The Blog of Jason "Jayce" Olshefsky

Last month I saw an ad for a dog to a good home. I replied and got the new dog, Lucy (Ali’s and my dog), and Pumpkin Pie (my gray American short-hair cat, named by a crazy cat lady) all together and they seemed to get along acceptably — I know things would be rough, but the behavior of the new dog was key.

So last Monday the 23rd I got “Tieson” (the etymology of which I still haven’t inquired about). He’s a Jack Russell terrier who’s 9-year-old (as of today, actually).

The first day I had him his behavior was better than I could have expected. Pumpkin was very patient and only a few skirmishes broke out. His previous owner said he had bladder issues when home alone, and I presumed it was due to separation anxiety. In fact, when I went to Genesee Bakery (1677 Mount Hope Ave.) for all of 10 minutes, he soaked a pillow pretty good. He only had one such “accident” so far.

That night, I let him sleep in my bed. During the night, I noticed he started to intensely regard the vacuum cleaner. After an hour or so, he decided that it was, indeed, an infernal machine and must be barked at. I turned on the light and he was startled to see me, transferring his agression to me. Before I could get him out of the bedroom, he managed to bite me pretty hard on the hand. Being kind of aggressive, I have learned this particular Jack Russell is happiest if he’s kept in his place (e.g. lower than eye-contact with people.)

The next day went well as well. I learned some things he didn’t like and mostly avoided them. However, when returning from a walk, I expected him to get bite-y when I toweled off his wet belly so I put on leather gloves and, when he inevitably did snap at me, I pinned him down firmly to show that I was “alpha”. I didn’t like doing it, but it didn’t hurt him, and I had to do it again later when he snapped at me on my bed. I gather it’s not harmful, per se, especially if used sparingly, but I don’t want him to have an “alpha dog” relationship with me. It should help that I signed him up for obedience class at Dogs At Play (75 Howell St.)

By Thursday we were running together in the morning. Jack Russells are known for their speed and endurance: he kept up for all 4 miles or so. During the day, cat-dog relations had a setback when I picked up Pumpkin to pet him and Tieson, apparently jealous, seemed curious to see what I was doing and then he decided it was a good idea to bite Pumpkin’s tail. I ended up with a couple scratches on my face and on my hands from the ensuing body launch.

Today he was thrilled to “go for a ride” and was even thrilled to visit the vet at Penfield Veterinary Hospital (1672 Penfield Rd.) for all his shots and more. Now he’s all set for his dog license, so he gets to be a real little dog.

Thursday night I got to Amtrak (320 Central Ave.) about an hour early for my pilgrimage to Burning Man. Earlier in the day, I had to use a Zipcar to get my farm share from Mud Creek Farm (McMahon Rd., Victor), and to take Ali to pick up her car from getting brake repairs. Little did I know this was a mere warning shot of things to come.

I had packed into two Rubbermaid totes, a large suitcase, a smaller bag, and a backpack. I made a custom cart to carry the totes along with the additional luggage tied on: the totes contained my to-be-filled water bottles, and the cart was to make it easier to navigate around Burning Man, particularly to get to a place to get a ride when I left. I was quite impressed as I ordinarily required the bulk of a car to carry everything I needed.

Everything I need for Burning Man 2011

Anyway, I figured I could check the large suitcase and two totes, and carry the backpack and smaller bag onto the train. I was told I couldn’t check totes (a.k.a. harbinger number two) so I did some quick thinking and swapped the contents of the smaller bag with the equivalent volume from one of the totes. I checked the smaller bag and the large suitcase instead. (In the future I’ll make canvas boxes for the totes with zippers and hide them inside, giving the illusion of “real” luggage.)

While waiting for the train (which was an hour and a half late from Albany no less — that’s three) I met a guy who was trying to get to Cleveland. He didn’t have much (if any) money but he was going to try and sweet-talk his way onto the train. I was quite sure it wouldn’t work, at least not on such a busy route — if it had been quieter, he would have been able to board without a ticket beforehand then at least made it to Buffalo before being kicked off. I looked into just paying for his ticket but it was too expensive so I just gave him a few bucks to see if he could make it to Buffalo or beyond. He went to the ticket counter then disappeared. Then when I was boarding, he reappeared and tried to be my “porter”. Alas, he was indeed denied entry to the train.

I finally boarded the westbound Amtrak Lakeshore Limited at 12:30 a.m. By 9 a.m. we were partway through Ohio.

Just west of Bryan, Ohio from the Amtrak window

We arrived in Chicago a little late around 11:30 a.m. when I was confronted with this:

The moment I knew Burning Man was not-to-be this year.

