Willamette Week, March 8, 2023 - Volume 49, Issue 17 - "Air Portland"

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER

VOL.

49, ISSUE 17

Metro declined a proposal to turn the Expo Center into a hemp business incubator 8

Rick Williams’ army buddies called him “Tuna,” because he looked like the StarKist spokesfish. 9

Ramone Palmore says a Safeway security guard stood behind his car after he purchased granola and prunes. 10

Punching a pregnant mother in the face outside Pioneer Place mall did not trigger jail time or a hospital bed for one Portland man. 12

Phil Knight and Aminé both did a turn at KBPS AM 1450. 16

In basketball, motivation is no substitute for height 19

There’s surprisingly little David Bowie music in the Portland Center Stage pro -

duction named after his song “Young Americans.” 21

Somehow, there wasn’t a designated Portland sneaker fest until last year. 21

Bumper Burger keeps a cooler of Kool-Aid strapped to its front bumper. 22

If you’d prefer to drink your weed , heat buds in the oven, then add them to your tea. 24

Growing Pains might be your favorite Portland rock band’s favorite Portland rock band. 25

Chicago rapper CupcakKe uses some of the most bizarre sexual metaphors since peak-era Lil Wayne. 25

Portland documentarian Jan Haaken fears “generational amnesia” could revive nuclear plants. 27

RAIN JACKET BLOW OUT! EXCLUSIONS APPLY. If it’s dumping on Hood, its pouring in town!

UNDER$20

ROXA R3 110 MEN’S

ALL FIXED ALPINE SKI POLES IN-STORE ONLY 50% o all fi xed alpine ski poles -stock available in-store only.

ALBERTA ROSE THEATRE

MAR 10 one of the last great authentic folksingers RAMBLIN’

JACK ELLIOTT + Lewi Longmire

MAR 11

iconic Irish fiddle

Portland’s West End is the latest stage for a conflict that longtime city residents can recite from memory (”Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” WW, March 1). The opening of a day center for people living on the streets has attracted drug dealing and violence to the surrounding streets, alarming local shopkeepers. What’s different about this site is it’s in the center of a burgeoning hotel district— including the soon-to-open Ritz-Carlton—and the street activity threatens the efforts of business leaders to jump-start a moribund downtown. Here’s what our readers had to say:

I_AM_BECOME_PIZZA, VIA REDDIT: “Feels like the same story is played out over and over with services like this.

“Good intentions establish services that inevitably attract a subset of bad actors. Bad actors make an outsized negative impact in the neighborhood.

also will cancel any reservations once they discover they are in the same building with addicts and the chronically homeless. As for selling those overpriced condos? Good luck.”

low- or no-barrier services for the addicted population.

“The existence of these services didn’t create this environment; rather they sprung up to address an existing need much like the center mentioned in this article. However, their presence has cemented the area, and Vancouver in general, as the sinkhole for Canada’s addiction crisis. People come to Vancouver from all over Canada to access both these services and the drugs available there.

KEVIN BURKE VANESSA COLLIER

24th annual benefit

weaving funk, soul, rock, & blues

MAR 16

“Service centers have no ability to deal with them, and believe their mission is more important than their neighbors, so they just deflect.

“Happens with free fridges, shelters, service centers, safe rest villages, etc.

“I’m not sure what the solution is, but the current MO of sacrificing neighbors’ quality of life and then taking a holier-than-thou attitude when someone complains is getting pretty old.”

HOMER, VIA WWEEK.COM: “For a city that prides itself on being pedestrian and bike friendly, I am forever amazed that I’ve yet to see an officer walking or riding a beat. Instead, I see them cruising around town in massive SUVs with the windows up. Maybe that’s fine in suburbanlike areas, but not in the inner core of town.”

MAR 18

MAR 24

a genderbending burlesque cabaret

MAR 26

Portland Clowns Without Borders JOHN MCCUTCHEON

MAR 31

DRUNK HERSTORY

UPCOMING SHOWS

4/5 - TOM RUSSELL

Kanekoa

‘Ukulele Jam Band

MAR 20 + Steve Berlin

a celebration of women in song

MAR 25

SHE’S SPEAKING

Arietta Ward | Naomi LaViolette

Liz Chibucos | Lisa Mann

Bre Gregg | LaRhonda Steele

Beth Wood | Kristen Grainger

MAR 28

MARIA MULDAUR & her Red Hot Bluesiana Band

APR 1

THE TRIALS OF CATO

•••••••••••••

4/7 - JESUS TOMMY SUPERSTAR: A ROCK OPERA SINGALONG MASHUP PRESENTED BY LOW BAR CHORALE

4/8 - LADY SINGS THE BLUES - A TRIBUTE TO BILLIE HOLIDAY

•••••

albertarosetheatre.com

3000 NE Alberta • 503.764.4131

ROY HEMMINGWAY, VIA WWEEK.COM: “This is another case of local officials having contempt for the people and businesses that provide the jobs in Portland. In the end, we will be left with a hollowed-out downtown that looks like Lloyd Center. No sane business person would open a business downtown today, what with the lack of attention the city pays to downtown’s problems.”

KURT CHAPMAN, VIA WWEEK.COM: “When we travel we rarely pay over $300 a night for a hotel room. Can tell you right now what the operators of the Ritz are going to find when they go to collect empirical data. People in general are not going to pay $518 a night to stay anywhere near downtown Portland. They

PDXSWEARSWOLF, VIA REDDIT: “If you’ve ever been to Vancouver, B.C., you may have already experienced a preview of what’s likely to become of this area. For those who haven’t been, Vancouver’s downtown is a really lovely, vibrant place right up until you get to East Hastings. Once you cross over, it’s an entirely different place. The buildings are noticeably more decrepit, the sidewalks and alleyways are lined with tents, and the storefronts are mostly closed except for the harm reduction services. People mill around in various states of opiate use, and overdoses are so common that some of the harm reduction centers have spotters stationed outside watching for people who might be experiencing one. This is the epicenter of Canada’s opioid addiction, and it’s been at the forefront of the harm reduction model for decades. It was one of the first cities in North America to open needle exchanges, safe consumption sites, and other

Dr. Know

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

My neighbor is a recluse. He came out and said some vaguely racist stuff once, and I know he’s still there because his young daughter rides the school bus. However, he doesn’t have trash service. Isn’t that illegal? Even if it’s not, where does the trash go?

Nosy Neighbor

Come, come, Nosy, you don’t know he’s a recluse—there could be some perfectly innocent reason why you never see him. (The reason I’m rooting for is, “the little girl murdered him and dissolved his body with quicklime,” but I’ve probably been listening to too many true crime podcasts.)

Whatever sinister goings-on may be afoot next door, they don’t include trash violations. Yes, landlords are required to maintain regular waste collection service at their rental properties, but homeowners aren’t. As long as your neighbor (or what’s left of him) is keeping the place clear of trash, vermin and bad smells, how he gets rid of his garbage is his business.

The likeliest scenario for how he does this

“ Vancouver’s more tourist-friendly parts of downtown have managed to mostly coexist with these services, but there is a key difference: The area where these services exist doesn’t overlap with the tourist area, so while it’s there, travelers can easily avoid it. That’s not going to be the case with the center described in this article, and for better or worse, Portland doesn’t partake in the commonly used containment strategy that other cities use to separate their homeless population from the tourists. So, I think it’s likely that this center is going to have a negative impact on the neighborhood and Portland’s downtown economy in general.

“This presents a really sticky set of moral conundrums. How much of our local economy can we afford to sacrifice to better serve our homeless and addicted populations? If we sacrifice a lot, and we end up displacing more jobs, are we feeding the crisis we’re trying to address? Would we be better off following the containment model that other cities do to keep our tourism economy going? I don’t know. But I think we’re going to have to try to come up with a unified strategy if we’re going to successfully integrate services like the one in this article into the city as a whole.”

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

is also the most boring: Whether out of miserliness or spite, your neighbor is now hauling his trash himself. The Metro Central transfer station (aka the dump), for example, will take up to 300 pounds of garbage off your hands for $35.

Of course, your regular trash hauler will pick up 175 pounds of trash every other week—so over 350 pounds a month—for $45.* And, of course, haulers also throw in weekly compost and recycling pickup, so I’m not really seeing the advantage of your boy’s DIY method, but to each his own.

The rest of us do face some challenges, notably the inevitably overflowing can. This raises the question: Whatever happened to trash compactors? Sure, they were a stupid idea in the ’70s (one review at the time asked, “Do you really need a $200 machine to turn 20 pounds of trash into 20 pounds of trash?”), but surely, in these times of biweekly trash pickup, they’re ripe for a comeback. Every trash day, we try to fit 80 gallons of trash into a 60-gallon can by hand, and I, for one, could use some technological assistance. I’ll bet you could too. Let’s revive the trash compactor, and finally bring the garbage business into the 20th century, where it belongs.

*The price for a 90-gallon can, the largest option for a house or smallplex.

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

BETSY JOHNSON STAYS BUSY: Former state

Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) came up short in her bid to become the second governor not affiliated with a party in Oregon history last fall, winning nearly 9% of the November vote. But she’s staying active in the political arena. She will address a meeting of the Lents Neighborhood Livability Association on April 13, according to that group, and will appear periodically on KGW-TV as a political commentator, helping along with DHM pollster John Horvick to replace the late Len Bergstein. “Len left huge shoes to fill,” says KGW news director Greg Retsinas, “but Betsy knows a lot about Oregon and has a lot to say.” Johnson says she enjoyed visiting Lents during the campaign: “They said, ‘You paid attention when you wanted something from us. Are you goijng to forget about us afterwards?’” She says she plans to stay engaged in state and local issues and looks forward to the KGW gig.

PSYCHEDELICS TRAINER SKIPS OUT ON STU -

DENTS: Oregon’s nascent psychedelics industry lost a high-rolling player this week. Synthesis Institute, a Dutch company training facilitators for psychedelic mushroom sessions, sent an email to students confirming it had gone bankrupt, days after cutting off access to the company’s online curriculum. The email went out to about 300 recipients. One student, Claire Johnson, says she paid $8,997 for the yearlong Synthesis training, taking advantage of an “early bird” discount. If all them got that rate, Synthesis students would have paid about $2.7 million for their incomplete training. Synthesis had grand plans for Oregon. The company had raised at least $10 million from investors and paid $3.6 million for the 124-acre Buckhorn Springs Resort near Ashland in June 2021. It planned to hold psychedelic retreats there. Those plans were upended in November, when Jackson County commissioners voted to block psychedelics centers in rural parts of the county, limiting them to commercial zones.

GHOST KITCHEN TRAILERS PILE UP IN OLD

TOWN: WW reported last year on how Reef Technology, a Miami-based company backed by SoftBank that launched its “ghost kitchen” model in Portland in 2020, appeared to be capsizing: It had lost some of its most lucrative parking management contracts in central Portland and had shuttered most of its food trailers parked across the city (“Ghosted,” Dec. 14, 2022). Now, 13 nonoperational Reef trucks sit in a parking lot

owned by Prosper Portland in Old Town. That’s double the number parked in the lot just three months ago. Six are cherry-red Wendy’s trailers, which exclusively made and delivered Wendy’s food. At its Portland height, Reef operated more than 20 ghost kitchens that sold wings, fries and burgers for 10 different brands, including Mr. Beast Burger and Sticky Wings. Reef did not respond to a request for comment.

NEXT GUN BALLOT MEASURE LOOMS: Voters in November narrowly passed Measure 114, which requires gun purchasers to get training and a permit before buying a firearm and limits magazines to 10 cartridges. That measure is now in court, but before the case is resolved, gun en thusiasts have filed a new measure for 2024, now known as Initiative Petition 21. IP 21 would estab lish the right to carry concealed firearms without a permit. One of the chief petitioners, former Baker City Mayor Kerry McQuisten, says the pas sage of Measure 114 (by 1.3%, fewer than 25,000 of nearly 2 million votes cast) has energized gun supporters. “People are really angry,” McQuisten says. She adds that “constitutional carry” is now legal in 25 states. McQuisten and her co-peti tioners must now submit 1,000 sponsor signa tures before beginning the task of collecting the 160,551 signatures required to qualify a change in the Oregon Constitution for the ballot.

EMBATTLED CITY OFFICE GETS NEW ACT

ING DIRECTOR: Michael Montoya, director of the Portland Office of Community & Civic Life, announced last week he’d take temporary leave for personal matters. Employees of that of fice received an email Tuesday night from City Commissioner Dan Ryan: His director of special projects, T.J. McHugh, would become acting director of OCCL. The office supports neighbor hood associations and addresses neighborhood concerns, but for many years has suffered from dysfunction and debates over whom it should serve. Ryan began overseeing the office at the beginning of this year and has said publicly he wants to strengthen neighborhood associations after former commissioners decreased their funding. McHugh ran Ryan’s election campaign and joined his office shortly thereafter. For many years, McHugh worked as a marketing execu tive for companies like Nike, Target and Macy’s. Working for Ryan has been his first stint at City Hall.

BETSY JOHNSON

Who’s Got Next?

Metro’s Expo Center needs a bailout. Among eight proposals for its redevelopment, one checks all the boxes.

BY NIGEL JAQUISS njaquiss@wweek.com

The regional government Metro has been noodling for the past decade over what to do with the Expo Center.

It’s not a simple decision. The 53-acre property at 2060 N Marine Drive includes 330,000 square feet of exhibition space spread across five aging halls—three of them are more than a century old—and 1 million square feet of paved parking. The buildings host more than 100 events a year but don’t generate anything like the cash Metro needs for deferred maintenance.

The agency successfully headed off the city of Portland’s proposal to turn Expo into a giant homeless camp (“Long-Term Parking,” WW, Nov. 10, 2021). But three considerations complicate modernization of the property: It sits on land near the Columbia River long home to Indigenous tribes; it served as an internment center for Japanese Americans during World War II; and it is adjacent to Vanport, a predominantly Black city destroyed by a flood in 1948. Metro has said that any redevelopment of the property must be one that, in the words of Metro Council President Lynn Peterson, “honors the history and the people of our region.”

Peterson has also been clear that the Expo Center, perhaps best known for hosting hot rod and gun shows, “was built on a 20th century business model and it wasn’t serving 21st century needs.”

Last fall, Metro asked developers what they’d do with the property. On Feb. 28, it announced the most-favored proposal, from Los Angeles-based ASM Global, for a multiuse sports facility.

Paul Slyman, Metro’s general manager of major projects, says after a half-dozen screening committees reviewed the

submissions and provided input, ASM’s proposal best fit the charge of having the “highest and best use, that brings about financial sustainability.” Metro will now conduct a feasibility study to see if there’s a market for ASM’s concept.

WW obtained the eight proposals Metro considered. Here’s how ASM’s idea—and its financial backing—compared with the others.

ASM GLOBAL, LOS ANGELES

What it would do: Take over, fix up and operate the Expo Center with an aim toward “youth sports, recreational, cultural, historical, and entertainment offerings.”

Key sentence: “ASM Global is owned by AEG, the world’s leading sport and live entertainment company.”

THE HEMP COLLABORATIVE, PORTLAND

What it would do: Process hemp for industrial uses and provide education and business incubation services.

Key sentence: “For over two years we have collaborated with various stakeholders around a common vision of using industrial hemp as a mechanism to advance innovative climate action, social justice, and low-carbon industries.”

OREGON BLACK PIONEERS, SALEM

What it would do: Use a portion of the property to develop a 10,000- to 15,000-square-foot museum.

Key sentence: “The Oregon Black Heritage Museum would be established for the education, research, collection, interpretation, and honoring of Oregon’s Black history.”

REUSE COLLECTIVE, PORTLAND

What it would do: Combine the efforts of the electronics recycler Free Geek, the ReBuilding Center, the Community Cycling Center and other nonprofit recyclers in one location.

Key sentence: “We propose…the nation’s first Community Reuse Center—a one-stop hub for income-qualified individuals

Higher Plane

Cathy Rosewell Jonas is a licensed clinical social worker in Eugene. Eight years ago, she went to Peru with a friend and took ayahuasca with a local shaman, hoping that the psychedelic brew would help reveal her life’s purpose.

The trip confirmed she was a healer and that she should expand her practice to include plant medicines. If the hoops she’s had to jump through, and the money she’s

had to spend, are any indication of her commitment, her ayahuasca experience must’ve been profound.

Jonas has been working for more than a year to become both a facilitator for sessions using psilocybin mushrooms and the owner of a “psilocybin service center,” the antiseptic-sounding place where she can guide people on psychedelic, healing journeys.

and families to access free reclaimed, refurbished, and repaired items.”

SPECHT-COLAS PARTNERSHIP, PORTLAND

What it would do: Create “an intentional equitable redevelopment that promotes well-being and improves the mobility and quality of life for our community, especially those communities harmed by a shameful history on the EXPO site.”

Key sentence: “We understand this site is deeply intertwined in the intersectional oppression, and we are committed to utilizing equity tools to reposition the community from the margins to the center.”

STORYTELLER, PORTLAND

What it would do: Think a Hollywood studio with a social justice component.

Key sentence: Expo “will become an area for offices, incubators, training, collaboration, projects, and sound stages that will attract local and out-of-town productions, start-up ventures, and for-hire work.”

TRAMMELL CROW COMPANY, DALLAS

What it would do: Knock down a couple of the halls and build “up to 794,000 square feet of Class A industrial buildings.”

Key sentence: “Since 2007, TCC has developed 72.4 million square feet of industrial logistics facilities.”

VANPORT MOSAIC, PORTLAND

What it would do: Develop “a permanent interpretive center that focuses on the history of forced displacements on this site, Indigenous Communities, the Japanese American Community and the Vanport Community.”

Key sentence: “We are compelled by the need to preserve and remember the histories of this site, while also moving our communities into a future of active flourishing that repairs for those past harms.”

Expected charge for a single psilocybin therapy session: $3,000

Oregonians voted to make psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, legal for regulated use in 2020. University studies showed that just one trip could help patients quit drinking or taking drugs, lift them out of depression, and help them

face death with grace.

But anyone expecting psychedelics therapists to pop like mushrooms after a soaking rain are mistaken, Jonas says. The byzantine regulations around psilocybin require fortitude, patience and cash. She

The expense of opening a psilocybin service center will make shrooms a costly therapy.

PANNING FOR GOLD: The 2022 Gold and Treasure Show at the Expo Center.

HOUSE BILL 2976

Oregon’s booming liquor distillers squeeze the state for marketing money.

Although national surveys have found Oregon suffers from one of the highest rates of alcohol use disorder in the U.S., the state’s homegrown beer, wine and spirits producers enjoy strong support in the Legislature.

Oregon is conflicted about alcohol: The state’s monopoly on hard liquor sales means state and local governments have an incentive to maximize sales. Meanwhile, the Oregon Health Authority says alcohol abuse is the state’s third-leading cause of preventable death and costs Oregonians nearly $5 billion annually for health care and lost productivity. The latest test case: a bill that would let the state’s booming liquor distillers divert tax money to promote their industry.

CHIEF SPONSORS: State Reps. Rob Nosse (D-Portland) and Lily Morgan (R-Grants Pass) and Sens. Kathleen Taylor (D-Portland) and Lynn Findley (R-Vale)

WHAT IT WOULD DO: Establish the Oregon Spirits Board, which would promote hard liquor distilled in Oregon, with a view to selling more product in other states and overseas.

The distillers would like to piggy-back on an existing tax. Since 2009, the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission has collected a 50-cent-perbottle surcharge on every bottle of liquor sold in the state. The Distillers Guild proposes to divert the surcharges from bottles distilled in Oregon—not elsewhere—and devote that money to promoting the state’s booze industry. That money, initially about $2.5 million a year, currently goes to state and local governments.

PROBLEM IT SEEKS TO SOLVE: The Oregon Distillers Guild would like to emulate the success of the state’s wine industry in finding markets outside

Oregon. “It’s going to help a growing sector in our state be more successful,” Rep. Nosse told the House Committee on Economic Development and Small Business on March 2. “And it jibes well with this Garden of Eden that we live in in this part of the world.”

The Oregon Wine Board is different, however: The industry primarily pays for its association through a tax on grapes (though it also gets a small slice of tax money). In his description of why the bill is a good idea, Nosse also inadvertently presented an argument against it. He noted that Oregon now has 100 distilleries—more than Kentucky—up from just 14 in 2009. That suggests the industry is growing rapidly without the proposed taxpayer subsidy.

WHO SUPPORTS IT: The bill enjoys bipartisan backing in both chambers from lawmakers in both rural and urban parts of the state. The Oregon Distillers Guild proposed the bill, and Oregon Farm Bureau (whose members sell grain to distillers), Travel Oregon, and the American Craft Spirits Association testified in favor of the bill.

WHO OPPOSES IT: The Oregon Society of Addiction Medicine, the Oregon Alcohol Policy Alliance, and the advocacy group Oregon Recovers. All three testified that Oregon already suffers enormously from alcohol abuse without using state money to promote more drinking.

“HB 2976 is another effort by the alcohol industry to get Oregon taxpayers to subsidize its operations,” Oregon Recovers executive director Mike Marshall tells WW. “Alcohol is a toxic, addictive carcinogen that kills over 2,500 Oregonians each year. Using taxpayer money to promote harmful alcohol consumption is terrible public policy and in no one’s interest except for the handful of white guys who own these boutique distilleries.”

The bill remains in committee. NIGEL JAQUISS.

Veteran’s Memorial

ODOT looks to collect the onetime site of a collections agency.

ADDRESS: 1626 N Vancouver Ave.

YEAR BUILT: 1906

SQUARE FOOTAGE: 1,808

MARKET VALUE: $479,160

OWNERS: Richard C. Williams, Judith C. Williams

HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: Since the mid-2000s WHY IT’S EMPTY: The collections agency there closed.

Rick Williams was a colorful guy.

A 1967 graduate of Sunset High School, he flew helicopters in the Vietnam War, where his buddies called him “Tuna,” because he looked like Charlie, the spokesfish for StarKist. He earned a Silver Star, a Distinguished Flying Cross and nine other medals, according to an obituary.

After the war, he returned to Portland and got into the collections business. He worked at United Finance, Westinghouse Credit, and Goodyear before opening his own agency in 1979 in an old house on North Vancouver Avenue in the Rose Quarter.

Williams did well. Once, he flew to London on the Concorde and returned on the Queen Elizabeth II. He rode his Harley-Davidson motorcycles in the Sturgis, S.D., rally 25 times.

Williams ran his collections agency until the mid-2000s. After it closed, he kept making money there by offering parking for Blazers games and renting billboard space to advertisers.

this one is that ODOT wants the property permanently. The Williamses understand that most of it will be used only temporarily, as a staging area for equipment and materials. From Olson’s reading of the proposed plans, the only thing ODOT would need forever is a narrow swath along Northeast Broadway.

If that’s the case, Olson says, ODOT should be pursuing a “temporary construction easement” on most of the property, which takes up almost a quarter of a city block. “They’re saying they want the entire property on a permanent basis,” he says.

ODOT spokeswoman Jenny Cherrytree said in an email the Williams property would be “part of the construction project.” ODOT’s plans show the property blotted out in red, indicating it is slated to be expropriated permanently. “It is always ODOT’s goal to obtain right of way needed for projects with fairness and equity,” Cherrytree says. “We welcome the opportunity to meet with any affected property owner at any time.”

The property just to the south, where the Leftbank Annex stands, is untouched. The Leftbank Annex is owned by a limited liability company controlled by developer Daniel Deutsch, who didn’t return emails or telephone calls seeking comment.

would know. She’s one of the first people in Oregon to try and navigate them, and she’s been putting out candid progress reports on YouTube under the name of her practice, EPIC Healing Eugene.

“They have really made this hard,” Jonas, 56, says. “My husband would be thrilled if I didn’t want to do this anymore.”

One of the biggest criticisms of Oregon’s psilocybin program, run by the Oregon Health Authority, is that guided therapy sessions will be unaffordable for most people because of the costs involved. Jonas’ experience confirms that. If she manages to open her service center, she says she’ll have to charge $3,000 a session to break even. “I’m not trying to make money.”

Jonas’ expenses started with the $9,000 she paid for facilitator training. That wrapped up last weekend. But becoming a facilitator is a bargain compared with

opening a service center. Applying to open one costs $500. The annual license fee is $10,000. Jonas got a bid for liability insurance recently: $12,000. She expects to spend $4,500 on security cameras and a service to monitor the system. She will have to pay another facilitator to be on call during psychedelic sessions, in case she has to step out for any reason.

The rules are nothing if not thorough. Service centers must have safes for storing psilocybin. “‘Safe’ means a fireproof metal cabinet with a mechanical or electronic combination lock that is capable of storing psilocybin products and weighs at least 375 pounds,” OHA’s rules say.

So far, Jonas is sticking with it. She gets overwhelmed at times, but then she remembers the promise of psychedelics, and she goes back to her checklist—and her checkbook. ANTHONY EFFINGER.

Williams died in August. Now, the Oregon Department of Transportation has its eye on his property, which sits in the middle of the I-5 Rose Quarter Improvement Project. The state plans to cover part of Interstate 5, replacing the series of bridges that cover parts of it now. That cover is slated to go beneath part of Williams’ property.

Neil Olson, a lawyer who specializes in eminent domain, says ODOT has yet to make the Williams family an offer, but the agency has indicated one is coming. Eminent domain allows government to expropriate property for its use, with compensation.

Olson has seen lots of eminent domain cases. What puzzles him about

Though the old house on the property is empty and covered in graffiti, the Williams family still operates the parking area during Blazer games, and they still rent out the billboard.

“The Williamses want to keep operating their business,” Olson says.

One wonders what Rick Williams would have to say about it, were he still alive. His obituary says he liked talking about politics. ODOT’s move would surely get him talking. ANTHONY EFFINGER.

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.

CHASING GHOSTS

Shopping While Black

In a raft of new lawsuits, Black Oregonians say leading retailers profile and persecute them.

BY NIGEL JAQUISS njaquiss@wweek.com

They hold different jobs: actor, banker, creative director, maintenance technician and sheriff’s deputy. They got detained at different stores: Home Depot, Safeway, Sephora and Walmart.

But they use the same words to describe their alleged experiences: “humiliating,” “demeaning” and “embarrassing.”

And they have another thing in common. Jordan Dinwiddie, Eberechi Onyenze, Ramone Palmore, Nathaniel Poe and Larry Wright say they were discriminated against for shopping while Black.

“It really makes me not want to live here,” says Dinwiddie, who moved to Portland a decade ago for a job at the ad agency Wieden+Kennedy.

“Maybe this would have happened in Chicago, where I’m from. But it didn’t. It happened in the whitest city in America.”

Dinwiddie is one of more than a dozen clients on whose behalf the Kafoury & McDougal law firm is filing lawsuits in Multnomah County Circuit Court in the coming weeks. The lawsuits name several national retailers.

In 2022, Kafoury & McDougal won a $4.4 million verdict against Walmart on behalf of Michael Mangum, who said he’d been racially profiled at a Walmart in Wood Village. After that, says Jason Kafoury, the lead attorney on the new cases, the firm’s phones rarely stopped ringing. (Walmart has appealed the verdict.)

“ We have had an explosion of these cases since the Black Lives Matter movement,” Kafoury says. “I think Trump gave racist people permission to become more blatantly racist. I also think big-box stores are getting more aggressive with their security.”

Shoplifting makes for splashy news coverage, and senior executives at stores such as Walmart and Target have cited its rise during the pandemic as a drag on profits. Walgreens made headlines last year when it said it was closing five San Francisco stores because of shoplifting. But one of the company’s top executives walked back that explanation in January, according to The New York Times, telling investors “maybe we cried too much.”

The retail industry’s own statistics do not support the notion of runaway theft: The 2022 National Retail Security Survey shows that “shrinkage” as a percentage of sales was 1.4% in 2021, about the same as the average over the previous six years and lower than the year before the pandemic.

Yet Kafoury and his clients say store security staffers appear to be more aggressive in demanding to see customers’ receipts. The lawsuits contend that big-box stores are racially profiling their customers in the process.

One name conspicuously absent from the sheaf of lawsuits Kafoury is filing: Fred Meyer. In 1996, Kafoury’s father, Greg, won a $475,000 lawsuit against the one-stop shopping center giant over its policy of randomly forcing shoppers to show receipts.

“ We almost never get cases against Fred Meyer,” Kafoury says. “It looks like that lawsuit caused them to change their corporate behavior for decades.”

A 2022 national survey of more than 1,000 Black Americans found that more than 90% of them felt they’d been profiled while shopping. While none of those WW interviewed could prove their race prompted the accusations against them, each said white customers walked out of stores where they were detained, unbothered.

Here are four cases Kafoury filed March 7:

NATHANIEL POE 25, Multnomah County sheriff’s deputy

On May 26, 2022, Wright accompanied his brother, Poe, to the Wood Village Walmart to pick up medicine for Poe’s infant son. Wright says he spent most of the brief visit on Facebook on his phone. But when the two men, both Black, left the store, a store manager yelled at them to stop.

I pointed at myself, like, who me?” says Poe, who became a sheriff’s deputy last year. “She pointed at me and said, ‘I saw you stealing,’” Wright recalls. “I said I don’t have anything in my pockets except my phone and my hand. It was super embarrassing and demeaning and in front of everybody in front of the checkstand.”

After the manager determined Wright’s pockets were indeed empty, the men proceeded to the parking lot. “We got almost to my car and it hit me, like, what the hell?’” Poe says. “I said we have to go back in and file a complaint.”

Cellphone video captured the ensuing exchange. “I apologize,” the customer service manager said. “That shouldn’t have been done.” Wright and Poe are seeking $1 million each in damages.

“ We take allegations like this seriously and don’t tolerate discrimination,” says Walmart spokeswoman Marci Burks.

JORDAN DINWIDDIE 32, creative director, Wieden+Kennedy

Dinwiddie says she’d often browse the Sephora store at 413 SW Morrison St. during her lunch break. But on Jan. 13, she bought three items and left the store, only to be stopped by a security guard.

“ He said, ‘I know you stole something. I have the tape and I will call the police,’” she recalls. “I thought he was talking to somebody else. I was confused and scared. Every possible bad scenario was running through my head about when cops are called on Black people.”

Dinwiddie agreed to let the guard search her purse. She also showed him a receipt on her phone for the three items she had bought. “He backed off and let me go,” she says. “I returned the items and I’ll never shop at Sephora again.”

Dinwiddie says having her purse searched in front of midday shoppers felt both humiliating and infuriating. “I was livid,” she says. She’s seeking $999,000 in damages.

Sephora didn’t respond to a request for comment.

EBERECHI ONYENZE

38, relationship manager, Adventis Credit Union

Onyenze, who moved to the Northwest from Nigeria nine years ago, walked into Home Depot at Jantzen Beach at 6:30 pm on Aug. 13, 2022, excited about buying some new tools: a power washer, a surface cleaner, and a leaf blower. He says the items were locked up, so a sales associate helped him.

She insisted he pay for the first two items before getting the leaf blower. “I told her I wasn’t finished, but she told me the store practice was for me to check out with those items first,” he recalls.

Onyenze paid and went to put the items in his car, intending to come back for the leaf blower. But a security guard and the store manager stopped him first. “The white male yanked the cart containing the items and he said, ‘You dirty bastard, you are banned from this store. Get out of here now,’” Onyenze recalls.

He refused to leave, but his phone, which held his receipt, wasn’t working properly. He contacted his wife, who “arrived at 8 pm and showed them the debit card receipts on her phone,” he says.

He says the manager then told a clerk to refund his payment ($368.97)—and give him the items for free. “I didn’t want that,” he says. “It seemed like a cover-up.” Onyenze is seeking $999,000 in damages.

“ We take these claims very seriously and are investigating,” says Home Depot spokesman Terrance Roper. “Respect for all of our customers is a core value, and we have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to discrimination.”.

37, actor, producer

Palmore says he’s been going to the same Safeway on Southwest Murray Boulevard in Beaverton for more than a decade.

On Jan. 26, he went to buy blueberries, prunes, yogurt and granola. He paid at a self-service kiosk but noticed a woman filming him as he left the store. Then, when he got in his car, a security guard stood behind it so he couldn’t back out. “ I’m shook up and and frozen,” Palmore recalls. “I think if these people call the police on me, I could be gunned down.” He got out of the car. “They accused me of stealing over and over again.”

He produced a receipt and then, in an exchange Palmore recorded, the guard and the manager acknowledged their error. When he asked for an explanation, the manager says, “Please just go.” He pressed the matter. “Is it because I’m a Black guy?” he asked. “Please don’t play that card,” the manager replied.

Palmore left. “I was shaking when I got back to my car,” he says. Normally outgoing, he says he’s seeing a psychiatrist and taking medication for the first time. “Nothing like that’s ever happened to me before,” Palmore says. He’s seeking $999.000 in damages.

Safeway didn’t respond to a request for comment.

LARRY WRIGHT (pictured)

26, maintenance technician

RAMONE PALMORE

World of Hurt

BY LUCAS MANFIELD lmanfield@wweek.com

In early December, Julie Dodge, head of Multnomah County’s behavioral health division, went to Salem with a story to tell. Medical records are closely protected secrets, and it’s exceedingly rare for health officials to talk shop publicly. But this case so disturbed Dodge that she decided lawmakers needed to hear about it. So she picked a pseudonym, and plunged on.

“I want to introduce you to Frank,” she told them.

Dodge had first heard of Frank two months into her job. He was locked in an isolation room at a Legacy hospital emergency ward, deemed too dangerous to release to the streets but not dangerous enough to win admission to the state’s psychiatric hospital for long-term care.

For years, “high-acuity” cases like Frank’s have been the dirty secret of Oregon’s mental health system. As WW detailed in last week’s cover story, Oregon has downsized its psychiatric hospitals over the years but not built the community facilities needed to replace them (“Revolving Door,” March 1). Oregon State Hospital, the state’s flagship psychiatric hospital, is so overwhelmed it has begun refusing entrance to nearly anyone who isn’t charged with or convicted of a crime, and discharging some of its patients early.

The result is that people like Frank with severe mental illness are warehoused in jails and emergency rooms, which administrators say offer little if any treatment and that disability advocates say amount to a violation of their civil rights.

Sheriffs and nonprofit hospitals say they don’t have the resources to handle people like Frank, so they expel them back to the streets—where their behavior soon attracts the attention of police, who send them straight back to isolation.

Frank’s story illustrates the consequences of the state’s new early release policy, Dodge says, which has allowed Oregon to open up beds at its overflowing hospital by shifting the burden to similarly overloaded local health systems. The system fails people like Frank, she says, who need ongoing around-the-clock care and can only get it, in brief spurts, by committing acts of violence.

“It increases costs throughout our entire system and increases risk throughout our entire system,” Dodge told lawmakers. “These decisions impact real human beings.”

It’s rare to learn the full history of people who go through the system’s revolving door—they make brief, lurid headlines then disappear. But after Dodge testified about Frank publicly, WW traced his story.

Diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager, Frank has been hospitalized a dozen times since—most recently in January after spending a year at the state hospital, the maximum amount of time allowed under the new policy. (He is one of more than 40 patients the hospital has notified the Multnomah County Circuit Court it’s sending home since that policy went into effect last September.)

Reliant on medication he does not want to take and incapable of accomplishing everyday tasks, Frank has become increasingly incapable of leading a normal life outside of the hospital.

When he is hospitalized, he assaults staff. When he is released, he hurts random people on the streets—or himself. The violence has worsened.

Prosecutors say Frank wants to be back in Oregon State Hospital, and has figured out the only surefire way to earn admission is to commit violence. His defense attorney says he’s already been locked up far longer than his crimes deserve and his charges should be dismissed.

He now sits in Multnomah County Jail, but he cannot be held there much longer. And the county has nowhere to send him.

Frank is 38 years old. His real name is Joshua McCurry. His story showcases a system that has failed both him and the people he encounters.

McCurry was 5 years old when his family moved to Portland. He showed promise as a Little League pitcher and briefly attended Grant High School before mental illness tore his life apart.

At 19, he was sent to a psychiatric ward after threatening his family. It was the first of a dozen hospitalizations and just as many arrests, his mother, Bobbie Hazelwood, tells WW. McCurry refuses to take his prescribed antipsychotic medication and cycles back and forth between institutions.

His mother fears for his life every time he’s released. In his late 20s, McCurry walked out of a hospital and days later jumped off an overpass onto Interstate 405.

“He’s a sweet guy. He’s a funny guy. He loves his family,” Hazelwood says. “We all love him to death.”

But his mental illness is a danger not only to him, but also the community. Court records show McCurry has been repeatedly accused of violent acts in recent years.

In early 2020, he attacked a Providence ER nurse and three security guards with his fists and teeth, spitting blood as they handcuffed him to a wheelchair.

County officials attempted to send him to Oregon State Hospital, Dodge told legislators, but the state said he wasn’t dangerous

enough to warrant admission.

Every other place has proven inadequate to McCurry’s condition.

In early 2021, after living in several budget motels and being arrested for five assaults, McCurry was admitted to Legacy Health’s dedicated psychiatric hospital, the Unity Center for Behavioral Health. But it too is overburdened and not designed for long-term stay, and McCurry was soon out the door. His next stop that year was at one of a handful of secure residential treatment facilities: Arbor Place, a 16-bed clinic in Northeast Portland that at the time was certified to use restraints and administer medication involuntarily, one of very few SRTFs to carry that designation.

But McCurry didn’t last long there either. Within months, he put another patient in a chokehold and groped a staff member. McCurry was once again dropped off at Legacy, where he stayed two weeks before being expelled Aug. 13, 2021.

Later that day, McCurry punched a pregnant mother in the face outside Pioneer Place mall downtown. Bystanders held McCurry down until police arrived. The woman was taken to the hospital for stitches.

Traumatized, she has spoken to no one about it since. She requested WW not publish her name. “I wish that there was more attention to the mental health issue in Portland,” she tells WW. “It needs to not be coddled—it needs to be addressed.”

McCurry was booked in jail and released shortly after the incident. “I’m going to keep beating people up,” he told police.

And he did.Only after attacking a law enforcement officer was McCurry finally sent to Oregon State Hospital.

A week after attacking the pregnant woman, McCurry punched a security guard who was eating his lunch near a bus stop downtown. When police arrived, McCurry hit one in the eye, earning himself a felony charge.

Two months later, a judge finally ruled McCurry was unfit to stand trial.

He would spend most of 2022 at the state hospital.

With McCurry’s one-year mandated expulsion barely a week away, a state psychologist finally obtained medical records from his stays at Providence and Legacy. There, nurses noted, McCurry seemed to be acting out in hopes of being sent to OSH. The psychologist concluded McCurry’s bouts of violence were due to a “personality disorder,” not psychosis, she testified in court.

The hospital was kicking him out. Not that it mattered: It would have anyway under the new early release policy. McCurry’s public defender says his charges should be dismissed. He has spent far longer locked up and awaiting trial than he ever would have spent in prison if convicted for his crimes, Rosie Achorn-Rubenstein argued.

Judge Nan Waller disagreed. “Dismissal should be used sparingly,” she said Feb. 15. Now she had to figure out what to do with him.

Waller turned to McCurry, in jail blues and shackles with a large red gash above his nose. He seemed to do better when he was on medication, she noted. Would he be willing to keep taking it if she released him?

“I’m not going to be forced to take meds, I don’t believe in it,” he said. “I stand by that.”

On Monday, Waller ruled that McCurry was “able” to aid and assist, keeping him in the justice system—for now.

His next court date is scheduled for later this month. He remains in jail and will probably be sentenced to probation.

If McCurry ends up back on his own, which seems likely, his mother fears the worst. The two speak daily over the phone.

“I’m terribly, terribly worried that this will be my son’s last go-around,” Bobbie Hazelwood said. “If they are to just put him out, I think that will end Josh’s life.”

REVOLVING DOOR: Oregon State Hospital is full and releasing patients early.

BRIAN BURKE

No matter how violently he behaves, the state hospital keeps expelling this mentally ill Portlander back to town.

“I’m going to keep beating people up.”

GET TO WORK THE OREGON WAY.

Regardless of whether you plan to pursue a business degree anytime soon, it’s worth knowing a bit about the University of Oregon’s Executive MBA program in Portland. Why? Well, due to its extensive network of professionals in the region, there’s a good chance that you might just encounter one of the program’s students or grads out in the wild someday.

Students in the Portland-based MBA program work at organizations all around the region. Some of these companies are global giants: think Nike, Adidas, and Intel. Others operate on a national scale. Alongside these are businesses and non-profits grown right here in Oregon, with cultures that match the state’s values: local, small scale, community driven, crafty, organic, sustainable and equitable. When blended with core

RACHEL MINIKES, MBA ’23

CO-OWNER AND OPERATIONS MANAGER AT KAPRIKORN

Rachel Minikes entered the UO Executive MBA program hoping to become an expert within her industry. And what important-to-Oregon industry is that, you ask? That’s right: the cannabis industry.

Minikes fell into the cannabis industry primarily by chance, she says. In 2017, her partner’s family started Kaprikorn, a wholesale cannabis clone nursery, and offered her a position. Within a year, Minikes became the office manager, serving as the office’s main salesperson. Since 2020, she has served as the operations manager, and today is a co-owner.

“It has always been important [to me] to see Kaprikorn succeed. I watched my partner and his family pour their hearts (not to mention life savings) into the company to get it started, so I wanted to support them to make sure the company succeeded,” says Minikes.

For a small, local, family-owned,

no-outside-investors operation, Kaprikorn has gotten pretty big. It has two locations: a nursery in Lowell, and a massive indoor flower facility in Eugene. Their nursery was the first farm to become OLCC licensed to sell direct to Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP) patients—who make up almost half of Kaprikorn’s clientele.

And now that Kaprikorn has such a large group of farms, medical patients and dispensaries that they work with, Minikes says she wants Kaprikorn to succeed for them, so that they can continue to provide them with the products they love and trust.

“I hoped that by building my business acumen I could have a greater positive impact on my company and the cannabis industry as a whole,” says Minikes.

“The executive MBA program has provided me a fast track to learn essential business skills that would have otherwise taken years of experience to learn. I’ve already been able to regularly apply what I’ve learned in class at Kaprikorn.”

MBA knowledge, these principles make for a business education with a distinctively Oregonian flair.

Two UO Executive MBA students currently pursuing their degrees are Marisa Kraft and Rachel Minikes. As far as career paths go, theirs are drastically different from one another’s; what they do have in common, though, is that they are both working for companies that are very “Oregon”. Here’s how they got there.

MARISA KRAFT, MBA ’23

DIRECTOR OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AT OREGON BEVERAGE RECYCLING COOPERATIVE

“I always knew I wanted to pursue additional education, but I was inspired to take action and apply for the Executive MBA program when thinking about my father, his impact on me, and how much he valued education,” says Marisa Kraft, MBA ’23.

Kraft says her father, who himself got an advanced degree later in life, inspired her to get her own MBA. He passed away days before the pandemic outbreak. This difficult time in Kraft’s life motivated her to pursue impactful work that aligned more with her values.

She came into the Executive MBA program with years of experience working at well-known Portland food companies, including Killer Burger and Salt & Straw. And while she enjoyed her time in the food industry, it wasn’t exactly her passion.

Kraft was an environmental studies major in undergrad, and she had always wanted to return to work that was more directly connected to her passion for resource conservation. And where better to pursue such a career than at the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative?

Oregon has long championed sustain-

ability efforts in the U.S.—we were even the first state to adopt a bottle bill, way back in 1971. The bill laid the foundation for OBRC, which organized the beverage industry to work together as stewards of their packaging, revolutionizing Oregon’s recycling practices, dramatically improving environmental outcomes, and delivering convenient redemption options for consumers. Kraft now works as OBRC’s Director of Business Development.

“In my role at OBRC, I get to help show other systems around the country, and even internationally, how we do it, and see if the know-how we’ve developed over the past 52 years in Oregon can help their systems thrive as well,” says Kraft.

For Kraft, a key takeaway from her Executive MBA experience was the program’s emphasis on collaborative problem-solving. She says that sharing creative ideas and working toward shared outcomes within the UO classroom elevated her confidence and allowed her to see herself as an impactful leader.

Going forward, Kraft hopes to be able to grow Oregon’s one-of-a-kind Refillable Bottle program and help struggling systems elsewhere replicate Oregon’s success—by further developing and implementing OBRC’s container processing technology.

THESE TWO EXECUTIVE MBA STUDENTS ARE PURSUING CAREERS WITH OREGON VALUES IN MIND.

LIVE AT MUSIC MILLENNIUM! NAIMA BOCK

THURSDAY MARCH 9TH AT 6PM HAPPY HOUR SHOW! $3 PINTS

UNDERSTATED ARRANGEMENTS & AN ACHINGLY BEAUTIFUL

THE CHURCH

WEDNESDAY MARCH 15TH AT 6PM!

MUSIC MILLENNIUM’S 54TH ANNIVERSARY CELBRATION!

THE BAND’S EVER EVOLVING SOUND EMBRACES THE FIERCE CREATIVITY OF THEIR EARLY YEARS, WHILE THEMATICALLY EMBRACING CONCEPTS OF A DYSTOPIAN FUTURE ON THE NEW ALBUM ‘THE HYPNOGOGUE.’

VANESSA COLLIER

THURSDAY MARCH 16TH AT 6PM!

SOULFUL VOCALS, SEARING SAXOPHONE AND WITTY SONGWRITING. WINNER OF THREE BLUES MUSIC AWARDS!

Adam Melchor

FRIDAY MARCH 17TH AT 1PM!

FREE PIZZA AND PERFORMANCE!

SINGER-SONGWRITER WITH A DEBUT ALBUM FEATURING CHARLIE PUTH, LENNON STELLA, EMILY WARREN AND MORE!

THE LORDS OF BLACKPOOL

SATURDAY MARCH 25TH AT 5PM

SALEM-BASED BAND INSPIRED BY 70’S BRITISH ROCK!

POSY

SUNDAY MARCH 26TH AT 3PM

POSY IS THE RECORDING NAME OF RUDY KLOBAS, PORTLAND OREGON-BASED MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST WITH A UNIQUE SOUND THAT INTERSECTS JAZZ, R&B AND ELECTRONIC MUSIC.

KISS THE TIGER

TUESDAY MARCH 28TH AT 3PM

MINNEAPOLIS-BASED EDGY ROCK ‘N’ ROLL WITH A TWIST OF FLAMBOYANCE AND THEATRICS!

VOICE.

‘ABROAD’ EP ON SALE $9.99 THRU 4/4/23

AIR PORTLAND

AMERICA’S OLDEST STUDENT RADIO STATION BROADCASTS A NEW GENERATION.

A PHOTO ESSAY BY BLAKE BENARD. CONTINUED ON PAGE 16

The start of March Madness found the brand-new gym on the second story of Lincoln High School thrumming with activity.

The PA system blasted Meek Mill as the visiting David Douglas Scots took practice jumpers. Lincoln boys coach Heather Seely-Roberts strode the sideline in black boots, minutes from what she hoped would be a five-win run to a state title. The home team’s red Cardinal mascot vamped for the student section as the marching band launched into “Seven Nation Army.”

And in the third row of the west bleachers, Moto McChesney slipped a headset over his green flat cap and welcomed Portland to the game.

“I am so excited to be back at the playoffs,” he said. “I saw Lincoln walk in. They keep getting taller. Oh, wow, that’s really tall.”

It wasn’t quite Bill Schonely’s iconic greeting, “Good evening, basketball fans, wherever you may be,” but there’s time. McChesney is 15 years old.

This week, hoopers are the center of attention at Portland Public Schools, as the OSAA Basketball Championships feature athletes who dream of glory, scholarships and maybe an NIL deal. Less noticed are their fellow teens at Benson Polytechnic High School, who broadcast the games on a student radio station, KBPS AM 1450.

The death of longtime Trail Blazers broadcaster Schonely earlier this year was greeted by mourning across Portland, a reminder of how unifying it can be when the whole city listens to a voice on the airwaves. The next generation of sportscasters can be found a few notches up the dial. One night a week, and every night of the playoffs, Benson alum Sean-Louis Philipsen settles into the stands of a PPS gym and offers play-by-play for a varsity game, usually with a Benson student at his side for color commentary.

Those broadcasts are a tentpole of the programming on KBPS, a station that this month celebrates 100 years at Benson, the career and technical education high school perched above the Banfield Freeway in Northeast Portland.

When Portland voters in 2017 approved a $790 million property tax bond to overhaul Benson and three other crumbling schools (the same vote that got Lincoln its new gym), they were likely thinking about the automotive, electrical and building construction majors. But they were also funding a 1-kilowatt radio station that’s been on the air since 1923 and is training Portland’s next batch of drive-time DJs.

“It’s the second-oldest radio station in Portland,” says Jacob Patterson, broadcasting instructor at Benson. “It’s the oldest high school AM radio station in the nation. You can walk into just about any radio station or any TV station in Portland and there’s going to be some connection to KBPS.”

Station alumni include Aminé, Avatar actor Joel David Moore and Nike co-founder Phil Knight, who was a student sportscaster. Perhaps a greater testament to the station’s place in the city is how many of its graduates, including Philipsen and Patterson, come back to the studio on Northeast 15th Avenue to train more students.

Their protégés are headlined by McChesney, a precocious freshman. Lanky with a wide grin and an ever-present flat cap, he has a full plate at Benson: robotics club, bowling team, Civil Air Patrol. He started at KBPS with a show interviewing local magicians—because, yes, he also does magic.

“I’ve never been scared to get up in front of a group of people,” McChesney says. “I was given a headset and I started talking.”

Last week, WW joined McChesney and his colleagues as they broadcast the first round of the OSAA playoffs. We also spoke to three KBPS alumni about what the station means to Portland. Consider the following pages, and its photos of radio, a reminder of the little threads that hold this city together, reading the final scores into the rainy night.

Managing editor Aaron Mesh contributed reporting to this story.

wweek.com

Leslie Pfau

Benson Polytechnic High School

Class of 1986; regional marketing operations manager, Comcast

“I was the first female DJ they ever had at KBPS. It wasn’t like you were at school. It was like you were at work. Dr. Patricia Swenson was very particular about how her station was run. I remember one night I was on air and something went wrong in between the breaks. I didn’t have my mic off, and I dropped the F-bomb. I thought, nobody’s probably listening. Oh, she heard. She called: ‘That’s not something we want to do.’ She was very maternal about it. You’re in a professional environment…most of the time. But you still are in high school. You’re still kids.”

THE STUDIO

On Feb. 28, Scott Young, a Benson alumnus, sat in Control Room No. 2, the only studio still functioning as contractors rip apart the KBPS station. From a swivel chair, he controlled the KBPS broadcast of the first-round playoff game between the Liberty and Benson girls basketball teams. Philipsen and Patterson send their audio from the Benson gym via a portable Comrex machine—“I like to think of it as a super-high-powered walkie-talkie,” Patterson says—and Young uses the control board to broadcast it on the AM dial.

KBPS is a 1,000-watt station, puny by the standards of commercial stations, which often boast towers with 50 times that strength. But the KBPS signal can be heard for 35 miles in any direction—the full reach of the school district.

Steve Naganuma

Benson Polytechnic High School

Class of 1975; longtime DJ at 19 radio stations; KBPS broadcasting instructor, 1997-2021

“Sometimes students will say: ‘So, Aminé was your student. Did you teach him how to rap?’ He knew how to rap on his own, but he learned how to work the audio equipment that we had, and he kind of customized that. He wasn’t super interested in being a DJ or going into the broadcast end, but I think what intrigued him is, hey, this audio equipment can record my voice and I can play an instrumental rap track below it. That’s where he got his start, at least on the technical recording end.

“ Students of the broadcasting program learn to be audio content creators. The audio that they are creating could go on an AM or FM radio station, could go on a TV station, could be in a movie soundtrack, could be a rap song.”

THE CLASSROOM

Nineteen Benson seniors major in radio. Each of them gets their own 90-minute show. “When the students are in the studio, they have complete creative control. They can play whatever they want to play,” Patterson says. “The new SZA that came out is really hot, apparently.” The rest of the music is programmed by station alumni, who spin one of the deepest and most eclectic playlists in the city. (On a recent morning, the Frozen anthem “Let It Go” was followed by Foreigner’s “Cold as Ice.”)

Most of this activity is now centered at shuttered Marshall High School in deep Southeast Portland, a kind of zombie campus where other schools take up residence while their bond-funded remodels are underway. Patterson says the one-two punch of pandemic and exile drained a lot of enthusiasm for KBPS, and he’s spent much of the past year building the station back up. “Marshall doesn’t feel real,” he says. “One of the best things about this [KBPS] building was it felt real. It was real. You walk into these real studios, they’re really soundproof, they’re really weighted doors. It was the complete experience.”

Students are scheduled to return to the Benson campus in fall 2024.

Kevin Flink

Wilson High School Class of 1971; student sportscaster, 1968-71; KBPS broadcasting teacher, 1975-2007; now public address announcer for the Portland Timbers

“Any job out there needs communications. Radio is my hook. It’s fun, they get to play music, and they learn how to communicate. If we’re feeding you this— how to talk, how to give information, how to receive it, how to use it—why don’t we do it in the most fun way possible? And what is more fun than getting to play on the radio?”

THE GAME

Lincoln’s March 1 win over David Douglas was dominant. By halftime, much of the attention had shifted to the Cardinals’ aerial team, which dunked basketballs after bouncing off trampolines. When the horn sounded on a 76-47 final, Philipsen and McChesney scrambled down to the scorer’s table to interview the star player: Moroni Seely-Roberts, the coach’s son. For Patterson, the most gratifying part of the work is seeing students like McChesney find a voice—perhaps a little more literally than that comingof-age phrase usually connotes. “It’s one of the coolest things I’ve ever got to witness in my life,” Patterson says. “I know that not all the students will go on to do radio. But everyone’s going to have to do some sort of communication.”

McChesney and Philipsen signed off for the night. “David Douglas had the energy, they had the motivation,” McChesney said. “But unfortunately, they just didn’t have that height. When you have to get hit at full speed by someone a foot taller than you, it makes it hard.” With that, McChesney wrapped up the broadcast. He walked downstairs to wait for a ride home from his mom.

LISTEN: KBPS airs on AM 1450 and online at kbps.am. The station’s 100th anniversary celebration includes a broadcast at 9 am Thursday, March 23. Broadcasts of OSAA playoff basketball games continue this week.

STREET

I’M EVERY WOMAN

Photos by Chris Nesseth

On Instagram: @chrisnesseth

For the first time since 2020, DJ Action Slacks held a Women’s History Month multigenre dance party featuring empowering songs about the female experience by artists who recorded between 1965 and 1980. People packed into Kenton Club for Respected Ladyland on Saturday, March 4—some to move to the music and others to share a loving embrace. The name of the event refers to a place envisioned by DJ Action Slacks, where women are seen, believed, valued, and treated with respect free from harassment.

GET BUSY

WATCH: Young Americans

When writing Young Americans, Lauren Yee was inspired by the road trips she’s taken with her husband, along with their epic playlists. The play, originally commissioned as part of Portland Center Stage’s Northwest Stories program, takes the audience on two cross-country adventures, 20 years apart. In one, newly engaged (and newly acquainted) immigrants Jenny and Joe depart for their home together in Portland, learning to connect as a couple. Two decades later, Joe and their adopted daughter, Lucy, set out on a similar journey. Identity, family relationships and sense of place are all examined through a humorous lens—just keep in mind that there is far less David Bowie music than you might expect based on the title. Portland Center Stage at the Armory, 128 NW 11th Ave., 503-445-3700, pcs.org. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Friday, 2 and 7:30 pm Saturday-Sunday, 2 pm select Thursdays, through March 26. $30.75-$66.50.

LISTEN: Ladysmith Black

Mambazo

Five-time Grammy Award-winning African choral sensation Ladysmith Black Mambazo has been inspiring hope around the globe since the 1960s, and the group will bring that optimism to the Aladdin this week. Best known for collaborating with Paul Simon on his 1986 album Graceland, Ladysmith Black Mambazo has a lengthy catalog of music that deserves to be explored, particularly since former South African President Nelson Mandela designated the group the country’s cultural ambassadors. Aladdin Theater, 3017 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503-234-9694,

aladdin-theater.com. 8 pm Friday, March 10. $38.

GO: Rhythm & Roots

One of Portland’s newer creative labs, The Haven, hosts an evening centered on movement and music to help attendees gain a new perspective on sound and soul. We’re not exactly sure what that entails, but “interactive rhythm circles” are advertised, so you should at least get in some cardio during this five-hour event. Attendees are encouraged to bring an instrument to maximize their experience. The Haven, 819 SE Taylor St., thehavenpdx.com. 8 pm Friday, March 10. $22-$44, sliding scale.

WATCH: Oh, the Humanity, and other good intentions

This series of five short plays explores themes that, whether we like to admit it or not, tie together humanity: hope, failure, love and loneliness. Writer (and Pulitzer Prize finalist) Will Eno has been heralded by The Guardian as “a supreme monologist, using a distinctive, edgy blend of non sequiturs and provisional statements to explore the fragility of our existence.” If that sounds a bit high-falutin, just think of him as a new generation’s Samuel Beckett who takes pleasure in playfully skewering life’s tragedies. Lincoln Performance Hall, 1620 SW Park Ave., pdx.edu/music-theater/oh-the-humanity. 7:30 pm Wednesday-Friday, 2 pm Saturday, March 8-11. $6-$15, free for Portland State University students.

DANCE: Bad Bunny Dance Party

We’ve officially reached peak Bad Bunny

now that rumors are swirling about his involvement with a member of the Jenner-Kardashian clan. Before his inevitable downfall (the Kardashian curse is real!), dance the night away to the Puerto Rican pop star’s greatest hits along with a lineup of reggaeton, hip-hop and Latin anthems. Sadly, Bunny will be there only in spirit. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 866-7778932, danteslive.com. 9 pm Saturday, March 11. $12. 21+.

EAT: SnackFest

The popular Portland Night Market will once again transform into a food-focused festival this week. Expect to find dozens of vendors, including local restaurants and food trucks, spread out across the labyrinthine warehouse and patio near the Morrison Bridge. The event is free, which means you’ll be bumping elbows with other snackers (seriously, it’s a spill hazard), so get there when it opens to avoid the crowds. Portland Night Market, 100 SE Alder St., 503-974-6717, snackfestpdx. com. 5 pm Friday, noon Saturday, March 10-11. Free.

GO: Rose City Sneakerfest

Since Portland is home to Adidas’ North American headquarters, and the Nike campus is just one town over, you’d expect to see more events dedicated to shoe aficionados in our area. Not so until Rose City Sneakerfest debuted last year, which drew so many streetwear enthusiasts, the show outgrew its original space. Now located in Leftbank Annex, the third installment of this convention gives sneakerheads the opportunity to buy, sell and trade shoes. Be sure to wear your flashiest

kicks—others will be watching and judging. Leftbank Annex, 101 N Weidler St., 503-937-1069, rosecitysneakerfest.com. Noon-6 pm Saturday, March 11. $10-$20.

WATCH: Oregon Documentary Film Festival

This seasonal screening has been bringing together documentary enthusiasts since 2017. Fifteen shorts, all on the International Film Festival Circuit, will be shown following a coffee social and awards ceremony. It’s a bit of a marathon, so be sure to heavily caffeinate at that opening networking event. Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., 971-808-3331, cstpdx. com. 2-8 pm Sunday, March 12. $38.

LAUGH: Laugh Basement

Laugh Basement has made the transition from a monthly event to a weekly showcase of standup talent ready to send you into the long week ahead laughing. That job goes to L.A. comedian and writer Zak Toscani, whose résumé includes performing at Seattle’s Bumbershoot, Portland’s now-defunct Bridgetown Comedy Festival, and the High Plains Comedy Festival in Denver. Also featured on the bill: Taka Horton, Michael Markus, Lydia Manning and Tanner Torkelson. The Goodfoot, 2845 SE Stark St., 503-239-9292, thegoodfoot. com. 7:30 pm Monday, March 13. $10.

ROAD RULES: Lauren Yee’s Young Americans takes audiences on two epic road trips.

JINGZI ZHAO/COURTESY OF PORTLAND CENTER STAGE

Buzz List

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

1. ABIGAIL HALL

813 SW Alder St., abigailhallpdx.com. 5-11 pm Sunday-Wednesday, 5 pm-midnight Thursday-Saturday. A number of bars are offering special promotions in honor of Women’s History Month, which may feel like a way to capitalize on the commemoration, but Abigail Hall is actually giving a portion of the proceeds from its limited-edition cocktail menu to Raphael House, a local domestic violence prevention and intervention organization. The original Ladies Reception Hall of the former Cornelius Hotel, which is believed to be where suffragettes convened, will also host a series of events throughout March honoring women, including a Women in Portland Panel. Order a sweet-tart Agria de Guayaba and settle in for the discussion.

2. MCMENAMINS 23RD AVENUE BOTTLE SHOP

2290 NW Thurman St., 971-202-7256, mcmenamins.com. 10 am-10 pm daily.

For the second year, McMenamins has partnered with Great Notion Brewing so that each can make the other’s beer recipe while giving it a unique spin. This time around, the industry old timer has produced two different Great Notion beers: What’s Colder Than Cold, a double IPA inspired by Juice Box fermented with lager yeast for a crisp finish, and an even bolder 13.9% ABV Ice Cold Triple IPA. The latter could only be bottled because McMenamins has a distilling license. Drink with care.

3. LLOYD ATHLETIC CLUB

FOOD & DRINK

Editor: Andi Prewitt

Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

Bun in a Million

815 NE Halsey St., 503-287-4594, lloydathleticclub.com. 5:30 am-9:30 pm Monday-Friday, 7 am-8 pm Saturday-Sunday. Purchasing a gym membership just to gain access to its bar may sound a bit indulgent; however, there are few watering holes outside of an airport that open as early as the Lloyd Athletic Club’s. Almost pointedly dated yet obsessively maintained, the overlit tableau feels like a set for a Reagan-era sitcom. You’ll be drinking with thick-necked chuckles who stop by for an après-lift tipple, but craft beers are only $6.50 a pour and, again, the potential for finagling an early morning hair of the dog intrigues.

4. WORKSHOP FOOD AND DRINK

1407 SE Belmont St., 971-229-1465, fermenterpdx.com. 5-10 pm Thursday-Sunday, 5-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

Aaron Adams, the chef behind the self-dubbed “beneficial bacteria emporium” Fermenter, has launched a late-night lounge right next door to that house of fermented foods. Small plates at Workshop Food and Drink are all vegan and inspired by Adams’ Cuban roots, but we’re most excited about the deep list of cocktails. Many use kitchen byproducts to help offset waste, like Yes Whey, a classic milk punch with a housemade cashew yogurt whey.

5. PORTLAND CIDER COMPANY

3638 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 971-888-5054, portlandcider.com.

BY ANDI PREWITT aprewitt@wweek.com

PHOTOGRAPHS BY TIM SAPUTO @tim_saputo

As tired as the saying has become, the claim that “not all heroes wear capes” applies perfectly to Mat Norton. The founder of Beaverton food truck Bumper Burger, whose logo includes the iconic Superman diamond emblem, has become a hamburger champion of sorts by declaring war against price creep on America’s favorite sandwich. And since he’s the one hovering over the grill, Norton does battle in a tie-dyed apron.

“ Whoever thought the $13 cheeseburger was a good idea is an idiot,” says Norton. “People want to gouge people for money. There has to be a stop to that kind of crap. So that’s what we’re doing.”

If you’re beginning to wonder why you’re only now just learning about Bumper Burgers’ existence, well, location probably has something to do with that. Norton parks his rig on a pretty bleak stretch of Southwest Baseline Road, where the neighboring tow yard, Tire Depot and landscaping company don’t attract much in the way of foot traffic. Even the lot he’s called home since leaving the tech industry and launching the food truck in August 2022, Panzer Nursery—a wholesale operation specializing in azaleas—won’t prompt the average passerby to stop.

Fortunately, Norton’s mobile kitchen, named Scarlet after the Grateful Dead song “Scarlet Begonias,” is fire-engine red, making Bumper Burger easy to spot while whizzing by, which has attracted curious customers. And it only takes one quarter-pounder with a burnished crust to get ’em hooked, which is not a baseless brag on Norton’s part. Ample testimony on Yelp and Google back up his assertion.

“Once they have it, they’ll say, ‘That’s pretty good. I’ll be back again.’ And they’ll bring somebody else,” Norton describes. “It has just taken off. It’s gone to levels I didn’t think we’d get to this soon by any means. My greatest projections, hey, someday. But we’re beyond that now.”

Settling into the industrial wilds of Beaverton is one part of the equation that allows Norton to set his rates so low. Rather than slinging burgers in a pod, where he’d have to pay rent, Norton negotiated a more affordable arrangement with Panzer’s owners, whom he had ties to through friends, and offered them a cut of

3-9 pm

Wednesday-Thursday, 1-10 pm

Friday-Saturday, 1-9 pm Sunday. 4005 SW Orbit St., Beaverton, 503-626-6246.

3-10 pm

Wednesday-Friday, noon-10 pm Saturday-Sunday. Portland Cider Company ushers in 2023 with a sunny new seasonal cider: Mango Mimosa. Like its name suggests, the medium-sweet beverage with a bubbly finish pairs best with brunch foods, like huevos rancheros and banana pancakes, but its tropical fruit notes also make it a good match for spicy dinner entrees—think Thai curry or carne asada tacos. Or just drink it solo any time the gloom of a Pacific Northwest winter gets to be a little too heavy.

It’s the business’s truly jaw-dropping prices, combined with the use of simple yet high-quality ingredients, that help it stand out in a market overrun with burgers. The entry-level quarter-pound hamburger, for instance, is a mere $3.50. Want to add a slice of gooey cheese? That’ll be $4. Extra hungry? The People’s Meal, which consists of the double-patty 50/50 Burger, side of fries with dipping sauce, cup of Kool-Aid from the front bumperbound cooler, and a baked-from-scratch brownie, will set you back only $9.50. That beats what McDonald’s charges for the same meal—and the Golden Arches’ combo doesn’t even include dessert.

CHRIS NESSETH

Beaverton’s Bumper Burger protests high hamburger prices with its affordable and delicious “picnic” burgers.

SAY CHEESE: You can add made-from-scratch pimento spread to any Bumper Burger for just a buck.

the monthly profits. It also doesn’t hurt that Scarlet, which he spotted moldering in a backyard in Aloha, is completely paid off and he’s done much of the repair work himself.

“I won’t take loans to run this. That allows my prices to be where they’re at,” he says. “[Scarlet’s] old and janky, just like me. It’s all good. We’ve bonded completely—as much as you can bond with an inanimate object like that. She’s my first employee and she’s been rock solid.”

Norton also keeps costs down by bargain shopping. The US Foods Chef’Store in Aloha (formerly Cash&Carry) is his go-to for many supplies, but he’s constantly scouring supermarket shelves and mobile apps for the best deals on everything from ketchup to tomatoes. In fact, before we sat down together one afternoon in mid-February, Norton had spent much of his day hunting down the cheapest mayonnaise—but that doesn’t mean he’ll compromise when it comes to quality. Only classic brands, like Best Foods, Heinz and French’s, will do.

The resulting burgers are a throwback to an era when meat, cheese and bun hadn’t yet become all fancified, and were certainly anything but trendy. Neither a plump, proud bistro burger nor a thin, craggy-edged smash patty, Norton’s stacks are what you’d expect to find at an old-school drive-in or walk-up stand, where a hardworking flat top has kept a few generations of customers both full and happy.

Norton, who’s seemingly been asked before to describe his style of burger, didn’t need to pause and gather his thoughts when the question finally came up. In fact, he has a concise label ready to roll: the picnic burger.

“That’s exactly what we call it, and it’s not a joke,” he explains. “It might not be flame-broiled, but it is the picnic burger, where you get your burger, you put all your toppings on it, and you eat it in the folding chair in the backyard in July.”

At Norton’s cookout, the all-beef patties are rich in fat and flavor. He generously seasons the meat on both sides—Spade L Ranch marinade (a staple on steaks at home that he discovered works just as well on a burger) on one and granulated onion and garlic as well as salt on the other.

If you order the cheeseburger (and you really should), a good ol’ slice of processed American—“that’s what I used to hammer my parents for,” Norton adds—is melted into the patty’s crevices. And while there are some who prefer their burgers without produce, here each component enhances the overall experience, like diverse yet complementary instruments in a band—from the crispness of the ruffle-edged lettuce bed to the acid from the slices of red onion to the tang of the bread-and-butter pickles.

Now, if you have a nearby destination where you can eat your Bumper Burger—there is no on-site seating, and, frankly, the wholesale nursery parking lot isn’t an aesthetically appealing dining room—I highly recommend one more dose of cheese. Norton makes pimento spread fresh daily with hand-grated Tillamook sharp cheddar, cream cheese, a bit of mayo and those punchy red peppers that he also chops himself. As sturdy as Norton’s toasted brioche buns may be, pimento sauce will end up oozing out of the sides of the burger as soon as you go in, so this is not a meal to attempt to have behind the wheel of a car. But the pleasantly piquant spread adds velvetiness to every bite—and it costs only a dollar extra.

That gets back to Bumper Burger’s mission, which is proudly displayed on the side of Scarlet: “Stick it to the man one burger at a time!” Norton firmly believes that people should be able to have a decent meal for a good value, and he’s practically daring other businesses to follow his lead. Following two years of exhausting inflation, and decades of price hikes in general, taking up the fight against the $13 burger may sound daunting, but Norton doesn’t seem deterred.

“I can more than pay my bills at the prices I am charging—that’s just the simple fact of the matter. You have to ask anybody else out there why they’re charging [so much]. It’s just the way of the world anymore. I think we’re just kind of taught: Acquire. Get up the food chain. I am not that guy,” he says with a hearty laugh.

EAT: Bumper Burger, 17980 SW Baseline Road, Beaverton, 503-828-7340, bumperburger.com. 11 am-6 pm Thursday-Friday, noon-6 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Hot Plates

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. FOOLS AND HORSES

226 NW 12th Ave., 503-894-8473, foolsandhorsespdx.com. 4-11 pm Sunday-Tuesday, 4 pm-midnight Wednesday-Saturday.

While Fools and Horses is a cocktail bar first and foremost, dinner really is something we’d encourage. Chef and Oahu native Alex Wong takes inspiration from paniolos—Hawaiian cowboys whose cuisine is influenced by immigrants from Mexico, Portugal and Japan. For a variety of flavors, order the Paniolo Range, a gussiedup charcuterie board with slices of baguette, passion-fruit butter, manchego, pickled peppers, and pipikaula (house-cured dried beef rib jerky).

2. HEAVENLY CREATURES

2218 NE Broadway, heavenlycreaturespdx.com. 5-10 pm Monday-Saturday.

The food is just as strong a pull as the drink at this wine-focused bar founded by longtime Portland sommelier Joel Gunderson and chef Aaron Barnett. Plates are mostly small and meant for sharing and tilt seafood heavy. But one way we’d like to experience Heavenly Creatures would be to come alone on a rainy weekday with a book, order a lush French blend from Domaine Pignier, and snack on the most perfect plate of hearty slices of young yellowtail, served raw on thick toast with tonnato.

3. PELICAN BREWING SILETZ BAY

5911 Highway 101, Lincoln City, 541614-4216, pelicanbrewing.com. Noon10 pm daily.

Pelican Brewing’s new gleaming waterfront property in Lincoln City has opened the final portion of its pub that you won’t find at any of its other locations: a seafood market.

In February, the Siletz Bay property launched Phil’s Nest Crab Boil Experience, an indoor-outdoor dining space that sells items for on-premises consumption and to go. We recommend ordering a crab cocktail before sinking into an Adirondack chair on the expansive patio overlooking the water. It’s the best place to wait for a table (and there will be waits come summer).

4. STREET DISCO 4144A SE 60th Ave., street-disco.com. 5-10:30 pm Thursday-Monday. Two things to know about the menu at Street Disco is that it changes frequently and nearly everything is sharable. Start by diving into a few of the items that you could consider appetizers, like salt cod fritters, which capture the essence of fish and chips in a bite, or The Original Not Lobster Roll, a very Northwest combination of Dungeness crab and bay shrimp. Then conquer one of the entrees: A whole grilled branzino delighted on one visit, though the grilled pork ribs are sure to become a sleeper hit.

5. MASTER KONG SE 32ND

1522 SE 32nd Ave., 503-384-2184, masterkongor.com. 10:30 am-9 pm Monday-Friday, 10 am-9 pm Saturday-Sunday.

A few months back, Jade District dumpling darling Master Kong quietly opened a location just off of Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, bringing its xiao long bao, wonton noodle soup, and congee closer in. The menu is the same, but ordering is done through a screen at the entrance. Shortly thereafter, piping hot bowls of its signature brisket noodle soup and “meat folders,” aka homemade steamed dough folded around pork belly, green onion and herbs, are whisked out to your table. It’s been pretty quiet at the new location, so head there soon to make sure it stays put.

Dope Medicine

Looking for alternative pain management strategies?

The key to relief may be

cannabis.

BY BRIANNA WHEELER

Chances are good you know someone who is struggling with chronic pain—and that may even be you. In 2019, a National Health Interview Survey revealed that more than 20% of U.S. adults suffered chronic pain and, of those, more than 7% reported suffering from high-impact chronic pain. Recent research shows that most of those cases could be treated with cannabis. Prescription pharmaceuticals have long been the go-to for patients struggling with daily, debilitating pain, but often those medications are costly and come with unwanted side effects. Cannabis, by contrast, offers a solution to chronic pain that’s not only holistic, but patients can also grow it themselves. Bonus: Side effects include the giggles, the munchies and deeply restful sleep.

How Does Weed Treat Chronic Pain?

Compounds in cannabis treat pain by interacting with the body’s endocannabinoid system, known to be one of the key endogenous systems regulating pain sensation. Primary cannabinoids THC and CBD play critical roles, but more than 500 unique cannabis molecules have been discovered, and their synergistic effects are also thought to support pain relief.

THC inhibits our release of glutamate, the brain’s most abundant and excitatory neurotransmitter, thereby modulating the nervous system’s inflammatory activity and releasing serotonin, aka the happy hormone. THC also affects the brain’s pain pathways by altering dopamine function, readjusting the body’s responses to pain and easing the healing process. Functioning

similarly but without the psychotropic side effects, CBD has both painkilling and anti-inflammatory properties. Consult your primary care doctor before turning to cannabis as your new cure-all, but for people interested in exploring plant-based pain relief, a few cultivars are listed below to get you started. Pro tip: You don’t even have to smoke it; instead, you can decarboxylate your cannabis by heating it at a low temperature in your oven and then put it in your tea.

Cannatonic

Cannatonic is a balanced medicinal strain with a 2-to-1 ratio of CBD to THC. This cross of MK Ultra and G13 Haze delivers mildly euphoric head effects and a soothing body buzz that relieves chronic pain, migraines, cramps and spasms, according to therapeutic users. As a recreational strain, the toned-downTHC content makes for a potent, blissful high—particularly for users with lower tolerances. Expect a citrusy, earthy aroma and taste.

BUY: TJ’s on Powell, 7827 SE Powell Blvd., 503-719-7140, visittjs.com.

Harlequin

Another low-THC strain with a therapeutic reputation is Harlequin, a cross of Colombian Gold, a Nepali Indica, and Thai and Swiss landrace strains. It typically features a 1-to-1 THC-to-CBD ratio that tops out around 15%. Therapeutic patients describe the high as bright, airy and deeply physically soothing. Conditions treated with Harlequin include arthritis, fibromyalgia, migraines and chronic pain. Expect a funky fruit

nose and botanical, woody aftertaste.

BUY: Kaleafa Cannabis Company, 5232 SE Woodstock Blvd., 971-407-3208, kaleafa.com.

Girl Scout Cookies

Girl Scout Cookies, or GSC, is a potent, pain-relieving cultivar with THC percentages that often crest at a stoney 25%—a great option for potheads building up an apothecary stash. Medical users cite GSC as an effective treatment for not only chronic pain, but also the accompanying maladies of anxiety and depression. The same is reported about several of the strain’s offshoots, such as Thin Mint, Do-Si-Dos and Platinum Cookies. Expect a profile reminiscent of, you guessed it, cookies. BUY: Eden Cannabis, 128 SE 12th Ave., 503-477-9998, edencraftcannabis.com.

Blueberry Cheesecake

For users whose moods have been affected by prolonged chronic pain, this cross of Big Buddha Cheese and Blueberry could be a panacea. Blueberry Cheesecake’s reported effects include a bright, clear euphoria and relaxing elasticity in the body. This cultivar’s lower CBD percentages make it less effective at treating certain nerve disorders, like epilepsy and spasms, but its moderate THC percentage (20% on average) delivers blissful relief from pain and the anxiety that accompanies it. Expect a profile that’s both funky cheesy and berry sweet.

BUY: Lifted Northwest, 11121 SE Division St., 503-894-9495, liftednorthwest.com.

GROWTH SPURT

Rising from the ashes of the pandemic, Growing Pains has become one of Portland’s most popular new rock bands.

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3 PHOTOS BY MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

Growing Pains might be your favorite Portland rock band’s favorite Portland rock band.

Local singer-songwriter Mo Troper and Camp Trash’s Keegan Bradford have taken to Twitter to sing the band’s praises, and the four-piece received a crucial early boost when Alien Boy’s Sonia Weber—a former music instructor at the Portland School of Rock, where guitarists Jack Havrilla and Carl Taylor first met—started booking them on bills.

Yet even the barista at the Portland cafe where the band has agreed to meet on a chilly post-snowstorm day is surprised by how young the band members are. Havrilla is the oldest, at 21, the others are 20, and the band is presently divided between Portland and Eugene, where Taylor and drummer Kyle Kraft attend the Uni-

versity of Oregon.

“ We still make it work,” says Kraft over FaceTime. “We do a lot of trips back and forth for each other. I will say we definitely neglect actual practice, but we make up in just hanging out as a band.”

This last statement will come as a surprise to anyone who’s heard their new five-track EP, Thought I Heard Your Car. Doubling down on the band’s love of gauzy guitars and atmospheric vocals, it’s both their hardest-hitting and most ethereal release—and both a progression and a left turn from their 2020 debut, Heaven Spots

Opening track “ What Are the Odds?” begins with a drum pattern in a tricky time signature, run through a filter so it sounds like a hip-hop beat, before the song explodes into a heavy guitar breakdown with chopped-up, Auto-Tuned vocals by singer and bassist Kalia Storer.

“For this release, we really tried to use production as another instrument,” Havrilla says. “Heaven Spots was basically just instrumentals and vocal melody, whereas on this we were able to do all that combined with quadruple-tracked vocals or chopped-up vocals to make it sound more like an instrument.”

Thought I Heard Your Car was recorded largely at Storer’s house by Nathan Tucker, drummer of Philly-via-Portland indie-rock stalwarts Strange Ranger and a friend of the band’s.

“He was adding all these different production things and trying things out,” Havrilla says. “I feel like not having the time constraint and working with someone that we knew personally helped make the EP what it is.”

This looseness contrasts with the recording of Heaven Spots in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. The circumstances of making the record at Echo Hill Studios in Portland were rather uncomfortable: The band had to record while masked and distanced, and the sessions coincided with Oregon wildfires that turned the sky orange.

Upon the release of Heaven Spots in October 2020, the members of Growing Pains had no particularly lofty expectations. “We didn’t do

anything to celebrate it or publicize it, really,” Kraft says. “It was just kinda like, all right, here’s some music.”

But the record built up an audience, and the return of live music blindsided the band, who suddenly found themselves contending with a flood of show offers and larger crowds than ever.

“I think it was either like June or July 2021, but shows were starting to come back,” Kraft says. “We had already experienced a year in Eugene, but never got to play. And so we finally played a show in Eugene, and it was this huge crowd.”

“It was a really big moment as a band to be working on something and building for years, and then to finally have this show where we all had such a good time and saw what this could be,” Havrilla adds.

The first tentative returns of the Portland live rock scene included many do-it-yourself outdoor gigs, including one under a freeway underpass with another young Portland band, Common Girl.

“It was outdoors, but you could hear all the music echo off the underpass,” Taylor says. “It was an insane experience.”

“I don’t think basement shows came back in the way that they were super prominent before COVID,” Kraft says. “Outdoor shows were always nice before COVID, but it was really rare. I feel like it’s flipped where outdoor shows are more the norm now.”

The band members rattle off a long list of outdoor spots where Portland artists have been putting on shows in the past few years. They’re reluctant to divulge any details, but as the parlance goes, ask a punk.

They ’re also excited about the crop of younger Portland bands rooted in the local do-it-yourself scene that started gaining steam during the return of live music; Chainsaw Girl, Common Girl, Purity, and Rhododendron are a few names they mention.

I ask if these bands have anything in common. The members of Growing Pains think for a second.

“Loud,” they all agree.

WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

FRIDAY, MARCH 10:

The brazen and brilliant Chicago rapper CupcakKe has to be heard (or seen) to be believed. Throwing around some of the most bizarre sexual metaphors since peakera Lil Wayne in one breath and venting to her therapist in the next, CupcakKe is rarely subtle and never predictable. Though she’s kept a low profile in the four years since her last album, Eden, the singles she’s released since then include some of her strongest work. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave., 503-284-4700, startheaterportland.com. 9 pm. $30. 21+.

SUNDAY, MARCH 11:

Titus Andronicus has been one of America’s most fiercely beloved indie-rock bands for 15 years. Fronted by the charismatic bearded bellower Patrick Stickles, the Jersey crew is the kind of band people say saved their lives, mixing punk rock with grand historical sweep, Springsteenian fury, and high-art ambition—all the while making the kind of songs that invite you to pump your fist and shout along with every word. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 503-288-3895, mississippistudios.com. 9 pm. $18. 21+.

