Willamette Week, January 11, 2023 - Volume 49, Issue 9 - "The Redemption of Robert King"

A young man was caught “gnawing” the face of an old man at a Gresham MAX station. 6

Mayor Ted Wheeler wants state troopers making traffic stops on Portland streets. 7

Rip City Management fears a highway expansion will endanger fans walking to Blazers games 8

Robert King had a basement gun room with stuffed boars and zebra skins. 15

In 1981, Ben Bullitt disappeared off the side of a 67-foot wooden yacht christened Pegasus 16

Rumor has it that Kelly’s Olympian hosted a Prohibition-era speakeasy in its basement. 21

Two women play Holmes and

Watson in Portland Center Stage’s latest production. 21

Crooked Creek , New Ancient and Creekside are three metro-area breweries you’ve probably never heard of but can try this weekend. 21

The Vampires Hate Her sandwich at Jojo comes with a stick of Extra gum. 22

Eugene-based Cosmic Bliss just opened its first Portland scoop shop, where you can also get plant-based ice cream 23

Luminous Botanicals Universal Cannabis Tonic can double as lube 24

The zeal of Swifties is akin to that of biblical scholars. 25

This year’s Portland Folk Festival features an identical-twin folktronica sister act 25

CARLESS SQUARE WOULD NOT BE SAFE

Thank you for ideas on improving Portland [“How to Save Portland,” WW, Jan. 4].

“Create a six-block Carless Square in the heart of Portland”? Not a good idea.

Try making driving and parking in downtown area safer and more accessible. Look at a map. A lot of the population with some expendable income live outside the city (I-205) perimeter. Even those, for instance, in the Gresham vicinity (or Troutdale, Damascus, Pleasant Valley, Happy Valley, Oregon City, Sherwood, etc.) are not going to take public transportation to downtown even if we could get to it.

I don’t know where you live, but I am 75, ambulatory, financially secure, live in a relatively “safe” neighborhood (no shootings that have hit anybody in several months), love symphony, jazz and opera, but none of our large “extended” family (kids, cousins, grandkids) or friends have any desire to drive downtown for anything. Hell, driving Division or Glisan has become an obstacle course. Powell or Stark are war zones. Foster looks like the Russian army just left. Sunnyside is beautiful, but “you can’t get there from here.” (There is no north-south route east of I-205 to Happy Valley.) Would you stand on a Gresham MAX station at 7 pm or later and feel safe?

Consider making driving and parking around downtown easier, safer, convenient. Not a popular green idea? Too bad.

W.B. Swarner, M.D. Southeast Portland

WATERFRONT DID THE ’COUV PROUD

Just wanted to say that I really appreciated your article about some big ideas to save our city. I would have added the removal of I-5 from the Central Eastside, but I like your take of big ideas at little cost. I think that is much more realistic for our current situation.

While I’m not sure I would go so far as to say that Portland needs saving—I do still love this city and feel lucky to live in a place where I can stroll or bike comfortably with my two year old to so many fun parks, coffee shops, and food cart pods—I 100% and agree that we, as a civic community, need something big and bold to get us united and excited. I think your reference to Vancouver is good, but I think that is exactly what their Waterfront project did; it made people proud of being a Vancouverite.

I’m already inspired from reading your article and hope some of our city leadership take notice and take up the torch!

Josh Mahar Northeast Portland

COMPARE METRO AREAS, NOT CITIES

With respect to the article comparing Portland to cities of comparable size [“How We Rate,” WW, Dec. 21, 2022], in my opinion, the vast majority of the comparisons should use metro area as opposed

to city boundaries. The city boundaries are arbitrarily drawn and do not necessarily reflect the number of people living in the area. Oakland is not really similar in any respect to Portland and is part of the fifth-largest metro in the country (using combined statistical area). Portland metro has a larger population than Austin for example, but the city proper doesn’t. Some of these comparisons make sense, but using the arbitrarily drawn city boundaries clouds the results. Portland’s closest metros are Denver, San Diego, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Charlotte (and other metros of that caliber). If we start thinking about our metro area, we can see we actually are a pretty decent size city and can maybe start acting like one instead of a small town.

Evan H. Lenneberg Southwest Portland

CLARIFICATION

In last week’s cover story that proposed, among other things, creating a carless square downtown (“How to Save Portland,” WW, Jan. 4), we quoted urban designer and artist Tad Savinar about the need to reimagine public spaces. Readers may have inferred that Savinar supports the idea of a carless square. He does not.

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

portion that should keep the worst of the Pauly Shores and Jeff Spicolis at bay.

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

Psilocybin will soon be used in Oregon to treat PTSD, addictions,

—’60s Retired

No offense to you, Lawyer, but I can’t shake the fear that the job the state calls “psilocybin services facilitator,” or PSF, will inevitably attract—in addition, mind you, to many qualified applicants—a healthy share of exactly the people who should never be allowed to do it. (My initial worry was that Oregon’s PSFs would be drawn from the ranks of creepy dudes at the hot springs who run around offering people back rubs.)

The basic requirements don’t do much to assuage such concerns: You just need to be 21, with a high school diploma and no criminal record, and to have lived in Oregon for at least two years. That seems like a pretty low bar. Fortunately, there’s a fairly stiff licensing

From a regulatory standpoint, becoming a PSF is a bit like becoming a bartender, except everything is harder. Instead of a state-approved alcohol server education class that lasts four hours and costs $40, you take a state-approved PSF training course that lasts 120 hours and costs around $9,000. In both cases, this is followed by a licensing exam (though, as you might imagine, the PSF exam is more rigorous than the famously brain-dead alcohol server test).

Once they’re licensed, both bartenders and PSFs will go to work at a privately owned, state-licensed facility, each serving up their wares to their respective clients in accordance with state regulations. The only difference is that bartenders don’t have to pay an annual $2,000 licensing fee. (Also, PSFs see only one person at a time, it’s not the same person every night, and sometimes it actually helps.)

Is all this time and money worth it? Given that the sessions are expected to cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars—and, obviously, won’t be covered by insurance—I find it hard to believe there’ll really be enough rich people to keep all the currently training PSFs busy. (Then again, I also can’t believe people have $10,000 a year to go to Burning Man, yet somehow it keeps happening. Maybe it’s the same people.)

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

etc. with a guide/facilitator present while treatment is administered. What qualifications must one have to be hired as the guide? If I feel that I could be an excellent employee in this regard, who would I contact to apply for a job?

Lawyer

JUDGE DECLINES TO STOP OREGON STATE

HOSPITAL EARLY

RELEASES: Senior U.S. District Judge Michael W. Mosman rejected demands Jan. 9 that he reverse an order he issued last year limiting the time “aid-and-assist” patients could stay at the overflowing Oregon State Hospital. Such patients, charged with crimes but too ill to stand trial, can now be held for a maximum of only one year—years less than state statute dictates. The decision was supported by prisoner rights advocates and state administrators who are seeking to free up beds. But it left community hospitals and county prosecutors livid. They say they’ve had to deal with the consequences: an unexpected flood of mentally ill criminal defendants they are unable to treat or try. On Monday, Judge Mosman upheld his prior order, saying it just needed time to work. “Despite herculean efforts by all involved—constitutional violations against defendants suffering from mental illness have not been abated,” Mosman wrote, noting that for the past three years defendants have been forced to sit in jail for weeks because beds were unavailable at the state hospital. He noted that the Oregon Legislature had allocated $1.3 billion to address this issue, so far to no avail.

COLLEAGUES SEEK INVESTIGATION OF

STOUT: In November, a Columbia County circuit judge granted a five-year protective order against Brian Stout, a Republican from Clatskanie who had just won a seat in the Oregon House of Representatives. A woman accused him in court documents of sexually assaulting her and threatening to slit her throat. WW broke news of the order last month, and Stout took office this week. Soon after, a group of advocates—along with two of his fellow representatives—asked House leaders to investigate whether Stout had violated any laws or ethics guidelines for lawmakers. Marchel Marcos, founder of Voice for Survivors, wrote an open letter to House Speaker Dan Rayfield (D-Corvallis) and House Minority Leader Vikki Breese-Iverson (R-Prineville) asking them to affirm that staff and visitors to the Capitol are safe while Stout is there. “I don’t want to put anyone in my community at risk in a hostile

environment,” Marcos wrote. Among the signers of the letter are Rep. Khanh Pham (D-Portland), Rep. Hoa Nguyen (D-Portland) and former Democratic state Sen. Akasha Lawrence-Spence (D-Portland). Neither Stout nor his legislative staff returned calls or emails seeking comment.

EDIBLES COMPANY SUES LA MOTA: WW reported last week on four small cannabis farms and producers that allege Chalice Brands, a publicly traded cannabis company that owns 15 dispensaries across the state, owes them tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid invoices. Chalice says it intends to make the farmers whole, but WW has learned Chalice isn’t the only cannabis retail giant facing lawsuits over allegedly unpaid bills: In July, edibles company Drops sued La Mota, a Portland-based chain that owns more than 20 dispensaries across the state, alleging it owes Drops $390,000 for edibles La Mota purchased dating back to November 2020. Litigation is now in the discovery phase. WW ’s requests for comment by La Mota and its attorney went unanswered.

STATE WORKS

THROUGH

PAYROLL KINKS: As WW first reported Jan. 5, the state of Oregon experienced a bumpy transition from its 36-yearold payroll system to Workday, a human resources and payroll system widely used in the private sector. Some 1,800 of the state’s 45,000 employees were overpaid Jan. 3 in the first paychecks under the new system. A much larger number nearly didn’t get paid at all because the state dropped a zero from account numbers when communicating with employees’ banks. “The issue we experienced with direct deposit accounts had the potential to impact approximately 8,000 employees,” says Andrea Chiapella, a spokeswoman for the Department of Administrative Services. “Fortunately, the vast majority of banks accepted the payments. We have a total of 131 employees across the enterprise who were not paid when banks rejected the payment. All of these 131 affected employees have already been paid or will be paid this week and the error that caused the issue in the new payroll system has been corrected.”

Three appalling incidents start the year on a bleak note.

A city that entered 2023 in a foul humor received a triple dose of horror during the holiday break. With Portland experiencing 101 homicides over the previous year, it’s difficult to label any confluence of events as “a new low,” but three shocking regional incidents in the space of a week—two violent attacks at train stations and the destruction of a religious landmark—seemed to consolidate most of the city’s fears into easily digestible nuggets of nastiness. It helped that the common elements in the incidents were social ills that residents already felt were spiraling out of control.

AARON MESH.

Date: Dec. 28

Location: Gateway Transit Center, Northeast 99th Avenue and Halsey Street

Defendant: Brianna Workman, 32 Charges: First-degree attempted assault, third-degree assault, recklessly endangering another person, and two other misdemeanors What she’s accused of: Shoving a 3-yearold girl off the MAX station platform and onto the train tracks, unprovoked. No train was coming, but the child suffered a bump on her head.

Notable line from charging documents: “Witness reported that she just saw a ‘little girl flying into the tracks’ face first, and observed the child’s head bounce off the metal track.”

Common elements: Attack occurred on a public transit platform. Suspect was unhoused and had a history of drug use.

Which drugs: Workman refused to answer

police questions, but her prior convictions include methamphetamine and heroin possession.

Date: Jan. 3

Location: Cleveland Avenue MAX Station,1200 NE 8th St., Gresham

Defendant: Koryn Kraemer, 25

Charges: Second-degree assault

What he’s accused of: Attacking a 78-yearold man on the train platform, biting off his ear, and “gnawing” the skin of his cheek until his skull was visible.

Notable line from charging documents: “Kraemer stated that [the victim] was a robot who was trying to kill him.…Kraemer stated that he ate “the robot’s” ear and nose, but spit it all out on the ground, and that police saved him by separating him from the robot.”

Common elements: Attack occurred on a public transit platform. Suspect was unhoused, moved here recently, and had a history of drug use.

Which drugs: Kraemer told police he’d had a cocktail of alcohol, cannabis and fentanyl pills.

Date: Jan. 3

Location: Portland Korean Church, 933 SW Clay St.

