug-addled individuals day in and day out, plus I have the safety of my staff to consider. Making the decision to close has NOTHING to do with the success of my business. Does Jason Renaud actually think that Starbucks is a business failure? HIGHLY DELUDED.”

Q (NOT ANON), VIA TWITTER: “This is not responsible

featuring

featuring

4

Last week, three WW correspondents reported what they observed at two Starbucks coffee shops selected for closure by the corporate office: one in downtown, the other near Gateway Transit Center deep in Northeast Portland (“Falling Starbucks,” July 20). Starbucks said it was closing the shops because they had grown too dangerous. Such a rationale hit a nerve—several, actually. Some readers accused us of credulously accepting Starbucks’ narrative and painting over the company’s union-busting attempts. Others took exception to a quote from Jason Renaud saying business owners were scapegoating the mentally ill. Still others scoffed at our assertion that Starbucks operates a kiosk in a nearby Safeway. Readers were right about that one.

journalism and you’re being a corporate mouthpiece for Starbucks. Very disappointed in the fact that WW glosses over the egregious union-busting by

instead taking digs at homeless people.”

CH, VIA WWEEK.COM: “The

fucking balls to tell some kid running a register who ends up being a de facto social worker making minimum wage that the shit they see every day isn’t the actual issue.”

DAN KEENEY, VIA WWEEK. COM: “The faux outrage about

a company closing a retail location when there are nine other Starbucks operating within a mile of the downtown location—two just a block or so away—is silly. Nobody will be inconvenienced by this.”

PORTLANDEASTSIDE, VIA WWEEK.COM: “My wife and I

have been associated with the Gateway area for many years.

Unfortunately, it has degen-

Dr. Know

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

In your story on Portland’s unpaved roads, you wrote, “Not only will the city not improve them, it won’t even pay to maintain them in their current state of shittiness.” In fact, we do maintain gravel streets in Portland!

The Gravel Street Service (GSS) is a cost-effective, short-term solution for residents who have asked us for help improving the condition of the gravel roads they live on. —Hannah Schafer, Portland Bureau of Transportation One of the many perils of reaching one’s 40s and 50s (that stage we call, rather optimistically, “midlife”) is realizing that things you remember doing perhaps two or three years ago actually happened during the Clinton administration.

I mention this because I heard from many readers who recall, just as vividly as I do, mud-bogging their way along cratered streets reminiscent of no man’s land at the Battle of Verdun. Naturally, we assume these moonscapes are still there, unchanged—after all, didn’t we

erated into a dark and creepy, scuzzy area, especially at night.

We still frequent the Applebee’s at the other end of the parking lot from the Gateway Starbucks and Subway, but only in daylight at lunch time.“ JODI SMITH-HOWELLS, VIA FACEBOOK: “Chipotle is

doing the same thing. Closing down locations due to ‘safety’ concerns. They also happen to be the locations also unionizing.

Weird how that works.”

MITCH CRAFT, VIA FACEBOOK: “Who cares, Starbucks

is garbo. Maybe a locally owned coffee shop could open and thrive.”

WILLIAM OHLE, VIA WWEEK. COM: “My lord, who does the

fact checking at WW? That’s a Fred Meyer at Gateway, not a Safeway. How could anyone who actually knows anything about Portland history get that wrong?” (Editor’s note: A Starbucks grocery kiosk is indeed inside a Fred Meyer near Gateway Transit Center, not a Safeway. WW regrets the error, which was inserted by WW’s news editor, who has lived here 15 years and really ought to know better.)

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: PO Box 10770, Portland OR, 97296 Email: mzusman@wweek.com

see one just a few months ago, when we went over to Josh’s house to watch the series finale of Friends?

Now that I think about it, though, I’m not sure when I last encountered a street featuring one of those puddles so vast you can see Harry Potter’s Patronus on the other side. It happens that I spend a fair amount of time in and around the Cully neighborhood,* an area long known for sudden, unplanned off-road adventures. Right now, though, I can’t find any examples of those two-ruts-and-an-alligator mudholes I remember.

That’s not to say there aren’t any, however.

Over the past three years, 90% of gravel roads have been serviced, but those that serve only one or two homes (or those that GSS equipment can’t handle for technical reasons) may remain forever jacked.

Even when the GSS works as advertised, some readers have complaints. One cited “clouds and clouds” of gravel dust, while another noted that his potholes were already coming back. Several preferred the roads in their pre-graveled state, either because it made passing drivers slow down (or, better yet, take a different route) or because the gone-to-seed roads were an opportunity for shared urban space.

I stand by my assertion that the city won’t bring unimproved streets up to code. However, it appears that in many cases it will pay to maintain them at their current level of shittiness. Dr. Know regrets the error. *No, I don’t know anything about your missing silver. (It’s plated anyway, you cheap bastard.)

Questions? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com.

MURMURS COURTESY OF MARK HASS

MARK HASS ENDORSEMENTS HINT AT SHAPE OF GOVERNOR’S RACE: Although election season is now in the political doldrums where campaigns go mostly dark until Labor Day, each of the three major candidates for Oregon governor made news this week. Former state Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose), who is now unaffiliated with any party, reported a $100,000 contribution from Sid DeBoer, founder and chairman of Lithia Motors. GOP nominee Christine Drazan reported a $250,000 contribution from the Republican Governors Association, a further sign that national money thinks a Republican could win the governor’s race for the first time in 40 years. The RGA has now given Drazan a total of $569,000. Former House Speaker Tina Kotek, the Democratic nominee, racked up endorsements from Everytown for Gun Safety, a Michael Bloomberg-funded group, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. AFSCME did not endorse in the Democratic primary, and many of its members are known to be open to Johnson—but Johnson’s campaign says she didn’t pursue the endorsement, a decision that shows she plans to run against public employee unions rather than try to pick off members who might be wary of Kotek. “AFSCME is part of the public sector ruling coalition that is responsible for Kate Brown and Tina Kotek,” says Johnson’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Sitton. “That and the teachers’ union bosses work for [Service Employees International Union], not their members.”

FORMER SENATOR JOINS LOBBYING FIRM: Onetime state Sen. Mark Hass (D-Beaverton) has joined the lobbying firm of Oxley & Associates.

Oxley has a powerhouse list of clients that includes Altria, Amazon Web Services, Fred Meyer and Safeway-Albertson’s. Hass chaired the Senate Finance and Education committees and was known for shepherding complex, landmark bills through the Legislature. He was an architect of the Student Success Act, which raised the corporate activities tax to boost funding for public schools, and Oregon Promise, an aid program to grant free community college tuition. Hass, who narrowly lost a primary bid for secretary of state in 2020, started advising Oxley without fanfare in February. He says he “will not be lobbying.” Oxley merely asked him “for help with strategic advice,” Hass says.

AUDIT OUTLINES EMPLOYMENT DEPARTMENT FAILURES: On July 27, Secretary of State Shemia Fagan released a blistering audit of the Oregon Employment Department. Auditors examined the

agency’s much-criticized performance during the initial stage of the pandemic, when unemployment soared from record lows of 3.4% to 13.3% in less than two months. Previous audits in 2012 and 2015 had identified serious problems at the agency, notably a failure to use $85 million in federal money appropriated in 2009 to modernize OED’s ancient computer system. As claims soared 600% from 2019 to 2020, countless Oregonians received benefits late. When the agency did pay claims during the pandemic, auditors found, it paid them more slowly to people of color and those with lower incomes. (One bright spot: The agency deserves a gold star, the audit found, for paying out a vastly lower percentage of bogus claims than neighboring states and the national average.) The agency largely agreed with auditors’ findings. “The goal of a safety net is for it to be there when you need it,” Fagan said. “This audit helps explain why Oregon’s unemployment insurance program failed when it was needed most.”

FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF SHAMELESS SELF-PROMOTION: WW received six awards last week from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia, which recognizes the best journalism produced across the nation by alt-weeklies. Among the honors were three first prizes. Rachel Monahan won the Special Vaccine Coverage Award for her reporting on vaccine-skeptical Oregonians (“Long Shot,” Jan. 6, 2021). The story was supported by the Dennis A. Hunt Fund for Health Journalism, a program of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2020 National Fellowship. Anthony Effinger took first prize for health care reporting with his profile of Bret Weinstein, the podcaster peddling invermectin (“Drug and Pony Show,” Sept. 15, 2021). And Tess Riski was awarded the top prize in long-form news story writing for revealing the rise in armed robberies at cannabis shops (“Killer Weed,” March 3, 2021). Next week, Riski begins work on the city desk of the Miami Herald.

SKIDMORE PRIZE SEEKS NOMINATIONS: Nominations are open for the Skidmore Prize, which honors individuals making a significant difference in the community through their work at a local nonprofit. Nominees must be 35 or younger during 2022. Their nonprofit can be any size and type so long as it serves the local community. The nomination period is open now through midnight Aug. 12.

Read the details and apply at giveguide.org/skidmore-winners. You can also view previous winners and learn about their work at the same website.

PRESENT

IN

LEWIS AND CLARK FESTIVAL PARK DOWNTOWN THE DALLES, OREGON | AGES 21+

WWW.GRANADATHEATRETHEDALLES.COM Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

5

NEWS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK

Gambling in Multnomah County Preys on the Poor

MAPPED

82nd Ave.

Dotty’s #24

Glisan St.

Diamond Darcy’s

Greatest concentration of video lottery machines

Division St. Powell Blvd.

In Luck As the Oregon Lottery reports its highest profit ever, new scrutiny lands on where it rakes in its money. helen@wweek .com

The Oregon Lottery made a net profit of $968 million last year, according to a preliminary July 22 report to the Lottery Commission. This is the lottery’s highest profit ever, one-third higher than the previous record set in 2019.

Chuck Baumann, spokesman for the Oregon Lottery, says the high profit is important for the lottery’s purpose. “It’s what the mission of the lottery is, to earn a maximum profit for the state,” he says, “but commensurate with the public good.”

The record haul comes amid a reexamination of whether lotteries prey upon the poor.

A study from the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism

Tik Tok Restaurant & Bar

this month found that the Oregon Lottery and its peers target communities of color and people with low education and income.

The study shows that the area in Multnomah County with the highest number of lottery retailers—17 of them—is a downtown census tract. The tract has a median household income of $17,704, substantially lower than the overall county median of $72,425.

The study’s findings are all too familiar. The National Gambling Impact Study, created by an act of Congress in 1996, predicted the demographic patterns of lottery players.

“We’ve always known that lotteries disproportionately impact marginalized individuals, BIPOC individuals, older adults, and veterans,” says Kitty Martz, executive director of Voices of Problem Gambling Recovery.

Martz notes that those are all likely recipients of government spending. “So one of the really confusing parts,” she says, “is how we got to having a publicly operated system.”

Baumann attributes the concentration of lottery retailers in certain neighborhoods to the cost of real estate, not a disproportionate targeting of the poor. “It’s going to be more expensive to have a storefront in downtown Portland than it is in downtown Gresham, or the outer reaches of Portland itself,” he says.

Oregon is heavily dependent on lottery dollars. The lottery is the second-largest source of state funding, after income taxes.

Lottery revenues fund public schools, state park enhancements, Outdoor School, and some veterans services. Legislators also

CALL AND RESPONSE

Vacancies

NIGEL JAQUISS

Holgate Blvd.

BY H E L E N H U I S K E S

After remaining empty for 30 years, an iconic Northwest Portland building is gone.

What other ghosts remain?

In May, a long-empty commercial building at the corner of Northwest 23rd Avenue and Northrup Street disappeared with the swing of a wrecking ball.

Until 1992, the low-slung masonry structure contained a beloved late-night hangout, Quality Pie. But as the Alphabet District morphed from a string of low-rent housing and one-tap taverns into a cluster of boutiques and top-flight 6

Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

Three of Oregon’s 10 highest-earning lottery retailers are in Multnomah County.

The highest earner of the three, the Tik Tok Restaurant and Bar on Southeast 82nd Avenue, lies in a census tract where incomes are less than half the county av-

erage. Darcy’s in Wood Village is also in a low-income area, while Dotty’s #24 on Hayden Island is an a higher-income area but gets bridge traffic from Washington, which has no video lottery games. The greatest concentration of video lottery machines in the county is in a census tract (center) where average income is less than a quarter of the county average.

restaurants, the building remained dark.

