Here's One True Thing

The Real Maine starts 20 miles north of the city of Portland.

Back in the 1990s -- basically the last century -- my weekly humor column ran in the Deseret News, a noteworthy Salt Lake City daily. I never had any trouble coming up with what to write about, as humor was different back then. If it was slapstick funny and made you laugh, or if it was satirical and made you think, it was fine with my editors. Those days are long gone. There are no more humor columns in newspapers because much of what was considered funny in the past is now labeled insensitive or hurtful to somebody, somewhere.

Consequently, my sense of has humor died through disuse. So this blog, started in 2007 with the aim of being funny, has morphed into something else. Call it musings on society, which more often come in the form of complaints about the downward slide of intelligence among my species. While it may be true, it's not very amusing.

Comics like Jerry Seinfeld rake in big money talking about silly, inconsequential quirks of mankind, while edgier comics like Anthony Jeselnik push the envelope way past the edge and have fewer followers and less name recognition. Meanwhile, fallen stars like Louis C.K. attempt a comeback with questionable material that even I, once a big fan of his, find objectionable. (Rape and jerking off are not funny.)

My current hero and go-to when I am down is Mike Berbiglia. His four Netflix specials continue to crack me up and feel better about life no matter how many times I've seen them. His subject matter is his own life, told in story form with absolutely no holding back on the gruesome details. I applaud him but I cannot be like him. The events of my painful childhood might make others laugh, and have, but I no longer feel like sharing anything personal for fear of inviting the vicious slings and arrows that lurk on the Internet. 

So this blog has no raison d'être other than my love of writing. With the hope of bringing a nugget of worthwhile information to any stray reader, I suggest that the city of Portland is no longer worth a visit if you come to Maine. I was there recently and was appalled by the number of zoned-out druggies asleep on street corners, on bus stop benches and in doorways. Homeless encampments, needles littering the gutters and empty storefronts add to the city's bleak feeling. If you come to Maine on vacation, bypass Portland and make your first stop L.L. Bean's in Freeport. It'll give you what you're looking for.