Falling Apart

Teeth drawing
Teeth drawing

I have been on a winning streak in horseshoes for about the last month. My friend and neighbor, Rick, has challenged me to more games than ever in this period and for some reason I keep beating him. In the dentist office I have been on a losing streak. The English are supposed to have bad teeth but the Irish must have worse. My whole family is cursed.

The picture above shows the last four teeth on the top left side of my mouth. I had a root canal on number one about two years ago. That tooth is a wisdom tooth and the roots were goofy so he could not complete the job. Since it didn’t hurt after the first stage of the root canal my regular dentist decided to fill it and see how long it lasts. Tooth number two started acting up this summer but my dentist could not find the cavity. I went back last week and he still couldn’t find it so he sent me for a root canal. That guy found decay in my root and said, “I can’t complete the root canal. One and two should be pulled and I would recommend an implant where one is and another one where tooth number three is. And then a bridge that runs from tooth number one to three.”

I started asking around about implants. Jeffery had nerve damage in his cheek as a result. Shelley described the sensation of a dentist pounding an implant in to her bone with a hammer. Jeff said his jaw was broken. Steve said they had to do a done graft with material from cadavers. Margie talked about sinus lifts. It is surprising how many people have these things but I can hardly sleep at night. I’m considering something you snap in instead.

Rich sent me (via YouSendIt) a 70 meg movie of his root canal. I love that.

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Pool Party

It’s vinyl only in Rick and Monica’s basement and last night it was “Doug Sahm and Band”, Tim Buckley’s “Lorca” and Procol Harem’s “Shine On Brightly”. Rick and Monica had friends over for dinner and and one of the guests was Tom Kohn from the Bop Shop so the party naturally gravitated toward the vinyl. We had eaten dinner with Pete and Shelley out on our deck and we were sort of winding down when Rick called to invite us over for some late night pool. So we merged parties.

Rick regularly rotates the album covers in the 12′ x 12″ pictures frames on the wall down there. Personal Effects’ “This Is It” cover was in one of the featured spots. But my favorite picture on the wall is the print of Van Gogh’s “The Pool Players” that hangs behind the pool table. This short movie takes you inside that painting.

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Call Of The Wild

Turkeys in Spring Valley near Durand Eastman Park
Turkeys in Spring Valley near Durand Eastman Park

The other night around 12:30 we heard coyotes howling as we lay in bed. At first it sounded like a pack of dogs fighting but then there were a few cat like shrieks. It was a violent encounter and it lasted for about ten minutes. We have since talked to our neighbors about this and they all heard it. It was a full moon that night.

Earlier this year we came across a pile of deer hair mixed with blood and big patches of skin while walking in the woods. We found a deer leg on our property a few months ago too. I put it in a plastic bag and stuck it in the trash. And we saw a coyote scoot across an opening in Durand Eastman while we were hiking so we knew they are out there. We came across a bunch of turkeys yesterday and we snuck up on them to watch as they pecked at the ground. They are bigger than coyotes but are probably game as well.

Our 92 year old neighbor is a little harder to understand since they cut out his mouth cancer but we could understand him clearly when he asked his daughter-in-law for porridge. He even spelled out the word for us. It’s just that none of us could picture what it is. I was thinking of Hansel and Gretel and wondering if he was thinking of something his mom made for him in the old country. His daughter-in-law said she “saw oatmeal, Cream of Wheat and Maypo but Wegmans does not carry porridge.”

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Walloping Your Dodger

Steve Hoy smoking
Steve Hoy smoking

“My boarding house”, as my mother-in-law calls her senior living facility in Rochester, has one of the best restaurants in town. We ate at “Le Petite Bistro” tonight where I ordered the mussels with Calamata olives in a delicious garlic broth as my appetizer. It was out of this world or at least European. I overheard this guy at another table talking about Sister Bridget and looked over and thought this must be a different Sister Bridget than the one I had in first grade at St. John the Evangelist on Humboldt Road in the city. This guy looked so old. But the woman he was talking to said something about the Sisters of Mercy so I figured it could be the same one. I remember her as being so comfortable. That’s a pretty vague description but it was an important quality for me at that age. i stood up and asked if this could possibly be the same Sister Bridget and they confirmed that she had taught there.

