HOME DEPOT: A PHOTO RETROSPECTIVE

 

THE SIX WORD MEMOIR

I have been asked to produce a six-word memoir that envelopes my personality, physical being, and perhaps even my soul.

So, here goes.:

FIRE-WHISKEY,

TRAVEL-BRISKLY,

CARLTON-FISK-Y. 

And that pretty much sums it up.  If you are offended you can only blame yourself, because it is you, afterall who chose to read it…sorry there’s nothing about love or passion or faith  or education or campaign reform or gun control or other redundant themes.

If you need a translation or clarification let me know.

GETTING BACK TO THE ROOTS

 

I have been house sitting for the folks at Casa de McLaughlin for the past week. One night I was rooting around an upstairs closet trying to find something rather insignificant when I stumbled upon a case of my old Grateful Dead bootleg tapes.

A pie graph examining how I spent my high school years can be broken down into three broad slices: eating, sleeping (slightly the largest slice), and listening to the Grateful Dead. At one point I had accumulated over 150 tapes, of varying sound and musical quality.

Similar to a massive DVD collection, some tapes I wore out others I listened to once. Some were nuggets: crisp sounding shows from the late sixties or late seventies when the band was on (not just on drugs, but on musically as well). Other tapes i listened to maybe once then decided that it wasn’t all that great listening to hiss from a show in some acoustically depraved auditorium in 1974.

In fact the first tape I ever had was one I found in a box of my brother’s stuff in the basement at age 14. It was already shit quality, so when I dubbed it to another tape it’s sound quality dropped further. I dug the music because nothing I’d heard (especially on the radio) really sounded like it.  There a few bands (really none, if you know the Dead’s music) that someone can say “hey, these guys sound like the Dead.”  The only bands I’ve heard that sound anything like them are two Grateful Dead cover bands that I have seen. (Actually, the Dead cover band “Dark Star Orchestra” absolutely nails the music of the Grateful Dead)

Before my first Dead tape, my only association with the Grateful Dead came when my brother brought home some Dead t-shirts and stickers for me from California.  The skulls and roses and dancing skeletons threw me.  I assumed they were a heavy metal group that my brother (who had recently sobered up) must have dug amid oner of  his long haired drug frenzies.

Once I actually heard the music though, that was all it took; a full on tape collection ensued.  To be clear, the use of tapes is not to suggest CDs weren’t prevalent at the time because all my firends had hundreds of CDs.  But the concpet of Grateful Dead music is that they were all about the live show, which at that time did occur mostly on cassettes, since the downloading/burning of digital music was a few years away, in the mainstream anyways.

I liked this about the Grateful Dead.  They produced over twenty five studio albums, most of which were lack luster, but they played over 2,300 concerts, all of which featured a different setlist night to night.  In fact, the only Grateful Dead albums I really listen to are ones from live shows.  Essentially, since they were the first band to openly promote  the free trade of their music thousands of tapes circulated and traded hands.

From that first ‘ground score’ tape in the basement at age 14, I listened to a remarkable amount of Grateful Dead music.  And once I saw my first show at Giants Stadium in New Jersey with 80,000 other deadheads it was, as they say, on.  Until the later years of college I listened to primarily the Dead.  Being an artist I dre and painted pictures of the band members (see above, for a dated drawing) including a ten foot high mural of Jerry Garcia in my college dorm.

Since then I have expanded my musical tastes quite a bit.  In the process I have actually missed the boat in terms of acquiring Grateful Dead shows on CD, even though they are far easier to wrok with and much better quality than the old shitty 90 minute Maxell tapes.  The only thing I really ever stole in my life were six-packs of 90 minute Maxell tapes from Wal-Mart: tapes go into Wal-Mart bag (brought from home),  walk confidently up front my ‘purchase’ prominently swinging in my hand and out the door.  Note:  Karma was served on Interstae 5 in Oregon a few years back when a case of about 75 tapes flew out of a car-top carrier and were crushed by a semi.

I took some of the tapes I found in the closet at my parents house and played them while I cooked dinner. An rather obnoxiously bad quality tape from an amazing show from 1977 sounded like magic.  As it was once said: ‘…the bottle was dusty but the liquor was clean.’

