Lemoine at 40
An Esquire Exclusive excerpt
May 2021 Issue
Dennis Lemoine is animated.
Spewing sentence after sentence in mock outrage —his inflections heaving one after another. He moves from first person to third deftly, regaling anyone within earshot his tales of heartbreak and the inadequacies of the Massachusetts Unemployment system.
The comeback kid, on the cusp of turning forty, May 28th, is still witty after all these years. His family and childhood friends can recall tales of his “vivid” storytelling & “hosting” abilities growing up in the Granite State. His high school yearbook (Exeter Bluehawk Class of ‘99) proudly declares his hope to be in Vegas performing, post graduation.
Sometimes it’s difficult to remember all that comes out of his mouth. He swings back and forth from story to story. Laughing and gesticulating with abandon. And make no mistake- it’s a lot- once he gets going.
On approaching middle age: “This is who I am now- the jazz guy. I’ve become that middle aged dude in the top corner unit that all the other tenants whisper about.”
How he would have gone viral had YouTube & TikTok existed in his teens: “It’s a fucking fact. Stone cold fact. What my friends and I were creating with VHS and shitty digital cameras was comic gold. We did a scene for scene remake of Steven Seagal’s “Out for Justice!” We just never had the platform.”
Paranoid thoughts on why he might have been allergic to, or poisoned by, tomatoes during the Summer of 2006: “I swear to God. I was working at this nutrition school that served tomatoes with every meal. And we were forced to eat together! I started breaking out in hives. It was either the tomatoes or I was being poisoned. Or both. Either my job or my ex girlfriend. Someone was out to get me.”
Why Tina Turner is probably the greatest performer in the History of Rock n Roll: “No one consistently left it all on the stage like her.”
On love: “I’m always falling in and out of love. Every damn day. Mostly with myself.”
How he’s the most misunderstood person of his generation: “Honestly, how can anyone else really know who I am when I sure as hell don’t.” (He emphasizes the “don’t” by slapping his leg.) “I’m at a stage where I know even less about myself after doing nothing but heavy personal work- and maybe that’s a good thing?!”
The initial rebrand of Dennis Lemoine, DL Properties (which includes the trademark to Jagg Off and the exclusive usage plus intellectual rights of the Al Moore Blues Band) plus the entire Lemoine licensing apparatus, had quietly begun a year prior to our interviews. The once brash, outspoken, wild man of his late 20’s-early 30’s has slowly given way to, in his words, “A more balanced nuanced Dennis Lemoine. Honestly, life has truly humbled me beyond belief. Personally. Professionally. Mentally. Spiritually. You name it! So, I’m just trying to stay in the moment. Call it mindfulness. Call it gratitude. Whatever it is. I’ve always felt as if I was either 5 years ahead of things or 5 years behind. Never of the time.”
A self described “social shape shifter” prone to bouts of insomnia since childhood, he has found a new sense of peace, rising before dawn almost daily for the past 10 months.
Much has changed from the heady days of the #summerofdennis in 2012, with its endless evenings, verbose late night pronouncements on Facebook and general party hard mentality in the streets of Burlington, Vt. These days you’re more liable to hear him evangelizing about the positive effects of the nascent cannabis scene. “Probably should have started my drug journey with it, instead of waiting until my late 30’s!”
He’s strikingly candid about his past struggles, especially over the previous two years, a positive byproduct of years worth of work in therapy. “What can I say? When you lose everything you have, you’re left with a blank canvas to start from. I woke up one day without the life I had known. I began the slow rebuilding process and then was knocked down again, once the pandemic hit and I was laid off with the rest of my industry. If 2020 taught us anything, it’s not to plan too far in advance. Things can and will change in the blink of an eye. But that also means positive, good meaning things can happen around every corner too.”
With a new job on the horizon-Lemoine is slowly, methodically, making his way out of what he jokingly referred to as his, “sabbatical.” No longer interested in settling old scores or being the loudest one in the room, he’s just “happy to be breathing that sea air” and “taking it all moment by moment.”
From how it appears in the City of Sin, Lemoine is about to perform his greatest role yet- that of his authentic self.
