Yes, Portland was more humid than usual the past two sum mers. 4
The secret sauce in rankedchoice voting with multimem ber districts is that votes don’t die after one round. 8
It took 609 days to complete an investigation of Tina Kotek’s conduct. 11
Mandatory overtime for Port land firefighters leapt 275% in a year. 13
Christine Drazan’s car radio presets include WAY-FM and The Bull. 17
Colleagues in the Oregon House compare Drazan to Michael Jordan and a terrorist. 18
The Portland Greek Festival began in 1952 as a means to pay off the mortgage of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Cathe dral. 20
The former host of Travel Channel’s Man v. Food is host ing Ilani’s first Oktoberfest this weekend. 21
A Magic Meat Truck has started
popping up at the corner of Northwest 23rd Place and Thurman Street. 22
In addition to delicious fried bird, Holler has added another protein—pulled pork smoth ered in barbecue sauce—to its new game day menu. 23 “Adaptogen” was first coined by a Russian toxicologist in 1947 to describe a plant extract that has a nonspecific (but benefi cial) effect on the body. 24
One of the casualties of the pandemic was the progressive bluegrass group Scratchdog Stringband 25
Intoxicated drag performers guide audiences through queer history in the sketch-comedy experience Drunk Herstory. 26
Watching Humphrey Bogart pretend to be a book collector is like watching an oak tree pre tend to be a chrysanthemum. 27
In 1933, Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler testified to Congress about an attempted overthrow of President Franklin D. Roos evelt. 28
Though
Last week, WW reported that Portland now has 1.2 police officers for every 1,000 people in the city (“Minimum Force,” Sept. 28). Using 2020 federal data, we crunched the numbers to see how Portland now fares compared with other large U.S. cities. The national average is 2.4 officers per 1,000, according to the FBI. The median among the top 50 largest cities is 1.8. Portland ranks 48th out of 50 cities in cops per capita. Here’s what our readers had to say:
DRAZAN, VIA TWITTER:
“Tina Kotek sided with defund the police radicals over our law enforcement.
“She betrayed the men and women who keep us safe.
“I will always support Ore gon law enforcement when I take office as governor.”
REDACTED, VIA REDDIT:
“Can you imagine working a job where you have like half of the co-workers you need to get your job done, customers and your bosses are constantly screaming at you for not accomplishing enough, and when you do manage to achieve something, there’s a 75% chance it gets thrown immediately into the trash?
That’s what I imagine it’s like to be a cop in Portland right now. It’s got to be incredibly demoralizing.”
NOWCALLEDCTHULU, VIA REDDIT: “Next, imagine that you and all your co-workers spent an entire summer terrorizing the communities you’re supposed to protect after decades of corruption, racism and violence. Starts to
make sense why the communi ty might not give you the blind trust you demand. That level of self-reflection would disqualify you from being a cop, though.
Seriously, stop acting like our corrupt police are the victims. It’s shitty to be a cop in Portland because Portland cops created a shitty culture and have fought any attempts at reform or progress. You get what you fucking deserve.”
KITTYCHI, VIA WWEEK.COM:
“Businesses in formerly safe neighborhoods (looking at you, Northwest 23rd and surround ing areas) are hiring private security guards for protection of employees and so customers will shop; big downtown stores have a guard at each door, I have to ring a doorbell to be let in to a favorite store, downtown hotels are losing customers because they don’t feel safe, trash and zombies on meth wandering around…no, we don’t have enough police. If the city has money but can’t get police to come here, then spend that money on private security.
“Because of the problems, we need more police right now; at least temporary private
security is warranted. I can’t even believe this is a debate.”
KROPOTHEAD, VIA TWIT
TER: “Zusman and Meeker using WW to swing hard for an expansion of the police state.
“ We need a new local paper that’s not written by the cow ardly owner class.”
SOPHLADY, VIA WWEEK. COM: “Quality matters more than quantity. More cops who do not themselves comply with the law wouldn’t help. The fact Portland has been in violation of a federal consent decree regarding police brutality for years likely makes knowledge able applicants uninterested in working for the Portland Police Bureau.
“A major error in these num bers is ignoring non-armed interveners, who are also law enforcement.”
LUXLOCKE, VIA REDDIT: “Not many people want to join a force that the community routinely tell to F off. Go one town over and they get free hot dogs.”
HOODLUM OF BEDLAM, VIA TWITTER: “The only upside is we don’t get hassled about traf fic infraction issues anymore.”
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
BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx
When I left D.C. for Portland 20 years ago, one perk was Portland’s dry sum mer air. Sweat could actually evaporate and cool your body! The last few sum mers, however, have seemed increasingly muggy—now I feel almost as sweaty as I did back east. Are Portland summers getting more humid? —Gimme Swelter
Climate trends are difficult things to measure (especially if your attempts to measure them consist of playing Fruit Ninja in bed and refusing to get up until someone tells you the answer). That said, even climatologists strug gle; you need a lot of data points to be sure a change is even happening. In other words, ask me in 100 years.
Just kidding! We do have some data on humidity in Portland. Relative humidity is not the best stat for comparisons, though: Warm air can hold more moisture than cold air, so the number varies with temperature throughout the day. If you really want to quantify the weather’s precise degree of moisture-based shittiness, you can use a statistic called “dew point.”
The dew point is the temperature at which the air can’t hold any more water (meaning, among other things, that your sweat can’t evaporate). Below the dew point, the air has more water than it can hold, so condensa tion—dew—will begin forming on any available surface.
The higher the dew point, the wetter the air. A dew point of 60 degrees feels noticeably humid. A dew point of 70 degrees is oppres sive. Anything 75 or above is please-kill-me territory.
So, are our summer dew points rising? Here’s what we know: The generally accepted predictions of climate change (the ones we’ll punch people for disagreeing with even though we don’t understand them either) sug gest that Pacific Northwest summers should be getting drier (and hotter). The opposite trend would be surprising.
That said, both 2021 and 2022 were well above average for summer days when the dew point reached 65 or higher. I can see where you’re coming from, Swelter, but two data points do not a trend make.
Six other summers in the past 30 years the dew point also topped 65: 1993, 1998, 2009 and 2013. An interesting distribution, to be sure, but a hockey stick graph it ain’t. Climate change will doubtless fuck up our lives in many novel and exciting ways, but for now bringing the bayou to Portland doesn’t seem to be one of them.
SIGNATURES: The Oregon Secretary of State is investigating 74 signature sheets that the un affiliated candidate for governor Betsy Johnson submitted in August to qualify for the ballot.
Through a public records request, WW learned that the SOS is withholding the signature sheets in question from a lawyer who’d requested them, citing an exemption to the public records law that allows “investigatory information compiled for criminal law purposes to be withheld.” Ben Morris, a spokesman for Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, the state’s top elections officer, says the investigation is preliminary and being conducted by staff in the Elections Division.
“We are not investigating Betsy Johnson or her campaign,” Morris says. “We are investigating individuals hired by the signature gathering firm that worked on her nominating petition.”
Jennifer Sitton, a spokeswoman for the Johnson campaign, says the investigation involves only the signature gathering firm Initiative & Referen dum Campaign Management Services, which the Johnson campaign paid $897,000 to collect the 23,744 valid voter signatures required. IRCMS founder and CEO Ted Blaszak didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. “The investi gation we are conducting will have no bearing on whether Betsy Johnson qualified for the ballot,” Morris adds. “She had more than enough valid signatures to do so.”
A jury awarded $40,272 in damages this week to a woman who was beaten by Portland police during a 2020 protest. Officers struck Erin Wen zel, a 35-year-old care coordinator at Oregon Health & Science University, with a nightstick and threw her to the ground during the Aug. 14, 2020, demonstration, breaking both of her arms and leaving her with ongoing PTSD. She was there as a medic, she said. Wenzel was not arrested, but her husband, Phillip, was booked in jail for allegedly assaulting a police officer. The charge was dropped. There was no video of the incident, which occurred after officers instructed Wenzel and other marchers to disperse as they approached the previously burned and vandal ized police union headquarters. City attorneys argued that the force was necessary. The jury disagreed. It found that one or more of the unnamed officers had committed battery, but
stopped short of finding the city negligent. It’s one of many similar civil cases that have been filed against the city, but the first to go to trial.
Juan Chavez, an attorney who has represented protesters in other cases against the city, says this jury verdict would allow him to pursue dam ages in his cases more aggressively. “Getting this F on their record is a big deal,” he says.
LEZ: Former Portland City Council candidate Vadim Mozyrsky endorsed lawyer Rene Gonzalez on Oct. 4 over his opponent, City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty. That’s not entirely surprising: Mozyrsky’s stated policies more closely align with Gonzalez’s on both policing and homeless ness, and Gonzalez is running on a pro-police platform and seeks to enforce anti-camping laws, whereas Hardesty has long been a critique of the Portland Police Bureau and opposes camp sweeps. “We don’t just need a new direction, we need someone to actually provide direc tion,” Mozyrsky tells WW. “I believe Rene is that individual.” Another connection between the two former opponents: Mozyrsky is lobbying against the charter reform measure that will appear on Portland’s November ballot. Gonzalez recently said he would vote against the measure. Hard esty said last week she intended to vote for it, ending months of declining to take a position.
CLATSKANIE REFINERY HINGES ON RAIL RULING: Opponents of a massive renewable diesel refinery on the Columbia River near Clatskanie are watching for a decision Oct. 28 on a key part of the plant’s infrastructure. That’s when they expect the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals to rule whether Next Renewable Fuels can install railroad tracks to serve the proposed plant. The decision turns on whether the tracks constitute a “yard” or a “branch line.” It’s being built on land zoned for agriculture, where a branch line would be permitted but a larger yard would not, according to the Columbia Riverkeeper, which appealed Columbia County’s March 23 decision to allow the rail line. Next says it needs the rail to import vegetable oil and other raw materials should the Columbia River close to tanker traffic. Opponents say the 12.3-acre rail terminal is a “yard” that would block access to mint fields owned by local farmers. Next’s opponents hope that blocking the rail will deep-six the whole refinery. “If they don’t have a railyard, then they don’t have a project,” says Jasmine Lillich, 29, a local farmer. Next didn’t return an email.
AD LEGEND DAN WIEDEN DIES: Dan Wieden, the Portland ad man whose coining of the Nike slogan “Just Do It” vaulted his agency Wie den+Kennedy into global prominence, died at home Friday, the company announced. He was 77. Wieden was one of the seminal figures in the emergence of Portland as a city that signified more to the national consciousness than lum berjacks and rain. In 1982, he and David Kennedy founded an advertising agency with just one client: an Oregon-based sneaker company called Nike. The two companies would collaborate on some of the most iconic ad campaigns of the past half century: the “Bo Knows” spots, Charles Barkley declaring he was not a role model, and Colin Kaepernick showing why he was one. Wie den, meanwhile, presided over an office culture in Northwest Portland that became famous for luring the most creative young people in America to sell Coca-Cola and Levi’s jeans. His passing means both founding partners at Wieden + Kennedy are gone: David Kennedy died one year ago. “We are heartbroken,” the company says. “But even more so, we are overcome with grati tude and love.”
BETSY JOHNSONWe asked both candidates for county chair.
The race for Multnomah County chair is the most important November election contest you haven’t heard anybody talking about. The candidates are barred by law from spending much money on campaigning. But whoever wins gets near-total con trol of the county purse—and most of the homeless services spending in the region.
So last week, as the two candidates seeking the job met with out editorial board, we asked them to demonstrate their ability to identify wasteful spending.
The two candidates, Jessica Vega Pederson and Sharon Mei eran, both sitting county commissioners, had very different responses. Below are the candidates’ answers. They’ve been lightly edited for brevity and clarity. SOPHIE PEEL.
“I think we have to look at our public safety investments and how we’re actually spending dollars, not just in the sheriff’s and District Attorney’s Office but what we’re doing in the Department of Community Justice, and some of the ways we’re investing in our nonprofit partners and making sure we’re not doubling work and investments that are also happening on the city side.
“The city ’s Office of Violence Prevention is investing in some of the same community organizations that the county is investing in, and right now there aren’t any conversations happening to make sure [we’re not] duplicating the investments.
“One of the ideas I have as chair is collaborative budgeting with
in our community safety system: so the health department, our Department of Community Justice, the DA’s office, the sheriff’s office, and really coming together to look at our public safety in vestments and budget dollars as a whole to make sure everybody knows what the other is investing and working in, and the other piece is making sure the city is brought in.”