SNOWBANK MOUNTAINS: AN ENDANGERED SPECIES

THE MCLAUGHLIN RANGE, A RATHER YOUNG-ISH MOUNTAIN RANGE GEOLOGICALLY SPEAKING, IS A RELIC OF WHAT USED TO BE, FOR YESTERDAY THE PERSON FOR WHICH THE RANGE WAS NAMED BOUGHT A SNOWBLOWER AT HOME DEPOT…

NEXT YEAR, WHERE THERE ONCE STOOD MAJESTIC PEAKS WILL BE IMMACULATE EDGES AND TIDY WALKWAYS . DRIVEWAY MAINTAINANCE EVOLUTION, MY FRIENDS , JUST SKIPPED ABOUT SEVEN ADAPTATIONS.

PSALM 151: AND THE LORD GIVETH THE PUG, AND WITH IT PROOF OF HIS HOLY SENSE OF HUMOR

 THE PERPETUAL THOUGHT OF THE PUG:   “NOW WHOSE BALLS CAN I JUMP ON AND CRUSH?”

THIS KITCHEN HAS SIMPLY GOT TO GO…UPDATED.

old floor at mike’s, originally uploaded by Amity Beane.

A FEW WEEKENDS BACK WE DECIDED IT WAS TIME FOR MIKE TO RENOVATE THE HIS KITCHEN. THE RESULT WAS AN IMMEDIATE DEMO OF NEARLY EVERY STRUCTURE IN THE ROOM. HE WAS PUTTING IN NEW FLOORS/CABINETS/COUNTERS SO NATURALLY, IT ALL HAD TO GO. WE RIPPED UP THE LINOLEUM TO REVEAL THE EXISTING FLOOR (see above) AND TORE OFF THE CABINETS THAT CONCEALED THE TURQUOISE WALL PAPER (see below).

IF THAT’S NOT A CONFIDENCE BUILDER I’M NOT WHAT IS…NO MATTER HOW AESTHETICALLY ABSENT MINDED YOU ARE (or drunk) THE GRUESOME DECOR IN THESE TWO PHOTOS IN YOUR DAILY LIVING SPACE CANNOT BE MATCHED. FOR THOSE READERS WITH A WEAK STOMACH, TAKE CARE, THERE WILL BE SOME FINISHED KITCHEN SHOTS WHEN THE PROJECT IS COMPLETE.

 

PAID TO RIDE, ONLY IN AMERICA! (and Canada and all of Europe and probably New Zealand and Chile, as well)

Last week the middle school I work at took a field trip to Black Mountain in Rumford.  As a staff we tried for weeks to hash out some sort of winter activity day, developing scholastic activities around the school that the kids could partake in.  That plan was coming together like a 50,000 piece jigsaw puzzle being put together on shag carpeting;  very slowly with pieces missing, frustration, and a bit of minor profanity.

Finally, someone threw up the “Screw it! Let’s call Black Mountain!” flag.  So five yellow busses were stuffed with adolescent chilldren and steered through the luscious river valley of Mexico and Rumford and onto Black Mountain.

We spent a fantastic day of skiing and snowboarding.  It was great seeing the kids in a different environment, especially doing something active and fun like skiing and riding.  Some of the kids who I had pegged for having zero agility or ability to do anything athletically north of video games were quite competent on skis and snowboards.  Pleasant surprise.

For five short hours I was paid to snowboard.  It’s a good thing I love my job because if I were in a dull profession and they paid me one day wage to go snowboarding I would not be able to head back to the office.

MASSHOLE SKIIER TAKES INHERENT ANGER FROM HIGHWAYS TO THE SLOPES FOR ANGRY WEEKEND OF SKIING

not so mellow, originally uploaded by Amity Beane.

I look angry, even though it was a fine day to be alive on the slopes. Perhaps it is because I could not see the stacks of the mill in nearby Rumford. Twenty five bucks and no view of the stacks, barely even see the plumes of smoke, or as we call them, plumes of progress and commerce.