41 41 willamette week, august 12, 2015

NEWS BERNIE VS. BILLIONAIRES. FOOD DEATH TO YELP. MUSIC THE BEST N.W.A. AFFILIATES. P. 7

P. 25

P. 27

“YOU CAN’T DO ILLEGAL JUDO CHOPS!” P. 49

E T A F R E M A G # AT

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WWEEK.COM

VOL 41/41 08.12.2015

OR W K E H T

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Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

JAHN ALEXANDER TEETSOV

FINDINGS

PAGE 25

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 41, ISSUE 41.

Kevin the Drummer finally had

his joke ruined thanks to Dr. Know. 4 When you buy products from Columbia Sportswear and Pendleton Woolen Mills, you are indirectly funding Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign. 7 Paris Hoover, who works as a nude dancer, wanted “to be one of those people who does what’s right, regardless of the consequences.”

Best friends and money? She’s lost ’em both. 9

ON THE COVER: Gamer girl Vanessa Rivera. Photo by rachaelrenee. photos.

Let’s get this straight: Mark Wiener currently works for Uber, not for the three city commissioners he was paid to help get elected. 11 A local company you haven’t heard of moved more units than anyone but Beyoncé and Frozen. 13 If you want to eat bull testicles and drink 7-ounce bottles of Miller High Life, there is a place. 39 There was originally one white dude in N.W.A. 46

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:

Bernie Sanders spoke in Portland.

He promised a $15 national minimum wage and free college for everyone.

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Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

3

GREENPEACE PROTEST

I don’t expect those comfortable with the status quo to jump on the environmental movement’s bandwagon [“Spirit in the Sky,” WW, Aug. 5, 2015]. All I would hope for is enough empathy for their children’s and grandchildren’s generation to acknowledge that our current dependence on nonrenewable fossil fuels is self-destructive and unsustainable.

In instances like Shell’s profitseeking venture in its risky Arctic drilling endeavor, civil disobedience is called for. It is part of a longheld American tradition, and many believe some things, like the health of our planet, are worth fighting for.

—Mike Lince

PORTLAND’S NORTHERN ’BURB

Sure, if you want to consider Vancouver a suburb of Portland, go ahead [“Our Hoboken,” WW, Aug. 5, 2015]. I live and work in Vancouver, and absolutely adore everything about our fine city.

I only go to Portland if I have to, and don’t miss trying to cross the bridge every single day.

—Deanna Meyer

“All they

I don’t see why people get so fired up one way or the other. I lived and worked in Portland, but our group was transferred in the ’90s to Vancouver, so I ended up moving here to avoid a commute.

I consider the greater Portland area as being made up of Portland, Vancouver and Hillsboro. I spend my dollars in Vancouver and Portland, as they both have things I enjoy.

—Marty Porter

Congratulations, Greenpeace. The did manage professionalism, ingenuity and to do is effectiveness of your legitimate annoy and necessary protest effort was commuters.” nothing short of magnificent. Your group of bridge danglers displayed an unbelievable combination of CITY TRIES TO Cirque du Soleil and Navy SEALs skills. Thank BILL ARTISTS you, and bravo!

Yes, the city should defend its trademarks —Richard Ellmyer, North Portland [“Three Etsy Pieces,” WW, Aug. 5, 2015]. But the “Portland Oregon” sign shouldn’t have ever been So, to keep this “protest” in perspective, the green- trademarked by the city. If I were someone on spit idiots did not stop the Fennica or the drilling Etsy selling that merchandise and got that email, in the Arctic. All they did manage to do is annoy I’d ignore it and go on with my day. commuters and cost the city of Portland millions —“pdxphotoguy84” of dollars that could have been spent on the homeless, roads or the mentally ill. It also cost green-spit LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author’s street address and phone number for verification. tens of thousands in fines for breaking the law.

Letters must be 250 or fewer words.

Good job. You sure showed Shell, and it is Submit to: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210.

Fax: (503) 243-1115. Email: mzusman@wweek.com. reeling from the harm you caused.

—“mmeiko264”

#WWEEK NEVER MISS A BEAT. 4

Beyond the Print

@wweek

@WillametteWeek

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

While using Google Maps’ turnby-turn directions, I received the instruction: “Turn left at Kevin the Drummer onto NW Leahy Terrace.”

There was nothing unusual about the intersection. So, what the hell?

—Seattle Jane I have to apologize, Jane. Your question led to so much interesting information that there may not be room in this week’s column for the usual complement of dick jokes.

Luckily, Jane provided a screenshot rather than just raving incoherently about black helicopters like you guys usually do, so I was able to reproduce the anomaly. (Check our online version to see it.)

There are three possible explanations for something like this. The first is that it’s a copyright trap. Mapmakers often insert small, madeup features into their products to bust other mapmakers who copy their work.

It might also be an “Easter egg,” a cute trick hidden in software for users to find. Google loves

these, and plenty of them have been found in Google Maps and Google proper. (And also in Google+, but who cares.) Google “do a barrel roll,” “askew,” or “zerg rush” to see some examples.

Finally, it may be a user-inserted prank. You may recall a flap back in April, when a picture of Google’s Android logo peeing on Apple’s logo turned up in Google Maps. This was made possible

by Google Map Maker, a crowdsourcing project that allowed regular users to “update” Google’s maps.

The Map Maker program was suspended in May, but some prank edits still survive. A source at Google confirmed that “Kevin the Drummer” is one of these.

Unfortunately, since I did the right thing (like an asshole) and contacted Google for comment rather than just making shit up, they now know about this.

Kevin may be gone by now—check the directions from “NW Leahy Rd. and 107th Ave.” to “NW Leahy Terrace and Sundown Way” to find out.

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

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

5

POLITICS: Bernie Sanders is making bank in Oregon.

LEGISLATURE: How workplace reforms divided strippers.

CITY HALL: Uber got inside help from a connected lobbyist.

COVER STORY: Portland’s place in gaming’s biggest fight.

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State Rep. Brent Barton (D-Oregon City) is surrendering the most expensive seat in the Oregon House. Barton, 35, a Harvardeducated trial lawyer, defeated Republican Steve Newgard in a 2014 rematch that cost $1.24 million. Barton spent $787,000 to retain what is one of only a handful of Portland-area swing seats. In WW’s 2015 legislative survey, Barton was the region’s most improved lawmaker, but in an Aug. 11 letter to legislative leadership and Gov. Kate Brown, Barton said he was leaving the BARTON Capitol. “My wife and I are expecting our first child, and my law practice continues to grow,” Barton wrote. “I do not feel it is fair to my family, my clients, or my constituents to juggle so many responsibilities, and my family must come first.”

The TriMet drivers’ union just fired its lawyer—and wants to replace him with a familiar foe of the transit agency. Leaders of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 announced at an Aug. 10 meeting that the union has eliminated the job of Lane Toensmeier, who has been ATU Local 757’s general counsel since January. ATU Local 757 president Shirley Block says the union plans to replace Toensmeier with three new contractors, including former union president Ron Heintzman, a take-no-prisoners negotiator who in 1994 won sweeping benefits for retired union members.

Meanwhile, six union members have filed challenges to the June election results that put Block in charge.

State inspectors have upheld a May complaint against WeVillage day care, finding that the Pearl District location violated state staffing requirements on multiple days. It also fined the drop-in center $700, marking the sixth time since 2013 that state officials have dinged the location for not having enough employees on hand to care for children, including infants. The penalty stemmed from complaints by a former WeVillage manager, who told the state and WW that WeVillage endangered children by flouting state staffing rules (“Kiddie Trouble,” WW, May 27, 2015). WeVillage director Aimee Davis did not return WW’s calls seeking comment.

The Oregonian wants a pot critic. Editors at the state’s largest newspaper have started placing ads, shared on Facebook in July, seeking a freelancer to write two to four reviews a month of marijuana strains and edibles. “The candidate should be an experienced cannabis consumer,” the notice says, “with deep knowledge about the variety of strains and products available on the Oregon market.”

But don’t expect to be hired full-time: The Oregonian’s parent company, New York-based Advance Publications, mandates drug testing for its employees. Oregonian Editor Mark Katches did not answer WW’s questions about the newspaper’s drug policy.

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MONEY TO BERNIE

BERNIE SANDERS DREW RECORD CROWDS IN PORTLAND. HE’S ALSO FIGHTING FOR OREGON DONATIONS WITH HILLARY AND…JEB?

BY AA R O N M E SH

amesh@wweek.com

On his second day canvassing for U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ rally in Portland, Dan McIntosh-Tolle started warning people: Get to the Moda Center an hour early if you want a seat.

“His beliefs just really resonate here,” says McIntoshTolle, a brewer who, for the past two weeks, has volunteered for Sanders’ presidential campaign. “Plus, we really love the underdog.”

He guessed right. An estimated 28,000 people arrived Aug. 9 at the Rose Quarter—9,000 more than could fit into the arena. Thousands stood outside to listen on speakers as the democratic socialist from Vermont pledged to take from the rich and give to the workers.

“They have unlimited sums of money,” Sanders said.

“But we have something they do not have. We have a united people.”

But Sanders didn’t just draw his largest national turnout in Portland. He’s found something else in Oregon: money.

Federal Election Commission filings show Oregonians have donated $78,123 to Sanders’ campaign. That’s more money than he’s raised in all but nine other states.

Sanders hasn’t matched the fundraising prowess of Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton, who has raised $118,419 in Oregon. But his economic inequality here is far smaller than it is nationally, where she’s outraised him $47.1 million to $15.1 million.

And Sanders—whose war chest depends far more on small donations than Clinton’s does—actually has more Oregon donors than Clinton: 205 to her 152.

The federal filings cover money raised through June 30, meaning they don’t count what Clinton raised from her $2,700-a-plate appearance Aug. 5 at the Southwest Portland home of Democratic Party power players Carol Butler and Win McCormack. ($2,700 is the maximum amount federal law allows an individual to donate to a presidential campaign.)

“THEY HAVE UNLIMITED SUMS OF MONEY,” SANDERS SAID. “BUT WE HAVE SOMETHING THEY DO NOT HAVE. WE HAVE A UNITED PEOPLE.” But the data does reveal pockets of strength for each candidate. Clinton’s base is in the Portland metro area, while Sanders has actually raised more money than her in and around Eugene. Both are gathering support from the state’s newest class of political donors: marijuana entrepreneurs.

And neither has gathered money with the efficiency of Jeb Bush. The Republican scion has just 34 donors in Oregon, but has raised nearly as much money as Sanders: $71,300.

WW dove into the federal filings, and identified five noteworthy donors giving large sums to each candidate.

Lizzy Acker, Hart Hornor and Claire Holley contributed reporting to this story.

HOT TICKET: Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke for 58 minutes to 19,000 people at the Moda Center on Aug. 9.

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Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

7

RED LIGHT CHALLENGE WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 12TH AT 6PM Red Light Challenge is made up of brothers Sean and Kyle Luster, who are both valedictorians, athletes, and multi-instrumentalists. The brothers have developed a unique sound coming from Hawaii, incorporating British Invasion songwriting, multi-part harmonies, R&B danceability, guitar-driven electricity, as well as popular sounds of today.

RAGON LINDE THURSDAY, AUGUST 13TH AT 6PM Ragon Linde is a multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, and audio visionary based in Portland. Ragon has played in a wide range of musical groups over the last 35 years who’s styles included big band, psychedelic jazz, heavy metal, acoustic folk, classical, western swing, marching band, and percussion ensemble.

SABONIS SUNDAY, AUGUST 16TH AT 5PM Sabonis, the band and their new record, encapsulate everything beautiful and sad and quaint and wistful about vintage Portland, or more specifically, the vintage Portland music scene—something immeasurably special in a city whose cultural essence is evaporating as quickly as “exotic” ice cream parlors and clog stores and satellite Pearl Districts are materializing. Sabonis, the tape, is the latest micro-masterpiece in a continuum of quintessential Pacific Northwest punk releases.

WATKINS FAMILY HOUR THURSDAY, AUGUST 20TH AT 6PM For singer-songwriter-multi-instrumentalists Sara Watkins and Sean Watkins (AKA 2/3rds of the Grammy Award winning trio Nickel Creek), the Watkins Family Hour has long been an oasis from the rigors of the road, a laboratory where they can try out new material or master beloved cover songs. Their monthly show at L.A.’s famed venue Largo has been hailed as a convivial, communal event where they welcome an impressive array of musician friends old and new.

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Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

NEWS w e s l e y h a m i lt o n

legislAture

POLITICAL POLE A CAMPAIGN IN SALEM WON NEW WORKPLACE RIGHTS FOR STRIPPERS. IT ALSO TURNED DANCER AGAINST DANCER.

By An n A wA lt e r s

awalters@wweek.com

Paris Hoover went to Salem last March to ask lawmakers to watch out for strippers.

The 27-year-old Portland nude dancer traveled to the state Capitol to publicly demand rights. She trekked the halls for six hours, telling the stories of sweltering clubs with no air conditioning and broken poles to nearly a dozen state representatives, including House Majority Leader Val Hoyle (D-Eugene).

“Many of the freedoms I was allowed by the law, I wasn’t being allowed by management,” Hoover recalls telling lawmakers. “I didn’t become a stripper to be told what to do.”

Hoover is one of two dancers who became the face of two “stripper bills” that worked their way through the Legislature last session.

And her work paid off. In July, lawmakers passed one of the bills, establishing a hotline for live entertainers to call to report workplace abuses—health and safety violations, wage disputes or harassment—and mandating the display of posters notifying dancers of their rights.

But Hoover’s victory came at a personal cost.

Fellow dancers harassed her at the club where she used to work until she quit. She even stopped speaking to her best friend because they disagreed about the bills.

As it turned out, dancers themselves bridled at state government examining their livelihoods. And when strippers heard that a group of social workers and lobbyists were hatching a plan to ensure their civil rights, many grew angry and afraid.

“I want to be one of those people who does what’s right regardless of the consequences,” Hoover says, “even if that means everyone in the world hates me.”

The momentum for stronger workplace protections for strippers has grown in the past year—often because lawsuits and state investigations show abuse is rife in clubs.

In January, two former dancers sued Northwest Portland strip club Casa Diablo in U.S. District Court, demanding lost pay and damages for harassment—including unwanted touching—by customers and employees (“The Devil’s Due,” WW, Jan. 14, 2015).

And this week, Commissioner Brad Avakian of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries filed a workplace discrimination complaint against Stars Cabaret in Beaverton for allegedly employing two dancers under age 16—one in 2012, and another last year.

“We currently have investigations looking to see whether or not workers are being paid every dime that they’re entitled to,” Avakian says. “We’ve been around the block with clubs in Oregon before, and we know this is a particularly vulnerable population of workers.”

“this is a population that has no voice in the legislature.”

—delmar stone Industry insiders say public concern about the treatment of strippers has always been minimal.

“If you’re going to list the things Portland cares about,” says Ray McMillin, a local strip-club DJ for about a decade, “naked women fall somewhere between potholes and black people, but far below the latest food cart or artisan doughnut.”

But in April 2014, a group of lobbyists and social workers started a grassroots campaign for new protections.

Delmar Stone, executive director of the Oregon chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, says his organization began to think about stripper rights when a few members raised concerns last spring over industry abuses. Dancers are typically classified as independent contractors—meaning they work for tips, aren’t eligible for health benefits or sick leave, and aren’t entitled to workers’ compensation if they’re injured on the job.

“It was like, ‘OK, somebody needs to do something.’

Because that’s what social workers do,” Stone says. “This is a population that has no voice in the Legislature.”

Stephanie Wahab, an associate professor of social work at Portland State University, helped arrange a meeting last fall where about 30 dancers, social workers and lobbyists sat around tables in a PSU classroom. Some had laptops and were taking notes. Others brought their attorneys and didn’t identify themselves.

“It was a powerful meeting,” Wahab says, “because people were speaking to the different kinds of abuses and health and safety concerns that were coming up in their jobs. There was just too much content and information on the table.”

It was also contentious. A lobbyist pitched the idea of licensing dancers and requiring civil rights training.

But most dancers gathered opposed this. They didn’t want to be “outed.” Several sources say one dancer was

pursuing a degree in teaching, and said she would be banned from her future profession if her dancing experience showed up on a background check.

And it wasn’t just licenses that provoked disagreement.

Dancers disagreed whether they wanted to be classified as employees, whether two-way contact dances should be allowed, and how to police industry abuses if at all.

Hoover and Elle Stanger became the public faces of the campaign, which narrowed to two objectives: creating the hotline and posting workplace rights in clubs.

Yet many dancers remained worried the lobbying effort would result in turning strippers into full-time employees.

Viva Las Vegas, a Portland stripper for nearly two decades and former editor of Exotic magazine, says by October more than 25 strippers had met in a small apartment on Northeast Sandy Boulevard to discuss their reservations about lawmakers’ efforts.

“That was interesting—to see how loath we are to have attention,” says Las Vegas. “It’s nice to have our work legitimized, but mainly we’d just like to be left alone.”

Hoover—who says she became a dancer because the flexible hours allowed her to deal with the effects of bipolar disorder—kept fighting anyway.

“I figured I would stick my neck out,” she adds, “given I don’t have as much to risk as somebody who has been doing our job for years.”

When BOLI investigated a club where she worked in response to a complaint unrelated to the legislation, Hoover says her co-workers became angry and blamed her. She quit the next day.

She now dances elsewhere, and says she has no regrets.

“I wouldn’t go back and abstain from the process,” Hoover says. “I wouldn’t take back my testimony. I wouldn’t take back the time and energy I spent caring about this.”

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CITY HALL

NEWS W W S TA F F

REQUEST A RIDE officials he represents.

“I am neither under contract nor being paid,” he said, “by anyone at City Hall.”

He declined repeated requests by WW to disclose how much Uber was paying him,

BY BE T H S LOV I C bslovic@wweek.com claiming the terms of his nondisclosure agreement with the company didn’t allow it.

On Dec. 13, 2014, Mark Wiener hosted a Uber’s lobbying reports to the city show it Saturday détente at his Eastmoreland home has spent at least $62,000 lobbying City Hall between Mayor Charlie Hales and Uber, the during the first six months of 2015—far more ride-hailing company that had entered Port- than any other group has reported. land’s taxi market in defiance of City Hall.

Wiener’s dual role wasn’t against city Six days later, Wiener—a paid campaign rules. But Uber appears to have broken at consultant to a majority of the City Council, least one lobbying rule soon after hiring him. including Hales—signed a lobbying contract It didn’t report Wiener had acted as its with Uber. lobbyist until April 10—almost three months Wiener’s dual role as consultant and lob- after accurate lobbying statements for 2014 byist, reported last week by WW, played a key were due. That might be a violation of Portrole in winning Uber a much-coveted market land’s 2007 rules on lobbying, designed to in Portland. Now it’s raising questions about bring greater transparency to City Hall. the ease with which campaign consultants On April 21, 11 days after Uber reported can trade on their access to elected officials.

Wiener’s work as a lobbyist, Hales joined “There is an appearance of a conflict of City Commissioners Steve Novick and Dan interest,” says City Commissioner Nick Fish, Saltzman (also Wiener clients) in a conten“when someone who is representing a com- tious 3-2 vote to legalize Uber. pany like Uber also represents the person Portland City Auditor Mary Hull Cabalthey’re trying to influence.” lero tells WW she will investigate whether Fish, who doesn’t employ Wiener and Uber broke the city’s 2007 rules; the compawho voted against the April deal to allow ny has been warned about compliance with Uber and its competitor Lyft to operate those rules, she adds. Portland’s enforcement in Portland, says it’s unethical to allow system is triggered only by a complaint to the campaign consultants to lobby city offi- auditor. cials they helped elect. “I think the averUber says it didn’t break city rules age person would say there’s something because Wiener was giving the company wrong with that.” “strategic advice” in December, not lobbying But other city leaders don’t see a prob- for it. Portland, however, defines lobbying lem. Hales gave Wiener broadly to include time his blessing to accept spent preparing to commuUber’s money, both men “I THINK THE nicate with officials. have said.

Wiener hosted the Dec. Wiener, whose list AVERAGE 13 meeting in his dining of Democratic clients PERSON WOULD room eight days after Uber reads like a who’s who of defied city rules by running Oregon politics, is still SAY THERE’S cars here (“Drive,” WW, working for Uber. He SOMETHING Dec. 31, 2014). Hales, Novick told WW last week there and two Uber managers was no conflict because WRONG.” attended—and agreed the he wasn’t being paid —CITY COMMISSIONER city would reconsider its simultaneously by Uber NICK FISH taxi rules if Uber backed off. and the Portland elected P o r t l a n d ’s e l e c t e d

BEFORE IT DROVE INTO PORTLAND, UBER PICKED UP A POWERFUL LOBBYIST.

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officials are required to disclose all meetings with lobbyists on their calendars. But Novick’s December 2014 calendar makes no mention of the Dec. 13 meeting. The mayor’s calendar does not include the Dec. 13 meeting.

Last week, after WW reported Wiener’s dual role in Uber’s arrival, Hales told KATUTV there was nothing wrong with Wiener’s work for Uber and that he approved it.

WW asked Wiener why he sought the mayor’s permission. “I checked with Mayor Hales to ensure that my involvement would be potentially helpful and productive in forwarding good public policy,” Wiener said, “as Uber and the city tried to repair a relationship that had become very difficult.”

In 2010, Wiener told The Portland Mercury that he didn’t try to influence public policy. “I made a decision a long time ago that I would not be a lobbyist, and I’m not,” he said. “I help people get elected.”

Today, he says, “I don’t really think of

what I do in this regard as lobbying as it is classically defined.”

Debbie Aiona, a director with the League of Women Voters of Portland, says the public should be concerned about the issue.

“The issues these people are working on are important to all of us,” she says. “We want people working on them who don’t have conflicts of interest.”

Fish wants Portland to follow the lead of lawmakers in New York state who’ve also confronted the issue of campaign consultants acting as lobbyists. There, lawmakers have attempted to require consultants to report their activities under regulations similar to those for lobbyists.

Short of that, Fish thinks elected officials should make individual pledges not to let their own political consultant lobby them.

“That’s how you solve the problem,” he says. “It’s too much of a gray area, and at some level it just doesn’t look good.”

Beyond the Print

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GAMERFATE How a tiny Portland company got mixed up in gaming’s biggest controversy.

BY MATTHEW KOR FHAGE

The most controversial video game of 2013 didn’t feature a single gun. There were no prostitutes bloodily murdered, no spines pulled out through anyone’s throat, and no heaving animated bosoms.

The game takes place in an empty house in the Portland suburbs, and it features a young woman whose sister has disappeared. The action consists of picking up bits and pieces of a life: answeringmachine messages, diary entries, and a cassette tape of Heavens to Betsy, Corin Tucker’s first band. In part, the game is the coming-ofage story of a lesbian teen.

When they released Gone Home two years ago, Karla Zimonja and Steve Gaynor—co-founders of Portland’s Fullbright game company along with programmer Johnnemann Nordhagen—figured it might reach a small, niche audience.

“I had no idea anybody was going to care,” says Zimonja. “Obviously, it did not turn out that way.”

Gone Home was hailed in The New York Times as “the greatest

mkorfhage@wweek.com

video game love story ever told.” It landed on the top 10 list of seemingly every game publication in the country, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts named it the best debut game of the year.

And it ultimately sold more than 750,000 copies—enough to make it the greatest financial and critical success a Portland independent game had ever seen.

But with acclaim often comes contempt. On Reddit and Twitter, gamers declared Gone Home’s triumph a plot of “social justice warriors”—people bent on enforcing political correctness. The only way a game like this could get such positive reviews, some charged, was cronyism or political conspiracy.

Now, within the year, Fullbright will try to do it all again with a new game called Tacoma.

If Gone Home made the video game world take notice of Portland for the first time, a similar success with Tacoma could put Portland at the center of the gaming world—and maybe, just maybe, even change it.

CONT. on page 14

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#GAMER FATE CONT.

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Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

I have a fucking agenda.

I want to help even out some of the inequality.

—Karla Zimonja “I think when you live down in the Bay Area, coming to Portland is a dream that a lot of people have,” says Amy Dallas of Portland’s ClutchPlay Games (see “Five Portland Games You Should Play,” page 19), who worked on blockbuster game The Sims at pressure-cooker Electronic Arts in San Francisco. “One of the teams at our company literally didn’t have time to do laundry. So they were starting to smell. It was like, ‘Bring your laundry in on Saturdays!’”

Indeed, at digital business accelerator Oregon Story Board, program manager Krystal South says she gets a barrage of calls from out-of-state programmers who say they want to come to Portland to connect with local game makers. She refers them not to some large company, but often to Will Lewis’ Portland Indie Game Squad, a loose group of 40 to 100 passionate game makers who meet each week, running the gamut from tinkerers to dedicated obsessives.

“One of the challenges here in Portland,” says Dallas, “is there aren’t a lot of big shops. There are small one- to two-person shops, and people for whom games are their hobby, but not a lot of established shops.”

At $111 million annually, Oregon’s game industry is the eighth-largest in the country. But to put that number in perspective, that’s approximately the amount the mobile game Candy Crush scoops up every four months. Among our West Coast neighbors, Washington has an industry five times the size of Oregon’s, while California trumps us by a factor of 20.

In part, some believe it’s the lack of financial incentives.

