If you’re reading this, you probably know the value of the Mercury’s news reporting, arts and culture coverage, event calendar, and the bevy of events we host throughout the year. The work we do helps our city shine, but we can’t do it without your support. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND!👋

Oh, hello! Would you like your personal love note to run in the print version of the Portland Mercury (available at 500 spots around town) for Valentine's Day? Then listen up, love bugs! Today (Wednesday, January 15) is your LAST CHANCE to submit your FREE Mercury Reader Valentine for your schmoopy-woopy (AKA sex pal)! But don't fret—we'll still accept and print your valentines online (AKA the internet) through February 15. And now? Here's your daily dose of bullshit (AKA NEWS).

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• After furiously backpedaling last month on his plan to require all city employees to stop remote work and return to their downtown offices at least four days per week, Mayor Keith Wilson is reviving his failed (and wrong-headed) scheme—but this time he's ordering 700 NON-union workers (who can't refuse his demands) to return to the office. Here's your reminder that the city seemingly cares more about the health of downtown businesses and "foot traffic" than employees who prioritize increased productivity, taking care of their children, and not sitting in their cars during impossibly long commutes that they don't get paid for. Anyhoo, our Courtney Vaughn has the details!

• And speaking of labor matters: It took four days of striking for Providence healthcare management to decide to resume negotiating with the roughly 5,000 doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers who walked off the job on Friday. Management hasn't negotiated with union reps since they called for the strike on December 30. Striking workers are asking for higher pay, better working conditions, and more sane nurse-to-patient ratios.

Open the overnight warming shelters asap.

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— Kat Mahoney (@kmahoneylaw.bsky.social) January 14, 2025 at 11:41 PM

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson will require supervisors and managers to return full-time to city offices this spring.

In an announcement Tuesday, Wilson said starting in April, all supervisory and managerial employees will have to work in-person at their job sites, rather than the hybrid or remote schedules many of them currently maintain.

“Managers and supervisors set the tone and culture for staff across our city,” Wilson stated. “High-performing organizations across the nation have shown us it’s possible to bring people back together, while also remaining flexible.”

For all our complaints about music streaming platforms, you could argue that they deserve a little credit for revealing the flimsiness of our once-rigid borders around music styles. The breakdown of those genre walls has been felt far beyond playlists and record collections and now ripples even deeper into the lineups of genre-specific events like the upcoming Portland’s Folk Festival. 

The core of this two-day event, which goes down on January 17 and 18 at Crystal Ballroom and Lola’s Room, remains heartfelt songs of personal and social upheaval, primarily played on acoustic instruments. But organizers Scott Gilmore and Sarah Vitort—best known for the music that they make as Fox & Bones—are thoughtfully and wonderfully stretching the definition of folk to include everything from the psych-pop sounds of Presidio to singer Arietta Ward’s blistering funk and R&B.

“We want to create a wide berth around what folk music is,” Gilmore said. “I feel that folk music is about the intention set behind the music. It’s about saying something like, ‘What are you trying to express in your music?’ We want to make sure not to cut anyone off from that.”

The question “Why is this basketball team bad?” can make for some very complicated answers. Mismatched or redundant personnel, poor coaching, crummy work environment, archaic tactical makeup, “Bad Vibes”... all these things require lengthy explanations, but are still real, terrible reasons why your team can be sinking into the ocean. 

What a blessing for an author, as well as a team, that the Portland Trail Blazers, sitting on a 13-25 record and a whopping -8.3 Net Rating*, the 28th worst in the league this year, are not afflicted by these soft problems. No, the Blazers just don’t have enough good players. This is an uncommon problem for the team in their history, which has been, 54 or so seasons in, pretty good on the whole. The past bad versions of the Blazers were cursed by lengthy stretches of mediocrity, 30-year-old fringe all-stars stinking up the joint, charismatic guards lording over sadder and sadder fiefdoms. To just be “a team full of guys who aren’t good while their co-workers are too young to contribute,” that’s a new thing.

Can the Blazers get enough good players to turn this around, make the playoffs, and inspire a weary nation? No. They cannot. Halfway through the season, it’s apparent that if you want to see the Blazers win games on the regular, you’re going to have to wait. I know that’s really sad, especially if you live an unexamined life, rooting through the dirt looking for every corn niblet of pleasure you can get from this life.

My wife and I are a lesbian married couple in Chicago. We are also proud moms to our wonderful, dynamic 17-year-old trans son. “Michael” is a great kid, and we have always enjoyed a close relationship. It has recently come to light that he is engaging in penetrative sex with men he meets on a gay hookup app. We discovered this because of bloody laundry which we thought was breakthrough bleeding, a trip to his gender doc and a subsequent chlamydia diagnosis brought this all out. Since this revelation — and after a lecture about safe-sex practices — I am now living in a state of terror. I’m terrified our son will be a victim of sexual violence. I am terrified that he will be emotionally scarred by some fetishist. I am terrified he will get a life-threatening STI. My instincts are telling me to take a leave from work, and whisk him away from the city and talk and talk until he sees the danger of this behavior. Is that an over-reaction? Are there therapists who specialize in this? Is there any way this will work out well for him? I desperately want to do right by my son, and he is acting like this is “no big deal,” but my mama instincts are screaming shut this down!

