Category: Life Is A Spell

Back in the 70’s Mugs Up was a pretty cool spot to hang around in the afternoon. You could sit at a booth right near the window and look out at the street as Eastman students scurried by with their musical instruments in tow. They tore the place down to build the Sibley Library which is today the largest academic music library in the US. I’ve never been in the music library but I miss Mugs Up.

The thing that caught my eye in this old photo is the little guy in the hat waiting for the bus. The worst bike accident I ever had was when I ran into a guy that looked a lot like this when he stepped off the curb in front of the old Music Lovers Shop about a block down the street. I was whizzing by and he stepped out right in front of me. He didn’t look and probably didn’t hear me coming. I slammed into my handle bars and then rolled over them and onto the street. I broke a few ribs and was all scraped up. He was crumpled in a ball on the street. I remember asking, “Are you alright” Are you alright?” over and over because the guy was not saying a word. I guess he was in shock. After a few minutes he got up slowly with my help and worked his way back to the curb. I asked again, “Are you alright?” and he said, “Jesus Christ.”

My dad bought me one of those square format, plastic Kodak cameras after I quit school and just before I traveled to Europe with the rest of my student loan. And I took this photo when I returned. It was my first camera and I must have been 19 or so. My sister and her boyfriend were hanging out in his car and John Sparagano, a friend of my younger brothers, was hanging out in the driveway. We all did a lot of hanging out in those days. At times the seven of us all had friends over at the same time.

My sister got us out of bed pretty early this morning. She had slipped on the ice last night while walking her dog and the throbbing pain in her wrist had kept her awake all night. She didn’t think she could drive herself to the doctor so we offered but first we had to “walk her dog”, a euphemism for taking the dog to a bathroom on the neighbor’s lawn. I inverted a Wegmans bag and cleaned up the mess and we headed off to Greater Rochester Orthopaedics (GRO) where the walls of the waiting room were lined with two foot square paintings of tree related art. I wanted to take a photo of one of them, a cross section of a big tree, but I did not want to confront the grumpy, gum chewing couple that was sitting in front of the painting.

My sister came out with a purple cast and I suggested going to Canaltown for a cup of coffee. We ran into my father over there, he was getting a to-go cup for my mom, so we had a small family reunion. The paintings there were not as intriguing but I liked the artist’s statement.

I shoveled the driveway in my pajamas this morning. Not the first time I’ve done that. I go out to get the paper and if it looks like it’s over my slippers I shovel my way to the mailbox. I have always liked shoveling snow. I used to do three driveways when we lived in the city, sometimes four, as our neighbors got older. And I used to make money with my shovel when I was in my teens. The rules never change. You have to get out there right away before the snow gets too heavy, before cars drive on it. And do it two or three times in a heavy storm. My father was showing me a Ralph Avery watercolor last night, a scene of downtown Rochester, and told me Avery died shoveling snow in his driveway. Not a bad way to go.

There is nothing like a fresh snowfall. I wish we had more of them. It’s like mother nature has low Testosterone these days.

The fresh snow is either evaporating or melting. We need some more. But it is a perfect day for YouTubing. We followed a Lincoln ad to Beck’s over the top performance of Bowie’s “Sound and Vision.” Low is still one of the greatest records of all time so maybe this will recharge sales. Watched a trailer for the David Mamet Phil Spector movie with Al Pacino and Helen Mirren and we longed for the real thing, “The Agony and Ecstacy of Phil Spector.” We saw it a few years ago at the Dyrden Theater and then heard the producers were having a hard time securing the rights to all those classic Wall of Sound songs. Whether that is true or not the movie has been unavailable. I have a feeling in this BBC link is only temporary so you better watch it soon. Finally, we primed ourselves for Matt & Kim‘s Monday night Armory appearance and got back to work.

The Pope had a press conference today. He said he just wants to spend more time with his wife and kids.” –David Letterman

When I think of mattresses I think big and cushy. This sign is so slight and the lettering so compact it is surprising that it’s mounted on wheels. It would be quite a sight to catch the owner wheeling this thing out in the morning.

