WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY
“LIKE PRINCE AND BOWIE, FRED COLE WILL NEVER DIE.” P. 35 WWEEK.COM
VOL 44/03 11.15.2017
For more than 30 years, Kim Bradley hid from her husband.
BY NIG E L JAQ U ISS | PAG E 13
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
ABBY GORDON
FINDINGS
LIZZO, PAGE 41
WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 44, ISSUE 03.
An accused drug dealer is dead— and the mom of one overdose victim is delighted to hear it. 6 The #MeToo movement is causing people to take a hard look at prominent Oregon men. 10 Two exclusive Portland clubs have kept a man convicted of domestic abuse as a member. 13
Dead Moon’s Fred Cole once knocked out Jim Morrison for heckling him during a show in LA. 35
If you want a $300 bottle of Dom Pérignon and a vegan panini, there is a place. 43 One Portland parking lot comes with its own rhinoceros. 46
Our office would really like a Jeff Goldblum-scented candle. 24
ON THE COVER:
OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:
Hand and shadow figure painting by VR RIvera, @ winterteeth.
RIP Fred Cole.
STAFF Editor & Publisher Mark Zusman EDITORIAL News Editor Aaron Mesh Arts & Culture Editor Martin Cizmar Staff Writers Nigel Jaquiss, Rachel Monahan, Katie Shepherd Copy Editors Matt Buckingham, Nicole Groessel Stage & Screen Editor Shannon Gormley Projects Editor Matthew Korfhage
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DIALOGUE Last week, WW examined the bubbling trademark battle between the city of Portland and Old Town Brewing, both of which own portions of the trademark rights to the White Stag sign at the west end of the Burnside Bridge (“Oh Deer,” WW, Nov. 8, 2017). Here’s what readers had to say: Bob of Magob, via wweek.com: “So basically these guys want to be bailed out by the city of Portland, and have exclusive rights to profit off an image arguably owned by all of Portland. Let’s hear more about what you’ve done for the community to deserve the right to exploit a Portland icon for your own personal profit.”
postcards and whatever, but you don’t ‘own’ the image. Preventing someone else from using a thing that you didn’t create? Illogical.” Lisa Loving, via wweek.com: “Shouldn’t the Walmart Corporation get a piece of that cash because they own the hecking White Stag clothing label the whole thing was based on? Remember the White Stag clothing company? They used to actually employ workers to manufacture goods in PDX. It would be quaint if someone did a retrospective on the real, original White Stag. They made clothing for loggers and stuff. Remember loggers?”
Jerry Channel, via Facebook: “Can’t local marketing stooges just leave a few things alone? Or are they so creatively bankrupt that they can’t come up with anything other than an ax for the Timbers?”
Mick Wagner, via wweek.com: “Trademark law can be complicated, but as a general rule, when you own trademark rights, those rights only extend as far as the products “Can’t local and services that you can actually marketing demonstrate are in commerce. I stooges just SamWell, via wweek.com: “It feels suspect that Old Town Brewing to me (and I’m no lawyer, this is just leave a few will come out on top in this one, my opinion) that getting the trade- things alone?” and that the city may well end up mark for a logo that was originally someone on the losing side of a lawsuit, if it keeps trying else’s is pretty silly. If the White Stag Corpora- to sell rights to other beer producers.” tion is no longer around and no longer owns their logo, it is [and] should be owned by no Sonnyclips, via wweek.com: “Lord help us if one. If Old Town Brewing picks it up and slaps Stag Beer steps up to enforce their intellectual on beer labels, fine. But it isn’t ‘theirs.’ If PBR or property.” Ninkasi or whoever also picks it up and slaps it LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author’s on beer labels, fine. street address and phone number for verification. “I wouldn’t build my entire brand around Letters must be 250 or fewer words. someone else’s brand. Seems inauthentic and Submit to: 2220 NW Quimby St., Portland, OR 97210. cheap. Same goes for the city. Make shirts and Email: mzusman@wweek.com
NOVEMBER 26TH
Dr. Know BY MART Y SMITH
I’m about to buy my first house. Unfortunately, my mom and sister (both perfectly able-bodied) see this as their big chance to live rent-free by parking a double-wide in my yard. Even if I wanted this (I don’t), it’s illegal, right? Please say yes. —Trailer Park Boy I sympathize, Trailer, with the struggle to leave one’s hillbilly past behind. Despite the many airs I’ve put on over the years—“artist,” “musician,” “pundit”—I can never shake the suspicion that the box I originally came in was marked “One (1) Combine Harvester Mechanic, Extra Lumpy.” In any case, the answer to your question depends (like so many things) on how far out of the mire of poverty you’ve been able to climb. If you’re a real high-roller and you’re buying your first house in a designated historic district like Irvington or Ladd’s Addition, you’re in luck: Manufactured homes are prohibited. (Plus, you can probably afford a hit man to bump off your family.) Most other places in the city, however, a manufactured home (by and large, city code doesn’t distinguish between “manufactured” and “mobile” homes) is permissible anywhere you can legally put a house. And given Portland’s current infatuation with “accessory dwelling units,” two homes 4
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
on one lot should be no problem. So you’re hosed, right? Not necessarily. While it’s true that both kinds of dwelling fall into the same legal category, the rules for that category (outside of designated mobile home parks) are not particularly friendly to regular old trailers. For example, you can put a mobile home on any lot—but that mobile home must have a pitched roof made of shingles, tile or cedar; an excavated, poured foundation; siding comparable to that of other houses in the neighborhood; and plumbing and sewer to code, etc. In other words, a trailer is legal on a standard residential lot, as long as it’s been completely converted into a house. Unless your family is willing and able to go this far, you should be fine—and if they are, there’s always Two-Gun Tommy. QUESTIONS? Send them to dr.know@wweek.com
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
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by a two-thirds majority in both chambers. The bill fell short of that number in both the House and Senate. The lawsuit sets up a showdown between critics of Oregon’s criminal justice system and Foote, a staunch defender of that system. The lawsuit seeks a ruling that HB 3078 is “invalid and unenforceable.”
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COURTESY OF JESSICA COLLINS
Stuffing in the DealS!
Accused Opioid-by-Mail Dealer Dies in Jail
Jessica Collins, mother of Aisha Zughbieh-Collins, an 18-year-old Portlander who died of an overdose of the synthetic opioid U47700 in February (“Death by Bitcoin,” WW, July 5, 2017), learned this week that her daughter’s accused dealer has died in jail. Theodore Khleborod, a South Carolina man indicted on federal charges of supplying the fatal dose—and selling opioids to thousands on the Dark Web—died of an apparent suicide while awaiting trial. “Aisha’s life was stolen from us,” Collins says. “I hope that he suffered the same pain that he has caused so many families.”
Metro Eyes Housing Bond for 2018
On Nov. 13, TriMet canceled plans to send a $1.7 billion transportation bond to voters in November 2018. But regional planning agency Metro is now angling to fill that spot on the ballot—with an affordable housing bond. New polling shows Metro has preliminary support to move forward with a $500 million housing bond next year. Of the 800 respondents surveyed by FM3 Research, 66 percent supported raising taxes by $50 a year. The poll, for which Metro paid $42,250, had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. This would be Metro’s first housing bond. Last year, Portland voters approved a $258 million housing bond.
Legal Showdown Looms Over Sentencing Reforms
It’s not every day that one of the state’s top law enforcement officials— Clackamas County District Attorney John Foote—sues the state for breaking its own laws. But on Nov. 15, Foote and two crime victims, Deborah MapesStice and Mary Elledge, filed a lawsuit in Clackamas County Circuit Court over House Bill 3078, legislation passed in 2017 that reduces penalties for certain property crimes defined by 2008’s Ballot Measure 57. The suit alleges the new law runs afoul of Ballot Measure 10, passed by voters in 1994. That initiative requires any changes to voter-approved criminalsentencing measures to pass
Give!Guide Donations Top $350,000
Willamette Week’s annual Give!Guide is live and accepting donations at giveguide.org. Giving has already surpassed $383,000 and 2,480 donors. This year’s goal is to raise $4.4 million. If you give $10 or more on Thursday, Nov. 16, you’ll be eligible to win a two-night stay in a luxury suite at Brasada Ranch, plus a round of golf at its course outside Bend.
NEWS
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK
Caught in a Trap COURTESY OF ACLU
PROTESTERS DETAINED ON PORTLAND’S STREETS EXPLAIN WHY THEY’RE SUING POLICE.
kshepherd@wweek.com
WHO WAS THERE (IN ORDER OF PHOTOS, LEFT TO RIGHT )
PATRICK GARRISON, 23 Lives in the Portsmouth neighborhood Why he went: Garrison attended the protest as a legal observer for the ACLU. Why he’s suing: “My main concern is the Portland Police Bureau’s inability or unwillingness to de-escalate situations at protests. I have been to a lot of protests as a volunteer legal observer with the ACLU and have seen how the police response to protesters gets out of control and make protests confusing, chaotic and downright dangerous.” JENNIFER NICKOLAUS, 38 Lives in the Foster-Powell neighborhood Why she went: Nickolaus attended the protest to honor the victims of the MAX train murders, and to show support for the two teenage girls who were the target of racially motivated harassment on the train. Why she’s suing: “The Portland police have repeatedly escorted and protected the alt-right groups while, at the same time, violently quashing the protesters on the left, and infringing on or outright denying us the right to peacefully assemble.” CHRIS WHALEY, 41 Lives in the Foster-Powell neighborhood Why he went: Whaley attended the protest with his wife, Jennifer Nickolaus, to reject the fascism and racism that he says has been growing in the wake of the 2016 election. Why he’s suing: “It is clear that Portland is ill-equipped to deal with dissenting voices in a fair way. When protests are regularly met by militarized police with stun grenades, pepper spray and rubber bullets, it is a serious threat to our rights under the First Amendment to gather in solidarity or protest and to share ideas.”
JADE STURMS, 27 Lives in the Montavilla neighborhood Why she went: Sturms showed up June 4 to oppose what she viewed as hateful far-right demonstrations in Portland. Why she’s suing: “I want to use my experience to hold our police and our city accountable. Their use of indiscriminate violence and suppression towards thousands of peaceful protesters like myself is illegal, unjust and horrifying to witness firsthand.” The fifth named plaintiff, Josef Haber, was out of the country and unavailable at press time.
WHY THE ACLU IS SUING The ACLU says Portland police acted unconstitutionally by detaining protesters without cause, violating their right to be “free from unreasonable seizure and assault under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution.” The lawsuit also alleges a violation of the state constitution’s protection against unreasonable seizure. Portland police spokesman Sgt. Christopher Burley says the bureau does not comment on pending litigation.
WHAT HAPPENED On June 4, far-right activist group Patriot Prayer held a so-called “Freedom Rally,” defying pleas by Mayor Ted Wheeler to allow a raw city to grieve the May 26 killings of Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and Ricky Best on a MAX train. Thousands of counterprotesters flooded downtown Portland to condemn the rally, vastly outnumbering the right-wing extremists. Police officers formed a cordon between the warring sides of the protest. Demonstrators shouted insults and taunts across the police line. Some protesters threw items at the officers, including tampons that had been dyed red. A few blocks north, in the streets outside Pioneer Place, police surrounded a group of at least 345 people and detained them en masse, a technique called “kettling.” The police forced each person caught in the kettle to submit to a photograph and show personal identification, which officers recorded before releasing the protesters one by one. Portland police arrested 14 people at the protest. In the days that followed, the bureau said it would destroy the records of each protester’s identifying information after the investigations related to the demonstration were complete.
JOE RIE DL
One of the most fraught days in a year of downtown street protests is about to result in a lawsuit against the Portland Police Bureau. The American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon will take the unusual step Nov. 15 of suing the bureau in U.S. District Court for police tactics that detained protesters and journalists at street events June 4, days after the racially motivated double slaying on a MAX train in Northeast Portland. The civil rights group alleges that the city, and police in particular, violated the U.S. Constitution by detaining hundreds of protesters in downtown streets, holding them for more than an hour, photographing them and recording their personal information. The lawsuit names five plaintiffs and a class of 200 to 250 other, unnamed plaintiffs. Here’s who is suing the city, and why.
WILLIAM GAGAN
BY KAT I E S H E P H E R D
LOCK DOWN: Police detained hundreds of protesters in downtown after violence broke out at a protest this spring (above). Officers took photos of protesters’ IDs before releasing them one at a time (below). Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
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ABBY GORDON
NEWS
ROSE REBELLION: Areli Lopez and Jose Ramirez are gearing up for a court battle with their landlord, state Sen. Rod Monroe (D-East Portland).
Evicting a Senator TENANT ADVOCATES ARE DETERMINED TO BULLDOZE A STATE SENATOR WHO IS ALSO A PORTLAND LANDLORD. BY KATIE S H E P H E R D
kshepherd@wweek.com
the Senate,” WW, Feb. 15, 2017). In the seven months since WW first reported on MonLast month, state Sen. Rod Monroe (D-East Portland) did roe’s ownership of Red Rose, he has been sued by a tenant, something unusual: He sued a renter living in one of his seen the city’s most aggressive tenants union organize on apartments. his property, and gained two For two years, Monroe has serious challengers in the 2018 been locked in a battle over Democratic primary. Most building maintenance with Democratic incumbents never tenants living in his apartment see one. complex in the Glenfair neighAll this ill fortune is not a borhood of East Portland. This coincidence. summer, a tenant sued him Portland Tenants United, a over a neglected roof. On Oct. growing force in local politics, 17, Monroe countersued her acknowledges to WW that it boyfriend, alleging the damage has made Monroe a target, by was actually his fault. offering his tenants a megaThat isn’t just an unusual phone for their grievances, legal action. It’s also the latest asking them to campaign shot fired during an uprising against his re-election, and by tenants that could threaten connecting one of them to a Monroe’s re-election to a sixth lawyer willing to sue Monroe. term in the Oregon Senate. “We don’t see any real rentThe lawsuit is part of a far ers’ rights legislation passing larger dispute over tenants’ “THIS IS NOT A POLITICAL CASE until we replace Monroe rights that split Salem last with someone who supports AT ALL. THIS IS A CASE session. Tenant advocates working families,” says HanAGAINST A BAD LANDLORD see Monroe, 75, who first nah Howell, a Portland TenWITH A LEAKY ROOF.” won election to public office ants United organizer. “The in 1976, as a roadblock—and makeup of the Senate hasn’t they’re determined to bulldoze him out of the way. changed in the past five months—votes will be coming No Oregon politician has a target on his back like Mon- from the same anti-tenant lawmakers taking money from roe does. Advocates say he has been a crucial vote blocking the same anti-tenant lobbyists.” housing reforms in the Senate. And he’s also a landlord, Primary scuffles among Portland Democrats are owning the 51 units of Red Rose Manor along Northeast uncommon. For the battle to be centered on an incumGlisan Street at the eastern edge of Portland (“Landlord of bent’s apartment complex is unheard of. 8
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
Monroe says he’s been unfairly singled out for opposing a ban on no-cause evictions and the loosening of rules on rent control. “I felt like it was bad public policy,” he says. “[Portland Tenants United] are generally regarded as one of the more radical of the tenants’ rights groups—and that’s fine. But I think it’s so much better for good legislation if landlord groups and tenant groups work together.” Monroe’s allies decry the focus on Red Rose Manor. “These are the types of pressure tactics that I have grown to expect from [PTU],” says landlord lobbyist John DiLorenzo. “It’s disappointing that anyone would seek to impose economic pressure on a member of the Legislature because they disagree with his voting record.” But Monroe is fighting back—and not just with his countersuit. Tenant organizers say that after he and his wife, Billie, visited their property in August, tenants abruptly stopped coming to the door when canvassers knocked. (Billie Monroe says they both visited the property but did not speak to any tenants while they were there.) Monroe has also brought in $58,760 in campaign donations this year, collecting all but $250 in the past three months after two challengers filed to run against him: former state Rep. Shemia Fagan (D-East Portland) and Unite Oregon director Kayse Jama. Neither opponent has yet given Monroe as much negative attention as his own tenants. In August, Areli Lopez sued Monroe and the property management company he hires to run the complex, C&R Real Estate Services, alleging that in December 2015 a neglected leaky roof caused her to slip and fall, injuring her back, knee and shoulder. “Because he’s a senator, he can get away with it,” Lopez says. “He’s taking his power and getting away with not fixing this apartment.” Monroe believes the lawsuit is politically motivated. “There’s no doubt about it,” he says. “If I were not running for re-election, this would not have happened.” PTU connected Lopez with her attorney, Michael Fuller. But Fuller denies the lawsuit is part of a coordinated effort to unseat Monroe. “This is not a political case at all,” he says. “This is a case against a bad landlord with a leaky roof.” In late October, Monroe and his insurance company filed a countersuit against Lopez’s longtime boyfriend, with whom she shares an apartment. The suit against Jose Ramirez blames him for the puddle that formed on the apartment’s floor, saying he should have mopped it up. It also calls Lopez a “trespasser” because her name was not on the lease. Since PTU started door knocking and Lopez filed her suit, Red Rose Manor has seen some new maintenance. Moldy boards shielding stairs from rain have been replaced and mold has been removed or painted over throughout the complex. Rotted balconies were recently repaired. Still, mildew grows on window sills and door frames and in corners where moisture has collected in Lopez’s apartment. For nearly two years, Lopez asked the property manager to move her to a downstairs unit because of her disabilities. She amended her lawsuit Oct. 10 to include an allegation that Monroe and C&R had violated the Americans With Disabilities Act for refusing to grant her request. Lopez and Ramirez will move into a first-floor unit Friday, which will make it much easier for Lopez to get into her home with her bad knee and back. But the couple is not done fighting Monroe. “He is somebody who can push anybody around,” Lopez says. “He’s just representing the people who have the money, the landlords. What about everyone else? What about us?” Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
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VIVIAN JOHNSON
NEWS
DON’T TOUCH THAT DIAL: Jefferson Smith will continue his work at XRAY.FM (107.1 FM).
No Return A RISING WAVE OF ACCOUNTABILITY SUBMARINES JEFFERSON SMITH. BY N IGEL JAQU ISS
@WillametteWeek
@WillametteWeek
@wweek
#wweek 10
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
njaquiss@wweek.com
Jefferson Smith picked the wrong time to make his political comeback. The #MeToo movement, which is uniting the survivors of abuse and generating scrutiny of prominent men everywhere, arrived in Oregon over the weekend with authority. It played a key role in Smith’s resignation from his new job running the Oregon Center for Public Policy. The movement earlier clouded the future for state Sen. Jeff Kruse (R-Roseburg), who is under investigation for complaints of inappropriately touching two colleagues. It also damaged the reputation of former Portland Mayor Sam Adams, who faces a six-page complaint of harassment from his former assistant. But last week, Smith, a founder of the voterregistration nonprofit Oregon Bus Project and a former lawmaker, was the first prominent Oregonian to lose his job amid controversy about his behavior. His resignation became public Nov. 11, one day after a letter from progressive leaders cited conduct that included his 1993 punching of a woman while he was in college. “We believe many women have their own stories and experiences from interactions with Mr. Smith,” the letter said. “We worry that additional incidents have occurred, but the victims have been silenced by his position of power. Should additional victims exist, our concern is that they would be further victimized by rewarding him with a new title and opportunity.” In a statement, Smith said he’s listening. “There are a lot of committed people listed on that letter who I respect,” Smith said. “I’m keenly aware that their concern stems from my own inexcusable conduct in the past. I will always be deeply sorry. I started therapy in 2012, and continue it now. It’s clear to me that what
they said means that I have more work to do to be a better human being and create more nurturing space.” The backlash, however, went further than a single letter, WW has learned. On that same day, some of the labor unions and individuals who help fund OCPP’s $600,000 annual budget also wrote to the board, pulling their money. The authors included John Larson, president of the Oregon Education Association, David Rives, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Robert Stoll, a retired trial lawyer. “Mr. Smith’s reputation on a number of issues, and his credibility, in our opinion, will greatly interfere with OCPP’s mission of persuasively presenting unbiased facts and factual analysis,” said the letter. “As a consequence, we have decided not to participate in funding OCPP.” The pushback left observers questioning the policy center’s decision to hire Smith. “It was shocking to me in this environment that they would go forward with the job offer to Mr. Smith,” says Paige Richardson, a longtime Oregon political consultant. The job heading OCPP, the leading independent policy think tank in Oregon, represented a comeback for Smith. He was in his second term as a state representative from East Portland when he ran for Portland mayor in 2012. During his general election runoff against eventual winner Charlie Hales, WW reported that while attending the University of Oregon in 1993, Smith struck a woman in the face, requiring her to get five stitches. Upon learning reporters were pursuing that story, Smith appeared on the woman’s doorstep unannounced, frightening her, and later gave a misleading version of what happened in 1993. The progressive leaders who signed last week’s letter, including Beth Bernard, executive director of the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association; Jillian Schoene, co-executive director of Emerge Oregon, which trains women to run for political office; Jenny Smith, statewide political organizer for the Oregon Education Association; Amy Hojnowski of the Sierra Club; and Roey Thorpe, former executive director of Basic Rights Oregon, said that episode was a disqualifier. “Hiring a man with such a clear and publicly known history to lead a progressive organization signals to the women of our movement that they do not matter,” they wrote. OCPP had plenty of warning that Smith’s hiring could be a problem. In August, after the board winnowed its list of candidates to Smith and former Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick, WW reported that former Gov. Ted Kulongoski and trial lawyer Thane Tienson were so disappointed they resigned from the center’s board. Yet leaders at OCPP deny that backlash played a role in the reversal. Board chairman Will Neuhauser says Smith quit for family reasons. “We’re disappointed that he ultimately he did not accept the job,” Neuhauser said. “I can’t speculate beyond his family’s health issues, which he shared with me on Wednesday, and shared with a board committee on Thursday.” Smith declined to address what role critics’ objections might have played in his resignation. “I decided to withdraw from OCPP for personal reasons,” he said. Richardson says the center’s board let everybody—including Smith—down. “I couldn’t believe the board ignored those resignations,” she says. “That should have caused them to take concerns about Mr. Smith seriously and look further.”
