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Crash Boom Bang

Mysore Woodlands Indian restaurant in Rochester, NY
Mysore Woodlands Indian restaurant in Rochester, NY

Arpad and Danita’s son turned six on Saturday and about twenty kids met at the martial arts studio on Clinton for a party. They were all out on the mat doing double kicks when we showed up. We had a slice of pizza and some walnut cake that Arpad’s mother made but we were still hungry when we left so we followed our noses next door to Mysore Woodlands. It’s kind of a strange name for a restaurant. “Mysore” is nasty and “Woodlands” sounds like a park. Boasting that they specialize in both northern and southern Indian food is plain goofy. We ordered dosas from the southern side. It is amazing how potatoes, beans, pancakes and crepes can be supercharged with spices. We loved it.

Monica was away for the weekend so we invited Rick over to watch a movie. He brought the movie too. It was a James Bond thing called “Quantum of Solace”. Jack White and Alicia Keys sang the theme song and then the chase scenes started. I couldn’t tell who was chasing who. Most of the movie was chase scenes and fights. The cutting was so fast and furious that I could,’t tell which guy was James Bond. I gave up on the movie and started ripping some cds. The movie was loud as hell, all screaming and crunching and crashing.

I was in the dark over by the stereo and I tripped on the audio cord yanking the old laptop off the shelf and then the external drive which was connected to it with a short Firewire cable. The cd that I was ripping bounced out of the laptop when it hit the floor. Peggi stopped the movie while I assessed the damage. The cable was shot, the cd drive won’t read a cd anymore but the laptop and hard drive survived.

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I Like Light Leaks

Andrew Meyer photo used on the cover of Margaret Explosion's "Live Dive" cdLiveDivePhoto
Andrew Meyer photo used on the cover of Margaret Explosion’s “Live Dive” cdLiveDivePhoto

Following in the footsteps of Robert Frank, our nephew, Andrew, has been slowly driving across the US in his Toyota pickup, stopping wherever he likes to take photos. Favorite state so far – Nevada. It seems to have been a perfect match for his acute, observant sensibilities and that state’s raw material. He started in the bay area and is now in Rochester with a box of slides. He’s old school and is currently using a Canon 35mm with a manual light meter that overexposed his full western sunshine photos. They appear to have been taken on another planet, making them all the more startling. When we were setting up the Kodak projector I spotted a carousal of slides labeled “Porches” that I took back when I was about his age. Photos I took as I wandered around nearby downtown neighborhoods on my lunch looking at people’s porches. I threw them on only to confirm how good he is.

We saw some photos of prints of his on display in a gallery in Oakland and we chose two of them for the newest Margaret Explosion cd. The one above, the San Francisco Bay, was taken with a medium format Holga.

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Artist Statement

We sent our next Margaret Explosion cd off for duplication and I submitted the new tunes to CDDB through iTunes. I had to pick a category for the type of music it is before it would allow me to submit so I chose “Jazz” from the short list. In the iTunes application however you have a much longer list and you can even make up your own categories. I don’t usually think about describing our music until I’m in situations like this. I found a category in there called “Psychedelic Jazz” and pretty much works. I didn’t know there was such a thing.

There is a student show up over at the Creative Workshop and the director asked us to write a short blurb about what it is that inspired us to paint whatever it is we painted. Most art types balk at describing their work because the work is supposed to do the talking. Some people, though, love “Artist’s Statements” and long descriptions or histories of the artists. At many shows these days the placards next to the painting severely detract from the work.

That being said, I did spend some time thinking about why I paint what I do. And I came up with a succinct, two word statement of my inspiration. “Human Nature”. I am interested in exploring why I am drawn to the subject matter of my choice. I am interested in creating a dialog about this subject through the work and then I’m interested in how people around me react to what I put down.

They didn’t use my artist statement and that’s fine.

Here’s Pete LaBonne’s track “Artist Statement” from his Earring Records cd entitled “Glob”.

