City-Slickers

Helen andLeo Dodd on the running board of their father's Model T Ford
Helen andLeo Dodd on the running board of their father’s Model T Ford

One of my earliest memories is being outside Good Counsel Church when my aunt and uncle were married. She was my father’s older sister and she worked as a nurse at Saint Mary’s hospital where I was born. My father tells me she was our first baby sitter. She was my godmother too, not that that amounted to much. Guess she would have taken me in if something had happened to my parents. She did send me a gift every Christmas and that was special.

She was special too, the sweetest, kindest person I have ever met. She met my uncle in the hospital after he had a farm accident. They lived lived in 200 year old house at Starkey’s Corners near Dundee and Seneca Lake. Their place, the big red barns, the cows, horses, goats and chickens was heaven when we were kids. No matter how hard we tried to dude up, boots, jeans and cowboy hats, my uncle would laugh and call us a bunch of “city-slickers.”

My aunt died over the weekend and I will miss her. That is her, above, with my father on the running board of my grandfather’s Model T.

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So Hard

“So Hard” was the first song on Personal Effects” first record. The song was written by Rich Stim and released on cassette by his band, Playette. I’m quite sure we did a version of this song with the Hi-Techs. The song always went over great live and when we went into the studio as Personal Effects in 1982 we added the middle (reggae) section.

The song, as recorded by Playette, was originally called “So So Hard.” Rich went on to play saxophone and guitar as well as sing with the great MX-80 Sound. There was a Rochester connection to MX-80. Drummer, Dave Mahoney, drove the classic MX lineup until his passing ten years ago.

So Hard was co-produced by Dwight Glodell and Eric DuFaure and released on Cachalot Records in 1983. Thirty three years later, MX Rich has created this video!

I looked for Playette’s version of So So Hard but could only find Roomful of Voices by Playette. Dave Mahoney does the vocals here.

Playette cassette cover art. Release features So So Hard.
Playette cassette cover art. Release includes So So Hard featuring Dave Mahoney.
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Trade Secrets

Mary Heilmann Table and China at the 303 Gallery in Chelsea
Mary Heilmann Table and China at the 303 Gallery in Chelsea

Art, viewing or making, can be easy or difficult. Mary Heilmann makes both look easy. This table and china set is part of an installation in the back room of her current show at the 303 Gallery in Chelsea.

Not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing, playing on Thanksgiving eve. It used to be a great night when we were in a rock ‘n roll band. Margaret Explosion has been playing at the Little Theater for thirteen years or so and this night can get too loud to hear ourselves play. Ken’s standup bass has no amplification other than from the ingenious design of the instrument itself.

We use a Zoom recorder and it sits between the guitar and the sax. The bass and drums set up in the corner behind those two. If Peggi stands in just the right spot the Zoom recorder gets a nice mix or her natural sax sound the reverb from her amp. Of course the damn drums don’t need any amplification. I work my ass off trying to play quietly. The mic positioning captures a perfect crowd mix. The Little has a row of lights for the performers and one dimmer controls them all. If we keep that thing in the off position the sound pretty much comes together.

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Not Turning The Page

Picasso Hand sculpture at MoMA
Picasso Hand sculpture at MoMA

We took the F train uptown on Sunday to see the Picasso sculpture show at MoMA. Picasso hung on to most of his sculptures during lifetime and I suspect he did so because they were his tangible representations of form. They were inspirational building blocks he could live with and use in his work. I think he inspired himself with these. He pushed boundaries in and out of cubism and celebrated the human form above all. My favorite was this hand.

We cut through Rockefeller Center on our way to the museum and I was surprised to see the tree had not been decorated yet. There was a giant wooden scaffold built around the tree and police with high powered rifles and dogs surrounded the structure, an apocalyptic post Paris holiday scene.

Back in Duane’s apartment I spent some quality time with Robert Frank’s “Storylines” photo book. I found this quote in there, a quote that started at the bottom of one page and continued on the next. The continuation was pertinent but the first part knocked me out.

“There comes a point when it is no longer a question of an art that is over here, in a pristine volume, or Out There, on a pristine wall, in a secure category or genre; but an art that has become part of how you see

… turn the page if you must

the world. You no longer merely look (up, out) at it; it is inside you like a lamp, which illuminates all the details spread out below in what might otherwise be unmitigated darkness. You are no longer you without its memory.”

