Category: Portland, Oregon Local News

When Justin Townes Earle rolled into Portland in 2016, he had already lived a long life for a 34-year-old. Born in Nashville, Earle had been making music since he was a kid and earning plenty of comparisons to his father, country rabble-rouser Steve Earle, along the way. Determined to bust out of his father’s shadow, he saw a musical breakthrough with 2010’s Harlem River Blues, which set dark urban legends full of suicide, subways, and addiction to old-time gospel, folk, and country-blues music. His blend of city life and country music helped define the style of music that would become known as Americana.

While Earle found fame, he also found alcohol and drugs and bar fights and addiction and demons that would plague him for much of his life. Still, he was starting a new chapter with marriage and impending fatherhood and his own version of sobriety, and Portland was the place it was all going to happen.

“He was attempting to move into the next stage of his life and adulthood, and he sort of became a domestic person, in some ways,” explains Jonathan Bernstein, the author of What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome, a new, authorized biography of Earle. “There are some really sweet stories from his first year in Portland—of him driving around with a friend, putting his house together with [wife] Jenn Marie, and picking up equipment or furniture that they found on Craigslist. He was having these conversations with his friend, Andy Moore, about fatherhood and what that could mean for him, and he was actually in a really pretty solid place. I think the city at first was a really kind of calming, positive influence on him.” Sadly, the birth of his daughter and the lure of domesticity weren’t enough to keep the many, many demons at bay. 

Lonesome doesn’t shy away from telling the unvarnished truth of Earle’s life and legacy, all with the blessing and help of his wife, Jenn Marie Earle, as well as the family, friends, and colleagues who knew Earle. Bernstein was well prepared for the task, after coming to know Earle first as a fan.

“I stumbled onto him by going to see him at a club in Minnesota, where I was going to college in 2009,” Bernstein says. “My friend was working for the college radio station. He got a free ticket to see Earle play and wasn’t able to go, so he gave it to me. It was one of those shows that changed my life as a music fan.” Since that fateful show, Bernstein has chronicled the life and music of the singer-songwriter.

When Earle died, it deeply unsettled Bernstein. “I was surprised at how much I was shaken by his death,” he says. “I kind of spent that whole fall speaking to people who knew him. I started talking to his widow for the first time, and started talking to his old bandmates back in Nashville.” That culminated in a 2021 Rolling Stone article, “The Ballad of Justin Townes Earle,” which opened the door to this book. 

“I felt like it was just the bare beginnings of trying to understand this person and just how profound and complex and larger than life his life was, and also just barely understanding how complex, multifaceted, multi-layered, and genius his songwriting was,” Bernstein says. “I just couldn’t stop thinking about him and his music.” Bernstein kept interviewing people about Earle and soon a book was born. 

Lonesome documents the dark and the light of Earle’s life and legacy. He digs into the backstories behind Earle’s most famous songs and chronicles his life, from his early days in Nashville to his time on the road and in the studio, onstage and off. He also, of course, talks about Earle’s time in Portland. 

While Earle lived in town, he was sober-ish. He and Jenn Marie had been living in a very small town in Northern California. According to Bernstein, she had originally thought the isolation from bad influences would be good for her husband, but while there, he stopped taking Suboxone, the medication that helped temper his darker cravings. When they found out they were expecting a child, they decided to move to Portland, closer to hospitals and city life. Before they could make the move, Earle drunkenly drove his car into a tree, totaling it.

By the time the family got to Portland, Earle’s substance use was creeping upwards. Even in a 2017 interview with Portland Monthly, he mentioned weed and whiskey. and Bernstein’s book says he was microdosing acid, too. Still, he and Jenn Marie set up their house in Laurelhurst and got ready for the arrival of their baby. Earle was excited to be a father. He spent time writing songs, playing shows in Portland, heading to Omaha to record, and embarking on a European tour. Earle expected to make it home in time for the birth of his daughter, but she came early, and he was still traveling. There’s an argument to be made that missing the birth of his daughter was a tipping point for Earle. Instead of returning home to meet his new little girl, he vanished for days. His drug use continued and, with it, his violent moments, too. 

It all came to a head in the summer of 2018 when the police were called to the couple’s home in Portland to respond to what Bernstein calls “a domestic violence case.” It was decided that Earle would go back to rehab in Texas. He had one night in Portland and, instead of spending it with his wife and daughter, he went out. “It was one last hurrah before rehab,” Bernstein says. “He spent all night just trying to procure whatever he could procure in bars and got as messed up as he could, and ended up in the middle of Old Town at three or four in the morning, just talking with whoever he met. He just wanted to spend a night of oblivion in Portland, before being placed on a plane to go to rehab in Texas.” Rehab didn’t stick and neither did Portland. Earle went back to Nashville, where he died in 2020 from an accidental overdose due to a combination of alcohol and cocaine that was laced with fentanyl. He was 38, his daughter was three.

Despite the dark chapters in his life, Bernstein wants people to recognize the power and persistence of Earle’s art, the love he had for his family, and that, despite it all, he has remained a musical hero and, ironically, a model of sobriety for many people. “Even though Justin’s life ended tragically, he made so many amazing and beautiful connections in his life,” says Bernstein. “He left behind such a profound body of work that I think people are going to be discovering for decades.”

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What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome was published on January 13 and is available in stores now.

About a year ago I moved in with childhood best friend and his husband. We’re all in our mid-thirties. It’s been going great, and I consider the three of us to be fairly close. About a month ago, the husband and I stopped at the local pharmacy on the way home, which is how our various medications wound up in a pile on the table. While trying to dig my meds out from said pile, I noticed one of his prescriptions that I know can either be used as PrEP or as treatment for HIV. (I work in medicine.)

Through conversations with my friends/roommates, I know they are in a closed relationship, so I believe this means the husband has HIV and is treating it. I shouldn’t say anything to either of them, right? I don’t consider it any of my business (he’s treating it! I’m not sleeping with either of them! they’re monogamous!), but I could imagine a world where one or both of them is anxious about my reaction if I were to find out. I’m close to childhood bestie’s family, who I’m 99% sure don’t know. (I would never, ever tell them, of course.) What say you, Dan? Do I take this to the grave?

Getting Real About Viral Eyeful

This is none of your business… which you claim to know, GRAVE, and yet here you are wondering what, if anything, you should do.

Nothing. You should do nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Seeing as your childhood best friend’s husband couldn’t be bothered to hide his meds from his relatively new roommate — that would be you — we can safely assume he isn’t hiding them from his husband. So, you can rest assured your childhood best friend knows what’s up and you don’t have a duty to warn him. Also, if they were anxious about your reaction to one of them having HIV, GRAVE, they wouldn’t have let you — someone who works in medicine — dig through a pile of their prescriptions.

There’s a reason this guy gets those meds and, again, his husband surely knows what that reason is. Maybe your bestie’s husband was HIV+ before they met and he has an undetectable viral load (thanks to these medications) and your bestie is not at any risk of acquiring HIV. (Undetectable = untransmissible.) Or maybe your childhood best friend is HIV+ and on meds and has an undetectable viral load and his husband takes PrEP for an added layer of protection. Or maybe they’re open but they don’t feel comfortable talking with you about it — not all open gay couples are out to their straight friends about being non-monogamous — and they take PrEP daily or PrEP on demand to protect themselves on those rare/special occasions when they fuck around with other guys. (Birthdays, anniversaries, Pride Month, Lent, Labor Day, Arbor Day, Memorial Day, Tuesdays, Thursdays, the Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, etc.)

It’s also possible the most important people in their lives know why they’re taking those telltale meds but they didn’t feel comfortable telling you. And seeing as your first impulse after spotting those meds was to wonder whether you needed to INFORM THEIR FAMILIES that one or the other or both of them might be HIV+ or that they might be one of those gay couples that define monogamy as “we only have sex with each other and only have sex with other people together,” GRAVE, maybe they were right not to tell you.