Restaurateurs and property investors made repeated attempts to rent or buy the property, to no avail.

Broker Mark New recalls presenting the owners with a proposal from a well-financed drugstore chain. “Nothing happened,” New recalls. “It didn’t make sense.”

In 2007, the Portland Tribune tried to un-

like to use lottery bonds for projects in their districts, such as the $12 million Senate President Peter Courtney (D-Salem) secured in 2017 to renovate the Salem YMCA. “We’re kind of addicted to these bonds and the projects they fund,” says Rep. Marty Wilde (D-Eugene), who chaired the House General Government Committee last session. He says Oregon is so dependent on lottery funding that any protective reform that restricts lottery revenues would also create a problem for bond projects that are supposed to be funded by lottery dollars.

“Not only would we not have all those budget sweeteners in terms of lottery bond projects, but we’d probably have to subsidize the existing bonds from funds of some kind,” Wilde says.

“So it really prevents us from making thoughtful decisions.”

The temporary solution instead would be to call a moratorium on lottery bonds until the impact of gambling on marginalized people can be more closely investigated, he says. Wilde also notes that the most profitable games are also the easiest to abuse, such as video poker, and therefore the games themselves should also be examined.

“I’m not anti-gambling, but I think we should have games that are more protected and don’t let people get in over their head before they realize it,” Wilde says.

Martz cautions that the record profits the lottery reported last week do not include the societal costs of gambling. Victims of gambling addiction often end up relying on the state for SNAP or Oregon Health Plan benefits because of their losses.

“It’s an absolute redistribution of money from people who are marginalized to support these bonds to support the more privileged people of Oregon,” Martz says. “It’s a regressive tax on the poor.”

liability company named Langberg, Merrill & Pagni owned the property.

Its owners lived in Oregon, Washington and California.

Over the years, they’ve never talked about why they let their building remain empty. Neither they nor their Portland attorney, Gary Roberts, immediately responded to WW’s requests for comment.

But in the end, things turned out OK. Records show they sold the building EMPTY SPACE: After Quality Pie closed in in early 2019 to Vancouver developer 1992, its building sat unused.

C.E. John for nearly $6.6 million.

The space will become apartments. ravel the mystery of why such a valuable piece There are other mystery buildings across of property sat unused. Nobody could say for Portland—and we’d like to hear about them. sure. “It really defies logic,” Richard Singer, who If you know of a mystery property whose owns several properties on Northwest 23rd, vacancy makes no sense—whether it’s a aparttold the Trib then. ment complex, commercial building or even a Part of the mystery is why the owners, who well-located empty lot, email the address and appear to have other real estate investments, a photo to newstips@wweek.com. We’ll collect would forgo millions of dollars in rent for the the most interesting examples and tell their past 30 years. Public records show that a limited stories later this year. N I G E L J AQ U I S S .

AT ISSUE

UPSHOT

The Big Chill

Portland could become the first city in the U.S. to outlaw diesel fuel sales.

Most cooling units promised to needy Oregonians weren’t installed before this week’s heat.

S O P H I E M U R R AY

AARON WESSLING

No Diesel

PUMPED: A Southeast Portland service station offers diesel.

On July 20, Andria Jacob of the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability presented the City Council with a proposal to reduce Portland’s carbon emissions. Among her recommendations was an eye-catching proposition.

What’s the proposal?

As part of its Climate Emergency Workplan, the city of Portland proposes to phase out the sale of diesel derived from petroleum at all Portland fueling stations, replacing it with cleaner renewable diesel made from waste animal fats and vegetable oil.

Diesel is the fourth-largest source of carbon emissions in Portland, according to the workplan, and emits a grab bag of pollutants, including soot, that affect low-income communities of color more than wealthy areas farther from freeways and industry.

The proposal is a mini version of a proposed Oregon House bill that would eliminate the sale of petroleum diesel across the state in phases: the tri-county metro area by 2025, west of the Cascades by 2027, and east of the mountains by 2029.

Has any other city tried this?

Portland appears to be alone in proposing the phase-out of petroleum diesel fuel sales, but plenty of other cities are working to ban diesel vehicles (and gas-powered ones).

Last month, the European Union’s 27 members agreed on laws that would end the sale of new combustion-engine cars by 2035. California is doing the same thing, by the same date. Starting next year, the state will ban socalled drayage trucks—which visit railyards and ports—with engines made before 2010.

Who opposes it?

Fuel sellers, represented by the Oregon Fuels Association. Danelle Romain, their lobbyist, says the proposal came out of nowhere, and that none of her members was consulted.

“It was a total surprise,” she says.

The OFA has no problem with renewable diesel. “We’re interested in getting hands on as much green diesel as possible,” Romain says. “There’s just not enough. The issue is

supply, not our level of interest. Mandating a ban means you’re going to have supply issues.”

Would it make any difference?

A ton, according to Keith Wilson, president and CEO at Titan Freight Systems. He’s been lobbying hard for the House bill, and he knows his stuff because Titan owns 47 trucks and 150 trailers.

Switching to renewable diesel cuts carbon emissions by 60% immediately, Wilson says.

And unlike other climate actions, he says a statewide transition to renewable diesel would have immediate local benefits, independent of what, say, coal plants in China do.

Renewable diesel burns hotter and cleaner, and doesn’t generate black carbon, the sooty stuff that comes out of diesel exhaust. Black carbon settles on Oregon glaciers, speeding their melt and imperiling summer water supplies for farmers and ranchers, Wilson says.

Most diesel trucks in Oregon run along Interstate 5 and Highway 97. The two highways sandwich the Cascades, peppering them with black carbon, Wilson says.

Best of all, maybe, you can make renewable diesel out of timber slash, the limbs of trees discarded by the ton in Oregon every day. The technology is advancing, and Oregon could become the Texas of renewable diesel by converting forest waste to fuel.

If Portland acts alone, won’t truckers just buy diesel in Beaverton?

Wilson says no. Renewable diesel doesn’t gum up engines the way petro-diesel does, and it usually costs about the same per gallon.

By using renewable diesel, truckers can cut maintenance costs by a penny a mile, which is a lot when you have hundreds of trucks driving thousands of miles.

Instead of bypassing Portland, truckers will wait to buy fuel here, Wilson says. That’s what he does with his trucks. They fuel up on renewable diesel at his Southeast Portland depot. His fleet runs almost entirely on the stuff. A N T H O N Y E F F I N G E R .

BIG FAN: Window units at a Portland hospital.

Last summer, a 116-degree heat dome killed at least 96 Oregonians, most of whom lacked air conditioning. Local and state authorities pledged they would be ready for the next spike in temperatures—in part by delivering heatpump cooling units to low-income residents.

Thirteen months later, triple-digit temperatures have arrived again. And most of the AC units are still being installed.

Those installations are ongoing, the officials overseeing them point out, with crews working through the weekend to deliver cooling units to the homes of the most vulnerable Portlanders before the mercury rose. (Highs in Portland are expected to reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit on July 27; cooler weather won’t arrive until next week.)

To be sure, every cooling unit delivered to a needy Portlander is a victory.

And there’s no doubting the urgency with which workers raced to install units in the final days before the heat hit.

“Earth Advantage is very satisfied with the pace of installation. The program is working,” says Pilar Calderin, climate justice program manager for Earth Advantage, which purchased cooling units with money from the Portland Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund. “It’s pretty amazing that there are 796 units installed as of [Monday]. On Friday, it was 678.” (By press deadline, it was 868.)

Here are three significant efforts to install air conditioning in low-income homes, and what progress they’ve made. H E L E N H U I S K E S AND AARON MESH.

PCEF HEAT RESPONSE PROGRAM

Who: The Portland City Council awarded a $6.3 million grant from the Clean Energy Community Benefits Fund to Portland environmental nonprofit Earth Advantage, which purchases cooling units and contracts with other nonprofits to deliver and install them in low-income households.

Start date: Grant awarded May 4. (The City

Council had previously awarded a similar grant to a California contractor, then withdrew it when The Oregonian revealed the founder’s criminal history.)

Units ordered: 3,010 Units installed: 868 Percentage complete: 29%

MULTNOMAH COUNTY

Who: The Department of County Human Services is installing units in the homes of clients of its Aging, Disability & Veterans Services and Intellectual & Developmental Disabilities divisions.

Start date: “The purchases began arriving May 13, with the most recent shipment arriving on June 16,” says county spokeswoman Kate Yeiser. “We started distribution of ACs on June 23 and distribution is ongoing.”

County commissioners approved the purchase of an additional 1,000 units in June and expanded who was eligible to receive them.

Units ordered: 180 Units installed: 92 Percentage complete: 51%

OREGON HEALTH AUTHORITY

Who: OHA, in partnership with three community-based organizations: Portland Open Bible Church, Rockwood Community Development Corporation, and Somali American Council of Oregon.

Start date: Gov. Kate Brown signed Senate Bill 1536 into law March 23, allocating $5 million to purchase air conditioners for high-risk Oregonians.

Units ordered: Roughly 3,000 Units installed: Unknown. OHA has delivered 500 units to its three partners, but isn’t sure how many have been installed. “The CBOs are distributing them out to community as fast as possible,” says OHA spokeswoman Liz Gharst.

Percentage complete: Unknown, but no more than 17% Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

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NEWS COURTESY OF PORTLAND BEST BUDS

FED UP: A gunman beat a budtender at Paul Pedreira’s shop.

Grass at Gunpoint Armed robbers continue to terrorize Portland’s cannabis retailers.

BY LUCAS MAN FIE LD

lm a nfield @w week .com

The first time Rick Dudley’s cannabis shop was ransacked by armed robbers, in November 2020, his insurance company dropped him.

The second time, last month, he shut down his Centennial neighborhood store for good.

Thieves made off with the contents of the safe after tackling one of the employees. They held the other at gunpoint in the restroom. After a decade in business, Dudley closed Exodus Wellness Center.

“The robbers nowadays do not care,” Dudley says. “Nobody gets caught.”

Last year, WW took note of a new and troubling phenomenon: Crime at cannabis shops exploded during the pandemic, culminating

in the killing of a North Portland budtender in late 2020 (“Killer Weed,” March 3, 2021).

The industry has been on high alert ever since. Shops have amped up security and now hold less cash on hand in hopes of dispelling the widespread perception that they’re easy marks.

Law enforcement, too, has taken notice. The Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office assigned a prosecutor to specialize in such cases.

But the problem has not gone away. Instead, armed robberies of weed shops have become a routine feature of Portland summers—as expected as 100-degree heat waves, wildfire smoke, and gunfire in the streets.

There have been 12 armed robberies of can-

nabis retailers in the first half of 2022, outpacing the number for the same period in both prior years, according to data provided by the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission.

Earlier this month, the St. Johns cannabis shop Best Buds suffered a robbery so violent that it, again, sent shockwaves through the industry. Thieves pistol-whipped one employee and shot at another as he emerged from the restroom with his hands up.

“There isn’t a cannabis retailer in the Portland area that I’ve talked to where the threat of robbery is not a constant and persistent fear,” says Jesse Bontecou, co-director of the Oregon Retailers of Cannabis Association.

The reason is no mystery: Congress limits cannabis sellers’ ability to accept credit cards, leaving them sitting on piles of cash that bandits know are there.

Robberies of all types have been up in Portland the past three years, but the cannabis industry has been hit particularly hard. Largely a cash business with a product that is easy to fence, cannabis shops have long been perceived as easy targets for thieves.

And business has been tough in recent months. Farms have overproduced and demand has slackened (“Burned Out,” WW, July 13).

With margins slim, many store owners say they can’t afford to implement more sophisticated security measures like around-the-clock guards. Instead, they rely on silent alarms and security cameras—which are of little use when the thieves grab and go, faces masked, before police arrive.

That is what happened at Best Buds in St. Johns on July 11. Three men in hoodies and masks pulled a gun on the shop’s two employees, knocked one of them down, and fired at the other. They walked out with their arms full of product.

The store’s owner, Paul Pedreira, shared the footage with KOIN-TV last week, and news spread that yet another budtender had been attacked.

Adrienne Garcia, who owns Pakalolo on Southeast Holgate Boulevard, told WW she was thinking of closing her shop and “going back to Detroit.”

She admitted she was kidding, but only “kind of.” In 2021, the number of homicides in Portland increased 65%. In Detroit, it fell.

