Barbeque fans at Charlotte Beach in Rochester, New York
Our friends and neighbors, Rick and Monica, lent their vintage VW bus to Jeff Spevak this weekend. Jeff didn’t go anywhere in the bus. He just used it as a prop behind their designated area in the fenced off section of Charlotte beach where the Roc City Barbeque Event took place. Jeff smokes meat like a pro and won a contest in Memphis last year. His crew is called the “Smokin’ Dopes”.
We road our bikes over there on Saturday and were pretty confused by the whole thing. We paid five bucks to get in. Contestants travelled from all over the country and pay 250 to compete. But we can’t try what they grill because of Heath Department rules? Some vendors were allowed to sell but they weren’t competing. We had a delicious slice of grilled pineapple and Dundee beer from the VW van and rode back home.
We ran into Jeff later that night at the annual Bob Dylan Birthday Bash and we heard he won a 300 dollar award and trophy for his poblano pepper hamburger. Peggi, backed by her band, sang a beautiful version of “She Belongs To Me.”
I usually start a post here by looking at my photos but I just stuck my Ultra II SanDisk card in the card reader and it was empty. There is always the iPhoto library or Flickr.
We took our first swim in the street pool this afternoon. I think this the first time we’ve been in in May. The temps are in the high eighties and the water is 73 degrees already. Group dynamics are a funny thing but that’s what makes the world go ’round. A tree needed to be taken down and some people in the pool group wanted the job to “go out for bid” and others wanted just drop the thing. What could be more fun than taking down a tree? Especially when there’s an engineer in the group.
I had three spices on our grocery list to pick up at Wegmans today. It takes some time to sort through the competition. Unlike other products they don’t sit on the shelf next to one another. They are arranged by brands. McCormicks is like the Microsoft of spices and it’s tough to find generic spices. Comparing unit pricing is impossible without a pocket calculator as some are priced per ounce and others by the pound. And the little plastic bottles keep getting smaller. When I settle on one I usually buy two so I don’t have to sort it all out again.
Peggi at the Kentucky Derby on our first date in 1973
It was a perfect day for a bike ride. We took the new trail along Lakeshore Boulavard and then down Rock Beach Road over to O’Laughlins on the Summerville side of the mouth of the Genesee River. It’s sort of a tradition for us to celebrate the anniversary of our first date by watching the Kentucky Derby down here looking over the river and out to Lake Ontario. Steve Hoy was our chaperon back then. He drove us the two hours from Bloomington to Churchill Downs the year Secretariat won.
Seems silly to link back to So Many Records but I like that Kevin linked here in his post on the amazing Lesley Gore. He put up a French version of “You Don’t Own Me” today. We just watched the extras on the T.A.M.I. show dvd last night so that is our fourth time through.
It’s Brad‘s Bday today. Hey, and Angel Corpus Christi has an amazing new video. I just love it! Mercury Rev meets Jeff Koons and then some. Check it out.
We met Jeff and Mary Kaye for dinner but Osterria was full, no tables free until 8PM and we had to be at a house concert with David Olney. So we drove over to Polska Chata. Their upstairs dining room was full so we sat in the side room next to this display of Polish delicacies. We ordered a round of Polish beers and Jeff and Mary Kaye had the fish fry which comes with a hardy breaded haddock, a decidedly non creamy cole slaw and pierogies. Peggi and I each ordered the Cabbage Stew special. This place is so good and the setting, in an old house on a side street off East Ridge Road, is so precious I always worry that maybe not enough people know about it to keep them afloat. But they’ve been here for three years so I’ll find something else to worry about.
David Olney and Sergio Webb, performing in Rick an Monica’s living room was pretty cool although two songs about buying my gal a ring in the first set was a little too much for me. Sergio Webb is a dream accompanist on second guitar. They did a beautiful version of “I Only Have Eyes For You”. We let them borrow some mic stands so we got in for free. David liked a small painting of mine that Rick and Monica had bought and had on display. He asked if he could buy one from me so I went across the street and picked one out for him. He gave me a one of his cds and I gave him a Margaret Explosion cd. I told not to put it on while he was driving because he would probably drive off the road.
