Reverend Geoff Parker on finding God in a Winnebago

About Town: An evening with Nick Holes at Vibes Tattoo & Piercing

Within weeks of entering Bowdoin as an un-pierced and relatively sheltered first year, I headed over to Vibes with my roommates to get pierced. At first, I was apprehensive, but any preconceived notions I had about piercers and tattoo artists were immediately reversed when I met Vibes’ chief piercer Nick Holes.
His name is kind of punk, and Holes won’t deny that at times he’s had the looks to go with it—acid green dreadlocks and a gauged septum. He combines this tough aesthetic with a well-spoken and upbeat demeanor, a far cry from the bastion of counterculture and angst I had been anticipating. He says he’s very into “New Wave hippie stuff” and has a lot of tattoos that feature sacred geometry, like the blue Merkaba on his forearm.
For Holes, tattoos and piercings are transformative events, and each holds its own significance. The big hole in his septum has a particularly meaningful story behind it.
“There was a book I read when I was younger called ‘Nothing in This Book is True, But It’s Exactly How Things Are’ by Bob Frissell, and one of the things he brought up in this book is that we never learned how to breathe. You’re brought into this world, you’re smacked on the ass and you find out you need to breathe,” he said.
“Getting my septum, to me, was a relearning of how to breathe—not just breathing as a sense of ‘I need to do this to live’ but breathing as a sense of ‘I need to take in what I need and expel what I don’t.”
He incorporates this meditative philosophy into his relationships with clients. When people get nervous about needles, he knows how to put them at ease.
“You calm the person down with how you’re talking,” he said. “When you pierce them, something as simple as when they’re breathing in or when they’re breathing out makes a huge difference in how it feels. When you’re breathing in, you’re tense. Your body is winding up. When you’re breathing out, your body is relaxing. I always pierce on an out breath.”
Although Holes wasn’t born a Mainer, he has lived in Brunswick for three years. Originally from Long Island, New York, Holes moved to Maine to find a lifestyle that fit him. He wanted a slower pace—less traffic.
“I wanted to learn how to hunt, live off the land and everything like that,” he said.
Indeed, Holes has enjoyed learning to hunt since moving from New York. During deer season, he can go hunting mornings before his shift starts at noon.
When he is not hunting, though, he enjoys the slower pace of his life and work in Brunswick.
“You don’t get the feeling here like you do at other shops I’ve worked at, where you have to get this person out the door. It’s much more laid-back, much more relaxed.”
During the three years he’s been here, Holes has noticed that piercings have become a lot more acceptable.
“We have everything ranging from kids straight up to professionals coming in here,” he said.
He appreciates this cultural shift—the fact that something so important to him is becoming more mainstream.
“When I was younger, in my twenties, I had dreadlocks. I had a big septum ring,” he said. “I had a woman ask me what my parents thought of it. I said, ‘My parents don’t care—I’m paying my own bills. I’m making my way through college. They don’t care.’ She said, ‘Well, if I was your parents, I would kill myself.’ You don’t really see that sentiment anymore.”
“Tattoos and piercings were always a rite of passage—this is what I’m going to do to say that I’m an adult and ready to enter the world,” Holes said. His favorite kind of experience with a client is when there is a transformative aspect, when he can provide people with the same kind of transcendence that he felt upon getting his septum gauge or even moving to Maine.
“We had an 18-year-old here getting a Monroe piercing, and she feels like that was what was missing,” said Holes. “That was what she needed.”

About Town: Keeping Eveningstar Cinema alive as Brunswick population ages

Barry Norman does not sit still. Trying to get a photo of him between facial expressions is nearly impossible—he talks a mile a minute and gestures with equal frequency. When he talks he goes on a lot of tangents and pursues them completely.
“I’m an insomniac,” he said blithely. He doesn’t turn off and he doesn’t stop. “I have always been an opportunist,” he says. His life story is scattered across the country and various industries, all roads ending at Eveningstar Cinema on Maine Street.
If you want to know why he bought Eveningstar, all you need is to watch his preshow—it features a clip from a movie he made where he walks down Maine Street with his dog, a schnoodle (schnauzer-poodle) named Scooter. “I first get into Brunswick, and I see the Little Dog Café. This is obviously a sign.”
“When I was looking to buy a movie theater, I was actually looking to buy an Art Deco movie theater.” There was one in Lamar, Colorado, “only going for $250,000, which is pretty cheap,” and still turning a profit, “but then I would be living in Lamar, Colorado,” Norman lamented. “All the other Art Deco theaters were dark.”
He mentions that the unique character of Eveningstar was a draw. “It did appeal to me that it was funky, that there was nothing like this. This used to be a garage for Goodwin Chevrolet.” Its eccentricities are evident in his attic workspace, a loft with ceilings a full foot shorter than Norman, located above the box office. To interview him, I had to use a wooden ladder to get up and metal handles to get back down.
Norman was raised in Boston, where he spent time in similarly small theaters. He appreciated the sense of community he found with the people attending. Today in Brunswick, this community has changed.
“I survive because my older audience, which is who I cater to, still wants the community feeling of going to a theater. They like talking to the owner and seeing Scooter and all that.”
“They don’t want to go to a multiplex like Regal because there are so many different screens and so many people running around and they don’t want to get 10 previews because they need to promote all of the films that they have on their screens.”
“They like coming to a theater like this. First of all, they all know each other. When you go to a comedy, a room full of people laughing is a lot more fun than you sitting by yourself. Same thing when the movie’s sad. Emotion is a shared moment.”
He hopes people feel connected in his theater like they did when he was young.“This is what going to the movies was; [the community] was a big deal.”
Outside of the theaters he cherished, his childhood was defined by pressures from his OB/GYN father and family. “My dad never got it,” he said. “It was so foreign to him.”
“I come from a family of famous physicians. My aunt helped develop the pacemaker.”Though he went in a different direction than his family, he has applied a familiar focus to his own pursuits. He has asked himself throughout his career: “Things are shifting, how can we get in the forefront?”
This question led Norman from Boston to Connecticut College to New York City, where he “was living on a park bench in Washington Square for three weeks, trying to beg for three dollars a day, which got me a joint, a Colt 45, and two slices of Ray’s pizza.”
He cleaned himself up to score an interview which led him to a job at a magazine distributing office in Denver. After a divorce, he took a job in Florida and then another in Atlanta, where he got into film. Between these moments, he has published magazines, gone to the Olympics to cover wrestling for CNN and run alternative rock radio shows.
Norman has been independent his entire life, and owning his own business grants him autonomy in many ways. Yet, this existence relies upon a customer base and his is dwindling.“My mature audience, two things are happening to them, one, they’re becoming too old or infirm to go out, or they’re passing away.”
“How do I become relevant? How do I stay?” When I asked him about his next opportunity, he replied: “I’m exhausted. Maybe something is going to come up that I don’t see, but I don’t see it.”
Without knowing Barry Norman for very long, I got the feeling this wasn’t something he said easily.
“There is a certain level of burnout. I don’t have that type of stamina anymore. I was doing the Olympics for 18, 19 hours a day and when I did the Olympics I also started a film festival and was running the film festival from the Olympics,” he said.
“I don’t like to do things half-assed. So, if there’s any other major challenge, it’s a major challenge trying to expand. I’ve been telling people, ‘I’m either going to break through the wall, or the wall is going to kill me.’ We’re getting closer to the wall killing me.”
When I walked into the theater from the box office, I noticed that the only poster that Norman keeps up permanently is a one-sheet from The Last Picture Show. “Great movie,” Norman commented. “I love the movie. I love the poster, and the irony.”
“I don’t want to be The Last Picture Show.”