I know, I know: you immediately ruled out telling their families, GRAVE, and you deserve credit for that. (Self-regulation for the win!) But the fact that you had to had to rule it out — the fact that you had squelch the impulse — is a little concerning. Not an indictment of your character or anything! But if your first thought when you found evidence your childhood these guys might be fucking other people was, “Do their mothers know?”, then they might not be telling you things they don’t want their moms to know for a good reason.

If there’s something this couple wants to you know about their health or their sex life, they’ll tell you. In the meantime, GRAVE, you can prove yourself worthy of their trust by respecting their privacy — and for roommates, respecting privacy often means not bringing up something you only learned about because you’re roommates. And since there’s a good chance your friend’s husband clocked you clocking his meds, GRAVE, if you do the right thing here — if you demonstrate discretion and chill — he might feel comfortable opening up to you about his health and their sex life. But let him initiate that conversation.

 

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I’m on SSI in low-income housing. I’m a 54-year-old man and still a virgin. Since I was a child, I have always liked women’s legs and feet. I love pantyhose. I masturbate every night to what I hear and see about that, especially Tiffani Thiessen. I was worried that I had scarred the underside of my penis, but I’ve been given a clean bill of health by a specialist. With these things in mind, I think a nurse is my best fit since they’re sexual and they can examine me. There was actually an ad on Craigslist a few years ago about rooming with two nurses. Ideally, I’d like to find a similar living situation in the Dallas area, due to the milder climate. Additionally, I think Dallas offers the best chance for me to find a job that fits my educational background and get off SSI. (Finding a relationship while poor or indigent is impossible.) While I would obviously have heavy sexual motives regarding nurse roommates, I don’t want to hurt anyone or ask them to commit malpractice. Perhaps rooming with a nurse or two who works in research, or some other non-invasive field would be a safer bet? If you know someone who could help me, please let me know.

Needs Understanding Roommates Sexual Efforts

Only you can help you, NURSE, and disabusing yourself of this delusion — that hot nurses enjoy examining the penises of 54-year-old virgins — is the single most important thing you can do to help yourself.

If you want to live in Dallas, if you have decent job prospects in Dallas, by all means, NURSE, move to Dallas. Get a job, get your own place, and get roommates if you need help making rent. But springing your kinks on a new roommate or roommates — whether they’re nurses or not — won’t get you what you want. Your roommates aren’t going to examine your dick just because you asked. Your roommates are going to box up your shit, put it on the porch, and have the locks changed while you’re at work.

Here’s a better plan: get a job, get a place, get a couple of roommates to cut your living expenses — roommates you wouldn’t be tempted to hit on — and save your money to hire a sex worker. There are plenty of sex workers out there who would happily wear pantyhose and pretend to be nurses while they examine your cock for signs of wear and tear.

 

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I’m a 50-something penis owner with a factory-installed attraction to diapers. As a committed ABDL switch, I’ve had the luxury of building my own special clothing collection and a nursery, and I occasionally visit the most extraordinary Mommy Dom. (Shout out to Mistress Morgana in SF!) For the past five years, I’ve also played online daddy to a very cute adult baby girl who’s my part-time slutty piglet. I’ve arrived at a point where my morning wood distresses me and ejaculating to relieve it makes me unhappy all day. I find the idea of owning smaller, less excitable genitals very appealing. Can you please offer some more detailed advice, other than suggesting that a cage will cause damage to one’s erectile tissue?

Sad About Manhood

 

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Read the rest of this week’s column here! And this week on the Lovecast: 

Have we reached peak poly drama? A queer woman has been open with her male live-in partner, having lots of great sex with him and others. The problem? His cat won’t pay any attention to her. She doesn’t feel jealous of the humans in their lives, but this cat!

