Norah Jones took to the stage shortly after 9:00pm last night in front of a sold-out Civic Center crowd. I was lucky enough to be among that crowd. Earlier in the day, I had turned down tickets to see Bon Jovi in Omaha that evening in favor of Norah. While I heard the Jovi were excellent (as I’m sure Karess will blog), Norah was incredible.

I’ve had maybe five shows that I’ve been to where the artist begins to sing their first song and the hair on the back of my neck stands up. Tuesday night, despite a fresh haircut, the short hairs that were on my neck stood at attention as Norah began her show with several songs off of her latest album, “The Fall.” Her voice sounds precisely like it does on her records. It’s smooth, raspy, sexy and beautiful. Even her speaking voice is sexy. She hit the stage in a cute red dress that stopped just above the knees and her short bob haircut. She bounced back and forth between an electric organ on stage left, an upright piano at stage right and she played her electric guitar at center stage. Since this is the first time I’ve seen her live, I was unaware of how much guitar she really played. She does a great job and looks adorable with a guitar in front of her red dress. Then again, it should come as no surprise coming from Ravi Shankar’s daughter.

Song selection was heavy towards “The Fall” at the beginning of the show and she continued to come back to it throughout. Standout selections from that album were the bluesy “Tell Yer Mama,” the song ‘about a dog, not my dog,’ “Man of the Hour,” and one of my favorite performances of the night, “Back to Manhattan.” The live version made me love that song even more.

She played the hits too. She did an okay version of the first single from “The Fall,” “Chasing Pirates.” She performed my all-time favorite song of hers, “Sunrise” from her second album “Feels Like Home” and of course did songs from her debut album like the Hank Williams cover, “Cold, Cold Heart,” “Don’t Know Why” and the title track (another favorite), “Come Away With Me.”

Norah Jones was nearly flawless with her new band. She admitted that it was only the fourth show that she’d played with the five-piece band, but you’d never know. It was an intensely musical group playing everything from the xylophone and upright bass to the steel guitar. She admitted that the band did not have a name. Norah traveled for a long time with her “Handsome Band” in support of her first records. One audience member seated near me suggested the band be “Norah and the Explorers.” This got a laugh from the crowd and from Norah herself.

I hope we don’t go long before Norah Jones returns to Central Iowa. She is a gift to music and a true artist. Top to bottom, she puts on an beautiful show filled with great songs, personality and meaning.

I’m a big nerd when it comes to social media. I’m on it all day. I bring my laptop into work every day and use it to play music, stream radio stations and to keep tabs on what’s going on with Twitter and Facebook. I’ve been on both for a few years and I’ve seen trends come and go. One that is popular right now is called Foursquare. Foursquare tries to almost make life into a game. Here’s the premise:

You download the Foursquare application to your smartphone. Then, you go and live your life. You go to lunch, coffee shops, the grocery store, anywhere. But, when you get there, you start up your Foursquare app and “check in.” The whole idea behind Foursquare is that it’s a great way for your friends and family to know where you are so that if they too are on Foursquare, they can leave comments and recommendations for different locales. In their words:

“You’ll find that as your friends use foursquare to check-in, you’ll start learning more about the places they frequent. Not only is it a great way to meet up with nearby friends, but you’ll also start to learn about their favorite spots and the new places they discover.”

One of the “benefits” of Foursquare is that once you visit a certain location enough times, more than anyone else that checks in, you then become the “mayor” of that location. So I have friends updating on Twitter and Facebook that they are the “mayor” of Jimmy John’s, Jordan Creek Town Center, QuikTrip and yes, even the mayor of their own home. The benefits for businesses is that it creates loyalty. They can offer discounts and freebies to the current mayor of their business. Only one person can be the mayor of a business at any time. There isn’t any sort of hierarchy. There’s no “deputy mayor” or “treasurer” of any location. Just mayor. I’ll even get updates that one person has ousted another as the mayor of a location. Then, as you progress through Foursquare, you earn “badges.” You earn points for checking into new places for the first time, for bringing friends and for going back multiple times in a day. Accrue enough points and you’re awarded a new badge. Again, turing everyday life, into a game.

Foursquare annoys me. First of all, I follow people on Twitter because I find them interesting. I genuinely care what they have to say. Now, I have these people flooding me all day with where they are and where they’ve been. I really don’t care. If I wanted to know where you are, I would call you.
“But you earn badges!”
Yes. Virtual badges that mean absolutely nothing. I don’t care how good of friends we are, if you tell me that you have a bunch of badges from Fourquare, I won’t care.
“But I’m the mayor of (local coffee shop) and I get half off a latte!”
Yeah, cool. In order to save that $2, you had to come by how many times?