About Town

Reverend Geoff Parker on finding God in a Winnebago

This piece represents the opinion of the author:

Ellice Lueders

Columnist

February 19, 2016

It wasn’t easy to get First Parish Church’s Reverend Geoff Parker to talk about himself. His tone was easily humble, but when he speaks about church, his voice goes up a little like it’s filled with hope and home. When asked about his involvement in the Brunswick community, he deflected from his own invested role.

“My job as pastor is really to be a cheerleader and support and connector of other people and their passions,” he said.

Whenever he meets someone new, he asks himself “How will [I] honor their story?” This is something that he treats as a matter of faith.

“I honestly believe that there is something holy happening in every single person, and so it’s about ‘How can I get out of my own way to experience what that is?’” he said.

I experienced this myself, as throughout our interview, he would interject to ask about my perspective and reflections. His engagement struck me and changed what started out as just an interview into a thoughtful and rewarding conversation. Parker applies this principle generally, emphasizing the importance of community discussion about tough subjects.

“We’re making sure we’re engaging the serious conversations,” he assured. “One of the conversations about privilege is you know you have it if you don’t have to talk about these issues. It’s something we haven’t had to do, but it’s something we’re called to do in terms of seeking justice in the world.”

He credits Bowdoin for keeping the congregation on its toes in terms of social consciousness. Though he did not mention it in the interview, his pennant from Sarah Lawrence College and diploma from Yale Divinity School spoke to the intellectual engagement he demonstrates and values in this community.

“We enjoy all the rich benefits of having Bowdoin next door that help us really be an educated, engaged, learning congregation,” said the reverend. “A lot of times we go. If you guys are talking about something, it’s a really good cue for us that we should probably have some knowledge about what’s going on in the world too.”

Parker also appreciates the personal relationships between Bowdoin, Brunswick and his church.

“I can look around, and I can point in my pew to the number of members of First Parish that are Bowdoin host families,” he said. “They make a real, intentional effort to make the church, as an expression of the community of Brunswick, a welcoming place and a safe place.”
When I asked him to explain where this appreciation came from, he gave me some spiritual context.

“Here’s a big one that I stick with as part of my theological assertion—everybody is of worth and value just as who they are, not because of anything that they do,” Parker said. “And in a wonderful experience that is as challenging and as hardworking as going to college at a place like Bowdoin, sometimes you need a space for that. To be able to go, it’s not about what I got on my last test.”

"It’s not about how I’m doing in general or how I’m even doing socially in this environment. Sometimes I need a place where I can just be accepted and of worth just as who I am.”
"I hope we can provide a pausing place in the midst of a lot. You guys have really busy lives and so do a lot of people in the town of Brunswick,” he added.

Throughout this interview, I was considering the role faith played in his life and decision to become a reverend. I wasn’t raised in a particularly religious household, and I wanted insight into how faith comes to someone. It took the whole interview, but eventually, he let me in on some of his perspective.

“What did it for me? There’s my belief in the story and scripture that drives my tradition, but what drew me to get interested in that was actually the experiences of what felt like holiness in my life in many ways. So for me, it started out in a Winnebago because I was in a band, and so me and seven of my friends traveled around the country in a Winnebago playing shows.

“This is more embarrassing than it even sounds, but here’s the thing: you wake up every day, and you’re surrounded by your best friends, and you do what you most love. And it’s hard, and you have to learn how you’re going to feed eight people on five bucks because you’re not making a lot of money, but what I took out of that was that I was incredibly moved by the experience of living in a community and working towards common goals and the belief that living in such a community could transform the world around you,” he explained. “So I call that church now.”

“And then, you know, being in college and a little depressed and reading a little too much Russian literature, that also helps,” he added.

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