Racing in the Streets

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A rainy spring it’s been. Everyone knows the adage that “April showers bring May flowers.” But weeks of rain and little or no sun drags down one’s spirit, no matter how hopeful your view of the future remains.

Early last week, Mary and I began counting down the days. We were anticipating yet another trip south related to our son’s death. We watched local weather and even Boston-area weather (via NECN) to determine—would it rain on Sunday?

It rained and the day was cold and raw. Nearly 50 people—all members of Team Every Mile Yeah—turned out for the Providence Rhode Races. They ran and some walked. Our group was arrayed in green t-shirts that Mary arranged to have produced for the event.

Mary and cape prior to the start of the Providence Rhode Race 5K.

Green shirt drying out from the rain

Family drove down from Maine. Friends from the earliest days of Mary’s life rode buses and trains to Providence. Ironmen from Minnesota who had let Mark into their world of localized competition came from Boston, New York City, Washington, DC, and San Antonio to run in Mark’s memory and support our efforts to hold an event that also connected with the foundation we began: The Mark Baumer Sustainability Fund.

As I was walking a sort of rear guard action during the 5K walk that our small family contingent made together, I was flooded with memories of Mark and me in the place he’d adopted as his home. Not only did he find his niche in the city, Providence welcomed him and adopted him, too. One thing the two of us never got to do was walk down the middle of Memorial Boulevard, sans traffic.

These streets were made for walking.

Mary and I spent Saturday with a special group of people who joined us first at Mark’s garden in front of the John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library at Brown. That’s where the Eastern Redbud was planted in Mark’s memory during the fall of 2017. There’s also a plaque commemorating his life. The group then walked, drove, or Ubered to Federal Hill and dinner at Trattoria Zooma. Somehow, they managed to accommodate our crowd just like they told Mary that they would.

Most of Team Every Mile Yeah (Mark’s Garden-Brown University)

Marching for Mark (heading to Trattoria Zooma)

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Great American Novels

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I finally read The Great Gatsby. It was shorter than I expected it to be and I read it in less than a day.

A former friend (I have lots of these) who reads very little, was fond of referencing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Great American Novel,” like a talisman of sorts. It made her appear urbane and well-read—neither of these were actual qualities that she possesses.

I have been tutoring at a school where most of the students don’t care at all about academics. I wage futile battles with my charges to get them to put their phones down and do schoolwork, nightly.

I’ll refrain from being overly critical: the school is close and the pay is great for part-time work. It’s at night, too, so I have my days free to write and be creative. Oh, and there is the additional perk of having an old-fashioned library full of books like The Great Gatsby. None of the students ever take them down off the shelves and look them over, either. They’re too busy Snapchatting or playing with their phones.

Last Friday night, Turner Classic Movies ran the 1974 Robert Redford version of the movie adapted from Fitzgerald’s classic. Here’s some “inside Hollywood” for you about the film: the script for this 1974 big screen adaptation was actually re-written by Francis Ford Coppola, after the original script by Truman Capote was rejected by director Jack Clayton.

Coppola remembers that he spent weeks locking in a Paris hotel room, an ocean away from the hype attending his own breakout Hollywood tour-de-force, The Godfather. He told an interviewer that the “key to cracking the script” for him was simply reading Fitzgerald.

The movie turned out to be enjoyable. I vowed I’d finally get the book and read it.

Monday night, I found six copies of The Great Gatsby waiting for me at the end of the night. I planned to take it home and return it. I didn’t expect to read into the wee hours and then finish it the following day.

The novel still seems very relevant in terms of class and privilege. Despite technology taking over our lives, most humans are still basically the same shitty creatures they’ve been from time immemorial.

I’ll save the synopsis. They abound across the interwebs.

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Democrats Plus One

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Yesterday, the crowded field of Democrats grew by one. This morning, the pundits had more energy than I’ve seen in months. Amazingly, they were talking about someone other than Mayor Pete (still having trouble with “Boot-edge-edge”).

American culture is strewn with the iconic. In terms of popular culture—especially music and rock and roll—there are few icons bigger than Bruce Springsteen. Everyone knows what you’re talking about when you say, “The Boss.”

On our Easter Sunday drive into Maine’s western mountains, I had Springsteen on Spotify shuffle. I was holding court with Mary about why his music mattered and how we need to make a point of seeing him before he hangs up his Telecaster.

Yesterday, I had some late afternoon time to fill. Like I’ve done countless times before in my life with unstructured time, I ended up at a library looking for books.

Sitting on the shelf, calling my name was Peter Ames Carlin’s, Bruce. Not the only bio of The Boss, but one of the better ones, I’ve already read nearly 200 pages in less than 24 hours. Students at tutoring wanted to know what book I was toting around with me last night and I got to give them my own Springsteen story, of “Glory Days,” and what that song means in terms of my own smoldering baseball embers.

Bruce bio by Peter Ames Carlin (2012)

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Good Friday Rockin’

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For a lapsed Catholic like me, Good Friday will always be imbued with the following memory:

I think I was eight or nine-years-old and attending a Good Friday mass at the old Holy Family Church on Lisbon Street (across from the former location of Morse Brothers). Like most Good Friday marathons, this one involved way too much standing for a young boy.

A re-enactment of Jesus’ crucifixion.

At some point on that April Friday afternoon in what was likely 1970 or 1971, the room began to wobble and my legs felt like they wanted to give way. I didn’t know it at the time, I was close to passing out. Fortunately for me, I sat down in my pew. My mother looked over and under her breath, sternly barked, “stand-up Jimmy!!” No concern for my well-being, only that I maintain our holy facade. I looked at her with what were probably pleading eyes, and struggled back to my feet. Somehow, I managed to make it to the end of whatever torturous section of the “festivities” were in-progress.

If you’ve followed my post-Xian posts, you’ll know this experience wasn’t enough to disavow me of religion’s influence on my life. It would take Indiana and Jack Hyles to come close to finishing the job, and then, the Vineyard and Ralph Grover to finally nail that coffin shut on God and evangelicalism’s false promises (and premise).

They say that when you leave behind something as formative as religion, you should put something in place and begin new traditions. A substitute, of sorts.

Hearing “Good Friday” by Cleveland’s Death of Samantha played on this morning’s “Breakfast of Champions” slot on WMBR made me realize that rock and roll has become a more-than-sufficient stand-in for God in my life.

Here are two selections that fit perfectly from where I sit today on this non-religious holy day for me.

The Math of Living

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I’m heading down the home stretch of what’s been an intense writing project. It’s rearranged my routines, including writing (like blogging), reading, and my usual Monday through Friday regimen. Then, I’ve also inherited additional assignment deadlines for my class, too. I’m very busy.

Speaking of routines (and rhythms): taking a few minutes every morning to read some poetry is a great way to start the day. I’m grateful to poetry.org for delivering a poem to my email inbox every morning.

As I mentioned, April is National Poetry Month. Because I’m keen to this block of 30 days where I’m a bit more focused on writing I don’t normally read enough of, I’ve tried to be more intentional in taking time to slow down enough each 24-hour sweep of the clock to let a poem or two wash over me.

Today’s spoke to me. Robin Coste Lewis captures life’s randomness, and the injustice inherent in living, especially if you aren’t one of the the “special” people that America seems to bless, while cursing many of the others. Continue reading →

Historical Site Critical Analysis-Maine State Museum

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[The following is my Historical Site Critical Analysis for History 122, a class I’m currently enrolled in at the University of Southern Maine. My choice of a site was Augusta’s Maine State Museum. I visited the site on Saturday, March 23, 2019. –jb]

The Cultural Building in Augusta, which houses the Maine State Museum.

The Maine State Museum in Augusta is one of the oldest state-funded museums in the U.S. The state’s allocation to maintain the museum as recently as 2014 was $1.7 million, which covers 80 percent of the museum’s operating budget. However, this amount is miniscule compared to say a state museum like the New York State Museum, which receives more than $20 million in state-directed funds.

Welcome to the Maine State Museum.

From a document I located online prepared for the Maine State Legislature in 2015, the museum’s chief purpose as a museum and center for learning is to be “the state’s chief institution for presenting and sharing the cultural and natural heritage of Maine, especially in relation to the use of authentic objects.”

I chose to visit the museum on Saturday, March 23, because I’d learned that a new exhibit would be opening that day. Women’s Long Road—100 Years to the Vote, commenced the morning I visited. This, along with the Maine + Jewish: Two Centuries, were two of the museum’s rotating exhibits that change during the year. Both represented elements of 19th century American history, so they would be perfect for fulfilling requirements of this critical analysis.

