I would appreciate it this morning if you could refrain from asking me for the capital of Utah. It would likewise be helpful if you could avoid hitting me up for lyrics to obscure old songs, such as “Run, Joey Run” or “Shannon.” I would consider it a personal favor if you’d not provoke me […]
Mark LaFlamme
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Lewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme, Op-Eds, The Franklin Journal
Street Talk: I hate February; it hates me
I can’t stop thinking about the girl. God knows I’ve tried, but this city won’t let you forget. She’s the bloodstain on the sidewalk, the one that looks like a question mark. She’s the crack in the window at City Hall and the smell of bread on windless mornings. The girl is my ghost; her […]
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Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Lewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme, Op-Eds, The Franklin Journal
Street Talk: I want you! To fill in on the police beat
So, you want to be a police beat reporter. Who can blame you? It’s good work if you can find it. Builds character and occasionally ulcers. Imagine: Working the late shift so that your day begins when most people are going to bed. It’s a shift that will make you a stranger to prime-time television. […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme, Op-Eds
Political rallies send shivers
At moments, I was genuinely afraid. Not of the thing in my closet this time but of a group of ordinary people like myself. Ordinary people of a singular mind crammed into one tiny room like ammunition in a magazine. Explosive. Big dogs on leashes that have frayed down to nothing. Political rallies have always […]
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Lewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme, Op-Eds, The Franklin Journal
My haunted head
It was a perfectly ordinary ride on a perfectly ordinary summer day. Just me and my Suzuki, El Mechon, out on the main trail at Riverlands in Turner. There were no other riders in sight, leaving me free to sail through massive puddles and climb muddy hills with abandon. If there’s a heaven up there […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Where bogeymen go to die
For your consideration, today is just another face on a computer screen. A dowdy man in a sweatshirt with a name tag clipped to the front of it. His eyes are cut to the side. Nervous, maybe. Skittish, like a man who has become convinced that others are out to get him. But otherwise, this […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Thank you for writing my column, suckers!
So, today I was going to write the big one. The column so profound and eloquent, the Pulitzer people wouldn’t even bother voting. The column so witty and full of wonders, spacemen would return to Earth just to get a copy. The column so sagacious, pregnant ladies would read the piece over and over to […]
Posted inAdvertiser Democrat, Mark LaFlamme
It’s quiet. Too quiet.
As I write, there’s a floor guy out in the kitchen getting ready to put down tile. There’s the staccato growl of the jigsaw as he cuts underlayment into odd-shaped segments. There’s the oddly final sound of the staple gun ensuring that subfloor will still be there long after I’m dead and buried in the […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
The old man, the pretty girl and parvovirus
It was 1994. Big hair was out; grunge was in. O.J. Simpson was accused of murder. President Bill Clinton was welcoming his interns. Somewhere in Canada, a tow-headed child named Justin Bieber was born. His parents immediately uploaded the boy to YouTube, which hadn’t been invented. Meanwhile, in Hartford, Conn., I was attending a newspaper […]
Posted inMark LaFlamme
Do you want to talk about it?
The kid’s name was Phillip and he was a deep one. The silent type like you read about. This was a cat who wouldn’t say “Fire!” if his own head was ablaze. You know the type. While everyone else is babbling and hollering and sharing all the minutiae of their mundane lives, there’s that one […]