We walked in the rain today. Why not? We always see more wildlife in the rain and fewer people. Today we watch a Pileated woodpecker working on a big dead pine tree. He was so engrossed we were able to get up close as he pecked away at big chunks of wood. Peggi took a movie and said she felt like we caught him problem solving.
We usually watch big soccer matches with our neighbor’s, Jedi and Helena. This time we invited Matthew and Louise over to watch tomorrow’s Champions League final but Matthew has to work covering Kamala Harris in Buffalo at a funeral for one of the local shooting victims. We tried Jeff and Mary Kaye but their daughter and grandson, who they see often, have Covid. The more we thought about it the more we realized we would rather watch the big game by ourselves. Full focus.
I’m hoping Real Madrid starts Rodrigo with Benzema and Vinicius up front. And their midfield is as solid as it gets with Madrid, Casemiro and Kroos but I am worried about their defense, especially if Alaba is still injured. Liverpool is a tough opponent. We will have our white lights on for Los Blancos.
Tonight we watch our last La Liga match of the season. We follow Real Madrid, Barcelona and Atlético Madrid and we have watched all of their games this year. That would be 38 matches for each team. There are twenty teams in the league and each team plays the others twice, once home and once away. This is how we’ve stayed close to Spain during Covid. The pregame gives you a feel for each city. The Bicycle Diaries at halftime takes you through the cities on two wheels.
On our return from Boston and we found a whole new generation of weeds in our vegetable garden so we spent the afternoon down there weeding between the rows of lettuce, arugula, cilantro, spinach and mesclun. Our plants are a little too close to one another so I didn’t feel bad about snipping enough greens for tonight’s salad.
We have not left home in a while. We need a good reason to do so and the first leg of the Guston retrospective, ”Now,” is better than good.
Peggi booked an expensive but relatively cheap hotel room near the Boston Common and we put our car in a garage for three days. The clerk behind the check-in desk started upselling us immediately asking if we realized the room was not much bigger than the queen-sized bed and it did not have a view. We did know that, but for forty dollars more a night we have a bigger room on the twelfth floor with a view of the city.
The painting in our room looks better without my glasses but the grey sky cityscape is spectacular..
Peggi Fournier oil painting of Paul Dodd circa 2000
Ran into Larry again today. This time he was walking two dogs, his (Ernie) and a neighbor’s (Molly.) We couldn’t tell which dog was which until we were right on top of them. Larry told us Molly’s owners, Mike and Monica, were out of town. Coming back from the lake we ran into other neighbors, Jan and Jack, in the park hunting for Morel mushrooms. Jan had a bag full, Jack had not found any as yet. Maybe every neighborhood is like ours, Jan and Jack, Mike, Monica and Molly, Dan and Diana across the street, Peggi and Paul.
Peggi did this oil portrait of me somewhere around 2000. Can’t imagine where my glasses were. Maybe the photo she worked from was taken when I lost my glasses in a big wave on a beach in Spain.
Pile of man-made rocks, some man-made, on the beach
When I replaced my 2013 iMac in 2020 I transferred my files manually and reinstalled the software I use rather than risking migrating old problems onto my new Mac. I didn’t have enough room for my music library or photos on the old machine so I stored them on an external drive. I am forever digitizing my stuff and now I have room for it all in one place, one digital space and then the copy floating in the cloud.
When Peggi and I play in the basement, I won’t call it practicing, we listen to some the live Margaret Explosion songs to pick themes to play with. I put my old computer down there and rigged it so I could connect to the library on the new Mac. I remember having a hard time with that and I must have done something goofy because I apparently set that computer up as an in-home server, a situation that prevented new playlists made on my computer from syncing with my iPad. I called Apple on Friday and a senior advisor named Jessica (do you think they use their real names?) told me, “I got hand it to you, setting a computer up to be a server is not easy.”
She discovered that all the new songs I’ve added to my music library were going to the old computer in the basement. Not only that, every Garage Band file I wrote was getting saved down there too. None of it going to the cloud and no back up.
While helping me she screen-shared with my iPad and desktop and had me restart at one point so I had quit Photoshop. I had the photo above opened and unsaved. While saving she had plenty of time to read the graffiti. She wanted a playlist to add a new song to and suggested my “Su Za!” playlist. Ken Frank, Margaret Explosion’s bass player, records dance tracks under that name. Song titles in there include “Ants in My Pants,” and “Ass Magnet.” She gave me a weekend’s worth of cleanup and said she would call me back on Tuesday.
Frank Paolo in front of his apartment on Saint Paul in Rochester, New York
The last time we heard from Frank, just a few weeks ago, he left a message on our phone that told us he had gone on “a retreat, of sorts, a bad idea,” and he wanted to know if we could pick him up and take him home. He was in Highland Hospital. Now Frank is gone.
Frank Palazolo was the new kid in our junior year of high school but he immediately launched a campaign for school president. He was the only student in my class with a mustache. He put his face on the posters and won. We were in the high school play, “Teahouse of the August Moon.” Frank played Colonel Wainwright to my Captain Fisby. He had a mischievous sense of humor. During dinner at my parents’ house Frank would say things to embarrass me.
Frank worked for an ad agency and wrote a book called “Presentations Unplugged.” He became a sought after speechwriter, writing for top executives at Kodak and Xerox. We helped Frank with his website and videoed him giving a presentation to Christa Construction executives on how to be an effective salesperson. He wowed them and us.
l. to r. Norm Ladd, Paul Dodd, Johnny and David, Frank Palazolo in pool, Dave Mahoney, Fran Dodd, Mark Dodd, Brad Fox, Tim Dodd, John Dodd and Joe Barrett. Dodd’s swimming pool being constructed on Hawley Drive in Webster.
When I was asked to give a talk on my art at the Memorial Art Gallery, Frank insisted I come see him for advice. One thing he told me that I think of all the time was to not thank the organization for inviting you at the beginning of your talk. I remember him saying, “You will never have more of their attention than you will at the opening of your talk. And as soon as you start thanking people they start daydreaming.”
His website, originally set up to market his book, morphed into his blog, “Everyone Is Entitled To My Opinion,” where he gave us his opinion on everything. Peggi and I drove Frank to the last high school reunion. Frank came to most Margaret Explosion shows. He was one of kind and we will miss him.
Sketch for mural at Mex Restaurant on Alexander Street in Rochester, New York
I use this blog to keep track of things. Unlike my house, it has a search engine. And a jpeg is almost as good as the real thing – certainly takes up a lot less space. I came across this sketch for the mural I did at Mex Restaurant in 1999. It was a challenging space to work with as it started on the wall to the left of the front door and then went up the stairs around a round corner (and wall niche for the Virgin Mary) and continued in on the wall leading into the dining room. I reworked the placement of a few things and chickened out on the sort of intimidating Mexican gang. I was still working on the mural the week before Casey opened so I enlisted both Peggi and my father to bail me out.
We had plenty of good times at Mex, mostly outdoors in their rock patio on Friday evenings. I took this photo the last time we ate there in 2016.
Corey Wilkes performing with Ethnic Heritage Ensemble at Bop Shop in Rochester, New York February 12, 2022
Maybe it was the dearth of live music or the hope in the air that this dark cloud may pass. Ethnic Heritage Ensemble had a full house at the Bop Shop on Saturday. Kahil El Zabar has been here so many times, with his Ritual Trio, the Ensemble, with David Murray and with Billy Bang, and all have been memorable performances. This one was a joy.
Peggi and I have been playing together for the past week in preparation for a Margaret Explosion gig on Wednesday. We were playing along with some the songs we have online and our stereo cut out. It took me two hours to find the short. I needed another sound source to determine whether it was a cord so I dug an old cassette deck out. There was a live tape in there, Margaret Explosion at the Bug Jar on Halloween 1998. It sounded like just a trio, Peggi, me and Greg Slack on bass. I fixed the short by unplugging everything and plugging it back in again.
I call it “baclava” just for fun. Boris Johnson would call it a “letter box.” Peggi told me she was going to be cavalier this morning and not wear her balaclava while we skied through the woods. And then she added, “That’s a funny word.” It conjures up muskateers with me for some reason. There was restaurant with that name downtown on Clinton in that block where they built the Chase Lincoln tower, now the “Metropolitan.”
My brother and I would stop there for breakfast on our way to Bishop Kearney. We both had paper. routes and if weren’t done delivering by the time the school bus came (conveniently) we would take the city bus downtown and transfer to the Portland Ave. bus. That transfer time gave us plenty of time to go to restaurants, the record store and even movies when the RKO/Paramount was still open.
It was warm this morning, upper twenties and full sun, so I took my hat off and stuck it in my pocket. My ears were soon got cold and I looked for my hat but it was gone. We like to out out and come back in a big loop rather that backtrack but we did. It was easy enough to find. It’s bright yellow.
We ski through the woods and then out onto the golf course and we were lucky enough to catch the groomer this morning, dragging his apparatus behind a snowmobile. We waved and thanked him. He’s a new guy and especially creative. His tracks have all sorts of interesting curves and slopes.
I was talking to my brother today about his experience with switching internet providers. I was doing more listening than talking as he told me how little the person on the other end of the line knew, someone in a call center somewhere reading from a script. The cable company told him they would mail him a new modem and all he had to do was plug it in. “To what?” he kept asking. He has never had cable tv and as far as he knows there is no cable running to his house. I tried a line I’ve been using lately, paraphrasing our friend Kevin in Nashville, “The whole world is falling apart.” I think Kevin’s actual quote was, “Half the world is going nuts.”
The New York Times year end Week in Review had a big article on how global warming was playing out in various parts of the world. We are in danger of flooding up here while California burns and the arctic melts. Large parts of Spain are experiencing desertificaction so the almond farms are planting crops to replenish the soil. On a micro level I can tell you that we went out skiing yesterday after our first significant snowfall and our skis stuck to the warm ground.
We dropped our car off this morning at B&B on Saint Paul Boulevard for an inspection and an oil change. We hadn’t been in there in a year and they asked if we had an oil change somewhere else. I said we haven’t been anywhere and Brian told us they recommend an oil change even if you haven’t driven the miles. We took a five mile walk through Seneca Park while we waited. The Frederick Law Olmstead park, overlooking the Genesee River is so pretty in the winter. I really don’t believe the world is falling apart. I am an eternal optimist.
Our nephew and his girlfriend are having a baby, the first in that generation on that side of the family. My sister, Ann, is our go-to contact for baby gift suggestions. She couldn’t wait to have children, she dotes on her grandkids and she works at Parkleigh (I thought it was i before e). She suggested a “Jellycat” stuffed animal which comes with a little book that brings the animal to life. Peggi looked at them online and picked out the Bashful Lamb. I agreed it was the cutest but it was only available on back order, sold out at the Jellycat site and the few left on Amazon looked like fakes.
Plan B, and probably the best plan, was for Peggi to crochet a baby blanket. Peggi has done this before but the last one was for our grand niece who is now living the life on her own in Brooklyn. We called Gloria, who we have hardly ever seen without a crochet or knitting needle in her hand, and she suggested we go to Michael’s to buy the yarn. No more “Ye Olde Yarn Shoppes.” You can get to Webster, where the closest store is, pretty quickly but once you get there the shopping experience is grisly. I decided to go with her and I’m glad I did. I had been tasked with submitting a self portrait to an upcoming show at Studio 402 and I found one on the shelves at Michael’s.
“Before Yesterday We Could Fly:” An Afrofuturist Period Room
“Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room” opened last week, the same day we were at the Metropolitan. We were turned away at the door as the opening was for members only so I took this photo from outside the room. We moved along to Jules Tavernier and the Elem Pomo, a show about an Indigenous community in Northern California in 1800s. The Met has it all.
I played horseshoes with Rick the day we came back from New York. Rick played golf with Steve Grieve the day before and after we played Steve found out he had Covid. Rick says he hung out with Steve in his house as well. so we didn’t play for a few days. Rick was tested and it came back negative so we played horseshoes yesterday.
I took my warmup shots, throwing all four shoes down to one stake and then all four back to the other. Rick was doing something on his phone. When we were ready to play we could only find three of the four shoes. I felt around the sandy soil in the pit and started combing through the pachysandra behind the stake. I usually make a metal note if a shot is so bad that bounces in there and I didn’t remember one doing so.
I don’t like wading through the pachysandra because I worry about ticks. Rick is currently doing a month of antibiotics because he came down with Lyme. I got a hoe out and tried to push the plants aside to find the shoe. We looked for about a half hour and Rick went next door and brought back a set of shoes that he had bought on eBay a long time ago. They were lighter and they really threw my toss off. Extra flips and too much distance. And I kept thinking about the missing shoe.
About halfway through the first match with the new shoes I threw one that landed in the pit with a clank. I turned to Rick and asked, “What was that?” Rick finished his throw and we dashed to the other stake. The missing show was about five inches down.
Outlet from Eastman Lake flowing into Lake Ontario at Durand
We were unable to cross the outflow from Eastman Lake this morning. Of course we could have taken our shoes off and waded across but we turned around and walked back along the beach. Someone had left a big round metal fire pit fixture on the beach with ashes and charred beer cans from the night before. We passed twice and considered taking it home both times but it was way too heavy.
We watched a virtual funeral mass yesterday for Joe O’Keefe, my mom’s cousin. He was a real sweetheart. At my mom’s funeral he told me a rather significant story about their common grandmother, a Kelly, who left Dublin on a ship bound for New York as a caretaker of an elderly man. She was supposed to return but she fell in love with a man named Walsh. They married as soon as they landed but only on the condition that Walsh drop his affiliation with the Church of England and get right with Catholicism.
He told me they used to hold these teen dances all over the city and kids would usually go without dates. He said he always made sure he danced with my mom and said he was determined to find a Mercy girl like my mom. And he did, my mom’s lifelong friend, Virginia, who he married.
Tomorrow we drive to Niagara Falls for the funeral of my aunt and Joe’s cousin, Ann Oliver, the last of that generation of Tierneys. She died during the pandemic and the family delayed the Mass and remembrance until now. She was my favorite aunt on that side. I painted a picture of her for “The City” show at Pyramid in 1990 where I depicted one member from each of my relatives’ families working somewhere in Rochester.
We have not played horseshoes in a week. First Rick thought he might have Covid so we were awaiting test results. That turned out to be a cold, a common condition that almost disappeared during the pandemic. And then Peggi’s sister came to visit from LA along with her man friend. We had dinner here the first night, an evening warm enough to sit on the the deck while I roasted corn. The corn was cold by the time we ate but the seared tuna that Peggi made was fantastic. It occurred to me that I need to up my game with the salad, both the dressing and the green stuff. Salad should rightfully be the best part of any meal. Peggi made Tarta de Santiago for dessert and we finished the evening playing 45s, some from the collection of the Fournier sisters. Bobby Darin’s “Nature Boy” was the hit of the night.
The next day we took a walk along the canal, starting in Pittsford where our guests were staying. We walked from there to Fairport, thinking there would be a place to eat. The walk was a lot farther than we thought and I was thinking about a pint of cold beer but unlike Pittsford, Fairport is a blue collar town and the restaurants don’t open til 4. We met at Rocco’s for dinner that night and ordered traditional Italian fair. Peggi and I recommended the salad and we all ordered it but it bombed. Despite the fancy name, “Tres Colores,” the radicchio and lettuce mix were downing in a bitter sherry vinaigrette. You notice these kind of things when you recommend a place to guests. It is still one of our favorite restaurants.
We asked our guests what they would like to do the next day and were delighted to hear they wanted to to see the apple orchards so we worked our way around the bay and drove along the lake to Pultneyville where we stopped at B. Forman Park. Fully loaded apple trucks were everywhere along the way and I was surprised at how large an industry it really is when you go looking for it. The cobblestone houses are a sensational and we stopped in front of one just to gawk. We took Middle Road back and stopped at Lagoner Farms in Williamson where we sat at a picnic table in the sun while enjoying their cider and a cheese plate.
We finished our visit with a meal and conversation outdoors at Redd. Everything is right with the world there.
There is always someone on the beach regardless of the weather. It always different, having been rearranged by the weather, the waves and the night’s revelers. It is always beautiful.
Harlequin Glorybower in Durand Eastman Park along Log Cabin Road
Tuesday mornings we often run into the Cornell Cooperative Extension volunteers in the park The park is severely understaffed and these people, the nicest and most knowledgable people you will ever meet, are donating their time. So we limit ourselves to one question.
Last week they were pulling invasive Tree of Heaven plants. One of them held up a root ball that looked like six foot long white carrot. This morning they were just getting out of the vehicles down by the lake and we asked them about the white flowering plant that seems to be everywhere. They told us it is called Snakeroot, it is native to this area and it is not technically invasive. But they agreed it is acting like one this year. One of the old-timers said, “we like to call it ‘a brut.'”
It is called Snakeroot because the roots were commonly used to treat snakebites but the plant is poisonous to the touch. It is everywhere around here and Peggi has a few afternoons pulling the plants on our property. Legend has it that Abraham Lincoln’s mother died from drinking milk from a cow that had eaten the plant.
You don’t really have to own a mid-century modern house, you could just put these stylish numbers from moderndwellnumbers on your house. They go a long ways. This photo doesn’t show it but the numbers are about a half inch off the house because the screws come with spacers. They send you a paper template that you can tape on your house. The holes are are marked for drilling and the kerning is thought out. We went with it but in retrospect I wished we had spaced the numbers out a little more.
Each year we watch this guy pull up at our neighbors house in late August to wash their windows. Inside and out. And each year we think, “That would be nice.” It takes us most of a day to wash the windows and this year, after the gypsy moth invasion and the new roof, our windows are especially dirty. So we tagged along with them and had our windows professionally cleaned. It took him about three hours and they have never been cleaner. So clean that a robin flew into our front window about an hour after he left. It was temporarily knocked out but we watched right itself, walk around a bit and take off.
Sunburn from snorkeling in Cartagena, Columbia mid 80s. Photo by Peggi
Well before the 60 Minutes piece on the tour boat operater who took a group of scuba divers out to a coral reef off Cozumel and came back to shore while one of the divers was still down, Peggi and I spent a week in Cartagena.
When my parents moved my mom threatened to throw my shoebox of baseball cards away if I didn’t pick them up. I took them home and pawed through them one last time. My collection ranged from ’58 to ’63 and by that time I was flush with paper route money and simultaneously losing interest in baseball. I had doubles and triples of the 1963 Topps baseball cards, all in mint condition.
I noticed an ad for a sports memorabilia fair at Peddler’s Village and we took my shoebox over there. One of the vendors was my high school math teacher, Mr. Setek. He told me he would come by our house, go through the collection and make me an offer.
He carefully examined the cards, the same ones I used to throw around, and he was particularly impressed by the the full set of 1963 cards, especially the three Pete Rose rookie cards. He made us an offer of $1100 dollars. We were floored and accepted. On the way out he told us he planned to put the Pete Rose cards in a safety deposit box and then use them to help pay for his sons’ college tuition.
Peggi and I decided to take a tropical vacation with the money. An ad in the NYT showed package prices for three destinations. Cartagena was the cheapest, for good reason. We stayed in the Hilton and watched rifle armed guard walk circles around our hotel at night. It was our first taste of Cumbia!
We arranged for a motor boat to take us snorkeling on a coral reef. I remember a young German couple, a few others and a single woman on the boat with us. No one spoke the same language and the guy driving the boat spoke one of the native Columbian dialects.
We traveled along an inland waterway and then out to an island. We took a few steps offshore, put our masks on, our heads in the water and the sensation was like LSD. A lunch was included. Another boat came out to the island to deliver the food. The operators of that boat started partying with our boat operator. While we snorkeled they were playing load music and doing lines of cocaine.
After lunch we got back in the boat. The operator had turned surly. He drove as fast as he could on the way back. The single woman kept pleading with him to slow down. You can see the reds marks on my ass from bouncing on the hard seats as we tore through the jungle.
Paul on beach in Southern Spain. Photo by Peggi
Back at the hotel Peggi laughed at the lines on my rear end. I loved that suit because it was all cotton. I hate jumping in a pool and having my suit fill up like a ballon. I found it interesting that the colors alone, black and white, let more or less light through for my sunburn. And the photo is histerical.
House number 310 on our walk up to Aman’s Farm Market
Three women were sitting in one of the picnic shelters as we walked down Log Cabin Road this morning. Most of the shelters were already occupied and some of the grills were already smoking at 10 AM. On the table in front of the women was a short stack of Pepsi cans in those long 18 packs so they must have been expecting a crowd. As we passed by I heard one of them say, “That’s exactly how she got pregnant.” I think everybody knows how that happens.
Walking along the beach we came to a spot where the inlet from one of the smaller lakes was too deep to cross. We watched a young couple come toward us in bare feet and wade across. The woman’s arms were built and covered with tattoos. Rather than take our shoes off we turned around. We were now following the young couple. Walking behind them I could see her shorts were so short they failed to cover the bottom part of her buttocks. I hope that was ok to notice.
Our weather changed overnight and the humidity lifted. The sky today was pure blue and the sailboats looked especially white out on the lake. Walking up to Aman’s yesterday it was so hot we stood in the walk-in beer cooler for ten minutes when we got there. We came out with a six pack of Buffalo’s Hayburner.
The priest reminded both Peggi and me of John Cassavetes, somewhere else in his own head but right there commanding your attention. When he sprayed hand sanitizer on his hands before passing out communion I lost my appetite for the body of Christ. We were sitting with a row of my cousins, all from the same generation as the cousin whose funeral mass we were celebrating. And there was a speaker mounted on the column right in front of us but I could hardly understand what he was saying. I caught something about the “mystery of faith” and that concept stuck with me.
Our neighbor, Helena, recommended the Oriental Rug Mart in Eastview Mall as a place to get our rugs cleaned. The owner, Reza, came by himself to pick them up. We asked if he had been vaccinated when he stepped out of his van and he told us he was but he had just finished a two week quarantine because he gotten Covid anyway. He described it as something like the bout of bronchitis he had last year. We wore masks and he carried our rugs off.
