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GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND!👋 The clouds return for the first three days of this week, with lots of showers expected today and tomorrow, and highs in the low-to-mid 60s. But! Towards the end of the week you’ll see sunny skies with temps reaching up to 90. Now that’s some sum-sum-summertime! And now? Let’s dip into some newsy-news-NEWS.
IN LOCAL NEWS:
• Former Oregon Republican Senator Bob Packwood died last week at the age of 93. While one of the more liberal of Republicans—and a staunch advocate for reproductive and women’s rights—he spent the last of his long 27-year political career attempting to cover up multiple accusations of groping and forcefully kissing at least 17 staffers and lobbyists. When faced with an investigation into his sexually abusive practices, Packwood attempted to cover it up by destroying evidence, but was caught and forced to resign in 1995 before he could be kicked out of office. According to Washington Post reporter Helen Dewar about Packwood’s time in office, “It was an account of an enormously talented man who was victimized by his own arrogance, loneliness, binge drinking, and compulsive need to prove his sexual as well as political prowess.”
• Congrats to Beaverton, Oregon native Shoshana Bean, who won a Tony award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical last night for her performance as the mom in the musical The Lost Boys. However, this is not Bean’s first theatrical rodeo, as she was in the original cast of Hairspray, was Idina Manzel’s first replacement as Elphaba in Wicked, and has received multiple Tony and Grammy nominations for her past singing and acting work. Let’s go, Beaverton! 🎉
• In somewhat less exciting news for Portland’s next-door neighbor, a contestant on the sadly popular Love Island reality show, Vasana Montgomery of Beaverton, has been kicked off the program after internet sleuths discovered she’d uttered the n-word in at least two online videos. NBC News reported that Montgomery was booted from the show before its season premiere on Tuesday night. Ummmm… let’s go, Beaverton? 😬
• While gay bathhouses tend to be male-dominated affairs, the long-running bathhouse, Hawks PDX, has been broadening its scope to welcome all members of the queer community. As our Abe Asher writes, “the club still has elements of the traditional bathhouse experience, dedicating various nights to members of the gay male community, but they’re increasingly looking beyond that community to reach people for whom bathhouses have not historically been designed.” That means special nights for trans and nonbinary folks, bisexuals, puppy players, and lots more. Read it and find a place you fit in!
• Looking for an alternative to those looooooong weekend brunch lines? No Saint, the beloved Northeast wood-fire, pizza-focused Italian restaurant, began offering breakfast and lunch at the start of the year, calling it Café No Saint. Instead of the usual benedicts and breakfast sandwiches,their Menu del Giorno offers up a combination of Italian classics with a No Saint spin—from mortadella sandwiches to strawberry tartines on sesame focaccia. Eat ‘em up! Caitlin Pangares has the deets.
• In his latest edition of the album review column, Spin Cycle, Ryan J. Prado highlights new releases from Cassie Candles, corook, and Dua Saleh. “Aside from the following artists being talented, fierce queer forces of nature, there are nearly no discernible aural similarities,” Prado writes. “And you know what? THAT RULES. If variety is the spice of life, I’ll take mine triple-X hot with a side of fresh Carolina Reapers. Will my ears still work if my entire stomach explodes? Hope so!” Open your ears to new music.
IN NATIONAL/WORLD NEWS:
• Welp, the so-called truce between Iran and the US and Israel continues to look like not a truce at all, after Iran and Israel traded airstrikes this past weekend. For the two countries, it was the worst such attack since April, with both initially ignoring President Trump’s screeching requests to stop the bombing, before promising this morning they would stop the attacks against each other. According to reports, Israel is growing increasingly impatient with Trump’s bumbling attempts to broker a peace deal… as if they haven’t heard that he’s possibly the worst deal-maker of all time. Pick up on the memo, guys!
In other hilarious Trump news, the president—who historically doesn’t know how to deal with strong women—yanked his mic and walked out of a televised interview with NBC’s Meet the Press host, Kristen Welker. Trump grew increasingly agitated by Welker’s questions about his proposed $1.8 billion slush fund to reimburse snowflake MAGA minions and domestic terrorists (such as the January Sixers), who claim they have been persecuted after committing serious crimes against the nation. Trump also tried to use the opportunity to spread more blatant lies about the 2020 election results, which Welker also batted down with simple facts. Faced with a losing argument, Trump pulled his mic and walked out, leaving Welker with a characteristically misogynistic farewell: “Thank you, darling. Have a good time.” I’m sure she did, as humiliating Trump on national TV is just about as good as it gets!
Don’t expect a warm welcome for President Trump at tonight’s game three of the NBA finals between the New York Knicks and San Antonio Spurs, as fans were warned that all televised watch parties in the immediate area have been canceled, and they would have to arrive at Madison Square Garden a full two-hours early thanks to demands from the Secret Service. “After careful coordination and assessment, the Secret Service and the NYPD jointly determined that outdoor watch parties could not be accommodated in the immediate vicinity of Madison Square Garden due to the security requirements,” said the special agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s New York field office, whose quote is only being included here because his name is literally “Matt McCool.” (Boy, Trump will hire anybody, won’t he?)
In yet another story involving reality show losers, insufferable former co-star of The Hills, Spencer Pratt, has hilariously fallen to third place in the race for who will take on Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass in November. Even better, Pratt has been bested by Los Angeles City Council member Nithya Raman—a Democratic Socialist 🤩—who is on the left of Bass. That said, more than 100,000 votes still need to be counted before Raman can celebrate the defeat of a fake-reality-turned-real-reality TV star.
And finally… me, waking up on Sunday morning to realize that, actually, it’s Monday morning.
