Autumn Aspirations and a New Beerchaser Notable

Posted on October 14, 2025 by Thebeerchaser

Welcome back to Thebeerchaser. If you are seeing this post through an e-mail, please visit the blog by clicking on the title at the top to see all of the photos and so the narrative is not clipped or shortened.(External photo attribution at the end of the post) (#1)

Fall is my favorite season. The crisp air and sunny days in Oregon before we have six months of daily rainfall make it a great place to live. Tailgating at football games is a hallowed tradition and the leaves fall at the same rapid pace as Bill Belichick’s college coaching career at the University of North Carolina, althugh the leaves have better interpersonal skills.(#2 – #3)

College football is now not one of Thebeerchaser’s favored topics – a sentiment reinforced today when the Oregon State Beavers lost to the Demon Deacons of Wake Forest and moved “forward” with a no-win and seven-loss season. Second-year Head Coach Trent Bray was fired the next day.

This cannot be pinned entirely on Coach Bray although he hasn’t done a good job solidifying his position by decisions and media interviews. The disintegration of the former PAC12, the transfer portal and NIL have essentially left OSU in a no-win position — literally.

For example, see below just a few recent headlines greeting Beaver fans in The Oregonian:

You get the gist…..

Not to belabor, but the first two paragraph of the third headlined article reads: (Oregon Live)

“What does rock bottom look like? It can’t look much worse than a cloudy October day in Reser Stadium where Oregon State fans booed, then bailed on the Beavers in a 39-14 loss to Wake Forest.

The Beavers (0-7) withered in every crucial moment and some players appeared to have given up on this OSU coaching staff under head coach Trent Bray.”

Although you might accuse me of living in the past, it’s especially painful since I was there during the Giant Killer era. The memorable highlight was in 1967 when the Beavs beat the OJ Simpson led #1-ranked USC Trojans 3 to 0 following an earlier season win over #2 Purdue and tied then #2 rated UCLA. Coach Dee Andros celebrates the USC win with his players in the photo below. (#4)

Tough to Watch but Fodder for my Introduction

Now my wife and I laugh because she is an Oregon Duck and our older daughter graduated from the University of Washington and married a third-generation, Husky. We love our respective alma maters because of the great educations we received, but football has been a fun topic of banter for years.

I currently serve as Vice President of the Abbey Foundation of Oregon and my responsibilities included helping to organize our recent Board retreat including introducing all of the speakers during that day and one-half gathering at the beautiful Mount Angel Abbey Hilltop. (#5)

One of the speakers was the President Rector of the Seminary, which is now doing very well after downturns and hardship during the pandemic. The backgrounds of Fr. Jeff Eirvin and his predecessor, Monsignor Joseph Betschart – both OSU grads – gave me a perfect opportunity to tap into the current football season in my intro. (see the excerpt below)

“After reflecting on the opening three weeks of the college football season, my wonderful wife of 45 years – by the way, she’s an Oregon Duck – exclaimed:

‘Don, it must be tough for you and other Beavers to watch OSU football this year.’

I responded:

‘Well Janet, while we won’t match U of O Football results in the near future – or ever – our mission at OSU is to continue to build an academic program our football team can be proud of.”

Today’s speaker is an example, and I pointed out to Janet that the last two President Rectors of the Seminary have both been Beavers. Msgr. Betschart, who served in that role for twelve years, graduated from OSU with degrees in nuclear engineering and general science and served five years in the U.S. Navy’s nuclear power program.

Fr. Jeff Eirvin received a BFA from Oregon State and worked in the field of advertising as a graphic designer prior to entering Mount Angel Seminary in 2005. After completing two years at Mount Angel, he completed his Bachelor of Sacred Theology in Rome.” (#6 – #7)

There’s Nothing Artificial About This Guy – the Newest Beerchaser Notable

Moving from football to more intellectual and weighty topics, let’s for a bit, cover artificial intelligence. Some synonyms for “artificial” include “pseudo,” “fake” and “phony” but reading just a few of the articles on this phenomenon would not incline you to use one of these labels to describe this technology.

If one uses a common search engine to inquire, “Is AI a trend?” 6,050,000 potential hits will appear. I haven’t used ChatGPT or any other AI model to help me write; however, a few of my recent blog posts have AI generated images (check the one with the football above). Long term, I’ll admit to more trepidation than optimism on this concept.

That’s why I’m glad that I know an incredibly talented young man named Kevin Frazier. We met in 2022 when he was in his third year at UC Berkley Law and edited a politically oriented on-line newsletter. He can now list on his incredible resume, the designation of “Beerchaser Notable.”

