Category: Lopsided Observations

Not all observations are worth noting.

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Beautiful Decay

Kentucky Fried Chicken on East Main Street in Rochester, NY
Kentucky Fried Chicken on East Main Street in Rochester, NY

There was an article about abandoned homes in Detroit (Peggi’s home town) in the Sunday paper and I cut out a picture of a house engulfed in vegetation. It wasn’t even boarded up to keep people out. No one wanted in. And today there was a story in the business section about the 33 per cent of Califoria home owners who have negative equity in their homes. This article featured a photo of a boarded up house in Oakland. It looked a lot like our friend Brad’s house so I cut that out too. I get the feeling that I am one of the only people left who reads a newspaper so I’m recapping these news items for you. Besides, I am attracted to decay for some reason.

When we stopped in Peggi’s mom’s place to take her out to dinner she was watching a show on the History channel about the Bermuda Triangle. Last week it was America’s Funniest Home Videos. They had a clip of a dog opening the refrigerator and helping himself to food.

We decided on “Black & Blue” in Pittsford Plaza. The place was just about packed on a Tuesday night. Peggi and I ordered the Red Snapper special and her mom ordered the Mahi Mahi. We started by sharing an appetizer of Calamari. We order this whenever we see it on a menu and we’ve been comparing the versions. So far Mario’s grilled Calamari holds the title with has the best version of this dish with the Italian Osteria a close second.

Black & Blue’s Calamari was unrecognizable as Calamari. We had to confirm what we were eating with the waitress. The fish was dry and way too salty. Why does anyone eat here? Maybe it’s the babes a the bar in high heels and shorts. Peggi said they looked like hookers and sure enough when she was in the bathroom she overheard two of them discussing which guys they were gonna do.

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Emergency Phone

UofR emergency street phone
UofR emergency street phone

We thoroughly enjoyed all nine nights of the Jazz Fest but we’re ready for a break. It is such a kick to see and hear so many creative and incredible players in our town. It was a pleasure wearing ourselves down while taking it all in.

As we cut through the construction zone surrounding the Eastman Theater on way to the third group of the evening we paused at the emergency phone but we weren’t in that bad shape.

Lopsided reviews of the Jazz Fest acts we saw can be found over here.

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I Repeat Myself

RGE power plant building with American flag
RGE power plant building with American flag

I probably take a picture of the Rochester Gas & Electric (there’s a monopoly for you) power plant every year during the annual Jazz Fest. I put my three year old, pocket, point & shoot in “Scene, Night Portrait” mode, set the timer and placed it on the curb.

We rode downtown with John Gilmore and were almost there when I realized I had left my Jazz Pass in our car so I wouldn’t forget it. Peggi had listened to the sound samples and had a club hopping route sketched out but this wrinkle rearranged the evening for us. We started with Katherine Russell and then ran into Rick and Monica in the newly carpeted tent. They highly recommended the Scottish sax quartet at Christ Church so we left and walked in the rain stood in back of the church while they played their opening number. The church was packed but I hatched a plan for a seat. I figured someone would hate them and walk out when the song finished. We planned to walk right down the center isle and grab the seats of whoever left. We kept walking toward the alter and no one left. We got to the front row (or pew) and a couple got up. Best seats in the house and the saxes sounded fantastic with the cathedral ambiance.

I’m keeping track of the Jazz Fest here.

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Vuvuzela Time

Great Blue Heron in Eastman Lake, Rochester, NY
Great Blue Heron in Eastman Lake, Rochester, NY

Does the Great Blue Heron sound anything like a vuvuzela? Not really but I’m trying to make sense of this collision of coincidence. Rich sent us a photo of a Heron in Sausalito and we just spent some time watching one practice tai chi in Eastman Lake. The World Cup and the Rochester Jazz Fest both start today! I’m a little worried about how we’re going to keep up with our work in the next few weeks.

Maybe it is just the sort of distraction we need to wean us from obsessive Jazz Festival devotion. The organizers added a new venue, a tent in parking lot at Abilene. We were excited about hearing jazz over there but then found out all those acts are Americana, a categorization that bothers me. And the success of the last eight years seems to have only diluted the presence of American jazz. Still no Ornette, Pharoah, Joe McPhee, McCoy Tyner, Art Ensemble but Bernie Williams is here. We have the Club Pass and we’ll wander and we always find some cool stuff so I’m optimistic. Pay no attention to me.

