Willamette Week, February 15, 2023 - Volume 49, Issue 14 - "Chasing Ghosts: Property Tax Debts"

SOME PORTLANDERS HAVEN’T PAID THEIR PROPERTY TAXES. THESE

THEIR STORIES.

Meklit

FEBRUARY 16-25, 2023

Thurs, February 16

Bill Frisell Four

Feat. Gerald Clayton, Gregory Tardy, Rudy Royston

The Reser

Fri, February 17

Angélique Kidjo

Tues, February 21

Tord Gustavsen Trio

Ft. Steinar Raknes & Jarle Vespestad

The Old Church

Wed, February 22

Taylor Mcferrin & Marcus Gilmore

The Old Church

Sat, February 25

Kiefer + Omari Jazz

Star Theater

Sat, February 25

Mike Phillips

Winnigstad Theatre

Yemen Blues

Reimagines Remain In Light The Talking Heads Classic + Dj Nickodemus Roseland Theater

Fri, February 17

George Colligan Trio

The Old Church Concert Hall

Hiatus Kaiyote

Sat, February 18

The Budos Band + Sexmob Roseland Theater

Sat, February 18 Ambrose Akinmusire & Gerald Clayton

The Old Church

Wed, February 22

Shabazz Palaces + Moor Mother Alberta Rose

Thurs, February 23

Charlie Musslewhite + Curtis Salgado

Revolution Hall

Thurs, February 23

Mark Guiliana

Ft. Chris Morrissey, Paul Cornish, Jason Rigby

The Old Church

Thurs, February 23

Jack London Revue

Fri, February 17

Scatter The Atoms That Remain

Ft. Franklin Kiermyer, Davis Whitfield

Fri, February 17 • Late DJ Set

Nickodemus

Sat, February 18

I Am

Ft. Isaiah Collier & Michael Shekwoaga Ode

Sat, February 18 • Late Show

Sexmob

Charlie Musselwhite

Sat Feb 18 & Sun Feb 19

Jazz Film: Inside Scofield McMenamins Kennedy School

Sat, February 18

An Evening With Meklit

Storm Large Burlesque

Big Band

+ Ne Plus Ultra Jass Orchestra & Storyville Confidential

Newmark Theatre

Fri, February 24

Dave Holland Trio

Mon, February 20

Pjce Presents Ekta: The Unity Project

Wed, February 22

Zoh Amba

Dave Holland

The Reser

Sun, February 19

Yemen Blues Mississippi Studios

Sun, February 19

Ft. Kevin Eubanks, Eric Harland + Derrick Hodge Trio

Newmark Theatre

Fri, February 24

Ft. Chris Corsano

Thurs, February 23

Mel Brown B-3 Organ Group

With Sean Holmes & Arietta Ward

Dumpstaphunk

Christian Kuria Holocene

Mon, February 20

James Francies + Kris Davis

Double Header Solo Piano

The Old Church

Thee Sacred Souls + Orquestra Pacifico Tropical & Jalen N’gonda

Revolution Hall

Fri, February 24

‘Take Me To The River’ Live Dumpstaphunk with Jon Cleary

Aladdin Theater

Fri, February 24

Sen Morimoto

Fri, February 24 • Late Show

Mark Guiliana Beat Music

Ft. Nick Semrad & Chris Morrissey

Sat, February 25

Aaron Burnett Trio

Hubert Laws

Tues, February 21

Hiatus Kaiyote + Butcher Brown

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

Mike Phillips

Sat, February 25

Hubert Laws Quintet + Brian Jackson Quartet

Ft. Michael Shekwoaga Ode, Nick Jozwiak

Sat, February 25 • Late Show

Butcher Brown Tickets

Newmark Theatre

The mission of PDX Jazz is to evolve the art of jazz by engaging our community, celebrating live performance and enhancing arts education.

WHAT WE LEARNED FROM READING THIS WEEK’S PAPER VOL. 49, ISSUE 14

Last year, Oregon received just 33 bottles of Pappy Van Winkle 23-year bourbon. 8

The main source of broken windows in Old Town is sidewalk bricks the city didn’t mortar down. 8

Homeowners at the Copperfield Condominiums now owe at least $288 a month for 300 months. 10

The former owners of a segment of Lloyd Center Mall owe $10 million for a Regal multiplex they didn’t build. 14

Bobbie Ephrem sued the federal government for robbing him of his family inheritance—and won. 17

Bob Hill’s fitness secrets include chewing slowly and swearing off pasta. 18

Dunkin’ Donuts abandoned Portland in 2004, before leaving was cool. 19

A new exhibition at Pittock Mansion features handwritten corrections to historically inaccurate museum displays about the Kalapuyans 25

Heavenly Creatures is also the nickname for the many bottles that line the walls of the new Portland wine bar of the same moniker. 26

After a two-and-a-half-year closure, then nearly three months of warm-up service, downtown’s Il Solito is finally holding its grand reopening. 26

French Bread is a rare cannabis strain that actually tastes nothing like a crusty loaf. 28

An obnoxious dental hygienist helped inspire Isabeau Waia’u Walker’s music. 29

Three queer bars have opened in Old Town during the pandemic and closed before their first anniversary. 30

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ON SALE! SALE PRICES GOOD 2/15/23-3/14/23 4 Willamette Week FEBRUARY 15, 2023 wweek.com DIALOGUE

Over the past week, most of our readers still wanted to talk about people leaving Portland. Fortunately, we gave them another former Oregonian to talk about: Mark Hemstreet, the founder of Shilo Inns (“Battle of Shilo,” WW, Feb. 8). Two decades after he lamented that his fellow citizens weren’t ready for “a wise, benevolent monarch,” Hemstreet owes the feds more than $20 million for unpaid personal income taxes and employee withholdings. Readers with long memories chuckled at the comeuppance of an employer who picked fights with organized labor and used his Portland airport hotel as a gathering place for the Oregon Republican Party. One reader pointed us to a website that claims the Lincoln City Shilo Inn—the one with Mo’s Chowder downstairs—is haunted, although that’s not really germane to the tax issue. Here’s what else our readers had to say:

CHRISTINA BUCK, VIA WWEEK.COM: “The IRS aggressively audits poor people and people like this OWE TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS? “This is something that should not even be allowed to happen.”

KURT CHAPMAN, VIA WWEEK. COM: “Was not aware Shilo Inns still existed. Whenever going by the old ones in Eugene or Bend, they appeared empty. Either way, give this guy 90 to 120 days to pay what he owes or start criminal proceedings.”

PHALSLEYCONVICTED, VIA TWITTER: “Maybe we can get some houseless inside with a plea deal on this thief.”

MID COUNTY, VIA WWEEK.

COM: “I see karma came around and bit Hemstreet. Maybe he should’ve spent more time and money on his properties than trying (unsuccessfully) to bust unions. Like many of his ‘run the government like a business’ contemporaries, he’s run his business straight into the ground.

“And the IRS ‘issue’? The ‘thousands’ of new agents they want to hire? It’s not for nefarious reasons. A study done about 10 years ago noted that at that time, the U.S. was denied over $200 billion annually in unpaid taxes by people like Hemstreet. I’m certain it’s much higher now.

“I am no fan of the IRS by any measure, but it’s hard to fault them for failing to collect when

Dr. Know

BY MARTY SMITH @martysmithxxx

the playing field is so tilted completely against them. Over successive administrations (both sides) the IRS has been made to be the government boogeyman, defunded and downsized to the point they’re completely ineffective in going after big-money, high-profile and politically connected tax cheats.

“[And] the IRS is facing the same manpower crunch all other public safety is dealing with. The ‘new hires’ aren’t to massively swell the ranks, it’s to replace those retiring and fill current vacancies.”

BRYANRMORRIS, VIA WWEEK. COM: “Guess Oregonians still aren’t ready for that ‘benevolent monarch’ yet. Kind of like Americans were tired of that vindictive tyrant that we fired in November of 2020.”

@GRANDMADORISC, VIA TWITTER: “The Newport Shilo looks dumpy from the outside. Wonder what the inside looks like. No Shilos for me….I remember.”

HAROLD METZGER, VIA FACEBOOK: “But doesn’t he deserve a pass for putting up such great Christmas lights?”

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR must include the author's street address and phone number for verification. Letters must be 250 or fewer words. Submit to: P.O. Box 10770, Portland OR, 97296

Email: mzusman@wweek.com

(though, in fairness, plate tectonics wouldn’t be invented for another 400 years). The plate was named for the nearby Strait of Juan de Fuca.

—Shaken and Baked

The recent earthquake in Turkey has reminded me yet again that we’re all gonna die in the coming Cascadia subduction zone quake. I know this will be caused by the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate, but who was Juan de Fuca, and how did he get his own tectonic plate? Can I get one also?

While traveling in Mexico, I once heard an American tourist call for his bar tab by shouting “Day checkay!”* (I winced: The correct phrase is, of course, “el checko.”) For the benefit of that guy, allow me to clarify that “Juan de Fuca?” is not a phrase used to rudely proposition Spanish-speakers one finds attractive.

In fact, Juan de Fuca isn’t even his real name—born in Greece, he would have called himself Yannis Phokas. He was, we think, a naval explorer active on the Pacific coast (then known as New Spain, hence his Hispanicized name) during the 16th century. De Fuca did not discover the tectonic plate that bears his name

So de Fuca found a strait and named it after himself? Not even: The strait was named in the 18th century by an explorer named Charles Barkley, who thought it might be the same strait that some people thought de Fuca may have discovered 200 years earlier, on a voyage we now know he may never have even made. (In retrospect this was a reach on Barkley’s part, but then he never said he was a role model.)

Late in his life, de Fuca told a biographer he’d been hired by Phillip II of Spain to find the Strait of Anián—aka the Northwest Passage— and that he’d been successful. (This was the account Barkley had read.) Since the Northwest Passage turned out to be blocked by ice and Spain didn’t seem to have any record of de Fuca, a lot of people now take his account with a grain of salt.

De Fuca, for his part, shrewdly died in 1602, years before anyone could confirm or disprove his story. Either way, it doesn’t matter now; the maps with his name have been printed. That ship has sailed (metaphorically, if not literally). *Written phonetically; I assume he would have spelled it “de checké.”

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

NOW STREAMING ON ALL MAJOR PLATFORMS

REMOTE WORKER TRAVEL BILL BLOCKED:

Senate Bill 853, which would prohibit the state from paying travel expenses for state employees who have relocated to other states, appeared to have a clear path to passage when all 30 senators sponsored it. Then, on Feb. 9, they heard from a powerful voice—Melissa Unger, executive director of Service Employees International Union Local 503, which represents 24,000 state workers. Unger noted that the state developed and implemented the policy covering travel expenses for remote employees, who then made important decisions for their families. “They would have no reason to believe that policy would change,” Unger testified to the Senate Labor and Business Committee. Unger’s objections resonated: Committee chair Kathleen Taylor (D-Portland) said that despite signing on as a sponsor, she could not support the bill as written. Chief sponsor Sen. Tim Knopp (R-Bend) said he would work on amendments to satisfy SEIU’s objections. He’ll first have to prove change is needed. “We’re not really convinced it’s a problem,” Unger told the committee.

INTERSTATE BRIDGE DESIGN COULD CHANGE:

At a Feb. 9 community advisory meeting, Greg Johnson, the engineer heading up the $7.5 billion Interstate 5 bridge replacement project, dropped big news: “We are looking at a bridge configuration of a single level,” Johnson told the group. Critics say that marks a major departure from the double-deck stacked “locally preferred alternative,” or preliminary design. That LPA consists of two bridges with vehicular traffic on the top decks and light rail, bicycle and pedestrian capacity on the lower decks. Johnson now says the right solution might be one large single-deck bridge. Critics oppose the double-decked design, which they say is too steep and too expensive. Until now, their pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Portland economist Joe Cortright says he’s both perplexed and pleased by the sudden flexibility. “This latest—and very late—change to the project design is an indication that it’s not too late to fix the fatal flaws in this project,” he says. “Right now, the fatal flaws revolve around its bloated design and price.” Johnson says his group is simply evaluating all possibilities. “The bridge configuration has not yet been determined, and a single-level bridge was never eliminated from consideration,” he says.“We are looking at multiple options for bridge configuration so we can maximize efficiencies by understanding the range of impacts and benefits.”

fear he might kill them too if he’s set free. The Washington board demands King be returned to the state’s custody if the Oregon Board of Parole decides to release him, a decision it is expected to make soon. In recent weeks, the convicted murderer’s family has come out in protest of his plans to move back to Alabama. King’s brother, James, says King sent a man named Richard to kill him and his father in the late 1990s. His other two brothers, Daniel and Thomas, deny promising King an investigator job at the family law firm—a promise made in a 1994 letter bearing their signatures submitted by King in support of his parole. King’s final Oregon hearing, an “exit interview,” is scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 16.

WHEELER WARNS OF TIGHT BUDGET: In a series of budget memos to city commissioners over the past two months, Mayor Ted Wheeler gave clear guidance: Submit no new program proposals because the city has little excess general fund revenue this year. “I cannot stress the importance of adhering as closely as possible to a status quo…target framework as we all work towards the transition to the new form of government,” Wheeler wrote Jan. 26. He also asked that each bureau categorize its programs into three buckets: legally required, primary to the bureau’s functions, or “secondary” to the bureau’s mission. Mayoral spokesman Cody Bowman says that request reflects “conversations leading into organizational structure changes that may come due to charter change.” Last year, the city had over $247 million in additional funds from the feds and from one-time funds. Wheeler indicated he’s worried about those pandemic relief dollars drying up. He wrote he will work to “reduce exposure of a financial cliff when the one-time funds eventually expire.” One city project reliant on federal cash: The city’s tiny house villages, of which only two are currently housing people.

HIGH-INCOME TAXPAYERS GET AMNESTY:

ROBERT KING

MUST NOW WIN HIS FREEDOM IN TWO STATES: Robert King was convicted of murder conspiracies in two states, Washington and Oregon. But Washington paroled him in 1995, and he’s spent the past three decades trying to get the Oregon Board of Parole to do the same. Now he’s back to square one. Last week, Washington’s Indeterminate Sentence Review Board suspended King’s parole, citing “new information” received since December. That reversal follows a January WW cover story outlining King’s crimes—and the stories of people who

After an uproar among high-income taxpayers, both Multnomah County and the Metro regional government waived interest and penalties for late payers of two new taxes, one to fund the county’s Preschool for All program and the other to pay for Metro’s supportive housing services measure. County Chair Jessica Vega Pederson announced the county amnesty Tuesday. Any taxpayer who got a notice from the county and paid interest and penalties for 2021 will receive a full refund of both. “We appreciate the community supporting Preschool for All through this tax,” Pederson said. “This is a new tax for our region, and we want to give people room to pay it.” Both taxes went into effect Jan. 1, 2021, after voters approved them. Many taxpayers missed paying the taxes because they weren’t included in popular tax software programs such as TurboTax, the county and Metro said. The Preschool for All and Metro housing taxes are among the reasons that Portland has the second-highest tax burden in the U.S., at 14.69%, exceeded only by New York City at 14.78%, according to a report from Ernst & Young commissioned by lobbying group Oregon Business & Industry.