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OK, It’s Our Fault

Alligator Tree
Alligator Tree

We take our favorite walking path a lot less often since Bulldozer Man drove through the park with his workers and heavy equipment. That path is now a road so we’ve been heading out in new directions and running into some interesting animals. We came across this alligator log this morning.

And a few weeks back we came head to head with a dog on a path in Durand. The dog wasn’t backing down and Peggi was about to turn around and go back. It kept coming toward us, growling and barking. I figured an owner was probably nearby so I yelled out, “Call your dog”. Nobody did but the dog turned and left us alone. A little further down the path we ran into the owner with the dog now on a leash. The owner said, “Don’t worry. This dog won’t bite you”. And then he let the dog come toward us while still on the leash and he told us to look into the dogs eyes. He said, “You can tell if a dog is going to hurt you by looking into their eyes.” Please.

Today we had confrontation with Jagger who lives near the park. He and his owners were outside and just like before the dog came running toward us. The owners call, “Jagger, Jagger” but Jagger keeps coming toward us. We hold our hands in the air because we have seen what dogs’ teeth can do to your hands and we wait for the owner to grab ahold of the dog. Then they say, “Don’t worry. He won’t hurt you”. But today they upped the ante and said, “he doesn’t do this to everybody”. He’s really very friendly. I said “OK. It’s our fault.”

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Existential Circles

Paul laying on the stage at MUCCC
Paul laying on the stage at MUCCC

I wiki’d “existentialism” because I was quite sure I was having an existential crisis. Kierkegaard maintained that the individual solely has the responsibilities of giving one’s own life meaning and living that life passionately and sincerely, in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and boredom.

I painted all day yesterday and went around in circles. The world does not need another painting, I don’t need another painting but I want to do a painting that works. I would get a kick out of that.

Today, we stopped in at Deb Jones’ 40th Birthday Mexican Brunch and talked to Steve Grills about a funky little place out on 441 called Cary Lake. 1940’s style, combination party house and bar, f-u-N-k-y. He payed there with his band and loved it. Iggy Pop’s new album was on. It didn’t sound so adventurous. Iggy can do what ever he wants. I thought it was going to be wilder.

Then headed over get to MuCCC to play a set at a memorial event for Steve Letkauskas, a friend of Bob’s. Steve’s brother, Tom, said, “Time showed kindness and grace when it ushered Steve into the the warm embrace of eternity.”I bought my djembe and played that and we did some pretty cool dirges. Peggi took this photo after the event.

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Terrorism Or Tragic Shooting

Dead deer in the woods
Dead deer in the woods

I borrowed that headline from a news item on our Google homepage. It came from the “Fair and Balanced” folks and they followed it up with, “Analysts Divided on Ft. Hood Shooting.” Fox would love to stoke that fire.

We did wonder what it was that took this big buck down. It was right in the middle of our path on the other side of the creek so there was no avoiding it. I don’t make the rules out there and sometimes it’s grizzly. We have heard coyotes at night and we saw one a while back so suspect them. Then again maybe it was a hunter. The town hires bowmen to thin the herds. Nature sure is efficient in cleaning up the carcass. I doubt if it was terrorism but it was definitely tragic.

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Black Magic

Teeth Xray
Teeth Xray

I usually say “no said “ok” today went for the surround X-ray today because the equipment was brand new and the hygienist told me it was about as much radiation as I would get outdoors if it was sunny. In fact the whole office is brand new. My dentist had to move because a company bought the building he was in so they could put up a Walgreens. The town voted down the Walgreens but my dentist had already moved. His new place has TVs everywhere and a coffee machine that makes one cup at at time of the brew of your choice. I chose “Black Magic”. It was so good I had another one on the way out. Did I tell you my dentist’s name is Rocco and his son named his Italian restaurant after him? We ate there and I had Chicken Cacciatore as good as Charlie Coco’s mother used to make.

