July 2011 – PopWars

July 28, 2011August 20, 2019

Everything Fits

Painting of Pasta Villa owners in bar of Pasta Villa in Rochester, NY

How this all fits together, I’m not sure. Maybe it doesn’t. We decided to eat out tonight but we wanted to go somewhere close. There’s Osteria overlooking the lake and Shamrock Jack’s and Churi’s Thai food or in the other direction Monte Alban or the new Puerto Rican spot or Pasta Villa. Stop. The citadel of Italian food in Rochester with the dining room frozen in in 1975 with the Ramon Santiago prints on the wall and mirror trim and marble wallpaper with two loud air conditioners cranking. We’re there. Gnocchi with greens and beans and Chicken Picata, Chianti, Dean Martin music, the painting in the bar of the Guido family owners!

On the way home we got stuck at the intersection on Culver where the owner has a couple of pressure treated picnic tables that he is trying to sell for 175 bucks each. This place is a marvel of whacked out tackiness, an American flag on the pole, a circular driveway with at least three cars in it at all times including a shiny black, Chevy 4-door Silverado pick up truck, died black wood chips in the circle and potted marigolds with an angel statue holding out an empty bowl, a deck on the front of the house with an umbrella table. Is it any wonder they have teenage age son running around with a trench coat and long died black hair in the middle of summer?

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July 27, 2011August 20, 2019

Wait For Valet

The people up on the hill had a party over the weekend. We heard the band and we live about a mile away, classic rock sort of stuff, old people music. Their sign looked kind of odd the next morning.

Gallery director, Bleu Cease called yesterday from Rochester Contemporary to arrange time to set up “Subterranean Surrogates,” my upcoming photo installation. I did RoCo’s logo a while back and I had a show there long before Bleu took over so I didn’t realize what a dynamic force Bleu is. He does everything over there and what he doesn’t do he arranges to have done right. He climbed off the ladder and on to the top of one of the walls in his flip flops while helping me block out the ambient light that was creeping into my allotted space.

I was there all day hanging the projector upside down from strings attached to the ceiling in the back room so the photos would drop into this space and fill one of the walls. Peggi was originally going to drop me off downtown but she made a run to JoAnne Fabrics to buy some black felt for the ceiling and she picked up a peanut butter and banana sandwich and pitched in on the ceiling effort while I balanced the projector. You would think four white walls with photos projected on one would be a pretty simple install but we were there until eight. Art is not as easy as it looks.

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July 25, 2011April 3, 2019

Model From Crime Page

There seems to be no limit to the supply of fresh faces to paint. This one and another are currently in the biennial Finger Lakes Show at the Memorial Art Gallery. They asked me to record a brief statement about my work and you can hear it by calling 585 627-4132 and then 8 when they ask for the “stop number.” Click the photo above to view the whole piece.

I just listened to it and I can’t believe how dry it sounds. Geez! And I can see myself reading the statement from my notebook. I hate those typewritten artist’s statements and don’t read them unless I’m totally taken by the piece. Somehow I thought these recorded notes would be different and they are but mine doesn’t add much to the work. For kicks you can call back and push random stop numbers for some disjointed artist’s statements.

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July 24, 2011August 20, 2019

Biennial Time

Jennifer Hecher's "Martyr Dress #2" in Finger Lakes Show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY — Jennifer Hecher’s “Martyr Dress #2” in Finger Lakes Show at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY

I guess my favorite piece in the Finger Lakes Show, which opened last night at the Memorial Art Gallery, was Jennifer Hecher’s “Martyr Dress #2”. It was the most intriguing and quite beautiful, made mostly with broken white and brown egg shells (click photo for enlargement). Just what did she do with all those eggs? Her cholesterol could be sky high.

It’s a bigger show than the last few with quite bit of variety and unevenness. I have some watercolors near the exit, a perfect location, but my two pieces are hug too close together. A revved-up Krypton 88 with Jim Via on guitar, Jenna Weintraub on pipes and left handed Dana Gregory on drums made it a party in the ballroom.

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July 23, 2011August 20, 2019

I Love My Goat

Goat at Rochester's Public Market — Goat at Rochester’s Public Market

I hope no one bought this goat at the Public Market. We were hitting it off pretty good while Peggi went to the bathroom n Saturday.

We finished our last of seven rugs yesterday. Rick and Monica’s driveway has never been cleaner. We dried most of them on our roof during this heat wave but the last one was too heavy to get up there so it is up on blocks in our front yard.

I’ve been baiting and arming the Have-A-Heart trap all week with no luck at capturing the raccoons that terrorize our cat. The first few nights I found the trap closed with no bait left in it so I adjusted the sensitivity thinking a light footed animal like a chipmunk ate the bait and then slipped out through the bars of the cage. It was so sensitive that it closed during the night, trapping nothing and leaving bait. I put some watermelon out there last night and this morning I found a robin in the trap so I set it free.

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July 23, 2011August 20, 2019

Keys To The City

Mayor of Rochester welcomes World Cup Players at Sahlen Stadium in Rochester, NYAbby Wambach a

After barging in on our neighbors to watch the Women’s World Cup in the middle of the day for a few weeks in a row they bought us tickets to Wednesday’s New York Flash game against magicJack. It was a an opportunity for the mayor of Rochester to give Rochester’s Abby Wambach (24 hours after her Letterman appearance) the keys to the city as he welcomed fourteen returning Word Cup players from the two teams in front of a sold out crowd of over 15,000.

Mayor of Rochester welcomes World Cup Players at Sahlen Stadium in Rochester

Rochester’s Flash have an amazing lineup with Canada’s Sinclair on the left flank working with Marta, the wold’s best female soccer player, and Alex Morgan right behind them. Marta’s moves are astounding. She out maneuvers opponents like a magician and gives the ball up to take the heat off only to move to an open spot in seconds so she can receive the pass. The tiniest player on the field, she’s is also tough as nails. We watched her shove an adversary to the ground in frustration because, as a matter of fact, she does own the road. The whole team plays world class soccer passing with artful finesse and they are a joy to watch. How did we get so lucky?

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July 21, 2011August 20, 2019

Wegmans Vs. Walgreens

Walgreens sign with 103 degree temperature

The sign out in front of Walgreens flashed “The Walgreens iPad app is here! I can’t imagine.

Why doesn’t Walgreens have an apostrophe in it? I’m not the one who should be nick-picking grammar so I won’t go there. I’m just asking. I think Wegmans dropped the apostrophe to. They got in to some sort of a scuffle with Walgreens over the use of the “W’ as a logo. Seems like Walgreen’s won but I’m not sure.

I stopped in to pick up a new battery for my watch. It kept losing time and then working fine for days and I got so I just din’t trust it so I bought a new. They have their own microclimate over there at Culver and East Ridge Road. When the wind is blowing in and it’s cold out and you’re on a bike it can be brutal. And today it felt hotter than hell. I asked the clerk if the temperature display was accurate and she said it was.

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July 19, 2011August 20, 2019

Handy People

Washing rug on a summer's day — Washing rug on a summer’s day

How did this whole do-it-yourself thing get going so strong? Is it the bad economy or just the availability of cheap tools? Anyone who’s shopped for a house knows how bad a home remodeling job can be. Didn’t it used to be that you’d hire a craftsman for those sorts of things or a rug cleaning service to clean your rugs?

We bought this rug many years ago at Jacobsen’s on Salina Street in downtown Syracuse. We have a few Oriental rugs in our house and they all need washing. It’s our own fault. We don’t take our shoes off when we come in from outdoors, only when we’ve been hiking. We used to call Asian people “Orientals” and I’m glad we swapped that word out. We need a better one for these rugs. I think this one came from the former Soviet Union and “Oriental” just doesn’t seem right.

We decided to clean the rugs ourselves so we’ve borrowed Rick and Monica’s paved driveway (ours is stone) for the last few days and we’ve set up shop over there. I wear my bathing suit We found a page on Jacobsen’s site about cleaning rugs and I watched a few YouTube videos. A lot of people don’t recommend doing it yourself, mostly because it is so much work but we’ve just skipped our daily walk and we work out over there.

We bought a 12″ squeegee, a natural bristle brush and a wooden pole/handle at Black’s Hardware. I put the squeegee on one end of the pole and the brush on the other. We’re using Ivory dishwashing soap and cold water from the faucet and there is a long line of water running down our steamy road.

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July 17, 2011August 20, 2019

Lovely Ball

Bobby Henrie's Shoes at Bop Fest in Rochester, New York — Bobby Henrie’s Shoes at Bop Fest in Rochester, New York

Bob Henrie’s left foot is blurry because southpaws tap their left foot. The photo is blurry because the sun was going down when The Goners took the stage at Saturday’s Bop Fest. You don’t have to reinvent rock ‘n roll, you just have to be good and Bob Henie and the Goners are still the best band in the city.

The US Japan World Cup Final was another roller coaster ride, going into overtime where the US took the lead on another Abby Wambach header and then lost the lead to force the dreaded penalty kick round. Someone had to lose. It was a beautiful game.

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July 15, 2011August 20, 2019

PB&J

We had our neighbors, Rick and Monica, over for dinner a few nights ago and we ate out on the deck. Monica spotted these raccoons in a tree behind our house and we watched them for a while. Monica said they can be vicious. She told us about a friend whose Irish Setter got in a fight with a raccoon near a pond in the woods and the raccoon almost drowned the dog. I started thinking about the Coon Hunting Convention that I played at outside Bloomington. I was in a working country band, playing two to three times a week in every American Legion, VFW, Elk’s, Eagle’s and Moose Club in southern Indiana and one of the strangest gigs was playing outdoors up on a flat bed trailer for coon hunters. As far as I knew they didn’t shoot the raccoons, they just “treed them” at night using dogs and flashlights.

Monica said the boys in her family used to go out after dinner to shoot ground hogs. They were a nuisance on two counts because they ate crops in the garden and they dug holes that horses might step in their holes and break their legs. Monica said she never ate a raccoon but she did eat squirrel one time. She couldn’t remember what it tasted like other than it was full of buckshot.

This morning I was reading the paper out back when Stella, our white kitty who only goes out for a few minutes in the morning to go to the bathroom, came face to face with one of the raccoons. I broke up the encounter but now feel like I’m going to have to borrow Leo’s Have-A-Heart trap to catch these guys and have Animal Control haul them off. I watched a video last night on how this all goes down. The exterminator in the video recommended peanut butter and jelly as bait.

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July 15, 2011August 20, 2019

Gumbo Variations

Columbian coffee bags at Canaltown Coffee in Rochester New York

It feels really good to look at something and decide you could live without it and then throw it in the trash. I had this old rusty wheel barrel that I found in someone else’s trash a long time ago. Sparky put a new wheel on it for me. I filled with other junk last night and took it out to the curb. I usually have a moment of remorse but don’t look back.

Still getting rid of junk is not as easy as it sounds. Where do go with stuff that might be worth some money like old records. eBay is not as easy it seems either. I brought a pile up from the basement and let Rick Simpson take his pick from them. He found ten that that liked and built his weekly “Gumbo Variations” radio show on WRUR around the scratchy old vinyl. Each set started with one of our old records (Paul Butterfield, Ginger Baker, Charlie Hayden, Chuck Berry, Crazy World of Arthur Brown) and Rick built on those for a pretty cool but sort of out-of-body show.

We order our coffee ten pounds at time, whole bean from Canaltown. The owner, Pete, roasts in the back room and provides an incredible aroma for the whole neighborhood.

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July 13, 2011August 20, 2019

French Women

Womens Cup 2011 - US beats France 3-1 in semifinals — Womens Cup 2011 – US beats France 3-1 in semifinals

How are you supposed to get anything done during the World Cup? You just can’t. Peggi and I watched the US beat France this morning while sitting in my parent’s living room (you can see some of my dad’s paintings in the shot above). My mom even made lunch for us.

And on the way home Peggi said we ought to go down to our neighbor’s house to watch Sweden play Japan in the second semifinal game. We barely had time to check email before kickoff. Japan was even more stylish than France in the way they played the short ball and passed around opponents with finesse. They hardly broke a sweat. Sweden beat the US in the opening round, just one week ago today, and Japan beat Sweden today so what are the US’s chances on in the final on Sunday? Everything rests on Abby’s shoulders.

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July 11, 2011August 20, 2019

Dreamland

Rasberries in Leo's garden — Rasberries in Leo’s garden

Winning is not everything but I do wish I could beat my neighbor, Rick, in horseshoes. Not so much for the sake of winning but just to be able to see him with his tail between his legs for a while. Maybe that is the same thing. It felt real good to see the US beat Brazil in the 122’nd minute on a beautiful cross that Rochester’s Abby Wambach nailed with her head. And it was especially nice to watch the game with my mom while sitting in my parent’s living room, a few blocks from Mercy High School, where both Abby and my mom went.

It has become impossible to keep up with the wild raspberries in Leo’s garden although many of the neighbors on our street have been trying. Peggi and Monica both made pies over the weekend. I have seeds stuck between my teeth around the clock. And with this heat the berries will soon shrivel up.

Andy and Karen from Dreamland Faces were in town last week. They dropped off a few of their new 45s at the Bop Shop and our neighbor Rick grabbed one for us. Both sides are in Chinese. Here’s hoping they’ll be here long enough for a gig next month when they return. This is a folk song about pretty girls with long braids. “If you want to marry, don’t wed any other – I want you to marry me. Bring all your money and your little sister, get in the wagon, come with me”

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July 8, 2011August 20, 2019

Everyone’s A Designer

Our neighbor emailed us that there has been a rash of car break-ins and mail theft in our neighborhood. She said the police believe they have the kids that were responsible. Mail theft is kind of a big deal. The kids probably didn’t even know how serious an offense it is.

It reminded me of a story I did for the Refrigerator in 1999 when the Post Office was defacing their own mailboxes. They had come up with a new logo, one that looked completely wrong in context, and they were in the process of pasting the new, slightly bigger, logo on top of every perfectly fine old logo on every mailbox in the country. At that time there were still a few of the old logos left on overlooked mailboxes and we encouraged readers to send in their old mailbox sitings.

I wondered what the penalty would be if you got caught defacing every classic, tank-like mailbox in the country the new, hideous, speedy-like-FedEx, italicized logo. Here we are thirteen years down the road. The mailboxes still look like 49′ Fords. They aren’t going anywhere, they’re fixtures of stability in our neighborhood and the “new” logo makes them look like they’re falling over.

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July 7, 2011April 3, 2019

New Polymath

Pale Swallow-Wort, invasive species plant in New York State

I hate this stinking weed, an invasive species, called Pale Swallow-Wort, that pops up everywhere. It’s really tough to pull out because in most cases you don’t get the roots when it snaps off just above the ground level but the dry conditions we have now make it the perfect time to rid your yard of this sucker. You can see in the photo above that I was able to get most of the roots. I use two the hand technique and pull straight up with focused concentration.

We have a recording of Hildegard Von Bingen’s music that we play quite a bit but we didn’t realize she was such a polymath. The movie we watched last night about her life, a thousand years ago, hardly touched on her monophonic vocal works. Instead it portrayed her as a dark ages religious mystic struggling with a Catholic church hierarchy that unfortunately still exists today.

Polymath would have been a better name than “New Math”, which was already retro when we called ourselves that back in the late seventies, but anything with the word “math” in there sounds too progressive or soulless which isn’t quite fair too mathematics but . . . I played in the band when we recorded the first single with Howard Thompson behind the glass wall of PCI Studios.

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July 5, 2011August 20, 2019

Extra, Extra

Duane sent us this link to his newest video, one he did for “Juggler” from Margaret Explosion’s latest 45. He takes the the light side of the single and goes dark on us, enriching the music twofold. It’s a total knockout.

We finished Netflix Season 3 of “Breaking Bad” last night and spent some time today with extras at the iTunes store. In that spirit I posted some of Duane’s comments on the making of “Juggler” below.

“The camera is shooting 10 sec clips and turning them into 40 sec slo-mo’s internally. So those little swaying camera moves were actually happening fast. And those swinging planes that sailed by within inches of the camera were really going fast. On another take, I jumped back suddenly, thinking I was about to get hit. Shot at Coney Island till they closed. Back home I came to the shot of the swinging chairs and immediately decided that shot was the opening w/o even seeing the rest. It dictated the whole feel & path. The machines are juggling people. The life we lead juggles us, we learn to be juggled by it from childhood onward. It all fit. I started seeing it all this way and it basically assembled itself. I made a choice not to ride any of the rides, to keep the point of view objective vs subjective. But I’m dying to go back at nite & just ride the rides.”

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July 4, 2011August 20, 2019

Ralphie The Gopher

Kevin was in town and he stopped by with his family just after we had had heard from neighbor that there was a gopher loose in the garden that we share. Our neighbor said if we wanted any spinach we better pick it before dark because there might be any left in the morning so we all headed down there to pick a few bags.

This morning we checked email before heading out for a walk and our neighbor sent one telling us he had captured the varmint. We stopped down there and found Ralphie, just as we pictured him, in a cage with a few slices of apples. It looked like he had worn a hole in his nose trying to get out this trap. It will will be a long hot weekend for hi him before the town picks him up on Tuesday and transports him over by the bay.

Coincidentally Peggi was wearing her Ralphie The Gopher hat so I took this picture with the hat on the cage. We ripped our Ralphie cds a while back and gave the whole Tall Tales library to our niece and her husband. They’ve told us many times how Ralphie is their family’s favorite.

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July 1, 2011August 20, 2019

What’s The Name Of This Town?

Bootsy at the Party In The Parking Lot in Rochester New York

It was perfect weather for Bootsy’s touchdown at the “Party In The Parking Lot” last night. Of course he opened with “What’s The Name of This Town?” and when the cameras came out he said “You gotta take a picture of me because I’m not really here.”

We first saw Bootsy in the seventies at the War Memorial when the Brides of Funkenstein opened the show and Bootsy followed and was then followed by Parliament and Funkedelic. He’s still doing “Telephone Bill” and “Munchies For Your Love” from back then but not “Very Yes” and “I’d Rather Be With You.” With Bernie Worrell on keyboards he did a Hendrix tribute a Sly Stone song and sounded as good as ever but loud as hell.

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