My Half-Assed Attempt At A Travel Blog: Portland, Oregon
…Which is what I would be saying if it wasn’t for the fact that COVID rules, especially in a place as hyper-liberal as Portland, Oregon, were still forbidding indoor screenings of large crowds of people so the festival was instead hosted at an outdoor theater in a mountain town outside of Portland called the Dalles. So you can consider this a special two-for-one travel blog as I tell you about my magical week in beautiful, sunny Oregon.
In case you’re not aware, Portland has a bit of a reputation as being one of the, if not the, most liberal cities in America. Back in the 90s, most of the Pacific Northwest exploded during the dot-com boom, causing a lot of then-young professionals to start flowing into this area, transforming the general culture of Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. Of the three states these respective cities are located in, Oregon has the lowest tax rate and cost of living, causing Portland to attract a very specific type of starving artist.
After about 20 years of this generation brewing, Portland basically became the hip and trendy place to be during the 2010s, becoming that decade’s answer to what Austin, Texas was in the 2000s or Greenwich Village was in the 1990s. This type of culture was then famously lampooned by Fred Armisen in the not-quite-a-hit-but-not-quite-cult sketch comedy show, Portlandia. I’m personally not a fan of that type of awkward humor so I never really caught on to watching the show but now, after having been to Portland, I think it’s one of the funniest TV shows ever made. This shit’s like a Goddamned documentary.
Before we get into this, I should also mention that some shit went down in Portland back in the summer of 2020 and the city still hadn’t fully recovered when I visited. I’m not interested in turning this into a political blog so I’m not going into analyzing whose fault it was; it’s just something that happened and the area around city hall is still in ruins. I get the impression that the scars from the riots are still pretty sore for the locals and will likely be for some time. So just keep in mind that this is my experience of Portland in 2021. In case I make it sound like everyone here is either a hipster pissant or a very aggressive homeless person, maybe it’s just recent trauma.
With that in mind, my last blog of Philadelphia got a pretty good lark when I reviewed my brief visit to the bad part of town. So, in light of that, I shall now describe my trysts into the various ghettos I have experienced in this glorious country of ours and Portland did not disappoint in this regard. We made the decision of staying in a Holiday Inn motel right outside of the Portland Airport and this particular motel seemed to encompass every single sleazy stereotype that pops into your head when you think of a motel. Each time I left my room to enter the parking lot, there was a different sketchy thing going on. Hookers, drug deals, people screaming, hookers screaming while they conducted drug deals and a pool that had a trash can floating in it. It was still there when I left.
So, after the best wake-up call in history, we embarked on a nice little urban exploration of downtown Portland. First off, I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by the city’s public transportation. The TriMet (or MAX, it has two names and I never really got what the preferred local slang was) is a light rail system that hits most of the major parts of the city, runs all night and goes to almost anywhere you want in Portland. It’s all above ground, giving you beautiful panoramic views of Mt. Hood and the surrounding countryside as you ride around.
Even more interestingly, however, is that it’s all free. Granted, there are machines that do take money and dispense tickets but, so far as I can tell, we never had to use them and we commuted off of it for a week. At each and every train stop in Portland, there are no turnstiles, no gates, no conductors on the actual trains, it’s all on the honor system. Which, of course, means that you’re most likely riding for free. Methinks that if you did actually install some turnstiles, you could use the money to do a lot of public development for the city since the trains clearly do not need it but, hey, what do I know?
If you’re a fan of museums, then I’m sorry to say that Portland won’t really do much for you. Granted, most of them were still closed aside from the Art Museum (and it was a very good Art Museum) but you’re not going to find much in the ways of learning in Portland. On the flip side, the parks system and local nature is freaking incredible. If there’s one word that I could use to describe Portland, it would be green. There are so many trees around on every sidewalk and block that it feels like the city was just planted right smack dab in the middle of the forest. Several of the buildings are painted green, a lot of the local cocktails are green, the carpet in the airport is green enough to warrant its own Wikipedia page, the legal pot you can buy practically anywhere is green, the water in the pool of my Holiday Inn was green, it’s all green.
