I didn’t find this 14 year old link until we returned but I too was hoping to find some of the funky feel of the old Hawaii Five 0 show in Honolulu and I’m happy to report we found it. Even downtown Waikiki, which is mostly swallowed up with high rises, there are chickens roaming freely, a canal that seems to stop time in the middle of the city and the surf always just a stones throw away.
Old Queen Theater in Kaimuki neighborhood of Honolulu
Unless I missed something the Kaimuki neighborhood seems like a great place to live. A citizens group is even trying save the Queen Theater. We had brunch in a restaurant near the Local General Store and walked around enough to get a feel for the place. It was raining in the mountains on the day we were there and depending on which way I faced the light was especially dramatic.
Local General Store in Kaimuki neighborhood of HonoluluLeave a comment
We have more mache than we can eat. Our green salads of late have been all mache with a few sweet pepper slices for color and texture. The lettuce went to seed last year, survived the winter, recently shot up and is now going to seed again. I would give some to the neighbors but I’m afraid they would be wary of the gangliness of the shoots and white flower tops.
I told the receptionist at our doctor that I really liked the music that was playing in the waiting room. The kind of easy going jazz, never pushy or wanky, and definitely not “smooth jazz.” John Coltrane’s “Say It (Over and Over Again)” never sounded better.
Kyle Buchanan’s interview with David Cronenberg started with this paragraph. “In 2017, during the funeral of his wife and longtime collaborator Carolyn Zeifman, the director David Cronenberg found himself struck by an unusual impulse: As the coffin holding her dead body was lowered into the ground, he wanted more than anything to get into that box with her.”
That idea made us want to see his new movie. They are always risky but this one did not live up to the promise of that idea. “The Shrouds” got way bogged down, the lead character got more unlikable as the movie went on and the whole concept fizzled with complicated Russian and Chinese interference.
We were not sure if we would be up for going out on our first day back so we waited til we were boarding the plane in LA to buy tickets to Tony Brown’s show at Hochstein. At that point the tickets to Branford Marsalis were half price. Marsalis has been playing with the same band for a few years now and they show it. Not by being tight so much as in their willingness to move as a unit toward new vistas. They reached for it in the very first song surprising us, but we are not that familiar with him. By the third song they were taking their ties off. The drummer was a force of nature but just as comfortable playing like Denardo Coleman when doing an Ornette song. They brought the house down with Keith Jarrett’s ”Long as You Know You’re Living Yours” and the bass player stepped aside at the encore to let the Eastman’s Jeff Campbell play on Monk’s “Epistrophy.” So glad we went.
The lettuce, arugula and spinach we planted before leaving is all up. The Mache lettuce, that surprised us by coming back after winter, was about ten inches tall when we got back. We were only gone twelve days! I picked a huge bag for the next few dinners and we brought our pepper plants home from our neighbors where they were sitting in the window while we were gone.
There is a reason Ed Ruscha photographed Every Building on the Sunset Strip in 1966. It was already an iconic slice of California fantasy. Our Uber driver was just finishing his shift this morning as we spotted one attraction after the other. He told us “the billboards (mostly promoting shows we’ve never heard of) really pop at night.” He dropped us off at Ameba a half hour before they opened so we walked the star-studded sidewalks on Hollywood Boulevard and found a coffee shop next to yet another Scientology building. Kim Carnes’ “Betty Davis Eyes” was playing on the sound system.
Gene Autry has more than one star on the sidewalk. The store was mobbed by the time we got back there. Peggi and I found two boxes of used jazz 45s and each went through a box. I found it interesting that the smaller San Francisco store had about three times as many. The clerk, who had family in Rochester, told us they had a listening station up until Covid and they never brought it back so we bought a short stack on good faith.
Peggi’s sister made reservations at the Getty and we drove over there in the afternoon. We started with the Gustave Caillebotte show, mostly stunning, large Impressionist paintings of his friends with a few awkward clunkers. And then the three Rembrandt’s in the permanent collection that are seared in my memory from previous visits. I find it especially reassuring that Rembrandt is still laughing in this 1628 self-portrait. Only he has/had the ability to capture a human being for all time.
Alice Coltrane “Monument Eternal” at Hammer Museum Los Angeles
We only had three things on our LA to do list. “Monument Eternal” at Hammer Museum was at the top. The show is devoted to Alice Coltrane, who, imho, more than filled the shoes of her husband when he died so young. With four children, she mastered the harp and made some of the most beautiful music of the twentieth century.
