Don’t Even Look At It
There is an unwritten rule in museums that says if you put a work-on-paper from your collection on display for six months you have to put it back in storage for at least five years. UV damage, fluctuations in humidity etc. We learned this little tidbit at an “Open Mic” session with Lauren Tagliaferro at the MAG of Friday. You’ll have to hurry over there to see this Robert Motherwell collage before it goes back undercover.
I played all four of our “My Funny Valentine” 45s yesterday (for my valentine.) Miles Davis, Bud Powell, Chico Hamilton and Jerry Mulligan. When I was done Peggi said, “And didn’t Chet Baker do that song?” In small print on the Mulligan record it listed Chet Baker on trumpet.
All four versions are in my Jazz45s playlists below. The song is a marvel.
Thinking About The Future
He’s not funny anymore. The ones who thought he was and now feel otherwise may just be enough to turn this thing around. I do get the sense the tide is beginning to turn. Our flirtation with fascism may have run its course. The “I alone can fix it” guy has enriched himself, his family, the tech oligarchs, the oil tycoons and the Middle East Sheikhs. He is gleefully destroying the progress we were making toward generating the green energy we’ll need for all these future endeavors. Rochester is a sanctuary city so we are probably one of the next targets. I would like to help protect what is left of our democracy.
Sorrow And Joy
By coincidence the George Wegman painting we have hanging in our bedroom slipped down in its frame this morning. I found some linen hanging tape and hung it back in place. In George’s artist statement, on view at Richard Margolis’s space this month, George says he asked himself what it would it be like if my paintings could cry. He says he laughed tearfully and cried sadly during the project. His crying paintings are exceptionally beautiful.
There is so much to look at (and think about) in Colleen Buzzard’s studio. The walls are forever in flux with work in progress and I never fail to fixate on a jewel like the piece above.
Peter Monacelli’s fan club packed the fourth floor of the Anderson Arts building. Richard Margolis grabbed this cluster. Pete has been dealing with some health issues but he never lets that get his spirits down. His artist statement included this quote from Robert Henri.“Art is the true province of every human being. Art is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside extra.” Pete says, “In my artistic life I have attempted to put the thought of all that I love in all the things that i have made.”
Leave a commentBF
I love gatefold album covers especially ones that utilize the spread and span the gutter. I photographed the spreads of a few of my favoites back in 2011 and today, after listening to a Last Poets single, I went down a Mati Klarwein rabbit hole.
Klarein hung out with Jimi Hendrix and Salvador Dali. He created album covers for Carlos Santana, Buddy Miles, Jackie McLean and Earth Wind & Fire as well but the three above are gems. I noticed the initials, “BF,” on the back of Bitches Brew. I’ll have to get that back to Brad one of these days.
Thursday February 5, 7-9pm
Peace
I love how my father left the tree he outlined in watercolor as is and then animated the figures in this painting. I was standing next to him at my easel when he painted this. We were taking a painting class at the Memorial Art Gallery and I must have seen the photo he was using as a reference, one of his own, but I didn’t study it closely. I remember thinking how innocent the protesters appeared, the so called “Raging Grannies.” But then they were free to protest in the middle of a working day. And my father, retired from Kodak, was there protesting the Bush administration. He would be filled with rage today.
I recently came across the photo my father used as a reference. And I immediately spotted Bill and Marilyn, a former classmate of mine, holding up the peace sign. They often come to Margaret Explosion shows and we sat with them at the last high school reunion. I sent them the photo and a photo of my father’s painting.
On our walk we ran into Steve Grieve at the end of Hoffman. He told us we had to go to his Facebook page to see his movie of a fox catching a squirrel, killing it by biting its neck, and then burying it. And just a few minutes later a woman stopped her car and asked me if I was the one carrying a “Trump is a Mindfuck” sign at a demonstration downtown. I said I might have been and she said she loved the sign. She introduced herself as Theresa, a new neighbor, and as she drove off she said, “Trump is a Mindfuck.”
