Support Your Local Musician - At All Levels

 

     I was taking one of my lunchtime walks about a week ago, basically 1:30-2 PM, on one of my main routes, from the Rath Building to Delaware Avenue to Tupper Street; Babeville and Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center are at the intersection. Typical weather: hot, sunny and a bit humid.

     Early on the opening part, I walked on the opposite side of Delaware Avenue from where, at the intersection of West Chippewa Street, stand Spot Coffee, Starbucks Coffee and Bocce Club Pizza. Almost a block away, I heard unaccompanied electric guitar playing Black Sabbath’s “Electric Funeral.” A shirtless guy, with white facial makeup covered with black highlights near the eyes and mouth, much closer to King Diamond than Kiss, and leather half-sleeves was playing a Flying V replica through a small amp on the sidewalk at the corner.

     My walks are very important to me and my continued post-medical fun long-term recovery, so I continued, but quickened the pace, hoping to get back on the other side for more of his playing before he was asked to leave or escorted away. Happily, he was still grinding away when I came back, this time ripping some riffs from a couple of songs from Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” album. I smiled and nodded when I approached him and he smiled back. I asked if he would accept a donation; he smiled and said yes, so I handed him a couple of dollars. He took it and said, “Thank you so much, man,” and when I told him to keep up the good work, he smiled even wider, said “You bet I will, partner,” and went back to playing. His playing finally subsided in the background as I closed in on work to again take on my Erie County duties.

An Unexpected but Deserved Tribute to Sara Rogers

 

     Harold (Val and my 11-year old pit bull blend) and I were taking our typical Sunday afternoon walk on Buffalo’s West Side when we turned a corner and came to a house we frequently notice because there is often a dog water dish in the walk and a humorous but serious sign about the occupant’s dog,

     There was also a sign that took my breath away for a moment, a drawing/painting of a young woman playing an acoustic guitar with the legend “Welcome to Music with Miss Sara. Music for All Ages and Abilities.”  It was sadly obvious this is a sign advertising the skills and vocation of Sara Rogers, who was killed in June when she was hit by a car while riding her bicycle on South Park Avenue in Buffalo at only age 29.

     I did not know Ms. Rogers personally, but I was aware of her professionally and have read many wonderful thoughts and words about her on social media as well as pieces in the Buffalo News and Buffalo Rising. A jazz and acoustic music guitarist, singer and songwriter, she had earned her bachelor’s degree in music, worked as a music therapist and was known for her enthusiasm and commitment to helping all people, but it seems especially younger people, find and experience the joy and wonder of making music, art and living life. She touched many people in apparently profound ways and certainly made lives better, something we would be grateful to achieve and should always strive to do.

     There are many musicians and artists in Buffalo and Western New York who touch others in these memorable ways but may fly under the radar, and our music and artistic communities should be proud that Ms. Rogers was one of them and will no doubt leave her mark and influence on others for a long time. I find no adequate words to thank Ms, Rogers for her spirit and accomplishments nor those of proper condolence to her friends and colleagues.

MonkeyWrench - Sasquatch Gold CD review

   

  In about 35 years, you can drink a lot of beer, play a lot of loud, fast rock and roll and punk music, make friends, work jobs, drink beer, write songs, move apart, reunite and face yourself, if you’re smart or fortunate, maybe both. On their newest 5-song CD “Sasquatch Gold,” Monkeywrench does all of this.

     For a time one of Buffalo’s best musically and hardest drinking bands (yeah, a bit of my opinion with some fact), Monkeywrench, made up of Timo Walikis on guitars and lead vocals, Schmidty on lead guitar and vocals, Scotty James Dio Maruscak on bass and vocals and Marc Yonkers on drums and vocals has released several albums, 45s, tracks and so on. After Walikis moved to California, the members went their separate ways, performing in other bands, most notably Schmidty in the very good and very underrated country rocking Flatbed. Happily, Walikis moved back and the band reunited. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the band’s alter ego, the Vinny Barbarino Experience, gained an unexpected popularity playing revved up 70s and 80s covers of all genres, and is playing occasionally again.