A short documentary, made for National Education Television’s Black Journal, was my favorite part of the show. We get to hear Alice, in her own voice, describing how she chose to carry on after her John’s death, how John was a part of her and she, a part of him, both musically and spiritually. Case closed. She is a saint. I found the documentary on Criterion when got back.
Henri Matisse “Bas Relief” 1909 – 1930 in UCLA Sculpture Garden
We had lunch in dreamy Westwood, shopped at the open air market for fresh fruit, and then walked around UCLA’s sculpture garden which just about has one of everything (except Gaston LaChaise). I was struck by how the California light made Matisse’s four back sculptures look even better than they do in MOMA’s garden.
On the way back to Peggi’s sister’s we listened to “Alice Coltrane’s “Journey in Satchidananda” while Peggi made a movie of the neighborhood.
Why are the galleries so spread out in Los Angeles? Why is everything so spread out here? You can’t miss with Hauser Wirth so we started there. Representing legends like Chillida, Guston, Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse and living artists like Henry Taylor, even their book stores are worth (wirth) fighting the traffic for. They have galleries all over the world now and each is an experience.
In LA there were three valet parking attendants manning a curbside stand in front of the former Globe Mill complex. We found street parking and went inside to the big, open air courtyard. Birds were singing above us as we chatted with the gardener while he trimmed an arugula patch. He told us they grow the greens for their restaurant, Manuela’s, which was just behind us.
British artist George Rouy was showing new work in the front gallery. His paintings remind me of a watery Francis Bacon, nowhere near as sculptural, but almost as intriguing. He clusters figures that appear engaged or entwined with one another but you can’t quite make out what they are up to. And their bodies are not fully shown.
In the rear galley space we found David Hammons’ installation, “Concerto in Black and Blue,” big empty, unlit rooms that we explored with tiny blue flashlights. It was a bit like the tunnel at a carnival. The shadows were interesting and there was just enough visual information to find the exits of each room. Maybe if there were more people and an dj inside (like the video) it would have been more engaging.
Their website says Manuela’s “is illuminated and animated by specially commissioned works from artists Paul McCarthy, Mark Bradford and Raymond Pettibon.” We missed those but found a mural by Mary Heilmann and we had lunch while sitting under a beautiful Henry Taylor painting. On the way out we asked if there were other galleries nearby and they told us the next few were about a mile away.
Was it Waiahole that means, “to nourish with food, to nourish with love.” I’ve already forgotten. In two and half years Matthew has absorbed enough of Hawaiian culture, the history, the customs, and even bits of the native tongue, to be the perfect guide. And without exception the locals were disarmingly warm and friendly. Aloha is real.
We walked through the Royal Hawaiian, now surrounded by high rises, and out to the ocean. We took a group photo in front of the Don Hoh statue. Peggi sang “Hookilah” for us, one of her mom’s favorite songs. For my birthday we had oysters and French fries in the Sky Bar at sunset. Well, Matthew had the oysters. Peggi and I were a little squeamish.
In the morning, after coffee at Duke’s Place, Peggi and I walked along the canal that cuts through Waikiki. We walked one way the the first day and the other the next, covering the length and seeing quite a bit of the beautiful city.
Ala Wai Canal
We drove along the coast to the windward side of the island where we played in the surf, probably got too much sun, ate avocado sandwiches and drank lime seltzer. The following day we drove over the mountains and through a tunnel to the other side. Here in an isolated cove we sat under a rainbow umbrella, ate ahi poke and pickled onions that we purchased from a nearby shop. I bought a truckers hat in pink and orange that reads “Lei’d.” Peggi was telling Matthew and Louise about the snorkling sunburn I got in Cartagena. I tried to call up the photo but discovered we were off grid.
After dinner on our last night the four of us had a drink at the outdoor lounge in our hotel’s courtyard. The bartender recommended a local rum, something that tasted like scotch. We hatched a plan for the next visit. We’ll stay at Louise and Matthew’s place and they will stay at our place, the White Sands Hotel, a block away.
In our approach to HNL, the pilot, a proud native judging by his accent, pointed out “the tallest mountain in the world if measured from the ocean floor.” I was thinking that puts a new spin on how we measure things. It felt right flying United, the airline featured in nearly every episode of the original Hawaii Five-0. Matthew and Louise picked us up at the airport and just minutes later we were looking at the steps of the former palace that Steve McGarrett charged down in the dynamic opening of that show.
