Taste of Steampunk – Riverside Park Fitchburg MA

One of the things I have not been able to explore as much as I have wanted to is the local music scene – both what’s up in Boston as well as all the weird and unusual things going on in Vermont. Problem is I don’t like going to these shindigs alone (for reasons of safety) and none of my local friends are uh… as enthusiastic as I am about avant guard music. Soooo…. when I learned that a band I actually really adore out of Boston was showing up in Fitchburg for an open-air gig in the park I couldn’t say no.

If I’m honest it’d been a tough week for me but that made me all the more determined to get out there and enjoy this. Problem is there was pretty much no information anywhere. All I could find is it started at 4PM and tickets were $10 online (with no link to buy them) and $15 at the gates. Oooookaaaay. Right from the get-go I thought 4PM sounded weird as fuck for such a thing but whatever… I can still roll with it.

And I showed up at 4PM to a pretty empty park. In fact it was so empty that I wondered if I had the right park! Turns out I had accidentally bumbled into it from a rear entrance. And it was soooo Fitchburgy. To one side a plaque read about how this park was here because the river was soooo beautiful that it was determined it must be a park. And indeed there was some pretty impressive masonry holding up a flag whoosing over… a VERY overgrown and completely unkempt riverbank. Even hiking into the middle of nowhere I hadn’t seen a thicket of weeds so ferociously thick. I took a photo – and then was asked by a man if I was a volunteer. No? He told me to check in and pointed frantically towards the other side of the park. I shrugged and did as I was told.

Approaching the ticketmaster I asked what was up today, pretending to play dumb for a moment. She told me it was a Steampunk Festival and that there were vendors, food trucks, beer from a local brewery, and live music but they wouldn’t be starting for an hour. I knew 4PM had to be wrong! She didn’t even have tickets or anything so I bid her adieu and wandered the streets like a common urchin for a while. Until I got tired, found a bench, and just sat people watching. Problem is there seemed to be just as many people watching me, including a shuttle bus driver who kept passing and giving me the dirty eyeball. WHY? Is it the orange hair? It’s the orange hair.. or perhaps my general ne’er-do-well appearance. Two parked cop cars were also watching me sit idly by myself. I promise I wasn’t dealing. Seriously. Just minding my own!

Does this look like a face you’d trust? At least I had an excuse to wear the granny glasses again…

Eventually 5PM rolled around so I got off my duff and wandered back to the park, said hello again to the ticket master, and gave her exact change because she didn’t have a change box yet. I did however learn that this whole event was an attempt to raise money to buy the park a permanent stage. There’d been a folk festival the month before (which I wish I knew about) and next month they’re holding Fiesta Latina (Saturday 9/14/19 from 5-9) I could feel good about supporting such a cause. Music and art are a wonderful way to vitalize a community.

I wandered around looking at the vendors for as long as I could muster, said a happy hello to them, but really… there was one guy signing people up for a raffle, the beer guy, and two craft vendors. The food trucks were still amiss. I felt bad for the two crafters, this was the saddest turn out for such a thing I had ever seen. Obviously this meant I needed to shower one with praise for her art (which was actually nice, mind you!) and stop to get a Henna tattoo from the other. I’d always liked the idea of letting someone doodle on my skin… I mean this isn’t quite as involved as checking “volunteer sorry carcass to be full body painted” off my bucket list but it was close enough. Did you know Henna smells really weird? It smells like a head shop. I wasn’t real fond of it and kept smelling myself the rest of the day. SIGH. I did however listen intently to the care instructions – should last 24 hours before starting to fleck off leaving a stain. Don’t bash it against things. That last instruction may have been too much for me – someone who has consistently failed at being refined and dainty since birth. And yes, I saw the exasperated look the artist gave me as I then wandered off and sat on the ground in what I can only guess was the least feminine manner possible. Shockingly I did not smudge it in the grass! I did however pick it all off later that night because it was driving me nuts. Can’t win them all. TO NEW EXPERIENCES!

By now I wasn’t the only one in the audience but I was pretty damn close. A row of local older hippies sat in camping chairs up near the front. Damn! I had two of those in my car if only I had the audacity to lug them through Fitchburg and into the park. Nope, nevermind. I’m nutty enough a scene without a damn chair. I plopped my ass down a little behind them and off to the side.

