A possibly long ramble about finally making it out to Mutantis Brewing

[olivermoss]

I'd heard of Mutantis Brewing because they are the gluten-free option in a lot of places. Last year, because I regularly check for this sort of thing, I found out that they are considered a 'trans bar'. Turns out, they are trans owned an operated.


When I first wanted to check them out I looked at their schedule and realized that nearly every hour they were open they were hosting the sort of political groups that think Trump and Harris are the same and/or that voting makes you complicit in US imperialism, and therefore a nazi.

Yeah, finding out that the 'trans bar' in town was going to be constantly filled with people who'd consider me literally a nazi sucked.

The election came and went, and I put them back on my list to check out. It's possible that the owners weren't perfectly aligned with the groups they hosted, and hey if there is a vegan, gluten-free, trans bar in my town I want to fucking go.

Also, I don't even know the politics of most of the places I drink, anyway. Except for the owner of Rev Nat's who got literally curb stomped by the alt right for not wanting them in his cidery. It was a group in town to mess with BLM protesters and what the poor guy looked like after they got through with him is etched in my brain.

And except for the owner of Rose City Book Pub, who lectured me on my mayoral vote. She told me it was only responsible for vote for a front-runner and if I cared about Portland I'd vote for the one with the insanely ridiculous number of tickets for driving on a suspended license. In Europe, they don't vote based on people's personal life, they vote in who is best for the job. It's sadly puritanical and american of me to care. I threw away my vote by voting for the political outsider. After the election the guy I voted for, Wilson, went on to become *checks notes* Mayor of Portland.

Next snag was that I've been dealing with a medical thing since my New Orleans trip and haven't been able to drink or generally needed to stay in as much as possible. I am just now starting to normalize my activities a bit. So, it was time to look into a trip up there.

I looked on their website and saw that due to the election outcome they are closing the place and leaving the country. Even though I don't know for sure that their politics match perfectly with those groups, I was pissed. Yeah, who won does fucking matter after all? I was so upset I had to scuttle writing plans for the night and watch shows.

Still, for now it exists. I headed out there today. No matter what the vibe I wanted to check it out at least once. I wanted an actual experience of going there.

I arrived about two hours before closing. I saw someone taking down signs and realized it was for the bar, she was shutting it down that early on a Friday night. When I went in and she made the saddest 'oh' sound. Maybe I should have just slipped back out and let her close up, but I'd walked about 3 miles and wanted to at least sit down and try something. I ordered a blackberry and spruce sour. It was good!



On the other side of the glass it says 'Established in 2020, Portland, OR' Fuck. Our lockdowns were way longer than most places. Trying to start a bar in 2020 in Portland? That sucks.

My plan had been to have a beer and write for an hour or two, but I didn't want to keep her. It was just the two of us in there as the sky got darker. There were signs around announcing the closing, the permanent one. So, I grabbed two cans from the cooler and went to settle up. She asked if she'd messed up the pour and I told her I didn't want to keep her. She'd clearly been closing. She said she could stay, and I told her it was fine.

Just, fuck... I only found out about it because I check and re-check just in case there's a place for me, a group or something. I didn't even know until mid-2024 they had a physical location, much less that they were 'Portland's trans bar'.

I wish I could have had a pint or two there before they started closing down. I am glad I got to at least find out about them before the end, but whatever that place briefly was, it's just not anymore.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

I'm glad you got to go before they're gone, but it's a shame they've had a rough trajectory. (Starting in 2020, fucking ouch.)

...Though yeah, I am SO EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED by all of the "not voting is the only moral stance, it doesn't matter who wins anyway, they're all exactly the same" people who are now desperately trying to escape the country, cross to slightly less terrible states, in a panic if they can't leave, trying to figure out what to do... It really does feel like "oh, now it does matter?"

[olivermoss]

It's incomprehensible to me how people can act this way after the last few elections. I am also sick of the idea that we need to coddle them because 'one vote wouldn't have mattered', but that attitude does fucking matter. Also, the sheer refusal to engage in political reality... idk what they need but poor babies who just couldn't bring themselves to push a level, coddling is not what they need.

