Bob Dylan Lives

 

 

Bob Dylan lives! And how do I know that? Because believe it or not the 73-year-old was recently interviewed by AARP, The Magazine (yes, this 70 plus-year-old reads this magazine.) At first when Dylan contacted Robert Love to interview him, Love thought Dylan must be confusing him with his former stint at Rolling Stone. Surely Dylan didn’t want to appear in an “old folks” magazine, did he? But Dylan wanted to speak to the readers of the AARP magazine, such as myself. After all, we are the ones who got him here, right?

Now I know some of you don’t give two figs whether Dylan is still making music or not. He’s an acquired taste like caviar, those odd looking olives, or sardines. If I’m an oddball like him because I appreciate his music, so be it. Please note, however, he’s outlasted many of his fellow contemporaries in the 60s.  After four decades and counting, he’s still writing, touring, and making music. This February he came out with his latest album, “Shadows in the Night” which includes standards from the past. We’ll discuss that album in a few minutes.

Let’s summarize his career first. If you can find a copy of the AARP magazine for February/March 2015, you can read the full interview by Love. I’ll just paraphrase some of the highlights of his interview as well as Dylan’s biography as presented by Bill Flanagan in the same issue of the magazine. I may add a comment or two or my own along the way.

We first met Dylan in 1965 at the Newport Folk Festival where we heard him sing “Like a Rolling Stone” for the first time. Rock music then had a new vocabulary because of him. You either loved him or hated him, but you couldn’t deny he was a huge influence on Rock and Roll music and in fact on society as a whole at that time. As I mentioned in my Master’s Thesis for Fairfield University years ago, he was the voice of a generation. Only Simon and Garfunkel can exist in his realm of influence in the 60s.

After a motorcycle accident in 1966, Dylan laid low for a while. He stopped touring and focused on his new family. During this period he continued to write songs like “The Mighty Quinn” which became a hit for Manfred Mann. The Byrds also covered “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere.”

Later on in the decade he began recording again. He did my favorite Dylan song at this time, “Lay, Lady, Lay.”

In the 70s decade he returned to the stage and on tour, releasing his next album, “Blood on the Tracks.” The album dealt with adulthood and its problems of infidelity. As he said at the time in “Tangled up in Blue,” “All the people we used to know, they’re an illusion to me now. Some are mathematicians, some are carpenters’ wives…But me, I’m still on the road, headin’ for another joint…”

He also toured at this time with the Rolling Thunder Revue which included artists like Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, and Roger McGuinn. But in the late 70s he got caught up in evangelical Christianity and disappeared again for a while.

After his religious zeal waned, he began touring again in the 80s with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and the Grateful Dead. Talk about your rock and roll. He also met up with Keith Richards and Ron Wood for Live Aid.

In the 90s he played hundreds of live shows with many small bands. He didn’t release any new songs until 1997 with the album “Time Out of Mind,” which won three Grammies.

And so here we are in the 21^st century where Dylan continues to produce. He won an award for “Things Have Changed;” he released several albums; wrote a memoir Chronicles: Volume One, which was critically acclaimed; and on top of all that he also has produced paintings and drawings which have sold at prestigious galleries. He even has a studio in California, where he lives, to sculpt metal gates which wealthy homeowners vie for.

The Songs we Remember

Here are some of the songs by Dylan that many of us remember and love. Remember these:

Lay Lady Lay

Like a Rolling Stone

Blowing in the Wind

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

The Times They are A-Changin’

Mr. Tambourine Man

Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Shadows in the Night

The new album just released this February contains covers of old standards. Many artists these days are doing old standard albums. The songs Dylan included are: “I’m a Fool to Want You.” “The Night We Called it a Day,” “Stay with Me,” “Autumn Leaves,” “Why Try to Change Me Now?” “Some Enchanted Evening,” “Full Moon and Empty Arms,” “Where Are You?” “What’ll I Do?” “That Lucky Old Sun.”

I’m not sure Dylan should have gone this route. I much prefer his music. You can find samples of the album on YouTube. “The Night We Called it a Day” has a video to view, which is quite violent. And I can’t imagine “Autumn Leaves” without a piano background. I’m sorry, Mr. Dylan, but I think you should have left this genre in the very capable hands of Mr. Tony Bennett and Lady GaGa, who have done a wonderful job with their standards album.

