Willamette Week, July 12, 2023 - Volume 49, Issue 35 - "Greetings From Portland"

NEWS: Why the Ambulances Are Late. P. 10

FOOD: A Saltwater Star Is Born. P. 20

MUSIC: The Sounds of Microfilm. P. 22

National reporters are flying here to rubberneck. Can they tell us what went wrong? Page 13

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 49, ISSUE 35

City officials swapped a Troutdale pig farm for a former nurses’ dormitory. 9

The private equity company that inspired Barbarians at the Gate now owns Portland’s ambulances. 10

One of Nick Fish’s last speeches was about the Columbia Pool. 12

Cops have shepherded The New York Times through downtown Portland three times in recent years. 14

A homeless hairdresser who went viral then went into detox in Utah 15

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark is glad she moved to Portland. 18

Chef Vitaly Paley is living out his retirement on the Big Island of Hawaii. 19

This weekend, dogs can compete in a wet T-shirt race and howling contest at the Basset Hound Games. 19

Not a single pinot noir will be poured at the Alt Wine Fest. 19

Portland’s newest seafood restaurant, Câche Câche, is named after the French term for hide-and-seek. 21

Portland duo Microfilm recorded a six-minute, beatless, astrally drifting cover of Elton John’s “Rocket Man.” 22

Ninety-nine-year-old saxophonist Marshall Allen is one of the oldest working musicians in the world. 22

As Batman, Adam West originated a dance move called the Batusi 23

Floating World Comics is moving to Lloyd Center. 24

WW kicked off last week’s Pride coverage with profiles of people bucking the recent demographic trend and moving to Portland because it offers asylum from states with anti-LGBTQ policies (“They Arrived,” July 5). About 4 in 10 transgender people say they’ve considered moving to avoid oppressive policies. WW spoke to five families who packed their things and headed for Portland. Here’s what our readers had to say:

@PEARWALDORF, VIA TWITTER: “I saw the headline and started crying. I’m so proud of my hometown. It has lots and lots of issues, but its heart is in the right place on this.”

TENEHEMIA, VIA REDDIT: “Has been for quite a while, it’s just that the threat that drove people here wasn’t nearly so visible to people outside the community. I know a ton of trans folks, and almost all of them came here from elsewhere. Mostly from places like Montana, Idaho, rural California, etc. This city has been known to be one of the safest and most accepting places for trans people for 20 years or more. People fleeing places like Florida and Tennessee might have more claim to the ‘gender refugee’ label than someone who left Montana for Portland a decade ago, but only because people are going out of their way to see this as a new phenomenon.”

J, VIA TWITTER: “I think it’s important to point out that what they call ‘war on LGBT people’ usually means things like skepticism about medical transition of minors, concern for women’s sports, etc. So there’s a lot of framing going on here. Still, self-sorting may be inevitable at this point.”

ANITA BATH, VIA WWEEK. COM: “Weird that an article filled with robust data chose to gloss over any effort to quantify

Dr. Know

how many people actually have moved here. Feels disingenuous, like it’s either an agenda-based article meant to promote an idea that doesn’t exist in fact or it’s done as clickbait. The stories are real and, I suppose, have a place to be told, but using their story to revise the current state of things doesn’t feel honest.”

MICHAEL DELUCA, VIA EMAIL: “Thank you for the great article and telling these stories. It’s heartening to know we are evolving from a state founded in discrimination and exclusion to a beacon for a little understood and vilified people.”

LEGACY OF THE ORGAN GRINDER

to Corvallis for college in 1987.)

When I learned that it was closing in 1996, we drove 100 miles through a snowstorm just to see it one more time.

Today, I’m a videographer, web/app developer, and amateur musician. (Keyboards and pipe organ, of course! The Organ Grinder was so influential.) I’ve tinkered for years with creating my own custom digital organ, and I’ve even taken it to Burning Man, doing live performances in the desert. (Photo of the current incarnation of the never-finished instrument attached—yes, that’s me with the hair.)

Bob Richardson Portland

MAY WE NEVER HAVE TO DO REAL WORK

Good to know that you, alongside other WW staffers, don’t have to conduct actual journalism and that you can just get paid for being Big Pharma’s mouthpiece [Murmurs: “Portland Podcaster Teams Up With RFK Jr.,” July 5].

It would break my heart to think your job might require ethics, bucking the system, or critical thinking beyond the false “us vs. them” or “wokeist” paradigms that Portland slavishly echoes.

Thank you for writing the piece about the Organ Grinder building, and for including the full history and the comments from Mr. Hedberg [“Organ Donor,” WW, June 21; Dialogue: “Chasing Ghosts Leads to Monkey Business,” WW, June 28]. So many of my best childhood memories are associated with that place (I was 4 years old when it opened, and our family attended regularly until I moved

May you never have to do real work with that programmable piece of fat between your ears. We all know how uncomfortable it is when we don’t properly entertain our puppet masters.

Kevi Keenom Southeast Portland

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words. Submit to: P.O. Box 10770, Portland, OR 97296 Email: mzusman@wweek.com

tortion attacks—where the attacker not only threatens to publicize your data, but locks the system so you can’t access it yourself—many victims find it easier and cheaper to just pony up.

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

The group behind the Oregon DMV hack said if they didn’t get ransom payments from the hacked entities, they’d give all the stolen data to the dark web. So, did the governor pay the ransom? Or did she just willingly give up our personal data to the dark web? —Michael X

If this were a movie, right about here is where we’d get a speech about not negotiating with terrorists. It only emboldens future attackers, y’know. And anyway, surely no duly elected government of the people would stoop to being held hostage by a bunch of Cheeto-flecked randos in Novosibirsk. Millions for cyberdefense but not one penny for cybertribute! (And stop calling me Shirley.)

In the real world, however—where most people’s idea of cyberdefense is changing their password from “password” to “password1”—stooping is all the rage. One widely publicized study estimated that fully half of the world’s state and local governments paid data ransoms in 2021. With the rise of so-called double-ex-

Unfortunately, paying ransom only encourages further attacks, which is why states like North Carolina and Pennsylvania are moving to ban it: If hackers know potential victims are legally forbidden to pay, the theory goes, they’ll go elsewhere. (Or, you know, perhaps they’ll just pay and not tell anybody.)

As far as anyone knows, Oregon officials never considered paying the progenitors of last month’s hack. It didn’t hurt that this wasn’t a double-extortion attack; the DMV had and continues to have full access to the compromised data. Also, the hacking group (they call themselves “CL0P”) wasn’t targeting ODOT specifically: The breach was part of a larger operation affecting dozens of entities, including Louisiana’s Office of Motor Vehicles, the BBC, the provincial government of Nova Scotia, and British Airways.

In fact, according to CL0P themselves, they never had any interest in Oregon drivers’ personal info.

According to their page on the dark web, “If you are a government, city or police service do not worry, we erased all your data. You do not need to contact us. We have no interest to expose such information.” Can we trust them? I dunno. But it doesn’t seem like sending money will do much good either way.

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

LABOR INTERESTS EYE PORTLAND CITY

COUNCIL: The Oregon Labor Candidate School will host a one-day training session for Portland City Council hopefuls this fall in anticipation of the 2024 election cycle, which will determine who serves on the regionally elected 12-member council seated in 2025 under the city’s new form of government. The nonprofit is just one of several groups that aims to recruit and train candidates. Two-time mayoral challenger Sarah Iannarone plans to lead left-leaning candidates through a two-week training academy in September once the boundaries of the four voting districts have been established, and a politically centrist group backed by business interests, and likely the Portland Metro Chamber (formerly the Portland Business Alliance), is expected to put forward its own candidates. That means voters in each district could choose among leftist, labor and law-and-order tickets. Meanwhile, the names of prospective City Council candidates are swirling. Rumored hopefuls include Eric Zimmerman, a former mayoral staffer and now chief of staff to Multnomah County Commissioner Julia Brim-Edwards; onetime Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith; Verde executive director Candace Avalos; and former Multnomah County Sheriff Mike Reese.

PROJECT TURNKEY COMPLETES SECOND

ROUND: The Oregon Community Foundation announced July 10 it had completed the second round of helping nonprofits buy up cheap hotels around the state to use as shelters and transitional housing. State Rep. Pam Marsh (D-Ashland) was among those who pioneered the program in 2020, after devastating fires left thousands homeless in her district. In order to move quickly, lawmakers appropriated money to OCF, which since then has worked with nonprofits across the state to acquire 32 properties that added 1,384 units at a total cost of $125 million. That’s $90,000 per door, or less than a quarter of what the Portland Housing Bureau and other local agencies routinely pay for affordable housing projects, which can also take years to complete. “This achievement demonstrates what’s possible when the state and private partners work together to solve urgent needs in our communities,” Gov. Tina Kotek said. “It’s tremendously satisfying and thrilling, and I’m so grateful we were given the chance to do it,” says Marsh, who adds that the state needs to continue to look for innovative ways to produce more housing quickly.

ETHICS COMMISSION WILL PRESENT FAGAN

FINDINGS: The Oregon Government Ethics

Commission will present findings at its July 14 meeting of its preliminary investigation into former Secretary of State Shemia Fagan and her consulting contract with the co-founders of cannabis company La Mota, who were also prominent contributors to Fagan’s campaign. The commission will then decide whether the preliminary findings warrant a full investigation by the body.

The ethics commission launched its investigation April 28, just one day after WW reported on the contract, after it received two citizen complaints.

(Gov. Tina Kotek also asked for an investigation.) Fagan resigned four days later, on May 2. Two other investigations remain ongoing: one by the Oregon Department of Justice into an audit overseen by Fagan of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission that was tailored to La Mota’s interests, and an ongoing criminal investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. Last month, the Oregon DOJ asked the feds to narrow the scope of their subpoenas.

REPORT RECOMMENDS POLICE BUREAU ADDRESS “PRETEXT” STOPS: The Portland Police Bureau’s Strategic Services Division is recommending the bureau address traffic stops that don’t result in a citation or arrest, noting they “can undermine the sense of procedural justice.” The recommendation comes out of the division’s latest annual report analyzing traffic stop demographics, which it found largely reflected demographics of crime victims and traffic injuries. (With one exception: Pacific Islanders and Native Hawaiians were overrepresented in stops by traffic cops.) Still, it notes, Black drivers were “significantly more likely” to be stopped for non-moving violations, such as a missing license plate, than white drivers. And the division noted that many of these stops resulted in no enforcement action, such as an arrest or citation. Traffic stops aren’t an efficient way to stop crime, and can lead to cases of mistaken identity or the pursuit of false leads, it says. “The Bureau should consider providing guidance to reduce the number of stops that end without an enforcement action,” the report says. In 2021, Chief Chuck Lovell directed Portland cops to reduce enforcement of “non-moving” violations, an effort codified by the Oregon Legislature in a law limiting the practice last year. In happier news, 2022 was the first year that the bureau found no significant racial differences in the drivers it asked to search.

“Historically, Bureau personnel have disparately searched Black/African American drivers; however, this is the second straight year that the search rate for this group has moved closer to the overall search rate of White drivers,” it notes.

MIKE REESE, AT RIGHT

DO YOU SUPPORT DISTRIBUTING FOIL TO FENTANYL SMOKERS?

In the hours before a reversal, we asked Multnomah County officials to take a position.

BY LUCAS MANFIELD lmanfield@wweek.com

It took only 75 hours for Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson to order the county to reverse course after WW reported Friday that health officials were set to begin distributing tinfoil and straws to fentanyl smokers.

“Our health department went forward with this proposal without proper implementation protocols,” she told WW on July 10.

It’s still not clear when Pederson learned of the initiative. The county’s top public health official, Jessica Guernsey, briefed the board in May on plans to distribute “smoking supplies,” in an effort to convince drug users to switch to a safer method of consuming opioids like heroin and fentanyl. At the center of the county’s strategy was the hope that drawing fentanyl users in the door with free straws and foil could start relationships that would lead to those clients seeking drug treatment.

But after WW reported July 7 that the supplies included the tinfoil and straws already

Grudge Match

As an unusually substantial recall effort gathers steam, allegations and countercharges fly.

Over the past decade, peevish Oregonians have announced more than 100 recall efforts of various elected officials. Nearly all of them have failed because they lack the three things that United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555 brings to its pending attempt to recall state Rep. Paul Holvey (D-Eugene): organization, money and focus.

A union carpenter appointed to the House in 2004, Holvey built a reputation as a strong labor vote—including as a chief sponsor in 2017 of the nation’s first statewide workplace scheduling bill. UFCW called that bill “a huge step in the

dotting downtown Portland’s streets, the backlash was swift. Detractors argued the money would be better spent expanding scarce treatment options.

Still, other organizations have found success with this model.

Nonprofit Outside In has seen an 87% increase in monthly client visits since last October, when it began distributing smoking supplies, including tinfoil and straws, its drug users health services program supervisor, Haven Wheelock, tells WW. And it’s not reliant on county funds. The nonprofit is buying tinfoil with money from Measure 110, the law that promised to expand addiction treatment services in exchange for decriminalizing possession of small amounts of fentanyl in 2020.

