Archive for August, 2008

Andy’s Auspicious Adventures in Maine || Episode 3: The Job

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

Hello one and all once again! Hurtling head first into week 3. Unfortunately for all of you, I’ve begun to settle into things up here in Maine. Fortunately for me, this stabilization also reflects my financial standing, and I am presently willing to sacrifice a bit of adventure for the ability to persist (may I drop down dead where I stand). But at least the experiemt can be called a success at this point! I’m not just burning myself up anymore, there is a replenishing (although meager) fuel source. The fire is stoked. What I’m getting at… er… is…well I have a job now. Certainly the most shocking news to date. I’m sure this is just rocking the socks off of all you stably employed responsible people who call yourselves my friends and family. But there it is. Deal with it. I am. I get up and make sandwiches. I feed the hungry. What do you do? Yeah it’s not the most slam-bang knock em’ dead line of work, I’ll be the first to admit it, but the plus side is that they hired me on the spot! I guess they were impressed with my ability to finish most of the sentences I start. Anyway, yeah, it’s actually, despite the fact that I’m a college educated 24 year old, a really swell place. I come in at 8, make sandwiches all morning, fend off the lunch rush, and am out by 2. I get fed breakfast, lunch, and dinner if there’s a day old sandwich around to take home with me. We do most of the sandwiches pre-made, and we have some pretty damn good ones. My current favorite (although I still have a lot to try) is salami, avocado, provolone, garlic mayo, and pepperchini on focaccia. Yum! It’s Mom and Pop to the core. Literally. They’ve both lived in Portland their whole lives. Martha (the Mom in this scenario) grew up in a house right across the street from the place. Jeff is an ex-banker. They bought the place which was a deli from even further back 13 years ago and haven’t looked back. All three of their “kids” (oldest is 35, youngest is a senior in college) have worked there at some point. The middle kid, Isaac, still does. He’s actually the one who hired me. He’s back home for the summer from Brooklyn, where he runs a catering company. Really nice guy. He took me and his dog Oscar out to his favorite beach (in the world, according to him) last weekend. It’s kind of stupid how pretty it is up here. It may be my favorite beach too. One of it’s neatest attributes is the fact that there is a really mean current that whips around a bend in the beach and has carved out this big drop-off, so that if you go about 2 feet from shore you’ll be in to your chin. It’ll be up past your head if you go another foot out. This makes it so that you can actually dive into the water FROM the beach, which is incredibly fun if you’ve never had the pleasure. The Atlantic, while cold, is not much worse than ole’ Lake Michigan this time of year, depending if the tide is going in or out of course. I did some beach exploring of my own the rest of the weekend. I gave myself an impromptu biking tour of a few of Portland’s light houses, and went climbing on some great craggy rocks along the coast. There was this fantastic fog coming in off the ocean the first time I went out that seemed to fit the scenery perfectly, or vice versa.

I’m still hiking once or twice a week up to that waterfall across the street from me, but can you blame me? I’m getting busy with freelance work too, which is really excellent. I tried to quit about a year ago because I could never find work I was interested in, and all of a sudden it started finding me. So I’m trying to build up a little momentum and roll with that. My rolling last evening however, was abruptly halted by a staple. I walked my bike over to the nearest shop only to catch the owner just as he was hoping on his bike to ride home for the evening. He looked at me and said “That sucks” and then pretty much just biked off into the sunset, leaving me to walk my flat bike 3 and a half miles back home … into the sunset of course. The weather has been knock-out gorgeous lately, so I didn’t even mind so much. I grabbed a patch kit and fixed everything right up this afternoon though, so I’m back in business. Speaking of bikes I just recalled an amazing sight I beheld last week of a bike rack and two bikes mounted to the back of a limo. Images like that provide their own commentary. On the theme of double-takes, I had two while walking my deflated bike around last evening. I happened past not one, but two different people just strolling around downtown Portland with pythons coiled about their person(s). The second guy I had to stop and ask if something was up, because one python, fine I’ll take it, but two! In less than an hour! So I asked him if something was up, a convention or a cult meeting to worship some of “the Old Ones”. He said “No, he just likes to walk around with his baby.” Sure thing guy. …and gal.