He asked me to submit a few articles recommending the perfect bar or brewery for each of the major Oregon Gubernatorial candidates to hypothetically chat with constituents to discern what was on their minds. I republished them in my blog. (#8) https://thebeerchaser.com/2022/04/29/beer-and-politics-part-1/

A Bright Future

Kevin graduated summa cum laude from the University of Oregon in 2015. He then earned his M.P.A. at the Harvard Kennedy School and subsequently received his JD at Berkley Law where he was Order of the Coif and passed the California Bar in 2022.

The title of this blog post is about aspirations and I had aspired to recruit Kevin to Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt, my former law firm, but after a six-month fellowship at the Miller Institute for Global Challenges and the Law, he received a prestigious one-year clerkship for the Montana Supreme Court.

Now, I received my M.P.A. at Portland State rather than Harvard, but I still had some great conversations with Kevin (he used a less erudite vocabulary) and that’s when I realized that rather than billing clients $500+ an hour, he should use his education to better serve humanity.

He is a true “policy wonk” in the most positive sense of the term. (#9 – #10)

I was therefore very pleased when he accepted a teaching position at the St. Thomas University Benjamin Crump School of Law in Miami, Florida, which welcomed him with an article entitled, “Incoming STU Law Professor Kevin Frazier Selected for Auschwitz Professional Ethics Fellowship Program.”

Concurrently, he was working as a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Law and AI and they persuaded him to leave teaching to join them in a full-time position. It’s an independent think tank that researches and advises on the legal challenges posed by artificial intelligence.

I haven’t figured out (and Kevin’s partner probably hasn’t either) how he has enough time to also serve as a fellow for the Lawfare Institue:

“(The) mission is to produce scientific content on lawfare and the analysis of emblematic cases of the phenomenon. Lawfare is the misuse and abuse of law for political and military ends. It is the injunction of the words law and warfare for it is a legal war.”

Kevin Can Enlighten You Too!

Kevin authors a Substack publication entitled Appleseed AI. It offers essays, videos, and community chats about how to spread AI literacy and make the ingredients for AI innovation more generally available. This is a neglected topic that warrants far more attention. (#11)

An edifying publication

Subscribing to it has given me an education, of sorts, on AI – most notably the policy issues surrounding its implementation and future development. Kevin is an optimist and while I think, at times, he may be just a bit naive about society’s cooperative ability to harness and control this technology, I will leave you with why he has become a sought-after expert.

In his 9/22 article entitled “Mr. Frazier Goes to Washington,” he relates his testimony and that of three other experts before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts, Intellectual Property, Artificial Intelligence, and the Internet. (#12)

I’m biased because of my high regard for him, but the full testimony is shown in a video and I think the Subcommittee directed most of the questions to him. Unlike the disgraceful appearance of Attorney General, Pam Bondi last week before a very partisan Senate Judiciary Committee, this hearing was very bipartisan and informative – in large part because of the cogent expert testimony.

I urge you to check it out and subscribe to Kevin’s publication.

And on a Final Note….

Happy Halloween and be kind to Trick-or-Treaters. In Portland, however, we will unfortunately be cautious about answering the door for a masked person — unless we have our passports handy…(#13)

External Photo Attribution

#1. Wikimedia Commons (File:Acer saccharum Equinox Mountain Vermont.jpg – Wikimedia Commons). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Author: Famartin – 17 October 2020.

#2. Wikimedia Commons (File:Bill Belichick 2019.jpg – Wikimedia Commons). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license. Author:
AlexanderJonesi – 6 October 2019.

#3. ChatGPT (https://chatgpt.com/c/68ec46d1-bcf8-8328-b304-bf43c5b37d93).

#4. Oregon State Athletic Dept. (https://osubeavers.com/honors/hall-of-fame/dee-andros/43).

#5. Mount Angel Abbey (https://www.mountangelabbey.org/).

#6. Facebook Fr. Jeff Eirvin (https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1876536385944106&set=a.1448964055368010).

#7. Mount Angel Abbey ((https://www.mountangelabbey.org/wp-content/uploads/MAL-Summer-2024.pdf).

#8. The Federalist Society (https://fedsoc.org/bio/kevin-frazier).

#9. Linked in – Kevin Frazier ((5) Kevin Frazier | LinkedIn).

#10. Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=kevin%20frazier%20attorney).

#11. (https://appleseedai.substack.com/).

