Evan with mask at “best Garage Sale Ever” in Rochester, New York
When it came time to make signs for the two ends of Alpine Drive, the night before our garage sale, we did a little brainstorming and Alice came up with a killer title, “Best Garage Sale Ever.” We ran with it and in fact it was the best garage sale ever, a perfect day and a chance to see so many friends in one spot.
We found a Lena Horne cd in the cd slot of Peggi’s mom’s stereo and kicked the sale off with an operatic tribute to Peggi’s mom. We met Noah from next door and I gave him this mask while we were setting up. No one was interested in the glass table that belonged to Peggi’s mom so we put it out in the “Free” section near the end of the sale. Evan picked it up and put it in his sale where it sold for six dollars. We sold our entire music collection and were delighted to find happy homes for most of it.
People warned us about the dealers and true to form they were there as we were setting up a full two hours before the sale began. I dreaded the whole affair and it was was an incredible amount of work but turned out to be fun, mostly because Alice and Julio are so much fun.
I put my 1996 series of 24 “Rochester Crime Faces” in the sale. Last time they were out in public was when they hung in the old city jail, the Cell Gallery, in Writers and Books. Ruby Rubenstein, Scott McCarney, Marie Via, Claire Marziotti, Chris Schepp, Judy Levy, Amy Enis, Maureen Outlaw, Sally Wood Winslow and Heather Erwin all bought at least one. I was thrilled that they sold out.
After 30 years in the city we moved to a house that didn’t have enough room for all our stuff so the stuff remained in boxes for six years. In that time we accumulated more stuff and when Peggi’s mom passed away we wound up with even more stuff. The time has come for our first Garage Sale!
We been preparing for Saturday’s Garage Sale our entire life, accumulating stuff that we liked, never thinking of it as collectable or even having any trade-in value at all and then comes the realization the stuff is in the way. Beyond giving things away and then donating stuff to charity there is the practical matter of putting a little white sticker on each and every glass bird or Elvis Presley placemat.
Our friend’s, Alice and Julio, were planning a sale this Saturday as part of a neighborhood sale in Pittsford. We plan to piggyback on their sale and make it a party. We ripped our lps and cds so our entire record and cd collection is for sale. We weeded our book shelves, our closets, the garage and the basement and came up with a truckload of stuff for the sale. If you’re out and about on Saturday stop by. I’m sort of dreading it but it could be fun. Alice is calling it “The Best Garage Sale Ever!”
Old rock magazines headed for garage sale on Saturday in Rochester, New York
I was going to toss these old magazines in the 50 cent box for Saturday’s yard sale but I stopped to check the eBay price of the Rock Scene with the dorky picture of Keith and I found it just sold for $26. There is so much anxiety involved with this whole garage sale thing.
I had this U2 cd single of a song called “Numb” from the Zooropa album. It was a promo sent to us when we were doing the print version of the Refrigerator and our friend, Duane, told us it was valuable so I put it right by my monitor for the day when we decided to liquidate. I guess it’s more like downsizing or miniaturizing as in mp3 files. Ironically, the precious cd” wasn’t there when I reached for it. I had to laugh. I never even ripped it either. Its probably in one of the cd boxes out in the garage.
I spot-checked the thousands of cds and vinyl records and found that vinyl was worth more than the cds so I decided to go with $3 for the vinyl and $4 for the cds and I will probably lower the price in the afternoon.
I never expected to get any money back when I finished with our books and records and Rock Scene magazines yet the value we placed in these things while we owned them gets devalued when we look them up on line. It’s all kind of weird. A lot of our stuff came from garage sales in the first place. Maybe this is what makes the world go ’round. This is our first garage sale and I hope its the last.
Dyson vacuum cleaners have a plastic chamber that collects the dust instead of bag. Ours was empty but it still wouldn’t pick up. We found before that the only way to remedy this situation was to take it all apart and clean the vacuum cleaner parts. Our neighbor, Rick, brought his laptop over because it was making a clicking sound. I asked if he had a backup and he didn’t so I suggested he go to Staples and buy an external drive and run Time Machine before he does anything else. He did that and then took it in to the Apple Store. They told him the fan had become clogged and it needed cleaning.
With all the rain in last few weeks our basement dehumidifier has been running around the clock. I’ve been down there quite a bit going through junk to put in our upcoming yard sale the dehumidified has been as loud as hell. I thought it was on its last lags and risked breaking the plastic cover to get a look at the inside. The coils were completely blocked by dust so scrubbed it with a toothbrush and it works fine now. Our refrigerator came with the house and it has been freezing things that are stored near the back even though it is set to the lowest settings. We were certain that we needed a new thermostat and I priced them and even watched a video on how to install the thing. But before we did that we pulled the refrigerator out from the wall and gave it a good cleaning. Turns out the air intake was blocked and it now runs perfectly.