There is a place to comment about the videos on YouTube. Many of the spaces for Dylan said simply “comment was deleted.” I suspect that there probably was some strong language in the comments they deleted. Dylan fans are sometimes fanatical in their support.

Here is one comment that survived with “Full Moon and Empty Arms”. This fan may well be one of those fanatical ones. Some of it is R-rated but here is some of what the listener had to say, “Dylan is another universe. He does not give a good g-d if people prefer Sinatra’s style…They didn’t like him when he plugged in at Newport and now they don’t want him to do anything but play the “golden oldies” of their misspent youth. Every day is another revolution, man.”

Well I guess I might very well fall into that category. But oh what a “golden oldie” load of tunes we have from our Dylan. May they live in our hearts forever.

Dylan Honors

Just so you don’t think that Bob Dylan was another drug-using draft-dodging hippie from the 60s check out these honors which have been bestowed upon him over the years:

11 Grammies

France’s Legion of Honor

Kennedy Center Honor

An Oscar

A Pulitzer

Honorary degrees from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and from Princeton.

He is in the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And in May of 2012, President Obama gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

There is much more to see in the AARP article. Please pick it up if you can. Meanwhile, check out this hilarious interactive video of “Like a Rolling Stone” I found on YouTube. It speaks to how Dylan has influenced pop culture over the years. Enjoy and thanks for listening.

 

 

 

   

Sail, Power & Steam Museum

Just Out!

A new book by Meg and Captain Jim Sharp,

There’s Magic Beyond the Bend

For 10 years Meg and Captain Jim Sharp wandered the canals of Holland, Belgium, France and Germany in a Dutch-built converted sailing barge. This story relates what they discovered along the way.

 

Order your copy now

Call Mary Ann at 207-701-5050

Ode to Spring

Spring is here according to the calendar, although the folks up north might not agree. Here in Georgia the dogwood and flowering peach trees are out. The other hardwood trees across my parking lot are budding out. If you look at the bright white of the dogwood tree it’s almost like they are covered with snow. Not as cold though, thankfully.

 

My Ode to Spring has to include homage to the basketball gods who bring us March Madness every year. I spent all day yesterday in front of the TV watching the girls play. I will do the same today (Sunday), probably as soon as I get this blog written and make some lunch.

I don’t get to see the girls play much except for this time of year because of the inane practice of TV stations who try to charge you for that privilege. My budget doesn’t allow for such expenses. Therefore I have to wait for the powers that be, who set all these games up on TV, to throw we women basketball lovers a bone, but only after the boys are through playing. Meanwhile we get only one channel and have to do with back and forth coverage between all the games. Is that right I ask you?

I didn’t make out the brackets this year. I made such a mess of things last year that I decided to just try to guess who would win each game I was watching and root for that team. So far I’ve done pretty well. I did pick UConn to win last year and they did; and I think they will threepeat this year for sure. After that blowout with St. Francis Brooklyn last night, I think it’s a sure thing. I hope Geno gets his ten championships to tie with John Wooden of UCLA.

The President was in attendance at the women’s Princeton game yesterday to watch Michelle’s niece, Leslie Robinson, play on that team. As for his final four picks for the women: Princeton, UConn, South Carolina, and Notre Dame, those teams are still alive; but I don’t think Princeton is going to get past Maryland. Sorry, Prez. We’ll see. I predict that UConn will win it all again anyway.

Think Good Thoughts

For you folks up north who are still dealing with piles of snow which block your view of the road coming out of your driveways and the slushy stuff that makes a salt ring around your boots, think good thoughts. True Maineiacs tend to forget the snow under a bright blue summer sky. I think that will be kind of hard this summer. So, while you are dealing with the snow as in the picture below which I found on the Facebook page “Journey on the backroads of Maine” and the next picture which I found on “Born and Raised in Maine” remember to look forward to warmer scenes. In other words, “daydream.”

 

 

 

This picture of the skiffs comes from Scott Patterson. Check out his other beautiful Maine pictures at  www.spattersonphotos.com.

Instead picture this dam in Skowhegan, also found on the Back Roads site.