For those of you who might know what I’m talking about (you’ll know who you are, because you’ll know what I’m talking about) I saw a tribute band battle last week that was really fun: Frank Zappa Vs. Mike Patton. I think Patton won, but I could just be sore because the Zappa band didn’t play anything by the Mothers. The Patton-ites stuck mostly to Faith No More stuff, with some Phantomas tossed in for filler and good measure. Also saw a really wacky show the other night at this place called Strange Maine. Bunch of Improvised noise stuff that was actually much more fun and interesting than all other shows fitting that description that I had seen prior (for the record there have been kind of a lot). I wont try and describe anything, because even the people who know what I’m talking about wouldn’t know what I’m talking about.

An interesting note, I’ve been getting “Fag!” yelled at me from the open windows of passing cars with more regularity than even the glory days as a freshman in Savannah. My retort is always “Anachronism!” but they seem to pass too quickly to look up the word in their dictionaries. Anyway I hope the lack of follow-up pummelings is due to insufficient time to act and not for want of dictionaries. This is of particular curiosity, because, in contrast to my assumptions prior to arriving in this burg, there is absolutely no shortage at all of weirdo art-freak kids up here. This is a city caked in weirdness, and you’d think they would have bigger fish to fry (or at least sufficient experience to negate the novelty of it) than presumed sexual preference hazarded at 50mph.

This is probably getting long enough. You know I don’t do this because I want to. I want nothing to do with any of you people obviously. It’s just a weekly writing exercise to make sure I can still ramble on and on to no end (until the end) indulging myself and nursing my reputation as a tremendous ass who thinks that other people may find it necessary or interesting to know that he got a job making sandwiches and enjoys watching all the pretty sunsets on all the pretty beaches here in Maine. {singing now} Isn’t my life great. Isn’t this life grand. I have the most fun, while lying in the sand… And on and on until one of you sends me a letter bomb. …or just a letter. I’d love to hear from you too!!!

Seriously though. I miss the devil out of all (most) of you! I don’t know what I shape I would be in up here if it wasn’t for having such good friends to keep in touch with, and keep me in touch. The drop-off into madness would be much steeper, that’s for sure. Anyway I hope this finds you all doing exceptionally well. Enjoy your own summers wherever you are. Until the spirit once again moves me, have the fun.

Until the future.
-Andy

Link to Episode 2

Link to Episode 1

P.S. The bastards at Verizon have done something unnameable to my internet connection (I am again at a cafe) so forgive any delay in response on my part.
UPDATE:: Apparently my lines have been struck by lightning. I am currently undergoing an investigation to determine if this may have been Verizon’s fault.

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Bigger changes than I had planned

Saturday, August 23rd, 2008

Not so much content, but content management changes. I set out to just make a few functional updates last evening, but as so often happens when peering down the rabbit hole of site updates, I got sucked down. 6 hours later, I’ve made some HUGE changes to the structure of the ole’ site. The only thing you’ll ever notice on that end is the new schmancy way I handle the galleries. Not just show-offy, it actually cuts down the amount of pages I have on this site by 2/3! There’s also a lot of moving links around, cutting down other things so they’re easier to move. Nothing particularly exciting. What is exciting is that I’m pretty much done, and I’m going to go get some breakfast.

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Sprouting Roots

Wednesday, August 20th, 2008

Root Food, the foodie blog of my most excellent cousin and her most excellent co-conspirator has gone back up today. They had actually been at it for a while, but I just finished a huge redesign for them. It looks great. Take a look, bookmark it, read and eat it often.

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New Old Things

Tuesday, August 19th, 2008

Lots of tinkering been going on with the site these last couple days. You’ll notice some new old website images on the Commercial Page. There’s a bunch of other stuff added here and there, but you’ll just have to poke around and find that all out for yourself, cause I ain’t talkin! You may also find yourself near mortally impressed by my new sliding menu drop downs. Don’t be. They came pre-built. I just had to tweak some stuff and tell em what to say. I have just finished some work for Root Food which isn’t up yet, but soon will be, and I will be starting a project this week for Douglas Ewart, a very interesting and pleasant artist/ musician hailing originally from Jamacia, but currently teaching and preforming in and around the Chicago Area. He’s a very cool cat who’s played with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Cecil Taylor, Nyabingi Drum Choir, Roscoe Mitchell, Fred Anderson Sextet, just to name a very few. Anyway, I’m excited about that project. I’m keeping very busy despite the fact that I still don’t have a job. Out.