AND SO THE SHOW BEGAN! First up was The Dirge Carolers. To me they had a typical steam punk sound mixed with a lot of murder ballad type lyrics. I relaxed. Gallows humor will always be a hit to me. By now some people were filing in and out and I was starting to enjoy the people watching. There were a lot of costumes, corsets, top hats, bustles, goggles, that sort of thing, and flashes of unnaturally colored hair abounded. I was home here. However this was not the feeling everyone got as I witnessed one old black dude just wandering aimlessly, staring wide-eyed at everyone with an unmistakable impression on his face, “Uh-oh, the crazy white people have taken over the park again.” He wasn’t wrong.

I was sitting directly in the sun which was glaring in my eyes bad. I couldn’t see a damn thing but I knew the stage was probably populated by oddly adorned individuals – how? Well by the amount of amateur photographers who seemed to be floating around taking snaps with great glee – captive bizarre human subjects!! I’ll admit, I had thought about doing the same but I didn’t bring my camera, just my phone. One particular photographer was college aged, seemed to think a lot about each capture. She kept circling me, taking photos of everything around me. And then she worked up the nerve to take a photo of me, just me. There was NO WAY she could hide this so I just looked up from my reclined position on the grass and smiled broadly. Sorry. Better luck next time getting a natural shot of me. She seemed embarrassed. I just laughed and nodded.

As the band continued to play the most Fitchburg-y thing happened. A train rumbled through right behind the stage completely blocking out all music for a good three minutes or so as it dragged car after car after car behind it. I thought it was a terrific piece of ambiance for a steampunk festival! The band played on like they were on the goddamn Titanic. That’s dedication there. They eventually left off with some song from a B-rated horror movie they wrote it for, sullenly leaving the stage with this odd lamentation, “Sorry, no Zombie Llama today.” Though I’d never heard of this band I suddenly wanted to hear Zombie Llama.

The first intermission was fun. The park was still pretty quiet. There were people around but it seemed like they were just here for the food truck (ouch.) I considered getting up and buying myself a nice shwarma but I’d been struggling with bad nausea all week and wasn’t really hungry. Maybe in a bit. In the meantime I was being kept well entertained by a human blockhead running around with a long nail and power drill – an act I have seen many times before but this one was way more fun because the audience he was playing to – those nice old hippie ladies- were WELL GROSSED OUT, turning their heads in abject horror and audibly gagging. Sorry bud, it’s just not your day. He wandered off a smidge sullen.

Once everyone settled back down with their assorted dinners the second band went up to bat. They were the Busted Jug Band a strange assortment of heavily costumed, utterly bizarre, peoples carrying rubber chickens. And some instruments…. which were very… DIY… They also introduced every one of the members, not by name, but by aggressively odd nicknames which I am not entirely certain weren’t made up on the spot. My favorite was Root Boy which just… brings up SO MANY QUESTIONS. Like what kind of root? And whhhy? Do you aspire to be a turnip? Because you’re giving me a root vegetable vibe. Even better one of the other band members was wearing translucent angel wings… which during the last intermission freaked me the hell out because all I could see through a halo of sun glare was a top-hatted silhouette and angel wings. For a second I thought I might have died. No such luck.

But anyway, the music from this band was… different for sure! And perhaps a bit familiar? I think I may have seen them before… This had a much more silly feel to it. No one up there was taking their life even the tiniest bit seriously. And of course that intense whimsy was all the more adorable to me. I was pretty happy on my little patch of grass though my knees and back weren’t so much. I contemplated lying on the ground and staring at the sky for a while. I could always tell people walking by I was on acid and watching the pretty clouds (there were no clouds) as I knew in this crowd that’d be a perfectly acceptable thing to say… I held it together.