Jeanie Pruit “Satin Sheets” and Prince “Lovesexy” lp covers
I’ve been going through my lps and putting boxes together for an upcoming yard sale. It’s a a tough project to make any headway on because I keep getting sidetracked by something I have to listen to one more time. At one point I had Jeanie Pruit’s “Satin Sheets” in thefront of a stack right next to and Prince’s “Lovesexy” and I was stopped dead in my tracks!
Our house came with a wrought iron railing around the stairwell. It was painted white and it had these Rococo swoops in it that just did not make it. I tried painting it but the paint wouldn’t stick. Apparently it was painted with oil on top of acrylic at one time and the new coat just lifted top layer of white off. I bought some paint remover but I never started the job because it seemed so nasty. I considered dismantling it and taking it out to my brother’s to sandblast it and then we decided to just cut out the offending curves so we borrowed Julio’s Saws-all and I bought some extra blades for the job. The saw sat next to the railing for about a month until we came up with a new idea for a wood and stainless steel railing. So we took the old railing out to the driveway where it looked even uglier in the daylight.
The time had come to head to Krieger’s with the scarp metal. They’ve been bought by Metalico but everyone still calls it Krieger’s. When we lived next door to Sparky he used to collect junk and dismantle it in his garage and take it to Kriegers for extra cash. I’ve been there with him and the place is a trip so I gave Sparky a call and arranged to pick him up at nine.
Street people pushing empty shopping carts were walking toward us in the middle of Portland Avenue as we approached the gates. We piled the scrap metal in a cart and wheeled it on to their scale while workers barked incoherent orders at us. You get the clear sense that they deal with unsavory characters on a regular basis and they have taken on many of the same characteristics as their clients.
There are cameras mounted above and bars on the cashier’s window. There was a Puerto Rican woman with a black baby in line in front of us. She had tattoos up and down her arms and her transaction was not going smoothly. There was another women in tight jeans and high heels standing off to the side. I asked Sparky what these women were doing and he said, “They’re prostitutes,” like that explains everything.
I slipped my driver’s license through a tiny opening in the bullet proof glass and signed a form that stated that the junk was mine and that I had not obtained illegally. The cashier paid me with a receipt that I had to take to an outdoor ATM machine. She asked if I had ever used the ATM before and I wasn’t sure if meant this particular ATM or any ATM so I said “No” and a worker walked with me to the outdoor machine. There was a guy with long scruffy beard hanging around near the machine and the worker told him to “beat it.” He scanned the bar code on my receipt for me and then said, “When your money comes out, take it fast.”
Back at Sparky’s he showed me the remodeling job he was doing on his bathroom. He had put in a shower enclosure in place of the tub and inadvertently sealed some of his tools in the wall between the studs. I asked him how he was getting by without a bathroom and took me to the basement where he had set up his old bathtub with a garden hose running across the floor from the laundry tub. He used an aluminum extension from a vacuum cleaner as a drain pipe and it ran out of the drain right into the open storm drain.
Holloway House server in East Bloomfield, New York
The Holloway House in East Bloomfield first opened its doors in 1808 as a tavern and stage coach stop for wagons pushing west. For the last fifty years the Holloway House has been run by the Wayne family. It is well preserved has quite a reputation with old timers. The drive out there, through the rolling hills, is part of the package and the pickled green cabbage in the relish tray, fruit juice/sherbet shrub appetizer and homemade breads and pies seal the deal.
We celebrated my mom’s birthday out there with a fantastic meal and we learned how to keep “New England” and “Manhattan” chowder straight from our server. “It snows in New England (white) and the river is polluted in Manhattan (red).”
Photo of “Subterranean Surrogates” photo installation by Paul Dodd at Rochester Contemporary August 5 through September 25
I skipped the Patron’s Preview last night for the “State Of The City” show at Rochester Contemporary. Gallery director, Bleu said they would be serving “the good wine” but I nixed it. Can’t remember exactly what I did instead but we’ve been weeding out junk around the house and I keep getting sidetracked. We’re planning to have a garage sale in September and we have some stuff on Craig’s list. A guy just called because he wants to buy the golf balls. He’s on the way over here with the cash.
My show, a photo installation entitled “Subterranean Surrogates,” is in conjunction with the “State of the City” show and I will probably be at the opening.
Ducks crossing country road in Finger Lakes region of New York State
Some people like putting things on the calendar and getting all planned out. The only things I put on the calendar are things I would like to forget but can’t like dentist appointments and work related phone meetings.
