Willamette Week, January 25, 2023 - Volume 49, Issue 11 - "Funniest Five 2023"

The number of Oregonians earning more than $500,000 jumped 11.25% in 2020. 6

Police don’t note race in noise reports 7 Multnomah County prosecutors are plea bargaining first-degree assaults down to probation. 10

Healy Heights residents watched Mount St. Helens erupt from a property later purchased by an onion dynasty. 13

Voting in WW ’s Funniest Five poll went up 27% in 2023. 15

California didn’t get Cameron Peloso’s jokes about Steve Irwin and 9/11. 17

Imani Denae is the world’s best dick joke writer, according to Imani Denae. 18

20

Pizza Hut is nothing like sex. 21

You can get inked with one of Great Notion Brewing’s cartoon characters at its anniversary party. 29

Order the Hop Sausage whenever available at Hood River’s Grasslands Barbecue. 31

Eating a whole steamed tai is said to bring wealth and prosperity for the coming year. 31

Before becoming a Portland music icon, Kaho Matsui had a job cleaning operating rooms at Legacy Emanuel Hospital. 33

Thirty years ago, a Portland jury convened to decide whether sex with Madonna was a deadly weapon. 36

Amanda Lynn Deal once went on a nationwide comedy tour in a converted school bus

Last week’s cover story examined Oregon’s dramatic shortage of inpatient rehabilitation beds for people suffering traumatic brain injuries (“Free Fall,” WW, Jan. 19). Out-of-state companies seeking to open new rehab hospitals have been stymied by what’s known as a “certificate of need” process in which existing providers can challenge whether more beds are necessary. Legacy Health and the Oregon Association of Hospitals & Health Systems have both opposed more rehab beds for TBIs—and have gone to court to block them. Here’s what our readers had to say:

WIM DE VRIEND, VIA WWEEK. COM: “Several years ago, my stepson was hit in the face by a chipper, fell down backwards on concrete, and was out cold for months, in an induced coma. But he only started making progress after he was moved to Craig [Hospital in Englewood, Colo.], which specializes in TBI cases, and has the staff and the expertise and the programs for it. Without going into all the details, he made amazing progress in so many ways at Craig.

“The certificate of need program was instituted as a local program but in reality funded by the federal government, around 1970, supposedly as a cost control measure. Too many hospitals were expanding, which had become a real concern because Medicare paid for those unnecessary beds, often added for the vanity of the hospital board, and as job protection for the hospital manager. The program was pompously named CHP, or ‘Comprehensive Health Planning,’ and I worked in it for a few years until it got way too political. That’s because the health care business figured out that it was better to join ’em than to fight ’em, so what’s known as regulatory capture occurred.

“ With regard to the situation

in Oregon, it is clear that no care at the level of Craig is available, and human nature being what it is, there will always be people who consider warehousing helpless people a good business model.”

ADVANCEDINSTRUCTION, VIA REDDIT: “Certificate of need laws don’t just limit rehab beds, they limit the construction of any medical facility. All new facility construction, even expansion of existing facilities, requires a ‘certificate of need’ to be issued by the state before they can be built.

“It’s bullshit created to protect existing hospital networks, and it’s why Oregon has among the lowest number of hospital beds per person.”

SCOTT KERMAN, VIA TWITTER: “This is a must-read—and even more tragic given the link between TBI and homelessness. An important solution to homelessness is providing services that help prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.”

HMMPF, VIA REDDIT: “Both of the rehab entities wanting to come to the area are for-profit. They will poach the commercial and Medicare patients. Personally, I find companies whose goal

Dr. Know

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

At Northeast 63rd and Glisan, there is an apartment building with signs all over it saying things like “Steal Gas, Get Shot,” “Tenants Are Armed,” etc. What is the deal with those signs? Do tenants approve? Do you have to be willing to shoot a trespasser

One potential disadvantage of being a liberal squish like myself is that bad guys know you’re not armed. It doesn’t take a seasoned criminal to look at me and be pretty sure I’m not going to step out of my Prius, pull a Glock out of my OPB tote bag and blow somebody away. When it comes to projecting the dangerous unpredictability that makes miscreants think twice, I’m good at Scrabble

Of course, the problem with dangerous unpredictability is that it’s unpredictable and dangerous. (This is why the practice of keeping an attack Republican for home defense never really caught on.) Researchers consistently find that having a gun in the home roughly doubles the occupants’ chances of dying by gun

is to cut patient care in order to generate profit for shareholders to be pretty reprehensible, too. “I have worked in the acute rehab arena in the Portland area (though not for Legacy, Peace Health or Providence) prior to my retirement, and agree that there are too few beds. But I am also aware of significant differences in the level of care provided between even the local facilities. I can’t imagine a for-profit has the expertise for TBI and spinal cord injuries. TBI is very, very complex, and often includes issues around addiction and having a safe discharge location.

“I wish Providence or Legacy would expand their rehab services, or have Kaiser open one.”

SNUSJUNCTION, VIA WWEEK. COM: “Good—better than good—investigative journalism. Hope the Legislature changes the ‘certificate of need’ process. The market should decide, accompanied with high operating standards.”

GENERALIST HERBALIST, VIA REDDIT: “I should not have read this before bed. I know that there aren’t any beds. I know I can’t get anyone into the amount of help they need, and I know it’s a systemic issue, but for fuck’s sake. If a cartoon villain pulled this shit, the editor would say the greed went too far.”

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

violence. Even if that “Protected by Smith and Wesson” sign does deter thieves, it’s not worth the risk.

Of course, there will always be those who disagree, pretty clearly including the property managers at the Devonshire Apartments, who residents say posted the no-nonsense signs this past spring. The signs did not come with any new, special requirements for the tenants. In fact, while it wasn’t exactly a scientific survey, two out of two residents contacted didn’t even own a gun.

Theoretically, these non-gun-owning tenants should have the best of both worlds, reaping all the security benefits of a firearms-based intimidation regime without any of the tedious intrafamily homicide that normally comes with it. However, it’s far from clear that advertising the fact that you’re armed actually deters crime in the first place. A recent article by GunsAmerica Digest (not exactly Mother Jones) acknowledges that pro-gun signage often merely serves to tip off gun thieves. And several studies have found no net crime-deterring effect from high rates of gun ownership.

Then again, anecdotal evidence from ex-criminals (as well as most people’s intuition) suggests that, all else being equal, crooks would prefer to avoid trigger-happy homeowners. Especially ones pissed off enough to make that many signs.

to rent an apartment there? —Dream of the 9mm’s Is Alive in Portland

TREASURER PUSHES BACK ON DIVESTMENT

BILL : Three lawmakers, Reps. Khanh Pham (D-Portland) and Mark Gamba (D-Milwaukie) and Sen. Jeff Golden (D-Ashland), are sponsoring legislation that would force the Oregon State Treasury to divest from certain fossil fuel investments. But State Treasurer Tobias Read pushed back against House Bill 2061 in a Jan. 18 letter to lawmakers, noting that the treasury’s job is to maximize returns for pensioners to whom the state’s $91 billion in investments belong. Read says dumping carbon stocks could weaken results and require larger contributions from government employers, reducing basic services. “Statutorily limiting the investment opportunities of the Oregon Public Employee Retirement Fund—no matter how well-intentioned—will lead to lower returns, higher employer rates, and a less robust retirement for thousands of Oregonians,” Read writes. The lawmakers defended their bill. Golden noted Oregon invests more heavily in opaque private equity funds than other states; Gamba disputed fossil fuels are a good investment; and Pham defended the Legislature’s oversight role. “This bill is about ensuring the long-term health of our state’s investments,” Pham said. “It’s about making our state and its residents more resilient to the climate crisis.”

PUBLIC DEFENSE OVERSEERS WANT PAY

BUMP: High caseloads and low pay are driving out Oregon’s public defenders, and the result is a criminal justice system in crisis. There aren’t enough attorneys to represent every defendant. Responsibility for fixing that problem lies with the state Office of Public Defense Services, which doles out contracts to local nonprofits and lawyers. The office is asking for pay increases— not just for public defenders, but also its own oversight commission. Commissioners would be paid $151 per diem for positions once filled by volunteers, similar to the pay of other state commissioners. “We want to build and support a commission that can elevate the perspectives of the communities we serve and bring diverse points of view to public policy,” office spokeswoman Autumn Shreve tells WW. The office has been roiled by turmoil in recent months. After its executive director, Stephen Singer, angered Chief Justice Martha L. Walters, the judge dissolved the office’s oversight commission and appointed a new one—which promptly fired Singer and promoted Multnomah County public defender Jessica Kampfe to replace him. Kampfe has proposed not just commissioner stipends, which would require legislative approval, but also attorney retention payments and an improved case management system.

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT PROBES TAFT HOME:

WW has learned the Oregon Department of Justice’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit is conducting an investigation into the Taft Home, the Southwest Portland residential care home for low-income and disabled seniors that closed in December 2021 after repeated violations of care, safety and sanitary rules. The probe is in its 10th month, DOJ says. WW chronicled the decline of the Taft Home—and how some residents fared poorly after the shutdown—in a July 2022 cover story. The home was run by privately owned Concepts in Community Living, which operates facilities in Oregon, Washington and California. The investigation includes the company’s other Oregon operations. CCL did not respond to a request for comment.

HOSPICE REOPENS AFTER LONG CLOSURE:

Hopewell House, the pioneering hospice in Hillsdale, reopened Jan. 23 after a four-year closure. Prior to shuttering in 2019, Hopewell House operated for 30 years, serving 10,000 people. Supporters of the 12-bed facility raised $5 million to buy it from Legacy Health and refurbish the manor house and 4-acre property. Hopewell House is the only licensed end-of-life care facility in the three metro-area counties. Supporters of the hospice movement have long maintained it’s more humane and far cheaper than dying in a hospital. Executive director Lesley Sacks says care at Hopewell House will cost about 10% of an equivalent hospital stay. “People are seeking choices and support in how they will spend their final days,” Sacks says. “This is especially important with the silver tsunami of baby boomers.”

CASCADE STATION KICKS OUT PDX LIQUOR

AFTER CRIME SPREE: Managers of Cascade Station are kicking out the upscale shopping plaza’s liquor store, according to Saleem Noorani, president of the Associated Liquor Stores of Oregon. The airport mall told Malik Pirani, manager of PDX Liquor and Wine, that it would not be renewing his lease due to a “high number of breakins,” Noorani told the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission last week. “It breaks my heart,” he said, before reading a prepared statement from Pirani, who told commissioners that daily shoplifting, a string of four overnight break-ins, and repeated threats to staff had forced him to spend $50,000 a year on armed security guards. In the end, they weren’t enough. Management refused to renew Pirani’s five-year lease. Noorani asked the OLCC to consider reimbursing Noorani for his $750,000 investment in the store. “It’s through no fault of his own that he’s being driven out of business,” Noorani said. Cascade Station management declined to comment.

JOSEPHINE ALLEN OUTISDE THE TAFT HOME

BY NIGEL JAQUISS njaquiss@wweek.com

Lawmakers on the Oregon House Revenue Committee got an hourlong tutorial Jan. 18 on the state’s income tax system. One eye-catching statistic in the flood of numbers: Oregon added high-income earners at a prodigious rate in 2020.

COVID-19 caused unemployment that peaked at 14% and left many businesses hamstrung for much of the year.

Nonetheless, state figures show the number of Oregonians earning more than $500,000 jumped strongly in 2020—up 11.25% from 2019.

To Jody Wiser of the watchdog group Tax Fairness Oregon—the only spectator who actually attended last week’s hearing in person—that jump at the high end is “surprising.”

“Anecdotally, you hear people are leaving the state,” Wiser says. “But the data show the number of people at the high end of the income scale increased a lot.”

Wiser notes that the growth in incomes in Oregon in the past decade has been heavily concentrated among taxpayers who make more than $100,000, and the biggest gains have come at the top: The number of Oregonians who make more than $250,000 tripled. Those who make more than $500,000, for instance, increased from about 6,000 to nearly 18,000 (see graph). They increased far faster than the state’s population and saw more gains than the taxpayers who earned less than six figures.

With Portland’s population having dropped 1.7% in 2021, some groups argue Oregon’s income taxes, among the nation’s highest, are causing an exodus.

Oregon Business & Industry, the state’s business lobby group, released a report in October noting that a slew of new taxes in Portland and Multnomah County puts the city in rarefied territory. “New York City has the highest combined state and local top marginal income tax rate, followed by

Portland, Oregon,” the OBI report said. (The group did not respond to a request for comment.)

Of course, the state’s most recent income tax figures are from 2020, and two of the taxes on high earners in Multnomah County—Preschool for All and the Metro homeless services measure—only passed that year, so things may have changed since then.

Juan Carlos Ordóñez, a spokesman for the Oregon Center for Public Policy, is skeptical. Ordóñez notes that Portland minted new millionaires at the highest rate in the country

from 2010 (when the state last increased income taxes) to 2017. He adds that a significant body of research shows people rarely move solely because of taxes.

“If they did, there’d be no rich people in Portland,” he says. “They would all long ago have moved to Vancouver.”

Ordóñez doesn’t deny some people are leaving, but he says the increase in the number of filers at the high end of the income scale is indisputable.

“The well off and the business community try to scare people by saying the rich are going to leave,” Ordóñez says. “But higher tax rates don’t really determine whether people leave. Lower-income folks tend to move more often than rich people.”

Here’s how the number of filers with incomes above $500,000 has changed in the past decade:

were dognapped in the latest in a series of Portland auto thefts with cherished cargo.

A cargo van was stolen last weekend from the porte cochère of a Jantzen Beach hotel. That wasn’t unusual. But inside the van were four terriers visiting from the Seattle suburbs for the Rose City Classic Winter Dog Show at the Expo Center. That was news.

And so it provided TV stations and websites with a fresh dose of Portland hellmouth coverage for the 22 hours until the van was found abandoned on the side of a Vancouver road and the dogs were returned to their worried owners.

In a city that endured 11,089 auto thefts in 2022, a 25-year record, some of those vehicles were bound to contain something precious. And

the purloined pups were merely the latest instance in the past two years in which somebody stole a vehicle that had either sentimental value or cherished cargo. In fact, it was the second such theft outside the same hotel.

“I’m not really fond of this new form of auto piracy instead of ship piracy,” says Vandra Huber, whose running van and show dogs were snatched from in front of the Oxford Suites. “What I think is occurring is they’re waiting for big-time events to occur because there might be items of value. How would they know about our van and to steal it from the front door unless somebody was watching?”

Here are four thefts of vehicles with noteworthy cargo since the stolen-car surge began.

AARON MESH

Vehicle: 2020 Mercedes-Benz Metris cargo van

Date stolen: Jan. 21

Stolen from: Oxford Suites parking lot on North Hayden Island

Cargo: Three Scottish terriers—a female named Boo and two puppies, Archie and Sally Sue—and one cairn terrier, Mason.

Recovery: Huber believes thieves are targeting vehicles at hotels near the Expo Cen-

ter during big shows—and intended to seek a ransom for her terriers. What ultimately transpired, however, was that a Vancouver, Wash., resident called Huber at 5:30 am Jan. 22 and said he had recovered her dogs from a van abandoned by the roadside. “It was the worst 24 hours I’ve ever experienced except for a few when I was a reporter,” Huber tells WW. “I’m not used to these types of things. I think I would have stayed farther away if I’d known about it.”

