For reasons I won’t get into here, I’ve not published a bit for this blog in 5 months…I know.
It’s time to start again. I had to resolve and get beyond some old karmic debts of in my rear view mirror and get squared away in my rejuvenated real estate business at 38 High Rock Ave (where I’ve been since late last September, 2013) before I could indulge in the relative frivolity of writing about music and culture and places I love… Also had to simply get through a brutal winter, which, for a lot of us, proved to be an elemental challenge to the practice of real estate. At one time, say late February or March, if I’d had a Twitter account, I’d have declared: It’s hard, up here in the North Country, to get any business rhythm going unless you’re a snowplow operator... though that seems nostalgic and somewhat whiny in the retrospective mirror, now tha, in late May,t the temp is in the 70’s, finally. Still, the massive man-made snow-hill dubbed Mount Middle Grove in the Town Park only recently receded fully into the ground as of May 5th.
But I had to put my head down and work workaholic hours, making a New Years vow not to drink a beer or a glass of wine from Jan. 1 until I felt I was out of the woods, so to speak, in my life and career. While others of my age and ilk took off on vacations, my family and I stuck it out in the north country this year. My world was limited on a north-south axis from Delmar to Hague, and east-west from Troy to the Sacandaga region. Saratoga is the fulcrum of all that, and for most intents and purposes, I didn’t leave town much in early 2014. It’s a hundred and two days into the year as I write this, and I’m just now looking up. Recovery doesn’t come to the passive.
I didn’t blog about music as I wasn’t really seeing any– once again WEXT was my audial pipeline to what was going on…the quirky pop tune “Southern Sun” from Australian duo
Boy & Bear was one of the radio highlights in early spring, in my car or at home… but otherwise I was just watching a ton of basketball on TV in my office during evening hours, as my only allowable narcotic and relaxant. Mostly paid attention to the NBA this year, although the NCAA Tourney was a grueling crapshoot during March Madness too, and I saw a few exciting High School games featuring teams from Spa Catholic, Hoosic Valley, Lake George, and a killer bunch from Scotia, who amazingly won the Class A Hoop Title for all of NY State.
(I still may try to recap all that on another website, but not here,)
There is no hangover from a hoop addiction, however, so I was emailing & texting clients and prospects till 11 or 12 at night and resuming at 5 or 6 in the morning. I became the real estate fanatic I had been at my peak a decade or more ago, and let my light shine out from under the bushel as much as I could until the spring market arrived.
Since then there have been a few “watershed” events… the first was a phenomenal concert at the renowned TROY MUSIC HALL on April 12th, featuring two of the few, if not only, SOLO local performers I would be inclined to pay to see– SEAN ROWE, and MARYLEIGH ROOHAN. This was perhaps the only time in my life I will think far enough ahead to grab front row seats in a major concert hall– and it scored me big points with my wife, since I designated it the “modified, officially revised” date of our Anniversary.
In that she is a huge Sean Rowe fan, and virtually melts at the sound of his raspy baritone, this was one of the better gifts I’d come up with during our recent years of austerity, with two boys in college and a daughter with extensive taste still at home.
We had seen SEAN blow away the room like a one-man tornado at the Caffe Lena last February, a little over a year before, and the chance to hear him in his own hometown, during his first historic performance in the acoustic elegance of this Second Avenue 1920’s HALL was a notable treat indeed.
I won’t launch into a review of the concert, belatedly, here, but Greg Haymes wrote a pretty good one for the Times-Union the next day. He said, however, that Rowe had performed a few too many cover tunes…. though he admitted that the Richard Thompson epic guitar workout — the infamous “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”–was a highlight of the evening, just as I had witnessed at Caffe Lena as the final sweaty climax at Lena’s– the tornado referenced above. In addition to that, Sean played a great growling, guttural version of The River, which more than a few Springsteen fans appreciated, and also the Howlin’ Wolf tune “SPOONFUL” in which he sounded like the white grandson of the Wolf himself, and which I felt might have been my personal favorite, since I love the Cream version I heard first, in junior high, before I had a clue what it meant. Spoonful is about addiction of all sorts– everything from sugar to smack, from booze to “tea”, is mentioned, with the baddest of them all– a woman’s precious love— the kicker to them all. Rowe sang with intrinsic knowledge of that kind of yearning and withdrawal that cannot be faked. To hear true blues like that in a classically-timbered enclave was remarkable, and jarring. No whiskey-swilling or beer-bottle singalongs in this venue.
In addition to Sean’s music– with his precisely cross-patterned duct-taped guitar still in tow– and his formal attire (lol) of flannel and black tee– his between-song patter was fluid, well-timed, and natural. Whereas at Lena’s he seemed to be more confessional as to the woes of being on tour a bit too long on the road, away from his wife, he seemed to be in more familial mode, closer to home, and regaling us about his parenting skills–
“Sometimes as a dad you have to use a little “reverse role modeling,” he told us slyly…”I was out for a walk with my 7 year old daughter, and said, why don’chu go over there and give that dog a KICK, and she wouldn’t do it, so there ya go. Some useful parenting info to take home with you…”
Stories of a former favorite nun at a Troy school ensued– “She called all of us boys “Master” when she read the roll call– which was fine for me–“Master Rowe” but I felt bad for my buddy Bill Bates when she got to him…” He let that one sink in while he fiddled with tuning his guitar.
…And, since we were at an event sponsored by and a Benefit for Ia Rural Land Preservation group, he told stories of his early days spent in the back-country of Rensselaer County told with deadpan gusto: “I guess I coulda used a little more guidance…since my way of learning about nature was putting cricket heads on top of grasshoppers, stuff like that…“
Needless to say, he was quite at home there, like a natural vaudevillian on that stage.
MaryLeigh Roohan– who we’d seen give a great CD release party at The Parting Glass in Saratoga earlier in the winter– was poised and note-perfect in her opening act that night. Whereas Rowe wielded his acoustic (plugged into his amp, whom he introduced as “his band”) like a weapon he used for emphasis, MaryLeigh strums a strat as a harmonic counterpart to her exquisite voice, on all her well-crafted tunes, which showcase her resonant voice, and radiant upper ranges. She took full advantage of the legendary acoustics of that venerable hall– and then humbly proclaimed it to be by far the highlight of her career so far. At 22 (or maybe 23 by now?) she seemed destined for such a stage, and though a bit coy, protesting her nervousness, delivered her goods with confidence. We saw her and her boyfriend later at a boutique-tavern down the street a couple hours later and she was still clearly glowing from the experience. I know she converted a ton of new fans that evening, and pleased those that knew her already. When she hit the high notes of her best tune yet– “BABY YOU SHOULD KNOW”– I’d Give You The Wooorrrrrlld If I Could… it was goose-bump material, angelic.
We came away with a whole new appreciation of downtown Troy after strolling the streets for a while in the post-euphoria of the concert. I must admit, the esoteric beers we drank that night– 102 days into the year– tasted so good it was tough to stop with just one or two…but still had to drive the 40 minutes or so back home to the western edge of Saratoga’s vale. A concert event like this was well worth the motoring.
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Once we got into May, our KW Realty Saratoga office had a few people (including me) sign up to take part in what was dubbed the TreeToga Festival, sponsored by the excellent group Sustainable Saratoga, in conjunction with the DPW Department of Saratoga Springs itself– headed by Skip Scirocco . It was a ritualized tree planting ceremony– led by retired EnCon Forest Ranger and longtime Saratogian Rick Fenton, and Tom Denny, as head of Sustainable Saratoga. Our group, after a bit of speech-making and instructional guidance, was assigned the planting of three trees– 2 tulip poplar (Liriodendron) saplings and a larger on I was told was basswood (actually an American Sentry Linden–(Tilla Americana)– across from The Saratogian office building on Lake Ave, just below the Police Station. The idea was to re-populate the in-town street-scape with new arboreal species to replace some of the dead or diseased trees that have been removed in recent years. Shade, beauty, and oxygen production are the obvious benefits, and providing native species to counteract some of the invasive varieties was part of the picture too. Although I showed up for a pre-scheduled afternoon listing appointment later that day a bit scruffy and dirty under the fingernails, it was still worth it, although I did not in fact win out on the listing.
There were a lot of cool people there that day, parents with their kids, older retired folks who had grandchildren living in the area, and lots of young urban professionals who had consciously chosen to live in Saratoga in the past decade, plus some who had grown up here, moved away, and had come back. Tough I’d been here since the late 70’s, it was the first time for me to participate in something like this, and I commend the city for budgeting for the trees, many of which still have their tags on the branches, as they start their re-growth in this wonderful small city.
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One last watershed event of a family sort was a couple weeks later, when my wife and daughter and I ventured early on Sunday May 18th to Syracuse to witness my son’s graduation from LeMoyne College. This was a defining watershed event for me, as Miles had felt the same tugs and distractions that I had felt at college– the same temptations to quit and go back later, or maybe take a year off, or transfer, or whatever– but he stuck with it on graduated “on time”, as I’ve been told is somewhat rare these days. I had been supportive but somewhat nonchalant during his career there, but his last semester, coinciding with my workaholic phase in early 2014, was his most grueling in the study of Information Systems at The Madden School of Business. I had talked him off the ledge on a few evenings when he was facing multiple all-nighters to get classwork projects, papers, and final exams completed in time to “walk the stage” in the cap-and-gown with his friends and classmates. It was harrowing like most worthy endeavors and I applaud him and his classmates for completed the 4-year cycle– shout out to Keaton Woods– his long-time teammate from Catholic Central– John Rogan, one of his good friends from the Saratoga area, and Jamie Patchett, his lovely girlfriend from a fine family up in Hague on Lake George. You (collectively) did it! Your future awaits….
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SARATOGA SYNOPSIS— May 2014— Quick snapshots:
To move beyond the personal to the Saratoga-centric, a lot has changed and taken shape since I last wrote on this blog—- among the most notable–
SAVE SARATOGA has indeed fought off the dragon of Vega-style Gambling from the city limits, and defeated the siting of the state-anointed Casino within the City limits. More on what this means, and what challenges remain in this realm, on another occasion.
The Pavillion Hotel has been un-shrouded of its winter-long plastic-wrap cocoon and completed on 30 Lake Avenue…a beautiful monument in the downtown landscape… on the site of a now-long forgotten Mobil Station… right alongside the venerable Parting Glass Pub, still there.
The Crowne Plaza Hotel is framed and towering on Congress Street, a block from Broadway on the westside, also nearing completion later this year…a Bast-Hatfield Company project.
The Northshire Bookstore and Criterion Bowtie Cinemas are now anchoring fixtures on the cultural and architectural downtown scene, and fully dressed-out.
15 Church Street–a low-key restaurant facade– has been tastefully created out of a longtime brick shell, just behind the Post Office, close to Broadway…also Bast Hatfield, with architectural design by John Muse.
More to come…!!!
(Wayne is back!)
Take care, see you soon…