Psychedelic George at Skylark in Rochester, New York
Was Frank DeBlase really born on Christmas day or is that something the writer/photographer made up? To ease the confusion his Australian girlfriend arranged a birthday party at Skylark Lounge on Boxing Day. Skylark is an Ed Repard museum and the bartender looked like a cross between Hermie and Casey. Even “Psychedelic George,” who used to come see the band but is someone we thought disappeared some thirty years ago was there. It was a joy to watch Frank hold court like American royalty.
Having just come back from a walk to the lake I am happy to report that I am in the Christmas spirit. Perfect timing. The water level on Lake Eastman had just dropped about a foot. You could see the high water mark on the trees that are still standing in water along the shore. We’re guessing the high winds and rough water on Lake Ontario finally budged the plugged outlets. The beavers have taken down some pretty big trees and the trees have surely worked their way down Lake Eastman toward the big lake where there is a log jam. Nature has an impressive way of taking care of business.
The wind has apparently taken our Time Warner connection out so we are without internet, cable tv or a phone line. Glad I’m not a kid looking for a connection for my new Xbox on Christmas Day.
We had a lovely dinner last night with parts of my big family. We changed the menu at the last minute and ordered greens & beans and lasagna from Proietti’s in Webster, a giant tin of the stuff with extra jars of sauce and cheese to pour on top as we warmed it up. I made a green salad modeled after the ones we used to have with Peggi’s mom out at the Bistro in the Highlands, grapes split in half with a slightly sweet vinegrette and then garnished with toasted pecans. Peggi made applesauce and we had her Christmas cookies for desert. The conversation flowed like wine and I slept like a baby.
Duane usually joins us for Xmas Eve dinner but he is already back in New York and Maureen is trying to figure out the accurate color, painting lights that Duane gave her.
Frozen marsh with cattails, Lake Eastman in Rochester, New York
Just like last year only half of our blue Christmas lights worked when we took them out of the box. Instead of buying more of those $3.99 strings, we sprung for LED. They are an intense, deep blue. They take less energy but last forever and the color isn’t supposed to fade like the others did while they hung outdoors. The lights even came with some sort of guaranty.
With the temperature near fifty, this will clearly not be a white Christmas. Where did that foot of snow go? It was enough to break quite a few branches off the pine trees in the park so we brought a few home to spread out on our window sill. And Peggi made Christmas cookies so its beginning to smell like Christmas around here.
I’m not exactly in the Christmas spirt. We were talking to Jon Gary at the Bobby Henrie show and he told us their wooden menorah caught fire. That’s kinda the way I feel for some reason.
I enjoyed the Solstice party at Tom and Carol Aquilano‘s. That is a holyday/holiday I can get behind. A Guinness with friends sitting around an open fire pit. Perfect.
There are a lot of bands out there doing their Christmas songs this week. Watkins & the Rapiers have been doing them all month. But nobody does a better batch than Bobby Henrie and the Goners. We caught their annual Xmas show at Abilene on Saturday night and didn’t leave until it was all said and done. Jingle Bell Rock, Baby, It’s Cold Outside with Jimmy playing sleigh bells on the intro and outro!
A few years ago they were especially tight, knocking out songs in rapid succession. I think they had a string of Christmas parties that year. This year they were especially loose taking five minutes or so between songs. They tear it up either way. Jimmy, reliably late with the snare, Brian right on and Bobby, as always, an incredible player with a great voice and an explosive, live wire. The band, in their thirtieth year as a trio, is equal parts rock and roll. Most bands today have dropped the roll and I miss it. It allows the Goners to mix country, jazz and blues with their old fashioned r&R.
Ice skirt on stump in Lake Eastman, Rochester, New York
While President Obama is on vacation I’ve been thinking about this whole “proportional response’ concept. It strikes me as rather small minded, as barbaric as the bible’s “eye for an eye,” but with a little time maybe the US can come up with a creative way of conveying how uncool the hacking and threats are. Was David and Goliath proportional?
A witty response, an idea so clever that it begins to turn the tables on the dictator would be proportional. Instead of airdropping dvd copies of the sophomoric movie on North Koreans maybe they could figure out a way to solicit Hollywood movie concepts from the North Koreans. Could the CIA be any more creative than the “creative” types at Sony?