On Friday, WW asked all five members of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners whether they supported the new initiative. Here are their responses, edited for brevity:

COMMISSIONER JULIA BRIM-EDWARDS

right direction for hourly workers.”

But last week, UFCW, Oregon’s largest private sector union, with 30,000 members, turned in 6,600 signatures aimed at ejecting the longest-serving House Democrat. It needs 4,600 of those to be valid for a recall election. Officials at the Oregon Secretary of State’s Office will begin validating signatures July 17.

UFCW lobbyist Mike Selvaggio says Holvey has turned his back on unions. “He’s put up hurdles on labor bills that have not been there for business bills,” Selvaggio says. “He’s been there for nearly 20 years and, after a certain amount of time, I think you start taking things for granted.”

Holvey can’t quite believe a group that has supported his career—and presented him with a plaque of appreciation that sits in his Salem office—is now trying to end it.

“It’s disingenuous and beyond the pale,” Holvey says. “It all seems a little bit dark to me.” He wonders if Selvaggio screwed up UFCW’s priority bill and is trying to shift the blame.

“Is it Mike Selvaggio’s ego that he didn’t like it being pointed out his proposal was a hot mess legally and didn’t want to lose face?”

Unions drive Oregon Democratic politics.

The fissure isn’t just between Holvey and UFCW—it’s also between UFCW and Service Employees International Union and the Oregon Education Association, both of which support Holvey. That’s a threat to the unity that has made labor strong.

All of this requires a little explanation. Here

Access to treatment is the best long-term harm reduction strategy for substance use, and Narcan and test strips being widely available are effective mechanisms to reduce overdose deaths. I support both of those strategies. As it relates to distributing foil and straws to enable fentanyl use, there is no compelling evidence that it is comparable to safe needle exchanges or that the county currently has capacity to connect individuals to treatment who want it. For that reason, I am asking the health department to delay implementation of this aspect of the program.

COMMISSIONER SUSHEELA JAYAPAL

I’m generally very supportive of harm reduction strategies: These strategies are backed by expert opinion and research as a way of preventing overdose and other health risks associated with substance use, and of connecting people with the services they need in order to recover from their addiction. I understand that it seems counterintuitive to provide supplies, such as clean needles or smoking supplies, when we have a drug crisis on our streets—but it’s vital that we employ a research-based public health approach to dealing with this crisis, not a politicized or punitive approach. That said, I do have some questions about the intent to begin distributing smoking supplies: As soon as I learned about it, I requested a further briefing from the public health department, and look forward to their response to my follow-up questions.

COMMISSIONER SHARON MEIERAN

As an ER doctor, I’ve seen people die from overdose, require replaced heart valves for infections, and lose limbs from “flesh-eating”

are several claims being made and the rebuttals each side offers:

UFCW’s claim: The union went ballistic at the failure of its top 2023 legislative priority, House Bill 3183, which would have facilitated organizing cannabis workers. “When Rep. Holvey was asked to slash public employee pensions, first in 2013 and again in 2019, he couldn’t wait to ignore Legislative Counsel’s guidance and land the state in the Supreme Court,” UFCW president Dan Clay says. “Now with workers’ rights on the line, he’s suddenly overly cautious about a policy that has been successfully implemented in several other states?”

Holvey’s response: As chair of House Business and Labor Committee, Holvey cited a Legislative Counsel opinion—two of them actually— that said the language UFCW wanted in the bill would likely be preempted by federal law. He says HB 3183 wasn’t ready for prime time and the union was slow to fix the shortcomings he pointed out. “We shouldn’t pass bills that aren’t legal,” Holvey says. “To me, you either amend the bill and fix it or change your concept to make it legal.”

The ethics complaint: In mid-June, Holvey filed complaints against Selvaggio, UFCW’s lobbyist, with the Oregon Government Ethics Commission, alleging that by filing the recall on May 22, when both the session and HB 3183 were still alive, UFCW violated state law prohibiting lobbyists from attempting to influence

bacteria. In a functioning addiction prevention and response system, harm reduction is an important temporizing measure to prevent death and other major injury for people using drugs, with the ultimate goal to get them connected to treatment.

But not all harm reduction is created equal. Narcan distribution and syringe exchange have been proven to save lives. Distribution of safe smoking kits is done in a number of places, but it’s not clear what harm is prevented, if any. And in a system where we hold board briefings rather than take action, the idea of handing out foil and straws, essentially while Rome is burning, is ludicrous.

We do not need more briefings as people continue to literally drop dead on our streets from fentanyl overdose. It’s time to declare the fentanyl crisis a public health emergency and take action.

CHAIR JESSICA VEGA PEDERSON

Our health department went forward with this proposal without proper implementation protocols, and in that light, I am suspending the program pending further analysis. My focus has been on saving lives. We’ve seen overdose deaths from fentanyl increase eightfold since 2019, from 26 deaths to 209 deaths in 2022. I’m interested in connecting people with lifesaving materials like naloxone because we’ve seen a significant decrease in the number of people utilizing our harm reduction resources as fentanyl use became more prevalent. We must connect people to services and continue communicating to those struggling with addiction that your life is worth saving.

Commissioner Lori Stegmann did not respond to WW’s question.

a lawmaker’s vote by threatening action at a future election.

Selvaggio’s response: Holvey’s complaint is bogus. “That’s an absurd claim that is not supported by the facts, and an attempt by Rep. Holvey to divert attention away from his record and conduct,” Selvaggio says. “By the time the recall was filed, not only had the bill been publicly declared dead, but the bill was out of his committee, rendering his vote immaterial.”

Signature-gathering questions: UFCW created a political action committee to gather the signatures necessary to put the recall question to voters. It has since paid $106,000 to Osprey Field Services LLC to gather those signatures. The issue: Records show Selvaggio founded a company called Osprey Field Services LLC in 2018. That company dissolved in 2020, the same year Selvaggio’s former employee, Joseph Emmons, founded a company with an identical name. “Seems like self-dealing to me,” Holvey says.

Selvaggio’s response: The UFCW lobbyist calls insinuations that he stands to benefit from the recall “disgusting.” Selvaggio’s relationship with Emmons and Osprey is totally arm’s length, he says, and he gets no compensation of any kind from Emmons or Osprey. “I started Osprey but have since divested myself of any and all financial interest,” he says. “Full stop.” UFCW president Clay says he’s satisfied there’s nothing amiss. NIGEL JAQUISS.

BOTHSIDEISM

Lights Out

After nearly five years, a Pennsylvania company gives up on plans to open a new rehab hospital in Oregon.

SUBJECT: Post Acute Medical Withdrawal of Application for Certificate of Need

FROM: Arden J. Olson, attorney for Post Acute Medical

TO: Oregon Health Authority

DATE: July 5, 2023

Last week, Post Acute Medical LLC, which operates 41 post-hospitalization rehabilitation facilities in 22 states, pulled the plug on its nearly five-year effort to open a new, 50-bed rehab center in Tigard.

Post Acute Medical, along with another rehab provider, Encompass Health, had hoped to fill what it saw as a gaping need: Oregon ranks second to last in the nation in rehab beds, which serve patients who have suffered strokes, heart attacks, brain injuries and other traumatic incidents.

In order to open in Oregon, the newcomers had to obtain a “certificate of need” from the Oregon Health Authority, effectively a finding that there was demand for the new services.

Over the objections of Legacy Health, the state’s biggest existing rehab provider, and the Oregon Health Care Association, which represents nursing homes that also provide rehabilitation services, the state granted both applications. Legacy and the OHCA appealed, and the matter is currently awaiting action in the Oregon Court of Appeals. But on PAM, at least, the opponents won.

“The dogged self-interest of PAM’s opponents (who sought delay at every turn and plainly have no concern about the patients who would benefit from PAM’s ser-

vices) shows no signs of abating, and the Oregon appellate courts promise to give those opponents years of further delay at the very best,” wrote Arden Olson, attorney for Post Acute Medical.

CHILD’S PLAY

Portland cut a deal for an empty museum, and has no cash to repair it.

ADDRESS: 3037 SW 2nd Ave.

YEAR BUILT: 1918

SQUARE FOOTAGE: 6,456

MARKET VALUE: $1.4 million for the entire property, which includes Lair Hill Park

OWNER: City of Portland

HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: Since 2001

WHY IT’S EMPTY: Portland Parks & Recreation is broke.

The stately, two-story brick building on the corner of Lair Hill Park in Southwest Portland has had a rich life.

The withdrawal prompted a series of reactions from involved parties.

Kathryn Nichols, whose son David, a young Boeing engineer, nearly died in a 2017 climbing accident, says her family’s experience—they had to go to Colorado for rehab services—shows the shortage of beds in Oregon (“Free Fall,” WW, Jan. 18). She’s frustrated that existing providers can use the regulatory approval process to keep competitors out.

“As the parent of a traumatic brain injury survivor, I was very disappointed and saddened to learn that PAM has withdrawn its application,” Nichols says. “This outcome illustrates well how the state’s certificate of need process can be highjacked and become a barrier to meeting a critical and long-standing well-documented need affecting many.”

David Kracke, the state’s brain injury advocate coordinator at the University of Oregon, agrees. “We should have a system in place that prioritizes patients over antiquated, and bureaucratic, processes,” Kracke says. “Demand for these in-patient rehab beds is increasing and will continue to increase over the coming years.”

But Phil Bentley, CEO of the Oregon Health Care Association, says PAM’s withdrawal is a recognition that the company would have lost in court. The nursing homes believe they can provide many of the services PAM and other companies do, at lower prices, but the state disagreed. “We believe that when PAM read our appellate brief, it became clear that OHA’s erroneous final order will not hold up,” Bentley says. Legacy did not respond to a request for comment by press deadline.

PAM’s withdrawal leaves an application from Encompass Health for a 50-bed facility in Hillsboro still pending—and still part of the case in front of the state Court of Appeals. And regardless of how that case ends, the issue isn’t over: Records show that Vancouver, Wash.based PeaceHealth filed an application in June for a certificate of need for a 50-bed rehab facility in Springfield. NIGEL JAQUISS.

It was first built as a dormitory for county nurses in 1918, before being remodeled two decades later into offices for a New Deal youth employment initiative. Then, in 1949, it was converted into a museum for children, which it remained for the next half century, until the Portland Children’s Museum moved up to Washington Park in 2001.

The building has sat vacant since. Neighbors aren’t sure who owns it, and they’ve never seen anyone in it. Even the restrooms on the ground floor that open out onto the adjacent playground are locked and scrawled with graffiti.

In 2016, the city contemplated renovating and leasing the building. But there was a hitch. When it obtained the building from the county more than a century ago, the deed restricted the property to “public park use.”

So, in a remarkable moment of city-county cooperation, the two sides came up with a deal. The county would give up the restriction on the former dormitory, and the city would give up its interests in a section of a Troutdale pig farm the county wanted to sell to McMenamins, which was expanding Edgefield Hotel.

The upshot: McMenamins got its 65-acre farm, the county got $3.2 million, and the city of Portland got a dilapidated building it had no hope of fixing.

The building needs millions of dollars in repairs and seismic upgrades, says Portland Parks spokesman Mark Ross. But there’s no money to do it (see “Grand Canyon,” page 12).

“Portland Parks & Recreation has been significantly underfunded for decades, and the public assets which comprise the parks system are aging,” he noted.

The Children’s Museum closed for good in 2021, after a two-decade run in its new location high up in the West Hills. And the outlook for its former building in Lair Hill Park isn’t any better. Without new funding, a fifth of PP&R’s assets will be “removed or closed” within the next 15 years, Ross says. LUCAS MANFIELD.

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

LUCAS MANFIELD

KATHRYN NICHOLS

DAVID KRACKE

TIM SAPUTO

TIM SAPUTO

OUTLAW

AUTHOR

THURSDAY JULY 20TH AT 6PM

“LIKE

Portland's Best Boiled Bagel

Junk Ambulances

Multnomah County’s tardy ambulance contractor is weighed down by debt.

BY ANTHONY EFFINGER and LUCAS MANFIELD 503-243-2122

American Medical Response, the company that dispatches ambulances in Multnomah County, has been making headlines for a month because of slow service. Patients are waiting longer than the industry-standard eight minutes, and county commissioners are sparring over what’s to be done with its repeatedly tardy contractor.

What’s less well known is that, along with the sick and injured, AMR’s ambulances are carrying around something much worse: a $5.4 billion pile of debt that appears to be on life support.

AMR is owned by Global Medical Response, a Texas-based company that in turn is owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., a New York investment firm that buys up whole companies using leverage, a fancy Wall Street term for borrowed money.

Founded in 1976, KKR is the O.G. buyout—or private equity—firm. The business is called private equity because the corporate raiders who run it don’t tap public markets for money. They raise it from foundations and pension funds. KKR became famous in 1988 when it bought RJR Nabisco, maker of Oreo cookies, for $25 billion. That deal inspired a book that defined 1980s greed, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco

Thirty years and hundreds of deals later, KKR bought AMR for $2.4 billion in 2018 and combined it with another company, Air Medical Group Holdings, to form Global Medical Response. All that dealmaking left the newly formed GMR with billions in debt in an industry that’s plagued by a shortage of paramedics,

soaring costs, and stagnant revenues. Paying back those billions in such a tough environment could make it hard for AMR to spend what it must to improve.