Leave a commentGood And Evil
Bob Martin, longtime Margaret Explosion guitar player, now living in Chicago, created this video in reaction to the madness in our cities.
It has almost become a chore to get through the daily newspapers. These are dark times and getting darker. Louise comented on my last post with this thought, “It may seem hopelessly atavistic but I have come to believe that a religious view of the world has one thing right: we are in a struggle between good and evil.”
Leave a commentOne Hour Of Magic
The YouTube gods teased us with “A Producers Epiphany: Jim Dickinson on Working with the Rolling Stones, Part 1 of 2.” Dickinson is such a natural story teller we just sat back and let him describe the Stones’ songwriting process, Keith handing him the wrong chords, laying down out-of-tune tracks and then asking Dickinson to play piano on “Wild Horses” because Ian Stewart disliked minor chords. The interview reminded us that we still had not watched our last Netflix dvd. When they pulled the plug on dvds they let you keep the last one and we put ours , 2013’s “Muscle Shoals,” away without ever watching.
The first hour of the 1:42 was brilliant. The birth of the studio, the soulful country vibe, the hits they churned out for Percy Sledge and Wilson Pickett and most of all the decision by Jerry Wexler to bring Aretha Franklin, who had been recording with arrangements, charts and session musicians down south where all those magical songs were recorded. The “Queen of Soul” recording with a bunch of honkies. I have no idea why they had Bono as a talking head. That was the only not brilliant piece of the first hour. The movie takes a wrong turn just after the Stones section with Duane Allman, Leonard Skynyrd and the birth of Southern Rock.
Leave a commentHope of Jesus
I’m mashing up two stories from today’s paper here. GiveSendGo, a website that says it aims to “share the Hope of Jesus through crowdfunding,” has raised $150,000 (as of this post) for the Cinnabon employee, a Saul Goodman co-worker, who let loose a racist tirade at the drive-through window. So many ugly facts to this story but the “Hope of Jesus” part got me. The same organization raised funds for Kyle Rittenhouse, Luigi Mangione and Thomas Jacob Sanford, who is suspected of killing four people and injuring eight others before setting a Michigan Mormon church ablaze.
In a front page story Cardinal Dolan announced the Archdiocese that he presides over was preparing to raise more than $300 million as compensation for survivors of sexual abuse by priests in his employ. Rochester’s bankrupt diocese, the one I grew up in, already paid $246 million to local victims. The money could never compensate victims. Church leaders covered up the crimes, shuffling the perpetrators to other districts. The very structure of the church attracts pedophiles. The optimism for Pope Francis fizzled when he never came clean on the cover-up and Pope Leo, his successor, says he has no intention to ordain women and does not anticipate changing official teaching against homosexuality.
Dolan’s statement, makes it clear where he stands in all this when he describes how the church has made a series of difficult decisions. “As we have repeatedly acknowledged, the sexual abuse of minors long ago has brought shame on our church.” (Poor guy, to have to repeatedly acknowledge it. And it wasn’t that long ago – these victims are still alive!) “I once again ask forgiveness for the failing of those who betrayed the trust placed in them by failing to provide for the safety of our young people.” Dolan looks so contrite in the photo as passes the blame.
Leave a commentHeart Emoji
Just look at this place. Is that Elvis with a Santa hat on behind the drummer? It is a visual nightmare. But Annie Wells transcended all that tonight in Record Archive’s back room. Annie performed songs from her new release, “Pictures of a Heart,” with a stellar band, l. to r., Melissa Davies on cello, Mike Kaupa on trumpet and flugelhorn, Roy Marshall on drums, Dave Arenius on upright bass and Phil Marshall on guitar. Cindy Tag on soprano sax and flute and Ken Frank on electric bass also joined Annie at other points. (Three current or former members of Margaret Explosion are in that list.) The band sounded especially great on Annie’s softer songs.
