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Sonic Background to the Din

Last night’s opening of “Electric Florets” was really well attended. Geri’s son Paul worked the bar while simultaneously hanging out with his friends. The big wall with a grid of sixteen oil pastel mandalas was most impressive. Geri’s painting teacher, Fred Lipp, was there engaged in deep conversation with Alice. Another fellow classmate, Lorraine, slipped in and out while we provided a sonic background to the din in the room.

During our break Katherine Denison told me the band sounded “really tight”. I told her that “tight” was a word I would never apply to Margaret Explosion. And she said, “I know. I’ve been at the Little when it’s been real loosey goosey”. That’s more like it.

Pineapples went up a dollar at Wegmans. They were $3.99 each all winter and are now $4.99. They are one of the only produce items left with a flat cost attached to them instead of a per pound cost. With most produce I enter the 4 or 5 digit code and the scale computes the cost based on the weight. But with pineapples I put the fruit on the store scales just to see which one is the heaviest and then buy that one. I can usually find one that is over six pounds. I think limes are sold this way too.

It is a beautiful day here, sunny and headed toward sixty, a perfect day for painting in the basement.

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Electric Florets

Geri McCormick Electric Florets
Geri McCormick Electric Florets

OK. So it’s raining. No excuse for not taking a walk. If you don’t get out there you won’t see the robins gorging themselves on worms or the one legged turkey doing the turkey hop. And you won’t find any golf balls along the golf course and you’re never gonna find any empty 24 ounce Bud cans along the road. I picked up two today and had them in my hand when I waved to a neighbor who drove by. She’s probably thinking, “So that’s the guy that’s been dumping all those cans down here.”

Geri McCormick asked Margaret Explosion to play at her opening tonight of “Electric Florets” at the Genesee Center for the Arts.

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Dynamic Pages

24 ounce can of Budweiser
24 ounce can of Budweiser

Andrea’s Burma Shave bit seems to be having an effect. We only found one 24 ounce can of Budweiser today.

I spent most of the day yesterday doing php and MySQL experiments with Bill Jones. And then at our Margo gig last night Bob told me I should checking out the open source content management system called Joomla. I’m ready to try some dynamic pages. We had friends over for dinner and we got a really late start for the Margo gig. I loaded the car while Peggi made some soup. We were almost there and Peggi asked me if I put her sax in the car. Whoops.

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Pop

Old pop bottles. Rochester NY
Old pop bottles. Rochester NY

I found these pop bottles in the woods near our house. I’m guessing some neighborhood kids left them down there a long time ago. I bought a bottle washer at Home Depot and scrubbed them clean with Mr. Clean before taking this photo. Now all I have to do is get that “Mr. Clean” jingle out of my head.

Pop bottles looked like this when I was a kid so they must all be fifties vintage. The empty Qualtop bottle is really heavy and it holds only 6 and 1/2 ounces of liquid. The Miller’s bottle with the slogan, “Short and Good”, holds 6 ounces and the 7-Up bottle with the “You Like It. It Likes You.” slogan holds 7. These are all a long ways from today’s “Big Gulp”.

All three bottles have “Rochester, N.Y.” printed on them. The Miller’s bottle has “Rochester Soda Water Co. Inc.” on the back and that brings up this whole “pop” verses “soda” thing. We call it “pop” in Rochester but in New York City they call it “soda”. In Detroit, where the accent is nearly indistinguishable from the Rochester accent, they call it “pop”. And it was “soda” when we lived in Indiana. I like “pop” better.

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Mr. Budweiser. We Have Your Number.

Snowman remains in April.
Snowman remains in April.


That’s the head of the snowman from yesterday’s entry on the left.

Apple was up six today. Somebody sees some light at the end of this tunnel but we’re still worried. We’re considering making extra house payments with the cash on hand instead of playing the horses. That way “if the market does go to heck in a hand basket”, as our ML guy likes to say, we’ll be protected from the rain.