     I have been a big Monkeywrench fan from the start, and noticed from the start that the band kind of walked a high wire with the drinking thing (this was during my drinking days as well). Social drinks were frequently called for from the stage, shots were accepted and the legendary Piels helmets became famous, but as many of us discovered, there are holes and blanks that the booze doesn’t fill, things change too fast, life in general starts coming in and it isn’t always fun or sensible.

  

     Monkeywrench has addressed these things in songs for years, but faces them head on on “Sasquatch Gold.” The CD starts with “That Would Be Great,” a kick ass rocker with Walikis noting it’s almost a surprise the band made it here kind of intact, or at least functioning, and that “you can only hate so much until you just let go.” “Beat the Feel” also blazes along as Walikis drinks alone, gets more drunk, realizes he’s lied to himself about life as it moves on. “Fucked Up Better” pulls the throttle back slightly to a melodic rocker; Walikis points out his drinking hasn’t improved much and may have prevented him from failing more spectacularly: “Should have fucked up better…was never much of a plan.”

     The all leads to the CD ending mid-tempo country rock “Drinking of Me,” an amazingly mature reassessment of the life of a punk rocker who put his music and maybe drinking first and his now-ended relationship second. Walikis knows things are over and it’s mostly his fault, and eschews bitterness and nastiness for understanding, reflection and appreciation of what his ex went through and the effort she made. He tells her “I hope to God you’re not with someone like me,” and of course, sends her off with the title toast. 

     “Sasquatch Gold” can be obtained through Bandcamp or Apple Music, and Monkeywrench has pages on Facebook and Instagram.

No clever title today; clear the snow/ice off your sidewalks

     

I know this photo of the sidewalk in front of our house and property on Norwood Avenue
 looks ridiculous posted like this, but Blogger won't let me move the image or wrap text around
it for some reason. I'll try to resolve this soon, but the image should do the job for the moment.

     Been using this blog for some COVID posts for the past two years or so, with just one non-pandemic post, but Buffalo's winter has been a pain in the ass for several reasons, and one that just won't go away/get better despite apparent reasons how it could.

   Buffalonians/Western New Yorkers, especially us natives, often like to think we're too tough to be bothered by winter weather, and handle it in such a good fashion that many often laugh when other parts of the country report they are at standstills when they receive way less snow than our normal amounts. But as well as a lot of whining after serious snowfalls and sub-zero temperatures starting about a month ago, the response of both private homeowners and residents and the official City of Buffalo "efforts" in clearing streets and pedestrian areas have been woefully lacking to the point of incompetent and almost dangerous. Way too many side streets did not get plowed for days, if not weeks, and a much higher percentage were not sufficiently cleared. Sometimes, the snow was cleared off streets onto sidewalks (Buffalo does not clear snow from sidewalks unless official city property, and even then...) and bus stops, the responsibility of the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, were either unplowed/shoveled or plowed in. I must say, as an employee of the Erie County Department of Social Services, I am lucky because the snow clearing/removal operations at the Rath Building in downtown Buffalo, where I work, have been excellent. But you can read more about this from the news media and social media; I don't want to be repetitive.

     But Saturday, February 12, 2022, when I took our dog Harold on our walk, I got as mad as I can recall for years back, because the conditions of the sidewalks, intersections and elsewhere remain atrocious,  verging on the dangerous. We were fortunate not to fall on the walk that took us from Norwood Avenue near Bryant Street down Norwood to West Utica, then to Richmond, down Richmond across West Ferry to Breckenridge, back to Norwood to West Ferry, to Ashland back to Bryant to home, about 1.5 miles through Buffalo's Elmwood Village/West Side. Every street brought us at least one or two amusement park-like scares and thrills, except they weren't entertaining, but degrees of danger. Whole properties of sidewalks were uncleared, and not just of snow, but of inch or more thick, slippery ice, and many intersections either had paths barely cleared or foot worn down or none at all. This ran the gamut from owner occupied homes and rentals to facilities and development projects such as the former church at West Ferry and Richmond (which I took photos of during the week). Some of these paths hadn't been plowed or shoveled of snow in weeks, and had foot paths worn in them so that the ice was quite smooth and slippery; despite wearing hiking boots, I had to grab onto fences, rails, cars, garbage totes and even Harold to keep from falling. Whether any kind of salt or deicer had been used on so many of these properties is unknown but doubtful.

