The HuMaine Centipede 2: Back for More

Today I woke up with 5 twigs in my bed and 8 mosquito bites on my body. I guess I’m still in Maine…

    Reaching the two-week mark in Maine has meant mainey things for me. We have had to stop in our driveway (and I use the term “driveway” loosely) for: a woodchuck, a turkey crossing with her young (fun fact: apparently turkeys will immediately abandon their young in times of danger), and a doe (a deer, a female deer) twice.

   Oh and fun fact: I also swam in a river they found a dead body in, in the summertime of 2007. Yes in that summer just after graduation, when New York City and any idea of a place called Maine were so far away, the Bowdoinham police were fishing a body out of the river I happily played in to cool off.

How did I figure this out you ask? Well as I have only grown more and more suspicious of “Just Up the Hill” Lee I thought why not google murders in the area to make sure the frogs I hear at night aren’t just the cries of his previous victims. And you can imagine my excitement when I found out there was indeed a murder, it was indeed pretty recent, and the man imprisoned for the crime is indeed debatably innocent. Oh joy!

  

   To give you some background. Bowdoinham has a population of about 2000 (thank you Wikipedia.) The “Town Center” is one restaurant that also serves as a convenience store and a gas station. Both of these buildings are about a one-minute walk from a gazebo we rehearse in over looking the river. So the dead center of Bowdoinham is where the floating corpse was discovered (now if that doesn’t possibly suggest a small town cover up I don’t know what does.)

Now the story only gets better. The man who has been charged with the crime and is currently serving life imprison was according to newspaper articles a happily married quiet farmer. The story of his activities the night of the murder are as follows: 

“On July 6^th the suspect came home from work (transporting frozen chickens from a slaughterhouse)”

So I’m going to pause right there. I personally believe it rarely works in your favor to visit slaughterhouses the day that you will be suspected of murdering someone. It paints a poor picture. Now, as Dan Savage would say it gets better…

“He planned to work on constructing a Greenhouse”

See this looks much better. Maybe he’s environmentally conscious. He probably buys local! I’m sure the only footprint he was worried about leaving was his carbon one. Right? Well the article continues…

“However, that project hit a glitch and sometime that afternoon he decided instead to take some amphetamines and go exploring in the woods near his home”

Umm…what? See that’s some sound logic, and completely understandable. I remember when my father was building my treehouse, every hour or so a measurement would be off, and I knew the only way to make him feel better for his human error was to run inside grab his meth pipe and let him go wander into our ravine and possibly murder passerby’s.

    Now this suspect seems to have sealed his fate in prison. But WAIT there’s more.

According to the case reports the man repeatedly asked in trial for DNA testing which was rejected in court (possibly due to cost… which I don’t buy because everything in Maine is cheap as shit, why else would people live here?) And apparently a private test proved that the DNA from the girl’s fingernails (someone watched the Oprah special on what to do when you’re attacked) did not match the man in jail.

Which brings us back to LEE! From watching the movies of Wes Craven, Alfred Hitchcock and Eli Roth, the clear deduction is that this theater company who “just this year” are moving from LOS ANGELES one of the absolute epicenters for acting and performance to BOWDOINHAM, MAINE have brought me here to murder me. I am put up in a cottage when the rest of my castmates do homestays. The house is “for sale” and on a swamp. We rehearse by the scene of the crime. Clearly one night I will be suspiciously called for a “late rehearsal” and show up only to be drowned by masked hooligans.

Finally here is an example of a mask from the show that lets be honest looks like an extra prop from The Town.

Which brings me to with a philosophical question for you all to ponder: When actors get murdered, who plays them in the movie? 

Who knows if this will be my last entry... but it’s been nice.

Until next time (if there is one…),

Whoever saves ME?

You are the Maine event

Goodbye

From Equity cots to Mainsions in the Woods: A Journey starring Patrick Murray

So according to my iCal I have been in Maine for over a week, which is absolutely insane. Also my inability to combine maine into insane is really bothering me especially when they rhyme. That main’t right.

So since my last entry we have moved into the cottage the theater company set up for us. We are off a dirt road we share with one other person. Apparently his name is Lee, and he lives in the house just up the hill from us. Now according to every scary movie people in houses on hills are evil rapist murderers. So I’m interested to see how I will be able to perform in mask while also part of a human centipede…aka the most important time to call shotgun. Am I right? Am I right?

I’ve also actually found myself giving directions to my new home and using the phrase “Just over the bridge, the dirt road on your right. If the swamp is next to you, you’re on the right road.” Now I never really imagined myself using a bridge or a swamp as a landmark for directions I much prefer being able to use the Empire State Building or at least Coyote Ugly, but thus is life.

