Ssshh, This is the Blog That Made Everyone Upset

This blog was originally posted on March 25th, but was taken down due to severe negative comments and messaging. I wrote a response to why I took down the blog here. This article is an inside joke between me and a friend of mine’s Facebook post and the comments that followed. This is just meant to be satire and if you are upset by what you read, you need to get a life or end it. 

There is a terrible injustice happening in our world. It shadows ISIS, America’s economic woes, race injustice and missing planes: the taco. Sunset Magazine is doing a bracket of the best tacos kind of like the NCAA March Madness, but the winners are decided by opinions rather than skill, but hey, whatever sells magazines.

Portland’s own Poor Kay Know made it to the semis, but fell to Tacolicious from San Francisco. Poor Kay Know is a local taco place that has locations next to new condo buildings and pays people to stand in line so people think they are really good.

I have had Poor Kay Know’s tacos before and luckily I didn’t stand in any line and I have to say they were mediocre at best and the people I was with were all from cities in California and howled at their sun Gods about being banished to a city that has no decent Mexican food – especially the lack of Mission style burritos.

One taco aficionado said, “What kind of stupidity places the hipster mediocrity that is “por que no” in the semi finals for best tacos on the west coast. That is bullshit. The entire west coast. C’mon. I’ve eaten at 100 taco joints on the west coast that blow that overpriced nasty away. It’s not only annoying because it’s untrue but it’s so representative of the homogenized tastes of the upper middle class white hipsterdom that is Portland and apparently the entire west coast. (I realize that I often align with that community and that this is totally preachy, but it’s true)”. A New York transplant had this to add, “As a white ex-New Yorker, I’ve never understood the por que no hype. It just can be attributed to the rah rah Portland thing. I happen to love living here, but that rah rah attitude is just an example of the insecurity about perhaps facing the reality of Portland in its real context…”

People were very upset. One suburban dad said, “Por que no is the frosting on the cake when it comes to the truth that Portland is full of white people who only trust and only, despite their well spoken raves of diversity, want to deal with white people. This, town has several taqaurias run by people who actually understand Mexican food- seriously the place has a menu item called Brian’s Bowl- Brian’s only real contribution to Mexican cuisine is making pretentious Portland feel safe in phony diversification of their dining”. Now the taco debate has become about race, gentrification and white immigrants coming to Portland. I had no idea that tacos could become so controversial.

Portland is a small city in the Pacific Northwest that sits near the Ocean and near the Cascade Mountains. It is one of the whitest cities, but Hispanic/ Latino make up 9.4% of the population with rapid growth projected in the next few years. Black/African American make up only 6.3% of the population and that is on the decline. Just to get a little perspective, that’s half a million white people shadowing 40,000 black people.

And the white people keep coming! They are projecting to top 3 million people by 2035. That is a lot of taco experts coming to town to just be disappointed that we just never took tacos seriously.

To give you full disclosure, while I like tacos, I do not looooove tacos. I have always and will always be a burger and pizza guy. I’m also apart of the Make Hot Dogs Popular in Portland Syndicate, so I am at odds with taco culture personally.

Tacos are a lazy man’s food. They’re cheap, they’re made with simple tasting ingredients and they can fit in one hand if one is dexterous. They don’t quite have the mess as a huge burrito or a gyro, but because one mostly buys two or three at a time, one thinks they are getting a meal deal. They are being fooled.

Tacos are also popular in college frat houses, Nazi skinhead cultures and ISIS, who eat tacos before beheading infidels.

The taco debate is the greatest debate of our generation. It may never be answered what truly is a good taco and if Poor Kay Know is even that good.

Some people blame Portland people for not knowing good tacos. One Cheechakos said, “I have a friend, an ex-restauranter now contractor, who points to por que no as a symptom of the laziness of the Portland restaurant scene: you go, stand in line to order, bus your own tables and get your own silverware, water and condiments and for the privilege of bringing your food to you the hipsters expect and get surly if you don’t tip 20%.” While another white immigrant to Portland added, “There is a “lemmings” aspect of Portland food culture, if there is a line then it must be good. I’ve always felt the same about that pizza place just up hawthorne from Por Que No, where people line up a hour before they open. I mean wtf? it’s pizza, how good can it be? I agree Por Que No is at best mediocre, certainly overpriced, always inconsistent and can be downright nasty. Margaritas aren’t bad though. Now stop bragging up Lindo Michoacan, or there will be a line of skinny jeans lumbersexuals all the way down division.”

Poor Kay Know went from the fourth best taco place on the west coast to a symbol of people’s dissatisfaction with race relation, urban growth, youth culture, the city of Portland itself, lumbersexual (who I guess are men who fuck trees and dress like Paul Bunyan), suicidal mammals, and other topics that shouldn’t be brought up at Thanksgiving if you want a peaceful evening.

Sunset magazine almost ignited Portland to a full-blown riot and many people were almost killed or harmed because of their negligible opinions on tacos.

Someday I hope we can all agree what a good tasting taco is and the world will be a better place.

If you are angry and feel like you need to respond, please try to be constructive with your criticism, so I can learn something other than I’m a piece of shit.