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For more than 30 years, Kim Bradley hid from her husband. BY N IGEL JAQU ISS
She fled her home dozens of times. Some nights, she wedged herself in bushes next to a Northwest Portland community center. Other nights, she hid in neighbors’ yards, on their porches and in an abandoned garage near her driveway. In those places, at least for a few hours, she felt safe from John Bradley. She even hid in her own home. “I would hide in the attic,” she says. “I’ve hidden in the laundry chute. I would lock myself in my closet.” Until one violent night a little more than two years ago, Kim Bradley also hid from her friends and family the abuse she now says she suffered regularly from her wedding day in 1983. While to the outside world her life seemed ideal—a glamorous home, a handsome couple active in the community—she now says it was in fact a marriage continually punctuated by terror. “People look at my life and think it was perfect. That’s what I wanted them to think, too,” Bradley says. “In many ways, I’ve been very fortunate. But the dark side never ended.” She says John Bradley controlled every aspect of her life. She didn’t know how to leave him and feared
njaquiss@wweek.com
if she did, it would be even worse than staying. “He would hunt me down,” she says. “He would be fine one minute and the next minute in a complete rage. He’d tell me he wanted to strangle me or to rip my head off.” On Sept. 29, 2015, she decided she could take no more. She called 911, she says, because she thought he might kill her. Within minutes, Portland police arrived at the Bradleys’ meticulously restored 10,000-square-foot home atop the Northwest Hills. They arrested John Bradley, a philanthropist, civic leader and CEO of one of Portland’s largest construction firms. Today, Kim Bradley lives in that home alone, protected by a court order against her husband. He’s twice since been arrested and jailed for violating “no-contact” orders. Their contentious divorce, filed after she called 911 two years ago, is nearly final. Now Kim Bradley has decided to share her story. She says she’s doing so in part to heal, but also in the hope that her experience will help other women find the courage to escape abusive relationships.
CONT. on page 14
PAIN TI N G S BY V R R I V ERA
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Revelations about powerful men exploiting vulnerable women have dominated the headlines recently. But, of course, it’s not just in Hollywood, Silicon Valley or New York that men victimize women. And the sexual abuse of which movie producer Harvey Weinstein and others are accused, experts say, is part of a spectrum of male dominance and control that includes domestic violence. Statistics show that more than 1 in 3 Oregon women have experienced domestic violence—a rate above the national average. They are overwhelmingly the targets of such violence, which is the cause of more than half the homicides of Oregon women. Kim Bradley’s story was pieced together from interviews with her and domestic violence experts, and from court documents, including John Bradley’s deposition. Her husband declined to be interviewed. “John Bradley is sober, doing well, and is moving past his divorce,” said his attorney, Robin DesCamp, in a statement. “I hope the entire family can find peace and will choose to recede from the trauma and drama of this case—a case that has gone on for far too long.” The picture of the Bradleys’ marriage that emerges illustrates that economic privilege offers no protection from domestic violence. “Men often use their financial and social status to exert control,” says John Wentworth, a senior deputy district attorney who oversees domestic violence prosecutions for Clackamas County. “This isn’t a trailer-park problem like a lot of people think.” Kim Bradley has grown used to being asked, “Why didn’t you leave?” She and others say that question misses the dilemma many women face. “The last thing you want to believe is your husband is an abuser,” she says. “Because if he abuses you, what kind of person are you? “You say to yourself, ‘It’s got to be my fault. It’s going to stop. I can try harder, try something different.’ But nothing changes.”
“You say to yourself, ‘It’s got to be my fault. It’s going to stop. I can try harder, try something different.’ But nothing changes.”
CHAPTER
I
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When birds wing their way through Northwest Portland, they are often flying well below the level of the Bradleys’ patio, which juts out from a hillside 500 feet above the city. The Bradleys’ home served as a gathering spot for Portland’s elite: The couple hosted fundraisers for Portland Center Stage, New Avenues for Youth, Dove Lewis Animal Hospital and others. John Bradley has said he and Kim usually gave about $100,000 a year to such causes. In 2011, when soonto-be Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney came to Portland, he greeted donors at the Bradley home. John Bradley, now 62, moved comfortably in lofty circles. His company, R&H Construction, built Adidas’ headquarters, handled the expansion of St. Mary’s Academy and built a half-dozen New Seasons stores. In 2015, Portland Business Journal named Bradley CEO of the Year in its real estate sector. Bradley was also president of the board of the Arlington Club, the 150-year-old downtown dining spot for corporate executives and Portland’s elite. He’d also served on the boards of the Multnomah Athletic Club and the Waverley Club, Portland’s most exclusive country club. But his 2014 election to the presidency of the Arlington Club marked a particular triumph. “It was very important to him to be the president,” Kim Bradley says. “He’d been on a lot of boards, but he’d never been president before.”
CHAPTER
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Kim Bradley, 59, grew up in Boise, Idaho, and Bend, Ore., as the daughter of a successful lumberman. After she graduated from Oregon State University in 1980, she moved to Portland to work as a buyer at Meier & Frank. The Bradleys met one night over lasagna at the home of a mutual friend. He proposed a couple of years later. She recalls that he was offended when she didn’t immediately say “yes.” She agreed to the match but now says she wasn’t really ready to get married.
The young couple worked evenings and weekends to fix up a 1928 home they’d bought in Northeast Portland. Even in those early days, however, there were warning signs. By the time they were married at the First United Methodist Church on the South Park Blocks in September 1983, John Bradley was already behaving in ways that scared his new bride. “He was very controlling of my time and my presence,” Kim Bradley says. “I had to be with him every evening and on the weekends. He didn’t like anything that interfered with what he called ‘family time.’” And he would often erupt, she says, losing his temper and frightening her badly enough that she would leave the house until he cooled down. In a May 11, 2017, deposition taken by Kim Bradley’s divorce attorneys, Jody Stahancyk and Brad Miller, John Bradley acknowledged that when she was scared of him, “she’d run away.” Outwardly, though, the couple prospered. They had two children, and R&H grew.
Charming and popular in Portland’s clubby real estate industry, John Bradley was the firm’s rainmaker—doing deals and acting as the face of the company. That meant the Bradleys spent many evenings and weekends entertaining potential clients. Kim Bradley says her husband dictated every aspect of her participation. “When we went out, I could never wear a jacket. He liked stockings with seams,” Kim Bradley says. “And always high heels. He liked short, sleeveless dresses. The tighter and shorter the better.” If she let her hair down before going out with her husband, he’d tell her to go back to her room and put it up. He also controlled her time with friends. When the Junior League switched from daytime to evening meetings, he made her quit her membership. She couldn’t play in a weekend tennis league. “I did not go to movies with my friends. I never went out for drinks with friends,” she says. “He controlled every aspect of my life.” CONT. on page 17
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III
Sometime around 2005, Kim Bradley says, the emotional abuse turned physical. “John lost his balance,” she says. “He used to say, ‘It’s hard to be me.’” Bradley shared with his wife a list of the pressures he faced: He’d just turned 50; his business partner walked away from R&H, forcing Bradley to buy him out. Bradley also stretched financially to buy the couple’s hilltop home for $2.5 million (it’s on the market today for $7 million). In addition, he got caught having an affair with a subordinate at work. Home became a gilded cage for Kim Bradley. “When 4 o’clock would roll around, my heart would start pounding and I’d get anxious and I’d say, ‘Here we go, another night,’” she says. “I never knew when it was going to happen.” The smallest thing could ignite John Bradley’s rage. If the couple had panini for dinner, he’d yell if the cheese was melted too much or wasn’t melted enough. If she asked how his day had been, she was snooping. If she didn’t, that meant she didn’t care. She talked too loud or not loud enough. “At times, just asking him, ‘How was your day?’ was a fight question,” she says. “He would snap and start screaming at me. His face would turn bright red and he’d lose control—he would call me a bitch, a cunt and a moron.” (In his deposition, Bradley acknowledges using those words.) John Bradley’s verbal abuse would often start in the kitchen and end downstairs in the laundry room or in a corner, where it could get physical. On numerous occasions, Kim Bradley tells WW, he’d use his 60-pound weight advantage to pin her down, his knees on her shoulders. She recorded some of his tirades—the tapes are chilling.
“When 4 o’clock would roll around, my heart would start pounding ‘ Here we go, another night,’ I never knew when it was going to happen.”
After an outburst, he would rise at 4 am, as always, and often leave her notes of apology. She still has a stack of those notes: “I’m sorry I yelled at you,” says one. “I’m very sorry I lost it last night. I love you,” says another. In his deposition, John Bradley acknowledged putting his hands on his wife in anger. Asked how many times he’d done so, however, he demurred. “I do not remember,” he said. “I don’t document bad things in my mind.” “Do you have no current memory of any times?” asked Kim Bradley’s attorney. “I have memory of some times, yes,” John Bradley said, adding, “I focus on good things. I try to remember all of the wonderful things.” Kim Bradley says that on two occasions, she defended herself. Once, she hit him with a bottle of olive oil. “He came at me, and I said, ‘Don’t touch me,’” she recalls. “I hit him and bolted for the door.” Another time, she kicked him in self-defense, injuring her foot. Kim Bradley says for years, she confided in no one: not her siblings or parents in Boise, not her friends in Portland or even medical professionals. “We presented this happy public appearance, and I didn’t think anybody would believe me,” she says. “And John always said he was the person in Portland everybody liked. He was the powerful person. He’d say, ‘Nobody likes you. You’ll be a lonely bitch without me.’” Dr. Christina Nicolaidis, a professor of public health at Oregon Health & Science University who has studied domestic violence, says many survivors cling to the hope their abusers’ behavior will change.
“Oftentimes, the abuser is very remorseful and the victim hopes that when a trigger stops, the abuse will stop,” Nicolaidis says. “We also see an erosion of the victim’s self-confidence. There can be a systematic almost-brainwashing.” Kim Bradley can’t say for sure precisely when her husband first put his hands on her. She documented some of his attacks either with notes or, on several occasions, photographs of bruises on her arms and marks on her neck. One of the incidents she recalls vividly is from May 2013, when she says John Bradley began yelling at her in their guest house. Then, she says he grabbed her in a headlock. “He had both of his arms wrapped around my head,” Kim Bradley says. “He wouldn’t let go. I was terrified. I strained so hard to get away that my jaw popped out of its socket. I couldn’t eat or open my mouth properly for weeks.” In his deposition, John Bradley said he remembered driving his wife to East Portland for treatment of her jaw, but he said he couldn’t recall how she’d been hurt. “I must have blacked it out of my memory,” he said. On three occasions, Kim Bradley says, her husband physically attacked her when other people were around: Once in April 2013, when they were jogging along the Portland waterfront and he became enraged because she wouldn’t take off her windbreaker, and once in May 2014 in San Francisco, when she asked him to stop communicating on his cellphone with another woman. In the third instance, they were staying at the Mauna Kea Beach Hotel on Hawaii’s Big Island in September 2014, when he grabbed her by the neck and wrists, leaving marks. She says she screamed so loudly she assumed they’d get thrown out of the hotel. But nothing happened. (In his deposition, Bradley said he did not recall the incident at the waterfront and pleaded the Fifth Amendment in response to the alleged San Francisco and Hawaii incidents.) Kris Henning, chairman of the Department of Criminal Justice at Portland State University, says a reluctance to involve oneself with others’ domestic troubles is typical. “In our society, we have a sense that what happens in a family stays within a family,” Henning says. “We’ve built up a firewall that prevents strangers, friends and witnesses from intervening.” CONT. on page 18
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CHAPTER
IV Kim Bradley says violent incidents built toward Sept. 29, 2015, when John Bradley invited his colleagues on the Arlington Club’s 12-member board home for an early dinner. It was a Tuesday—Kim Bradley’s favorite day of the week. That’s the afternoon she cooks lunch and serves and cleans up at a downtown homeless shelter. “She’s the perfect hostess with the perfect house,” says a friend who requested anonymity. “But where she seems happiest is in her jeans and T-shirt, washing dishes at the shelter.” Afterward, when Kim Bradley returned home, she helped set the table on the patio and then went upstairs before guests arrived, still in the clothes she’d worn while cleaning up at the shelter. After the meal, as board members were preparing to leave, John Bradley came upstairs and asked his wife to come down and say goodbye. She was dirty and tired from her shift at the shelter and didn’t want to go downstairs.
“Tell them I’m taking a bath or I’m asleep,” she recalls saying. “He snapped. He said, ‘You bitch, it’s not my fucking problem.’ He picked me off the floor and threw me on my back.” The incident took place near the top of the main stairs, just above a hallway leading to the kitchen. Kim Bradley says it’s likely guests in the house heard him shouting. John Bradley went back downstairs, and the remaining board members—it’s unclear how many—had left. When Kim Bradley came down, only Arlington Club manager Mike Legg was still there. He soon departed, leaving the couple alone. CONT. on page 21
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Asking the Wrong Question HERE’S WHY IT’S HARD TO LEAVE AN ABUSER. BY RAC H E L M O NAH AN
rmonahan@wweek.com
One of the most common questions about domestic abuse is also one of the most harmful: Why don’t victims just leave their abusers? “‘Why did you not just leave?’—it’s very natural to ask that question,” says Dr. Christina Nicolaidis of Oregon Health & Science University. “But the question can have an underlying victim-blaming tone to it. For somebody who hasn’t been abused, it can be hard to understand that.” Victim-blaming goes on at the highest levels of power. In 2014, for example, Baltimore Ravens football player Ray Rice was caught on video punching his future wife in the head. Surgeon and then-Fox News commentator Dr. Ben Carson, who has since been elevated to U.S. secretary of Housing and Urban Development, urged people to give Rice a break—because his fiancee stayed with him. "Let's not all jump on the bandwagon of demonizing this guy," said Carson. "He obviously has some real problems, and his wife obviously knows that, because she subsequently married him." Activists and survivors of domestic violence responded with the Twitter campaign #whyIstayed (and also #whyIleft) to help people better understand the dynamics of domestic violence. One of the most powerful arguments they’ve raised is that part of the point of abuse is to control a victim and make her stay. “They abuse because they can, because it works,” says Julie Owens, a North Carolinabased survivor and domestic violence expert and consultant. “Domestic violence is about someone's belief that they're entitled to dominate their partner.” There are many reasons why it’s hard to leave. Here are a few:
1. IT’S DANGEROUS TO LEAVE AN ABUSER. Survivor advocates cite several studies showing abuse victims are more likely to be murdered after they leave their abusers or try to. “Separation and leaving someone can be one of the most dangerous times,” says Merle Weiner, director of the domestic violence clinic at the University of Oregon School of Law. “Staying can be a rational choice even though it’s counterintuitive.” It’s one reason why advocates counsel that victims need a safety plan for leaving.
2. ABUSERS TELL THEIR VICTIMS THAT THEY’RE TO BLAME. Abusers blame their victims, and the victims may believe their abusers, partly as a survival mechanism. The manipulation and other control can be the worst part of a relationship with abuse because it can take away a victim’s sense of self and agency. “The victims that I’ve talked to—and I’ve talked to thousands over my career—almost without exception will tell me it's terrible to be beaten,” says Erin Greenawald, a domestic violence prosecutor for the Oregon Department of Justice. “But the worst part is the emotional abuse.” Woman may believe their partners can and will change—that’s often part of the cycle of abuse. Victims may have trouble accepting they have no control over how their partners treat them. “People who don't understand it say, ‘Look, there's a door, just walk out it.’ She can't see it,” says Owens.
3. SOCIETY PUNISHES VICTIMS FOR STANDING UP FOR THEMSELVES. Almost 1 in 3 women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence, according to the World Health Organization. “The same forces that support a person's privilege and power over another
person create space and opportunity for a Harvey Weinstein to be a sexual predator also support perpetrators of domestic violence,” says Martha Strawn Morris, director of Multnomah County’s Gateway Center for Domestic Violence Services. “Harvey hired people to discredit those who spoke against his crimes. DV perpetrators hire lawyers to win custody cases.”
4. SOME OF THE SAME REASONS PEOPLE STAY IN RELATIONSHIPS WITHOUT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE APPLY HERE, TOO. “Why do people stay in a bad relationship?” asks Kris Henning, Portland State University’s criminology chairman. “They have kids, shared property; they’ve invested a significant amount of time. They still may love the person.” There are also social and religious taboos around divorce. Economic considerations can make leaving difficult.
5. “WHY DON’T YOU LEAVE?” IS THE WRONG QUESTION TO ASK A VICTIM OF DOMESTIC ABUSE. A victim of domestic abuse is likely to be emotionally isolated. Asking such a question comes off as a condemnation. “It definitely can lead to further isolation from the people who support them,” says Rebecca Nickels, executive director of Call to Safety, the main crisis line in Portland. “The best thing a person can do is listen and tell them they believe them. If we say, ‘You should do this or do that,’ we're just another person taking control away.”
WW staff writer Nigel Jaquiss contributed reporting to this story.
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Kim Bradley says the reason she finallly summoned the courage to call 911 was simple. For the first time, she feared for her life. 20
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CHAPTER
V
Then, Kim Bradley recalls, at about 7 pm, her husband began yelling again and threw a chair across the kitchen, breaking a cabinet door. That’s when she called 911. In a recording of the first call, John Bradley can be heard shouting in the background, and as Kim Bradley asks the 911 operator for help, she pleads that police not use lights or sirens because she fears it will enrage her husband further. “I’ll never survive this,” she tells the operator. Minutes later, she called 911 a second time and tried to cancel the police response because she feared his wrath. Too late. Officers arrived and arrested John Bradley. He blamed her. “Look what you did, Kim,” Bradley said to his wife, according a police report. “I’m in handcuffs now.” Kim Bradley says the reason she finally summoned the courage to call 911 was simple. For the first time, she feared for her life. “I didn’t think I would survive,” she says. “I didn’t think I would live through the night.” When WW reported the incident two months later, a friend of John Bradley’s came to his defense, attributing Bradley’s behavior to his recently having resumed drinking. (He acknowledges being an alcoholic.) Kim Bradley says her husband had indeed been drinking vodka that night, but that he was regularly abusive even during long stretches, including two lasting more than a decade, when he hadn’t been drinking. “Almost every other time he put his hands on me, he was sober,” she says. “Anybody who blames his alcoholism for his behavior is totally wrong.”
After the arrest, Legg, the Arlington Club manager who’d been at the house, assured John Bradley he would be discreet. “Mike, you are an incredible man,” Bradley wrote in an Oct. 1 email. “I’m sorry you heard my wife and I fighting.” Legg responded: “Please know that the disagreement will always remain between the three of us (I have witnessed a lot over the past 20 years at the club that are treated with the same level of confidentiality).” A week after WW broke the news about the arrest, however, the Arlington Club announced Bradley had resigned his membership. One month later, Bradley’s employees forced him out at R&H, even though he was CEO and majority owner. He’s officially on medical leave and will continue drawing his salary until he turns 65. “I was viewed as a positive, great person,” he said in his deposition. “That’s not the case anymore.” The Multnomah Athletic and Waverley clubs have kept Bradley as a member, although the MAC suspended him for six months. (None of the clubs responded to requests for comment.) Kim Bradley says she’s particularly disappointed in the MAC, which, since its founding in 1891, has served as a family-friendly gathering place for the well-heeled. The club was a refuge for Kim Bradley during her marriage, the place she went nearly every morning for aerobics class and a bowl of yogurt with fresh fruit. That continued after John Bradley’s arrest and the court orders meant to keep him away. And it continued after he was arrested again in December 2016 for violating a no-contact order and spent 21 days in the Multnomah County Jail. On Jan. 10, 2016, four days after he got out of jail, John Bradley sat in club’s sports bar, staring out the window over the entrance. “He picked the table so he could watch me walk in,” Kim Bradley says. “He just sat there and stared at me. I literally froze on the sidewalk. I was terrified.” She turned on her heel and went home. To her, his presence at the club was both physically threatening and proof of how little her well-being mattered to the club. “These institutions are fine with what happened to me,” she says. “Is my life worth less than his because people would like to pretend it doesn’t happen?” CONT. on page 22
DARK NIGHT: John Bradley’s life changed after his domestic violence arrest Sept. 29, 2015 (mugshot from that arrest at right). “My actions were unjustifiable,” he wrote later.
“These institutions are fine with what happened to me. Is my life worth less than his because people would like to pretend it doesn’t happen?”
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HILARY SANDER
HILARY SANDER
CHAPTER
VI
ON HER OWN: Kim Bradley is looking forward to a fresh start. “I envision myself living a very different, much simpler life,” she says. “I envision myself having a large dog. A very large dog.”
Kim Bradley isn’t hiding anymore. But John Bradley is never far from his wife’s fears. “I have nightmares about him all the time,” she says. In October, a Multnomah County judge denied her request for a stalking order against her husband, finding John Bradley did not pose a physical danger to his wife. (The restraining order she has against him expires next year; a stalking order would be permanent and carry greater penalties for violations.) “Thirty years of abuse doesn’t warrant a stalking order?” Kim Bradley asks. “His rights are always more important than mine.” Today, the Bradleys’ divorce is in the final stages of mediation. She lives alone with her Cavalier King Charles spaniel, Andy, a can of Mace, and steel gates to protect her. Buyers are circling the house, and Kim Bradley is trying to figure out how to start her life over. She’d like to make a difference in other women’s lives. She plans to advocate in the Legislature and elsewhere to strengthen Oregon’s laws that protect domestic violence survivors. “I want to use my voice,” she says, “to make a change.”