And it gets worse. In a small-world twist, Oregon’s public employees had a hand in foisting all that debt on AMR.

The Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund is an investor, alongside KKR, in Global Medical Response. Seeking higher returns for its retirees than it can get in plain old stocks and bonds, the fund invests heavily in private equity. As of April 30, it had $25 billion in KKR and similar funds, or 27% of its total $93 billion, according to public records, making private equity Oregon’s biggest investment by category.

In fact, the retirement fund put up some of the money that KKR used to buy AMR, aiming to profit as KKR turned AMR into a better company. Buyout firms usually aim to improve performance by cutting costs (and jobs) or by combining similar companies to create economies of scale. KKR tried that by combining AMR with Air Medical Group to form GMR.

Instead of getting stronger, GMR appears to need an ambulance. GMR’s debt trades among large investors, and judging from the price, there are plenty who think GMR won’t be able to pay when $4.3 billion becomes due in 2025. GMR bonds trade at about 55 cents on the dollar, according to Bloomberg, a service that tracks such prices. In April, S&P Global Ratings cut its rating on GMR’s loans and bonds to CCC+.

In Wall Street parlance, they are junk.

“The downgrade reflects our view that GMR’s capital structure is unsustainable over the medium to long term,” S&P wrote in its downgrade. “We believe

HEAVY LOAD: Multnomah County’s troubled ambulance contractor, American Medical Response, is burdened by debt.

GMR highly depends on a multitude of favorable conditions—including moderating labor and fuel costs, weather, and improving capital markets—to meet its financial commitments over the next 12-24 months.”

GMR says ambulance customers have nothing to worry about. “We have a strong liquidity position, are focused on delivering our services to the communities and patients we serve, and continue to work with our lender partners as we always have,” GMR spokeswoman Donna Itzoe says in an emailed statement.

Spokesman Eric Engelson confirmed the Oregon State Treasury is invested in KKR North America Fund XI, the entity that owns GMR, but declined to say anything more. “Due to our status as a limited partner of the fund, we are unable to provide additional comments regarding activity of the fund’s portfolio companies,” Engelson said in an email.

the National Bureau of Economic Research showing that private equity ownership of nursing homes has caused 20,000 premature deaths over a 12-year period.

“Similar tales of woe abound in mobile homes, prison health care, emergency medicine, ambulances, apartment buildings and elsewhere,” Ballou, a prosecutor in the antitrust division of the U.S. Justice Department, wrote in an April opinion piece in The New York Times State Rep. Mark Gamba (D-Milwaukie) says Oregon’s pension fund shouldn’t be invested in private equity at all.

“I don’t think private equity firms give a rat’s ass about Oregon retirees,” Gamba says. “They care about their fees and how the investment is going to make them richer. They are virtually invisible, and they have absolutely no soul.”

GMR isn’t private equity’s first ambulance ride. In a 2016 exposé titled “When You Dial 911 and Wall Street Answers,” writers at the Times compared emergency service companies owned by private equity to those that were not.

“Of the 12 ambulance companies recently owned by private equity, three filed for bankruptcy in the last three years,” the Times wrote, citing public filings and S&P Global Market Intelligence. “Those three companies had problems that predated private equity. But no other ambulance company tracked by the research firm filed for bankruptcy during that period.”

The emergency medical services industry may be having an even harder time now. In a piece titled “EMS in Critical Condition,” industry news site EMS1.com says the business is reeling. “Workforce shortages, skyrocketing costs, supply chain disruptions and decreasing fee-for-service revenue have put EMS agencies in critical condition,” an industry executive from Texas writes.

AMR suffers the same problems, and some that are unique to Portland. In an annual report to Multnomah County dated Oct. 31, 2022, AMR said it was losing precious emergency responders who cited “very difficult working conditions in the city of Portland and violence against EMS workers as a daily occurrence being just too much to bear. They could no longer endure.”

Lack of staff has led to delays. In February, only 68% of AMR ambulances arrived on urgent calls within eight minutes in urban areas. The standard is 90%.

County commissioners are at odds about what to do. Multnomah County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson has ordered the county health department to consider fines against AMR. Her rival for county chair in 2022, Commissioner Sharon Meieran, blames the county for not relaxing staffing requirements for the ambulances.

Unlike neighboring counties, Multnomah County requires two paramedics in every ambulance, instead of a paramedic and a less-trained emergency medical technician.

One solution might be better pay for paramedics, or larger signing bonuses. That would be good for sick and injured people in Multnomah County. But higher pay means higher costs, and those would hurt profit margins at parent company GMR.

The treasury’s investments are overseen by the Oregon Investment Council. John Russell, who served on the council for eight years before his term ended in March, says private equity is worth the trouble because the investment returns are so good.

“Private equity has always had the highest return of any investment we make,” Russell says. “It’s risky, but even with a risk-adjusted return, it’s the best.”

Pension funds may love the higher returns they can get from private equity, but there are huge costs to employees and customers of the companies that KKR and others buy and flip.

Brendan Ballou, author of the new book Plunder: Private Equity’s Plan to Pillage America, writes that buyout funds caused 600,000 job losses in the retail business alone in the past decade. He cites a study by

AMR’s Multnomah County operations had revenue of $43.6 million in 2022, according to a financial report. Its net income was just $293,345, or just 0.67% of revenue. If AMR’s profit margin is that narrow in other places, it’s easy to see why investors are dumping GMR’s bonds for pennies on the dollar.

When KKR bought AMR and used it to form GMR, it almost certainly hoped to improve profitability and sell the company for more than it paid. If that doesn’t happen, the AMR investment could be a dud for KKR, and for Oregon retirees.

Simply put, Multnomah County may have to choose between better ambulance service for the sick and injured, and higher returns for its state retirees. Washington County may face the same choice soon. AMR is taking over ambulance operations there next month.

BRIAN BURK

“I don’t think private equity firms give a rat’s ass about Oregon retirees.”

Grand Canyon

Portland Parks & Recreation looks to build new assets as it fails to maintain existing ones.

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

Two months before his death from cancer, City Commissioner Nick Fish issued a warning about Portland’s most cherished gems: its parks.

It was November 2019, and a grizzled Fish—who joked that he hadn’t shaved that morning because he was so excited to talk about parks—described a dire financial situation at Portland Parks & Recreation. The bureau was rapidly expanding, but lacked the resources to maintain its existing properties.

If funding didn’t increase, Fish warned, the city would need to stop building new parks—or it would have to begin to close those it already had.

He used the beloved Columbia Pool in North Portland as an example. The city had warned it might need to shutter the indoor pool—temporarily, it promised—because of a shortfall in the parks bureau’s operating budget.

“How on earth can we be contemplating a new pool if we can’t maintain an existing pool? There is a contradiction, and I do want everyone to understand that,” Fish said. “Here we are talking about our inability to maintain Columbia Pool, but at the same time we’re talking about building a state-of-the-art pool. It’s one of the structural problems that continues to hold us back.”

Four years later, the bureau is under new direction—by City Commissioner Dan Ryan—and still trapped in the paradox Fish described.

In 2019, the deferred maintenance gap—that is, the cost to repair all the deteriorating infrastructure across the city’s parks— was $450 million. It is now $600 million.

The core problem is unchanged: The parks bureau has funds to build new facilities, but can’t afford to operate and maintain existing ones. In fact, nearly half of the bureau’s $498 million budget last year—$241 million—could only be spent to expand existing infrastructure or build new facilities. (And much of that is already committed to projects.) State law binds how certain parks revenues, such as one-time charges paid to the city by developers for new construction, are used. So the gap keeps growing.

Meanwhile, it’s rumored that Ryan is also mulling a run for mayor, and would like to be able to show voters a track record of achievements.

Which explains why the city is doing exactly what Fish warned would happen: planning to build a $50 million aquatic center in North Portland even as it plucks unsafe light poles out of nearby

parks.

Former City Commissioner Amanda Fritz says that’s the logical outcome of a conversation about parks funding that died with Fish.

“I don’t think we had the capacity to look into what Nick had suggested,” she says now. “And then we were in the pandemic. It was a series of events that couldn’t have been foreseen or helped. And that conversation just dropped.”

The conversation Fritz describes intensified in 2019, after a budget shortfall that led to layoffs and shuttered community centers. WW examined the problem that summer in a cover story (“Parks and Wreck,” July 17, 2019).

Four months later, a Parks & Recreation staffer explained to the City Council that it would have to find more funding or watch existing assets crumble.

“In that scenario, because our operating gap will continue over time, we will see declines in our daily maintenance of the parks,” Sarah Huggins solemnly told the council. “We could be looking at closing 1 in 5 assets in the next 15 years….Without additional operating dollars, our entire system will see service cuts to accommodate the needs of the new parks.”

Fritz called that future unacceptable.

“Could we just take scenario one off the table right away?” Fritz said, to applause from the gallery. “I can’t imagine being the council that would preside over the demolition of Portland’s parks. For me, it’s not whether to fund our parks system properly, it’s how to fund it properly.”

Since then, the parks bureau has been in the portfolios of three different commissioners: Mayor Ted Wheeler, Commissioner Carmen Rubio and now Ryan. And the maintenance backlog has grown by another $150 million.

“How on earth can we be contemplating a new pool if we can’t maintain an existing pool?”

Mark Ross, a spokesman for parks, says Ryan and the bureau are keenly aware of its financial distress and are exploring ways to decrease the funding gap. (Ryan co-signed the bureau’s responses to WW’s questions.)

“The parks system has been significantly underfunded for decades, and those public assets are aging. In recent years, a number of assets have failed and had to be closed or removed to

protect the public,” Ross says. “[Parks] continues to work with Dan Ryan about supporting maintenance at the levels needed to prevent future closures.”

In February of this year, the parks bureau announced it had begun removing 243 light poles from 12 city parks due to structural deficiencies found in their concrete bases. (The city commissioned an assessment of the poles after a woman strung her hammock between a light pole and a tree and the pole fell over, badly crushing her legs.) Only two parks would get new lights—in 16 months’ time.

The bureau said it had no money to replace the lights in the other 10 parks, citing hundreds of millions of dollars in deferred maintenance.

Ryan and the parks bureau received intense backlash over the light pole removals this spring. In late March, the bureau abruptly halted the removal less than a month after it had started tugging the poles out of the ground. The city had uprooted 116 light poles. The City Council scrambled to find the $11.5 million necessary to eventually replace the lights, securing some funding from the regional government Metro and setting its sights on another couple of million from the federal government.

To reduce its legal liability of a light pole injuring someone, the city made it clear that it was unlawful to attach anything to light poles in parks. (It’s unclear why the city didn’t see this as a viable solution sooner.)

“The bureau heard from the community,” spokesman Ross says, “that darkened parks represented a higher safety priority.”

It will be another five months before the uprooted light poles are replaced.

But while 12 parks were well on their way to lights out, the city was planning a $50 million aquatic center in North Portland. Its aim: to provide much-needed water access to communities of color in North Portland, who’d long been without a public pool on hot days.

The Oregon Legislature had just passed twin bills, championed by Rep. Travis Nelson (D-Portland), that allocated $15 million to the future center. In the two years before, Commissioner Rubio had pledged $16.7 million in system development charges to the future pool.

Meanwhile, the only remaining pool in North Portland had been shuttered by the parks bureau in 2020 due to structural deficiencies. Neighbors were irate and said they didn’t understand why it made more sense to build a new pool that wouldn’t be ready for another decade, when the city could just fix an existing pool.

System development charges—fees paid to the city by developers—can only be used for new projects, such as to build new parks. Much of the $241 million available only for capital projects in the parks budget last year came from years of built-up revenues that the city couldn’t spend as quickly as it collected them. (Though much of that accrued money is already budgeted for specific projects.)

That befuddled onlookers. “The sentiment was a little bit like, why are we spending all this money on this massive center— wouldn’t it just be cheaper to fix what we already have?” says Megan Ewing, who often swam at the Columbia Pool. “How are they going to keep it maintained? Because clearly they couldn’t maintain the Columbia Pool.”

Rep. Nelson, who secured the state funding for the aquatic center, also tried to pass a bill this session that would have allowed Portland to create its own parks district. But the bill died in committee, opposed by the Special Districts Association of Oregon and Tualatin Hills Park & Recreation District in eastern Washington County. (The former argued a new parks district could open the floodgates for tax-happy governments; the latter argued it would be a tool easily abused by the City Council, which would oversee it.)

The parks bureau, in conjunction with Ryan, says it’s explored a variety of funding mechanisms, including a voter-approved ballot measure for capital funding, a new request for more city dollars, a campaign for private donations, and a reallocation of existing bureau resources. Ross says the bureau will not pursue a parks bond measure this year, nor is it actively working on a private fundraising campaign.

Fritz says she’s disappointed the parks bureau now finds itself in the one scenario that she and her City Council colleagues brushed off in 2019 as impossible. “Whether it’s this council or the new council,” Fritz says, “someone is going to have to figure this out.”

