PopWars – Page 67 – Coke vs. Pepsi ~ that sort of thing.

February 14, 2019March 12, 2019

Busted Valentines Day

Busted Valentines performing live at Record Archive in Rochester, New York

Does anyone remember that gag gift store on Clinton Avenue, right next door to Jay’s Record Ranch? Probably not. They used to sell things like garlic gum and fake puke. Record Archive sells all that stuff today in addition to records. Thank god. I found some cool 45s over there yesterday, KC, Get Down Tonight, Elton John, Bennie & the Jets, Peggy Lee, Fever, a couple bucks each all while sipping The Kind from 3 Heads. We also caught a couple of bands.

Morgxn, that’s how he spells what sounds like Morgan, did a special afternoon in-store at Record Archive in conjunction with 94.1. All we knew about him was what Spevak wrote and that he was on the same label as Rochester’s Joywave. We assumed he would sing to backing tracks but he performed with only a keyboardist and minimal electronic drums. To our ears he sounded better than anything we heard on the Grammys. After his show Alayna told the crowd that “Morgxn is about to explode.”

Frank De Blase, performing with the Busted Valentines has a very different “idea of what a man is for the twenty first century.” – to quote Spevak. But then Frank wears so many different hats. Music reviewer, non-pareil, for City, pulp-noir author of several books featuring Frankie Valentine, pin-up photographer, the chief Frantic Flattop and puts all this together masterfully when he performs live with Busted Valentines.

Back on our living room couch we cued up Chasing Trane, the next item in our Netflix queue. Coltrane sounds so good he could fix all that is wrong with this world.

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February 13, 2019March 12, 2019

Generation Z

Clifton Springs is only 55 cents away on the NYS Thruway. Our passengers, Pete and Gloria, paid the toll and provided the kind of conversation that makes time fly. The shows at Main Street Arts, in the center of this restored town, are consistently good. “Perception of Time,” a group there now is a case in point. I liked Nancy Wiley’s loose, painterly Generation Z portraits, particularly the second one in from the bottom right. Wiley apparently likes this one too because she shows it in the catalog for the show along with this statement. “I have been struck by the struggle many of them go through to be authentic and honest about who they are as individuals, often challenging old social norms.”

Sam Rathbun, an artist in residence for the month, was working on ideas for an upcoming Glens Falls show in the the studio space on the second floor. She had covered a wall with large, fluid India ink drawings on paper. She told me she grew up on a farm near Naples and is influenced by the equipment her father uses there.

Kurt and Judy Feuerherm have a fun little show up there as well. Kurt was my Fine Arts mentor at Empire State and his work is in the permanent collection of MoMA, Albright Knox and the MAG. The small assemblage sculpture and painting/collage pieces here create an idyllic winter garden.

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February 12, 2019April 11, 2019

Virtual 45

Burning bushes on hill in Durand Eastman, Winter 2019

FFThe only bobblehead doll we have is Barry Bonds, back from before the controversy, when he was chasing Hank Aaron’s homer record. I’m not counting the plastic, solar-powered, Trump bobblehead that someone gave us for Christmas. I plan to throw that away. I was thinking about bobbleheads long before the article in Sunday’s paper on the bobblehead museum in Milwaukee. Amy Rigby’s “Bobblehead Doll,” from Eric and Amy’s 2009 double A side single, has been stuck in my head for weeks. The 45 has been on heavy rotation our house.

I still visit “So Many Records, So Little Time,” even though it is not getting the attention it deserves – from its owner. Kevin called around New Year’s and Peggi helped him reclaim the domain name after it had expired. The website is still a goldmine. If there is nothing new on the front page I just scroll down the long list of artists in the right hand column, like I did this morning, and get lost in Kevin’s spin on Bootsy, Alan Vega and Heart.

