Category: Lopsided Observations

We had a great time last night watching people set fires and blow things up. The bonfires were all in place when we arrived. Some guys in a Tiki Hut on the beach were serving drinks to people in pirate costumes while a steel band played. Rockets were already stuck in the sand and pointing out to sea (Canada). It was barely dark when the bonfires were lit. Most were soaked with fuel so they went up with a loud thud.

Fireworks packages were rigged to go off with the touch of a remote control. I photographed one such package with George Bush on it. I wish it was really him in there. Guys were running around with blow torches. They lit the Tiki Hut on fire. Debris was falling out of the air and you hardly see the stars with all the smoke. There was a boat out on the water playing disco music. People on the boat were dancing under a strobe light. The fireworks which were all made in China are illegal in New York State so they were probably bought in Pennsylvania. I was wearing goggles and earplugs and wondering exactly why this whole ritual was considered patriotic. I started asking people what they thought but realized I sounded like a real party pooper so I shut up.

If you are downtown for the big blues concert tonight or the fireworks tomorrow take a look a the big photos in the windows of the empty storefronts. The one above was taken by Brian Peterson and we spotted a couple of people we know in the shot. That is Jeff Munson to the immediate left of the tree and and Dave Frenzel to his left. Dave Mahoney and I went to high school with Jeff and Dave Frenzel played percussion on “Low Riders”, a song Personal Effects wrote after Dave took us down to the Mission District in San Francisco.

We won’t be downtown tonight. We will be down at Conesius Lake for the annual “Ring of Fire”. Sounds pretty innocent and it was when I was going to camp down there at Camp Stella Maris. These days it is like Viet Nam. Most of the cottage owners have parties so the raods around the lake are jammed. We’ll be at at party for John Gilmore’s youngest who just graduated from high school. Quite a few of the owners try to outdo one another with their spectacular, illegal fireworks displays. Some guys spend upwards of ten grand. They try to blow up the lake. We watch. What could be more American than that?

I fought to find some time to paint today. There are so many things that need to be attended to around the house. It was ninety something out there but it was cool in the basement. I have a few paintings that I did in the last year that I am just not happy with. I identified what it is that I don’t like about them and I’m tackling those issues. I have this guy that I’ve been calling “the PR guy” whose nose was in the wrong place. And once I moved it I realized the mouth was in the wrong place too. So it was today’s project. I looked for the original source for about twenty minutes (the small photo from the Crimestoppers page of the paper) but couldn’t find it. So I tried correcting the painting by looking at only it. I fixed it alright but he doesn’t look Puerto Rican anymore.

Painting without the source made me realize that Fred (my painting teacher) hardly ever asks me to see the source when he determines what is wrong a painting of mine or when he assesses whether or not it is done. So if he doesn’t need the source, why should I?

Before heading down to the basement I asked iTunes to “Show Duplicates” and it had over two thousand. Of course if they were all duplicates that would mean something closer to one thousand. But what they are mostly is different artists doing the same song. All I had to do was look at the title of Dylan’s “I’m Not There” and it was stuck in my head. I found a Sun Ra version of “I Could Have Danced All Night” and I gave it five stars.

This over the top letter was in this morning’s mail.
Dear Frige,
I used to live in Rochester and was trying to find out if Tent City was still in business. (I bought a tent there once and it was great, dirt cheap and lasted for ages.) I found your Lyell Ave feature and just wanted to tell whoever took the photos that your images are very good.
You have a real knack for composition, colour, form and irony. I couldn’t find any credits for these images on the site but I wouldn’t mind having a chat with whoever this photographer is. Really, your photos are artworks and you should be having gallery shows of them. They should be published in great big expensive glossy books about Rochester. They probably already are and you ought to credit your work and protect it. Then you should buy the best camera invented to humanity and travel the world making images for National Geographic and Magnum and live like royalty on your commissions. Just thought I’d tell you, your work is wonderful. In a single feature you’ve raised Lyell Ave (!!) to the level of Iconic.
Thanks. Best Regards, Meg, London, UK

It reminded me that I promised to photograph another one of Rochester’s streets this summer for the “Streets of Rochester” section on the The Refrigerator. I haven’t decided which street to do yet. If anyone has any suggestions, send them along. I’ve been spending a lot of time on East Ridge Road and it has potential but it is a pretty hostle place for bicycles.

It’s funny how many people think refrigerator is spelled with a “d” and funnier that its abbreviation, “fridge” has a “d’. And this Meg person misspelled that.

I bought a Remmington hair trimmer so I could cut my hair without bugging Peggi to get the back. I chose the fitting that looked like it would cut my hair about a half inch long. I thought I could do the whole thing in minutes but it took me about a half hour. The damn thing just wouldn’t cut. If I can find the receipt, I’m going to take it back.

Peggi’s mom called while I was cutting my hair. She wondered if she gave us the the tickets for La Bohéme tonight. We looked around and couldn’t find them so Peggi called Mercury Opera to make arrangements for getting in without tickets. Then Peggi’s mom called back to sat she found them.

The water level at the pool was a little low so Peggi put the hose in and went home. She woke up around seven in the morning and remembered it was running all night. There were puddles leading out to the road when she got there. Oh, the pressure of being president of the pool association. I took advantage of the early hours to blow the oak tree droppings off the roof. While I was up there I blew out our only gutter. It smelled like old bong water. Kinloch Nelson stopped by to borrow Peggi’s Farfisa organ. He was traveling down to see Bob Cooper, who was the original owner of this beauty when he and Kinloch were in a band in the sixties. They were going to jam and this reunion with his old axe was a surprise.

We headed out to the annual Bob Dylan Birthday bash at the Village Gate. Chuck Cuminale from Colorblind James originated this thing about thirty years ago. He was the ultimate Dylan aficionado and was almost born on Dylan’s birthday so n those days it was a birthday bash for Chuck as well. We rode home with John Gilmore at the wheel. We dropped Jon Gary at his apartment downtown and headed down Culver. We stopped at at light and a Toyota SUV pulled up next to us. That vehicle stopped briefly at the light and then drove right through the light while we sat here. John said, “That’s the city”.

We had dinner with Rick and Monica last night. Rick made tostadas and Peggi made roasted corn and with jalapeños. After dinner we watched “I’m Not There”. The various Dylans was a good idea but Cate Blanchet was so much better than the others and of course Bob Dylan’s music is so much better than the covers that the movie sort of fell apart.

I checked the mail on my way downtown to drop off my contributions to RoCo’s 6×6 show. I opened the mail while I was driving (it ain’t illegal yet) and there was a cd from the Squires of the Subterrain entitled “Whoa Whoa, Yeah Yeah”. I stuck it in the cd player but it kicked back out. I tried it back home and it wouldn’t play there either so I put it in my computer and a movie popped up. It was sensational, like the last one, only better.

Read a review of local boy Philip Seymour Hoffman in “Synedoche, New York” directed by the screenwriter of “Being John Malkovich”. Among other things it is about the anxiety of artistic creation and the desperate sense that your life is rushing by faster than you can make sense of it.

We almost went to NYC this weekend. We were going to visit Duane and gallery hop and then bring our nephew back from Brooklyn so he can visit his grandmother, Peggi’s mom, in Rochester and hang out with us. There were too many loose ends to leave town so here we are.

Peggi’s making Bob Mahoney’s “Cowboy Salsa” recipe. I cut up the cilantro and an onion. Beautiful day out. I’m headed down to the basement to paint.