Vehicle: 2006 Isuzu NPR

Date stolen: Dec. 24

Stolen from: The Made in Oregon warehouse on Northeast Airport Way.

Cargo: The only delivery truck for the Made in Oregon shops was empty when it was stolen on Christmas Eve, company vice president Verne Naito told The Oregonian. It was scheduled to pick up myrtlewood carvings from the Oregon Coast on Dec. 26.

Recovery: Someone spied the van abandoned in the same industrial area in deep Northeast Portland. It was towed to a repair shop.

Vehicle: 1999 Dodge Caravan Date stolen: July 9

Stolen from: Ladd’s Addition

Cargo: It was Portland’s only bookmobile, though most of the books were in storage units on Southeast Belmont Street.

Recovery: A Facebook group tracked down a van that matched the description, but bookmobile operator Christie Quinn did not have immediate access to the vehicle identification number. Quinn has since fundraised enough for a replacement bookmobile: a Japanese fire truck.

Vehicle: Ford F-250 pickup truck with trailer Date stolen: May 9

Stolen from: Oxford Suites parking lot on North Hayden Island

Cargo: The trailer was filled with semi-automatic rifles and other guns displayed for sale at the prior weekend’s Shooting Sports & Blade Expo at the Expo Center.

Recovery: Angelina Nicole Pintor-Schindler, 19, crashed the truck on the Interstate Bridge, pursued by police. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has not responded to inquiries whether the guns were recovered from the trailer. Pintor-Schindler faces federal charges and was arrested this month for allegedly violating her probation.

Even in the pandemic, Oregon has added high earners at a rapid clip.

Turn Down for What

Emails between city officials and a music advocacy group demonstrate ongoing tensions over how the city handles noise complaints.

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

How a city responds to noise complaints has for decades been viewed as a referendum on the overpolicing of communities of color.

Two codes guide how Portland polices noise: One is Title 14, the section of city code under which cops can cite someone for noise that is “plainly audible,” or which they deem “excessive, unreasonable, or unusually loud.”

Critics have long maintained that such a subjective standard means communities of color will be overpoliced for playing loud music or certain genres of music, like hip-hop.

The other code, used by the noise office, is more prescriptive: It uses decibel readers to measure if noise exceeds a particular volume.

During the past year, there’s been a renewed push by the music community for the city to eradicate the use of Title 14 to police noise.

On Dec. 19, more than 25 signatories—including past members of the city’s Noise Review Board, former city commissioners, and local music venue owners—sent a letter to the Portland City Council asking that the noise office, which they described as a “mere thread of its original intent,” be moved from the Office of Community & Civic Life to the Bureau of Development Services. They also asked that Title 14 no longer be used to enforce noise.

“The police and the public can then become assured that reports generated by the police will be read by technically competent staff,” the letter reads, “who can reduce the subjectivity often complained about in cases that directly affect the music industry, among other stakeholders, where such concerns have increased over the last several years.”

And in a series of exchanges between two City Council offices and representatives of MusicPortland, an advocacy group and trade association for music venues and musicians, the city appeared to be inching toward ending the use of Title 14. Then, in the fall, that plan got bogged down in a debate over how to prove whether an underlying racial inequity really existed.

Below is a timeline of the discussion between city officials and MusicPortland.

June: Angelita Morillo, a staffer for then-City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, spent months exchanging emails with Jamie Dunphy of MusicPortland to garner council support for repealing Title 14. It appeared the repeal was well on its way.

In a June 13 email to Dunphy, Morillo addressed how race might factor into the repeal.

NO PATH FORWARD

Stephanie Howard, director of community safety for Mayor Wheeler, “wants to not address it from a racial standpoint if possible because that might garner more backlash from police and neighborhood associations,” Morillo wrote. “We are looking to get examples about how this has impacted Native communities, but if you know of hip-hop venues or jazz clubs, etc., that are Black owned that were shut down for similar situations, that would be helpful to add.”

She added: “I figure there will be a big pushback from neighborhood associations, so if you have community groups that would be interested in this, we’re going to need a strong external push for the three votes.”

September: The conversation resumed with the mayor’s office in the fall, after Morillo left the city. After all, Wheeler is the commissioner in charge of the Portland Police Bureau, so all police policy changes would need to pass muster with his office.

The parties reached a dead end over data collection—or lack thereof. The mayor’s office asked MusicPortland to produce data that would illustrate any racial disparities in noise enforcement.

In a Sept. 15 email, Dunphy wrote back: “We’re at an impasse because the city doesn’t collect the data that’s needed to show that there’s a racial problem, and without data this isn’t moving forward.”

Dunphy is correct: Police don’t note race in noise reports.

Howard from the mayor’s office responded: “I had asked the MusicPortland team for the data that supports the claims made in the proposal around disparate impacts on various communities.” She also questioned whether police were really cracking down on loud music at all: “With historically low staffing at PPB, the priority for response has been for emergency and life-threatening matters.”

Data provided to WW by the Bureau of Emergency Communications shows police responded to at least 2,288 noise complaints in 2022. The data appears to show that cops wrote only nine reports and one citation in 2022.

Mayoral spokesman Cody Bowman says Wheeler is “not opposed” to the policy change.

“Our understanding is that there have been very few citations issued under Title 14 in recent years,” Bowman says. “We continue to be interested in additional data and information about the need for a revision and want to ensure that we are informed about the effects a repeal can have.”

Address: 9243 SE Holgate St.

Year built: 1959

Square footage: 1,330 Market value: $332,000

Owner: Bob Foglio

How long it’s been empty: More than four years Why it’s empty: Permitting woes

In August 2018, when “pandemic” was still just a crossword puzzle answer, Bob Foglio, a developer and real estate agent from Gladstone, bought a tear-down in Lents.

The ramshackle home just east of Southeast 92nd Avenue and Holgate was beyond repair. But for Foglio’s $320,000 purchase price, the real value lay in the lot—about 13,000 square feet altogether, or nearly three standard city lots.

Foglio knew the neighborhood well; he already owned an adjacent eightplex. Things were happening in the neighborhood—a nucleus of bars, restaurants and retail sprouting around the intersection of 92nd and Foster Road, and the growing popularity of the Portland Pickles baseball team at Lents Park, to name a couple.

Foglio had big plans. In 2020, records show, he began the permitting process to build 30 apartments on his new property. Those units would be welcome in a city that has among the nation’s lowest residential vacancy rates.

But Foglio says trying to get the project financed is difficult, as is dealing with public safety issues on a property that abuts the Interstate 205 bike path and a TriMet Park & Ride lot.

Foglio’s no rookie—he’s been in the real estate business for 25 years. But echoing a familiar refrain from other developers, he says trying to navigate the city’s inclusionary zoning regulations is nightmarish as is trying to qualify for system development charge abatements to make the project pencil. (For one thing, Foglio notes, bankers are leery of the city’s requirement that he commit to keeping his units “affordable” for 99 years while getting only a 10-year tax abatement.

“I’ll be long dead by then” he says of the 99-year requirement.

Another impediment to his project: persistent lawlessness in the neighborhood and particularly on the bike path, a longtime nexus of tent camping and drugs. “I already can’t get the police to come to my eightplex when they are called,” Foglio says. “And the bike path—the city ought to condemn it and move it somewhere else.”

Foglio’s wish: that City Hall would focus on policies that maximize the production of new apartments. “Inclusionary housing is a joke,” he says, “and leadership is a mess.”

NIGEL JAQUISS.

Every week, WW examines one mysteriously vacant property in the city of Portland, explains why it’s empty, and considers what might arrive there next. Send addresses to newstips@wweek.com.

An apartment developer decries permitting and public safety woes in Lents.

FALSE START: A Lents development stalls.

NIGEL

Rolling the Dice

Multnomah County’s top prosecutor is betting his future on an aggressive program designed to keep violent offenders out of prison.

BY LUCAS MANFIELD lmanfield@wweek.com

JJ Derie was looking at hard time. The 40-year-old was addicted to meth and living on Portland’s streets when he shot Tyler Roley in the knee over a stolen dog in September 2020.

After Roley identified him to police, Derie, 40, was arrested six months later and charged with first-degree assault—a charge that carries a mandatory minimum sentence of more than seven years in prison.

But, despite a guilty plea, Derie may not go to prison for his offense.

That’s because he’s one of the first participants in a new Multnomah County program—the first in the nation, according to the judge that runs it—that allows people convicted of violent offenses to avoid prison time if they commit to behavioral health treatment.

“It gave me the opportunity to get out and start my life over again,” says Derie, who is now sober, employed and living with his mother.

For this, he can thank Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt. In a way, both of their futures hinge on the success of this novel program, called STEP, short for Strategic Treatment and Engagement Program.

Schmidt announced his candidacy for reelection last week. But he’s been shepherding the launch of STEP for nearly a year, without publicly discussing its existence until recently.

Word started spreading in December, when Schmidt told county leaders that not even one of the program’s 60 participants had been referred back to his office on new charges. (A spokesperson for the DA’s office told WW that a participant was later arrested for a misdemeanor during reporting for this story, but declined to say who.)

Still, the program is the clearest example of Schmidt putting his reform philosophy into action. It comes at a pivotal time. Rising crime has put the city on edge, and Portlanders are showing a renewed appetite for the kind of tough-on-

crime policies Schmidt ran against in 2020.

Schmidt campaigned—and overwhelmingly won—on a reform agenda. He promised to fight Measure 11, the state law voters passed in 1994 to set mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes.

He has directed his prosecutors in carefully selected cases, generally offenders willing to participate in behavioral health treatment, to reduce Measure 11 charges to lower-level felonies and offer probation instead, effectively making good on his campaign promise by bypassing Salem and a statewide voter referendum. Offenders convicted of murder, attempted murder or sex crimes are ineligible.

It’s not uncommon for prosecutors to offer defendants plea deals. What’s different with STEP is the severity of the charges being reduced and the extensive supervision being offered in place of prison.

As recently as 2021, prosecutors never reduced first-degree assault to probation, explains Mariel Mota, the prosecutor overseeing the

FREED: Amber Dement was the first of more than 60 people to be given probation, not prison, thanks to the county’s new program.

Measure 11 probation program for Schmidt’s office. For Derie, they did.

Schmidt’s claim: More prison time alone won’t make Portland safer. “Working to improve the criminal justice system and public safety are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are inextricably linked,” he tells WW

Whether the strategy works will depend both on voters’ appetite for criminal justice reform during an upswing in violent crime—and whether his new programs work.

Schmidt has actually introduced two new programs.

They operate very differently, but both have a similar result: no prison for people booked for violent offenses with mandatory minimum sentences.

The first, STEP, offers intensive community probation in exchange for a guilty plea. After the defendant is interviewed by an evaluator and a judge, prosecutors can elect to reduce the charge, generally assault or robbery, to one not covered by Measure 11. Offenders avoid prison time, if they commit to a minimum of one year of intensive behavioral health treatment.

The second, a partnership with a local nonprofit called the Insight Alliance, allows victims to pursue justice outside the court system. If offenders complete the program, which includes mediation, counseling and other social services, their charges are dismissed entirely.

Proponents of these programs say they’re more fair—and more effective—than the status quo. “The law has given us a sledgehammer,” Mota tells WW. “STEP gives us a scalpel.”

The progress of its 60 participants was easily visible at a makeshift art studio in early January. There, more than a dozen were assembled for a “drink and draw” social hour—without the drink.

Everyone was sober. They had to be. A condition of participation is random, up to twice-weekly, urine tests.

“This program is very hard. Very, very hard,” says Amber Dement, 36. Its weekly regime of classes, counseling, drug testing and court hearings amounts to a full-time job, she explains.

She was arrested four years ago for her involvement in a brutal raid of a marijuana grow house in Southeast Portland. An accomplice beat the property owner, Joshua Morrison, in the head with a shotgun while Dement ran to the basement to steal his cash, according to an account of the crime filed in court by prosecutors.

Dement spent two years in jail on charges of first-degree robbery before pleading guilty to lesser charges. She was STEP court’s first client. The program got her into a residential alcohol treatment program. The anniversary of her sobriety date is in April. She now works in a sandwich shop and sees her kids every day.

“If it wasn’t for this program, I don’t know where I’d be right now,” she says.

She’d be in prison. And that, says Morrison’s mother, Leslie Sears, is exactly where Dement ought to be.

“ You always think, oh, they will be caught and justice will be served. But we don’t believe that anymore,” Sears tells WW

The bones around her son’s eye were reconstructed with a titanium plate, which the family raised money to pay for with help from GoFundMe.

Sears is dismayed by Schmidt’s reforms. “Portland has become such a mess, and it can only be increasing the mess,” she says.

John Foote, former Clackamas County district attorney, agrees. He calls the studies touted by reform-minded attorneys “propaganda” and Schmidt’s efforts to skirt Measure 11 “a lack of respect for the vote of the people.”

“The truth is, violent crime is reduced by proportional punishment,” he says.

ress. “It’s bordering on miraculous,” Bloch said.

Bloch knew JJ’s story, but he wanted the newcomers in the back to hear it too. “We use the courtroom as theater,” he explained to WW

At times, Bloch and the courtroom applaud. Other times, Bloch threatens.

There are many carrots in Bloch’s arsenal: Starbucks gift cards for reaching each new “phase” of treatment (there are five, each at least several months long). A “quick list” so those doing well can jump the line and leave court early. And most importantly, he says, is his approval.

“ You identify the behaviors that you want to promote—you incentivize them to do those things,” Bloch says. Those behaviors are simple: follow the treatment regimen, obey parole officers’ orders, show up in court.

If they don’t, Bloch has sticks. If someone doesn’t make it to a court date or a meeting, he’ll assign homework—which can range from writing an essay to nights in jail.

For “something really bad,” Bloch can revoke probation and send a participant to prison. So far, he’s only had to do that twice, he says. In both cases, participants were imprisoned after repeatedly walking away from treatment.

The testing ground for Schmidt’s new program is Courtroom 8B in the Multnomah County Courthouse.

There, twice a week, Judge Eric Bloch presides over STEP court. Every person he considers is someone originally charged with a Measure 11 offense. Instead, they’re under his supervision for at least a year as they undergo treatment.

Bloch has been on the bench since 2003. He ran Multnomah County’s drug diversion court, a similar divert-and-treat program for offenders facing felony possession charges, and more recently, he served as a “peer reviewer” for similar courts popping up across the state.

That is, until Measure 110, the 2020 Oregon law decriminalizing hard drugs, made such courts obsolete. The county Department of Community Justice redirected its funding to STEP and gave it an $850,000 budget. It’s the first time in the country that the treatment court model has been applied to violent crimes, Bloch says.

But the emphasis on staying sober remains. More than 90% of people in the program have mental health or substance use disorders, Bloch estimates.

As each participant comes to the bench, Bloch asks for their sobriety date—and proceeds to chastise or cajole depending on the latest report from their probation officer.

On a recent Wednesday, it was Derie’s turn. Nine months sober.

He pulled out his phone and explained that he kept his old mug shots to remind himself of his prog-

STEP is the fulfillment of a careerlong dream, Bloch says, made possible by a district attorney willing to take a risk.

“If I send someone to prison for 70 months, the public is going to be safe from them for 70 months,” he says. “But what about when they get out? They’re untreated.”

