ME Day 5 - Whiskey, Writers, and Wiggly Bridges
Little Video:
Today was good day for exploring and fortuitous happenstance. I started in York, getting coffee and checking out a place that had been highly recommended to me.
The Wiggly Bridge Distillery barn is a beautiful building. A former barn turned hardware store turned distillery, the place is a father son operation but one of the highest quality despite their small size. At $7 a tasting, it's totally worth the visit and the friendly staff and relaxed atmosphere make it a great place to sit and savor the booze as opposed to taking all six tasting samples right to the face.
I then visited the actual namesake wiggly bridge, a local landmark near York village. I hadn't actually looked into where the bridge led to and I was pleasantly surprised by the Steedman Woods nature preserve on the other end. It made for a good stroll in a really beautiful area to get your legs back in working order after such a thorough wiggling.
Based on the advice of the aforementioned friendly bartender, I decided to check out nearby Ogunquit. I took a scenic route through York Harbor and got to see a lovely lighthouse and a lovely manifesto written in the windows of a closed York Pizza shop. Apparently much like every episode of Murder She Wrote would have you believe, small towns really are filled with intrigue.
From there, I just happened to come across the Ogunquit Museum of American Art. They're special exhibitions were on a really amazing sculptor Cabot Lyford, a painter named Alison Rector who had painted a series on public libraries to celebrate free access to learning, and a really cool exhibit of the art and correspondence of Ernest Hemingway and a painter named Henry Strater. I personally loved a letter Hemingway wrote which said "Dear Mike (his name is Henry), I'm sorry to hear that your mother passed away. If there is one thing about dying, it is that all good people do it. I have never known a shit to die though" How great is that?
From there, I went up to Augusta, but it was kind of a waste of gas because I got stuck in traffic, and by the time I got there anything I would have liked to see had closed. I also got the feeling that it was a bit like Albany, in that it's the state capital in that there's a lot of business there, but not much else. Portland definitely felt more like the social capital of the state.
On the way to the open mic, I stopped at another country store for a quick bite. I was told to try a Maine whoopie and I was not disappointed. Plus the jokes I heard at this gas station weren't even a little bit racist, which was a fun change up!
The open mic was at a place called 302 West in Fryeburg. It was a small townie bar and smokehouse, but it was really nice. It felt like just about everyone there knew each other, so it was a good vibe even if it meant I kinda stuck out. The food was really good there, and they make their own BBQ and buffalo sauce which was prime.
The open mic was again mostly musicians, but I got the feeling that most of them were relatively serious musicians using the mic as a place to try new stuff and have a good time, as opposed to amateurs noodling around (not that there's anything wrong with that). My suspicions were confirmed when I talked to one of the guys that performed and acoustic punk set, John Bott, and he told me about his band Jug that performs around the New England area. They've got one album on bandcamp, and I thought it was pretty good, if you're looking for new folk-punk in your life.
My set was interesting. Mayonnaise jokes and the my little boy story did well again, but I got my first real pushback against the making fun of white supremacist jokes. A little throwaway line that I realized was maybe more anti-Trump than I had intended (the fact that white supremacy is politicized and not widely condemned across the aisle is just nuts, can we acknowledge that?) was met with some jeers from the crowd, letting me know that they were a bit more conservative than I had expected. I was fast on my feet and made a little quip which seemed to get most people back on my side, but the set as a whole was bit shakier after that.
While this was the most conservative group I've performed in front of so far, it would be a disservice not to point out that place was packed and a very varied audience. Everyone wearing a punk rock t shirt was more into my stuff, and this was just as much the most punk bar as well as the most country that I had been to so I thought it was cool that everyone there could just get drink and get along together. To be fair, most people were there to eat and music at an open mic is more something you can relax to and talk over while standup especially standup you don't necessarily agree with might come across as more grating to the evening.
The host, Carl, seemed to like having the novelty of a comedian though, and I also thought he was a super cool guy and an outstanding guitarist. I ended up hanging around pretty well into the night, because Carl and two of his friends ended up getting a band together and rocking out. The covers were all over the musical map too, from Billy Bragg to Pearl Jam to Social Distortion to Johnny Cash. The thing that blew me away was a cover of a the song Country Man Fiddle by the Aggrolites, a band that I feel like nobody has heard of outside of my ska geek friends.
The night ended up on a note of inspired serendipity as a guy at the bar started talking to me about living in my hometown of Rockland, MA for a while. We started chatting, and it also turned out that his husband works with one of my cousins. They happened to like vacationing in Fryeburg and had a little cabin that they offered to let me stay in for the night. So I ended up hanging out with them, drinking, and chatting about comedy, politics, and the state of things in south shore Massachusetts, and I got to not sleep in my car for another night. It's a small weird world, but y'know I kinda like it.
Favorite Random Sightings: Wild Willy's Burgers; Sweet Josie's Fudge; A sign advertising "Hand Dipped Turtles" I know that turtle refers to chocolate covered caramel and pecans but I had to read it a couple times; Guac N Roll; Love Shack Juicery; A store called Bullshirt
Regional Observation: In Maine, recreational marijuana has been legalized, but selling it still isn't. To get around this, there are delivery services where what you pay for is the "delivery fee" so you're not technically buying pot. I am always very impressed at the very selective industriousness of stoners.
Albums listened to: Awesome Mix Vol. 1: The Soundtrack to Guardians of the Galaxy; Axis Bold as Love by the Jimi Hendrix Experience; B Sides and C Sides by Rancid (just Brixton); Baby Driver Soundtrack; Babylon (single) by the Interruptors; Babylon Springs by the Mountain Goats (just Alibi); Back East by Matt Charette (folky-country guy from Boston who I've only seen open for hardcore punk bands which is pretty cool); Back in Black by AC/DC; Back on Top by the Front Bottoms (just 2YL); Back to Basics by Billy Bragg (just To Have and Have Not and Lovers Town Revisited); Back to Black by Amy Winehouse (just Rehab); Bad as Me by Tom Waits; Bad Card by Bad Cards (the rhythm section from the Slackers just cutting loose and embracing their punk and classic rock roots); Bad Neighbor by Madlib, Med, and Blu
People's Favorite Jokes:
What do you call an alligator wearing a vest? An investigator (now in a three way tie for America's favorite joke)
What's invisible and smells like bananas? Monkey Farts
Why couldn't the witch get pregnant? Her husband had a Hollow ween
