Author: Paul

When you get political you kinda wreck everything. But then everything is political. Who would have guessed that the environment, marriage, guns, prayer, birth control and evolution would be political issues. A stance on any of these issues puts you in the blue or red camp. Now, the decision to go to war in Iraq again, that’s a political issue.

Meanwhile, the guy who got us into this mess is blissfully painting portraits while Obama gets stuck with the cleanup. I’m happy that President George H.W. Bush had a soft landing on his 90th birthday but I’m not gonna let him off the hook for announcing after the first Gulf War in 1991, “The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian peninsula.”

I, too, avoid politics for the most part. I’m listening to the great “Money Jungle,” an lp produced by Alan Douglas, who just passed away on Saturday.

I am counting down the hours to the World Cup. Of course the US is my first choice but I’m happy there are thirty-one other teams in the tournament to root for in the later rounds. America’s national team coach, former German star, Jurgen Klinsmann, said the US “would have to play the game of our lives seven times to win the tournament. It is not possible.” Sam Borden in the Times said “such candor seems un-American.” What does come after “America First?”

We started our First Friday art tour before anyone else last night. We were at the MAG savoring the last hours of the Matisse show and I don’t mean his grandson’s pottery. No one draws like Matisse. No one gets as much form and expression in line. Matisse is the master. Your very last last chance to see what I’m talking about is Sunday when the show closes.

This morning’s paper has an item that really isn’t news to those who live here. Despite being one of America’s most livable cities we are ranked third on the list of poverty rates in large metropolitan areas, just behind Detroit and Cleveland. Like I say, not news, but it came the morning after taking in “Upstate Girls” by Brenda Ann Kenneally at Visual Studies Workshop. Kenneally has secured a Guggenheim grant to continue exploring and visually docmenting the how and why of class inequity in America. A meaty project. Take a look at her photos.

In Synecdoche, Katherine Keener, playing Philip Seymour Hoffman’s wife, painted these mildly disturbing miniature pictures and at her openings everyone had to use magnifying glasses to view the art. I was reminded of that bit of absurdity last night at RoCo where the 6×6 show opened. Each piece, limit of six from each entrant, is six by six and every piece is 20 bucks with all proceeds going o Rochester Contemporary. But this year they go food to ceiling. You can hardly see the ones up top but hang. There were signs scattered about that read, “Ladders Available Sundy.”
Ladders Available Sunday.

John Gilmore called us yesterday just to tell us he had driven by an inflated “God Bless America” lawn ornament like one of those Santas you see at Christmas time. The words were written on a great big American Flag.

We speculated on just how patriotic God is? Does he/she/it have a soft spot for America? The message is exclusionary and I’m guessing that is the whole point. We are superior. Asking God to bless the world would be just as exclusionary and asking god to bless the universe that he/she/it supposedly created would be plain silly.

Magnolias are much nicer to look at than political signs. Besides our sign is gone and I never got a photo of it.

Gary Pudup, former Monroe County Sheriff, head of the local ACLU and long time Margaret Explosion fan is running for state assembly in Greece and he has taken a stance on New York’s Safe act. He asked if we would put sign on our lawn and we did but I warned him it would probably be stolen. We live on a dead end but our property meets a busier road down back so we put it there. A little further down this road there are two “Repeal NYS Safe Act” signs in front of houses and I didn’t think those people would tolerate an opposing view. I’m not saying one of those two stole the sign and I certainly don’t want to start something with a gun owner but I’ve been thinking about alternate signage.

Something simple but with a different tact like, “MORE GUNS,” or “BIGGER GUNS,” or “GUN NUTS!”

A few years ago I recounted the story about my mom making a peace flag that got stolen.

My friend, who lived down the street, was in Viet Nam dropping Agent Orange out of a helicopter on anything that moved when my mom made a peace flag. She sewed it! It was a white cloth peace sign on a sky blue piece of material. I remember it being beautiful. We flew it on the flag pole out in front of our house and this friend’s mom got all bent out of shape about it. I remember her calling our house and screaming over the phone while my mom made a rational appeal to her. “Surely you want peace too”, I remember her saying, but the argument continued. This neighbor thought it was flat out wrong to fly something like that while her son was fighting for our country. He was only in the army because he flunked out of Bonaventure and got drafted.

I was so proud of my mom but the thing is a lot of people felt like this neighbor at that time so it was a bit of a mystery when the flag was stolen a few weeks later. “Who stole the peace flag?” became the family’s obsession as we weighed the suspicion level of each neighbor on the street. We found out months later that it was the younger brother of the guy who was in Viet Nam. I’ll bet the guys over there were real happy there were people back home working against peace.