Say anything: A Scarborough man’s new movie shows a lot, but tells little

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Surfers aren’t an especially verbose or articulate bunch, really. They punctuate their sentences with “y’know” and list a lot of things “it’s all about.” But the problem is not a lack of vocabulary or even a reluctance to communicate. It’s that they have a connection that’s hard to put into words.

The surfers and other oceanophiles in BlueGreen, the new film by Scarborough filmmaker and surfer Ben Keller, struggle repeatedly to describe how they feel about the sea. Keller’s first feature-length film, Ishmael (2004), explored the motivations of wintertime surfers who brave near-freezing water and icy wetsuits to ride tiny waves on the New England coast. This time he’s trying to dive deeper, asking why surfers feel what they feel about their watery playground, and — though almost as an afterthought — trying to convince the film-viewing public to get involved with ocean-conservation efforts.

Keller will show the latest cut of the film (narrated by him, for now, for lack of money to hire a professional speaker) at SPACE Gallery on Sunday at 6:30 pm, to raise money to finish the project.

While the people in BlueGreen do articulate feelings merely suggested by other surf films, they still don’t answer the fundamental questions. Describing your testiness after days away from the ocean (as two of the people interviewed in the documentary do) is not an investigation into the nature of your connection with the sea.

The closest anyone comes to an eloquent explanation is Rabbi Nacham Shifren (a/k/a “the Surfing Rabbi” — really), who talks in vaguely clerical terms about how surfers’ attitudes toward life differ from other people’s because they regularly deal with overwhelming power, and manage to connect with — and ride — positive energy in the world around them. Shifren talks of “a drive to make the spiritual physical” that moves surfers off the beach and into the waves.

Less satisfying are clinical observations from scientists (such as Don Perkins of the Gulf of Maine Research Institute here in Portland) about how the health of the ocean is crucial to the health of the planet, and the interview of a woman who lives on a sailboat, in which she discusses her ocean-centered, water-borne life — while she’s sitting under a tree.

The bulk of the film’s joy, where it is to be found, is in the surfing scenes. This is not an adrenaline-filled giant-wave surf movie in the vein of The Endless Summer or even North Shore. Surfing in BlueGreen is ponderous, soulful, full of swells that aren’t even chest-high, and long, slow runs with the occasional turn. Only one guy in the entire film hangs 10. Even the surfboard cameras (including one underneath the board) are used in slow, relatively calm waves, giving a meditative feel. (Jarringly, one more conventional shot-from-the-shore scene features a very clear plumber’s crack on a surfing California lifeguard.)

Underwater footage appears pretty frequently, and again is brooding and slow — not colorful and bright like David Doubilet’s work for National Geographic and its video partners. All of it has a mellow, soulful soundtrack — much of which is supplied by Maine bands such as Seekonk and the appropriately named Harpswell Sound, Cerberus Shoal, and the Baltic Sea.

Watching is relaxing, calming, even soporific. When, 55 minutes into the 90-minute film, several speakers (including Jim Moriarty, executive director of ocean-conservation group the Surfrider Foundation) begin exhorting viewers to get involved in protecting the sea from (unnamed) threats, it’s like face-planting into the surf and getting cold seawater right up your nose.

No wonder Moriarty — in a voiceover for footage of a litter-strewn southern California beach after a holiday weekend — says “it’s hard to get into people’s heads that the problem is as bad as it is.” His own participation in the film comes across as more whiney and lamenting than inspirational.

It’s clear that Keller and those with whom he speaks see the ocean as a friend. But without finding the words to inspire others, they’ll continue to have it to themselves. And maybe that’s what they really want.

On the Web
BlueGreen: www.bluegreenconnection.com

Music industry unites to help Portland artists

Published in the Portland Phoenix

If Austin, Texas, is any indicator, in five years’ time, Portland’s music scene may be even more vibrant than it is today. The Portland Music Foundation (PMF) is taking shape, based on a community non-profit in Austin that has helped boost that city’s bands and musicians into the national spotlight.

