The right to arm bears When I first read about the proposal to make guns mandatory in Sabattus – and now Byron – I thought the Sun Journal had turned into The Onion. And frankly, I welcomed it. Real-world headlines are such a bore. I’ve always said that newspapering would be much more fun if […]
Mark LaFlamme
Posted inMark LaFlamme, sj-web
Street Talk: Things to say about me when I’m dead
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The coolest comment I’ve ever heard while writing an obituary feature was this: “Mike played a hell of a game of Foosball.” The remark, ten words of poetry, stands out among all others, a glorious example of how to describe a person who has passed so […]
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Talk of the town: Mark cries fowl
Bok! Bok! At Forage in Lewiston, they’re selling a variety of cool hats. My hands-down favorite is a rooster cap, which can transform an ordinary human head into something that resembles a barnyard fowl. I ask you: Does it get any more fun than that? No sir, it does not. So, why am I walking […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
For the good of the relationship, pretend you get these metaphors
We have a lot of fun, you and I. We exchange witty emails and jab at one another on Facebook. We share our hopes, our dreams and occasional bacterial infections. We have this connection, you and I, that pivots on a pair of weekly newspaper columns and it works well. But the relationship is in […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme, sj-web
Talk of the town
Why? Bleeping why? Saw a fellow shuffling along Park Street the other day and unabashedly talking to himself. You know what he was saying? He was standing in front of the newspaper and saying: “Why doesn’t the (BLEEP) Sun Journal clock tell me the time and temperature anymore? What the (BLEEP) is going on?” So […]
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Street Talk: He plays piano in the dark. Or would if he knew how to play piano.
By the time I got out of the Franco Center, I was half in love with Tamara Poddubnaya. It was her passion — the way she moved and the way she turned her face to the heavens in moments of great exaltation. And her fingers. My God, her fingers! How they crept and crawled, probed […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Talk of the town
Paperboy vs. postman So the United States Postal Service, with its professionally trained and well-paid crews, decided Winter Storm Nemo was just too much and kept their carriers off the streets. Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Unless there’s a […]
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Mark LaFlamme, The Franklin Journal
Street talk: Cozy up to the fire, lay person, and hear me not talk about the weather
I tell you what. I’m not going to sit here and write about our latest winter storm after a week of nonstop chatter about it. You poor folks have had enough. For five days straight, news reporters battered you ceaselessly with emerging details about the storm. If you turned off your TV and threw your […]
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Talk of the town: My kingdom for a funny King Richard joke
Cleavage A skeleton with a cleaved skull entombed under a car park is that of the embattled King Richard III, archaeologists said this week. Dammit, I lost the office pool. I had “skeleton with cleaved sternum found beneath pastry shop operated by left-handed former prostitute.” I hope you did better. A funny King Richard joke! […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
I swear I didn’t snowball that car over on Hazelwood
You know the drill. It’s 9 in the morning and you’re eating Frankenberries in front of the TV. Bugs Bunny and friends, Foghorn Leghorn, all those sketched characters who have become like brothers to you. Your mother is in the living room, vacuuming and dusting, moving from one task to another like one of those […]