Category: Lopsided Observations

Not all observations are worth noting.

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Paean to Rochester

We pulled Personal Effects songs from our vinyl releases and put a compilation cd together for the Scorgies reunion. This song from 1987’s “90 Day In The Planetarium” didn’t make the grade but I’m posting it here because it is full of what is now ancient local history. And it is also one of the few songs I sang or yelled. Here’s the lyrics. I’ll provide annotation below.

Personal Effects “Silver Finger Nails” from “90 Day In The Planetarium” 1987

It’s Saturday night
and I’m the designated driver again
but that’s alright
I promised I would be good

Nino’s Pizzeria or Vic & Irv’s
50 miles an hour through the Can of Worms
Uncle Sam or Tammy Whynot
First we gotta go to Moneymatic

Down to Bertha’s to pick up a six
Everybody’s going to the party at Dick’s
Steve is such an intellectual
Come on Steve, get in the pool

That’s Bart on the radio
MX-80 Sound from San Francisco
590 North dead-ends at Marge’s
When in doubt. Whip it out.

The girl in the bakery has silver finger nails
So Much. Tom Mercer Lives.
The girl in the bakery has silver finger nails
Bob loved Sara. Sara nevr did

Ninos’s and Vic & Irv’s are still around and the best in their class. The Expressway’s Can of Worms was reworked so driving 50 mph through it is no longer a thrill. Uncle Sam was Rochester’s best hard rock band and Tammy Whynot was Deb Clifford’s C&W outfit. They used to play Snake Sisters on South Avenue where Lux is today.

Bertha’s was around the corner on East Main from where we rehearsed. Bertha carried “Kiss” and “Darling” photo novellas and I remember buying “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” there but mostly she sold beer to the locals. The way over-sized Bertha was simultaneously chatty with her customers and abusive to her help. The party at Dick’s was a summer one at Dick Storms’. Everyone was in the pool but Steve Dollar, the entertainment critic from the D&C.

Bart was our favorite WITR dj because he wasn’t afraid to play MX80 Sound. 590 North will soon no longer be an expressway the comes to a dead end. They are tearing it up and adding four traffic circles. Calabrese’s Bakery on Culver is gone but not the memory of the punky girl packing my order with silver finger nails.

“So Much” was favorite piece of poetry. It was spray painted on a wall in the Can of Worms. “Tom Mercer Lives” was written all over town. I think Ted Williams knew Tom or tracked him down. And “Bob loved Sara” with “nevr” spelled like this was sprawled across one of the expressway bridges as you headed downtown nearby where Armand Shaubroak’s “Keep America Free. Let it Grow” billboard was.

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Is That A Ping Pong Ball In Your Pocket?

We had dinner with Colin Pinkney and and some other friends from high school tonight. Colin and I went to Bishop Kearney for our freshman year and then both jumped ship for the public schools. Colin remembered the Brothers dropping ping pong balls down the guys’ pants. The ball had to roll down your leg and come out the bottom or your pants were too tight. I had completely blocked that out but it all came back in a flash. The best part about Kearney was watching Dave Vercolen stand up and clock Brother Levy in Latin class. Dave never set foot in the school again but the performance was jaw dropping.

New York Times gave it up for Buffalo in the Arts and Leisure section today. Buffalo grew up in the early 1800s with the Erie Canal and is so beyond its glory days that they can’t afford to tear down old buildings. And there is no need to make way for any new growth. The good side is all the beautiful buildings that are left.

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Reality Skankin

Ron Stackman djing at Abilene with John Nugent on sax at Abilene in Rochester, New YorkAbilene2011
Ron Stackman djing at Abilene with John Nugent on sax at Abilene in Rochester, New YorkAbilene2011

We headed over to Abilene last night for Ron Stackman’s old school reggae night. The place was rockin’ and skankin’. Ronnie had a few guys toasting over his beats and John Kralles adding some tasty guitar on top of that.