Leave a commentRewards
One of the rewards of getting old is that the obituaries are more interesting. So many people we grew up with are getting the back page send offs these days. Jack DeJohnette, who drove Miles’ band in the “Live Evil” stage, played with Alice Coltrane, Joe Henderson and Keith Jarrett and passed. We saw him with a trio out at Red Creek in the seventies and then in a duo setting with Bobby McFerrin at the Jazz Fest. I loved his playing.
The O’Jays’ bassist, Anthony Jackson, left us. I had never heard his name before but learned he invented the six string bass (two too many, I would say) and he was known for the iconic bass line on their song “For the Love of Money.” We have the forty-five and played the intro over and over after reading about it. Because we never watched the Apprentice we didn’t know it was the theme song. I hope Jackson lived a comfortable life with the proceeds.
We don’t get Fox so we can’t watch the Blue Jays beat LA in the World Series and none of our three La Liga teams had matches this week so by Wednesday we were jonesing for some action. We tuned into a Copa del Ray match between Real Sociedad and Negreira. Real Sociedad, from San Sebastian, is a top team in the Primera Division and Negreira is an amateur team in Spain’s sixth division. There are plenty of lopsided matches when the Copa del Rey gets going. Every team in Spain is eligable. We had walked through the village of Negreira when we did Camino de Santiago and we were in San Sebastian to see Chilida’s museum. Most of Negreira’s players had worked regular jobs that day and they were expected to peter out fast but despite the 3-0 scoreline they gave the pros a real run for their money.
Leave a commentEverything Is Awful
Like one half of the city, we went to another “No Kings” rally yesterday, this one along the river downtown. It was a beautiful day to be out but there were so many issues to address. In 1969 it was just one. It can overwhelm you and make you feel like we have not made any progress. The anti-progressive movement is formidable. Despite the overwhelming number of issues, most people seemed to be having a good time.
Stolen Photo
I grabbed this photo from Jason Wilder‘s site. I didn’t ask permission and I hope he doesn’t mind. I just thought it would be the most effective way to steer a few eyeballs toward his work. He collects found photos, “curates” is a better word, and his own photography has the same miix of mysteriousness and wonder.
I stole this card off the Gonechester website. I don’t think Geoffrey will mind. Osmer Hulbert, “one of Rochester’s most conspicuous personages” according to a 1886 newspaper notice of his passing, owned a “recess,” one of the first restaurants in New York State on Main street, where Powers Building now stands. The obit state, “He was a perfect encyclopedia of local history, and to hear him talk when he was in the right mood was particularly interesting. He had a remarkable memory and his recollections of old Rochesterians were always enjoyable. “
Today, Gonechester is the perfect encyclopedia of local history. Hulbert’s Oyster Bar is just a tidbit on the site. I get lost there for hours. Just imagine how long it takes Geoffrey to research and compile this treasure trove. In anything other than Trump world he would be paid handsomely for his efforts, preserving our history. I hope you find the site as enjoyable as I do.
1 CommentThird Red Scare
I have admired the William Gropper painting in the MAG’s American Art gallery for many years. It is not there anymore. They’ve moved it to the Lockhart Gallery where the curators have built a show around it with works on paper, all from their collection, that can’t stand daily museum light. The lithograph above has the same title, “The Opposition,” as the painting but the print is better! More concentrated energy, more dramatic, marvelously 3-dimensional..
Like the great Honoré Daumier who satirized the bourgeoisie and politicians while championing democratic ideals, William Gropper is a social realist. Rockefeller had a social realist mural by Diego Rivera plastered over. We stumbled on Ben Shahn’s social realist work in Syracuse when we came face to face with his Sacco and Vanzetti mural. He depicts Italian immigrants who were caught up in America’s first Red Scare. (Shahn’s show at the Jewish Museum in New York has just been extended. Philip Guston took it to Nixon.) It is a risky business but their work stands the test of time.
