We got a pile of freebies when we attended NoirCon and we have SOHO Crime to thank for most of them. If you’re like me, you have an endlessly growing “to read” pile and I thought I’d let you know about a few of the new arrivals. One of the books in our bag was Henry Chang’s Chinatown Beat. Looks like this is the first in his Detective Yu series. Gary Disher’s Hell to Pay is next on the list, he’s an Australian crime writer. Next in alphabetical order is Leighton Gage’s The Ways of Evil Men, part of his Mario Silva series. The late Mr. Gage lived much of his life in Brazil where the stories are set. Timothy Hallinan checks in next with Crashed, the first of the Junior Bender series. The Danish duo of Lene Kaaberbøl and Agnete Friis close out the set with The Boy in the Suit Case, the first of the Nina Borg series. Like I said these were all freebies and that was very generous of the SOHO folks.

One of the other things we were treated to was a presentation by Bronwen Hruska, SOHO’s Publisher. She talked about the challenges of being an independent in a world dominated by the big corporations. She was quite interesting, intelligent, and charming, as was her Associate Publisher Juliet Grames. I got to meet them both, just enough to say hello, and was impressed by how much they loved their work and how passionate they were about promoting their stable of writers. (One of them was Irishman Stuart Neville who was kind enough to pose for a photo and autograph his debut novel The Ghosts of Belfast for me—that one I bought!). They focus on international mysteries and have authors from all over the globe. They publish up to ninety titles a year under the SOHO Crime imprint. Ms. Hruska was presented with the Jay and Deen Kogen Award for publishing excellence at Saturday’s banquet. Seems well-deserved!

I found a bunch of other write-ups about the events in Philadelphia. K.A. Laity did a four-part series on her blog and Carole Mallory contributed a story to Huffington Post. Pulp Curry’s Andrew Nette added his thoughts to his blog and Marshall Stein chipped in on the NoirCon site. Finally T. Fox Dunham shared his thoughts about his participation in the Existential Noir panel (he also linked to my post for OOTG). I certainly had a stimulating experience and its nice to know so did some of the other attendees. 2015 will be my Year of Noir as I intend to write my own rather than just read other people’s stuff and blog about it. I’ll be happy to loan out any of the books I mentioned above so drop me a line if you are interested. In fact, I’ve got heaps of noir books that deserve a wider audience. Expand your horizons and start reading more degenerate fiction!

It feels good to be back home in humble Yreka. The house is still standing and all the stuff still works (thank you, Otto, for tending things!). The leaves on the Japanese maple and the Liquidambar have turned to their autumnal hues of magenta and scarlet. The pointer on the thermometer outside dipped below freezing last night. It really is November. It was over 80ºF when we were in LA mere days ago! It’s pretty clear we’ve had some rain up here since we were gone, we sure needed it and we’ll need a lot more before the year ends. Living in what is close to a desert makes me appreciate rain even more than ever. Rain isn’t always a blessing, though. My friend Betty Rosen Ziff lives in Lomita, part of what Angelenos call the South Bay. We stayed with her and her husband Stuart on both sides of our journey and they have the misfortune of sitting on a parcel that floods when the rains come. A few years ago they were nearly wiped out—emotionally as well as financially—by the storms that hit SoCal. Some crappy engineering of the city’s storm drains, not to mention indifference by the powers-that-be, set them up for a huge, watery mess. And how about some proper disclosure from the previous owners, the real estate agents, the finance people, the title company, and the government inspectors who’ve got their paws all over the purchase of the home? Yeah, we all know about “caveat emptor” but our capitalist economy works better when ethics and honesty are part of transactions. So I’ll be tempering my prayers to the rain gods with “soft and gentle and a little at a time for my friends down south, please.” I’ve added the link to the Lomita Flood Relief Facebook page to my blogroll. They’ve got a lot of work ahead of them to convince the City and County that they have a responsibility to residents to properly channel the floodwaters. Seems obvious, I know, but unresponsive elected officials are the latest fashion. They’ve also got lots of work to do on their place to prepare for future storms, and are always on the lookout for smart, creative types who can imagine potential solutions that won’t require a small fortune to implement.

