santacarnage at the anticon

The costumed event started at noon when we met at the Paul Bunyan statue off of a North Portland Max stop.  We were a motley crew of men and women dressed in all sorts of holiday garb.  There were of course the traditional red-coated santas, but there were also people dressed as gnomes, elves, and one gentlemen wearing nothing but tye-dye long johns and a huge grin.  Many of the women wore variations of the santa suit with skirts and scarves as adornments.  Any santa with revealing clothing was immediately dubbed as sexy santa.  A few men had pimp santa garbs with velour capes and furry hats.  I wore a white top-hat and a red mask and was given the pseudonym of bandito santa.  Keegan wore a USC hat and a trailblazers jersey and took on the name of sporty santa. 

  There’s something about wearing a costume that makes any party better.  First off, costumes lend an otherworldly feeling to any event.  A costume indicates that it isn’t business as usual.  Because everyone looks strange it allows us to step outside the normal boundaries our superegos impose upon us.  People do not look as they usually do which inspires people to no act as they normally do.  We can be more fun, crazy, impulsive, etc (and a little alcohol doesn’t hurt either) Appearing differently makes you feel different.  Also, wearing costumes gives everyone in a group a sense of solidarity, a feeling that we are all part of a club.  Maybe you’re afraid to talk to a guy at a bar but if you’re both wearing one-piece track suits and leg warmers then a stressful sitiuation morphs into a humorous one.  As strangely attired individuals we are vulnerable to mockery by the general public but as a strangely attired group we can stand in solidarity and laugh in the faces of the sober, boring majority.  Recently I attended the most recent manifestation of a yearly event called Santacon.  This variation was called Anti-Con and took place Saturday, December 5^th in North Portland.  The sites were extraordinary, the people were outrageous, and the level of holiday cheer and drunkenness was incomparable to anything else that has ever been or will ever be.     

The excitement was palpable underneath the statue. Waves of santas would disembark from the MAX train and cross the street to congregate below the statue.  At its climax there were several hundred costumed inviduals, including a lone woman dressed as a dreadle.  Periodically the crowd would start to yell and cheer or someone would start a chant of “ho-ho-ho,” which would rapidly ascend in speed and volume. hand, I could feel that this was going to be a great day, looking out at the crowd under crisp, sunny Portland skies, holding my bag of treats filled with candy and condoms in one hand and a bottle of crown royal, hanging in a purple bag with gold strings in the other.

Keegan and I took some celebratory pulls from the crown as we walked down interstate towards our first watering hole.  The place was packed with santas.  We looked with dismay at the array of red coats and red hats all facing the bar and wondered how we would ever order a drink in time before the next stop.  Fortuitously a santa close to the door had ordered one too many whiskey and cokes and gave us one, “here you go, Santa,” the man said, handing us a drink.  “Thank you santa,” I replied. 

This was the first of many cordial greetings we shared with other santas.  A sense of old fashioned manners juxtaposed the usual belligerance of hard-core drunkenness, at the anticon.  As we walked through crowds at each bar people were exceedingly polite, always delivering an, “excuse me santa,” as they pushed their way towards the bathroom or the bar.  As I said, we were all in this mad project together. 

Our fears of not being able to order a drink turned out to be unfounded as we found our way to the front of the line at the bar in under 20 minutes.  Since it was still early in the day we decided to order a breakfasty drink of white Russians.  Feeling like a true Lebowskian I greeted some santas with a ‘hey dude’ as we sipped our drinks and surveyed the crowd.  A pirate santa walked past us holding a treasure chest.  I asked him what he was carrying and he showed me a display of several bottles of liqueur nestled in the chest, his personal stock of pirate bootie.  Throughout anticon people blatantly took outside drinks into bars.  Many indulged in drink while walking the street, and I met an underage santa who got into all the bars without trouble.  It appears that Saint Nick is above the law. 

After leaving the first bar we doubled back around to a neighborhood street close to our meetup spot.  People start proclaiming, “we’re going to the mayor’s house.”  At this point I’m getting a bit drunk and feeling confused.   ‘Does the mayor live in North Portland?’ I think to myself.  We stop outside a non-descript house and some santas jump onto the balcony and start cheering.  Another santa climbs a tree.  We begin ho-hoing again and the street is completely overrun with santas at this point.   