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Face2Face Blogging

Peggi in hammock out back western New York
Peggi in hammock out back western New York

Spevak columns, written on assignment for the D&C, work well on a few levels. Slyly reported with descriptive delight, they often do the job without touching the subject and they always carry weight between the lines. So what does an untethered, bedroom slippered Jeff read like? JeffSpevak.com was launched yesterday in old school fashion, upstairs at Abilene. The 4D designed site was projected on the big screen and food was laid out at three stations. Manchego cheese, candy corn, chocolate covered expresso beans and out-of-this-world, smoked salmon prepared by the blogger-in-chief.

I talked baseball with Scott Regan, MySQL with Stan the Man, juggling with Don Christiano’s son, and lucrative Montauk and the Hamptons gigs with Brian Williams. Dale Evans discussed her exercise routine and Peter and Nancy told us why they’re moving to Portland. There’s more going on there. I can’t handle any more.

In his “Opening Day” post Jeff writes, “Thank You for joining me on the Internet. I’d rather we could do this face-to-face, sitting in a bar. Nonetheless, I shall have a dirty martini, thank you. And The Essential George Jones.” That, in a nut shell, is his site map. I’ve added Jeff’s site to my daily reads and I’m looking forward to joining him at the bar over “A Cup Of Loneliness“.

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Dia De Los Muertos

Concrete forms in Irondequoit cemetery
Concrete forms in Irondequoit cemetery

Peggi went a Halloween party last night and we were some of the only people there without a costume. We tried to find the two frog masks that we wore to a party a long time ago but couldn’t find them. I remember that get up sort of pissed people off back then because we didn’t know most of the people and they couldn’t see our faces.

Scott Regan was a dead on Bela Lugosi and Sue dressed like Scott. Soupy Sales was there and the hostess, Claire, was a pretty good Amy Winehouse. Jeff and Mary Kaye had the best looking costumes on as far as I was concerned. I wouldn’t have recognized them if they didn’t speak. They wore hand painted, white cloth skeleton faces and black formal wear, classic Day of the Dead figures. The party had a theme, “Night of the Living Pies”, so Peggi made a cherry pie with a face on it. There was an obscene amount of pie on the counter when we left.

Kevin Patrick did a Zombies entry on the Day of the Dead and mentioned that he wanted to get a Zombies post on his blog before he croaked. When David Greenberger was here he told us he had been thinking about his own mortality lately. Not surprising in his line of work. I spotted some guys working on what looked like a giant casket in Irondequoit Cemetery as I rode my bike by so I pulled in to take a closer look. It turned out to be a form for a concrete structure that will hold urns. They are just about out of space over there so the only way to go is up. It got me thinking about where I would want my ashes scattered. I don’t want to put anyone out. I’ll have to think about this for a while.

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Arthur Shawcross Country

View of Genesee River from trail on Saimt Paul side of the river.

Our neighbor was was asking us if we had ever taken the trail that runs along the river on the Saint Paul Boulevard side. We said we had taken the trail on the other side but we didn’t know there was one on the east side. We parked at the north end of the zoo and headed through the woods down to the river. This is near where serial killer, Arthur Shawcross did his thing and the trail is a little forlorn but it is beautiful. We didn’t make it down to the lake but we had some stunning views of the river valley. It still looks pretty much the way it must have to the native Americans.

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Ready To Pop

Horse chestnut ready to pop

I think this is a horse Chestnut. I found it in the woods a few days ago and photographed it before putting it on put it on our window sill. Why do artists even bother to compete with nature? This morning while I was making coffee the chestnut rolled out of its shell, off the sill, on to the floor and down the basement steps. Our cat ran after it.

Speaking of explosions, Margaret Explosion plays our last October gig tonight. I’m hoping to be home in time to see the Yankees beat the Phillies.