[mistressofmuses]

I just... feel like there's nothing to even say to someone who seems to be so disconnected from reality that they believe elections don't matter. Sure, I'd love the perfect leftist candidate of my dreams to be a viable choice and win an election... but since I live in the real world dealing with the real world consequences, I'm going to be a pragmatist about the necessity of harm reduction and picking the imperfect-but-generally-moving-the-right-direction options that are available.

The attitude absolutely matters. There's already so much apathy toward voting, *especially* on the left, that having these sorts of attitudes saturate so many spaces and subcultures means it's so much easier for people to just... disenfranchise themselves.

I understand the whole "allow people to change" thing, and sure, there's got to be room for growth and improvement. But yeah, I've got no interest in coddling and hand-holding the people who spent months or years on their high horses about their moral choice to "not participate in a corrupt system" and are now wailing about the bad shit going down. I have even less interest in dealing with the people who are smugly *glad* about how bad it is, because they think it'll bring about their rapture revolution that they're daydreaming about.

[olivermoss]

It's pure privilege. They think they will be safe through the chaos. They want to sit on their little pedestals and complain that what we do is not enough. I agree that it's not enough, would be nice if we had some help! Democrats in power have actually accomplished things, unlike what the left party has done.

As I've said before, they are anti-democracy. They are fine with a ruling minority, as long as they are the minority.

And yeah, the anti-voting left all stroking each other's ego over how moral and how they are 'taking their power back' for not voting, the entire culture around making them feel good about it, it matter. As does (screaming seagull meme) the popular vote, it's one piece of data that does move voters a lot and make them pay more attention and has always been very influential politically. Acting like the popular vote isn't an important tool in showing political reality is dumb. If a person ~feels like their vote doesn't count~ but can't even a push a lever to help show the disconnect, they don't care. It's all about in-group validation. They are putting in-group validation and conformity over people's lives.

[mistressofmuses]

It absolutely is. They figure they'll be fine no matter what happens, and the smug attitude toward people *who really might not survive* is infuriating. The ~at least I didn't compromise my stance by letting a fascist into power~ makes me want to bite.

Of course there should always be more! But it is also infuriating to see incremental progress utterly ignored. Democrats HAVE accomplished things and improved things. Do I wish it was more? Yes! Do I think something is better than nothing? Also yes!

Constantly praising their "principled stand" of doing less than the bare minimum, and then being told that we should hold their hands and pet their hair and console them for how sad they are now... fuck that shit. It is the absolute worst example of preferring validation for doing nothing more than wanting to do even a tiny thing to help save lives. That is in no way a "principle" deserving of respect or coddling.

[olivermoss]

They only care about making sure the theoretically inevitable good future is in their lifetimes, the only tragedy is it being for their kids or their kid's kids. I don't think we have a good future coming if we are willing to sacrifice whole groups of minorities to get there. Isn't that like... literally textbook bad?

[mistressofmuses]

(I realized that my wording was a little unclear. The bit snarking about ~compromising a stance~ should more properly have read something like ~at least I didn't compromise my stance when my inaction allowed a fascist into power~.)

But yeah. It's that rapture mentality. They want this imagined inevitable good future to happen to them, and will act as accelerationists to try and ensure it does. They're sure the future is bright, but yes, the saddest thing would be if it happens after they're already gone. So they'll climb up a whole pile of bodies of those who were more vulnerable and did not survive in their quest to get their place in the leftist rapture... and somehow don't see that willingness to sacrifice so many people as cartoonishly evil. Or don't see how that attitude puts them most closely in line with the political powers they claim to hate above all else.

[olivermoss]

(I think I picked up what you meant)

Rapture thinking is a good point, because they have a devotion to something that has never worked, but that's just because people didn't do it good enough. Leftism can't fail, it can only be failed. Ignore what's happened when attempts at leftist states failed, they are all... they were never real leftists

[mistressofmuses]

Uuuuugh, it's exactly that attitude, too. "This is the perfect system. The only reason it hasn't ever worked is because the people weren't doing it right." So frustrating, and so deeply not worth trying to have a productive conversation with the people who believe that so strongly.