We were only gone for three weeks on this trip, which is about average for us. Seems longer, though, as we were quite road-weary yesterday and still recovering today. In 2001 we went overseas and were gone for eight weeks, and we did a ten-week trip in 2005 which was my entire summer vacation. So this one ought to have been easy. I think the uniqueness of the train experience (which was mostly great) and the unusual event we attended (NoirCon) made this trip more challenging. The Giants being in the World Series certainly added a level of anxiety—only fans as emotionally attached as we are can appreciate that. I refuse to say it was harder because we are both older, I prefer Bob Dylan’s “Ah, but I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now” refrain from “My Back Pages” when thinking about aging. Travel, for me, has never been about just getting somewhere. I’ve always appreciated the transformative nature of journeying and seek to learn more about myself and grow in new and unexpected ways. These things don’t show up immediately as they need time to percolate and I’ll be musing on them over the next few months. Speaking of musing, here’s me in an apparently contemplative mood: I notice when I don’t smile I look grim. I was far from grim—I was relaxed, happy, and eager, in fact. We were just about to de-train in Chicago when Sue snapped this. I smile a lot actually so it’s odd to see myself with a neutral look. One of the things I came home with was twenty pounds of books. You can’t go to a literary event without accumulating more books! I’ve too many books as it is, integrating the new ones into the collection will take some time. Here’s a picture of my new acquisitions: That’s a signed hardcover first edition Walter Mosley on the upper left! “Easy” Rawlins is back at it in the mean streets of Los Angeles. Mosley is a remarkably versatile and accomplished author—crime fiction is only one of his specialties. The other hardcovers and the rest of the top row were all freebies. The bottom row were all purchases. I’m especially excited by the new Hard Case Crime (Samuel Fuller’s lost novel “Brainquake”) and the two in the middle from Jonathan Woods (“Bad Juju” and “A Death in Mexico”). Gutter Books, naturally, is also represented with the “Noir Riot” and “Trouble in the Heartland” collections. A surfeit of literary goodness!

I’m still moving. Being on Amtrak for nearly four days has set up a current in my cerebrospinal fluid that has me lurching westward even when I’m sitting still. I suppose I’ll get over it eventually. Meanwhile I’m dosing myself with simple molecules like CH3(CH2)OH. There are some perks to train rides: That’s a moonrise over the New Mexico badlands from the window in our compartment. Not bad for a quickie snap, eh? And we got a look at the Southern Rockies a little earlier: Yeah, I know, it’s far away. Hey, we were on a train. Did I explain that already? Most of the goddamn country is flatlands. Seriously. Iowa? Kansas? Illinois? Fucking flat. We Californians have no idea how flat the rest of the nation is. The train to LA was late so we got to go through the southern desert in the morning twilight instead of at night. Cajon Pass from the Victor Valley to San Bernandino was goddamn amazing! I was too excited to take pictures. Get your own lazy asses down there and check it out. I can’t do everything for you, fer chrissakes. Anyway, it was awesome. The Joshua Trees and yuccas to the east, the fault scarps and exposed cliff faces near the summit, the broad vistas of the San Gabriels as we descended west, it was just beautiful in that sparse, haunting way that only a brutally arid landscape can be. Speaking of brutal, the train tracks don’t discriminate. They take you alongside both the hardscrabble hillbilly shanties and the gleaming boulevards of manicured lawns in front of multi-million dollar developments. The trash strewn barrios and the neat suburban cul-de-sacs. The strip malls and the freight yards. The shiny, freshly-minted school sports complexes and the battered, abandoned warehouses of once-thriving commercial centers. If you want to see the great bifurcation of American society between those that have and are getting more versus those that don’t and are watching it slip away, get out of your cars and off your airplanes and ride the ‘trak. p.s. If anyone can tell me how to do subscripts in WordPress I’d love ya forever.

