This Week's Haul, Sept. 4: Schoooool's in! For! Autumn!

And: Please don't bring back Stomp Clap Hey music

I love the swamp mural on Hammond Street in Bangor! I think it’s my favorite? Photo by me.

Good morning from eastern Maine, where over the past week my friend Andy has been marshaling an increasingly expansive Powerball pool among a big group of friends. Our total winnings among more than 100 total series of numbers? 65 whole schmackos. We spent the holiday weekend imagining what we’d do with our vast winnings. What would you do if you won Powerball?

• Oh goody, the “worst tick season ever” is approaching! I can’t wait to pet my dog and discover something lumpy in his fur and panic until we realize it’s just a clump of dirt. Tell me your most upsetting tick story. Have you found one on your genitals or another entirely-too-intimate spot? Horrifying.

• Speaking of horrifying, Northern Light closed the walk-in care facility on Union Street in Bangor, essentially outsourcing those services to a for-profit company like Convenient MD (a company I have no problem with and have used before and gotten great care!). The U.S. healthcare system, as we all know, is utterly broken.

• This billionaire who helped to ruin the news industry lives in Boothbay in the summer. The New York Times wrote a profile of him, because there’s nothing the NYT loves more than normalizing obscene wealth and the status quo by humanizing corporate vultures.

• 24-year-old Jordan Hudson, Maine’s favorite lobsterman’s daughter turned beauty queen turned girlfriend of 73-year-old Bill Belichick, filed to trademark the word “gold digger.”

• The new Acadia Visitor Center in Trenton just opened. Its main purpose is to serve as a park and ride facility to help reduce the outrageous amounts of vehicle congestion on MDI, though it’s also a tourist center and bathroom stop. Has anyone been inside yet? Is it a cool building?

• IMPORTANT: Blue the tegu lizard is still at large in Old Town.

• Wienerfest is this Sunday in Belfast. Dachshunds and the people that love them gather together to put dogs in costumes and have them race each other. The earth is healing.

• A personal note to say that I love your cute kids going back to school photos. I think it’s nice. I think everybody should be able to get new shoes and outfits and backpacks and notebooks during the first week of September.

40 YEARS AGO - September 1985

“Maximum Overdrive” is unequivocally the worst Stephen King movie - not because the man himself directed it whilst at, let’s say, nearly rock bottom, but because it’s just bad. Before it came out, however, King’s radio station WZON ran a contest in the Bangor area that would give the winner a cameo role in the movie. The winning family, the Brigallis of Brewer, drove down to North Carolina and spent several days on set, with both Walter and Gail (mom and dad) and Tony and Mandy (sister and brother) appearing on screen. When the film came out nearly a year later, it was a total flop, and King himself referred to it as a “moron movie.” No word on how the Brigallis felt about the finished product.

Music & Dance

Sept. 4: Belfast Summer Nights presents The Hot Suppers, 5 p.m., Belfast Waterfront

Sept. 4: DaPonte String Quartet plays Beethoven, others; 7 p.m. First Church, Belfast

Sept. 4: The Oystermen, maritime music trio, 7 p.m., The Club Marina & Bar, Stockton Springs

Sept. 4: A Taste of Ireland, Celtic music showcase, 7:30 p.m., Collins Center for the Arts, Orono

Sept. 5: Outlaw Music Festival feat. Willie Nelson, Bob Dylan, Sheryl Crow, Waxahatchee and Madeline Edwards, Maine Savings Amphitheater, Bangor

Sept. 6: Brazil at the Barn feat. Dimow-Newsam Duo, 7 p.m., Surry Arts Barn, Surry

Sept. 6: Latin dance night, 9 p.m., Happy Endings Martini Bar, Bangor

Sept. 6: Swing dance night with the Alumni Jazz Band, 7:30 p.m., Next Generation Theatre, Brewer

Sept. 6-7: Bagaduce Music presents traditional Quebecois band Genticorum, 7 p.m. Sept. 6, UU Church, Belfast; 4 p.m. Sept. 7, Bagaduce Music, Blue Hill

Sept. 9: Bee Parks & the Hornets, 6 p.m., Stonington Opera House

Sept. 10: Peregrine Road, piano accordion duo, 5:30 p.m., Alamo Theatre, Bucksport

Sept. 10: Kaonashi, Actor Observer and Griefmonger, 7 p.m., Old Town Theatre, Old Town