Defendant: Nicolette Fait, 27

Eve of Destruction Anything Helps

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

WW first reported Jan. 8 that three of the city of Portland’s five state lobbyists were departing shortly before the legislative session kicks off Jan. 17—a blow to the city’s ambitious legislative agenda.

While the reasons behind two of the departures aren’t entirely clear, sources familiar with the matter tell WW the lobbyists were frustrated by the reach of Portland’s legislative hopes.

The city ’s wish list includes $26 million in discretionary homeless spending, sending state troopers to write speeding tickets on city streets, and reevaluating the state’s rules around forcing citizens with mental health issues to undergo treatment against their will.

Those pleas reflect the city ’s ongoing and, by

Charges: First- and second-degree arson, second-degree burglary

What she’s accused of: Setting fire to a 117-year-old, vacant church, which was so badly damaged it had to be subsequently demolished.

Notable line from charging documents: “Defendant explained that they broke into the church and lit the fire because voices in their head told them they would ‘mutilate’ Defendant if they did not bum the church down.”

Common elements: Suspect was unhoused, moved here recently, and had a history of mental illness and drug use.

Which drugs: Fait told police she was taking 10 oxycodone pills a day to relieve the pain of an injury.

some accounts, deepening crises: mental and behavioral health, homelessness, and record gun violence and traffic-related deaths.

But without the lobbyists shepherding ideas between the city and the region’s delegates in the weeks leading up to the session, Portland-area lawmakers are concerned about the prospects of the city’s agenda.

WW asked those lawmakers about three of the city’s most consequential legislative requests, and what they think the chances are they’ll find enough support from the governor and their colleagues.

$26 million in discretionary homeless funding

The city of Portland is asking the Legislature to allocate each city in Oregon $40 per resident to use at each city’s discretion to combat

homelessness. That comes out to $26 million for Portland.

Mayor Ted Wheeler’s office hasn’t specified how it would use those discretionary dollars, but lawmakers have a strong suspicion.

“Read between the lines: They need it for the sanctioned camp sites,” says Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland), who gives it a 7-out-of-10 chance of passing.

The mayor’s camp proposal—six sanctioned encampments, each with capacity for 150 people—is perhaps the most polarizing issue among city politicos in years. Both Gov. Tina Kotek and Multnomah County Board Chair Jessica Vega Pederson pledged their support for the camps prior to their election, but Vega Pederson has since hedged when it comes to funding them.

The mayor intends to ban unsanctioned

camping within a year and a half of setting up the sanctioned encampments, though that’s an ambitious timeline for an administration that has yet to secure funding to operate the camps or the land to place them on.

The mayor’s office says it’s not aware of any lawmaker who has taken up the proposal to put it in bill form.

“That’s part of my problem with having no government relations people [at the city]; they’re the ones who bring in a politician to close the deal,” Nosse says. “You would hope it’s a Portland-area person to do it.”

Change civil commitment standards

The city is asking the Legislature and Gov. Kotek to adjust the rules surrounding involuntary commitments for citizens suffering from mental health crises who are deemed

We asked Portland-area lawmakers what they think the chances are City Hall will get its agenda funded in Salem.

UP IN SMOKE: The Portland Korean Church was engulfed in a three-alarm fire Jan. 3.

The Tabor Arsons

Portland’s alleged teen fire starters roamed beyond one park.

On Jan. 3, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office indicted three Portland teenagers on a slew of arson charges related to a number of fires set over the summer and fall across Southeast Portland, including at Mt. Tabor Park.

Wayne Chen, Malik Hares and Sam Perkins, all 18 and friends since elementary school, were indicted on a total of 14 charges, including first- and second-degree arson and reckless burning. (Hares, who lived in the Montavilla neighborhood where most of the fires were set, is the sole defendant in 12 of the 14 charges.)

What the indictment reveals is that the fires allegedly set by the teens weren’t confined to Mt. Tabor Park, where fire investigators this fall found evidence of 36 different

fires that they allege were started by the teens.

The indictment lists only one fire connected to the park. The other locations, mostly clustered in Montavilla within a few-block radius, include an abandoned building owned by a church, a plot of vegetation next to two homes, a shed in a public park, a box truck and a mattress.

In addition, prosecutors identified what appears to be an abandoned commercial building in Southwest and a warehouse in Northeast as locations where the teens may have set fires.

Below is a map of all the locations and objects listed in the indictment that prosecutors allege one or more of the teens lit on fire, to varying degrees of success.

SOPHIE PEEL.

unable to consent, including “lowering the threshold for civil commitments to align with comparator states” and increasing the length of time people can be held against their will.

In his request, Mayor Wheeler wrote that the state “can’t wait” until an ongoing work group formed by the Oregon Judicial Department to reassess civil commitment laws finishes its work in 2025.

Civil commitments have been controversial for decades, bringing into focus issues around the rights of individuals unable to care for themselves. Wheeler first asked publicly that the state reevaluate its laws in a public forum last November as he spoke to Central Eastside business owners.

Portland lawmakers think it’s a long shot the city will get what it wants. That’s because it’s putting the horse before the cart: There’s nowhere to put people who have been civilly committed.

“That’s a really hard lift. Because until we understand if we can stand up more residential treatment facilities, we can’t deliver on that,”

Nosse says. “We’ve got to do better if we’re going to increase civil commitments.”

Oregon State Hospital is full, and only a handful of patients there were civilly committed. Instead, the state requires private hospitals to take civilly committed patients, and those hospitals are arguing in an ongoing lawsuit that they’re not equipped to deal with such high-needs patients. It’s a political hot potato.

Rep. Maxine Dexter (D-Portland) agrees the requested reform wouldn’t have the intended effect.

“There is a major disconnect between how law enforcement may evaluate a person and decide they are at imminent risk of harming themself or others and how medical care providers make that determination,” Dexter says. “This is critical, as a peace officer may retain someone against their will and bring them to a care facility only to have that person released due to the different thresholds the two sectors may have in determining competence.”

What frustrates Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin (D-Corvallis) is that the political winds now

SAFE SPACE

Is an empty bank vault shop about to become an Audi dealership? The owner won’t say.

Address: 1601 NE Martin Luther King Jr, Blvd.

Year built: 1921 Square footage: 10,320 Market value: $2.25 million

Owner: OB Portland Properties II LLC How long it’s been empty: More than a decade. Why it’s empty: The safe company needed more space back in the day,

Rita Bo Brown was known as the “Gentleman Bank Robber” because she dressed like a man while she plied her trade in the Pacific Northwest. As a member of the Seattle-based George Jackson Brigade, an anarcho-communist group that aimed to overthrow the U.S. government, she held up at least seven banks in the 1970s.

To thwart Brown and her gang, bankers likely shopped for safes at a building on the corner of Northeast Weidler Street and Matrin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. There were a lot more banks back then, and a lot more bank robbers, and Allied Safe & Vault, founded in Spokane in 1948, sold the banks the stuff they needed to protect their deposits.

All that remains of that once-bustling business is a small sign that says, “Gary Safe.” Portlanders have been driving by it for decades.

Allied Safe & Vault bought Gary Safe, a Los Angeles company, in 1981 and put a sign advertising the brand on its building, says Allied president Jay Hunt. Allied operated a locksmith and safe business there until it needed more space. Hunt, whose grandfather started the business in 1948, said he didn’t know what year it moved.

Allied sold the property in January 2005 for $820,000. It changed hands again in April 2006 for $1.4 million. OB Portland Properties LLC paid $9.9 million in September 2015. OB was organized by Michael O’Brien, owner of the O’Brien Auto Group, which has car dealerships in Oregon and Washington, including Audi of Wilsonville Subaru of Portland. The only evidence of O’Brien at the site is a sign saying, “O’Brien Auto Group.”

James Aiken, a lawyer listed on documents from the LLC, said the owner didn’t want to comment. Aiken declined to identify the owner, sign or no sign.

OB owns the block bound by Weidler, Broadway, 3rd Avenue and MLK. Beyond putting up the sign, it’s done little with it. OB applied for a demolition permit in November 2021. The city asked for more information but hasn’t heard back, says Ken Ray, a spokesman for the Bureau of Development Services.

“As such, the demolition permit remains under review,” Ray said in an email.

A lot has changed in Portland since O’Brien Auto bought the property in 2015. Stealing cars has become a cottage industry in the city. Whether O’Brien Auto ever planned a car dealership for the site is unclear because Michael O’Brien wouldn’t talk to WW, but a car alarm shop might make more sense in the old Gary Safe building. ANTHONY EFFINGER.

blowing in Salem mean the proposal will take up more time during the session.

“I’m afraid the political discourse has shifted to casting all of these people as criminals who are disrupting our communities,” Gelser Blouin says. “We could civilly commit everybody, but there aren’t any services. Where would these people go?”

Send state troopers to Portland

The mayor’s office and the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office are requesting that the state send Oregon State Police troopers to enforce traffic laws on Portland streets for the next year to quell traffic-related deaths and violent crimes like drive-by shootings.

The city’s request comes after a year of record-breaking homicides and 67 traffic-related fatalities, a 35-year high.

Traffic stops are a flashpoint for the debate around structural racism in police departments. Portland police stop a higher proportion of Black drivers than white ones, and despite a policy change championed by Mayor Wheeler

and Police Chief Chuck Lovell two years ago to shrink that discrepancy, it’s instead slightly increased.

But concerns over racial disparities in traffic stops may come to a head with overflowing frustrations about crime and the appearance of a low police presence in Portland, and it’s unclear which one will win out.

Rep. Travis Nelson (D-Portland) says he approaches the proposal with “some skepticism.”

“I understand that citizens really want more when it comes to traffic enforcement,” Nelson says. “But I’d also expect that citations issued by those officers be tracked. Demographic data, locations they’re patrolling. Are they always patrolling North and Northeast Portland, or are they down in Northwest?”

Much of Gov. Kotek’s approval rating four years from now will hinge on Portland’s image—and bringing down the city’s perceived lawlessness

two areas

Wicked Crossover

The Trail Blazers organization hates ODOT’s proposed changes to I-5 at the Rose Quarter.

BY NIGEL JAQUISS njaquiss@wweek.com

The Oregon Department of Transportation is eager to move forward on the expansion of Interstate 5 at the Rose Quarter, but a powerful new critic has emerged.

That critic is a sleeping behemoth that rarely weighs in on public policy: Rip City Management, the corporate entity that operates Moda Center and Memorial Coliseum for the Portland Trail Blazers basketball team.

Rip City hosts 250 events a year, attracting 1.7 million spectators, half of whom arrived on foot or bicycle.

The organization says ODOT’s new design increases risks for those people.

“As the largest gathering place in the state, we needed to raise our hand about the safety and future in and around the Rose Quarter,” Chris Oxley, the Blazers’ director of government affairs, tells WW. “We all have the same goal here, and that is to see this area thrive. The current plan will make an already challenging situation worse.”

Both the the Blazers and Rip City Management are owned by the estate of late billionaire Paul Allen. And Rip City’s unhappiness with ODOT comes at a critical moment. In the wake of Allen’s 2018 death, future ownership of the Blazers remains uncertain and the team’s ground lease with the city of Portland is up for renewal. It’s unlikely the NBA would let the franchise leave Portland, but few want to take that risk.

The public comment period for the latest version of ODOT’s proposed $1.45 billion expansion closed Jan. 4. In a 20-page letter for the agency’s supplemental environmental assessment, Rip City detailed its concerns.

The organization’s biggest beef: the redesign of the southbound I-5 off-ramp. The new configuration would create a whiplashing 210-degree turn for exiting traffic and require four additional turns across already jam-packed intersections for traffic entering the Rose Quarter (see map).

That would make it more perilous for pedestrians and cyclists and trickier for motor traffic headed for Blazers games and other Rose Quarter events. By ODOT’s own admission, it would increase crashes in what city figures show is already one of Portland’s most dangerous traffic corridors.

ODOT’s goals for the project are to reduce congestion, help repair the Albina neighborhood, and decrease crashes. “This project must improve safety for pedestrians, cyclists, drivers and all travelers,” says Brendan Finn, director of ODOT’s Urban Mobility Office.

Rip City says that won’t happen.

“Unfortunately, ODOT is rushing through a [design] that transfers a safety and traffic problem from I-5 to the Rose Quarter,” the organization wrote in its public comments.

“The proposed design does not improve on trans-

portation safety over existing conditions and, in fact, creates more potential for conflict and risk between all modes. The increases in conflicts and risk raises the potential for injuries and deaths.”

ODOT began working in earnest to expand I-5 at the Rose Quarter in 2017. The agency proposed adding capacity to the narrow, 1.8-mile section of freeway.

The department has faced resistance on a variety of fronts. Supporters of Harriet Tubman Middle School, adjacent to I-5, said the project would worsen air quality around the school. To eliminate that concern, lawmakers appropriated $120 million last year to relocate Tubman.

The Albina Vision Trust wanted ODOT to use the project to help repair Portland’s historically Black neighborhood, which was partially razed and bisected by the construction of I-5 in the 1960s.

Last year, the department produced a new design, called Hybrid Option 3 that includes a partial cap over the freeway. The agency hopes the cap will help knit Albina back together.

To make space for the freeway cap, however, ODOT redesigned the I-5 southbound off-ramp. It starts farther south, giving more room for the cap—but creates a sharper turn from the highway onto Northeast Williams Avenue.

ODOT’s written description of the design change is deceptively simple.

The I-5 southbound off-ramp would move south of Northeast Weidler Street at Wheeler Avenue by Moda Center, ODOT documents say. “This change improves the quality of developable land space on the highway cover and provides more space for people walking, biking and rolling through the area.”

After seeing the new design last year, Rip City Management hired GBD Architects of Portland to review it and retained the Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt law firm.

“The schedule presented by ODOT provided no opportunity for meaningful input,” RCM explained in written comments.

Those comments include explicit criticism of the department’s work.

Rip City says ODOT’s analysis of the impacts of the design change includes “improper manipulation of traffic safety reports,” adding that the agency “had falsely portrayed crash data and used that as a basis for project construction.”

In a technical safety report ODOT released Aug. 15,

BRIAN BURK

“The current plan will make an already challenging situation worse.”

the agency acknowledges the new ramp design doesn’t meet Highway Safety Manual standards and includes a “sharp curve” that would make “the forecast crash rate at this location… approximately 13% higher.”

Others share Rip City ’s safety concerns. In a seven-page comment to ODOT, the Portland Bicycle Advisory Committee zeroed in on the same off-ramp.

“The southbound off-ramp to Williams is exceedingly unsafe for people walking and bicycling, probably the most dangerous spot for this infrastructure in the project area,” the group wrote in its Dec. 27 comments.

The Portland Pedestrian Advisory Committee agreed, writing in comments to ODOT, first reported last week by BikePortland, that the new design would “generally worsen conditions.”

Rip City ’s analysis also suggests the freeway expansion would make it more difficult to get trucks in and out of the neighborhood—a critical matter since concerts and other events often require big rigs to move equipment in and out of the arenas.

More broadly, the Blazers organization fears, the

current design would undermine development of the long-blighted Rose Quarter, an unrealized city goal.

“The I-5 project should attract high-density, mixeduse development to an area that has languished,” the organization wrote. “The proposed [design] exacerbates the unattractiveness to redevelopment at the Rose Quarter.”

That’s a blow to ODOT, which seemed to have placated all its major critics except for environmentalists, led by the group No More Freeways. (That group has sued to block the project, which it says would increase

traffic and emissions, not reduce them.)

But the Trail Blazers enjoy a large, devoted following.

Pollster Adam Davis has tracked Portlanders’ views on the team since the late ’70s. Davis says most area residents—not just fans who attend games—consider themselves Blazer fans.

“They are two to three times more likely to volunteer a positive association with the team,” Davis says.

(By the Blazers’ own metrics, 825,000 adults in the metro area “watch, stream, attend, listen, or follow the Blazers.”)

ODOT says it will take the concerns raised by Rip City and others in the public comment period seriously.

“The highway cover design is in its early stages,” ODOT’s Finn says. “This portion of the federal approval process is designed to identify all impacts and get stakeholder feedback. The concerns being raised are an important piece of this process. We will evaluate those concerns with stakeholders and our partners at the city of Portland and develop solutions together.”

TECHNICAL FOUL: A proposed new I-5 offramp troubles the Blazers.

Hotseat: Rene Gonzalez

What

can

firefighters do to reduce homeless camp blazes? We asked the newest fire commissioner.

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez was on the job for less than a week when Mayor Ted Wheeler handed him a gift basket of city bureaus in crisis: the fire department and the bureau that handles 911 calls.

It’s an apt reward for a politician who campaigned on a platform of cracking down on crime and unhoused camping. The mayor didn’t give him the Police Bureau—few mayors relinquish control of the cop shop—but Wheeler placed Gonzalez in charge of the city’s emergency dispatch desk and many of its first responders. Firefighters are also reeling from a rise in fires that begin in and around homeless camps: As WW reported last year, camp fires now constitute half the fires in Portland (“Camp Fires Everywhere,” Nov. 2, 2022).

What’s more, Portland Fire & Rescue contains a 2-year-old program called Portland Street Response that sends unarmed crisis teams to people in mental distress. That means Gonzalez partly controls the direction of an innovative program crafted and championed by former Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, the incumbent he just vanquished. The police union, which endorsed Gonzalez, has been reluctant to cede work to PSR. During the campaign, Gonzalez expressed trepidation about expanding the program wihout more in-depth data about its effectiveness.

Last week, WW visited Gonzalez’s makeshift office downtown, in a building adjacent to City Hall while his permanent office is being repainted beige, to ask him how he plans to lead his bureaus for the next two years. We discussed how firefighters’ job descriptions have been complicated by the homelessness crisis and what he plans to do about PSR.

Here are excerpts from that interview. Responses have been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

WW: Talking to the fire union and Fire Chief Sara Boone, what do you see as the biggest issues confronting the bureau right now?

Rene Gonzalez: Certainly staffing versus volume they face is a gigantic piece. I think that the forced overtime, which was a response to the realities they’re facing—too many fires and not enough staff—is really beating down that workforce. I think at times there’s almost a sadness and depression about our inability to address unsanctioned camps.

When you’re putting out a fire [at a structure] built to code, the risk factors are understandable. In unsanctioned camps, you don’t know what you’re walking into. It’s deeply unpredictable, and I don’t think most fire professionals enjoy putting out a cooking or heating fire as human beings. There’s nothing fun about that.

Do you think firefighters should be first responders to chronic callers?

I think part of it is sanctioned versus unsanctioned camps. As a city, we have to move toward sanctioned camping, and that means a place with basic rules and fire safety. The fire bureau gave me this number: Since mid-2019, the fire bureau has been tracking fire calls among the houseless. Of those, only six were in sanctioned camps versus 2,554 in unsanctioned camps.

Don’t you think that’s because we have so few people in sanctioned camps, that it’s just a result of proportions?

We have a lot more unsanctioned camping than sanctioned camping. But the bottom line is: You talk to the fire marshal, and they think this is a big deal. There’s no rules in unsanctioned camps,

and it’s driving a substantial amount of these fires. We just have to get folks into sanctioned camping where there’s reasonable public safety steps being taken, including fire suppression.

Let’s say these camps aren’t built for another year. What could we do in the interim to partially relieve that burden on firefighters?

I think we have to get shelter up as quickly as possible. Whether we get multiple hundred- or 50-person sites, whether that takes 18 months or not, we have to show progress on that. I wonder in the interim what we can be doing further on things like proactive fire safety.

Will you expand and give more funding to Portland Street Response?

Right now, if I were to say where I’m inclined to push further funding, I would prioritize fire bureau staff. I want us to be aggressive in evaluating outside funds for PSR.

The police union has historically pushed back against sending more nonemer gency calls to PSR. Would you go against the police union in that way?

I didn’t know the police union was opposed to more of those calls go ing to PSR. If more calls are ap propriate for PSR, absolutely. I don’t know if any public safety bureau should have a veto on what makes sense. I want to un derstand more about the police’s opposition to that.

Over the summer, the union asked Commissioner Hardes ty for double pay for overtime hours worked. She said it was fiscally irresponsible. If the union came to you and asked for double pay, how would you respond?

I would look to Chief Boone first on that. I don’t think we can take it off the table as a solution, particularly because 911 responders ended up getting it. I don’t know that fire should be excluded from that possibility if we’re giving it to other public safety employees. But we’re all facing budgetary restrictions.

So you’d defer to Chief Boone? Yes.

You’ve talked a lot about what others have said to you about how to remedy some of the fire bureau’s issues. Do you have any concrete policies that you plan to implement?

I want to look at staffing as a priority. The training facility and the logistics facility that they opted not to go forward with as a bond, those are really old buildings. If you want to call that a policy, I don’t know, but we have to evaluate how we go forward with things.

Would you ask for a bond right now from voters?

I would first evaluate what other funding sources are out there for that before I go to voters for anything in this environment. I’m very reluctant right now to ask for anything in the short term, unless we’ve got our ducks in a row for return on investment for voters.

“Right now, if I were to say where I’m inclined to push further funding, I would prioritize fire bureau staff.”

Oregon’s parole board is closeto releasing an aging contract killer. Should his targets still fear him?

BY LUCAS MANFIELD lmanfield@wweek.com

Last August, in a room at the Oregon State Correctional Institution, a grizzled Robert King, 72, stared into a camera and swore he’d finally changed.

He was no longer the same King who, in 1984, was sentenced to life in prison for the contract murder of a Lake Oswego woman, leaving her grade school-aged daughter without a mom. King was then a 6-foot-1, 220-pound Alabama native, a hustler with a gift of gab who dealt cocaine, provided financial advice to a scion of one of the Northwest’s great fortunes, and generally dabbled in the demimonde.

“I try to make up for everything—on a daily basis—for the wrongs I did to that little girl and the mother,” King said, choking up. “I can never make it up.”

For King, his three hours being quizzed by the Board of Parole was the latest bout in a decade of fighting. He’s fought prostate cancer. He’s fought vaccine mandates. He’s fought the parole board all the way to the Oregon Court of Appeals—twice.

But this time, freedom felt closer to his grasp

Among other things, two veteran corrections officers testified in favor of King’s parole—because, they say, King has been an exceptional inmate and has more than once saved the lives of their co-workers.

“His present record and actions during his incarceration more than demonstrate that he has been rehabilitated for many years,” said King’s attorney, Venetia Mayhew. “Mr. King wants to go home.”

For the first time in King’s 40 years behind bars, the parole board agreed. His release is scheduled for May.

Not everyone agrees. An hour’s drive north of the Oregon State Correctional Institution, in Clackamas County, prosecutors are alarmed at the prospect of King’s release.

“The only thing that stands between Mr. King and further crimes is the fact that he’s well supervised in the Department of Corrections,” says Clackamas County senior deputy district attorney Dave Paul.

“I think he looks at killing a human being like he does

one of the wild boars in the outback of Alabama,” says Jay Keating, a former associate of King’s.

The board can still defer King’s release if he presents a “danger to the health and safety of the community.” It will review a psychiatric evaluation of King at a hearing in February.

In the meantime, Dorothy Bullitt, a 67-year-old retiree in Seattle, is building a case to stop King’s release. She believes he still belongs behind bars.

Not because she thinks he should still be in jail for his murder of Julie Salter in Lake Oswego or his failed conspiracy to murder a Seattle jeweler.

But because Bullitt is convinced King killed her brother in 1981—and that he wants her dead too.

“It is not about vengeance. It is not about grief,” Bullitt says. “It is just about fear.”

The question presented by King’s case is just how long a sickly old man is worth fearing.

ROBERT HADEN KING JR. WAS THE son of a well-connected lawyer in Gadsden, Ala. King graduated from the University of Baltimore School of Law, but never took a bar exam, and ended up finding work in Seattle in 1980 as an investigator at a local law firm. His wife, Betty, was the daughter of a wealthy King County councilmember and modeled jeans.

After his arrest, reporters pieced together profiles of the “fast-talking, name-dropping” King, a “snappy dresser with a Southern accent” who could occasionally be seen in his father-in-law’s black Rolls Royce and was rumored to carry stacks of bills and handguns that he loved to show off.

Keating, a former business associate, told WW he once asked to borrow $3,000 from King, who handed him the bills and an AR-15 rifle.

King cultivated a gangster persona. He started a rumor that he had fought Nicaraguan guerrillas with the CIA, and would flash a phony government ID. When called to testify in the murder trial of one of his associates, he told a courtroom that he had gone to South America for a cocaine deal in the mid-1970s.

King had a gun room in his Green Lake home’s basement, with “rifles, pistols, stuffed boars and zebra skins,” Keating tells WW It’s hard, even now, to distinguish the truth of King’s past from his litany of fictions. King, talkative to the end, was never a reliable narrator of his own life.

Why the lies, an attorney wondered? “Make people afraid of me,” he explained under cross examination while testifying as a state’s witness in 1984. “When I’m on the street taking money from people.”

IN LATE 1980, KING WAS JOINED in Seattle by Warren Hill, and together they would venture into a series of more serious crimes, some of them bizarre.

The two 30-year-olds knew each other from their Alabama youth. According to a source of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Hill’s mother had worked as the King family maid.

Hill had just gotten out of a Detroit prison on manslaughter charges when King called him up, offering him a one-way plane ticket to Seattle. King picked him up from Sea-Tac airport in his father-in-law’s black Rolls Royce, King later testified in court.

In Seattle, Hill lived in the house with King and his wife. He served as King’s bodyguard and muscle.

King later had this to say about Hill, ac-

“The others are still afraid.”

Oswego home. Her daughter, Gillian, was a few blocks down the street at Hallinan Elementary School.

Salter was the ex-wife of Jim Salter, a partner at the law firm where King worked. Hill told police he was paid $10,000 to kill her—although it was never clear who paid it.

The motive for Julie Salter’s murder remains unclear to this day. The Salters were in a custody battle. King claimed Jim Salter had ordered the killing, requesting that his ex-wife be raped, mutilated and killed as revenge.

Jim Salter was arrested and put on trial for his ex-wife’s murder but found not guilty, in large part because King, who had pleaded guilty, was the state’s key witness—and he was less than credible.

Salter was acquitted. He died last year. His daughter, Gillian, tells WW she believes the murder was part of an elaborate attempt by King to blackmail her father.

“It’s pretty hard to reconcile how you don’t have your primary parent your whole life because somebody else was desperate for financial gains,” Gillian Salter says.

cording to an Oregon Department of Corrections report: “He has a wide range of talents: being a pimp, prostitution, he paints real good—painted part of my house. Cooks real good, barbecues. Washes the dishes real well.”

And: “He’s a good contract murderer.”

King hired Hill for the killing of Julie Salter, a young woman who had moved to Lake Oswego after her divorce. In September 1980, Hill shot her in the head at her Lake

Two years earlier, in Washington, King and Hill were convicted of plotting an aborted murder of a Danish-born Seattle jewelry dealer, Ole Bang Pedersen, whose estranged wife was romantically involved with one of King’s colleagues.

King was given three life sentences. Two in Washington for the robbery and murder conspiracy, and one in Oregon for the murder of Julie Salter.

King “demonstrated a disregard for others

TROUBLED: Jay Keating, a former business associate of Bob King, doesn’t want him released from prison. “He looks at killing a human being like he does one of the wild boars in the outback of Alabama,” Keating says.

BRIAN BROSE

REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

Why the Oregon parole board changed its mind about Robert King.

The last time Robert King sought parole, in 2012, he was denied. The board found him defensive and aggressive. Its members were unmoved by King’s excuses, finding that his crimes were not “somehow isolated and time-limited.”

Ten years later, a new board came to a different conclusion after reviewing much of the same evidence. It found King is “likely to be rehabilitated” and scheduled his tentative release for May, pending a psychological evaluation.

Here’s what changed in the intervening decade:

KING GOT OLDER

At 72, King is part of an aging Oregon prison population. The state had the highest percentage of inmates over 55 in 2011, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Not only are older inmates more expensive to incarcerate (the state must pay for their health care), they are also less likely to reoffend. And the board is doing a better job taking that into account, says Dylan Arthur, executive director of Oregon’s Board of Parole and Post-Prison Supervision.

We’re getting better risk assessments,” Arthur tells WW. “As we age, we become generally less risky.”

KING GOT A NEW LAWYER

For some parole hearings, inmates are guaranteed legal representation. The attorney plays a major role, giving opening and closing statements and coaching their client through the interview. In 2012, King was represented by an attorney in Vale, Ore., near the prison where King was incarcerated.

In the intervening years, lawyers at the Criminal Justice Reform Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School, a driving force in Oregon criminal justice reform, have taken an interest in representing inmates before the parole board. King is represented by Venetia Mayhew, who began taking these cases and encouraging others to do so too while running the clinic’s Clemency Project in 2018. “There were basically no attorneys providing them with the kind of representation that they needed,” she says.

Mayhew was one of three lawyers, including the clinic’s director, Aliza Kaplan, King asked the parole board to have represent him in his petition for a new hearing last year.

Why did King pick them? “We’re good at our job,” Kaplan says.

PRISON

GUARDS CAME TO HIS DEFENSE

King came to his Aug. 18 hearing armed with something he didn’t have 10 years earlier: a letter, signed by 16 corrections officers, attesting to his character.

In 2010, King intervened in an assault on a guard and has frequently reported plots by fellow prisoners. With such actions, King “saved four staff lives” and “modeled what rehabilitation is,” states the letter, written in support of a commutation request to Gov. Kate Brown. (She commuted sentences or pardoned convicts in nearly 50,000 cases, but not King’s.)

Two guards testified at King’s August hearing. Gary Alves, a correctional sergeant with 33 years of experience, told the board that King was the “best example” of prisoner rehabilitation he’d ever seen.

King, besides being a frequent informant, did another favor for his prison guards.

In 2021, after Oregon corrections officers sued Gov. Brown in protest of a vaccine mandate, King came to their defense. He filed testimony, arguing that guards would walk away en masse if a mandate were introduced.

“ I personally know 41 correctional officers who will resign or be terminated if the vaccine mandate is enforced,” he wrote.

The board does not appear to have been aware of King’s efforts to help vaccine-skeptical guards. It didn’t come up during his parole hearing, and it’s not mentioned in the more than 200 pages of documents reviewed in August by the parole board, which gave WW a copy of the packet with names and medical records redacted.

After WW emailed the three board members present at King’s hearing, asking whether they knew of the favor, the board’s director, Dylan Arthur, responded, “If the information was not in the hearings packet or covered in the hearing, it was not considered.”

Alves initially offered to speak to WW via telephone but stopped responding to emails. LUCAS MANFIELD.

and for the criminal justice system,” Judge Dale Jacobs wrote in his sentencing order, which would put King behind bars, with the possibility of parole after 30 years.

But, Jacobs wrote, “the prognosis for the defendant’s rehabilitation is poor.”

AS KING RECEIVED TWO OF HIS life sentences in a Washington courtroom, in the gallery was Dorothy Bullitt.

The Bullitts are a Seattle dynasty that, over three generations, has channeled a fortune built in timber and broadcast television into Democratic politics and local philanthropy. They have shaped the paths of states: Their television stations were the springboard for the political career of late Oregon Gov. Tom McCall. The family’s foundation, led by Denis Hayes, a founder of Earth Day, has given away $200 million to environmental causes, and the family has deeded its Capitol Hill estate to Seattle for a city park.

For the past four decades, the family has nursed suspicions that King killed Dorothy’s brother, Ben.

King and Ben Bullitt met soon after the Alabama hustler settled in Seattle. The two shared similar social circles, and Bullitt was attracted to King’s fast life—money, women, cars, drugs.

Ben, a high school dropout, was the black sheep of the Bullitt family. At the time, he owned an antique store downtown and sold weed, according to his sister. But Ben “yearned for the finer things in life,” Dorothy

says, and was charmed by King. The con man fashioned himself as Ben’s financial adviser, teaching him how to leverage his family name into bank loans, which Ben used to finance the purchase of a 67-foot wooden yacht named Pegasus in the winter of 1981.

Days later, Ben Bullitt disappeared. Drunk and high on cocaine, he purportedly dove fully clothed into the frigid waters of Lake Washington. His girlfriend attempted to save him, but he slipped through her grasp, she later told police. Ben was presumed drowned.

His family doubted that version of events. Despite a monthlong effort by divers to scour the 200-foot-deep lake, Bullitt’s body was never found—fueling rumors that Ben had survived and fled his debts, or had even been murdered.

In Dorothy’s telling, Ben was drowned by King or his associates and his body spirited away in a seaplane and disposed of in a nearby crematorium.

King has long denied involvement in the disappearance. “[King] denies all scurrilous allegations that have been made about him in the media by the Bullitt family and their associates,” his attorney tells WW

But Ben’s family long clung to hope that the mystery of his death could be solved, forwarding their theories to police. In turn, the Bullitts’ suspicions infuriated King, who believed the family to be behind his legal woes, according to a fellow inmate at King County Jail who told police about King’s plan for revenge.

That inmate, Kenneth Pendleton, told detectives King had hatched a plan to sneak out a $5,000 murder contract on Dorothy’s father, Stimson Bullitt, in a neighboring inmate’s imitation leather Bible.

Pendleton said King wrote out careful instructions to have Stimson, a prominent lawyer and activist, killed in the basement of the Seattle First National Bank building, where Stimson parked his MG every day on his way to work. Dorothy was the next target.

Prosecutors never filed charges related to the scheme, but it terrified Dorothy. Police handed her and her father mug shots of the suspected gunman and told the two to be on the lookout.

Ten years later, Dorothy says a pair of detectives showed up at her office and told her they’d reopened an investigation into Ben’s death, interviewed King in prison, and concluded that he still planned to kill her once he was released. Police didn’t press charges because they assumed King would be behind bars for life, Dorothy says. Records from that investigation were not included in documents reviewed by the parole board, and WW could not obtain them by deadline.

Four decades later, Dorothy still has trouble sleeping and avoids sitting in a restaurant without a clear view of the door.

“There are a lot of people who feel their lives are in danger if King is released,” she says. But only a few were willing to have WW publish their names.

“The others are still afraid,” Dorothy says.

FOUR DECADES AFTER KING’S violent crime spree, he says he’s a changed man. “I was a whole different person back then,” he told the parole board, blaming “a total change in personality” brought on by a head injury suffered in 1978 plane crash.

“I’m going to be apologizing for it the rest of my life,” he says.

But what ultimately appeared to sway the board was testimony from King’s prison guards, who said he was the best inmate they’d ever had (see “Reversal of Fortune,” page 16).

King could be released as early as May. But that date isn’t set in stone. King has an “exit interview” scheduled for February in which the board will review a psychological evaluation and determine whether King has a “severe emotional disturbance” that could present a danger if he were released.

If that happens, Keating says he’ll buy a gun. Dorothy Bullitt fears he’ll track her down in Seattle. The two plan to submit testimony at King’s next hearing.

“I just want to keep him in prison so I am safe, my family is safe—and for Jim and everyone else who hasn’t come forward,” Bullitt says.

For his part, King has told the parole board he hopes to return to Alabama, mentor at a local church, and keep bees. He intends to live with his brother, who signed a letter in 1994 saying King had a job—and a $35,000-a-year salary—waiting for him at his family law firm.

His brother, Daniel King, isn’t wholly on board.

“I love him so much,” his brother told WW in a phone interview from Gadsden, where he still works as a lawyer for the family firm. But, he added, “he should move to a place where he can start over again and nobody knows him.”

SISTER ACTS:

Dorothy Bullitt (above left) suspects King was involved in the death of her brother, Ben (in framed photo, right).

RABBIT SEASON

by Chris Nesseth

On Instagram: @chrisnesseth

The Japanese new year starts at the usual date—Jan. 1—but the party lasts a little longer. That’s how the Portland Japanese Garden came to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit with a ceremony Jan. 8. The festivities in the West Hills began with a lion dance, performed by Portland State University Taiko, that featured some friendly biting from a lion-suited dancer (signifying good luck). Other events included brush painting of rabbits and Hatsugama, the first tea kettle of the new year, normally a four-hour ceremony (the festival featured the final 15 minutes of the ritual).

Photos

LISTEN: Juma, Madison Shanley and Lil Ang

Kelly’s Olympian, Portland’s third-oldest continuously operating bar and restaurant, is rumored to have hosted a speakeasy in the basement during Prohibition. Now, all the booze is aboveboard and served on the main floor, often accompanied by live music. The upcoming midweek lineup promises to be heartfelt, upbeat and eclectic. Don’t miss Boston alternative hip-hop artist Juma and two Portland crooners, Madison Shanley and Lil Ang. This event is part of Portland Music Month. Kelly’s Olympian, 426 SW Washington St., 503-228-3669, portlandmusicmonth.org. 8 pm Wednesday, Jan. 11. $12 in advance, $15 at the door. 21+.

WATCH: Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B

According to one recent count, there are 250 film versions of Sherlock Holmes, not to mention all the stage and book iterations. Few, however, portray the key characters as women, which is just one of the shifts in Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B, adapted by the brilliant Kate Hamill. Expect fast-paced fun and humor from the classic characters envisioned in a new light. Portland Center Stage at the Armory, 128 NW 11th Ave., 503-445-3700, pcs.org. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturday-Sunday, 2 pm select Thursdays, Jan. 14-Feb. 12. $25-$98.

DRINK: Nano Beer Festival Winter Edition

Head to John’s Marketplace on Powell to sample beers, ciders and other beverages brewed by some of the area’s smallest producers, which include names you’ve probably never heard of, like Crooked Creek (St. Helens), New Ancient (Portland) and Creekside (Hillsboro). Who knows? You might help discover the next great local brand. John’s Marketplace Powell, 3560 SE Powell Blvd., 503-206-5273, nanobeerfest.com. Noon-9 pm Friday-Saturday, Jan. 13-14. $20. 21+.

LISTEN: Portland’s Folk Festival 2023

Celebrate regional folk artists by attending three days’ worth of 24 different performances at this festival, which was postponed due to COVID for the past two years. Don’t miss the genre-defying Hillstomp, a Portland duo playing on Friday, who draw from North Mississippi trance blues, Appalachia and rockabilly to fuel their energy-filled, percussion-driven repertoire that’s given depth of sound by irreverent instruments like chains, buckets and a megaphone. Other notable contributors include Glitterfox, Redray Frazier and Jessica Manalo, but you’ll have to dig into the schedule to find your picks, or just plan on attending all three days. This event is part of Portland Music Month. McMenamins Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 503-225-0047, crystalball-

roompdx.com. 6 pm Friday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, Jan. 13-15. $35 advance, $40 at the door, $90 for a three-day pass.

WATCH: My Words Are My Sword

Why pick one type of performance art when you can have them all? My Words Are My Sword combines music and drama in order to explore Blackness through word and song in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The show, written and performed by poet and actor Darius Wallace, includes some of King’s inspirational speeches, a reenactment of Frederick Douglass’ childhood, writing by Malcolm X, and Langston Hughes’ poetry. The Portland Chamber Orchestra will provide the music, composed by Brazilian-born Jasnam Daya Singh. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 SW Crescent St., Beaverton, 971-501-7722, thereser.org/ event/my-words-are-my-sword. 7:30 pm Saturday, Jan. 14. $19-$44.

LISTEN: Free Pizza Records Presents: The Best Party

Doug Fir Lounge hosts some funky acts this week, like Mr. Vale’s Math Class (not an actual math class but a talented sixpiece funk band), horn-driven soul, funk and world group Reb & the Good News and “earth jazz alchemists” Jay Si Proof. Despite the name of the event, it doesn’t appear there will actually be any free pizza, but Doug Fir does serve up plenty

of tasty eats, including a tangy ceviche, crave-worthy jackfruit tacos, and a classic pub burger, or you can always hit up nearby pizza hot spot Dimo’s Apizza beforehand. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 503-231-9663, dougfirlounge.com/ upcoming-shows. 9 pm Saturday, Jan. 14. $15. 21+.

LEARN: Adult Intro to Derby

Don’t deny it—most of us probably already have our personal roller derby name already rolling around in our brains. If you’ve got that much accomplished, why not get the rest of the skills necessary to bump elbows with the best of them? The Rose City Rollers are offering just such an opportunity with a four-week introductory course that starts Sunday, Jan. 15. Tuition includes loaner skates, pads and helmet, and a party at the end of the term. The Hangar at Oaks Park, Southeast Oaks Park Way, 503-233-5777, apex.rosecityrollers. com. 8-10 am Sunday, Jan. 15-Feb. 5. $150. 18+.

MORE THAN ELEMENTARY: Ashley Song and Kimberly Chatterjee in Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson – Apt. 2B

FOOD & DRINK

Editor: Andi Prewitt Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

Have It Your Way

Customization with a side of sass is on the menu at Jojo.

BY ALEXANDER BASEK

I knew Jojo wasn’t messing around when they served me a chicken sandwich with a side of chewing gum.

More than a helpful hint, the stick of Extra with my entree was Jojo in a nutshell: sticky, silly and, yeah, a little extra. This particular chicken sandwich was the Vampires Hate Her ($16), a nod to the chumboxes down the page on many of your favorite online publications. The VHH has enough garlic—in the form of garlic confit mayo and garlic oil into which the chicken is dipped—to stun a small animal. Made with a grilled or fried chicken thigh and topped with cheese, barbecue sauce, and a nominal amount of shredded lettuce, it’s smoky, sweet, tangy, sloppy and verging on the ridiculous.

Everything verges on the ridiculous at Jojo. The brick-andmortar location opened in the Pearl in September, and since then, it’s been pure maximalist dining. Servings are optimized for NFL offensive linemen. Many of the sandwiches require a patented Guy Fieri Hunch to get a full bite. The flavor profile is generously described as “onion forward” on a lot of the dishes. It’s either the world’s worst or best first date restaurant. It’s also Portland’s most extremely online dining experience. Owner Justin Hintze is an unhinged shitposter on Instagram, which I intend as a compliment. It’s one thing to have an offmenu “chicken à la McRib” sandwich designed by local food

luminary Bill Oakley. To claim Jojo’s version felled the president on his most recent visit to Portland? That’s some quality online content, folks.

That onlineness translates into an experience that’s optimized for the way the youths eat today (no cap, fr fr). The food is highly photogenic. A restaurant-only fried chicken melt ($16), on shokupan bread with a double shot of cheddar, coleslaw and ranch, is presented in the traditional Jojo style, sliced in two and facing up, toward the camera. Wood accents and indoor plants, draped above the bar and throughout the dining room, imbue the space with the same vibe as your favorite apothecary-slash-crystal emporium. And the customizable menu is the subject of rapturous posts on TikTok. Most of the items are available as vegetarian or vegan versions, made with Ota tofu or Beyond meat. Just flip over the menu to access Jojo’s “vegan edition” and see for yourself.

A special nod should be given to the friendly bar staff, eager to debate the finer points of ranch on pizza. They’ve created a pair of boozy milkshakes, which work as drinks, not only as desserts with a strange medicinal aftertaste. The Choco Cocoa A-Go-Go ($10) is a standout, made with two kinds of rum and cereal milk. While one of the specialty cocktails is made with Hpnotiq, the rest are relatively staid in comparison, aside from the paper umbrellas they sport as garnishes.

The fried chicken sandwiches are just as good as the ones at

the Jojo food truck, minus the parking lot ambience. Smash burgers feature plenty of char without drying out entirely. The jojos, normally one of Oregon’s least transcendent gas station foods, are in an elite tier here, staying crispy even when loaded with Tillamook cheddar and a honking pile of caramelized onions. Brussels sprouts pull double duty as an umami-packed side, and as the main event in the Brussels sprout melt ($13).

That customizability—down to the suite of dipping sauces for the titular jojos and tweaked soft drinks inspired by the “dirty” sodas of Utah—makes for a welcoming experience to a wider swath of clientele than the truck. It’s an intelligent business strategy, focused on the kind of hospitality that’s missing from much of the Portland dining scene these days. What tells vegans they’re welcome at Jojo more than a good fried tofu sandwich treated with the same level of love and care as their iconic chicken sandwich? For the next generation of Portland diners, who may not be entirely used to seeing their desires and passions reflected in a restaurant or even an entree, it’s a welcome addition to our city’s collection of exciting places to eat.

Jojo’s success shouldn’t come as a surprise, though. As Field of Dreams taught us, if you build it, they will gum.

Buzz List

1. FRACTURE BREWING

Hot Plates

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. COSMIC BLISS

1015 SE Stark St., fracturebrewingpdx.com. 4-10 pm Wednesday-Thursday, 4-11 pm Friday-Saturday, 2-8 pm Sunday.

After months of brewing without a taproom, Fracture finally has a place for the public to enjoy a pint that it can call its own. Husband-and-wife team Darren Provenzano and Ny Lee, who met and worked together in a brewery in Vietnam, officially began welcoming customers into their Stark Street space in December. Year-round offerings, made in the former Burnside Brewing space, include two Pilsners, a West Coast IPA and a hazy. But don’t sleep on the seasonal Dark Lager with notes of toffee, raisin and chocolate that will warm you from the inside out this winter.

2. MASALA LAB & MARKET

5237 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 971-340-8635, masalalabpdx.com. 9 am-3 pm Thursday-Tuesday. The recently opened Masala Lab just extended its hours of operation and added new items to the menu after the team had several weeks to perfect recipes. While everything coming out of the gluten-free kitchen sounds appealing—from the saagshuka to the chaat hash—we might be most excited about the lineup of new cocktails, boozy brunch classics with an Indian twist. As we head into the new year, at least one chai hot toddy should accompany your meal.

3. GC WINES

3450 N Williams Ave., Suite 7, 503-764-9345, grochaucellars.com. 4-8 pm Friday-Sunday.

This Yamhill County winery is marking 20 years of business by bringing its products closer to its Portland drinkers. Grochau Cellars, located just outside downtown Amity, opened a tasting room in the Eliot neighborhood this fall. The business also changed its name: From here on out, Grochau is officially GC Wines. While the new moniker might be a bit dull, the wines—like the Commuter Cuveé Pinot Noir, a blend of fruit from 11 Willamette Valley vineyards—certainly are not.

4. STRAIGHTAWAY COCKTAILS

TASTING ROOM

901 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 971-255-1627, straightawaycocktails.com. Noon-7 pm Monday-Wednesday, noon-8 pm Thursday-Saturday, noon-5 pm Sunday. There’s a good reason all of the charter yacht guests on the ever-expanding Bravo franchise Below Deck order an abundance of espresso martinis. The ’80s cocktail really is delicious, and thanks to the caffeine content, it helps keep the party going. Straightaway Cocktails and Stumptown Coffee teamed up to make their own canned version with coffee liqueur and cold brew, which you can now drink at the distiller’s Hawthorne tasting room or purchase to enjoy at home.

5. BAD HABIT ROOM

5433 N Michigan Ave., 503-303-8550, saraveza. com/the-bad-habit-room. 4-10 pm Wednesday-Friday, 9 am-2 pm and 4-10 pm Saturday-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 caters 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 vermouth that acts as a grounding agent.

207 NW 10th Ave., 971-420-3630, cosmicbliss. com. Noon-8 pm Sunday-Wednesday, noon-9 pm Thursday-Saturday.

January might seem like a strange time to recommend chowing down on ice cream, but if you think about it, it’s really when you should be indulging in a summertime staple. Once all of the holiday decorations have come down and you’re left with gray, chilly winter days, there’s no better treat to encourage you to dream of July. There’s also a new scoop shop in town worth trying out before the summer rush: Eugene-based Cosmic Bliss, which is good news for those with dietary restrictions. There is both grass-fed dairy and plant-based ice cream, and everything is gluten free.

2. GRAND FIR BREWING

1403 SE Stark St., grandfirbrewing.com. Noon-10 pm Tuesday-Sunday, noon-11 pm Friday-Saturday. It was only a matter of time before brewer Whitney Burnside and chef Doug Adams went into business together. The husband-and-wife team opened Grand Fir in the former West Coast Grocery Company space in mid-November, and there was a line around the block to get in on the first day (evidence of how highly anticipated this project has been). Adams’ famed smoked meats (braised elk, Calabrian chicken wings) anchor the food menu and pair perfectly with Burnside’s beers.

3. PALOMAR

959 SE Division St., #100, 971-357-8020, barpalomar.com. 5-10 pm Tuesday-Saturday. In September, longtime Portland chef Ricky Bella took charge of the burners in Palomar’s kitchen, reigniting the space by weaving the flavors of his Mexican American heritage with the restaurant’s Cuban staples. It’s best to bounce around all sections of the tight, one-page menu, but there is one nonnegotiable appetizer: Ceviche de camarones, made with leche de tigre, gets its richness from avocado, its texture from cucumber, and tart acid from diced pineapple.

4. YUI

5519 NE 30th Ave., 503-946-9465, yuipdx.com. 4-9 pm Monday-Saturday.

There’s no picking your own protein or six different spice levels to choose from at Yui. The elimination of the “choose your own adventure” element we’ve grown so accustomed to with Thai takeout brings new life and specificity to each dish here. A notable signature item is the krapao wagyu kaidao, made with ultra-tender and generously salted minced beef. But don’t pass up the boat noodle soup, which is enormous and loaded with meatballs, crispy pork, scallions, and morning glory greens.

5.

NODOGURO

623 NE 23rd Ave., nodoguropdx.com. 6:30 pm single seating Thursday-Sunday.

It seats only 13, costs $250 before drinks, and is a tough reservation to snag, but the fan pool for Ryan and Elena Roadhouse’s incomparable meals is deep and enthusiastic. Nodoguro should be anchored at its latest location for at least three years. Yes, there will be uni, caviar, Dungeness crab and several varieties of pristine fish flown in from Japan. But the artistry in presentation, the restraint evident on every plate, is at least equal to the luxury of the ingredients.

New Year, New You

If stepping up your self-care game is a resolution for 2023, we’ve rounded up six products that should help you achieve that goal.

BY BRIANNA WHEELER

In her 1988 essay collection A Burst of Light, activist and poet Audre Lorde wrote, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare.”

Lorde was battling cancer when she wrote the essay that contained that phrase, and her point was crystal clear. Before the era of wellness influencers reduced that passage to a meme-able piece of internet ephemera, self-care, or self-preservation, was an act of rebellion, particularly for marginalized communities, but extra particularly for Black women.

Cannabis is a countercultural cornerstone tied to that notion; it’s more than just “weed.” It’s plant medicine that sidesteps pharmaceuticals, it’s a social alternative to alcohol, and it’s a plant our bodies were built to benefit from on a molecular level. Which brings up the question: How are you going to step up your self-care game in 2023, stoner?

For potheads wondering how to integrate holistic cannabis into their wellness routine, we’ve aggregated a handful of products that belong in your medicine cabinet, tea shelf, and boudoir in hopes that radical self-care will lead to your best self in 2023.

FOR YOUR INSIDES

Luminous Botanicals Universal Cannabis Tonic Earth Blend

While some tinctures and wellness gummies might include artificial flavors and/or sweeteners (which are totally antithetical to wellness), Luminous Botanicals produces a tincture made from only the finest organic, sun-grown cannabis and carrier oils. The resulting product is a therapeutic oil that is not only an exceptional daily supplement (supporting mood balance,

immune system modulation, healthy sleep, and even acting as a neuroprotectant), but it can also reduce skin irritation, act as a pain-relieving massage oil, and even be used as a sensual lubrication. Here’s to recognizing cannabi-gasms as part of a full-body wellness routine in ’23.

BUY: luminousbotanicals.com

East Fork Cultivars Organic Beverage Enhancer CBD Drops

East Fork Cutivar’s entire product line is focused on wellness, and for users who are less familiar with therapeutic herb, the brand can act as a stoney gateway to holistic bliss. Its beverage enhancer, for example, is a low-stakes way to integrate alternative cannabinoids into your everyday routine without having to reinvent yourself as a weed-fitness person. Bonus: This particular beverage enhancer is a neutral-tasting, super-easy way to introduce noncannathusiasts to the holistic side of dank weed.

BUY: Hemp Bar, 6258 SE Foster Road, 503-477-7183, hempbarportland.com.

Make & Mary The Empress Hemp Tea

Make & Mary is a local hemp skin care brand whose therapeutic offerings include aromatherapeutic inhalers, magic mushroom blend tinctures, and an organic tea formulated with a complex bouquet of botanicals made to reduce menstrual pain, soothe digestive discomfort and soothe your nerves. In addition to organic, full-spectrum hemp, The Empress Hemp Tea includes hops, chamomile, red raspberry leaf, lavender, rose and peppermint.

BUY: Make & Mary, 2506 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-444-7608, makeandmary.com.

FOR YOUR OUTSIDES

High Desert Pure Mimosa Aloe Gel

High Desert Pure’s aloe-based skin gel is both a soothing salve and a facial moisturizer. This alcohol-free formulation contains argan oil, niacinamide (vitamin B3), and panthenol (vitamin B5), and the resulting gel is as light and refreshing as pure aloe, with the added aromatherapeutic burst of sweet citrus. Though this gel is recommended as an after-sun soother, it’s earned its spot on my vanity shelf as an all-season, skin-rejuvenating hydrator that complements my moderate intake of breakfast cocktails.

BUY: highdesertpure.com

Sisters of the Valley CBD Topical Salve

The nuns responsible for Sisters of the Valley’s CBD lotions, potions and salves are not associated with any particular organized religion, but act rather as an enclave of femme scholars who work together, pray together, and identify as stewards of plant-based medicine all while wearing nun-style habits. Their delightful take on a life of service makes them easy to like, and for users tiptoeing into cannabinoid wellness for the first time, buying therapeutic weed salve from a certified Central California weed nun can be exceptionally comforting.

BUY: sistersofthevalley.org

Frigg Attuning Hair Potion

For some, hair care is a critical part of self-preservation. When your crowning glory is dusty and crunchy, it really can dull your shine in ways that can be completely damaging to your self-worth. But a solid scalp care regimen can turn an ashy coif into a glossy halo that keeps your chin up and your flakes in check. Frigg’s Attuning Hair Potion is formulated with a blend of baobab, jojoba, cyprus, geranium and rosemary leaf oils, as well as both CBD and CBG, which should soothe irritated scalps and leave your hair feeling supple.

BUY: Make & Mary, 2506 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-444-7608, makeandmary.com.

She Belongs With Strings

Candlelight Concerts is bringing the Listeso String Quartet to the Alberta Rose Theater for a Taylor Swift tribute concert.

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

Taylor Swift’s music is made for obsessing over. Fans have long pored over seemingly insignificant details in her lyrics like a scarf or a cardigan, speculated what song is about which of her long list of famous ex-lovers, and interpreted her work with a zeal more akin to that of biblical scholars or Stanley Kubrick fans than a pop star’s fan army.

So what’s left when you take the lyrics away? A lot, as it turns out. On Jan. 13, Candlelight Concerts will bring the Listeso String Quartet to the Alberta Rose Theatre for two concerts featuring performances of Taylor Swift favorites played with two violins, a viola, and a cello (more performances will take place Feb. 16 and March 19).

“The advantage to performing these concerts for the legions of Swifties out there is that they already know Taylor’s lyrics, so they’ll be rattling around in their heads during the performance,” says Candlelight curator Ricky Schweitzer.

Candlelight Concerts is the brainchild of a New York entertainment company called Fever. Each show is illuminated by thousands of battery-powered “candles,” creating an eerie atmosphere in whichever venue the concert takes place. It’s ideal for experiencing the work of an artist whose music makes a fetish of over-the-top romantic overtures (it’s surprising Swift doesn’t have a song called “Candlelight” already).

The concert series started in 2019 with mostly classical performances, but it soon expanded to include tributes to popular artists like ABBA, the Beatles, Beyoncé and Queen, selected through “research that takes into account global metrics and feedback from current patrons, prospective patrons, and our musicians,” Schweitzer says.

Taylor Swift poses a particularly unique challenge in an instrumental setting because of how central her words are to her music. Yet Swift wouldn’t have sat so consistently atop the charts for the past 15 years if not for her skill with hooks and melodies, which is what this adaptation of her music hopes to emphasize about her body of work.

“Everyone knows that Taylor’s songs are catchy, of course,” Schweitzer says. “But by looking into every note, every phrase, the arrangers and musicians are

able to internalize her music and interpret it in such a way that makes it their own.”

Though the arrangements take a “utilitarian approach” that allows all four instruments to shine, the first violin is usually responsible for interpreting Taylor’s vocal hooks and staying true to her ear for hiccuping, singsong melodies without simply imitating them.

“The challenge lies in finding ways to translate those specific moments not just note by note to strings, but also in such a way as to accentuate the power of the string instruments themselves,” Schweitzer says.

Candlelight Concerts doesn’t have its own in-house string quartet, so it outsources to local ensembles in the cities where the concerts take place. A Cincinnati performance of the Taylor Swift tribute last month employed the local StringSource quartet, and the Alberta Rose show will feature the Portland branch of the Listeso Music Group, a management agency with quartets in dozens of American cities.

This isn’t the only show Candlelight Concerts is putting on in the next couple months at the Alberta Rose. On Jan. 12 and 22, and Feb. 5, it’ll also host performances of Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, and Jan. 25 will see two performances of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker

Meanwhile, in Miller Hall at the World Forestry Center, tributes to Adele and Queen are lined up, plus a “From Bach to the Beatles” program that highlights the unprecedented ways in which the Fab Four took inspiration from Western art music.

Swift’s own recordings tend to be a little less baroque than that of the Beatles and Queen, generally adhering to standard pop and country structures and arrangements, but Fever is ready for the challenge of making her songs feel fresh and interesting in this unusual context.

“Just as the human voice and a guitar have quirks and limitations that give them their inherent specialness,” Schweitzer says, “so does a string quartet.”

SEE IT: Candlelight: A Tribute to Taylor Swift plays at Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 503-719-6055, albertarosetheatre.com. 6 and 8:30 pm Friday, Jan. 13. $50-$60. Ages 8+, anyone under 16 must be accompanied by an adult.

WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

FRIDAY, JAN. 13:

Perhaps no artist epitomizes the anything-goes spirit of Atlanta hiphop than rapper, singer and onetime Portland resident ILOVEMAKONNEN . Coming to national prominence in 2014 with the weeknight party anthem “Tuesday,” the man born Makonnen Sheran continues to captivate audiences with his untrained warble, which connects the drunken singalongs of Biz Markie, Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Busta Rhymes with the new generation of soul-rap belters like Rod Wave. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave., 503-2844700, startheaterportland.com. 9 pm. $20. 21+.

FRIDAY, JAN. 13:

Ask someone in their late 20s or early 30s if they remember which first dubstep track blew their mind and there’s a good chance they’ll say “Cockney Thug” by Rusko

The English DJ played a crucial role in dubstep’s transition from a low-end London phenomenon to the catalyst of the 2010s’ EDM boom, and his FabricLive.37 mix remains the best starting point for anyone looking to understand the changes the genre’s gone through in its still-short life span. 45 East, 315 SE 3rd Ave., 45eastpdx.com. 10 pm. $25. 21+.

FRIDAY-SUNDAY, JAN. 13-15:

The Portland Folk Festival takes over McMenamins Crystal Ballroom this weekend with three consecutive days of folk, Americana, and roots music by artists both local and otherwise. With dozens of acts (from Hawaiian multi-instrumentalist Ron Artis II and his family band to Blitzen Trapper spinoff Dead Lee to identical-twin folktronica sister act The AM), the festival showcases how malleable the American folk tradition continues to be. McMenamins Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 503-225-0047, crystalballroompdx.com. 6 pm Friday-Saturday, 1 pm Sunday. $35-$40 a day, $90 three-day pass. All ages.

“Dance

Photo by Karen Tapia

Zero Proof

Five (or Six) Secrets for Making Great Non-Alcoholic Drinks at Home

Tips and tricks from Merit Badge’s Matt Mount, who also had a hand in Suckerpunch.

BY JASON COHEN @cohenesque

Matt Mount noticed it just like everybody else who pours drinks for a living.

A well-traveled Portland bartender (Colosso, Paley’s Place) who spent many years at House Spirits (the original creators of Aviation Gin, and now called Westward Whiskey), Mount currently mixes up the medicine for his own company Merit Badge, a craft cocktail and bar catering service.

When you’re serving 150 people at a wedding or office party, or even more than that at public events like the Portland Night Market, you’re also getting real-time market research on tastes and trends. Things like, “all of a sudden everyone wants Ranch Water,” or “White Claw is completely over.”

The most undeniable trend of the past few years, even going back to before the COVID-19 pandemic, is that people want more sophisticated non-alcoholic drinks—and a wider range of options beyond bitters and soda, or lemonade with ginger beer.

“Just a well-made, good-tasting, non-alcoholic drink,” Mount says. “It’s become a movement, and everyone has their own reasons for it.”

Merit Badge began offering such drinks as the Cucumber Cooler (Sōm Cucumber Mint Lime Cane Vinegar Cordial with lemon, ginger syrup and soda) at events. And then, in 2020, when bars and restaurants were shut down, Mount began consulting for the non-alcoholic concept Suckerpunch, both on its at-home kits and its Goat Blocks pop-up.

You’ll find non-alcoholic drinks at myriad Portland restaurants these days. But here are six pieces of advice from Mount if you also want to expand your home bar repertoire.

1. KEEP IT FRESH

If you’re going to the trouble of making your own drink, you always want to use fresh juice or herbs. But even more so when

it’s zero-proof. “You can get a lot of movement with that,” Mount says. “A lot of flavors.”

Citrus, of course, adds both brightness and acidity. To put a boost of heat and spice on people’s palates, consider juicing a jalapeño (carefully! And use judiciously). Pressed celery juice is also something that can balance a drink with sharp ingredients, while also adding dilution—yep, you still have to consider dilution in non-alcoholic cocktails!—in lieu of plain water or soda.

2. THINK LIKE A COOK

In terms of both technique and tasting, “don’t just come at it like it’s a cocktail,” Mount says. “Actually be like, I’m cooking here! I’m making a small meal. How am I going about it to keep those flavors interesting? What am I adding together, what’s happening [with] texture and flavor, how dynamic is this? Are the flavors battling, or are they working together well?”

One great tool to help with that is something Mount calls “my all-time trade secret,” though it’s no secret in most restaurant kitchens: Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg’s 2008 book The Flavor Bible, an encyclopedia of ingredients and potential combinations and applications.

3. TAKE A CUE FROM VEGETARIANS AND VEGANS

If the best plant-based cooking is about letting vegetables, legumes and grains just be themselves rather than a substitute for meat, so it can be for zero-proof.

Sure, some people are still seeking out non-alcoholic drinks that remind them of a favorite classic cocktail, and others can still have so-called non-alcoholic drinks with trace amounts of alcohol (as with all but a few brands of bitters). But some people don’t want that at all, and that can mean different kinds of flavors and drinking experiences for anyone and everyone. That’s what Mount is most excited about, both culinarily and philosophically.

“It’s hard not to reference a cocktail,” he says. “We’re still saying ‘zero-proof,’ or ‘mocktail.’ But where I think it’s awesome and fun and new is when we don’t look at it that way.”

4. MORE IS MORE WITH SPIRIT REPLACERS

While there are all kinds of faux whiskeys, wine alternatives and, of course, low- or no-alcohol beers, Mount also prefers to view a product like Portland’s Wilderton Lustre (an orange, tarragon

and lavender nonbotanical spirit) as a completely new ingredient.

“It’s fun just to be like, what is this? How does this work?” he says. “What am I going to add to it? How do I not bury it, and how do I play off of it? Let’s keep this flavor going.”

And while spirit replacers can and do emulate certain notes of liquor (spice, botanicals, caramelized sweetness), you don’t get the same body or texture. So instead of using 1.5 to 2 ounces in a cocktail, as one might with wine or whiskey, Mount has used as much as 3 ounces of Wilderton in a recipe, to boost the drink’s viscosity and mouthfeel.

5. ONE SECRET INGREDIENT: VERJUS

A byproduct of wine-making made from unripened grapes (giving it the added bonus of utilization and sustainability), verjus is entirely non-alcoholic, less tart than vinegar, and excellent for both cooking and cocktail-making.

“It has great texture, and a great body, without being too sweet,” Mount says. “It doesn’t really taste like wine or grape juice—it just has another dimension to it. You can use it as a base, [and it’s] good for sipping.”

Mount’s favorite local verjus comes from Oregon’s Montinore Estate winery, but that is seasonal and limited (you can try to find it online or at Providore Fine Foods when the time is right). A more common, nationally available brand is OliveNation’s Verjus du Perigord.

6. NOW MAKE SOME DRINKS!

After our initial interview, I told Mount what sort of things I already had around the house, and he came back with a few flavor combinations and potential cocktails. You will have to do a bit of cooking, pressing and experimentation on your own (including ratios and measurements). Here are the combinations he suggested:

• Stephen Smith ginger tea concentrate, lime juice and turmeric cardamom syrup, topped with sparkling apple cider.

• Kombucha (depending on flavor, but spicy and citrusy works for this drink), celery, and pressed lemon wedges (to get the lemon oils in the drink), with an orange peel garnish.

• PG Tips tea concentrate, maple simple syrup, pressed fresh sage, Angostura orange bitters, and black walnut bitters, served tall with a splash of soda.

MOVIES

Baby for Sale

Family

is lost and found in legendary Japanese filmmaker Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Broker.

BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON @thobennett

The father who is not a father. The daughter who is not a daughter. The son who is not a son.

For decades, Japanese filmmaker Kore-eda Hirokazu (Shoplifters, Our Little Sister) has made movies about families. Yet lately, he has been fixated on people who aren’t related by blood, but inhabit familial roles as part of a con that becomes a truth.

That is the story of Broker, which unfolds in South Korea’s illegal adoption industry but is hardly the ruthless crime saga you might expect, given that milieu. Like all of Kore-eda’s films, it is tender, even wholesome—remarkable for a movie about trying to exchange a child for cash.

The child in question is Woo-sung, son of So-young (played by Lee Ji-eun, the actress, singer-songwriter and record producer also known as IU). Desperate to protect her baby from the inner circle of his father, a recently deceased gangster, So-young leaves Woo-sung at a church next to a “baby box” for abandoned children (the film’s screenplay, written by Kore-eda, was inspired by a real-life baby drop box at a Seoul church).

So-young later learns that her son was found by Sang-hyeon (Song Kang-ho, the trapped father in Parasite) and Dong-soo (Gang Dong-won), brokers who sell children to parents eager to avoid the bureaucracy of an official adoption. Given the profitable nature of the scheme—one baby can fetch the equivalent of more than $7,970—Soyoung wants in.

So begins one of the more unusual road trips in movie history. Packed into a green van so battered that the trunk barely closes, So-young, Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo search the nation for a couple willing to pay for Woo-sung. It’s like Little Miss Sunshine, if Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette wanted to sell Abigail Breslin instead of ferrying her to a beauty pageant.

Or is it? With each scene, the journey seems less and less like a mercenary mission. For Sang-hyeon and Dong-soo, it turns out, brokering is both a business and a calling. Driven by the knowledge that Dong-soo’s own mother

abandoned him at the gates of an orphanage, they’re compelled to unite unwanted children with loving parents, even if it means rejecting profitable offers.

As for So-young, our compassion for her rises with each drop of detail about the traumas that led to her leaving Woo-sung by the baby box. She surprises everyone, including the austere police officer (Bae Doona, Cloud Atlas) who confronts her on a neon-bathed rooftop at night, eager to believe she’s a monstrous mother.

Broker, in other words, is a generous portrait of people who other movies might demomnize or dismiss. Kore-eda shows us love as a currency and love as a selfless act, trusting that the actors will thrive in the space between.

That trust is rewarded in every scene, especially when Dong-soo confesses his love for So-young on a Ferris wheel—and, in an oddly moving gesture, places his hand in front of her face. So clearly do the characters understand their shared vulnerabilities and yearnings that it would be superfluous for them to look into each other’s eyes.

Just as Dong-soo and So-young see but don’t see each other, they and Sang-hyeon become a family spiritually, not literally. That’s where the ironies end in Broker. As always, Kore-eda remains religiously devoted to sincerity, always preferring to gaze rather than wink, to be real rather than clever.

If there’s a moment in the movie that perfectly evokes his sincerity, it’s when So-young lies on a bed in a dark hotel room, telling each of the people she loves most, “Thank you for being born,” and listening as those words are repeated gently back to her.

Soon, they will all be gone from that room. The moment will pass, the words will fade, and Sang-hyeon, Dong-soo and So-young will face a world that can’t comprehend their strange and beautiful bond. Yet a lingering shot of a black-and-white photo suggests that they won’t forget the days they shared. Neither will you.

SEE IT: Broker, rated R, opens Friday, Jan. 13, at Living Room Theaters. 341 SW 10th Ave., pdx.livingroomtheaters.com/nowplaying. $7.50-$13.75.

STREAMING WARS

YOUR WEEKLY FILM QUEUE

BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON @thobennett

DOCUMENTARY PICK:

Clearly and unobtrusively, documentarian Alexandra Pelosi captures 14 years in the life of her mother, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in Pelosi in the House (2022). Following the senior Pelosi’s career from becoming the first female House speaker in 2007 to Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021, the film is a compelling chronicle of a woman shaping American politics far more than any MSNBC-fêted firebrand. It’s a testament to a most radical act: showing up and doing your job. HBO Max.

HOLLYWOOD PICK:

Most mainstream American films cower in fear of directly confronting the A word (atheism) and the R word (religion). Not Robert Zemeckis’ Contact (1997), about a scorned scientist (Jodie Foster) and a Christian pop philosopher (Matthew McConaughey) who has the president’s ear. An extraterrestrial invitation brings the two together, but the film, based on Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, is at its best when it’s ruminating on how skepticism can be an act of faith in its own right. Tubi.

INDIE PICK:

FAB FOUR: Lee Ji-eun, Gang Dong-won, Im Seung-soo and Song Kang-ho.

In Extract (2009), Mike Judge whips up a soufflé of corporate idiocy with a deliciously nasty aftertaste. Jason Bateman stars as the head of a flavoring company, but that’s a small part of a story that involves an ingenious grifter (Mila Kunis), a naive gigolo (Dustin Milligan) and a bartender with a fondness for horse tranquilizers (Ben Affleck). Also, the scene where affluent Bateman practically licks his lips when referring to Kunis as “working class” is one of the savviest and most sickening bits of satire in a 21st century American comedy. Cinemax.

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

The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)

The second of Jacques Demy’s two canonical, retina-popping ’60s musicals, The Young Girls of Rochefort makes a timeless feast of pinks and yellows, and stars Catherine Deneuve, Françoise Dorléac, George Chakiris and Gene Kelly. It plays as part of the Clinton Street Theater’s aptly named Sound & Color series. Clinton, Jan. 13.

Punk Singer (2013)

The story of riot grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill, Le Tigre) in her own words, Punk Singer chronicles the rise of feminist punk art in the Pacific Northwest and investigates Hanna’s force-of-nature persona. Clinton, Jan. 16.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)

Kane Hodder—the only actor to don Jason Vorhees’ hockey mask four times—will attend this screening at the Hollywood when else but Friday, Jan. 13. While not a universally beloved Friday installment, Part VII notably marks Hodder’s first Jason turn, introducing brutal physicality and gnarly, soon-to-be-iconic character aesthetics. Hollywood, Jan. 13.

Shadow of a Doubt (1943)

Cinema 21’s Alfred Hitchcock series continues with a classic that asks, should fun uncles be trusted? Joseph Cotten’s Uncle Charlie appears to bring dark secrets with him when he drops in on the family of his admiring niece (Teresa Wright). Cinema 21, Jan. 14.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004)

Alfonso Cuarón directs the third Potter film in an alltime example (up there with James Cameron’s Aliens) of an auteur swooping in to stamp a franchise with his signature style just once. Enjoy the uniquely crooked aesthetics and virtuoso tracking shots as part of the Academy Theater’s Harry Potter revival series. Academy, Jan. 13-19.

ALSO PLAYING:

Academy: Silent Running (1972), Jan. 13-19. Clinton: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), Jan. 12. The Red Shoes (1948), Jan. 14-15. Hollywood: The Blue Brothers (1980), Jan. 12. Beans (2020; part of the Portland EcoFilm Festival), Jan. 15. The Gold Rush (1925), Jan. 14.

EO

While Jenny the donkey stole hearts in The Banshees of Inisherin, EO the donkey puts hearts in a blender, minds in an eco-philosophy class and perspectives in a kaleidoscope. Admittedly, that ambition depends somewhat on how much the audience decides to project onto this sweet-faced beast in Jerzy Skolimowski’s latest film. The 84-year-old Polish director (Deep End, The Shout) follows EO’s wordless odyssey from circus performer to sanctuary creature to escaped servant, nestling between Todd Solondz’s irreverently fabulist Wiener-Dog (2016) and the POV-warping environmental critique of Leviathan (2012). We spend a little time in EO’s line of sight as he trots across Central Europe, but more often, we’re inches from his eyeball, confronted with the black orb’s emotional complexity. While the human vignettes blipping around EO range from vague to preposterously heightened, the donkey himself is affecting throughout. You’d have to be made from stone not to care, though that’s precisely the deep uneasiness Skolimowski probes. The paradox of a post-food chain human experience is, we can invest in a so-called beast of burden as much as we would a beloved dog or even child, or we can utterly tune out a donkey capable of movie stardom. And what is he if no one cares to look? NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinema 21, Laurelhurst, Hollywood.

M3GAN

In a genre defined by repetition, novelty goes a long way— and you’ve never met a monster like M3gan. Writers James Wan and Akela Cooper, who previously teamed up on recent cult classic Malignant, return to showcase their mastery of campy horror. Taking the already terrifying concept of iPad babies and adding machine learning to the mix, M3gan promises to be the only toy your child could ever want or need. However, as her algorithm progresses, M3gan quickly turns on her inventor, Gemma (Allison Williams), who created the toy for her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) to help her cope with the death of her parents. Albert Einstein said it best: “Technological progress is like an ax in the hand of a pathological criminal.” Directed by Gerard Johnstone, M3gan explores this very idea, questioning the impact of technological children’s toys and their place in the budding world of artificial intelligence. It’s an Orwellian sci-fi horror film with a stellar 21st century monster, but ultimately the story falls short of its central scare’s genius. The plot seems to progress only for the sake of seeing what M3gan could do next, rather than developing the story’s other central characters. It’s exhibitionist horror for horror’s sake, but worth the watch for anyone who has loved previous films from Wan and producer Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity The Purge). PG-13. ALEX BARR. Academy, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Evergreen Parkway, Lake Theater, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Tigard.

WOMEN TALKING

After suffering ongoing rape and gaslighting, eight Mennonite women hold a hayloft summit to debate leaving their colony. Quickly in Sarah Polley’s adaptation of Miriam Toews’ novel, the convention’s purview widens to defining community culpability and true forgiveness. The dialogue, loosely inspired by true events, is brought to life by an elite ensemble featuring Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey and (very briefly) Frances McDormand, but it’s Rooney Mara’s performance that leaps out. Carrying the child of her unknown assailant, Mara’s Ona gently and smilingly subverts the urgent proceedings, savoring the opportunity to publicly explore the group’s intellect. The second-most memorable character is August (Ben Whishaw)—the meeting’s stenographer and lone male witness—upon whom Women Talking glaringly relies as an emotional sounding board. Meanwhile, the film struggles to similarly differentiate crucial characters played by Foy and Buckley beyond a speech or two, but Polley has sharpened her movie into a sharp, conceptualized civic tool (à la 12 Angry Men or To Kill a Mockingbird ). Despite the off-screen sexual violence, the PG-13 film feels purposely and hopefully tailored toward young minds and what they might build (or rebuild) using the power of testimony, art, bodily autonomy, statecraft and freedom. PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinema 21.

SKINAMARINK

Imagine expanding Poltergeist ’s iconic child-meets-television shot into an entire film and you’ll be able to picture Skinamarink, a micro-budget horror film that prefers dream logic to dream haunting. One night in 1995, two small children awaken to a missing father and an empty house. What ensues is achingly slow, flickering theater of the mind, as a supernatural presence creeps ever closer to making itself known. Skinamarink is not strictly a found-footage film, but it plays with the aesthetics of forced-perspective camcorder movies like V/H/S, only to fall into languorous Lynchian rhythms. The film is short on everything (except maybe time: It runs 100 minutes), and its aura of dread lies in its most strangest images— obscured little socks on carpet, a Lego project mysteriously upended, a shape in the wallpaper that starts to appear demonic as the shot holds. Granted, some of this minimalism and mood flexing obscures Skinamarink itself— there’s little activity, paranormal or otherwise. Craft, taste and ambience are rare qualities in an indie haunting, but when you channel something as elemental as a child posing questions to shadows, you have to do more than hover and conceal. NR.

CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinemagic, Fox Tower, Hollywood.

“Captain! I hear: In an octopus’ garden in the shade.”

“It’s that damn

by

“Captain! I hear: “In an octopus’ garden in the shade.”

MINUS TIDE by Calico Jack

Jack Kent

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Nigerian author Wole Soyinka reworked the ancient Greek play, *The Bacchae*. In one passage, the god Dionysus criticizes King Pentheus, who is supposedly all-powerful. "You are a man of chains," Dionysus tells him. "You love chains. You breathe chains, talk chains, eat chains, dream chains, think chains. Your world is bound in manacles." The bad news, Aries, is that many of us have some resemblances to Pentheus. The good news is that the coming months will be a favorable time to shed at least some of your chains. Have fun liberating yourself! Try to help a few others wriggle free from their chains, too. Doing so will aid your own emancipation.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): The coming weeks will be a great time to fill your journal with more intense ruminations than you have for many moons. If you don't have a journal, think about starting one. Reveal yourself to yourself, Taurus! Make conscious that which has been vague, unnamed, or hiding. Here are assignments to help launch your flood of intimate self-talk. 1. Write passionately about an experience you've always wanted to try but have never done. 2. Conduct imaginary interviews with people who rouse strong feelings in you. 3. Describe what deity, superhero, or animal you are and how your special intelligence works. 4. Visualize a dream in which you appear as a bolder, more confident version of yourself. 5. Talk about a time you felt rousingly alive and how you plan to feel that way again.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): A stranger approached me at Wild Birds Unlimited, a store that sells bird food and accessories. "You write the horoscopes, right?" she asked. "I'm a Gemini, and I want to thank you for helping me tone down my relentless fidgeting. You made me realize I have been secretly proud of tapping my fingers on the table while talking with people, and constantly darting my eyes around the room to check out the ever-changing views. I'd unconsciously believed that stuff was a sign of my incredible vitality. But you've been a steadying influence. You've shown me ways to settle down and focus my energy better. I can see how restlessness sometimes saps my energy." I told the woman, "You're welcome!" and let her know that 2023 will be a favorable time to do much more of this good work. Homework: Meditate on channeling your incredible vitality into being grounded and centered.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): According to Cancerian author Ronald Sukenick, the writer’s work is "to destroy restrictive viewpoints, notice the unnoticed, speak the unspeakable, shake stale habits, ward off evil, give vent to sorrow, pulverize doctrine, attack and uphold tradition as needed, and make life worth living." I believe 2023 will be an excellent time for you to carry out those actions, even if you're not a writer. You will have abundant power to bless and heal through creative rebellion and disruption. You will thrive as you seek out interesting novelty.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Psychotherapist Ryan Howes has wisdom you'll benefit from heeding in the coming weeks. "We need to accept our age," he writes. "We need to accept illnesses and addictions. We need to accept the past. We need to accept others as they are." He goes on to say that this doesn't mean we must like all these situations. And we can certainly try to make the best of them. But when we don’t struggle in vain to change what’s beyond our control to change, we have more energy for things that we can actually affect.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Here’s testimony from musician Pharrell Williams: "If someone asks me what inspires me, I always say, 'That which is missing.'" Yes! This is an apt message for you, Virgo. The best way for you to generate motivation and excitement in the coming weeks will be to explore what is lacking, what is invisible, what’s lost or incomplete. Check in with your deep intuition right now. Do you feel a stirring in your gut? It may tell you where to find important and intriguing things that are missing.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): "Every animal knows far more than you do," declares a proverb of the Nimíipuu people, also known as the Nez Perce. Author Russell Banks provides further testimony to convince us we should be humble about our powers of awareness. "There is a wonderful intelligence to the unconscious," he says. "It’s always smarter than we are." These are good pointers for you to heed in the coming weeks, Libra. You will have a special power to enhance your understanding of the world by calling on the savvy of animals and your unconscious mind. They will be especially rich sources of wisdom. Seek out their educational input!

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Psychologist Carl Jung said that the whole point of Jesus Christ's story was not that we should become exactly like him. Rather, we should aspire to be our best and highest selves in the same way that he fulfilled his unique mission. So Jesus was not the great exception, but rather the great example. I bring these meditations to your attention, Scorpio, because I believe life in 2023 will conspire to make you, more than ever before, the hero of your own destiny. You will be inspired to honor only your own standards of success and reject all others'. You will clearly see that you are progressing at your own natural and righteous pace, which is why it makes no sense to compare your evolution to anyone else's.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): A reader named Mary Roseberry describes her experience of being a Sagittarius: "I hate to be bored. I hate imperfections. I hate to wait. I hate sadness. I hate conflict. I hate to be wrong. I hate tension." Wow! I admire Mary's succinct understanding of who she doesn’t want to be and what she doesn't like to do. I invite you to compose a similar testimony. You would benefit from getting clear about the experiences you intend to avoid in 2023. Once you have done that, write a list of the interesting feelings and situations you will seek out with intense devotion during the coming months.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): When he was 74 years old, Capricorn author Norman Maclean published his first novel, *A River Runs Through It*. It became a best-seller. Capricorn film director Takeshi Kitano directed his first film at age 42. Now 75, he has since won many awards for his work in his native Japan. Capricorn activist Melchora Aquino, who was a leader in the Philippines' fight for independence from Spain, launched her career as a revolutionary when she was in her eighties. She's known as the "Mother of the Revolution." I hope these heroes inspire you, dear Capricorn. I believe that 2023 is the year you will get an upgrade in any area of your life where you have seemed to be a late bloomer.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you will soon be called upon to summon grace under pressure; to express magnanimity while being challenged; to prove that your devotion to your high standards is more important than the transitory agendas of your ego. The good news is that you are primed and ready to succeed at these exact assignments. I have confidence in your power to activate the necessary courage and integrity with maximum poise and composure.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): "By dying daily, I have come to be," wrote poet Theodore Roethke. He didn't mean he suffered literal deaths. He was referring to the discipline of letting go of the past; shedding worn-out habits; leaving behind theories and attitudes that once served him well but no longer did; killing off parts of himself that were interfering with the arrival of the fresh future. I recommend his strategy to you, Pisces. To the degree that you agree to die daily, you will earn the right to be reborn big-time in a few weeks.

Homework: What power will you possess in nine months that you do not yet have?

Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com