When people enter the program, they’re nearly always unhoused, often suffering from crippling addictions. Now, Bloch says, “100% of them are housed, 100% of them are in treatment.”

Schmidt is betting his future on offenders like Matthew Freeman. It’s a significant risk.

Freeman, a 28-year-old shipyard worker pleaded guilty Jan. 11 to crashing into another driver while intoxicated. He was charged with assault.

Now, he was sitting in the back of Bloch’s courtroom.

Bloch asked for his sobriety date. The answer was two days prior. Bloch glanced at the prosecutor, then turned back to Freeman.

During his settlement conference, Freeman claimed to have accidentally taken an M30 pill, thinking it was a painkiller. The pill was fentanyl laced with meth.

Then, Freeman admitted to popping another. Bloch wondered out loud: Can an accident really happen twice in a row?

At Bloch’s gentle urging, Freeman broke. He admitted he’d been using for months. He apologized.

“It’s OK—that’s what we’re here for,” Bloch told Freeman. “Now, we begin.”

“The

Sunken Treasure

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

In the swanky Healy Heights neighborhood in Portland’s Southwest Hills, most houses are propped up by stilts on one side to prevent them from toppling down the steep slopes. But one property does not look like the others.

There’s no million-dollar home on the quarter acre. Instead, the plot is all dirt, rocks, untrimmed shrubbery and some plastic bottles. The lot is so dramatically concave it looks as if it were carved out by a giant ice cream scoop.

In 1996, it was the scene of a landslide. In under a minute, the land rolled away—and left behind a fight between the landowner and the city that’s still raw 27 years later.

“The cliffside gave way and left a ravine behind. Most of the soil on the lot rumbled downhill, tore a piling from underneath a three-story house next door, crashed across Fairmount Drive below and continued down the next slope,” a 1996 Oregonian story reported. “Three days later, streams formed on the naked lot, probably fed by natural springs that lace this part of the West Hills.”

The city of Portland is now stuck with a piece of property it considers nearly worthless. But it’s still dear to familiar foes from nearly three decades ago: the Spada fam-

ily, who made a fortune shipping potatoes and onions to Japan.

The Spadas are threatening to sue the city—again—if it moves forward with the sale of their once-beloved plot of dirt. It’s the latest chapter in a strange saga that involves a Portland spud dynasty, bureaucratic inaction, destroyed settlement documents, and a plot of land that’s valued at only $8,000. And perhaps it speaks to a certain sour mood that can be felt across the city—even at its highest point.

“Through this whole process, you pulled all these stunts on my parents and they went through 10 years of hell,” Fred Spada told the Portland City Council on Jan. 18.

“We will pursue a lawsuit if you even think about selling this property.”

Fred Spada, 61, wears apparel indicative of time spent in the upper echelons of Portland: a Multnomah Athletic Club hoodie under a Portland Yacht Club coat, topped by a Portland Golf Club cap.

Spada descends from veggie royalty.

In the mid-20th century, his grandfather (also named Fred) founded Spada Distributing Company. Meanwhile, in 1941, another branch of the Spada family began the United Salad Company. Within a decade, the Spada network became the most powerful produce

family in the state. (Another Spada arm owns Pacific Coast Fruit.)

George Spada, Grandpa Fred’s son, took over the distributing company in 1963, making most of the company’s money by shipping spuds to Japan. “Like what the Maletises were to beer, and what the Schnitzers are to steel and real estate, we are to produce in this area,” says Fred Spada the younger, whose distant cousins still own United Salad Company, whose annual revenue is estimated at $56 million by Zoom Info.

It was George Spada and his wife, Marietta, Fred’s parents, who bought the plot of land in Healy Heights in 1995 with the intent to build their dream home on it. It had a tremendous view, from Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge to Mount St. Helens.

Then, the landslide. Fred Spada got a call about it while he was finishing up a workout at the MAC.

The city of Portland blamed the Spadas for the damage. The Spadas blamed the city. What followed was 10 years of litigation and multiple legal battles—the second ending in a settlement in 2006 (by which time, incidentally, the Spadas had sold the produce business).

The city paid the Spadas $450,000 and acquired the sunken plot of land.

Almost two decades after that settlement agreement, the city’s

The city’s proposed sale of a West Hills property revives a feud with longtime Portland produce royalty.

Bureau of Environmental Services is seeking City Council to sell the parcel as part of a larger purge of surplus bureau land. But the Spadas insist that, as part of the 2006 settlement, the city agreed never to sell the property.

The city says it’s not aware of such an agreement and points to a city ordinance passed at the time that states BES can sell the property to recoup costs.

to own it is a drain on ratepayer resources,” bureau spokeswoman Diane Dulken tells WW

And yet it’s not just the Spadas who want the city to keep it. Several other property owners in Healy Heights agree. “Deanna [Feeley] and I will pursue litigation against the City of Portland if any damage to our home results from any future development of this lot,” wrote Andy Mendenhall, the new president and CEO of Central City Concern whose home abuts the property.

It would be a simple matter to resolve if anybody could find the settlement agreement. But nobody can.

The attorney for the Spadas died years ago, and the Spadas don’t know who inherited his case files. The city says it destroyed the case file years ago as part of the city’s record retention schedule, which allows it to destroy case records after 10 years if a case is categorized as “minor.” (The Spadas contend the case should have been considered “major,” requiring the city to retain the files indefinitely.)

The property is a financial albatross to the city. BES estimates it has lost thousands of dollars over the past 20 years maintaining it, yet tells WW it just recently got around to selling some of the city’s surplus properties. “Continuing

Mason Van Buren, the white-bearded neighborhood association vice president who now lives in the Healy Heights he grew up in, told the City Council at the Jan. 18 hearing that the land is both special to residents—who gathered there for bonfires and to watch Mount St. Helens erupt— and a safety hazard if developed. Van Buren tells WW the land is “a hot potato that the city doesn’t want…it’s this slide just waiting to happen.”

Oddly, Fred Spada says he doesn’t want the family property back. WW asked why, if neither he nor his parents want the land, he cares if the city sells. He says it’s a matter of principle.

“It’s because of what they put my parents through. If they made a deal, stick with the deal,” Spada says. “I’m a pro-Trump Republican, and I’m very pissed at the city’s hypocrisy, where they feel they can break the law but have every right to enforce the law.”

Despite the testimony from the Spadas and neighbors, the City Council unanimously agreed to move forward with a vote on selling the property Jan. 25.

TOUGH LUCK: A year after the Spada family bought this plot of land, it collapsed in a landslide.

THE FIVE Funniest

THESE ARE THE FIVE FUNNIEST STANDUP COMEDIANS IN PORTLAND, AS SELECTED BY THEIR PEERS.

The funniest thing Sam Whiteley ever saw happen in Portland was Keljin Blevins scoring two 3-pointers in the fourth quarter on Feb. 9, 2022, spurring the Blazers to victory over the Lakers. In other words, LeBron James didn’t lose to Damian Lillard. He lost to Damian Lillard’s cousin.

We can’t promise anything that spectacular at our upcoming Funniest Five Showcase, but if you need a laugh, you’re in luck. The winners of our annual Funniest Five poll, including Whiteley, stand ready to find what’s funny in a difficult time for our city.

Even during the worst years of the pan-

demic, we kept Funniest Five alive. Grim reality strengthened our commitment to celebrating great comedy, though we worried last year when fewer ballots than expected were cast and the lineup was entirely male.

2023 is a different story. Voting went up 27%, and the winners—three women and two men, ranging in age from 23 to 40— reflect the diversity of the city’s vibrant standup scene.

This year’s voters chose a daring crop of comics. Topics they’ve joked about include gender, race relations, Christianity, Mormonism, mortality and pubic hair. Rather than dreading the specter of can-

cellation, they delight in discomfort, especially their own.

These are comedians who laugh the hardest when the joke’s at their expense, unleashing their insecurities for our pleasure. That’s entertainment, but it can also be therapy, both for us and for them.

You can see for yourself at the Funniest Five Showcase on Friday, Jan. 27, at the Alberta Rose Theatre. For now, enjoy these profiles of our comedy class of 2023, plus a roundup of standup showcases (page 17) worth seeking out.

—Bennett Campbell Ferguson, Assistant Arts & Culture Editor

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JORDAN GALE

1. CAMERON Peloso

Think twice before you call Cameron Peloso a Gen Z snowflake.

“ With younger audiences, I think people underrate how much offensiveness we can take,” says Peloso, 23. “Everyone says young people are sensitive, but our generation grew up with the internet. So when I was 12, I saw a video of a guy getting fucked by a horse. There’s nothing that can jar me that much.”

The last few years are proof of Peloso’s resilience. In that time, he’s gotten sober, moved to Portland and honed his comedic style, which fuses the incendiary bravado of Shane Gillis with witty self-reflection that’s pure Peloso.

He’s come a long way from Orange County, where he was raised by a Japanese mother and a white father who believed himself to be Italian (Peloso says that when his father discovered via 23andMe that he was only 7% Italian, he threw out his beloved Puma tracksuits).

“My dad got me into [comedy] when I was probably too young,” Peloso says. “I remember just being a kid and being like, ‘If I can make my dad laugh, I feel fulfilled.’” Driving to school, they listened to Comedy Central Radio and Doug Stanhope, though Peloso seems as influenced by his father as any standup legend; he still calls him “the funniest dude.”

Peloso was so passionate about standup that he dropped out of high school to pursue a comedy career. By that point, he was locked in a battle with two foes: Adderall and Xanax. Both were prescribed, he says, but at age 16 or 17, he was using them recreationally.

“It was awesome,” he deadpans. “[But] when you’re doing comedy on Adderall, your brain zooms in on a premise and you become so obsessed with it and you write jokes that make no sense. I did some insane bit about Steve Irwin and 9/11. I just remember I would do the bit and people would be like, ‘What are you talking about?’”

During his addiction, Peloso lived with another comic in Huntington Beach, where he oscillated between not sleeping and sleeping for two days at a time. He got sober before the pandemic but faced other struggles, including “a serious suicidal episode.”

During the pandemic, Peloso had a revelation. “I was stuck at my dad’s over quarantine,” he says. “My life was at a crossroads: ‘I can either stay here and keep doing what I’m doing, which is ruining my life, or get out of this environment where I used to abuse drugs and all that stuff—and live somewhere that’s more beneficial to me.’”

That turned out to be Portland, where Peloso had previously opened for a fellow comic. Since moving to the Rose City, he’s built an estimable résumé, perfecting his own material while hosting the monthly comedy show Funny How? at the

Best of the Rest

Eight comedy showcases worth checking out.

Faded

Though vaguely linked to comedy nights of the same name in Denver and Los Angeles and featuring touring luminaries (Subhah Agarwal, Keith Johnson), Faded co-hosts Sean Jordan (WW’s Funniest Person of 2014) and Shain Brenden (the Portland Mercury’s Funniest Person of 2022) make the Nectar-sponsored monthly revue all their own. Migration Brewing, 3947 N Williams Ave., 971-254-9719. Next show 7 pm Thursday, Jan. 26. $15.

Giggles Gone Wild

An impeccably curated showcase of top Portland talents (Devi Kirsch, Noah Watson) and nationally acclaimed headliners (Inside Jokes star Simon Gibson, Pacific Northwest “grande dame of comedy” Susan Rice). Giggles Gone Wild hosts Rachelle Cochran, Hewitt Pagenstecher and Imani Denae bring the party to The Get Down each month and to the world via podcasts at youtube.com/@gigglesgonewildpdx. The Get Down, 615 SE Alder St., Suite B, instagram.com/gigglesgonewildpdx. Next show 8 pm Wednesday, Jan. 25. $10.

Funhouse Lounge with his roommates, Ben Levy and Noah Watson (who was a 2022 Funniest Five honoree).

Peloso’s humor can be confrontational—he recently joked that while he’s still a Shane Gillis fan, he’ll avoid mentioning the controversial comic if he’s “on a date with a girl with a septum piercing.” Sobriety, however, is one subject you won’t hear about in his sets.

“I think I’m a little more insecure about it than other people who are sober,” he says. “There are funny things about it, but I’m like, ‘I don’t want to touch this right now.’”

It Gets Dark

Billed as “Portland’s darkest comedy show in Portland’s darkest place.” The venerable Shanghai Tunnel bar might not qualify, but the humor doled out by host Cait Chock and her sparkling guests (Beer Belly Laughs host Sagan Newham, WW’s Funniest Person 2022 winner Bryan Bixby) can run decidedly black. Shanghai Tunnel Bar, 211 SW Ankeny St., 503-220-4001, instagram.com/itgetsdarkcomedy. Next show 8 pm Friday, Feb. 17. $15.

Last Laugh Sunday

Last Laugh allmother Ta’Mara “F.I.Y.A.” Walker steadily built an audience around performers too often underrepresented within the local comedy circuit, and finally found her cavalcade a permanent home last year at Strawberry Pickle’s blacklit dance club. While F.I.Y.A. emcees the evening’s musical acts, longtime host Ikes Chambers supports a sparkling selection of comedians (Joshua Drury, Debbie Wooten, Eric Island) drawn from all sides of an ever-growing local community. Rainbow City, 301 NW 4th Ave., 971-212-2097, instagram.com/lastlaughsunday. Next show 8 pm Sunday, Jan. 29. $10/$15 at door.

Pass the Mic

The latest regular event from the peerless promoters of Kickstand Comedy. Chris Hudson and Imani Denae stock the foyer of boutique hostel Lolo Pass with up-and-coming yuksters testing out material as both performers and audience members fill out PTM Punch Cards to win drinks and such prizes as top billing for future shows. Lolo Pass, 1616 E Burnside St., 503-908-3074, kickstandcomedy.org. Next show 7:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 26. Free.

Suki’s Mic

Among the very first bars to open up their mic in a mid-’90s Portland ordinarily closed to young talent, Suki’s became a justly beloved proving ground for generations (Shane Torres, Ian Karmel, Ron Funches) of local comics honing their craft before the budget motel lounge’s famously tough crowds. Recently rebooted after a few years’ fitful retirement, this current Creecy Brothers-helmed iteration continues the raucous tradition of blending the funny ha-ha with funny weird. Suki’s, 2401 SW 4th Ave., 503226-1181, facebook.com/sukisbar. Next show 9 pm Tuesday, Jan. 31. Free.

World’s Hottest Goss

Ironically, Peloso’s willingness to own his insecurities makes him seem perversely secure. Even his professed discomfort with being interviewed (“this is a nightmare for me. This is awful”) somehow bolsters his coolness, along with his one earring and smoothed-back hair.

In other words, the Cameron Peloso who once worried that he wouldn’t be funny without Adderall and Xanax is long gone. “A lot of artists or comics kind of fetishize the idea of, ‘Dude, you gotta have a fucked-up life. You gotta look like shit,’” Peloso says. “But I think that’s a total myth.”

BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON @thobennett

A supra-luxe cinema hidden between a tire center and The Velvet Rope, the foreign apartment-styled Studio One Theaters have never made a lick of sense. But where better to appreciate the whip-smart absurdities of World’s Hottest Goss than a posh movie house lobby’s wine bar? Each week, “silly little guys with big secrets” James Hartenfeld and Clancy Kramer engage a cadre of Puddletown’s funniest folk. Studio One Theaters, 3945 SE Powell Blvd., 971-271-8142, instagram.com/worldshottestgoss. Next show 8:30 pm Sunday, Jan. 29. Free.

