PopWars

Abby Wambach was sitting out last night’s game with a possible concussion and Carly Lloyd, the other US national team member playing for the Flash, was sidelined with a knee injury. If you wonder how much of a difference a few great players make to a team’s performance I’m hear to tell you it must mean a lot. The Flash could not move the ball from one end of the field to the other. They continually booted it and hoped for he best. Boston’s two national team members, Sydney Larraux and Heather O’Reilly were clearly playing on another level but their team was supportive and able to continually move the ball in small steps toward the goal.

Here’s my old man analysis. Lereaux seems too shapely to play the game but she’s deceptively quick and can out finesse the best. O’Reilly’s a tomboy with more energy and enthusiasm then anyone on the field but she is also a strategic player who feels the flow of the game and positions herself accordingly at all times. It was delight cheering for her as she scored two goals to defeat the home team.

I’ve been interviewing trees lately as potential prospects for tree trunk portraits. This is the perfect time of year to catch them, before all the green obscures their sculptural majesty.

It’s been raining for three days now, on and off. I had to wear my raincoat out to get the paper. When it finally stopped we walked through the woods and across the park and then up Hoffman Road where we stopped at an estate sale. The house has been empty of people for five or six years but it was full of stuff. There were paintings all through the house by the same woman, some were really nice, and the bookshelves in the big front room were filled with reel to reel tapes of classical music. I looked at a paperback of interviews with famous people on the subject of creativity. I skimmed a section from Einstein and one with Picasso. If you copped somebody’s ideas on creativity that wouldn’t be very creative would it?

We did come home with eight dollars worth of stuff. A nice wicker basket, six small cylindrical glasses, four empty Bering cigar boxes and a package of all black construction paper that was purchased at Dans Crafts & Things for $2.39.

There are at least two good reasons to go to Jackson’s Bakery on Stone Road near Dewey Avenue. One is they are one of the only old world bakeries left in the the city. They make everything from scratch. And two is that the place is now run by the drummer in the Goners. My mom says she used to walk me over to this place in a baby buggy when we lived in a nearby apartment but I don’t remember it.

Back in the 70′s Mugs Up was a pretty cool spot to hang around in the afternoon. You could sit at a booth right near the window and look out at the street as Eastman students scurried by with their musical instruments in tow. They tore the place down to build the Sibley Library which is today the largest academic music library in the US. I’ve never been in the music library but I miss Mugs Up.

The thing that caught my eye in this old photo is the little guy in the hat waiting for the bus. The worst bike accident I ever had was when I ran into a guy that looked a lot like this when he stepped off the curb in front of the old Music Lovers Shop about a block down the street. I was whizzing by and he stepped out right in front of me. He didn’t look and probably didn’t hear me coming. I slammed into my handle bars and then rolled over them and onto the street. I broke a few ribs and was all scraped up. He was crumpled in a ball on the street. I remember asking, “Are you alright” Are you alright?” over and over because the guy was not saying a word. I guess he was in shock. After a few minutes he got up slowly with my help and worked his way back to the curb. I asked again, “Are you alright?” and he said, “Jesus Christ.”

My dad bought me one of those square format, plastic Kodak cameras after I quit school and just before I traveled to Europe with the rest of my student loan. And I took this photo when I returned. It was my first camera and I must have been 19 or so. My sister and her boyfriend were hanging out in his car and John Sparagano, a friend of my younger brothers, was hanging out in the driveway. We all did a lot of hanging out in those days. At times the seven of us all had friends over at the same time.

My sister got us out of bed pretty early this morning. She had slipped on the ice last night while walking her dog and the throbbing pain in her wrist had kept her awake all night. She didn’t think she could drive herself to the doctor so we offered but first we had to “walk her dog”, a euphemism for taking the dog to a bathroom on the neighbor’s lawn. I inverted a Wegmans bag and cleaned up the mess and we headed off to Greater Rochester Orthopaedics (GRO) where the walls of the waiting room were lined with two foot square paintings of tree related art. I wanted to take a photo of one of them, a cross section of a big tree, but I did not want to confront the grumpy, gum chewing couple that was sitting in front of the painting.

My sister came out with a purple cast and I suggested going to Canaltown for a cup of coffee. We ran into my father over there, he was getting a to-go cup for my mom, so we had a small family reunion. The paintings there were not as intriguing but I liked the artist’s statement.

I shoveled the driveway in my pajamas this morning. Not the first time I’ve done that. I go out to get the paper and if it looks like it’s over my slippers I shovel my way to the mailbox. I have always liked shoveling snow. I used to do three driveways when we lived in the city, sometimes four, as our neighbors got older. And I used to make money with my shovel when I was in my teens. The rules never change. You have to get out there right away before the snow gets too heavy, before cars drive on it. And do it two or three times in a heavy storm. My father was showing me a Ralph Avery watercolor last night, a scene of downtown Rochester, and told me Avery died shoveling snow in his driveway. Not a bad way to go.

There is nothing like a fresh snowfall. I wish we had more of them. It’s like mother nature has low Testosterone these days.

The fresh snow is either evaporating or melting. We need some more. But it is a perfect day for YouTubing. We followed a Lincoln ad to Beck’s over the top performance of Bowie’s “Sound and Vision.” Low is still one of the greatest records of all time so maybe this will recharge sales. Watched a trailer for the David Mamet Phil Spector movie with Al Pacino and Helen Mirren and we longed for the real thing, “The Agony and Ecstacy of Phil Spector.” We saw it a few years ago at the Dyrden Theater and then heard the producers were having a hard time securing the rights to all those classic Wall of Sound songs. Whether that is true or not the movie has been unavailable. I have a feeling in this BBC link is only temporary so you better watch it soon. Finally, we primed ourselves for Matt & Kim‘s Monday night Armory appearance and got back to work.

The Pope had a press conference today. He said he just wants to spend more time with his wife and kids.” –David Letterman

Peggi described today’s snowstorm as the perfect gift for her birthday. The trees were so laden with snow that we could not make out the trail. It was a little sticky especially if you stood still for a few minutes but it was exceptionally beautiful.

454 5300. Thank god today was the last day of the WXXI pledge drive. Don’t you think the local PBS station would be more successful if they kept Norm Silverstein off the air? I know he’s the president but where in the world did he pick up that affectation?

We had dinner at Rooney’s in Swillburg. The place has been around forever and if it wasn’t so expensive it would be mobbed. Maybe the economy will come back. We were some of the only diners there tonight. They had quite a few cancelations with all the “No unnecessary driving” orders. Celebrating Peggi’s Bday was a necessity and the food was fantastic.