Murmurs: Former Blazer Randolph Blasts Portland

1. A familiar local voice will soon be reporting from the escalating conflict between Israel and Gaza. Emily Harris, the former host of Oregon Public Broadcasting’s morning talk show Think Out Loud, has been hired by National Public Radio as its Jerusalem correspondent. She says she’ll move from Portland to Jerusalem by the beginning of April. “I’m super-excited,” Harris says. “It’s a great opportunity, and a really important story.” Harris has experience covering conflict in the Middle East: A series of emails she wrote to WW Editor Mark Zusman about her time covering the Iraq War for NPR became a cover story (“Letters From Baghdad,” WW, Jan. 26, 2005).

1. The failure of Market is dishing up a course of pain for Portland restaurant impresario Kurt Huffman. Huffman—whose ChefStable is behind many of the city’s most popular restaurants, including Wafu, Ping, St. Jack and Grüner—shut down Market on Nov. 3 after just three months in business. The downtown restaurant’s landlord—a company controlled by developer John Russell—sued Huffman in Multnomah County Circuit Court this week seeking $408,000 for breach of lease and reimbursement for improvements. Huffman had complained to Eater PDX that Russell had stymied conceptual changes the restaurant needed to stay open at the 200 Market Building. (Russell denied that in a subsequent Portland Monthly interview.) Huffman tells WW that he’s already made an offer on the debt. “It’s a little bit embarrassing they had to file that,” Huffman says. “We’re coming about an amiable solution to the whole thing.” Attorneys for Russell at Perkins Coie in Portland didn’t return requests for comment.

1. Online sports magazine Grantland is making a habit of finding former Trail Blazers to tell stories about how miserable they were in Portland. In May, the ESPN-owned long-form journalism site revealed that former Blazers center Greg Oden “pretty much became an alcoholic” during his time here. Now writer Jonathan Abrams talks to Memphis Grizzlies power forward and iconic Jail Blazer Zach Randolph, who essentially says the Portland police and media are racists. “They don’t take well to young, black urban kids coming out, having came from nothing,” Randolph tells Abrams. “You come to Portland with braids, come with cornrows, people can’t relate to that. They peg you a different way and look at you a different way. If a guy’s got braids, he’s a thug.” Randolph’s Portland rap sheet includes a 2003 DUII arrest after a police officer smelled marijuana in his car, and a 2006 drag-racing incident on Southwest Broadway at 3:15 am.

WWeek 2015