What’s all this “Down east” business? I hate that. I wouldn’t mind if just one person said it, but it’s all over the place. There’s a Maine-centric magazine called Down East, and these people own every copy. Just the cover story for this month makes me extremely skeptical as to there being adequate material to fill all the pages every month, let alone for ten years, and that a consistent reader wouldn’t notice repeat articles. By the way, pirates say ARRRRRR, not ARRRRRGH, matey. ARRRRRGH is what you say when someone drops a watermelon on your foot or Garfield steals your lasagnea. Pirates may say “arrrrrgh” when they find out you misquoted them.
You might think I’m a horrible person, to be welcomed as a guest into someone’s home and then to critique minor aspects of things which were not even thrust upon me (and I took more pictures than this), but as we were renting the home, and for about $200 a day, I will treat it as a commercial establishment. If I wanted to read about Maine, I wouldn’t live there. Rooms outside the basement feature bookcases filled entirely with non-fiction books written by Maine residents (that is, if we accept “Maine is great” as fact). How am I supposed to deal with that?
The same way I deal with this, I reckon, and I still haven’t figured that out.
I’ve lived in Connecticut, which is essentially the same thing, my whole life and never once paid someone else to let me read about it. I certainly wouldn’t commit to a year of that. Here’s what you need to know: lighthouses, lobster, boats, beachfront property. Every story will be about one of those things. They don’t tell you to expect white-painted buildings decorated with gratuitous anchor imagery, but you learn that as you go along.
Other magazines: 50% off! Considering that they’re old, some from the 1970s, if I recall with accuracy, they ought to be 80% off. They were in some stupid “retro” store, but the fact remains these were the only magazines beside Down East I saw while I was in Maine, meaning the slightest possibility exists of there being no other magazines, so it’s hard to blame people for choosing such an alternative, if they absolutely must read magazines. Even if these are music magazines. What’s more annoying than reading stuff people wrote about music? When I either can’t hear it, already hate it, or simply don’t want it pretentiously analyzed? It’s probably not as bad from dirty hippies as dipfip smirking espn-ites, but the hippies have a secret weapon for promoting their agenda: grubby, garbage underground comixs with an x.
But this is… so horrible I can’t… I must finish my other tangent.
Ehhh, but strictly regarded printed word articles, probably worse than music is people writing about their state. No, geheh, a specific tiny portion of that state, indistinguishable from the tiny regions of that state around it, indistinguishable from the tiny regions of the other states around that. Here’s a riddle: How do you know when you get to Maine? A sign tells you. It’s pretty, some of it, sometimes, but it’s nothing I haven’t been seeing for twenty-four years. Although I admit I don’t remember the first four so well; if I had spent that time in Space or Romania I wouldn’t know it. I know where I was in August, though, and it might as well be where I am now.
Where is this? I don’t know, but it lasts for a few hours.
Evidently Madison isn’t remote and stereotypically “White” enough for some people. You can never have too many 50+ year old grey haired men wearing sunglasses and baseball cap hats. At least a kook who fancies himself an admiral and dresses accordingly can be amusing. These people, though, I just find myself wanting to slap.
I will cut this off here before I resume whining about comix or start whining about food. The only reason I even mentioned that stupid magazine was because I referred to it in the thing I was supposed to put here today, and if I start talking about hating things totally unrelated to what I set out to talk about hating, we could be here all day. I me, I’ll be here all day anyway, anyday, but you shouldn’t have to be.
Sorry, the comment form is apologizing at this time. Which probably means I got tired of deleting robot comments off this post. It is unfortunate, but generally very few actual people have anything to say to me.
Kilroy sez:
Kennebunkport? He barely new Port!
that was a stretch, i know.
The Diet of Worms sez:
You should post more pictures featuring an open sky.
Kilroy sez:
wait, do over….
Kennebunkport? Can he ever!
Jumbi sez:
I’ve never been to Maine, so I’ll have to take your word for it. Their wide range of available magazines would attract any tourist like myself, I’m sure.
Mainer sez:
Gawwwwry, ain’t you some bittah. You must really hate wherevah you are to want to make other people so miserable about the places they are. Just looked at my latest issue of Down East, it’s been in business since 1954, by jeezum. Can’t recall evah seein’ the same ahticle twice. Must be moah to this state than meets your eye.
Ayuh.
Elfibrax sez:
Kilroy: I like watching you stretch. What’s more, everyone I show the pictures to feels the same way.
Worms:
I will take your suggestion under advisement. However,
I momentarily thought this was from you until I saw the junk contents and remembered that two of your three email names are more consistent.
Carl Jumb: Don’t listen to me. I’m just bitter because some fope from there tried to sue me. I’m sure Maine has a redeeming quality. Which brings me to…
Thayne Maynard: I will pretend, for the moment, that I think you are being totally serious.
I think if my eye had met any more of Maine it would have astigmatized itself just as a protective measure. That’s not especially clever, but Maine drains the creativity out of me (and some other people I hope to address shortly). As for hating where I am, I do, sometimes, but I definitely prefer it to a place exactly the same but prouder of itself. If someone from Pennsylvania told me it was ugly, though, I wouldn’t get too wound out about it. If it were up to me I’d live in Italy or Luxembourg. My current location is nice in the winter, though, because all the affluent bozos with their lawnmowers, boats and country music go someplace nicer for them and leave me alone.
The magazine, maybe articles aren’t repeated; we need to keep references fresh after all, but I do not doubt subject matter is. I read stupid Nintendo Power for five years and through twelve different yet highly similar Megaman games; people find ways to redescribe stuff. I could tell even they were struggling on the Adventure Island articles.
The Council of Germs sez:
Luxembourg has always somewhat fascinated me, in no small part because of its national language, being in essence a sort of Frenchified west-central German dialect. In addition to its curious orthography and the fascination of its from-my-perspective-slightly-penetrableness, I’ve always admired said language’s tenacity in holding out despite the presence of its two far more widely spoken “parent” languages, which also serve as (widely used) official languages. And it has ë’s that aren’t diaereses. That’s pretty crazy!
Slengof sez:
I have re-read that for the first time in almost half a year, and I must admit it’s rather zany.
Slengof sez:
Also, I hear a pingback coming. We must be on our guard! That is, assuming our guard can support our combined weight. We should really have separate guards.
Slengof sez:
Ha! We scared it off!