Willamette Week, December 20, 2023 - Volume 50, Issue 6 - "Twin Weeds"

NEWS DRINK FILM

Hot Rave, No Sprinklers. P. 9 Santa Throws a Luau. P. 23 Celluloid Strikes Back. P. 32

WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

“NO BASS. NO GUNS. NO MOTORCYCLES BEING STRIPPED FOR PARTS.” P. 7 WWEEK.COM VOL 50/06 12.20.2023

TWIN WEEDS In Southern Oregon, illegal cannabis has overwhelmed the legal industry.

BY SOPHIE PEEL AND LUCAS MANFIELD | P. 11

sale prices good thru 1/12/24

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

FINDINGS MICHAEL RAINES

THE NORTH WAREHOUSE, PAGE 9

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 50, ISSUE 06 Kelly’s Olympian bartenders still double as bouncers. 8

A deal to let grocers sell cocktails in a can evaporated. 8 The hosts of EDM warehouse parties believed their maximum capacity was 666. 9 The Holiday Motel on the Redwood Highway became housing for black market weed trimmers. 11 The hemp farmers next to Herman Baertschiger’s ranch looked like fireflies. 12 Aaron Mitchell’s nanny fled police at the wheel of his car. 16

Critics panned the Paris Hilton movie Kevin Portnoff produced. 17 Hotel Lucia has a hot pink Christmas tree in its lobby this year. 19

ON THE COVER: Weed wars rage in a corner of Oregon that’s the best place to grow marijuana in the world; photo illustration by Whitney McPhie.

Milwaukie will drop a 7-foot Bing cherry on New Year’s Eve. 20 Burlesque, draglesque and boylesque performers are performing Portland’s sexiest version of A Christmas Carol. 20 Downtown’s former Original Dineraunt doesn’t make for the most convincing holiday tikithemed pop-up bar. 23 Sure, you’ve hiked the Trail of Ten Falls, but have you

visited Silver Falls State Park’s outback? 26 Nothing inspires awe quite like a standard New Age choirsynth preset . 29 The Hawthorne Theatre is the perfect venue for a circle pit. 30 A 70 mm print of Malcolm X has 10 reels, each weighing 40 pounds. 32

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK: FBI and IRS special agents arrive at Portland doorsteps to ask about La Mota.

Masthead PUBLISHER

Anna Zusman

EDITORIAL

Managing Editor Aaron Mesh Arts & Culture Editor Andi Prewitt Assistant A&C Editor Bennett Campbell Ferguson Staff Writers Anthony Effinger Nigel Jaquiss Lucas Manfield Sophie Peel Rachel Saslow Copy Editor Matt Buckingham Editor Mark Zusman

WILLAMETTE WEEK IS PUBLISHED WEEKLY BY CITY OF ROSES MEDIA COMPANY

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

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DIALOGUE

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A T R E A LRBO S ER E T •••• A E H T DEC 20

The Multnomah County Sheriff ’s Office was super proud of its largest-ever fentanyl bust: 11 million doses of the synthetic opioid seized from an Airbnb rental in Northeast Portland. There was, however, a loose end. The suspected trafficker walked out of jail hours after his arrest and (surprise!) didn’t appear in court the next day. When WW broke the news of Luis Funez’s disappearance, the news embarrassed local courts and law enforcement— and renewed questions about Oregon’s pretrial release guidelines (“State of Oregon vs. Luis Funez,” WW, Dec. 13). Rest easy: The same drug unit that nabbed Funez the first time arrested him again six days later. Here’s what our readers had to say:

DEC 21

A BURLY CAROL a Burlesque tale inspired by A Christmas Carol

3 Leg Torso presents

DEC 22 DEC 23

THE ELVISES OF FROSTLÄND

+ Pepe Raphael | Jet Black Pearl The Amazing Bubble Man | Chervona Queer history as told

by Portland’s most intoxicated drag performers

DEC 29

DRUNK HERSTORY

a tribute to on of the greatest DEC 30 perormers of all-time that engages the full ELTON experience

DEC 31

NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY!

VSANS, VIA REDDIT: “Arrested in January on 10 felony charges of selling fentanyl. Immediately released. Three weeks later, caught carrying over 100 fentanyl pills and $3,000 in cash. Released and failed to come back to court. This week, house raided and largest bust ever: 11 million doses of fentanyl, $7K in cash. Immediately released and ask to please come back tomorrow. Fails to come back. “…People are fed up with the ‘proven model’ of pretrial release guidelines that allow folks like this to roam free with literally zero consequences. How can you trust in a system where ‘nonviolent’ offenders that sell death can be let go this easily?”

SHAWNSFLASH, VIA WWEEK.COM: “That is just ridiculous. There is more enforcement for a parking ticket. What really makes me sad is that when people see this insanity and we have a DA as ineffectual and arrogant as Michael Schmidt, instead of advocating for good policies that lock up dealers and creating serious legal policy with smart, effective leaders in office, there is a knee-jerk reaction that is paving the way for dictatorships and Trump. We can be liberal, fair and equitable and still tough on crime so that people don’t get fed up and vote

in horrible bigots and instead vote out the likes of Schmidt.”

BRYANRMORRIS, VIA WWEEK.COM: “Again, not defending DA Schmidt, but this clusterfuck doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the DA’s office.

The sheriff’s office was taking their sweet time figuring out how to hand this guy off to the feds and didn’t bother to inform the Department of Community Justice that there were going to be new charges that dwarfed the old ones. But I’m sure that those facts won’t deter the usual suspects from blaming Schmidt.”

DYSCLAIMER, VIA REDDIT: “I love Rene Gonzalez jumping into this, promising change, when the mayor has nothing to do with either charging practice, bail or jails release policy.”

GONZALEZ HAS FAILED STREET RESPONSE CREWS There is one unparalleled failure committed by Commissioner Gonzalez, which is the undeniable derailment of Portland Street Response [“Entrance Interview: Rene Gonzalez,” WW, Dec. 13]. As one of the architects of the program while serving as chief of staff for Commissioner Hardesty and as a prior employee of Portland Fire & Rescue

Dr. Know

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

JAN 10

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

I’ve (unwillingly) received some fur coats and hats—like real fur, from a poor, defenseless animal. I don’t want these disgusting items, but I feel like I shouldn’t just throw them away. Then again, I also don’t want someone to exploit the animal’s life for profit. What does one do with fur they don’t want? —MT Therapist This is a slippery moment for questions touching on humanity’s self-proclaimed right to kill, eat, wear and generally take a dump on our fellow creatures. Our justification for this has always been our intelligence, but now that AIs are proving just as capable as we are of having conversations, making shit up, and writing lousy book reports, we may need a different framework.

What it would be I don’t know, but it seems like it’ll involve one of three things: (1) making everyone go hardcore vegan, (2) declaring that it’s OK to eat people also, or (3) letting ChatGPT vote.

For now, people of goodwill can disagree about fur’s morality. Some who condemn the trade in new furs, for example, may consider preowned, or “ethical,” fur acceptable. The rabbit,

working internally with the program, it brings me no joy to tell the truth that Portland Street Response is failing. Unable to adequately staff first responders, calls for service go unanswered and it has long missed operational benchmarks needed to secure Medicaid funding. Make no mistake, this is no reflection of the imminently qualified, capable and caring front-line staff throughout the bureau, but a reflection of the failure of fire leadership to execute building an infrastructure to scale up this much-needed, and demanded, community resource. It is my belief that the mayor Portland Street Response needs is the mayor Portland already has. Mayor Wheeler has taken incredible leadership recently, tackling unpopular issues and stepping aside a potential next term to leave a legacy of ensuring a democratic transition to a new form of government. It is that leadership that is desperately needed right now to make sure that Portland Street Response has a future. I have absolute faith that Mayor Wheeler and the creative, professional and experienced staff of the Community Safety Division can turn things around. Without their immediate intervention, I see no path forward for a permanent, stable and effective Portland Street Response.

Karly Edwards CORRECTION

A Murmur in the Dec. 6 edition incorrectly said Disco Dabs is a La Mota brand. It is not. WW regrets the error.

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

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

mink or chinchilla is already dead, the theory goes, so we might as well wear it rather than throw it in the garbage. If you agree, MT, you could simply hawk the items on eBay, perhaps donating the proceeds to an animal-themed charity.

Then there are those who draw the line at actually wearing fur, but consider it OK to repurpose existing fur garments into art objects, animal bedding, or educational exhibits. Sounds like a lot of work to me, but if it inspires you, go for it.

Finally, there’s PETA, which claims any use of fur perpetuates the industry. They say you should give your furs to the homeless—“the only humans with any excuse to wear fur”—or donate them to PETA and they’ll do it. I’m not a huge fan of PETA, but they’re not known for half-assing their support for animal rights, so if you’re looking for the maximalist position, this is probably it.

Or, you could do the obvious thing and donate the items to Goodwill. It’s a charity, so you don’t have to worry about some flintyeyed death merchant cynically profiting from Thumper’s sacrifice, and while the people buying your furs wouldn’t necessarily be homeless, this being Portland they could BECOME homeless at any moment. Close enough.

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

NEWS BLAKE BENARD

RIDERS ON THE FREMONT BRIDGE DURING BRIDGE PEDAL 2023

A Letter From Our Publisher This week marks our final print issue of the year. Next week, our team will get a bit of a break before 2024. This time of year is also when we deliver an update to you about the state of our business and our plans for the new year.

It is the first year I’ve written this note. I started as publisher on Jan. 1 of this year, after five years of working across various departments at WW. In addition to keeping the train running, I’ve spent a lot of time listening and learning. To that end, while it all feels fresh, I’d like to share some of what I’ve learned as a (relative) newbie to this now-49-year-old institution.

Each week, we pull off a miracle.

We’re a team of 17 full-time employees, four part-timers, and a handful of contractors, freelancers and delivery drivers. (Mind you, we were significantly larger just a few years ago; the reduction is a result of the pandemic and a changed landscape in the business of journalism.)

Each week, we produce and distribute a physical newspaper, eight digital newsletters, and lots of daily content on wweek.com.

Throughout the year, this same team publishes three magazines, puts on a few events, manages ad campaigns for hundreds of local advertisers, and raises millions of dollars for local nonprofits through Give!Guide.

What we do with the limited resources we have is nothing short of a miracle. It is only possible because of people who work with a shared sense of purpose, high standards of quality, and a desire to lean in way beyond their job description.

Our journalism has real impact, and that doesn’t come easily.

I’ve learned more about our editorial process over the past year. Our commitment to investigative journalism, under the guidance of Managing Editor Aaron Mesh,

means investing time and resources that could otherwise be spent hitting daily blog quotas or regurgitating press releases. Our reporters spend months cultivating sources, following leads that sometimes go nowhere, and embedding themselves in communities for weeks at a time to get the full scope of a potential story. (Sophie Peel and Lucas Manfield spent a week in Cave Junction for today’s cover story.) Some stories, like Nigel Jaquiss uncovering the transfer of worthless properties from the R.B. Pamplin Corp. to its employee pension fund, take years of reporting, sifting through historical background, and reviewing tax documents.

PUBLISHER ANNA ZUSMAN

It’s also worth noting that our arts and culture reporting makes a point of seeking out hidden gems that endure in our city’s neighborhoods, whether they be teriyaki takeout joints, century-old dive bars, or a coffee shop that turns into a live-music venue after dark.

The future of downtown Portland remains a puzzle, but we’re committed to highlighting the nooks and crannies that make our city great.

In an industry where attention is a commodity, we take pride in not simply capturing it but earning it, with stories we believe empower our readers to make our city better.

I have been humbled by our work this year.

Revenue is a moving target.

It’s no secret that newsrooms across the country are having to pivot their business model. We’re no exception. This year, we’ve seen very modest growth across our revenue streams. Advertising has stayed flat, still the main source of revenue for our operation.

Revenue from our membership program, Friends of Willamette Week, has grown about 5%.

Come Dec. 31, I estimate we will post revenues of just under $2.5 million and will make a small pre-tax profit that will go back into funding growth in 2024.

We have our eyes on more resources for essential investments: expanding our coverage, improving our digital experience, growing our audience, and finding new ways to tell our stories. These are essential investments we need to make to keep up with an evolving media landscape and bring in new readers. We seek to grow because we believe it’s how we will survive.

We need you.

Next year, Willamette Week enters its 50th year since our founding in 1974. We are a very different organization than we were in the 1980s and ’90s (publishing 200-plus-page papers weekly and organizing weeklong music festivals), but our commitment to journalism has not shifted and our audience is larger than ever. (Last month, we saw 1.9 million impressions from 700,000 readers on wweek.com.) But we cannot do it without your support. If you haven’t yet, please join Friends of Willamette Week.

I believe WW plays a vital role in keeping this city safe for democracy, championing new voices, holding power to account, and discovering the best Portland has to offer. If you’ve read this far, my assumption is you hold a similar belief.

We plan to grow next year by expanding our sales and editorial teams. We’re working

Some of our investigative work this year, the impact it made, and a glimpse of the effort it took to report.

• Sophie Peel’s investigation into a troubled cannabis chain’s influence on Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan. (For the latest, turn to page 16.) Most of you are aware by now of the impact of this story, but it’s also worth noting that Sophie began digging into La Mota’s tax liens and cash campaign contributions in 2022, months before she published her first story. She lined up hundreds of pages of public documents before typing her first word in a series that would upend state politics.

• Each week, our reporters chase down the ownership records of vacant and decaying properties suggested by our readers. Anthony Effinger followed up on a tip that one of the city’s top real estate families owned a downtown office complex and shopping plaza that had degenerated into a fentanyl den. He and Lucas Manfield were responsible for police cleaning out the property and for the Menashe family mothballing it.

• Our reporters not only break news but look for patterns in what’s happening. That means Lucas identified downtown fentanyl markets as a story of statewide significance long before they grabbed the attention of the governor. Anthony recognized that Portland’s population declines signaled a sea change, and all of our reporters asked whether the high tax burden in Portland was producing the kind of services that make people want to stay.

• And we keep following up on our scoops until we see change. Last year, Nigel Jaquiss discovered that more than 500 state employees were living in other states, many with low tax burdens, and were eligible to fly back to Oregon for meetings at taxpayer expense. It took months of additional reporting before Gov. Tina Kotek ended the policy of paying travel expenses for state employees living in other states.

Support Willamette Week in 2024. Become a Friend of Willamette Week at wweek.com/support.

toward reaching more readers, giving you more places to find us online, adding another magazine to our schedule, helping this city reinvigorate its arts scene, and covering an election on a scale Portland has never seen before.

We hope we can count on you next year to keep reading and continue supporting our journalism.

—Anna Zusman, Publisher Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

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MURMURS BLAKE BENARD

CITY COMMISSIONER DAN RYAN

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

GONZALEZ AND RYAN PURSUE TAX BOND: City Commissioners Rene Gonzalez and Dan Ryan are exploring whether to place an $800 million bond on the November 2024 ballot to fund their bureaus, Portland Fire & Rescue and Portland Parks & Recreation. The property tax bond would be used to repair aging facilities and infrastructure within both bureaus. Recent polling by the parks bureau suggests Portland voters are more likely to support a parks and fire bond than a parks bond alone; 62% of poll respondents said they’d support a joint bond. But a tax revolt has been brewing in Portland boardrooms, fueled by the highest marginal tax rate for high earners in the nation. Ryan says in order to get voters to approve a new bond, the city will need the overall tax burden to drop.

That would require changing or repealing one of the area’s current taxes, including either Multnomah County’s Preschool for All tax or Metro’s supportive housing services tax. “It’s got to even out,” Ryan told WW. Gonzalez adds, “It does create an interesting political question right now.”

RENT ASSISTANCE FRAUD SPOTTED ON 14TH TRY: A grand jury last month indicted a man for stealing $246,000 in rental assistance funds from Multnomah County’s general fund by forging the signatures of at least a dozen applicants and directing the money to himself or his companies. James Louise Hartley, 46, was also indicted on charges of possessing a firearm and dealing fentanyl and cocaine. County officials touted the indictment in a press release, lauding an unnamed employee for noticing an unusual number of payments to one company. Court records identify the company as Precise Property Management Plus LLC, a firm managed by Hartley. “We commend the vigilance of the Multnomah County employee who uncovered this suspected fraud,” county human services director Mohammad Bader said in a press release. “As a result of this case, we are taking further steps to strengthen our processes and further improve our safeguards.” An affidavit filed in the case indicates Hartley was able to collect 13 payments of as much as $21,960 before being clocked by the county worker. The county didn’t return an email seeking an explanation why Hartley was successful so many times before getting caught. Such fraud became commonplace during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the U.S. government rushed money to renters to keep them housed as unemployment swelled. Multnomah County and the network of nonprofits it works with have distributed more than $230 million in housing assistance funds in the past four years.