Founded in 2002, the Austin Music Foundation (AMF) currently has two full-time employees and one part-timer, plus a vast array of volunteers from throughout the music industry. The organization hosts classes, discussion forums, and small-group seminars about the music biz. AMF’s goal, in the words of executive director Suzanne Quinn, is to help musicians “become entrepreneurs” working to “create sustainable businesses and quit those other three jobs”

The PMF will be the beneficiary of a “Speakeasy” night of hoity-toity drinks and food hosted by booze maker Diageo on Wednesday, September 26, at 58 Fore Street in Portland.

The local group is led by Adam Ayan, a Grammy-winning recording engineer whose involvement with the foundation was inspired, in part, by his mentor at Gateway Mastering, Bob Ludwig. Ludwig lives in Portland, but makes annual trips to Austin’s SXSW music festival, where he works with up-and-coming Austin musicians.

Ayan, who holds the Sinatra-like title of “chairman of the board,” says the PMF will use the money from the Speakeasy event to support its first set of programs, which will teach musicians how to interact with the press, recording professionals, and club booking agents.

“These are three topics that local musicians would benefit from learning more about,” says Ayan, who adds that future forums will address topics suggested by local musicians, who can join the group for $20 for a calendar year. Membership benefits will include discounts at local businesses, and free admission to PMF events and workshops.

At the Speakeasy and at the PMF’s official “launch party,” slated for October 18 from 6 to 9 pm at One City Center, Ayan and the others on the group’s board (who include local radio personality Mark Curdo, music-booker-about-town Lauren Wayne, and Portland Phoenix music writer Sam Pfeifle) plan to do a lot of networking. “We’re hoping that we can just hang out and talk to a lot of people,” he says.

Down the road he sees involvement with area schools’ music programs, scholarships for musicians to help develop their skills, and perhaps even a library of local music (see “Let’s Make History,” by Sam Pfeifle, January 6, 2006).

Austin’s example says that a lot is possible. According to Quinn, the AMF’s most recent gathering drew 330 people to learn about licensing and publishing their music. Twice a month, music-industry types gather at an “Austin Music Mixer” to get to know each other, generating collaborations, ideas, and new business for members. The AMF has received grants from the city of Austin and from the Texas state government (in addition to corporate and private donors), and is applying for money from the National Endowment for the Arts.

AMF co-founder Nikki Rowling has visited Portland to meet with Ayan and others, and says the Maine group is “really quite self-sufficient and doing fantastically well.” She has given information on starting music foundations to people from more than 100 cities, but “the Portland Music Foundation is the first one to really materialize.”

On the Web
Portland Music Foundation: www.portlandmusicfoundation.com

Enjoy the air show — you paid for it

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Let’s move beyond the $320 million in aircraft you have bought that will be performing at this weekend’s Great State of Maine Air Show at Brunswick Naval Air Station. And let’s forget the roughly $12 million in annual salaries you’re paying for the people whose entire, year-round, full-time jobs are to use those aircraft to show off the military prowess of the United States by, um, flying really really fast very close to the ground.

The real concern is, and should be, the attitude of the government toward your money. John James IV, director of public affairs at Brunswick Naval Air Station, originally told the Phoenix no tax money was being spent on the show, in which five of 13 performance groups are funded by the US military. (Two of those are the biggest attractions, the Blue Angels — the Navy’s precision-flight team — and the Golden Knights — the Army’s parachute team.)

James relented under questioning, later saying that “the cost to taxpayers is negligible.” And he kept trying to steer our interview toward what he called “the important things” about the air show — such as its “family atmosphere.”

It’s that kind of cavalier attitude toward taxpayers’ money — and toward America’s military personnel — that has led the US government to spend, according to 2006 Defense Department statistics, $100,000 a minute in Iraq, and $18,000 a minute in Afghanistan. Maine Veterans for Peace members and supporters will be protesting the military’s appetite for money and bodies when they march from downtown Brunswick to the air station starting at 9 am on Saturday.

In case you care about your tax dollars more than the feds do, here’s what you’re buying.

BLUE ANGELS $276 million for 13 airplanes; $5.6 million in annual salaries for 114 personnel.

GOLDEN KNIGHTS $4 million for two airplanes, undisclosed lease payments for two more; $5.1 million in salaries for 90 soldiers.

F-15E STRIKE EAGLE DEMO TEAM One $31 million airplane; $630,000 a year to pay 13 crew members.

