Author: Joey Lombardi

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Chicago – Day 2

Thursday morning found us feeling more refreshed thanks to an early nights sleep. We got up early and headed up to the hotel’s “sky lounge” for breakfast. I was hesitant to start putting items on my plate once I saw the instant eggs, stale bread, and mini boxes of cereal – been to too many hotels to fall for this scam – but my wife had already started. After a brief breakfast with a lovely view and $50 dollars later, we were on Michigan Avenue trying to figure out how to kill a few hours until the Cubs game.

We happened upon the Old Water Tower and the adjoining pumping station. The water tower was a bit of a let down (we weren’t allowed in the Tower part) and the pumping station didn’t let us get far in it’s innards, but it was next to Chicago’s Tourism Department and they sell half price tickets to shows. We managed to pick up tickets to the play form of High Fidelity and have to go back this morning to snag ticket for a Second City show after.

After getting the tickets we went to the John Hancock Center to catch the crazy views of Chicago that the city of skyscrapers is known for. The building did not disappoint. It costs $30 bucks to get to the top which makes it an official tourist trap, but it was still and excellent view. After taking some pictures we came back down and headed back to the hotel to dump our stuff and head to the game.

Once again we used the city’s excellent sub-way system (the Red Line) and managed to get to Wrigley Field before the game started. Sadly the Cubs were defeated by the Brewers… there were a lot of Brewers fans in the house. Why can’t the Cubbies get love in their own stadium? It was a fantastic day to see a game and we had an official Chicago style foot-long which Allison had to take the peppers off of.

We decided to visit the Art Institute of Chicago on our way back from the Cubs game. Once again my feeling is that while it was a wonderful museum, they aren’t as good as Philadelphia’s. There was a whole wing dedicated to modernist paintings (aka color splotches) – which I am completely convinced is a total scam. To each their own. After a solid two hours, it was time to go back to the hotel.

Knowing red meat was in my immediate future, I decided to hit the treadmill and my legs were like jelly from walking around the city all day. After a shower, my wife informed me that we were going to Boston Blackies. Our friends Jack and Lorraine recommended this establishment as one of the best burgers they have ever had. That was enough for me. The burger was outstanding, the onion rings were tasty, their own amber ale brew had me buzzing and our waitress was wonderful. At one point she sat down with us and talked Chicago politics and told us what “true Southies” thoughts were about the city and the new president. Outstanding.

It was dark, so we decided to head back to the hotel to plan the next day because if things go according to plan, it is going to be a long day packed with Chicago theater and tourist attractions.

To Be Continued….

Click here to read Part 3

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Concert Review: Neko Case @ The Kimmel Center

Concert: Neko Case
Open Act: Jason Lytle
Concert Date: July 29th, 2009
Venue: Kimmel Center – Verizon Hall

I got turned on to Neko Case through her side project The New Pornographers. Truth be told, I never took the time to single her out and find out if she did any solo work until her most recent album “Middle Cyclone” was released. I noticed a review in Rolling Stone Magazine and it was very positive (although I am now under the impression that they never give completely negative reviews anymore, but that is for another day) – so I checked it out and agreed. I noticed a poster in the city last month promoting the concert and that brings us to the review….

[The Venue: Kimmel Center – Verizon Hall]

Both Kimmel venues that I have seen shows at were beautiful in their own way. The Verizon hall is modern and clean. We had a great view of the stage. Nothing bad to say except for the little Nazi usher lady who yelled at me for checking my cell phone during the opener (she stayed and watched me shut the phone off and put it in my pocket like I was in 2nd grade).

[Open Act: Jason Lytle]

In my musical reviews, I have been trying not to be overly negative because it overpowers the writing and it calls into question my mental state during the time of the concert (perhaps I was having a bad day to have such a negative reaction, etc etc). I was having a fine day yesterday when I sat down for the concert and I will say Mr. Lytle’s band and music were not to my taste. The reasons:

1. The entire set was sad bastard music – droning and whining
2. The whole band was sitting – their music was so soul sucking that even they didn’t have the energy to get through a 40 minute set
3. Lytle used some kind of drum machine/backing track in between songs that was annoying, this device was also used during the songs which I thought was a cop out.
4. The guitar player in the band didn’t look like he had much to do. He put in a couple of fills, but it was clear to me that this guy was lazy AND the songs didn’t have the bones for any layers.
5. The lyrics were terrible: Rhyming sky with why and dry… very 2nd grade.

On the positive side, his drummer looked like the dude from the hangover:
Hangover Guy:

Drummer:

In this clip that someone on youtube posted, at least the man is by himself and doesn’t have a lazy band or terrible drum machines to distract the audience. It still isn’t good.

Jason mentioned that he made a point to watch Neko Case and her band every night which I thought was nice, but it is obvious he isn’t learning anything.