In Honolulu it feels like we’re halfway in an Asian country, Asians and Asian culture is everywhere, lots of exotic birds and flowers for iNaturist to figure out. We had dinner at a Japanese restaurant, ate seaweed and chatted the night away.
We went to the windward side of the island in the morning. Hang gliders floated above us as we and the surfers played in the turquoise water. I taught Louise “the dead man’s float.” She wasn’t convincing though. Peggi was worried the lifeguard would be alarmed but it felt so good getting thrown around by the waves.
Back in the condo the four of us watched Barcelona beat Real Madrid 3-2 in the last minute of overtime in the Copa del Rey.
Psychedelia is in the air on the Mill Valley-Sausalito Pathway, our main line between Rich and Andrea’s place and our hotel room, Good Earth Natural Foods and Blithedale Avenue in the other direction. Black-necked stilts, snowy egrets, Pride of Madeira and wildflowers line the low lying waterways. And then under the 101 (above!)
I wore my Trout Mask Replica shirt to the exercise room this morning. I’ve found CNBC to be a good workout partner, equal parts interesting and annoying enough to move the routine along. Rich, Andrea, Peggi and I all bought t-shirts at Ameba. Rich’s Motörhead shirt looked so good on him and Andrea looked perfectly at home in Lou Reed’s Transformer motif. Peggi found a “Love Will Tear Us Apart” shirt that makes her look like she’s in the clouds.
Just putting my shirt on brought most of “When Big Joan Sets Up” to mind.
”I’ll sit up with you Big Joan I’m too fat to go out in the daytime I’ll stay up all night If you promise not to talk about your hands bein’ too small”
Rich has a new band, a three piece, and the drummer left her kit at Rich’s so I had a chance to check it out. Made by Alesis, each piece is a black plastic disc wired to a module and a small amp. I couldn’t get much out of the hi-hat and ride but the crash sounded great and the drums sounded so melodic it was scary. It made me want to play like Sly Dunbar. Rich played a variety of instruments and with his e-sax we got into a snake-charm thing that I could see working as a subway act. That ambience when the car doors open and you hear music but you don’t know where it’s coming from.
It felt like the Waymo car saw the four of us standing there. No need to flag it down. There was no one behind the wheel when we unlocked the doors with our app. It was exhilarating watching it stop at red lights, turn ever so carefully, even slow appropriately for the speed bumps. And when the thrill wears off you are free to play with your iPad, stare out the window, even space out if you like. I am so ready for self driving cars.
Atletico Madrid vs Alaves at Metropolitan in Madrid 2023
I took this photo at the Metropolitano in 2023. That’s Morata coming off. He doesn’t even play for Atletico now. Cholo, on the edge of the box in black, is still there though. And I think Atletico is still our favorite team. Barcelona has just been magical for the most part and it is hard to compete with that. They play dangerously with a high line, they start youngsters, and they thread the ball from the back with ease. They deserve to be in first place.
All three of our favorite teams have lost some big games recently and a funny thing has happened. We don’t mind rooting against any of them if their opponent is playing better. Celta Vigo‘s Borja Iglesias scored a hat trick against Barca! We were pulling for them but quickly changed sides when Barca came back. Las Palmas avoided relegation by defeating Atletico. Good for them! And Athletic Club held Real Madrid to a 0-0 draw until Federico Valverde scored in stoppage! It is like we are rooting for the game now.
We watch a match a day or so late on ESPN or Paramount and when we are all caught up I check the standings online and search for the upcoming matches so we can take them down in order and and not spoil a result. The three teams are (or were) all in La Liga, the Champions League and the Copa del Rey so I’ve been in the habit of searching for “upcoming matches Atletico Madrid,” “upcoming matches Real Madrid” and “upcoming matches Barcelona” to round them all up. It occurred to me that this task, which takes me about twenty minutes could easily be handled by AI.
At R and A’s place yesterday Rich did exactly that in his version of Chat GPT. He generated a chronological list of the upcoming matches of all three teams in all three leagues in seconds.
Rooftop of Antoni Gaudi’s “La Pedera” apartment building with Gaudi’s “Segrada de Familia” in the distance 2012
Just yesterday we read that Pope Francis signed a decree recognizing Antoni Gaudí’s “heroic virtues,” putting him on the path to sainthood. Should two people pray to him and have their wishes granted he will be confirmed. Since I don’t believe in miracles (not even yesterday’s big one with the Easter bunny) Gaudi is already a saint in my book. Today we read Max Romeo’s and Pope Francis’s obituaries. First we listened to “Chase The Devil” from “War ina Babylon” and then we looked at the photos we took in Barcelona of Gaudi’s Catalan Modernisme masterpieces.
I gave up on religion a long time ago but I am still drawn to the rituals and I had a soft spot for the Latin American Jesuit, Pope Francis. We loved Wim Wenders Pope Francis movie, “A Man of His Word.” Francis never came clean on sexual abuse in the ranks but he pushed the world toward old school, progressive change. His defense of migrants was a cardinal principle. He called Trump’s bashing of immigrants a “shipwreck of civilization.”
It is fitting that the Pope’s last visitor was J.D. Vance, a recent convert to Catholicism. J.D. has a lot to learn. His interpretation of “Ordo Amoris” (order of love) misses the whole ball of wax. Using the medieval concept to defend deportations J.D. says “You love your family, and then you love your neighbor, and then you love your community, and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country, and then, after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world.”
In response Francis sent a letter to US bishops that read, “Christian love is not a concentric expansion of interests that little by little extend to other persons and groups. The true ordo amoris is open to all, without exception.” Francis for sainthood.
We have only been to Tinseltown twice. Once for “Shine a Light,” the Martin Scorsese movie about The Rolling Stones and on Thursday for Neil Young’s new movie, “Coastal.” If we can believe what Neil says in the movie, these were his first live dates in four years. He has gotten older and he is not afraid to show it. The movie moves at an old man pace. But the songs, all gems, sounded better than ever.
We walked through the park and then along the lake before turning around and coming back the same way. We usually construct some sort of loop but the blossoms were so pretty we need a double dose. The scent of the magnolias is heavenly. Today it was mixed with ganja, coming from a parked car.
I constructed playlists of my current favorite 45s (scratchy records) in two streaming services, Apple and Spotify. I subscribe to Apple Music and not to Spotify so there were a few hurdles. I had to download a Spotify desktop app in order to rearrange songs but every time I searched for a song Spotify was there to recommend another song based on patterns from other users likes. I didn’t take advantage of that this time, I was on a mission, but I can see how this would be great for constructing sets on the fly. Apple had every one of the songs I was looking for. Spotify could not come up with a copy of Edith Piaf’s “Sudan One Vallée.”
Click this photo for 45s2go playlist in Apple Music
Sam, who lives down below, told us he bought a book on the history of the Durand Eastman Park. There is section in there that talks about how the area we live in was supposed to have been part of the park but it was sold to developers in 1920’s. He told us he bought the book at the brew pub up on Titus. We made a note to stop by there. He also told us he heard a big tree come down in the woods behind his house. So Peggi and I tucked our pant legs in and walked through the woods to the park today. There were so many big trees down we couldn’t determine which was the new one. The last time we were down here we were on skis. Climbing over the debris I was remembering how effortlessly we moved through the woods on skis.
Out on the golf course we saw they had one of the fairways all torn up. Plastic drain pipes were laying in the bottom of long trenches. One full day of sun and the white magnolias were popping in the arboretum. There was a creepy pick-up parked along Lakeshore with a bumper sticker that read “Gun Control Is Hitting Your Target.” The workers have opened the roads in the park to car traffic. I like it better when they’re closed but it is not my park.
I took my pole saw down to Jedi’s around noon today. He was still in his pjs when I rang the bell. I told him I was going to cut the white plastic bag down that had been trapped in his tree all winter, sometimes billowing at full sail as we walked by. Jedi told me he had tried to get it but he couldn’t reach it. I suspected it bothered us more than it bothered him.
The plastic fitting that allows the pole to extend was locked so Jedi, outdoors in his slippers, hung on to one end while I pulled on the other. Like a tug of war I pulled him into the pachysandra before we got it free. I cut the bag down and went home to fix the pole saw fitting. While I was in the garage Rick stopped by to borrow a wrench. He was getting his his bike ready for spring. I told him I had cut the white bag down that was in Jedi’s tree all winter. He didn’t know what I was talking about.
I didn’t have the right wrench to fix my pole saw either so I went down to Jared’s. He was outside talking to John and I showed them my problem. We went into Jared’s garage where he found a “thin walled” socket that did the trick. I told him I had cut the white bag down from Jedi’s tree and he said he had never noticed it.
