Sunday, July 31, 2005

Chicago blogging

It's nearly midnight, but we're finally in our hotel room in Chicago. We had supper at Legends, a restaurant owned by blues guitarist Buddy Guy, and enjoyed some really excellent blues played by Carlos Johnson and his cohorts. Carlos, whose appearance was distantly reminiscent of a black Willie Nelson and whose style was self-deferential and humorous, was playing an elderly and obviously-been-around-the-block Gibson Les Paul. The bassist, Sam Green, had a very expressive physical presence on stage and was playing a beautiful custom Peavey Cirrus with an inlaid wood top. The keyboard player (whose name I could never quite catch -- Anthony Space? was what it sounded like) had very droll facial features and his lithe fingers floated effortlessly over the keys on his Roland XP-80 like butterflies. The drummer (with the unlikely name of Pookie) was very talented and precise, and he had a rather serious expression on his face most of the time. With biceps like that, I'd definitely rather have him as a friend than an enemy. The music they played was addictive and awesome; we could've stayed all night listening to them jam. Every so often, after they'd just been riffin' for a few minutes, Carlos would say in his gravelly voice, "Hey, we're just playin' around up heah, I hope that's okay." Duh! You bet, man. All night long. They started out the set with their take on "Sunny" and it just got better and better.

For supper, Red Fish had a sampler of etouffee, gumbo, jambalaya and pinto beans; I had some frog legs and fried oysters. The food was great, but the music was outstanding. We hated to leave after that first set, but we knew we'd never find our hotel if we didn't skedaddle.

Now we're settling in at the Omni Ambassador East, on the northern side of downtown Chicago a few blocks west of Lakeshore. Our room window looks down onto a row of snazzy brownstones that probably cost a fortune. The hotel itself is quite posh, although the ice machines were both broken. I was, however, able to procure some ice from the 24-hour room service. Gotta crunch some ice while I'm blogging!

Tomorrow we're heading for the Art Institute. I'm going to get a look at that enormous Seurat painting. Don't know yet where we're having lunch, but our current leaning is to get some Chicago-style pizza.

I am DEFINITELY coming back. My first impression of downtown Chicago is not at all what I expected. I've been in NYC and I really kind-of expected Chicago to have that same feel, since it's an enormous city with mega-skyscrapers and stuff. Unlike NYC, however, the streets are much wider and the feel is more midwestern... hard to explain, but it's almost as if you took a podunky little midwestern downtown and expanded it outward and upward exponentially... then snaked some elevated train tracks throughout the buildings. The El is very cool, by the way. NYC felt like I was almost in a foreign country, because it was so very different from anyplace in the US that I had ever been. Chicago doesn't feel foreign to me, even though this is my first time to visit. I loved NYC, don't get me wrong, and I could probably adapt to live there (because I'm a pretty adaptable kind of person), but it wouldn't have been a natural transition. Chicago wouldn't be a stretch.

Visiting Detroit a couple of years ago, however, I can say that while it wasn't like NYC, it wasn't one bit familiar either. Detroit almost felt hostile, in a weird way. I don't foresee going back there unless I have to. Chicago doesn't really have that same underlying hostility.

No, I'm not thinking we'd ever move to Chicago... I don't particularly like the state of Illinois, truth be told. But it's kind-of nice that such a big city like Chicago is close enough to Des Moines for a weekend trip if I wanted to.

I'll be back.

More tomorrow.

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