December 2008 – Page 2

December 10, 2008August 26, 2019

Doggone Forlorn

Yesterday’s rain turned to light snow this morning so the snow stuck to the top surface of every branch. It was beautiful. I had some packages to mail and I was dreading the lines at the Post Office so I decided to drive along the lake over to the Charlotte office. Charlotte in the winter is doggone forlorn. But there were only three people on line, the new AC DC was playing in the backroom and the clerks were very friendly. I was tempted to stop down at the LDR to visit Patty. She and Rick (the “R’ in the LDR) are back running the place. And Rick’s dad, Russ, still cuts the meat each morning. There was nice article about them in Saturday’s paper. Their steak sandwiches are so good we become meat eaters when we walk in the door. Same thing happens over at Vic & Irv’s but that is usually only when Duane is in town and he goes off his macrobiotic diet.

60 Minutes did another one of its hit pieces on modern art when they interviewed Julian Schnabel last Sunday. The artwork they showed did look pretty bad and his Basquiat movie was pretty bad and the cd he put out was astoundingly bad but “The Diving Bell” is a damn good movie so far. We took a break about halfway through and plan to finish it tonight after the Margaret Explosion gig so I will report back.

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December 9, 2008August 26, 2019

Capitalism Is Eating Itself

We met with our Merrill Lynch adviser this morning and were left with the distinct impression that capitalism is indeed eating itself. Our portfolio is worth less than what we put in to it and we’re doing “pretty good”. The same guys who have been saying for as long as I have been listening that “business knows best” are begging the government, who can’t balance a checkbook, for help. The receptionist, who used to greet us here, has been laid off because of the restructuring that Bank of America, who now owns Merrill, has started. And the Wall Street Journal I glanced at in ML’s lobby had an article about New York’s Attorney General, Mario Cuomo’s son, shaming Merrill’s CEO into not taking his ten million dollar bonus this year.

“Does the that fact that big business is begging the government for help indicate that things are really worse than they seem now?”, I asked. Our guy agreed that that was the case. We pushed ahead. Are there any buying opportunities out there now that just about everything has tanked? Maybe but even with their commission danging there they had no solid recommendations. “Do you feel that the Dow could drop much further?”. Our guy thought we would see a twenty to twenty five percent drop before things turned around.

We sold a few things at a loss so we could deduct it from our taxable income and called it a day at the races.

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December 8, 2008August 26, 2019

Apparition

Durand Eastman golf course in the late afternoon

The golf course usually feels like a jarring intrusion when it appears at the end of the trail in the woods near our house. Maybe it has something to do with the memory of being clocked by a golf ball as we crossed this hole a couple of years ago. Sometimes, though, the manicurred golf course appears like an apparition and it just knocks me out – without the ball to the head thing.

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December 7, 2008August 26, 2019

Mele Kaliki Maka

We stopped out to see Peggi’s mom this afternoon and she was watching the Del Webb Father/Son Challenge, a yearly golf tournament with famous golfers who are past their prime and their sons. Golf brings out the worst in me. The whispering, the goofy outfits and the gentlemanliness make me want to scream. We were going to walk down to dining room but Peggi’s mom was too tired so she decided to order in. I hung Christmas lights out on her balcony. It was about twenty degrees out there and it’s near eighty inside her apartment. It’s a toss up as to which is more uncomfortable.

Margaret Explosion made an appearance last night at Village Gate Atrium. The band, Hunu, graciously hosted a benefit for The Center For Youth Services. Chuck Cuminale worked there before he passed away and this event raised over a thousand dollars for the home for troubled kids. Various people got up to do a song with he the band and lot of guest musicians sat in as well a number of full bands. In our case it was three Margaret Explosion members plus Phil Marshall on guitar and Bernie Heveron on organ. We did an abstract, instrumental version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentleman”. Peggi and I ran the tune down in the basement before dinner but the performance was a pleasant surprise. Connie Deming did a beautiful version of Joni Mitchell’s “Christmas Song” and my favorite tune of the night was JoAnne Vacarro’s “Mele Kaliki Maka”.

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December 6, 2008April 4, 2019

One Of Everything

Matt Dodd's photo of Black Friday shoppers in West Paterson NJ — Matt Dodd’s photo of Black Friday shoppers in West Paterson NJ

At least once a week I check in on my nephew at his blog, The iLife. He’s a freshman in college now but he still has good instincts. He went out to the Best Buy in West Paterson on Black Friday to interview some kids on line. He took this shot about one in the morning just before that dude was trampled at WalMart. His interview is as good as the photo.