The color lithographs above were based on Gropper’s 1946 “Folklore Map of America,” a celebration of America in the aftermath of victory in World War II. The illustration appeared in Holiday Magazine and was widely circulated in schools and libraries throughout the country. And wouldn’t you know it, Senator Joseph McCarthy’s lawyer Roy Cohn, who was later Trump’s personal lawyer, found it in State Department libraries abroad and in 1953 he labeled Gropper one of the “fringe supporters and sympathizers” of Communism whose works had infected the State Department. Gropper was pilloried in televised congressional testimony and earned and became one the first artists of the era to be blacklisted. This was the second “Red Scare.” Take a glance at Gropper’s grilling in the Senate hearings.
The war on woke is raging. Books are being banned. The administration must approve the art in the Smithsonian. Mr. “fit-as-a-fiddle” Hegseth has gone on a rampage against “beardos” and “fat generals.” (What about the VP’s facial hair and the Commander and Chief’s gut?) Welcome to the third Red Scare.
Leave a commentImaginary Book
Years ago Wreckless Eric proclaimed, “All tours begin in Rochester.” Sure enough, Amy Rigby opened her book/music tour at the Bop Shop last night albeit without the book. The shipment from the publisher was a day late for her tour. She said she had to buy one of her new books, “Girl to Country,” from Amazon so she could read from an actual copy. She didn’t let that phase her as she effortless moved from chapter to song, both expertly crafted with a keen observational sense.
Her chapter on meeting Eric at a gig in Hull was especially exquisite. He was djing with a crate of records and she already had “Whole Wide World” in her set. She asked if he would join her for that one. She had transposed the song and he told her, “The song has two chords and both of your are wrong.”
Leave a commentThe Know-It-All Machine
The average American teen spends 4.8 hours a day on social media and nearly three-quarters of them say they’ve used an AI chatbot for companionship. I am not average or a teen but my chatbot hours per day number is definitely going up. Not for companionship, that part sort of creeps me out. I wish ChatGPT wouldn’t compliment me, pretend to be flirting with me or even give me a thumb up. I assume I could just ask it not to respond with “Perfect” and “Excellent question” but I don’t like feeling responsible for its development. I might have to get over that as every question I ask it is another set of data points.
I was using the free version for a few months but I pushed it too far with questions related to a not-for-profit corporation I am connected with and it would not go further without me subscribing. It’s better than Apple Support for geeky stuff. I’ve been putting tomatoes from our garden on my morning toast and topping it with olive oil. When I asked ChatGPT why tomatoes and olive oil is such a good combination it replied, “Fresh tomatoes and olive oil are kind of a perfect duet—like Cannonball Adderley with Joe Zawinul.” It punctuated that line with a smiley face and then went on to explain the chemical properties. I was a little taken aback by the personalized analogy so I said, “I like your analogy of the perfect duet – Cannonball Adderley and Joe Zawinul. Do you know something about my musical tastes?” Sure enough I had asked about a jazz 45 and it had that info in the profile it is building on me.
1 CommentFrom The Collection Basket To The Victims
My mom has her Devo hat on in this picture. Looking back, I see she was very fashionable but at the time I resisted the white bucks she insisted we all wear. My brother Mark has my friend, John Abraham’s, hat on. John is looking over my right shoulder and I’m clutching my missal. I can see some holy cards sticking out of it. We used those as bookmarks and I still have quite a collection of them. We’re standing in front of our grammer school. The convent, where most of our teachers lived, is seen in the background and the church, where we had just celebrated my brother Tim’s First Communion, was next door. Tim’s wearing a white tie.
There were at least five Catholic churches in Irondequoit when we moved here. The two on Culver are both senior living facilities now and the parishes all united as one, named after the first Native American saint, Kateri. Church attendance has withered. Millions of people are confessing their secrets to spiritual chatbots now. And then there is organized religion’s attempt to shove credible sexual abuse allegations under the rug. That cost our diocese 246 million in a settlement that was finally distributed to the victims.
