Musical entertainer at the Friendly Home in Rochester, New York
We had lunch with my mom yesterday and I struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to me. A Vassar girl some seventy years ago, she told me she was in the Yale Commons that morning and they were serving peanut butter bagels. Her mother and dad were there too. I was trying to figure out whether the peanut butter was baked into the bagel or spread on top. She said she was trying to eat one with a fork and she just couldn’t get a piece of it. I told her most people pick up a bagel with their hands and eat it that way. She said I know that but I couldn’t get a hold of it so I asked for a fork.
We were meeting in the Refrigerator’s attic studio near East High to start work on a new print edition when Chuck Cuminale brought up a stack of Duplex Planet magazines, a model of sub culture fanzines if ever there was one. That was our introduction to David Greenberger’s world but our paths were destined to cross.
When Pete LaBonne sent us a copy of the compilation cd, “Meditation Garden“, that Sonic Trout released of his music we spotted David Greenberger’s name attached to the art credits. The font Margaret Explosion chose for our cd “Live Dive” came from the Buffalo type foundry, P 22, and turned out to be a font based on the handwriting of Ed Rogers, a self taught artist Greenberger discovered in the Duplex Nursing home. David was on a return trip from one of his projects in Wisconsin when his car broke down on the NYS Thruway and was towed to the repair shop next door to the Little Theater Cafe on a Wednesday night where Margaret Explosion were playing. He and his wife saw both sets and when David returned to pick up the car he stayed at our house. Plans were hatched to collaborate somehow.
Our friend’s and neighbor’s, Rick and Monica, hosted Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric at a house concert and then attended a house concert at Eric and Amy’s where they met David. Monica facilitated the collaboration by suggesting the combo to her employers at the MAG. A photo of David standing in our kitchen came up on our screensavor slideshow this weekend and a moment later David Greenberger called to hatch plans for a Fall performance.
“I feel strangely on.” That would be my favorite line from Noah Baumbach’s brilliant “Greenberg.” The guy lew it with Frances Ha but this one is right on in my little book. Ben Stiller, a New Yorker fresh from a stint in a mental institution, housesits at his brother’s place in Los Angeles, the perfect setting for this darkly funny love story. Here’s Roger Ebert’s take.
Peggi went a Halloween party last night and we were some of the only people there without a costume. We tried to find the two frog masks that we wore to a party a long time ago but couldn’t find them. I remember that get up sort of pissed people off back then because we didn’t know most of the people and they couldn’t see our faces.
Scott Regan was a dead on Bela Lugosi and Sue dressed like Scott. Soupy Sales was there and the hostess, Claire, was a pretty good Amy Winehouse. Jeff and Mary Kaye had the best looking costumes on as far as I was concerned. I wouldn’t have recognized them if they didn’t speak. They wore hand painted, white cloth skeleton faces and black formal wear, classic Day of the Dead figures. The party had a theme, “Night of the Living Pies”, so Peggi made a cherry pie with a face on it. There was an obscene amount of pie on the counter when we left.
Kevin Patrick did a Zombies entry on the Day of the Dead and mentioned that he wanted to get a Zombies post on his blog before he croaked. When David Greenberger was here he told us he had been thinking about his own mortality lately. Not surprising in his line of work. I spotted some guys working on what looked like a giant casket in Irondequoit Cemetery as I rode my bike by so I pulled in to take a closer look. It turned out to be a form for a concrete structure that will hold urns. They are just about out of space over there so the only way to go is up. It got me thinking about where I would want my ashes scattered. I don’t want to put anyone out. I’ll have to think about this for a while.
