I think this is a horse Chestnut. I found it in the woods a few days ago and photographed it before putting it on put it on our window sill. Why do artists even bother to compete with nature? This morning while I was making coffee the chestnut rolled out of its shell, off the sill, on to the floor and down the basement steps. Our cat ran after it.
Speaking of explosions, Margaret Explosion plays our last October gig tonight. I’m hoping to be home in time to see the Yankees beat the Phillies.
Dead tree gestures in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, NY
I headed downtown for jury duty this morning with my bike in the car. I wanted to save the parking fees so I left the car at the Village Gate and rode to the Hall of Justice. I couldn’t find a bike rack in vast Public Safety courtyard so I locked it to a picnic table. I joined about two hundred people in a big room and we watched a twenty minute video, narrated by Sixty Minute man, Ed Bradley, on the New York State jury system. He covered a lot of ground from Medieval “Trial by Ordeal” to Perry Mason. About seventy of us were assigned to a judge’s courtroom on another floor so we marched up there and they began the jury selection process.
They called fourteen people at a time and sat them in the jury booth. The public defender described this phase as being like “speed dating”. The people’s attorney asked potential jurors questions like, “Do you think CSI and Law & Order are real or scripted?” “Do you realize that I am not an actor and that there are no extras in this courtroom?” “Do you realize that this is real and not scripted?” One guy said his father was a cop and he would be biased. He was excused. A woman said her hobby was gambling and she was not chosen. My hobby is painting crime faces from the newspaper but I haven’t been interviewed yet. Four jurors were selected by the time we broke for lunch. I rode my bike over to Rochester Art Supply to buy some white paint.
It is becoming clear that I am not jury material. I don’t know why exactly. It is just a hunch. I am a victim of a crime (several), have been accused of a crime, have a few lawyers in my family and I worked for the police department. I don’t know what way any of these factors slant but they seem to be looking for blank slates. By the end of the day they were still one short for a jury so they recessed until tomorrow.
I wonder if I was the only one who fell for the Webster Dental Group’s ad blitz. Their “Free Seminar on Dental Implants” ad ran nearly everyday and I heard a radio spot as well. I have two back teeth that need to come out so I called the number and made a reservation. The receptionist said there would be free refreshments there too. I was picturing sweet stuff. I dropped Peggi off at her mom’s and drove across East Rochester and out Five Mile Line Road to Webster in the middle of rush hour to get to the seminar. It took me a half hour to get across town. I forgot my iPod so I fiddled with the radio and came across an interesting segment on spanking children. It was a Christian program and a woman was giving tips to the host. The host delighted in this subject and kept snickering when the woman described graduating from the bare hand (when becomes clear that it is not inflicting enough pain) to the wooden spoon (she keeps a few hidden about the house). And talked about a friend who had a “special, ten inch leather strap” made for herb that “really cracks”. She said, “Of course after we spank, we pray together and we tell the children that someday we hope they will learn to accept Christ as their savior.”
I finally got to the Holiday Inn in Webster and there was a small sign on an easel in the doorway announcing the seminar. I asked the receptionist where it was being held and she said that it was cancelled. I asked how come and said that was all they told her. They could have called me, the creeps. Guess I can forget about that place.
I drove back to Peggi’s mom’s place and found them having dinner in the Bistro. Lorraine from my painting class was there with her relatives. We watched the Yankees’ game after dinner and kept her mom up til the bitter end.
We came across this wounded hawk in the woods today. We were concerned because it was so close but as walked further it flew overhead.
Just the like the chipmunks we gathered the Fall’s bounty for the upcoming winter. We pulled carrots and we promised our neighbor, Leo, that we would make him some carrot juice. He recently had his palette removed and he’s on a liquid diet. We dug up potatoes. We picked the last of the acorn squash. We rounded up the green tomatoes and put them in a paper bag. Our tomatoes had the blight so we pulled the plants out by the roots and put them in the trash. We picked a few heads of purple cabbage and the last of our jalapeño peppers. Peggi already canned seven quarts of jalapeños so we might try freezing these like Tom Kohn does.
And we have our eye on one the pumpkins that Monica grew in the garden. It’s a good size but still dark green. We wore ourselves out putting the garden to bed. I might need an expresso in order to get through tonight’s Margaret Explosion gig.
