Willamette Week, October 20, 2021 - Volume 47, Issue 51 - "The Sting"

NEWS: Tina Kotek Explains Herself. P. 8 COPS: Justice for Jo Ann Hardesty? P. 9 FOOD: Rock Pod Antique Shop. P. 20 WILLAMETTE WEEK PORTLAND’S NEWSWEEKLY

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VOL 47/51 10.20.2021

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CHRIS NESSETH

FINDINGS

ODDITIES AND CURIOSITIES, PAGE 17

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 47, ISSUE 51 Replacing a grocery cart costs $250. 4

Level Beer ’s new location used to be a motorcycle shop. 18

Yes, Virginia, Detective Erik Kammerer really is Officer 67. 6

While not expressly Halloween themed, Valerie and Her Week of Wonders is a vampire story with plenty of witches and biting. 19

Tina Kotek will say something nice about Betsy Johnson if we ask Johnson to say something nice about her. 8

Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy was a pandemic hit for CNN. 20

Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty’s attorney cannot attend a hearing for her police saboteur. 9

Ochoa’s Lupitas Tacos started folding savory meats into tortillas under a tent nearly 10 years ago. 21

Multnomah County has case worker who can speak Mai-Mai. 10

Premium Northwest’s “PNW” lager is “better and cheaper than Rainier.” 22

A Portland sex worker says Dave Hunt was the ideal client. 12 Matt Gone holds the Guinness World Record for “most squares tattooed on the body.” 17 Moving the NWSL championship game from Portland to Louisville meant it could start at noon Eastern. 18

The truest stoner flex is a diversified bong collection. 24 Shaking the Tree’s new production Family ends with one actor sticking their tongue down another actor’s throat. 25 There’s virtually no concert footage of the Velvet Underground. 27

ON THE COVER:

OUR MOST TRAFFICKED STORY ONLINE THIS WEEK:

Hooked on online prostitution stings, illustration by Brian Breneman.

It’s still Dahlia Belle telling off Dave Chappelle.

MASTHEAD EDITOR & PUBLISHER

Mark Zusman

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Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

3

DIALOGUE A POST APPEARED Oct. 15 on the social media app Nextdoor announcing a block party intended to irritate people living in RVs and other vehicles on a North Portland street. Instead, at noon the next day, roughly 15 black-clad counterprotesters showed up. The woman who posted the event flyer said the call to “be loud and obnoxious” was intended as humor. As first reported on wweek.com, the conflict was the latest example of the political debate over visible homelessness playing out face to face along neighborhood sidewalks. Here’s what our readers had to say:

TRAVIS, VIA WWEEK.COM:

“‘Abandoned by City Hall’ is no joke. It’s absolutely true. The people who live in the neighborhood are frustrated with the trash and crime. It’s telling that counterprotesters came over to confront people frustrated with trash and crime then went home without focusing their energy on having the city fix this problem (that they have largely ignored for several years).” @BIJOU531, VIA TWITTER:

“The nerve of taxpaying residents who prefer not to have visible chop chops and unpredictable thieves and drug addicts post up in their neighborhood.

So rude.”

HILARY JEPSEN, VIA FACEBOOK: “OK. So if the argument

was that ‘solutions’ needed to be found, did anyone actually speak

with the campers to see if there was a solution they could use? I don’t know, I feel like this used to be called having a conversation and getting to know your neighbors? What’s worked well for me so far has been exactly this.

When there is a new person in the neighborhood, I simply say, ‘Hi. I notice you’re new here. We all know each other on this block and I don’t recognize you. Are you doing OK? Do you need food or anything?’ And so far I’ve been met with hostility at first, but after a few minutes, when they realize it’s a genuine question, we’ve been able to find services and support. It’s seriously not difficult to talk to people. If that’s where they are stuck, maybe getting some solution as simple as having them both park on the same side of the road so traffic isn’t impeded would be a positive start.”

Dr. Know

COREY, VIA WWEEK.COM:

“I feel for the woman who just wanted to make a joke about harassing her houseless neighbors. I mean, what have we come to as a society when we’re not automatically assuming that a flyer’s text is a joke, actually, and it’s all harmless and fun and stop getting offended!?”

MIGUEL MARTINEZ, VIA FACEBOOK: “Snake Plissken would

be intimidated walking through there. Only a matter of time till something really bad happens.”

KURTS, VIA WWEEK.COM:

“Nextdoor Karens are lame. Über-left window smashers are far worse.”

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BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

My first inclination upon reading your letter, Stuart, was to hit you with a banana cream pie and write “fathead” across your forehead for not knowing the difference between a shopping basket and a shopping cart. But that was before I saw the avalanche of mail this column inspired.

It was a small avalanche—six responses—but pretty impressive considering most of my fans can’t read. Fully 50% (do the math) assumed I wasn’t talking about plastic baskets with handles, but metal cages with wheels, like the one I’m going to live in after I retire.

To be clear: There are still plenty of shopping CARTS at Fred Meyer. Brutal as the last year has been, you’re in no danger of having to use your actual, physical arms to carry sacks of frozen entrees to your car, like some kind of caveman.

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

Heck, everyone is. And while perhaps accidental or incidental, that ‘let’s make noise and bother people’ idea isn’t exactly adding a positive contribution and will obviously invoke a similarly negative response.”

APPEARING IN PERSON OR VIRTUALLY:

Regarding your Freddy’s column [“Dr. Know: Where Are All the Shopping Baskets at Fred Meyer?” WW, Oct. 6, 2021): Why not charge for the use of a cart (say, a dollar), to be refunded when the customer returns it?

Rounding up carts that have left the premises would also get you a dollar each. —Stuart H.

4

THEDEADTEXT, VIA WWEEK. COM: “Both sides are frustrated.

We’re not animals.

Anyway, while we’re on the subject of shopping carts, I guess I can try—what the hell—to answer your question. You’re not wrong that having these carts walk off the property is a major headache for grocery chains. Not only are they expensive to replace—$250 is pretty average—but some jurisdictions levy fines against stores that don’t retrieve abandoned ones.

Every few years, some American grocery will experiment with a deposit/refund system, with limited (read: zero) success. However, the German-based discount chain Aldi does use a coin-operated system—think of those airport luggage trolleys—at its U.S. stores.

This is not so much to discourage theft, however, as to allow the famously penny-pinching chain (it claims to beat Walmart’s prices by 42%) to avoid paying someone to collect carts from the parking lot. Apparently the 25-cent deposit—that’s right, a quarter—is enough to convince thrifty customers to return the carts themselves.

You can witness this triumph of Teutonic frugality for yourself, provided you’re willing to travel to Aldi’s nearest location: Fresno. Still, for the kind of cheapskate who’ll walk a mile to save a quarter, maybe it’s worth the trip.

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

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SETTLED UP

CITY WILL FIRE 91 WORKERS FOR REFUSING VACCINATION: The city of Portland is poised to fire 91 city employees for failing either to provide proof of vaccination or request an exemption by Oct. 18. That represents 1.5% of the city’s 6,146 total employees. Vaccination status is still pending for another 47 employees, who include employees brought onboard in recent days, those getting their second shots, and those awaiting exemption approval.

Another 342 city employees received a religious or medical exemption. The city says it will not share bureau-specific numbers: “Releasing any information that could potentially identify an employee’s confidential health information presents both privacy and safety concerns, and we take these matters very seriously.” Mayor Ted Wheeler says he won’t try to enforce a vaccine mandate on Portland Police Bureau officers, who have an exemption courtesy of state policy. Just last week, Multnomah County released its vaccination numbers: 99% of its workers were vaccinated, partially vaccinated or had applied for an exemption.

DEADLY SECURITY GUARD SHOOTING LEADS TO $200,000 PAYOUT: The widow of a man whom a security guard killed outside Dream On Saloon in 2019 agreed Oct. 18 to a $200,000 settlement from the owners of the deep Southeast Portland nightclub. The club’s security guard shot and killed Eugene Pharr, an unarmed 42-year-old, in the parking lot. “This is not a fair result—there are no ‘fair’ results in wrongful death cases,” says Elaine Pharr’s attorney, Michael Fuller. “However, the settlement may help provide a sense of closure to the family.” Pharr filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the club and the security guard, Francisco Swafford, in 2019 after a Multnomah County grand jury found no criminal wrongdoing by Swafford, in part due to Oregon’s “stand your ground” laws, WW reported at the time. The settlement arrives as nightclubs in the central city rely increasingly on squads of armed guards to deter gun violence (“Hired Guns,” WW, Aug. 11, 2021). Attorneys for Swafford and Dream On Saloon did not respond to WW’s request for comment.

MULTNOMAH COUNTY CHAIR’S RACE BEGINS WITH UNUSUAL AD: The four-way race for Multnomah County chair got off to an odd start Oct. 7 when Here Together, a group that campaigned successfully for Metro’s $2.5 billion homeless services measure in 2020, released a short video featuring Shannon Singleton, an aide to Gov. Kate Brown. Singleton announced her candidacy for county chair Sept. 14. The video doesn’t mention Singleton is running for chair but shows her speaking about housing and homelessness, which will certainly be the focus of the chair’s race. Here Together represents a coalition of dozens of nonprofits and elected officials, including Singleton’s three opponents, County Commissioners Sharon Meieran, Jessica Vega Pederson and Lori Stegmann. They are not thrilled. “It looks like a campaign commercial,” says Meieran’s campaign spokeswoman Jessica Elkan.

Vega Pederson’s and Stegmann’s campaigns say they agree. Singleton says she won’t use the ad in the race. Here Together executive director Angela Martin says the video was produced long before Singleton entered the race, is not an endorsement, and has nothing to do with the election. Therefore, she says, it won’t be reported as an in-kind campaign contribution.

U.S. ATTORNEY FINALISTS NAMED: A list of seven finalists for the top federal prosecutor’s job in the state, the U.S. attorney for Oregon, was released Oct. 19 by U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley. The position has been held on an interim basis since Feb. 28 by Scott Asphaug, who replaced Billy Williams. Typically, new presidents select U.S. attorneys from names submitted by each state’s U.S. senators.

The finalists for Oregon include Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel; Vivek Kothari and Vamshi Reddy, former federal prosecutors now in private practice; and current assistant U.S. attorneys Craig Gabriel, Joseph Huynh, Rachel Sowray and Natalie Wight. Each candidate will now be interviewed by a selection committee previously named by Wyden and Merkley. The public can also comment by contacting Wyden’s office by Nov. 5.

PETER ANDREW SISTROM, age 66, husband, father, attorney, outdoorsman, of Park Slope Brooklyn, died September 10, 2021, in Dundas, Ontario, Canada. An avid marathoner, he died while running.

Peter was born on February 23, 1955 in Berkeley, California to William R. Sistrom and Dorothy E. Sistrom.

He inherited his probing intellect, sardonic humor, and abiding social conscience and liberal politics from them.

He lived in Paris, France; Far Rockaway, New York; and Cambridge, Massachusetts; before the family settled in Eugene, Oregon. He grew up there until college and his heart always remained in Oregon. He was a rock climber and mountaineer, the peak being scaling Mt. McKinley as a high school senior in 1973. He graduated from Harvard College in 1978 with a degree in Cultural Anthropology. He moved to Portland, Oregon and became a music reviewer and journalist and eventually editor of Willamette Week where he met his first wife Susan Orlean.

They divorced in 1999. He then attended law school at Northeastern in Boston.

After a federal judge clerkship, he entered private practice in New York City in 1987 with Paul, Wiess, Rifkind, Wharton, and GarriPeter Andrew Sistrom son, specializing in intellec1955-2021 tual copyright law. He then entered government service in 1992, first at the state level working as Assistant Counsel to then-Governor Mario Cuomo, launching and running the New York State Capital Defender’s Office for a decade, and ascending to Assistant Attorney General in 2005. In 2008, he joined the Manhattan Transit Authority’s counsel’s office, becoming Deputy General Counsel in 2014.

Sistrom’s greatest achievement, however, was as a husband to Leanne Burney whom he married in 2001, and as a father to William Burney Sistrom, 20, currently a junior at the University of Toronto; Brant Burney Sistrom, 18, who recently started college to study engineering at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia; and Timbit the schnoodle. Peter is also survived by his older brother Christopher Sistrom and his wife Brenda, of Gainesville, Florida; Chris’s son and Peter’s namesake Peter. G. Sistrom of Eugene, Oregon; his younger sister Anne Erwin, husband Tom, their three children Kate, Bobby, Kerry and four grandchildren, of Portland, Oregon, and his younger brother Michael and his wife Mig, of Durham, North Carolina. Peter was a devoted uncle and looked forward to seeing the nephews, nieces, great nephews and nieces and the rest of his American family in Oregon soon, as well as exploring old hiking and climbing haunts, the best local, off-the beaten track diner, and esoteric local landmarks.

Peter is predeceased by his parents and aunt Kay Magee.

Peter was also fortunate to have gained a large and loving Canadian family through Leanne, especially her parents Ruth and Don Burney, of Dundas, Ontario and sisters Megan and Tricia. Ever the cultural sponge, Peter became an adopted Canadian and hockey enthusiast. Leanne, Peter, and the boys spent every August at the family cottage in Parry Sound, Georgian Bay.He would have continued to explore, learn, enjoy his family and friends and make them laugh or groan at his jokes, and recruit them for the next adventure, in retirement. We should all do the same in his memory.

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

5

NEWS

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW THIS WEEK

MAPPED

Here Comes Housing

7 2

Metro releases a muchanticipated roster of low-income apartment construction.

Release the cranes!

On Oct. 12, the Portland Housing Bureau announced nine new affordable housing projects that the city has recommended for funding from Metro’s 2018 housing bond. It’s a giant step forward for a city mired in a shortage of affordable housing—the new projects will add 905 new units.

The average Metro subsidy per unit is about $113,000. That’s slightly higher than the $96,000 average subsidy for earlier projects Metro has helped fund. But construction costs are higher in Portland than in Washington and Clackamas counties, and those costs overall have spiked during the pandemic.

Residents in Washington, Multnomah and Clackamas counties approved the $653 million bond in November 2018. Of that total, $211 million is available for affordable housing within Portland city limits, with a goal of building 1,475 new units.

The bureau chose the projects from 24 applications that developers submitted.

If Metro approves the city’s proposals, it will mark the regional agency’s first round of funding for the city.

“Portland hasn’t submitted anything since the program first got started,” says Metro spokesman Nick Christensen. “We have many projects underway in Washington County, Clackamas County and East Multnomah Country, with 2,100 projects in the pipeline already.”

The city is requesting a total of $107 million from Metro for the nine projects. Metro’s share of each project could range from as low as 7% of the total cost to as high as 47%. As with other affordable housing projects, the developers will have to find sources of private capital to cover the balance.

The projected total cost of all nine projects is $390 million.

Metro expects to announce whether the projects are approved in about a month. “We make sure that the projects are feasible,” says Christensen, “and if they actually look like projects that can be built.”

The projects range in size from 58 units to 201 units, and all will be located east of the Willamette River.

Here’s a breakdown of the locations, and Metro’s public investment in each project.

—TORI LIEBERMAN

6 5

4

1 3 8 9

Project

Total Units

Total Development Costs

Metro Bond Contribution

Public Share of Total Cost

Public Subsidy Per Unit

1

74th and Glisan

137

$56.5 million

$20 million

35.3%

$146K

2

5020 N Interstate

64

$30.2 million

$9.4 million

31%

$146K

3

Cedar Commons II

85

$26 million

$12.4 million

47.7%

$146K

4

HollywoodHUB

201

$98.8 million

$29.1 million

29.4%

$145K

5

Albina One

94

$49.1 million

$13.8 million

28%

$146K

6

PCC Killingsworth

84

$38 million

$2.5 million

6.7%

$30K

7

Tistilal Village

58

$26.6 million

$3.5 million

13.2%

$61K

8

Powellhurst Place

65

$23.7 million

$8.8 million

37.3%

$136K

9

Garden Park Estates

117

$40.8 million

$7.3 million

17.9%

$62K

SOURCE: PORTLAND HOUSING BUREAU

6

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

DY L A N VA N W E E L D E N

OPINION

LAWSUIT

Esther Lewis v.

