Willamette Week, July 22, 2020 - Volume 46, Issue 39 - "Best of Portland 2020"

COPS: TRUMP'S POLICE OCCUPY DOWNTOWN. NEWS: AN ELECTION? IN THIS ECONOMY? P. 10

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Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

WESLEY LAPOINTE

FINDINGS

UNSETTLING TOYS, PAGE 21

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 46, ISSUE 39.

“The shark makes the rules.” 8 A protester alleges federal police jailed them in a downtown parking garage for making chalk drawings. 8 Multnomah County Commissioner Sharon Meieran was tear gassed. 9 To obtain the names of Portland police officers, you must tell the city their names. 12 One of the region’s only Black male opera singers has taken to practicing in parking garages during quarantine so as not to bother his roommates. 19 A local man refuses to use his taxidermied dog to get laid. 20 A few days after buying a creepy doll from Portland business Unsettling Toys, one customer lit her purchase on fire. 21 The man with perhaps the world’s largest collection of Blazers

ON THE COVER:

memorabilia owns a championship ring meant for Maurice Lucas’ son. 24 A Salem man has a dream of one day serving hot dogs from a casket in the back of a hearse. 27 A Portland R&B singer asked a stranger for weed at a concert and ended up investing in a farm.

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Strippers often come into The Sextant in Northeast Portland asking to audition. It is not a strip club. 25 A hop farm in Woodburn is opening a socially distanced, open-air taproom among its crops. 49 Our books writer has spent part of quarantine reading former WW staffer Lizzy Acker. 50 A local stop-motion animator has created the mascot for our COVID era: Quarantine Kat. 52

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:

Best of Portland 2020, needlepoint

by Stephanie Griffin, photo

by Wesley Lapointe.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown says President Trump is invading Portland as a campaign stunt.

MASTHEAD EDITOR & PUBLISHER

Mark Zusman

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DIALOGUE Last week, federal agents in unmarked vans detained at least two Portland protesters, and appeared to do so using privately rented vehicles, according to records obtained by WW. On Friday, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum filed a lawsuit against the federal government for seizing and detaining Portlanders without probable cause, and announced a criminal investigation into the injury of Donovan LaBella, who was shot in the face by a U.S. Marshals Service officer with a munition. (Disclosure: Rosenblum is married to the co-owner of WW’s parent company.) WW reported the news on wweek.com. Here’s what our readers had to say.

Dustin Vifquain via Facebook: “Just secret federal agents kidnapping people protected by the First Amendment off the street, what could go wrong?” @bcpdxwriter1via Twitter: “Why hasn’t Chad Wolf been arrested for crossing state lines to incite riots?”

Michelle Tafoya via Facebook: “Get an emergency restraining order. People are going to get hurt.” @thejoeportland via Twitter: “They aren’t arresting protesters.” @DenverLadyBug via Twitter: “I think your point is that they were arresting someone for doing something illegal. Even if that’s true, we have constitutional rights that must be upheld during an arrest. Unidentified men in unmarked vans is regime-type behavior.”

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@shaneashby via Twitter: “It isn’t just ‘regime-type’ behavior. It is extrajudicial and unconstitutional. It is regime behavior.”

Mattie Lee via Facebook: “Folks don’t like protesting because they can’t ignore it like they do police brutality.”

Brandon via wweek.com: “Do you think I went to Afghanistan because bin Laden spray-painted the Twin Towers and built a fire in Central Park?

Stop with the hyperbole. Just because someone does something you don’t agree with, doesn’t make them a terrorist. All calling them a terrorist does is make it easier for you to justify why you believe feds rounding up people with whom you disagree is a good thing.”

Zach Baldwin via Facebook: “Recent events have been very disturbing. America cares more about property than its people. And on top of that, now we have secret police.”

Gary Weiss via wweek.com: “Walking to public transportation is not destructive and is what the victim was doing when he was kidnapped.

When the government acts like a terrorist organization, it will be treated like one.”

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BY MART Y SMITH @martysmithxxx

The 2007 Oregon Supreme Court decision in State v. Sandoval established a person’s justification in defending their own life with deadly force, without a duty to retreat. Would that apply if you were defending yourself from, say, a federal agent? —A Concerned Citizen

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There are two kinds of rights, Citizen: the kind you have on paper, and the kind you can actually enforce.

For example, it’s technically illegal under Russian law for Vladimir Putin to make your family disappear—but good luck obtaining injunctive relief if it happens.

Similarly, while there may be some excruciatingly narrow legal circumstances under which it’s lawful to use force against an officer, doing so in practice will probably just get you killed, thrown in prison or both.

We Teva-shod liberals tend to associate “stand your ground” laws with Florida, Texas and other backward places where you can’t get carrot juice at the gas station, so it may come as a surprise to learn that this MAGA hat of legal doctrines also applies in Oregon. That said, it’s pretty obviously not designed to be used against cops.

For starters, it’s illegal to resist arrest in Oregon, period. It doesn’t matter if the arrest is lawful or not. A cop can arrest you because you voted for Walter Mondale; it’s still your duty to

go quietly and let a judge decide later whether the officer was justified.

It is nominally true you have a right to selfdefense if an officer uses what the court later determines to be excessive force. As you can scarcely have failed to notice, however, in practice what is considered excessive is viewed from the officer’s perspective. As above, good luck.

Unless the officer is literally attempting to murder an innocent person in their sleep, the call is going to go their way.

Even then, it’s a crapshoot! Kenneth Walker, Breonna Taylor’s boyfriend, returned fire when unidentified assailants (who later turned out to be cops) started shooting up his bedroom and was charged with attempted murder of a police officer for his trouble. Those charges were eventually dropped, but only after the incident had become a national scandal.

In short, Citizen, while you may have a legal right to stand your ground, winning the argument is cold comfort if you’re dead. Settle this one at the ballot box.

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

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METRO GRANTS MAJOR TAX EXEMPTION: On July 16, the Metro Council voted unanimously to refer a $4 billion transportation funding measure to the November ballot. Without notice or explanation, Metro included a last-minute exemption for state and local governments from the 0.75% payroll tax to be levied on all employers with 25 or more workers. Metro offered no guidance on the impact of the exemption, but figures from the Oregon Employment Department show that preCOVID-19, state and local governments in the tricounty region employed about 104,000 workers, more than 10 percent of all area jobs. “Everyone uses our streets, sidewalks and transit,” says Andrew Hoan, CEO of the Portland Business Alliance, which wants the measure delayed. “The fact that 10% of the workforce is excluded in covering the cost of the measure, without any analysis or process, raises significant concerns.”

Metro government relations manager Andy Shaw attributes the exemption to “limitations in state law around the ability of local governments to tax each other, which creates ambiguity.” Shaw says the council decided to remove that ambiguity and adds that because Metro’s revenue projections didn’t include taxing the state or school districts the revenue reduction should be around 5%.

HARDESTY TO INTRODUCE NEW POLICE OVERSIGHT: City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty filed paperwork July 21 to create a new police oversight body called the City of Portland Community Police Oversight Board. Hardesty wants to replace the current review system, which she says the public doesn’t trust, with an agency with greater powers and more money. Unlike Independent Police Review, which reports to the city auditor, the agency Hardesty proposes would be completely independent. It would also, unlike IPR, have direct access to police reports; could compel officers’ testimony without a third party present; and could investigate fatal uses of force. It would also have a budget equal to 5% of the Portland Police Bureau’s budget. That would give it nearly $12 million, four times IPR’s budget. City Auditor Mary Hull Caballero cautions that the new entity, which would require voter approval, would not change much without additional changes to state law, city code and labor

contracts. Hull Caballero says a better approach might be to beef up IPR. “Ours is not a bad system,” she says, “but one that can and should be improved.” Hardesty disagrees: “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. There’s the momentum and political will to get this through, and we need to act quickly.”

WHEELER WILL KEEP POLICE: Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler has rejected City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty’s request to take over Wheeler’s role as commissioner of the city’s police. “Mayor Wheeler, if you can’t control the police, give me the Portland Police Bureau,” Hardesty wrote July 18. “You are putting our community in danger.

You are putting my staff in danger. We need you to be better.” On July 20, Wheeler declined Hardesty’s request indirectly, weaving it into an announcement that he had co-signed a letter with five other U.S. mayors condemning federal agents and warning them to not occupy their cities. “I will continue to serve as police commissioner through this time of transformation,” Wheeler said Monday. Hardesty still runs Portland Fire & Rescue—which banned Portland police officers July 19 from using its fire stations as staging areas.

OLCC TAKING HEAT ON HOME DELIVERY: The Oregon Liquor Control Commission’s rules advisory committee met July 21 to consider making permanent the temporary rules allowing home and curbside delivery of wine, beer and liquor.

The OLCC temporarily relaxed rules because of COVID-19, but those rules expire in September.

Both the state Alcohol and Drug Policy Commission and Oregon Recovers, an addiction treatment advocacy group, have urged the OLCC not to make the temporary changes permanent.

In a letter to the commission, Multnomah County Circuit Judge Eric Bloch said the proposed changes would make it harder to “reduce the incidence of alcohol-use disorder and other unhealthy uses of alcohol.” OLCC spokesman Mark Pettinger says the agency doesn’t think relaxed delivery rules increase consumption significantly, and is merely seeking to comply with social distancing requirements while still providing economic opportunity to the alcohol industry.

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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IS IT LEGAL?

ALEX WITTWER

NEWS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK

HOMELAND, SECURED: Federal agents deployed tear gas and swept protesters out of downtown most nights over the past week.

Lawless Federal tactics in downtown Portland are shocking. But many of them are legal.

BY TE SS R I SK I

tess@wweek.com

Americans are watching in horror at what President Trump’s police are doing to Portlanders.

Since they arrived here July 2, federal officers have snatched at least two Portland protesters off the streets and driven them away in unmarked rental vans, deployed tear gas indiscriminately and without warning, shot a protester in the head with a munition resulting in an injury requiring facial reconstructive surgery, and beaten dozens of people with batons.

Trump sent officers from four federal agencies to quash street protests in a city that despises him. Instead, their actions have inspired national outrage, and galvanized Portlanders back into the streets by the thousands.

Nearly every elected official in the state is looking for a way to show they oppose the occupying force—or, if they oversee a police department, to distance themselves from the federal cops.

At the same time, it’s obvious that some collaboration has occurred between Portland cops and federal police.

When the two agencies worked in tandem to clear protest8

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

ers last weekend, that set off a volley of accusations inside City Hall about the complicity the local police with federal actions. “The Portland Police Bureau has collaborated with federal occupiers,” City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly wrote July 20.

It remains unclear whether, and to what extent, the two agencies continue to coordinate. But what Eudaly and others are implying is that federal police are doing Portland cops’ dirty work—using brutal tactics that local agencies would struggle to get away with in this politically fraught moment.

And it’s certainly true that the feds follow orders from a boss who is much more keen on penalizing protesters than local agencies: Department of Homeland Security Acting Secretary Chad Wolf said during a July 21 press conference that Portland is overrun by “violent anarchists” who must be quelled.The feds aren’t beholden to the same protocols as the Portland Police Bureau. Instead, federal agents follow the directives outlined in their respective rulebooks, which sometimes offer more leeway in determining things like probable cause, or reaching the threshold of “imminent danger” when employing deadly use of force.

“Our local law enforcement is on a tighter leash, so to speak, because they have two constitutions to follow,” says Portland criminal defense attorney John Schlosser.

WW examined a half-dozen tactics that we’ve observed federal police use in the past week, or that have been alleged on the record by protesters. Some of these tactics are legal for the feds, but not for local police. Others are

available to both.

Even when police overstep, it’s difficult to stop them.

“These are your rights, but it’s not necessarily in play while it’s happening,” says Juan C. Chavez, a lawyer with the Oregon Justice Resource Center. “It’s like fighting a shark: The shark makes the rules.”

USED BY POLICE SINCE FEDS ARRIVED Deploying tear gas without warning Is it legal? Yes, for the feds. Last month, the Oregon Legislature passed House Bill 4208, which prohibited the use of tear gas except in riots. Oregon law enforcement agencies now must give two warnings before deploying the chemical agent. That’s what they’ve done since the law passed in June. But the law doesn’t apply to federal agencies. On multiple occasions, federal law enforcement agents have deployed CS gas without any warning.

Pulling people into unmarked vans Is it legal? Maybe. This tactic, alleged on two occasions, has garnered nationwide attention. Oregon Public Broadcasting first reported that a protester named Mark Pettibone was pulled into an unmarked van July 15 and taken to the federal courthouse. The incidents, dubbed the “Portland kidnappings,” are alarming. But federal agents can technically detain a person if they have probable cause, and transport them in an unmarked vehicle. “It isn’t of itself illegal, necessarily,” Chavez says. “But in the totality of what we know about that practice, we’ve seen legal objections.”

LINEUP Not providing a lawyer Is it legal? Maybe. Pettibone says he was taken to the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse, where he refused to answer questions without a lawyer present, and the officers let him go. Another protester, Juniper Simonis, was arrested July 10 while drawing with chalk near federal property downtown. Detained for several hours, Simonis asked for an attorney multiple times but was not provided one, nor were they given access to a phone to contact an attorney. Simonis declined to answer questions without an attorney present, and they were released hours later.

Schlosser says law enforcement must provide a detainee with a lawyer during questioning if the detainee requests one: “If you’re asking questions prior to having charges filed, you have the right to have an attorney present.” If the feds don’t provide people with lawyers, they can’t use any statements detained people give. That might provide a clue why federal prosecutors haven’t filed any criminal charges against protesters since July 13.

Detaining protesters in non-judicial buildings Is it legal? Yes. Simonis says they were detained for several hours in the basement of the Edith GreenWendell Wyatt Federal Building downtown. It’s not a jail or a courthouse. But law enforcement is allowed to use any building as a jail. “A jail is anywhere they hold you pretrial,” Chavez says.

USED BY POLICE BEFORE FEDS ARRIVED Using batons on protesters Is it legal? Yes. A July 18 now-viral video shot by Portland Tribune reporter Zane Sparling shows federal agents strike Navy veteran Chris Davis at least five times with a baton outside the Mark O. Hatfield federal courthouse. This is a crowd control technique that police—local and federal—use frequently when scattering or arresting protesters. However, federal agents attacked David in a more aggressive manner than is usually employed by local police, who typically use batons to force protesters forward, rather than using it like a baseball bat as the feds have done. “The baton strikes we’ve seen from DHS looks more like martial arts,” Chavez says.

Covering ID badges Is it legal? Yes. Federal agents can cover their identification badges. But a new bill put forth by Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley seeks to require them to “at all times display identifying information in a clearly visible fashion,” including the agency they work for, their last name or a unique identifier, and rank. That would make them subject to tougher rules than the Portland police, who currently cover their badges, fearing “doxxing” of their identities (see page 12).

Using force on reporters Is it legal? No, but the rules are toothless. It is a violation of the First Amendment to use force on members of the press covering protests. But in several incidents, Portland reporters identified themselves as media, and cops hit them anyway. A federal judge in Oregon, Michael H. Simon, filed an injunction earlier this month prohibiting Portland police from using force on journalists after the American Civil Liberties Union of Oregon sued. To use such force would mean Portland police were acting in contempt of court. However, the injunction applies only to local police—not the feds, for now. (The ACLU of Oregon levied a similar lawsuit against federal agents July 17. It is still pending.) On July 19, federal agents injured multiple reporters, including Donovan Farley and Alex Milan Tracy—both with less-than-lethal munitions.

Three Moms Three women in the wall hold or seek elected office in Portland.

President Trump built the wall—of moms.

Among the bizarre sights within the six-block radius that violent policing has turned into a war zone in Portland, the “Wall of Moms” is the latest and most wholesome. Dressed in yellow and wearing gas masks, the moms form a barrier between federal officers and the throng of Portland protesters. They started assembling July 18. They were tear gassed. They came back in greater numbers July 19.

To be sure, these aren’t the first mothers to attend Portland protests. As many activists have noted, women of color have been leaders in the uprising since its earliest days, some of them with kids. It’s more accurate to say this is an assembly of white, affluent mothers, whose presence demonstrates how Trump’s incursion into the city has galvanized people who don’t typically confront police.

Case in point: Three of the moms who attended this weekend either hold elected office or are seeking it in November. AARON MESH. Dr. Sharon Meieran Office: Multnomah County commissioner When she attended: July 18 What happened: Federal cops deployed tear gas.

What she said: “Last night I was tear gassed by a federal occupying force I saw throw canisters of poison, without warning, into a nonviolent c r ow d , i n c l u d i n g elders, the vulnerable. We can’t wait for November to drive secret police from Portland! Democracy is slipping away in front of our tear-gassed eyes.”

BLACK AND WHITE IN OREGON

Who Can Find a Job? Unemployment rates were already worse for Black Portlanders. Then the pandemic hit.

Life in Portland for Black and white people is overwhelmingly different. In the coming weeks, WW will explore these contrasting realities—the inequities that have molded the Black experience in this city and state. This week, we look at employment.

The COVID -19 pandemic—and the resulting business shutdown—drove unemployment rates through the roof across Oregon. The Portlanders in the worst position to withstand the wave of layoffs? Black people.

According to a 2018 five-year census report, Black Portlanders had the highest unemployment rate of any racial demographic, at 11%. By comparison, the unemployment rate of white people stood at 4.9%.

The Urban League of Portland released a 2015 report displaying data that also showed Black Oregonians were filing for unemployment at double the rate of white Oregonians. One of the reasons, it wrote, was discriminatory hiring practices.

Dr. Lisa Reynolds Office sought: Oregon state representative, District 36 When she attended: July 19 What happened: She went home before federal cops deployed tear gas.

What she said: “After hearing Sharon Meieran’s story from last night, I returned to the protests better prepared. The Mom Wall stood between protesters and the fence. Tear gas was used again after I left.”

Sarah Iannarone Office sought: Portland mayor When she attended: July 19 What happened: The feds deployed tear gas. Iannarone was wearing goggles, and in the second line of protesters, her campaign says. She helped end to those hit hardest by the gas.

What she said: “The people of Portland are not so foolish as to believe the false narratives dictated by the 24-hour-per-day psychological operation that is Donald Trump’s failed experiment in fascist governm e n t . W h e n Fox News focuses on graffiti and broken windows, they take the focus off George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and the countless others whose lives are taken too early by unaccountable police.”

“Labor market policies need to focus on closing the unemployment gaps between whites and African Americans,” the report says, “rather than simply lowering unemployment.”

The pain of COVID-19 layoffs has also been unequally distributed nationwide.

Nationally, Black people are overrepresented in high unemployment rates, even as jobless claims are slowing down overall, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Unemployment peaked in April at 16.7 per 1,000 for Black people and 14.2 per 1,000 for whites. While white people have seen major improvement, Black people have barely seen any change from April to June. LATISHA JENSEN. UNEMPLOYMENT RATES, 2015-2018 Oregon

Black: 10.8% White: 5.7%

Multnomah County

Black: 11.5% White: 5%

Portland

Black: 11% White: 4.9% Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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C O U R T E S Y O F D A N R YA N

NEWS

STEPPING UP: The youngest of eight kids born to a North Portland family, Dan Ryan was the first in his family to graduate from college.

August Special Election Endorsement Portland City Council, Position 2 Dan Ryan Something is missing from the Portland City Council since City Commissioner Nick Fish’s death in January from abdominal cancer.

It’s not just a tie-breaking fifth vote that’s gone. Fish’s death deprived the city of both the council’s longest-serving member and its peacemaker.

In an Aug. 11 runoff election—held at an unusual time because of Fish’s sudden departure—voters will choose between two civic leaders seeking to serve the rest of Fish’s term, which ends in 2023: former Multnomah County Commissioner Loretta Smith and Dan Ryan, the onetime executive director of All Hands Raised, an educational nonprofit.

Both candidates have been in civic life for decades: Smith, 55, as an aide to U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) for more than 20 years before she served as county commissioner from 2011 to 2019; Ryan, 58, as a senior executive at Portland State University and Oregon Ballet Theatre and a member of the Portland School Board before joining All Hands Raised.

Both contenders boast an impressive list of supporters: Smith has backing from Wyden, Oregon Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle, several labor unions, and longtime leaders in the Black community, including Ron Herndon, Tony Hopson and former state Sens. Margaret Carter and Avel Gordley (D-Portland).

Supporters laud Smith for creating SummerWorks, a jobs program that has served more than 7,000 young people, while she was at Multnomah County, and helping to secure county and federal funding for a local Promise Neighborhoods initiative that provides programs for more than 1,000 underserved kids annually.