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Hey There, Georgio

Georgio Morandi painting at David Zwirner in NYC
Georgio Morandi painting at David Zwirner in NYC

When we were coming down to Manhattan with the band in the early eighties the gallery scene was clustered in the loft spaces of SoHo. Clothing designers moved in, the gritty old factory spaces went upscale and the galleries moved out. Today there are a hundred or so galleries in a five block area of Chelsea and although the art market is richer than ever or maybe because the art market is richer than ever the real estate values in that part of town are going though the roof. So galleries are are closing shop or moving out.

The big galleries that remain are becoming small museums with suited guards and blue chip artists. Just today we saw shows by the op art queen, Bridget Riley, the minimalist champion, Donald Judd, giant photo emulsion paintings from the nineties by Robert Rauschenberg, career spanning work from Brice Marden in three different Matthew Marks galleries, twenty five large Jeff Koons’ copies of El Grecos, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Manet and Picasso, each with three dimensional, blue reflective globes mounted directly in front of the paintings, a move that struck me as John Baldesarri without the humor.

Claes Oldenburg is still doing three dimensional, oversize, soft looking everyday objects and easily filled gallery with new work. We sat in Mary Hielman’s brightly colored chairs in the center of a gallery and marveled at her new shaped canvas paintings. I get these clunky looking chairs now. They are a port to an immensely more playful world. Beautiful Robert Motherwell collages from the seventies filled a gallery on 24th Street. Fantastic to see how he picked up motifs in scraps of paper, a discarded cigarette package, and created a dialog with it. We stumbled on a group of graphic and somewhat rude Carrol Dunham paintings. He’s always popping up on my Tumblr blog. Louise Fishman was at her own show, holding court in front of a wall of her luscious water colors. And of course admission to all these shows was free.

I’ve saved the best for last. Georgio Morandi is one of my favorite artists. He lived his whole live in the house he grew up in painting fairly small still lifes of bottles and vases that he often painted before arranging, theatrically staging actually, on a tabletop. David Zwirner gallery has mounted a knock-out show of his work. Please click the detail photo above to see the whole painting. It is near criminal to crop a Morandi as I have.

Although he died in the mid sixties his work is painterly like that of a master yet dramatically minimal at the same time. The mundane taken to extremes. He is quoted as saying, “Nothing is more abstract than reality.” He does so much with so little. Looking at his paintings is somehow a quieting and exhilarating experience at the same time.

Peggi spotted a familiar looking tall man with a white beard talking to the people behind the desk in the gallery. It was the LA art guru himself, John Baldessari!

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A Long Shot

Inside old barn old barn on Westfall Road in Rochester, New York
Inside old barn old barn on Westfall Road in Rochester, New York

There are very few remnants of farm life left in Brighton, a mature, inner-ring suburb of Rochester. The barns along Westfall Road, where there are now more doctors per square inch than Strong hospital, are some of the last remaining. My father, an active member of Historic Brighton, would like to see the town save them.

I met my dad the other day inside one of these barns, now a “ruin porn” site. He was measuring the distance between the poles so that he could do an architecturally true, three dimensional drawing of the barn. He uses the free SketchUp program that was developed by Google. I’m guessing he’ll submit the drawings to the town in hopes that they will be able to envision a repurposing. A long shot.

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Autumn Leaves

Dave Liebman solo performance at the Bop Shop in Rochester, New York
Dave Liebman solo performance at the Bop Shop in Rochester, New York

Dave Liebman is an educator as well as a musician so of course he had to do long introductions to each song. Educators like to hear themselves talk and the good ones have a lot of great stuff to say. Liebman fits both of these bills perfectly. He performed solo at the Bop Shop tonight to the biggest house I have ever seen there.

Liebman played saxes and flute with Miles in the heady seventies. He played interpretations of couple of colors on soprano sax, choosing turbulent red and contemplative grey. He soloed on tenor sax and switched to piano to perform a beautiful version of Ornette’s “Lonely Woman.” He let the piano sustain while he soloed on top with a wooden flute. He called Ornette “the most melodic musician ever.” I would agree. Next up was Sydney Bechet’s “Petite Fleur” on soprano sax.

Liebman has played with some of jazz’s best drummers, people like Elvin Jones and Al Foster and guess what, Dave plays drums too. He sat behind the Bop Shop’s kit for a drum solo but not before talking about his favorite scene in the James Brown movie where James informs the horn players that everyone in his band is a drummer.

