Portland Events: Music, Art, Entertainment, Sustainability | PDXPIPELINE.com

Posted by Bethany Moore

It was a strange September evening in Portland on Saturday the 12th, just like any other. I found myself being led on tour around the neighborhoods of NW with a group of 25 other costumed folks, as our tour guide, Dave Owens of DrunkenRampage.com, gave absurd and hilarious explanations about random items such as trash cans and fire hydrants, and often tying them to chemical warfare, communism, and Rush Limbaugh. Those who attended were dressed according to some fashion in the past, or in the dystopian future.

There were a total of 3 tours throughout the evening, and I joined the final one with several friends. Averaging between 20 and 40 people on each, organizers modestly estimated a total of 80 unique (in more ways than one) participants throughout the evening. Several costumed folks on bicycles acted as Time Cops, to protect the walking tour from traffic, and to point stray folks to one of the several “safe house” bar venues. A select number of venues in the Northwest, such as Gypsy Lounge and Bitter End, agreed to participate by displaying the Time Traveler symbol near their entrance to light the way for the line of strange beings seeking beer and other libations. Dave Owens remarked “we basically drew a box on the map and said ‘go here, have fun‘. “

Dave Owens of DrunkenRampage “forgets how long” he’s been running the inebriation-oriented website. He not only gets the glory of being the godfather of interesting pub-crawl events, he noted some perks about the gig: “Few bars will charge me cover or a full tab when I go out because I always deliver a line of people for them. I’m a pimp for drinks and bars.” He also notes that he’s also just “happy to get a good hug.”

Time Traveler Day started informally in 2007, says Aaron Diaz, author of the online comic Dresden Codak, and mastermind behind the Time Traveler holiday. Time travel is part of a storyline concept in his comics. The idea as a holiday started as a joke, says Diaz, centering around the idea of misfit time travelers in the modern year, interacting awkwardly with the environment around them as if never having lived in this era before. Diaz has been existing in this dimension of PDX for nearly two years, having migrated from Alabama at age 23 to be part of the local comics community. He found no trouble recruiting friends to get involved and do improv during the tour. Diaz conducted the first tour himself and says he “ran out of pre-meditated material 10 minutes into it, and made up the rest as I went along.”

At one point during my tour, our guide stopped on a corner as the crowd crossed a street near 23rd Ave to point to a little silver car, peacefully stopped at a red traffic light. Owens began a nonsensical explanation that it was a travel device of this time similar to a rhinocerous. The crowd of time travelers began stopping in the middle of the crosswalk like a 4th grade fieldtrip, taking photographs and scanning the car’s bumper with their futuristic devices, as according to their character. Toward the end of the tour, Time Cops Lacey NicDoom, Shadz, Halley Weaver, and others, abruptly accosted our tour guide with saran wrap, citing him in violation of the laws of time travel, and then quickly shoving him into the backseat of a mysterious white car. Time Cops were true to character, telling the crowd that “there’s nothing to see here, folks. Move along, move along.” According to the description on the Dresden Codak website, “You must spend the entire day in costume and character. The only rule is that you cannot actually tell anyone that you are a time traveler.”

Organizing for the event included promoting through familiar social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as word-of-mouth from fellow organizers Benja Barker, Dawn Manske, and Kristin Hoffman. I was informed of the event by Kat Fereirra, who came dressed as a hippie from the 1960s and “took too much acid, and tripped into the future.” Lacey NicDoom compared organizing efforts to Plunder-a-thon, the more well-known pirate-themed pubcrawl event, and “learned that you don’t necessarily want to overpromote an event, because you do want quality attendees who will stay in character.” Diaz notes that “next year, people who are dressing up, regardless of whatever period they’re coming from, should try to make it even more believable. “

When asked how successful he thought the event was, he responded that he will “check the police reports in the morning”. (On an unrelated note, there was a reported drive-by shooting in front of Crystal Ballroom some time after midnight, and streets were blocked for more than an hour, say reports.) There were some very large toy space guns, scanners, beamers, and other futuristic devices being carried about by costumed participants that were a spectacle in themselves. I attended as my groovy 1960′s beatnik persona, and came armed with only a pen, notebook, and cigarettes. The organizing gentlemen, Diaz and Owens, remarked that they are “just a few guys making the area stranger, one event at a time.”

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* Photos courtesy of ‘Shadz’. aka Tank Girl

Bethany Moore is beatnik poet, Pagan priestess, tarot card reader, vocalist, PR & media maven, DJ, writer & activist with a messiah-complex. Her website is budreausquaredt & blogs & enlightened77.