By: Tony

Last August, I was supposed to go to a protest.

Rumors were swirling about the number of violent white nationalists that would be showing up, and Portland had been the epicenter of a lot of unrest all summer. I thought, “Hey, I’ll get a few friends to tag along, we can take some video and photos, and maybe write an article about it. Could be something really pivotal that I don’t want to miss.”

I also was supposed to go to a hot sauce festival the following weekend with friends, and they had a plan to bring chicken nuggets and a cooler of ice and make a whole thing of it. I missed the previous couple of years because of work, and I really didn’t want to miss it again. My new schedule gave me Saturdays off, so I was excited to see what kinds of adventures I could go on.

The week of the protest, we heard even more about white nationalists coming to our city to start a bunch of trouble, and I was getting nervous. Turned out that the hype was getting pretty scary. It might end up being really dangerous, so I asked some protesters I know for some pointers for a first-timer (Which is a story for another article).

On Thursday, I found out that the hot sauce festival was the same day as the protest. What can I say, I don’t have a very concrete understanding of time as a construct, hashtag wizard problems.

I was sad,  but also kind of relieved.

I really don’t want to get hit by a car or shot by a nazi. That just doesn’t sound like a good time. I feel like Portland has become a major battlefront in the surreal fascist-versus-anti-fascist battle that ebbs and flows in America today, and I want to do my part to repel the invaders that come down from Washington to start shit. Pop Mob, a facebook page dedicated to keeping people informed about activist news and current events, says that the best way to fight fascism is to not let them ruin your everyday life. Fight them in your everyday, and don’t let them win with their bullying tactics. It was this reasoning that led me to go eat hot sauce off of chicken nuggets in a glorified parking lot. Life is like that sometimes. I felt a massive amount of guilt, and a bit like a coward as we were driving to the empty lot next to Omsi. Hopefully the nuggets would ease my conscience.

On the way, we heard that a few friend accidentally drove a side-by-side tandem bike up to a police barricade on one of the bridges and had a less-than-friendly interaction with the cops. They then sat there, awkwardly turning around this boxy mess of a bike. It sounded like a fascist state remake of an old Buster Keaton routine. Why am I not there? I thought, Police barricades on the bridges? Sounds lit! I was getting FOMO hard.

We read that the white nationalist protesters were being rerouted through heavily populated areas in the interest of their safety. We saw a few people standing around on street corners, looking ready for anything. It was clear they weren’t sure what to be ready for, so they were opting for the generic “ready” stance or bent knees, arms in front of the torso like they were ready for someone to pass them a basketball.

We saw one recognizable shit-starter standing with a few stragglers, rambling about how tiny his penis was. Or whatever fascists ramble about, I don’t know. We had the windows up.

We found a parking spot in one of the Omsi lots and noted a sizable number of people dressed in flashy, rainbow-adorned outfits. They didn’t look too roughed up, so that was a good sign. As we bought our tickets, I thought about all the Portlanders at the waterfront, protesting and keeping the city weird. I wished I was there with them, but instead I was going to eat hot sauce off chicken nuggets because that is the level of involvement that I can handle.

We got in and met up with the rest of the group which had driven in a separate car. They brought the ice, we brought the nuggies.

The hot sauce festival amounted to a giant, dusty gravel lot next to a pedestrian bridge (The Tilikum Bridge) near Omsi. Imagine a small town fair, but replace the game booths with sweaty bearded men who dole out dollops of liquid fire. There was a small food vendor area, a booze tent (that was hopping), and hot sauce vendors that outlined the entire area in a giant square. There was an entire section of the lot dedicated to port-a-potties, which seemed barely adequate, considering the amount of hot snakes being produced.

Oh, and there was a wrestling ring in the middle. Two men were putting hands on each other while wearing luchador masks. I don’t know why, maybe for ambiance? It seemed natural in the summer fair atmosphere.

The first few booths we received mostly chuckles from the vendors as we held out nuggets for sauce. The other fest-goers looked on in awe. A lot exclaimed how great an idea it was, and were very jealous.

As we neared the end of the first side of the Square of Hot Pain, we came to a booth where a jovial older gentleman was doling out samples. He was lively and had a southern accent, so you’d know it was that good, authentic stuff. He offered an array of flavors, ranging from medium-hot to kick-in-the-pants-hot. Then after getting through all his sauces, he had a small potion in an eye dropper bottle. He offered a little drop for anybody who wanted. I like spicy, and I think it’s fun to try new things, so I took the bait. I think a few friends tried it too? My memory is a little shaky after this point.

He hands me a small spoon, like the kind you get when sampling ice cream at a shop.

I take it and put it in my mouth. It hits my tongue and absorbs almost immediately. I remember thinking huh, that’s a bad sign.

Then it hits me.

I lurch towards the nearest trash can, barely able to see through the streaming tears. My head is throbbing and all of the nuggets want out of their stomachly prison. I am drooling and dry-heaving and I guess my mouth is on fire, but it is so intense that the secondary symptoms are all I can feel. I am white-knuckle gripping the trash can, blinking tears out of my eyes, and looking out over the crowd at the blue sky. I’m trying to catch my breath and keep my nuggets. My eyes fix on a structure that arcs overhead, the Tilikum Bridge (name cracks me up every time). All of the lines of the metal and cement bridge come into painfully sharp focus. The blue of the sky is vivid and feels brighter that I remember it ever being. The trees growing next to the bridge are a deep and vast verdant green and they seem so alive.

At this point, I have to say that I’ve read the stories about people eating wings so spicy that it gives them a sensation similar to taking hallucinogens. Like any other natural skeptic, I assumed this was normie hyperbole. Experiences described by the same type of people that get existential meltdowns from dentist gas. Without a larger perspective, I figured it was just their way of saying “really spicy.” Like, when your mind can’t process or compare something, it just sort of connects it with other experiences you’ve only imagined.

That being said, I found my experience to be strikingly similar to taking mushrooms.

Vibrant colors, problems with balance and space, the world seemed… Off. I was reeling, and honestly it felt like a pretty intense mental high, as well. My body was probably doing overtime, trying to dump endorphins on the bonfire that was my mouth.

So I stood looking at that bridge and I thought of all the protesters. I thought about what a different or similar experience they might be having on the other side of the river. I wished them all the best, and stumbled off to meet my friends.

My ears ringing and my world shook, the rest of the hot sauce just kind of came and went.

We watched some of the wrestling, which held my attention for a few minutes. I’ve never been a fan of pro wrestling, mainly because I don’t think I get it. But I’d been watching Glow on Netflix, and in my altered state of consciousness, I watched and imagined all of the choreography they were going through. Like the two wrestlers were having some sort of conversation that the audience could only watch and wonder at. They grabbed at each other, bounced off the ropes, did things with their arms and legs, I don’t know. Like I said, it’s not really my thing. But it was pretty entertaining with a head full of hot sauce.

We finished off the nuggets, layed seige to the port-a-potties, then headed home.

All in all, it was a very Portland experience; somewhere in town, people were fighting for their lives, and here we were, eating hot sauces off of nuggets and pretending we have any idea what a Scoville is.

The nazi protest ended up getting called early, apparently anti fascist protesters met the nazis as they were trying to get out of their nazi busses and let them know how unwelcome they were. In the meantime, an impromptu festival sprung up as anti-fascist protesters put on music and danced and celebrated the weirdnes of our wonderful city. I’d say that’s a resounding victory against a nazi invasion, and it makes me proud to call Portland my home.