My jaw dropped and my heart sank as I read — as if a personal message to me about my whole trip — “Cancelled. No alternative transportation”. That was when I really surrendered. Momentum allowed me to continue to the long line at the ticket counter as there was a possibility of leaving a day later — perhaps an engine had failed and needed to be moved. Alas the worst: the eastbound California Zephyr struck a piece of construction equipment and derailed, injuring 22 people. Service was not expected to resume for several days at the earliest.

I was to meet some friends for a ride on Sunday to arrive on Monday when Burning Man started, so although I might have been able to figure out how to wait 24 hours, several days was out of the question (service was still disrupted as I write this, so at the earliest, I’d have left Sunday, arrived in Reno on Wednesday, then have to beg for a ride). Not to mention I couldn’t afford to stay at a Chicago hotel for that amount of time, and it would disrupt my whole experience significantly. Cost prevented me from getting a rental car as well, and flying was not an option because of the amount of stuff I had with me. The mandatory American experience of taking a bus across the country will have to wait [for another lifetime].

So I exchanged my existing tickets and bought one to return to Rochester at 9:30 p.m. I also ran into two burners in the station (which I deduced from their fire-enhanced hula-hoops and fur-covered bikes). I didn’t get their names, but asked what they were going to do. They opted to take the train to Portland, San Fransisco, and east to Reno, arriving a day and a half later. I probably could have done that, but like I said, I was getting a lot of signs to quit. I gave them my Burning Man ticket, and hopefully they could get it to someone who could use it (it might even help them get a ride).

I got a little into Chicago but had to tote the cart of totes around so I didn’t get far. I went to Beggar’s Pizza (310 S. Clinton St., Chicago, IL) which was excellent. The Chicago style was so good that if it wasn’t textbook-perfect, they should rewrite the textbook.

For the remainder of the evening I hung around the station. I met a woman who came from Indiana to go to her brother’s childhood friend’s funeral in Iowa but she had to turn back too. And on “commiseration corner” of the fountain we also met a guy who went to boot camp for the Navy only to be rejected on a medical discharge and had to absorb the bittersweet experience of watching his campmates graduate in full dress uniform.

And even on the way home, things got complicated: Amtrak stopped service at Albany because of Hurricane Irene. Thankfully this didn’t affect me because I only needed to get as far east as Rochester. As things had gone, I fully expected them to suddenly stop service at Buffalo, though.

Thankfully I was only going to Rochester!

Obviously I’m really bummed. This was apparently the year of too-little, too-late. Earlier I had failed to get the Tadpole Trike finished on time. Then I hustled to get everything done to go by alternate means, but bigger and bigger roadblocks kept appearing. In both cases, I refer to a phenomenon I call “tractor-pull mode”. In a modern tractor pull, a sled is used with weights over wheels that are slid forward causing the front to drag, so as Wikipedia puts it, “as the tractor travels the course, the weights are pushed forward of the sled’s axles, pushing the front of the sled into the ground, synthetically creating a gain in weight until the tractor is no longer able to overcome the force of friction.” Hence, the further I got, the more resistance I experienced.

At least I can look forward to the things I would have missed in Rochester. And I can look forward to FrostBurn and put some effort behind it. In any case, next year I will be much more committed. Or else I’ll need to be committed.

I decided to go out and visit Ali at Genesee Valley Park (Hawthorn Dr.) at her kickball game with The Kickball League of Rochester. The game is relatively simple and goes by fast, so I only caught a couple innings. Ali went home but I decided to go with the team to the bar. Their pick: J. D. Oxford’s Pub (636 Monroe Ave.) I haven’t been there in years. It wasn’t bad — $4 pitchers of uninteresting domestics was a good deal — and I got to chat with some cool people on the team. Plus the team’s pizza arrived really late so I decided to take Ali’s share (I suspected she was very hungry.)

Afterward I was going to head to Lux but I thought I’d check out 140 Alex Bar and Grill (140 Alexander St., formerly Nasty D’s) as they changed names. There were only a few people outside so I was going to skip it, but I had to stop for the intersection and ended up talking about my tall bike with them a little. One of them mentioned I should go inside because Felipe Rose (the Native American in The Village People) was signing autographs. Well, as serendipity would have it, I had literally just listened (as in hours earlier) to a podcast of Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! from April 10, 2010 which featured Rose as a guest. I went in and got to say hi and tell him about it. He was busy promoting a show at The Erie County Fair (5600 McKinley Pkwy., Hamburg) and was a little distracted, but thought it was kind of funny.