A widowed 81 year-old woman has taken up with her 56 year-old gardener. But he went and confessed to his priest who told him to cut it out. Should she try to convince him to keep loving her up?

On the Magnum, enter Eric Williams, comedian and host of That’s A Gay Ass Podcast. Dan torments his very homosexual guest by asking him to answer a question about cunnilingus. Also discussed: What made them gay? And here’s a PSA: Please leave the actors of Heated Rivalry alone. LISTEN HERE!

I’m all for saving water, but you leaving your pee soaking in the toilet to avoid a flush is futile. Why? Because, when I sit down to take a number 2, there’s no way in hell I’m going to allow your urinary splashback to spray my open butthole. What kind of a strategy is this?

It feels like just yesterday Jimetta Rose & The Voices of Creation and Derya Yıldırım & Grup Şimşek were transforming the Woods Stage into a forested cathedral out at Pendarvis Farm in 2025. Alas, we are, in fact, at almost exactly the furthest—when thinking in terms of linear time—point away from Pickathon we can possibly be. From July 30 to August 2, 2026, Pickathon will be celebrating its 26th year of turning the lush hills around Happy Valley into one of the most diverse music destinations in the Pacific Northwest.

But fret not, fellow Pump House partiers, Pickathon just dropped their 2026 music lineup and it’s a goodie! In what I’m coming to understand as their high-bar-setting curation of dazzling music from around the world, the festival continues their groove and dance-heavy tradition in 2026. 

At first glance, the Pickathon 2026 lineup crown jewels include original bossa nova baddie Marcos Valle, Portland’s Afrofuturists The Cosmic Tones Research Trio, Australia’s serene Folk Bitch Trio, famous daughters The Womack Sisters, Sabbathian worshipers Acid King, the PDX post-punks Buddy Wynkoop, and the electronic psych-cumbia of Terror/Cactus.

If you’re a bit turned off knowing only a small handful of the almost 50 band initial lineup, you’re not alone. Friends of mine had been trying to get me out to Pickathon for 13 years by the time I made the Pendarvis pilgrimage in 2025, the shortcomings in my own music knowledge informing my decision to continually miss the festival I now plan on attending into perpetuity. Don’t let the unknown frighten you!

That’s the beauty of Pickathon, you’re bound to discover several new lifetime favorites every year. Maybe it’ll be Jimetta Rose or Derya Yıldırım, or maybe it’ll be Geese who played the festival in 2024 and were the musical guest on Saturday Night Live last week. You truly never know what you’re going to discover at Pickathon. It’s an “I saw them at” festival of the highest order. If you see a band you’re even remotely into on the Woods Stage or in the Barn, you’re gonna fall in love, guaranteed. 

On first listen, beyond what I was already familiar with, there is, of course, heaps of good music coming to the farm this summer. LA-based bands The Altons and Thee Sinseers are playing together, slow-groovin’ with their updated doo-wop sounds; the outsider cumbia of the Bogotá-based Meridian Brothers; experimental noodling à la Mary Halvorson, Black girl magic hip-hopper who knows she’s the shit Sa-Roc; Jamaica born, Seattle-based original reggae head Clinton Fearon; Mexico City’s beatmaker supreme Mexican Institute of Sound; Friendship sounding deeply like Jason Molina; the Yemenese psych of El Khat (probably the most exciting artist I was unfamiliar with on the lineup); Dylan Earl’s politically sound outlaw country; and the PJ Harvey-esque intensity rollercoaster that is Prewn. 