     Before anyone tries to make too many excuses, remember this: despite suffering a heart attack in October 2017 and undergoing massive, life-saving open-heart surgery in November 2017 at the Cleveland Clinic, I cleared 2-3-inch thick ice from our driveway, sidewalk and path to our porch using a garden shovel, some deicer and the great repair work from the Cleveland Clinic medical staff over several days. I have been fortunate to have received a lot of help removing the snow, but I took it upon myself to clear the ice, as well as shovel out the ice chunks the street plows left. Also, we own the lot next door to us, so I have been shoveling ice from a double wide berth. So, unless you've undergone more surgery than me or have other medical reasons, or you own larger sidewalks/properties than us, I have little patience with excuses for not clearing walks at this point. Sadly, this also feeds into the City of Buffalo "Mayor" Byron Brown's administration's opinion that residents' poor parking/snow clearing efforts are at least partly to blame for the city's inadequate response.

     The city workers themselves are themselves putting out admirable efforts, but no apparent snow clearing plan, a patronizing attitude from the mayor and his administration on just about everything and suspicions of favoritism (including possible instances of less than full committal to clearing areas of the city that backed India Walton during last year's mayoral election), combined with truly crappy weather in heavy snows and brutally cold temperatures, have left streets and sidewalks in poor shape and citizens, both property owners and those who don't, with little confidence that the Brown Administration has the competence or will to properly clear the snow. Sadly, too many people are also falling into the no hope/don't care trap and not clearing their own sidewalks and driveways of both snow and ice. Clearing your own walks not only make them safer for other people to traverse, they are safer for you to go about your business outside. It's not like we have suddenly forgotten how to do this or know that it works.

     I believe the city needs to start looking into buying smaller plows that can be used on sidewalks, even as a pilot program or for certain neighborhoods with needs such as large numbers of senior citizen residents. This would entail Buffalo Common Council members to engage the public and advocate for change, and yes, increased spending at first. But if this was an issue to possibly increased the funding of the police department, in personnel and/or equipment, there would barely be a question of if but of how much and how soon. This is a matter of public safety and needs to be addressed now; it isn't going away, will be back next winter if not again this winter, and will get worse. Hell, on the micro level, I have noticed that Harold, our 11-year old (next month) pit bull/mastiff blend, has adopted his walking gait to the snowy and slippery sidewalks, often mirroring mine. If he knows there is a problem, there's no way city officials, even the clown car of our mayor and his administration, don't know there is a major problem that needs to be changed, if not solved. 

Dispatches from the Time of the Virus XIV: When It Seems to Come for You, Or Why We Wear Our Masks

     While at work at about 3:45 PM Monday, December 27, I felt my cell phone go off in my pocket recognizable as a text message. I was scanning several items, so I figured I would check the message when I got back to my desk. As I sat down at my desk, my cell phone rang, or at least produced its incoming ringtone. I checked my phone, which read that the call was coming from my wife Val, who is working from home due to the COVID pandemic.

     As I answered the phone, “Hi, hon,” I went to my text list. “Get home now, dear,” my wife said in a rather urgent voice, “X (our nephew) just tested positive for COVID.” As I heard this, my heart dropped, and when I looked at the text message, it was also from Val, stating, “Sit down, sweetie. X tested positive.”

     And so, with the call no one wants to receive, the adventure begins. Actually, the adventure began Christmas Day (Saturday). Val and I went to my sister-in-law Y’s house for a brunch get-together with X, Y, Y’s friend and my mother-in-law. My nephew actually arrived from his father’s house a few minutes after Val and I got there at about 12:30-1 PM, and the boyfriend arrived a bit after that. It was a very nice, relaxed, enjoyable gathering, as nice as holiday gatherings can be during a pandemic, which caused this brunch to be a mask-wearing affair for, with occasional laxness by some. Eventually, my nephew returned to his father’s house and the brunch ended.