Then I went to Lux Lounge (666 South Ave.) I was hanging out by the pool table for a bit when this guy comes in with one of the other new tall bikes around town! His name is Matt and he and some of his friends are working on custom bikes. Finally! It’s not just me!

Ali and I went to Rocco (165 Monroe Ave., formerly The Olive Tree) for dinner and it was fantastic. We dropped in without a reservation and were happy to eat at the bar. Ali got the ziti with a side of meatballs which she loved — if I remember right: I was overwhelmed by the quality of my thick-cut pork chop special with parmesan cheese and a chili-spiced red sauce. Drinks, too, were excellent: the Stormy Monday was a great choice.  Ali even liked it despite that she otherwise hates the taste of bourbon. As it ended up, we were too full for dessert.

Ali and Christina each made a dish for the “Ramen-Off” at Monty’s Krown (875 Monroe Ave.) I tagged along although I didn’t make anything — but, heck, a tasting and a couple beers was just a few bucks. All the dishes were surprisingly creative, although most were based on substituting ramen noodles for other kinds of pasta. Nonetheless, the Thai-peanut dish that Jeff brought was the crowd favorite among the 14 entries. Judges, however, chose Ali’s “Lucky Sombreros”: baked spicy ramen wafers topped with chicken, guacamole, and sour cream (not that Ali’s weren’t popular: her dish was the first to be emptied). So congratulations, Ali and Jeff! We’ll look forward to next year’s competition.

I was walking back home from Ali’s and I saw a car stopped in South Avenue in front of Al Sigl Center (1000 Elmwood Ave.). The driver was tooting his horn and yelling to someone. I thought he was being nutty, but once he drove through the parking lot to the bus stop, the headlights of the car revealed a figure slumped over inside.

He and I tried to rouse the person (it looked like a man, but appeared to have a purse, so I didn’t know) but they didn’t wake up, although still clearly breathing. Neither of us were sure what to do so we left. The driver of the car mentioned the smell of alcohol and commented something to the extent that drunks are on their own, apparently clearing his conscience … or just assuaging his guilt.

I decided to call 911 and they said they’d send someone. I felt bad, on the one hand, because I knew the care this person would receive would likely not be adequate to set them on a path to a healthy life. Then again, I really know nothing about the situation. They could have been like me some particular Saturday night, stumbling into a bus stop to “rest” after carrying a curbside string trimmer that held some valuable parts — only to pass out stone drunk as I have been known to do. They could have fit my stereotype of a homeless person — someone who is probably mentally challenged (or at best ill equipped to scratch out modest success in this modern world) and this was the best they could do for the night. They could have chosen that life and actually been prepared for the conditions — after all, they were bundled in what appeared to be no fewer than 3 layers of clothes, and seemed possibly adequately warm to survive.

So I don’t know whether I even should have interfered. In my defense, I was unable to get any response, much less a satisfactory one — even if it was just to leave them alone. I don’t much care for disrupting someone else’s freedom to live as they choose, but I also feel that once in a position where you can’t respond, you leave yourself vulnerable to such disruptions.

Ali, Christina, and I headed to Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House (900 East Ave. to see the double-feature. Well, Christina and I committed to the long-haul while Ali only wanted to see Ghostbusters.  The first feature, as such, was just as good as I remember from the last time I saw it as well as times past.  The movie tends to hold together as a comedy and as a thriller … for instance, the apperarance of the final enemy was as disturbing and humorous as it was when I saw it in 1984.  Of course, the film is also pretty seriously flawed with continuity and special-effects problems (not so much the datedness of optical effects, but more the problem of concrete bouncing gently off wooden police barriers).

Ali smartly left because Gremlins was awful.  “Awful” like “one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen”.  I remember seeing bits and pieces of the film in the past, and I apparently always turned away from it as it got boring.  I never did see it when I was young, and, admittedly, I probably would have been extremely entertained as a teenager.  But as an adult, it’s just excruciating.  Christina noted that it was like an episode of Amazing Stories — something that could have been a clever tale at 20 minutes.  Unfortunately, the film was padded an additional 86 minutes (of which, the only redeeming moment was Phoebe Cates hilariously deadpan delivery explaining why her character hates Christmas).  The lesson is to have extremely low expectations if you’re going to make an attempt — or better yet, if you liked it as a kid, don’t even bother revisiting it.

Ali and I decided to use some coupons from Christmas to see Sherlock Holmes at Regal Henrietta Stadium 18 (525 Marketplace Dr., formerly Regal Henrietta) I wasn’t all that excited about going to the cineplex — especially since we could also have gone to The Little (240 East Ave.) — but we had the passes, and we hadn’t been to a movie on Christmas before in decades. I was expecting a lot of splashy advertising before the film, but nothing as horrifying as I saw.