Garcia stopped allowing customers inside her store as a health precaution early in the pandemic. Thanks to the ongoing violence, it’s now a permanent security measure.

“I can’t risk having my employees pistol-whipped, no way,” Garcia says.

The Portland Police Bureau has just six detectives assigned to investigate all felony robberies in the city, a police spokesperson tells WW. Pot-shop stickups have become so prevalent that the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office assigned a prosecutor to field tips from business owners and help work their cases.

That prosecutor, deputy district attorney Mariel Mota, tells WW she pulls police reports and follows up on leads that detectives haven’t had time to track down.

Around 10 of her current cases involve robberies of cannabis shops, she says, and they’re not easy cases to close.

“You’re dealing with situations where there’s no description from the witness, there’s no license plate, there’s no fingerprints,” she says.

Still, detectives have gotten breaks. Two prominent crews were arrested last year.

On New Year’s Day 2021, a customer walked in on four men stuffing garbage bags full of cannabis at Collective Awakenings. The customer fled, but not before taking a photo of the thieves’ getaway car, a gray Volvo.

Cops tracked it down that afternoon and arrested five men, including Daniel Mugisha, then 20, who was later charged with killing 44-year-old budtender Michael Arthur in another robbery the year before.

Three months later, in March, a masked man pulled a gun at Natural Wonders dispensary while an accomplice held down the clerk by his neck and emptied the till. They nearly got away, until their getaway driver ran a stop sign and crashed into another vehicle—directly in front of an off-duty cop.

It turned out the crew was wanted for similar robberies in Washington, too, Mota says.

While Mota and police try to close cases, hopes of preventing robberies largely hinge on reducing two causes: gun violence and registers full of cash.

Last week, Mayor Ted Wheeler declared a state of emergency to address gun violence sweeping the city. Part of his plan, Safer Summer PDX, involves identifying people who are at the greatest risk of committing a violent crime and offering them life coaches and other services.

“If the city can’t protect us, we will protect ourselves.”

When pressed by WW for details of how the plan would address armed robberies of cannabis stores, Wheeler’s spokesman released a statement: “Our intent is to reduce gun violence in as many ways as possible. In addition to the targeted outreach, Safer Summer PDX will also support investments in environmental design and prosocial events for youth and the broader community to effect wider impacts.”

Meanwhile, Oregon’s congressional delegation is working on addressing the other underlying cause: cash. Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley has introduced a bill that would prohibit federal regulators from going after banks for doing business with the cannabis industry.

And, just last week, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) introduced long-awaited legislation to decriminalize pot at the federal level.

That bill has little chance of becoming law.

Several Democratic senators oppose the idea.

Still, Wyden “is committed over the next five months-plus to advancing cannabis legislation as far as it can go,” his spokesman says.

This will be too late for Best Buds’ Pedreira, who is irate that his employees had to go through the trauma of being robbed at gunpoint. He blames city leaders, who he says have failed to hold criminals responsible. He pays a 20% tax on the product he sells, and he wonders why all of that money isn’t improving public safety.

And he’s contemplating arming himself.

“If the city can’t protect us, we will protect ourselves,” Pedreira says. “I think what you’re going to see soon is people like that getting shot.”

Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

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NEWS

Rubber Room ANTHONY EFFINGER

Beau Blixseth opens a shredded tire emporium on the Willamette River.

“The grain elevator site has been assigned to someone on the Solid Waste Management Team,” she adds, “and they will be going out in the next couple of weeks to see about the current tire situation.”

Pollution-wise, the bigger questions about Blixseth’s tire pile might involve where the Petra is heading and why.

Tires are hazardous waste. They are full of metals and chemicals, and if you dump them in a field, like so many people do, they fill with rain and breed disease-carrying mosquitoes.

They’re made to be durable as hell, so they last forever.

TIRE PILE: Shredded rubber now lines silos that once held grain along the Willamette River.

BY ANTHONY EFFINGER

aeffinger@wweek.com

On July 17, a rusty cargo ship named Petra sailed up the Willamette River and docked at the old Louis Dreyfus grain terminal, just across Interstate Avenue from Moda Center.

For the next five days, a swarm of front-loaders roared around the terminal and packed the ship with an unusual cargo: tons upon tons of scrap tires, shredded into cookie-sized chunks.

During that time, Rich Roberson, a patent lawyer, ran by the grain elevator and saw the large cloud of dust kicked up by the earth movers.

“The distinct smell of rubber can be smelled well past the [Oregon] Convention Center,” said Roberson, 45, in an email to WW on July 18.

The arrival of the Petra, the front-loaders, and the dust cloud are clues about what’s going on at one of Portland’s most puzzling properties.

The terminal went from mundane to mystery in June 2019, when global grain merchant Louis Dreyfus Co. sold the facility for $164,000, just six years after spending $21.5 million to renovate it. The price didn’t make any sense, and neither the seller nor the buyer would comment on it.

In February 2021, Beau Blixseth, son of one of Oregon’s most notorious timber barons, bought the elevator for $2.9 million through an entity called Castle Arden 1 LLC. (Blixseth’s father,

Tim, started the ultra-luxe Yellowstone Club in Montana, then spent years dashing around the world in a fleet of private jets, wooing the rich and famous to the private ski and golf resort before he lost the club in an ugly divorce and spent many months in a Montana jail for contempt of court.)

Beau Blixseth, 42, is a deal-maker like his father. His specialty, too, is real estate. In an interview last month, Blixseth said he wanted to find a tenant that would use the terminal for grain again (“Grain Delay,” WW, June 29). In the meantime, he said, it would handle scrap tires for a tenant, Castle Tire Recycling.

But Castle Tire was more than a tenant.

Property records show that Castle’s founder is the co-owner of the terminal. Castle Tire is owned by Chandos Mahon, a Columbia Business School grad whose middle name is Castle, according to public records. Hence the name.

Asked about Castle’s ownership in a June interview, Blixseth said Mahon was indeed half owner of Castle Arden 1, the LLC that owns the elevator. But Mahon is press shy, Blixseth said. Indeed, Mahon didn’t return phone calls or emails seeking comment.

Mahon’s ownership, along with the massive pile of tires, suggests the old Louis Dreyfus terminal may be in the tire business for some time to come. Last month, Blixseth said he’d been trying to get a grain shipper to use the silos, with no luck.

If the tire shipments continue, so too might the clouds of dust and the stink of rubber (tire shards line the access road from Interstate to the terminal, too). That raises the question of who regulates a grain silo that’s piled high with hydrocarbons on the Willamette River.

“It definitely seems like something that would require a stormwater permit given how this material can degrade into smaller and smaller bits that could be flushed into the river,” says Travis Williams, executive director of the environmental watchdog Willamette Riverkeeper. “It’s not high science to figure out how to keep these materials on site. Let’s hope they are taking the proper steps to do that.”

Perhaps. Oregon Department of Environmental Quality spokeswoman Susan Mills says Tire Disposal & Recycling, an affiliate of Castle Tire with the same address, operates under a DEQ “waste tire storage and carrier permit” at its facility on Harborgate Street, just west of Bybee Lake, far up in North Portland, where it shreds the tires.

“Once processed, DEQ considers the shredded tires to be ‘product,’” Mills said in an email.

“Since product moves (is transported/sold), it does not require a waste permit, so one is not required at the grain elevator site.”

But that may not be the end of it. Businesses are allowed to store up to 100 waste tires before they need a “DEQ waste tire storage permit,” Mills says.

And there are a lot of them. Every year, 1.6 billion new tires hit the road, and about 1 billion wear out and become trash, according to a 2020 report by Goldstein Market Intelligence. But only about 100 million are recycled into rubberized asphalt concrete for roads, or ground up to make artificial turf for sports fields (where there is now concern about carcinogens).

For better or worse, they burn really well.

Plants making paper and cement often use them for fuel. With proper emissions controls, burning tires is permitted in many places. But in some countries, including Malaysia and India, people use small, jury-rigged kilns to turn tires into low-grade oil, according to a 2019 investigation by Reuters.

Those backyard ovens spew thick smoke full of chemicals, Reuters reported. Many of them run on tires imported from Europe and the U.S. “For many developed countries, shipping tires abroad is cheaper than recycling them domestically,” Reuters says.

In the June interview, Blixseth said Castle Tire gathers tires for fuel in South Korea and Japan, where most nuclear plants remain idle since a tsunami slammed into the Fukushima plant in 2011. A Metro regional government memo about Tire Disposal & Recycling says its shredded tires “are either exported to Asian markets for use as tire-derived fuel or transported to an authorized landfill for disposal.”

Ship-tracking websites allow anyone to trace vessels like the Petra. At last check, it was near the Port of San Diego. That could be the final destination for its cargo, or it could be picking up more tire shards and heading to Asia.

Mahon remains silent, and Blixseth has stopped returning messages, so it’s hard to know where the Petra is heading and what’s in its belly.

Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

11

Y R E T S Y M THE E H T OF E M O H T F TA

For much of the past year, Josephine

Why does a historic hotel meant to house low-income seniors stand empty in the heart of Portland?

BY S O P H I E P E E L

12

Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

speel@wweek .com

Allen slept outside, across the street from her old apartment building.

Her tent and wheelchair were perched on a patch of dirt above Interstate 405 on Portland’s West End. This gave her a full view of the Taft Home, her residence until eight months ago.

She once lived in Apartment 341, one of 70 units that for seven decades provided beds for low-income seniors with mental or physical disabilities.

The Taft Home, which stands at Southwest 13th Avenue and Washington Street, next to the Crystal Ballroom, is owned by Reach Community Development Corporation, a nonprofit whose mission is to house the less fortunate. It does so with large amounts of financial support from the city and state. And yet, since December of last year, through freezing cold, endless spring rain and the current heat spell, the Taft’s 70 beds have served…nobody.

The building, a four-story residential hotel built in 1906 and listed in the National Register of Historic Places, is not in structural disrepair.

Yet those units sit unused.

“We’re in a full-scale crisis, all up and down the yin-yang,” says Jason Renaud, director of the Mental Health Association of Portland, speaking of the Taft’s monthslong vacancy. “We need to be using any bit of spare architecture we can get our hands on.”

Paula Carder, director of Portland State University’s Institute on Aging, says the fact that the Taft Home stands vacant amid extraordinary need for shelter undercuts public officials’ promise of urgency in dealing with the housing crisis.

“Why is there a person in a wheelchair trying to live in a tent and get by on the streets?” Carder asks. “This is why: There’s a huge need for affordable housing, and it’s just sitting there.”

WW spent more than two months reviewing public records and speaking to state regulators, city officials, and former tenants and staffers about what happened inside the Taft Home. The story of its demise reveals a web of nonprofits, private caretakers, and public bureaucrats who largely waited on each other to step in as things went wrong.

Their collective inaction hints at why the housing crisis deepens even as more money than ever is available to remedy it.

DANNY FULGENCIO

Eight months ago, Josephine Allen, who grew up in Portland and graduated from Jefferson High School before going on to work as a railroad clerk, was living at the Taft. Music from the bar below, Scooter McQuade’s, caused the walls of her room to vibrate. She swore her floor was off kilter, cockroaches skittered across the floor, and she felt disrespected by some caretakers—but still, it was home. “Christmas,” she recalls, “was just beautiful.”

Allen, 58, spent decades in an abusive relationship after having four children. When she escaped her abuser in 2014, she lived on the streets for a time, coped with the trauma by drinking, and got a room at the Taft around 2018.

It was one of just six facilities in Portland and Gresham that housed people with complex mental, behavioral and physical needs, supported mostly by Medicaid.

Each resident had their own room. The Taft was staffed by a resident nurse, caretakers who helped bathe, transport and feed residents, and medical technicians who administered medications.

Physical therapists, doctors and caseworkers would regularly visit.

A kitchen on the ground floor prepared dishes like Beefy Baked Ravioli and Tangy Fruit Salad.

Staffers would occasionally fetch snacks or soft drinks for their favorite residents from the nearby Whole Foods.

Darwin Davis, 71, lived on the streets before moving into the Taft in 2006. He calls it “the most perfect place I’ve ever been in.”

Still, according to former employee Ward Stalding, a day without some sort of incident was rare. There were often physical fights between residents, mental health crises, and emotional

STRANDED: Josephine Allen lived in a tent across from her former home for much of this year.

outbursts. Drug use in common spaces without consequence was rampant.