KEEP THE LIGHT ON: Woodstock Park in Southeast Portland.

MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

ast week, a photographer on assignment for The New York Times rolled up to the city’s newest tourist attraction.

The journalist rode in an unmarked silver squad car and had come to document the open-air fentanyl market operating on Southwest 6th Avenue. She jumped out of the cops’ rig with a camera and began snapping pictures of the tinfoil brigade on the corner.

This was the third time cops had shepherded the Times through downtown Portland in recent years.

Portland Police Bureau Central Bike Squad Officer David Baer said his team had been out with journalists all afternoon. KATU-TV was on the scene earlier. The Wall Street Journal was supposed to visit the day before, but the reporter’s flight got canceled.

Portland is on a short list of destination cities for national media. Rather than a model, however, we have become a cautionary tale.

It wasn’t long ago that the nation’s leading newspapers and magazines regularly wrote the same glowing profile of the Rose City—a lovably weird outpost wedged between the Cascades and the Pacific where colorful (but mostly white) residents pedaled tall bikes while playing the bagpipes, eating Voodoo doughnuts, and slurping elderflower-flavored kombucha.

A 2009 New York Times story headlined “Frugal Portland” captured Portlanders’ “dedication to the things that really matter: hearty food and drink, cultural pursuits both high and low, days in the outdoors and evenings out with friends. It’s the good life, and in Portland it still comes cheap.”

Now, it’s mostly fentanyl that comes cheap. Instead of IPAs and doughnuts, reporters from elsewhere come to chronicle Portland’s drug market, our tent cities, and hapless elected officials. No longer a forward-thinking burg known for recycling, land use planning, and an indie vibe, we are now being characterized as a proto-Detroit, with high-income

earners taking their Teslas to the ’Couv, Bend or Idaho. Even Damian Lillard wants out.

T here have always been haters. It’s no secret that Fox News delighted in the violent street theater that followed Portland’s civil rights protests over George Floyd’s murder. What better proof of lefty fecklessness?

But the glum press coverage of Portland’s ills is also rooted in painful truths. (Indeed, much of the national coverage repeats stories WW first reported.) Amid a zeal to level the playing field for people who didn’t partake in the granola utopia, Portland’s leaders neglected basic obligations: housing supply, mental health and addiction services, and public safety. Combine that with the seeming inability of county and city governments to work together and yes, this region really is a mess—it’s little wonder that outsiders want to rubberneck. Success has many fathers. Failure draws cameras to photograph the orphan.

The media attention ranges widely, from sober publications, such as Governing magazine to the left-leaning Verge, with all of the country’s big dailies also searching for an answer to the same question: How did a city with so much going for it screw things up so badly?

“The puzzle,” Governing wrote about Portland in May, “isn’t so much a question of what is happening, but why it is happening.”

Over the past several weeks, our staff has been reviewing what others have said about us recently. We combed through press clippings published since last fall and identified 10 pieces that show how outsiders see us.

It echoes a roundup we published 15 years ago, back when national outlets were trumpeting Portland’s virtues rather than its failings (“PDX Inked,” WW, Oct. 24, 2007). Then, too, we tried to identify the moments when others saw us more clearly than we see ourselves, as well as the places where reporters were waxing profound about what they saw out the Radio Cab window.

We’ve rated each story on a sliding scale: How bleak is the portrait, how much pleasure does it take in our comeuppance, and how obviously is it pandering to an audience in MAGA hats?

Here’s what they’re saying about us behind our backs.

Anthony Effinger, Nigel Jaquiss, Lucas Manfield and Sophie Peel contributed reporting to this story.

Let’s start with a double feature. In October, The New York Times sent a reporter to weigh the odds of a Republican takeover of Oregon. Two weeks later, Michelle Goldberg, a reliably liberal Times op-ed columnist, followed up with analysis.

“How a Republican Could Lead Oregon: Liberal Disharmony and Nike Cash”

The New York Times, Oct. 16, 2022

“If Oregon Turns Red, Whose Fault Will That Be?” The New York Times,

How do they introduce Portland?

Oct. 31, 2022

The photo atop Goldberg’s column says it all: a homeless woman wrapped in a blanket, under a blue tarp, a fire burning in a toppling fire pit, with three shopping carts in the frame. And it’s raining.

Who was interviewed?

Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike. The two stories both arrived in the few weeks when polls suggested Republican nominee Christine Drazan could seize the governor’s mansion (she didn’t). So the Times talked to a who’s who of political insiders, from Democratic Oregon Congressman Kurt Schrader, who’d lost in the May primary, to An Do, executive director of Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon. Plus, it looped in Guy Randles, “a Democrat from Portland” (more on him below).

Most memorable quotes:

“One of the political cartoons after our legislative session had a person snorting cocaine out of a mountain of white. It said, ‘Which of these is illegal in Oregon?’ And the answer was the plastic straw.” —Phil Knight

“Portland, which used to be kinky and weird and a very liberal community, became a very dangerous community where people are no longer enjoying it.”

—Kurt Schrader

Least authentic moment:

Quoting Guy Randles and presenting him as an everyman, even though he’s a retired partner at Stoel Rives who got a law degree from Berkeley. “I was picked as a proverbial man on the street for the interview,” Randles says in an email. “I was jogging along the waterfront when the Times reporter, Mike Baker, approached to ask if we could talk. We had a nice chat.”

Most perceptive observation:

Goldberg understood that, to win the governorship, Tina Kotek had to thread a needle. She couldn’t throw Gov. Kate Brown, her predecessor, completely under the bus, but she had to get most of Brown under there to win. “The two biggest issues right now are housing and homelessness, and mental health and addiction,” Kotek declared to the Times. “And I’ll be honest, she’s been absent on that topic.”

How apocalyptic are they?

How gleeful are they?

How Trumpy are they?

“The Portland Van Abductions”

The Verge, Oct. 19, 2022

How does it introduce Portland?

This piece is a bit of an outlier for a national news outlet. For one thing, it’s written by two journalists—Sergio Olmos and Sarah Jeong—who lived in Portland at the time they write about. For another, it’s not about then-current conditions but the time in 2020 when President Donald Trump sent federal agents to quash what had begun as civil disobedience post-George Floyd. As such, it starts on a noir note: “An uncannily desolate city intersection between the back of the federal courthouse and a Starbucks. The headlights of the van are a harsh note in the dim monotones of gray concrete and the brown particleboard that was often boarded up over windows in downtown buildings.”

Who was interviewed?

Mark Pettibone and Evelyn Stassi, protesters who describe being abducted by federal authorities in unmarked vans in 2020.

Most memorable quote:

“If I hadn’t been radicalized at Reed College, I certainly had been by the time I had gone out into the street, as many times as I did, and seen the things that I saw.” —Mark Pettibone

Most perceptive observation:

Portland will always live in Seattle’s shadow, even when the Rose City is on Fox News and Trump’s hit list. “By late June, four people had been shot inside the [Seattle’s Capitol Hill Organized Protest], with two dead, while Portlanders were busy setting small fires inside garbage cans and playing Frisbee.”

What’s the diagnosis?

Trump’s sending in the shock troops was the root cause of Portland’s ongoing malaise. The president set out to make an example of the city, and succeeded in both traumatizing and fracturing its residents.

What’s the solution?

Local solutions for local problems. “The feds had done the exact opposite of quelling the protests, and their departure ended up being the most effective crowd control they ever tried.”

How apocalyptic

is it? ⛈⛈⛈⛈⛈

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city”

Fox News, Jan. 3, 2023

How does it introduce Portland?

Fox News characterizes Portland as a place where everyone, including people who cannot afford the city’s stratospheric rents, likes to eat and do drugs. “Many among the homeless population wake up and proceed to repeatedly eat and get high throughout the day,” notes the reporter.

Who was interviewed?

No one. Instead, the Fox News reporter watched a video on Twitter taken by outreach worker Kevin Dahlgren, in which he interviews a former hairdresser living on the streets of Old Town. Dahlgren is the former president of We Heart Seattle, a nonprofit whose controversial street cleanup tactics have generated significant backlash. The story does recycle a prior interview with a North Portland man who told Fox & Friends that businesses and residents are fleeing the city due to homeless encampments.

Most memorable quote:

“It’s a piece of cake, really,” Wendy, the hairdresser, tells Dahlgren about living on the streets of Portland. “They feed you three meals a day and don’t have to do shit but stay in your tent or party.”

Least authentic moment:

Dahlgren says the “piece of cake” quote struck a chord with national media outlets, but much of the attention missed the point. “I’ve never believed it’s ‘a piece of cake’ to be homeless,” he tells WW. “There was more to the story.” Wendy grew up in a conservative family, Dahlgren says, and was frustrated with Portland’s “enablement” of people living on the streets. The story has a happy ending, Dahlgren reports. After the interview went viral, Wendy was reunited with her family and went into detox in Utah.

Most perceptive observation:

“The city’s developing homeless crisis is believed to be a byproduct of a cocktail of other problems, including recreational drug policies implemented in The Beaver State.” It is true that people believe this: 60% of Oregonians surveyed in April said they believe mental health and drug addiction, and not a lack of affordable housing, are the leading causes of homelessness. Whether they believe this because the TV said it is another question.

What’s their solution?

More police. “If you get hurt, you’re screwed because they’re not helping anybody. You don’t see them anywhere,” the story quotes Wendy telling Dahlgren.

How apocalyptic is it?⛈

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How Trumpy is it?

“Portland woman claims it’s a ‘piece of cake’ to be homeless in

“What’s the matter with Portland? Shootings, Theft and Other Crime Test City’s Progressive Strain”

Los Angeles Times, Feb. 10, 2023

How does it introduce Portland?

With a regular person who knows the score, and some blight porn. “If you want to understand the schism that dominates the political and social landscape in this famously liberal city, a walk down Southeast Rhine Street might be a good place to start. Flora Gonzalez, who lives on the north side of the street, is distressed about conditions in the historically blue-collar neighborhood. The 40-year-old package handler for FedEx said that people have openly dealt drugs and urinated on the sidewalk outside her family’s duplex. They’ve dumped feces and used syringes in her manicured yard, played booming music at 3 a.m. and stripped stolen cars for parts. Shots have been fired behind her children’s bedroom.”

Who was interviewed?

City Commissioner Mingus Mapps; John Toran, founder of Toran Construction; Chet Orloff, an adjunct professor of urban studies and planning at Portland State University; Daisy Quiñonez, former Portland planning and sustainability commissioner; and Josh Lehner, a senior economist at the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis.

Most memorable quote:

“You don’t have to watch Fox News to look around Portland and say, ‘This is not cool.’” —Mingus Mapps

Most perceptive observation: An anecdote that speaks to how beleaguered Mayor Ted Wheeler is: “A mayor who began his first day in office biking to work was now accompanied by bodyguards.”

What’s the diagnosis?

The Times doesn’t offer one, but it makes clear that moderates are on the rise while the liberals who ran Portland for so many years are on the ropes.

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“Oregon decriminalized drugs 2 years ago. What can B.C. learn from its rocky start?”

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Feb. 26, 2023

How does it introduce Portland?

With British Columbia decriminalizing small amounts of hard drugs beginning this year, Canada’s public broadcaster (think NPR, but somehow more polite) came to Portland to get a sense of B.C.’s own future. The picture was bleak. “Oregon had more opioid overdose deaths in 2021, the year decriminalization went into effect, than the two years prior,” the CBC notes.

Who was interviewed?

There are glamour shots of both Tera Hurst of the Health Justice Recovery Alliance (“we can be used as either a model for why you should do it, or a model of why we can never do that”) and Portland’s Instagram-famous bike cop, Officer David Baer (“you’re going to see an increase in public drug use”).

Least authentic moment:

When Charles Laprain, an unhoused Portlander, is given a citation for smoking fentanyl, he says he’s “50-50” on calling the treatment hotline. If he does, he’ll be one of the very few. WW found that out of the hundreds of $100 citations handed out by police in Multnomah County, only five people as of May had managed to get the fine waived by calling the hotline.

What’s the diagnosis?

The CBC compares Portland unfavorably to Portugal, which noted a decline in overdoses after it decriminalized hard drugs back in 2001. Portugal, of course, has universal health care. “Oregon still rates 50th in the U.S. for access to treatment,” the CBC notes.

What’s the solution?

British Columbia has its own problems. There, it can take up to four weeks for a person to get into detox, a doctor told the CBC. Canada has a “Minister of Mental Health and Addictions” and she came down to Oregon to tour last August. The minister, Carolyn Bennett, tells the CBC that the province can take some lessons from Oregon, mainly “funding a variety of community-based treatment organizations ‘to develop the kind of trusting relationships that allow people to think about a different life,’” the CBC says. So, keep doing that?

How apocalyptic is it?⛈⛈⛈

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“The New Anarchy”

The Atlantic, March 6, 2023

How does it introduce Portland?

Another flashback to the George Floyd protests and subsequent riots. Downtown Portland on any given night in 2020, according to this cover story in The Atlantic, epitomized a political extremism rooted not in values, but in screaming—just the latest iteration in a centuries-long history of political violence and extremism in America.