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Nobody Gonna Take No Picnic Table

Pond at Durand Eastman Park
Pond at Durand Eastman Park

I have a hard time being on time and I accept the fact that it is a selfish trait. But I do appreciate it when others are late for something that I schedule. This morning I was late for jury duty. I had a good excuse but those are easy. Peggi was driving me because she needed the car. The new traffic circle at Seneca Road and 590 was closed, no detour signs or warning until we got up to the “Road Closed” sign. We tried getting on at Titus but it was backed up for half a mile so we gave up and drove down Culver. When we got to Court Street, it was closed so they could unload the World Wrestling tractor trailers for tonight’s performance at the Blue Cross Arena. I removed my belt, emptied my pockets and took off my sweater but still set off the alarm at the Hall of Justice. I gave up my watch and then my wallet and I still beeped. They brought over the the guards with the hand held wands and they determined it was the snap on my Levis. I sat down in the court room and asked the woman next to me if they had called anyone’s name who wasn’t there and she asked, “Are you Paul Dodd?”

I watched as they found their last jury member and I was excused for another eight years. I was wrong when I said these lawyers were looking for blank slates. After two days I have no idea what they were looking for. It did seem obvious that the defense was determined to find one person who could doubt eye witness testimony and the cops statements and then stick to their guns even though the rest of the jury felt differently.

I hopped on my bike as another guy on a bike said, “Hey Bro. Where’d you lock your bike up at?” I said, “I locked to that picnic table over there.” He smiled and said, “I don’t think nobody gonna take no picnic table.”

I rode down Monroe Avenue past KrudCo and the Bug Jar to Lumierre Photo where Bill Jones is printing a post card for us. I stopped by Parkleigh to visit my sister but she hadn’t showed up for work yet. I cruised through the Public Market and bought some new red potatoes. And then I rode down Clifford to Savoia Bakery and bought some almond cookies for Peggi. I recognized the woman behind the counter and asked her if she used to work at Calabresse’s Bakery on Culver. She said, “Wow! I guess I don’t look all that different.” I was too embarrassed to tell her she was featured in a song we wrote for the Planetarium Gig in 1987. She was the girl in the bakery with silver fingernails!

Personal Effects “Silver Finger Nails” from “90 Day In The Planetarium” 1987

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Speed Dating

Dead tree gestures in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, NY
Dead tree gestures in Durand Eastman Park, Rochester, NY

I headed downtown for jury duty this morning with my bike in the car. I wanted to save the parking fees so I left the car at the Village Gate and rode to the Hall of Justice. I couldn’t find a bike rack in vast Public Safety courtyard so I locked it to a picnic table. I joined about two hundred people in a big room and we watched a twenty minute video, narrated by Sixty Minute man, Ed Bradley, on the New York State jury system. He covered a lot of ground from Medieval “Trial by Ordeal” to Perry Mason. About seventy of us were assigned to a judge’s courtroom on another floor so we marched up there and they began the jury selection process.

They called fourteen people at a time and sat them in the jury booth. The public defender described this phase as being like “speed dating”. The people’s attorney asked potential jurors questions like, “Do you think CSI and Law & Order are real or scripted?” “Do you realize that I am not an actor and that there are no extras in this courtroom?” “Do you realize that this is real and not scripted?” One guy said his father was a cop and he would be biased. He was excused. A woman said her hobby was gambling and she was not chosen. My hobby is painting crime faces from the newspaper but I haven’t been interviewed yet. Four jurors were selected by the time we broke for lunch. I rode my bike over to Rochester Art Supply to buy some white paint.

It is becoming clear that I am not jury material. I don’t know why exactly. It is just a hunch. I am a victim of a crime (several), have been accused of a crime, have a few lawyers in my family and I worked for the police department. I don’t know what way any of these factors slant but they seem to be looking for blank slates. By the end of the day they were still one short for a jury so they recessed until tomorrow.

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It’s Only Paint

Paul Dodd paintings of Homeless Kids on the back porch

I met a group of kids at a Rochester shelter for the homeless and photographed them while we shared pizza. I did a series of paintings of the kids and was asked to display them at a charity auction last night at Monroe Golf Club. The paintings were still wet when I photographed them on our back porch yesterday. They were arranged on easels at the entrance to the party room last night and looked completely out of place in the country club setting.

We sampled wine from a local liquor store, ate olives from the party tray and listened to The Greg Clark Four play a set of original cocktail jazz. Peggi and I were the only ones who clapped at the end of their songs. I had my eye on an autographed Abby Wambach soccer ball that was in the silent auction and was happy to see it go out my range.

We packed up the paintings and headed over to the Memorial Art Gallery for the opening of “Paint Made Flesh“. Ran into Lorraine, Geri, John, Maureen and Susan from my painting class along with our teacher, Fred. The opening is not the time to see the paintings but a perfect time to celebrate them. This was a pretty good turnout for what is apparently a tough show for a lot of people. Who would have guessed that this morning’s paper would use “Disturbing”, “Harrowing” and “Anguish” in lead ins and headlines for their coverage of this show. It’s only paint for crying out loud. I plan to visit this show a few times in the next month.

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Accept Christ Or

Wounded hawk in the woods
Wounded hawk in the woods

I wonder if I was the only one who fell for the Webster Dental Group’s ad blitz. Their “Free Seminar on Dental Implants” ad ran nearly everyday and I heard a radio spot as well. I have two back teeth that need to come out so I called the number and made a reservation. The receptionist said there would be free refreshments there too. I was picturing sweet stuff. I dropped Peggi off at her mom’s and drove across East Rochester and out Five Mile Line Road to Webster in the middle of rush hour to get to the seminar. It took me a half hour to get across town. I forgot my iPod so I fiddled with the radio and came across an interesting segment on spanking children. It was a Christian program and a woman was giving tips to the host. The host delighted in this subject and kept snickering when the woman described graduating from the bare hand (when becomes clear that it is not inflicting enough pain) to the wooden spoon (she keeps a few hidden about the house). And talked about a friend who had a “special, ten inch leather strap” made for herb that “really cracks”. She said, “Of course after we spank, we pray together and we tell the children that someday we hope they will learn to accept Christ as their savior.”

I finally got to the Holiday Inn in Webster and there was a small sign on an easel in the doorway announcing the seminar. I asked the receptionist where it was being held and she said that it was cancelled. I asked how come and said that was all they told her. They could have called me, the creeps. Guess I can forget about that place.

I drove back to Peggi’s mom’s place and found them having dinner in the Bistro. Lorraine from my painting class was there with her relatives. We watched the Yankees’ game after dinner and kept her mom up til the bitter end.

We came across this wounded hawk in the woods today. We were concerned because it was so close but as walked further it flew overhead.

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Head On

Philip Guston "Web" 1975 on view at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY in "Paint Made Flesh" show.
Philip Guston “Web” 1975 on view at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY in “Paint Made Flesh” show.

“Paint Made Flesh” originated at the Frist Center in Nashville and then stopped at the Philips Collection in DC before arriving at the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester. It features an all star lineup of top-shelf, painter’s work from 1952 to 2006. I was asked to make some short comments on the painting of my choice. The MAG sent me the tiniest jpegs of the collection and I spotted Philip Guston’s “Web” painting in there so I claimed it. I had seen this painting at the Modern when they had their sensational Guston retrospective a few years back. I was given a brief opportunity to preview this show at the MAG (It opens this Saturday) and it will be an overwhelming treat for painters.

I used my smoothest delivery to record these comments for their audio tour. It can be accessed at the show with your cell phone.

I’m Paul Dodd and I’m happy to say a few words about Philip Guston’s painting entitled “Web”.

After a very successful run as a painter of gorgeous abstracts, Philip Guston decided that he wanted to “tell stories” and he returned to the figure. These late paintings are blunt, humorous and dark. Here he depicts himself face down on the ground, his monstrous, bloodshot eye has looked too much or seen too much yet he is still looking, eye wide open. He poured his entire life into painting and and he confronted it head on. He recognized the absurdity of it all and had the graphic skills to express it, often painting about the act of painting itself.