He finished on tenor with Coltrane’s “Peace On Earth” and then invited Bill Dobbins to join him on piano while he played “Autumn Leaves.”

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First Of The Storm

England France football friendly at Wembley Stadium
England France football friendly at Wembley Stadium

The only green around here is the Wembley Stadium pitch on our tv. Check the enlargement of this photo for our grey/brown surroundings. The French national team pulled it o gather to take on England in a friendly. The English saluted them before the game and cleaned their clocks in the 90 minutes.

The dental hygienist tried to sell me on bite-wing X-rays today just like the last time. I’ve had so many over the years I try to limit my exposure by turning her down and promising to do it next time. She has a kindergarten teacher-like manner. “Hi Paul! Are you all ready for Thanksgiving?” “Ah, no.” I usually dismiss her and that is probably my mistake.

I was looking my last full mow x-rays on her monitor while she cleaned my teeth. I have all these glaring white teeth in mouth, on the x-rays that is. “Those are all caps and bridges,” she said. “I should have taken better care of my teeth,” I thought aloud. She didn’t miss a beat and said, “Life is one long learning experiment. And our experiences make us who we are.” She added, “I don’t think we ever stop learning.”

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New Pencil

New docks in Port of Rochester
New docks in Port of Rochester

We ordered a few coloring books for my mom, one on birds and one on butterflies, and we rode our bikes over there today to drop them off. I also had a computer problem to address on my dad’s machine. He watches Charlie Rose most night and he sketches the quests on his iPad with a program called SketchBook Pro and lately he has been unable to save his drawings. His iPad is out of disc space and there are maybe a hundred drawings on it that I can’t transfer to his computer because the application wigged out when it ran out of room. I kept getting a message that says I cannot sync because there is not enough free space even after I took a bunch of apps off the iPad. The Apple forums suggested I “reset” the iPad and that helped. At least the error messages now made sense. But I still couldn’t transfer or even email the drawings to my father’s computer without getting messages that the files were corrupt. It is the first generation iPad and the times come. I’m thinking of heading out to the Apple Store with him and picking up the iPad Pro and Pencil combination. It will make it a lot easier on his tech support.

We crossed Portland Avenue at an intersection, on a crosswalk and with the light but a woman turned right into us. Came right at the side of us on our bikes with her car and we swerved. No acknowledgement whatsoever. I know “close” only counts in horseshoes but I was struck by how indifferent someone can be to snuffing out another life. Don’t know if she was on a phone, texting, spaced out or what but I’m quite sure if she had taken one of us out she would have kept going as if nothing happened.

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So Pure, So Real

Tabletop at Pete andShelley's place in New York State
Tabletop at Pete and Shelley’s place in New York State

Eric and Amy lived in France before settling in the Hudson Valley so we expected Amy Rigby to address the Paris terrorist attacts in her show last night in our neighbors’ living room. She opened with an aptly vulnerable version of Jackie DeShannon’s “Put A Little Love In Your Heart.” Peggi and I had front row seats, reserved for us because earlier in the day I had helped Rick move the fifty some chairs from his basement to their living room. Amy’s guitar pickup went directly to the board and she stood in front of us between the two PA speakers that served as monitors and sound system with only three pedals on the floor in front of her and no amp. We had a bird’s eye view when her foot missed the Sioux distortion pedal.

She had just returned from her hometown of Pittsburgh and did a song dedicated to the dead end possibilities of that place next and then something about growing a pair of balls and then a Nashville-bound gem with the manly lyric, “I hate every bone in her body but mine.” The brilliant “Keep it to Yourself” after that then the anthem, “Do You Remember That?” to close out the first set.

Peggi and I manned the merch booth, a white enamel-topped table in Rick and Monica’s kitchen that reminded me of Pete and Shelley’s table (shown above). We only knew a few people at this house concert. One guy came up to us and said, “Hi, I’m Chris.” Peggi said it reminded her of a church gathering but we managed to sell a few cds.

Amy started the second set with a song where she gives the drummer some but she preceded it with a string of hilarious drummer jokes, most of which I had heard from Brad Fox over the years. And then “Are We Ever Gonna Have Sex Again?” She is lyrical and musical and funny and sweet. A song about her daughter, (You’re Perfect) “Don’t Ever Change,” makes me cry every time I hear it. A singer/songwriter who writes about dancing with Joey Ramone and finishes the night with a Flaming Groovies song. I guess that is why she really gets to me. She has a rock and roll heart.