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Al Truistic Hour is Back in a New Town

Monday, August 18th, 2008

I would like to personally welcome myself back to the game. Friends, faces, places, moods, ideas, food, and money all come and go, but music is always there. Except when it isn’t, like the four months I have been off the bandwagon with my own Al Truistic Radio Podcasts. Well I’m back to playing whatever the hell I want, and if you wanna get in on any of it, play it loud and play it now. Play it HERE The music floweth endlessly.

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Stephen Stapleton of Nurse With Wound and the Huffin’ Rag Blues

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

I recently had an interview with underground icon and Surrealist (non)musician Steven Stapleton. Along from the nearly 30 years as Nurse With Wound (NWW) Stapleton has collaborated frequently with David Tibet of Current 93, as well as with: Lemon Kittens, COIL, Volcano the Bear, the Legendary Pink Dots, and many others. Despite a career steeped in “the dark stuff” I found him to be a quite pleasant gentleman. We chatted about what it’s like to have such a long running project, what got him back out touring again (after a twenty year absence), art, inspiration, and the future of female rap music (seriously). It went exceptionally well. Look for the transcribed interview and the full audio right here, and over at Thirsty Media come September 1st. Until the future!

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Andy’s Auspicious Adventures in Maine || Episode Two: My Backyard

Monday, August 11th, 2008

My backyard is a green and magical, if vaguely malevolent expanse. A place, I’m sure where more than a few children have lost their innocence (perhaps lives? CREEEEPY). A place continuously damp and hidden, despite the fact that it is so near the populated and modern world. My backyard is winding trails under trees, over soggy plank bridges, up and down hills, across meadows, and, when it gets around to it, up to a waterfall. I wish I was being hyperbolic, I’m certain I’m being melodramatic, but I’m not making any of this up. My backyard is, quite literally, the Fore River Sanctuary here in Portland Maine, with a trail that leads up to Jewell Falls, Portland’s only waterfall! This is all directly across the street from where I live. This is where I can go whenever I feel like it. I saw a wild Turkey the other day! I’ve never seen one of those things alive! And only very occasionally with feathers and a head still attached. There was an egret, and woodpeckers, and hawks, gigantic slugs, and an incredible variety of mushrooms (none of which I partook of you guys!). I’m sure there will be frogs, snakes, and toads, but I have not discovered any yet. Perhaps they know to keep of the trails at this point. The place feels underused. It feels private. I have, to this point, the three times I’ve hiked the 5 miles back there, only encountered three other people. If you follow any of the side paths too far you will pop out into someone’s yard; just like that, you fall out of the woods and are back in a sub-division. The woods themselves feel so deep and healthy, alive in the life and decay of the forest. There is another trail just up the road the follows along the Stroudwater, another river that puts into the Portland Harbor just behind my house. It’s muddy and tight with occasionally breathtaking clearings opening up at certain bends in the river where you can see more than a few feet ahead of you. When I stand on the edge by the water visions from my childhood and the grabbing reach of Jenny Green Teeth and other such aquatic devourers of children from the picture books I used to spend hours studying play in my mind. The waters are a deep brown here from the clay that constitutes most of the land. There are fresh blackberries if you need a snack while stomping around through the mud.