THURSDAY, MARCH 16:

The Residents have become something of a dark-horse American institution without ever showing their faces or revealing much about themselves. For more than 50 years, all there is to know about the shadowy Bay Area multimedia collective has come from their work—most notably a series of albums ranging from a compilation of one-minute “commercial” songs to a brilliant full-length interpretation of James Brown’s Live at the Apollo that casts the hardest-working man in show business as a malfunctioning robot. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 503-284-8686, wonderballroom.com. 8:30 pm. $35. 21+.

MOVIES

cinephile circles, people get so detached from the idea of a movie being pleasurable being important. Does the Academy fall into that trap, or am I being too basic, like, “Why didn’t Top Gun: Maverick get more love, bro?”

Shaunette: This is just a very big question of, how do we fix Oscar? And I don’t know.

Barr: Top Gun: Maverick has a certain capitalistic appeal that I think turns off cinephiles because they have this feeling that art and capitalism should be completely separate. Whereas I would argue that film is the most major intersection of art and capitalism.

When we’re talking about the Oscars, what deserves to win? You typically don’t want to say the movie that had a $300 million budget or a $500 million budget or something insane like that. You want to go for something like Everything Everywhere All at Once

Ferguson: The movie with the most nominations usually doesn’t win. We’ve seen this before with The Power of the Dog, which seemed unstoppable. But the love for Everything Everywhere All at Once, which has 11 nominations, feels more organic and more passionate.

Shaunette: Well, it’s also a movie people saw.

Can the Oscars Stay Golden?

BY WW STAFF

Oscar cynic A.O. Scott once wrote, “A show-business oligarchy can’t seriously be in the business of legislating taste.” Still, it’s unlikely that he foresaw how fragile that business would become.

In a world of slaps and wrong envelopes, it’s easy to forget that the purpose of the Academy Awards is to celebrate great performances and feats of filmmaking. But even if the Oscars (which will air Sunday, March 12, on ABC) weren’t a farcical affair, their relevance would be scrutinized, given the twin existential threats to moviegoing: streaming and COVID-19.

Yet when WW’s film critics convened to discuss this year’s Oscar nominees, my cynicism melted. Sure, we griped about some contenders (Blonde, ugh), but we realized that this year, the show-business oligarchy demonstrated damn good taste.

It’s not just that the Academy nominated some great movies, like the German World War I epic All Quiet on the Western Front It’s that the Best Picture nominees range from biography to scifi to satire to whatever subgenre Everything Everywhere All at Once belongs in (psychedelic-wuxia dramedy?).

Our conversation, which has been edited for clarity, covered a lot of ground, including the Academy’s allergy to geek-friendly fare (the superb Top Gun and Avatar sequels were snubbed for Best Director) and the baffling (in our opinion) love for Baz Luhrmann’s manic biopic Elvis

Mostly, though, we marveled at the breadth of movies being honored by an organization too often fixated on middlebrow duds like Green Book. As film buffs, we’re well aware that reports of cinema’s death are greatly exaggerated. Surprisingly, the same may be true of the Oscars.

—Bennett Campbell Ferguson, Assistant Arts

& Culture Editor

Bennett Campbell Ferguson: Is there anything you’re mad about being nominated or not being nominated?

Morgan Shaunette: I don’t know why Elvis is nominated for Best Picture. As I was watching it, I had to ask myself, is Baz Luhrmann good or is he just loud?

Alex Barr: I would wholeheartedly agree with that. Also, what is Blonde nominated for?

Shaunette: It got nominated for Best Actress, for Ana de Armas.

Ray Gill Jr.: I think Blonde would have been a much more successful film if it wasn’t about Marilyn Monroe—if you just did a dissection of an actress who becomes a star in that time. But because you put Marilyn in there, it made a lot of people very uncomfortable.

Barr: I would say—this is a bold take—that Andrew Dominik, the director of Blonde, has a vested interest in putting women in situations that he personally takes some kind of pleasure out of. I think he’s kind of a sadistic director—in some ways, he has the mind of a horror director.

I don’t think it’s about actually telling a story. It’s about making people feel uncomfortable in a way that will maybe grab their attention—and at the same time, taking the memory of a woman who has already been publicly dissected and churning out something horrible and fictitious.

Ferguson: By contrast, All Quiet on the Western Front is a movie I respect, but it is pretty torturous to sit through. Especially in

Ferguson: That does help!

Shaunette: It’s a blockbuster—a genuine, big, weird action movie. And it’s heady and well made enough to have become a critical darling as well as a box office hit.

Ferguson: A lot of the movies that got nominated feel of the moment. The Banshees of Inisherin is about friendship, and that’s on our minds as we rebuild—I feel like I’m still relearning how to talk to other human beings after being in quarantine. Also, there are so many odes to movie theaters, and The Fabelmans represents that. Those of us who care about movies worry about how fragile moviegoing is as a communal experience.

Shaunette: With All Quiet on the Western Front, there is a timelessness to an anti-war message. But specifically, in the movie there’s this one guy who’s in his fortified bunker, leagues away from the front lines, who’s like, “We need to keep fighting, we need to take this land back for country and for God.” Watching that in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian War, the comparisons are unavoidable.

Barr: These films are a reflection of the times. I really do think they highlight either a certain social fear or hope for the moment.

Gill Jr.: The lives of the soldiers in All Quiet on the Western Front are arbitrary—until a filmmaker takes you into the body of one of them and makes you experience what they actually went through because of the decision made by the guy on the hill somewhere who wants to make a statement or make one last “brave” stand that he’s not going to be on the front lines of. You got to see the hope of the young soldier and see that deconstructed. The film had a Gallipoli or Born on the Fourth of July feeling to it.

Ferguson: With this conversation we’ve had here, I feel a little less grouchy about the Oscars. We talked about some really interesting things! There are some cool movies nominated!

Shaunette: They’re interesting movies. Good or bad, that’s important, obviously. But if a movie’s interesting, that’s more important to me. The worst thing a movie can do is bore me.

With the relevance of Hollywood’s biggest night more questionable than ever, WW ’s film critics debate the ups and downs of this year’s Academy Award nominations.

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

Ticking Clock

In Atomic Bamboozle, Portland documentarian Jan Haaken probes false hopes for the future of nuclear power.

BY CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER @chance_s_p

“Every tool in the toolbox.”

Documentarian Jan Haaken has heard recent proponents of nuclear power employ the phrase “like a mantra” when discussing the fight against climate change. Having made a two-part film about that planetary emergency (Necessity), Haaken understands the fight. But not every tool is worth reaching for, posits her new documentary, Atomic Bamboozle.

Haaken, a professor emeritus of psychology at Portland State University and director of documentaries about abortion providers (Our Bodies Our Doctors), dairy farmers (Milk Men) and drag queens (Queens of Heart), now explores what she calls a “repackaging” of nuclear power in the form of small modular reactors, or SMRs.

Interviewing physicists, activists and conservationists, the 46-minute film portrays a nuclear industry rising quickly while downplaying nuclear power’s most crucial and recurring issues—those unresolved and unchanged by SMRs.

“I think there are genuine believers in nuclear power—that it will produce a net gain,” says Haaken, who will host Atomic Bamboozle’s Portland premiere at Cinema 21 on March 12, followed by a panel of speakers from the documentary. “I wouldn’t malign everyone who would take that position; I just think they’re wrong.”

Haaken began work on Atomic Bamboozle in early 2022 with a seed of curiosity planted by Indigenous leaders featured in Necessity. At that time, Cathy Sampson-Kruse, an activist from the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation who appears in Atomic Bamboozle, spoke on the dangers of nuclear power alongside fossil fuels, which Haaken originally found to be off-message. The filmmaker describes herself as being previously “agnostic” about small modular reactors.

But Sampson-Kruse had witnessed up close what the ongoing disaster at the Hanford Nuclear Site had wreaked on land, water, wildlife and Indigenous tribes along the Columbia River. And while the U.S. Department of Energy has embraced nuclear power’s potential to meet carbon reduction goals, a conspicuous SMR branding push associated with youth and portability inspired Haaken to start reading public reports and interviewing regulators and engineers.

“It had a strong whiff of propaganda…dominated by pro-nuclear forces,” she says. “So I thought it was important to have some kind of intervention.”

Atomic Bamboozle concludes that, beyond their size, SMRs are essentially no different than the Trojan Nuclear

STREAMING WARS

YOUR WEEKLY FILM QUEUE

BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON @thobennett

HOLLYWOOD PICK:

Power Plant that Oregon shuttered in 1992 after decades of protests.

Spotlighting the efforts to close down Trojan in her film, Haaken says the push for new nuclear power is exploiting a “generational amnesia,” appealing to millennials who’ve grown up with global warming in the discourse, but not nuclear accidents or proliferation.

Perhaps most critically, Haaken says, the United States is no closer to creating a permanent repository for nuclear waste than it was a half-century ago. Meanwhile, experts like geochemist Lindsay Krall state in the film that SMRs will produce more waste per megawatt hour than large reactors.

There’s no “Daisy Girl”-style terror montage in Atomic Bamboozle. Rather, it systematically underlines issues Haaken says SMR companies like Tigard-based NuScale aren’t addressing. At the same time, there are five nuclear-related bills before the Oregon Legislature, two of which aim to repeal the 1980 moratorium against building new plants in Oregon until a permanent federal repository is confirmed.

Despite ongoing, high-profile disasters like the Hanford Site in Washington and Fukushima in Japan, Haaken acknowledges that the nuclear industry has a good safety record by some metrics. Yet she contends that such metrics don’t account for the permanence of waste, what accidents could do to ecosystems like the Columbia River, and how communities local to reactors and waste storage—often Indigenous—are left to pay the price.

Haaken expresses understanding of how desperate Americans might feel amid a climate crisis, but she compares the entrepreneurial and governmental push toward nuclear power to “magical thinking” she’s witnessed while making other films. In Mind Zone, for example, Haaken followed therapists deployed to Afghanistan and observed how cutting-edge treatments were celebrated as high-tech solutions to keep soldiers in the field.

“In difficult dilemmas, people are very vulnerable to… technology with shiny appeal,” Haaken says. While conservation and renewable energy lack the sexiness of Tomorrowland-style branding, Haaken argues, she supports reaching for those answers in the so-called toolbox.

“ With nuclear,” she says, “we’d be pinning our hopes on something with such a history of heartache.”

SEE IT: Atomic Bamboozle plays at Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave., 503-223-4515, cinema21. com. 3 pm Sunday, March 12. $8-$10.

Fifteen years ago, Lana and Lilly Wachowski were waiting to see how the world would react to Speed Racer (2008), their joyfully demented adaptation of Tatsuo Yoshida’s anime series that ultimately lost Warner Bros. millions of dollars—and became a cult classic.

Speed Racer chronicles the rise of Speed (Emile Hirsch), a wide-eyed wunderkind desperate to win the Grand Prix racing championship. Yet as Wachowski disciples know, the film is also a hallucinogenic, anti-capitalist manifesto that is as tender as it is frenetic.

From the first scene, Speed Racer beautifully blurs the line between live action and animation, imagining a young Speed racing a car that looks like one of his math-class doodles come to life. The Wachowkis may have pursued photorealism in The Matrix, but here they whisk their actors into swirling dreamscapes, taking the innovation of Gene Kelly’s dance with Jerry Mouse to its trippy, logical conclusion.

While the racing scenes are delirious fun, the Wachowskis seem most invested in the scrappy Racer family’s clash with E.P. Arnold Royalton (the splendidly villainous Roger Allam), a racing tycoon determined to enlist and corrupt Speed.

“People like you have way too much money,” Pops Racer (John Goodman) declares to Royalton. “When someone gets that kind of money, they think that the rules everybody else plays by don’t mean squat to them.” Needless to say, if Bernie Sanders has a favorite Wachowskis movie, this is it.

Rage against tyranny has driven every film the Wachowskis have directed (starting with their first feature, the 1996 lesbian romance Bound). But like all of their movies, Speed Racer cares about both the political and the interpersonal, especially in the moving scenes between Speed and Pops.

“Speed, I understand that every child has to leave home,” Pops tells his son as he prepares to move out. “But I want you to know, that door is always open. You can always come back. Because I love you.”

Freedom without abandonment, love without possession—those are ideals worth racing for, Speed Racer tells us. And it’s a mark of the Wachowskis’ skill with actors that what Speed sees in his father’s eyes is more beautiful than any checkered flag. HBO Max.

The Seventh Curse (1986)

Hong Kong director Lam Ngai Kai is best known for the transcendent viscera of Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991), but as a runner-up for splatter, The Seventh Curse doesn’t disappoint.

Between the martial arts set pieces and the shootouts, it’s all toothy demons, practical maggot effects, and a hero, Dr. Yuen (Chin Siu-ho), whose leg basically explodes once a day due to worsening blood magic. To cure it, he must venture into the Thai jungle and face a sorcerer, with help from some recognizable friends.

Chow Yun-fat (back when he had just entered John Woo’s orbit) plays Dr. Yuen’s best bud Mr. Wisely, a pipe-smoking witchcraft expert who’s also handy with heavy artillery. And Maggie Cheung (In the Mood for Love, Irma Vep) doggedly trails this supernatural quest as a plucky reporter.

Despite being a standalone film, The Seventh Curse has the fitful urgency of a franchise’s fifth entry—a feeling that probably owes to author Ni Kuang’s hundreds of serialized adventures centering Dr. Yuen and Wisely. It’s no problem. If Chow Yun-fat somewhat clunkily explains how to stop a leaping demon worm-baby, that’s justifiable once the demon worm-baby starts leaping.

Is all that madness enough to break the blood curse? Luckily, there’s no known cure for midnight movie energy. Cinemagic, March 10 (tickets from snowed-out Feb. 22 show will be honored).

ALSO PLAYING:

Academy: The Matrix (1999), Lady Bird (2017), Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), The Hitch-Hiker (1953), March 10-16. Cinema 21: Sunset Boulevard (1950), March 11.

Clinton: Daisies (1966), March 9. Daguerréotypes (1975), March 13. Hollywood: Children of Men (2006), March 10. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), March 11-12. Heat (1995), March 11. Friday (1995), March 11. But I’m a Cheerleader (1999), March 13.

CREED III

Boxing legend Marvin Hagler once quipped that it’s hard to get up at 5 am “when you’ve been sleeping in silk pajamas.” That’s the comfort predicament for Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan). He’s now a gladiator in quiet detente, surrounded by fineries: a beautiful family (Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Mila Davis-Kent), a robust knitwear collection, and a promising post-boxing career as a gym owner. But his bliss is interrupted by Dame Anderson (Jonathan Majors, cementing himself as 2023’s Biggest Bad after playing Marvel’s Kang), a childhood friend and veritable shadow of Adonis, locked up as a teenager and now hulking toward a title shot. With a posture and wardrobe modeled on Mike Tyson’s Spartan intimidation, Majors enriches the character with bone-deep anxiety and loneliness. Like all the Creed films, III reimagines its Rocky forebears in better taste: empathy for “villains,” better roles for women, honest conversations between Black heroes and antiheroes. Does it toss the electricity and breakneck pacing of Rocky III out with Mr. T’s bathwater? Regrettably. Do the scenes of men learning how to cry outshine the combat that Jordan himself now directs? Also yes. But pity the franchise that, unlike this one, refuses to work on itself. PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Joy Cinema, Lake Theater, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Tigard.

ONE FINE MORNING

No one ever says that Sandra (Léa Seydoux) is spread too thin in One Fine Morning, writer-director Mia Hansen-Løve’s follow-up to Bergman Island, but it’s obvious when you observe the Parisian single mother’s daily routine. Through weariness and without complaint, Sandra dotes on her young daughter and cares for her dementia-ridden father, struggling to imagine how a new romance could fit into her life. But it’s not just the contents of Sandra’s plate that suggest a put-upon person; it’s how Hansen-Løve allows all the other characters to monologue.

Sandra’s love interest (Melvil Poupaud) is a verbose chemist, her mother (Nicole Garcia) a remarried political advocate, her daughter (Camille Leban Martins) a bright young student. Even Sandra’s career as a translator deemphasizes her perspective. That’s a fascinating challenge for Seydoux, a movie star (best known for Bond films and Blue Is the Warmest Color) inhabiting an everyday person decentralized in her own life. It’s a frustratingly subversive, perhaps overly thorough approach to making the audience constantly hope that someone else will put Sandra first. Maybe that day will come some fine morning. Maybe the reprieve will last five minutes. Maybe this is just the thankless labor for too many women. R.

CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER.

Cinema 21

JUNIPER

Charlotte Rampling’s Night Porter co-star Dirk Bogarde once termed her inimitably piercing, amused and sorrowful gaze “the look.” The 77-year-old arthouse star has expertly employed the look for nearly 60 years on screen, and it’s the engine of her latest film. Juniper sees Rampling play Ruth, an ailing, gin-guzzling grandmother, but drink doesn’t dull Ruth’s tongue or wit as she weaves a theoretically unlikely (but narratively predictable) bond with her depressed grandson Sam (George Ferrier) while convalescing on his family estate in New Zealand. Without shame, Ruth prods some psychosexual dynamics with her grandson and his friends, and the cinematography delights in her view of young men’s toned arms. That’s the kind of devil-may-care libido you want from the star of Swimming Pool but while Sam repeatedly lifts the wheelchair-bound Ruth into the air to dance, he can’t carry the movie. Without Ruth, it’s all grief through exposition and a floppy blond haircut that obscures any specificity in Ferrier’s pained features. Filmmakers should showcase Rampling’s indomitable presence and deep-set eyes for as long as she’s working, but ideally with more actors capable of facing the look. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.

THE QUIET GIRL

This year’s Best International Feature category at the Oscars brims with gutting little parables of innocent creatures finding and losing love. If EO the donkey and the boys of Close didn’t drain your waterworks, The Quiet Girl is eager to try. The black sheep of a literally and emotionally bankrupt home, 9-year-old Cáit (Catherine Clinch) is shipped to her cousins’ idyllic dairy farm in Southern Ireland for the summer. There, the practically mute child finds her new guardians will welcome and explore her reticence in ways no sibling, teacher or parent ever has. Cáit’s cousin Eibhlín (Carrie Crowley) is practically angelic, though it takes Eibhlín’s husband, Seán (Andrew Bennett), longer to warm up, as Cáit fills their lives’ child-sized void. The adults of The Quiet Girl are either so kind or so dismissive toward children that one almost expects Matilda-style magical realism from the entirely polarized treatment, while Cáit herself is more vessel than character. The result is a soft summer fable that all but attacks our tear ducts. Starving a vulnerable audience proxy of love and then dosing them at exactly the prescribed times takes unflinching focus—and it’s hard not to feel, even if the tenderness is an act of force. PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.

by Jack Kent

JONESIN’

BY MATT JONES

"Them Apples"--if I had four apples and you took one...

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Repressed feelings and dormant passions are rising to the surface. I bet they will soon be rattling your brain and illuminating your heart, unleashing a soothing turbulence of uncanny glee. Will you get crazy and wise enough to coax the Great Mystery into blessing you with an inspirational revelation or two? I believe you will. I hope you will! The more skillful you are at generating rowdy breakthroughs, the less likely you are to experience a breakdown. Be as unruly as you need to be to liberate the very best healings.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You finally have all you need to finish an incomplete mission or resolve a mess of unsettled karma. The courage and determination you couldn't quite summon before are now fully available as you invoke a climax that will prepare the way for your awe-inspiring rebirth. Gaze into the future, dear Taurus, and scan for radiant beacons that will be your guides in the coming months. You have more help than you know, and now is the time to identify it and move toward it.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Our sun is an average star in a galaxy of 100 billion stars. In comparison to some of its flamboyant compatriots, it's mediocre. Over 860 light years away is a bluewhite supergiant star called Rigel, which is twice as hot as our sun and 40,000 times brighter. The red supergiant Antares, over 600 light years away, has 12 times more mass. Yet if those two show-offs had human attitudes, they might be jealous of our star, which is the source of energy for a planet teeming with 8.7 million forms of life. I propose we make the sun your role model for now, Gemini. It’s an excellent time to glory in your unique strengths and to exuberantly avoid comparing yourself to anyone else.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): How might your life come into clearer focus when you uncover secrets that inspire your initiative and ingenuity? What happens when resources that had been inaccessible become available for your enjoyment and use? How will you respond if neglected truths spring into view and point the way toward improvements in your job situation? I suspect you will soon be able to tell me stories about all this good stuff. PS: Don't waste time feeling doubtful about whether the magic is real. Just welcome it and make it work for you!

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): It’s not the best time to tattoo a lover's likeness on your abdomen. Maybe in May, but not now. On the other hand, the coming weeks will be an excellent time to see if your paramour might be willing to tattoo your name on their thigh. Similarly, this is a favorable period to investigate which of your allies would wake up at 5 am to drive you to the airport, and which of your acquaintances and friends would stop others from spreading malicious gossip about you, and which authorities would reward you if you spoke up with constructive critiques.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Redwoods are the tallest trees in the world. They may grow as high as 350 feet. Their roots are shallow, though, reaching down just six to 12 feet before spreading out 60 to 100 feet horizontally. And yet the trees are sturdy, rarely susceptible to being toppled by high winds and floods. What's their secret? Their root systems are interwoven with those of other nearby redwoods. Together, they form networks of allies, supporting each other and literally sharing nutrients. I endorse this model for you to emulate in your efforts to create additional stability and security in your life, Sagittarius.

ACROSS

1. Cacique garment

4. Finnish Olympic runner Nurmi

9. "Be on the lookout" alerts, for short

13. Slipshod

14. "Gimme a sec"

15. Karate stroke

16. Annual fashion-based New York fundraiser

18. Ancient harplike instrument

19. Shadowy locale?

20. "Under the Sign of Saturn" writer Sontag

21. He helps reveal RSTLN and E

24. Foe

26. Cousin that may appear in future seasons of "Wednesday"

27. Muscat denizens

29. Holding accompaniment

31. Jan. 6 Committee vice chair Cheney

32. One who's in the hole

35. Initialism of urgency

38. Granular pasta

40. Bay of Naples isle

41. Pre-verbal Jodie Foster character

42. Coffeehouse connection

43. Like "Cocaine Bear"

45. Org. that 2K Sports creates games for

46. Sore subject?

48. Make rise, as bread

50. Rental hauler

52. 2600 maker

55. "It's coming to me now"

56. Open-eyed

58. Beagle, e.g.

60. "Legal" attachment

61. Japanese-manufactured photography equipment, perhaps

65. Vizquel of baseball

66. Timeworn truisms

67. Sawmill input

68. Job for an actor

69. Resort lake near Reno

70. Entry price

DOWN

1. Three-layer sandwich

2. Retro shout of support

3. It may get thrown at trendy pubs

4. Cat food form

5. It might be obtuse

6. "Encore!"

7. He-Who-Must-NotBe-Named (conveniently created by She-Who-MustNot-Be-Mentioned)

8. Out ___ limb

9. Org. that fights voter suppression

10. Scoffing term used to criticize research of "softer sciences" (such as with the Nobel Prize in Economics)

11. Sacha Baron Cohen journalist

12. Burnt out

14. Millennial's call to a Gen Z-er, maybe (which makes me feel ancient by now)

17. Math average

20. ___ admin

21. "How could you stoop ___?"

22. Late poet Baraka

23. Traditional New Orleans

©2023 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JNZ990.

procession with band accompaniment

25. Toni Collette title character

28. Hush-hush

30. Actor McDiarmid

33. Heart song with that guitar hook

34. Gulf Coast airport luggage code

36. "Seascape" Pulitzerwinning playwright Edward

37. Maps out

39. Dashboard gauge

44. "Strawberry Wine" singer Carter and crooner's daughter Martin, for two

47. Pet it'd make sense to call something like "Sir Meowington"

49. "May I interrupt?"

50. Smoke, fog, or mist

51. "King of the Hill" beer brand

53. Princess Jasmine's tiger

54. "The Princess Bride" character Montoya

57. It's not not unusual

59. Slurpee alternative

61. Polyunsaturated stuff

62. North Pole toymaker

63. Fish eggs

64. Mellow

CANCER (June 21-July 22): The philosophical principle known as Occam's razor asserts that when trying to understand a problem or enigma, we should favor the simplest explanation with the fewest assumptions. While that's often a useful approach, I don't recommend it in the coming weeks. For you, nuances and subtleties will abound in every situation. Mere simplicity is unlikely to lead to a valid understanding. You will be wise to relish the complications and thrive on the paradoxes. Try to see at least three sides of every story. Further tips: 1. Mysteries may be truer than mere facts. 2. If you’re willing to honor your confusion, the full, rich story will eventually emerge.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): "There are no unsacred places," wrote Leo poet Wendell Berry. "There are only sacred places and desecrated places." Poet Allen Ginsberg agreed. “Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!” he wrote. “Holy the solitudes of skyscrapers and pavements! Holy the cafeteria! Holy the mysterious rivers of tears under the streets! Holy the sea, holy the desert, holy the railroad.” With Berry's and Ginsberg's prompts as your inspiration, and in accordance with current astrological imperatives, I invite you to invigorate your relationship with sacredness. If nothing is sacred for you, do what it takes to find and commune with sacred things, places, animals, humans, and phenomena. If you are already a lover of sacred wonders, give them extra love and care. To expand your thinking and tenderize your mood, give your adoration to these related themes: consecration, sublimity, veneration, devotion, reverence, awe, and splendor.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): My favorite Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, wrote the following: "In us, there is a river of feelings, in which every drop of water is a different feeling, and each feeling relies on all the others for its existence. To observe it, we just sit on the bank of the river and identify each feeling as it surfaces, flows by, and disappears." I bring this meditation to your attention, Virgo, because I hope you will do it daily during the next two weeks. Now is an excellent time to cultivate an intense awareness of your feelings—to exult in their rich meanings, to value their spiritual power, to feel gratitude for educating and entertaining you.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): What's the best way to be fulfilled? Hard work and discipline? Are we most likely to flourish if we indulge only moderately in life's sweet pleasures and mostly focus on the difficult tasks that build our skills and clout? Or is it more accurate to say that 90 percent of success is just showing up: being patient and persistent as we carry out the small day-to-day sacrifices and devotions that incrementally make us indispensable? Mythologist Joseph Campbell described a third variation: to "follow our bliss." We find out what activities give us the greatest joy and install those activities at the center of our lives. As a Capricorn, you are naturally skilled at the first two approaches. In the coming months, I encourage you to increase your proficiency at the third.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Mackerels are unusual fish in that they must keep swimming nonstop. If they don't, they die. Do they ever sleep? Scientists haven't found any evidence that they do. I bring them up now because many of you Aquarians have resemblances to mackerels—and I think it’s especially crucial that you not act like them in the coming weeks. I promise you that nothing bad will happen if you slow way down and indulge in prolonged periods of relaxing stillness. Just the opposite in fact: Your mental and physical health will thrive as you give your internal batteries time and space to recharge.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): A financial advisor once told me I could adopt one of three approaches to running my business: 1. Ignore change; 2. always struggle with change, half-immobilized by mixed feelings about whether to change or stay pat; 3. learn to love and thrive on change. The advisor said that if I chose either of the first two options, I would always be forced to change by circumstances beyond my control. The third approach is ultimately the only one that works. Now is an excellent time for you Pisceans to commit yourself fully to number three—for both your business and your life.

Homework: Who or what do you belong to in ways that keep you free? Newsletter. FreeWillAstrology.com