TEACHERS’ UNION WILL MEET WITH JEWISH FEDERATION: Fresh off its strike, the Portland Association of Teachers turned its attention to the Israel-Hamas war. On its social media platforms, the teachers’ union has advertised cease-fire marches and a “Palestine 101” panel discussion.

On Dec. 10, PAT hosted a pro-Palestine “teach-in” at its headquarters, though the union was not an official sponsor of the event. This advocacy rankled some Jewish teachers at Portland Public Schools.

“I feel betrayed,” says David Goldstein, a Spanish language teacher at Robert Gray Middle School.

“It makes me feel like my union doesn’t have my back.” When PAT leaders did not respond to Goldstein’s concerns, he reached out to the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland. PAT president Angela Bonilla originally told JFGP she would be open to meeting with the federation after the strike but then didn’t respond to follow-up emails and voice messages. After WW reported the controversy Dec. 14 on wweek.com, the union rediscovered JFGP’s phone number. Federation president and CEO Marc N. Blattner announced Tuesday that his group would meet with PAT leaders later this week “to help them better understand our concerns as they continue to promote pro-Palestinian events to their members.” Bonilla tells WW, “We will continue to engage with members respectfully and meaningfully on the challenging issues of our time, including this issue.”

NEWLY FILED INDICTMENTS CONNECT DEPUTIES TO TWO DEATHS: Indictments accusing two Multnomah County sheriff’s deputies of official misconduct related to the deaths of two county jail inmates provide new insight into their alleged crimes. The indictments, published Dec. 12, say both James Brauckmiller and Michael Mersereau failed to perform their lawful duties “with intent to obtain a benefit.” The misdemeanor is punishable by up to a year in jail. A grand jury handed down the indictment after hearing evidence from a detective in the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff has previously said the two indictments were “related to two adult-in-custody deaths in 2023.” The indictments point to which ones. Brauckmiller’s alleged crime occurred June 16, the day 58-year-old Martin Todd Franklin was found dead in his cell. He’d hanged himself with a bed sheet from a grate in the ceiling. Mersereau’s indictment says his crime occurred Aug. 1, the day another inmate spotted 36-year-old Clemente Pineda overdosing in his cell. Deputies attempted unsuccessfully to resuscitate him. The two men are scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 20 and will plead not guilty, their attorneys say.

GIVE!GUIDE AIMS FOR $8 MILLION: As of noon Dec. 19, Give!Guide had raised $3,670,541 for 250 local nonprofits, reaching 44% of the campaign’s $8.25 million goal. To contribute to our city’s recovery and progress, we invite you to explore giveguide.org and choose a few meaningful organizations to support. Consider donating on a Big Give Day for a chance to win prizes! The deadline for giving is midnight Dec. 31. Join us in making a difference!

LY D I A E LY

NEWS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK

YEAR IN REVIEW

Parting Words Our 10 most-read stories of 2023 were mostly about people who’d had enough.

BY WW STAFF 503-243-2122

What do you do when nobody loves you? You write about it. Portland in 2023 was a town going through a breakup on a civic scale, with some people literally packing U-Hauls and others severing emotional ties to certain ideals that had seemed core to the Rip City identity. There was once a dream that was Portland, and it featured less incarceration, an end to the War on Drugs, and robust tax dollars for public services. Nearly all our mostread stories on wweek.com in 2023 featured disillusionment with that vision of the city.

Oct. 4: Damian Lillard Files for Divorce From His Wife, Kay’La Lillard

187,917 views Portland’s most beloved basketball player filed for divorce in Clackamas County Circuit Court five days after the Trail Blazers traded him to the Milwaukee Bucks. The latest court filings show Kay’La Lillard is seeking full custody of the couple’s three small children. SOPHIE PEEL. July 17: Law Enforcement Officials Suspect a Multnomah County Man Released Early From Prison Is a Serial Killer

178,869 views Drawing on information from multiple sources, WW reported in July that police suspected Jesse Lee Calhoun, then 38, in the deaths of four women whose bodies were found in the Portland metro area. Calhoun’s case drew wide attention, not only because of the multiple homicides that police suspect he committed, but because he’d been among more than 1,000 inmates that former Gov. Kate Brown released early from Oregon prisons. Calhoun won his release July 22, 2021, in part because he had served on a wildfire-fighting crew. (The killings in which Calhoun is a suspect all took place after his originally scheduled release date.)

On Nov. 27, the Portland Police Bureau announced it was taking over the investigation of a fifth woman, Joanna Speaks, who was found dead April 28 in Clark County, Wash. Sources familiar with the investigation into Calhoun’s actions say he is now a suspect in that case as well. Calhoun is currently being held at the Snake River Correctional Institution in Ontario with a release date of June 9, 2024. People familiar with the investigation expect him to be charged in some or all of the five homicides before then. PPB and the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office declined to comment.

NIGEL JAQUISS.

Feb. 1: They Left: Portland Is Losing Some of Its Biggest Fans

115,329 views Before the pandemic, few could imagine that people leaving Portland would ever be a problem. Every year brought more tech bros from California and liberals from the Midwest. Then COVID-19 arrived and protests for racial justice turned into riots. Schools stayed closed too long for many parents’ liking. Taxes suddenly seemed high for a town that couldn’t keep trash off the streets and graffiti off highway signs.

Free to work from home, many people chose to live outside Portland—in Bend, in Boise, hell, even in Texas. And just like that, Multnomah County lost population in the year ended July 1, 2020, for the first time since 1987. It happened again in 2021 and 2022. Some readers said WW was crying wolf when the story ran, but many others shared it with friends and relatives who had left or were mulling an exit. The losses were never huge (5,409 people in 2020), but any loss is bad in a state that relies on newcomers to keep its economy on track and its tax receipts flowing. Multnomah County grew by just 0.21% in the year ended July 1, according to Portland State University’s Population Research Center, while the state grew 0.55%.

The population plateau prompted state economists to include a “zero-migration” scenario in their quarterly revenue projection for the first time last month. And, in Portland at least, things might get worse before they get better.

In a poll by DHM Research commissioned by the Portland Police Association this month, 56% of Portlanders said they would consider leaving Stumptown if they could afford it.

ANTHONY EFFINGER.

June 7: A $28 Million Low-Income Apartment Complex Descends Into Chaos in Just Two and a Half Years

109,816 views The brand-new Buri Building on Northeast Glisan Street just off Interstate 205 looked like heaven, but residents said it was hell, with people shooting up in stairways, smoking fentanyl in elevators, and vandalizing plumbing.

One resident WW interviewed in June, Allen Lumsden, said he threw in the towel and moved out this month. “It is by far the worst property I have ever lived in, and I would like to file a lawsuit if I can find a pro bono attorney,” Lumsden said in an email. Dave Bachman, owner of the company that manages the Buri, didn’t return an email seeking comment. ANTHONY EFFINGER.

EXPATRIATES: Rob and Jenny Rideout enjoy a beer at the Workers Tavern in Astoria. They left Portland in September 2022.

July 26: On Portland’s Fentanyl Corner, a Dance With Death Sells for $20

66,585 views To understand how fentanyl was wreaking havoc on a few square blocks of downtown Portland, we got to know the people who frequented the spot, chased ambulances, and even bought the deadly drug ourselves. Much has happened since. Gov. Tina Kotek sent state troopers to patrol downtown Portland sidewalks to arrest dealers. City and county leaders are calling for an outright ban on public drug use. The Legislature is now weighing fundamental changes to Measure 110, the law that decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs like heroin and meth. On a recent rainy Monday night, WW returned to the intersection of Southwest 6th Avenue and Harvey Milk Street that was ringed by fentanyl dealers over the summer and found it clear of overt dealing. The market might have moved, but the overdoses continue. Multnomah County’s count this year had exceeded last year’s stratospheric total, 510,

by October. LUCAS MANFIELD. March 22: One of Portland’s Top Real Estate Families Owns a Building That Contains a Fentanyl Market

66,248 views It’s cleaner these days. See “The Exorcism” on the next page.

Feb. 22: A Southeast Portland Man Lives in One of Portland’s Least Habitable Apartments

58,768 views Things are much better for Luk’as Porter since WW wrote about his noisy, scary neighbors and the water that leaked into his apartment like November rain. The bank that owns the upstairs apartment kicked out the squatters in August, he says, and boarded the door. His own landlords fixed the ceiling in his living room in October, a year after it fell in. There’s more to do, “but when all is said and done, it’s quiet,” Porter says in an email. “No bass. No guns. No motorcycles being stripped for parts above my head anymore. But the sound of a drop of water will still cause the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up.” ANTHONY EFFINGER. March 25: Who’s Running Downtown Portland’s Open-Air Fentanyl Market?

58,434 views Following our reporting on a large, open-air fentanyl market operating at a vacant office-retail building downtown, we combed

through recent prosecutions and found the street dealers on the block were mainly homeless men, some with ties to larger criminal organizations. In December, police busted traffickers higher up the ladder, and an alleged ringleader faces criminal charges (see page 4). LUCAS MANFIELD. May 17: A Low-Income Housing Developer Swears Off Any More Portland Construction

58,112 views Michael Gregory became something of a celebrity in the development world after WW wrote about his struggle to build a 12-unit apartment building in the Foster-Powell neighborhood of Southeast Portland. He had stumbled into a thicket of regulations. “I would rather kick myself in the balls 100 times than do this again,” he said at the time. Dozens of readers wrote in with their own horror stories about trying to get permits from the city of Portland. Gregory persevered and finished his project on Southeast Mitchell Street, but by the time he was done, interest rates had climbed, discouraging buyers of apartment buildings. High rates require high rents to make a purchase pencil out. Gregory decided to find renters instead and landed one that wanted the whole complex: New Narrative, a mental health provider. New Narrative offers housing for people recovering from crises.

Some of it is temporary, supported by on-site caregivers, and some is permanent. New Narratives pays Gregory $12,000 a month to rent the building. That covers his $300,000 loan on the property and leaves him a few thousand beyond that for another project in Clackamas County that is giving him even more fits than the one on Mitchell Street. You’ll read about that in the new year. ANTHONY EFFINGER. Aug. 16: Empty and Unwanted, the Iconic Buildings of Portland’s Skyline Are in Trouble

55,949 views Since this story ran, things have gone from bad to worse for some of the 16 troubled properties we listed. The lender that financed the purchase of Field Office, a 290,375-square-foot complex on Northwest Front Avenue, has been unable to sell the $73.8 million loan on the property, a sign that investors are still avoiding Portland. Nor did anyone make a cash bid for the foreclosed J.K. Gill Building on Southwest 5th Avenue last month, leaving it with the lender. ANTHONY EFFINGER. Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

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YA U M I N G L O W, S H U T T E R S T O C K

NEWS HARD BARGAINS

The Booze Accords High-stakes talks between grocers and the beer and wine lobby collapse.

For years, Oregon grocers have yearned to sell bottles of liquor. But in behind-the-scenes talks, grocers have been negotiating with the beer and wine lobby about setting aside that dream, in exchange for placing canned cocktails on Oregon grocery shelves.

Last month, those negotiations failed.

The parties to the negotiation, the Northwest Grocery Association and the Oregon Beer and Wine Distributors Association, blame each other for the breakdown.

It’s too late for the grocers to try to put a measure on the 2024 ballot that would privatize some functions of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission. But the failure of the canned cocktail compromise makes a future ballot measure much more likely.

HOW DID WE GET HERE? Oregon remains one of 18 states in which government agencies control liquor sales. Ever since Washington voted to privatize liquor sales in 2011, the issue has bubbled in Oregon.

Groceries are mostly perishable and yield thin profit margins. Liquor lasts nearly forever and is much more profitable. The Northwest Grocery Association, which led the charge for privatization in Washington, has tried to get on the Oregon ballot twice in the past decade.

The group appeared poised to target the scandal-weakened OLCC in 2024 before executive director Amanda Dalton halted the process in

October. Instead, Dalton sat down with an unlikely ally: Danelle Romain, executive director of the Oregon Beer and Wine Distributors Association. The two cooperated during the 2023 session to pass a self-serve gasoline bill (Romain represented gas station owners). That cooperation rolled into negotiations this fall.

WHAT WAS ON THE TABLE? Each had something the other wanted.

Dalton’s clients sought access to the hottest product in the alcohol market—cocktails in a can, which the industry calls RTD (for ready to drink). While sales volume of beer, wine and spirits have flatlined or declined slightly post-pandemic, sales of pre-made cocktails soared 60% nationally last year, albeit from a modest base. But because of Oregon’s tight liquor laws, grocers can only sell canned cocktails made from malt beverages—such as White Claw—while those made with a distilled spirits base, such as tequila or vodka, can only be sold through state liquor stores.

“Oregon law classifies something based on what it’s made from and not what the final alcohol by volume is,” OLCC spokesman Mark Pettinger says. “If the ready-to-drink cocktail has distilled liquor in it, then it’s a distilled liquor product, regardless of ABV.” Romain’s group contemplated joining the grocers in lobbying for legislation allowing grocers to sell liquor-based canned cocktails.

CRUSHED: Jack and Coke in a can is not coming to your local grocer.

In exchange, grocers would agree not to push a privatization ballot measure until at least 2030.

two additional election cycles was both surprising and illogical.”

WHY DID THE TALKS FAIL? That’s where the stories diverge. The grocers say the distributors changed their minds. “After a few months of negotiations and tough conversations with our board, we did offer—and believe was accepted by the distributors—an agreement to stand down on the 2024, 2026 and 2028 general election ballots,” Dalton says. “But in December, the distributors essentially said six years wasn’t enough, killing the agreement but delaying enough to prevent any opportunity for the grocers to seriously pursue a privatization effort in 2024.”

The distributors disagree, noting that the grocers had already decided not to seek a 2024 ballot measure. “It became clear that the grocers were unwilling to negotiate on the length of a moratorium,” Romain says.

“Ms. Dalton’s aggressive and unfounded assertion…that we had agreed to their initial proposal to extend their moratorium for only

WHY SHOULD OREGONIANS CARE? The state’s relationship with alcohol is complicated. Oregonians have among the highest rates of alcohol abuse in the country, and more Oregonians still die from alcohol-related causes than from drug overdoses. The Oregon Health Authority wants to reduce the harm alcohol causes. But lawmakers depend on liquor revenues—it’s the third-largest source of state revenue.

Meanwhile, Americans in most states, including California and Washington, buy their liquor where they buy their groceries—and they buy their White Claw and High Noon canned margaritas in the same place.

Dalton says Oregonians should look forward to buying everything in one location. “This unfortunate exercise,” she says, “has led to some valuable lessons for the grocers and fueled our focus on pursuing full privatization at our earliest opportunity.” N I G E L J AQ U I S S .

ANTHONY EFFINGER

CHASING GHOSTS

THE EXORCISM The most degraded property we examined in 2023 looks a little better now.

ADDRESS : 444 SW 5th Ave., 401-419

SW Washington St. (two buildings that take up three quarters of a city block) YEARS BUILT: 1965, 1977 SQUARE FOOTAGE : 72,000 MARKET VALUE : $6.24 million OWNER : Fifth Ave LLC, Fourth Ave LLC HOW LONG IT’S BEEN EMPTY: The last tenant moved out this year.

WHY IT’S EMPTY: Police kicked out the drug dealers.

Nine months ago, the most notorious property in Portland was Washington Center, the weird urban mall and skyscraper complex at the corner of Southwest 4th Avenue and Washington Street.

Drug dealers hawked their products from graffiti-covered alcoves. Users smoked fentanyl on the sidewalk or went through shattered windows into the old KeyBank to get high. Trash piled up.

A fence meant to keep people out lay flat on the sidewalk. Pedestrians just walked across it.

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The owner, Menashe Properties, a family business founded in 1978, blamed the decay on COVID-19, the George Floyd riots, and Measure 110, which decriminalized possession of hard drugs.

Little happened to improve the property until WW wrote about it on March 22, reporting that the Menashe family owed tens of thousands of dollars to the Downtown Portland Clean & Safe District, the section of downtown where property owners pay extra for security and cleaning.

“We will be more than happy to pay when the city is clean and crime is properly attended to,” Lauren Menashe told WW at the time. She didn’t return an email seeking comment last week.

Only after WW’s story did the Menashes, and the city of Portland, swing into action. On the morning of April 12, Portland police officers blocked two square blocks of downtown and swept the complex of squatters. Firefighters followed, looking for hazards. Trucks carrying plywood arrived at 10 am.

The plywood wall grew over time. Today,

GOOD NEIGHBOR: Washington Center is neatly boarded up.

the entire complex is sealed. Graffiti appears as soon as the barrier gets repainted. But, at Washington Center, plywood is progress.

“We have seen noticeable safety improvements to the surrounding areas near the Washington Center property since the building was secured and hardened last spring,” Mayor Ted Wheeler says in an email. “Increased patrols from the Portland Police Bureau and our public safety partners continue to have a strong impact.”

A nearby business owner credits others for that result.

“It’s light-years better,” says Ben Stutz, owner of Kelly’s Olympian, the 121-year-old bar across

the street. “It’s not a fentanyl market like it was.

Thank you for keeping it in the public eye.”

Stutz and his staff still see people smoking drugs. They still keep a supply of rubber gloves on hand for when people defecate in the doorway. Employees who just wanted to be bartenders have to be bouncers all day long, Stutz says.

“But our people and our customers aren’t getting assaulted,” Stutz says. 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.

MICHAEL RAINES

NEWS McElroy agrees. “We’ve created this great space, and the majority of the heat that we’re getting, the reason that this is all going on, is because of the Roseland complaining about us,” he says.

Longtime Roseland Theater owner David Leiken acknowledges urging fire officials to crack down on what he considers unfair competition from a club he says doesn’t meet the safety standards Roseland and other clubs must meet.

“It’s really an affront to everybody who has done what they are supposed to do,” Leiken says. “It was travesty that the public was being let into an unsafe environment.”

DANCE FEVER: The TroyBoi “Shut It Down Tour” came to North Warehouse on Dec. 15.

Hard Drop

Following WW’s questions about safety, the fire marshal shuts down Portland’s hottest dance club.

BY N I G E L J AQ U I S S n j a q u i s s @ w w e e k . c o m

Just about every weekend since the pandemic, Portland’s hottest electronic dance music club, The North Warehouse, rumbled to life just as much of the city went to bed.

Located at 721 N Tillamook St., The North Warehouse built a following by offering raves featuring classic Portland touches: DIY merchandise, local openers, even food carts. Lasers, glow sticks, and a throbbing bass enlivened the 99-year-old, 18,000-square-foot warehouse in a gritty slice of the Eliot neighborhood.

Last week, The North Warehouse was gearing up for a busy holiday season, culminating in a huge New Year’s Eve show, and it was selling tickets for events as far out as May. But on Dec. 16, Portland Fire Marshal Kari Schimel abruptly shut the club down.

That closure came five days after WW began asking city fire and building code inspectors about hundreds of pages of emails and inspection reports that showed The North Warehouse’s yearlong history of noncompliance with city code.

The end came as a shock to owner Scott

McElroy, who as recently as Dec. 15 insisted the club’s regulatory challenges were over. In a lengthy interview, McElroy expressed confidence he could satisfy skeptical regulators and persuade the city to grant him a zoning change that officials said he needed to operate legally.

McElroy says The North Warehouse has been a bright spot in a struggling city.

“Some of these artists have never even played Portland before,” McElroy says. “And they won’t play Portland otherwise because they don’t have a space they want to play in.

This brings a ton of revenue to the city, and it brings people a clean, safe, good space for them to enjoy entertainment.”

The closure of The North Warehouse is the latest chapter in a long-running battle between Portland Fire & Rescue and the city’s live-music industry over safety requirements.

In 2013, for instance, after a Brazilian nightclub fire killed more than 240 people, the Portland City Council passed an ordinance that required all nightclubs in the city with a capacity of more than 100 to have automatic sprinkler systems, which spawned litigation lasting for

eight years (“Hot in Here,” WW, July 6, 2016).

Subsequently, the fire bureau updated its code for “non-assembly” venues that offer events periodically, such as The North Warehouse, establishing strict guidelines for how many customers they could serve.

McElroy proceeded as if the new policy didn’t apply to his club.

Michelle Coefield, a special events inspector in the Fire Marshal’s Office, told zoning officials in an email this summer that she could not get McElroy to comply with fire code.

“As time has gone on, he has turned the space into a nightclub only, which goes against our policy,” Coefield wrote in a Sept. 2, 2023, email.

“Basically, he has been using the space illegally.”

Meara McLaughlin, executive director of MusicPortland, a group that advocates for the city’s independent music industry and helped McElroy get permits for shows, says city officials are missing the point.

“Shutting down a locally owned venue that is serving an audience not being served by anybody just seems so shortsighted,” McLaughlin says. “It seems to be driven by the competitive challenge The North Warehouse has given other venues.”

Documents WW obtained from public records requests show that city inspectors, from both Portland Fire & Rescue and the Bureau of Development Services, prodded McElroy over the past year to comply with safety rules.

City code, strengthened in 2018, says if a venue doesn’t have sprinklers, “the occupant load shall not exceed 300.” It doesn’t matter how big the space is. The same policies require permits for building modifications and limit the number of shows in venues like warehouses.

Records show, however, that beginning in January 2022, inspectors dinged The North Warehouse, which does not have sprinklers, for violating those policies, some repeatedly.

At 11 pm on Feb. 19, 2022, for instance, a fire inspector reported the crowd was “200 over the assigned occupant load.” The inspector gave the club an hour to reduce that number, but when he returned, “they were now 400 over.”

As for permits, records show city inspectors wrote up The North Warehouse for having done unpermitted electrical work. The warnings grew more serious on Nov. 12, 2022, when a fire inspector cited the venue for installing doors between two adjoining buildings without a permit. The risk: A fire might spread between buildings and people couldn’t exit in a hurry.

Six months later, the problem still wasn’t fixed.

“He is giving me the run around,” Coefield wrote to a BDS inspector regarding McElroy.

“He is still pulling event permits with large amounts of people and I just want to make sure the building is safe.”

McElroy pulled a lot of event permits. He says he was on pace to host “60 or 70” shows this year, well over the city’s cap of 24.

Last week, WW asked Portland Fire & Rescue about The North Warehouse’s repeated violations of city code.

Lt. Rick Graves, a bureau spokesman, says McElroy believed the pre-2018 city code governed his club’s capacity. “At that time,” Graves says, “the assembly inspectors made an exception to allow the applicant to continue with the max occupant load of 666.” (The North Warehouse contains three different spaces, and McElroy says he sometimes spread 1,500 customers across them.)

McElroy says he’s tried his best to be responsive to city concerns. He acknowledges having done some unpermitted work but says that happened during the pandemic when contractors were scarce. He contends that the show permits CONTINUED ON PAGE 10 Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

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MICHAEL RAINES

he received covered multiple shows.

More recently, he said he believed he was on track to gain city approval for a zoning change that would have made his operation fully compliant.

BDS officials repeatedly expressed skepticism whether that could happen.

Matt Wickstrom, a senior BDS planner, wrote to a colleague on Sept. 22 that The North Warehouse had little hope of meeting city requirements: “They’ve been given this information many times now. Since there isn’t a solution to allow the event space on his site, they need to start looking at other sites that would allow the use (and they never should have started their business in the industrial zone to begin with).”

That point became moot on the night of Dec. 15, when a fire inspector visited The North Warehouse and found a crowd well above code, Graves says. “Unable to close them down at the time because of unavailable police officers, our inspector remained on site and acted as fire watch in the event of an emergency.”

And with that, Graves says, the fire marshal revoked The North Warehouse’s future permits, effective

LAST DANCE: On Dec.15, The North Warehouse held its 112th, and perhaps final, show.

McElroy hopes to reopen. “Our primary concern has always been the safety of concertgoers at The North Warehouse,” he says. “We are committed to working closely with the Portland Fire & Rescue to ensure that our venue is in compliance so that we can continue to be a safe and fun space for Portlanders.”

SOPHIE PEEL

CHECKED OUT: The Holiday Motel just outside of Cave Junction lodged illicit weed workers.

TWIN WEEDS IN SOUTHERN OREGON, ILLEGAL CANNABIS HAS OVERWHELMED THE LEGAL INDUSTRY.

BY S O P H I E P E E L a n d L U C A S M A N F I E L D 5 0 3 -2 4 3 -2 1 2 2

CAVE JUNCTION, ORE.—

The nerve center of Oregon’s largest criminal enterprise lies in a deep evergreen vale called the Illinois Valley, 15 miles north of the California border.

To find one of its field offices, drive south from Grants Pass on the Redwood Highway. One mile north of Cave Junction, you emerge from dense forests to the sight of the Holiday Motel. The squat motor lodge appears unchanged since the 1950s, except for a new coat of blue paint. It’s eerily quiet, and junk is piled up behind the building.

In July, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Josephine County sheriff’s deputies searched the Holiday Motel and found an illegal cannabis grow of almost 6,000 pot plants in the motel’s backyard.

The motel housed weed trimmers from Mexico, a detective tells WW. “They occasionally rented rooms for [tourists] passing by,” he says. The sheriff’s office believes the operation was connected to an international drug trafficking organization.

That discovery barely raised eyebrows in Cave Junction, a town of 2,000 people. According to economists who track the industry, hundreds of thousands of pounds of black market weed are harvested each year in this part of the state and shipped to dry states like South Carolina and Wisconsin. The cannabis is grown in rows of plastic greenhouses that can stretch for miles along the steep, mossy

hollows where police cruisers are as scarce as a cellphone signal.

“There’s no way we can keep up,” says Josephine County Sheriff Dave Daniel, who leads a team of 18 patrol deputies.

Next year marks the 10th anniversary of legalizing the cultivation and sale of recreational cannabis in Oregon.

In Portland, the end of prohibition looks like a success to many consumers—and to the state and local governments that have become increasingly dependent on tax revenues from cannabis. Grass is cheap. Dispensaries abound.

But that’s not the only cannabis market operating in Oregon.

At the southern edge of the state, a surge in illicit farming has turned the area into a zone of lawlessness.

In fact, the scale of illicit cannabis farming in Oregon dwarfs the legal market.

Economist Beau Whitney estimates 1 million pounds of dried pot were grown legally this year in Oregon. But Whitney estimates another 3.1 million pounds of illegally grown Oregon cannabis will be diverted across state lines. By Whitney’s calculations, that means three times as much weed is shipped out of state as is sold in Oregon’s licensed shops.

In 2023, WW’s reporting on the financial problems and political contributions of the cannabis company La Mota ultimately led to the resignation of Oregon Secretary of State Shemia Fagan, the opening of a federal investigation into Fagan’s dealings with La Mota, and changes in state cannabis regulations and campaign finance laws (see

“Broken Flowers,” page 16). But it also shed light on the thin line between legal and illegal activities in the state’s cannabis industry.

So to end the year, we decided to travel to the place that for years has been the capital of black market weed in Oregon.

That’s because Josephine County, in the Emerald Triangle, is the best corner in the entire world to grow weed.

“According to the world pot growers’ union,” says the county’s community development director, Mark Stevenson, “we’re the best place to grow marijuana.”

We found the remains of illegal grows with shards of plastic littering the ground. Makeshift dams. Dead salmon.

Anxious townsfolk. Human trafficking. And murder.

To residents of Cave Junction, the legacy of legal weed is a pattern of extraction and exploitation that recalls the boom years of the timber industry. But this time, the exploiters are criminal enterprises.

“This used to be a wonderful town,” says Liz Paulsen, who runs a Cave Junction business that rents out farming equipment. “Now, I’m glad my kids don’t live here anymore.”

The worst of the criminal activity peaked two years ago and has since subsided, thanks to attention from state lawmakers and crackdowns by law enforcement. But what remains is an uneasy coexistence with the black market that affects virtually everyone who lives here.

Here are a few of the people who live in a place where weed grew bigger than the law.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

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LUCAS MANFIELD

CHRISTOPHER HALL

Executive Director of Water League

“We’ve been invaded. This has to be seen.”

SOPHIE PEEL

Hall is a former California theater producer who moved to the area a decade ago to raise his sons. His career took a turn in 2021 after the local water district hired him to study the impacts of the cannabis black market. He borrowed a plane and mapped the region from the sky.

In 2021, Hall counted nearly 1,000 grows from the air over the Illinois Valley. By his estimates, 80% were illicit. They guzzled 400 million gallons of stolen water from streams and wells. (State water laws set rates and limits on usage. Many farmers seem to have found it easier, and cheaper, to ignore them.)

Farmers had learned how to cultivate cannabis on a massive scale. The development of hoop houses, cheap greenhouses cobbled together out of PVC pipe and plastic, extended the growing season and concealed the crop, offering what Hall’s report called “a veil of plausible deniability.”

Soon, strange plastic structures had sprung up everywhere along country roads.

Hall showed WW reporters the tattered remains of a dozen greenhouses, built precariously out of two-by-fours on a PacifiCorp power line easement about 5 miles outside of downtown Cave Junction.

Trash—cans of motor oil, Solo cups, 30-packs of Coors, bottles of Sprite—littered the ground. Cheap plastic used to cover the greenhouses flaked to the touch, and millions of

HERMAN BAERTSCHIGER Josephine County Commissioner

“We started seeing dead bodies.”

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CHRISTOPHER HALL

“Now what are they doing out there at 2 am with hemp? I says, ‘That’s a heck of a way to harvest hemp.’”

SOPHIE PEEL

A rancher, timber business owner, and onetime Republican state senator who easily won a race for county commissioner in 2020, Baertschiger is a small man under a big cowboy hat. He has a round belly and a habit of giggling that makes him seem like a Christmas elf from a Rankin/Bass animated feature.

The town center of Grants Pass (pop. 39,674) sports a handful of diners with perfectly greasy omelets and weak coffee, a hardware store, slightly outdated women’s boutiques, and novelty stores. It’s hard to believe that if you were to venture out even a quarter mile from town, you’d be surrounded by pot farms, many of them illegal.

But that’s exactly what Baertschiger started noticing way back in 2016.

That’s when Oregonians voted to legalize recreational weed.

And it’s when the Illinois Valley was overrun by outsiders, both domestic and international, looking to get rich quick off the bounty of the Emerald Triangle, a stretch of fertile land across Northern California and Southern Oregon that’s considered the best place in the world to grow pot.

Baertschiger says the federal legalization of hemp in 2018 didn’t help. Entrepreneurs could plant sprawling hemp farms— and use them to disguise the cultivation of cannabis.

“Hemp just blew it out of the water,” he says. “The poor sheriff can’t tell the difference.”

Baertschiger recalls how two cannabis farms moved in next to his 50-acre ranch just outside of Grants Pass in 2018. The farms operated under the guise of growing hemp, Baertschiger says, but he’s certain they were growing pot illegally.

At 2 am, when Baertschiger got up to water his crops, he recalls seeing workers in the neighboring fields wearing headlamps.

The lights would go out when he started up his quad tractor, then flicker back on when he returned home. “They’d look like fireflies. Now what are they doing out there at 2 am with hemp?

I says, ‘That’s a heck of a way to harvest hemp.’”

Baertschiger says lawmakers did little until 2021, when word of human trafficking on black market pot farms reached Salem.

Conditions on the farms were “approaching slavery,” state representatives told the governor. An Ashland senator testified that illicit pot growing had turned some rural areas into “military-weapons zones, like the ones we usually associate with failed states,” according to a report by the Associated Press.

In the 2021-23 biennium, the state sent $6 million to Josephine County to go after illicit farms.

Baertschiger says the county has made progress since then— but is a long way from solving the problem.

“I would not say it’s gotten better,” Baertschiger says. “Not when we keep bumping into dead bodies.”

Estimates of the scale of illicit farming in Oregon vary. But seizure data confirms the growth in illegal farms as well as law enforcement’s stepped-up efforts to stop them. In 2018, cops seized around 20,000 plants grown without a license. By 2021, that number had ballooned to 1.4 million, a seventyfold increase.

small pieces, carried by the wind, skipped across the muddied ground.

A black sludge filled a plastic kiddie pool. It was likely fertilizer for the plants, Hall explained, warning not to touch it. Three thick black power cables snaked into the woods where they met a power pole. “That’s an illegal tap on that transformer,” Hall said, pointing into the trees.

A satellite dish was mounted on a wooden shack, and written in black marker on an interior wall was what appeared to be a fertilizer recipe in Spanish.

Gary Longnecker lives just down the road from the busted farm Hall showed us. In 2021, he says, he was surrounded by illegal operations. He and his wife heard gunshots nightly. It felt like a war zone, he says.

“The real problem was the intimidation, the smell, the quality of life,” Longnecker says. “We had a perfect place in the country.

It was peaceful. Then, you’d see all these strangers around. Big tall guys that looked like they were from the Russian Olympics.”

GARY LONGNECKER

Josephine County Sheriff

“With marijuana comes more violence. It’s organized crime.”

The illegal cannabis market falls into two buckets: legal growers who divert excess weed across state lines, and criminal syndicates that operate entirely outside the law. On the ground, it’s not always easy to tell them apart.

Some licensed growers are selling weed out the back door just to make payroll, the economist Whitney says. The retail

Cannabis Farmer

1999-2023 On a Saturday afternoon in November, Jose Orozco, 24, and Carlos Orozco, 15, were shot dead on an 18-acre farm a few miles south of Cave Junction. The two were cousins from Northern California. The property contained a cannabis grow operation, the sheriff says.

The legality of the operation on the property is unclear. Mark Stevenson, the building planner, says the county had long “had eyes on them because they were growing illegally.” The sheriff says the operation obtained a license from the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission at some point, but he notes that conditions inside were “disgusting.” The OLCC says it can’t comment given the ongoing investigation.

Still, the Orozco family was well known among county officials.

Jose’s father owned a string of illegal farms in the region. He frequented the county planning office to get permits, Stevenson says.

But cops eventually raided one of his farms in 2021, finding more than 150,000 illicit marijuana plants, according to an affidavit filed in court. They unraveled his finances and discovered he’d used the business’s profits to finance the purchase of new farms. He pleaded guilty to money laundering in federal court earlier this year and awaits sentencing.

His son appears to have followed in his footsteps.

County records show Jose Orozco recently took over the limited liability company that purchased the Cave Junction farm for $650,000, double its market value, in 2020. No one’s paid the property taxes since.

Subsequent indictments assert that the men accused of murdering the Orozco cousins shot them during an attempted

KATE DWYER

Executive Director of the Four Way Community Foundation

“This is an extractive industry.”

It’s hard to find anyone in Cave Junction who hasn’t been affected by what locals call the “green rush.”

Over Tex-Mex and a beer at Carlos Restaurante, Dwyer, a civic leader who runs a philanthropic foundation that distributes grants to area nonprofits, slides a piece of paper across the table on which she’s written down all the ways the influx of illegal cannabis grows have affected the people of Cave Junction.

GO FUND ME

JOSE “SESE” OROZCO

M O N E T TA LT Y

COURTESY OF JOSEPHINE COUNTY SHERIFF OFFICE

DAVE DANIEL

price of cannabis has fallen from $10 a gram to less than $4, according to state regulators. That slashed any profit margin for legal growers—and made selling out of state an attractive proposition (see “California Dreamin’,” page 17).

“It’s either sell out the back door,” the economist Whitney says, “or lose their business.”

Hall says organized crime syndicates descended on Cave Junction from places around the world: the East Coast, California, Serbia, Croatia. After a bar downtown went out of business, locals joked it was going to reopen as the Belarus Consulate, Hall says.

Law enforcement officials say some of the drug trafficking organizations that operate farms in the area have connections to the Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation cartels.

What is clear is their scale: A 2021 bust uncovered a farm miles long with hundreds of makeshift greenhouses and more than 200 workers, most of whom were Spanish speakers, living in squalid conditions. Authorities were tipped off to the grow after a worker was dropped off at a local Chevron and died on the way to the hospital. Federal agents and state SWAT teams soon descended on the property.

Sheriff Daniel has a slideshow of photographs from recent raids. The images are striking: Entire streams rerouted by illegal dams made from rubber and wood. Dozens of dead coho salmon floating in a shallow pool. Industrial water pumps with rubber hoses dipped into crystal-clear creeks.

Daniel treats the slideshow as a kind of pitch deck for state dollars.

“We need money,” he says. “Without law enforcement out there actively investigating these things, you don’t find the humanitarian issues.”

Five years ago, the state began handing out millions in grants to law enforcement in Southern Oregon counties hit hardest by the illegal weed boom. In 2021, Daniel used his share of the $6 million grant to the county to expand a team dedicated to rooting out illegal grows. It now has five members and just purchased a drug-sniffing dog: Frank, a yellow Lab. They’ve been successful in shutting down the largest operations. Last year alone, Josephine County raided more than 50 grows. But the consequence, Daniel says, is that state attention and dollars are shifting elsewhere.

But most concerning to Daniel is the rising body count.

Elisabeth Shepard, a spokeswoman for Gov. Tina Kotek, says the additional funding “has shown early progress.”

“The governor would be open to supporting additional resources towards this issue if the Legislature proposed it,” she added.

“We are not out of these woods yet.”

“Increase in community fear, paranoia,” the list, written in loopy cursive, reads. “Loss of neighborliness. Warily ignoring newcomers.”

There’s no getting around this: A lot of the residents of this one-cop town express racist views about Mexicans. Kenny, a man with ruddy cheeks and a few missing teeth, is sitting in the Sportsman Tavern sipping beers. He says the illegal farms are filled with “vicious” people, and it’s clear what he means. An off-duty bartender sipping a beer at the Sportsman says, “We all know when they come here on the weekends and play pool.”

Still, Dwyer says, the people of Cave Junction are wrongly stereotyped as ignorant and simple. On her piece of paper, Dwyer has also written: “The assumption that rural people are stupid is one of the last remaining allowable prejudices.”

“People feel disappointment. We had been hopeful about a legal, licensed industry that would take advantage of our climate and our hardworking people,” Dwyer says. “But it was administratively mismanaged and opened the door for a tremendous illegal market which came with crime, and fear, and an erosion of the small town trust that people had really enjoyed here.”

Dwyer says the problem is far from resolved. “We are not out of these woods yet.”

robbery. It was a dispute over pay, Stevenson says. “They came back with an AK-47. Shot these two right out in the street.”

Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

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Josephine County Community Development Director and Building Official

SOPHIE PEEL

MARK STEVENSON

“Even law enforcement was saying, ‘I don’t want to go in there.’”

As a building official, Stevenson is an unlikely player in the fight against illegal weed grows.

Yet he’s got perhaps the most intimate view of anyone in county government of what happens outside of town.

Stevenson finds himself in a strange position: He regularly interacts with known operators of illegal enterprises who come into his office for building permits.

On a Monday, he could be talking to a black market grower, helping them obtain a permit.

On a Tuesday, he could be accompanying sheriff’s deputies to a bust on that very property. During building inspections, he and his inspectors put blinders on, Stevenson says—no matter how illegal an operation appears.

Stevenson and his code enforcement team inspected farms where naked wires stuck haphazardly out of wet ground and electrical panels were unprotected. Unnerved by what he saw, Stevenson approached Sheriff Daniel with an offer of help in 2017.

“If you have an illegal site, we want to join you,” Stevenson recounts telling the sheriff. “These officers and deputies were playing around in the wet environment with live electrical [wires]. Honest to God, I have no idea why people didn’t die in the electrical we saw, because it’s some scary stuff.”

Now, Stevenson or one of his staff accompany law enforcement on every major bust. They stake out positions along the road and wait for the signal that it’s safe to enter the property. Once on site, Stevenson turns off all the power. He flags protruding wires. He warns officers of the plastic pools filled with dark viscous substances—chemical concoctions used as pesticides.

“I got a rash from my arm by touching water one time,” Stevenson recalls.

MARK STEVENSON

His team takes generators and water pumps they find on site, storing them as evidence for law enforcement in a large Conex unit parked behind the code enforcement building. The smell of gasoline when the double doors swing open produces tears.

In the past two years, the county has made some inroads into shutting down illicit weed farms.

First, the Josephine County district attorney granted the county permission in June 2021 to hire bulldozers to demolish the hoop houses and structures on illegal farms. In the spring of 2022, the county began invoicing property owners for cleanup costs.

Second, county officials sent out a flyer along with tax forms in 2021 that warned: “Even if another person is convicted of producing unsanctioned cannabis on a property, the owner can lose their property!”

Stevenson says he’s just trying to bring some order to a place with a reputation for chaos.

“Specifically, people were saying, ‘We came to Josephine County because there are no rules here,’” he says. “And pretty much that was the case.”

“Honest to God, I have no idea why people didn’t die in the electrical we saw.”

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HIDDEN: A tall wooden fence surrounds a cannabis grow in Kerby.

SOPHIE PEEL

SURROUNDED: Christopher Hall, Gary Longnecker and Gordon Lyford walk to a recently busted illegal grow.

LUCAS MANFIELD

ALL THAT’S LEFT: The remains of a bulldozed grow.

LUCAS MANFIELD

ABANDONED: Tattered hoop houses at a busted grow.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

15

ANDIE PETKUS

BROKEN FLOWERS

La Mota is crumbling, the feds are circling, and CEO Rosa Cazares appears to be out.

POWERHOUSE: Rosa Cazares at an Emerge Oregon event.

a heartbeat away from the governor’s office and tasked with safeguarding the integrity of Oregon elections, had signed a $10,000-a-month consulting contract with Mitchell and Cazares. Records showed Fagan had pushed state auditors repeatedly to consult Cazares on an audit of the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission, which regulated La Mota (“Up in Smoke,” WW, May 5).

The revelations dashed the political prospects of one of the rising stars of Oregon’s Democratic Party. Fagan resigned days after WW’s story, which also prompted a federal investigation.

That probe is now arriving on Portland doorsteps. Last week, WW reported that special agents with the FBI and IRS had been knocking on doors, asking former La Mota associates detailed questions about the duo’s business model, financial practices, political involvement, and lifestyle. A federal subpoena shows the U.S. Department of Justice also wants a look at Fagan’s state tax filings.

Whether it was the feds closing in, years of festering tensions, or something else entirely, Rosa Cazares late last week left La Mota, according to a text message between two La Mota managers, reviewed by WW. Mitchell has taken over the company, one manager told the other, and Cazares is out. (Oregon business registry records don’t yet reflect Cazares’ departure.)

Publicly, Cazares was the face of La Mota. She appeared in cannabis magazines and promotional materials. While Mitchell had more extensive experience growing pot, Cazares had the 16

Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

charm that gained the couple an audience with the governor and secretary of state. As a young woman of color with a rags-toriches story of growing up poor in a Texas border town, Cazares was, as one friend described her, “a unicorn.”

Neither Cazares nor Mitchell have responded to a request for comment, nor did they confirm Cazares’ apparent departure.

La Mota’s involvement in state politics appears to have started not long after the company was accused of diverting cannabis illegally.

In February 2018, a state inspector for the OLCC found 49 cardboard boxes filled with unlabeled and untracked cannabis at a warehouse in White City, just 40 miles north of the California border.

The inspector, Marty Rowley, thought that could mean only one thing.

“This 148 pounds could have or was going to be diverted,” Rowley wrote in his report. By “diverted,” Rowley meant shipped from a licensed cannabis business to the illicit market.

The report sparked a two-year legal battle pitting Mitchell and Cazares, the controlling partners of the LLC that operated out of the building, against the OLCC. The duo adamantly fought the charges of illegal diversion. They hired a bulldog attorney and reached a settlement with the state, getting off with a mere $16,335 fine.

During this brush with the law, the couple made their first campaign contribution—a curious move since they’d voted only once before in Oregon, in 2014.

As WW has chronicled, Cazares and Mitchell, originally from Florida, then climbed the ranks of political influence in Oregon’s Democratic Party for the next two years. They hosted champagne fundraisers at a rented mansion in the West Hills, black-tie galas, and even a pickleball tournament to benefit Tina Kotek’s run for governor. Cazares was appointed vice chair of Emerge Oregon, a powerhouse political training academy for women.

Following Fagan’s resignation over the moonlighting scandal, the U.S. Department of Justice launched a criminal inquiry into the secretary’s relationship with Mitchell and Cazares. So did the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. The Oregon Department of Justice hired a California law firm to assess the integrity of the OLCC audit.

Meanwhile, another Oregon politician’s relationship with the duo would soon catch up to her.

Val Hoyle, commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor & Industries until she took office in the U.S. House of Representatives at the beginning of this year, had a long history with Cazares.

In March 2021, Hoyle dined with Cazares at the Portland City Grill to discuss funding for a cannabis apprenticeship program.

In the fall of 2022, Hoyle helped steer a half-million dollar grant to a brand-new nonprofit co-founded by Cazares. The nonprofit’s headquarters was listed as a storage unit in Beaverton, and it had no prior history of running apprenticeships. After WW reported on the couple in March, current Labor Commissioner Christina Stevenson demanded that the nonprofit return all unused funds.

As Hoyle left BOLI at the end of 2022, agency records staff asked her, as is common practice, to turn over records of text messages on her cellphone that dealt with state business. By law, those are public records. After 11 months, Hoyle finally turned over the records to BOLI, but only after she removed texts she claimed were not related to her job at the agency—a move public records advocates say is an affront to transparency.

Since news of La Mota’s influence on state government broke this spring, leading to the federal probe, Oregon’s cannabis power

HARDBALL: Rosa Cazares at a pickleball tournament she hosted for Gov. Kotek.

couple have gone dark.

Besides one television interview, Mitchell and Cazares have refused media requests for comment. The two have cycled through a number of public relations professionals hired to do damage control for their company. And, in June, a 19-year-old nanny for their daughter was indicted on felony charges after being arrested following a high-speed chase by police while at the wheel of Mitchell’s car, which police records say contained a drunken Mitchell as a passenger. According to subpoena records issued to state agencies, Mitchell and Cazares are living in separate apartments in Portland.

La Mota has shut down a couple of its Oregon dispensaries while continuing to expand operations in New Mexico, where records show Cazares met with Lt. Gov. Howie Morales this spring and contributed to his reelection campaign last fall.

(Morales has refused to answer questions from WW about his relationship with Cazares and Mitchell.) The millions in tax liens remain outstanding.

“Because La Mota’s behavior has been so damning, faith in the cannabis trade is at an all-time low,” says Nathan Howard, co-founder of East Fork Cultivars. “It’s just an all-around bummer. The days and the weeks I don’t think about cannabis are some of my favorite.” S O P H I E P E E L .

ANDIE PETKUS

ANDIE PETKUS

The most significant story in state politics in 2023 was the influence a troubled cannabis outfit exerted on state government.

In March, WW reported that La Mota co-founders Rosa Cazares and Aaron Mitchell and their many limited liability companies faced more than $7 million in state and federal tax liens and had been sued by a host of former business partners and vendors (“Strange Budfellows,” March 29). At the same time, Cazares and Michell had become leading campaign contributors to some of Oregon’s top elected officials, including Gov. Tina Kotek and then-Secretary of State Shemia Fagan.

A month later, WW broke the news that Fagan, who was

SUITED UP: Aaron Mitchell at a black-tie gala hosted for Gov. Kotek.

LUCAS MANFIELD

CLIMBER BEWARE: Barbed wire surrounds Portnoff’s property in Cave Junction.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN’ A Beverly Hills lawyer invested in Oregon weed.

Not all of the crop seems to have stayed in Oregon.

One of the many weed entrepreneurs to descend on Cave Junction during the green rush was Matthew Portnoff, a partner with a specialty in cannabis law at the California offices of a white-shoe law firm.

In 2020, the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission determined that weed grown at his farm in 2019 had been diverted onto the black market. But after a yearslong investigation, the agency was never able to conclude whether Portnoff authorized the leakage—or if he was instead the victim of a swindle.

Portnoff declined to comment for this story.

A graduate of UC Berkeley and the University of Southern California’s law school, Portnoff, 48, is an expert in tax law based in Beverly Hills, with a history of entrepreneurial forays. (An online database lists him as a producer of a romantic comedy starring Paris Hilton in 2006 that was panned by critics.)

In 2016, Portnoff and his wife, Luiza, purchased a Cave Junction farm for $415,000 just as the state began handing out licenses to grow recreational weed. (An LLC controlled by his father, a surgeon from California, bought 19 acres next door to his son for the same purpose.)

Two years later, Portnoff and his wife landed a license. So, eventually, did his dad. They grew thousands of plants on the 35-acre properties located along Takilma Road in the rural

farmland of the Illinois Valley.

To run his new Oregon farm, Portnoff hired a local grower named Michael Horner, who’d come recommended by a California client.

But by the time the first harvest arrived, an oversupply of weed on the market caused prices in Oregon to fall by at least half.

And beginning in February 2019, the OLCC began documenting a series of concerning reports from Portnoff’s employees.

First, Horner quit his job working for Portnoff and told an OLCC inspector in February 2019 that men had arrived on the farm to take weed back to California for sale.

A month later, the inspector went to the farm to investigate.

State-licensed farms are required to have surveillance cameras monitoring all aspects of the operation. But in March 2019, the inspector discovered a four-day gap in the footage—and found “many discrepancies” between the inventory on site and what was recorded in a state database. The inspector opened some storage totes to find them empty or full of “waste material.” (The OLCC declined to disclose the records identifying the discrepancies to WW, noting they were exempt from public disclosure.)

The OLCC suspected a man named Sam Foy, a consultant hired by Portnoff on retainer, was responsible. He’d arrived with three carloads of workers and was overheard talking about taking

the weed “down to ‘cali,’” according to an email from another employee to the OLCC. But it was unclear whether Portnoff knew of Foy’s alleged plan.

Foy, now living in Malibu, could not be reached for comment.

Portnoff has denied allegations of wrongdoing, and his attorney says Horner stole thousands of dollars in farm equipment.

On Sept. 15, 2020, the state agency proposed canceling Portnoff’s license for violating state law. Someone at the farm, the OLCC wrote, had “exported marijuana items from this state.”

Agency officials later specified that Foy had diverted the weed but did not say where it went or whether Portnoff knew.

On Sept. 24, 2021, the OLCC and Portnoff settled, compelling Portnoff to surrender his license by the end of the year. In December, Portnoff asked to add his name to his father’s license for the property now growing cannabis next door. The OLCC said if he did so, it would consider revoking that license too, citing his “poor record of compliance.”

Portnoff sued in Marion County Circuit Court this past July.

And, on Nov. 9, he won—on a technicality. The state had missed a filing deadline. To add insult to injury, the OLCC was ordered to pay Portnoff’s $5,000 legal bill.

The OLCC didn’t appeal. Portnoff is now back in business.

LUCAS MANFIELD.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

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STREET

GRAND ENTRANCE Photos by Allison Barr On Instagram: @allisonder The city’s core may have a less than sparkling reputation these days, but parts of downtown still dazzle—if you know where to look. Stroll into any hotel lobby and you’re pretty much guaranteed to find not just a Christmas tree, but a lavish holiday tableau of wreaths, garlands and brightly wrapped gift boxes spread across the entire entrance. Of course, the stars of the show are those stately firs, most with traditional ornaments, but we spotted at least one hot pink number and another sporting a feather. Visitors traditionally have until New Year’s Day to take in the spectacle.

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HOTEL LUCIA

HOTEL VINTAGE

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GET BUSY DEC. 20-JAN. 2

STUFF TO DO IN PORTLAND THIS WEEK, INDOORS AND OUT.

COURTESY OF QUAINTRELLE

a similar experience at CoHo Productions’ reading of A Christmas Carol. Thom Bray, an actor with five decades’ experience on both stage and screen, will embody Dickens and narrate the famous story. Think of it as Netflix for the 19th century. CoHo Productions, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 971-202-6567, cohoproductions.org. 2 and 7:30 pm Tuesday, Dec. 23. $20.

EAT: Quaintrelle Holiday Tasting Menus

Feeling like getting a little bougie to close out the year?

Quaintrelle’s two very special meals celebrating two special days is the only way to go. Executive chef Elijah Rivers will serve a Christmas Eve Eve Dinner with classic holiday dishes from around the world, including Britain’s Wellington and Italy’s Yuletide Zabaglione cream cake, and a cheese ball (a staple at any American Christmas party, though this one will be zhuzhed up with truffles).

Want to go even bigger? The New Year’s Eve tasting menu consists of nine courses. Caviar and king crab sound like the perfect way to bid adieu to 2023. Quaintrelle, 2032 SE Clinton St., 503-200-5787, quaintrelle.co. Christmas Eve Eve Holiday Celebration Dinner: 5 and 8:15 pm Saturday, Dec. 23. $200 per person, with optional wine tastings for $75 or $125. New Year’s Eve Celebration Dinner: 5 and 9 pm Sunday, Dec. 31. $300 per person, with optional wine tasting for $150.

GO: End of Year Africa Elegance Night

Celebrate New Year’s Eve (one day early) with a taste of pan-African culture, including authentic cuisine, clothing, art and music. One Big Family Oregon hosts this event that doubles as a fundraiser for the organization’s programs that work to address homelessness, mentor youths and support holistic wellness. Contribute to those efforts by bidding in the silent auction or by simply attending and dancing to live music by Seattle’s Katteye and Roots Revolution. Morrison Market, 722 SE 10th Ave., eventbrite.com. 8 pm Saturday, Dec. 30. $25-$1,500.

RAISE YOUR SPIRITS: The bar will be busy at Quaintrelle during its special dinners on Christmas Eve Eve and New Year’s Eve.

GO: Silverton Christmas Market

Why go to Europe this December when you can just head to the Silverton Christmas Market? The Oregon Garden Resort attraction, an homage to authentic German Christmas markets, has added more displays and vendors this year and features a longer, wider walking path. While there’s no longer an ice skating rink, we’d argue that the biergarten and snowless tubing hill more than make up for that loss. So do the 1 million Christmas lights (yes, really).

Oh, and the dedication to Krampus, St. Nicholas’ “wicked German counterpart.” You can also book an overnight stay to get your Christmas fix—if they don’t sell out. Oregon Garden Resort, 895 W Main St., Silverton, 503-874-2539, silvertonchristmasmarket.com. Various times starting at 5 pm daily, through Dec. 31. Closed Dec. 24-25. $8-$20. Free for children 5 and under.

GO: Shore Acres Holiday Lights

If you’re one of those people who starts playing Christmas music before you’ve even finished Thanksgiving dinner, this event is for you. The annual Shore Acres Holiday Lights debuted on Thanksgiving and continues shining through New Year’s Eve. Located on the Southern Oregon Coast, the state park’s beautiful 7-acre botanical garden completely transforms into a winter wonderland for the holiday season, with a little help from about 325,000 LED lights. It’s absolutely gorgeous, and it costs only $5 (for parking). Just be sure to book your timed entry online in advance. Happy light-seeing! Shore Acres State Park, 89526 Cape Arago Highway, Coos Bay, 800-551-6949, stateparks.oregon.gov. 4:30-9 pm daily, through Dec. 31. $5 parking fee.

WATCH: A Burly Carol: A Burlesque Tale Inspired by A Christmas Carol

With so many versions of Dickens’ classic about dreary ol’ 19th century London being staged around town, why not go see the sexiest? A Burly Carol will feature some 20

Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

of the Pacific Northwest’s best burlesque, draglesque and boylesque performers, who provide a compelling twist (sometimes literally) on this Christmas tale of regret and redemption. Tickets for the two-night show are expected to go fast, just like they did for the sold-out 2019 production. Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 503-719-6055, lacyproductions.org. 8 pm WednesdayThursday, Dec. 20-21. $25 in advance, $35 at the door, $40 VIP. 21+.

DRINK: Golden Valley Brewery 30th Anniversary Party

In 1993, Bill Clinton started his first term as president, Jurassic Park was playing in movie theaters, Beanie Babies were all the rage, and Golden Valley Brewery began serving pints. A lot has changed in 30 years, though some things not so much. That dinosaur blockbuster became a franchise that’s going strong, and Oregon’s 12th post-Prohibition microbrewery is still pumping out malt-forward Red Thistle English Special Bitter (its very first beer) along with more than a dozen other styles from its McMinnville production facility.

Celebrate the business’s 30th anniversary at the original location or the Beaverton spinoff with parties that will feature prime rib and salmon dinners for $19.93 (a nod to the opening year), three commemorative beers, live music, and giveaways (all guests have the chance to win something, from swag to gift cards). On top of all that, pints of Red Thistle and brownie à la mode will be priced at just three bucks. Golden Valley Brewery and Restaurant, 1520 NW Bethany Blvd., Beaverton, 503-972-1599, goldenvalleybrewery.com. 980 NE 4th St., McMinnville, 503-472-2739. 4-9 pm Thursday, Dec. 21.

WATCH: A Christmas Carol

Dickens’ timeless holiday novella that, despite its title, has nothing to do with caroling was presented to audiences in the mid-1860s by the author himself. Now you can have

LISTEN: New Year’s Concert in Portland – Beethoven’s Ninth

An end-of-year celebration doesn’t need to be a night of chaotic barhopping that leaves you ringing in 2024 with a plastic flute of cheap sparkling wine (and regret).

Mark the flip of the calendar with a stirring rendition of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, featuring flutes of the musical kind along with the rest of the instruments in the Oregon Symphony. The final movement, a rousing “Ode to Joy” choral performed during a balloon drop, should be the boost you need to enter the new year with optimism.

If you choose to avoid going out Dec. 31 (we don’t blame you), catch the New Year’s Eve Eve show instead. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 503-228-1353, orsymphony.org. 7:30 pm Saturday-Sunday, Dec. 30-31. $30-$117.

EAT: New Year’s Eve at Takibi

Looking for a delicious way to welcome the new year?

Takibi is offering special à la carte and prix fixe menus for the occasion. Individual dishes include three types of sashimi (albacore, cured Norwegian mackerel, McFarland Springs trout) and a handful of grilled dishes (shishito, mackerel, black cod, lamb chop). If you want to splurge, opt for the whole meal (chicken liver mousse, rainbow trout with persimmon and apple, cured red sea bream, steamed egg custard, A5 wagyu rib-eye, rice and a Japanese-style parfait). Takibi, 2275 NW Flanders St., 971-888-5713, takibipdx.com. Noon-9 pm Sunday, Dec. 31. $100 per person.

GO: Bing in the New Year

Gather the whole family for this New Year’s Eve event with a cherry on top. Actually, it’s more of a cherry drop since a 7-foot illuminated Bing cherry will be lowered à la “Times Square ball style.” So what’s with the stone fruit? Turns out that cultivar of cherry was first grown in Milwaukie by Chinese nursery foreman Ah Bing in 1875. The lowering of the giant glowing cherry happens at 9 pm to accommodate younger kids and adults who opt out of late-night NYE shenanigans. But if late-night

C O U R T E S Y O F M I LWA U K I E A R T S C O M M I T E E

CHERRY BOMB: Milwaukie will drop a 7-foot cherry to mark the new year at midnight (Eastern time). shenanigans are what you’re all about, the event includes live music from Roadside Attraction plus a beer and mead garden serving beverages by Ridgewalker Brewing and Wyrd Meadery.

Southeast Main and Harrison Streets, Milwaukie, 503-786-7555, milwaukieoregon.gov/arts-committee/bing-new-year. 6:30-9:30 pm Sunday, Dec. 31. Free.

DRINK: Breakside Beaverton New Year’s Eve Party!

Breakside Brewery joined Beaverton’s ever-growing Old Town, which has gotten sudsier over the past several years (Ex Novo and Loyal Legion spinoffs, Binary Brewing), in July. If you’re a westsider, you could put together a nice little New Year’s Eve pub crawl that ends with this bash. Enjoy a dance party with DJ Royale inside a heated tent, a photo booth, and a glass of sparkling wine for the midnight toast. Watch the Times Square ball drop on a projector screen in the covered beer garden and then grab a late-night snack from one of the resident food carts, which are open late for the event. Breakside Brewery—Beaverton, 12675 SW 1st St., Beaverton, 503-352-4479, eventbrite.com. 8 pm Sunday, Dec. 31. $30. 21+.

GO: New Year’s Eve at The Hoxton

Most hotels corral people into one ballroom for a New Year’s Eve party, but The Hoxton will let guests take over pretty much the whole property. Expect live music, a sparkling wine toast at midnight, and the vaguely described “surprises in the lobby.”

We’re most excited about the trays of food that will be making the rounds in The Hoxton’s three restaurants, including fried wagyu dumplings and honey-seared albacore at ground-level Lovely Rita, crab crostini and pork belly skewers at cellar-occupying 2NW5, and tostadas and empanadas (along with killer views) at Tope on the rooftop. The Hoxton, 15 NW 4th Ave., 503-770-0500, thehoxton.com/portland/whats-on/new-years-eve. 8 pm Sunday, Dec. 31. $75. 21+.

GO: New Year’s Eve at McMenamins Kennedy School

There’s no back-to-school dread when the institution is this beloved McMenamins property. Sure, you’ve probably eaten your weight in tots by now in the Courtyard Restaurant, drunk a Ruby in the elaborately decorated Boiler Room, and maybe even popped in for a session in the outdoor soaking pool. But if staying the night at Kennedy School is still on the bucket list, may as well do it on New Year’s Eve, when there’s live music in both the Theater (Outer Orbit featuring Arietta Ward) and the Gym (Lost Ox). The night culminates with a sparkling wine toast and balloon drop, and if you spring for the New Year’s Eve package, you’ll find two keepsake wine flutes, bottled water and other “surprises” in your room. McMenamins Kennedy School, 5736 NE 33rd Ave., 503-249-3983, mcmenamins.com/events/248817-new-years-eve.

Live music begins at 9 pm Sunday, Dec. 31. $25 in advance, $30 at the door for the Theater show; Gym show is free.

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Original Dinerant) poses challenges when it comes to immersing drinkers in tropical holiday cheer. The venue’s outsize dimensions and overlit artificiality would surely seem daunting to transform even without the pop-up’s mass of pink flamingos and inflated bartopsurfing Kris Kringle. At least the rotating pie case has been repurposed as a display for Sippin’ Santa merch.

While we won’t pretend a boatload of Sippin’ Santa décor entirely triumphed over the forces of visual chaos, the resulting miasma proved a worthwhile selfie backdrop for what became a bustling industry event during our visit. As DJ Gregarious unfurled a soundtrack heavy on the futuristic carols of yesteryear and homespun exotica, the ginormous barroom somehow reached capacity via novelty-chasing

Instagrammers, die-hard tiki fans, and weary hotel guests escaping the rain and ended up discovering a Portland Christmas tableau as weird as would be expected in our city.

Out-of-towners and workaday revelers getting tipsy on the company dime are the prime demographics for a hotel Christmas tiki popup. And given our current concept of the holiday, what is Santa but the quintessential business traveler? Sippin’ Santa understands these people. He sees them when they’re sleeping. He knows when they’re awake. And he suggests more rum.

DRINK: Sippin’ Santa: Sippin’ on Sixth at the Courtyard City Center, 550 SW Oak St., 7 am-1 pm Sunday-Monday, 7 am-1 pm and 4-10 pm Tuesday-Friday, 7 am-11 pm Saturday, through Dec. 31.

ICE ICE BABY: Sippin’ Santa’s Holiday on Ice cold brew cocktail is one of the pop-up’s highlights.

Lei Ride Yuletide tiki pop-up Sippin’ Santa finds too much rum at the inn.

BY JAY HORTON @hortland

Sippin’ Santa, the newest offering from the boozy-IP workshop behind seasonal pop-up bar Miracle, delivers a fresh twist on Christmas spirits, but it can’t quite escape the ghosts of temporary holiday watering holes past.

Since 2014, mixology master Greg Boehm has spread the gospel of a Santa Con-cept bar.

He first opened Miracle in his East Village New York cocktail lounge while it was under construction, adorning the space in overthe-top Christmas décor and serving themed drinks. That experiment was so successful that there are now 100-plus Miracle-branded sites worldwide with menus of pricey beverages that come in kitschy drinkware (which you can purchase and take home).

But a 2018 pop-up collaboration with Tiki god Jeff “Beachbum” Berry drifted somewhere decidedly more niche. Sippin’ Santa, as its name in no way suggests, doesn’t so much spin off Miracle’s nutmeg-scented charms as leave them sun bleached and zombified in its attempt to meld tiki culture vibes with the trappings of the most wonderful time of the year.

Before addressing the incoherent ambience, we must first discuss the cocktails. Winter typically ushers in menus of warm dairy-laden drinks; however, tiki beverages are largely built around fruit juice. In the ensuing struggle to avoid curdling, something had to give. So Sippin’ Santa’s offerings lean heavily toward citrus, like the refreshing, nuanced namesake cocktail (Demerara rum, amaro, lemon, orange, gingerbread mix; $18) or the utterly enchanting Yule Tide (tequila, applejack, lime, maple-cranberry syrup; $16).

If the ginger and macadamia liqueur-sweetened navy-strength-rum-fueled Ginger Snapper shot ($10) sounds a bit too powerful for the Mary Anns in the room, the cold-brew

Holiday on Ice (vodka, ancho chile liqueur, cinnamon syrup; $14) could deck our halls on a steady drip. The only out-and-out failure was a bizarre passion fruit-focused take on a ye olde hot buttered rum dreamt up by someone who hates butter, Christmas, and, most likely, themselves.

The food menu wisely avoids directly addressing the Yuletide altogether. The resulting blend of pu pu platter staples and enlightened pub grub felt a bit tame, and slightly overpriced for the Portland market; nonetheless, they were far better than expected.

As unholy a pairing as midcentury mayoswamped recipes and the least healthy Chinese comfort food may be, tiki cuisine still manages to reward nearly all the senses. The crab Rangoon ($16) (miniature ergonomic balls that reverse the usual fried-dough-tocream-cheese ratio) may be the best we’ve ever sampled. And the accompanying sauce prompted visions of sugarplums dancing in our heads. Then there were the bao bites ($18), which arrived overstuffed with crisp yet succulent burnt ends.

But let’s face it: Food is not the focus here. To underline the point for anyone lured to Sippin’ Santa by the potential of daily ugly sweater contests, booze is not just the key component of this experience; it’s the sole reason for the pop-up’s being.

Ultimately, a themed pop-up bar should offer perfectly mixed drinks inside a well-chosen locale (see Miracle’s annual residency at cozy hipster boîte Deadshot). And anything less than full devotion from all shareholders renders the whole enterprise irredeemably silly (should, alas, bar staff greet the festiveness of it all with a massive shrug, as with Miracle’s regrettable initial 2018 Portland iteration at Kimpton Hotel Vintage’s Bacchus Bar).

Sippin’ Santa’s local host, Courtyard by Marriott Portland City Center (the former Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

23

Top 5

Top 5

Buzz List

Hot Plates

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. BOXER CEDAR HILLS

3205 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Suite 24, Beaverton, 503-747-3507, boxerramen.com. 11 am-9 pm daily.

Beaverton’s Cedar Hills Crossing (looking more and more like the “Peak Portland” you might remember from before the pandemic but tucked conveniently into a very walkable outdoor mall) added Boxer to its directory in early December. This is great news for ramen lovers in the suburbs, but Portlanders may want to check it out because it’s the chain’s only location serving bento. Four protein options (teriyaki chicken, ahi tuna poke, pork katsu and kalbi teriyaki) come with rice and a side of your choice. We’ll warn you now: It’ll be hard to choose between the macaroni salad and the togarashi tots.

2. LAWLESS BARBECUE AT MY-O-MY

8627 NE Sandy Blvd., lawlessq.com. 3 pm-late Tuesday-Sunday.

Lawless Barbecue, the former cloud kitchen turned Little Beast Brewing’s hit resident pitmaster, has launched a second location. Owner Kevin Koch decided he was ready to expand after developing a following and discovered that MyO-My was looking for a new food truck partner. So why make a special trip to that tavern for KC-style ’cue? Because you’ll get to try something new. Koch is offering a different menu, which so far includes jumbo wings with your choice of sauce (Alabama white, Kansas City sweet, and lemon pepper wet), St. Louis ribs, loaded waffle fries, and a mac with pulled pork.

3. FULLER’S BURGER SHACK PIONEER PLACE 1. THE HOUSTON BLACKLIGHT

2100 SE Clinton St., 503-477-4738, thehoustonblacklight.com. 4-11 pm Monday-Thursday, 4 pm-midnight Friday, 10 am-midnight Saturday, 10 am-11 pm Sunday.

The Houston Blacklight works because it does something a lot of people forget to do when they open a bar in this city: It feels like a place made for Portland, not shuttled in from somewhere else. It’s not a faux dive, and it’s not swanky or elevated; it’s just a goofy fun thing with wildly juicy cocktails and some solid bar bites. Embrace the vibe by ordering a slushie: the turquoise Thot Experiment combined with whatever other flavor is available. Also watch for Many Things Cannot Fly to return to the menu. The blackberry gin concoction is served in a speckled-blue dinosaur egg with a toy dino riding the straw.

2. HEATHMAN HOTEL HOLIDAY TEA

1001 SW Broadway, 503-241-4100, heathmanhotel.com/event/holiday-tea.

11 am-3 pm Friday-Sunday, through Dec. 31. $65 for adults, $25 for children 3-12.

Holiday Tea was long one of the Heathman Hotel’s most popular traditions that was suspended (just like pretty much everything else) once COVID hit. Now, for the first time since 2019, you can indulge in tiny cakes and sandwiches served on tiered silver platters as well as hot herbal beverages poured from beautiful porcelain pots at the iconic downtown business. Service began the day after Thanksgiving in the handsome library and mezzanine, where you’ll have six Smith Teamaker varieties to choose from, including three holiday-themed flavors: HoHo-Hoji-Chai, Silent Night and Chocolate Peppermint Pu-erh. You can also get your tea in a mixed drink: The G&Tea is a gin and tonic with Lord Bergamot.

3. STRAIGHTAWAY COCKTAILS

901 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 971-255-1627, straightawaycocktails.com.

Noon-7 pm Monday-Tuesday, noon-4 pm Wednesday, noon-8 pm Thursday, 11 am-8 pm Friday-Saturday, noon-5 pm Sunday.

Relive the snow days of your youth with a hot beverage that’s got an adult twist.

Straightaway is best known for its ready-to-drink cocktails (enjoying an old fashioned, paloma, espresso martini and more is as easy as popping open a can), but the bartender can also prepare drinks for you at the Hawthorne tasting room.

Through December you can order a boozy hot chocolate sampler made with Accompani liqueurs, locally produced Ranger Chocolate, and whipped cream.

And since Straightaway celebrates its fifth anniversary this month, it’s offering $5 off all flights. Bonus: Pair your hot chocolate with a Dapper Dog, made with Zenner’s linguisa, a traditional Portuguese pork sausage.

4. DESCHUTES BREWERY PORTLAND PUBLIC HOUSE

210 NW 11th Ave., 503-296-4906, deschutesbrewery.com/visit-us/portland-public-house.

10 am-2 pm Saturday, through Dec. 30.

Maybe it’s the early sunsets, the holiday vacation vibes, or both, but a boozy brunch always sounds inviting this time of year. And fortunately for midday meal lovers, Deschutes is hosting a lineup of new weekly holiday-themed brunches through the end of the year. Every Saturday, you can get your crab Benedict, shakshuka or sausage scramble with a side of festivities—everything from an ugly sweater fun run to a Christmas cookie decorating party to a New Year’s Eve Eve bash with bottomless mimosas. But take our advice: Pass on the sparkling wine-spiked OJ and go for the seasonal Jubelale (you are at a brewery, after all), which has notes of hot chocolate and Grandma’s toffee.

5. OLD ASIA TEAHOUSE & RESTAURANT

12055 SW 1st St., Beaverton, 971-249-3763, oldasia.co.

4-9 pm Thursday-Friday, noon-9 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Top Burmese, the miniature empire known for its curries and cute robot servers, has opened a new property—the first not bearing its name. In late October, the company launched Old Asia, dubbed “The Biggest Little Restaurant” because the dining area is about as big as a generously sized walk-in closet—though one that is ornately decorated. Shelves behind the counter are filled with jars containing tea leaves (green, black, oolong and pu-erh), but if it’s booze you’re after, we recommend the Koji Afternoon Coffee, which has deeper, more satisfying flavors than an espresso martini thanks to the combination of Vietnamese milk coffee and Jameson whiskey. Though if you’ve already had your daily allowance of caffeine, opt for First Love, an effervescent blend of passion fruit, ginger beer and rose vodka.

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

700 SW 5th Ave., Suite 1113, 971-415-6480, fullersburgershack.com.

11 am-7 pm Monday-Saturday, 11 am-6 pm Sunday.

Just a few weeks after the reopening of Fuller’s Coffee Shop following a fire that caused its temporary closure, the heart of downtown Portland welcomed the diner’s spinoff that pays tribute to its hamburger. Urban Restaurant Group (Bartini, Swine, Brix Tavern) launched Fuller’s Burger Shack in the former BurgerFi space at Pioneer Place in November. The star of the lineup is, of course, the titular burger, made the exact same way (21-day aged beef patty, secret sauce, fresh bun) as it has been since Fuller’s Coffee Shop began serving customers in 1947. The price is also welcomingly retro: The classic goes for $6.95.

4. FERMENT BREWING

403 Portway Ave., Hood River, 541-436-3499, fermentbrewing.com.

11 am-9 pm Monday-Friday, 10 am-9 pm Saturday-Sunday.

The yurts are up at Ferment, which means we’re officially heading into winter.

The heated huts that debuted on the brewery’s second-floor patio during the pandemic proved so popular, they’ve returned. That’s not the only seasonal change; there are a slew of new hearty menu items that should fortify you from the cold, like sweet-and-spicy popcorn chicken, miso-maple Brussels sprouts, artichoke dip, and stout brownies. On top of that, Ferment offers brunch from 10 am to noon Saturdays and Sundays. Starting your weekend with biscuits and bacon gravy alongside a barleywine? That’s a pro move.

5. AN XUYÊN BAKERY

5345 SE Foster Road, 503-788-0866, mng890.wixsite.com/an-xuyen-bakery.

7 am-6 pm Tuesday-Saturday, 7 am-3 pm Sunday.

For nearly 25 years, An Xuyên Bakery has sat unassumingly on Foster Road. The self-proclaimed “Authentic Artisan Pan Asian Pacific Bakery and Deli” serves an array of sweet and savory goods for almost absurdly affordable prices. Upon walking in, you’d better make up your mind fast since a line will form behind you almost immediately. Start with a lunch item like a jalapeño-filled bánh mi prepared on the same crusty yet fluffy baguettes the bakery supplies to numerous restaurants around town. Once your main course is checked off, end with dessert; we recommend a meticulously decorated red velvet cupcake.

www.mediakit.wweek.com Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

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JENIFER TRIVELLI

ESCAPE Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Silver Falls State Park’s outback rewards with solitude—and possibly snow—if you’re willing to forgo the falling water.

BY A DA M S AW Y E R

Ask any Oregon hiker worth their salt and they should be able to espouse all the virtues of Silver Falls State Park and its much-lauded Trail of Ten Falls. Any and all forms of praise heaped upon that hike and its many variants are completely valid. But it’s a big busy park, and if you’re willing to forgo the falling water, there are places where hikers can find proper solitude on a trail, a dog-friendly parcel, lodging options, and even a cozy cafe and grill with a fireplace.

The Smith Creek Village at Silver Falls State Park is home to all those, and this time of year it can be a winter wonderland.

Because of its location in the Cascade foothills, Silver Falls is more susceptible to snowfall than the valley floor but not as inundated with the white stuff as say, Government Camp. So whether you’re the sort of winter hiker who prefers observing fallen vine maple leaves decaying to rice-paperlike consistency or the type seeking the deafening silence of a landscape covered with freshly fallen snow, this is a spot to keep on your weather app and pull the trigger accordingly.

The trail system around Smith Creek is expansive and runs through secondary forests as well as patches of dense old growth.

Two easy hikes that provide bite-size samples of both begin at the Upper Smith Creek Trailhead.

For a longer hike (a 3-mile loop with 500 feet of elevation gain), begin walking along the old roadbed and keep going straight at a junction where the Smith Creek Trail leads to a traditional single-track hiking path on the right. (We’ll come back to that.)

Continue along a pleasant path lined by old-growth trees. The trail ascends steadily but never aggressively into a mature secondary forest whose character and age seemingly shift with every subtle turn.

After 1.5-miles you’ll arrive at a well-signed junction and make a hard left onto the Buck Mountain Trail. Enjoy a similar steady descent for just over a half mile to a junction with the Cut Off Trail. Follow this route into a ravine of impressive bigleaf maples for 0.8 miles to another junction that leads to a bridged creek crossing and delivers you gracefully to the aptly named Big Leaf Coffeehouse & Grill. (You know what to do here.)

Once provisions have been consumed/imbibed, follow the paved path to the trailhead parking lot. (For an alternative hike, 26

Willamette Week DECEMBER 20 , 2023 wweek.com

you could park at the restaurant and take the paved road to the trailhead.)

For a shorter hike (1-mile loop with negligible elevation gain) that stays within the ancient forest, begin at the Upper Smith Creek Trailhead, but this time take the almost immediate right at a signed junction onto the single-track section of the trail. The path ascends, descends and bends easily through a lush temperate rainforest of Douglas fir, bigleaf maple and hemlock. After 0.8 miles, you’ll arrive at a junction with a broad trail leading down to the right and back to the village. If you’re in the mood for more mileage, continue straight for another 0.6 miles to a junction with the 214 Trail before returning the way you came.

SNOW DAY: Because of its location in the Cascade foothills, Silver Falls is more susceptible to snowfall than the valley floor.

DISTANCE: Numerous out-and-back or loop options range from 1 to 9 miles.

DIFFICULTY: Depending on the route,

to

out of

DISTANCE FROM PORTLAND: Approximately 58 miles DIRECTIONS: From Portland, take Interstate 5 south for 45 miles to Exit 253. Take Oregon Route 22 E for 7.5 miles to Exit 9. Continue onto Brownell Drive Southeast, which turns into Oregon Route 214 north. Drive another 12 miles to Silver Falls State Park and make a right, following signs to Smith Creek Village, and proceed for 2 miles. The described hikes begin at the Upper Smith Creek Trailhead.

A DA M S AW Y E R

JENIFER TRIVELLI

A DA M S AW Y E R

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

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TICKETS AVAILABLE AT PDXJAZZ.ORG 28

Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

MUSIC

SHOWS OF THE WEEK

COURTESY OF DARYL GROETSCH

W H AT TO S E E A N D W H AT TO H E A R

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

BY DA N I E L B R O M F I E L D @ b r o m f 3

COURTESY OF PINK MARTINI

WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY, DEC. 20-21:

Christmas is the kitschiest time of the year, and Pink Martini knows kitsch. The world’s biggest little orchestra has been entertaining Portlanders for nearly three decades with their witty and subversive take on Space Age cocktail music.

With the Oregon Symphony in tow, this longrunning local treasure will perform two irreverent sets of holiday songs for their Home(town) for the Holidays performance at the Schnitz.

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway.

7:30 pm. $45. All ages.

COURTESY OF CUT CHEMIST

FRIDAY, DEC. 22:

PAST LIVES: Daryl Groetsch in his Prophecy era.

Star Man

Shedding his Pulse Emitter moniker, Portland ambient artist Daryl Groetsch delves deeper into “pure space music” with Prophecy.

BY DA N I E L B R O M F I E L D @ b r o m f 3

Santa Claus is coming to town, and he’s got a lot of vinyl in his bag. For “Cut the Halls,” three of the best turntablists in the world—Get Down regular headliner Cut Chemist, DJ Shortkut and Krafty Kuts—will show off their formidable record collections and even more fearsome scratching skills. If this seems an odd way to celebrate Yuletide, just remember: Christmas and vinyl DJ’ing are both at least 50% about shopping. The Get Down, 615 SE Alder St., Suite B. 9 pm. $35. 21+.

Portland’s young rock scene is exploding, with some of the city’s best bands in their very early 20s. And if Friends of Noise’s fourth annual Icebreaker benefit at Holocene is any indication, the kids are still going strong. Featuring a variety of high school bands from around Portland, this event benefits Friends of Noise’s efforts to keep all-ages shows thriving in a city whose rock scene is on the brink of a renaissance. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St. 7 pm. $15. All ages.

COURTESY OF FRIENDS OF NOISE

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 27:

At some point in childhood, everyone realizes they’re floating on a planet in space and that a whole ocean of space and time exists beyond the world in which they live—which, to a kid, seems infinite and unknowable already. Daryl Groetsch’s new album, Prophecy, embodies this youthful fascination while serving as a great capstone to the enviable run of music he’s released already over the past two years.

Groetsch is best known as prolific Portland ambient artist Pulse Emitter, renowned for sparkling synth music and yawning chasms of drone. But since 2022, he’s put out nine albums of “pure space music” under his own name on Bandcamp. Most of them were released as part of a pair, one album lighter and more uplifting, the other darker and more insinuating. (Home Again and Beige World, the first such pair, from January 2022, embody this contrast in their very names.)

Groetsch vacillates between dissonance and stunning beauty, giving this music an emotional depth uncommon in music so simple and placid.

Prophecy is the first album in the series not released with a sibling, and it stands slightly apart from the rest. First of all, while the rest of Groetsch’s releases are 40 minutes long, this one is only 30—short enough to call an EP, if Groetsch had decided to, though such distinctions seem irrelevant for a release coming out in digital form only.

While the others feel like glimpses into alternate universes, Prophecy flickers like a small flame and is quickly snuffed out.

It might not be long enough to inspire the reverie of the longer Groetsch albums, but it holds up to repeated plays. For purely functional purposes, it works in a pinch during a short bus ride or a cat nap. Also, it was recorded 25 years ago, as the artist’s first stab at making the kind of ambient drift music he would hear in the family garage late at night as his father tinkered

with his car and listened to the NPR ambient program Hearts of Space (which turns 50 this year).

In this music, we can hear everything Groetsch has made, and though his debut, Slem, in 2002 was a fairly generic collection of sounds then au courant in electronic music, Prophecy acts as proof that this music is where his heart lay all along. If not for a slight difference in audio fidelity, it would be impossible to tell the album was made at a different time than the music he’s making now.

Groetsch’s sensibilities as a classically trained musician are intact, and his eccentric chord choices and willingness to vacillate between dissonance and stunning beauty give this music an emotional depth uncommon in music so simple and placid. This is true of Groetsch’s newer albums as well, particularly Home Again.

Prophecy rivals that album’s ability to inspire awe with little more than a standard New Age choir-synth preset. This is not simply the sound of someone ruminating on one chord until they get bored, but someone who’s memorized a lot of classical pieces and understands how to elicit emotional reactions with specific harmonic choices.

Though the tracks on Prophecy were recorded decades ago, it’s remarkable how much some of them sound like music that would come later. “We Are Made of Star Stuff” hinges on a chord progression not unlike that on New Age doyenne Julianna Barwick’s 2011 track “The Magic Place,” and “Toward Grey Clouds” suggests the short interstitials that Boards of Canada place on their albums. Perhaps both artists listened to Hearts of Space as well when they were kids—or maybe they’re all tapping into the same fundamental, platonic ideal of space music.

A distaste for New Age, ambient, and otherwise soothing music such as this is the byproduct of cynicism. Kids rebel against their parents and adopt transgression as a defense, and thus comes the embrace of louder music: rock, hip-hop, punk, metal. But to listeners who can experience the same starry-eyed spirit of exploration as a young Groetsch investigating the strange sounds coming from his parents’ garage, this music might feel deeply nostalgic—a callback to our childhood fascinations, maybe even to that elusive netherworld in which we all existed before we were born.

Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

29

CULTURE

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

2023 was a triumphant year for Portland writers.

Here are five must-read titles.

BY MICHELLE KICHERER @michellekicherer

Best Work in Translation: Bảo Ninh’s Hà Nôi at Midnight, translated by Cab Tran and Quan Manh Ha (Texas Tech University Press, 216 pages, $29.95)

When a friend tells Sarah’s Daddy that the Ozarks are a “back-to-the-land utopia” where they can start fresh and live off the land, Daddy decides to move his wife and then 6-month-old Sarah to a plot of land in middle-of-the-woods Arkansas. Soon we’re following along as Daddy builds a cabin, and we learn what “living off the land” can mean and hear Sarah’s earliest experiences, as told punctuated by family letters and retold tales.

Dotted with delightful photos and memorable anecdotes, Twenty Acres is a captivating look at one family’s journey into an “off-the-grid” lifestyle and their jarring return to conventional society.

Sanguisugabogg at the Hawthorne Theatre

Best Story Collection: Marrying Friends

by Mary Rechner (Propeller Books, 210 pages, $17.95)

BY R O B E R T H A M

Best Essay Collection: Staring Contest by Joshua James Amberson (Perfect Day Publishing, 224 pages, $15) Portland writer and translator Cab Tran says the first time he read Bảo Ninh, he found his prose “more psychologically complex than anything I’d read of Vietnamese literature in translation.” Tran worked with Quan Manh Ha, a literature professor at the University of Montana, to translate the 12 stories in Hà Nôi, which are filled with loss and destruction. A mother writes letters to the son who will never return; a railroad signalman with dementia waits for a train that will never come; a family is forever changed by a flood.

Stories shift through time, tense and point of view, ultimately forcing readers to experience both immediate and lasting effects of war.

Best Memoir: Twenty Acres: A Seventies Childhood in the Woods by Sarah Neidhardt (University of Arkansas Press, 320 pages, $22.46)

Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

Black metal fans don’t often go to black metal shows to appreciate the nuance of a band’s music or lyrics. The goal is simply to get pummeled with volume and intensity. Most artists in this particular genre understand that, leaving the dynamics and nuance for the recording studio and going for a brute force assault onstage.

Sanguisugabogg, a particularly nasty quartet from Ohio, happily accepted the trade-off when they stopped by the Hawthorne Theatre last week, opening for Cattle Decapitation. The depth of the sonic fields in their most recent album, Homicidal Ecstasy, was replaced by bluntness and dry humor. Combined with the whiplash-inducing double kick drum work of drummer Cody Davidson and the persistent calls by vocalist Devin Swank for a circle pit, the 40-minute set could’ve roused the sold-out crowd to topple any nearby monuments without much effort.

Best read by fans of the interconnected stories-meet-novels style of Jennifer Egan (A Visit From the Goon Squad), Marrying Friends is a collection that wholeheartedly looks at the loving, changing ways that lifelong friends stay connected. Centered on a group of high school friends who are still connected 20 years after graduation, Friends looks at grief, how friends and families survive it, and how to move forward. Extra points for the simple but delightful cover art.

Best Novel: The Neighbors We Want by Tim Lane (Crooked Lane Books, 272 pages, $29.99) Lane’s sophomore novel takes hold of the reader from the instant you absorb its premise: Portland ad writer Adam Cooper gets fired for watching explicit videos at work.

Yikes, Adam. Now a stay-at-home dad to a 7-month-old, Adam witnesses something strange at the house across the street. The plot takes a quick turn, then another and another. From unexpected neighborly activities to captivating obsessions, Neighbors is a domestic thriller for fans of Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley) and Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl).

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COURTESY OF SANGUISUGABOGG

Pages of Portland

SHOW REVIEW

Opening essay “Hazy” begins with the story of how Amberson first realized that the distortion in his sight was the result of something more than the need for a stronger lens prescription. After being diagnosed with pseudoxanthoma elasticum, or PXE, a rare genetic disease that causes cracks in the retina, Amberson details the anxiety-producing experience of getting injections in his eyeball, a procedure necessary to prevent further eye damage and to at least temporarily restore his vision. Staring Contest is a bold and kind collection that manages to tackle the sensitive subject of vision loss with humor and curiosity, exploring the process of making art, navigating the world, and the wide spectrum of what disability can look like. Amberson brings a range of blind writers and artists on board to tell a varied story of vision.

Instead of sending a mob into the streets, Sanguisugabogg seemed more interested in a hang. Swank talked up the bands that were to follow and encouraged the audience to meet him by the merch table after the set to take pictures and smoke weed. His complete chill nicely offset his linebacker’s physique and the thunderous growl that came out of his jacked body.

His voice was missing a bit of the acidic gargle of his recorded work, but that was easy to look past when faced with his commanding stage presence and each musical sledgehammer swing from his band.

What Sanguisugabogg could’ve used was a more forgiving venue. Excited as they were to play ahead of one of their musical idols (Immolation), their placement on the bill meant squeezing onto a slim portion of the stage in front of the headliner’s mass of amps and drums. They made do but had to rein in their usual explosiveness for the sake of the greater good.

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31

MOVIES

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

IMDB

GET YOUR REPS IN

screener

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985) Since this is the final Reps column of 2023, it’s time to start workshopping those 2024 resolutions. Here’s an idea: Start each day a little more like Pee-wee Herman.

Sure, society prevents us from owning ornate playhouses without jobs, as Herman appears to in Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985). And yes, physics prevents us from having Rube Goldberg machines assemble our pancakes and eggs.

But there’s something to be said for waking up as Pee-wee does every morning: deriving childlike joy from a daily routine, practicing dental hygiene no matter how oversized the toothbrush, eating our chosen breakfast, and wearing exactly what we want. It is, in its zany way, a recipe for a simple kind of happiness.

Now, might everything go to hell once we leave the house? Sure. So when Francis steals that beloved bicycle, necessitating a “Big Adventure” full of lightly surrealist Americana directed by 25-year-old Tim Burton, just roll with it.

Pee-wee’s Big Adventure screens Dec. 21 at PAM CUT’s Tomorrow Theater.

Its sequel, Big Top Pee-wee (1988), plays the next night, followed by Peewee’s Playhouse Christmas Special (1988) on Dec. 23. Be sure to tell ’em Large Marge sent ya.

ALSO PLAYING: Academy: The Hateful Eight (2015), Dec. 22-28. Elf (2003), Dec. 22-28.

Cinema 21: The Room (2003), Dec. 22.

Clinton: The Big Lebowski (1998), Dec. 21-24. The Snow Queen (1986), Dec. 27. Hollywood: Beauty and the Boss (1932), Dec. 21. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Dec. 22-24. Rare Exports (2010), Dec. 23-24. Die Hard (1988), Dec. 24.

Living Room: Beetlejuice (1987), Dec. 21. Tomorrow Theater: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992), Dec. 22.

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Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

HISTORY BOYS: Napoleon, The Hateful Eight and Oppenheimer

True Grit Hollywood Theatre head programmer Dan Halsted explains why 70 mm matters.

BY C H A N C E S O L E M - P F E I F E R @ c h a n c e _ s _ p

When the Hollywood Theatre retooled itself in 2015 to screen 70 mm films, The Hateful Eight was among the first titles to occupy the 50-foot screen. Quentin Tarantino’s powder-keg Western ran for five weeks in 70 mm, drawing sold-out crowds and a visit from Tarantino himself.

When the theater eventually switched to screening a digital version of The Hateful Eight, the Hollywood’s projectionists and head programmer Dan Halsted suspected something was wrong. The image looked “subpar,” Halsted recalls, and they consulted a technician.

The technician’s response? “It looks perfect,” Halsted remembers being told. “You guys have been staring at 70 mm for so long that now digital looks terrible to your eyes.”

“There’s something about film moving at 24 frames per second that engages the human mind. It’s like people are in a trance.”

That’s just one of Halsted’s back-pocket anecdotes testifying to the power of 70 mm film, arguably the staple of the Hollywood’s current programming. The theater’s tri-annual 70 mm mini-festivals invariably sell out, Halsted says. And to close the theater’s ninth year of its revitalized 70 mm era, the Hollywood is screening Oppenheimer (2023), Malcolm X (1992), Napoleon (2023), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and The Hateful Eight—all in 70 mm—from Dec. 26 through Jan. 1.

“It is absolutely the best way to watch a movie,” Halsted tells WW. “Digital versus film…everybody always asks about film like it’s a gimmick or whatever. But I watch movies with crowds. I’ve been doing it my whole life. And when a movie is on film, people are more engaged than they are when it’s digital. There’s something about film moving at 24 frames per second that engages the human mind. It’s like people are in a trance.”

No film gauge induces that trance like 70 mm, which revolutionized cinematic image quality in the 1960s for widescreen epics and extravaganzas like Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and West Side Story (1961).

“There’s so much depth in the image,” Halsted says. “It’s the best color grade, especially when [the film is] shot on 70 mm.”

There was a time in the Hollywood Theatre’s history (1963 to 1969) when 70 mm was the only format the Portland movie palace showed. In the 1970s, 35 mm became the cheaper industry standard, but heavyweight titles like The Exorcist and Star Wars still played in 70 mm.

When the Hollywood “went through terrible times” in the 1980s and 1990s, as Halsted puts it, someone simply “walked off” with pieces of the twin Norelco AAII projectors that made 70 mm exhibition possible.

After the theater achieved nonprofit status in 1997 and long-term restoration efforts began, it still took years for the Hollywood to raise the $15,000 in community donations and source the parts necessary to resume 70 mm screenings. When it finally did, the first movie was a fortuitous one: 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Today, 2001: A Space Odyssey is the lone 70 mm print the theater owns and one of its most consistent draws. Any other 70 mm print that plays is borrowed from studios and archives. They may be well worth owning.

Halsted says shipping the reels is a financial and logistical ordeal, and a disgruntled FedEx driver isn’t uncommon. (Malcolm X, for example, is 10 reels, 40 pounds each.)

In 2022, to alleviate the pressure on the Hollywood’s only two 70 mm projectors, the “Film Forever” campaign raised the funds to buy two backup Norelco AAII projectors, purchased from the collection of Frank Sinatra’s private projectionist. The 1,600-pound mammoths are highly sought after, and Halsted remembers Get Out director Jordan Peele buying a couple projectors at the same sale.

As for these year-end screenings, 2001, Oppenheimer and The Hateful Eight are all repeat attractions at the Hollywood. Ridley Scott’s Napoleon is an interesting case, however, as it was shot on digital and later printed on 70 mm.

In Halsted’s eyes, movies that aren’t native to the 70 mm format don’t look so different from digital when transferred (though the sound might be slightly better, he says). Even so, Napoleon’s transfer to 70 mm just a month after its wide release could suggest that studios are noticing how theaters like the Hollywood draw cinephiles for anything in 70 (even from as far away as Japan, in Halsted’s experience).

“Seventy isn’t going away,” Halsted says. Despite there being only one lab in the world (FotoKem in Burbank) that strikes such prints, vocal advocacy from directors like Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino is keeping a 70-year-old mode of film exhibition front of mind and a workable business for some movie studios.

“All other media is made for personal consumption,” Halsted says.

“Film is made for a communal audience experience. That’s what sets it apart. I can’t stand it when I find collectors or archives that don’t loan out prints. You might as well throw it in the garbage. It only exists to show it to a crowd.”

By that logic, every time 2001 comes out of its secret storage place at the Hollywood or Malcolm X is hauled reel by reel from a delivery truck to a projection booth, the films get the life they deserve.

SEE IT: 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Hateful Eight, Malcolm X, Napoleon and Oppenheimer screen at the Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-493-1128, hollywoodtheatre.org. Multiple showtimes, Dec. 26-Jan. 1. $11-$15.

MOVIES IMDB

TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

streak at work, from the title-card typeface owing to Marnie (1964) to the psychologist stereotypes borrowed from Spellbound (1945). Eileen looks more forward than inward at the plot hijinks caused by playing God with traumatized people. Still, dimensionality be damned, there are worst sins than taking a wild left turn in a character study. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, Eastport, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV.

FALLEN LEAVES

THE IRON CLAW Throughout the ’80s and ’90s, the question of whether or not it was “real” dominated coverage of American professional wrestling. Were the rivalries genuine?

Were the matches scripted? Now, with the benefit of hindsight, we can recognize that not only was it always fixed but that obsessing over that aspect obfuscated the very real controversies endemic to the WWE that claimed the lives of Jeep Swenson, Owen Hart, and much of the Von Erich family, whose story is dramatized in A24’s The Iron Claw. Writer-director Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene) keeps this in mind, shooting the wrestling scenes with kayfabe (pulled punches and choreographed grapples that make the sport look more childish than intense) in full effect. But he doesn’t shy away from the very real physical toll that wrestling and steroid abuse had on brothers Kevin (Zac Efron), Kerry (Jeremy Allen White), David (Harris Dickinson), and Mike (Stanley Simons) as they struggled to live up to the impossible standards of their domineering father, Fritz (Holt McCallany). Even knowing what tragedies befell the family doesn’t soften the blow as brother after brother is chewed up and spat out under Fritz’s reign. It’s harrowing to watch, particularly for Kevin, the only one with a support network outside the ring (thanks to his wife Pam, played by Lily James). Leaving his High School Musical and The Greatest Showman days far behind, Efron manages to convey earnestness and heartbreak while looking like a He-Man doll come to life. The Iron Claw can be agonizing, but it’s a well-crafted tragedy that puts you in an emotional headlock and keeps you there till the bell rings. R. MORGAN SHAUNETTE. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, City Center, Clackamas, Division Street, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lake Theater, Laurelhurst, Lloyd Center, Progress Ridge, Vancouver Plaza.

CHICKEN RUN: DAWN OF THE NUGGET

Somehow still the highest grossing stop-motion film of all time, 2000’s Chicken Run grounded its intricate setpiece gags and pun-baked silliness within a distinctly British worldview. Like the signature clay-based techniques Aardman animation studio developed for its beloved Wallace and Gromit shorts, the poultry POWs imprisoned at Tweedy’s farm always felt a step out of time, and the eventual triumph of their sheer bloody-minded determination never felt like the birth of a franchise. Nevertheless, this long-gestating sequel finds Ginger (Thandiwe Newton, replacing an aging Julia Sawalha to some controversy) and Rocky (Zachary Levi, taking the place of Mel Gibson to widespread shrugs) as parents of rambunctious tween Molly (Bella Ramsey), who’s chafing at the limits of the chickens’ hidden demi-paradise. When posters advertising the newfangled delights of a free-range industrial facility lure Molly away, the ensuing rescue mission has our reunited commandos going back over the wall and forces the filmmakers into the competitive stop-motion animation marketplace they helped spawn. While purists may quibble with the occasional CGI-aided flourish, this Netflix-financed romp blessedly preserves the original’s thumbprint-smeared, dadjoke-peppered charms and ignores recent trends toward bloodless kids’ fare in favor of another jerry-rigged thrill ride. Like the dip a

fast-food magnate partner to Mrs. Tweedy (Miranda Richardson) intends on pairing with her newly minted nuggets, it’s sweet and sour. But, as Mrs. Tweedy gravely intones, aren’t we all? PG. JAY HORTON. Netflix.

EILEEN

The coastal Massachusetts winter of 1964 is testing Eileen. The 24-year-old (played by Thomasin McKenzie) never intended to keep her penitentiary office job this long. Her car is fuming. Her mother is recently deceased. She lives with her father (Shea Whigham), an ex-cop who likes vodka and revolvers. This depressing tableau, with its underexposed lighting and searching woodwind score, pushes Eileen into an active fantasy life, with visions of impromptu sex and fratricide. Then into the prison strides new resident psychologist Rebecca Saint John (Anne Hathaway)— blond, Harvard-educated, willowy, single, unflapped by the patriarchy. Eileen couldn’t have dreamt up a more enviable model of 1964 womanhood, and Rebecca immediately takes young Eileen under her wing.

Hathaway’s ability to smoke while flirting (in a Katherine Hepburn-esque voice) juxtaposed with McKenzie’s wide-eyed youthfulness make Todd Haynes’ Carol the obvious comparison. Yet Eileen, based on Ottessa Moshfegh’s novel and directed by William Oldroyd (Lady Macbeth), is a shiftier narrative than Carol to both exhilarating and wobbly ends. There’s a Hitchcockian

Tracking the absences in Finnish auteur Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves reveals a lot about this love story’s autumnal flavor.

Set in present-day Helsinki (with constant reports of the Russian military bombing of Mariupol on the radio), Fallen Leaves contains almost no digital technology.

There are no careers, only jobs. No forward momentum. No children. Hell, there’s no one younger than 40 in the film, save for a synthwave duo that plays at protagonist Holappa’s local bar one evening. (The passion in their music stirs in him only the sadness to have another drink.) Even so, Ansa (Alma Pöysti) is interested in Holappa (Jussi Vatanen). They’re two townies firmly in middle age, wrapping themselves in the stoicism of a hard day’s work (industrial cleaning and shelf-stocking) and lonely beds. The emptiness of their lives and their city makes them seem destined to connect, but with Helsinki’s understated harshness, what vulnerability is left? The filmmaking mimics the characters’ stiffness with long static shots while costuming Holappa and Ansa in monochromatic reds and greens, as if suggesting that emotionality has to live somewhere, if only in vibrant dyes. To this end, Kaurismäki cuts a few corners in the film’s 81-minute runtime, using folk and pop songs to loudly express what Holappa and Ansa might feel. The audience can really hear the music. Can the characters? NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.

FERRARI

From Thief (1981) to Heat (1995), Michael Mann’s best films hinge on men whose all-consuming expertise destroys their emotional availability. If Ferrari is the 80-yearold directing icon’s final statement on that theme, it’s more haunted than ever by families broken and jobs well done. This snapshot biopic of Ferrari founder and patriarch Enzo (Adam Driver) finds the “Commendatore” (as his employees call him) at a low moment.

It’s 1957. His company coffers are bare. His grief-stricken wife, Laura (Penélope Cruz), is fed up with his cheating, while his mistress (Shailene Woodley) has borne a secret heir to the Ferrari empire. The only antidote to this litany of human problems? Throw innovative aerodynamics and eager drivers into the meat grinder of the Mille Miglia. A win at this treacherous race, we’re told, would secure Enzo’s good fortunes. Ferrari is probably a better statement on Mann’s career than a standalone movie. Woodley and Cruz are cast in tough spots (with tough accents, too)—sad, angry women waiting to be recognized by an absent man—as the story roughly shifts gears from intimate drama to action that Enzo watches from the sidelines.

Tougher still, liquid-looking visual effects mar the film’s most shocking moments. For both Michael Mann and Enzo, bodies of work overwhelm efforts. Boys and their toys to the last.

R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Opens Dec. 24 at Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, City Center, Division Street, Eastport, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Progress Ridge, Vancouver Mall, Vancouver Plaza.

POOR THINGS

Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) experiences a feminist awakening in ways only a man could write, like making love to Mark Ruffalo and working in a French brothel.

Shocker: We’re in the minds of director Yorgos Lanthimos and screenwriter Tony McNamara, the lurid stylists of The Favorite (2018). That film whipped up a soufflé of 18th century sexual intrigue, but Poor Things, based on Alasdair Gray’s novel, strides into Victorian England, where the automatonlike Bella is cared for/imprisoned by surgeon Dr. Godwin (Willem Dafoe) and his lackey Max (Ramy Youssef). Bella, jerky in movement and literal in speech, has a blunt innocence that inspires a wonderstruck Max to describe her as “a very pretty retard.” Few things betray shallowness of vision faster than a fetishization of the politically incorrect, but Lanthimos barrels on with his juvenile flourishes, blending Wes Andersonian whimsy with lame “witty” lines like, “Let us touch each other’s genital pieces!” By the time the director tacks on an extended homage to Freaks (1932), it’s excruciatingly clear that his affectations (monotone dialogue, steampunkish visuals) are a thin mask for his paucity of ideas. Only in the presence of Ruffalo, playing a sleazy and seductive lawyer, does the film vibrate with life. Adopting an English accent about as convincing as Spam packaged in a tin of Walker’s Shortbread, Ruffalo’s performance is the antidote to the artificial quirks of Poor Things. He’s so joyously fake that he’s scarily real. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Cinema 21, Hollywood.

THE BOYS IN THE BOAT

In this wearying portrait of University of Washington’s 1936 championship rowing squad, Coach Al Ulbrickson (Joel Edgerton) proclaims eight-man crew to be the world’s most grueling competition, which may well be true. It’s generally understood that the tradition survives at prep academies and Ivy League institutions so that elites might legitimately dominate a team sport the poorer 99 percent consider too punishing, expensive and dull. But as this new George Clooney-helmed passion project aches to prove, ’twasn’t always so. Composed of orphaned scholarship cases, ex-trust funders dispossessed by the Depression, and semi-autistic amateur pianists, the ’36 JV squad thrills a regatta-attending, newspaper-reading, under-entertained nation by winning boat races again and again (and again­—at the Berlin Olympics!).

This, aside from some wispy flirtations thrust upon a car-living coxswain (Callum Turner) and guest cameos from Jesse Owens and Hitler, is the film in its entirety.

(To be fair, we’re also taught best practices: Keep the oars pointed in the same direction and exploit desperate strength born of generational poverty.) Even Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken, another entry in the microgenre of New Deal-era athlete biopics directed

by Oscar-winning heartthrobs, employed Louis Zamperini’s trip to the Berlin games as a mere prelude for wartime ruminations on eroticized torture. The appeal of lads propelled forward through laborious craft is obvious, but The Boys in the Boat fails to do more than skim the surface both literally and metaphorically. PG-13. JAY HORTON. Opens Dec. 24 at Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Century Eastport, City Center, Clackamas, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Movies On TV, Progress Ridge, Vancouver Plaza.

OUR KEY

: THIS MOVIE IS EXCELLENT, ONE OF THE BEST OF THE YEAR. : THIS MOVIE IS GOOD. WE RECOMMEND YOU WATCH IT. : THIS MOVIE IS ENTERTAINING BUT FLAWED. : THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE. Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

33

by Jack Kent

TRUE SCENES FROM THE STREETS! @sketchypeoplepdx

34

Willamette Week DECEMBER 20, 2023 wweek.com

JONESIN’

FREE WILL

B Y M AT T J O N E S

"Bundling Up"--plenty of layers.

ASTROLOGY ARIES

(March 21-April 19): Aries educator Booker T. Washington advised us, "Do the common thing in an uncommon way." That's a useful motto for you in the coming months. If you carry out ordinary activities with flair, you will generate good fortune and attract excellent help. As you attend to details with conscientious enthusiasm, you will access your finest inner resources and exert constructive influences on the world around you. Be thorough and unique, persistent and imaginative, attentive and innovative. Adore your chores in 2024!

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Taurus philosopher

John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) was among the smartest people who ever lived. As is often the case with geniuses, he believed in the supreme value of liberty for all. He was a feminist long before that word existed. Like another genius, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, he thought that "individuality realized is the supreme attainment of the human soul, the master-master’s work of art. Individuality is sacred." I nominate Mill to be a role model for you in 2024, Taurus. This could be a time when you reach unprecedented new heights and depths of unique self-expression and liberation. PS: Here’s a quote from Mill: “Eccentricity has always abounded where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor, and moral courage which it contained.”

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Emotionally and spiritu-

ally, you will ripen at a robust rate in 2024. Your intelligence will mature into wisdom in surprising and gratifying ways. Harvesting rich lessons from long-smoldering confusions and long-simmering mysteries will be your specialty. PS: Some of you Geminis joke around and say you never want to grow up. But I hope you minimize that attitude in the coming months.

ACROSS 1. Yogurt-based Indian drink 6. _ _ _ noche (tonight, in Spanish) 10. Onetime Kremlin figure 14. Had takeout, perhaps 15. Like a dime 16. Kitchen gadget and cookware company 17. Piece of paper with nothing on it 19. Seriously lack 20. Position in an ordered list

59. Mid-century music system

33. Los Del _ _ _ ("Macarena" duo)

60. Parliament member

34. 1950s singer Sumac

62. "You're welcome to visit"

35. _ _ _ Xing (street sign)

64. Alumnus, for short 65. Once again 66. Of service 67. Biblical boats 68. Coin flip 69. "_ _ _ be great!"

DOWN 1. Tar pits location

21. "Desperate Housewives" actress Hatcher

2. Repetitively named Aztec spear-throwing tool

22. Initials on a Cardinal's cap

3. Medium setting?

23. "... and so on" 24. Obey Daylight Saving Time, maybe 28. Name not to say out loud right now (lest it turns on devices) 30. Pearl bearer 31. Do some coding?

36. Rita who judged on "The X Factor" 37. How a winning streak might be described 42. Floor decor 43. Driving levy 44. Letter-based British secondary school exam, once

4. Bathroom fixture 5. Tats 6. It's a bit of a knockout 7. Rob Zombie's spouse, fashion designer _ _ _ Moon Zombie 8. Advertising gimmick 9. Six-legged creature

39. Belinda Carlisle hit where she "can't speak" 40. Conde _ _ _ Traveler 41. Timber tool 45. Rarer PokÈmon collectibles from the Sword & Shield Series 46. Interjections outside a Tim Hortons, maybe?

48. Pub contest fodder 49. Not noticed 50. Like sorted socks 52. Budgetary prefix 53. Gold fabrics 54. Opinions 55. U2 producer Brian 59. Frozen planet in "The Empire Strikes Back" 60. Golfing org.

11. He-Man's nemesis

62. Nyan _ _ _ (meme with a repetitive earworm)

12. Cy Young Award winner, probably

61. Miss the mark

63. Cashew, e.g.

13. Tackle component 18. Engine additive and NASCAR sponsor 22. Put into words 24. Hourglass filler

51. High-grade, ultra-soft European fabric

25. "Yeah, yeah, I know"

56. "Messenger" material

27. Sketch

58. Abel's big brother

38. "The Handmaid's Tale" streamer

10. Place to the right of the decimal point

47. Prearrange

57. Had been

37. Trampled, with "on"

26. Prefix for space 29. Baby boomer's kid 32. Paste shortcut, on PCs

©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.

last week’s answers

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Indigenous people study

the intelligence of animals and incorporate it into their own lives. If you’re game to do that in 2024, I suggest you choose elephants as a source of teaching and inspiration. Have fun studying and meditating on their ways! Here are a few facts to get you started. Problem-solving is one of their stengths. They are experts at learning how to get what they need and passing that knowledge on to their offspring. They seldom suffer from sickness, but if they do, they often self-medicate with plants in their environment. Elder females are the knowledge keepers, retaining inner maps of where food, drink, and other resources are located.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Writer Janet Champ speaks

about the joy of locating “the big wow, the big yesyesyes.” It happens when you find something or someone you regard as “better, greater, cuter, wiser, more wonderful than anything you have ever known." I’ll be lavish and predict you will encounter a big wow and yesyesyes like this in 2024.

Will you know what to do with it? Will you be able to keep it? Those possibilities are less certain, but I have high hopes for you. For best results, cultivate a vivid vision of how the big wow and big yesyesyes will benefit others as well as you.

VIRGO

(Aug. 23-Sept. 22): In 1916, most women in the world could not vote. Many men considered women to be inferior—lacking in courage and initiative. It was the Dark Ages! That summer, two sisters named Augusta and Adeline Van Buren rebelled against the stereotypes by riding their motorcycles across America. Roads were poor, rains were frequent, and police arrested them frequently for wearing men’s clothes. Male-dominated media derided them, with one newspaper criticizing their escape from “their proper roles as housewives.” I nominate them to be your role models in 2024, no matter what gender you are. It will be a favorable time to transcend conventional wisdom, override decaying traditions, and be a cheerful rebel.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): For hundreds of years,

European nations stole land and resources from Indigenous people all over the world. Among the thefts were art, ritual objects, cultural treasures, and human skeletons. Museums in the West are

WEEK OF DECEMBER 21

© 2023 ROB BREZSNY

still full of such plunder. But in recent years, some museums have begun to return the loot. Germany sent back hundreds of artifacts to Nigerian museums. France restored many objects to the African country of Benin. Let’s apply this scenario as a useful metaphor for you in 2024, Libra. Is there a part of your past that was hijacked? Your memories appropriated or denied? Your rightful belongings poached, or your authentic feelings infringed upon? It’s time for corrections and healing.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): I suggest we choose the

brilliant Scorpio physicist and chemist Marie Curie (1867–1934) as your role model in 2024.

She is the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different fields. She managed to pursue a rigorous scientific career while raising two children and having a fulfilling marriage. Being of service to humanity was a central life goal. She grew up in poverty and sometimes suffered from depression, but worked hard to become the genius she aspired to be. May the spirit of Marie Curie inspire you, dear Scorpio, as you make dramatic progress in expressing your unique soul’s code.

SAGITTARIUS

(Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In my fairy tale about your year ahead, I see you searching for treasure. It’s not a wild and wandering exploration, but a diligent, disciplined quest. You are well-organized about it, carefully gathering research and asking incisive questions. You ruminate on the possibilities with both your logical and intuitive faculties. You meditate on how you might make adjustments in yourself so as to become fully available for the riches you seek. Your gradual, incremental approach gives you strength.

You draw inspiration from your sheer persistence and relentless inquiry. And it all pays off by the second half of 2024.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): "All the things I

really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening," quipped Capricorn author Alexander Woollcott (1887–1943). Since he was never arrested, I conclude he didn't get to enjoy some of the activities he relished. Was he immoral? Not exactly, though he could be caustic. Offering his opinion about a famous pianist, he said, "There is absolutely nothing wrong with Oscar Levant that a miracle couldn't fix." The good news for you, Capricorn, is that 2024 will be mostly free of the problems Woollcott experienced. You will be offered an abundance of perfectly legal and moral enjoyments. They may sometimes be fattening, but so what?

AQUARIUS

(Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Author Augusten Burroughs is a devoted urban dweller. He says, "When I get a craving for nature, I turn on TV's Discovery Channel and watch bear-attack survivors recount their horror." Martial arts master Morihei Ueshiba had a different perspective. "Mountains, rivers, plants, and trees should be your teachers," he advised. "Study how water flows in a valley stream, smoothly and freely between the rocks."

I recommend Ueshiba's approach to you in 2024, Aquarius—not Burroughs’. Here are my predictions: 1. You will have no dangerous encounters with nature. 2. You will learn more than ever from the wild world. 3. To the degree that you wander in the outdoors, your spiritual life will thrive.

PISCES

(Feb. 19-March 20): A study done at Union College in New York found that being fraternity members raised students’ future income by 36 percent, but lowered their grade point average by 0.25 points. Would you make a similar trade-off, Pisces? Would you pursue a path that made you more successful in one way but less successful in another? I suspect you will encounter unusual decisions like this in 2024. My job is not to advise you what to do, but to make you alert for the provocative riddles.

HOMEWORK: What activity do you enjoy but rarely engage in? Resolve to do it more in 2024. Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

CHECK OUT ROB BREZSNY’S EXPANDED WEEKLY AUDIO HOROSCOPES & DAILY TEXT MESSAGE HOROSCOPES

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The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700

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