Oooooopen-ing.... and a closing:(
May. 12th, 2021 04:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogMy virtual hearing du jour was with a Bankruptcy Court, and the hearings in these parts are done entirely by phone. So I didn't have to dress up as I did the other day, and didn't have any of the Teams glitches I've gotten so utterly used to with their video streams. The client works at UB Dental School, and I returned there this morning to do the hearing from her office because she's a pretty essential worker in the place and it's just down the road from my office anyway. It went reasonably smoothly, but after it was over, I got to explore even more of the building from my past that was built as and originally known as Norton Student Union. Since my law school days, it was destined to house the Dental School, which moved in after an extensive renovation; three times back now and I don't recognize a single thing about the inside.
There may be more visits, though. While we were waiting for our case to be called, I mentioned to the client that I'd had my extraction since I last saw her and was looking into replacement options. She immediately referred me to the first dental professor she saw, and since my client is adored by everyone in this building (including the ghost of Charles P. Norton himself who refused to leave for his new namesake in 1977), I was given an immediate audience and almost as immediately put in touch upstairs with the "Implant Lady."
"Implant Lady" would be a good name for a band.
They do these. The under-the-hood part is done by residents, fully qualified DDS's, while the prettification of the visible part can either go back to an off-campus dentist or done there by a near-graduated student. Since I was way smarter in law school than I am now, I have no problem with this division of labor. However, I do need an official referral from my dentist back in Rochester, who is also expected to furnish some records, a panorex-ray of the whole mouf, and an impression.
I told Eleanor I was hoping Dr. Ron would do one of Jack Benny, since I'll be having it done in
And done sooner than expected- Ron could have slotted me in this afternoon, but we settled on Friday in the late morning. I have to be back here late that afternoon for a client, and am hoping to catch a friend doing her first solo concert in over a year at a legendary Buffalo establishment.
Maria Sebastian. Anchor Bar on Maple. Friday 7-9:30. Awesome setlist. Be there. Medium is hot. (Wait....)
----
Alas, hearing her will be bittersweet this week, because we both have memories of another legendary Buffalo establishment that finally succumbed to the loss of entertainment business from COVID:
That's from my last visit in 2019, one of the final places I saw live music at in the Before Times. It was Nick Lowe that night, with Los Straitjackets opening for and backing him.
The walls told many of the past events in that location and earlier, though:
and among the many I never saw there:
- with Warren Zevon, a frequent performer there in his lifetime, being my biggest regret for never having seen there or anywhere.
When I got to Buffalo, the Tralfamadore Cafe, as it was still known, had just moved from its original 70s basement location in the city's legendary jazz corner of Main and Fillmore to an oddly designed patch of urban renewal next to Shea's. I remember seeing Ithaca favorites Desperado there on what may have been their only tour outside Tompkins. Lawyers also rented the venue for a mix of music and comedy- Law Revue, as the on-campus version was known (I performed in one around 1983, one Main Street building over from the future home of the Dental School), and the local Bar Association briefly graduated it to the grownups with a Tralf version called Bar Revue that I came back from Rochester for at least once. Eleanor soon became my regular date there, as we saw the Nylons, Steps Ahead, and probably a few others on trips from Rochester.
This 2012 piece from Buffalo Spree recalled much of the history, some of it fractious, of the Tralf's ownership and bookings over decades. The rogue's gallery of past owners and landlords include the original Lawson brothers (who got Spyro Gyra to play at the old club for a buck on Thursday nights for years), then local (and now deceased) attorney Jim Rolls, local jazz legend Bobby Mititello, vulture landlord William Huntress, and Melody Fair (the competing suburban spinny-floor theater in the round) impresario Ed Smith. The place closed, reopened under various incarnations, and continued to meet the smaller-sized niche for performances between the caverns of Kleinhans and the intimacy of Your Corner Bar- until COVID finally brought the curtain down yet again, and perhaps for the last time.
Maria, tomorrow night's performer in the still-open suburban (without spinny-floor) Anchor Bar, shared the loss with us this morning. She recounted opening at the Tralf for Missy Higgins, putting a box of CDs out on the honor system, and coming back to find seven of them taken but $75 in the drawer left untouched for her. That was the Tralf all over. Maybe we'll raise our voices and glasses there again....