Here are the reasons I don’t like Foursquare:
Foursquare is like living with your parents again. You’re having to tell it (them) where you are at all times. “Hi Mom. Yes, yes I made it to Valley West Mall. I’m just checking in.”

When I’m with my group of friends, I don’t want to walk into a lunch spot, only to see them all whip out their phones to “check in.” How about instead of playing your game, you just enjoy the company of everyone you’re with at that time?

It’s easy to cheat the system. Businesses, listen up. I silently tested out Foursquare and became the mayor of six different locations - without walking into the establishment. I didn’t spend any money. I didn’t even walk into your business. But, I get the credit because I checked in and now, if you gave discounts to Foursquare players, you’d give me discounts for not even being loyal, but for walking by your store and saying I went inside.

Best yet - there is a website called PleaseRobMe.com that is making a point not only about Foursquare, but about social media as a whole. Are we saying too much? Giving out too much information freely? On pleaserobme.com, you can see people from all over that are checking in on Foursquare. Guess what, when you tell me that you’re checking in at the Starbucks downtown, guess where I know you aren’t… HOME. It’s basically advertising that you are not home and that your stuff is free for the taking. Again, the website isn’t out to advocate robbing people’s homes. It’s out to prove a point that it is POSSIBLE to know this kind of information very easily. All you would need is the person’s full name and a few internet searches could tell you their home address, where they work and - thanks to Foursquare - where they are and how far away from home they may be at that time.

Life isn’t a game people. Foursquare used to be a game. But it was played by kids with a rubber ball. Let’s keep it to that.

I thought it was a relatively quiet week with not much to blog about until I got into the shower this morning (aka my blog topic thinking place). I realized that there was lots going on that I could talk about today. Hence, it would require me to jump from topic to topic in another stream of consciousness blog.

The iPad I Never Had
I have been saving for the last couple months in a SmartyPig account for the new Apple iPad coming out later this month. I wasn’t even certain I was going to buy it, but if I decided at the last moment that I wanted to, I wanted to have the money available. Then, earlier this week, it was announced that tennis stars Pete Sampras, Andy Roddick, Anna Kournikova and others were coming to Des Moines for a tennis exhibition in April. My wife is a big tennis fan. We always end up watching the major tournaments on TV, especially Wimbledon. I knew that the station probably wouldn’t be getting tickets, so I told her that I would spend the money I had saved on the tickets so she could see Pete Sampras in person. I ended up getting the VIP tickets so she could not only have great seats, but now she’ll have the opportunity to meet Pete and Andy as well. She says that it works in my favor too since I’ll get to meet Anna Kournikova. It’s not as big of a deal as you might think. I’m actually more excited to meet Andy Roddick!

Too Much Technology
When I was deciding whether to give up on the iPad for now, I realized just how much technology we have in our house. From the Roomba to the Blu-Ray player that streams YouTube and Netflix to the multiple laptops and iPhones, we have tons of technology in the house. I feel like one more piece might be one too many. …nah! I can say that having all of this fun technology in the house is great. There’s several other things I wished we had, but that’s for down the road. I’m sure when kids eventually come into the picture, we’ll have lots of kid-tech stuff to keep us (read: me) entertained.

Alice
Alice.com is a very cool website. We all have those dreaded trips to Target or Walmart to get detergent, toilet paper, Kleenex, soap and other such items. It’s a necessary evil. This Alice website is genius. You create an account and shop for the items that you need. Then, you can set it up so that it automatically sends you more at a certain point. Say you know that it takes about a month to go through a bottle of laundry detergent. You can set up your account on Alice to automatically send you more detergent at around the same time each month. Plus, the prices are very good and there’s always coupons. Best yet, the accounts are free and so is the SHIPPING. It’s like they say, “everyone needs an Alice!” My wife set up an account late last week and we got our box of stuff (detergent, Kleenex, deodorant, etc) earlier this week. It was great!

Happy Birthday!
If you’re like me, you keep track of birthdays of friends on Facebook. It’s great to have that reminder so it’s one more thing I don’t have to commit to memory! haha! It seems like this week has had a LOT of birthdays. Heck, just looking at the weekend, there’s 11 birthdays on my list! Celebrating this weekend are four friends from high school, Mike from the Nadas, a former co-worker and some great current friends including Fawn, new mommy Lindsay and the big 5-0 for my buddy Rich. See you tonight man!

