Category: Lopsided Observations

My computer time for the last two days has been devoted to feeding the beast of Facebook. I went to the Personal Effects Facebook page for some reason and discovered a broken link to the real Personal Effects website, not a broken one but one that never would have worked. And I had just come across about a hundred scans of Polaroids from the eighties, ones that I originally submitted to the Scorgie’s web site when we did that reunion. That site went down so I posted the Polaroids to Facebook, the perfect depository for such artifacts.

I took the one at top just as we were about to take the stage at the Peppermint Lounge in 1983. We played that place a few times but this was the first time, in their old location, and it was on Bernie’s birthday. Bernie had Tony Levin’s number in New York and he invited him to the gig. He was right down front when we played. He told us he “liked the act.” Bernie is wearing my shirt in this photo. We used to trade clothing because we were the same “build” as they say.

View more Polaroids from this time period.

We are working on this concept and we need a little help to pull it off.

Leslie Peterson, a Utah artist who took her first art class three years ago, painted all 34 wives of the Mormon founder, Joseph Smith as part of her “Forgotten Wives Project.” It is presumed that each of these 34 women married him because they felt they were doing the Lord’s will. I think some priests mined that same territory. Working from photos and imagination Peterson gives shape to these women and tells a big story.

Louise Wareham Leonard’s book, “52 Men” succinctly details her relationships with a larger number. Of course some of these are closer to encounters but who’s counting? The stories unfold crisply in fast motion and move in surprising directions. They are tragic and often funny. They add up in mysterious ways.

In Number 26 John’s second wife, who he describes as a performance artist, sends him videos of herself dancing naked in a giant barn. The book’s lead character sees the video and tells John, “That’s not performance art. That’s her sending videos of herself naked and talking to you.”

Part 2 of “52 Men” provides some context to the mystery but it may never be solved.

When a hawk flies low over your head it gets your attention. When one flies overhead with a whole squirrel in it’s mouth it is startling.

Someone has been eating the jalepeños in the garden. First it was just the fruit and then it was whole plants. Red peppers were missing too and yesterday every last eggplant was gone. We had been baiting our Hav-a-heart trap with apple pieces and the chipmunks were getting them. Even if they set the trap off they are small enough to escape. We had trouble earlier this year with our cilantro. We got lucky last night and we caught the varmint, a docile woodchuck. I felt sorry for him. Animal control came and took him away. I hope he’s happy where ever it is that they dropped him off.

It strikes me that these two vignettes are the well that “Big Ditch” goes to for their material. “Dry Cow Blues,” “Chicken Legs,” “Crooked Creek,” “Stump Grinder,” “Log Jam,” and “Cold, Cold Ground.” They launched a fantastic new cd on Saturday night at the Firehouse Saloon. This place looks like a sports bar from the road but the back room is a pretty damn good facsimile of a rock n’ roll club. Big Ditch sounded great in here. I recorded my favorite song.

It takes us twenty-five minutes to walk to the lake but on hot days we can hear the cigarette boats on the lake from our house. Those things are loud, even at slow speed. We rode bikes down to the bay outlet this morning and watched the boats go in and out of the channel. I never noticed that boats have the steering wheel on the right side. Were they a British invention?

We’re taking care of two cats on our street. Well, three, counting our own, and they are all in different houses. A couple of neighbors are away while we take our summer vacation here. Rick called me from Maine this morning to say he had bought some bait – worms and crabs – that he was going to bring with him but he left them in his refrigerator. He suggested we dump the crabs in the creek when we take our walk. I put them in my bike basket and we gave them to a couple of fisherman down at the bay. They looked like members of ZZ top and were very appreciative.

We watched the US Women’s soccer team play their first game since the World Cup. Heather O’Reilly scored a fantastic goal in the fourth minute and picked up another later in the game. The coach has to narrow the roster to 18 for the Olympics and we’re pulling for Heather.

Summertime and the living’ is hectic. There were only three people in Jeffrey’s outdoor, 9:30am, all levels, $15, hour and half, yoga class this morning at the Rochester Yacht Club. Almost like being one of his “clients.” That’s what he calls students when they meet one on one with him. There is just so much stuff going on in the summer months here, every fair weather activity packed into a small window. This is why we welcome winter. We’re just worn out and we need a little space to get some work done.

After class we are in the habit of picking up a medium-sized iced Latte from Sips in Stutson Plaza or whatever they call that place these days. But today we put that off and crossed the river to check out the “Lake Guardian,” a big Environmental Protection Agency ship that was docked at Charlotte pier. Of course we had to walk over to the hundred year old merry-go-round to check out the controversial racist art. And we walked along the beach, which was closed, but packed with people playing all sorts of organized sports in the sand. We watched a little bit of men’s and women”s volleyball, women’s pole vaulting and men’s and women’s rugby. There’s some photos of these events on my home page. And of course there’s the big bike race through the streets of downtown Rochester tonight.