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Lucia’s Supper Club

I remember finding a pack of matches on Culver Road (I think) from Lucia’s Supper Club in Olean, NY. There was a gondola on the front and we were intrigued by the “Supper Club” name. We wrote a song about the place and put it on “It’s Different Out There” LP in 1985. The illustration I did for the cover sort of pictures Lucia’s the way we imagined.

Years later we found Olean on the map and drove down there for dinner at Lucia’s. We ordered Chicken Picatta and it was delicious. We brought an album with us and left it with the chef. A few months later we received this letter in the mail.

Hi, I just had to write to you…

I was browsing the Internet this week and came across your info on the web. What prompted me to write to you is that I am Lucia Bardenett’s great-granddaughter. She was the “Lucia” of Lucia’s Supper Club in Olean. Oddly, this weekend we are celebrating my grandfather’s (Lucia’a son) 87th birthday. Nonna (as we called her) died in 1986, so my grandfather is really the last of the restaurant’s founding immediate family. My grandfather was her only child. He had 6 children who gave him 15 grandchildren and 2 of those have given him 3 great-grandchildren. I am the oldest of the 15.

So there’s a little info for you. I didn’t want to go on and on, but anyone who would be so intrigued by a pack of matches to write a song, design an album cover, and make a trip to Olean would probably be interested.

I am forwarding the link to your website to all of my family members (as you can tell from the above is quite a few). Could you tell me how to get a copy of that song? The mp3 version on your site won’t work for me. If you have a chance, could you even send me a copy of the lyrics. We’d be interested to see what you imagined about our family’s old restaurant.

By the way, I can guarantee Nonna would have gotten a kick out of your album cover; she was such a character! Marie Rakus Olean, NY

Personal Effects "It's Different Out There" on Earring Records 1985 EAR 3
Personal Effects “It’s Different Out There” on Earring Records 1985 EAR 3

Here’s Personal Effects version of Lucia’s Supper Club from the cd “Personal Effects – A Compilation.”

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If Sun Ra Can Die Anyone Can

Last week I read that Jimmy Carl Black, “the Indian in the group” had died. I liked the early Mothers and felt sad. Yesterday’s Rochester paper had a nice tribute to Arthur Deutsch, Danny’s father, who recently passed away. As a reporter he covered City Hall, politics and crime during what the golden age at the Democrat and Chronicle along side of Henry Clune. He later ran the War Memorial and booked Parliament-Funkadelic on the “Mothership Connection Tour” for the city in 1978. Peggi and I were down front for that one. Anita Ward opened with her hit and then Bootsy stole the show before P-Funk even took the stage. Today I read Mitch Mitchell died after a gig in Portland. He was one of my favorite drummers.

Martin Edic was at the Little Theater Cafe last night for the Margaret Explosion gig andthe conversation that followed. He was raving about “Suzy, Led Zeppelin, and Me” by Martin Millar. “Best book I’ve ever read”. And Martin has read some books. He often finishes books while still in the bookstore.

But earlier he told us that his dad had just started hospice. When you meet Martin’s parents they quickly become friends because they hang with you. You don’t exchange niceties with them. You engage them in real conversation. Ken Edic is one of the greatest guys in the world.

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Leaving The Leaves Alone

Lots of leaves in the backyard
Lots of leaves in the backyard

Wow, do we have a lot of leaves! This is what our backyard looks like. We put some big yellow leaves on our table as a centerpiece for our post high school reunion dinner party. Jeff Munson and Mary Kaye came by and Marianne Gocker and her friend, Dave. We learned another classmate, Holly Clarke, was in the Woodstock movie without her clothes. I’m going to have to re-watch that classic. I don’t think we have room for any more leaves in our compost pile. We need to find a few more creative uses for them.

Frank DeBlase liked the Polaroids I put on line yesterday. He asked me to drop some of them off at City to use in the Scorgie’s piece that he’s doing next week. While I was out I stopped by with a package of seals that I photographed for a site we’re building. The Post Office parking lot was empty. How come we don’t get Veteran’s Day off?

I was too tired to paint last night so I spent a few hours trying to track down a problem with the Lightbox javascript on the Scorgies site. It started acting flukey yesterday and and now runs the photos from one gallery right into the next. Bill Jones called while I was duking it out. He asked me to do a logo for The Art Pile, his e-commerce site for artists. I like doing logos.

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Art Aficionado

Frank DeBlase photos at Record Archive - A View From The Pit
Frank DeBlase photos at Record Archive – A View From The Pit

There’s Nod right in the middle of Frank DeBlase’s “View From The Pit” show at Record Archive

Record Archive was hopping last night. There were about twenty five skateboarders out front on the unseasonably warm night. Inside Alanya offered us a can of ice cold Rolling Rock and Dick Storms had Nino’s pizza laid out on the table. It was hard to get an unobstructed view of Frank‘s photos. I centered my shot around Nod so I didn’t get Joan Jett or Ivy. There are hundred photos in this show and the prints were selling fast. So you better get over there before all the good ones are gone.

Art opening hound at Svan Aken’s “Audition” at RoCo
Art opening hound at Svan Aken’s “Audition” at RoCo

We go to a lot of local art openings but I’m willing to bet this fellow art aficionado goes to all the art openings. I usually see him chowing down at the refreshments table but last night he was checking out the Sam van Aken’s “Audition” at RoCo on East Avenue. His outfit was nicely cordinated with he work last night. Chas Davis had some nice big Paul Jenkins like paintings in the back room.

Back view of am Svan Aken’s “Audition” at RoCo
Back view of am Svan Aken’s “Audition” at RoCo
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Call Of The Wild

Eight point buck walking through our yard
Eight point buck walking through our yard

I saw this guy come from the back yard and pass by the window near my computer so I grabbed the camera and caught him walking through our front yard. All year we see deer frolicking in the woods, usually in packs or as a family unit. But in the fall the males get right down to business. They grow their antlers all year to use in battle with other males while trying to breed with the females. The gentle deer become possessed and are transformed in the line of duty. We watched a head to head butting battle last year with two males and it is a wild ritual. In another few weeks when the mating season ends the males will be trying to knock those damn things of their heads.

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Stress Test

We had some web work that had to be done today so it left way too little time to meet our other more pressing deadline. We had to have a package to FedEx by seven with the Personal Effects master cd and art files so Discmakers will have enough time to make some cds and get ’em back to us by the reunion gig. As it is, we paid two hundred extra in rush charges for this seven day turnaround. We did the cover art and credits and the little p in a circle and a three PMS color label in InDesign this afternoon and dropped them at FedEx on the way to our Little gig. It could have been worse. Brian Peterson got in a car accident and spent the day at emergency. He is well enough to email.

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Yippee!

Ann at work at Parkleigh in Rochester, NY
Ann at work at Parkleigh in Rochester, NY

I woke up early, like 6:30, thinking about how far behind I was in trying to get this Personal Effects cd out of here in time to get it back in time for the reunion show at the German House in a few weeks. Peggi and I did manage to pick songs from the six lps this morning and burn a copy in Toast with some cool cross fades.

We headed over to the Point Pleasant fire house at noon to cast our votes for Obama. Our route there takes us down Wisner to the dead end and through the woods to Culver. We ran into a guy with a wood splitter that swivels on its axle so you can split wood without lifting it. He told us he lived in a 500 square foot house near the woods and he offered to rent his splitter if we need it.

I took the car over to Jerome’s ignition Service to get an oil change and I put my bike in the car so I could take a cd to Bob Martin’s office to get his approval on our song selections. Bob was in the middle of a phone conference so I dropped off the cd and rode over to Parkleigh on Park Avenue to visit my sister at her new job. She was explaining the virtues of a $150 hair brush to a customer when I walked in so I strolled around the store and then stood near her while she closed the sale. A woman asked if she could help me and I said, “No”. I think she thought I was a shoplifter because a guy came out from the back to watch me. I picked up a small bag of licorice, a “Bridge Mix”, for my mom and Ann rang me up.

I rode over to our old neighborhood to visit Sparky but he wasn’t there. I rode back to Jerome’s and Sparky was there, in the garage, talking to Mike and Ted. He had a new three wheeled walker said he was gonna try to buy some of that Polish sausage and bring it by soon.

