Girls running on path in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester NY
We read on the couch and listened to the rain last night and made what might be our last fire in the fireplace until Fall. Tomorrow morning we open the street pool. The temperatures are are headed up for the next five days. Rick kicked my ass in horseshoes after work today. We plan to see Ken Frank’s other band play tonight. Gotta bring earplugs for that. I’ve switched to kids opaque watercolors and plan to paint for a bit before heading out. I’ll report back on these earth-shattering events.
“And that’s the way I play. I play for the benefit of the band.” — Baby Dodds, New Orleans drummer
This quote is printed in the front of a book of Lee Friedlander photos that I have on loan from the Rochester Public Library. And I love it. Not just because of the guy’s name but because I think Baby Dodds is addressing the nature of the creative act.
Take a simple example. You start a painting with an idea. You make a few marks and already you are committed to constructing an image that is worth looking at. The more interesting the better. Exciting would be nice. It is your duty to follow that up by only adding strokes that strengthen the picture. The original idea was the springboard but that is history. Your focus is now on how you can make this picture communicate more clearly. Step back for second and look at what you have. Fix the clunkers. It may go in a surprising direction. Wouldn’t that be nice? You are playing for the benefit of the band (painting).
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.
We took a walk with Jim Mott who is staying at our house as part of his “Itinerant Artist in Metropolitan Rochester Series”. Jim’s attention was focused on the Warblers who pass through this area when the trees start to fill out. That explosion of green brings the bugs that the Warblers feed on. When Peggi spotted this baby deer near a tree, trying to stand for what looked like the first time, Jim had his field glasses trained on a distant bird. He told us he was more distracted than ever while painting in our front yard this morning because of all the bird activity. He saw or heard ten different kinds of Warblers along with an Oriole and an Indigo Bunting.
Jim painted a beautiful picture of the chairs in the front of our house. It is gorgeous and I think he knows it. It has been a pleasure to meet Jim and hang out with him. I heard a lecture he gave at the MAG a few years ago and Peggi and I went out to his show at MCC last year but we really didn’t know him. Funny how that changes when someone moves in for a few days. He told us he was a fan the Refrigerator when it was a print publication and he had heard Peggi and I backing Pete LaBonne at the old Jazzberries many years ago. And he reminded me that I wrote something he liked about his lecture. I had forgotten how charming it was to see and hear him talk about one subject while showing ppt slides that had no relation to what he was talking about.
The deal that we took Jim up on is this. We put him up for a few days. He paints, hangs out. We pick two paintings that we like from the batch that he does while here and from those two Jim will select the one for us. This whole experience would be worth it without the painting.Jim has traveled the country doing this and was featured on the Today Show a few years back.
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.
I tried to help our neighbor, Leo, get his tractor started but his battery wouldn’t hold a charge. Leo himself has a similar problem. He told me, this getting old stuff is for the birds.” He managed to get his tires inflated but we couldn’t start the tractor. He says, “I used to be able to fix things” and I know this to be true. He used to have projects lined up on his workbench and most of them were for other people. He shook his head and said, “I’m getting dumber every day”.
Horace Furminger clown painting for Rick Simpson on his sixtieth birthday
I rode by a garage sale last summer and this painting was propped up against a table. It caught my eye from the street. It and another one were selling for twenty bucks. I said I only wanted the one and asked what the price was for that that. The woman said it would be twenty bucks so I stopped haggling and took out my wallet out. She told me she taught art at Irondequoit High School and she said she really liked the painting too. She had looked online for information on the artist, Horace Furminger, but couldn’t find anything. I rode home with the painting under my arm and showed it to Peggi.
It occurred to us that it would be a perfect gift for our friend and neighbor, Rick. He is a clown, went to school for it even, and already has a small collection of clown paintings. I had not seen clown paintings in a home since the paint by number ones Brad Fox’s father did when we were kids. Monica saw the painting in our living room and I told her I was thinking of giving it to Rick for his birthday. She didn’t seem to like it much.
Well today’s Rick’s 60th birthday and I plan to bring it over there tonight. People have been bugging me to paint something other than crime faces and I’m thinking if a clown series. I’d be lucky to do one as nice as this.
Spent most of the day tracking down workarounds for Internet Explorer bugs which aren’t really bugs at all but disregards of WC3 standards. (left single angle quote) !–[if IE]>Special instructions. Switch to Google Chrome, Firefox or Safari now.(left single angle quote)![endif]–>
We thought the Xcart site that we’ve been building here was ready to move to the actual site until we spotted th “bugs” in IE on our crusty pc. Works fine in Explorer and Chrome over there but “ouch” in IE. So you bid on a job and then tack on a bunch to cover the expense of duking it out with IE. All in a day.
It’s beautiful here in western New York and we are not complaining. Margaret Explosion starts a month of Wednesdays at the Little tonight.
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.
Peggi at the Kentucky Derby on our first date in 1973
It was a perfect day for a bike ride. We took the new trail along Lakeshore Boulavard and then down Rock Beach Road over to O’Laughlins on the Summerville side of the mouth of the Genesee River. It’s sort of a tradition for us to celebrate the anniversary of our first date by watching the Kentucky Derby down here looking over the river and out to Lake Ontario. Steve Hoy was our chaperon back then. He drove us the two hours from Bloomington to Churchill Downs the year Secretariat won.
Paul Dodd being arrested at an anti war demonstration in Bloomington Indiana
We stopped in Abilene on Monday night to hear Jenna sing with her new old band, Krypton 88. Reconnected with left handed drummer, Dana Gregory, from my high school days and asked Jim Via if he was nervous before going on. He laughed and said he wasn’t.
Jenna and the band sounded great but we had to leave before their set was over in order to catch the PBS show on the My Lai. That doesn’t sound like much, fun does it? I had read an intriguing review of the show in the morning paper. US soldiers under Lt. Caley’s command were interviewed and Vietnamese survivors told their side of the story.
I was so out of it in high school that I chose “Hawk” when asked to write a short essay on whether we were a Hawk or a Dove. It was my junior year and the war was raging. That summer Doug, who had already graduated and gone off to war, showed us a belt of gook’s ears that he proudly wore on the plane on the way home. End of tour senior year Rex’s dad wanted his son to go in the army before college. My mom wrote me at school that Rex had been killed, shot in the back by friendly fire. Tom, who lived down the street from my family, came back on leave and I asked him what he did over there. He said he sat in a helicopter and kicked napalm canisters out without even looking at what or who was was below.
I think Kim took this photo at a demonstration in IU’s Assembly Hall. I got arrested at another anti war demonstration (above), eventually dropped out and was reclassified 1A. I was considering my options when they decided to institute the lottery draft system. I watched them pick my ping pong ball in Kenny Macher and Dave Jolly’s apartment. I think Rich was there too. My number was in the two hundreds.
Later I worked with a guy named Paul who wept when Viet Nam came up and I’ll never forget him describing how they were so scared they shot at anything that moved and one time it turned out to be a bunch of kids. And then John the postman, who used to come see Personal Effects, got his Viet Nam photos out and shot himself in the head.
The PBS show was very well done, as good as Hurtlocker which we watched last night, better in fact because it didn’t try to wrap things up with a hokey scene with a soldier talking to his infant son.
My new Obama health plan covers yearly physicals and I had one yesterday. The timing, so close to a significant birthday, made it feel like a test to see if I can handle the whole thing. So far, so good but the blood tests are still out. We walked up to the park to see if the yellow magnolias had opened and they have. We plan on celebrating tonight at the Little Theater. Peggi ordered a big cake. Stop out if you’d like a piece. Not sure who’s gonna be in the band tonight. It’s been been fun playing with James the piano player. If I’m lucky it will be all new and different for my birthday.
The Rochester Music Hall of Fame has a shindig this weekend and we were asked to do a site for them but we have had a hard time getting around to it. We dove in today and did it live. There’s not much up there but an announcement and a form but it’s a thrill building it while it’s live rather than offline. We just finished doing Buffalo’s PosterArtUSA that way. It’s an Xcart site with credit card authorization, and he got an order within minutes of pulling the secure transaction switch. We’re behind with a few other sites so I won’t link to them.
Steve Black, writing from Singapore, suggests that I consider painting leaves as a followup to criminal faces. “So different yet so similar.”
Lourdes, in my painting class tonight, asked our teacher what he thinks of preliminary sketches. Fred, in in true zen form, said “they can be good or bad. Good if they help you lay things out but bad if you work everything out.” Then, of course, you would be just copying your sketch and your painting would not be an adventure.