     Sunday went by normally, as did returning to work at my Erie County Department of Social Services job; Mondays are typically busy, and we were with mail/payments, clients and usual tasks. Or at least until I received the telephone call and texts from my wife. I immediately finished the task I was on, notified my supervisors, checked on the protocols, swiped out at 4 PM and went home. Val and I started checking where, when and how we could get the testing done as soon as possible, as well as receiving results. Val came across CTS, found their testing site at the Buffalo Grand Hotel (formerly Adam’s Mark Hotel) on Church Street, and while appointments weren’t 100 percent necessary, they were recommended, and we got one for 4:25 PM Tuesday, December 28. The rest of the day was spent notifying work representatives (in my department and personnel) what was happening, how my job responsibilities were looking for the next couple of days, and worrying. Worrying about what what I/we would do waiting for the results, what would happen if either one of us or both of us tested positive and we had to quarantine, and so on. The way our house is set up, we have an unfinished attic and basement, and the bedroom is upstairs, next to the computer/media room, and the next room is Val’s studio/computer room; the shower is also located upstairs, so how Val and I would quarantine from each other if one of us tested positive is unknown.

     Having at least a couple of unexpected days off from work doesn’t thrill me. I take pride in my job, a job/situation where we had a 25 percent personnel cut a few years ago, allegedly temporary but it’s been two years or so. When one person left to go to another position (she did a great job with us), it took almost 2 months to replace her, and the new person started two weeks ago. Also, the other person in my office is, shall we say, technology and hard work challenged and could retire today with a full pension; when I am out, they often panic. But I left the messages that I wouldn’t be in along with work instructions, and they basically got by; yes, my return was met with work that should have been done, but it was expected.

     Tuesday went by in fits; Val continued to do her job from home, I slept in a bit but got up to feed and then walk our dog, Harold, and wanted to start writing something like this piece, but found I couldn’t concentrate and didn’t feel like commenting on it on social media just yet. So I ended up showering, doing a lot of reading and hoping the clock would quickly get to the time we could go to get our tests. 

     We got to CTS at exactly 4:25 PM; except for one couple of guests, the only people we saw were two staffers behind the desk and the CTS setup just off the main lobby, with three workers and a few clients/patients. We had to scan something to get to the registration page, and after a few minutes we handed the additional forms back to the first worker, and we waited with a few other people for the rapid response and PCR COVID tests. The testing seemed rather easy and harmless; for each test, a swab was placed in my nostrils, went back a bit/a lot, swirled a few times and that was it. We were told to go back to the waiting/lounge area and wait for our rapid response test results, and about 15 minutes later, we received our cards with the results on them, handed to us individually and face down. While I had shown no symptoms and felt fine, I hadn’t relaxed since learning of my nephew’s positive status, and it felt like the proverbial weight was taken off my back when I flipped the card and saw the negative status. I smiled as I showed Val the card, and she smiled as she waited for hers, which also came back negative a minute or so later.

     Because our COVID protocols did not read like they clearly allowed return to work without a negative PCR test, I contacted the personnel department COVID email address to ask about it; they got back to me checking on my vaccination, booster and symptom status. Because I was fully vaccinated (Pfizer) and boosted (Moderna), had no symptoms and had not tested positive, I could return to work the next day, Thursday, masked as all Erie County employees at the Rath Building are, and I did. Val and I await our PCR test results, but as of 5:30 PM New Year’s Day, we remain symptom free.

     Postscript: my nephew is feeling OK, and my sister-in-law and my nephew’s father both tested positive for COVID, had some symptoms and are feeling better. All are vaccinated and boosted.