Theater & Comedy

Sept. 4-7: Opening weekend for Penobscot Theatre’s “Steel Magnolias,” three weekends through Sept. 28, Bangor Opera House

Sept. 5-6: “Public Hearing,” one-man comedy show by Chris Quimby, Marsh River Theater, Brooks

Arts, Book, Film & Culture

Sept. 4: Sip and Sign with mystery author Claire Ackroyd, 5:30 p.m., The Store Ampersand, Orono

Sept. 5: Paint Your Pet workshop with Hope Eye, $30, 6 p.m., Dream Charm Bar by Jazmin, Central Street, Bangor

Sept. 5: Downtown Bangor First Friday Art Walk, 4-9 p.m., throughout downtown Bangor

Sept. 5-7: Dignity First and Paths to Dignity’s arts weekend, incl. gallery showcase of art from individuals with lived experience of homelessness, substance use, mental health challenges, and recovery during the Friday Downtown Bangor Art Walk, art-making festival from 12-3 Saturday at the Bangor Public Library, and performance at 5 p.m. Sunday at the UU Church of the Paths to Dignity concerto.

Sept. 5-7: “It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley,” documentary screening, Alamo Theatre, Bucksport

Sept. 6: Printmaking with Botanicals workshop, 1 p.m., Sprague’s Garden Center, Bangor

Sept. 6: “Fragile Materiality,” art lecture by Dan Clayman, 7 p.m., Waterfall Arts, Belfast

Sept. 7: The Summit Project presents a screening of “A Journey to Remember,” 1 p.m., Criterion Theater, Bar Harbor

Sept. 10: Silent Book Club, bring a book and read quietly, 5:30 p.m., The Stage Door, Bangor

Fairs, Festivals, Markets, Food & Misc.

Sept. 5-7: Jurassic Quest, dinosaur for families, shows all weekend, Cross Insurance Center

Sept. 6: Orono Festival Day, feat. family activities, food, performances by Pride of Maine Black Bear Marching Band and others; all day throughout Orono

Sept. 6: Fifth annual Dragonfly Grape Stomp; stomp grapes with your feet and make a t-shirt and then drink wine not made with the feet grape; 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Dragonfly Farm & Winery, Stetson

Sept. 6: Bass Park After Dark, market with vendors, food, music and more; 4 p.m., Bass Park, Bangor

Sept. 7: Maine Wienerfest and Dollars for Doxies; dachshund and other well-behaved dogs welcome, plus food, vendors and more; 11 a.m.-3 p.m., Belfast Waterfront

Sept. 7: Bangor Area Derby vs. Twin State Derby Bandits, roller derby bout, 1 p.m., Piscataquis Ice Arena, Dover-Foxcroft; $15 at the door, open rollerskating after the bout

Sept. 7: Afternoon Tea at the Carver Memorial Library; seatings at 12:30 and 3 p.m., tickets $25 adults, $15 kids, Searsport

I have avoided listening to Noah Kahan because, after first being exposed to him when he was on “Saturday Night Live”, I knew his music simply wasn’t for me. I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice guy, I just do not have a ton of interest in another white dude with an acoustic guitar singing about, I dunno, their lover or the stars or some shit. To paraphrase the band Cracker: the world needs another folk singer like I need a hole in my head. Even after he released a song in 2024 called “Maine” that amassed tens of millions of streams on Spotify, I opted not to listen because, again: Stomp Clap Hey music makes me want to Stomp Punch Scream.

I read Leslie Bridgers’ column in the PPH last week about how “Maine” is the most popular song about Maine since Roger Miller’s certified banger “King of the Road” came out 60 years ago. That makes me sad. “King of the Road” is about a homeless man drifting around the country, hopping trains until he reaches the end of the line in Bangor. It’s great. “Maine” is about a guy stringing together pretty words in order to impress his girlfriend, who is from Cape Elizabeth. It is, quite frankly, Subaru commercial music. I feel very strongly that this is at the core of what The Other Maine is all about - the fantasy of Maine for people who visit for a week or two in the summer. It’s fake as hell, and it exists purely to squeeze money out of people. To use a phrase from a few years ago: it’s basic.

You might say, Emily, why the hate for this Noah dude? He’s not hurting anybody. It’s just dumb pop music. Well, after reading this delightful piece in The New Yorker about how music criticism has lost its edge, I felt compelled to take a sip of haterade and pass it around. Shall I unleash my full set of occasionally harsh opinions on the internet? Do I dare to jump in the discourse pool? Stay tuned!