US AIR FORCE HERITAGE FLIGHT Older Air Force planes originally purchased for purposes other than air-show performances, with a group of pilots, most of whom are former military personnel; plus the Air Combat Command’s demonstration team, with a $9.8 million airplane and $360,000 in annual payroll for the eight crew members.

MAJOR JOHN KLATT His custom-built Staudacher S-300D airplane (custom-painted with the graphics of the Air National Guard’s “Guarding America, Defending Freedom” aerobatic team) is hard to price; so is the contract he has for his services and those of his three-man team. But his rank and years of service mean his annual Air Guard salary is around $75,000.

Those numbers don’t include the 20 or more military aircraft on display on the ground, training all the people to fly or do their flying-related jobs, or the salaries and budgets of the military recruiters whose efforts these events are intended to support.

The air show does get some financial help from people who attend — who pay reserved-seating fees and buy food, drinks, and souvenirs — and the companies who hawk that stuff, who pay for the privilege. Some of that money goes to pay aerial performers, though not nearly enough to offset their actual costs; rather, James says, it mainly covers food, lodging, and local transport.

What about jet fuel? James says civilian performers buy their own, using some of the money they are paid for performing, but he didn’t know whether the fees paid to military groups are used to reimburse the Defense Department (er, that’s you and me) for the fuel used in the military aircraft.

Related links:
http://www.blueangels.navy.mil
http://www.goldenknights.com
http://www.acc.af.mil/aerialevents

Peace + Justice Center shutting down

Published in the Portland Phoenix

The Peace and Justice Center of Southern Maine will close in December, after 10 years as an incubator for fledgling socially-minded nonprofits. The closing displaces several groups, who are looking for new space to replace the small offices and the shared meeting room on the fourth floor of the Cinamon Building at 1 Pleasant Street.

“The [center] offered a low-cost way for small nonprofits to have their own office space,” says Betsy Smith of Equality Maine, one of the founding groups in the center.

Last summer, Equality Maine “graduated,” moving down two floors in search of more room than it had available in the center (see “Equality Maine Moves Uptown, Downstairs,” by Tony Giampetruzzi, July 21, 2006).

That left a sizeable hole in the center’s tenant revenue, which has yet to be fully replaced, though founding member and coordinator Sally Breen says another reason for the closing the center is mission related — member organizations have been so busy with their own projects that they never actually got around to fulfilling the institution’s primary goal of combining forces to host larger-scale peace- and justice-related events.

Other tenants of the four-story complex also face uncertainty: the 12,500-square-foot building, valued by the city at just shy of $700,000, is for sale, with an asking price of $1.3 million, according to its listing with Fishman Realty Group. Ground-floor Indian restaurant Hi Bombay, and second-floor tenants Equality Maine and the League of Young Voters, have no plans to leave, and will wait to see what happens following a sale. One small business on the third floor moved recently; another did not return calls.

The Peace and Justice Center is currently home to Physicians for Social Responsibility (opposing weapons of mass destruction, and promoting environmental stewardship), the Maine Animal Coalition (which works to prevent cruelty to animals, including in agriculture), Maine Interfaith Power and Light (selling renewably-generated electricity to Central Maine Power and Bangor Hydro customers), the Campaign to Defend America (an anti-Iraq-war group), the Environmental Health Strategy Center (fighting toxic chemicals in the environment), and Portland Organizing to Win Economic Rights (POWER, working to abolish poverty). It also provides space for meetings of groups like Maine Veterans for Peace and World Can’t Wait (an anti-Bush group).

POWER has told Breen it will move out shortly, but Breen did not know to where, and POWER organizers didn’t return calls. Most other groups in the center are looking for new spaces at the moment, but haven’t found anything yet.

One solution may be finding another building in which to share space again, which is what Physicians for Social Responsibility executive director Melissa Boyd is hoping to do.

Some local nonprofits have already banded together as part of the Community Building Collective, which has proposed using the former Adams School building as a shared community building with residences, gathering rooms, and — you guessed it — shared office space for nonprofits.

Former Peace and Justice Center tenant Peace Action Maine has already arranged to share space with the Foglight Collective (formerly People’s Free Space), in the site of the former Tea Time Antiques and Collectibles store at 644 Congress Street.

