Willamette Week, March 22, 2023 - Volume 49, Issue 19 - "The Pets Issue 2023"

FISCHER

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER

VOL. 49, ISSUE 19

Portland social service providers are losing workers to Amazon and Starbucks. 6

Wheedle looked like “the offspring of a bear and a sasquatch who mated.” 7

A drug market and a dead rat now reside in what was once a KeyBank. 8

A guinea pig with a Star Trek-inspired name and an impressive love life topped the Portland Pet Pageant. 12

A miniature horse discovered the joy of hydrotherapy in Hillsboro. 15

Sherwood has the largest cat shelter in the Pacific Northwest. 17

The money tree contains toxins that can be poisonous to cats and dogs. 23

Paddy’s secured a Guinness World Record by making a 254-gallon Irish coffee on St. Patrick’s Day. 24

Funniest Five alum Hunter Donaldson has a podcast dedicated to the board game Twilight Imperium 25

Dolly Parton has given her stamp of approval to local Americana duo Siren Songs. 25

Chicken livers can be delicious smothered in Buffalo sauce. 26

Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge is the protected winter home of dusky Canada geese 28

Juice Drum n Bass is one of the longest-running club nights devoted to EDM 29

Door Man is the film-programmer superhero the Academy Theater needs and deserves. 31

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Last week, WW published a story from The Lund Report that revealed a bleak distinction for Oregon: Its rate of teenage deaths from drug overdose is rising faster than in any other state. The story identified several failures by state leaders to combat youth addiction before the arrival of fentanyl, the lethal synthetic opioid. But for many of our readers, the story was further evidence of the need to repeal Measure 110, the ballot measure that decriminalized the personal possession of small amounts of some hard drugs. (On March 18, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler expressed frustration with the slow rollout of addiction services funded by the measure. “If it’s not working,” he said, “then let’s just admit it, and let’s move on to something that does.”) Here’s what our readers had to say:

THEDEPROGRAMMER,

VIA

WWEEK.COM: “1. Drug-related deaths are increasing among Oregon teenagers faster than anywhere else in the nation.

“2. Oregon ranks near the bottom in access to mental health services.

“3. Oregon has a homelessness crisis because the state didn’t plan for adequate housing supply.

“4. During the worst days of COVID, it was revealed that we don’t have enough intensive care beds for our population.

“5. Portland doesn’t have enough prosecutors to clear its court dockets.

“6. Per WW, Portland ranks 48th out of 50 cities in cops per capita.

“ What do these things have in common? Despite residents paying the second-highest taxes in the nation, state and local government either seems incapable of planning ahead to prevent potential problems before they reach crisis levels or lack the competence to execute on their plans and show meaningful progress.

“For the record, I’m not someone who has an ideological belief that ‘government is bad,’ but given the above, it’s hard to come to any other conclusion than that this government is bad.”

DAVID HOGUE, VIA FACEBOOK: “Easing restrictions on distribution of naloxone, and decriminalization of fentanyl testing strips would be huge.”

HERODOTUS_RUNS_AWAY, VIA REDDIT: “These stories are tragic and heartfelt, but they are based on the inaccurate premise that if you provide adolescents with more accurate information they will make better risk assessments. This isn’t really the case, IMO. I did some readings about adolescents brains recently, namely, University College London neuroscientist

Sarah-Jayne Blakemore’s book

Inventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain and the two chapters on adolescents brains in Stanford biologist Rob Sapolsky’s book Behave. Anyway, in both cases, the authors highlight that educating teenagers about potential negative consequences in order to inform their risk assessments has very little impact on adolescents’ decision making, and has basically no impact when teens are with other teens. That’s my second big takeaway: Brain science confirms that teens in packs are really fucking stupid. Hmmmm. Teens in packs with minimal adult supervision, ya know, the exact kind of decision and peer pressure environment where they decide to experiment with drugs.

“That is to say, it appears to me that the premise/assumption that we can put a dent in teens overdosing on fent by ‘educating’ them on the risks is not a well-founded premise. In fact, it appears to me that it’s not only unfounded but that the science of teen brains

Dr. Know

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

Regarding your column “My Neighbor

Doesn’t Have Trash Service. Isn’t That Illegal?” [WW, March 8]. My neighbors don’t have trash service either. Their preferred disposal method is burning their trash in their indoor fireplace. The fumes from their chimney often smell like burning plastic and other trash-based chemicals not good for my asthma. Is this legal? —Just Want to Breathe

State, county and municipal codes have no shortage of prohibitions against outdoor burning of trash, yard debris and other unwanted material, but the law has much less to say about burning the stuff indoors. Now, is this because lawmakers wanted to leave a clever loophole for your neighbor? No, it’s because disposing of refuse by burning it in your living room is such a stupid idea that we shouldn’t need a law specifically forbidding it. Unfortunately, we probably do. There will always be people who will hear it’s illegal to sell meat from a hog you butchered at home and say, “No problem, I’ll do it in the car!” To be

suggests it might not really work.”

MT. HOOD, VIA WWEEK.

COM: “Let’s see…what happened between 2019 and 2021? Measure 110. The voters who approved this measure are killing their own children, and others.

“And this isn’t due to ‘state inaction.’ It’s due largely, if not entirely, to M110. Did people really think you could legalize narcotics but magically avoid the very predictable negative consequences of rolling out the red carpet for a vast drug-selling ecosystem? Did they really think drug-trafficking, drug-dealing criminals were going to suddenly develop a legal/ ethical/moral business model? ‘Hey, yeah, we’ll sell legal meth to drug zombies, but no way we’ll sell fentanyl or do business with teenagers, that would be very inappropriate…’

“And now the people who voted for this idiotic child-killing measure are hoping the government will do something before their kid dies? And they’re hoping to do it largely through Oregon’s education system? I’m pretty sure that’s not going to happen.”

SMALL FRINGE SUSHI, VIA TWITTER: “WWeek endorsed Measure 110. How about just for once your editors take some responsibility for the mess they helped make?”

CORRECTION

A story on a proposed capital gains tax (“Stock Answers,” WW, March 15) misstated the tax that would be due on a $1,000 capital gain. It is $7.50, not 75 cents. WW regrets the error.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words.

Submit to: PO Box 10770, Portland OR, 97296

Email: mzusman@wweek.com

clear: In Oregon, burning trash is illegal whether you do it with an indoor wood stove, in an outdoor burn barrel, or over a Bunsen burner on your nightstand.

The irony, Breathe, is that as noxious as this habit is to you, it’s got to be even worse for your neighbors. Burning household trash releases heavy metals, dioxin and other chemicals that are not only toxic and carcinogenic, they don’t even get you high. The offenders are almost certainly getting a worse dose of this stuff than you.

But whatever, they’re not going to stop. So what can you do? As folks who live next to trap houses can tell you, the fact that something is illegal doesn’t always guarantee you can stop it with a quick phone call. Basically, you can file a pollution complaint with DEQ, you can report it to the city or county as a code violation, or you can try the cops by calling it in as a nuisance complaint.

I admit it’s hard to imagine any of these things doing much good. Some sources say burning cardboard and plastic increases the risk of chimney fires, so maybe if you’re very patient, eventually their house will burn down. In the meantime (you already know what I’m going to say), have another drink and forget about it.

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

“No modern choreographer was as versatile, witty, and physically joyful as Paul Taylor.“

- The Washington Post

Photo by Ron Thiele

SPONSORED BY WALTER JAFFE & PAUL KING IN MEMORY

GHOST KITCHENS GHOST PORTLAND: The Miami ghost kitchen company that scattered trucks across Portland shortly before the pandemic and received over $1 billion from overseas investors appears to have called it quits in Portland. Reef Technology closed most, if not all, of its remaining ghost kitchens across the city last week. That’s according to two former employees, landlords of parking lots where Reef parked its trucks, records from Multnomah County health officials, and a scouring of Reef’s now-unavailable brands on food delivery apps. A WW cover story found that Reef’s rollout in Portland was a rocky one that included run-ins with the health department and anemic profits (“Ghosted,” Dec. 26, 20222). At its height, the company operated 26 trucks in Portland from which it served various brands of fast food. Nearly all the trucks have vanished, and the company’s brands are no longer available on food delivery apps. The last Reef truck at Park the Carts, a food truck pod along Northeast Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd, is leaving imminently, says pod owner Angela Park: “They just signed a whole year lease a week ago. And then they just canceled it.” Reef spokesman Mason Harrison did not respond to multiple texts, phone calls and emails seeking comment from the company.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD ASSOCIATES GETS

INTERIM LEADER: It’s a fraught time for reproductive health in the United States. Although Oregon has strong protections for abortion, Pro-Choice Oregon shut down last month after 50 years. Lawmakers are considering House Bill 2002, which would strengthen protections and insurance coverage for abortions and gender-affirming care, but the state’s leading political force in that arena, Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon, is leaderless since executive director An Do became Gov. Tina Kotek’s communications director in January. Stepping into the breach: former House Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson (D-Portland), who will serve as interim director until the organization replaces Do. “It’s a critical time for reproductive health in Oregon and in the nation,” Williamson says. “Planned Parenthood Associates is the only organization solely focused on that policy area in Oregon.”

HOMICIDES CONTINUE TO DROP: Portland set a homicide record last year. This year is shaping up very differently. By the end of February, Portland had seen 10 homicides. Last year saw nearly double the homicides in that time: 19. The number of shootings also dropped significantly— by one-third. Seattle and San Francisco have not had similar turnarounds in 2023. In a February call with Multnomah County leaders, Portland head of community safety Mike Myers said the city was pursuing “a public health approach to reducing violence in Portland,” noting that gun violence in the city occurs almost entirely among young Black men and homeless men between the ages of 30 and 55. Myers said he’d been hir-

ing “public health people” from the U.S. Agency for International Development and the United Nations, and credited the drop in violence to efforts to “change the conditions in which people live.” In recent months, the city has showered law and code enforcement on portions of Old Town and 82nd Avenue that were hot spots for violence. “The early data is promising, and we will continue to monitor—but our work is far from done,” Mayor Ted Wheeler’s spokesman tells WW

TREASURY’S EXPOSURE TO SHAKY BANKS

MINIMAL: The Oregon State Treasury oversees the investment of more than $90 billion in pension funds and manages the state’s cash balances and payments, which involves the flow of billions of dollars annually in and out of banks. The failure of one of the biggest on the West Coast—Silicon Valley Bank—and the dire straits of two other leading institutions—First Republic Bank of San Francisco and Credit Suisse—have roiled financial markets. Treasury spokeswoman Amy Bates says her agency did not have deposits with any of the three troubled banks. Oregon pension funds did hold some stock in each of the three (worth a little less than $4 million as of March 20), but the holdings are insignificant in the context of Treasury’s total investments. “Protecting beneficiaries’ retirements is Treasurer [Tobias] Read’s highest priority,” Bates says. “He is proud of the work that Treasury’s investment team has done to ensure that the Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund remains stable in all market environments while generating returns for both current and future retirees.”

POLICE STILL HAVE NO POLICY FOR GANG

LABELING: In 2018, the City Auditor’s Office issued a pair of reports critical of the Portland Police Bureau’s Gang Enforcement Team. The team has since been disbanded, replaced first by the short-lived Gun Violence Reduction Team and then the Enhanced Community Safety Team and Focused Intervention Teams, which still exist. That shouldn’t free the bureau from addressing the auditor’s concerns, however, the office noted in its latest report, published March 21. It found the city was still not doing a good job safeguarding the civil liberties of people the bureau believes are associated with gangs. Although the city eliminated its Most Active Gang Member list, it still tracks gang affiliations—and continues to have no documented procedures for when it can use and disseminate those affiliations. The city recently commissioned a study, based on interviews with PPB officers, that claimed the bureau had identified 30 different groups at risk for violence, with over 1,000 members. The audit also noticed a disturbing drop in its dedicated gun violence teams’ clearance rates. The latest iteration, the Community Safety Team, cleared only 20% of shooting investigations begun in 2021. Last year, it set a goal of clearing 45% of nonfatal shootings.

A REEF VESSEL MADE WENDY’S BURGERS.

and county still dotted with homeless camps, underspending is not ideal.

“It’s disappointing,” says John Russell, a property investor who owns buildings in the city’s downtown core and in Old Town.

That’s

BY NIGEL JAQUISS njaquiss@wweek.com

New figures for the first half of the current fiscal year show Multnomah County spent less than half its budgeted funding from the Metro homeless services measure.

Through the six months ending Dec. 31, the Joint Office of Homeless Services reported spending just under $22 million of its allocation from the Metro measure. That’s a lot of money but less than half the amount JOHS budgeted to spend—and less than 20% of the Metro dollars it’s expecting to spend over the course of the fiscal year.

That continues a trend from last year, when the Joint Office far underspent its Metro allocation (“Saving for a Rainy Day,” WW, Nov. 30, 2022).

Sometimes, when governments underspend their budgets, taxpayers appreciate their restraint and fiscal discipline. But with Multnomah County having recently reported record unsheltered deaths, and the city

PENNY-WISE

“I think it may go back to a disagreement between the city and the county. The city thinks shelters are a first step, but the county disagrees—and it controls the money.”

Denis Theriault of the Joint of Office of Homeless Services acknowledges it spent far less Metro money than planned, in part because of contractor understaffing.

Andy Miller, executive director of the nonprofit Our Just Future (formerly Human Solutions), which provides affordable housing, shelter services, and rental assistance and is a Joint Office contractor, says his organization faces chronic labor shortages.

Amazon and other corporations provide competitive wages for work that can be less challenging than working with homeless or marginally housed Portlanders, Miller says, and housing costs for employees have continually risen faster than wages.

Miller adds that nobody benefits from the Joint Office underspending. “Our hope is that we’ll figure out solutions to open the pipeline for the dollars to flow more efficiently and effectively,” he says.

Voters approved a 10-year, $2.5 billion homeless services measure in 2020 aimed at putting roofs over the heads of people who are chronically homeless, especially those with one or more disabilities.

Each of the three metro-area counties gets an annual allocation based on population— Multnomah County’s budget for Metro fund-

Arbor Place

Earlier this month, WW profiled Joshua McCurry, a schizophrenic man whom Oregon’s mental health system has proved incapable of helping (“World of Hurt,” March 8). Every treatment facility where he arrived kicked him out shortly thereafter. One of those places, Oregon State Hospital, is the source of the state’s problems. It is overflowing, and a history of well-documented failings has left lawmakers loath to expand it. Instead, they want to build dozens of new, smaller mental health facilities across the state.

But that too would prove challenging, as McCurry’s saga illustrates. He didn’t last long at a smaller facility either. And the struggles of that facility show why lawmakers’ plans might be easier said than done.

THE FACILITY

Within months of being admitted to Arbor Place, a 16-bed “secure residential treatment facility” in Northeast Portland’s posh Irvington neighborhood, McCurry was kicked out after allegedly groping a staff member and putting another patient in a chokehold.

Multnomah

Source: Metro

ing is $101.5 million this fiscal year. Metro requires the three counties to file quarterly reports documenting their spending.

The numbers for the first half of the fiscal year show that the other two counties, unlike Multnomah, spent their budgeted amounts. The figures also show that the other two counties were more efficient than Multnomah at getting people housed.

Theriault acknowledges both of those differences. But, he says, Multnomah County set more ambitious goals than its peers in terms of the percentage of its annual budget it planned to spend in the first half of the year. He also notes that the Joint Office is in the middle of rolling out services at the new Behavioral Health Resource Center downtown, expanding a pilot to place people in existing housing, and other programs.

Theriault cautions that quarterly spending numbers will show big variations, but he also says the Joint Office, which has had three directors in the past year, must do better.

“It’s clear something needs to be different,” Theriault says. “There’s a recognition that the housing numbers have to go up.”

Mayor Ted Wheeler is the city’s liaison to

McCurry is certainly a difficult patient—his doctors now believe his behavior stems from a personality disorder, not his previously diagnosed schizophrenia—but Arbor Place was dealing with its own problems.

The facility, owned by Cascadia Health, provides nursing care for high-acuity patients like McCurry. It also locks its doors, offering an alternative place for judges to send people with serious mental illness, deemed too dangerous to live on their own.

Unlike Oregon State Hospital, however, smaller facilities like Arbor Place focus on integrating patients back into the community. It has a community garden, hosts “skills-building groups,” and runs “staff-escorted community outings,” according to its website.

THE SHORTFALL

The entire health care industry faced a shortage of nurses during the pandemic. Arbor Place was no exception. By October, the facility couldn’t keep a nurse on call around the clock and had to relinquish a special state classification that allowed it to involuntarily medicate patients.

At the time, it was one of seven such “Class 1” facilities across the state, including Oregon State Hospital. And it was one of four to lose the special classification since 2019, according to records provided to WW by the Oregon Health Authority.

A spokeswoman says Arbor Place’s staffing issues are the result, among other things, of a “high acuity of need contributing to burnout [and] years if not decades of pay rates in behavioral health inadequate to maintain competitive salaries.”

The nonprofit has won state grants to open three new facilities in Multnomah County. But it still has 180 unfilled positions, according to chief strategy officer Eric Sévos, and has had to close several facilities in Lane County in recent years. “It’s such a tight labor market,” he explains. “It’s just very competitive.”

the Joint Office, which will get $45 million from the city’s general fund this year (the county will contribute $60 million).

“JOHS makes budget creation and expenditure decisions without city input,” Wheeler spokesman Cody Bowman says. “As such, we do not have enough information to comment. We look forward to continuing our partnership with the county as we work to address Portland’s housing and homelessness crisis.”

County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson says new contracting procedures should improve the situation.

“It’s critical that we address street-level homelessness, and that means bringing increased transparency, accountability and urgency to that work. We are making progress on those fronts — establishing a data systems task force, for example, to identify our key performance metrics. We’re also launching Housing Multnomah Now, which will work to eliminate homelessness in a specific geographic area of our central city,” Vega Pederson says. “We have to get this right and focus our tax dollars both proactively and productively.”

It’s not clear whether Arbor Place’s staffing struggles contributed to McCurry’s assaults. Cascadia Health could not comment on his case, but said the change in classification had no impact on safety.

But later that winter, one of its employees, Erin Mercer, went to Salem to tell legislators how bad the situation had gotten. A COVID outbreak had thrust the facility below “staffing minimums,” she said in February 2022. She was being forced to work overtime, and a dire lack of nurses was taking time away from her typical duties of training patients basic skills to help them transition out of the facility, she explained.

“With the pandemic throwing us deeper into crisis, Cascadia and other residential treatment providers need more help to keep staffing minimums to stay open,” Mercer told lawmakers.

THE SOLUTION

If policymakers want to build dozens of new residential treatment facilities like Arbor Place across the state, industry executives say, they need to figure out how to staff them.

“The key is to solve the workforce problem,” says Julie Ibrahim, chief executive officer of the nonprofit New Narrative, which runs more than a dozen residential treatment facilities across the Portland area. “The pay is low, and the work is hard.”

The state has recently increased the amount of money it pays New Narrative, Cascadia Health and similar organizations for each patient they serve, which Ibraham says has translated into higher wages for staff. Now, she’s lobbying lawmakers to continue those increases every year to keep pace with inflation—and offer loan forgiveness to encourage more people to enter the field.

Ibrahim is competing with Amazon and Starbucks, which can offer similar pay and a less stressful work environment. “If you were to look at all my exit interviews, they’d say we just really need more money,” she says.

LUCAS MANFIELD.

County is spending a smaller percentage of budgeted Metro homeless services funding than neighboring counties.

Bigfeet

The Blazers’ new Sasquatch mascot has big shoes to fill.

The Portland Trail Blazers revealed their new mascot last week: a 7-foot Sasquatch with a red beanie and lumberjack-chic plaid vest. His name is Douglas Fur.

Comedian Ian Karmel, an Oregon boy made good on L.A. late-night television, embraced Dougy with enthusiasm at center court, but the online crowd wasn’t quite as enamored with their new furry friend. Probably something to do with the creepily intense perpetual grin and wide eyes.

Dougy is actually the fourth Bigfoot-themed NBA mascot to roam the hardwoods of the Pacific Northwest. Let’s take a trip down (cursed) memory lane.

’SQUATCH

Former I-5 rivals the Seattle Super Sonics laid claim to the best of the Bigfeet. ’Squatch was a mainstay of ’90s Seattle basketball right alongside Blazer alums Shawn Kemp, Kevin Calabro and Nate McMillan. Besides looking the least ridiculous, ’Squatch got PNW bonus points for staying behind when the Sonics left town.

DOUGLAS FUR SR.

Before Dougy there was…his father? When Fur debuted, longtime Rip City fans immediately thought of Portland’s previous Bigfoot mascot. He was an 8-foot behemoth that hung out courtside at the Memorial Coliseum in the days of Kiki Vandeweghe and Bill Schonely. Fur’s predecessor sported a similar plastered-on smile, but also worked shirtless—revealing hairy six-pack abs. If only Dougy could find this guy’s sunglasses in storage.

WHEEDLE

The first PNW basketball Bigfoot was inspired by the 1974 children’s book Wheedle on the Needle. According to a Jan. 9, 1977, UPI wire report, Wheedle was “a golden-furred, roly-poly creature that looks like the standup offspring of a bear and a sasquatch who mated.” (It’s also pretty easy to see the influence of Sid and Marty Krofft and their H.R. Pufnstuf puppets.) In a criminal twist of fate, Wheedle was the only Sasquatch, thus far, to be present for an NBA championship. Let’s hope Damian Lillard and Victor Wembanyama can fix that soon. ERIC GRIFFITH.

SENATE BILL 306

Oregon State Bar seeks a dramatic expansion of who can provide legal representation in eviction and divorce cases.

Although Oregon’s public defender crisis has brought attention to a shortage of criminal defense lawyers in the state’s courts, the percentage of litigants without a lawyer in landlord-tenant and family law cases is far higher than in criminal cases. (Criminal defendants have a constitutional right to an attorney while civil litigants do not.) An Oregon Senate bill seeks to rectify that problem by expanding who can assist litigants in those cases.

CHIEF SPONSORS: This bill does not have individual sponsors but rather is a committee bill introduced at the request of the Oregon State Bar.

WHAT IT WOULD DO: SB 306 would allow new licensure and oversight of paralegals and let them represent clients in eviction and family law cases. The bill would mark a dramatic expansion of duties that lawyers have previously reserved for themselves. Professional licensing bodies often zealously protect the turf of their members. But in this case, the bar has been working since 2019 to “increase access to the justice system while ensuring the competence and integrity of the licensed paralegals and improving the quality of their legal services.”

If the bill passes, it would merely greenlight paralegal licensure. The details of how the new licensure would work are spelled out in a bar proposal already approved by the Oregon Supreme Court: Applicants must meet standards of education and training, pass a licensing exam, and follow bar codes of conduct.

PROBLEM IT SEEKS TO SOLVE: Oregon Judicial Department records show that in more than three-quarters of cases, at least one side in both family law and eviction cases is unrepresented by a lawyer. Those people, “pro se litigants,” in court parlance, are at a significant disadvantage in important disputes: whether they will keep roofs over their heads, for instance, or win favorable terms in divorce settlements, such as child custody. (An unrelated Multnomah County measure on the May 16 ballot would impose a new 0.75% capital gains tax on high-income earners to pay for eviction representation.)

WHO SUPPORTS IT: The Oregon State Bar, the Oregon Law Center and the Oregon Judicial Department. Most importantly, the Oregon Supreme Court, which oversees the bar.

Jody Stahancyk, perhaps the state’s best-known divorce lawyer, also welcomes the proposed change. “We cannot find enough lawyers to help all the people coming through our doors,” Stahancyk testified. “Family law paralegals will make basic legal services available to more people, save the court’s time in dealing with pro se-ers and allow the bar to regulate the process.”

WHO OPPOSES IT: Many lawyers. In its public comment period, the bar got hundreds of responses. Most lawyers who responded didn’t like the idea—the nos from lawyers outweighed the yeses by 54% to 35%.

Critics cited the perils of inadequate training, the unfairness of being allowed to practice without the rigor and cost of law school, and in some cases, unwanted competition.

Troy Pickard, a Portland public defender who specializes in eviction cases, said there’s far too much work to worry about a profusion of new practitioners, but he cited complexity as a concern.

“I do not believe that Oregon’s tenants would be well served by allowing non-lawyers to give them bad advice,” Pickard wrote to the bar. “We have enough lawyers giving bad advice. With landlord-tenant law, the cost of bad advice is often dramatic, especially for tenants—they can be unexpectedly forced out of their homes through eviction court, and crushed under judgments for the landlord’s attorney fees.”

Although no lawyers signed up to object in the Senate, the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association initially opposed the bill, objecting to what it saw as lack of protections against paralegals providing inadequate representation. “Harm caused by their negligence would be borne by their client,” OTLA testified. “From a consumer protection perspective, this makes absolutely no sense.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee amended the bill to the association’s satisfaction, and the bill won passage on the Senate floor last month. It now awaits a hearing tentatively scheduled for March 30 before the House Judiciary Committee. NIGEL JAQUISS.

HAIRY STYLES: The Blazers’ new mascot, Douglas Fur, descends from a long line of basketball Sasquatches.

Market Forces

One of Portland’s top real estate families owns a building that contains a fentanyl market.

BY ANTHONY EFFINGER aeffinger@wweek.com

In his company biography, Barry Menashe, founder of one of the city’s wealthiest property clans, says he has a “sixth sense” about Portland real estate. “Making lightning-fast decisions comes very naturally.” And he’s “passionate about keeping spaces pin-straight.”

There’s nothing “pin-straight” about a building that Menashe owns at Southwest 4th Avenue and Washington Street. Washington Center, as it’s called, might be among the most blighted properties in downtown Portland.

Once the site of a KeyBank branch, a bagel shop, a bridal store, and a business school, the complex is vacant now, save for drug-addled denizens who’ve stepped in through a broken window. Where tellers once cashed checks and made change, loiterers now hide from the light. The safe is covered in graffiti. A dead rat lay in state in the middle of the lobby.

Menashe Properties, which bought Washington Center for $9 million in 2014 through two limited liability companies, owns office buildings all over the Portland area and in Dallas, Denver and Seattle, where tenants are likely to be lawyers, accountants and architects. At Washington Center, the Menashes’ occupants are drug dealers.

The current condition of the property has attracted Portland’s pop-up fentanyl market, previously located north of West Burnside Street, to a main artery of the city—one that visitors see as they cross into downtown over the Morrison Bridge.

Other business owners and city officials are perplexed by how the Menashe family has let a property at the heart of the city disintegrate.

“It’s the skid row of Portland,” says an employee at a nearby business who declined to be named for fear that drug gangs might target her. “I have to walk through all these dealers daily at all hours of the day and night. My goal is not to die in this city. Literally.”

The Menashes owe tens of thousands of dollars to the Downtown Portland Clean & Safe District, the chunk of downtown where property owners pay extra for security and cleaning services, according to a person familiar with the situation.

Lauren Menashe, Barry’s daughter, agreed to answer questions by email. Her family’s firm planned to sell the building to a developer, but COVID-19 and Portland’s inclusionary zoning policies scared off buyers, she says. Measure 110, which decriminalized the personal possession of some hard drugs, was “another dagger.”

CHASING GHOSTS

ADDRESSES:

444 SW 5th Ave., 401-419 SW Washington St., 423-437 SW 4th Ave.

YEARS BUILT: 1965, 1977, NA

SQUARE FOOTAGE: 37,970, 33,961, NA

MARKET VALUES: $2.5 million, $3.7 million, $1.26 million OWNERS: Fifth Avenue LLC, Fourth Avenue LLC, Fourth Avenue LLC, respectively HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: KeyBank moved out in 2018.

WHY IT’S EMPTY: Tenants moved out as blight moved in.

The contractual operator of the district, the Portland Business Alliance, says downtown’s best days are ahead. “But to get there we need to be honest that our central city has significant challenges,” says PBA president Andrew Hoan. “To get downtown back on track, we need everyone with a stake to do their part to overcome these challenges.”

Barry Menashe, 69, has had a long, rocky relationship with the city of Portland. He started his real estate career while still a senior at the University of Oregon.

“I was selling shoes and didn’t know what I was going to do when I graduated,” he said in a 2006 interview with the Daily Journal of Commerce. “I was 21 years old, a senior at the University of Oregon, when I got my real estate license. I was very motivated, just to win, and to make money. Everybody started calling me because I was like the wonder boy.”

Menashe is given to bravado. In the first two minutes of the DJC interview, he pulled out an album full of newspaper clippings, reporter Kennedy Smith wrote.

and people just steal my flowers.”

Menashe had a change of heart in 2016. Shortly after Mayor Charlie Hales declared a housing emergency, Menashe donated part of Washington Center to use as a homeless shelter. Menashe had a personal connection, The Oregonian reported at the time. Two of his four siblings suffered mental illness and spent time on the streets before dying in their 50s.

Relations with the city soured again thereafter. In May 2021, Menashe offered Mayor Ted Wheeler $5 million to help clean up the city if a deal could be reached in three days, the Portland Business Journal reported. Wheeler acknowledged the offer in a text and said he’d “reach out,” the PBJ reported. When Menashe didn’t hear anything for five days, he scrapped the donation.

As for the Clean & Safe dues, Menashe says: “We will be more than happy to pay when the city is clean and crime is properly attended to. We have asked repeatedly to meet with Clean & Safe to discuss their plans. We continue to be unsuccessful in receiving a response.”

The Clean & Safe District says it’s ready and willing.

“ We always welcome the opportunity to meet with downtown stakeholders when they request a meeting,” says Clean & Safe executive director Mark Wells.

“I was never a huge brain in school,” Menashe told Smith. “I got good grades, but I’m not greatly book smart. I’m very savvy to the street and what’s going on around me. My fast thinking and fast moving gives me the advantage over other people who can’t move fast.”

At the time of that interview, Menashe was a full-on mogul, plunking down millions for buildings at high speed. In 2010, though, he got in a pissing match with the city and refused to pay past-due fees of $50,400 to Clean & Safe, telling The Oregonian that “downtown Portland is not clean or safe. I plant flowers,

His son, Jordan, moved to Dallas shortly after complaining to the Portland Business Journal about seeing hypodermic needles and human excrement outside Washington Center. Barry Menashe has stuck around Portland. He lives in Dunthorpe.

Meanwhile, Washington Center is festering. The chain-link fence that surrounds it is in pieces, with sections flattened to the sidewalk. Trash is piled along the exterior, where people strung out on fentanyl slump against a low brick wall. Dealers sell pills from an alcove on the south side.

David Baer, public information officer for the Portland Police Bureau’s Central Precinct Neighborhood Response Bike Squad, says the building is his group’s top priority right now.

FENTANYL MART: Washington Center at the corner of Southwest Washington Street and 4th Avenue.

JORDAN HUNDELT

HANGOUT: The fence at Washington Center isn’t keeping anyone out.

JORDAN HUNDELT

“My goal is to not die in this city. Literally.”

“The fentanyl dealing in that area is rampant and, unfortunately, brings violence to the area,” Baer says in an email. “We have taken several guns off folks there and arrested one dealer for attempted murder after investigators identified him as a shooting suspect.”

Baer warns people not to go into the old KeyBank. “It’s fairly hazardous in the building due to extensive mold, human waste and some amateur demolition,” he says.

Eric Zimmerman, an adviser to Mayor Wheeler on cleaning up downtown, says the area around the building is the most problematic in the central city. “The corner of 4th and Washington is something we talk about every day,” he says.

Zimmerman says things are looking up, cooperationwise. “The owners are talking to the mayor’s office, and we appreciate that,” he says.

Federal and local laws require property owners to maintain sidewalks that border their buildings. The Portland Business Alliance asked lawyers at Miller Nash LLP to prepare a memo for downtown property owners on their responsibilities.

“The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and City of Portland Code require property owners to take certain actions to maintain abutting sidewalks,” the September memo said. “This can include removing refuse, tents, and other items that hinder accessibility and create unsafe conditions.”

The fight over Washington Center is growing fiercer. The Portland Bureau of Development Services visited on March 8 and 10, according to city records, and opened four cases for broken windows and for the piles of broken glass, metal debris, raw food and feces.

BDS gave the Menashes 15 days to comply with city code. Inspectors will return March 25, and if the mess persists, spokesman Ken Ray says, the agency will notify the Menashes that it plans to hire a contractor to clean it up. BDS would place a lien on the property to cover costs.

“The property owner ultimately pays for that work,” Ray says.

Lauren Menashe says the city is to blame.

“Lawlessness is the only word I can come up with to describe this once beautiful and thriving area of downtown,” she says. “Despite our best efforts to maintain the site and any form of order or cleanliness, including boarding up the property and broken windows daily, hiring private security, paying for fencing, weekly outreach to police and city officials, it has proven impossible to keep any and all forms of transients, criminal activity, vandalism and destruction away from this site. Simply put, the condition of this property is a product of shortsighted legislation and has been handcuffed by unmanageable circumstances.”

One caveat: “The police have been an exceptional resource to us. Sadly, their good work only goes so far,” Menashe adds. “If our county is unable or unwilling to prosecute, back on the streets the criminals go.” And into the old KeyBank, too.

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.

7:30

Tickets

HOSTED

BROKEN BANK: Shattered windows allow entry to the old KeyBank.

JORDAN HUNDELT

E– Bike & Cargo Bike

Instant Replay

City officials may be willing to compromise on letting cops get a sneak preview of body-worn camera footage.

BY LUCAS MANFIELD lmanfield@wweek.com

There are signs Portland’s elected officials and its police union are willing to compromise on bodyworn camera policy, WW has learned.

Rollout of the cameras has been delayed for years by a tug of war between the union, which wants officers to be allowed to view the footage before writing their reports, and activists, who believe misuse of the technology would undermine efforts to hold officers accountable.

The result: Portland remains the last major city in the nation not to strap cameras on its cops.

Although such cameras have produced shocking footage of police abuses across the country, research studies have been equivocal about their benefits. The city’s most vocal skeptic of body cameras, former City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, once called the devices “an expensive, false solution.”

At the time, Hardesty sat on the Portland City Council. She later changed her stance on cameras—agreeing they were needed, so long as the Portland Police Bureau didn’t control the footage. But she was voted out last year amid widespread voter frustration about public safety, including a spike in homicides. Voters replaced her with City Commissioner Rene Gonzalez, who has shown far more sympathy for the cops.

“I sense that there is a historic opportunity to end this stalemate,” he tells WW. “The union has indicated a willingness to compromise. I am willing to do so and have encouraged my colleagues on council to do so as well.”

The Portland Police Association declined to comment on the ongoing negotiations.

Publicly, the two sides are far apart. The union wants officers to be allowed to “pre-review” footage prior to writing reports. The city and the U.S. Department of Justice say that’s a bad idea after officers use force.

The dispute is complicated by the involvement of the Justice De-

partment, which sued the city a decade ago over its use of excessive force against people with mental illness, winning a settlement agreement that grants judicial oversight of the bureau’s policies. Last year, the DOJ proposed a body-worn camera policy with limitations on pre-review similar to the city’s official stance on the matter.

Former U.S. Attorney for Oregon Billy Williams laid out the reasoning for such a policy back in 2016, when he told The Oregonian he was concerned that pre-review could “result in officers, whether intentionally or otherwise, modifying their descriptions of the force event to match what they saw on the recording rather than what they recall.”

Because the city is operating under a settlement agreement with the DOJ, it’s not clear what would happen if it reached a deal with the PPA that U.S. District Judge Michael Simon ultimately rejects. In a February hearing, Simon was skeptical that officers needed pre-review, calling “an officer’s unrefreshed subjective recollection…a useful piece of data.”

the only member of Portland’s City Council to respond directly when asked by WW under what circumstances she thought pre-review should be allowed.

“Any incident that involves an injury should not be allowed for pre-review,” she said in a statement to WW. “I remain interested and open to the results of those discussions in bargaining.”

Rubio’s answer—drawing injuries as the line in the sand, rather than the broader concept of force—differs from the city’s official position, and offers a hint of what a potential compromise could look like.

It bears a resemblance to San Francisco’s policy, which requires an additional statement by officers prior to reviewing footage of an officer-involved shooting or an in-custody death. That policy is similar to those of other progressive cities.

The City by the Bay managed to push that policy through in 2020 following two and half years of negotiation with its police union.

The city and the PPA presented their final offers during contract negotiations in February, and an arbitrator will hold hearings sometime this summer. If the arbitrator sides with the PPA, some fear it could trigger a yearslong court battle. In February, the union’s attorney said it would continue trying to find “a mutually agreeable program rather than having to roll the dice, if you will, in contested litigation.”

With Hardesty gone, Carmen Rubio is now the city’s most progressive commissioner. She was

Advocates say rushing into a compromise is not an acceptable solution, particularly in a city like Portland that is already being scrutinized for its police force’s failings. “The DOJ has been clear: Body-worn cameras only have as much value as the policy behind them,” says Eben Hoffer, legislative lead at the Mental Health Alliance.

But o ther Portlanders say they’ve waited long enough. Activists’ and the DOJ’s “position would put Portland out of step with most similar cities and has, predictably, set up program implementation for failure or, at best, years of delays,” wrote Nathan

“I sense there is a historic opportunity to end this stalemate.”

Castle, a member of the citizen committee responsible for monitoring the city’s progress toward implementing the DOJ’s recommendations.

The city has until this summer to broker a compromise with the

union before the issue is sent to the purgatory of arbitration. If it fails, and the PPA and DOJ decide to take the issue to court, a process that has dragged on for more than a decade could extend for several more years.

FREEZE FRAME

Portland cops first tested body-worn cameras in 2011. Here’s what’s happened in the dozen years since

2011: Portland Police Bureau tests body-worn cameras.

2013: City Council sets aside nearly $1 million for pilot project.

2014: Judge recommends the city buy the cameras after the U.S. Department of Justice settles an excessive force lawsuit with the city.

2016: Portland, with police union support, releases a draft policy to immense public criticism.

2020: City drops program from budget amid widespread cuts.

2022: City greenlights $2.6 million program, selects Axon as vendor. Most of Portlanders surveyed don’t support pre-review.

2023: City and union arrive at impasse over pre-review policy. Federal judge gives the city seven months to come to an agreement.

NEEDS CAMERA: Portland’s bitter, decadelong fight over body-worn cameras may be nearing its denouement.

The The Issue Issue

In Star Trek, a targ is a boarlike companion to Klingons. In Portland, Targ is the name of a shy guinea pig known for his deep voice and many girlfriends.

“ He got his name because he has a lot of extra fur on his back, and when you fluff it up, he looks like a wild boar,” says Erin Roski (she and her husband, Calvin Richardson, are Targ’s owners). “He also charges around like a boar when he’s excited or trying to let his cagemate know who’s boss.”

Five-year-old Targ triumphed in WW ’s annual Portland Pet Pageant presented by DoveLewis. He’s a small fellow who’s lived an epic life, surviving an early separation

from his brother Neelix (they were later reunited) and finding a loving home thanks to a fortuitous Craigslist adoption. His fuzzy paramours have included CJ, named for the fiery White House press secretary played by Allison Janney on The West Wing Targ’s story isn’t the only heartening tale you’ll read in our Pets Issue. We’ve put together a package of stories that celebrates our furry friends, as well as the humans who go to remarkable lengths to make sure they live healthy, joyous lives.

In this issue, you’ll read about animals experiencing the healing bliss of hydrotherapy (page 15), get a behind-the-scenes look at Oregon’s largest cat shelter (page 17), and meet a local dog who landed in Puppy Bowl XIX (page 21). We’ve also taken this opportunity to discuss proper pet care, spotlighting a rising star in the veterinary world (page 22) and compiling a guide to the plants most dangerous to pets (page 23).

2023 marks the sixth year of the Port-

land Pet Pageant. Every year, we give pet parents the opportunity to confirm in public what they’ve always privately believed: that their fur babies are the most adorable snugglemuffins in the whole damn city.

It’s hard not to feel a little guilty about our pets these days. The easing of the pandemic has allowed many of us to dive back into our work and social lives, but resuming our daily routines has made the lives of our loyal companions a bit emptier.

More than ever, it’s important to remind our pets that we love them, whether that means treating your dog (or miniature horse) to an aquatic adventure or keeping them safe from toxin-filled flowers.

You can read all about that and more in these stories, which provide proof that there is a big, beautiful world out there for Oregon’s pets—provided they’re given the chance to charge at it like Targ.

—Bennett Campbell Ferguson, Assistant Arts & Culture Editor

CONTINUED ON PAGE 15

MICHAEL RAINES / FAMILY PHOTO STUDIO

MICHAEL RAINES / FAMILY PHOTO STUDIO

2023 wweek.com

Water World

At Paws Rehab in Hillsboro, dogs (and the occasional cat or miniature horse) experience the joys of hydrotherapy.

BY ANDI PREWITT aprewitt@wweek.com

Aside from the occasional bump into the side of the pool, you’d never guess that Faye was deaf and blind just by glancing. The 13-and-a-half-year-old pit-Lab mix paddles around the water with purpose (and, at her age, the assistance of a bright red life jacket). The typical mission: tracking down and retrieving the ball her owner has thrown.

This simple game of fetch is why Casey Lyons makes the weekly drive to Paws Rehab in the industrial hinterlands of Hillsboro from his home in St. Johns. Faye used to chase down toys in the Willamette River much closer to their neighborhood, but now that her vision is shot, swimming in open water is no longer safe. However, the senior pooch isn’t just engaged in play at Paws—one of the only aquatic centers around whose pools are dedicated to dogs. The sessions double as physical therapy.

“She can’t really go on walks anymore,” Lyons explains. “You know, she’s still got the energy to want to do stuff, but her joints can’t take it.”

Stiff hips and knees, as well as injury recovery, account for about half of all of Paws’ business. The facility, tucked into the corner of a manufacturing park, boasts two pools along with a pair of underwater treadmills that allow dogs recuperating from surgery to begin exercise while bearing a fraction of their weight.

That equipment can only be found at a handful of veterinarian offices and hydrotherapy clinics around the Willamette Valley—some of which have monthslong waitlists for new patients, making Paws highly sought after by parents with fur babies in need of treatment.

“We have people come here for treadmills from Yakima and Southern Oregon, because there really aren’t all that many around,” co-owner Julie Thomas says. “If your dog has surgery and your vet wants them to start mobility, you can’t wait that long.”

Both Thomas and business partner Diane Kunkle, who founded Paws in 2009 at her Milwaukie home (the 40-foot indoor pool there still services clients), began looking into animal water rehab after their dogs developed health issues.

Kunkle, a longtime licensed vet technician, had a Labrador that injured its cruciate ligament in 1984 and discovered that therapy was virtually nonexistent. Seeing a lack of options, she decided to become one by launching Paws and earning certification as a canine rehabilitation practitioner through the University of Tennessee.

Meanwhile, Thomas, who always owned dogs but had a career in the tech industry, started taking animal massage classes in an

effort to help her arthritic Lab. After getting laid off from Intel in 2009, she decided to ditch corporate America in favor of clients of the canine variety, opening Doggie Paddle inside LexiDog on South Macadam Avenue.

Since the local pool of aquatic dog therapists is about as large as a puddle, Kunkle’s and Thomas’ paths eventually crossed. Each grew their business to the point where expansion was the natural next step, prompting the two to team up and launch a second, much-larger Paws than the one at Kunkle’s house.

After overcoming the hurdle of being located solely on private property to a business that also rents—turns out, telling prospective landlords that your setup involves thousands of gallons of water and dogs results in a lot of hung-up calls—the Hillsboro spot welcomed its first four-legged clients in 2015.

Since then, Paws has seen more than just dogs taking the plunge; a kitten, a goat and even a miniature horse have all put in rehabilitation time. “You never know what’s going to walk through the door,” Thomas laughs.

The horse might even be their most famous case: Tiny Dancer, a registered therapy animal who makes the rounds at Portland events often dressed as a unicorn with brother Elmo, came to Paws after dislocating her femur—an injury that typically results in euthanasia.

That would’ve been her fate had the Oregon State University Veterinary Teaching Hospital not stepped up to perform surgery. It was a chance doctors there were willing to take given her diminutive size. Still, the outlook was unclear when it came to

mobility. But after months of marching on Paws’ treadmill, Tiny Dancer could run at full gallop once again.

“They said that this horse will never be able to walk well,” Kunkle says. “Right now, it’s out playing in its field with its brother. You would never know anything was wrong.”

While Paws’ most tear-triggering stories involve animals on the mend—a German shepherd with an amputated front leg learned it could still swim, a brown Lab that had to be carried inside regained the ability to walk—dogs don’t need to be injured in order to pay a visit.

For instance, the warehouse-sized space teaches dock diving, one of the fastest-growing dog sports in the U.S. Think of it as a combination of high jump and long jump for canines, only the landing pad is water instead of sand. But if high-flying recreation sounds too ambitious for the log dog in your life, owners can always book time for their pets to simply bob around one of the pools for an hour. Though Thomas warns that novices may be hesitant to dive in.

“What we find with dogs that have swam in natural water, sometimes it’ll take ’em a few minutes,” she says. “First of all, the water’s the wrong color. Unless you live in Hawaii or Florida, this is not a color you’re going to see in nature. It’s also so warm, and there’s no goose poop and no dead fish. So for a lot of Northwest dogs, this is wrong.”

An initial assessment must be completed before any dog can set paw in water—and not because they might find the artificiality of a bird excrement-free turquoise pond intimidating. It’s all about safety. That may sound odd since a style of swimming is named after our canine pals. But it’s actually not a natural skill for all breeds, which is why Paws gives lessons and allows humans to practice using everything from paddleboards to kayaks with their dogs before heading out to our lakes and rivers.

“It’s a myth that all dogs can swim. They can’t,” Thomas says, “because a lot of dogs don’t really know how to use their back legs. So people see them splashing and they think that’s swimming. It’s like, no, that’s survival. At some point, they’re going to get tired and sink. The big thing is getting people to learn so that their dogs know how to survive in the water.”

VISIT: Paws Rehab at Sunset West Business Park, 1800 NE 25th Ave., Suite 17, Hillsboro, 503-640-4007, pawsrehab.net. 10 am-8 pm Tuesday-Wednesday, 10 am-6pm Thursday-Friday, 10 am-5 pm Saturday, 9 am-5 pm Sunday.

“ You never know what’s going to walk through the door.”

COVER STAR FINALIST

MICHAEL RAINES / FAMILY PHOTO STUDIO

Cat Adoption Team Turns 25 This Year

Since 1998, the largest cat shelter and adoption center in Oregon has operated out of Sherwood.

BY ERIC ASH

For a quarter century now, the Cat Adoption Team has been one of the biggest and most beloved shelters in the Pacific Northwest. But CAT in Sherwood isn’t just a shelter—it’s also an adoption center with a thrift store, food bank, and on-site veterinarian to care for thousands of felines in need.

CAT adheres to the international standards of the Association of Shelter Veterinarians, meeting all 254 “musts.” The shelter opened on May 1, 1998, with 35 cats for adoption—“in the same building we’re in today!” says Heather Svoboda Miller, the organization’s communications and development manager.

“Originally, situated only on the second floor of the building, CAT has expanded [to] other areas of the building over time,”

Miller says. “The shelter now fills about 16,000 square feet and features multiple adoption rooms, a full-service on-site hospital, a foster and admissions area, administrative offices, etc.”

At the time of CAT’s opening, the metro region struggled to keep up with large numbers of unhoused cats. Out in Sherwood, according to Miller, “the organization’s founder purchased the building…for another business on the primary floor, and then used space on the second floor to run a small cat rescue. That ‘small rescue’ has grown over the past 25 years into the professional nonprofit animal shelter that CAT is today.”

CAT could house 219 cats by the end of its first year in operation, then celebrated its 1,000th adoption in 2000. The on-site veterinary hospital opened in 2002, and CAT has steadily continued to improve its quality of care and service, giving each cat more space individually as the facility expanded overall.

By 2019, CAT’s live release rate held at 95%. Miller says all this history has helped the organization form partnerships “with other businesses to house cats for adoption in their locations throughout the Portland metro area.”

A visit to the shelter in early March revealed many empty kennels in its public viewing area. Several of the occupied kennels were marked with signs saying the cats within had been officially adopted, waiting for their new homes.

Others were covered with blue tarps and signs indicating the cats within had just arrived and hadn’t had their full admission exams yet, so they weren’t ready for human interaction. Another room, downstairs, usually contains kittens, but on this day, it was entirely empty and not open to the public.

The facility, however, clearly lives up to its professional standards. Patrons are asked to sanitize after interacting with each cat, with several hand sanitizer dispensers installed throughout the viewing room upstairs and the lobby downstairs. People are also asked to speak quietly so as not to disturb the cats’ sensitive ears.

Some rooms are set aside so a single cat may have uncaged interactions with one or two people at a time. On the day of the visit, one of these rooms featured a large black and white male named Chester. He was quite shy, though very fond of sniffing people’s shoes, as well as the small TV placed on one side of the room. He also tried to paw at people’s hands as if they were balls of yarn.

Asked whether CAT has plans to increase its presence in the metro core, Miller says, “We don’t currently have plans to move or expand…to another brick-and-mortar, but looking five to 10 years into the future…it’s a possibility that depends a lot on any changes in the needs of the organization or the community.”

For now, though, CAT remains 25 years strong in Sherwood, steadily rehousing thousands of cats for lucky new owners.

VISIT: Cat Adoption Team. 14175 SW Galbreath Drive, Sherwood, 503-925-8903, catadoptionteam.org. Noon-6 pm Tuesday-Sunday.

COURTESY CAT ADOPTION TEAM

Rufus

Ziggy Pistachio

Piglet

Trap Queen

Targ

Franklin

Roari

Puck

Zevon

PRESENTED BY

Highest on Life

Kindest Eyes

Most Employable, Hire this Pet!

Most Human-Like

Most Rose City Spirit

Most Snuggle Worthy

Most “Awhh” Factor

Nontraditional Pet

Shedding Champion

Style Icon

Sweetest Siblings

Tiniest Treasure

Sadie

Lulu

Strider

Dewey

Puck

Hank Doodle

Hank Doodle

Loki

Benne and Beatriz

Jenny Targ

Theodore

Mazzy

MICHAEL RAINES / FAMILY PHOTO STUDIO

COVER STAR FINALIST

Home-Field Advantage

Puplandia thrills Animal Planet, rescues locally.

BY JAY HORTON @hortland

Well before Brook Benson ever thought of starting a service like Puplandia (the animal rescue organization recently celebrated after placing a young charge on Animal Planet’s top-rated Puppy Bowl XIX), she was a teacher.

Trailing a master’s in education and three years’ experience at a Portland-area academy, Benson met a woman at a dog park one Christmas break and agreed to play co-pilot on a rescue mission to a California kill shelter. After pulling 13 animals from euthanasia, she took out a business license, arranged a fundraising partnership with fellow nonprofit BottleDrop, and effectively devoted her life to ensuring dogs around the state keep theirs.

While the 50 or so canines she’ll place this year might pale in comparison to the estimated 1,200 that Oregon Dog Rescue saves annually, Puplandia focuses on pairing animals with “forever homes” and helping foster families retain access to all the resources and training needed to overcome any obstacles along the way.

Benson spoke with WW about the challenges of matchmaking dogs with owners and the relative ease of landing one on Animal Planet.

WW: You placed a Puppy Bowl participant?

Brook Benson: Well, the dogs that go and play football are already adopted, but the Puppy Bowl also shows adoptables. Jason, a Lab Great Pyrenees that we had in rescue, was featured as an adoptable puppy.

How’d you first get involved with Animal Planet? They called us! I think they just saw our name. We have a pretty cool name.

Were there others in the running?

Yeah, so, Jason had eight siblings. They were called the Day litter: Jason, Jerry, Jacob, Janet, June, Jane, um, Jade? There were nine, and I just picked Jason.

Why? Cuter? More charismatic?

I mean, they were only 4 weeks old. You wouldn’t be able to tell them apart.

Greatness thrust upon him, then.

The family who adopted Jason didn’t realize he was a Puppy Bowl star, but that turned out nice. When people saw him on Animal Planet and asked [if he was available], I told them we had eight more that looked exactly the same.

Did you read the bios? Did you pick the best fit? It was crazy, a madhouse. I stopped counting after 150 emails.

Do you cherry-pick the most adoptable dogs for your program?

It’s always about what’s best for the foster families. Each animal will be placed in a private home, so we have to take the family into consideration, and we’re pretty particular about finding the best fit for the dogs that we adopt out. So, people can apply, but they just might not have what the dog needs.

I have two little kids and other dogs so any dog coming into my home can’t be kid or dog aggressive. Another foster family with three teenagers and two little dogs could take a dog that was cat aggressive. If it’s a really high-energy dog, we have to find a family who can handle running and exercise. Great Danes are really hard and really expensive, so we make sure that they have experience with grooming. It’s never first come, first served…

I get calls every day from local and out-of-state shelters as well as local families, but there aren’t enough spots. For a slew of reasons, we turn away roughly 10 dogs a day. Saying yes just depends upon which foster families are available, so part of my job is talking to the families, figuring out what’s going on, what went wrong, and how I can help.

I tell them about local trainers. I tell them about other shelters that might be a better fit. I have them contact groomers or FIDO Food Bank or the Pongo Fund. I’ll get them into a low-cost spay/neuter clinic. Taking in dogs and finding them forever homes is actually a very small part of my job. We’re always finding a ton of different ways to support families so that they can keep their animals. We keep every dog for a minimum of two weeks.

Why so long?

Most dogs aren’t fixed when they come to us. They have fleas, diarrhea, no vaccines, no microchips, and need kennel training, potty training, leash training. To bring them to the vet so they’re up to date on shots, get a little training under their belt, square away the belly with quality food, offer some love and consistency, that takes two weeks. Sometimes it’s a little longer, but two weeks seems to be roughly the time it takes for us to get them ready to be placed. We rehab each dog specifically and then go on to the next. One dog at a time.

SEE IT: Puppy Bowl XIX streams on Discovery+.

COURTESY BROOK BENSON

Banfield Hospital Offers Second Annual NextVet Internship

The two-month program addresses a long-term veterinarian shortage through a paid, nationwide internship.

BY JEREMIAH HAYDEN

Thomas Cha always knew he wanted to be a veterinarian. Even his parents say he aspired to be a vet, ever since he was young. Growing up, Cha had goldfish at home, and he remembers always being surrounded by dogs whenever he was with his aunts, uncles and grandparents.

“There’s just never been an instance where I didn’t want to become a vet,” Cha says. “That’s really the only career path I ever thought of.”

So, when his Vancouver, Wash., high school counselor told him about an internship opportunity through Banfield Pet Hospital, he knew it was a perfect match.

As soon as he graduated from Henrietta Lacks Health and Bioscience High School in 2022, Cha started in the NextVet internship program—a paid, two-month internship for pet-loving high schoolers and graduates.

The program was created in 2022 in an effort to address a chronic shortage of talent entering the field of veterinary care. Research paid for by Mars Veterinary Health—a network of 2,500 clinics, hospitals and labs that includes Banfield among its members— shows that the need for veterinary care is expected to increase by 33% by the year 2030.

This widens an already persistent gap that will require nearly 41,000 additional caregivers by 2030 in order to keep up with demand. Even with the new veterinary graduates expected over the next decade, the study found that there will still be a shortage of

nearly 15,000 veterinarians in that time frame.

NextVet connects students aged 16 and older with Banfield hospital teams, and gives them a flexible, part-time summer position offering hands-on experience in a veterinary hospital. Payment varies by location but starts at $15 an hour.

“It’s a fast-paced environment, but it’s a great learning environment as well,” Cha says. “I got to learn how to put in a catheter, I drew up vaccines and learned how to hold dogs and cats. It’s just been a great learning experience.”

The first year, 15 students had the opportunity to participate in the NextVet internship, and in 2023, its second year, the program has nearly doubled in size. More than 1,000 Banfield hospitals operate nationwide, and hospitals in 16 cities are participating in the program this summer, including locations in the Portland-Vancouver area.

Cha says before the internship, most of his experience with vets was through what he saw on television, but experiencing the hospital firsthand has made him appreciate the details more.

“ You get to learn what patients are going through and learn more of the process,” he says.

Interns spend most of their time shadowing and working with veterinarians and credentialed veterinary technicians, as well as some virtual small group sessions intended to help them explore the industry.

“There’s a little bit of studying, but it’s more on the job,” Cha says. “You shadow them, and then when you feel comfortable, then you can help them actually do it. You always have a mentor to help you if you ever have questions.”

According to NextVet, several interns from the inaugural year have continued their work with Banfield full time. Cha returned to the hospital as a pet care assistant just two months after his internship finished.

Cha says working in the hospital has been rewarding. “It’s such a unique experience that not a lot of people get the opportunity to do,” he says. “I just got to learn so much about medicine. Not a lot of kids get the opportunity to do that straight out of high school.”

Asked what impact he hopes to have on the wider community, Cha answers with a genuine care for the people he interacts with: “The mental health of the owner. Pets bring owners so much joy and so much happiness, but when their pet is sick, they’re worried. So, when they come in here, we try to give them comfort that we’re going to give them the best care possible.”

Cha enjoys being able to see client’s pets grow up over time. One of his favorite dogs started coming in as a puppy. “We saw it when it was this little, and now it’s grown so much,” he says. “We get to see it grow. That’s so fun.”

WAVE OF THE FUTURE: Thomas Cha.

Pets vs. Plants

A guide to some of Oregon’s sneakiest natural menaces.

BY RAY GILL JR.

Pet owners are familiar with the sight of their furry friends regurgitating on the carpet, eliciting instant concern about the unpleasant cleanup and the health of their pet (presumably not in that order). But you’ll want to check that rejected mush for signs of your favorite plant before issuing your incomprehensible scolding.

Our pets are curious creatures with curious habits that sometimes involve eating the natural décor growing in and around our homes. So, to best protect them, a little botany lesson is in order.

We’ll start with the houseplants that we keep all year round. While proven to relieve stress and provide oxygen through photosynthesis for people, they also provide an avenue for dangerous poisons to enter our pets’ sanctuaries.

Gardening expert Christopher Young from the famous Glass-

house at RHS Wisley spoke with The US Sun about three of the most dangerous plant families for homes with pets. The first target he cited is popular aloe vera, which contains toxins like anthracenes, glycosides and anthraquinones.

The Pet Poison Helpline warns that the ingestion of these toxins by cats and dogs “can result in vomiting and diarrhea. Other clinical signs seen with aloe vera ingestion include depression, anorexia, changes in urine color and, rarely, tremors.”

Young also noted that glycosides and anthraquinones are part of the Crassulaceae family, which includes crassula (better known as the money tree or jade plant) and kalanchoe or flaming Katy.

PetsofProlific Portlanders

Vets have reported pets in distress with vomiting or slow heart rates and depression after a jade snack, and in very rare cases, dogs have died from eating kalanchoes.

With warmer weather greeting Portland, people are venturing outside with their dogs more regularly, which presents unique challenges concerning the indigenous plant life we encounter on trails and in our neighborhoods.

According to Bend veterinarian Dr. Chad Moles of Blue Sky Vet Clinic, it’s important to learn how to identify these Oregon plants toxic for dogs. Japanese yew, horse chestnut, foxglove, lily of the valley, milkweed, oleander, dogbane, lilies, tulips and irises can all be deadly.

“It really depends on the pet and their interest level,” plant expert Erin Marino told HuffPost Life in 2022. “And it’s important to note that the plant, or part of the plant, needs to be ingested to affect your pet. Simply being in the same room, perhaps on an out-of-reach shelf, can be totally fine.”

For in-home foliage, there’s plenty of options out there such as hanging plants, but you still have to watch for limbs growing down to a tempting level and the cleanup of fallen leaves. And cats present a different kind of challenge due to their insane ability to climb around our homes like an American Ninja Warrior contestant.

So just be diligent and keep in mind there are also plenty of popular plant options that are deemed safe alternatives, including camellias, daisies, sunflowers and roses.

THE NUMBERS:

ASPCA Poison Control: 888-426-4435

Pet Poison Hotline: 855-764-7661

Animal Poison Hotline: 888-232-8870

Jusuf Nurkić and feline friend.

Pumpkin, one of Portland Center Stage artistic director Marissa Wolf’s two cats.

Breakside brewmaster Ben Edmunds with Paco.

Hollywood Theatre head programmer Dan Halsted with Bela Karloff and Gus.

LUCKY CHARMS

Say what you will about downtown Portland. Thanks to one longtime resident of the central city, we are the champions—at least when it comes to making super-sized cocktails. Paddy’s, the oldest Irish bar in town, created the world’s largest Irish coffee on St. Patrick’s Day using ingredients from Kilbeggan Whiskey, Caffe Umbria and Alpenrose Dairy. The resulting mixture measured at a whopping 254 gallons, securing the pub’s place in the Guinness World Records. While the Irish coffee may have been the highlight, revelers enjoyed everything from an ice sculpture luge to a rogue bear donning a kilt.

Photos by Chris Nesseth On Instagram: @chrisnesseth

GET BUSY

LAUGH: Space Cats Peace Turtles

Ex-Portland heartthrob Hunter Donaldson (an alum of WW ’s Funniest Five) and Arkansas fatherhood icon Matt Martens are coming to town to record an episode of their podcast Space Cats Peace Turtles While normally a deep dive into the popular board game Twilight Imperium, the duo will instead take on the death-defying game of Live Comedy. Also performing are local standup favorites Steven Wilber, Aaron Harleman, Katie Nguyen and Jamie Carbone. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 503-583-8464, portland.heliumcomedy.com. 8 pm Wednesday, March 22. $20 general admission, $28 reserved. 21+.

GO: The Dolly Party: The Dolly Parton-Inspired Country Diva Dance Party

The Dolly Party is tailor-made for the modern-day working girl who’s a little bit country and a little bit rock and roll. Expect music from not only the titular Smoky Mountain Songbird, but also Tina Turner, Carrie Underwood, Reba McEntire, The Chicks, Loretta Lynn, Shania Twain, Whitney Houston, Kacey Musgraves, Donna Summer and more. Wrangle all of your country-diva dance queens for this one. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., 971-808-5094, revolutionhall.com. 9 pm Friday, March 24. $18. 21+.

WATCH: Sweet 16 Watch Party

The Sports Bra, billed as the first and

only bar that exclusively screens women’s sports, is entering its first full season of March Madness and hosting a watch party in partnership with…a car company? The collaboration may sound strange. After all, how many people do you know who automatically associate Buick with women’s college basketball? The auto manufacturer has launched a campaign to boost the visibility of female sports and chose Portland as the only location to hold its “See Her Greatness” NCAA event. In addition to the Sweet 16 games on the bar’s five TVs, you can expect appearances by yet-tobe-named women athletes, who are billed as “well known.” The Sports Bra, 2512 NE Broadway, 503-327-8401, thesportsbrapdx.com. 2-9 pm Friday and 11 am-6 pm Saturday, March 24-25.

GO: Frankenstein’s Comic Book Swap Unearthed!

Local entrepreneurs, collectors, crafters and lovable weirdos in general continue to find creative new ways to keep our beloved Lloyd Center alive. The latest popup event at the Northeast Portland mall is this comic book swap, which will actually include more than just comics. Collectors of classic toys, movies and more have also been invited to bring items from their personal stockpiles of pop culture. The trading takes place on both levels of the former H&M, just across from the ice rink. Lloyd Center, 1405 Lloyd Center, 503-2822511, lloydcenter.com. 11 am-6 pm Saturday, March 25. $5 for early bird admission

at 11 am, $1 for noon general admission. Free for kids and elders.

GO: Nuestra Arte Art Crawl

In observance of Women’s History Month, JUNTOSpdx is launching an art crawl showcasing the work of Portland Latinas. The route begins at Alberta Arts District gallery Walk In and continues to Mister OK’s Essentials, plant-based Mexican restaurant Chilango and Bar Cala. Along the way, you’ll be able to view stunning original art, make some of your own, and take plenty of snack breaks. Printed maps will be provided by JUNTOSpdx. Alberta Arts District, juntospdx.net. 2-7 pm Saturday, March 25.

EAT: Durant 50th Anniversary Dinner

One of Oregon’s older wineries—and the state’s only commercial olive mill—is celebrating a milestone: 50 years in business. Reaching the half-century mark deserves not just one event, but a whole series, and you can help kick things off with this anniversary dinner at Hotel Lucia. Chef Aaron Dionne will temporarily leave his post just a few blocks away at Bistro Alder to prepare the meal, which includes passed hors d’oeuvres, smoked tomato and braised green chickpeas in parsley-arbequina olive oil, pan-roasted squab and, fittingly, a Durant olive oil cake with caramelized rhubarb. Hotel Lucia, 400 SW Broadway, 503-225-1717, durantoregon.com. 7 pm Saturday, March 25. $135 per person.

LISTEN: Siren Songs | Seasons | Spring

Enjoy the angelic voices of critically acclaimed Americana folk duo Siren Songs, who will perform original music as well as genre classics with reimagined arrangements using a variety of instruments, including the banjo, guitar, viola and dulcimer. Two longtime best friends, Merideth Kaye Clark and Jenn Grinels, formed Siren Songs in late 2019 and, in just three short years, have made such a strong impression that one of their heroes, Dolly Parton (who might happen to know a little something about great music), has voiced her support for their work. The Old Church Concert Hall, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 503-2222031, theoldchurch.org. 7 pm Saturday, March 25. $30.

WATCH: In the Beginning

This short tells the story of a young man of color who struggles to return to society following his release from prison. While trying to begin a new life, he discovers that the world only sees him for his crime, not the rehabilitated individual he’s become. Some of the film’s actors, who’ve spent time behind bars in Oregon, will participate in a post-screening Q&A. Proceeds from ticket sales go to Open Hearts Open Minds, a nonprofit that supports individuals serving prison sentences through arts and dialogue. Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-4931128, hollywoodtheatre.org. 2 pm Sunday, March 26. $8-10.

THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE: You heard it here: Dayton winery and olive mill Durant celebrates 50 years with a multicourse dinner at Hotel Lucia.

Buzz List

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

1. MILK+T

Inside the Portland Food Hall, 827 SW 2nd Ave., milkandt.com. Noon-6 pm

Tuesday-Thursday, noon-8 pm Friday-Sunday.

MILK+T, pronounced “milk and tea,” is a Beaverton Asian- and women-run bubble tea bar that is making the leap across the West Hills by opening an outpost in downtown Portland. A pint-sized version of the suburban shop is part of the revival of the Portland Food Hall, which was slow to reopen following the pandemic lockdown. Despite MILK+T’s closet-sized space, it serves drinks with big flavors and premium ingredients, like the Classic (a black milk tea) and the adorably named Piglet (strawberry coconut milk).

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. MULTNOMAH WHISKEY LIBRARY

FOOD & DRINK

Honor Roll

Editor: Andi Prewitt

Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

1124 SW Alder St., 503-954-1382, mwlpdx.com. 4-10 pm

Tuesday-Thursday, 4-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

For the first time ever, this den of distilled spirits has invited outside industry professionals to create drinks for its menu. The break from tradition was prompted by Women’s History Month, which MWL is using to honor women and femmes who’ve worked to build a better bartending community. Seven female drink professionals have created original cocktails that will be available through the end of the month, and $1 from the sale of every guest beverage will be donated to the National Network of Abortion Funds, which works to remove financial and logistical barriers to abortion access.

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.

BY MICHAEL C. ZUSMAN

It does not take a doctorate to understand that neighborhood restaurants occupy a special niche in the dining world. They are the places we favor after the toughest days at work or when the weather is especially foul or if we need simple sustenance and prefer to stick close to home. These may not be the spots we tell our visiting foodie friends they must try on their whirlwind Portland eating spree, but they equally tend to be the ones we hold most dear for their engaging hospitality and perhaps a special menu item or two.

Scholar, on the southeast edge of Irvington, epitomizes the charming neighborhood spot. The décor whispers. Lights are low. One wall is brick, no doubt a relic of some past enterprise. The others are painted dark, reinforcing a sense of calm. There is no blaring music. Tables are well-spaced in both the bar area at the front of the restaurant and dining room in back. Altogether, Scholar seats around 50, so even when full, the noise level does not approach oppressive. Conversation is easy, the better to download the events of the day and share aspirations. Couples, friends and families filter in and out. I would be surprised if most had not arrived from within a short radius.

Of course, there are those like me who would drive a considerable distance for an order of Scholar’s Buffalo chicken livers ($13), which gloriously anchor the small plates section of the menu. These iron-rich, minerally gems are battered lightly and fried, creating a satisfying crunch. They are then judiciously doused with the alluring hot sauce-butter potion everyone understands as “Buffalo,” topped with a crumble of smoked blue cheese and a few slivers of celery, and served over a circle of creamy, perfectly cooked polenta. The Buffalo sauce has a definite kick to it; the polenta plays the foil, tempering the heat. This is just a wonderful plate of food, and I’m not sure it can be found anywhere else in town. My only gripe: A larger portion would make an excellent entree for two. Also, be warned that the livers are available Thursday to Sunday only.

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.

Pizza is featured every night. While it may lack the panache of pies at Portland’s pinnacle, these are solid renditions well worth ordering. They are thinnish with kisses of char, just the way us pizza mavens prefer. No one will mistake them for the pallid offerings from the frozen aisle of the grocery store or national chains.

There are five base pizza offerings ($15-$18): cheese, pepperoni, fresh mozz (with basil), white (with ricotta, Parm and herbs, but no sauce) and The Classic, which

includes sausage, green peppers and onions. Each pie is 12 inches, so enough for one hungry human or two who also order from elsewhere on the menu. For those who feel the need to embellish, there are a handful of additional toppings for $2 (vegetables) or $4 (meats) each. The pizzas are also available gluten-free for an extra $10. There are plenty of other items to order at Scholar.

5. LLOYD ATHLETIC CLUB

Scholar might just become your new favorite neighborhood haunt—even if you live across town.

CHRIS NESSETH

One of three salads (each $14) can serve as a healthy starter. I prefer the “Winter” ensemble with arugula, pickled fennel, beets and more topped with Gorgonzola and dressed with blood orange vinaigrette. Others might like the kale and radicchio Caesar or the “Rosa,” which adds pomegranate to gem lettuce and is dressed in a red wine vinaigrette.

Hot Plates

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. KAEDE

8268 SE 13th Ave., 503-327-8916, kaedepdx.com. 4:30-9 pm Wednesday-Sunday. Seating by online reservations only.

Kaede, a 16-seat “sushi bistro” in Sellwood, shifted recently from takeout service to dine-in and reservation only, making the bar the best place to be. It’s where you can sit with a cup of sake in hand and become entranced watching co-owner Shinji Uehara slice fish flown in from Tokyo and gently hand-mold the rice for nigiri. There’s no omakase meal here, but the nigiri premium will get you eight chef’s choice rice-and-fish delicacies. And keep an eye out for anything that’s rare in our neck of the woods, like the bright pink Japanese alfonsino fish we had during our visit.

2. PELICAN BREWING SILETZ BAY

5911 Highway 101, Lincoln City, 541-614-4216, 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 location launched Phil’s Nest Crab Boil Experience, an indoor-outdoor dining space that sells items for consumption on the premises 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 spring break).

3. BUMPER BURGER

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

Bumper Burger has declared war against price creep on America’s favorite sandwich. Founder-cook Mat Norton sells his quarter-pounders for truly jaw-dropping rates: $3.50 for the entry-level hamburger, $4 for one with a slice of gooey American cheese, and for the extra-hungry, there’s the $9.50 People’s Meal, which features the double-patty 50/50 Burger. No matter what sandwich you order, always get the made-fresh-daily pimento cheese. The pleasantly piquant spread adds velvetiness to every bite—and it costs only a dollar extra.

4. FOOLS AND HORSES

There is a pasta section on the menu, too. Pumpkin pesto ($22), a generously portioned vegetarian option of radiatore and Gouda with butternut squash, is the top choice. There is also beef Bolognese over pappardelle ($26), chicken or eggplant Parmesan ($25) or, for the picky eater at the table, simple spaghetti marinara ($20). As with the chicken livers, take note that pasta is not served on Wednesday.

Until the last of my three visits to Scholar, I might have been inclined to omit mention of dessert, which, while competent, was not memorable. That changed with the recent addition of butterscotch budino ($11) to the menu. It is creamy, rich and viscerally satisfying. If you have ever had this dessert at Nostrana over the years, I daresay Scholar’s is its equal.

Irvington neighbors are fortunate to welcome Scholar to their doorstep as a place to call their own. The rest of us can brave a longer trek and be thankful that nothing in Portland is all that far away.

EAT: Scholar, 2226 NE Broadway, 503-344-1507, scholarpdx.com. 5-9:30 pm Wednesday-Sunday (limited menu on Wednesdays).

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 gussied-up charcuterie board with slices of baguette, passion-fruit butter, manchego, pickled peppers, and pipikaula (house-cured dried beef rib jerky).

5. 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.

Hike of the Month: Baskett Butte Loop

Earn your wine by taking this 1.5-mile jaunt before you begin your day of tasting at the surrounding vineyards.

STORY AND PHOTOS BY ADAM SAWYER

If you find yourself needing a leg stretch while traveling around Willamette Valley Wine Country, look no further than the Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge, 14 miles west of Salem. Don’t be fooled by the kiosk just off Oregon Route 22 where most people stop, take a quick look, and drive away. There is far more to this protected area than just the viewing platform on the side of the highway.

Established in 1965 as part of the Willamette Valley NWR Complex, Baskett Slough provides habitat for a wide variety of wildlife and vegetation. Populations of several endangered and threatened animal and plant species can be found across the refuge, although the primary management goal is to provide wintering habitat for dusky Canada geese. As such, a number of trails are closed during the offseason to allow all of their homemaking to transpire unfettered. But even in the dead of winter, there’s some wonderful hiking to be had there, including the excellent 1.5-mile hike around Baskett Butte via the Rich Guadagno Memorial Loop Trail, which was named after a longtime U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service employee who died on United Airlines Flight

93 when it crashed outside of Shanksville, Pa., on Sept. 11, 2001.

From the trailhead, begin with a steady but inviting climb up a wide gravel path toward the summit of Baskett Butte. At a junction with an interpretive sign, stay right and continue toward a mixed coniferous forest that includes Oregon white oak. In spring, listen for the showy vocal gymnastics of migratory songbirds like the ruby-crowned kinglet and Bewick’s wren.

As the trail ascends, views of Mount Jefferson can be had off

to the east—weather permitting, of course. The path stays on the fringe of the tree line until it reaches an unmarked junction, just after a half-mile total of hiking. If you’re visiting the refuge between April 1 and Sept. 30 and you’d like more exercise, feel free to continue straight toward Morgan Lake and the Moffitt Marsh. For the winter version of this hike, make a left at the junction and head into the oaks.

The path winds and climbs through a very attractive native forest with a surprisingly lush understory. You’ll gain on the summit before bending around the west side of Baskett Butte and emerging into an open savanna. The trail descends to a saddle and a three-way junction. Continue straight and make the brief ascent to the Rich Guadagno Memorial Observation Platform. Here, take in a sweeping view of the wetlands that encompass the southern part of the refuge—and a few of those aforementioned wineries. It’s also a prime spot to catch thousands of migratory waterfowl in winter.

Walk back down to the previous junction and make a right. The path continues downward, meeting up with the original junction. Make a right here and walk the final 0.2 mile back to the trailhead. If you’ve worked up a thirst, the Left Coast Estate, Andante Vineyard and Van Duzer Vineyards have the slough surrounded.

Distance: 1.5-mile loop

Difficulty: ☀ out of ☀☀☀☀

Drive time from Portland: 1 hour, 10 minutes

Directions: Take Interstate 5 south for roughly 40 miles, taking exit 260-A for OR 99E. Continue 23 miles and take a right onto OR 22W. Drive 9.4 miles and take exit 16 for OR 99W. At the stop sign, take a left and drive 1.8 miles to Coville Road. Make a left onto gravel Coville Road and drive 1.4 miles to the trailhead parking area for the Rich Guadagno Memorial Loop Trail on the right.

Restroom availability: There are portable toilets at this trailhead.

Juice in Time

Juice Drum n Bass, one of the longest-running club nights devoted to electronic dance music, is celebrating its 18th anniversary at Holocene.

BY ROBERT HAM

Passion projects, no matter their size and scope, tend to survive due to an unquantifiable formula of luck and stubbornness.

Chemynne Perlingieri understands that better than most. The lone driving force behind Juice Drum n Bass, one of the longest-running club nights in the United States dedicated to the electronic dance music subgenre, she’s been flying her particular flag for close to two decades.

“It’s a case of having to consistently reinvent every single year,” she says, taking a rare break to catch her breath at Broken Robot Coffee. “I don’t think you can do that unless you are wholly dedicated to that item that you’re working on.”

Perlingieri’s flexibility and keen eye for the shifting tides within the drum-and-bass community has allowed Juice to survive a move from Bend to Portland in 2009 and pandemic lockdowns. She and her crew of regular DJs shifted to Twitch, the streaming service that began as a hub for gamers but became a lifeline for DJs unable to spin in public due to the coronavirus.

Juice tapped into the global community of drum-and-bass heads with thrice-weekly sets by Perlingieri, her husband, and a revolving cast of local and international selectors, which it is keeping up even today. The channel now boasts nearly 7,000 followers and provides a decent supplemental income stream that gets funneled back into in-person events.

On the gray afternoon when I meet up with Perlingieri, the next party is dominating her headspace. This coming Friday’s event at Holocene will celebrate 18 years of Juice Drum n Bass with an impressive lineup of heavy hitters in the scene.

Visiting from the United Kingdom are Artificial Intelligence, a duo that adds gorgeous washes of ambient sound beneath the genre’s signature double-quick beats, and BCee, a producer and DJ whose music has a harder edge to it and stops by as part of their first tour of the States. Rounding out the bill are Germany’s MC Fava, L.A.’s Reid Speed, and a pair of locals: MC Questionmark and Praderz.

Excited as she is about what’s on tap for this 18th anniversary party, Perlingieri can’t yet see past all the little details that need to be taken care of before Friday. That’s what comes from having shepherded Juice from its beginnings as a monthly gathering at The Grove, a bar in Bend, in 2005 to its online presence to its current home at Holocene.

WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

THURSDAY,

MARCH 23:

Nobody does melodrama like Natalie Mering, the singer-songwriter who records as Weyes Blood Her 2019 album Titanic Rising earned its titular reference to one of the great cinematic epics through its sheer scale and emotional heft, and on the sleeve of her new release In the Darkness, Hearts Aglow, her heart is literally shining through her chest. If you want to feel a lot, you could do worse than to see her at Crystal Ballroom. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St. 8 pm. $25. All ages.

SATURDAY, MARCH 25:

“There’s renting equipment that they don’t have,” she says. “We bring in big sound because we just don’t fuck around with that. That’s one of the biggest things that people that come to our shows will be very critical about. So we have two or three sound people. I bring in someone from lighting. It just piles up.”

The hard work Perlingieri and her team have put into every event and livestream that carries the Juice name has resulted in a jaw-dropping historical timeline. Their efforts have brought some major talent in the drum-and-bass world to Portland. Last year alone, Juice welcomed LTJ Bukem, a U.K. artist whose work leans heavily on the influence of jazz, for their 17th anniversary party, and Goldie, an iconic figure in electronic music whose 1995 album Timeless hit the U.K. Top 10 and who has collaborated with David Bowie and Noel Gallagher from Oasis.

The latter event was a particularly powerful one, Perlingieri remembers. Goldie arrived just a few days after the death of his father and, during his set, let his emotions pour out, jumping off the stage to hug members of the audience.

“Emotions were super high,” she says. “I remember at one point, once he stepped up onstage, I just sat down on the stairs and it was such a relief. I felt like, ‘OK, my work here is done. Now y’all have a good time.’”

Apart from those brief moments, Perlingieri doesn’t leave herself much time to rest when it comes to Juice and her boutique booking agency for drum-and-bass artists BassRoutes. She’s already cooking up the lineups for the next Juice events and continues working the phones for her various clients. She keeps so busy, in fact, that the reality of what she has achieved over the past 18 years hasn’t really sunk in.

“I think I have trouble sometimes seeing that accomplishments have been made and milestones have been met,” Perlingieri says. “I’m always striving to do more, to get better exposure, do bigger shows. Even at this milestone, there’s still a lot of people who haven’t heard about our night. I need to see it enough to appreciate the fact that I’ve taken this thing down the road quite a bit. But I guess I never get too comfortable there. And that way I’m always striving for more.”

SEE IT: Juice Drum n Bass plays Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 503-239-7639, holocene.org. 8:30 pm Friday, March 24. $20-$35. 21+.

In 2023, nobody does gnarly anti-capitalist prog like Algiers. Any music—gospel, soul, punk, heavy metal, hip hop, free jazz—is fair game in the Atlanta crew’s post-genre stew so long as it reflects a righteous and revolutionary spirit. Their new album Shook embodies this eclecticism by bringing aboard a list of fellow free spirits as guests, from rappers Big Rube and Billy Woods to avant-garde saxophone upstart Patrick Shiroishi. Show Bar at Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St #101. 8 pm. $15. 21+.

SUNDAY, MARCH 26:

MIKE is one of the most consistent, prolific, and creative rappers to come out of New York in the last decade. Delivering his heady and introspective lyrics in a voice that seems perpetually on the verge of breaking into peals of laughter, the 24-year-old has been on a remarkable tear since his early teens, releasing at least one album a year and continually experimenting with new variations on his lo-fi, impressionistic sound. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St. 8 pm. $20. All ages.

Curtains Up

CoHo, Third Rail and PETE have united to form the Cuomo Theatre Collaborative, named for the late Philip Cuomo. Will the partnership change Portland theater forever?

BY MAX TAPOGNA

“It’s a long, beautiful and heartbreaking story.” This is how Maureen Porter would characterize the formation of the Cuomo Theatre Collaborative, the latest addition to Portland’s vibrant but often hard-up theater scene.

The CTC comprises a triumvirate of Portland companies: CoHo Productions, Third Rail Repertory Theatre, and Portland Experimental Theatre Ensemble. The collaborative will be based at the CoHo Theatre on Northwest Raleigh Street and is currently in the process of purchasing the building.

The establishment of the CTC—and its eventual ownership of the property in Northwest—secures the future of the three theaters and predicts a wealth of new opportunities for Portland artists. Notably, the CTC cements the legacy of Philip Cuomo, CoHo’s longtime leader and a beloved actor, director and mentor to countless Portland theater artists, including members of Third Rail and PETE.

Cuomo died in late 2021 following a long battle with lymphoma. His passing left a hole in the heart of Portland’s theater community. “The CTC came from a shared desire to join together and complete Philip’s vision,” says Porter, the managing artistic director at Third Rail, who was married to Cuomo for 14 years.

As far back as 2018, Cuomo worked on a capital campaign to enable CoHo to purchase the building. Even as his health

worsened, Cuomo was adamant that CoHo would acquire the building.

“There was a point where we recognized that his illness was not going to be something we would be able to make it through,” Porter says. In June 2021, Cuomo was hospitalized after suffering a stroke. Without CoHo’s artistic director at the helm, support from the theater’s board of directors wavered. The sale stagnated, and for a moment it looked as if Cuomo’s vision would be left unfinished.

“ What happened next,” Porter says, “is this group of people— who coalesced around the care for this man and his vision—came together and talked about how to make it continue.”

Cuomo’s sisters, Michele Cuomo and Lisa Gabel, stepped in. Together, they created the Philip Cuomo Family Foundation to raise funds for the purchase of the building. Meanwhile, CoHo’s board was dissolved and a new one assembled. Last spring, the foundation bought the property for $2.5 million, a steal given the theater’s prime location in Portland’s trendy Slabtown neighborhood.

The CTC views itself as taking a stand against the rising tide of gentrification and the aftershocks of the pandemic, which has caused many performance spaces to close. Eventually, the foundation plans to transfer ownership of the building to the CTC. “This theater will serve all theater artists at any point in their path,” Michele Cuomo says.

For well over two decades, theater artists have found a home at CoHo, an “incubator” space that produces work based on artist submissions. Third Rail is home to some of Portland’s finest actors and offers a mentorship program for emerging artists (of which, full disclosure, I am a beneficiary). PETE, meanwhile, creates invigorating new works that defy genre and houses the Institute for Contemporary Performance, a yearlong training program.

While the three theaters have very different missions, they all operate on a similar scale. Ideally, the CTC will become more than a sum of its parts. “We are daring to do something different in choosing to believe in collaboration and community,” says Cristi Miles, a co-founder of PETE who calls herself a “forever student” of Cuomo’s. “It’s so much harder than running an individual organization.”

The CTC will not just realize Cuomo’s dream but expand on it. Currently, the team is working on a renovation of the building with Opsis Architecture—the firm that designed the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts in Beaverton.

Phil Johnson, CoHo’s program director, says the CTC wants to create space that is accessible to both artists and community members. The plans are still in early stages, but the renovation will likely include a studio space for rehearsals and the ICP program, as well as office space and a common area and cafe that would be open to the community.

Johnson says when he asks artists around town what they think Portland is missing, the answer is always the same: space. “What the city needs is a community of emerging artists that have access to resources. That’s a problem the CTC is here to fix,” Johnson says.

The CTC is currently fundraising for the renovation. The timeline for the project is several years—four at least—but when the renovation is finished, the result will hopefully be a boon to theater artists and audiences alike.

Ultimately, Jonson sees the CTC as an investment in community: “If you think about being an artist in this town, where do you go to be in community with other artists? Where is the theater epicenter of Portland? We believe that it will be here.”

THE SHOW MUST GO ON: Third Rail’s production of The Music Man

MOVIES

STREAMING WARS

YOUR WEEKLY FILM QUEUE

BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON @thobennett

HOLLYWOOD PICK:

Who Is Door Man?

A new cinema superhero is bringing some renegade spirit to the Academy Theater’s Revival Series.

BY CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER @chance_s_p

When the Academy Theater pivoted to screening first-run movies one year ago, the reasoning was clear. Standing nearly alone as a second-run movie house in Portland wasn’t financially feasible in an era of ubiquitous streaming and shrunken theatrical windows.

Yet the more pressing question owner Heyward Stewart heard from regulars wasn’t about the new movies; it was when the Academy would resume playing older films. The answer? Soon and more than ever.

Since last June, the Academy has reestablished and accelerated its revival programming, now playing two to four titles a week, on a twice-daily basis. This March, the slate ranged from The Matrix (1999) to Lady Bird (2017) to Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972), and the weeks ahead include both Shrek (2001) and The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972).

“The revival films are really part of our identity,” says Jon Pape, an Academy film programmer who goes by the moniker “Door Man” and has helped spearhead this new-old direction. Alongside blockbusters like Creed III and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, the Montavilla neighborhood landmark is doubling down on classic and cult fare, joining Portland indie theaters like Cinemagic, Clinton Street and Cinema 21 in increasing its repertory screenings since reopening from pandemic closures.

Door Man’s journey to co-programming the theater’s Revival Series, including an ongoing monthly horror series, mirrors his mission to screen “the cult movies of tomorrow.” For one, Pape’s nickname has its roots in sharing movie recommendations (he’s also a carpenter who installs doors).

As a Chicago teenager in the late 2000s, Pape frequented a Hyde Park apartment building that doubled as an arts scene hangout. There, the building’s talkative, influential doorman turned him on to movies like Blow Out (1981) and Prayer of the Rollerboys (1990).

Door Man later brought the nickname to Portland, where he studied music composition at Reed College and began working at the Academy in 2014. Fittingly enough, it was the theater’s screening of Mad Max (1979) that inspired him to seek employment, and he spent many of the interim years “inundating” the former programmers with his repertory wish lists and bolstering his film education partially by following Dan Halsted’s programming at the Hollywood Theatre.

After the pandemic hiatus resulted in near-total staff turnover

at the Academy, Pape, new general manager Hannah Miller and projectionist Chadwick Ferguson found themselves primed to start scheduling revival titles from their wheelhouses.

Currently, Miller has programmed a Studio Ghibli spotlight, Ferguson is spearheading a monthly international film series, and Door Man has spun his hardcore cinephilic tastes into a new series called Deep Cut, beginning March 24 with Two-Lane Blacktop (1971).

The post-Easy Rider highway odyssey stars singer-songwriter James Taylor and Beach Boy Dennis Wilson as street racers drifting across the country. Then, from April 21 to 27, Deep Cut continues with Sorcerer (1977), the vicious demolition derby quest directed by William Friedkin and scored by Tangerine Dream.

“As cool as Portland’s indie theater scene is, movies like TwoLane Blacktop and Sorcerer don’t get played, especially 14 times a week,” Door Man says. “When was the last time that ever happened for some of these movies?”

Before it’s even begun, Door Man hopes to delve deeper with his series. The May and June movies (TBA) won’t be the sort canonized in the Criterion Collection, he says.

Thus far, those Academy devotees once anxiously awaiting repertory titles’ return have shown up—sometimes in surprising ways. In the past year, relative curiosities like Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974) and the Italian proto-slasher Torso (1973) have outperformed standbys like The Goonies (1985).

Door Man attributes those “upsets” to younger Portland audiences eager to dive into film history and reshape canons in the process. If giallo can become a household term among movie fans and boutique Blu ray labels keep releasing loving restorations, new cults can swell.

“I’m trying to do a new generational approach to re-raking through the coals of [movies] from World War II to 2000,” Door Man says.

Having celebrated its 75th birthday on March 11, the Academy finds itself moving forward in part by searching the past.

“[Door Man] is pulling out movies frankly I’ve never even heard of,” Stewart says. “I like the direction. As people start to realize that we’re digging pretty deep, they’ll keep an eye on what’s coming up.”

SEE IT: Door Man’s Deep Cut series plays at the Academy Theater, 7818 SE Stark St., 503-252-0500, academytheaterpdx.com. Starts Friday, March 24, with Two-Lane Blacktop. $6-$9.

With John Wick: Chapter 4 speeding into movie theaters like Keanu Reeves at the wheel of a doorless Mustang, it’s time to catch up on the first three John Wick movies (2014-2019). They’re a guaranteed gas for fans of choreographed brutality and anyone who enjoys wrestling with how a film can be both exhilarating and repugnant.

When the first Wick was released, flops like 47 Ronin had tarnished Reeves’ appeal. Enter directors David Leitch and Chad Stahelski, who offered him an unlikely dose of career Rx: playing Wick, a retired assassin who returns to the New York underworld after a gangster murders his dog, a beagle puppy named Daisy.

Reeves, Leitch and Stahelski collaborated on the stunts in the Matrix films—and the action they concocted for Wick became almost as iconic as bullet time. To watch Reeves stalk his prey amid the blue light of a nightclub while Kaleida’s tantalizing “Think” plays on the soundtrack is to experience a cinematic high, buoyed by Leitch and Stahelski’s mastery of dreamy suspense.

After Leitch left the series, Stahelski pushed the carnage to crazed heights in John Wick: Chapter 2 and John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. It remains to be seen if Chapter 4 can top Parabellum’s climax, an eerie poem of blood and glass that pits Reeves against Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman, the impossibly agile stars of The Raid 2

Wick is as lethal as he is entertaining; Screen Rant calculated that he has killed 299 people over the course of the three films. Some are stabbed, but guns are Wick’s weapon of choice, from the diminutive (a Glock 26) to the hulking (a DTA Stealth Recon Scout).

Most action films involve firearms, but entire sequences rely on Wick shooting countless adversaries. And the slain don’t have a dead dog or Reeves’ stoic charisma to render them sympathetic, which underscores the unsettling point of the films: to use our built-in empathy for a movie star to make us essentially root for mass shootings.

I’m not starting a #CancelJohnWick campaign; a world without ethically dubious great art would be dull, and the supposed link between violence in movies and violence in life is still debated. Still, when nonstop onscreen gun deaths are normalized, moviegoers must ask the same question many ask Wick: All this for a dog? Peacock

LET’S ALL GO TO THE LOBBY: The Academy.

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

Hi, Mom! (1970)

In the earliest work of any storied filmmaker, you’ll likely glimpse the raw elements of masterpieces to come. But rarely are those nascent films so brazenly unrefined that the audience is treated to arguably greater extremes than what the later movies offer.

So it is with Brian De Palma’s iconoclastic Greenwich Village beginnings, especially Hi, Mom!, a satire of media obsession and radicalism-as-fashion. An eerily freshfaced Robert De Niro (still pre-Mean Streets) stars as an erotic filmmaker who peeps endlessly on his neighbors before planning his move in front of the camera.

Many of De Palma’s trademarks are present: the unabashed Hitchcock iterating (Rear Window in this case), the self-consciously voyeuristic camera, holding up the filmed image as the ultimate instrument of perverse arousal. But Hi, Mom! also toys with sitcom hyperbole, on-the-street journalism and bracingly committed satire wherein performance artists (many of them white) try to simulate “the Black experience” for unsuspecting New Yorkers.

It’s both a critique and a comedic experiment—to the point of near-gleeful disdain for reality. De Palma certainly gained skill, balance and the familiar comforts of genre in all his classics to come, but rarely got his Robert Downey Sr. freak on quite this way again. Hollywood, March 28.

ALSO PLAYING:

Academy: Shrek (2001), March 24-30. Cinema 21: The Sound of the Music (1965) sing-a-long, March 25 and 26. Some Like it Hot (1959), March 25. Cinemagic: Hard Boiled (1992), March 23. Rock & Rule (1983), March 24. Voyage of the Rock Aliens (1984), March 24 and 26. Phantom of the Paradise (1974), March 25 and 26. The Return of Captain Invincible (1983), March 25 and 26. The Apple (1980), March 26. Clinton: Wendy and Lucy (2008), March 24. The Beaches of Agnès (2008), March 27. Hollywood: Enter the Dragon (1973), March 24. Clueless (1995), March 25. The Watermelon Woman (1996), March 26.

