We Live Like Kings – Page 11

February 28, 2011August 21, 2019

Outdoor Church

We have enjoyed the best cross country skiing conditions of any year that I can remember and this weekend would been a good one if we had stuck around. We had talked with Jeff Munson about going somewhere out of town to ski this winter and time was running out. We considered Ottawa and Stillwater or Tug HIll and then Peggi found a place online that looked promising. She emailed the address and a women called us back on Thursday afternoon. She was calling from New Jersey but she said a caretaker would open up the cabin up near Indian Lake in the Adirondacks and she asked us to mail her a check, a check that she would not receive until we were back in Rochester. It was all knotty pine and perfect with a big fireplace. No cutesy stuff on wall just a sign that said “No Splitting Wood On The Hearth”. We brought enough food to feed an army. The firewood was plentiful. The rent was cheap. The cell phones wouldn’t work. The woods was sensational.

They had the same snowstorm as we did on Friday but the roads were pretty clear by the time we got going. We skied around a flow on Saturday and ate oranges deep in the woods. More snow on Saturday night freshened up the trails for Sunday and we headed out in the opposite direction.

On the way back we stopped for fuel and I gave Jeff a crisp hundred dollar bill to give to the cashier while I pumped the gas. I pumped twenty nine dollars worth of gas and went in to go to the bathroom. Jeff naturally assumed I was going for my change bit I had one thing on my mind. I found the gas station on a Google map and called the place. The drawer was over seventy dollars but Cassandra told me they couldn’t mail it it. They will hold it for me and I will have drive back to pick it. I asked to speak to her manager and she said Leslie will call me in the morning.

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February 22, 2011August 21, 2019

People Who Do Things

We walked to the library in last weekend’s snow and picked out a double sided dvd (Does anyone get books at the library anymore?)” We curled up last for the double feature.

I certainly admire people who do things.” Bruno said this to Guy as he sat down next to him on the train in Alfred Hitchcock’s 1951 movie, “Stranger On A Train.” Bruno, a mama’s boy, who was wealthy enough to not work hated his father and had hatched a plan to get rid of him. Guy was supposed to be the good guy but in the Hitchcock’s hands Bruno was more likable. Patricia Highsmith (The Talented Mr. Ripley) wrote the novel and she makes a cameo in a record store. Hitchcock’s cameo has him hopping on a train with a stand up bass that is as big as he is. And Hitchcock’s daughter gives an sizzling performance. We watched both the Britsh and the American version last night. The British one supposedly had homosexual overtones that escaped the American style censorship but we didn’t spot the extra footage. Both were amazing.

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February 16, 2011August 21, 2019

Code Of The Great Outdoors

It seems miraculous that the chipmunks are out. We watched them pack their small caves with nuts in the Fall and now they’re out darting around on the piles of snow. We hadn’t seen any deer in weeks and we were speculating that they too were hunkered down in the cold but today we watched a group of eight up move across a hillside. There was a pileated woodpecker up in one of the trees too but we couldn’t spot it. Sounded like a jackhammer. We interrupted a hawk who was devouring this squirrel right in the middle of our path. On the way back the squirrel was gone.

Pete LaBonne has a song called “Code Of The Great Outdoors” with the refrain, “better out, better out, better out than in.” It’s on his “High Time” release, same album as “Punk Rock Dressing Room” and only seven bucks for the download!

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February 15, 2011April 11, 2019

Entering The Kingdom

We approached Pete and Shelley’s mountain kingdom by sea on the Port Henry ferry that is temporarily replacing the Crown Point bridge which is currently being rebuilt. Lake Champlain separates the two states but there is a whole lot more at play. We spent some time looking at the New York mountains from the Vermont side and then the snow capped Vermont peaks from the New York side and we couldn’t quite put our finger on the difference in the two states. It is mostly perception but that is a lot.

There was so much snow up there we kept skiing into three feet of powder and getting so bogged down that we were tempted to take our skis off but we knew full well that would be the last anyone would see of us. We sat around the stove enough to learn what a condition called “Granny’s Tartan” is all about.

We came home without driving on the Northway or the New York State Thruway proving the adage that it is not the destination but the journey. We whizzed by a sign that read “Highway Hair Cuts”, hand painted in all caps. I pictured a brush cut with a flat top.

Rick Simpson played Pete LaBonn e‘s “We Live Like Kings” on his radio show last week. I plan to request it this week.

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December 27, 2010April 11, 2019

Life On Hold

Peggi found these old bubble lights in her mom’s storage locker and of course she inherited them. They take a while to warm up but then “poof”, mini lava lamps.

You can tell you’re old when you get excited about books. The new Keith Richards book, “Life,” will have to wait in line, though, I’m diving into “Philip Guston – Collected Writings, Lectures and Conversations” and Peggi will have to finish her “War of The Worlds” ebook before she takes it on. Our neighbors gave us a copy of the updated “On The Road with the Ramones” and that will sit in the prime spot on our coffee table for a while.

“Let’s Spend The Night Together” came up in our iTunes the other day and we started talking about how great the Stones were on Ed Sullivan doing a different version of that song. And that led to the only time either one of us ever saw the Stone’s. We didn’t know each other but we were both in Chicago in 1969 when they played with Terry Reid and Chuck Berry in a giant auditorium.

In 1969 Philip Guston was preparing for his earthshaking but poorly received show at Marlborough Gallery in New York. It was a magical year.

Listen to Margaret Explosion – 1969

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November 13, 2010August 22, 2019

Naples Ain’t Just Pretty

Front dining room at the Naples Hotel in Naples New York

We were not the first customers at the Naples Hotel. The bar was lively with the after work crowd and one woman was reading and sipping a glass of wine in the front dining room. We had eaten here with Peggi’s parents the summer they rented a place on Canandaigua Lake, the summer it rained every day. As we ordered our food another couple walked in. I never turned around to get a look. I was afraid to because one of them was wheezing loudly and there as a clucking sound at the end of each breadth. We overheard the hostess telling them that her sister was the chef.

Someone has a lent this place a creative touch. It still looks more than a century old but the dark patterned wallpaper is new. I remember German food in here but that’s all gone. The sour dough bread was dense and packed with olives and it came with olive oil and balsamic vinegar for dipping. The salad with craisins and roasted pecans was fresh and delicious. We split a roasted shrimp appetizer (they were calling them tapas) that came with a raspberry chipotle sauce and a Friday Fish Fry but we ordered it broiled. That was our one false move. It came buried in butter. We would have been better off picking the deep fried batter off.

We’re knew we were near High Tor State Forest so we cruised around and found a trail head. A sign near the path read “Public Hunting Grounds” so we turned around. We asked someone who was just strapping on a back pack if we should worry about that and he said gun season was over and it was only bows now. He said we didn’t have to worry about them. They only fall out of trees. We hiked almost straight up to a circular meadow that overlooked something like the gorge at Letchworth, as stunning as the “Grand Canyon of the East” in the next county.

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November 12, 2010August 22, 2019

Pink Haven

The hand written directions to Anne Havens’ cabin in the woods had been in our glove compartment for quite a while. I think Anne jotted them down over the summer when we ran into her at an art opening. They were straightforward and brief but the last detail, where to turn off the Italy Valley road and into the woods, didn’t make any sense. The “Blind Drive” sign that was supposed to be next to an inverted yellow triangle was not there. We drove until the road ended and then turned back to take a guess. We found a pink cottage nestled on a gorgeous marsh and sat down on the Adirondack chairs in the sun. It was so blue the moon and jet trails were the only white in the sky. Shotgun blast ran out from nearby and then echoed for miles around.

This is motorcycle weather, the last hurrah for these guys until April, and heard a bunch of them rumble by. We ate the apples and peanut butter sandwiches we packed at home and then tried to walk around the marsh. We came across a barbed wire fence and decided not to cross it. Everything is posted around here and you never know how serious people are about private property even though it just doesn’t seem possible to own a woods. The deer can run in there but we can’t.

We took a walk down a nearby dirt road but we only got a mile or so away when we were chased back by barking dogs. We’re thinking of heading into Naples tonight to have dinner at the Naples Hotel. I hope we can find our way back here in the dark.

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November 1, 2010May 30, 2014

Hit Me

It was so much fun to watch Texas lose with the Bushes in the best seats. Tim Lincecum is on the mound for SF tonight and I like his haircut. We’ve had to endure some bad commercials though. Are bad commercials more effective than good ones? What is it? I know this much. The World Cup is a lot more exciting than the World Series.

I talked to Anne Havens this morning. She’s been having some computer problems. Anne closes up her studio and heads south for the winter pretty soon. She likes the sunshine. I don’t mind the sunshine but I can only handle so much heat. It takes the life out of me or it takes the edge off at least. We’re supposed to have our first frost tonight and I love it when the house gets cool. Perfect weather for art.

I’ve not had any time for art the last few months but I do manage to get to painting class each week. I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to spend time with Fred Lipp and I’ve learned that I don’t have to bring in a pile of work to have an insightful conversation with him. I can just start working on something in class and Fred is off. In fact, the more on the line I am, the more cutting, right on and helpful the critique is.

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August 23, 2010August 22, 2019

No Nothings

We watched the Rhinos beat Miami 3-2 and take first place in the USSF Division 2 but Miami looked like the better team. They passed like pros and hustled like high school kids. The Rhinos, who all seemed about foot taller than the Miami players, held their positions like American footballers and continually poked the long ball through and crossed their fingers. Miami couldn’t manage to get through the Rhinos muscular defense for the goal but they played a much prettier game. And that’s all that counts in my book.

I drove over to Home Depot this morning to pick up some white paint for the walls inside our garage. Bob Smith was interviewing U of R religion professor Emil Homerin and Judaic Studies professor Nora Rubel about the (what else?) lower Manhattan Islamic center. Bob mentioned the “Know Nothing” party and I was trying to imagine whether the people in that party refereed to themselves that way or was it a taunt by the opposition. A guy called in and took offense at the panel implying that Republicans were racist just because they opposed the “mosque”. Bob then mentioned some prominent Democrats running for reelection who also opposed the construction. The “Know-Nothing” movement originated in New York in 1843 as the “American Republican Party” and feared that the country was being overwhelmed by Catholic immigrants. Maybe Bob was talking about the current day, “No Nothing” party.

I went through the self check out at Home Depot. I opted to do my transaction in English, scanned the paint can and then I got hung up trying to pry one of the plastic bags open. I had bags all over the place I was about to put the free wooded paint stir stick into one of the bags when the automated voice said, “Unexpected item in the bagging area. Remove this item before continuing.” I removed the stir stick and the recording continued. I flagged down an orange suited employee and she magically fixed the situation.

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August 11, 2010August 22, 2019

Stuff Like That

I just sized the photo above like I usually do but when I typed the dimensions for the crop tool in Photoshop I wound up with 450 inches instead of pixels. The progress bar started its thing and I spaced out for a few seconds before I realized I was creating a file big enough to eat up my hard drive. Stuff like that happens all the time but I thought it was worth noting on a slow news day.

We’ve had three pretty big jobs to deal with in the last month or so and of course a bunch of little jobs. I’ve noticed an inverse curve between the amount of money that a job pays and the degree of satisfaction we get from doing them.

I upgraded my brother’s computer so he can run automatic backups and I helped Anne Havens determine that her dvd recorder had died. I was unable to help another one of brothers open WINSCP files on his Mac. As far as I can tell it’s just another program to keep PC people from getting viruses when they download files but when you put files in there, Mac people can’t get ’em out. He was trying to download some plans for a building. And then my dad called and wanted to now what Bing was and why he was suddenly doing searches in Bing. He wanted his Google back but he had inadvertently selected Bing as his search engine of choice so I helped him reset it. These of course were all free jobs, on the very low end of that curve but they were all satisfying. Doing multiple rounds of design-by-committee revisions for a company that pays pretty good is grueling. I’m filing this in the “We Live Like Kings” category.

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August 6, 2010August 22, 2019

Happy Birthday Abstraction

Morning Prayers sign outside Saint Salome's Church in Rochester, NY — Morning Prayers sign outside Saint Salome’s Church in Rochester, NY

Al that praying is not really paying off for the people of Saint Salome’s parish in Rochester. First they closed their grade school and then they tore it down and built a senior living facility in its place with the promise that the new residents would be right next door to the church and now the diocese has announced they’re closing the church. The building, built in 1964, still looks pretty modern but then the whole concept of modern is sort of out of date. Abstract art (Kandinsky, Modrian and all) is now one hundred years old fer cryin’ out loud.

Our next door neighbor, Leo, called us this morning to ask us what his email address is.

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July 12, 2010August 22, 2019

España Ubuntu

Lemoncello Cafe in East Rochester, New York

South Africans have this word, “Ubuntu”, for the concept that we are all interconnected. There has to be a Spanish equivalent to it because the stars from Cataln’s Barco team and the stars from Real Madrid aligned perfectly for Spain’s thrilling finale to 2010’s Copa del Mundo.

We watched this one at home on ABC and our little tv while sipping a World Cup drink that first learned about four or five World Cups ago. That would be about twenty years. It has become our tradition. The recipe was in the paper and it may have included other ingredients but the way we do it is: Wine (inexpensive Spanish Red), lime juice and sugar, served over ice.

We watched Saturday’s runner-up game out in East Rochester, Rochester’s Little Italy, at a place called “Lemoncello”. They have a little café like setting in the front of their building with fresh Italian pastries and a cozy dinning room, bar and stage in the rear. Most the people in this place were watching the game outdoors on the patio on a big projection screen. We nixed that idea right away because the picture was sort of bleached by the sun. They also had a merchandise table out there with t-shirts, jerseys and warm up jackets for most of the big teams, Italy being one of them even though they were eliminated so quickly. We watched the game on a big shiny Panasonic in their dining room while eating calamari. This was a great game with Uruguay coming from behind to go ahead before losing to Germany who we earlier had became convinced were going the whole way. But when Spain took on Germany in the semifinals we quickly realigned our allegiances to our post US favorites, España.

After the game I tried on the Spanish warm up jacket and Peggi took a picture. There was way too much polyester there for me to consider it. I settled on red, yellow and black España T-shirt and Peggi announced that she had a premonition that I must wear this shirt until the game in order for Spain to win. The shirt was a little snug and I was worried about putting it in the dryer so I asked if this meant that I had to sleep in it. I didn’t. When we walked the morning of the game I kept the white T-shirt on that I had slept in. And then, well before game time, I put the shirt on. When it was still 0-0 in the second half I began to worry ithat I had jinxed the team and at the end of regulation I was certain I had. With four minutes left in the second overtime Spain came through!

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June 23, 2010August 22, 2019

Big Deal

Joe Deal's "Watering, Phillips Ranch, California" 1983 — Joe Deal’s “Watering, Phillips Ranch, California” 1983

Joe Deal is dead at 62. That’s one of his photos above. He emerged as a leading figure in the new wave of American photographers when 18 of his black and white photographs were included in the enormously influential exhibition “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.” The exhibition, which William Jenkins organized at the George Eastman House in Rochester in 1975, is now regarded by historians as a turning point in American photography. I took two photography classes at the UoR in 1977 that were taught by Bill Jenkins and I loved them. I don’t print from b&w negs anymore but that doesn’t have anything to do with what Bill taught me.

We were all set to watch the US vs. Algeria game at ten this morning but it wasn’t on ABC like the last US games were. So we took a bowl of fruit down to our neighbors and asked if we could watch the game there. They have cable tv and the game was broadcast on ESPN. It was a real nail biter. US had to win to advance and they did so, 1-0, in the 91st minute.

As if that wasn’t enough excitement, we came back to work and we were previewing a Flash movie that Peggi had constructed on on cancer and the immune system when the house shook. Peggi felt the floor shake and I thought it was the roof was shaking. I couldn’t imagine who would be on our roof. It was a Magnitude-5.0 earthquake that was centered over Ottawa. My mom called later to tell us she was having an EKG and the nurse had just left the room with the equipment cart. She let the door close and just as it closed the building shook. My mom was naked and couldn’t imagine what the nurse had run into with the cart.

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January 23, 2010

Spinning Your Wheels

We had dinner across the street last night and the conversation turned to jobs, benefits and long term care. I won’t name any names but a teacher was grumbling about all the work involved with trying to stay one step ahead of students while correcting the mountain of papers from previous assignments. A former teacher expressed the numbing tediousness of correcting the same mistakes by different students over and over again. A museum worker said it was nice to walk out of the place and leave the job behind at the end of the day. And the web designers were assessing their lot. A career that will not stand still, that demands new, better but more complicated solutions all the time. Spending days and sometimes whole weeks between paychecks keeping up with new css, html, php and mysql standards while finding your own benefit packages.

We retired to the tv room for “Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season 3, Disc 4” and all was right with the world.

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January 4, 2010August 23, 2019

Drawbacks Of A Healthy Lifestyle

Peggi and Olga taking a kumquat break near Lake Ontario.

I first became aware of kumquats while watching a WC Fields’ (“It’s a Gift“) with Joe Barrett when we were kids. Kumquats don’t grow around here but they are plentiful in Wegmans right now. We skiied for a few hours and took a kumguat break up at the lake. I love these things but I suspect they are bad for my teeth. Although maybe I don’t have to worry so much about my teeth anymore now that you can grow new ones. Joel sent me this link. We stopped in to visit our neighbor today and he was lamenting how all his friends are gone. We’ve heard this rap from him many times but this time he coupled it with how he never smoked or drank or used any stimulants like coffee or tea. We could really see the drawbacks of a healthy lifestyle.

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December 17, 2009December 18, 2009

Auto Tune This

You know that Pete LaBonne song where the guy fine tunes a radio station until it goes off the air? I spent a good bit of the day today in a dentist’s chair listening to an all Christmas satellite radio station. I don’t think I heard a single song with auto tune and yet it seems the entire top forty has been auto tuned.

And another thing. I made some hummus yesterday with a big can of Goya chick peas and a regular size can of Goya kidney beans. Peggi was working on these tables for a client and she called me into the other room while the hummus was pureeing.

The food processor started making a really loud grinding noise and we both looked at each other and at the same thinking “WTF?”. I went back out to the kitchen and it stopped. I pictured a frozen jalapéno from our garden temporarily stuck under one of the blades.

Tonight when we returned from our Margaret Explosion gig we both dove into the hummus and Peggi hit a hard nugget of something. She spit it out and it looked like wood. The hummus tasted funny too and I was thinking it was because I used too much garlic. We threw it away. I guess I could go back to Wegman’s with it but I wonder what Rich Stim would advise.

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December 13, 2009August 23, 2019

Instant Agenda

"Untitled" by Philip Guston from Small Panels show at McKee Gallery — “Untitled” by Philip Guston from Small Panels show at McKee Gallery

We got out of town ahead just ahead of the other day and drove to my brother’s place in Montclair, New Jersey. We kept his kids up way too late, talking and listening to Christmas records from his vinyl collection. We had breakfast with the kids, who were already late for school, and said goodbye to my brother as he raced off to work. The last thing he said was, “I left part of the paper here for you”. So I dove into the Friday’s Fine Arts section and spotted a Philip Guston painting with a review by Roberta Smith of a show at Midtown’s McKee Gallery. We instantly had an agenda for our New York trip.

We found our way to Brooklyn and parked the car for the weekend near Duane’s apartment. More coffee and the F train to midtown Manhattan for this eye popping show. Philip Guston is my favorite artist and these small panels blew me away. This was a sensational show. Only four of these pieces were for sale. You could pick up all four for 1.3 million.

Even the Metropolitan Museum could not top that show but Robert Frank’s “The Americans” was pretty incredible. The prints were so much richer than the old book I bought at Light Impressions when they upstairs in Midtown Plaza. It was like seeing these by now familiar photos for the first time. We had an eggplant sandwich and a corn muffin at the museum café and then Duane and Peggi went up to see the “Velazquez Rediscovered” show while I wandered off to the Roman art section and to photograph some busts. I can’t get over how contemporary these heads look, like people you know or wish you knew, even though they were sculpted around the time of Christ.

Duane is the perfect NYC guide. He wears an orange hat and Peggi and I just shut off our navigational instincts and gawk and follow the hat and try not to walk into a light pole or something. We took a couple of trains back to Brooklyn and hung out for bit in pad before heading back out to the Front Room Gallery in Williamsburg for an art opening. It was a “Multiples and Editions” show and the curator was a friend of Duanes. The thirty five artists all had small, very reasonably priced (for the holidays) art in every nook and cranny of the two funky rooms. Duane bought a pocket sized “Kodak Guide to Photographing Your Dog“.

After the opening we went next door to the Flying Cow, a saloon style Argentinean restaurant. We shared octopus salad and then a beet salad, a bottle of Spanish Rioja and two vegetarian dishes called, “Shangrila”. I spoiled a perfect meal by trying a Morcilla sausage appetizer. I’m a sucker for those Spanish delicacies. The bartender played the whole “Between The Buttons” record and then some Neil Young. We complimented him on the way out.

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November 13, 2009August 23, 2019

I Like Light Leaks

Andrew Meyer photo used on the cover of Margaret Explosion's "Live Dive" cdLiveDivePhoto — Andrew Meyer photo used on the cover of Margaret Explosion’s “Live Dive” cdLiveDivePhoto

Following in the footsteps of Robert Frank, our nephew, Andrew, has been slowly driving across the US in his Toyota pickup, stopping wherever he likes to take photos. Favorite state so far – Nevada. It seems to have been a perfect match for his acute, observant sensibilities and that state’s raw material. He started in the bay area and is now in Rochester with a box of slides. He’s old school and is currently using a Canon 35mm with a manual light meter that overexposed his full western sunshine photos. They appear to have been taken on another planet, making them all the more startling. When we were setting up the Kodak projector I spotted a carousal of slides labeled “Porches” that I took back when I was about his age. Photos I took as I wandered around nearby downtown neighborhoods on my lunch looking at people’s porches. I threw them on only to confirm how good he is.

We saw some photos of prints of his on display in a gallery in Oakland and we chose two of them for the newest Margaret Explosion cd. The one above, the San Francisco Bay, was taken with a medium format Holga.

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October 20, 2009August 23, 2019

Give It Up For Clarence

Jackie or Jill's wagon on floor as our house was being built — Jackie or Jill’s wagon on floor as our house was being built

Clarence Meyer stopped by to visit us and the Don Hershey house that he built in the the nineteen forties. Clarence is 97 now and this is his third visit since we have lived here. He had both of his daughters with him this time, one form Ohio and one from California. If you click on the photo above you can see the girl’s wagon in the foreground while Clarence is up on a ladder smoking a pipe as his wife hands him some nails.

It has been such a pleasure getting to know the guy who built our house, to be able to ask him questions about the construction and to hear his stories about the architect and the materials used. The war years were a tough time to be building a new house for a young family so Clarence did most of the work himself. And he didn’t cut any corners while carrying out the architect’s labor intensive, special touches. He is so delighted to see someone in the house who appreciates all his work and he’s thrilled to see the small updates we’ve done. He is an inspiration to us.

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August 15, 2009August 23, 2019

Fcuk Him

Fcuk for him on display at A. J. Wright store in Rochester, New York

I had worn a hole in the rear end of my pajamas so I stopped in A. J. Wright up in Culver Ridge Plaza. I asked the clerk where the pajamas were and she took me over to a rack of “Loungewear”, all bottoms, colorful concoctions that you sometimes see big muscular guys with mullets wearing out on the street. I guess they don’t sell pjs in sets anymore. This place is so discount they don’t have a dressing room and I couldn’t decide whether to go with Large or Medium. At 6 feet, 150, I’m half of each. I went with medium.

This “Fcuk Him” product caught my eye on the reduced table near the checkout. A kid with the “Why Can’t We All Just Get A Bong” t-shirt caught my eye at the Public Market this morning. And I was thinking of this line from Jeff Spevak’s review of the crowd at last night’s Phish concert – “a museum of non-sequiturs.” Give it up for Jeff.

Everything is in season now. We hauled four big bags home. Corn from Honeyoe Falls, peaches from Hamlin and blueberries, apricots, beets, cucumbers, peppers, pears from other local farms. I just made my first tomato and onion sandwich of the year.

Deer aren’t supposed to like Rhododendrons. That’s why ours are shaped like Palm trees. And they aren’t supposed to like Marigolds either but they got ours last night. Second time this year. The yellow would have spoiled all the green anyway.

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