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WEIRD MARYLAND |
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At first blush, it’s hard to imagine anything too weird happening at a Barnes and Noble during opening hours, so after a few warm-up speaking gigs in Pennsylvania in October, I was anticipating a fairly straightforward tour of Maryland bookstores. The plan: To deface a few title pages of the latest title in the Weird U.S. series, Weird Maryland, and talk to people about whatever subject they liked from the book. Roadside oddities, ghosts, strange animals, local folklore...literally anything they felt like.
So that’s why on Sunday November 5th, when I should have been wearing a Guy Fawkes mask and confronting the forces of unjust government, I found myself standing in Barnes and Noble in Towson. To one side was a man in a red bow tie surrounded by bits of Ocean City boardwalk and on the other was a newspaperman whose quiet demeanor concealed the fact that a British television company once dragged him to Bowie to narrate part of their documentary about the Devil. (He, of course, thought they wanted to talk about the Goatman...and who doesn’t?...but they managed to get the two legendary creatures confused. It must have had something to do with the cloven hoofs and horns.) These two guests were Joe Kroart, the big showman behind the Ocean Gallery, and Brian Goodman, who wrote several top-notch stories for Weird Maryland and provided photographs, research, and moral support during the latter half of the project.
Oddly enough, I managed to walk away from that signing as the proud owner of not one but two pieces of oceanfront property. They were two panels of old fence that had once adorned the front of the Ocean Gallery. Joe Kroart had brought them along as props. He had a whole building full of them in Ocean City, so he let me have two panels. One of them’s still in my trunk.
That night, I spend an hour talking to Dr. Bob Hieronimus on the phone during his live Sunday night radio show. I had spent the entire evening humming the Beatles’ song Doctor Robert (Bob’s a huge Beatles fan), and spinning puns about Maryland out of Beatles songs, but I didn’t get a chance to talk about the Fab Four at all. All Bob wanted to talk about was Weird Maryland, and so that’s all we spoke about. And so the listening public never got to hear my gag about the clue that Paul had actually died in Maryland (listen closely enough to the White Album and you’ll hear "Everybody’s Got Something to Hide ‘cept For Me and My Monkton") Monday November 6, bright and early, and it was off to the offices of the Baltimore Urbanite magazine, where I’m serving as guest editor for their December issue. I got the chills turning into their street, because the last time I was there, I visited the Labyrinth at the Amaranthine Museum, a fantastic history-of-art gallery that was made entirely by one man, Les Harris. The museum used to be in the same building as the Urbanite offices, and when Les showed me around, it was the most fascinating place I’d ever been. The museum’s moved down the street, but thanks to the Urbanite, the building’s still interesting (not least because of the mariachi turtles on the reception desk).
That night, it was off to White Marsh Barnes and Noble, where I met Count Gore de Vol in full vampire regalia, and we both signed books together. Joe Kroart came by unannounced, and for a while, we officially became the strangest trio ever to slap autographs in the front of a book. We must have cranked signatures out onto dozens of books, including a huge pile that went out onto the shelves to sell after we’d gone. I wonder if any of them are left? Except for my yearbook edition (with twelve signatures and counting from all the folks I could find who helped put the book together), those volumes must carry the most signatures on any Weird book I’ve written. Thursday, November 9, and it was off to Annapolis, where I signed books on my own, despite the lurking presence of Donna Mucha, aka Lady Boneyard, who wrote two pieces for Weird Maryland, but who was much too modest to actually sign a single copy. Except my yearbook edition.
That Saturday, November 11, I was at the Ellicott City branch of Barnes and Noble, being interviewed for a podcast called Bookcast. Right after that, I was quaffing many and copious coffees (thanks, Jo!) and started getting a little creative with my inscriptions. Exactly why I started writing "e pluribus weird" and other random phrases, I can’t remember, but somewhere in the outer reaches of Historic Ellicott City, there are probably still several books defaced with phrases not even I will be able to understand. And so to the last stop on the tour on the outskirts of Washington DC, in Rockville’s B&N. They asked me to talk for a while before this event, so I brought in a human skull I borrowed from the science labs at a school I know, and spoke for almost half an hour about Patty Cannon, gravity hills, ghosts, statues that come to life, and creatures that fly over the Free State by night. And really, that’s what the tour was all about. That and spending hours turning Sharpies blunt, of course.
Dr. Bob Hieronimus interview on 21st Century Radio -
Sheri Parks interview - Bookcast http://www.thebookcast.com/bc/bc111506.mp3
Words by Matt Lake Pictures by Matt Lake, Donna Mucha, Charles Goodman |
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COFFEE WITH BLACK AGGIE |
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But the fun of the Weird Maryland book tour was by no means confined to the world of chain bookstores, in fact, months prior, author Matt Lake made an early foray into a well known Baltimore cemetery to meet a well known television news duo for a no-hold-barred interview about the area's oddities.
In the wee morning hours of August 31, Lake, with son tagging along in the background, appeared on the popular WJZ Channel 13 segment "Coffee With." Within Druid Ridge Cemetery, in front of the original home of the city's infamous Black Aggie statue, Lake met the equally infamous pair of on-air partners Don Scott and Marty Bass.
From the start, the understandably eager Bass grilled Lake with a flurry of unanswerable questions regarding the quantity and quality of Maryland's weirdness. "Let's put it this way, Maryland's got enough to fill several books," Lake cunningly answered. Implementing his knack for honing in on the uninteresting, Bass went on to ask Lake about the "least weird" states in the nation, to which Lake, recognizing the futility of even contemplating an answer, replied he doesn't concern himself with states absent of oddity.
Characteristic of his no-nonsense demeanor, Scott grabbed the wheel and brought the careening interview back on course, recognizing there must be some reason the trio was posed before a large headstone. At first mention of the city's legendary Black Aggie mythos, Scott injected sharply with a request that Lake relay the full tale in 20 seconds or less - a feat amazingly and adeptly pulled off by the cornered author. Scott's trademark disbelief was easy to read on his face as the interview continued and Lake discussed such local oddities as the headless Annapolis Dumpster Diver and the American Dime Museum, for which WJZ deftly cut away to file footage of a two-headed calf!
"We're not in there, are we?" Scott asked as the Weird Maryland book segment neared it's conclusion. Not quite yet Don, but keep it up, you're well on your way.
WJZ Channel 13 Baltimore "Coffee With" segment -
Words by Brian |
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