(Or in their case for the first time, for I don't think any of the Crys ever played there;)
There may be more visits, though. While we were waiting for our case to be called, I mentioned to the client that I'd had my extraction since I last saw her and was looking into replacement options. She immediately referred me to the first dental professor she saw, and since my client is adored by everyone in this building (including the ghost of Charles P. Norton himself who refused to leave for his new namesake in 1977), I was given an immediate audience and almost as immediately put in touch upstairs with the "Implant Lady."
"Implant Lady" would be a good name for a band.
They do these. The under-the-hood part is done by residents, fully qualified DDS's, while the prettification of the visible part can either go back to an off-campus dentist or done there by a near-graduated student. Since I was way smarter in law school than I am now, I have no problem with this division of labor. However, I do need an official referral from my dentist back in Rochester, who is also expected to furnish some records, a panorex-ray of the whole mouf, and an impression.
I told Eleanor I was hoping Dr. Ron would do one of Jack Benny, since I'll be having it done in
And done sooner than expected- Ron could have slotted me in this afternoon, but we settled on Friday in the late morning. I have to be back here late that afternoon for a client, and am hoping to catch a friend doing her first solo concert in over a year at a legendary Buffalo establishment.
Maria Sebastian. Anchor Bar on Maple. Friday 7-9:30. Awesome setlist. Be there. Medium is hot. (Wait....)
----
Alas, hearing her will be bittersweet this week, because we both have memories of another legendary Buffalo establishment that finally succumbed to the loss of entertainment business from COVID:
That's from my last visit in 2019, one of the final places I saw live music at in the Before Times. It was Nick Lowe that night, with Los Straitjackets opening for and backing him.
The walls told many of the past events in that location and earlier, though:
and among the many I never saw there:
- with Warren Zevon, a frequent performer there in his lifetime, being my biggest regret for never having seen there or anywhere.
When I got to Buffalo, the Tralfamadore Cafe, as it was still known, had just moved from its original 70s basement location in the city's legendary jazz corner of Main and Fillmore to an oddly designed patch of urban renewal next to Shea's. I remember seeing Ithaca favorites Desperado there on what may have been their only tour outside Tompkins. Lawyers also rented the venue for a mix of music and comedy- Law Revue, as the on-campus version was known (I performed in one around 1983, one Main Street building over from the future home of the Dental School), and the local Bar Association briefly graduated it to the grownups with a Tralf version called Bar Revue that I came back from Rochester for at least once. Eleanor soon became my regular date there, as we saw the Nylons, Steps Ahead, and probably a few others on trips from Rochester.
This 2012 piece from Buffalo Spree recalled much of the history, some of it fractious, of the Tralf's ownership and bookings over decades. The rogue's gallery of past owners and landlords include the original Lawson brothers (who got Spyro Gyra to play at the old club for a buck on Thursday nights for years), then local (and now deceased) attorney Jim Rolls, local jazz legend Bobby Mititello, vulture landlord William Huntress, and Melody Fair (the competing suburban spinny-floor theater in the round) impresario Ed Smith. The place closed, reopened under various incarnations, and continued to meet the smaller-sized niche for performances between the caverns of Kleinhans and the intimacy of Your Corner Bar- until COVID finally brought the curtain down yet again, and perhaps for the last time.
Maria, tomorrow night's performer in the still-open suburban (without spinny-floor) Anchor Bar, shared the loss with us this morning. She recounted opening at the Tralf for Missy Higgins, putting a box of CDs out on the honor system, and coming back to find seven of them taken but $75 in the drawer left untouched for her. That was the Tralf all over. Maybe we'll raise our voices and glasses there again....
(Or in their case for the first time, for I don't think any of the Crys ever played there;)
Hmmm...
Date: 2021-05-13 11:41 am (UTC)I have had many impressions taken (the DDS I worked for placed 10 veneers on my upper arch back in 2000 when I worked for him, and most have stood the test of time well beyond their normal lifespan.) They always have to use a child's impression tray for me, since my mouth is so small.
(Dave doesn't believe that for a moment, but I swear it's true.) :D