Concerts
Holy concert season! I was checking out our calendar and there is so. much. going on this month! Just looking at the list, there’s seven concerts on the docket for March. This includes four concerts in five days! I can only make six of the shows since two are on the same night. The crazy concert month will start with Norah Jones at the Civic Center this Tuesday night. I’m very much looking forward to that show!

Lilith Fair
Speaking of concerts, 2010 marks the return of the popular female-festival-de-force known as Lilith Fair. It seems that if you are a female and play music, you are participating in Lilith Fair this year. Some of the artists include the founder, Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow, Colbie Caillat, Mary J. Blige, Kelly Clarkson, The Bangles, the Go-Gos, Sara Bareilles, Norah Jones, 2/3 of the Dixie Chicks, Ke$ha, Brandi Carlisle and so on. What a great lineup. We don’t know all of the exact dates, but the festival is coming to Chicago, Minneapolis and St. Louis. I think I smell a road trip (Karess?!).

Have a great weekend everyone. We should all be thankful to watch the snow melt this weekend!

Mark your calendars - April 10 at the Val Air Ballroom. It’s the season home opener with the DSM Derby Dames taking on the River Valley Roller Girls. Tickets on sale soon for just $10! It’s a great introduction to roller derby and is going to be TONS of fun!

Find out more about the Des Moines Derby Dames at dmderbydames.com, on Facebook and on Twitter!

Ohh, the state tournaments. The late winter festival in Iowa where residents from our great state all converge on Des Moines to cheer on their sons, daughters and classmates as they fight towards basketball and wrestling championships. For the students in schools lucky enough to attend, tournament time became almost like an early spring break. Schools were quick to excuse students from classes so that they could attend games in Des Moines. Ultimately, what would happen is the students arrive in Des Moines en masse, then forget that the arena (or in my time, Vets) was their intended destination. Instead, there would be small herds of kids, dressed in school spirit wandering the streets and skywalks of Des Moines, with no particular place to go.

For some, tournament time is one of the few, if only times they make it to Des Moines in a year. I can only imagine that retail outlets like Jordan Creek treat tournament time like a mini-Christmas season. School mascots should be set up in center court with kids asking for rebounds and pins for their tournament. The food courts are buzzing, the parking lots are jammed and hotels are at capacities that rival new year’s eve.

One of the downsides of the tournament crowd coming into Des Moines is that they HAVE NO IDEA WHERE THEY’RE GOING. You’ve seen it before. Someone driving a car with Cerro Gordo plates slowly through the streets of downtown Des Moines. putting on their turn signal, then turning the direction opposite of that which they signaled. Drivers from Fayette county going 50 on 235 in the right lane, trying to figure out which downtown exit takes them to the mall. Then there is my favorite story ever. One which I would not believe had it not happened right in front of me last year. An out-of-towner driving two cars in front of me has created a train behind them because of their slow speed. It’s clear they don’t know where they’re going. I watched them not only run a red light, but brake at a green light (well, that’s apparently just an Iowa thing). Then, they reached their breaking point of confusion when they made a U-TURN in the MIDDLE of the street on which they were driving. This would be alarming enough, were we not ON A ONE-WAY STREET. The driver pulled into a metered spot - facing opposite all of the other cars - and appeared to begin to gather their thoughts. As I passed and honked along with my fellow local travelers, I could see multiple sets of arms flailing inside the car as it appeared Magellan was not this teen’s co-pilot.

So for those that are visiting our fair city during the tournaments, welcome. Please obey all traffic signs. Enjoy shopping at the malls and best of luck to whichever team you are here supporting. Just please stay the heck out of my way!

B&B Market, SE 6th and Hartford

We’ve made it to the end of February. It was a month that I accomplished two big goals. The first was going a full month without caffeine. I should add that I am still caffeine free at this point. I’m not sure when I’ll have my next caffeinated drink, but I’m in no hurry. The second goal was to eat at only locally owned establishments for the entire month.

At the beginning, the idea was to eat at a different establishment, each day of the month. Well, my plan didn’t exactly turn out how I had hoped. Not that I didn’t stay local, but that I didn’t do a different place each day. Along the way, I learned a lot about eating locally on the go.

First, a run down of the places I visited. I kept track of where I ate throughout the month. My favorite places to go were Manhattan Deli, Palmer’s Deli and Tasty Tacos. At Manhattan Deli, I would always get the Zach Johnson sandwich. At Palmer’s, I would usually get the roast beef and havarti on sourdough with a cup of the soup of the day. Some day, I would love to have a sandwich named after me at one of these places!

Manhattan Deli, Ingersoll Ave.

Mmmm… I can see it now. “I’ll have a Luke and a cup of soup!” Yes.

