The world will end in fire
Hey friends,
I'm pleased as punch to tell you that I'm DJ'ing at the Kenton Street Fair this weekend! Shoutout to Mo at Kenton Antiques for inviting me and to The Kenton Business Association for throwing the party.
World-class statue. Obviously the art for this year's fair is right up my alley with the ombre sunset gradient.
I'm DJ'ing between 3-4 pm on the Schofield Stage.
I firmly believe that Portland is a world-class city in many respects, and the Kenton neighborhood is home to so many essential places. Shoutout to one of the very best record stores in the world (Speck's), a fantastic public library, an all-time dive bar (the World Famous Kenton Club), and a gorgeous city park.
We live in the Piedmont neighborhood, but so many of my locals are in Kenton.
I’m working on a set of locals-only music featuring the likes of Old Grape God, Omari Jazz, Slick Devious, Trox, the Joggers, blangblanglang, Candid Ramblings, (The Last Artful, Dodgr), MAR’QEE$E, Echoik, Theory Hazit, Luvjonez, Sir Nai, Blossom, Janeiro Lockhart, [bryson, the alien], (Point Juncture, WA), spinitch, Fountaine, Mic Capes and more.
Come out and enjoy some of the best of what Portland has to offer!
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SHOWS I'VE HIT OR I'M PLANNING TO HIT
✓B. Cool-Aid at Doug Fir on August 15 (maybe my last show at the "old" Doug Fir location?)
✓The Clientele at Mississippi Studios on August 22 (still my favorite live rock band & 3 piece)
*King Krule at Roseland Theater on September 18 (fingers crossed)
*Thundercat at Edgefield on September 28 (also fingers crossed)
*Armand Hammer @ Polaris Hall on October 9
*Duster @ Wonder Ballroom on October 26
*Codeine @ Mississippi Studios on December 5
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RYAN FEIGH, THE REALIST
I want to send love and shine light on my friend Ryan Feigh, who left Portland in August to return home to Minnesota and his family after 22 years in Bridgetown. He is an absolutely crucial part of Portland music, having co-founded the indie record label Lucky Madison Records in 2003 with Kevin O'Connor of Talkdemonic. The label went on to release several of my favorite Portland records of the 2000s from bands like Modernstate, (Point Juncture, WA), Quiet Countries, Horse Feathers, Dykeritz and ((( In Mono ))).
Ryan was a prolific writer and editor for the Portland Mercury, and worked tirelessly to cover and promote Portland Hip-Hop in official and unofficial capacities. He produced and wrote a killer show called Doors at 8, and he has one of the slickest logos in the game. When I moved here in 2016, I started seeing him everywhere, as we were often the two middle-aged white men at the same show, whether it was local or touring artists.
Portland is gonna miss him, and I'll be singing his praises everywhere I go.
Slick, right?
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JURY DUTY
Lately, I've been haunted by wildfire.
In early April, I received a summons for jury duty at the Multnomah County Courthouse. Having never been called or served on a jury before, I felt the mix of curiosity and the fear of impending boredom that I'm sure must be somewhat universal. When I showed up for selection, there were 300 people there! For one jury!
We filled out a 30-page questionnaire about our background, education, and attitudes to some of the particulars of the case. At this point, I was aware that it was a case involving wildfire and a private utility company.
When I returned for final selection and voir dire, where lawyers get to ask prospective jurors direct questions, I became convinced that there was no way I'd get selected for the jury. There were 150 of us total that day! I have a Master of Forest Resources from University of Washington, and took lots of specific classes on the fire ecology of Pacific Northwest Forests. In 2009, I worked for the Fire Ecologist at North Cascades National Park. That summer, I was red-carded/certified as a wildland firefighter. I helped measure vegetation on some fire-effects plots near fires in Olympic & North Cascades National Parks, and helped with a prescribed burn on a grassland in San Juan Island National Historic Park, but I did not actively fight wildfire that summer. Still, I feel like my experience allowed me a look into the world of folks that are really, really smart about wildfire, and I made lots of friends from that experience that live and work in that world.
To my surprise, I was empaneled on the jury. The assignment was six weeks of testimony and two weeks of deliberation on a civil class-action case. I can tell you all of this and everything from here on out because I got sick twelve days into plaintiff's testimony, and was released from the jury.
When the trial started the last week of April, it turned our family life upside down. Suddenly, I had a nine-to-five that I didn't apply for, wasn't getting paid much for, and had no flexibility with. We scrambled to figure out how to drop off and pick up the girls from school, to get them to appointments, to continue the normal rhythm of our domestic life.
The trial itself was fascinating, engrossing, and deeply tragic. It was the class-action suit against PacifiCorp for the wildfires in Oregon on Labor Day Weekend 2020. I sat through twelve days of testimony from plaintiff's witnesses before I got sick. These included plaintiffs in the class that had lost everything to the fire that weekend, had seen PacifiCorp's equipment starting the fires in some cases. It included expert witnesses that explained how weather, climate change, fire ecology and behavior, and electrical systems converged on that day under conditions outside of the historic record. It was pretty brutal to bear witness to.