We’re well covered with the initial 2026 announcement, but if I may, it would be so incredibly excellent to get a bit more hip-hop and punk/hardcore music over the weekend. Portland do be going off with artists like Karma Rivera, Tasa D, Keeks, and Omari Jazz holding it down in the hip-hop realm. Nonbinary Girlfriend, Boltcutter, Gossip, and Bijoux Cone would all crush their punk sets at Pickathon. Gouge Away in the Barn? Satan’s Pilgrims on Cherry Hill? TOODY COLE OR URAL THOMAS ON THE WOODS STAGE!? But I digress, Pickathon’s 2026 lineup is exceptionally expansive as is—but you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take…

And y’all, this is just an announcement feature. There will be more Pickathon coverage as we approach the festivities. Look forward to Mercury writer Holly Hazelwood and I pulling together our must-sees of the festival, as well as Hazelwood’s annual “Pickathon How-To” feature. And still to be announced? The DJ, food, literary, comedy, wellness, art, and kids programming are all still TBA. Stay tuned!

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Pickathon takes place July 30 to August 2 at Pendarvis Farm in Happy Valley, Oregon. More info and tickets here. 

Limited detention and transportation capacity have likely helped keep Oregon’s immigration detention rate among the nation’s lowest. But ICE may be trying to change that.

Guard your buns, because this Monday marks the beginning of the Mercury‘s Wiener Week! Plus, electropop and avant-garde musicians are coming to town, and did you know you can see a film at Laurelhurst Theater for only seven bones on Tuesdays? On a more serious note, if you’re in a blue mood due to… everything happening all the time always, that’s not just understandable, it’s logical. We’ve got you with a few ways to bear witness and community-build around those feelings. This week, The Voice of Hind Rajab centers the story of the five-year-old killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2024, and on January 31, half your ticket cost for Mississippi Masala will benefit the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition.

Monday, January 26

The Portland Mercury’s Wiener Week 2026

The Portland Mercury proudly presents its newest, most mouthwatering member of the Food Week Family: Wiener Week! From January 26 to February 1, the city’s boldest chefs will craft their most creative, flavor-packed wieners for just $8 a pop. Whether you like ’em spicy, saucy, or piled high with unexpected toppings, we promise these buns will be packed with something new and exciting! And a special thanks from our pals at Zenner’s, Jim Beam, Portland Bangers and Travel Portland for all their support! (Various locations, Jan 26-Feb 1, $8 per wiener, more info) MERCURY STAFF

Austra

Canadian electropop artist Austra last played Portland in 2022, supporting her improvisational and experimental 2020 album HiRUDiN. Rewinding to the beginning of the project, Katie Stelmanis originally released music under her own name but pivoted to using her middle name when she added a few friends for live shows in 2010. Fun fact: Austra is also the name of the goddess of light in Latvian mythology, which fittingly describes what it feels like to listen to the musician’s fifth full-length Chin up Buttercup, released in November 2025 after a half-decade break since her previous album. Her latest work builds and swells, with danceable irreverence punctuating moody heartbreak like sun breaking through clouds. (Mississippi Studios, 3939 N Mississippi, 8 pm, $32.21, more info, 21+) SHANNON LUBETICH

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Tuesday, January 27

Thrifty Tuesdays at Laurelhurst Theater

Blow off your Netflix scroll, because Laurelhurst Theater has the most comfortable seats in Portland and all-day matinee ticket prices on Tuesdays! This week, you could catch up on Mercury recommended flicks like Dead Man’s Wire, Marty Supreme, or 28 Years Later: Bone Temple, a film with a dance performance so epic it earned theater-wide applause at my showing. (Laurelhurst Theater, 2735 E Burnside, $7, showtimes at laurelhursttheater.com, 21+, minors can attend with a parent before 8 pm) SUZETTE SMITH

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Wednesday, January 28

OMSI After Dark: Into the Abyss

With over 80 percent of the ocean unexplored by humans, who knows what terrors lurk beneath the waves? OMSI’s first After Dark night of the year accompanies the special exhibit Into the Abyss, which examines aquatic predators of the past and present that are known to us, bringing fascinating facts further to light. If you want to explore the fossils and live animals without competing with kiddos for prime viewing space, visit on this 21+ night, which will feature a squid dissection (very high school biology class!), VR experiences, themed vendors, and more. (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI), 1945 SE Water, 6-10 pm, $27, more info, 21+) BRI BREY

