Long Live Personal Effects

Margaret Explosion photo by Richard Edic
Margaret Explosion photo by Richard Edic. Bernie Heveron is playing bass with the band.

Last week Bernie Heveron sat in on bass for a song with Margaret Explosion. That’s all it took to transform this lineup into Personal Effects. So we did “Big Man” from the PE repertoire. Tom Kohn has scheduled a “Scorgies Reunion” at the German House for November 21th. That was thee club back in the day. We have never had a Margaret Explosion rehearsal but we may need a few for the Personal Effects gig.

Richard Edic took this shot. Bernie wasn’t the only PE bass player. First there was the infamous, Martin Edic and after Bernie there was Robin. She is featured in the video below. And then Martin came back. Margaret Explosion plays tonight at the Little Theater Cafe.

3 Comments

Magnolias and Golf Balls

Spring blossoms in Durand Eastman Park
Spring blossoms in Durand Eastman Park

We heard the magnolias were out so walked up to the park to see for ourselves. Some of them were already gone and the ground was covered with pedals. The yellow ones are still big buds. We cut through the golf course and found a couple of balls, a Dunlop and a Nike. Would much rather walk around and find golf balls than play that game.

Tonight is the first class of the Spring session of painting. I am excited about that. During the break I finished a few and revisited some paintings that I was not entirely happy with. I tried to make them better but we’ll see what the boss says tonight.

Leave a comment

Everybody in the Pool

There is a pool on a vacant lot on our street with a swimming pool that was built in the mid sixties. Tonight we started our first of two years as pool club presidents. We had a meeting on our deck and decided who’s going to do the lawn this year, who’s going call the power company to turn on the juice and when to open the pool (in three weeks!).

As presidents we get to balance the chemistry. Last year’s president let it get away from her twice and the water turned green. We have a little chemistry kit that we will check the water with and we’ll add chlorine cakes as needed. We also get to make a schedule for what week each neighbor is responsible for skimming the pool and running the underwater vacuum.

Our neighbor, Rick, told me that Bob Mahoney reviewed the Pete LaBonne house concert. He did a lot better job than I did.

Leave a comment

Pass the Courvoisier

We raked the yard and planted some grass seed. It feels like we skipped Spring and shot right into summer. It’s near eighty and dry already. We had dinner with Peggi’s mom out at Richardson’s Canal House, an historic, early 1800s’ inn on the Erie Canal. The new owners are an Austrian couple and the food was great. I had an espresso for dessert and Peggi and her mom had a Courvoisier like Busta Rhymes. I had to tell my mother-in-law which way to turn when she got off the elevator to her apartment. Peggi helped her get her PJs on. I felt like we were watching a sneak preview of our later years.

1 Comment

Vinyl Is Better

Dancing at party after the concert.
Dancing at party after the concert.

Pete LaBonne’s performance in our living room was nothing short of amazing. Peggi and I have been singing “You’re a hundred monkeys typing on the bottom of my heart” all morning. We had about twenty people here. Peggi made banana nut bread and I made my best yet of hummus. We videoed the performance and will have something on YouTube soon. Just have to clear a few legal hurdles.

And just as I was extolling the virtues of our newly digitized music collection, iTunes froze up on me. It was about two minutes into Sly and Family Stone’s, “Sex Machine”and the dance floor was full. While I rebooted I played a forty five that had been sitting on the turntable for the last few weeks, “Hot Chocolate’s Don’t Turn It Off (I Kinda Like It)”. Damn did that sound good. Full and warm, not cold and digital. That may have been the number that got people taking turns dancing on our coffee table.

An article in yesterday’s NYT said today is Record Store Day. It coincides with the Grand Opening of Record Archives’ new store in Rochester. There are a bunch of bands playing there and we head over there. Might pick up some vinyl.

2 Comments

Record Mode

Pete LaBonne Invitation
Pete LaBonne House Concert Invitation

Pete and Shelley are here so we decided to follow in Rick Simpson’s footsteps and have a house concert. Show time is 40 minutes away. Some of the email invites went out only a few hours ago. We’ll see who shows up. Two guests are already here. The sun will be setting behind Pete LaBonne when he hits the stage in our living room. We have the Sony mini disc in record mode and Peggi plans on videoing.

The Stones movie was sensational. The sound was better than any concert or movie I have ever been too. This was the first movie we’ve seen at the Imax theater in Gates. We had the best seats in the house for the 9:40 show and felt like we sitting on the stage. Mick was in full aerobics mode and the band looked was clearly having as good a time as we were.

