Tag Archives: drinking

My great-grandfather’s story of theft aboard The Robert E. Lee

By Mark | July 23, 2019

The family and I have spent the last four days in the Maine woods, where my aunt and her husband had rented a cabin so that our extended family could celebrate my father’s 75th birthday together. Aside from falling in Maine’s largest lake while completely clothed, having to scrub vomit from the upholstery of a […]

Posted in History, Mark's Life, Uncategorized | Also tagged 1870, 1918 flu, Arlo, birthday presents, birthdays, Cairo, Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, catsup, Charles Maynard, Civil War, clocks, Curtis Florian, dogs playing poker, Doug Skinner, falling in water, family history, family values, farming, fire, Frankfort, gambling, Georgetown, guns, hidden guns, horses, Illinois, John W. Cannon, Kentucky, legends, Little Mister Frankfort, lobster, lobster rolls, Louisville, Maine, Mark's ancestors, Mark's aunt Betsy, Mark's lips, Mark's relatives, Maynard-Lao Archive, Minnie Florian, Mississippi River, Natchez, New Hampshire, Ohio River, paddle boats, pandemic, Piggy Wiggly, poker, Pony Express, Rabbit Hash, Robert E. Lee, Sebago Lake, speed, statues, steamships, sunburn, The Robert E. Lee, theft, Thomas P. Leathers, tobacco, tuberculosis, vacations, vomit, White Sulfur, Wild Bill Cody, William Zanzinger, Woodlake | 10 Comments

The silent rattlesnakes of Truman Capote, and the hoax behind Hand-Carved Coffins

By Mark | April 2, 2019

Late last week, I took a few days off from work and went to Chicago with the family. We visited friends, ate really good brisket, poked our heads into the small and dark apartment of Henry Darger, invested way too much time studying the habits of the longnose walking batfish, and spent Linette’s birthday seeing […]

Posted in Art and Culture, Uncategorized | Also tagged 1975, 1980, Al Dewey, Amphetamine Reptile, amphetamines, Chicago, coffins, decapitation, Department of Homeland Security, domestic terrorism, fiction, folk art, Green Street Meats, Hamilton, Hand-Carved Coffins, Henry Darger, hoaxes, In Cold Blood, Intuit, Jake Pepper, Jean Henry, Johnny Carson, Kansas, Linette Lao, longnose walking batfish, murder, Music for Chameleons, Perry Smith, pumpkins, rattlesnake, Richard "Dick" Hickock, Richard Nixon, Rose Styron, Shedd Aquarium, silent rattlesnakes, snakes, Studio 54, Thanksgiving, The Tonight Show, Truman Capote, vacations, visionary art, white nationalism | 56 Comments

68 hours in Manzanita…. The Monkey Power Trio’s 24th day as a band

By Mark | November 24, 2018

The weekend of October 20 marked the 24th meeting of my one-day-a-year pseudo-band, the Monkey Power Trio. For those of you who might not be familiar with our origin story, it all began back in 1995 with a promise between old friends one hot, summer afternoon in Brooklyn. Without much in the way of any […]

Posted in Art and Culture, Mark's Life, Monkey Power Trio, Shadow Art Fair, Uncategorized | Also tagged 1995, aging, alimony, ankles, appendix, bonfires, cancer, Carroll Gardens, Cheez-Its, Cleveland, contemplating the end, crumhorn, Dan Richardson, Dave Miller, Death, divorce, fire, fleas, fog, Hasil Adkins, Hazel, ironing board, Jeff Kay, jellyfish, Jody Bleyle, laughing, Low Sack, Manzanita, Matt Krizowsky, mayonnaise, McMenamins, meteor shower, Mike Bell, napping, naps, Newton High School, nicknames, Oregon, Oregon Historical Society, Pacific Ocean, Pantless, Pantless Dan, Pear Hawthorn, Pete Holmes, Portland, pranks, recording, recreational marijuana, Reno, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, scallops, Scrabble, Señor Wences, Skull Island, The Ballad of Christian Wolfcock, The Sand Flea, timber, trumpet, wills | 15 Comments

Bulb Records’ Pete Larson reemerges in Kenya with a renewed purpose… to help document and preserve the Nyatiti

By Mark | June 27, 2017

My old friend and former bandmate, Pete Larson, moved to Kenya a few years back to oversee a number of public health related research projects. And, while there, he fell in love with the country’s culture and music. Now, like a good academic, he’s doing his best to document and preserve what he can, starting […]

Posted in Art and Culture, Uncategorized | Also tagged academic research, Africa, Barack Obama, Biggie Smalls, Boaz Jagingo, Bulb Records, Colin Crowley, cultural traditions, curses, Dagoretti Records, Dave Sharp, Dodo, Egypt, erections, folks songs, goat brain soup, Greece, Hillary Clinton, hip hop, impotence, iron roofs, Japan, Kaboge Chagala, Kenge Kenge Sound System, Kenya, Kenyatta University, Kikuyu, Lake Victoria, Luo, lyre, musical instruments, Nairobi, Nairobi University, Ndio Sasa, Nyatiti, Nyatiti Stories, Obokano, Oduor Nyagweno, Oduor Nyagweno and the Nyatiti Attack, Orutu, Peter Larson, poetry, praise songs, rap, rap battles, Rapasa, sex, shamisen, Siaya, Sick Trees, stringed instruments, Swahili, Tomo Tsukahara, tribalism, Tupac, vernacular, violin, witchcraft, world music | 9 Comments

I’m Shmacked, the Smithsonian Folkways of binge drinking, to return to Ann Arbor, record the drunken stupidity of Michigan’s most privileged for posterity

By Mark | October 15, 2015

A few weeks ago, The Center for Michigan, inspired in part by my experiences inside the University of Michigan emergency room on a football Saturday last year, published a series of insightful articles about game day binge drinking on Michigan’s college campuses. As we discussed here at the time, they didn’t just talk with university […]