Films and television shows made in Oregon can apply for money from a $10 million incentive fund, a figure Oregon Games Organization board member Lindsay Gupton—of Eugene’s Pipeworks studio—says is already “anemic” compared to funds in other states like Texas or Louisiana.

“Video games have access to only $500,000 of that,” he says. “You don’t get much bang out of that small little pool.”

Pipeworks has nonetheless landed subsidies on commissioned games like World Series of Poker: Full House Pro and a missile defense simulator designed for the U.S. Navy.

Still, money is tight, says Tim Williams, who heads the Oregon Governor’s Office of Film & Television. “We run out of our 10 million before the year even starts.”

OGO head Peter Lund, who also runs a gaming studio in Oregon City called SuperGenius, says companies like Fullbright point to a new middle ground in video games. “The big-budget games are the province of the triple-A studios,” Lund adds. “They’re feature-film size. And then we have this gold-rush market on the indie side.”

In movie terms, this means video games have long been either special-effects monsters that cost millions to make— games like Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty have teams of hundreds of people working notoriously long hours—or they’re Flappy Bird iPhone Sharknado-style schlock.

COURTESY GAME INFORMER

I

f you follow the money, video games are the largest entertainment industry in America.

They’re bigger than movies. And they’re bigger than music.

In 2013, Grand Theft Auto V banked $800 million in sales on its first day—the largest single-day haul for any form of art or entertainment in history.

Even with its more humble figure of 750,000 games sold to date, with revenues in the low millions, Gone Home still moved enough units to surpass every music album of 2014 except Beyoncé and the Frozen soundtrack.

Until very recently, huge “triple-A” game studios like Electronic Arts and Rockstar Games dominated the market. But according to Fullbright’s Gaynor and Zimonja, the doors have been kicked open.

Thanks to new programming tools, tiny companies like Fullbright can now make games of beautiful complexity. And because of digital marketplaces like Steam—kind of a macho Etsy for PC games, except it also sells major releases—they can reach their audience directly.

“Eight, 10, 12 people now can make something that it took 50 people to make 10 years ago,” says Gaynor at Fullbright’s central eastside office, a bare-bones train-car space with exposed brick and walls naked except for the awards it has won. There’s just enough room for the eight people who now work there.

“Ten years?” says Zimonja. “I’d say we couldn’t have done it even five years ago.”

Gaynor, 33—with his close-cropped beard, over-theeyebrow forelock and fondness for hoodies—looks like a lot of Portland, the sort of guy who used to put out video game zines at Reading Frenzy (title: The Journal of the Compugraphical Video Entertainment Medium) while taking too long to graduate from art school at Portland State.

The turn-of-the-millennium, indie-rock Portland of Gone Home was built in part from his own experience.

Gaynor is an unlikely source of controversy. Even simple questions lead to amiable nests of abstraction.

“We’re very interested in feminist utopias,” he says, when asked why he considers Portland author Ursula K. Le Guin one of his influences. “We’re thinking about how societies function in imagined technological settings.”

When they talk about their company, he and Zimonja— a 10-year veteran of game design who dresses and looks a bit like an adult version of Winona Ryder’s character in Beetlejuice—tend to speak in overlapping rhythms borne of long familiarity.

But while Gaynor is more likely to talk about theories of game design, Zimonja tends to talk about the people who play the game—the responsibility she feels toward the audience that Gone Home built among “people who don’t fit the profile” of gamers.

“Steve doesn’t have an agenda,” she told a British gaming blog in 2014. “I have a fucking agenda. I want to help even out some of the inequality.” In the video game industry, the demographics skew drastically male. At Fullbright, women make up the majority.

Zimonja and Gaynor originally worked together at one of the biggest game companies in the world, 2K, making the hugely popular first-person-shooter franchise Bioshock. But after working on huge teams—where one person’s job might be to animate characters’ hair for 10 years—they detoured into a Bioshock side project called Minerva’s Den. “We got to work on this small project, just 11 or 12 people, and it ended up being a completely different style of game development,” says Zimonja.

In 2012, when Gaynor got the notion to make a different kind of game all on his own—in a place that doesn’t cost as much to live as San Francisco or Boston—he knew just where to go. He came back to his wife Rachel Jacks’ hometown of Portland, where he’d gone to school.

“He called me up and said, ‘Hey, you want to move to Portland?’” Zimonja remembers.

“And I said, ‘You know what? I kind of do.’”

HALF OF FULLBRIGHT: (From left) Karla Zimonja, Steve Gaynor, Tynan Wales and Nina Freeman. Freeman has also designed a number of autobiographical games, including one called Freshman Year, which explores unwanted attention paid to new college students.

CONT.

#GAMER FATE

ZOE QUINN

PICTURE THIS: In Fullbright’s Gone Home, the player advances the story by finding artifacts of a family’s life.

But with the new tools used by companies like Fullbright, that middle market has opened back up to tiny shops—leaving a craft game scene much like the early indie movies of Gus Van Sant, niche bands like Menomena or the Thermals, and craft breweries like Upright or Breakside. It’s the Portland aesthetic in video game form, and it’s become an attractive draw to game makers from more established companies elsewhere.

“Oregon companies have the same love of craft quality,” says Lund, whose company SuperGenius offers custom animations and development for games like The Walking Dead and Marvel: Contest of Champions.

attention to objects placed in the house.

Early reviewers were stunned and pleased to find a tampon—treated not as a joke but as something that exists in spaces where women live.

Gone Home is an emotional, immersive experience. When it came out, Gaynor said he received an outpouring of emails from people who said the game had moved them.

But it still feels a little like a shooting game, in the sense that there’s a constant sense of foreboding with each footstep.

The game is also shot through with Portland. When you hear a character talking about a captivating young woman named

“I think when you live down in the Bay Area, coming to Portland is a dream that a lot of people have.”

—Amy Dallas, ClutchPlay Games “They’re craft studios, with a good commercial product, but dedicated to making it in a way that feels good.”

That’s what Fullbright is to Lund. “I think they represent exactly the type of game we’d like to see more of in Oregon,” he says. “These beautiful, narrative-driven, artistically brilliant games that are not hugebudget things.”

When Fullbright made Gone Home, there were only four people—not enough to program the complex animations and physics required for a combat game. And so, in the absence of gunplay, they focused on telling a story.

Without the distractions of gunshots and puzzles, they focused on creating a narrative not just with words, but by paying careful

Lonnie, the voice you’re hearing is that of Sarah Grayson, who works at Dark Horse Comics in Milwaukie. Zines litter the house.

Lonnie’s band is played by defunct Portland foursome the Youngins, whose lead singer Zimonja and Gaynor met at a riot grrrl festival at shuttered all-ages venue Slabtown.

But the very qualities that made Gone Home such a hit—its lack of traditional gameplay and dedication to telling a story, not to mention its arty, somewhat emo vibe—made it a flashpoint for hardcore gamers angry at anything that challenged the primacy of big game studios and gun games. It was part of a phenomenon that eventually came to be known as GamerGate (see “GamerGate Revisited,” this page).

GamerGate is the biggest shitstorm ever to swirl around the video game industry.

The word for the “scandal” was coined from a Twitter hashtag created in August 2014—by actor and professional angry man Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Chuck)—after a guy named Eron Gjoni blogged about his ex-girlfriend, celebrated indie game maker Zoe Quinn, accusing her of cheating on him. Specifically, he wrote that she slept with a reviewer at gamer blog Kotaku, in return for a good review of her interactive story game Depression Quest.

The claims were false: The critic had never reviewed her game, and never mentioned her name online after the two met. But the controversy still raged, and Quinn was subjected to a merciless campaign of harassment by an Internet mob that included hacking into her online accounts and a battery of death and rape threats.

(Zoe Quinn will speak at TechfestNW on Aug. 20.)

The other most famous target of GamerGate, feminist media critic Anita Sarkeesian, had been receiving threats since late 2012, after raising funds on Kickstarter for a series of feminist videos on YouTube called Tropes vs.

Women in Video Games. By the time GamerGate was in full swing, the threats were so violent Sarkeesian felt unsafe to stay in her own home.

The more toxic the verbal attacks on women, the more loudly GamerGate followers asserted the real issue was journalistic ethics.

Reddit and 4chan message boards filled with enough alternating bile and self-righteousness that “ethics in video game journalism” became a jokey euphemism—alongside the fedora and neck beard— for men’s rights activism.

This was the climate that was forming when Fullbright’s Gone Home emerged in late 2013, at the beginning of what The New York Times called an “inchoate but effective online movement” rife with “latent racism, homophobia and misogyny.”

Reviewers who liked Gone Home were accused of cronyism or promoting a “gay agenda.” Commenters stalked Twitter and podcast appearances by Fullbright co-founder Steve Gaynor, seeking evidence of conspiracy.

Gaynor says neither he nor the company received threats.

But he says one particularly unhinged comment about Gone Home still sticks in his memory: “THIS GAME IS A FRAUD AND A CONSPIRACY.” “It becomes much less hilarious,” says Gaynor, “when you realize this gained enough critical mass to be hurtful to a lot of people six months later.”

ANITA SARKEESIAN

CONT. on page 17 Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

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Sept 13 • Star theater • 9pM • 21+

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Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

CONT.

#GAMER FATE

This has made the release of Fullbright’s next game, Tacoma, kind of a big deal—not only for Fullbright, but for gaming at large.

Fullbright announced its new game in December 2014, with a trailer showing a woman nervously arriving at a space station. Immediately, a commenter on the popular Gamespot site wrote, “Gone Home in space? That’s easy.

All the crew members have ran away with their [gay] love interest.”

“Really now, Rainbow coloured characters?” wrote another. “They’re certainly not subtle regarding the social agenda they’re trying to push.”

But in other corners of the Internet, anticipation is high for Tacoma. Game Informer, the magazine with the fourth-largest circulation in America—behind only

COURTESY FULLBRIGHT STUDIOS

Specifically, gamers pointed to a review by gaming site Polygon that gave Gone Home a rare perfect score of 10. “If all goes well,” declared the accompanying article on the website, “this title will put The Fullbright Company, and the Portland game scene, on the map.”

Commenters tracked Gaynor in an attempt to prove he was friends with the reviewer—Gaynor, for his part, says he hadn’t met her before she wrote the review. Subreddit posts proliferated, with titles like “More Corruption at Polygon: Gone Home Nepotism Worse Than We Thought,” and threads on popular site Gamespot dissected the “gay agenda” of reviewers on various game sites. Obsessives posted diagrams of purported complicity between Gone Home’s makers and reviewers that looked like something from the walls of an FBI nerve center (see image below).

Meanwhile, the Dorkly website circulated a fake game trailer for a sequel called “Gun Home,” promising “three gut-wrenching floors of high-octane introspection,” fighting 12 types of enemies who “impede your sister’s personal journey.”

PURPLE NURPLE: A screenshot from Tacoma, which will include ghostlike holograms re-enacting past events.

two AARP publications and Better Homes and Gardens, according to the Alliance for Audited Media—has devoted 10 breathless pages in its August issue to Gone Home’s follow-up. When Gaynor introduced Tacoma on the Microsoft stage at the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles in June, 3 million people watched the presentation online.

Tacoma will be similar to Gone Home in certain ways.

It’s a story exploration game without fighting elements:

A lone traveler arrives in an abandoned place, and must discover what has happened.

This time, the abandoned place is a floating space station in the year 2088 named Tacoma. Like its namesake city, the orbiting station is a little lived-in. Amid skeletal tubes and rooftop gardens with plants growing upside down, there are slightly depressing toilet stalls and little cups of udon noodles, dust hanging everywhere in CONT. on page 19

CONSPIRACY THEORY: A very dedicated gamer made a meme to demonstrate that Fullbright’s game Gone Home did not deserve a 10/10 game review.

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

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TechfestNW Steve Brown

Possibility and Purpose

Latoya Peterson Racialicious

Ryan Grepper Coolest

Brittany Laughlin

Union Square Ventures

John Markoff & G. Pascal Zachary

New York Times & Arizona State University

Rian Van Der Mewe Jive Software

Dave Sanders Zoom+

Vidya Spandana Popily

Lauren Terry & Mowlgi Holmes

Jonathan Evans

Thomas Hayden, Justin Moravetz, Gabe Paez.

Moderator: Rachel Metz

Ryan Fink, Milos Jovanovic, Raven Zachary. Moderator Rachel Metz.

360 Labs, Zero Transform, Wild, & MIT Technology Review

OnTheGo Platforms, Spaceview, Object Theory, & MIT Technology Review

Zoe Quinn

Corey Pein

Clark James

Jesse Schell

Weed Columnist & Phylos Bioscience

Crash Override Network

HiveFX

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FRIDAY, AUGUST

T H U R S DAY, AUGUST

August 20-21 • Revolution Hall • techfestnw.com

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Skyward

Laborize

Schell Games

CONT.

the air. But instead of moving only through 2-D space, players can swap between the floor and the ceiling while walking with magnetic boots. And rather just read notes, they get to watch full-scale holographic re-enactments of past events.

Gone Home was “a process of removing as much as you can and still having something interesting,” says Gaynor. “It was, ‘What’s the simplest thing we can make?’ Now we’re adding complexity onto that.”

Zimonja and Gaynor say they’ve seen the game industry change after Gone Home’s success—with story games like The Vanishing of Ethan Carter on PlayStation 4, for example, which may never have gotten a publisher’s backing previously, sort of like the countless teen vampire books published after Twilight.

Lund believes Gone Home’s achievement can lead to a change in the Portland game industry as well. Fullbright has also become the face of Portland games to the outside world—in part because Gone Home’s Portland setting makes the city another character in the game.

“Most people don’t know where a video game was made,” says Lund. “There’s no sense that

We all showed up in this place to do things our way.”

GAME INFORMER

—Steve Gaynor

something came from Portland.” But with Gone Home and the upcoming Tacoma, that’s the first thing everyone knows. Portland is front and center, both in the game and in the press surrounding it.

In a small gaming scene like Portland’s, says local startup guru Rick Turoczy, a company like Fullbright is pivotal to building an industry.

“It’s like Puppetlabs among tech startups,” he says. “One company becomes a lightning rod or spokesperson to demonstrate that those types of companies can be successful in Portland.

That motivates other founders in town, but also attracts investment, it draws out other experts who may already be here. Portland is a town that’s very good at hiding.”

Gaynor believes Fullbright’s success with Gone Home—and, he hopes, Tacoma—will encourage more nontraditional games, like the tiny craft games being made in Portland.

“It’s a stark contrast between Portland and the Bay Area,” says Gaynor. “We all showed up in this place to do things our way, be free of publisher oversight. This is the place that’s letting us do it.”

#GAMER FATE

MONSTERS ATE MY BIRTHDAY CAKE

(SleepNinja Games) An outgrowth of Will Lewis’ Portland Indie Game Squad, Monsters Ate My Birthday Cake is a tribute to the golden age of Super Nintendo games. This action puzzler was picked up by Cartoon Network before it was even finished. On a quest to retrieve all the pieces of his birthday cake, a kid in a ridiculous Adventure Time outfit teams with a pack of cute, little monsters—each with a special power. $4.99 at the App Store and Google Play.

MAYDAY! DEEP SPACE (Mountain Machine Studios) Sci-fi author, roboticist and polymath Daniel H. Wilson is apparently obsessed with voice-controlled apparatus—this is a highconcept, voice-controlonly game written by Wilson and programmed by the five-dude team at Mountain Machine.

You are answering a mayday call from the USS Appaloosa, and must guide a doomed little guy to safety using only the sound of your voice. “Run left! Keep going!” Meanwhile, the story grows more and more complex. I am a mumbler, which made this game difficult for strictly technical reasons; but anecdotally, one guy’s grandma beat the game with no difficulty, while the experienced gamer wallowed. This is one of the most innovative games released in 2014. $2.99 at the App Store; iOS only.

UMBILICUS: DESCENT TEAM DELTA

(PIGSquad) Every month, the Portland Indie Game Squad conducts 48-hour-game jams, in which teams of game makers undergo a marathon stretch to create games that are usually simple but often experimental. When asked to pick his favorites of the past three years, PIGSquad organizer Will Lewis first thought of Umbilicus: Descent Team Delta. It is a four-player cooperative game in which each player is tethered to the others as astronauts falling down a seemingly bottomless pit. If one dies, they all die. It is either a civics lesson, or instruction on the impossibility of civics. Free; globalgamejam.org.

SKULLDUGGERY! (ClutchPlay Games) ClutchPlay producer Amy Dallas is not a heartless sadist bent on crushing the human spirit. I feel the need to point this out, having spent hours inventing new ways to cuss (“Why don’t you—feh! Gawd-cunfuh-shi-fuckfuckfuck…”) while playing ClutchPlay’s Skullduggery!, an ingeniously maddening little mobile game that requires propelling around a broken skull using its own brain as a slingshot.

Every bit as much as Angry Birds, it taxes the reward centers of the brain into apoplectic submission. $2.99 at the App Store; free at Google Play, $2.99 to remove ads.

XO (Jumpdrive Studios) This computer game is still being made—due out next year—but it’s already the game in Portland that indie developers will tell you they’re the most excited about. You play a version of Commander Adama in Battlestar Galactica, head of a doomed space fleet constantly on the run from a nameless, implacable foe who far outclasses you while people under your command turn on you in political intrigues. The game’s demo—drawn in old-school, Tron-style vector graphics—is already compelling to play. Available in 2016.

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FOOD: Death to Yelp.

MUSIC: The best N.W.A. affiliates.

MOVIES: Scenes that should be in Straight Outta Compton.

WEED: The Chronic.

25 27 46 51

SCOOP CHRISTOPHER ONSTOTT

YOU ARE NOW ABOUT TO WITNESS THE STRENGTH...

HATE THE GAME: The Oregon Liquor Control Commission has finally made a ruling on giving away weed in bars, at least as it concerns the Analog Cafe & Theater’s Marijuana Mondays. It’s totally cool, as long as no weed is consumed on premises and you don’t charge a cover.

But while giveaways of midshelf weed will continue, the Analog will be discontinuing its raffles for high-end specialty flower. “Because the Analog has lottery coming in we can no longer allow the FREE Raffle,” the bar wrote on Facebook. “This is a grey area. We were told it’s most likely legal because it’s free, but we don’t want to chance it.” So, to recap: You may give away weed in a bar, but you may not raffle off weed in a bar that has lottery machines.

OPEN ZIPPER: Portland now has two things it never knew it wanted but apparently really, really does: a vegan cheese shop and a bone broth bar. Goose Hollow’s new Vtopian Artisan Cheeses (1628 SW Jefferson St.) cultures peppercorn brie and caramelized onion Camembert from cashews. “We do make a cheese with almonds,” says a Vtopia staffer, “but we’re out. Our feta is tofu-based.” Meanwhile, patrons lined up at the Aug. 5 opening of Broth Bar (115 NE 6th Ave.) to get free samples of what is essentially long-steeping soup stock served in a cup. “Bone Broth belongs to the everyday person and everyday experience,” wrote co-owner Tressa Yellig.

“It’s not just a snack, it’s a lifestyle.” >> In less nichey news, the Zipper is finally open. Bywater Grocery, ChickPeaDX and Slice Pizza are all serving customers in the new micro-restaurant pod at Northeast Sandy Boulevard and 28th Avenue.

VANCOUVER IS 2 DAMNED HIGH: Turns out Vancouver really is Portland’s favorite suburb. With Portland apartment vacancy rates among the lowest in the nation and rents skyrocketing—the average rent for a two-bedroom hit $1,550 this month—a study by rental site apartmentlist.com shows the city with the nation’s highest rent increase is…Vancouver, Wash. Rents there jumped 9.8 percent from July 2014 to July 2015. Welcome to the big leagues, little buddies!

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Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

FAC E B O O K / V TO P I A S H O P

SUDSWOOD: Things move a little slower down in Sellwood.

While the rest of the eastside is awash in beer theaters, Sellwoodies have had to travel for a brew and a second-run flick. No longer, thanks to the Moreland Theater on Southeast Milwaukie Avenue. The 1926 vintage theater will add draft beer to its menu as soon as the OLCC approves its application for a liquor license, owner Chuck Nakvasil says. He’s no newbie to the cinema scene—the octogenarian from Scappoose owns a number of other wet and dry theaters in the Portland area, including CineMagic on Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, Canby Cinema 8, Scappoose Cinema 7 and Madras Cinema 5. “I’m not going to try to tell you what Oregonians want,” Nakvasil says, “but one of those things is drinking.”

HEADOUT

WILLAMETTE WEEK

WHAT TO DO THIS WEEK IN ARTS & CULTURE

WHEN WAS OLD PORTLAND BORN AND WHEN DID IT DIE? Old Portland is dead.

We know this for many reasons, including the fact that a local theater group is staging a funeral for it this weekend. What we don’t know is exactly when it was born, or when it took its last coughing gasp of breath.

Keep in mind: When people talk about Old Portland, they mean a sliver of time. It wasn’t when people here were dying of dysentery, or when it was illegal for black people to step foot on Oregon soil, or when the city’s mayor

was rolling out the red carpet for the Ku Klux Klan.

Rather, the birth of the “Old Portland” people loved so well seems to have happened sometime after the early 1970s, when the first big wave of transplants from California and loud people with hard vowels began arriving, pulling the region from redneckery. That era appears to have ended roughly when a second wave of those people came and filled up the existing housing supply, causing the city to

become unaffordable for an existing population that didn’t have the foresight to purchase inexpensive real estate while it was available.

But wouldn’t it be nice to have more specific dates? Of course. So, as Portland’s newspaper of record on subjects of cultural epochs, we are conducting a poll to officially determine the birth and death dates of Old Portland. The choices are below. You can vote at wweek.com/OldPortlandIsDead.

WEDNESDAY AUG. 12 SYNESTHETICA: AN EVENING CURATED BY RADIATION CITY [MULTIMEDIA CURATION] Don’t let the theme of this multidiscipline showcase—“transformation, evolution, and rebirth”—dissuade you. You’d be hardpressed to find a Portland band with better taste than Radiation City, and it’s put together a night of hip-hop (Vinnie Dewayne), synth-pop (Wishyunu), dance, poetry and film that’s guaranteed fun. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 239-7639. 8 pm. $7. 21+.

THURSDAY AUG. 13

BUD “EXPOSE YOURSELF TO ART” CLARK ELECTED MAYOR

CHARLIE “DJ SAD EYEZ” HALES ELECTED MAYOR He makes everything developable!

He makes everything wacky!

PORTLAND P PALACE DOESN’T OPEN

SATYRICON OPENS

Voodoo Doughnut owner Tres Shannon’s dream of turning an old car dealership into “a nightlife nirvana where all the offerings—from putt-putt golf to pool to PBR—would begin with the letter ‘P’” is thwarted by newfangled seismic codes.

The former poetry bar becomes one of the most celebrated rock clubs on the West Coast and a rite of passage for bands from Nirvana to the White Stripes.

FRED ASKS CARRIE TO HELP MAKE JOKES ABOUT ORGANIC PRODUCE AND ARTISANAL LIGHT BULBS

FRED ASKS TOODY TO PLAY BASS IN HIS NEW PUNK BAND Dead Moon forms and influences generations of DIY musicians in the Northwest.

Portlandia debuts on IFC, and now it’s all anyone asks about when you go home for the holidays.

LUKE AND JESS CHILLAX AT GROWLER HOUR

BOB AND DIANNE SCORE A BUNCHA BLUES The Drugstore Cowboy lovebirds rob the old Nob Hill Pharmacy. America falls in love with these scrappy kids and the weird little city they call home.

Burnside 26 power couple hang out drinking gluten-free booze at sky lounge, the patio atop their swanky apartment building.

PLUG AND PINOT [WINE] The Plug and Pinot pop-up combines a wine tasting with an electric-car test drive—just not necessarily in that order. The makers of the Kia Soul EV apparently believe that wine drinkers would like to buy their car, a sponsorship that makes the nine-winery tasting a mere $15, or free with a test drive. Jacobsen Salt Co., 602 SE Salmon St., 473-3952, plugandpinot. com. 5:30-8:30 pm.

FRIDAY AUG. 14 ART IN THE DARK [CIRCUS IN THE PARK] Every August, A-WOL Dance Collective fills Mary S. Young Park with its weird midsummer night’s circus act of aerialists swinging from trees and winding walkways to fortune tellers. It’s like Narnia plopped itself off Oregon 43. Mary S. Young Park, 19900 Willamette Drive, West Linn, awoldance.org. 8:30 pm. $20-$33.

SATURDAY AUG. 15 ADULT SOAPBOX DERBY [HOT DOGS ON WHEELS] The only difference between beer-swilling spectators and the 40-plus teams contending for bragging rights at the 19th annual Derby is what’s under their drunk asses. Steep courses and papiermâché floats taking sharp Tabor curves mean racers often end up thrown to the sidelines. One guy has been perfecting his ergonomic, penis-shaped soapbox all year long. Mt. Tabor Park, Southeast Salmon Way, soapboxracer. com. 10 am-4 pm. Free.

SUNDAY AUG. 16 NO-CONE THURSDAY AT A CRIME SCENE FREE PBR THURSDAYS EJ’s, a strip club-turned-rock club, offers free PBR for two hours on Thursdays.

Because it’s free, people drink it without noticing it tastes terrible. It somehow becomes the most popular beer in town.