My father has a miniature watercolor station next to his chair in the living room of his apartment, the tiny “travel” paint set, a couple of brushes, some water and a small black notebook where he has been painting barns and cityscapes. These small paintings (the one above is shown almost actual size) are looser and more sketch-like than the large watercolors he does in his studio in the next room. He used the one above for his Holiday card and called it “Evening Exercise Sketch.” The back of his card had one of my favorite quotes. “Music is your own experience, your thoughts, your wisdom. If you don’t live it, it won’t come out your horn.” – Charlie Parker
Next year he can use, “Don’t play the saxophone. Let it play you.” – Charlie Parker
The five day forecast in these parts is all grey. I kind of like the mood. Margaret Explosion will provide a soundtrack to the weather tonight at the Little Theater Café. We promise not to play any Christmas music. Here is a song from a few weeks back.
In Louise‘s comment to my last post she pointed out that there are two sides to the sign I had shown so as I passed by today I stopped for another photo. Peggi had to explain this one to me. It is way beyond Catholicism.
A few weeks back we visited a couple of nearby funeral homes to get estimates on direct burial costs. My dad wanted to prepay for himself and my mom so the money, according to state law, would go into an M&T account to cover costs at the time their deaths. Peggi and I are thinking we should be doing this as well. Costs are not locked in, of course, so we probably have a few years if we’re lucky.
My dad made a decision on the home and called back the contact at Newcomer on Empire Boulevard to ask if he could draw up a bill and send it out. The contact said it should be done in person so he set up an appointment for this morning at 9:30. My dad had his check book and a different fellow, a big burly guy in in a suit, met us at the door. I said I had an appointment with the contact. The big guy told us he would take care of us and abruptly asked, “Names?” I wasn’t even sure it was a question but I spoke our names without using any verbs or prepositions, just the two pronouns. He took us downstairs past the showrooms with the ornate caskets and golden bibles and into a conference room with a poster of two hands clasped in prayer. A large monitor hung over the table with Microsoft Windows 7’s blue start-up screen. I pulled out my iPad and read the notes aloud from our first meeting with the contact.
The big guy asked what kind of casket we wanted and I said there is no casket, it is a “direct burial with the body in a shroud.” He said they must use some special machinery to lower the body.” My dad was squirming and raising his eyebrows. The next few exchanges were more awkward and ruder still. My dad said, I think we’ll take our business elsewhere and we got up. I turned back to the guy at the glass door as we were leaving and said, “You have a funny attitude.” He said, “Have a nice day, sir” and he looked the door behind us.
I have worked for myself most of my life and I’ve run into all sorts but I can’t think of any situation where the the deal was done, the specifics were settled on, the check was all but written for two customers and two more potential customers were in the office and the guy blows up the deal.
I’m so happy that Roz Chast’s brilliant memoir, “Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?” was chosen as one of the New York Times 10 best books of the year. It addressed the absurdity of issues like these with mountains of grace and humor.
“Prepare To Meet Thy God” sign on Culver Road in Rochester, New York
The local American football team, “the Bills,” are on a winning streak but I can’t bring myself to watch them for some reason. My neighbor says he is “afraid to watch them” so he records the game and looks at the highlights if they win. Last weekend we watched the final Major League Soccer game of the year, a game between Los Angeles and New England. It was Donovan’s last game of his career and they won but it was a sort of sad game. We caught a Premier League game this weekend between West Ham United and Sunderland and the difference in the level of play was quite remarkable. I can see why the US’s national team coach is encouraging our player to play overseas.
We recently became aware of the Spanish activist group, “FLO6x8.” Sort of a Flamenco Flash Mob they combine incredible music, passion, performance and a deep culture while trying to affect change. Watch them disrupt the Spanish Parliament.
This sign is one of the reasons I keep getting further behind with my signs to post.
When you’ve been to Home Depot and Lowe’s in the same day you know you are in the throes of a home remodeling project. We were looking for what turns out to be an slightly unusual product, ceiling tiles that didn’t call attention to themselves. The ceiling in our basement is not that high, nothing like the twelve foot ceilings in the Bevier Building downtown that is currently being rehabbed, so we don’t want to draw the eye to that feature. Plain white with a simple non-directional texture would be ideal but they are so yesterday.