My second grade teacher was a miserable nun and maybe that’s why I remember Sister Bridget so fondly. I remember that one asking for a show of hands on who still believed in Santa Claus. And then there was an endless parade of kooks who told tall tales with twisted moral underpinnings and seemed to delight in torturing the kids that called her bluff. But I still feel that this Catholic education had its merits. And for me they are best expressed in Buñuel and Felini movies.

We watched “The Reader” last night and I couldn’t figure out the guy. I understood him as a boy getting it on with the woman and I dug the woman but I never could figure out the guy as a man. What was his problem? I really dug the woman’s prison room too. It was so cozy. I completely understood her not wanting to leave it. It was smaller than my dorm room in Shea Hall at Indiana University but it was all her own. As a freshman in college I had the room to myself for three days before the other guy whose name was on the door with mine showed up. I had already called home and told my parents that I thought I had an Asian roommate based on his name, “Hoy”, but when Steve pulled up in a Baracuda and asked for help unloading the stereo equipment I knew I was not going to be able to control my situation.

I was determined to turn over a new leaf in college. I was going to study and read my assignments instead of coasting like I did all through high school. But I could not resist Steve’s “Led Led Zeppelin”, “Paul Butterfield” and “Cream” eight tracks. Steve wasn’t Asian at all but 100% Hoosier and he was damn good at coasting so there went my plans. I was thinking of Steve tonight when I mopped up the garlic broth from my mussels. Peggi saw me and asked, “what was that phrase that Steve had for cleaning your plate with your bread? That would be “walloping your dodger.”

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Not In New York

Toy alligator on the road near Spring Valley
Toy alligator on the road near Spring Valley

I think we might have been set up by some kid for this one. We were headed over to Spring Valley to to forge our way though the overgrown woods when we came across thing. Peggi and I both thought it was real for a few seconds and then we quickly realized we were in New York.

Peggi had an assignment tonight to video Annie Wells with Phil Marshall and her NYC drummer so we raced over to the Little Cafe and plugged in. Mick Sarubbi was there with his recording rig and he slipped me a copy of Jenna & The Horse Lovers’ set from last weekend. (I gotta get the story on that name. I get the Jenna part.)

What a pleasant assignment. Annie sounded great. She did a Laura Nyro song for Peggi and a beautiful version of Dave Ripton’s “Heroin & People”. Jack Schaefer was there with his son and we smiled at each other when the song started. Jack and I both played that song with the Ripton band many years ago. Annie’s song to Edith Piaf, “Little Sparrow”, sounded great even without Ed Maris’s accordion. Peggi complained that my tripod was acting sticky when she panned. We’ll probably post one one the videos to Annie’s site.

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Going Green

Green pond in Durand Eastman Park
Green pond in Durand Eastman Park

We have had so much rain around here this summer that people are comparing our weather to Oregon or Washington State. The ponds in Durand look like pea soup and we keep spotting green on the walls of the street pool even though the chlorine level reads right. I’m not complaining. I could care less about the weather. Our tomatoes are doing great.

I looked at the pictures in “Wolf Kahn’s America” for about four weeks and then continued reading the book. He is as fluid and colorful a writer as he is a painter. In fact John Updike wrote the Introduction and I kept stumbling over that. This quote struck me. “A subject is worth painting only when it transcends the everyday and gets to represent an over-arching insight. This insight only reveals itself in the course of work.” I kept wrestling with it because I am so drawn to the everyday.

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Doin’ What They Shouldn’t Be Doin’

Brian Williams, John Mooney and Joe Beard performing live in a backyard in Brighton
Brian Williams, John Mooney and Joe Beard performing live in a backyard in Brighton

John Mooney (center, above) used to be pretty big around here. He left home at 15 and began playing with Joe Beard (right, above). Joe introduced John to Son House, who lived in Rochester for many years, and John still shows that influence. He moved to New Orleans in 1976 and played regularly with Earl King, The Meters and Professor Longhair.

The John Mooney Trio from the Rochester days reunited over the weekend for a City gig and a warmup backyard barbecue gig at a home in Brighton. Brian Williams (on the left, above) played bass in that trio along with Bob Cooper on keyboards. Peggi bought her red Farfisa organ from Bob Cooper back in the late seventies. Brian invited us to the party. The Blues book was written a long time ago but it always sounds great when in good hands.