1 Comment

The Pain Of the Church

Pope on TV at Dr. Cupolo’s office.
Pope on TV at Dr. Cupolo’s office

I had to set the alarm last night to make sure I got up for my dentist appointment and I wasn’t quite awake when I sat down in the waiting room. I could hardly believe what I was seeing on tv. Good thing I had my camera with me.

“I acknowledge the pain of Church in U.S. from sex abuse scandal.” The pain of the Church?

We’re headed out to the Imax theater to see the new Stones movie at 9:40. I will report back.

Leave a comment

The Pope Is A Creep

Pope Paul VI birth control poster
Pope Paul VI birth control poster

Papal infallibility covers a lot pigheadedness and downright criminality but it can’t disguise this Pope’s creepiness.

From today’s paper – “It is a great suffering for the church in the United States and for the church in general and for me personally that this could happen,” Benedict said, adding that he would work to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood.

Good luck. Isn’t this how we fight drug addiction and illegal immigration. And you have to feel a little funny dumping money in the collection basket when the church has already spent over two billion bucks fighting or settling with sexually abused parishioners. The Pope covers up crimes, discriminates against women and gays and claims that Christ is speaking through him.

The first LSD I took was from a guy who lived in my dorm. I had no idea what to expect or how long it would last. I was hanging out with friends and they all went home. I was up all night watching and listening to a Pope Paul VI poster. I think it was this one (above) although this seems more anti-Italian than anti-Pope. I haven’t done any more of that stuff since 1969 but having to look at the Pope and Bush in the same shot is like a bad flashback.

1 Comment

Big Ball

Peggi with big green ball.
Peggi with big green ball.

Hoffman Road dead ends down at the park. It gets real low and wetland like at the end. There’s a creek that flows under the road and when it rains real hard it flows over the road. All sorts of stuff floats down the creek and gets stuck trying to get through the big pipe. We found a day plastic day glo sword a few weeks ago and big green ball the other day. We kicked it all the way home.

3 Comments

Buddy Is Always In The Moment

Eric Taylor Performing
Eric Taylor performing at Rick and Monica’s house concert

We watched Eric Taylor load his car this morning while we were drinking our coffee. He was wearing shorts and he sort of looked hungover. We took our walk early and I tested the sepia movie mode on my new Nikon. I’m liking this little thing. The coolest thing about it is the black magnesium body with the rubberized grips. It feels like you could dangle it from your fingertips and not drop it. And it fits comfortably into my front pants pockets. I don’t worry about the geeky overloaded pockets look anymore. I come prepared. I’ve got three or four pens (mostly drug company or paper company freebies with brand names on them), a swiss army knife, my keys with a drum key on the chain (I’ve still got copies of Sparky’s garage and shed keys), a small note book and now my new camera.

I guess I’m keeping this thing. I have seven more days to decide. I talked to a tech women at Nikon this morning about the their bullshit download software. She told me that it was embarrassing for her but Nikon has not updated the “Nikon Transfer” software to work with the newest Mac system. She said, “Don’t feel bad. It doesn’t work with Vista either.”. So they designed a brand new camera that you can’t get your photos off of with the USB cable. They instruct you to install their cd of their garbage and it’s not compatible with current operating systems. They let you have this maddening experience right off the bat. I do like the little Sony card reader that I had to buy so I’ll stop complaining.

Eric Taylor is a pro. During his first set in Rick’s living room we heard a bunch of stories that he must have told hundreds of times. I was wondering if he was just going to go on this way or get in the moment and then Buddy the dog walked through the room. He made a few jokes about Buddy that sounded like he had told them before but of course he couldn’t have. He has a beautiful, hypnotic, finger picking sound and I really enjoyed drifting off to it.

2 Comments

A Healthy Histogram

Invasive species with healthy histogram
Invasive species with healthy histogram

In my last post I referred to a histogram and Steve asked what it is. I’ve included Photoshop’s view of a histogram of the above photo. Spot the invasive species.

Rick and Monica’s Living Room
Rick and Monica’s Living Room

Our friends and neighbors have their living room in concert mode. They like singer/songwriter stuff and they saw this guy, Eric Taylor, perform at SXSW in Austin a few years ago. They contacted him and asked if he would be interested in doing a house concert the next time he was up this way. Today is the day. Peggi was out pruning our cherry tree when he pulled into town. They priced tickets at $15 and sold out. There will be fifty people there tonight.

