Syracuse, New York

Syracuse is about as close to my hometown area of Buffalo, New York as I will be on this tour. Unfortunately Syracuse is about three hours away from Buffalo, and a tight schedule left me without any time to stop by and catch up with friends. So it was a little disappointing to drive right past Buffalo, but what can you do?

Once we hit Syracuse, the rain was already pouring, the Northeast has been hit with a storm that will make for a wet next few days. The cold and rain reminded us of Seattle’s winter weather, which I will take over a Syracuse winter any day.

We played in Syracuse’s little Italy, which is very little, basically a block or two dotted with Italian restaurants and bars. It is currently undergoing some kind of revitalization or transformation, but to be honest it just reminded me of all the other indistinguishable postindustrial upstate New York towns I am familiar with. The show was fun, and we had a good group of folks watching our set.

On another note, whenever possible, we fuel up at Citgo, which is supplied by Hugo Chavez’s liberal government and which recently announced it will provide cheap oil to poor Chicagoans. It seems that at least in this case a so-called communist government cares more about American people getting ripped off than our own government, go figure.