Not sure what you call these tie-up posts that are bolted to the round concrete piers in the mouth of the Genesee river. I’m sure there is a nautical term for it but I prefer to see it as an abstract sculpture. The city has turned the former wide-water, turn-around area (for big ships that came off Lake Ontario and into the Port of Rochester) into Turning Point Park. It has been around long enough for some of the boards on the boardwalk to need replacing. We rode our bikes over there today and road along the west bank of the river up to near Holy Sepulchre Cemetery. We ran into an former student of Peggi’s and she proceeded to tell us a story in Spanish about visiting Peru with eleven other girls.” This park is really beautiful. A hidden gem.

We went over there to see if we could see any signs of the National Geographic photographer, David Liittschwager, who is conducting one of his magic cube experiments in conjunction with Seneca Park Zoo and the George Eastman House. We spotted a new ladder and a flag on the other side of the river. Maybe that is where his cubic foot is stationed.

I was saddened to hear that Billy Sherill died. He produced and co-wrote some of my favorite country music, big hits for Tammy Wynette and George Jones, in a lush musical style that became known as “Countrypolitan.”

Speaking of country, our old neighbor, Sparky, stopped by to see us over the weekend. We weren’t home so he left a note instructing us to “have a nice day.” I had been thinking about Sparky because Bob Mahoney just sent us a photo of himself, beaming and standing in front of a life size Sparky painting that I did years ago. It was one in a series that were shown in Godiva’s windows, this one with type on it that read, “Might Just Side The Bastard,” a quote of Sparky’s from a conversation I had with him about his garage. The painting is still hanging in a bar on Monroe Avenue.

“Don’t Touch Me“
“He Stopped Loving Her Today“

My blog was recently overrun with spam. I had over 600 comments in one day, ones that I “mark as spam” to train the server not to accept from that IP address again. There was a hole in my spam plug-in and I couldn’t update it because I was unable to back-up the blog up because I had reached some sort of limit on the server. Well we took care of business today. Peggi updated her site as well and I’m now running the latest WordPress version. Still have the ancient, original, default theme but I am up to date with the software. Like the scene in “Spinal Tap” when David St. Hubbins tunes his guitar, shoves it aside and exclaims, “I’m in.”

My favorite spam comment read, “Go here for the best under eye wrinkles.”

We had my parents over for dinner last night. I cooked out in the rain, pulling that off by keeping the Weber real close to the house. I grilled eggplant from our garden. After dinner we ate ice cream out on the porch and listened to the rain. Our neighbor, Jared, told us today that we had an inch and three quarters of rain.

Our driveway is a little tricky at night so we walked my parents out to their car. It is a new car so it has a camera for seeing behind the car. We watched as my dad tried to clear the windshield and after a few minutes he asked us to get in. We sat in the back and tried to help him with the controls. The air conditioning was on because it was warm, the fan was on full blast and the icon for the windshield was lit up. We tried raising the temperature setting and then lowering it but nothing worked. My father gave the manual to Peggi and she skimmed through it while I went in to get my iPad. We were both scrambling to find a solution while my father was wiping the windshield with the towel. My mother asked if we could give her a ride home and then wondered aloud if their car was running. One twist of the key and the fog cleared in seconds.

I’ve been popping on Apple’s Beats 1 international radio program for a few weeks now. I can usually get a good twenty minutes out of it before that Zane guy plays something unbearably auto-tuned. This Halsey has an anthem on her hands and I heard something by Dr. Dre’s that I really liked but I can’t find my way back to it. After stumbling over the 3 Month free Apple Music come-on I finally pulled the trigger. This afternoon we listened to a playlist of “modern bachata.” It’s a great time to be alive.

We are the new Americana,
High on legal marijuana,
Raised on Biggie and Nirvana,
We are the new Americana.

We rode our bikes over to my parents’ apartment to celebrate my mother’s 88th birthday. We were a little late, as usual, but had to check out this yard sale. These books were displayed on the lawn outside the garage. “Desserts for Diabetics,” “Controlling Your Fat Tooth,” T.D. Jakes “The Lady, Her Lover & the Lord” with the enticing subtitle, “Woman Thou Art Loosed,” “Are You Rapture Ready.”

I know you can’t read the title on the video cassette. It is labeled “Groomadog Videos Inc. Present The Poodles.” In fact there was a scraggly little white dog yapping behind an aluminum screen door. The owner came out of the house and stood behind a table in her garage, one with the most mundane articles imaginable neatly arranged on it. Two blond wigs were perched on styrofoam heads, a 3D picture of Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and dime store frames with the original package pictures under the glass. We were speechless.

I was working on this painting when Fred Lipp died. Is it done? I will never know for sure. Anyone who knew Fred will never forget him. And that is the only consolation we have in his absence. We cling to the concepts he taught us and we won’t let go. In fact, it is our duty to build on those truths through constant questioning.

A “call for art made under Fred’s guidance” has been issued by the Creative Workshop. From their statement: They are looking for artwork made in Creative Workshop classes, individual studios, or at RIT with help from Fred. These artworks will be displayed as we remember a great mentor and exceptional teacher. In his years of teaching, Fred would push his students to make ever better work, an ongoing process. This exhibit will be on view in the Lucy Burne Gallery from Thursday, October 15 – Tuesday, November 10 2015. They also plan to celebrate Fredʼs spirit at a public reception on Thursday October 29, 2015 from 5:30 to 9 pm.

Please direct questions to Rachael Baldanza at 585- 276-8956.

My family, on my father’s side, was in the bootlegging business. Nothing to be ashamed of, the laws changed and they carried on legally. My father’s father, shown above on the right, ran the Munich Restaurant on Chili Avenue near Thurston. His partner must have been of German descent, a good portion of the city was. When World War II broke out though, they quickly changed the name of their place to the the Dodd Miller Tavern.

My grandfather retired the year I was born so I never saw the place. My dad worked there as a kid. The brick building is still there and it’s still a bar. We stopped in there in the early eighties when my brother, Mark, was up from New York. I think it was a black dance club at that time.

We bought our first chiminea, a clay one with sculpted creatures crawling up the side like Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, from Jim at Animas Traders. He used to take two buying trips to Mexico each year and buy directly from the craftspeople and then have a truck deliver it all to his store on Clinton Avenue. Nowadays you can buy a chimenea at Home Depot. That’s where we bought our second one, something made by Hampton Bay. It was a piece of shit. The smoke escaped from all sides making it impossible to sit next to. We sold it or basically gave it away at our garage sale.

A few years ago I photographed this Carl Andre fire brick arrangement at MoMA thinking I had enough fire bricks left over from our fireplace project to make an exact copy, maybe in our back yard. I counted the bricks when I got back home. I didn’t have enough.

Yesterday we headed out to the Garden Factory to see if they had a chimenea that we liked. Our neighbors are always talking about this place. It sounds like a chain but it’s not. They gave us 20% off this floor model because it had some paint chipped off. We burned some sticks tonight to christen it.

We’ve been helping my sister this past week as she moved into a smaller apartment. Some things just had to go but she was able to find a spot for the desk my parents gave her when she turned ten. No idea what happened to the one they gave me but I remember writing a girlfriend’s address on the bottom side of one of the drawers. It was probably handed down to one of my brothers when I left the house. My sister is much more sentimental than I. It would be more accurate to say she is sentimental about more things than I am.

It was such a nice night we decided to drive east along the lake and have dinner at El Rincón in Sodus. We couldn’t do that without stopping at my brother Fran’s place. We never expected to find him home but his truck was in the driveway. We hollered inside and he came out, shaving cream on his face and a towel around his waist and told us he was getting ready for his fortieth reunion.

Between courses at El Rincón I looked up our niece’s address. She had just moved and it turned out she was six minutes away in a two hundred year old farmhouse. We stopped and got a tour while the kids broke open a stuffed animal and scattered lightweight styrofoam kernels all over the house. We never talked about the upcoming family picnic, the one where one party refuses to vaccinate their kids and another won’t bring their kids for fear of what they might be exposed to.

OK, it’s the hottest night of the year. Ninety degrees as I write this. The Western New York Flash who have been playing exceptional well despite their mediocre record, are playing the Portland Thorns tonight. Portland averages 13,000 fans a game. I suspect there will be a lot fewer in the stands tonight but we’ll get to see another batch of World Cup players.

Germany’s amazing Nadine Angerer will be in goal for Portland. Alex Morgan, Rachel Van Hollebeke (née Buehler) and Tobin Heath from the US national team will be playing favor up front for Portland along with Canada’s and maybe the world’s best player, Christine Sinclair. And Columbia’s Lady Andade will be playing forward for the Flash. On Saturday we got close-ups of Carley Lloyd and Megan Klingenberg.

We like to get to the stadium early to see the warm-ups. We stand right behind the U.S. net and watch the players take shots on goal. If only they could shoot as well during regulation time.