Dream of Life

Indo-Pak Coalition at the Village Gate Atrium last night in Rochester, NY

Last night we stopped in the at the Village Gate Atrium to see Indo-Pak Coalition with Rudresh Mahanthappa on sax . The sax, tabla, guitar lineup had all sorts of potential but it didn’t really work for me. Seemed kind of academic or something and I was never any good with that.

Rochester Contemporary has their Members Show opening tonight. I always like this show. I put this recent crime face in there. We saw Barbara Fox recently and she was complaining about how her work gets lost in it and that is certainly a drawback of an uncurated free for all but I like the chaos of it all. And it is full of surprises. We want to be over at the Eastman House by eight to see the Patti Smith movie, Dream of Life.

Refusing To Migrate

Eastman Lake in Durand Eastman Park, late Fall 2008

We walked through the woods and along the eastern shore of Eastman Lake this morning. Up near Lake Ontario we crossed over to Durand Lake and took the path along its western shore to the woods that lead back to our house. I didn’t see a soul the whole time except for my wife. Winter is coming on and the remaining leaves have lost most of their color other than this rich brown.

Winters in Rochester are tough and they toughen us. I’m looking forward to this one. I like the solitude, the warmth of the fireplace, the lighter social calender and the additional time to paint.

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December 3, 2008August 26, 2019

Three’s A Crowd

There was a squirrel fight going on outside our bedroom window this morning. At least i thought it was squirrels. It woke me up so I got up and didn’t think much about it. Later we saw our neighbor walk up our driveway to look at something in our back yard. We went out and found three large raccoons in a tree. Two were on a perch near the top and one was further down. Every time the third one tried to get on the same perch a nasty fight broke out with lots of loud squealing. Our neighbor said it was too early for mating so who knows what was going on. It was hard to watch. I took a few photos and went back in to work.

A Condition or a Proviso

Margaret Explosion playing upstairs at Abilene in Rochester, NY

I dragged my feet getting to this report on Black Friday’s gig at Abilene. I wanted to post a sound file with the entry and I hadn’t found time to listen to the tracks. I was almost afraid to because Ken and I had such heavy colds. We were both doing legal drugs to take the edge off. Ken took some Sudafed and I went with the Advil.

Danny has a magical little room upstairs. And just like magic Dale and Myna showed up for our set. I hallucinated seeing Dale tuning a guitar at stage left while we were playing our set at the Scorgies thing but they couldn’t make that one. Dale and I played together for a couple years in early New Math and we did a gig with Myna’s band, Human Switchboard, and the rest is history. It is always good to see him.

Jack played guitar and bass clarinet with us, Bob was celebrating Liz’s birthday at ONE, and Ken played his electric bass instead of the stand up. The lineup switch, the room, the drugs and the Nod people shaped the sound of the evening. It felt out of our control. Peggi, though, was in full control and sounded better than ever.

The room could be both perfect and magical. Danny has to get a liquor license for the upstairs bar. NYS makes you get a separate license for each floor. Some one has to move the furniture out of the alcove where the low rise stage is. No furniture in that performance space. The Get Out The Vote posters should be history, as graphically interesting and successful as they are/were. The rest of the place is so timeless. And Danny needs to serve Guinness on tap. These demands will be in our rider the next time we play there.

Nod rocked the house downstairs. It was almost a perfect evening.

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December 1, 2008December 2, 2008

Extra Friendly

We took Peggi’s mom back to our old neighborhood last night. We had dinner at the Park Avenue Pub. Hadn’t eaten there in thirty years or so and it was pretty much the same. Ramon Santiago wasn’t there though and the bar seemed pretty quiet but it was a Sunday night.

Lisa Bunz, the owner and hostess, took us to a warm booth in the front so we could watch the sidewalk traffic. I made eye contact with an old guy in a wheelchair on the way to our table and he reached out his hand to shake so I did. I was thinking “this place is extra friendly” but I’m not sure he was all there. He was sitting with an Audrey Hepurn/Geraldine Chaplin like women in a floppy hat who was either his much younger wife or daughter and there was another couple at their table. The guy had a bald head with big scab on the top and his ears were huge. She seemed to be doing most of the talking for the old man but at the end of their meal the other couple thanked him for inviting them. It was kind of like that scene in “Five Easy Pieces” where the Jack Nicholson character tries talking honestly to his father after the old man had a stroke.

We asked Lisa how things were on the Avenue these days and she lamented the fact that it was younger scene. I just finished a new batch of crime guys and I was thinking how nice it would be to paint old people like this guy and the cast of characters out at Peggi’s mom’s place. I would want to photograph them and work in my basement from the photos. But how do you go about that whole thing? Would any old people want to be painted for some reason. I could have a show in their dining room. I’m gonna have to think about this for a while.

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