Christmas was better this year than I have any reason to think it should have been. December and January will never be celebratory months for the obvious reason that my son was killed in January, his birthday is the week prior to Christmas, and it’s hard to be “happy for the holidays” when such a significant person in your life is stolen away.
I’ve been a fan of Maine’s alt-weeklies dating back to my teenage years when finding a copy of Sweet Potato was always a priority when journeying to Lewiston (or Portland) so I could read the latest Jim Sullivan feature, something that along with slinging fastballs by mystified high school opponents, signified a rite of passage for me. My own formative attempts to “do journalism” graced the pages of a former Portland monthly, the late, great Portland Pigeon, back in the mid-aughts, right around the time my first book hit the streets.
If anyone pays attention to these kinds of things, the state of Portland’s alternative press ain’t what it used to be. It was actually still pretty damn solid as late as 2014 and possibly a little after that. Then, two jackasses from Massachusetts knew better: they decided that our local alternative journalism landscape needed more competition—totally unaware that the city’s limited number of businesses weren’t likely to be able to keep two weeklies afloat—not to mention that there aren’t enough eyeballs to warrant spreading out their advertising dollars between competitors. What had been a really solid weekly, the Portland Phoenix, has never been the same, since. I was reminded of this debacle yet again when I grabbed their year-end “best of” issue at Shaw’s in Freeport. I don’t know why, because it’s been months since I last bothered to pull an issue off the rack, the few times I’ve been able to find it in my travels.
How not to write about food. (Portland Phoenix)
The content was okay, albeit pretty lame. I should have just tossed it in the recycling bin to be gathered with the following week’s garbage. Instead, I tossed it on my “to be reviewed” pile of publications so I could come back to it. Sadly, I did.
In 2014 I got up the gumption to pitch a few book reviews to the editor of the Phoenix at the time. She published them and I was emboldened to suggest we meet so I could regale her about an article series I’d been thinking about. To my surprise, she agreed.
Over coffee, we came up with a plan for me to write about the city’s economic development issues I thought needed to be covered. Things like how urban renewal’s destruction of historic buildings still rippled across the city nearly six decades later. Oh, and of course, gentrification. Surprise, surprise! The issue is an larger one nearly five years later, especially bordering the city’s working waterfront area.
Over the remaining six months of that year, I’d complete my articles on the city and then, she thought it would “be fun” for me to collaborate with her and one of Maine’s legendary investigative journalists, Lance Tapley, covering the run-up to that year’s gubernatorial election. For someone without a J-school background or an MFA credential, I’d been diligently building a clip file towards having an opportunity like this one.
Without belaboring this intro, that editor left. She had a better opportunity and for what I’m sure she was making at the time, I’m never going to begrudge someone being paid what they’re worth.
I realize now what an outstanding (and ambitious) editor she was. She didn’t rely on the same old stable of writers to supply weekly content, even though the paper had some stellar regulars back then. I think her openness and willingness to value other freelancers’ views and ideas made the paper one where you hated to miss an issue.
Unfortunately (for me), the young editor who followed, while competent, wasn’t her and I had all I could do to get a major story that I had weeks of work invested in, published. I recognize that editors are all very different. When the Boston Globe still had an old-school editor short on complements and heavy on edits sent back, he realized that having a freelance writer in Maine was valuable to him.
After I pitched him my Biddeford mill redevelopment feature and he ran it, he then started suggesting I “look at” a few stories he was interested in running in the paper’s business section. As a result, I got to write about things like lobster exports to China and the Shakers before yet another editor moved on to “greener pastures.” The next few editors have been impossible to get any interest from. When they actually answer one of my pitches, it’s a common mindset of big city types that think sending Boston-based reporters for an afternoon will ever result in anything more than boiler plate journalism, what I consider lazy and what I’ll refer to as AstoTurf. Covering a story that matters requires knowing a few things about the culture. When they even bother making the drive down the coast rather than doing all their “investigation” over the phone or email, they always miss the essence of the local ways, which are very different than inner-city Boston.
But back to being a food writer. I don’t pretend to be one, at least in terms of having paid clips demonstrating my chops. However, I’ve always felt that I could cover the restaurant beat credibly if given the chance. This blog post about Slab is the kind of writing that in my opinion would work for an alt publication, or even one more aligned with the mainstream: I actually covered lobster rolls for the Globe one summer.
