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Stones Vs The Beatles

Bathroom doors at Vic & Irvs
Bathroom doors at Vic & Irvs

Nuuj emailed me something through Facebook. It was kind of a rant about a mutual acquaintance. I ran into him at Mex’s ten year bash and I apologized for not replying. I went into my own rant about fb. I don’t like how people email you through fb and then you have to respond through fb since it doesn’t show his email address. Facebook has that in the giant database they’re building. I joined fb when a client asked about the business generating possibilities of the network. That should have been a warning. I told him “I’ll get back to you” and I signed up.

I didn’t build my portfolio but one was being built for me. I have never put a photo up there yet I had over fifty photos in my profile. I just “untagged” most of them. People “friend” me so I have lots of friends but it is a little disturbing to not know who your friends are. And I get invited to all sorts of stuff.

I like fb alright though. Stan the man put an old photo I took of Vic from Vic & Irv’s up there because I was tagged I was cc’d in on a round of comments from Vic and Irv’s fans. Duane Sherwood emailed us today to say his sister had sent him a link to Vic’s obit.

My brothers and I used to ride our bikes down to the lake when we were in grade school. We’d take a few rides at Sea Breeze, run through the funny house and sit at the counter at Vic and Irv’s. In high school we drive down there with our dates for late night snacks. I’ve been going down there on my birthday for years. I used to love watching the teenage help. I loved how sloppy they were, the music they played behind the grill, the “I could care less” serving style. The workers seem older than they did in the past when you’d think they would be looking younger to me now. It’s probably today’s economy. Some people like “Don and Bob’s” better (or “Don’s Original” as it is called now). I always looked at it like a Stones vs. Beatles kind of thing and I knew exactly where I came down. That may have been a young Keith out back peeling the potatoes but it sure wasn’t Paul McCartney.

The D&C article on Vic called it the “end of an era.” Hardly. I’ll bet a lot of people are down there right now paying him their respects. I only eat beef on special occasions so it will be a while before I get down there. I went through my photos of the palce today and found this one of the bathrooms, which you can only get to by leaving the restaurant and going around back where the rats scamper around.

I guess I going to have to cross post this to Facebook.

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Perfect Day

Snow covered fallen trees
Snow covered fallen trees

One of the best things about the Winter Olympics is the A&T commercial with Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”. Another good thing is the snowboarding. It’s the punk rock of sports and the punks are taking it to the bank this time. With school out this week we’ve noticed a lot more snowboarding in the park. They really pack down the trails making them more like bob sled runs. As Kevin Williams explained on the news last night, the recent snowflakes are small with lots of moisture instead of big and fluffy. So they stuck to the branches for the winter wonderland effect you see in the picture above.

I stopped in the woods the other day and looked back to see how Peggi was doing. When I turned my head my skies went right out from under me. I knew I was going to fall hard so I tucked my head up but I landed on my shoulder blades and whipped my head to the ground. Things went black for a slit second and then a pretty good headache settled in. It’s amazing how quickly something like that can happen. But it left me wondering if something like that would ever happen to a younger guy. My mom fell a few weeks ago in a dark parking garage downtown. She whacked her head on the pavement and had one her eyes swell shut. It could have been much worse but almost doesn’t count exceptin horseshoes. We designed a book by Betty Perkins Carpenter many years ago. It’s called “How To Prevent Falls” and we sort thought it was hoot at the time. I’m not laughing any more.

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MP3s As 45s

Margaret Explosion singles with picture sleeves
Margaret Explosion singles with picture sleeves

I used my paper route as an excuse to be late for school. I could tell it was really effective. Hard working kid. Papers weren’t delivered on time so I missed the bus. No problem. I would take the city bus and have to transfer at midtown. I was often the first customer at Jay’s Record Ranch on Clinton Ave. They a had the new releases up on the wall and a listening booth. It hardly mattered if there was a picture sleeve. The object was desirable even when packed in a company sleeve. I share Kevin Patrick‘s enthusiasm for the 45 but on a little league scale by comparison. I continued buying 45s at Record Theater through the eighties when Martin Edic worked there. And we just ordered one from Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric. I’m glad the album format is dead. Very few bands can manage a good one any more. Single downloads from blogs or the iTunes store works fine for me.

We knew “Live Dive” as going to be the last cd Margaret Explosion released before we put it out. We’re going to have to find something else to do with our band money. I reworked the Margaret Explosion site over the last few weeks and we started posting singles to the MP3 Downloads page. It’s kind of fun making the picture sleeves and then giving away the songs. Is this what they call “the race to the bottom” as a business model?