“It’s difficult to answer because we don’t have that oversight and accountability at the county. We don’t have a centralized way to identify if we’re getting what we paid for.
“I would say we are not using the dollars we do get in the most effective ways possible. I’ve said that about the mental health system for ages, and as I’ve been a student of the county over the past five years, I just see my concern growing. We have tons
An upmarket grocery sits empty and unstable on Hayden Island.
Address: 900 N Tomahawk Island Drive
Year built: 1994
Square footage: 15,900
Market value: $2,914,380
Owner: Dan Fischer
How long it’s been empty: 16 years
Why it’s empty: A faulty foundation
Dan Fischer, an Illinois lottery magnate, loves a good distressed asset.
He certainly got one when he purchased Dot ty’s, a chain of dozens of lottery delis, in 2007. After Nevada regulators caught the previous owner lying, Oregon’s lottery commissioner forced the sale of the immensely profitable franchise. Fischer grabbed it for $15 million, The Oregonian reported at the time.
In 2012, Fischer struck again, purchasing an abandoned Zupan’s on Hayden Island. It’s a stone throw from Dotty’s #24, one of the state’s highest-earning lottery retailers due to its prox imity to Washington, where video lotteries are
outlawed (“In Luck,” WW, July 27).
The upmarket grocery store closed in 2006, just three years after its grand opening. Freezer doors wouldn’t open. Shopping carts started to mysteriously roll away on their own volition.
The foundation, the owners determined, had collapsed.
Zupan’s sued the contractor and the architect for $9 million. They countersued for nonpay ment, and the parties settled their legal battle in 2007. The store never reopened.
“It’s sad that we’re really not more conve niently located to serve North Portland and Vancouver,” Don Ramey, Zupan’s director of marketing, told The Portland Sentinel after the store’s closure.
But no one made the needed repairs. Five years later, Zupan’s sold the building to Fischer for just over $1.5 million.
His bargain has yet to bear fruit. Fischer tested the market in 2018, offering to sell the still-unstable building for $2.2 million, accord
of money right now. I feel we’re likely not using it effectively in the Joint Office of Homeless Services in how we address home lessness.
“The most recent reporting on the supportive housing services measure and what we’re getting for our money, [for example]. We got $100 million from the measure. And we said we housed, invested in housing, for 1,200 people.
“I don’t believe that we have actual data and answers to the questions of: Where is the money going? What are the outcomes we’re expecting to get from our community-based organizations that we’re contracting with? We say things like ‘build capacity.’ We don’t say things like, we expect to house x, y, z. That informa tion either isn’t there, I’ve asked for it time and again, or they’re holding it back from me.”
ing to an advertisement on his broker’s website. Despite the building’s “attractive contempo rary design” and “excellent visibility to I-5,” there have yet to be any takers.
The broker is now offering the vacant build ing for lease.
Russ Sheldon answered the phone at Fisch er’s company, Oregon Restaurant Services Inc. His name was listed as the registered agent on the two companies that Fischer used to pur chase Dotty’s and the beleaguered Zupan’s. He
said he works in the warehouse.
“I don’t know what he bought it for,” Sheldon said. “It is what it is—just a building right now.”
LUCAS MANFIELD.
Every week, WW examines one mysteriously vacant property in the city of Portland, explains why it’s empty, and considers what might arrive there next. Send addresses to newstips@wweek.com.
may have taken place in Washington state in 1907, according to Jack Santucci, a professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia, who just this year published More Parties or No Parties about election reform.
At one point, Santucci says, there were 98 states and localities using some form of ranked-choice voting. Then, the parties reasserted control, people got fed up with the complexities, and almost all of those places gave it up. Only two, Cambridge, Mass., and Arden, Del., have kept it going since before World War II.
Others have implemented it since then, certainly, as Portland proposes to do. Minneapolis adopted it in 2006. Benton County, Ore., jumped on board in 2016. Alaska used it for the first time this year. It’s big overseas, too, in Australia, Ireland, Scotland and elsewhere.
BY ANTHONY EFFINGER ae nger@wweek.com ILLUSTRATIONS BY MCKENZIE YOUNG-ROY
Not everyone knows how a combustion engine works. But few people avoid cars because they can’t describe in detail how gasoline ignites, drives pistons, and creates forward motion.
Melanie Billings-Yun, co-chair of the Portland Charter Commission, says people should think of ranked-choice voting with multimember districts the same way as their cars. That’s the perspective she recommends voters take when they consider whether to approve a new structure for city government on Nov. 8.
You don’t have to know exactly how it works, just that it does.
The new charter proposes linked changes that would each be big on their own—and many people are hung up on the new voting method in particular. Among them is Oregon state Rep. Rob Nosse, a Democrat from deep-blue Southeast Portland. Last week, Nosse said he planned to vote no on charter reform in part because, after reading the description, he doesn’t understand exactly how it would work.
“It does not read like the candidates who get the most votes win,” Nosse wrote in The Southeast Examiner. “I think that is a recipe for suspicion and mistrust. How votes are counted and who wins must be straightforward, especially in a rank choice system.”
In short, Nosse wants to know more about how the car works before he gets in it.
We at WW did, too. First, we called a number of experts, including a college professor who has just written a book on voting reform, a software guy who has been studying this stuff for years (election methods pretty much are all math), a die-hard advocate for ranked-choice voting, and Billings-Yun, twice.
They were tough conversations. They featured terms like “droop quota” and “surplus fraction.” And almost everyone sent us off to watch videos that featured cartoon characters or Post-it notes and sing-song narrators guaranteeing that this stuff really works.
Along the way, we learned the history of rankedchoice voting. It was big during the Progressive Era, from the 1890s to the 1920s, when people became enraged at party bosses and disillusioned with democracy. The first ranked-choice elections
The goal of ranked-choice voting is to capture the greatest possible expression of voter sentiment and seek as much consensus as possible. If you have one vote in a race for City Council, and your candidate loses, your sentiment was barely expressed, and there is little consensus. RCV, as it’s known, also seeks “proportional representation,” meaning that the demographics of the elected body match the demographics of the electorate.
Portland reformers hope to do that by having four geographic districts with three city commissioners each. They say that combination ensures that candidates who wouldn’t have a chance in a two-way race, but have a large constituency, might still end up in office—without being spoilers.
In short, you could vote for Ralph Nader without torpedoing Al Gore.
Even after all the interviews, though, we still didn’t really understand ranked-choice voting. So we held a series of mock elections in our office, using beloved fairy-tale characters like Mother Goose and the Big Bad Wolf as the candidates. (We hope they’re beloved. Send complaints about the choice of fairy-tale characters to my editor: amesh@wweek.com.) It involved cutting up scraps up of five colors of paper and stacking them three high to simulate three choices for one district. Each pile became a vote. Then, we followed the rules to see how the ballot of an average voter, we’ll call him Thomas Lauderdale, would fare if picked the Tooth Fairy, Gretel and Mother Goose, in that order.
The secret sauce in ranked-choice voting with multimember districts is that votes don’t die after one round. They are recycled through several rounds of counting, doing more work to express voter sentiment, and to build consensus, with each round.
This is called ranked-choice voting with a “single transferable vote.” What that means: Each voter has one vote, and it can transfer to a second or third choice if the voter’s first choice is defeated early.
And once Mother Goose gets enough votes to win a seat, her “surplus” votes also get shared with others because she doesn’t need them!
We’re printing the results of our mock election here, with descriptions of what happens in each round of counting.
We hope our play-by-play will make things clearer. It took us hours to figure out how this car really runs, and we’re still picking up paper scraps. But we’re pretty sure it works as advertised, if you just want to rank your picks and drive off the lot.
Round 1: With three spots available in this district and 36 voters, a candidate needs 10 votes to win a spot on the City Council, or about 28%. The Tooth Fairy clinches a spot in one round of counting! No other candidate does.
Round 1: No candidate gets 10 votes, so there is no winner, yet.
Round 1: Again, nobody gets 10 votes, which they need to claim one of the three seats on the council, so we go to…
We tried to imagine how voting would work under the city’s proposed charter reforms.
Scenario 1: A blowout, in which Thomas supports the front-runner, the Tooth Fairy.
Round 2: Among the remaining four, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated. That’s Big Bad Wolf, with five. Voters who had him as their first choice now get their second choice. Hansel gets another vote, and Gretel gets four more, pushing her over 10.
Round 2: Big Bad Wolf, with the least votes, is eliminated. Second-choice votes on those ballots are allotted to Mother Goose (2), Hansel (1) and Gretel (1). Mother Goose gets to 11, more than enough to win.
Round 3: Mother Goose is eliminated. Voters who chose her first get their second choice, but it doesn’t matter because only three remain: the Tooth Fairy, Hansel and Gretel.
Result: Thomas Lauderdale sees his first and second choices elected, but his third doesn’t make the cut.
Round 2: Gretel, with just six votes, is eliminated. The second-choice votes on those Gretel ballots are passed to the other candidates, giving Big Bad Wolf and Mother Goose three more each. No one who chose Gretel first chose Hansel second, so he picks up no new votes and stays at seven.
Round 3: This is where it gets trickier. Mother Goose has more than enough votes to win—by one vote—so that one extra vote is divvied up among the 11 voters who chose Mother Goose so they can send it to their second choice. One divided by 11 is 0.09. Only one voter who chose Mother Goose first chose Hansel second, so he collects 0.09 of a vote. But seven voters who chose Mother Goose first chose Gretel second, so Gretel gets 0.63 of a vote (7 times 0.09). All the excess votes have been distributed, and still no one besides Mother Goose has hit 10, so we have to cull the herd again.
Round 4: Hansel has the least votes, 8.09, and he is eliminated, leaving the Tooth Fairy and Gretel, who pick up Hansel’s second-place votes and win, both because they have enough votes and because they are among the last three.
Result: All of Thomas’ choices are elected!
Round 3: Hansel is eliminated and his votes are redistributed, leaving Big Bad Wolf, the Tooth Fairy and Mother Goose as winners.
Result: Thomas’ first choice, the Tooth Fairy, and his third choice, Mother Goose, are elected. His second choice, Gretel, loses. Poor Gretel! But Thomas feels enfranchised!
Diego Hernandez filed a conduct complaint against Tina Kotek more than 600 days ago. He got the final report only after a cry of distress.
BY NIGEL JAQUISS njaquiss@wweek.comPreviously unreported emails cast new light on a long-running investigation into whether gubernatorial candidate and former House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland) unfairly punished a fellow Democrat, former state Rep. Diego Hernandez, for refusing to vote with her on a 2019 bill that cut public employee benefits.
“She personally and politically threatened me when I vocally articulated why I wasn’t going to vote for a bill,” Hernandez wrote in the complaint he submitted to the Legislative Equity Office on Jan. 25, 2021. “The speaker met with me three times and harassed me and threatened my personal livelihood, career and bills.”
Legislative rules say investigations into ha rassment complaints will be handled by inde pendent investigators and “must be completed within 84 days from the date the complaint is made.”
Last week, 609 days after Hernandez filed his complaint, Melissa Healy, a Stoel Rives lawyer hired by the equity office, finally produced her investigative report into Hernandez’s com plaint. She shared a draft with him and Kotek.
Healy wrote that the glacial pace of her work had nothing to do with Kotek’s campaign for governor, instead blaming the difficulty of con necting with witnesses and “work-flow issues.”
She interviewed just five witnesses.
Healy’s draft, first reported by Oregon Public Broadcasting, anticipated criticism.
“Neither the investigation, nor the timing or delivery of this report, has been in any way influenced by the elections cycle,” she wrote.
Healy’s draft finds that Kotek probably did what Hernandez claimed but that her conduct did not violate legislative rules.
“The evidence more closely supports Her nandez’s version of the events,” Healy wrote.
“That said, even assuming Hernandez’s recol lection is correct, the evidence does not suggest that the conversation was anything more than what Kotek characterized as a ‘contentious political conversation on a tough day in my role as Speaker.’”
Hernandez’s story is complicated. The East Portland native first won election in 2016 and showed early promise. In May 2019, Kotek des perately needed votes to cut public employee benefits so she could in turn win support for the billion-dollar Student Success Act. But Hernandez rebuffed what he and Kotek both told Healy were Kotek’s strong arguments that he needed to get on board.
