A few weeks ago, we had a pretty violent thunderstorm roll through our area. I don’t remember where Jen was, but I had Hazel hooched up on me like a tick on a deer as I did some budgeting and watched the trees blow sideways out the window. It wound up being more bluster than precipitation, but the sky did get that weird green color that means “Git in the storm cellar, Dorothy!”
Anyhow, a week later I was in the driveway when my neighbor walked over and told me one of the limbs from a silver maple in the back corner of our lots had fallen on her garage and knocked out her power. This tree was next to a pole holding a transformer that used to explode regularly during windstorms; after fifteen years and a final eruption of green fire and carcinogenic PCBs, BG&E finally sent a crew out to update the unit and it’s been pretty solid ever since.
The tree was almost directly in the middle of where three lots come together, as far as I can tell, but I’ve been the one maintaining it, and I had several branches over our yard pruned a few years ago. I felt bad about the neighbors’ power, and the only main branch remaining hung low and threatening over their garage, so I offered to have it cut down. Silver maples are ugly, dirty trees which grow fast and drop shit everywhere, and this one was choking the light off our greenhouse, so I’m not that upset to see it go—but the number of shade trees on our lot has been reduced dramatically over the years.
They found a service who offered to do it for half of the next lowest bid I found, so we made out OK, but I wasn’t prepared for that surprise bill. I can think of several other things I would liked to have spent that money on.
Jen found us a fun thing to do on Sunday morning: the tiny cemetery in Baltimore City famous for being where Edgar Allen Poe is buried also has a catacombs that’s open for tours. Many, many years ago, my friends and I walked downtown late at night and jumped the fence into the cemetery on the anniversary of Poe’s death. In those days that part of town was Not Safe, and nothing we said would dissuade the girls we were dating, whose idea this was. We didn’t run into any trouble, and everyone had a good time, but the graveyard felt very unfamiliar this time around.
At one time in the early 1800’s this cemetery was at the edge of the city, and most of the prominent members of Baltimore society were buried there. As the city expanded, the trustees decided to build a church up and over a number of the graves to make sure the cemetery did not get sold and developed. We learned a bunch more about early Baltimore history, including the fact that a man named Cumberland Dugan was a prosperous city father, and that the pier where the current National Aquarium sits was originally called Dugan’s Wharf.
Leaving the cemetery, I resolved to learn more about early Baltimore history (Fun fact: Patterson Park, two blocks north of my first house, was the site of Hampstead Hill, the main defensive fortification built to stop the British from burning the city) and do some digging into the Dugan family history, most of which we lost when my Dad passed. I will admit, visiting his and my grandparents’ gravesites a week ago did set this idea in my mind. I know Dad shared his information with my cousin Brad, who will be my next contact to see how far back they went. A cursory web search claims my namesake great-grandfather was actually born in Indiana, which was a big shock to me—but sounds kind of suss.
The weather forecast was supposed to be much different than what we got this weekend, which put a bit of the kibosh on my outdoor plans, but I was able to get some things accomplished.
Saturday morning the Boy Scouts were having their yearly yard sale at the church down the street, so I bundled Hazel into Darth Haul and we puttered down to check things out. I made a beeline to a stand where a family was getting rid of multiple bins of assorted tools, and spent a half an hour digging for treasure. I wound up walking away with a decent replacement toolbox for my electrical kit, which I’ve outgrown (and which never really closed securely), and filled the top section with a wide assortment of hand tools. I’ve found you can never have enough US-made screwdrivers, 1/2″ and 9/16″ wrenches, tape measures, and pliers, and I added some unique things like hose cutters, a bag of hemostats, and some specialty wirecutters and dikes, among other things.
Returning home, I picked Finley up and drove to the Baltimore waterfront near my first house, where a very unique ship has been docked for years: the NS Savannah, one of only four nuclear-powered cargo ships ever built. In the 1950’s, President Eisenhower launched the Atoms for Peace initiative, to show the world how nuclear power could be used for the advancement of man. the Savannah was one of the projects developed under that program, and was launched in 1959 as a combined passenger/cargo vessel to showcase America’s command of industry and science. In person, it’s huge, but compared to a modern container ship it’s a plastic bath toy. Designed before the advent of container shipping, it’s long and sleek and looks like an early 60’s sportscar.
Inside, we came aboard at the original passenger embarkation point, which had been restored to its original design. Descending down into the ship, the tour took us through the now decomissioned nuclear containment vessel, through the engine room, to the main control room, and back up to the passenger cabins.
The cabin we toured was actually pretty small and not that inspiring, if I’m honest; I would have expected something a lot more spacious and elegant. Most of the original furniture was gone, but they’ve done a good job of sourcing as much period-correct stuff as possible.
The Savannah will be decertified as a nuclear power facility this year, and her future is uncertain; none of the docents know what’s next for the ship or how long she might stay in Baltimore. So I was glad to be able to check it out while we did, and take Finn along with me.
