While waiting for the B52s to join us in Lockport, my main musical partner in crime and I took a wander in the nearby locks.







And there was lots worthy of further exploration, but the Iphone is only so smart. Point being, go play tourist and wander.

You find cool stuff that way.

Happily, and as per usual, made a bit of a fool of myself at the B-52s show in Lockport. They are still a lot of fun after all these years. I read a little of some band grumbling about the perfomance space and really couldn’t care less. They played a nice set of music and the majority seems to have a blast. I know I did.



I couldn’t help but laugh as there were a few folks watched the show, with an either a stonedfaced expression or a little peeved. What you see is what you get with the B52s and seeing those folks with such zombified expressions, made me laugh even more.

So, spanning the world…..

Really disappointed in the President and pretty much Congress in general. All the theater, the stupidity, yes, Tea-Party led foolishness around the debt ceiling produced a crappy bill, defunded the FAA and 70-80,000 construction workers on FAA projects as well as infrastructure projects are out of work. Who are these people all these guys are claiming to represent? Bet all of the legislators made their vacation connections on time as the Speaker does need that tanning time.

Over 100 teachers got laid off in Buffalo this week, but we are shopping for an administrator? um, wha? If there are underperforming schools, you’d think the superintendent might take a direct interest in that. That shouldn’t be the kind of thing you farm out.

So, WNED bought WBFO this week as UB sort of lost interest in the radio station. Jeff Simon repeated in the Buffalo News his old laments about the death of jazz radio in Buffalo. As my Dad and I discussed, that story is so dead, it has a tombstone. I’m a little more interested in keeping the great blues shows they have on now. Sure, it would be great for jazz, big band, oldies all to find a place on the airwaves, but WBFO’s audience share bounced up when they turned into a NPR repeater. Since it is public, perhaps a little thought would go into what is next. And, while I’m at it, perhaps WNED might attract a greater listen share if the on-air staff wasn’t so reserved. I’m not saying morning show antics for a classical music station, but perhaps if the announcers weren’t seemingly talking down to people, teaching them, more people might tune in.

I think we ought to have an NFL lockout until this time every year. It was a little more exciting seeing all the compressed movement and actual news, maybe just a ban on reporting next spring. The splurge of news made the Bills seem interesting. Let’s not kid ourselves folks. It ain’t a playoff team in St. John Fisher this year either, but it could be fun. At least the uniforms have improved.

Took in the “Outer Harbor Fest” over the weekend and it was a noble effort I suppose. I found myself lamenting all this great space, all this potential for water access (A Beach in the City, For the the LOVE OF GOD, that is the big project!! make that happen and stores will trip over themselves.), and that made the lame band, food and lousy rides seem even that more pitiful. A well-intentioned sound guy tried to pep us all up with tales of the thousands who were there Saturday evening, but the 30 or so of us there Sunday afternoon were a little skeptical. My son did give the fried dough high marks, so I guess that is something to build on. It bugs me as that space has sat for years now and something could happen. Witness the wharf, mimic that and good times can happen.

Here’s the view from adjacent the temporary Tilt-A-Whirl. Maybe Gallagher Beach ain’t the space, I’m sure there are engineering issues, but could you imagine if there was more water access for those of us who don’t own boats? Could fix a lot.

As this week has shown, there is plenty in need of fixing.

From last Wednesday's night moe show.

My friend and I are in the lower right of the picture

Caught my best side....lol

Nice capper to a low profile Sunday

Well, sorta.

Had a nice kayak ride in the river Saturday. If you have never partaken, I highly recommend it. It's an inexpensive rental at the harbor. I have all the boating skills that an elephant would have on a tightrope and had a grand time, even managed a snap shot quickly taken underneath the skyway.

Hate to see Borders go. Back in the day, when I worked for a book publisher, our CEO envisioned news like this. It was a little hard to imagine because in the early to mid 90s, the race to build bigger better bookstores was fast and furious. We had to gear a lot of efforts towards things that would be pleasing to Borders, Brentanos, Waldenbooks and Barnes and Noble.

Less places for actual books is like neighborhood record stores going away, the material is still out there, but it is kind of sad to see it come to that. Given expense, my awareness of my neighborhood library has returned, because I guess I’m old school, something about the experience of having actual pages to turn.

I don’t have any issues with Kindles or Nooks. A colleague even successfully stripped a nook of its software and replaced it with Android software and it runs like a champ.

One of the greater parenting cons of all time was my dad suckering my siblings and me when we were kids. We would hit a branch library pretty regularly, but special occasions meant “DOWNTOWN!” Hidden treasures could be found on various shelves that rarely met the racks in Clarence. I know you can arrange that now, but when you’re a kid, finding something cool on your own is a joy that can’t be adequately described here.

That was the cool thing about the big stores like Borders. Sure, Amazon has everything under the sun and then some, but places like Borders would have something right there. I wasn’t there a lot, but appreciated what their efforts. It was never terribly important that “Seattle’s best” was brewing in the corner, but after getting my son all hyped up to help me find the latest Tom Robbins book, to the point of chanting “B is for Beer” as we entered the store and finding it was pretty cool.

One less venue for that, so that is a little sad.

Remember when you were learning to drive, and more importantly, learning to parallel park? Yeah, me too. More importantly, remember waiting while somebody finished parallel parking, since you know there might be traffic coming the other way. Yeah, me too. I’m not sure when it happened, but apparently you are supposed to just go around the poor devil who is trying to park. This is troubling to me. If you take that chance, what if the parker messes up and needs to come out? What if you are the parker and the guy in the Humvee can’t wait and comes close to hitting you because he HAS to beat the traffic….into submission?

I see this on Elmwood all the time and watched as the folks at the marina over the weekend were routinely breathing down each other’s necks seeking parking. Relax, ya’all, we’ll get there.

Great slate of music in the area for the summer at next to no money. It’s funny since Western New York is such a sun starved people, there is a high population of folks who take in a show, not to see the show per se, but being seen at the show or saying they caught it. I was struck while mostly enjoying Pat Benatar by the sheer amount of people, just there, not particularly for the show, just to be there. I had a crappy vantage point of one of the tv screens for much of the night and dumbstruck when a sloshed woman came up to ask if I would be move because she couldn’t see the screen from her chair even further back. It’s a concert not a movie, fool.

Social Media can be a funny thing. A guy who decided sight unseen that an untested intern would be better at my job than I would some years ago, now wants to be LinkedIn. That makes me chuckle as only one of us is working in this market.

Not going to weigh in on the Casey Anthony case, as I’ve come down with a bad case of disinterest.

Okay, you say it without looking at it and it sounds like a bar on Main Street with a two drink minimum between City Lights and the Jam Club, but it is the Water Taxi, that I admit from a distance to me looked like the Mini-Me the Miss Buffalo never needed. But before I’m branded a neigh-sayer or anything bad buffalonian-esque, I shoved my semi-willing young son on for a lap around the waterfront. I thought we’d a two hour ride to inner and outer harbor, but it is one of the other. We happened to hop for the inner harbor jaunt, but it was still a groovy ride. Got out onto a bit of the open water for a bit. along with some different perspective of the city, so I said the heck with it and played tourist and took a few pictures.









There are a few more over at mikespub.wordpress.com, but you get the idea.