Peggi and I planned to take a day trip to celebrate our anniversary and we never put a date on the calendar, we just waited for an opening and today was it. The New York Times didn’t show up so we got an early start. We glanced at a map of the Finger Lakes and picked Kueka. We drove down the west side to Hammondsport and and then back up along the east side. We took back roads the whole way and even passed a dirt road called “Back Road.” It’s fun to drive slow, so slow we kept pulling over to let anxious cars go by. We stopped the car in the middle of the road to let these geese pass.
Hammondsport is a well preserved old town with cute little shops full of tourists. We parked near the town square and walked in the opposite direction of the cute little shops. In fact we walked out of town and spent some time in an old cemetery. On the way back to Rochester we drove through Palmyra where Joseph Smith claims to have found his wacky book of Mormon.
It has been hot and sticky for many weeks in western New York, all sun most days and very little rain. And when it did rain the other day these orange mushrooms popped out on a fallen tree in the creek. If they are edible, there’s a few meals down there.
Hot weather takes the life out me. I can’t seem to get anything done and maybe that’s the whole idea.
The people up on the hill had a party over the weekend. We heard the band and we live about a mile away, classic rock sort of stuff, old people music. Their sign looked kind of odd the next morning.
Gallery director, Bleu Cease called yesterday from Rochester Contemporary to arrange time to set up “Subterranean Surrogates,” my upcoming photo installation. I did RoCo’s logo a while back and I had a show there long before Bleu took over so I didn’t realize what a dynamic force Bleu is. He does everything over there and what he doesn’t do he arranges to have done right. He climbed off the ladder and on to the top of one of the walls in his flip flops while helping me block out the ambient light that was creeping into my allotted space.
I was there all day hanging the projector upside down from strings attached to the ceiling in the back room so the photos would drop into this space and fill one of the walls. Peggi was originally going to drop me off downtown but she made a run to JoAnne Fabrics to buy some black felt for the ceiling and she picked up a peanut butter and banana sandwich and pitched in on the ceiling effort while I balanced the projector. You would think four white walls with photos projected on one would be a pretty simple install but we were there until eight. Art is not as easy as it looks.
I hope no one bought this goat at the Public Market. We were hitting it off pretty good while Peggi went to the bathroom n Saturday.
We finished our last of seven rugs yesterday. Rick and Monica’s driveway has never been cleaner. We dried most of them on our roof during this heat wave but the last one was too heavy to get up there so it is up on blocks in our front yard.
I’ve been baiting and arming the Have-A-Heart trap all week with no luck at capturing the raccoons that terrorize our cat. The first few nights I found the trap closed with no bait left in it so I adjusted the sensitivity thinking a light footed animal like a chipmunk ate the bait and then slipped out through the bars of the cage. It was so sensitive that it closed during the night, trapping nothing and leaving bait. I put some watermelon out there last night and this morning I found a robin in the trap so I set it free.
The sign out in front of Walgreens flashed “The Walgreens iPad app is here! I can’t imagine.
Why doesn’t Walgreens have an apostrophe in it? I’m not the one who should be nick-picking grammar so I won’t go there. I’m just asking. I think Wegmans dropped the apostrophe to. They got in to some sort of a scuffle with Walgreens over the use of the “W’ as a logo. Seems like Walgreen’s won but I’m not sure.
I stopped in to pick up a new battery for my watch. It kept losing time and then working fine for days and I got so I just din’t trust it so I bought a new. They have their own microclimate over there at Culver and East Ridge Road. When the wind is blowing in and it’s cold out and you’re on a bike it can be brutal. And today it felt hotter than hell. I asked the clerk if the temperature display was accurate and she said it was.
How did this whole do-it-yourself thing get going so strong? Is it the bad economy or just the availability of cheap tools? Anyone who’s shopped for a house knows how bad a home remodeling job can be. Didn’t it used to be that you’d hire a craftsman for those sorts of things or a rug cleaning service to clean your rugs?
We bought this rug many years ago at Jacobsen’s on Salina Street in downtown Syracuse. We have a few Oriental rugs in our house and they all need washing. It’s our own fault. We don’t take our shoes off when we come in from outdoors, only when we’ve been hiking. We used to call Asian people “Orientals” and I’m glad we swapped that word out. We need a better one for these rugs. I think this one came from the former Soviet Union and “Oriental” just doesn’t seem right.
We decided to clean the rugs ourselves so we’ve borrowed Rick and Monica’s paved driveway (ours is stone) for the last few days and we’ve set up shop over there. I wear my bathing suit We found a page on Jacobsen’s site about cleaning rugs and I watched a few YouTube videos. A lot of people don’t recommend doing it yourself, mostly because it is so much work but we’ve just skipped our daily walk and we work out over there.