Cate Le Bon

Cate Le Bon’s avant-garde artistic output has garnered comparisons to David Bowie, Nico, and Laurie Anderson, and while that’s a stressful and towering list of musical iconoclasts for the Welsh musician to live up to, here’s the thing: It’s accurate. Le Bon’s new album Michelangelo Dying crafts surreal soundscapes with a neopsychedelic, arty sensibility that feels both Cocteau Twins-esque and completely singular. She’ll drop by Revolution Hall to perform selections from the album, which opens with the silky, beguiling “Jerome”: “Gently read my name/Cry/And find me here/I’m eating rocks.” (Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, 8 pm, $38.11, more info, all ages) LINDSAY COSTELLO

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Thursday, January 29

Sibelius & Grieg

Oregon Symphony offers a banquet of Nordic music with this trifecta of works. First course is The Swan of Tuonela by Finnish classical icon Jean Sibelius, an emotive tone poem prelude which offers the listener a brief sprig of spring. Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16 by Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg follows with a meaty three movements. You’ve heard sections of this piece in films, but if you haven’t heard it together, you haven’t truly enjoyed it. The main course—a desert for dinner of sounds—is a “Romantic Swedish jewel” by Wilhelm Stenhammar, conducted by music director David Danzmayr. (Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, Thurs Jan 29-Sun Feb 1, $35-148, more info, all ages) SS

Counterpoints

If you’re unfamiliar with minimalist musical pioneer Steve Reich, you’re forgiven. But those interested in ambient musical composition or his contemporaries—Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Pauline Oliveros—should maybe change that, and Third Angle’s Counterpoints offers an opportunity. In celebration of Reich’s 90th birthday, they’ve created an interactive experience. A timed-entry ticket allows visitors to wander Hopscotch’s neon-lit art exhibitions while Third Angle soloists perform Reich’s Counterpoints: New York, Electric, Vermont, and Cello. (Hopscotch, 1020 SE 10th, timed entry 6-9 pm, $5-$60, more info) LC

Also worth it:

The Voice of Hind Rajab, Cinema 21, more info
Tunisian director Kaouther Ben Hania’s film tracks the efforts of the Palestine Red Crescent Society to save a little girl trapped in a car in Gaza, who was eventually killed by Israeli forces.  

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Friday, January 30

The Play That Goes Wrong

Arthur Miller once called theater “so endlessly fascinating because it’s so accidental. It’s so much like life.” This meta-production of a play within a play embraces the chaos inherent in stage performance, following the story of an opening gone completely off the rails. The absolute disaster production of the 1920s murder mystery Murder of Haversham Manor by the amateur Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society is beset with failed props, forgotten lines, and general mayhem. Rest assured that anything that can go wrong will, as the cast desperately hurdles toward the final curtain. (Portland Center Stage, 128 NW 11th, various times through Sun Feb 15, $25-86, more info, all ages) BB

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Saturday, January 31

Mississippi Masala

Mira Nair—a filmmaker with a keen eye for cultural narratives who also happens to be New York mayor Zohran Mamdani’s mom—directed this romance between Mina (Sarita Choudhury), an Indian-Ugandan woman, and a Black Southerner carpet cleaner named Demetrius (Denzel Washington). Screening as part of Clinton Street Theater’s Color & Sound series, the film’s cross-genre soundtrack and vibrant palette will shake off the post-holiday grays, and half of ticket proceeds go to support the Portland Immigrant Rights Coalition’s legal defense and rapid response work. (Clinton Street Theater, 2522 SE Clinton, 7 pm, $10, more info, R) LC

Akaash Singh: Generational Triumph Tour

As someone who only has a marginal interest in stand-up comedy, I discovered Akaash Singh via clips on YouTube. Even through a screen, he hooked me with his next-level crowd work, roasting audience members off the cuff as easily as picking lint off a sweater. For his biggest tour yet, he promises “the best comedy [he’s] ever written.” As a fellow Asian person, I hope the tour’s “Generational Triumph” theme means he’s found a way to solve generational trauma. Bless. (Revolution Hall, 1300 SE Stark, 7 pm, $43.76 – $78.91, more info, all ages) JANEY WONG

