Day Drinking on Delmarva

A local punk band ran afoul of the town this week after they were booked to perform before anyone asked their grandkids to show them a YouTube picture of this “punk music” they’d been hearing all about.

The difficulty, for me as much as for Todd, is that you either have an arts scene or a curated shopping scene. Berlin has for years been drifting toward the latter, even as its arts and artisans community has grown.

As someone who barely made a living wage working as a reporter and then content-curator in Berlin for more than a decade, I can tell you that the problem isn’t the arts. The problem is (as it always is doomed to be) people for whom not just art, but the idea of an art scene is a commodity, a 3-D bumper sticker that transports people back to a time when America was Great.

From the Fiddlers Convention to Victorian Christmas to the unfathomable attachment to a 1990s B movie, the town seems to have slipped from a place willing to try anything to make people feel welcome to clawing desperately to cling to what worked once until it is beaten to death and twee.

I was working there during the runup to the boom and, when peak Berlin occurred (I’m guessing in 2010 or so) I had a colleague that came up with an ad:

Berlin: It’s not just for old people

Of course, we were all a decade younger then, so it stands to reason that, like “America’s Coolest Small Town” and the annual pig races are some people’s “Freebird” and they’re going to keep shouting themselves hoarse trying to remind the rest of us how cool they used to be.

An Ethical Quandry

I got to see Salisbury University’s Ethics Bowl via Zoom and it made me feel confident or at least a little hopeful about how the students approach moral quandaries. Unlike “debates” where people try to demonstrate how clever they are while laying waste to any moron who holds an opposing view, the Ethics Bowl featured a real-world problem that the students had to critique. The opposing team is then charged with evaluating their arguments, not countering them, which is key.

As opposed to “You’re wrong and here’s why” students ask thoughtful questions and proposed alternative ways of looking at the question in a mutual attempt to find the best way to approach the issue. Grownups can’t do it, but it’s good to see that at least some kids still can.

Dragged Into the Light

My book is available for preorder here, and my book launch event will be 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Saturday, June 5 at The Greyhound Bookstore in Berlin. I have hired a drum and bagpipe corps to play in an attempt to keep in line with the town’s traditional music sensibilities.

If you’re watching the Vice documentary, The Devil You Know Season 2 and like it, I think you might like the book very much as well. Although the same event, the same evidence, and a lot of the same people are in both the book and the documentary, we have different takes on what it all means.

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Salisbury Maryland has extra vaccines which is good, but it’s also indicative of the fact that the Eastern Shore has too many crazy people. This isn’t a surprise to me. In this episode, Todd and I talk about the implications of living among the ethically unvaccinated and other religious nutballs.

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Todd sprinted off to Virginia this week like a regular tourist. Tony kept his head down after The Devil You Know debuted last week.

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Todd looks back on another year of Good Clean Fun Life Productions, and Tony answers a letter from a stranger.

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Todd and Tony talk about using your website or ending it, and the continuing good vibes on Clubhouse.

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Todd and Tony take a look at two of the advertorial glossies that grace this proud peninsula.

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Todd and Tony discuss the return to school in Worcester, plus suburban survivalists and Delaware restaurants.

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Five years ago Todd started a podcast to show the behind-the-scenes fun of what's happening in the biggest little party town  - Dewey Beach. After a hiatus, he is starting it up again with a new format to make sure it is fun and informative featuring weekly conversations with Toastie the General manager of the world-famous Starboard restaurant.  

Take a listen to this bonus episode and keep an eye out for its very own feed coming soon.

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Todd talks about some of his current and upcoming plans for using streaming to keep people connected to the beach. Tony has a rollercoaster ride.

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Author Stephanie Fowler joins us to talk about her latest book, Chasing Alice, an account of her high-school teacher's murder and the aftermath.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit daydrinkingondelmarva.substack.com