The city definitely seems tailor-made for the outdoorsy types. Most of the movies that are shot in Oregon tend to be set in the pine forests that surround the city and I understand that Mt. Hood (which can be seen from a distance almost anywhere in Portland) is a popular area for the locals to go hiking. The parks system is also incredible with Washington and Macleay Parks in West Portland being phenomenal for a good hike. And true to the moniker “Rose City” the botanical garden is one of the best I’ve ever seen.
There’s also an entire nature trail that surrounds the waterfront on both sides of the Willamette River that is amazing for a walk or bike ride. You could spend an entire afternoon just going around this trail. Just be careful if you use one of those e-scooters that most cities in America are getting these days. The Lime scooters aren’t allowed on certain parts of the trail for whatever reason so, if you plan it poorly, you’ll have to take a detour onto the main roads in South Waterfront which are craggly, causing you to eat shit, fall off at 15mph, flay you wrist and tear a ligament rendering your hand in intense pain for several months. (It happened to a friend of mine. From Canada. You wouldn’t know him.)
In terms of other stuff to see, most of the locales from Portlandia do exist to some degree though I’d venture to guess almost all of them have become certified tourist traps. At least the ones we tried to visit were. The Coffee Land coffee shop and donut store had a line stretching around the block. And the Women and Women First Bookstore has grown into being an actual legit bookstore. To my disappointment, though, the people behind the counter weren’t even remotely obnoxious (at least to the customers anyway). There’s also the Keep Portland Weird sign (a slogan that it stole from Austin, Texas) but I kinda get the sense that it was made by people who try too hard to make Portland (a name it stole from Portland, Maine) yooneek.
If there’s any reason to visit Portland, though, it’s the food. Whether it’s because of all the hipsters demanding things to be organic or the natural beauty and relatively constant temperature allows consistent backyard garden yields, whatever it is, holy shit, the food in Portland is orgasmically good. The fruit is the most succulent I’ve had on this side of the Atlantic, there’s a wonderful food truck scene, a nice variety of ethnic cuisines and some of the most delicious cocktails I’ve ever had. From craft beer halls to Cajun country-style chicken to Chinese food to some good ol’ American sports bars, you name it, Portland has it. One particular highlight that I wish I could remember the name and recipe was in a Pho restaurant somewhere near downtown, where I ordered what I could best describe as a Green Tea Eggnog. Probably one of the top 3 best cocktails of my life and I drank about 5 of them over the course of a lunch hour.
As we started to approach the weekend, it came time for our group to make the trip to the Dalles. Now, let me just say that when I say that the Dalles is the closest town to Portland with an outdoor theater, the phrase “closest” here means “about a 2-hour car drive.” None of us brought a car on the plane so we were left taking the bus and experienced a 5-hour-and-3-transfers-filled bus ride to the Dalles across the Oregonian countryside. Honestly, I can’t complain too much though. The natural beauty in Oregon, especially going over the mountains that bisect the Eastern and Western half of the state, is incredible. This is also how I learned that, contrary to popular belief and stereotypes, not all of Oregon is a rainy pine forest. The Eastern half of the state is actually mostly high desert with some of the biggest, most beautiful skies I’ve ever seen.
Other highlight is that the only other passenger on the bus was some Andy Dick-looking motherfucker who did Buzz Balls (basically pre-packaged shots that you can buy at Wal-mart, they taste like it sounds) with us while we were waiting for a transfer at one of the bus stations. He also educated our group about the Dalles, in particular just how much he fucking hates the Dalles. Because as I’m sure we all know, no one quite hates their home small town nearly half as much as someone who doesn’t want to be living there anymore and has to go back to take care of their family.
The Dalles is actually pretty chill. This is much more of small-town America in the Pacific Northwest. Most of the town is built on a high cliff overlooking the Columbia River with a mountain on the other side giving it a very picturesque look. The people in this area had much more of that chill country/Pacific culture as most of the locals seemed to love that the filmmakers have come to their town. The main street strip in Downtown The Dalles (no, really, that’s how it’s referred to on the signs) has those typical stores that you see in every medium-small town in America (such as the one I grew up in) with most of the storekeepers being happy to see you. There was also a seafood restaurant that we ate for dinner although I’m sorry to say that it wasn’t great. Then again, if you’re eating seafood in a town in the middle of the mountains, you probably have no one to blame for that one but yourself.