Oregon 2026 Lunar New Year Celebration

Welcome to the Year of the Horse! Specifically, the fire horse, which trots by but once in a 60-year cycle, and portends dynamic energy, passion, and transformation for 2026. Oregon’s largest Lunar New Year event returns, celebrating a couple weeks early with a packed entertainment schedule made possible by over 300 performers. Chinese acrobatic champions the Myth Duo perform their captivating masterpiece “Strength & Beauty,” a troupe of youth dancers flutter around in the Ponyo-inspired dance number “Koi Spirits,” and galloping rhythms will thunder through the auditorium during the Chinese folk instrumental piece “Saima.” It’ll be a feast for the eyes and ears as the community ushers in an abundant year ahead. (Keller Auditorium, 222 SW Clay, 7:30 pm, $34.25, more info, all ages) JW

Also worth it:

Earth to You: Guitar Players Respond to a Story About a Guitar Player, Portland Institute for Contemporary Art (PICA), more info
Pulling inspiration from a short story in local writer-educator Sara Jaffe’s 2025 collection Hurricane Envy, eight of Jaffe’s favorite guitar players will share new compositions.

The Lesbian Lookbook, Live, Frances May, more info
Lesbian Culture Club transforms a downtown boutique into a fashion show, celebrating queer archetypes, like the Suit, the High Femme, the Soft Butch, the Power Lesbian, the Butch, and the Gender Queer.

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Sunday, February 1

Pamela Hadley: Holding Me, Holding You

The “art will save us all” mentality is the only thing getting me through these bleak news days, so even the title of this new exhibit by time-based light artist Pamela Hadley—Holding Me, Holding You—sounds comforting. Using projection-mapped animation and sound composition, this immersive experience invites you into a dark space where you’ll follow small light pathways to discover the full-room installation. Slowness and stillness open the door for observing more of the exhibit’s inner and outer landscapes. (Carnation Contemporary, 8371 N Interstate, Sat-Sun 12-5 pm Jan 10-Feb 1, more info, all ages) BB

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Looking for even more events happening this week? Head on over to EverOut!

Hey friends. I am writing this on Sunday. My daughter and I like to snuggle on the couch and watch dumb Instagram reels on my phone together on the weekends, and but yesterday ICE shot a man to death in Minneapolis, so I had turn my phone away from her to make sure a news feed wasn’t autoplaying his murder before I could click onto cat videos. So, yeah. How are all of you doing?

I still wanted to write some funny things for you, even though this is a really, really sad, and bad time. Maybe it was more for me than for you, I don’t know. Anyway, here’s the Trash Report.

I Guess the Couch Had a Headache

J.D. and Usha Vance announced this week that they are having their fourth child, a boy, later this year. This is psychotic. Normal people are too sad and depressed and bloated to do anything but look at our phones and cry right now, and these sickos are actually getting off on it. The cruelty is the point. I hope their son has a good and safe life. Really, I do. But his parents? I hope they lie awake in terror everything fucking night of their lives for the danger that their brown-skinned son will experience while living in America. I hope they never know a moment’s peace.   

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt is also pregnant, as is Stephen Miller’s wife Katie. The worst people are getting laid right now. They’re not just “fine” with everything going on right now; they’re like into it.

Posh and Becks and Becks and Peltz

After years of rumors, Brooklyn Beckham took to Instagram last week to call out his famous parents for being horrible to his wife, Nicola Peltz, for a) ruining their wedding, b) trying to copyright and brand everything in their lives, and c) faking it all for social media. Bless this young man for giving us this news during an otherwise extremely bleak news cycle! He could have dropped this information at any time, but doing it during one of the worst Januaries of our lives was a gift. I checked, and Brooklyn was born in England, which means he can be knighted, and he deserves it for this alone. 

