Maybe he was on his way to a date, but wouldn’t be nice if we all could dress so well and not have to worry about being slammed by a car while not wearing a helmet. I like his hat. I wish him the best. Well dressed bike rider, cool car (the cadillac), and a train with gang graffiti – all out the side window of the truck. The garden at George Eastman’s old mansion.
Just as I was starting home from the Bop Fest the Gay Pride parade was coming up Goodman Street. Always a lover of parades I parked my bike and started taking snapshots of the oncoming onslaught of people and floats. I may have gone a little overboard with the number of pictures I’ve posted, but as a proud grandparent of a gay granddaughter I want their voices to be recognized. As Rochester parades go this was by far the most colorful.
Saturday afternoon I rode over to the Village Gate courtyard to listen to Jenna and the Horse Lovers. Tom Kohn of the Bop Shop is the moving force for this event. Phillo Beddo opened with Tom Krasz’s gritty voice belting out some powerful rock’n lyrics backed up by Aron Bahr on bass and Grimey on the drums. I was able to hear the drum beat two long blocks away as I approached the Village Gate. They lowered the volume after the first song for the rest of the set. The first two photos are of them and the rest are of Jenna and the Horse Lovers. I look forward to hearing a CD from Jenna.
Last Saturday I went to Highland Park to see Rochester Community Shakespeare Players production of Hamlet. The field by the railroad tracks near Main Street pops up in two of the photographs today, the blue sky graffiti train car and the photo taken from across the street with my iPhone. It’s of a group of folks with white cloth covering their heads, most of them are sitting in rows listening to someone who appears to be leading them in some kind of service, also with white cloth head, they also wore white gloves. Judy and I were off to somewhere; Judy didn’t even want me to stop to take a picture, but I did anyway, unfortuneately from some distance with the only camera I thought I had at the time… the iPhone. This is only a real small part of the original image. When I got home later that afternoon I discovered my Sony behind the seat. It would have been perfect for capturing the image. Over at the Corn Hill Art Festival, the Genesee Center for Arts and Education and a local girl scout group where busy with the help of volunteers making what promises to be the worlds largest sheet of handmade paper. The car with all the stickers was over by Abundance Grocery, our local co-operative natural, healthy, organic food, general store. Yesterday, students at the Visual Studies Workshop were taking tintype photos. I had one taken of me and the red photo is of the picture being processed. I’ll be notified when the picture is ready for me to pick up after it has been dried and varnished
A couple friends of mine who play in the Crooked Lake Fiddlers group let me know they would be performing at the New York State Expo VIII (locally know as the John Deere Festival) in Canandaigua on July 11th. I went down there with another friend and we arrived fifteen minutes before they where scheduled to perform. The tent where they were going to be was at the other end of the grounds from the parking lot. It was just starting to rain, so I walked across the grounds with an umbrella in one hand and camera in the other snapping pictures as we went. The fiddlers group was just starting to play when we got to the tent. They played for a good hour or more during one of the heaviest downpours I’ve seen this year. Tom Close, wearing dark classes, lead the group; a tall fiddler, Al Christianson, resurrected some old tunes he learned as a child; Betsy Galbright sang some spunky tunes while strumming her dulcimer; Oliver Pears played chords on the bass box; Tom Hold on guitar sang a solo piece; Carol Gruscho strummed a washboard throughout the performance; my friends Al Caster, with the long hair, and John Harrington with the long beard, along with several other musicians composed the rest of the group.
The fiddlers were a lot of fun and by the end of the performance the heavy rain had let up. I was planning on looking at some of the exibits afterwards, but being that it was the last day of the event and still raining many of the exhibitors had pulled out. Most the tractors where gone and the sale items in all the tents where boxed up. The only pictures I got where these as we came into the event.
Wednesday evening the Apple computer users group I belong to had their annual picnic. My wife calls it the annual geek fest. We had some cool door prizes and some of the members showed off their new iPhones. I’m amazed at what these little gadjets can do. Thursday night RoCo had a closing party for their 6X6 show. Margaret Explosion’s sonic waves permeated the atmosphere within the gallery with their “infinite, eternally elegant, and mystical” vibes. After the gallery party many of us hit Abilene Bar and Lounge to listen to the Chinchillas. The Chinchillas dish out some great sounds, mostly written by members of the local band.
