captainsblog | Moments from the Weekend

Within the hour, the Bills are resuming play, with a chance at a neutral-field conference final in three weeks but otherwise little to play for today except pride and honoring their almost-fallen comrade. I expect there will be pregame tributes and much love expressed. Almost forgotten in the midst of the week's near-tragedy, though? Even before the football team took the field last Monday night, word got out that their broadcast team's longtime voice John Murphy would not be calling the radio play-by-play of the game. It has since been reported that Murph suffered a stroke before the game and, while healing, he is now out of action for the regular season finale today as well.

In all my followings of sports teams, I've been blessed with talent and continuity. Buffalo's Murph is up there in the Parthenon of Broadcast Deities with his Metsian counterpart Bob Murphy, his Bills predecessor Van Miller, and the Sabres' just-retired Rick Jeanneret. All devoted decades to their teams, with professionalism over homerism but not exclusive of the latter for the key moments. Heeeeee stuck him out!, It is Fandemonium!, MayDayMayDayMayDay! are all parts of my lexicon where the words are more memorable than the actual plays that inspired them, and the sources of those words are far more important than a pretty face on a screen. While nobody would compare even the worst of strokes to an onfield near-death experience witnessed by thousands in person and millions on broadcasts, healing thoughts go out to the Voice of the Bills, as well.

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Yesterday, I got word of somebody else well known around here who probably won't be coming back anytime soon.

The lead partner in one of Amherst's biggest law firms was given a two-year suspension from the practice of law, on account of impermissible entanglement with a client's business affairs:

In an order dated Dec. 30, the State Supreme Court Appellate Division, fourth department, said Hogan’s law license should be suspended immediately because he violated five rules governing an attorney’s professional conduct. A core violation involved “entering into a business relationship with a client where he and the client have differing interests,” the ruling indicates.

The panel said it considered Hogan’s argument that client Van Buren Farms of Lockport was never harmed financially by its business relationship with him and HoganWillig. But the judges said some of the firm’s own lawyers had cautioned Hogan on the ethics of what he was doing, and he had been warned in the past about such conduct.

Hogan is not pleased. In addition to vowing an appeal to the state's highest court (which stands about the same chance as a pig sprouting wings), he has supposedly sent a letter to every practicing lawyer in the eight county judicial district to share his whinging about it. I haven't received mine yet, but this is what is promised:

“This letter is long overdue and has been a long time coming,” Hogan said in his email. “I write this out of respect for our profession and in criticism of how we have allowed the running of our day to day law practices to be needlessly overrun and micromanaged by the Rules of Professional Discipline.”

Dunno, dude. Stay out of your clients' businesses so you can advise them independently about them. Don't steal their money and don't sleep with them. Seems pretty simple to me. I'd also add something about not advocating for complete lost causes, especially when the cause of those causes is the client being a complete asshole. That's what happened the last time Corey came into my sight:

The wife of a prominent Rochester couple accused of hosting a racist Juneteenth parody party at their East Avenue home acknowledged Tuesday that she ran a Twitter account notorious for its racist posts. 

Mary Znidarsic-Nicosia admitted that she was behind the social media account during a news conference that she and her husband, Dr. Nicholas Nicosia, and their lawyer staged at a Hilton Garden Inn in Pittsford. They said the event was intended to clear their names and restore their reputations.

While she did not refer to the account by name, even when pressed by reporters, she acknowledged that one of the profile photos used on the account was hers. The image was that of a bust of a “Smilin’ Sam from Alabam’ The Salted Peanut Man,” a Black caricature piggy bank that Znidarsic-Nicosia said was on display in her home.

The account, which went by the handle @HoHoHomeboyROC, and operated under a variety of usernames, including “Colonel Nathaniel Sanders,” had been active since November 2021 and routinely trolled Black people, elected officials, and journalists, often in a voice that mimicked Black Vernacular English....

You will see that this event was a political event,” said the lawyer, Corey Hogan, a partner of the Buffalo law firm of HoganWillig. “There is absolutely no racism anywhere.”

His presentation included a slideshow of photos of the Nicosias’ backyard, their kitchen, and some of the paraphernalia at the party, most taken after the fact, that Hogan said refuted the notion that the fete was racist in theme. One image was of the invitation, which listed the gathering as the “1st Annual Liberal Smashin Splish Splash Pool Party.”

“There was no hint of racism,” Hogan said. “Kentucky Fried Chicken? There are 27,000 franchises of Kentucky Fried Chicken around the world. Four thousand in this country. Is everybody that pulls into a Kentucky Fried Chicken, like the Nicosias do probably every couple of weeks, are they a racist?”

“Hennessy cognac,” he added. “Millions, I think about 70 million bottles sold every year. It has a racial undertone to it. The Nicosias knew nothing about it. It was given away, a small bottle, as a prize. No racism.”