I’ve been cleaning house myself and am in the process of moving the Margaret Explosion site to PopWars where all the content now flows from the database. I’m re-building the virtual 45 page with live tracks from our performances. In honor of Peggi’s birthday here is a song from those vaults. That’s a photo of Peggi on the cover.

"When We Were Young" "Contemplation" by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre on 11.20.13. Peggi Fournier - sax, Ken Frank - bass, Bob Martin - guitar, Jack Schaefer - bass clarinet, Paul Dodd - drums. — “When We Were Young” “Contemplation” by Margaret Explosion. Recorded live at the Little Theatre on 11.20.13. Peggi Fournier – sax, Ken Frank – bass, Bob Martin – guitar, Jack Schaefer – bass clarinet, Paul Dodd – drums.

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February 11, 2019February 11, 2019

Red Envelope

Chinese New Year at Nhung's — Chinese New Year at Nhung’s

We celebrated Chinese New Year last night with my brother’s lady friend and her family. We rang in the the Year of the Pig sitting around a long table with bowls stacked with fresh ingredients plates of rice paper wrappers and two hot plates as centerpieces.

My brother tended the hot plate nearest us and I marveled at how adept he was with chopsticks. He carefully demonstrated how to roll a proper spring roll, how to start with the ingredients close to the edge and roll it snug, tucking the ends in midway. “It’s just like rolling a joint,” he said. Of course, I continually made the same mistake I did with that exercise. I kept trying to put too much in the container.

After dinner red envelopes with gold embossing were spread out on the table. We each took one while our host explained that only three had a two dollar bill inside, a sign of good luck in the new year. I was one of the lucky ones but the others each had a five inside.

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February 10, 2019February 10, 2019

Good Storm

Fallen tree at corner with yellow caution tape.

I knew something was up when I saw our neighbor, Jared, coming back from the corner with his noise cancelling headphones in his hand. We were still reading the morning paper but we waved to Jared and he came up to the door. He told us his wife had gone out for coffee and had to drive under the power lines that were stretched to the max under a fallen oak.

Jared said Spectrum TV was down there and a “cute little reporter” had interviewed him, inquiring how residents were impacted the storm. He said he told the reporter he likes a good storm. By the time we got down there the power company had stung yellow tape across our street, sealing us in. They cut the power and tree surgeons were preparing to go to work. When the power came back on we found Jared’s interview online. He told us “they cut out all the good parts.”

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February 7, 2019February 7, 2019

Crystallization

Ice covered Witch Hazel in Durand Eastman

We walked up to Wegmans with our Yak Tracks on. The temperature is right at freezing and the rain we had overnight froze on every surface. In the produce aisle we ran into Steve Greive and he showed us photos he took of ice covered trees in the marsh near his house. This particular Witch Hazel (above), which blooms in the dead of winter, smells like a rich butterscotch but the scent is trapped inside the ice.

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February 6, 2019February 8, 2019

Parallel Universe

Liberty Tax Service on Hudson Avenue in Rochester, New York

Ken Frank has a dance song, one he did under a pseudonym, called “Lady Liberty.” First thing I thought of when I saw this place. I like the contemporary lady out front, something the owner apparently wheels in and out each day. He leaves her strapped to the cart.

We gave Duane a call while we were out walking. He was out walking too, in Brooklyn. He was over by the Brooklyn Museum when reached him. We covered all the bases, politics, race relations and the stock market.. He arrived at back at his apartment just as we reached our front door. Both of us did about six miles.

Peggi has been been doing our taxes the past few days so I’ve been fielding a lot of questions. “What did we get at “Ship To Shore?” MX-80 Out of the Tunnel on blue vinyl. “Why did we pay so much to Dropbox?” I went Pro. That reminds me. Duane put a bunch of dub Reggae remixes in a shared folder for us.

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February 4, 2019February 4, 2019

Auto Shutdown

A low scoring soccer match can have you on the edge of your seat with non stop action. Just saying. There was only a few minutes left in the big football game when my brother’s LG TV threatened to shut down. This happened a few years back and because he had rearranged all his furniture to accommodate the family he couldn’t find the remote for five minutes or so.

It wasn’t just the game that lacked excitement. No one took the knee and the halftime show looked like a Trump rally. I did like the CBS ad with the animated double eye logo mimicking old CBS shows. Bud Light body slammed Coors by calling attention to the corn syrup they put in their product. And the vintage Warhol “EatLikeAndy” Burger King ad was so ordinary it was startling.

My brother is a gourmet barbecuer and I would pick him as the Super Bowl MVP.

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February 2, 2019February 3, 2019

Idea Factory

Hill in Durand Eastman on a beautiful February day

Peggi’s sister called from LA during the cold snap and Steve Hoy called from Charleston, making sure we were ok. Both times we had just returned from skiing. We had to get out early today, before the temperatures warmed. All this snow will be gone tomorrow.

Todd McGrain and Fola Akinola’s video “Eclipsing the Sun/A Biological Storm at Rochester Contemporary Art Center is amazing. I won’t spoil it for you.

Peter Monacelli’s show, “These Are My Rivers” opened last night at Colleen Buzzard’s Studio. Curated by Anne Havens and Colleen Buzzard it is a tour de force of paintings, drawings, collages and sketch books pulled from a lifetime of art making. Pete’s work is graphic, tangible abstractions of meaningful elements of his experience. He presents you with gifts that come straight from these influences.

I love this art space. Like the loft jazz, performance spaces in the seventies it is an old fashioned, DIY scene. Conversation is up a few notches here. And since Colleen’s studio is just behind the gallery you have the big bonus of peeking in on her endeavors. Pieces in all stages of development spring from every nook and cranny of her studio. It is an idea factory.

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February 1, 2019February 2, 2019

Psychedelic Jazz

I put this video up last night and then reconsidered it. It was too easy.

We walked Horseshoe Road in Durand Eastman with the camera on. I stuck the video, with no edits, on a song that we played last year at the Little. The song was slightly longer than the walk so I slowed the video down and they end together. It was far from a steady cam so I stabilized it 100%, a move similar to going overboard with auto tune.

I remember riding in our family car when my dad drove this road. It is still just as magical but it’s been closed to car traffic for over forty years now. There are so many weeds growing up through the pavement that the park workers mow it. And there aren’t many park workers left.

I took the song down and even though it is all one take I put some splices in and added color filters to the various sections. The beginning and end are still as they were. I jacked up the transition time as far as it would let me go. I’m happy with it now.

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January 30, 2019January 31, 2019

Moving On

I am ready to move on but I am still savoring and digesting our big walk. Peggi and I did the Camino in two installments, a month long each, passing through Madrid on both ends of both trips. I took a lot of photos on this journey and edited them down to this batch (click on “CaminoFavorites” on the photo above and go full screen). It visually tells the story and I may want to reread it.

Jim Mott suggested we do a slideshow. He suggested that on two occasions so I considered it. I’ve not used my projector since “Subterranean Surrogates'” when it ran for a solid month in the Lab Space at RoCo. So I cleared a white wall in the studio and brought every chair we have in our house down to the basement. We invited Ann Schauman who encouraged us to do it after she completed it, people who commented on my Camino blog posts, Hispanophiles, a few artists and friends and Jim Mott, of course. The old fashioned idea worked like a charm. The conversation flowed and it was closer to a party than a presentation. We’re ready to take this show on the road.

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January 29, 2019January 31, 2019

Commute

These elements just fell together, a dreamy, hypnotic Margaret Explosion song from a performance at the Little Theatre Café last year and some blurry photos I took a few years apart on train rides from New York to Rochester.

Peggi Fournier plays soprano sax, Ken Frank plays bass, Phil Marshall plays guitar and I play drums.

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January 28, 2019January 29, 2019

Trikonasana

Paul and Peggi doing triangle pose against the wall in yoga class. Photo by Jeffery Young.

We had just a touch of fresh snow last night but it was enough to bring some crisp traction back to the ski paths. And at sixteen degrees the trails were crunchy. A wind was coming off the lake as we skied toward it and just as I said, “There’s no one out today,” we saw our first fellow skier. He smiled as we passed each other and said, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

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January 26, 2019January 28, 2019

Transgender Wall

X Country ski trail groomers at Durand Eastman Park

The vulture capitalists have already taken a big bite out of our local Gannet paper. I’m reporting this because I know full well that no one reads the print version of the paper anymore so you wouldn’t know this. I have been a faithful reader since my pre-teen paper route days.

The paper got smaller at first. That is the sheet size shrank. And then the B section, what used to be local news, went national. The articles were plopped in from USA Today. And the C section, what used to carry arts and entertainment articles, now might have a piece on craft beer, if you’re lucky. There is no one left at the paper to cover the arts scene.

The letters to the editor were dropped on weekdays, a community forum that required only an editor to open the mail. The nationally syndicated columnists were gone too. This week they cut out the B and C sections entirely. The paper is just two sections, A and D. If you go to the Democrat & Chronicle’s website you will be assaulted with full screen pop-up ads and tiny articles.

Local Eagle Scouts are in jail for threatening to blowup Islamberg, a rural New York hamlet. The President wants a powerful wall. There is a lot going on out there and Will Cleveland cannot cover it all.

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January 25, 2019January 28, 2019

Lonely Block

Four "Untitled" entries to Rochester Contemporary 6x6 Show, oil on wood, Paul Dodd 2019 — Four “Untitled” entries to Rochester Contemporary 6×6 Show, oil on wood, Paul Dodd 2019

Rochester Contemporary’s annual 6×6 Show has afforded me the opportunity to push the boundaries of one idea for five years now. Revisiting that idea each year, probing it for new life or attempting to reduce it further. You can see all five year’s pieces here.

I pictured a simple block, something with a third dimension to it like those painted toy building blocks we had when we were kids. Years ago we helped our friends, Pete and Shelley, finish the roof of their Adirondack home and I fell in love the rough-cut pine boards they were using. They came from a local saw mill and they gave us a few. I went out to the garage to cut them into 6 by 6 inch pieces but the boards I found weren’t wide enough. So I put two pieces together, ripping the boards in a pleasing proportion, leaving the rough cut exposed when possible and gluing them together.

They are awkward to hang. I ask that they be hung in a specific order and hope they don’t wind up being separated when the show is hung. The first year I painted the two boards a different color, three colors for the four pieces, all straight from the tube. The second year I toyed with leaving the wood unpainted altogether as the the two pieces were different tones but I chickened out. I let the natural wood show and only used two colors.

Year three I reduced the palette to one color. I ripped the boards in three inch widths this time and painted either a square within the square piece or the space surrounding the square. I played with black and white for the fourth year but decided the white would not hold its own on a white wall so went to this silvery color. If they hadn’t sold each year I would have moved on (RoCo takes 100% as a fundraiser.) This year (shown above) I pushed it and left the blocks au natural. After a few days I decided to strengthen the dark portion of each piece by coating it with a quick drying oil.

Finally, I went to the Rochester Contemporary website to see if they had reduced the number of submissions per artist as I heard they might. Sure enough they are only accepting three this year so one of these will be voted off the island.

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January 24, 2019January 25, 2019

In Pursuit Of Magic

When you look at a photo do you respond to the content of the photo or the decisions the photographer has made in presenting this representation of the subject matter to you? Nathan Lyons lets you have it both ways in equal measure. And on top of that he arranges playful pairings, note-perfect in composition, improvisation, texture and subject matter. Furthermore he sequences his photos so the narrative carries forward.

Nathan Lyon’s show, “In Pursuit of Magic,” opened tonight at George Eastman Museum. Lyons was a director there a half century ago and he had a show there called “Riding First Class On The Titanic” in the first part of this century. We bought the book and lent it to someone. Can’t remember who so I may have to buy it again. I remember the photos in the book were bigger than the 5×7 prints in the show. His black and white prints are super rich and when he switched to color, late in his career, they are still small but only got richer.

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January 22, 2019January 28, 2019

Scat Singing

Peggi skiing home in the woods near Durand Eastman

In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the cross country ski conditions are excellent. We skied around our neighbor’s pond and down into the woods across the street. There is so much snow you can hardly get up enough speed to hurt yourself. There is too much snow for the deer. Judging from piles of scat, they have spent the last few days on our ski trails. Out on the golf course we came across the groomer. He had rolled his snowmobile and the 1,000 pound sled that he drags to groom the trails was buried in the snow.

We took the ridge trail out to the lake and found it nearly frozen out about a hundred yards. Peggi suggested we walk to Marge’s on the ice.

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January 20, 2019January 21, 2019

Miracle Whip

Last night's snowfall on our deck railing — Last night’s snowfall on our deck railing

Wegman’s was wacky before the snowfall. We walked up there along Sea Breeze Way and had spaced out enough on the way to have forgotten about the impending storm. We remembered when we saw cars backed up trying to get in the lot. Shoppers were almost giddy. A guy from Custom Brewcraft was pouring tall samples of their new IPA. Every cashier lane was open and our cashier was moving so fast she put a jar of Miracle Whip from the guy behind us into our bag. Of course we had paid for it so we had get in the Customer Service line to get our money back.

It snowed enough on our walk back that we decided to put our skies on and try the woods. There was just enough to cushion a fall but we both stayed upright. It snowed so much last night that by this afternoon we couldn’t even see yesterday’s ski tracks. There were seven deer standing in the creek. We stopped on the bridge to watch. Only 9ºF my fingers were too cold to take a picture.

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January 18, 2019January 19, 2019

Underside

Am I the only one who misses the early html days? When websites were fun, both to design/program and visit. Before php, css3, html5, responsive coding and social media. I accept that the answer to my initial question is yes so let’s move on.

While standing under the Freddy Sue Bridge I was thinking about this piece I did on the Refrigerator back in the day. I couldn’t even find it online. There were no links to it but it is still out there floating around like a whole lot of other content must be. I managed to find “Click On A BridgeTo Go Under” only by looking at the local copy on my computer and surmising what the url might be. Digital photography was brand new when I did it and that was probably the only reason the photos looked interesting to me at the time. They were only one half or one gig photos and from a camera that was terrible in low light.

In 2001 I did a piece for the “Hide & Seek” show at Pyramid Art Center. It was a digital installation and it ran on a pc at the gallery during the show. It was sort of a digital maze. I visit it every once in a while thinking that it might have totally fallen apart but it has held up pretty well. I’m afraid to look at it on a mobile device. – Check it out.

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January 17, 2019January 19, 2019

Iconic Tree

The iconic oak tree is missing from the marsh on Hoffman Road in Rochester, New York

I have photographed this marsh on Hoffman Road many times. It wasn’t always as wet as it is today. Old-timers say there used to be garden plots down here. Development on high ground has repercussions. The giant oak that stood out in the middle, the one I photographed with an eagle perched on it, is gone. It fell over.

When you check a new release out of the library you know you’re going to be back there in a couple weeks. When you bring a newly released dvd home you know you’ll be back in a few days. And each time you visit you come back with something else so this goes on and on. It is a bit of a trick to work a variation into your route each visit.

We walked to the end of Hoffman and across the small foot bridge over the creek. There is an old horse trail that starts there and works its way up to Kings Highway. It is way overgrown and only passable in the winter when there is not too much snow. And there are number of fallen trees laying across the path. Its an obstacle course but it made for an exciting trip. We came home with a restored version George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead.”

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