My mother was working for the diocese when she married my father just ten months before I was born. The office was located in the former Knights of Columbus building at 50 Chestnut Street. We took the bus down there after school on Tuesdays and Thursdays because Catholic schools didn’t have gyms. The CYO (Catholic Youth Organization) had a few gyms, an auditorium, a pool and even a candy counter as you came out of the locker room. The Diocesan offices were upstairs and the priests lived on the top floors. There was a sign on the corner of the building that read “If You Lived Here You Would Be Home By Now.” I was never sure why that merited the effort. Garth Fagan Dance occupies some of this space today.
My mother would tell stories about how the priests she for were forever chasing the girls around the office. I would laugh at the thought and she would say, “No, they were bad!”
We went to both a high school reunion and a family reunion over the weekend. At the first my former teammates were still digesting the fact that our soccer coach is serving life in prison for sexual abuse. When the first allegation was made by a teammate our school, just like the church, quietly transferred him to another school where other allegations were addressed. At the family reunion my cousin told me he received his portion of the settlement from the church. Some consolation. I have two cousins who were nuns. One left the order with her partner. The other is still a nun with partner and still fighting the church hierarchy for more meaningful roles for women. What kind of religion insists on an all male, unmarried priesthood? The job description itself attracts perpetrators.
1 CommentCity Of Angels
“City of Angels” by Margaret Explosion. Song recorded live at Little Theatre Café on September 3, 2025
I had the window seat on the way in to Los Angeles. I put my iPad camera in record and pressed it flat against the window to steady the cam. It worked until we touched down but I won’t spoil that. The song is from last week. Jack was unable to make the gig so no bass clarinet. It was the night before the first day of school for Melissa’s kids so no cello either. We called Bernie Heveron that afternoon and he sat in on guitar.
It was a good night, crowded but oddly quiet, plenty of attentive new faces. It affected the way we played and, of course, it was all new with Bernie. We had played with Bernie back in the early eighties but he played bass back then.
1 Comment
Where The Blues Meet Rockabilly
I remember celebrating Brian’s 70th birthday at the Little. Maybe it was his 60th. We’ve know Brian a long time. Everybody knows Brian. He and his big bass have played with or sat in with most bands in the city. His 80th bash was hosted by Danny at Abilene. The Goners, Brian’s longest running band and the best in the city, had their gear on the stage out back and since most people there were musicians the music never stopped. The party was billed as 3-7 and the Goners never got up there until after seven.
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Art Interrupted
Before repairing a few pot holes the park maintenance people had fun with the orange spray paint. I took a series of photos there this morning. This one was my favorites.
I wish we didn’t have to come home to such terrible news. One of the first things I read was J. D,. Vance’s statement “We’re at the WH monitoring the situation in Minneapolis. Join all of us in praying for the victims!” And Kristi Noem, “I am praying for the victims of this heinous attack and their families.” I immediately hear my mom’s voice, “I wish they would stop praying and do something.” Fat chance. The guns were “perfectly legal.”
The mayor of Minneapolis issued a statement, “Don’t just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now. These kids were literally praying.” Right on, but while I respect the sentiment I can tell you those kids at Mass in the middle the day were probably not praying. Most likely they were spacing out. I went through the tenth grade in Catholic Schools. The nuns were always dropping the lesson plans and taking us over to church where someone would inevitably get sick, barf in the isles and they would sprinkle that disgusting orange stuff on the puke. We may have been looking at the statues or the Stations of the Cross or goofing around with our friends but we weren’t praying. It was just June in that state when Vance Boelter, after preaching the gospel in Africa, assassinated congresswoman Melissa Hortman.
The Annunciation Catholic church shooter apparently went to the school. The police say the shooter is transgender. The mayor said, “Anybody that is using this as an opportunity to villainize our trans community — or any other community out there — has lost their sense of common humanity.” On that I agree with the mayor.