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Tribal Ritual

Scott McCarney and Skuta at Visual Studies opening for 52/52+ in Rochester, NY
Scott McCarney and Skuta at Visual Studies opening for 52/52+ in Rochester, NY

The lawns were going brown in May and now the golf course is flooded. Not that I’m golfer but we do cut across one of the holes when we walk and I am always on the lookout for balls. I have about ten gallons of them in the garage. I’m fairly certain of the quantity because I have stuffed them down the throat of those five gallon, bottled water jugs that are made of the toxic plastic. We had bottled water delivered when we were on trade but those days are gone and we are probably a lot healthier for it. We drink water straight from the tap now. Is that dangerous? I guess we could filter it but I wonder if you lose the minerals when you do that? Sometimes you get a chlorine hit but it usually tastes pretty good.

The path in the woods across the street was covered with tulip petals. Not the flower, they’re long gone. These are the blossoms of the tulip trees and we have a lot of them down here. I don’t remember ever seeing a tulip tree in the city. I think the rain filled the flowers and broke them off. We had a lot wind too so maybe that was a factor. The petals are green and orange and yellow. They look edible and are scattered on the path as if in preparation for some tribal ritual.

Artist’s books are a funny thing. They don’t always make for a good book. They are often something only an artist could love. Scott McCarney, though, is one of the best. He’s curated the current show at Visual Studies Workshop for his roommate from 26 years ago, when they were both students at VSW. Skuta who now lives in Iceland, created a book a week for a full year and 52 of them are on display here.

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To Dennis Hopper

We started out sitting with friends in the back of the room at Lovin’ Cup but had to move up when Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric took the stage. We found a spot down front with Chris Schepp. That’s his cream soda bottle that gets placed in front of my camera in the movie above. I was drinking the Rocky Mountain IPA and it was way too strong for me. I propped my camera up on a jar with a candle in it, a lit candle, and I melted the bottom of my pocket Nikon. Ah, but we had a good time. These two are so charming, so relaxed on stage, so comfortable with themselves. They’re not afraid to stop songs, which they did twice, and their between song banter is worthy of Gracie and Allen. We came to these two through Wreckless Eric’s songs from the mid seventies. They were unlike anything else at the time and “Whole Wide World” sounds as good today as it did back then. In fact I prefer it today with just two guitars. Amy more than holds her own with beautiful songs.

They did both sides of their new single, two really odd songs, one Amy’s, one Wreckless’s. They have their own thing going on but ironically, their new cd is all covers. We bought a copy on the way out. In true Wreckless form none of the tags were there when I ripped it in iTunes so I had to enter my own. I misspelled ‘favorites” at first as the name of the cd is “Two-Way Family Favourites,” English style. It includes sensational versions of “Fernando” and “In My Room” and the Byrds song in the video which they dedicated to Dennis Hopper.

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The Future Is Not Here Yet

Robert Meyerowitz's car and dog at Cobbs Hill in Rochester, NY
Robert Meyerowitz’s car and dog at Cobbs Hill in Rochester, NY

I met Robert Meyerowitz, former City Newspaper music critic, at Cobbs Hill for tennis. I hadn’t played in ten years or so. I think the last time was with Pat Lowery from SLT. I held my own but really fell apart when Robert tried to show me how to serve. And I managed to knock a few balls over the fence. Robert drove here from Alaska and he may be headed to Washington to take some sort of government job.

We had a company ask us to look at their website because they weren’t happy with its performance. The site was designed by company in China and I spent about an hour there marveling at their graphic sense.

Peggi read a book review in Sunday’s paper for “Last Call, The Rise and Fall of Prohibition.” My grandfather ran a speakeasy in the city and the book sounded interesting so we tried ordering it on the iPad. We couldn’t find it at Apple so we went right to Simon & Schuster’s site and bought the epub version as a download but the only thing that was downloaded was an html document that launched in our browser and took us to a page with three lines of code.