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IU IOU

Bloomington Indiana Crew 1969 including Larry Malman, Steve Hoy, Kenny Macher, Dave Jolly and Paul Dodd
Bloomington Indiana Crew 1969 including Larry Malman, Steve Hoy, Kenny Macher, Dave Jolly and Paul Dodd

We brought our plants in from the deck for the winter and found a plate from the Indiana University dorms under one of the the plants. I hadn’t thought about Indiana in a long time. I did notice that it is a swing state. It was pretty swinging back in the day.

Peggi and I sat down to watch a movie last night and I reached into our container of matches and pulled out some from the Indiana Memorial Union. You could still strike the match on the front and and the back had a list that included Bowling, Beauty Shop, Food Service, Guest Rooms and Post Office. I loved hanging around the Commons in that place. I hung around Indiana long enough to meet Peggi and then I came back to Rochester.

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Long Live Ray Tierney

Ray Tierney III at dedication ceremony in Brighton, NY
Ray Tierney III at dedication ceremony in Brighton, NY

My mom asked us to be over at the twelve corners in Brighton by 4 o’clock for the dedication ceremony to her brother, Ray Tierney Jr.. Ray owned and ran a super market here for many years. My mom and sister were cashiers. My brother Mark and I worked as stock boys. My uncle, who was also my godfather, caught me eating a whole banana cream pie in cooler. Brighton added Ray’s name to a plague in the small park in the middle of the twelve corners. His son, Ray III who is a Brighton politician and grocery store manager at Hegedorn’s gave a short speech and then invited us all down to Grinnell’s for drinks.

Tierney family mid nineteen fifties
Tierney family mid nineteen fifties

Ray III and I were talking about how many cousins we have. It’s over thirty but we gave up trying to count them. Most of them are in this photo. My grandfather, Ray Sr., got the grocery thing going. He and his two brothers had the biggest grocery store in Rochester back in the thirties long before the Wegmans took over.

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Go Phillies!

Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews of the Milwaukee Braves
Hank Aaron and Eddie Mathews of the Milwaukee Braves

I want one of those red hats with the “P” on front and the pull down flaps for your ears. A couple of the guys were wearing them in the Phillies dugout last night.

It was warmer in Rochester than it was in Philadelphia. And it wasn’t raining here. We got a fire going and Peggi made popcorn. We sat down to watch the Phillies clean Tampa Bay’s clock and then the weather got in the way. The postseason games push the season to almost November now and it seems way too cold to play baseball but I did notice a few local games going on under the lights at Cobbs Hill on Friday night so maybe it’s just me.

It seemed like the Phillies always finished near the bottom when I was kid so it has been a lot of fun to root for them this year. I always liked the National League better and the Milwaukee Braves were my favorite team back then. Eddie Mathews was my favorite player because he played third base like me. Hank Aaron was the best player on the team and he was in the stadium last night giving an award to someone. The game got so spaced out in the rain that that they called it. I just checked the weather in Philadelphia and there is a 100 per cent chance of rain. You never know, though.

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Popwars Endorsement

Obama
Obama campaign poster 2008

I always wondered who got polled and now I know. Me. I just got off the phone with someone who polled me on who I was likely to vote for. They wanted to know my opinion, from “Very Favorable” to “Very Unfavorable”, of John McCain. That was easy. It is one week to the election so here is the official Popwars endorsement.

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Suburban Propane

Chucky Cheese's in Rochester, NY
Chucky Cheese’s in Rochester, NY

Today started with another robo call from “John at NSBA”. Most of the calls we get on our business line these days come from India and I hang up as soon as I hear the accent but John has a good old fashioned American studio voice. I have never listened to his prerecorded rap but we get this call at 9 o’clock most mornings.

After work we joined Bill and Geri out at Chuckie Cheese’s where they were celebrating their son, Sam’s birthday. Sam was wearing his Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup t-shirt for the occasion. This place is insane and that’s why kids love it. It is a sensory onslaught and the really young kids just run around like maniacs. Older kids pump tokens into the games and machines and the parents sit at tables and overeat. On the way out we overheard the hostess apologizing to the mother of an obese kid for the other kids roughhousing. We watched her give the kid a complimentary bag of blue cotton candy.

