The invasion has begun Those lighted orbs in Lewiston’s Kennedy Park are pretty and all, but they kind of remind me of the pods in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” I’ll bet if I were to shinny up a tree and hit one with a stick, Donald Sutherland would fall out. Of course… If pod […]
Mark LaFlamme
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Street talk: Haunted in Madawaska
It was a beautiful summer day and I was lost once again in the great northern woods. I had ridden through a glorious potato field at the edge of St. Agatha, but somehow landed in a deep, dark forest with no sign of civilization in sight. Getting lost on my dirt bike doesn’t bother me much — […]
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Posted inbPlus, Mark LaFlamme
Ricky Gervais said WHAT?
Look out below! So, this week I was assigned to cover an Androscoggin County commissioners meeting, a fact that would typically send me into a Ricky Gervais level tantrum that would last all night and into morning. My rage was subdued, somewhat, by the fact that by covering the commissioners, I got to enjoy the […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Here’s looking at you, 2020
Where DID that decade go? I just wrote a date with 2020 for the first time. Felt kind of cool. Tingled a little bit and in all the right places. It’s going to be a good year. The kid ain’t mine, I tells you So, on New Year’s Day, my responsibilities included checking in with […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Children make the world look pretty cool
The kid came out of nowhere. One moment I was slumped in a post-Christmas semi-doze at my newsroom desk and the next, I was wide awake and scrambling to figure out where the pint-sized ninja boy had come from. “What’s your name?” the tow-headed lad asked me. “Mark. What’s yours?” The boy told he his […]
Posted inbPlus, Mark LaFlamme
Talk of the town: Christmas is over, pass the Nyquil
There once was a man from Kent So, last week I shared with you all a weird little poem I dreamed up while I was stoned on Nyquil or something. Since that little snippet ran in the paper, I think that means I’m a published poet now! I suppose I’ll have to start wearing an […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Time travel and the Bluelight Special
The last thing I ever bought from Kmart was a Route 66 hooded sweatshirt, fleece lined everywhere, including the sleeves.The Cadillac of hoodies, the Route 66. And it would have to be just that special to lure me into Auburn’s Kmart, a place I had generally avoided for years.It is not that I did not […]
Posted inbPlus, Mark LaFlamme
Aren’t we all just a Barrel of Monkeys?
Get out of my head, Edward Gorey So, I’ve been having a whole lot of trouble sleeping lately. I ALMOST get there, but then unsettling thoughts come plowing into my head like a freight train out of hell and I’m wide awake again. The other night, in that gray place between awake and asleep, my […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Shine on, you lost diamond
Her name is Ann and she came to the newspaper with all the earnestness of a woman come to pay her taxes. We went inside, found a quiet little conference room and took chairs across from each other. An older lady, is Ann. Perhaps in her 70s, perhaps a little older. When she sat across […]
Posted inbPlus, Mark LaFlamme
Drop the light saber, punk
Geeking I’m sure that most of you are just dying to hear how, on Sunday night at 8:36 p.m. EST, I managed to convert my humble home computer into a sweet Linux-Windows dual boot machine in spite of earlier problems booting in legacy mode. Who can blame you? This story is WAAAAY more thrilling than […]