Writing about food isn’t rocket science, I don’t think. There are writers that do it well in our local dailies. I’m a big fan of Avery Yale Kamila’s “Vegan Kitchen” features and was one even before I became a plant-based vegan. I’m also a regular reader of Kate McCarty’s blog, The Blueberry Files. Congrats to you, Kate, for a decade of blogging!! So many other writers quit after a few posts. It’s wonderful to see someone who still sees value in taking to the blogosphere to share what they know and are passionate about. Both women know food, and write amazingly well about the topic. Perhaps even better, they are warm and empathetic people and have both acknowledged how difficult losing Mark has been for me and my wife. I really appreciate that.
Many who get paid to cover the latest “flavor of the month” in and around Portland regularly disappoint me. Glorified tuna sandwiches, or some lame kraut dog down the coast aren’t anything I need to have you go “ga-ga” over. But the pre-Christmas Phoenix issue devoted to “Best Bites 2018” included a review of hot dogs and tuna melt sandwiches. Neither one of these “bests” would have made me think twice when I was still walking around wearing a meat necklace. Oh, and the lame cheeseburger at Fat Boy’s, too. Go figure!
The other day I was thinking about whether or not to take an hour working up this post. I’m still questioning my thinking in actually following through on this. The dissonance bubbling just below the surface kept me moving forward with my writing, then editing, before posting. Obviously, something was fueling this frustration bordering on obsession. Why was I fixated about whether this critic was print-worthy or not? I finally tossed the print copy in my newspaper recycling pile figuring I’d move onto something else. And then I hauled it out again.
I think I may have figured out a few things that may be at the root of what’s been eating at me about this and Portland’s very obvious (at least to me) “big fish in a small pond” mentality pervading food and writing in general, including the arts, and even music. I am also quite aware that I’m “beating my head against a proverbial brick wall” in daring to offer anything critical about Maine’s “gilded palace” of a city. Interestingly, many of these “irritants” are close in proximity to how old Mark would now be if he were still alive. Unlike my late son, I don’t respect any of them, for a host of reasons. Mainly, I think they’re coasting through life, or given credit for things they don’t deserve and haven’t earned. He never lived his life like that and it’s yet another reason why I miss him so much. He also didn’t do things just to appear better than other people.
That “boat has long ago sailed,” at least in terms of what I hoped for back in 2014. I’m 56 (soon to be 57) and for those currently editing the city’s alternative publications, apparently not someone who they think has any cred or the chops to write the kind of tepid liberal virtue-signaling features that cover their pages. Or a piece like this one, by someone who basically made excuses for being a substance abuser. If you know what I know about my son’s death, you’ll understand why seeing this n’er-do-well land this much print space to basically excuse a lifetime wasted, scoring drugs. I didn’t learn a fucking thing from your shitty piece that was also poorly-edited. I’ve actually praised the publication before, but never again. Oh, and I’m not too impressed meeting the editor this summer at a music show, being handed his business email with the invitation to “pitch me some stories” and then, having him not even acknowledging my email pitch. I’m sorry, but I’m not some hack like “Robin Rage.” I’ve pushed through serious shit in my life long before Mark was taken from me. Not once have I tried to deaden my pain by abusing substances. If that makes me an asshole or uncaring, I really don’t give a flying fuck! Instead, I’m trying to find a way to honor his memory and do some good, even if some days it all seems hopeless. I even think about quitting writing altogether.
I’m sure if I could tell Mark how I felt about people like this, he’d likely tell me to “keep doing what I was doing.” Despite having my life turned upside-down after his death, I’ve been able to get “back on that horse” again in terms of writing and having some success as a freelancer. Then, there is a 100,000+ word manuscript that will probably never end up being picked up, but that’s too discouraging to consider, today.
On the positive side: just before Christmas, I got a beautiful note from the woman who encouraged me to push through my hesitation following my son’s death about picking up the story about Bucksport’s reinvention after their mill shut down. Her faith in me as a writer (she thought I was “the one” to write about the town after she found my feature on Biddeford). That belief in my was rewarded when I managed to find a home (after several rejections) for the article in Island Journal. This was validating and helped counter some of the negativity that I’ve been harboring at the close of 2018 and the start of another new year. The Globe didn’t bite, but the narrative ended up in a place where it fits nicely with the other content and quality writing. I got paid more, too!
The issue is where it belongs, with the recycling.