Income Property Management Tenants are taking Rosemont Court to court.

BELATED DISCLOSURE: A judge forced the city to identify police officers at protests.

Numbers Game A judge blasts the city’s justification for hiding the identities of Portland riot cops.

BY NIG E L JAQ UI SS

njaquiss@wweek.com

Alan Kessler had a simple question 16 months ago: How could he obtain the names of members of the Portland Police Bureau’s Rapid Response Team?

Kessler, a public interest lawyer and political activist, monitored the nightly protests in 2020 and noticed in some videos that certain officers on the riot squad who appeared to use excessive force had obscured their name tags and instead wore numbers as a form of identification.

Kessler filed a public records request with the city of Portland seeking a numeric key that would match officers’ names to the numbers they wore during protests.

His quest to get those names lasted longer than the riot squad itself, which voted to disband in July.

On Oct. 18, after a withering opinion letter from Multnomah County Judge Pro Tem Terence Thatcher that excoriated the City Attorney’s Office, Kessler finally got what he wanted—and, in the process, definitively solved a long-simmering mystery.

What was Kessler’s beef?

During the protests, the Police Bureau instituted a new policy—citing officers’ fears for their personal safety—that allowed officers working protests to cover their badges and name tags with a six- or seven-digit number that the city assigns all employees.

Those numbers are linked to all sorts of personal information: Social Security numbers, home addresses and personal phone numbers.

Kessler says he simply wanted to be able to match the numbers that officers wore to their names so they could be held accountable if they used excessive force.

“Police have great power, and with great power comes great responsibility,” Kessler says. “Having officers know if they abuse their power that people will hold them accountable is one of the checks we have against police brutality.”

Without officers’ names, Portlanders couldn’t file complaints.

Kessler filed a public records request June 17, 2020, seeking a list of names and the corresponding identifying numbers. The city rejected his request, citing a requirement in the law that Kessler provide the officers’ names first (“Look Up the Number,” WW, July 22, 2020).

It was circular logic: To discover officers’ names, Kessler first had to provide them to the city.

What happened?

Kessler appealed the city’s denial to the Multnomah County District Attorney’s Office. The DA appeared to sympathize with Kessler’s argument but said the city’s denial was legally justified. “Frustration at being asked to do the impossible (or impractical) is understandable,” then-DA Rod Underhill wrote in a July 17, 2020, order rejecting Kessler’s appeal.

What changed?

An eagle-eyed judge noticed a flaw in the city’s response.

After Underhill rejected Kessler’s appeal, the lawyer filed a lawsuit against the city in Multnomah County Circuit Court. After both sides presented their positions to Judge Pro Tem Thatcher, the judge noticed that Kessler had included a photograph with his complaint—it showed a Rapid Response Team officer with a two-digit number on his uniform.

That number, the judge realized, was different from the six- and seven-digit numbers linked to personal information that the city refused to give to Kessler.

Moreover, he realized, the city had never addressed the existence of this second numbering system.

In an Oct. 11 opinion letter to both parties, Thatcher unloaded on the city.

“The City hid that fact from Kessler (and later the district attorney and this Court) when any good faith interpretation of Kessler’s request would have read it to include those numbers,” Thatcher wrote. He gave the city until Oct. 18 to either provide Kessler the two-digit numbers and corresponding names or a justification for withholding them.

A little after 4 pm that day, the city sent Kessler the list.

What does that mean?

Portlanders can now comb through photographs and video of the protests and determine the names of officers involved in various incidents.

And the list, which Kessler shared with WW, provides a definitive answer to a long-running question: Who is Officer Number 67, who was captured on video Sept 5, 2020, slugging Elijah Warren, a homeowner, with his baton? The list says the officer, as WW surmised from witness accounts (“The Big Numbers: 67,” Nov. 4, 2020), is Detective Erik Kammerer.

As for the delay in releasing that information, City Attorney Robert Taylor says it was a misunderstanding. “During this matter, a disagreement arose about the scope of the plaintiff’s public records request, and the court resolved that disagreement with its decision,” Taylor tells WW. “We thank the court for its decision.”

A RESIDENT of the senior living affordable Rosemont Court in North Portland, where 14 seniors have become ill, one fatally, with airborne Legionnaires’ disease since the beginning of the year, filed a class action lawsuit Oct. 18 against the property manager.

It’s the second lawsuit within a week filed by a tenant against Income Property Management, which manages the building. (WW reported the first at wweek.com.) This one is a class-action suit—the plaintiff, Esther Lewis, is demanding the property manager refund all rent paid by residents since the year began.

What the lawsuit says: Lewis, who filed the lawsuit in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleges Income Property Management, a Portland company that manages 168 buildings in Oregon and Southwest Washington, failed to protect residents on North Dekum Street from their own water supply.

“Over the past year, defendant has failed to maintain North Portland’s Rosemont Court senior living center in a safe and habitable condition,” the lawsuit alleges. “Defendant’s failure to provide a safe water supply to the center has killed one senior and sickened over a dozen others with Legionnaires’ disease.”

The plaintiff is filing the claim for herself and other residents “who experienced a diminution in rental value caused by defendant’s failure to maintain Rosemont Court in a safe and habitable condition.”

The lawsuit further alleges management failed to “timely and adequately inspect for Legionella, adequately test for Legionella on a regular periodic basis, adequately and timely warn tenants about the presence of Legionella, adequately and timely remediate Legionella, and to be completely forthright about defendant’s handling of the Legionella outbreak.”

Lewis is asking for a trial by jury.

What the plaintiff says: Lewis contracted Legionnaires’ disease earlier this year, and her daughter Byrd says her mother’s mental and physical health has steeply degraded since then.

Legionnaires’ disease is caused by bacteria found in water and is dangerous when water particles are inhaled into the lungs. Lewis has preexisting health conditions that make getting such a respiratory illness more deadly. Her daughter is in the process of moving Lewis out of Rosemont Court now.

Byrd says her mother filed the lawsuit because “at this point, it’s the only recourse she has.”

“She can no longer walk. She’s suffered greatly from the Legionella and having to move, the stress of it all, and having to acclimate to a new environment,” Byrd says. “I can’t risk her getting it again.”

What the defendant says: Income Property Management did not comment on the lawsuit, but called the situation “unfortunate and complicated.”

Why it matters: Since early January, 14 residents of the low-income senior building have fallen ill after breathing in bacteria from their apartments’ running water. The Legionnaires’ outbreak has baffled Multnomah County health officials and underlined the scarce options that elderly people with little money face. Like Lewis, most of the building’s remaining residents—more than 80 of them—have nowhere else to go.

A 14th resident became sick with the disease on Sept. 27.

It’s the first documented case since June. Residents were alerted to the latest case by the Multnomah County Health Department on Oct. 1, which has struggled to identify the origins of the outbreak.

Rosemont Court has outfitted each of the residents’ apartments with filters on every faucet to lessen the risk of residents inhaling bacteria, and has routinely tested the water.

The building is owned by the affordable housing provider Northwest Housing Alternatives, which has strongly urged residents to permanently relocate since the first outbreak in January but has not made moving mandatory. Due to high rent and a lack of affordable housing options, many residents have chosen to stay.

—SOPHIE PEEL Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

7

NEWS N AT H A N H O WA R D

WW: Republicans have signaled they’re going to run against the Democratic nominee as Kate Brown 2.0. Are you Gov. Brown 2.0?

I think everybody who runs for governor in 2022 should be judged on their own merits. I have a strong track record of showing I can take values and implement them and actually improve people’s lives.

Are you seeking the governor’s endorsement for your campaign?

We honestly haven’t had a chance to talk about it, because I got in around that same time the Delta [variant] was surging. If she’s interested in making an endorsement, I would certainly talk to her about it.

You’ve been supportive of the governor’s approach to the pandemic.

What did she get wrong?

In the benefit of hindsight, the way we didn’t prioritize seniors for vaccinations, in terms of the timeline early on.

Tina Kotek ENTRANCE INTERVIEW:

The longest-serving House speaker in Oregon history makes her case for the state’s top job.

BY R AC H E L M O N A H A N

and

NI GEL JAQ UI SS

In what is likely to be Oregon’s most interesting and competitive gubernatorial election in at least a generation, the longtime speaker of the House, Rep. Tina Kotek (D-Portland), is running to replace a historically unpopular Democratic governor, Kate Brown.

The two have similar political profiles. Both are Portland Democrats who’ve broken down barriers in their rise to power. Brown is the first openly bisexual governor in U.S. history; Kotek is the first lesbian speaker of any state legislature. They both hail from the left wing of the Democratic party.

But where Brown’s indecision during the pandemic has defined her tenure, Kotek has earned a reputation among both friends and enemies for passing bills—with or without consensus. A talented vote-counter, she passed an array of progressive legislation in the past three sessions—notably a hike in the minimum wage, paid family leave, and tenant protections. In 2019, she made Oregon the first state to end single-fam8

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ily zoning, a major step toward building a greater housing supply by erecting apartments in Oregon’s neighborhoods.

“She’s strong, she’s effective, able to get things done that other people see as impossible,” says state Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle, who served as majority leader under Kotek. “She knows how to use her power.”

It remains to be seen whether voters will see a distinction between Kotek and Brown. Kotek’s 15 years in the House, nine as speaker, mean she’s got a long record for opponents to parse—and plenty of enemies.

“We shouldn’t be afraid of strong women who are well skilled in the art of wielding power to move the state forward,” says Mary Nolan, now a Metro councilor and the House majority leader from 2008 to 2010. “That’s what she does.”

But Kotek has made enemies even within her own party, including on a sentencing reform bill in 2019 that the state Supreme Court interpreted

this month to require, retroactively, resentencing anyone on death row for aggravated murder.

Former Rep. Jeff Barker (D-Aloha) says he has questions about Kotek’s “credibility” and “truthfulness” on that bill. “I think they flat out lied about that,” says Barker, referring to Kotek and then-Majority Leader Jennifer Williamson (D-Portland).

Kotek says the law was written to apply going forward and that she neither lied nor misunderstood the issue.

The House speaker faces notable opponents in the Democratic primary, including State Treasurer Tobias Read and, soon, former New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. Beyond that, a bevy of Republican hopefuls are itching for battle, and state Sen. Betsy Johnson (D-Scappoose) last week announced she’ll enter the race as an independent.

But any gubernatorial wannabe must get by Kotek, who has long proven difficult to outmaneuver. This week, she sat down for a conversation with WW. It has been edited for length and clarity.

What are your three top priorities if elected governor?

The No. 1 priority is the same thing it has been for me as speaker, which is to make sure that people’s lives are improving.

The biggest issues up there right now are housing, behavioral health, and making sure people have economic security when things have been so unpredictable. I would add to that climate. The climate crisis is the challenge we cannot ignore.

Behavioral health is a top priority for you. Yet Oregon regularly ranks among the bottom states in spending and resources devoted to it. Why is that?

I believe that with the support of the voters, we now have the marijuana dollars flowing out into communities as early as next year from Measure 110 [which allocates cannabis tax revenue to addiction treatment services]. We will move the needle on more recovery services. In terms of how we got here, it was [lack of ] resources.

Behavioral health services are always kind of the stepchild of the health care system.

One of the things we have been focusing on in the Legislature is the [treatment services] workforce. Do we have enough people who are culturally competent? It’ll be a priority for me as governor, because honestly this is not a resource issue anymore.

Our K-12 schools are often ranked alongside schools in the deep South that spend far less on education.

Why are Oregon’s outcomes for K-12 students so poor?

Our numbers are improving. Prior to the pandemic, graduation rates were on the rise.

The key is increased accountability and transparency in how the new Student Success Act dollars are being spent. We were very specific.

We want to make sure that the social, emotional well-being of students is better addressed through counselors and nurses and other folks who could be in the schools to help students be successful.

We also allocated $500,000 at the end of session so the Department of Education can analyze how our state school funding formula works, from an equity perspective. Is there something in our funding formula that does not help us achieve the equitable outcomes we want for all of our students?

J U S T I N YA U

“The biggest issues up there right now are housing, behavioral health, and making sure people have economic security when things have been so unpredictable.”

What evidence would you offer us that you are willing to stand up to the teachers’ union?

One of my values has been to make sure there is strong retirement security for people who work in this state. And I wanted to make sure that the Public Employee Retirement System would be sustainable over time.

The vote we took [in 2019] to make the changes in the near term for PERS to be stable and sustainable are really important. It was a tough vote. I think that’s an example of saying we need to do this, and then we need to figure out how to work together going forward.

The Oregon Supreme Court recently determined that changes the 2019 Legislature made to the eliminate the death penalty in nearly all cases are retroactive. Did Democrats mislead the public at the time the bill passed, or did they not understand their own bill?

I don’t think we did anything intentionally misleading. The bill was drafted by Legislative Counsel to be forward-looking. People can challenge legislation and appeal to the court. In this case, the Supreme Court had a different take on the bill.

So it’s Legislative Counsel’s fault?

No, I think the bill was very clear. The courts can always interpret what to do with that legislation.

The bill was drafted correctly.

Who do you consider your more formidable competition: Betsy Johnson or Nick Kristof?

My job is just to get out there and talk to voters and let them know who I am and what I can do.

So I don’t even have an answer to that because I just don’t think about it that way.

Can you tell us what one of Betsy Johnson’s greatest strengths is?

Only if you ask her the same question.

We will.

I’ve served with Sen. Johnson a long time. Here’s what I will say: She is dogged when it comes to standing up for the constituents in her district, and it’s something I admire. I think it’s something we share.

On the opposite side, why should she not be the governor? What’s your strongest criticism of her?

Here’s what I would say: I think I am a stronger candidate for governor than everyone who is in the field because my public service is an example of doing things—not just talking about them—but doing things that actually improve people’s lives.

Particularly now, as we move into this new world post-pandemic, it’s not just enough to talk about stuff. You have to be able to do things.

The Final Countdown The investigation into a police leak is nearing its endgame.

BY TESS R ISKI TESS@WWEEK.COM

Ten hours: That’s about how much time passed between a 56-year-old woman’s call to 911 to report she had been rear-ended on Southeast 148th Avenue and the publication of a slew of news stories with headlines like “Cop-Hating Portland City Councilor Involved in Hit-and-Run Accident.”

Two hundred thirty days: That’s how long ago the Portland Police Bureau determined Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty was not, in fact, a suspect in the fender-bender.

“What happened to Commissioner Hardesty is wrong and unacceptable,” Mayor Ted Wheeler said March 5. “It’s a reflection of broader systemic racism and it must be addressed.

We need to get to the bottom of it as soon as possible. No one should be subjected to false accusations publicly.”

Since the mayor issued that statement 32 weeks ago, the Blazers lost a playoff series, Portland experienced the hottest temperatures in recorded history, and an attempt to recall Wheeler failed.

Yet Portlanders still don’t have answers about how the false allegation made its way within hours to right-wing social media pundits, and later to The Oregonian. Nor do we know definitively why Officer Brian Hunzeker resigned as president of the city’s police union, the Portland Police Association, on March 16 for his purported role in the leak.

But the answers to those questions, which have lingered like a Willamette Valley fog for more than seven months, may soon be voted on by a five-to-seven-member board.

On Oct. 20, the city’s Police Review Board is slated to determine what discipline, if any, the involved officers should face. Within 14 days of completing the case review, the board’s “civilian facilitator” is required to submit proposed findings in writing to Police Chief Chuck Lovell, who can then affirm or deny the board’s findings and issue a final decision.

If the chief’s decision imposes discipline on the involved officers, the union could file a grievance on their behalf, which could drag the decision into arbitration.

The chief’s decision is quasi-public, meaning the officers’ names will likely be redacted, and the explanations of what actions specifically violated city policies are typically condensed to the point of being nonsensical. But the PRB hearing at the very least represents forward movement in a set of investigations that appeared inert.

The investigation’s conclusion was news to Hardesty.

“I learned the most recent update that the investigation had concluded and is scheduled for a PRB hearing from The Oregonian,” she says. Similarly, back in March, Hardesty says she first learned of the hit-and-run allegation when the city’s sole daily contacted her for comment.

Hardesty says she now knows as much as the public does about the case.

“I received only one physical letter sent to my City Hall office dated July 29 that said the investigation had concluded,” she says.

Because she and her staff were working remotely at the

time, Hardesty only learned of the letter in September. As WW reported last month, the letter notified the commissioner that the investigation had concluded. But in a subsequent conversation with Chief Lovell, Hardesty says, he told her that a tort claim notice she filed against the city in August had prompted the Police Bureau to reopen the investigation.

Besides the July 29 letter and the conversation with the chief, Hardesty says, the bureau has not provided her any information about the investigation. Her attorney Matthew Ellis asked—and was denied—permission to attend Wednesday’s PRB hearing.

That raises questions about what information will be released to the public, and when, regarding the case.

City Attorney Robert Taylor said in a statement Monday that the city anticipates the press will request the relevant records from the Police Bureau “once the full disciplinary process is complete.”

“The city understands the high public interest in this matter and has been committed to a full and thorough investigation of this incident,” Taylor says. “The city will review those requests and respond as allowed by law, and the city’s response will be informed by the high public interest in this matter.”

Taylor did not respond to WW’s questions about whether his office has legal authority to compel the release of the internal affairs file, among other relevant records.

Meanwhile, PPB has declined to disclose the date that its internal affairs investigation concluded. On Oct. 12, the bureau confirmed in an email to WW that the investigation was still ongoing, so it is unclear if the investigation wrapped in the 48-odd hours between then and The Oregonian’s report on Oct. 14, or if the Police Bureau provided incorrect information to WW, which inquires with the bureau weekly about the status of the internal affairs probe.

PPB spokesman Sgt. Kevin Allen warns that the Police Review Board hearing won’t necessarily mark the conclusion of the case.

“It will be some time yet before the entire process concludes,” Allen says. “The process is important to ensure the integrity of the investigation. That’s why it’s not accurate to say that the case is ‘shrouded in secrecy’ as has been reported.

“That is normal for IA investigations,” Allen continues.

“They’re always confidential, and the final decision makers won’t know much about it until it reaches their stage because they can’t be seen as having any influence over the investigation. Remember that we only have one shot at a quality investigation, and we owe it to all who are involved to take the time to do it right.”

But the quality of justice delivered by the PRB—and the level of transparency in its results—is a matter of some debate.

In cases that do not involve use of force, the panel typically consists of three PPB officers (one peer of the involved officers, an assistant chief, and a captain or commander), one civilian, and a member of the city’s Independent Police Review.

Critics say the makeup of the panel is tilted in favor of police. “It’s a Police Review Board, it’s not a Community Review Board,” says Dan Handelman of Portland Copwatch.

“The membership is heavily weighted toward the police, it’s behind closed doors, the person involved can’t go: Those are some of the key problems. And then the information that we get out of them is very heavily redacted,” Handelman says.

“The officer is allowed to go and have somebody from the PPA represent them. But the subject of what the police did is not allowed in. So that’s just horrifying in its own right.”

In March, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a letter criticizing the city’s interpretation and application of bureau directives during PRB hearings, after it sat in on multiple meetings of the board in 2020 and 2021.

“These repeated failures demonstrate a systemic inadequacy in the city’s accountability structure,” DOJ lawyers wrote. “The errors impact the city’s ability to hold officers to account for violating PPB policy.”

Ashlee Albies, a Portland civil rights lawyer who has reviewed PRB findings for litigation purposes, says the process occurs “behind a veil.”

“My perception is it’s usually designed to have a certain outcome,” Albies says. “I think it absolutely is functioning as it’s supposed to, as it was designed to. But whether it functions to provide additional transparency and oversight of the police—no, I don’t think it does that.”

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NEWS JOSEPH BLAKE

APARTMENT HUNTERS: County employees prepare to knock on doors of households with upcoming eviction hearings.

Last Stop As the eviction freeze ends, whether or not someone is kicked to the street in Multnomah County is up to four people.

BY S OPHI E P E E L

speel@wweek.com

On a crisp October afternoon, Elizabeth Cortez rides through the Cully neighborhood in the backseat of a white Multnomah County car. On her cellphone are 10 pins in a Google Map—the addresses of renters she hopes to save from eviction today.

She and two co-workers pull the car into an auto body shop parking lot and walk up to a drab gray ground-floor apartment. Outside, trash bags bulge. A cluster of mushrooms grows from bark chips outside the apartment.

Cortez peeks through the window curtains. Her colleague Fasseh Abdullahi raps on the door gently. “I don’t want to get mistaken for cops,” he says.

Living in the apartment is a woman who has been legally protected from paying rent for much of the past 19 months.

Her eviction court date is in five days. If they don’t find her today, she could be on the street by the end of the month.

Since the pandemic descended in April 2020, Multnomah County’s nonpayment eviction courts have been in a freeze, except for tenants who didn’t fill out financial hardship forms. Those gears resumed grinding July 1, when a statewide eviction moratorium ended. Now a team of four people is what stands between some of the tenants least able to pay rent and a judge’s order sending them to the street.

The only trick? Finding them.

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Many of the 20 doors the team knocks on every day go unopened. Team members leave notes and record voicemails on building call boxes. They knock up to five times, switching up the time of day in case the tenant is at work. They call relatives.

They’ll spend weeks trying to contact someone.

On this day, Abdullahi writes a note and tucks it in the door: “Hello, please call us about rental assistance.”

The team is from Bienestar de la Familia, a county program that offers resources primarily to Latinx residents. The team will visit six more households this afternoon. Only one person will answer, and that’s because she called Abdullahi after he’d left a flyer on her door. Her name is Estefany and she wears Puma slides.

She’s 20 and lost her job at the Columbia Sportswear warehouse in early October.

She didn’t have a plan if she was evicted.

Oregon’s tenant protections are in chaos as rent once again comes due. State assistance checks have not reached many of the tenants who dutifully applied 90 days ago. (Bienestar’s program is separate from the state’s and checks come more swiftly.) Oregon Gov. Kate Brown is in discussions about calling another special session of the Oregon Legislature to potentially extend the grace period for those who’ve applied for assistance.

Over the past three months, 465 county residents have faced evictions filed by their landlords. That’s just the tip of the

eviction iceberg, however: Many move after getting a termination notice and prior to a court filing to avoid having an eviction on their record.

But some of the people who most need help are the ones who have done the least to help themselves—tenants who haven’t applied for assistance.

That’s where the county’s eviction prevention team comes in. Out of 241 referrals received since the end of July, the team’s been able to make sure 124 of them got federal rent assistance dollars funneled to the county to keep them housed.

“A lot of clients we come in contact with have had their phones cut off, don’t have access to the internet, or there’s a language barrier,” says Cortez, who adds she’s encountered suspicion about government assistance. “They think there must be strings attached or something.”

Cortez isn’t in this work for thanks. In her telling, the county team is what stands between the end of legal protections and a societal catastrophe—thousands of people forced onto Portland sidewalks already packed with tents.

“I feel a lot of pressure, because we are that last resort for them,” Cortez says. Last week, she reached a single mother with a 3-year-old son who has autism. She cried when she realized why Cortez was there.

“She said she’d been trying to apply online, and it was asking for all these documents, and she couldn’t figure it out. You could see how overwhelmed she was. It made it seem like my work really mattered.”

On a September morning, Cortez recognized a Spanish-speaking woman whose mobile home door she’d knocked on five times since the woman’s landlord filed for eviction. Cortez caught her at the last stop: the Multnomah County Courthouse.

Cortez helped her fill out the initial paperwork to get rent money from the county.

Inside the courtroom, as the judge worked through the list of eviction filings, the Spanish-speaking woman turned to

Cortez, who was sitting at the back of the courtroom alongside her three colleagues.

The woman couldn’t understand the judge, and the judge couldn’t understand her. Cortez isn’t allowed to help translate in the courtroom. She fidgeted, hoping the judge would be understanding.

Language barriers can be a problem for tenants facing eviction. (Team member Abdullahi speaks Somali, the other three speak Spanish. Two case managers back at the office speak Mai-Mai and Arabic.)

If tenants don’t show up at the courthouse for their first appearance, the team has little recourse to help them. A default judgment is made, ruling in favor of the landlord. From there, tenants typically have four days to leave their dwelling before the landlord can involve law enforcement.

The five tenants who didn’t show up are out of luck. But the Spanish-speaking woman? She was able to communicate with Judge Benjamin Johnston through a translator that her paperwork was in order. She’ll stay in her home.

Some critics say the county’s efforts arrived too little too late, in early August.

Portland Tenants United has been making similar door-to-door visits since late July, when the federal moratorium ended. PTU knocked on 120 doors during a single weekend in September.

Alli Sayre is an organizer with PTU. She says the county should’ve started its efforts long before the tenants’ union did.

“We feel like there’s a lot the county could have done and didn’t,” Sayre says.

“The fact is that a lot of people have gotten evicted, so obviously more should have been done.”

The county contends it was thorough in its efforts: It sent postcards to tenants’ homes, sent out text blasts, paid for Facebook ads, placed ads in culturally specific newspapers, and distributed flyers through county partners.

Becky Straus of the Oregon Law Center, which partners with the county to provide free legal aid to tenants, says: “The door knocking was a course correction. We think of the courthouse as the last stop, but some people weren’t even making it to the last stop.”

Rufus Bethea was one of the tenants the county reached in time.

He drives semi-trucks. He got behind on rent. The county team left a handwritten letter wedged in his door a week before his scheduled court appearance and helped him get assistance.

“That would’ve put me back on the streets,” Bethea tells WW. He was homeless for seven months in 2018 before finding housing. “Especially to think of what I’d already went through, it was a crushing thought.”

The key, the team says, is sheer persistence. Many tenants answer on the fifth knock, or call one of the team members just a day before their court hearing.

The woman the team was searching for in mid-October, with the mushrooms outside her door, finally answered Abdullahi’s fifth knock on Oct. 18, just two days before her scheduled court date.

“She was so happy and relieved,” Abdullahi says. “We were able to get ahold of her right before she went to bed.”

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S

The

g n i t Portland police’s “human trafficking” arrests aren’t what they seem.

BY K A RIN A BROW N @ karin apdx

O

n April 28 of this year, a 53-year-old man approached the Ramada Inn near Mall 205 after responding to an online ad from a sex worker.

The ad, on a website called Skip the Games, was from “Mandi,” who said she was 19 years old. It included a photo of a woman in bikini bottoms, her hands covering her bare breasts. It was one of many listed in the Portland section advertising “escorts.”

Via text, the man and Mandi agreed on a quick visit for $80.

Mandi was actually an undercover officer in the Portland Police Bureau’s Human Trafficking Unit named Kristin Morgan.

And when Mandi’s would-be client showed up at the rear door of the Ramada Inn, that’s when Morgan, Officer Heather Martley and three other police officers arrested, handcuffed and placed him in a patrol car.

The arrest was hardly unusual. Rather, it was one of eight that PPB’s Human Trafficking Unit made in a sting that week, according to figures WW obtained through a public records request, and one of 102 the unit made in the past 22 months.

Nor was it unusual that the man was charged not with trafficking—a class A felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison—but rather with commercial sexual solicitation, a misdemeanor that involves a fine and attendance at what’s colloquially known as “the johns’ school.” Records reviewed by WW show 85% of the arrests made by the Human Trafficking Unit result in only a solicitation charge.

Two things, however, were unusual about the arrest that evening.

First, the man at the door was Dave Hunt, once one of the brightest stars in Democratic politics, a former speaker of the Oregon House of Representatives and a man onetime Gov. Ted Kulongoski predicted might someday become governor.

Second, someone besides the police has decided to talk about it: Jesse Sutton, a sex worker who has had a long-standing relationship with Hunt.

Sutton was scrolling Instagram and sipping coffee on a sunny May morning when news about Hunt appeared on their cellphone.

Sutton nearly dropped the phone.

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“My heart started racing,” Sutton recalls. “I’d literally just seen him a few days earlier.”

The jolt sent Sutton into a panic of frantic texts.

“I feel so bad for him and I’m so scared this could link back to me,” Sutton texted a friend moments later, in a message obtained by WW. “I hate this fucking system.”

Police claim stings like the one that snared Hunt are crucial to reducing the demand for sex work, which they contend is mostly forced or coerced. (Hunt, who declined to speak to WW, eventually pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of commercial sexual solicitation on Sept.

29.)

Sutton, who has been a sex worker for 16 years, has a different point of view. At a moment when Portland police lack the resources to deal with an epidemic of shootings or even investigate most property crimes, the story of Hunt’s arrest raises significant issues about city leadership, the use of tax dollars and the Portland Police Bureau’s priorities.

Sex workers who spoke to WW say the Police Bureau’s approach to combating prostitution stems from cops’ belief that they are rescuing sex workers from exploitation.

“It’s really paternalistic—like, ‘There’s no way you could be choosing this,’ and ‘We’re the men, so we’re going to save you from all these other men who are raping and exploiting you,’” says Laura LeMoon, a sex worker and trafficking survivor.

Rep. Dacia Grayber (D-Tigard), who co-sponsored an unsuccessful bill in 2020 to decriminalize sex work, says she’s bothered by police priorities.

“When we have people dying in the streets,” says Grayber, “when we have unmitigated gun violence and a murder epidemic, I am disturbed to hear that’s where the resources are being focused—when it’s a consensual act.”

A

few days before police announced his arrest, Hunt visited Sutton.

Sutton, 38, is a sex worker who is nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns (and is using a pseudonym for this story).

Sutton works in a remodeled brick office building. Their office, decorated with former girlfriends’ art and lit by a pink salt lamp, could be any massage studio.

A musician and former geology major, Sutton

likes the work and appreciates the freedom and lifestyle that come with it. Still, clients can be dangerous. Sutton has been assaulted at work— but has never felt safe enough to report those assaults to police.

Sutton bikes downtown to work while listening to podcasts—usually comedy, or a favorite that offers contemporary political analysis of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Trained in shiatsu, Sutton charges the standard amount for full body sensual massage: $200 per hour. Sutton goes topless during sessions and allows clients to touch them above their waist.

“Quite honestly, it’s good for my mental health to do this with clients who are just here to be Zen,” Sutton says. “And I just happen to be really good at handjobs.”

Sutton is careful about new clients. They seek references and use an app called Mr. Number, where sex workers can post reviews of clients.

For more than a year, Sutton says, Hunt was a

regular client.

Hunt graduated from high school in Eugene, earned a political science degree at Columbia University, and worked as a staffer to three members of Congress, including U.S. Rep. Darlene Hooley (D-Ore.), winning an Oregon House seat representing Gladstone in 2002. By 2006, he was House majority leader and, in 2009, House speaker. He lost the speakership in 2010, when the House split 30-30, and in 2012 left the Legislature to run—unsuccessfully—for Clackamas County chair.

Hunt repeatedly declined to talk to WW about his arrest or Sutton.

But receipts on a payment app on Sutton’s phone, reviewed by WW, show a phone number belonging to Hunt paid for half-hour sessions on at least seven occasions over a period of 10 months.

Sutton says Hunt was the ideal client.

“He was one of the ones that was so safe,” they

WHO GETS BUSTED Dave Hunt’s arrest was unusual in one respect: He was white.

Fewer than half of suspects arrested for solicitation in Portland are white—45% where a race or ethnicity is listed. And such arrests substantially underrepresent white people in a city where over 77% of the population is white. Police listed over

14

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

half of arrestees for solicitation as Black, Indian, Asian or other.

That’s odd, experts say, because people of all races and ethnicities buy sex at similar rates.

“Research has shown that those who are [arrested for] buying sex in other places roughly mirror the racial com-

position of the population,” says Mark Leymon, a professor of criminology at Portland State University.

The data shows arrests for solicitation in Portland do not, Leymon adds. “They’re skewed to nonwhite, particularly for Black individuals. It definitely raises a lot of red flags.” KB.

STUCK IN TRAFFICKING

say. “I was never afraid of a boundary crossing and knew he would just pay a fair wage and leave on time. That’s the cream of the crop. It’s all you can ask in this industry—just someone to respect a person and their boundaries.”

After his arrest, Hunt, a married father of two, stepped down from the Clackamas Community College Board of Education under pressure.

A board statement noted the crime Hunt was charged with—commercial sexual solicitation—is one in which “the victims…are almost always vulnerable women.”

The arrest badly damaged his lobbying business, Columbia Public Affairs. Records show he lost several clients, including Council 75 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association, and the Oregon School Employees Association.

And Sutton lost a valuable client: Hunt.

“The more this happens, the more I have to put myself out there,” Sutton says. “Vetting clients is so risky and exhausting. There’s so many unhinged people.”

J

R Ujifusa, senior deputy district attorney in charge of prosecuting cases from the Portland Police Bureau’s Human Trafficking Unit, disagrees that his policies harm sex workers.

Ujifusa oversees another deputy district attorney and two victim advocates on the Multnomah County DA’s Human Trafficking Team. He also prosecutes other types of cases, like burglary, identity theft and drunken driving.

“Sex workers who have voluntarily chosen to do this are not affected” by the unit’s arrests and

stings, he says, “because our focus is on traffickers.”

Ujifusa says only a “small percentage” of people doing sex work in Portland are doing so voluntarily—an assertion rejected by researchers and sex workers themselves (see sidebar, right).

“The vast majority we see is people who are forced to do it by a third party,” Ujifusa tells WW. Even so, since the start of 2019, 85% of the Human Trafficking Unit’s 102 arrests resulted a single charge of commercial sexual solicitation—not human trafficking. The solicitation charge indicates only an attempt at a consensual exchange of cash for a sex act. Another 15% of defendants faced charges used in situations that might involve force, abuse or people under 18.

In other words, in the vast majority of the Human Trafficking Unit’s arrests, the only crime alleged is attempting to pay for sex—something the Portland City Club suggested 25 years ago should be legalized.

Police and prosecutors say that’s because people looking to buy sex can’t tell from an online ad whether the person selling is being forced into doing so. The less demand for sex work, the reasoning goes, the less opportunity for workers to be exploited.

“Buyer suppression missions are focused to reduce the demand,” Lt. Franz Schoening, the unit’s leader, tells WW. “Arrest numbers are not an accurate measure of prioritization.”

“Because buyers purchase individuals, for many of them, their view is, ‘Hey, I paid for half an hour or an hour and I get what I want,’” Ujifusa adds. “We hear of assaults based on that dynamic. There’s a power differential because of money, and with that comes violence, in

S E AN B AS COM

SCREEN TIME: Portland police officers, shown here responding to a protest, also run a division that conducts prostitution busts.

YOU COULD VIEW Dave Hunt’s awkward arrest as part of a long continuum of Portland law enforcement’s struggles with sex work, which reaches back to the city’s founding but has a direct predecessor in the 2000s, when the city experimented with “prostitution-free zones.”

For 15 years, the exclusion zones, which included Northeast 82nd Avenue from Skidmore to Burnside streets and Northwest Portland between 14th and 23rd avenues, allowed police to ban from those areas anyone arrested—not convicted, but arrested— on prostitution charges.

Faced with evidence that such exclusions were unconstitutional and racist, the Portland City Council allowed them to expire in 2007.

Two years later, the Portland Police Bureau created the Sex Trafficking Unit, taking over policing of sex work and trafficking from the Vice Unit (since renamed Narcotics and Organized Crime).

The name of the unit—“sex trafficking”—was in vogue.

“That’s when the whole idea started of white girls from good families being kidnapped,” says Emi Koyama, a Portland sex worker who was involved in organizing against the city’s prostitution-free zones.

Bill Hillar, a self-styled anti-trafficking trainer who later went to prison for lying about his credentials, gave regular talks in 2010 at Kells Irish Pub, scheduled by Multnomah County commissioners to coincide with official meetings on sex trafficking.

Hillar worked with police and the FBI and falsely claimed his daughter was kidnapped by traffickers and the incident was the basis for the Liam Neeson movie Taken.

Hillar turned out to be a fraud. But his 2011 conviction for wire fraud related to his deception had little effect on the momentum to fight the trafficking he described.

On several occasions, Portland made national news with law enforcement claims that the city was a hub for human trafficking. A 2013 study by Chris Carey, a professor of criminology at Portland State University, made the strongest case. The study said 469 children—average age 15—had been trafficked for commercial sex in Oregon over four years.

Carey stands by his report. “I was just trying to help those agencies get a handle on what was happening,” he says.

There’s no question that people, some of them teenagers, are being forced into selling sex in Portland.

But sex trafficking is notoriously difficult to quantify. David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, says there are no good numbers for tracking the true scope of sex trafficking, in Portland or anywhere else.

“People have thrown out estimates, but the truth is, it’s a very difficult problem to assess and count in a scientifically valid way,” Finkelhor says. “All the assessments I’ve seen have been very flawed.”

In early 2019, PPB moved the Sex Trafficking Unit out of the East Precinct, where it was independent, and merged it with the Human Trafficking Unit. Sgt. Mark Georgioff, the former unit leader, says stings were scaled back then—but increased at the insistence of the DA’s office.

Bear Wilner-Nugent, a Portland defense lawyer who has represented clients in state and federal court charged with selling and buying sex, says trafficking is a buzzword that unlocks government coffers.

“It’s a ratchet that’s used for ever more funding because it’s a problem where the actual details are little known to policymakers,” Wilner-Nugent says. “The statistics are not well kept and well agreed upon, and policymakers are not aware of accurate numbers, so they can be manipulated.”

In 2018, the Portland Police Bureau secured a three-year, $824,000 grant from the federal Office of Victims of Crime to hire three advocates for the Human Trafficking Unit. Their job: help adults over the age of 26 who police think are being forced to engage in sex work.

The city kicked in additional funding to bring the total to $1 million.

To show the feds how the money was spent, the PPB advocates collected “victim assessment surveys” in which trafficking survivors recounted how police helped them. Over three years, the bureau completed 15 such surveys. KARINA BROWN.

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

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addition to children who are being forced and coerced into doing that. So by reducing demand, we reduce assaults as well as the purchasing of minors.”

Sex workers who spoke to WW reject this reasoning.

“Taking away our money makes us poor and desperate and consequently more likely to engage in dangerous situations to get money,” says sex worker Bianca Beebe, co-chair of the Oregon Sex Workers’ Project, which pushes for decriminalization.

At a time when police can’t keep pace with a murder wave and have mostly eliminated patrols that are supposed to reduce fatal car wrecks, the Human Trafficking Unit is exceptionally well staffed. With an annual budget of more than $1 million, it employs a lieutenant,

WIK IME D IA CO MMO N S

DAVE HUNT

two sergeants, four detectives, five officers and a victim advocate.

Portland cops stopped busting people on minor cannabis charges decades ago. Lawmakers greenlighted sports gambling in 2019, and voters loosened alcohol regulations and decriminalized most hard drugs in 2020. But a bill that would have decriminalized prostitution died in Salem this year, leaving the policing of sex work as the lone remnant of the city’s once comprehensive war on vice.

“They’re never going to completely disrupt the oldest profession in the world,” says state Rep. Grayber.

In Oregon, commercial sexual solicitation is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $6,250 fine. In practice, most local cases are dismissed under a first-time offender program, available for $1,000 to people who attend the Sex Buyers Accountability and Diversion Program, known colloquially as the “johns’ school,” run by local nonprofit LifeWorks Northwest. (The enrollment money is split between PPB, the DA and LifeWorks.)

Sex workers say stings don’t help—they scare off safe clients, which necessitates the risky task of taking on new customers.

“Violence is a problem, but what I would encourage [police] to do is listen to what sex workers want,” Beebe says. “Policing us makes the problem worse.”

Sgt. Mark Georgioff, who led the Police Bureau’s Human Trafficking Unit before retiring in March 2019, brushes off that argument. “I’ve heard that argument a million times,” he says.

“No one denies that girls in the sex industry feel this way. But is it safe and prudent? That’s the question to ask.”

He says gaining the cooperation of sex workers in investigations is difficult. Much easier are stings with online and cellphone evidence already tidy before police even make arrests.

Georgioff says the Ramada stings are a reliable source of arrests. “The Ramada is a quick and dirty kind of thing,” he says. “You can set it up really quick and get people.”

L

ocal leaders who enable such tactics are not eager to discuss it.

WW asked Mayor Ted Wheeler,

TAKEN OFFLINE Online sex stings in Portland operate in the shadow of federal legislation that did little to achieve its goal of ending human trafficking, but did manage to make life more dangerous for sex workers.

In 2018, Congress passed the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act and Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act. They’re better known by their acronyms: SESTA/FOSTA. Similar to the Portland Police Bureau’s arrest warrant language about placing ads for stings on “known trafficking websites,” the law was intended to shut down online purveyors of sex. But it’s done little to reduce trafficking, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office.

The U.S. Department of Justice has used the law to prosecute just one case in the three years since it was passed. Instead, SESTA/FOSTA made it harder to investigate trafficking because the online platforms where sex workers advertise simply moved overseas after the law passed to avoid 16

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

prosecution.

Natalie Weaver, who for five years coordinated Multnomah County’s response to sex trafficking, says the law made things worse in Portland as well.

“We’ve had many accounts of sex workers being targeted by traffickers after that law was passed because the trafficker knew the sex workers were in a more vulnerable position with the law change,” Weaver says.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) opposed the law. He tells WW that SESTA/FOSTA created “massive collateral damage for marginalized communities.” Police should focus on fighting trafficking, he adds, instead of compounding the “skyrocketing violence against sex workers” caused by the federal law.

“It’s clear law enforcement needs to do a lot more to distinguish between adults who are making their own decisions and victims who have been coerced or threatened into awful situations,” Wyden says.

What happened with SESTA/ FOSTA matches the pattern of PPB’s Human Trafficking Unit. In both cases, sex workers have warned against policies they say will expose them to greater danger. But officials carry on, in the name of helping them.

Laura LeMoon, a Seattle sex worker and trafficking survivor who fought passage of the SESTA/FOSTA, says it forced a lot of sex workers into more dangerous situations.

“When you limit people’s opportunities for online sex work, you kind of by default make sex workers less safe,” LeMoon says. “Online work is, in a lot of ways, more safe than outdoor sex work. You have the ability to screen clients in a way you wouldn’t outdoors, and you have the ability to say no in ways that you really couldn’t if you’re face to face. There are some clients who know this is going on and use it to their advantage—financially and also sexually. They know sex workers are desperate because all of our venues are going away.” KB.

who oversees the Police Bureau, to make a case for prostitution stings that sex workers say make their lives more dangerous. His office did not respond to our questions.

Multnomah County District Attorney Mike Schmidt also declined to comment. But his spokeswoman Elisabeth Shepard says this is the policy Schmidt wants.

“Mike campaigned on the equality model,” Shepard says. “We want to make sure people buying are the ones prosecuted, not sex workers.”

One of Schmidt’s top aides, Aaron Knott, disputes the idea that prostitution stings are pointless. Knott says buyers don’t know if the person they’re buying sex from is selling services consensually.

“Trafficking seizes on the fact that there’s no clear distinction for a purchaser between somebody who has been trafficked or is involved in coercion and somebody who isn’t,” Knott says.

“And demand is what normalizes the purchase of sex. The more established the market you have for the purchase of sex, the more the purchase of sex is normalized.”

Sex workers who spoke to WW say police stings make clients skittish about verifying their identity—and work for people like Jesse Sutton more dangerous.

Today, Portland operates under a de facto legalization policy, experts say. The so-called Nordic model cleaves sex work into two parts: Police and prosecutors seek to help sex workers leave the profession while arresting their clients.

(Portland police last arrested a suspected sex worker in May 2019. She was acquitted by a jury.)

Sex worker and activist Emi Koyama says the Nordic model is a futile approach—especially for those who are most vulnerable.

“Sex work is often a way that people are escaping and surviving something else,” Koyama says.

“If you take away sex work, chances are they will be doing something else that is also criminalized, like drugs or shoplifting, in order to survive. So it’s not going to be a solution to just get rid of the sex trade.”

Many sex workers and researchers prefer decriminalization, which would simply remove criminal penalties for sex work. Crimes associated with trafficking—compelling and promoting prostitution, assault, child abuse and kidnapping—would remain illegal.

City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty says decriminalizing sex work would free up resources for police to address bigger problems.

“I don’t believe stings to catch consenting adults engaged in sex is a good use of limited public safety resources,” Hardesty says. “Portlanders are deeply concerned about gun violence, robberies, traffic violence, and a host of far more serious issues. PPB should match the community’s priorities.”

State Rep. Rob Nosse (D-Portland) was the chief sponsor of the 2020 bill to decriminalize sex work. “I think a lot of people have trouble believing that someone would choose this as a profession,” he says. “And what I would say to those people is: Talk to some actual sex workers.”

For Sutton, police stings are a blunt instrument that only complicates their efforts to avoid the more dangerous aspects of sex work.

“If the stings advertised underage girls, that’s legit, obviously,” Sutton says. “I am all for that.

Men should not be seeking out the services of underage girls. But baiting men with seemingly consensual providers who are of age only punishes consensual sex work.

“It means the arrest of good clients like Dave who keep the realm of sex work safe for us.”

DIVE DEEPER: Listen to interviews about this story on the Dive podcast, available Oct. 23 on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wweek.com.

STREET

ODDITIES AND CURIOSITIES EXPO Photos by Chris Nesseth On Instagram: @chrisnesseth

On Saturday, Oct. 16, we stopped in at the Oregon Convention Center to buy a raccoon tail and promptly got lost in a world of blood jewelry, goths and the hypnotizing full body tattoos of Matt Gone—the Guinness World Record holder for “most squares tattooed on the body.” He has 848, incidentally.

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

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STARTERS

THE MOST IMPORTANT PORTLAND CULTURE STORIES OF THE WEEK—GRAPHED.

READ MORE ABOUT THESE STO R I E S AT WW E E K .CO M .

RIDICULOUS

THORNS FC

THOMAS TEAL

The National Women’s Soccer League moves its championship match from Portland to Louisville because the West Coast start time was too early.

Sounds legit.

Almost 1 in 4 ticketholders to Wilco’s Oct. 4 concert at the Schnitz are a no-show.

ANNABEL MEHRAN

Afuri announces it will open a Slabtown location where customers can watch ramen created from dough to bowl in… wait for it…2022!

W

S

Y

LA

POI

NTE

AWESOME

AWFUL

POWELL’S

“Colorful and imaginative … a deeply affecting drama that leaves an ineradicable imprint.”

E

LE

- The Pitch

Powell’s and Ex Novo unveil their new collab: a limited-edition beer called City of Books IPA.

“There is nothing like it.

Vanessa is astounding.”

“Magic!!!”

“Riveting.”

“Incredible.”

The Oregon Health Authority lifts its cyanobacteria health advisory on the Willamette, then warns, “No water body is ever safe.”

MICK HANGLAND-SKILL

Level 3 opens in an old motorcycle shop on Northeast Sandy.

Vroom vroom!

ON STAGE THROUGH NOV. 7, 2021 503.445.3700 | PCS.ORG SEASON SUPERSTARS

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Vanessa Severo in Frida ... A Self Portrait.

Photo by Owen Carey.

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

H O LY T R I N I T Y B B Q

CHRISTINE DONG

Holy Trinity Barbecue announces its last day of service will be Friday, Oct. 22.

Two Portland restaurants, Coquine and Eem, are included on The New York Times’ list of 50 most exciting restaurants in the nation!

SERIOUS

GET BUSY

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

CRITERION



BEN HARKINS

SEE | Fin de Cinema: Valerie and Her Week of Wonders Holocene’s unique film score series, Fin de Cinema, returns from a two-year hiatus to present ’70s Czech New Wave film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders.

While not expressly Halloween themed, the Jaromil Jireš film is a surreal vampire story with plenty of witches and biting. Valerie will be presented in a 4K digital restoration, offering the chance to ogle gorgeous cinematic visuals on the big screen, but the bill’s headlining composers, Akila Fields (Palm Dat) and Noah Bernstein, present a live performance to rival the enduring cult classic. Holocene, 1001 SE Morrison St., 503-239-7639, holocene.org. 8 pm Wednesday, Oct 20. $10.

ADAM GLICK

☛DO | Crab Boil With Chef Adam Glick

�GO | The

DISNEY

Nightmare Before Christmas Tim Burton’s fantastical film—intertwining the magic of Halloween and Christmas—is a holiday classic and a celebrated watch from October through December.

The Oregon Symphony’s live performances of Danny Elfman’s score against screenings of the film have attained a similar level of seasonal tradition—on the level of attending The Nutcracker or midnight mass.

Costumes are encouraged, from skeletons to Santa, or combine both and go as good ol’ Sandy Claws.

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, portland5.com. 7:30 pm Friday-Saturday, 2 pm Sunday, Oct. 22-24. $29-$129.



SEE | The Return of the Living Dead Completely different from George Romero’s somber 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, this 1985 horror comedy from Dan O’Bannon follows a ragtag crew of warehouse employees who unwittingly reanimate a cemetery full of zombies. With the help of a gang of teenage punks (and a killer death rock soundtrack), the survivors team up to save their town by kicking some zombie ass. Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton St., 503-238-5588, cstpdx.com.

10 pm Friday, Oct. 22. $6.

�GO | Dark Web Tonight

One of the city’s most beloved comedy shows— devoted to weird YouTube videos and other cultural detritus—returns after being on hold since February 2021. Held almost religiously at Kickstand Comedy pre-pandemic, Dark Web Tonight host Ben Harkins says there were many offers to move his live show about online things into the virtual world, but Harkins declined—awaiting this new in-person stage and two new co-hosts at a stronghold of the city’s weird: The Funhouse Lounge. Having had 18 months to careen through internet culture, Harkins and his new co-hosts Noah Watson and Calaix Alexander are sure to bring their best. Funhouse Lounge, 2432 SE 11th Ave., 503-841-6734, funhouselounge.com. 10 pm Friday, Oct. 22. $5-7

You may never have enough money to charter your own super-yacht, but now you can at least eat like a multimillionaire cruising the Mediterranean.

Fans of Bravo’s Below Deck franchise will remember Adam Glick, the divisive chef for three seasons, known as much for his galley tantrums as his Michelin star-worthy cooking for guests. And if you saw the Below Deck Sailing Yacht reunion, you’ll also recall that Glick landed in Oregon once that season wrapped last year. The van-dwelling nomad didn’t reveal what region of our fine state he was exploring, but now we have a better idea, since he’s hosting this dinner at Carlton’s Abbey Road Farm.

Pre-feast, you’ll tour the verdant property with a bottle of wine before joining chef Adam on the lawn for a crab boil. Sure, the tickets ain’t cheap, but can you really put a price on the chance to get the former reality star to spill all of Below Deck’s secrets? Abbey Road Farm, 10280 NE Oak Springs Farm Road, Carlton, 503-687-3100, eventbrite.com. 4 pm Sunday, Oct. 24. $250.

☛DO | A Purr-fect-ly Howl-a-ween Event

There will be no communal dancing or drinking at this annual fundraiser due to the ongoing pandemic, but you can still support the Cat Adoption Team and Oregon Humane Society by participating online.

Hosted by Portland band Malea & the Tourists, you’ll get a full show to watch from the comfort of your own home, featuring music that spans all genres, including pop, swing, jazz, country and R&B. Go ahead, stuff your pet into one of those ridiculous Halloween costumes and dance the night away in your living room. There’s no crowd around to judge.

A Purr-fect-ly Howl-a-ween Event, tickettomato.com/ event/7273. 5:30 pm Sunday, Oct. 24. $20.

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

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FOOD & DRINK

A Piece of Old Portland, Alive and Well in Beaverton Get out to see a show At the Garages before it packs up for Lake Oswego.

BY A N DI PREW IT T ALL PHOTOS BY THOMAS TEAL

GARAGE ROCK: There is live music six nights a week, with standup comedy on Mondays, at this Beaverton venue.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: At the Garages’ kitchen may be small, but you’re welcome to bring in food cart fare from the parking lot outside.

20

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

WHAT’S COOKING?: Putting the finishing touches on a torta at Ochoa’s Lupitas Tacos.

aprewitt@wweek.com

If there’s a naked patch of pavement within a 30-mile radius of downtown Portland, you better believe the food carts will find it.

That’s how a modest-sized collection of wheeled kitchens ended up assembling on one of the more unlikely slabs of pavement to become a pod: a sprawling pubside parking lot, tucked into an industrial corner of Beaverton.

At the Garages is more than just a pod. It’s a rock venue—with an almost-secret passageway to the Garage Sale Warehouse, an adjacent antiques and oddities store where it’s dangerously easy to lose an entire afternoon.

Since February 2019, the converted Fred Meyer automotive shop has provided a decidedly unpretentious haven for live music. There are live performances seven nights a week amid a cavern of wall-mounted peculiarities that migrated from next door. Though less than 2 years old, the bar feels like a resurrected piece of Old Portland, now out in the suburbs.

“We built it that way on purpose—the almost museumlike look” explains CEO and managing partner Kent Drangsholt. “If you walk around, you just see hundreds of items from the decades.”

Rummage sales and rock shows are two events that rarely intersect, but before Drangsholt hosted sold-out crowds, he attracted another kind of following as an antique hunter—inspired by the A&E show Storage Wars. The very first repossessed unit he ever bought yielded a whopping $36,000 worth of goods.

Drangsholt began selling the valuable contents from his home, which became such a popular attraction, customers would come rapping on his front door if he ever missed a weekend. Eventually, he outgrew that space and moved into a 1,300-square-foot store in Beaverton, naming the business after his wife’s observation that he had turned their personal three-car garage into a warehouse.

The Garage Sale Warehouse continued to swell with vendors, forcing Drangsholt to make the jump to his current 45,000-square-foot space on Southwest Western Avenue. That left him with room to grow, so the former radio disc jockey tapped into his love of music and began booking bands to play in the underused Freddy’s auto repair outlet.

Renovations made the place more hospitable, but there’s only so much you can do with a 1950sera shop. While the Garages possesses a surplus of ambience—nearly every inch of wall space is plastered with vintage posters, team pennants and brewery paraphernalia—its kitchen is of scant means. Really, you could call it a galley with a hardworking microwave.

So the Garages’ parking lot—a surface the size of a truck stop—became one of its best assets. Drangsholt began welcoming food carts that would bring their own star power to his

2021-22 Walters Performance Series Guy Davis

Tico Gonzalez

Original Blues, American Roots

Cuban, Latin

Oct 22 | $16/$20

Nov 19 | $10/$13

Ashleigh Flynn & The Riveters

An Evening with Tony Starlight

Americana, Country, Rock

Variety | Benefit for Hillsboro Arts & Culture Endowment

Nov 5 | $10/$12

Dec 3 | $55

Purchase Tickets Online: Hillsboro-Oregon.gov/WaltersConcerts

AMERICAN PICKERS: At the Garages’ quirky décor comes from the antiques and oddities store next door.

STACKED: Five layers of beef, chicken and sausage are stuffed into Ochoa’s torta.

jam sessions.

Ochoa’s Lupitas Tacos, which started folding savory meats into tortillas under a tent on Southwest Beaverton-Hillsdale Highway nearly 10 years ago, was the first to roll up. Other vendors soon followed, rounding out the diverse food court-style offerings you want from a solid pod.

If Stanley Tucci’s love letter to the cuisine of his Italian heritage, CNN’s pandemic hit Searching for Italy, has you craving soul-soothing bowls of cacio e pepe and spaghetti alla Nerano, your first stop should be Love Pasta. Its fettuccine Bolognese is an Americanized version of soffritto, with a meat trio of spicy sausage, hamburger and ground turkey taking the place of traditional offal. An unexpected blend of Tabasco, red chiles

and diced fresh jalapeños offers the sauce a gentle simmer, like slipping into a bubbling hot tub.

At Thai Lao Teriyaki, a tangle of thin rice noodles in the pad thai arrive a delightful shade of tawny, a sign they’ve soaked up all of the roasty peanut sauce. The cart doubles down on the nuttiness by sprinkling the stir fry with a brittlelike crumble. It’s rich and sticky and just about perfect.

If you’re in the mood for a meal that’s truly over the top, Ochoa’s prepares a torta that’s the size of a basketball, triggering heart palpitations at first glance. Five layers of beef, chicken and sausage puff this sandwich up so much, your cook will apologize that the size of the dish makes it impossible to close the box’s lid.

There’s even a dessert camper serving gauzy bags of cotton candy and gussying up mini Dutch pancakes with Oreos and Butterfinger bars.

Be warned, though, that your time to visit this unique pod is limited. The Garages’ lease is up in February, and at some point the building will be razed to make room for apartments. Fortunately, the venue and antique outlet already have a new home—a Lake Oswego bowling alley and sports bar formerly known as Nicoli’s. The future for the food carts, however, is less certain.

“We’re anticipating that these guys will have to scramble,” Drangsholt says. “We’ll help them out in any way we can. We want to bring at least one [to Lake Oswego].”

The Garages’ next move is a welcome improvement for Drangsholt. He’ll be operating with a full kitchen, more than double the show space and a larger stage. Drangsholt also acquired the bar’s lasers, so once his lighting is installed, the dais will be illuminated by $300,000 worth of equipment.

“This is really an elevation in terms of being able to produce high-quality, local premier bands, where you don’t have to go to Moda Center,” says Drangsholt. “You can come to us, and our lighting is as good as theirs. Our sound is better than theirs, because there’s no echo. Our environment is more relaxing because you’re in a row seat there and you can’t get up and get to the dance floor.”

For now, then, the most significant challenge is the packing, especially the warehouse. Every single piece from its collections, as well as the bar décor, is making the move—from the early ’80s Code-a-Phone answering machine to a Sigmund Freud action figure.

“It has a brand of its own,” Drangsholt says of the accoutrements. “We call [the pub] Beaverton’s living room. But at the Lake Oswego location, we’re going to call it Oregon’s living room. I want people to see what we can show, and we’re going to grow that even more.”

729 E. Burnside

Occult Books Grimoires OdditiesArt

COMFORT SHOES FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

Mon-Sat 10-6pm Sunday 11-5pm

1433 NE Broadway St Portland • 503 493-0070

Where do you read Willamette Week? #READWW Tag us to be featured

EAT: At the Garages Satellite Pub, 4810 SW Western Ave., Beaverton, 503-941-9139, atthegarages.net. 11 am-1 am daily.

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

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Family

FOOD & DRINK COURTESY OF KIRIN JOHNS

Community Corner Black Rose Market makes it easy to support local artisans and good beer.

BY E L I Z A R OT H ST E I N

In 2020, Keith Johns started making sidewalk signs for Black-owned businesses like Rose City Vapors and Oasis Auto Lounge. “People were trying to support Black businesses,” Johns tells WW. “There’s nothing better than a sign in your face at that moment.”

Using a logo that his niece dreamed up—an image of a raised fist atop a thorny rose stem—Johns called his project Black Rose.

Now, one such illustrated A-frame sits outside of his own business: Black Rose Market, a convenience store at the southeast corner of Northeast Dekum Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. It is, Johns says, “an experience.”

“It smells good, it’s clean, there’s good music on, there’s people having fun, and the product selection is great,” Johns says.

Indeed, Johns and his wife, Kirin, have crafted a corner store that is decidedly fresh. Corrugated metal covers the walls. Neon signs and Seahawks memorabilia hang above the fridges—Johns, from Washington, is a die-hard fan.

It’s bright, yes, but not the bright of a pale-walled convenience chain. Against the dark wood floor and the painted black ceiling, snack bags shine.

The most brag-worthy component of this community-conscientious corner store is the refrigerated wall of single mix-and-match cans from breweries that Johns carefully vets.

As Kirin puts it, Johns stocks with integrity, intentionally highlighting products from BIPOC- and women-owned businesses. There’s Urban Roots, a Black-owned brewery in Sacramento, and Portland’s Assembly, the only Black-owned brewery in Oregon. Just recently, the team brought in beers from Tranquilo Cerveceria, a Mexican-owned brewery in Bend.

Store employees are ready with recommendations, but Black Rose also employs shelf talkers with handwritten information about a product—similar to the notes you see on the stacks at Powell’s.

The notes might point out that a hard kombucha donates money to aid fire relief (Flying Embers), that a tea is Black-owned and brewed in the Pacific Northwest (Joyroot), that a canned wine is “made by chicks” (Bev), or that a sixpack is “Johns’s favorite,” an honor given to only one beer in the shop: Premium

KEITH AND KIRIN JOHNS

Northwest’s “PNW” lager. Brewed in Johns’ hometown of Tukwila, Wash., by a two-man team, it’s a beer Johns stakes his reputation on as “better and cheaper than Rainier.”

“But then, of course, you have White Claw,” Johns jokes.

Juxtaposition is the beauty of Black Rose. Corner store classics like Swiss Miss, Tostitos and Tylenol sit next to bougie picnic supplies like smoked oysters, individual sake glasses and Veuve Clicquot. Eighteen-packs of domestics sit side by side with flavors of Sparkling Hard Citrus from Ruzzo or Claim 52’s Dessert Sours.

But for Keith and Kirin Johns, the small store is more than its goods. As the market nears its one-year anniversary, it continues to root itself in community.

Johns even hired some of his lifelong friends to work at the store. Julian Collins met Johns on a basketball court in 2000, and they’ve been thick ever since.

You’ll find Collins DJing in the evenings—lately Kenny G’s “Silhouette” and anything from Wu-Tang Clan.

Tanara Young, Kirin’s college friend, works weekends. She also sells some of her Madame Marie bath and body products in the shop, alongside other Blackowned products by friends, family and local artisans. The full team runs tastings on Fridays to turn the store into a meeting place. When neighborhood kids come in with a good report card, they earn a free snack.

As the Johnses look ahead to expanding the Black Rose brand—Black Rose merch and a separate liquor store are on the way—fostering inclusive, welcoming spaces will be at the heart of their work.

“You’re not gonna just walk in and go look for what you need. Especially if I’m there and you’re a beer person, I’m gonna talk to you,” Johns says.

“We talk to everybody,” Kirin adds.

“They come in and tell us stories; they share things about their lives. We’ve had customers pass away; we’ve had customers wives pass away. They come in and they shed a tear with us. And we’ve only been open since November.”

SNACK: Black Rose Market, 6732 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 503-894-9698, instagram.com/ blackrosemarket_woodlawn. 9 am-11 pm Monday-Wednesday, 9 am-11:30 pm Thursday, 9 am-12:30 pm Friday-Saturday, 10 am-10 pm Sunday.

TOP 5

TOP 5

Buzz List

Hot Plates

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. BELLWETHER

6031 SE Stark St., 503-432-8121, instagram. com/bellwetherbarco. 4-11 pm daily.

The climb up Southeast Stark Street to 60th Avenue is steep. But that just makes the little pub at the top of the hill tastier for the effort. From the hazy, romantic back patio to the roaring front room, Bellwether feels like a pub that fell into the world fully formed. The cocktails are named in an egalitarian manner, numbered from 1 to 8. The 1 is perfect for summer: rye whiskey, sweet vermouth, cranberry grenadine and salt, served with a curled lemon rind. Not overly sweet, the tangy little number is like a loud, talkative friend whose energy you can’t help but find cheerful. Where Bellwether’s cocktails eschew clever titles, its wines pick up the slack. The selection includes an Orange Wine for Beginners and an Orange Wine for the Brave.

2. HOP CAPITAL BREWING

6500 S Virginia Ave., 503-206-4042, hopcapitalbrewing.com. 5-9 pm WednesdayThursday, 5-10 pm Friday-Saturday, 11 am-7 pm Sunday.

The satellite bar of Hop Capital’s Yakima, Wash., brewery, this John’s Landing taproom, open since January, introduced local drinkers to a lineup of beers that land somewhere in the middle of the city’s world-class and well-established scene.

Head brewer Ambrose Kucharski is clearly having fun amid the hop flowers up north.

His Donut Peach Raspberry Sour sounds as giddy as a Katy Perry costume and drinks just as tart and punchy. And the SupercalifragilisticHopsialidocious—a milkshake IPA that may set a record for the longest beer name to fit on a tap board— smells like a cotton candy stand. Lactic acid provided the batch with the thick, smooth mouthfeel of a dessert beverage, but the sugary sweetness is cut short just in time by a bitter, back-end fade.

3. ADVICE BOOTH

5426 N Gay Ave. adviceboothpdx.com.

3-11 pm Monday-Thursday, 3 pm-midnight Friday, 1 pm-midnight Saturday, 1 pm-11 pm Sunday.

Settling nicely into the shell of the old Lost & Found space, this lovely little dive is barely visible from its cross streets of North Killingsworth and Gay. But for being such a little bar, it’s at least half patio—with awnings and warming lamps. With a perfectly serviceable cheese-based menu and a delightful, unflappable staff, Advice Booth is holding down that lovely feeling of a secret neighborhood bar done just right.

4. SHANGHAI

211 SW Ankeny St., shanghaitunnelbar.com.

5 pm-2 am Thursday-Saturday.

If downtown feels like…a lot…right now, try on Portland’s gruff but lovable dive named for the city’s tunnels of urban legend.

Reopening over the summer, Shanghai shifted focus from its basement to the small street-level bar and patio—located next to the breezeway of the front door. It’s possible that Shanghai is the last chill bar in Old Town where you can hole up—waiting out the weekend warriors—to play a little pool, pinball or Big Buck Hunter Pro.

5. JACKIE’S

Jackie’s, 930 SE Sandy Blvd., jackiespdx. com. 4 pm-midnight Monday-Friday, 11 am-1 am Saturday, 11 am-midnight Sunday.

It’s easy to mistake Jackie’s for its predecessor Century Bar—all dolled up with a new paint job and potted plants—but for its chic veneer, Jackie’s is a sports bar at heart. There are wide-screen TVs just about anywhere you look, playing the game at a volume level where your friends can talk trash but not scream in each other’s faces.

The cocktail pitchers are technically the better deal per glass, but the signature house drinks are easier to switch between and worth the range. The gorgeous watermelon-hibiscus-lime agua fresca margarita was our favorite. We awarded the silver medal to the confectionary halva mule—the fruity, slightly bitter (and therefore gay icon) Ms. Pittman made due with the bronze.

1. BRASA HAYA

412 NE Beech St., 503-288-3499, brasahayapdx.com. 5:30-10 pm Wednesday-Sunday.

Indoor seating is not ADA accessible, vaccination required to dine indoors.

A new Spanish restaurant in a converted home on Beech that was formerly Beech Street Parlor, Brasa Haya is a fine(r) dining restaurant with textbook salt cod croquettes. The portion was too small to split effectively, but this is a problem inherent to tapas, not to Brasa Haya.

2. SWEEDEEDEE

5202 N Albina Ave., 503-201-7038, sweedeedee.com. 9 am-9 pm WednesdaySaturday.

Sweedeedee’s cuisine has always been a little hard to define. The North Portland cafe’s menu is deeply seasonal and farm fresh. While not exclusively vegetarian, it’s certainly vegetable heavy. A sign of Sweedeedee’s style is obvious in its summer tomatoes, served in olive oil with padrón peppers, basil and salt. It’s an incredibly simple dish but somewhat jaw-dropping for its colorful beauty and bursting, herb flavors. When visiting Sweedeedee for dinner, visitors are best served with an assemblage of items. Perhaps the roast chicken, a vegetable dish, some Grano sourdough to sop up the olive oil, and then a bottle of wine for the table.

3. THE SOOP

1902 W Burnside St., 971-710-1483, thesoopportland.com. 10 am-8 pm Monday-Friday, 11 am-8 pm Saturday.

The Soop has certainly been mistaken for a kitschy soup spot more than once.

However, soop is a Korean word for forest, and when you visit, you’ll see why the name fits so well. Especially in the evening, the cozy restaurant glows with shades of warm magenta emanating from lamps that hang over microgreen planters in the kitchen. It’s strange to imagine fresh lettuce could make such a difference, but everything on Ann Lee’s somewhat eccentric menu—dishes as dissimilar as bibimbap, chicken and microgreen nachos, and even a BLT— benefits from the microgreens treatment.

4. BAON KAINAN

4311 NE Prescott St., baonkainan.com. 5-8 pm Thursday-Monday, 11 am-3 pm SaturdaySunday.

The biggest standout dish at this hot new Filipino food cart in the Metalwood Salvage lot is the kare kare fries. The classic braised beef peanut stew is thickened and poured over fries, aided by a dollop of shrimp paste and bright red pickled Fresno chiles. The result puts poutine to shame, but be sure to eat them as soon as they come out of the cart’s window—the fries hold up, but they’re best when eaten hyperfresh.

5. FILL’S

726 SE 6th Ave., fillspdx.com. 10 am-1 pm Sunday.

A joint venture between pastry chef Katherine Benvenuti and Kurt Huffman’s omnipresent restaurant group, ChefStable, Fills introduced Portland’s culinary scene to a new style of doughnut—the Berliner—last year. Fills’ version of the traditional German pastry starts with a naturally leavened sourdough starter that’s not too sweet. It’s then fried in small batches, cooled, hand-filled with fruit, chocolate or custard, and then glazed. Fills hasn’t reopened its downtown shop since the pandemic, but it’s running a pop-up on Sundays.

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

23

POTLANDER

Laser Bong Letdown

The Hitoki Trident gave us nothing but one isolated scorch mark on a half-gram nug.

BY BRIA N N A W H E E L E R

Faithful potheads know that the truest stoner flex is not the potency of their prerolls or the pedigree of their strain hunting. It’s a diversified collection of smoke utensils.

That’s why when Hikoki’s Trident—which we immediately dubbed “the laser bong”—came into our view, we knew it was absolutely necessary that we audition it as soon and as hard as possible.

Graduating from a single spoon pipe to a beaker bong to specialized art glass is a journey most stoners travel on their way to their perfect utensil. But with contemporary advancements in canna-tech—palm-sized flower vaporizers, designer e-rigs, gravity bongs that double as coffee table art—it’s becoming increasingly difficult to wade through these often budget-busting products.

For every delivery method breakthrough that has the potential to revolutionize consumption, there is a device designed by folks who’ve seemingly never been high enough to justify inventing a new way to get high altogether. The Trident unfortunately belongs to the latter category.

What is a laser bong?

HITOKI

24

The Hitoki Trident is a three-chambered, electric water pipe that uses a laser as its heat source.

One chamber contains the heating element, another the plant material, and the bottom chamber holds a few tablespoons of water. The entire rig is approximately the size and shape of a can of Pringles, not including its mouthpiece options—a hookah-style hose or a silicone horn.

The unit is substantial enough to be used as a tabletop device, but ergonomic enough to be passed hand to hand between pod homies.

Not unlike common electric rigs, users can load their flower into the Hito-

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

ki, press a button a few times and draw a hit without worrying about overheating or otherwise wasting product. In additional, the Hitoki eliminates the use of butane lighters or hemp wicks for what essentially amounts to a straightforward bong hit. Its patent-pending laser combustion system promises to deliver clean smoke and robust flavor, which we discovered over the course of our testing was an ambitious, if not outright foolhardy, promise to make.

Attempt One: Rollin’ With the Homies I arrived at the squad’s weekly RuPaul’s Drag Race meetup with a laser bong in one hand and a bargain eighth in the other, ready to blow some minds and scream for some queens. Four of us drummed our fingers in anticipation as the other quickly snapped the device apart to load its various chambers, then easily clicked it back together. The one nonsmoker among us scrutinized the Trident’s red-tinted middle chamber through which we would soon see a bright blue laser weakly trickle from its dewdrop-sized source.

The bong’s instructions guided us to push the power button atop the device five times in quick succession to activate it, then again three more times to choose a temperature setting. Once the button glowed, we could either hold it down to activate the laser or press it twice for automated laser action. At this point, manual and website how-to videos said, the laser would combust the flower, filling the smoke chamber and delivering us rowdy chestfuls of cannabis.

What actually happened was less hitting a laser bong and more getting an unsolicited lesson on buying into novelties.

Watching through the transparent midsection of the device, we could see the sapphire beam light a tiny pinprick of exposed cannabis. Then nothing happened.

No effective combustion, no rich plume of laser-induced smoke, just a half-gram bowl with one isolated scorch mark. We experimented with our timing, the temperature and the mouthpieces, but this bong never heated more than one, sad pinprick on the surface. Defeated, we cursed the bong, lit our own joints and proceeded to squeal at all the U.K. drag race contestants.

Attempt Two: Midweek Movie Date Willing to give the laser bong another chance, I foisted it on my partner in the hopes they had a mechanical aptitude that my stoney squad and I lacked. However, as my partner and I quickly discovered, user error was not the issue. The design of the device was critically flawed.

Absent the distraction of drag queens, we could clearly see the Trident’s questionable functionality.

Typical combustion, facilitated by Bic lighters or hemp wicks grips the cannabis with 3,000-degree flame, igniting its surface and leaving a smoldering cherry that deepens as the user inhales.

None of those things happened when the Hitoki laser fired. Instead, a fluorescent thread of light scorched an area of our cannabis far too diminutive to ignite or smolder.

After shifting and repacking the bowl for a third time, we came to a consensus.

This was less of a bong and more of a $500 laser light show for your stone zone.

PERFORMANCE

Editor: Andi Prewitt | Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com C O U R T E S Y O F S H A K I N G T H E T R E E T H E AT R E

ALL IN THE FAMILY: Shaking the Tree’s latest production about three siblings is part domestic drama, part supernatural horror.

Twisted Lineage Three siblings confront their father’s violent legacy in Shaking the Tree’s Family.

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

Shaking the Tree Theatre’s surreal and terrifying production of Celine Song’s Family starts with three siblings staring silently into space. They are seated in a living room lovingly adorned with pale flowers, but by the story’s end, blossoms will be strewn across the stage and the quiet will be shattered by a man screaming, “Burn it down!”

Those words conclude a journey marked by gaslighting, murder and sexual violence. True to Shaking the Tree’s warning to audiences—“some patrons may find the content disturbing or upsetting”—Family bores brutal images into your soul, testing how much you can withstand before fleeing to the nearest exit.

While the urge to recoil from Family is understandable, audiences who stick with it will be rewarded with ferocious performances and a fascinating exploration of how trauma can transcend space and time. It’s a play that simultaneously dares you to look away and seizes your psyche in its metallic grip.

Family, directed by Samantha Van Der Merwe, invites you into the creepily dreamlike world of Linus (Blake Stone), David (Kai Hynes) and Alice (Rebby Yuer Foster), who have different mothers but the same father. Linus is the son of an astronaut, David is the son of an exceedingly hairy woman, and Alice is the daughter of her father’s sister—the first, but not the last, instance of incest in the play.

Linus, David and Alice are mourning the death of their father, but they bypass the five stages of grief in favor of a more peculiar and sinister journey. Rather than weep, Linus obsesses over a vile smell that is filling their house, first accusing David of farting, then identifying a crawl space as the source of the odor. In addition to a mysterious crimson light, the crawl space holds a secret that leaves all three characters questioning what they think they know about their father and shrieking in despair.

Once you learn what lurks in the crawl space, you may think you have Family figured out. You should guard against that impulse. When a play involves both a fright-

eningly realistic depiction of child abuse and a face on the back of a character’s head, attempting to understand what exactly is going on or even to which genre the story belongs is absurd.

By dabbling freely in domestic drama and supernatural horror, Family allows the audience to share the disorientation experienced by Linus, David and Alice. Because of the traumas of their childhood, their relationship with reality is tenuous—and by making us feel the same way, the play puts us on equal psychological footing with them.

Despite its strangeness, Family always makes sense emotionally, which is a credit to its cast. As David, an insecure loner who blogs in ancient Greek, Latin and Sanskrit, Hynes creates a portrait of potential wasted by self-doubt.

His vulnerability is poignant, especially in contrast to the bombast of Stone’s Linus, who is so confident that he makes a costume with horns sticking out of the shoulders seem an utterly normal fashion statement.

While Linus and David make an intriguingly mismatched pair, Alice is the play’s protagonist and Foster is its indisputable star. Even when haunted by a disembodied voice, Alice is eerily calm, reminding us that sometimes the people who need to shout and cry the loudest are incapable of acknowledging their pain. It’s a performance that perfectly primes us for the play’s final scenes, which show Alice casually and cheerfully descending into a personal hell.

The ending is the most disturbing part of Family, but the sight of one actor sticking their tongue down another actor’s throat deserves an honorable mention. It’s an image that seems to say, “What, you thought we were going to skip that because of COVID-19? Forget about it!

This is Shaking the Tree!”

Ironically, the company’s social distancing protocols for audiences are fairly stringent, but the onstage physical intimacy still sends an electric jolt through the theater.

Whether it’s producing works about civil disobedience or the apocalypse, Shaking the Tree has been religiously devoted to taking risks. In Family, that devotion remains triumphantly alive.

SEE IT: Family plays at Shaking the Tree Theatre, 823 SE Grant St., 503-235-0635, shaking-the-tree.com/family.html.

7:30 pm Thursday-Saturday and 5 pm Sunday, through Nov. 6. $2-$30.

MUSIC Written by: Daniel Bromfield | @bromf3

Now Hear This

Listening recommendations from the past, present, Portland and the periphery.

SOMETHING OLD In the ’90s and early ’00s, producers around the world (but mostly in Germany) were realizing that electronics could be cute and cuddly. Schneider TM’s 2002 album Zoomer is one of the most delightful products of this era. Each drumbeat lands as softly as a cat’s paw, and initiator Dirk Dresselhaus twists his vocoders into some really gorgeous melodies, at least when he’s not trying to rap. This soft electro-pop style would culminate the next year with the Postal Service’s Give Up; if you liked that album but wish it went further out on a limb, this is for you.

SOMETHING NEW In the Cocteau Twins, Robin Guthrie’s guitar was the whirlwind from which Liz Fraser’s “voice of God” spoke. His solo work foregrounds those billowing textures, and his new EP Mockingbird Love adds 12 slight but replayable minutes to his discography. The star is Fraser’s guitar, the supporting cast is his pedalboard, and there’s not much else to distract from Guthrie’s delay-drenched meanderings. The only trick is acknowledging the title and not thinking of something unwholesome; maybe before Shape of Water and Titane, certainly not after.

SOMETHING LOCAL Joel Shanahan’s Golden Donna project usually sounds like the chordheavy, slightly time-worn house music that’s come to be associated with the Northwest over the past decade or so. However, his new The Damage Has Been Done EP has different intentions: This is techno that sounds like it’s been rubbed generously with sandpaper. The kicks are harsh and distorted, the synths bleep copiously.

There’s nothing to sink your head into, just miles of rugged terrain to cross.

SOMETHING ASKEW English singer Shirley Collins is a pure storyteller, singing of Britain’s fearful and faerie past in a voice so austere as to be drained of all emotion. She’s well into her 80s and going strong, but her best work dates from the ’60s, when she recorded both epics like Anthems in Eden, orchestrated by her more maximal-minded sister Dolly, and simple missives like The Sweet Primeroses. She doesn’t shy from dark content, but that comes with the territory in British folk, which reflects eons of syncretism between pagan lore and Christian guilt.

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

25

BOOK REVIEW

• •••• ••••

A T R E A LRBO S ER E T •••• A E H T OCT 21

A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century

Crosby, Stills & Nash Tribute

Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein

JUDY BLUE EYES with members of

For these Portland authors, evolution means never having to say you’re wrong.

The NowHere Band + CSN guitarist Jeff Pevar

Booklover’s Burlesque

OCT 22

OCT 23

the gothic edition

BY N A N CY KOPPELMA N A N D LEO B LA KESLEE

ALASDAIR FRASER AND NATALIE HAAS

world class Scottish fiddle & cello duo

OCT 27

OCT 24

two-time GRAMMY award winner

SADE tribute

SMOOTH OPERATOR TERRANCE SIMIEN LaRhonda Steele + friends

& THE ZYDECO EXPERIENCE NOV 3

OCT 29 Saloon Ensemble presents

THE NITEMARE MASK-EERADE NOV 4

COFFIS BROTHERS + AJ LEE & BLUE SUMMIT bluegrass/americana amazing female vocalists + a kick ass band

NOV 7

slack-key guitar grand master

LED KAAPANA NOV 5 NOV 6

aerial without limits

A-WOL after hours NOV 9 southern blues rock

SHE’S SPEAKING live PAUL

THORN

NOV 10

NOV 13

new folk singer/ songwriter

DAR WILLIAMS

+ Heather Maloney

UPCOMING SHOWS 11/17 11/18 11/19 11/30

• • • •

NPR radio show live taping

•••••••••••••

LOUDON WAINWRIGHT III ERIN MCKEOWN with The Cabin Project CARRIE NEWCOMER | 11/20 • EILEN JEWELL WHITE ALBUM XMAS

•••••

albertarosetheatre.com

3000 NE Alberta • 503.764.4131 26

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

From the 1870s until World War II, social Darwinism drove policies that shaped people’s lives.

Thousands looked to evolution to explain the human condition. By 1921, eugenicists, including members of Darwin’s family, hailed their work as “the self-direction of human evolution.”

Such a phrase would be at home in A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century: Evolution and the Challenges of Modern Life (Portfolio, 320 pages, $28). In it, former Evergreen State College professors and current podcasters Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein argue that relevant human history began 3.5 billion years ago.

(Full disclosure: One of the authors of this review, Nancy Koppelman, was a colleague of theirs at Evergreen, where Koppelman still teaches. ) Weinstein was also the subject of a recent WW cover story (“Drug & Pony Show,” Sept. 15, 2021) because he and his wife, Heying, extol the use of ivermectin, a horse dewormer, as a treatment for COVID—which runs counter to all advice from the FDA on the matter.

The plot of Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide is adaptation, from fish to primates to post-industrialists.

Weinstein and Heying explain that they want the reader to “see through the noise of our modern world and become a better problem solver” to overcome contemporary “hyper-novelty” which humanity created but is not evolved to manage. The unique human ability to adapt anywhere created our problems and can save us.

Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide has virtues. The authors deftly outline fundamentals of biology, natural history, and evolution, illustrated by fascinating examples from the animal kingdom. Their prose sometimes sparkles with wit and humor; there are sentences that we wanted to read twice.

The book’s concept of an “evolutionary toolkit” is intriguing; it posits, for example, that important cultural connections happen in modern versions of the ancient campfire. Their analysis of the “sustainability crisis” is compelling, their enthusiasm palpable. Heying and Weinstein are skilled at teaching what they know.

However, they also try to teach what they don’t know.

They claim that “Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic” societies (acronym WEIRD) produce cunning, helpless children, adults who can’t grow up, and bad health, food, sex, sleep and schools.

Weinstein and Heying claim an apolitical approach, crafted “through the indiscriminate

lens of our evolution.” Yet they reveal their politics often, such as in the Childhood chapter: “Becoming an adult is, in part, about learning what the system is, where its weaknesses are, and how to take advantage of those weaknesses.” The central lesson of the “hunter-gatherer’s guide” is survivalism.

Many sections of the book pertain to children, and are troubling. Kids should run free, largely unsupervised (they admire a 4-year-old crossing a busy street alone in Ecuador, where 52% of the population lives in poverty) and resolve fights themselves because “bullies and jerks are more likely to lose power than gain it.” Overprotection will yield “adults who bristle at the unexpected and the new.”

The authors are big on risk (the word shows up 98 times in the book), but they fail to acknowledge that they personally have lots of control over the risks their own children confront. They probably don’t cultivate their kids’ survival skills by exposing them to insufficient food and water, lead-lined water pipes, life-threatening diseases (although both say they aren’t vaccinated against COVID), or people who would do them harm.

Sometimes the authors are just wrong, claiming, “in time of famine, nearly nobody reproduces,” ignoring the well-known fact that birth rates tend to be higher among the poor. Hundreds of millions of people are locked into lives that they cannot change. Poverty, place-boundedness, limited employment options, and generational trauma influence how people can raise their children. The scale and ethical meaning of human desperation escapes their curiosity and concern.

They assume that 21st century hunter-gatherers have resources and choices; they can ignore politics and take their own power for granted. Heying and Weinstein position themselves as cutting-edge radical thinkers, but this is neoconservatism outfitted for visits to the farmers market and stays at do-it-yourself wilderness camp.

Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide says surviving near misses strengthens people, but the most vexing risks people face stem from unjust circumstances that limit their agency, and sometimes kill them.

We need politics, however limiting and divisive, to address that.

Many people like what Heying and Weinstein have to say. Perhaps that’s because they grant their readers a kind of absolution: Winners may ignore the history books.

In Heying and Weinstein’s telling, history’s protagonist is the genome, always “in the driver’s seat” aiming to enhance “genetic fitness” and subordinating culture as its “tool.”

Heying and Weinstein have adapted to their new environment in the public eye. Their challenge now is to stay there. This book is their latest attempt to do that.

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

GET YO UR REPS I N APPLETV+

SCREENER

MOVIES

The Return of the Living Dead (1985) IMDB

All Yesterday’s Parties Todd Haynes’ new Apple TV+ Velvet Underground doc explains the Banana Album.

BY JAY H O RTO N

@hortland

WW: How did you get involved in the film?

Todd Haynes: The project started when David Blackman—he runs Universal Music Group’s film and video component—asked if I would be interested in directing a documentary on the Velvet Underground. After Laurie Anderson handed over the Lou Reed archives to the New York City Public Library, they started to talk about making a Velvets doc in a way that hadn’t really been done before by a director she might feel comfortable approaching, And so they came to me.

Your response?

Oh, it was a yes! Completely. Even though I’d never made a documentary before, I was absolutely interested and knew a few things right away. The Velvet Underground hadn’t any traditional visual materials like other bands in terms of concert footage and promotional interviews. Instead, what they had would be found in the films of Andy Warhol, and they’re some of the most beautiful photo archives of the 1960s.

It seems like the band’s recordings were just teased early on through snippets.

That was about exploring the sources of the music and how that music came into being from people like John Cale and Lou Reed, whose backgrounds were quite different, and ultimately bringing in Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker. The music is something that we wanted to excavate for the viewer—to, ideally, make you feel like you were hearing it afresh—and that’s not easy to do with music so well known that has, by now, entered the canon.

Almost half the movie goes by before we hear a full track.

That’s true. It takes about an hour to hear the first Velvets song “Venus in Furs” with the Lou Reed vocal. How long that takes—and how much you get into the ideas that were circulating in the 1960s—was always something I think we were all trying to protect. These were people who were very interested in breaking orthodoxies and changing the accepted conventions of music-making and art-making and filmmaking. That’s what defines this period as so distinct and extraordinary.

The Velvet Underground were deeply affected by the filmmaking, the image-making, the fluidity of New York City’s creative community. They had a unique relationship with this massive archive of avant-garde films, and I leaned into the visuals. I wanted the film to be driven by the images and the music and to try as much as possible to have the interviews support a more immersive, visceral experience for the viewer. Watching the film should almost feel like you are intuiting the story, not just being told what had happened—something that you could dream through and lose yourself inside. Let the images and the sounds guide your experience.

SEE IT: The Velvet Underground streams on Apple TV+ and screens at Hollywood Theatre.

Mandy (2018) Nicolas Cage stars in this psychedelic horror film about a couple, Red and Mandy (Cage and Andrea Riseborough), whose charmed, secluded life in the forest is upended by a cult of biker demons. After they kidnap Mandy, Red sets out on a surreal rampage of bloody vengeance to rescue her. If you missed its theatrical run a few years ago, now’s the time to see it on the big screen! Clinton, Oct. 22.

The Piano Teacher (2001) Isabelle Huppert plays a masochistic and dangerously repressed piano teacher pursued by a student who auditions for her conservatory. As their twisted relationship grows, so do her own revelations about the true nature of her sadistic desires. An erotic psychological drama that’s both devastating and cathartic. 5th Avenue, Oct. 22-24.

Carrie (1976) FILM ‘89

Though Todd Haynes had never helmed a documentary before agreeing to direct The Velvet Underground for Apple TV+, the celebrated filmmaker and longtime Portland resident has a long history of expanding the parameters of musical biopics.

After his 1989 debut, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, a surprisingly affecting experimental short that retold the singer’s tragic demise through the use of Barbie figurines, his 1998 bravura glam romp Velvet Goldmine was a thinly veiled fantasy biopic about David Bowie, while 2007’s critically adored I’m Not There examined the legacy of Bob Dylan, who was portrayed by six different actors.

Set against Haynes’ more fanciful docudramas, The Velvet Underground seems almost a comparatively straightforward evocation of the Velvets—an enormously influential late ’60s art-rock troupe that never troubled the charts yet inspired the style, tone and artistic ambitions of a burgeoning alternative nation. Interspersing what little footage exists of their stint as house band for Andy Warhol’s Factory alongside interviews with surviving members and associates, Haynes and his editors pour an unending deluge of imagery cribbed from fellow travelers’ experimentalist cinema into a thoughtful fever dream that is meticulous, ecstatic and very much alive.

Calling from a hotel landline during a press junket just days before the documentary’s Oct. 15 premiere, Haynes spoke with WW about his breathtaking new picture.

Did you have a preconceived idea in mind about structure? Was it built around interviews or footage?

The process began with interviews I conducted in 2018 with filmmaker Jonas Mekas—basically, the godfather of American avant-garde cinema—because he’d just turned 97, and I wanted to make sure that we had him in the film. He’s a seminal figure to film culture and the culture of the 1960s at large, which this film explores fully, and around which the Velvet Underground played a role as catalyst. Then we went on to [Velvet founding member] John Cale, whose interviews were really the centerpiece, but I didn’t want the film to be just driven by interviews, even though the interviews we got were extraordinary. I didn’t want talking heads telling us why the Velvets were important. I wanted the film, as much as possible, to allow you to discover that for yourself. I chose to interview the people who were there and exclude all of the countless people who came after.

Completely different from George Romero’s somber 1968 classic Night of the Living Dead, this horror comedy from Dan O’Bannon follows a ragtag crew of warehouse employees who unwittingly reanimate a cemetery full of zombies.

With the help of a gang of teenage punks (and a killer death rock soundtrack), the survivors team up to save their town by kicking some zombie ass. Clinton, Oct. 22.

In Brian De Palma and Stephen King’s seminal horror staple, an outcast teenager (Sissy Spacek) coping with school bullies (Nancy Allen, John Travolta) and her overbearing religious mother (Piper Laurie) discovers she has telekinetic powers. See the iconic pig’s blood-drenched prom scene projected in gorgeous 35 mm! Academy, Oct. 22-28.

Deep Red (1975) After a musician witnesses the murder of a psychic by a mysterious black-gloved figure, he teams up with a journalist to solve the case. Directed by Italian horror master Dario Argento and featuring a memorable score by Goblin (who would later score Argento’s 1977 Suspiria), Deep Red is quintessential giallo. Hollywood, Oct. 26.

ALSO PLAYING: Academy: Friday the 13th (1980), Oct. 20-21. The Shining (1980), Oct. 22-28. Clinton: On Any Sunday (1971), Oct. 21.

Eraserhead (1977), Oct. 23. Us (2019), Oct. 25. Hollywood: Twins of Evil (1971), Oct. 25.

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

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N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

MOVIES NOW PLAYING TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

The Rescue “I could talk for an hour about the ways these kids could die,” admits Australian doctor Richard Harris about the Thai youth soccer players he extracted from 2018’s internationally famous cave flooding. These odd, macabre little moments are the most striking of documentary team Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s recounting-cum-reenactment of the harrowing 18-day rescue from Tham Luang Nang Non cave. Another diver wonders aloud whether he would’ve drunk his life away if the boy he ferried to safety for three subterranean hours had died. Much like in Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi’s Oscar-winning Free Solo, the filmmakers pick knowingly at the bare psyches of adventurers (swapping rock climbers for cave divers) fascinatingly desensitized to death. And while the expert editing does wonders to disguise extended stretches of reenactment (like a very expensive episode of Dateline), creeping, unanswered questions of retraumatization float in those scenes’ staged abyss. Even if thornier issues of dramatic reproduction and white interloping are sanded clean off the film, The Rescue remains a worthy tribute to the operation’s 5,000 volunteers from all over Thailand, the U.K., U.S. and China. At every turn, they chose action when hope was for fools. PG. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Bridgeport, Fox Tower, Movies on TV.

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. : THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE.

ALSO PLAYING The Last Duel The place is France. The time is the Middle Ages. The crime is rape. That’s the premise of The Last Duel, director Ridley Scott’s thunderous cinematic portrait of Marguerite de Carrouges (Jodie Comer), a real-life noblewoman who accused Jacques Le Gris (Adam Driver), a squire and knight, of sexually assaulting her. Each of the film’s three acts is filmed from the perspective of one character—first Marguerite’s husband, Sir Jean de Carrouges (Matt Damon), then Le Gris, then Marguerite. While the male perspectives were written by Damon and Ben Affleck, the scenes that peer into Marguerite’s soul were scripted

by Nicole Holofcener, who emphasizes the tension between monstrous masculine delusions and brutal feminine realities. The Last Duel understands the fluidity of memory—in one scene, Le Gris willfully misinterprets Marguerite’s mocking smile as a flirtation—but it unequivocally states that only Marguerite is telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The trial by combat between Carrouges and Le Gris that decides whether Marguerite will be vindicated or burned alive is exhilaratingly brutish, but the film keeps cutting away from the bloodshed to show us her haunted, hardened features.

The greatest war in The Last Duel is the one she wages against the patriarchy, proving that Scott—who also directed Alien and Thelma & Louise— is still a feminist to his core. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas Town Center, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Eastport Plaza, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, 28

Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, St. Johns Theater & Pub, St. Johns Twin Cinemas, Studio One, Tigard.

