We always seem to working on the delicate balance of home maintenance and home enjoyment. Always weighing whether to sit on the porch and read or hang that mirror in the bathroom that we bought at a yard sale five years ago, whether to transplant more pachysandra to the bare spot on the hillside or take a walk in the woods, whether to split that pile of wood we picked up or go down in the basement and paint, whether to clean the shower or just go down to the pool and relax. It might be the last warm day for swimming.
Margaret Explosion has released a song for the upcoming Fringe Festival. You can listen to or download it here.
Old Indian cave on Ray Miller Trail in La Jolla Canyon, California
Our nephew hatched a plan to borrow his mom’s Lexus and drive us up the coast, “Something purely California.” But first we had to read the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. By the time we finished those and a few pots of coffee the whole family was on board, or what’s left of it. We packed a lunch of leftovers from the post memorial service gathering and a bag of plumcots, the plum apricot hybrid.
We travelled out Sunset Boulevard through Malibu while Peggi’s sister studied a map of hiking trails and we gawked out the window at the surfers and campers and funky bungalows along the coast. We stopped at Mugu in the Santa Monica mountains and left the air conditioned car for a three hour looped trail that was supposed to follow a creek with a small waterfalls. The creek bed was dry as bone. I borrowed a hat, shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt from my brother-in-laws closet and we lathered up with #60 sunscreen. No one in the family is anywhere near size twelve so I did the three hour hike in my street shoes.
We carefully rationed our water and by the time we returned to the car were primed for a Bud Light toast to our brother-in-law but we forgot the cooler.
Lollipop trees Bel Air Road in Los Angeles, California
As we drove by these trees today there was a guy in the middle of the road taking a picture of his girlfriend while she stood under them. They are quintessentially LA and could not exist in Rochester, New York. The traffic on this road is mostly workers – gardeners, pool maintenance people, maids, nannies, construction workers and taco trucks. They filmed the Beverly Hillbillies here. Quincy Jones lives nearby and Zsa Zsa Gabor but the biggest stars in my book are are our two nephews. One is law student and anti-fracking advocate the other is a chef who is currently working at 11 Madison Park and NoMad, two of the top restaurants in the world. They are featured in this week’s New Yorker.
The sky is impossibly blue in LA and the sun is so intense it is oppressive. You can’t walk for long without protection and protection is hot and uncomfortable. Walking up Bel Air Road the difference you see, in color and type, between the planted and tended vegetation and the native landscape tells that whole story.
But the stainless steel houses with the flat roofs and big picture windows are seriously dreamy and imagining the lives of the people who live behind the gated entries can occupy some mind space. Because the climate is so different the art is different. “Made In LA,” the first Los Angeles biennial, organized by the Hammer Museum was being disassembled when we arrived. Admission was free and all but four installations were gone. A minimal music piece with musicians scattered about the courtyard was underway when we got there and still going when left about two hours later. It was beautiful and spacious and perfectly LA, like something that had been out in the sun just long enough.
Tunnel between Concourse A and Concourse B in Detroit Airport
One of the strangest things about death is the finality. The things you take for granted are just gone. Its unsettling as it should be.
When we arrived here for my brother-in-laws’ funeral I pulled my laptop out to check email. I couldn’t get online so I asked my nephews for the password. Neither one of them could remember it because it had been so long since they first entered it on their machines. My brother-in-law had taken his password to the grave. My nephew retrieved it from his keychain.
We were renewing the downstairs bedroom, the room that Ken spent his last days in. My east coast internal clock woke me before anyone and I sat in his home office, surrounded by his pictures and books, while the sun came up. Was this whole section of Bel Air Road wiped out in an earthquake in the thirties or was it a brush fire? And where did these antique wooden floors come from again? He was full of life, inquisitive, sharp as tack, so much fun to talk to and joke around with and now he’s gone.
One of our favorite hiking trails parallels the golf course for a few holes. The path runs along the fairways but in the woods so the golfers can’t you. I prefer the course when there no golfers on it. Its manmade , gently rolling hills and manicured greens can look surreal or like Robert Smithson earth art. And of course it is gorgeous in the winter.