I’ve been reading a book I picked up at Borders called “Drive-By Shootings” photographs by a New York Taxi Driver, David Bradford. He has been taking pictures from his cab for over ten years and has amassed quite a collection of interesting images. I feel an affinity with him having done much the same thing during my years as a Building Inspector. I still find myself doing this as drive from place to place, but now that I’m not on the road as much I’ll probably join the people on the streets and sidewalks. I really prefer to see things while walking around taking it easy. Today was a eating out day. I ate a little too much too. Judy was home and wanted to have a cup of Webb’s coffee which is probably the best coffee in town. On the walk over there I saw the red Mercedes-Benz in Ferrel’s Garage’s lot. They alway’s have interesting cars when I walk by. Webb’s Cafe and Grill makes great sandwiches. I had a turkey, tomato, lettuce, onion sandwich on sour dough bread that was out of sight. Later in the afternoon Judy had to go to Rochester General for a pre-admission screening for her upcoming operation and when that was over we were hungry once again. I didn’t feel like cooking so we stopped at Salena’s where I had a beer, enchillada and tostada. I probably could have done without the enchillada. I felt stuffed afterwards. After sitting around home for an hour I still felt heavy so went to the YMCA for a swim to work off some of the meal. It helped enough so that when I went to the Dryden Theatre with Tom to see “Yojimbo” I felt much better. However, I did forego the popcorn and Gelato ice cream. “Yojimbo” was an amazing film, a really gritty samurai film by Akira Kurosawa. The film inspired “Fistfull of Dollars” with Clint Eastwood. In fact one might say it copied “Yojimbo” so much so that Kurosawa won a lawsuit for it being made without first having been granted the rights to the film.
Time slips by so fast. I seem to have taken a one month hiatus since last post. Went through many changes this past month. We had a week long Jazz Festival, a Harbour Festival, a Rose Festival, a Taste of Rochester celebration, Fourth of July fireworks, movies, my birthday, my job elimination with the City, a computer drive crash, lots of rain and sun (grass grows like wildfire) and other things I’ve probably forgotten. And none of it got recorded here partly because I was too tired from all this stuff going on and secondly because I started posting stuff on FaceBook instead. I like FaceBook but I think I’m going to concentrate on the blog more from now on. For starters heres a few pictures from Saturday night at Abilene Bar and Lounge. Steve Grills and the Roadmasters played there and as you can see people had a pretty good time dancing and visiting with friends.
So many cars, so many phones… we need more mass transit, take the cars off the road, let us get to were we want fast and safely. We own our own auto company now… let’s make bullet trains, subways, buses, solar panels, wind generators. Let’s make vacant buildings not vacant anymore… why do people have to starve, live in tents, on benches, go without jobs? We all need respect and dignity in our lives. Put us to work again, help build our country, f__k the oil cartels. click once on photo to begin slide show
It was Judy and my wedding anniversary yesterday and we were going to go to the Max restaurant at the Memorial Art Gallery which is just down the street from our house to celebrate. When we got there, even though they had a menu posted and a invitation to go on in, the restaurant wasn’t opened. We met up with a couple friends and ended up going to Webb’s Cafe which is back by our house where we all had breakfast entrees of one sort or another. When we left the Memorial Art Gallery the Asian Family Day was in full swing so after eating we returned to the Gallery for some of their activities. Parvatha Chidambaram, Artistic Director of Bharata School of Indian Dance & Music, http://www.bharataschoolofarts.com, and Nithya Kannan gave one of the best demonstrations of the Indian melodic system raga and ragini than anything I’ve ever seen before. I came away from the presentation with a much fuller comprehension of melodic interpretation through dance, music, and art. Later there was a showcase of fashion and dance in the ballroom featuring Chinese, Filipino, Indonesian, Korean, Laotian and Pakistani cultures.
to view click once on a thumbnail picture and then advance forward or back by clicking on right or left side of photo