No Time to Die The essence of James Bond is iteration, evolving just enough to survive new eras rather than conclude—just like the Cold War, Hollywood machine and patriarchal framework that birthed the character. So it’s an unprecedented position in which No Time to Die finds itself: belting out a nearly three-hour swan song to Daniel Craig’s chiseled, well-meaning, haunted 007. Director Cary Joji Fukunaga (Beasts of No Nation) breaks visual ground in the enchanting blues and purples of nocturnal Cuba and Jamaica set pieces, and bursts of eerie emotional tension stamp his trademark on action set pieces. Meanwhile, stellar supporting actors like Ralph Fiennes (M), Jeffrey Wright (Felix Leiter) and Naomie Harris (Moneypenny) savor their chemistry with Craig to the last sip. Of course, No Time to Die was literally and figuratively meant for two years ago (delayed by COVID-19), when its plot line about weaponized contagions wasn’t so gutting, when villain Rami Malek’s dead stare and monotone whispering wasn’t such tired schtick. More impressive than fun, this 25th Bond outing wraps the Craig years with all the heartache (for Léa Seydoux’s Madeleine Swann) and visceral ass-kicking he’s cultivated since Casino Royale. Always in pain, always trying to quit, Craig’s Bond was the only 007 who saw his end from the very beginning. PG-13.

CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Bagdad, Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, Cinema 99, City Center, Clackamas Town Center, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Division, Eastport Plaza, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Hilltop, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood,

Willamette Week OCTOBER 20, 2021 wweek.com

St. Johns Theater & Pub, St. Johns Twin Cinemas, Studio One, Tigard, Vancouver Mall, Vancouver Plaza, Wilsonville.

Bingo Hell Among the quartet of indie horror flicks streaming on Amazon Prime this October for the second annual Welcome to the Blumhouse anthology series, Bingo Hell continues along the gold-plated schlockmeister’s lighthearted, heavyhanded formula. While most Blumhouse productions depend on a steady stream of camera-ready 20-somethings cast as good-looking corpses, this darkly satirical fable focuses on a rather different demographic. Within a working-class New Orleans neighborhood recently overtaken by hipster millennials, Adriana Barraza’s hausfrau heroine Lupita can’t help but notice the sudden exodus of her elderly cohorts following the overnight appearance of a suspiciously luxe gaming emporium run by the seedily sinister Mr. Big (Richard Brake), whose widescreen rictus grin furiously chews every inch of infernal casino scenery. A premise conflating gentrification with selling one’s soul has some teeth, and the picture’s far more engaging first half clearly illustrates the plight of struggling seniors already preyed upon by a rapacious housing market well before the devil came to town. Alas, that measured world-building renders the intercut scenes of close-up carnage especially cartoonish, and however textured the victims’ backstories, their gory fates feel weirdly incidental— collateral damage in service to the larger points expressed by a nonetoo-clever political skit. Characters so artfully constructed should be allowed to die gracefully. NR. JAY HORTON. Amazon Prime.

Dear Evan Hansen Is Evan Hansen a teen tormented by anxiety, isolation and depression? Or a con artist masquerading as the best friend of a boy who killed himself? The answer is simple—he’s both. Humans crave characters who are easy to adore or

despise, but when Dear Evan Hansen debuted on Broadway in 2016, it defied that dichotomy, becoming a blockbuster musical and winning six Tony Awards. The movie mines the play’s ambiguous magic by bringing back original star Ben Platt as Evan, who is so lonely that he invents a history of bromance between him and his dead classmate Connor (Colton Ryan). Connor’s parents (Amy Adams and Danny Pino) accept Evan as a surrogate son, but he’s haunted by guilt—and the truth that his deception may be all that’s keeping him from ending his own life. Dear Evan Hansen diehards will be delighted by the film’s heart-expanding performances of songs like “You Will Be Found,” but not by the ending, which radically revises the story so Evan can atone for his lies.

In the play, the greatest act of penitence wasn’t apologizing. It was living honorably in the wake of your mistakes, an idea the film fails to understand. The result? An adaptation with the shape of Dear Evan Hansen, but not enough of its sad, strange and beautiful soul. PG-13.

BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cinema 99, Tigard.

The French Dispatch A prison guard becomes an inmate’s muse. A reporter beds a budding activist. A police commissioner’s son is abducted by a criminal called The Chauffeur. Those are the stories that define director Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch, a perky anthology of tales from a fictional publication called The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun. The film was inspired by articles from The New Yorker, but its blend of pastel colors and deadpan wit is pure Anderson. His direction is painfully precise—even a clash between protesters and police looks like a series of still images— and it threatens to squeeze the life out of a cast that includes Bill Murray, Benicio del Toro, Timothée Chalamet and Jeffrey Wright. Yet Anderson’s fussiness isn’t half as troubling as his attitude toward the film’s female journalists, including J.K.L. Berensen (Tilda Swinton) and Lucinda Krementz (Frances McDormand). Both of them lust

after the subjects of their articles, a toxic trope that Anderson deploys without a hint of his trademark irony. Some of his early films— particularly Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums—have aged with good-natured grace, but The French Dispatch proves he has a long way to go if he wants to be the clever and compassionate comedian he once was. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Cinema 21.

Dune A new menace is loose in the universe. His diabolical plan? To bore moviegoers until they lose consciousness. His name? Director Denis Villeneuve. After the haunting poetry of Arrival and the dreamy romanticism of Blade Runner 2049, Villeneuve seemed incapable of creating a bad sci-fi film. Yet he’s done it with his adaptation of Frank Herbert’s hulking 1965 novel Dune, which follows the ponderous adventures of the callow nobleman Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) on the desert planet Arrakis. The film keeps hinting at Paul’s potential to become an interplanetary messiah, but Chalamet is so wan and lifeless it’s difficult to care whether the character lives or dies. Rebecca Ferguson adds some fiery charisma as Paul’s mother, Lady Jessica, but Villeneuve buries her performance beneath a seemingly endless stream of information about the politics, rituals and ecology of Arrakis. He cares more about world-building than storytelling, which is why watching Dune feels like reading an excruciatingly dry textbook instead of experiencing a movie.

Some people will see the existence of a big-budget, 155-minute art film as a sign of hope in a cinematic landscape strewn with superhero bombast, but Dune isn’t salvation.

It’s a stark reminder that pretentiousness can be just as punishing as commercialism. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, Cinemagic, City Center, Dine-In Progress Ridge, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lake Theater & Cafe, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV, Pioneer Place, Sherwood, St. Johns Twin Cinemas, Studio One, Tigard.

JONESIN’

by Matt Jones

"YRs Truly"--more initial reactions.

Week of October 28

©2021 Rob Brezsny

ARIES (March 21-April 19) Aries philosopher Emil Cioran wrote, "When I meet friends or people I know who are going through a difficult period, I usually have this advice for them: 'Spend 20 minutes in a cemetery, and you'll see that, though your worry won’t disappear, you'll almost forget about it and you'll feel better.'" I don't think you're weathering a terribly difficult phase right now, Aries, but you may be dealing with more riddles and doubts and perplexities than you're comfortable with.

You could be feeling a bit darker and heavier than usual. And I think Cioran's advice would provide you with the proper stimulation to transform your riddles and doubts and perplexities into clarity and grace and aplomb. If you can do Halloween without risk from COVID-19, here's a costume suggestion: the spirit of a dead ancestor.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20) According to some spiritual teachers, desire interferes with our quest for illumination. It diverts us from what's real and important. I know gurus who even go so far as to say that our yearnings deprive us of freedom; they entrap us and diminish us. I strongly disagree with all those ideas. I regard my longing as a primary fuel that energizes my drive to free myself from pain and nonsense. How about you, Taurus? In alignment with astrological omens, I authorize you to deepen and refine and celebrate the yearning in your heart. Your title/nickname could be: 1. Yearning Champion. 2.

Desire Virtuoso. 3. Connoisseur of Longing.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)

ACROSS

56 "Empire" actor Diggs

1 Brit's WWII weapon

57 Like two, but not too?

5 Eight, to Teo

58 Cardiologist's procedure, for short

9 Tiny tastes 13 Chance for change, maybe?

14 Bratwurst topper 15 Spike's demon friend, on "Buffy"

59 Raison d'_ _ _ (justification) 60 Hardy title character 61 Abbr. on a cognac bottle 62 Ticket specification

American singer with the albums "Graciasland" and "Merry MeX-mas" 32 Chuck D's Public Enemy partner, for short 33 Zero, for Nadal 34 Dumpster emanation 36 _ _ _ diagram (logic illustration) 37 Order for humans

16 Opera highlight

DOWN

17 Flower in a Texas song

1 Hang around

39 "En _ _ _!" (fencing command)

19 Genre for Michael McDonald and Rupert Holmes

2 "America's Next Top Model" host Banks

40 Runny cheese

21 "_ _ _ la vista, baby!"

4 Vessel crammed full of wildlife

22 Raphael's weapon, in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" 23 Chess piece, at times 24 Getaways with a focus on poses 30 Commandeer 31 "The Hangover" actor Ed 32 Progressive character 35 Otter relative 36 Car brand that translates to "I roll" 37 Galumph 38 Play the quizmaster 39 "Aladdin" character 40 "Real Housewives" channel

3 Impressive in scope

5 McFlurry variety 6 A.P. math subject 7 Smashing fellow?

8 Prefix meaning "earrelated" 9 Cancels

42 Keep an _ _ _ the ground 43 Until now 44 Cooking appliance 45 Squares up 48 Yangs' counterparts 49 Waffle brand that somehow has a cereal version

10 "Have _ _ _ my mind?"

50 Propose a romantic connection, in fanfic

11 Bucatini sauce

51 Like some bloomers

12 Lipstick smudge

52 Constellation named for a stringed instrument

14 NBA star Irving in the news for refusing to get vaccinated 18 Word often used by "Jeopardy!" champ Matt Amodio

53 Chuck as far away as possible, in modern slang 55 Toyota _ _ _4 (SUV model)

20 It covers a lot of ground

41 Longest waterway in China

23 It's hard to distinguish, for short

43 Toward the rear of a boat

24 "3:10 to _ _ _"

46 Objective

25 Conditional suffix?

47 Prized instrument, for short

26 Engine buildup

48 "I'm serious"

28 Fired up again

54 "No argument here"

41 Longs (for)

27 Minimal beachwear 29 Presley-inspired Mexican-

last week’s answers

Author Jessamyn West confessed, "I am always jumping into the sausage grinder and deciding, even before I’m half ground, that I don’t want to be a sausage after all." I offer her testimony as a cautionary tale, Gemini. There's no astrological reason, no cosmic necessity, that decrees you must become like a sausage anytime soon. Such a fate can be easily avoided.

All you must do is commit yourself to not jumping into the sausage grinder. Also: In every way you can imagine, don't be like a sausage. (To meditate on sausage-ness, read the Wikipedia entry: tinyurl.com/ SausageMetaphor)

CANCER (June 21-July 22) Our fellow Cancerian, author Franz Kafka, told us, "It is often safer to be in chains than to be free." And yes, some of us Crabs go through phases when we crave safety so much that we tolerate, even welcome, being in chains. But the fact is that you're far more likely to be safe if you are free, not in chains. And according to my reading of the astrological omens, that's extra true for you now. If you can celebrate Halloween without risk from COVID-19, here are costume suggestions: runaway prisoner, escape artist, freedom fighter.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22) Some of us yearn for allies who can act like saviors: rescue us from our demons and free us from our burdensome pasts and transform us into the beauties we want to become. On the other hand, some of us do all this hard work by ourselves: rescue ourselves from our demons and free ourselves from our burdensome pasts and transform ourselves into the beauties we want to become. I highly recommend the latter approach for you in the coming weeks, Leo. If you can do Halloween without risk from COVID-19, here is a costume suggestion: your own personal savior.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22) "One of the reasons people are so unhappy is they don’t talk to themselves," says author Elizabeth Gilbert. "You have to keep a conversation going with yourself throughout your life," she continues, "to see how you’re doing, to keep your focus, to remain your own friend." Now is a favorable time to try such an experiment, Virgo. And if you already have skill in the art of carrying on a vibrant dialog with yourself, now is a perfect moment to upgrade and refine it. Try this experiment: Imagine having a conversation with the Future You.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22) "In the absence of willpower, the most complete collection of virtues and talents is worthless." Libran occultist Aleister Crowley wrote that, and I agree.

But let's phrase his idea more positively: To make full use of your virtues and talents, you must develop a strong willpower. And here's the good news, Libra: The coming weeks will be a favorable time to cultivate your willpower, along with the assets that bolster it, like discipline, self-control, and concentration. If you can do Halloween without risk from COVID-19, here are accessories I recommend for you to carry with you, no matter what your costume is: a wand, a symbolic lightning bolt, an ankh, an arrow, a Shiva lingam stone or crystal.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21) Mardi Gras is a boisterous festival that happens every February all over the planet. One hotspot is New Orleans. The streets there are filled with costumed revelers who enjoy acting in ways that diverge from their customary behavior. If you want to ride on a float in the parade that snakes down Royal Street, you must, by law, wear a festive mask. I invite all of you Scorpios to engage in similar festivities for the next three weeks—even if you're not doing much socializing or partying. It's a favorable time to experiment with a variety of alternate identities. Would you consider adopting a different persona or two? How could you have fun playing around with your self-image?

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21) Jungian psychotherapist and storyteller Clarissa Pinkola Estés reminds us, "In fairy tales, tears change people, remind them of what is important, and save their very souls." I hope you're open to the possibility of crying epic, cathartic, catalytic tears in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. According to my analysis, you have a prime opportunity to benefit from therapeutic weeping. It could chase your fears and cure your angst and revivify your soul. So please take advantage of this gift from life. Be like a superhero whose superpower is to generate healing by crying.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19) Filmmaker Wim Wenders said, "Any film that supports the idea that things can be changed is a great film in my eyes." I'll expand upon that: "Any experience, situation, influence, or person that supports the idea that things can be changed is great."

This is a useful and potentially inspiring theme for you to work with right now, Capricorn. In accordance with astrological rhythms, I hope you will be a connoisseur and instigator of beneficial, beautiful transformations.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18) Fitness buff Jack LaLanne was still doing his daily workout when he was 95. He was also famous for performing arduous feats. At age 65, for example, he swam a mile through Japan's Lake Ashinoko while towing 65 boats filled with 6,500 pounds of wood pulp.

I think you're currently capable of a metaphorically comparable effort, Aquarius. One way to do it is by mastering a psychological challenge that has previously seemed overwhelming. So meditate on where your extra strength would be best directed, and use it wisely! If you can do Halloween without risk from COVID-19, here are costume suggestions: fitness buff, bodybuilder, marathon runner, yoga master.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20) When birdwatchers describe a bird, they speak of its "jizz." This term refers to the distinctive character of its habitual movements, flying style, posture, vocal mannerisms, and coloring. One aficionado defines jizz as the bird's "indefinable quality," or the "vibe it gives off." I've got a theory that right now you're as bird-like as you've ever been. You seem lighter and freer than usual, less bound to gravity and solemnity, and more likely to break into song. Your fears are subsiding because you have the confidence to leave any situation that's weighing you down. If you can do Halloween without risk from COVID-19, here's a costume suggestion: the bird that has your favorite kind of jizz.

HOMEWORK: Tell me what worked for you when all else failed. https://Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com

Check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes & Daily Text Message Horoscopes

©2021 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.

freewillastrology.com The audio horoscopes are also available by phone at

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SPOTLIGHT ARTIST COLIN KEATING Colin Keating is a writer, musician, and multimedia artist living and working in Northeast Portland. His art focuses on capitalism, the surreal, nature, irony, relationships, and anything else that wanders into his head. @francisbaconbits

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