UnderBar Open Mic Night

A loud and proud speakeasy burbling beneath the Uptown Village neighborhood of our ever up-and-coming northern neighbors, UnderBar regularly delights LGBTQ crowds with spotlight events like next month’s inaugural Vancouver’s Funniest Comedian competition, while the open mic hosted by S.F. expat Juan Duran and Second City vet Amanda Lynn Deal has spent years topping from the bottom. UnderBar, 1701 1/2 Broadway St., Vancouver, Wash., 360-258-1146, underbar.pub/events/open-mic-night1-bgfrr-t4w9t. Next show 8 pm Wednesday, Feb. 16. Free.

BY JAY HORTON @hortland

“ I remember just being a kid and being like, ‘If I can make my dad laugh, I feel fulfilled.’”

If Imani Denae is honest, much of her early standup was dick jokes.

“I’m not a size queen at all,” one setup goes. “I don’t care if you have a big dick or a little dick. I grew up Christian, and I know the Bible says God won’t give you anything you can’t handle. It’s in Corinthians; you should look it up.”

The subject matter isn’t without intention. The 26-year-old comedian says she’s trying to demystify the theatrical aspects of dating and sex, cutting through to what’s actually just “horny and dumb.”

“I feel like I’m the best dick joke writer,” she says. “It’s a really big claim, but I feel confident in my weird ability to write dick jokes, even though I don’t have one.”

Despite that self-assigned superlative, Denae still feels “like a baby” in the Portland comedy scene—and not just because of her newcomer status, performing regularly only since March 2021.

Her early watershed moments often involved blissful beginner’s ignorance. The first time she tried riffing about her family onstage, she heard Kyle Kinane’s distinct guffaw; she didn’t even know he was there. She shared a billing with Shane Torres at one of her first shows, not realizing his success. They chatted about taxes.

“A lot of people after the fact were like, oh my God!” Denae recalls. “And I’m like, I don’t get it! He said you have to file as an LLC or a corporation. I don’t need to know this information at 25.”

“Everyone’s normal,” she adds. “We just do this thing called comedy together. I don’t want to put people on a pedestal for doing the same thing I’m doing. Yeah, they’re better than me, but someday I’ll be just as good.”

That day may come soon. Denae’s standup employs a welcoming, conversational style. Online followers often call her downbeat goofery “awkward,” but she disagrees.

“I’ve never felt awkward,” she says. “I’ve always just felt like me.”

She’s also actively trying to write what she calls “less silly” material. In fact, at the Funniest Five Showcase, audiences will likely find her piloting more ambitious, perspective-shifting jokes about child slave labor and school shooter stereotypes, pushing for more empathy and less rote judgment.

“I’ve always been friends with the trench-coat kids because I laugh when I’m nervous and I’ll compliment anyone who scares me,” Denae says.

While she resists knowing too much about scene politics or success benchmarks, Denae is a natural student. Before first stepping on a comedy stage, she attended five months of open mics simply for research. “Stalking the scene,” in her words, Denae clocked how Portland comedians held microphones and handled hecklers.

This studious streak stems from childhood. Born in Portland, Denae spent 11 years in Texas (her father, who served in the Army, was stationed at Fort Hood) before moving to Beaverton for her teenage years with no ex-

IMANI Denae

posure to Portland comedy. She’d devour rom-coms and sitcoms (from Degrassi to Everybody Loves Raymond), analyzing dialogue mechanics.

As one of seven siblings, Denae found her best bet for gaining attention was maestroing the family into impromptu barbershop quartets and puppet shows. Growing up in the YouTube influencer era, she made videos for a personal channel. Hardly anyone watched, but she learned how to monologue, fostering her quietly confident stage presence.

Then, there’s the guts no one can teach. Last June, Denae tagged along with comedy friends to a festival in Spokane, but took a solo detour to an open mic in Medical Lake, Wash. There, some members of an all-white audience chirped at Denae, who is Black, “You’re not

from around here; you’re lost.”

“That was already feeling like a yikes situation, but I did my set,” she says. “They were laughing their asses off. And I talked about race! It turned out they really liked my perspective on it.”

Denae has accomplished a lot in the last 22 months— including reaching over 55,000 Instagram followers, starting her creative podcast Rap Dumbass, and co-hosting the weekly showcase Giggles Gone Wild at The Get Down—but this is just her first act.

“Last year was just me making dick jokes,” she says. “This year, I want to home in on how big things really are and make everybody relax about them.”

BY CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER

JULIA Corral

Julia Corral’s best bit is the one about who, at the age of 40, she’s turning into. It’s not Selena, as she predicted, but Danny DeVito (belly, thinning hair, whiskers) and Yolanda Salvidar, the woman who murdered Selena. That smart, droll joke captures her comedic style: self-effacing, dark and beer-spittingly funny.

Corral is far from matronly, but performing three to five nights a week, she does spend a lot of time around 20-something comics.

“Oh my God. I get called ‘Julia, the Portland comedy mom.’ That is so sad,” she says over a Red Bull and vodka at the Lay Low Tavern, where she hosts the Comedy Corral, a biweekly showcase. “It is weird being onstage where there’s a whole generation who doesn’t get my references. I don’t know who the new bands are.”

Originally from Orange County, Corral has been hitting the comedy clubs in Portland with a vengeance for the past three and a half years. “I felt like Portland was destined,” she says. “I found friends very easily. I found my husband. Everything was like kismet.”

Confidence has never been lacking for Corral, who grew up doing theater, improv, cheerleading and morning announcements at school. “I knew with my friends I was funny very young,” she recalls. “Our family was centered on laughter, and a lot of that laughter, being Mexican, is giving each other a hard time, so you’re not only being funny, but you’re growing a thick skin.”

Corral lights up when talking about her childhood. “I was definitely the kid who always raised her hand,” she says. “And I would say that I was always funny, but I’m also very type A, OK? I got to be a class clown, but I never got in trouble, because I also got straight A’s.”

Corral cites several strong women as her inspiration, from her grandmother —“we would just literally sit around her while she made us laugh

and then everybody would kind of take turns being funny”—to Sarah Silverman, Roseanne Barr and Margaret Cho.

Do comedy bookers ever want Corral to be more Mexican? “Oh, I feel like that all the time. A lot of times I do get booked because I’m a woman and because I’m brown,” she says. “But also, it’s a blessing and a curse. Do they like me or do they not? But I waited so long to do this that I don’t really care. Like, what am I gonna do? Sometimes there’ll be an older Mexican man or woman, and they’ll come up to me and they’ll be like, ‘I’m so happy to see you here.’”

She jokes that on a recent appearance on OPB, she inadvertently gave the same speech Edward James Olmos gives at the end of Selena. “They ate it up,” she says in her act, adding, “Why did they ask me? Because I’m brown and I live in Portland. They wanted someone to shit on white people. And I’m good at it. The white guilt in this city is so amazing.”

Onstage, Corral loves to “talk shit” about her husband. “My husband was raised Mormon-hillbilly—that’s essentially Mexican,” she likes to joke. “We both have the ability to shove 18 of our cousins in the back seat of a minivan.”

An even more memorable bit (worthy of comparison to Phyllis Diller’s rants against her poor spouse Fang) goes, “He’ll scroll photos of vintage Portland and see a tiny sapling that was planted in the 1900s, and then for date night, we’ll drive around for hours and find this big, beautiful oak tree. I’m so impressed he can do this when he can’t find my clit in this bush.”

Corral may poke more than a little fun at him, but he’s a constant in her comedic process. “My husband is my partner,” she says. “I run every joke by him.”

During the pandemic, Corral lost both her mother and grandmother. “I felt I was a different comic before the pandemic, and the only way to explain it is when I lost my mom and I lost my grandma,” she says. “There was no barrier anymore for anyone to judge me. There’s no one left for me to truly disappoint. I can disappoint my husband, but that’s different.”

For a comic who mainly targets herself, Corral comes across as being fairly well adjusted. “Living in 2023 is very hard,” she says. “We’re all damaged, we’re all kind of stressed. I’m realizing we’re all neurodivergent, we all have ADHD. That’s just life. You can’t really blame anybody. You can’t blame your parents. You just, like, move on.”

BY LIBBY MOLYNEAUX

“

They wanted someone to shit on white people. And I’m good at it.”

“A vocabulary drawn from the African diaspora that’s richly expressive and irresistibly kinetic.” -

RONALD K. BROWN ARTISTIC DIRECTOR / FOUNDER ARLENE SCHNITZER

AMANDA LYNN Deal 4.

latability and self-deprecation. The 32-year-old has a laissez-faire “the world is burning so let’s roast some marshmallows” attitude to which many chronically online millennials and Zoomers can relate.

Kicking off the show, Deal begins: “I’m doing pretty good, which is weird for me. Anyone else trauma bond for two fucking years? You get out of a relationship like, ‘Was I drunk the whole time?’”

In between the sets of fellow comedians Shrista, Julia Corral, Jon Bennett, Taylor Evans, and Ryan Danley, Deal keeps the momentum flowing and holds the crowd’s attention—no easy feat for a comedy show anywhere, let alone Sanctuary Club. In fact, it was in this kooky, albeit very Portland, venue that Deal first started to find her niche.

“Todd Armstrong was the host and he had me come and do a set, then had me back for a feature set, and then for a headline,” she says. “Then he was like, ‘Holy shit. You’re funny. This room loves you.’”

Deal points out how Sanctuary Club has become a safe space for her and other comedians to hone their craft. “It’s been really wonderful because it’s such an accepting room,” she says. “It’s a place where I always feel very comfortable to be vulnerable.”

Although an impressive accolade in her comedy career, Laughrodisiac is only one of Deal’s many comedic ventures across Portland and Vancouver. She co-hosts Haymaker’s Power Hour Live Comedy show alongside Ronnie Macaroni and Jamie Carbone, co-hosts the open mic night at UnderBar in Vancouver, and hosts the Alberta Street Pub’s latebrunch comedy mic

The F*ucks of Life (all while traveling around the Pacific Northwest headlining shows).

Although Deal is now recognized as one of the biggest names in the Portland comedy scene, her first set was at a dispiriting open mic night.

“I did not do well,” Deal states emphatically with a laugh. “I thought I was gonna go out there and crush it.”

Instead, she was met with a standup comic’s fatal enemy: awkward silence. Still, she learned an important lesson: “There’s a difference between being a funny person and doing standup.”

In a blacklit room littered with dark leather couches, Amanda Lynn Deal warms up the hodge-podge crowd at Sanctuary Club. There’s a 50th birthday party, a group of consultant types in button-downs and puffer vests, bondage enthusiasts wrapped in neon cords, and one curious WW reporter packed into the sex-positive Pearl District nightclub.

The club has hosted Laughrodisiac for years, touting it as the longest-running (and filthiest) monthly comedy

show in Portland. Although Deal took the reins as host only a few months earlier, the audience devours each joke she throws at them with uproarious laughter.

“I’ve always just been kind of a goofy kid,” Deal says as she reflects on her start in comedy. “I was homeschooled and I have a lot of siblings. I was always the one that would dress up in weird outfits or do prank phone calls just to make people laugh.”

Deal’s humor finds its niche in the space between re-

Shortly after, Deal visited Chicago to see the legendary improv comedy troupe Second City, which she ultimately joined. Then, after driving a converted school bus to do standup across the nation, she moved to Vancouver and returned to familiar comedic stomping grounds.

“Portland can get a bad reputation of being too PC, but a lot of my friends from Chicago were excited to come and visit because of that,” Deal says. “You can make anything funny if it’s from your experience. If you’re making fun of someone else’s experience, you’re just a bully.”

BY ALEX BARR

SAMWhiteley 5.

Sam Whiteley seems to exist in a constant state of discomfort.

That’s most obvious when the 32-year-old comic has a mic in his hand. He moves around with a timid but endearing stiffness, shifting from foot to foot as he strains slightly to engage with the audience. Adding to that is Whiteley’s ability to turn nearly every story he tells into an exploration of his personal failings. A regular joke in his arsenal begins with him mocking his former Pizza Hut manager who would send his delivery drivers out with this awkward maxim: “When you’re out there tonight on the road, just remember that our pizza is like sex. Even though it’s not that good, it’s still pizza.” Whiteley would politely laugh every time but was left more confused than inspired. “I just don’t think that’s true,” he says. “At least in my experience, whenever I’m having really mediocre pizza, I don’t always feel super guilty because I know that it’s entirely my fault. Never had a bowl of Totino’s tell me it came just so I’d stop eating it.”

The Lake Oswego-born performer’s apprehension extends to meeting a journalist for his first-ever interview. Even though he’s on his home turf—Peter’s Bar and Grill on Northeast Fremont, a regular hangout for Whiteley— and warms up considerably as our conversation wears on, he never looks completely at ease. It’s something he’s very aware of, especially when it comes to his time doing standup.

“I’m very imitable to a lot of my friends,” he says, tucking into an early morning patty melt. “That’s still true, but it’s changed from shrugged-up shoulders and very little eye contact. People would make fun of me. ‘You can’t just read [jokes] from your phone!’ The charisma, I hope, has changed, but it’s never going to be animated.”

A lifelong comedy fan, Whiteley didn’t try his hand at standup until about nine years ago, usually only with friends who essentially dared each other to tell jokes at an open mic. Eventually, he started venturing out on his own, starting out at The Lamp, the bar connected to the Aladdin Theater that used to host regular open mic nights. From there, he’s been steadily branching out, landing gigs around Portland as well as scoring stage time around Washington and Oregon.

His momentum has stalled at times. The COVID pandemic temporarily killed the ability of most comics to perform in person, though Whiteley did participate in some Zoom gigs and a couple of outdoor shows.

More surprising is the time Whiteley has taken off from performing to coach high school basketball. For the 2018-19 season, he led the Lincoln High School’s JV squad and assisted with the varsity team as needed. He may not be as hands-on with the sport any longer, but basketball remains a lifelong love for Whiteley. Even as he was absorbing the work of his favorite comedians in high school, he busied himself with doing the color commentary for the livestreams of Lake Oswego’s varsity basketball teams and poring over the box scores of the Blazers and the Oregon State Beavers.

Both have been continued obsessions for Whiteley, and he has a lot to say about the latter team during each episode of The Payton Years, a podcast dedicated to OSU basketball that he co-hosts with friend and roommate Andy Clark.

“He did it with a friend of his before that,” Whiteley says, “and I was one of their six listeners. I was like, ‘Dude, I gotta let you know, there’s so few people that are interested in Oregon State basketball on the level that you and I are, so thank you for doing it.’”

Whiteley has been part of the podcast since 2020, taking over for a previous co-host a mere week before COVID put a stop to every sporting event worldwide. (“I remember we did an episode the day they beat Utah,” he says, “and the next day, every college basketball season was canceled.”)

His and Clark’s hard work on the podcast and OSU has paid off in dividends, including scoring some great seats

Just how much time Whiteley can dedicate to the podcast may start to dwindle as he starts to venture farther outside the Pacific Northwest with his standup. Next month, he takes a major step in that direction with his first appearances at SF Sketchfest. Beyond that?

“I mean, no pressure,” Whiteley says, shifting in his seat and staring out the window a bit as he answers, “but it would be nice if comedy paid all the bills. I certainly wouldn’t seek out other work if I didn’t have to. Maybe it’s just because I went to L.A. [recently]. Although I didn’t do any standup or anything, just to be at the Comedy Store and to see, like, Chris Rock just walk in there and perform, maybe because I’ve seen it, it seems more realistic.”