SCANDALS

lives far from OLCC stores, in Arizona.)

Records newly obtained by WW show just how rare the whiskey is. The agency sold 44.35 million bottles of liquor last year. Fewer than 1,000 of those bottles—or 0.0023%—were the Pappy Van Winkle brand. (While the bottles allegedly set aside also included Elmer T. Lee, that brand is less desirable than Pappy.)

Yet the Pappy may have put the agency’s future in jeopardy. Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum announced Feb. 10 that she’ll conduct a criminal investigation into where those bottles went and how they got there.

The answers could do more than just shed light on agency management, some observers say: They could give the Northwest Grocery Association the ammunition it needs to convince voters it’s time to privatize liquor sales.

“People can quickly and easily understand this scandal,” says Jim Moore, a professor of political science at Pacific University. “It’s less self-serving than the grocers’ argument that it will bring more bodies into the store. In campaign terms, this fits on a bumper sticker.”

Here’s what led to the scandal:

BY NIGEL JAQUISS njaquiss@wweek.com

The scandal enveloping the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission involves a vanishingly small percentage of the $839 million worth of hard liquor the agency sold last year.

In fact, OLCC director Steve Marks, who resigned at Gov. Tina Kotek’s request Feb. 15, had lost the job he held for nearly a decade even before Kotek learned that Marks and five top agency managers had admitted diverting rare and precious bottles of Pappy Van Winkle whiskey (mostly bourbon but also some rye) for their own use and for the use of others, including as yet unnamed state lawmakers.

Records the OLCC has released so far—originally in response to a request by The Oregonian—show managers who were either dismissive or willfully ignorant of state ethics laws that prohibit public officials from using their positions for personal gain (in this case, whiskey that is worth 10 to 20 times on the open market what is charged by Oregon liquor stores, and is not generally available to the public).

On Dec. 22, OLCC compliance director Rich Evans found after an internal investigation that Marks and five of his top managers had each “abused his public position for personal gain.” (A sixth manager not implicated in the scandal, CFO Kailean Kneeland,

Pappy Endings DECLARATION AGAINST DAVID SWANSON

The feds say a disgraced Lake Oswego wealth adviser bought an office building with money defrauded from clients.

Federal prosecutors intend to seize a Lake Oswego office building controlled by David Swanson, the disgraced wealth adviser who once pushed retirement advice on morning TV and whose license has now been revoked for years of defrauding elderly clients. Swanson purchased the $2.8 million building in 2019 with loans from clients and used the building as collateral for even more federal loans—all under false pretenses, prosecutors say.

The backstory: David Swanson is a licensed Lake Oswego financial adviser who

TOTALS 999 150 824

Oregon received 999 bottles of Pappy Van Winkle last year. The OLCC placed 150 bottles in a lottery that gave members of the public a chance to buy them. The other 849 bottles were allocated in an opaque fashion at the heart of the DOJ criminal investigation.

spouted retirement advice on frequent morning TV segments on KATU-TV.

Judy Steele, 81, of West Linn was one of Swanson’s longtime clients, according to a lawsuit she later filed against him in Multnomah County Circuit Court. In September 2018, Steele’s husband of 48 years, Dugald, died from lung disease. Dugald, with Swanson’s advice, had been handling the couple’s finances, which included $1 million in annuities.

Shortly after Dugald Steele’s death, Swanson persuaded Judy Steele to sell the annuities, telling her it was a “one-time opportunity” and the sale would be tax free, according to her lawsuit. He took her checkbook and wrote out a $755,000 check to a holding company, which she then signed, in return for a promissory note.

Steele became suspicious of Swanson’s claims when she received a tax bill for the transaction, and confronted Swanson along with her son, Robert. Swanson became “red faced” and yelled, “If you cared about your mother, you would have been here!” according to the lawsuit.

Swanson later refunded the money to Steele, but not before pulling the same deception on another client, a retired elementary school teacher who’d first heard about Swanson from his TV spots. “This was a Ponzi scheme,” says Steele’s attorney, Greg Zeuthen.

Regulators launched an investigation. The Oregonian reported the allegations and accompanying investigation in 2021, revealing that Swanson had actually paid KATU for his morning TV segments, which the station called “monetized content,” and the relationship continued even while Swanson was under investigation. KATU has not responded to requests for comment.

Regulators found six other victims who’d paid Swanson a total of $1,575,000. The Oregon Division of Financial Regulation accused Swanson of using new clients’ investments to pay back other clients, revoked his license, and fined him $160,000.

The document: A declaration filed Feb. 7 in U.S. District Court by Rachel Royston, an investigator for the U.S. attorney for Oregon, reveals further details of the magnitude of Swanson’s swindle.

What it says: Royston’s declaration seeks to seize a two-story, 7,600-square-foot Lake Oswego medical office building Swanson purchased in November 2018. According to Royston, a certified fraud examiner, Swanson had not only lied to Steele—he also lied on a pair of Small Business Administration loan applications.

In those applications were emails in which Swanson claimed the funds for the purchase had been “earned over a decade of consulting for a private client,” rather than borrowed from Steele’s savings. Swanson claimed to have been paid by Steele to consult on a “real estate transaction involving five acres of raw land” and stated that he had “a number of similar ongoing projects and expects millions in the next 10 years,” according to Royston’s declaration.

He received the loans in late 2018, using the property at 4309 Oakridge Road as collateral. Royston concluded that the property was “obtained fraudulently” and subject to forfeiture under federal law.

Why it matters: Swanson’s license has been revoked, but he has not been charged with a crime. Kevin Sonoff, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office, declined to comment on whether the declaration presaged a criminal case.

When asked for a comment, Swanson directed WW to his attorney. But he did talk to The Oregonian earlier this month. “I have accepted responsibility and given up my license,” he said, according to the newspaper. “I am currently in the middle of a serious personal health issue and will be focusing on that and my family going forward.” LUCAS MANFIELD.

The fate of the OLCC may hinge on a small number of very expensive bottles of whiskey.

Anything Not Tied Down

Solution: The campaign by the Old Town Community Association got the ear of City Hall, so the Portland Bureau of Transportation is ponying up $40,000 to replace the missing pavers—and, this time, mortar them down.

The work is financed by the city and performed by contractors. It’s “part of the city’s overall response to safety concerns,” PBOT spokesman Dylan Rivera says.

An added bonus: “We didn’t have to buy any materials,” Burke says. A dozen pallets of leftover pavers were found in storage under the Ross Island Bridge.

Firsthand observations: On Feb. 14, light gray splotches of new bricks were visible along parts of 3rd and 4th avenues. But installers had yet to reach Blanchet House at the corner of 3rd Avenue and Glisan Street, where whole sections of the decorative pavers had been removed from the sidewalk.

SENATE BILL 754

Ski resorts and wilderness guides want additional protection from lawsuits.

Sponsors: Sens. Aaron Woods (D-Wilsonville), Bill Hansell (R-Athena) and Daniel Bonham (R-The Dalles), and Rep. John Lively (D-Springfield)

What it would do: Allow the operators of recreational businesses, such as rafting outfitters, ski resorts, gyms and bicycle paths, to require that participants “release operator from claims for ordinary negligence.”

Problem it seeks to solve: People in the recreation business argue that the standard liability waiver that their customers sign does not actually shield them from liability. “We do have waivers in Oregon, but in 2014, the Oregon Supreme Court effectively said the waivers aren’t enforceable,” says Jim Zupancic of the Oregon Health & Fitness Alliance.

The group Protect Oregon Recreation says Oregon is out of step with other Western states, which offer operators more liability protection. “In 2021, Next Adventure was the target of an opportunistic lawsuit which came very close to destroying our business,” said Deek Heycamp, president of the outdoor sporting goods retailer, in testimony for the bill. “Just a few years ago we offered our customers a robust schedule of trips, tours, classes, and clinics to help them learn to use the outdoor gear that we sell. Due to the lawsuit, we made the decision to shut down all outdoor programming.”

Who supports it: Protect Oregon Recreation represents more than 100 members, including all the state’s ski resorts, gyms like the Multnomah Athletic Club, the Hood to Coast race series, and some unexpected nonprofits, such as the Opal Creek Ancient Forest Center.

Location: Northwest 3rd and 4th avenues, north of Burnside Street.

Problem: In 2005, the city of Portland installed new sidewalks along 3rd and 4th, part of a $5 million renovation project intended to reinvigorate Chinatown. The project included a strip of black granite pavers along the sidewalk, perhaps to recall Chinese decorative motifs or alleviate root-induced cracks caused by the neighborhood’s aging cherry trees.

Now, local businesses say, designers’ decision to set the pavers in sand rather than mortar has had an unintended consequence: the hefty footlong bricks are extremely easy to remove, and they’re being used to vandalize local storefronts.

“ That’s our main source of broken windows because there’s nothing holding them in,” says Jessie Burke, chair of the Old Town Community Association and general manager of The Society Hotel.

Seeking action from the city, she asked local business owners to submit photo evidence. Half a dozen obliged. One photo, from Angelina’s Greek Gyros, shows half a paver lying on the street beneath a shattered glass door.

The nonprofit has had to replace its windows at least eight times, at $3,000 a pop, although pavers are not always the culprit. “To be honest, it’s more or less a cost of doing business,” says its executive director, Scott Kerman. “Very rarely does it seem like someone’s doing it because they’re intentionally angry at us,” he added, noting that the nonprofit’s clientele often struggle with mental illness.

Still, the patchwork sidewalks pose a tripping hazard. At least one of Kerman’s staff members has been injured. “It’s a real dangerous situation,” he adds.

Kerman hopes the mortar will help. “It’s an act of opportunity. And if we remove the opportunity, vis-à-vis a brick, that’s going to help,” he says.

It isn’t hard to find the lost pavers. They’re scattered around nearby homeless encampments, often serving as makeshift tent stakes.

There, residents have put them to use in other ways as well. They burn them. Granite is excellent at retaining heat— and a good cooking aid when wood is scarce.

“ You’ll see little piles of burnt pavers around where people had campsites,” notes Blanchet House spokeswoman Julie Showers. LUCAS MANFIELD.

Who opposes it: One of Salem’s most potent forces, the Oregon Trial Lawyers Association, whose members represent accident victims. “This bill would allow a recreational facility’s negligence to go unchecked—it gives them blanket immunity and reason to not follow safety standards,” says OTLA lobbyist Arthur Towers. “Businesses who cut corners on safety to ‘save’ on costs will be treated the same as those who go the extra mile prioritizing safety for their customers. Oregonians deserve better.”

OTLA will present testimony from Myles Bagley, a snowboarder who suffered a catastrophic crash at Mount Bachelor in 2006. “I was just 18 years old and an expert snowboarder when my life was forever changed by their defective manmade jump design,” Bagley says. “I’ll never walk again, and I can’t stomach the idea of that happening to someone else with no accountability or incentive for businesses and corporations to ensure safety for their patrons.”

The bill gets its first hearing Feb. 15 before the Senate Judiciary Committee. NIGEL JAQUISS.

Sidewalk decorations in Chinatown became projectiles to shatter windows.

UNGLUED: Old Town’s decorative pavers are being put to new use.

The Disappearing Copperfield

A homeowners association in East Portland is in knots over what a $5 million repair might mean for its low-income residents.

BY SOPHIE PEEL speel@wweek.com

Democracy was alive and well on a recent Thursday night at the Copperfield Adult Condominium Homeowners Association clubhouse in deep East Portland.

Under flickering overhead fluorescent lights and the clinging smell of cigarette smoke, 30 angry owners of condo units sat on foldout chairs and couches. Many were retirement age and had parked their walkers next to their chairs. All are part of Portland’s working class; some are on fixed incomes or disability payments.

Their ire was pointed at the condo association’s eight board members, all but one of whom appeared on a computer screen.

The angry homeowners had a clear mission: ditch the entire board. They needed a simple majority of owners by square footage to do so—there are 111 units total at the complex.

At issue was a $5 million siding project the HOA board had recently approved and that was already underway. Each unit owner will

incur a $40,000 to $52,000 upfront payment or monthly payments of $288 to $378 for 300 months, plus interest.

For some, such payments are crippling—and could cost them their housing. Brianne Bigej’s 40-year-old brother, who has autism spectrum disorder, lives in a Copperfield unit. His siblings bought him the condo using money from their father’s estate.

“It seems insane that you could double someone’s HOA fees without any input from the owners,” Bigej says. “We don’t have a plan B for our brother. If we can’t afford that, which we can’t, he will be without a place to be. He could be homeless.”

The bind residents of the Copperfield face is one playing out all over the city: Often, housing remains affordable because maintenance is deferred. Buildings crumble but rent stays low. At Copperfield, two priorities—affordability and safety—came to a head.

Mike Vial, the longtime attorney for the homeowners association who specializes in HOA law, ac-

knowledges the expensive project could displace people.

“It’s clear that throughout the entire life of this project, no one has done a lot in the way of maintenance repair. It’s been a starter home for a lot of people on a fixed income,” Vial says. “Every time a board gets elected and tries to make repairs, they’re met with a lot of resistance and back off. That’s how they got here.”

The 111-unit Copperfield Condominiums, which stand along Southeast 138th Avenue in the Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhood, are governed by a homeowners association. That’s an arrangement by which condo owners pay monthly dues to help maintain the complex. That’s supposed to include fees for future repairs estimated to be pressing in the coming years and decades.

But for many years, Vial says, few funds for future projects were collected to keep costs low. He says that puts the current board in the difficult position of having to embark on a project that will put the entire cost burden on current

SAFE HAVEN: Copperfield is home to many workingclass, retired and low-income Portlanders.

homeowners.

Vial says just one bank was willing to loan the Copperfield money for the repairs. “We’ll do it now,” he recalls the bank saying, “but this is your last chance.”

There’s little question the repairs are needed. Contractors started work in February. One condo owner sent WW video of a gloved hand pulling off siding. The damp wood flaked off with a gentle tug.

The board is going forward with the siding project at a time when the construction market is racked with uncertainty.

Preston Korst, director of policy and government affairs for the Home Building Association of Greater Portland, tells WW there’s a “growing connection between rising construction costs and diminishing housing affordability…residential remodeling and repair projects are also being hit hard by rising interest rates, supply chain disruptions, labor shortages and high volatility in commodities.”

The condo board did attempt to get a lower estimate. In fact, it went through three separate building consultants to get a less expensive project proposal, Vial says. It fired the first two firms after higher estimates and finally settled on the third estimate of $5 million.

Vial acknowledges the project could displace some residents.

“There are people out there on fixed incomes that flat out just don’t have the ability or raise a couple hundred bucks a month in order to pay the increased assessment to fund the bank loan,” Vial says. “Some of those people might have to sell. I wish there was a better answer than that, but there’s not.”

For some on a fixed income, the thought is daunting—and could cost them their housing. Brianne Bigej says her family can’t afford the siding payments—and finding her brother a new home will be challenging.

“Is it possible to sell it and put him in a house where there won’t be an HOA? Yes, but the cost of housing in Portland hasn’t gone down. And to uproot him is not practical for his well being,” Bigej says. “We don’t even know if we’ll be able to sell the unit. Because who would want to sell the house that has that much of an HOA payment?”

Mihai Zamfir purchased his Copperfield condo for $80,000 in 2015 with plans to move his elderly Romanian parents there once they came to the U.S. When they made it to the States, Zamfir’s parents moved in with him— after all, their health was failing. Last summer, he began renting to a family of Ukrainian refugees

that had recently escaped that war-torn country. Now, he may have to raise the rent on them.

“ We bought this not to invest, as some people say, we bought it for my parents. Everything was one level, one story, they had health problems,” Zamfir says. “We’re just trying to give the liberty back to the people to decide democratically.”

The tense, loud and curse-filled vote Thursday night at the clubhouse took two and a half hours. Emotions ran high.

An older man with crossed arms and a Seattle Mariners baseball cap at the back of the clubhouse yelled, “Fuck you!” and “Shut the fuck up!” whenever a board member spoke up from the screen, occasionally receiving a scolding shush from other attendees.

Board chair Lori Balkema was first up to speak. Her remarks cut to the heart of the impossible dilemma.

“It’s been 50 years, and no one has ever had the money to pay for this, and no one wanted to up the HOA fees to cover the costs. Like it or not, we have the responsibility to fix the property so it can last the test of time,” Balkema said. “There’s no cheap fix here. It has to be done. We’ve pushed it down the road as far as we can.”

Unit o wner Kent Koenig, tall and mustachioed, voted by proxy for more than 45 owners throughout the night to kick off each board member.

Ballots were filled out and results were tallied by the HOA’s legal team. Five minutes later, lawyer Ryan Harris said the removal of Balkema had been successful. That drew muted nods of approval and small cheers from the clubhouse.

Shortly after that, Harris backtracked. The results had been tallied incorrectly. The motion hadn’t, in fact, passed. It had lost by just 2 percentage points. After another narrowly unsuccessful vote to oust another board member, Koenig said the clubhouse was done. There was no point in continuing.

Homeowners gathered their walkers and parkas and trundled out.

The $5 million siding project approved by the board will continue. The first bills fall due April 1.

“There’s no cheap fix here. It has to be done. We’ve pushed it down the road as far as we can.”

CHASING

CHASING GHOSTS: GHOSTS:

PROPERTY TAX DEBTS PROPERTY TAX DEBTS

BY WW STAFF 503-243-2122 PHOTOGRAPHS BY BLAKE BENARD

Portland’s economic picture is perplexing. Residential real estate is hot and unemployment hovers near record lows. Meanwhile, downtown office space is sinking faster than a Chinese spy balloon, with vacancy rates topping 25%.

The city is returning to life, but only partially. In part, that’s because a significant number of businesses that fell ill during the pandemic are now suffering their own version of long COVID.

And one indicator of the health of the economy: Property owners in trouble stop paying their taxes.

For nearly a year, our newsroom has tracked down the backstories of Portland’s vacant properties, in a series we call “Chasing Ghosts.” This week, we’re debuting a spinoff: Tax Debts. This time, not all the buildings are empty. But the tax bills are unpaid.

We asked the Multnomah County assessor for a list of all the commercial (i.e., nonresidential) accounts that are more than $5,000 in arrears.

Initial property tax payments for 2022 were due Nov. 15, but hundreds of businesses failed to make payments. In many cases, such failure is an in-

dication of financial distress, because Oregon counties charge a sky-high 16% interest rate on overdue balances.

On the deadbeat spreadsheet: downtown office buildings, of course. Also, hotels, restaurants, bars and other retail-focused operations that saw in-person customers vanish during the pandemic. But also medical offices, warehouses and other businesses that might seem more COVID-proof.

Peter Hulseman, the economist for the city of Portland, watches property taxes closely because they are the biggest source of revenue for the city’s general fund (as is also the case for Multnomah County).

“I’ve kept elevated delinquency in the forecast,” Hulseman says, “and it could get worse. The larger concern is that downtown properties really fall in value; people have fire sales when leases are up.”

For now, the city, county and other government agencies such as Portland Public Schools, Metro and the Port of Portland that get property tax revenue are insulated by the idiosyncrasies of Oregon’s property tax system. Ballot measures voters passed in the 1990s limit the increase in taxes to 3% per year, but market values have risen much faster. So even if the values of properties decline significantly, it will take time for that

decline to depress tax collections.

Still, it can happen. Other West Coast cities think it will. San Francisco, for instance, recently announced that it expects to lose $200 million in property tax revenues between now and 2028. For distressed property owners, foreclosure is a risk, either by lenders or the government, should they fail to pay taxes for long enough. Tax foreclosures are vanishingly rare in Multnomah County—assessor Mike Vaughn says he can only remember two in the past 20 years. (After three years, the assessor’s office can begin foreclosure but the owner has more than two years’ grace beyond that to make payments.)

But nonpayment of property taxes has real consequences: City and county services, including police, fire, parks, street maintenance, public health and aid for the homeless, depend on those dollars.

So we took a look at a dozen businesses that are behind, hoping to learn the particular struggles they face and to put in real terms what local citizens will not get—think firefighters, public health nurses, teachers, along with goods and services—because of the nonpayment.

Here’s what we found:

SOME PORTLANDERS HAVEN’T PAID THEIR PROPERTY TAXES. THESE ARE THEIR STORIES.

Address: 1 SW Columbia St.

Year built: 1975

Square footage: 294,714

Market value: $81.2 million

Owner: Umpqua Plaza

Property LLC

Property tax owed: $1.44 million

How long it’s been delinquent: Since November

What those taxes could buy: Multnomah County could hire 15 public health nurses.

Why it’s delinquent: It’s appealing its bill.

Although it bears the name of Oregon’s largest homegrown bank, the 19-story Umpqua Plaza belongs to an offshoot of Chicago-based Zeller Realty Group.

The brick-clad tower commands killer views of Mount Hood and is just steps from Tom McCall Waterfront Park. The lobby is meticulously cared for. But in these work-from-home times, it’s quiet and surrounded by streets devoid of the pre-pandemic bustle.

The owner’s representatives did not respond to requests for comment on the property’s unpaid taxes, but it’s no secret that downtown Portland office space has been under tremendous pressure since the pandemic began, with vacancy rates reaching 27% in the fourth quarter, according to the brokerage firm CBRE.

At nearly 50 years old, Umpqua Bank Plaza is significantly older than more centrally located office buildings, such as Park Avenue West, One Main Place and Fox Tower. Umpqua Plaza is home to several law firms, including Brownstein Rask, Bullivant Houser Bailey, and K&L Gates, but for companies looking to relocate, there’s plenty of empty space, in part because Umpqua moved its employees to Lake Oswego.

Another possible reason for nonpayment: The building is one of an unusually large number of properties whose owners are appealing their valuations, seeking to lower their taxes. But as they are required to do, the owners of other buildings seeking to get their valuations lowered paid their taxes in November. The Umpqua Plaza’s owners didn’t—and are racking up interest charges. NIGEL JAQUISS.

Tax bill is less than a year old.

Address: 1260 NE Lloyd Center

Year built: 1959

Square footage: 142,966

Market value: $5,541,310

Owner: CAPREF Lloyd Center East LLC

Property tax owed: $494,523.33

How long it’s been delinquent: Since 2019

What those taxes could buy: Six more cops to patrol the Lloyd District

Why it’s delinquent: Lenders foreclosed on the mall.

Lloyd Center Mall is on life support. Injured years before, the mall went critical during the pandemic as shoppers stayed home in droves. KKR Real Estate Finance Trust, the lender that helped Dallas-based Cypress Equities finance the place back in 2015, foreclosed in December 2021 after Cypress stopped making loan payments.

But a funny thing happened on the way to bankruptcy court. Cypress had a different lender on one piece of the mall, the part that used to be Sears.

Sears Roebuck & Co. bought the space in 1999, according to property records. CAPREF Lloyd Center East LLC, an affiliate of Cypress, bought the space from Sears in 2016 as part of its plan to revive the entire mall, with, among other things, a smaller ice rink (go figure) and a fancy new spiral staircase.

The lender on the Sears space is a Salt Lake City company called Keystone National Group. CAPREF got a $7,526,520 loan from Keystone in March 2017, according to a copy of the loan agreement filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court.

But the multimillion-dollar mall renovation didn’t work. The Sears store closed in 2018. Then the pandemic hit, and the mall went into a death spiral that matched its staircase. Keystone sued Cypress for nonpayment in March.

County records show CAPREF stopped paying property taxes on the Sears parcel in 2019. Unlike KKR, which has stayed current on its part of the mall, Keystone National hasn’t paid any property taxes, Multnomah County tax records show.

Brandon Nielson, the Keystone executive who signed the loan document, says Cypress is responsible for the tax because Keystone doesn’t own the property, and that’s because the foreclosure is being held up by the bankruptcy of Regal Entertainment Group.

To settle a 2015 dispute about parking at the Regal Cinemas across Northeast Multnomah Street, CAPREF agreed to build Regal a new theater in the east end of the mall, court documents show. If CAPREF failed to do that by Oct. 1, 2020, it would have to pay Regal $10 million, Regal asserts in court documents. The theater was never built, Regal is now bankrupt, and creditors are eyeing that $10 million from CAPREF.

“Unlike KKR, which has been able to foreclose and take ownership of the mall, we have been unable to foreclose on the property to gain ownership,” Nielsen says in an email. “The current owner should be responsible for the property taxes.”

That would be Cypress, and it didn’t return calls or email seeking comment. ANTHONY EFFINGER.

Address: 3310 SE 82nd Ave.

Year built: 1972

Square footage: 15,300

Market value: $2.45 million

Owners: Jayeshlal Mistry, Thakur Mistry and Prakash Panchal Property tax owed: $143,732

How long it’s been delinquent: 4 years

What those taxes could buy:

Two mental health crisis workers for Portland Street Response

Why it’s delinquent: Guests didn’t pay, either.

Even in a block of the Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhood that defines “gritty,” Best Value Inns stands out—it’s the kind of worn-out refuge where you’d stay only after exhausting all your other options.

The parking lot resembles a junkyard, strewn with vehicles on their last legs. A hopeful sign nearing antique status

unironically promises “Color TV.” That was a big deal in 1972, when the place was built.

The owners’ representative, Rifkin Patel, blamed challenging business conditions for nonpayment. “We are planning to pay the taxes,” Patel says, in an email with unusual fondness for exclamation points. “This may take a little bit of time since we are playing catchup!”

The pandemic wreaked havoc. “We had guests staying at [the] hotel using all the rooms’ accommodation and unable to pay us the rent due to lockdown and lack of work!” Patel says, adding that the owners did not get any rent assistance from state or local agencies even as things got

tough. “We did have a lot of issues with graffiti, frequent breaking into business and parking lot camping and tenting!” Patel says.

But he sees better days ahead: “We are now finally getting to the point where we can start paying [the back taxes] down!” NIGEL JAQUISS.

Address: 2401 SW 4th Ave.

Year built: 1962

Square footage: 15,680

Market value: $3,215,310

Owners: SPMC Holdings LLC

Property tax owed: $110,142

How long it’s been delinquent: Since 2021

What those taxes could buy: 874 weeks of methadone treatment

Why it’s delinquent: Motel blues

Given the state of downtown Portland right now, it’s easy to understand how even an ordinary citizen might be less than eager to pay their property taxes.

But talk to someone who owns a hotel downtown and you’re in for a real earful.

The SureStay Hotel by Best Western Portland City Center is owned by SPMC Holdings LLC, which in turn is owned by Seok-Ju Chung. We talked to his son Phil and their longtime manager, Tony Sonera, who told us how bad things are for Portland hotels.

In 2019, the SureStay had 80% occupancy, Sonera says. Ever since the pandemic and the protests that left downtown looking like Beirut, occupancy runs 30%. There’s little convention business, and many visitors think antifa is running wild.

“They still ask how far we are from where the riots are happening,” Sonera says. “The real story isn’t that the SureStay can’t pay its taxes. The real story is that the hotel economy hasn’t bounced back because of addiction, homelessness,

and because no one wants to visit.”

The SureStay is perched just south of Interstate 405, across from Portland State University. Locals know it best for its downstairs bar, Suki’s, a karaoke and standup comedy magnet. It also draws patients getting treatment at Oregon Health & Science University, just up Marquam Hill. Those patients are down, Sonera says, and the visits of drug-addled wanderers to the lobby are up.

The Chungs aren’t tax cheats, Sonera says. They’ve owned the hotel since 1990, and they’ve employed him for 15 years, with health care benefits. “I love the Chung family,” Sonera says.

The Chungs are doing everything they can to stay open. They’re on a payment plan with the Portland Water Bureau and with their electric utility.

Since December, they’ve been leasing 14 of their 40 rooms to the Joint Office of Homeless Services to house homeless families. The county pays them $75 a night, enough to include a small breakfast, compared with the $96 Sonera would like to get.

“The county haggled on the price,” Sonera says.

Phil Chung says the Joint Office should take the whole place. The hotel is mostly

empty, and hundreds of homeless people are camped nearby.

“If they wanted to purchase the property or lease the building, we’d be open to that,” Chung says. “If something doesn’t get done really soon, a lot of people will lose everything, including ourselves.”

So, yeah, Chung and Sonera say, the hotel is behind on its taxes. What do you expect to happen? ANTHONY EFFINGER.

Address: 8535 SE Powell Blvd.

Year built: 1980

Square footage: 12,040

Market value: $1.9 million

Owner: 8535 SE Powell LLC

Property tax owed: $116,038

How long it’s been delinquent: Since 2020

What those taxes could buy: Around 1,061 one-night hotel vouchers for homeless Portlanders

Why it’s delinquent: Unclear

The dust-red building is one eyesore among many along Southeast Powell Boulevard, a thoroughfare that showcases many of the city’s crises: traffic deaths, tent camps and drug addiction.

This massive eyesore is encircled by a chain-link fence festooned with napkins, trash bags and discarded food containers. Two human-sized holes facing Powell, the first cut into the fence and the second cut into the side of the building, create a path to the innards of the building.

Signs for the Wonder Spa still advertise hours of 10 am to 9 pm, though it appears to be long abandoned. Remnants of signs for a Food Depot and deli are fast deteriorating. (Calls to numbers listed to those businesses went unanswered.) The walls are covered with graffiti on all four sides, and the parking lot contains a fallen tree.

The building, records show, is owned by an LLC whose sole member is listed as 58-year-old Nita Cheung. She wears a number of different hats. It appears she runs a realty business, is the registered member of an LLC that owns a Hillsboro strip mall pub called Maguffy’s, and is registered as a member for LLCs that own a number of commercial properties in Southeast and East Portland. She lives in a million-dollar home in Wood Village but proved impossible to contact.

Cheung, according to Oregon secretary of state records, is the sole listed member of 20 LLCs. All are registered at the same office and retail building on Southeast Division Street, owned by an LLC of which Cheung is also listed as a member.

Cheung did not answer multiple calls, voicemails and texts sent to both her and her businesses.

SOPHIE PEEL.

Address: 418 SW Washington St.

Year built: 1898

Square footage: 22,920

Market value: $3.3 million

Owner: ENT Ventures VIII LLC

Property tax owed: $74,248

How long it’s been delinquent:

Since 2021

What those taxes could buy:

2,651 monthly TriMet bus passes for Portland kids

Why it’s delinquent: Because the LLC didn’t pay

In the 2000s, a giant inflated purple octopus attached to the exterior of this building signaled a party. Greek Cusina was a popular and wild restaurant and club, known for its loud music, strong drinks and, if you ask former City Commissioner Randy Leonard, a retired firefighter, its combustibility and lack of structural integrity.

In 2010, after two years of bitter backand-forth between Leonard and nightclub owner Ted Papas over fire hazards and code violations, Greek Cusina shut down. It’s been empty since.

In 2014, a company called Ron Bur OPB purchased the five story brick building at the corner of 4th and Washington. Within the year, Parker McNulty was listed as the manager of that LLC in business filings. In 2019, it sold the property to ENT Ventures VIII LLC, another company whose sole listed manager is McNulty, for $6.1 million. McNulty has big plans for it: office spaces on the top floors, retail on the bottom, and a speakeasy venue underneath.

A California transplant, McNulty has made a name for himself in the Portland development community. He runs the Carbon Group, a development company that’s built posh apartments in the nicest parts of town.

Property records show the LLC paid property taxes for the Greek Cusina building between 2014 and 2020—then fell behind.

There’s reason to believe McNulty has the money to pay the $75,000 tax bill. He and his family live in a $2.8 million home in Southwest Portland. Perhaps he could swap his lime-green 911 Turbo S Porsche for a more modest car—maybe a gently used Subaru, for instance—and use the leftover cash to pay the outstanding tax. When first reached by WW via phone,

McNulty said he could provide WW with information about the property but only if his name didn’t appear in the paper. When WW explained that his ownership was public record, he argued over the definition of public record and asked that WW respect his privacy.

McNulty called back later that day and explained that the LLC had filed an appeal with the Oregon Board of Property Tax Appeals because the county had adjusted the tax assuming building improvements had been completed when, in fact, they had just begun.

“They thought it was more completed than it was,” McNulty said. “But they’d never sent anyone through to verify because we’d boarded up the windows so they couldn’t see it.”

WW checked with the county tax assessor’s office. Ron Bur OPB LLC filed an appeal in 2017. “No appeals have been filed subsequently,” county tax assessor Mike Vaughn says in an email. “Taxes are delinquent.” (The property’s value is still assessed at just a quarter of what McNulty paid for it.)

McNulty says in a text to WW, “If anything is owed outside of the appeal, we plan to play ASAP.” SOPHIE PEEL.

Address: 5516 SE Foster Road

Year built: 1915

Square footage: 7,400

Market value: $1.4 million

Owner: New Day Associates LLC

Property tax owed: $57,459

How long it’s been delinquent: 6 years

What those taxes could buy:

A year’s salary for a full-time music teacher at Portland Public Schools

Why it’s delinquent: A misunderstanding

In 1967, the Day family bought the perfor-

had grand plans for the space. He hoped to build a state-of-the-art recording studio and music venue, and for years he rented out the refurbished theater, then called the New Day Center for the Arts, as a dance studio.

But Ellis died of cancer in 2016. No one has paid any taxes on the property since. The LLC that owns the building is controlled by his wife, Susan, and Arizona radiation oncologist Dr. Norman Willis. It currently owes the county nearly $60,000. When called by WW, Willis initially blamed their subtenant, Robb Crocker, an Oregon City real estate investor who was hoping to expand his reach to Foster-Powell.

Not so, says Crocker. For years, Crocker says, he included property taxes in his monthly checks to Willis and Ellis, along with the nearly $7,000 in rent, as stipulated in the 2019 lease agreement—and sent a copy of a check to WW as proof. Crocker says he also made a six-figure down payment for the option to later buy the building.

But the tax payments were never forwarded to the county. It was due to a misunderstanding, Susan Ellis says.

Ellis thought Willis was handling the paperwork. Willis thought Crocker was paying the taxes. Meanwhile, the county was sending bills to Ellis’ home, which she’d sold after the death of her husband before moving to California.

By the time Ellis figured out what was going on, she was four years in debt and the county was demanding payment in full.

mance theater next to their music store on Southeast Foster Road and turned part of it into a piano showroom, which they ran for the next 40 years.

Like some other iconic Portland structures, the building that once contained the Day Music Company is now covered in graffiti and its sidewalk strewn with tents, mattresses and trash. “Take responsibility and CLEAN UP THIS MESS!!!” one neighbor wrote in an online review of the long-closed theater.

After five generations of Days, Tim Ellis, a local musician and recent inductee into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame, took over. Ellis’ recording studio, Kung Fu Bakery, has produced albums for The Shins, The Decemberists, and Pink Martini. And he

“Robb Crocker was planning on buying it anyway. So we thought, well, as soon as it sells, we’ll pay it off,” she says. “No harm done.”

But that never happened. Crocker walked away from the deal. “COVID knocked us out,” he tells WW.

Dealing with vandalism didn’t help. ”We spent so much money just trying to keep it clean, keeping people out, cleaning up the graffiti. It’s just a total losing battle,” Crocker explains.

Fortunately, Ellis says, she’s found another buyer: a ballet studio, which paid $1.5 million for the building and plans to spend nearly a million more renovating the decrepit theater. She expects the deal to close, and the taxes to be paid, in the next month. LUCAS MANFIELD.

Address: 1615 SE 82nd Ave.

Year built: Unknown

Square footage: Unknown

Market value: $1.3 million

Owner: Basil Griffin Jr. Trust

Property tax owed: $47,632

How long it’s been delinquent: 4 years

What those taxes could buy: Two gently used minivans for the city’s vehicle fleet.

Why it’s delinquent: Family secrets

“Bad credit? No problem,” says a sign on a used car lot on Southeast 82nd Avenue.

The property ’s owners, it turns out, have their own debt problems. The past four years of property tax bills have gone unpaid.

Johnny Cha, manager of the lot, International Auto Sales, said he was friends with the owners and would be happy to leave them a message.

No one called WW back.

Cha just finished renovating the lot’s offices. He recently signed a new 10-year lease.

He says he didn’t know about the tax issues and hopes they don’t jeopardize his business. “We put a lot money into it,” he says.

The county is sending property tax bills to an address of a house in the Hazelwood neighborhood owned by Michael and Robert Ephrem. Bobby Ephrem signed a contract to purchase the lot for $700,000 in 2004, but there’s no record of him closing the deal.

Still, Michael Ephrem made a $10,860 tax payment last May— but nearly $50,000 in unpaid taxes remain.

It turns out this isn’t the first time the Ephrem family has been in the news for tax troubles. In 2011, Bobbie Ephrem was sentenced to a year in federal prison for failing to file income tax returns.

The charges stemmed from a 2006 raid. After being tipped off by a police informant, the IRS searched Ephrem’s residence and safe deposit boxes. It seized $3 million in cash and found a deed to the Hazelwood house and bank accounts connected to Bobby’s Auto Sales, a used car dealership.

Ephrem then turned around and sued the federal government, arguing that he’d been robbed of his family’s inheritance. Ephrem is a “patriarch” in the tight-knit Roma community, The Oregonian reported at the time. “The amount of income attributed to Mr. Ephrem was grossly exaggerated,” Ephrem’s attorney, Marc Blackman, argued.

A judge agreed, and ordered the money returned.

WW was able to reach a man named Bobby Ephrem in Eugene. But when asked if he had any family members also named Bobby living in Southeast Portland, he demurred: “There’s too many of them, I don’t know.” LUCAS MANFIELD.

Address: 2801 N Gantenbein Ave.

Year built: 2012

Square footage: 1,400

Market value: $55 million (entire building)

Owner: Legacy Emanuel Hospital

Property tax owed: $44,565 (now paid)

How long it was delinquent: Nearly 5 years

What those taxes could buy: 8,913 cans of tennis balls for Portland Parks & Recreation summer programs

Why it was delinquent: Miscommunication

Address: 2414 SE 41st Ave.

Year built: 1959

Square footage: 6,083

Market value: $1.6 million

Owners: Loprinzi Property LLC

Property tax owed: $33,948

How long it’s been delinquent: Since 2021

What those taxes could buy: 19 months of market-rate rent in Portland

Why it’s delinquent: No forwarding address for the tax bill

Loprinzi’s Gym in Southeast Portland is a place of Portland lore. Professional bodybuilder Sam Loprinzi opened the gym in the 1940s and ran it for over 50 years. Loprinzi’s longtime friend and fellow burly man Robert Hill purchased the business in 2014; he’d been working out

there since 1965. That same day, in 2014, property records show Hill sold it to Loprinzi Property LLC, whose members include Hill and whose listed manager is his cousin and prominent Portland businessman, Gary Coe, according to public filings.

Loprinzi’s is no boutique gym with workout machines that defy common sense and a eucalyptus-scented lobby. Instead, Loprinzi’s has low ceilings and aged iron equipment, mostly free weights. Here, you will find a mostly male clientele—the type with big biceps and not so big ankles. It looks like a time capsule from the 1970s.

In 2014, Robert Hill, 68, who goes by Bob, told WW, “I always liked being the strongest one of all my friends, or the one who could outrun all of my friends.”

(We had asked him how to stick to a New Year’s fitness resolution. He advocated chewing slowly, swearing off pasta, and walking briskly.)

Coe is partial owner of Speed’s Towing, an auto lien service company, and a car auction yard. He also owned Retriever Towing for many years. His son Michael now owns it and has for the past 10 years. Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosen-

blum sued Retriever earlier this year, alleging it partook in a pattern of illegal tows. Coe also ran for the Oregon Senate in 2012 as a Republican, but lost to thenstate Sen. Mark Hass (D-Beaverton).

When reached by phone, Coe blamed the tax collectors.

“I have a lot of properties, and I’m almost positive those are paid. If that one didn’t get paid, and you say for two years, I’m going to guess that somebody didn’t send me a statement,” said Coe, who was in Arizona at the time. “I paid about $550,000 in property taxes in November. It’s just painful, painful, I’m telling you, painful.”

The Multnomah County tax assessor’s office tells WW that it has “no record of a mailing address change, but the statements have been returned (without a forwarding address) since 2019.”

Those statements were sent to Coe’s former home in the Southwest Hills, which he sold in the fall of 2020 for $1.1 million. At any rate, Multnomah County tax assessor Mike Vaughn tells WW there is no valid reason for not paying your taxes. “There’s nothing in law that allows someone to not pay their tax timely.” SOPHIE PEEL.

One name on the delinquency list immediately caught our eye: Legacy Emanuel Hospital, which is part of Portland-based Legacy Health.

We drove by the address—even more puzzling. The building is the gleaming Randall Children’s Hospital, whose cheery symbol, a red and blue kite, has since 2012 lit up the North Portland night sky northeast of the Fremont Bridge.

It didn’t make sense: As a nonprofit, Legacy is generally exempt from property taxes, and for those properties where it might owe taxes, Legacy has lots of money: $2.5 billion in revenue last year.

Legacy spokesman Ryan Frank, once a crack investigative reporter at The Oregonian, dug into the mystery upon our inquiry. Frank soon came back with an answer: “Fresenius Kidney Care leased about 1,400 square feet of space where they served both Legacy patients and non-Legacy patients between 2012 and 2018,”

Frank tells WW

“The Multnomah County assessor determined that Fresenius, a for-profit company, was responsible for paying property taxes on the leased space because they saw non-Legacy patients. The lease with Fresenius ended in 2018. However, no one told the county.”

Since 2018, the county has mailed tax bills to Fresenius in Texas, but nothing came back. Legacy never saw the bills, Frank says, and so didn’t know there were taxes owed.

To its credit, Legacy immediately paid the bill after WW contacted the nonprofit. “We will be consulting with Multnomah County to determine if we qualify for an exemption for the 2018 to 2022 tax years,” Frank says. NIGEL JAQUISS.

Tax bill has been paid.

Address: 5933 NE Glisan St.

Year built: 1927

Square footage: 8,910

Market value: $1,004,080

Owners: Angelo and Leonor

Markantonatos

Property tax owed: $25,136.41

How long it’s been delinquent: Since 2020

What those taxes could buy:

14,818 Rawlings official league baseballs for Portland Public Schools teams

Why it’s delinquent: Unclear. The pub on the site is still operating.

If we had to guess, we’d say that the A&L

Sports Pub was named for the owners, Angelo and Leonor Markantonatos. Angelo and Leonor. A and L.

The couple bought the property at the northwest corner of 60th and Glisan in 2002 for $160,000, according to Multnomah County property records. A&L made it through the pandemic and is back to being a hard-driving sports bar. Whoever runs the Facebook page keeps busy promoting soccer matches and football games and profiling long-term employees, of which there are many.

For the Super Bowl, A&L offered allyou-can-eat spaghetti and meat sauce with French bread and salad for $15.

But the Markantonatoses owe more

than $25,000 in property taxes. In a brief phone conversation, Angelo, 91, said he gave the bar to his son, also named Angelo, 57. Angelo the elder says he’s dying, so we didn’t push him for details.

We’d love to talk to Angelo the younger about the tax issue, but he didn’t call us back. Nor did they respond to a message on their hyperactive Facebook page. The bar employee said her boss was “scarce” and “hard to pin down.”

Two signs of compliance: The Markantonatos family made a property tax payment of $10,000 on Nov. 15, and another for $4,500 on Feb. 8. ANTHONY EFFINGER.

Address: 3835 SE Powell Blvd.

Year built: 1985

Square footage: 1,917

Market value: $1.5 million

Owner: RJW Group Inc.

Property tax owed: $37,903

How long it’s been delinquent: 4 years

What those taxes could buy: A guaranteed income of $500 a month for six families for a year

Why it’s delinquent: Doughnut shops fleeing the state

A former Dunkin’ Donuts at the corner of one of Portland’s busiest (and most dangerous) intersections has stood vacant for years, its owner unable to lease it—and accruing unpaid taxes.

“It went vacant with the COVID. We’ve not been able to re-lease it. So we haven’t paid the property taxes,” says Edward Wagner, 81, a retired architect and developer who bought the property 40 years ago. Wagner manages the LLC that owns the property.

He’s had only two tenants since, he says. The first was Dunkin’, which stayed in the location for two decades until the chain abandoned the West Coast in 2004. The reason: “In the Northwest, there are too few stores to do any marketing. The image is old. There’s not enough brand recognition,” the former franchisee Malik Pirani told Oregonian columnist Steve Duin in 2004.

Soon after Duin’s column came out, Wagner’s phone was ringing off the hook, he says. He selected another chain, a payday loan outfit from Kansas, after it flew out a corporate vice president to seal the deal.

The new location ended up being one of the Speedy Cash chain’s top performers, Wagner says.

But lawmakers cracked down on predatory lending in the early 2000s. In 2006, the city of Portland began requiring payday lenders to obtain permits and disclose their fee schedules and interest rates. The following year, state legislators capped interest on short-term loans at 36%.

Lenders claimed the changes would force them out of business. “They’ve been on the shit list with various legislators for years,” Wagner explains.

The chain abandoned the storefront in June 2021. Signs on the building’s glass doors now direct customers to another location, 90 blocks east in the Powellhurst-Gilbert neighborhood.

Meanwhile, the building at the corner of Southeast César E. Chávez and Powell boulevards has been vacant since—and accumulated a $37,000 tax debt on the land and building. “No one’s coming into town. Everybody’s leaving town,” Wagner bemoans.

When asked whether he plans to repay the taxes once he finds a tenant, Wagner said, “Of course.”

That will happen soon, he tells WW. Wagner says he’s giving a sweetheart lease to a nonprofit but declined to identify it or say what it did. “I’m not gonna get gangbuster rent,” he says, “but I’m going to keep the building, and it’ll go into my estate.”

LUCAS MANFIELD.

Missed Connections

This month only, with the help of Timberline Vodka, we’ve brought back Missed Connections for WW readers. And, it’s just in time for Valentine’s Day.

We asked you to submit your missed connections–and you answered the call. From the bakeryorder-to-first-date-pipeline to a romantic, if sight-less, search for bagels, proving that, whoever said romance was dead clearly hasn’t experienced a missed connection.

And maybe, just maybe,

you recognize yourself in one of these missed connections, and hope to be reunited with a longlost, potential love interest. If that is the case, send an email with the title of the missed connection you believe to be about you to missedconnections@ wweek.com. We’ll handle the rest from there.

Distilled at the highest standards with 46 levels of purification, Timberline is made with a blend of grain and Pacific Northwest apples. This award-winning Oregon Vodka is then bottled at 80 proof with glacier-fed spring water from Mt. Hood for an epically clean finish. Timberline Vodka is a proud partner of The Freshwater Trust, a local nonprofit whose mission is to preserve and restore freshwater ecosystems, including rivers, streams and creeks across the West.

You thought I was loud at the Brandi Carlile concert.

NYE. You: very dapper in a tie and jacket. Thought I might be able the fan club caller at Thorns games. Me: just loud, unrelated to soccer, and wearing a pink jumpsuit. I think it was just a case of mistaken identity but if you were flirting, that was my attempt at flirting back.

Missing you at the esplanade

We used to share shy smiles on the boardwalk every Thursday. For months, we’d cross paths and share a coy smile or a sly wink. Now it’s been weeks and we haven’t crossed paths. I miss you.

Can we be friends again?

We were so close years ago, but suddenly you stopped talking. I miss you, bad wolf.

Temporarily blind bagel beauty in St. Johns

You approached me in St. John’s, outside Storm Breaker brewery, asking for help finding bagels. You couldn’t see your phone’s map because of a pupil dilation procedure, and in that moment I would’ve scoured the whole earth with you to find those bagels. You had a feeling of familiarity and I swore I knew you from somewhere, but maybe it was just your lovely face with a view. You seemed a wonderful person, and oddly that shared moment really made my day, so thank you. But I just need to know; did you ever find your bagels and are your eyes okay?? Please do let me know, it’s been on my mind.

Meet-up Movie Night

A Meet-up group convened at Cinema 21 just before the Covid lockdown. We chatted before the movie, and a group went to a bar next door afterwards. We were at adjoining tables, but didn’t have a chance to talk again until I was walking out the door. You asked my name and I said “Christine, and see you at the next Meet up!” Wish I had more than just your first name - William.

The bakery order to first date pipeline

So, you listen to Mitski? Hope we can listen together.

I saw you at Music Millenium the other day, picking out a Mitski record. You were wearing a yellow sweater and a red beret. It reminded me of Prince, and I immediately wanted to ask you about the record you grabbed but was too shy to approach you. If you’re reading this, let’s go record shopping together.

MRG: It’s been another 15 years…

without contact. I don’t know what life is for you today, but I’d Like to. DLD

Tyron Creek

Late afternoon on Thursday (Jan 27) or Friday (Jan 27)?, I was hiking Tryon Creek w/ a friend. You were walking 2 dogs and we stopped to talk to you in passing. I petted your adorable red Pekingese (?). We locked eyes for a minutethought I might know you - possibly we dated in the past? Wished I had given you my number, but was awkward with my friend in tow.

Carhartt jacket at Yahalla

It was a Friday night, about a month ago or more and we were both picking up food to go. I commented on your jacket and said I had one like it but I gave it away because it was too warm. I would have liked to ask you for your phone number but I am pretty shy. I hope I run into you again. Dinner on me next time?

You: Complimented my Animal Crossing facemask and chatted about your island while I ordered a sandwich. I: Thought you were cute but wasn’t about to hit on you at work in front of other custom ers, god, and everyone else. It’s been a bit, but wanna grab a drink sometime and pick up where we left off?

The bakery order to first date pipeline

You: Complimented my Animal Crossing facemask and chatted about your island while I ordered a sandwich. I: Thought you were cute but wasn’t about to hit on you at work in front of other customers, god, and everyone else. It’s been a bit, but wanna grab a drink sometime and pick up where we left off?

Pioneer Square rendezvous

Well, it wasn’t exactly a rendez vous. More like intense eye contact, which we were both very reluctant to break. You were wearing a long down jacket and these really cool shoes. I wish I had known what brand those shoes were, so I could compliment you on them later, if our paths were to cross again. Maybe I’ll see you around?

Who was behind that gloryhole?

We met on Grindr. Your profile is blank. I came over to your place on Hawthorne. You have a plywood wall gloryhole setup. I lost my phone & login for Grindr. Your gloryhole is a single wall on brackets that’s flimsy. Some other

Well, it wasn’t exactly a rendezvous. More like intense eye contact, which we were both very reluctant to break. You were wearing a long down jacket and these really cool shoes. I wish I had known what brand those shoes were, so I could compliment you on them later, if our paths were to cross again. Maybe I’ll see you around?

Who was behind that gloryhole?

We met on Grindr. Your profile is blank. I came over to your place on Hawthorne. You have a plywood wall gloryhole setup. I lost my phone & login for Grindr. Your gloryhole is a single wall on brackets that’s flimsy. Some other guy came over during.

So, now that you’ve seen the matchmaking powers of our missed connections segment you want to submit your own, right? You’re in luck; send your missed connections to missedconnections@wweek.com, or scan the QR code to be taken directly to an easy-peasy fill-in form.

Malik White

Teacher, Floyd Light Middle School

PHOTOS AND STORY BY JOSEPH BLAKE JR.

Malik White’s battle for justice at the David Douglas School District may have started with hoodies. But it won’t end there.

White, who teaches at Floyd Light Middle School, a short walk from Mall 205, was part of the school equity team that eliminated disciplining students who wear hats and hoodies in the halls. His next goal? To change the same rule at David Douglas High.

That’s where he graduated in 2013. “I became a teacher because I never had a Black teacher or a teacher of color,” White says. “Kids are not able to see themselves in the curriculum.”

In his third year of teaching, White believes that who tells history matters—both in the perspective of the texts and the life experience of the teacher. “Students can be themselves,” he says, if they have educators who have been in their shoes.

“I’m a firm believer that you can read all the good books; however, if you don’t have the lived experiences, what do you have to offer?” he says. “This is why representation is so desperately needed in our society.”

WW celebrates Black History Month by meeting some of the people shaping Oregon’s future: Black teachers. Look for a photo essay on a new teacher each week of February.

HAZY SHADES OF WINTER

It may feel like the dead of winter, but if you look close enough, you’ll realize that our streets are anything but lifeless—at least in this Northwest Portland neighborhood. New high-rises continue to sprout from the ground and reshape our skyline, traffic—be it on wheels or wings—rarely halts, and even when cold temperatures seem to keep everything in a state of hibernation, an early bud break is all you need to remind you that spring is just around the corner.

Photos by Jordan Hundelt On Instagram: @jehundelt

GET BUSY

SEE: This IS Kalapuyan Land

Pittock Mansion isn’t just the former home of a moneyed publisher that’s now frozen in time; the venue also hosts cultural and educational events like this one. Curated by Indigenous writer and fine artist Steph Littlebird, this special exhibition features handwritten corrections to historically inaccurate museum displays about the Kalapuyans as well as new artwork that state “Native people are still here,” pushing back against their erasure. While on view at Pittock Mansion, there will be two educational sessions open to the public: a virtual talk with Littlebird on Feb. 23 and an in-person lecture presented by David Harrelson, cultural resources manager of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, on May 4. Pittock Mansion, 3229 NW Pittock Drive, 503-823-3623, pittockmansion.org. 10 am-4 pm Wednesday-Monday, noon-4 pm Tuesday, through July 23. $10.50-$14.50. Free for members.

LAUGH: Simon Taylor

Australian-born comedian and former Tonight Show writer Simon Taylor takes the stage at Portland’s premier home for standup, Helium Comedy Club. His refreshing style avoids political topics and instead offers a hilarious glimpse into his own life experiences, which has earned him acclaim and audience love. Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 503-5838464, portland.heliumcomedy.com. 8 pm Wednesday, Feb. 15. $20 general admission, $28 reserved. 21+.

DRINK: Ilani BrewFest

Somehow over the past several years, a direct portal to the Food Network opened in, of all places, Ridgefield, Wash. Of course, local gamblers know that’s where Ilani is located, and pretty much every event that the casino-resort hosts is now

accompanied by a lineup of celebrity chefs who are featured on the popular cooking cable channel. The BrewFest is no different. Your beer samples come with a side of Alex Guarnaschelli, Robert Irvine, Antonia Lofaso and Justin Sutherland. That means you won’t just be standing in line for pours—Ilani is hosting multiple dinners, seminars and even a Beer, Bubbles & Bloodies Brunch. Ilani Casino Resort, 1 Cowlitz Way, Ridgefield, Wash., 877464-5264, ilaniresort.com. Multiple times Thursday-Sunday, Feb. 16-19. $29-$89. 21+.

WATCH: La Sylphide

Oregon Ballet Theatre premieres August Bournonville’s classic, La Sylphide, for principal dancer Xuan Cheng’s farewell run of shows. The Romantic-era ballet, which was the first to put ballerinas on their toes, follows a young Scottish squire whose life is upended while pursuing an unattainable love interest. A rotating cast of four dancers take on the two main roles, including the departing Cheng and exciting newcomer Charles-Louis Yoshiyama. Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay St., 503-222-5538, obt.org. 7:30 pm Friday and Saturday, 2 pm Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 18-25. $29-$128.

EAT: Dress Like Your Ex Brunch

This year, Punch Bowl Social is doing Galentine’s Day with vengeance as the theme. The sprawling game palace’s Dress Like Your Ex Brunch is a celebration of the ghosts of relationships past with a heaping helping of drinks, made-from-scratch eats and prizes for the best costumes. A DJ will play a breakup soundtrack as you trip the light fantastic with your squad and laugh off all of those bad breakups. Punch Bowl Social, 340 SW Morrison St., Suite 4305, 503-334-0360, punchbowlsocial.com. 10 am-4 pm Saturday, Feb. 18.

EAT: Finex Chili & Beer Fest

A number of food preparation preferences can spark heated arguments, but perhaps none as fiery as those that surround chili. Pretty much everyone agrees that it should be rich, spiced and savory. But that’s where the similarities end. Consider this event an edible debate, where five Portland chefs, including Doug Adams of Grand Fir Brewing and Aaron Barnett of St. Jack and La Moule, present their best takes on the dish and you get to vote for your favorite. Turns out, everyone’s a winner because there will also be five breweries pouring beer to go with those bowls of chili. Finex Cast Iron Cookware, 2236 NW 21st Ave., finexusa.com/events/finex-chiliand-beer-fest. Noon-3 pm Saturday, Feb. 18. Free.

WATCH: Art Battle

Never heard of an Art Battle? Picture action, art, competition and auction all coming together in one space, and you can become a spectator dodging flying paint before then bidding on one of those pieces by the end of the night. Participants will be engaged in three 20-minute rounds of creative combat, turning blank canvases into masterpieces in front of onlookers who then cast their votes. Even if your favorite piece doesn’t win, you might still be able to take it home if the auction goes your way. JaJa PDX, 819 SE Taylor St., artbattle.com. 6-10 pm Saturday, Feb. 18. $15-$20. 21+.

Love with some of Portland’s finest drag artists. You’ll be transported to a pier-side watering hole at the fantasy destination, Pleasure Island, complete with themed specialty cocktails and boardwalk hot dogs. Santé Bar, 411 NW Park Ave., 971404-8216, @pleasureislanddrag! on Instagram. 7-10 pm Saturday, Feb. 18. $12-$20.

LISTEN: The Goonies in Concert

Director Stephen Spielberg uses music in storytelling better than anyone in the film industry, and this event will highlight his mastery at its zenith. Relive the filmed-in-Oregon ’80s cult classic The Goonies as the Oregon Symphony plays the movie’s score, created by Oscar-winning composer Dave Grusin. Doing the Truffle Shuffle remains optional. Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, 503-228-1353, orsymphony.org. 7:30 and 2 pm Saturday-Sunday, Feb. 18-19. $39-$135.

