This is where a video of me and Chicken Man eating burritos would be if I had real internet service. The chicken man seemed to have a hard time with his fire hot burrito as it blew him out of his chair and led me to call the fire dept. with this old timey telephone mounted fire box that was before cell phones made us all so high tech. This works by pulling down that white door and waking up a mouse with a bell on his neck. The mouse runs up the wire and down to the fire station (it's trained) and wakes up the firemen. The firemen check and see that this was mouse #33 and so they know where to go. That's how it worked before cell phones ruined everything.
This is also where the video of me losing horribly to a Virginia rigging expert based at the shipyard would be.
"Haven't had no ass in 54 days. Haven't banged nothing but my fucking fist," he said as he lined the 8 ball up.
"Mama's waiting."
He slammed the winner into the corner pocket and sent me packing.
Step back in time with me as yet another anachronism can be found on the east side of the old mystery spot on State Street. Yes, a kind of emergency homeless shelter known as the Richardson's Launderette. This old fashioned name brings back memories of colonial times of nearby Strawberry Banke. I also want to relate an anecdote ol' Brad told me once of sitting on a curb across the street from the launderette on a hot summer day and a woman coming up out of this sunken, crooked building carrying a plastic basket full of laundry. She wiped sweat from her brow and shuffled off in flip flops.
"That's Portsmouth, to me," admitted Brad and I completely understand. Some images are too perfectly formed to be forgotten. They represent more than the moment and when I walk past the launderette I don't think of the laundry, I think of Brad's anecdote of the iconic Woman doing Laundry on a Summer Day. It's like a Winslow Homer Painting in my mind and Brad is sitting watching the woman walk out of the launderette.
Now, the laundry exists but Richardson's Market has changed hands into some brand name coffee slinging place with no character or spirituality. So the sign remains of a ruined empire. I once worked at the market but I never did my laundry here. Now I see it's cheaper than the place by Pic 'N Pay so I'll be back. Of course you can't leave your laundry unattended or you will be replacing it. I saw vomit on the floor when I went and checked the prices. There are like 3 parking spaces but everything is pay parking down this way now (I just paid my ticket at the city hall and took some food bank bread as a consolation prize) so they do have to guard their turf.
Monday, March 22, 2010
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2 comments:
Edward Hopper painting - not Winslow Homer - Hopper was the man who could capture true urban angst. He also did a great job with lighthouses.
What do I know? Now that I compare the two Hopper is closer to what I envision but look at this faded sign. It's more like the rough sea Winslow Homer painted than the clean domesticity Hopper painted. Maybe if Hopper and Homer had a kid that kid would paint the woman climbing the crooked steps with her laundry load like a sailor on a struggling vessel.
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