Mark Steadman Was Here

[hellosteadman]

An overstuffed gyro

Wegovy has made this a two-session gyro.

[hellosteadman]

There are two pianos in Manchester Piccadilly train station. Only one of them has my face burned into it like on a plasma TV.

[hellosteadman]

We topped off my last full day in Portland with chicken wings from Fire on the Mountain.

I was still full from my omelette but managed some fried veg followed by half a dozen wings with a variety of sauces.

I was so impressed with the buffalo hot sauce that I bought a bottle to bring home as a souvenir. I’ve got 8 months to use it.

[hellosteadman]

After breakfast we took a quick stroll around a rose garden, and then to Pittock Acres Park, where there’s a house built in 1914… apparently the oldest building in Portland. Bless!

Doesn’t it look like a Disney attraction!?

But it does afford an exceptional view of the city.

[hellosteadman]

This is what is called an Irish omelette, at the Original Pancake House. Otherwise known to me as a bomb filled with corned beef hash and potatoes; encased in egg.

I ordered a side of hash browns which was bold given that the omelette also came with pancakes (which I didn’t know).

Half of it went into my face right away; the rest got boxed up and was my lunch.

[hellosteadman]

Maybe the nicest burrito I’ve ever had. From an apparently award-winning place called Ki’ikibáa.

[hellosteadman]

Matt’s BBQ serves the best brisket and pork belly you can ever hope to eat. Melts in the mouth. And the sauces — cherry chipotle and peach mustard — are elixirs. Yum.

[hellosteadman]

Today we took a drive out to Mount Hood (or Wy'east). We did a quick hike around Snow Bunny, then drove to Timberline, where we watched skiers and snowboarders over a hot chocolate.

[hellosteadman]

Breakfast today was via Keeper Coffee, the cutest little coffee shop with old English charm and delicious food.

The quiche was out of this world. Light, with more of a custard base than the usual scrambles egg mix. Brendan also treated me to a savoury scone and a marionberry pastry.

The coffee was lovely too.

[hellosteadman]

Last night we went out for some thumping improvised techno. It was a cool little undergroundish bar playing a selection of semi-psychedelic electronics and old-school funk.

The band came on a bit after 9 and continued to play non-stop, improvising around disco, dance, trance, and general EDM.

We had some tired party members so we headed back a little after an hour, with me full of JD & Coke (I forgot how generously Americans pour… from their hearts, not those little measuring cups).

[hellosteadman]

You know that feeling when you’re tripping balls on the top of a mountain and everything is simultaneously right in front of you but also miles away? That was my Monday.

In the morning we took some psilocybin tea with us to the top of mount Tabor. The high hit is just as we found a bench at the peak, so we spent the first maybe 20 minutes or so there until the cold got too much and I figured out how to stand.

Once the nausea wore mostly off and I stopped being anxious about what I was feeling and sensing, the rest was a mixture of glee and silliness and wonder.

I became fascinated with words and how they wriggled and wound round each other, and became convinced we were all on some sort of giant spiral or screw, that we were all mostly headed in the same direction but no-one knew just how ridiculous everything was.

Apparently some people get really talkative on shrooms. For the first hour, any time I spoke it sounded so loud in my head that it made me giggle. Also drinking water made me giggle, as did realising I was off my guard in public on a Monday (we were both doing well to not be in people’s way or give anyone a weird time, though a couple of people definitely knew we were high as kites).

So I got super quiet outside but inside was just a riot of inner monologue. Something I discovered was how much of my own resources I can mine — how much there is inside my weird little mind to delve into like a big toy box.

But it also struck me that it wouldn’t have been any fun alone. Especially in an unfamiliar place. And I was glad to have a guide like Brendan who could give me a sense of what I might experience physiologically (which was mostly just a bit of nausea… not my favourite, but as I kept reminding myself then and now, “this too shall pass”).

But the colours in show. My word. Chatting to Brendan about it last night I speculated about what a psychedelic trip might do for me, since my brain can make its own imagery without the need for it to pass through my limited circuitry.

We stopped at a reservoir and it was achingly beautiful. The blues were so vivid and the city was laid out in front of us. I instinctively knew I didn’t want to take a photo because what I was seeing would never compare to what my iPhone could capture… it would just be too mundane.