We received an email confirmation from Simon & Schuster so the credit card part cleared fine but we didn’t have the book. We sent an email to them and they said we would hear from them in 48 hours. That never happened so I called and talked to a woman who took my name and number and told me someone would call. I said, “Really? Someone from Simon & Schuster is going to call me?” And she said, “Well, I certainly hope so.”

I let a few days go by and no one called so I called S&S again this afternoon and talked to Julius. He wanted to credit our account be couldn’t find our order number in their system. In fact he said,”I see no orders all for the epub version of this book.” I spent about a half hour on the phone with him while he tried to contact the guy in charge of downloads. He was unable to reach him on his Blackberry so I told Julius I had to get back to work. He promised he would get back to me. We went down to the pool for a dip and when we returned I found this email.

Thanks for contacting us.  Unfortunately, eBooks purchased from SimonandSchuster.com require Adobe Digital Editions in order to be downloaded and properly viewed.  At this time, Adobe Digital Editions is not compatible with the iPad.  Because of the difficulty, I have issued a full refund for your purchase.  Please allow up to 30 days for this to be fully visible on all of your credit card and/or banking statements.

I’m very sorry for any inconvenience this has caused.
Sincerely,
Stephen
SimonandSchuster.com

I know our friend, Martin, is deeply interested in this topic so I took notes.

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Air Is Now A Dollar

Vinyl records purchased at Record Archive Sidewalk Sale in Rochester, NY
Vinyl records purchased at Record Archive Sidewalk Sale in Rochester, NY

Peggi headed out to pick up her mom and stopped to talk with our neighbor who’s putting up a new fence to combat the deer. He pointed out that our left rear tire was low so Peggi turned around and asked me if I wanted to pump it with our bicycle pump. I had done this before but it’s a lot of work so I suggested she stop at the corner and visit the 50 cent air machine. When she returned home with her mom she informed me that “Air is now a dollar.”

This reminded me of the conversation I had with John on Saturday night as we sat around the picnic table out behind Abilene next door to world’s loudest air conditioner. John is an antique dealer and he was telling me that he could buy anything for a dollar. “Everything can be bought for a dollar.” “Things used to be rare,” he said. “Now, nothing is rare.” He pointed to the Labatt Blue bottle in front of him and said, “If they stop making this beer I could still buy it online.” I knew John was right but it still sounded astonishing.

We had been at Record Archive’s Sidewalk Sale on Saturday morning and they had a row of tables set up with $1 CDs and $1 LPs. Jeff Spevak was just finishing sifting through the boxes of vinyl. He told us, “I got all the good stuff.” I couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not but he did have a nice looking George Jones lp in his stack. We found fourteen treasures and sure enough each one was a dollar.

The Last Poets lp is beyond astonishing. “White man’s gotta god complex.” And the “Flamenco Moods” record turned out be a hard core mournful flamenco mood. Already had Peggy Lee’s “Is That All There Is” but it too was only a dollar.

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Wall Power

Chairs at Chairs at Peggi and Paul's. Painting by Jim Mott and Paul's. Painting by Ji
Chairs at Peggi and Paul’s. Painting by Jim Mott

I guess I sort of have a crush on Roberta Smith. I loved watching her interview and charm Philip Guston in the 1980 dvd that we have. She was one of the few art critics who responded favorably to Philip Guston’s 1970 Marlborough Show. She had an especially enjoyable article in Sunday’s paper on the anonymous buyer of the Picasso painting. “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” sold for a record 106.5 million. The article dove tailed perfectly with a discussion Peggi and I were having with Fred Lipp after painting class. Fred was expressing his disgust the art market, the people who have enough money to buy art and the way art in general is influenced by the market.

We watched “It Might Get Loud” on our iPod with the NetFlix app. Took the sound out to the stereo and it did get loud especially when Jimmy Page blew the other two away with a classic Led Zep riff. Jack White made a point to say how he needed a struggle to get a good performance. He used the example of the cheap guitars he favors that that don’t quite stay in tune and it made for a stark contrast with the shots of Jimmy Page’s mansion. Jim Mott said pretty much the same thing when he said he surrounds himself with struggles. His camera won’t focus, for example.