I probably should mention the film festival while I’m here and it was excellent. I mean, obviously if I did hate it I wouldn’t say anything since putting it on blast on my own personal blog after they invited me would be a pretty shitty thing to do but I digress. Thanks to the Portland Comedy Film Festival for their wonderful hospitality and having a pretty dope set-up. The drive-in was on the side of a craft winery next to a freight yard with an absolutely gigantic screen.
The highlight of our trip to the Dalles was that we went to a local bar for the after-party that definitely had the small town bar feel. Most of the people there seemed pretty stoked about us coming to town and immediately chatted us up. My fondest memory is some Barney Gumble-esque barfly giving me a big hug in congratulations and I had to try not to collapse under his weight. A couple of locals also invited us to a house party but, alas, one of our party had to get back to the airport the next morning so no dice. I would’ve greatly loved to have spent another day or two in the Dalles but it was not meant to be.
Most of our remaining days in Portland revolved around doing all the stuff we’d done up to that point: namely eating, riding Lime scooters like jackasses, hiking and people watching the dregs of society outside my motel room. I can’t really comment on the nightlife since one of our party accidentally left their ID back in the Dalles meaning that we couldn’t get into bars or clubs. This ended up being a bigger pain in the ass than it sounds because most places in Portland generally require an ID just to sit down and have dinner.
This also allows me to segue into Portlandian culture and, yeah, you see where this is going. I should preface this by stating that I live in a pretty artsy part of New York City, surrounded largely by hipsters, but there’s certain degrees of hipsterdom that one can tolerate or enjoy. There’s people who are into the arts, like fashion, have tastes that are a bit off the beaten path but ultimately are still pretty chill and mature people. Then there are the ones who are all of those but also super judgmental and try way too hard to stand out and get snippy if you don’t toe the line on all of their opinions that they are conforming to.
My experience working in the arts is that most West Coast hipster expats, particularly those from Portland, Oregon, fall into the latter category and nothing I saw in the city itself changed my mind. I saw a couple movies at the film festival that just seemed like it was made for redditors with no real wit or originality. Another individual I chatted to at a bar (back when we all had our IDs) seemed eager to immediately start talking about politics. And not in a good or interesting way either. Not really related to hipsterdom but just on the topic of locals not looking happy to be there, I also watched a bartender refuse to seat a group of 10 just because she was the only one working that night and didn’t want to deal with the work. I shit you not. Again, I don’t know if it’s just a recent thing or not.
It’s not just a me thing either. Our group ran into another filmmaking acquaintance who was staying with a local friend. According to her, she has trouble finding boyfriends in Portland since, in her words, all the men are such wimps. Supposedly everyone in our group is super macho compared to virtually any man she’s met as a local in Portland. (In case you don’t know me in real life, that was supposed to be a punchline. The idea of me being the epitome of butch masculinity compared to others is hilarious.)
All told, I had more fun meeting more classic locals, for lack of a better word. Basically, Portlanders and Oregonians who are more part of the Pacific Northwest culture than the Portland hipster culture. Quick geography-lesson-that-I-probably-should’ve-gone-over-earlier: Portland is basically a melting pot between these two groups. This isn’t really one-to-one but just in terms of stuff to see and bars, Hipstertopia tends to be on the West side of the river while more old-school Portland is on the East side of the river. The few bars we did get to visit happened to be on the East side which were primarily old sports bars on our first couple nights in town. The people there were much nicer and more chill. I’d happily party with any old-school Portlanders again; they made me feel so welcome in the town.
In conclusion, I’m not in any rush to visit Portland, Oregon again aside from maybe doing a proper tour of the nightlife, especially after finding out that women would see me as James Bond compared to some of their other options. Great city, terrible people, amazing food and weather that was refreshing coming off of 90-degree NYC but would probably suck to live in year-round.
The last thing to mention about the city is the street art. There’s a ton of neat little sculptures littering the city (alongside the actual litter and homeless encampments). My favorite vignette of this is that I saw a mound of dog shit while waiting for the TriMet and took way too long to realize it was shit and not a street sculpture. Because I would fully expect someone to make a sculpture of that in this city. Surprised no one's done it yet.
Whatever, here's a picture of a waterfall.
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
Comments
Post a Comment