You start with your own body
then move outward, but not too far.
Never try to please a city, for example.
Nor will the easy intimacy
in small towns ever satisfy that need
you have only whispered in the dark.
A woman is a beginning.
She need not be pretty, but must know
how to make her own ceilings
out of all that’s beautiful in her.
Together you must love to exchange
gifts in the night, and agree
on the superfluity of ribbons,
the fine violence of breaking out
of yourselves. No matter,
it’s doubtful she will be enough for you,
or you for her. You must have friends
of both sexes. When you get together
you must feel everyone has brought
his fierce privacy with him
and is ready to share it. Prepare
yourself though to keep something back;
there’s a center in you
you are simply a comedian
without. Beyond this, it’s advisable
to have a skill. Learn how to make something:
food, a shoe box, a good day.
Remember, finally, there are few pleasures
that aren’t as local as your fingertips.
Never go to Europe for a cathedral.
In large groups, create a corner
in the middle of the room.

Anyways, Anthony Bourdain came to Maine.

I had heard about this from several people this winter. Some infamous food-guy came through Portland and word on the street was that he gave Street (of Street and Co.) a bad rap, which was just desserts or entirely unfair depending on who you heard it from.  It was the first I had heard of the show, not having a TV or being that TV-minded, but still I was intrigued as it’s always interesting to get an outsiders reflection upon our state. Sure, let him come, greater men have come before.

Verdict: The only way to come to Maine and truly enjoy it is with someone who knows the state, who has family or friends here. The great thing about this episode is that it really hits on the community. Friends, uncles, kids, neighbors, all of it is classic Maine. Yes some of it is dysfunctional or fiercely private but it’s this interconnection that lends itself so well. There’s no way to get by up here without having at least one point of human contact, and at the same time it’s the startling lack of it in the more remote areas that provides such a nice contrast.

That and bear meat. Which now I’m going to have to track down.

Good to see Shipyard getting consumed and what looked like a Geary’s. Good to see guns getting shot. Great to hear “Sweet, dude!” being yelled while Bourdain chops wood and fantastic that they let Zach do some talking. I love bringing people into the fold, out into the woods or around Portland for eats and Zach just reflected this joy. Maine’s a great place to come from and it’s great to see that pride come through.

Also pluses: No Portland Headlight shot. Exchange Street in Portland. J’s Oyster Bar as the opener. Mornings in Paris (though they should have come up the Hill to Rosemont and Hilltop) and a few other places. The two cooks in Rockland and Bourdain allowing Dana Street to make a flawless dink of himself.

“To be a Mainer is simple: one only has to be here. To eat the fish is to become the sea. To eat the plants and animals is to become the land…”

Good stuff, dude.

It was Frank’s friends cabin that they were staying at, on the large lake, whose father had built it shortly after the lake was made. He had anticipated a spike in development that never came, and had bequeathed it to his son twenty years later, after taking his own life. This was something that Frank knew little about, though as his friend shared in his father’s disposition towards silence and distance. It had been Frank’s idea to retreat to the cabin.

“Find something, Frank?” said Frank’s friend, who wore his large yellow jacket unzipped.

“Yeah,” Frank replied holding up a small oblong stone, “What do you think that is? Scales or something?”

The man in yellow looked at the stone, turning it slowly over in his hand and brushing dirt off it with his thick thumb. “Yeah, looks like scales or something,” he said.

“You think it was from a lizard?”

“Nah. Fish,” said the man in yellow, gesturing with his hand, “All this was under water back then.”

“The lake?” his companion said taking in the old growth that surrounded them.

“Nope, a big sea. The whole state was covered, maybe even the whole east coast.”

“Damn.”

The man in yellow shifted his weight slightly as he scanned the stones. His hip had been bothering him for the whole trip up but he wasn’t one to complain. He flipped a couple stones over and let them clatter off each other before selecting another for more careful inspection. Frank stood above him straining his eyes at a speck moving with some rapidity on the opposite side of the lake.

“Moose,” Frank said, pointing.

“Really?” the man in yellow said, not looking up.

“Yep. Full rack too.”

“Huh.”

The moose emerged from the lake and shook itself slightly. Smelling the two men on the wind, it turned its massive head towards them. For a minute the man in red and the ungainly animal stared into each other’s eyes across the deep lake. He dropped his hand to his side and gazed deeply as the bull slipped quietly into the wall of pines.  In it’s absence he was left with an ancient feeling of emptiness that settled into the back of his throat. The moose was gone. Vanished. Even the ripples it made in the lake had dissipated.

The man in yellow slipped the fossil-rock into his pocket and muttering to himself wiped his hand before starting off down the beach again. The man in red was slow to follow.

“Getting towards supper,” he said, finally catching up to his companion.

“We’ll eat soon,” the man in yellow stooped down to examine another rock, before placing it in his pocket.

“Thanks for bringing me out here. It’s good to get out of town.”

“It’s good to have you here.”

“Jackie never did let me get out much with you when we were together.”

“Don’t talk about Jackie now, Frank,” the man in yellow looked up at him briefly, before returning his head to the rocks.

“No. No. It’s fine. I was just saying. She didn’t let me out much. It’s nice to be out.”

“It is nice to be out. Here take a look at this one.”

Frank took the rock from his friend and looked it over. There was a long conical impression that sunk diagonally into the muddy rock with flecks of small white circles around it. “Looks like barnacles,” Frank said.

“Yeah, and a nice shell in the middle too.”

“Yeah, yeah. She’s a beauty, Rick.”

“That’s why I like coming up here. They’re just lying around.”

“How old do you think these are?”

“Oh I don’t know. Devonian, Cambrian, something like a few hundred million years old,” Rick wiped his hands on his jeans and grunted as he stood back up. “I’ve got a map back at home that’d tell me.”

“You’re good at this.”

“Nah. I’m not that good. It’s just a hobby. Something I like doing.”

“Well I’ll have to be getting myself a hobby now too, I guess.”

Rick stopped for a second and looked back at Frank, who was looking in the direction of the dam and seemed a bit happier than he had just been. Rick’s windbreaker was heavy with rocks by this point and when he stepped across the stones they clacked together softly.

“Do you brush them, clean them, when you get them home?”

“Yeah. Mostly I just wash them. Keep them around the apartment.”

“Must be running out of space.”

“Yeah. At this point I am.”

“Good thing you don’t have a woman around to complain about all the rocks, then. That’s all she’d be doing, complaining.”

“Yeah, Frank. It’s a good thing,” Rick picked up a rock covered in little seashell fossils and tossed it aside. “I think it’s about time we ate.”

They opened up the back of Rick’s blue Subaru hatchback and sat on the bumper with their sandwiches and a bottle of water between them. The back of the car faced the bridge that went across the length of the dam. The grey steel and asphalt stuck out against the surrounding greenery. On the far side, a huge line of power cables cut a path up the side of the valley.

“Where do you think that power goes?” Frank asked between bites of bologna.

“Don’t know.”

“I wonder how much power they get out of that dam.”

“Probably a lot. They needed a lot of manpower to build it.”

“That’s true.”

“Flooded the whole valley.”

“You suppose anyone lived up here before then?”

“Frank, nobody even lives up here now.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s true.”

“Only person lives up here is in that little brick building over there to supervise the dam.”

“Now that’d be the job for you, Rick. You could spend all day looking for fossils up here. Just as long as the dam was running smooth.”

Rick and Frank shared a laugh before settling in to another silence. They watched as a pair of turkey vultures circled upwards into the slate grey sky. Rick had brought some juice for himself and sipped from the bottle. Frank finished his sandwich and pulled out a cigarette.

“Smoke?” he offered.

“Nah. Thanks.”

“Good for you,” Frank dipped his head and cupped a match. Rick sipped some more apple juice and winced as he re-adjusted his seating on the bumper of the car. The roar of the dam was calming. Rick swatted at a mosquito together they both gazed long at the dam and the man-made lake.

“In Tennessee, you know, they had dams that built up and flooded valleys where people were living,” Frank said, brushing ash from his windbreaker. “Whole towns went under.”

“Yeah. They cleared them out though. The folks knew the dams were being built.”

“But just imagine. Your whole life, underwater, gone, stuck at the bottom of some lake somewhere. Some completely different world.”

“People survived.”

“Yeah. I guess they did.”

“Everyone’s good at starting over if they have to.”

“Yeah.”

“I mean look at you. You’re starting over.”

“Yeah.”

“And you’re alive. You’re still living.”

“That’s good, Rick.”

“I don’t know. I’m just saying. You had it. That’s good.”

“Yeah. That’s good.”

Three times in the past two weeks I’ve awoke early enough to see this.

Paul Simonon didn’t know how to play bass when he joined the Clash. He learned all the songs by rote. Something I always think of when this comes up. I guess I just have to apply. Polymathism leads to shallow work in most areas. I certainly don’t have musical “talent” so, who knows. We’ll have to see, first Erik returns and we rejoice. First I get paid. First rent gets paid.

So many firsts.

Sometimes I think I want to be good at too many things. I love cracking artistic things open and seeing how they work, appreciating them, trying my hand, but it has to have a limit at some point. Painting, acting, writing, music, photography. I worry that I stretch myself too thin. I want to have a passion that is all encompassing, that I can be recognized for. (Recognition is an interesting word here—Who am I living my life for?) But some folks just will never care. Musicians will not care about my photos unless they are of them, vandals will not care if I write, and if I write about them most likely they’ll take offense. Likewise my poetry teachers don’t care what I do with paint.

I sit in my apartment prodding the ceiling with a broomstick. I am convinced that there is a massive shoe up there, just waiting to drop.

How much as changed in this city in my life? Looking at some of the images I see buildings that I thought were Portland fixtures for ages are not much older than myself, certainly younger than my parents and other buildings that I thought were products of the nineties have been sitting gathering age for much, much longer. What used to stand in place of the library in Monument Square? When did that old pawn shop that took rags and tin scraps close? Where are these people now?

I love this city so much.

Emptied cupboards, sprayed below the sink. Need to kill
the queen. Laid poison, kept spraying.

Three days, they died. They’ll do the same to us. Them
or the worms. Today,

the cat brought us a squirrel. Broke it’s back legs. Stepped
on its head out of pity.

It’s not mean. It’s practical. I loved
that cat, that squirrel.

About a year ago, in Old Orchard Beach awaiting breakfast.

From much longer ago.