The groups have named their office the Meg Perry Center for Peace, Justice, and Community, in honor of the People’s Free Space organizer and Frida Bus leader Meg Perry, who died December 10, 2005, in a bus crash while on a Katrina-relief trip to New Orleans (see “N.O. Peace for Perry’s Mourners,” by Jeff Inglis, December 16, 2005).

The Meg Perry Center offers a library and free Internet access, workshops on various practical skills, showing videos, art shows, and musical performances. When the relevant city permits come through, “we also will start selling more things,” starting with books and coffee, to help pay the rent, says Foglight organizer Johan Fertig.

On Friday, for the First Friday Art Walk, the Meg Perry Center will open to display works from local artists and musicians addressing the themes of peace and community, from 5 to 10 pm.

On the Web
Peace and Justice Center of Southern Maine: www.peaceactionme.org | www.peoplesfreespace.org | www.communitybuildingcollaborative.org

Press Releases: Laid off

Published in the Portland Phoenix

Here are two items major Maine newspapers would rather you not know about.

First, THE PORTLAND PRESS HERALD AND MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM HAVE LOST ONE-QUARTER OF THEIR ADVERTISING REVENUE over the past two and a half years.

That’s what they told members of the Portland Newspaper Guild, the union that represents most of the daily’s employees, to explain why eight advertising-related workers would be laid off and an unspecified number of vacant positions would remain unfilled, according to a summary of the conversation distributed by e-mail to guild members on August 17.

Aggravating those hefty losses is a cruel summer: “the company cited a very poor July [and] an August that’s shaping up to be even worse,” according to that same e-mail.

In roughly that same time period — from March 2005 through March 2007, the papers’ circulation has dropped 7.6 percent on Sundays, and 5 percent from Monday through Saturday. But compared to what the paper’s filings with the Audit Bureau of Circulations claim are its recent-history high (in September 2004), the drop is even bigger: down 21 percent in Sunday circulation, and 16 percent in daily circ (from 129,931 to 102,204, and 79,957 to 67,250, respectively).

And no wonder — by its own account back in June, the paper’s “Community Council” — the group of readers who help guide the paper’s coverage — has always had “hefty representation” from Baby Boomers and “World War II-generation” readers, whom Press Herald editor Jeannine Guttman calls “our core audience.” US government data estimates that roughly 2500 Maine World War II veterans are dying each year, which could help explain some of the decline. (In fact, if every single Maine veteran subscribed to the Maine Sunday Telegram, the WW2 vets’ deaths would account on their own for a full third of the subscription drop.)

The company’s statements about the August layoffs blame a “seismic shift” in the “newspaper industry,” without noting the particular problems in daily newspapers, or describing the shift as the solidification of a long-emerging trend in which consumers who are attractive to advertisers (the much-ballyhooed 18-to-34 set) are not reading daily newspapers.

This is, however, neither seismic nor — even if it were — unanticipated.

All newspapers have been facing the onslaught of the Internet for more than a decade. But it’s been the mainstream dailies, who experience the shift to online as a loss of new readership, who have felt it most sharply.

And while the pressure has risen sharply in the past 10 years, the Press Herald has been facing competition from community weekly newspapers — who focus exclusively on local news while the Press Herald touts its local devotion but then expends gallons of ink printing Associated Press stories about the Iraq war — since 1965, when former Portland Evening Express editor Harry Foote combined two smaller newspapers to create the weekly American Journal, based in Westbrook, which has covered all sorts of things the Press Herald staff never learned except by reading his paper, now owned by Current Publishing.

Second, THE BANGOR DAILY NEWS IS NICE AND COZY WITH SENATOR SUSAN COLLINS, who is seeking re-election in 2008. How cozy? BDN executive editor Mark Woodward is married to Bridget Woodward, who works as a “staff assistant” in Collins’s Bangor office.

Neither of them returned calls seeking comment, leaving us to wonder how their connection relates to the BDN’s outrage that Maine Democrats were videotaping Collins’s appearance in a public parade, allegedly as part of a coordinated effort to catch her saying or doing embarrassing things, clips of which could then be posted on YouTube.

With a tip of the hat to the contributor called “maineiac” on DailyKos.com.