#12. Appleseed A1(https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?shva=1#search/appleseed/FMfcgzQcpnVJtwBJKfpKPgTpdprgMVbZ).

#13. (https://chatgpt.com/c/68ec46d1-bcf8-8328-b304-bf43c5b37d93)

The A and L Sports Pub — A Sporting Chance?

Posted on October 30, 2024 by Thebeerchaser

Welcome back to Thebeerchaser. If you are seeing this post through an e-mail, please click on the title to bring up the post so the narrative isn’t clipped or shortened. (External photo attribution at the end of the post #1)

During my thirteen years of Beerchasing where I’ve visited and reviewed over 400 bars and breweries, I’ve presented followers with photos and stories of only four sports bars. I’m just not really enamored with them and they seem somewhat stereotypical.

There are scads of big screen TV’s, trophies and sports memorabilia – a lot of it somewhat tacky – and often boisterous regulars wearing their team jerseys.

I cherish the conversations I’ve had in most of my bar/brewery visits, but sports bar patrons are often immersed in pro or college games and understandably are not eager to engage. Fortunately, I’ve had great Beerchasing companions at the four sports bars shown below – so I didn’t need to meet new people.

Claudia’s Sports Pub and Grill (2012) – a classic that closed in 2023 after sixty-five years. It’s now named Suki’s and unfortunately “…a karaoke bar with sports.” (Yeah right…)

The Marathon Taverna (2014) – a boring pseudo sports bar – our visit was saved by great conversations with Beerchaser-of-the-Quarter, Jack Faust and his son, Charlie.

The Independent (2017) – a decent sports bar on SW Broadway in the heart of Portland where we had a robust group including the Faust clan.

The Angry Beaver Bar and Grill in Corvallis (2020) – this great watering hole in the heart of Corvallis was visited before an Oregon State vs. Washington State football game.

Our group included 1967 OSU Giant Killer starters, Billy Main and Steve Preece with his wife, plus the late Dr. Bob Gill along with my fraternity brother and friend of over 50 years, Jud Blakely. (#2)

Why the A and L Sports Pub?

Since I asserted above that I’m not a fan of sports bars, why would I chose the A and L when there are so many other good bars and breweries on my list to visit in the future?

My selection of the bar was based on my recent discovery of classic dive bar, Angelo’s thanks to a connection with Darren Zayman – a part-time bartender.

Both bars are owned by Angelo and Leonor Markantonatos, (thus, the A and L…) who opened Angelo’s in 1996, and before that owned the Vern. Four generations of the family and they have been a fixture in the Portland bar scene for decades.

Darren, first worked at the A and L after talking Angelo into hiring “a guy with absolutely no bar or restaurant experience with a novel sales approach” discussed in my post on Angelo’s. You should visit Angelo’s located in the Barmuda Triangle District on SE Hawthorne.

Darren Zayman (Daz) and Angelo’s regular, Paul

Daz suggested I raise a mug at the A and L, so I did a little research and discovered a peripheral item of interest on the bar in a Willamette Week article dated 2/15/23:

“But the Markantonatoses owe more than $25,000 in property taxes. In a brief phone conversation, Angelo, 91, said he gave the bar to his son, also named Angelo, 57. Angelo the elder says he’s dying, so we didn’t push him for details.

We’d love to talk to Angelo the younger about the tax issue, but he didn’t call us back. Nor did they respond to a message on their hyperactive Facebook page. The bar employee said her boss was ‘scarce’ and ‘hard to pin down.’

Two signs of compliance: The Markantonatos family made a property tax payment of $10,000 on Nov. 15, and another for $4,500 on Feb. 8.”

Beerchasing Companions

Photo Oct 16 2024, 6 15 26 PM

Since I wasn’t focused on meeting new people, I chose two of my favorite Beerchasers to join me – Jim Westwood and Bernie Stea – both lawyers. The last time the three of us had raised a mug together was in 2020 at the Rose City Book Pub. (#3 – #4)

Those who follow this blog, know about Jim Westwood and his amazing background ranging from the Portland State College GE College Bowl, to a stint as a TV weatherman, to service in Navy Intelligence (where he learned Thai) to his distinguished career as an Oregon appellate lawyer.

But Bernie has an incredible background as well.

His Beerchasing exploits besides the Rose City Book Pub were at NEPO 42 and Zarz (gone but not forgotten) both in 2017. We tried for another at the Slow Bar in Portland, but it never happened.