Seems silly to link back to So Many Records but I like that Kevin linked here in his post on the amazing Lesley Gore. He put up a French version of “You Don’t Own Me” today. We just watched the extras on the T.A.M.I. show dvd last night so that is our fourth time through.
It’s Brad‘s Bday today. Hey, and Angel Corpus Christi has an amazing new video. I just love it! Mercury Rev meets Jeff Koons and then some. Check it out.
Mall workers on break at the outlet mall in Waterloo New York
We managed to get to the Outlet Mall in Waterloo without getting on the New York State Thruway. We followed a car with one of the new NY license plates, the retro looking yellow ones with blue lettering. This part of the state has more trailers than Bloomington Indiana. And for some reason, in the middle of nowhere, an abundance of storage lockers. What could possibly be inside these things? We rented one for a few months when we moved Peggi’s mom up here and they cost a fortune. “Mini Storage”. Self Storage”.
All of the stores carry essentially the same stuff. Only the music is different. It was kind of fun trying to figure out the demographic they were each going for. Does eighties music appeal to those who were there or today’s kids in the midst of some sort of resurgence? We had to make a phone call arrange assistance for Peggi’s mom and couldn’t find a phone out here. We may be the only people left on the planet without a cell phone. A clerk in Calvin Klein said he thought they still had one in the food court but that was about a mile away. So we did some mall walking.
I wanted to buy another pair of Timberland work/walking shoes (work as in the stuff you do outdoors) so headed to the Timberland Outlet. I tried one one shoe on and walked around a bit looking at others. I decided to go with the first pair. I had the other shoe in my hand. I was looking at it but I couldn’t find its mate. I asked a clerk if she had put it away and I got Peggi got involved in the hunt and then it dawned on me that I had the other one on my foot. The clerk looked at Peggi and said “You’ve got a lot lot to put up with”.
We met Jeff and Mary Kaye for dinner but Osterria was full, no tables free until 8PM and we had to be at a house concert with David Olney. So we drove over to Polska Chata. Their upstairs dining room was full so we sat in the side room next to this display of Polish delicacies. We ordered a round of Polish beers and Jeff and Mary Kaye had the fish fry which comes with a hardy breaded haddock, a decidedly non creamy cole slaw and pierogies. Peggi and I each ordered the Cabbage Stew special. This place is so good and the setting, in an old house on a side street off East Ridge Road, is so precious I always worry that maybe not enough people know about it to keep them afloat. But they’ve been here for three years so I’ll find something else to worry about.
David Olney and Sergio Webb, performing in Rick an Monica’s living room was pretty cool although two songs about buying my gal a ring in the first set was a little too much for me. Sergio Webb is a dream accompanist on second guitar. They did a beautiful version of “I Only Have Eyes For You”. We let them borrow some mic stands so we got in for free. David liked a small painting of mine that Rick and Monica had bought and had on display. He asked if he could buy one from me so I went across the street and picked one out for him. He gave me a one of his cds and I gave him a Margaret Explosion cd. I told not to put it on while he was driving because he would probably drive off the road.
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.
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.
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.
Ruth Bair, the drama teacher at R.L. Thomas, was so sweet. Irene (Palermo) emailed me that she had died and calling hours were held for her last night on Empire Boulevard. I learned that she continued teaching special needs children at St. Joseph’s Villa after her retirement. I too had special needs when she attempted to crack through my numbskull high school zombie state and on some level she succeeded.
She was an “open study hall” monitor when I met her and she decided I should be the lead in the upcoming production of “Teahouse of the August Moon”. I had never acted or even though of doing so. I was more of a clown although the real honors for that went to Jeff Munson.
I had a hard time taking the whole thing seriously and could not remember my lines. In a dress rehearsal before schoolmates I bounced from the first act to the third taking the entire cast with me and had to free associate to get back to the first act. I remember the drama assistant, Miss Brenda Dockery, taking me into her office to sit me down and look me straight in the eye and stress how important it was to the whole cast that I get serious and learn my lines. Somehow I got through but I know I was bad.
Ruth was fun loving and brave. She let us borrow her car during study hall. I remember taking it airborne on Pellet Road and slamming the bottom on the road on decent and then stopping at the Satellite on Ridge Road for a burger. But mostly I remember her making a real connection. Not many teachers could do this.