Jim left yesterday for Francis Ford Copola Winery where he’s doing a week long artist in residency. He plans to come back here to finish his Itinerant Artist stop. Hid paintings are small, oils on panel. I watched him stand with the board and pallet in his hand while painting a view from our bedroom window. He sat in the yard in one of our blue chairs while painting the other three (above-click picture for enlargement).

Last night Peggi and I played a beautiful art-like board game that Jim invented. He took notes on our performance. He has a few copyright questions to resolve before going to market. I recommended he contact Rich Stim.

Margaret Explosion plays tonight at the Little Theater. This is “Frank DeB” dedicated to you know who.

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North Coast

View of Lake ontario in Spring
View of Lake ontario in Spring

While driving out to Peggi’s mom’s apartment we are never within reach of an open network long enough to email or surf but I like watching the names of the available networks come and go. “HappyCheetah,” “Dadswifi,” “JudithHookHome,” ” Netgear,” “Matinellis,” “Magnet.” Imagining the people who set up these networks makes me think of of the MX80 song, “Follow That Car”.

We had a tall, spindly lilac bush that was growing out from under a few other trees, reaching for some sun at a forty five degree angle. It was hanging over our neighbor’s driveway so I figured we had to do something about it or he would just lop it off. I tied a rope around the trunk and looped the other end around the trailer hitch on our car and then drove til it stood straight. Itt blossomed beautifully in the last few weeks with dark purple lilacs but yesterday’s winds blew the bush/tree over in the other direction. We cut the top half off and stood it back up again. We’ll see what happens. We don’t really have what it takes when it comes to pruning and shaping. We’re more the “Let The Weeds Take Over” type.

We walked up to the lake this afternoon. It looks different every day but it is especially nice when it looks mysterious.

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Mambo Loco

Maureen gave me a set of 8 Biggies (Alphacolor Brilliants) for my birthday and I got a chance to take them for a spin this afternoon. I love them! They’re basically kids style blocks of of opaque watercolors. “Opaque” like in you can go back over dark brown with a white!

My new favorite album is Art Blakey’s “Orgy in Rhythm”. I don’t know where I got it but it is a recent addition. You know how it goes today – a friend visits and they slide a batch of songs onto your drive and then you don’t even hear them until a few months later when they pop up in a shuffle and knock your socks off. This record reminds me of the times Brad Fox and I were in our teens playing two sets of drums for hours on end with no other instruments.

There was an article in the travel section this morning on Cartagena, Columbia. Guess it’s sort of safe to travel there again. Peggi and I were there in 1984 when I sold my baseball cards. My mother was ready to toss the old cards when they moved and I took them home. I saw an ad for a sports memorabilia sale at a hotel on East Ridge Road so I took the shoebox out there and stopped by a few booths. One of them was manned by my old high school math teacher, Mr. Setek. He said he would take them all but he wanted to come by our place and study them before he offered me a price.

My first cards were given to me by an older kid who lived down the street from me on Brookfield Road. They were mid fifties stuff and interesting but my most valuable cards were the three Pete Rose rookie cards from 1963. I was at the peak of my buying power with pockets full of cash from my paper route and I also was losing interest in the cards so they were in pristine condition. I had a complete set of Topps that year plus duplicates. He offered me 1400 bucks and I took it. Then he told me he was going to put the cards in a safety deposit box and use them to put his kids through college.

Peggi and I studied the travel ads and the cheapest destination was Cartagena. We found out why after we booked the trip. There was a drug war going on and a travel advisory had been issued. We stayed in the Hilton with armed guards patrolling the perimeter but we did venture out and fell in love with Cumbia. Maybe it’s time to go back.

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Getting Out There

Mayflowers in the woods Rochester New York
Mayflowers in the woods Rochester New York

These little Mayflowers are are popping up all through the woods near our house. They seem to like the protection there because you don’t see them much outside of the woods. I know how they feel. My father identified them for us when we took a walk in these same woods. Shelley has different name for them but we go with my father’s. They are in full bloom now. This is all there is to them, one leaf pointed toward the sun, no colorful flower or anything. In a month or so they will gone. Hence the moniker.

We have been so busy at work that our daily woods excursions have taken on a real intensity and it dovetails perfectly with Spring’s explosion.

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Magnolia X Soulangiana

Saucer Magnolias in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, NY
Saucer Magnolias in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, NY

They call these Saucer Magnolias or Magnolia x soulangiana in Latin. Peggi is always looking at the little tags that the park people affix to the trees. She’ll recite Latin phrases all the way home so she can Google unusual tree specimens. It’s not surprising the Vatican still uses Latin when they want to shuffle sex offenders around. I hope they’re not done kicking the pope around. I want to see him cry “uncle” and make some changes to their men’s club.

Martin Edic sent us a link to a lady DJ who uses two iPads. I noticed YouTube has upped their limit to the size of movie uploads and this video Martin sent was about seventeen minutes long. What happened to that ten minute limit? The link made for a nice afternoon break.

I stuck the Facebook “Like logo” in my sidebar and clicked the blue thumb. I keep catching myself giving that goofy thumbs up sign. I gave it to James Nichols last night after a few songs. He sat in with the band and sounded great on the grand piano. Bob was off mending his back. Our neighbors have a house concert tomorrow and we might have dragged our feet too long because I heard it was sold out.

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Spring As A Cliche

Springtime Durand Eastman Park Rochester, NY 2010
Springtime Durand Eastman Park Rochester, NY 2010

The lilacs in our yard are blooming. Their appearance is considerably ahead of most other years. Nothing would make me happier than seeing the lilacs come and go before the announced start of Rochester’s Lilac Festival. I’m old school that way. Let nature decide when the lilacs will be in bloom. Don’t go booking all these bands in the Bowl and sad arts & crafts shows and fried dough vendors that stink up the park to coincide with such a beautiful display of these fragrant purple flowers.

Bob Martin threw his back out so he won’t be at tonight’s Margaret Explosion gig. We called Jack to see if he wanted to sit in again but he and his son are going to see Neil Innes from Monty Python. It’s his son’s idea. Last week Jack took his guitar out his case and realized his son had borrowed his guitar strap so he played sitting down. I think this guy, James, will be sitting in on piano tonight so it should be fun.

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Urban Realists

Detail of a Rembrandt self portrait etching at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY
Detail of a Rembrandt self portrait etching at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY

Peggi dropped me off at Culver and Clifford right in front of the church my parents were married in. She was headed out to her mom’s and I took off on my bike to meet Scott Regan at the Memorial Art Gallery. Scott suggested we walk through the Memorial Art Gallery together after we had a an engaging discussion at the the Little Theater one night. I casually mentioned that I liked the little abstracts on the wall and he pushed me to explain why. I told him I don’t usually try to explain why I like something. I just respond in a flash. Of course some things are acquired tastes but Scott is more reasoned. Abstract art is usually not reasoned although Kirk Varnedoe made a pretty good argument in his brilliant “Pictures of Nothing” book that it is.

Scott had just come from a photo session for an upcoming profile in “Lake Affect” Magazine and he had to be somewhere else in an hour and half so we got right down to business. We started in the gallery store looking at Janet Williams’ posters from her Primordial Flea Market Series. The posters bother me because someone has added type to reproductions of her absolutely beautiful paintings. Absolute doesn’t need any more. I asked if they still had any of the paintings and they did in the back room. We were allowed to go back there for a few precious minutes.

Down the hall where the gallery staff sometimes display their new acquisitions we stopped at a beautiful abstract wood cut print by a Japanese fellow. Can’t remember who it was by. I’m slow with names. Scott again asked me, “Why do you respond so favorably to this”? I felt like I was explaining the obvious but of course it is not that simple. Did I really say, “I find it delightful”? On down the hall past the hideous fireplace mural recreation to the Lockhart Gallery for the Rembrandt etching show. We both agreed he is our favorite artist, hands down. Whether he’s sketching the country side or a constructing devilish self portrait he is masterful.

Scott suggest we go upstairs and we spent some time analyzing paintings from the 1800’s before studying the “Urban Realists” from the early part of this last century. Someone came over and asked us to keep at least six inches away from the paintings. He said the people behind the camera were going crazy as we gestured. He pointed up to the ceiling. I wondered why we didn’t see any guards hanging around.