By the time the second band finished up I was just really loving the vibe of everyone here. The old hippies were randomly getting up, wandering, and dancing, and hugging each other – I’m not going to lie, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were on acid. They were warm and lovely bunch. Most of the lookee-loos had wandered off but more and more steam-punky looking people were showing up and I’ll be damned if that old black dude didn’t pull up a chair behind me with his daughter and her friends. Shout out to all the cool dads out there who don’t get their kids hobbies at all but still support them! I can’t tell you how much I respect that. His daughter and her friends were in the maybe 12-14 age range. She was sporting a dark purple mohawk and was giving me some strong Aspie vibes but I couldn’t be happier with that. Be your weird self. She stuttered to me that she liked my hair. I told her I liked hers too and then she blurted out, “But it BURNS!” What? “Bleaching it! It burns so bad!” Ooooh, I don’t think you’re supposed to keep it in that long… “TWO HOURS! AND I CAN’T HAVE MY NAILS DONE EITHER!” Why? She held up her nails, two well done fake nails still remaining with all the others hacked the hell off. I grok that. I held up my own in solidarity and laughed. She asked if I liked music. I said all kinds and asked what she liked listening to. She listed a bunch of 90’s bands and I suddenly felt really old. I felt only somewhat better when I recognized the one modern band she did mention – Panic at the Disco – but if I am brutally honest I only have heard the name in passing. I haven’t the foggiest idea what they sing.

Meanwhile as this intermission dragged on the human block head came out with fire. Ah, fire eating. How dual purpose. But he wasn’t having a great time with it. No one here seemed impressed, the kids were vocally not entertained, and eventually when he couldn’t get his last trick to go right he gave this exasperated expression and wandered off, leaving the stage to a chick who worked at the local eatery across the street. Her fire came attached to hula hoops and she wasn’t fucking around. I was actually quite impressed! We’d see her intermittently for the rest of the night doing different acts – all with various things in flames. It was probably at this time one of the girls wandered off and cornered the blockhead/fire eater and somehow elicited his entire life story from him. I got to hear all about it a few minutes later and had to struggle really hard not to laugh. I’m not eavesdropping, no siree.

The last band up was the one I came for: Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys. They were having some issues setting up with unwanted feedback loops and were taking awhile. I had already seen them perform two or three times before – never thought I’d see them again. That last time I went they didn’t come on stage until the establishment was nearly closed. The pamphlet said they were unpredictable and I had heard rumors that they were hard to work with because of these issues but even with all that they have to be one of the best experiences of my life. They really truly believe that art, love, and music can cure all the world’s ills and their audience is so vibrant, creative, and accepting that in each of those instances I got the hugest contact high just from all the warm fuzzies in the air. That’s what I came for! That and the music. This band… raw fucking talent. And this was obvious when they finally got to singing and the whole audience which had been fidgety and complaining behind me just went, “WOW!” And the grumpy old dad? “I guess this WAS worth waiting for them to set up!”

It had started with sweet sad violin music, not a note out of place, that lulled the audience before walloping them over the head with strong passionate vocals and more traditional instruments. Absolutely amazing. And some of the band members had young children whose birthday it was so they all got up on the stage and danced in a cloud of bubbles as a few songs were dedicated to them. That was certainly different than the body positive burlesque dancers and drag kings I was used to surrounding this act but it was so…. sweet. And seemed so right, all at the same time. Maybe with time everyone grows up – but the smartest among us clutch tightly to the passion and whimsy that brought us this far. I was overjoyed to get one short video of the madness, one of my favorite songs – a cover of I am Sam Hall (Best. Version. Ever.) which I will post below. As the music came to an end I slinked silently back into the night where I found comfort in the darkness and drove quietly home, a smile on my face.

August 28, 2019 0

Evanston Wyoming

Evanston was an interesting experience. I had nothing to do that day but had to stay in the area. I had a couple loads of laundry to do so I headed to the nearest Laundromat, which at the time was full with all sorts of people, muttering all sorts of grumpy things in numerous languages. There was a dude with obvious anger issues grunting at one of the machines, a couple of Hispanic women cheerfully folding laundry that obviously wasn’t theirs, and a most interesting family. It contained two teenagers, a tenish year old, and a four year old wearing vibrant red lipstick. The eldest, a boy, reminded me of the apocalyptic children I saw in Joshua tree, same stupid non-haircut and attitude. They were led in by a woman who couldn’t have been more than 35. She was dressed like a teenager herself, smacking gum and talking on her phone like she’d never grown up. She was feeding her kids some sort of junk food she’d just purchased. I thought these kids were her children until the youngest started calling her Nana. The two girls with her were not old enough to have a four year old so I’m guessing this brassy woman popped out her first kid at 14-16 only to have it repay the favor by doing the same and letting her take care of the grandkid. Either way she was doing a miserable job, as both a mother and grandmother. Currently she was doing no less than ten loads of laundry, all personal, which had probably been building up for some time. Even the attendants were asking her if she was doing someone else’s laundry because she was taking up so many machines.