Righhhht. And I'm sure some of their best friends are Negroes.

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If that left a bad taste in my mouth, I had a cure for it: a new-to-me band performing at a new-to-me venue in the company of another lawyer friend and a chance to see a neighbor performing with them!

Some of that, anyway, turned out to be true.

At the start of the pandemic, when musicians' lifeblood of live performance dried up, I made a major effort to try to support as many as I could by buying their music. Preferably on CD, but digital would do in a pinch. After running through many I already knew, a lawyer friend who travels in similar musical circles suggested a Buffalo native named Greg Klyma. Now based around Boston, he'd put out a 2019 album called Fake Songs that I really enjoyed. That Bandcamp purchase got me on an email list, and what was waiting for me the other night but word that he was coming home to Buffalo this very weekend in support of his latest album Singing for My Life?

Even better, it was finally a chance to see Jim!

Jim, you see, lives around the corner from us. We chat whenever he's out during Pepper walks. He saw one of my band shirts over the summer, told me he knows my friend Maria Sebastian and other people from Sportsmens Tavern. Then I started seeing Jim Whitford's name attached to gigs. Wow! Never knew he was in the Buffalo Music HOF! Gotta go see him sometime!

At last, my chance is finally here. He's been writing and playing with Greg Klyma for decades from back when they both lived here. When Greg moved to Boston and needed a last-minute sideman for his latest album, Jim dropped everything and headed over. The now-named Whitford Klyma Band was onstage at The Cave to promote it and their great lineup!

(The Cave, well, isn't one. It's a companion to Sportsmens, located kittycorner behind it around the corner on Military Road. It just has a bigger stage and seating area than its legendary counterpart.) And my friend Morry, who introduced me to Greg's music, was planning on coming, as well.

No sign of him as I head in, but walking into the venue at the exact moment as me? My not-quite-neighbor friends Ken and Ellen, my companions and saviors from the Maniacs voyage last May. We take our stools along the wall, I'm gifted my only drink of the night (a Heineken 0% unbeer), I see at least three older guys who I think might be Morry but show me no recognition whatsoever, and then the band begins to assemble. Greg's in his cowboy hat, flanked by women on the keyboard and drum kit and two guys to his left. The older one is quickly identified as Jim, the Hall of Famer and album pinch hitter for this band. And damn he's good, on the strings and the vocals.

Funny, though. Jim doesn't look QUITE like the guy who lives near us. And when I go up to say hello at the break, he doesn't recognize me, or know my dog, or that HE has one named Zippy. He's never even heard of the guy around the corner with the same name.

Because, as Eleanor instantly informed me this morning, it's not. The "hit" in "Whitford" is a couple letters off from the Jim who lives near me, who just happens to know the same people and hang out in the same clubs. Close enough for jazz, but not close enough.

So, in summary and conclusion, this the Jim you SHOULD go see, or download the new CD he's on at klyma.com/music:

Maybe I'll invite Other Jim from around the corner to come with next time I see this guy. Morry, as well: sadly, his wife took ill and they couldn't make it to this one. I did pick up the CD, though, with a different lineup beyond Greg and Jim including the famed session guy Duke Levine who's played with Lucy Kaplansky among others.

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The other locals in the band turned out to have connections, as well. The younger bassist that wasn't Either Jim turned out to be Colin Brydalski. He opened the show next to Jim on a song called “Been on a Twister," one that goes back to a famed local band called the Pine Dogs that Jim was in back in the 90s; at the end of the first set, a woman came up and sang with the band who I did think I recognized. She turned out to be Gretchen Schulz, and she later posted that she was pregnant with Colin when she played that opening song " Been on a Twister" with the Pine Dogs:)

I apologized to her for cutting her son out of that photo- the curse of sitting near the front of the house!- but I got him in this photo to Jim's left from a different angle:

In that one, I managed to cut off most of the keyboard/accordion player, but I got one of her and just Greg: she was awesome on both sets of keys and sang lead on several songs during the show:

And, it turned out, we had one of her CDs already from a local duo she was in back in the 90s called the Jazzabels.

The crowd, despite being mostly close to my age on average, was lively and many came there to dance. Even this lovely woman who left before I could ask for her hand on the dance floor:

Between sets, in addition to confirming who Jim wasn't, I checked out some of the stage stuff-

(hey, what better use is there for a fishing tackle box than to store harmonicas?)

- and to head to the merch table. Again, I was stymied by the tech, as Greg's offers were cash or Venmo only. I still haven't figured out the latter and dropped my last 20 on one of the well-produced CD versions of that latest album, which I've been enjoying tremendously today.

As for the songs themselves, I only knew one by heart of all of them in the entire performance. Fortunately, it was the best song ever if you're only going to know one: