Author: Paul

Peggi and I walked in the rain yesterday. I was singing you know what in my head, trying to get “I’m Only Human” out after getting that damn song lodged during halftime of the Arsenal Liverpool game. I had the sound off but visual from the Liberty Mutual commercial got me.

Peter Presstone (he’s been in a few bands since those days but we still call him that) asked if we’d do a couple of songs for the Lou Reed night he’s hosting at the Skylark Lounge on the 22nd. We did “What Goes On” a few times back in the day so we agreed to give that another shot and Peggi picked “I’m Dreamin” from “Magic and Loss.”

It took me most of the day to get two drawing in frames for a show that opens at ISquare on Friday night. My drawings are equal parts charcoal and eraser marks so all sorts of particles cling to the glass and matt board. I spent more time tarting them up than doing them.

My dad threw out their phone books and my mom wanted to call her friend but she didn’t have the number. My father was out and mom is afraid of the computer so she called me. I told her my computer had just shut down when today’s wind knocked the power out. She told me she heard on the news that a few trees had come down and she was afraid a tree would fall on my father. I told her she already had enough things to worry about and a tree falling on my father was highly unlikely.

My neighbor had asked for help getting his winch back in his pickup truck. I just walked down there to help but he was eating lunch. On my way back up the hill a large branch fell right behind me.

We walked by this same tree yesterday and its leaves were still on the tree. The spotty frost we had here, up by the lake, brought down all these same-sized branches, all at once. The leaves are still green, the tree is bare. Fall is over for this tree, just like that. None of the mucky-muck.

I think this is one of those weed-like trees, some people call them “Brooklyn trees.” They grow up between the cracks in the sidewalks and they grow real fast but this one is so big I’m not sure. There was no metal tag on the tree like there is on so many of the trees in the park.

Peggi had the perfect route picked out for our multifaceted Friday night journey around the city. Our first stop was Rochester Picture Framing where I picked up a piece of glass for a drawing I’m putting in a show at I-Square Gallery. Next stop was dinner at Trata in the old Armory on Culver Road. Not only have they repurposed the building while letting the old skeleton show, they’ve repurposed the furniture and the even the water glasses which were made from sawed off wine bottles. They fit perfectly with the old timey water bottles and managed to make tap water look elegant. (Our water did win first place at the State Fair this year.)

Three bars, three floors, this was a busy place on Friday night. Peggi read some not-so-good reviews online so we took our server’s recommendations. We split orders of sautéed calamari with corn and black beans, brussels sprout salad with a lemon vinaigrette and the fresh Gulf Coast scallops that were Fed-Exed in that day. Everything right on.

Onward to Bop Shop to pick up tickets for the Sunday Chandler Travis Philharmonic show then to the Art Store in Southtown Plaza where I picked up a frame and some archival mat board. And then down the road to the Dyer Gallery at RIT where Pete Monacelli and George Wegman were in a show of WildRoot artists, a collective from the early seventies. George had a fantastic abstract charcoal drawing in there that both Peggi and I took as an artist’s studio.

We drove back through downtown to the Axom Gallery for the opening of their new show of paintings by Jim DeLucia. The work is somewhere between painterly illustration and pop and looked great in this space but our conversation was centered on dancing and the lessons gallery owner Rick Muto and his wife have been taking. Rick told us he really loved the Samba and had since a Popeye cartoon he vividly remembered from childhood. I told him I would track it down and send him a link.

We have a friend who donates her blood platelets on a regular basis. The process is a real time commitment. The least we can do is donate blood. I thought it was going to be an in/out kinda thing but there is all sorts of screening beforehand and you have your vitals checked out long before they stick the needle in.

Once we were cleared to donate and caught up on our CNN Headline news Peggi and I sat next to each other in big barbershop style chairs. We each had a nurse drawing blood and they made a contest out of it. I filled the vessels above in four minutes and thirteen seconds.

Margaret Explosion tonight – Little Theater Café.

I took this picture of my parents around 1970 or so. I think Kim developed the film for me. My parents were sitting at the table in our back yard where we often had dinner in the summer. I was looking for a photo from that time because my parents went to calling hours tonight for our old next door neighbor. Our neighbors had ten kids, more than anyone on the block and the house seemed perpetually out of control but they were very nice.

At dinner tonight my mom was explaining her discipline policy back in the day. When one or a handful of the neighborhood kids would act up around our house my mom would ask them to go ho home. When the kids got home their mom would sometimes come down to our house and ask what it was the kids did. My mom did not want to get into it. She just settled things that way.

There were seven kids in our family and if we all had friends over, there could be thirty kids in the back yard. I told my mom I remember her coming out of the house and telling everyone to go to their own home. It was dramatic and impressive. She could really clear the place.