SCREAM VI

Fans of Ari Aster and Robert Eggers tend to view the Scream movies as the Marvel films of the horror genre. They lack subversive messages, recycle storylines and characters and, often, mirror their box office success. Scream VI, however, just might be able to change those opinions. Speeding through a switchback road of finger pointing, red herrings and deception, the film will surprise and confuse even the most ardent Wes Craven fans until the final seconds. Writing duo James Vanderbilt (White House Down The Amazing Spider-Man Zodiac) and Guy Busick (Ready or Not Castle Rock Urge) reunite to flaunt their obvious passion for the horror genre and Craven’s satire-soaked franchise, proving that their new installments have the chops to stand the test of time. Laura Crane (Samara Weaving), a cinema professor at fictional Blackmore University, opens the film discussing her love for 20th century slashers and how the genre serves as a crystalline representation of broader social fears of the time. It’s overwhelmingly clear how that sentiment relates to Scream VI and its use of cellphone surveillance, fake news, and social media conspiracy theories as a driving force behind the plot throughout the film. The film’s relevance also manifests in Vanderbilt and Busick’s devious portrayal of the modern horror cinephile, satirizing the indie and elevated horror fans that will likely steer clear of this movie due to its capitalistic appeal. But there’s a fine line between tongue in cheek and a bitten tongue. Collectively, we’re witnessing horror films with Gen Z actors as leads for the first time, and the worlds they live (or die) in need to change with them. Still, dialogue about healthy coping mechanisms and trauma-informed care in the setting of a slasher film can’t help but stick out like a sore thumb. Scream VI will likely receive similar criticism to Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies, given that cringe zoomer internet culture is quite possibly the most fear-inducing motif. R. ALEX BARR. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Hilltop, Laurelhurst, Lloyd Center, Movies On TV, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Wilsonville.

MOVING ON

:

:

: THIS MOVIE IS ENTERTAINING BUT FLAWED.

: THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE.

On the heels of 80 for Brady, Jane Fonda embarks on another, far darker quest in Moving On. At an old friend’s outof-town funeral, Claire (Fonda) bluntly informs the widower (Malcolm McDowell) that she’s going to kill him…and he knows why. Alternating between conspirator and voice of reason, Fonda’s favorite screen partner, Lily Tomlin (9 to 5, Grace and Frankie), shines as Claire’s best friend in droll co-pilot fashion. And if the stars of Klute and A Clockwork Orange weren’t enough 1970s iconography, Richard Roundtree lends all the tender, still-gotit gravitas you’d want from octogenarian Shaft to his role as Claire’s ex-husband. Overall, Moving On ’s mission is as precarious as Claire’s. It foregrounds a heightened, ostensibly comedic premise but mostly seeks characters’ wistful realities within the exaggerated. And while major script contrivances link the murder threat’s ridiculousness to the unspoken insecurities of a failed marriage, Moving On does the splits more ambitiously than most American indies of this dramedy ilk. The lead cast’s combined 240 years of on-screen confidence smooth the tone shifts, and writer-director Paul Weitz (About a Boy, American Pie) smartly pins Claire’s revenge plot to inequities in memory and absolution that haunt our cultural conversations—essentially, who gets to “move on.” R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Living Room.

CHAMPIONS

There’s a fatal flaw linking

films like The Mighty Ducks, Hardball and The Way Back : They center on hard-drinking, hypercompetitive womanizers sentenced to reclaim their souls by nudging a ragtag bunch of disadvantaged kids toward victory, but show little understanding of sports, alcohol or poor fortune. Yet for all the flaws of Champions, Bobby Farrelly’s new contribution to the subgenre, the tale of a jobless coach (Woody Harrelson) forced on a squad of intellectually disabled teens displays a solid familiarity with booze and basketball— as well as simplified narratives. Even the Dumberest Farrelly brothers comedies evoke a disarming sense of life as actually lived, given their fascination with people and places rarely seen on screen, absolute overcommitment to prepubescent gags, and a sloppily haphazard filmic style echoing cinéma vérité. While the same holds true for Champions, Bobby’s solo directorial debut, what’s the point of applying this patina of the real to the flimsiest imaginable adaptation of a supposed true story when every plot complication is papered over by hackneyed sitcom high jinks? And, for that matter, isn’t grounding a film in Iowa City’s bleak midwinter antithetical to a feel-good movie? Too foulmouthed for family viewing, too saccharine for the Farrellys’ usual fan base, and too shallow to let the measured relationship between Harrelson and team chauffeur Kaitlin Olson (deepening her weathered party girl protagonist from The Mick) take center stage, the film may well have been someone’s community service. Watching it, alas, feels much the same. PG-13. JAY HOR-

TON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Progress Ridge, Studio One.

THE QUIET GIRL

This year’s Best International Feature category at the Oscars brimmed 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. Bridgeport, Living Room.

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

THIS MOVIE IS GOOD. WE RECOMMEND YOU WATCH IT.

by Jack Kent

JONESIN’

BY MATT JONES

ARIES (March 21-April 19): If we were to choose one person to illustrate the symbolic power of astrology, it might be Aries financier and investment banker J. P. Morgan (1837–1913). His astrological chart strongly suggested he would be one of the richest people of his era. The sun, Mercury, Pluto, and Venus were in Aries in his astrological house of finances. Those four heavenly bodies were trine to Jupiter and Mars in Leo in the house of work. Further, sun, Mercury, Pluto, and Venus formed a virtuoso "Finger of God" aspect with Saturn in Scorpio and the moon in Virgo. Anyway, Aries, the financial omens for you right now aren't as favorable as they always were for J. P. Morgan—but they are pretty auspicious. Venus, Uranus, and the north node of the moon are in your house of finances, to be joined for a bit by the moon itself in the coming days. My advice: Trust your intuition about money. Seek inspiration about your finances.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): "The only thing new in the world," said former US President Harry Truman, "is the history you don't know." Luckily for all of us, researchers have been growing increasingly skilled in unearthing buried stories. Three examples: 1. Before the US Civil War, six Black Americans escaped slavery and became millionaires. (Check out the book *Black Fortunes* by Shomari Wills.) 2. Over 10,000 women secretly worked as code-breakers in World War II, shortening the war and saving many lives. 3. Four Black women mathematicians played a major role in NASA's early efforts to launch people into space. Dear Taurus, I invite you to enjoy this kind of work in the coming weeks. It's an excellent time to dig up the history you don't know—about yourself, your family, and the important figures in your life.

ACROSS

1. Pastime

6. Ballpoint brand

9. "His 'n' ___" (1994 Pulp album)

13. Sci-fi character with a Swahili last name

14. In a lazy manner

16. Roasting appliance

17. "Shameless" TV star who has never won the award she shares her name with (or even been nominated)

19. Volcanic outflow

20. ___! at the Disco

21. Neighbor of Peru

23. "Thor: Ragnarok" role

25. Immovable pileup

27. Rocky Mountains grazer

28. "Ode to Joy" symphony

30. Raptors, on a scoreboard

31. Exterminator's targets

33. Sculptures and such

34. Puts on a show

36. ___ Nas X

37. Novelist featuring Navajo detectives who never won the award he shares a name with (or wrote a play)

42. Source of milk for Roquefort cheese

43. Actress Skye of "La Brea"

44. "Blargh!"

46. Architect who lived to be 102

49. Freelancer's bill (abbr.)

50. Veer off course

52. "Pass"

53. Pro taking part in amateur events

56. October's gemstone

57. Area of Manhattan near Soho

59. Moving news channel feature

61. Indie rock band ___ Kiley

62. "Star Wars" film series actor who has never won the award he shares his name with (or even been nominated)

66. Scandinavian capital

67. Spotless

68. Ronstadt of songdom

69. "America ___" (John Michael Higgins game show)

70. "Ghosts" network

71. Bad guy's look

DOWN

1. Palette selection

2. Resistance unit

3. Meet unexpectedly

4. Lane ___ (clothing chain)

5. Knitter's purchase

6. Italian almond cookies

7. Check-in requirements, maybe

8. Hasbro kids' game with no mention of weapons (unlike the adult version)

9. Greeting on Univision

10. Gets away from

11. Nauseate

12. Makes snide comments

15. Dance that always gets some letters

18. Dashboard gauge

22. Experts on diamonds?

23. "... sat ___ tuffet"

24. Unflattering gossip

26. Ryan of "La La Land"

©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.

29. Out of kilter

32. Sturdy tree

35. "Evita" narrator

36. "Dancing with the Stars" judge Goodman

38. "Born," in some announcements

39. With "The," 1983 song for The Cure where "We move like cagey tigers"

40. Movie with the bit "... and don't call me Shirley"

41. Bracketology org.

45. Former Senate Minority Whip Jon

46. Opening lines

47. Actress Tomei

48. Cheesesteak capital

49. "Soon, OK?"

51. Brings to port

54. Smartphone screen image

55. Movie with the song "Naatu Naatu"

58. Heckler's chorus

60. Feels a bit off

63. Called-upon transport

64. Lemon additive?

65. Word before pool or wash

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Since you're at the height of the Party Hearty Season, I'll offer two bits of advice about how to collect the greatest benefits. First, ex-basketball star Dennis Rodman says that mental preparation is the key to effective partying. He suggests we visualize the pleasurable events we want to experience. We should meditate on how much alcohol and drugs we will imbibe, how uninhibited we'll allow ourselves to be, and how close we can get to vomiting from intoxication without actually vomiting. But wait! Here's an alternative approach to partying, adapted from Sufi poet Rumi: "The golden hour has secrets to reveal. Be alert for merriment. Be greedy for glee. With your antic companions, explore the frontiers of conviviality. Go in quest of jubilation’s mysterious blessings. Be bold. Revere revelry."

CANCER (June 21-July 22): If you have been holding yourself back or keeping your expectations low, please STOP! According to my analysis, you have a mandate to unleash your full glory and your highest competence. I invite you to choose as your motto whichever of the following inspires you most: raise the bar, up your game, boost your standards, pump up the volume, vault to a higher octave, climb to the next rung on the ladder, make the quantum leap, and put your ass and assets on the line.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): According to an ad I saw for a luxury automobile, you should enjoy the following adventures in the course of your lifetime: Ride the rapids on the Snake River in Idaho, stand on the Great Wall of China, see an opera at La Scala in Milan, watch the sun rise over the ruins of Machu Picchu, go paragliding over Japan’s Asagiri highland plateau with Mount Fuji in view, and visit the pink flamingos, black bulls, and white horses in France's Camargue Nature Reserve. The coming weeks would be a favorable time for you to seek experiences like those, Leo. If that's not possible, do the next best things. Like what? Get your mind blown and your heart thrilled closer to home by a holy sanctuary, natural wonder, marvelous work of art—or all the above.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): It’s an excellent time to shed the dull, draining parts of your life story. I urge you to bid a crisp goodbye to your burdensome memories. If there are pesky ghosts

hanging around from the ancient past, buy them a one-way ticket to a place far away from you. It's OK to feel poignant. OK to entertain any sadness and regret that well up within you. Allowing yourself to fully experience these feelings will help you be as bold and decisive as you need to be to graduate from the old days and old ways.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Your higher self has authorized you to become impatient with the evolution of togetherness. You have God's permission to feel a modicum of dissatisfaction with your collaborative ventures—and wish they might be richer and more captivating than they are now. Here's the cosmic plan: This creative irritation will motivate you to implement enhancements. You will take imaginative action to boost the energy and synergy of your alliances. Hungry for more engaging intimacy, you will do what’s required to foster greater closeness and mutual empathy.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Scorpio poet Richard Jackson writes, "The world is a nest of absences. Every once in a while, someone comes along to fill the gaps." I will add a crucial caveat to his statement: No one person can fill *all* the gaps. At best, a beloved ally may fill one or two. It's just not possible for anyone to be a shining savior who fixes every single absence. If we delusionally believe there is such a hero, we will distort or miss the partial grace they can actually provide. So here's my advice, Scorpio: Celebrate and reward a redeemer who has the power to fill one or two of your gaps.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Poet E. E. Cummings wrote, "May my mind stroll about hungry and fearless and thirsty and supple." That's what I hope and predict for you during the next three weeks. The astrological omens suggest you will be at the height of your powers of playful exploration. Several long-term rhythms are converging to make you extra flexible and resilient and creative as you seek the resources and influences that your soul delights in. Here’s your secret code phrase: *higher love*.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Let's hypothesize that there are two ways to further your relaxation: either in healthy or not-so-healthy ways—by seeking experiences that promote your long-term well-being or by indulging in temporary fixes that sap your vitality. I will ask you to meditate on this question. Then I will encourage you to spend the next three weeks avoiding and shedding any relaxation strategies that diminish you as you focus on and celebrate the relaxation methods that uplift, inspire, and motivate you.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Please don't expect people to guess what you need. Don't assume they have telepathic powers that enable them to tune in to your thoughts and feelings. Instead, be specific and straightforward as you precisely name your desires. For example, say or write to an intense ally, "I want to explore ticklish areas with you between 7 and 9 on Friday night." Or approach a person with whom you need to forge a compromise and spell out the circumstances under which you will feel most open-minded and open-hearted. PS: Don't you dare hide your truth or lie about what you consider meaningful.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Piscean writer Jack Kerouac feared he had meager power to capture the wonderful things that came his way. He compared his frustration with “finding a river of gold when I haven’t even got a cup to save a cupful. All I’ve got is a thimble.” Most of us have felt that way. That’s the bad news. The good news, Pisces, is that in the coming weeks, you will have extra skill at gathering in the goodness and blessings flowing in your vicinity. I suspect you will have the equivalent of three buckets to collect the liquid gold.

Homework: Name one thing about your life you can’t change and one thing you can change. Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

"Sorry, Not a Winner"--it's a major award.