We endured. That’s all I can say.The “C” in “Mark C. O’Connor” stands for “Christopher” and not “contortionist.” Because you’d have to be a circus freak to get a decent night’s sleep on a coach class train. We left PGH at midnight EST and got to CHI a little before ten in the morning CST. While the seats are reasonably comfortable and there’s far more leg room than an airplane it was really hard to block out the noise, especially as we were seated right next to the staircase which remained lit throughout the night and was filled with noisy passengers coming and going at each stop. Alas, it was a bit of bad luck, but I have to say that walking the cars it was pretty clear that even in the darker, quieter spots it was hard to grab some z’s. I got a little sadistic pleasure out of seeing the variety of goofy positions people were trying out! The comatose ones were either under the age of 25 or addled with drugs. I think we managed a couple of hours total between the two of us. Next time we go overnight anywhere we’ll get a sleeper. But that’s all in the past. Part of the adventure of travelling is enduring the tough parts and learning something for next time. You can’t anticipate everything.

Chicago was cool and blustery but it felt great to get out and walk around. We had several hours to kill so we went back to the South Loop where we stayed previously and enjoyed Grant Park and the Lakefront. And we had to hit Kitty O’Shea’s again as it was the setting for one of our favorite evenings when we watched the Giants crush the Royals in Game Four. I had a pint of Smithwick’s with my Cobb salad. We are now back at the station in the Metro Lounge which is Amtrak’s hangout for first class (i.e., sleeper car) passengers. Got some wifi going on so I can type this for you!

The Southwest Chief which will take us back to LA is due to depart at 3:00 p.m. local time which is in about an hour. Both of us are sleep-deprived and a little out of whack after all this time on the road. We had a lot of fun on the northwestward leg of the trip and I’m looking forward to the return portion. There was no internet connection on the 49-hour run and a few stretches were I couldn’t even get cell coverage. So I’ll say “sayonara” for now and post an update when we are back in California.

It’s 2125 Eastern Standard Time here at the Amtrak station in Pittsburgh. That’s 9:25 p.m. And Pennsylvania. We’ve got a train to catch at midnight that will take us to Chicago. That’s assuming it’s on time, of course. Our scheduled arrival is 0845 tomorrow (Tuesday the 4th of November). Again, assuming it is on time. We were only thirty minutes late to PGH from Philadelphia. Train stations use those cool all-caps three letter designations just like airports. We’ll have another layover in CHI and get the Southwest Chief from there at 1500 (er, 3:00 p.m.). That’s Central Standard Time. Departures are pretty dependable. Arrivals? Flexible. Speaking of flexible, it helps. The chairs here are solid. Hard plastic with vinyl covers and seem devoid of all padding. When you are like me and have no butt, just skin over bones, your feet go numb from prolonged sitting. So, I get up and pace around the station which can’t be more than 100 feet in any direction. Gets old fast.

The ride from PHI was reasonably pleasant except for the bi-polar woman sitting behind us. She had two phones. One had an electronic chime that went sort of ping-ping-poodle-ding with a little rise at the end. The other had a two-second snippet of some horrid over-blown r&b tune, you know, the kind of r&b they play in a JC Penney store, not the good kind. When we left she had a half hour conversation with someone in which she would say everything three times. Other than that she seemed rational. A little later she had a pleading conversation with the phone company to extend the deadline on her overdue bill. Mind you, I didn’t want to know all this, but she had no qualms about allowing us to hear. Later she had another conversation with some medical outfit about her appointments.These conversations became increasingly more emotional and high-strung and even involved her weeping. Then she talked in low(er) tones to someone that seemed to be a family member and she described, now thoroughly distraught, a long chain of terrible things that had beset her. Accident, head trauma, back injury–it would have been heartbreaking if it hadn’t been so public. Not long after that she had a kind of transformational exchange with another apparent family member about how hard she was working to get her life back together and how she was stronger and braver than before. It was like Dr. Phil meets Oprah. I’m generally pretty sympathetic and don’t like to think poorly of folks or mock their issues but this had reached a the point of black comedy. Finally she was mostly silent for a few hours (it was a seven hour journey) but the phones kept going off every few minutes. When I walked past her seat to hit the head I could see her texting on both devices, one after the other. I was happy when she got off in Greensburg.