BY ROBERT HAM

for home games and landing them some sweet guests like head coach Wayne Tinkle and current Blazer Gary Payton II.

“

I’m very imitable to a lot of my friends.”

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Education

COLLEGE POSSIBLE OREGON

How does your organization help Portland?

College Possible’s mission is to make college admission and success possible for students from low-income backgrounds. We serve 1,600 students on their path to becoming college graduates with real results, including 97% of our students earning admission to college. Support for students has been uninterrupted during the pandemic and now, more than ever continued support for students is vital.

How can volunteers help?

Short-term opportunities: career panels, in which individuals share their experiences and work with students; represent College Possible at a Lunch and Learn event; assemble student care bags for students to receive during final exams, standardized tests, etc.; receive training and coach rising firstyear college students at a one-day transition event. College Possible also has long-term investment opportunities on its Investment Council and Ambassador Board (for engaged members under 40 years of age).

Who to Contact?

Christina Carl | ccarl@collegepossible.org | 971-407-2975 | collegepossible.org

Health & Wellness Services

DISABILITY

SERVICES

ADVISORY COUNCILS

How does your organization help Portland? Aging and People with Disabilities advisory groups, including the Oregon Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services Advisory Committee, Oregon Disabilities Commission, the Governor’s Commission on Senior Services and Disability Services Advisory Councils provide feedback on state policy guidelines and issues that affect older adults and people with disabilities. These advisory groups work closely with state and local agencies throughout Oregon to promote person-centered services, independence, and improved quality of life for older adults and people with disabilities.

How can volunteers help?

Volunteers can make a difference in their community by applying for membership on advisory groups and sharing their diverse perspectives and experiences. Members sup-

port quality of life and services for older adults and people with disabilities by learning about the political process, and advising, educating and advocating to others about local service delivery options.

Who to Contact?

Oregon.DSAC@odhsoha.oregon.gov | GCSS.Info@odhsoha.oregon. gov odhhs.info@odhsoha.oregon.gov | OregonDisabilities.Commission@odhsoha.oregon.gov |

DOUGY CENTER

How does your organization help Portland?

One in 17 kids in the Portland area will experience the death of a parent or sibling before they turn 18. Dougy Center provides grief support in a safe place to local kids, teens, and families through biweekly peer support groups where they can share their experiences before and after a death. All of their resources and support services are provided at no cost to the families they serve.

How can volunteers help?

Dougy Center volunteer facilitators play a crucial role in ensuring access to our bereavement program. Become a Dougy Center volunteer facilitator and work directly with kids, teens, young adults, and their adult family members at one of Dougy Center’s three metro area locations. Complete the free volunteer facilitator training, then work with the grief support group that fits your interests and schedule. Volunteers commit to giving 3.5 hours of time every other week for one year. Find out more at dougy.org/volunteer.

Who to Contact?

Meredith Kelley | volunteer@dougy.org | dougy.org

GUARDIAN PARTNERS

How does your organization help Portland?

Guardian Partners is a volunteer-based nonprofit offering education, resources, and oversight for our disabled and senior communities under guardianship. Their goal is not only to prevent abuse but also to connect guardians and protected people with resources.

How can volunteers help?

Guardian Partners is currently looking for volunteers to complete wellness checks on adults under guardianship to ensure they are being properly cared for by their guardians. Volunteers will make recommendations to the court and provide resources and referrals. Guardian Partners serves 9 counties in Oregon, including Multnomah County and Clackamas County.

Who to Contact?

Jeni Bennett | staff@guardian-partners.org | (775) 863-8773 | guardian-partners.org

KAISER PERMANENTE NW

How does your organization help Portland?

Kaiser Permanente exists to provide high-quality, affordable health care services and to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. Volunteers give their time and compassion to be a part of the care experience for patients and families across Oregon and SW Washington.

How can volunteers help?

Kaiser Permanente volunteers select the program that fits their interest: Hospital, Clinic, or Hospice. All positions require compassionate and caring individuals who understand and value treating others with dignity and respect. They ask volunteers to make a long term, weekly commitment to their program of choice. Hospice volunteers help to improve the quality of life for our patients and families at the end of life with support like visiting with the patient, providing a break for a caregiver, assisting with a project or helping with some household tasks. Clinic volunteers are present in same-day primary, specialty care or urgent care centers and assist patients as they arrive and navigate the facility and provide support to administrative and clinical staff. Hospital volunteers can select from 19 unique units or areas within the hospitals and interact with staff, members, and visitors. Volunteers are in contact with patients for many of these roles but do not provide direct patient care. For volunteer eligibility, screening requirements and to apply, please check the website: https://www.kpnwvolunteer.org

Who to Contact?

Hospice: HospicevolunteerNW@kp.org; Clinic: kpnwclinicvol@kp.org; Kaiser Sunnyside Hospital: volunteersKSMC@kp.org; Kaiser Westside Hospital: volunteerKWMC@kp.org Hospice: (503) 499-5168; Clinics: (971) 200-9346 Sunnyside: (503) 571-4155; Westside: (971) 310-3135

OUR JUST FUTURE (FORMELRY KNOWN AS HUMAN SOLUTIONS)

How does your organization help Portland?

Our Just Future helps Portland by 1) partnering with people and communities impacted by poverty so they can achieve long-term housing and economic security; 2) investing in affordable housing and community assets that contribute to strong, inclusive neighborhoods; and 3) advocating with our community for policies and investments that expand housing and economic opportunity, eliminate wealth inequality and end poverty.

How can volunteers help?

Volunteers are needed to: drive to retrieve and deliver donations, prepare meals for emergency shelters, and host donation drives for needed items

Who to Contact?

Marci Cartagena | volunteer@ourjustfuture.org | (503) 278-1637 | humansolutions.org

SENIOR HEALTH INSURANCE BENEFITS ASSISTANCE (SHIBA)

How does your organization help Portland?

The Senior Health Insurance Benefits Assistance (SHIBA) program is a statewide network of certified counselors who volunteer their time to educate and advocate for people of all ages who have Medicare. People who contact SHIBA can get their Medicare related questions answered, ensuring they select the best coverage options for their health care needs. Information and counseling services provided through SHIBA are free and confidential.

How can volunteers help?

SHIBA’s success is built on a statewide network of certified Medicare counselors who volunteer their time. Counselors help people in their community understand their Medicare insurance choices and their rights by offering one-on-one counseling, classes, and referrals. SHIBA counselors are required to complete an online training program and 10-hour internship as part of their certification.

Who to Contact?

SHIBA.Oregon@odhsoha.oregon.gov | (800) 722-4134

Environment

FRIENDS OF TREES

How does your organization help Portland?

Friends of Trees inspires people to improve the world around them through a simple solution: Planting trees. Together. Trees play a vital role in our region’s livability. With the help of thousands of volunteers, Friends of Trees plants trees in neighborhoods and natural areas in an effort to build community, fight climate change, and bring the benefits of trees to everyone. Friends of Trees is also a 2022 Give!Guide nonprofit!

How can volunteers help?

Friends of Trees has events throughout the Portland metro region every Saturday, October to April. Family friendly, ages 6+ welcome, and no experience necessary-just weather appropriate attire and sturdy footwear. They provide tools, instructions, and leadership so that you have an awesome time planting. Want to get even more involved? You can become a Crew Leader!

Who to Contact?

Jenny Bedell-Stiles | volunteer@friendsoftrees.org | 503-595-0213 | friendsoftrees.org

PEOPLE OF COLOR OUTDOORS

How does your organization help Portland?

People of Color Outdoors is a non-profit committed to creating an outdoors community that is welcoming and educational for Black, Indigenous and People of Color that have either survived racial trauma while in nature, or simply have a desire to safely connect with nature.

How can volunteers help?

People of Color Outdoors needs hike leaders, camping equipment instructors, outdoor cook demonstration, help with connecting with corporate sponsors, fundraising and grant writing, Instagram help, writers.

Who to Contact?

Pamela Slaughter | Pam@pdxpocoutdoors.com | 503-349-1061 | pdxpocoutdoors.com

Youth

CASA FOR CHILDREN OF MULTNOMAH, WASHINGTON, COLUMBIA, AND TILLAMOOK COUNTIES

How does your organization help Portland?

CASA for Children recruits, trains and supports community volunteers to speak up for abused and neglected children who are under court protection. CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate) volunteers help provide a stable, caring presence in these children’s lives, giving them hope for the future by ensuring that their educational, emotional, medical and practical needs are met while they are living in foster care.

How can volunteers help?

CASA volunteers get to know each child by visiting them and speaking to those involved in the child’s life. They also monitor each child’s case by attending meetings and hearings, provide an objective opinion to the court, and make recommendations to ensure that each child’s need for a safe, permanent home is met as quickly as possible. Minimum age: 21.

Who to Contact?

www.casahelpskids.org

Jazmin Roque | JRoque@casahelpskids.org | casahelpskids.org/ infosessions

Animals

CAT ADOPTION TEAM (CAT)

How does your organization help Portland?

Cat Adoption Team provides love, laughter, and companionship to Portland cats and people! With support from the community, CAT provides adoption, fostering, and veterinary services to cats and kittens in need. They also offer programs to help people keep and care for their cats. Thousands of cats and people find love at CAT each year. Join them in the feline fun!

How can volunteers help?

Make matches as an adoption counselor, become a foster parent, represent CAT at events, provide daily care for shelter cats, assist spay/neuter clients, help with administrative tasks, or become a kitty chauffeur. Bring your people skills and love of cats to CATs and let’s save lives together!

Who to Contact?

Nancy Puro | volunteer@catadoptionteam.org | (503) 925-8903 | catadoptionteam.org

Arts

CYMASPACE

How does your organization help Portland?

CymaSpace makes arts, media and culture accessible and inclusive to the Deaf and Hard of Hearing through technology, education and outreach. Their Deaf led live and online productions empower and promote Deaf performers, technicians and volunteers to advance their skills and use their talents to engage with local Deaf and Hard of Hearing/Intersecting BIPOC communities.

How can volunteers help?

Whether it’s collaborating on cutting edge, accessible, immersive installations or data entry we have opportunities for a wide range of interests. Have a disability but have found volunteer opportunities inaccessible? CymaSpace is here to accommodate you and teach you new skillsets! A/V production, programming, design and fabrication, development, marketing, graphic design, and more, they create a safe space for people to engage and support the disability community.

Who to Contact?

Eric Buchner | volunteer@cymaspace.org | 231-590-1503 | cymaspace.org

Community

BLANCHET HOUSE

How does your organization help Portland?

Blanchet House alleviates suffering in the community, one relationship at a time, through food, clothing, and transitional shelter programs. They serve anyone who comes to their doors without judgment because they believe everyone deserves dignity, hope, and community.

How can volunteers help?

Volunteers are needed to serve meals and drinks in Blanchet’s free cafe to people experiencing homelessness and hunger Mon-Sat. They can choose one of the following shifts: 6:30-7:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m., or 5-6 p.m. Sign-up and orientation is easily done online at BlanchetHouse.org/Volunteer.

Who to Contact?

Jennifer Ransdell | volunteer@blanchethouse.org | 503-241-4340 | BlanchetHouse.org/Volunteer

HABITAT FOR HUMANITY

PORTLAND REGION RESTORES

How does your organization help Portland?

Every item donation and every ReStore purchase helps fund local Habitat for Humanity homebuilding programs. By donating or shopping at the ReStore, you can help HH give items new life and keep usable materials out of local landfills. Last year, ReStores diverted 9,281 tons of reusable materials from landfills. There

are even three ReStore locations that you can visit: Beaverton, Gresham, and Portland.

How can volunteers help?

As a volunteer-driven organization, they rely on people like you! Volunteer tasks include processing donations, cashiering, providing helpful customer service, recycling metal, assembling furniture, and more. Gain new skills, meet new people, and have fun all while making a difference! Volunteer with them at one of their three ReStores or in their warehouse. No experience is required. Now accepting volunteers 14 years old and up.

Who to Contact?

volunteer@habitatportlandregion.org | 503-287-9529 | volunteer. habitatportlandregion.org

LUTHERAN COMMUNITY SERVICES NORTHWEST

How does your organization help Portland?

LCSNW works for health, justice and hope. Their services include behavioral health, family & community support, refugee & immigrant services, child welfare, aging & independent living, and crime victim services without regard to race, ethnicity, national origin, religious belief, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, age, marital status, ability, military or veteran status, source of income or political affiliation.

How can volunteers help?

Volunteers provide a lot of support to our agency, specifically in the resettlement process for refugees and immigrants. From welcoming new arrivals at the airport and transporting them to their new home, to providing a warm welcome meal, there are many needs in the first 90 days after arrival. LCSNW offers prospective volunteers an orientation and training session that provides further information about opportunities and what to expect for those that are interested.

Who to Contact?

Anatoly Pinchuk | volunteermanagement@lcsnw.org | 503-2317480 | lcsnw.org

OREGON FOOD BANK

How does your organization help Portland?

Oregon Food Bank believes that food is a basic human right. Hunger is not just an individual experience; it is a community-wide symptom of barriers to employment, education, housing, and health care. That’s why they’re dedicated to helping people access nutritious food today AND building community power to eliminate the root causes of hunger for good. Together, Oregon Food Bank knows we can end hunger.

How can volunteers help?

They seek volunteers and advocates to help build a powerful movement to eliminate hunger for good! There are many ways to help end hunger in our communities — volunteers are from all walks of life with different abilities and schedules. Whatever your skills or interests, they welcome you. Join them for an on-site food repack/sort or seasonal garden shift, or off-site at one of their Partner Agencies. Or from the comfort of your own home, you can join them for online fundraisers and advocacy initiatives.

Who to Contact?

Laura Yeary | volunteer@oregonfoodbank.org | 503-282-0555 | oregonfoodbank.org

ROSE CITY ROLLERS

How does your organization help Portland?

The Rose City Rollers serve women, girls, and gender-expansive individuals who want to play roller derby, connect with an inclusive community, and realize their power on and off skates. As an almost entirely volunteer-run organization, we offer volunteers opportunities to learn professional skills by working alongside experienced professionals in the fields of media, development, event planning, sports management, and more.

How can volunteers help?

Volunteering your time to the Rose City Rollers means you’re investing in a future of joy, health, and wellness for our Port-

land community through the magic of roller skating! They offer a vast array of skill and resume-building opportunities, from one-time commitments at events & games to longer-term roles in sponsorship, social media, merchandise, live streaming, officiating, development, and more! From large group tasks like organizing, cleaning, or skate maintenance to virtual ones like live-stream moderation, data entry, and website maintenance, there are so many ways to help! We even offer internships, giving you a chance to experience meaningful work while exploring & developing your career! Whatever your interests are, you have a home with Rose City Rollers - supporting RCR means supporting strength, connection, and empowerment. Who to Contact?

Summer Pruitt-Feist | volunteer@rosecityrollers.com | rosecityrollers.com

STORE TO DOOR

How does your organization help Portland?

Store to Door supports independent living for Portland area seniors and people with disabilities by providing an affordable, personal, volunteer-based grocery shopping and delivery service.

How can volunteers help?