“I’m supporting Loretta because of her demonstrated track record of standing with community when times are tough and fighting for the needs of diverse communities,” says Kali Thorne Ladd, founder of the educational nonprofit KairosPDX and former Portland Community College board chair. “Racism has always been part of the fabric of this city, impacting who has had access to what. Now, more than ever, this has been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. I think we are on an arc towards justice and [Smith] helps bend that arc in the right direction during a time when it is sorely needed.”

Like Smith, Ryan has attracted an impressive list of supporters, including former Govs. Barbara Roberts and Ted Kulongoski; House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland); Karis Stoudamire-Phillips; Michelle DePass, the only Black mem10

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

ber of the Portland School Board; and City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty, who defeated Smith in a bitter 2018 City Council race 62% to 37%.

Those supporters point to a résumé that includes Ryan’s leadership on PSU’s first capital campaign, which raised $200 million, and his expansion of OBT’S fundraising capacity before he took over at All Hands Raised, formerly known as the Portland Schools Foundation.

He shifted the organization’s focus from fundraising to equity and widened its reach to include East County school districts, which have higher levels of poverty and secondlanguage speakers than Portland Public Schools.

Multnomah County Commissioner Susheela Jayapal, who served on the All Hands Raised board, says Ryan focused on equity long before it was fashionable. “He brought a very diverse group of people to the board and to the table when others were wringing their hands and saying they couldn’t find anybody.”

But some political insiders are motivated as much by reservations about Smith as enthusiasm for Ryan.

Hardesty says that, in her view, Smith is not a good fit at City Hall, where commissioners’ oversight of bureaus requires that they collaborate to set policy and run the city far more than is the case at Multnomah County, where the chair holds all the power.

“Loretta Smith doesn’t disagree with people, she sets out to destroy you,” Hardesty says. “When you set out to destroy someone as an enemy, there’s no coming back from that, no opportunity to say, ‘Hey, we disagree but where can we work together for the greater good of our community?’ That kind of attitude doesn’t work on a campaign, and it definitely doesn’t work at City Hall.”

WW shares Hardesty’s objections to Smith.

During her tenure at the county, we reported both on her management style—which two women of color who worked for her characterized in written complaints as bullying and erratic. We also reported on her cavalier use of a county credit card for personal expenses, her frequent and lavish travel, and her use of county money to curry favor with a range of nonprofit groups.

After a series of such negative reports, Smith called in 2017 for a county investigation of the allegations against her— then tried unsuccessfully to block that investigation’s report before it could be released.

The investigation found that Smith regularly failed to document expenses, did in fact use her county credit card improperly at least 14 times, and was even more toxic to work

with than the two previous complaints against her indicated.

“Several of the allegations raised against Commissioner Smith concern conduct that is potentially discriminatory or harassing in that it is tied to race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or some other legally protected status,” the report said.

It is telling in the current contest that only one of the people who served alongside Smith on the county board in her eight years there, former Commissioner Diane McKeel, is endorsing her.

Smith has been working hard to shift the narrative from 2018, when she ran to Hardesty’s right with an endorsement and $20,000 from the Portland Police Association and as a champion of opening the mothballed Wapato Jail as a homeless shelter.

She’s switched positions on police and the jail. She now opposes a shelter at Wapato—once her signature issue—and calls for defunding the police, a longtime ally.

Whether Smith’s new positions mark a genuine evolution or merely political expediency, we cannot be sure. We couldn’t ask her. That’s because little more than an hour before her endorsement interview July 20, Smith emailed a letter to WW’s editorial board.

“I have decided to no longer seek the Willamette Week’s endorsement,” Smith wrote. “This moment demands that we name and address racism, discrimination, and violence against black and brown people in all institutions—not just when it comes to the police.”

In her letter, Smith pointed directly at WW, citing “the strategic campaigns this paper has waged over the years to discredit, intimidate, and destroy Black leadership in Portland.”

“Your paper invests in, and benefits from, systemic racism and institutional bias,” Smith added.

As an example, she cited a 2018 illustration of then-Portland Police Chief Danielle Outlaw that ran on WW’s cover.

Critics blasted the paper for that artwork, saying the illustration reinforced racial stereotypes. The paper apologized. We remain deeply sorry. The cartoon image of Outlaw was an error in judgment.

We disagree with Smith, however, that our coverage of her has been unfair.

For years, this paper has held her accountable, most recently four days before the endorsement interview, in a July 17 story on a puzzling $6,000 cash contribution to her campaign from anonymous sources, seemingly in violation of city and state election rules.

Ryan, whom we endorsed in the May primary, is not perfect. A Black subordinate sued him for discrimination in 2013 (the case settled out of court). And his response to a question about race during this week’s endorsement interview produced a collective cringe as he trotted out his version of “Some of my best friends are Black.” His answer raised questions whether he understood the import of the last three months— the urgent need to listen to others with different lived experiences rather than assuring them you already understand.

That’s an important distinction, because Portland, including WW, badly needs to hear from people it has long ignored.

This wrenching year has produced few heroes. But it has shown that some leadership styles match difficult moments.

Hardesty’s bluntness, for instance, has proven more apt for confronting police brutality than Mayor Ted Wheeler’s caution.

In her leadership, Smith has proven to be self-interested and problematic to work for or with.

She says she’s changed. “I’ve had my own struggles and challenges,” she wrote in her letter, “and it was not until I truly examined how I show up and the impact of how I show up, regardless of intention, was I able to start making changes that I hope make me a better person and community servant moving forward.”

Smith declined to explain those changes to us or to the audience that watches our taped endorsement interviews.

The only palpable shift we’ve seen from her in this election is to reverse some of the core beliefs she held just two years ago.

Ryan, by contrast, has a track record of overcoming adversity and building relationships. He would become the second openly LGBTQ+ commissioner to serve on the City Council and the first openly HIV-positive person to represent the city.

He has demonstrated an ability to gather people who disagree and assist them in reaching consensus. Those are qualities the city needs right now.

We endorse Dan Ryan.

ENDURING SKILLS FOR AN EVOLVING WORLD Earn your UO MBA here in Portland.

Lundquist College of Business—Portland business.uoregon.edu/executive-mba

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

11

NIKOLAI URSIN

NEWS riddled the law with exemptions, leaving it looking like a crumbling wedge of Swiss cheese.

Kessler says obtaining officers’ identities would serve the public’s interest.

“If every act of police violence is anonymous, individual violent officers can carry on with no concern for their professional reputation and no chance of being held accountable by those they harm,” Kessler says. “All oversight remains internal to the police department.”

The City Attorney’s Office rejected Kessler’s request July 8, saying he’d failed to comply with the requirements for disclosure laid out in statute.

Most notably, Oregon Revised Statutes 192.363 requires that in order to obtain identifying personnel numbers, the requestor must provide “the names of the individuals for whom personal information is sought.”

Kessler found that a circular argument: In order to get the officer’s names, he first had to supply the officers’ names.

In its response, the City Attorney’s Office noted that it’s not necessary to have an officer’s name to file a complaint against that officer.

“If Mr. Kessler thought he needed an officer name to report misconduct, the city wants to correct that misunderstanding,” senior deputy city attorney Jenifer Johnston wrote. “The city will accept the information available and investigate without an officer name.”

Not finding comfort in that reassurance, Kessler on July 9 appealed the city’s denial of his request to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office, which serves as referee in local public records disputes.

COVER-UP: A Portland police officer wears a number taped over her The Portland Police Association objected. “Officers name plate while patrolling protests along North Lombard Street. have been personally threatened, have had the safety of their families threatened, and have even been physically followed by individuals during demonstrations,” wrote the union’s attorney Anil Karia in a July 16 letter.

“Releasing that list will have very real and negative impacts on officer safety and officer privacy; so much so that those negative impacts override any proffered public interest or ‘need to know’ that [Kessler] may later assert.”

The DA’s office gave Kessler the same answer as the city: Unless he provided officers’ names, he could not

BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS njaquiss@week.com forms and helmets—because Kessler had not provided the obtain their personnel numbers—and thus their names.

District Attorney Rod Underhill sympathized with officers’ names.

Doug Brown doesn’t know who hit him.

Kessler says the secrecy is contrary to the public’s Kessler’s plight. “Frustration at being asked to do the On the night of June 12, Brown says, Portland police interest. impossible (or impractical) is understandable,” Underhill fired flash-bang grenades directly at him and then beat “The Portland Police Bureau is asking for complete wrote in his order rejecting Kessler’s appeal. But he said him with batons. trust from the public, with no accountability,” Kessler that Oregon courts had consistently upheld the law at Brown says he’s attended dozens of protests over the says. “Meanwhile, they are violating our trust by gassing issue—and suggested state legislators consider changing it. past four years, first as a reporter for The Portland Mer- and maiming demonstrators, journalists, and legal observ- “Given the gravity of the policy concerns presented here, cury and now as a staffer and legal observer for the Ameri- ers.” we would welcome judicial or legislative review of the can Civil Liberties Union of Oregon. He’s been beaten by statutory framework that leads to our conclusion today.” police before, he says, but the recent incidents added a In the nearly two months that police and protesters Kessler says a recent incident illustrates how the public novel twist: He had no way to identify the officers wielding have faced off on Portland streets, numerous incidents is harmed by that stance. the nightsticks.

On July 16, KATU reporter Dan McCarthy filmed a (including Brown’s beating) have been captured on video A new Portland police policy, first reported by The and raised questions about police tactics. The lawsuit the violent interaction between Portland police officers and a Oregonian, allows officers to identify themselves with ACLU filed on behalf of Brown and other journalists and cyclist whom police later identified to KATU as Brandon internal city personnel numbers taped to their uniforms observers—demanding that cops keep their hands off— Thomas. In the video McCarthy shot, an unidentified or helmets rather than wear name tags. “If I’m going to get now winds its way through federal court. officer appears to blindside Thomas, knocking him to the hit by the cops, I want to know who hit me,” says Brown, Meanwhile, Kessler says scrutiny is more difficult ground as he rides his bicycle past Lownsdale Square Park. who recalls officers wearing only handwritten numbers as since June 6, when the Portland Police Bureau initiated The Portland Police Bureau told KATU the matter ID. “Hiding who you are is a problem.” its new policy allowing officers to cover the name tags tra- would be referred to internal affairs.

The ACLU and other watchdogs say that policy pro- ditionally visible on their uniforms and instead identify Kessler says more transparency could stop such incivides a layer of anonymity that encourages bad police themselves with only a tag or piece of tape with an internal dents from happening in the first place. behavior. City officials take a different view: They say personnel number written on it.

“If the officer thought his name would be on TV and his activists have used and will use officers’ names to “doxx” It’s not a common practice nationally. Last month, for mother would see him throwing that cyclist to the ground, them—place their home addresses and other personal example, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot told reporters that he may have behaved differently,” Kessler says. “Because it information online. cops who covered their badges during protests “forfeited prevents accountability, anonymity makes it more likely One Portland lawyer had a plan to make it easier to their right to be Chicago police officers.” that police will act violently.” identify officers who commit misconduct during the Johnston, the senior deputy DA, sees it differently.

On June 17, Kessler filed a request under Oregon’s Pubprotests: He tried to use the state’s public records law to lic Records Law with the city of Portland seeking a list of “We want to be transparent, and we have both a moral match the badge numbers on officers’ chests with a list of those internal personnel numbers with the corresponding and legal obligation to keep our employees safe,” Johnston employee names. says. “The DA’s order represents his best attempt at balofficers’ names and badge numbers.

That effort ended in a Kafkaesque tangle of circular The basic premise of the public records law, passed in ancing those goals, and we’ll follow his guidance.” logic.

“Alan Kessler is one of the most experienced public 1973, is that any person has the right to inspect “any writOn July 17, the Multnomah County District Attorney’s ing that contains information relating to the conduct of records lawyer in Oregon,” Brown says. “If he can’t get Office rejected lawyer Alan Kessler’s appeal of a public the public’s business.” information about officers’ names, how does the average records request that was denied by the city for a list of Over the past five decades, however, lobbyists have person have any hope of holding police accountable?” the unique personnel numbers officers wear on their uni-

Look Up the Number

Police officers are hiding their names.

The only way to find out who they are: Tell the city their names.

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It’s Best Of time, in the worst of times.

The irony is not lost on us. An issue celebrating all the odd, awesome and inspirational stuff that makes Portland special couldn’t be more out of step with the current civic mood if the Cascadia subduction zone had opened up and swallowed the city whole.

Do we even need to explain? A pandemic is destroying lives and ravaging the local economy.

Police and protesters are clashing nightly, and now the feds have joined the fray. Plus, there’s a presidential election coming up, where the best-case scenario is a return to the status quo pre-Trump and the worst is another four years of…gestures broadly.

So, who’s ready to celebrate?!

To be fair, though, it’s not like everything in Portland was roses and homemade kombucha before, especially not in the last few years. If it wasn’t tear gas burning your eyes, it was wildfire smoke. If it wasn’t cops and demonstrators fighting downtown, it was opposing political factions. And if it wasn’t COVID-19 closing your favorite bar, it was a developer from California.

Even in the “best of times,” our Best of Portland issue has served as a brief respite from the chaos of the moment—the time each year when we pause even our own cynicism and remember what it was that drew us here and why we’ve never left. In that way, there might not be a better time for this issue to arrive than right now.

And, as it turns out, there is a lot to celebrate.

A city’s true colors show themselves in the darkest hours, and ours have been showing all over the place, whether it’s the artist designing protective bandannas for the houseless (page 29), the street magician giving socially distant performances outside apartment buildings (page 29), or the motherdaughter duo who’ve teamed up to fight racism with T-shirts (page 22).

Our annual Readers’ Poll (page 35) is itself an example of how this city steps up when the shit goes down: With small businesses in an unprecedented struggle for survival, thousands of voters poured onto our website to express support for the institutions that matter most to them.

And then, of course, there’s just the weird stuff— like the dude whose taxidermied dog became an internet sensation (page 20), or the couple who’s made it their mission to find loving homes for all the creepy toys of the world (page 21).

We should never forget the reasons why people are taking to the street every night, nor should we forget to wear a goddamn mask when we go out in public. But we should also remember that this, too, shall pass. And whenever it does, we’ll still have Portland—a city that’s at once playful and principled, ingenious and ridiculous, and unlike anywhere else.

—Matthew Singer, Arts & Culture Editor

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BEST OF PORTLAND 2020

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CONT. on page 16 Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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Best Balloon Artist When COVID-19 hit, the show could not go on for Kameron Messmer.

The 37-year-old magician, juggler, fire-eater and all-around children’s entertainer was at a loss. He moved to Portland from Billings, Mont., a little over a year ago. Before the pandemic, he was a regular at Portland Saturday Market, where he would tie balloon sculptures together for tips. He was starting to score birthday gigs and felt like he was finally making a name for himself.

“After the pandemic, my show was nonexistent,” he says. “Half of my show was funny because I was too close to the kids. I would just invade their personal space. So, I’m like, ‘There’s no way I can do a show now.’ For years, possibly.”

It wasn’t until he came across a Facebook post for a balloon enthusiast group that he figured out his next step. The post urged out-of-work balloon artists, like Messmer, to create a sculpture made entirely out of balloons. He had never done anything like it before, but thought it could be a good

Best Motion Offense

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Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

Koji Matsumoto remembers how nervous he felt at the start of the 2018 NBA postseason, and not necessarily because of the Trail Blazers’ playoff hopes. As the team’s motion graphics designer, he played a significant role in coming up with the brand new player introduction sequence, which required projecting animations onto a circular curtain at center court controlled by Bluetooth.

“That was horrifying,” he says, “because we didn’t know how it was going to work.” It ended up going smoothly, and the tech has become a staple of the Blazers’ postseason runs. Matsumoto, 30, has done a lot to establish the franchise’s visual aesthetic over the past five years. He has his hands in at least 60% of in-game graphics: If a player appears in front of a green screen, chances are he was involved. His chief skill is 3D modeling, which he’s used to create an animated version of mascot Blaze the Trail Cat and to tell the story of the time the team got stuck in an elevator in Boston. With the NBA season about to relaunch in Orlando, Matsumoto is faced with trying to be creative in an unprecedented situation. But he says it won’t really change how he operates. “I just try to produce the best work I can,” he says, “no matter the circumstance.” MATTHEW SINGER.

way to get rid of the hundreds of 8-year-old balloons sitting in his garage.

Using twine and fishing line, he crafted a colorful series of inflatable arches all in the front yard of his aunt’s house, where he lives, displaying the message, “Be safe, be kind.” He posted his creation on Reddit, and soon after, dozens of passersby, online and on foot, were inquiring about how they could get a sculpture in their own yards.

Since April, Messmer has been commissioned to craft garlands for drive-by graduations, rainbows and cupcakes for birthdays, and 6-foot-tall topiaries made from over 500 individual balloons.

The success he’s seen recently not only gives Messmer a sense of security, but the process of building such elaborate displays has proved to be meditative for him—an added bonus in the midst of so much uncertainty.

“I think there’s a lot of sadness in the world, there’s a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety,” he says. “It’s hard not to smile when you see a balloon.” MEIRA GEBEL.

Best Wine-Drinking Tea Spiller

BARIS EGE INAN

Chevonne Ball refuses to be typecast by the “rags to riches” story many want to apply to her as a Black woman business owner.

Sure, the Portland native certainly put in the work to develop Dirty Radish, her wine and hospitality education company, by herself. But it’s not the typical “clawing her way out of the ghetto” narrative many try to spin it as.

“I’m an Oregonian, and it’s weird to be in spaces with people who think I should be culturally Black in a certain way,” says Ball, age 40. “It doesn’t matter how many languages I speak or how many accolades I get. There are definitely a lot of people who still just see me as a dumb n—r.”

Ball started Dirty Radish back in 2017, after years of honing her craft while working at local fine-dining establishments like Le Pigeon. She has nurtured relationships with many of the wine industry’s key players, from the Willamette Valley to France, where she lived for a time, allowing her to provide top-flight accommodations for her patrons, whom she takes on tours of vineyards around the world.

As a certified sommelier and scholar of French wine, Ball definitely knows her stuff. But she’s no stranger to the stark lack of diversity in the wine industry.

That’s something she’s spoken on in her Tea Talks—conversations she has Instagram Live regarding racism and discrimination in her field, as well as the overall exhaustion of the moment.

One of her recent videos addressed vineyard internships and how they’re not really set up for Black people to participate in.

“How are they supposed to learn if they can’t house themselves or get to and from these spaces?” Ball asks. “You’re asking to have more Black people in the spaces, but you’re not creating a

Best Number Cruncher Aziz Inan has a way of finding the beauty in every day—or, at least, on a few select dates on the calendar.

As a professor of electrical engineering at University of Portland, Inan, 65, has always had an affinity for numbers, but his appreciation goes beyond their academic application. He sees them as a kind of art. And in his estimation, palindrome dates—dates that read the same forward and backward when written numerically— are worthy of the Louvre, if not Hogwarts.

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situation that works for them.”

She’s also candid about the homogeneity of many wine regions, recalling a time she visited one of her favorite Willamette Valley vineyards and found it was next door to a house brandishing a garage door-sized Confederate flag.

In many ways, Ball has come to see herself as an educator—about the culture surrounding wine, and the nuances of Blackness.

“Black people are just trying to humanize themselves—we’re trying to make people see that we’re human,” Ball says. “Black people have been raised to behave, because behaving in public spaces keeps you safe. It’s a survival skill—and I’m just trying to survive.” CERVANTÉ POPE.

“That symmetric aspect,” he says, “has its own magic power.”

He first felt that mystical force himself 10 years ago. He recognized that Jan. 2, 2010, would be only the second eight-digit palindrome in over 600 years. He’s since kept a running tab of palindrome dates on his website, and worked to keep the public informed whenever one is upcoming.

As a result, he’s become the national media’s go-to contact for palindromic content: When this year’s Super Bowl fell on Feb. 2, 2020—the only day this century that’s a palindrome in both American and European date systems—he received calls from The Washington Post, USA Today and National Public Radio.

His phone should be ringing quite a bit in 2021: It’s the last time we’ll see two palindrome dates—1/2/21 and 12/2/21—in the same year for another century.

Inan knows it doesn’t seem like a big deal. But the way he sees it, palindromes are an example of the small miracles obscured by the clutter of everyday life—and once revealed, they can open the door to seeing the world a little differently.

“If I tell my student, ‘Your birthday is going to be a palindrome date three years from now,’ I see that excitement on that student’s face,” he says. “You know how you throw a stone in the water, and those waves come out circularly?

That’s what I observe with this.” MATTHEW SINGER.