LISTEN: Jungle Brothers

DRINK

AND WATCH: Sloppy’s Tunnel of Love Valentine’s Day Spectacular

There is a Valentine’s weekend adventure waiting for you within the intimate confines of Santé Bar. Drag jester Sloppy Giuseppe is ready to take you on a sensational voyage through the Tunnel of

One of the pioneering collectives during the hip-hop heyday of the late ’80s and early ’90s were Native Tongues, whose principal members were De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, and the Jungle Brothers, who hit the stage this month in Portland. The trio, affectionately known as the JBs, will revive their signature sound: a fusion of house, hip-hop and jazz. Their lo-fi banger “I’ll House You” is sure to transport you back to back to 1988. Star Theater and Starlight Lounge, 13 NW 6th Ave., 503-284-4700, startheaterportland. com. 8 pm Monday, Feb. 20. $20. 21+.

PARTY LIKE IT’S 1988: The Jungle Brothers bring their fusion of house, hip-hop and jazz to Star Theater on Feb. 20.

FOOD & DRINK

Top 5

Buzz List

WHERE TO DRINK THIS WEEK.

1. IL SOLITO

627 SW Washington St., 503-228-1515, ilsolitoportland.com. 7-10:30 am and 5-10 pm Monday and Thursday-Friday, 7-11 am and 5-10 pm Saturday-Sunday.

After a two-and-a-half-year closure, downtown’s Il Solito began serving customers again in November. Now that the homestyle Italian American spot inside Kimpton Hotel Vintage has had a few months of service under its belt, the restaurant is holding an official grand opening with a week of specials, including an Italy to Oregon Wine Flight night on Feb. 17 ($24 for four tastings) and a Vespa Happy Hour on Feb. 18, when you can expect a scooter-themed drink menu as well as discounts on cocktails and zero-proof drinks.

2. PACIFIC STANDARD

100 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., 971-346-2992, kexhotels.com/eat-drink/ pacificstandard. 3 pm-midnight daily.

At Pacific Standard, the bar by bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler and longtime colleague Benjamin “Banjo” Amberg anchoring the Kex hotel, you won’t find any of the drinks the two men became known for at their former posts, Clyde Common and Pépé le Moko. But there are nods to those past hits in the all-new cocktail menu, like the summery rosé Negroni, the zesty All-Day Bloody Mary, and the Palm Desert Date Shake that’s decadent but not too boozy. “I just have no shortage of drink ideas,” Morgenthaler says. A gift and a curse we’re all thankful for.

3. PORTLAND CIDER COMPANY

3638 SE Hawthorne Blvd., 971-888-5054, portlandcider.com. 3-9 pm

Wednesday-Thursday, 1-10 pm Friday-Saturday, 1-9 pm Sunday. 4005 SW Orbit St., Beaverton, 503-626-6246. 3-10 pm Wednesday-Friday, noon-10 pm Saturday-Sunday.

Portland Cider Company ushers in 2023 with a sunny new seasonal cider: Mango Mimosa. Like its name suggests, the medium-sweet beverage with a bubbly finish pairs best with brunch foods, like huevos rancheros and banana pancakes, but its tropical fruit notes also make it a good match for spicy dinner entrees—think Thai curry or carne asada tacos. Or just drink it solo anytime the gloom of a Pacific Northwest winter gets to be a little too heavy.

4. ECLIPTIC BREWING MOON ROOM

930 SE Oak St., 971-383-1613, eclipticbrewing.com. 4-10 pm Sunday and Wednesday-Thursday, 4-11 pm Friday-Saturday.

Ecliptic Brewing’s first Cosmic Collaboration release of the year is a combination of two style trends: one from a decade ago, the other emerging during the pandemic. Black Cold IPA, made in partnership with Astoria’s Fort George, features the dark roasted malt flavor of a Cascadian dark ale (all the rage in 2012-13) and is fermented with lager yeast, leading to an assertive crispness found in the newly invented cold IPA. Order a pint or two and then debate whether a cold IPA is just an IPL with a different name.

5. ABIGAIL HALL

Editor: Andi Prewitt

Contact: aprewitt@wweek.com

Heaven’s Gate

BY ANDREA DAMEWOOD

Heavenly Creatures was predestined to be excellent.

With the backing of longtime Portland sommelier Joel Gunderson and chef Aaron Barnett—the team behind the opening of St. Jack 13 years ago—it would have been shocking if it were anything but lovely.

about 25, so I’ve taken to showing up for the 5 pm opening to guarantee a spot with no wait (going later in the evening would also probably work well, but I’m a little tired by then).

The food is just as strong a pull as the drink here: Barnett is the de facto chef de cuisine and helps create the menu, while Matt Mayer runs the kitchen day to day and works with Barnett on new plates.

the floor, happy to chat about which wines excite him right now, which is basically all of the excellently curated by-the-glass offerings. Ask and thou shalt receive a nice sample if you, like me, can never choose, along with a short but informative description of what’s being poured.

813 SW Alder St., abigailhallpdx.com. 5-11 pm

Sunday-Wednesday, 5 pm-midnight Thursday-Saturday.

There are few downtown bars—particularly hotel bars—as romantic as Abigail Hall, thanks to its cozy fireplace, pink and maroon leather banquettes, and dim lighting. Keep the Valentine’s Day vibes going by visiting this watering hole in the Woodlark’s lobby. Beverage director Derek Jacobi has created a holiday menu of mood-setting cocktails, including a strawberry Negroni topped with dehydrated slices of the fruit, and Color Me Intrigued, a sparkling wine-Belgian lambic concoction served in a Pop Rocks-rimmed Champagne flute.

Yet somehow, sitting at a table for two in the back, sipping a chilled gamay and pinot noir blend from the Saint-Pourçain region in France while snacking on a skewer of fried sweetbreads doused generously with pimentón-infused oil ($20), I found it even better than expected.

Gunderson, who looks a bit like John Lennon, with his wire-framed glasses and scruffy hair, is always on

Heavenly Creatures, named by Gunderson and his wife, Jena, after the 1994 movie starring Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey, is also the nickname for the many bottles of wine that line the walls, which you can also grab to go or drink in house for just a $15 corkage fee.

It’s an intimate bar, located inside the Coopers Hall event space that Chesa and 180 Xurros once called home on Northeast Broadway. There are no reservations and seats for

One way I’d like to experience Heavenly Creatures would be to come alone on a rainy weekday with a book, help myself to a lush French blend of chardonnay, poulsard and savagnin grapes from Domaine Pignier ($18), and order the most perfect plate of hearty slices of young yellowtail, served raw on thick toast with tonnato (the classic condiment of tuna, anchovies and mayonnaise), with bright pops of mustard seed and capers to set it off ($18). While much of the menu rotates regularly, this has rightfully remained a staple.

Plates are mostly small and meant for sharing and tilt seafood heavy. A raw scallop cru ($18) has had evolving accompaniments; at the time of this writing, the sweet, soft bivalve shone in a pool of bright green sauce with poblano pepper, fennel and a

The chef and sommelier who founded St. Jack have teamed up for another divine project, Heavenly Creatures.

SHELLING IT: The plates at Heavenly Creatures are meant for sharing and tilt seafood heavy.

drizzling of parsley oil. A fried mackerel was a twist on fish and chips, served with sauerkraut and a tartar sauce with tart richness that puts most others to shame.

A plate of grilled rapini with a seaweed bagna cauda was generous ($15) but somehow felt like a slog toward the end, even with the help of shaved Comtè cheese and fried breadcrumbs. It’s not a bad dish; it’s just not quite as good as some of the others. Even a serving of kettle-cooked potato chips felt festive, served alongside a dip of Camembert cheese and jalapeño for kick ($12).

While the staff is predominantly male, Heavenly Creatures itself has a flair for the feminine, from the round, pink terrazzo tables with clay flower vases to the tea candles, ample plants, and bright pink grasslike weavings on the walls. It would make an excellent date-night spot, regardless of gender, but I have found myself bringing along my girlfriends.

The only thing Heavenly Creatures is missing? Dessert. That would be divine.

EAT: Heavenly Creatures, 2218 NE Broadway, heavenlycreaturespdx. com. 5-10 pm Monday-Saturday.

Top 5

Hot Plates

WHERE TO EAT THIS WEEK.

1. STREET DISCO

4144A SE 60th Ave., street-disco.com. 5-10:30 pm Thursday-Monday. Two things to know about the menu at Street Disco is that it changes frequently and nearly everything is sharable. Start by diving into a few of the items that you could consider appetizers, like salt cod fritters, which capture the essence of fish and chips in a bite, or The Original Not Lobster Roll, a very Northwest combination of Dungeness crab and bay shrimp. Then conquer one of the entrees: A whole grilled branzino delighted on one visit, though the grilled pork ribs are sure to become a sleeper hit.

2. WILD CHILD PIZZA

2032 NE Alberta St., 503-719-7328, wildchild.pizza. 3-9 pm daily.

If you’ve grown weary of the city’s surplus of pizza joints, Wild Child will reinvigorate your palate. The new takeout window serves Detroit-style pies with a 72-hour-fermented sourdough crust. All the classic toppings you’d expect are available daily, while special combinations (like pineapple with bacon and jalapeño, or tater tots with spicy mayo and bonito) rotate in and out. This isn’t just pizza. It’s edible architecture.

3. FORTUNE BBQ NOODLE HOUSE

18 SE 82nd Ave., 503-265-8378. 9:30 am-7 pm Wednesday-Monday.

It’s been less than six months since Corina Wang opened Fortune BBQ Noodle House in a Southeast Portland strip mall, and the place is thriving. The longtime server at Kenny’s Noodle House launched the business last September, bringing along the savory congee and soups from her previous employer, and joined them with Cantonese barbecue classics, all for super-reasonable prices. The roasted pork belly is the standout. Arrive at opening and order by the pound to ensure you get your haul.

4. MASTER KONG SE 1522 SE 32nd Ave., 503-384-2184, masterkongor.com. 10:30 am-9 pm

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

A few months back, Jade District dumpling darling Master Kong quietly opened a location just off of Southeast Hawthorne Boulevard, bringing its xiao long bao, wonton noodle soup, and congee closer in. The menu is the same, but ordering is done through a screen at the entrance. Shortly thereafter, piping hot bowls of its signature brisket noodle soup and “meat folders,” aka homemade steamed dough folded around pork belly, green onion and herbs, are whisked out to your table. It’s been pretty quiet at the new location, so head there soon to make sure it stays put.

5. COSMIC BLISS

207 NW 10th Ave., 971-420-3630, cosmicbliss.com. Noon-8 pm Sunday-Wednesday, noon-9 pm Thursday-Saturday. Winter might seem a strange time to recommend chowing down on ice cream, but if you think about it, it’s really when you should be indulging in a summertime staple. Once all of the holiday decorations have come down and you’re left with gray, chilly winter days, there’s no better treat to encourage you to dream of July. There’s also a new scoop shop in town worth trying out before the summer rush: Eugene-based Cosmic Bliss, which is good news for those with dietary restrictions. There is both grass-fed dairy and plant-based ice cream, and everything is gluten free.

ALLISON BARR

Mardi Grass

Let the good times roll on Fat Tuesday with these six strains.

BY BRIANNA WHEELER

Whether your Fat Tuesday celebration precedes a period of religious fasting or just an epic hangover, every carnival needs a little cannabis.

Mardi Gras is known as the culmination of carnival celebrations before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, but nowadays, the festival is—in the U.S., anyway—associated less with the traditions of colonizing the Americas and more synonymous with the annual Big Easy jubilee. NOLA and Mardi Gras may be tied together, but that doesn’t mean we can’t join in the festivities with a Northwest fête of our own. Because in Portland, with the right cultivar, you can make any day feel like Mardi Gras(s).

This carnival season, whether you’re connecting with the ancestors, preparing for a long fast, or just eating king cake and throwing beads at your neighbors, check out one of these sparkling, euphoric strains so that come Feb. 21, you too can laissez les bons temps rouler with the rest of revelers:

Jazz

Jazz is a relatively rare cultivar with mysterious genetics that result in a bubbly, electric high. Users report blissful, airy head effects and a bouncy, bendy body high. Anxious smokers, take note: This strain delivers a swooning onset that, rather than blooming into something cushy and relaxed, builds to a vibrating crescendo best reserved for varsity stoners with an affection for hyperenergetic cultivars and brassy horn sections. Expect a sweet lemon aroma and peppery, citrusy exhale.

BUY: TJ’s on Powell, 7827 SE Powell Blvd., 503-719-7140, visittjs.com.

Purple Queen

Cannathusiasts who prefer a thicker, heavier high might consider Purple Queen, a deeply stoney cross of Hindu Kush and Purple Afghani. Therapeutic users report that it delivers relief from insomnia and depression, and rec users describe highs that are languid yet euphoric, syrupy yet uplifting, and altogether dreamy. Expect a sour pine nose and a gassy, lemony exhale.

BUY: Kush Cart, 971-229-1281, kushcartpdx.com.

King Kush

Another super-pacifying strain is King Kush, a cross of OG Kush and Grape that delivers a lulling yet dazzlingly euphoric high. Users report heady, hazy cerebral effects that soothe their nerves and quiet their minds enough to positively enhance social scenarios. Medical users describe relief from chronic pain and muscle spasms as well as body effects that can be either snoozy or velvety depending on their desire to laissez les bons temps rouler. Expect a funky-sweet, gas-heavy aroma and a gassy, botanical exhale.

BUY: Brothers Cannabis, multiple locations, brothers-cannabis. com.

Southern Lights

Also known as White Star, this cross of NYC Diesel and Sensi Star is a powerfully uplifting cultivar that delivers an energetic body buzz and a giggly, trippy head high. Daytime smokers appreciate how it delivers sunny, bright-eyed vibes well suited for wake-and-bake sessions or as an afternoon pick-me-up. Therapeutic users report relief from fatigue, chronic pain and seizures. The last time I left New Orleans, I was in a cab heading to my homebound flight at 7 am and saw lines of party

people still heading into the clubs. Perhaps it had something to do with Southern Lights.

BUY: Arcanna, 4605 NE Fremont St., Suite 105, 503-206-5809, arcannapdx.com.

French Bread

Another rare cultivar worth seeking out for Mardi Gras is French Bread, a cross of Perris OG and Face Off Bx1 that, while tasting nothing like crusty bread, does have a notably complex taste and perfume. French Bread is a stonier strain, delivering a hazy yet crystalline head high and soothing yet glittery body buzz well suited for relaxing scenarios or cozy at-home sessions. The strains’ uniquely potent balance of neither sedative nor explosive effects is what makes this cultivar such a cult fave. Therapeutic users report relief from fatigue, depression and chronic pain. Expect an audacious funk in the nose and commensurate exhale.

BUY: The Dispensary on 52nd, 4452 SE 52nd Ave., 503-4208000, thedispensaryon52nd.com.

Voodoo

Voodoo is a landrace strain unchanged by creative cultivation. Though its THC level is generally below 15%, don’t be fooled by what might seem newbie numbers. This potent cultivar delivers a borderline manic high that can lead to enthusiastic socializing. Rec users tend to experience a toe-tapping buzz, while therapeutic users report relief from chronic pain, epilepsy, eye pressure and gastrointestinal disorder. Expect a sweet, earthy perfume and citrusy, herbal exhale.

BUY: Eden Cannabis, multiple locations, edencraftcannabis. com/home.

For Isabeau Waia’u Walker, Sensitivity Is Power

The alt folk musician opens up about “slow-cooked” artistry and the ripple effects created by her fans.

BY MICHELLE KICHERER @michellekicherer

When Isabeau Waia’u Walker’s “Woman” was named one of OPB’s top songs of 2020, the Hawaii-born Oregon City artist was concurrently at work on what would become her first solo album: Body, a “bright gloom” collection of tender loving songs circling around themes of family, culture and sensitivity in its rawest form.

“I was a very sensitive kid, which could come off as weak,” Waia’u Walker tells WW. “I felt like I was always holding back the floodgate, whether that was tears or anger or rage.”

Waia’u Walker recounts a story of her dental hygienist once telling her she must be “sensitive” because she winced while getting braces: “I started developing this association with being sensitive as being a bad thing; that you shouldn’t let on too fast what’s playing out internally.…I didn’t want to be weak, but then I realized that some of what kept me most tender toward people was my sensitivity.”

The song that speaks most directly to this notion, “All at Once,” opens with a sensual baseline and the heart-softening lines: “Everyone says I’m too sensitive/So sensitive/That’s why I bleed.” But the song makes a quick reassurance that high sensitivity is actually a power. “I’m meant to be sensitive,” she sings.

Waia’u Walker’s connective nature comes out a lot in both her online and live performances. People see the rawness and are drawn in and drawn together—which is part of how Waia’u Walker amassed her many YouTube subscribers (more than 21,000), along with a healthy community of supporters on Patreon.

According to Waia’u Walker, one of her earliest patrons was a fan named Chuck who would show up to all of her monthly online chats and offer lively encouragement and stories. When Y La Bamba asked Waia’u Walker to join them for their 2022 tour, she was glad to see they were stopping in Los Angeles, where Chuck lived.

When Waia’u Walker arrived at Chuck’s home, he opened the door in his wheelchair, wearing the Isabeau T-shirt that came with his monthly pledge. He apologized that his piano was out of tune, and the two sat down to play together, a session Waia’u

Walker had recorded. Before meeting Chuck, she knew that he was battling cancer, but she didn’t realize just how sick he was until that day.

When Body came out and Waia’u Walker announced her first solo tour in fall of 2022, she couldn’t wait to bring Chuck out to a show. But when she reached out to share the announcement, she learned he had died.

“Of course, most importantly I wanted him to be healthy,” Waia’u Walker says. But she knows how happy her progress would have made him, too. For years, he’d comment on every YouTube video, on each Facebook post. In a world where fandom is too often synonymous with toxicity, Chuck had believed in her and understood her strength as an artist.

After a thoughtful pause, Waia’u Walker says, “My Patreon community is basically my label.”

Aside from a small-town show at which one lonely drinker called out, “There are more dogs here than people!” Waia’u Walker’s tour was a success. “I love the collective presence of playing with a band,” she says. “But it’s important for my songs to be able to stand alone. Because I love playing alone.”

This month, Waia’u Walker performs with her full band at the Doug Fir Lounge, a venue she says she’ll be proud to play. It’s the next step of a journey that has been long but rewarding.

“I think of myself as a slow-cooker artist,” Waia’u Walker says with a kind laugh. She never aimed to wedge her way into the scene before she’d put in the time. And after a decade to focus on her craft, she still draws from the well of power that is her sensitivity.

GO: Isabeau Waia’u Walker plays with Night Heron at Doug Fir Lounge, 503-231-9663, dougfirlounge. com. 8:30 pm Friday, Feb. 17. $15. 21+.

WHAT TO SEE AND WHAT TO HEAR

BY DANIEL BROMFIELD @bromf3

FRIDAY, FEB. 17:

The nervy, intensely funky compositions on Talking Heads’ 1980 classic Remain in Light drew strongly from West African music. Benin’s Angélique Kidjo, an actual West African known for her cosmopolitan approach to pop, is the perfect artist to pay tribute to the album in its entirety. She sounds much more at ease than the perennially panicked David Byrne did when singing these songs, but the music’s braininess and twitchiness remains, and it rivals actual Talking Head Jerry Harrison’s Remain in Light tour—coming to Crystal Ballroom on May 17—as the best touring Heads tribute. Roseland Theater, 8 NW 6th Ave., 971-230-0033, roselandpdx.com. 8 pm. $35. 21+.

SATURDAY, FEB. 18:

Ambrose Akinmusire is one of the best trumpeters in the world and will likely be remembered as the leading light of his generation of jazz musicians. Though the 40-year-old Bay Area native records for venerable Blue Note Records, he’s far from a traditionalist, with a fiery, intensely physical style and a penchant for ambitious concept albums with sociopolitical themes. Pianist Gerald Clayton will accompany him for this performance. The Old Church Concert Hall, 1422 SW 11th Ave., 503-2222031, theoldchurch.org. 7 pm. $39.75. All ages.

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 22:

A lot of left-field hip-hop claims or wants to expand your horizons or blow your mind wide open, but it’s rare to find an act as truly confounding and challenging as Seattle’s Shabazz Palaces . Led by the stern, bearded, mysterious Palaceer Lazaro—aka veteran rapper Ishmael “Butterfly” Butler of Digable Planets—Shabazz Palaces approaches rap with an avant-jazz sensibility and ample use of African instruments. Support comes from prolific poet-rapper-performer Camae Ayewa, aka Moor Mother Alberta Rose Theatre, 3000 NE Alberta St., 503-719-6055, albertarosetheatre.com. 8 pm. $35. Minors allowed when accompanied by a parent or guardian.

“I didn’t want to be weak, but then I realized that some of what kept me most tender toward people was my sensitivity.”

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

Time May Change Me

BY ANDREW JANKOWSKI

Rebel Rebel, the downtown Portland queer bar named for the iconic David Bowie song, has come, gone and laid belief on a city full of flowers, a city full of rain. It temporarily closed the weekend of Jan. 13, but the bar’s Instagram account announced its permanent closure Jan. 30, weeks shy of Rebel Rebel’s first anniversary. Rebel Rebel’s owner, J Buck, tells WW that numerous factors led to the bar’s closure, including security costs, slow weeknight sales, and other struggles that come with doing business in Old Town.

“It’s a small space in an area of town that’s already hit pretty hard, so that’s just the way everything crumbled and unfolded,” Buck says. “There wasn’t a specific catalyst or anything like that. We navigated the slow season as best as we could, and that’s just the nature of the game for a lot of small businesses in Portland right now.”

Rebel Rebel was a popular watering hole among Portland’s LGBTQ+ community, serving craft cocktails to customers under the gleam of a disco ball. The intimate venue once known as Black Book, Maxwell, and Yes and No hosted dance nights and drag shows

over the past 11 months and fostered a loyal sapphic following before the lesbian bar Doc Marie’s opened (and briefly closed) across the Willamette River last summer.

Also, Rebel Rebel was one of three Old Town queer bars that opened in Portland in the wake of the pandemic, but closed before its first anniversary.

The Queen’s Head, which opened in Ankeny Alley in November 2021, was sold the next summer. The rebranded business, P!nq, opened in September and closed in November 2022. Meanwhile, the Parkrose neighborhood’s gay strip club Fuzzy Navels has weathered the unfortunately timed onset of the global mpox outbreak after opening in July 2022. It now hosts strip bingo (plus, Sissy Bar is still going strong).

As Bowie sang, “Stars are never sleeping. Dead ones and the living.” Buck says plans are already underway for the next era of Rebel Rebel’s former home but does not know if the next iteration will still belong to the LGBTQ+ community.

“ We built a great community, we had fantastic regulars, we had fantastic talent,” Buck says. “My staff was literally the best.”

Rebel Rebel is the third Old Town queer bar to open in the wake of the pandemic and close before its first anniversary.

MOVIES

A Quiet Place

To be introverted is to be heroic in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which returns to the big screen at Cinema 21.

BY BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON @thobennett

Near the end of Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), Yu Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh) learns that her beloved, Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-fat), is dying. “Let your soul rise to eternity with your last breath,” she tells him. “Don’t waste it for me.”

“I’ve already wasted my whole life,” Mu Bai replies. “I have always loved you. I would rather be a ghost, drifting by your side as a condemned soul, than enter heaven without you. Because of your love, I will never be a lonely spirit.”

It is a hauntingly romantic declaration—a rarity in a film about combatants who cross swords with gusto, but express feelings with restraint. “When it comes to emotions, even great heroes can be idiots,” quips Shu Lien and Mu Bai’s cheeky benefactor Sir Te (the late Sihung Lung, an Ang Lee regular).

Yet Shu Lien and Mu Bai are hardly idiotic. Like many of Lee’s films, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is a valentine to those who love reservedly but reverently. In most movies, the quiet are freaks to be cured. To Lee, they are heroes whose silence opens their hearts to emotions too often lost in the cacophony of life.

Set in China during the Qing dynasty (and based on part four of author Wang Dulu’s Crane Iron series), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon begins with Mu Bai, a respected warrior, preparing to relinquish his sword, the Green Destiny. “Too many men have died at its edge,” he says. “It only looks pure because blood washes so easily from its blade.”

That may be true, but there’s another reason Mu Bai wants to retire: to be with Shu Lien, who runs a private security company. For years, the two have resisted their shared adoration out of guilt—Shu Lien was engaged to Mu Bai’s slain comrade, Meng Sizhao—but time has diminished their resolve and magnified their desire. “Come with me to Peking,” Shu Lien implores. “It’ll be just like old times.”

Peking turns out to be the problem. While visiting Sir Te, Shu Lien and Mu Bai encounter Jen (Zhang Ziyi), a governor’s daughter who has been secretly training with the master assassin Jade Fox (Cheng Pei-pei, the Come Drink With Me star who has been called “The Queen of Kung Fu”).

Without his guidance, Mu Bai worries that Jen will become “a poisoned dragon.” But the more he obsesses over molding her into the perfect disciple, the more the hope of happiness with Shu Lien fades into the shadows of the forests and temples where the film unfolds.

While Shu Lien takes a motherly interest in Jen, she also dismisses her as “an aristocrat’s daughter” and “not one of us.” What she doesn’t mention is that Jen is as erratic and impassioned as she and Mu Bai are determined and repressed.

Chafing under the demands of her family, Jen lashes out in ways both hilarious and terrifying, even attacking a fellow warrior simply because he has the same name as the man she’s been forced to marry. “Gou? I hate that name,” she announces with relish. “It makes me puke! Too bad you’re named Gou! You’ll be the first to feel my sword today!”

Because she’s embodied by the incandescent Zhang, Jen proves irresistible. But despite her mesmerizing bursts of rage and wit, Lee’s loyalties clearly lie with Shu Lien and Mu Bai, whose discretion in matters of the heart is mirrored by their grace in battles of life and death.

In Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, characters run on walls, walk on water and trade blows while balancing on bamboo branches. The violence is blissfully intense, but it’s less about brutality than it is about seeking oneness with the world around you.

to bear any grievance she can unleash.

Jen reaches that revelation under the influence of Shu Lien, who refuses to lash out at her, despite the partial responsibility Jen bears for the loss of Mu Bai. Yes, Shu Lien holds a blade to her neck, but she quickly sets it aside, saying, “Whatever path you take in this life, be true to yourself.” Even in grief, Shu Lien remains disciplined, embodying the film’s creed: that holding back can be a heroic act.

After Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was released in the United States on Dec. 8, 2000, it won four Oscars and racked up more than $128 million in ticket sales (still the highest ever for a non-English language film). Its success was astounding, particularly in a country whose pop culture contradicts nearly everything it stands for.

Lee, along with Zhang Yimou and Wong Karwai, is one of many contemporary auteurs from the Pacific Rim who have experimented with the traditions of China’s wuxia (“martial heroes”) genre. His inspirations are many, though the most discernible is King Hu’s A Touch of Zen (1971), about a warrior woman (Hsu Feng) whose fight leads her to the precipice of enlightenment.

A similar destination awaits Jen in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but not without cost. Only when Mu Bai is poisoned while protecting her from Jade Fox does Jen realize that she must free herself from both the oppression of her family and her belief that the world exists

American movies (especially when set in high schools) often suggest that the destiny of an introvert is to get over being who they are. Lee—who also offered complex portraits of introverts in Sense and Sensibility (1995) and Brokeback Mountain (2005)—doesn’t buy that. And judging by Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s popularity, neither does his audience.

You could weep over what Shu Lien and Mu Bai lost by not saying what was in their hearts. But despite Mu Bai’s declaration that he wasted his life, it’s clear that he, Shu Lien and Lee know the truth: A life with love, no matter how quietly expressed, is never a waste.

SEE IT: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, rated PG-13, opens Friday, Feb. 17, at Cinema 21, 616 SW 21st Ave., 503-223-4515, cinema21.com.

LIKE MANY OF LEE’S FILMS, CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON IS A VALENTINE TO THOSE WHO LOVE RESERVEDLY BUT REVERENTLY.

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

Def by Temptation (1990)

Coming from the late-’80s Spike Lee cadre of artists, School Daze actor James Bond III directed just one film: Def by Temptation, a horror artifact returning to the big screen at the Clinton Street Theater.

Def by Temptation builds on urban, vampiric AIDS parables like The Hunger (1983) and Vampire’s Kiss (1988) but centers its story in Black life. In Brooklyn, a succubus known only as Temptress (Cynthia Bond) preys upon overeager barflies while setting her sights on a more innocent target: preacher-to-be Joel (Bond III), who’s visiting from North Carolina to reconnect with an old friend (Kadeem Hardison).

Samuel L. Jackson and Bill Nunn notably appear in Def by Temptation, but the best carryover asset from Lee’s circle is cinematographer Ernest Dickerson, who lends disorienting power to the seduction scenes, creating mystery with low angles and focusing his lens on the bodies of men who believe they can sexually “conquer” the Temptress’ demonic force.

Dickerson’s visual flair and Bond’s messy, take-no-prisoners morality merit a watch from anyone interested in the overlooked entries of Black horror film history. Clinton, Feb. 20.

ALSO PLAYING:

5th Avenue: Space Is the Place (1974) and The Last Angel of History (1996), Feb. 17-19. Academy: Moonlight (2016), Feb. 17-23. Cinema 21: Funny Face (1957), Feb. 18. Cinemagic: Toy Story (1995), Feb. 18. Alien (1979), Feb. 17, 18 and 20. Aliens (1986), Feb. 18-20. Predator (1987), Feb. 17, 19 and 21. Predator 2 (1990), Feb. 19 and 21. Clinton: Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Feb. 18. Malcolm X (1992), Feb. 18-19. Ganja & Hess (1973), Feb. 21. Hollywood: In & Out (1997), Feb. 16. Flash Gordon (1980), Feb. 19. Cléo From 5 to 7 (1962), Feb. 20. Shaolin vs. Wu Tang (1981), Feb. 21.

THE CIVIL DEAD

Comedians Clay Tatum and Whitmer Thomas have been best pals for 20 years, but their debut narrative feature imagines a fainter bond. Tatum (who directed the film) plays Clay, a broke Los Angeles photographer who runs into struggling actor Whit (Thomas) on the street. It appears Clay has more or less ghosted his old friend from Alabama—fitting, given that Whit claims to be an actual ghost (cause of death unknown) who is visible only to Clay. Looking for a lifeline, Whit vocalizes that this is an experimental Casper scenario: a benevolent spirit buddying up with a human. Tall premise aside, the film’s generative force is the duo’s meandering chemistry and the silly way they mumble in support of idiotically jagged haircuts and dance-karate kicks. The off-key relationship comedy recalls improv-driven Joe Swanberg and Lynn Shelton indies, but what complicates The Civil Dead is the surprisingly bad underlying vibes and the question of why Clay, a person with nothing going on, struggles to engage with a willing friend. Things that go bump in the night may be asking for a little bro time, but do self-focused young artists have it in them to heed the dead’s desperate call? NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. On demand Feb. 17.

CLOSE

Even at its best—with relatively kind peers, teachers and families—middle school is hell. Adolescent socialization starts and, immediately, it’s an irreversible cascade for Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav de Waele), two best friends from the Belgian countryside. We first see them at summer’s end, as gangly mirror images dashing joyfully through Léo’s family flower farm. Their childhood bond is so “close” that, any hint of burgeoning romance notwithstanding, they are indeed experiencing a kind of love. But a relationship this unself-conscious can’t repel schoolyard scrutiny and early teachings in masculine insecurity. Some of the ensuing change to Léo and Rémi’s friendship is sudden and frankly unbelievable, calling into question what story writer-director Lukas Dhont really wants to tell (precariously, he’s searching for a universal experience within a distinct trauma). Yet Close, an Oscar nominee for Best International Film that is clearly inspired by Celine Sciamma’s intimate coming-ofage portraits (Tomboy, Girlhood ), remains involving and intimate throughout—and it’s arguably a playbook for how adults should treat children. Maybe they just do middle school better in Belgium. PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinema 21.

KNOCK AT THE CABIN

and jelly sandwich of thrillers: It checks all of the boxes the genre requires, but leaves the palate yearning for more as the aftertaste of mediocrity lingers.

ater, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Tigard.

BUT FLAWED.

: THIS MOVIE IS A STEAMING PILE.

M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin is the peanut butter

Parents Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) whisk their nature-loving daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui), away to the woods for a family vacation, but are met with four strangers knocking at their door, all wielding horrifying homemade weapons and spouting end-ofdays premonitions (they include Rupert Grint, who emerges from his silver screen hiatus with a bang, and Dave Bautista in a powerhouse performance that is a far cry from his previous testosterone-fueled roles). As for production, the film’s two cinematographers, Jarin Blaschke (The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman) and Lowell A. Meyer (Topside, Thunder Road ), have crafted a handful of ingenious images that would have taken even Hitchcock’s breath away (especially a masterful POV shot in which Grint is pummeled with a barrage of fists). Unfortunately, the plot, adapted from the novel The Cabin at the End of the World, is an inch deep and a mile wide. Plenty of interesting questions are posed throughout Knock at the Cabin (the film revolves around a nauseating moral dilemma), yet it concludes without providing a compelling or coherent response to any of them. R. ALEX BARR. Academy, Bagdad, Cedar Hills, Cinemagic, City Center, Eastport, Lake The-

THE VOLCANO: RESCUE FROM WHAKAARI

While Fire of Love poeticized the quaking, deadly romance of Mother Earth, this Netflix documentary is more of an eruption anatomy. Minute by minute, The Volcano: Rescue From Whakaari chronicles the sudden, tragic bursting of New Zealand’s Whakaari (or White Island) in 2019 and the experiences of the dozens of tourists and guides who were trapped in an improbable nightmare. It’s a story worth telling, as most of director Rory Kennedy’s are (she made Downfall: The Case Against Boeing and Last Days in Vietnam), but perhaps not at feature length. The preeruption dread is as powerful as witnessing survivors’ scars, but the straightforward rescue mission marks a major slump, a series of “just the facts, ma’am” interviews with pilots, cops and volunteers who did what they could expediently, and explain only that much. Intermittently, the film verges on criticizing ineffective threat systems or irregulated eco-tourism, but The Volcano isn’t willing to explore controversial ramifications, even to illustrate how responsibility was eluded. The film honors lives lost and given, but a prime-time news special could do the same. PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Netflix.

: THIS MOVIE IS EXCELLENT, ONE OF THE BEST OF THE YEAR.

: THIS MOVIE IS GOOD. WE RECOMMEND YOU WATCH IT.

: THIS MOVIE IS ENTERTAINING

SHAPIRO-GLICKENHAUS ENTERTAINMENT

by Calico Jack Gulls gettin’ kinky.

by Jack Kent

JONESIN’

"Where

BY MATT JONES

ARIES (March 21-April 19): Aries director Francis Ford Coppola was asked to name the year's worst movie. The question didn't interest him, he said. He listed his favorite films, then declared, "Movies are hard to make, so I'd say, all the other ones were fine!" Coppola's comments remind me of author Dave Eggers': "Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them." In accordance with astrological omens, Aries, your assignment is to explore and embody these perspectives. Refrain from judging efforts about which you have no personal knowledge. Be as open-minded and generous as you can. Doing so will give you fuller access to half-dormant aspects of your own potentials.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): Artist Andy Warhol said, only half in jest, "Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art, and working is art, and good business is the best art." More than any other sign, Tauruses embody this attitude with flare. When you are at your best, you're not a greedy materialist who places a higher value on money than everything else. Instead, you approach the gathering of necessary resources, including money, as a fun art project that you perform with love and creativity. I invite you to ascend to an even higher octave of this talent.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): You are gliding into the Season of Maximum Volition, Autonomy, and Liberty. Now is a favorable time to explore and expand the pleasures of personal sovereignty. You will be at the peak of your power to declare your independence from influences that hinder and limit you. To prepare, try two experiments.

1. Act as if free will is an illusion. It doesn’t exist. There's no such thing. Then visualize what your destiny would be like. 2. Act as if free will is real. Imagine that in the coming months you can have more of it at your disposal than ever before. What will your destiny be like?

joke about them." 4. "I will activate my deeper ambition by giving myself permission to be lazy."

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): How many people would fight for their country? Below I list the countries where my horoscopes are published and the percentage of their populations ready and willing to take up arms against their nations' enemies: 11 percent in Japan; Netherlands, 15 percent; Italy, 20 percent; France, 29 percent; Canada, 30 percent; US, 44 percent. So I surmise that Japanese readers are most likely to welcome my advice here, which is threefold: 1. The coming months will be a good time to cultivate your love for your country's land, people, and culture, but not for your country's government and armed forces. 2. Minimize your aggressiveness unless you invoke it to improve your personal life—in which case, pump it up and harness them. 3. Don't get riled up about vague abstractions and fear-based fantasies. But do wield your constructive militancy in behalf of intimate, practical improvements.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): By the time she was 33, Sagittarian actor Jane Fonda was famous and popular. She had already won many awards, including an Oscar. Then she became an outspoken opponent of America's war in Vietnam. Some of her less-liberal fans were outraged. For a few years, her success in films waned. Offers didn’t come easily to her. She later explained that while the industry had not completely "blacklisted" her, she had been "greylisted." Despite the setback, she kept working—and never diluted her political activism. By the time she was in her forties, her career and reputation had fully recovered. Today, at age 84, she is busy with creative projects. In accordance with astrological rhythms, I propose we make her your role model in the coming months. May she inspire you to be true to your principles even if some people disapprove. Be loyal to what you know is right.

ACROSS

1. "Will you allow me to demonstrate?"

5. Rainbow fish

10. Comedian Miranda

14. Multivitamin additive

15. "Explain, please?"

16. Latin for "you love"

17. Feat in a two-on-two wrestling match?

19. Traveled by bus or bike

20. What a welcome sight relieves, idiomatically

21. "The old-fashioned way" to make money, per a classic ad

23. Mag. positions

24. Billy Ray or Miley Ray (that is her full name)

25. Long March leader

27. "Air mail" or "63 cents," for instance?

33. Magnum follower

35. "Ya know?"

36. "Little Women" character

37. Type of code or colony

38. News story

42. Repetitive

44. Bird that a "deextinction" company is trying to bring back

45. Fake info leading to a wrong (but funny) location?

49. ___ Brands (KFC owner)

50. Accumulate

51. What you can't stand to have?

53. "Big" WWI cannon

55. Short personal stories?

60. "Cinderella Man" antagonist Max

61. Nickname for a gangster with bags under his eyes?

63. Neighborhood

64. Window features

65. Poker throw-in

66. Highway entrance

67. Lock of hair

68. Word that can follow both words of each long answer DOWN

1. Medium range speakers, slangily

2. Buck's ending

3. Ump's statement

4. Asleep, usually

5. Pronoun chosen as the American Dialect Society's latest Word of the Decade

6. Flower in a dozen

7. Nocturnal flyers

8. Stadium chant, sometimes

9. Big volume

10. Senate Majority Leader from 2007 to 2015

11. King of gods, in Egyptian myth

12. The "R" in "pi R squared"

13. Malaria fly

18. Decreased

22. German for "eight"

25. Type of mentality

26. Koko, e.g.

28. Not live, so to speak

©2023 Jonesin’ Crosswords (editor@jonesincrosswords.com) For answers to this puzzle, call: 1-900-226-2800, 99 cents per minute. Must be 18+. Or to bill to your credit card, call: 1-800-655-6548. Reference puzzle #JNZ990.

29. Make changes to

30. Secondary course of study

31. Babble on

32. Lots (of)

34. It helps keep your heel from falling out of your heel

39. Small keyboard

40. Scholastic URL ender

41. Tattoo of the ancient mariner?

43. Still-alive member of CSNY

45. Name after Abdul-

46. 1998 Masters and British Open winner Mark

47. Name before Abdul-

48. Scheduling spot

52. Cult classic Britcom with the theme song "This Wheel's On Fire"

54. Planner abbr.

55. Dermatology case

56. Tiny Tim's strings, for short

57. "___ of the D'Urbervilles"

58. Bi- times four

59. Hide-and-go-___

62. Rower's need

CANCER (June 21-July 22): The ethereal, dreamy side of your nature must continually find ways to express itself beautifully and playfully. And I do mean "continually." If you're not always allowing your imagination to roam and romp around in Wonderland, your imagination may lapse into spinning out crabby delusions. Luckily, I don't think you will have any problems attending to this necessary luxury in the coming weeks. From what I can tell, you will be highly motivated to generate fluidic fun by rambling through fantasy realms. Bonus! I suspect this will generate practical benefits.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Don't treat your allies or yourself with neglect and insensitivity. For the sake of you mental and physical health, you need to do the exact opposite. I’m not exaggerating! To enhance your well-being, be almost ridiculously positive. Be vigorously nice and rigorously kind. Bestow blessings and dole out compliments, both to others and yourself. See the best and expect the best in both others and yourself.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Is there a bug in the sanctuary of love? A parasite or saboteur? If so, banish it. Is there a cranky monster grumbling in the basement or attic or closet? Feed that creature chunks of raw cookie dough imbued with a crushed-up valium pill. Do you have a stuffed animal or holy statue to whom you can spill your deep, dark, delicious secrets? If not, get one. Have you been spending quality time rumbling around in your fantasy world in quest of spectacular healings? If not, get busy. Those healings are ready for you to pluck them.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): There's a weird magic operating in your vicinity these days—a curious, uncanny kind of luck. So while my counsel here might sound counter-intuitive, I think it’s true. Here are four affirmations to chant regularly: 1. "I will attract and acquire what I want by acting as if I don’t care if I get what I want." 2. "I will become grounded and relaxed with the help of beautiful messes and rowdy fun." 3. "My worries and fears will subside as I make fun of them and

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Charles V (1500–1558) had more than 20 titles, including Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain, Archduke of Austria, and Lord of the Netherlands. He was also a patron of the arts and architecture. Once, while visiting the renowned Italian painter Titian to have his portrait done, he did something no monarch had ever done. When Titian dropped his paintbrush on the floor, Charles humbly picked it up and gave it to him. I foresee a different but equally interesting switcheroo in your vicinity during the coming weeks. Maybe you will be aided by a big shot or get a blessing from someone you consider out of your league. Perhaps you will earn a status boost or will benefit from a shift in a hierarchy.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Some people I respect regard the Bible as a great work of literature. I don't share that view. Like psychologist Valerie Tarico, I believe the so-called good book is filled with "repetition, awkward constructions, inconsistent voice, weak character development, boring tangents, and passages where nobody can tell what the writer meant to convey." I bring this to your attention, Aquarius, because I believe now is a good time to rebel against conventional wisdom, escape from experts' opinions, and formulate your own unique perspectives about pretty much everything. Be like Valerie Tarico and me.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): I suspect that *arrivederci* and *au revoir* and *sayōnara* will overlap with birth cries and welcomes and initiations in the coming days. Are you beginning or ending? Leaving or arriving? Letting go or hanging on? Here's what I think: You will be beginning *and* ending; leaving *and* arriving; letting go *and* hanging on. That could be confusing, but it could also be fun. The mix of emotions will be rich and soulful.

Homework: Imagine a good future scenario you have never dared to visualize. Newsletter. FreeWillAstrology.com

Is the Library?"--read-y or not.