>>> a link to photos of my backyard and also of my apartment: http://flickr.com/photos/rotovator/sets/72157606668197018/

Yesterday marked a week of my being here. It also marked the acquisition of a free but very stinky, and very huge couch. It was/ still is (despite my efforts) covered in thick coarse black dog’s hair, and smells like you would expect. It was one of those things where I was already too committed to the exchange before I thought better of it. I had found it online, and spoken briefly to the owner, who I’m sure is still smiling to himself to be rid of the damn thing, but he offered to haul it over to my place, and help me take it up the three flights of stairs. I need a couch, how could I refuse? But now it’s stuck in my attic space, filling it with the stink of wet and dead dog. This is after nearly three quarters of a bottle of Fabreeze, which I administer in 15 minute intervals whenever I am at home. But I needed a couch. And for the first time last night in my apartment, I slept on SOMETHING! And I watched movies (Ghostbusters II and Bergman’s the Virgin Spring) while sitting (physically comfortable, but mentally not so much) on something other than the floor. But I needed a couch, and I had better make peace with my situation, because it won’t be soon changing. We barely got it in the place, and I sure as hell wont be able to manage the disposal of that colossal beast on my own. I actually wrote a short horror story last evening on the subject, so I am practiced in my terrible descriptions of the thing. It really isn’t so bad as all that, but I don’t have to pretend very hard.

I have two job interviews this week, both of the web design variety, I also got an e-mail back about an administrative assistant position, but I am now thoroughly convinced it is a sham, but I then again, I just tend to disbelieve anyone offering 165,000 a year to work from home! And I should have internet of my own by Thursday, which I will relish. Not that I don’t enjoy these mornings at the cafe, I just desire the flexibility. I did however have a minor breakthrough, that quickly degenerated into frustration last evening. I can intercept the wireless from my downstairs neighbor, and had been coveting the idea of it since I moved in. I idly tried last evening to guess her WEP password, and two my amazement and horror struck gold with only my second guess, “jesus”, which is less surprising if you consider the sum of her bumper stickers. Still horrific that someone would select that as a password. Even more so that they would have a “W Stands for Women!” sticker on their car, theirself being a woman and presumably knowing what that stands for.

Gray and cool again today. The two days previous had been sunny and beautiful. I took in a local rock n’ roll show at what will probably turn into a usual hangout for me on Friday nights. Saw an exciting local band called Hatchetface and the Vipers, along with Confusitron. The headlining local heroes, Covered in Bees, were not my cup of tea, but I actually ran into someone who had left a comment on my website welcoming me to Portland. It was pure chance. I merely mentioned to the frustrated pinball player my similar frustrations with the speed of the “Indiana Jones Adventures” pinball machine. After a brief exchange she realized that there probably weren’t many other people who had just arrived to Portland from Chicago, and quickly introduced herself. Otherwise, I have been reading, biking, and exploring all over my still very new town. I have the easy stuff figured out at this point, but there remains much to be discovered. Until the future one and all. I have enjoyed hearing from you. I miss every one of you out here, and wish that I had my close friends to share these adventures with. I suppose that’s what these e-mails are all about.

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Andy’s Auspicious Adventures in Maine || Episode One: The House

Thursday, August 7th, 2008

REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM A MASS E-MAIL (because I don’t have the time, the internet, or the energy to produce anything original at the moment).

Ahoy all friends, family, and unaffiliated! I awoke for the third consecutive morning in the state of Maine, city of Portland early this AM. I popped my back, and craned my neck as was necessitated after sleeping on a folded blanket placed solidly on the solid floor of my new room. Yup, just three days into this and already I’ve graduated from a nice cozy couch in the middle of downtown Portland to a beautiful old hardwood floor… and… well, I’m getting ahead of myself. For those of you who need some catching up (I.E: everyone but the three people I’ve talked to nearly every day since I’ve been here), my first two evenings I stayed on the couch of a nice fella I met on them internets. No no, not on the serial strangler/ rapist chat room that I used to spend a lit of time on, but through a much more sketchy site called CouchSurfing.com which actually turned out to not be very sketchy at all, in fact I highly recommend it. It has served me and my hosts quite well. The first night I got in another couch surfer was just on her way out, a 20 year old from Flagstaff Arizona exploring the East Coast after a summer on an organic farm run by freaky village of the damned style super-christians/ satanists. We went out for Lobster for her last and my first night in Maine right before she hit the road for Boston. If you are on a budget and feel that you absolutely must indulge in some Maine lobster, might I recommend the Lobster Rolls: all the meat, none of the work, it’s ten bucks cheaper than having that whole semi-smilin’ glorified cockroach delivered on a bed of fries to you, and it comes with bread wrapped around it! Who doesn’t like that? Oh and so there was no doubt as to our “out of town” status we had a slice of blueberry pie.

