Picnic table in park along Lake Road near Sea Breeze in Webster, New York
Three days in a row with temperatures in the sixties. We headed down to the lake and crossed the seasonal swing bridge that connects Culver Road to Lake Road in Webster. This tiny strip of land between Irondequoit Bay and the lake used to have houses on both sides of the road but quite a few on the north side were washed away years ago before they got he lake levels under control. The Army Corp shored it up with a pile of rocks and the town of Webster turned it into a nice little park. Next time we come down here we’ll bring some sandwiches.
A permanent bridge was planned for this spot but the money for the project was diverted to San Francisco after their earthquake and we’re stuck with this winter only solution. If anybody asks I’m all for keeping the bridge open all year. And while we’re at it let’s keep daylight savings on all year.
Colorful trees near Pat Lake in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, New York
I helped my nephew manage his iTunes library before Thanksgiving dinner yesterday. He was getting duplicates of the stuff he downloaded and running out of hard disc space on his netbook. Seems everyone has a glut of music. He told me I should get “Spotify” so I installed that this morning.
There was a review of the Stones remastered “Some Girls” lp in the paper. It comes with an album’s worth of extra tracks. I don’t have a digital copy the original so I previewed the new tracks at the iTunes store and thought about buying the package but Mick redid his vocals on some tracks just like he did with the “Exile” outtakes and that pisses me off. That really should be illegal. Keith does a Waylon Jennings song but that just made me want to hear the original. I decided not to buy now.
I was reading Sasha Frere-Jones’s column in the New Yorker on the Russian dj, “Oneohtrix Point Never” and that sounded pretty interesting so I checked that out at the store but didn’t buy anything.
We watched the Gram Parsons documentary the other night. Kieth was in there too, scolding Gram for ODing. I never really caught on to Gram Parsons but I liked the Byrds. They shouldn’t have included the vintage clips of George Jones and Merle Haggard in this movie. That sort of put Gram in his place too.
Ron Stackman djing at Abilene with John Nugent on sax at Abilene in Rochester, New YorkAbilene2011
Ronny Stackman, “Your Selector”, has been spinning roots reggae forty-fives in the upstairs lounge at Abilene on Wednesday nights for a few months now. He knows how to work a room extending the format by playing both sides of a single and dubbing it up on top. Last night he was joined by Jon Nugent on sax and they sounded amazing. If you thought the sax line in Errol Dunkley’s “Black Cinderella” was cool you have to hear what Jon can add to a scratchy dub reggae tune. Prince Far I was in the house along with Toots & The Maytals. Margaret Explosion plays Wednesday nights so we have a bit of a conflict but this is the coolest spot in town.
Our iPod treated us right on the way home. I swear “shuffle” knows the situation and knocks your socks off with random surprises. “Miles Runs The Voodoo Down” took us from downtown to the crib.
Paul Dodd charcoal drawing “Model From Crime Page” 2011
I finished this guy last night, another face from Crimestoppers page in our paper. I’ve been painting these guys for quite a while. I used to paint directly from the tiny pictures and then I started scanning them, blowing them up and painting from print outs. It was a little easier to paint from a bigger source but the quality didn’t improve any. And then I discovered the police were putting the files online at a decent size with no dot pattern! I downloaded the pdfs for a few months and worked from those. I just checked the site for the new flier and it’s a tiny .gif file so I called their hotline and asked the officer if there was any way to get a bigger file. He had me call an Officer Renee but her message said she’d be out of the office until after the Thanksgiving holiday.
Margaret Explosion plays the Little Theater Café tonight – 7:30-9:30
People used to identify themselves when they called you but they don’t do that anymore because everyone has cell phones and they know who’s calling before they say hello. In fact people don’t even say hello any more they just start talking. Well we don’t have a cellphone and I’m often completely thrown as to who I’m talking to. Someone will prattle on about something while I’m running through my mental rolladex trying to figure out who the voice is. Is it work related or a friendly? No big deal. I’m just saying.
The phone rang during dinner the other night and our nephew was laughing at the quaintness of the answering machine on our land line and that led to a discussion of the old full size cassette answering machine that we had and how we’d record over and over the tapes until they were layered bits and pieces of voices from the past. I set a few of them aside and went downstairs to check to see if I could put my hands on them. I found a cassette deck and put on a white label advance copy of Colorblind James’ “Why Should I Stand Up?” from 1991 that had been put into service.
Brad Fox called and started with a joke. “Why did the Siamese twins go to England?” No punchline. A snippet of Colorblinds’ “That’s Entertainment”, Deb calling from Massachusetts asking for help with her computer which was suddenly in a foreign language. Peggi’s mom letting us know she didn’t like the answering machine. A snippet of “Ride Board.” A wrong number where someone left a message for someone we’ve never heard of. Our nephew calling for help getting a stuck floppy out of an Mac SE. He’s majoring in artificial intelligence today. Another snippet of “Ride Board.” And plenty of people complaining about the quality of our outgoing message which as I remember had either James Brown or Miles Davis blasting in the background.
Sometimes the machine would record our part of a conversation if we failed to pick up the phone in time. So we heard Steve Black from Singapore answering a call from Steve Hoy while we were out somewhere. Directions to Jeff and Mary Kaye’s house for the first time! And then Peggi’s dad and Gary Bennet calling from beyond the grave. Are people saving their cellphone messages these days? This stuff is priceless.
Flower City dumpster on the site new Dunkin’ Donuts at Culver and Norton in Rochester, New York
For weeks we’ve been speculating about what the new building at Culver and Norton might be. They tore down the tuxedo shop and dry cleaners and threw up a wooden building in matter of weeks. I figured it had to be a chain store of some sort because the various crews have been in and out of here so fast. They were putting a brick knee wall around the front sides on Sunday when we stopped in at the QuikFill across the street. Peggi asked the gas attendent what the new building was going to be and found out it will be a Dunkin’ Donuts. That will probably be a good thing for Palermo’s across the street, better than the new smoke-shop that opened next door.
While I was taking this photo one of the brick masons shouted, “What are you doing?’ I kept my eye on my camera and said, “I’m taking a photo.” He didn’t hear me and shouted again, “What are you doing?” I turned my head toward him and yelled, “What does it look like? I’m taking a photo” and I hurried back to our car.
Occupy Rochester site in Washington Square Park, Rochester, New York
I started the day by donating $5 to keep Wikipedia free. It didn’t quite make sense (Donate To Keep Wikipedia Free) but I went for it. We were only trying to learn something about Ignatius of Loyola who I was confusing with Saint Francis Xavier who was only a student of Saint and not the founder of the Jesuits. We were talking about the northeast corner of Spain near the border with France where there is some sort of Romanesque monastery in the mountains and planning our next trip to Spain.
We made the rounds at the Public Market and ran into Richard from Abilene. We apologized for not not making it out more often. I don’t know what our problem is. Maybe when Bobbie Henri does their Christmas show. We bought a few sandwiches at Flour City Bakery and took them over to Washington Square Park where we sat on in the sun on the steps of the war monument, a gentle nod of sololdarity to OWS.
Our nephew is taking the train up to hang out for the weekend. He asked if we needed anything from NYC and I emailed back, “more culture.” As if the city has a lock on that sort of hint. It does have more people.
This morning’s paper had an article about the newly proposed Rochester train station. The architects drawing shows a building that looks quite a bit like the old station, the one the city tore down in 1965 in middle of a destructive urban renewal rampage. That old one was actually the third Rochester train station. It was designed by Claude Bragdon and it was a showpiece of art and culture.
David Johnson photo of bass player at The Primalon Ballroom in San Francisco 1950
When I was in Indiana playing in a C&W band we did this gig on a flatbed truck by a big barn way out in the country. It was a coon hunting convention where hunters partied til dark and then followed their dogs into the woods to “tree” raccoons. Last weekend Margaret Explosion played a a “Chili Cook-Off” at the Genesee Center for the Arts and it was almost as strange. We set up in the pottery room and Ken stood in a doorway with his stand up bass. The sound was great though and I think we got a good recording.
After our set we sampled some vegetarian white chiIi from Mex Restaurant and some homemade beer from Three Heads Brewery and then bought a two dollar raffle ticket which proved to be the winning ticket for a pound of Starbucks Antigua coffee. Photographer David Johnson has a great show in the Community Darkroom Space. He studied with Ansel Adams and took this picture of a bass player on his back at the Primalon Ballroom on Fillmore Street in the 1950. I’ve always been partial to 1950 for some reason, something to do with a wide eyed departure from a warm and cozy spot.
We helped Leo’s relatives clean out his old place over the weekend. Another neighbor pitched in as well and he described the scene as something from the show, “Hoarders.” Leo used to pick junk up from the curb and squirrel it away. He picked stuff out of our trash and we laughed as we threw the same stuff away again this weekend. Our neighbors on the other side did a little dumpster diving this morning and we joined in. I found a few choice pieces of scrap metal for Sparky and then this afternoon WM hauled the dumpster away.