I wish the new HTML standards would just hurry up and get here. Bob Martin emailed from Paris to wish us luck at our gig tonight. (Jack Schaefer will be sitting in for him) Bob couldn’t see the little Flash players on his iPhone so he couldn’t listen to the songs on the site. The new built-in-to-browser music player works fine in Safari and WebKit but the other browsers aren’t ready for it. I would love to put that little player in the page. And only Safari (and WebKit) can see the rounded corners and drop shadows that I put on the main white div of the new Margaret Explosion site.

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Roots Are Showing

Shelley skating on marsh in the Adirondacks
Shelley skating on marsh in the Adirondacks

We found Shelley wearing her Refrigerator Hat while skating on the marsh when we arrived at their home in the Adirondacks. She looked every bit as good as the Olympian figure skaters we watched tonight on TV. I don’t think Channel 10 is doing itself any favors running their weatherman commercials with the global warming denier/meteorologist, Kevin Williams while it rains in Vancouver. And Bob Costa’s wig looks pretty bad in hi def. Speedskater Apolo Ohno looked damned good though. The Short-track has been our favorite event so far.

We tried skiing like the mogul skiers today, holding our knees together as we zipped through the woods. We need some more snow. The roots are starting show through the snow.

I finally gave in and ordered the Luc Tuyman book from his show at SFMOMA. I’ve been obsessing over it for weeks now. Amazon had it for thirty seven bucks. I’m wondering how the pages of art books are going to look on the iPad. This may be the last art book I buy.

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Better Left Unsaid

Tiny snowman on trail in Durand Eastman Park in Rochester, NY
Tiny snowman on trail in Durand Eastman Park in Rochester, NY

I love this quote from J. D. Salinger. “Most stuff that is genuine is better left unsaid.”

There was a lot left unsaid in the movie we saw last night at the Dyden Theater. The lead character walked down the street in the opening scene and Peggi and I both leaned toward one another and said, “Brad” (a friend of ours). The movie was made in Uruguay but could have been set anywhere in the world. The heavy metal tinged love story was universal. The main character was a store detective like our niece. They watch shoppers and employees on video cameras that can zoom and focus on a nose picker (according to our niece). There was very little dialog in the movie but we got the picture.

We came across this tiny little snowman today on one of our favorite ski trails. I stopped to take a photo and a snowboarder whizzed by me. We could use some snow. Our neighbor told us 49 states in the union had snow. We’ve got some,enough for skiing, but I’d like to see the three feet they have in Pennsylvania.

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Freeze Or Die

Man climbing ice mountain
Man climbing ice mountain

I took this shot from the driver’s seat of our car. I stopped right in the middle of the road to grab it. We were somewhere between Keene and Keene Valley, just south of Lake Placid in the mountains and I glanced up at the frozen waterfall on the mountain to our left and spotted this moving figure!

I’m guessing this guy started at the bottom and was trying to get to the top without dying. In the full photo I can see another figure at the bottom and there are some ropes visible. If that was me up there I would be frozen in sheer terror.

Speaking of extreme activities – there is a new wireless network in our neighborhood. It shows up as “Corpus Silicosum “and I’m guessing it belongs to the skateboarder down the hill. I goggled it but it is that rare combination of words, unique and unindexed, left completely to the imagination.

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Redefining Happiness

Peggi Fournier with guitar
Peggi Fournier with guitar

Now we’re stuck on that BOC song. The lyrics do dovetail nicely with Peggi’s birthday. Stop out at the Little Theater Café tonight and celebrate with Margaret Explosion. We have ordered a cake which we will share during the break. Happy Birthday Peggi!

Listen to Margaret Explosion – Live Dive

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Don’t Fear The Reaper

Dog sled on Mirror Lake in Lake Placid New York
Dog sled on Mirror Lake in Lake Placid New York

We celebrated Peggi’s birthday with Pete and Shelley in the mountains and for some reason we got fixed on the BOC song. I really never paid much attention to the lyrics. I never do. I guess I look for other stuff in a song. Shelley pointed out how powerful this line is. “Seasons don’t fear the reaper. Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain..we can be like they are. We can! “None of us could come up with the rest of the lyrics but that didn’t stop Pete from banging out a version on acoustic guitar. We had such a good time we forgot our pillows.