Night after night, hundreds of people clashed in the streets. They attacked one another with baseball bats, Tasers, bear spray, fireworks,” the story begins. “They filled balloons with urine and marbles and fired them at police officers with slingshots. The police lobbed flash-bang grenades. One man shot another in the eye with a paintball gun and pointed a loaded revolver at a screaming crowd.”

Who was interviewed?

Lots of national politicians, Ivy League professors and former prosecutors, who help Atlantic executive editor Adrienne LaFrance fit Portland’s state of chaos into an American anarchist streak that assassinated President William McKinley at the 1901 Buffalo World’s Fair. In Portland, she interviewed Mayor Ted Wheeler, PSU professor and anti-fascism scholar Alexander Reid Ross, conservative talk show host Lars Larson, and WW managing editor Aaron Mesh.

Most memorable quote:

“I do want to emphasize that everyone involved in this was a massive fucking loser, on both sides.” —Aaron Mesh, regarding the dueling factions of costumed brawlers who regularly met for street fights starting in 2016. Mesh, reached by WW across the partition that separates his desk from this reporter’s desk, says he doesn’t regret his remarks but concedes he could have expressed them more gently.

Least authentic moment:

A lengthy elegy for the city’s lost virtues, from its drawbridges to its “swooping crows” and “great Borgesian bookstore,” all diminished by the after-effects of political violence. Portland is pretty. But the effect of this writing is condescending.

Most perceptive observation:

That the 2020 protests devolved into self-indulgent infighting that had little to do with racial justice and everything to do with arbitrary destruction: “The situation in Portland became so desperate, and the ideologies involved so tangled, that the violence began to operate like its own weather system—a phenomenon that the majority of Portlanders could see coming and avoid, but one that left behind tremendous destruction.”

How apocalyptic is it? ⛈⛈⛈⛈

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“Portland’s Curious Case of Urban Discontent”

Governing magazine, March 7, 2023

How does it introduce Portland?

Through the eyes of a reporter who didn’t just show up in Portland to eat Voodoo doughnuts or overreact to the drug crisis du jour. Indeed, Alan Ehrenhalt says he’s a regular here: “Over a bunch of visits during the last two decades, I had the feeling that it wasn’t just a city in Oregon but the capital of New Urbanist success and well-being in America: the best ice cream, the best bookstore, the stateliest of hotels, a glorious riverside park and a compact downtown with hundreds of inviting and/or quirky commercial enterprises.”

Who was interviewed?

Nobody on the record. Most of the intel seems to have come from an anonymous “prominent business executive.”

Most memorable quote: “Collectively they [government leaders] were incapable of working together constructively.” —The anonymous “prominent business executive”

Most perceptive observation: Cities, like markets, do not go in one direction forever. Portland’s creative boom fed on a low cost of living. That creativity attracted more people. The cost of living rose—too much. Boom: market correction. “Perhaps there is such a thing as a city being too successful. Decades of peace, prosperity and plentiful amenities may lead not only to managerial complacency but to a panicked reaction among the citizens to even modest increases in such things as crime and homelessness.”

What’s the diagnosis?

The citizenry can afford to pay high rates of taxation, but it wants the services those taxes fund to improve the collective quality of life. In other words, taxpayers want evidence their money makes a dent.

What’s the solution?

“A cohesive local government can do something about the 800 homeless camps. No city can fully control its crime rate, but well-organized and well-resourced policing can make a serious dent in the numbers.”

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“‘Stick over carrot’: progressive Portland takes a hard turn on homelessness”

The Guardian, May 26, 2023

How does it introduce Portland?

The Guardian, perhaps the U.K.’s most well-regarded newspaper, opens its story on a bright Monday morning, with The Society Hotel owner Jessie Burke, who’s been vocal in recent years about tent encampments and is pleased to see fewer of them.

Who was interviewed?

Burke; a number of social services providers, including Scott Kerman of Blanchet House; and two homeless residents. The story is illustrated by an Associated Press photograph taken on the Central Eastside, showing a man in a tent flying an American flag. It’s the same photo that led the LA Times ’ story three months earlier.

Most memorable quote:

“Anyone who works with these populations knows there are people who respond to carrots and people who respond to sticks.” —Jessie Burke

Least authentic moment:

When the author wrote that former City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty “ardently opposed enforcing [camping] ordinances, as her constituency of unhoused people gained political power and legal clout.” How people who couldn’t afford to sleep inside had gained power and clout is not answered in the story.

Most perceptive observation:

It’s slim pickings—the piece is a surface-level recounting of the mayor’s daytime camping ban—but the story does accurately perceive that the dramatic rise in unhoused camping has resulted in “changing political winds” blowing rightward in several West Coast cities, including Portland.

How apocalyptic is it? ⛈

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“Portland Is Losing Its Residents”

The Wall Street Journal, June 28, 2023

How does it introduce Portland?

In classic WSJ style, this story is built around a killer stat: the city’s population decline. “Portland lost nearly 3% of its population between 2020 and 2022, according to the U.S. Census. The drop of about 17,400 to 635,000 was the sixth largest decline among the 50 largest cities.” But rather than focusing on blue tarps and fentanyl-scarred tin foil, the piece focuses on the high cost of housing as the city’s biggest problem.

Who was interviewed?

Mark Rogers, a Portland artist who moved to Fort Wayne, Ind.; Pink Martini bandleader Thomas Lauderdale; and the actress Cassandra Peterson, best known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Peterson provides a counterintuitive example of somebody who recently moved to Portland and is glad she did. “I got really tired of putting on all my makeup and doing my hair to go to the grocery store [in L.A.] for one item,” she said. “Up here, I put my hair in a braid, I wear a flannel shirt, I don’t put on makeup and I go anywhere I want.”

Most memorable quote:

“I have always been a really big booster of Portland, but I can’t recommend it right now.” —Thomas Lauderdale

Most perceptive observation:

It’s by new Indiana resident Mark Rogers, who says low housing costs cover a multitude of sins. “I still love Portland even though it’s got some problems, and I wouldn’t have left if the housing prices weren’t so high.”

What’s the diagnosis?

“Even with the decline in population, housing costs have remained high in Portland, much as they have in other West Coast cities such as Seattle and San Francisco. The prices make it difficult to attract young new residents.”

What’s the solution?

None is offered, but the implication is that morale would improve with more housing stock.

How apocalyptic is it? ⛈⛈⛈

How gleeful is it? ����

How Trumpy is it?

GET BUSY

LISTEN: Cathedral Park Jazz Festival

The oldest free jazz and blues fest west of the Mississippi is back for a 43rd year. The event is a must-attend for anyone interested in the local summer music scene, but it’s also just a great form of entertainment for casual fans who are more interested in spending some time under the sun in one of Portland’s prettiest parks. All three days are packed with performances, and different genres each get their moment to shine: Friday is all about the blues while Saturday and Sunday feature jazz, soul and Latin artists. Cathedral Park, North Edison Street and Pittsburgh Avenue, jazzoregon. org/2023-festival. 4:30-10 pm Friday, 1-9:45 pm Saturday, 1-8:15 pm Sunday, July 14-16. Free.

WATCH: Authentic Flamenco

Authentic Flamenco, the show that has been dazzling audiences around the globe, is coming to Portland. World-class dancer and choreographer Amador Rojas will perform alongside other outstanding artists in this Royal Opera of Madrid production. This is not just dancing; consider it a passionate expression of Spanish culture.

Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 503-719-6055, authenticflamencoshow. com/portland. 6:30 and 9 pm Friday; 4, 6:30 and 9 pm Saturday; 5 and 7:30 pm Sunday; July 14-16. $39.90-$109.90.

GO: Gresham Arts Festival

The Gresham Arts Festival is another free, family-friendly activity taking place this weekend, featuring approximately 20 local artists who specialize in everything from pottery to woodworking to photography.

There will also be a main stage with a wide range of performances, including Japanese music played on a koto (a stringed half-tube zither), Polynesian dancing and folk rock. Set your little ones loose in Kids Village, which has a host of activities: face painting, crafting, rock climbing and visits with Disney princesses. Gresham Arts Plaza, 401 NE 2nd St., Gresham, 503-618-3000. greshamoregon.gov/Gresham-Arts-Festival. 9 am-5 pm Saturday, July 15. Free.

EAT: 50th Anniversary Garden Gala

Renowned wine and olive oil producer Durant turns 50 this year, and to celebrate the milestone it’s bringing in a very special guest: chef Vitaly Paley. The owner of beloved farm-to-table institution Paley’s Place, which closed after Thanksgiving weekend in 2021 when he decided to call it a career, has been living the retirement of everyone’s dreams on the Big Island of Hawaii. However, Paley has temporarily returned to the mainland to cook up a feast for Durant’s Garden Gala, using the business’s award-winning olive oils in each dish. Durant at Red Ridge Farms, 5510 NE Breyman Orchards Road, Dayton, 503864-2000, durantoregon.com. 5-8 pm Saturday, July 15. Sold out. Contact Durant for possible cancellations.

The eight events in the series run through August. The first takes place at the Smith Berry Barn in Hillsboro, where chef Marco Shaw of Red Beard Restaurants in Georgia (formerly of Fife on Northeast Fremont Street) will reunite in the kitchen with Scott Dolich and Suzanne Olvey of Stone Soup. The evening begins with wine tasting and appetizers before guests are escorted through the farm, followed by a four-course, family-style dinner in the middle of a field. Smith Berry Barn, 24500 SW Scholls Ferry Road, Hillsboro, 503852-1031, plateandpitchfork.com. 5-10 pm Saturday, July 15. $225, includes food, wine and gratuity. 21+.

GO: La Strada dei Pastelli Chalk Art Festival

tested in elite-level competitions like a wet T-shirt race, marathon napping, a lookalike contest and howling. This should be a blast for all Basset hounds, their owners and fans of the breed. Legion Park, 1385 Park Ave., Woodburn, 971-382-6718, oregonbassethoundrescue.org. 10:30 am Sunday, July 16. $15 for the first hound, $10 for each dog after that.

DRINK: Alt Wine Fest

The amazing diversity of Oregon wine will be on full display at this festival, which remarkably is not serving a single pinot noir. Sure, Oregon’s Willamette Valley is best known for that particular style, but its omission here is intentional: to highlight other varieties, like gamay, pinot gris and chardonnay. You’ll even find some highly unusual offerings, including chasselas and savagnin rosé. As you sip, don’t forget to drink in the views of Abbey Road Farm, one of the most charming properties of its kind in the Carlton area, with a variety of barnyard friends. Abbey Road Farm, 10501 NE Abbey Road, Carlton, 503-687-3100, altwinefest.com. 1-5 pm Sunday, July 16. $75-$195. 21+.

EAT: Plate

& Pitchfork Farm Dinner Series

Plate & Pitchfork kicks off its 20th and final season of farm dinners to support its new nonprofit, whose mission is to help Oregon’s food producers thrive by financially assisting the next generation of farmers.

The pastime normally taken up by kids on long summer days is elevated at the La Strada dei Pastelli Chalk Art Festival, which turns the streets of downtown Hillsboro into a temporary outdoor gallery. This year, there will be 31 drawings created by experienced and emerging artists, some local while others hail from across the country. In addition to pavement art, you can expect more than 30 vendor booths, performances on a main stage and popping up throughout the venue, as well as a community chalking area. Downtown Hillsboro, East Main Street from North 1st to 4th Avenue, 503-567-1713, tvcreates. org/lastrada. 10 am-6 pm Saturday-Sunday, July 15-16, 2023. Free.

GO: Basset Hound Games

Dog lovers won’t want to miss this event featuring the best floppy-eared athletes in Portland. Four-legged contestants will be

ALL THAT JAZZ: The Cathedral Park Jazz Festival is the oldest free event of its kind west of the Mississippi.

FOOD & DRINK

Editor: Andi Prewitt

Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

Catch It if You Can

BY MICHAEL C. ZUSMAN

Câche Câche, a raw seafood bar from Kurt Huffman’s ChefStable and St. Jack chef John Denison, is Portland’s newest and neatest oceanic idyll. Its existence is a fortuity: Huffman had a scrap of indoor space to fill at the shared site of the Lil’ America cart pod, Fracture Brewing tasting room and the almost-open Dos Hermanos Bakery production facility. Denison was looking for something new to add to his impressive portfolio that includes a decade of cooking at restaurants in France. Voilà: A saltwater star is born.

The original idea was to offer a short slate of raw seafood dishes, ordered electronically, then prepared by a single chef and picked up when ready by patrons. This would minimize costs beyond the already difficult to swallow expense of quality fish and shellfish. It has not worked out quite as planned: Denison usually has help in the open kitchen and a server or two on duty, bringing out paper menus and taking orders from the many

who are convinced that QR code menus are the devil’s handiwork. The servers typically run the food when it’s ready.

Still, pricing remains reasonable for what you get unless your point of comparison is a cheeseburger. More importantly, Denison’s dishes are at once uncommon and uniformly excellent, so much so that after working through the short menu, you crave more options. Denison has said that will come in time. One can only hope.