Says Me: Buffalo Is Not a One-Political Party City

     Yes, I’d like to discuss a non-COVID 19 pandemic issue or two; in particular, they are political issues mainly affecting/relating to the City of Buffalo, of which my lovely wife Val and I are longtime residents and homeowners in the Elmwood Village/West Side.

     As many of you readers know, India Walton, nurse, community activist and leader and democratic socialist, defeated four-time incumbent Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown in the recent Democratic Party primary (damn, it feels good to write that sentence). Val and I proudly voted for and donated to the campaign of India Walton, and plan to do each again. Val and I are Democratic committee people on the left side of the electoral/philosophical spectrum, me for about 15 years, Val for almost 20 years.

     What moves me today is an idea that really gets my gander up (or other antiquated expressions), that Buffalo is a one-political party city, which is about as bad as believing that Buffalo and other Erie County municipalities should have open primaries. No and no. If there was a law or imposition that only one political party could hold office in the city, I could understand such a sentiment, but that is not so. People have elected only Democrats for several years in city, county and state offices, but you only have to go back about 5 years to find Republicans representing parts of the city.

     With every single elected city official in Buffalo and every other elected official at any other level in Buffalo a Democrat, I realize the easy comment/response is that this a one-party city. But that is really an oversimplified, intellectually lazy and simply wrong statement. It isn’t fair, but more importantly, is wrong and kind of dumb to blame Democrats for being able to organize, work hard and offer the stands on issues that the vast majority of city residents favor/agree with; it’s contemptuous to Democratic voters. Instead, we have a Buffalo Republican Committee that, through marching orders from the Erie County and New York State Republican committees, have basically given up on the City of Buffalo, even with an officeholder as recent as former State Senator, now Congressman Chris Jacobs. The obvious reason for Republicans giving up and not even making reasonable efforts challenging or vying for elections in Buffalo is that the fewer competitive races in Buffalo, the lower the Democratic voter turnout may be, affecting county, state and federal elections.

     Enrollment of Democrats versus Republicans in Buffalo favors Democrats by a margin of about 7-1 to 10-1, but fighting for your beliefs and political existence would seemingly be a good idea for running candidates against incumbents in the city. Democrats also hold majorities in the New York State Assembly and State Senate, as well as occupy the Governor’s Mansion, but it wasn’t long ago that Republicans held the majority in the State Senate and held the governorship (the electrifying, magnetic George Partake) and even had a U.S. Senator in the slimy, how-did-he-avoid-prison Alphonse D’Amato. I understand that Republicans have a horrible track record of electoral success, as well as actual policy implementation, in urban areas, but when your party pretty much stands for horrible policies and is blatantly racist, maybe the best we can hope for is a GOP that exists but barely succeeds at anything in the city besides voter suppression.

     I am not stating that every office being held by one party, in Buffalo Democrats, doesn’t create some problems. Sadly, this situation has led to some political laziness and the election and re-election of someone as boring, non-innovative, incompetent and some would say even worse like Byron Brown, who served on Buffalo’s Common Council and in the New York State Senate before becoming mayor. This creates a situation where the winner of Democratic primaries in Buffalo are de facto election winners; if there is no Republican candidate, as there is none for the Buffalo mayoral race in 2021 and has previously occurred, then the election itself becomes all but a formality. Some people believe this makes it a good thing that Byron Brown, after his primary loss to India Walton, has announced he will conduct a write-in campaign for mayor. It is a real long-shot election strategy, but no one at this point expects Brown to do the smart thing, the classy thing and the right thing and concede the primary election and leave the race. But it seriously demonstrates some hypocrisy and self-aggrandizement in Brown’s part, since he has won several primaries in the past and never welcomed write-in campaigns, but no doubt expected losing candidates to bow out of the race. It is hard to believe that Brown, the former New York State Democratic Committee chair, did not expect and advocate for primary winners to be the party’s candidates and not seek disgruntled losing Democrats to continue their campaigns. But, here he is.