Both of these “new” exhibits were hosted in large “rooms” on the 4th floor of the museum. The museum occupies a portion of a large structure known as the Cultural Building that also houses the Maine State Library (on the basement level), and the Maine State Archives. Continue reading →

Poems All Month

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We’re 10 days into National Poetry Month and I’ve not made one mention of it. That’s a damn shame!

I never paid much attention to poets as I’ve alluded to before. Then, Mark was killed and I wanted to know more about why he was attracted to poetry and certain kinds of poets.

Someone wrote me that he thought poetry was “a thing” and maybe I should glom onto that. He didn’t think much of my “diary of grief” style.

I’m not a poet and never will be.

Did you know Herman Melville wrote more poetry than fiction? I didn’t until this afternoon when, after spending most of the day on my writing-for-hire, I employed my speed-reading prowess I first learned back in the day at LHS, from Mr. Barton. I managed to tear through three books on Melville, Ambrose Bierce, and Walt Whitman.

Melville was a poet: “Melville His World and Work,” by Andrew Delbanco

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Stealing Your Hamburgers

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We’re living in a country where it seems like everything is broken and no one knows how to fix it. Hyperbolic? Yeah, a little bit. But, there’s a sheen of truth in that opening salvo, too.

Donald Trump ran on a slogan of “Make America Great Again.” MAGA speaks to an idea that we’re not what we once were, as a country. While I might disagree with President Trump and his prescriptions for “fixing what’s broken,” I can’t disagree that we’re not where we ought to be, either.

On Friday, MSNBC’s Chris Hayes went to the Bronx, the NYC borough represented by Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (she also represents parts of Queens, too). The town hall, taped in the afternoon, ran during Hayes’ usual 8:00 p.m. slot on the left-leaning cable news network popular with “lefties” like me.

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Under a Rock

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I was spent Friday afternoon following class at USM. The long week of trying to write marketing collateral, hitting an article deadline, a return to tutoring, and then, sitting through my nearly three-hour-long history class, pushed me past my energy tipping point.

Back home, waiting for Mary to arrive from work and thinking about what to make for dinner, I flicked on the television. Five minutes of politics was enough. For whatever reason, I changed the channel to a music station and on my screen was a young woman who could easily have been one of the students I’ve been spending time with tutoring and subbing. Except that she was in a “strange” video; blood was dripping from her nose and she appeared in outfits ranging from a white uniform, to yellow sweat suit, all the while commencing to sing about “bad guys and tough guys.” The video was jarring enough to keep me there, watching the song called, “Bad Guy.”

Saturday, sitting in the Lee’s Tire waiting room while getting my snow tires swapped-out for summer treads, I happened to be paging through the Arts & Leisure section of the New York Times: Who was looking back at me from page 17? The face of Billie Eilish, the young woman from Friday’s video, which commences with Eilish saying, “I’ve taken out my Invisalgn.”

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How to Succeed As a Writer

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I’ll be on calls for the rest of the day. I’m on deadline for articles, and I’ve been hired as a writer for a national marketing campaign. Why bother putting a blog post up on the JBE? I don’t know—maybe because I think having a blog and updating content is important. I’ve been doing that for as long as I’ve been writing. Why stop now?

Then, for some reason, I’ve gotten emails from writers soliciting advice. I guess they thought I might have a “magic bullet” related to writing, or something. I hate to disappoint, but I don’t consider myself the model of success, at least in terms of the usual way the term is sliced and diced. It’s possible they had me confused with someone else.

Since people are asking, let me briefly hold court on the topic.

One of the writers has had success, at least I consider having a book published, “success.” But like happens to many writers, things change, sometimes overnight. If you’re not in it for the long haul, during these times “in the desert,” it’s easy to think you’re doing things wrong.

I am still writing. Being a writer is what I set out to do back in the early 2000s and I’ve stayed the course. I’ve had several detours out of necessity, mainly related to paying the bills, but even when I was working full-time, I was still freelancing, putting out books, and honing my craft. So, if success can be joined to stick-to-itiveness, then yes, I guess I am successful.

Success=hard work

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