1 Comment

Kindle This

Nikon P5100 error messages
Nikon P5100 error messages

While reading reviews of the cameras I was considering buying, a few things occurred to me. It is just too easy to be critical. Some sites do reviews as link baits. Some experts don’t know what they’re talking about. Digital cameras take three steps forward and one step back every time they make a move. Features that you grow accustomed to disappear. I like looking through a view finder. It blocks out the rest of the world for a bit while you frame the shot. Its hard to find a camera with one anymore. My little Sony had a histogram in the preview window when you were manual mode. With the Nikon you have to take a shot and then preview it before you can see the histogram. Who engineered that? And you have to take the battery out of the camera and put it into a charger to recharge it whereas the Sony and my old Kodak allowed you to recharge it in the camera. But I won’t focus entirely on the bad. I have more than twice the megapixels and I can shoot without the Flash in low light.

Now back to the bad. Why can’t I download the photos from the camera without using some clunky Nikon software? I took a my first batch of photos and plugged the USB cable into the camera and nothing showed up on the desktop. So I installed the Nikon software from the cd (notice I have not read the directions yet) and plugged the camera back in. The “Nikon Transfer” software launches and crashes and at the same time a window pops up to tell me a new version of the software is available. I go to Nikon’s site to download the update the software and it says I am not registered so I can’t download it.

So I went out to Target and bought a card reader, shoved the SD card in it and it mounted fine. Why couldn’t Nikon let you get at the files directly from the camera? I have ten days to decide whether I’m going to keep this thing. I’ll try some shots tomorrow. I may even read the manual.

6 Comments

I Believe in Evolution

Peggi under the bridge on Culver 1998
Peggi under the bridge on Culver 1998

I bought my fourth digital camera today. The photo above was taken with my first camera. Peggi was under the bridge on Culver in 1998 while I documented the underside. 4D designed the t-shirt she has on for Writers & Books.

My first two cameras were Kodaks, a one megapixel and a three. My father worked for Kodak and they came out of the employee store there. Both were refurbished and sold for about half price. My friend, Duane, worked for Warner Brothers Records and Sony bought them so he bought my third camera from the Sony employee store. That was a Cybershot DSC V1 and I loved it. It was five megapixel with a 4X optical zoom. The firmware is shot and it destroys memory cards so I gave up on it. I looked around and was ready to make a move on a Canon PowerShot SX100 IS until I held it in my hands. I felt light and cheap. The salesman at Rowe showed me a Nikon P5100 and I loved the way it felt. It has 12 megapixels and 3 1/2 X optical zoom. I’m charging the battery now.

My sister-in-law from LA just pulled in the driveway with my mother-in-law. They are here for dinner. We plan to have salmon (the wild stuff not the farm raised) and a salad. I have have to get out there and make that. I ‘m letting the girls get caught up.

1 Comment

Forgive But Never Forget

Paul Dodd protesting Viet Nam war. Photo by Kim Torgerson
Paul Dodd protesting Viet Nam war. Photo by Kim Torgerson

Here’s one of the protesters in San Francisco as the Olympic torch passed through town. No, wait. That’s me protesting the Viet Nam war in Assembly Hall on the IU campus. No one would look that dorky today. I think Kim Torgerson took this shot.

We watched a very cool movie last night about letting go. Eva Mozes Kor, one of the Mengele twins who were experimented on at Auschwitz, stars in this documentary about her decision to forgive the Nazis for killing her family. She gets a lot of flack from people who can’t go that far but she holds up well. Margaret Explosion played at the Little last night and I was sort of expecting to fall asleep during this one but “Forgiving Dr. Mengele” was really well done and completely engaging.

I couldn’t help but think about another Jew’s plea as hung on the cross and of course that whole “turn the other cheek” thing. I looked up “forgive” this morning to see if it really is that simple. It is. Forgive “Stop feeling angry or resentful toward someone for an offense, flaw or mistake.”

Leave a comment

Items To Post

Janet Williams painting entitled "Wite Out" 2007
Janet Williams painting entitled “Wite Out” 2007

There was a note from Janet Williams in my in box today and she attached a photo of the sensational painting that I referred to in yesterday’s post. I hope you like it as much as I do. She currently has three paintings in a show at the Oxford Gallery.

2 Comments

Lamp Left On All Night

A few months back I took the tunnel between the new downtown library and the old library building by the river. There is usually some art on the walls there and this time it was Rochester Public Library employees. I scanned the walls as I walked but came to a screeching halt when I spotted this lusciously painted typewriter. It was the paint itself that stopped me. I realized it was a typewriter after a minute or so. And that is not because it was abstract. It was alive with painterly expression and raw beauty. The painting was by Janet Williams and I knew that she worked here but I had forgotten. I didn’t have my camera with me or I would have grabbed a shot. It doesn’t seem fair to inadequately describe something that I was knocked out by with showing it to you. Maybe Janet will send one along.

We were extremely busy with 4D Advertising work last year and we are extremely slow now so I thought I would update the woefully neglected Refrigerator. There is such a backlog of items to post that I have been researching content management systems to help me out. I found a few paintings by Janet from last year in the “Items To Post” folder. Here is a beautiful one called, “Lamp Left On All Night”.

1 Comment

Speed Isn’t Everything

Turkey in the woods Irondequoit NY
Turkey in the woods Irondequoit NY

Turkeys are almost too big to fly and even though they have wings it seems they would rather walk. Occasionally we come up on a group of them and they will all take off but that is only if we have really taken them by surprise. Otherwise they just walk a little faster to get away form us.

Alice asked to see my recent paintings last night and I expressed or tried to articulate a problem that I thought I was having with a few of them. I feel like I am ill equipped to fine tune some them that started off full of energy but are now bogged down. Bogged down because I’m trying to attend to poorly executed details. As I fumble my way through addressing these problems I feel like I’m over polishing and loosing the original energy.

Alice pointed out that speed isn’t everything and if the problem was really severe I could paint it out and start over. She made me realize that the choice is entirely mine as to whether I like the painting or not. And if I do, it is worth whatever it takes to finish it. The time frame is dictated by the situation and is really irrelevant to the finished piece.

1 Comment

No Tiny Feet

Deer in the woods.
Deer in the woods.

I made a fire this morning even though it was near sixty and sunny. I was crumpling up yesterday’s paper and Peggi was reading Frank Rich’s op ed piece aloud from today’s paper.

“. . . a mini-Tet that belied the “success” of the surge. Even fewer noticed that the presumptive Republican nominee seemed at least as oblivious to what was going down as President Bush, no tiny feat.”

“Can you read that last sentence again”, I asked. She did and I looked down at my feet. “I don’t get the tiny feet part” I said. She read the line again and I finally got it. Do other languages share the same pronunciation of differently spelled words? I’ll ask Julio, a native of Spain, when I see him later for dinner.

Last night was the annual “Jazz Night” at Mountain Rise United Church of Christ in Pittsford, NY. Peggi’s mom belongs to this church and she invited us out. This is the same UCC organization that Obama belongs to. I wanted to tell the minister at this church that I pretty much agreed with the Reverend Wright but I resisted.

Parishioner and piano player Rob Blumenau put a great band together. He said their average age was 43. The bass player was an Eastman student, the guitar player was still in high school and the other two weren’t giving their age up. But Rob did say the the drummer, Brad Paxton, brought the average up more than he did. And the drummer was a wild man! He has played with a long list of famous performers. He and Rob were having a great time. We did too.

Leave a comment

Sonic Background to the Din

Last night’s opening of “Electric Florets” was really well attended. Geri’s son Paul worked the bar while simultaneously hanging out with his friends. The big wall with a grid of sixteen oil pastel mandalas was most impressive. Geri’s painting teacher, Fred Lipp, was there engaged in deep conversation with Alice. Another fellow classmate, Lorraine, slipped in and out while we provided a sonic background to the din in the room.

During our break Katherine Denison told me the band sounded “really tight”. I told her that “tight” was a word I would never apply to Margaret Explosion. And she said, “I know. I’ve been at the Little when it’s been real loosey goosey”. That’s more like it.

Pineapples went up a dollar at Wegmans. They were $3.99 each all winter and are now $4.99. They are one of the only produce items left with a flat cost attached to them instead of a per pound cost. With most produce I enter the 4 or 5 digit code and the scale computes the cost based on the weight. But with pineapples I put the fruit on the store scales just to see which one is the heaviest and then buy that one. I can usually find one that is over six pounds. I think limes are sold this way too.

It is a beautiful day here, sunny and headed toward sixty, a perfect day for painting in the basement.

Leave a comment

Electric Florets

Geri McCormick Electric Florets
Geri McCormick Electric Florets

OK. So it’s raining. No excuse for not taking a walk. If you don’t get out there you won’t see the robins gorging themselves on worms or the one legged turkey doing the turkey hop. And you won’t find any golf balls along the golf course and you’re never gonna find any empty 24 ounce Bud cans along the road. I picked up two today and had them in my hand when I waved to a neighbor who drove by. She’s probably thinking, “So that’s the guy that’s been dumping all those cans down here.”

Geri McCormick asked Margaret Explosion to play at her opening tonight of “Electric Florets” at the Genesee Center for the Arts.

Leave a comment