The weekend of Labor Day 2020 was always going to be burned in my memory, before the trial even began. The hellish year of 2020 had drug through the cabin-fever COVID spring to a summer of discontent and malice with the Portland Police Bureau. Protests had gone on nightly through the summer for three straight months. The heat was getting unbearable. Forecasts were warning of a big east wind event, and it was dry everywhere.
Enchanted Forest, near Salem, OR, on September 8th
Red skies over Canby, OR on Wednesday, Sept. 9. Photo by Rachel Peters
Through the trial, I was unable to think about much else. I was really bummed to have gotten sick (pinkeye from the kids, and it was gross), because I wanted to see the trial through to the end. I feel like I went in with a mind as impartial and open to explanation and fact as I could, but frankly, after twelve days of plaintiff testimony, I wanted to hear what the corporation's laywers had to say for themselves.
I continued to watch the trial from the public gallery, which was wild in and of itself. After I was released from the jury, I read up on all the coverage of the trial, remembered so many of the stories from that summer that were left out of the trial, and generally got to witness the defense do the slimiest shit to try to weasel out of accountability.
These lines from billy woods & Kenny Segal's "Hangman" looped in my head:
An ill wind blows, saplings bend
The bird in hand, squeezed dead
And this passage:
"If now the dead of this fire should awaken and I should be stopped beside a cross, I would no longer be nervous if asked the first and last question of life, How did it happen?"
Norman Maclean, Young Men and Fire
And this line:
"And what do you do about aridity, if you are a nation inured to plenty and impatient of restrictions and led westward by pillars of fire and cloud? Then you must either adapt to it or try to engineer it out of existence."
--Wallace Stegner, The American West as Living Space
The jury found against the corporation, which you can read about below if you are interested. The jury "re-convened" for a social a few weeks ago and invited me to join. They told me a hilarious story in which I nearly caused a mistrial for some tweets. It was either the one where I insulted the defense's lead council (after I'd been dismissed from the jury) or the one where I tweeted "god bless that fuckin' jury" on the day that the jury in the Pacificorp trial had reached their verdict, which coincided with the day the Trump grand jury released 34 indictments against the big guy. Wild coincidence!
Timeline/selected reading list regarding 2020 Labor Day fires in Oregon and the lawsuit against PacifiCorp
April 21, OPB: Jury selection in 2020 Oregon wildfire lawsuit against PacifiCorp begins Monday
May 11, OPB: As PacifiCorp trial wears on, attorneys blame executives for Oregon wildfire inaction
May 22, OPB: As 2020 wildfire trial defense begins, PacifiCorp offers competing experts to jury
June 2, The Oregonian: PacifiCorp’s lawyers rest their defense case in $1.6 billion wildfire lawsuit
June 7, OPB: Jury begins deliberations in 2020 Labor Day wildfire lawsuit against PacifiCorp
June 8, The Oregonian: Wildfire class action suit against PacifiCorp goes to jury
June 12, OPB: Jury finds PacifiCorp owes more than $73 million for causing 2020 Oregon wildfires
June 14, the Oregonian: PacifiCorp must pay $18 million in punitive damages to 17 plaintiffs for its role in four Labor Day 2020 wildfires
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DJ NONSENSE
I made a few Spotify playlists to highlight my favorite albums & songs in a few different genres. For my favorite stuff, the music coming out of Portland, please select this playlist. For my favorite rap and R&B of 2023, select this playlist. And for indie rock and/or anti-genre music, please select this playlist.
The HELLFISH had their first DJ sets in 18 months back in June. Muntz came through town and we played a night at Up North Surf Club and the next day at Speck's Records.
Earl "The SewingMan" Marson showed up for the last hour of the set and offered a non-stop rub-a-dub toasting, singing, and deejaying session that was magic. Wish you all could've been there.
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CHILE
Santiago
Iquique
Bootlegos from the Chinese mall
Def still pissed I didn't buy this hat.
Jos, hamming it up in the theater in a mining ghost town called Humberstone.
In Iquique, fishing, commerce, and mining are king. 
Jos is about to unhinge her jaw to eat a quarter of Marraqueta.
Jos, with her work inspired by Van Gogh, with the best graffiti I've ever seen on a school
APPENDIX
2022 FAVES
Lamely failed to share my 2022 faves at the end of the year. This is the content that you demand of me, and so better late than never.
"Bad Habit" was easily the jam of the year last year. The SNL performance was the first time I've been interested in one of those in years! LOVED having an album from the Last Artful, Dodgr, who is perennially one of my favorite artists/singers/rappers/people. MIKE came out guns blazing at the end of the year with what may be his best album, Beware of the Monkey. My favorite rapper right now is AJ Suede from Seattle and I cannot recommend his music highly enough.
Nx Lonely Hearts faves last year were Yahritza y su Esencia from Yakima, WA, who first came to my attention via this L.A. Times article from April 2022. Enumclaw are the best Pacific Northwest rock band in forever. Kate Bollinger's EP Look at it in the Light was perfect, which is not a descriptor I bestow lightly on EPs.
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DJ MR. MOM
North Portland, OR
Aug 26 2023