We took a walk up to the lake today and watched the sail surfers darting back and forth. We cut back through the park and visually eavesdropped on the various subcultures of picnickers. We watched a City cop tell an ice cream vendor he couldn’t sell in the park. We came across a park patrol woman and told her we had seen a guy on one of the trails digging up plants and putting them in a five gallon bucket. She told us, “There’s a lot of people doin’ what they shouldn’t be doin’ today”.

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Visionary Politition

Peggi riding bike in steam after the the rain
Peggi riding bike in steam after the the rain

Back when we were moving out this way we stopped in Vic & Irv’s for dinner and ran into the then town supervisor, David Schantz. Not that we would have recognized him or anything. He just came up to us, introduced himself and started talking like a politician. He looked out over Irondequoit Bay and described his dream of turning this funky little area called Point Pleasant or Sea Breeze into Niagara on the Lake complete with hotels and a boardwalk. It sounded like a nightmare to us.

Well, a small part of that plan is taking shape this summer as construction crews are turning the 590 North expressway (that used to dead end at Marge’s) into a one lane in each direction street with bike/walking paths and wooden fences lining both sides. To slow the traffic down they are putting four traffic circles in between Titus and the lake. And when the road gets near the lake it will go straight right through the old drive-in on the west side of Bill Greys. When they fill in the old road there will be a small park overlooking the bay right where David Schantz was looking.

We decided to ride our bike over there yesterday to get a closer look. We were cutting through the park when it started raining so we ducked into the woods and waited it out. When we came out the sun was shining and the park road was steaming.

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Blowing Up The Lakes

Fireworks on the shore of Lake Ontario
Fireworks ready to go along Lake Ontario

We haven’t quite figured out this holiday. We worked Friday but the library and the stock market were closed. Lowel gave Duane Sherwood both Friday and Monday off. We worked Saturday too but that was mostly rewiring our house to get our new two line phone working. We never did find our cordless phone. Best guess is that we put it on the car while we were working in the yard and then Peggi drove out to her mom’s apartment with the phone on the hood of the car. This new one has an answering machine for both lines and one cordless phone in addition to the wired one. Anyway, we’re thinking about taking Monday off.

We already celebrated the fourth and the third with fireworks. Hard to say whether the folks along Conesus Lake or those on Edgemere Drive on Lake Ontario do a better job of blowing up the lake. Peggi’s mom was kind of bummed that we didn’t celebrate the fourth with her. Ironically, we are always waiting for things to slow down while she wishes there was more going on. Guess we didn’t have to go to two fireworks parties.

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Have A Heart

Groundhog in cage

Peggi bought some beautiful handmade glass earrings from Lucinda Storms last night. Lucinda was having a trunk sale in the gift shop at the Memorial Art Gallery. I have a hard time appreciating jewelry because I don’t wear it so I spent most of my time looking at two of her fascinating sketchbooks. She will be there on Saturday from 10AM til 4.

We have some of our garden on our neighbor’s property down the hill. We try to visit it once a day to water and combat weeds. Yesterday we sprinkled a little organic fertilizer around the pepper plants because the leaves were a little yellow instead of dark green indicating a lack of nitrogen. And we have surrounded each tomato plant with fencing in an effort to keep the ground hogs out. They already picked a row of lettuce clean.

Our neighbor tried a few smoke bombs in their holes but they survived. He spotted one sticking his head out of a hole so he backed his tractor up to the hole and ran parked his tractor up to the hole and connected a piece of hose to the tailpipe and shoved the hose down in the hole. But the next day the ground hog was back.

He set a Haveaheart trap for the guy but the bait wilted and was not much of a temptation. So the next time he spotted the groundhog go in one of the holes he placed a live, potted lettuce plant in the trap and positioned the trap next to the hole. It worked. The town came to pick up the trap and they said they would free the ground hog over by the bay and bring the empty trap back.