On Sunday I did some work around the house and countersunk a set of rear seatbelt mounts into the Travelall before driving out to Frederick to pick up a used Mirra desk chair from an estate showroom. This was to finally replace a disintegrating 18-year-old IKEA chair that’s been giving me a sore butt for a year or so now. New Mirras go for stupid money, so I was happy to score this one for a fraction of the price, and I think it’ll last a good long time.
Then I headed up to a Travelall aquaintance’s house north of Frederick to look over a truck he’s selling—not for me, but for another fellow Travelall owner I met through the YouTube channel. I shot some video and caught up with the seller before heading home to buff the paint on the hood of the truck, and when it got dark, headed inside to edit video.
Jeez, this story gets worse and worse. Brady Ebert, the Turnstile guitarist who left the band in 2022, was just arrested for running over the lead singer’s 79-year-old father with a car and driving away, leaving him with two broken legs. He’s being held without bail on charges of attempted second-degree murder and first-degree assault.
The Baltimore Banner does a quick article on independent restaurants in Baltimore County worth checking out. Some of these are close, some not so much, but there are a couple I’m interested in.
Back in November somebody charged $370 to my debit card to a vendor I didn’t recognize, so I immediately disputed the charges with Bank of America. It disappeared into their system until this Friday, when I got a letter detailing the purchase: a Garmin watch bought from eBay and delivered to a rental house in Severn, MD, with an obviously fake Yahoo email address. Their automated robot decided the charges were legit based on eBay’s garbage information and told me they were going to debit my account.
I got on the phone this morning and spoke with a woman in the Fraud department, who listened to my explanation and reversed the charges again; given the details it’s pretty clear this is fraud. eBay is famously abysmal for customer service; there is no phone number to call or email address to contact, and their chatbot points to a page that throws a 500 Internal Server Error, so it makes total sense that some waiter double-swiped my card at a restaurant and used them to get himself a shiny new watch.
Meanwhile, I ordered a new set of safety glasses two weeks ago from a storefront I’d used successfully in 2021. I never got a confirmation email or tracking number in reply, but they sure as shit charged my card. This was two weeks ago and I still don’t have any glasses; their customer service options are as useful as eBay’s. I’ve sent them some nastygrams this morning promising a reversal of charges if I don’t hear anything by COB.
Update: my flurry of bitchy emails spurred a flurry of return emails and, suddenly, magically, a shipment notification!
I just learned that we are only 7 miles, as the crow flies, from a NIKE missile base that was active from 1954 until 1974, which protected the west side of Baltimore from incoming Soviet bombers within a 25-mile radius. Given the destructive range and potential of Soviet nuclear weapons in this time period, this was yet another expensive exercise in pissing in the wind. Apparently the local Civil Air Patrol has been slowly refurbishing the base, which sat abandoned for decades after the government shut it down.
Well, fuck. The Brewer’s Art, a mainstay of Mt. Vernon, and host of one of the best basement bars in all of Baltimore (RIP Wroten’s), abruptly announced its closure on Monday, citing over $150K in debt. I don’t know what would have happened there—it was always busy—but this is a loss for Baltimore’s nightlife scene. I spent many an evening tucked away in a corner of the basement nursing an OZZY or four (Fuck you Sharon, it’ll always be OZZY to me), and have a special place in my heart for it.
When I was in college in the late 80’s, Baltimore was ignored in most musicians’ touring schedules. We usually had to drive down to DC to see anyone worthwhile, which made it difficult and expensive to see bands. One bright spot was the 8×10, a small privately-owned venue in Federal Hill with a stage the size of the name and a great sound system. I saw many up-and-coming bands there over the years and have a lot of great memories of the place (and there are some nights I can’t remember, honestly). The partners who have owned it for 20 years are retiring and looking for a new buyer. In this day and age of corporate consolidation of live music, it would be sad to see it shut down forever.
(previously, previously)
I was talking with the girls last night at dinner about a cabaret I used to go to when I was in college, which held drag performances, musical reviews, and other avant-garde events that I can’t even describe. Typically my friends and I would pregame a little bit and then walk downtown to the show, get hammered and have fun, then wander home. In Baltimore, in 1990, which was sort of like walking through Beirut in 1983. Anyway, the name of the show suddenly came to me and I looked it up online when I got home: the 14Karat Cabaret. I found a post about it and a ton of memories flooded back; the Baltimore City Paper, the Haus of Frau… Man, I miss those days.
A year ago today, the Key Bridge collapsed in Baltimore harbor. This is a PBS documentary on the cause and the aftermath.
The ladies took me out for dinner last night to the always excellent Clavel, where we sampled the tacos and drank fancy drinks. Finn had a non-alcoholic beet-based drink, Jen had a mezcal-based cocktail with vermouth, rose and honey, and I had one of the best margaritas I’ve ever tried. The tacos were delicious, and we capped things off with two slices of flan.