You have to move back a bit to take in the scope of this landscape, the dramatic advance of the spiders capitalizing on the artist’s inertia and the blood pool that stops abruptly and floats in transparent space while his wife, Musa, his life-affirming source, pops up at his side.

I find Guston’s late work to be heroic in its openness and thrilling in its directness. I hope you enjoy it.

Now if I had a cell phone I could hear it back.

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Man Improves Nature

Fallen tree in Spring Valley before Mr. Bulldozer Man
Fallen tree in Spring Valley before Bulldozer Man plowed a mud highway through one of the prettiest parts of Durand Eastman Park

When I retire I might just hang around the hall of Justice all day. There are so many interesting characters coming and going, court workers, lawyers, the cops and undercover cops, the gang bangers, the accused and their families, the judges and Bulldozer Man. Today’s proceedings were pretty swift. Two lawyers huddled with Judge Elliot. There was some chuckling involved but we couldn’t quite hear what was being said. Monroe County’s attorney wants restitution and Bulldozer Man’s attorney argued that his client was only doing improvements to the park. A new court date was set for 1:30 on November 10th. The fallen tree above is no longer lying across the path through Durand Eastman Park. The BullDozer Man and his crew removed it before they plowed their new mud highway through one of the prettiest parts of the woods.

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Give It Up For Clarence

Jackie or Jill's wagon on floor as our house was being built
Jackie or Jill’s wagon on floor as our house was being built

Clarence Meyer stopped by to visit us and the Don Hershey house that he built in the the nineteen forties. Clarence is 97 now and this is his third visit since we have lived here. He had both of his daughters with him this time, one form Ohio and one from California. If you click on the photo above you can see the girl’s wagon in the foreground while Clarence is up on a ladder smoking a pipe as his wife hands him some nails.

It has been such a pleasure getting to know the guy who built our house, to be able to ask him questions about the construction and to hear his stories about the architect and the materials used. The war years were a tough time to be building a new house for a young family so Clarence did most of the work himself. And he didn’t cut any corners while carrying out the architect’s labor intensive, special touches. He is so delighted to see someone in the house who appreciates all his work and he’s thrilled to see the small updates we’ve done. He is an inspiration to us.

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Save The Redwoods

Dawn Redwood in Durand Eastman Park
Dawn Redwood in Durand Eastman Park

Frederick Law Olmsted designed three parks in Rochester but he was already dead by the time Durand Eastman was developed. Durand Eastman is celebrating it’s one hundredth birthday this year. We spotted an announcement in the paper for a tree tour on Sunday so we walked over there and met near the old zoo.

The guides were very knowledgeable and pleasant, the weather was perfect and the park looked beautiful. A couple from California were there expecting to see some Fall color but but because we are so close to the lake the trees are only beginning to change color. Funny that you have to go south a bit to see the change. This Dawn Redwood was thought to be extinct until a Japanese botanist rediscovered the Chinese tree in the forties. This tree was panted with a seed from that Redwood and it has already grown this big.

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Common Sense

Note from our neighbor posted on our front window
Note from our neighbor posted on our front window

As old as our neighbor is he still gets up before us. And this morning we found this note taped to our front window. I should tell you that what you see above is not the entire note but it is the meat of the thing. If you click on the photo you can see the whole note.

Our neighbor is in his nineties and he’s losing it. He knows it and it is very frustrating. He has always been Mr. FixIt and he’s cheap too so he still tries to take care of things but he can’t think straight any more or even remember where his fuse box is. His bedroom light don’t work anymore and he had an extension cord running in there when we stopped in this morning. We suspected he had blown a fuse but there were only two 70 amp fuses for the whole house. He is the original owner and he said he had never changed a fuse. It didn’t seem possible and we were afraid to yank one of them out because they were held in place with metal clips and we had never seen fuses like this. We suggested he call an electrician.

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