Note to self: Start divesting while you still have your marbles.
Scott Regan held court in the Little Theater Café on Sunday night as he signed copies of his just released book of sketches of musicians playing live. Everyone knows Scott’s voice from his organic morning show on WRUR and anyone who regularly sees live music may have spotted him looking over his glasses as he creates these beautiful sketches. The show included a large pastel by Scott, the original art for the Colorblind James lp, “Why Should I Stand Up?” Jeff Spevak supplied the artful haikus and Scott’s wife, Sue, had a few nice drawings in there but the night belonged to Scott’s sketches. The café was more crowded than I have ever seen it, too packed to really see the art work and too loud to hear Jaffe at the piano but perfect for celebrating Scott’s work. Not all the sketches on the walls were included in the book and many from the book are not on the walls so you should really do both. Margaret Explosion made the wall. The one above, of Pete LaBonne on the grand piano, was missing in action.
The Polish Film Festival was in full swing in the theaters so we bought tickets to “The Mill & the Cross,” a film by Lech Majewski about Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s 1564 masterpiece, “The Way to Calvary.” I have been a fan of his art since I saw a poster in the old Rochester Club Restaurant when they changed their name to Gerry’s and hired us to do a logo. No much, in the traditional sense, happens in the movie and it’s based on a book. I can’t imagine. But we were given an abundance to observe. Computer-generated effects and painted backdrops mixed with some astounding location shots and fantastic cinematography made us feel like we stepped inside one of these Bruegel marvels.
Ai Weiwei in Beijing. Photo by Ng Han Guan/Associated Press
A couple of days ago I posted a photo of the sculpture Ai Weiwei’s has in the courtyard of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. He has been in the news and on my mind for weeks now. The Chinese Government put him in jail for 81 days recently and grilled him about his activism. They released him and ordered him to stay off Twitter. He refused and now they claim he owes $2.4 million in back taxes. The bill is due on Tuesday and he has collected a million so far, some of it tossed over the fence in front of his house by supporters. Ai Weiwei says he considers the aid a loan and he will repay it. His art is wrapped in activism and this is your chance to buy a piece from one of the world’s hottest artists. Fold a dollar bill into a paper airplane and send it over his fence.
Our neighbor collects our leaves and uses them as mulch for his garden and the we use his garden so it all works like a charm. He was telling us that when they get together with their son’s in-laws about the only thing they can talk about is the weather. They are sort of opposites especially when it comes to politics and everything is political so the weather is a pretty safe topic as long as you don’t wander into global warming territory.
This Fall has been especially beautiful, unusually warm and sunny. That is probably all about to change but that’s why we live here.
Green hummingbird with red flowers and blue sky in Los Angeles
While we were in Los Angeles Peggi’s sister took us for a ride throughout the hills of Bel Air. She had the top down and it was a gorgeous day with a pure blue sky. I took this photo of a hummingbird in her backyard before we left. I made a movie of the ride but it was so full glare and sun streaks that I dumped it. In fact I can be heard complaining about the light in the movie. Such a problem! Too much light.
When we got back we downloaded the Getty app for the Pacific Standard Time exhibit. Their “In Focus: Los Angeles” photography show doesn’t open for a few more weeks but there is a video included in the app where Judy Fisken talks about how she thought Los Angeles was ugly when she was growing up but through making photos she found beauty in the photos where she was shooting into the sun. The sky would go white and the subject, houses or buildings, would be evenly lit and then she would doge the street so it too would white.
Our polling place in the Point Pleasant firehouse, a short walk away if you cut through the woods, is like something out of a Stephen King novel. It could be the teen rec center when we were kids except there aren’t any girls smoking cigarettes near the doors, only old people, election volunteers behind the tables and stray voters propped up with walkers. I keep trying to imagine how we could use the space. Throw a party, serve Genny beer, get someone to spin records, maybe get Bob Henrie and the Goners to play. But then we’d probably attract the same crowd as this season’s candidates.
Dock behind Hungerford Building at night in Rochester. New York
After our recent LA art bender First Friday in Rochester was bound to be a bit of a let down but it provided some wonderful surprises instead. It was almost impossible to find a parking space near the Hungerford buildings so we invented one out back by a loading dock. This place feels like ground zero for funky art but we found a few jewels. By contrast the “Scapes” electronic media arts show at RoCo was pretty sophisticated. Jason and Debora Beragozzi, husband and wife video geeks, each had engaging installations. I used the word “geeks” because they both are intrigued by the relatively low tech nature of live image processing, no whiz bang image manipulation software or fast cut editing, more like watching the snowy static when a station went off the air or watching a station you couldn’t quite tune in in the pre-digital days. Jason plays with settings to intentionally achieve video errors triggering startling effects. Judd Williams’ “Sandpapers” at Philips Fine Art, exquisite collages made entirely with used sandpaper, was as good as anything we saw in LA.