The key feature of dropped ceiling panels today is “tegular.” Spell check hasn’t even caught up with it. These tiles are 2 feet by 2 feet, not 2 by 4 like the one ripped down, and they drop down because they’ve been cut with a right angle on all four sides. One half of their depth hangs below the surface of the grid. They come in all sorts of crazy styles but they look too busy to us. We would like our ceiling to disappear. They still make no-tegular but they are a special order item. And just so you both stores carry Armstrong with virtually the same line-up and price.
Dave Mahoney and Norm Ladd at quarries in Bloomington, Indiana, 1971 – photo by Kim Torgerson
The car was all packed and we were getting ready to leave when Noel emailed from the Little Theater. Due to almost a foot of snow they were planning on closing the café early and canceling the band for the night. They didn’t have to do that. We were ready and already looking forward to a quiet night, a situation where the band can sound especially good. Margaret Explosion is somewhere between the band in John Cassavetes’s “Too Late Blues” and the band that was playing on the Titanic when it went down. These are ideal conditions for us.
Big tire bikes in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, New York
The older I get the more inconsequential I feel. And that is both sobering and liberating. At least that’s the way I felt when these big guys came up the hill on these big fat tire bikes. They look like they are intended for riding over really rough terrain like the surface of the moon or something. I’m afraid to google them.
I get this same feeling when I watch a FKA twigs video
Pre show at Garth Fagan Dance at Nazareth Theater in Rochester, New York
Dance troops really have their work cut out for them. I’m generalizing but they attempt to animate music. Garth Fagan has especially good taste and of course “good taste” is relative. It usually means “the same as mine.” Last night at Nazareth College we saw pieces choreographed to the music of Dollar Brand, Max Roach, Bob Marley as performed by Monty Alexander, Aphex Twin, Ingoba Drums of Burundi and Jan Garbarek with The Hilliard Ensemble. The dance has to be pretty damn good to take center stage to that soundtrack. About half of the pieces out-shined the music. And that is a pretty sensational feat.
Holy Trinity basketball team, mid sixties. l. to r. Paul Dodd, Alfred Williams, Jim Schneider, Albert Williams, Jim McClellan, Russ Minor’s older brother, Bernie Finch
Seems like we won a few games. We must have. Maybe St. Stanislaus. St. Boniface? Holy Trinity didn’t even have a gym. We played in the parking lot during recess while other kids smoked cigarettes in the woods. Our league games were played downtown in the Auditorium at the old CYO where the Garth Fagan dancers rehearse now. I came across this photo while I’ve been painting the six players on the 1957 Myndersian Academy basketball team. The caption above the team photo reads, “Team Faced Tough Competition.”
Small tree cluster on Eastman Lake in Rochester, New York
The water level on Eastman Lake was way up, so high that the little foot bridge at the south end of the trail was floating. Along the shore we spotted the stumps of a few trees that beavers had just taken down. You can see some bite marks at the bottom of these small trees above. We assumed the fallen trees had floated to the out flow of this manmade lake and had jammed it up so we tried to find the overflow drain. We walked entirely around the lake and never found the outlet. It’s somewhere down along Lakeshore Boulevard.
I was thinking about how civilized the designers of the park were, creating these beautiful manmade lakes over a hundred years ago. And then the line from “Hearts and Minds,” a 1974 documentary about the Viet Nam war, popped into my head. I think it was a clergyman, maybe a priest, in Viet Nam talking about the invasion while it was going on. Something like, The US treats us like savages. We’ve developed our civilization over 5,000 years. They’re the ones who are the savages.
Seabreeze docks at dusk in December, Rochester, New York
The yearly RoCo Members Show is always a good one. With one piece from each member it is democratic to a fault. There is not enough room to hang the work properly. Some pieces are too high or too low and many just don’t work with the nearby pieces. So you have to take your time and look at each piece as though you were wearing blinders. There are some real jewels.