Store to Door’s most popular program is grocery shopping. It’s a fun scavenger hunt through the store to find items on a client’s grocery list! Volunteer shoppers are not responsible for purchasing or delivering the orders. They shop on Wednesday & Thursday mornings at Hollwyood and Beaverton Town Square Fred Meyer. Volunteers are also needed as Order Takers, Delivery Drives, Food Box Packers, and Friendly Callers. Visit their volunteer website to create an account and sign up for the shopping shift or check ‘I am interested in being a…’. Who to Contact?

Individual Volunteers: Linda Fahrenkopf linda@storetodooroforegon.org| Corporate or Community Groups: Carolyn Reed carolyn@ storetodoorofeoregon.org| (503) 200-3333 ext 108 | storetodooroforegon.volunteerhub.com

TRANSITION PROJECTS

How does your organization help Portland?

Transition Projects helps people experiencing homelessness transition successfully into permanent housing. With 53 years of experience providing shelter, housing, and services for low-income people, they are recognized for their work with veterans, women, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups. Their team assists nearly 10,000 people each year through programs designed to help people leave the streets for permanent housing. How can volunteers help?

Volunteers are essential to Transition Projects’ mission, helping support the critical work their team accomplishes. There are opportunities for individuals and groups to get involved: on a regular, on-call, or one-time volunteer basis. The greatest need (and the most popular!) is for Meal Provider Groups who plan and provide nutritious dinners to our shelters located across the Metro-area. With 7 shelters to feed, they have many opportunities to get involved! Volunteers also support our Resource Center in the participant mail and clothing rooms, lead activities for shelter residents, support events, and much more.

Who to Contact?

Emily Coleman | volunteer@tprojects.org | 503-488-7745 | tprojects.org

TRAUMA INTERVENTION PROGRAM NW (TIP)

How does your organization help Portland?

Trauma Intervention Program NW is a group of specially trained volunteers who provide emotional and practical support and resources to victims and survivors of traumatic events in the first few hours following a tragedy. Requested by the emergency response system, schools, businesses, other organizations and more, TIP Volunteers respond to 170+ calls per month in the Portland area.

How can volunteers help?

Become a TIP Volunteer or TIPTeen Volunteer by registering for our February 2023 Training Academy, beginning February 22nd. Learn more about other ways to be involved here: https://www.tipnw.org/what-you-can-do/.

Who to Contact?

June Vining | tipstaff@tipnw.org | 503-823-3937 | www.tipnw.org

Social Action MEALS ON WHEELS PEOPLE

How does your organization help Portland?

Meals on Wheels People enriches the lives of seniors, and assists them in maintaining independence, by providing nutritious food, human connections, and social support. They also use their expertise and capacity to serve other nutritionally atrisk populations.

How can volunteers help?

Volunteers can help in a variety of ways including volunteering as a meal delivery driver for their senior program or Meals 4 kids program, helping at their centers with meal packing or assisting with congregate dining, making calls remotely to homebound seniors for a chat and wellness check in through our Friendly Chat Program, helping participants stay safe in their homes by providing yard clean ups, simple repair or installations through the Safe Homes for Seniors program or being a representative of Meals on Wheels People at events such as tabling events, resource fairs or giving a presentation to community partners.

Who to Contact?

volunteer.coordinator@mowp.org | (503)736-6325 Ext. 106 | mowp. org/volunteer

METROPOLITAN FAMILY SERVICE - CASH OREGON

How does your organization help Portland?

MFS-CASH Oregon is an economic empowerment program of Metropolitan Family Service committed to improving the financial health of low-income working families and individuals. They provide free tax preparation services and culturally responsive outreach to communities most likely to face barriers to accessing important tax credits.

How can volunteers help?

Looking to make a difference? CASH Oregon is looking for caring, detail-oriented volunteers to help families access important tax credits. All training provided, learn a new skill and give back to your community! Learn more: https://cashoregon. org/volunteer

Who to Contact?

CASH Oregon | volunteer@cashoregon.org | 503-461-7388 | cashoregon.org/volunteer

THE CUPCAKE GIRLS

How does your organization help Portland?

The Cupcake Girls is a local nonprofit that provides confidential support to those involved in the sex industry as well as referral services to provide prevention and aftercare to those affected by sex trafficking. They provide resources such as advocacy meetings, peer support groups, sessions with doctors, dentists, and lawyers, mental-health assistance, career counseling, family resources, rent assistance, and more.

How can volunteers help?

The Cupcake Girls is always looking for committed, passionate people who’d like to join their team. We offer a wide variety of volunteer positions to fit an array of interests. With in-person and remote options, there’s something for everyone. On average, volunteers donate 5 hours per month with specific tasks related to their chosen team. Examples include networking at events, maintaining an online database, assisting Clients 1-on-1, helping to plan fundraisers, and more. Learn more here: www.thecupcakegirls.org/volunteer.

Who to Contact?

Grace Aasen | grace.aasen@thecupcakegirls.org | thecupcakegirls. org/volunteer

TOP DOGS

Primped pooches returned to the Portland Expo Center on Jan. 1822 to strut their stuff as part of the Rose City Classic Winter Dog Show. The event, billed as one of the largest and most popular of its kind in the U.S., featured traditional breed judging, but looks weren’t the only thing under evaluation. Speedy dogs participated in agility trials, disciplined dogs competed to see who was the most obedient, and well-mannered dogs took the American Kennel Club Canine Good Citizen test. There was even a competition for 4-to-6-month-old puppies.

Photos by Aidan Barbar

On Instagram: @barbarbarbarbarbar_

WATCH: The Best of the Worst Cinema Experience

When was the last time you saw a movie so bad it was actually good? The folks at Sessionable think we need more of those experiences, which is why they’re hosting The Best of the Worst Cinema Experience, a series of film fails so spectacular they can’t be forgotten. The venue offers small bites and an extensive tap list so you can jeer with a full belly. Sessionable, 3588 SE Division St., 503-501-4663, sessionable. com. 10:30 pm Wednesday, Jan. 25. No cover.

VIEW: Weaving Data Opening Reception

Data is a huge deal these days, affecting virtually every aspect of our lives, from how we commute to which YouTube rabbit holes we get lost in on weekends. And apparently, at least according to the curators of this upcoming Portland State University exhibition, weaving and data have a lot in common. In fact, the advent of binary code may have been in the 19th century by a weaver. Get the details and see for yourself at the opening reception of Weaving Data or anytime while the exhibit is on display through April. Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art at Portland State University, 1855 SW Broadway, 503-725-8013, pdx. edu/museum-of-art. 5-7 pm Thursday, Jan. 26. Free, RSVP required.

GO: Lantern Viewing Evenings

The Lunar New Year is upon us, and Lan Su Chinese Garden hosts a series of corresponding festivities, including Lantern Viewing Evenings. The events occur after regular park hours and feature an illuminated dragon procession, floating lantern sculptures and glowing red lanterns throughout the park. It’s a great way to keep those glowy, ZooLights vibes going as winter progresses. Don’t forget to warm up at the garden’s Teahouse (which also conveniently serves wine and sake).

Lan Su Chinese Garden, 239 NW Everett St., 503-228-8131, lansugarden.org. 5 and 7 pm Thursday-Sunday, Jan. 26-Feb. 5. $15-$45.

WATCH: Bury Your Fish

Clinton Street Theater is the place to watch the Portland premiere of Bury Your Fish, a psychological thriller short from local director Emma Josephson. It’s fresh off a long and successful festival run and ready for its local reception, complete with free popcorn and a Q&A with the cast and crew after the screening. Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., 971-808-3331, cstpdx.com/event/buryyour-fish. 6 pm Friday, Jan. 27. Suggested donation $2-$5.

DRINK: Great Notion Seven Year Anniversary Celebration

It’s hard to believe that seven years ago, a trio of friends purchased the old Mash Tun brewery on Northeast Alberta Street, named it after Oregon author Ken Kesey’s novel about a logging family, and then quickly rose to prominence in the beer world thanks to their juicy IPAs and bold pastry stouts. What’s also hard to believe is that Great Notion has never celebrated an anniversary—until now. The party will include the release of the haziest of hazy double IPAs named 7 Dollar Bill, food specials, and a mobile tattoo artist inking fans with the brewery’s well-known cartoon characters. You can also expect limited barrel-aged imperial stout pours, which begin at noon. Better line up early, just like you did for Great Notion’s in-person packaged beer releases, because they’re certain to sell out of those rare offerings. Great Notion Brewing NW, 2444 NW 28th Ave., 971-279-2183, greatnotion.com. Noon Saturday, Jan. 28.

DRINK: Tualatin Winter Brew Fest 2023

LISTEN: Portland New Wave Night

New Wave music doesn’t need you to like it for it to be the best. White Eagle Saloon’s upcoming New Wave Night features request-friendly DJs who are themselves from the era when synthesizers replaced guitars as the instrument of choice and songs about safety, whipping it, and lobsters topped the charts. Deep tracks welcome. McMenamins White Eagle Saloon & Hotel, 836 N Russell St., 503-282-6810, mcmenamins.com. 8 pm Saturday, Jan. 28. $5. 21+.

LISTEN: UH2BT K-Pop Night

LAUGH: WW’s Funniest Five Showcase

Now that you know who made it into our Funniest Five class of 2023 (page 15), be sure to get your tickets to the annual showcase where those comedians will take the stage. Their sets will reveal why these individuals were selected as the city’s top talent by their peers, which include more than 100 standup performers, club owners, producers and podcasters. The show will be hosted by last year’s Funniest Person, Brian Bixby. Albert Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 503-719-6055, albertarosetheatre.com. 8 pm Friday, Jan. 27. $15 general admission, $28 preferred seating (first seven rows in the center).

More than 20 area brewers, cider houses and wineries are queued up and ready to share their latest seasonal and specialty offerings at Stickmen’s Tualatin Beer Hall. Complement your beverages with four onsite food options, including Stickmen wood-fired pizzas and salads, the LaSabrosita taco truck, gourmet sausages by Beez Neez, and dessert from Nothing Bundt Cakes. Admission includes a custom event-themed glass and 10 drink tickets. Celtic Axe Throwers will also be present with special festival deals because, hey, alcohol and hurling sharp objects always go hand in hand. Stickmen Brewing Company Tualatin Beer Hall, 19475 SW 118th Ave., Suite 1, Tualatin, 503-486-7197, stickmenbeer.com/tualatin. 3-9 pm Saturday, Jan. 28. $30 in advance, $35 at the door. Free for nondrinkers and minors.

If you can engage in a lively debate about the supremacy of Stray Kids’ Bang Chan versus BTS’s RM, then Hawthorne Theatre’s upcoming K-Pop Night is something you’ll enjoy. However, if you just read that sentence and scoffed, muttering to yourself about how those two rappers can’t even be compared—they’re like apples and oranges—then drop everything and get your tickets. Right now. Go. Hits from Blackpink, BTS and all the other K-pop essentials are sure to be on the playlist. Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE 39th Ave., 503-233-7100, hawthornetheatre.com. 9 pm Saturday, Jan. 28. $16.

DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE: Celebrate the Year of the Rabbit at Lan Su Chinese Garden through Feb. 5.

COURTESY

1. TXAKO TACO PARTY POPUP AT SOMEDAY

3634 SE Division St., sonofman.co. 6-9 pm Saturday, Jan. 28.

You don’t need to know how to pronounce Txakolina in order to drink it (BTW, it’s chockoh-LEE-nah), but it sure will help you spread the word about this effervescent wine that was unknown to many outside of Spain until recently. Basque-based Txakolina producer Blai will serve a limited number of cases at this pop-up featuring its partner, Cascade Lock’s Son of Man Basquestyle cidery. Both businesses promise their beverages pair perfectly with the hamachi tostadas and sweet potato tacos that will also be for sale.

2. 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.

3. ECLIPTIC BREWING MOON ROOM

930 SE Oak St., 971-383-1613, eclipticbrewing. com. 4-10 pm Sunday and Wednesday-Thursday, 4-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

Ecliptic Brewing’s first Cosmic Collaboration release of the year is a combination of two style trends: one from a decade ago, the other emerging during the pandemic. Black Cold IPA, made in partnership with Astoria’s Fort George, features the dark roasted malt flavor of a Cascadian dark ale (all the rage in 2012-13) and is fermented with lager yeast, leading to an assertive crispness found in the newly invented cold IPA. Order a pint or two and then debate whether a cold IPA is just an IPL with a different name.

4. FRACTURE BREWING

FOOD & DRINK

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 to 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.

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.

Smokeshow

BY EZRA JOHNSON-GREENOUGH

Three friends, laid off from their jobs during the pandemic, launched a barbecue food truck in Hood River in 2020. This normally wouldn’t be news; barbecue restaurants have a hard time cutting through the noise if they lack prior hype, a devoted social media following, or an effective PR firm. But Grasslands’ DIY approach and connections to the craft beer industry have helped the business slowly build a fan base the old-fashioned way, via word of mouth.

Co-founder Drew Marquis grew up flipping burgers in Oklahoma before moving to Texas to explore a culinary career. In Dallas, he helped open what would become an acclaimed Italian restaurant and learned to handmake pasta and cure salumi. That experience sparked his interest in Italian culture and an internship at a Tuscan farm followed in 2012. Marquis later returned to the kitchen at DeLaurenti Food & Wine in Seattle’s Pike Place Market, where he met his future wife, Nicki, and began smoking meat in their backyard as a hobby.

In 2020, Marquis joined the team at Wood Shop BBQ, but his time there was brief— COVID forced the restaurant out of business. However, he wasn’t about to abandon his

passion, and started selling smoked meats to his friends via a pop-up called Bootleg Barbecue, lighting the spark for what would become Grasslands.

The business grew with the addition of two partners: Sam Carroll, a Texas native who attended the University of Oklahoma with Marquis and worked his way up to the head brewer position at Portland’s Occidental Brewing, along with their mutual friend Brendon Bain, a sous chef for Tom Douglas restaurants and a live-fire cooking enthusiast. After Carroll was laid off from his brewing position during the pandemic, they all agreed to try something new.

The cash-strapped trio placed a bet on a custom food truck and began popping up at various locations under the Grasslands brand while waiting for their kitchen on wheels to be completed. Their first event at Level Beer’s flagship in Northeast Portland was a hit, drawing a line of customers down the parking lot. Grasslands grew in popularity thanks, in part, to its menu—an alternative to brewpub burgers and pizza—but also saw demand from patrons eager to attend outdoor events during a pre-vaccinated pandemic era. But could that enthusiasm travel with them outside of Portland and beyond COVID restrictions?

In June 2021, Grasslands set up its food truck in a grassy field in Hood River adjacent to Ferment Brewing. After restaurants struggled to stay open when pandemic dining regulations were in place, and customers continued to seek safety in the open air, Ferment was more than happy to let Grasslands’ guests use its outdoor deck to eat their barbecue and pair it with a house beer.

But the brewery connections go further than that. During the offseason (currently underway until March), Grasslands’ founders collaborate with breweries—everyone from Ruse Brewing in Portland to Seattle’s Holy Mountain—on custom beers. The processes of brewing and cooking parallel each other, and those experiences have led to tiny tweaks in recipes that deepen the flavor of the barbecue. In less than two years, Grasslands’ food has gone from passable to magical.

On a frigid December day near the end of Grasslands’ season, I waited in line to grab a plate of food and run for cover. Inside one of Ferment’s heated patio yurts, I dug into more than a half-dozen different items, each as impressive as the next.