Salt & Straw is forced to close for a few hours after a shooting during Last Thursday. Disappointed ice-cream lovers snap selfies near yellow tape. “That’s not what I wanted when I opened an icecream shop,” the tearful owner told The Oregonian.

Vote for when Old Portland was born and died on wweek.com and be entered to win a dozen Voodoo doughnuts, a case of PBR, three highly collectable editions of The Portland Mercury, and a “Stop Demolishing Portland” sign stolen from the yard of a million-dollar home owned by someone who doesn’t want to share a street with grubby apartment people!

JENNY LEWIS [GOLD DUST WOMAN] To her already impressive résumé, the former Rilo Kiley member adds The Voyager, a lush, Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac simulacrum, with Lewis as Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s production duties handled by Ryan Adams and Beck. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047. 9 pm. $22 advance, $25 day of show. All ages.

TUESDAY AUG. 18 SCIENCE PUB [SCIENCE!] Drink and eat and learn about the “alien organ” inside your body—all those microbes and such— from Hernan Lorenzi of the J. Craig Venter Institute. OMSI, 1945 SE Water Ave., 797-4000. 7-9 pm. $5 suggested donation.

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

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Shandong www.shandongportland.com

Shandong = WW Pick.

REVIEW EMMA BROWNE

I

FOOD & DRINK

Highly recommended.

By MATTHEW KORFHAGE. www.shandongportland.com

Editor: MARTIN CIZMAR. Email: dish@ wweek.com. See page 3 for submission instructions.

THURSDAY, AUG. 13 Plug and Pinot Pop-up

In one of the odder pairings to stroll by recently, the Plug and Pinot pop-up combines a wine tasting with an electric-car test drive—just not necessarily in that order. The makers of the Kia Soul EV apparently believe that wine drinkers would like to buy their car, a sponsorship that makes the nine-winery tasting a mere $15, or free with a test drive. Jacobsen Salt Co., 602 SE Salmon St., 473-3952. 5:30-8:30 pm. $15.

Steven Shomler, Portland Beer Stories

Writer Steven Shomler has collected Portland brewers’ origin stories in his new book, Portland Beer Stories.

He’ll read at Powell’s. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.

SUNDAY, AUG. 16 Mighty Mites Session Fest

Session beers and ciders: sort of family-friendly, we guess? Especially when you drink like 12, among them Oakshire’s cucumber BerlinerWeisse, an 4.1-percent ABV Upright Lite, and a pink peppercorn saison from the Commons. Outside Bazi Bierbrasserie, 1522 SE 32nd Ave., 234-8888. 11 am-7 pm. $10 for a cup and four 7-ounce tastes. All ages.

Brittany Brunch

Jaret Foster of Oyster Social and Foster’s Craft Cooking will join chef Kristen Murray at Maurice for a Brittany brunch with kouignamann, half-shell oysters, galettes and a provincial fish stew, plus even more pastries and dessert. Tickets at brownpapertickets.com. Maurice, 921 SW Oak St., 224-9921. Seatings 10 am and 12:30 pm. $38.

Where to eat this week.

1. Doi Dua 6 SE 28th Ave. (inside PaaDee), 352-239-1586, doidua-popup.com.

5:30-10 pm Monday only.

An excellent $55 Vietnamese prix fixe with awe-inspiring diversity and balance of flavor. But it’s on Mondays only. Call for reservatons. $$$$.

2. Kotori Southeast 9th Avenue and Pine Street, 239-8830, biwarestaurant.com.

This Biwa outdoor yakitori grill is here Thursday-Sunday evening, all summer long. $.

3. Mediterranean Exploration Company 333 NW 13th Ave., 222-0906, mediterraneanexplorationcompany.com.

Even the basics, like pita and hummus, are extraordinary. $$$.

4. Eb & Bean 1425 NE Broadway, 281-6081, ebandbean.com.

Eb & Bean’s frogurt is still worth the wait for its bourbon sauce— the best topping for frozen dessert in town. $.

5. Pure Spice 2446 SE 87th Ave., 772-1808, purespicerestaurant.com.

Pure Spice’s new Asian wings are among the best in town, with a beautifully crisp rice batter. $.

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Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

HA HA

HA BY ANY OTHER NAME: Peppery pork ball soup at Rose VL.

Ha & VL is like a Vietnamese version of the Soup Nazi on Seinfeld, except when they say, “No soup for you,” they apologize. The tiny shop serves two different soups each day except Tuesday (never Tuesday!), with the regularity of a prime-time network TV schedule only occasionally interrupted by special programming.

Order this: Fish noodle (or tom yum) But without fail, they always Monday, bamboo shoots chicken run out of soup too soon. noodle Wednesday, crab flakes noodle Thursday, peppery pork ball Friday, Weekends you’re guaranteed Vietnamese turmeric noodle Saturday, to be out of luck by noon.

VL special noodle Sunday.

Well, now you just have to wait until 4 pm.

Founding Ha & VL owners Ha “Christina” Luu and William Vuong passed off their Southeast 82nd Avenue soup spot to Christina’s son Peter a few years back, but they’ve come out of retirement to open Rose VL, a Southeast Powell Boulevard installment that—for now—is a lot like an intensely friendly, scrambled-up version of the original.

Instead of soup for breakfast, it’s dinner (all $9.50). And instead of Saturday, their signature pork pepper balls show up on Friday. Turmeric noodles, meanwhile, have been bumped from Sunday to Saturday.

But the new spot is also intended to give Luu a little room to play. And so the occasional lucky customers will get options on hearty Vietnamese stews—though I’ve not seen them yet—and on a recent Monday, Luu swapped out her fish noodle soup for a take on Thai-spot mainstay tom yum.

It was plush heaven, floral and delicate and restrained—a far cry from the usual amped-up lemongrass-galangal flavor bomb— its tomatoes lightly cooking richness into the heat of the broth.

This delicacy and brightness is Luu’s trademark in all her soups.

Just as Vuong meticulously blends four different local coffee beans to make his Vietnamese coffee just so, Luu’s soups don’t announce themselves loudly but rather whisper their way across the palate.

The fullness of flavor comes not from intensity but that rarest of things, balance. They are like no others in town.

My favorite at the new spot is perhaps the lightest and humblest of them all: Wednesday’s chicken noodle with bamboo shoots, rich with marrow and undercut by the slightest hint of earthy herb.

Although as it matured in the bowl—with cuts of flank leaching thickly into the broth—the spicy beef noodle on the same day likewise deepened into a hearthlike warmth. I didn’t go as much for Monday’s fishcake—sure, it’s a little wharfy for a Western palate.

But what I enjoy most about the VLs is that the Western palate isn’t even in consideration. Nothing is oversweetened, nothing overspiced or -salted.

“I made the best one just for you,” Luu said as she handed soup across—too late in the evening for it even to be courteous of me to place the order. I bet she says it to everyone, but I believed her.

MATTHEW KORFHAGE. EAT: Rose VL, 6424 SE Powell Blvd., 206-4344. 4-9 pm Wednesday-Monday.

JAHN ALEXANDER TEETSOV

FOOD & DRINK

THAT IS ALL

WHY I HOPE YELP’S “DEATH SPIRAL” ENDS SOMEWHERE NEAR MYSPACE. Dear Yelp, How’s it going? Ya hangin’ in there, buddy? I’ve been hearing all sorts of terrible things about you on the Internet—you’re in a “death spiral,” according to Forbes—and I just wanted you to know that I’ve been there. Well, sort of. I’ll never feel the pain of my stock price cratering by 75 percent in a little over a year, nor have I been the subject of a forthcoming documentary about what an unrepentant dick I am that raised $60,000 on Kickstarter in just 11 days. But I do know what it’s like to have strangers talk trash about me and the various places at which I’ve been employed.

You know how I know? Because you’ve given them a platform, and for that reason I no longer give two shits about what happens to you and your glorified comment board for mouth-breathing tourists with too much time on their hands.

Don’t get me wrong—we’ve had some good times. Remember the time you helped me find a gas station with a semifunctioning espresso machine in the forsaken wasteland of southern Wyoming? Or that time in Topeka, Kan., when you helped me find the Westboro Baptist Church so I could leave a rainbow-colored dildo in the yard? All top-notch experiences made possible by you doing what you do best, which is providing location-based guidance to the best stuff around.

It’s no surprise your services make you worth $3.5 billion, but I can’t help but wonder why you’ve let yourself degenerate into a billionaire broker of anonymous shit-talking?

You’re probably wondering why I am choosing to remain anonymous in this correspondence.

Though I agree the shroud of anonymity brings out the absolute worst in people—with the comments section of this very article likely being a prime example—my job is already hard enough without incredulous Yelpers attaching a face to the cold, hard truth of why they’re completely out of place in Portland. I’m a member of the service industry, you see.

Although my employers have grown to understand the process by which irate customers shake them down for gift cards from the comfort of the Internet because my music was too loud or the air conditioning was too cold—instead of just saying something like a reasonable human being—the

idea of arming yokels who still use AOL email accounts with the ability to get me fired because I didn’t apologize for not having free refills on soup like their favorite joint back home is both terrifying and infuriating.

Though this fine city swells with pride every time its restaurants are praised among elite foodies and parachute journalists, people can’t help but glom on to the idea that our five-star cuisine is sullied by two-star “hipster service,” as your legions of Elites and Scouts and Ninjas and whatever the fuck other titles you assign to your unpaid staff of writers love to point out.

While doughy doofuses with iPhones clipped to their Haggars love to run around this hipster theme park of a city we’ve found ourselves living in, they act surprised when they approach the bar or counter of a place in the middle of Yelp’s “hipster heat map” and the young lady with the tattoos and the septum ring behind the counter—germane details to reviews of their “Portland experience”— informs them the water is self-serve and their toddler has to go because of OLCC requirements.

“She gave me a look when I asked for the Wi-Fi password!” Steve from Walnut Creek, Calif., will say. Well, no shit, Steve, you’re at a bar.

“The wait was 45 minutes! They made me wait outside!” says Heidi from Battle Creek, Mich. At Screen Door, on a Sunday? You don’t say!

I admit, I’ve had some terrible service while living here. I once waited 20 minutes at an outdoor table in 97-degree heat before being acknowledged by a server at a James Beard Award-winning restaurant. But rather than help fuel your extortion racket, I just wrote an email to management telling them exactly what happened. That worked out very well.

I was already inclined to find rather dubious any site that folks use to rate the Lloyd District Applebee’s. The fact that you hired an inside man in D.C. to lobby for a changes in libel law that will protect said users from being sued by the restaurants they lambast for the dumbest of reasons gives me little reason anymore to believe what you’re offering is doing more good than harm. So the next time I find myself in the hinterlands of rural America, I’ll use Google Maps to find myself a decent cup of coffee or a place to grab a bite to eat. There were good times, Yelp, but I just can’t trust you anymore.

That is all.

The author of this piece is a veteran member of the Portland service industry who was granted anonymity so as to not be bullied by Elite Yelpers looking for free gift cards.

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

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Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

AUG. 12–18 FEATURE

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

COURTESY OF MC REN

MUSIC

Prices listed are sometimes for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and socalled convenience charges may apply. Event lineups are subject to change after WW’s press deadlines.

Editor: MATTHEW SINGER. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, go to wweek.com/ submitevents and follow submission directions. All shows should be submitted two weeks or more in advance of event. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Please include show or release date information with all physical mailings. Email: msinger@wweek.com.

Fax: 243-1115.

WEDNESDAY, AUG. 12 Dawes, James Vincent McMorrow

[DAD ROCK] There’s a classic Seinfeld scene in which some shlub Elaine is dating has a soggy moment in a car when “Desperado” comes on the radio. Any track from Dawes’ latest record, All Your Favorite Bands, would do perfectly if you put the scene on mute. The Laurel Canyon quartet has managed to distill the golden era of L.A.’s Hollywood Hills into nine tracks of sensitive cowboy rock that even the newest of newcomers to Wilco and Calexico would find a bit too worn-in.

Still, no modern midlifer’s wardrobe is complete without a dusty, old pair of Wranglers, and Dawes’ endless harmonizing fits exactly as such. PETE COTTELL. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 225-0047. 8 pm. $22 advance, $24 day of show. All ages.

The Dread Crew of Oddwood, Rainbowdragoneyes

[SHANTY-DROPPERS] A generation ago, when pirates seemed no more likely an ascendant cultural trope than chevaliers or fur trappers, the last great wave of rock-’n’roll frontmen wasn’t worlds apart in dress or demeanor. The Dread Crew of Oddwood has certainly mastered the stagecraft of our most lustful arena rockers, but given an instrumental array more befitting steampunk troupes (toy piano, tin whistle, steel pans) and a Celtic-tinged style it has dubbed “Heavy Mahogany” (after its 2012 crowdfunded album of the same

TOP

5

TOP FIVE N.W.A. AFFILIATES

name), the San Diego sextet ravages metal bills and Renaissance festivals alike. JAY HORTON. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 345-7892. 9 pm. $10. 21+.

Synesthetica: An Evening Curated by Radiation City, featuring Vinnie Dewayne, Wishyunu, Radiation City DJs, DJ Dan Lurie, Michael Harper, Erik Hoofnagle

[CURATION] You’d be hard-pressed to find a Portland band with better taste than Radiation City, so this evening of art and music curated by the band should prove special. Vinnie Dewayne may be the finest storyteller in Portland hip-hop, as illustrated by his long-awaited, new full-length, The St. Johns Scholar, and Wishyunu makes sexy beep-boop jams that feel like swimming in the ocean. Speaking of sexy, Dan Lurie is a handsome fella, and there’s a lot of skin and glitter on the menu with the House of Aquarius dance crew. Then there’s poetry, film and storytelling, all on the theme of “transformation, evolution, and rebirth.” Which might sound a little arty-farty for your taste if you’re a pleb like me, but I guarantee that this is going to be fun. CASEY JARMAN. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 2397639. 8 pm. $7. 21+.

Robin Bacior, Sara JacksonHolman, Johanna Warren

[SINGER-SONGWRITER] Teeth falling out, going naked in public, forgetting

CONT. on page 30

ARABIAN PRINCE (foreground)

Arabian Prince If Ren was Ringo, Arabian Prince was N.W.A.’s Pete Best. An original member of the Felonious Five, he got squeezed out prior to Straight Outta Compton blowing up. But his electro-funk production has its admirers.

The D.O.C. Maybe rap’s most famous ghostwriter, his credits are all over every N.W.A. release (including “Fuck tha Police”), not to mention The Chronic. His Dre-produced debut, 1989’s No One Can Do It Better, is an underrated classic in its own right.

MC Chip Because every crew needs a dude named Chip. Just ask Dave Chappelle.

Krazy D See page 46.

Candyman According to WW’s resident N.W.A. historian, Martin Cizmar, Candell Manson was an acquaintance of Ice Cube’s who somehow weaseled his way into the N.W.A. and the Posse cover shoot, then parlayed his tentative connection to the group into the Top 10 pop-rap hit “Knockin’ Boots” in 1990. You’ve got to respect his hustle, and the sheer fact that he never got hung over a balcony by his ankles. MATTHEW SINGER.

THE MC REN-AISSANCE AN APPRECIATION OF N.W.A.’S MOST UNDERAPPRECIATED MEMBER.

BY MATTHEW SIN GER

msinger@wweek.com

Lorenzo Patterson gets no respect. No respect at all. The rapper better known as MC Ren was the Ringo of N.W.A., except he doesn’t even have the legions of contrarian drum nerds to champion him.

With the release of the Straight Outta Compton biopic, you’d think his contributions to gangsta rap’s Fab Five would be ripe for reappraisal. But the trailers haven’t just relegated him to also-ran status—they’ve erased him completely.

It’s a shame, really. Yeah, he had the least distinguished solo career of any MC in the group, but one could argue he was the best pure rapper. Certainly, he was the one member who, based on voice alone, sounded like you really, truly didn’t want to cross.

But don’t worry, Ren. We’ve got your back. Here are five reasons why you should reconsider N.W.A.’s most underappreciated force.

He developed the classic look of N.W.A. Have you ever seen the cover of N.W.A. and the Posse, the compilation that preceded Straight Outta Compton? It’s a photo of a dozen dudes—the five main members plus a bunch of guys who’d soon fall off the face of the planet—hanging out in a graffitistained alley, and together they rank somewhere between the Jets and the Baseball Furies on the Gang Intimidation Scale. A year later, the core quintet would bum-rush the American consciousness while wearing black ball caps, Locs and Chuck Taylors, an outfit that’d become as synonymous with the nightmares of suburban parents as Freddy Krueger’s sweater and fedora. According to Ren, that was his doing. “That was my thing—the Raiders hats and all that,” he told WW’s own Martin Cizmar in 2010. “That was before I even got in the group.”

He wrote half the words that ever came out of Eazy-E’s mouth.

Sure, Cube is responsible for the most famous of them (“Cruisin’ down the street in my 6-4”), but Ren is the mostly unseen force driving Eazy-Duz-

It, his then-label boss’ double-platinum solo debut, penning half the songs and guesting on many of them. After Cube bounced, Ren took over as N.W.A.’s chief lyricist, writing nearly all of 1991’s Efil4zaggin and the stopgap EP 100 Miles and Runnin’ and firing several shots at his former bandmate in the process. And yeah, Cube later eviscerated them all with “No Vaseline,” but that just means, ipso facto, Ren is responsible for two classic dis tracks.

Kizz My Black Azz is one of the most successful EPs in history.

That Ren’s greatest accomplishment as a solo artist is a six-song teaser for a full-length that sold a lot less might indicate that audiences only wanted him in small doses, but still: Name another platinumselling EP, hip-hop or otherwise. With Ren helming 100 Miles and Runnin’— another of hip-hop’s more memorable mini-albums—as well, you could say he’s the master of the rap EP. The Villain in Black is a lost G-funk classic.

As for his long-form material, 1993’s Shock of the Hour, which managed to turn up the gangster nihilism while addressing myriad social issues, was the most well-received by critics, and the best-seller.

But The Villain in Black, Ren’s 1996 foray into his former running mate Dr. Dre’s G-funk sound, is gaining in renown. Yeah, he doesn’t say anything new, but his menacing presence—always his best quality—makes Cold 187um’s beats rattle even harder.

In recent years, he’s moved to Palm Springs to be closer to his parents… …as evidenced by his most recent press photos, which are the hardest ever taken in the driveway of a tract home. Eazy’s gone, Dre’s a billionaire, DJ Yella’s directing porn movies, and Cube’s in commercials catching money shots from bottles of Coors Light. Whether it’s by choice or circumstance, Ren’s kept it the realest. And for that, we doff our collective Raiders hat to you, sir.

MORE: See more Straight Outta Compton coverage in Movies, page 46.

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

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v

MU S ICFE STNW WATERFRONT PARK AugusT 21-23 musicfestnw.com/tickets

8:30–10Pm morrison stage

MIsTERWIVEs

7:30–8:25Pm Hawthorne stage

MILO gREENE 6:30–7:25Pm morrison stage

LOsT LANDER

5:30–6:25Pm Hawthorne stage

3

Days of Music ALL AgEs! TICKETs ON sALE NOW!

BEIRuT

8:30–10Pm morrison stage

BELLE AND sEBAsTIAN 7:30–8:25Pm Hawthorne stage

TWIN sHADOW 6:30–7:25Pm morrison stage

BATTLEs

5:30–6:25Pm Hawthorne stage

TITLE FIgHT

4:30–5:25Pm morrison stage

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

MODEsT MOusE 8:30–10Pm morrison stage

THE TALLEsT MAN ON EARTH 7:30–8:25Pm Hawthorne stage

DANNY BROWN 6:30–7:25Pm morrison stage

THE HELIO sEQuENCE 5:30–6:25Pm Hawthorne stage

LADY LAMB

4:30–5:25Pm morrison stage

CAYuCAs

sTRAND OF OAKs

TALK IN TONguEs

PuRE BATHINg CuLTuRE

sALEs

DIVERs

ALIALuJAH CHOIR

BEAT CONNECTION

3:30–4:25Pm Hawthorne stage

2:30–3:25Pm morrison stage

1:30–2:25Pm Hawthorne stage

12:30Pm–1:25Pm morrison stage

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23 S UNDAY, AUGUST

FOsTER THE PEOPLE

22 SAT URDAY, AUGUST

FRIDAY, AUGUST

21

3:30–4:25Pm Hawthorne stage

2:30–3:25Pm morrison stage

1:30–2:25Pm Hawthorne stage

12:30Pm–1:25Pm morrison stage

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

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MUSIC

WEDNESDAY–SATURDAY

to wear shoes—we all have our own version of the stress dream.

For Robin Bacior, it’s drowning, hence the title of her most recent album, Water Dreams. Released earlier this year, Bacior focused the album on her decision to leave New York, the place she thought she wanted to live her whole life, and move somewhere less hectic, which ended up being Portland.

Though it’s about an anxious time in the songwriter’s life, Water Dreams is an incredibly gentle album. Bacior’s warm, reserved voice, her graceful piano and cinematic strings make for music that’s subtle and not at all frantic, proving that Portland is already having an effect on her. SHANNON GORMLEY. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895.

8 pm. $5. 21+.

THURSDAY, AUG. 13 American Aquarium, Mission Spotlight, Hip Hatchet

[UNDERRATED AMERICANA] Nine years ago, guitarist BJ Barham and the boys of American Aquarium drew their name from one of Wilco’s better-known songs and began hitting the barroom circuit in their hometown of Raleigh, N.C. Despite excessive lineup changes, the time since has done little to quell Barham’s enthusiasm for the brawnier, blue-collar side of alt-country, distinguished by the candid self-reflection on the band’s latest LP, Wolves. The album refines the boozy swagger of the Stones and ’70s Springsteen, pitting textural pedal steel and banjo against scruffy lyrics.

Barham may sound down and out, but given his first-class catalog, he certainly shouldn’t be. BRANDON WIDDER. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $12 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.

Nopes, Sabonis, Blowout

[VOICES CARRY] The instrumentation on Sabonis’ debut cassette for Good Cheer Records enacts a happy marriage of post-rock focus and emo skittishness, but it is the Portland quintet’s remarkable collective vocal effort that lifts the EP into the charged realm where songs really start to sting.

Layered voices merge and diverge as if seeking some semblance of comfort in a mutual affection that compels and repels in equal measure. It’s a stunning evocation of the kind of conflicted feelings that pop songs too often point to instead of occupy. Sabonis’ ability to summon such agitation while staying so pretty and composed is a rare and special thing.

CHRIS STAMM. The Know, 2026 NE Alberta St., 473-8729. 8 pm. $6. 21+.

FRIDAY, AUG. 14 Bongzilla, Graves At Sea

[STONER METAL] In the ‘90s, stoner rock was a burgeoning subgenre during a time when outing your music as drug-inspired was edgy and legally dangerous. Josh Homme quickly distanced himself from the moniker, but Wisconsin’s Bongzilla couldn’t have waved the green flag higher or louder. In fact, the whole band couldn’t have been higher or louder, as captured on a series of low-end-rumbling Relapse albums like Stash, Gate way and Amerijuanican. Subtlety was never in effect, and the band often cried out for weed from the stage. Eventually, the band folded, but there was no resisting the pull from retirement now that Oregon has legalized it. You know what to do. NATHAN CARSON. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St., 345-7892. 9 pm. $16. 21+.

Jeff the Brotherhood, Battleme, Miracle Falls

[BIG OL’ ROCK] If you were making rock soup, you’d use a

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lot of the same ingredients for Battleme that you’d use for Blitzen Trapper—the twang, the riffs, the psychedelic troublemaking. But the Battleme concoction—especially on last year’s Future Runs Magnetic, the title of which may or may not be a Back to the Future Part II reference—has added a heaping tablespoon of musclebound stadium rock to the mix.

That extra umph is what makes it a nice pick as openers for Nashville’s Jeff the Brotherhood, which makes fuzzy post-garage rock influenced by the Ramones, Sabbath and Weezer. CASEY JARMAN. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 2319663. 9 pm. $12 advance, $13 day of show. 21+.

Seven Lions

[COLD TRANCE-STEP] Releasing an EP titled The Throes of Winter, complete with desolate alpine cover art, just shy of the Ides of March takes a pretty big pair of balls. To release that EP from your home in Santa Monica, Calif., however, might take seven. But that’s just what dubstep-cumtrance producer Seven Lions did this year. Electro-tinged vocal banger “Lose Myself” is the natural hit, but each of the tracks are so cleanly and icily produced that Seven Lions might consider giving the A/C in his studio a rest. MITCH LILLIE. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 224-2038. 7 pm. Sold out. 18+.

Duncan Gerow, Quarry, B Hammer’d, Mienne

[MASHUP/REMIX] Yes, Portlandvia-Alaska beatmaker Duncan Gerow releases mashups. No, this isn’t 2007, when Girl Talk distilled Billboard party anthems and pop jams to their lowest common denominators, forced them together and profited. Gerow is different. He dubs his songs “remixes,” as in “Ciara x Ludacris x Timbaland - Ride (Duncan Gerow Remix)”, which is his fusion of “One in a Million” and “Ride.”

The result is a glossy, minimally retouched track reminiscent of ’90s R&B B-sides. Listen to him enough, and you might wonder if Mariah’s “Fantasy (Bad Boy Remix)” featuring Ol’ Dirty Bastard had a toddling Gerow at the mix board. MITCH LILLIE. Spare Room, 4830 NE 42nd Ave., 287-5800. 9 pm. $5 before 10 pm, $7 after. 21+.

Believe You Me: Oona Dahl, Andy Warren

[PLAYA HOUSE] Some house music is made for mega-festivals, some for sweaty micro-clubs. Other house music is made for transcendent, chemical-spiritual experiences in a certain high desert in Nevada, but that doesn’t mean it should be discounted. In May, Berlin producer Oona Dahl released an EP of peaceful, spacy house with titles like “Aurora Sunrise” and “Indigo Child.”

It’s the sort of music best suited for Burning Man, but unpretentious enough to be enjoyed in the crushing realities of everyday society, too.

MITCH LILLIE. The Liquor Store, 3341 SE Belmont St., 421-4483. 10 pm. Call venue for ticket information. 21+.

SATURDAY, AUG. 15 Sun Angle, Summer Cannibals, Blesst Chest

[ACID POP] There comes a point in the career of any band with even the subtlest of jazz influences where virtuosity starts to get in the way.

Riffs metastasize into jams, melodies give way to sonic masturbation, and in the end, the product becomes an obtuse wall of whatthe-fuckery that’s often relegated to background noise at best. But then there’s Sun Angle, which offers a refreshingly pared-back approach to the freewheeling psych at the core of every third band in Portland at the moment. It takes sincere appreciation of the form not to throw in everything plus the kitchen sink, which

saturday happens to be the most vital component of the trio’s excellent 2013 record, Diamond Junk. It overflows with dense arrangements that never sit still, but the interplay of drummer Papi Fimbres and guitarist Charlie Salas-Humara is perfectly content with freaking out in place rather than running off the rails, as kids these days are wont to do. PETE COTTELL. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $10. 21+.

Errick Lewis

[FUNK JAZZ] You can’t have a funk band without a sick bassist, and Errick Lewis’ sick bass-playing is a big part of what makes the Doo Doo Funk All-Stars the funkiest band in town. But Lewis can (and does) play just about everything, from smooth jazz to hard rock. His 2013 fulllength, Where Musician Ends and Instrument Begins, highlights the smooth side of his repertoire, but in concert he is explosive, propulsive and a lot of fun to watch. CASEY

MUSIC

JARMAN. Secret Society Lounge, 116 NE Russell St., 493-3600. 9 pm. $15 advance, $20 day of show. 21+.

Wooden Indian Burial Ground, Helvetia, Junior Rocket Scientist

[REVERB KINGS] The three-piece Wooden Indian Burial Ground is a Portland staple at this point. The dudes have been harnessing their molten garage rock and psychedelic freakouts since their inaugural, self-titled debut hit shelves more than three years ago, only to find themselves more recently taking their pummeling percussion and tremolos on tour alongside Pacific Northwest stalwarts Built to Spill (whose members also make up parts of opening band, Helvetica). WIBG’s sophomore LP is slated for release soon, which means you can expect to hear a handful of new cuts tonight.

BRANDON WIDDER. The Know, 2026 NE Alberta St., 473-8729. 8 pm. Call venue for ticket information. 21+.

CONT. on page 33

COURTESY OF CONSUMER

INTRODUCING

CONSUMER Who: Matt Palenske (vocals, electronics) SoundS like: What would be playing during a dance-party scene in a Philip K. Dick short story.

For FanS oF: The Residents, the Bomb Squad, Wolf Eyes, Death Grips, Art Ensemble of Chicago.

The ecstatic states evoked by “Bliss in Glossolalia,” a 2½-minute track from his new tape, ARC, are what the entirety of Matt Palenske’s Consumer project is predicated on. The musical outbursts rarely sound constrained by genre, and on this latest release, sound collage and strains of folktronica are slotted into a stream of sonorous—and occasionally danceable—dishevelment.

“That’s the whole thing: getting onstage and blacking out,” Palenske says. “Every time, something new happens. It’s an explosion of energy, and sometimes it’s nonsense. But it’s easy to grab meaning out of it.”

Whatever message might be extracted from ARC or Palenske’s sundry earlier tapes, the project’s intent revealed itself slowly even to its orchestrator. Started as a recording endeavor eight years ago in Chicago, Consumer only made its live debut a few years back when Palenske moved to Portland.

“I went through so many trials and way more errors,” he says.

“That’s why it took five years for me to play live.”

Whatever those errors were, they have either been smoothed away or exploited to the music’s benefit. ARC creates an uninterrupted space for the concepts Palenske previously explored. The tape’s opener, “Nah Dot,” jukes through at least four distinct sections that might have just been edited down into individual tracks on other releases. Here, though, Consumer gets ecstatic, traversing “a Rorschach of things.” It’sw bleeping beats one moment, looped disintegration the next, then a bit of guttural grunting.

But Consumer remains a project uniquely engaged with space. Palenske is trying to create a more engaging live show—he says bar gigs are getting stale. And figuring out how to offer up a proper spectacle occasionally involves his wearing a Rocky the Flying Squirrel mask.

“It’s only on special nights,” he says about donning the cartoon camouflage. “But I always have it.” DAVE CANTOR. See iT: Consumer plays Twilight Cafe & Bar, 1420 SE Powell Blvd., with Sad Horse, Tig Bitty and Tyrants, on Friday, Aug. 14. 9 pm. $5. 21+.

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MUSIC

COURTESY OF JENNY LEWIS

SUNDAY–TUESDAY/CLASSICAL, ETC.

JENNY MINUS JOHNNY: Jenny Lewis plays Crystal Ballroom on Sunday, Aug. 16.

SUNDAY, AUG. 16 Jenny Lewis, Springtime Carnivore

[GOLD DUST WOMAN] Jenny Lewis has put together an impressive résumé in adulthood. The former child-actor fronted L.A. indie-rock outfit Rilo Kiley, joined the Postal Service, made her solo debut with a country-soul hybrid record, then started a new band, Jenny and Johnny, with boyfriend Johnathan Rice. Last year’s The Voyager is a project of personal-demon exorcism that took several years to complete. The finished product is a lush, Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac simulacrum, with Lewis as Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s production duties handled by Ryan Adams and Beck. CRIS LANKENAU. Crystal Ballroom, 1332 W Burnside St., 2250047. 9 pm. $22 advanced, $25 day of show. All ages.

Zach Heckendorf, Haley Johnsen

[IDOLS OF MARCH] All of 22 years old, Zach Heckendorf’s career might have already peaked, but that’s not entirely his fault. The brush with stardom after his 2011 debut depended rather more upon a fresh-faced teen troubadour precocity than middling material and a way with Dr. Dre covers, and he’s yet to wring distinct songcraft from diverse influences. Beaverton native Haley Johnson, on the other hand, had nowhere to go but up after a disastrous “Sweet Dreams” rendition ensured her dismissal from the 2012 American Idol semis, but while recently released first EP Through the Blue aims well short of the stratosphere, the bloodied-butunbowed suburban survivor muse at least unveils a signature voice. JAY HORTON. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 8 pm. $12 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.

MONDAY, AUG. 17 Have Gun, Will Travel; Garrett Klahn

[TRANS-AMERICANA] Christening its alt-country combo after an early cowboy series whose cultured aesthete hero advertised for mercenary work around the Old West, the quartet behind Have Gun, Will Travel took a not entirely dissimilar approach to its own career by pasting together the more salable strains of roots to propel sincere musings on life around Bradenton, Fla. Just-released fifth album Science From an Easy Chair broadens the instrumental backdrop (horns, strings) and rather deepens the scope—the 12 tracks unfurl a relentlessly literal accounting of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-17 Antarctic expedition—and the boil-

erplate songcraft should delight everyone wishing Discovery Channel hosted more musical theater. JAY HORTON. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 8 pm. $10. 21+.

Moka Only, Nic Bam, Durazzo, NorthernDraw

[BORDER RAPS] Vancouver, B.C.’s Only didn’t really precede Drake’s Canadian rap imperialism, but the MC, who’s issued dozens of albums and EPs over the past 20 years, hasn’t had to deal with online squabbles. Such prodigious solo output—not to mention contributing recordings by both Len and Swollen Members—might indicate the newly issued, 32-track Magickal Weirdness, would be stretched a bit thin. And while there aren’t many folks likely to sit through the entire release, Moka Only’s skills have remained consistent enough over time to coax a guest spot out of Grand Puba.

That’s a pretty decent indication of quality. DAVE CANTOR. The Know, 2026 NE Alberta St., 473-8729. 8 pm. $7. 21+.

TUESDAY, AUG. 18 The Black Ryder, Rick Bain & the Genius Position

[SLOW BURN] The Black Ryder produces the kind of heady music that makes you want to stare at the sky and count satellites. The Aussie duo, currently based in Los Angeles, selfreleased The Door Behind the Door earlier this year, a record touting countless layers of ambient rock, psychedelia and shoegaze. There’s an undeniable eeriness about the Black Ryder, one that imparts mystique to the band’s already dark, cloudy and sometimes dizzying sound. No need to take experienceenhancing drugs here—the duo will offer a hearty trip of its own. MARK STOCK. Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., 288-3895. 9 pm. $12. 21+.

CLASSICAL, JAZZ & WORLD William Byrd Festival

[RENAISSANCE CHORAL] The annual celebration of the music of England’s greatest Renaissance composer, William Byrd, suffered a pair of tough losses in 2013 with the deaths of co-founder and English conductor and scholar Richard Marlow in 2013 and frequent guest conductor David Trendell last year.

On Friday, this year’s guest, English conductor Jeremy Summerly, leads one of Portland’s great choirs, Cantores in Ecclesia, in liturgical music from Byrd’s famous collection, Gradualia, during a Mass for

the Feast of the Assumption. On Saturday, Summerly lectures and Cantores founder Blake Applegate leads the choir in Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices. Summerly returns to the podium on Sunday to lead Cantores in Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices Sunday morning, while English organist and longtime festival participant Mark Williams gives an organ recital Sunday afternoon, followed by Cantores’ performance of another Byrd sacred masterpiece, The Great Service, during choral evensong. BRETT CAMPBELL. Multiple locations. 7:30 pm Friday, 11 am and 7:30 pm Saturday and 11 am and 4:15 and 5 pm Sunday, Aug. 14-16. See byrdfestival.org for more information. All ages.

Montavilla Jazz Festival

[NEW FRONTIERS] After a highly successful first effort last summer, the Montavilla Neighborhood Association’s jazz festival returns, in what we hope becomes an annual tradition. The two-day event, featuring headliners like PSU jazz department chair and pianist Darrell Grant, pianist-drummer George Colligan and bassist Dave Friesen, and new music from the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble, embodies everything Portland seems to have no problem embracing elsewhere.

It’s local, sustainable and cheap, and it’s quietly emerging as one of the best jazz events of the summer.

PARKER HALL. Portland Metro Performing Arts, 9003 SE Stark St., 408-0604. 2 pm Saturday-Sunday, Aug. 15-16. $10-$25. See montavillajazzfest.com for complete schedule.

All ages.

John Proulx

[KEYS AND VOICE] He doesn’t walk into a room and reshape the atmosphere, but beneath John Proulx’s baby face and glasses lies the soul of a young Chet Baker. With clean, fiery vocals that dance above his quick-flying fingertips, the Grammywinning L.A. songwriter passionately enthralls viewers as soon as he hits the bench, a calmly captivating performer worthy of his numerous accolades. Performing solo at Classic Pianos, expect to hear a nice mix of Baker standards and Proulx originals, as exhibited on his now well-traveled 2012 release, The Best Thing for You. PARKER HALL. Classic Pianos, 3003 SE Milwaukie Ave., 239-9969. 7 pm Sunday, Aug. 16. $19 suggested donation. All ages.

For more Music listings, visit

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

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MUSIC ALBUM REVIEWS

WILD ONES HEATWAVE (TOPSHELF) [COOL DOWN] Heat waves suck, especially when you’re one of the many Portlanders without air conditioning. But there’s also something nostalgic, even romantic, that happens when the temperatures climb into triple digits. Wild Ones’ Heatwave EP evokes similar feelings through infectious love songs about night driving and holding onto youth while nearing its end. The title track might be the only one of the five songs on this release that was actually written during a stretch of sun-scorched hell, but it’s enough to place the other four songs in the context of the “fever-dreaming nights” Danielle Sullivan sings about in the opener. Heatwave is

far more polished and idiosyncratic than Wild Ones’ 2013 full-length, Keep It Safe, the looped beats cutting deeper, the guitar ceding even more ground to the synths, and some version of “ooh-ooh” on virtually every chorus. Wild Ones aren’t the kind of group to test the boundaries of synth-pop or anything, but its songs reliably hit all the right spots, and Heatwave is no exception. Plus, Sullivan’s crystalline voice is cooler than any A/C. SHANNON GORMLEY. SEE IT: Wild Ones play Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi Ave., with Pearles, on Friday, Aug. 14. 9 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show. 21+.

ANCIENT HEAT ANCIENT HEAT (SELF-RELEASED) [DISCO? DISCO!] People who actually lived through disco tend to acquire a sort of selective amnesia about it. Maybe it’s the drugs or the anonymous sex or the glitter that scrambled their memories, but former club-hoppers often have trouble recalling specific artists they loved or finding photos of themselves in full disco garb.

And yet, the music is still compelling on a lot of levels: the deep grooves, the sexy singers, the extra-long songs that a body can get utterly lost in? That shit’s cool.

Ancient Heat understands that disco’s best qualities were sonic, not cosmetic, so the band’s debut full-length is packed with polyrhythms, layered synths and dual female vocals that are both bawdy and powerful. At times it feels like Ancient

Heat is trying too hard to replicate the good old days—hi-hat-happy opener “Come to Me Slowly” is a little too reminiscent of ABBA’s “Lay All Your Love on Me”—but when the band digs deep into the groove on the album’s excellent second half and mixes the organic with the electronic, something special happens. What if Ancient Heat followed those instincts further, stretched its seven-minute songs to 12, cribbed less Farrah and more Fela, and got utterly k a l e i d o s c o p i c ? Wo w, Ancient Heat has me begging for more disco.

CASEY JARMAN. SEE IT: Ancient Heat plays Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave., with Guda and DJ Pocket Rocket, on Saturday, Aug. 15.

9 pm. $5. 21+.

URAL THOMAS & THE PAIN “I’LL DO IT FOR YOU”/“PAIN IS THE NAME OF YOUR GAME” (PRES RECORDS) [REDISCOVERED SOUL] It has been a decade since Sharon Jones’ influential sophomore record dropped on New York’s Daptone Records, kick-starting a soul revival that led labels, writers and would-be historians to seek out forgotten voices in their respective communities. In Portland, a town where black music history (and black history in general) is often overlooked, it took Seattle’s Light in the Attic label and the Wheedle’s Groove documentary to first shine a spotlight on Ural Thomas. But two years ago, local musician and DJ Scott Magee built Thomas a band, the Pain, worthy of his past greatness. And now they have something to show for it. Thomas’s first release with the Pain, a 7-inch produced by Magee and L.A. musician Nick Waterhouse for Waterhouse’s Pres Records, sounds pretty

indistinguishable from the singles Thomas released in his heyday—which means it’s a success. “I’ll Do It for You” is a shimmery, strippeddown ballad wherein a bleeding-heart Thomas sounds like he’s making a deal with the devil. And on “Pain Is the Name of Your Game,” a brassy and uptempo reworking of an old Thomas favorite, the singer recalls Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.

The latter is served extracrispy, and fades out with Thomas still hollering. I hope he keeps hollering for a long time to come.

CASEY JARMAN. SEE IT: Ural Thomas & the Pain, with special guest Nick Waterhouse, play Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., with Orquestra Pacifico Tropical, on Friday, Aug. 14. 8 pm. $17 advance, $20 day of show. Under 21 permitted with legal guardian.

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MUSIC CALENDAR = WW Pick. Highly recommended.

Editor: Mitch Lillie. TO HAVE YOUR EVENT LISTED, send show information at least two weeks in advance on the web at wweek.com/submitevents. Press kits, CDs and especially vinyl can be sent to Music Desk, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Please include show or release date information with all physical mailings. Email: music@wweek.com.

[AUG. 12-18] Streetcar Bistro & Taproom

1101 NW Northrup Street Jeremiah Clark: The Farewell Show

The Lodge Bar & grill 6605 SE Powell Blvd.

Ben Rice B3 Trio

For more listings, check out wweek.com.

LAST WEEK LIVE

The Secret Society

THOMAS TEAL

116 NE Russell St. The High Water Jazz Band

The Secret Society 116 NE Russell St. Everything’s Jake, Thursday Swing!

Turn! Turn! Turn!

8 NE Killiingsworth St Wow and Flutter, City Pools, Hearts and Tigers

Twilight Cafe and Bar 1420 SE Powell Blvd.

The Latter Skanks, The Barking Spiders, The Bone Snatchers, Kick It

White eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. The Fire Weeds

FRi. Aug. 14 Al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. Lucas Hicks

Bossanova Ballroom

722 E Burnside St. IGNITED Hotter August Nights

Bunk Bar

1028 SE Water Ave. Fanno Creek, Sun Blood Stories, Still Caves

A GHOST IS REBORN: For much of the last decade and a half, Michael Eugene Archer has been living as a ghost. At the turn of the millennium, the singer known as D’Angelo made an epochal R&B record, stood naked before the world, then vanished from view, before returning, suddenly, late last year, with the astounding Black Messiah album. And so, just to see him standing onstage at Crystal Ballroom on Aug. 9, draped in a hat and poncho that gave him the look of a Sergio Leone gunslinger, was surreal enough. An aloof, guarded performance would’ve been more than anyone in the sold-out building could have anticipated even nine months ago. Instead, what we got was the very definition of life-affirming. Fronting his powerhouse backing band, the Vanguard, D’Angelo indeed came roaring back to life: screeching like Prince, ricocheting the mic stand off his foot a la James Brown, dropping to the floor and running along the guardrail and shouting for “Portland, Oregon!” to keep up with him. He mostly let the music do the talking, save for one moment: On the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown’s murder, D’Angelo dedicated Black Messiah’s heaviest song of protest, “The Charade,” to Ferguson, unaware that, as he was speaking, police were once again bearing down on demonstrators in the Missouri city. But there is some small comfort in knowing that we probably won’t have to wait long for him to address it. MATTHEW SINGER. See the full review at wweek.com/lastweeklive.

Wed. Aug. 12 Al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. Lucas Hicks

Analog Cafe & Theater 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd.

Fireworks, Weatherbox, Dry Jacket, and Of Confidence

Blue diamond

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

The Fenix Project

Cadigan’s Corner Bar 5501 SE 72nd Ave. Danny Hay Davis & The Rat Pack

Synesthetica: An Evening Curated by Radiation City

Jade Lounge

2342 SE Ankeny St. Emerald Evenings: Eclectic Music Hosted by Ronnie Carrier

Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. Songs, Stories, and a Lil’ Twang

eastBurn

1800 E Burnside St. Olivia Awbrey

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St.

303 SW 12th Ave. Lucas Hicks

Alberta Street Pub

Blue diamond

Trail’s end Saloon

2530 NE 82nd Ave Arthur Moore

Al’s den

Panic Room

dante’s

duff’s garage

THuRS. Aug. 13

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Robin Bacior

Mississippi Studios

1332 W. Burnside Dawes, James Vincent McMorrow 350 W Burnside St The Dread Crew of Oddwood, Rainbowdragoneyes

800 NW 6th Ave. Ron Steen Band

1036 NE Alberta St Planets, a Musical Journey through Our Solar System

3100 NE Sandy Blvd.

David Liebe Hart, Sword of a Bad Speller, Mr. Plow, Bloodmouse, Matt Danger

Crystal Ballroom

Wilf’s Restaurant & Bar

1320 Main Street Big Monti

Turn! Turn! Turn!

8 NE Killiingsworth St DRC3, Animal Throat, Manx

White eagle Saloon

836 N Russell St. Black Ferns, Cambrian Explosion

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

Ben Jones and Friends

Bunk Bar

1028 SE Water Ave. Mscaras, Hats Off, Gallons

Clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant & Bar

5474 NE Sandy Blvd.

Mesi and Bradley

Jade Lounge

2342 SE Ankeny St. JD’s Blues/grass Sessions

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown B3 Organ Group

Kells Brewpub

210 NW 21st Ave. Sami Live

Kruger’s Farm

17100 NW Sauvie Island Road Farm Tunes Summer Concerts

Laurel Thirst Public House

Culmination Brewing

2117 NE Oregon St. Songfight! Live! Portland Oregon (Night #1 of 2) ‘Wiccans and Chickens’

doug Fir Lounge

830 East Burnside Street Battleme

duff’s garage

2530 NE 82nd Ave Jawbone Flats

eastBurn

Solae’s Lounge

1801 NE Alberta St Euge Organ Trio

116 NE Russell St. Pete Krebs and His Portland Playboys

The Spare Room

Hawthorne Theatre Lounge

1503 SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd.

Ron Rogers & The Wailing Wind

Holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Dance Yourself Clean

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. Bureau of Standards Big Band

Kells Brewpub

210 NW 21st Ave. Sami Live

Mississippi Studios Portland

Panic Room

Peter’s Room 8 NW 6th Ave Cold Blood

Ponderosa Lounge

10350 N Vancouver Way Cloverdayle

Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave. Seven Lions

Blue diamond

Star Theater

Jimmy Mak’s

13 NW 6th Ave Ancient Heat Album Release Party

The Know

4830 NE 42nd Ave Duncan Gerow, Quarry, B Hammer’d and Mienne

Trail’s end Saloon

The Lovecraft

Twilight Cafe and Bar

The Secret Society

1320 Main Street Men in Blues

1420 SE Powell Blvd.

Consumer, Sad Horse, Tig Bitty, Tyrants, DJ Turvey

White eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Whiskey Shivers, The Talbott Brothers

SAT. Aug. 15 Al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. Lucas Borsten

Alberta Rose Theatre

3000 NE Alberta St. Patrick Sweany, The Jackalope Saints and The Hollers

Bella Organic

16205 NW Gillihan Rd Michael Osborn & The Drivers

Branx

320 SE 2nd Ave. Generate

Buffalo gap Saloon and eatery

6835 SW Macadam Ave JT Wise Band

Bunk Bar

1028 SE Water Ave. Froth, Psychomagic, Hollow Sidewalks

Clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant & Bar

5474 NE Sandy Blvd.

Andy Stokes

dante’s

350 W Burnside St Mac Sabbath, Cookie Mongoloid

Holladay Park

1507 SE 39th Ave. I Prevail, Dangerkids, Fit For Rivals, Dayseeker, The Animal In Me

ROCK&RULE WITH DJ SEAN AT STAR BAR, DJ Sean

2026 NE Alberta St. Wooden Indian Burial Ground, Helvetia and Junior Rocket Scientist

Hawthorne Theatre

1800 E Burnside St. The Way Outside

Mississippi Studios

777 NE MLK Bvld Swan Sovereign

The Secret Society

gerding Theater at the Armory

3100 NE Sandy Blvd.

Headless Pez, Magnabolt, Torture Rack, Sarcalagos

3939 N Mississippi Ave. American Aquarium, Mission Spotlight, Hip Hatchet

710 SW 2nd Ave Where’s Danny Band

eastBurn

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Wild Ones

duff’s garage

1800 E Burnside St. Eat Off Your Banjo!, Dinner and Live Music

5474 NE Sandy Blvd.

Elite

2958 NE Glisan St. Miss Lana Rebel and Kevin Michael Mayfield

Oregon Convention Center

2530 NE 82nd Ave Tough Love Pyle

Clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant & Bar

Saithong Thai Fusion

128 NW 11th Avenue The Maestro Show

NE 11th & NE Multnomah Louis Armstrong Night

Jade Lounge

2342 SE Ankeny St. Vega Black

Jimmy Mak’s

221 NW 10th Ave. The Patrick Lamb Band

Kells Brewpub

421 SE Grand Ave. Brit Pop Dance Night 116 NE Russell St. Everything’s Jake

The Secret Society 116 NE Russell St. Errick Lewis

Trail’s end Saloon 1320 Main Street Curtis Salgado

Twilight Cafe and Bar 1420 SE Powell Blvd.

City Mouse, The Bloodtypes, The Anxieties

White eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Champagne Duane

Sun. Aug. 16 Al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. Lucas Borsten

Alberta Rose Theatre

3000 NE Alberta St. Ottmar Liebert and Luna Negra

Blue diamond

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

Kevin Selfe and the Tornadoes Jam Session

Clyde’s Prime Rib Restaurant & Bar

5474 NE Sandy Blvd.

Ron Steen Jazz Jam

Crystal Ballroom

1332 W. Burnside Jenny Lewis, Springtime Carnivore

1507 SE 39th Ave. Berner, Demrick, J-Hornay, Anonymous That Dade

Kells

112 SW 2nd Ave. Traditional Irish Music

Mississippi Studios

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Zach Heckendorf

Montavilla Jazz Festival

Mississippi Pizza

Panic Room

Park Place Cafe

1288 SE 182nd Dan Weber and ‘Bliss Hippy’

Plews Brews

8409 N. Lombard St. Grif Bamaisin - The Electric Brit

Portland Metro Arts

9003 SE Stark St. Montavilla Jazz Festival

Star Bar

639 SE Morrison St.

Kelly’s Olympian

426 SW Washington St. Eye Candy

Mississippi Studios Portland

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Have Gun, Will Travel, Garrett Klahn

O’Connor’s

7850 SW Capitol Hwy. J Wagner, Alexa Wiley

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Moka Only

The Muddy Rudder Public House 8105 SE 7th Ave. Lloyd Jones

Twilight Cafe and Bar 1420 SE Powell Blvd.

Davey Tiltwheel, Miski Dee, Ike Fonseca

TueS. Aug. 18 Al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. Lucas Borsten

Blue diamond

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

A.C. Porter and Special Guests

Cadigan’s Corner Bar 5501 SE 72nd Ave. Soul Provider, Naomi T

director Park

815 SW Park Ave Bottleneck Blues Band

doug Fir Lounge

830 East Burnside Street Vince Herman’s Loose Cannon Stringbang

Jimmy Mak’s

3939 N Mississippi Ave. The Black Ryder

Pacific Crest Alpacas

Mississippi Studios

426 SW Washington St. Bunker Sessions Open Mic

Hawthorne Theatre

Killingsworth dynasty

3939 N Mississippi Ave. Sun Angle, Summer Cannibals, And And And

Kelly’s Olympian

221 NW 10th Ave. Mel Brown Septet

830 East Burnside Street Three For Silver

210 NW 21st Ave. Sami Live

3552 N Mississippi Ave. Songfight! Live! Portland OR ‘Wiccans and Chickens’, (Night 2 of 2)

221 NW 10th Ave. The Dan Balmer Trio

doug Fir Lounge

9003 SE Stark David Friesen’s Circle 3 Trio

832 N Killingsworth St. Glitterbang with DJ Lincolnup & Sappho

2016 NE Sandy Blvd.

Hot Tea Cold

12995 NW Bishop Rd. Helvetia Culture Fest 7th Annual 3100 NE Sandy Blvd.

The SJSindicate, Lost in the City

Portland Metro Arts

9003 SE Stark St. Montavilla Jazz Festival

Rontoms

600 E. Burnside St. AAN, Regular Music, Bitchin’n

Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave. Three Days Grace

Mississippi Studios

northwest Portland Hostel & guesthouse 425 NW 18th Avenue Summer Music in the Secret Garden

Rock Creek Tavern

10000 NW Old Cornelius Pass Rd. Open Bluegrass Jam

The Know

2026 NE Alberta St. Hivelords, Usnea

The Lehrer

8775 SW Canyon Ln. Hot Jam Night with Tracey Fordice & The 8-Balls

The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. TRNGL

Trail’s end Saloon

1320 Main Street Acoustic Session with Scotty Bouck

Venti’s Cafe And Tap House-Salem

2840 Commercial Street Lounge Night

White eagle Saloon

836 N Russell St. Blues Jam with Travers Kiley

White eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St. Rob Johnston

MOn. Aug. 17 Al’s den

303 SW 12th Ave. Lucas Borsten

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

37

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Where to eat • Where to Drink • What to Do • Where to Shop 38

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

aug. 12–18

MUSIC CALENDAR courtney theim

BAR REVIEW

Where to drink this week.

1. analog Cafe

720 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 206-7439, analogpdx.com.

After mild contention, the great demonstration of freedom that is marijuana mondays will survive oLcc scrutiny (see page 22), with bud giveaways continuing through october.

2. Shift Drinks

1200 SW Morrison St., 922-3933, shiftdrinkspdx.com.

Get the “drinking tobacco”—actually a richly flavorful vermouth—or a heartbreakingly good Palermo Viejo #2 ($10) with gin, cynar, grapefruit liqueur, mint and bitters, plus one of the richly adorned bruschettas ($8).

3. The Fields

1139 NW 11th Ave., 841-6601, thefieldspdx.

Widmer is celebrating its flagship hefeweizen with 100 Days of hefe, giving away free hefe-branded bicycles on 100 days in 100 bars, most of which are out-of-the-way places. But on Sunday from 3 to 5 pm? it’ll be in the Pearl.

4. Belmont Station

4500 SE Stark St., 232-8538, belmontstation.com.

Goose island brings the party, they tell us—and Southeast Portland’s greatest bottle bar will be bringing in the folks from the chicago craft brewery for a tap takeover this thursday, from 5 to 6 pm. And they promise giveaways.

5. Montavilla Brew Works

7805 SE Stark St., 954-3440, montavillabrew.com. montavilla’s sole brewpub—in an otherwise beer-heavy neighborhood—has been ages in the making. it’s finally here, serving up a range of accessible styles in a concrete bunker with a patio and tables: a blonde, an iPA, a red, a Pilsner.

PONY PARTY: On opening night at the Bit House Saloon (727 SE Grand Ave., 729-9929), the liquor shelves fell. Thousands of dollars of rare Japanese whiskey—bottles that bar manager Jesse Card worked two years to procure—shattered on the floor. “The Maker’s Mark and Jim Beam? That was all fine,” he says. Luckily, there’s still plenty of rare liquor to spare.

On a recent Monday, Card passed around shots of single-barrel Bernheim wheat whiskey made especially for the bar, one of eight exclusive smallbatch liquors served there. The cavernous old-time saloon was once the ill-attended East Bank, which it turns out was one of the most underutilized old buildings in Portland. The new owners—who also rehabbed Lutz Tavern in Woodstock—threw down flooring with wood from old bourbon barrels, added a huge fire pit on the spacious back patio, and plan to host events on a previously empty second story that once housed boxing matches. The old boxing bell hangs behind the bar, and bartenders ring it when a friend walks in. Former Wildwood chef Dustin Clark’s food menu is downright carnivalesque, with authentic Rocky Mountain oysters ($9) alongside armadillo eggs ($9) that are basically a cross between a Scotch egg and a jalapeño popper, plus a fried chicken-thigh sandwich ($13) and rabbit hand pie ($12). The festival continues on the drink side, with a $5 Hopworks draft aged in bourbon barrels, mezcal or genepy “boilermakers” ($8-$12), mystery-flavored boozy ice pops ($5), and a house-blended sherry ($7) that tastes pleasantly like toffee. The tap cocktails are mostly sweet, very complicated, and all about $9—try the K23, which mixes rum with mint and beet juice, or one of two fancy house slushies. But so far, it’s mostly the service industry that has discovered the place. On multiple visits, seemingly every bartender in town was ponied at the bar drinking minibottle beer backs of Miller High Life, while across the street, the sidewalk shitshow at Dig a Pony continued apace. MATTHEW KORFHAGE.

Mon. Aug. 17 Cadigan’s Corner Bar 5501 SE 72nd Ave. Fight Church TV, Jessie

ground Kontrol Classic Arcade

511 NW Couch St. Metal Mondays, Metal Kyle and DJ Shreddy Krueger

Wed. Aug. 12 Plews Brews

8409 N. Lombard St. Wiggle Room

Pub at the end of the universe 4107 SE 28th Ave. Wicked Wednesdays

The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. Event Horizon, Industrial Dance Night

Thurs. Aug. 13 holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Body Party, Holla n’ Oates

Moloko Plus

3967 N Mississippi Ave. Montel Spinoza

The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. Shadowplay

Fri. Aug. 14 Crystal Ballroom

1332 W. Burnside 80s Video Dance Attack, VJ Kittyrox

Lola’s room

1332 W Burnside 80s Video Dance Attack

Moloko Plus

3967 N Mississippi Ave. The Diamond stylus with King Tim 33 1/3

sAT. Aug. 15 holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Gaycation, Mr. Charming

Moloko Plus

3967 N Mississippi Ave. NorthernDraw

The goodFoot Lounge

2845 SE Stark St. Tropitaal Desi Latino Soundclash with DJ Anjali and The Incredible Kid

The Lovecraft

421 SE Grand Ave. Departures, DJ Waisted and Friends

Tues. Aug. 18 The Lodge Bar & grill 6605 SE Powell Blvd.

DJ Easy Finger

sun. Aug. 16 holocene

1001 SE Morrison St. Chet Faker

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

39

TechfestNW August 20-21 • Revolution Hall • techfestnw.com

TALENT FAIR 8am-2pm • $10

These companies are hiring talented candidates - is that you? techfestnw.com/talent-fair

40

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

PERFORMANCE

aug. 12–18 FEATURE

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

COuRTESY OF WHITNEY CuMMINGS

Most prices listed are for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply, so it’s best to call ahead.

Editor: ENID SPITZ. Theater: ENID SPITZ (espitz@wweek.com).

Dance: ENID SPITZ (dance@wweek.com).

TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: espitz@wweek.com.

OPENINGS & PREVIEWS The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) Revised

Like SparkNotes on Adderall, this Complete Works consolidates all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays into 97 minutes.

This is Post5’s fourth-annual production of the three-actor Bard overdose from Shakespeare shorthand specialists Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield. First performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987 and then at London’s Criterion Theatre, Post5’s courtyard performance features returning stars from previous runs, including Post5 star Ty Boice.

Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971-258-8584. 7:30 pm WednesdayThursday and 10:30 pm Saturday, Aug. 12, 13 and 15. Pay what you can.

The Praying Mantis

Chilean playwright Alejandro Sieveking lived in political exile in Costa Rica for 10 years, hence the heavy theme of political repression in this comedic mystery play. When Adela brings her suitor home to meet the family, lust takes over. Her two elder sisters, both accused of killing their husbands, try to steal the young buck, but the only woman he’s drawn to is a mysterious younger sister who stays shuttered behind closed doors. Twilight Theater’s three-person cast takes on the play’s six roles, weaving an intricate web of characters in practice and in theory.

Twilight Theater, 7515 N Brandon Ave., 847-9838. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday and 3 pm Sunday, Aug. 14-30. $15.

Schizo

Katie Watkins knows mental illness.

Since her little brother was 7 years old, she’s watched him struggle for normalcy while battling the frightening visions produced by his schizophrenia. In this original solo piece—part documentary and part emotional nonnarrative—Watkins uses sound and movement to explore the disorder.

Watkins, a regular at local companies Shaking the Tree and Hand2Mouth, put on a mini version of Schizo in Portland schools and youth organizations last spring in an effort to spread awareness. Shaking the Tree, 823 SE Grant Ave., 235-0635. 8 pm Friday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday through Aug. 29. $15.

Singin’ in the Rain

Directors Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen’s 1952 musical holds first place on the American Film Institute’s list of the 25 greatest musicals of all time.

The movie follows the lives of three Hollywood performers transitioning from silent actors to “talkies” in 1920s Hollywood. Mask & Mirror Community Theatre brings the music to the stage with a troupe of over 25 local singers and dancers. A corps of kids perform as “raindrops” before the show and during intermission, and proceeds will be split fifty-fifty between Mask & Mirror and the Foundation for TigardTualatin Schools. Tualatin High School Auditorium, 22300 SW Boones Ferry Road, Tualatin, 620-5262. 7 pm FridaySaturday and 2 pm Sunday, through Aug. 23. $15.

ALSO PLAYING Dear Galileo

Three women from three different eras ponder science, space and daddy issues in this premiere of Playwrights West writer Claire Willett’s 2012 Fertile Ground feature. In modern day Texas, the 10-year-old daughter of a creationist TV pundit finds a passion for science and pens diary entries to Galileo. In 1990s Arizona, a New York sculptor copes with the absence of her astrophysicist father. And in Renaissance Italy, Celeste Galilei cares for her elderly father Galileo, who lives under house arrest for defying

the Catholic Inquisition. CoHo Theater, 2257 NW Raleigh St., 220-2646.

7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday and 2 pm Sunday, through Aug. 29. $15-$25.

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

In 2008, the debut of Joss Whedon’s (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) online superhero musical starring Neil Patrick Harris got so many views that it crashed the drhorrible.com site.

Lacking Harris, Funhouse’s Isaac Frank stars as Billy, aka Dr. Horrible, whose sole aspirations are getting accepted into the Evil League of Evil and finding the balls to speak to his crush at the laundromat. But Dr. Horrible’s superhero archnemesis, the dashing Captain Hammer, is making both corruption and love difficult. Fully utilizing his 3-D advantage, Funhouse artistic director Trenton Shine added songs, dancing and a gender swap to the serial blog.

On Aug. 13 to 15, the leads playing Dr. Horrible and Penny switch roles.

Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 841-6734. 7 pm Thursday-Saturday through Aug. 29. $16-$20.

Funeral for Old Portland

Portland used to be dirtier.

Hand2mouth’s Time, A Fair Hustler imagines the lives of beautiful boy hustlers Mike and Scott from Gus Van Sant’s 1991 film My Own Private Idaho.

The production also raises questions about how Portland has changed over the last 25 years. Jonathan Walters, founder of Portland’s Hand2Mouth Theatre company and the director of the first-ever stage production of Van Sant’s Idaho, wonders: “Have we lost our underground? Have people lost their souls?” After the play’s performance on Sunday, the company will embrace both humor and nostalgia in a funeral for old Portland. Eulogies will come from old-time Portlanders, including WW contributor Phil Busse, The Oregonian’s former theater critic Marty Hughley and Street Roots’ executive director Israel Bayer. Rick Meyers, who played the saw for Idaho’s original score, will provide musical accompaniment. You are welcome to attend the funeral even if you miss the play beforehand. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 4 pm Sunday, Aug. 16. Free.

Gruesome Playground Injuries

Pulitzer Prize finalist Rajiv Joseph’s comic-tragic romance, performed off Broadway in 2011, follows the three decade relationship of two madefor-each-other masochists, played by Portland Actors Conservatory graduate Tabitha Trosen and Jim Valeda, who made a cameo appearance in Portlandia last year. Kayleen and Doug meet as wounded children in the infirmary at their parochial school and are reunited throughout the next 30 years in a mental institution, a funeral parlor and in various hospital rooms. Third Rail Repertory’s artistic director Scott Yarbrough directs the painful love affair. Action/Adventure Theatre, 1050 SE Clinton St., actionadventure.org.

7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, ends Aug. 15. $10-$20.

How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying

Clackamas Repertory makes it look easy. Following the seven-time Tony Award- and Pulitzer-winning musical’s titular advice, this Oregon City production sticks to Broadway’s formula for success—showy song-and-dance acts and toothy grins. It shouldn’t be any other way. Handsome and brighteyed, local acting and voice teacher Jameson Tabor fits perfectly in the role of ambitious mailroom staffer J. Pierrepont Finch, who works his way up to becoming chairman of the board.

Ex-Disney cruise-ship performer Cassi Q. Kohl plays Finch’s love interest, the

CONT. on page 42

clEan oPEraTor: Whitney cummings.

COMING UP FAST FIRST CAME MONEY, THEN CAME LOVE, NEXT UP FOR WHITNEY CUMMINGS…A BABY CARRIAGE?

BY DaVE Ca N TOR

243-2122

2 Broke Girls co-creator Whitney Cummings likes to plan far ahead. The Money Shot and I Love You celebricomic has a landslide of opportunity on her doorstep—simultaneous network and cable spots, endless travel for shows and her forthcoming third hourlong standup special. Cummings is like a realworld Liz Lemon. When not planning her standup routine like a script, she’s navigating the doomed love life of a comedian. But ahead of her threenight run at Helium Comedy Club this weekend, she talked to WW about freezing her eggs and her decade in show biz.

WW: Would you consider yourself Max or Caroline from 2 Broke Girls?

Whitney Cummings: Definitely Max—Kat Dennings’ character. When Michael Patrick King started this show, he wanted two girls who were broke. And I came up with the idea that one fell from grace—she was a billionaire and lost all her money. I was the Max and he was the Caroline. But Michael was also a waiter in New York and a comedian with a really funny, dark sense of humor, so Max became an amalgam of both of us.

Given the time you spend on the road, how involved are you with the show?

Michael Patrick King runs it. I focus so much on standup, and I’m touring all the time, so I read scripts, send in jokes and talk to Michael about stories. I’m as involved as I can be.

Your first gig was on MTV’s Punk’d. Did working without a script affect the way you approach standup?

Improv is you trying to be funny—in Punk’d, I never tried to be funny because you’d give away the prank.

But my standup is very written. I write jokes, work on it, try it a million different ways until I find the

funniest read on it. Then I do it more as a play.

After your last special, 2014’s I Love You, you said the guy you were dating broke up with you because of some of the material. Has that impacted the set you’re working on now?

When you’re making comedy or any kind of art, you can’t do a piece where you worry about what anyone’s going to think. I try not to ask for permission. To a certain extent, we’re all martyrs in our personal lives. I don’t know a lot of comedians who are happily married.

Did you finish I Love You and immediately start on the material you’ll film at the end of this tour?

I want to do another TV series, and you can’t really do [that and be on the road]. But I have a lot to say. During [Whitney, from 2011 to 2013], all this stuff started happening to me, but I didn’t have a chance to talk about it onstage. I’m going to be 33 in September, so—fertility stuff—I froze my eggs. I talk a lot about that and how hard it was, why I did it, and how nobody knows what it is. Everybody thinks it’s so desperate, crazy and extreme.

Really? In 2015?

I want to have a kid one day, but I’m not qualified right now. I don’t even know my PayPal password.

There’s so much more that I want to do. Stop working and have a kid? Fuck that. Biology is all wrong.

You can have a kid at 15, but not 40? That’s crazy. I’ve never met a 15-year-old and been like, “You would make a great mom. I love your Snapchat.”

SEE IT: Whitney Cummings performs at Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669.

7:30 pm Thursday, 7:30 and 10 pm Friday and Saturday, Aug. 13-15. $30-$38. 21+.

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

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AUG. 12–18

secretary Rosemary, who dreams of wearing a “wifely uniform” someday.

Both play their parts with giant smiles and the absurd amounts of vigor that Broadway, and Clackamas, demands.

YouTube vlogger Teresa Renee stands out in the role of Hedy, the sassy and busty pin-up mistress to the company president, and the entire cast holds its own vocally even with live orchestra accompaniment. While the doeeyed secretaries will make feminists gag and the toothy grins are bound to deter edgy artists, Clackamas’ How to succeeds in the business of Broadway musicals. ALLIE DONAHUE. Clackamas Repertory Theatre, 19600 Molalla Ave., Oregon City, 594-6047. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2:30 pm Sunday through Aug. 23. $35.

Much Ado About Nothing

Post5 Theatre has a blueprint for staging Shakespeare and this production is proof that it works. Even directed by Seattle’s Darragh Kennan, it bears every mark of the theater’s Bard branding. Trading Shakespeare’s quaint Italian town for a Pacific Northwest vibe, the set could be any Willamette Valley winery (WillaKenzie Estate is a top sponsor) and its victorious regiment pops beer cans like so many Timbers fans on Northwest 21st Avenue. This contemporary staging is the refreshing cocktail that makes a tired play go down easy. There are the inevitable bumps, though, here in the shape of flimsier minor characters and directing decisions that draw out the second act. Moving the audience into Post5’s garden for the wedding scene completely interrupts the play’s momentum. Twinkle lights below starry skies make for a picturesque chapel, but filing in and out of the cramped garden took longer than the actual scene. Still, Post5’s mold for modernized, belly-laughing comedy holds its own and makes for a lovely midsummer’s eve. As Shakespeare himself wrote: To thine own self be true. ENID SPITZ. Post5 Theatre, 1666 SE Lambert St., 971-258-8584. 8 pm Friday-Sunday, July 18 through Aug. 16. $20.

Time, A Fair Hustler

You’d be forgiven for gagging at the mention of “Van Sant” given Portland’s recent binge on the director’s work.

Pretend you’re a Van Sant virgin and go see Time, A Fair Hustler. After a seemingly endless road to the Artists Repertory stage, Jonathan Walters’ Hand2Mouth production achieves something rare on any stage: a genrehybrid performance where the characters move like dancers, the original score fits like a great film soundtrack, and lighting tricks make the set resemble a live art show. In this memorable funeral for old Portland, Time fast-forwards 25 years from Idaho to imagine the hustler Gary (Jason Rouse) working at New Seasons, Bob (Jean-Luc Boucherot) still dumpster-diving for bread, and the prodigal son Mike (Hand2Mouth’s Julie Hammond) as mayor. Like sleazy Hans (Anne Sorce) and the gay prostitution ring of 1990s Portland that Van Sant mined in Idaho, Hand2Mouth’s reinterpretation is dirty, intimate and splendid. The play is mostly scenes from the movie re-enacted as flashbacks, but this is no stage version of the film.

New York actress Erika Latta beautifully saunters onto the set as Scott with an ease to rival Keanu Reeves, and Hammond captures the sniffling vulnerability of River Phoenix’s Mike.

It’s like rewatching your favorite film.

Portland does this often. Hand2Mouth does it well. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., 241-1278. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday through Aug. 16. $25-$30.

COMEDY & VARIETY (True) Tall Tales With Don Frost

Who doesn’t love story time, especially if it involves comedy? Don’s comedy is sarcastic and includes stories about his upbringing in the desert of Nevada.

With help from local Portland comics, the night will be full of stories better than the ones your grandparents told you. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 8 pm Wednesday, Aug. 12. $5-$13. 21+.

42

An Evening With Mikey Kampmann

Mikey Kampmann, head writer and co-founder of Comedy is OK, has been to Antarctica and was a guest star on Portlandia. There won’t be an icy moment at this event with performances from Portland’s Funniest Person winner Amy Miller, WW’s Funniest 5 comedian Bri Pruett and Paul Schlesinger. Better yet, you can even grab yourself a Bunk sandwich to gorge on while you’re laughing at the lineup. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., 894-9708. 9:30 pm Monday, Aug. 17. $5.

Control Yourself: A Showcase of Funny

Midwest transplant and Bridgetown Comedy Festival comedian JoAnn Schinderle hosts the popular showcase highlighting local comedians from in town and around the bend.

The biweekly installment always brings a heavy amount of laughter from the crowd and is a strong mainstay in the Portland comedy scene.

Alberta Street Pub, 1036 NE Alberta St., 284-7665. 9 pm Sunday, Aug. 16.

Free.

Open Court

Team-based, long-form improv open to audience members and performers of all stripes. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477.

7:30 pm every Thursday. $5.

Picture This!

In a show that mashes standup and Pictionary, comics perform while artists illustrate their sets live. There’s a predictable tendency toward penis drawings, but also an offbeat play between the visual and the verbal.

Andie Main hosts. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 9:30 pm every second Friday. $7-$10; $5 with the purchase of a ticket to the 7:30 pm show.

Pop*ulari*Tea

Elizabeth Teets and Sabine Rear dare you to sip your tea without spitting

it out in laughter during this comedic combination of pop-culture riffs and popular Portland standup acts.

Audience members suggest current newsworthy topics and comedians run with them. Featuring Lez Stand Up comedian Caitlin Weierhauser, Brody Theater-born improv professional Manuel Hall and Rachelle Eileen.

Camellia Lounge, 510 NW 11th Ave., 221-2130. 6:30 pm Saturday, Aug. 15.

Free.

Random Acts of Comedy

Curious Comedy puts on a freewheeling show that brings together sketch, standup and improv. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 9:30 pm every Saturday. $7-$10.

Synesthesia Festival

The annual Synesthesia arts festival celebrates the senses, featuring events

concentrated on the visual, audible, interactive and intellectual senses, but it also offers plenty to laugh about.

Attendees will be tickled pink throughout the weekend, with over 20 contributing comedians. The shows include a special Garbage People installment hosted by local Portland funny man Brodie Kelly, “The Monster Mash”; a sing-along comedic showcase, Pay to Play Comedy Karaoke; a comedy hour, She’s The Rainbow; and comedy that’s bound to get weird, Paint it Black.

The lineup of comedians includes Portland acts like Bridgetown Comedy Festival; Lez Stand Up performer Katie Rose Leon; artist, musician and openmic regular Jason Traeger; Portland’s Funniest Person semifinalist Becky Braunstein and many more. Purchase a festival package or individual tickets for each event. Multiple venues. 10 am Friday-Sunday, Aug. 14-16. $15-$30. 21+.

CONT. on page 43

PREVIEW CHELSEA PETRAKIS

PERFORMANCE

Curious Comedy Showdown

Curious Comedy’s improvisers duke it out, in hopes of winning audience votes and advancing to the next round of competition. Curious Comedy, 5225 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 477-9477. 7:30 pm every Friday and Saturday. $12-$15.

Earthquake Hurricane

This popular show, hosted by Portland’s Alex Falcone, is holding out at Velo Cult while Kickstand tries to tune up. This installment features Portland’s Funniest Person competitor Neeraj Srinivasan, Bridgetown Comedy Festival performer and the Awkward Phase podcaster David Mascorro, and local performer Brian Nickerson. If an earthquake should strike, you’ll luckily be able to escape by bike. Velo Cult, 1969 NE 42nd Ave., 922-2012. 9 pm Wednesday, Aug. 12. $5 suggested donation.

Fly-Ass Jokes Prime-Time

A special Saturday showcase of Brody’s popular comedic installment.

Leave it to the comedic professionals to keep your Saturday full of funny.

Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 8 pm Saturday, Aug. 15. $8.

Helium Open Mic

Generally regarded as the best openmic night in town, Helium’s sign-ups fill quickly. Show up between 6 and 7 pm to snag some stage time.

Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 888-643-8669. 8 pm every Tuesday.

Free with a two-item minimum. 21+.