We only saved a few minutes for the modern collection which is where I usually spend most of my time. Peggi and I had just watched a beutiful Alfred Stieglitz documentary and it was fun to see paintings from his stable of artists lined up there. Arthur Dove, Marsden Hartley and Georgia OKeefe. On the way out the door we stopped in the “This Is A Series” show in the gallery of the Creative Workshop. I have three paintings down there, one of which I am still uncertain about and Scott helped me sort that out.

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Free Food

Fixing Leo's fence to keep the deer out
Fixing Leo’s fence to keep the deer out

I suspect Pete and Shelley usually go to bed shortly after sunset and then they are probably up with the dawn. That would only be natural if you lived up in the woods off the grid. But when they come to Rochester all that goes out the window. We were up til two on Wednesday and Thursday and then well past three on Friday.

Most of that time was spent around the table talking although we did duck out for smoked trout at Rick and Monica’s and to see/hear Watkins & the Rapiers at the Little. Guitarist, Steve Piper, was wearing a Margaret Explosion t-shirt. With seven guys in the band it was hard to hear the lyrics and that is where the charm is. I brought the iPad with us to play music in the car and I didn’t want to leave it in the car so I brought in with us. Because we don’t have a case or anything it was spotted immediately and then passed around two tables. I’m pretty sure Apple has a hit on its hands with his thing.

We slept like babies last night and spent most of the day repairing the fence in Leo’s garden so we can keep the deer and rabbits away from our plants. The mint and chives and rhubarb are all up over there. With a little digging we found potatoes and parsnips from last year and had the potatoes for dinner. Rick caught a trout in Irondequoit Bay and gave us a fillet for tomorrow’s dinner. We are a little uncertain about eating big old parsnips and Bay trout but we will probably go for it.

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La Cucuracha

Swans prepare nest in pond in Trott Lake at Durand
Swans prepare nest in pond in Trott Lake at Durand

After reading the “They Gay?” article about pets I can’t be too sure exactly what is going on here but what I think we’re watching a male swan prepare the nest for his Mrs. He was yanking these dry weeds out by the roots and piling them up on the nest while his lady worked the material under her butt.

Spring is moving in so fast it is going to be over with before we know it. We took a walk early then knocked out a backlog of work. We did a print ad for the Bop Shop for the Jazz Fest brochure and we airbrushed a a photo of the Stone Tolan house for a brochure the Landmark Society is putting together. And we did a layout for a new website, our second shopping cart set-up with the Russians (X-Cart). They use funny names for portions of the site that you need to customize to make it your own. They call the nav bar the “Speed Bar”. And when you want to add your own html content to pages within the data base framework you go into the “Languages’ section. They charge for customer support so we spend hours duking it out rather than paying.

We had Easter dinner at my sister’s and played Wii Music with our nephews. Peggi played guitar and I played percussion on a wild version of La Cucuracha. We passed the iPad around and my father wants one. We knew how easy it was import photos from iPhoto and music from iTunes but we were astounded how easy it was to set up our email accounts when we tried syncing with another computer. I bought the $9.99 Pages app this morning so I can have a program to work in when I’m not online. And my brother-in-law hooked me up with an WFMU app for streaming wacky music. I’m listening to Liza Minelli tear up “Stormy Weather” as I write this. In fact I entered this post from my iPad.

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You Don’t Own Me

James Brown fans at 1964 TAMI show
James Brown fans at 1964 TAMI show

We read a pretty enticing review of the T.A.M.I. show dvd in last weekend’s paper and then another by Jack Garner in the local paper. So we hopped online and dutifully ordered it from Amazon. Eleven bucks and we’ve already got our money’s worth out of it. We expected James Brown to be sensational (that’s a freeze frame shot of the crowd while he performed) and he was, but Lesley Gore was a knockout. Her version of “You Don’t Own Me” transcended the whole teen thing by a mile. The Supremes did too. Diana Ross was at the peak of her powers. The Stones were very cool and it was great to see Brian back with the Beach Boys but James Brown kicked ass.