[Main Event: Neko Case]

It took a while for the stage crew to get out all of the band’s equipment (I counted 13 guitars and 1 stand-up bass) and get them tuned and set up. The wait was worth it: Case came out ready to sing. Belting out many tracks from her newest album, the aforementioned “Middle Cyclone”, Neko was in top form. In the reviews I have read, it seems that backup singer Kelly Hogan is considered the secret weapon of the show… I disagree; it is steel guitar player Jon Rauhouse that controls the sound and mood on the stage. Regardless of who the secret weapon is, Case’s band has many bombs they can drop.

The set list was focused on Case’s most recently material for the most part, which was good, but I would have liked to have heard this band’s interpretation of Neko’s older country flavored tunes. While her archival material may have been missing, they were not without, I think I counted 36 songs performed- which considering the way Case and Hogan were singing was pretty impressive. The stand out performance of the night was “This Tornado Loves You” which closed the set before a round of encores.

The banter between Case and Hogan was entertaining and lightened up the mood between some of the heavier songs (take note Jason Lytle – they knew how to mix up the tone for the audience). The crowd was also very respectful to the band which enhanced my enjoyment of the night. Bottom line – if you want to see a female singer who can actually sing her ass off and write excellent songs (and knows how to assemble a damn fine band) – go see Neko Case.

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Concert Review: The Shins @ The Electric Factory

Performance Date: Saturday, May 16th
Opening Act: Delta Spirit

My wife scored tickets for the Shins after her sister informed her they were coming to town. The show was sold out so we had to get tickets via StubHub, but thankfully we didn’t pay much more than street value, which was refreshing.

[Delta Spirit]

I don’t know much about Delta Spirit. I had read an article about them in Rolling Stone which proclaimed them the next big thing and I promptly ignored it. The lead singer came out wearing a fedora and I immediately wanted to punch him in the face. This isn’t the 90’s and you aren’t in the Squirrel Nut Zippers. My initial reaction was not changed by the opening song – the singer was just growling and mumbling.

Most of the set was spent with the singer screaming at the top of his lungs and the bass player flailing around the stage. All kidding aside, the band sounded good, but the singer needed to stop with that screaming and moaning shit. Overall, not a pleasant experience. I think these dudes will get better, but I won’t be sitting around waiting for it to happen.

If they sounded like this during the concert, it wouldn’t have been that bad. But the screaming…

[The Shins]

The Shins sounded great. The band was tight, the sound levels didn’t make my head bleed, the lighting was interesting and enhanced the show BUT….

The set list was not put together well. They opted to play several heady, long, slow paced songs that killed the mood in the crowd. Their faster paced songs were far and few between and by that point I was done. I applaud the band for introducing new material and attempting to set a mood, it was just the mood sucked.

The Shins are still a great band, the sounded great, but they need someone paying attention to the pace of their concerts and how the songs translate to a live audience.

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Nashville: Epilogue

I was going to type this last word about Nashville in the airport or on the plane but then opted against it because it was such a douche-bag writer cliche. I got home an hour ago, and I had to throw out some old food and pick up trash the wind blew on my front door. Now that I am settled, I can do a little more writing.

I said my peace about Nashville as a town in my post yesterday. I wanted to talk a little bit about the people today. Nashville is a very friendly town. The second we arrived, police officers stopped to make sure we knew where we were going and to suggest places to see, most of the bartenders and waiters were friendly and helpful, it was very pleasant.

For the single guys, there are a massive amount of pretty girls in this town (Hi Nate). The number of women strolling around the downtown area was staggering. A guy (like Nate) could really clean up. They weren’t just pretty, they were friendly and outgoing (REMEMBER THIS NATE). The guys all sort of looked like normal frat dudes, but friendlier.

I noticed plenty of smokers which made me a sad but I guess that is just a part of rural (and rural-metro) living. I didn’t see many of the cliches that you would expect from the South: no strong accents, nobody fit the “redneck” stereotype, people didn’t seem any dumber there than here (with one exception which we will get to in the next paragraph). One odd thing I did notice, for such a small city, I don’t think people like to walk too much (sounds like Nate’s version of Heaven).

Our hotel staff was very nice, but they didn’t seem all that bright as a group. When we arrived, I asked our clerk for visitation suggestions, and they were okay but that was about all he knew. I asked about restaurants and he had no idea what I was talking about (famous places in the area). Any time we asked if something was in walking distance the answer was no, but we walked it anyway and it was no more than 8 blocks. I mentioned the situation with the taxi service that they recommended which I choose not to blame them for, but if you know your guests are going to rely on taxi service and going to be shelling out 80 bucks round trip to get somewhere, you might want to suggest renting a car. When I saw new people checking in and asking the same questions and the clerk suggesting people go to SUBWAY around to corner for lunch, I finally had to step in. Nice people but they could help the tourism industry out by just knowing theirsurroundings. But we figured out their limitations pretty quickly and forged our own path so no harm, no foul.

Getting to the airport was no problem this morning and dropping off the car was a breeze. Nashville didn’t piss on me on our way out and I appreciated that. Nashville is absolutely a city we would visit again… hopefully we can take some friends and share in the fun.