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Goodbye Ornette

Ornette the cat
Ornette the cat

Every year I write Ornette Coleman’s name in that line on the Harris Jazz Fest survey where they ask you who you would like to see at next year’s fest. Nobody pays any attention. Or how about Joe McPhee, Ken Vandermark, Hamid Drake or Pharoah Sanders and Yusef Latef and Archie Shepp before they die.

Ornette the cat will take his last trip to the vet tomorrow morning. We would have taken him out there this morning but Barry Brown was off. Ornette stopped eating today so we get the message. He is outside as I write this, sitting in the garden. He is one cool cat and we are going to miss him a lot.

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Free TV

Cashing in our government issued digital TV coupon at Target
Cashing in our government issued digital TV coupon at Target

One day ahead of the June 12 cutoff we cashed in our $40 government coupon on a digital converter for our Samsung TV. We don’t have cable tv and hardly watch it at all but there might be another slow speed chase someday. We let our first coupon expire so we were determined to cash this one in before the deadline. We started at Sears but they were sold out so we went next door to Target and picked up a converter for five bucks above the value of the coupon plus an amplified antenna. We should now be able to get the networks and four PBS stations in high def, 16 x 9 aspect ratio off the air for free. I don’t imagine this will last forever. I’d be happy if I could just sit down and watch The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet of Jack Benny or Huckleberry Hound but I know that won’t happen.

Did anybody see my parents in the back page of the B section this morning? My sister took out an ad with a picture of them in the back seat of a car on their wedding day 60 years ago. If you see Mary and Leo wish them a Happy Anniversary.

Ever had a pet that you cared so much for that you didn’t even want to take a vacation?. Ornette, who seemed like a kitten for twelve years, is still alive but now appears like a ghost of himself. He might weigh four or five pounds tops and does not seem too happy. He ignores squirrels and chipmunks and just sits in the sun like an old man or he hides in the bushes because he realizes his defenses are down, way down. If he looked like he was in excruciating pain we would take him out to Dr. Barry Brown for his last shot but he is not there yet. He still digs fresh catnip from our garden and I love turning him on.

We ran into Martin Edic at a “social networking event” (cocktail hour) at Label 7 in Pittsford. We were there for dinner with Peggi’s mom. I had a delicious salad with spinach, grilled onions and vinaigrette andsome spicey tortilla soup. Peggi’s mom has her lobster pjs on now and I can’t wait to get home to Ornette.

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Into That Good Night

Ornette on deck
Ornette on deck

Ornette does not look too happy. This is obvious and it makes us unhappy. He has always been a raucous rebel rouser. He started losing weight so we took him to the vet but without a battery of tests the checkup was inconclusive and the likely problems would all require invasive costly procedures. He just had his twelfth birthday and it’s the end of the line for this little guy.

He used to demand to go out in the morning and I’d watch him march across the street to make his rounds. Now he sits in the sun rather than relentlessly tracking down anything that moves. His left eye is clouding up and he has new spots on his nose. He’s all bones and getting wobbly, a long ways from his cocky sway. We used to have a hell of a time getting him in at night but now I just walk out to his favorite spot and pick him up. Yet he still purrs when I sling him over my shoulder.

Our ninety year old next door neighbor told us he was just waiting to join his wife who died about five years ago. He says he doesn’t understand why he’s still here. A former dentist, he showed me his two front teeth. He had just glued them together with Ducco cement. I was trying to imagine what the fumes were like. They were stuck together all right but he could wiggle them both in unison.

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Blew The Roof Off

Oak droppings on chairs out front
Oak droppings on chairs out front

My sister Amy’s kids divided the family up last night and we played baseball with a short aluminum bat and a bright green tennis ball. My father umpired the game from behind the plate. Peggi’s mom, my mom and and brother John’s wife watched from the porch. Peggi got a hold of one and knocked two of us in but it wasn’t enough to beat my sister Ann, her daughter Jann and Amy and her husband, Howie.

I found five golf balls today when we crossed the course today. I’m thinking a lot of golfers just drop a new ball when they can’t find theirs. I put 12 Crystal balls, all translucent pink or white, into a used egg cartoon and I plan on bringing it into my painting class tonight for Maureen. When we got back form our hike I blew the oak droppings off the roof. The oak mast is now clustered like tumbleweed all around our house.