Sunday was sort of nice day. We picked up Peggi’s mom and took a ride in the country ending up overlooking the lake down at Canandaigua. By the time we got down there though, it was raining. Couldn’t find Kelloggs. They must have torn that place down. So decided to go to El Rincon but when we pulled up front, the name had changed. That is not usually a good sign but in this case we were assured that the place was still in the family and as good as ever. Can’t remember what the new name is.

The place was really crowded so we ordered an appetizer as soon as we had our waiter’s attention. Ceviche, made with Talapia, lime juice, fresh purple onion, real avocado slices and thin slivers of fresh jalapeños. So fantastic we quickly put in an order for another. It took them about twenty minutes to get our Margaritas but the only one that noticed was Peggi’s mom. We ordered some chicken flautas to split and then some blue corn tortillas with a chocolate mole sauce made with almonds, walnuts and pistachios and covered with stringy Oaxacan cheese.

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That’s Italian!

Osteria Restaurant on Culver Road in Rochester, NY
Osteria Restaurant on Culver Road in Rochester, NY

Before Peggi began controlling her cholesterol levels with diet we would frequent the many Italian spots in and around Rochester. At some point we we started keeping track of our meals and the experience on the pages of the Refrigerator. Readers submitted quite a few of their own opinions as well but we fell behind with the updates. There is a substantial backlog folder to post and I promise to get there soon. For now I thought I would prepare an entry here and move it to the Refrigerator column at a later date.

I had been drooling over the picture of the fried the Calamari from City newspaper’s review of the Osteria Restaurant on Culver Road. In fact we cut it out and have it on our counter. This place is the very last establishment on Culver Road before it turns to meet Lake Ontario. We were there at sunset last night and enjoyed a spectacular view. This place was Fiorivanti’s for a number of years, another Italian place of course, and thankfully they didn’t mess with the funky ambiance. The owner and manager of Osteria used be to be the owner and manager La Trattoria up on East Ridge Road but they have switched hats.

When this place was Fiorivanti’s they didn’t have a liquor license so we called ahead to find out if we could still bring our own bottle of wine. They said that would be fine but there would be a fifteen dollar corkage fee. It’s hard to come out ahead with that deal especially with the type of wine we buy. Fiorivanti’s charged only a dollar to uncork your bottle. Probably why they went under.

The obligatory Padra Pio donation box was on the counter as we entered and every table was full but one. Pretty good for a Wednesday night. We ordered the cheapest red wine on the menu and the Calamari dish we saw in the paper as an appetizer. Their bread and olive oil were delicious and the Calamari arrived in no time. It included peas, green and Calamata olives, garbanzo beans and Italian parsley. It was sensational! Almost as good as Mario’s. We could have made a meal of it. We decided to split the shrimp/pasta/sun-dried tomato/zucchini special that our waitress described but she told us there would be a five dollar “plate sharing charge”. Peggi tried arguing that the Calamari was her order and the pasta dish was my order and this confused the waitress. She went in the back for a second and came back to say, “Never mind”. That dish too was spectacular but there was enough oil left over for another dish.

Chef Giustino Toppi came out to greet us after our meal and we told him everything was delicious. How many times do you think he has heard that? He is old so you better get down here quick.

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Ethnic Overtones

Old train station in Rochester, NY
Old train station in Rochester, NY

Grinnell’s Restaurant on Monroe Avenue in Brighton is a funny place. That is if you think funny is old school, solid, moderately priced, fine dining with no discernible ethnic overtones. (I don’t count Jewish as an ethnic group when it comes to food.)

Peggi’s mom loves the place so we returned tonight and each one of us ordered the Grouper Piccata special. They have a player piano here which was quiet tonight and most nights they have a piano player that stops by to play the standards. They have a pretty good bar crowd and plenty of single elderly people who stop by for their Early Bird nightly meal. They’re open seven nights a week so they pick up the slack on Sundays and Mondays when so many high end spots are closed.

They seem to rotate historic photos of Brighton from the Erie Canal days on. And tonight they had photos on loan from the Rush Rhees Collection at the UofR. I took a photo of the photo of Rochester’s old New York Central train station. It was designed by Claude Bragdon and then torn down in 1964 in some bone-headed urban renewal effort with ethnic overtones.

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