We spotted work by fellow classmates and of course were partial to those. Bill Keyser, John May, Maureen Church and Leo Dodd. I put my yellow dot next to Peggi Fournier’s owl. The opening was packed, as expected, and the conversation sensational. My head will be swimming tonight.
DisAppEar decorations on wall at the Little Theater Café
Like magic our new cd became available at CDBaby on the morning of yesterday’s release party. Scott Regan played a cut on his morning show and WRUR’s playlist showed the cover graphic from iTunes. We had our ducks in a row. Peggi and I hand painted some oversize cd covers and hung them over the grand piano. The place was packed but oddly the band was in a detached sort of mood. in the break Martin Edic suggested we “get wild” so we tried to accommodate him. If that piece sounds as good as I remember it I’ll post it here in a few days. Here’s one from the new cd.
We met “Red” Cassorla late in life. He was already in his nineties. Earl and Spider, the famous fireworks aficionados, would bring their father to the Margaret Explosion gigs while they were home for the Jewish holy days. Red’s family was chased out of Spain and he loved speaking Spanish with Peggi. He had a wicked sense of humor.
Services were held for “Red” yesterday and we learned he grew up on Ormond Street where his family lived behind the grocery store that his father owned. Red got his start selling newspapers on the corner of State and Main and then opened his own business distributing groceries to the city’s small, mom & pop stores. He worked seven days a week and “knew everyone in the city” before giving up the business at 89. He never really retired but continued to help his sons run their fireworks store in Nevada.
Even after reading this review in the New Yorker I still wanted to see “Whiplash” and what better opportunity than the $5 Monday Night Movies at the Little. I loved it. A bit aggressive but intense and pretty close to what I imagine music school to be like and more importantly the exploration of the drive aspect in art making was well worth the five bucks. And Sean behind the bar at the Little, an opera major at the Eastman, confirmed the picture.
“Birdman,” tonight’s feature presentation at the Little started off but really grabbed me about five minutes in, about the time Edward Norton took the stage. And it was really a stage. The movie is theatrical production of a play and that is where it worked magic. I loved watching the actors dig deep to make the fake real. Too bad they had to get goofy near the end with Michael Keaton flying in his underwear. The soundtrack was brilliant. Mostly drums played by Antonio Sanchez. He was just in town last week with Pat Methaney’s band.
Tomorrow, for the third night in a row, we make the same trip down Culver to the Little Theater Café for the record release party of the psychedelic jazz combo, Margaret Explosion.
Margaret Explosion self promo shot at Little Theater Café in Rochester, New York. Left to right; Bob Martin (guitar), Peggi Fournier (soprano sax), Jack Schaefer (bass clarinet), Ken Frank (upright bass), Paul Dodd (drums)
Here’s Jeff Spevak’s review from the Democrat & Chronicle: “The sound of “Disappear” is immediately recognizable. Margaret Explosion is a narcotic soundtrack, sinuous improvisation on original impulses. Peggi Fournier not so much plays the soprano sax as breathes it. Paul Dodd’s drums are notable not only for the precision of his carefully selected notes, but the notes that he seems to not play. Like bassist Ken Frank, Dodd’s often in a hypnotic state. Guitarist Bob Martin is one of the wondrous curiosities of the local scene. He sits with his instrument and a vast array of effects pedals and buttons at his feet, creating sounds with the drawn-out elegance of Bill Frisell.
Disappear includes work by two like-minded, frequent guests of the band, bass clarinetist Jack Schaefer and Pete LaBonne on grand piano. It’s ethereal stuff from a prolific group that never rehearses, just plays. And posting much of it — including the clatter of plates and utensils from Little Café patrons eating — on its web site free for your downloading.”
Please join the band on Wednesday evening 7:30-9:30PM as Margaret Explosion releases our first cd in five years. 12 songs recorded live at the Little Theatre Café in living stereo and packaged in a handprinted, limited edition sleeve. $10, includes shipping, available at MargaretExplosion.com. Here’s a song from the new cd.
“When We Were Young” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre on 11.20.13. Peggi Fournier – sax, Ken Frank – bass, Bob Martin – guitar, Jack Schaefer – bass clarinet, Paul Dodd – drums.
When We Were Young by Margaret Explosion3 Comments