Honey-whiskey-cider pork belly burnt ends were a seasonal highlight. A crunchy, caramelized, slightly burnt coating formed

Pandemic job losses led to the rise of Grasslands Barbecue in Hood River.

COURTESY OF FRACTURE BREWING

Editor: Andi Prewitt Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

WHERE THERE’S SMOKE: Do yourself a favor and order a little bit of everything at Grasslands.

a shell around the moist inside, with layers of fat and meat stacked like lasagna dressed in a sweet, creamy sauce.

A breakfast brisket sandwich elicited memories of campground cooking. Thickcut slices of brisket had a deeply integrated but not overpowering smokiness and a crust of charred bits of skin and crushed black peppercorns. The center was so soft, with a jellylike texture, you could have practically spread it on a biscuit.

One of Grasslands’ hallmarks is its special attention to sides. Cheesy hominy is a perfect example of a non-meat dish presented with just as much care as the ’cue. Starchy beans with the texture of edamame were enveloped in a savory onion and garlic sauce blanketed in a thick cheddar cheese skin.

Smoked black pepper chicken so tender it can be sliced with a plastic fork has become a Grasslands favorite. But don’t miss the Hop Sausage when it’s available. This handmade brat is perhaps the business’s best bridge between barbecue and beer, with skin as thick as that of any hospitality worker who has made it through the pandemic. The sausage has a smokiness as dense as a Prohibition-era tavern, a tongue-tingling spice courtesy of paprika and a grassy flourish thanks to the use of pungent hops. And it passes the snap test, breaking with a satisfying squeaky crackle. The sensation sticks with you long after your plate is clean, and I can’t wait to experience it again once Grasslands reopens. March can’t come soon enough.

EAT: Grasslands Barbecue, 403 Portway Ave., Suite 300, Hood River, grasslandsbarbecue.com. 11:30 am Saturday until the food sells out (generally by 4 pm). Reopens in March.

Hot Plates

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. JANKEN

250 NW 13th Ave., 503-841-6406, jankenrestaurant.com. 4-10 pm Sunday and Wednesday-Thursday, 4-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

Some compare the Lunar New Year to a combination of Thanksgiving and Christmas—families come together, gifts are exchanged, and food is a critical part of the festivities. If you’re looking for a new spot to eat some special dishes in honor of the occasion, check out Janken, which recently opened in the opulent former Blue Hour space. The special holiday menu includes A5 wagyu tataki, duck salad with rice noodles, and a whole steamed tai—the latter of which is said to bring wealth and prosperity for the coming year, so lick that plate clean.

2. LAN SU CHINESE GARDEN TEAHOUSE

239 NW Everett St., 503-228-8131, lansugarden.org/aboutthe-garden/teahouse. 10 am-4 pm. Extended evening hours during Lantern Viewing Evenings.

Continue to celebrate the Year of the Rabbit at Lan Su Chinese Garden, which will host traditional lion dances, martial arts demonstrations, musical performances and more. The onsite Teahouse serves more than just its titular beverage; fill up on dumplings and steamed buns stuffed with vegetables as well as tofu rice noodles in a “longevity mushroom and garlic sauce.”

3. WILD CHILD PIZZA

2032 NE Alberta St., 503-719-7328, wildchild.pizza. 3-9 pm daily.

If you’ve grown weary of the city’s surplus of pizza joints, Wild Child will reinvigorate your palate. The new takeout window serves Detroit-style pies with a 72-hour-fermented sourdough crust. All the classic toppings you’d expect are available daily, while special combinations (like pineapple with bacon and jalapeño, or tater tots with spicy mayo and bonito) rotate in and out. This isn’t just pizza. It’s edible architecture.

4. JOJO

902 NW 13th Ave., 971-331-4284, jojopdx.com. 11 am-10 pm daily.

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. 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. And, of course, the jojos are in an elite tier here, staying crispy even when loaded with Tillamook cheddar and caramelized onions.

5. COSMIC BLISS

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.

ALLISON BARR

Hit List

If you’re looking to add to (or start) your glass collection, we’ve rounded up some unique pieces that belong on every stoner’s shelf.

BY BRIANNA WHEELER

An impressive glass collection is the ultimate stoner flex. Any jabroni can roll into a dispensary and stock up on some top-shelf supplies, but it can take years to develop a truly impressive array of smoke utensils. And frankly, it takes a bit of savvy to make sure that collection is not only attractive to look at, but also fully functional.

If you have the urge to fill a shelf with fine glass pipes and bongs, where do you begin? A huge beaker bong with an enormous logo on the mouth? A decorative hand-blown art piece? A bong that lights itself with its own laser?

Well, first, maybe save the novelties for wealthy dilettantes. Working-class aficionados know that function and form can come together in the most collectable of ways at the most accommodating of prices without a ton of unnecessary fanfare (I’m looking at you, laser bong). Here are some contemporary pieces we’ve had the good fortune to sample over the past 12 months, each making us reconsider how we thought of bongs altogether.

Canna Style Crystal Ball Bong, $109

Every mystic femme stoner was crushing on Canna Style’s Crystal Ball Bong when it dropped—including yours truly. The glass orb is a functional water pipe that doesn’t just resemble a broom-wielding witch’s crystal ball, it actually is a crystal ball. The pipe function is unique: Instead of featuring a mouthpiece, the ball has a small hole that the user draws from opposite the bowl. The piece takes less than a half-cup of fluid, which sits in the base so the globe can dramatically fill with smoke. Despite the novelty, it’s actually a solid bong, delivering a sufficient cloudful with each hit. Bonus: Before I added water, I placed my lips on the small hole to test out the draw, and the empty ball made a high-pitched whistle. Magic ball, indeed.

BUY: shopcannastyle.com

Session Goods Bong, from $185

Contemporary stoners who cringe at large, bubbling water pipes might appreciate the minimalist vibe of Session Goods’ products. Its signature bong also takes only a small amount of water (or a few ice cubes), so users take note: Do not let this piece molder away by leaving the base filled with murky resin water. In fact, it practically demands a fresh splash of H2O every other session. Easy to clean, easy to hit, easy to store in communal spaces, Session’s ergonomic unit could be perfect for smokers who’d rather not deal with used bong water at all.

BUY: sessiongoods.com

Elevate Jane Mimi, from $179

Similar to Session Goods’ bong, Elevate Jane’s Mimi is a minimalist vase with a very small water chamber that needs to be purged after almost every sesh. This unit, however, has a subtle, feminine aesthetic that’s made it a favorite among high-femme cannainfluencers. The Mimi comes in a variety of transparent hues, which means it’s easy to integrate with your end table objets d’art. The smoke chamber is considerably large, which juxtaposes sweetly against the unit’s feminine lilt—Elevate Jane knows that femmes need big hits to stay high.

BUY: elevatejane.com

Heir Waterpipe, from $220

The construction of the Heir water pipe is significantly dif ferent from any other bong we’ve used lately. The bowl and mouthpiece are both housed in a ceramic top piece that screws off of a glass smoke chamber approximately as big as a tall boy. Because of the unique way the pieces all come together, this unit is super easy to clean, which is a big plus considering how milky and resinous the hits its produces can be. Of all the new interpretations of water pipes we’ve auditioned, the Heir remains one of the most impressive reimaginings. Your experience may vary, but we endorse it wholeheartedly.

BUY: smokeheir.com

Canna Style Rosé Wine Bottle Bong, $69

Once you’ve selected your primary bong, padding out the collection with some nonessential kitsch is necessary, hence this small, personal bong fashioned after a bottle of rosé. This unit is small enough to pass as shelf décor, but still delivers a substantial hit. Users should know that the bong is less practical for daily use and much better suited for special occasions. Heaven forbid you develop a resin buildup on that precious pink glass; the shape of the downstem would make it more than difficult to scrub.

BUY: shopcannastyle.com

Stündenglass Kompact Gravity Infuser, $599.95

For the cannaisseur with plenty of disposable income and a penchant for gravity bongs, the Stündenglass is a must. As seen on the social media feeds of cannacelebs like Wiz Khalifa, Seth Rogen and even Mike Tyson (with whom Stündenglass collaborated), the flagship model is a beast, but the mini functions precisely the same way at about two-thirds the size. The unit has two pint-sized glass chambers—one for water, the other for smoke—that rotate, drawing smoke from a hookah-style bowl and expelling it through a touch-free mouthpiece. Given its mouth-free hitting and long-burning bowls, Stündenglass is practically encouraging you to bring the Kompact to a party. It even comes with a handy carrying case.

Kaho Rising

Ranging from ambience to rave music, Kaho Matsui’s discography has reached epic proportions.

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

Kaho Matsui didn’t record and release music until three years ago, but the Portland artist’s discography has already grown to epic scale. Her Bandcamp page averages one release a month, and her stylistic breadth is staggering, from ambient music based on field recordings to rave music with dizzying drum programming.

You’d be forgiven for seeing this prolificacy as a way to make up for lost time, but the 26-year-old sees all her work as part of an ongoing thread that reflects the events in her life at the moment the music was made.

“I take it as a journaling situation,” Matsui says. “I don’t spend over a week on an album because I want it to be like, here’s what’s going on right now.”

Amid this dense cloud of albums, EPs, singles, collabs, and one-offs, her new album, No More Losses, stands out. It’s her first release of 2023, clocks in at a robust 45 minutes, and is chock-full of collaborations with other musicians from her circle of friends and beyond.

Though the density of guests might seem like a way to establish No More Losses as a sort of tentpole release, standing above the shorter and jokier projects with which it rubs elbows on Bandcamp, there’s a reason for its collab-heavy approach that ties in with Matsui’s diaristic style.

“I’m trying to move out of Portland by the end of the summer,” Matsui says. “And then I think about if I move and then something happens and I miss it. I’ve severed a lot of ties with people since moving here. I’d like to not lose any more things—material objects or interpersonal relationships.”

The idea, then, was to make a record with friends. “Come and See” features artists Kevlar Wedding Dress, Snairhead and Wyatt Murphy, all of whom are roommates of Matsui’s girlfriend.

“They ’re all great musicians,” Matsui says. “If I move at the end of this year and still haven’t recorded music with them, it becomes like a situation of, hey, we should record music sometimes, and we all blank on it. So I wanted to make a core memory, I guess.”

Among the album’s nine credited features, the name most people versed in the world of experimental music will recognize is that of More Eaze, aka Mari Maurice Rubio, the Austin-based artist known for her eclectic catalog and use of the violin to create a one-person orchestra, as she does on Losses’ “I Want to Leave Right Now.”

“I’ve looked up to [Mari] for so many years, so it’s kind of surreal that she was like, ‘Oh, I listened to your music, it’s amazing,’” Matsui says. “And I’m like, ‘No way.’ And then she’s like, ‘We should collab.’”

More Eaze’s music has been pegged as “emo ambient,” after the style of rock music that emphasizes emotional expression. Matsui feels a kinship with the term as well. Though Matsui says her music is more “emo in how I’m presenting an idea, not directly referencing emo music,” her guitar playing is influenced by the spindly style pioneered by Midwestern emo bands like American Football.

Yet to listen to Matsui’s music is to engage with nearly everything that’s entered her ears in her 26 years on earth. Matsui was born in Japan to a musical family; her mom was a piano teacher, and her brother is a “prodigy person” with a degree in jazz studies.

Growing up, she enjoyed metal and electronic dance music, both of which still influence her work.

“Things like metal and EDM have a very cut and clear ‘here’s where it builds up, here’s where it drops,’” she explains. “I love that, it’s one of my favorite things. I love a drop.”

In elementary school, Matsui and her family moved to San Jose. When she turned 18, she moved to Portland and got a grueling job at Legacy Emanuel Hospital cleaning operating rooms and playing shows of “harsh noise music” when possible.

“ Working at the hospital I made a lot of money, and I was like, oh, this is great, I should be, like, really happy with my life,” Matsui says. “And I was doing really bad.”

This routine defined Matsui’s early days in Portland: playing gigs, working long hours, moving back and forth between Oregon and the Bay Area. “I had no friends, I wasn’t doing anything other than work,” she said. She quit her job around the same time a group of friends from the Bay Area came up for a rave and stayed at her house.

“ We talked a lot about making music, and a lot of the people that stayed at my house were in bands or doing recording projects,” she says.

Some of these friends were part of a label called Norm Corps, for which Matsui has made several recordings—including S/T, a tribute to Norm Corps co-founder Paris Alexander, aka Golden Boy, who passed away in 2021 and enjoyed the sort of uptempo, polyrhythmic rave music that comprises the bulk of the album.

With the support of her friends and ample time on her hands to create music, Matsui had a revelation: This is what I want to do. She’s still doing it, and by the time you read this, it’s likely she’ll have two more albums up.

“I want people who are listening to my music to understand that this is all stuff that’s happening,” Matsui says. “And if I don’t release music for two months, it’s just that nothing is going on.”

WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

THURSDAY, JAN. 26:

Sunn O))) fills the room with stage fog, dons long robes, and plays power chords. That’s about it, and their Shoshin Duo shows presents their patented drone-metal sound in an even more stripped-down format than usual, paring the band down to core members Greg Anderson and Stephen O’Malley. Opening the show are two legends of Northwest experimental music: local abstract sound artist Daniel Menche and Joe Preston, whose résumé as a bassist captures the sheer scope of experimental metal. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St. 9 pm. $27. 21+.

SATURDAY, JAN. 28:

The aptly named DJ Abilities helped define a certain strain of thoughtful Midwestern hip-hop, first with the late battle-rap legend Eyedea and then as a core member of the Rhymesayers Entertainment stable. His latest album, Phonograph Phoenix, pushes his hard-hitting but playful beats to the forefront, and his upcoming Star Theater show pairs him with a crop of talented local producers such as DJ Wicked and Spinitch Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. 9 pm. $20. 21+.

SUNDAY, JAN. 29:

The 2010s were an astounding decade for West Coast hip-hop, and YG is a major reason why. His 2014 album My Krazy Life rivals Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city as the best rap opera ever made about low-level burglary in L.A., his Nipsey Hussle collab “FDT” is the catchiest protest song of the past decade, and his work with DJ Mustard helped put SoCal “ratchet” beats on the map. Come see why the rapper born Keenon Jackson is one of rap’s brightest figures when he plays Theater of the Clouds. Theater of the Clouds, 10161098 N Center Court St. 8 pm. $35.50 and up. All ages.

“I want people who are listening to my music to understand that this is all stuff that’s happening.”

Zero Proof

in Portland

Hotseat: Derek Jacobi

Abigail Hall’s beverage director discusses the rising popularity of N/A drinks.

BY RAY GILL JR.

Mixology has evolved over the past several years, with the nostalgic Abigail Hall’s cocktail menu standing tall in representation. The 40-seat living room-style bar, inspired by the famed Oregon suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway, has the vintage vibe with an inclusive flair and plenty of non-alcoholic gems featured on the cocktail menu (like the Banana No-Groni, made from juniper jus, banana, chinchona bark and Sanbitter).

Abigail Hall’s beverage director, Derek Jacobi, is a 25-year veteran of the service industry, having started his career making pizza and serving beer during his junior year of high school. So it’s safe to say he’s been on the ground floor of many trends, but few have affected the culture like the rising popularity of N/A drinks.

“It’s been a direct result of what the populace wants,” Jacobi says. “We’re putting as much effort into our non-alcoholic offerings as we do our regular cocktails that we produce. Every time we do a menu release, we’re thinking of three to five exciting new non-alcoholic cocktails to offer the masses and people are trying things they never would have before, and I love it.”