Mark Malicoat, a former eight-year resident with a rare nerve condition who’s been living in a nearby hotel since the Taft closed, described the home as “bedlam”: “The minute I got in there, I wanted to run out the door.”

The condition of the building declined in its last two or three years, according to four former employees WW interviewed.

Photos provided to WW show staffers asleep on chairs in the break room during work hours. Narcotics strewn on tables. A door with a punchedout plank.

Stalding, who worked at the Taft on and off beginning in 2005, says more residents started abusing drugs and alcohol.

All four employees say residents were difficult, but that it was no excuse for how certain staff treated them. A revolving door of young caretakers meant residents were often presented with new faces assigned to care for them.

“They were treated absolutely poorly,” Stalding says.

The Oregon Department of Human Services licenses and regulates facilities like the Taft Home. The state agency has the authority to investigate complaints, issue civil penalties and revoke licenses.

In 2021, DHS issued the Taft Home nine civil penalties and 21 licensing citations. The state alleged the Taft Home was neglecting basic tasks like having enough staff on site, administering medications on schedule, and keeping the building free of pests and grime.

Reach CDC, the housing nonprofit that owns

the Taft, leased the building to a private senior living operator, Concepts in Community Living, that operated the facility.

CCL, based in Clackamas, runs nine facilities for seniors across Oregon—and more in Washington and California.

It was co-founded in 1988 by Keren Brown Wilson, who’s largely credited for creating the first assisted living community in the United States. In 1994, she transferred control of CCL to her co-founder husband, Michael DeShane, who’s still the president and owner.

CCL’s annual revenue is estimated at $17 million a year by ZoomInfo.

The Taft Home was its most troubled facility.

By comparison, none of its other Portland-area facilities had more than two violations in 2021.

Last July, the state told the Taft it couldn’t accept any more residents until it addressed issues that put residents “at risk of immediate jeopardy” and were “likely to cause serious injury, serious harm, serious impairment, or death to a resident or residents,” documents show.

DHS spokeswoman Elisa Williams says placing such conditions on a senior living center is “not routine.” It means something going on there is alarming enough to deem the facility a risk to the very people who call it home. Last year, 24 of the 560 assisted living and residential care facilities in Oregon had conditional licenses.

A month later, DHS found the same problems again —and threatened to revoke the Taft Home’s license. CCL had two options: Fix the problems or close.

Concepts in Community Living chose the latter option. The Taft Home would close for good CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 on Dec. 1.

Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

13

Trial by Fire Records and interviews show that the mental deterioration of a Taft Home resident last summer culminated in a blaze that forced the evacuation of the entire building. Twenty-four days later, police arrested her.

On the morning of June 28, 2021, a Taft resident dialed the Multnomah County mental health crisis line and told operators she was thinking about committing suicide by either lighting herself on fire or jumping out the window that day.

The county alerted Taft management, who, according to Department of Human Services investigation notes obtained by WW, knocked on her door several times, but she never opened the door.

According to the DHS notes, employees told the investigator that they didn’t need to check on her because her behavior was just “how she is,” not a “true mental health” disorder.

But state investigative documents said the

BLAKE BENARD

WW broke news of the closure Dec. 3. CCL told WW at the time that making the required remedies—which, according to state documents, included pest control, administering medications on schedule, putting a stop to hoarding, and fixing taped floorboards—was impossible because of a “workforce shortage, the aging facility, and the need for significant resources for improvements.”

Since then, CCL executives declined an interview with WW and refused to answer multiple rounds of written questions.

Residents, meanwhile, were scattered to the wind.

They were sent to 26 different facilities across the state, according to a resident placement list shared with WW by a former employee. Two with severe mental illnesses were sent to motels to await housing placements, according to employees. And a few refused housing because they were

facility had documented that she did, in fact, suffer from a mental health disorder.

At 6:15 pm, smoke began emerging from a second-floor room and filled the hallway. Firefighters arrived at 6:21 pm.

Residents were shuffled out the exits; residents in wheelchairs were wheeled out to the fire escape. Two went to the hospital because of medical emergencies, including the resident, who, according to a Portland Fire & Rescue report, was found in her room. (The resident, whose name WW is withholding because she just recently got placed in stable housing, maintains she did not start the fire.)

The state launched an investigation into the Taft Home immediately after the fire due to a complaint filed by the woman’s daughter. Some of the most damning findings about conditions in the building emerged from that probe. Concepts in Community Living, the private company that operated the Taft, announced just one month later it would close the home at the end of the year.

The resident was in the hospital for 24 days,

so upset and therefore were not placed.

Marisa Espinoza, a policy and systems advocate for Northwest Pilot Project, a nonprofit that connects low-income seniors to housing, says residents of the Taft are perhaps the toughest Portlanders to find suitable housing for. Many of the residents have a triple-whammy of issues: physical disabilities, mental illness and addiction.

They’re also poor.

“We simply do not have enough places like the Taft. We literally don’t have anywhere where people with these needs to go,” Espinoza says. “They may cycle in and out of the ER, jail, the streets; they might even go into a facility temporarily.”

Davis was able to find a bed at an assisted living home in Redmond—a three-hour drive from Portland, where he lived at the Taft for 15 years and hoped to live for the rest of his life.

He calls the closure “the worst thing I’ve ever

during which time the Taft evicted her.

Police arrested her at the hospital on July 22. She’s wearing a hospital gown in her mug shot. She was kept overnight at the Multnomah County Detention Center on arson charges and discharged to the streets the following morning.

Police knew she had nowhere to go, according to a recognizance report.

The police referred the case to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, which declined to prosecute the case, citing insufficient evidence that she had started the fire.

She just recently moved into an apartment of her own after a year living on her daughter’s couch.

Her daughter visited her there on a recent Friday. It was her mom’s birthday. They rode a bus to the grocery store, where her daughter bought her almond milk, raw sugar, and a shower curtain using BottleDrop vouchers.

“Some people might not understand that,” her daughter says, “but for us, the normalcy and stability is huge because we haven’t had that for so long.” S O P H I E P E E L .

“I was afraid when it closed because I thought the streets was gonna be worse.

And it was.”

EMPTIED OUT: The Taft Home sits vacant in the heart of Portland.

been involved in.”

Allen, who’s Black and wheelchair-bound, went first to an adult foster home in Salem. She left after two nights, came back to Portland, and moved to the patch of dirt across the street from the Taft Home. Her partner, David, lived there, too, along with three or four others. You could see her most mornings if you drove west on Burnside and glanced left as you passed Everyday Music.

She lit fires during the cold months with tin cans and rubbing alcohol inside her tent. The cold badly inflamed her arthritis. She got a lung infection because of the fumes, spent time at the hospital, and landed back at the camp. Rats chewed through most of her belongings.

“I was afraid when it closed because I thought the streets was gonna be worse,” Allen says. “And it was.”

The Taft Home stands vacant now.

Its doors are boarded up with plywood painted rust red. The blinds are drawn in every apartment window. The only thing that’s changed since December is that Cassidy’s Restaurant reopened on the ground floor in May. The building was not shuttered for any irreparable structural dangers. While it is old and could do with some improvements, it simply requires a new operator who can care for its occupants.

In 2018 and 2020, Portland voters approved multimillion-dollar ballot measures to build affordable housing and keep people in existing housing with rental assistance and behavioral health services. Those are the services needed by the people who lived in the Taft Home.

Yet eight months after its operator quit, the hotel remains empty.

14

Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran, who’s running for county chair, says the vacancy “makes no sense to me.”

“One just assumes that when there are housing units available during a crisis, that they would be put to good use,” Meieran says. “But I’ve learned that no one should assume.”

WW wanted to know who would take responsibility for the shuttering of the Taft and the failure to reopen it sooner.

How about the building’s owner? Reach CDC, which purchased the hotel for $362,000 in 1986.

One of the biggest affordable housing developers in the city, Reach CDC houses more than 3,500 people in Portland and Vancouver, Wash.

Reach’s total revenue in 2020 was $21 million. Its CEO and president, Dan Valliere, made $178,000 that year.

The nonprofit responded by email to written questions.

Reach spokeswoman Lauren Schmidt says the Taft Home has stood empty for so long because Reach was waiting for CCL to vacate the building, and is still waiting for the results of a capital needs report it commissioned in January to show what repairs and maintenance should be done.

“Before any plans or best uses can be determined, Reach and the city will need to review and assess findings from the report,” Schmidt adds.

Even as she pointed to the capital needs report as a condition for moving people back into the Taft, Schmidt conceded the building is structurally sound. “We did not say the building was unsafe structurally,” she wrote.

Reach did not seek another operator, Schmidt says.

RESTING PLACE: Some of the Taft residents had lived there for over a decade when they got the boot.

So WW moved on—to the Portland Housing Bureau.

City Hall has an unusual level of control over the Taft Home because the owner, Reach CDC, borrowed city money for renovations in 1998.

As of 2020, Reach still owed the Portland Housing Bureau $292,000 in loan repayments.

Yet Housing Bureau officials say they had little control over Reach’s actions. “[The Housing Bureau] does not dictate to affordable housing sponsor/owners what can or cannot be done to their properties when unoccupied,” spokesman Gabriel Matthews says.

(Documents show, however, that Reach cannot sell the building without city approval until 2028, and cannot change the use of the building without the bureau’s permission.)

Matthews adds that neither the Housing Bureau nor Reach were privy to state regulators’ crackdown on the Taft Home’s operator, and that the condition CCL left the building in wasn’t fit to immediately inhabit.

In other words, the bureau said it had no idea what was happening in the Taft Home until the problem was too far gone to quickly fix. (When asked if Reach was privy to DHS reports on the Taft as they came out, Schmidt said Reach did not understand the question and declined to comment further on the closure.)

Every elected official in the city says they’re doing everything in their power to remedy the housing crisis. What about a 70-unit apartment building 13 blocks from City Hall?

WW asked City Commissioner Dan Ryan, who oversees the Portland Housing Bureau and whose chief project is a three-year, $44 million plan to build six “safe rest villages” throughout the city

that will house up to 50 people each.

Ryan’s office declined repeated requests by WW for a phone call with the commissioner.

Ryan said in a statement he would “be thrilled to support swift and thorough action” at the Taft Home once Reach’s report is completed. He did not answer questions about whether he should be placing more pressure on Reach to house people in its building.

Mayor Ted Wheeler has also said he’s acting with urgency to help homeless Portlanders. Just this year, he started making emergency declarations to increase sweeps of homeless camps, clear highways of tents, and even seize a private plot of land for one of Ryan’s villages using eminent domain.

WW asked him if he would resume control over a building that the city has financial stake in. He didn’t answer the question.

“I look forward to learning more about the viability of the vacant Taft Home building after further review and analysis is complete,” Wheeler said in a statement.

Carder, who runs PSU’s center on aging, says the lackadaisical pace might be due to nobody stepping in and taking the lead.

“It seems like it would be easy, but our process shuts things down. It slows things down so much,” Carder says. “If Reach has a lease to continue providing housing in the Taft for another six years, where is the pressure for that?”

As for Allen, her life has improved somewhat in recent weeks. She has found a shelter bed in East Portland.

She still feels betrayed by the last people who promised her a roof over her head. “They didn’t care about none of us,” Allen says.

Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

15

GET BUSY

STUFF TO DO IN PORTLAND THIS WEEK, INDOORS AND OUT.

SEE MORE GET BUSY EVENTS AT WWEEK.COM/CALENDAR. O R E G O N B R E W E R S F E S T I VA L

CHUG: The Oregon Brewers Festival won’t kick off with its traditional parade led by a grand marshal (pictured) this year, but the event will feature more than 40 beers.

DRINK: Oregon Brewers Festival

The state’s largest beer event returns this week in all of its drunken, sweaty summer glory. The Oregon Brewers Festival will reclaim its place at Waterfront Park for the first time since 2019. It’s scaled down a bit—high gas prices and challenges with the airlines have made travel more difficult, and more than half of OBF’s attendees are typically from outside the Portland area. However, you’ll find more than 40 beers on tap from all Oregon producers—80% of which will be first releases. Tom McCall Waterfront Park, 300 SW Naito Parkway, oregonbrewfest.com. Noon-9 pm Thursday-Saturday, July 28-30. $30, includes a 2022 souvenir mug and 10 tasting tickets.

refurbish those pieces for other style-conscious, sustainably minded individuals to enjoy. The market will feature a variety of local pioneers of ethical business practices, including Nan Made, Revive Athletics, and Roots and Crowns. Betsy & Iya, 1777 NW 24th Ave., 503-227-5482, betsyandiya.com. 10 am-6 pm, Saturday, July 30.