As it stands, there is a lobster roll ($25) that might cause a Mainer’s eyes to grow misty—or maybe not. Its virtue (and vice) is that it charts its own course, tracking neither the toasted bun, melted butter-only style nor the mayo-heavy, salad version. Dubious notions of authenticity aside, Denison’s lobster roll is like an oasis in a seafood desert. It begins with 3 ounces of Maine lobster cooked in butter. The meat is dressed lightly with tarragon-infused aioli that also incorporates chopped chives, shallots, a little chardonnay vinegar and a lot of lemon. The “bun” is actually a cuboid

LOBSTAR: Câche Câche’s lobster roll is one of the highlights of the menu.

Câche Câche, the semi-secret seafood spot in the Fracture Brewing-Lil’ America food cart pod space, is swimming in flavor.

cut from a crustless Dos Hermanos Pullman loaf. The bread is scooped out on top and the sides darkly browned in clarified butter. Next, the dressed lobster is loaded in, brown butter is drizzled on top, and a generous flurry of buttermilk powder completes the ensemble. The result is crunchy, meaty, sweet, herbaceous and as rich as Bill Gates. Everyone must order this; sharing is a bad idea.

For a foursome or beyond, the soundest strategy is to order the entire balance of the menu for family-style enjoyment. Beyond the lobster roll, highlights to date include the unlikely sardine toast ($14). Fillets of the unabashedly strong, oily fish are brined, brushed with honey and kissed with char. They are placed atop a thick slice of Dos Hermanos bâtard schmeared thickly with a red onion, cornichon and caper aioli. A bunch of fresh dill is strewn over the sardines, and a half lemon is offered to squeeze over it all. Take advantage and glory in the full spectrum of powerful flavors.

Top 5

Hot Plates

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. CHELO

Located inside Dame, 2930 NE Killingsworth St., chelopdx.com. 5-9 pm Monday-Wednesday. Chef Luna Contreras’ cooking has made appearances all over the city, and she’s received acclaim at every turn. Sometimes, Contreras flits about so quickly it can be hard to catch her. But from now until mid-August, you can find her playful, vegetable-forward take on traditional Mexican street foods inside Dame restaurant. Order a few items that likely won’t carry over to a smaller-plate version of Chelo that will open in a new location later this year, like the incredible chuleta de puerco, a bone-in pork chop, served with hot housemade tortillas, a super-tasty fire-roasted tomato salsa quemada and brothy beans, cooked to perfection.

2. HIGGINS PIGGINS

On the Oregon Historical Society terrace at 1200 SW Park Ave., 503-222-9070, higginspiggins.com. One of downtown’s most charming pandemic patios is back open for the summer season. Higgins Piggins returned to the South Park Blocks in early June, and this year’s iteration pays tribute to Venice’s backstreet locals bars known as bacari: cozy, simple inns that typically serve wine and small plates built around seasonal ingredients. At Piggins, you can expect a Pacific Northwest take, with a menu that includes artisan cheeses, charcuterie, salads and cicchetti— snacks like tea service-sized sandwiches.

3. TUSK

2448 E Burnside St., 503-894-8082, tuskpdx.com. 5-9 pm Monday-Thursday, 5-10 pm Friday, 10 am-2 pm and 5-10 pm Saturday, 10 am-2 pm Sunday. At long last, brunch is making a comeback after the pandemic wiped out the weekend tradition. Our favorite chickpea palace, Tusk, is the latest to reintroduce the midday meal. Diners with a sweet tooth will want to order pastry chef Tara Lewis’ baharat roll frosted with pistachio farmer cheese or the cardamom doughnut with tahini pastry cream and rhubarb jam. Brunchgoers who require sunny yolks with their mimosas should look to the shakshuka verde or lamb poutine, which can be topped with an egg, of course.

4. STACKED SANDWICH SHOP

2175 NW Raleigh St., 971-279-2731, stackedsandwichshop.com. 11 am-7 pm Tuesday-Saturday.

Among the many pandemic-related closures, the loss of Stacked was painful. Now, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, chef Gabriel Pascuzzi has revived the shop with a slimmed-down menu of old favorites and new creations that feels faithful to the original. Your go-to order should be the famous oxtail French dip, once considered one of Portland’s iconic dishes. At the moment, Stacked makes only about 25 a day, so we recommend placing an order online in advance.

5. JANKEN

Buzz List

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

1. JOHN’S MARKETPLACE – HALL

3700 SW Hall Blvd., Beaverton, 503-747-2739, johnsmarketplace.com. 11 am-8 pm

Sunday-Wednesday, 11 am-9 pm Thursday-Saturday.

Formerly parched downtown Beaverton has been swimming in beer for the past few years. The area has outlets for two breweries as well as a handful of beer bars. Joining the perennial beerfest is John’s Marketplace, which opened its third location on the edge of Old Town in April. Most everyone is here for a pint paired with the well-charred, quarter-pound smash burgers, including beer nerds sporting branded swag and moms clad in Lululemon with children in tow. Join them under the beer banners in the taproom before perusing the bottle shop for something special to take home.

2. TORO MEXICAN KITCHEN

1355 NW Everett St., Suite 120, 503-673-2724, toropdx.com. 4-10 pm Sunday-Thursday, 4-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

The former Tilt space in the Pearl District is empty no more. Toro, a Mexican eatery operated by the ever-expanding Urban Restaurant Group (Bartini, Brix, Swine), has transformed the dark, industrial-themed space into an airy cantina. The initial food offerings we’ve sampled have all been satisfying—but the delightful surprise was the lengthy cocktail list. Early favorites were the sunny Passionfruit (vodka, passion fruit puree, pineapple juice and a Tajín rim) and Ocean (vodka, lemongrass and basil syrup, cucumber), which is a shade of turquoise so alluring you’ll wish you could swim in it.

3. TOCAYO AT PALOMAR

959 SE Division St., #100, 971-357-8020, barpalomar. com. 2 pm-sunset Saturday-Sunday. 21+.

Palomar is the latest spot to get in on the “restaurant within a restaurant” trend by turning its rooftop bar into a pop-up taqueria. Tocayo, which is the Spanish term for two people who have the same name, is a nod to owner Ricky Gomez and chef Ricky Bella, who combine their love of Cuban cocktail and Mexican drink cultures in this project. Expect plenty of fruit flavors in everything from a mule with roasted coconut water to a frozen guava margarita to a pineapple-infused gin and tonic, so if a south-of-the-border vacation isn’t in the budget this summer—escape with a drink instead.

4. DIRTY PRETTY

Also on the must-try list is hamachi ($15), a few thick slices of raw yellowtail bathed in a punchy green pool distilled from nutritious sea lettuce, jalapeño and green apple, reposing in a scallop shell. Pro tip: Eat the fish, then swill the juice. Speaking of hamachi, look for the meaty fried hamachi collar special ($30) that appears from time to time. The collar is a delicacy that takes some work to pick apart, but the reward is worth the effort and mess. As good as raw hamachi is, the cooked yellowtail is even better: hot, tender, mild and juicy with the best bits hidden away among yielding slivers of cartilage.

To drink, a handful of wine bottles ($30 each) selected by Heavenly Creatures’ boss, Joel Gunderson, are available. Also, all of the beer and other beverage offerings from Fracture can be ordered either electronically or through your server.

There is almost nothing to dislike about Câche Câche save perhaps for the odd band of marauding “influencers.” Typically, distractions such as their lights and self-important obliviousness are irrelevant to a fine meal, but not when there are only about 20 seats total in a tiny space. Presumably, the paid promotion phase will pass as Câche Câche becomes better known. Also, there is additional seating outside and in the adjoining brewpub, so influencers and squally infants alike can be safely avoided.

The last word is that Câche Câche—the French appellation for hide-andseek—is aptly named. There is no phone number or website. The space itself is hard to find until you are actually there. Once having arrived at the correct street address, enter Fracture and keep walking straight back, past the restrooms, through a door behind which the restaurant is located. Alternatively, enter outdoors via the cart pod: Walk past all the carts and look to your left. There is a door there. It is like a speakeasy with food. The game is worthwhile. You’re it.

EAT: Câche Câche, 1015 SE Stark St. 5-10 pm Wednesday-Saturday, 1-8 pm Sunday.

250 NW 13th Ave., 503-841-6406, jankenrestaurant. com. 5-11 pm Tuesday-Thursday, 5 pm-midnight Friday, 4 pm-midnight Saturday, 4-10 pm Sunday. At this stage of Portland’s evolution as a food-loving city, Janken may be just the right tonic. Whether intended or not, the symbolism of the dining room’s striking faux cherry tree in full bloom suggests renewal and an emergence from our extended COVID winter. That opulence extends to the menu, where you’ll find prices ranging from high to silly, but portions tend to be generous. Begin with one or more of the nontraditional maki, like a soft-shell crab roll, then move on to top-grade A5 wagyu you cook yourself on a hot stone. For those truly splurging, there is $229 Imperial Gold osetra roe.

638 E Burnside St., 503-841-5253, dirtyprettypdx.com.

4 pm-1 am Sunday-Thursday, 4 pm-2 am Friday-Saturday.

With the opening of Dirty Pretty, the third bar in the Pink Rabbit and Fools and Horses family, it feels like owner Collin Nicholas and chef Alex Wong have created a brand. Each property has a distinct theme, but the core feeling and elements of flair unite the trio. Cocktails by beverage director Ben Purvis are fun and extravagant. Guava Wars, for instance, drinks like a tropical smoothie, while the Jungle Juice with Jamaican rum and pinot noir tastes like something that could make one act very, very sassy.

5. ZULA

1514 NW 23rd Ave., 503-477-4235, zulapdx.com. 11:30 am-9 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

We now know what Rotigo’s reimagining looks like: Roasted chicken is out and Mediterranean cuisine is the focus. We’re still swooning over the filo and feta roll, served hot with honey drizzle, and the fire-roasted eggplant. But don’t overlook the brightly colored collection of cocktails that will transport you to the coast of Israel. Not only are they named after neighborhoods in Tel Aviv, where Zula owner Tal Tubitski once lived; the concoctions are made with ingredients from the region. The tequila-pomegranate blend of the Levontin, or the Montefiore, made with date-infused rye whiskey, were our first picks.

RACHELLE HACMAC / CACHE CACHE

AARON LEE

Dance the Body Electric

Portland electronic duo Microfilm is branching into dance music with their new album, Body Arcana.

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

If there’s one thing consistent about the music that Microfilm has made together over the past 15 years and change, it’s that everything they do is a reaction to their previous work. The Portland duo’s last album, O/V/N/I, was a sprawling and spaced-out opus containing a six-minute, beatless, astrally drifting cover of Elton John’s “Rocket Man.” So what’s the next logical step? An album of dance music, of course.

“ We don’t really like repeating ourselves and making a replica from album to album,” says singer Matt Keppel, who forms the duo with his husband, Matt Mercer. “Some artists do that, but we like to have some kind of different goal for the next thing.”

Enter Body Arcana, an album that leans heavily into the sounds of ’80s and ’90s clubland, especially the tough, danceable, experimental acts through which the duo first approached electronic music: Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, The Human League. An interview with the Pet Shop Boys’ Neil Tennant from Keppel’s youthful music journalism days is sampled throughout closer “Pink Champagne, White Label,” and other songs shout out Australian disco diva Kylie Minogue and legendary English smooth-soul singer Sade.

If you’re thinking this turn from insular, cerebral ambient toward the communal ecstasy of dance music has something to do with emerging from pandemic lockdown, you’d be right—but not in the way you’d think.

“The first year-plus of the pandemic was really creatively rewarding for some people because they had a lot of time on their hands,” Mercer says. “But for me at least, I felt really blocked for that whole first year and a half or so. I think that’s part of why those tracks [on O/V/N/I] all came together kind of slowly.”

The tracks on Body Arcana came quickly and spontaneously in comparison. “We were leaning toward dance music again for the first time in a while, and I was able to bang out some tracks relatively quickly,” Mercer says. “And it happened to click with what Matt was exploring lyrically.”

Keppel and Mercer met in 2004 in Chicago through planetout.

com, an early queer dating site. Mercer had been making music for a while, but Keppel had never sung on record before Microfilm began recording.

“This lovely voice just started coming out,” Keppel says, laughing. “I just wanted to try it, and I asked [Matt] if I could do it on some music he was making. And it snowballed pretty quickly—we had 10 tracks in about two months.”

Microfilm released their debut album, After Dark, in 2006 during a transitional time for the music industry, when digital downloads were beginning to dominate the music market and the streaming era was faintly on the horizon. They were early users of iTunes, one of the only places to buy digital downloads at the time, and their beginnings coincided with the rise of MP3 blogs.

“I think our bestselling album was the one that we leaked through a bunch of MP3 blogs and even, like, piracy blogs,” Mercer says. “We were just like, here’s a link to this album. And then a bunch of people downloaded it, and it turned into sales.”

“It’s weird how the blog era was a big access point for a lot of people, and now that’s kind of gone away,” Keppel says. “It’s back to being a little bit more gatekeeper-y than it was. And there’s a lot more competition—I think there’s just a lot more people making music.”