Then, in March 2020, an ex-girlfriend, An drea Valderrama, sought a restraining order against Hernandez. After two other women also complained, Kotek called on him to resign.
Over the course of the next year, investigators for the Legislative Equity Office built a case against him based on complaints he’d harassed women in the Capitol.
In January 2021, as pressure mounted on Hernandez, he filed his complaint against
Kotek, citing her conduct around the 2019 vote to cut public employee benefits. He al leged she had threatened to kill his priority bills and end his career over the vote, offering contemporaneous text messages and the names of witnesses.
Kotek says the move was simply a ploy to deflect attention from his own actions.
The following month, in February 2021, the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Conduct rec ommended that Hernandez be expelled from the House. He resigned before the issue came to a vote on the House floor. (Valderrama, then chair of the David Douglas School Board and a former aide to Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler, won the appointment to replace him.)
Meanwhile, Hernandez’s complaint against Kotek moved slowly. Records show the investi gation didn’t start until he formally signed the complaint in June 2021.
A long trail of email exchanges between him and Stoel Rives lawyers show that Hernandez provided information about other witnesses and repeatedly pushed for a resolution.
Nearly a year ago, for instance, Healy told Hernandez she was almost finished with her work.
“I am hoping to wrap things up in the next month or so,” Healy wrote to Hernandez on Oct. 13, 2021, “but that may vary based on schedul ing and a couple other factors.”
On April 27, 2022, six months later, Healy again promised progress. “I completed the fact-finding the week before last (it was de
layed due to witness availability) and am now working on the report, which will be released as soon as possible,” she wrote to Hernandez.
Emails WW obtained suggest Healy’s report might have continued to languish, except Her nandez notified her and others last month of a personal crisis.
“Three weeks ago, I attempted suicide,” Her nandez wrote in a Sept. 19 email to Healy, as well as another Stoel Rives lawyer, a legislative staffer, and a lawmaker. (Hernandez later gave the email to WW.)
“My overall traumatizing and toxic expe rience in the legislature did lead to the dete rioration of my mental and physical health.” (A friend of Hernandez’s confirms the suicide attempt.)
Hernandez went on to say that the “extremely delayed process” of his complaint against Kotek had been weighing on him.
“I have been waiting for updates,” Hernandez wrote. “I’ve texted, called, emailed.…I’m still in waiting.”
Seven days later, Healy issued her draft re port. She did not respond to questions, includ ing whether Hernandez’s email prompted the release.
One of the people Hernandez copied on his message of distress was state Rep. Daniel Bon ham (R-The Dalles), a co-chair of the Legisla ture’s Joint Committee on Conduct.
The letter prompted Bonham to write a Sept. 20 letter to House Speaker Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis) expressing concerns Bonham says he first heard back in April “that the pro cess was being manipulated because of the current gubernatorial primary.”
“The suspicions of the former members who participated in this investigation is that this is all about politics—and the delay is due to a desire to protect Tina Kotek in the upcoming gubernatorial election,” wrote Bonham, who has endorsed Kotek’s GOP opponent, Christine Drazan.
“It is clear to me this process is broken,” Bonham continued. “Those with power and authority will always find a way to avoid the very scrutiny they wish to impose upon others.”
Through a spokesman, Speaker Rayfield says he had no control over the timing of the inves tigation and is disappointed it took so long.
Kotek flatly rejects the assertion that she had anything to do with slowing the investigation of Hernandez’s complaint.
“Tina provided quick responses when the investigator reached out,” says Kotek spokes woman Katie Wertheimer. “She knew that the report would confirm that these were baseless accusations, and was frustrated by the delays. She has no knowledge about what caused the delays.”
In a response Kotek sent to the Conduct Committee, she wrote that she felt vindicated and called Hernandez’s allegations a “blatant attempt to distract people from his own harm ful behavior.”
Hernandez could not be reached for com ment on Kotek’s assertion.
STRETCH RUN: Former House Speaker Tina Kotek is locked in a close governor’s race with Republican Christine Drazan. BLAKE BENARD“It is clear to me this process is broken.”
Firefighters are being forced to work overtime— part of a near $20 million cost to the bureau.
BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.comPortland Fire & Rescue spent nearly $20 million on overtime pay this past fiscal year. That’s a 54% increase from two years prior—a spike that onlookers say signals something is very wrong within the fire bureau.
But for the Portland Firefighters Association, which represents all 644 sworn Portland firefighters, the rising price tag isn’t the most troubling part of the story.
What most concerns the union is that firefighters over the past fiscal year worked more than 16,000 hours of mandatory overtime— extra hours they were forced to clock. That’s 275% more hours than they were forced to work the year before, and firefighters are penalized if they don’t show up for mandatory overtime shifts.
Union president Isaac McLennan says the ranks are exhausted and demoralized.
“We’re at a breaking point,” McLennan says. “I’d literally never seen a mandatory shift until protests and COVID-19. When we heard they were mandatory, we were just floored. We saw this coming and we warned [the city].”
On the heels of a consultant’s recent report on behalf of the fire bureau—which showed chronic understaffing, stations left unstaffed in the most vulnerable parts of East Portland, and less than optimal response times—the cost of overtime is another warning sign of something amiss.
Portland Fire & Rescue spokeswoman Kezia Wanner says the bureau “is assessing the suf-
ficiency of the current number of authorized firefighters” and adds that a primary driver of the spike in mandatory overtime hours was COVID leave.
The bureau would not comment on whether it’s striking the correct balance between paying overtime and hiring new firefighters—though for the first time in the bureau’s history, Fire Chief Sara Boone made 13 lateral hires this spring to staff up.
The union argues that the figures speak for themselves—and factor into its decision not to endorse the reelection of City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who oversees the fire bureau.
“That number itself is shocking,” McLennan says. “It’s not our fault that we’re short so many people. You’re forcing us back to work for fear of discipline. Morale in the fire bureau is the lowest I’ve ever experienced in my career.”
A number of factors created the staffing shortage and spike in overtime hours at the fire bureau.
Twice in the past decade, the bureau paused its training academy. The academy currently graduates an average of 24 firefighters a year. The last time it paused was under Fire Chief Mike Myers in 2019.
“When they did that, we were flush with people. It seemed like the fiscally smart thing to do,” McLennan says, “but it takes two years to make a firefighter.”
A pause on the academy for three years beginning in 2011 also shorted the bureau dozens of new firefighters. Meanwhile, older firefighters continued to retire as the workload for existing firefighters climbed.
Another contributing factor was the labor contract the union and city negotiated in 2019. The union scored several substantial wins: a shorter workweek and more vacation leave.
To make up for increased vacation leave and the shorter work week, the city agreed to add $5 million in funding for 34,200 additional overtime hours. It was then-union president Alan Ferschweiler’s understanding, per documents
he saw during negotiations with the city, that 14 full-time firefighter positions would be added in the next budget. (Documents obtained by WW are ambiguous on that count.)
But no such funding for additional firefighters was included. (Wanner says the bureau is, however, “taking measures to bring down overtime costs” by requesting funding in the fall budgeting cycle for 13 additional firefighters.)
Randy Leonard, a fire union president in the 1980s and ’90s and later a city commissioner who oversaw the fire bureau, says the $20 million overtime price tag is a signal that the bureau hasn’t hired consistently.
“I would conclude they just don’t have enough firefighters working. They need to hire more firefighters,” Leonard says.
The bureau’s number of firefighters has remained mostly stagnant for 20 years, while Portland’s population has steadily grown, as has the number of calls for service.
In 2011, firefighters responded to just over 67,000 calls. In 2021, that number ballooned to 86,000.
Union leaders say the effects of hiring decisions over the past decade are finally coming to bear on firefighters working today.
Last Thursday, for instance, 29 firefighters worked overtime shifts out of 169 on duty daily, according to McLennan. That means 17% of the firefighters that worked Sept. 29 made 1.5 times their normal pay.
Firefighters’ exasperation boiled over this summer, when the Portland Firefighters Association asked Commissioner Hardesty for double pay for overtime hours worked this summer. Chief Boone supported the request, but later advised Hardesty in a Sept. 8 email reviewed by WW not to grant the request now that mandatory overtime would likely fall throughout the winter.
“Our understanding is that the financial analysis is what led to Chief Boone not supporting the proposal at this time, despite previously advocating for this proposal,” says Hardesty spokesman Matt McNally.
(The union argues Boone’s reversal was because the critical time had passed. The chief’s office did not respond to a request for comment.)
Hardesty didn’t grant the request, though emails reviewed by WW show her office did consider the idea and consult with other chiefs of staff. “I think it’s bad public policy to pick out a small group of public employees and pay them double time,” Hardesty says—and she criticized Commissioner Mingus Mapps for granting double time for 911 dispatchers who echoed similar dissatisfaction.
McLennan says Hardesty’s refusal to bring a double-time proposal to the Portland City Council was “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and one of the reasons the union endorsed Rene Gonzalez for City Council—Hardesty’s opponent whose platform focuses on
supporting police and enforcing anti-camping laws.
“Our fire commissioner should be a champion of the fire department,” McLennan says. “I’m not seeing a champion for the fire department. She says she is, but just saying it does not make it so.”
Hardesty contests that characterization.
In a recent endorsement interview, Hardesty said that “no commissioner has done more for the fire bureau” than she has. She pointed to the $5 million in overtime added to the fire budget to allow for increased vacation leave and a recent $2.1 million federal grant to reopen a station in East Portland and hire six additional firefighters.
She added that she “inherited decades of neglect” at the bureau and has fought against budget cuts, restricted tent camping in wildfire hazard zones, banned fireworks, and added mental health resources for firefighters.
“I would challenge anyone to find someone who has done more to modernize Portland Fire & Rescue during a three-year period than I have as fire commissioner,” Hardesty says.
Ferschweiler, the union president before McLennan, agrees Hardesty battled to keep fire staffing levels stable, fought back decreases in the fire budget, and negotiated the latest contract favorable to firefighters.
“She fought to make sure we didn’t have any budget reductions for our fire stations over the past two budget cycles,” Ferschweiler says. “And she fought to keep our stations open.”
Union members soured, however, at offhand comments Hardesty made, he says. “When all the protesting was going on downtown, it was a bad time for her, but she said, ‘The protesters put out the fire. The fire bureau couldn’t even put it out.’ Our members just about lost their shit.” (Her exact quote: “Neither police or fire and rescue could have put those fires out.”)
And while the number of calls over the past five years has remained steady, the duties of the fire bureau have changed substantially because of the deepening homelessness crisis: Nearly 1 in 2 fires the bureau responded to in 2021 occurred at homeless camps.
Ferschweiler and McLennan agree the increase in homelessness has made their jobs harder.
“There’s no working smoke detectors in these tents,” Ferschweiler says. “The very thing we worked hard to do, [policies around homelessness] are reversing that.”
Leonard, the fire union president throughout the ’80s and ’90s, says the mandatory overtime hours show firefighters are reaching a breaking point.
“My reaction isn’t that I’m alarmed at the overtime, but the impact on the existing firefighters has to be compelling,” Leonard says. “It’s got to be a burden to go to work in the morning and for someone to call you and say, ‘You’re not going home today.’ That sounds depressing to me.”
STRETCHED
Christine Drazan’s rapid ascent poises her on the brink of the governor’s office.
BY CONNOR RADNOVICH connor.d.radnovich@gmail.com PHOTOS BY TIM TRAUTMANN
CONTINUED ON PAGE 16
F our years ago, the last time Oregon elected a governor, Christine Dra zan had never held elected office. She wasn’t influential, well known or feared.
Today, polling suggests she could be Oregon’s next governor.
A recent poll by DHM Research shows Drazan, the Republican nominee, with a 1-point lead over Democrat Tina Kotek—and far ahead of unaffil iated candidate Betsy Johnson. Most national election forecasters have handicapped Oregon’s gubernatorial race as a “toss-up.”
“There’s a pretty darn good chance that Dra zan could win,” says Pacific University political science professor Jim Moore.
Drazan’s rise to this point is as fast as any in modern Oregon politics. Observers tell WW that’s because opponents have repeatedly underesti mated her.
Behind a polite exterior, the 50-year-old former House minority leader from Canby maximized the power of a severely outnumbered Republican caucus by playing hardball that blindsided Salem veterans.
“She’s uniquely talented and incredibly ruth less,” says Greg Leo, a longtime lobbyist and for mer chairman of the Oregon Republican Party. “She rose quickly and broke some china in the process.”