Manic Over My Son

The stage of life your child is going through — the transition to adulthood autonomy (which kids do without a fully functioning pre-frontal cortex) — is filled with risk, and you can’t protect your child from all of it.

If you’re reading this, you probably know the value of the Mercury’s news reporting, arts and culture coverage, event calendar, and the bevy of events we host throughout the year. The work we do helps our city shine, but we can’t do it without your support. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

Good morning, Portland! We're in the thick of January, which is now bringing us very chilly weather. Expect fog throughout the early morning, with a partly sunny day and nighttime temperatures that could dip as low as 31 degrees. Buurrrrrr. 🥶

Let's check in on what's happening in the Rose City, and the rest of the world.

In Local News:

• The historical impacts of the city’s infrastructure development on Portland’s Albina neighborhood have been well documented. Now, with some federal funding and willpower, Portland’s Bureau of Transportation is studying ways to reconfigure an “overbuilt” I-405 off-ramp in an area that Albina residents say is blighted by poor land use and car-centric planning. Taylor Griggs has the latest on what’s in Albina’s future.

Much of Portland's historically Black Albina neighborhood was razed by highway projects in the mid-20th century, including the I-405 ramp on the east side of the Fremont Bridge. New federal funds may help the city scale back the "overbuilt" ramp's impact.

www.portlandmercury.com/news/2025/01...

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— Portland Mercury (@portlandmercury.bsky.social) January 13, 2025 at 4:54 PM

North Portland’s Boise and Eliot neighborhoods are some of the most walkable and bikeable in the city, with easy access to cafes, bars, and parks. New residential and commercial developments are popping up regularly in the neighborhoods, especially along North Mississippi Vancouver, and Williams Avenues. 

But some neighborhood residents and advocates say the area is blighted by poor land use and car-centric planning. One example is the I-405 ramp, located adjacent to N Kerby Ave between N Mississippi Ave and N Gantenbein Ave, which disconnected the surrounding street grid upon its construction more than 50 years ago. According to the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), the ramp is overbuilt for car traffic and could use scaling back. 

Our guide to the top things to do this week includes gems from Thee Sacred Souls to Colter Wall and Friends, from Timothy Egan to Hairspray, and much more.

MONDAY

LIVE MUSIC

Justin Timberlake - The Forget Tomorrow World Tour
So far, Justin Timberlake's Forget Tomorrow tour has been iconic for all the wrong reasons. Who could forget when Timberlake was pulled over for a DUI, reportedly saying to the officer, "This is going to ruin the tour—the world tour!" Then, on said tour, he went viral again for an embarrassing harness malfunction, which led to him sporting a longer shirt from there on out. It’s become clear to me that clowning on JT has brought people together during these tough times. So, I’m not recommending this concert because I think it will be good—However, with the right edible and cheap enough tickets, it could be a really good laugh. Plus, you get to hear Timbaland-produced bops like "My Love" and "SexyBack." AUDREY VANN
(Moda Center, Lloyd District)

Hi everyone! Welcome back to the Trash Report. I'm your girl, Elinor Jones. Now usually I like to start my column with a little check-in about how I'm feeling, so I'm sure you can understand me this week when I say: "not well, bitch." Things are bleak, y'all. In my household, Dry January has morphed into Damp January, and if the rest of this month keeps up at this clip, there's a decent chance we'll see Wet January, possibly even Flood January. Landslide January. Biblical Scenario January. My mental health and my liver depend on some things chilling the fuck out. But until then, let's talk about some trash?

Flames. On the Side of My State.

It was not possible this week to check in on any celebrity news because all celebrity coverage has been about the wildfires in LA—who has lost a home, whose home was only damaged, who is being helpful, and who is being horrible. Scrolling Instagram this past week has been a wild ride, with emotions vacillating wildly between shock, grief, immense love and gratitude for all of the compassion and humanity on display, and blinding rage at the systems that allowed this to happen and will continue to allow things like this to happen until emergencies cease to be profitable and dumbasses with huge followings and minimal media literacy sharing sensational stories about looting and arson. It sucks! I don't write about celebrities to write about "real issues," I write about celebrities because my actual life is very low-drama and I want to know who is fighting, who is hooking up, who is getting divorced, and who would be most likely to become my friend were I to become a celebrity (Kate McKinnon, Kate Hudson, Pedro Pascal, and Oprah AND Gayle [but neither without the other], obviously.) 

we have our answer to “will climate disasters cause the public to wake up and demand action” and the answer is lol, lmao

— Micah (@rincewind.run) January 9, 2025 at 8:30 AM

If you’re reading this, you probably know the value of the Mercury’s news reporting, arts and culture coverage, event calendar, and the bevy of events we host throughout the year. The work we do helps our city shine, but we can’t do it without your support. If you believe Portland benefits from smart, local journalism and arts coverage, please consider making a small monthly contribution, because without you, there is no us. Thanks for your support!