Some other places I liked to go were Gateway Market (love the chicken tortilla soup), B&B Market (Italian grinder), Fong’s Pizza (um, anything, but definitely the Chinese Cheesesticks) and Ted’s Coney Island. The city has plenty of great places. Smokey D’s, Star Bar, Sam & Gabes, Leaning Tower of Pizza, High Life Lounge an Court Ave. Brewing just to name a few.

There were a few times that I was very tempted to sneak to a McDonald’s or Subway when I was in “desperate” need. But, I sucked it up and stuck with my goal. I’m happy to say I didn’t stray from eating local once. After completing this month of local eating, I figured out two things that Des Moines really needs when it comes to places to eat.

1. More “grab and gos” - We need more places where you can get a quick lunch or dinner to go. There’s plenty of great places to eat, but many of them are sit down restaurants. We could use more places that get you in and out in under 10 minutes.

The "Harrington" pizza from Leaning Tower of Pizza in Ankeny

2. More late night choices - Des Moines could use more places serving food late. When I say late, I mean LATE. After midnight and even after bar close. There are very few choices and there should be more. Right now, I can only think of pizza as a late night option (Fong’s, Big Tomato). I know the kitchen at Down Under Bar and Grill in Urbandale is open late too. We just need more options that are tasty and quick.

If Des Moines had these options available, it would only enhance the already fantastic local eating scene. So my month is over and I have to say, I’m ready for some big box food. I think on Sunday, I’ll be making a stop by Smashburger for a yummy All-American Burger. But, don’t worry, I won’t forget about my favorite local places, including the future home of the “Luke” sandwich!

I’m a little late to the party in talking about the incident at Legend’s downtown. I’m not taking a stand on either side of the issue. I can see both sides. I will say that I think that the profession of the customers is irrelevant to this situation. I think it was used as the conduit to spread the now famous forwarded email. Teachers sending to teachers who send to other teachers and friends. This very same conclusion could have happened if it were postal workers or pharmacists or realtors. In the end, it was a customer complaining about a bad experience.

That said, who hasn’t had one of these? We’ve had instances where servers have forgotten us, we’ve been given the wrong order through the drive through or been swindled by a savvy salesperson. I’ve never taken it to heart though. I chalk it up to someone that is just very busy, someone that’s a bit inattentive or just someone that is plain having a bad (read: unlucky) day.

I’ve had several experiences at restaurants and retail outlets in Des Moines that have been so poor, I’ve vowed to never return. I’d love to talk about where these bad experiences took place, but that brings me to the main topic of this blog: I can’t.

Now, I’m sure if I really wanted to, I could start naming names and put a few area businesses on blast about the poor customer service I experienced. But, we’re a radio station and some of these businesses are advertisers. I always have to be aware of what I say in my blog so that it not only doesn’t offend the audience, but also the advertisers. I don’t want to be the person responsible for an advertiser getting their feelings hurt and pulling their advertising ($$$) off the station.

I will, however, describe a couple experiences that I’ve had without naming the businesses.

I was in the market for a car a couple years ago. I had a few models and types in mind that I wanted to test drive. As luck would have it, I was placed on a live broadcast at a car dealership that had one of the cars that I was interested in purchasing. I go to the remote and do my thing. While I’m there, I ask the manager/owner if I can talk to one of his favorite salespeople about taking a test drive. The owner - who is often featured in this dealership’s commercials and is not as nice in person - pawned me off on to a guy that was the model of “smarmy car salesman.” He was trying to be funny, trying to be slick and once I was done with my test drive, actually used the phrase, “so what do I have to do to get you into this car today?” I said “no thanks, just looking” and never returned to that dealership. I felt unimportant and like “just another customer.” Later, I would return to Saturn of Des Moines, where I have had nothing but the most enjoyable car buying experiences, and bought my 5th Saturn car, a Vue.

Another case comes from a large retail chain. I was looking for a camcorder to buy for the radio station (with station money). When I used to just browse this store, there would be employees all over me. I’m not a fan of this tactic. Salespeople should mark us with a dot or something to show that we’ve already been asked “can I help you find anything today.” No, I was approached by MULTIPLE salespeople, all asking the exact. same. line. “Can I help you find anything today?” After about the 4th or 5th “No, just browsing,” I was beginning to lose my patience. I couldn’t look at anything in peace without a salesperson hovering over me. Give me room to breathe pal, I’ll come find you when I need you. Once I finally found the camcorder I wanted, I got it back to the station and it was defective. I took it back and got another one. Defective again. Got a third camcorder and it too, was a piece of crap. I finally got one that wasn’t a total dud. However, I had such a bad experience with the products at this store and their overly pushy sales staff that I have yet to return.