I can’t tell if this is really the mayor’s house or some poor, unfortunate sap whose front porch and privacy we were invading, but regardless, it was pretty damn funny.

Our walk to the next bar is a long one and I try to entertain my fellow santas with Christmas carols.  However, my voice is far from melodic and my recollection of lyrics is poor.  I often break down into unintelligible mumbles or humming to replace many of the lyrics that I have forgotten.  On the walk Keegan and I talked to a couple ‘colorful characters.’  One fellow told us that we had to check out the naked bunny ride on Easter (riders wear bunny tails and ears) and another santa told us she enjoyed the pleasures of glory holes (turn off your safe search features if you search that term on google)

At the next bar we ordered gin and tonics and sipped them while chatting with a guy about South by Southwest, a music festival in Austin.  I hung out with a reindeer too.  We bonded big-time. 

 

The next bar we went to was small so we decided to skip ahead to another drink station when we saw several santas pass us by.  This whole process reminded me of the Portland Bridge pedal where you stopped for refreshments at different locations to gain strength for the journey ahead, but, instead of water and bananas, we were fueling up with whisky, cigarettes, and chocolate candy. 

The next place was really hopping.  Santas lounged out in the parking lot smoking cigarettes, drank beers inside, and ate food at the tables.  We met a rotund she-santa who proclaimed ‘a merry Christmas to all.’  I ordered Keegan and I cans of Hamm’s as at this point I think we had quite enough hard alcohol.  I proceeded to spill my beer all over a pool table.  At this point in our journey our friend Sam met up with us, fresh from taking the LSAT’s.  He was dully impressed by our exceedingly inebriated states at 3-30 in the afternoon.  Out in the parking lot I found a wonderful gentlemen selling some of santa’s special cookies.  I purchased two for a quite reasonable price and split the first between the three of us.  The second cookie was eaten at around 1 am that night in an example of very poor decision-making.  Santa’s got one hell of a sweet tooth!

The next stop on the trek required a quick ride on the MAX train.  There was a short but heated debate among my esteemed colleagues about whether or not we should buy tickets.  Keegan and I had great confidence in the power of our costumes to get us out of any legal trouble and so we were of the opinion that tickets were not necessary on that day.  “There’s enough santas to take this city down!” I cried.  Sam, more rational and more sober at this point decided to buy a MAX ticket.

Our next stop is The Alibi, which, we are informed by another santa, is the only ‘real’ tiki bar in Portland.  But the doors are locked when we arrive.  Apparently, this tiki bar didn’t want a bunch of belligerant santas glugging down mojitos at their establishment.  What followed was 20 minutes of confusion interspersed with some pistachio munching and crown guzzling.  After a consultation of my trusty iphone maps feature we  relocated ourselves and took off for the next stop, the Mississippi food carts.

 

Pizza and beer, a combination for the ages!  At the food carts we ran into a Scottish documentary film maker, an anarchist santa, and a cigarette bumming Jesus.  It was the last stop on our tour and my memories are quite fuzzy, but from what I remember, we had a great time.  Inside we played a round of quarters.  We co-opted a fellow who was sitting at our table to play as well.  I’m not sure if we made any of our shots and some time into the game our table partner told us, “I just want to enjoy my fucking drink.”  I guess some of us were losing our Christmas cheer.  At some point I drop my bag of goodies, spilling candy and condoms everywhere.  A pint glass that I had stashed away also fell out, spreading glass all over the floor.  After picking up my possessions I popped a couple Hershey kisses into my mouth.  Chewing them they felt a bit more crunchy than normal. I started to fear that some of the glass shards had gotten into the candy but once I pop something sweet into my mouth I never go back, glass shards or no.  Well there was more beer to be drunk and we visited another food cart corner and well, you get the point…  

Well that’s about all that’s fit to print on this year’s anti-con.  It was a smashing success and I hear there’s another santa crawl on the 19^th.  I might just have to bust out the suit one or two more times before the holiday season wraps up.  Ho-ho-ho to you all and happy Chanukah too.