GOOD MORNING, PORTLAND!👋

Calling all lovebirds! 😻 Here's your LAST REMINDER to send in your FREE Mercury Reader Valentine for that special someone in your life by THIS WEDNESDAY, January 15! That is, if you want your lover to see their valentine IN PRINT in our upcoming Love/Sex Issue (in more than 500 spots around town)—though if you only care about the internet, we'll accept your valentines online through February 15. Will that satisfy your lovesick schmoopy-woopy, though? I guess we'll see! Now let's see some NEWS.

IN LOCAL NEWS:

• The local kids who participate in the daily "Bike Bus" program—the huge throng of school children and parents who bike to school each day—got a BIG thrill yesterday: Pop icon Justin Timberlake made a surprise appearance at a Bike Bus gathering (he was in town for his Moda Center show), and led 200 kids and parents on a half-mile ride through the Alameda neighborhood. The singer was asked to participate in the program a few months back, which got a huge reaction online. (I was going to make some Timberlake/bike related puns here, but the brilliant Elinor Jones already thought of all the good ones to put in this week's Trash Report... publishing in just a few minutes!)

 

 

 

 

 

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• Our Courtney Vaughn has the latest on the brand spankin' new sobering center that's opening up in Portland's Central Eastside neighborhood, which intoxicated folks under the influence of drugs or alcohol will be taken to instead of the emergency room or, worse, jail. Check out the story here.

GOOD MORNING, SUNDAY! It's the perfect time to catch up on some of the great reporting and stories the Mercury churned out this week! (PRO TIP: If you despise being "the last to know," then be one of the first to know by signing up for Mercury newsletters! All the latest stories shipped directly to your email's in-box... and then... YOUR HEAD.)

• Earl Blumenauer Reflects on Long Political Career and “Bike-Partisanship”

Earl Blumenauer, known for bow ties and biking, feels good about his political career—but says he made the right choice to step aside from a "dysfunctional" Congress. He now hopes to use what he learned in D.C. to help Portland in a time of transition.

• POP QUIZ PDX!

This week: Weird football mascots, inside the new City Council, and the greatest movie of all time! (That's "Twilight," in case you didn't know.) See how well YOU score!

•  Film Review: The Brutalist Looms Large

Everything about Brady Corbet's new film is big—the scale, the runtime, the acclaim.

Ever AFter
Artist Ariel Dunitz-Johnson founded this dedicated non-alcoholic bottle shop, tasting room, gallery, and gathering space inside Colibri in the hopes of providing a community hub for non-drinkers. They're currently offering two different Dry January kits: "Local Celebration" (a bundle of non-alcoholic spirits and mixers from local vendors, including Varnum, Wilderton, DHOS, Dappled Tonic, Sauvie Shrubs, Portland Syrups, For Bitter For Worse, and Portal Tea) and "Keepin' It Real (Functional)" (a bundle of "functional beverages" with beneficial ingredients and special properties, like Drømme Calm and Tropink Lilikoi Guava & Pineapple Yuzu).
Sabin

OPENINGS

Estes
Chef Patrick McKee, who previously worked as the executive chef at Perlott and worked for a decade under famed chef Vitaly Paley at Paley's Place, will soft open a new residency inside the Broder Nord space from January 16—17 and will debut walk-in service on January 18. Named after McKee's mother, Estes takes its inspiration from the homestyle family dinners McKee ate growing up, with dishes like cacio e pepe, handmade squid ink bucatini, and porchetta. McKee's friend Ben Preacher of Wilder will make cocktails, pour wine, and run the front-of-house operations.
Boise

Your guide to having a great weekend is here, with cheap and easy event suggestions from OMSI's Studio Ghibli Film Festival to a STRFKR DJ set and from BOLD Presents: Street Roots Zine Reading to a Winter Interest Walk at Leach Botanical Garden. For more ideas, check out our guide to the top events of the week.

FRIDAY

READINGS & TALKS

BOLD Presents: Street Roots Zine Reading
The intrepid members of the Street Roots Workers Guild just voted to formalize their union, so there's more than one reason to show up in support of the organization's annual zine. The zine serves multiple important functions: It provides extra income for Street Roots vendors during the holiday season and offers a platform for their eclectic stories. This publication release, held at the new-ish bookstore BOLD Coffee and Books, will include live poetry and prose readings by vendors. LINDSAY COSTELLO
(BOLD Coffee & Books, Goose Hollow, free)