Whenever this very special family failed to keep us entertained we could always look back at the guy with anger issues. He was stomping around the place throwing his laundry around like it had a personal vendetta against him when it fell to the floor. Even when he was waiting he was scowling at the world with an expression so intense one got the sensation he might knock you out if you even so much as batted an eye in his direction. He stormed out of that place like no one’s business.

I waited patiently for the laundry. I was half-asleep and wondering if this horrible place was where I had to wait for two days.

I was about to be pleasantly surprised. I decided to go for a walk down the little strip mall in town. I ended up entering a huge store run by two sweet elderly women, one of which greeted me and told me this place was a boutique, an antique shop, a book store, and a flea market. She also pointed me towards some “unique” jewelry. Oh my were they ever unique! I had never seen real stones used in something so ungodly garish. Then again the boutique had old lady clothes, maybe the jewelry matched.

The antique store was mostly odd bits of furniture and scary dolls, an odd set of hand operated egg-beaters. The flea market just had old crochet things no one would have bought anyway. It was all very… interesting, though I loved the friendly atmosphere. It was the exact opposite of the Laundromat.

Next I went to an adorable little art gallery in a JC Penny’s. It had all sorts of local talent, amazing pieces of wildlife paintings. I admired everything but not being rich had to leave even the coolest pieces there.

After this I somehow wandered into a little Chinese history/koi park. It had a little Chinese gazebo and a plaque stating that the Chinese had been instrumental in building the area, putting down the train tracks that the town settled on, though they seemed strangely absent now. Beyond the gazebo there was a garden and a little koi pond, with two lonely koi and some goldfish. I sat back and watched a little sparrow kvetch at me from the gazebo roof. I wandered from the shade, into the warm sun, and back into the shade before I decided to lie on one of the benches in the gazebo. I was so very tired and my back ached, as I hadn’t slept on anything flat for a month or so now. I lay there until a gardener came out and I decided I didn’t want to accused of being a vagrant and swept off. I walked to the little bridge over the koi pond, until the gardener finally left. He took his sweet time, and I am not sure what he accomplished in wandering around. I decided to go to another fossil and rock shop down the road.

The fossil and rock shop, Antares Fossil & Minerals, was a sight to behold. It had big colorful dinosaurs wandering the tiny yard. I walked past a woman watering the plants at the behemoth creatures’ feet. She soon followed us in. It was a tiny place absolutely stuffed full with pretty rocks and fish fossils. Apparently this place was run by a family who owned their own local quarry and traded fossil fish for other pretty rocks. It was an interesting idea for a business.

The woman I was talking to, Lily, owned the shop next door, The House of Light, something I passed not knowing what it was. She was a free-spirited woman, what I’d call a hippie. Her shop sold crystals, gemstones, metaphysical books, and Reiki treatments, practiced by herself. She led me through the shop trying to explain things. She even showed me her little Reiki room and pointed out some of its elements. I was rather confused by it all but that’s alright, I nodded politely. Reiki is just one of those things I know nothing about, but I have been curious about. She claimed she was a Christian woman by birth, God and Jesus and all, until Reiki showed her there’s so much more to the world. I could respect that.

Before I knew it she told me her whole life story, including her heritage, born to one Indonesian and one Dutch parent. I told her of my own journeys and she in return insisted I take a lucky rock home with me, from a basket of colorful rocks. I picked one that fit my hand perfectly, a nice fidget. I put it in my purse next to my lucky flea-sized trilobite.

To finish my wandering I decided to check out a park called Bear River. They had a paved path alongside the riverbank, paddle boats for rent, and swimming in one of the calm parts. I walked behind a big black standard poodle for a long time before its elderly owner turned around. I didn’t really see any wildlife but it was a nice walk.