Naked Comedy Open Mic

The Brody hosts a thrice-weekly openmic night. Comics get four-minute standup slots and can sign up online.

Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 9:30 pm every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Free with one-item minimum purchase.

Night on the Town

The quaint Defunkt plays host to a new sketch-comedy show brought to you

by Lori Ferraro and Brooke Totman, who are used to acting out about 20 different side-splitting personas and crazy scenarios within 90 minutes.

Their Bath Night show is like a weirdly hilarious mash-up of Milk and The Dark Knight Rises with its wild characters.

This installment is directed by Shelley McLendon of Portland’s witty sketch duo The Aces. Defunkt Theatre, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 481-2960. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday through Aug. 22. $15-$20.

Odd Couples

Sign up and standup alongside Brody’s professionals in the improv theater’s newest show. Amid its nonstop lineup, this is a rare chance for the audience to pop up on stage. Because what else is really going to mix up your Thursday? Brody Theater, 16 NW Broadway, 224-2227. 9:30 pm Thursday, Aug. 13. $5.

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

ON THE SPOT: Instant Theatre performing at the Stumptown Improv Festival 2014.

PORTLAND IMPROV IS BANGING AND BURNING THE STUMPTOWN IMPROV FESTIVAL IS BACK, AND BIGGER. Even after a successful first year, the Stumptown Improv Festival is still working overtime to convince Portlanders what improv isn’t—a self-indulgent form of expression that solely occurs at sparsely attended comedy venues, hosting weirdly outgoing class clowns from the nearest liberal arts college.

Because, let’s be honest, the first thing that comes to mind when you think of improv comedy is probably Whose Line Is it Anyway?, the tag-team, shoutand-react show. But our locally sourced improv showcase is a better brew.

“Improvisers are starting to move beyond simply thinking, ‘I’m following the rules of improv. I’m all good,’ to performing shows that question, ‘How can this be more dynamic, smarter and funnier?’” says Jed Arkley, a member of local group Whiskey Tango, which founded the festival last year with partners Leon Anderson and Erin Jean O’Regan.

Improv has proven to be the slowest of the comedy scenes to catch fire, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t burning somewhere. Portland has been quietly hosting weekly showdowns like Friday Night Fights at Curious Comedy Theater and open nights at most local comedy hangouts, where performers—old and new—test their fresh and improved acts.

It doesn’t take long to be convinced that the scene doesn’t solely consist of boring “give me a word” jokes. Just look to local duo Bang + Burn, fronted by longtime improv greats John Breen and Beau Brousseau. The pair improvises a new episode of a spy action thriller nightly, acting out an endlessly entertaining cast of made-up characters, explosions

and Bruce Willises.

“I feel like Portland’s improv scene is in third gear at 5,500 rpm, we’re running on all cylinders and when we shift into that next gear, watch out,” says Anderson, “The scene here is growing in size, and it’s becoming more and more mature.”

This year, Anderson, Arkley and O’Regan have lined up 18 groups, a list of powerhouse locals that sound like Salt & Straw’s new monthly menu—Bang + Burn, Peachy Chicken, Whiskey Tango—along with Magnet Theater and North Coast from New York, and others from Seattle, L.A. and Minneapolis.

Importing high-level improv groups as competition will be a good thing for everyone, organizers hope. “We knew that the bar would be higher this year,” says Peachy Chicken cast member Bill Cernansky, “We worked really hard to be able to show something new, something we hadn’t tried before.”

Portland’s homegrown talent is ready for that next gear. “The best we have to offer contends with the best of any city,” says Bang + Burn’s Brousseau.

Portland’s underground improv scene is simmering, and this year’s Stumptown is slated to set a new high watermark. For local performers like Cernansky, this means a lot.

“Improv brought my wife and me closer together.

It made me a better father and husband. It’s brought me friends that I treasure. But most importantly, it gives me the chance to be a talking armadillo sheriff,” he says, “What’s better than that?” PARKER HALL. SEE IT: The Stumptown Improv Festival is at Miracle Theater, 525 SE Stark St. Shows at 7:30 and 9:30 pm Thursday and 7, 8:30 and 10 pm Friday-Saturday, Aug. 13-15. $16 single show, $80 festival pass. stumptownimprov.com.

AUG. 12–18

DANCE Art in the Dark: Drop of a Hat

Aerial artists from local dance company A-WOL weave circus magic through the nighttime trees of West Linn’s Mary S. Young Park.

An egotistical ring master, played

by John Ellingson, who has portrayed Captain Hook in Northwest Children’s Theater’s Peter Pan, directs a pink poodle on a tightrope, a deranged clown on a cloud swing and a music-box ballerina on a floating hoop. Mary S. Young Park, 19900 Willamette Drive, West Linn. Starts at dark, around 8:30 pm Friday-Sunday through Aug. 16. $20-$33.

PERFORMANCE

Rue Royale Burlesque Starring Jessabelle Thunder

Rue Royale Burlesque celebrates its two-year anniversary with Jessabelle Thunder, a Los Angeles pinup champ who performed at the 2014 Coney Island Nerdlesque Festival and at the Burlesque Hall of Fame Weekend in Las Vegas. A lineup of West Coast striptease artists and a musical interlude by Portland blues-jazz boy band Jacob Miller and the Bridge City Crooners follows Jessabelle’s headline act. Radio host Daria, voted Best Radio personality in WW’s 2015 readers’ poll, will emcee the sexy glitter-glam. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave. 7 pm Friday, Aug. 14. $20.

JOAN MARCUS

For more Performance listings, visit

REVIEW

CARDINAL CATFIGHT: Carrie St. Louis (left) and Alyssa Fox.

WICKED (BROADWAY IN PORTLAND) Arguably, the best thing that happened on opening night of the touring Broadway production of Wicked wasn’t onstage, but in front of the first row, stage right.

That’s where two American Sign Language interpreters were stationed, treating hearing-impaired theatergoers to an impassioned running translation of Stephen Schwartz and Winnie Holzman’s origin-story takeoff on The Wizard of Oz. The interpreters, Jean Miller and Julie Gebron, managed to condense all the songs and dialogue sung and spoken by 13 principal actors into a riveting, lyrical symphony of hand gestures and facial expressions. Whether in a love duet between Elphaba the Wicked Witch of the West and her hunky love interest Fiyero, or in winningly droll exchanges between the introverted Elphaba and her infinitely more popular girlfriend Glinda the Good Witch, Miller and Gebron not only inhabited the characters’ emotions, they transcended gender, age and personality in ways that embodied the musical’s themes of tolerance and inclusivity more poignantly than did the production’s stars. I repeatedly found myself watching them, even as the “real” actors of the evening sang their lungs out onstage.

This isn’t to say the principal stars weren’t on their game. In fact, they were superb. Alyssa Fox brought a sexy assertiveness to the green-skinned Elphaba, and Carrie St. Louis shone with a flair for physical comedy, channeling Glinda’s delightfully daffy cluelessness. Fox and St. Louis’ chemistry more than overcame the limitations of the show’s overambitious but undercooked plot and a score replete with unmemorable, generic songs, and Michael DeVries as the talking goat Doctor Dillamond brought disproportionate pathos to his small part.

What else is there to say about the perennially performed Wicked, an outsized success since its 2003 premiere? The loyal fans who dress in oddball socks and witch hats to show solidarity with its verdant-hued heroine, the belting characters, even designer Susan Hilferty’s sumptuously campy costumes like the steampunkmeets-leprechaun gowns donned in Oz—all of this grandiosity was overshadowed by the sheer heart pouring forth from those two interpreters in front of the orchestra, drably attired in black smocks and minimal makeup. With their mellifluous hands, arms and faces, they turned signing into singing, and in the process stole the show.

RICHARD SPEER. In a tired show, look to the front row.

SEE IT: Wicked is at Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 248-4335.

7:30 pm Tuesday-Saturday, 2 pm Saturday, 1 pm Sunday through Aug. 23.

Additional shows 6:30 pm Sunday, Aug. 16, and 1 pm Thursday, Aug. 20. $41 and up.

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VISUAL ARTS

AUG. 12–18

Jukebox in the Market Hall

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

By MEGAN HARNED. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit show information—including opening and closing dates, gallery address and phone number—at least two weeks in advance to: Visual Arts, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: mharned@wweek.com.

A Peanut in a Suit is a Peanut Nonetheless

Daniel Long’s work appropriates common painting techniques and visual symbols into an open-ended rumination on representation and narrative. The ensuing world—populated by scenes of largely ancient Egyptian and Greco-Roman pottery floating amid textured backdrops and hieroglyphic serpents, disguised as MS Paint squiggles, attempting to pop off the surface plane—is a rabbit hole wherein visual references constantly collide and combust. Through Sept. 19. Nationale, 3360 SE Division St., 477-9786.

BCC: Brownhall in Residence

Black Creative Collective: Brownhall is comprised of black artists and creatives who produce interdisciplinary art programming to address the dearth of black art and creative spaces in Portland. They seek to engage diverse audiences to honor the intersectionality of interests and histories within our own communities.

The first evening of four weeks of programming will feature performances

by Andre Middleton, Analise Smith, Brian W. Parker, Bre Gipson, Carolyn Anderson, Elija Hasan, Jamondria Harris and Jomo Greenidge.

Future lineups will include Aaron Smith, Darlene Solomon-Rogers, #BlackLivesMatter Portland and others. Through Aug. 27. Compliance Division, 625 NW Everett St., No. 101. Performance nights 7 pm every Thursday in August.

Beauty in the Age of Indifference

This group exhibition both celebrates and challenges our notions of what is beautiful, and what role beauty plays in a contemporary society obsessed and distracted by new technologies which have obliterated old ways of doing, and seeing, things. These disruptive patterns of behavior and our ability to constantly need to upgrade and adapt to them have taken us away from traditional appreciation of how important beauty is in our lives.

Through Sept. 12. Jeffrey Thomas Fine Art, 2219 NW Raleigh Ave., 544-3449.

Boredom Is the Ultimate Weapon

Boredom is the Ultimate Weapon will be a series of improvised structures constructed from material at hand inside and outside of HQHQ Project Space by Los Angeles artist Don Edler. Each of the abstract sculptures is made of materials and objects clamped, strapped and otherwise mechanically attached to one another without adhesives or fasteners. These works are formal exercises that play with shape, color, material, compression and tension. Through Aug. 23.

HQHQ Project Space, 232 SE Oak St.

Cedar Jocks and Sergei “Sm@ck” Khlopoff

A two-person show featuring Contingent Memory, a video work by Cedar Jocks in a black-box installation, and a series of new paintings exploring our common ancestors and potential cousins by Sergei “Sm@ck” Khlopoff titled Alternate Evolutions.

Through Sept. 13. Mark Woolley Gallery @ Pioneer, 700 SW 5th Ave., 3rd floor, Pioneer Place Mall, 998-4152.

Chromatic Intercession

Isaac Tin Wei Lin draws on sources such as Gorky, Gottlieb and graffiti to make drawings and paintings that are strongly graphic and formally captivating. Lin’s bold and colorful mark-making with logographic and alphabetic elements is reminiscent of hieroglyphs, as well as musical scores, Chinese characters and calligraphy.

His newest body of work will explore putting individual images into groups so that statements become conversations. Through Aug. 15. Adams and Ollman, 209 SW 9th Ave., 724-0684.

Decimate Mesh

Ryan Wooding’s work comes in response to the recent onslaught of videos released by terrorist groups depicting the destruction of sculptures and artifacts from Hatrean and Assyrian civilizations. Using his background in the visual-effects industry, Woodring reconstructs these artifacts both digitally and physically using only the pixels supplied in the videos. The accuracy of the reconstruction is dependent on the amount of screen time the object was given as well as the stability of the footage (i.e. camera shake, obstruction of the view of the object, etc.) Through this process of reconstruction, Woodring explores digital dissemination as a complicated mechanism of both destruction and introduction—sensationalism and education—via 3-D printed objects, manipulated videos and fabric work.

Through Aug. 31. Duplex, 219 NW Couch St., 206-5089.

Group Show at Guardino Gallery

Michelle Gallagher’s figurative clay sculptures are rooted in her interest in the peoples and cultures of Asia and the Pacific Islands. Diane Archer’s mixed-media map-making explores physical, emotional and spiritual ideas of place. Amy Ruedinger’s repousse technique transforms copper from a hard, flat material into an inviting, touchable 3-D form. Margaret Van Patten is a printmaker who combines various intaglio techniques to create uniquely personal work. Through Aug. 25. Guardino Gallery, 2939 NE Alberta St., 281-9048.

FEATURE

A jukebox full of stories and sounds from working Portlanders will begin its tour of the city at Portland Mercado.

The bits and pieces of workers’ lives— collected participants in a Wage/ Working oral history workshop—are edited down to the length of time it takes each worker to earn $1. So the workers that earn the least end up getting the longest stories. The newish Portland Mercado food mecca will host it for a month before it moves on.

Through Aug. 14. Portland Mercado, 7238 SE Foster Road.

Listen, Baxter

Baxter’s Eyes starts from compelling found footage from aboard the Oseberg Alpha oil rig off the coast of Norway. The pounding bass notes thrum alongside the churning water, as we follow a worker in bright yellow make his way through the labyrinthine machine. Voice overlay of emails sent between administration and worker are an opportunity to consider how industry is affected by digital communication, but add-ins like typing sound effects and cuts to a tablet with googly eyes clash with the original footage. It’s not the best of it’s genre, but also not the worst, and S1 is in a basement so it’s worth going just to get out of the heat. Through Aug. 13.

S1, 4148 NE Hancock St., s1portland. com.

No Boundaries: Aboriginal Australian Contemporary Abstract Painting

Portland is one of the stops for a traveling exhibition of Aboriginal Australian painting, which will bring this work into conversation with the various abstraction traditions within our own borders. Neither a Western invention nor a stage of development in the telos of art to be fashioned into something higher, abstraction exists whole wherever it’s found as a language for exploring the nature of materials and process, and personal and cross-cultural expression. Through Aug. 16. Mason Ehrman Building Annex, 467 NW Davis St., 242-1419.

Prehensilities With Olivia Knapp

Prehensility: the quality of a limb or organ that has adapted for grasping or holding. Olivia Knapp’s intricate, hand-drawn pen-and-ink style is influenced by European line engravings of decorative relief and scientific specimens from the 16th to 18th centuries. Her current collection uses body organs as contrasting characters in an ongoing story. By subtly anthropomorphizing these organs, she hopes the viewer can separate their “sense of self” from their own mind and yearnings and empathize with these vital, fleshy vessels. Through Aug. 29.

Hellion Gallery, 19 NW 5th Ave., No. 208, 774-7327.

For more Visual Arts listings, visit

ARTFUL ACTIVISM: Gabriel Liston’s From N Edison, St. Johns.

FROM N EDISON, ST. JOHNS When Gabriel Liston painted the Greenpeace protesters dangling from the St. Johns Bridge on July 29, he made art history and outmatched all the photographs of the event.

Painting en plein air from a vantage point on North Edison Street, slightly south of the bridge, Liston captured the bridge looking north with a foreground that’s a riot of plants and flowers. One bridge tower rises out of the bushes, and the deck drives horizontally through the picture plane, drawing the eye to the opposite tower and the forest beyond. Above the deck, trees fade into the distance and the vertical towers counterbalance each other on both sides, making a perfect frame for the protesters dangling in the air below.

While the actual banners were yellow and red—Shell Oil Company’s colors—Liston took some artistic license with the flags hanging above the protesters and added pink to the mix. At first glance, these swatches of color appear to be part of the foliage on the opposite bank, but the loose brushstrokes quickly become banners as you keep looking. The danglers themselves are smaller blots of color just below. By adding pink and mimicking the colors in the foreground flowers, Liston conflates the protesters with the nature they’re fighting for.

It’s not every day a plein-air landscape achieves the status of history painting, but it’s fitting that this moment caught an environmental protest described as “artful activism,” a term coined by political activist Bill Moyer, with red and yellow banners that looked like an art installation. The protesters’ unfurled banners brought to mind works by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, artists known for surrounding buildings, trees, rivers and whole islands with fabric.

Liston’s plein-air painting is equally as ethereal, ephemeral and environmentally conscious as Greenpeace’s actions on the St. Johns Bridge. And Liston proved equally dedicated to the protesters’ cause—From N Edison, St. Johns was sold to a private buyer for an undisclosed sum, with the proceeds donated to Greenpeace.

MEGAN HARNED. A plein-air perspective of the Greenpeace protest.

SEE IT: From N Edison, St. Johns is on view at Froelick Gallery, 714 NW Davis St., through Aug. 29.

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Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

TTE W WILLAME

BOOKS

AUG. 12–18

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

By PENELOPE BASS. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit lecture or reading information at least two weeks in advance to: WORDS, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. Email: words@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115.

THURSDAY, AUG. 13 Matt Love, Tim Sproul and Bill Hall

Three Oregonian writers, coming from three different genres, offer their interpretations of the state and its history. Matt Love’s creative nonfiction “guidebook” A Nice Piece of Astoria blends memoir, history, essay and stream of consciousness. Tim Sproul’s new collection of poetry, Newported, a Poetic Field Guide to the Pacific Coast, examines place through the exploration of its inhabitants, landscapes and places of ritual. Lincoln County Commissioner Bill Hall’s new book, McCallandia: A Utopian Novel, offers an alternate history of Oregon Gov. Tom McCall and what would’ve happened had he become president. Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, 284-1726.

7-8 pm. Free.

SATURDAY, AUG. 15 Renée Watson

While new Portlanders may see the continued gentrification of the city’s neighborhoods as charming, what about the kids who grew up here? Jefferson High School alumna Renée Watson wondered this very thing and returns to her hometown from New York City to read from her new young adult book, This Side of Home. Multnomah County LibraryBelmont, 1038 SE 39th Ave., 9885382. 3-5 pm. Free.

SUNDAY, AUG. 16 Big Big Wednesday Launch Party

Local art and literary journal Big Big Wednesday will celebrate the release of its third issue with a reading and launch party. Sharing their work will be contributors Justin Hocking (The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld: A Memoir), poet Blake Bergeron and Portland writer Patricia No. The Waypost, 3120 N Williams Ave., 367-3182. 7 pm. Free.

MONDAY, AUG. 17 Richard Thompson

Historian Richard Thompson examines the key role of the streetcar in Portland’s early days, particularly the Slabtown neighborhood, which was home to the first streetcar factory on the West Coast. He recounts the tale in his new book, Slabtown Streetcars. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323. 7:30 pm. Free.

Craig Ryan

John Paul Stapp was blasted across the desert in his Sonic Wind rocket sled—at speeds faster than a .45 caliber bullet—and then slammed to a stop all in the name of science.

Stapp’s experiment helped revolutionize automobile and aircraft design, propelling America into the jet age. Craig Ryan’s new biography on Stapp is named Sonic Wind.

Powell’s on Hawthorne, 3723 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 800-878-7323.

7:30 pm. Free.

TUESDAY, AUG. 18 Wayne Lee

Compared by poet Bart Baxter to a cross between Tom Wolfe and Billy Collins, Wayne Lee combines humor and wordplay with satire and insight in his fourth collection, Googling a Present Participle: Poems, Prose Poems, Bogus Monologues & Fraudulent Artifacts. Broadway Books, 1714 NE Broadway, 284-1726.

7-8 pm. Free.

Science Pub

Imagine if there were a little alien that lived inside your body, pulling levers and controlling and assisting all your essential functions. You could call him Carl. But it’s not completely far off, as we continue to learn more about the human microbiome and the role that the huge collection of microbes plays.

For this Science Pub, Hernan Lorenzi from the Bioinformatics Department at the J. Craig Venter Institute will discuss “The Microbiome: An Alien Organ Within the Human Body.”

OMSI, 1945 SE Water Ave., 797-4000.

7-9 pm. $5 suggested donation.

Ivan Doig Tribute

In Ivan Doig’s final novel, Last Bus to Wisdom, an 11-year-old boy finds himself displaced from his home in the Montana Rockies, is sent to live with an ill-tempered aunt and is again sent away, this time with his uncle in tow. Honoring the late, prolific writer of the West, author Craig Lesley (Winterkill) will read from the book and discuss Doig’s influential career with Oregonian book editor Jeff Baker. Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 800-878-7323.

7:30 pm. Free.

For more Books listings, visit

REVIEW

WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN, THE DYING GRASS William T. Vollmann is by far our most important chronicler of American darkness, and he is never far from his subject.

To write a novel about transients, he lived homeless in Sacramento. He has hopped trains, smoked crack, embedded with Afghani mujahideen.

To write about prostitutes, he The Oregon Dream. visited them…lots and lots of them. But his most epic and tragic and beautiful project by far has been his Seven Dreams series, a three-decade project about settlers’ violent collisions with native tribes. And with The Dying Grass: A Novel of the Nez Perce War (Viking, 1,376 pages, $55), Oregon gets its turn in the shade.

The Nez Perce War was one of the final great battles of the Western subjugation, a pyrrhic war of attrition begun in Oregon that is best known for Chief Joseph’s mournful lines of surrender: “From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.” But in Vollmann’s book, Joseph’s speech doesn’t thunder. It is delivered half-heard, among a pack of armed hicks who don’t understand a single word. (“What’s he jabbering, boys?”) Joseph was never the war chief, despite his reputation; he wasn’t the “Red Napoleon” that Chief Looking Glass actually was, or a death-haunted warrior like Chief Toohoolhoolzote.

But he held their deaths with him as sorrow. And 1,100 pages into Vollmann’s book, you damn well do, too.

“My nephew, just this I will ask you,” Joseph says just before his surrender. “What remains for us to give up?”

The chiefs and warriors are not blarneyed as heroes, but are each made deeply complicated. Turns out Chief Toohoolhoolzote was kind of an asshole, and everybody thought Joseph was a pansy.

And General Howard, who hounded them, was a piously Christian advocate for freed slaves who founded Howard University, nonetheless fueled by a complicated anger toward Joseph.

It is a long book. And it is not an easy book, told only in dialogues and interior monologues, among tribespeople and generals and half-cocked gun-totin’ volunteers alike, with little explanation or context except in 400 pages of glossaries. But you come away with deep sympathy for Joseph, forced to surrender while being called a coward. And for General Howard, forced to pursue until it drove him to hatred. And even for Doc, a random piece of shit who picked up a gun just to git sum. This is perhaps Vollmann’s greatest gift—that amid massacre and brutality, all you feel is compassion.

MATTHEW KORFHAGE. GO: William T. Vollmann reads at Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W Burnside St., 226-4651, on Wednesday, Aug. 12. 7:30 pm. Free.

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45

AUG. 12–18

= WW Pick. Highly recommended.

Editor: ENID SPITZ. TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, send screening information at least two weeks in advance to Screen, WW, 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210.

Email: espitz@wweek.com. Fax: 2431115.

FEATURE

MC Chip and Eazy hustling records at the Compton Swap Meet.

M E LT Y B U Z Z . F R

MOVIES

If there’s not at least one swap-meet scene, this movie is bullshit. My sincere hope is that it’s Eazy and his oldest homie, MC Chip, picking up a stack of freshly pressed vinyl at Macola Records (RIP) in Hollywood and cruising down the 110 in Eazy’s 6-4 to the Compton Fashion Center (RIP). There, extras have their minds blown by records with cuss words on them.

OPENING THIS WEEK Best of Enemies

A Though this doc centers on the debates between Gore Vidal and William F. Buckley during the 1968 Republican and Democratic conventions, Best of Enemies has less to do with a presidential election, and more to do with the birth of clickbait culture. Opening with a drumroll and a cymbal crash, the viewer is plunged into the frothy political climate of protests against militarized police forces and a decade when people were fighting for freedom of body and opinion. Director Morgan Neville reveals how ABC set up this onscreen rivalry in hopes of saving the failing network. “We needed a provocative media event.” Enriched with commentary from people like Christopher Hitchens and Dick Cavett, Enemies digs deep into the mutual obsession between Vidal and Buckley, showing their shared insecurities after failed political campaigns and rumors of homosexuality. R. LAUREN TERRY. Fox Tower.

Ice Cube saying a bunch of racist shit about Koreans, Jews and “cave bitches.”

After leaving N.W.A.—and before hanging with Elmo on Sesame Street—Ice Cube dabbled in the Nation of Islam and said a lot of really fucked-up things about Jews (spurred by anger at Heller), Koreans (who ran inner-city bodegas) and “cave bitches” (“stringy hair, no derriere, fronting and faking with your silicone pair…the Devil sent you to try and tame us, but you can’t tame me with no bitch named Amy, looking for the dark meat, but ho I ain’t trying to go out like Barkley”). Something tells me this gets cut from the movie.

Cop Car

B+ This plot summary of little boys taking an abandoned cop car for a joy ride is sure to be underestimated.

Writer-director Jon Watts captures a skillful performance by Kevin Bacon as Sheriff Kretzer, who steals our attention from the start with his dangerous desperation—it’s chilling to hear him practice speaking in an unalarmed voice before calling dispatch to report his missing car. And the film’s few characters only get more dynamic with each scene. While the little boys (James Freedson-Jackson, Hays Wellford) move the plot along with childlike logic, driving at 15 mph with white knuckles, the tension accelerates swiftly in moments like when they find of a loaded gun under the seat. Wide shots of the desolate flatlands amplify the sense of isolation as these boys play the ultimate game of cops and robbers. R. LAUREN TERRY. Living Room Theaters.