 

 

Maine in Winter isn’t all bad

Also remember that Maine people get to enjoy their state in winter mostly without the sometimes demanding summer people. There is plenty to enjoy if you are an outdoorsman: such as snowmobiling, ice fishing, sledding and skiing. I would personally like to take a horse and sleigh ride with my friend, Robin Robinson, and her Clydes up Dover Foxcroft way. You also have ice statue and molded snow statue contests as part of the many Winter Festivals that abound.

Soak it all in

So this spring and summer while you are soaking it all in, try to forget the winter scenes above for a while.  Before the mosquitoes arrive in the evening, sit back and enjoy a Maine sunset such as this one I found on “Simply Maine.”

 

 

 

Rejoice with this boy as he stands on Knife Edge on Mount Katahdin, also from “Simply Maine.”

 

 

Here’s to Spring!  Lunchtime and March Madness in that order. Go UConn!

Thanks for listening.

Sail, Power & Steam Museum

Become a permanent part of a new Friendship Sloop

 

MAINE'S FRIENDSHIP SLOOP

HELP PRESERVE MAINE'S HISTORY

Mc and Mac…Celebrating our Irish Heritage

(I bring you the weekly blog early so that you can find out about the celebration and parade in Portland on March 15, tomorrow, which you might like to participate in. See below for details.)

I like many people always thought that anyone with a Mc in their name was Irish and anyone with a Mac in their name was Scottish. From what I’ve just found out in my research, that is not true. According to a reference I can’t quote from because of copyright infringement, Mc is simply an abbreviated form of Mac and they are interchangeable as far as a Scottish or Irish heritage goes. In other words you can find such names in both Ireland and Scotland.

If anyone out there disputes what I’ve just said in the above paragraph, I would welcome your input. You can email me at southendstories@aol.com.

I grew up with quite a few Irish people in my environment. Some of the names I mention here may in fact be Scottish, after what I have just discovered, but here goes anyway. I apologize ahead of time if I have put your name in the incorrect heritage pool.

The names I’m most familiar with growing up in Rockland, Maine are Flanagan, Molloy, Macintosh, McKinney, Sullivan; and the Os, O’Sullivan and O’Brien. In high school we had a teacher named Kenneth MacDougal and a basketball coach named McGuire.

We had many businesses with Irish, or again, perhaps Scottish names:

McLoon, MacPhail, McCarty, McLain, McMahon, and McRae. Of course one of those names, McLain, was the name of one of our grammar schools up next to the high school on Lincoln Street.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog, we have discovered that my family does indeed have Irish ancestors. It’s said that everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day, and now I can truly say I am at least part Irish. My Irish ancestors have the last names of: Calderwood, McCurdy, Kilpatrick, Kelloch or Kellough, Robinson, and Fitzpatrick. I expect you will find more than one of these names in a local phone book in the area.

Maine Irish Heritage Center

If you would like to learn more about Maine’s Irish Heritage, you can visit the Maine Irish Heritage Center in Portland. Here’s a map to guide you. The center was formerly the St. Dominic’s Catholic Church.

 

 

 

Here’s a group of Maine Irishmen at the Center in Portland.

 

 

If you’d like to know more about activities at the center, see their Facebook Page, Maine Irish Heritage Center. Thanks go out to Tim Sullivan for directing me to this page. It has been very helpful.

Celebrate our Irish Heritage in Portland on Sunday, March 15.

If you would like to celebrate your Irish heritage with other Irishmen, check out the parade on Commercial Street in Portland, tomorrow, March 15. Here’s what they have to say about it on Facebook:

 

“St. Pat’s Parade on Commercial Street at noon. Parade begins at the Fish Pier at noon and proceeds east on Commercial Street, ending at Bellbuoy Park. The Irish American Club and the Main Irish Heritage Center invite you to warm up after the parade with lots of food, fun, music, dancing at the MIHC from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.”

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone and thanks for listening to this partly Irish writer.

E.C. Moran Photo Display

Patricia Wotton sent us a photo of the display which is now positioned in the E.C. Moran window on Main Street. If you local folks would like to see this historical montage of E.C. Moran, the oldest business on Main Street, please stop by when you are up on Main Street again. For my blog story on this business, go to the June 2014 archives, “The Oldest Business on Main Street.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Maine Expressions…Mainespeak

 

Purchase Street School in Rockland’s South End is where I spoke “Mainespeak” with my friends often against the wishes of our teachers. The picture is from the Penobscot Museum. The building no longer exists.