GO: Snap! Y2K ’90s vs. ’00s

DRINK: Pink Rabbit One-Year

Neon Beach Dance Party Holocene hosts a celebration of the decades that saw the popularization of everything from Friends to Doc Martens to Entourage to trucker hats.

Crimp your hair, squeeze into a fluorescent swimsuit and revisit hits by Daft Punk, The Chemical Brothers, The Prodigy and more. We’re told Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” might even make the playlist. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 503-239-7639, holocene.org. 9 pm, Friday, July 29. $10. 21+.

LAUGH: Felipe Esparza

Listen to the comedy stylings of Felipe Esparza, familiar to many from his appearances on Cartoon Network’s The Eric Andre Show and NBC’s Superstore as well as Last Comic Standing, which he won in 2010. Preview his style of humor by watching his hourlong special They’re Not Gonna Laugh at You, then watch Esparza in person while he’s in town.

Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 503-583-8464, portland.heliumcomedy.com. 8 pm Thursday, 7:30 and 10

16

Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

pm Friday-Saturday, 7 pm Sunday, July 28-31. $30 general admission, $40 reserved.

EAT: Wellspent Breakfast Club

The unlikely gathering of five high school misfits in John Hughes’ iconic ’80s film is the unlikely inspiration for Wellspent Market’s new event. The store is joining together with four other independent-minded vendors (Bialy Bird, Deadstock, Proud Mary, Rose + Lincoln Juicery) to bring you a morning spread that includes Polish rolls and schmears, pour-over coffee, and mimosas until everything is sold out. Wellspent Market, 935 NE Couch St., 503-987-0828, wellspentmarket.com.

10 am Saturday, July 30.

GO: Recast Sustainable Market

Homegrown jewelry brand, Betsy & Iya, is hosting a one-of-a-kind event outside of its Northwest Portland headquarters to celebrate the launch of its Recast program, which allows customers to sell back their Betsy & Iya jewelry for store credit. The artisans behind the brand will then

Anniversary Party Even before Pink Rabbit transformed its curbside patio into an outdoor discotheque for pandemic-friendly seating purposes last winter, the Pearl District bar’s tables were constantly full. Fortunately, those crowds helped the business make it through its first year, despite COVID, and now owner Collin Nicholas is throwing a giant party to celebrate that milestone. Expect live music, top-shelf cocktails, patio games (including secret putt-putt), and a tattoo truck.

Pink Rabbit, 232 NW 12th Ave., 971255-0386, pinkrabbitbar.com. 2-10 pm Saturday, July 30.

LISTEN: Portland Piano

International Presents Imogen Cooper British piano virtuoso Imogen Cooper’s career spans nearly five decades in which she’s received the rank of Commander of the Order of the British Empire and an award from the Royal Philharmonic Society.

This recital is a rare opportunity to

witness her perform a work she’s gotten significant acclaim for in the past—Schubert’s tempestuous Piano Sonata in A Minor—as well as a collection of pieces by Ravel and Liszt that she hasn’t played in more than 30 years. Buckley Center Auditorium at the University of Portland, 5000 N Willamette Blvd., 503-228-1388, portlandpiano.org/live/imogen-cooper.

4-6 pm Sunday, July 31. $5-$37.

 GO: Peruvian Cultural Festival 2022 The sights, sounds and flavors of Peru can be found in Aloha this week thanks to the Peruvian Cultural Festival Organization’s annual celebration. The event features a food buffet, music, dancing and art exhibitions. Oh, and a llama photo booth.

The Reserve Vineyards & Golf Course, 4805 SW 229th Ave., 503-336-1110, peruvianculturalfestival.org. 4-8 pm Sunday, July 31. $5-$25. LISTEN: Rising Appalachia

Sisters Leah and Chloe Smith bring their New Age folk band, Rising Appalachia, to Portland, where their latest show will draw from their new album Leylines. The songs allude to the connectivity of sacred spaces all over the world. The Crystal Ballroom is, of course, among them.

McMenamins Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 503-225-0047, crystalballroompdx.com. 8 pm Tuesday, Aug. 2. $28-$40.

FOOD & DRINK

Top 5

Buzz List WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

1. PACIFIC STANDARD

Editor: Andi Prewitt Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

AARON LEE

100 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 971-346-2992, kexhotels.com/eat-drink/pacificstandard. 3 pm-midnight daily.

At Pacific Standard, the new bar by bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler and longtime colleague Benjamin “Banjo” Amberg anchoring the Kex hotel, you won’t find any of the drinks the two men became known for at their former posts, Clyde Common and Pépé le Moko. But there are nods to those past hits in the all-new cocktail menu, like the summery rosé Negroni, the zesty All-Day Bloody Mary, and the Palm Desert Date Shake that’s decadent but not too boozy. “I just have no shortage of drink ideas,” Morgenthaler says. A gift and a curse we’re all thankful for.

2. PIX PÂTISSERIE

2225 E Burnside St., 971-271-7166, pixpatisserie.com.

Noon-9 pm Friday-Sunday.

After 21 years in the restaurant industry, Pix Pâtisserie founder Cheryl Wakerhauser is retiring.

That means you have a little more than a month left to fit in one last visit to her dessert emporium, which originally began as a farmers market stand in 2001. While stocking up on macarons and cream puffs, be sure to take advantage of Pix’s patio and order a bottle from the extensive Champagne and sparkling wine list, which has been awarded the “World’s Best” title multiple times.

3. MIGRATION BREWING AT WASHINGTON SQUARE

9585 SW Washington Square Road, migrationbrewing.com.Noon-8 pm Monday-Saturday, 11 am-7 pm Sunday.

Migration is making it cool to be a mall rat again.

The 12-year-old company just opened a beer garden inside Washington Square with four taps as well as multiple packaged options, including cider and wine. The bar is surrounded by food court staples, which means you finally have the opportunity to pair a Migration classic like Straight Outta Portland IPA with a plate of piping hot orange chicken from the nearby Panda Express.

4. VON EBERT CASCADE STATION AND TIMBERLAND

10111 NE Cascades Parkway, 503-206-5765; 11800 NW Cedar Falls Drive, #110, 503-716-8663; vonebertbrewing.com. 11 am-9 pm daily. Cascade Station closed Monday.

The two tap houses under the Von Ebert umbrella have just launched a Power Hour, and no, this isn’t the brewery’s version of the drinking game you may remember from your early 20s. Every Monday and Tuesday, from 7 to 8 pm, draft pours cost only $3, which is more than half off. Hell, with pints at that price, you may want to go ahead and revive the pregaming tradition.

5. BUOY BEER POP-UP

1152 Marine Drive, Astoria, 503-298-6833, buoybeer. com. Noon-8 pm daily.

Show Buoy Beer some much-needed love by heading out to Astoria for pints at its new pop-up.

By now, you’ve seen the devastating images of the brewery’s primary location above the Columbia, partially crumpled like a tin can. There’s no word on when the pub, which collapsed in mid-June, might reopen, but fortunately the brand was welcomed by the new Astoria Food Hub, where you can now get Buoy on tap along with classic seafood once the kitchen is up and running.

BATTER UP: Chennai Masala’s dosas are just as good plain with a side of sambar as they are filled with meat and potatoes.

Bar Naan The Indian food scene is thriving on the westside. Here are some of our favorite restaurants.

BY N I C K Z U K I N

and

MICHAEL C . ZUSMAN

P H OTO S BY J O R DA N H U N D E LT

For many Americans, Indian food equates to London-style curry house fare, with rich, creamy, frequently mild curries and garish red tandoori meats.

Increasingly, offerings have grown more diverse, following an influx of immigrants from southern Indian states. Several examples of this new wave of South Indian restaurants have clustered in Portland’s western suburbs.

Here are a few favorites from our recent peregrinations:

Chennai Masala (2088 NE Stucki Ave., Hillsboro, 503-531-9500, chennaimasala.net) has been a South Indian standard for more than a decade and a half. After the dining room was remodeled several years ago, it gained the feel of a midscale restaurant, shedding the cafeterialike vibe of its former incarnation and many of the other local Indian spots. South Indian food leans heavily vegetarian, so order accordingly. We suggest one of the dosas, a scrolled crispy crepe made with fermented lentil and rice flours. Good plain with just a side of aromatic sambar or filled with potatoes, chutney, egg, cheese, meat and more ($10-$17).

Chettinad (14125 SW Walker Road, Beaverton, 503-746-4512, chettinadbeaverton.com), at the northeast edge of the Nike campus, has been crushing the wickets lately with its multilayered, unabashedly spicy curries, among other savory specialties. Grab a cushy booth along the windows and try the Chettinad lamb curry ($15.99), plenty of tender boneless meat with ample hits of onion, curry leaf, cardamom and cinnamon. Novices should not venture beyond medium heat. Another can’t miss: one the biryanis ($12.99-$15.99), a large dish of turmeric-tinged rice and choice of meat that is plenty for two. The char-kissed and chewy butter naan ($2.99) is also best in class. Another tip: They like to keep the thermostat turned down here. Dress accordingly.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

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FOOD & DRINK

Top 5

Hot Plates WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. EB & BEAN

1425 NE Broadway, 503-281-6081; 3040 SE Division St., 971-242-8753; 645 NW 21st Ave., 503-889-0197; ebandbean.com. Noon-10 pm Sunday-Thursday, noon-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

This summer, Portland has watched from afar while much of the nation has baked in punishing temperatures. Now that a heat wave is scorching our corner of the country, it’s time to start thinking about ways to stay cool. Fortunately, Eb & Bean just launched four new nondairy froyo flavors that should act as a temporary respite from the sweltering conditions: amarena cherry lemon, garden mint, vanilla coffee, and hibiscus mango—a collaboration with Smith Teamaker.

2. CALLAO

1510 S Harbor Way, 503-295-6166, kingtidefishandshell.com/callao. 2-7 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

Now that it’s officially summer, you owe it to yourself to spend some time on the waterfront while snacking on light fare suited for hotter temperatures. Chef Alexander Diestra has made it a little easier to do just that with his new seasonal outdoor pop-up, Callao, which prepares traditional South American ingredients through a Japanese lens— think skewers, ceviche and a couple of dreamy desserts, like a coconut cookie sandwich and coffee jelly served with hazelnut whipped cream.

3. RANGOON BISTRO ALLISON BARR

As its name suggests, Apna Chat Bhavan (1815 NW 169th Place, Suite 6020, Beaverton, 503-718-7841, apnachatbhavan.com) specializes in chaat, a category of dishes, including many snacks, with crunchy, savory and starchy ingredients. Chaat originated in Uttar Pradesh, home state of Agra and the Taj Mahal, but has become ubiquitous throughout India. And why not? Our favorite chaat at Apna is the bhel puri ($5.99), a mounded plate of puffed rice salad, with chickpeas, mint, potato, lentil crackers, onion and more, lightly coated with a tamarind-and-mint chutney dressing. Another highlight is the medu vada ($5.99 for four), a deep-fried savory doughnut made from fermented lentil flour punctuated by aromatic spices and served with a chunky, piquant sambar not radically dissimilar to ratatouille. These are crispy and not greasy outside, chewy and fragrant within. Apna is a large airy space, complete with a chill-out theater room with two large-screen TVs, lots of seats and children. It also shares real estate with a market selling Indian food staples and more.

In the Tanasbourne area of Hillsboro, Biryani Corner (1889 NE 106th Ave., Hillsboro, 503-747-4770, biryanicorner.net) is a full-service strip mall restaurant with a long menu dominated by southern Indian specialties. It may lack the flair of Chettinad, but top dishes come from the Andhra region of India that’s famous for its spicy foods.

For a hot time, try the Rayalaseema chicken vepudu ($15), chicken stir fried in a minimally sauced “dry” curry with plenty of green chile heat and aromatic spices. Another winner is the Andhra chicken curry ($15.50), with a base of tomato and coconut milk. Here, the red chiles turbocharge the dish, to the delight of heat hounds. For those looking for more familiar flavors in an economical package, there is 18

Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

a family-sized biryani ($25-$36), with a variety of meat, seafood and vegetarian options, that can easily feed four.

Desi Bites (16165 SW Regatta Lane, #300, Beaverton, 971-371-2176, desibitespdx.com), another spot close to the Nike Campus, is one of the area’s newest South Asian markets with a full restaurant menu.

Beware, however, the dining area is tiny (while the store is huge) and it fills up quickly. Plan for takeout, at least as a contingency. Don’t be afraid to try the fiery tomato and coconut-based Telangana curry ($13.99 for chicken, $15.99 for goat), a specialty of Hyderabad. For a more mainstream repast, try the kati rolls ($9.99-$12.75), curries ($10.99-$15.99) or kebabs ($12.75-$17.25) wrapped in paratha bread, which are messy but delicious.

India Sweets & Spices (16205 NW Bethany Court, #110, Beaverton, 503-690-0499, indiasweetandspices.com) is yet another market with cafeteria-style dining and a couple of tables. Dormant during much of the pandemic, it has fully reopened of late, serving a meat-free menu that includes a rotating selection of four or five curries each day along with dal, naan, rice and samosas. But the real draw here is the deli case full of traditional Indian sweets. Of course, there is gulab jamun ($2.99 for two), the ubiquitous sugar syrup drenched doughnut holes. But it also makes laddoo, burfi, milk cake and other, lesser-known Indian sweets. These are often flavored with nuts, cardamom or rosewater. Most are unfamiliar to Western palates, and the textures and sometimes intense sweetness can be challenging.

Curious newbies will want to pick out a plate of mixed sweets ($12.99 per pound) to find their bliss.

2311 SE 50th Ave., 503-953-5385, rangoonbistropdx.com. 5-9 pm Wednesday-Friday, noon-9 pm Saturday-Sunday.

After half a decade hawking tea leaf salads and chickpea tofu to farmers marketgoers on weekends—while holding down day jobs—the trio behind Rangoon Bistro now has a restaurant. The dishes reflect a pursuit to perfect childhood memories of two of the Myanmar-born co-owners native foods: cucumber thoke and poached shrimp, a gloriously large rice noodle dumpling stuffed with ground pork, and chana dal, skinned and split chickpeas served at least a half-dozen ways.

4. BEIRUT BITES

318 SE Grand Ave., 503-500-5885, beirutbitespdx. com. 11 am-8 pm Monday-Thursday, 11 am-9 pm Friday-Saturday.

In 2021, Nicholas—one of Portland’s oldest Lebanese-Mediterranean restaurants—moved from its flagship location on Southeast Grand Avenue to a new, roomier building on Southeast Madison Street.

Now the original space has been rebranded by second-generation owner Hilda Dibe as Beirut Bites, a fast-casual concept that uses family recipes to encourage newbies and longtime Nicholas fans to engage with casual dishes rarely seen in Portland, the specialty being five varieties of street pizzas prepared in a 700-degree oven.

5. ARDEN

417 NW 10th Ave., 503-206-6097, ardenpdx.com.

5-9 pm Wednesday-Saturday.

The food menu had not been this Pearl District wine bar’s strong suit. It is now that Erik Van Kley is helming the kitchen. The longtime Portland chef may only have a small four-burner stove to work with, but he still manages to create decadent dishes, like an appetizer of creamy burrata, crispy-fried mushrooms and pine nuts; and mains, such as duck liver ragù over tagliatelle and morel mushroom and ricotta cappelletti. Indecisive? Go with the chef’s prix fixe, four courses for $65 per person.

POTLANDER

Summer Flings Get into the spirit of the season of sun with these five strains.

BY B R I A N N A W H E E L E R

It’s hot out there, and I’m not just talking ’bout the temperature.

We’re slogging our way through yet another bummer summer fraught with anxiety, sleeplessness, depression and rage.

If a heat dome doesn’t cook us from the outside in, those other things will certainly cook us from the inside out, so finding balance is pretty critical if you plan on living long enough to aid and abet an abortion seeker or sponsor an offshore medical refuge.

Besides, discovering sources of happiness, despite the fact that our nation is being run into the ground, is itself a radical form of protest. If there ever were a summer to turn off your phone, get stoned, and eat fruit while floating in an alpine lake, it’s this one. Here are a few super-euphoric strains to get you started:

24k Gold Also known as Kosher Tangie since it’s made by crossing Kosher Kush and Tangie, this hybrid strain has potent indica genetics, but delivers balanced head and body highs. Though effervescent at its outset, smokers typically dissolve into an easy relaxation, making it a favorite variety with patients suffering from chronic pain, depression, fatigue and bipolar disorder. And since the wealth divide in this country continues to get even worse, being behind the eight ball while smoking a strain named after gold feels appropriately dystopian.

Expect a bright citrus-skunk perfume and a lemony exhale with candy top notes.

BUY: Green Front Dispensary, 6834 NE Glisan St., 503-2520036, thegreenfront.org.

Orange Ghost This balanced hybrid is a cross of Ghost OG and Orange Juice, and delivers potent, long-lasting effects, including mild euphoria, crystal-clear creativity, and focused energy. Users across the board cite it as an effective treatment for depression and stress and, in several cases, even chronic migraines. Which is to say, if there was ever a strain suited to enjoying brief moments of summer bliss despite our current reality, it’s probably Orange Ghost. Expect a spicy-sweet flavor and an ultra-herbal aroma.

BUY: Rose Budz PDX, 2410 N Mississippi Ave., 503-208-3955, rosebudzpdx.com.

Thunderbird Rose Lower-tolerance cannathusiasts would enjoy Thunderbird Rose, a cross of Blue Dream and OG Kush that delivers a spacey yet grounded high that’s perfect for daytime or even workday (depending on your job) use. Therapeutically, this cultivar has a solid reputation for curbing mood swings and depression. If wake-and-bake strains are what you’re looking for, Thunderbird Rose might be your ultimate go-to. Expect a gassy, sweet lemony exhale.

BUY: Plane Jane’s Dispensary, 10530 NE Simpson St., 971255-0999.

Mt. Hood Magic Mt. Hood Magic is a heavy-hitting hybrid that delivers a potent body buzz and a thick, cottony head high. This cross of Northern Lights #5 and Durban Poison is incredibly relaxing for most, though there are some who find it to be pure adventure fuel, so consume with caution and a clear plan to either melt or explode into action. We recommend a wildflower hike or lake float on its namesake peak to unlock the strain’s full magic potential. Expect a pungent, sweet yet tart nose and a lemony exhale.

BUY: Five Zero Trees, 5336 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, 971-544-7828, fivezerotrees.com.

White 99 This cross of Cinderella 99 and The White is a perky, uplifting daytime strain for a large swath of users, but can also cause anxiety and paranoia for some. Reported effects include increased focus, sparkling creativity, and a lasting, elastic body high that is both soothing and invigorating. Pro tip: Sip flower from a one-hitter pipe rather than a full spoon or bowl in order to feel out the effects without committing to a big, breathtaking high right off the bat. Expect a sour, earthy perfume and a piney exhale.

BUY: Lucky Lion Dispensary, 16148 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-9461807, luckylionpdx.com.

Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

19

PERFORMANCE

MUSIC

Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson | Contact: bennett@wweek.com

C O U R T E S Y O F S H A R O N VA N E T T E N

Sharon Van Etten Isn’t Afraid of Not Knowing

SHOWS

WEEK

WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR

BY DA N I E L B R O M F I E L D @ b r o m f 3

FRIDAY, JULY 29:

From his ’50s doo-wop days in Plainfield, N.J., to the excoriations of American health care on 2018’s Medicaid Fraud Dogg, Parliament-Funkadelic leader George Clinton remains one of pop’s greatest living visionaries, tangling Afrofuturist philosophy in wigged-out humor and outlandish theatrics.

The 81-year-old artist is back onstage after a brief retirement, and though he mostly acts as a master of ceremonies these days, he still throws a better party than just about anyone else—especially with The Motet, Fishbone, and the Pimps of Joytime as support. Pioneer Courthouse Square, 701 SW 6th Ave. 5:30 pm. $50. All ages.

The indie folk-rock singersongwriter discusses her new album and the Wild Hearts tour.

TUESDAY, AUG. 2:

BY M I C H E L L E K I C H E R E R

During the pandemic, the ’90s coming-of-age film The Sandlot became a regular fixture in Sharon Van Etten’s home. Since she had recently moved with her family to Los Angeles, her young son saw the film’s heroes not just as characters, but as friends—and spent many nights watching their wild attempts to retrieve a Babe Ruth-signed baseball.

One scene particularly struck Van Etten: when the kids suck the ball into a vacuum cleaner, which then explodes after being bitten by a dog. Shaking himself off and looking at his friends, one of the boys admits, “We’ve been going about this all wrong.”

“I’ve seen that movie so many times…but at this particular scene, whatever was going on in the world, I teared up, then wrote it down and put it on a Post-it note,” Van Etten tells WW. Looking at the Post-it note on her computer each day as she got to work writing, Van Etten realized, “all of my songs fell under this category of not really having answers, not knowing what to do, but sitting with these feelings and ruminating on them and trying to think about how I can be better.”

Van Etten jokingly says the origin of her most recent album’s name, We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong, isn’t much deeper than that. But her self-deprecation belies the fact that all the songs on the album (which was released last May on Jagjaguwar) are more breathlessly powerful than almost anything she has produced in the past.

Unlike with typical records, Van Etten chose not to release any singles off We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong. Her intention was that listeners would play the tracks from the beginning so they could experience the album’s undulating story, which doesn’t shy away from the realities of pandemic life.

“I know a lot of people tried to make records that avoided talking about COVID…but everybody that made records during this time made COVID records,” she says. “I’m just gonna lean into this feeling and talk about other things that nobody wants to talk about. Because it’s still happening and we’re all holding in all these feelings because we don’t want to go there again.”

The album quietly opens with the heartbreaking “Darkness Fades,” a song about the strain on Van Etten’s marriage while she tours and the incredible contrast of quarantining together (“It’s been a while since I held you close/Been a while since we’ve touched/All the doors close/I’ve seen the fall”).

Next is “Home to Me,” which talks about the daunting question that many mothers face: How do I balance my job with my 20

Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

SHARON RISING: Van Etten.

“ I’m just gonna lean into this

feeling and talk about other things that nobody wants to talk about.

”

family? The song speaks to Van Etten’s son, begging him to not hold it against her that she’s often on the road (“You’re on my mind/Do you not see?”).

The album reaches a dramatic climax with “Born,” which feels like an awakening into a new headspace. And the next two tracks, “Headspace” and “Come Back,” speak of redemption and a recognition of the anguish the past two years have brought upon us.

We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong is fueled by warmth and energy that Van Etten is sure to bring to the Wild Hearts Tour with Angel Olson and Julien Baker (for more information, see Shows of the Week).

“With the bottleneck of artists all booking tours at the same time, I realized that many artists were inadvertently competing with each other,” Van Etten says. “Instead of doing our own tour and being competitive with other people, why not take some of my favorite artists and create a tour where fans don’t have to debate over which show to go to?”

Van Etten is excited for the opportunity to play at mostly outdoor venues this summer—and as her new album suggests, she’s feeling optimistic. We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong reminds us that despite all the pain in the world and our inner lives, it’s not all darkness. And while it’s unclear how we can move forward, at least there’s recognition—and hope—that we can.

SEE IT: Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, and Julien Baker play at McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheater, 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale, 800-669-8610, edgefieldconcerts.com.

6 pm Tuesday, Aug. 2. $50.50. All ages.

Sharon Van Etten, Angel Olsen, and Julien Baker are three singer-songwriters with big voices and big hearts. Their music carries the grassy scent of Americana without being all cottagecore about it, and their fans (many of them women and LGBTQ+) react to their music with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for pop stars with much bigger paychecks. Plus, all three have great new albums to promote, with Olsen’s countrified Big Time a particular gem. McMenamins Edgefield Amphitheater, 2126 SW Halsey St., Troutdale. 6 pm. $50.50.

All ages.

TUESDAY, AUG. 2:

Though L.A. rapper-producer duo Blu & Exile could probably have built on the success of 2007’s sleeper classic Below the Heavens to become big stars, they seem happiest playing relatively modest shows at spots like Mississippi Studios, enjoying their enviable cult success and playing mostly for fans who know all the words. It’s not too late to take a dive: Below the Heavens and 2020’s Miles: From an Interlude Called Life should appeal to anyone with an interest in the kind of personal, emotive, cinematic hip-hop that defines so many of their classics. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave. 9 pm. $18. 21+.