PS: As always read the blog at it’s origin point: Joey’s Blog

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Nashville Blog: Day 01: Part One

Today starts a series of live blogs in Nashville, TN. We had to get up at 4 AM to get to the airport within “the appropriate amount of time” and I am a little tired, but that didn’t stop us from hitting the ground running. We arrived in Nashville at 8:30 AM (local time) and easily secured a cab to our hotel. Our room wasn’t ready, but the hotel staff was happy to suggest places to kill time, so here is the run down so far:

[The Capital Building]

A few blocks from our hotel, the Tennessee State Capitol Building offered us a chance to kill 35 minutes. The Tennessee Capital building is one of the oldest still in operation today. When we entered, we were greeted by a very friendly state trooper who was quite excited to meet a real “Jersey Italian”. The thing that stands out about the building is that it is all stone. ALL STONE. From what I heard from the educational children’s tours, there was a massive stone quarry that was used to create most of the historic buildings.

The other “big feature” is that a few people are buried at the site: Samuel Morgan (Chairman of the Building Commission) and William Strickland (the architect). Besides that, the building has too many oil paintings of long dead historical figures and very slippery floors. The building itself is awesome, the stuff inside, not so much.

Moving On…

[The Free Library]

Right across the street from the Capital Building is the Free Library. We didn’t go inside, but the exterior courtyard was awesome (check out the pictures below).

[The Ryman]

One of my “must-see” places was the Ryman Auditorium. Home of the famous “Grand Ole Opry” during it’s peak, the Ryman now hosts tons of contemporary artists. I was a little shocked when we walked in and was told the walking tour would cost $14.00 per person: it’s basically a converted church. We opted for the tour anyway and it was conducted by a gentlemen named Bill who might have taken his job a little too seriously. Bill first took us to the “Johnny & June Cash Dress Room”. The room was built in 2003 and Johnny never used it… He proceeded to take a revisionist’s approach to Nashville’s treatment to the Man in Black (saying how Nashville eventually opened their arms to Johnny again, which wasn’t true as stated by the man himself in “Cash” by Johnny Cash) when I corrected him, he got flush and shot me a look, I think I was on his shit list for the rest of the tour.

We saw more dressing rooms that were named after people who never used them and eventually we got to see the stage. I will admit I thought it was awesome to see it from that view, but the tour was a total rip off.

[Jack’s BBQ]

We exited the Ryman and Allison noticed a BBQ place, we walked down the famous Ryman alley and entered a room that smelled of charcoal and pork. We ordered up some BBQ pork and Beef Brisket sandwiches. Very good, not mind blowing, but there is a strip of BBQ joints to go….

Okay, I am taking a nap. That’s all for now!!!!

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Email Best Practices

I have come to realize that a good portion of my life has centered around email. When I got out of college I was assigned to the email support team of my company and quickly became the one stop shop for 40,000 employees email accounts, I did that for four years. I also started a small computer repair shop/consulting firm during that time and did a good deal of small business email configurations. During my time as “Computer Joey” (that was my business’ name if you didn’t figure it out) I also had a chance to talk at schools about technology and how to be safe on the internet. Those talks came to mind when I was building a contact list for my homeowners association. Long story short, I think it would be helpful to list some pointers about incorporating email into your life:

  1. In your email address, refrain from putting any personal information (besides your name) before the “@” sign. Examples of this are: Your birthday (JohnDoe01051975@yahoo.com), your home address number (NancyDoe80@yahoo.com), Any part of your social security number, Don’t include your zip code, don’t include your age, etc.

  2. If you are still in the work force, try to avoid using “cute” email address names like “SweetSk8rgurl@yahoo.com”. If you lose your job you don’t want to put an email address like that on your resume, and checking multiple accounts can get tiresome. On the flip side, if you are retired or close to it you might want to avoid putting hobbies into your email address. Example: “Mustanglover40@hotmail.com” could make you an easy target for an internet scammer. They might find an in by sending you an email about Mustangs or classic cars.

  3. Try to avoid using the email account that your internet service provider’s (Comcast, Verizon) gives you. If all of your friends know your email address is John.Doe@comcast.net and you decide to change service providers, you will lose that address and your friends might not be able to find you. I suggest signing up for a free account at Yahoo, Gmail, or Hotmail. They provide a huge amount of space for free and those accounts tie into to other great free services. My personal recommendation is Gmail but you should check them all out to see what you like best.

  4. Try to avoid forwarding chain letters. If you don’t know what a chain letter is, basically any email that asks you to forward to all of your friends is a chain letter and spammers can use those chain letters to get your email address.

  5. On that note, whenever you are sending out an email to a large group of people, use the BCC feature (BCC = Blind Carbon Copy). There is always somebody in the group who decides to Reply to All and the next thing you know your inbox is full with generic responses, this will eliminate that problem.

  6. You should not use company email for personal use. You can’t control your friends from emailing you something you should not get at work, don’t put yourself in that situation. I would also suggest that students leave their school accounts for school only (it is an easy way to find someone).

  7. Don’t say anything in email that you would not say to anyone’s face. It is easy to form a sense of detachment when you are sitting in front of a computer, remember there is a human being that is going to read that email.

I think that is good for now. Good luck out there on the internet and try to be safe.

Other Useful Email Tips: