You must forgive my disheveled appearance this morning. The uncombed hair, the week’s worth of beard, that distinct man scent that follows the terminally unwashed … I’m just back from vacation, you understand, and I’ve been on a bender. Not the old-style bender, mind you — surely you would have read about that in the […]
Street talk
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Rock her, Martha! Pump the gas!
So. You’ve survived yet another blizzard without skidding off the road and into a ravine. Not a single time all winter have you been forced to dine on one of your own extremities in order to stay alive in your buried car. Congratulations, champ. Just don’t go busting your arm patting yourself on the back, […]
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Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Christmas gift ideas that probably won’t get you kicked out of the family
If I look deep within myself with unalloyed honesty, I’m not sure I ever completely forgave my brother for giving me an ice scraper for Christmas. Don’t get me wrong: As ice scrapers go, it was just fine. It had the little teeth on the edge to rip into ice and there was a nice […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world
A tip for you smart shoppers: All I want for Christmas this year is a one-way ticket out of Looneyville — a fast flight out of this goofy dystopian landscape that feels like equal parts George Orwell, Philip K. Dick and Dr. Seuss. You know what I’m talking about. Somehow we all woke up in […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Three questions for Christmas
It’s a miracle. A Christmas miracle. Just when I thought I was to come up empty in a search for this week’s column, an epic rant lands in my newsroom telephone mailbox. In this message, a fellow named Daniel poses three questions on the nature of the holidays — questions that I am to research […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Please stop staring at my naked brain
It was a sunny Thursday afternoon and Dr. Douglas Henry was looking deeply into my eyes. So deeply, in fact, that he could see the lightning-storm array of blood vessels at the very back of my eyeballs. “Looks like you have a little freckle back there,” he said. A freckle on the back of my […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: The Great Debate
It was just a few hours until the presidential debate and I was excited as a wound-up puppy dog in a room full of legs. The hype had been unreal — it was like Mayweather versus Pacquiao all up in here — if Mayweather had triple-advanced super pneumonia and Pacquiao was a platitude-spouting bored guy […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Live and uncontaminated by bull
Some days, I hear my reporter’s notebook weeping from the depths of my back pocket. For two decades, he was the perfect solider, rounding up details about fires, murders and downtown scrums, gobbling up awesome terms like “fracas,” “brouhaha” and “donnybrook” and then unleashing them upon our readers. Pile driver in Kennedy Park? Into the […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
On tonight’s episode of ‘Street Talk Dickering’
I met the guy in the darkest parking lot available along Route 4, a place where weeds have long grown over what used to be a thriving parking lot. I killed the engine and waited, listening to the solemn ticking from beneath the hood. Somewhere nearby, an owl hooted uneasily. Crickets chirped and frogs croaked […]
Posted inLewiston-Auburn, Mark LaFlamme
Street Talk: Your questions are important to us
Well, it’s mid-April and that means it’s time to open the old mailbag. True, I’ve never actually answered letters in this column space — but I’ve always meant to and just you shut up. I can do it if I want. Here are some questions I’ve received lately. Thoughtful, intelligent questions asked by people who […]