 

 

When I come across yet one more list of Maine sayings, idioms, and the like, I always check out the list for discrepancies, untruths and plain out and out guesses. Cousin Mary Sue Hilton Weeks, of the Hilton Homestead, brought this latest list to my attention recently. It comes from a site called Matador Network. I don’t see the author listed but I suspect they are not from Maine originally; not Maineiacs so to speak; and their first language is not “Mainespeak” as some of us call the Maine way of speaking.

I give you therefore, the list on Matador and add some comments of my own along the way. I will also then add some expressions and words I’ve known in my life as a kid in Maine. The list first.

1. Mainers don’t ask “what are you doing?”…they say “Chuppta?”

2. Maine weather doesn’t get “windy”…it gets “breezed up.”

Never heard of this expression, myself. More than likely I’ve heard, “storm coming” or “bad weather ahead.”

3. Things don’t “break” in Maine…they get “stove up.”

4. Mainers don’t eat until “full”…they get “mugup.”

Never heard this one either. I have heard, “I’m full up to my eyebrows.”

5. Maine roads are never “icy” or “slippery”…they’re “greasy.”

They are? Roads get “greasy” on the interstates near big cities from the oil that always sits on the roads which gets greasy when it rains.

6. Mainers don’t “go to the country”…they “go out in the willie-wacks.”

More than likely they go out to the “boomdocks.”

7. Mainers don’t say someone is “flamboyant” or “eccentric”…they say they’re “a rig.”

I’ve also heard: “Ain’t she a riggin?” or more than likely “Ain’t she a pissah!”

8. Mainers don’t take their boots off in the “foyer”…they use the “dooryard.

True, or in the mudroom which many Maine homes have.

9. Mainers don’t have “midnight snacks”…they have “bed lunches.”

Never heard this at all.

10. Mainers don’t drive small distances…they go “up the road apiece.”

I love the Bert and I story that ends: “Come to think of it, you caint git thaya frum heya.”

11. Mainers don’t say “I don’t know”…they say “hard tellin’ not knowin’.”

12. Mainers don’t “get stuck” or “get in trouble”…they “get in a gaum.”

Never heard this either. Gaum to me means someone is “gaummie” or clumsy.

13 Mainers don’t put things “in the basement”…they go “down cellar.”

My mother used to say, when we asked her where something was, “Down cellar behind the pork barrel.”

14. Mainers don’t take out the “trash”…they deal with the “culch.”

The what?

15. Mainers don’t say “that was good”…they say it was the “finest kind.”

Or again it is still appropriate to say “It’s a pissah!”

16. Mainers don’t move things in small amounts…they move them “just a dite.”

17. Mainers don’t say “I lost it”…they say “it’s down cellar behind the axe.”

No…didn’t you listen? Pork barrel!

18. Mainers don’t “get drunk”…they “catch a buzz on.”

Or “get a buzz on.”

19. Mainers don’t get “sick”…they get “pekid.”

Or sometimes “puny.”

20. Mainers don’t “steal”…they “kife.”

21. Mainers don’t say something’s “awesome”…they say it’s “savage.”

No, It’s “wicked good.”

22. Mainers don’t “hurry”…they “book it.”

23. Mainers don’t say “that’s cute”…they say “that’s cunnin’.”

24. Maine doesn’t have “tourists”…only “flatlanders.”

Or what we used to call them “summer complaints” because they would come to Maine on vacation, complain all the while they were there, but yet they’d come back again the next year.

25. Mainers don’t become “senior citizens”…they become “old timers.”

Some more of my favorites are:

“Good gravy Marie” or “Well, I nevah” when something exasperates you.

“It don’t amount to a pee hole in the snow.” I’ll let you southerners figure that one out.

The three meals in Maine include: Breakfast, Dinner, and Suppah.

Remember that in Mainespeak “er” becomes “ay” so that you get, for instance, “theya” instead of “their” or “there.” If you remember that one little thing, even you can speak Mainespeak.

Although I’ve lived in Georgia whoo these many years, I’ve never lost my ability to speak my native language of Mainespeak. I may have picked up some southern phrases and idioms, but I remain for the most part true to my roots in Maine.

I’ve written about the Maine language from time to time in this space. If you’d like to read more on this subject see the archives for September 2011. “Bad Maine Accents.”

 

Enjoy this video I found while I was doing this blog. Better yet, show it to someone who has never been to Maine. Remember vacation time is coming. Come on up and try out your own Mainespeak on us natives.

 

And if you need a refresher in Mainespeak watch an episode of “Downeast Dickering” which you can find on YouTube.  Thanks for listening.

When I’m 74

My running mates in high school all have birthdays in February and March. The first one of us just had her 74^th birthday. She is a grandmother and great-grandmother. All of us will turn 74 this year and I would guess that by now we are the oldest generation living in our families. Hard to believe.

When my classmates all turned 70, Lynda nee Goodnow, held a summer party at her lake home. We all brought birthday cakes and other eats to celebrate that landmark age. I could not be there but I attended in spirit. How did it get to be four years later already? How is it that we are now the matriarchs and patriarchs of our families?

The funny thing is, some of my good friends from home are not all that savvy on the internet. As much as I prod them to get on Facebook so that I can “talk” to them every day, guess what? I end up talking to their kids instead, who are all on Facebook. When I want to send a message to one of their mothers or fathers I pass it on to them via their children on Facebook.

As I approach my own 74^th birthday on Thursday, March 5, I think about where I came from. Who were the generations before me? I am not the genealogist in the family. I leave all that to my niece, Brenda Sylvester Peabody. She has done a great job compiling our history (on both sides).

As it is March and the month of the celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, I thought I’d look at the Irish people in our line. It’s said that on St. Patrick’s Day, everyone is Irish. Well my family actually is, which was a big surprise to me. Most of my father’s family came from England in the 1600s (we have ties to the Mayflower); and my mother’s family came from Germany in the 1700s. We have one descendant, Jonas Loker, who died at Bunker Hill. His name is on the memorial there.

The names that Brenda found sound like familiar local names to me. I recognize Calderwood, Keller or Kellock, and Robinson. We actually had a Calderwood in our church growing up. We could possibly be related.

Here is some of the Irish-related information Brenda included in her 84-page report which she sent to me.

John Calderwood, born in Londonderry, Ireland in 1725, died on Vinalhaven, in 1808.

James Calderwood, born in Londonderry, in 1700, died in Rockingham, New Hampshire, 1749

Thomas McCurdy, born in Ulster, Ireland, in 1706, died in Dedham, Massachusetts, 1758

Jeanette Kilpatrick, born in Ulster, in 1708, died in St. George, Maine, 1750

Finley (Killough) Kelloch, born in Antrim, Ireland, in 1711, died in Thomaston, Maine, 1795

Robert Kelloch, born in Antrim, in 1681, died in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, in 1737

Moses Robinson, born in Cork County, Ireland, in 1728, died in Cushing, Maine, in 1764

Mary Fitzgerald, born in Scotland or Dublin, Ireland, in 1708, died in Warren, Maine, in 1764

Daniel Fitzgerald, born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1682, died in Cushing, Maine, in 1762

Notice, of the nine people mentioned here, only three lived to their 80s. Four died in their 30s-40s; and two lived to their 50s. We forget that life then could be harsh. There was no cure for diseases that existed at that time like smallpox. Many women also died at a young age in childbirth. Some men married several times for this reason.

So these people, who for the most part lived in the Knox County area, where my ancestors have lived for a long time, are remembered in my mind this St. Patrick’s Day. Here’s to my Irish relatives; my English relatives; my French relatives; my German relatives. You are not forgotten.

Wish me a happy birthday, everyone.

 

By TED SYLVESTER

This column, written for the March 16, 1973 Bangor Daily News, includes the history of our present Memorial Pier and its tie to the ambulance service in Rockland. The pier is where Lobster Festival activities take place every year.

Dramatic physical changes to the Memorial Pier at the public landing are in the planning stages by the Seafoods Festival Corp., an authoritative source told us this week.

Being considered is a face lifting of the Memorial Pier complete with a roof. The plan is to give the stage area an amphitheater effect. The stage area also would be completely resurfaced. It is our understanding that the project is in the hands of an architect to come up with sketches to be presented for consideration.