But everything around me for the first 90 minutes or so was exploding in vivid purples and pinks, straight lines swirled and all dimensions were huge in scope… there was so much up to the up and side to the sides.

And I could hear everything. I’ve never heard so acutely; conversations from far off, sounding like they were inches away. But none of it was startling; it was just wondrous.

I felt like a baby, exploring everything naively for the first time.

And then there was this voice. I’ve retrospectively named him the Maestro, as he was somehow the master of this great revolving circus I was part of. He spoke with authority, maybe a little like Vivian Stanshall, the guy from Bonzos who did the announcements in Tubular Bells.

He was there throughout, describing occasionally, pointing things out. It’s hard to pin down exactly what it was other than a presence. But I also knew it was all coming from me.

I guess being self-aware is a double-edged sword. I’m acutely aware of my faults and failings — or maybe I’m not and that’s just be being shitty about myself — but I’m also aware that, as Walt Whitman said, “I contain multitudes”.

[hellosteadman]

Brendan and I capped off an extremely male evening with a flight of whiskies and some picky food at the Scotch Lodge.

I’ve discovered a new favourite — a 2012 Kilchoman with a smokey flavour and a real dancey palate. It wasn’t as aggressive as the Lagavulin, and way more interesting than the Ardbeg… and even topped out the scorch and Irish whiskies that were previous favourites of mine, even with my super limited experience.

If you ever get the chance to try it, do. But don’t expect to get a bottle as they’re rare and incredibly expensive. I paid around $25 for a small glass, so that’ll give you an idea.

The venue was small and cool, with a kitchen where they seemed to be having fun. And just look at the selection!

[hellosteadman]

Smash PDX is a rage room where you get a bucket of stuff to smash, 50 minutes and a bunch of utensils to do it with. There’s also a pile of crap you can dig into, and a dummy you can wail on.

The personal violence thing didn’t intrigue me but it was pretty fun to make things explode with a baseball bat.

And wielding a sledgehammer has a unique rush to it.

We were given Bluetooth speaker access so we all contributed some music to a rage playlist. I don’t know that we all had that much to get off our chests, but it was fun to, as I say, make things explode.

Then we went out for ice cream.

[hellosteadman]

After hanging out and reading from the book Men’s Work, the four of us headed to the Roman Russian market for pierogi and shawarma.

It’s a combination market and deli with a little seating, so we sat outside and ate our Russian peasant food in the traditional Baltic weather.

Yum.

[hellosteadman]

They say Portland has good Chinese food. Whoever they are are right.

Today my hosts took me to a Chinese dumpling place in a mall — you were right, David, a mall! — where we tried pretty much everything on the menu.

A revelation for me is the flight of fresh ginger in a mixture of one part soy sauce to three parts vinegar. Tasty enough on its own — plus all the good ginger can do for you — but made an incredible dipping sauce.

The weirdest were the rice cakes — which were mushed-up rice with the texture of an ear lobe — and the nicest were, for me, the pork and shrimp dumplings.

Try the soy sauce and ginger thing. I’m gonna be buying more ginger when I get home, that’s for sure.

[hellosteadman]

Tonight, Brendan took me to watch the Portland Winterhawks play the Spokane Chiefs. It was my first real encounter of ice hockey and my first love US sport experience.

The stadium was well under capacity but we felt the rush when the home team scored and the crowd went for it.

As you’d imagine with US sport, there’s lots of nonsense. Lots of ads, stoppages, weird messages, and mini-games… which honestly do keep it all entertaining.

There was makeshift beer hall with free samples in the intervals — I tried everything but the cider, which we missed out on ‘cos people were chatting and not pouring! — and we all left with vouchers for Jamba Juice (a popular smoothie place) and Chick Fill-a (the Christian chicken place), because of arbitrary things that happened during the game.

Go Hawks!

[hellosteadman]

The American tradition of White Elephant was fun. It’s like Secret Santa but if someone likes what someone else has got, they can steel it. I think one theft happened but I was happy with my haul of a notebook and set of pens, some honey, snd some biscotti.