MUSIC

The Macks Are Portland’s Best New Band MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

The group triumphed at WW’s Best New Band Showcase at Mississippi Studios.

BY B E N N E T T C A M P B E L L FERGUSON

@thobennett

It’s official: The Macks are Portland’s best new band, at least according to the creatives, music insiders and well-informed clubgoers who voted on the city’s finest emerging groups in WW’s 2022 Best New Bands poll.

The Macks’ victory among the top six bands was revealed July 18 at the Best New Band Showcase at Mississippi Studios, which, in addition to featuring the six winning groups, was a fundraiser for MusicPortland’s Echo Fund.

(MusicPortland is a grassroots nonprofit that advocates for local music.)

Below is a full list of the winners, as ranked by voters.

1. The Macks 2. Glitterfox 3. Night Heron 4. Kingsley 5. Sean Battles 6. Pool Boys Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

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MOVIES

Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson Contact: bennett@wweek.com

REHAB CABIN

SCREENER

STREAMING WARS YOUR WEEKLY FILM QUEUE

BY B E N N E T T C A M P B E L L F E R G U S O N @ t h o b e n n e t t

NEW WORLD PICTURES

INDIE PICK:

TERRIFIC TRIO: Scott Mandel, Alexandra Stebbins and Lacey Jeka.

Cinematic Cabin Fever Two fans scheme to abduct their favorite actor in Rehab Cabin.

You may well wince at the tidily wholesome ending of Michael Lehmann’s Heathers (1989), but you have to respect the film’s fearless depiction of youthful evil. As a young woman stranded in the netherworld between obscurity and popularity, Winona Ryder ingeniously makes her character’s innocence both chilling and comical. And Christian Slater? As an outsider with the swagger of James Dean and the soul of a serial killer, he’s one of the all-time scariest high school villains. Amazon Prime.

HOLLYWOOD PICK:

BY C H A N C E S O L E M - P F E I F E R

@chance_ s _ p

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Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

SEE IT: Rehab Cabin is available on VOD via Apple TV and iTunes starting Tuesday, Aug. 2.

Greg Mottola’s quasi-autobiographical Adventureland (2009) is set in 1985, but you don’t need to have been alive then to be overwhelmed by its nostalgia. Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart star as James and Em, co-workers who fall in love while working at a Pittsburgh theme park over the summer. Revelatory in its ordinariness, the essence of their romance is captured in the film’s most exquisite image: Stewart’s face framed by a car window, looking at once beautifully present and achingly gone. HBO Max.

INTERNATIONAL PICK:

Celebrate the life of Jean-Louis Trintignant, who died in June, by revisiting his potent performance in Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Three Colors: Red (1994). As a retired judge who eavesdrops on his neighbors, Trintignant skillfully embodies his character’s armored cynicism, which is gradually pierced by the empathy of a student and part-time model (Irene Jacob). HBO Max.

R I A LT O F I L M

The history of fictional movies inside real movies is as classically immersive as The Dancing Cavalier (Singin’ in the Rain) and as winkingly self-reflexive as the Stab franchise (from Scream 2 onward).

But such in-movie movies are seldom seen from the vantage of believable basement cinephiles like Rehab Cabin’s Chloe (Lacey Jeka) and Domenic (Scott Mandel).

The two lifelong friends are fairly ordinary fans—except for the fact that they’re about to kidnap their favorite actor, Amanda Campbell (Alexandra Stebbins), the star of the fictitious teen film World Wide Witch.

Scripted and co-directed by Portlander Kate Beacom (who shares story credit with Domenic D’Andrea), Rehab Cabin is a daring, deconstructive comedy that premiered at the Portland International Film Festival in 2021 and will arrive on VOD (via Apple TV and iTunes) on Aug. 2. Pitting obsessive cinephilic charm against anxieties born of an increasingly strained friendship, it’s a narrative tightrope walk leading to a crime that is, well, a very serious crime.

Rehab Cabin is the sort of movie that acknowledges out loud that Beauty and the Beast-style Stockholm Syndrome is the “best-case scenario” for Chloe and Domenic’s semi-benevolent plan to ferry Campbell to rural upstate New York, dry her out, and get her career back on track.

Yet for all the premise’s outlandishness, Chloe and Domenic’s journey will resonate with anyone whose social life is anchored in movies. The characters may be aspiring abductors, but as they rewatch World Wide Witch (which has a Goosebumps aesthetic and the star-making aspirations of Disney Channel originals) for the millionth time, there’s a credible bedrock to their friendship in the way they recite lines, lovingly roast plot holes and reclaim Campbell’s work.

While Beacom says World Wide Witch was basically a “lightning bolt” fabrication of ’90s VHS-core, the inspiration behind Rehab Cabin stems from their childhood daydream of saving a distressed movie star. Though they’d prefer not to name the actor, the archetype of the struggling ex-child star is instantly recognizable (think Lindsay Lohan or Amanda Bynes).

“With child actors growing up in front of you, you get really attached, especially if you’re roughly their age,” Beacom says of the film’s inspiration. “You’re able to project yourself onto them in a way, like, ‘Oh, I was [also] 13 when I saw that movie.’”

The result? Fandom with the potential to devolve into possessiveness. The fantasy goes something like this: While the media wring out a once-celebrated prodigy, salvation lies in the imperiled celebrity finding safety and normalcy with their most devoted followers.

“I do think there is some element of the unattainable with the celebrity, but it also makes you, as the normal person, feel exceptional,” Beacom says. “Because your relationship with [the actor] is so personal. It’s so weird.”

While Beacom describes this mentality as “demented,” they’ve found that it’s relatively common. In fact, part of what made Beacom comfortable with co-directing the script (which they first conceived at 22, fresh out of the School of Visual Arts) was that co-director Louis Legge and others in the cast and crew related to the dream of forcing a celebrity to live a normal life for their own good.

Onscreen, Lacey Jeka’s lead performance as Chloe encompasses both sympathetic arrested development and domineering mania—both fan girl and warden. Aubrey Plaza in Ingrid Goes West might be a recognizable and recent indie-comedy cousin, but Beacom likens Jeka’s facility with fiendishly unsettling humor to Heath Ledger’s Joker in The Dark Knight.

“I find it extremely hard to not watch her at all times,” Beacom says of Jeka, who’s appeared on Search Party and is now Beacom’s close friend and writing partner on multiple feature scripts in progress.

Even if Rehab Cabin is ultimately a comedic caution against detachment from reality, some part of Chloe’s worldview may prove cathartic for many movie dorks.

“If you’re living your life like a movie, you’re adding value in some way,” Beacom says. “I’ve lived my life wishing it was all a really wonderful montage and then come to grips that life is actually all the parts in between the montage.

But that makes life and movies special.”

MOVIES G ET YO U R R E P S I N NÁRODNÍ FILMOVÝ ARCHIV PRAHA

D ÁV I D L U K Á C S

TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

The Green Ray (1986)

MRS. HARRIS GOES TO PARIS Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris’ simple storyline mirrors tales told for millennia about pilgrimages undertaken by sainted war widows upon crossing paths with the divine. This particular telling of Paul Gallico’s 1958 novel finds plucky charwoman Ada Harris (Lesley Manville) more superstitious than strictly spiritual. While making ends meet as an itinerant chambermaid, she chances upon an employer’s Christian Dior frock and—in what amounts to a seismic religious awakening—suddenly realizes what her life of quiet service had been leading toward. Weirdly, as she musters the resolve to bum-rush the House of Dior’s imperious guardian (Isabelle Huppert), director Anthony Fabian never shies away from the economic inequalities roiling Paris’ streets amid a sanitation workers’ strike (the film is rather like a director’s cut of Mary Poppins that briefly introduces the chimney sweeps’ revolutionary sect or peers inside an opium den off Portobello Road). Though Mrs. Harris trades on the same sort of wish fulfillment and unalloyed positivity as classics of fantasy cinema, it is not a children’s movie. Quite the opposite, really, even if Ada’s journey is relentlessly pleasant enough to thrill that twinkly great aunt that lives within us all. PG. JAY HORTON. Bridgeport, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Vancouver Mall.

APPLES

It might seem too easy to draw a line between Yorgos Lanthimos and other contemporary Greek filmmakers, but Christos Nikou’s debut feature, Apples, warrants the comparison. Not only was Nikou second assistant director on Lanthimos’ 2009 breakout Dogtooth, but Apples operates with a high-concept absurdism comparable with films like The Lobster. It’s set in a world where amnesia runs rampant and the “Disturbed Memory Department” assigns patients tasks to rehumanize them—riding bicycles, attending costume parties, supporting a dying stranger—that must be documented with Polaroid selfies (the film’s protagonist is Aris, played

by Aris Servetalis, who suddenly awakens on a bus and must start his anti-amnesia regimen). It’s a clever premise that benefits from audience attention and rumination, but Apples isn’t a welcoming watch. Nikou’s decision to sap vibrance and personality from his native Athens feels right out of the soft-dystopian playbook, and his script doesn’t have nearly as much fun with language as Lanthimos’ writing does. Perhaps the biggest difference, though, is that while Nikou’s tone is drab and alienating, the film is cryptically humanist. You can come away from Apples chewing not only on weighty themes related to pandemics and “do it for the ’Gram” culture, but on how the fallible space between what we remember and forget is endlessly, essentially human.

NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.

FIRE OF LOVE

An essayistic portrait of volcanologist power couple Katia and Maurice Krafft, Fire of Love doesn’t overexert itself to make them camera ready. Pioneering and aestheticizing their field until their deaths in a volcanic explosion in 1991, they were always inadvertently preparing to be the subjects of director Sara Dosa’s stylish, adoring testament to the Kraffts’ two shared loves: volcanoes and each other. (By the way, Wes Anderson probably owes their estate a royalty for the red beanies and direct-to-face zooms we see in their mountains of documentary footage.)

Narrated by the poetic murmurs

by Miranda July and featuring a soundtrack that includes Ennio Morricone, Brian Eno and others, the film is head over heels for the “alchemy” of the Kraffts’ love and all that volcanoes symbolize in parallel: death, rebirth and unbridled, mysterious emotion. Eventually, Fire of Love runs dry of things to say about a couple who appears to have had no existence beyond studying and filming gorgeous hellfire, but it’s a film begging for big-screen beholding. The Kraffts spent their lives impossibly close to volcanoes, and in the film, they’re often seen as silhouettes dwarfed by nature at its most overpowering. Get small with them. PG. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Bridgeport, City Center, Clackamas, Hollywood, Living Room.

NOPE

In Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Richard Dreyfuss sought liberation from domes-

tication; in Arrival, Amy Adams wanted to escape the gravity of grief. Most UFO movies are about gazing into the unknown to fill the emptiness within—and for a while, that’s what siblings OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) and Emerald (Keke Palmer) seem to be doing in Jordan Peele’s Nope. While grieving their late father (Keith David), they spot a sleek shape in the sky above their California horse ranch. Is their desperation to get what OJ calls “the Oprah shot” of a possible flying saucer born of bereavement? It makes sense that they would seek the comfort of an otherworldly mystery, but Nope lacks the discipline necessary to dig into their souls. After directing two smart and speedy horror films (Get Out and Us), Peele has made an oddly shapeless movie, stretching a relatively simple premise out to a 130-minute runtime. While Get Out’s single-minded dedication to uprooting the hypocrisies of white liberals helped win him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar, Nope toys with half-formed ideas about loss, miracles and nature, all too obviously in search of a reason to exist. Middling Peele may be light years beyond the usual summer-movie schlock, but even his most ardent admirers should be able to tell the difference between a film he has to make and a film he wants to make. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Academy Theater, Bagdad, Cinema 21, Cinemagic, City Center, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns, St. Johns Twin, Studio One.

French auteur Éric Rohmer has a gift for articulating the inarticulable, particularly the cavernous maw of chronic loneliness and desire. In this profound character study, an alienated Parisian woman (Marie Rivière, who also co-wrote the screenplay) on a series of solo summer vacations grapples with her swirling anxieties and impossible romantic ideals. Screens in 35 mm. 5th Avenue, July 29-31.