We followed a van home that had had a logo Suburban Propane on it. I was thinking that would be a good name for your band.

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Timber

Bruce O'Neill in the trees above our house
Bruce O’Neill in the trees above our house

The phone rang at 8 this morning and I was awake but my voice wasn’t. I kind of shout/sang “Bring Out The Jazz” at rehearsal last night. It was our second practice for the Personal Effects reunion. It was Bruce O’Neill on the phone to say he was going to be here in a half hour to trim our trees. We barley got any work done today. It was more fun watching Bruce in the trees.

We spent some time talking to his helper, Tom, who had just taken a buyout from a pharmaceutical company where he worked as a salesman. He spent most of his time giving golf lessons to doctors who prescribed his company’s drugs.

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Deer Nuts

Deer eatting acorns in the front yard
Deer eatting acorns in the front yard

I obsessed over the leak in our skylight for the last three days. It took me that long to pinpoint where the water is getting in. It’s a Velux window and it came with the house. They wrapped the wood frame with metal and had to bend it around the corners. They cut the top part to make the corner and stuck a tiny rubber gasket in there. Water rolls down the edge of the window, on top of the frame and when it hits that corner it builds up and finds its way through the rubber gasket into the window frame. And then rolls down the rafters out on to the ceiling where it turns the plaster mushy. It was a half-assed design held for a while and then gave out. If we get a warm spell I plan to take the window out and re-frame the opening. I’m hoping to find a better solution for the metal cladding than the one Velux came up with.

The deer around here are on a high protein diet gobbling up the acorns that are all over our lawn.

I wrote a piece this afternoon on the Hi-Techs and posted it on the Scorgies site. And I talked to Martin Edic on the phone about doing a song with us at the reunion. That conversation will be our rehearsal.

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Take A Picture Why Don’t Ya?

Beans & Rice
Beans & Rice

I remember riding my bike in the city and some kid saying, “Take a picture. It’ll last longer”. I was ten or so and I must have been starring at him. I thought of that incident today when I was making beans and rice. Peggi said, “That looks nice”, so I took a photo.

It’s really just the recipe right of the can or at least it used to be on the can before Goya reworked the label. It was called “Cuban Rice and Beans”. If I remember it right it calls for sauteing garlic, onions and pepper (I used jalapenos from our garden) in a little bit of olive oil and then adding black beans out of the can along with some oregano, roasted peppers (I used a small jar of these) and a few teaspoons of vinegar. We made Basmati brown rice and served the beans over it. There’s enough left over for tomorrow.

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Get Me Off This Train

Peggi Fournier of Personal Effects performing live Scorgie’s in Rochester, New York

The weekend zipped by and I never found time to paint so I’m thinking of taking Columbus Day off (just like the mail man) and getting some painting in then. I also want to fix the leak in our skylight if I can. It’s supposed to be warm again. It was almost eighty today but we spent most of the day down at the pool fixing the leak in our our pump.

Personal Effects was asked to play the Scorgies Reunion on Friday, November 21st at the German House in Rochester. We got our first rehearsal in last week and we dug up a bunch of old songs to teach Ken Frank (the newest PE bass player) and relearn ourselves. Most of the songs were fast! I found this slow one to try next week.

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Burning Man

Each year Earl Carsorla comes home with his dad for the Jewish holidays and we get together at Maureen’s house to watch his tapes from the last Burning Man thing. I thought it was pretty funny that someone torched the man early last year but Earl and his buddies were kind of upset with that. This seems like the kind of event Dave Mahoney would like, lots of sun, young, healthy hippy type, girls/women and some nudity. I went to Woodstock with Dave and Earl’s footage had me thinking of Dave. I can only handle so much of the Mad Max, covered in sand, voyeurism and then I want go do something but I like hang out in Maureen’s kitchen or check in with my blog in her computer room.

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