The Emergency Naked Bike Ride on Sunday was probably the most fun I have had at a protest.

Which is kind of a low bar.

Don’t misunderstand me: protests are excellent occasions to find like-minded folks and inspire others to speak up. But they invariably fit to the same routine: congregate, march, chant and then listen to speakers before eventually dissipating.

The Bike Rid did the opposite: congregate for speakers first, chant next, ride after. With that formula, everyone was excited to find our end point at the “secret protest location” via a winding route through downtown Portland.

Every one was dressed to comfort. Given the capriciousness of Portland weather, a half-naked emergency bike ride would have to do. Some came completely stripped down, others came fully dressed for a protest, ready to protect their identity.

I myself was dressed in nothing but shoes, briefs, beanie, helmet and a flannel shirt inherited from my grandfather, an advocate for the rights of farmers. Between my back and the concrete was my backpack and sign that read “My whimsy is ungovernable and my pants are irrecoverable.”

Midway through the ride, we made a demonstration at the Burnside Bridge; a Die In where every participant lay down and played dead ostensibly in protest of an ineffective response to climate change. However, let me just gesture vaguely to the whole host of current problems that could kill us.

During the Die In, however, I was not thinking about that. Instead, I took a moment to look around and let the purpose of protest sink in.

I watched clouds, large and looming, push over the crest of the Tualatin Hills to bring the rain promised by the forecast. I saw them mountain over the top of Big Pink, the US Bancorp Tower, and the Burnside sign that would flash Portland, Oregon with a Prohibition-era glamour at night but lay extinguished during the day.

I saw them obscure the lighthouse towers that dot the range, their slow red pulse of night also extinguished by the grace of day. I saw those clouds swirl and whisk above the towers of the Oregon Convention Center and the dome of the arena formerly known as the Rose Garden, as they did my fellow bike riders and I.

If they had eyes, they would have counted the many bridges that cross the Willamette and the many people that littered the Burnside in pose. And if they had thoughts, they would have wondered what we were doing. In my own thoughts, I half-wondered how things could ever have gone so far that we need do this.

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I know the root causes. The defunding of education. The consolidation and politicization of news sources. The radicalization of Christian Nationalist factions. But Portland, a warzone? Portland, a ruin? Portland, burning down?

I challenge anyone to start a fire in this city when it pours as hard and fast as it did that day. As it will come this autumn and winter.

The bike ride was more than just a protest against a weaponized Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and a politicized Department of Homeland Security. More than just a demonstration against the worst impulses of xenophobia. It was a protest against how Portland has been portrayed on the national stage.

I live in an active warzone? Sure.

I am forever at war. Forever at war with a city that goes underground every winter only to explode with bombs of color in March and April, then again in September and October. I am evermore looking overhead to witness the next flight formation of starlings, crows and pigeons dropping uric payloads. One time, I nearly lost a gyro to a murder.

I live in the constant anguish between raincoat or no raincoat. I am making plight to those same billowing clouds as one would an oracle, desperate to know the outcome of my next campaign against the wind that cyclones from the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers.

It’s a matter of reconnaissance as I hike the many paths of parks Forest, Washington, Tabor and Powell Butte and a task of scouting for the best food carts and vendors as I walk the many markets and neighborhoods of downtown, Hawthorne, Nob Hill and St. Johns.

And this bike ride, this die in on the Burnside Bridge?

Under normal circumstances, it would have constituted a stance against the constant, infuriating skirmish to find parking in the Alphabet District. A statement against the omnipresent car culture in American urban-planning. A demonstration of the necessity and urgency to build parallel infrastructure for pedestrians who wish to ride bikes, streetcars, trains and other modes of public transit that do not have a single passengers pressing the limits of city streets in a six-, seven-, eight- or even nine-person motor vehicle.

But the nature of this emergency necessitated a mission of mercy. A crossing endeavored in the defense of Portland, Oregon.

The Burnside Bridge constituted just one of seventeen, but I am glad we chose Burnside. In another essay I would advocate for how, if one could condense the city of Portland to one road, it would be Burnside; I would detail how that single street would take you from the limits of Forest Park in the west to the limits of Gresham in the east and tour its riders through every institution, large or small, that makes up the city.

But this is not that essay. And my ass was slowly soaking on the ground as I lay next to my bike. When I looked up at those battleborn clouds, I knew they would soon carpet us all with warheads of devastating gobs collected then dispensed with efficiency. Each underpass on our route would become a safehouse for temporary reprieve or to slip into a smock.

I did not take any such opportunity, then or on the bridge. I just lay there, contemplating that, if I didn’t wash myself in these rains, did I really even bike ride through Portland in autumn?

My journals and books and laptops in my bag likely disagreed with this action. Though spared the worst of it, unlike the flannel, they did still well with water at the corners and edges of each page. I am not concerned. This is what living in Portland is.

To see Big Pink rise in the west and Mount Hood tower in the east. To define days by which bridge you crossed and when. To brave the threat of state violence as one would torrential downpour. Perhaps I will soak, but I will not cow. And so I rose.

If Portland is a warzone, it is not one of material damages, of bombed-out high-rises or guerrilla tunnels—actually, nix that last part, the Shanghai Tunnels do still exist—no Portland is a battle of optics, a barricade of principled whimsy against absurd depravity.

Walking the ramparts are protesting animals, marching bands, community organizers and other demonstrators sitting in on an unjust ICE Detention Center at MacAdam Avenue. And on Saturday, they received much needed support from a contingent of naked bike riders, crossing town from the Convention Center, passing before City Hall, then routing to the South Waterfront and arriving to the cheers of a crowd just as wet and wild.

The only promise of escalation here is that for every horrible act committed against, every disingenuous word distributed about Portland, we will march, ride or hike to your headquarters and just get weirder.

Because sincerity is the only response to this duplicity. Because fascist absurdity cannot handle a brand of unbounded theater kid silliness. And because the only people who can handle the idiosyncratic queerness of Portland are Portlanders themselves. And it triggers the authoritarian. After most of bike riders left, DHS agents stormed the protest and unjustly detained a clarinetist in the marching band, Unpresidented.

When people look at the footage, they will not see any government official acting in self-defense. Just wanton offenders who not only look like violent assholes, but petty fools too. This is the lashback of authoritarians who cannot stand the thought that their power is so brittle and prone for mockery. The ego of authority is weak under the slightest show of a freak flag waved firmly and sincerely.

That’s the answer to how we beat both government and media machine that wants to paint us as the center of a nascent insurrection. The only thing militant about us is how much we want you to read a review about an underground tribal drum and bass and kink show we saw last weekend on our blog.

I would know; I literally went to one two weekends ago and had to stop myself from writing something about it.

The only insurrection here is one against business as usual. A demonstration of the eccentric against what they want you to accept as normal practice. A singular resistance that can be surmised in a single slogan:

Keep Portland Weird.

It’s why we still live here. It’s why Portland has a charm unique to any other major city in America. It’s why Portlanders show up for events like the Ladd 500, the Friday Night Rides and the the Naked Bike Ride. And it’s why George H.W. Bush called us “Little Beirut.”

We keep Portland protesting because that’s how we keep Portland weird and we keep Portland weird because that’s how we keep Portland. And no fascist can match that level of freak. That level of fun.

Therein lies the challenge to the rest of America. We may take the lead on this ride, but it’s up to the rest to follow. They’ll have that chance on October 18th for the No Kings Protest.

I hope to see you there.

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