Enchanted Kingdom

B+ Those nostalgic for March of the Penguins will get their fix with the BBC’s newest Earth-loving documentary, all hi-def nature montages and overzealous narration that thunders like the voice of God himself. But anyone dragged to the movie by a Penguins addict is in for a surprise treat. Wait just 15 minutes for the unnerving remix of flamingo mating rituals to blow your mind.

Footage is spliced, sped up and set to a synth soundtrack so that it resembles an EDM video for Audubon fanatics.

Watching wildebeests flee crocodiles never really gets old, and it’s especially rewarding when paired with punk-metal tracks. We’re left pondering why no one’s made a rock opera starring water buffalo. G. ENID SPITZ. Cinema 21.

The End of the Tour

B If you haven’t read Infinite Jest, this film about late, lauded author David Foster Wallace will make you biblio-curious. Ably portrayed by Jason Segel—the stoner drummer from Freaks & Geeks—Wallace was an academic who struggled with his iconic fame. Jesse Eisenberg plays Rolling Stone scribe David Lipsky, whose 2010 book, Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself, described the two Davids’ time together on the final days of the Infinite Jest tour. The first half of the film is highly effective, revealing Lipsky’s adulation and Wallace’s general eccentricities and mistrust of just about everything. Segel and Eisenberg fully inhabit their roles, building a generally believable biopic, but a problem arises midway when the film shoehorns in some faux drama to add conflict to the story arc. Instead, this flattens the film by the end, and anyone seeking

CONT. on page 47 46

All the disses.

ANDRE 1985: Before his doctor prescribed cannabis.

THE DAYZ OF WAYBACK

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON WILL BE COOL, BUT NOT EXACTLY REAL.

BY M ARTI N C I Z M AR

mcizmar@wweek.com

“Uh, no.”

Remember that phrase as you watch the long-awaited N.W.A. biopic, Straight Outta Compton, this weekend. It will surely be an incredible film—but not nearly what it could have been were it not produced by its own subjects, an image-conscious and very powerful cadre that includes Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Friday director F. Gary Gray.

In addition to being the most important and influential rap group of all time, the N.W.A. project has always been a masterstroke of image-crafting. I learned that five years ago when I interviewed a dozen people who were there for the birth of the group, including member MC Ren and manager Jerry Heller. Although N.W.A. told stories of street life better than anyone before or since, when the members got together they were mostly virgins who did not smoke marijuana or drink malt liquor, let alone shoot cops. Ice Cube studied drafting at a technical school in Phoenix, and Dr. Dre was performing at roller rinks as part of a besequined DJ crew.

Straight Outta Compton did not screen before our deadline, but early reports suggest it’s more of a feature-length music video than a documentary. That’s fine—I’m as excited for the movie as anyone. But I will be slightly more excited if Straight Outta Compton includes any of these real-life events.

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

Dr. Dre wearing lipstick and a whitesequined jumpsuit.

Dr. Dre is an incredible talent and probably the most important person in popular music in the past two decades. He’s also an undeniable studio gangsta who “ain’t never done shit wrong.” As Eric “Eazy-E” Wright (RIP) once mused, “Damn, it’s a trip how a nigga can switch so quick from wearing lipstick to smokin’ on chronic at picnics.” My preferred version of this scene takes place at Skateland U.S.A. in Compton (RIP), with Dr. Dre wearing white-sequined suits and a stethoscope while performing as part of the World Class Wreckin’ Cru. Eazy comes in wearing an L.A. Kings hat and is, like, “Word?”

The white dude

Look closely at the cover of N.W.A.’s first record, N.W.A. and the Posse, and you’ll notice there’s a white dude right up front. That’s Krazy D, and he’s actually Mexican. He was a street-level dealer along with Eazy and a genuine member of N.W.A. in its early days. He’s listed as a coproducer of the group’s first single, and he sang a verse on “Dopeman.”

He should appear briefly in the film and be played by a young Danny McBride.

Before they all made up around the time of Eazy’s death from AIDS, the members of N.W.A. traded barbs in some of the most vicious dis tracks of all time. Downplaying that does a disservice to history.

Johnny “J” producing all the good shit on All Eyez on Me.

Dre gets most of the credit for Pac’s best record, but his main Johnny “J” (RIP) produced all the good songs except “Can’t C Me” and “California Love.” In my version of the scene, Dre watches Johnny work on “Picture Me Rollin’,” nods, then says, “That’s dope.”

This could help set up the obvious follow-up, a Tupac biopic.

Everyone trying to get with Michel’le.

Why did everyone want to get with Ruthless Records R&B singer Michel’le? I do not know.

I do know that the mother of children by both Dre and Suge should be played by Kerry Washington, and there should be at least one hot sex scene.

Suge Knight dangles Vanilla Ice off a hotel balcony.

OK, so the founding of Ruthless Records is probably beyond the scope of Compton. But if it’s not, we’ve gotta see Suge Knight dangling Vanilla Ice off a hotel balcony.

SEE IT: Straight Outta Compton is rated R. It opens Friday at Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Hollywood, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Theater.

aug. 12–18

Sitting on the Edge of Marlene

B Life is neon for teenage Sammie (Paloma Kwiatkowski) and her mother, Marlene (Suzanne Clément), committing petty heists in upscale bars while wearing fancy cocktail dresses.

But when a john puts Marlene in the hospital, director Ana Valine’s debut takes on darker colors and content.

She isn’t a fun eccentric, she’s a pillpopping prostitute. Valine doesn’t bank on the impenetrable weight of hard times for impact, however. Instead, she treats tragedy like sculpture, showing all sides: Humor (a slow reveal of Sammie slitting her wrists in the tub, only to show that she’s just rubbing a beet against them) and boredom ( the jillion shots of Marlene zoning out on the couch) are just as important as misery. The film’s proportions are off—a little less Marlene on the couch and a little more important but pervy Eastern European neighbor would help—but it’s an ambitious start for a director with an eye for color and an ear for tone.

NR. JAMES HELMSWORTH. NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium. 7 pm Wednesday, Aug. 12.

Phoenix

A Since its debut at the Toronto Inter-

national Film Festival last summer, the nominations keep coming for this concise, moving neo-noir set in postwar Germany. Nelly (Nina Hoss) has just returned from a concentration camp, her face disfigured beyond recognition.

After recovering from reconstructive surgery, she learns of her massive inheritance, but is only concerned about finding her husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld). “I no longer exist,” she says after seeing her unfamiliar reflection, but her search for Johnny spirals into a far more twisted tale of what remains of her sense of self. Subtle clues illuminate the relationships between characters and their backstories—a glance, a murmur in passing. Director Christian Petzold crafts this stylish period piece without relying on dramatic lighting or odd angles, instead thickening the mystery with jarring cuts that keep the audience guessing. Pg-13. LAUREN TERRY. Cinema 21.

STILL SHOWING Amy

A Even if you followed Amy

Winehouse’s career, it’s hard to keep from crossing your fingers for a different ending. R. LAUREN TERRY. Cinema 21, Hollywood, Kiggins.

Ant-Man

B+ Ant-Man is a largely self-contained,

breezy, hilarious and gorgeous heist film that manages a feat few recent superhero films do: It stands up well on its own. Ex-con Scott Lang (a beefedup Paul Rudd) invades the home of Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and finds a weird-looking suit that can shrink its wearer to insect size while granting super strength and the ability to control ants telepathically. Ant-Man might be the most disposable superhero movie, but that makes it all the more enjoyable. If it were a comic book, it wouldn’t be the kind you put in a Mylar bag. It’d be one that you read with greasy fingers and childlike relish. Pg-13. ANDY KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Cinemagic, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place.

Dark Places

C- Twenty-five years after witness-

ing the murders of her mother and sisters and helping to put her brother in prison for the crime, Libby Day (Charlize Theron) is drawn into the ranks of the Kill Club, a group of nerdy murder aficionados intent on finding out what really happened on the night Day’s family died. Based on the novel

by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, Dark Places is a lurid little puzzle that offers a few minor thrills. R. CHRIS STAMM. Living Room Theaters.

HOTSEAT

Fantastic Four

D While neither Avengers: Age of

COURTESY OF PLAINVIEW PICTURES

entertainment over verity will be better served by another viewing of Almost Famous. R. NATHAN CARSON. Fox Tower.

MOVIES

Ultron nor Ant-Man were total failures, they were, at least, fun. Fantastic Four is decidedly not fun and— with the exception of largely decent casting and some genuinely compelling flashbacks—a total failure. It is a gloomy, vacuous parade of junk science wherein four perfectly serviceable actors spend most of their time staring at computer holograms or strapped to hospital beds. The comics are kitschy, colorful affairs, and this mess is unbearably self-serious and claustrophobic. Worse yet, because Marvel once handed out its eternal bigscreen rights like AOL discs—Fox is the culprit this time—audiences won’t even be rewarded for suspending their agonizing disbelief with cheeky references or guest appearances. Please God, make it stop. I’d ask Thanos, but for contractual reasons he cannot intercede. Pg-13. CASEY JARMAN. Bagdad, Cedar Hills, Eastport Plaza, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Wilsonville.

The Gift

C The Gift is that rare mass-marketed psychological thriller that’s less concerned with scares than nuanced interiority. It’s as ominous, thoughtful and ultimately meaningless as any of the elaborate gifts left at the sparkling new home of Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall). Following his dream job, the couple leaves Chicago for Simon’s hometown of Los Angeles, where a chance encounter with a forgotten schoolmate leads “Gordo the Weirdo” (writer-director Joel Edgerton) to aggressive efforts at rekindling a friendship Simon insists never existed. The meandering narrative makes us question how intently should we care about the empty actions of awful or absent characters? Some presents are perhaps best left unopened. R. JAY HORTON. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Movies on TV.

Infinitely Polar Bear

B- Not a Disney documentary about how polar bears mate for life. R. ALEX FALCONE. Hollywood, Fox Tower.

Inside Out

A It’s sad. Crushingly, relentlessly sad. And absolutely brilliant from writer-director Pete Docter, (Up). Pg. ALEX FALCONE. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place.

F

Irrational Man

Of all Woody Allen’s films in recent memory, this has the worst icky-tointeresting ratio. The moment Joaquin Phoenix is introduced as the controversial new professor at an elite liberal arts school, you know this is a movie about a professor preying on a student, in this case the supremely likable Emma Stone. R. ALEX FALCONE. Eastport, Clackamas, Bridgeport, City Center, Fox Tower, Movies on TV.

Jimmy’s Hall

B+ It seems funny for a film that takes

place in remote southern Ireland to open with vintage shots of trolleys and striking workers in New York City, but so much of Jimmy’s Hall is about the characters we don’t see onscreen— dead relatives, emigrants and deportees. The locals we do meet (including the titular Jimmy Gralton) are focused on resurrecting a community center in the ugly shadow of the Irish civil war.

Pg-13. CASEY JARMAN. Cinema 21.

Mad Max: Fury Road

A I left the theater feeling like I should take a shower. This is a batshit, dirtpunk world. Pg-13. ALEX FALCONE. Academy, Avalon, Empirical, Kennedy School, Laurelhurst, Mission, Vancouver, Valley.

CONT. on page 48

JEFF LIPSKY

NO LIP SERVICE FOR DIRECTOR’S MAD WOMEN.

BY EN ID SPITZ

espitz@wweek.com

Jeff Lipsky has known both the warm embrace of critical acclaim and the lash of critics’ scorn.

His 2006 film, Flannel Pajamas, was a Sundance darling and lauded by The New York Times as “one of the most intimate screen portraits of a relationship ever attempted.” But his new feature, Mad Women, has a 0.0 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The psychological family drama features an ex-con running for office who is married to a dentist accused of sexual abuse while high on LSD, and its graphic incest scene has caused critics from the likes of Variety and The New York Times to balk at the film.

Despite the reaction, Lipsky—who’ll answer questions from the audience after showings at Cinema 21 this weekend—couldn’t be more proud of it.

WW: You started as a distributor with a film by one of your idols, John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence, so when did directing become your goal?

Jeff Lipsky: Since I was 10 years old. Now I’ve made five films in the past 10 years, and I’ve seen my films actually transform people’s lives. That films can do that—I think that’s a small miracle.

Do you think Mad Women has that effect?

It’s probably my best work. I consider it a dark satire. Like all of my work, it’s provocative and explores themes of mothers and daughters. I don’t think a person like [the mother] Harper Smith could exist in the real world, but if there was such a world, it’d be one where anything could happen. Her platform [eliminating the post office; sentencing people for littering cigarettes] is a little ridiculous, and it does reflect my hopes and dreams a bit.

What inspired your female characters: Harper, the politician mother; Nevada, the lost daughter; and Julianne, the one-eyed grandmother?

Obama had just taken his second oath, and every 24-hour news channel was only talking about the next presidential race. I got so tired of listening to canned speeches from the same cavalcade of politi-

ONe HAPPY MAN: Jeff Lipsky.

cians that I’d all heard before, none of whom could entertain me like Donald Trump does now. So I thought up this woman character who commits a crime of conscience and becomes a folk hero running for office.

Also, at the time, one of the big-box films was The Hunger Games, and I kept seeing Jennifer Lawrence with her bow, so I thought the grandma should have an eye patch and be an avid archer. I joke that it should’ve been called Hunger Games 4: Mad Women.

But most critics say it’s too explicit. Vulture’s review basically said it is all about sex, and New York Daily News called it “perverted but boring.”

There’s significantly more nudity and a dollop more sexuality [in Mad Women] than in most American films, but this is probably my least graphic film. I was not expecting this reaction. There’s an 800-pound gorilla in the room right now...incest. People might say it’s abuse, but I needed to bring the mother and daughter together closer than they’d ever been.

It’s this flashpoint. The scene recalls an earlier one where Nevada is young and crawls into the bed.

The audience should remember that and embrace the moment as a lovely pastiche, beautiful realism.

But that [incest] scene happens, and the audience is blinded for 20 or 30 minutes—it takes them that long to catch up with the characters.

What about scenes like the final one [where a man vulgarly ogles a woman in a bike shop] that are so sexually explicit?

You describe it as sexual; I describe it as the general asshole nature of most men. The rest of it is a satire— an alternate reality that is all family and warmth.

That part is the magic of cinema. The final scene is a return to the real world. For me, the movie is about how difficult it is to remain idealist when the world is trying to play Whac-A-Mole with you.

Has the harsh criticism fazed you?

For me, the worst criticism of my film would be two people standing up after the credits and one asking, “So, where do you want to go to dinner?” I want people to love it, to be outraged, to express hatred—I just want them to talk about it for hours and days.

That’s what art is. If you see Ant-Man, are you talking about it three days later? see it: Mad Women opens Friday, Aug. 14, at Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Ave., 223-4515. Director Jeff Lipsky will attend Q&As for showings at 7 pm Friday-Sunday, Aug. 14-16. $8.50.

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

47

MOVIES

AUG. 12–18

Magic Mike XXL

Southpaw

room temperature when I left the theater, XXL gets the job done.

PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Living Room Theaters.

Southpaw without making it sound like a list of boxing movie clichés, because that’s exactly what it is. Jake Gyllenhaal’s light-heavyweight champion through the ringer in a familiar tale of redemption.

Undefeated Billy Hope loses everything in short order: his wife (Rachel McAdams), riches, entourage and daughter. R. MICHAEL NORDINE. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Movies on TV.

Minions

A Like the nose-tickling carbon-

ation of a freshly cracked soda, Minions is light and makes you giggle. PG. AMY WOLFE. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place.

Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation

A The newest installment in the

Tom Cruise-led series is top-of-class for the genre. It’s not sappy. It’s a tight action movie focused on talented people working together for the good (or harm? You have no idea!) of the world. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Mill Plain, Clackamas, Cinetopia, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Tigard, Wilsonville, St. Johns Cinemas, St. Johns Theater.

B- There’s no way to describe

Trainwreck

C Amy Schumer stars as Amy. Save your time, save your money, and most importantly, save your little heart from breaking over what this fi lm could ’ve been. R .

ALEX FALCONE. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Moreland, Bridgeport, City Center, Evergreen, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, St. Johns Theater.

Vacation

D+ You can look forward to the same opening tune of Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road,” but this spin on 1983’s National Lampoon’s Vacation replaces the original’s irreverent, campy charm with puke scenes and punch lines that rely on the comedic value of a child saying “vagina.” R. LAUREN TERRY. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place.

For more Movies listings, visit

REVIEW DANIEL SMITH

C If I base my critique on the

Mr. Holmes

C- There’s a reason we don’t often follow our heroes into the sunset.

Without Ian McKellen, this would be the story of a boring old man doing boring, old-man things. PG. ANDY KRYZA. Cedar Hills, Clackamas, Living Room Theaters, Bridgeport, City Center, Movies on TV.

Paper Towns

B- This is the classic manic-pixiedream-girl story of a bunch of highschoolers figuring out who to go to prom with. PG-13. ALEX FALCONE. Living Room Theaters, Bridgeport, City Center.

Pixels

C I’ve got to hand it to Pixels: It’s

Shaun the Sheep Movie (PG) 12:10PM 2:35PM 5:00PM 7:25PM 9:50PM Southpaw (R) 10:50AM 1:45PM 4:45PM 7:40PM 10:35PM Vacation (R) 11:30AM 2:10PM 4:50PM 7:30PM 10:10PM Ricki and the Flash (PG-13) 11:00AM 1:40PM 4:15PM 7:00PM 9:45PM Straight Outta Compton (R) 10:50AM 12:20PM 2:15PM 3:40PM 5:40PM 7:00PM 9:05PM 10:20PM Trainwreck (R) 10:50AM 1:45PM 4:40PM 7:35PM 10:30PM The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (PG-13) 12:15PM ® 3:15PM ® 6:15PM ® 9:10PM ® The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (PG-13) 12:15PM 3:15PM 6:15PM 9:10PM Mr. Holmes (PG) 2:05PM 7:50PM

Fantastic Four (2015) (PG-13) 10:55AM 11:50AM 12:40PM 1:35PM 2:30PM 3:25PM 4:20PM 5:10PM 6:10PM 6:55PM 7:55PM 8:55PM 9:35PM 10:35PM Gift, The (2015) (R) 11:05AM 1:50PM 4:35PM 7:20PM 10:05PM Pixels (PG-13) 10:55AM 1:35PM 4:25PM 7:10PM 10:00PM Ant-Man (PG-13) 11:10AM 2:00PM 4:55PM 7:45PM 10:35PM Inside Out (PG) 11:15AM 1:55PM 4:35PM 7:15PM 9:55PM Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (PG-13) 12:45PM ® 4:00PM ® 7:15PM ® 10:25PM ® Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (PG-13) 11:00AM 12:45PM 2:15PM 4:00PM 5:30PM 7:15PM 8:45PM 10:25PM Jurassic World (PG-13) 11:05AM 4:50PM 10:30PM Minions (PG) 11:25AM 2:00PM 4:30PM 7:05PM 9:40PM

Srimanthudu (Classics) (NR) 2:30PM 6:00PM 9:30PM Straight Outta Compton (R) 11:00AM 12:15PM 3:35PM 7:00PM 10:20PM Vasuvum Saravananum Onna Padichavanga (VSOP) (NR) 11:45AM 3:05PM 6:35PM 10:00PM Shaun the Sheep Movie (PG) 11:30AM 2:00PM 4:30PM 7:00PM 9:30PM Vaalu (AIM Distribution) (NR) 9:00PM Vacation (R) 7:50PM 10:20PM The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (PG-13) 11:00AM 1:45PM 4:35PM 7:25PM 10:15PM Trainwreck (R) 10:50AM 1:45PM 4:40PM 7:35PM 10:30PM Pixels (PG-13) 12:50PM 6:10PM

Fantastic Four (2015) (PG-13) 11:30AM 2:10PM 3:30PM 4:50PM 7:30PM 8:45PM 10:10PM Gift, The (2015) (R) 11:45AM 2:25PM 5:05PM 7:45PM 10:25PM Ricki and the Flash (PG-13) 11:45AM 2:20PM 4:55PM 7:30PM 10:05PM Ant-Man (PG-13) 11:00AM 1:50PM 4:40PM 7:30PM 10:20PM Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (PG-13) 11:30AM 1:00PM 2:30PM 4:00PM 5:30PM 7:00PM 8:30PM 10:00PM Mr. Holmes (PG) 12:00PM 2:40PM 5:15PM Inside Out (PG) 11:15AM 1:50PM 4:25PM 7:00PM 9:35PM Minions (PG) 11:20AM 1:45PM 4:05PM 6:30PM

Ricki and the Flash (PG-13) 11:15AM 2:00PM 4:45PM 7:30PM 10:15PM Shaun the Sheep Movie (PG) 11:20AM 2:00PM 4:30PM 6:55PM 9:45PM Vacation (R) 11:10AM 4:40PM 10:05PM Pixels (PG-13) 11:10AM 1:50PM 4:35PM 7:25PM The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (PG-13) 1:00PM 4:10PM 7:20PM 10:30PM Trainwreck (R) 12:40PM 3:50PM 7:05PM 10:10PM Southpaw (R) 1:45PM 7:10PM Straight Outta Compton (R) 11:30AM 3:00PM 6:30PM 10:00PM

Assassination (Well Go USA) (NR) 12:35PM 3:55PM 7:05PM 10:15PM Fantastic Four (2015) (PG-13) 11:35AM 12:55PM 2:15PM 3:45PM 5:00PM 6:25PM 7:45PM 9:15PM 10:30PM Pixels (3D) (PG-13) 10:10PM Ant-Man (PG-13) 11:00AM 1:55PM 4:45PM 7:35PM 10:25PM Minions (PG) 11:40AM 2:05PM 4:50PM 7:20PM 9:50PM Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (PG-13) 11:00AM 12:30PM 2:15PM 3:40PM 5:30PM 7:00PM 8:45PM 10:15PM Gift, The (2015) (R) 11:25AM 2:10PM 4:55PM 7:40PM 10:20PM Inside Out (PG) 11:05AM 1:40PM 4:25PM 7:10PM 9:55PM

The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (XD) (PG-13) 10:55AM 1:50PM 4:45PM 7:40PM 10:35PM

FRIDAY 48

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

refreshingly colorful for a summer blockbuster, but the all-white cast is dull and unconvincing. A trip to Ground Kontrol would have been cheaper and more satisfying. PG13. CASEY JARMAN. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Mission, Clackamas, Oak Grove, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Movies on TV.

Ricki and the Flash

D It sounds all right on paper: the story of rocker mom Ricki Rendazzo (Meryl Streep), who left her kids and ex to focus on her career, returning home to comfort her newly divorced daughter, Julie (played by Streep’s real-life daughter Mamie Gunner). One expects another fresh, touching tale from the pen of Diablo Cody. But this film has none of the soul that made Juno so endearing.

Ricki’s rock persona relies on her Viking-like, half-braided hairdo and the scenes of her aging cover band are more cheesy than rock ’n’ roll, especially when they play covers like Pink’s “Lets Get It Started.”

Besides a joke about Ambien shits, Gunner’s post-suicidal Julie doesn’t do much more than throw random angsty stabs at her absentee mother. Lacking any hook, the film doesn’t give us cause to care when their relationship is inexplicably repaired after a mother-daughter salon visit. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Bridgeport, Division, Evergreen, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center.

Shaun the Sheep Movie

A- In a vibrant return to traditional clay animation, Shaun the Sheep Movie tells a fresh story with the familiar painstaking imagery that makes Aardman Studios the “English Pixar.” Steeped in the tongue-in-cheek charm of the original Wallace & Gromit, parents will find as much in store for them as their children. PG. LAUREN TERRY. Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, Division, Evergreen, Hilltop, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Tigard.

SAY UNCLE: Henry Cavill.

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. Guy Ritchie’s spy flick is like Snatch, with super-Nazis.

If you walked out of Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation and thought, “I can’t wait to see another spy thriller with too much punctuation based on a ’60s TV show,” then fear not. Hollywood is looking out for you with The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which manages to have one more period than even M:I:RN. It’s easy to go into U.N.C.L.E. with a chip on your shoulder. But don’t, because it’s great. It’ll win you over in the first few minutes with an impressively innovative car-chase scene that includes one of the drivers playing dead at the wheel.

U.N.C.L.E. is a rivals-as-buddies movie set during the Cold War that focuses on two superspies, one Russian and one American, forced to work together to stop their mutual enemy: super-Nazis making a nuclear weapon.

The film feels a lot like writer-director Guy Ritchie’s amazing heist flick Snatch: innovative action sequences, unflappable characters and lots of jazzy flute riffs. The cast is U.N.C.L.E.’s weakest feature. The American spy is played by Henry Cavill, who is British. His Russian counterpart is played by Arnie Hammer, who is American. At least they got close with the German-Russian femme fatale, the passable Swedish actress Alicia Vikander. Hammer never once seems Russian. Cavill is fine if unexciting. He’s chiseled, has few emotions, and his hair is always flawless. It even looks untouched after a multihour sex session with a hotel clerk.

Overcoming its casting limitations, U.N.C.L.E. is set in the only worthwhile spy period: the Cold War. And there’s no better enemy to bring the two sides together than super-Nazis. The whole thing is slightly hard to follow, but that’s to be expected (even relished) in a Cold War spy movie. And Guy Ritchie loves to explain things with whooshing flashbacks (whooshbacks?). Like, “Whoosh. Remember when he put this in his pocket? Here’s what it is. Whoosh.”