Joe Ziolkowski at his photo show at Colleen Buzzard’s Studio
I remember Peggi’s father wore a bright orange hat in retirement. We have friend who wears an orange hat in NYC so we can keep track of him. Joe Ziolkowski’s hat looked particularly striking against his cyanotype cloud photos (we bought one, out of view) in Colleen Buzzard’s Studio.
It is warm and sunny today with clear blue skies. The beach looks nothing like this. This photo was taken yesterday. This creek on the beach is the overflow from Durand Lake (across the road to the right.) It flows into Lake Ontario on the left. Depending on the rainfall, the wind and the roughness of the big lake, this creek is always different. It is constantly rearranging itself and then sometime in the summer it just disappears. When it gets warmer we take ours shoes off but often we just turn around. I was able to get across on the log this time. Peggi decided not to try today.
PBS’s “We Want The Funk” was fantastic. They could have subtitled it “Give It Up for James Brown!” He was rightly featured in a full two thirds of the one and half show.
8-9 PM on Wednesday does not work for us. We’re usually watching soccer. So we catch up with “Magic Records,” our brother-in-law’s’ WAYO show, on Mixcloud. Blondie’s “Dreaming,” June Tyson’s a cappella “Astro Black” and Suicide’s “Rocket USA” sounded better than ever! We tuned in to Kevin Patrick’s WPKN show just in time for a live version of Kraftwerk’s “Radioactivity” and listened all the way up to Dr John’s “Right Place Wrong Time.” Made plans with my neighbor to head leave for the HOG at 8:30 tomorrow for Record Store Day.
I think Margaret Explosion had a pretty good night last night. There were five of us there (last week was a just a trio) and Phil Marshall was in the crowd. The first set was a little messy but things began to gel in the second set. And there was a bunch of young people there who had never seen the band. So good to hear from them after the set. We met Nacelle from self-described krautrrock band Ellaar and streamed some of their songs on the way home. Particularily liked the song called “Kim Gordon.”
I had a short circuit in the first set, started a beat and then stoped before anyone else had come in. Peggi laughed and asked if I was all right. I didn’t like what I was playing so I stopped. Might have been an age related move. We’ll listen to the recording after we walk.
I don’t follow baseball anymore and it is not just because the designated hitter rule. A long time ago I was a rabid fan. Eddie Mathews was my favorite baseball player. That’s not his autograph, it was printed on the card. An antique dealer, who we did some work for, gave me the card. It is so off register it is not worth all that much. Mathews played for the Milwallkee Braves (before they moved to Atlanta.) He batted third and played third base (my position.) I had a hat just like his. It is hard to see but the underside of the brim was a restful green (like the background of the card.) The Braves were my favorite team. They beat the Yankees in the 1957 World Series.
Jason Wilder is working on a baseball project and he sent me an outline so it got me thinking about the game. My mom told me she got Stan Musial’s autograph when he was with the Rochester Red Wings. I thought that was pretty cool. I used to love going to the Wings games. Rather park in the parking lot my father would drive up and down those small streets that run off Norton and pick out a parking spot on someone’s lawn (for a small fee, arranged with the owner.) My father would buy me a scorecard and I’d keep score, working those little diamonds. Mostly, I love the billboards in the outfield, all the local brands, the hole in the sign that paid a bonanza if someone hit a ball in there. I remember my brother getting a hole burnt in his jacket when he leaned back on a guy who was smoking a cigar behind us.
When I was seven or eight an older kid down the street gave me a stack of cards from the fifties. There was a corner store near our house on Humboldt Street called Fessner’s and I bought my first cards there, a nickel for five random cards and a stick of gum. My family moved to Webster when I was ten and I inherited a paper route from a kid who was moving. With all that disposable income my collection grew enormously. So did my tally of cavities.
I was thirteen, at the peak of my buying power, when I lost interest in playing with them. My cards from 1963 remained in mint condition. (I had three of Pete Rose’s rookie cards.) When I moved out my mother said, “Take this shoebox of cards or I’m gonna throw them out.” A few years later I saw a sign for some sort of baseball card convention. I took my shoebox and showed them to a guy who turned out to be my high school math teacher, Mr. Setek. He said, “I will buy these and I will give you a fair price but I can’t do it here. I’ll come to your house.” I can’t remember the total but he gave me enough for us to take a week long trip to Cartagena, Columbia. At the time it was the cheapest tropical destination.
Margaret Explosion at Little Theatre Café 7-9 pm – photo by Jason Wilder