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The Recession Is Over

Chipmunk in tree outside our office
Chipmunk in tree outside our office window

Never got out today but I did manage to take a nature shot out our office window. We made a round of revisions to the HairZoo website and finished moving the So Many Records site to a new dot com address. We are designing the cover of Annie Wells new cd and we’re updating her site. We are also building a site for the internationally renowned glass artist, Michael Taylor. He has a brilliant show at the Memorial Art Gallery now. The recession is over. I’m going out for a game of horseshoes with my friend and neighbor, Rick.

I checked a few of my blog entries from this time last year (it’s the only way I can keep track of things) and I see the water temperature of our street pool is well above where it was last year. As presidents of the pool association we need to get down there every day to check and record the pool chemistry levels, an awesome responsibility. Our neighbor, Joey, was in the pool with a friend when Peggi went down there yesterday. The water temperature is 71 degrees. Summer is here.

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I Want To Be There

Tulips in Highland Park, Rochester NY
Tulips in Highland Park, Rochester, NY

Who was that band in Luis Buñuel’s, “Simon of the Desert?” The devil takes Simon to a discotheque in the climax of this 1965 movie and the sax and guitar players drive the frenetic dancers to state next to madness! I want to be there.

Peggi and I were both half asleep the first time we watched this dreamy 45 minute masterpiece so we had to go around again last night. And then of course we did the extras with the exotic Silvia Pinal interview. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who has ever set foot in a Catholic school or church or anyone has ever even met or spoken to a Catholic or a former Catholic even. The Protestants have “Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple” to savor and there must be something out there for the Jews but if not this movie could address universal religion just as well.

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Untitled

Two of Peggi Fournier pieces submitted to the Six by Six Show at Rochester Contemporary
Two of Peggi Fournier pieces submitted to the Six by Six Show at Rochester Contemporary

I know which pieces I’m going to be scrambling for when they open the cash registers at the upcoming 6 by 6 show at Rochester Contemporary. My only problem is that I can’t decide which piece I like most of the two mixed media pieces that Peggi Fournier submitted.

I parked around the corner from RoCo and was cutting across the Episcopal Church property as the bells chimed five o’clock, the official deadline. I had to fill out duplicate forms for each of Peggi’s pieces and the ten of mine, twenty four in all. My crime faces all had the same name so I swung a deal with the girl there make copies of the first one. Peggi’s pieces were untitled so I left the space provided for “title” blank thinking that “Untitled” would actually be a title.

On my way out I noticed someone sitting on the sidewalk sketching the church on a six by six inch board.

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Clone My Cat

Ornette the cat
Ornette the cat

I remember laughing as I read about someone who was trying to clone their dog. I was probably laughing at myself, a few years down the road, wishing I could clone our cat, Ornette. He’s twelve now and he used to weigh twelve but he only weighs eight and we’re having a hard time getting him to eat.

When we picked him out at the pound there weren’t any kittens on the floor so we asked an employee if they had any young ones. I remember a girl coming out of the back with this fluffy little thing screaming at the top of his lungs. He wailed all the way home and we named him”Ornette”. He has a light fluffy coat of long hair and four extra toes on his front feet. He doesn’t care much for strangers and he won’t even let our friends get close to him so only Peggi and I know how lovable this guy is.

He goes about his usual routine but without his trademark vigor and it is really sad. He hasn’t dropped a single chipmunk at our door this year. Its noon now and he’s sleeping in his pink basket.

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Arborvitae By A Nose

Peggi and I celebrated an anniversary of sorts yesterday. Our first date was an outing to the Kentucky Derby. We rode in the back of Steve Hoy‘s van from Bloomington, Indiana to Louisville. Voice over talent extraordinaire, Joe Barrett was in the front seat. Secretariat won the race.

We make a point to tune in to the race every year and this time we watched it at Bill and Geri’s house. We were invited there to help take down a few Arborvitae trees that had grown out of control. The shrubs were probably planted there when the house was built and they were now taller than the house. Bill had one of his trees fall on a neighbor’s property many years ago and he bought a chain saw to clean up the mess. His saw has been on permanent loan to us and we really couldn’t live without it. I did most of the cutting but Bill stepped in for this dramatic footage while I grabbed a movie.

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