Two Feud, Two Feudious

The ongoing legal drama between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni also hit new heights this week with the release of several emails from Lively’s camp to other celebrities and back. And honestly? They were pretty fun! After digging through the barely literate Epstein emails, this was some Shakespearean shit. That said, it’s not clear why they tried to rope Ben Affleck into the whole thing, except just to show Baldoni that their friends are cooler? That said, I’ve read Jenny Slate‘s books and I trust her judgment completely, so when she calls him a fraud, I definitely believe it. What I did not see in the emails, however, was anyone making fun of Baldoni for having a weirdly long giraffe neck. I definitely would have started all of my mean, complain-y emails with that. Plus he’s always wearing his shirts partway unbuttoned, so his neck looks even longer. His publicists truly do him no favors. Or maybe they hate him, too.

Feud 3: Tokyo Drift

There is just so much DRAMA this week! The newest season of Queer Eye is coming out on Netflix, and culture darling Karamo Brown backed out of doing press at the last minute to protect his mental health and because he was worried about getting bullied by Antoni, Tan, and JVN. Who would bully Karamo?! He’s the nice one! There needs to be another Queer Eye reboot where this cast gets Queer Eye’d and a future culture expert gives them the Karamo treatment and heals them all.

Okay. another TV thing (although I don’t think this counts as a feud): beloved judge Prue Leith is stepping down from Great British Bake Off. She’s stepping down because she’s kind of old—85!!!—and filming takes a toll, so I get it, even though it’s too bad. She’s so sweet and I always love seeing what kind of weird jewelry she’s going to wear. I just hope this doesn’t mean that Paul Hollywood thinks he’s holding down the show. Buddy, we watch it in spite of you, not because of you.

Awards Season

The Academy Award nominations came out last week and there were definitely some surprises! I say this not as a person who consumes all the smart movies (I am too busy and dumb), but as a voracious consumer of the culture. And I can’t believe that Wicked: For Good was locked out! I am not surprised, however, that The Rock was not nominated for his movie The Smashing Machine, although some were. I just don’t think we can live in a world where The Rock has an Oscar, but Amy Adams does not. You know? But I wonder if people have grown fatigued of actors trying to leverage fighting films into awards. Sydney Sweeney clearly tried this with Christy and that fell flat, too. If I was an actor I would take this as a sign that I no longer needed to get into shape to get a role. My imaginary acting life just got so much easier, you guys.

Speaking of movies, apparently a new Chris Pratt action movie called Mercy just overtook a third Avatar movie at the box office. There’s a third Avatar movie?? That was popular?!? Who is going to see these things?? There’s like, a whole universe of people who do very different things from me, I think. 

Papal Trash

Harry Styles is finally releasing new music, and he’s also finally addressed why he was in Rome for the newest Pope’s conclave: It’s for the very relatable reason that he went to Rome for a haircut and since he was close by, he stopped by to see what the fuss was about. As one does. 

Local Trash

ICE is everywhere and it’s scary AF, which is why the staff vs. leadership standoff between the nurse’s union and Legacy hospital leadership is extra stressful: as Taylor and Jeremiah wrote, the hospital is trying to say that the union’s public statement on ICE presence in the hospital might scare off patients from seeking care, when if you ask me, it might be THE PRESENCE OF ICE IN HOSPITALS SCARING OFF PATIENTS FROM SEEKING CARE?!?!?!?!?!! Maybe?!? 

In other local trash that is much lower stakes, I’m sick of this weather. It’s not supposed to be sunny and cold in Portland in the winter. We’re already on edge and now our skin is dry and our hair is flat on top of that? Give us a fucking break, universe; we can only handle so much.

On that note, I’m off to find small joys to celebrate in between witnessing the horrors and thinking carefully about how to best be there for myself, my family, and my community, in this very shitty time. I remain ever grateful for the messy celebrities, and for all of you. Take care of each other. 

Warmly,