So there are my stories of bad service. Do you have any whoppers?

One of the most popular internet memes (a catchphrase or content that spreads quickly online) of 2007 and 2008 had to be the Rick Roll. If you got “Rick Roll’d,” you were sent a link promising something you’d want to see, only to be fooled into watching the video for the 1987 hit song by Rick Astley, “Never Gonna Give You Up.”

The concept was a goofy one. It started on a message/imageboard called 4chan in 2007. By the end of 2008, nearly 20 million people had been Rick Roll’d, not including the millions of Americans that were watching the 2008 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade where a float stopped to perform and Rick Astley himself came out in the middle of the performance to lip sync his hit - effectively Rick Rolling the entire country. At least he had a good sense of humor about it.

Apparently, someone out there no longer has the sense of humor for Rick Rolling. The original Rick Roll video on YouTube that had over 30,000,000 views, was taken down for “Terms of Use Violation.” NOW? You do this NOW after 30 million views and a joke that is now over a year removed from being funny? Why? Don’t worry though, there’s still several versions on YouTube if you get nostalgic and want to Rick Roll a friend.

For me, I think it’s time for another 80s singer to have his day as an internet phenomenon. Timmy T anyone?

UPDATE: As of this afternoon, YouTube put the video back up on their site, saying that the video was mistakenly taken down.

Rick Astley - “Never Gonna Give You Up”

I was sad to see the news about the fire at Adventureland over the weekend. Like most kids in Central Iowa, I remember going to Adventureland year after year with my friends and family. Seeing the buildings was all part of the experience. I rarely went into any of them unless it was a rainy day at the park. It seemed like whenever it starts raining at Adventureland, the first thing everyone thought of was to go play bingo in the parlor. The building I can remember visiting many times was the arcade. I became very good at the “Bowler Roller” game. You know, the one where you had to roll the bowling ball over the hump and not let it roll back over. Part of the charm of that arcade is that it had some of the classic video games. Old time NBA games, racing games and as a friend of mine showed in a picture she had, Q-Bert.

I always wanted to work at Adventureland when I was a kid. I never did apply. I always thought it would be fun to run one of the rides. Growing up, I had nearly every one of the safety speeches memorized for every ride. “Welcome to the Dragon, for your own safety, please keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times. Thanks and enjoy your ride.” Then, once you exit the ride, you’d hear, “Exit to your right please and walk slowly down the ramp. Thanks and enjoy your day at Adventureland.” See? I’ve got at least 25% of the job figured out already. I kind of wish that I could do a “do my job” feature, even for just one day. I’d love for the folks at Adventureland to give me the opportunity to run a couple of the rides, make a funnel cake or two and generally just get the idea of what it’s like to work at the park. I think I’d also just like to have the Adventureland name tag that said “Luke.” Hey, I’d even tape it for a video blog!

Anyway, I am certain that Adventureland will rebuild better than ever and have more fun games to play, including bingo. I’ll just miss those classic video games. I can’t wait to get back out to Adventureland again this spring and summer.

It’s been crazy busy around the radio ranch this week. I’ve had things that I want to blog about, but just haven’t found the time to sit down and put the proverbial pen to paper. I will, however give a quick update on my two big personal projects that I’ve been working on recently.

Tomorrow (Saturday) marks the one month mark without caffeine. It’s hard to believe that I actually made it to a month. This process hasn’t been as difficult as I thought it would be. In fact, it gives me hope that if I do decide to reintroduce caffeine (specifically, diet sodas) to my life, that I would be able to walk away from them just as easily. I will say that I am getting pretty tired of drinking flavored waters, milk and especially lemonade. Thank goodness FOR lemonade though, otherwise, I wouldn’t have anything to drink in many places when having lunch.

Speaking of lunch, my other task was to only eat at local establishments in the entire month of February. So far, so good. I can’t say it’s been entirely simple, but I’m getting the job done. There have been a couple nights when I’ve come really close to going to Subway or McDonald’s and saying “nobody but I will know!” But, I made a pledge to myself that I would do this, so I have stuck with it. I have a few ideas of what Des Moines could certainly use when it comes to local eateries. I’ll save my list for once the month is over. While on one hand, I can say that I really love the local establishments here in Central Iowa, I can also say that I can’t wait to get back to eating my favorite Subway sandwiches again.

I’m looking forward to a fun weekend and I hope you are too. Gonna kick it off with a poker night with friends tonight. Have a great weekend and I’ll talk to you all Saturday Night on the STAR Party show.