Harold and Maude (1971)

Harold (Bud Cort) is a death-obsessed young man who elaborately stages suicide attempts to gain his cold mother’s affection; Maude (Ruth Gordon) is a manic pixie dream senior who injects a bit of joie de vivre into his gloom. In this Hal Ashby-directed classic, the unlikely duo fall in love to the tune of an original soundtrack composed by Cat Stevens. Featuring an introduction by film programmer Elliot Lavine, the screening is part three of Cinema 21’s “Seven From the ’70s” series. Cinema 21, July 30.

Mermaids (1990)

Cher stars in this dramedy as a free-spirited single mother of perpetually embarrassed Charlotte (Winona Ryder) and Kate (Christina Ricci). After settling in a small Massachusetts town, both Charlotte and her mom find love, upending the family dynamic, for better and for worse. Screens as part of Portland Mermaid Week.

Clinton, July 30.

Magic Mike XXL (2015)

One of the rare sequels that outshines the original, this installment in the MMCU (Magic Mike Cinematic Universe) finds our beloved exotic dancer with a heart of gold (Channing Tatum) on a road trip with his boys to Myrtle Beach for one last male stripper convention.

Portland’s own Byron Beck (who wrote a column for WW from 2001 to 2008!) will attend to read Tatum’s children’s book, The One and Only Sparkella. PAM CUT at OMSI Bridge Lot, July 30.

The Warriors (1979)

After being framed for the murder of a respected gang leader, the titular Warriors are forced to journey all the way from the Bronx to their home turf of Coney Island, fighting off cops and hordes of rival gangs (including the iconic Baseball Furies, a source of many a Halloween costume) in this rowdy action-crime cult classic. Screens in 35 mm. Hollywood, July 30-31.

ALSO PLAYING: Academy: The NeverEnding Story (1984), July 27-28.

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), July 27-28. Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954), July 29-Aug. 4. Bend of the River (1952), July 29-Aug. 4. Clinton: The Little Mermaid (1976), July 27. Hollywood: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), July 29. Bio-Dome (1996), July 29. Psychotronic Afterschool Special in 16 mm, Aug. 1. Avenging Force (1986), Aug. 2. PAM CUT at OMSI Bridge Lot: Monsoon Wedding (2001), July 28. Ghostbusters (1984), July 29.

OUR KEY

: THIS MOVIE IS EXCELLENT, ONE OF THE BEST OF THE YEAR. : THIS MOVIE IS GOOD. WE RECOMMEND YOU WATCH IT. : THIS MOVIE IS ENTERTAINING BUT FLAWED. : THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE. Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

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Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

ADDISON TALERICO INSTAGRAM: @CRAY0LAMARK3RS

Hello! I am Addison, the creator of the art seen before you. I am an incoming highschooler and aspiring artist, and I am so incredibly grateful I got this opportunity to show my work. I mainly use graphite, ink, and paint for my art, as well as my iPad for digital art. A lot of my inspiration is from movies, specifically work from claymation pieces, songs, and just random whimsical ideas I have. Thank you for reading and stopping by to look at my work! If you would like to support me, I will be posting on instagram more often soon @Cray0lamark3rs.

Jack Kent’s

True scenes from the streets. @sketchypeoplepdx kentcomics.com Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

25

JONESIN’

FREE WILL

B Y M AT T J O N E S

"Finished at the Bottom"--bottom row on your keyboard, that is.

ASTROLOGY ARIES

(March 21-April 19): Aries poet Ada Limón advises us to notice and love "the music of the world." She says that praising and giving attention to the good things "are as important and necessary as witnessing and naming and holding the grief and sorrow that comes with being alive."

This is always a crucial principle to keep in mind, but it will be extra essential for you in the coming weeks. Your ability to attract the influences and resources you need most will thrive if you focus on and celebrate the music of the world. PS: I encourage you to sing more than usual, too.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Here's my hope for

you in the coming months: You will cultivate a specialty for connecting people and situations that need to be affiliated but aren't yet. You will regard your flair for blending as a gift you offer generously. Can you picture yourself doing that?

I think it will be fun and will also benefit you in unexpected ways. So here's my proposed plan: Conspire to heal fragmentation and schisms.

Unite heavenly and earthly things. Keep the far side and the near side in touch with each other.

Never let the past forget about the future, and vice versa. One more thing, Taurus: Be gleefully imaginative as you mix and conjoin and combine.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): In a play by Gemini

philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, a character says, "Hell is other people." What did he mean by that?

One interpretation is that our fellow humans always judge us, and their judgments rarely align with who we really are and who we imagine ourselves to be. Here's my solution for that problem: Choose allies and companions whose views of you match your own. Is that so hard? I suspect it will be easier than usual for you in the coming months, Gemini. Take advantage of life's natural tendency to connect you with cohorts who appreciate you. Be picky as you avoid the hell of other people.

ACROSS 1. One of the former Dutch Antilles 6. H.S. diploma alternative 9. Oceanic movement 13. Hacienda homes 14. "Better Call Saul" costar Seehorn whose name is pronounced "ray" 16. Open up _ _ _ of worms 17. *Casual term for a trio of great European composers 19. Half of a golf course 20. *Got a little rest 22. One of 17-Across 25. Simple 26. Feel discomfort 27. Greek vowels 30. "Please stay!"

31. Lip shiner 33. In layers 35. Percolate 36. *Variant bingo wins that are really just both main diagonals at once 37. "A horse is a horse" horse 41. Dealer's request 43. Other song on a 45 44. When, colloquially 47. Lion's exclamation 49. "Down with thee!"

59. *IRS forms used to report business income or loss 63. "Chocolat" actress Lena 64. "The Ballad of Reading _ _ _" (Oscar Wilde) 65. Moroccan capital 66. Air France fleet members, once

32. *They're actually different letters than the ones with the tildes 34. Former Canadian baseball player 36. "Dynamite" K-pop band 38. _ _ _-To-Go (Fortnite item for immediate teleports)

68. Casual stroll

39. Actress Falco

DOWN

40. Woodland grazers

1. Stage routine

42. Half a "Mork & Mindy" signoff

2. "Go team!" cheer

43. Display of daring

3. Practical purpose

44. Artworks painted on dry plaster

4. Unit of cookies 5. Makes embarrassed 6. Kinnear of "Little Miss Sunshine" 7. "_ _ _ (Nothing Else I Can Say)" (2008 Lady Gaga song) 8. Good thing to stay out of 9. *Neutral-colored candies discontinued in 1995

45. Anheuser-Busch nonalcoholic brew 46. Fesses up proudly 48. Blown away 52. Five Pillars religion 54. Flavor enhancer that's "king of flavor," in Uncle Roger videos 55. Aspiring doc's exam

10. Least welcoming

56. Ship greeting

11. "Mother" metal performer Glenn

57. TV component?

12. "Romanian Rhapsody No. 2" composer Georges

61. Orioles legend Ripken Jr.

15. Shakespeare's Bottom had the head of one 18. Junkyard car's coating

51. Restaurant employee

22. "Are you using your own _ _ _?" (self check-out query)

58. Like an easy job, slangily

30. Pediatricians, e.g.

67. Actor Sheridan of "Ready Player One"

50. Hubble with a space telescope named after him 53. *Requirement for drawing a dragon, according to Strong Bad (to add teeth, "spinities," and angry eyebrows)

band _ _ _ RÛs

21. Clarinet relative

23. Stir (up) 24. Lotion additive 28. Ended in _ _ _ 29. Icelandic post-punk

©2022 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.

60. Fall back gradually 62. Part of many Quebec place names

last week’s answers

CANCER

(June 21-July 22): The people most likely to succeed as entrepreneurs are those with a high degree of analytical intelligence. Right?

Well, it's more complicated than that. Reasoning ability and problem-solving skills are key skills, but not as important as emotional intelligence: the power to understand and manage feelings.

I mention this, Cancerian, because the coming months will be a favorable time to advance your ambitions by enhancing and expressing your emotional intelligence. Here's some reading to foster your powers: 1. tinyurl.com/EmotionSmarts 2. tinyurl.com/SmartFeeler 3. tinyurl.com/WiseFeeler 4. tinyurl.com/BrightFeeler

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In the coming weeks, Leo,

Willamette Week JULY 27, 2022 wweek.com

coming weeks: 1. an openness to consider several different ways to capitalize on an opportunity, but to ultimately choose just one way; 2. the ability to see and understand all sides of every story, while also knowing that for pragmatism's sake you must endorse a single version of the story; 3. the capacity to be both constructively critical and supportively sympathetic; 4. the facility to be welcoming and inviting while still maintaining healthy boundaries.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): "Life is enchanting for

me because I have so much control over what I think," my Scorpio friend Daria told me. "If I decide to flatter myself with comments about how attractive I am, I can do just that. If I would like to imagine a good fairy visiting me while I sleep and giving me a dream of having an orgasm with my lover while we fly over the Serengeti Plains, I can." I asked her about the times when worries gush forth unbidden from her subconscious mind and disturb her joy. She said, "I simply picture myself shoving those worries in a hole in the ground and blowing them up with an exploding rose." I bring Daria's mind-management expertise to your attention, Scorpio, because the coming weeks will be an excellent time for you to raise your mastery over what you think.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): People might

impatiently advise you to relax and settle down.

Others might tell you to stop dreaming such big visions and formulating such adventurous plans. Still others might give you the side-eye because they imagine you are having too much fun and brainstorming too wildly and laughing too loudly. If you receive messages like those, give the complainers a copy of this horoscope.

It will tell them that YOU WILL NOT COMPLY WITH ANY INHIBITING DIRECTIVES. Your astrologer, me, authorizes you to be as vast and venturesome and enterprising and spontaneous as you dare. In doing so, I am speaking on behalf of the cosmic rhythms. Your plucky audacity has been heavenly ordained.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): In accordance with

astrological omens, I hereby authorize you to worry, worry, and worry some more. Stew and simmer and ferment as you weigh all the options and mull the correct actions. But when the time is right, end your fretting with crisp decisiveness.

Shake off any residual doubt that still clings to you. And then undertake robust action to transform the situation that provoked your righteous brooding. In my astrological opinion, what I have just described is your best plan for success in the coming days.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “I was looking for a

I urge you to always be confident that YOU ARE THE PARTY! Everywhere you go, bring the spirits of fun and revelry. Be educationally entertaining and entertainingly educational.

Amuse yourself by making life more interesting for everyone. At the same time, be kind and humble, never arrogant or insensitive. A vital part of your assignment is to nourish and inspire others with your radiance and charm. That formula will ensure you get everything you need.

I foresee bounty flowing your way! PS: Regularly reward your admirers and followers with your magnanimous Chesire-cat grin.

love unlike my parents' love or my sister's love or the love on a foreign kitchen floor," writes Rebecca Dinerstein Knight in her novel The Sunlit Night. "I wanted to forgive my mother and father for their misery and find myself a light man who lived buoyantly and to be both his light and his dark." I offer you her thoughts, Aquarius, in the hope of inspiring you to expand and deepen your ideas about the love you want. The coming weeks will be a favorable time to revise and reinvigorate your definitions of intimacy and togetherness.

You will have extra power to see new truths about how best to create maximum synergy and symbiosis.

VIRGO

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “Even raw and messy

(Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In my Astrological Book of Life, here's what I have inscribed about Virgos: You may not always find the perfect solution, but you are skilled at finding the best solution available. This will be an especially valuable knack in the coming weeks, both for yourself and others.

I trust you will scan for practical but compassionate answers, even if they are partial. And I hope you will address at least some of everyone's needs, even if no one is completely satisfied. You can be the master of creative compromise that we all need. Thanks in advance for your excellent service!

LIBRA

(Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Everyone knows that "balance" is a keyword for you Librans. However, there are many interpretations of what balance entails. Here's how I define it for you during the

emotions can be understood as a form of light, crackling and bursting with energy," writes Jungian psychoanalyst Clarissa Pinkola Estés.

For example, "We can use the light of rage in a positive way, in order to see into places we cannot usually see." Likewise, confusion might be a healthy sign that a long-held misunderstanding is dissolving. Disappointment may herald the demise of an unrealistic expectation. So let's unleash a big cheer for raw and messy emotions, Pisces! I suspect they will soon be your gateway to clarity and renewal.

Homework: Ask for something you've never had the clarity or chutzpah to ask for until now. Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

CHECK OUT ROB BREZSNY’S EXPANDED WEEKLY AUDIO HOROSCOPES & DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES

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