HOW TO GET HELP: 22
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Looking the Other Way EXPERTS SAY OREGON COULD CHANGE ITS LAWS TO BETTER PROTECT WOMEN FROM DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. Kim Bradley wants stronger protections in Oregon for those who face domestic violence. Experts say there are two key areas in which Oregon lags behind other states. The first is the penalty for strangulation, which Oregon law defines as “knowingly imped[ing] the normal breathing or circulation of the blood of another person” by placing one’s hands around the other person’s neck or blocking the person’s nose or mouth. (Bradley says her husband put his hands around her neck repeatedly. In deposition, he said he could not remember ever doing so.) In many states, including Idaho and Washington, strangulation is a felony. In Oregon, it is usually a misdemeanor. That means on the Oregon side of the Columbia River, the maximum penalty for strangulation is typically a year in prison; in Washington, it’s 10 years. John Wentworth, Clackamas County’s top domestic violence prosecutor, along with advocates and his peers, has pushed for more severe consequences for strangulation. In the past, lawmakers have balked at the added cost of trying and incarcerating offenders. He’s hoping they will reconsider. “When someone puts their hands around someone else’s neck, either they are trying to kill them or send a message: ‘Your life is literally in my hands,’” Wentworth says. A second area of the law experts say could be improved in Oregon is the process for obtaining a permanent stalking order. A stalking order does not need to be renewed annually, as a restraining order does, and carries harsher penalties for violations. Merle Weiner, director of the domestic violence clinic at the University of Oregon School of Law, says the legal standard required to get a judge’s approval for a stalking order is higher here than in other states. In ruling against Kim Bradley’s request for a stalking order Oct. 10, a Multnomah County circuit judge found that Bradley needed to cite “an objectively reasonable fear,” not just her husband’s unwanted contacts. Weiner says such a standard places an undue burden on the victim. “Our stalking statute is horrible,” she says. “A lot of other states have better laws.” NIGEL JAQUISS.
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The main Portland-area crisis line, Call to Safety, can be reached by calling 503-235-5333 or by emailing support@calltosafety.org.
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BlOSSOm NOVEMBER 15
mic cApES NOVEMBER 22 MEDIUM WEIGHT: Unspoken
THE NEW BOUTIQUE FROM THE MIND BEHIND TRILLBLAZIN AND TABOR MADE HITS THE SWEET SPOT BETWEEN HIGH END AND OLD FASHIONED. BY WA L K E R M AC M UR D O
wmacmurdo@wweek.com
brands that blend fashionable fits with modern Cool clothes are often either very expensive, as in graphics. Tees and long-sleeves ($50-$60) from the case of luxurious jackets made by European Australia’s Bow3ry play on ’80s sci-fi sleaze and houses or overpriced athleisure for wealthy teens, The Smiths. Portland mini-brands I Love You So or very inexpensive, such as those gorgeously Much and Cafe Nyleta carry minimalist mensfaded jeans you find at your secret thrift store wear and modern incense accessories, respecdeep in the Numbers of East Portland. But unless tively. Biggest of all, LaFontaine’s boutique was you’re buying band merch, cool clothes rarely fall the first in Portland to carry Los Angeles-based in the sweet spot between “I had to fly to L.A. to Pleasures, whose ’90s-grunge and post punkpay $900 for this sweatshirt with a hole cut out of inspired streetwear ($36-$80) blew up into one it” and “This Pendleton was $14 because a farmer of 2016’s most hyped labels after they put Kurt was kicked to death by a horse while wearing it.” Cobain’s suicide note on a T-shirt. Enter Ira LaFontaine. In August, the mind “For the past month, I was thinking, ‘Why behind Trillblazin, the irreverent Trail Blazers/ isn’t anyone carrying Pleasures here?,’” says pop culture mashup that gave us Rasheed Wal- LaFontaine. “Even at that time, it was a clear tralace as a Simpsons character, and pastel-goth jectory of where they were going, and there were athleisure brand Tabor Made, opened Unspoken. people in Portland looking for them. So they Unspoken is a sparse boutique dedicated to street were the first brand that I hit up.” fashion that costs neither too much nor too little. And Unspoken is already ringing in the ears of “I’ve worked in classic streetwear environ- Portland’s heavy hitters. Open for three months, ments and really high-end environments, and Nike tapped LaFontaine to host the local launch neither of them really fit who I am as a person,” of their new NBA jerseys. The party saw Unsposays LaFontaine. “I like both worlds. So I want ken stocked with custom-made pairs of Air Force to do something that’s kind of in between those: 1 sneakers from Rasheed Wallace’s collection— More accessible price-wise, but we’re still bring- created by Portland-based show customizers— ing unique brands, and in an environment that’s inspired by Trail Blazers history. Weeks later, really easygoing and approachable, because that’s Unspoken hosted a talk from sneaker news site where I think a lot more Nice Kicks about breaking elevated stores suffer.” into the footwear business, Around the corner from and it booked out in 20 sneaker resale boutique minutes. INDEX in Old Town, you’ll For the immediate future, see the shop’s atom logo— LaFontaine is focusing on designed by Adam Garcia, new products and commuthe creative wunderkind nity building, with a new TOP 5 who worked on Nike’s Air pouch bag (like a camera Yeezy II—on a blue shingle bag, but you can put your × hanging across the street weed in it) dropping before from a dispensary and the Christmas and a collaboraBarrel Room nightclub. tion in the works with I Love Head inside to the austere You So Much. “We want to space, and on one side you’ll focus on building Unspoken 1. Air Jordan 1 (above) find LaFontaine’s Tabor as an idea, and focus on the Made and Trillblazin lines, smaller, community-based 2. Air Presto plus a new in-house line of events,” he says. “I think 3. Air VaporMax understated hoodies ($78) that’s something a lot of and tees ($32). stores neglect.” 4. Converse Chuck Taylor On the other, you’ll find GO: 219 NW Couch collections from a new wave 5. Air Max 97 St., unspokenpdx.com, of mid-range streetwear 503-208-3660. Closed
VIRGIL ABLOH NIKE “THE TEN” COLLABORATIONS
rEvA DEviTO NOVEMBER 29
SirEn AnDTHE SEA DECEMBER 6
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THE BUMP
humptown
arris By Stella H
HOW DO I INTRODUCE TOYS IN THE BEDROOM? Welcome to Humptown, our new sex column that runs every week on our website. This week we’re running a print preview. And it’s time to talk about toys!
s a sex educator, my house is overflowing with sex toys to the point that it’s become a storage issue. I’ve even stolen the idea from another educator and repurposed an over-the-door shoe holder to house vibrators and dildos. So from my happy sex toy bubble, sometimes it’s hard to remember that only between 25 and 50 percent of people have tried using sex toys, depending on which study you want to believe. It’s a shame, because sex toys are amazing. Like any other tool, they’re specially made to get a particular job done. There are vibrators for internal or external use, dildos, butt plugs, masturbation sleeves and more. In fact, there are so many toys available that sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. First, why might you want to use sex toys? Sex toys can be great to use alone to explore all the ways your body can experience pleasure. If you’re interested in internal stimulation, like G-spot or prostate play, those areas can be hard to reach on our own body. But toys made for those exact purposes do a wonderful job, and save you the carpal tunnel of trying to reach them with your fingers. Some people need intense stimulation to get aroused or reach orgasm. This may just be due to how they’re built, or it may be influenced by medications, surgeries or other body changes over time. In these cases, sometimes toys are the only way to get the kind of stimulation needed. Whatever the reason for using them, toys can bring a whole new dimension to solo or partnered sex, and are well worth giving a try. But despite their utility, there’s still a stigma surrounding them. There are pervasive beliefs that using toys somehow spoils you for partnered sex, or that only people who are disappointed in their partners want to use toys. None of these ideas hold water. Anything that helps you get in touch with the pleasure your body can experience actually help enhance partnered play—with or without toys. And although self-reporting studies about sex are notoriously flawed, evidence suggests that couples who use sex toys together report higher satisfaction with their sex lives. Having toys in your toolbox means having even more options to choose from when you’re deciding what kind of sex you want to have. Not only that, but toys can save the day when you want to do something logistically complicated, or to help take the pressure off of bodies performing on demand. Interested in double penetration? Coordinating erections might be harder than you realize. But using a toy or two makes this fantasy a lot easier to achieve. So how do you broach the subject with your partner? If you don’t already have toys, shopping together can make for a fun and sexy date— I love sending my clients to She Bop after they’ve left a session with me. You can simply go together or you can make a game of it by each going on your own, and then comparing notes later about what caught your eye. This can also be a great chance to talk about interests or fantasies you haven’t yet discussed with a partner. There are even a few supplies that can enhance your sex life. Do you already have body-safe lube on the nightstand? Lube
makes a huge difference in all kinds of sex acts, but not all lube is created equal. I suggest a simple water-based lube, like Sliquid, with minimal ingredients, and nothing that could irritate your body. It’s important to read the ingredients, because there are a lot you’ll want to avoid—including glycerine, glucose and their derivatives, which can cause yeast infections. More ingredients to avoid include parabens, petroleum or petroleum-derived ingredients, propylene glycol and chlorhexidine. A few more lube caveats: Oil degrades latex, so you can’t use oil-based lube, including coconut oil, if you’re going to use condoms or barriers in your sex. Also, silicone lube degrades silicone sex toys, so if you’re using silicone toys or dildos be sure to use water-based lube. Another non-toy purchase is a Liberator sex wedge. This does the job of placing a pillow or two under your rear, but doesn’t flatten down, which makes a variety of positions more comfortable or more sustainable. While there are toys specifically made for couples, in my experience those usually aren’t the best ones to start with. They often have tricky ways meant to attach to one person’s body or the other, and they have a higher learning curve to make them successful. The best bet is to stick with something simple at first, and as you develop more of an idea of what you and your partner enjoy, you can use that information to add to your bag of tricks. A vibrator is a great place to start. A simple wand-style vibe can add lots of pleasure to different body types and genital configurations. And wands with long handles are easy to pass between bodies during partnered sex, if that’s what you’re into. If you’re curious about anal play, a smaller, starter butt plug is also a great addition. Countless people end up in the ER every year with household objects lost up their ass because they didn’t know the golden rule of butt toys: they’ve got to have a flared base! Unlike the vaginal canal, the anal cavity isn’t a dead end. Yes, there’s a sphincter between the rectum and the colon, but it’s not going to keep you from losing carrots and remote controls in your intestines and as silly as that sounds, foreign objects cause severe medical problems. I really love the Aneros toys for prostate play, which work on all bodies (Did you know you can stimulate the G-spot through anal penetration?!?). They get my vote for beginner butt stuff, but as long as you choose a body-safe, sanitizable material, and something with a flared base, you’re good to go. I send people to She Bop because everything you can buy there is body safe, and the staff are all friendly and knowledgeable. But Spartacus and Fantasy are also good options—you just need to know more about what you’re looking for, because you’ll have to dodge jelly toys and other unsafe materials while looking for the good stuff. The benefit of Spartacus is it has a wide variety of kink toys, including some advanced stainlesssteel options, and both stores offer apparel, too, in case you need a new outfit to go with your new toys. Finding the right toy might take a bit of experimentation, but once you find something that works for you, or for you and your partner, it can take your sex to the next level.
Stella Harris is a certified sex coach. Have you got a burning question of your own? We’re listening! Email askhumptown@wweek.com and keep your eye out for an answer in an upcoming column!
I L L U S T R AT I O N S B Y R O S I E S T R U V E
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How to Give!Guide
BIG GIVE DAYS IF YOU DONATE $10 to any nonprofit on any of the following Big Give Days, you could randomly win one of these great prizes:
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3
DEC. 28 The Oregon Cultural Trust challenges donors to “Give Big and Get Out” across this amazing state of ours by offering a vacation package! Visit giveguide.org for details. ILLUSTRATIONS BY LEAH MALDONADO
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Drink your free coffee and pat yourself on the back for helping your community.
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DEC. 7
SKIDMORE PRIZE WINNERS The Skidmore Prizes honor people 35 and under who make Portland a better place. Winners must be under the age of 36 and work fulltime for a local nonprofit. To read each profi le, pick up a copy of the Give!Guide magazine, or visit giveguide.org.
Let your credit card run free!
YOU GET: A Sony Alpha a6300 camera and a 16-50 mm zoom lens from Pro Photo Supply.
Blossom: 11/15 Mic Capes: 11/22 Reva DeVito: 11/29 Siren and the Sea: 12/6 Natasha Kmeto: 12/13
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Blossom plays 11/15 at the White Owl
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35 OR UNDER? We’d love for you to GIVE! The original reason for Give!Guide was to hook young readers on a year-end giving habit. Nonprofits with the most individual donors 35 and under in each of the eight categories will be awarded $1,500, nonprofits with the second-most will be awarded $600, and the third-most will recieve $400. Bonus: Give $10 or more on Dec. 4th, and you could win a DSLR camera from Pro Photo supply! (See Big Give Days). Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
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STARTERS
DICK PLUIM
B I T E - S I Z E D P O RT L A N D C U LT U R E N E W S
R.I.P.: Fred Cole, the Portland punk legend best known for fronting the bands Dead Moon and Pierced Arrows, died of liver disease on Nov. 9. He was 69 years old. Born in Tacoma and raised in Las Vegas, Cole started his music career in the ’60s. Relocating to Portland, Cole met his wife, Kathleen “Toody” Conner, and in 1987 founded Dead Moon, with her on bass and Andrew Loomis on drums. Playing a dark brand of punk with shadings of blues and country, the trio influenced many bands from the Pacific Northwest and gained a cult following in Europe. Health issues plagued Fred in recent years, and after Loomis died last year, the Coles retired from rock ‘n’ roll, though they continued to perform acoustically as a duo. On Oct. 5, Portland celebrated “Dead Moon Night” at City Hall, honoring the band’s legacy and contributions to the city’s music culture. Mississippi Records is releasing a new Dead Moon book and record set next year. For more on Cole, see page 35. SILENT NO MORE: Omerta, the pricey downtown “Old-World Italian” restaurant beneath Trump supporter Gordon Sondland’s new Dossier Hotel, will close this Saturday, Nov. 18, after a mere three months in business. WW gave the dimly lit restaurant a mixed review just last week (“The Oddfather,” November 8, 2017) we found its odd formality and heavy red-sauce Italian a refreshing change, though the execution was flawed. The news was first reported by the Mercury’s Chad Walsh, who called the closing “very surprising.” He quoted ChefStable’s Kurt Huffman, who managed the project for Sondland, as saying it was “enormously gratifying for all of us on the team to see Portland embrace” the restaurant. SAUSAGE NO MORE: The sausage party is over. On Sunday, Nov. 12, Widmer Brothers announced via Facebook that they are scrapping the kitchen at the pub space next to their North Portland brewery. The pared-down Widmer pub re-opened three days later, with a focus on the small-batch beer coming out of the 10-barrel innovation brewery. The remodel will be ongoing through next spring, and will put the brewing process on display, they say. The new food menu will now be “light snacks only.”
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
MUSICAL CHEFS: John Gorham has filed a liquor license to open a 2,000-square-foot outpost of Israelifocused restaurant Shalom Y’all in the former Taylor Railworks. Meanwhile, Railworks’ Erik Van Kley and Gabriel Ramos have migrated to Belmont’s old-school pasta spot, Accanto. The Accanto job was open because chef Chris Frazier moved down the street to Nick and Sandra Arnerich’s Renata. >> Meanwhile this month, celebrity chef Doug Adams temporarily took over Duane Sorenson’s Division Street clubhouse, Woodsman Tavern, while waiting for his long-delayed restaurant Bullard to complete construction. The Woodsman Tavern chefs, Ryan Gaul and Jessica Sandberg, moved to Buckman Public House. Former Buckman Public House chef Ian Wilson is doing a pop-up at Teutonic Wine.
W E D N E S D AY
11/15
DEAD BOYS
GIVE GUIDE HAPPY HOUR: BLOSSOM
First-generation punk band the Dead Boys only needed two albums to secure their legend. The first, 1977’s Young, Loud and Snotty Snotty,, was raw and unapologetic in a way few records were at the time. To commemorate their 40th anniversary, guitarist Cheetah Chrome and original drummer Johnny Blitz have reunited for a tour and rerecording of that seminal debut. Dante's, 350 W Burnside St., 866-7778932, danteslive.com. 9 pm. $15. 21+.
Every Wednesday through mid-December, you can support Portland nonprofits while enjoying both cheap drinks and some of the city’s best emerging musical talent. This week, sway to the tropically flavored R&B of Blossom. White Owl Social Club, 1305 SE 8th Ave., 503236-9672, whiteowlsocialclub.com. 5 pm. Free. 21+.
L S T EA
While the Walkmen went on “extreme hiatus” in 2013, frontman Hamilton Leithauser did not disappear into premature retirement. His subsequent solo albums mix Frank Sinatra with Bob Dylan, while his new single with angelic-voiced Angel Olsen is a dreamy new addition to the catalog. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 503-284-8686, wonderballroom.com. 8:30 pm. $20 advance, $23 day of show. All ages.
The annual Beaujolais Nouveau Day is a perfect version of Oregon Nouveau, with Oregon gamays from Holden, Day, Fausse Piste and Division—not to mention Alan Akwai and Earl Ninsom personally serving up goodies from Hat Yai. St. Jack., 1610 NW 23rd., stjackpdx.com. $45.
11/17
F R I D AY
HAMILTON LEITHAUSER
MA
BEAUJOLAIS NOUVEAU DAY AT ST. JACK
THO
T H U R S D AY
11/16
ILANA GLAZER AND PHOEBE ROBINSON
Get Busy WHERE WE’LL BE CELEBRATING THE THANKSGIVING OF WINES AND THE FESTIVUS OF BEERS THIS WEEK.
Broad City’s IIana and Phoebe from 2 Dope Queens have collaborated before on the podcast Soooo Many White Guys, but standup sets from either are pretty rare. Standup sets from both is a motherfucking miracle. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., revolutionhall.com. 7:30 pm and 10 pm. Sold out.
N OV. 15 -2 1
PSYCHIC UTOPIA
Hand2Mouth, one of Portland’s most imaginative theater companies, is kicking off its first official season with an interactive play that’s part ritual, part “mind experiment” based off of interviews the directors conducted with communes. New Expressive Works, 810 SE Belmont St., hand2mouththeatre.org. 7:30 pm. $25.
11/18
S AT U R D AY
URBAN THANKSGIVING
INTERNATIONAL CAT SHOW
Every year at Thanksgiving, 99W fills with wine-seekers hoping for the new crush. And every year, one of the state’s best wine events happens right here in Portland: eleven urban winemakers, and over 30 excellent wines—including a gamay the NYT’s Eric Asimov called the best in America— will be yours to taste for a mere $15. SE Wine Collective, 2425 SE 35th Pl., sewinecollective.com. 3-6 pm. $15.
Hundreds of fancy felines are coming to Portland to compete to be the prettiest kitty in the world. Along with the best-in-show competition, there’ll be a petting corral and a performance from Portland’s very own cat rapper, Moshow. Portland Expo Center, 2060 N Marine Dr., cfanorthwest.org. 8:30 am-4 pm. $8.
S U N D AY
11/19
CHERRY FESTIVUS
JULIA JACKLIN
You know what’s good? Beer made with cherries. What’s better is a lot of it at once. All the big-name local kriek makers will have their beers in here, whether Logsdon, de Garde, pFriem, Culmination or Upright, plus some actual Belgians. Bazi Bierbrasserie, 1522 SE 32nd Ave. $20 for glass and 6 tasters. Starts Saturday.
Aussie singer-songwriter Julia Jacklin turned out a quiet masterpiece last year in Don’t Let the Kids Win. The record is a triumph of indie-kissed country, highlighted by a voice so pure and trained it’s easy to overlook the pain detailed in the lyrics. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 503-231-9663. 7 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show. 21+.
M O N D AY
11/20
STRANGLER VS. STRANGLER
LADY BIRD
Portland’s weirdest film night, Church of Film, recently returned to Century and bumped their screenings up to two a week. This Monday, it’s an ’80s black comedy and psychological horror about a Belgrade punk singer who develops a psychic connection with the city’s most notorious murderer. Century, 930 SE Sandy Blvd., facebook.com/churchoffilm. 9:30 pm. Free, $5 suggested donation.
Greta Gerwig’s writer/director debut follows a willful teenager named Christine, who longs to escape her California suburb and who insists that everyone call her Lady Bird. It’s hilariously absurd, genuinely insightful and one of the most empathetic depictions of relationships between “difficult” women to ever inhabit multiplex movie theaters. Fox Tower, 846 SW Park Ave., 844-462-7342. Various times. $9.75.
T U E S D AY
11/21
THE HUMANS
WHAT NOW?
Instead of a crowd-pleasing season filler, Artists Rep’s Thanksgiving play is one of the most heart-wrenching living room dramas to come off Broadway in recent years. The family gathering at the center of The Humans is loaded with tender humanism and commentary about the collapse of the American middle class. On Tuesdays, you can see it for just $10. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., artistrep.org. 7:30 pm. $10.
Last year after Trump got elected, over 2,000 Portlanders came together to join nonprofits that could help mitigate the damage. Well, things are still…pretty bad. This year’s What Now? will continue the effort to make things better from the ground up. Reserve a spot at www.impactflow.com/ event/what-now-20-5283. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St. 6 pm. Free. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
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FOOD & DRINK
DRANK
BY JORDAN MICHELMAN @sprudge
Beaujolais Nouveau Day at St. Jack 1610 NW 23rd., stjackpdx.com. 6-10 pm. $45.
27.5
Dak Prescott DAL
15.2
Leonard Fournette JAX.
For RB 2, I want a player that gets third down snaps, is featured in the red zone and maybe even returns punts. St. Reginald Parish’s light, fresh “Nouveau”-esque take on Oregon pinot gris was one of my favorite new wines of 2016. I’m calling it now as my lock of the week.
8.8
James White NE
This day-after event means locking in your pick a night early—a nerve-wracking experience. For the high price, you get a barrage of both foreign and domestic, live music, an airline raffle, raw seafood bar, charcuterie and more. Sometimes the most expensive play is also the safest.
14.3
Doug Baldwin SEA
I scored a big tip in the course of writing this article: Once the St. Jack revelry is done on Thursday night, much of the city’s young wine talent will retire to Clinton Street’s La Moule for bone luge shots and, inevitably, more wine. I see multiple touches, a high percentage of routes run and vinous touchdowns.
11
Robby Anderson NYJ
Elkton-Villages Nouveau Dinner 345 First Street, Elkton, Ore.. 6 pm. $75.
I don’t like spending high-draft picks on tight ends, but inevitably there’s a moment mid-season where I wish I could start Gronk. This Elkton-Villages dinner down in the valley is completely sold out, and good luck trading for tickets.
9
Evan Engram NYG
California Nouveau at Ordinaire Oakland, Calif.
I like to take risks with my Flex plays. Oakland’s Ordinaire throws one of the country’s best annual Nouveau events, with one-off bottlings from California’s best natural winemakers. High risk, high reward: Alaska flies there for as low as $107.
6.8
Tarik Cohen CHI
Les Caves 1719 NE Alberta St., 503-2066852, lescavespdx.com.
Defense picks in Fantasy are all about matchups, but if you get lucky you may end up with a plugand-play option. Portland’s new wine bar destination Les Caves is exactly that. They aren’t part of the official celebrations, but there’s a good chance this Alberta basement bar will be pouring a delicious gamay or three come Thursday night, including a unique new Nouveau offering from noted California’s Martha Stoumen.
8
PHI
E&R Wine Merchants 6141 SW Macadam Ave.
If you can’t make it to the Thursday or Friday night events, E&R Wine Merchants on SW Macadam will have beautiful bottles of Beaujolais open all weekend long for your sipping and shopping pleasure, with offerings from all 10 of the region’s crus. Their tastings range from good to extraordinary.
7
“Cobra” Kai Forbath CHI
SE Wine Collective “Fete du Nouveau” 2425 SE 35th Pl., 6-8 pm. Free.
St. Reginald Parish “Nouveau Gris” at St. Jack.
Fete du Beaujolais Nouveau at Headwaters 1001 SW Broadway on Friday, Nov. 17. 6-10 pm. $65-$150.
After-Hours at La Moule 2500 SE Clinton St., 971-3392822, lamoulepdx.com.
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Your top draft pick for Nouveau season is the annual celebration at St. Jack, with Oregon gamays from Holden, Day Wines, Fausse Piste and Division guaranteeing a 15-point floor, with five points for cocktails featuring Aria gin or Mezcal Amaras. The game script screams dual threat, with food stars like Alan Akwai and Earl Ninsom personally serving up goodies from Hat Yai.
LEAH MALDONADO
very southern tip of Burgundy. Oregon is gamay country, too, and the Beaujolais Nouveau style— chuggable, gluggable light red wine—tastes re you ready for some red wine? Beaujolais Day is back amazing in late November Portland, otherwise known as football season. on Thursday, November To celebrate the wine’s release, 16. And not unlike Cleatus we’re playing a little Portland the dancing football robot, we are filled with Beaujolais Day Fantasy Pick ’Em glee. The holiday started as a French tradition Ten-team PPR rules apply, and our in which the year’s fresh, easy drinking gamay league calls for two running backs, two wines are released from the Beaujolais, at the receivers and a flex.
A stunning value. This free annual event at SE Wine Collective celebrates the best of the new Oregon nouveau tradition. If past seasons are any indication, the bulk of touches will go to Bow & Arrow and St. Reginald Parish. Points multiplier for spotting Cass, the Collective’s beloved winery dog.
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
ABBY GORDON
VIETNAMESE SEAFOOD & HOT POT Happy Hour 3:30-5:30pm EvErydAy All Beers & Appetizers $1 Off
4229 SE 82nd Ave #3 • 503.841.5610 HOLIDAY AND IT FEELS SO GOOD: The poblano relleno at Alto Bajo
REVIEW
Whether You’re High or Low
THE PEAKS AND UNCANNY VALLEYS OF NEW MEXICAN SPOT ALTO BAJO. BY M AT T H E W KO R F H AGE
mkorfhage@wweek.com
What’s in a name? Usually very little. But nouvelleMexican spot Alto Bajo makes its ambitions and limits explicit. In the polished pastel interiors of downtown’s new Hi-Lo Hotel, Alto Bajo (“high-low”) translated a brand-conscious luxury hotel into Spanish. The restaurant is beautiful in the way that furniture stores can be beautiful—a blonde-wood nest of patterned booths and hanging baskets with a sparse plant museum of cactus. But alto and bajo are also everywhere at Alto Bajo. Former Moto and Acadia chef Chip Barnes has created a menu with vertiginous peaks and valleys, from an poblano relleno that’s one of my favorite new dishes this year to a parched husk of cochinita pibil that cost $36 and failed at every level of execution. Here are the highs and the lows. THE ALTO That poblano relleno ($13) is a masterpiece. Stuffed into an earthy, roasted poblano is a seasonal tour of texture and flavor: bright apple with cranberry or cherry, the low richness of smoked goat cheese and the satisfying bittersweet crunch of marcona almonds (now pecans), balanced by lovely carrot or tomato sauce. It’s like a South-ofthe-Border harvest cornucopia, based on a chile nogado holiday dish. Barnes’ knack for delicate comlexity also shows up in a masterful lamb-loin mole rojo ($29), balancing a trio of peppers and only wisps of chocolate, roasty smoke and sesame. The rojo and verde salsas in the tortilla-chip salsa duo ($6) are extraordinary in both depth and freshness,
1. Shandong TOP 3
HOT PLATES Where to eat this week.
3724 NE Broadway St., 503-287-0331, shandongportland.com. As winter rolls in, sometimes only one thing will do: a bowl of Shandong’s impossibly long gwai wer noodles, plus maybe ma po tofu. $.
Fillmore Trattoria
Italian Home Cooking Tuesday–Saturday 5:30PM–10PM closed Sunday & Monday
and the rich guac ($10) will nail you to your seat. Pair with one of the margaritas ($11-$14), including a sweetly friendly prickly pear ($12). THE BAJO Service—which runs morning, noon and night—can be stretched thin. Otherwise excellent plates were served lukewarm, and we spent one night asking for our silverware back before waiting endlessly for the wrong bill. The $36 cochinita pibil, meanwhile (now $23 in a smaller portion), arrived as a mammoth pile of pork on a banana leaf with a trio of simple sides. The famously moist, slow-cooked meat was instead desiccated, next to an equal pile of overacidic pink onions. Though the broad platter was meant to serve many, it included only a small complement of tortillas that proved hilariously difficult to refill. And while the upscale margarita variations are consistently pleasant if expensive, the mixologyforward drinks were too often unbalanced, whether the near-undrinkable mezcal smoke and ginger sharpness of a Oaxacan mule ($12), or the cloying agave-meets-ashtray sensation of a tequila-mezcal take on the old fashioned ($12). This smoky unbalancing act continued into dessert. That flan was embellished with an aggressive smear of mezcal compote. Though I’ve had dishes there that rivalled the best versions in the city, I left with a funny taste in my mouth.
1937 NW 23RD Place Portland, OR 97210
(971) 386-5935
GO: Alto Bajo, 310 SW Stark St., 971- 222-2111, altobajopdx.com. Breakfast and lunch 6:30-10:30 am and 11 am-2 pm Monday-Friday. Dinner 5:30-9 pm Monday-Thursday, 5:30-10 pm FridaySaturday. Brunch weekends 7:30-2 pm.
2. Poke Mon
1485 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 503-894-9743, pokemonpdx.com. All November, you can and should get Earl Ninsom’s collaboration ahi laab bowl with tuna, shiitakes and salmon roe. $.
3. Beeswing
4318 NE Cully Blvd., 503-477-7318, beeswingpdx.com. Marissa Lorette’s baked goods are the standouts at Cully brunch spot Beeswing, which branched out to dinner this month. $.
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MUSIC MIKE NICOLAASSEN
IN MEMORIAM
The Last Train PUNK LEGEND FRED COLE LIVED ENTIRELY ON HIS OWN TERMS, AND PORTLAND FOLLOWED HIS LEAD. Fred Cole didn’t choose Portland. Appropriately for a guy who dressed like an Old West drifter, he just sort of ended up here. According to legend, in the late ’60s he and his thenbandmates left their hometown of Las Vegas and headed for Canada, hoping to outrun the draft, but ran out of gas six hours from the border. Within a year, Cole met his wife and eventual musical partner, Kathleen “Toody” Conner, and gradually, he sank his roots into the Oregon soil. Maybe it’s overly romantic to say it was fate, or that “Portland chose him.” Whatever the case, for those who grew up in the shadow of his influence, or were drawn here in some way because of it, it’s hard to imagine the city without him, even if that’s something we’ll now have to get used to. So much of the mythology of Old Portland is simply a reflection of how Cole, who died last week at age 69, chose to live—in thrall to no one but himself. He didn’t just record and release his own records, he cut them himself, at home in Clackamas, allegedly on the same lathe that pressed the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie.” He drove his own tour van and set up his own gear. While the music he made, most famously with Dead Moon and later Pieced Arrows, painted the world in dark tones, he lived in a way that suggested that you could insulate yourself from it by building your own. It’s a lesson he passed down to admirers, from Pearl Jam to Jack White to damn near anyone in Portland who’s ever dared to form a power chord: Your band could be your life, and your life could be your band. Cole’s reach extended far beyond the small niche he was content to exist in, as proven by the memorials in The New York Times, Pitchfork and across social media in the wake of his death. But it’s here, in the town he broke down in 50 years ago, where he is being mourned the most. Here’s how some of those who knew Fred Cole told us they will remember him. MATTHEW SINGER. “I played music with Fred and Toody for nearly a decade, rolling across three continents and two dozen countries. Having lost contact relatively early in life with my own father—who, incidentally had been a bandmate of Fred’s in the early 1970s—Fred became about as close as one can imagine to being a father figure to me. We lived the exhausting, bizarre and usually mind-numbingly boring lives of a hard-touring band for months on end, and sometimes fought with one another with the intensity that only those who truly care for one another can fight. During our years in the trenches, through our small victories and occasional defeats as a band, I came to know and admire a man for whom words can do little justice. “Fred was a lot of things—a husband, father and grandfather who cared deeply for his family, a true visionary who refused to compromise his art for financial reward and, at times, a cranky old coot whose stubbornness was the stuff of legend. But most of all, he was, for me, a friend and inspiration, and a living example of a soul determined to experience and enjoy, firsthand, all that life has to offer.” — Kelly Halliburton, drummer for Pierced Arrows
“The first time I saw Dead Moon perform was when I first moved to Portland in 1998. Crammed onto the tiny stage at the Twilight
Cafe, they were all sweat and smoke and joyful danger, the true embodiment of filthy garage rock at the end of the last century. “The last time I saw Dead Moon perform was almost 20 years later, at a Crystal Ballroom reunion show in early 2015. The show for the Crystal’s 1,200-plus audience was as intimate and dirty as it was for 100 people back at the Twilight. Dead Moon played hard, fast and loud. The band and crowd alike seemed to realize how special the
MOON MAN: Fred Cole in the Netherlands, February 2017.
every time Kelly [Halliburton] and I were in the back of the van yelling, ‘Fred!’ He was the master of just about crashing into something at all times. “One of my favorites was the first time I’d ever been to Europe at all. I flew to England with them for a festival, and once we landed, Toody went and got the rental car. It was this little twodoor hatchback thing, so Toody and I rode in the back, and Kelly in the passenger seat. We’ve got about a two-hour drive to the place we were staying, and Fred just starts hauling! We were laughing and screaming. I think he shaved off half the hedges that were bordering the road. “I’m forever grateful that Fred was willing to let me tag along on their tours and show me the ropes on how it’s really done when touring and music is your life. I’m going to miss his stories about the wild adventures he and Toody would find them-
who is drinking red wine and is completely wasted. After a few songs Fred can’t take it anymore and says to the heckler, who Fred really doesn’t seem the bit impressed by, “Hey, if you think you can do a better job, get up here.” Morrison staggers his way to the stage, and right when he’s close enough, Fred dropped him like a sack of potatoes.” — John Whitson, Holy Mountain Records
“In June 2001, Fred, Toody and Andrew met us in the parking lot of Schiphol Airport. Fred grabbed us all into a giant bear hug, took our fists into the center and said, “Don’t forget, whatever happens, no matter what anyone says—you’re in the band! You are Dead Moon!” And away we went, on the best damn four weeks of our lives, a madcap European tour with Fred at the helm, spinning out riotously funny stories and treating us like
“FRED HAD THAT QUALITY OF BEING ‘IMMORTAL,’ AND I BELIEVE HIS SONGS AND RECORDINGS WILL MAKE IT SO.” — Toody Cole night was. Fred’s health had been on the decline, and every show could have been his last. “We’ve lost a lot of our heroes in music lately. But like many we love, Fred Cole has left us so much of his heart and soul and his talent in his songs, and they will always be with us. Like Prince and David Bowie, Fred Cole will never truly die.” — Hutch Harris, the Thermals
“A lot of my best memories of Fred come from being on the road with Pierced Arrows. Multiple continents and hundreds of shows with barely any time in between, and he never complained. He and Toody just loved playing and being out there. He was always the driver, too. Man, if I had a nickle for
selves on, and I’m going to miss hearing him say, “Oh, man, you wouldn’t believe it,” or “What a clusterfuck!” That’s when you knew a good one was coming.” — Jenny Connors, Jenny Don’t and the Spurs
“Sometime in the early ’90s, I went to Tombstone Music with a friend of mine who was one of those guys who was scouring the pre-Internet world for tubes and weird distortion pedals. At some point, I must have looked bored because my friend told me to ask Fred about his Jim Morrison story. So I did. One of Fred’s early, Nevadabased groups was playing at the Whisky a Go Go, and someone in the audience was relentlessly heckling them. Eventually, Fred figures out it’s Jim Morrison,
long-lost family from day one. Fred thought we were insane for wanting to make a film about them, but Fred was a person who always respected whatever “your bag” was, however unusual your tastes might be. As long as you loved what you were doing—this was all that mattered. He was a giggling schoolboy at heart, with the kind soul of a wise old sage.” — Kate Fix, co-director of Unknown Passage: The Dead Moon Story
“Fred was the most independent person I ever met. He refused closeable record offers from major labels like Columbia Records. He never, ever sold his soul—never, ever lost control. I worked with many bands in the past and they all had ‘road
managers,’ ‘tour-managers,’ ‘soundmen’ and nice, comfortable, expensive tour buses. Not Fred and Toody. Fred got a small van, drove it himself throughout Europe. Toody did the daily business thing. Andrew was the funnyman. They all carried and built up their own equipment before and after the concert. They only needed one person for the merchandise—Fred could not do that himself. Not many people could have done this.” — Hans Kesteloo, Music Maniac Records
“I had the privilege of seeing Fred this week, and he managed to give me quite the soliloquy on subjects ranging from what happens after you die to what’s important in life. If it’s a bunch of spirits who were once on earth hanging out after you die, Fred plans on finding Andrew—if Andrew does not find him first—and then going to find Lemmy to play bass in a supergroup consisting of the three of them. He had a hunch he might come back as a guardian angel, too. Fred did not rule out reincarnation or anything else as a possible next step. He was not dogmatic, more curious and, dare I say, almost excited to see what happens next.” — Eric Isaacson, Mississippi Records
“Fred had that quality of being ‘immortal,’ and I believe his songs and recordings will make it so. We can always hear his voice and his passion there, and remember it like it was only yesterday and will go on forever.” — Toody Cole, via Dead Moon Fan Page on Facebook MORE: Unknown Passage: The Dead Moon Story screens at Hollywood Theatre, 4122 NE Sandy Blvd., on Saturday, Nov. 18. 8 pm. Free. Read more memorials to Fred Cole at wweek.com.
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MUSIC 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.
Dead Boys, The Hot LZ’s, BOMF
[ORIGINAL PUNK] See Get Busy, page 31. Dante’s, 350 W Burnside St, 503-226-6630. 9 pm. $15. 21+.
Give! Guide Happy Hour: Blossom
[NON-PROFIT PARTY] See Get Busy, page 31. White Owl Social Club, 1305 SE 8th Ave, 503-2369672. 5 pm. Free. 21+.
Our Lady Peace, SMSHNG HRTS
[STILL CLUMSY] Our Lady Peace might not have gotten as much shit for showing up late to the grunge party as Candlebox or Seven Mary Three, but grunge scholars are still likely to shudder every time they think about the first time they heard the Toronto group’s breakthrough single “Superman’s Dead.” Luckily for them, the haters have moved on in the 20 years since Clumsy garnered the group heaps of praise and awards in their native land, and it’s mostly safe for the remnants of their loyal fanbase to speak fondly of what was actually a pretty solid alt-rock record once you get past vocalist Raine Maida’s postVedder preening. PETE COTTELL. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 503-284-8686. 8:30 pm. $26. All ages.
THURSDAY, NOV. 16 Ibeyi, TheMIND
[MILLENNIAL WORLD MUSIC] A couple years ago, a band comprising French-Cuban twin sisters dazzled sizable sectors of the music-critic community with their downtempo experimental sounds. The band was Ibeyi, and their 2015 self-titled debut ended up on a lot of prominent Album of the Year lists. An endearing collage of jazz, R&B, Latin folk and electronic music, Ibeyi’s sound rarely stays put for long. This year, the band released Ash, a record that will undoubtedly win over any remaining doubters. While a tad less daring, the album still offers a genuinely eclectic, well-rounded lounge sound you’d be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. MARK STOCK. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., #110, 503-288-3895. 8 pm. $27. 21+.
Hamilton Leithauser, Courtney Marie Andrews
[INDIE ROMANCE] See Get Busy, page 31. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 503-284-8686. 8:30 pm. $20 advance, $23 day of show. All ages.
FRIDAY, NOV. 17 In The Company of Serpents, Goya, Salem’s Bend, Blackwulf, Hz
[METAL] Denver duo In the Company of Serpents isn’t fucking around. Since unleashing their demo in 2011, the band has been on the warpath, releasing a new cassette or vinyl record each year since. Latest and greatest is the Ain-Soph Aur album from last spring, notable for its massive sound, compliments of engineer Billy Anderson—who also opens this show with his solo noise project, Hz. Along with the requisite slabs of detuned sludge riffage, guitarist Grant Netzorg imbues his music with sprawling Spaghetti Western twang. In tow for this run is Phoenix’s Goya, a trio that unashamedly and honestly named its latest groove-doom recording—cough, cough—“Harvester of Bongloads.” NATHAN CARSON. Tonic Lounge, 3100 NE Sandy Blvd., 503-238-0543. 8:30 pm. $7. 21+.
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Chicano Batman, Khruangbin, The Shacks
[PSYCHEDELIC SOUL] Chicano Batman’s sound overflows with the psychedelic soul of the ‘70s and the rich tradition of Mexican music. The instrumentation combines thick, lush organ and full-bodied guitar licks with Bardo Martinez’s angelic voice, and their songs about missed opportunities and finding freedom in being yourself burn with brightness and optimism— something we could all use more of in these dark times. Not to be underestimated, opening act Khruangbin bring the kind of funk that’s going to set the world on fire while getting bodies moving. Need proof? Watch their video for “Maria También.” JUSTIN CARROLL-ALLAN. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 503-284-8686. 7 pm. Sold out. All ages.
SATURDAY, NOV. 18 Cannibal Corpse, Power Trip, Gatecreeper
[TOUR DEATH FORCE] Few bands are as synonymous with the brutal subgenre of death metal as Cannibal Corpse. Founded almost 30 years ago, the gory institution has offended many with their graphic, mutilation-heavy lyrics, but attracted an even larger following through their unending quest to achieve maximum musical heaviness. Cannibal Corpse arrived on the heels of pioneering acts like Death and Obituary, ratcheted up their fear factors and all-out aural assaults,
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and as of this month’s Red Before Black, their 14th studio album, have never looked back. They top a phenomenal bill fleshed out with fun-asfuck Texas thrash outfit Power Trip and Gatecreeper, an up-and-coming group that adds a dash of desert doom to a solid death metal bedrock. PATRICK LYONS. Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd., 503-233-7100. 8 pm. $25 advance, $30 day of show. All ages.
Polyrhythmics, Object Heavy
[JAZZ FUSION] The Polyrhythmics claim to be one of Seattle’s finest exports, and their latest album, Caldera, proves it. To write the record, the eight-piece outfit retreated to rural Oregon and sweated out the songs in a marathon recording session under the shadow of Mt. Hood. The result is a bubbling caldron of jazz, funk, Afrobeat and prog rock, with dashes of everything from Booker T and the MGs to Fela Kuti to the brainy noodling of Tortoise. Polyrhythmics dwell less in the ruminating daze of progressive jazz, preferring a livelier, friendlier approach—after all, jazz was born to make bodies move. JUSTIN CARROLLALLAN. Star Theater, 13 NW 6th Ave., 503-248-4700. 8:30 pm. $15. 21+.
Citizen, Sorority Noise, Great Grandpa
[AOR PUNK] Northeast Ohio’s Citizen have grown up at a feverish clip, all but bypassing the young-and-fast portion of their career and skipping straight to the solemn-and-sophisticated phase. Mixed by hotshot emo producer Will Yip—known best for sanding down the edges on recent releases from Title Fight and Balance and Composure—this year’s As You Please is a masterwork of slow-burning
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CRAIG COOK
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. Prices listed are sometimes for advance ticket sales. At-the-door increases and so-called convenience charges may apply. Event lineups are subject to change after WW’s press deadlines.
Cavity Search co-founders Denny Swofford (left) and Chris Cooper.
FIVE CAVITY SEARCH RECORDS MORE PEOPLE SHOULD HEAR BY DENNY SWOFFORD Pete Krebs, Bittersweet Valentines (1999)
The third solo release from Krebs contains two of his strongest tunes to date in “Powder Keg” and “Bittersweet.” It’ll be issued on vinyl for the first time ever as a Record Store Day exclusive in 2018.
2 Barra Brown, Poem Project (2017) A record featuring many different artists interpreting the track “Poem” from an early Barra Brown Quintet record. At this early stage of Brown’s career the range of his composing, arranging and playing seems limitless. 3 Saul Conrad, a tyrant and lamb (2014) The third record from the Boston singer-songwriter confirms the comparisons to Jonathan Richman, Brian Wilson and Daniel Johnston. His fifth record, Brother, comes out in January. 4 King Black Acid, Super Beautiful Magic (2017) The latest full-length from Portland’s godfather of psychedelic pop. A remastered deluxe edition of 1996’s Sunlit is also coming out on Record Store Day. 5 Gern Blanston, Gern Blanston (1994) Perfectly in-your-face loud. The record that Amphetamine Reptile and Touch & Go wish they had released. SEE IT: Cavity Search’s 25th Anniversary Show, with Queen Chief, Down Gown, Gern Blanston, Pete Krebs and Kevin Fischer Faust, is at Kenton Club, 2025 N Kilpatrick St., on Saturday, June 18. 9 pm. $5. 21+.
LUCKY BANKS-KENNY
INTRODUCING
Charlie Moses WHO: Carolyn Grigar. SOUNDS LIKE: Petting kittens in a field of flowers while watching dandelion seeds float through the air on a sunny day. FOR FANS OF: Camera Obscura, Feist, She & Him. When you ask most Portlanders how they feel about the city’s quickly changing landscape, you’ll rarely get anything close to a positive response. But that’s not the case for Carolyn Grigar, aka Charlie Moses. Growing up in Portland, the singer-songwriter has seen places she love vanish and new things take their place. But it hasn’t discouraged her from sticking it out in the city she’s called home her entire life—even when it’s happened to her directly. “I think change is a pretty universal discomfort when it comes to cities,” says Moses, who is also the proprietor of the soon-tobe shuttered Kenilworth Coffee House in Southeast Portland. “I feel like I’ve stuck around because the people are so awesome. That’s absolutely my favorite part of the city. Portlanders are some beautifully impassioned people.” Those “impassioned people,” along with a handful of strong female artists, have greatly influenced her music. On her sophomore release, Figurine, Moses—whose moniker is an homage to her mother’s maiden name and what she explains as her “desire to be ambiguous with gender”—takes cues from the likes of Kate Bush, Patti Smith and Eileen Myles. “I get especially moved by anyone doing their own thing,” she says. After years spent writing songs and honing her skills on multiple instruments, Moses finally took her voice and her guitar to the stage of her own coffee shop for a low-key performance. It attracted the attention of the local label No Movement, which released her first album, Daffodil, last year. In contrast to her first recording, which she regards as more of a collection of stripped-down demos than a formal album, Moses says Figurine “had a more thoughtful process behind it.” The result is a beautifully produced collection of 12 dreamy songs that place her soft, airy voice over graceful violins and delicate guitar melodies. On songs such as “Like No Other,” she channels her inner speakeasy jazz singer, whimsically singing, “I’m gone/Goodbye/I’ll write you someday when I’ve got the heart and the time to lose.” Although she tracked the majority of the instrumentals herself, this time around, she recruited her partner, Evan Mersky, to help out with drums and bass, while Andy Rayborn of Portland electro band Paper Gates contributes bass clarinet. “I’m so grateful having gotten to work with such incredible people on this album,” she says. “I don’t take an inch of it for granted.” As she prepares for the bittersweet shutdown of Kenilworth Coffee House and embark on multi-month tour, Moses is excited for what the next chapter of her life might hold—even if that chapter is currently a blank page. “I’m used to having a plan. I”m a big planner,” she says, laughing. “But I’m trying my best to be open to just letting things happen.” SHANNON ARMOUR. SEE IT: Charlie Moses plays the Fixin’ To, 8218 N Lombard St., with Golden Retriever and Paper Gates, on Friday, Nov. 17. 9 pm. 21+. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
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rage that’s as melodic and ambitious as it is dour. PETE COTTELL. The Analog Cafe, 720 SE Hawthorne Blvd, 503-206-7439. 7 pm. $20 advance, $23 day of show. All ages.
SUNDAY, NOV. 19 Julia Jacklin, Faye Webste
[ALT-COUNTRY] See Get Busy, page 31. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 503-231-9663. 9 pm. $12 advance, $14 day of show. 21+.
MONDAY, NOV. 20 Dhani Harrison, Summer Moon, Mereki
[HERE COMES THE SON] Well, you certainly can’t accuse Dhani Harrison of trying to profit off his name. It took the only son of George Harrison until his late 30s to release a proper solo album, and even then, it hardly tips off his familial connections. Sure, on the newly issued In Parallel, the 39-year-old’s voice occasionally betrays his genes, as do the light flourishes of worldly percussion and strings. But the music— buzzing, slow-moving electronica, pitched halfway between the yoga studio and the opium den—has few Beatlesque markings. Honestly, it could probably use some, as the album’s drifting arrangements and sighed melodies gradually dissipate into ambient wallpaper the longer it goes on. It’s sounds closer to something Trent Reznor’s son might put out after he spent his first weekend at Burning Man, came back with a man-bun and got kicked out the mansion. MATTHEW SINGER. Doug Fir Lounge, 830 E Burnside St., 503-231-9963. 8 pm. Sold out. 21+.
Rural Alberta Advantage, Yukon Blonde
[CANADIAN ROCK] After playing a handful of small, sold-out clubs earlier this year, Toronto-based indie-rock outfit the Rural Alberta Advantage is back in the states to support their new album, The Wild. The trio’s fourth album follows in the footsteps of their previous work with high-intensity folk jams and pretty acoustic melodies coupled with the biting tone of vocalist Nils Edenloff. Despite replacing longtime keyboardist and backup vocalist Amy Cole, the new tracks reflect a newfound maturity and efficiency that can only come from a band with a decade of experience. SHANNON ARMOUR. Hawthorne Theatre, 1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd., 503-233-7100. 8 pm. $16. 21+.
New Found Glory, the Ataris
TUESDAY, NOV. 21 Hibou, Sloucher
[ELECTRO-POP] Hibou’s debut LP, a swelling electro-pop record packed full of sailing guitar hooks, is good in its own right. But the 2015 album is made even more impressive given the fact that it was created by a 21-year-old living in his parents’ house in Seattle. Peter Michel and co.’s sound layers bubbling guitar lines atop one another, creating a fluid wall of ’80s-inspired sounds. There’s a pulsing, percussive nature to it all, not surprising given Michel’s former duties as touring drummer for dream-rock outfit Craft Spells. Extensive recent touring suggests Hibou has some new material up their sleeves. MARK STOCK. Bunk Bar, 1028 SE Water Ave., 503-328-2865. 9 pm. $12 advance, $15 day of show. 21+.
Gary Numan, With Me Not You
[OLD WAVE] You have to hand it to Gary Numan. He’s not willing to just coast on his back catalog, as easy as that would be. “Cars” was an enormous hit that’s never gone out of style, and his early work with Tubeway Army paved the road for all kinds of electronic-derived New Wave vehicles. But continues to release dark electronica that throbs like the trailers of disaster films. One wonders if audiences are really lining up to hear Savage (Songs From a Broken World), his latest album, which makes a serious attempt to merge his classic chops with today’s production aesthetic. Maybe ticket holders don’t know what they’re in for. Safe to say, Numan doesn’t care. NATHAN CARSON. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 503-284-8686. 8:30 pm. Sold out. All ages.
CLASSICAL, JAZZ & WORLD Beethoven’s Second Symphony
[CLASSICAL] Canadian Opera Company music director Johannes Debus makes his Oregon Symphony debut this weekend alongside Toronto’s St. Lawrence String Quartet for a spirited performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No 2. More engaging to modern ears are the two accompanying pieces, both of which have roots in earlier music. John Adams’ 2012 update of his own Absolute Jest references both Stravinsky and Beethoven, albeit with stabs of atonality rounded out by a prepared piano and the silvery tinkling of the celesta. The program concludes with Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis, a bold and melodramatic illumination of original themes by Carl Maria von Weber. NATHAN CARSON. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW COURTESY OF BILLIONS
[POP-PUNK ROYALTY] On account of frontman Jordan Pundik’s snotnosed vocals, pop-punk legends New Found Glory have enjoyed a thin layer of insulation from bandwagoning and superstar status in their 20-year run. That’s not to say the group isn’t still popular, but their gradual relegation to cult-hero status has turned out to be a blessing after seeing so many of their peers flying too close to the sun.
NFG still has it on this year’s Makes Me Sick, a 30-minute blast of double-timed drumbeats, sugary hooks and Pundik’s pubescent shouting. PETE COTTELL. Wonder Ballroom, 128 NE Russell St., 503-284-8686. 8 pm. $22.50 advance, $27 day of show. All ages.
SISTER, SISTER: Ibeyi plays Revolution Hall on Thursday, Nov. 16. 38
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Broadway, 503-248-4335. 7:30 pm Saturday and Monday, Nov. 18 and 20, 2 pm Sunday, Nov. 19. $24-$115. All ages.
Donald Harrison
[NOLA QUANTUM JAZZ] For 18 years, Donald Harrison has been the Big Chief of the Congo Square Nation Afro-New Orleans cultural group, which embraces and advances the city’s famously fertile mix African and Native American tribal cultures. The 56-year-old, award-winning alto saxophonist and composer’s music amalgamates everything from classic bop and modal jazz, on down to ”Nouveau Swing” and traditional NOLA brass bands to funk, soul, symphonic music and anything else
he can get his ears on. He’s also adding rapping and singing to his performances. Harrison recently summarized his current creative approach as “quantum jazz,” which he explains with inscrutable references to quantum physics, but from a listener perspective seems to add up to “anything goes.” And yet, in the true New Orleans tradition, he somehow makes all those seemingly disparate elements dance together. BRETT CAMPBELL. Jack London Revue, 529 SW 4th Ave., 503-228-7605. 9 pm Sunday, Nov. 19. $20 advance, $25 day of show. 21+.
For more Music listings, visit
COURTESY OF DANIEL BRUGH
PROFILE
Across the Multiverse DAN BRUGH IS PORTLAND CLASSICAL MUSIC’S RESIDENT MISFIT. Classical music concerts can be stuffy affairs. From archaic performance traditions to 19th-century costumes to music slavishly indebted to old European forms, even many contemporary classical concerts feel like artifacts of another era. Then there’s Dan Brugh. In a genre populated by rule-bound retro-gazers, Brugh is Portland classical music’s closest approximation of Brian Wilson, combining unbounded creativity, stage savvy and tech geekery with a childlike sense of playfulness. And in terms of presentation, he actually might be closer to the Flaming Lips. His upcoming show, The Fantastical Musical Multiverses of Daniel Brugh, is entirely devoted to his own offbeat vision, teeming with psychedelic lighting, theremin, nonsense poetry, costumes, giant flying fish and lots and lots of keyboards. “I like to engage the audience,” says Brugh, who was named Oregon Composer of the Year in 2010. “I’m taking the best of everything I learned from all those Cascadia concerts I’ve done, where the environment is really important to music, and putting it into this one.” Not surprisingly, the environment for his new show is not a typical concert hall. Rather, it’s a converted Pearl District warehouse simply called PLACE. With its soaring beams and industrial architecture, Brugh says the location reminds him of playing among the tires at his dad’s old trucking business. The big white walls offer an abundant palette for Brugh’s expansive vision. “Each of these pieces is so different, they could be written by different composers,” he says. He plays multiple synths in the atmospheric opener, “Extreme Gravity,” and enthuses over the Roli Seaboard 49, Korg Kronos and other keyboards used throughout the show. A poem written long ago by a friend who once worked with Brugh at Portland Music supplied the text for a theatrical vocal piece about an old Alabama man’s whiskey-fueled reminiscences. Another former fellow music store clerk and musician improvises clarinet over a work for fixed media. And in a setting of English nonsense poet Edward Lear’s “Pelican Chorus,” Brugh dons a duck costume. “I want something that’s fun, because a lot of people I know won’t come to classical concerts,” says Brugh, who’ll also MC the evening. “I’m gonna be their guide. If it makes no sense, that’s OK, because it’s a concert of nonsense.” BRETT CAMPBELL. SEE IT: The Fantastical Musical Multiverses of Daniel Brugh is at PLACE, 735 NW 18th Ave., on Saturday, Nov. 18. 7:30 pm. Free. All ages. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
MUSIC CALENDAR WED. NOV. 15 Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave Hayes Carll,The Band of Heathens
Ash Street Saloon
225 SW Ash St Terms Of Youth, Joypress, The Great State
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave The Myrrors
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St Dead Boys, The Hot LZ’s, BOMF
Doug Fir Lounge 830 E Burnside St Spafford
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St Blank Banshee
Jack London Revue 529 SW 4th Ave Selwyn Birchwood
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St The Pacing Party, Rat Heaven, Throw
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave Guantanamo Baywatch
The Fixin’ To
8218 N. Lombard St Motorcoat, The Toads, Average Pageant
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St Dandu, Korgy & Bass, Alden and the Ambience
The Know
3728 NE Sandy Blvd TallWomen, Prison Dress Tour Kickoff
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St Toothbone, Sunbathe, Loveboys
The Lovecraft Bar 421 SE Grand Ave Blood of Others
Tonic Lounge
New Maps, The Lightheads, The Hex Tremors, Pretty Apocalyptic
LAST WEEK LIVE
2958 NE Glisan St Outbound Traveler
Mississippi Pizza
3552 N Mississippi Ave Brown Calculus, Just Pretend 3939 N Mississippi Ave Shigeto
Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave Getter
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St Cool Change; Cow Paddy Stompers (Allman Brothers Band tribute)
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St Head for the Hills
The Know
3728 NE Sandy Blvd Battleme
MON. NOV. 20 Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St Roadkill Ghost Choir + guests
1037 SW Broadway Beethoven’s Second Symphony
The Secret Society
Bossanova Ballroom
116 NE Russell St Thursday Swing featuring The Hot Club Time Machine, Pete Krebs and the Rocking K Ranch Boys
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St Lumberjack, Out West, Postwar Radio
Wonder Ballroom
128 NE Russell St Hamilton Leithauser, Courtney Marie Andrews
FRI. NOV. 17
722 E Burnside St Crowbar, Tombs, Incite
Doug Fir Lounge
FEEL GOOD STILL: At the confluence of body positivity and black-girl magic, there stands Lizzo. Before her set at the Wonder Ballroom on Nov. 12 even started, the turn-up was real. Despite some technical and health issues, opener Doja Cat did what she needed to do. She apologized for being sick—“I’m reaching a Mariah Carey level of raspiness,” she joked—but the sheer energy she brought made it easy to gloss over any illness. The set left the audience perfectly primed for Lizzo. Making a very Beyoncé-esque entrance, she and her girl gang could barely get a word in over all the cheers. She described the premise of “Make Way” as being about her realization that no one will ever love her the way she loves herself, and it was easy to feel that love simply through the vocal power she put in the song. There was no shortage of enthused and entertaining moments during Lizzo’s set, but some specific highlights included her bringing a lovely woman of color up from the audience to dance with her on stage, and a tender cover of Prince’s “Little Red Corvette.” She even whipped out a flute for “Coconut Oil,” and took pulls straight from a bottle of tequila as she closed the night out with “Good As Hell.” It was an appropriate ending—with the amount vigor she put into that performance, that is precisely how everyone in attendance felt by the end. CERVANTE POPE.
Alberta Rose Theater 3000 NE Alberta St Kishi Bashi
Donna The Buffalo
Turn! Turn! Turn!
Bunk Bar
The Analog Cafe
White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St Heaven and Earth
White Owl Social Club
1028 SE Water Ave Sera Cahoone, Jenn Champion
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd The RentS; Eleven Eyes
Crystal Ballroom
1937 SE 11th Ave Autopilot, Chasing Ebenezer, The Roving Eyes
1332 W Burnside St Origin, Dirtwire, Thriftworks, Desert Dwellers, Amanda Sage
The Firkin Tavern
The Fixin’ To
1305 SE 8th Ave GiveGuide Happy Hour: Blossom
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St Three Bad Jacks
8218 N Lombard St Golden Retriever, Charlie Moses, Paper Gates
Wonder Ballroom
Doug Fir Lounge
The Know
128 NE Russell St Our Lady Peace, SMSHNG HRTS
THU. NOV. 16 Artichoke Music Cafe
2007 SE Powell Blvd Songwriter Roundup with Matt Meighan
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave Arthur and the Antics, Sean Ogilvie, The Ok Bird
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St Aaron West & The Roaring Twenties
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St Leo Islo, Ellis Pink, Small Skies
Kenton Club 2025 N Kilpatrick St
830 E Burnside St Cold Specks, La Timpa
Hawthorne Theatre
1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd Ericka Corban, Johnny Gates, Troy Ramey, & Jacob Westfall; Vigil Wolves, Personal, Sustainer (lounge)
Jack London Revue 529 SW 4th Ave Marti Mendenhall
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St Gritty Birds presents: Lenore., Neo G Yo, Yardsss
Kenton Club
2025 N Kilpatrick St The Ransom, The Complaint Dept., The Roving Eyes
LaurelThirst Public House 2958 NE Glisan St GBB Acoustic Show
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave
3728 NE Sandy Blvd MMM! Man Repellant! Marc & the Horsejerks!
116 NE Russell St The Not-So-Secret Family Show featuring Tallulah’s Daddy, The Don of Division Street
1300 SE Stark St #110 Ibeyi, TheMIND
1420 SE Powell MDC, Boycott the Baptist, BadxMouth, Snakes
The Know
The Secret Society
Revolution Hall
Twilight Cafe and Bar
600 E Burnside St Robin Bacior, Nick Delffs, Megan Diana
1422 SW 11th Ave WomenCrush Music Presents: Jessa Campbell & Ashley Xtina
Mississippi Studios
8 NE Killingsworth St Sama Dams, Tino Drima, PJWA
Rontoms
The Old Church
3100 NE Sandy Blvd Umbrellaman, Luna Vista, Beach Party 8 NE Killingsworth St Outset Series: Lie Very Still, Greg Sinibaldi
Will Hoge, Dan Layus
LaurelThirst Public House
Turn! Turn! Turn!
[NOV. 15-21]
For more listings, check out wweek.com.
ABBY GORDON
= WW Pick. Highly recommended.
Editor: Matthew Singer. 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.
3728 NE Sandy Blvd Hot Won’t Quit, Kool Stuff Katie, Star Club
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Jake McNeillie & Co., White Rooms
The Old Church
1422 SW 11th Ave Hawktail (formerly Haas Kowert Tice)
The Secret Society
Twilight Cafe and Bar 1420 SE Powell Blvd The Brainiax, Cursed Bastards, Raw Dogs
White Eagle Saloon 836 N Russell St Mick Overman
Jack London Revue 529 SW 4th Ave 1939 Ensemble, Blue Cranes
Kelly’s Olympian
Wonder Ballroom
426 SW Washington St The Jack Maybe Project, Three For Silver, Feral Folk
SAT. NOV. 18
2025 N Kilpatrick St Cavity Search Records 25th Anniversary: Down Gown, Queen Chief, Gern Blanston, and Pete Krebs
128 NE Russell St Chicano Batman, Khruangbin, The Shacks
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
Kenton Club
LaurelThirst Public House
1037 SW Broadway Beethoven’s Second Symphony
2958 NE Glisan St Rose City Kings
Bunk Bar
3939 N Mississippi Ave Thunderpussy; An Evening With Neil Hilborn
1028 SE Water Ave Slutty Hearts, Don’t, Virgil
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St Private Island Mating Ritual (Lola’s Room)
Mississippi Studios
Roseland Theater
8 NW 6th Ave Death From Above, the Beaches
Slim’s PDX
116 NE Russell St Melao De Cuba Salsa Orchestra; The Sportin’ Lifers feat. Erin Wallace
Dante’s
350 W Burnside Salo Panto, First In Flight, Low Flyer
8635 N Lombard St. Spyn Reset, Up & Away
The Waypost
Hawthorne Theatre
4830 NE 42nd Ave Marriage and Cancer, Law Boss, A Volcano
3120 N. Williams Ave SloeGinFizz, Western Yew
Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd In The Company of Serpents, Goya, Salem’s Bend, Blackwulf, Hz
Turn! Turn! Turn!
8 NE Killingsworth St Gene Clark Birthday Bash
1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd Cannibal Corpse, Power Trip, Gatecreeper
High Water Mark Lounge
6800 NE MLK Ave Radiator Hospital, Horse Movies, Good Sign, Bad Sleep
Spare Room
Star Theater
13 NW 6th Ave Polyrhythmics, Object Heavy
The Analog Cafe
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd Yvette Young, So Much Light; The Sole Pursuit w/ Candy Cigarettes
The Analog Cafe
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd Citizen, Sorority Noise, Great Grandpa
The Firkin Tavern
1937 SE 11th Ave Shrill Tones, Eggshells, Ana Lungs
The Fixin’ To
8218 N Lombard St Ural Thomas & The Pain, Jacob Miller
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St Garcia Birthday Band
The Know
3728 NE Sandy Blvd Flat Worms, Lavender Flu, Mike Donovan, Honey Bucket
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St SubSensory presents: Headless Horseman
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave John Shirley and the Screaming Geezers
The Place
Burn! Burn! Burn! w/ Mammoth Salmon, Young Hunter, DJ Loraxe
Twilight Cafe and Bar
1420 SE Powell MDC, The Anxieties, Rad Max, The Tanked
White Eagle Saloon
836 N Russell St JOB; Daystar with The Matthew Lindley Band & Black Sheep Black
SUN. NOV. 19 Aladdin Theater
3017 SE Milwaukie Ave Asleep At The Wheel
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
1037 SW Broadway Beethoven’s Second Symphony
Bossanova Ballroom 722 E Burnside St Jazz Is Phsh
Dante’s
350 W Burnside St The Upper Strata
735 NW 18th Ave Nonsense: The Fantastical Musical Multiverses of Daniel Brugh
Doug Fir Lounge
The Secret Society
529 SW 4th Ave Donald Harrison
116 NE Russell St James Mason & The Djangophiles; Pepe & The Bottle Blondes, Tracy Kim Trio feat. Kate Maron
Turn! Turn! Turn!
8 NE Killingsworth St
830 E Burnside St Julia Jacklin, Faye Webste
Jack London Revue
830 E Burnside St Dhani Harrison, Summer Moon, Mereki
Hawthorne Theatre
1507 SE César E. Chávez Blvd Rural Alberta Advantage, Yukon Blonde
The Analog Cafe
720 SE Hawthorne Blvd Flight Mongoose, Rosebud, Search/Party
The Analog Cafe and Theater
720 Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard Extortionist, Distinguisher, Mothersound
The Firkin Tavern
1937 SE 11th Ave Pareidolia, Young Patches, Arbor Daze
Turn! Turn! Turn!
8 NE Killingsworth St Little One, Portland Kora Project, Paper Gates
Wonder Ballroom
128 NE Russell St New Found Glory, the Ataris
TUE. NOV. 21 Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
1037 SW Broadway The Tenors Christmas, with the Oregon Symphony
Bunk Bar
1028 SE Water Ave Hibou, Sloucher
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St Second Player Score
Doug Fir Lounge 830 E Burnside St Laura Veirs
Mississippi Studios
3939 N Mississippi Ave The Lonesome Billies, Plastic Cactus
Roseland Theater 8 NW 6th Ave Chase Atlantic
The Know
LaurelThirst Public House
3728 NE Sandy Blvd Cool Schmool, Planet Damn, Miss Rayon
Mississippi Studios
128 NE Russell St Gary Numan, With Me Not You
2958 NE Glisan St Hot Club of Hawthorne 3939 N Mississippi Ave
Wonder Ballroom
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
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MUSIC RAKEEM
NEEDLE EXCHANGE
Princess Dimebag Years DJing: Almost four years. Genres: I always hate this question. If I had to describe the kind of music I play, it would be everything from club, hip-hop, R&B, grime, bounce, vogue, acid house, techno and throwbacks. I don’t want to play some safe, boring shit. No genres, no rules, no control. Where you can catch me regularly: I am currently without a regular night, but I do DJ pretty regularly with my crew, No Control, and you can find out where I’m DJing at nocontrolx.com. Craziest gig: My craziest gig was probably playing this allwomen motorcycle fest called the Dream Roll. It was threeday camping trip in the Washington wilderness. I started DJing around noon in, like, 90-degree weather, and late into the night. It started getting really wild as soon as the sun went down. Girls were topless on-stage feeding me mushrooms and pouring whiskey down my throat. I never ingested more dust in my life and felt like I was an extra in Mad Max. It was a crazy experience. My go-to records: T.A.T.U.’s “Not Gonna Get Us (Ida Dillan Remix)”; “Down 4 Whatever” by Kingdom (featuring SZA; “Dark N Lovely” by davOmakesbeats featuring Bbymutha; “Waitin’” by Kelela; “Lost in love” by L-vis 1990 featuring Javeon McCarthy. Don’t ever ask me to play…: Anything. I meticulously curate my sets for whatever event I’m playing. If people don’t know the songs I’m playing at the time, guaranteed they’ll be bumping it months later. People have to just let go and dance. Moloko
3967 N. Mississippi Ave Nik Nice & Brother Charlie (brazilian)
Sandy Hut
WED, NOV. 15 Beulahland
118 NE 28th Ave Wicked Wednesday (hip-hop)
Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave Raging Bull Sound System (soul, garage)
Elvis Room
203 SE Grand Ave DJ Malty Stag & DJ Stonebunny
Ground Kontrol 511 NW Couch St ZentroniX w/ Carly Barton
The Lovecraft Bar 421 SE Grand Ave Event Horizon (darkwave, industrial)
Tonic Lounge
3100 NE Sandy Blvd Death Throes (death rock, post punk, dark wave)
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
Whiskey Bar
31 NW 1st Ave That Derrrt
THU, NOV. 16 45 East
315 SE 3rd Ave Hotel Garuda + SAINT WKND
Beech Street Parlor 412 NE Beech Street Maxx Bass
Black Book
20 NW 3rd Ave Ladies Night (rap, r&b)
Dig A Pony 736 SE Grand Ave Papi Fimbres (afro punk, latin psych)
Killingsworth Dynasty 832 N Killingsworth St Post Punk Discotheque
1430 NE Sandy Blvd DJ Joey Prude
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Shadowplay (goth, industrial, 80s)
FRI, NOV. 17 45 East
315 SE 3rd Ave Liquid Stranger & Manic Focus
Bit House Saloon
727 SE Grand Ave Flight - Landing Party (house, techno, disco)
Black Book
20 NW 3rd Ave The Cave (rap, r&b, club)
Crystal Ballroom
1332 W Burnside St 80’s Video Dance Attack
Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave Battles & Lamar (boogie, hip hop, electro)
BAR REVIEW
BUZZ LIST Where to drink this week.
HUNTER MURPHY
TOP 5
1. The Trap
3805 SE 52nd Ave., 503-777-6009. Karaoke dive the Trap on Foster has gotten itself a makeover, with a new enclosed patio and marble-topped bar. But don’t worry: It’s still the Trap.
2. Growler’s Taproom
3343 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 971-229-0972, growlers.net. Long a poor cousin among bottle shops, Growler’s has new owners, a great, new taplist, a nice patio with a food cart and a friendly former Brewers Guild president behind the bar. Hooo!
3. Stammtisch
401 NE 28th Ave., 503-206-7983, stammtischpdx.com. Stammtisch just added an echt-Deutsch choucroute garnie. Do something different and have it with German wine instead of beer.
4. Bar Casa Vale
215 SE 9th Ave., 503-477-9081, barcasavale.com. Is it weird that in the winter we’re spending this much time thinking about Bar Casa Vale’s city-beating añejo daiquiri? Maybe it’s the hearth fire that makes it seem wintry.
5. Capitol
1440 NE Broadway St., capitolpdx.com. Well, that cocktail and karaoke bar in David LaChapelle’s lighthouse building finally opened, and it looks like a spaceage bachelor pad fucked a rainbow Pee Chee.
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St Verified (bass, rap, trap)
EASTBOUND AND DOWN: Old Town has its own rules. It is its own partyruined Long Island kingdom. And the Old Town rules have nothing to do with the rest of Portland. So when the Tube and Revelry owners decided to make an Eastside-style cocktail hang called Maxwell (20 NW 3rd Ave., facebook. com/20NW3RD) next to Tube, one wonders what this could possibly mean. Well, it still means DJs every night except on Mondays, like at Tube. And it still means a bunkered concrete-and-brick space, like previous tenants Black Book and Yes and No. And like at most bars in Old Town, it means five flavors of Ciroc vodka and variations of Stoli and Absolut, plus a $300 bottle of Dom for the real ballers. But here at Maxwell, the food is vegan—although there’s no kitchen, so that means $9 panini-grilled sandwiches from Snackrilege, including a surprisingly tasty “steak.” The vinyl booths are plush for comfort. The art on the wall depicts burlesque and drag performers leaning sultrily against the Hung Far Low sign, and the cocktails are a little more fancy than these parts are used to. The $10 Laid Back swirls together gin, limoncello and orange liqueur with bitters for a result that tastes like boozy-hot, sweet lemons, while the $10 Black Sunday is a world of cassis, plum and tequila with a black-salt rim. It is Old Town mixology: oversweet and brightly visual. The friendly bartender makes the place into a decent hang, though a $7 well gin and tonic makes it a bit expensive to do so. And the fact that few crowds seem to have discovered Maxwell also makes it a pretty damn chill place for DJs to grab a drink between sets, next to insiders waiting for the real party to start. But does anybody come to Old Town to chill? MATTHEW KORFHAGE. Whiskey Bar
31 NW 1st Ave DMVU
Killingsworth Dynasty 832 N Killingsworth St Strange Babes
Moloko
3967 N. Mississippi Ave King Tim 33 1/3 (aqua boogie, underwater rhymes)
The Evergreen
618 SE Alder St No Vacancy 029 feat. Juliet Fox (house, techno)
The Goodfoot
2845 SE Stark St Soul Stew (funk, soul, disco)
The Liquor Store
3341 SE Belmont St Metafloor
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave DoublePlusDANCE w/ DJ Acid Rick & DJ Carrion (new wave, synth, goth)
Toffee Club
1006 SE Hawthorne Blvd Parklife (britpop)
Valentines
232 SW Ankeny St Decadent 80’s w/ DJ NoN
SAT, NOV. 18 45 East
315 SE 3rd Ave Cash Cash
Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave Maxamillion (soul, rap, sweat)
Holocene
1001 SE Morrison St SLAY (hip hop)
Killingsworth Dynasty
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Sabbath (darkside of rock & electronic)
The Wayback
4719 N Albina Ave Soul Good (funk, soul, boogie)
Valentines
232 SW Ankeny St Signal 32 (dub, bass)
Whiskey Bar
31 NW 1st Ave Plastician with Onhell, Brothel, Essex, Patrick Brian
SUN, NOV. 19
832 N Killingsworth St MAX Capacity (acid-house, italo, hi-NRG)
Black Book
Mad Hanna
Dig A Pony
6129 NE Fremont St Never Say Die (rock, punk, Fred Cole bands)
Moloko
3967 N. Mississippi Ave DJ aTrain
Quarterworld
4811 SE Hawthorne Blvd DJ RoCKiT
20 NW 3rd Ave Flux (rap, r&b, club) 736 SE Grand Ave Emerson (hiphop, r&b)
Star Theater
13 NW 6th Ave Hive (goth, industrial)
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Kawaii Party presents DANSU
MON, NOV. 20 Ground Kontrol
511 NW Couch St Reaganomix: DJ ROCKIT (80s)
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Black Mass (goth, post-punk)
TUE, NOV. 21 Dig A Pony
736 SE Grand Ave Trending Latin Nights (salsa, bachata, reggaeton)
Kelly’s Olympian
426 SW Washington St Party Damage DJs: DJ AM Gold
Sandy Hut
1430 NE Sandy Blvd DJ Montel Spinozza
The Embers Avenue 100 NW Broadway Recycle (dark dance)
The Lovecraft Bar
421 SE Grand Ave Sleepwalk (deathrock, gothrock, post-punk)
Tube
18 NW 3rd Ave Tubesdays w/ DJ Jack
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
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PERFORMANCE
The Happiest Song Plays Last
During the Irish Potato Famine, the British government promised Irish women a new life in Australia. The reality was a lot creepier. In what’s referred to as the Orphan Immigration Scheme, women were “selected” to immigrate to Australia to offset the former penal colony’s gender imbalance of 8:1. Jaki McCarrick’s play depicts a fictional group of Irish women on one of the boats bound for Australia. It’s brought to Portland by Corrib, Portland’s Irish theater company helmed by expat Gemma Whelan. Shaking the Tree Theatre, 823 SE Grant St., corribtheatre.org. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday Nov. 17-Dec. 10. $25.
Most of Happiest Song is set in the home of music professor Yaz (Crystal Ann Muñoz), where her policy is “open door, open store.” Her stove is always stacked with pots of food she cooks for her neighbors, including a homeless man named Lefty (Duffy Epstein) who calls her mom. It’s in her kitchen that we see her relationship unfold with her married neighbor Augustín (Jimmy Garcia). Their relationship isn’t physical until he asks her to have a baby with him, and she agrees. Meanwhile, her cousin Elliot (Anthony Lam) is in Lebanon acting in his first movie. There, he befriends Ali (Wasim No’Mani), who fled from Iraq with his wife and daughter during the war. Elliot attempts to come to terms with his past in a literal way, too. For years, he’s carried in his pocket the passport of the first person he killed in the war, a man who was an Iraqi civilian. Elliot hopes that Ali will help him return the passport to the man’s widow and son. Even though it’s about Yaz falling in love and Elliot searching for resolution, Happiest Song isn’t all happy. We learn something about Elliot that complicates his happy ending. Instead, Happiest Song finds joy amid uncertainty. SHANNON GORMLEY. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., profiletheater.org. In rotating repertoire Wednesday-Sunday, through Nov. 19. $20-$36 per show.
The Humans
Insignficance
= WW Pick. Highly recommended. 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.
THEATER OPENINGS & PREVIEWS Belfast Girls
Instead of a crowd-pleasing season filler, Artists Rep’s Thanksgiving play is one of the most heart-wrenching living room dramas to come off Broadway in recent years. The family gathering at the center of The Humans is loaded with tender humanism and commentary about the collapse of the American middle class. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., artistrep.org. 7:30 pm. $10.
ALSO PLAYING The Events
Written by Scottish playwright David Greig in 2013, the fragmented, nonlinear play follows Claire as she tries to deal with the trauma of a surviving a mass shooting at her community choir practice. Ever since the shooting, Claire can’t sleep, and her every waking moment is consumed by reliving the events and trying to figure out why they happened. “Anything in the world that might explain him, you devour,” a friend says to her. There’s only one other actor in the The Events. Joseph Gibson plays The Boy, a character who represents the shooter. Gibson also voices the people Claire talks to in order to gain insight into why the shooter did what he did: her psychiatrist, her partner Katrina and The Boy’s father. It’s all performed on a stage that’s sparse except for a choir on risers off to the side of the stage. The choir is played by a rotation of local singing groups. It’s the kind of thing that risks coming off as trite, but it’s not at all gimmicky. That’s largely thanks to Porter’s performance—she seamlessly integrates the choir as a third character. The Events is a deeply personal meditation on Claire’s specific experience that acknowledges there may be no satisfactory answer to her own questions—was the shooter crazy, or was he evil? Does it matter? But the play isn’t afraid to speculate on deeper, more topical causes. But ultimately, The Events is more about empathy than answers. It’s an immensely cathartic experience in a world where we’re frequently forced to wonder why mass shootings happen, and what it would be like to survive such a tragedy. R MITCHELL MILLER. Imago Theatre, 17 SE 8th Ave., thirdrailrep. org. 7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, through Nov. 18. $25-$45.
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When Marilyn Monroe meets Albert Einstein in Insignificance, she’s wearing dark sunglasses and the white dress from The Seven Year Itch. Lazy thinking may suggest that she’s the beauty and he’s the brains, but Defunkt Theatre’s production convinces you that they’re each a little bit of both. Not long into their conversation, she explains the theory of relativity to him. In 1953, in a hotel, we meet the Professor (Gary Powell), whose cloud of wild hair betrays his identity in the first scene. Then the Actress (Tabitha Trosen) shows up. Eager to meet the professor whom she idolizes, she barges in and demonstrates the theory of relativity using flashlights and toy trains. The Professor seems delighted by his star-struck visitor, even when their solitude is disrupted by her instantly recognizable husband, “the Ballplayer” (Morgan Lee), whose jealousy turns the play into a pressure-cooker narrative of disparate celebrities vying for dominance in a single room. Terry Johnson’s play premiered in 1982 England, and was adapted into a movie just three years later. But it wasn’t until last year that Insignificance made its New York premiere. Now, Defunkt is parking in its resurgence. The shenanigans are a perfect fit for Defunkt’s intimate stage. You feel physically close not only to the play’s larger-than-life characters, but to the production’s astounding aural and visual details Thanks to a dextrous cast and the lush imagination of director Andrew Klaus-Vineyard, Insignificance portrays Monroe and Einstein as charming caricatures—she baby talks and his mustache is atom bomb-sized—without letting either of them become one dimensional. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Defunkt Theatre, 4319 SE Hawthorne Blvd., defunktheatre.com. 7:30 pm Thursday-Sunday, through Nov. 18. Pay what you will, $20 suggested.
Water By the Spoonful
Produced by Profile Theatre, Water by the Spoonful is the second of three plays by Hudes that follow Elliot and his family. Profile is also staging the final play in the trilogy, The Happiest Song Plays Last, with an overlapping cast and a set that they convert after each show. Water is a play about a Puerto Rican-American family trying not to spin into chaos when rules and patterns have failed them. But since it’s told with playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes’s empathy, humor and gorgeous language, it’s hardly
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
JENNY GRAHAM
ARTS
Editor: SHANNON GORMLEY (sgormley@wweek.com). TO BE CONSIDERED FOR LISTINGS, submit information at least two weeks in advance to: sgormley@wweek.com.
TWO WORLDS: Sabina Zuniga Varela and Lakin Valdez.
Modern Tragedy MOJADA SETS A CLASSIC GREEK PLAY IN THE HOME OF A MEXICAN IMMIGRANT FAMILY.
BY CRYSTA L CON TR ER AS
Ni de aquí, ni de allá means “neither here nor there” in Spanish. It describes the cultural and political space occupied by many Latinx people, who are often treated as strangers in the United States even when it’s the place they consider home. It’s a phrase that signifies both isolation and a shared struggle, and it permeates playwright Luis Alfaro’s Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles. Fresh off a run at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, it’s a tense, devastating march through the exuberant highs and devastating lows of life as a Mexican immigrant. Mounted by Portland Center Stage and directed by Juliette Carrillo, Mojada (Spanish for the slur “wetback”) sets Euripides’ classic tragedy in the culturally rich sprawl of East L.A. Medea (Sabina Zuniga Varela) and her family have come to the United States from Michoacán, Mexico, a dangerous journey marked with fear, uncertainty, rape and death. Medea struggles with life in a new country. Since she’s an undocumented immigrant, she refuses to venture too far from home. The entirety of the show takes place in the yard of a modest apartment, where a small garden provides Medea and her mother, Tita (Vivis), with the herbs they use in their remedies. A sorceress and gifted seamstress, Medea devotes her time to making garments for friends and high-end clients, all while ensuring her family maintains a connection to the culture they left behind. Her husband, Jason (Lakin Valdez), puts in long hours at a booming construction business owned by a sleek, ambitious woman named Armida (Vilma Silva), who makes no secret about her attraction to Medea’s husband. Jason reassures Medea that his relationship with Armida is strictly business, and that he’s only tolerating her affections because of the employment she provides. Medea tries to keep her family together as Jason slowly slips away from her, lured by Armida’s
wealth and promises of the American Dream. Jason eventually reveals to Medea that he and Armida are secretly married and plan on starting a new life, and he’s taking her son and mother with them. “ You’re invisible now, Medea,” Armida growls after evicting Medea in one particularly devastating scene. “Get lost in this country.” Medea’s status as an outsider is cemented with this line. Unable to return to Mexico, but unsure of what she’ll do in this country without immigration papers, Medea sets out to destroy Jason’s new life with a killer dress and a machete. There are points of joy and humor woven throughout the vengeful tragedy, thanks in part to Tita’s cheeky narration, which she tempers with moments of somber power. Zuniga Varela as Medea is soulful yet seething, as she and Jason build a palpable tension together onstage that can be felt throughout the show. They rage against one another. Jason embraces life in America, and insists that his son (Jahnangel Jimenez) calls him “Dad.” Medea fights to preserve her family’s indigenous traditions as she grapples with the trauma of her journey to the United States while faced with the prospect of losing it all. Even for those who know the ending of Euripides’ tragedy, there’s no preparing you for the doom that hangs in the air. One of the last things you see is Medea standing at the front of the stage with machete in her hand, uttering the piercing cry of el guaco, a snake-eating falcon. “Someone always wants to steal your secrets,” Tita warned at the beginning of the show. By the end, there are no secrets, and Medea has nothing to lose. She’s ni de aquí, ni de allá forever. SEE IT: Mojada: A Medea in Los Angeles is at Portland Center Stage, 128 NW 11th Ave., pcs.org. 7:30 pm Tuesday-Sunday, 2 pm Saturday-Sunday through Nov. 26. $25-$72.
304 SW 2nd & Oak a play about quiet desperation. Elliot (Anthony Lam) is an Iraq War veteran in his early 20s who dreams of being an actor, but works at a sandwich shop and suffers from PTSD. His cousin, Yaz (Crystal Ann Muñoz), is going through a divorce (“You can only live in mediocrity for so long,” she tells Elliot), and they’re both planning a funeral for their aunt who raised Elliot. Mixed in with their stories is that of Odessa (Julana Torres), a woman who moderates an online chat room for recovering and sober crack addicts. It’s not until the second act that we learn Odessa’s painful connection to Elliot and Yaz. But Torres (who was equally transcendent in 26 Miles, the last Hudes play that Profile staged) has spent the first half winning not only our respect, but also our admiration, so we’re willing to see her side of even the darkest situations. SHANNON GORMLEY. Artists Repertory Theatre, 1515 SW Morrison St., profiletheater.org. In rotating repertoire Wednesday-Sunday, through Nov. 19. $20-$36 per show.
portland5.com. 8 pm Wednesday, Nov. 15. Sold out.
COMEDY Ilana Glazer and Phoebe Robinson
There are not enough a’s and s’s for the giant “yas queen” this show deserves. Broad City’s IIana and 2 Dope Queens’ Phoebe have collaborated before on the podcast Soooo Many White Guys, but standup sets from either is pretty rare. Standup sets from both is a motherfucking miracle. Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark St., revolutionhall.com. 7:30 pm and 10 pm. Sold out.
Jay Pharoah It’s been just over a year since Jay Pharoah got booted from Saturday Night Live. It might be for the best—Pharoah was egregiously under used despite being one of the best impressionists on the show. Now, he has his own sitcom, White Famous, that’s produced by
Year of the Rooster
Please Underestimate Me
For his second scripted comedy show, improvisor and storyteller Jay Flewelling is taking you inside his mind—almost literally. Directed by Jason Rouse, one of Portland’s hardest working behind the scenes comedian, Please Underestimate Me is based off Flewelling’s soonto-be released book of essays and will be performed on a stage designed to look like the inside of a brain. The comedians show will speak their lines and deliver them through ASL. The features Flewelling’s goofball humor, but also plenty of genuinely touching moments about triumph of the underdog. Curious Comedy Theater, Wednesday Oct. 30-Nov. 15. See curiouscomedy.org for times and tickets.
PREVIEW MISHIMA PHOTOGRAPHY / MARGUIER DESIGN
As the fearsome rooster in CoHo’s production of Year of the Rooster, actor Sam Dinkowitz is absolutely ridiculous and absolutely terrifying. As Odysseus Rex, he wears a baggy parka, red Nikes and camouflage pants and carries a knife in lieu of a beak. Playwright Olivia Dufault’s Year of the Rooster is a pitch-black satire of male inadequacy, twisted American dreams and, above all, cockfighting. Leading the play’s cast of luckless characters is Gil (Rolland Walsh). Gil, who works at McDonald’s, lives with his mother and is forced to wear an eye patch due to a rooster-related injury. We never learn the full story behind the incident, but whatever it is, it hasn’t dissuaded Gil from training Odysseus to compete in a local cockfighting competition. Its fusion of mockery and empathy makes for an uncomfortable viewing experience, but that’s exactly the point. Year of the Rooster shakes you up by humanizing difficult-tolike characters, even when their behavior is downright disturbing. Even at his worst, Walsh portrays Gil with enough tenderness that you’re reminded that as warped as his bond is with Odysseus, it’s all Gil has. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. CoHo Theatre, 2257 NW Raleigh St., cohoproductions.org. 7:30 pm ThursdaySaturday and 2 pm Sunday through November 18. $20-$32.
Jamie Foxx. But it’s his standup more than his sketch work where Pharoah’s at his best. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., portland.heliumcomedy.com. 7:30 pm Friday-Sunday, 10 pm FridaySaturday, Nov. 17-19. $25. 21+.
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DANCE OCD Love
After two years, Israeli company L-E-V is coming back to Portland. This time, they’ll perform with their touring show about the difficulties of OCD and how it complicates romantic relationships. The moody, contemporary choreography straddles the line between narrative and pure impressionism. There are delicate, slow movements set to tense electronic beats, and dark costumes amid low, grey lighting. Lincoln Hall, 1620 SW Park Ave., whitebird.org. 8 pm Thursday-Saturday, Nov. 16-18. $25-$36.
The Hip Hop Nutcracker
No Christmas music until after Thanksgiving, right? Wrong. Tchaikovsky’s score is just great music, and at this show, it’s emceed by Kurtis Blow. The updated Nutcracker has been touring for several years now, and is set in Brooklyn instead of Russia. Also, it trades the orchestra for a live DJ and features breakdancing that’s just as much as an athletic feat as pointe ballet. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway,
Psychic Utopia
In its almost two decades as a company, Hand2Mouth has been creating some of the most inventive, intriguing and often baffling theater in Portland. The company evolves its ensemble-created plays through years of touring. It’s why they’re able to craft such strange and intricate shows, but it’s also why they’ve never had a regular season. That’s changing with Psychic Utopia, which kicks off their first full season. So far, it doesn’t seem like a traditional schedule is a sign that Hand2Mouth is domesticating. The play, which they’ve been workshopping since last year’s Fertile Ground Festival, is based around extensive interviews that director Jonathan Walters and co-writer Andrea Stolowitz conducted with communes in the Pacific Northwest. Semi-interactive, Psychic Utopia will use practices from those off-the-grid communities to create a play that’s part ritual, part healing workshop, part mind experiment. SHANNON GORMLEY. SEE IT: Psychic Utopia is at New Expressive Works, 810 SE Belmont St., hand2mouththeatre.org. 7:30 pm Thursday-Sunday, Nov. 16-Dec. 2, 2 pm Dec. 3. No show Thursday, Nov. 23. $15-$25. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
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VISUAL ARTS FEATURE
Taking to the Streets
It took leaving Portland for Stephanie Renfro to appreciate the street art in her own city. “I never really thought of Portland as a city with great street art,” says the Portland native and statistician for OHSU. But after traveling to mural meccas like Berlin, she came to see Portland’s vast amount of public art as one of the city’s defining characteristics. So earlier this year, Renfro decided to map out her own street art crawl through the Industrial Eastside. In a mere three miles, it includes 35 murals. “In the last five or 10 years, it’s kind of blossoming,” says Renfro. That’s mainly due to city policy. Until 2009, it was extremely difficult for artists in Portland to get permission to paint public murals, since public art was regulated under the same restrictive sign code as billboards and other publicly displayed ads. But after a City Council voted to free murals from sign code restrictions eight years ago, groups like Forest For The
HERE’S A MAP FOR A SELF-GUIDED ART CRAWL THROUGH PORTLAND’S BOOMING STREET-ART SCENE. BY S HA N N O N G O R M L E Y
sgormley@wweek.com
Trees and Portland Street Art Alliance have helped create a boom in Portland street art by commissioning murals and advocating for artists. Portland has plenty of other mural dense areas like the Alberta District, and there are over 100 murals in Southeast alone. The exact number is constantly changing. Some murals are “rotating” walls that are feature new art every year or so, and many disappear entirely when buildings are sold or torn down. But Renfro says the temporary nature of street art is part of what makes it so appealing. “It draws people out of their daily routine,” she says. “Whether if it’s to get you to think about the world differently or to get you off your phone for a second.” Renfro agreed to let us to print her route. With her help, we’ve provided some background information for the key stops on your self-guided tour.
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4. There are seven murals on this block alone, OAK ST. making it the area onSE the route with highest concentration of art. That includes the rotating wall along Southeast 10th that’s run by longtime Portland street artist Klutch. Each SE is STARK ST.Klutch gets together a time the wall painted, group of artists who collaborate to create one work out of their own distinct compositions.
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2. On the back wall of Zeus Cafe, there’s a rhino with street signs skewered on its horn. It was painted by Washingtonborn, Portland-based artist Josh Keyes, known SE TAYLOR for his surreal, urban ST. jungle scenes. Renfro met Keyes when she was researching the art on her route, and says he lives in the neighborhood with his wife and daughter.
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6. The tour ends at a giant tiger made of flowers painted on wall of Hair ofSE TAYLOR ST. the Dog brewing. It was painted by Miami artist Ernesto Maranje in 2016. Renfro says it’s her favorite work on the tour and is emblematic of why she’s more drawn to street art than traditional art spaces. SE MAIN ST. “I think the biggest thing is the way the art interacts with its surroundings,” says Renfro. “It’s this really gritty backdrop and this vibrant beautiful tiger. I don’t think it would have the same effect if it was painted on a brand-new development building.”
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1. Completed in 2012, the Buckman neighborhood mural was the last work painted by the late Joe Cotter, the Portland artist who spearheaded the legal push to loosen SEofALDER the city’s regulation murals.ST. On the unoccupied building next door to Cotter’s work is a mural that Renfro says is likely unofficial. It’s an inconspicuous, blue-toned painting of an astronaut facing off against a backhoe on the moon. SE MORRISON Renfro says she’s noticedST. murals in a similar style around the neighborhood that are painted over not long after they appear. The murals are identifiable not only by the artist’s style, but also by their message. “They’re all about SERenfro. BELMONT ST. development,” says SE GRAND AV E.
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3. Anyone who has the permission from a building owner and is willing to shell out $250 to the city can paint a mural. But many of the murals in Southeast are by commercially successful artists based in other cities. The SE OAK ST. vibrant, colorblock mural near Revolution Hall was painted by New York artist Shawna X just a SE STARK ST. few months ago. Her art has been used in ads for Adidas and Nike, plus a Samsung ad that was plastered all around Times Square earlier this year.
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COURTESY OF JADE RIVERA
5. Spray paint is the most practical medium for large-scale art. But the mural on the side of Ash Street Project was created by Peruvian painter Jade Rivera, who meticulously paints his murals with brushes and rollers. According to ASP, he painted this one in just six days.
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COURTESY OF NW FILM CENTER
MOVIES Screener
GET YO U R REPS IN
Coraline
(2009)
LAIKA’s nightmarish masterpiece disguised as a kids’ movie screens with Moongirl, a short the Hillsboro studio created pre-Coraline fame. The screening is free with museum admission. NW Film, Nov. 19.
Paint Your Wagon
(1969)
In the late ’60s, Jean Seberg, Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin all converged outside of Baker City, Oregon, to film a musical Western. Hollywood Theatre is celebrating the movie that helped birth Oregon’s film industry. Hollywood, Nov. 16.
Strangler vs. Strangler (1984)
Portland’s weirdest film night, Church of Film, recently returned to Century bar and bumped their screenings up to two a week. This Monday, it’s an ’80s black comedy and psychological horror about a Belgrade punk singer who develops a psychic connection with the city’s most notorious murderer. Century. Nov. 20.
On Our Way
Flipping Through Phases
Thelma & Louise
Working Girls
BY DANA ALSTON
For Ruth Hayes, flipbooks are more than just scrawl on the bottom of class notes. The Washington-based animator has spent more than a decade of her career creating a vast, politically charged collection of flipbook films. In one, an evangelical preacher transforms into a skeleton before absorbing money through a television. “It was a phase,” Hayes says with a laugh. “It was more like, ‘I’m mad as hell. I’m gonna make this.’” But political flipbooks are hardly her gimmick. Hayes’ 40-year-long career has been marked by change and adaptability. That’s something she’ll showcase at her projection performance this week at NW Film Center, the first solo showcase in a new series dedicated to women filmmakers who are altering the world of independent animation. Recently, Hayes’ analogue animation has delved even deeper into abstraction. That includes a series of short films created by smearing lip gloss directly onto a film strip. The results look a bit like TV static, with amorphous bubbles and shapes sliding across the screen. Another recent piece uses nail polish to create an amoeba-like
blob that seemingly inhales and exhales in real time. It’s hypnotizing, and signals chapter in Hayes’ career that has produces bizarre visual landscapes that are wholly her own. Through most of Hayes’ young life, animation wasn’t even an interest. “I was an [art major] at Harvard, and one of the distribution requirements was that you take a film or photo class,” she says. “I decided to take the animation class, because that meant I wouldn’t have to deal with equipment and cameras. And once I saw my images move, there was no going back.” Avoiding technology seems like an odd move for an animator since so much of the industry relies on digital work. But a majority of Hayes’ filmography thrives on analogue animation and the power of capturing chance occurrences. “It means working directly on 16mm film,” she says. “Scratching, drawing, scraping, things like that.” She turned away from digital work after finishing On Our Way, a gorgeous 14-minute film that explores the environments of the Pacific Northwest. Hayes did all of the animation at a desktop. “I got really fed up with it,” she says. “I could feel it in my body. Just sitting at a computer was really
not healthy.” When a friend of hers founded a small group of hands-on animators called Crackpot Crafters, Hayes relished the chance to get away from a screen. “Every once in a while we’ll get together and do a big projection performance, with live sound and everything,” Hayes says. “And that’s been really exciting and rejuvenating in that it’s all very spontaneous. I don’t have to worry about the long term.” When asked whether her experimental pieces are another “phase” like her political flipbooks, Hayes is ambivalent. But she seems uninterested in going back to a long, digital project like On Our Way. “It takes more thought to do [political art] thoroughly and well, and not just say something that’s glib and superficial,” she says. “Our political problems are so deep right now that doing one-liners and stuff aren’t all that useful.” Instead, Hayes hopes to carry spontaneity into her projection on Thursday, which she admits isn’t fully planned out yet. She’s not worried, though—the uncertainty is part of her process. SEE IT: An Evening With Ruth Hayes is at NW Film Center’s Whitsell Auditorium, 1219 SW Park Ave., nwfilm.org. 7 pm. $9.
(1931)
Considering how disgustingly patriarchal the movie industry still is, it’s pretty mind blowing just how progressive this movie was. Written by Zoë Akins and directed by Dorothy Arzner, who was openly gay in the ’30s, Working Girls tells the story of two sisters who move from small-town Indiana to an orphan house in New York City. NW Film, Nov. 19.
ALSO PLAYING: 5th Avenue: Paprika (2006), Nov. 17-19. Academy: Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), Nov. 17-22. Hollywood: Unknown Passage: The Dead Moon Story (2006), Nov. 18. Fast Times At Ridgemont High (1982), Nov. 20. Joy: Return of the Street Fighter (1974), Nov. 15. Laurelhurst: 9 to 5 (1980), Nov. 15-16. Mission: Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), Nov. 17-22. NW Film: Sullivan’s Travels (1941), Nov. 18. Irma Vep (1996), Nov. 17. The Story of Temple Drake (1933), Nov. 17. Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Nov. 18. American Madness (1932), Nov. 19. Casa De Lava (1994), Nov. 20.
COURTESY OF L A I K A E N T E R TA I N M E N T
RUTH HAYES SHUNS DIGITAL ANIMATION IN FAVOR OF CHANCE OCCURRENCES.
(1991)
Laurelhurst keeps their Smash the Patriarchy Month rolling with two of the baddest bitches in the history of road-trip movies. Laurelhurst, Nov. 17-22.
CORALINE
Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
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MELISSA SUE GORDON | COURTESY OF IMDB
MOVIES
Battle of the sexes Editor: SHANNON GORMLEY. 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: sgormley@wweek.com. Fax: 243-1115. : This movie sucks, don’t watch it. : This movie is entertaining but flawed. : This movie is good. We recommend you watch it. : This movie is excellent, one of the best of the year.
NOW PLAYING Last Flag Flying
*** Richard Linklater’s makes films about ordinary people making connections. His newest film, Last Flag Flying, isn’t too far a departure from his usual meandering, philosophical style except the characters are soldiers and veterans rather than civilians. Larry (Steve Carrell), Sal (Bryan Cranston) and Richard (Laurence Fishburne) served together in Vietnam. In the years after the war, Sal ramped up his drinking, Richard found God and Larry got married and raised a son. Two decades later, Larry’s wife and son are both dead -- his wife from breast cancer, his son a Marine killed in action in Iraq. Larry seeks out his two old war buddies and enlists them to help him transport his son’s remains to New Hampshire for burial. Cranston and Fishburne do yeoman’s work as the loudmouthed devil and overlyserious angel on Larry’s shoulders, convincing him what the meaning of it all is or offering their respective outlets for coping with grief. But it’s Carrell’s subdued performance as Larry that deserves serious award consideration. His character demands the least attention of the three, yet his muted devastation is transfixing. We’ve known for a while now that Carrell is more than just Michael Scott, but his acting here hit me like a frag grenade. The only gunshots fired in the two-hour runtime are ceremonial. Yet I left the theater feeling emotionally battered like I had just sat through a war movie of a kind only Linklater could make, explained through conversation. R. R. MITCHELL MILLER. Living Room.
STILL SHOWING American Made
*** American Made is like a blackmarket Forrest Gump—just slick and loose enough to outweigh its historical foolishness. It tells the hyperbolized story of pilot Barry Seal (Tom Cruise), who flew covert smuggling missions for the CIA and Medellín drug cartel in the early ’80s.Seal’s wild brushes with figures like Oliver North, Manuel Noriega and George
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Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
W. Bush are rendered with narration and montage. Director Doug Liman doesn’t just make Tom Cruise act, he makes him sweat and stumble through the action sequences. The director-star dynamic made a hit of their first movie together (Edge of Tomorrow), and it’s what makes American Made work, too. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Academy, Laurelhurst.
Battle of the Sexes
*** Battle of the Sexes had every excuse to be a straightforward biopic. It retells the epic 1973 tennis match between rising women’s tennis star Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) and aging legend Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell), who publicly proclaimed he could beat King because she is a woman and he is a man. It’s already an epic premise that could have just piggybacked on Emma Stone’s post-La La Land high. But it goes further, creating multidimensional characters and taking a nuanced look at gender dynamics in the ’70s.. PG-13. LAUREN TERRY. Living Room Theaters.
Blade Runner 2049
*** With an overwhelming dissonant, bassy score by Hans Zimmer, 2049 looks and sounds spectacular. But as a testament to the influence of the original, there isn’t much 2049 has to add about how technology blurs our sense of self and soul. 2049 seems less concerned with tiny moments of emotion than big reveals from a twisty plot that seems to define 2049’s imaginative boundaries rather than expand them. Still, it’s one hell of a spectacle. R. SHANNON GORMLEY. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport, Living Room Theaters, Lloyd, Tigard, Vancouver.
Cars 3
*** Cars 3 is a tribute to the bonds shared by teachers and students, albeit with a slapstick demolition derby scene dominated by a comically sinister school bus. Yet it’s Pixar’s gift for imbuing inanimate objects with humanity that makes you care when Cruz and Lightning lean into the curves. G. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Empirical.
Despicable Me 3
*** Conventional Hollywood wisdom dictates that animated children’s movies must vigorously trumpet the merits of kindness (good!) and condemn the evils of selfishness (bad!). Yet that memo clearly hasn’t reached the makers of this anarchic entry in the Despicable Me franchise, in which the bulbous, reformed supervillain Gru (voiced by Steve Carell) finds his lust for mischief is stoked by his twin brother, a cheerful moron named Dru (also Carell). Among their adventures is a tussle with the mullet-sporting master criminal Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker) that allows for plenty of delightfully nonsensical scenes, including a danceoff that features Gru and Balthazar busting moves to Madonna’s “Into the Groove.” Like the film itself, that scene eschews forced wholesomeness and delivers a truckload of dumb fun. PG. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Academy, Avalon, Empirical, Vancouver.
Dunkirk
**** In Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk. we get to follow a few soldiers and pilots and civilians at sea, but they’re more like stand-ins for the other 400,000 like them marooned on the beach or assisting in the rescue effort. That’s fine, though. This movie doesn’t really need characters, and wasting time on distracting details like what’s waiting at home for these boys would only slow down the headlong pacing of the operation. I don’t think this film will win Best Picture at next year’s Oscars, but it’s a shoo-in a handful of technical nominations. PG-13. R. MITCHELL MILLER. Academy, Empirical, Valley Cinema Pub, Vancouver.
The Florida Project
**** Six-year-old Moonee (Brooklynn Kimberly Prince) lives in a harsh, impoverished world. The Florida Project’s heroine resides in a budget motel. Her mother, Halley (Bria Vinaite), is so strapped for cash that she has to work as a petty thief and a prostitute to make rent. The movie makes you worry that both mother and daughter will either starve, go broke or, given their delightful but dangerous recklessness, be dead by the time the end credits roll. Yet director Sean Baker’s luminous odyssey overflows with wit and joy. That’s mainly because of the happiness Moonee finds with her friend Jancey (Valeria Cotto) as they frolic across the sun-soaked outskirts of Orlando, Fla. Rather than begging us to pity these pint-sized scoundrels, Baker (Tangerine) lets us bask in the joy of their parent-free adventures. Most of all, there’s the
Goodbye Christopher Robin
** If you don’t want Winnie the Pooh’s innocence ruined by publicity stunts, Oedipal anguish and World War I flashbacks, you should avoid this biopic of writer A.A. Milne. Otherwise, Goodbye Christopher Robin is a bland but fascinating creation myth. In the film’s first act, Milne (Domhnall Gleeson) is passionate about a decidedly not-childish project—a pacifist manifesto inspired by the trauma he experienced from servicing in the War to End All Wars. Yet, he ends up crafting a book inspired by the stuffed-animal pals of his son Christopher Robin. the movie holds your gaze because Milne is a brittle and unforgettable figure: a tormented veteran who, like many of us when we revisit the sweet and blissful adventures of Pooh, longs to slip into youthful dreams. PG. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, City Center, Fox Tower.
Happy Death Day
* A sorority girl named Tree (Jessica Roth) wakes up in the dorm of a guy she met the night before. She can’t remember anything from the night before when she was blacked out. It’s her birthday, and by the end of the night someone will have brutally murdered her. But then, as the knife drives into her, she wakes up—in the same dorm. She’s doomed to re-live the same day, Groundhog Day-style. That may sound funny in a kitschy way, but really, it’s just an unrewarding slog. PG-13. R. MITCHELL MILLER. CCedar Hills, Clackamas, Division, Eastport.
The Hitman’s Bodyguard
*** The Hitman’s Bodyguard sounds like a title plucked from an internet random action-movie trope generator. The same could be said of its storyline: Ryan Reynolds plays disgraced security agent Michael Bryce, and Samuel L. Jackson is master assassin Darius Kincaid. For reasons that don’t seem totally clear, Bryce is sent to safely ferry Kincaid from Coventry to testify against a Slavic despot played by Gary Oldman. But the movie never takes itself all too seriously. Films like The Hitman’s Bodyguard live and die on the addled chemistry between mismatched leads, and the endlessly enjoyable sparks that fly between Reynolds and Jackson render further criticism irrelevant. R. JAY HORTON. Avalon, Joy, Jubitz, Vancouver.
Killing of A Sacred Deer *** Steve Murphy (Colin Farrell) is
living the American dream. He’s a successful cardiologist who lives in the suburbs with his wife Anna (Nicole Kidman) and their two children. But it doesn’t take long into The Killing of the Sacred Deer, director Yorgos Lanthimos’ follow-up to The Lobster, before we realize that something is off. The Murphys seem devoid of any kind of familial affection or emotion. Things seem stable in the Murphy’s hyperlogical world until we meet an awkward teenager named Martin (Barry Keoghan). Steve took Martin under his wing after his father died on the cardiologist’s operating table. When Martin is revealed to be a sinister supernatural presence, the tension of the psychological thriller begins to build. Ultimately, Sacred Deer disrupts your understanding of familial love and loyalty so much that by the end of the movie, you’re forced to succumb to a world where logic cannot survive. R. SETH SHALER. Bridgeport, Cinema 21, Clackamas, Hollywood.
Mother!
** In his new psychological thriller, Black Swan director Darren Aronofsky continues to be extra. Mother! stars Jennifer Lawrence and Javier Bardem as a couple living in a secluded house. Bardem (listed as “Him” in the credits) is a writer struggling to complete a follow-up to a revered work. Aronofsky sur-
rounds Mother with unnerving, blood-themed imagery. Soon mobs of people, for whom “personal space” is a foreign concept, are swarming the house. For a while, it works simply as exercise in anxiety. But the last third of the movie drops into heavy-handed metaphor. Rendering the Struggles of the Artist into an exhibitionist nightmare is an exercise only the Artist could love. But man, what a nightmare. R. DANA ALSTON. Laurelhurst.
Hiddleston, whose sinister, sensitive presence as the scheming Loki is as welcome as ever. Yet even he can’t change the fact that Ragnarok is a glorified commercial for next year’s Avengers: Infinity War. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bagdad Theater, Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Cinemagic Theatre, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Lloyd, Milwaukie, Moreland, Pioneer Place, Roseway, St. Johns Twin Cinema & Pub, Tigard, Vancouver.
The Snowman
Victoria & Abdul
** Adapted from a best-selling novel by Jo Nesbø, The Snowman tells the story of Detectives Harry Hole (Michael Fassbender) and Katrine Bratt (Rebecca Ferguson) trying to find a serial killer who targets married women with children. The killer strikes whenever there’s a fresh snowfall, and leaves behind a snowman as a creepy calling card. The film’s biggest problem is that it’s been stretched to the seams with thin plot points and shifting perspectives, leaving us with no time to explore and forcing us to think about what is happening rather than what could happen. R. R MITCHELL MILLER. Vancouver.
Suburbicon
*** Written by Joel and Ethan Coen, Suburbicon’s title refers to the name of the town where the film takes place, a planned 1950s hellscape of a community. It’s home to Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon), the milquetoast vice president of finance for local corporation Pappas & Swain, Gardner’s paraplegic wife Rose (Julianne Moore), their son Nicky (Noah Jupe) and Rose’s sister Maggie (Moore). Suburbicon claims to be idyllic, but really, it was built as a haven for racist white people. We experience this through the plight of the Mayers, a black family who move in next to the Lodges at the beginning of the movie. Their neighbors build fences to separate themselves from the Mayer family. Naturally, none of these “nice folks” harbor any suspicions about Gardner, who is masterminding an insurance fraud that will go horribly wrong. It’s directed by George Clooney who, along with cinematographer Robert Elswit, does an admirable approximation of the brothers’ visual style. The performances throughout are solid, with Oscar Isaac stealing the show as the Edward G. Robinsonesque claims investigator. The Mayers subplot occupies very little of the film and is more context than storyline. It’s not given enough space for nuanced commentary. As it is, it’s an oversimplification. Suburbicon is sort of like a one-man band. It may sound muddled, but it’s unique enough that it’s hard to look away. R. R MITCHELL MILLER. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, City Center, Eastport, Fox Tower, Lloyd.
Stronger
**** Most movies described as “inspirational” practically beg to be dimissed as manipulative feelgoodery. Yet this biopic of Boston Marathon bombing survivor Jeff Bauman (Jake Gyllenhaal) resists the allure of the triumph-over-adversity cliches that would have doomed it. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Laurelhurst.
Thor: Ragnarok
** It’s a rare movie that casts Cate Blanchett as a comic book villain. Yet despite its kitschy visual delights, Thor: Ragnarok is a garish mishmash from Marvel Studios powered by lame jokes, blurry battles and unearned weepy moments. Director Taika Waititi (Hunt for the Wilderpeople) follows the Marvel playbook. The film pits Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the forever-buff God of Thunder, against yet another apparently indestructible menace: his genocidal sister Hela (Blanchett), who wears a creepy, antler-covered helmet. She has good reason to despise Thor, but any hint of pathos is squashed by lazy writing—the movie expects you to giggle every time someone says the word “anus”—and a clunky subplot that ropes the incredibly pouty Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) into the mayhem. The story also makes room for Tom
** Even the power of Judi Dench’s fearsome gaze isn’t enough to redeem Victoria & Abdul, a whitesavior fantasy from director Stephen Frears (Philomena, The Queen). At the center of the plot is Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal), an Indian prison clerk who travels to England to present Queen Victoria (Dench, who also played Queen Victoria in 1997’s Mrs Brown) with a ceremonial coin. We learn little of Abdul’s life, family or personality. Instead, the film uses him as a means for Victoria to prove her nobility. It’s meant to be a tender story of an unlikely friendship, but it’s hardly about friendship at all. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Fox Tower.
Wind River
*** Wyoming’s Wind River Indian Reservation is as sprawling as it is empty. It’s prone to blizzards except for when it’s too cold even for snow. It’s a hell of a place to examine an ignored America and a fitting setting for a noir thriller. In the directorial debut from Taylor Sheridan (writer of Sicario and Hell or High Water) a game tracker (Jeremy Renner) discovers the frozen body of a young Native woman. A hardscrabble investigation unfolds, and the tracker joins forces with an FBI agent (Elizabeth Olsen), the tribal police chief (Graham Greene) and myriad snowmobiles. Sheridan excels at simple turns of phrase and leading us into a rat’s nest of violence. But Wind River meditates on loss more than it burns through plot, and it occasionally feels heavy handed. We get it—Renner’s character has a backstory that makes this crime personal. There are constant references to predators and prey, and it’s fueled with male aggression and female pain. But while those pitfalls are common, Wind River’s unexplored geography, depth of spirit and honoring of survivalism are not. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Fox Tower.
Wonderstruck
*** Wonderstruck interlocks heartfelt storylines about two deaf children who run away to New York City, Ben (Oakes Fegley) and Rose (Millicent Simmonds). The eighth movie by Portland-based director Todd Haynes (I’m Not There, Far From Heaven) is unabashedly sentimental—its central message is literally spelled out in typewriter font above the main character’s bed. But even though the movie’s point of view can be distilled to a single sentence, Wonderstruck brings the sentiment to life with such imaginative detail that it hardly seems heavy-handed. Rose and Ben wander through the city with the kind of sage wisdom only 12-yearolds can possess, where bravery and naivety are indistinguishable. Eventually, Ben and Rose’s connection is explained through a lengthy, didactic monologue. It pulls the loose ends a little too tight, and some previously miraculous moments lose their magic once they’re revealed to serve a plot summary. But even when its symbolism is more on the nose than evocative, Wonderstruck’s message about finding wonder in daily life is still vivid. SHANNON GORMLEY. Bridgeport, City Center, Clackamas, Fox Tower, Hollywood.
review C ourtesy of A 2 Y
wild image of Moonee and Jancey sprinting together, laying claim to a world that may be brutal and imperfect, but is still theirs. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Fox Tower.
teenage dream: Saoirse Ronan and Lucas Hedges.
Winged Victory
Lady Bird follows a gloriously absurd teenage girl. Less than 10 minutes into Lady Bird, our teenage heroine throws herself out of a moving car. Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) rolls onto the road just to end an argument with her mom (Laurie Metcalf ) about where she’s going to go to college. For the next half of the movie, she wears a hot pink cast around her forearm like a badge. In Greta Gerwig ’s writer/director debut, Christine, who insists on being called Lady Bird, is a high school senior growing up in Sacramento, which she loathingly refers to as the Midwest of California. She wants to move where she can “live through something,” which she believes she can find in the form of an East Coast liberal arts college. But her mom, Marion, won’t even let her apply to expensive schools. Desperate to break free from mediocrity, Lady Bird slowly abandons her theater-kid friends for a group of rich kids. With that familiar premise and warm, faded lighting, Gerwig has crafted a sprawling story in which every character is subject to Gerwig’s absurd humor as much as her deep empathy. Lady Bird comes alive in its moments of teenage freedom, like when Lady Bird and her friends get stoned and laugh uncontrollably as they microwave snacks in her mom’s kitchen, or when Lady Bird and her best friend hide out behind their school’s chapel, legs propped up against the wall, hair fanned out behind them as they munch on Eucharist wafers and giggle about masturbating. Perhaps what makes the movie so uniquely touching is Lady Bird’s tense interactions with her mom. It’s rare to see a relationship between two complicated women portrayed with such care and empathy. Other characters mistake Lady Bird and Marion for cold and uncaring. But it doesn’t take long before we realize that Marion doesn’t want Lady Bird to go to college on the East Coast because she can’t stand the thought of her daughter being so far away. Lady Bird’s friends and family frequently tell her she’s self-centered. That might be true, but she’s also there for the people she loves when they need her most. But Lady Bird is endearing because of her boldness, not in spite of it. In one scene, her school holds an anti-abortion rally. A cardigan-wearing woman tells a gym full of high school girls that her own mother was going to get an abortion until “something told her it was wrong.” Lady Bird interrupts. “Just because something looks ugly doesn’t make it wrong,” she says. “If you took up-close shots of my vagina when I’m on my period, it’d look pretty disturbing, but that doesn’t make it wrong.” She seems emboldened by her own words, too, because she follows it up with something that’s beautiful precisely because it’s ugly. “If your mom had had that abortion,” she says. “We wouldn’t have to have this stupid assembly.” SHANNON GORMLEY. see it: Lady Bird opens at Fox Tower on Friday, Nov. 17 and Hollywood Theatre on Tuesday, Nov. 21. Willamette Week NOVEMBER 15, 2017 wweek.com
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Possession of a small stash of cannabis has been legal for adults in Oregon since July 2015, but finding a place to get high is a tricky situation. Toking up in a public space is definitely illegal, and unless you’re a homeowner it’s likely prohibited in your domicile. So how does one find a legal place to do it? The answer to this conundrum lies in private cannabis clubs. Operating as safe havens for smokers who pony up a membership fee to enjoy the space, places like NW Cannabis Club or the defunct World Famous Cannabis Cafe have aimed to create a social environment free from the stress of setting off smoke detectors and irking law enforcement or your landlord in the process. In that regard, Hamsterdam Cafe gets the job done. Walk in expecting a proper “cafe” experience, however, and you may be a tad confused. Located in a modest Victorian home just blocks from PSU, Hamsterdam Cafe is, by all accounts, a collegiate flophouse. Aside from the string of green Christmas lights lining the porch, walk-up users brought to the house via Meetup or a Yelp ad are likely to wonder if they’re even in the right place. If it weren’t for the warm greeting I was given on a recent visit by Isabelle, a New York native who moved to Portland a little over a year ago for the specific purpose of renting the home and running a cannabis club out of it, I would’ve been a bit confused as well. Citing frustration in the legal morass that bars renters from truly enjoying legalization as her primary motive for setting up shop, Isabelle
has essentially opened her home to strangers who are in need of a place to get stoned. Upon entry, I obliged the $5 donation after I showed her my ID, plopped down on the couch and shot the shit with her, a housemate and a friend who was annoyed that Golden State Warriors superstar Steph Curry had decided to cop his hairstyle. According to Hamsterdam’s activity schedule, which is hosted on Meetup and aims to be “geek related” with a full host of D&D and trivia events, a typical Saturday of collegiate sports entertainment was on the docket. The TV was blank, but no one seemed to mind as a bubbler circulated the pair of couches in the living room. A dab rig was brandished a few minutes later, but I opted out. “Good call,” said the guy with Steph Curry hair. “That shit’ll make your tolerance go through the roof.” Chalk it up to the ashcovered folding tables, the holographic plastic wrap covering the dining room or the cat darting back and forth between the kitchen and the living room, but by the time I was high I completely forgot I was in a cannabis club and not some stranger’s living room. I concluded they’re one in the same at Hamsterdam, and asked Isabelle about how she maintains the cafe’s schedule, which offers an open door to anyone who needs it from 4:20 to 12:20 every day. “I take a class in the morning at PSU because it’s so convenient,” she says. “But I’m pretty much here all the time. This is a fulltime operation.” GO: So that we don’t get accused of narcing, look for Hamsterdam’s schedule and hours on Yelp.
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Week of November 16
ARIES (March 21-April 19):
“Many people go fishing all their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after,” observed Henry David Thoreau. The spirit of Thoreau’s observation is true about every one of us to some extent. From time to time, we all try to satisfy our desires in the wrong location, with the wrong tools, and with the wrong people. But I’m happy to announce that his epigram is less true for you now than it has ever been. In the coming months, you will have an unusually good chance to know exactly what you want, be in the right place at the right time to get it, and still want it after you get it. And it all starts now.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20):
I predict that during the next ten months, you will generate personal power and good fortune as you ripen your skills at creating interesting forms of intimacy. Get started! Here are some tips to keep in mind. 1. All relationships have problems. Every single one, no exceptions! So you should cultivate relationships that bring you useful and educational problems. 2. Be very clear about the qualities you do and don’t want at the core of your most important alliances. 3. Were there past events that still obstruct you from weaving the kind of togetherness that’s really good for you? Use your imagination to put those events behind you forever.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20):
You may be entertaining an internal dialog that sounds something like this: “I need a clear yes or a definitive no . . . a tender revelation or a radical revolution . . . a lesson in love or a cleansing sex marathon -- but I’m not sure which! Should I descend or ascend? Plunge deeper down, all the way to the bottom? Or zip higher up, in a heedless flight into the wide open spaces? Would I be happier in the poignant embrace of an intense commitment or in the wild frontier where none of the old rules can follow me? I can’t decide! I don’t know which part of my mind I should trust!” If you do hear those thoughts in your brain, Gemini, here’s my advice: There’s no rush to decide. What’s healthiest for your soul is to bask in the uncertainty for a while.
CANCER (June 21-July 22):
According to storyteller Michael Meade, ancient Celtic culture believed that “a person was born through three forces: the coming together of the mother and father, an ancestral spirit’s wish to be reborn, and the involvement of a god or goddess.” Even if you don’t think that’s literally true, the coming weeks will be a favorable time to have fun fantasizing it is. That’s because you’re in a phase when contemplating your origins can invigorate your spiritual health and attract good fortune into your life. So start with the Celtic theory, and go on from there. Which of your ancestors may have sought to live again through you? Which deity might have had a vested interest in you being born? What did you come to this earth to accomplish? Which of your innate potentials have you yet to fully develop, and what can you do to further develop them?
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22):
I predict that starting today and during the next ten months, you will learn more about treating yourself kindly and making yourself happy than you have in years. You will mostly steer clear of the mindset that regards life as a numbing struggle for mere survival. You will regularly dream up creative ideas about how to have more fun while attending to the mundane tasks in your daily rhythm. Here’s the question I hope you will ask yourself every morning for the next 299 days: “How can I love myself wth devotion and ingenuity?”
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)
This may be the most miscellaneous horoscope I’ve ever created for you. That’s apropos, given the fact that you’re a multifaceted quick-change artist these days. Here’s your sweet mess of oracles. 1. If the triumph you seek isn’t humbling, it’s not the right triumph. 2. You may have an odd impulse to reclaim or recoup something that you have not in fact lost. 3. Before transmutation is possible, you must pay a debt. 4. Don’t be held captive by your beliefs. 5. If you’re given a choice between profane and sacred love, choose sacred.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22):
The next ten months will be an ideal time to revise and revamp your approach to education. To take maximum advantage of the potentials, create a master plan to get the training and knowledge you’ll need to thrive for years to come. At first, it may be a challenge to acknowledge that you have a lot more to learn. The comfort-loving part of your nature may be resistant to contemplating the hard work it will require to expand your worldview and enhance your skills. But once you get started, you’ll quickly find the process becoming easier and more pleasurable.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21):
“Everything that can be invented has been invented.” Charles H. Duell, Director of the U.S. Patent Office, 1899. “Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible.” Lord Kelvin, President, Royal Society, 1895. “All the music that can be written has already been written. We’re just repeating the past.” - 19th-century composer Tschaikovsky. “Video won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a box every night.” - filmmaker Darryl F. Zanuck, commenting on television in 1946. I hope I’ve provided enough evidence to convince you to be faithful to your innovative ideas, Scorpio. Don’t let skeptics or conventional thinkers waylay you.
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SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21):
Of all the signs in the zodiac, you Sagittarians are most likely to buy a lottery ticket that has the winning numbers. But you’re also more likely than everyone else to throw the ticket in a drawer and forget about it, or else leave it in your jeans when you do the laundry, rendering the ticket unreadable. Please don’t be like that in the coming weeks. Make sure you do what’s necessary to fully cash in on the good fortune that life will be making available.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19):
In the game of basketball, if a player is fouled by a member of the opposing team, he is given a “free throw.” While standing 15 feet away, he takes a leisurely shot at the basket without having to deal with any defenders. Studies show that a player is most likely to succeed at this task if he shoots the ball underhanded. Yet virtually no professionals ever do this. Why? Because it doesn’t look cool. Everyone opts to shoot free throws overhand, even though it’s not as effective a technique. Weird! Let’s invoke this as a metaphor for your life in the coming weeks, Capricorn. In my astrological opinion, you’ll be more likely to accomplish good and useful things if you’re willing to look uncool.
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AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18):
In 1991, Aquarius rock star Axl Rose recorded the song “November Rain” with his band Guns N’ Roses. It had taken him eight years to compose it. Before it was finally ready for prime time, he had to whittle it down from an 18-minute-long epic to a more succint nineminute ballad. I see the coming weeks as a time when you should strive to complete work on your personal equivalent of Axl’s opus.
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20):
Thomas Edison was a prolific inventor whose work led to the creation of electric lights, recorded music, movies, and much more. When he was 49 years old, he met Henry Ford, a younger innovator who was at the beginning of his illustrious career. Ford told Edison about his hopes to develop and manufacture low-cost automobiles, and the older man responded with an emphatic endorsement. Ford later said this was the first time anyone had given him any encouragement. Edison’s approval “was worth worlds” to him. I predict, Pisces, that you will receive comparable inspiration from a mentor or guide or teacher in the next nine months. Be on the lookout for that person.
Homework Is there a belief you know you should live without, but don’t yet have the courage to leave behind? FreeWillAstrology.com. check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes
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Get a Fresh Financial Start! Call Today at 503-808-9032 Attorney Scott Hutchinson FREE Confidential Consultation. Affordable Payments. Go to: Hutchinson-Law.com
A FEMALE FRIENDLY SEX TOY BOUTIQUE
Atomic Auto atomicauto.biz
for every body
610 NE 102nd. Text: (503) 969-3134
Guitar Lessons
Personalized instruction for over 15yrs. www.portlandguitar-lessons.com 503-546-3137
Comedy Classes
Improv, Standup, Sketch writing. Now enrolling The Brody Theater, 503-224-2227 www.brodytheater.com
ARE YOU BURIED IN DEBT?
POLY-CURIOUS 101 W/YOUNG ALLISON MOON / WED, NOV 15 - 7:30 - $20 - FULL DIY PORN W/ MADISON / THUR, OCT &19REID - 7:30MIHALKO - $20 SEX AND CANNABIS / THURS, NOV 30 — 7:30 $20 HALLOWEEN HAPPY HOUR W/ CLONE-A-WILLY! / OCT—25 -7:30 - FREE - SHE BOP DIVISION - RSVP FB - 7:30 - $20 / OCT 26 - 7:30 - $20 EXPLORING BURLESQUE: STRIPTEASE SALON / WED, EVEN MORE PLEASURE, POWER, & PAIN: EXPANDING YOURDEC BDSM6 EXPERIENCES THE JOYS OF TOYS! THURS, 14 - /7:30 $15 12 - 7:30 - $20 FISTING & MANUAL SEX/ W/ ANDREDEC SHAKTI SUN,-NOV FELLATIO 2.0: 101 AN W/ ORAL SEX MOON UPGRADE! SUN, JAN/ WED, 7 - 7:30 $20 POLY-CURIOUS ALLISON & REID/ MIHALKO NOV- 15 - 7:30 - $20 INTRODUCTION ROPENOV BONDAGE WED, JAN 17 - 7:30 - $20 SEX & CANNABIS / TO THURS, 30 - 7:30 -/$20 THE JOYS OF / THURS, DEC 14 -upon 7:30 -request $15 Workshops can be ASL INTERPRETED upon request Workshops canTOYS! be ASL INTERPRETED
3213SESEDIVISION DIVISIONSTSTAND ANDATAT909 909N NBEECH BEECHST.ST.PORTLAND PORTLAND SHOP ONLINE AT SHEBOPTHESHOP.COM 3213 ANDAND SHOP ONLINE AT SHEBOPTHESHOP.COM
Tired of creditors harassing you? I will kick their asses and help you get your financial life back on track Call Christopher Kane, Attorney at Law NOW! A debt relief agency kicking ass for 20 years. 503-380-7822. bankruptcylawpdx.com.
GEM FAIRE
November 17, 18, 19
Oregon Convention Center FRI 12-6 | SAT 10-6 | SUN 10-5 Admission $7 weekend pass
Inspired by ink, driven by passion.
Fine Jewelry, Crystals, Beads, Gems, Minerals, Gold & Silver from around the world! Buy direct from importers & wholesalers (503) 252-8300 GemFaire.com
Top 1% Buyer’s Agent Kami Price, Broker 13+ years experience Permiere Property Group, LLC 503-773-0000
Community Law Project Non-Profit Law Firm Sliding-Scale · Payment Plans Bankruptcy · Debt · Eviction Call 503-208-4079 www.communitylawproject.org
Marijuana Shop *971-255-1456* 1310 SE 7TH AVE
20595 SW TV Highway. Aloha, OR 97006 503-746-4444
ROSE CITY GUN & KNIFE SHOW Nov 18th & 19th Portland Expo Center Sat. 9-5, Sun 9-3. Admission $10. 503-363-9564 wesknodelgunshows.com
SO, YOU GOT A DUI. NOW WHAT?
Get help from an experienced DUI trial lawyer Free Consult./ Vigorous Defense/ Affordable Fees David D. Ghazi, Attorney at Law 333 SW Taylor Street, Suite 300 (503)-224-DUII (3844) david@ddglegal.com
CASH for INSTRUMENTS 2017 BoP Winner! Tradeupmusic.com SE - 503-236-8800 NE - 503-335-8800
Drop in and SAVE
Special in-store only pricing on 2018 Snowboard gear! Lib Tech, Gnu, Arbor, Salomon, Burton, 32, Slash, Jones, Ride, Dakine, Volcom, Crab Grab, Union, Bent Metal, Airblaster, Volcom, Dakine...GET IT ALL HERE!
503-246-6646
gorgeperformance.com
7400 SW Macadam, Portland • M-F 10-8, Sat 10-7
503 235 1035
Our team of experts is ready to help you promote and deliver the message that ignites the passion and makes your business or organization great.
Top 1% Portland Agent Stephen FitzMaurice, Broker Home Selling Specialist 14+ Years Experience 4.5% Max Commission Premiere Property Group, LLC. 4300 NE Fremont St. 503-714-1111. RealEstateAgentPDX.com
PRINTING • DIRECT MAIL • SIGNS & BANNERS PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS
503-736-0111 · morelink.biz
OMMP CARDHOLDERS GET 25% DISCOUNT!
Quick fix synthetic urine now available. Kratom, Vapes. E-cigs, glass pipes, discount tobacco, detox products, Butane by the case Still Smokin’ Glass and Tobacco 12302 SE Powell 503-762-4219
Muay Thai
Self defense & outstanding conditioning.
www.nwfighting.com or 503-740-2666
Qigong Classes
Cultivate health and energy www.nwfighting.com or 503-740-2666
NORTH WEST HYDROPONIC R&R
We Buy, Sell & Trade New and Used Hydroponic Equipment. 503-747-3624
$BUYING JUNK CARS$ Wrecked, running or not. call Jeff 971-804-8124 $50 to $2000
MEDICAL MARIJUANA Card Services Clinic
503-384-WEED (9333) www.mmcsclinic.com 4911 NE Sandy Blvd, Portland Mon-Sat 9-6
New Downtown Location! 1501 SW Broadway www.mellowmood.com
4119 SE Hawthorne, Portland ph: 503-235-PIPE (7473)
Pizza Delivery
Until 4AM!
www.hammyspizza.com