I picked up a few more leaves in the woods and put them on my scanner
Peggi and I finished up the InDesign files for a live Margaret Explosion cd. I used the “Custom Quote” feature at Discmakers and found that 300 copies of their digipaks were almost as much as 1000. And 500 actually cost more than 1000 because there is a “$200 off special” on the 1000 quantity. So much for a limited edition. Unlike most live cds this one is all new, spontaneously composed, material.
I dropped a painting off at the MAG for an upcoming show in the Creative Workshop gallery and then stopped at Sparky‘s house to say hi but he wasn’t home. I headed over to Sound Source to buy a used turntable. They had quite a few pick from. I chose a used, dj style, Stanton. You have to pick the arm up and drop the needle and when the record gets to the end the tone arm just sits in that rut but it does start on a dime if you want to cue up a tune. The speed is adjustable and it even runs in reverse. Peggi’s mom came over for dinner and the first record we played was Nino Rota’s sound track to Fellini’s “Amacord”. Peggi’s mom loved it.
Talked to Duane tonight. He had a fifteen minute eye operation in NYC and his doctor gave him some Suicide style dark glasses and arranged for a driver to take him back to Brooklyn in the back seat of a Lincoln.
I picked up a few leaves in the woods and put them on my scanner
We went to the Hall of Justice by mistake and got caught up in all the wild press coverage of Greece Police Chief Merritt Rahn’s trial. By the time we got over to City Court the Bulldozer Man had pleaded not guilty and a trial date was set for October 21 at 9:30. We watched about an hour’s worth of young black men as they were arraigned by Judge Elliot. All had public defenders. And then one white shaved head guy in a suit appeared before the Judge with his lawyer. He was looking for some sort of hardship ruling that would let him drive his daughter to daycare even though his license had been revoked for drunk driving. Judge Elliot was very entertaining and he knew it. How else could he get through this endless parade. You could probably stop and and watch any day in you’re downtown.
Rob Storms will be showing his movies of this year’s Burning Man Festival tonight at the Little Theater Café. Margaret Explosion will provide the soundtrack. Big thanks to Marc at Hamilton AV for providing the projector and screen. You won’t believe your eyes or your ears! Hope to see you out.
Our neighbor on one side is digging a drainage ditch for the rain run off that rolls down our street. He call’s this set up his poor man’s transit. With the aid of the level he sited the posts that describe the outside perimeter of the pond and plans to grade the basin and build up a berm on the downhill side.
Our neighbor on the other side has a “Senior for Seniors” dog that he got from Lollipop Farm. The dog is twelve years old and who knows what kind of a past it has had. We were walking across his yard the other day, talking and not really paying attention, when the dog darted at us from rear. It grabbed a hold of my rear end and had it’s mouth opened too wide to really chomp down. I could hardly shake it loose and when I did it ripped my Tommy Hilfiker sweat shirt with its teeth. The shirt is a hand me down from Peggi’s father and only has sentimental value at this point. When I got home I found teeth marks in my ass.
I have been on a winning streak in horseshoes for about the last month. My friend and neighbor, Rick, has challenged me to more games than ever in this period and for some reason I keep beating him. In the dentist office I have been on a losing streak. The English are supposed to have bad teeth but the Irish must have worse. My whole family is cursed.
The picture above shows the last four teeth on the top left side of my mouth. I had a root canal on number one about two years ago. That tooth is a wisdom tooth and the roots were goofy so he could not complete the job. Since it didn’t hurt after the first stage of the root canal my regular dentist decided to fill it and see how long it lasts. Tooth number two started acting up this summer but my dentist could not find the cavity. I went back last week and he still couldn’t find it so he sent me for a root canal. That guy found decay in my root and said, “I can’t complete the root canal. One and two should be pulled and I would recommend an implant where one is and another one where tooth number three is. And then a bridge that runs from tooth number one to three.”
I started asking around about implants. Jeffery had nerve damage in his cheek as a result. Shelley described the sensation of a dentist pounding an implant in to her bone with a hammer. Jeff said his jaw was broken. Steve said they had to do a done graft with material from cadavers. Margie talked about sinus lifts. It is surprising how many people have these things but I can hardly sleep at night. I’m considering something you snap in instead.
Rich sent me (via YouSendIt) a 70 meg movie of his root canal. I love that.
It’s vinyl only in Rick and Monica’s basement and last night it was “Doug Sahm and Band”, Tim Buckley’s “Lorca” and Procol Harem’s “Shine On Brightly”. Rick and Monica had friends over for dinner and and one of the guests was Tom Kohn from the Bop Shop so the party naturally gravitated toward the vinyl. We had eaten dinner with Pete and Shelley out on our deck and we were sort of winding down when Rick called to invite us over for some late night pool. So we merged parties.
Rick regularly rotates the album covers in the 12′ x 12″ pictures frames on the wall down there. Personal Effects’ “This Is It” cover was in one of the featured spots. But my favorite picture on the wall is the print of Van Gogh’s “The Pool Players” that hangs behind the pool table. This short movie takes you inside that painting.
The other night around 12:30 we heard coyotes howling as we lay in bed. At first it sounded like a pack of dogs fighting but then there were a few cat like shrieks. It was a violent encounter and it lasted for about ten minutes. We have since talked to our neighbors about this and they all heard it. It was a full moon that night.
Earlier this year we came across a pile of deer hair mixed with blood and big patches of skin while walking in the woods. We found a deer leg on our property a few months ago too. I put it in a plastic bag and stuck it in the trash. And we saw a coyote scoot across an opening in Durand Eastman while we were hiking so we knew they are out there. We came across a bunch of turkeys yesterday and we snuck up on them to watch as they pecked at the ground. They are bigger than coyotes but are probably game as well.
Our 92 year old neighbor is a little harder to understand since they cut out his mouth cancer but we could understand him clearly when he asked his daughter-in-law for porridge. He even spelled out the word for us. It’s just that none of us could picture what it is. I was thinking of Hansel and Gretel and wondering if he was thinking of something his mom made for him in the old country. His daughter-in-law said she “saw oatmeal, Cream of Wheat and Maypo but Wegmans does not carry porridge.”
“My boarding house”, as my mother-in-law calls her senior living facility in Rochester, has one of the best restaurants in town. We ate at “Le Petite Bistro” tonight where I ordered the mussels with Calamata olives in a delicious garlic broth as my appetizer. It was out of this world or at least European. I overheard this guy at another table talking about Sister Bridget and looked over and thought this must be a different Sister Bridget than the one I had in first grade at St. John the Evangelist on Humboldt Road in the city. This guy looked so old. But the woman he was talking to said something about the Sisters of Mercy so I figured it could be the same one. I remember her as being so comfortable. That’s a pretty vague description but it was an important quality for me at that age. i stood up and asked if this could possibly be the same Sister Bridget and they confirmed that she had taught there.
My second grade teacher was a miserable nun and maybe that’s why I remember Sister Bridget so fondly. I remember that one asking for a show of hands on who still believed in Santa Claus. And then there was an endless parade of kooks who told tall tales with twisted moral underpinnings and seemed to delight in torturing the kids that called her bluff. But I still feel that this Catholic education had its merits. And for me they are best expressed in Buñuel and Felini movies.
We watched “The Reader” last night and I couldn’t figure out the guy. I understood him as a boy getting it on with the woman and I dug the woman but I never could figure out the guy as a man. What was his problem? I really dug the woman’s prison room too. It was so cozy. I completely understood her not wanting to leave it. It was smaller than my dorm room in Shea Hall at Indiana University but it was all her own. As a freshman in college I had the room to myself for three days before the other guy whose name was on the door with mine showed up. I had already called home and told my parents that I thought I had an Asian roommate based on his name, “Hoy”, but when Steve pulled up in a Baracuda and asked for help unloading the stereo equipment I knew I was not going to be able to control my situation.
I was determined to turn over a new leaf in college. I was going to study and read my assignments instead of coasting like I did all through high school. But I could not resist Steve’s “Led Led Zeppelin”, “Paul Butterfield” and “Cream” eight tracks. Steve wasn’t Asian at all but 100% Hoosier and he was damn good at coasting so there went my plans. I was thinking of Steve tonight when I mopped up the garlic broth from my mussels. Peggi saw me and asked, “what was that phrase that Steve had for cleaning your plate with your bread? That would be “walloping your dodger.”
I think we might have been set up by some kid for this one. We were headed over to Spring Valley to to forge our way though the overgrown woods when we came across thing. Peggi and I both thought it was real for a few seconds and then we quickly realized we were in New York.
Peggi had an assignment tonight to video Annie Wells with Phil Marshall and her NYC drummer so we raced over to the Little Cafe and plugged in. Mick Sarubbi was there with his recording rig and he slipped me a copy of Jenna & The Horse Lovers’ set from last weekend. (I gotta get the story on that name. I get the Jenna part.)
What a pleasant assignment. Annie sounded great. She did a Laura Nyro song for Peggi and a beautiful version of Dave Ripton’s “Heroin & People”. Jack Schaefer was there with his son and we smiled at each other when the song started. Jack and I both played that song with the Ripton band many years ago. Annie’s song to Edith Piaf, “Little Sparrow”, sounded great even without Ed Maris’s accordion. Peggi complained that my tripod was acting sticky when she panned. We’ll probably post one one the videos to Annie’s site.
We have had so much rain around here this summer that people are comparing our weather to Oregon or Washington State. The ponds in Durand look like pea soup and we keep spotting green on the walls of the street pool even though the chlorine level reads right. I’m not complaining. I could care less about the weather. Our tomatoes are doing great.
I looked at the pictures in “Wolf Kahn’s America” for about four weeks and then continued reading the book. He is as fluid and colorful a writer as he is a painter. In fact John Updike wrote the Introduction and I kept stumbling over that. This quote struck me. “A subject is worth painting only when it transcends the everyday and gets to represent an over-arching insight. This insight only reveals itself in the course of work.” I kept wrestling with it because I am so drawn to the everyday.
Brian Williams, John Mooney and Joe Beard performing live in a backyard in Brighton
John Mooney (center, above) used to be pretty big around here. He left home at 15 and began playing with Joe Beard (right, above). Joe introduced John to Son House, who lived in Rochester for many years, and John still shows that influence. He moved to New Orleans in 1976 and played regularly with Earl King, The Meters and Professor Longhair.
The John Mooney Trio from the Rochester days reunited over the weekend for a City gig and a warmup backyard barbecue gig at a home in Brighton. Brian Williams (on the left, above) played bass in that trio along with Bob Cooper on keyboards. Peggi bought her red Farfisa organ from Bob Cooper back in the late seventies. Brian invited us to the party. The Blues book was written a long time ago but it always sounds great when in good hands.
We took a walk up to the lake today and watched the sail surfers darting back and forth. We cut back through the park and visually eavesdropped on the various subcultures of picnickers. We watched a City cop tell an ice cream vendor he couldn’t sell in the park. We came across a park patrol woman and told her we had seen a guy on one of the trails digging up plants and putting them in a five gallon bucket. She told us, “There’s a lot of people doin’ what they shouldn’t be doin’ today”.
Back when we were moving out this way we stopped in Vic & Irv’s for dinner and ran into the then town supervisor, David Schantz. Not that we would have recognized him or anything. He just came up to us, introduced himself and started talking like a politician. He looked out over Irondequoit Bay and described his dream of turning this funky little area called Point Pleasant or Sea Breeze into Niagara on the Lake complete with hotels and a boardwalk. It sounded like a nightmare to us.
Well, a small part of that plan is taking shape this summer as construction crews are turning the 590 North expressway (that used to dead end at Marge’s) into a one lane in each direction street with bike/walking paths and wooden fences lining both sides. To slow the traffic down they are putting four traffic circles in between Titus and the lake. And when the road gets near the lake it will go straight right through the old drive-in on the west side of Bill Greys. When they fill in the old road there will be a small park overlooking the bay right where David Schantz was looking.
We decided to ride our bike over there yesterday to get a closer look. We were cutting through the park when it started raining so we ducked into the woods and waited it out. When we came out the sun was shining and the park road was steaming.
We haven’t quite figured out this holiday. We worked Friday but the library and the stock market were closed. Lowel gave Duane Sherwood both Friday and Monday off. We worked Saturday too but that was mostly rewiring our house to get our new two line phone working. We never did find our cordless phone. Best guess is that we put it on the car while we were working in the yard and then Peggi drove out to her mom’s apartment with the phone on the hood of the car. This new one has an answering machine for both lines and one cordless phone in addition to the wired one. Anyway, we’re thinking about taking Monday off.
We already celebrated the fourth and the third with fireworks. Hard to say whether the folks along Conesus Lake or those on Edgemere Drive on Lake Ontario do a better job of blowing up the lake. Peggi’s mom was kind of bummed that we didn’t celebrate the fourth with her. Ironically, we are always waiting for things to slow down while she wishes there was more going on. Guess we didn’t have to go to two fireworks parties.
Peggi bought some beautiful handmade glass earrings from Lucinda Storms last night. Lucinda was having a trunk sale in the gift shop at the Memorial Art Gallery. I have a hard time appreciating jewelry because I don’t wear it so I spent most of my time looking at two of her fascinating sketchbooks. She will be there on Saturday from 10AM til 4.
We have some of our garden on our neighbor’s property down the hill. We try to visit it once a day to water and combat weeds. Yesterday we sprinkled a little organic fertilizer around the pepper plants because the leaves were a little yellow instead of dark green indicating a lack of nitrogen. And we have surrounded each tomato plant with fencing in an effort to keep the ground hogs out. They already picked a row of lettuce clean.
Our neighbor tried a few smoke bombs in their holes but they survived. He spotted one sticking his head out of a hole so he backed his tractor up to the hole and ran parked his tractor up to the hole and connected a piece of hose to the tailpipe and shoved the hose down in the hole. But the next day the ground hog was back.
He set a Haveaheart trap for the guy but the bait wilted and was not much of a temptation. So the next time he spotted the groundhog go in one of the holes he placed a live, potted lettuce plant in the trap and positioned the trap next to the hole. It worked. The town came to pick up the trap and they said they would free the ground hog over by the bay and bring the empty trap back.
Every year I write Ornette Coleman’s name in that line on the Harris Jazz Fest survey where they ask you who you would like to see at next year’s fest. Nobody pays any attention. Or how about Joe McPhee, Ken Vandermark, Hamid Drake or Pharoah Sanders and Yusef Latef and Archie Shepp before they die.
Ornette the cat will take his last trip to the vet tomorrow morning. We would have taken him out there this morning but Barry Brown was off. Ornette stopped eating today so we get the message. He is outside as I write this, sitting in the garden. He is one cool cat and we are going to miss him a lot.
Cashing in our government issued digital TV coupon at Target
One day ahead of the June 12 cutoff we cashed in our $40 government coupon on a digital converter for our Samsung TV. We don’t have cable tv and hardly watch it at all but there might be another slow speed chase someday. We let our first coupon expire so we were determined to cash this one in before the deadline. We started at Sears but they were sold out so we went next door to Target and picked up a converter for five bucks above the value of the coupon plus an amplified antenna. We should now be able to get the networks and four PBS stations in high def, 16 x 9 aspect ratio off the air for free. I don’t imagine this will last forever. I’d be happy if I could just sit down and watch The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet of Jack Benny or Huckleberry Hound but I know that won’t happen.
Did anybody see my parents in the back page of the B section this morning? My sister took out an ad with a picture of them in the back seat of a car on their wedding day 60 years ago. If you see Mary and Leo wish them a Happy Anniversary.
Ever had a pet that you cared so much for that you didn’t even want to take a vacation?. Ornette, who seemed like a kitten for twelve years, is still alive but now appears like a ghost of himself. He might weigh four or five pounds tops and does not seem too happy. He ignores squirrels and chipmunks and just sits in the sun like an old man or he hides in the bushes because he realizes his defenses are down, way down. If he looked like he was in excruciating pain we would take him out to Dr. Barry Brown for his last shot but he is not there yet. He still digs fresh catnip from our garden and I love turning him on.
We ran into Martin Edic at a “social networking event” (cocktail hour) at Label 7 in Pittsford. We were there for dinner with Peggi’s mom. I had a delicious salad with spinach, grilled onions and vinaigrette andsome spicey tortilla soup. Peggi’s mom has her lobster pjs on now and I can’t wait to get home to Ornette.
Ornette does not look too happy. This is obvious and it makes us unhappy. He has always been a raucous rebel rouser. He started losing weight so we took him to the vet but without a battery of tests the checkup was inconclusive and the likely problems would all require invasive costly procedures. He just had his twelfth birthday and it’s the end of the line for this little guy.
He used to demand to go out in the morning and I’d watch him march across the street to make his rounds. Now he sits in the sun rather than relentlessly tracking down anything that moves. His left eye is clouding up and he has new spots on his nose. He’s all bones and getting wobbly, a long ways from his cocky sway. We used to have a hell of a time getting him in at night but now I just walk out to his favorite spot and pick him up. Yet he still purrs when I sling him over my shoulder.
Our ninety year old next door neighbor told us he was just waiting to join his wife who died about five years ago. He says he doesn’t understand why he’s still here. A former dentist, he showed me his two front teeth. He had just glued them together with Ducco cement. I was trying to imagine what the fumes were like. They were stuck together all right but he could wiggle them both in unison.