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Cross Country Slackers

Bob sled painting at the Lake View Motel in Lake Placid, New York
Bob sled painting at the Lake View Motel in Lake Placid, New York

Would love to be in San Francisco for the opening of the Luc Tuymans show. They showed a few luscious paintings of his (one of a gas chamber) in a review in Sunday’s Times. But I’m not complaining. We have wifi access at the Lake Side Motel in Lake Placid New York and the Saints are winning. Kind of funny that the town of Lake Placid is not on Lake Placid. It’s on Mirror Lake. Lake Placid, the lake, is next door. The Olympics were held here in 1980 and some members of the US team are training here now. It’s fourteen degrees outside and they have real snow here unlike Vancouver.

We skied in the woods for a while this afternoon and then skied out on Mirror Lake at sunset before settling in at the bar for a local brew and the pregame show. Every other vehicle on the way up here was towing a trailer with a couple of sleds and we spotted snowmobiles darting across the road everywhere. If snowmobiling is a sport it has to be the most popular one up here. We had dinner with a bunch of Canadians downhill skiers. They kept slipping into French so we couldn’t understand what they were saying. They are going to be out on the slopes at 8 in the morning. They made us cross country skiers feel like slackers.

Our motel overlooks the lake and has some pretty cool artwork in the halls (above). We plan to head over to Pete and Shelley‘s neck of the woods tomorrow where we’ll celebrate a significant birthday for Peggi.

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Patriotic Drinking

Mayor of Durand trappings
Mayor of Durand trappings

We knew we were going to run into the man child Mayor of Durand today. And sure enough, we heard him and his buddy coming down the hill before we saw them. We chatted, lamenting that the fact that the big storm was going to miss us. Peggi thinks these guys are Viet Nam vets but I think they’re too young. Maybe just vets. They have little flags on their sleds like there is something patriotic about drinking beer in the park and sledding.

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Fine Line Between Bad And Good

Julianna Furlong Williams painting at Rochester Contemporary

I think most painters would agree that there is a fine line between bad and good. You can be hating what you’re looking at and then make just the right move, one adjustment even, and the whole thing looks good. Not that this has anything to do with Juliana Furlong Williams‘ painting above. This is nothing but good. It was so nice to walk into RoCo last night see all those red dots. Juliana sold eight pieces at around $1000 each.

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This Is A Series

Paul Dodd painting submissions to Lucy Burne Show at MAG 2010
Paul Dodd painting submissions to Lucy Burne Show at MAG 2010

Philip Guston is quoted as saying, “I imagine wanting to paint as a cave man would. . . I should like to paint like a man who has never seen a painting.” Sort of like Sandra Bernhard in King of Comedy which played on the big screen last night at the Dryden Theater. Her character, Masha, wanted to be black.

I submitted the paintings shown above to a show in the Lucy Burne Gallery at the MAG. The upcoming show is called, “This is a Series” so it is right up my alley since I have stuck in a rut.

Last night I was thinking about how I would like to paint and I had this mental picture of a head that had so much volume in it that I wanted to kick it like soccer ball. Duane from Lowel has been pushing me to use a back lighting technique on my subjects to illuminate the edges and provide 3d relief against a dark background.I am ready for a breakthrough.

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Too Many Things In The World

Margaret Explosion "Snowshoes" featuring Jack Schaefer
Margaret Explosion “Snowshoes” featuring Jack Schaefer

I have been getting into production of a modern version of the 45rpm record and I’m talking about the American version with the big hole not the English version with that contraption in the middle. The new versions are iPod ready complete with cover art and minimal info in the tags. I’ve been going with “psychedelic jazz” in the “Genre” section of iTunes. I’ve done about twenty of these things and we’ll eventually get them up on the Margaret Explosion page for downloads. We will probably record tonight and maybe come home with new single.

The conceptual artist, Tino Sehgal, who believes “there are too many things in the world” has a show at the Guggenheim in New York that I would love see. If only we had that high speed train that the politicians bee talking about. I read about the show here. Conceptual art is smart and the smarter it is the better it is. Plus it must be easier than painting.

We had take out Chinese with Peggi’s mom the other night and her fortune read, “Failures are opportunities”. Coincidentally, I have decided to make an effort to learn from my mistakes.

It might be out of boredom or maybe it’s my risk taking appetite for adventure but I don’t make things easy. Instead of buckling down and making considered moves in an orderly direction I have a tendency to throw too many things on my plate forcing a hand full of distractions and problems of my own making. There is a method, as laid out by my painting intstructor, Fred Lpp, and I cannot argue with it. Start with a plan but be ready to chuck it. Evaluate what you have down after every move. Always address the worst first and when there are no problems, you’re done. It could be so easy. Boldly proceed with caution.

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Don’t Trample On This

New path to explore in the woods
New path to explore in the woods

It is so exhilarating to come across a new path in the woods. We drove over near the clubhouse in Durand and parked our car along Kings Highway so we could ski off into the undeveloped western part of park. We’ve been over here before and we’re always surprised how big this park is. We are still able to explore and get lost and that is a wonderful feeling.

John Gilmore brought an Andy Warhol movie over on Saturday night. It was more than I needed to know about his sex life. Give the guy a little respect. You wouldn’t even be in this movie if it wasn’t for Andy. It was called the “The Complete Picture” so we were warned. Had some great footage of the early hand drawn pop days and paintings that were painted rather than screened. Kind of old fashioned. The thing that bothered me the most was having someone read Andy’s words. The producers didn’t have access to real recordings so an actor read quotes out of “A to B and Back Again” or “The Philosophy of” I couldn’t even listen to what they were reading, the voice was so not Andy. I wouldn’t think that any one who ever heard his voice would trample on it. Don’t even get me started on Bowie’s portrayal in the Basquiat movie. Warhol had a distinctive, delicate and charming speaking voice. You didn’t know whether to take the words at face value or look for the philosophical twists. Same experience as looking at his art.

Our neighbors bought a new tv yesterday and I helped set it up. I came back across the street to paint and I heard later that Rick was only able to get dvd picture in black and white only. I guess I plugged one of the yellow cables in the wrong spot. Rick picked up a “District 9” to christen the thing with and he popped the corn. It is a sci-fi mocumentary and I found it hard to get a look at the aliens with all those squirmy thing attached to their face. And I didn’t give a hoot about the lead character so I fell asleep – in someone else’s house. I can’t wait to hear if our friends on the west coast liked it or not. I saw it on their NetFlix list.

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How Do You Like Me Now?

Peggi getting her eyes examined at Dr. Goodfriend's office
Peggi getting her eyes examined at Dr. Goodfriend’s office Rochester, NY

Peggi and I had back to back eye exams today at Doctor Goodfriend’s. His partner, Doctor Searl is the father of Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad’s bassist, Jamie. The Dub Squad’s playing in Buffalo tonight at the Nietzsche’s in Buffalo. Not a good night to drive to Buffalo. We used to play Nietzsche’s back in the eighties. It’s a funky old club in a quiet part of town, nothing like the rough and tumble Continental. Nice warm sound to the room. I really liked the place.

Joan Weissegger and Cheryl Mitchell, two classmates from Rl Thomas came out to see Margaret Explosion last night. I saw them chatting with another classmate, Mike Allen AKOS, while we were playing. Yet another classmate, Jeff Munson, is usually there but he’s in Mexico. It’s kind of odd how you get thrown together in high school and then see these same people for your whole life. That kind of thing happens in Rochester.

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There Is Still Time

Beer cans lined up at the door
Beer cans lined up at the door

Now that the snow is gone, the beer cans are starting to come out down on Hoffman Road. We’re not really sure who is dumping all these. We have speculated wildly and even suspected neighbors but who knows. I bring them home so I don’t have to look at them, that and I collect the five cents. I don’t think kids would be so stuck on the Budweiser brand. And they wouldn’t always throw them in the same place. This seems like the work of an obsessive alcoholic, as if there is any other kind.

Well, I signed up to be notified when the iPad becomes available. I read so much hype and speculation about the product that the movie on Apple’s site looked like a spoof. I’m guessing Bob Martin will already have an iPad when get to the Little for tonight’s gig.

Brad Fox sent me one of those small 33 1/i books on Trout Mask Replica and the behind the scenes tales of that seminal Captain Beefheart lp were really interesting. I noticed a few other books from this series on the shelf at Duane‘s place in Brooklyn so I asked if I could borrow a them. I read “Low” first and learned that David Bowie was a bit of Nazi nut. So it came as no surprise when Quentin Tarantino used Bowie’s Cat People Theme (Putting Out Fire) in Inglourious Basterds. It seemed everything was borrowed in that movie and then I heard the movie itself was a remake. I dug out our 45 of that song and it sounded fantastic, best thing in that movie, the theme song from another movie.

I’m reading Joe Harvard’s (sounds like a made up name) 33 1/3 book on The Velvet Underground and Nico and loving it. Next up is Exile on Main Street and then I might have to buy one. Bruce Eaton has written one on Big Star and it includes a passage on Pete LaBonne. I never caught on to Big Star in the day but I guess there is still time.

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Crime Face Attraction

Crime face from Crimestopper’s page in Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

This mornings paper had an article about how Arthur Shawcross died of neglect while serving his life sentence. Sounds like someone found a way to trim the New York State budget. The article described Shawcross one of New York’s worst serial killer (I was trying to recall the best). And it reminded readers that noted crime author, Jack Olsen, wrote a book about him. Peggi reads true crime and thought that was a particularly good book.

I guess we share some sort of fascination with crime. I worked as a graphic artist for the Rochester Police, pulling mug shots for a memorable year, and I usually use that as my excuse. I’ve been painting mug shots from the paper on and off for many years now and I keep going through phases where I question why I paint these people. It doesn’t really help their plight and most people would rather not look at the paintings so what is the point? – That sort of questioning. I find these faces a lot more interesting than happy smily people, more interesting than good looking models, more interesting than poseurs although many of these people may be just that. It’s meaty material and there is probably no more to it than a preference for either C.S.I. or that Charlie Sheen show.

The last Crimestoppers page in our paper was in December and I just got around to scanning it. The photos are only thumbnail size in the paper and I discovered it helps to have a little bit bigger source so I print them out a larger size. Most of these people rather unattractive but every once and a while there is a looker like this 22 year old wanted for Grand Larceny.

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Sort Of Early Adaptors

Snow pile on deck out back
Snow pile on deck out back

We usually have a January thaw but fifty degrees is ridiculous. That glacier above, what’s left from the snow I shoveled off our roof, used to be the size of a truck. I have our iTouch set to check temps in five locations, Madrid, New York, San Francisco, Rochester and Paradox (up in the Adirondacks). Today Madrid was the coldest at 39 and New York the warmest at 55. I had to “restore” my iTouch because since my nephew put all these apps on it I kept getting a message that said I wasn’t authorized to update. I found that I could get my purchased apps back by pretending to buy them again and then clicking “Yes” when it it says “You have already bought these. Do you want to download them again for free”.

Our charge card gives us points that we can use at big box stores and we were thing about picking up one of the Apple Tablets when they get announced. We could use it as a reader I presume and I’m looking forward to drawing on it. We are sort of early adaptors and I know that comes with some risk. I say “sort of” because we still don’t have a cell phone (“refuseniks”) but we did buy the first iPod and we still have it in our car. We bought one of the first home computers, an Atari 1040 and we bought the first Walkman cassette player. It was made of metal and it had two headphone jacks on it. Peggi and I kept getting tangled up in the thing. And we’d each decide to go around different sides of a utility pole and get the headphones ripped out.

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Spinning Your Wheels

We had dinner across the street last night and the conversation turned to jobs, benefits and long term care. I won’t name any names but a teacher was grumbling about all the work involved with trying to stay one step ahead of students while correcting the mountain of papers from previous assignments. A former teacher expressed the numbing tediousness of correcting the same mistakes by different students over and over again. A museum worker said it was nice to walk out of the place and leave the job behind at the end of the day. And the web designers were assessing their lot. A career that will not stand still, that demands new, better but more complicated solutions all the time. Spending days and sometimes whole weeks between paychecks keeping up with new css, html, php and mysql standards while finding your own benefit packages.

We retired to the tv room for “Alfred Hitchcock Presents Season 3, Disc 4” and all was right with the world.

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Why I Hate The Beatles

Today’s paper had a picture of “Rain” doing their Beatles tribute. I guess they are in town at the Auditorium. It was one of those dreamlike pictures where the people sort of look like somebody you know and you stare at it but something is off.

Maybe my perception was altered by the dream Peggi told me about this morning. We had a big party and my brother and sister-in-law’s RIT buddies were all here with my family. I was thinking, “we don’t really know these RIT buddies.” My mom sat on the coffee table that my brother built and it broke so my brother tried to fix it. Maybe it was the Vox amps in that picture but something triggered “From Me To You” and that damn thing was stuck in my head.

I went to Kevin’s blog hoping to cleanse my mind but he didn’t have a fresh post up there. He has some cool links to other music blogs so I followed a few and bought an Amy Rigby/Wreckless Eric 45 with PayPal bucks, the perfect audio antidote.

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