Previously presented for council approval were plans to rebuild the ramp in back of the stage into permanent steps.

The pier is the center of attraction during the festival, both the coronation and stage entertainment.

The newest idea to roof the stage came after the council rejected the Festival Corporation’s offer of a new ambulance at a cost of about $15,000. A prerequisite was, you remember, that the city agrees to cross city lines with the ambulance. This was something the council refused to do.

Every time the question of ambulance service pops up, the theory that the new Penobscot Bay Medical Center scheduled to be built at Glen Cove would be the ideal location from which to operate an ambulance service for the entire mid-coastal area is presented. We asked Executive Director Lee Pridgen if this was a probability.

Pridgen said the question of ambulance service had been quite thoroughly discussed. He said it was the opinion that once Pen Bay is built—operation is some two years away—the center could act as a coordinator for ambulance service for the entire area. Pridgen said, however, it was the opinion—and the opinion of those in the ambulance business--that the base of the ambulances themselves should be in the respective communities much as it is now.

The director noted that if the area wanted PBMC to act as the center for ambulance service he is sure that it would be considered.

Lockup “Adequate”

Sheriff Carlton V. Thurston is pleased with the report received this week concerning his jail. In the words of State Jail Inspector, Richard P. Haskall, “although it is a small facility, it certainly appears that it can become one of the better lockup and holding facilities within the State of Maine.”

Sheriff Thurston said that all deficiencies which were cited in 1971 had been corrected. The only deficiency noted this time was in the area of food services where the inspector noted that there should be at least a three-week menu written in advance.

Further noted by the inspector was “this jail is exceptionally clean, the kitchen and eating area are outstanding in all respects, and the administration of this facility is certainly noteworthy.”

Recommendations for the Knox jail were:

“Serious consideration should be given by the sheriff and county commissioners in obtaining an acceptable area for women and juvenile inmates.

“More time and effort should be spent in the area of rehabilitation and recreation.”

Other recommendations concern changes inside the jail to meet standards for county jails. Included are practically all changes which the sheriff has recently proposed. Besides a new women’s and juvenile quarters, there are recommendations for new locks, exhaust ventilation, beds, sufficient storage area, adequate space for consultation and visiting, and necessary equipment for bathing and disinfection of prisoners.

The county commissioners are scheduled to tour the jail facility Tuesday. The sheriff is seeking $15,000 which he feels can be matched with federal funds.

Fly to Florida—Forget It!

We have a friend—who shall remain nameless—who recently vacationed in sunny Florida. In itself that’s not too newsworthy, but his experiences getting there and back, well that’s something else again.

Having a distrust of those flying machines, our friend nevertheless was persuaded to take to the airways. The day of departure came and with it also came snow squalls. Fly in the weather, forget it!

After motoring to Portland, a flight to Boston was scheduled. Our friend was miserable, according to our information. So at Boston it was enough of that, it was the train for him. Never mind that his friends arrived in Florida a day and a half ahead of him.

On the return home, he left a couple of days early and we imagine enjoyed the train ride. His friends came via airways again.

On Wednesday morning of this week the national news carried stories and pictures of a derailed Florida-bound train—the same route our friend had used—in which 19 vacationers were injured.

We asked him what he thought about train travel now. He stood by his convictions and said as far as he was concerned it was still the only way to travel. We have to admit that also reported beside the train accident story was one concerning a plane crash in which two fatalities occurred.

Beat the Meat Prices

Want to beat the high price of meat? The Maine Department of Sea and Shore Fisheries have some suggestions.

The Maine agency notes that, through an extensive survey of European markets, that Americans tend to shun many sea foods which are relished in other countries.

Some species mentioned were mussels. It is claimed that meals of high protein for under $1 could feed three to five persons. Another is skates. With required processing, these rival the flavor of scallops and sell for more than $2 per pound abroad, the report stated.

Another product mentioned is dogfish. A portion of the dogfish is smoked and sold in Germany for up to $2.50 per pound while all of the dogfish is utilized as a finfish in other parts of Europe. It is commonly used for fish and chips in England.

One of the most sought after species abroad is the common eel. According to the report, smoked eel has frequently sold for twice and three times the going price for live lobster in many foreign countries.