     There is the related concept that political primaries, which decide the parties’ respective candidates, should be open to all voters, regardless of affiliation. Some say that in a city like Buffalo, where one party dominates elective offices, that this would give all voters a chance to vote on the candidates at a time their voices could be heard. Primaries are specifically held to determine which candidate represents a specific political party in the general election, so absolutely no, no one not registered to that party should be allowed to vote in the primary. Want to vote in a political party’s primary? Join the damn party. Why should anyone not holding the same beliefs as a specific party get to choose its candidates? Don’t give me the argument of there being no chance of outsiders winning primaries; India Walton just did so. Also, it is not a political party’s responsibility that the other parties run candidates or run candidates of any particular quality. Open primary? Sure they’re called general elections.

Dispatches from the Time of the Virus XIII: Keep Feeling (and Keep Getting) Vaccinations

My lovely wife Val Dunne and I received our second Pfizer COVID vaccinations April 2 at the Delavan Grider Community Center FEMA site in Buffalo. We did everything we could do over this past almost 1 1/2 years to avoid and fight this pandemic, and we've come out on the other side fine...so far. We urge EVERYONE who is eligible and has none of the few, rare medical reasons not to to get the COVID vaccinations, Save your life and others.

My lovely wife Val and I after we received our second Pfizer COVID vaccination April 2.

     We're thrilled and relieved to have made it to this point and continue to take all proper precautions; Val continues to work from home full time, and her health has improved in several ways; she has a major comorbidity which attacks her immune system, multiple sclerosis, which she fought and lived with before, during and when we get to it, after the pandemic. I never stopped going into the office to my Erie County Department of Social Services job in the Rath Building in downtown Buffalo, despite my 3 comorbidities, nor did I stop dealing with clients/the public, although it was in a reduced role. We were reduced to 50 percent in-office in March 2020, went to 60 percent by May and then 100 percent by the start of June 2020, and we started wearing masks before we went to a reduced in-office schedule.

     We are still wearing masks at work, but the rules have been eased a bit; at first, it was 100 percent at all times except when eating, drinking, etc., but now, if you are fully vaccinated (and 2 weeks past second vaccination) and at your desk basically isolated from others, you can take your mask off. You must wear masks when in contact with the public at all times and when entering or traversing pubic areas and similar situations. Personally, I continue to wear my mask at all times at work except when eating and so on, and will do so for the foreseeable future, and possibly/probably after we are told we can stop. We deal with people most often in the lower economic classes and situations at ECDSS, and sadly, these people frequently have the lowest or worst access to quality health care; they, as always, deserve to be treated with respect and quality interaction, but I plan to stay as healthy as I can and have through this pandemic and to bot spread the deadly virus, rare s that possibility is.

      The success of the vaccinations, and the success of the Biden Administration and other officials and companies in getting the production and distribution of the vaccinations greater and more successful than anticipated, while not perfect, has been amazing. I would never have believed just how effective the vaccinations would have been if you had told me this before their application. Anyone looking for me to give any credit to former President Trump for any of this process needs to fully accept Trump's responsibility for calling COVID-19 a hoax, repeatedly underplaying its urgency, pushing quack "treatments" such as hydroxychloroquine sulfate, insulting and trying to silence scientists such as Dr. Anthony Fauci, somehow suggesting bleach and lights to treat COVID-19, for not taking the pandemic seriously when he apparently contracted it and then, finally, getting vaccinated in secret with then First Lady Melania Trump.

     As per our specific vaccinations, Val had a few short-term side effects such as tiredness, soreness around the vaccine area and a bit of the blahs; I missed a couple of days of work after my first vaccination due to chills, fever, fatigue and the like, but I only felt some soreness and tiredness for the second shot and didn't miss any days from that one. My full-time immediate officemate, a normally very nice white male a few years older than me, is a conservative and Trump supporter. He did not get his vaccination until the Erie County designated times workers could take off from work without losing any time/pay to get the vaccines at vaccination events for county employees only; of course, they were timed with the end of the day so he could get the shot and go home. 

     There is so much more to write about, but I'll save it for next time, and yes, I know, it's been about 10 months since last entry; I won't let that happen again.