While I was patiently waiting for him while downing an IPA, he called asking where I was, to which I replied, the Slow Bar (on Portland’s east side). He then somewhat sheepishly informed me that he was sitting in the Low Bar (permanently closed after the pandemic) in downtown Vancouver.

In order to salvage his pride, I didn’t remind him that I sent him a link to Slow Bar the day before confirming our lunch appointment. (#5)

My first encounter with Bernie was in 1980, when as the Oregon State Bar’s Financial Manager, I had to question him as the Director of Continuing Legal Education about his CLE department budget. He showed up for the interrogation with his Osborne laptop computer with the budget laid out on a SuperCalc spreadsheet. (Even then, he was an early-adopter of technology.)

As I “attacked” his figures we started a friendly rivalry which entertained Bar staff when we “replicated” the dialogue at all-staff meetings. It became a well-received staged production in the tradition of Jane Curtain and Dan Akroyd on Saturday Night Live.

After Bernie would make a mock eloquent plea as to why his budget should be increased, my reply was:

“Bernie, you ignorant slut!” (#6 – #7)

https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=jane+you+ignorant+slut&mid=5ACAC950C589B99D5F685ACAC950C589B99D5F68&FO

In 2017 when he didn’t show up at Slow Bar, I commented to Bernie that he must have used the “Maps Application” on his Osborne. Bernie, however, is one of the smartest and most versatile people I’ve had the privilege to call a friend.

His undergrad days were at the University of Maryland, where he had a double major in Journalism and Engineering (who’s ever heard of that combination….) and then graduation at Maryland’s Francis King Carey School of Law.

He was a member of the distinguished scholastic society Order of the Coif and Law Review, and then worked as a law clerk at the Maryland Court of Appeals. Bernie has repeatedly distinguished himself (other than with his misguided budget presentations)

After jobs at the Oregon State Bar and Portland State University, Bernie has spent the last twenty-five years as a technology guru – helping law firms, start-ups and corporate clients on all facets of electronically stored information, particularly in the context of litigation and investigatory matters and on the legal responsibilities associated with electronic evidence collection, review and production.

And concurrently – for about twelve years – he and his wife – former Portland radio newswoman and anchor, Debb Janes – were managing real estate brokers specializing in family estates on acreage, and multi-generational homes in SW Washington. (#8)

Perhaps that education and experience should give me pause when labeling Bernie an “ignorant slut…” (But probably not….)

But I Digress – Back to the A and L

Now it’s a little bit perplexing why Willamette Week labeled the A and L as a “beloved sports bar,” since they have never featured it in their Annual Best Bar Guide. I guess, however, that a watering hole that for the 2023 Super Bowl offered an “all-you-eat spaghetti and meat sauce with French bread and salad for $15” and is a Pittsburgh Steelers bar will attract a fond following.

And although the exterior is somewhat off-putting, the social media reviews are consistently positive. These three are typical:

“The A&L Burger was de-lish and the fries were on point. Friendly service and great food! We’ll be back soon.” Yelp 3/16/24

“Great people, great service, great drinks, great prices, and 6-10 dart boards set up at a time! What more could you ask for. Also have pool and video lotto.” Yelp 12/26/22

“…..The inside is like night and day from the outside. The place is roomy, has more than a dozen TVs, a whole darts room that is legit, Oregon Lottery, and one of the best cheesesteaks I’ve had in Portland (I’m from Jersey and my wife is from N Philly). The staff has always been nice to me even though I’m not a regular.” Yelp 2/11/23

Photo Oct 16 2024, 4 58 49 PM

The A and L, with its very expansive space, seemed a bit sterile, although it has a great juke box. But to be fair, that’s probably because there were just a handful of patrons on a Wednesday afternoon.

Contrast that with the description on a Sunday morning in 2018 – typical, I assume, during any NFL Sunday:

“First and foremost, they open early on Steeler Sundays, due to the time difference….so we thought we would ‘arrive early’ by getting to the bar at 9:30 am. It was PACKED with Steeler fans already at that point. More than half of this very large sports bar is dedicated to the Steelers and their fans.” Yelp 10/9/18

As a non-lawyer, but one who worked with them for almost forty years, I could share stories with these two counselors who both worked at large competitor firms (Miller Nash and Stoel Rives with my Schwabe Williamson.

It was only when these two intellectual behemoths started waxing eloquent about the rule against perpetuities and how complexity theory understands law as an emergent, self-organizing system that I focused on my $3.50 pint of draft PBR and began thinking of my next dive bar to explore….