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BTUs

End of Hoffman Road in Rochester, New York
End of Hoffman Road in Rochester, New York

November in this part of the world can be cruel but not so this year. We’re still looking for things to do outside while the temperature pushes sixty and the skies are clear. We’ve been chipping away at a giant pile of wood, stuff we hauled home from our neighbor’s yards when they had their trees trimmed, and we have enough stacked up to go in the firewood business. The whole trick is stacking it so we can get at the oldest first, the stuff that is the driest and most ready to provide BTUs in the dead of winter.

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Quest For Sainthood

Stations Of The Cross movie poster
Stations Of The Cross movie poster

About twenty years ago I started my own version of the Passion Play, the last day of Christ’s life. I planned to do paintings from collected source material but I haven’t got there yet. “Stations of the Cross,” a German film from 2014 had its Rochester premier at the Dryden Theater last night. It is a beautiful film, one that sweeps you up and takes you away into its own world. That is, it felt really strange in the parking lot after the movie.

Told in fourteen fixed-angle, single shot, tableaus that parallel Christ’s journey to his own crucifixion, the film is as close a depiction of the church I grew up in as I have ever seen. Lea van Acken as Maria (Mary, Virgin) perfectly plays the innocent whose entire thought process is corrupted by deranged religious purists – Catholic fundamentalists. The opening scene has her preparing for her Confirmation as the priest lays the classic guilt trip on the class with a capsulized version of hard-core Christian dogma. Nothing short of total devotion to God is ever enough. Maria sacrifices earthly pleasures and her short life so that her autistic brother can speak in a crazy quest for sainthood.

When Maria passes out at her Confirmation service (the Catholic bat mitzvah) I was thinking about the many times one of my brothers dropped in the aisles after fasting for communion. She is taken to a doctor who thinks he see signs of bullying or abuse in the pale and weak Maria. “Stations of the Cross” walks a very fine line. The film is gorgeous like a Gerhard Richter painting, it feels intimate and real. The indictment of religion as an abuser is just below the surface in every scene. I really loved this movie. Maybe someday I’ll finish my Passion Play paintings.

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Esoteric Wonder

Steve Piper drawing at Margaret Explosion Little Theater gig
Steve Piper drawing at Margaret Explosion Little Theater gig

Most Wednesday nights Steve Piper can be seen drawing in one of the front tables for Margaret Explosion’s Little Theater gig. He may have picked this habit up from his bandmate, Scott Regan, who rarely goes anywhere without a sketchbook. Or he may simply be responding to Frank DeBlase’s City Newspaper review of the band. “Their esoteric wonder paints pictures in my head nonstop.”

Steve Piper drawing of Margaret Explosion at the Little Theater Café.

Steve’s drawings are expressive and border on abstraction. Scott’s are representational and quite incisive. Frank’s observation is especially fluid and inspiring. Certainly that is what an instrumental, improvisational band tries to do.

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Dead End

Dead end sign on Wisner Road in Rochester, New York
Dead end sign on Wisner Road in Rochester, New York

Wisner Road used to lead right into the park. This barrier wasn’t here. You could continue through the park on Zoo Road and come out on Lakeshore Boulevard and I’ll bet it was quite a short cut. As it stands, it’s a deadend and you have to drive around the park. A brilliant move on someone’s part because it keeps all that traffic out of the park.

When we moved here we were told this part of the park is a hangout for gay hookups and there has always been plenty of tiny drug bags on the ground, not that those two things go together. It is mostly populated by dog walkers, people who drive to the park and let their dog run free despite the sign that reads, “Dogs Must Be On Leash.” I mention these infractions because the lettering on the sign and the road in front of it reads like someone is upset by something the police did. Probably not the dog walkers.

A fellow named John May wrote a letter to the editor that was published in today’s New York Times, a well written letter in response to the Sunday article about how lies don’t really matter anymore when it comes to politicians. With a name like that I didn’t think it could possibly be the John May in our painting class but when he walked in tonight he was wearing an especially large smile.

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Amy! Amy! Amy!

Amy Rigby poster for upcoming house concert gig in Rochester, New York
Amy Rigby poster for upcoming house concert gig in Rochester, New York

Our neighbors, Rick and Monica, have had quite a few house concerts over the years. We’ve been to a few but the singer/songwriter scene is not really our thing. I was playing horseshoes with Rick and he mentioned that there were still some seats left for Saturday’s show with Amy Rigby. She has played Rochester many times with her hubby, Eric, but this one is a solo show. “Still some seats left?” My graphic art instincts took over.