Cellino & Barnes billboard on Atlantic Avenue in Rochester, NY
My father used to take us down to this section of tracks (click photo for enlargement) so we could watch the trains. It was just a short walk from our house but it seemed a world away. I think about that every time I ride my bike down Atlantic Avenue. Bike riding is conducive to thinking and dreaming and contemplating billboards. How do these two guys have “Over 50 Years?” Is that combined or did somebody do a good airbrush job. I went to their state of the art lawyer site.
I picked up our taxes at Steve Friga’s office andthe secratary had everything all laid out for me. There were little red flags on the edges of papers that needed to be signed and she gave had a self addressed, stamped envelope prepared for me to send back with the check for their services. She even made a short list of these tasks. She called them “action items”. I was knocked out by her organizational skills. It was probably painfully obvious that I lack these skills.
Horse Rooster Goat Paintings at the Creative Workshop Gallery in Rochester, NY
Our painting class took a two week break and resumed last night. There is a new show up down there in the gallery called “This Is A Series.” Most of the paintings are in threes and I have some crime faces one of the walls. I particularly like these three.
We walked in the woods today in the pouring rain and we noticed that animals really don’t give a hoot about whether its raining or not. We saw a couple of ducks, colorful mail and a brown female and then a groundhog going about his business. We interrupted a deer who was grazing and then came out on the golf course. It was especially green. I took a photo of Peggi in her slicker. We have matching slickers. I found a golf ball with a Guinness logo on it. I took that as a sign of good luck.
Stella weighed eighteen pounds last year. This photo was taken back then. She couldn’t even clean her butt. I just put her on the scale. Actually I got on the scale with her in my arms while she meowed. And then I weighed myself without Stella. She weighs 12 and half pounds.
No secret to her diet. She’s an indoor cat and we only put a third of can out in the morning and then a quarter cup of dry out at night. We weren’t able to control her weight when Ornette was alive because he was an active outdoor cat. He’d push the door open and chow down and run back outside. So we had to have food on hand at all times. We miss him.
Stella goes out in the morning for a few minutes but if one the neighbors makes a noise she comes to the door demanding to be let in immediately. She still sleeps most of the day but if he is awake for two hours that would be twice as many waking hours as when she was fat. Despite the new profile we still call her “Stelly Belly” and “Butterball”.
We watched “L’âge d’or”, a Buñuel movie from 1930, last night and I fell asleep before the extras. It was kind of bizarre. This from IMDB: “This film was granted a screening permit after being presented to the Board of Censors as the dream of a madman. Opening at Studio 28 in Paris in October 1930, word spread about the film’s bizarre content. On the evening of 3 December 1930, the fascist League of Patriots and other groups began (halfway through the film) to throw purple ink at the screen, then rushed out into the lobby of the theater, slashing paintings by Yves Tanguy, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, and Man Ray.” It didn’t make it’s US premiere until 1979.
I woke before the alarm this morning. We don’t usually set that but today was the official launch of Apple’s iPad. We cashed in some credit card point for Best Buy certificates and we were at the store at 8:30 with a thermos of coffee. Some kids in the front of the line were there at midnight but there only about twenty five people in line when we showed up. A store employee told the crowd that UPS had been there at eight and there would be enough for everybody. A couple of Best Buy employees went out to the Apple store to buy theirs before work. We heard hundreds were in two lines out there.
We had one in hands by 10AM and then headed downtown to look at an art show we had missed last night, a painting by Enrique Mora that the Philips Gallery used in their First Friday ad really caught my eye. The gallery didn’t open until noon.