We bought a 12″ squeegee, a natural bristle brush and a wooden pole/handle at Black’s Hardware. I put the squeegee on one end of the pole and the brush on the other. We’re using Ivory dishwashing soap and cold water from the faucet and there is a long line of water running down our steamy road.
Bobby Henrie’s Shoes at Bop Fest in Rochester, New York
Bob Henrie’s left foot is blurry because southpaws tap their left foot. The photo is blurry because the sun was going down when The Goners took the stage at Saturday’s Bop Fest. You don’t have to reinvent rock ‘n roll, you just have to be good and Bob Henie and the Goners are still the best band in the city.
The US Japan World Cup Final was another roller coaster ride, going into overtime where the US took the lead on another Abby Wambach header and then lost the lead to force the dreaded penalty kick round. Someone had to lose. It was a beautiful game.
Columbian coffee bags at Canaltown Coffee in Rochester New York
It feels really good to look at something and decide you could live without it and then throw it in the trash. I had this old rusty wheel barrel that I found in someone else’s trash a long time ago. Sparky put a new wheel on it for me. I filled with other junk last night and took it out to the curb. I usually have a moment of remorse but don’t look back.
Still getting rid of junk is not as easy as it sounds. Where do go with stuff that might be worth some money like old records. eBay is not as easy it seems either. I brought a pile up from the basement and let Rick Simpson take his pick from them. He found ten that that liked and built his weekly “Gumbo Variations” radio show on WRUR around the scratchy old vinyl. Each set started with one of our old records (Paul Butterfield, Ginger Baker, Charlie Hayden, Chuck Berry, Crazy World of Arthur Brown) and Rick built on those for a pretty cool but sort of out-of-body show.
We order our coffee ten pounds at time, whole bean from Canaltown. The owner, Pete, roasts in the back room and provides an incredible aroma for the whole neighborhood.
Womens Cup 2011 – US beats France 3-1 in semifinals
How are you supposed to get anything done during the World Cup? You just can’t. Peggi and I watched the US beat France this morning while sitting in my parent’s living room (you can see some of my dad’s paintings in the shot above). My mom even made lunch for us.
And on the way home Peggi said we ought to go down to our neighbor’s house to watch Sweden play Japan in the second semifinal game. We barely had time to check email before kickoff. Japan was even more stylish than France in the way they played the short ball and passed around opponents with finesse. They hardly broke a sweat. Sweden beat the US in the opening round, just one week ago today, and Japan beat Sweden today so what are the US’s chances on in the final on Sunday? Everything rests on Abby’s shoulders.
Winning is not everything but I do wish I could beat my neighbor, Rick, in horseshoes. Not so much for the sake of winning but just to be able to see him with his tail between his legs for a while. Maybe that is the same thing. It felt real good to see the US beat Brazil in the 122’nd minute on a beautiful cross that Rochester’s Abby Wambach nailed with her head. And it was especially nice to watch the game with my mom while sitting in my parent’s living room, a few blocks from Mercy High School, where both Abby and my mom went.
It has become impossible to keep up with the wild raspberries in Leo’s garden although many of the neighbors on our street have been trying. Peggi and Monica both made pies over the weekend. I have seeds stuck between my teeth around the clock. And with this heat the berries will soon shrivel up.
Andy and Karen from Dreamland Faces were in town last week. They dropped off a few of their new 45s at the Bop Shop and our neighbor Rick grabbed one for us. Both sides are in Chinese. Here’s hoping they’ll be here long enough for a gig next month when they return. This is a folk song about pretty girls with long braids. “If you want to marry, don’t wed any other – I want you to marry me. Bring all your money and your little sister, get in the wagon, come with me”
Pale Swallow-Wort, invasive species plant in New York State
I hate this stinking weed, an invasive species, called Pale Swallow-Wort, that pops up everywhere. It’s really tough to pull out because in most cases you don’t get the roots when it snaps off just above the ground level but the dry conditions we have now make it the perfect time to rid your yard of this sucker. You can see in the photo above that I was able to get most of the roots. I use two the hand technique and pull straight up with focused concentration.
We have a recording of Hildegard Von Bingen’s music that we play quite a bit but we didn’t realize she was such a polymath. The movie we watched last night about her life, a thousand years ago, hardly touched on her monophonic vocal works. Instead it portrayed her as a dark ages religious mystic struggling with a Catholic church hierarchy that unfortunately still exists today.
Polymath would have been a better name than “New Math”, which was already retro when we called ourselves that back in the late seventies, but anything with the word “math” in there sounds too progressive or soulless which isn’t quite fair too mathematics but . . . I played in the band when we recorded the first single with Howard Thompson behind the glass wall of PCI Studios.
