View of Irondequoit Bay from 590 in Rochester, New York
This morning’s paper had an article about Bay Town Plaza in Webster going under as Walmart plans to super-size their building there. The town is so ridiculously built up it’s depressing. I was going to high school out there when they converted the old three lane (we called the middle lane the “suicide lane”) Empire Boulevard/104 in to the new 104 that plowed through farm fields to carry the burgeoning Xerox’s employees to work. The noisy 104/Irondequoit Bay Bridge was part of the package. We can hear the hum from our house on the other side.
They have been doing work on the Bay Bridge all summer so it’s been in a poor man’s Christo mode. We rode our bikes over there the other day and sat on the bench that overlooks this scene confirming that life is a spell.
Evan with mask at “best Garage Sale Ever” in Rochester, New York
When it came time to make signs for the two ends of Alpine Drive, the night before our garage sale, we did a little brainstorming and Alice came up with a killer title, “Best Garage Sale Ever.” We ran with it and in fact it was the best garage sale ever, a perfect day and a chance to see so many friends in one spot.
We found a Lena Horne cd in the cd slot of Peggi’s mom’s stereo and kicked the sale off with an operatic tribute to Peggi’s mom. We met Noah from next door and I gave him this mask while we were setting up. No one was interested in the glass table that belonged to Peggi’s mom so we put it out in the “Free” section near the end of the sale. Evan picked it up and put it in his sale where it sold for six dollars. We sold our entire music collection and were delighted to find happy homes for most of it.
People warned us about the dealers and true to form they were there as we were setting up a full two hours before the sale began. I dreaded the whole affair and it was was an incredible amount of work but turned out to be fun, mostly because Alice and Julio are so much fun.
I put my 1996 series of 24 “Rochester Crime Faces” in the sale. Last time they were out in public was when they hung in the old city jail, the Cell Gallery, in Writers and Books. Ruby Rubenstein, Scott McCarney, Marie Via, Claire Marziotti, Chris Schepp, Judy Levy, Amy Enis, Maureen Outlaw, Sally Wood Winslow and Heather Erwin all bought at least one. I was thrilled that they sold out.
After 30 years in the city we moved to a house that didn’t have enough room for all our stuff so the stuff remained in boxes for six years. In that time we accumulated more stuff and when Peggi’s mom passed away we wound up with even more stuff. The time has come for our first Garage Sale!
We been preparing for Saturday’s Garage Sale our entire life, accumulating stuff that we liked, never thinking of it as collectable or even having any trade-in value at all and then comes the realization the stuff is in the way. Beyond giving things away and then donating stuff to charity there is the practical matter of putting a little white sticker on each and every glass bird or Elvis Presley placemat.
Our friend’s, Alice and Julio, were planning a sale this Saturday as part of a neighborhood sale in Pittsford. We plan to piggyback on their sale and make it a party. We ripped our lps and cds so our entire record and cd collection is for sale. We weeded our book shelves, our closets, the garage and the basement and came up with a truckload of stuff for the sale. If you’re out and about on Saturday stop by. I’m sort of dreading it but it could be fun. Alice is calling it “The Best Garage Sale Ever!”
Old rock magazines headed for garage sale on Saturday in Rochester, New York
I was going to toss these old magazines in the 50 cent box for Saturday’s yard sale but I stopped to check the eBay price of the Rock Scene with the dorky picture of Keith and I found it just sold for $26. There is so much anxiety involved with this whole garage sale thing.
I had this U2 cd single of a song called “Numb” from the Zooropa album. It was a promo sent to us when we were doing the print version of the Refrigerator and our friend, Duane, told us it was valuable so I put it right by my monitor for the day when we decided to liquidate. I guess it’s more like downsizing or miniaturizing as in mp3 files. Ironically, the precious cd” wasn’t there when I reached for it. I had to laugh. I never even ripped it either. Its probably in one of the cd boxes out in the garage.
I spot-checked the thousands of cds and vinyl records and found that vinyl was worth more than the cds so I decided to go with $3 for the vinyl and $4 for the cds and I will probably lower the price in the afternoon.
I never expected to get any money back when I finished with our books and records and Rock Scene magazines yet the value we placed in these things while we owned them gets devalued when we look them up on line. It’s all kind of weird. A lot of our stuff came from garage sales in the first place. Maybe this is what makes the world go ’round. This is our first garage sale and I hope its the last.
We took a walk between rain showers yesterday and spotted these turkeys. They can fly if they have too but they are almost too clumsy to do so. They aren’t the most graceful walkers either. They are still evolving.
