Dante's, Portland OR
11:15pm
The venue was annoyingly clean and spacious, bathed in red, lurching heavy to the left with pudgy Gen X'ers jockeying PBRs and full beards. Might be the pizza dutch door booth next to the bar. The Dwarves® were headliners, so the crowd was about 3 years older and 40% more burnt out than I was. Something about old school punk rockers depress me a little bit. I'm not talking about the old school crust and gutter kids from the 80s, mind you. I'm talking about the 90s skate or die speedfreaks who checked in right at the dawn of Warped Tour era proliferation.
I stepped outside as an opener failed to impress me, taking in the verbal clutter.
"Your brother's on dope? Shit man, so is mine!"
A random voice talked past me at another voice behind me. His eyes were a dirty blue, and cloudy. His teeth were crooked. Whistling cigarette smoke out of this missing tooth hole, he continued.
"Lemmy guess... it was cuz of a girl. Or is he just that fucking stupid?"
"I dunno man. Boredom if I had to guess. He fucking sucks man. Never thought I'd know anybody who does heroin. 'specially not fucking family."
Punks love a good scowl.
Back inside, the incongruent dork metal band had finished their set. Thankfully they seemed to be the only bust of the 4 band lineup that night. This was the first (and so far only) punk show I had been to in Portland. All I had to compare to was shows I'd been to in the Bay Area, and in LA. Something about music fans back home, man. Everything is a big deal. Cali kids just get excited and excitable about every band, saying or performing everything. Some call it high energy, some call it awesome vibes, but I suppose the flipside to that is that we are dumb enough to cheer, mosh, dive and kick to just about anything. We're the losers who would take the Hokey Pokey super seriously if given the chance.
Nothing wrong with that I suppose. PORTLAND is an entirely different beast. I went to a show with 4 fucking bands in the lineup, all punk with a metal anomaly. It was a fucking killer lineup, and the whole time I was there the energy was completely different. Everyone kinda stood around and made sure they looked cool enough to be there. One dude even brought a pint of beer in with him into the fucking pit. Glass of beer, moshing and sloshing around. Jesus Christ® this was amateur hour. End of the night I didnt feel like I was at a show. I was watching 200 too cool for school Portlandians hang out with each other, which happened to be at that show at that moment. It was a giant reluctant prom date with Turquoise hair and TurboNegro patches.
Not even the Go-Go Strippers could muster a stimulated shout of approval that sustained longer than 90 seconds or so. I quietly smiled and shook my head. Guess people here enjoy acting like they snuck in and didn't actually care who was playing.
"How much for a slice of cheese?"
I decided to offset the beer with a bit of pizza, as one does.
"3 bucks."
"I'll take 2."
Portland was largely mutating and becoming this weird disappointing manchild of a city. People aren't as hospitable as they used to be. It's the same exact thing that happened to SF, but on a smaller scale. I have this theory that maybe they are just sick of those darn Californians (and the occasional condescending Seattlite) moving in and jacking up their rent, which has surely soiled their existence; thrown it for a bit of a loop. So I'm jumping into mind of the average PDXer and thinking to myself ok, maybe being nice and hospitable and friendly to strangers isn't all it's cracked up to be.
I sat there thinking about these things as I ate my stupid shitty window pizza.
"HEY DUDE!"
I dont know what was more genuine about the guy, the glasses held together by packaging tape, the faded construction company cap, or the frost white 5 o clock shadow plunging straight into his blobby old tattoos and sweater gray hockey t shirt.
"Hey man. I'm Jon."
We made like 1998 and had a conversation. Turns out he's been seeing the Dwarves since I was in elementary school. Clearly did a buncha speed and coke probly. Could hear it in his voice.
"Nuff about me, what the fuck is YOUR deal? Never seen you around here."
That bit of phrasing gave me a bit of a better insight into the mentality here, and confirmed my "old boys club" vibe I had started to get about Portland as a whole.
"I'm an illustrator staying here temporarily to finish my book."
He gave me this really nasty glare take at first. He searched my eyes carefully for bullshit, and when he saw none, he immediately brightened.
"....No SHIT you're serious?!? i thought you were giving me a hard time!"
Ex speed freak laughter. He slaps me across the shoulder a few times in an enthusiastic HEY FINALLY manner.
"Nah man, I'm actually here, drawing pictures, putting them in a book, and then premiering it in San Francisco."
"Well sorry man, I didn't mean to freeze on you like that. Been getting a lot of startup guys and wall street guys lately. They all start with that variation of line in this super sarcastic tone like they're like making fun of creative people and Portland people. Ch'ya, not fucking cool dude."
I sat in stunned silennce. What the fuck happened to the West Coast? Why were any of these people even here? To be seen? By who, exactly? Why did it even matter? The hospitality is gone, the warmth of the kindness of strangers muted by paranoia, delusion and anxiety of the unknown, as brought to you by every information feeder in the hemisphere. And the masses all stare blissfully into their digital playing cards, soaking in their social cancers and flavors of the minute, ostriches buried in the sand and masturbating to home improvement pornography.
And then, just as quickly as he had become interested in getting to know me, he faded into the brittle night, sloughing off his human likeness and congealing back into the liquid shadows at the back of the bar. Soon, the table was swarmed with more canned laughter, and more mediocre memories that nobody cared enough to stay sober for. A part of me wants to believe that maybe these blots of flesh were conjured up by figments of my imagination, but I was never that boring.
I wonder if it is even worth feeling pain over inevitability.