Given that Oregon Democrats hold a 9.5-point voter registration advantage over Republicans and have won every governor’s race since 1986, it takes a bit of imagination to see Drazan’s path to victory.
But with Kotek trying to succeed the nation’s least popular governor and having to contend
with the well-funded, charismatic Johnson’s efforts to peel away moderate Democrats, Dra zan is in an unusually strong position for a Re publican running statewide. And she’s running a campaign focused on problems that are easy to pin on Democrats—crime and homelessness, especially in Kotek’s hometown of Portland— while downplaying her unpopular positions on national issues (she scrubbed her anti-abortion stance from her campaign website).
Drazan’s greatest strength: She wasn’t in charge when she says Oregon hit the skids.
She can also argue that she stood up to the people who were.
WW interviewed more than three dozen sourc es for this story, including a dozen who asked for anonymity so they could speak honestly about Drazan without fear of repercussions. We found a politician on whom more experienced oppo nents have difficulty landing a punch—because her time in office has been so brief and produced few signature achievements.
It’s also because she’s used a strategy for success in a state where Republicans are outnumbered: The only way to win is not to play.
Those observers agreed that the key to under standing Drazan is the walkout she led in 2020 to oppose the passage of a bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
That walkout, while it had little practical effect, proved Drazan’s ability to galvanize her party and sparked a mutual antipathy between her and Kotek.
It also showcased what Drazan promises Ore gonians now. If elected, she has proven she can effectively thwart Democrats’ agenda.
“They were going to run over anyone who stood in their way,” says state Rep. Shelly Boshart Davis (R-Albany), assistant leader of the House Repub licans. “The person who stood in their way was a little redhead named Christine Drazan.”
Drazan grew up poor, the daughter of a dad who worked in lumber mills and a mom who battled multiple sclerosis. “She’s got an interesting log cabin story,” Leo says. “She came up from the trailers in Klamath Falls.”
Drazan recalls having few pennies to rub to gether. “There wasn’t really a time that money wasn’t an issue while I was living at home,” she says. “We moved and moved and moved.”
She graduated from George Fox University in 1993 with a degree in communications before joining the Oregon Legislature as a staffer two years later. She rose to chief of staff for former House Speaker Mark Simmons (R-Elgin). “She always had her shit together,” Simmons recalls. “She did her homework.”
It was in his office that Drazan witnessed House Democrats walk out of the Capitol in June 2001, denying Republicans the quorum needed to pass a new congressional district map.
“Kate Brown walked out with ’em,” Simmons recalls. “People don’t want to hear about that now. Democrats used to walk out when it benefited them. And now the unions want to make walking
out a capital offense.”
Simmons saw no signs that Drazan would ever seek the state’s highest office. “She was intent on being a mother,” he says.
She stayed in the Capitol until 2003, then moved into lobbying, first as political coordinator for the Oregon Restaurant & Lodging Associa tion, then as executive director of the Cultural Advocacy Coalition of Oregon, a nonprofit that seeks to expand access to arts and culture.
Nancy Golden was a board member for that
At George Fox University, Drazan acted in plays and was on the year book staff.
coalition. She says Drazan was pivotal in helping CAC secure $6 million annually from lawmakers for arts organizations and muse ums. “I come from an education background,” Golden says, “and I thought that she would have been a great teacher.”
Arts funding is typically the turf of Portland liberals. But Drazan has a lifelong love of mu sic and theater. “I just really love the tradition of going to see plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Fes tival,” she says. Her radio dial is programmed to 96.3 FM, a con temporary Christian station, and 98.7 FM, a country station nick named “The Bull.”
She and her husband, Dan, a lawyer in Portland, had three children. (They now range in age from a senior in college to a soph omore in high school.) And she watched as Republicans, who outnumbered Dem ocrats in the Legislature for most of the 1990s, drifted into irrelevance.
“I can tell you,” Drazan said in an interview with WW, “the whole world is turned upside down with single-party control.”
Drazan ran for office in 2018, winning an easy victory for a House seat representing Canby.
Within months, she challenged the caucus leader ship of then-House Minority Leader Carl Wilson (R-Grants Pass).
Each party elects a leader for its side of the aisle. That person has control over how the caucus will prioritize elections and oversight of political strategies in the Legislature. It’s common for caucus elections to be hotly contested—but less so for a rookie lawmaker to usurp a leadership role.
One issue that fueled Drazan’s takeover: wheth er House Republicans should walk out of the Cap itol and deny Democrats the minimum number of lawmakers that must be present to pass bills.
As a rookie lawmaker, Drazan rose to her feet in a caucus meeting in June 2019 and said her fellow GOP House members should not accept losing. Instead, they should join Senate Republicans and leave the Capitol.
Walkouts are effective because Oregon has a two-thirds quorum requirement, meaning even with a supermajority, Democrats still need some Republicans present in the legislative chamber to conduct any business.
Before the 2019 legislative session, many Re publicans viewed quorum-denying walkouts as a nuclear option: useful as a deterrent in nego tiations but ultimately damaging to everyone if deployed.
Republicans blasted bills they disliked in lengthy floor speeches. But when the speeches finally ended, the minority party could only cast futile “no” votes.
To traditionalists like Carl Wilson, the role of the minority party is principled dissent. (He did not return calls seeking comment for this story.)
And the caucus rejected Drazan’s pitch. House Republicans stayed.
POWER COUPLE: Drazan and her husband, Dan, have raised three children and spend their free time on the Oregon Coast.
JTBut Drazan’s unusual boldness made an im pression on her colleagues. Three months later, House Republicans held a vote on who should lead the caucus. Drazan was elected that night, cutting Wilson’s expected two-year term as leader to a scant eight months. (The day after the vote, five House Republican office staff members sub mitted letters of resignation.)
“She was like a Michael Jordan in the caucus,” says state Rep. Daniel Bonham (R-Hood River), who entered the House shortly before Drazan. “That’s the person who needs the ball at the end of the game. She’s just that exceptional.”
During her time as a lawmaker, Chris tine Drazan earned a reputation for sky-high expectations and treating the people she worked with harshly when those expectations were not met.
One case involved an employee of the Oregon Health Authority, according to documents obtained by WW via a public records request.
The dispute occurred in August 2019, when Drazan was connected by tele phone with a coordinator of dependent eligibility review for the Public Employ ees Benefit Board at OHA, according to a series of emails and handwritten notes taken during a later conversa tion between the coordinator and the Oregon Legislature’s human resources director.
According to the OHA employee, Drazan was “incredibly angry” during the call, “yelling” and attempting to use her position to intimidate the employee to obtain special treatment.
At issue: One of Drazan’s children did not have dental insurance for an appointment. According to the employ ee’s complaint, Drazan’s insurance for her child was suspended after Drazan did not respond to emails asking her to provide documents confirming continued eligibility. State employees and their dependents are occasionally subject to eligibility review by PEBB.
When the employee told Drazan she needed to provide the documents before the insurance could be restored, Drazan asked the employee if she knew who Drazan was and demanded to be put back on insurance right away, the employee alleged.
After the employee told Drazan that was not possible, the employee alleges Drazan called Patrick Allen, director of the Oregon Health Authority. Allen, with other top OHA o cials, decided to put Drazan back on the insurance immediately and allow her 60 days to submit the needed documentation, the employee alleged.
The employee—whose name was redacted from the documents WW ob tained—said in her complaint she had never experienced anyone trying to use
their position to get around the rules, despite having worked with other pow erful public employees, such as judges, district attorneys and state senators.
As a remedy, the employee asked Drazan to apologize. The day after the complaint was filed, Drazan dropped o to human resources a handwritten note on lined notebook paper that read:
“Dear [redacted ], I sincerely apolo gize for my interaction with you earlier this week. I should have been more patient—and polite. Please accept my sincere apology. Sincerely, Christine Drazan.”
In a follow-up email with the HR director, the employee acknowledged Drazan’s apology was what she had asked for and hoped that “in the future she does not use her position to try and intimidate to get her way.”
Allen, via a spokesman, refused to respond to the allegation that he and other OHA o cials improperly used their positions to benefit an elected o cial. The health authority would not provide any additional details on the case.
The Drazan campaign denies she improperly used her position to circum vent PEBB rules.
“We wholly reject the premise that Christine abused her power in any way or received any special treatment from the Oregon Health Authority,” cam paign spokesman John Burke said in a statement. “As any parent would, she was making sure her family and her children had access to care they were entitled to.”
Drazan is also said to have directed her anger at legislative aides.
Several individuals say she had a hab it of “bullying” and “demeaning” sta , both in private and in front of other lawmakers.
One source with firsthand knowledge says Drazan was the subject of three informal complaints to the Legislative Equity O ce by the end of 2020 due to treatment of sta .
Drazan calls those claims “baseless.”
CR.
Drazan’s ascent wasn’t achieved alone. She had the backing of Shaun Jillions—per haps the most aggressive figure in Oregon business lobbying.
Jillions is a gregarious character: a burly back-slapper who likes University of Oregon ath letics nearly as much as he dislikes taxes. Jillions, the longtime lobbyist for the Oregon Association of Realtors, which controls one of Salem’s largest PACs, spending about $1 million annually, also founded Oregon Manufacturers and Commerce in 2018, bringing together the state’s largest tim ber companies with smokestack industries. The combined might of his clients and his willingness to play hardball make him a force in Salem.
Two people familiar with the internal politics of the Oregon GOP tell WW it was Jillions who pitched Wilson on the idea of House Repub licans walking out in 2019. Those sources say it was also Jillions who helped build support for Drazan’s candidacy to lead the caucus.
Jillions con firmed to WW that he had lost confidence in Wilson but denies walkouts were at issue and says his role in Dra zan’s rise is overblown. “Members knew I had no faith in former Rep. Wilson’s ability to successfully run cam paigns,” he says. “I view [the implication] as in sulting that she wouldn’t be where she is if not for me. I have zero doubt, if Shaun Jillions wasn’t in Salem, she’d be in the exact same spot.”
As soon as Drazan took leadership, she demon strated she was prepared to execute a new, con frontational approach.
During her first floor speech as Republican leader, she made her position clear. “I’m not here to advance someone else’s political agenda,” Dra zan said on Feb. 6, 2020.
What that meant: She would not capitulate to Democrats. Republicans would be equals in Salem, even if that’s not what most Oregonians had voted for.
In high-leverage negotiations, she was rarely willing to give an inch.
“I always enjoyed talking with her,” says state Rep. Barbara Smith Warner (D-Portland), House
“I’M NOT HERE TO ADVANCE SOMEONE ELSE’S POLITICAL AGENDA.”
majority leader under Kotek. “We had extremely pleasant conversations, but she never brought anything to the table.”
Heading into the 35-day legislative session in 2020, Democrats planned to ram through a rewritten cap-and-trade bill.
Republicans walked out. First, senators left. Then, House Republicans under Drazan’s lead ership did what they would not do the year prior: They left too.
It worked: Although outnumbered 38 to 22 in the House, Republicans won. More than 250 bills died that session. Just three passed.
To the party in power, Drazan’s move was an affront to the rules of democracy.
“I just felt like she moved away from the demo cratic process and our rules, and every opportu nity to obstruct became her agenda,” says state Rep. Paul Holvey (D-Eugene).
Smith Warner is more blunt: “Our caucus had no interest in negotiating with terrorists.”
Indeed, public employee unions are now asking voters to ban the practice of walkouts this No vember—placing Drazan and her defining tactic on the same ballot.
But to Republicans, long bereft of power in
Drazan chats with former CIA director Mike Pompeo at the Washington County Repub lican Party’s Reagan Dinner last month.
Salem, Drazan’s willingness to fight the Demo cratic steamroller was inspiring. “They wanted us to vote no and say thank you,” Boshart Davis says. “When Christine got in the way, that’s when you saw fireworks.”
The volatile relationship with Kotek exploded a year later, when the House speaker, exhausted by Drazan’s delay tactics, gave Republicans equal say in drawing new state legislative and congressional district maps—then reneged on the deal.
What finally propelled her into the race for governor, Drazan says, was the prospect of seeing Kotek win that position instead.
“I went through that redistricting process in particular with Tina Kotek, and her complete and total abject failure as a human being to keep her word and not lie is shocking to me,” Drazan says. “She cannot be governor of the state of Oregon.”