I wanted to get dinner after this so I went to the local grocer’s, Smith’s, and ordered an assortment of goo. In their salad section of their deli they had pink goo (Strawberry Cheesecake salad) green goo (pistachio salad) and orange goo (Ambrosia.) I found the texture of goo to be repulsive and stuck to the normal salads. Party pooper.

From here I went to a McDonald’s to update the blog and answer e-mails. I sat there for four hours. I was falling asleep in my seat and not feeling that great by the time I left. This was the longest I’d ever stayed at one McDonald’s in a stretch.

***I apologize for any missing photos and galleries as I continue to work getting Catching Marbles fully migrated to a new host. Please come back soon for restored photos and thank you for your patience!***

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

July 26, 2011 0

Cody Wyoming

I was told by someone that I had to go through Cody after exiting Yellowstone, in fact I think two or three different people mentioned this but none of them let me know what Cody was. It wasn’t until I was at the ice cream parlor in Yellowstone, staring at the old advertisement for Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show, that I realized Cody was probably one of those tacky Wild West tourist traps. I was right. Statues of old Western heros, white buffalo, and various other animals lined the streets. Everything was made to look like an old saloon. There were hotels and inns everywhere as well as huge clothing stores loaded with the most garish of clothing articles, enormous glittering purses, baby pink cowgirl hats, ten pound shiny belt buckles, rattlesnake boots, and cowboy hats of every kind imaginable. Of course the best part of the town was the dubious and probably offensive depictions of “Indians” which were everywhere. The second best part of the town was the Dug Up Gun Museum. I didn’t go in but I expect these are just firearms people found buried in their back yards. How weird and freaky is that?

I couldn’t resist stopping to pick up a post card for my cousin who happens to be named Cody. I hope he gets a laugh out of it but I really don’t know.

I stopped at a McDonald’s there for quite awhile and I got to watch the local teenagers while pretending to be focused on other things. There were a couple chicks there, maybe 15 or so in age, with make-up covered faces and tight clothing. One of them was trying to pick up a boy, one in a group of four, all dressed up to the hilt looking like they’d just walked off a set for a 1940’s Western, hats, boots, flannel shirts, and belt buckles included. When all four came over to sit down she was still smiling and flirty. Eventually her chick friend grew annoyed, not wanting to have a part in this, and left. The remaining chicka soon found her devious plans were to backfire. Somehow the topic of conversation wound around to some friend of theirs, not present, who had recently been “almost caught fucking a girl real good at the bus station. Cop came rollin’ by and he just had enough time to pull up his pants!” This story went around getting more outrageous, the girl’s smile now turning to an intensely uncomfortable grimace. Fifteen minutes later when the gaggle got up from the table she took tail and headed for the hills. ‘Course now I had lost my entertainment. Damn.

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 26, 2011 0

Las Vegas – Nevada

Las Vegas is the birth of human depravity, or at least the continuation of such. But you know… when in Rome, might as well fiddle while it burns. Wait, I think I got that one wrong… anyway!

The place was as to be expected, there were tacky glitzy casinos galore, and in between them there were tattoo parlors, strip joints, wedding chapels, and pawn shops. Whatever. I could care less. Though there was one place that I thought would be funny to go… the pawn shop… but not any pawn shop, the pawn shop on Pawn Stars. I had no idea the place was so tiny! And packed! Half the store had been turned into a souvenir shop for people who watch the show. There were far more people buying T-shirts than jewelry. There wasn’t much here, some old guns, a few sabers, lots of jewelry, a few odd things here and there. I left sans magnet. Too embarrassing…

I took some photos of the strip. I stopped by the world’s largest gift shop and got a magnet. The cashier was the most adorable four and a half foot tall elderly woman I have ever seen. She wore HUGE glasses, smiled, and spoke with a very bronzy voice. I thought that was great… probably the only thing here I thought was the bees knees… the rest of the time was spent dodging crazed drivers who clearly lost a ton of cash gambling and were bent on taking that out on… the Jeep! Damn that unlucky Jeep! How dare it make them lose!

On a side note, I saw a big bulletin board advertising a concert for Vanilla Ice. Really? I mean I know Vegas is where old singing stars tend to go to die but Vanilla Ice? I kind of figured he’d be living under a rock or calling himself John Smith or something….

If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!

June 7, 2011 0