A few minutes ago a pizza guy showed up and delivered a “medium cheese” to one smart passenger sitting with us here in the station. Wish we’d thought of that. If they could bring a six-pack of beer too it would be even better. Speaking of beer, we had a lot of Yuengling when we were out and about in Philly. There was plenty of craft brew around the city, which was nice, but if there wasn’t you could always get a Yuengling. The station in Philly had a pub called Bridgewater and we had a pint of draught before we boarded. It was called Hofbrau Dunkel and it really hit the spot. Nice little pub, good beer (a Dunkel is a dark lager), a civilized way to travel. Man, I’m thirsty and my butt is starting to tingle. I need a take a few laps soon. The folks in the station seem OK. A gent across the way gave us his New York Times when he was done with it. A group of Mennonite girls are sitting in a row across from us. They look like two sets of sisters, four apiece. High school age. I suppose they are Mennonites, I’m not sure, one of those Pennsylvania Dutch sects. Cheerful bunch, lots of adolescent giggling. A guy saw me typing on my laptop and wanted me to Google something for him. Do you know which states in the US are Commonwealths? I knew Virginia and Massachusetts were, but it turns out Kentucky and Pennsylvania are as well. He explained that he “just gotten out of prison” and had to avoid states that were commonwealths. Something about extradition, I was friendly and didn’t pursue it. He was happy to know there were only four, he was sure there were five. I told him he might win some money on Jeopardy some day with his new-found knowledge. I’m not sure he caught my drift but he was nice about it. That’s all you can ask, eh?

Next time I ride the rails I will bring a flask of some delicious adult beverage. 100 proof Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey comes to mind. And an ipod-thingie with big, comfy headphones like Dr. Dre sells and plenty of good tunes for tuning out the world. A neck pillow and a blanket woudn’t be bad, either. Otherwise, we are having a grand trip. The Giants won the World Series and that makes everything better.

Only a few more hours. Talk to y’all later!

I’ve chronicled some of our activity at NoirCon for Out of the Gutter on-line. Check it out here. Suffice to say we met a lot of interesting people and had fun socializing with nice folks who like and create deviant literature. Saturday we attended the awards dinner at a place called Penn’s Landing on the Delaware River. We wound up taking a taxi back with a young guy named Matt Cook who was a doctoral candidate at Penn who had just finished his first novel. It was out on the edge of the city and we clambered over train tracks to flag the taxi who turned out to have a broken meter but we nonetheless successfully negotiated a reasonable fare. We had been in a big group of partygoers who cursed us good-naturedly (at least I think so, these are crime writers after all) for “jumping the line.” Hey, that cabbie wasn’t going anywhere near the event and I think we might have made his night with some ready cash. Taxis are much of the theme for our stay—we rode the subway and did lots of walking but NoirCon events were spread out all over the city and the only way to get around was via cabs. The closing event was on Sunday at a bookstore called Port Richmond that was again out on the bleeding edge of town. It was more like a warehouse your crazy rich uncle filled up with all his stuff. There was a spectacular collection of used books that would have taken weeks to go through, but it was frigid in the place and we almost didn’t make it through the final discussion. We wandered around looking for a place to get lunch and a beer and finally settled in neighborhood bar that served pirogies. We had a great visit with British author Richard Godwin and his wife Paige. On the way back we shared a taxi with Charles Kelly who gave me a copy of his book Gunshots in Another Room, a biography of forgotten noir writer Dan J. Marlowe.

We had also visited, earlier in the day, a truly weird place called Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens which features the unique work of artist Isaiah Zagar. It’s mostly mosaics, but a lot of found objects and urban debris as well. I’ll sign off with a few pictures:

We head west on the train starting at noon today!