Of course, it ends with the obligatory setup for sequels. Yes, it’s financially stupid to make just one movie, but is there room in the genre with a new James Bond, Bourne and M:I in the pipeline? If Guy Ritchie is at the helm, I’m down for it. ALEX FALCONE. B+ SEE IT: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. is rated PG-13. It opens Friday at Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Bridgeport, City Center, Hilltop, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place.

MOVIES

FOTOSUABE/LARRYBOBSF

AP FILM STUDIES

WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS: CineLuchaFest is Thursday, Aug. 13, at the Hollywood Theatre.

THE MIGHTY MASKED

CINELUCHAFEST UNLEASHES THE WIDE WORLD OF MEXPLOITATION MADNESS.

BY AP K RYZ A

apkryza@wweek.com

American superheroes deal with quite a lot.

The Avengers had to put aside their egos to save humanity from an army of sentient robots. Batman had to balance his thirst for vengeance with his moral code. The Fantastic Four had to work together to avoid being buried in a gigantic, steaming pile of shit, proving that not all fights are winnable.

But American superheroes have nothing on Mexico’s lucha libre wrestlers. These masked, glistening warriors armor themselves only with ornate masks to take on foes ranging from superpowered dwarves in unitards to mobsters, monsters, aliens and spies, balancing their heroics with family values and playboy lifestyles.

And that’s before they get in the ring.

They are Earth’s mightiest heroes, and now, Cinescopio and Wrestling Church are teaming to bring their adventures to the big screen with CineLuchaFest, which clotheslines its way into the Hollywood Theatre this week with a screening of 1970’s Champions of Justice (7 pm Thursday, Aug. 13).

The film is part James Bond, part WrestleMania, part comic book, and 100 percent fucking insane. It features luchadores—including Tinieblas and Blue Demon—going up against a mad scientist and his army of superpowered little people to save a bunch of frozen beauty queens.

They race around in European sports cars just like all well-to-do men of mystery, except they’re perpetually wearing their decorative masks. Oh, and they sometimes use little people as weapons.

Because it’s fucking awesome.

If the whole thing sounds slightly batshit, that’s kind of the point.

“These movies, they’ve got creepy monsters and music and beauty pageants and sports cars and turtlenecks and slacks. What’s not to love?” says Wrestling Church co-founder Jack Maraglia. “It’s like, oh fuck, you’re in the middle of the ring, and this guy’s doing illegal judo chops. Fuck, he was so mad. You can’t do illegal judo chops!

So the cops come and pull off his mask, and he’s a werewolf. And boom, a puff of smoke comes up and he flies away as a bat. Because why not?”

The recently resurrected Church—which emerged from dormancy last year for an Easter Sunday service of masked heroes—is on a quest to use its extreme fandom to convert the unknowing.

‘We’re nonstop about wrestling. We even know every single syllable from Ready to Rumble with David Arquette,” Maraglia says. “Lucha libre is a religion.”

It’s a fan-driven culture, and one that Maraglia is cultivating with CineLuchaFest. He hopes the festival will someday grow to include wrestling matches and genre celebrities who transition from imagined to real with the help of a little baby oil, a killer mask and a whole lot of mythos.

“Batman and Superman are characters on a page,” says Maraglia, earnestly, when asked what sets these heroes apart.

“But Santo and Blue Demon were living fucking people who had kids and wives and live and die.”

Earth’s mightiest heroes, indeed.

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BEER WINE PIZZA 4 SCREENS LAURELHURSTTHEATER.COM 2735 E BurnsidE st • (503-232-5511) • LaurELhurstthEatEr.com

ALSO SHOWING:

Long before the satanic panic of the ’80s, there were scare flicks like 1962’s The Devil’s Hand, in which a dude’s horniness gets him ensnared in a cult of devil worshipers. Joy Cinema. 9:30 pm Wednesday, Aug. 12.

It was recently announced that Nosferatu is being remade again. Considering that it’ll be standing in the shadow of Klaus Kinski and Werner Herzog’s eerie 1979 version, the director has a lot of work ahead of him. Hollywood Theatre. 9:30 pm Friday, Aug. 14.

This year, Clueless turns 20, essentially proving that Paul Rudd is an ageless vampire who must be stopped. Laurelhurst Theater. Aug. 14-20.

Back in 1991, a Portland couple went on a first date. Obviously, they’re still together, considering they have great taste in film: The movie in question was The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear. Now, they’re bringing the film back, and inviting the public to celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary. Clinton Street Theater. 4 pm Sunday, Aug. 16.

Singin’ cowboys who glittered up screens between 1927 and 1964 are the stars of film archivist Dennis Nyback’s Hillbillies in Hollywood retrospective. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Monday, Aug. 17.

Biographer Jimmy McDonough is on hand for a screening of cult filmmaker Andy Milligan’s ultratwisted 1978 chiller Legacy of Horror. Hollywood Theatre. 7:30 pm Tuesday, Aug. 18.

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

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AUG. 14–20 PA R A M O U N T P I C T U R E S

MOVIES Beyond the Print

NEWSLETTER

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http://bit.ly/wwnewsletter 50

Willamette Week AUGUST 12, 2015 wweek.com

LOOKING LOVELY: The Naked Gun 2½ : The Smell of Fear plays at 4 pm Sunday, Aug. 16, at the Clinton Street Theater.

Regal Lloyd Center 10 & IMAX 1510 NE Multnomah St., THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE Fri-Sat-Sun 04:00, 07:00 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE ROGUE NATION -- THE IMAX EXPERIENCE Fri-Sat-Sun 01:00, 10:10 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Fri-SatSun 11:30, 03:00, 06:30, 10:00 TCM PRESENTS GREASE SING-A-LONG Wed 07:00

Regal Evergreen Parkway Stadium 13 & RPX

2625 NW 188th Ave. THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 01:05, 04:05, 06:55, 09:55 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 12:00, 03:30, 07:00, 10:20

Regal Division Street Stadium 13 16603 SE Division St. STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Fri 12:00, 03:30, 07:00, 10:00

Regal Movies on TV Stadium 16

2929 SW 234th Ave. THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. Fri-Sat-Sun 12:45, 04:10, 07:00, 10:00 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Fri-SatSun 12:30, 03:50, 07:10, 10:30 HITMAN: AGENT 47

Bagdad Theater

3702 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-249-7474 FANTASTIC FOUR Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:45, 03:45, 07:00, 10:15

Cinema 21

616 NW 21st Ave., 503-223-4515 AMY Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 03:45, 07:00, 09:35 PHOENIX Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:15, 06:45, 09:00 TANGERINE Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:30, 08:30 MAD WOMEN Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:00

Laurelhurst Theatre & Pub

2735 E Burnside St., 503232-5511 SPY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 07:00, 09:30 LOVE & MERCY Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 06:30 CLUELESS Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:20 ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:15 WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 09:40 MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Fri-Sat-Sun-

Mon-Tue-Wed 09:00 I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:45

Mission Theater and Pub

1624 NW Glisan St. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 08:30 THEY LIVE Fri-Sat-Sun 08:30 PIXELS Sat-SunMon-Tue 05:30 PORTLAND TIMBERS AT REAL SALT LAKE Sat 07:00 DIGGING FOR FIRE Wed 07:00

Moreland Theater

6712 SE Milwaukie Ave., 503-236-5257 TRAINWRECK Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 04:30, 07:00, 09:30

Kiggins Theatre

1011 Main St., 360-816-0352 TWINSTERS Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 08:30 AMY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 06:00 DRAGON BALL Z: RESURRECTION F Fri-SatSun-Mon 06:30

Regal City Center Stadium 12

801 C St. THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. Fri-Sat 11:30, 02:20, 05:10, 08:00 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Fri-Sat 11:05, 02:25, 05:45, 09:05 HITMAN: AGENT 47

Kennedy School Theater

5736 NE 33rd Ave., 503-249-7474 LABYRINTH Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 12:00, 10:10 MAD MAX: FURY ROAD FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:15 ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 05:00 SPY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:30

Empirical Theatre at OMSI

1945 SE Water Ave., 503797-4000 WALKING WITH DINOSAURS 3D Fri-Sat-Sun 11:00, 02:00 SECRET OCEAN Fri-Sat-Sun 10:00, 01:00 JOURNEY TO SPACE Fri-Sat-Sun 12:00, 03:00, 05:30 MONKEY KINGDOM Fri-Sun 04:00 TOMORROWLAND Fri-Sat 06:00 MAD MAX: FURY ROAD 3D Fri-Sat 08:15 THE NEVERENDING STORY Sat 04:00 MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Sat 10:15 AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON Sun 06:30

Hollywood Theatre

4122 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-281-4215 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed

06:45, 09:45 INFINITELY POLAR BEAR Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 09:35 AMY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue 09:20 NOSFERATU Fri 09:30 THE KARATE KID Sat-Sun 02:30 HILLBILLLIES IN HOLLYWOOD Mon 07:30 LEGACY OF HORROR Tue 07:30 RYAN SINGER Tue 09:30 THE TRIBE Wed 07:30

Regal Sherwood Stadium 10

15995 Tualatin-Sherwood Road THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. Fri-Sat-Sun 12:20, 03:40, 06:40, 09:40 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Fri-SatSun 11:50, 03:30, 07:00, 10:20

NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium

1219 SW Park Ave., 503-221-1156 PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE FriSat 04:30 THE BAND WAGON Sat 07:00 SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER Sun 07:00 NO FILMS SHOWING TODAY Mon-Tue-Wed

Regal Pioneer Place Stadium 6

340 SW Morrison St. STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:00, 03:30, 07:00, 10:00 HITMAN: AGENT 47

St. Johns Theater

8203 N Ivanhoe St., 503-249-7474-6 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE ROGUE NATION Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 04:30, 07:30, 10:20 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 03:45, 07:00, 10:10

Regal Cinemas Bridgeport Village Stadium 18 & IMAX

7329 SW Bridgeport Road THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E.: THE IMAX EXPERIENCE Fri-Sat-Sun 01:00, 04:00, 07:00, 09:55 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Fri-SatSun 01:00, 04:15, 07:30, 09:45 THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. Fri-Sat-Sun 11:05, 01:55, 04:45, 07:35, 10:30 HITMAN: AGENT 47

Academy Theater

7818 S.E. Stark St., 503-252-0500 ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 12:20, 06:45 LOVE & MERCY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 01:45, 07:15 SPY Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:15, 07:00 TOMORROWLAND Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:35 MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 04:15, 09:00 HOME Fri-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:40 WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 05:15, 09:45

LABYRINTH Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 12:00, 04:45, 09:30

Valley Theater

9360 SW Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway, 503-296-6843 MAD MAX: FURY ROAD Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-TueWed 07:00, 09:30 TOMORROWLAND FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 05:00 RANGITARANGA Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 07:55 HOME Fri-Sat-Sun 12:45, 02:45, 04:45 SAN ANDREAS Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 06:40 SPY Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 09:05

Century Clackamas Town Center and XD

12000 SE 82nd Ave. JURASSIC WORLD Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:05, 04:50, 10:30 INSIDE OUT Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:15, 01:55, 04:35, 07:15, 09:55 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE ROGUE NATION Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 12:45, 04:00, 07:15, 10:25 MINIONS FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:25, 02:00, 04:30, 07:05, 09:40 ANT-MAN Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 11:10, 02:00, 04:55, 07:45, 10:35 TRAINWRECK Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 10:50, 01:45, 04:40, 07:35, 10:30 PIXELS Fri-SatSun-Mon-Tue-Wed 10:55, 01:35, 04:25, 07:10, 10:00 SOUTHPAW Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 10:50, 01:45, 04:45, 07:40, 10:35 MR. HOLMES Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 02:05, 07:50 THE GIFT FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:05, 01:50, 04:35, 07:20, 10:05 VACATION Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 11:30, 02:10, 04:50, 07:30, 10:10 FANTASTIC FOUR Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 10:55, 11:50, 12:40, 02:30, 03:25, 05:10, 06:10, 07:55, 08:55, 09:55, 10:35 RICKI AND THE FLASH FriSat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 11:00, 01:40, 04:15, 07:00, 09:45 SHAUN THE SHEEP MOVIE Fri-Sat-Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed 12:10, 02:35, 05:00, 07:25, 09:50 THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. Fri-Sat-Sun-MonTue-Wed 12:15, 03:15, 06:15, 09:10 STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON Fri-Sat-SunMon-Tue-Wed 10:50, 12:20, 02:15, 03:40, 05:40, 07:00, 09:05, 10:20 TCM PRESENTS GREASE SING-A-LONG SunWed 02:00, 07:00 TURBO Tue 10:00 HITMAN: AGENT 47 SINISTER 2 AMERICAN ULTRA

SUBJECT TO CHANGE. CALL THEATERS OR VISIT WWEEK.COM/MOVIETIMES FOR THE MOST UP-TO-DATE INFORMATION FRIDAY-THURSDAY, APRIL 14-20, UNLESS OTHERWISE INDICATED

END ROLL

What strains did Dr. Dre smoke while working on his classic record, The Chronic? We’ll n e v e r k n ow. We do know that in 1994, two years after the landmark album dropped, Simon of Dutch breeder Serious Seeds decided to pay a small tribute: “[He] had finally succeeded in breeding a big-yielding strain, which delivers connoisseur-quality bud of a very high potency, until then thought an impossible combo,” says a spokesman for the company today. “Back then, the most common term for the best weed around was Chronic, immortalized by Dr. Dre’s album in 1992.

Simon thought that would be a fitting name for his new creation and named the new cross Chronic.”

And so in honor of the release of the movie Straight Outta Compton, we’re reviewing a strain named after Dr. Dre’s debut. If you want to up the ante of your viewing experience and have a medical card, head to Emerald Leaf Institute at 3827 NE Columbia Blvd. for an impressive, affordable batch for $9 a gram. Don’t let the 19.7 percent THC fool you: This shit hits hard. LAUREN TERRY.

STRAIN REVIEW:

AESTHETICS AND AROMA: This is a blend of three stunners: Northern Lights, Skunk and AK-47. It has a memorable, pungent scent of spice and lemon, and an expertly cured crop should give off sweeter hints of honey. The massive nugs are densely packed and coated in golden hairs, so even the smaller nugs wink at you with dozens of gilded strands.

SMOKE: With a bong, the lemon taste came out a bit more than with a joint. The earthy flavor of the flower follows the smoke down as you rip a smooth bowl, leaving a fresh taste on your

tongue. Many consider this a more delicate strain that loses flavor easier than others with improper storage, so opt for a small, glass jar with a tight seal when putting some Chronic away for later.

EFFECTS: I don’t know how high Dre felt when he found Chronic, but this strain is felt almost immediately and doesn’t stop anytime soon. One rip went straight to my head, making me want to settle into my couch and zone out. Peripheral concerns quickly dissipate, but suddenly every unimportant task becomes extra distracting. My looming cellphone bill and oil change slid off my radar, yet I became keenly aware of how dusty my blinds were and proceeded to lose an hour in stoned cleaning mode. You don’t feel a ton of physical relief, but the head high is so strong that it’d be hard to snap out of it long enough to notice that your neck is still sore.

VERDICT: This heavy high is not for the weak of lung, or for just anyone’s wake-and-bake session.

I have high tolerance for flower, but I was eventually sapped of any work ethic or motivation even to click “Continue Watching” on the Netflix popup. That was fine for a Sunday evening when I had time to spare, but it took several hours for the high to fade enough to feel like making ramen for dinner. However, for those who experience severe anxiety, this is effective for easing the sense of being overwhelmed.

It allows you to stop panicking, take a moment to breathe, and once the high starts to lighten up, prioritize what is really worth stressing over.

OWL TURD COMIX

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NOTICE OF HEARING ON PETITION FOR TERMINATION OF PARENT/ CHILD RELATIONSHIP CASE S1100SV201500049 IN THE SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA IN THE COUNTY OF PINAL IN THE MATTER OF: NATALIA SANDOVAL DOB 07/02/2008, A MINOR CHILD TO: MARLON SANDOVAL GARCIA NOTICE IS HEREBY GIVEN THAT THE PETITIONER NICOLE VILLA has filed a Petition for termination of Parent/Child Relationship with the Pinal County Superior Court regarding the above named child.

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BEFORE: The Honorable Henry G Gooday JR At the Pinal County Superior Court located at: 971 Jason Lopez Circle, Florence, Arizona 85132 NOTICE: You have a right to appear as a party in this proceeding. The failure of a parent to appear at the Initial Hearing, the Pretrial Conference, the Status Conference, or the Termination Adjudication Hearing, without good cause, may result in an adjudication terminating the parent/child relationship of that parent or in a finding that the parent has waived legal rights and is deemed to have admitted the allegations in the Petition. The hearings may go forward in the absence of the parent and may result in the termination of parental rights based upon the record and evidence presented. If you are receiving this Notice by publication, you may obtain a copy of the Petition for Termination of Parent/Child Relationship and Notice of Hearing by contacting the Pinal County Superior Court. (520)866-5400.

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PETS

© 2015 Rob Brezsny

Week of August 13

PETS FOR SALE ARIES (March 21-April 19): To ensure the full accuracy of this horoscope, I have been compelled to resurrect an old-fashioned English word that isn’t used much any more: “gambol.” It means to cavort and frolic in a playful manner, or to romp and skip around with mad glee, as if you are unable to stop yourself from dancing.

The astrological omens seem unambiguous in their message: In order to cultivate the state of mind that will enable you to meet all your dates with destiny in the coming weeks, you need to gambol at least once every day.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Do you remember your first kiss? How about the first time you had sex? Although those events may not have been perfectly smooth and graceful, they were radical breakthroughs that changed your life and altered your consciousness.

Since then, there may have been a few other intimate rites of passage that have impacted you with similar intensity. No doubt you will experience others in the future. In fact, I suspect that the next installments are due to arrive in the coming months. Get ready for further initiations in these mysteries.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Two-thirds of us don’t know what our strengths and talents are. That’s the conclusion of a study published in The Journal of Positive Psychology. One reason for the problem is what the report’s co-author Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener calls “strengths blindness,” in which we neglect our real powers because we regard them as ordinary or take them for granted. Here’s the good news, Gemini: If you suffer from even a partial ignorance about the nature of your potentials, the coming months will be a favorable time to remedy that glitch. Life will conspire to help you see the truth. (Read more: bit.ly/truestrengths.)

CANCER (June 21-July 22): In 1504, Michelangelo finished his sculpture of the Biblical hero David. But he hadn’t been the first person to toil on the 17-foot-high block of marble. Forty years earlier, the artist Agostino di Duccio was commissioned to carve David out of the stone. His work was minimal, however. He did little more than create the rough shape of the legs and torso.

In 1476, Antonio Rossellino resumed where Agostino had stopped, but he didn’t last long, either. By the time Michelangelo launched his effort, the massive slab had languished for 25 years. I see parallels between this story and your own, Cancerian. I suspect that you will be invited to take on a project that has been on hold or gotten delayed. This may require you to complete labors that were begun by others -- or maybe instigated by you when you were in a very different frame of mind.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Many people harbor the unconscious bias that beauty resides primarily in things that are polished, sleek, and perfect. Celebrities work hard and spend a lot of money to cultivate their immaculate attractiveness, and are often treated as if they have the most pleasing appearance that human beings can have.

Art that is displayed in museums has equally flawless packaging. But the current astrological omens suggest that it’s important for you to appreciate a different kind of beauty: the crooked, wobbly, eccentric stuff.

For the foreseeable future, that’s where you’ll find the most inspiration.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): “No tree can grow to Heaven unless its roots reach down to Hell,” wrote psychologist Carl Jung in his book Aion. My interpretation: We earn the right to experience profound love and brilliant light by becoming familiar with shadows and suffering. Indeed, it may not be possible to ripen into our most radiant beauty without having tangled with life’s ugliness.

According to my understanding of your long-term cycle, Virgo, you have dutifully completed an extended phase of downward growth. In the next extended phase, however, upward growth will predominate. You did reasonably well on the hellish stuff; now comes the more heavenly rewards.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The Great Balancing Act of 2015 doesn’t demand that you be a wishy-washy, eagerto-please, self-canceling harmony whore. Purge such possibilities from your mind. What the Great Balancing Act asks of you is to express what you stand for with

great clarity. It invites you to free yourself, as much as you can, from worrying about what people think of you. It encourages you to be shaped less by the expectations of others and more by what you really want. Do you know what you really want, Libra? Find out! P.S.: Your task is not to work on the surface level, trying to manipulate the appearance of things. Focus your efforts in the depths of yourself.

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SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Muslims, Jews, and Christians are collaborating to erect a joint house of worship in Berlin. The building, scheduled to be finished by 2018, will have separate areas for each religion as well as a common space for members of all three to gather. Even if you don’t belong to any faith, you may be inspired by this pioneering effort to foster mutual tolerance. I offer it up to you as a vivid symbol of unity.

May it help inspire you to take full advantage of your current opportunities to heal schisms, build consensus, and cultivate harmony.

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SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In some phases of your life, you have been a wanderer. You’ve had a fuzzy sense of where you belong. It has been a challenge to know which target you should aim your arrows at. During those times, you may have been forceful but not as productive as you’d like to be; you may have been energetic but a bit too inefficient to accomplish wonders and marvels. From what I can tell, one of those wandering seasons is now coming to a close. In the months ahead, you will have a growing clarity about where your future power spot is located -- and may even find the elusive sanctuary called “home.” Here’s a good way to prepare for this transition: Spend a few hours telling yourself the story of your origins. Remember all the major events of your life as if you were watching a movie.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): You have been slowing to a crawl as you approach an exciting transition. But I’m here to advise you to resume normal speed. There’s no need for excessive caution. You have paid your dues; you have made your meticulous arrangements; you have performed your quiet heroisms. Now it’s time to relax into the rewards you have earned. Lighten your mood, Capricorn. Welcome the onrushing peace and start planning how you will capitalize on your new freedom.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): “Most people reach the top of the ladder of success only to find it’s leaning against the wrong wall.” Aquarian actor Paul Sorensen said that. It’s no coincidence that I’m bringing this theory to your attention right now. The coming months will be a good time to determine whether the ladder you have been climbing is leaning against the right wall or wrong wall. My advice is to question yourself at length. Be as objective as possible. Swear to tell yourself the whole truth. If, after your investigations, you decide it is indeed the wrong wall, climb down from the ladder and haul it over to the right wall. And if you’re satisfied that you are where you should be, celebrate!

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): When he served as Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi denigrated the cuisine of Finland. “Finns don’t even know what prosciutto is,” he sneered. At best, he said, their food is to be “endured.” He mocked the “marinated reindeer” they eat. But Finland fought back against the insults.

In an international pizza contest held in New York, their chefs won first Prize for their “Pizza Berlusconi,” a specialty pizza that featured marinated reindeer. The Italian entry finished second. I foresee you enjoying a comparable reversal in the coming months, Pisces.

And it all begins now.

Homework What’s the best thing you could give right now to the person you care for the most? Testify at FreeWillAstrology.com.

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Across 1 “August: ___ County” (Best Picture nominee of 2014) 6 Furry TV alien 9 Secret audience member 14 “So help me” 15 “___ Kommissar’s in town ...”

16 “Voices Carry” singer Mann 17 Struck with amazement 18 Silver metallic cigarette brand?

(2004 romantic comedy) 42 “Black gold” 43 Visnjic of “ER” 45 “___ Troyens” (Berlioz opera) 46 Head of all the bison?

49 E flat’s equivalent 51 Effort 52 Votes in Congress 53 Broccoli ___ (bitter veggie) 55 Austin Powers’s “power” 57 “Believe” singer 60 Feldspar, e.g.

20 Cut corners 22 4x4, frequently 23 “To be,” to Brutus 24 Art colony location 26 Hummus and tzatziki, broadly 28 Bathrobe closer 31 Daily ___ (political blog) 33 Airborne stimuli 37 Non-military person good at getting smaller?

40 “___ dreaming?”

41 “Win ___ With Tad Hamilton!”

Down 1 Kimono closers 2 Match (up) 3 Petri dish goo 4 “Just ad-lib if you have to” 5 Plant malady 6 Full-screen intrusions, e.g.

7 Cole Porter’s “___ Do It” 8 “The Ego and the Id” author 9 Bud 10 “This way” 11 “Famous” cookie guy 12 Modernists, slangily 13 TV component?

19 Aquafina competitor 21 Snoop (around) 25 “___ a biscuit!”

27 Newman’s Own competitor 28 Burn, as milk 29 Assistants 30 Drug store?

32 “Wildest Dreams”

singer Taylor 34 Curie or Antoinette 35 Big name in the kitchen 36 Comes clean 38 Aardvark’s antithesis?

39 Feature with “Dismiss” or “Snooze” 44 “I give up [grumble grumble]” 47 Instruction to a violinist 48 Interpol’s French headquarters 50 Get there 54 Take-out order?

56 Wranglers, e.g.

57 “Don’t be a spoilsport!”

58 Light headwear?

59 Dwarf planet discovered in 2005 61 Guitarist Clapton 63 Dance party in an abandoned warehouse 64 “Length times width” measurement 65 Hose snag?

67 “___ the land of the free ...”

68 General in Chinese restaurants last week’s answers

©2015 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 #JONZ740.

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