I’ve spent much of the time since dinner exploring, biking, being told “no, we’re not hiring”, and trying my best to use the ole’ Lyman charm (thanks Dad) and meet new people. It’s a beautiful town out here. Like well worn clothing, it feels very worn, very loved, and very functional. It’s a very up front and genuine town, and a looker to boot. There’s lots of biking, lots of sailing, lots of canoing, and lots of restaurants! Someone told me that Portland has the second most restaurants per capita of any city in the Union. And they’re REALLY good. I’ve been eating very well, and on the cheap. All sorts of different stuff, lots of Thai, Sushi, Mexican, Pizza, Bakeries, you name it, it’s probably out here in this little town of 66,000. There’s a good culture here too. The art galleries are actually interesting! And the music scene seems very strong, although I’m having a hard time understanding the strange juxtaposition that is occurring up here as every tattooed, patched-up, black t-shirt wearin, ratty haired, vegan food eatin kid out here does not listen to punk music, does not listen to metal, but instead opts to sit cross legged on the floor and listen to Folk music. It’s not that i terribly mind, in fact one of the bands I saw the other night where I met many of the aforementioned kids was very good, it’s just weird ya know. What’s happening to the youth of America, hippies of a darker color pallet. But everyone I’ve met so far has been great. The couch guys will both probably be some good friends out here for a while, they went to undergrad together and are both involved in the Theater scene up here.

Anyway the subject line of this volume suggestes that you would be reading primarily about “The House” which I am getting to right now. I moved in yesterday to my new place. It’s a converted attic in a great old house just a mile and a half outside of town. I live on a dead end street right across the train tracks and the river feeds into the harbor just behind me. Just across the street are some trails that go along the river and up to a waterfall that I have yet to explore but look forward to. It’s just a 15 minute bike ride to downtown from where I’m at and there is a bus stop literally just outside my house that is a straight shot to the heart of the city. I have a large fenced backyard with a healthy old fir tree growing right up out of it, and gigantic old garage that I have been encouraged to use as a studio, workspace, so I plan on getting some supplies and doing some drawing/ painting again. I have a very wonderful and very creepy old cellar, where I’m convinced people are buried, or will be, and my place is the third floor. I live above two older women whom I met least night and seem very pleasant. I have a beautiful hard-wood floor room with original wood doors and frames. There are big sloped ceilings and lits of old wooden doors that lead into black attic spaces. I am without a kitchen, but I have a full, if somewhat diagonal (as in, that’s how you have to stand at all times in it) bathroom. I’ll just have to get a bit creative with food, but let’s face it, how much have I ever really cooked for myself anyway? The really nice thing about all this is that it’s very cheap. $100 dollars less than anything else I was looking at out here, and all of those were first floor rectangles with a stove. This is a VERY New England ghost story type of space. I am expecting to descend into madness before the winter comes. It’s very Lovecraftian, and I was warned by a fellow I met at this great store called Strange Maine to watch out for mathematically impossible angles (because that’s where the Witch comes through in “Dreams in the Witch-House). Although I slept the night peacefully (aside from some back pains, which I cannot ascribe to any supernatural factors, just the hard floors), and there was not incident to report, but do not give up hope, we’ll find the old ones around here somewhere. I’ll get some pictures together to send out with the next episode.

Well I think I have to bow out gracefully here. My time is almost up, and I’m currently having my ear talked off by a nice fella’ here at the McDonalds (it’s where I had to go since the Dunkin Donuts here had no wireless). I will be without internet for another week. But I’ll try the stories coming, and I’ll try and keep exploring and adventuring. Have the fun. I’ve been missing you guys. I’ll let you know if I find Cthulu. Erin has already claimed my books if I’m driven mad by terror.

Posted in Maine, News, Writing | 2 Comments »