As I mentioned we are in fact living beside a pond/swamp and here it is

This brings with it its own set of Pluses and Mainusis. The lovely plus is during the day I can look out and see all sorts of frogs, lovely chipmunks and even our resident heron. From heroine to heron a love story starring Patrick “front of the centipede” Murray. The mainus would definitely be that all these lovely creatures apparently take a whopping dose of steroids around 7 pm and become the loudest fucking things I’ve ever heard. First of all I was previously unaware that chipmunks could bark. They can. I was concerned when I saw what looked like a chipmunk seizure in a tree. But this was I guess some sort of evening mating song. A late night chipmunk booty call if you will. I tried to explain to Alvin that sexting was the way of the future but his horny ass just kept barking. Perv. Much less cute and much more disturbing is what our pond frogs turn into. Apparently Maine is populated with bullfrogs and in addition a much louder much bigger quacking frog. Their horrendous melodies wake me up at least thrice a night. Now I am no stranger to seemingly quiet seemingly cute things turning into screeching beasts in the night. The homeless man outside my East Village stoop will not even venture a snore, but once it hits midnight and he’s polished off his paper bagged bottle of Georgi all hell breaks loose. This I can fall asleep too. This doesn’t ever wake me. But somehow my sleeping brain rejects the sounds of pond life, which I’m pretty sure has its own track on the CD’s you can buy SPECIFICALLY TO FALL ASLEEP. Either sleep disc versions of pond life are a sham or my resting brain is city to the core. I’ll go with the latter and say hats off to you brain. For this week,

You are the Braine Event

Goodbye. 

Away in a Maineger

Two more days in Maine and already so mainey more stories to tell.

Though the cool Atlantic breeze does strike the nostril much more
comfortably than the lovely New York summer scent of urine and roasted
garbage Maine is certainly still taking some getting used to.

Since we are being put up in Bowdoinham, many members of the cast are
set up in what we like to call Bowdoinhome stays. Luckily along with a
fellow cast mate, I will not endure this fate. However while waiting
for what I will affectionately  refer to as my  summer home to be
prepared I did have to spend a few nights doing homestay. We met an
absolutely lovely womaine named Peggy who hosted us in her home. Now
in my 4 years undercover as an American Peggy has got to be the most
Canadian American I have ever met. First of all she recycles
EVERYTHING. Not everything like I occasionally recycle bottles or cans
if I drop them in the blue bin by accident. No. EVERYTHING. According
to Peggy she takes a bag of trash out once every six months. And that
this part of Maine is the most Eco friendly in the US (see only a
Canadian would know and be proud of such a boring fact.)
When I returned with my large plastic Wendy's cup (natch) and asked
her where the garbage was she looked at me appallingly. "oh no" she
said "just rinse it oot." (I've decided she has the accent now too) "I
take em down to the *insert weird recycle plant* every week. Didjaknow
they can use those cups to make lawn chairs with." Another boring/
proud fact and also the use of Didja I'm pretty sure at this point she
pees maple syrup. Now the cherry on top of the Canadian cake. The
artwork.
All through Peggy's home were numerous beautiful wood carvings. Now I
haven't seen this many wood carvings anywhere other than the gift shop
of the CN tower or maybe Old Quebec city. That's it. But she had tons.
Though beautiful as ever still and irrefutably Canadian as fuck.
(guess we have that in common)

I have included some of them for your viewing pleasure so you can see
what I mean.

Grr the Canadian gods are angry!!

Canadian Tai Chi/Just another drunk Canadian bitch trying to dance
(me once again)

Wooden Vajazzling! 

What I will look like in 30 years after all the years of intentional sun damage

Okay this I liked because let's be honest that just straight up looks like fisting

So to conclude the tale of my bowdoinhome stay I leave you with one
final image. No its not an equity cot this was my bed...

But don't worry about me I'll maineage somehow.
Until next time,

Peggy you are the Maine event.
Goodbye

This is the Maine Event

It has recently come to my attention that Maine is really just a collection of really strange random shit. Without skyscrapers or two dollar tuesdays the people of Maine have clearly turned to collecting and creating a whole lot of weirdness. One may ask how many Maineiacs (I hope I'm the first person to coin that) I surveyed whilst coming to this conclusion? None. One may ask how long I've spent in Maine? Two days. One might even ask how many more rhetorical questions I can possibly ask myself while sitting alone in a cabin with one(or if I stand at a really weird angle maybe two bars of service)? Well trust me I can ask so so Mainey more. But alas a lack of information has never stopped me from making a snap judgement before so why should it stop me now? (I knew I had one more question in me)
As anyone who reads tmz knows I am now a resident of the booming metropolis known as Bowdoinham, Maine for six weeks for my very first professional acting gig. And since I am now a working actor I can pretend that I can pull off saying the word gig even though it totally comes out forced and weird and with a weird look of desperation in the eyes.

Which brings me to my first and thus far favorite piece of Mainemorbilia I have captured.

Now I was previously unaware of the musical stylings of Ms. Shemikia Copeland but if there has ever been a smize to stop traffic it's this one. The face that she was able to present so much sass to the camera while also holding it with both hands should be an inspiration to 14 year olds girls facebook photos for years to come.

Thats why for this entry. Shemikia you are the Maine event.
Goodbye