The Report from Portland: "Liberal kids running amok"

The above phrase came from my roommate musing about what Portland, Oregon is probably like, before I left last Thursday to make my debut visit there. She was pretty correct, but I was staying with a bunch of roughnecks from Boston and Detroit, so it was less about "liberal" and more about "amok."



In Portland you can live so inexpensively that you don't have to work a whole lot, so there's plenty of time left over to be raging alcoholics. And so I did what any serious journalist would do: I went undercover.

I stood out in one crucial way: I had no tattoos, but the Lost Boys I stayed with still welcomed me onto their pirate ship (albeit with hazing), perhaps because I could speak the language of metal passably. Observing the locals, I adopted their oft-used chestnut "douchebag" and adjusted it to "doucher," which saved so much time, as there were ample occasions to use it.

So what the hell happened? I've consulted my camera phone and increasingly harder-to-decipher notes for some highlights. Best as I can make out, this bike pile-on is what it looks like pretty much everywhere in Portland when you're not in a bar.





PDX is also the strip-bar capital of everywhere, and so it came to pass that I was taken to my first titty bar. And lo! I was so entranced by one dancer's hypnotic inverted pole twirling that after first tentatively putting out one or two dollars like a kid feeding a camel (bad animal choice?) some pellets at the petting zoo, I became so enthused that I smacked down all my money on the bar.

There is also great thrifting and I got a little out of hand.




AND on three separate occasions I cheerfully got discounts without even asking or being qualified for them. This was quite a contrast to New York, where any cashier or server would at best gape and go "Wha' happen'?" if I made any attempt at pleasantry.



My host is an artist. Here is one of his paintings:




JK. That is better than his paintings.


His shirt is one reason I've just coined a new term, in the fine tradition of "williamsjerk": "porthole." (Not pictured: newly-purchased duck shoes from Value Village and drunken Journey cover band.)







And thanks to that p-hole's awesome friend Zach, I got back to nature, hiking trails in the lushly pined hills near the downtown. Check out this giant slug! Gnar!







But when not arting or thrifting or hiking or biking, there was the bar. The job I held in my real life far away in NYC quickly became my party trick, and immediately after introductions I would dutifully trot out the bundle of several insane highlights from Playgirl scare-mail and BLOW MINDS. I don't know how much I should share on the Internets, but one example featured a literacy-challenged letter on pastel ocean-sunset stationery followed by the author's photos of himself, naked, with airbrushed "tattoos" of tiger heads as full chest and backpieces. One of these fine airbrush tiger heads features a background of lasers, and they were created where else but the Jersey shore boardwalk. It is truly a glorious vision, and watching all of Portland's slack-jawed, flabbergasted, gobsmacked reactions never got old. One feisty bartendress' reaction was, "What does he think he is, a fucking Camaro?"

Another highlight of the prize package (huh huh) is a character of undetermined gender who we'll call "Giorgio International." Giorgio became such a hit that his number got scrawled under one bar's phone and some merry pranksters left him a fan voicemail, while I used my Playgirl authority to bully a hungry patron into ordering a sack of hot nuts (an actual snack available for purchase), and we all learned to ask ourselves, "What wold Giorgio do?"

Fun times as it all was, it was apparent that on my borrowed bike and in the party zone, I can't keep up with these maniacs. ECS and I have done some marathon bro-ing out but it's called 12-hour Saturday Zone and it's for special occasions, like sunny Saturdays and camping. With some of these kids in Portland it seems more like the default m.o. But it also seems possible to create whatever type of existence you want there; even, say, a productive life as a writer in a rented little cottage, an increasing fantasy of mine.

I laughed my ass off, I cried, I downed nasty punk-made absinthe, I got bellidge, I got mooned, and I announced to several newfound douchebags that I loved them. I don't know if they'll remember, or what else I'm forgetting (this is preferable).

On the plane back, the creepy man slumbering next to me had a constant suspicious bulge in his trousers, which made me realize I was going to have to go back to seeing way too much at work and wanting to tear my eyes out every day. But I came back to NYC knowing that I am a rock, nay, cock star in Portland.