Microfilm has remained prolific in the time since, and Body Arcana is only one of a long list of projects in the tank for the duo. Mercer is releasing a solo album called Sub/Super later this month on Dragon’s Eye Recordings, and they have a remix project tentatively slated to come out next month (“It’s not other people remixing us, which is what usually happens; it’s us remixing ourselves, in a way,” Keppel says cryptically).

They ’ve also got a soundtrack to an imaginary horror film finished, which they’re planning to put out in October to suit a Halloween theme, and more tracks from the Body Arcana sessions.

“Since we were kind of banging through stuff for this record, we did even more tracks than the 10 that are on there,” Keppel says. They’re thinking of turning them into their own album, which would be a breakthrough for the duo in its own way—the first Microfilm project that isn’t a reaction to the last one.

DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

SATURDAY, JULY 15:

Anyone with an interest in drag or ballroom culture ought to check out Kevin Aviance, one of the most prominent and successful ambassadors of this underground LGBTQ+ tradition and an accomplished musician and designer. That’s him ad-libbing at the beginning of Beyoncé’s “Pure/Honey,” and his influence can be heard on Britney’s “Work Bitch” and “Gimme More.” If you like those songs and their smoldering, sassy attitude, come see Aviance as he headlines Holocene’s Switch Pride party. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St. 7 pm. $10-$50. 21+.

SUNDAY-TUESDAY, JULY 16-18:

The great avant-garde pianist and philosopher Sun Ra left this mortal plane 30 years ago, but his music lives on through the Sun Ra Arkestra , led by 99-year-old saxophonist Marshall Allen, one of the oldest working musicians in the world. The band continues to put out new material, including last year’s excellent Living Sky, and Mississippi Records is hosting Allen and cohorts for three evenings at Star Theater, which offer an opportunity to see one of the weirdest and best big bands on the planet. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. All shows at 8 pm. $30 a night, $80 for a three-day pass. 21+.

TUESDAY, JULY 18:

The Aquabats started their career crashing SoCal punk shows with kiddie-matinée costumes and theatrics—and their embrace of pageantry and ridiculousness has since led them on a nearly 30-year career as one of rock’s last bastions of family-friendly but side-splittingly idiosyncratic fun. It’s no coincidence that leader Christian “MC Bat Commander” Scott has a side gig in bizarre kids’ programming (Yo Gabba Gabba! is his brainchild) given his band’s mission to make the world weirder and more delightful. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St. 6 pm. $27.50. All ages.

SHOW REVIEW

NATURAL HUMAN INSTINCT, TIME VOID AND WITNESS CHAMBER AT MANO OCULTA

BY ROBERT HAM

The appeal of hardcore in 2023 is no mystery to anyone paying attention to the news of the world. And as Time Void proved last Thursday at Mano Oculta with a punishing sonic assault on “climate change and billionaires and shit like that,” there’s no better outlet for one’s fury than to put yourself in the path of some gale-force punk and its acrobatic fans. It’s pure catharsis amid the knock-down, dragout fight for our very survival.

To these ears and eyes, the best representatives for the future struggle might be Natural Human Instinct, a quartet of Asian and Latino punks from San Jose. The group’s songs are short, controlled burns that vacillate between crushing despair and unbridled rage, with singer Matthew Martinez shouting that we are “running out of time” and that we’ve all “lost our touch with the world.” Headliners Witness Chamber may have had the tighter set and the more enthusiastic fans, but they couldn’t match their tourmates’ passion and intensity.

As with any hardcore show, it’s hard to tell whether the political and intensely personal lyrics of these artists were actually being heard and absorbed by the audience, though the Antifa logo tattooed on the back of one young man’s head suggested the messages are sinking in. On the other hand, the roundhouse kicks and cartwheels that he and the rest of boys in the crowd discharged like a hyperaggressive form of parkour indicated that, for some, shows like this are a necessary release valve from the tensions of simply trying to exist in our current era.

The Church of Fun

Broadway Rose’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat revels in its vibrant musical parodies.

BY LINDA FERGUSON

Whether audience members at Broadway Rose Theatre are seeing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for the first time or are hardcore fans who have all the lyrics memorized, director-choreographer Dan Murphy has packed his new version of the 50-plus-year-old musical with a plethora of giddy surprises.

Although its plot is based on a biblical story, Joseph’s vibe is more vaudevillian than moralistic, with rhyming lyrics that pair “take for a ride” and “fratricide.” Murphy’s production stays true to that spirit, embracing the delicious silliness of the original show. This is clear early in the first act when the audience is treated to a chorus line of sheep farmers clad in sneakers and colorful carpenter pants performing a jazz routine while holding their shepherd crooks like canes.

Written by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice when they were 19 and 22, respectively, Joseph is eons away from their later, uber-serious rock operas Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita.

The pair came up with the idea for the show in 1967. Starting as a 20-minute cantata for a school choir, the concert was eventually expanded to become a full-length play with a pastiche of musical parodies, such as a country and western number, go-go dancers and a pharaoh who’s also—why not?—an Elvis impersonator.

On top of that, Murphy (who is Broadway Rose’s managing director) adds plenty of playful touches to his production. The white-booted go-go girls dance in gold cag-

es, and Groucho and Harpo Marx make an appearance in the desert…and between the rows in the audience. Even the dramatic narrator (Danielle Valentine), who’s dressed in gold and black heels ideal for ballroom dancing, takes a break from her stunning solos to check her texts and snap a few selfies.

As in the biblical story, the Joseph in the play is prone to prophetic dreams. When his dad plays favorites and gives Joseph the titular coat, his 11 jealous brothers sell him into slavery. After ending up in Egypt, though, Joseph becomes the pharaoh’s right hand.

A sweet-voiced Alex Foufos plays his Joseph as comically clueless. Besides preening in his fancy coat in front of his less fortunate brothers, he can’t help announcing that his dreams indicate he’ll be more successful than them. While his future corn crops will grow tall, he sings, his brothers’ sheaves will be “really rather small.”

Without exception, everyone in this stellar cast delivers Rice’s witty lyrics with zest.

To add to the fun, Murphy sprinkles Easter eggs throughout the dances, including Steve Martin-style King Tut hand motions and the Batusi (a dance originated on television by none other than Adam West’s Batman).

The whole cast is onstage most of the time, but everyone is so invested that they never run out of steam or take a false step. Especially entertaining is brother Reuben (Maximilian Tapogna), who performs “Those Canaan Days,” a brilliant parody of a sad French ballad, and brother Levi (Chad Craner), who cheerfully puts on a country-and-western twang for “One More Angel in Heaven.”

In a show that’s bursting at the seams with

pop references, there’s a danger of overdoing the comic bits. Murphy and company, however, find just the right touch, gradually upping the zaniness until it reaches a crescendo with a calypso number, which is sung with million-kilowatt charisma by Rodney McKinner III and features giant inflatable bananas. The scene proves once again that this company excels at combining an infectious let’s-put-on-a-show exuberance with the professionalism and polish of New York’s Great White Way.

This is true of the behind-the-scenes artists, too. Emily Rusmisel’s sweeping backdrops of pyramids flanked by bold geometric designs add to the giddiness of the second act. Likewise, the props and costumes, including berets, cowboy hats, and Technicolor handkerchiefs, to name just a few, add so much life that they’re almost characters themselves.

In his director’s notes, Murphy says he met his wife, Sharon Maroney (who is Broadway Rose’s producing artistic director), when they were performing in the play in 1984. The couple also opened the Broadway Rose with Joseph in 1992. This fresh production, then, is a fitting tribute to Murphy and Maroney’s marriage…and their love for musical theater itself.

SEE IT: Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat plays the Deb Fennell Auditorium, 9000 SW Durham Road, Tigard, 503620-5262, broadwayrose.org. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, through July 23. $20-$60.

MOVIES

Editor: Bennett Campbell Ferguson

Contact: bennett@wweek.com

Dick Tracy (1990)

For every cartoonishly grotesque 1930s gangster in Dick Tracy—Big Boy (Al Pacino), Flattop (William Forsythe), Pruneface (R.G. Armstrong)—there’s a gallery of craftspeople giving Warren Beatty’s adaptation of the classic detective comic strip its indelible expressionism.

Danny Elfman follows up Batman (1989) with another shadowy, anthemic score (plus five original songs by Stephen Sondheim). Costume designer Milena Canonero (a frequent Wes Anderson collaborator) contributes the film’s classic monochromatic hats and coats. Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro (Apocalypse Now) shoots a fascinatingly rich but empty city, backdropped by Richard Sylbert and Rick Simpson’s Oscar-winning art direction.

In the resulting comedy-noir, for every element that soars joyfully over the top, there’s another playing it straight. Sight gags are savored, never gawky. Pacino warms up his larynx for a decade of campy screaming while Beatty is keen to let the joke be on his squarejawed title character. Fittingly, Tracy can deliver only about a speech bubble’s worth of dialogue at a time. The movie? A whole universe more.

Dick Tracy screens at the Hollywood Theatre on July 14 to celebrate Floating World Comics’ relocation to Lloyd Center. Sam Ashurst of the Arrow Video podcast hosts.

ALSO PLAYING:

Academy: Amarcord (1973), How to Train Your Dragon (2010), July 14-20 Cinema 21: The Manchurian Candidate (1962), July 15. Cinemagic: Drive (2011), July 13 and 15. Tenet (2020), July 13 and 16. Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), July 15 and 17. There Will Be Blood (2007), July 16 and 18. Clinton: Fantastic Planet (1973), July 15. A Scanner Darkly (2006) with a live score, July 17. Hollywood: Wizards (1977) on 35 mm, July 13. The Wicker Man (1973), July 14-17. Dunkirk (2017) on 70 mm, July 15 and 17. The Music Room (1958), July 15. Interstellar (2014) on 70 mm, July 18-19.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE –DEAD RECKONING PART ONE

Danger is a drug—and in his third Mission: Impossible film, director Christopher McQuarrie simultaneously shoves it up your nostrils and stabs it into your veins. As usual, daredevil secret agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) is chasing after an explosive MacGuffin that he must protect from a doomsday-loving maniac (Esai Morales, in this case) lest the world go boom. Rather than vary the formula, McQuarrie simply refurbishes it (brilliantly) with fresh flourishes of suspense. You’ve seen Ethan race against the clock, but you’ve never seen him rushing through an airport in Abu Dhabi during a countdown to a nuclear explosion. You’ve seen him in one-on-one fights, but never with a demented French swordswoman (Pom Klementieff) in a terrifyingly cramped alley in Venice. You’ve seen him battle his adversaries on trains, but never run through one as it tumbles into…oh, just see the movie already, will you? Dead Reckoning Part One isn’t just cinema. It’s the essence of everything cinema was made for—not just triumphantly tense violence, but delicious glamour and sex appeal (a nighttime negotiation with Alanna Mitsopolis, a broker played with a lascivious grin by Vanessa Kirby, is nearly erotic enough to deserve an NC-17 rating). And while the apparent death of a main character strikes a sour note—these films work best when they’re disposable and delightful, not tragic and ruthless—I’m hopeful that it’s a red herring designed to goose our sympathies before Part Two arrives next year. It wouldn’t be the first time that a Mission: Impossible movie has manipulated its audience to irresistibly grand effect. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Academy, Bagdad, Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, City Center, Clackamas, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Joy Cinema, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns, St. Johns Twin, Studio One.

TOUCHSTONE PICTURES

PAST LIVES

As Nora (Greta Lee) is about to share a first kiss with her future husband, Arthur (John Magaro), she explains the Korean phrase in-yun—fate’s hand in human connection and reconnection. Intentionally or not, she’s referring just as much to Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), her best friend and crush from before she immigrated from Seoul to Canada. Ever since, Hae Sung has reappeared to Nora like a 12-year comet, and in director Celine Song’s Past Lives, Hae Sung visits Nora in present-day Brooklyn. Both unambiguous romance and genre experiment, Past Lives sustains itself on love’s textures and musings: endless gazes, mirrorlike skyscrapers, a twinkling synth score (by Christopher Bear and Daniel Rossen), and a vibrant but melancholy obsession with New York City. Gorgeous 30-somethings who can’t keep guileless vulnerability off their faces, these characters aren’t looking to blow up their lives for the sake of movie contrivances, but through every private conversation, they’re drawn to discussing the same narrative possibilities on the audience’s minds. Who is the right lover in a story sense? Even Arthur wonders. Are in-yun and Nora’s brief, almost multiversal encounters with Hae Sung potent enough to alter the years in between? And when she glimpses the past in his kind, mournful eyes, is she dreaming or seeing? PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinema 21, Fox Tower, Hollywood, Living Room.

