Willamette Week, September 20 2023 - Volume 49, Issue 45 - "Deep Dive"

FINDINGS

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER

VOL. 49, ISSUE 45

A top state agency official said if she were to commit a murder, she’d wear a scuba suit 6

Willamette Riverkeeper wants to make Zidell Yards salmon safe 7

The unarmed safety associates at Portland high schools receive four hours of training. 8

The Yamhill Pub’s specialty menu item is Stouffer’s Frozen Lasagna 10

A sign in the Ace Tavern warns against handguns, foul language, and any form of payment besides cash. 14

Cascade Brewing makes a custom beer for Mary’s Club: Mary’s Topless Blonde 17

Yur’s is the city’s unofficially official Radio Cab bar 17

There is no garden at Foster Gardens. 18

The nose of the big rig tractor-trailer that once protruded from Sloan’s has landed at Holman’s. 19

A longtime employee died of a heart attack at Renner’s Grill while changing a keg of PBR. 25

“Flying saucer” was coined by a Chehalis, Wash., pilot who spotted nine mysterious objects over Mount Rainier. 28

There’s no better place than Portland to be an emo-chiptune pioneer. 30

Mitchell S. Jackson’s Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion is, well, fly 31

You’re never too old to rollerblade with Mick Swagger. 32

A luchador wrestling in drag is called an exótico 33

FONTAINE RITTELMANN

ALBERTA ROSE THEATRE

Portland won’t have Ted Wheeler to kick around anymore. The mayor announced this week he won’t seek a third term. He says he wants to focus exclusively on shepherding the transition to a new government structure. His announcement came nine hours after WW published a cover story that said Wheeler had told close associates he wouldn’t run. (He had told others the opposite.) His decision brings to an end a political career than rarely ran smoothly. Wheeler dealt with adverse circumstances that started in the months before he took office (see Trump, Donald). But he was in the cockpit as the city took a pandemic nosedive that it still hasn’t pulled out of. Here’s what our readers had to say:

K. KOFLER, VIA WWEEK.COM: “Let’s be honest: Nobody could have navigated that minefield without stepping on at least one mine; though a lot of people probably wouldn’t have stepped on nearly all of them…”

DARKEST TIMELINE, VIA TWITTER: “He found a way to unite the left and right...against him.”

TOM MCROY, VIA FACEBOOK: “I don’t love Ted, but for a guy everyone hates, he’s leaving the city with an unemployment rate lower than 4%, a median household income nearly 6K above the national average, graduation rates higher than Boston or NYC. If those are stats of a fucked-up city, go move to Saginaw or Flint and lemme know what you think. Considering we shut down earth, which I consider extremely stupid, and ensuing societal meltdowns happened across the country, I’d say Portland is doing OK.”

OREGONER, VIA WWEEK.

COM: “While I share the sentiment with most Portlanders that Wheeler is a dunce, anyone with a shred of objectivity has to agree that being the mayor of this city is an incredibly

difficult job. We’re at the crossroads of multiple national and international crises (drugs, homelessness, post-pandemic economies, political instability, climate change-fueled natural disasters). This city has decided to completely reorient how the City Council works and the duties of the mayor. Everybody has their own idea of how to fix these problems, but ideas are cheap. Getting things done is the hard part. And if you’re the mayor, you’re the person that everyone blames when things don’t get done.

“Anyway, the nicest thing I can think to say about Teddy is that he wasn’t as bad as everyone says. He was just a regular dude that was completely overwhelmed by his job. He did his best and he failed. The city is unquestionably in worse shape since he took over. Even though I don’t specifically blame him for the problems in the city, he didn’t exactly provide solutions. I would describe him as an underwhelming mayor at a time when we needed a real leader.

“I don’t expect a new mayor to come in on a white horse and solve the homeless crisis and fentanyl crisis and economic cri-

Dr. Know

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

Is it legal for big trucks to hang out in the center lane of the freeway mile after mile? I thought slower traffic was supposed to keep to the right. When trucks set up camp in the middle lane, it forces cars to pass them on the right, which I always heard was a safety hazard. —Lane Use

Planning

Your letter raises many fascinating traffic safety concerns, Lane, most of which I’m going to ignore in favor of various 1970s trucking craze pop-culture references that no one younger than Joe Biden could possibly understand. Right turn, Clyde!

Is it legal for trucks to camp in the center lane? Basically, yes—and not just in the sense that it was “legal” for Pig Pen and Rubber Duck to put the hammer down, since they didn’t get caught. The “keep right” rule is more important when there are two lanes: In that situation, trucks (and everyone else) are indeed expected to stay in the right lane except when passing.

sis while also turning downtown into an episode of Portlandia But it would be cool if we had someone with a positive message that could make some improvements to this city.”

SPACE-PASTA, VIA REDDIT: “2024 is going to be a shitshow. I don’t know who in their right mind would want to be mayor of Portland, so we’ll probably get someone who’s not in their right mind.”

LAKANAYA, VIA TWITTER: “The past eight years presented the most challenging issues in the modern history of the Portland both locally and globally. Looking forward to a new chapter of leadership in Portland. The work is cut out. Let’s go big, bold and new.”

JUST DOING THE MATH, VIA WWEEK.COM: “Odd, on some level I sort of feel sorry for Wheeler, he looks so unhappy. It must have been a new low being heckled at a funeral. But then I look at the mess Portland has become, remembering his lack of leadership during the riots, and I agree with his decision not to seek another term.

“However, his replacement will be far worse. And we may be blessed with Adams as a potential council member. Now this a guy who never goes away.”

BOTTO2016, VIA REDDIT: “Vera Katz (holographic presence) 2024.”

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

With three lanes it’s different. Trucks (which may have a lower posted speed limit) are often barred from using the far left lane at all. In such cases, it’s either the center lane or the right lane—and for a truck, the right lane sucks almost as hard as the third season of B.J. and the Bear

It’s not that everyone in the right lane is an idiot—but when someone does decide to be an idiot, the right lane is the place where they do it. Doing 40 in a 70, whipping across traffic because that was your exit, or trying to merge without exceeding 25 mph—it all happens in the right lane.

For those of us who may drive cars, light trucks, or the occasional chartreuse microbus, avoiding these things is no problem. However, it usually requires some combination of hard braking, nimble lane changes and rapid acceleration—all swift adjustments that a 72-foot semi with a gross vehicle weight of 80,000 pounds can’t make nearly as easily (or safely) as a car can.

Far better, then, just to make a home in the center lane. After all, safety-conscious motorists can still pass you on the left. Less safety-conscious drivers can pass on the right—and the least safety-conscious of all will not pass on the right or the left, but will instead drive their Trans Am directly into the back of your big rig because that’s how ol’ Bandit runs.

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

MURMURS

PORTLANDERS STILL LOVE TO WORK

FROM HOME: By most measures, downtown Portland has been slower to recover from COVID-19 than many other metro areas. Cellphone data analyzed by the University of Toronto (criticized by some for defining Portland’s downtown too narrowly) showed that Stumptown was a laggard. Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau released data showing that Multnomah County lost 8,294 residents in 2022, cutting the population to 795,083. Though small, any loss is a big deal in a town that once grew faster than the line at Salt & Straw on a Sunday in August. Now, there is more census data that might explain why downtown still feels empty. The Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro metro area (that’s a census designation) ranked 10th in terms of people working from home in 2022, with 23.3% favoring a laptop and pajamas in the den over a commute to the old office, according to Bloomberg News, which reported on the data this week. That figure is down from 27.5% in 2021, mirroring a national trend of going back to the office, albeit slowly. And Portland is still far above the U.S. average: 15.2% in 2022, down from 17.9% in 2021. The top work-from-home locale in both 2021 and 2022? Boulder, Colo., at 36.3% and 32%, respectively. But working from home was a thing in Boulder before the pandemic. It topped the list at 13.7% in 2019, when Portland didn’t even make the top 25.

MEASURE 110 OVERHAUL SEEKS TO EX-

PAND COALITION: A group of longtime politicos filed two ballot initiatives earlier this week that would dramatically remake Measure 110 by recriminalizing possession of hard drugs and shifting oversight of addiction treatment funds away from the Oregon Health Authority. The campaign will be handsomely funded: While no contributions have yet been reported to the state by The Coalition to Fix Ballot Measure 110 (its political action committee awaits processing by the state), the group released a list Sept. 18 of its top donors. They include Columbia Sportswear CEO Tim Boyle; the Goodman family, which controls most downtown parking garages; real estate mogul Jordan Schnitzer; and Ed Maletis, chairman of the Portland Bottling Company. In the days leading up to the ballot initiatives being filed, an unusual request surfaced on social media. Longtime political affairs operative Vikki Payne placed a request on Nextdoor, stating that the backers of the overhaul were looking for a “female person of color to round out their public facing backers/ ballot petitioners listed on a ballot measure effort to overturn aspects of Measure 110.” Payne instructed anyone who “fits the identity criteria” to reach out by email. Payne tells WW she posted the message after communicating

with someone within the coalition. The ballot initiative’s backers did not respond to a request for comment.

JURY CONVICTS INSURRECTIONIST WHO

RAN FOR OREGON GOVERNOR: On Sept. 18, a federal jury convicted Reed Christensen, a 65-year-old Hillsboro man who attacked police on the steps of the nation’s Capitol during the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. According to the complaint filed in Washington, D.C., federal court, Christensen breached a barrier of bike racks that had been hastily set up to keep the crowds off of the Lower West Terrace. After he was tear-gassed, he struck an officer with his fists, which was caught on video both by bodyworn police cameras and journalists. Christensen was reported to police by someone who knew him, and arrested by law enforcement a few months later. He leveraged the incident into a short-lived political career here in Oregon, where he ran for governor in 2022. “When I came back from the Jan. 6 rally, I felt like I had participated in the Boston Tea Party 2.0. If anything, I have more of a right to run as governor because I stood up for the Constitution,” he told WW last year. The retired Intel electrical engineer received a warm reception at debates, but won less than 1% of the vote in the Republican primary. On Monday, the jury found him guilty on eight counts of unauthorized entry and assault. He now awaits sentencing.

MENASHES DOUBLE DOWN ON

DOWNTOWN: In a rare, large transaction for downtown Portland these days, Menashe Properties said it bought the 183,735-square-foot American Bank Building for $13.6 million, betting that enough people will return to the office post-COVID to make office investments pay off again. “Our purchase of the iconic American Bank Building represents a strategic, synergistic investment that not only underscores our commitment to downtown Portland, but also our confidence in the resurgence of the office space sector,” Lauren Menashe, a principal at family-owned Menashe Properties, said in a press release. Menashe says it got a deal, closing “the lowest dollar-per-square-foot sale in downtown Portland in recent history.” At $13.6 million, the price works out to about $75 a square foot. The last time the building changed hands was in 2014, at $45.1 million, or $245 a square foot.

Including the American Bank Building, Menashe Properties says it owns more than 800,000 square feet of commercial real estate in downtown Portland. Included in those holdings is Washington Center, the vacant, boarded-up hulk at Southwest 4th Avenue and Washington Street that for many months functioned as an open-air market for the sale and use of fentanyl.

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HEART OF THE CITY: Downtown Portland streets see less foot traffic these days.

Labor Complaints

BOLI fired a top agency director after colleagues perceived her memorable remarks as threatening.

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

The latest evidence of dysfunction at the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries under former agency head and now U.S. Rep. Val Hoyle (D-Ore.): A director whom Hoyle hired in 2020 was investigated and fired this spring for talking with agency employees about stalking a former subordinate and discussing how she would commit a murder.

BOLI is the state agency that fields and investigates complaints made by workers against their employers; in this case, ironically, BOLI had to hire an outside firm to investigate one of its own top directors.

WHO LOST HER JOB

Lisa Ransom, director of the Oregon Apprenticeship and Training Division at BOLI, was placed on leave this spring after several employees came forward with allegations that Ransom made remarks that implied violence.

A Portland law firm hired by BOLI to investigate the allegations substantiated most of them in a July 24 report, obtained by WW through

WHAT A RACQUET

During pickleball fever, the Eastmoreland Racquet Club sits unused.

ADDRESS : 3015 SE Berkeley Place

YEAR BUILT: 1979

SQUARE FOOTAGE : 10,554

MARKET VALUE : $2.3 million

OWNER : Terry W. Emmert

HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY : Since about 2020 WHY IT’S EMPTY : A legal fight.

Terry Emmert is a mover, literally. His company, Emmert International, moved Howard Hughes’ Spruce Goose, an 800,000-pound wooden seaplane, 7 miles from the Willamette River to a museum in McMinnville. He shipped a 37-foot statue of Paul Bunyan out of a spot in the Kenton neighborhood. Neighbors in the Eastmoreland neighborhood would like him to improve his graffiti-covered Eastmoreland Racquet Club, or move on and let someone else do it. Emmert bought the sprawling indoor/outdoor facility in 1995. He has repurposed it several times, using it as home court for a minor league basketball team that he started, and then for an indoor football team. For a while, another company rented it

a public records request.

The law firm interviewed eight witnesses during its investigation. Several witnesses alleged Ransom told them she would wait in the bushes outside of a former employee’s apartment; and one witness reported that Ransom remarked that if she ever committed murder, she would do it in a scuba suit. (Witnesses say they were unclear whether she was speaking in jest.)

Documents provided by BOLI show that it fired Ransom on Aug. 18, but the agency declined to comment further. BOLI also removed Ransom from the state’s Workforce Talent Development Board, an advisory board to state leaders, after launching the investigation.

Hoyle’s leadership of BOLI has been under scrutiny after WW reported on her role in supporting a half-million-dollar apprenticeship grant to a nonprofit helmed by the co-founder of La Mota, a major campaign donor to top Oregon Democrats.

WHAT RECORDS SHOW

The current BOLI administration launched the investigation after Ransom’s colleagues complained she had “used language that implied violence” on multiple occasions.

The report, prepared by the Portland law firm Klein Munsinger, found that Ransom violated state policies on maintaining a professional, violence-free, and discriminationand harassment-free workplace. Investigators interviewed eight witnesses within the agency.

Two sets of remarks that Ransom allegedly made stand out in the 20-page report.

First, according to more than half the witnesses, Ransom repeatedly discussed a former employee whom she strongly disliked. She allegedly told three witnesses, on three

separate occasions, that she imagined hiding in the bushes outside the woman’s apartment. (The witnesses said it was unclear whether Ransom was speaking this in jest or had even carried out the scenario she described, but the witnesses felt fearful or threatened regardless.)

Ransom allegedly told one of the witnesses that she ran by the woman’s house at night and waited for her and her dog to come out. “I’m a Marine, and I deal with things directly,” Ransom allegedly said. (Ransom is indeed a former U.S. Marine. She then worked for a decade as a program coordinator for a company that helps veterans get construction jobs.)

Another witness said Ransom recounted going to the woman’s apartment: “I’m in the bushes, looking for her in her apartment, looking for her black poodle.”

A second witness described the same story. “Strikingly, both Witness 8 and Witness 5 made the same pantomiming gesture—a furtive head bob—of a person peering through bushes when quoting Director Ransom,” investigators wrote.

A second set of remarks that lawyers investigated for the report involved three witnesses recalling that Ransom would call the former employee, whose hair was dyed, a “skittlehead” or a “skittle-headed heifer.” (“Heifer,” the report says, is a derogatory slang word used against women.)

After Ransom brought up hiding in the woman’s bushes, one witness said Ransom told her: “I think I could kill a person. I think I could kill someone. I think about it, and I know how I would do it. I would wear a scuba suit if I did that.’ Director Ransom went on to say she was into true crime in the past.’”

WHAT RANSOM SAYS

Ransom tells WW she did make the bushes

and scuba suit comments, but says they were taken wildly out of context, and that various expressions she used—like hiding in the bushes and the term “heifer”—were not insults, but cultural expressions she’s used for many years.

Ransom tells WW: “From a Southern cultural respect, which is where my ancestors are from, slavers used a negative connotation to degrade us and call us heifers, whores, sows. So we flipped it to where we made it into a positive.”

She told investigators the scuba suit idea came from a cousin “as a means to commit the perfect crime.” Ransom tells WW it originated from a family conversation at Thanksgiving about a Netflix series on Jeffrey Dahmer that dominated the cultural zeitgeist last fall.

Ransom conceded that “skittlehead” was meant as an insult. But she says the larger issue is that colleagues whose careers she nurtured took her remarks out of context and turned them on her.

“They want to characterize me as this angry, violent Black woman with homicidal ideologies and stalking someone?” Ransom said in a phone interview. “I will never know why these women that I loved, respected, that told me how life-changing my mentorship was, would choose to gather off-context [comments] and try to build something to damage my character.”

Ransom calls the report “one-sided” and “disappointing,” and adds she feels betrayed by her colleagues—white women who she says coordinated their actions to end her career in state government. “It was just the culmination of my experience being a Black woman in Portland,” Ransom says. “The culture of BOLI, it’s a firecracker for white fragility.”

at the club stopped in 2013, when the courts were repurposed for parking. Because tennis was halted for five years, Emmert lost his zoning rights.

Emmert appealed that ruling. Just last month, the Oregon Court of Appeals upheld the lower court, which had said “the property reverted to its base zoning ‘and is restricted to uses permitted under’ applicable residential and overlay zones.”

According to Emmert, that means he can’t just open the property up to pickleball or anything else. “We’ve been receiving calls from a lot of people who would like to do something with pickleball,” he says. “That would be the highest and best use right now.”

and hosted volleyball.

The club closed during the pandemic and has been gathering spray paint ever since. The “Q” is missing from the old Eastmoreland Racquet Club & Estates sign, which is fronted by a bed of untrimmed irises. The outdoor courts are discolored by sun and rain.

Nicole Wear, an Eastmoreland resident, says it pains her to see such a huge piece of property (it’s 5 acres) sit idle and rotting when pickleball courts are packed and it’s impossible to get kids into swim lessons (the club has a pool).

“It’s just a shame that there is a space that could be serving the larger community,” says Wear, who has three kids. “It feels like such a

missed opportunity.”

Emmert, an energetic businessman who has owned tennis clubs, a hotel, eight ranches and who once pastured 400 water buffalo near Oregon City, says he’d like to do something with the club, but a recent court ruling prevents it.

Some years ago, a Multnomah County circuit judge ruled Emmert had lost the zoning rights that let him operate a sports club on the site. The club was built in 1976. City code changed in 1991 and no longer permitted athletic clubs in residential zones.

Emmert’s was grandfathered in, until he branched beyond tennis without the proper legal paperwork, according to the ruling. Tennis

Emmert blames the city for the blight. He says his employees were attacked a few years ago while trying to secure the property.

“If we had proper law enforcement, we wouldn’t have vandalism,” Emmert says. “We pay tax dollars, and those dollars should be spent on law enforcement.”

Perhaps. But now two courts have ruled that Emmert lost his zoning rights on the property because he discontinued tennis without playing by the rules. ANTHONY EFFINGER.

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

SIGN OF THE TIMES: The Eastmoreland Racquet Club is in disrepair.

CHASING GHOSTS

MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

“I don’t believe that this was watered down at all,” Rubio tells WW. “The directive from me to my bureau directors was, these two things are important and I believe in them, and let’s find the balance. I obviously care about climate change. I’m also in this role where we have to really look at how we can move the ball down the field” with housing.

SALMON HASH

Elected on promises of a greener city, Commissioner Carmen Rubio defies environmentalists on a floodplain plan.

THE ISSUE

Last week, the Portland City Council took the first steps toward a new set of regulations for developers building in flood-prone areas.

The context is complicated. In 2009, local environmental groups sued the Federal Emergency Management Agency, alleging that its floodplain insurance program violated the Endangered Species Act because it didn’t adequately protect salmon. (Preserving floodplains is critical for young salmon to survive migration.) In response, the National Marine Fisheries Service issued a 2016 ruling that requires a new floodplain plan from the city.

But those same environmental groups are deeply unhappy with how the city’s new floodplain plan is shaping up, saying it’s been significantly watered down over the past year to appease developers, particularly those along the South Waterfront. The effect of a weak plan, environmentalists argue, is that the city is failing to adequately protect salmon habitat in the Willamette River when it permits construction on its banks.

A particular sticking point for environmentalists in the draft floodplain plan—which goes to the City Council for a vote in October—is an existing, long-standing exemption that allows developers along the South Waterfront to ignore floodplain regulations that other developers must adhere to.

“There is no legal basis for exempting sites from these regulations, and doing so sets a bad precedent that will likely get repeated,” says Bob Sallinger, urban conservation director for Willamette Riverkeeper.

Ryan Reed

as much as I would like.

The next component is just that the paradigm fire suppression operates under is a militaristic and very colonialist system.

See, I thought you were going to say the hardest part was that it’s hot.

Sallinger says his organization believes it has strong legal grounds to sue the city over the waterfront projects if the plan, as currently drafted, is approved. “We believe that if they proceed forward with the plan as currently drafted, it will put the city in a position of projects being vulnerable to legal challenge. And we’re not inclined to be patient any longer.” (Willamette Riverkeeper is currently suing FEMA, alleging the agency is dragging its feet in complying with the 2016 floodplains order.)

The projects at stake are two major developments expected to commence in the near future along the South Waterfront: Oregon Health & Science University’s undeveloped waterfront land and Zidell Yards.

THE OFFICIAL

It was City Commissioner Carmen Rubio who decided not to drop the exemption.

Rubio is the commissioner in charge of the Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. She inherited the Planning Bureau earlier this year and took on the work of the floodplain regulations—a job that puts her in the middle of a tug of war between developers and environmentalists.

Rubio disputes Willamette Riverkeeper’s contention that she bowed to developers, and says she entrusted staff in the two bureaus that touch the issue—Planning and Sustainability, and Development Services—to create a plan that balanced the city’s housing production goals and environmental concerns. Rubio also says there was no interest from any other city commissioners’ offices to end the exemption.

Last week, in response to pushback from environmentalists, Rubio and Commissioner Mingus Mapps made an amendment to the plan that directs the city’s lobbyists to pursue funding from the state for floodplain mitigation efforts.

Sallinger is unhappy with the compromise: “It shifts the costs of mitigating for floodplain impacts from developers to the taxpayers.”

Rubio says she believes the amendment was a good one: “That’s all I have to say about that.”

WHY IT MATTERS FOR THE MAYOR’S RACE

Rubio ran for City Council in 2020 on a platform that included advancing the city’s environmental goals. But now Rubio finds herself on the opposite side of environmental groups that strongly supported her candidacy.

There’s an obvious parallel between Rubio’s dilemma and the one facing Gov. Tina Kotek, who has antagonized environmental groups by considering an exemption that would allow developers to build on wetlands and skirt tree codes in order to meet her housing goals.

Rubio’s straddling a fine line—especially if she runs for mayor next year, which she’s rumored to be strongly considering. She doesn’t want to annoy her base, which cares deeply about mitigating the effects of climate change by any means possible. And she doesn’t want to alienate developers, whose support (or at the very least neutrality) is crucial if she wants to win the mayoral race next fall.

Yet Rubio maintains the issue isn’t political. “This is not a political question,” she says. “This is truly, how do we meet the mission and intent of compliance for the good of our environment, and how do we also continue to make good on our goal about accelerating housing production?”

SOPHIE PEEL.

Name a West Coast megafire and there’s a good chance Ryan Reed fought it. At age 23, he’s already spent three summers as a wildland firefighter within the U.S. Forest Service. The blazes he’s battled: “Dixie, McCash, and I spent a little time on the McKinney Fire too,” he says. “I lose count.”

Despite all that experience, Reed is uncomfortable fighting fires. He’d rather be setting them, which is why he was in Portland last month in a federal building where the next decades of forest management policy are being hashed out.

Reed is a member of the Karuk, Hupa and Yurok tribes in Northern California (those tribal lands are just across the Oregon border, and he got an environmental studies degree at the University of Oregon). Those tribes for years have lobbied the Forest Service for a return to Indigenous forestry practices, which include regular prescribed burns to reduce the underbrush that turns forests into tinderboxes. The concessions they’ve obtained—including the right for the Karuk Tribe to conduct controlled burns in Six Rivers National Forest—have been hard won (“Fire Power,” WW, Oct. 7, 2020).

That agenda has a larger platform thanks to Reed, who is the sole member of the general public appointed to a 20-member advisory committee that’s crafting an amendment to the Northwest Forest Plan, which controls the use of 24.5 million acres of federally managed lands along the Cascades. In early September, Reed sat down with WW in Terry Schrunk Plaza while the Camp Creek Fire tore through the duff of the Bull Run Watershed, 30 miles east. We talked about his vision for Indigenous control of the West Coast’s forests. The interview has been edited for brevity and clarity. AARON MESH.

WW: What’s the hardest part of fighting wildfires?

Ryan Reed: One is simply that fire suppression is kind of against my identity. My people, we use fire as a tool of management, and that means lighting fires. I’m stopping fires on a day-to-day basis. It’s not my fault, nor the fault of the folks I’m working with, why fires are so intense and why fire suppression is so necessary these days. But every day is grappling with the fact that I can’t light fires

[Laughs] I mean, don’t get me wrong. The extremes physically that you have to endure, whether it’s heat or the rigorous, back-aching work, it’s tough. A lot of people break down, physically and mentally. That’s a huge component we need to emphasize these days: How are we taking care of our firefighters?

Do you see setting fires as a constructive tool?

Absolutely. I say that confidently, but that doesn’t mean that these catastrophic wildfires that we’re seeing in the media are what I’m talking about. Fire can be our tool, but historically it’s been suppressed, and that’s part of the reason why we’re in the conundrum we are right now—because of the lack of fire in the landscape.

Fires scare people—understandably, if you turn on the news and see images of places being consumed. How do you break through that?

As a firefighter, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was scared in moments of my short career. They always say, if you’re not scared, you’re a fool, right? I still stay with the fact that using fire is a tool. It is still essential. And it’s important to understand that the colonial past of management led us to why we are in the crisis. In short, let’s look to Indigenous leadership. We Indigenous folks have been here since time immemorial, and we’ve never had the extreme fire suppression and catastrophic wildfires ever underneath Indigenous management.

If you could get rid of the colonial archetype and move to something that comes more from your hometown, what does that look like?

That’s a difficult thing to answer because I grew up in post-apocalyptic times. My ancestors had to endure apocalypse, if you will. Our world has been flipped upside down. And now we’re being asked for our knowledge—to come to the rescue for a problem that we didn’t create. And it’s from the people who did create it.

To answer your question more explicitly, it means having our elders, our women, leading the way again, without repercussions from society. That means having proactive management. It means we’re putting fire in the landscape when it is safe. It’s really giving us a life before contact. That’s what it would look like.

GO FISH: Zidell Yards, at left.

A wildland firefighter argues for setting more fires.

RYAN REED

Safety in Numbers

Portland Public Schools replaced cops with a vast, unarmed security team. Is it enough?

BY RACHEL SASLOW rsaslow@wweek.com

The doors to Cleveland High School burst open at 3:30 pm— class dismissed—and hundreds of teenagers streamed out into the September sunshine. Greeting them on the front steps were a woman and a man, each wearing black polo shirts imprinted with “Campus Safety” on the back.

The guards carried two-way radios. They did not wear bulletproof vests or carry firearms, stun guns or pepper spray. But their job as “campus safety associates” is to maintain safe schools by patrolling campuses, building relationships with students, and intervening in and deescalating unsafe situations.

They are the replacements, painfully negotiated, for the armed, uniformed police officers who three years ago roamed school halls. They have had four hours of training.

“I always tell people they are armed with kindness,” says Molly Romay, Portland Public Schools’ director of security.

The Cleveland guardians stood about half a block from Southeast Franklin Street, where a 16-yearold student was shot and injured last December during school hours, sending the school into lockdown.

It might seem odd that the security guards defending the shampoo at Fred Meyer are packing more

heat than the ones protecting students at Oregon’s largest school district. But this is the level of security that many Portlanders demanded.

In June 2020, as nightly protests spurred by the murder of George Floyd raged through downtown, PPS Superintendent Guadalupe Guerrero announced that the school district would no longer have police patrolling its hallways. Politicians such as Mayor Ted Wheeler, then-City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, and two School Board members cheered the move, saying it would reduce the risk students of color experience from police.

Three years of debate and countless anguished PTA meetings have followed, as did five shootings last school year near Cleveland, Franklin and Jefferson high schools.

Guerrero launched a Safety and Security Task Force to survey the community, including a dozen focus groups and seven events at schools.

The result? The district looked to campus safety associates. CSAs have been on Portland school grounds for more than 20 years, according to the district, but they used to work in tandem with a handful of school resource officers—badged, armed cops.

PPS added 17 more CSAs this school year and extended their hours, an approximately $1.3 million expense. There are four at

each high school, one at each middle school, and two roving CSAs that patrol elementary schools and the K-8’s.

Board members say they are watching the results closely.

“I can say, unequivocally, it is safe for our kids in our school buildings,” School Board Chair Gary Hollands says. “Now, outside our buildings? Going to and from school? That’s different.”

Board member Julia Brim-Edwards says there never was a time when every Portland high school had its own full-time SRO. They usually covered multiple high schools, and their number could be affected by Portland Police Bureau staffing or budget issues. This is better.

“In many ways, we have a much broader safety and security team at every school, every day, than we ever had when there were SROs in the schools,” Brim-Edwards says.

The vertigo Portlanders are experiencing regarding the role of police—thousands marched to defund them in 2020, but now 19% of voters say crime is their top concern—is reflected in the public schools.

Kristen Downs, for one, wanted police officers back in her children’s school last winter. Two of her four children are recent Cleveland graduates. Many of their friends were in the stands at the Jan. 7 Cleveland basketball game at Franklin High School when shots were fired in the parking lot. A police officer was at the game and responded immediately, but attendees had to scatter to safety.

“I thought that was just appalling,” Downs says. “I said enough is enough.”

The next day, Downs started a

STANDING GUARD: Campus safety associates worked the Sept. 15 McDaniel High School football game.

petition to reinstate SROs. A little over 1,000 people signed it.

In May, PPS announced 13 new safety initiatives. They included community walking patrols before and after school, ID badges required for all middle and high school students, reestablishing the Police Bureau’s Youth Services Division, and a new weapons detection system. But no cops on campus.

Downs declared victory anyway and closed the petition.

“It’s not the same thing as trained SROs,” Downs says. “But baby steps are the way things are going to have to get done. It’s the first step in a long process after Portland defunded the police.” (Portland’s police budget remains at an all-time high, but it has struggled to fill vacant positions.)

Downs left Portland this summer. Her children’s new schools have SROs. “We’re in a better place,” she says.

No t surprisingly, Aaron Schmautz, president of the Portland Police Association, thinks schools would be safer with cops back in the halls. He was the sergeant in charge of the Youth Services Division in 2020 when it was disbanded.

to feel less safe with armed police roaming the halls. Plus, the U.S. Department of Education found that Black students at schools with police are 2.3 times more likely than white students to receive a referral to law enforcement or have a school-related arrest.

Angela Bonilla, president of the Portland Association of Teachers, believes the focus should be on prevention, not police.

“ We can’t keep treating the symptoms, we have to treat the illness,” Bonilla says. “Where are all the investments in school psychologists and counselors and mental health needs?”

The CSA’s four-hour basic training program includes emergency preparedness and response, suicide prevention, conflict management, deescalation, and learning the Department of Homeland Security’s active threat response.

According to their job description, hazards include “occasional violence or threat of violent behavior” and the position requires “strength to restrain individuals from committing violence.”

When asked if CSAs can prevent and stop school shootings, PPS security director Romay says, “Absolutely.”

“The trusting relationships they build both with students and the parent community allows them to naturally be violence interrupters,” she says.

However, an unnamed CSA on Guerrero’s Safety and Security Task Force reported in a May district document: “Weapons are everywhere. We need solutions that can detect them.”

That warning was part of what inspired the district to purchase a walk-through weapons detection system for use at major events.

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CSAs are excellent at building relationships because they are in the hallways every day and know how to talk to the kids that struggle, Schmautz says. But he still thinks police officers belong back in schools.

“I want to be really clear that the work CSAs do was important then and it is important now,” Schmautz says. “But if you were going to build a house and you’re like, ‘I need a plumber and an electrician.’ And then someone said, ‘You can’t have a plumber.’ It’s like, ‘OK, I’ll have two electricians then.’ You need both.”

Some say school shootings are so unpredictable that police officers can’t reliably stop them anyway—cops didn’t help in Uvalde, Texas, or Parkland, Fla.

Others argue that students of color and students with disabilities have understandable reason

The high-speed OpenGate pillars debuted at the Sept. 15 football game at McDaniel High School.

The school district tries to hire CSAs who are either from the community or have established relationships with the school or campus they’re staffing. Some are parents of current students.

PPS declined to make a CSA available for an interview after two weeks of requests by WW.

Three School Board members contacted by WW say they are, for the moment, satisfied with the compromise.

“Everyone we talked to agreed that when there’s a school shooting or a violent act, we need to involve the police in that,” says board member Andrew Scott. “I think the real question becomes who do we want inside of our school buildings on a daily basis?

And, at least for now, the answer to that was campus safety associates.”

“I always tell people they are armed with kindness,” says Molly Romay, Portland Public Schools’ director of security.

The Bad Plus and Marc Ribot's Cermaic Dog

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Herb Alpert and Lani Hall

The mission of PDX Jazz is to evolve the art of jazz by engaging our community, celebrating live performance, and enhancing arts education.

Deep Dive

Our guide to more than 40 of Portland’s oldest, dankest dive bars.

he Yamhill Pub was an unlikely candidate for salvation.

The dingy hole-in-the-wall along the downtown MAX tracks might be mistaken for a service door if not for its signature soiled, green awning. It’s survived a lot in its 80-plus years: a development boom, changing tastes, downtown political unrest, and—miraculously— health inspections.

But Oregon’s second COVID shutdown of barrooms during the winter of 2020 seemed like last call. The Paycheck Protection Program loan money had run out. Food delivery didn’t make sense for an institution where the main menu item is Stouffer’s Frozen Lasagna.

But the Yamhill Pub’s patrons wouldn’t let it die.

When general manager Kevin Hill launched a GoFundMe campaign, patrons raised more than $8,000 to help keep the PBR flowing. That’s a lot of money for a place so grimy you need to wash your hands after opening the restroom door from the outside because the knob transfers a sticky film of unknown origin. And the Yamhill Pub lived.

There’s nothing Portlanders cherish so much as a cozy old watering hole. This city has been through its fair share of bar trends: The craft brewpub boom and the rise of the stylish, mixologist-led lounge are just two examples. But we always manage to find our way back to the dives and champion their existence, no matter how sleazy.

Perhaps that’s because nothing else can really

serve as a good substitute. Dives offer stability in an ever-changing world: You know who’s working what shift and how much bullshit they’ll put up with, the same customers (most of whom live minutes away) show up to warm their preferred seats, and the menu is fixed: If there’s a Friday prime rib sandwich special, you better believe it’s been that way for decades and will remain so until the end of time.

These are also the types of bars where we establish and maintain a chosen family—one that can sometimes be dysfunctional, loud and bizarre, but also supportive, hilarious and kind.

This issue pays tribute to those dives, which often feel like something of an endangered species, given the rate of neighborhood redevelopment and the stubborn industry instability caused by the pandemic. We’re also honoring their history, which means each bar listed in the following pages is at least 50 years old.

What Yamhill Pub says about this town we’ll leave for you to decide. But its storefront is still occupied— which is a helluva lot more than you can say for its surroundings.

We encourage you to use this as a guide to find a bar that feels like home or, if you already have that special place, turn to these pages and explore a new joint—because no other locale will help you get to know a neighborhood better than its dive.

—Andi Prewitt, Arts & Culture Editor

HOME: A good dive bar should have a lived-in feel, like at North Portland’s Mock Crest Tavern.

The Alibi Tiki Lounge

4024 N Interstate Ave., 503-287-5335.

11:30 am-2:30 am daily.

Established: 1947

What happens at the Alibi is sacred. This isn’t Vegas, although the extravagant Polynesian kitsch could give you that impression. The musical performances offered here don’t always stay here: A video of David Byrne singing Prince went viral several years back. But what happens at Italian cathedrals is on any given day filmed by thousands of people. That doesn’t mean it’s not sacred. Anyway, if you’re willing to stipulate that karaoke is Portland’s civic religion—and after downing a Vicious Virgin No. 2, you will—then the Alibi is the choir loft. It’s also a killer party, jammed to the gills each night with a young crowd waiting for a performance that will hold the room’s attention. (On a recent Saturday night, it was a young man spitting every line of Dr. Dre’s “What’s the Difference.”) This is the place you go when you want to hear something special, or sing something that means the world to you. It’s where I went the night Damian Lillard hit the 0.9 shot, and it’s where I’ll go when the Blazers win a championship. It is our tower of song. AARON MESH.

George’s Corner Tavern

5501 N Interstate Ave., 503-289-0307, georgescornertaver.wixsite.com/my-site. 10 am-2 am daily.

Established: 1958

At the corner of North Interstate and Killingsworth Street for nearly a century, George’s is like the longtime character actor you are always happy to see. And like a good ensemble player, George’s has a little something for everyone: a solid whiskey list, a killer back patio rebuilt after a fire damaged it in 2021, Jell-O and pudding shots, and super-friendly service. And perhaps George’s best (un)kept secret is its fried chicken and jojos, which give Reel M Inn a run for its money. A three-piece basket with a jojo upgrade will run you $18, and arrives hot and juicy. The proportions of potato and bird aren’t as freakishly gargantuan as those at our Southeast Portland fave, but they’ll arrive in minutes, rather than hours. Grab a cocktail that’s less than $10, watch some soccer or, randomly, episodes of Hell’s Kitchen, on one of the many TVs, and relax. George’s has got ya. ANDREA

DAMEWOOD.

MICHAEL RAINES

MICHAEL RAINES

MICHAEL RAINES

NATHANIEL PERALES

NATHANIEL PERALES

NATHANIEL PERALES

TIKI TIME: Rum bowls and karaoke are highlights at The Alibi.

BOTTOMS UP: George’s has a solid whiskey list and an abundance of cheap cocktails.

Mock Crest Tavern

3435 N Lombard St., 503-283-5014, mockcrest.com. 11 am-midnight MondayThursday, 11 am-1 am Friday, 9 am-1 am Saturday, 9 am-midnight Sunday.

Established: 1941

www.NorthPortlandAttorney.com (503) 286-1346

TheresaKohlhoff@gmail.com

In the Portland of my memory, every neighborhood has a watering hole with a single room the size of a railroad apartment, containing a long lunch counter and swivel stools, two TV sets showing the Beavers game, and a jukebox playing a Stevie Nicks rock block. In Portsmouth, one still exists on North Lombard. Upon entry, it’s easy to slip out of that geographic orientation: This could be Newport, Rhododendron or Southeast Milwaukie Avenue. The time is a little hard to pin down, also: Nothing appears to have changed since 1987, except there’s a Pride flag in the front window, the taps feature new releases from Double Mountain and pFriem, and next to the juke are three charging stations for your phone. Glitzier destinations exist, but I’m not sure there’s a better local in the city—certainly not one with a grassy yard just out the back door behind the restrooms. In short, this is a good place to go in search of lost time, maybe once a week or so, then stroll home in the neon-speckled dusk, thinking of a city you once knew and maybe still do. AARON MESH.

The Perch Bar & Grill

7505 N Lombard St., 503-286-9541. 10 am-1:30 am, Monday-Saturday, 10 am-midnight Sunday.

Established: 1941

If you start a North Portland bar crawl in St. Johns and make The Perch your last stop, it will feel like the right choice. The Perch is tenacious and gritty. A sign above the restroom notes that you can’t bring a backpack in there, and the doors on the stalls only go down to your shins. The pilot light will be out on the stove, so no chicken tendies to soak up your several vodka sodas. But the bartender will be friendly, you will get a super-stiff pour, the patrons are all in fine fettle, and you’ll also get a cherry-lime Jell-O shot for your troubles. If you want a strong, cheap drink and a place to down it, The Perch is, and probably always will be, there for you. ANDREA DAMEWOOD.

Slim’s PDX

8935 N Lombard St., 503-286-3854.

7 am-2:30 am daily.

Established: 1911

Slim’s walks the line between diner and dive bar, but with features like a bubbly, light-up Miller High Life bottle and a closing time of 2:30 in the morning, Slim’s is definitely a dive. That being said, it’s the only bar in town I can think of that serves a pretty decent agedashi

tofu—lightly fried, soft tofu resting in a pool of slightly sweet soy dashi sauce—as well as a standup burger and a better-than-average BLT. Slim’s crowd skews younger than you’ll find in most bars in St. Johns, but the clientele ranges from bearded 30-somethings to wizened retirees, with a stiff whiskey soda lubricating them all. Smokers and the smoke-tolerant can’t do much better than order a draft beer and post up at the picnic tables out front that face Lombard—it’s the ultimate St. Johns meet-and-greet. ANDREA DAMEWOOD.

MICHAEL RAINES

MICHAEL RAINES

Twilight Room

5242 N Lombard St., 503-283-5091. 11 ammidnight Monday-Thursday, 11 am-1 am

Friday-Saturday, 11 am-10 pm Sunday.

Established: 1959

The T Room contains multitudes. During the school year, it’s a hangout for students from nearby University of Portland, but this stalwart draws plenty of neighbors, too. It’s a massive space, with a vintage stained-glass display above the bar bearing its name. At happy hour, $7 earns you a disturbingly large pile of popcorn chick-

en or an equally huge basket of fries, while the rest of the regular menu holds it down all day and night. If you’re looking to unwind, the heated back patio allows dogs (where the cutest corgi was chilling the last time we went), or hang in the main lounge for trivia or pool. The Twilight Room has a slushy machine and 33 taps, along with a full bar of goodies—plenty to graduate your night into a raucous one, whether you’re 21 or 51. ANDREA DAMEWOOD.

The World Famous Kenton Club

2025 N Kilpatrick St., 503-285-3718, kentonclub.com. Noon-2 am MondayFriday, 10 am-2 am Saturday-Sunday.

Established: 1947

That “world famous” accolade refers to a brief, dank appearance in a 1972 Raquel Welch roller-derby B-picture called Kansas City Bomber, posters of which grace the wood-paneled walls. Such decorations suggest the slightly sad nostalgia of an athlete gone to seed, but they’re deceiving. Few bars in Portland have rebounded from the pandemic with as much dexterity as the Kenton Club, which emerged as an eclectic venue where the night’s $10 cover charge could mean the main stage is filled by touring heavy rockers, a honky-tonk jam session or Twirl, a dance party billed as “NoPo’s queer disco.” All of which means sipping a Maker’s Mark and beer back under the club’s enormous metal chandeliers is one way to test out a new subculture (and perhaps take advantage of the emcee’s offer of free earplugs). The eclectic calendar makes the Kenton Club a living thing instead of a drunkard’s museum—and, if any given night’s acts aren’t to your taste, the parking lot patio out back is enormous and dotted with booths for private conversations. AARON MESH.

Your Inn Tavern

7004 N Catlin Ave., 503-285-0420. 10 am-10 pm, Monday-Thursday, 10 am-11 pm Friday, 9 am-11 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Established: 1923

It’s cliché to say that walking into an old dive bar feels like being in someone’s living room, but sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason. Your Inn Tavern is tucked into a side street in a quiet St. Johns neighborhood, and when approaching the circular bar that dominates the space, it’s an experience that’s reminiscent of walking in on family. And I don’t mean that in a forbidding way: Everyone seems like a regular, but they’ll chat you up about the $11 taco salad on special like you’re there every day, too. My friend Becky, a native Minnesotan, tore into a Reuben that (1) was made with housemade corned beef on rye, large, juicy and delicious, (2) cost only $11.50, and (3) prompted the remark that Your Inn reminded them of home in the best possible way. Can’t beat that. ANDREA DAMEWOOD.

CHRIS NESSETH

BELLY UP: Not much changes at Mock Crest, including the lunch counter and swivel stools.

PDX JAZZ THURSDAYS AT THE HOXTON HOTEL

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Bossa PDX: Featuring Kerry Politzer

SEPTEMBER 28

Leon Cotter Quartet

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Doors 4:30 pm | Show 5:00 pm

Get

Ace Tavern

8868 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-252-4761. 8 am-1 am daily.

Established: 1941

A proper dive occupies the sweet spot between sketchy and silly, and the Ace Tavern on Sandy hits just the right balance. Signs warn against handguns, foul language and attempts to pay with anything other than cash. Walk into the carpeted, well air-conditioned space and you’ll see a few video poker players hushed by the machines in the back. A small kitchen prepares an assortment of microwavable options like chicken bakes and sandwiches, while the regulars at the bar regale the bartender with stories like “how I got rid of those darn woodpeckers.” The daily combination of food and liquor specials means that if it’s Wednesday, you’re getting a dollar off of breakfast or gin (or both, if you’re living large). There are several massive televisions behind the bar, including one with a live feed of the parking lot so you can keep an eye on your car while you sip on a standard selection of drafts or a White Claw if you’re watching your figure. So, keep it PG, enjoy the generous pours of anything as long as it’s not top shelf—there is no top shelf—and settle in. ALEXANDER BASEK.

Billy Ray’s Dive

2216 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 503-287-7254. 3 pmmidnight Monday-Thursday, noon-2 am Friday-Sunday.

Established: 1950s

Billy Ray’s is the kind of dive where you may find, as I did one recent Sunday afternoon, that everyone else in the bar was also there on Saturday night; the regulars are very regular. The neon “TAVERN” sign outside is fancier than anything behind the red front door opening into the dark, narrow space with a warped copper bartop. It’s probably the only bar in Portland where you can buy American Spirits, a microwaved Hungry-Man dinner and a Double Mountain IPA at the same time. There’s 50-cent pool after 7 pm—free until then—and $5 microbrews during happy hour. The cash-only establishment has been a bar for decades—the

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building itself was built in 1900—and a sign by the door warns that only one reentry is permitted daily. The cash drawer also cautions there are “earwigs inside,” so, like the actual age of the bar itself, who knows the real truth? Print the legend instead. ALEXANDER BASEK.

Sandy Hut

1430 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-235-7972.

11:30 am-2:30 am daily.

Established: 1923

We should all aim to be this much fun when we’re 100. The Wolf’s Den, the Sandy Hut, or the Hut of Huts, if you’re not into the whole brevity thing, is an idealized version of a midcentury bar and restaurant. The restored Hirschfeld mural, cozy booths and padded bartop add vintage flair, while a slushy machine, Big Buck Hunter and pinup calendars keep things from getting too fancy. The crowd is a mix of folks who’ve managed to survive the bar’s zhuzhing up by new ownership in 2015 (they gave Holman’s the same treatment this year) and whatever counts for a hipster these days. No matter the name or the state of the interior, the bartenders will not stand for any of your lip but will be generous with the

AARON LEE

CENTURY CLUB: Sandy Hut is still going strong at 100.

pours of liquor, essential for any top-tier dive. Here’s to another 100 years at the western terminus of Sandy Boulevard, or at least until the slushy machine gives out. ALEXANDER BASEK.

The Sextant Bar & Galley

4035 NE Marine Drive, 503-281-5944.

11 am-midnight Monday-Friday. 10 am-midnight Saturday-Sunday.

Established: 1973

expansive deck overlooking the river. We’ve had better pastrami, but the Reuben was solid and the coleslaw excelled. We amped up the nautical theme by playing Jimmy Buffett (rest in power) on the jukebox and ogling what looked like a real sextant on the wall. The margaritas at the Sextant won’t satisfy a single Parrot Head, but everything else surely will.

ANTHONY EFFINGER.

The Wilshire Tavern

4052 NE 42nd Ave., 503-284-8083.

2 pm-closing daily.

Established: 1933

Joe’s Cellar

1332 NW 21st Ave., 503-223-8825.

11 am-midnight daily.

Established: 1941

In 2018, WW wrote the following about Joe’s Cellar: “Dive bars are generally good places to hide from the sun, but Joe’s Cellar seems designed to make you forget sunlight exists.” Not much has changed since, and that’s the beauty of Joe’s. While the Slabtown blocks surrounding the place have dramatically transformed over the past several years, it seems you can always count on Joe’s (aside from a temporary closure in 2013) as a place where you can hunker down in the dark with a standard beer—none of that try-hard fancy stuff—or a strong, cheap mixed drink. It also serves perfectly acceptable dive grub like tots, which are oily and salty, as all good tots should be, and a club sandwich that’s a carnivore’s crunchy, meaty dream balanced by whole-wheat bread. Time is warped in Joe’s; you can sit in a booth with your co-workers for what feels like two hours after work and all of a sudden it’s 11 pm. If you leave before dusk, your eyes will burn as soon as you walk outside and realize that sunshine still exists. Regulars could not give a flying fuck that you’re there, which offers you blessed anonymity and low standards. Essentially, Joe’s is the place to go if you want to feel like you’re in a dungeon—but a fun one, with a surprisingly young and not-so-shabby-looking clientele on a recent Friday night. SOPHIE PEEL.

Lighthouse Restaurant & Bar

10808 NW St. Helens Road, 503-240-8827, lighthousepdx.com. 11:30 am-11 pm MondayFriday, 9 am-11 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Established: 1950

Linnton, a former lumber town on the west bank of the Willamette River, stretching from the railroad yard near Northwest Kittridge Avenue to the Sauvie Island Bridge, has certainly seen better days. But the local dive, the Lighthouse, remains as sprightly as ever. The restaurant and bar opened 73 years ago when an enterprising entrepreneur built a roof over the alley beside the old town bank. Some things haven’t changed. For instance, the safe deposit boxes are still on display in the dining room. But others have: A former investment banker turned restaurateur renovated the place a few years back, and there’s now a satisfying selection of gluten-free beers and ciders next to bottles of Bud Light behind the bar. On a recent Friday evening, regulars filed in to nosh on the Lighthouse’s wide selection of sandwiches (including a delightful tofu bánh mi) while Liz Cooper played in the background. “It’s the closest thing to a rural Oregon bar that’s still within city limits,” WW noted in 2018, when we named it our runner up for Bar of the Year. That remains true to this day. LUCAS MANFIELD.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to experience The Sextant Bar & Galley on the Columbia River. We did it the wrong way, ordering a margarita that almost certainly came from a supermarket mix, and a hazy IPA that was neither hazy nor an IPA. The guy next to us got it right. He settled in front of a video lottery machine by the pool table and asked his wife to get him a lemon drop. “Hell,” he said, “make it a double lemon drop.” Legend. Nor did we go on a sunny afternoon, when we could have sat on the

Prepare to step back in time, or at the very least into a suburban rec room circa 1978 at The Wilshire Tavern. Whatever is off-gassing from the well-loved carpet and faux-wood paneling creates an atmosphere reminiscent of cigarettes, disappointed fathers and WD-40. It’s great, even if it’s from about three Portlands ago. No liquor, no credit cards, no problems is the M.O. at this Beaumont-Wilshire neighborhood mainstay, said to have been owned by a professional wrestler back in the day. Now it’s the spot where men of a certain age (old enough to have opinions about Steve Largent) trade stories about baseball and golf. There’s food—both hard-shell and soft tacos are available on Sundays—though your opinion of it may hinge on how you feel about $3 canned oysters. Despite the absence of the hard stuff, the beer selection is decent, trending to the local. While they say they are an Oregon Ducks bar, you can expect the bartender to bust your chops no matter who you’re rooting for on Saturday.

ALEXANDER BASEK.

Mary’s Club

503 W Burnside St., 503-227-3023, marysclub.com. 11:30 am-2:30 am daily.

Established: 1954

The strongest selling points of Portland’s oldest, continuously running strip club were never tangible. Mary’s original location was a kitschy shoebox of a place that was alluring more for what it represented—one of the few remaining portals to Old Portland—than the entertainment on offer. The ceilings were low, the music was hokey, and the performers embraced camp and curviness, oftentimes flitting across the room on roller skates while a handful of oil paintings of babes in faraway locales oversaw the proceedings. In December 2021, Mary’s moved just blocks away, at which point it was reerected as a sleazy simulacrum of its former self. Said oil paintings and the iconic marquee remain prominently displayed at the long hallway-shaped space that’s lined with two stages on one side and the bar on the other. Hail Mary Nachos and a massive grilled burrito are available

TIM SAPUTO

TIM SAPUTO

LANDLUBBERS: The nautical-themed Sextant has a stellar patio.

until last call, and you can wash that all down with a pint of Mary’s Topless Blonde, a crushable, malty beer custom-made for the club by Cascade Brewing. The dancers are still tasked with pulling double duty as their own DJs; however, the music and atmosphere are a tad more modern than what one would expect at the old locale. The mood is still lighter than your average new-school spot, so it’s safe to assume the ghosts of Old Portland are pleased with the transition.

PETE COTTELL.

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Salmon are on the brink of extinction. The All Our Relations Snake River Campaign is a two-week, Indigenous-led campaign traveling through the Northwest to bring attention to the urgent need to remove the four lower Snake River dams as part of a comprehensive solution to restore salmon abundance and uphold our nation’s promises to Northwest Tribes.

Join us in Portland to hear from Tribal leaders, join in ceremony, and stand in solidarity for their call to restore a

Yur’s Bar & Grill

717 NW 16th Ave., 503-224-0160, yursbarandgrill.com. 7 am-2:30 am daily.

Established: 1970

You wouldn’t know it just by glancing at this turret-topped bar emblazoned with a red logo that functions as a billboard along Interstate 405, but Yur’s is its own little Slabtown ecosystem. In the morning, it refuels Radio Cab’s fleet of graveyard shift drivers once they’ve punched out. In fact, before the arrival of ride-hailing apps, it wouldn’t be uncommon to find the entire bar lined with cabbies eating breakfast. Some afternoons, a guy from Hotlips a few blocks away brings the bartenders a post-shift pizza before hitting the

video lottery machines. Tucked between lively Northwest 21st Avenue and the Pearl’s gleaming high-rises in an area that is as close as you can get to “no man’s land” in Portland these days, Yur’s keeps the neighborhood regulars happily buzzed and entertained. But the tavern is also a beloved social space—where you can enjoy the comfort of being among others even if you don’t feel like uttering anything other than your drink order. The amiable bartenders are quick to pour you a tumbler of Jameson, but will slow down to listen to stories or confessions (“I broke a human being last night,” one man shared during my visit. “I gave someone mushrooms that I should not have”). The lack of windows and pitch-black booths mean that the space is sufficiently dark, which makes ordering a strong chocolate pudding shot before 5 pm seem acceptable, not desperate. However, the glow from the TVs and slot machines provide enough light to ward off any “descending into a murky mineshaft” vibes. Consider it a bonus that the food here is made with pride and tastes like it. Even a humble scoop of potato salad—a zesty blend of red onions, red spuds, celery, pickles, eggs and a few different mustards—is a notch above your average deli case side. And lucky for you, Yur’s brought back happy hour in September following a three-year-plus pandemic pause. ANDI PREWITT.

For

The Checkered Flag Tavern

7483 SE 82nd Ave., 503-771-1994.

10 am-2:30 am daily.

Established: 1950s. Reestablished as The Checkered Flag Tavern in 2019.

You don’t exactly expect to be welcomed with open arms into every windowless outer Southeast Portland dive bar, especially one surrounded by privacy metal fencing and no obvious indication of an entrance. I had to trace the perimeter of this bar named after the finish symbol in every redneck’s favorite motorsport to find the back door marked only by a “No Minors” sign. Pushing into the dark room, I half expected to get jumped, so imagine my surprise when I was hit with the pleasant aroma of flowery sanitizer and everything bagels. A cheery bartender immediately greeted me and ran down the extensive selection of sodas, ciders, seltzers, beers and cocktails, informing me they were cash only. It turns out The Checkered Flag isn’t flying the colors of “red, white and blue lives matter,” but instead displays vibrant Pride flags and transgender rights signs while welcoming all genders and people from various walks of life. Every dive bar hallmark is in place here, though they’ve been freshened up, like how I imagine Snoop Dogg’s crib after Martha Stewart pays a visit. Even the streetside patio has been insulated and spruced up with plastic plants that could come off as a tropical garden with the right Instagram filter.

EZRA JOHNSON-GREENOUGH.

Claudia’s Sports Pub and Grill

3006 SE Hawthorne Blvd., claudiaspub.com.

4-10 pm Monday, 11 am-10 pm Tuesday-Thursday and Sunday, 11 am-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

Established: 1958

With just one Big Four sports team and a preponderance of bohemians who still think the term “sportsball” is edgy, it’s no surprise that Portland is not an elite sports city. Tunnel-visioned sports palaces like Blitz and Century have come and gone, yet Claudia’s soldiers on with an understated approach to a bar format that’s functionally useless to most of the city. If it weren’t for the various pennants and wreaths of TVs that hang above both sides of the bar, one would assume Claudia’s is a standard neighborhood dive, and its many amenities make it a damn fine one at that. The 10 tap handles pour $6.50 pints from local heavyweights like Breakside and Von Ebert, and the kitchen churns out sports bar classics like wings, gyros and an excellent turkey burger that’s the regulars’ go-to when they need something hearty to soak up the booze from a day-drinking marathon. Claudia’s displays no official allegiance to any one team, making it a great choice for a long fall Sunday, where sports bros of all ages and genders can bump fists and talk shit without being vibed out by whatever home crowd assumes ownership of the bar for the day.

PETE COTTELL.

Foster Gardens

7855 SE Foster Road, 503-788-2578.

11 am-1 am daily.

Established: 1930s

At Foster Gardens, there is no garden (not even a garden salad), and the only thing it fosters is a hangover. The bar, named after the street it’s on, shares a parking lot with another watering hole called Andy’s Inn and is across from The Spot 79, a karaoke and lotto haven boasting steaks and seafood. So why does Foster Gardens have such a lively crowd on a weekday—even during off-peak hours—when there are other options nearby? It’s true, they have a ramshackle smoking deck, lots and lots of video poker, a shuffleboard table gathering dust, and cheap beer ($5 pints!). But the best feature outside of the conversations and amiable bartender is the on-site taco truck that is the only source of alcohol-free sustenance—it’s just too bad it closes at 9 pm even though the bar stays open later. That might partially

explain why I was asked to help lift a woman off the ground outside and into an Uber at 10:30 pm. So, cons: Someone may regale you with stories about their tiny dog’s rat-catching prowess and you may be summoned to hoist a person to their feet. Pros: You may be offered a free shot from the Fireball machine and a suspicious homemade yogurt cookie from a Tupperware container in thanks for assisting a buzzed patron in a time of need.

EZRA JOHNSON-GREENOUGH.

Gil’s Speakeasy Tavern

609½ SE Taylor St., 503-234-8991.

3 pm-2 am daily.

Established: 1939

The best summation of Gil’s is a bottle of Budweiser covered with a dirty pandemic face mask in lieu of a coaster and left at the bar while a drinker takes a piss. Essentially, that scene seems to indicate the patron was considerate enough to wear a face covering during COVID but couldn’t make the effort to put it

FIXER-UPPER: Holman’s reopened this year following renovations.

back on to use the windowless restroom. That might sound like I am disparaging Gil’s (known by most as simply “The Speakeasy”), but far from it. I love the cozy familiar surroundings with the ambience of a punk rock venue green room, complete with old couches and a tube TV. Yes, it has all of the typical dive bar trappings (video poker, pool, pinball, cheap beer), but it also has an out-of-place LED screen displaying some good craft beers, a respectable pub menu, defunct brewery tap handles screwed into the ceiling, and wall-to-wall graffiti. Everything about this tavern feels like a secret that you would need a password to unlock, especially the entrance, with a Prohibition-style speakeasy window slot. It’s almost too bad that the pandemic forced Gil’s to add a covered streetside parklet, making it much easier to spot the business. Prior to that, the joint was mostly discovered by word-of-mouth or people searching for parking at nearby Afuri and Kachka. EZRA JOHNSON-GREENOUGH.

Holman’s Bar & Grill

15 SE 28th Ave., 503-231-1093, holmanspdx.com. 8 am-2:30 am daily.

Established: 1933

Holman’s is one of those bars where everyone knows your name— not because you are a regular, but because they are all off-duty bartenders and servers from other places you frequent. The bar had only been reopened for a week during my visit, and I found a murderer’s row of alcohol distributors, brewery reps and bussers lined up on the stools like they never left, even though the place closed for more than three years, initially due to the pandemic. It’s easy to see why they were back: The recently completed remodel by new owners Warren Boothby and Marcus Archambeault (The Alibi, Sandy Hut, The Vern) reflects the vibe of the area’s surrounding good bars and upscale drinking establishments with a twist. Despite the renovation, there is still much to look at—every inch of wall space is covered in some sort of strange or vintage knickknack, from tiny framed photos of old Hollywood celebrities to country landscape paintings to pictures of late beloved pets. Recent additions to the semi-morbid display include the rusted Club 21 sign and the front face of a big-rig truck that once graced the exterior of now-closed NoPo dive bar Sloan’s. While it is all evocative of a previous generation’s good times and cherished memories, I can’t shake the feeling they just cleaned out someone’s estate sale. EZRA JOHNSON-GREENOUGH.

Kay’s Bar

6903 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503-232-4447, kaysbarpdx.com. 2 pm-midnight MondayWednesday, 2 pm-1 am Thursday-Friday, noon-1 am Saturday, noon-midnight Sunday.

Established: 1934

James Dickey said his dad wrote the novel by hand at Kay’s during a poet-in-residence stint at nearby Reed College.) Like Renner’s, Lutz or other long-ignored watering holes saved from the bulldozer, Kay’s eventually gained new owners, who tore down walls and ripped up menus during massive remodels that preserved original decorative flourishes to lure middle-aged patrons there for date nights and upsell them drinks. Essentially, this incarnation of the bar best resembles the telegraphy kits or blacksmithing tools at neighboring antique shops, divorced from context, sold by the bucketload to new homeowners seeking some patina of utility, however misunderstood. So long as the merest whiff of authenticity still clings to Kay’s, despite the fact that it’s hawking huckleberry mules and barbecue soy curls, nobody will complain that the dive is a shallow dip into tepid waters. The springboard’s sufficiently lovely: oxblood banquette loveseats, frosted amber electric votive candles, and an iconic curved glass brick entrance below scarlet neon signage. Whatever Kay’s has become, it’s still got a real purty mouth. JAY HORTON.

Lutz Tavern

4639 SE Woodstock Blvd., 503-774-0353, lutztavern.com. Noon-2:30 am Monday-Friday, 11 am-2:30 am Saturday-Sunday.

Established: 1947

macro lager paired with smoky mac-’n’-cheese bites or a round of corn dogs? Sure, there are cliché signs like “the bartender is always right” on the walls, but frivolous décor aside, there is a sense of camaraderie here that reminds you Portland still has some salt-of-the earth folks. You can venture over to Southeast Foster Road or up Woodstock for slightly hipper digs, but why bother when everything you need is right here? NEIL FERGUSON.

Old Gilbert Road Tavern

5501 SE 72nd Ave., 503-777-1220. 4 pm-11 pm

Sunday-Thursday, 4 pm-midnight

Friday-Saturday.

Established: Late 1930s or early 1940s.

Reestablished as Old Gilber Road Tavern in 2016.

Once a gritty biker bar, this neighborhood haunt across from Mount Scott Park may be best known by passersby for its random, often Harry Dean Stanton-obsessed movie quote marquee. Though the attendance at Old Gilbert (affectionately known as “The OG”) varies from graveyardlike to packed, there is always something comfy about the place despite the sometimes stonyfaced bartenders. Belly up to the bar and drink the night away with some surprisingly well-crafted mixologist-esque cocktails and some nice shot-and-beer combos, and if you’re looking to soak up the booze, the “Tiny-Ass Cheese Burgers,” chicken sandwich and filet o’ fish all pack big flavor. The OG also features a variety of live music, comedy and other community gatherings that take it a notch above your average dive. I recall coming here back in the day to skank to ska bands, but it’s also where I witnessed despair wash over a group of barflies watching the 2016 election results. In other words, this is one of those true local watering holes. NEIL FERGUSON.

Ninety percent of dive bars in Portland fall into two camps: irredeemable, video lottery-plagued purgatory, or a gentrified simulacrum of what used to be the former. Lutz Tavern is part of that rare and sacred 10% that’s thankfully neither. The wood paneling and knickknackery is on point, but not suspiciously so. The bartenders let on that they’ve seen some shit, but their default mode is grizzled pleasance rather than piss-and-vinegar. Like at any good neighborhood boozer, the tap list is well stocked with unfussy craft beers dispensed without hesitation when a post-hipster regular wanders in and gestures toward the handles, asking for “an IPA or whatever, I don’t give a shit.” Aside from the occasional bewildered Reed kid or roller-derby mom, both the staff and the clientele at this beloved watering hole are solidly Old Portland in the best way possible. Lutz offers a solid, BS-free weekend brunch, while the weekday menu brokers in greasy bar classics like a chicken sandwich, a patty melt and an absolute unit of a Reuben that should give delicatessens pause. PETE

COTTELL.

Mt. Scott Pub

6001 SE 72nd Ave., 503-771-7223. Noon-midnight

Monday-Friday, 11 am-1 am Saturday-Sunday.

Established: 1960s. Reestablished as Mt. Scott Pub in 1990.

Reel M Inn

2430 SE Division St., 503-231-3880, reelminnpdx.com. 11 am-2:30 am daily.

Established: 1950. Reestablished as Reel M Inn in 1994.

Most transplants who moved to Portland during the Obama administration have one lovable slacker friend whose livelihood is constantly in peril due to the rising tide of capitalism. Reel M Inn is essentially that friend but in bar form. Since the early 2010s, the stretch of Division that contains this cacophonous tavern-cum-chicken shack has watched one beloved totem of The Good Old Days succumb to the condo plague, yet Reel M Inn still stands in defiance of all things pretentious and bougie. There’s rarely more than one bartender on duty, so you better figure out what you want before you hit the bar. A tallboy of Rainier and a shot of Old Crow is still only $5, so that’s an easy one. There’s a good chance you and everyone else crammed into the tiny space, which is covered in chalk graffiti, tattered beer signs and cheap Christmas lights, are here because some list told you this is the spot for fried chicken. Assume it will take over an hour for your food to materialize, and do not under any circumstances harangue the bartender about your order taking too long. The $16 half-bird meal is plenty for two people, and the à la carte menu makes it easy to add a breast or some onion rings if you’re expecting more greasy paws to pick at your plate.

PETE COTTELL.

A landmark neighborhood nightspot graying alongside its clientele, Kay’s Bar staggered into 21st century irrelevancy catering to elderly day-drinkers and nocturnal malcontents. (Though

This nondescript bar on the corner of Southeast Woodstock Boulevard and 72nd Avenue kept drinkers comfortably buzzed back when this neighborhood was still called “Felony Flats” and you could chain-smoke inside to your heart’s content after a hard day’s work. That spirit is still alive and well within the ’70s basement-style, wood-paneled confines of Mt. Scott Pub. It’s the kind of joint with few windows, and those that exist are mostly blocked by lottery machines, anyway. But who needs natural light when you can soak in the glow of a neon beer sign while sipping a (surprisingly good) mint mojito, craft beer, or

Rumpus Room

10555 SE Division St., 503-254-9212, 2 pm-1 am daily.

Established: 1972

Portland is filled with bars that act as a catch-all for nearby dwellers. Case in point is the Rumpus Room, which offers virtually

it does have one claim to fame: The son of Deliverance author

HENRY CROMETT

MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

Walt, the founder of City Liquidators, has been an icon in the Central Eastside Industrial District for 46 years. He started City Liquidators in 1977 and it is still active today, 160,000 square feet of retail space full of new home & o ce furniture.

Walt and I were in love for 40 years and married for 36 years. Walt had great integrity, generosity, he was a visionary and an excellent businessman. He had much passion and the energy to match. He was in uenced by Sam Walton and admired James Cash Penney, so much so that he named his son Zachary Walton Cash Pelett who was born in 1986. He was also proud of his daughter Emma who founded the Portland Night Market and Snackfest. He was also proud of his youngest daughter Ellie who has the most empathetic and friendly personality.

Walt was very inquistive to family, friends and strangers. Some of the questions he was fond of asking: “What did you pay for that?”

“Where did you get that?” and he was a teacher as well. Some of his sayings: “There’s no mission without margin.” “Keep the store weird.” “Buy it today, Get it today”

He loved history, especially local Portland history and was an avid reader, especially about WWII history.

He was preceded in death by his son Daniel, who died in 1956 at the age of 18 months and his son Walter Pelett II who died at age 41.

We had a lot of fun building City Liquidators over the years. We supported many charities during these years. In leiu of owers, we ask that you make a donation to one of Walt’s favorite charities which were The Silverton Historical Society, Compassion First Ministries, and PJA, (Portland Jewish Academy).

He will be greatly missed,

Pamela Pelett

Southeast

any amenity you might want from a dive. Looking to get your karaoke on? Sing away. Maybe you fancy a little gambling? There are plenty of machines that will take your money. Shuffleboard, perhaps? Get to sliding. Or maybe you just want to knock back a few Jell-O shots and munch on some pot stickers or mini tacos while watching the game. You can do that, too, in this space adorned with all kinds of tchotchkes. There are also cocktails, a no-frills selection of beer, and the usual array of fried bar food like poppers and taquitos. Finally, if you feel a kinship with the kind of characters one might find in Willy Vlautin novels, you’ll be right at home at the Rumpus. NEIL FERGUSON.

Ship Ahoy Tavern

2889 SE Gladstone St., 503-239-0868.

10 am-2:30 am daily.

Established: 1940s

Any bar that is even loosely maritime themed is usually the kind of place where you can get real comfortable drinking the night (or morning) away, talk to some rough-and-tumble characters, get in a brawl, or do all of those things in that order. Sitting on a vibrant little Gladstone block across from C-Bar and just down the way from Holy Ghost, Ship Ahoy feels quintessentially Portland with its mix of lovable weirdos, service-industry workers enjoying their night off, neighborhood lifers and hipsters. The bartender will happily serve you a fresh hop lager or a Rainier-whiskey combo, and if, for some reason, you want to take a break from sitting on those damn-cozy barstools, you can watch the world go by from the comfort of the COVID-era smoking patio. NEIL FERGUSON.

Space Room Lounge

4800 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-235-6957, spaceroomlounge.com. 11 am-1 am MondayFriday, 10 am-1 am Saturday-Sunday.

Established: 1952. Reestablished as Space Room in 1961.

There are two kinds of dive bars: those of no redeeming value outside of cheap intoxicants and ones that are known as “cool,” places where hipsters congregate to be seen in a quirky atmosphere that feels authentic to…someone. I would argue that every dive starts out as the former. Some stay that way and others take on a second life as customer demographics change, which is the case with the Space Room. When you step into the sunken bar that was very intentionally modeled after the midcentury’s vision of a futuristic spaceship, your eyes may need a few moments to adjust to the black lights and neon that illuminate the main room like a scene in Twin Peaks. Gorgeous wide leather booths sit beneath a black light mural of aliens, UFOs and tractor beams. I half expected to see Mulder and Scully sipping scotch there, but this ain’t one of those tongue-in-cheek special episodes of The X-Files. You’re more likely to drink next to a hipster wearing a faded “I Want to Believe” shirt while chugging White Claw and talking about how the Trump piss tape is real and they once saw a bootleg copy. EZRA JOHNSON-GREENOUGH.

Starday Tavern

6517 SE Foster Road, 971-888-4001, stardaytavern.com. 3 pm-2:30 am daily.

Established: 1930s. Reestablished 2013 as Starday.

The Starday isn’t an actual dive bar. You can’t imagine crumbling beauties from a Tom Waits song slumped in stools nursing Bushmills and comparing tattoo tears (“one for every year he’s away, she said”). The décor is too curated for that, the bartender too Cheers-friendly as he flips a shaker cup, waiting for your order. And all of that is just fine with us. We were thrilled to

find a thriving, lively spot on Foster, a strip we worry about as Portland threatens to collapse in on itself like a dying sun. The old fashioned was perfectly unsweet, and we liked looking at all the signs and pictures on the wall (including one of a young Shaquille O’Neal) and the flags on the ceiling. No band played on the Tuesday night we were there, but the calendar shows that lots of them come through. Our companion for the evening said the open mic night is really good. Don’t miss the men’s restroom. The graffiti is thick, even on the porcelain in the urinal. No one tag is that impressive, but together they look like Jackson Pollock painted the whole room. ANTHONY EFFINGER.

Yukon Tavern

5819 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503-235-6352, yukontavern.com. 3 pm-2:30 am MondayThursday, noon-2:30 am Friday-Sunday.

Established: 1937

Adorned with paisley-print wallpaper and paintings of damsels, and lit by the kind of red glow that conjures up images of a brothel (juxtaposed with a side lounge decked out in wood

paneling that wouldn’t be out of place in your dad’s man cave), the Yukon harks back to the days when gold rush-themed bars ruled. Almost 100 years after opening, it serves cheap liquor drinks alongside a modestly impressive draft list of local beer (plus Hamm’s tallboys) to a mix of drunks, gamblers, normies, yuppies and timid neighborhood newbies. The Yukon is the kind of place that beckons you on a dark night like a beacon, with the promise of good—maybe even debaucherous—times. Don’t sleep on the supremely underrated chicken tendies. NEIL FERGUSON.

JORDAN HUNDELT

JORDAN HUNDELT

FOR A KLONDIKE: Yukon Tavern still rocks its Alaska gold rush theme.

Southwest

Cheerful Bullpen

1730 SW Taylor St., 503-222-3063, cheerfulbullpen.com. 9 am-9 pm daily; open later after Portland Timbers and Thorns matches.

Established: 1948

Since opening 75 years ago, Cheerful Bullpen has been a neighborhood bar in every sense of the word. And as the neighborhood around it has changed—with the Timbers and Thorns taking their respective leagues by storm, and high-rise apartment buildings now surrounding the pub—so has the Bullpen. In the earliest days of the COVID-19 pandemic, that meant converting the front of the bar into a convenience store with refrigerators full of soda and Labatt Blue (the latter a preferred beer of Buffalo Bills fans who pack the bar for every game). More recently, adaptations have included advertising to students at nearby Lincoln High School—yes, minors are welcome—with promises of short wait times for burgers and other pub grub, loyalty punch cards, and an in-house espresso machine. When school’s not in session, you’ll drink with pregaming soccer supporters (Providence Park stands almost directly across the street), passionate football fans (Bills merch covers the walls), and laid-back locals enjoying daily specials—like $5 pints of craft beer on Mondays and $10 patty melts on Wednesdays. Savor it all on the spacious back patio or at one of the picnic tables out front.

MATT WASTRADOWSKI.

Cheerful Tortoise

1939 SW 6th Ave., 503-224-3377, cheerfultortoise.com. 9 am-2:30 am daily.

Established: 1951

Surrounded on all sides by Portland State University buildings, Cheerful Tortoise checks all the boxes required of a classic college dive bar without ever feeling formulaic. As finals approach, you’ll see college students studying next to the window—the brightest spot in the bar—while noshing on wings and sipping regional craft beer or cider. When school’s out, the bar livens up with bustling karaoke nights on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.

There’s also a well-worn shuffleboard table, occasionally intense rounds of Big Buck Hunter Reloaded, and daily drink specials that range from $7 bloody marys every Sunday to $5 glasses of wine each Thursday. Despite the bar’s close proximity to PSU, it’s not all college kids. Depending on the time of day, you might rub elbows with nearby office workers, travelers looking for downtown nightlife, and servers fresh from the night shift.

MATT WASTRADOWSKI.

Goose Hollow Inn

1927 SW Jefferson St., 503-228-7010, goosehollowinn.com. 11 am-10 pm SundayTuesday, 11 am-11 pm Wednesday-Saturday.

Established: 1967

The Goose Hollow Inn is a staple of the cozy Goose Hollow neighborhood, and the warm, down-to-earth pub is perhaps

best known for its longtime owner: late beloved Portland Mayor Bud Clark, who opened the tavern in 1967. (His daughter, Rachel, still runs the joint.) Little has changed since father handed the operation to daughter; the inn offers the best of what nostalgic Portlanders call “Old Portland,” thanks to its cluttered yet charming décor, strong drinks, one helluva Reuben sandwich as well as servers and bartenders who are nice but not too nice. The hot buttered rum is to die for, especially on a rainy afternoon, but you really shouldn’t overlook the pub grub—from the garlic bread to the pizza with a generous amount of toppings to the potato salad. But we’re all about the classic Reuben ($15.50, but worth it) and the hearty crab melt if you’re looking for a meal. The inn doesn’t skimp on the cheese or the protein.

Kelly’s Olympian

SOPHIE PEEL.

426 SW Washington St., 503-228-3669, kellysolympian.com. 5 pm-2 am Monday-Friday, 1 pm-2 am Saturday-Sunday.

Established: 1902

Kelly’s Olympian has been a downtown institution for as long as anyone can remember, and it looks the part. Newspaper clippings documenting the bar’s long history and its impressive list of regulars are on display, and vintage motorcycles hang from the ceiling. But if the décor inside hasn’t changed, the environs outside certainly have. The vacant office complex across the street became a haven for fentanyl users and their dealers during the pandemic, and the bar has felt the strain. It’s hanging on “by a string,” owner Ben Stutz told WW earlier this year. Kelly’s had to remove its COVID patio out front after someone built a bonfire on it, one of the bartenders says. True to form, staff tore it down and replaced it with motorcycle parking. Still, the bar’s central location and long history make it a favorite spot for out-of-town gawkers, and the prices reflect it. Fortunately, that hasn’t kept away regulars, who say it’s still the best place to drink downtown. On a recent Friday afternoon, some of those longtime customers were smoking on the new benches out front and meting out advice: Liquor up for cheap at the Jockey Club

AARON LEE

AARON LEE

FAMILY TIES: Late Portland Mayor Bud Clark’s daughter Rachel runs the Goose Hollow Inn.

LOOSEY GOOSEY: Old Portland is still alive and well at Goose Hollow Inn.

around the corner, and then come to Kelly’s to take in a punk show or nurse a beer with friends. LUCAS MANFIELD.

Leaky Roof Gastropub

1538 SW Jefferson St., 503-222-3745, theleakyroof.com. 10 am-9 pm WednesdayFriday, 9 am-9 pm Saturday, 9 am-3 pm Sunday.

Established: 1947

The names of two Goose Hollow bars apparently fool newbies: I’ve overheard multiple phone calls at Goose Hollow Inn involving people looking for a room, while a bartender at the Leaky Roof says some customers walk in expecting to be led to a rooftop patio. (I guess no one assumes pitchers are warming up at the nearby Cheerful Bullpen.) What also might be confusing is Leaky Roof’s inclusion in this guide. After all, it doesn’t look like a traditional dive. There’s ample lighting from both fixtures and unobstructed windows; the walls are free of graffiti, TV sets and framed hodgepodges of memorabilia; and you never leave craving a shower to rinse off a layer of grime and regret acquired at some of the seediest joints. However, the deeply scuffed hardwood floors, dark-grain booths and split pea soupgreen walls adequately dial down the brightness, making this shoebox-sized space suitable for silent, moody day drinking—a prerequisite for any dive. However, it’s just as good for rowdy socializing with the regulars, who will unashamedly celebrate the Oregon Ducks’ beatdown of Portland State University on the gridiron, shit talk Goose Hollow Inn (“you don’t have to be an octogenarian to come here!”), and declare their love for the staff, even if the cook did recently 86 a favorite menu item. In fact, the true sign of a dive is a blurred line between customers and staff. When one barfly ends up hosting a Christmas party at his nearby condo and the whole Leaky Roof crew shows up, you know that the division of roles is beyond blurry—it’s downright opaque. “We know each other’s days,” my bartender said of the patronage. “This is your home,” added a regular. “This is your living room.” ANDI PREWITT.

Renner’s Grill

7819 SW Capitol Highway, 503-246-9097. 9 am-2:30 am Monday-Friday, 7 am-2:30 am Saturday-Sunday.

Established: 1939

A 2018 kitchen fire could have easily ended what was then Renner’s nearly 80-year run. The collective neighborhood wailing was almost immediate. But rather than deal the area another blow by closing (nearby 84-year-old O’Connor’s pub shuttered that same year), the owners pushed ahead with a rebuild and remodel. Word of the latter prompted neighborhood grumbling, but not much has changed inside the best bar in Multnomah Village. Much of what was inside was salvaged, including artifacts documenting the bar’s history: a bank ledger, branded pens and matchbooks, an old menu advertising top sirloin, liver and onions, and sardines with potato salad. And while change is usually never good in Old Portland, the renovation swapped out Renner’s drab interior façade and oppressively dark wooden trim for blond beams that brought some much-needed warmth to the space without looking conspicuously new. Besides, you still have a reliable cast of old-timers who add their own layer of authenticity whenever they walk through the door. They’re likely drinking tallboys of PBR—“ice cold”—and looking to chat up a fresh face or another regular about anything from the demise of Andy and Bax to their garden harvest. Also expect a wide variety of locals (it really is Multnomah Village’s finest drinking establishment), which on my visit included a couple glued to the U.S. Open, young roommates downing Bauman’s Cider on the patio and an aspiring mountaineer sipping Ablis CBD. Rumor has it that you’re also drinking among ghosts. Bartenders have reported strange sightings (a longtime employee died of a heart attack here while changing a keg of Pabst), but any supposed

paranormal activity typically happens late at night. If you’re here and need to temper your buzz, order the Juicy Lucy. There’s not a finer specimen of the Minneapolis-famous, molten-cheese-inthe-patty burger in Portland, which nears Matt’s Bar perfection. ANDI PREWITT.

Rialto Poolroom

529 SW 4th Ave, 503-228-7605, rialtopoolroom.com. 11 am-2:30 am daily.

Established: 1918, 1987

A pool hall, right near the city’s river, the Rialto has somehow soldiered along for decades as quite literally all else changed around the grande dame of downtown recreational pursuits. Hailing from the halcyon days of the early 1900s, when hustlers slinging eight balls meant rather more manageable troubles, the expansive lounge resembles a luxe sports bar and, apart from the tables available for hourly rental, hosts nightly poker games while the former card room next door takes bets on horse racing across the country and a subterranean venue books jazz and burlesque shows. The cavalcade of 19th century vices may sound unfathomably quaint, but the Rialto never feels dated. This incarnation, built beneath the former Jack London Hotel in 1987—more than three decades after the original closed—has seen continual small renovations. Moreover, ever since nightlife impresario Frank Faillace (Dante’s, Star Theater, Kit Kat Club) purchased the space seven years ago, its focus has been far less concerned with exploiting an amorphous history than subtly honoring emblems of Old Portland. Legendary jazz and soul drummer Mel Brown has a well-attended weekly revue here. Under the aegis of Epoxies guitarist Brian Kozenek, the “Electric Burgerland” menu has been streamlined: fresh-cut fries, handdipped corn dogs, and cheeseburgers half the size of most bars’ sloppy monstrosities at a third their price—indulgences that should cater to most appetites, which really shouldn’t seem like an old-fashioned idea. JAY HORTON.

The Ship Tavern

7827 SW 35th Ave., 503-244-7345. 11 am-midnight Sunday-Thursday, 11 am-2 am Friday-Saturday.

Established: 1944

at. Given the varying quality of the skeleton pirates, decorative schooners and oars on the walls, it’s as if a tsunami deposited a Goodwill’s stock of seafaring-themed tchotchkes on the bar’s doorstep and the owners ran with it out of sheer convenience. Absent the marine motif, The Ship would just be a large, grayish box with a pool table, so at least it’s found an identity. A Renner’s drinker warned me not to order food here, and during my visit, all observed caloric intake was in liquid form, so I followed the lead of folks who’d spent far more time at this bar than I had. Perhaps that’s why BridgePort Brewing’s annual holiday Ebenezer Pub Crawl always ended at The Ship—by stop five, everyone would’ve been too sloshed to care what the food tasted like. ANDI PREWITT.

Virginia Cafe

820 SW 10th Ave., 503-227-0033, virginiacafepdx.com. Noon-10 pm daily.

Established: 1914

That official birthdate feels a little misleading. As the initial effort of the Greek restaurateur family behind the original Jolly Roger and Spaghetti Factory chain, the first iteration of the Virginia Cafe was little more than a glorified food cart serving coffee and sammies in Portland’s West End. However, in 1922, ownership expanded the business by opening another VC on Southwest Park Avenue, which turned out to be its longtime digs. Every bar to pass the century mark has lived many lives; habitues of each era claim theirs to be uniquely golden, but the press clippings and memorabilia papering the bar’s walls imply a ’70s-to-’80s heyday fueled by patrons who were dressed to impress. Alas, when an incoming high-rise forced the Virginia Cafe to relocate in 2008, the Last Regiment of Syncopated Drummers-led parade of patrons carrying their barstools to the new Southwest 10th Avenue location capped a precise transplant of staff and furnishings, though it never has felt quite the same. Much like the nearby Central Library branch, most of us blithely ignore the Virginia for years until we suddenly require its services. Need a downtown hideaway to catch the end of a game, or drink through a blind date, or wolf down a more than decent burger-shot combo for minimal expense? You’re damned glad the VC’s still there, you’d mourn its passing, but you still sorta hope you’ll never need to return.

JAY HORTON.

Yamhill Pub

223 SW Yamhill St., 503-295-6613. 10 am-11 pm Monday-Friday, 2-11 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Established: 1939

Some Renner’s snobs sneer at The Ship, which is just around the corner. Other regulars will quietly shuffle down the hill to the nautical-themed bar for a change of scenery. While it does lack Renner’s historical flair, The Ship offers, well, something for somebody. For starters, there is a surprisingly large draft beer selection—24 handles—along with a televised keg menu that also displays a lower-third ticker of Untappd check-ins, just like a respectable taproom. However, you’re still more likely to see regulars drinking Pabst and Rainier out of cans nestled in koozies they brought from home. There’s also plenty to look

Over the past quarter-century’s upheaval of downtown—from the construction of new high-rises to the war zone status of the Southwest shopping district—what dives remained suffered midlife crises of sorts, prompting everything from the installation of a motorcycle collection on the ceiling at one to basements being overtaken by jazz elsewhere. The only constant is Yamhill Pub, which has stayed the same except more so, somehow. The interior is still enveloped by overlapping graffiti so thick that borders disappear and, like that immersive van Gogh exhibit, the tags themselves are a technicolor swirl of proclaimed identities all at once and forever. Bar conversations aren’t much different. Bartenders advise newcomers to avoid both the food and the restrooms, and the usual aroma would imply most agreed. We’re not sure where consumption ranks these days, but at the height of Oregon’s Blue Ribbon period, the saloon served more Pabst than any other bar in the state and, back when it ran through 26 kegs a week, it sometimes led the nation. TouchTunes and flat-screens aside, the pub looks just as remembered, but ever since management erected a smokers’ shed out front as a desperate COVID-era stratagem, the place has had a different feel—friendlier, happier, infinitely more inviting. Against all odds, the Yamhill crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side. JAY HORTON.

AARON LEE

Get Inspired

Peek inside five distinctive Portland homes in Nester magazine.

BY ANDI ZEISLER andizeisler@gmail.com

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CAMERON MUNN

Most of us, regardless of where we live, carry inside our minds what the writer Deborah Levy calls “unreal estate”: an image of home to which we continually add detail and context—a fern-draped porch here, a nearby creek there. It may not be grand, or even appealing to others, but it’s the place where we can finally become the person we most want to be. Because homes aren’t just structures we inhabit, but tangible extensions of ourselves. We add and subtract, we rethink and repaint, we save our money with future overhauls in mind. Our spaces are rarely finished because we are rarely finished. But along the way, our homes take on our personalities, our ideals, and our desires. What we value is reflected in where we live and with whom, but also in what surrounds us—the elements, tangible and otherwise, that transform a space into a sanctuary.

roof, but is by no means confined to that space. This issue, of course, is also about inspiring your own interior identity, whether it’s in a current home or in the unreal estate of your future.

To that end, we explored the places Portlanders go to discover and define their style.

For the third annual edition of Nester, Willamette Week’s home magazine, we wanted to showcase Portlanders whose identities, values, vocations, and experiences shape how they live. Some had passions that informed their living spaces from the start; others found new, often unexpected ones along the way. All of them have styles that are completely their own, and many of them took on the work of enhancements and renovations themselves. What they all share— besides the graciousness to open their homes to a group of nosy strangers—is a comfort with themselves that’s visible within four walls and a

From the abundant aisles of the city’s many antique malls to shops that foreground the vibrant work of local makers, these pages highlight a characteristically Portland desire to reuse, repurpose, and renew. And if you didn’t already know that doing it yourself doesn’t have to mean doing it alone, we’re happy to point you toward some places to learn home improvement skills, decorative craft, and more.

Creating a home is a process that requires defining what you need, what you love, what you can live without—what, in short, makes you feel like the best version of yourself. I hope this year’s Nester can help inform that process. Your living space may never feel finished (I know mine doesn’t), but with each choice and each

change, it becomes more of what you know to be home.

—Andi Zeisler, Editor

FIND IT: Nester magazine is free and can be found all over Portland beginning Friday, Sept. 22. A map of locations is at wweek. com. Copies are also available at Weekend

on Water, a free event Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 23 and 24, celebrating the vibrancy and creativity of the Central Eastside Design District. Festivities include a 3,000-square-foot pop-up showroom (with stacks of Nester) and a block party on Southeast Water Avenue featuring local businesses and organizations. Learn more at designdistrictpdx.com.

Taravat Talepasand and Bobby Velon at home in their Hillsboro midcentury modern.

Eva Kosmas Flores in her kitchen.

R. Rolfe lounges under a tapestry in his Kenton sitting room.

SURF’S UP

Photos by Fontaine Rittelmann

On Instagram: @fontaine_rittelmann

If you thought the only place you could catch a wave around here was at the coast, think again. Thanks to a unique combination of a derelict boat ramp’s placement at Clackamette Park in Oregon City and late summer/early fall tidal flows, a strong current forms twice a day in the Clackamas River at that location. The whitewater attracts everyone from surfboarders to kayakers to spectators eager to witness the seasonal phenomenon. Plans to realign or relocate the ramp so it’s functional for motorized boats again have been met by a campaign by fans of the rolling water to keep the natural attraction alive. You can follow their efforts on the “Save the Wave” Facebook page.

GET BUSY

EAT & DRINK: Ava Gene’s Fall Wine Dinner Series

Fall officially begins this week, so get settled into cozy season with a multicourse dinner that celebrates both the harvest and local wine. Ava Gene’s is hosting this new series of meals in its private dining room, Fora, which kicks off Sept. 20. The first event features Dundee’s Day Wines, which exclusively uses sustainably grown grapes from small area vineyards. Those beverages will be paired with four dishes from co-executive chefs Amelia Kirk and Ross Effinger. If you can’t make the kickoff dinner, or you just so happen to want to go again, there are four more on the schedule, and each menu will be completely different from the last. Fora, 3377 SE Division St., 971-229-0571, avagenes. com/wine-series. 5 and 8:30 pm Wednesday, Sept. 20. $150.

GO: The Chehalis Flying Saucer Party

You’ve probably heard of McMinnville’s annual UFO Festival, but did you know that Chehalis, Wash., has its own otherworldly celebration based on another midcentury sighting? In 1947, Kenneth Arnold coined the term “flying saucer” after spotting nine mysterious objects over Mount Rainier while piloting his aircraft, which departed from the small Lewis County city’s airport. Locals say that kicked off the modern UFO media frenzy, which included everything from The X-Files to Independence Day to alien abductee appearances on daytime talk shows. Chehalis will salute its contribution to our nation’s obsession with all things extraterrestrial with this two-day event, which includes the Northwest Flying Saucer Film Fest, a lecture by a “paranormal ranger,” a screening of the Tim Burton classic Mars Attacks!, and a Saucer Drop, where attendees can catch pint-sized UFOs and possibly win a prize. Various locations, Chehalis, Wash.,

360-748-0831, flyingsaucerparty.org. 10 am Friday and 9 am Saturday, Sept. 22-23. Prices vary.

LAUGH: ComedySportz NW Regional

The improv program that treats comedy not just as a show but a sport turns 30 this year. After pivoting to online performances during the pandemic, ComedySportz is back every Saturday in person. However, this week it’s holding a two-day regional competition, which will feature teams not only from Portland, but also Seattle, Boise and San Jose, Calif. The contest leads up to the 2024 world championship in Milwaukee, so get your ticket and cheer on the locals. CSz Portland Arena, 1963 NW Kearney St., 503-236-8888, portlandcomedy.com. 8 pm Friday and 7 pm Saturday, Sept. 22-23. $15 in advance, $20 at the door.

GO: Rose City Comic Con

It’s that time of year when you’re bound to run into everyone from Spider-Man to Boba Fett to the Scarlet Witch on the MAX as 50,000 pop culture die-hards make their way to the Oregon Convention Center for the Rose City Comic Con. This year’s headliner is Zoe Saldana, best known for playing green-skinned Gamora in the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise as well as Neytiri in Avatar. Other notable names include Ralph Macchio, Rebecca Romijn and Alex Kingston, but there are dozens and dozens of actors, podcasters and authors of varying levels of fame who will attend for photo and autograph sessions. Consider this a warning to either find your getup now or steer clear of the Convention Center if you’re cosplay averse. Oregon Convention Center, 777 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., rosecitycomiccon.com. 1-8 pm Friday, 10 am-7 pm Saturday and 10 am-5 pm Sunday, Sept. 22-24. $15-$535.

WATCH: The Immigrant Story

The Immigrant Story, a volunteer-run nonprofit, began in 2017 in response to a deadly Kansas shooting that same year that was racially motivated. The project, which aims to promote empathy and inclusion, has so far told the tales of nearly 200 immigrants on its multimedia site. Here is an opportunity to hear four stories of courage and resilience in person from immigrants who came to the U.S. from Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, Iran and India. Following intermission, a musical performance will feature local singer Shivani Joshi produced by renowned Indian composer Balamurali Balu. Portland Center Stage at the Armory, 128 NW 11th Ave., 503-445-3700, theimmigrantstory.org.

7:30-10 pm Saturday, Sept. 22. Free.

LISTEN: An Evening with Natalie Merchant

Whether you discovered her when she was lead singer of the 10,000 Maniacs or during her stellar run as a prominent voice of the ’90s alternative scene, you’ll have a wonderful time catching up with Natalie Merchant, who took a break from the music scene until just recently. She returned to songwriting during the pandemic, which resulted in the release of Keep Your Courage, her first solo album in nine years. During this Portland stop on a tour promoting the project, you’ll hear plenty of new works but, almost assuredly, some of your favorite old tracks that will take you back to your Lilith Fair days. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 503-248-4335, portland5.com. 8 pm Saturday, Sept. 23. $49.50-$99.50.

GO: Annual Fall Kite Festival

Before fall storms move in that bring winds to the coast that are far too strong for kite flying, head out to Lincoln City for the autumn version of its kite festival. Professional team, duo and solo flyers

will perform tricks and stunts at D River beach, you can make your own kite during a Saturday workshop (just don’t fly it at the event—that sand is reserved for the experts this weekend), and there will be carnival games for kids with a Pixieland motif, the town’s short-lived, spritethemed amusement park that was done in by lousy weather. D River State Recreation Site, 101 Highway 101, Lincoln City, 541996-1274, oregoncoast.org/events/annual/fall-kite-festival. 10 am-4 pm Saturday, 11 am-4 pm Sunday, Sept. 23-24. Free.

GO: Corvallis Fall Festival

We’re gonna say it: Corvallis is Oregon’s superior college football town. It’s simply more charming, more walkable and not filled with Eugene fans who, in several past polls, have been rated as the “most boorish” in the league. While the Beavers aren’t playing at home the same weekend the Corvallis Fall Festival takes place, it’s still worth making the drive down I-5 for this event, which is now in its 50th year. There will be nearly 200 booths showcasing the works of local artists, two stages for live performances, a Saturday Night Street Dance and a Mardi Gras-style parade (whether beads will be thrown for revealing acts is yet to be known, but we’d guess that’s a bit too risqué for well-mannered Corvallis). Central Park, 650 NW Monroe Ave., Corvallis, 541-752-9655, corvallisfallfestival.org. 10 am-6 pm Saturday and 10 am-5 pm Sunday, Sept. 23-24. Free.

CATCH SOME AIR: Professional team, duo and solo kite flyers will perform tricks and stunts at Lincoln City’s Annual Fall Kite Festival.

FOOD & DRINK

Top

5

Hot Plates

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. BULLARD TAVERN

813 SW Alder St., 503-222-1670, bullardpdx.com. 4-10 pm Sunday.

Editor: Andi Prewitt Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

Top 5

Buzz List

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

1. PORTLAND FRESH HOP POP-UP BEER FEST

Given the fact that Bullard’s burger will set you back nearly 30 bucks, the Woodlark Hotel restaurant’s new $39 Sunday Supper Dinner is a bargain that shouldn’t be missed, especially since it’s a limited-time offer (albeit one that’s redundantly named). The three-course special features a mixed green salad with blue cheese crumbles and hazelnuts; a smoked half-chicken served with fresh tortillas, guac and salsa verde; and an ice cream sundae. You can add a $39 bottle of wine to that if you really feel like splurging. The best part: A portion of the proceeds raised from the dinners go to the Maui Strong Fund to help victims of the devastating August fire.

2. DOUBLE MOUNTAIN BREWERY

4336 SE Woodstock Blvd., 503-206-5495, doublemountainbrewery.com. Noon-9 pm daily. 1700 N Killingsworth St., 503-206-4405. 11 am-9 pm

Prost! 4237 N Mississippi Ave., 503-954-2674, fresh-hops.com. 8 am-10 pm daily, through Oct. 1. If it’s fresh hops you seek—and by now you’ve probably noticed those beers on tap lists across town—be sure to add the Portland Fresh Hop Pop-Up Beer Fest to your list of stops. The event, which does not have an entry fee or drink tickets, takes over Prost! for just 17 days, and in addition to the daily rotating beers on draft, there will be special themed offerings. Lagers will get their moment to shine on Sept. 20 and 21, Oktoberfest brews will be highlighted Sept. 22 through 24, and breweries from the world’s largest hop-growing region, Yakima, Wash., are scheduled to tap on Sept. 28. Check the event website for additional takeovers.

2. EMERALD LINE

Friday-Saturday. 8 4th St., Hood River, 541-387-0042. 11:30 am-10 pm

Sunday-Thursday, 11 am-10 pm

Sunday-Thursday, 11:30 am-11 pm

Friday-Saturday.

Double Mountain Brewery has been dropping its seasonal heirloom tomato pesto pizzas since shortly after the original Hood River pub opened in 2007. Back then, Oregon was not known for pizza, and the New Haven style that co-founder Matt Swihart brought to the pub was almost as big of a draw as the hoppy ales. Double Mountain seems to know that all eyes are on these special pies—every single one comes out thin and crusty, yet they are stiff enough to withstand a heavy layer of ripe tomatoes. Each pizza is also topped with a piping-hot layer of mozzarella and Fontal cheese and a dusting of pecorino and Parmigiano, filling the air with a scent that we would buy if it came as a candle.

3. LUCKY HORSESHOE LOUNGE

2524 SE Clinton St., 503-764-9898, luckyhorseshoeportland.com. 4-11 pm

Monday-Thursday, 4 pm-midnight Friday-Saturday, 4-10 pm Sunday.

Rally Pizza owners Shan Wickham and Alan Maniscalco purchased this Clinton Street Theater-adjacent bar in spring, swapping out the venue’s quasi-Western theme and replacing it with Italian-inspired cocktail lounge vibes. The food menu reflects Maniscalco’s Italian American upbringing, and you can now get a number of those dishes for a discount thanks to a newly launched happy hour. Your best bets: an Olympia Provisions salami and provolone sandwich ($8) and a Monday-only, 10inch Neapolitan-style pizza with rotating toppings ($12).

4. SMOKEHOUSE CHICKEN AND GUNS

55660 NW Wilson River Highway, Gales Creek, 503-359-9452, smokehousecng.com. 9 am-9 pm

Friday-Sunday.

When a beloved food cart finally goes brick-and-mortar, the opening is usually surrounded by a great deal of fanfare and a Christmas-like countdown clock. Not so for Chicken and Guns. The Cartopia pod staple very quietly launched its first full-service restaurant this past spring, and did so in Gales Creek—miles away from any of its regulars. The trek to the roadhouse-style diner is worth it. You’ll, of course, find the cart’s famed wood-fired birds and crispy potatoes (the guns), but also an expanded menu that includes burgers, locally grown vegetable-based sides, and weekend brunch.

5. MIDTOWN BEER GARDEN

431 SW Harvey Milk St., we.are.expensify.com/midtown-beer-garden. 10 am-10 pm daily.

The large selection of food carts at Southwest 5th Avenue and Harvey Milk Street now officially has a brand that was rolled out in late August at a grand opening party in an effort to revive a beleaguered part of downtown. The naming and redevelopment of Midtown Beer Garden was a joint project between software company Expensify (which happens to sit across the street from the pod) and ChefStable. There are 25 carts, both old favorites and newcomers, but we’re most excited by the addition of permanent restrooms, a zhuzhed-up ambience, and Fracture Brewing beer.

1800 NW 16th Ave., 503-241-6559, theemeraldline.com. 11 am-2 pm and 4-9 pm-ish Monday-Friday, 4-9 pm-ish Saturday.

We knew this would be a standout spot for heirloom tomatoes thanks to the plate of fire engine-red orbs on the bar, viewed through the eyes of an heirloom fanatic as an altar to the fleeting fruit. In reality, the placement was purely functional, giving bartenders easy access to a critical component in the Tomatotini. Made with four or so pingpong ball-sized fruits that are then muddled, vodka or gin, a splash of simple syrup and a spritz of salt spray, the concoction is an elegantly simple ode to the heirloom. Cosmo pink early in the season—the Tomatotini could turn yellow or green later on depending on the color of the incoming harvest—it’s about as pure as you can get to the classic “slice, salt and devour with knife and fork” in beverage form.

3. MIGRATION BREWING WELLS FARGO POP-UP

1300 SW 5th Ave., migrationbrewing.com. 2-7 pm

Tuesday-Friday.

Migration Brewing has proven that it’s the master of the pop-up by opening temporary bars in places as varied as a dying mall, a bustling mall and Saturday Market. The company’s latest seasonal project has taken over the just-renovated first floor of downtown’s Wells Fargo Center. While most of that structure is home to offices, you certainly won’t feel like you’re in a cubicle farm at the taproom, which seats 40 and features black matte subway tile and a sprawling outdoor patio. There are also 10 taps for beer and wine as well as canned cocktails. Why drink in an office building? Because it’s weird and you can—for a limited time, however, the residency was recently extended through Dec. 31.

4. TAIJI TEAHOUSE & CAFE

310 NW Davis St., 503-997-3261, taijiteahouse.com. 11 am-4 pm

Monday-Saturday.

There is at least one entrepreneur who believes that peace and tranquility can be found in Old Town Chinatown. In mid-August, Eric Arthur opened Taiji in the space that used to house Pearl Zhang’s Red Robe Tea House, which we long praised for serving “one of the finest Chinese pots of tea on either side of the river.” Zhang retired in 2021, but before she did, Arthur broadened his knowledge of gongfu tea through her and the shop—and he’s essentially reviving the essence that she brought to the establishment along with her exceptional and detailed tea ritual.

5. DIVISION WINEMAKING COMPANY’S WINE YARD

2005 SE 8th Ave., 503-208-2061, divisionwineco.com. 11 am-5 pm daily.

After producing wine for nine years on Southeast Division Street, Division Winemaking has left its namesake stretch of pavement for larger digs. The newly dubbed Wine Yard not only gives the team more square footage for fermentation and packaging; customers also benefit thanks to a more spacious tasting room, 2,500-square-foot courtyard, and multiple event spaces. Now that we’re officially in the dog days of summer, cool off with the 2022 Polka Dots Pétillant Naturel, a sparkling rosé that can be enjoyed any time of day (Division claims it could take the place of a morning mimosa).

GILBERT TERRAZAS

MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

SHOWS OF THE WEEK

WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

FRIDAY, SEPT. 22:

Electric Youth

How Jasmine McElroy became an emo-chiptune pioneer.

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

The sound that greets you from the speakers upon pressing play on exciting!!excellent!!’s new album, You Will Watch Me Die, is startlingly original. Jasmine McElroy’s vocals sound like they were ripped from a pop-punk or emo song and mashed up with the sound of someone speed-running through an old Nintendo game.

But the 32-year-old, who’s lived in Portland since 2019, didn’t necessarily set out to be an emo-chiptune pioneer. “It was more of a practical idea,” says McElroy, who discovered Little Sound DJ—which allows musicians to use a GameBoy as a music controller to produce vintage sounds—after her old band had broken up and she was waiting to start a new project.

“And then, of course, the pandemic happens and I’m not going to be starting a band for a whole minute,” McElroy adds. “So I decided, well, maybe I’ll just lean into this.”

Exciting!!excellent!! isn’t the first project to mash up emo with bleeps and bloops. McElroy shares a label (Lonely Ghost Records) with Billings, Mont., band Hey, ily!, whose music she’s covered and whose Internet Breath EP attempted a similar fusion.

While those bands at least adhere to a basic guitar-bass-drums rock band structure, the current instrumental setup for exciting!!excellent!! consists of one guitar and one GameBoy—“although I’ve been thinking lately about incorporating a second GameBoy,” McElroy says.

She has less nostalgia for the sounds she uses than many potential listeners. McElroy was never much of a gamer, and her favorite video game music is the Banjo-Kazooie soundtrack, which sounds almost nothing like the music that exciting!!excellent!! makes.

“I feel like it’s kind of freeing,” McElroy says of her lack of direct influence from video game scores. “I don’t really see that as a weakness, I see that as a strength. And this is why I’m always very insistent that this is an emo band rather than a video game band.”

McElroy had an itinerant childhood as the daughter of a Marine. She’s lived in California, Virginia and Michigan, though she was born in Texas and considers it home. Before moving to the Pacific Northwest in 2019 with her husband, she lived in Austin and played

in a pop-punk band she prefers not to talk about (“everyone in the scene kind of hated us.”)

Despite Austin’s reputation as a hub for live music, McElroy found the local do-it-yourself emo scene lacking. Yet after moving to Portland, she was greeted on the other side of the pandemic by one of the country’s most eclectic young rock scenes.

One of the best albums of 2023 so far is Love in Exile, the debut from the trio of singer Arooj Aftab, keyboardist Vijay Iyer and bassist Shahzad Ismaily. Aftab’s voice hangs in the air like a thick fog, Iyer’s electric piano roils and tumbles, and Ismaily’s reverberating bass notes undergird the music with terrifying tension. The three artists have taken the name of their record as the name of their trio, and they’ll be bringing their haunting fusion of spiritual jazz and South Asian music to the Reser in Beaverton. Patricia Reser Center for the Arts, 12625 SW Crescent St. 7:30 pm. $45$55. All ages.

SATURDAY, SEPT.

23:

From impromptu gigs in New York subways to touring the world, Moon Hooch is living every busker’s dream. It helps that the horns-and-drums “cave music” trio makes eminently danceable music—and that saxophone player Michael Wilbur often stuffs a traffic cone in the bell of his instrument for maximum fuzz-growl and visual impact. On paper, they sound a bit confounding—is this jazz? are they for real?—but audiences at their shows are undoubtedly too busy dancing to think about these kinds of questions. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St. 8 pm. $22. 21+.

TUESDAY,

SEPT. 26:

“I would even say that we’re in the midst of an emo resurgence here,” McElroy says. Bug Seance, Mauve, Simple Shapes, Simpleton, and Swiss Army Wife are only a few of the names she cites in reference to this rising wave of new Portland bands.

McElroy is both a participant and a social locus in the scene. She occasionally turns her home in Southeast into a house venue called the Sarah Douglas Home for Wayward Bugs & Squirrels, where she frequently performs and hosts touring and local bands.

On Tuesday, Oct. 10, McElroy will perform at all-ages local hub Honey Latte Cafe. She also has a weekend tour planned with Utah band Summer 2000, which will kick off at the Sarah Douglas Home on Friday, Oct. 20, and continue in Seattle and Olympia.

“I originally only planned for this project to be a vehicle for me to play some shows up here in a new city and meet other musicians to form another band with,” she says. “But people ended up liking this, so I’m just going to stick with it for as long as that’s the case.”

SEE IT: Exciting!!excellent!! plays the Honey Latte Cafe, 1033 SE Main St., honeylatte.cafe. 7 pm Tuesday, Oct. 10. $12. All ages.

Slack-key guitarist George Kahumoku Jr. is known as Hawaii’s “Renaissance Man,” a title that’s more poignant when you consider the incredible amount of vital music and art the 1970s Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance produced. For this leg of his ongoing Masters of Hawaiian Music tour series, he’s enlisted one of that movement’s key figures, Ledward Kapaana of the brilliant ’70s trio Hui ‘Ohana, alongside Jeff Peterson, a young guitar virtuoso who’s been making some serious noise on the slack-key scene. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St. 7 pm. $25-$30. All ages.

“I’m always very insistent that this is an emo band rather than a video game band.”

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

MUTINY IN HEAVEN: THE BIRTHDAY PARTY

BY ROBERT HAM

Filmmaker Ian White made a lot of great decisions when constructing Mutiny in Heaven his appropriately twitchy and uncompromising documentary about noise-rock pioneers The Birthday Party. The movie is blessedly free of modern fans and critics bloviating about the quintet’s influence and importance. And there’s little in the way of trying to psychoanalyze the motivation behind how the Australian group made their art. The only way to appreciate them is to dive headfirst into the muck with them.

Through copious amounts of archival footage, contemporary interviews with the group’s surviving members, and a soundtrack choked with The Birthday Party’s assaultive music, fans are put in the center of the maelstrom. Led by future elder statesman of rock Nick Cave and the scalding guitar work of Rowland S. Howard, the group burst out of the Australian punk scene like a blood blister, oozing their way to London where they became infamous for their violent live performances and herculean intake of narcotics. They held it together long enough to produce a handful of brilliant albums that fomented the future careers of groups like the Jesus Lizard and Plague Vendor.

Where White flinches is in his overuse of black-and-white animated sequences to bring key offstage moments like the firing of drummer Phill Calvert before the band relocated to Berlin in 1982 or Cave’s drug-induced stupor on a flight to visual life. It only serves to break the spell that the director casts through choices like letting live footage or the surreal video the group made for “Nick the Stripper” play out almost in full. The band, their music, and their seductive personalities already have us by the throat. Watching them flop around in cartoon form only serves to loosen their collective grip. Hollywood Theatre, Sept. 22-28.

High Flyers

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Mitchell S. Jackson chronicles basketball fashion through the ages in Fly.

BY MICHELLE KICHERER

IG: @MichelleKicherer

Throughout the history of basketball, the greats have captivated us with their style.

The way Michael “Air” Jordan seemed to levitate toward that hoop? Style. How Stephen “Chef” Curry woo-baby gets those threes, not even turning to look back because he already knows those shots are in? Style. Steve “Captain Canada” Nash “zigging and zagging and spinning and twirling” past defenders, then sinking from the midrange? Style.

And off the courts? That style shows up in a thing called fashion.

Over the decades, basketball players’ fashion has evolved to become a statement of identity and an outlet for impact. In Fly: The Big Book of Basketball Fashion (Artisan Books, 224 pages, $40), Pulitzer Prize-winning Survival Math author and Portland native Mitchell S. Jackson explores that evolution and looks at where basketball players’ fashion is today.

The book is filled with beautiful images of players in beautiful outfits, each accompanied by Jackson’s storytelling captions that take readers on a journey down memory lane or into new insights. Especially powerful is the opening image: the iconic 2017 GQ photo of LeBron James in a regal burgundy peacoat clutching a golden ball that, as Jackson writes, “might’ve been touched by Midas himself.”

“I thought that picture was emblematic— the jacket, the jewelry that signifies wealth; his shirt off and how well conditioned he

is,” Jackson tells WW. “It communicates a lot of things about why he’s great and about him being fashion forward. And he’s like the figure for this era of the NBA, right? So what better way to open the book than him?”

Later on in Fly, LeBron is pictured in the NBA bubble with three of his Lakers teammates. It’s August 2020. The players are on one knee, wearing Black Lives Matter shirts, and LeBron has his fist raised in a Black Power salute. “Now, to me, that’s three different levels of protest—the ultimate form of protest…and for me, that really shows how much power LeBron recognizes he has, and how much the NBA is supportive of their players having a political opinion,” Jackson says.

Rather than organize the time periods by decades, Jackson organized Fly into eras, which he says better demonstrate each period’s zeitgeist. For example, during The Conformists era (1946-1963), Jackson writes about how Black players didn’t have the same type of expressive freedom they have today, and were typically seen wearing basic suits.

“Pre-civil rights, where we were struggling to be seen as full human beings and struggling for our citizenship, why would you risk it?” Jackson says of Black players intentionally not standing out with their fashion choices. “If you’re the one Black guy in the arena with 10,000 people in there, there’s logic in conforming to what was there. And also, at the time it’s like, well, if it’s good enough for white people, it’s good enough for us too, right? We’re just trying to become equal, versus thinking that we’ve surpassed them. I don’t know if it even crosses your mind to get past them yet because you’ve been held

down so far.”

In 1964, the start of what Fly calls the Flamboyance era, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act—and soon after, the aesthetics of basketball fashion started to shift. This is where Fly starts to get…fly. From Artis Gilmore’s fro to Larry Bird’s classic mop to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in a dashiki to Julius Erving in the hottest boot-suit combo of 1976, it’s an age of glorious self-expression.

After the appropriately titled Jordan era (1981-98), Fly explores The Iverson Effect (1999-2009), when hip-hop fashion boomed and bling “was a requisite,” as Jackson writes.

“I think there’s the reductive idea that athletes should shut up and dribble,” he says. Regarding basketball players of today, he adds, “I think these athletes more possibly, at a greater number than in any other generation, are pushing against that idea that they have to do one thing or be one thing. And I think they’re also more informed than any other generation because of social media and the internet, right? And they’re using those tools to be impactful.”

That promise of seismic change is the soul of Fly. “The confluence of professional basketball and fashion holds a mirror to American culture,” Jackson writes. “But it also, as we shall see, helps define it.”

SEE IT: Mitchell S. Jackson appears in conversation with Ken Boddie at Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323, powells.com. 7 pm Wednesday, Sept 20. Free.

Vertigo (1958)

Sixty-five years ago, filmgoers first watched acrophobic police detective Scottie (Jimmy Stewart) tail a mysterious woman (Kim Novak) around San Francisco in Alfred Hitchcock’s film about doppelgangers, reciprocal entrapment and suicidal mysticism.

Today, the reputation of Vertigo is dizzying. Its fans and scholars have written volumes on its use of high and low angles and how it subverts Jimmy Stewart’s movie star nobility, all while doing their very best to reclaim Scottie’s best friend Midge, played by Barbara Bel Geddes (she is truly living her best life, minus her affiliation with the increasingly hopeless detective).

Vertigo is a thriller that contains multitudes. It’s knotty, nasty and literal if you like. Or it’s whacked out, metaphorical and inexplicable, rivaling Kubrick’s late-career masterpieces in creating the impression that the film stock itself is alluringly cursed.

Have it any way you like it, but be sure to revisit what is arguably Hitchcock’s finest thriller in celebration of its 65th birthday. To paraphrase Scottie, “Don’t you think it’s a waste to wander separately?” Living Room, Sept. 24, 26 and 28.

ALSO PLAYING:

Academy: Blow Out (1981), Sept.

22-28. The Dark Knight (2008), Sept. 22-28. Cinema 21: Niagara (1953), Sept. 23. Cinemagic:

Freddy vs. Jason (2003), Sept. 21.

Children of Men (2006), Sept. 2324. District 9 (2009), Sept. 23 and

25. Moon (2009), Sept. 23, 24 and

26. Primer (2004), Sept. 22 and 26.

Snowpiercer (2013), Sept. 22, 24, and 27. Clinton: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), Sept. 22. Blood

Diner (1987), with director Jackie Kong in attendance, Sept. 22. Hollywood: Hausu (1977), Sept. 22-24.

Magic Mike XXL (2015), Sept. 22-

24. Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), Sept. 22. It (1927), with pipe organ, Sept. 23. Angst (1983), Sept. 23-24.

Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), Sept. 25. Bound (1996), Sept. 2528. Winter Kills (1979), Sept. 25-27. Living Room: Rashomon (1950), Sept. 21.

MOVIES

Baratunde Thurston

The American Outdoors host reflects on rollerblading in the Rose City and other Oregon adventures.

BY CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER @chance_s_p

From skating with Portland roller derby luminary Mick Swagger to free-diving in the murky Pacific to hunting Willamette Valley truffles, Baratunde Thurston undertook an array distinctly Oregon activities when his television series America Outdoors visited the state.

“Like a geography textbook come to life” is how Thurston, the author of How to Be Black and the host of the How to Citizen podcast, describes Oregon’s landscape after exploring the many ways to live on that land. With most episodes spotlighting a different state, America Outdoors finds its thesis in Thurston’s belief that humanity’s relationship to nature can present the keys to our unity and survival.

But perhaps the most time-honored Oregon tradition in America Outdoors Season 2, Episode 4, is a woodland epiphany—a moment that Thurston has called his “most profound” while making the show. It shouldn’t be entirely spoiled here, but it involves Thurston climbing 30 feet into a tree amid a flood of emotions.

A head of the episode’s premiere on Wednesday, Sept. 27, WW caught up with the PBS personality to discuss truffle hunting, ecological stewardship, and how he lets himself be a human being on camera.

WW: Your rollerblading form around Portland looked good! What’s the key?

Baratunde Thurston: Does it?! Oh, man. Putting those rollerblades on reminded me of how many decades I’ve been on this planet. I took up rollerblading 25 years ago, OK? I thought I would never go back to any other form of transportation.

It was ideal. You had the on-the-ground mobility of cycling, but with the agility of running, and you look cool. You also risk significant maiming and death. But hey, that’s a part of the charm. Rollerblading around these neighborhoods in Portland, though, I remembered why I stopped. There’s some lateral hip pressure and muscles I haven’t used in a while.

What notions did you have about Oregon going into making this episode?

My mother, it was the last place she lived. For much of her life, she wanted to live on

the West Coast and lovingly would tell my sister and me, “But I didn’t because I had you.” So we were blocking our mom’s lifelong dream…interesting.

[She] ultimately settled in Portland, on Southwest Harrison Street. She loved it. I even went by and visited her old apartment building for nostalgia and honoring’s sake. So Oregon means “place my mom loved.”

Is part of your ability to be a good TV host intertwined with being a good guest?

I think about simultaneously being in someone’s home and having someone in my home. I kind of bring the interior design of my “home” with me: cameras, lights, TV production, questions, a future viewing audience.

There was a fun detail that came up in the truffle hunting, where, you know, the key to truffle hunting is some awareness of science and respect for the land. But mostly, it’s a good dog. Oregonians really love dogs. A lot of people love dogs, but different regions have different relationships.

That’s my curiosity in terms of being a guest. It’s like, so that’s how this household engages with their pets and makes them part of the family…using them to help find delicious, overpriced food.

How do the outdoors fit into your career-spanning mission of future-building and civic action?

The outdoors is a literal shared space—one of the few that remains for us to practice being together. I also think that the outdoors is a rich and literal opportunity to upgrade our collaboration skills, because it’s under threat, which means we are under threat. So it gives us a bigger group to belong to.

The aquifer? We share it. What the Agency

Ranch folks are doing [in the Klamath Basin communities] to restore the water basin and the water table and send more cleaner water downstream to their neighbors…[it’s] a nice thing to do. But it’s also an economically sound thing to do. And it gives folks a reason to feel like we’re a part of the same universe.

In this episode, you’re climbing a tree, and something very unexpected happens. Did you know anything was different that day?

I was as surprised as viewers will be at my reaction. I walked into [tree-climbing] like I’ve walked into, or floated into, or driven into, or paddled into, or ridden into so many other circumstances.

You make a decision to stop climbing on camera. How did you know it would be OK productionwise?

The real truth of it is, I didn’t care. I felt like no one really knows what it is to make this show except me. Now, I don’t know what it’s like to hold that camera for hours a day, either. But in terms of carrying the weight of the conversation, the weight of the awareness of the camera, the weight of the physicality, and the weight of the emotional and psychological effort to keep all this coherent, no one else knows that. And in that moment, I took a leap.

SEE IT: The Oregon episode of American Outdoors airs at 5 pm Wednesday, Sept. 27, on KOPB-TV.

“THE OUTDOORS IS A LITERAL SHARED SPACE—ONE OF THE FEW THAT REMAINS FOR US TO PRACTICE BEING TOGETHER.”

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

CASSANDRO

Superhero origin stories typically emanate from exotic places and extraordinary individuals. Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams (best known for the documentary Life, Animated) has brought a very different journey to the screen with Cassandro. The true-life tale of how Saúl Armendáriz (Gael García Bernal), a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso, Texas, became a Mexican lucha libre wrestling superstar in the 1980s, Cassandro digs deeper than truth, justice and the American way to find a neglected community that yearns for a hero. Williams’ attention to detail fiercely grounds the film—and an especially moving performance by Bernal as Armendáriz, like Mickey Rourke’s Oscar-nominated turn in The Wrestler, possesses an emotional gravity that makes winning the final match an afterthought (Armendáriz’s quest exceeds his initial desire for personal fame, inspires admirers and smashes archaic ultra-masculine barriers). For Armendáriz, wrestling as an exótico (a luchador in drag) in a fixed sport meant he wasn’t allowed to win anyway. His wrestling alter ego, Cassandro, is born from such slights, delivering an exhilarating ride that allows for character flaws without asking for forgiveness. This origin story isn’t about acquiring powers; it’s about discovering the strength to achieve a victory that transcends “winning.” That’s Cassandro’s superpower. NR. RAY GILL JR. Living Room.

BOTTOMS

Imagine Superbad led by an all-female, mostly lesbian cast of characters and you can picture Emma Seligman’s Bottoms, which stuns in its originality and hilarity. Best friends PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) have one goal for the upcoming school year: sleep with the hot cheerleaders they’ve been pining for. Through a gut-busting comedy of errors, the pair start a self-defense club as a ruse to get closer to their crushes, a premise packed with blink-and-you-miss-it comedy (before the audience can finish laughing at one joke, Sennott and Edebiri have delivered another horribly hilarious line). Be warned: The humor isn’t for the faint of heart. Bottoms doesn’t adhere to the #GirlPower comedy rule book (in one scene, a group of girls all slowly raise their hands when Sennott asks, “Who here has been raped? Even gray-area stuff?”). But if you can handle the edgy jokes that would get a Tumblr user canceled in a heartbeat, Bottoms will make you laugh until you cry in the best way possible.

the theoretical physicist whose mind birthed the atomic bomb. When we first meet him, he’s a curly-haired lad staring at a puddle, but he swiftly evolves into an excitable visionary leading a cadre of scientists into the deserts of New Mexico, where they will ultimately build and test a plutonium device (referred to as “the gadget”) on July 16, 1945. What saves the film from becoming a connect-the-dots biopic is Nolan’s ingenious chronicle of the post-World War II rivalry between Oppenheimer and Atomic Energy Commission chair Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.).

of her ailments in the real world, bringing along a beamingly inadequate Ken (Ryan Gosling) with catastrophic consequences: Awed by images of Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, Ken becomes a crusading men’s rights activist, leading a revolt against the government of Barbieland and instituting bros-first martial law. And they say originality is dead! With its absurdist wit, glitzy musical numbers, and earnest ruminations on whether matriarchy and patriarchy can coexist, Barbie is easily one of the most brazen movies released by a major studio. Yes, its tidy ending betrays its anarchic spirit—after insisting that empowerment can’t be neatly packaged in a doll box, the film seems to say, “No, wait! It can!”—but it would be churlish to deny the charm of Gerwig’s buoyant creation. In an age when genuine cinematic joy is rare, we’re all lucky to be passengers in Barbie’s hotpink plastic convertible. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Academy, Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Studio One.

FREMONT

R.

ALEX BARR. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lake Theater, Laurelhurst, Lloyd Center, Progress Ridge, St. Johns Twin,Studio One.

OPPENHEIMER

At the start of Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, raindrops fall; at the end, fire rages. You’ll feel it burn long after the end credits roll. Nolan has made violent movies before, but Oppenheimer is not just about physical devastation. It submerges you in the violence of a guilt-ravaged soul, leaving you feeling unsettled and unclean. With agitated charisma and vulnerability, Cillian Murphy embodies J. Robert Oppenheimer,

The more Oppenheimer fights to put “the nuclear genie back in the bottle,” the more Strauss seethes and schemes, thrusting the movie into a maze of double-crosses that echo the exhilarating games of perception in Nolan’s 2001 breakout hit Memento Of course, the thrill can’t (and shouldn’t) last. As many as 226,000 people were killed when the U.S. bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and they haunt the film like ghosts—especially when Oppenheimer imagines a charred corpse beneath his foot. A man dreamed; people died. All a work of art can do is evoke their absence.

R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport, Empirical, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Progress Ridge, Vancouver Mall.

THE ATTACHMENT DIARIES

With The Attachment Diaries, writer-director Valentín Javier Diment has whipped up the cinematic equivalent of an icky-delicious pizza. The toppings? Film noir, kinky sex and gynecological horror. The base? Probably the bloodiest marinara you’ll taste this year. Don’t be fooled by

the opening scene where Carla (Jimena Anganuzzi) walks through a storm to tell Irina (Lola Berthet), a doctor, that she’s pregnant after being raped by three men. The elegant black-and-white images of Carla’s fragile high heels being buffeted by rain may suggest an oh-so-tasteful art film, but The Attachment Diaries, which is set in 1970s Argentina, is something freakier, trashier and lustier. Ruminative drama quickly makes way for crotch scars, severed fingers and so many slayings that it’s almost hilarious that the police haven’t caught Irina slicing up fresh corpses with a hand saw (she does this a lot). Diment is a poet of perversion, daring us to flinch, then trolling us with a delectable fait accompli: transforming what seems to be a paranoid nightmare-fantasy about bloodthirsty lesbians into a relatively progressive romance with an ending designed to elicit a collective “aw!” I’m not exactly ready to don a “Carla & Irina 4-ever” T-shirt; they are serial killers, after all. Yet part of me can’t help hoping those crazy kids make it. NR. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Cinema 21, Sept. 22 and 23.

BARBIE

Once upon a time, Barbie dolls liberated all women from tyranny. The end… at least according to the first few minutes of Barbie, a sleek and satirical fantasia from director Greta Gerwig (Lady Bird, Little Women). Set in the utopian kingdom of Barbieland, the movie dramatizes the existential crises of the winkingly named Stereotypical Barbie. She’s played by Margot Robbie, who was last seen battling a rattlesnake in Damien Chazelle’s Babylon and her misadventures in Barbie are hardly less bizarre. Plagued by flat feet, cellulite and fears of death, Barbie seeks the source

Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) is a refugee freshly relocated from Afghanistan to the Bay Area after working as a U.S. Army translator. Given the danger and alienation she’s experienced fleeing the Taliban and leaving her family, it’s curious at first that director Babak Jalali renders this hushed, black-and-white dramedy so placid on its surface. Donya is resolute, confident and privately contemplative, especially as she rises to the rank of “message writer” at the San Francisco fortune cookie factory where she works. Yet she is also an iceberg, silently and sometimes inscrutably tolerating the oddballs who attempt to connect with her largely through monologue. Donya’s therapist, for one—Gregg Turkington, eerily similar here to his On Cinema character—can’t stop yakking about White Fang, and her boss (Eddie Tang) constantly tries to impart how proper cookie fortunes straddle both meaning and meaninglessness. These one-sided interactions pile up a little bafflingly until Donya encounters a fellow iceberg, Daniel (The Bear star Jeremy Allen White), a mechanic who brings instant steadiness to the film’s sometimes head-scratching tone and harmony to Wali Zada’s proudly composed performance. In the film, as in life’s loneliest moments, it’s hard to decipher how ill-fitting new relationships can be until the fog lifts and the real thing appears. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.

SHAKY SHIVERS

Sung Kang—the actor best known for playing the ultra-cool, repeatedly resurrected Han in the Fast & Furious series—makes his directorial debut with this ’80s-style horror comedy set in Winlock, Wash. (despite being filmed in California). A cute opening scene where misfit girls argue over whether one of them has actually become a werewolf takes a weird turn when it turns out that werewolves exist and a character dies in a firearm accident. Bickering over whether a book of magic spells is real? Funny. Actually killing people? Not so much. Unable to fully commit to being either a full-on parody or grounded in reality, Shaky Shivers delivers no real payoff, despite the chemistry of its cast (which includes Brooke Markham and VyVy Nguyen). Even the title, a reference to an ice cream dessert developed by one of the girls, is just a half-joke without a punchline. NR. WILLIAM SCHWARTZ. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Center.

JONESIN’

"Do

were

BY MATT JONES

ARIES (March 21-April 19): So it begins: the Building and Nurturing Togetherness phase of your astrological cycle. The next eight weeks will bring excellent opportunities to shed bad relationship habits and grow good new ones. Let’s get you in the mood with some suggestions from intimacy counselors Mary D. Esselman and Elizabeth Ash Vélez: "No matter how long you’ve been together or how well you think you know each other, you still need to romance your partner, especially in stability. Don’t run off and get an extreme makeover or buy into the red-roses-and-champagne bit. Instead, try being kind, receptive, and respectful. Show your partner, often and in whatever tender, goofy way you both understand, that their heart is your home."

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): From May 2023 to May 2024, the planets Jupiter and Uranus have been and will be in Taurus. I suspect that many Taurus revolutionaries will be born during this time. And yes, Tauruses can be revolutionaries. Here's a list of some prominent rebel Bulls: Karl Marx, Malcolm X, activist Kathleen Cleaver, lesbian feminist author Adrienne Rich, Vietnamese leader Ho Chi Minh, artist Salvador Dali, playwright Lorraine Hansberry, and dancer Martha Graham. All were wildly original innovators who left a bold mark on their cultures. May their examples inspire you to clarify and deepen the uniquely stirring impact you would like to make, Taurus.

And if you have not received many advantages, the coming months will be an excellent time to ask for and even demand more.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): My favorite creativity teacher is author Roger von Oech. He produced the Creative Whack Pack, a card deck with prompts to stimulate imaginative thinking. I decided to draw one such card for your use in the coming weeks. It’s titled EXAGGERATE. Here's its advice: "Imagine a joke so funny you can't stop laughing for a month. Paper stronger than steel. An apple the size of a hotel. A jet engine quieter than a moth beating its wings. A home-cooked dinner for 25,000 people. Try exaggerating your idea. What if it were a thousand times bigger, louder, stronger, faster, and brighter?” (PS: It's a favorable time for you to entertain brainstorms and heartstorms and soulstorms. For best results, EXAGGERATE!)

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): If you buy a bag of popcorn and cook it in your microwave oven, there are usually kernels at the bottom that fail to pop. As tasty as your snack is, you may still may feel cheated by the duds. I will be bold and predict that you won’t have to deal with such duds in the near future—not in your popcorn bags and not in any other area of your life, either literally or metaphorically. You’re due for a series of experiences that are complete and thorough and fully bloomed.

ACROSS

1. The work of groan adults?

5. "Futurama" co-creator Groening

9. Actor B.D. of "Law & Order: SVU"

13. "Need ___?" (possible truck service tagline)

14. Push rudely

16. Food Network initialism

17. Bumble and Hinge, e.g.

19. "___ la vie!"

20. "Princess of Power" of Saturday mornings

21. Stereotypical event for fraternities in movies

23. Substack offering, maybe

25. Northwest Mexican state

26. Abbr. in a military address

28. Castle protectors

32. "Dang it!"

33. Fruit suitable for making pies (rather than, say, a Red Delicious)

36. Type of bar with mai tais

37. Finland-based communications company

38. French silk city

42. Ripping to shreds

45. On the ocean

47. Braying equines

48. "Go, team!"

49. Putin predecessor Medvedev

51. Slide on something slippery

53. Apparel for striking poses?

57. Come after

60. ___-Lenape (Delaware tribe)

61. Small spaces between areas, or what's represented in the long entries

63. The Weeknd, a.k.a. ___ Tesfaye

64. California berry farm founder

65. Yale students

66. Washington, D.C., baseball team, familiarly

67. Art sch. study

68. "Divorce Capital of the World," once

DOWN

1. Launching platforms

2. "Spiral Jetty" state

3. Small laptop

4. Soft serve machine option

5. Food additive initials

6. At the drop of ___

7. ___ Chico ("Agua Mineral" brand)

8. "Young Sheldon" rating

9. Ad tagline for the frustrated and confused

10. Put one ___ (fool)

11. ___ account (term for a bank's holding at a different bank)

12. "Now I understand"

15. Those things, in Spanish

18. Actress Watts

22. Table game

24. "Haters ___ hate"

26. Several scenes,

©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.

sometimes

27. Luau dish

29. Ancient Greek gathering spot

30. Chips brand with a "Blue Heat" flavor

31. "Press Your Luck" turns

34. Attachments for a seaside hobby, perhaps

35. Volume count

39. Rummage event

40. Singer Rita

41. Furthest degree

43. Wild West Wyatt

44. Lopsided

45. One-celled protozoan

46. Official seal

49. "Blowin' in the Wind" singer

50. American, in England

52. Actress Stevens of '60s

TV

54. Mom's mom, in some places

55. Sci-fi movie with a "Legacy" sequel

56. Mlle., in Monterrey

58. ___ arms

59. Old U.S. gas brand

62. Mel of baseball

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Gemini writer Joe Hill believes the only fight that matters is "the struggle to take the world’s chaos and make it mean something." I can think of many other fights that matter, too, but Hill’s choice is a good one that can be both interesting and rewarding. I especially recommend it to you in the coming weeks, Gemini. You are poised at a threshold that promises substantial breakthroughs in your ongoing wrangles with confusion, ambiguity, and enigma. My blessings go with you as you wade into the evocative challenges.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Author Crescent Dragonwagon has written over 50 books, so we might conclude she has no problem expressing herself fully. But a character in one of her novels says the following: "I don’t know exactly what I mean by 'hold something back,' except that I do it. I don’t know what the 'something' is. It’s some part that’s a mystery, maybe even to me. I feel it may be my essence or what I am deep down under all the layers. But if I don’t know what it is, how can I give it or share it with someone even if I wanted to?" I bring these thoughts to your attention, Cancerian, because I believe the coming weeks will be a favorable time for you to overcome your own inclination to "hold something back."

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): In her book Undercurrents: A Life Beneath the Surface, psychologist and author Martha Manning says she is more likely to experience epiphanies in "grocery stores and laundromats, rather than in the more traditional places of reverence and prayer." She marvels that "it's in the most ordinary aspects of life" that she is "offered glimpses of the extraordinary." During these breakthrough moments, "the baseline about what is good and important in my life changes." I suspect you will be in a similar groove during the coming weeks, Leo. Are you ready to find the sacred in the mundane? Are you willing to shed your expectations of how magic occurs so you will be receptive to it when it arrives unexpectedly?

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): "These are the bad facts," says author Fran Lebowitz. "Men have much easier lives than women. Men have the advantage. So do white people. So do rich people. So do beautiful people." Do you agree, Virgo? I do. I'm not rich or beautiful, but I'm a white man, and I have received enormous advantages because of it. What about you? Now is a good time to tally any unearned blessings you have benefited from, give thanks for them, and atone by offering help to people who have obtained fewer favors.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): Writer George Bernard Shaw observed that new ideas and novel perspectives "often appear first as jokes and fancies, then as blasphemies and treason, then as questions open to discussion, and finally as established truths." As you strive to get people to consider fresh approaches, Sagittarius, I advise you to skip the "blasphemies and treason" stage. If you proceed with compassion and good humor, you can go directly from "jokes and fancies" to "questions open to discussion." But one way or another, please be a leader who initiates shifts in your favorite groups and organizations. Shake things up with panache and good humor.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Novelist and astrologer Forrest E. Fickling researched which signs are the worst and best in various activities. He discovered that Capricorns are the hardest workers, as well as the most efficient. They get a lot done, and they are expeditious about it. I suspect you will be at the peak of your ability to express these Capricornian strengths in the coming weeks. Here’s a bonus: You will also be at the height of your power to enjoy your work and be extra likely to produce good work. Take maximum advantage of this grace period!

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): The British band Oasis has sold over 95 million records. The first song they ever released was "Supersonic." Guitarist Noel Gallagher wrote most of its music and lyrics in half an hour while the rest of the band was eating Chinese take-out food. I suspect you will have that kind of agile, succinct, matter-of-fact creativity in the coming days. If you are wise, you will channel it into dreaming up solutions for two of your current dilemmas. This is one time when life should be easer and more efficient than usual.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): "When sex is really, really good," writes Piscean novelist Geoff Nicholson, "I feel as though I’m disappearing, being pulverized, so that I’m nothing, just particles of debris, smog, soot, and skin floating through the air." Hmmmm. I guess that's one version of wonderful sex. And if you want it, you can have it in abundance during the coming weeks. But I encourage you to explore other kinds of wonderful sex, as well—like the kind that makes you feel like a genius animal or a gorgeous storm or a super-powered deity.

Homework: Spend 10 minutes showering yourself with praise. Speak your accolades out loud. Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

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