Today we walked along, unnoticed, with a solo golfer, dressed in black and carrying his clubs so he was moving at the same spec as we were. We watched him tee off and work his way down the fairway and and putt. We listened and laughed as he hit the ball, watched it for few seconds and then yelled, “For fucks sake” after each shot.
Brick building with concrete window in downtown Rochester
“I like boring.” That line doesn’t make the most stimulating dinner conversation but I tried it tonight when we had dinner down the street at our neighbors. They had invited us and the new people who just moved in on September one and I guess I was sort of trying to lower the expectations for them.
She is originally from New Zealand and her husband from Australia so the conversation ping ponged all over the map before landing on music. He plays guitar and she is a writer but she said her brother was in a band that was quite successful, Galaxy 500. I told her we saw someone from that band when he played here last year with his wife Bitta. She said that’s my brother, Dean.
We’ve been digging a small footer in the back yard for the last week. Any day laborer worth his salt would have it dug in a day but we’ve been struggling and the whole street knows it. The earth in this part of our yard has not been disturbed since the ice age so the sand is on its way toward becoming sandstone rock.
One of our neighbors brought us some unsweetened Honest Tea green tea today and our next door neighbor who has been snoopervising all week suggested we rent an electric jack hammer at Home Depot. We took his suggestion and Peggi came back with a 70 pound jack hammer. It worked great, it cut so well it went straight down and I could barely get it out. Peggi took it back and traded it in for a 35 pounder. It cuts almost as well and was much easier to lift over and over. We have to have back by noon tomorrow so we might have to set the alarm.
Hope Solo signing copies of her book in Rochester, New York
A practice session for USA Women’s Soccer team was open to the public yesterday so we stopped in to get a close-up glimpse of some our favorite players. Today’s match against Costa Rica is the first game for the Olympic Champions and it’s sold out. We tried to get tickets but we couldn’t compete with hoards of young girls and season ticket holders. We’ll probably get a better view of the game on Channel 10 where it airs at 2:30 this afternoon. The girl next to us screamed “I got Hope” after Hope Solo signed her copy of Sports Illustrated with its picture of Hope on the cover.
Four musicians/artists and duct tape at I-Square Gallery Rochester, New York (Jed Curran, Steve Piper, Pete Monacelli, Scott Regan)
For years duct tape went hand in hand with playing in a band. With thousands of uses it worked its way into everyday life but today I’m finding that clear plastic packing tape has taken its place. I keep a roll out in the garage, one in my art studio and one in our home office. It makes a nice laminate for pictures, it helps keep the binding together on well worn books and allows me to create custom mailers for cds from old envelopes.
I took this shot before last weekend’s opening at I-Square. The five artists/musicians featured in the show (Jed Curran, Steve Piper, Pete Monacelli, Scott Regan and Paul Dodd) are getting as old as duct tape but I found their art work to be seriously engaging and getting to know these guys was a pleasure. I discovered I went to grade school with Jed at Saint Johns on Humboldt Street we’ve hired Pete to help with an addition. Funny how these circles all intertwine in this town. Let’s hope the packing tape will keep us together.
David Bouley Paella at Wegmans in Pittsford, New York
We didn’t see David Bouley, the world famous chef, at Wegmans on Thursday, but we bought some of his paella to take home. He and Roger Martinez, the Barcelona chef who worked throughout Spain but notably at Ferran Adria’s celebrated elBulli may have been hiding in the back room when we were there. They were demonstrating variations (vegetable, duck, seafood and chanterelle mushrooom) of the classic Spanish dish but the huge paella pans were were already prepared when we visited. Our to-go dishes were still warm and delicious when we got home.
USA vs. Japan
Without cable tv we’ve had to arrange our days around finding a set for the Women’s soccer games. The games have been sensational. The semi-final against Canada was was one of the most thrilling games I’ve ever seen. I was so happy to see Christie Rampone’s brilliant shot and Heather O’Rielly come off the bench and cross that perfect ball to Rochester Flash’s Alex Morgan in the final minute of overtime. I don’t think I could handle the noise level while watching the game at Abby Wambach’s brother’s bar. We will probably go for the comfort of my parents living room.