I grabbed a photo of Amy off the web and made a kick-ass poster to get the word out. I fired off a copy to Rick and one to Amy. Not sure if Rick did anything with it but he said he “loved it.” Amy hoped people wouldn’t show up wondering where the woman in the poster was. I am just a fan so I don’t have to be concerned with this nonsense. I’m pretending Saturday’s event is a rock n’ roll show without the racket. Here’s the real Amy.

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Mating Season

Close up of buck on Hoffman Road in Rochester, New York
Close up of buck on Hoffman Road in Rochester, New York

There are too many deer around here. They strip the low vegetation in the woods and wander into traffic looking for ornamental shrubs in people’s yards. You can’t hunt on park land so there are very few preditors. We have coyottes but not enough to keep the deer population in check. The zoo in Durand Eastman used to have deer behind fences. The zoo folded, took down it’s fences and the deer remain. The woods behind our house is like a petting zoo. That is until mating season.

You can smell deer this time of year. It is hard to tell if the bucks are having the time of their life or if they are just all bulked up to do business and frustrated. They roam the woods alone tracking small groups of does and chasing them straight up steep hillsides. They take on other males, violently banging their heads against the racks on other bucks in knock down duels. We even saw three going after each other in an open meadow over the weekend.

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Hydrogen Jukebox

Eastman Opera Company set for "Hydrogen Jukebox"
Eastman Opera Company set for “Hydrogen Jukebox”

The title of Philip Glass’s “Hydrogen Jukebox,” came from a verse in Allen Ginsburg’s “Howl.” Glass and Ginsburg picked eighteen of Ginsburg’s poems as the libretto for the 1990 chamber opera and the Eastman Opera Theater performed the piece four times this weekend with two different casts. Ginsburg read his work at the formative performances and Glass is quoted as saying he tried to respect the music that was already in the delivery of the words when he wrote the score for the trained voices. It is remarkable how well the sometimes bombastic verse fits the pulsating music.

With no traditional story the decline of the American empire, war and pacifism served as the theme. The church-like set with sacrificial table, fire pit, flags with corporate logos and roulette wheel centerpiece with stops at all the countries we have declared war on was a comfortable environment for the six actors/singers/dancers. The soft beginning beautiful ending piece eased us in and out of some heady, turbulent times very much like our own.

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A Steal

"Young Attorney" lithograph by William Gropper at Warren Philips Gallery in Rochester, New York
“Young Attorney” lithograph by William Gropper at Warren Philips Gallery in Rochester, New York

William Gropper studied with Robert Henri and George Bellows in NYC and he was influenced by the graphic work of the greats, Goya and Daumier. All this is apparent when you see Gropper’s work. And there is a litho, “Young Attorney,” for sale in Warren Philips gallery right now for somewhere near 500 bucks. I love how animated the four characters are, how distinct their expressions are. I love the cop’s pose and the lumpy defendant. This thing is a steal.

While you’re there you can take in the Rochester Print Club’s annual Member’s Show. It was our favorite stop on last night’s First Friday run.

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Fall Forward

Deck table in leaves
Deck table in leaves

The empty chairs on our deck await the imminent arrival of Pete and Shelley. Fall has peaked and moved on in the mountains so they will get another crack at it here. Pete LaBonne will be playing the grand piano with Margaret Explosion tonight at the Little Theater Café. We look forward to the chaos that ensues.

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Cabbage Head

Head of cabbage in Rick and Monica's garden
Head of cabbage in Rick and Monica’s garden

Up here, near Lake Ontario, we have not had an official frost so this seventy degree weather cannot be called Indian Summer. I’m only making that distinction because I stayed quiet when the lady at the voting booth called it such this morning. Somehow it always seems like a nice day when we vote. It probably has something to do with our route to the booths which takes us through the woods in the park, across the creek and up into the neighborhood of small houses between Culver and the park. Why isn’t this the new hipster section of Rochester? That would probably have something to do with number of Tea Party flags flying here. And those little placards in the window that read, “This house is protected by 2nd Amendment.”

The firehouse in Point Pleasant Fire is nestled into the aptly-named neighborhood. And the best part of voting here is getting a peek of the dreamy bar in the next room. Every year I vow to rent the place for a party, one with a band and dancing. We could crawl home through the woods.

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