State Sen. Tim Knopp (R-Bend) sensed Dra zan’s frustrations in dealing with Kotek. He and several colleagues were impressed enough with Drazan’s effectiveness at thwarting Democrats in 2021 to ask her if she’d like to move up to the Senate.
“She said, ‘I’d rather be governor,’” Knopp re calls.
razan’s brief legislative career consisted of blocking Democrats’ agenda.
“There was no legislative agenda com ing from her other than to obstruct,” Holvey says.
As a candidate for governor, Drazan’s dubbed her plan the Roadmap for Oregon’s Future. It’s a generic list—safer streets, better schools, less red tape—perhaps because Drazan knows if she is elected, she’s mostly going to be playing defense.
Given Democrats’ voter registration advantage, Republicans have little chance of winning control of either chamber of the Legislature this year.
But there is plenty Drazan can do on her own.
She has promised to “tear up” Gov. Kate Brown’s executive order addressing climate change, fire Brown’s agency directors, and de clare a homelessness state of emergency. (After the primary, Drazan scrubbed from her website mentions of her pro-life position, supporting the Second Amendment, and “securing” the state’s elections.)
Moreover, having a Republican in the gover nor’s office would provide the GOP with a veto over any legislation it finds objectionable, without the need for a walkout.
“As governor, she will use the veto pen so much, she’ll make Dr. No look like a lightweight,” says Leo, referring to the nickname former Gov. John Kitzhaber earned for vetoing Republican bills from 1995 to 2003.
As governor, Drazan says she would end the overreach she says defines Democratic control.
“I actually view government as having an es sential role,” she says, “that should effectively advance core functions and not be all things to all people.”
Leo wonders if she can reach across the aisle.
“The governor’s job is to persuade,” he says. “Can she have that kind of smoothness and charm? It remains to be seen. She’s kind of a partisan warrior.”
But others in her party think a Drazan gover norship would achieve the bipartisan balance she’s always sought. “The Legislature will be forced to work with the governor and be accom modating,” says former state Sen. Kevin Mannix (R-Salem), who twice ran for governor. “I’m old school. I believe in that kind of dialogue.”
Such backers point to Drazan spurning the secessionist movement in Eastern Oregon. Only Drazan can draw those alienated rural counties back into Oregon’s social compact, they say.
“I’d be over the moon if we got a set of checks and balances in there,” says state Sen. Lynn Find ley (R-Vale). “We walked a lot, but we walked because we were completely ignored. Why is my voice irrelevant?”
For the next six weeks, Drazan will cast voters’ decision as the same binary choice she’s seen the world with for years: me or a state ruled by Tina Kotek.
Her walkout worked, she says, and with her in the governor’s office, Republicans can finally bring checks and balances back to Salem.
“I have been up against Tina Kotek when the deck has been stacked and when the math was tough,” Drazan says. “This is the year for Repub licans to win. This is an opportunity to actually make a difference.”
For the first time in two years, there was dancing in the streets outside Holy Trinity Greek Ortho dox Cathedral. The Portland Greek Festival re turned Sept. 30 through Oct. 2 following a pan demic hiatus, bringing back all of its traditions, including a food lineup of baklava, gyros, souvla ki and the always popular spit-roasted lamb. The event began in 1952 as a means to help pay off the Northeast Portland church’s mortgage. It’s now one of the largest festivals of its kind.
Thursday, Oct. 6
Vino Veritas, named Portland’s Best Wine Bar in our Best of Portland readers’ poll this year, is hosting pianists every Thurs day evening in October, starting with local celeb Tom Grant. Grant joins the venue’s resident musician, Brent Follis, who’s known for his swing beats and masterful percussion. Vino Veritas welcomes all levels of wine drinkers, from legit snob to box enthusiast, but no matter where you are on that spectrum, keep in mind that reservations are recommended. Vino Veritas, 7835 SE Stark St., 503-208-2583, vinoveritaspdx.com. 7:30-10 pm Thursday, Oct. 6. No cover.
Portland’s fashion scene isn’t all socks and sandals—there’s a bustling community of creatives with visionary style and tons of talent, and they’re eager to share their collections live, in person, for the first time in two years. Downtown’s Union Bank Tower will be equipped with a catwalk for local creators as well as designers visiting from New York City and other top fashion destinations. Highlights during FashioNXT Week include a runway competition for emerging brands and nightly opportuni ties to rub stylishly adorned elbows with brand reps and designers at pre-show cocktail parties and exhibits. Union Bank
Tower, 407 SW Broadway, fashionxt.com. 6 pm Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 6-8. $35$175.
Beaverton’s brand-spankin’-new Patricia Reser Center for the Arts hosts American blues musician and five-time Grammy Award winner Keb’ Mo’. Before playing his guitar- and banjo-driven blues, Keb’ Mo’ is set to talk about his career and creative process with Oregon State University rock historian Bob Santelli. The evening is part of OSU’s American Strings series, so it also promises to bring insight to the importance of stringed instruments in the American musical canon. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 SW Crescent St., Beaverton, 971-501-7722, thereser.org. 7:30 pm Friday, Oct. 7. $30.
Lance Edward, named one of WW ’s Funniest Five in 2019, and a handful of emerging comics try to put a positive spin on your problems at this semi-regular showcase. Audience-submitted sugges tions fuel a cathartic romp, and this is one of the few times you’ll ever be encouraged to bring your drama and lay it all out there. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 503841-6734, tickettailor.com/events/live
OUT OF THE BLUE: Five-time Grammy winner Keb’ Mo’ performs Friday, Oct. 7, at the new Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton.
comedy/763349. 10-11:30 pm Friday, Oct. 7. $4 in advance, $5 at the door. 21+.
Clark County’s destination casino taps into the spirit of a Bavarian Alpine village for its inaugural Oktoberfest. The parking garage rooftop biergarten (trust us, the rooftop parties here are a lot swankier than you envision) pours German beer, locally crafted brews and ciders, as well as wine. And former host of Travel Channel’s Man v. Food, Adam Richman will make the rounds as the event’s celebrity chef host. Begin your German-themed gastronomi cal spree with the O’Zapft Dinner at Rose & Thorn, complete with a celebratory keg tapping, then head to the Muze Lounge for a complimentary Skid Row concert. Ilani, 1 Cowlitz Way, Ridgefield, Wash. 877-464-5264, ilaniresort.com. Hours vary Friday-Sunday, Oct. 7-9. O’Zapft dinner $54; biergarten tickets $34-$44, include $10 in food tokens and $10 in promo play; $10 designated driver tickets.
Mushroom foraging can be equal parts delicious and terrifying. Avoid an inadver tent psilocybin adventure, gastronomic distress or worse with a bit of education from the pros during the Sunriver Fungi Fest & Mushroom Show. The fair offers
fresh mushrooms and other edible mush room products for purchase, art from local vendors and a variety of informative opportunities, including a presentation on psilocybin psychotherapy by leading experts. Sunriver Observatory & Nature Center, 57245 River Road, Sunriver, 541593-4394, fungifest.snco.org. 10 am-3 pm Saturday, Oct. 8. Free-$12.
If the cooler fall weather gets you feeling crafty, head over to the Makers Fair hosted by Hammer & Stitch Brewing in Slabtown. The indoor/outdoor block party is a collaboration between the brewery and Assemblage (formerly Makers Union PDX), with over 40 vendors on board ready to sell their wares. It’s a great opportunity to see just how many beautifully crafted ce ramic vases and scented candles you can fit onto one bookshelf at home. There will also be plenty of food and drink vendors, like Pizza Thief, Pidgin Hole, Maruka Loka Antojitos, Freeland Spirits and Hip Chicks Do Wine. Hammer & Stitch Brewing, Northwest Wilson Street between 23rd and 24th avenues, 971-254-8982, hsbrew. co/events/the-makers-fair. Noon-6 pm Saturday, Oct. 8. Free.
WHERE
5433 N Michigan Ave., 503-303-8550, saraveza. com/the-bad-habit-room. 4-10 pm Wednes day-Friday, 9 am-2 pm and 4-10 pm Satur day-Sunday.
Bad Habit Room has technically been around for about a decade, but previously opened only for weekend brunch and special events. After staying completely shuttered for two years due to the pandemic, it’s back and catering to a different crowd in the evenings. Cocktails take their inspiration from the pre-Prohibition era, and our current favorite is Moon Shoes, made with marshmallow-infused vodka, lemon,
orgeat and a splash of Son of Man harvest ver mouth that acts as a grounding agent.
16025 SW Regatta Lane, Beaverton, 503-9415251, oyatsupan.com. 8 am-3:30 pm daily.
Though best known for its milk bread and sweet rolls, Oyatsupan also serves a variety of warm beverages to go with those baked goods.
The newest menu item is a hojicha latte, a Japa nese green tea typically steamed to stop the oxidation process and then roasted, resulting in little to no bitterness as well as a low caffeine content. Oyatsupan promises it is the perfect drink to transition from summer to fall thanks to the nutty notes from the tea and the creami ness of the oat milk.
4336 SE Woodstock Blvd., 503-206-5495, dou
blemountainbrewery.com. Noon-9 pm daily.
Late summer and early fall see the wonderful collision of two very brief events at Double Mountain: heirloom tomato pie season and fresh hop season. The pizzas returned to the menu a few weeks ago, but the brewery just announced that Killer Red, Green and Juicy are all back on tap. There’s even a fresh hop edition of the Fa La La La La Winter Ale, which has been loaded with piney Centennials, so you can drink like it’s Christmas in September.
4500 SE Stark St., 503-232-8538, belmont-sta tion.com. Noon-11 pm daily.
After launching Living Häus Beer Company with two other Portland brewers at the former Modern Times location this summer, pFriem vet Gavin Lord has spun off his own project inside that same space. The brewery is named after his grandmother, who had a rough upbringing
yet became known for her hospitality, a legacy he hopes to carry on with this business. Beer nerds know Lord best for his time as head brewer at Hood River’s pFriem and, after his year off from the industry, are undoubtedly pumped by his return.
8537 N Lombard St., 503-384-2076, rockabillycafe.com. 8 am-8 pm Wednes day-Thursday and Sunday, 8 am-9 pm Fri day-Saturday.
About a month after opening last winter, Rockabilly added alcohol-soaked shakes to its menu, as if it knew we’d need another painkiller as the year wore on. Right now, you should be drinking the White Ukrainian, and not just be cause it’s trendy to protest the Russian invasion by boycotting the country’s exports along with its name. The shake’s soothing rum-and-coffee flavor is like slipping into that first light sweater of the season as we transition into fall.
The Sea Breeze Farm butcher truck—a “camion boucherie”—appeared like an apparition one late summer night on a familiar Northwest Portland street corner.
From a distance, driving by, it was hard to tell what culinary drama might be unfolding under the truck’s awning, the space drenched in come-hither white light. Clearly, something special was afoot, but what could it be? Passersby, myself included, were irresist ibly drawn to the strange new spectacle.
On closer examination, it was as though a portal to a French street market had opened. The light was emanating from a refrigerated display jutting toward the sidewalk from the rear of the truck. It was chockfull of fresh and cured meats. Rose Allred, the driver and vendor, presided energetically from inside the truck, answering visitors’ questions as she wrapped up and took payment for duck rillettes, pork cheek and belly, whole chickens, ground beef and much more.
As it turned out, both the truck and the farm that supplies it are the life and passion of Allred and her “sweetie,” George Page. Page founded Sea Breeze 22 years ago, at first farming a few acres on Vashon Island, Wash. What led him to agriculture was an occupational epiphany: His degree in physics and job selling medical devices would never suffice as a fulfilling life path. He reflected on his interest in the culinary arts, which he traced to a stay in Southern France when he was 15. Page’s love of quality food was fed by many subsequent visits to France and elsewhere in Europe as a young adult. He began his agrarian avocation with a handful of animals, at first bringing cheese and baked goods to the Seattle-area markets he used to haunt as a customer.