And I’ve been celebrating Marlene Dumas‘s birthday all week.
Sam and Jerry Gallo, the owners and operators of Krenmor Garlic Farms from Scottsville New York
This was the first week at the Public Market for Sam and Jerry Gallo and their home grown garlic. I heard someone ask where they’ve been and the said they don’t show up until their freshly picked garlic has properly dried. I heard someone else ask if they had elephant garlic and one of the brothers said, “We sell garlic. We don’t sell onions. Elephant garlic has no flavor.” We bought a pound of the Italian purple and they gave us a recipe for roasted garlic. It is a bad year for local peaches, apples and even corn but we bought batches of each.
Flower City dumpster in front of Highland Hospital
Today’s paper had an article about Rochester’s relatively high ranking as a good city for old people. I’ve noticed that hospitals seem to be the only ones in a building mode these days.
I’ve spent so much time at the hospital the last few days I’m getting really confused. I’m pretty good at finding free parking spaces and I don’t mind walking so I dropped my mom and Peggi off at the front door and then wandered around my grandparent’s old neighborhood looking for a free spot. This morning I found one on Mulberry Street. It’s alternate side parking there and at 10:15 AM there was an equal number of cars parked on both sides. So I pulled over under a sign that read “NO PARKING 11AM Wed to 10AM Thur.” I really wanted to know when I COULD park here but I reasoned it out with only one hitch. I wasn’t really sure if it was Tuesday or Wednesday. I got out of the car and considered asking a guy who was working on his house what day this was but I decided to just chance it and walked off. In the hospital I noticed that the nurse asks my father the same question just to keep him on his toes.
My father was in the hospital again, this time for vascular issues. He is somehow incredibly vital and at death’s door at the same time. When they got him stabilized and he finally fell asleep we took my mom out for lunch. She suggested the nearby Highland Diner. As soon as we sat down my mom was off reminiscing. She told us she used to come here for lunch when she worked down the street at her father’s grocery store. She swears the peanut butter and bacon sandwich on the menu was put there because she would order it back then. This time she ordered a Veggie Burger and a vanilla milkshake. I followed suit. They put the metal milkshake glasses on the table so you can fill your glass twice. Killer.
My mom said she hadn’t been in her father’s store since he retired so we stopped in. It’s an Indian market now and seems to be thriving. I remember shopping here with her and I remember the floors and the sawdust and the smell of freshly ground 8 o’clock coffee. My older cousin was a cashier and my grandfather, the butcher as well as shopkeeper, would give us big slices of liverwurst. Everything has changed but the floors.
The woods felt refreshed today. We had about .7 inches of rain according to our neighbor and we sorely needed it. The gloomy, overcast, humid weather is a welcome relief.
In the summer of 1980 Peggi and I drove down to Steve Hoy’s house in Gulfport Mississippi and got in his pickup truck which was newly outfitted with a camper. It sat three across with the option of crawling through the back window into the camper itself. Peggi practiced her sax back there as we drove through New Orleans, Texas and Arizona where temps were over 100 and there was no AC. We slept in the back, three across in the middle of a heat wave. We stopped in New Mexico where my father was working, on loan from Eastman Kodak, and from there we headed up to the Grand Canyon where Steve Hoy entertained the tourists with his daredevil antics. People standing next to us were wildly exclaiming, “Look at that man down there,” while we acted like we didn’t know him.
We drove into LA and stayed with Peggi’s sister and then got on Highway 1 up to San Francisco where our friends Dave and Kim, Brad, Rich and Andrea lived. We stayed there for a few days and drove back on a more northerly route. We drove through Las Vegas in the middle of the night and limited ourselves to ten bucks in the slot machines. That went fast and we camped in a parking lot near Lake Mead. Eventually we headed south to pick up our car and then back up here.
This summer’s heat has slowed the pace around here and I might be delusional but maybe it’s time to drive across the country again.
Sampling of signs from the all new “Funky Signs” site on Tumblr
I finished migrating my sign collection to Tumblr but still have a folder of recent photos to throw up there and I hope it will be an ongoing project. Check it out.