Sparky stopped over this morning. I was working but still in my pjs. He had a new car h anted to show us. He told us we were gonna die when we saw it. I tried to think of what an unlikely Sparky vehicle would look like. I guessed, “a sports car?” “No.” “A van?” Sparky had a small mobile home that he bought one time but it was full of trouble. And over the years he has had everything from a Ford Escort to a a pick-up truck. He even bought our old Olds that came from Peggi’s father. He buys cars to entertain himself. He used to run a garage called “Sparky’s Shell” on Hudson and he loves to tinker. He was always jacking them up and rotating the tires or greasing the underside. His prize possession is his 1987 Chevy and rents a neighbor’s garage each winter to store it there until the salt is gone.
I got dressed and went out front to see what looked like a brand new car with a distinctive hood ornament. It was a 1997 Cadillac and it made perfect sense for this country gentleman. (He was born in Kentucky and got as far as fifth grade). I told him he deserves this car. I gave him a bucket of what we thought was copper but he told us it was brass. He picks up junk all the time and recycles aluminum and all sorts of metal. I’ve gone to Krieger’s junk yard with him many times and left with a few bucks.
Back in the house I called up a Google map of our old street. We went up and down both sides of the street talking about the old neighbors. Jack is an assisted living now and two gay guys bought his house. The two sisters on the end of the street sold and moved on. Helen is living with her daughter and her grandkids are living in the place. The Boykins are still there and out in their small yard all of the time. All these people were there the whole time we lived there. A very nice black lady bought Barb’s house. The yard in our old house looked a little overgrown but Sparky said Elizabeth is is keeping the place up fine.
Most of this snow is gone. I took this photo a few days ago. We were down there again today and found more giant Bud cans and we picked some Pussy-willows while we were at it. Those are 24 ounce cans. Luckily we found an old bag to put them in. A school bus passed us as we were heading back with an armload of cans today. We waved. This Budweiser guy is remarkably consistent not only in the brand he drinks but in exactly where he throws his empties. A compulsive drunk.
I spent most of the day redrawing a three dimensional wagon wheel-like graphic for a client. It was probably generated in PowerPoint but they wanted to use it at poster size so I redrew it in Illustrator. Type on a curve, a million callouts, one of those crazy organizational charts that make your eyes glaze over.
Yogi tea bag fortune read “Empty your self and let the universe fill you.” I like that one. Most of them are annoying. I roughed up a painting in class and my teacher commented, “That guy is looking a lot more casual”. Made me realize what an important quality that is.
I’m Irish (and English) but I had to look up Saint Patrick when we got back home. You’d think he was some sort of pagan patron saint of debauchery. Turns out he was a Celt so I guess he walks a fine line.
I asked Peggi to take this photo of the guys in the booth next to us. I never would have got the same expression that she is capable of eliciting. We walked over to Shamrock Jack’s for lunch, our tradition on Saint Patty’s Day. When we lived in the city we would just walk to Carroll’s at the corner but out here we walk through the woods and part of the park and then through a funky neighborhood down near the lake that reminds us of Bloomington to get to Shamrock Jack’s. The little pockets of snow looked ridiculous in 55 degrees.
We each wore the only green clothes we have but they don’t come close to the toxic green that most revelers wear. The place was packed at noon. We could hardly hear each other. The music was all thump, thump and then a guy with a guitar started playing goofy folk ditties. After his first song he announced, “Drink up and I’ll sound better”. One of them was stuck in our heads for the way home but I can’t remember it now, thank god. An infomercial was playing on a tv above our booth, featuring Christie Brinkley and Chuck Norris on outdoor exercise equipment. I was mesmerized by the surrealness of it all.
Everybody has Guinness these days. Carroll’s used to have old guys playing accordion and bagpipe players and the Pogues on the juke box. Stuff that would have made Saint Patrick proud.
Kathy called this morning and asked how our weekend was. I said, “Really nice. A little bit of work and a little bit of skiing.” I sort of lied about the work part. We’re doing a big job for Kathy and except for a few hours we pretty much blew it off this weekend. She said “I don’t understand the skiing part and I don’t like snow.” Thought provoking comments to start the day. I don’t really think of it as skiing. Its just something different on your feet while you walk in the woods.