Chuck Cuminale aka Colorblind James opening for Personal Effects at Scorgies in 1985. Photo by Gary Brandt.
The headline in the “Local Beat” section of today’s paper reads “Colorblind James Experience Reunites.” I wish! Chuck Cuminale, aka Colorblind James (both colorblind and real name, James), song writer extraordinaire, lead vocalist and rhythm guitar player, has been dead ten years now. Chuck insisted that the lyrics to his songs be included in any lp or cd package. They address life’s big themes and read like poetry, dark and funny and sweet, a world away from trendy punk or new wave of the day. Chuck was humble but opinionated. He knew exactly what he wanted in a backing band and he ran a tight ship.
Gary Brandt took this photo of Chuck when Colorblind James opened for Personal Effects at Scorgies in 1985. Gary worked at Midtown and MotoPhoto and used to shoot black and white film and run it through the color processor at work to achieve this look. It was Colorblind’s first gig at Scorgies and Bernie Heveron, PE’s former bass player was on stand up bass. The band had recently settled in Rochester after a stint in San Francisco and Phil Marshall, Chuck’s brother-in-law, moved back with the band on lead guitar. Gary Miexner, who was with Colorblind when we first saw them at Red Creek in 1980, was back in the band as well. Jim McAvaney was the perfect drummer for Chuck’s theatrical numbers.
Chuck is seen performing “Considering A Move To Memphis” above. The band could move mountains and continued to do so with Ken Frank, now with Margaret Explosion, on bass. Tonight, with Chuck’s son Mark standing in for his father, they pay their respects at Abilene.
Chuck gave us a copy of their first 45 at that Red Creek gig. Jan Marshall did the cover art. This is the B side.
Anne Havens Sideshow – Forth floor Anderson Alley on Goodman Street in Rochester, NY
Anne Havens tackles big subjects like Milton’s Paradise Lost and Lot’s wife turning to salt. She does this in the most innocent way. Her touch is pure and her voice is distinctive so you recognize her work immediately even though her mediums span drawing, collage, sculpture, prints, video and fiddle. If you stop in her studio on First Friday be sure to sit on the white stool and look into the stars through her homemade telescope.
Peggi’s reading the the Steve Jobs book on her iPad so I get glimpses of it as I fall asleep. I gather there is a lot of pages devoted to nurture vs nature, “Do not fold, spindle or mutilate” vs open source, the merits of a college education vs dropping out and pot smoking vs the corporate mindset. I’m happy we have moved beyond all that and I’m looking forward to the cyberdelic future.
John Gary joins Margaret Explosion on bass tonight while Ken Frank joins the masses in Armory for the Pixies. I hear they open their show with a screening of “Un chien Andalou“
We flew Delta but I’ll bet all airlines share a similar game plan in their race to the bottom. They took our bottled water at the gate and gave us a short lecture for having it in our bag. Bottled is $4.50 at the concession stand on the other side of the gate. There is a charge for the disposable headphones and the monitor on the back of the seat in front of us works fine when they’re showing you ads for Lincoln Continental and Coca Cola but you have to swipe your credit card for movies and special programing. The plane is equipped with WiFi but it costs $12.95 for the flight. We paid $31 for two sandwiches and a drink and they wouldn’t take cash. Tiny bags of salty peanuts are free, just like in bars where they want you buy more drinks, but on our flight the attendant announced “we were traveling with a passenger who is highly allergic to peanuts so in order to ensure that passenger has a safe trip we will not be serving peanuts.”
My nephew is considering a move to New York to continue making his top tier chef inroads. We asked if he could handle real weather and he said it was a concern. LA is unreal. You forget. My sister-in-law said, “If I lived in Seattle or a place like that I would kill myself.” That is SAD or seasonal affect disorder in a nutshell. I’m a minor key kinda guy so I don’t even notice when its cloudy. If fact I found it hard to take photos in LA because there is too damn much sun. You need a polarizing lens to minimize all that glare. My skin gets so dry out here that my feet pop open and wearing a hat and all that sun screen in eighty degree weather is whacky. But I do love LA and I was sad to leave.
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