I’ve been experimenting with hummus recipes that I’ve found online. I thought it was spelled “humas” at first and apparently a few other people did too. I made a batch of “humas” with jalapeños that was quite good. I’ve made four different kinds in last few weeks. I had a hummus, onion and spinach sandwich for dinner. I don’t like it when the first hit tastes like tahini. Three of these recipes have called for too much tahini vs. the chick peas. And the garlic gets overpowering fast. I like lime juice in there. Today I made the mistake of dumping all the gooey ingredients into the food processor without first putting the blade in there first so I had scoop it all back out. I’ll have my own recipe tweaked with a few more trials.

Note to the dude that drives down the dead end, Hoffman Road, and throws his 20 ounce Budweiser cans out the window: We have your number. Most of the snow disappeared today in the near 70 degree temperature and we found ten tall Bud cans along the side of the road. We are talking of making Burma Shave-like signs and sticking them in the ground down there. First one would read, “Mr. Budweiser”. Second one would probably get us arrested if we said what we thought.

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What He Most Loved, That I Most Hated

Snowman at end of March
Snowman at end of March

My sister stopped by today and we were talking. Actually she does most of the talking so that sort of makes it easy. One of her daughters goes to a conservative church and she told us that our other sister is concerned about that. The sister who stopped by says, “What does it matter. My daughter is all grown up and she’s happy”.

I was thinking of this Frederick Douglas (a Rochesterian) quote that I read last night. This was in connection to something much more serious (the relationship of slave to master) but it kind of explains how the world keeps from getting lopsided.

“What he most dreaded, that I most desired. What he most loved, that I most hated. That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great good, to be diligently sought.”

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You’re A Bad Dog Whimsy

We walked through the woods today and came across four different parties of deer. The skies were pure blue and the snow was disappearing under our feet. When we got to the park we decided to walk up Log Cabin Road to the Wisner. We were asking for trouble here because dog people drive to this intersection and then let their dogs run free (i.e. take a dump on the road).

As we walked we watched an oversize woman bend over and call her dog from her over sized husband in a US Army sweatshirt. He had just let the big black dog off its leash. The dog came right at us and the women chided the dog with, “Well I guess you would rather go home with them than us.” A little further up the the road we ran into Whimsey, a Golden Retriever, who walked in circles around us while sniffing our bodies. With raising her voice or applying an inflection, the woman said, “You’re a bad dog Whimsy. You’re a bad dog Whimsy.”

About ten years ago I made the mistake of putting the back of my hand out for a stray dog to sniff. It grabbed my hand and and mangled it. I spent the afternoon in Emergency getting injections of Human Globulin directly into the wounds and then stitches. And there was a month of rabies shots at regular intervals. I couldn’t play drums for weeks. Dogs aren’t all that cute any more. Except for little white, wiry things and Dachshunds and Basset Hounds and our neighbor’s dogs. And that one that bit me.

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We Jam Econo

The fabulous Minutemen
The fabulous Minutemen

We picked up some Chinese at Golden Dynasty to take out to Peggi’s mom’s place. I ordered Jalapeño Tofu which I love because it tastes like the pepper and onion mixture that street vendors dump on an Italian sausage. My fortune was was stellar. “Ideas you may believe as absurb ultimately lead to success!”

Back at home we watched “We Jam Econo”, the Minutemen documentary. Main Minuteman D. Boon, in the center, was a lovable teddy bear who advised moms and dads to teach their children about art so they could teach their children about art. I tracked down their double album, “Double Nickles On The Dime” in the basement this morning and plan on taking it for a spin tonight.

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Getting With The Program

Winter aconite flowers in the snow.
Winter aconite flowers in the snow.

It snowed yesterday, a wet snow, and during the night clumps of snow fell off the pine tree that hangs over our bedroom. It sounded like squirrels jumping from the limbs to our roof and it sounded like they were digging into something. I figured they had found a way into our attic which is about a foot and a half tall at the peak. I imagined they were tearing up the place. I got the ladder out in the morning and went up on the roof. There were no footprints.

It was good packing. We rolled up a dirty snowman.

Work is so slow, I’ve been spending days organizing my digital life. I have all our mp3s on one drive and a backup of that folder on another drive. Each computer had its own folder of photos and random backups were scattered about. Never again. Our photos are all on one drive and we have a backup of that. Our primary computers are all running Time Machine. And there is a hard drive next to the stereo with the mp3 library on it. New cds get ripped when they walk in the door. I’m even letting iTunes manage the batch.

With all our mp3s in one place the Party Shuffle feature gets a good groove on. We just listened to a Coltrane tune from Impressions, Ain’t Nothin’ Goin’ On But The Rent, a 20 minute Mingus Medley, Respectable by the Stones (their last good album), Eric Dolphy Springtime, The ChiLites Oh Girl, Tommy James Cellophane Symphony, Bob Dylan I’m Not There, Maggot Brain, I Got It Bad by Peggy Lee and Marquee Moon.

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Have Fun With Words

We were there.
We were there.

Dwight sent us this shot of fours guys who went out to hear Margaret Explosion last night. The shot looks like it was caught caught on a surveillance camera. The Little closed the Cafe for a private party last night. Sorry about that. We’ll be back next week.

Peggi spent many hours preparing for today’s pre-hearing on our tax reassessment issue. As we headed into the library for encounter we noticed another couple coming out. The woman had a manila envelope and the man had his hands in his pockets. So I put my hand my packets. We signed in at a desk in the basement in front of three tables where people were making their cases. This was a carpeted rec room with colorful signs on the walls. One read, “How Many Ways Can You Tell A Story”. Others read, “Tell It With Stories”, “Have Fun With Words”, Some Words Rhyme” and “Tell It With Puppets”. We started laughing while picturing the idea of Peggi presenting our case with puppetry.

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Dodd Goes Down For Browns

In the middle of fifth grade my parents moved from the city and I started school at Holy Trinity in Webster. There was immediate pressure to join the group that smoked in the woods on recess. I resisted but made friends with them. Some people teased me and made me the brunt of jokes that I didn’t understand. Mostly it seemed like there was this intense challenge coming from all parties to see where I was coming from and what I was made of. I must have bent over to pick up a penny in the hallway or something because I remember kids kids teasing me with, “Dodd goes down for browns”. I survived and had a good time there.

I told Peggi this story a long time ago and today we found a penny on the ground while we were walking and of course you can guess what Peggi said.

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Huntington Gullies South

Deer outside bedroom window
Deer outside bedroom window

The deer just wander around through the hills where we live. But we don’t really live in hills even though everybody calls them that. The earth goes gradually downhill as you move north toward Lake Ontario and when you get near the lake the sandy soil just sort of falls away into fairly steep ravines. When you’re down in a ravine looking up, it looks like hills. So maybe they are hills. They wouldn’t be fake hills.

These deer spent the night in our backyard. They melt the snow while they sleep and leave little pods of bare ground behind in the morning. And the first thing they do when they get up is poop because there is always a little pile of the pellets near the pod.

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Happy Ending

Crucifixion in Philippines
Crucifixion in Philippines

This woman had herself crucified along with seventeen others even though the Archbishop of San Fernando in the Philippines urged devotees not to turn Holy Week into a circus. Philippine health officials warned people taking part in Easter crucifixions and self-flagellation rituals to get a tetanus shot first and sterilize the nails to avoid infections.

We traveled to Spain a few years back and spent Holy Week in Granada. Semana Santa is the biggest string of holy days/holidays of the year there. We watched processions wind through the streets with bands, women in black lace mantillas and teams of guys hidden beneath and supporting the weight of floats with the virgin in the lead and a depiction the suffering Christ in the rear. In Spain this is all a reverent but festive affair. The goose bump inducing highlight is always when the procession stops and the crowd grows silent while someone sings a saeta to the virgin.

We had dinner yesterday with Peggi’s mom and my brother, Fran. I was thinking about how we used to give up candy for Lent and then gorge ourselves on Easter and my parents asking us to remain silent between noon and 3PM on Good Friday (the hours Christ was hanging on the cross). I don’t think we were able to do this. My whole family left the Church while I was in high school and my parents are now more likely to celebrate Passover than Easter with their children and in-laws. But that Catholic stuff hangs around.

About fifteen years ago I revisited the Way of the Cross and began the process of recasting the Passion Play in present time. I collected source material with the intention of doing a series of paintings. I don’t believe anyone rose from the dead except maybe Shirley Maclaine so I was kind of bummed to see the last Pope amend the fourteen stations of the cross that I remember so vividly from my childhood. He gave the story an implausible, happy ending by adding the Resurrection as the fifteen station. When I do get around to these paintings I only plan to do fourteen of them.

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You Can Tell It’s Spring

Cell tower disguised as a tree in Fairport, New York.
Cell tower disguised as a tree in Fairport, New York.

The reaction to my post a few days ago on what I was calling “fake houses” got me thinking about another curiosity. I’m going to go out on a limb and call these “fake trees”. This one is near Exit 31 on 490 East in Rochester, NY. It’s the exit we take to get to my mother-in-law’s place. I’m not sure about the name or number of this exit, I just look for the fake tree and get off. Some people don’t even see it or they see it and take it as a real tree. My brother lives out this way and I asked him what he thought about it. He said, he had never noticed it. I would rather see a naked cell tower than a fake tree disguised as one but I am not on the zoning committee.

Fake tree off freeway in Los Angeles
Fake tree off freeway in Los Angeles
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Demystifying Art

Danny Deutsch behind a Reagan mask
Danny Deutsch behind a Reagan mask

Remember when Ronald Reagan was a joke and not the revered right wing populist that he is today? Remember Danny Deutsch behind the Reagan mask behind the bar at “Schatzee’s?” Danny bought the old gay men’s club, “Tara’s”, renamed it “Abilene’s” and opened last night. The place was packed with old friends.

Every bar in town seems to go with the locally brewed, Custom Brew Craft or Rohrbach’s. Both are world class and we are lucky to have them. Danny had something from Rohrbach’s on tap and we had a couple pints. You could talk over the music but still hear it and my ears weren’t ringing this morning. I loved the paint by number landscapes on the walls. They looked like embroidery or tapestries.

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Can I Borrow A Cup Of Sugar?

RGE owned fake house
RGE owned fake house. Photo by Richard Edic.

Richard Edic sent us some interesting photos of rock solid imaginary houses. They are apparently owned by the local power company, RGE, and they are located in residential areas throughout the city. Nobody lives in them. The power company has some sort of sub-station inside, like maybe Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory or something. Who knows? Richard has identified three of these fake houses and he sent us photos that we have posted on the Refrigerator. If you are aware of any of these suspicious homes in your neighborhood, drop us a line. We’ll add them to our inventory.

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My Kid Could Paint That

Michael Kimmelman at MAG in Rochester, NY 2005
Michael Kimmelman at MAG in Rochester, NY 2005

By coincidence we saw the Shawn Penn film, “Into The Wild” and Hans Petter Moland’s “Zero Kelvin” on back to back nights. Both films have young men ( a top student, an aspiring poet) heading into the wilderness (Alaska, Greenland) for adventure. I won’t spoil it but it is rough out there.

“Into the Wild” opened with with a graduation ceremony at Emory University in Atlanta. We will be there in seven weeks for our nephew’s graduation and the lead character in this movie reminded us of our nephew’s brother who is currently hanging out in Guatemala. Peggi read the book and pictured our nephew in the part and sure enough Emile Hirsch looks just like him. I know my nephews are listening to better music than the Eddie Vedder soundtrack from this film because they plug their laptops into our stereo when they’re here. I don’t get Eddie Vedder. I didn’t like Pearl Jam and that record they made backing Neil Young was a dog.

“Zero Kelvin” had the edge on “Into The Wild” because it had a much better soundtrack. Terje Rydal’s music was the perfect choice for this dark and beautiful adventure.

Last night, on Angel Corpus Christi’s recommendation, we watched something completely different, “My Kid Could Paint That”, about a really young girl from Binghamton who painted with encouragement from her parents. A creepy art gallery owner started selling the paintings for big bucks and the story got a lot of media attention. There was nothing extra special about the paintings. Art from most kids that age is special because they have not been taught or broken. It happens fast. One day they are extraordinarily expressive and the next day the sun is smiling.

Michael Kimmelman from the New York Times is interviewed throughout and offers insights into both sides of the old argument over whether or not modern art is a hoax. The creepy art gallery owner provides the meatiest art talk when he tries to make an absurd argument about the quality of the art being proportional to the time it takes to produce it. He makes his point by explaining how long it takes him to do his tedious exercises. They show him about three inches away from his painting with some sort of a magnifying class in one eye while he works on a huge painting by starting at the top and working his way down.

People buy what they like and sometimes they like the story more than the art.

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Shock and Awe

Shock And Awe on Hall Street in Rochester, New York
Shock And Awe on Hall Street in Rochester, New York

I took this photo five years ago today. A headline in our local paper today reads, “Bush Has No Doubts on 5th Anniversary”. I am still shocked and awed.

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Graves Without Weeds

Peace gravestone in Irondequoit Cemetery
Peace gravestone in Irondequoit Cemetery

Irondequoit recently hired an independent company to reassess property values and they sent us a notice of our new tax rate. They determined the town was currently assessed at 88% value which means taxes needed to be raised by 12% on average to generate enough tax money to dump all that salt on our roads and pay people to walk in circles around the gravestones in Irondequoit Cemetery with weed whackers.

Our taxes went up more than 12% and they estimated our house was worth more than we paid for it a few years ago. The town posted the reassessment online and Peggi spent an afternoon comparing our house to similar homes in the area. She had Google maps open on the laptop and and the tax records on a different screen while generally snooping on the neighbors. I was making humas in the kitchen and listening to her updates. I never would have guessed which house was assessed the highest on our street and our neighbors on both sides with similar houses were assessed much lower than us.

It seems Un-American not to contest so we attended an informational meeting at the Town Hall called “Understanding Your Property Reassessment”. I was prepared for a snoozfest so I brought the morning paper with me. There was a headline on the front page that read “Local House Sales Tumble”. The story explained that although the sales have tumbled, the prices have remained steady. We have no housing market collapse here because we had no boom.

Growth is not all it’s cracked up to be. Steve Hoy was talking about this concept yesterday. Sustainability may be a better business model. Irondequoit starts north of the city of Rochester and it is hemmed in by Lake Ontario to the north, Irondequoit Bay to the east and the Genesee River to the west. We aren’t growing and we like it that way. We should probably just pay our taxes and shut up.

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Margin Call

Steve Hoy and Paul Dodd by Rich Stim 1969
Steve Hoy and Paul Dodd by Rich Stim 1969

Steve Hoy called this morning from South Carolina wondering what I thought about the market. Steve has a good bit of his investments in margin accounts and he is always getting calls from his broker. This morning he felt like he was backed into a corner with his Washington Mutual holding. He sold 500 shares at $9 a share while I was on the phone with him. If he didn’t, he feared he would lose it all. And of course as soon as he confirmed the sale he said, “I probably just sold at the bottom”. I don’t understand the strategy of margin accounts and I am the last person to ask for financial advice but it was good to hear his voice.

Steve is worried that the credit crisis will force people to put more on their charge cards and then eventually default on their credit card bills which will collapse the already weakened financial institutions. Steve said he had no confidence in Bush and he laid out his own plan to bail out the market. It was something like lowering the interest rates to 5% and back that with federally insured bonds which would allow people to refinance their homes so their payments were more in line with the value of their home.

Steve was business major at Indiana University when I met him. Maybe he will lay out his plan here in a comment because I have surely mangled the translation.

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