We have that seventy degree patch behind us and yesterday’s forties and are ready for some real winter.

We were served by Genny herself and were having such a good time at the Genesee Brew House that we had only minutes to spare at the Amtrak station where we dropped our nephew off. He boarded with an e-ticket on his phone and headed back for his final semester at Columbia Law School. It was a whirlwind visit although we didn’t do much. Worked on the floor in the basement and watched YouTube videos, streamed The Queen of Versailles and watched our NetFlix disc, “Shut Up and Play the Hits.”

When I got back I checked in with a nephew on the other side of the family. I don’t have twitter account but I sort of follow him and the followers of his inspirational tweets. He has twelve thousand of those now.

Sometimes I think life would be simpler if I liked football.

We have Time Warner internet service and a digital land line through the cable but not cable tv so every so often a salesperson calls to see we’d be interested in cable tv. This time they were offering a complete package for $20 a month for two years so we took it. Not sure what we’re in for. The only tv we watch is Sixty Minutes and we usually do that on our computer. Maybe I’ll find a European soccer channel.

We finished painting our ceilings today. My neck is so sore I can barely hold my head up high enough to see how it all looks.

The Little Theater Café had already let two employees go home by the time we showed up to play. The forecast for twelve inches kept all but the die-hard home and their dinner hour was the slowest in months. Does the band care? Hardly. We play for ourselves and reliably sound best when hardly anyone is there. There is more room for dynamics and space to let thing get to the brink of falling apart. But somehow the place filled up and by the end of the night Sandy told us we were only a dollar fifty short of the bonus so Peggi and I bought a peanut butter cup brownie and cashed in.

We shoveled for a good bit of the day today and were still out there when our neighbors walked by with their three Jack Russell terriers. One was wearing a sweater and anther had four little booties on. They told us they had been skiing in Durand on the newly groomed trails. They started grooming last year but we never got any snow. We prefer the un-groomed trails that run through the woods and snake around the ponds. When the driveway was clear we skied until dark. The conditions were perfect. I fell four times, twice while I was just standing there, and it was a soft landing each time.

We found it impossible to keep a candle lit in the cold wind behind Holy Trinity Church in Webster so we put the candles in our pocket and brought them home. We’ll probably burn ours later tonight. Our niece died twenty years ago from an infected heart and her two sisters organized a remembrance at her grave. Nicole was twelve when she died and three of her friends from back then, some with their own children now, were also there to share memories. I babysat for Nicole and her sisters on Wednesday nights for three years and I couldn’t decide which memory to share. She was so full of life and ready to go on all fronts.

Just before she got sick she asked me to paint her portrait so I said I’d bring my camera out the next Wednesday and take a photo. Nicole made a big deal of this sitting, picking the white chair on the porch as the location and wearing her favorite t-shirt and then spending over an hour in the bathroom putting on make-up. By the time she was ready to sit down it was getting dark and there was barely enough light for the film in our old Canon FTb. She died before I got around to doing the painting.

We headed back out to Webster last night for calling hours for Brad Fox’s mom. Brad flew in from Oakland, just in time for the first snow fall and the whole Mahoney family, who lived a few doors down on the same street, was there when we arrived. Brad’s mom was the sweetest person in the world. Years ago I made her a cd of old country songs and she told me how much she liked it every time I saw her. My favorite memory of her was from way back. The Who’s “Substitute”was out and Brad was singing “I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth” at the top of his lungs when his mom laid into him. “What do mean you were born with a plastic spoon?”

We don’t have a dumpster out front but we have managed to fill our green Waste Management trash containers to the brim every week for the last few months. With the project creep our little home improvement task is surely helping the economy. We did a Home Depot run this afternoon and Peggi and I each a had cart over there. Peggi had electrical outlets, paint, drywall screws, and Ploy Foam CaulkSaver in hers. I had backing board and a bag of Thinset in mine. I noticed the guys who did our drywall drink those 24 ounce Mega Monster energy drinks. We count on coffee and are so tired we may just watch Alfred Hitchcock Presents reruns tonight.