Allred, a solstice baby with a passion for food, first
7119 SE Milwaukie Ave., 971-200-1391, hollerpdx. com. Noon-9 pm Monday-Thursday, 11 am-9 pm Friday, 10 am-9 pm Saturday-Sunday. Doug Adams may no longer be in the kitchen at this Sellwood neighborhood chicken joint, but his popular poultry-focused offerings—a spinoff of his popular fried bird Sundays at Bullard—are still on the menu. Holler also just added a football season menu, which includes pulled pork sliders smothered in barbecue sauce, chili cheese fries, housemade onion rings and portobello wraps. With seven flat-screens and a buck off draft beer, it just got a little
more tempting to abandon your couch on game day.
joined forces with Page in 2012 as a market hand and cheese maker. The relationship turned romantic and, within the last few years, Allred and Page began a human brood, raising three children now 5, 3 and 1. Beyond child-rearing, the couple made the life-al tering decision to purchase a farm in Birkenfeld, Ore., in May 2021, and move their animals from Vashon. The Neverstill Farm, as they call it, is in the middle of Oregon’s upper-left “hump,” 90 minutes from Portland in Columbia County on surprisingly good roads. The farm is a sight to behold: 132 acres abutting forest land with a languid ribbon of the Nehalem River running through it. There is ample pasture for all the animals: cows, pigs, sheep, chicken and ducks. The old farmhouse where Allred, Page and their children live is majestic. A farm this size offered scale—it is nearly 20 times larger than the Vashon Island property—and access to the markets where Sea Breeze pops up in Seattle and, since August, in Portland.
4247, canardrestaurant.com. 11 am-2 pm and 4-9 pm daily.
If all this sounds like a food enthusiast’s dream scape, it is and it isn’t. On the one hand, Allred and Page are accomplishing their dream of supplying responsibly raised meat and bringing pleasure to the palates of their Pacific Northwest followers. On the other, it is just the two of them toiling 80 to 100 hours a week to make the magic happen: caring for the herds and the land, breaking down carcasses of large animals that are butchered for them at a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility, then transporting the meat to markets several days a week. That all must get done in addition to standard household chores and parenting. When I asked Allred about the hardest part of her life, she said, “Everything,” but she clearly would not have it any other way. Page scoffed at the notion of work-life balance. “There is no balance. We integrate our work and personal lives.”
All this leads back to the camion boucherie, or “Magic Meat Truck” as Allred and Page refer to it. Page had long been fantasizing about owning a mobile meat shop like those he saw in European farmers markets. Inquiries to potential builders in the U.S. were fruitless. In 2016, Page first contacted Euromag, a French manufacturer of such vehicles, headquar tered an hour outside Lyon. Four years, a visit to the factory, much design and customization work and $250,000 later (including the cost of shipping the truck from France in the middle of the pandemic), the dream became reality.
The truck is white with a proud red rooster, and “Sea Breeze Farm” and the motto “Grass-fed artisan meats. From our pastures to your plate” are painted on the back and side. The rig runs on electricity as do the onboard meat grinder, slicer, display case, and Allred’s fancy espresso machine—a concession to perpetual exhaustion.
When I first chatted with Allred on that late sum mer night, all I could think about was the cool new meat truck, like nothing I had seen around Portland, and a vendor who was 100% present in her chosen life. After spending time with her and Page, visiting their farm for a walkaround at their let-your-hair-down autumnal equinox party, and witnessing the magic behind the meat truck, my respect and admiration for them leapt that much higher.
The Magic Meat Truck’s Washington license plate reads “BOUCHER.” It is a fitting, if minimalist, de scription for this special pair of grand-scale dreamers.
EAT: The Sea Breeze Farm truck, seabreeze.farm, pops up at Northwest 23rd Place and Thurman Street 5-7 pm Mondays.
3951 N Mississippi Ave., 503-477-8008, tartu capdx.com. 4-10 pm Tuesday-Thursday, 11:30 am-10 pm Friday-Saturday, 11:30 am-9 pm Sunday.
If you’ve been craving some of that good ol’ Pacific Northwest farm-to-table elegance, it’s hiding in plain sight at Tartuca. Chef Jamie Wil cox runs a bustling machine of an open kitchen, pumping out dishes that are at once iconically Italian and quintessentially Oregon. She also makes sure to take advantage of the bounty of Sauvie Island and fresh herbs from neighbors’ home gardens. Since every dish is hyperseason al, don’t expect to see the same menu twice.
1500 Washington St., Oregon City, 503-344-
Would you travel 20 miles for a Salisbury steak? We’re not talking about the Swanson TV dinner of your youth, but a deliciously beefy slab of seared-and-seasoned, dry-aged ground brisket and chuck. The dish is now being served at Canard’s new Oregon City location, and it’s meant to be a “more comforting version” of the restaurant’s original duck frites. You’ll find more riffs on classics and novel offerings at the spinoff, as well as a heck of a lot more seating thanks to its spacious home in the former Grano Bakery.
1728 NE 40th Ave., 503-432-8143, ponobrewing. com. 4-10 pm Sunday-Thursday, 4 pm-midnight Friday-Saturday.
Pono fans now have a dependable place to find the brewery’s beer on tap and can accompany those pints with some stellar Pacific Island- and
Asian-inspired food. You really couldn’t go wrong with building an entire meal out of the starters, which include Filipino lumpia, kalua pork sliders, french fries topped with either more of that pig or beef bulgogi and sticky garlic shoyu wings.
11629 SW Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, 503718-7070, nothingbundtcakes.com. 10 am-6 pm daily.
If you’re the type of person who leans into fall hard—we’re talking boots and leggings daily, decorative wreaths, and trips to go “leaf-peep ing” (a semi-perverted term that, really, no one should ever use)—then you’ll want to pair your Starbucks’ PSL with Nothing Bundt Cakes’ pumpkin spice dessert. The seasonal favorite will be on the menu for only a limited time, and it comes in 10- and 8-inch cakes as well as mini Bundtlets and bite-sized Bundtinis.
Mobile butcher Sea Breeze Farm has begun parking in Northwest Portland one night a week, selling everything from duck rillettes to whole chickens.LOVEBIRDS: Rose Allred and George Page’s farm is located in Columbia County.
From a stronger immune system to a better night’s rest, here’s everything you need to know about the benefits of combining adaptogens with cannabis.
BY BRIANNA WHEELERWith strain names like Cheetah Piss, Garlic Cookies and Punch Breath, it’s easy to understand why cannabis has thus far evaded official classification as an adaptogen, aka “herbal pharmaceu tical.” Despite the ridiculous monikers, most cannabis users know that it is not only an herbal pharmaceutical; its efficacy is heightened by the support of other adaptogens.
In other words, it’s super-effective plant medicine that works really well with other plant medicines.
Adaptogen is a fairly novel term (first coined in 1947 by Rus sian toxicologist Nikolai Vasilyevich Lazarev) that describes a plant extract that has a nonspecific effect on the human body. It is essentially a class of botanicals and fungi that support human homeostasis. Adaptogens can be stress reducing, im mune supporting, mentally clarifying, and revitalizing, but most importantly they must be holistic, as in they benefit the body as a whole.
For generations, adaptogens have been used to remedy all manner of common maladies, from CBC’s ability to inhibit the growth of cancer cells to ashwagandha’s straightforward anxiety reduction, and they do it without the debilitating side effects that often come with industry pharmaceuticals.
If they ’re not already there, adaptogens deserve a place not only in your stash box, but in your medicine cabinet as well— honestly, is there much of a difference at this point? Here’s a quick cannabinoid adaptogen guide to help get you started on your own apothecary journey:
CBD has been shown to act as an immune system modulator, and turkey tail, reishi and chaga mushrooms all have estab
lished reputations for strengthening and improving immune function as well. For users interested in a nonpsychoactive, immunity-strengthening addition to their established rou tine, try taking a nutrient-rich, multifungi CBD supplement. Studies have shown that it could boost your immune system, which, frankly, feels like it should be compulsory following the pandemic.
Try this: The Brothers Apothecary Supreme Vitality Mushrooms + CBD Capsules ($15), thebrothersapothecary.com.
In addition to modulating immune responses, CBD is also a great foundation for a mood-supporting adaptogen cocktail featuring ashwagandha and schisandra herbs. Ashwagandha is derived from an evergreen shrub and is one of the primary herbs in the natural medicine practice known as Ayurveda. Its uses range from stress reduction to improved concentration to fertility issues. Complementary adaptogen schisandra has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to align a user’s qi, or their life force, by supporting healthy functions in the heart, lungs and kidneys. Incorporating a daily tincture of these adaptogens into your routine could ensure healthy brain and heart function in addition to boosting your mood.
Try this: Prismatic Plants Good Day tincture ($65), prismat icplants.com.
My own personal experience with Caps by Cookies was solid enough that I will confidently recommend them to users look ing to explore their own reactions to alternative cannabinoids and adaptogens. The brand’s Clarity blend capsules, which feature revitalizing lion’s mane and restorative cordyceps as well as CBD and CBG, boost energy, increase focus, and help
users maintain a mellow mood. Studies in animals have also shown that lion’s mane may also help protect against Alz heimer’s. Similarly, cordyceps are a proven tumor-fighting, cholesterol-lowering fungus.
Try this: Caps by Cookies Clarity CBD Day Capsules ($50), cbd.cookies.store.
I recently auditioned Junk’s full line of functional candies, and the Tiger Blood gummies stood out as a favorite. These candies were particularly restorative after a harrowing brush with heat stroke that would have otherwise been debilitating. The formulation, featuring cordyceps, vitamin B-12 as well as a combination of cranberries and cherries, delivers not only the expected energetic, athletic-restoration vibe associated with cordyceps, but also lightens your mood enough to qualify for recreational shenanigans.
Try this: Junk Tiger Blood Gummies ($18), potmatespdx.com.
For so many reasons, rest can be infuriatingly elusive, and with respect for those lightweights who can steal one puff off a joint and then sleep for 12 hours, THC alone is not a guar anteed knockout for the rest of us. However, THC is only one cannabinoid of many. Novel cannabinoid CBN is derived from degraded THC (old weed) and has been shown to deliver potent sleep-supporting effects. Similarly, CBD, when married to common adaptogen valerian root, can be a potent, nonhab it-forming sleep aid. Bonus: Valerian root is also used to treat headaches, digestive problems, and discomfort associated with menopause.
Try this: Grön Sleepy Indica Dark Chocolate bar or Grön Snooze Fruit Chews (prices vary by dispensary), eatgron.com.
Every Monday night or so before the pandemic, Americana band Never Come Down put on a free concert at Ranger Station on Southeast Hawthorne. In the beginning, they played even when no one showed up.
For weeks and weeks, the five-piece band perfected their sound. Crowds couldn’t help but be drawn into Crystal Lariza’s young Dolly Parton vocal stylings, and when she and the boys hit those harmonies? Ears were soothed.
After a few months, the Station was packed every Monday. These days, Never Come Down is winning awards all over the globe, including the 2021 FreshGrass Band Award (they also topped the 2019 RockyGrass competition). And this year, they’re headlining Portland’s fourth Bridgetown Bluegrass Festival on Oct. 8.
“That’s exactly exemplifying what we want to see,” festival co-founder Steve Eggers tells WW. “Here’s a band that’s do ing something cool, executing their music really well; they’re professionally writing songs that are funny and modern and relevant. They get people dancing and feeling, and they totally set themselves up as like the bluegrass band in Portland.”
It was important for the festival to keep it bluegrass through and through with just a touch of folk. But there’s one strict rule: No drums allowed.
“It’s not just the instrumentation, it’s the rhythmic values that you’ll see with bluegrass,” says Eggers, who notes that this is the first year the festival has added folk bands to the roster. Still, they won’t be pushing further than that (recall the outcry when the not really bluesy Robert Plant was invited to play at the 2013 Waterfront Blues Fest…though it’s worth mentioning it was the festival’s most packed event to date. But still: not blues).
“Ironically, despite having grown up in Georgia and Western North Carolina, I didn’t get exposed to bluegrass properly until I got to Portland,” says Eggers. “I’d always enjoyed folk music
and studied classical guitar performance in college, so when I first started trying to join bands here in Portland, bluegrass musicians were who I hit it off with, and things just progressed from there.”
One of those people with whom Eggers hit it off was Max Skewes. After playing together in the now-defunct progressive bluegrass group Scratchdog Stringband (the group’s disband ing was another music casualty of COVID-19), the two started dreaming up the festival.
Since Eggers worked as events coordinator at First Congre gational Church, he realized he had a venue at his disposal. In 2017, the church allowed Eggers and Skewes to use the space for free—and with a modest budget of $3,000 (as Eggers puts it, “How much we were willing to lose”), the Bridgetown Bluegrass Festival was born.