This weekend we drove to opposite ends of the county to ski and dine with friends. The groomed trails at Mendon Ponds on Saturday made it a lot more like skiing than walking. I now have a much clearer picture of our trudging style after watching people in spandex skate/ski/whiz by us. And the bushwhacking through deep snow and vines in the marshlands of Scotsville on Sunday was much closer to walking. Both were thoroughly enjoyable and I keep replaying the conversations we had over dinner about art and mindfulness.
We watched a Frank Lloyd Wright documentary last night and my favorite scene was the black and white footage of a Mike (cigarette smoking) Wallace interview where Frank’s says, “I put a capital ‘N’ on Nature. That’s my idea of God.” I would second that but skip the cap. It is absolutely beautiful in the woods today!
I love this expressive snowman. It is either singing an aria or asking “Is That All There Is?” which just happens to be my favorite song of all time. In fact if anyone ids taking notes I would like it to be played at my funeral, along with George Jones’ “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and Eric Dolphy’s “Serene.” Everyone’s talking about the “Hurricane Blizzard” with “Heart Attack (heavy) Snow” so if I die out there in the driveway my affairs will be in order. I used Nolo’s “Willmaker” to to do the office business and I’m still trying to decide where my ashes should go.
Peggi’s mom is still going strong and with the help of an aid she was able to come out to see Margaret Explosion last night. We have been invited to dinner at our neighbor’s house tonight. We should be able to make it back up the hill even if we do get some old fashioned winter weather.
Either this hawk was following us in the woods or we were following it. We got out early and the skiing was great. We have had more skiable days this year than any I can remember.
A guy stopped in Jerome’s this afternoon to pick up his car and he told Ted a story about hunting on a hundred acres of land that a lawyer friend of his owns in the southern tier. The lawyer had built four blinds up in the trees for deer hunting and the little shacks were so airtight that you could hunt in your t-shirt. And if you got bored waiting for the deer to wander by he had piles of magazines in there. He didn’t say what kind of magazines. This guy said the next time he goes down there he might bring his computer and look for a wifi connection.
They have wireless over at Jerome’s but Ted can’t remember the password so I was sort of left in the dark while they replaced the sway bar fittings on our Honda. Ted just tried calling Frontier to see if they could tell him what his password is but he got interrupted by a delivery guy and then a customer calling to find out if they had determined what was wrong with his car. Ted takes all these problems in stride and stays as cheerful as Barack Obama. One of the mechanics came into the office and told Ted that one of the parts they ordered for our car had a grease fitting and the other didn’t so Ted got on the phone and tried to get a matched pair with or without. He preferred the grease fitting but he couldn’t get one today.
An older couple came in to drop off one of their cars and they called Ted “Teddy”. A young couple walked in next. Each person that walks in sets off bell as they cross the threshold of the waiting room. They were picking up a Mazda for the guy’s father. Jerome’s had rebuilt the engine and Ted told the kid he wanted him to check the oil every time he get gas for the next 1500 miles and then bring it back for an oil change. The kid told Ted he was majoring in “New Media Design” at RIT. When we were alone I asked him what “New Media” meant and he said , Basically making things look cool on the web. I spend a lot of time doing Flash.” Mike, the guy that was doing the work on our car stuck his head in to say that Albany was getting twenty inches of snow and 150,000 people were already without power.” He seemed kind of excited about this. In the paper this morning one of the local weathermen was quoted as saying “This is going to be a monster of a storm”. There are probably kids going to college to learn how to hype the weather.
As I was paying my bill Ted said try •••••••••••••. It worked and I got online. Hint: It has something to do with a vintage car.
Tiny snowman on trail in Durand Eastman Park in Rochester, NY
I love this quote from J. D. Salinger. “Most stuff that is genuine is better left unsaid.”
There was a lot left unsaid in the movie we saw last night at the Dyden Theater. The lead character walked down the street in the opening scene and Peggi and I both leaned toward one another and said, “Brad” (a friend of ours). The movie was made in Uruguay but could have been set anywhere in the world. The heavy metal tinged love story was universal. The main character was a store detective like our niece. They watch shoppers and employees on video cameras that can zoom and focus on a nose picker (according to our niece). There was very little dialog in the movie but we got the picture.
We came across this tiny little snowman today on one of our favorite ski trails. I stopped to take a photo and a snowboarder whizzed by me. We could use some snow. Our neighbor told us 49 states in the union had snow. We’ve got some,enough for skiing, but I’d like to see the three feet they have in Pennsylvania.
We usually have a January thaw but fifty degrees is ridiculous. That glacier above, what’s left from the snow I shoveled off our roof, used to be the size of a truck. I have our iTouch set to check temps in five locations, Madrid, New York, San Francisco, Rochester and Paradox (up in the Adirondacks). Today Madrid was the coldest at 39 and New York the warmest at 55. I had to “restore” my iTouch because since my nephew put all these apps on it I kept getting a message that said I wasn’t authorized to update. I found that I could get my purchased apps back by pretending to buy them again and then clicking “Yes” when it it says “You have already bought these. Do you want to download them again for free”.
Our charge card gives us points that we can use at big box stores and we were thing about picking up one of the Apple Tablets when they get announced. We could use it as a reader I presume and I’m looking forward to drawing on it. We are sort of early adaptors and I know that comes with some risk. I say “sort of” because we still don’t have a cell phone (“refuseniks”) but we did buy the first iPod and we still have it in our car. We bought one of the first home computers, an Atari 1040 and we bought the first Walkman cassette player. It was made of metal and it had two headphone jacks on it. Peggi and I kept getting tangled up in the thing. And we’d each decide to go around different sides of a utility pole and get the headphones ripped out.
After meeting with our financial adviser we had dinner at Peggi’s mom’s apartment in the Bistro. This is my favorite restaurant in the city. Is not open to the public but I suppose you could eat here if you said you were thinking about checking in to the Senior Living facility. We had a delicious portabella mushroom dish and peppermint tea for dessert. The table next to us ordered the flaming banana dish and we all cheered when Tracy torched them.
The Bistro’s walls are decorated with framed posters of black and white French café photos and they set a perfect mood of civilized escape. We had just watched a 2003 film on Henri Cartier Bresson last night called “An Impassioned Eye.” He is my favorite photographer by a long shot. His photos are full of life and perfectly composed. They feel sculptural to me. They read at a glance and from a distance as well. He spoils you. He is a master.
Back in Peggi’s mom’s apartment I took control of the remote an we hopped back and forth from the English Premier League’s Everton vs. Arsenal game to America’s Funniest Home Videos. Did you know Paul Dodd is “England’s Number One Soccer Yob?
“Spotless Restrooms” sign on door at Delta Sonic on Main Street in Rochester, NY
Delta Sonic is in tough competition with the new Fastrac that open next door to its Main Street location. But it’s even tougher to figure out which station has the cheaper gas. Delta Sonic’s low price is available only with a car wash and Fastrac’s low price is only available if you use their card. The “Spotless Restrooms” at Delta Sonic hardly seem possible.
I plan to add this photo to the “Signs” section that I have been quietly building on Popwars. I have a “Signs” collection on the Refrigerator but that site became unwieldily so I am slowly rebuilding it on PopWars where I am using php to update the navigation and MySql to populate the pages. I wrestle with every stage of this thing and then get interrupted by paying work so it may be a few years before launch.
John Gilmore rode downtown with us last night for the Margaret Explosion gig. He was telling us how he stuck his own handmade sign on the outside of the building he worked in at Kodak Park. It read, “This Space Reserved For (his ID badge number)”. So had his own private parking spot in a crowded lot. He quoted an oft used but new to us corporate saying, “Better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission.”
