December 24, 2002
Santanarchy Now
There's a short note at the bottom of the Murmurs section of today's one-day-early edition of Willamette Week that provides me a segue into a Christmas entry:
Did Mrs. Claus spike the eggnog again? No, it was just SantaCon 2002, the annual booze-fueled debauchery from the Portland Cacophony Society. This year's downtown bar crawl took place Dec. 14. Missed it? There's always next year.
Despite living in Portland for 5 1/2 years, and San Francisco for 14 months prior to that, I had never managed to actually catch these cities' respective mass Santa excursions. Until this year.
In my search for a specific sort of toy for a 22-month-old I know, I had unfortunately ended up at Pioneer Place Mall. On my way out of the building, my attention was caught by what appeared to be an endless throng of Santas snaking its way through the mall. Having forgotten about the annual tradition Willamette Week mentions, it didn't occur to me for a minute or so that I was finally witnessing the Portland Cacophony Society in full Yuletide action.
The swarm ascended the escalators, the prime location in Pioneer Place to be seen by nearly everyone. About 30 seconds after the final Santa had risen to the top floor, a lone, young, bald (in an "I'm a punk but here on my shitty day job" sort of way) security guard began bounding up the escalator, failing to avoid at least one Santa-launched paper streamer, which landed squarely upon his head.
It was impossible to tell, once they had all reached the top floor, just where they headed next. And since I was finished with downtown shopping, it was time to head to the bus mall.
I should have realized at the time that it wasn't quite over just yet. Not only had I finally beared witness to SantaCon, but there was a punchline still to come.
Standing at the bus shelter for the #4 Division (across the street from Ross), I tried to avoid the street preacher who had been seated behind the shelter and was now gathering his things to wait for the bus.
From somewhere in the northen distance came the clear yet cluttered sounds of "Ho, ho, ho!"
Sure enough, the Santas had finally fled the confines of Pioneer Place and had taken to the streets. They were, of course, headed straight for us. Somehow, out on the sidewalks, they appeared to be greater in numbers than they had inside the mall.
They streamed directly down the bus mall, directly towards the bus shelter. That's when the street preacher saw them, just as the #4 Division pulled up.
"Satan Claus! Satan Claus!" he shouted. "It's about Jesus!"
But the legions of Portland Cacophony Society Santas simply poured down the sidewalk, going about their Merry Christmas way.
Comments (5)
myrln on 24 Dec 2002
What a good story. Local papers ought to pick it up.
The One True b!X on 24 Dec 2002
For those who are interested, there are now pictures of SantaCon 2002 online.
The One True b!X on 12 Oct 2003
Above is, of course, an example of the purely-commercial (yet disguised) message which will be a thing of the past here once the comment spam plug-in I mentioned yesterday is released and can be installed here.
tiffany on 02 Jun 2004
the comment spam does make old posts pop up in the "new comments" section, though, which is kind of nice, if you like thinking about SantaCon in June. Hail Santa!
The One True b!X on 02 Jun 2004
Actually, it's not the comment spam that's doing that. It's another technical issue for which I have no solution at the moment.