Eggers and Skewes worked hard to recruit bands that stick with bluegrass and folk rhythms and write original lyrics. Some stand-out acts include the punky tonk group Alder Street (an energetic, sassy sextet coming up from Eugene) and Portland’s own Fog Holler, whose catchy-funny lyrics and jug band rhythms make a gal want to start flatfooting.
This year ’s edition of the festival will be the first since the pandemic and feature 15 local and regional acts, two stages, and plenty of local beers, cider and food. And now that the Bridgetown Bluegrass Festival is officially a nonprofit, it can pay every act a premium guarantee.
“ We’re here to grow a community, to help people find a love for music, and to support our artists’ reach,” Eggers says. “When you’re coming to the festival that’s what it’s really about: sup porting the arts.”
SEE IT: The Bridgetown Bluegrass Festival will be held at First Congregational Church, 1126 SW Park Ave., bridge townbluegrass.com. Noon-midnight Saturday, Oct. 8. $22-$45.
The best white rapper not named Eminem or Paul Wall is a bearded Albanian American chef with a non-rhotic New York bark and an appetite for life’s most sensual pleasures—gorgeous women, great beats, a perfectly cooked leg of lamb. Action Bronson broke out in 2011 with Dr. Lecter, one of the great recent East Coast rap albums, and though he’s spent much of his career as a Vice -ap proved food documentarian, he’s never let his star status stand in the way of his commitment to classic NYC hip-hop. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 971-230-0033, roselandpdx.com. 9 pm. $40. All ages.
If you plan to see Scorpions at Moda Center, I can’t imagine you’d dislike Sheer Mag , who would’ve clobbered rock radio circa 1984—though that’d preclude them from rocking the hell out of a small and intimate venue like Mississippi Studios. This is one of the best bands to emerge from Philly’s fertile 2010s rock scene, and though they’re es sentially a punk band, their formidable chops and abiding love of the communal, cartoonish spirit of ’70s-’80s pop metal shines brightly in their music. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 503288-3895, mississippistudios.com. 8 pm. $18. 21+.
The pitch-shifted chirps and fiendishly fast beats of Ata Kak ’s out-of-left-field dance-pop masterpiece
Obaa Sima still sound like nothing else nearly three decades after it first filtered out of the Ghanaian musician’s studio and into the street markets and tape shops of Ghana. A recent Awesome Tapes From Africa reissue helped launch a well-deserved cult around the musician born Yaw Atta-Owusu and his work—and his live shows are liable to make your feet move and your head explode at the same time. Polaris Hall, 635 N Killingsworth Ct., 503-2406088, polarishall.com. 8 pm. $18. 21+.
Portland’s top drag performers take audiences on an intoxicating (literally) journey through LGTQIA history in Drunk Herstory.
BY SARA GIZA
If you can remember the pre-pandemic era, you might recall seeing or hearing about Drunk Herstory.
Some call it a show or event, but it’s perhaps best defined as an experience. Portland’s top drag perform ers take turns onstage, intoxicated as they guide the audience through true adventures of queer history via outlandish sketch comedy (a format akin to Funny or Die’s Drunk History).
Making its post-COVID return, Drunk Herstory is geared up to be better than ever—thanks to its co-cre ator, producer and co-host, Shandi Evans, who moved to Portland about five years ago from a tiny California town.
In a classic “queer escapes to big city ” tale, Evans fell in love with the drag scene here. “I just really enjoy performing,” Evans says. “I really enjoy meeting people and making them happy. There’s a lot of awful things that happen every single day. If I can help people have a good time for a few hours, that’s awesome.”
Evans knew that Drunk Herstory would require a lot of work from the onset. Simply scheduling rehearsals with a group of people who all have other jobs is a chal lenge, and a certain level of commitment is required.
“I had only one criterion for everyone to follow,” Evans says. “It had to be queer history. It could be a person, place or event, but it had to be a part of our history.”
After gathering a killer cast of performers who each hand-picked their topic, it was time to practice. Each performer was filmed, while drunk, explaining their
chosen part of history. From there, each recording was transcribed and turned into a script for sketch comedy.
By the time the audience is seated, hundreds of hours of research and preparation will have already gone into Drunk Herstory. According to Evans, who hosts with Dahlia Hearts, they’ve been working on this particu lar show since June—and for the first time, they’ll be performing in an actual theater (previously held at the Funhouse Lounge, Drunk Herstory will now be performed at the Alberta Rose Theatre).
“I wanted to go bigger and better this time because it was really popular,” Evans says. “Those first two shows pre-COVID became kind of like a cult hit. The audience can expect to learn a little more about queer history. I also just want people to be able to have a good time and forget about the outside world for a couple hours. Everyone needs that right now—some kind of release.”
The hope is for Drunk Herstory (which will feature Betty Poops, Bobby Lugosi, Carmen, Donna Stop Now, Ellie LeBlunt, Kisses Ash, Lala Benet, Lisa Limbaugh, Mona Chrome, Sue from Corporate and They Blade) to become a regular feature, take place every three months, and welcome everyone, including straight audiences.
“I hope that as many people as possible are able to come out and celebrate with us,” Evans says.
SEE IT: Drunk Herstory plays at the Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 503-719-6055, albertarosetheatre.com. 7 pm Thursday, Oct. 6. $25-$30.
Cinema 21’s Humphrey Bogart series reveals a movie star keenly aware of his singular appeal.
BY CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER @chance_s_p
Chasing a lead in The Big Sleep (1946), Humphrey Bogart briefly abandons the hardboiled exterior of P.I. Philip Marlowe and goes undercover as an effete book collector. With Marlowe masked only by sunglasses and an upturned fedora brim, it’s a bit like watching a cactus pretend to be a chrysanthemum. But the cactus is having a ball.
Bogart’s playfulness in that scene from Howard Hawks’ classic noir gestures at the wit of an actor who knows full well he’s also playing dress-up as Marlowe. Sparring through Raymond Chandler dialogue (by way of William Faulkner and two other screenwriters) and burning up the screen with Lauren Bacall (to whom he was newly mar ried), Bogart refines and toys with his persona, evolving the noir bona fides he had cemented five years earlier as Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941).
Screening Oct. 8, The Big Sleep is the next Bogart title in Cinema 21’s fall series dedicated to the actor, followed by The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) on Oct. 15 and In a Lonely Place (1950) on Oct. 22.
“I don’t think I can overestimate the impact Bogart has had on cinema in general and the entire film noir move ment specifically,” says series programmer Elliot Lavine. “[Bogart] wasn’t simply satisfied with limiting himself to a singular persona…[he] would ultimately reveal more of a vulnerable and explosive personality than other actors might feel comfortable doing.”
Named the greatest male star of classic American cine ma by the American Film Institute in 1999, Bogart could play symphonies of anger, despondence and covetousness, all within a half-octave of acting range. That’s in part due to his unique physical presentation: sad, pitted eyes, lips always slightly parted (all the quicker to return a barb or stick a cigarette between) and a voice that gained abrasion, but not necessarily volume, when the drama intensified.
Like most Raymond Chandler adaptations, The Big Sleep winds through a knotty plot that hardly matters once Marlowe reaches an investigative flow state of door-knocking and verbal fireworks. Among two dozen memorable quips, Marlowe boasts that he gets paid to take chances, an apt reminder of Bogart’s own prerogative as
he aged—considering he found stardom past 40 and died just 15 years later.
After The Big Sleep, he excelled at playing men living life out over their skis while never losing grip of his own appealing Bogey grit. Even as he pitches his menace to towering heights in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, it’s never forced. In John Huston’s classic parable of greed, he imbues gold prospector Fred C. Dobbs with a proto-Nicholson ferality, baring his teeth like a rabid dog once the temptation of wealth becomes irresistible. He still sounds like Humphrey Bogart and delivers lines like Humphrey Bogart, but Dobbs daringly blurs the line between antihero and hateful antagonist.
Two years later, In a Lonely Place (directed by Nicholas Ray) finds Bogart continuing his chance-taking character work. In this rug-pulling amalgam of crime and roman tic drama, Bogart plays Dix Steele, a boozy, struggling screenwriter who winds up becoming a murder suspect. Though the allegation seems far-fetched initially, the film gradually and deliberately reveals Dix’s unpredictable anger and disquieting fascination with the crime of which he’s accused.
Bogart specifically taps into his Sierra Madre mania in a scene where Dix narrates the victim’s strangulation with bloodthirsty focus. There’s the excuse of his screenwriter’s imagination acting as a slight shield, but director Ray ratchets up interrogation lighting on Bogart’s gnarled visage, while the actor lustily monologues. If Dix isn’t confessing to the crime, he’s confessing to being a man capable of it.
Herein lies one of Bogart’s superpowers: understanding his own stardom keenly enough to create fascinating friction between persona and performance. At a time when the studio system operated at its most systematic, Bogart leveraged the unexpected against the inevitable— be it a costume gag or an inner torment—behind a face and bravado that didn’t just fit a movie-star archetype. It minted one.
SEE IT: Bogart on the Big Screen plays at Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave., 503-223-4515, cinema21.com. 11 am Saturdays, through Oct. 22. $8.
With a formulaic whodunit horror story, you’d think it would be difficult to surprise, but Scream (2022) has a few tricks up its sleeve. Introducing new actors to a franchise that spans multiple decades is no easy feat, but as Neve Campbell passes the torch to Melissa Barrera and Jenna Ortega, you can’t help but root for the new final girls. The young sleuths take on Ghostface with cunning strategy, but you might still be surprised to see the face behind the mask. Paramount+.
The first installment in Ti West’s trilogy (which includes the recent prequel Pearl) poses the question, “What’s the worst thing that could happen while making amateur adult films in rural Texas?” Boy, does X (2022) provide a horrifying answer. A killer crocodile eats the victims of a deranged elderly couple, farm equipment is imagina tively used to commit murders, and, of course, there’s an abundance of sex scenes in addition to all the campy gore. Also, if you’re looking for a final girl who breaks the mold, Maxine (Mia Goth) literally has that “X” factor. Rent on Google Play, Vudu and YouTube.
Revisiting David Lynch’s uncanny classic Eraserhead (1977) feels especially surreal given the current not-sofriendly state of international relations (to put it lightly). A subverted melodrama in a post-nuclear society, the film follows Henry (Jack Nance), a hesitant father to an irra diated baby (who looks like the rotting prototype of E.T.) as he attempts to navigate the half-dead corpse of the American dream. Prepare to be unsettled, uncomfortable, and disturbed throughout the entire viewing experience. HBO Max.
Haunting childhood trauma takes on new meaning in Iris Shim’s Umma (2022). Sandra Oh delivers a stellar per formance as a deeply troubled mother, Amanda, who is haunted by the spirit of her abusive mother. Amanda and her daughter, Chris (Fivel Stewart), start out as a seeming ly perfect mother-daughter duo, but as the film progress es, we watch the two replicate the same abusive patterns Amanda endured from her own mother. Produced by Sam Raimi, the film is a definite nail-biter. Netflix.
SMOKIN’ ACE: Bogart in The Maltese Falcon.
In 1933, Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler testified to Congress about an attempted coup orches trated by fascism-adoring industrialists who sought to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt. While Butler’s account was dismissed by many, a special House committee confirmed parts of his story, which has been skillfully stitched into Amsterdam, a poignant and witty historical remix from director David O. Russell (American Hustle). Rather than start at the corrosive heart of what is now known as the Business Plot, Russell shows the conspiracy taking shape through the eyes of Burt (Christian Bale) and Harold (John David Washington), two Word War I veterans falsely accused of murder. Valerie (Margot Robbie), a former nurse who saved their lives during the war, helps them enlist Gen. Dillenbeck (Robert De Niro, playing a Smedley Butler analog) to catch the culprit, but Russell is in no rush to solve a mystery. Leisurely and lovingly, he wraps us in the fabric of Burt, Harold and Valerie’s lives, dwelling on details that are both unnerving and beautiful, like the tea set that Valerie fashions from shrapnel. If Amsterdam believes anything, it’s that democ racy is defined by the seemingly small things that make a human being an individual, absurd as they may be. That’s why the climax offers a rousing tribute to radical niceness and the gloriously silly spectacle of Burt singing, getting high, and teaming up with a British secret agent played by Austin Powers himself, Mike Myers. “You gotta fight to protect kindness,” Burt declares. He’s right, but he and Amsterdam are also fighting to protect something else: the liberating, life-giving power of ridiculousness. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Cinemagic, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Tigard.
From meeting cute to racing through the streets of New York in search of a climactic kiss, romantic comedies are rife with rituals. These moments can feel stale and obligatory, but in Bros the sting of truth is expressed through the grandeur of fiction. Billy Eichner (who wrote the film with director Nicholas Stoller) stars as Bobby Lieber, a gay, single podcaster numbly living his life one monosyllabic Grindr hookup at a time. Despite his jaded posturing, Bobby is drawn to Aaron (Luke Macfarlane), a dashing stranger whom he first sees bathed in beatific blue light at a club. In temperament, they couldn’t be more different—Bob by relishes being the director of a soon-to-open LGBTQ+ history museum, whereas Aaron resists his dream of being a choco latier because he fears it’s too “faggy.” Can true love transcend insecurity? Just because the answer is familiar doesn’t mean it isn’t moving. While Bros has fine broad-comedy flourish es—including Bobby raging at a bust of Pete Buttigieg in a moment of romantic anguish—it is at its best when it is at its most tender. “Vulnerability is not a boner killer,” a friend tells Bobby. Bros takes those words to heart, embracing the emotional rawness that defines When Harry Met Sally… and You’ve Got Mail, both of which Bobby references. Eichner and Stoller simultane ously carry on and transcend the legacy of those films—theirs is the first rom-com from a major studio with an all-LGTQ principal cast—but they wear the mantle of importance lightly. At a time when hope is a limited resource,
the most radical thing about Bros is that it’s a joy. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Acad emy, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Progress Ridge, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Tigard.
For horror-movie lovers, it’s rare to find a flick that can really get under your skin, but Smile will leave you looking over your shoulder to make sure no strangers are grinning in your direction. Written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Parker Finn, the movie invites you to descend into madness alongside psychiatrist Dr. Rose Cotter (Sosie Bacon) as she at tempts to outrun the evil smiling presence that wants her dead. It’s the kind of film best watched behind squinted or fully shut eyes with an audience that unleashes a symphony of screams as each new terror is revealed (in the silence before a scare, I heard an adult woman whisper to a friend beside her, “I’m going to pee my pants”). Seamlessly intertwining indie motifs into a studio produc tion, Finn explores the horrors of mental illness, but unlike certain filmmakers, he doesn’t vilify those who suffer from it (I’m looking at you, M. Night Shya malan). Eventually, the madness thickens and pulls you under, leaving you to question your own sanity by the time the credits roll. Smile is uniquely haunting and downright disturbing—and I can’t wait to watch it again.
R. ALEX BARR. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower,
Laurelhurst, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Pioneer Place, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Tigard, Van couver Plaza.
In the soft morning light, a mother named Clarisse (Vicky Krieps) packs a bag and ghosts her family, like the setup to a French Where’d You Go, Bernadette. Here, there’s more ennui and chain-smoking, along with Krieps expertly suggesting volumes of conflicted imagina tion behind a soft smile (as she did equally well in last year’s Bergman Island ). Cut back to the abandoned family; they’re trying to survive without Clarisse. Back to Clarisse; she’s unwell, drinking too much without them. Her daughter’s prodigious piano playing emanates through the home and simultaneously from the tape deck of Clarisse’s getaway car. Editor Francois Ge digier works furiously to establish this mirroring, and director Mathieu Amalric (best known for his performances in Munich and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) shows us split worlds, each with a great absence that generates something new. Though it owes a debt to Memento, Hold Me Tight trades more in near-telepathic visions than puzzle pieces. Krieps brilliantly employs her preternat ural normalcy to ground a char acter whose new life on the road seems fueled by emotion alone. While none of the other perfor mances in the film equal Krieps’, the dense illusion of a broken family rewards your attention. Is Clarisse running, or running to stand still? NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.
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Screening in 35 mm as the final installment of the Holly wood’s Sam Raimi Weekend, this campy parable follows a loan officer (Allison Lohman) who, after turning down an old woman’s mortgage application, has just three days to reverse a demon’s curse before she’s dragged to—you guessed it—hell. Co-starring scream king Justin Long of the recent horror hit Barbarian! Hollywood, Oct. 5.
Master of splatter horror Herschell Gordon Lewis’ most well-known flick (thanks to Juno MacGuff exclaiming, “This is even better than Suspiria!”) revolves around shady magician Montag the Magnificent, whose gro tesquely gory illusions are faked onstage, then seeming ly committed in real life. Clinton, Oct. 7.
Part of this weekend’s H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival, this double feature of two horror-comedy classics screens in 35 mm and includes a live Q&A with star Jeffrey Combs. The rare “integral cut” of Re-Animator also screens Oct. 9 (along with another Q&A with Combs), featuring 19 extra minutes of goopy goodness. Hollywood, Oct. 8.
Howard Hawks’ acclaimed adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s debut novel stars Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe, a detective who’s hired by a wealthy family to solve an unusually complicated case involving murder, blackmail, and the luminous Lauren Bacall. Part three of Cinema 21’s Bogart on the Big Screen series. Cinema 21, Oct. 8.
Before the upcoming release of Park Chan-wook’s highly anticipated Decision to Leave, sink your fangs into his supernatural romance, which follows a Catholic priest’s (Song Kang-ho) newfound thirst for blood after a failed medical experiment. Of course, as vampires in movies are wont to do, he soon falls in love. Clinton, Oct. 10.
Academy: Beetlejuice (1988), Oct. 5-6. Phantasm (1979), Oct. 5-6. The Invisible Man (1933), Oct. 7-13. Freaks (1932), Oct. 7-13. Cinemagic: Unmasking the Idol (1986), Oct. 7. Cinema 21: The Room (2003), Oct. 7. Clinton: Darker Than Night (1975), Oct. 5. Get Out (2017), Oct. 7. Basket Case (1982), Oct. 8. Brain Damage (1988), Oct. 8. Frankenhooker (1990), Oct. 8. A Spell to Ward Off the Darkness (2013), Oct. 9. 5th Avenue: Law of Desire (1987), Oct. 7-9. Hollywood: Young Frankenstein (1974), Oct. 6. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Oct. 10-13.
The Nightingale (2018), Oct. 10. Seven Brothers Meet Dracula (1974), Oct. 11.
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by Jack Kent
ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Magic Realism Bot" is a Twitter account that generates ideas for new fairy tales. Since you will benefit from imagin ing your life as a fairy tale in the coming weeks, I'll offer you a few possibilities. 1. You marry a rainbow. The two of you have children: a daugh ter who can sing like a river and a son who is as gleeful as the wind. 2. You make friends with a raven that gives you savvy financial advice. 3. You invent a new kind of dancing; it involves crying and laughing while making holy prayer gestures toward your favorite star. 4. An angel and a lake monster join forces to help you dream up fun new adventures. 5. You discover a field of enchanted dandelions. They have the power to generate algorithms that reveal secrets about where to find wonders and marvels.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): On February 1, 1976, singer Elvis Presley was partying with buddies at his home in Memphis, Tennessee. As the revelry grew, he got an impetuous longing for an 8,000-calorie sandwich made with French bread, peanut butter, blueberry preserves, and slabs of bacon. Since this delicacy was only available at a certain restaurant in Denver, Colorado, Elvis and his entourage spontaneously hopped onto his private jet and flew 900 miles to get there. In accordance with astrological omens, Taurus, I encourage you to summon an equally keen determination to obtain pleasurable treasures. Hopefully, though, they will be more important than a sandwich. The odds of you procuring nec essary luxuries that heal and inspire are much higher than usual.
S. Merwin had a teacher who advised him, "Don't lose your arrogance yet. You can do that when you're older. Lose it too soon, and you may merely replace it with vanity." I think that counsel is wise for you to meditate on right now. Here's how I interpret it: Give honor and respect to your fine abilities. Salute and nurture your ripe talents. Talk to yourself realistically about the success you have accomplished. If you build up your appreciation for what is legitimately great about you, you won't be tempted to resort to false pride or self-absorbed egotism.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): In his absurdist play Waiting for Godot, Samuel Beckett offers us two characters, Vladimir and Estragon, who patiently wait for a white-bearded man named Godot. They're convinced he will provide them with profound help, perhaps even salvation. Alas, although they wait and wait and wait, Godot never arrives. Near the end, when they have abandoned hope, Vladimir says to Estragon, "We are not saints, but we have kept our appoint ment." My sense is that you Scorpios, like Vladi mir and Estragon, may be close to giving up your own vigils. Please don't! I believe your personal equivalent to Godot will ultimately appear. Sum mon more patience.
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Back, Little Sheba" playwright
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Color changer
2012 Ben Affleck drama
Top floor
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Long heroic story
Sgt. and cpl., e.g.
Outdoor game that's a cross between cosplay and an RPG
Graphic start
that often has to clarifiy how Draw Two cards work
before "Dew" on drink labels
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini writer Nikki Giovanni reminds us, "It cannot be a mistake to have cared. It cannot be an error to have tried. It cannot be incorrect to have loved." In accordance with astrological omens, I ask you to embody Giovanni's attitude. Shed any worries that your caring and trying and loving have been blunders. Celebrate them, be proud of them, and promise yourself that you will keep caring and trying and loving. The coming weeks will be an excellent time to renew your commitment to your highest goodness.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): I was born near Ama rillo, Texas, where the US Energy Department stores over 20,000 plutonium cores from old nuclear warheads. Perhaps that explains some of my brain's mutant qualities. I'm not normal. I'm odd and iconoclastic. On the other hand, I don't think my peculiarity makes me better than any one. It's just who I am. I love millions of people who aren't as quirky as me, and I enjoy communi cating with unweird people as much as I do with weirdos. Everything I just said is a preamble for my main message, Cancerian: The coming weeks will be prime time for you to give extra honor and credit to your personal eccentricities, even if they comprise a minor part of your personality.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Author Jennifer Huang testifies, "Poetry is what helps me remember that even in my fragments, I am whole." What about you, Leo? What reminds you, even in your fragments, that you are whole? Now is an excel lent time to identify the people, animals, and influences that help you generate a sense of unity and completeness. Once you're clear about that, spend quality time doing what you can to nurture those healers. Maybe you can even help them feel more cohesion and harmony in themselves.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Virgo journalist Sydney J. Harris described "the three hardest tasks in the world." He said they weren't "physical feats nor intellectual achievements, but moral acts." Here they are: 1. to return love for hate; 2. to include the excluded; 3. to say "I was wrong." I believe you will have a special talent for all three of these brave actions in the coming weeks, Virgo. Amazingly, you're also more likely than usual to be on the receiving end of those brave ac tions. Congratulations in advance!LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): When he was young, Libran poet W.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Poet Charles Wright has testified, "I admire and revere and am awed by a good many writers. But Emily Dickinson is the only writer I've ever read who knows my name, whose work has influenced me at my heart's core, whose music is the music of songs I've listened to and remembered in my very body." In my astrological reckoning, now is an excellent time for you Sagittarians to identify artists and creators who provide you with similar exaltation. And if there are no Emily Dickinsontype influences in your life, find at least one! You need to be touched and transformed by sublime inspiration.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I've read and studied poetry for many years, but only recently discovered Capricorn poet Lizette Woodworth Reese (1856–1935). How is it possible I missed her? Her contemporary, journalist H. L. Mencken, described her work as “one of the imperishable glories of American literature." She received many other accolades while alive. But today, she is virtually unknown, and many of her books are out of print. In bringing her to your attention, I am announcing my prediction about you: Anything in your life that resembles Reese's reputation will change in the next 12 months. If you have until now not gotten the recognition or gratitude you deserve, at least some of it will arrive.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Author Sophia Dembling defines a friend as a person who consoles you when you're feeling desperate and with whom you don't feel alone. A friend is someone whose life is interesting to you and who is interested in your life. Maybe most impor tantly, a friend must not be boring. What's your definition, Aquarius? Now is an excellent time to get clear about the qualities you want in a friend. It's also a favorable phase to seek out vital new friendships as you de-emphasize mediocre and overly demanding alliances.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Do you or do you not wish to capitalize on the boost that's available? Are you or are you not going to claim and use the challenging gift that would complicate your life but also expedite your growth? Act soon, Pisces! If you don't, the potential dispensation may disappear. This is an excellent chance to prove you're not afraid of achieving more success and wielding more power. I hope you will summon the extra courage necessary to triumph over shyness and timidity. Please claim your rightful upgrade!
Homework: What has been your favorite mistake in the past 10 months? Newsletter.