Carl Sandburg said Chicago was the “City of the Big Shoulders” and if he meant wide streets and tall buildings he was on the mark. There was something broad and sprawling about the Windy City and it had a wide-open feeling to it. Philadelphia, on the other hand, has a more cramped, high-density vibe. Nonetheless we enjoyed our first foray into the City of Brotherly Love. We walked west this afternoon from our hotel in the Convention Center along Market Street and crossed the Schuykill River into the University District. Both the Drexel and Penn Campuses are between 30th and 40th Streets. Our first NoirCon event was a screening of the 1951 film noir The Prowler. A fascinating and thoroughly creepy movie starring Van Heflin and Evelyn Keyes, the screenplay, credited to Hugo Butler, was actually written by Dalton Trumbo who was blacklisted at the time. I remember reading his novel Johnny Got His Gun in high school. After the showing Eddie Muller gave a talk about his experiences tracking down the original 35mm prints of The Prowler and showing it to film festival audiences as well as interviewing Evelyn Keyes for his book Dark City Dames. I’m a huge fan of Mr. Muller and it was great to actually meet him in person. He saw my Giants hat and I got a fist bump, he’s a fan. I told him that my mom is responsible for my love of both noir and baseball and that she loved his book. He asked if she was still alive and when I said yes he said “well, give her my best.” You bet I will. I also shook hands with another author I’m a big fan of and that’s Christa Faust, creator of the Angel Dare series for Hard Case Crime. I told her my wife and I are desperately awaiting the third installment and she said that Angel’s next adventure will take place in the world of rodeo, much like the previous book was set in the world of MMA fighting. So, that was fun.

We took the subway back to the hotel and decided to head out to the Spring Garden area for a visit to the Prohibition Taproom on 13th Street. The walk there was short but through some dodgy looking areas but the place itself was inviting and comfortable. We had excellent food and they even served up a cask ale. In England they would have called this a “gastropub” meaning it had a homey atmosphere and catered to beer drinkers but served upscale cuisine. It was easily our favorite spot on the trip so far. After that it was a short but confusing walk to the PhilaMOCA (Philadelphia Museum of Contemporary Art) which despite the high-falutin’ name is a real hole-in-the-wall and hard to find. The NoirCon panels were interesting and we stuck around for most of them. We stepped outside and decided to avoid walking strange streets at night and looked for a cab. Sure enough I hardly thought about the right corner to stand on to hail one and a taximan pulled over as if he were reading my mind. Like I said earlier you can tell a great city by how easy it is to get a ride!

Tomorrow the conference opens officially at the Society Hill Playhouse early in the morning and continues late into the night. Happy Hallowe’en!

We are finally settled in and not sleep-deprived. The Giants won the World Series a little before midnight Eastern time, that is, all the hype died down enough to actually get some sleep by then. We were exhausted after the tense game and the 20-plus hour train/bus adventure. Today we are refreshed, coffee’d and breakfasted, and catching up on mundane tasks like laundry. Hard to be on the road for over a week and not need some fresh underwear and socks! Finally we get to start our NoirCon experience. If you don’t know what I mean by “noir” then click the tab on my web page that says “What is Noir?” and find out. This afternoon we head to the University District for a film (“The Prowler”) at the International House hosted by a man they call the Czar of Noir, San Francisco’s Eddie Muller. See, say “noir” so it rhymes with “czar.” We hope to walk to the event but we don’t know the city so we’ll find out what’s what before we go. Then there is an evening program just a couple of blocks from here at the Museum of Contemporary Art. You can check out the schedule here. I will be posting to this site of course and also contributing to the Out of the Gutter Online website about the events over the next few days. I’ll put up some pictures as well. Naturally we will be sporting the orange-and-black for our boys. Perfect for Hallowe’en, too!

On Tuesday the 28^th at 1840 Central we depart Chicago Union Station right on time and head east on train no. 30 the Capitol Limited. We are in coach this time as it is “only” a nine-hour trip. I don’t imagine we’ll get much sleep but the seats are roomier than on an airplane and I can stretch my legs out and that helps a lot. Sue spotted the young crescent low in the southeast sky just as we were pulling out. That was the most serene thing so far about our experience in the station. That and getting my shoes shined! The guy was just closing up but agreed to do one more. It was only five bucks and I tipped him an extra two. And they look good, too. I figured we might get some rain in Philadelphia so a quick touch-up seemed like a smart move. The throngs of frantic commuters rushing from escalators to gates and across the concourses left us breathless. You could hardly move without some herd blowing past you. I figured maybe the commuter rail connections were tight and one did not have a moment to spare to make a transfer. Either that or everyone was on crack. The Amtrak portion was mellow by comparison. It was stuffed with passengers awaiting their gate calls, and the lines were long and slow moving, but no one was in a rush. Considering that we are now stopped on the tracks just outside the city it’s no surprise. Amtrak sent me an email saying to expect “significant delays” on this run and to check the website for updates. Of course they had no updates so I asked the station agent and he said the trains were on time and no delays expected. Uh, right. Apparently this is SOP for Amtrak. The veteran travelers on this run seem philosophical about it. We’ve had a good experience so far but I’m afraid we may not make our connection to Philadelphia if we run late. No sense worrying now, there’s Game Six to have enough anxiety about. More on that later.

Today we wandered around the city heading north along the lakefront and eventually finding our way to the Magnificent Mile, Chicago’s shopping district on Michigan Avenue. It’s a great city for tourists as the boulevards are lined with wide pedestrian walkways and the intersections give you ample time for crossing. Things are well-marked and easy to find. This trip we didn’t take any of the public transit options although it looked like they would have done the job. We looked for a place to have a drink in one of the skyscrapers and were directed to the John Hancock building right at the end of the Mile. There was an entrance fee for something called The Tilt and that did not seem right so we found ourselves a hole-in-the-wall pub called Pippin’s and had a pint. That always restores the spirit of adventure and we chatted with a young couple who told us to go back to the Hancock and take the express elevator to the 96^th floor to a place called The Signature Lounge. We did and found the spot we were seeking. The beers and entrees were ballpark expensive but it was worth it for the magnificent views. The city was beautiful from up on high but the state of Illinois is too damn flat for a native Californian. Where the hell do people go for mountains around here?

At game time (1900) I searched for wi-fi networks and saw several but none were open public access so I once again have to rely on text updates from friends and perhaps the kindness of strangers. One of the passengers in line asked me if we were hoping for a Game Six loss so we could watch tomorrow’s game. Not a chance, I said, go for the kill. I’d rather miss a Giants win than see a loss! He seemed like a knowledgeable fan of the game. We talked about the nature of tournament baseball and how things were quite different today from the post-seasons of yesteryear. He was not sure if Jake Peavy had the makeup for a big start but I countered with Yusmeiro Petit our super-reliever. We talked about how amazing Madison Bumgarner is and he said teams that win the Series usually have to have an ace like him which of course I concurred with. He joked that the Giants needed to take this year’s title because you knew they wouldn’t get next year as it is odd-numbered! I mentioned how I’m still pinching myself that my beloved team is in its third Series in five years. I never thought I’d ever see the orange-and-black be this successful. Alas, the Giants were crushed in Game Six so we know there will be a Game Seven.

By the time we got to Toledo it was clear the chances of missing our connection were good. Sure enough we got to Pittsburgh at dawn and the no. 42 Pennsylvanian to Philly had left ten minutes earlier! TEN MINUTES! We had a 2-1/2 hour window on a nine-hour ride but that was not enough. At least they supplied us a bus to make the connection instead of leaving us stranded. Amtrak is the province of working class travelers. You can bet if rich people rode the train they’d run on time. It saddens me that our Congress is too short-sighted to invest in our passenger rail infrastructure. It seems if you are a billionaire tech wizard or a goddamn banker they’ll fall all over themselves to pass laws to protect your industry. But essential services like the mails and the rails are left to fend for themselves.

The bus ride across Pennsylvania was surprisingly scenic. They have actual mountains. I suppose to a Californian they seem more like foothills, but the ridge-and-valley terrain is far preferable to the flatlands of the Midwest. The state is cut by a series of southwest-to-northeast trending ranges like the Alleghenies and the hill-and-dale pattern seems to be distinctly Northeastern. Fall colors were everywhere and I even saw some conifers. There was at least one kind of pine (I can’t say which) and I’m pretty sure the others were larches and hemlocks. The turnpikes are interesting from an engineering point of view as there were numerous viaducts and bridges needed to cross the many streams. The roadcuts were also intriguing as they exposed a complex sedimentary geology. Pennsylvania is a coal-and-oil state. We crossed the Susquehenna River when we got to Harrisburg. It’s huge, at least five times wider than the Sacramento. They’ve got us beat on size as all the rivers here make ours look like creeks, but we’ve got the whitewater out West.

It’s 1305 on Wednesday the 29th we are finally on our way to Philadelphia. We should be there in a few hours. The ride last night across Ohio and Indiana was not a pleasant one. The coach seats were roomy but the train was crowded and noisy as well as cold. I think I slept for an hour tops as the only stop I missed was Toledo. Game Seven decides the Series tonight so I’m not sure sleep is going happen this afternoon, either. GO GIANTS!

That’s what they told us at Buddy Guy’s Legends last night although we did not spot him. He still tours despite pushing 80 years of age and supposedly hangs at the club in Chicago when he’s not on the road. They open the doors for dinner and have what they call an “acoustic” set, last night it was Eddie Taylor, Jr. and he played electric guitar and sang without a band. The volume was low so I suppose that qualifies. He was excellent, the only bad part was a loud party that showed near the end of the set and blabbed non-stop. Sheesh people, if you are making more noise than everyone else in the room you are being rude. I get that people want to have a good time but why go listen to music and then spend the whole time running your mouths and playing with your iphones? We had some delicious crab cakes to start and I also ordered a plate of the fried okra. The pieces were smothered in batter but I found I could crack them open and pluck out the little morsels with my fork. The beer selection was weak, and Buddy’s signature beer was not very good, but entrees were great. I had crawfish etouffe and Sue had Cajun salmon. We decided to stay for the main act and the staff came around to collect a ten-buck cover charge and give you a stamp. Turned out it was a jam night. Brother John Kattke opened things and then he hosted the rest of the evening. The man can really rock the blues guitar and he also sang and played keyboards. His band was multi-talented, the trumpeter doubled on the keyboard and both the tenor and baritone saxophonists did as well and both also sang. It was some blistering, high-energy R&B and we loved it. The trumpeter muted his horn on one number which always sounds wonderful and when the bari sax guy dropped down to the lower registers for those rumbling honks I thought I was going have a pulmonary embolism. They cranked up the volume for the band and that drowned out the douchey bunch (they kept at it, though), but the level was just about perfect. Not so loud it hurts your ears (no ringing this morning) but loud enough to get you fired up. Numerous other musicians took the stage and all were terrific and played with style and verve. Lots of long, extended pieces with multiple solos. One of the guitarists looked like a refugee from an Allman Brothers tribute band but played some spectacular riffs with vocals to match. At one point I swear he was channeling Captain Beefheart! I can’t remember his name, nor can I remember the name of the keyboardist who blew everyone away with some soulful, acrobatic pieces of jaw-dropping skill. We really wanted to see some blues here in Chi-town and Buddy Guy’s fit the bill perfectly as it was just a few blocks from our room.

The club is in the heart of The Loop, an upscale area just south of downtown and east of the Chicago River. It’s a neighborhood with a lot of high-end hotels and there are plenty of tourists. It’s a spacious, comfortable, friendly place with a good vibe that seems to have a solid local crowd. I know I’ve never been in a music venue with such spotless bathrooms. The men’s room even had an attendant. You can stand on the street corner outside and watch the show as they have a TV in the window behind the bar that faces Wabash Avenue!