We have a number of small jobs that keep us strapped to our computer chairs and one of them is mp3 fulfillment for Pete LaBonne. We’ve sold two copies of his “High Time” release in the last few days and we’re wondering what the flurry is all about. He must be getting some North Country press. Last we heard he was firming up a date at Turning Stone Casino. Pete will be in town on September 2nd to play with Margaret Explosion for the last of this summer’s outdoor “14 Fridays” in the Village Gate Courtyard. Pete LaBonne “My Clock Stops” from Gigunda Box Set
Vinyl records sound better than cds or digital files. I’m not talking about clean 180 gram virgin audiophile vinyl, I’m talking about dusty old lps and 45s. And there is no question that record covers look much better especially the gatefold spreads weather inside or out. So I’m hanging on to a few and putting the rest in a garage sale next weekend. I offered two boxes of cds to my nephews yesterday, deliberately arranging them so the White Stripes were on top. They looked down at the boxes and giggled as they said no thanks. I asked if they had a cd player and they said no.
Dyson vacuum cleaners have a plastic chamber that collects the dust instead of bag. Ours was empty but it still wouldn’t pick up. We found before that the only way to remedy this situation was to take it all apart and clean the vacuum cleaner parts. Our neighbor, Rick, brought his laptop over because it was making a clicking sound. I asked if he had a backup and he didn’t so I suggested he go to Staples and buy an external drive and run Time Machine before he does anything else. He did that and then took it in to the Apple Store. They told him the fan had become clogged and it needed cleaning.
With all the rain in last few weeks our basement dehumidifier has been running around the clock. I’ve been down there quite a bit going through junk to put in our upcoming yard sale the dehumidified has been as loud as hell. I thought it was on its last lags and risked breaking the plastic cover to get a look at the inside. The coils were completely blocked by dust so scrubbed it with a toothbrush and it works fine now. Our refrigerator came with the house and it has been freezing things that are stored near the back even though it is set to the lowest settings. We were certain that we needed a new thermostat and I priced them and even watched a video on how to install the thing. But before we did that we pulled the refrigerator out from the wall and gave it a good cleaning. Turns out the air intake was blocked and it now runs perfectly.
Jeanie Pruit “Satin Sheets” and Prince “Lovesexy” lp covers
I’ve been going through my lps and putting boxes together for an upcoming yard sale. It’s a a tough project to make any headway on because I keep getting sidetracked by something I have to listen to one more time. At one point I had Jeanie Pruit’s “Satin Sheets” in thefront of a stack right next to and Prince’s “Lovesexy” and I was stopped dead in my tracks!
We stopped by Clover Pools on East Ridge Road to pick up a new solar cover for our street pool. We found some paperwork that says we bought one back in 2007 so I guess these things only last five years or so out in the sun soaking in chorine. Clover Pools sells hot tubs and patio furniture too so we looked around a bit.
We had recently told Rich and Andrea that our NetFlix queue was getting dangerously low and they emailed back their picks. Hot Tub Time Machine was on both of their lists so we just watched it last night. I fell asleep and that’s a thumbs up from me. I couldn’t get over this set of patio furniture that they wanted $2,325 for. The circular table had what looked like Philip Guston cigar butts in an inset fake fire pit.
Our house came with a wrought iron railing around the stairwell. It was painted white and it had these Rococo swoops in it that just did not make it. I tried painting it but the paint wouldn’t stick. Apparently it was painted with oil on top of acrylic at one time and the new coat just lifted top layer of white off. I bought some paint remover but I never started the job because it seemed so nasty. I considered dismantling it and taking it out to my brother’s to sandblast it and then we decided to just cut out the offending curves so we borrowed Julio’s Saws-all and I bought some extra blades for the job. The saw sat next to the railing for about a month until we came up with a new idea for a wood and stainless steel railing. So we took the old railing out to the driveway where it looked even uglier in the daylight.
The time had come to head to Krieger’s with the scarp metal. They’ve been bought by Metalico but everyone still calls it Krieger’s. When we lived next door to Sparky he used to collect junk and dismantle it in his garage and take it to Kriegers for extra cash. I’ve been there with him and the place is a trip so I gave Sparky a call and arranged to pick him up at nine.
Street people pushing empty shopping carts were walking toward us in the middle of Portland Avenue as we approached the gates. We piled the scrap metal in a cart and wheeled it on to their scale while workers barked incoherent orders at us. You get the clear sense that they deal with unsavory characters on a regular basis and they have taken on many of the same characteristics as their clients.
There are cameras mounted above and bars on the cashier’s window. There was a Puerto Rican woman with a black baby in line in front of us. She had tattoos up and down her arms and her transaction was not going smoothly. There was another women in tight jeans and high heels standing off to the side. I asked Sparky what these women were doing and he said, “They’re prostitutes,” like that explains everything.
I slipped my driver’s license through a tiny opening in the bullet proof glass and signed a form that stated that the junk was mine and that I had not obtained illegally. The cashier paid me with a receipt that I had to take to an outdoor ATM machine. She asked if I had ever used the ATM before and I wasn’t sure if meant this particular ATM or any ATM so I said “No” and a worker walked with me to the outdoor machine. There was a guy with long scruffy beard hanging around near the machine and the worker told him to “beat it.” He scanned the bar code on my receipt for me and then said, “When your money comes out, take it fast.”
Back at Sparky’s he showed me the remodeling job he was doing on his bathroom. He had put in a shower enclosure in place of the tub and inadvertently sealed some of his tools in the wall between the studs. I asked him how he was getting by without a bathroom and took me to the basement where he had set up his old bathtub with a garden hose running across the floor from the laundry tub. He used an aluminum extension from a vacuum cleaner as a drain pipe and it ran out of the drain right into the open storm drain.
Holloway House server in East Bloomfield, New York
The Holloway House in East Bloomfield first opened its doors in 1808 as a tavern and stage coach stop for wagons pushing west. For the last fifty years the Holloway House has been run by the Wayne family. It is well preserved has quite a reputation with old timers. The drive out there, through the rolling hills, is part of the package and the pickled green cabbage in the relish tray, fruit juice/sherbet shrub appetizer and homemade breads and pies seal the deal.
We celebrated my mom’s birthday out there with a fantastic meal and we learned how to keep “New England” and “Manhattan” chowder straight from our server. “It snows in New England (white) and the river is polluted in Manhattan (red).”
I thought yesterday’s 4 Season’s post on “So Many Records, So Little Time” was cool but today’s was a sensation. Kevin posted Margaret Explosion’s “Purple Heart” What a way to start the day.
We took a long bike ride in the direction of Irondequoit Bay and wandered around in the dreamy little neighborhoods that overlook the bay. We stopped at a few garage sales and rode down streets with “No Outlet” signs on them. Perfect Day so far.
Photo of “Subterranean Surrogates” photo installation by Paul Dodd at Rochester Contemporary August 5 through September 25
I skipped the Patron’s Preview last night for the “State Of The City” show at Rochester Contemporary. Gallery director, Bleu said they would be serving “the good wine” but I nixed it. Can’t remember exactly what I did instead but we’ve been weeding out junk around the house and I keep getting sidetracked. We’re planning to have a garage sale in September and we have some stuff on Craig’s list. A guy just called because he wants to buy the golf balls. He’s on the way over here with the cash.
My show, a photo installation entitled “Subterranean Surrogates,” is in conjunction with the “State of the City” show and I will probably be at the opening.
I love the Blindfold Test that DownBeat gives a musician in each issue. Listening with with an open mind, no cover image, liner notes or baggage, can be exhilarating. That’s why I like “iTunes DJ” shuffle mode so much. Knowing what song is going to come up in what order takes all the fun out listening. I’m always running to my computer to find out what it was I just heard come out of there.
I was working at my computer with the iTunes DJ at work in the background when Peggi came in to ask who the last song was by. I was kind of surprised because it was her on sax with Margaret Explosion doing “Sargasso Creek.”
Ducks crossing country road in Finger Lakes region of New York State
Some people like putting things on the calendar and getting all planned out. The only things I put on the calendar are things I would like to forget but can’t like dentist appointments and work related phone meetings.
Peggi and I planned to take a day trip to celebrate our anniversary and we never put a date on the calendar, we just waited for an opening and today was it. The New York Times didn’t show up so we got an early start. We glanced at a map of the Finger Lakes and picked Kueka. We drove down the west side to Hammondsport and and then back up along the east side. We took back roads the whole way and even passed a dirt road called “Back Road.” It’s fun to drive slow, so slow we kept pulling over to let anxious cars go by. We stopped the car in the middle of the road to let these geese pass.
Hammondsport is a well preserved old town with cute little shops full of tourists. We parked near the town square and walked in the opposite direction of the cute little shops. In fact we walked out of town and spent some time in an old cemetery. On the way back to Rochester we drove through Palmyra where Joseph Smith claims to have found his wacky book of Mormon.
It has been hot and sticky for many weeks in western New York, all sun most days and very little rain. And when it did rain the other day these orange mushrooms popped out on a fallen tree in the creek. If they are edible, there’s a few meals down there.
Hot weather takes the life out me. I can’t seem to get anything done and maybe that’s the whole idea.
