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Two weeks ago we went to the St. George Ukrainian Orthodox Church and supported its basket raffle.
That’s “basket raffle” to you since “Chinese Auction” is offensive, Africa is not a country and you should never, ever use the word Oriental instead of Asian. Don't even get me started about the people who call the bodega in the hood an "A-rab" store. Oh wait, can I still say "hood."
Lest I digress, rather than a photo of a lovely, vicious, freshly-groomed, baby-rabbit-killing escape-artist poodle, today you get a male rose-breasted grosbeak thanks to St. George.
Short Take is off for the day because Beth and I are taking the slow road to Rochester so we can be there tonight to check out Joe Jackson at the Kodak Theatre, one of the few places Chris Ring, the new owner of the theatre formerly known as Rapids, has not booked a show in the last 30 years.
I had some discussion this week with a person who would know who offered some more details about the competing plan for the haunted theatre. It is haunted. I have been there when the place was empty and heard the laughing girl from the balcony.
Yes, Jesse Gooch is a local operator and yes, he bid $200,000 for the theatre and pledged to spend $500,000 on upgrades along with lots and lots of sweat equity from his contracting business.
His plan was to cater local events using local businesses. His supporters have been in my in-box crying foul, claiming it was a political fix put in from Buffalo.
Ring offered just $10,000 but plans to spend $1.5 million on renovations including relocating and expanding the bars, renovating the green room and building out a full commercial kitchen which should employ somewhere around 20 people.
One promoter’s crown jewel is the wildly successful Thursday’s on the river with 7 shows at Gratwick Park featuring cover bands like Nerds Gone Wild, Strictly Hip and Mr. Brightside.
The other promotes 800 shows a year across Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse. The current array of After Dark Offerings included more than 80-different mostly heavy metal shows.
The proposals were vetted by Niagara County, the city and Niagara University. The Mayor did not get a vote. The professionals working for the city did. At this point, it appears as if the redevelopment of Main Street will happen before USA Niagara succeeds in doing anything on Third Street.
As for that grosbeak, it is special to us because of an incident when our sons were 8 and 11 or so. We had a window feeder at our home in Clarence. We came home from work to find a legal pad with careful notes in son Joe’s handwriting, and Peterson’s Guide to Birds marked with a Post-It on the Grosbeak page.
It was a great moment in parenting, like when they discovered there were tits and boobies in the bird books and giggled with adolescent joy.
Anyway, Go Sabres. I hope they have enough left to overcome that atmosphere in Montreal tonight. We’ll be stepping out because I’m the man and she (Beth) really is going out with hi
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