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Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

Best Support Group Bikers are known for being an intimidating bunch.

Sometimes that can be put to good use.

The nonprofit Bikers Against Child Abuse harnesses that badass reputation in support of a particularly vulnerable population: juvenile abuse victims. Testifying in court can be a traumatic experience for children, especially if they’re forced to face their assailant. The members of BACA volunteer to accompany them, to provide a boost of confidence and security.

“A lot of times, parents are either part of the case or a witness to the case, so they can’t be in the court with their children,” says DeVille, the mononymous president of BACA’s Mount Hood chapter. “That’s why, half the time, a child molester or abuser will get off, because [the child] is too scared to explain what happened. We go up in there, stand by [victims], and tell them, ‘It’s OK to do what you gotta do about your past.’”

DeVille founded the Mount Hood chapter, which serves the Portland metro area, in 2015. It’s now the largest in Oregon, with others covering the state’s rural and coastal areas. DeVille won’t dis-

close membership numbers but says the group has enough resources to meet the needs of Multnomah County and branch out when needed—in one extreme case, Mount Hood answered an Arizona chapter’s call for over 200 reinforcements to stand against Mafia threats.

Before the pandemic, BACA’s tough guys and bad babes would often hold a supportive biker rally at a child’s home, giving them a vest, road name, and two designated contacts they could reach out to as they went through court proceedings. In more difficult cases, bikers have kept watch outside the child’s home and paid for hotel and mental health services if necessary.

Though the coronavirus forced BACA to scale back its mission, the bikers are back on duty as courts reopen. DeVille says the county only recently started referring cases directly to them—a payoff of years of building trust with court workers.

“It takes a special person to do what we do,” DeVille says. “We don’t get paid for this. It’s a lot of work. But the payment is the smiles on these kids’ faces and the fact that they get to be kids again, and they don’t have to be afraid of the world in which they live anymore.” ANDREW JANKOWSKI.

Best Voice of Protest In the weeks following the coronavirus lockdown, Portland became a quiet place. But if you’ve been lucky enough to stroll past a downtown parking structure or the recessed entrance of a dry cleaner at just the right time, you might have been serenaded by a classically trained singer practicing arias from Italian operas.

“I walk from the West Hills all the way down to the Pearl District,” says Emmanuel Henreid, who goes by Onry, “and in that walk, I try to find different alcoves, different spaces that are resonant and have wonderful acoustics to imitate what it would sound like if I were in a concert hall or a large church.”

Since the traditional venues he performs in for companies like Portland Opera are still off limits, Onry—one of the region’s only Black, male opera singers—has been forced to search for unusual rehearsal spaces in order to keep his voice strong, and not bother his roommates.

Even if you’ve never stumbled across an alleyway or abandoned storefront where he happens to be performing, there’s a good chance you’ve still heard Onry sing. The tenor, who has trained as an understudy for all vocal types, went viral in June when he joined a Portland State University graduate in an unplanned duet of the national anthem, video of which made it onto ABC News.

Or perhaps you were among the thousands of protesters in Waterfront Park who witnessed his on-the-spot rendition of “Stand by Me,” combined with the African American spiritual “I’ve Been in the Storm So Long.” Though his limbs were trembling with nerves as he took the stage, by the end, thousands joined the chorus, many visibly weeping.

Such experiences have inspired Onry to make a short film and EP about the profound ways COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement have intersected. An opera singer— one who was told as a kid he didn’t have the voice for it—may seem an unlikely leader to emerge in the time of a virus that literally steals your breath. But the way Onry sees it, his singing career makes him perfect for the role.

“During quarantine, it’s been a special time, where I’ve kind of reclaimed my voice,” he says. “I’ve decided to find my own voice and share it with the world. It’s quite empowering, and I strive to empower others to find their voice during this process.” ANDI PREWITT.

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ily pet to a taxidermist in Colorado.

When the body returned to Byers’ family home in Portland, his first reaction was to laugh. But soon after, following a particularly gnarly breakup, the dog became Byers’ “copilot,” helping him process grief along life’s tumultuous roads.

She’s started to do the same for other people.

Byers first gained notoriety when he took Phoebe on a road trip with him in summer 2017. She was propped up in the front seat—like most dogs are when riding in cars—and Byers, conscious of the heat, posted a note on the car window: “Don’t worry, the dog is already dead. She’s taxidermied.

Please don’t break my window.” The photo was posted to Reddit and eventually made it to the site’s front page.

What started as a joke has now gained a cult following through Instagram (@mydeaddogandme). It’s also grown to encompass deeper meaning for Byers, who plans to keep Phoebe forever.

He considers her preserved frame to be a “conversation starter about death in family or death in family pets,” Byers says. “It’s a weird sort of thing to go through, and nobody talks about it really.”

In the last few years, Byers says he’s grown closer to Phoebe than he did even when she was alive. Lately, he’s taken her with him to parks around Portland, including Irving, Peninsula and the Bluffs.

On a recent trip, a woman approached him and accused him of “trying super-hard to be a weird Portlander.”

“And I just looked at her,” Byers says, “like, dude, I’m just fucking trying to sit in the sun and enjoy a beer.” TESS RISKI.

Best Boy and His Dead Dog

later, Aristophanes, or Ari to his handlers, has become one of the sanctuary’s longest and most beloved residents.

“He’s just an awesome bird,” says Sallinger. “He’s kind of like a very curious, adventurous 5-year-old.

He’s an incredibly intelligent bird.”

Ari’s cage sits near the Wildwood Trail at the top of Balch Canyon, where he can be found constantly exploring his surroundings and cooing to staff with a soft, almost humanoid call that sounds like he’s saying, “Hey.” Sometimes, wild ravens call to him from nearby trees. Audubon employees have to work constantly to keep Ari entertained, whether it’s by rearranging the perches in his cage or putting his food in boxes for him to open. But according to Sallinger, Ari is happiest when he can work with handlers outside his cage.

As cute as it sounds, Sallinger emphasizes that there is some sadness to the story of Aristophanes. “In an ideal world,” he says, “he would be free.” But since imprinting is irreversible, at least Ari is appreciated by his adoptive species.

“People love him,” says Sallinger. “That’s part of the message of Aristophanes—to help us keep wild animals wild, here’s what you can do. And he’s a great ambassador for that.” SHANNON GORMLEY. CHARLES KASTNER

Mitch Byers gets mixed reactions when he posts pictures of himself and his dog on dating apps. That’s probably because the dog is dead.

Even in repose, Phoebe, Byers’ stuffed brown-andwhite Jack Russell terrier, is pretty cute. Regardless, he refuses to use her as a pickup line.

“I’ll tip-toe in and out, but I try to draw the line of trying not to have my taxidermied dog help me get laid,” he says. “I try to draw the line of respect.”

Byers, 29, has had Phoebe for the past 10 years. For more than half that time, Phoebe has been deceased.

Back in 2013, Byers’ mother sent the departed fam-

Best Bird An employee of the Audubon Society of Portland since 1992, director of conservation Bob Sallinger always wanted a raven. Twelve years ago, his wish came true.

In 2008, a 3-week-old corvid that had been taken illegally from the wild was brought to the organization’s Forest Park wildlife sanctuary, which rehabilitates birds before re-releasing them. Audubon staff, including Sallinger, tried to introduce the hatchling to adult ravens who seemed willing to raise the avian infant. But the baby bird kept waddling back to sanctuary staff. He had imprinted on the humans, and couldn’t adapt to life outside the sanctuary.

Sallinger decided to name the raven Aristophanes, after the famous Greek playwright who wrote The Birds, one of Sallinger’s favorite pieces of literature. A decade 20

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Best Basketball Magazine When Ashtyn Butuso told her friends and family of her intent to start a basketball magazine, they were supportive but also curious.

Isn’t print dead? Who buys magazines anymore? Even her husband made jokes at her expense.

“When you see it and touch it,” she assured them, “you’ll understand.”

Published in February, the first issue of Flagrant indeed makes a strong case for the continued validity of physical media. Splashed with stunning photography and creative graphic design—the cover will make you wonder if Spalding makes cereal now—it’s effectively an art magazine filtered through the lens of sports. Seeing it up close, it’s hard to imagine it existing only on a screen. That’s intentional: The magazine’s semiofficial tagline is “Digital Is Dead.”

“It’s something that’s solid that’s going to be on your coffee table forever,” says Butuso, 29. “It’s timeless.”

That’s not to say the internet hasn’t been important in getting the publication off the ground, though. Butuso assembled Flagrant’s three-woman editorial team last summer via Twitter. (While she and art director Alex Haigh live in Portland, the other co-founders, Bethany Marrie Ito and Brazilia Morales, are in Oakland and New York, respectively.) Its marketing campaign was also social media-driven—a single tweet of endorsement from bestselling author Shea Serrano in June exploded sales, with orders from Germany, France, Argentina and Uruguay.

Although half its staff are devout Blazers fans, the magazine is nondenominational in its content—in fact, the NBA itself makes up only a small fraction of what it covers. As an all-female enterprise, part of the mission is to elevate the women in the game: Issue 1 includes a profile of L.A. Sparks guard Sidney Wiese and an essay by a 16-year-old writer arguing for the WNBA to bring a team to the Bay Area. More broadly, the goal of Flagrant is to showcase the breadth of basketball culture, beyond the pros or even the players: Another feature highlights the work of artist Jeremy John Kaplan to repair nets at pickup courts across the country.

“Eventually, we’d love to get NBA players and really famous WNBA players,” says Haigh. “For now, boosting the community that doesn’t get a lot of play and the spotlight is fine by us.” MATTHEW SINGER.

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Best Exorcists In a way, the woman got exactly what she asked for.

She had contacted Unsettling Toys—a year-old Portland business dedicated to removing creepy antiques from places they’re not wanted and reselling them to more appreciative owners—and requested to purchase its “most unsettling” item. Co-owner Sara Derrickson was happy to oblige her with an old-timey baby doll whose broken neck caused its head to perpetually flop over on its side.

Once the customer got it home, some strange, undisclosed phenomena took place. So she did what anyone in a horror movie about a possessed doll would do: She set it on fire.

“Many of our clients want our toys because they want it to have some sort of attachment,” says Derrickson, 39, “some sort of spiritual something.”

The rest of them? They just like being surrounded by spooky stuff.

Derrickson and her boyfriend, Brian Jillson, fall into the latter category. Jillson, a bartender at the A&L Tavern on Northeast Glisan Street, had joked about starting an adoption agency for disturbing ephemera in need of a forever home. So for his 50th birthday, Derrickson surprised him: She set up a website and social media channels, and made stickers and business cards.

It was mostly a goof. But it didn’t take long for the public to take it seriously.

“I think everyone has some sort of weird thing they grew up with that just unnerved them as a child,” Derrickson says. “We get all those.”

Indeed, most acquisitions are family heirlooms someone got sick of having stare at them from across the room. Others have more mysterious origins. One turned up in someone’s yard, and seemed to inch closer to the front door each day. Another—a ventriloquist’s dummy with a broken jaw—was gifted to them by a local cleaning company that found it sitting in an attic while on a job.

So far, Unsettling Toys has “rehomed” 70 objects, while dozens more wait in limbo in Jillson’s house in Northeast Portland. There’s Creeperton, a flat, furry piece of felt resembling demonic roadkill a friend found under her child’s bed. And Grace, a doll that went into a storage box clean and came out with bloodstains on its dress. Derrickson admits a few have creeped her out enough to move them down to the basement.

Early on, Jillson was willing to part with anything for the right price. As their collection has grown, though, it’s become increasingly hard to pry many of them away.

“I sort of love them all now,” he says. “They are all my children.”

MATTHEW SINGER.

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Best Threads On the Fourth of July, Stephanie Griffin caused a stir with embroidery.

Griffin, who sells her work online and at art markets as Siren’s Song Stitchery, reposted an embroidered hoop that she made a few years ago on Instagram and Facebook—an outline of the United States stitched in black and filled with the phrase, “No one is illegal on stolen land.”

One commenter took particular issue with Griffin “bringing politics” into stitching.

“I just found it really interesting because of this idea that fiber arts or stitching isn’t political or isn’t radical or isn’t resistance,” says Griffin. “I know that history. So many people are like, ‘It’s just a cute thing.’”

Despite its recent popularity as a twee Instagram trend or its association with Jane Austen characters, embroidery has a long, cross-continental history, from maps of the Underground Railroad that enslaved people would sew into their clothes to Ukrainian ritual cloths and the intricate floral designs of Zapotec embroidery.

“Fiber arts and working with fabric is literally a human tradition,” says Griffin, who is Black.

“The idea that now, in 2020, these communities are so white-centered kind of blows my mind.”

Sure, many of Siren’s Song Stitchery’s bestsellers are intentionally political—tangerine floral fabric embroidered with “Seek peace, but be ready to go to war” or “Please fuck off, thank you” in swirling cursive that was recently reposted in response to the deployment of federal officers in Portland. But she’s just as likely to stitch Pacific Northwest scenery, flying saucers, or odes to coffee.

And despite naysayers in comment sections, Griffin’s work clearly has resonance. Last summer, the Hulu series Shrill cold-called Griffin and used three of her pieces for a Season 2 set— including the “No one is illegal on stolen land” hoop.

“I wanted my art to be really, really me and reflective of all of me,” Griffin says. “Everything from pretty florals to curse words, to jokes or TV references, to radical quotes from radical Black women to historical stuff, to quotes from Dracula and Edgar Allan Poe—a full range of all the things that I am.” SHANNON GORMLEY.

BRIAN FOULKES

last year, Turner and D’Agostino have worked with other local artists to showcase their work in unexpected locations around the city, from a silo in the Eastside Industrial District to the Asian Pacific American Network of Oregon on Southeast Division Street.

Mobile Projection Unit has often presented works that comment on issues like gentrification. But during the racial injustice protests, it has taken on added meaning. This MOBILE PROJECTION UNIT’S summer, the group has screened SCREENING OF DISCLOSURE WITH SNACK BLOC films at gatherings organized by protest support group Snack Bloc, and projected Arresting Power, a Best A/V Club short documentary about police brutality in Sarah Turner knew she couldn’t keep her guer- Portland, under the Burnside Bridge. On July 1, MPU hosted Been Here, a drive-in screening rilla screening project for herself.

“Once you gain access to these tools, it’s kind curated by new-media artist Ariella Tai, which of irresponsible to hover over them yourself,” was essentially a mini film festival showcasing says Turner, who co-founded Mobile Projec- works by local Black artists. tion Unit last year with Nanda D’Agostino, Those recent screenings are the purest using portable audio-visual equipment to proj- expression yet of the communal experience that ect video art around Portland. “I’m not going to the duo initially set out to achieve.

“It creates a special feeling among people,” use my projector every day for my artwork, so I D’Agostino says. “I guess that’s what I think we might as well open it up to other people.”

Since Mobile Projection Unit was founded hope we’re doing.” SHANNON GORMLEY. 22

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Best Protest Gear Many striking images have come out of the recent wave of Black Lives Matter protests, but one in particular produces a lump in Kamelah Adams’ throat.

The photo shows a sea of black-clad demonstrators marching shoulder to shoulder across one of Portland’s bridges. A man stands at the front, linking arms with two women on either side of him. It’s the message emblazoned on his top that stands out most: “Make Racism Wrong Again.”

It resonates deeply with Adams for two reasons. First, her teenage daughter was one of the people he fastened elbows with. And second, Adams made the shirt.

“It just brought tears to my eyes,” says Adams. “It was beautiful because he didn’t know that he was next to my daughter and he was wearing my shirt.”

In the past two months, many advocates for police reform and racial justice have turned to Adams’ business, Mimi’s Fresh Tees, in order to use their torsos to make a statement, whether it’s “ Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History” to “Racism Is the Pandemic.”

Adams, who has over 10 years of

experience as a visual merchandiser for a Portland retailer, first fused her love of graphic design with social activism in 2018. After witnessing racial disparity and implicit bias at her son’s school, she felt moved to create a shirt that read, “Black History Didn’t Start With Slavery.” She did another custom creation that spoke out against gun violence for the March for Our Lives that same year.

Those initial projects encouraged her to launch a full-fledged business, which has taken off in the past several months, with her shirts becoming ubiquitous at local demonstrations.

“I really want people to make a statement by saying, ‘Make Racism Wrong Again’ or ‘Unity’ or ‘Be Kind,’” she says. “I want people to use my shirts as a billboard for the message they want to get across and start a conversation.” ANDI PREWITT.

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BEST SIGHTS (AND SITES)

Best Blazers Memorabilia Collection As a 10-year-old boy in Hazel Dell, Wash., Steve Davies sent letters to all the sports teams he could think of, asking for collectibles. It was 1970, and the newly founded Portland Trail Blazers sent him a pinwheel sticker.

It was the start of a lifelong quest.

Most kids collect sports cards. At some point, they stop. Davies never did. He collected Blazers memorabilia—programs, posters and schedules— by the tens of thousands. The items now fill a guest room in his Washington home. At one point, he estimates he owned 300 game-worn Blazer jerseys.“Well, nobody else was buying them!”

Davies says. “Somebody had to save this stuff.”

Davies, now 60 and retired from working in the service department of a car dealership, has become the proprietor of what is surely the world’s largest collection of Blazers knickknacks, curios and rarities. He has a copy of Maurice Lucas’ 1977 championship ring. (“It was too large for his son’s hand, but it fit me.”) He has the

promotional sheets that KPTV salesmen used to hawk local game broadcasts to potential advertisers. He has a wooden desk clock that once belonged to Harry Glickman, the team founder who died earlier this year. He has a poster of a California Raisin dunking to celebrate the team’s 1990 NBA Finals appearance. It hangs in his hallway, signed by the late claymation king Will Vinton.

He has so much stuff that he spends much of his time selling it, via his social media accounts. (He’s @ blazercollector on Twitter.) In 2009, the Trail Blazers celebrated their 40th anniversary. So they approached Davies. “We’re looking at setting up an area with our history,” he recalls team officials saying, “and you apparently own all of it.” He agreed to sell the franchise some of his most valuable pieces.

In return, the Blazers threw in one more gift: an official jersey with his name on the back and the number 70, because that’s the year he started following the team. Only Glickman, announcer Bill Schonely, and statistician Chuck Charnquist share that honor.

“That’s it,” Davies says. “That’s the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.” AARON MESH.

Best Dam Facebook Page In the name-brand power rankings of federal government agencies, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers falls somewhere between the Wage and Hour Division and Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The maintenance of the city’s dams and waterways isn’t exactly thrilling to the general populace. The team responsible for the agency’s social media is well aware of this.

“We’re a government agency, and we’re not even a fun government agency, like the National Park Service,” says Christopher Gaylord, who manages the Facebook page for the agency’s Portland district.

It is perhaps that insecurity that causes Gaylord to get a bit…creative from time to time. In between innocuous updates on the Bonneville Dam and the proper way to wear a life jacket, the posts get more eccentric.

For National Doughnut Day, the district’s mechanical engineers posted thorough reviews of the design structures of pastries. After video of penguins wandering around the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago went viral, they proposed taking Herman, the sturgeon that lives in the nearby Bonneville Hatchery, on a tour of the dam—and photoshopped an image of what that might look like.

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Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

In late March, as the isolation jitters began to set in, the Corps of Engineers published a brief Q&A with the Bonneville visitor center’s “Area Closed” sign, asking how it might be feeling about standing guard on its lonesome.

“My presence serves the purpose of denying others a presence,” the sign said. “I guess it’s my cross to bear.”

“Humor is a gateway to a message,” says Gaylord. “Yeah, we’re a government agency, and we need to take ourselves seriously. But we’re playing in a space where people are mostly going to see memes.” SCOUT BROBST.

BEST SIGHTS (AND SITES)

Best Budtender

Best Urban Landscaper

Some paint trees. Others smoke them. At Pearl District dispensary Virtue Supply Company, that wordplay is woven into the décor, where stunning decorative wood slices serve as displays for all the other shrubbery. The buds themselves—one of each available strain—are stuck vertically onto pins, spread out beneath the expansive glass countertop resembling a tiny arboretum. Many comments have been made about “happy little trees,” and then one customer noted how the case looked like a model train set. The staff decided to lean into it, perusing Lego sets until they found the ultimate tree-hugger: Bob Ross. Now, anyone inquiring about flower discounts can just look for the mini, Afro-and-palette-sporting artiste—whichever bud he’s currently painting is the one on sale that day. Happy little trees indeed. LAUREN YOSHIKO.

Schuyler Telleen keeps Portland trashed.

The television version of Portland, anyway. As the go-to production designer for locally filmed projects that include Shrill, Trinkets and the late American Vandal, Telleen, 39, spends the hours before filming sprinkling the set with what he calls “aesthetic litter”—little knickknacks to convince viewers what they’re watching is a genuinely unkempt life in progress.

“I’m a left-handed dyslexic. I like things to be messy because my life is messy,” he laughs. “If you can make things so cluttered that people forget they’re watching a story, that’s my goal.”

After serving as a graphic designer for Veep and Parks and Recreation and art department coordinator on Mad Men, the Boulder, Colo., native’s career truly took off during his stint helming the latter years of Portlandia, for which he won two Emmy Awards in the Outstanding Production Design category. Though he bristles at charges that the show is to blame for our cityscape’s uglier additions—“these hideous buildings were being built when I moved here,” he says—that sense of an ever-changing environment does inform the worlds he’s shaped for each of his ongoing series.

The foursquare inhabited by Aidy Bryant’s Annie on Shrill—and precisely re-created “down to the nails” on a Clackamas soundstage—has slowly seen the surrounding furnishing and artwork spiral upward in tandem with the character’s blossoming personal and professional life. And on Trinkets, the evolving sets echo its heroine’s journey from the mundanity of Lake Oswego toward urban disarray, centered on a manufactured music venue called the Tiger Club.

“For me, Portland is and always will be a very layered environment,” says Telleen. “We are messy and we are visceral and we are wonderfully true and honest to ourselves. People are the treasure of the city, and having them available as intimate partners for creative endeavors, you really see that on the screen in every frame.”

JAY HORTON.

Best Sandwich Boarder Best Bar That’s Definitely Not a Strip Club A few years ago, Kevin Welch, a bartender at The Sextant Bar & Galley, thought he’d have some fun with the sign out front. “Disappointing People Who Think We Are a Strip Club for 45 Years,” he wrote on the marquee, which beckons drivers along Northeast Marine Drive. It seems like an obvious joke, playing off the idea that, at a glance, the name of the bar appears to be “The Sex Tent.” According to Welch, though, it’s funny because it’s true. “That happens all the time,” he says.

“A while back we had some gals come in wanting to know what they had to do to audition.” The sign earned the Sextant—which, in actuality, is named after a piece of nautical equipment—a nod to Tosh 2.0, and regulars still bring it up. But it wasn’t Welch’s first attempt at using humor to attract customers: He’s been the bar’s de facto copywriter for four years, switching out the messaging on the sign every few weeks, even while the bar was shut down due to the coronavirus. Here are a few examples of his handiwork. MATTHEW SINGER.

As an itinerant master of the air brush, Matt Stanger has lent his steady hand and four-color sensibilities to an array of Portland canvases over the years. He has painted full-body cobwebs on dancers at Devil’s Point and created soccer-themed interior murals for 24th & Meatballs, and splash-painted the windows of Belmont boutique Naked City. Last year, he designed midway backdrops for Oaks Park, a gig he landed after higher-ups spotted his signature Creature from the Black Lagoon-themed van in traffic. But his most visible work are his sandwich boards— sidewalk-spanning placards illustrating some of the city’s most resonant civic brands. He’s given the tiki treatment to the Alibi Lounge to classic indie panache to Jackpot Records and the Vern. His personal favorite? The schnozzled pink elephant repping Foster-Powell dive bar Lay-Low. It wasn’t his idea, but he managed to convey the best possible interpretation of ownership intent with wit and character to spare. “Commercial art bums some people out,” he says, “but having them tell me what they want takes a little bit of the edge off. I like the challenge of turning someone’s dumb idea into something cool. Or, you know, the opposite.” JAY HORTON.

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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Best Neuroscientist Who Is Also a DJ According to Holly Hinson, the art of music and the science of the brain are not so different from each other.

There’s plenty of research to back up that idea. But as a neurologist who moonlights as a DJ, Hinson understands the connections better than most.

She’s been nourishing her dual interests

since her high school days as a self-proclaimed “goth kid” excited by abnormal psychology. The lightning bolt moment came during a summer program for talented seniors that focused on neuroscience.

“I saw a dissection of a spinal cord that had all the peripheral nerves intact,” says Hinson, 41.

“I remember thinking it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen in my life.”

Career goals set, Hinson pursued a dual path when she walked onto the campus of Rice University in Houston. Before she’d even unpacked her bags, she applied for airtime on the college’s radio station KTRU. She DJed all four years and served as both music director and program director.

The musical side of her life was dormant by the time she arrived in Portland to join the faculty at Oregon Health & Science University. But she gets her kicks in where she can on community radio station XRAY.fm, where she subs on Tex Clark’s popular Circa Rad show, and spinning post-punk in bars under the moniker DJ Robot.

Not that Hinson has much time to DJ. Alongside her teaching schedule and work in OHSU’s neurosciences ICU, she runs a research lab that works to create better treatment standards for traumatic brain injuries and help prepare doctors to treat LGBTQ+ patients.

When those fleeting chances to get behind the decks arrive, though, Hinson makes sure to grab them.

“Nurturing that makes my science so much better,” she says. “Having an outlet for my creative interests makes me a better doctor, and a better human being.” ROBERT HAM.

COURTESY OF ILLUMIN RECORDS

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Best Re-Gifting Singer-songwriter Jessa Graves put the children of the world on notice this year.

While most kids show up for Mother’s Day bearing roadside flowers and a hastily signed Hallmark card, Graves, 31, gifted her mom a whole damn record label.

To be fair, the label, Illumin R e c o r d s , already belonged to Graves’ mom, Annie. She started it in the ’90s as a means to release her Christian pop recordings. As the elder Graves’ artistic ambitions went dormant, so too did her indie imprint—a turn of events that never sat right with her daughter.

So much so that, as Jessa was preparing the gloriously spiky, confessional rock that would make up her forthcoming EP, Deathbed, she had a late night epiphany.

“I actually hit my head on my lap because of how abruptly I woke up,” she says. “I needed to restart this label, I needed to do it now, and I wanted to surprise my mom with it.”

After doing a lot of research that

Best Nature Podcast

Best Music Critic-Turned-Judge If the name Judge Cheryl Albrecht sounds familiar, it’s either because you’ve had the misfortune of appearing before her in Multnomah County Circuit Court or you follow the news: She recently sentenced MAX train killer Jeremy Christian to life in prison. Thirty years ago, though, Albrecht, 55, worked as a judge of a different kind: rock critic. As the entertainment editor at Louisiana State University’s student newspaper, she wrote up Soul Asylum and Bad Brains concerts, and conducted “a really kind of embarrassing interview” with industrial icons Skinny Puppy. (She also has a story about getting hit on by Henry Rollins at a Black Flag show in the ’80s.) A stint as the editorial assistant at Los 26

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

Angeles underground music magazine Option—a credit that appeared in a Multnomah County voters’ pamphlet—led to a hard-news gig at The Daily Advertiser in Lafayette before she moved to Oregon to attend law school at Lewis & Clark College. Since becoming chief criminal judge in 2018, Albrecht doesn’t get out to shows like she used to, but she’s still a big fan. “I just love noisy music and small clubs with a local flavor,” she says. Gaytheist is a favorite local band, and she laments the loss of Club 21 and East End, while her current preferred spot is the Kenton Club, where fellow regulars know her as “Judge Cheryl.” Has she ever run into someone at the bar who she’s seen in her courtroom? “Oh yeah,” she says. “That has happened.” JASON COHEN.

Paul North wants everyone to be as excited about plankton as he is. The National Geographic Society polar expedition diver knows that whipping up enthusiasm for the microscopic drifters of the sea isn’t easy.

But showmanship goes a long way.

On his podcast, Meet the Ocean, North, who once ran his own theater company, uses creative sound design and his own storytelling prowess to discuss everything from the critically endangered vaquita to the Marianas Trench. He considers all of it important, but he knows that talking about the role phytoplankton play in providing oxygen to the atmosphere is not as instantly attention-grabbing as killer whales. That’s where the bells and whistles—and the kazoo-like hoot of a narwhal— come in. “That sort of brings people

involved sneakily interviewing her mom about her experiences running the label, Jessa dropped the first new release on Illumin in nearly 30 years: her own single, “Lo the Mourning,” a jagged breakup song that spits and sputters like an angry combustion engine.

Unlike her mother, Jessa isn’t just looking at Illumin as an outlet for her own sounds. Working with the organization Women That Rock, the label will also be releasing new music from a pair of rising female-led groups: Texas garage-meets-dream pop ensemble Van Mary and L.A.’s glammy Egg Drop Soup. Illumin is also co-sponsoring an upcoming livestream event called Listen to Woxmen to showcase three women and nonbinary artists from the Pacific Northwest.

“I want to help women and gender-nonconforming folks put music out into the world,” Jessa says.

“There are so many talented people out there that deserve to be heard, and I want to help them get there.”

ROBERT HAM.

there,” says North, who produces the show from his basement in Southeast Portland. “I think if their mind is suddenly in the Arctic and they feel it, they hear it, their imagination takes hold, and that opens up the channel for them to receive the information a little better.” It seems to be working: Meet the Ocean has racked up more than 35,000 downloads in 45 countries since launching in November 2016. North, who also runs a nonprofit of the same name, knows there’s a lot going on in the world right now, but he hopes the health of the planet doesn’t get lost in the fray. With his particular set of skills, though, he believes he’s well-suited to keeping it in the conversation. “I don’t know any other playwrights who are fascinated with plankton and have a microphone,” he says. ANDI PREWITT.

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Best Boy and His Death Dogs Michael Manning has a dream.

It’s to one day serve hot dogs out the back of an old hearse.

He’s halfway there. In its finished form, when you visit Death Dog Hot Dog, a casket rolls out of the hearse to reveal bratwursts and sausages in boiling purgatory, ready for toppings and sesame buns. Time, money and COVID-19 have so far kept Manning from fully realizing the business—but at least he’s already got the hearse. It’s possible you’ve seen it driving down Burnside or around Salem, where Manning, 47, currently resides. It’s easy to identify: It’s the hearse with a 6-foot-long hot dog affixed to the top.

The vision for Death Dog came to Manning 12 years ago in Richmond, Va., at GWARbar—yes, a bar owned by the shock-rock metal band Gwar—when he ordered a Turd Dunkin: a housemade turkey duck confit sausage.

“If they’re willing to have that on their menu,” he says, “and I’m willing to order it because of the absurdity of it, I realized I should go ahead with my food cart idea.”

The Death Dog name comes from a big box store where Manning works. The store sells hot dogs for an

Plenty of labels have made their names among music obsessives by sifting through the stacks at flea markets and record shops and rescuing unheralded gems from the past.

None of them, though, digs quite as deep as Jed Bindeman.

Through the two labels he helps operate— Freedom to Spend, which he runs with Pete Swanson and Matt Werth, and Concentric Circles—the musician and co-owner of Little Axe Records in Northeast Portland has unearthed obscurities that aren’t just rare but practically unheard of.

Take, for instance, Carola Baer, a dream-pop artist whose work he discovered when his girlfriend found a cassette at the Goodwill Bins.

“She’s British but lived in San Francisco in the early ’90s and gave one-off tapes that she’d recorded in her apartment to prospective musical collaborators,” he says of Baer. “She only made one copy of that tape, which, if it had met its final destination of the dump, would have never been heard again.”

The latest Concentric Circles release, Jack Briece’s Heterophonious Fool, is equally esoteric. Self-released by the late composer in a run of 50 cassettes, the album’s pingponging rhythms and synth trills often sound like a lost Aphex Twin demo. Bindeman bought the tape as part of a large collection some years ago and was an instant convert.

With Freedom to Spend, Bindeman oversaw the repressing of Neighborhoods, a 1975 private press album by KBOO co-founder and musician Ernest Hood that presaged modern ambient by blending modular synth, zither and field recordings. It’s Bindeman’s most successful reclamation project yet: Pitchfork gave the record a coveted Best New Reissue designation, calling it “an album that kindles a sensation not unlike watching home videos of your own childhood.”

“There is a specific idea to release albums that people aren’t necessarily waiting around for,” Bindeman says. “It makes the entire label a really fun endeavor for me, as I’ve always been someone who enjoys turning people on to music they may not have known about previously.” ROBERT HAM.

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Best Crate Digger

extremely cheap price, and over time staff started calling them “death dogs.” The concept of a grimly themed hot dog food cart swiftly followed.

At the moment, Manning is raising startup cash with a series of black Death Dog shirts—the logo was designed

by Norwegian horror film director Per-Ingvar Tomren— and other branded merchandise. Hearse sightings on Instagram and cool shirts are all Death Dog has on the menu right now. But it’s enough to keep Manning going.

“One of my shirts was worn by a friend who owns a vegan hot dog place in Kansas.” Manning says. “A customer came up and said, ‘I just moved here from Oregon and I recognize that car!’” SUZETTE SMITH.

Best Hidden Ice Cream Cart Fred Trice pokes his head over the fence separating his backyard from his family business as he spies a customer approaching.

“All right there, miss!” he hollers, briefly pausing his yard work. “I’ll be opening up soon enough!”

Trice and his wife, Patricia, are the proprietors of A Scoop of Heaven, an ice cream shop run out of the sunshine-yellow trailer that sits next to the U.S. Bank branch in the alley behind their house. The couple has served hand-scooped Tillamook ice cream cones to the King neighborhood since 2007, originally under the name Nana’s Ice Cream Shop—that is, to anyone in the neighborhood who knows how to find them.

As the current name suggests, A Scoop of Heaven’s

origin story has hints of the divine. Patricia Trice recalls having “visions about opening an ice cream shop,” which she interpreted as signs from above. She convinced her husband, and they converted their detached single-car garage into a walk-up window.

Despite its odd location—and bureaucratic wrangling with the city of Portland that forced them to close for a spell in 2013—during peak ice cream season, a steady stream of customers trickles through the otherwise pedestrian-unfriendly alley, blissfully taking their first licks while dodging the sedans navigating the bank’s cramped parking lot.

Because they’re both at high risk for COVID-19, the Trices have not been able to operate their normal hours during the pandemic. But both remain upbeat. When I tell her I can’t wait to visit again, Patricia Trice sighs tenderly and chuckles: “Me, too!” BRIANNA WHEELER. Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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BEST EATS A S H L E Y WA LT

cal food justice CSA focused on giving free and reduced-price produce to BIPOC Portlanders.

Though Chiddick had never worked in agriculture before, she turned out to be a perfect fit. She had gained practice connecting with communities through food at her family’s Caribbean restaurant in Washington, and her upbringing in Trinidad and Tobago also influenced her views on food justice.

“I grew up in a Third World country,” she says. “I know that poor people aren’t sad people, and they’re not poor in the way they feel life and the ways they want to help each other.”

Only a few months after Chiddick took over as co-operations manager KEISHA CHIDDICK, AKA BLOSSOM

Best Accidental Farmer Best Pizza Guy Some people have survived the pandemic by gorging themselves on pizza. Jerry Benedetto took a slightly different path: He’s spent quarantine making pizza, and leaves the gorging to friends and strangers—while raising money for nonprofits.

Benedetto, who moved into a townhouse in TK NEIGHBORHOOD about 18 months ago, says Portland is full of great pizza, but not the kind he grew up eating in Chicago.

He works for a cannabis edibles company now, after stints as a high school teacher and working in a brewery in Wisconsin. But what really makes him happy is trying to re-create the thin-crust, square-cut pies of his youth—what he considers true Chicago-style pizza.

“Deep dish is not something I grew up eating,” he says. “That’s not what we eat in Chicago.”

Benedetto worked in a pizzeria in high school, but it wasn’t until COVID-19 created unanticipated downtime for him that he started baking his own. At first, he couldn’t find yeast, so he tried premade dough from Trader Joe’s. But soon, he got the ingredients he needed.

He repurposed his grandmother’s pasta sauce recipe and started making his own sausage.

After Benedetto posted a few pictures on Instagram (@portlandpizzapeddler), people wanted to place orders. He’s filled about 300 so far—the most popular is the “Jerry Special” with bulk sausage, pepperoni, mushroom and a side of hot giardiniera.

But Benedetto says he’s not running a business.

“There are no financial transactions,” he says. “I don’t charge.”

Rather, if people make a donation, he deducts the cost of ingredients and sends the balance—about $450 so far—to two nonprofits: Mealsonuspdx and My Block, My Hood, My City in Chicago.

Benedetto might insist he is not running a business, but he’s not ruling out starting his own pizzeria in the future.

“I’ve had chefs tell me, ‘You need to do something with this,’” he says. “A business is going to happen.”

NIGEL JAQUISS.

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Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

Keisha Chiddick didn’t plan to become the co-owner of a farm. She just hoped to find some weed.

On a Saturday night last February, Chiddick, better known as Portland soul singer Blossom, was at Doug Fir to check out L.A. violinist Sudan Archives, whom she befriended at Pickathon last summer. While looking for cannabis for her fellow musician, Chiddick saw a stranger in the crowd who looked as if he could help.

“I saw Alex in the audience dancing like the hippie he is,” she says. “I don’t ever ask anybody for things like that, just because some people might be offended, but he looked like such a wholesome person.”

Not only did he have weed to share, Alex VanOutryve turned out to be the owner of Sanctuary Farms in Dallas, Ore., and happened to be looking for someone to run a radi-

with Andrea Celeste Macas, Sanctuary Farms now feeds about 100 Portlanders, only 35 of whom are paying CSA members. Along with the free and reduced-price produce boxes that Sanctuary gives out to BIPOC Portlanders each week, Sanctuary donates produce to other food justice organizations, including Crisis Kitchen.

Sanctuary is currently building a walk-up outpost in the Eastside Industrial District, and hopes to raise enough donations to hire more Black farmers and start educational programs. But for now, the weekly produce deliveries are the most fulfilling part of Chiddick’s work.

“I love to give gifts, and that is what it is,” she says. “You feel like you’re giving them a gift because of the way they react to it, and it’s such a natural and normal thing that people should have access to.” SHANNON GORMLEY.

BIIG GAL ENERGY’S CANDIS HERTZ (RIGHT) AND MADISON CASTELLANOS

Best Sea Moss Slingers Candis Hertz and Madison Castellanos always aspired to be their own bosses. Veganism helped make it happen.

The founders of plant-based meal-prep service Biig Gal Energy both grew up in rural Oregon, where a wellrounded meal always included an animal product. “Soon after leaving the dairy town I grew up in,” says Hertz, 30, “I realized that everything I learned was bullshit.” She’s been vegan ever since, and vocal about how the meat and dairy industries “contribute to the things that most of us don’t believe in,” the “us” being socially savvy millennials.

The pair’s friendship began with vegan education, when they met by chance in a neighborhood carpool. “Both of our plans fell through,” recalls Hertz. “So we went to a pumpkin patch, smoked a lot of weed, and Madison tried her first

vegan burger.”

“Which was fucking delicious,” adds Castellanos, 23, “and I’ve never looked back.”

A fast friendship gave rise, in 2019, to Biig Gal Energy. Hertz and Castellanos bet that if they could make eating vegan both look and taste better, their peers would see what they see. The duo preps and delivers 100 meals a week on average, with a rotating menu composed of personal favorites and stoned inventions promoted through their vibrant Instagram page—a wild explosion of ’90s color schemes, memes and photos of the pair in matching gym outfits.

And now, they have their own branded product: Moss Sauce, a wild-crafted Irish sea moss gel you can eat, blend into a smoothie, or use as a moisturizer at night.

A sort of super plant containing “92 of the 102 minerals in the body,” sea moss has emerged as the wellness ingredient á la mode, and Hertz and Castellanos swear by its effects. When they noticed no one was making it locally, the entrepreneurial wheels started turning. Two weeks and one bulk order of dried sea moss later, the first doodleladen jars of Moss Sauce were ready for order. They sold 150 in the first month.

“This is what BGE is about,” says Hertz. “Putting our motivation to grow our business into action in a way that helps others and the planet.” LAUREN YOSHIKO.

Best Bandannas

WESLEY LAPOINTE

C O U R T E S Y O F H O V E R S O V E R WAT E R

BEST PANDEMIC RESPONSE Art, it’s said, can save lives. Christopher DeGaetano interprets that literally.

At the start of the pandemic, DeGaetano’s Portland design firm, Hovers Over Water, partnered with Street Roots newspaper to launch The Art We Breathe, a philanthropic project aimed at providing vulnerable populations with protective face coverings. Artists around the world have contributed work, which is then printed onto premium-quality bandannas and put up for sale online. With each purchase, one is donated to a person experiencing houselessness.

The prints range from vibrant, multicolored designs to Black Lives Matter statement pieces. At 22 by 22 inches, the bandannas can also be used as a scarf or head wrap, or as wall art, giving them a shelf life beyond the current health crisis.

So far, the program has been able to donate about 50 bandannas to Portland’s houseless.

DeGaetano and his team spend a chunk of their time at the Street Roots office in Old Town, interacting with the community while they hand them out. DeGaetano says people light up when they see the art and feel the lightweight, breathable material.

“These people don’t have a lot for themselves,” he says, “but some people are literally trying to donate money to us for the bandannas we’re giving to them.” LATISHA JENSEN.

Best Socially Distant Magician

C O U R T E S Y O F WAV E C E L

plastic face shields.

“We talked to nurses to see what we could do,” Bottlang says. “We designed shields in two days.”

WaveCel donated the first 1,000 shields to Legacy, then priced the shields at cost. As bicycle helmet sales fell at the outset of the pandemic, the pivot helped keep the staff at the company’s Wilsonville factory employed. And as helmet sales have recovered, it’s added 15 new hires to fulfill orders.

WaveCel has now sold over 100,000 shields to medical facilities as far away as Texas, and has even expanded into serving other industries. The slightly larger and more expensive Loupe Shield is designed for dentists. And WaveCel is now manufacturing smaller shields for students to wear when returning to classrooms. As Bottlang notes, because they can see each other’s faces, students and teachers should be able to interact far more effectively than if wearing masks.

He speaks from experience—in the months since WaveCel started producing the shields, Bottlang has become as familiar with the product as any of his customers. Not long ago, he was wearing one at a small pizza party. He’d become so accustomed to his newfangled pandemic equipment that he slapped the piece of pie into the plastic shield instead of his mouth.

“That got a good laugh from the team,” Bottlang says.

RICHARD MEEKER.

Best Pivot to PPE Necessity is the mother of invention, but Michael Bottlang and Steven Madey were already plenty inventive, even before necessity came calling.

The two inventors—an engineer and orthopedist, respectively—founded Legacy Health’s Biomechanics Laboratory in 1999, and have come up with innovations like rib plating and a biomechanical sling. More recently, they developed a new technology for bicycle helmets called WaveCel, which is purported to greatly reduce the risk of brain trauma in an accident.

But when they learned their hospital was running short on personal protective equipment, the duo turned their focus to another form of safety gear: high-quality, clear

If you’re concerned about the ethics of being a traveling magician in the age of coronavirus, Spencer Sprocket has probably thought of it first.

“I’m always really weary that there’s going to be some naysayer saying, ‘It’s really dangerous, you shouldn’t be doing this,’” says the 32-year-old.

Before the onset of the pandemic, Sprocket made a living on close contact, performing at birthday parties, mixers and street shows, where the size of the crowd is a direct reflection of how well he’s managed to engage.

Now he roams the sidewalks, mostly at night to avoid foot traffic, pausing for only a few minutes at a time to juggle or perform a gag. The shows are designed to avoid drawing crowds—he never stands in one place long enough for groups to collect. And if kids still want a magician for their socially distant birthday party, he’ll adapt his set for a virtual performance.

The feedback so far has been uniformly positive.

Well, almost.

“There’s literally been one negative comment,” he says. “Someone posted it on Reddit and said that I was ‘sucking up the essential man’s air.’ I still don’t know if it was a joke or not.”

The first time he performed one of these street shows—what he now dubs his “sidewalk circuses”—the reactions began after the first half-block.

“It was at night and I have these LED clubs which are really bright,” Sprocket says. “I remember all I could hear was people applauding and cheering, but I couldn’t see anybody’s faces. It was strange and different.”

The best performances, though, take place in front of apartment complexes and assisted living centers, where the immunocompromised can watch from their windows or balconies with no risk of contact. Sprocket is lucky in that juggling, his first love, can be done almost anywhere.

“One guy actually said he had a really rough day and he rode his bike to get some clarity, and seeing me was some sort of sign that everything was going to be OK,” Sprocket says. “And I was like, ‘Are you working for Hallmark? What kind of comment is that?’ But it really does feel great to have such a positive impact on your community.” SCOUT BROBST. Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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Design-led Real Estate Broker Sophia Rosenberg 503.936.7499 @pdxinspired 30

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

Best (Fake) Coronavirus Party Danny DeVito stands 6 feet away from Mark Wahlberg. Six feet away from him is Dr. Anthony Fauci. And is that Fabio, adhering to proper social distancing while flouting the “no shirt, no service” rule? It’s not an ill-advised Hollywood mixer, but the line inside Pizza Schmizza’s downtown location on Southwest Montgomery Street. Reopening for Phase 1, the Portland pizza chain realized that if folks weren’t inclined to social distance out of

COURTESY OF MIKE BODGE

KAREN READ

BEST PANDEMIC RESPONSE

their own sense of self-preservation, they might stand apart if they were signaled to by a lifesize cardboard cutout of a celebrity—whether it’s Jeff Bridges as the Dude or America’s most highly visible immunologist. “It’s bringing some people in because they see it out of the corner of their eye and they’re like, ‘Wait, what was that?’” says store manager Christina George.

“It’s nice. We have some current celebrities and some throwbacks.

There’s a little bit of something for everybody.” SCOUT BROBST.

COURTESY OF THE DECEMBERISTS

Best Memes for the Moment

Best Awfulness Decemberists frontman Colin Meloy wrote the jaunty “Everything Is Awful” just after the 2016 presidential election. He would have preferred it had a shorter shelf life. “It reflected my feelings at the time,” he says. “Little did I know that it would only get worse.”

The track appeared on the band’s most recent album, 2018’s I’ll Be Your Girl, and attained another layer of meaning in 2020 given…well, everything. Meloy admits to feeling conflicted about the song, acknowledging that, as a cisgender white male, “everything is not as awful for me as it is for so many other communities.” Still: It’s a snappy phrase to put on a face mask.

The two-ply cotton mask—available for $12 on the band’s website—features a filter slot and is available in black, blue, charcoal or green, with a portion of the net profits going to the MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund, which assists musicians and music industry workers affected by the pandemic. “I felt a bit uncertain about appearing to take advantage of the crisis, even for a cause,” Meloy says. “But something about a mask made it more on the nose—and also lifesaving!” JASON COHEN.

For a lot of people, social media is the scourge of the Digital Age. For artist and technologist Mike Bodge, it’s where he finds inspiration.

“I have an IV drip of the internet into my arm at all times,” he says, laughing.

“The internet has gotten very serious over the last couple years, so a lot of my work is focused on bringing some of that joy back.”

Bodge, who lives in Northeast Portland, has capitalized on some of the most viral moments online, thanks in large part to the sheer amount of time he spends staring at screens. His “Straight Outta Somewhere” campaign in 2015—a meme where users can replace the word “Compton” with their own hometown—caught the eyes of Snoop Dogg and Barack Obama.

And remember fidget spinners? Bodge created a virtual one that racked up over 70 millions spins within two weeks.

Bodge, 38, has worked with companies like Google, Instagram, Verizon and the American Civil Liberties Union on projects all reflecting his personal style, which he describes as, “If you were in 1985 and were like, ‘Ooh, what does the future look like?’” Once a computer science major, Bodge dropped out to go to art school, and his work reflects that: Everything he touches with a mouse has splashes of

neon, while also being somewhat apocalyptic and sci-fi.

“I specialize in the sticky, pop culture kind of things that speak to the moment,” he said. “Brands come to me to figure out how to do cool things that would get attention.”

More recently, Bodge has adapted his work to the coronavirus era. His website Do Not Touch Your Face uses artificial intelligence to greet people with a stern “No!” anytime their hands hover near their head. He also had his hand in the making of the website Nurses Are Heroes, where quarantined loved ones can virtually shower red and blue ticker tape and create sharable GIFs to thank the nurses in their lives.

“It was an honor to do that work to celebrate the frontline workers, especially in a hard-hit city like New York,” Bodge says. “As a creative, it’s hard to know what you should be doing right now because you don’t want to take space unless it will be truly helpful.” MEIRA GEBEL.

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Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

We don’t need to tell you it’s been a rough year—for everyone, really, but local businesses in particular. Approaching this year’s New Seasons-sponsored Best of Portland Readers’ Poll, we had to consider that many nominees may longer be around by the time the polls closed. It’s brutal.

READERS’ POLL

But if there’s a silver lining to all this, it’s found right here.

Over three uncertain months, thousands of you stepped up to vote for your favorite For more information about our Readers’ Poll, or if you would like to be nominated next year, email bop@wweek.com.

restaurants, bars, nonprofits and other cultural institutions—the companies, places and organizations that make this city such a unique place to live—and show how much they matter to you.

Here, you’ll find the winners and finalists in each category. Indeed, some of them have been forced to close, or have not yet reopened, but we are proud to honor them here—because in Portland, small businesses aren’t just buildings or brands, but part of who we are.

PRESENTED BY

BEST OF PORTLAND READERS’ POLL - THE RESULTS!

ARTS, CULTURE & EVENTS Best Bike Event WINNER:

World Naked Bike Ride Second Place: Portland Sunday Parkways Runner Up: Pedalpalooza

Best Film Festival WINNER:

Portland International Film Festival Second Place: HUMP! Film Festival Runner Up: Portland Gay & Lesbian Film Festival

Best Performing Arts Center WINNER:

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

Best Theater Company

Best Dance Company

Best Music Festival

WINNER:

WINNER:

WINNER:

Portland Center Stage at The Armory Second Place: Northwest Children’s Theater and School Runner Up: Artists Repertory Theatre

Best Podcast WINNER:

Think Out Loud

Oregon Ballet Theatre Second Place: White Bird Runner Up: BodyVox

Best Summer Camp WINNER:

Second Place: Murder in the Rain

Rock ‘N’ Roll Camp For Girls

Runner Up: Broken Glass Podcast

Second Place: OMSI

Best Neighborhood Event WINNER:

Portland Farmers Market Second Place: Portland Saturday Market

Runner Up: Camp Namanu

WINNER:

Rock ‘N’ Roll Camp for Girls Second Place: School of Rock

Runner Up: Mississippi Street Fair

Runner Up: Ethos Music Center

Runner Up: Portland Center Stage at The Armory

Best Museum

Best Radio Station

Portland Art Museum Second Place: OMSI Runner Up: Rice Northwest Museum & Rocks and Minerals

WINNER:

Mike Bennett Art

Edgefield Concerts Second Place: Pickathon Runner Up: Waterfront Blues Festival

Best Outdoor Music Venue

WINNER: OPB Second Place: XRAY.fm Runner Up: KBOO

Second Place: Tristan TK Irving Runner Up: Stephanie Hatch

Best Movie Theater WINNER:

WINNER:

Hollywood Theatre

McMenamins Edgefield

Second Place: Living Room Theaters

Second Place: Oregon Zoo

Runner Up: Laurelhurst Theater

Runner Up: Cathedral Park

Best Garden WINNER:

Best Outdoor Best Music School Event

Second Place: Revolution Hall

WINNER:

Best Visual Artist

Portland Japanese Garden

WINNER:

Edgefield Concerts Second Place: Portland Pride Parade

Second Place: International Rose Test Garden

Runner Up: Swifts

Runner up: Peninsula Park Rose Garden

Best Runners Event

Best Art Gallery

WINNER:

WINNER:

The Oregon Brewery Running Series Second Place: Shamrock Run Runner Up: Portland Marathon

Portland Art Museum Second Place: Nucleus Portland Runner Up: Alberta Street Gallery

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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CANNABIS

THE RESULTS!

Best Vape Cartridge

Best Cannabis Farm

Best CannabisInfuse Product

WINNER:

WINNER:

WINNER: Wyld

Willamette Valley Alchemy Second Place: Pax Runner Up: Happy Cabbage Farms Rosin Carts

Best Topical WINNER:

Empower BodyCare Second Place: Luminous Botanicals DEW Sensual Oil Runner Up: High Desert Pure

Best Tincture WINNER:

Universal Cannabis Tonic, Luminous Botanicals Second Place: TJs on Powell

Meraki Gardens Second Place: East Fork Cultivars Runner Up: Yerba Buena

Best Vape Maker

WINNER: Frank’s

Bollywood Theater Second Place: Swagat

Second Place: XLB

Runner Up: The Sudra

Best Dab

Best Cidery

Runner Up: Duck House Chinese Restaurant

WINNER:

WINNER:

Second Place: Portland Cider Company

Runner Up: Dr. Jolly’s

Runner Up: 2 Towns Ciderhouse

Runner Up: Select Cannabis

Best Cannabis Strain WINNER:

GMO Cookies Second Place: Blue Dream Runner Up: Mt. Hood Magic Durban

WINNER:

Second Place: Emily Rios at TJs on Powell Runner Up: Andi at Home Grown Apothecary & Dispensary

Best Cannabis Delivery Service WINNER: Green Box

Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider

Best Food Cart WINNER:

Second Place: dutchie

The Whole Bowl

Runner Up: Rip City Delivery

Second Place: Matt’s BBQ Runner Up: GrindWitTryz

Best Edible Product

Best Donut

WINNER:

Wyld Gummies Second Place: Laurie + MaryJane Fudge Yourself Runner Up: Periodic edibles

WINNER:

Second Place: Blue Star Donuts

Runner Up: Doe Donuts

Best Head Shop (paraphernalia) WINNER:

WINNER:

Second Place: MellowMood Runner Up: House of Pipes

Best Vape Device/Product WINNER: Pax Second Place: The Puffco Peak Runner Up: Select Elite

Best Organic Selection

Best Burger WINNER:

Killer Burger Second Place: Bar Bar Runner Up: SuperDeluxe

Best Bagel WINNER:

Spielman Bagels Second Place: Henry Higgins Boiled Bagels Runner Up: Bernstein’s Bagels

Best Paleo Options

Pip’s Original DoughWINNER: nuts & Chai New Seasons Market

Best Mediterranean Restaurant

Mary Jane’s House Of Glass

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

Noodle House

Runner Up: PROTANICALS

Second Place: Bobsled Extracts

Stephen at MindRite

36

WINNER:

Second Place: Willamette Valley Alchemy

Pax Vaporizers

Best Dispensary

Runner Up: MindRite Dispensary

Best Chinese Restaurant

Happy Cabbage Farms

Best Budtender

Second Place: Electric Lettuce

Best Indian Restaurant

WINNER:

Runner Up: PROTANICALS

WINNER: Nectar

Second Place: Luminous Botanicals

FOOD, DRINK & RESTAURANTS

Nicholas Restaurant Lebanese and Mediterranean Cuisine

Second Place: Dick’s Kitchen Runner Up: Cultured Caveman

Best Thai Restaurant WINNER:

Paadee

Second Place: Thai Peacock

Second Place: Tusk

Runner Up: Kati Thai

Runner Up: AVIV

Best Mexican Restaurant

Best Vegetarian/ Vegan Restaurant WINNER: Harlow Second Place: The Whole Bowl Runner Up: AVIV

Best Distillery WINNER:

WINNER:

¿Por Qué No? Second Place: Los Gorditos Runner Up: Nuestra Cocina

Best Ice Cream

Wild Roots Spirits

WINNER: Salt & Straw

WINNER: MindRite

Second Place: Freeland Spirits

Runner Up: Fifty Licks

Second Place: Serra Runner Up: Farma

Runner Up: Eastside Distilling

Second Place: Ruby Jewel

ME.RA.KI. /MEH - RAH - KEY/ The soul, creativity, and passion used to cultivate our flower, to leave a piece of ourselves in our work.

Meraki Gardens is female owned and family operated indoor cannabis garden. We are dedicated to cultivating the highest quality flower just for you.

Thank you for voting us Best Cannabis Farm 2020.

6 HALF GRAM PREROLL PACKS

PREMIUM KIEF CANNABIS CONCENTRATE

Kosher Certified

HALF GRAM & FULL GRAM PREROLLS

Sustainable Nutrients & Growing Practices

NEW FLOWER STRAINS EVERY MONTH

Follow us on Instagram @merakigardens Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

BEST OF PORTLAND READERS’ POLL - THE RESULTS!

FOOD, DRINK & RESTAURANTS Best Gluten-Free Restaurant WINNER: Harlow Second Place: Back to Eden Bakery Runner Up: Petunia’s Pies & Pastries

Best Brewery

Best FamilyFriendly Restaurant

Best Chocolatier

WINNER:

Second Place: Missionary Chocolate

Fire on the Mountain Buffalo Wings Second Place: Laughing Planet

WINNER:

Runner Up: Hopworks Urban Brewery

Second Place: Great Notion

Best Vietnamese Restaurant

Runner Up: Modern Times Beer

WINNER: Luc Lac

Best Sandwich Shop

Second Place: Pho Van

WINNER: Lardo

Breakside Brewery

Second Place: Bunk Sandwich Runner Up: East Side Deli

Best Bakery WINNER:

Grand Central Bakery Second Place: Ken’s Artisan Bakery Runner Up: Back to Eden Bakery

Best Ramen WINNER: AFURI Second Place: Marukin Ramen Runner Up: Boxer Ramen

Best Smoothie/ Juice Bar

WINNER: Moonstruck

Chocolate

Runner Up: Woodblock Chocolate

Best Hot Sauce WINNER: Secret

Aardvark

Second Place: Fire on the Mountain Buffalo Wings

WINNER:

Nossa Familia Coffee Second Place: Coava Coffee Roasters

Best Sausage

WINNER: Luc Lac

WINNER:

WINNER:

Olympia Provisions Second Place: Otto’s Sausage Kitchen & Meat Market Runner Up: Edelweiss Sausage & Delicatessen

Best Kombucha WINNER: SOMA

Vietnamese Kitchen

Second Place: Le Bistro Montage

Petite Provence Boulangerie & Patisserie

Runner Up: Bye and Bye

Second Place: Le Pigeon

Best Barbecue

Best Pizza

Second Place: Podnah’s Pit

WINNER: Sizzle Pie

Kombucha and Jun

Runner Up: Homegrown Smoker

Second Place: Brew Dr. Kombucha

Best Brunch Spot

Runner Up: Happy Mountain Kombucha

WINNER:

Best Catering Service WINNER: Elephants

Delicatessen

Second Place: Kee’s #Loaded Kitchen

Jam on Hawthorne Second Place: Tin Shed

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– Tami

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Stay strong!”

- Audreann

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Runner Up: Canard

WINNER: Matt’s BBQ

Second Place: Apizza Scholls Runner Up: Escape from New York

Best Tea Shop WINNER: Tea Chai Té

Runner Up: Sweedeedee

Second Place: Townshend’s

Best Pie Shop

Runner Up: Smith Teamaker

GET DAILY UPDATES ON HOW CORONAVIRUS IS AFFECTING PORTLAND

WINNER:

Lauretta Jean’s

Runner Up: Moberi

WINNER:

Runner Up: Fire on the Mountain Buffalo Wings

Best Coffee

Best French Restaurant

Best Sushi

Second Place: Nostrana

Runner Up: Bete-Lukas

Best Late-Night Menu

Second Place: Canteen

WINNER: Eem

Second Place: Enat Kitchen

Runner Up: Pok Pok

Vietnamese Kitchen

Runner Up: Petunia’s Pies & Pastries

Best Restaurant

Queen of Sheba

Runner Up: Stumptown Coffee Roaster

Runner Up: Vibrant Table

Kure Juice Bar

“Thank you for being a trustworthy local news source in this time of uncertainty.

We rely on you!”

– Vicki

WINNER:

Runner Up: Hot Mama Salsa

Second Place: Random Order Pie Bar

WINNER:

Best Ethiopian Restaurant

Bamboo Sushi

Best Winery

Second Place: Rollin’ Fresh

WINNER: Willamette

Valley Vineyards

Runner Up: Yama Sushi

Second Place: Stoller Runner Up: Sokol Blosser Winery

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Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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THE RESULTS!

SHOPS & SERVICES Best Leather Maker

Best Real Estate Agent

Best Home Goods Store

WINNER: Portland

WINNER: Laura Wood

WINNER:

Leather Goods

BOOZE THRU O P E N 12  6 D A I L Y + LOCAL DELIVERY Spirits, local mixers, cocktail kits & more–Ready for you to enjoy at home!

Second Place: Langlitz Leathers Runner Up: Will Leather Goods

Best Florist WINNER:

Sammy’s Flowers Second Place: Solabee Flowers & Botanicals Runner Up: Coy & Co.

Best Running Store WINNER:

Portland Running & Walking Co Second Place: Foot Traffic Runner Up: Fleet Feet PDX

Best Pet Supply Store WINNER:

Pets on Broadway Second Place: Mud Bay Runner Up: Healthy Pets Northwest

Best Bottle Shop WINNER:

Belmont Station Second Place: John’s Marketplace Runner Up: Division Wines

Best Bike Shop WINNER:

River City Bicycles Second Place: Community Cycling Center Runner Up: Kenton Cycle Repair

w w w.f re e l a nd s p i r i t s . co m 40

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

& Laurie Gilmer at Bright Space

Kitchen Kaboodle

Second Place: Sophia Rosenberg, Hasson Company Realtors

Runner Up: Mantel PDX

Runner Up: Liza Stillhard, Premiere Property Group, LLC

Best Clothing Resale Store WINNER: ARTIFACT:

CREATIVE RECYCLE

Second Place: Buffalo Exchange Runner Up: Crossroads Trading

Best Printer WINNER: Morel Ink Second Place: Egg Press Runner Up: Paperjam Press

Best Bookstore WINNER:

Powell’s Books Second Place: Broadway Books

Best Auto Dealership WINNER:

Subaru of Portland

Second Place: Cargo

Best Hardware Store WINNER:

Hippo Hardware & Trading Co Second Place: Beaumont Hardware Runner Up: Woodstock Ace Hardware and Garden

Best Real Estate Company WINNER:

Think Real Estate Second Place: Living Room Realty Runner Up: Urban Nest Realty

Best Antique/ Vintage Store WINNER:

House of Vintage Second Place: Village Merchants Runner Up: Kenton Antiques & Collectibles

Best Child Care WINNER:

Second Place: Ron Tonkin Toyota

Pipster Prep Preschool

Runner Up: Jim Fisher Volvo

Second Place: Camp Fire Columbia Runner Up: Childroots

Best Clothing Boutique WINNER: Wildfang Second Place: Paloma Clothing Runner Up: Sloan

Best Veterinary Practice WINNER:

DoveLewis Emergency Veterinary Animal Hospital Second Place: Banfield Pet Hospital Runner Up: Kenton Animal Hospital

Paid Advertisement

WINNER: She Bop Second Place: Fantasy Runner Up: Catalyst

Best Eyewear Shop WINNER:

Eyes On Broadway Second Place: Myoptic Optometry Runner Up: Alberta Eye Care

Best Mortgage Broker WINNER:

Julee Felsman at Guaranteed Rate Second Place: Guild Mortgage Jennifer Zherebilov Runner Up: Jake Planton- Two Rivers Mortgage

Best Tattoo Shop WINNER:

Atlas Tattoo Studio Second Place: Wonderland Tattoo Runner Up: Scapegoat Tattoo

Best Shoe Store WINNER:

Imelda’s and Louie’s Second Place: Clogs-N-More Runner Up: Footwise

Best Doggie Day Care WINNER: 3 Dogs

Boarding and Daycare

Best Comic Shop WINNER:

Books with Pictures Second Place: Bridge City Comics Runner Up: Things From Another World

Best Grocery Store WINNER:

New Seasons Market Second Place: Trader Joe’s

Second Place: Vespa Portland Runner Up: Vicious Cycle

Best Chimney Service

Conceived in New Zealand, Great Goodbyes is being raised in Portland before taking on the 19 Billion US funeral industry.

Great Goodbyes is re-imagining how people arrange funerals: an online platform that brings a wide range of event professionals, funeral homes and other suppliers into one easy to browse place.

Portland Fireplace and Chimney Inc.

Runner Up: British Brush Chimney Sweep, Inc.

WINNER:

How a New Zealand Funeral Startup Came to Call Portland Home

WINNER:

Best Garden Supply/Nursery Portland Nursery

Best Record Store

Second Place: Cornell Farms

WINNER:

Music Millennium

Runner Up: Naomi’s Organic Farm Supply

Second Place: Mississippi Records

Online, in private and without pressure, Great Goodbyes is an inspiring digital ecosystem that allows you to get quotes, check out venues, compare ideas and options from the safety of your home

Runner Up: Everyday Music

Recognizing Portland as a champion of the unique, it was an easy decision for Great Goodbyes to put down roots in Portland.

Best Sports Store/Outfitter

The company will anchor a physical hub in the city, bringing together casket and urn artisans, a coffin club, death doulas, environmental advocates and more.

Second Place: iChihuahua Repair

WINNER:

Runner Up: Bridgetown Electronics Repair

Second Place: Foster Outdoor

Great Goodbyes is currently raising capital and is the perfect opportunity for Portlander's seeking a social impact investment. Check Investment tab on their website.

Best Phone Repair WINNER: The Fix Hut

Best Accountant WINNER:

McDonald Jacobs, PC Second Place: St. John’s Tax Service Runner Up: Artemis Tax

Best Jewelry Shop WINNER: betsy & iya Second Place: Twist Runner Up: Sarah J. Handmade

Best Furniture Store

Best Plant Shop

WINNER:

Portland Nursery

Runner Up: The Joinery

See See Motor Coffee Co.

Second Place: American Chimney & Masonry

Runner Up: Sniff Dog Hotel

Second Place: City Liquidators

WINNER:

Runner Up: People’s Food Co-op

Second Place: Club K-9

Lounge Lizard

Best Motorcycle Shop

COURTESY PHOTO

Best Sex Positive Shop

Next Adventure

Runner Up: U.S. Outdoor

Best Children’s Store

Saying Goodbye is hard.

Don’t let it be Ordinary.

WINNER:

Finnegan’s Toys & Gifts Second Place: Thinker Toys Runner Up: Beanstalk Children’s Resale

WINNER:

Second Place: Pistils Nursery Runner Up: Arium Botanicals

great-goodbyes.com Don't forget the dash Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

41

BEST OF PORTLAND READERS’ POLL - THE RESULTS!

BEST PEOPLE

BARS & NIGHTLIFE

Best DJ

Best Chef

Best Karaoke

Best Cider House

WINNER: DJ Wicked

WINNER:

WINNER: The Alibi

WINNER: Portland

Second Place: DJ O.G.One Runner Up: Danny Merkury

Best Stripper WINNER:

Kat Van Dayum Second Place: Saint Sasha of Devils Point Runner Up: Zelah Pandemonium at Kit Kat Club

Best Local Celebrity WINNER:

The Unipiper Second Place: Napoleon the Alpaca

Chef Melvin Trinidad Second Place: Kiauna Nelson Runner Up: Maya Lovelace

Best Band/ Musical Group WINNER:

Portugal. The Man Second Place: The Decemberists Runner Up: Garcia Birthday Band

Best Comedian WINNER: Melina Best Second Place: Ian Karmel Runner Up: Shrista Tyree

Runner Up: Lady Coquine

Best Musician/ Solo Artist

Best Mascot

WINNER:

WINNER:

The Unipiper Second Place: Oregon Duck Runner Up: Napoleon the Alpaca

Storm Large Second Place: iAmMoshow The Cat Rapper Runner Up: Amine

Second Place: Voicebox Karaoke Runner Up: Chopsticks

Best Bartender WINNER:

Hailey HoldenRed Fox

Cider House Second Place: Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider Runner Up: Cider Riot!

Best Drag Show WINNER:

Darcelle’s XV

Second Place: Christy Jade Da’ Hui Bar & Grill

Second Place: Portland Drag Queen Brunch

Runner Up: Rocky Loring - Stag PDX

Runner Up: CC Slaughters Nightclub and Lounge

Best Patio WINNER:

Revolution Hall Second Place: A Roadside Attraction Runner Up: White Owl Social Club

Best Dive Bar WINNER: Sandy Hut Second Place: Florida Room Runner Up: Reel M Inn

Best Wine Bar WINNER:

Runner Up: Coopers Hall

Best Music Venue WINNER:

Doug Fir Lounge Second Place: Revolution Hall Runner Up: Dante’s

WINNER: Tobin Heath

WINNER: Spirit of 77

WINNER:

Second Place: Bella Bixby

Second Place: Rialto Poolroom

WINNER:

Runner Up: Bill Walton

Best Political Figure WINNER:

Jeff Merkley Second Place: Kate Brown Runner Up: Jo Ann Hardesty

Best Timber WINNER:

Diego Valeri Second Place: Diego Chará Runner Up: Sebastián Blanco

Best Radio Personality WINNER: Gustav Second Place: Kristina Kage Runner Up: Uncle Scotty

Best Trivia Night WINNER:

Geeks Who Drink Second Place: Stumptown Trivia Runner Up: Untapped

McMenamins Kennedy School Second Place: Aalto Lounge Runner Up: Hey Love

Best Game Bar WINNER:

Ground Kontrol Second Place: QuarterWorld Arcade

Best Strip Club

Runner Up: Wedgehead

WINNER: Sassy’s

Best Beer Selection on Tap

Second Place: Lucky Devil Lounge Runner Up: Kit Kat Club

WINNER:

Loyal Legion Second Place: Horse Brass Pub Runner Up: Untapped

42

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

Runner Up: The Lovecraft

Best Comedy Club WINNER: Helium

Comedy Club

Second Place: Funhouse Lounge Runner Up: Kickstand Comedy

Best Latin Dance Night Second Place: Soulsa

Best Blazer

Runner Up: Century

Second Place: Holocene

Second Place: Vino Veritas Wine Bar and Bottle Shop

Best Date Bar

Second Place: CJ McCollum

The Goodfoot

WINNER:

Best Sports Bar

Runner Up: Becky Sauerbrunn

WINNER:

Division Wines

Best Thorn

Damian Lillard

Best Place to Dance

Aztec Willie’s Runner Up: Noche Libre

Best LGBTQ Bar WINNER: Crush Bar Second Place: CC Slaughters Nightclub and Lounge Runner Up: Scandals

Best Cocktail Lounge WINNER: Hey Love Second Place: Sapphire Hotel Runner Up: Multnomah Whiskey Library

Best Happy Hour WINNER: Gold Dust

Meridian

Second Place: Aalto Lounge Runner Up: RingSide Steakhouse

THE RESULTS!

NONPROFIT

Best Sex Positive Shop

Best Education Nonprofit

Best Health Nonprofit

Best Communitydriven Nonprofit

WINNER: She Bop

WINNER: Oregon

WINNER: Planned

WINNER:

Parenthood

Oregon Food Bank

Second Place: OMSI

Second Place: Outside In

Runner Up: Free Geek

Runner Up: Oregon Health & Science University

Second Place: Street Roots

Second Place: Fantasy

Public Broadcasting

Runner Up: Catalyst

Best Civil & Human Rights Nonprofit

Best Environment Nonprofit

WINNER:

WINNER:

Second Place: Don’t Shoot Portland

Second Place: Portland Audubon

Runner Up: Street Roots

Runner Up: The Nature Conservancy - Oregon Conservation Center

Planned Parenthood

Friends of Trees

Best Creative Expression Nonprofit WINNER: SCRAP PDX Second Place: Habitat for Humanity ReStore Runner Up: p:ear

Best Human Services Nonprofit WINNER: Oregon

Food Bank

Second Place: Outside In

Runner Up: Sisters of the Road

Runner Up: Habitat for Humanity

Best Animal Nonprofit WINNER: Oregon

Humane Society

Second Place: Feral Cat Coalition of Oregon Runner Up: DoveLewis Veterinary Emergency and Speciality Hospital

WELLNESS & SELF-CARE Best Acupuncture

Best Massage

Best Pilates Studio Best Hair Removal

WINNER: Working

WINNER: Löyly

WINNER:

MegaBurn Fitness

Second Place: North Portland Wellness Center

Second Place: Zen Space: Acupuncture + Chiropractic + Massage

Second Place: Studio Blue Pilates

Runner Up: Kalee Barnett, LMT

Runner Up: Michelle with MALVA. house of hair

Runner Up: Cascadia Pilates & CoreAlign

Physical Therapy & Training Studio

Best Barbershop

Second Place: Rose City Physical Therapy

Best Hair Salon

Best Dentist

WINNER:

WINNER: Laurelhurst

Second Place: Best Coast Barber Co Runner Up: Rudy’s

Class Acupuncture

Runner Up: Zen Space: Acupuncture + Chiropractic + Massage

Best Spin Studio WINNER: BurnCycle

Ginger Salon

Dentistry

Second Place: StarCycle Portland

Second Place: Magnum Opus Inc

Second Place: Atlas Dental

Runner Up: MobCycle

Runner Up: Urban Colorz Salon

Runner Up: Belmont Family Dentistry

Best Float Tank

Best Midwife

WINNER:

Best Skin Care

WINNER: OHSU

WINNER:

Float On

Second Place: Float North Runner Up: The Float Shoppe

Best Chiropractor WINNER:

North Portland Wellness Center Second Place: Zen Space: Acupuncture + Chiropractic + Massage Runner Up: Evolve Performance Healthcare

Nurse-Midwives

Second Place: Alma Midwifery Services LLC Runner Up: Legacy Medical Group Midwifery

Best Spa WINNER: Löyly Second Place: Knot Springs Runner Up: The Everett House Community Healing Center

Krista McKowen at Common Ground WellnessCooperative Second Place: Full Heart Healing Runner Up: TAVIN

Best Yoga Studio

Best Physical WINNER: Urban Waxx Therapy Clinic Second Place: Sugar Me

WINNER:

Bishops Cuts/Color

Best Nail Salon WINNER:

Best Barre Studio WINNER: Barre3 Second Place: Pure Barre

Second Place: Marjorie May

Best Soaking Pool

Runner Up: Opaque Nail Studio

McMenamins Kennedy School

WINNER:

Best Natural or Alternative Medicine Clinic WINNER: The North

WINNER:

Second Place: Firelight Yoga

Second Place: Reiki Says Relax

Runner Up: YoYoYogi

Runner Up: Therapydia Portland Physical Therapy

Runner Up: The Bar Method

Sarah Kane topknotnails

Portland Wellness Center

The People’s Yoga

WINNER: Bridgetown

Runner Up: The Ren Clinic

Second Place: The Everett House Runner Up: Knot Springs

Best Gym WINNER:

Lloyd Athletic Club Second Place: Industrial Strength Gym Runner Up: MobCycle

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

43

STREET

PROTEST ART

AT PIONEER PLACE Photos by Mick Hangland-Skill @mick.jpg

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Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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FOOD & DRINK ALL PHOTOS NICE PLANTS MEDIA

FEATURE

Spin Out Lazy Susan aimed to become the new dining anchor for the Montavilla neighborhood. Then the pandemic happened.

BY PE TE COT T E L L

@vanifestdestiny

Carefully considering the ethics and logistics of keeping a restaurant in business during a global pandemic is a unique challenge. So imagine how difficult it would be to debut in the middle of a health crisis.

At Lazy Susan, the dust—proverbial and literal—hadn’t yet settled when Andrew Mace realized things might not go as planned.

“In late February, we started hearing about [COVID19] on podcasts while we were hanging the drywall,” says Mace, head chef and co-owner of the new Montavilla grillery. “By the time we were about to pull the trigger on hiring our staff, we finally realized how serious this is.

Then everything came to a halt for three weeks, and there wasn’t much else to do but focus more time on finishing the space.”

Prior to setting up shop in the space formerly occupied by the Country Cat, Mace spent time in the kitchens of Le Pigeon, the Woodsman Tavern and Han Oak. Last winter, Akkapong “Earl” Ninsom tapped Mace to help roll out his second Hat Yai location on Southeast Belmont, and by fall of 2019 the duo was hatching a plan to convert the newly available space into a family-style restaurant they hoped would become a culinary anchor for the neighborhood.

Then the restaurant business was turned on its ear.

With indoor table service out of the picture, Mace moved the kitchen outside and hoped for the best.

“Summer was coming and we have this really nice custom grill back here,” says Mace. “So we thought it would be 46

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

a good idea to wheel the thing out there and use that as a way to introduce ourselves to the neighborhood.”

For the next month. Lazy Susan sold boxes to go for $15 featuring sides like radish and potato salad, grilled proteins, including pork shoulder and fennel sausage, and a fluffy crescent roll on top. Throughout June, the pop-up sold out almost daily.

Then Mace hit the brakes again—this time for the birth of his son on July 4.

The grill is now back inside, and Lazy Susan is trying its hand at an outdoor-only setup one might call a more “traditional” restaurant model in these bizarre times.

The focus on farm-fresh ingredients means the menu will evolve at a rapid clip, but here’s what to expect when you pay a visit:

that have soared since COVID-19 started, Mace follows the lead of European brasseries by procuring cuts from mature dairy cows that are generally ground up for burgers rather than plated at American steakhouses.

“There’s some pretty amazing cuts in there that aren’t getting pulled out at the butcher table,” says Mace. “We’re using things like hanger steak, bavette, flat iron, hearts, tongues. All those things are great on the grill, and the flavor is astronomically different than conventional beef.

You get a lot of really great fat content from the cows being 100% grass fed that even younger cows with a similar background would lose out on to some degree.”

THE DINNER ROLLS Prior to the birth of their son, Mace’s wife, Nora, held the reins as the in-house pastry chef. Expect a procession of updated French and American classics in the future.

For now, though, Nora’s flaky, gently browned crescent rolls are the perfect starter for the traditional meat-andveggies meals at Lazy Susan.

THE VEGGIES For Mace, one of the most appealing aspects of Lazy Susan’s location is being just a stone’s throw from the weekly Montavilla Farmers Market. There, he was introduced to Glasrai Farm, which provides farm-fresh veggies for the handful of sides that preclude the mains, like a plate of sliced cucumbers with dill atop a bed of rich green goddess dressing, or a glistening heap of bright-red cherry tomatoes topped with tuna and olive oil.

THE BEEF Mace gets his beef through a pilot program offered by Jared Gardner of Nehalem River Ranch. Instead of subjecting the centerpiece of his menu to market beef prices

EAT: Lazy Susan, 7937 SE Stark St., 971 420-8913, lazysusanpdx. com. 4-9 pm Friday-Sunday.

FOOD & DRINK TOP 5

HOT PLATES Where to eat this week.

ASHTON MORGAN

1. Street Disco

STREET DISCO’S CHEESEBURGER PIZZA

1305 SE 8th Ave., street-disco. com. 3-9 pm daily.

Summarized simply, Disco Snacks is a multifaceted snack bar concept at White Owl Social Club comprising a series of distinct concepts.

That includes Taco Tuesdays, a public school cafeteria homage to tacos of the hard shell variety, and pizza inspired by the suburban food court experience, currently available for pre-order on Fridays and Saturdays. The stunner is the cheeseburger pie, a heavyweight concoction of pickles, ketchup, onions and American cheese. There is nothing else quite like it in Portland.

TOP 5

BUZZ LIST

Where to drink outside this week.

LIZ ALLAN

1. Wayfinder Beer

2. Sugarpine Drive-In 1208 E Historic Columbia River Highway, Troutdale, 503-6656558, sugarpinedrivein.com. 11 am-5 pm Thursday-Monday.

Ryan Domingo and Emily Cafazzo’s adorable, drive-instyle lunch shack—located at the gateway to the Gorge, adjacent to the Sandy River— conjures memories of rural summers spent diving into freezing lakes and running to the nearest Tastee Freez…only better. A fast food chili dog can’t compete with Sugarpine’s pulled-pork sandwich ($11), and while classic soft serve is also on the menu, the sundaes are sculptures of molded, mountainous sweetness.

3. Kachka Alfresca 960 SE 11th Ave., 503-2350059, kachkapdx.com/alfresca.

3-10 pm daily.

A pop-up in the truest sense of the term, Kachka’s outdoor spinoff is so utterly of its time and place in this shared moment that it feels like a vital addition to the food landscape.

It has allowed owner Bonnie Morales to dive into the nostalgia of her childhood spent watching her Soviet émigré parents run a 1990s bistro in the Chicago suburbs. It doesn’t all necessarily make sense— it’s like a trans-Siberian TGI Friday’s—but it is damn fun.

2. The Lot at Scout Beer 5029 SE Division St., 503-7649855. Call to confirm current hours.

Looking for a breezy place to enjoy the weather with a beer and paper bowl of heinously addictive Truffle Treasure Tots from Dog House PDX? There may not be any better Southeast Portland hangout.

3. Santé Bar

304 SE 2nd Ave., 503-718-2337, wayfinder.beer. 3-9 pm daily.

If ever there were a beer that could transport you to the brauhauses of Munich, it would be Wayfinder Hell, a crisp and snappy lager with a gasp of citrus that comes in a fat mug.

Enjoy it on Wayfinder’s expansive patio.

411 NW Park Ave., 971-404-8216.

Call to confirm current hours.

This swanky cocktail bar might not look like much from the outside, but its vintage vibe, romantic lighting and fancy drinks are a welcome shift from the standard westside LGBTQ bar experience. Outdoor seating available.

4. Holler 7119 SE Milwaukie Ave., 971200-1391, hollerpdx.com. 11 am-6 pm Tuesday-Saturday, online ordering available 3-5 pm.

On the one hand, over the last year and a half, Portland has overloaded with options for fried chicken. On the other hand, can you ever really have too much fried chicken—particularly when the city’s latest chicken shack is courtesy of Doug Adams, the Top Chef alum behind Texas barbecue haven Bullard? Adams recently opened the casual, familyfriendly Holler for takeout, and while we haven’t had a chance to sample the birds yet, we’re confident offering a blind recommendation.

Thank You Portland!

5. Riot Ribs SW Salmon and 4th Ave., twitter.com/riotribs. Open 24 hours.

The most talked-out restaurant in town right now is located under a blue tent in Lownsdale Square. Riot Ribs has been feeding protesters everything from hamburgers to pork butt off a 30-inch metal grill—all for free, though donations are strongly encouraged.

While it’s volunteer-run, this is no amateur operation: The ribs showed expertise on the grill, striking the perfect balance of crispy and juicy. Somebody here knows what they’re doing.

makes a damn fine version of it, from its citrusy Cloud Ripper IPA to the Opacus Stout, which has all the hints of chocolate you want without going down like a pint of Ovaltine.

Both locations have attractive patios.

5. The Vern 2622 SE Belmont St., 503-2337851. Call to confirm current hours.

As they did with Sandy Hut a few years ago, Warren Boothby and Marcus Archambeault, the city’s preeminent divebar whisperers scrubbed the carpet, opened some windows and doubled down on the wood-paneled rumpus room vibe, all without disinfecting the room’s grimy soul. Now with more outdoor seating and a refurbished patio!

GET DAILY Nowopen accepting online Now for outdoor pre orders for UPDATES dining and takeout!

Day Brunch!

ONMother’s HOW Please visit Check out our menu at jamonhawthorne.com CORONAVIRUS jamonhawthorne.com for details IS AFFECTING PORTLAND

4. Stormbreaker 832 N Beech St., 971-703-4516; 8409 N Lombard St., 971-2551481. Noon-10 pm daily.

Name a style and StormBreaker

SUBSCRIBE NOW WWEEK.COM/NEWSLETTERS Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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4.8 Million Raised for local no Years YOU NEED WILLAMETTE WEEK,46 of News, Politics, AND WW NEEDS YOU

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YOU NEED WILLAMETTE WEEK, Years YOU NEED WILLAMETTE WEEK, AND WWandNEEDS of News, Politics, Culture YOU AND WW NEEDS YOU 2.5 Million Monthly Readers, in print and online

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4.8 Million 46 Years Raised for local nonprofits in 2019

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46 Years 1 News, City Politics, and Culture of

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T H E M OST I M PO RTA N T T H I N G S T HAT H A P P E N E D I N P O R T L A N D C U LT U R E T H I S WE E K , FR O M BE ST TO WO RST .

DOUG KENCK-CRISPIN

STARTERS

SUPPORT

LOCAL

IN-N-OUT BURGER

IN-COMING In-N-Out Burger is inching ever closer to Portland’s doorstep. The California-based fast food chain is in the beginning phases of the permitting process to open a new location in Tualatin.

The proposed site—formerly a Village Inn—sits just off Interstate 5 on Southwest 72nd Avenue, across from Bridgeport Village. “The primary concern I have heard from residents,” Mayor Frank Bubenik tells WW, “is that of increased traffic congestion and how they plan on mitigating traffic issues at an already busy intersection.” It’s a valid point: In 2018, In-N-Out set off a frenzy when it announced it would bring a franchise to the Salem area, just 45 minutes south of Portland. The area remains congested seven months later. In-N-Out representatives will hold a virtual meeting via Zoom on July 23 to give the community with more details about the development proposal. Bubenik says he looks “forward to the meeting and reviewing their plans.”

INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM BECOME A FRIEND OF WILLAMETTE WEEK WWEEK.COM/SUPPORT

RIDING ON E The Portland Bureau of Transportation has announced a major Biketown expansion and upgrade—the bike share program is going electric. In September, the program’s service area will expand by 13 square miles, stretching out to Foster-Powell, part of Lents and Hazelwood in the east, and Woodlawn and Arbor Lodge in North Portland. During the service area expansion, Biketown will also roll out a new fleet of 1,500 pedal assist e-bikes. Once Biketown’s new e-bike fleet hits the streets, though, the cost of riding will go up: $1 per ride, plus 20 cents per minute. PBOT plans for Biketown to cover 40 square miles of Portland by 2024. The changes in September will mark Biketown’s third expansion since it was launched in 2016.

HOP ALONG Want to enjoy a beer outdoors but need a bit more social distance than you get in the city?

Crosby Hop Farm in Woodburn has carved out space among its towering rows of hop bines for a picturesque beer garden. TopWire Hop Project features a bar constructed out of a shipping container serving a rotating tap list of eight beers and one cider, and Crosby’s acreage allows it to set up tables for customers at least 8 feet apart. The fifth-generation hop grower will start welcoming patrons Friday, July 24. Grand opening beverages include a double IPA created by Dallas’ Celestial Beerworks, a cider with Cascade hops from Reverend Nat’s in Portland, and Bubble Party Hops seltzer water by Modern Times’ Portland outpost.

UNION SUNDOWN Preeminent Portland arts organization Yale Union will dissolve as a nonprofit and hand over its space to Indigenous leadership. The Southeast Portland gallery and event space announced it has transferred ownership of its historic building to the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation, the first and only nonprofit in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to funding Native art and culture.

Since it was founded it 2008, Yale Union has become known as arguably Portland’s most enigmatic art institution, hosting exhibits and performances by well-known international artists but often facing criticism for its lack of transparency. Yale Union and NACF will co-manage the space until 2021, when Yale Union will dissolve as a nonprofit. “I am proud of what we have accomplished with Yale Union over the last decade. Having been able to fulfill our mission through the unearned privilege of property ownership,” Yale Union co-founder Flint Jamison said in a press release, “it’s now time that we hand over the keys!”

BOISE OR BUST After initially postponing the event until fall, Boise’s Treefort Music Festival has announced it will not take place at all this year. This year’s festival, which typically takes place in March, was first rescheduled for October. Now it’s been pushed back until September 2021. The festival has become the de facto showcase for the Pacific Northwest music scene—more than two dozen Portland bands were booked to play Treefort 2020, including the infamously elusive Chromatics. In 2022, Treefort plans to resume its regular schedule and hold the 10th iteration of the festival in March, just seven months after the ninth edition.

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

49

PERFORMANCE

BOOKS

Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

PREVIEW

BLACK BOX

BLACK BOX is a story of players, on stage and off, making deals to save or sell their souls. An actress, a critic, and a patron form a dramatic triangle whose ambitions collide within the confines of a “black box” theater – an unadorned performance space enclosed by black walls.

BLACK BOX probes the power of performing art, as well as the price some pay for its pursuit.

BLACK

REVIEW

BOX

Ned Prince leads an enviable life. An acclaimed young writer and heir to an ample fortune, he spends a handsome allowance playing at working.

But when tragedy strikes Ned’s father, leaving a depleted estate, Ned is forced to take a real job as a theater critic. He is mesmerized by an actress who has sold herself to a financier for a stage of her own – a black box. After all off-stage attempts fail, Ned resorts to theater to avenge his father and liberate the actress.

Gary D. Cole Trenchant Press

Fiction

www.garydcole.com

a novel by

Gary D. Cole

THE STAGE IS SET: Media are invited to a live performance of Black Box, which will then be released online.

Fade to Black Box Will CoHo’s new vision for pandemic-era theater succeed?

Gary D. Cole says that Poona the Fuckdog and Straight cost him a job at the National Endowment for the Arts. The two plays—which were filmed by StageDirect, a company that Cole founded—apparently caught the disapproving eyes of the NEA and the White House during George W. Bush’s presidency, ending Cole’s pursuit of a position at the government agency.

“That, as you can imagine, was very traumatic,” Cole says.

“That’s sort of what got me writing.”

Today, writing is once again Cole’s weapon against trauma.

He planned to raise money for CoHo Productions, which he co-founded in 1995, by offering copies of his 2012 novel, Black Box—a Portland-set tale of intrigue—for a suggested donation. After COVID-19 struck, Cole reconceived the book as a multipart virtual event called Black Box: Page to Stage and chose to do an in-person premiere for the media.

“Honestly, there is still trepidation,” Cole says of the decision to hold a live event during the pandemic. “I’m not going to pretend that there’s not. But our feeling was that this is what we can do and we want to do it, rather than just sitting around going, ‘Woe is us.’”

Black Box—a collaboration among Cole, videographer Robert Randall, and CoHo’s producing artistic director, Philip Cuomo—chronicles the relationship between Ned Prince (James Luster), a theater critic, and Karin Bergren (Marcella Laasch), an actress. While Cole now lives in North Carolina, the novel was inspired by his Portland years. The story includes a CoHo-like theater and stems partly from Cole’s fascination with Steffen Silvis, the notorious WW theater critic who was laid off in 2005.

Being in Black Box meant adhering to strict physical distancing protocol—Luster and Laasch’s rehearsals were restricted mostly to Zoom and a park in Vancouver, Wash.

“In one of the scenes, she’s supposed to touch him, and it’s like, ‘Can’t really do that,’” Laasch says. No difficulty, however, could diminish her enthusiasm for the play. “I am hungry to be in front of an audience. With everything that’s going on and not being able to act, it’s very frustrating.”

The spirit of COVID-era innovation also extended to the technical side of the production. Black Box unfolds in four 50

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

The Best Things I’ve Read in Quarantine (So Far)

Mark O’Connell, Notes From an Apocalypse

Cover image © Susan Fecho

BY BE N N E T T C A M P B E L L FE RGUS O N

Written by: Scout Brobst / Contact: sbrobst@wweek.com

scenes that will be released separately online, along with talkbacks featuring the show’s creative team, and features a minimal set.

“Our sense was that it was more important to get this campaign underway than to have high-grade production values,” Cole explains, adding that locations will be evoked with simple details, like cocktail glasses for a scene at the Hilton and place settings that are meant to suggest the Black Rabbit Restaurant at McMenamins Edgefield.

If Black Box’s blending of the real and the virtual triumphs, it could deliver hope for theaters whose appetite for performance hasn’t been sated by audio plays and Zoom readings. Yet while Cole has confidence in the anti-coronavirus measures that will be imposed during the premiere (seats will be assigned, only one person at a time will be allowed in restrooms and everyone except for the actors will wear masks), he admits the play could still end up being an onlineonly event.

“We recognize that these are uncharted waters,” Cole said July 16. “It’s still possible, if things go south between now and a week from tomorrow, we may call [the premiere] off.”

Challenges don’t typically daunt Cole—they often inspire him to adapt. After the NEA turned him down, he rebounded partly by writing a memoir. While working as a lawyer for the CIA, he kept his artistic streak alive by appearing in plays (including The Lion in Winter and Tartuffe). And when he grew disillusioned with the Republican Party, he registered as an independent “It’s one thing to be a party of limited government, but it should be competent limited government, and that’s not what we’re getting now,” Cole says of the Trump administration.

So it’s no shock that Cole is fighting to keep theater alive while COVID-19 rages, as 75% of Black Box’s sales will go to the Oregon Arts and Cultural Recovery Program.

“This is nothing like having a real run of a play,” he says.

“It’s a shadow of that. But if shadows are as much as we can do right now, then that’s what we should do.”

SEE IT: Black Box’s world premiere for media representatives will take place Friday, July 24, at CoHo Theater. The first scene will be available online Friday, July 31, through Friday, Sept. 4.

By some stroke of cosmic (mis)fortune, Mark O’Connell’s second book—four years in the making––was released in the midst of a global health crisis and the closest we have come to actual biblical revelation in some time. The book is essentially an eschatological travel guide, rolling through O’Connell’s travels to bunkers, wilderness preserves and tech havens as he brushes shoulders with those whose forward thinking propels them to the end times. O’Connell is a gifted storyteller, but more than that, he has a gift for telling the stories of people that we are hard-wired to mistrust, which is a triumph in itself.

Colson Whitehead, The Way We Live Now

In April, a friend fled New York City at the peak of its crisis and sent over this essay, which is now almost a decade past publication. Two months to the day after 9/11, Colson Whitehead penned a love letter to his New York, the city he was born and worked in and pieced together from experiences and memories. There are “unheralded tipping points,” Whitehead writes.

“At some point you were closer to the last time than you were to the first time, and you didn’t even know it.” It would be foolish to try and draw any equivalency between the tragedy of 9/11 and what we are living through now. But Whitehead gives voice to what it is to live in a city that seemed to change on a cellular level overnight, under the nose of all of us.

Maya Angelou, “The Art of Fiction No. 119”

There is no part of this interview between Maya Angelou and George Plimpton that is not absolutely engaging. In 1990, Angelou sat down with the journalist in the company of a packed audience to discuss her writing process and the series of events that led her to become a writer as opposed to a real estate broker. “When I’m writing, I am trying to figure out who I am,” Angelou says. “Who we are, what we’re capable of, how we feel, how we lose and stand up, and go on from darkness into darkness.” Her insights into life as a Black female author—one who is aware of but unbothered by the scope of the audience she writes for—feel vital, in this and every moment.

Lizzy Acker, “Love Love Love”

I stumbled across this essay by former WW writer Lizzy Acker in the earliest days of the pandemic, back when it seemed possible––probable, even––that we were living in a vicious blip and life would become boring again in a matter of weeks. The essay, published seven years ago in the online literary magazine The Rumpus, is disarming in its honesty about the lived reality of unplanned pregnancy, and all the space that exists between how you feel and how you expected you might feel.

Acker writes unself-consciously about an experience in which you are never more conscious of yourself, your body and the people around you.

C.D. Wright, Steal Away

It’s possible there is some metric of good poetry and bad poetry, but instinct says it is either completely arbitrary or tucked away in a corner for the scholars to enjoy. In any case, I would not flatter myself to separate the wheat from the chaff, but C.D. Wright’s Steal Away reads as undeniably good, sharp and moving without any pretense. Published in 2003 as a “best of” for Wright, the poems succeed in their frankness, standing up to the image of American life that supposes things are bigger or brighter than they are. SCOUT BROBST.

FLASHBACK

THIS WEEK IN 2011 BEST OF PORTLAND

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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MOVIES

Editor: Andi Prewitt / Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com Have a movie screening you’d like to submit to our Get Busy calendar?

Go to wweek.com/submitevents for instructions.

P L A N E TJ E R O L D I N S TA G R A M

SCREENER

G ET YOUR REP S IN While local rep theaters are out of commission, we’ll be putting together weekly watchlists of films readily available to stream. This week, we’ve picked the best films featured on NBCUniversal’s freshly debuted streaming service, Peacock—and they’re all completely free to view.

Phantom Thread (2017) When a renowned dressmaker (Daniel DayLewis) falls for a headstrong waitress (Vicky Krieps), the line between muse and lover is blurred. With a mesmerizing score by Jonny Greenwood, delicate direction by Paul Thomas Anderson, and richly layered performances from Day-Lewis and Krieps, this romantic drama with a twist was perhaps the best film of 2017. Peacock.

CAT’S MEOW: Animator Jerold Howard brings a stop-motion feline to life, centimeters at a time.

Hard Candy (2005) Ellen Page stars in this cathartic, gutsy thriller as a 14-year-old vigilante who seeks revenge on a pedophile (Patrick Wilson) by luring him with sweetness, then trapping and torturing him in his own home. “It’ll ruin my career, ruin my life,” he begs. “Well, didn’t Roman Polanski just win an Oscar?” she replies. Peacock.

Stop-Motion Sickness A local animator has created the mascot for our era of physical distancing: Quarantine Kat.

The Last Days of Disco (1998) One of the ultimate post-grad confusion dramedies, writer-director Whit Stillman’s knack for witty dialogue spouted by neurotic characters excels against the bougie backdrop of Manhattan disco clubs, where two women (Chloë Sevigny and Kate Beckinsale) party nightly to escape their anxiety about their burgeoning careers and love lives. Peacock.

Tully (2018) The Juno team of Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody reunite for a more mature, surrealist take on pregnancy—specifically the effects of postpartum depression.

When Marlo (Charlize Theron) struggles after giving birth to her second child, her brother gifts her a night nanny named Tully (Mackenzie Davis), who acutely reminds Marlo of her youth. Peacock.

American Psycho (2000) In director Mary Harron’s darkly comic cult classic, wealthy New York banker Patrick Bateman (Christian Bale) skillfully hides his penchant for violence under a veneer of pressed suits, luxury apartments and immaculate business cards. But as his psychosis escalates, so does the body count.

Peacock.

BY JAY H O RTON

@hortland

Jerold Howard understood isolation. As a veteran freelance animator whose past credits include stop-motion spectaculars from the ’90s and ’00s (James and the Giant Peach, Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit), he is accustomed to extended periods of self-imposed isolation and a certain degree of life-work uncertainty. Under ordinary circumstances, the native Portlander would have been thrilled for the opportunity to fully exploit his newly outfitted basement studio during lockdown, but the seclusion prompted by COVID -19 inspired a more complicated response that is echoed through Quarantine Kat—a seriocomic reflection on pandemic privations that he made for Oregon Public Broadcasting this past spring.

As Howard returns to finishing his long-awaited pet project Battlefield Portland, a short featuring the Kenton neighborhood’s Paul Bunyan statue tromping through the city’s landscape, WW spoke with him about the mixed blessings of his claymation staycation.

WW: How did Quarantine Kat begin?

Jerold Howard: Oregon Art Beat reached out to me. They were doing this series called “Postcards From the Pandemic,” where they checked in with (mostly) Art Beat alumni to see how we were dealing with the quarantine and how sheltering in place affected our artwork. It was a really relaxed production. A lot of people were going to shoot their parts themselves, so I asked about doing an animated piece instead of just pointing a phone at myself.

Quarantine Kat was actually a dog to

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Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

start. Deadlines were kind of nebulous, but talking to the producer really put me in gear. Since I’d have such a limited amount of time to make stuff, everything else would have to already be around the house. So, I threw out the dog and started repurposing. I made the bed and couch from scratch, but the bathroom sink came from the kitchen of a film I did called See the Truth. The trees in the very last shot were left over from The Christmas Visitor—a project I did last year with director Hasani Walker. The cat puppet was actually in a previous OPB segment.

The cat seems to add a touch of melancholy to the short.

In the beginning, we had, like, gags about social distancing during a walk. It reminded me of a cartoon from a comic strip, but eventually, I started thinking about the serious aspects. A lot of people had died, and everyone seemed to be feeling the same sort of trauma of having the rug pulled out from under them. That changed the tone of what I was going to shoot. Navigating this whole pandemic shouldn’t be so jokey.

Were you working on a film when the virus hit?

Actually, I was lucky enough to be between gigs, so it didn’t really affect me professionally. It’s been easier for someone like me who’s completely independent than for the larger productions. Hopefully, with these crazy animation outsiders, we’re going to see some really fresh, really innovative, really challenging stuff bubbling to the surface.

Animators do have a certain reputation for obsessive misanthropy.

I’ll be the first to admit animators are insane. I’m insane. Moving dolls tiny increments for eight to 10 hours a day is not something well-balanced people do.

You need some OCD. You know, it’s like sports or anything else. When you’re a kid, you want to take up whatever looks fun or interesting, but by the time you get to high school or college, you probably won’t make the team if you’re not 6-foot-5. A lot of people try animation when they’re really young and, growing older, start to ask: “What am I doing? This is nuts! I want to go outside!” Whereas, some of us are just, like, “This is great! I haven’t seen the sun in a month, but I got two seconds of footage today!” Those personality types tend to be the ones that stick it out in animation.

Will the character itself survive? More shorts? A series? Quarantine Kat could be the Garfield of our era.

You know, when I was at Vinton [Studios] a million years ago, the higher-ups let some of us wild young animators go to the Emmys after the California Raisin special was nominated. We were having a blast, but when they got to our category, we lost to Garfield.

A sore subject, then?

It’s a catfight, man. The fur will fly.

SEE IT: Quarantine Kat is available on YouTube.

July 22-28 THE NEW YORK TIMES

MOVIES TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

Welcome to Chechnya In 2017, the Chechen Republic targeted all gays and lesbians in a countrywide “hunt.” Its tactics and atrocities are noted with precision in the poignant documentary Welcome to Chechnya. The film follows a network of activists who smuggle LGBTQ individuals out of Russia, focusing on two rescuers and two rescuees as they navigate their way to safety. With its rough and raw camerawork, the documentary exposes a human rights tragedy that, for one reason or another, has been purged from headlines. Here, crisis coordinator David Isteev is doing all he can to change that, not just by detailing the tragedy on film, but by spiriting at-risk gays and lesbians out of Russia to nearby countries. The film does all it can to keep its subjects safe, too.

Director David France uses “deep fake” technology to overlap their faces with that of a volunteer, allowing France to capture daily routines. In the tradition of guerrilla filmmaking, France zeroes in on hang-out scenes, where men and women chat, joke and make love while hiding from authorities. There are nail-biting moments, too—checkpoints, blown covers—but France treats the banal and the pivotal equally to speak to his greater point: The queer people of Chechnya live in fear day and night, at home and in public. Chechnya the movie blends this terrifying message with glimmers of hope and resistance.

NR. ASHER LUBERTO. Amazon Prime, HBO Go, HBO Now.

OUR KEY

: T H I S M O V I E I S E XC E L L E N T, O N E O F T H E B E S T O F T H E Y E A R. : T H I S M O V I E I S G O O D. W E R E C O M M E N D YO U WATC H I T. : T H I S M O V I E I S E N T E R TA I N I N G B U T F L AW E D. : T H I S M O V I E I S A P I E C E O F S H I T.

ALSO PLAYING All I Can Say

Profound intimacy runs throughout Shannon Hoon’s home video archive-turned-documentary, but it’s not due to footage of the late Blind Melon singer’s newborn baby, or laying down the “No Rain” vocal track or spying on Neil Young through an air vent. It’s democratized time that creates the closeness. Hoon playfully but obsessively recorded his life between 1990 and 1995—a span in which he evolved from an Indiana ne’er-do-well to alt-rock icon to Icarian tragedy. The catalog unfurls into a timeline of elation, failure and boredom that most Hollywood editors would dice into a 45-second touring montage. Even more meaningful, the audience can feel how time sped up for Hoon himself. Through Rolling Stone covers and rehab stints, he recorded his life almost daily with the intention of watching the tapes later for clarity. While this doc will obviously carry deeper meaning for Blind Melon fans, any viewers will appreciate the snapshot of the era, which doubles as a glimpse of how the diary method changes the diary. Any approximation of All I Can Say in 2020 would directly or indirectly nod to the fans. In a trip back to 1992, though, we can experience the thrilling and ugly disembodiment of being truly uninvited. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. allicansay. oscilloscope.net.

Days of the Whale Both by recent American standards and the (perhaps outdated) reputation of the city itself, the streets of Medellín, Colombia, appear almost tranquil in Days of the Whale. We follow university student Cris (firsttime actor Laura Tobón Ochoa) biking to a cafe, adopting a stray dog with her flame Simon (another newcomer, David Escallón Orrego) and dancing in a commune of fellow graffiti artists.

Where injustice does exist—cartel flunkies shake down the neighborhood for “protection”—it’s absorbed into a civic mural. Their threat is almost atmospheric in Medellín, so Cris and Simon must decide how seriously to take it and whether to quit painting their zoological street art over top of gang tags.

Though her debut feature is slight and its script more like a sketch at times, Catalina Arroyave Restrepo brings her home city to life with marvelous assuredness and ease. This is a movie chiefly about place, and instead of explaining Medellín in a post-Escobar world, she reveals it, earning audience trust with docurealistic visuals still fluid enough to demonstrate the craft of fiction. The painting scenes are proba-

bly the film’s most euphoric, and in this way, Days of the Whale is an artist’s manifesto: It believes in the transformative value of creation. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Virtual Cinema.

The King of Staten Island Scott (Pete Davidson) needs help.

When we first meet him, he’s driving on a freeway with his eyes closed.

The King of Staten Island, directed and co-written by Judd Apatow, is the story of Scott opening his eyes to reality—a big step for the mouthy, insecure, mentally unstable 24-year-old living with his mom (Marisa Tomei) in her Staten Island basement. He dreams of opening a tattoo restaurant (“Ruby Tat-Tuesdays!”), an idea so bone-headed even his stoner friends turn it down. Part of Scott’s arrested development is linked to the death of his firefighter father 17 years earlier. Though his life is a slog, both Davidson’s performance and Apatow’s management of his talent make Scott easy to root for: Davidson, like Scott, lives with his mother and lost his father, also a firefighter, in the World Trade Center attack in 2001. The most touching moments pull from that reality, and Apatow’s improvisational style of directing, although meandering in some past films (Trainwreck, Funny People), does well to reflect Davidson’s loose-jointed way of being.

A couple scenes stick out. A low-key argument with a group of firefighters at a Yankees game, his mom’s new boyfriend (Bill Burr) among them, feels painfully honest, while a party montage sees Scott finally letting loose. Mostly, the movie is memorable because of Davidson, who with his boyish smile, buggy eyes and comic timing brings an honesty to a role that stuck with me like a permanent tattoo. He’s a star—and man—in the making. R. ASHER LUBERTO. Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Vudu, Xfinity, YouTube.

Manchild: The Schea Cotton Story In 1995, Schea Cotton was the country’s top-ranked high school basketball player. The hoop dreams were high and his vertical was higher.

Cotton, whose publicity matched that of later stars, like LeBron James and Jason Kidd, was such an explosive athlete you couldn’t help but wonder if he ate gunpowder before each game.

At 15 and 16, he was packing arenas, signing autographs and appearing in Sports Illustrated features. Then the moment was gone. The NBA draft

WELCOME TO CHECHNYA passed him by in 2000, as did his competitors, like Baron Davis, Paul Pierce and Tyson Chandler. How could a top prospect in his sport drop off the map so quickly? That’s the cautionary tale spun by Manchild: The Schea Cotton Story, a brisk, troubling documentary that doesn’t over-dribble. In less than 90 minutes, Manchild tells Cotton’s story through interviews and archival footage of the 6-foot-6 player dominating the court. “He was LeBron James before LeBron James,” says former Celtic Paul Pierce. The only way to stop him was off the court. The documentary doesn’t shy away from detailing the media’s perverse role in hyping kids at an early age and the NCAA’s corruption, which derailed Cotton from playing Division I basketball. But Eric Herbert’s directorial debut, which premiered at the L.A. Film Festival in 2016, and released on streaming services this summer, is more than a “what could have been” narrative. It’s a rewarding reminder of how athletes who are considered “failures” can still rebound off the court.

NR. ASHER LUBERTO. Amazon Prime, Google Play.

Shirley When it comes to holding an audience hostage, there’s no better actress than Elisabeth Moss. As writer Shirley Jackson, the actress owns this drama by playing the type of tortured heroine that helped her rise to prominence (The Handmaid’s Tale, Her Smell). The film, based on Susan Scarf Merrell’s novel of the same name, imagines the life of the literary figure and her husband, famed critic and liberal arts professor Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg), in 1960s Vermont.

They’re soon joined by Fred (Logan Lerman), who’s hired as Stanley’s campus assistant, and his newly pregnant wife, Rose (Odessa Young). The young couple plan to temporarily stay with Jackson and Hyman while they search for a place of their own but find themselves lingering much longer than they’d prefer. At first, things seem normal. Fred becomes increasingly busy with academic life, while Rose forms a dubious connection with Jackson as she works as their housekeeper. But following the success of her short story “The Lottery,” Jackson becomes increasingly stressed while penning her next novel. Like the characters she famously wrote about years later in works like The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Jackson’s stress morphs

into hysteria. The film reflects that madness with disorienting camerawork and perversely enjoyable dream sequences. Director Josephine Decker proves she’s a specialist when it comes to shifting genres, as Shirley jumps from horror to domestic drama to gothic fairy tale with ease, giving Moss the chance to do a bit of everything, and the audience an opportunity to see Jackson’s menacing style of storytelling come to life on film. R. ASHER LUBERTO. Amazon Prime, Google Play.

Carmilla A carriage crashes and out climbs Carmilla, a mysterious young lady ready to spark the 19th century English gentry in their own version of The Witch meets Portrait of a Lady on Fire.

Taken in by a local family to recover, Carmilla instantly earns the affection of their teenage daughter, Lara (Hannah Rae), and the distrust of Lara’s stern governess (Jessica Raine) and the attending physician following the crash (Tobias Menzies). Based on one of the earliest known works of vampire fiction, dated 1871, Carmilla seeks to explore how oppressive social expectations of women catalyze a fairly innocent rebellion that can look devilish in the right (or wrong) light. But that kind of social commentary requires an insightful dramatic core, and Carmilla too often shoehorns in horror elements for convenience. Director Emily Harris’ script constantly fills gaps where character detail should go with demonic illustrations, dream sequences and time-lapse footage of decaying wildlife. Even if it is pinned between the stately drama and the scrappy genre play, Carmilla arrives lovingly crafted and noticeably well lit, creating constricting circles of visibility around its characters with encroaching darkness.

It just doesn’t matter how well we can see them; we don’t know them. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. filmmovement.com/carmilla.

Greyhound The ocean has always beckoned Tom Hanks. From mermaid romances (Splash) to Gulf shore shrimping (Forrest Gump) to tragically losing Wilsooooon (Cast Away), Hollywood’s favorite Everyman has often been put in his place by the briny abyss.

In Greyhound, it’s more like Hanks, who also wrote the screenplay, premeditated the humble place. Stoic and dutiful as the skipper of a U.S. destroyer shielding a convoy from Nazi U-boats, Hanks undercooks his own passion project in this ominous Apple

TV+ war movie, which Sony sold off to streaming when the pandemic hit this spring. Largely free of backstory or B plots, Greyhound (or Coordinates: The Movie, as it could’ve been called) steams forward as a historical military exercise. Hard right rudder now, to avoid yet another unidentifiable ripple in the black waves. On the one hand, there’s value in fixating a war movie so fully on process that the glory is sapped out of violence. But Greyhound veers too sternly toward lifelessness.

Of all the nautical Hanks movies to imitate, this one apes Captain Phillips, obsessed with the realism and alienating qualities of military might. It’s too bad Hanks has narrowed the definition of Everyman to “glum avatar for bravery.” PG-13. CHANCE SOLEMPFEIFER. Apple TV+.

John Lewis: Good Trouble Congressman John Lewis was an undeniably important civil rights leader: Over his 60-year career, he was arrested 45 times, and his steadfast activism paved the way for the end of segregation and the advancement of voting rights. His tenacious approach to these issues also “highlighted the inactivity of the federal government,” according to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is interviewed in the film along with a host of other leaders, ranging from newwave progressives like Rep. Ilhan Omar to outdated centrists like the Clintons and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It’s difficult to make a documentary about a living subject that doesn’t feel self-serving—Lewis died of pancreatic cancer July 17 just a few weeks after the film debuted—especially if the subject is a politician, of whom there are no perfect ones. At times, Good Trouble sidesteps this trap by featuring archival footage of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery marches, but its present-day content is cursory, verging on cloying and pandering.

Did we really need a segment dedicated to Lewis’ fondness for dancing to Pharrell Williams’ “Happy”? Good Trouble may be emblematic of our tendency to lionize public servants— though Lewis’ impeccable voting record demonstrates he practiced what he preached—but it also serves as a welcome and timely reminder that causing a stir is exactly what creates societal and political change. PG. MIA VICINO. Amazon Prime, Google Play.

Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

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SPOTLIGHT

CAT MAIR

by JACK KENT

Cat’s “Juju dolls” start with driftwood from the beach. She then adds; paint, clay, horse hair, and even rhinestones from the 1920’s to bring out the Juju personalities from within.

Instagram @cats_art_studio

Need a Juju in your home? Pick one up at these PDX shops: Danse Macabre (SE 47th & Hawthorne) Memento (SE 37th & Hawthorne) PDXchange (3916 N Mississippi)

Be a Willamette Week featured artist! Contact us at art@wweek.com.

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Willamette Week JULY 22, 2020 wweek.com

Jack draws exactly what he sees n’ hears from the streets.

Buy an original Sketchy People drawing and help keep Portland weird, and fed! Jack is donating all proceeds to Meals on Wheels! E-mail or DM Jack to help fight hunger.

IG @sketchypeoplepdx | kentcomics.com

JONESIN’

Week of July 30

©2020 Rob Brezsny

by Matt Jones

"R-ationing"--it's three for the price of one.

ARIES (March 21-April 19)

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Aries poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti is renowned for his buoyancy. In one of his famous lines, he wrote, "I am awaiting, perpetually and forever, a renaissance of wonder." Here's what I have to say in response to that thought: Your assignment, as an Aries, is NOT to sit there and wait, perpetually and forever, for a renaissance of wonder. Rather, it’s your job to embody and actualize and express, perpetually and forever, a renaissance of wonder. The coming weeks will be an especially favorable time for you to rise to new heights in fulfilling this aspect of your life-long assignment.

"One must think with the body and the soul or not think at all," wrote Libran author and historian Hannah Arendt. She implied that thinking only with the head may spawn monsters and demons. Mere conceptualization is arid and sterile if not interwoven with the wisdom of the soul and the body's earthy intuitions. Ideas that are untempered by feelings and physical awareness can produce poor maps of reality.

In accordance with astrological omens, I ask you to meditate on these empowering suggestions. Make sure that as you seek to understand what's going on, you draw on all your different kinds of intelligence.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) I live in Northern California on land that once belonged to the indigenous Coast Miwok people. They were animists who believed that soul and sentience animate all animals and plants as well as rocks, rivers, mountains—everything, really. Their food came from hunting and gathering, and they lived in small bands without centralized political authority. According to one of their creation stories, Coyote and Silver Fox made the world by singing and dancing it into existence. Now I invite you to do what I just illustrated: Find out about and celebrate the history of the people and the place where you live. From an astrological perspective, it's a favorable time to get in touch with roots and foundations.

GEMINI (May 21-June20)

ACROSS

52 Element #5

1 "RuPaul's _ _ _ Race"

54 Cruise destination

5 Twitch streamer, often

55 Die maximum, usually

10 Ride around town

56 Rapidly disappearing storage medium

13 Drink brand with a lizard logo 14 San Antonio mission, with "the" 15 Rescue team, briefly 17 Pictures of surrealist Joan's work?

19 Fortnite company 20 One way to sit by 21 "And here's to you, _ _ _ Robinson ..."

22 Arrange alphabetically 23 Mountaineer's vocalization 25 Manzarek of The Doors

24 Cookie that released an egg-shaped version for Easter 2019 25 Projections from a hub 26 Backyard pond fish

57 Actress Kendrick of the Quibi series "Dummy"

29 Tennis's Agassi

58 Program again onto an antiquated computer storage format?

32 It does a hold-up job in the parking lot

62 Bank's property claim

34 "Teletubbies" shout

63 Last letter in the Greek alphabet 64 Rival of Visa or MC 65 Dishonorable guy 66 Intro show 67 Budget allocation

30 Palm leaf

33 Teensy 38 Defeat 39 Chilean cash 40 "Pardon the Interruption" network 42 Glob or nod ending 43 "The Many Loves of _ _ _ Gillis"

"When I look down, I miss all the good stuff, and when I look up, I just trip over things," says singersongwriter Ani DiFranco. I wonder if she has tried an alternate approach: looking straight ahead. That's what I advise for you in the coming weeks, Gemini. In other words, adopt a perspective that will enable you to detect regular glimpses of what's above you and what's below you—as well as what's in front of you. In fact, I suggest you avoid all extremes that might distract you from the big picture. The truth will be most available to you if you occupy the middle ground.

CANCER (June 21-July 22) The Italian word *nottivago* refers to "night roamers": people who wander around after dark. Why do they do it? What do they want to accomplish? Maybe their ramblings have the effect of dissolving stuck thoughts that have been plaguing them. Maybe it's a healing relief to indulge in the luxury of having nowhere in particular to go and nothing in particular to do: to declare their independence from the obsessive drive to get things done. Meandering after sundown may stir up a sense of wild freedom that inspires them to outflank or outgrow their problems. I bring these possibilities to your attention, Cancerian, because the coming days will be an excellent time to try them out.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) "Notice what no one else notices and you'll know what no one else knows," says actor Tim Robbins. That's perfect counsel for you right now, Leo. According to my analysis of the astrological omens, your perceptiveness will be at a peak in the coming weeks. You'll have an ability to discern half-hidden truths that are invisible to everyone else. You'll be aggressive in scoping out what most people don't even want to become aware of.

Take advantage of your temporary superpower! Use it to get a lucid grasp of the big picture—and cultivate a more intelligent approach than those who are focused on the small picture and the comfortable delusions.

DOWN

44 Vatican-related

1 Psychiatric reference book, for short

45 Like some twists of fate

27 End of Wikipedia's URL

2 French monarch

28 Sound from a meadow

50 Home of the Dolphins

3 Like smaller dictionaries

30 "Hansel and Gretel" setting

51 Throw out

4 Crystal-filled cavity

53 NATO alphabet vowel

31 Villain who only wears his purple suspenders and "W" hat two days at a time?

5 No longer fresh, as venison

55 Octagonal road sign

6 Pie _ _ _ mode

56 "Aw, fiddlesticks!"

7 Igneous rock, once

35 California city near Stockton

59 Cause of conflict, maybe

8 Abrasive manicure substance

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

60 Hang-out room

36 Muralist Rivera

9 Monica's brother on "Friends"

"Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else," wrote playwright Tom Stoppard. That's ripe advice for you to meditate on during the coming weeks.

You're in a phase of your astrological cycle when every exit can indeed be an entrance somewhere else—but only if you believe in that possibility and are alert for it. So please dissolve your current assumptions about the current chapter of your life story so that you can be fully open to new possibilities that could become available.

26 Stereotypical person who might demand to speak to the manager of this puzzle

37 "Won't do it" 41 Comedy duo of scientist Marie and singer Burl?

44 It may be served in a spear 47 Bonding words 48 Sixth sense, supposedly 49 Got up 50 Baha _ _ _ ("Who Let the Dogs Out" group)

10 Chef Boyardee product that had to be renamed for a "Seinfeld" episode 11 Ballpark figure?

12 "Whose Line ..." comic Ryan 16 What some dryer sheets have 18 "Well _ _ _!" ("Fancy that!")

23 Feline wail

©2020 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JNZ990.

46 Pupil protector

61 Abbr. after a telephone number

last week’s answers

"I always wanted to be commander-in-chief of my onewoman army," says singer-songwriter Ani DiFranco.

I think that goal is within sight for you, Scorpio. Your power over yourself has been increasing lately. Your ability to manage your own moods and create your own sweet spots and define your own fate is as robust as I have seen it in a while. What do you plan to do with your enhanced dominion? What special feats might you attempt? Are there any previously impossible accomplishments that may now be possible?

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Your meditation for the coming weeks comes to you courtesy of author and naturalist Henry David Thoreau. "We can never have enough of nature," he wrote. "We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the seacoast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder cloud, and the rain which lasts three weeks and produces freshets. We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander." Oh, how I hope you will heed Thoreau's counsel, Sagittarius.

You would really benefit from an extended healing session amidst natural wonders. Give yourself the deep pleasure of exploring what wildness means to you.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Author and activist bell hooks (who doesn't capitalize her name) has taught classes at numerous American universities. She sometimes writes about her experiences there, as in the following passage. "My students tell me, 'we don't want to love! We're tired of being loving!' And I say to them, if you're tired of being loving, then you haven't really been loving, because when you are loving you have more strength." I wanted you to know her thoughts, Capricorn, because I think you're in a favorable position to demonstrate how correct she is: to dramatically boost your own strength through the invigorating power of your love.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Aquarian author Langston Hughes (1902–1967) was a pioneering and prolific African American author and activist who wrote in four different genres and was influential in boosting other Black writers. One of his big breaks as a young man came when he was working as a waiter at a banquet featuring the famous poet Vachel Lindsay. Hughes managed to leave three of his poems on Lindsay's table. The great poet loved them and later lent his clout to boosting Hughes' career. I suspect you might have an opening like that sometime soon, Aquarius—even if it won't be quite as literal and hands-on. Be ready to take advantage. Cultivate every connection that may become available.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) Author Faith Baldwin has renounced the "forgive and forget" policy. She writes, "I think one should forgive and remember. If you forgive and forget, you're just driving what you remember into the subconscious; it stays there and festers. But to look upon what you remember and know you've forgiven is achievement."

That's the approach I recommend for you right now, Pisces. Get the relief you need, yes: Forgive those who have trespassed against you. But also: Hold fast to the lessons you learned through those people so you won't repeat them again later.

HOMEWORK: What do you like best about yourself when you're comfortable? What do you like best about yourself when you feel challenged? FreeWillAstrology.com Check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes

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