Jacobi spoke to WW about how Abigail Hall has adapted to the new sobriety. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

WW: Have you hosted events organized around sober drinks?

Derek Jacobi: Numerous non-alcoholic spirit companies approach us to participate in recipe competitions that they are putting on and host events directed at the N/A populace. So we have yet to work on any particular parties from those companies,

but those are things we’re absolutely entertaining for the future.

Have you seen a different clientele at Abigail Hall because of the N/A menu, such as young families or a new customer base?

I’m finding that there are three kinds of people that come in specifically coming to Abigail Hall searching for those N/A cocktails. There’s the “safe and sober driver” that is representing the group for the night, and we’re able to give them an elevated experience that’s more than just a tonic water with a lime. It’s allowing them to participate with the group.

There’s also the people who are looking for an experience but don’t want to take away from the group experience. Then there’s the businessmen who come through that want to be part of the ceremony of it all.

As an old-school bartender in the business since high school, have you seen the public acceptance of N/A drinks change over time?

Oh yeah, absolutely. If you want to be a sober individual and work in the industry, that is absolutely welcome and it’s something that

should be admired. It shows self-governance and it’s something that would never be judged. We have people at Abigail Hall who are sober and people who abstain from alcohol and when they do that, it just opens up their experience a little bit more where they’re accepted for their decision and never judged.

How have brands adapting to the new sober movement changed things?

A lot of big-box brands are trying to get some non-alcoholic representation out there because they want to have their hand in that market. We’re seeing a lot of mom-and-pop places that want to fill that void and feel like they have a product they want to bring to the world.

I like the direction it’s taking in the industry. It’s driving people to brands they’ve never heard of. But ultimately, the best thing that it’s doing is giving people the options when they go out or go to the grocery store or the liquor store.

GO: Abigail Hall is located in the Woodlark Hotel, 813 SW Alder St., abigailhallpdx.com. 5-11 pm Sunday-Wednesday, 5 pm-midnight Thursday-Saturday.

SPLENDID TABLE: Abigail Hall.

ILLUSTRATION BY MCKENZIE YOUNG-ROY

This January, look for weekly coverage of drinking without alcohol.

MOVIES

Un-Basic Instinct

A look back in bafflement at the ludicrous, Portland-filmed ’90s thriller Body of Evidence starring Madonna and Willem Dafoe.

BY CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER @chance_s_p

Thirty years ago, a Portland jury convened to decide whether sex with Madonna was a deadly weapon. So it goes in Body of Evidence (1993), the locally shot erotic thriller starring the pop icon, Willem Dafoe and some choice S&M candle drippings.

Madonna, entering the career valley dominated by Erotica and her Sex coffee table book, plays Rebecca Carlson. She’s accused of killing her wealthy, older boyfriend at the Pittock Mansion with cocaine and a particularly strenuous lay. Frank Dulaney (Dafoe) enters as her defense attorney and—in accordance with neo-noir prescription—needs to try the potentially fatal domination himself.

Body of Evidence is an Oregon-made film worth recalling for its massive swing and miss: constantly ripping off Basic Instinct (1992). It’ll likely never be celebrated with loving repertory screenings or an Oregon Film Trail placard. (Imagine a sign at Pittock reading, “Man With Heart Disease F*cked to Death Here.”)

Still, while shoddy, unoriginal and curiously not even that hot, Body of Evidence makes ample use of downtown Portland and even has its own (baseless) takes on local values. In honor of the film’s unimpeachable legal verisimilitude, let’s do a forensic breakdown.

ARTIFACTUAL WORTH: Remember when sense of place mattered in Hollywood films? Portland doesn’t fit perfectly as a glassy noir backdrop, but it’s entertaining to see the city put to work by the genre: the attorney spending his evenings in downtown coffee shops, the mystery manor perched on the hillside, the temptress’s sex trap down on the Willamette.

BEST LOCATION: With respect to the rainy opening tracking shot through Pittock, it’s Madonna’s swanky houseboat at Sellwood Riverfront Park. Naturally, marital vows and attorney-client boundaries apply only on land.

BEST SCENE: In general, German director Uli Edel (Christiane F.) doesn’t film sex compellingly in Body of Evidence, but tryst No. 2 in the courthouse parking garage is hard to deny. The blocking is gymnastic and environmental, as Madonna climbs onto a car and hangs from a ceiling pipe while reverse-sitting on Dafoe’s shoulders. Only here does film play with public scrutiny as a turn-on and tension source.

WORST SCENE: The jig-is-up action closer. Madonna goes arch, and Edel is in a hapless hurry to wrap things up.

UNDERRATED PERFORMANCE: Joe Mantegna gives a sturdy performance as the district attorney. By this

STREAMING WARS

YOUR WEEKLY FILM QUEUE

BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON @thobennett

INTERNATIONAL PICK:

time, he’d won a Tony for Glengarry Glen Ross and starred in The Godfather Part III. Bringing requisite gravitas to some boilerplate courtroom scenes is a walk in the park.

STRENGTH-TURNED-WEAKNESS: Madonna claims the sex scenes were improvised to create surprise and authenticity. That comes across, but so does the camera not knowing where to look. The way Madonna douses Dafoe’s chest, abs and nethers with burning candle wax and Champagne comes off like a kid indecisively inventing a cake recipe.

THE PORTLAND TAKE: Body of Evidence insists that ours is a prudish city. “People here have very conservative views about sex,” Frank warns his client. Later, the judge clears her courtroom because the gallery so loves making disapproving peas-and-carrots murmurs.

LOOSEST END: Madonna’s character, who supposedly roams the country ensnaring wealthy men with bad hearts, owns an enormous Portland art gallery, seen and referenced only once. Leading any viewer to ask: Where? Why? How? What?

SICKEST BURN: The scalding candle wax, obviously. But also, Roger Ebert hated this film: “It has to be seen to be believed—something I do not advise.”

ULTIMATE BUMMER: Julianne Moore later said she felt exploited; it’s easy to see why. Playing Frank’s wife in one of her first roles, Moore endures a gratuitous sex scene that adds nothing but skin.

PDX FORESHADOWING: Doughnuts play a critical role in one scene. Can’t say they look particularly artisanal, though.

WHAT COULD HAVE SAVED THE FILM: Since he borrowed everything else from Basic Instinct, Edel should’ve tried some of Paul Verhoeven’s lens gels and intricate boudoir choreography. More importantly, should Madonna and Dafoe have switched roles? One of this film’s worst-conceived ideas is casting the toothy, subversive Dafoe as the Michael Douglas archetype—the white-collar family man primed for a corrupting influence. Madonna might have been better as the corruptee, not the vacant femme fatale who ended up on screen. After all, her whole career gleefully plays with the iconography of the good girl gone bad.

SEE IT: Body of Evidence, rated R, streams on Pluto TV, Roku and Tubi.

With the Bill Nighy star vehicle Living coming to Portland theaters, it’s time to revisit the film that inspired it: Ikiru (1952), Akira Kurosawa’s peerless meditation on legacy, mortality and friendship. Takashi Shimura stars as a Tokyo bureaucrat who, after learning that he’s dying of stomach cancer, becomes determined to make the most of the time he has left. The cast also includes the magnificent Miki Odagiri, playing a young woman whose joie de vivre reignites the protagonist’s desire to live large, if not long. HBO Max.

SUPERHERO PICK:

In these very pages, I panned Wonder Woman 1984 (2020), Patty Jenkins’ controversial sequel to her 2017 DC Comics blockbuster. Over time, I’ve warmed to its operatic romanticism, its anti-consumerist idealism and its conviction that even a tycoon as corrupt as Pedro Pascal’s Maxwell Lord can be capable of compassion. With the recent ouster of Jenkins from the franchise, it remains to be seen if self-consciously edgy filmmaker and new DC Studios co-head James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy, The Suicide Squad) can successfully overhaul the company’s film lineup. HBO Max.

HOLLYWOOD PICK:

No one familiar with the films of professional wild man Doug Liman should have been surprised that he secretly made a documentary about the FBI investigation into Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh (which recently premiered at Sundance). It’s not Liman’s first foray into politics; he previously directed Fair Game (2010), a cutting and compassionate look at the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame (Naomi Watts) and the toll the exposure took on her marriage to the late diplomat Joseph Wilson (Sean Penn). HBO Max.

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

Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)

It can be disarming to visit a film from before its genre was codified, synergized and spoofed. But those are the charms and ambiguities of Coal Miner’s Daughter, the biopic of country icon Loretta Lynn.

Director Michael Apted charts Lynn’s journey from a Kentucky hill cabin to the Grand Ole Opry in familiar macro-beats. But throughout, it’s a story of marriage more than fame. Loretta (Sissy Spacek) is whisked from her family at age 15 by husband-to-be Doolittle (Tommy Lee Jones), as we spend the entire first act in earthy human drama. Hell, there’s no music of any kind until Lynn sings softly on her porch, almost as an afterthought, about 10 minutes in.

It’s the saga of a girl’s life taking off at a breakneck pace, turning from love affair, to abusive marriage, to self-discovery, to collaborative radio hustle, to a power-flipped roadshow before Lynn ever sorts out who she is or what she wants out of life. It’s enough to make somebody write a song. Hollywood, Jan. 26.

ALSO PLAYING:

Academy: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007), Jan. 27-Feb. 2. Rollerball (1975), Jan. 27-Feb. 2. Cinema 21: Psycho (1960), Jan. 28. Cinemagic: Star Wars (1977), Jan. 27-30. The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Jan. 28, 29, 31. Return of the Jedi (1983), Jan. 28, 29 and Feb. 1. The Lion King (1994), Jan. 28. Clinton: An American in Paris (1951), Jan. 28 and 29. Lumpia With a Vengeance (2020), Jan. 28. Unknown Passage: The Dead Moon Story (2006), Jan. 30. Summertime (1955), Jan. 31. Hollywood: The Birdcage (1996), Jan. 29. Barbarella (1968), Jan. 29. Edward II (1991), Jan. 30. The Conformist (1970), Jan. 31.

LIVING

From Star Wars to The Magnificent Seven, Hollywood borrowing from Akira Kurosawa is a foundational practice. Thus, director Oliver Hermanus, acclaimed writer Kazuo Ishiguro, and actor Billy Nighy are late to the party in remaking Ikiru. But as that 1952 classic teaches us, there’s still time. Mr. Williams (Nighy) is a public works official in ’50s London who receives a terminal cancer diagnosis and must learn to “live a little” in his final months. As a showcase for Nighy, the film is all a veteran character actor could wish for. He plays Williams as hushed and upstanding, with sadness carved into his frown lines decades ago, but the Love Actually standout beautifully sheds Williams’ middle-class English manners just in time to connect with co-workers and strangers (played by Aimee Lou Wood and Tom Burke). Still, taken as an adaptation of Ikiru Living is a losing battle. Hermanus and Ishiguro replace the original’s voice-over with a forgettable young clerk (played by Alex Sharp) who serves as our guide to Williams’ redemption. That simplifies and shortens the film, but leaves the remains feeling overmanaged, even if the changes deepen our impression that Williams is holding the audience with him as he yearns for a deep breath and clear conscience. PG13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cascade City Center, Fox Tower, Movies on TV.

AFTER LOVE

Every now and again, we’re treated with a fresh story from a first-time filmmaker gifted with the perfect actor to tell it. After Love, the debut feature from Aleem Khan, stars Joanna Scanlan as a widow named Mary, who lives near the Dover cliffs and discovers that her recently deceased husband, Ahmed (Nasser Memarzia), had a secret family. After journeying 21 miles across the English Channel to see for herself, she’s mistaken for a housekeeper by Ahmed’s mistress (Nathalie Richard)—and quietly plays along while putting the pieces of her husband’s hidden life together. Rather than clean up the emotional mess left in the wake of loss, After Love seeks to redefine it. Khan’s subtle storytelling may not resonate with all viewers, but Scanlan, who earned a BAFTA for her mesmerizing performance (playing a character based on Khan’s mother) evokes authentic feelings through sparse dialogue that resonates beyond the credits, magnifying the impact of this uncompromised, beautifully human film. NR. RAY GILL JR. Fox Tower.

THE PALE BLUE EYE

Mass. Based on Louis Bayard’s work of historical fiction, the new film ushers detective Augustus Landor (Christian Bale) into an uneasy partnership with a young Edgar Allan Poe (Harry Melling) after a cadet turns up with his heart cut out at West Point in 1830. These investigators are no Holmes-Watson odd couple; they’re so mismatched they seem plucked from different subgenres, as if Poirot and Serpico collaborated on a case involving both intimate trauma and occult hooey. Melling (whose post-Dudley Dursley gauntness is at an alltime high) attempts an elevated, pained literary schtick as Poe, while Bale is expertly gruff (his weariness recalls Richard Burton in his later years). Their performances aren’t the problem—the grim, dragging detective narrative simply doesn’t gel with the in-story homage to the author who helped invent the form. Given the story’s flat complications, it’s frustrating how magnificent the movie appears when Bale is silhouetted in his top hat amid the Hudson Valley fog. Ultimately, Scott Cooper retains his title: master of “good on paper.” R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Netflix.

: THIS MOVIE IS EXCELLENT, ONE OF THE BEST OF THE YEAR.

: THIS MOVIE IS GOOD. WE RECOMMEND YOU WATCH IT.

: THIS MOVIE IS ENTERTAINING BUT FLAWED.

: THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE.

There are plenty of reasons to anticipate Scott Cooper movies; the director specializes in adult dramas with striking period-piece visuals and committed performances. But with a fatally flawed script, The Pale Blue Eye is no different than Cooper misfires like Antlers Hostiles and Black

PLANE

Plane, yes. Mmm-hmm. Ever since the project began rolling down the production runway, members of the critical community held a certain morbid curiosity about the sheer chutzpah teased by attaching such a moniker to the sort of boilerplate

Gerard Butler vehicle (grizzled pilot must trust gentle-eyed felon’s foreigner-slaughtering skills to save passengers, souls) ordinarily loath to attract undue attention. Was this a working title left unchanged until too late? Was it meta-commentary upon the self-parodic snakes strangling tensions over post-Airplane! cinematic skies? A primitivist flex of irreducible stolidity? A nod to where the astral subsumes the material? Or, perhaps, did the screenwriter’s triangular-jetcrudely-scrawled-across-homeroom-desk imagery not fit up on theater marquees? Considering the keening artlessness with which Plane was conceived, delivered and sold, there’s been an odd streak of defensiveness from reviewers praising the rare 21st century popcorn flick to stay within its lanes, white knuckles unmoving as the speedometer melts away. Admittedly, director Jean-François Richet (Inner City, The Emperor of Paris) knows his way around a firefight, and Plane wrings more tension out of its fated first-reel crash than airborne thrillers with 10 times the budget. Still, don’t confuse a brisk pace and a streamlined narrative with a lifelong hack’s eagerness to attain cruising altitude. A lack of pretension shouldn’t excuse the utter absence of creative ambition. R.

JAY HORTON. Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport Plaza, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Tigard, Vancouver Plaza.

MINUS TIDE

“You’re that pirate from Antarctica.” “Aye.”

by Calico Jack minustidecomic

“You’re that pirate from Antarctica.” “Aye.”

by Jack Kent