Then comes the baptism. The psychic whiplash is immense. The stage lights shift, and the air, still crackling with punk residue, fills with the dreamy melodies of Bijoux Cone. A primal scream replaced by a seductive whisper. The sound is a lush, soulful exploration wrapped in the glittering fabric of disco-esque synth-pop. A demented cocktail of Bowie and Tears for Fears that speaks directly to this Millennial heart.

The performance is a masterclass in atmosphere--twinkling melodies, fog machines, and seductive vocals that pull the audience into a different kind of trance. Where J. Graves was a physical exorcism, Bijoux Cone is a spiritual immersion. A journey through soundscapes where each song explores the complexities of identity. The crowd, once a churning mass, is now a swaying, hypnotic sea. This is music as a celebration, a vibrant and unapologetic embrace of queer and transgender perspectives, transforming the room into a space of neon-lit introspection and communal joy. A raw, furious energy followed by a soulful, glittering calm--two sides of the same wild heart.

And then you look out into the crowd, and you get a psychic mainline of pure, uncut human emotion. In the shimmering, hazy glow, you see them--these poor, beautiful "dolls"--clutching at each other. They're embracing, kissing, some of them are openly weeping into the synth wash. You realize you're not just watching a concert--you're witnessing a series of tiny, desperate truces in the grinding war against loneliness. Each one of these souls is a whole goddamn universe of experience crammed into a single body on this speck of dust hurtling through the black. Each one came to this tiny venue in this tiny-big city for one reason: to feel like they belong somewhere. And for a few precious, electric moments, they do. Right here. This is their foxhole.

You don't find Anarchy Beach by accident. It's not on any tourist map, and the GPS will lead you into a goddamn cul-de-sac of industrial despair on Swan Island, surrounded by warehouses that groan with the secret labors of a city at work. To get there, you need faith. You need to follow the distant thump of a kick drum, the rumors whispered in a dive bar, the hand-scrawled address sharpied on the back of a flyer. You have to be looking for it.

And on this sweltering Saturday, hundreds of us were looking for it. We came for Glizzathon 2025.

Let's pause here to consider the name. Glizzathon. A marathon of "glizzies," the debased, glorious slang for the humble hot dog. In any other city, this would be a marketing gimmick for a minor league baseball team. In Portland, it is the organizing principle for a full-blown, unsanctioned music festival, a sacred rite of summer held on a dusty patch of forgotten riverfront. This is the genius of this town: the ability to take something profoundly stupid and treat it with the solemnity and joyous energy of a high religious ceremony. The hot dog was not just food; it was the Eucharist.

You don't buy a ticket for The Saturn House. There is no corporate vendor that gouges you with fees named after the abstract concepts of "convenience" and "processing." You get an address. A string of numbers and a street name, passed along through a text message or Instagram DM or a sidebar conversation after another show; it's a treasure map, a tiny bit of knowledge that grants you passage to the real, beating, and profoundly sweaty heart of the city's music scene. This is the geometry of the underground, a network of basements and garages that forms the city's true cultural circulatory system, pumping life into the extremities long after the downtown core has descended into madness the likes of Ticketmaster and its familiar ilk. There is no sign on the door, no bouncer, no velvet rope. There is only a modest, unassuming house in the deep, leafy labyrinth of Southeast Portland, indistinguishable from its neighbors save for the cluster of kids in black denim huddled in the driveway.

I pulled up feeling every one of my forty-odd years, a sensation that lands like a low-grade electrical hum of impostor syndrome in the back of your skull. It's the persistent question of whether you belong; a question that gets louder when you're old enough to have a teenage kid of your own and you're willingly steering your sensible sedan toward a wall of amplified noise in a stranger's basement. The group in the driveway was a perfect diorama of the new Portland generation: kind-eyed, clad in goth and punk regalia, thrifty 90s denim and plaid, and the merch of bands you've never heard of. Each radiating a welcoming energy that immediately disarmed my middle-aged paranoia. They were the living, breathing refutation of every think-piece written about their supposed apathy.

The man at the security station in Mississippi Studios gives me the kind of look that only a seasoned Portland gatekeeper can properly execute. It's a complex cocktail of mild suspicion, weary acceptance, and a flicker of genuine curiosity. I am, I must admit, a walking contradiction. The long, unkempt beard screams "street philosopher" or "unsuccessful wizard," while the Mohawk, now too long to maintain its defiant verticality, flops over like a wilted fern. Add to this the mildly-thick round glasses that seem borrowed from a 1960s tax auditor and a canary-yellow camera bag strained to the breaking point with Japanese glass and cameras and God knows what else, and you have a man who could be here to document the scene, or possibly to panhandle for beer money. In Portland, the line between the two is blessedly, beautifully thin.

I offer a smile that's probably more of a grimace as he scans the guest list for the third time. My name, of course, is a ghost, an apparition that failed to materialize on the sacred scroll. "Sorry, man," he says, and he actually sounds it. This isn't New York. There's no bouncer's glee in his denial. He's just a guy doing a job, and my particular brand of chaos is a minor snag in the otherwise smooth flow of humanity trickling into this converted house of worship. He gets on his radio, his voice a low hum against the growing buzz of the crowd.