The pre-screening advertising blitz was structured like a cable-TV entertainment show. As such, there were ads for some dreadfully bad TV shows, like one about some kids in high school who have to deal with having a baby — as pretty as they are, young actors should never be allowed to cheerfully talk about how realistic this sensitive subject is portrayed. Then the Walmart ad threw in its hat. It wasn’t at all about Walmart and how they drive down prices by busting unions and keeping their workers’ weekly hours low enough to exempt them from any health insurance laws. Oh no. It was about how Walmart can help you feel good. But the most depressing of all was the ad for the National Guard, encouraging young people to get a real education and structure in their lives by pushing buttons to kill people — all in vibrant, Patriotic® tones.

These are all the kinds of things that feed my suicidal demons. After having just seen a screening of It’s A Wonderful Life at the Dryden Theater at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) days prior, I realize that the reason it a movie with that much heart can’t be made anymore is because America’s heart is blackened and dying. Nobody cares about a home-cooked meal — it’s the Wii and big-screen TV that broadcasts its message loud enough to drown out such a subtle voice. What’s the point of going on, really? Our entire function as citizens is to buy more stuff to drive the economy that funds the wars that make the war profiteers rich enough to make the ads to sell the war to sell the products to distract the populace. There’s no Clarence to save you, George Bailey: you’re life ain’t worth squat.

…

But as for the movie, it’s a tale of a mystical society that runs the government, keeping the populace tricked and fearful. Pretty much just like we have now, only set in the 19th century. The only exception is that in that world, there is a man who fearlessly divines the logic of how it all works — and he does this with the aid of at least some authorities. December 2009 … not so much.

Ali and I headed to the Dryden Theatre at George Eastman House (900 East Ave.) for the discussion with Gerald Peary. It turned out he was screening a documentary he directed: For the Love of Movies: The Story of American Film Criticism. The documentary was okay — it touched on the major “eras” of public film criticism, primarily in America. Motion picture making itself is barely 100 years old, and critical analysis necessarily followed. As documentaries of a history go, it was an imperfect, but generally pretty good essay on the topic.

As we stayed through the question-and-answer afterward, I kept revisiting a negative opinion: that the whole evening was packed with ignorance. It wasn’t until later that I pinned it down: critics that made an impact were good writers who happened to critique motion pictures, but critics seem to co-opt the respect of being a good critic while ignoring the necessity of being a good writer first. This resonated with me strongest in the last segment that covered the Internet age. It seems that paid critics disliked the presence of Internet critics because they felt that the fact they were paid automatically made them superior. Rather, I think that the best critics — Internet or otherwise — are able to examine a film from a unique perspective that gives insight into that film.

Peary also insisted that a critic’s role is to analyze a film within the context of film-as-art, not to identify whether you, as a reader, should see it. I think this is misguided. First, I agree that there is a majority of people who just want a movie review that tells them “good” or “bad” — they literally want to be told they will like a film (and further, I think their opinion is heavily swayed by what critics tell them). However, there is another group of people who read film criticism beforehand for its context in film-as-art so they can determine whether they want to see it. In some cases, it is to explain, “how can I enjoy this film?”, or “why is this film important?” I’ve written in the past about how I use film criticism and synopses, noting that a review should bracket my experience and help me understand what to expect. For instance, I don’t think a film like Vals Im Bashir (Waltz With Bashir) could be considered a movie that “people would like”, but I’m glad I saw it and I think it was a great film. It was because I knew something of the film that I decided to see it — partly trailers, and partly through critical review. But I used those tools specifically to determine whether I should see it.

Ali and I got a chance to get out of the house for a bit on our visit to her mom and step-dad in Florida to check out the local fauna. I searched the Internet for Pensacola’s Mad Happy (a band I’ve liked quite a bit and who I would expect to play in places I’d like to visit) to see if they had played anywhere in nearby Tarpon Springs.

They apparently had [although in a more thorough search, I don't think they did], so we went to The Neptune Lounge and Cyclery (13 S. Safford Ave., Tarpon Springs, FL): a bar/lounge by night and a bicycle shop by day (albeit next-door to one another) situated along The Pinellas Trail. We managed to hear the last song from the first band but got to see The Sound of Armada who played a good variety of jammy modern rock with a distinctive country flair.

From there we went to The Zone (121 E. Tarpon Ave., Tarpon Springs, FL) which was a nightclub and lounge. I gather that the reggae-funk band on the nice outdoor patio was called Paris, and indoors, they were playing a typical dance DJ mix. It was almost like two clubs in one … something I guess I should expect from such a small town.