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY

The Indiana Jones saga gives its iconic character a fifth adventure that moviegoers didn’t ask for, but that longtime fans should appreciate. Yes, the story blatantly mines the series trope of an archaeological artifact chase with a foreign adversary threatening catastrophe, but director James Mangold (Logan) has crafted an installment

laden with pleasing referential tips of the fedora to Steven Spielberg’s previous chapters. As comforting as the homages are, what saves the film from being a rolling boulder of mediocrity is 91-year-old composer John Williams, who has scored every Indiana Jones film. Harrison Ford still charms as Jones (an aging icon recognizable the world over by his statuesque silhouette), but Indy could have become a relic of the ’80s if not for Williams. His inspired work on Dial of Destiny breathes life into the action scenes, authenticates the otherwise unearned emotional interludes, and adds a tickle to the comedy in ways its 80-yearold lead can no longer pull off (to quote Indy, “It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage”). This cinematic serial has run its course, but thanks to Williams, Indiana Jones can now retire with his dignity mostly intact. PG-13. RAY GILL JR. Academy, City Center, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Twin.

THE LESSON

“Good writers borrow; great writers steal.” Richard E. Grant (playing fictitious literary dynamo J.M. Sinclair) delivers that line with a domineering grin that all but proves the sentiment, passing off a cliché as wisdom and telegraphing where veteran British TV director Alice Troughton’s film will venture. It’s a pleasure to watch Grant overdo it through the watchful eyes of Liam (Daryl McCormack), an aspiring author who is obsessed with Sinclair’s prose and journeys to his idol’s country manor to tutor his son (it’s Oxford or bust). Across from Grant’s sometimes campy inhumanity, McCormack acts carefully, offering shades of Tom Ripley’s shifty confidence as Liam fulfills the awkward yet advantageous position of a trusted servant. Julie Delpy also excels as the icy but pervious queen of the house (which has grounds eerily patrolled by muskrats and self-piloted lawn mowers). The characters verbally spar through tense dinners and writing debriefs, while Sinclair battles with the third act of his mysterious comeback novel. He’s discovering, as this film does, that endings can be conspicuously difficult. The Lesson downshifts to belligerently throwing its cards on the table by the end, but the slippery journey there shouldn’t be written off. Beware meeting your heroes—and, especially, freelancing for them. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.

RUBY GILLMAN: TEENAGE KRAKEN

Like The Bad Guys before it, Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken returns DreamWorks to its early ’00s roots of copying whatever Disney had come up with (the film could be described either as a nautical-themed Turning Red or a gender-swapped Luca). The story follows the Gillmans, a nuclear family of sea monsters who have, despite having blue skin and no bones, lived as ordinary humans without being detected for 15 years. However, when eldest daughter Ruby (Lana Condor) begins to chafe against the convictions of her mother (Toni Collette), she ends up discovering her own fantastical superpowers and meeting her oceanic royal grandmother (Jane Fonda). Ruby Gillman suffers from an overabundance of plotlines and character arcs that make the second act feel disjointed and clumsy, but there’s enough charm and personality that you’re never quite bored with the proceedings. The animation employs a retro, rubber-hose style that brings physicality to the invertebrate Gillmans and the movie’s goofy slapstick. Condor is perfect as Ruby—earnest and shy, but kind and determined when she needs to be—and there’s a lot of fun to be had in the supporting performances, including

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

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

: THIS MOVIE IS ENTERTAINING BUT FLAWED.

: THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE.

Sam Richardson as a goofy uncle and Annie Murphy as a mean-girl mermaid. Ruby Gillman doesn’t quite break new ground in the “powers as a metaphor for puberty” subgenre of sci-fi/fantasy, but it’s beautiful and exuberant enough to make for a fun and heartwarming trip under the sea. PG. MORGAN SHAUNETTE. Oak Grove, Studio One.

JOY RIDE

In a seeming attempt to reflect the diverse array of untold Asian narratives—a shared pressure among many Asian American artists—Joy Ride accomplishes the opposite, offering a rushed 90 minutes overcrowded by underdeveloped characters and plot turns. Adopted Chinese American Audrey (Ashley Park) travels to her birth country for the first time, along with two eccentric best friends, Kat (Stephanie Hsu), a Chinese soap opera actor hiding her sexual past from her God-fearing virgin fiancé, and Lolo (Sherry Cola), a fledgling artist who makes playground models resembling genitalia to “get the conversation going” (Lolo also brings along her BTS-obsessed cousin, played by a wide-eyed, scene-stealing Sabrina Wu). Audrey’s business trip to China quickly turns into a cross-continental search for her birth mother, and the film sharply illustrates certain minority challenges—internalized shame, dissonance between internal and external perceptions of self. Yet its efforts to provide a comprehensive cultural education (the work of not one, but many, many more representative films) result in stilted dialogue and a hasty denouement. The comedy’s saving grace lies in its effectively over-the-top humor; filled with riotous bits and clever one-liners, Joy Ride promises to leave the audience feeling lighter than before they entered the theater. And sometimes, that’s all we need from a movie. R. ROSE WONG. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Vancouver Plaza.

JONESIN’

BY MATT JONES

"Both Sides Now"--one side precedes, the other side follows.

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Many astrologers enjoy meditating on the heavenly body Chiron. With an orbit between Saturn and Uranus, it is an anomalous object that has qualities of both a comet and a minor planet. Its name is derived from a character in ancient Greek myth: the wisest teacher and healer of all the centaurs. Chiron is now in the sign of Aries and will be there for a while. Let’s invoke its symbolic power to inspire two quests in the coming months: 1. Seek a teacher who excites your love of life. 2. Seek a healer who alleviates any hurts that interfere with your love of life.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): It’s high time for some high culture! You are in a phase to get rich benefits from reading Shakespeare, listening to Beethoven, and enjoying paintings by Matisse and Picasso. You’d also benefit lavishly from communing with the work of virtuosos like Mozart, Michelangelo, and novelist Haruki Murakami. However, I think you would garner even greater emotional treasures from reading Virginia Woolf, listening to Janelle Monáe’s music, and enjoying Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings. For extra credit, get cozy with the books of Simone Weil, listen to Patti Smith’s music, and see Frida Kahlo’s art. If you read between the lines here, you understand I’m telling you that the most excellent thing to do for your mental and spiritual health is to commune with brilliant women artists, writers, and musicians.

specific dreams, the interpretations I offered are still apt.)

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): Inreviewingthelifework of neurologist and author Oliver Sacks, critic Patricia Holt said he marveled at how “average people not only adapt to injury and disease but also create something transcendent out of a condition others call disability.” Sacks specialized in collaborating with neurological patients who used their seeming debilitations “to uncover otherwise unknown resources and create lives of originality and innovation.” I bring this up, Libra, because I suspect that in the coming months, you will have extra power to turn your apparent weaknesses or liabilities into assets.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): It’s a mistake to believe we must ration our love as if we only have so much to offer. The fact is, the more love we give, the more we have available to give. As we tap into our deepest source of generosity, we discover we have greater reserves of it than we imagined. What I’ve just said is always true, but it’s especially apropos for you right now. You are in a phase when you can dramatically expand your understanding of how many blessings you have to dole out.

ACROSS

1. Go halfsies on

6. Host Convy or Parks

10. College grad

14. Novelist Ferrante

15. St. George's setting

16. Facility

17. University with a focus on adventurous journeys?

19. Actor Reynolds

20. Turmoil

21. Longest river within Spain

23. "___ Along" (Pet Shop Boys song)

24. Roswell visitors(?), for short

27. Abate

31. First name in TV "neighborinos"

32. "The King of Queens"

actress Remini

33. Start of a Steinbeck title

34. Potential brand name for a cleaning polish for reflective surfaces?

36. Philosopher with a "razor"

39. "I ___ you one!"

40. One of the Three Musketeers

41. Planned undertaking to visit the coast?

44. Large moon of Jupiter

45. "___ that special?"

46. "Exit full-screen mode" key

49. Unleash, as a tirade

50. Serene type of garden

51. Muppet who hosted the

"Not-Too-Late Show"

52. Sunset direction

54. Turmoil

56. Nil

59. Nuts about a particular disco dance?

62. Love, in a telenovela

63. Voting against

64. Part of a "Supermarket Sweep" route

65. Hockey projectile

66. Routes

67. Fold and press DOWN

1. Costume sparkler

2. Deep dive

3. Looked rudely

4. Map adjunct

5. Body art

6. "Close ___ no cigar"

7. Airport stat

8. Cost per minute, say

9. Amorphous movie villain

10. "Dream On" rock group

11. Put down, as tile or carpet

12. Olympics chant that's often parodied

13. "The ___ Who Stare at Goats" (2009 movie)

18. Take the helm

22. Bend with a prism

25. Deck with wands

26. Entertainment realm

28. "OK, whatever" sound

29. "OK, whatever" sound in response, maybe?

©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.

30. Shrimpboat gear

32. Key dessert

34. "La Mer" for Debussy, for example

35. Joaquin's "Walk the Line" costar

36. European GM affiliate

37. Motley ___ (Tommy Lee's former band)

38. Actor Bud of "Harold and Maude"

42. Kate who married Spielberg

43. Cancel out

46. Plaza Hotel girl

47. It's almost always used to spell "and"

48. Like old phones, retronymically

51. Rommel of WWII history

53. Subway option

55. Mountain range feature

56. Bolt from the blue

57. Adelaide biggie

58. "1001 Nights" creature

60. Porcine home

61. 1999 Frank McCourt book

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): The French phrase j'ajoute (translated as “I adjust”) is a chess term used when a player is about to adjust their pieces but does not yet intend to make a move. J'ajoute might be an apt motto for you to invoke in the coming days. You are not ready to make major shifts in the way you play the games you’re involved in. But it’s an excellent time to meditate on that prospect. You will gain clarity and refine your perspective if you tinker with and rearrange the overall look and feel of things.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): TheSimpsonsanimated show has been on TV for 34 seasons. Ten-yearold Bart Simpson is one of the stars. He is a mischievous rascal who’s ingenious in defying authority. Sometimes teachers catch him in his rebellious acts and punish him by making him write apologetic affirmations on the classroom blackboard. For example: “I will not strut around like I own the place. I will not obey the voices in my head. I will not express my feelings through chaos. I will not trade pants with others. I will not instigate revolution. I am not deliciously saucy. I cannot absolve sins. Hot dogs are not bookmarks.” In accordance with your unruly astrological omens, Cancerian, I authorize you to do things Bart said he wouldn’t do. You have a license to be deliciously saucy.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Early in her career, Leo actor Lisa Kudrow endured disappointments. She auditioned for the TV show Saturday Night Live but wasn't chosen. She was cast as a main character in the TV show Frasier but was replaced during the filming of the pilot episode. A few months later, though, she landed a key role in the new TV show Friends. In retrospect, she was glad she got fired from Frasier so she could be available for Friends Frasier was popular, but Friends was a super hit. Kudrow won numerous awards for her work on the show and rode her fame to a successful film career. Will there be a Friends moment for you in the coming months, dear Leo? That's what I suspect. So keep the faith.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): The coming weeks will be a good time to seek helpful clues and guidance from your nightly dreams. Take steps to remember them—maybe keep a pen and notebook next to your bed. Here are a few possible dream scenes and their meanings.

1. A dream of planting a tree means you're primed to begin a project that will grow for years. 2. A dream of riding in a spaceship suggests you yearn to make your future come more alive in your life. 3. A dream of taking a long trip or standing on a mountaintop may signify you're ready to come to new conclusions about your life story. (PS: Even if you don’t have these

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Homecomputers didn’t become common until the 1980s. During the previous decade, small start-up companies with adventurous experimenters did the grunt work that made the digital revolution possible. Many early adapters worked out of garages in the Silicon Valley area of Northern California. They preferred to devote their modest resources to the actual work rather than to fancy labs. I suspect the coming months will invite you to do something similar, Sagittarius: to be discerning about how you allocate your resources as you plan and implement your vigorous transformations.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): I'm tempted to call this upcoming chapter of your life story "The Partial Conquest of Loneliness." Other good titles might be “Restoration of Degraded Treasure” or “Turning a Confusing Triumph into a Gratifying One” or “Replacing a Mediocre Kind of Strength with the Right Kind.” Can you guess that I foresee an exciting and productive time for you in the coming weeks? To best prepare, drop as many expectations and assumptions as you can so you will be fully available for the novel and sometimes surprising opportunities. Life will offer you fresh perspectives.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): By 1582, the inexact old Julian calendar used by the Western world for 13 centuries was out of whack because it had no leap years. The spring equinox was occurring too early, on March 10. Pope Gregory commissioned scientists who devised a more accurate way to account for the passage of time. The problem was that the new calendar needed a modification that required the day after October 4 to be October 15. Eleven days went missing—permanently. People were resentful and resistant, though eventually all of Europe made the conversion. In that spirit, Aquarius, I ask you to consider an adjustment that requires a shift in habits. It may be inconvenient at first, but will ultimately be good for you.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Piscean novelist Peter De Vries wrote, "Sometimes I write drunk and revise sober, and sometimes I write sober and revise drunk. But you have to have both elements in creation—the Apollonian and the Dionysian, or spontaneity and restraint, emotion and discipline." In the coming weeks, you Pisces folks will be skilled at weaving these modes as you practice what you love to do. You'll be a master of cultivating dynamic balance; a wizard of blending creativity and organization; a productive changemaker who fosters both structure and morale.

Homework: What’s the best gift you could give yourself right now? Newsletter. FreeWillAstrology.com