Hello and welcome to raw impressions, the free form podcast with Lew and Adele. Take it away Adele. Hi. We were just kind of bitching a little bit before we started recording.
We were, we were many things. We were like, what is it, a guest, disturbed, frustrated, kind of a range of some darker emotions, or at least I was, but maybe you were too, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I'm doing okay.
It's hearing Denver. I skipped out on two bus drives. And I just want to play this real quick. This is from a...
Hey everybody, it's Stuffy Bunk. I got something to say, Lew was not on the bus last night, nor was he on the bus the night before. And I'm wondering, where are you? Did you take a plane to the next destination or was you kicked out of the bank?
You could have been kicked out of the bank. You're bottom bunker. You bottom bunker's usually go first. You can be replaced.
I'm not sure what the story is, but well, me and Winston and Willie missed you. And I can only hope you're coming back. Well, you know what? You are coming back.
Go buddy escapes the bunk. It's the most practical way to get from aid to be in this great country of ours. And you know it. You can fly all you want to do, Barlow, but you're gonna be back.
You're gonna be back in the bunk. Stuffy's got room for you. You can't escape. And they're right, which, Lynne Willie.
Yeah, that's right. You tell them, well, we'll see you. You're coming to Salt Lake with us. I know it.
Don't get any ideas about leaving Salt Lake and flying to Seattle. That's not you, man. That's you. You're meant to be in the bunk.
Come back. I missed you. All right. That was stuffy bunks.
Checking back in because yeah, we flew. Murph, Jay and I flew from Dallas to Denver and skipped out on two overnight bus rides or yeah. Usually this is something Jada's he'll fly and but I think Murph and I both I think are living inside a catheter bag. It's definitely yeah, we're we flip along.
It's been a long tour. It's not over yet. So you're but you are you're on the end. That long.
I mean, it's been two plus weeks, I guess. I don't know. Two plus weeks? How long has it been?
You're funny. It's been a month now. Month? Yeah, it's been a month exactly now.
Since I left. Yeah. I like to I like to eliminate information in my brain, you know, just so I'm not carrying as much, you know, carrying as much information. But that's a little bit of that's and I've noticed this too when I travel with you, which doesn't happen very often.
But when it does, there's a little bit of like tour privilege where your brain just doesn't have to think about some things. It's like, no, that's far away. I don't have to think about that. Perhaps it's a coping mechanism that I've learned over 30 years.
But I also noticed it right away when I've traveled with you too. It's like, oh, what life? I don't know. I don't have any responsibilities.
I'm free as a bird. Free as a bird and I'm going to feel free as a bird for a few days coming up. So that's true. That's true.
We're going to be free together, baby. I mean, I have some stresses about it because it's the longest I've ever been away from Izzy for whole days, for full days morning tonight. We don't get back till Sunday evening. And when she wakes up on Thursday morning, I will be gone.
I will already be on an airplane. So I have a little bit of a complaint. It's not an explanation. It's just a complaint.
We got to the hotel yesterday. We flew here from Dallas. This is one of those hotels, the one that you and I had in Boston where you have to make your own key. You check in yourself.
It was like, when I say ordeal, I'm just talking, it's probably like, maybe really only added up like five minutes. But it's funny how those five minutes can seem so incredibly... Five minutes can really matter to people. We were just talking about this.
So, yeah, you had to scan your own license, but it wasn't like you put it on a tray. You had to hold it. Anyway, that thing of doing it yourself, then the people that do work at the hotel actually seem a little more agitated than if you were to just go to the desk and ask them, like, hey, I'm checking in and they'll hear your keys and they do it. They seem more agitated because that was the case in Boston.
I agree. 100% you're right. They are more agitated. Yeah.
So it doesn't seem great for the employees. I don't feel empowered in the least by making my own keys. I feel I like the interaction of checking into a hotel actually. Going up to the desk, talking to the person.
Being making eye contact, being kind or just being open to whatever they tell you because they might tell you your room is not ready for the next three hours. You might have questions. But you just want to be, you want to accept it, whatever they have to tell you. But then when they hand you the keys and it's an easy interaction, it's like, well, it's just there's a really unique relief and this really this real meaningful exchange that happens.
Like, here is your space, sir. So anyway, these checking myself in and making my own key, it was funny because Jay Murph and I were at three little screens doing this. He asked me working on it. And it was just funny because we were all sort of individually struggling with it quietly.
And then Jay goes like, this sucks. It does suck. But I got my key first. I was first one in the elevator and up to my room.
Can I just say too, that also feels like possibly ageist? I mean, I, depending on how adept you are at technology or computers or things like that, like I could tell you, my parents, okay, so when they visited in May, when you go to the airport, right, at Delta or I'm sure every airline now, there is also a little like little station, a little kiosk where you check in. And again, you're right. It's like the fact that then you have to additionally ask for help 90% of the time, the workers are like, damn it, like it's a, then it's a bother because they're like, the thing's supposed to take care of you, you know?
And it's like, so I had to park the car, go into the airport and then completely do the kiosk thing for my parents. Like, dad, get me your driver's license. Like let me do this for you. They didn't even bother trying.
I mean, it was a full assist. I had to do it all. And thank God, I fly enough that I'm like comfortable with that kiosk, right? But I remember thinking, man, this is actually intimidating for some people.
And like my mom, I could tell was very stressed by it. And it created a lot of anxiety for her. And honestly, I'm going to tell you this, the anxiety of it, it feels unnecessary. It does feel unnecessary.
It feels like this choice that we've made, right, that we're just, we all have to do. It's like, why does this have to? And then I see, I see the things same thing happen. Like CVS when like people are just like scratching your head and they're trying to fucking scan out their shit and move along.
And then I'll see like, you know, a lot of times senior citizens just happily waiting in a line to check out with the one employee who's left at CVS because they're like, no, no, no, no. Oh wait, I'm good. I'm good. Like I don't, that machine's no.
There's two employees that work an entire sizable CVS. Exactly. We just, I think what you really, I think by saying it's agist is true because now as an older person, I mean, the room that I have right now is very similar to the one we had in Boston. It's a little better, but they can I ask you, do you have a fucking bunk bed behind you?
Well, this is the thing. It's, this bed is actually, it's raised up. There's actually a, there's stairs to the back for no reason. For no reason.
I mean, they put all the storage underneath it. It's almost like they want people to live in this hotel room, which is also, you know, it's fair enough. But again, agist, because if, you know, you're over and ableist, right? What if someone's like, I can't climb up that.
Like I. Yeah, it's a, so yeah, I'm complaining. And there's, there's a bit of a, there's a crotchetingness to what I'm saying. That also seems unsafe getting out of the bed at night.
Like you're kind of stumbling. You're like, this is not my typical bed. Usually you just roll over, you put your feet on the floor, you go to the bathroom, like an old person doesn't million times a night. And then so you got to climb down a staircase.
Don't even get me started on the blackout shades. Okay. Get started. There's, there's, there's, there's, the controls next to it have like nine buttons, great, nine buttons on the control.
Like, I don't know what, and then you press something and then you figure out it goes up and down, but you don't know which shade it controls. It's just crazy. I don't get it. I had to mash my palm into that thing over and over and over again until somehow I got lucky.
And then I got the black out shade came down because otherwise I was like, black out shade does not come down. And I have to go down and ask, they're just going to look at me like, they're going to roll their eyes and go, yeah, there's controls next to the, I'm like, yeah, I know there's controls. It's just because I'm old. Did I don't understand this?
But you're right. Hey, Justin. I don't like it. That five minutes making my own key.
It's a waste. Can I? That's crazy. Can I just say now that we will leave this one unnamed for now because you're currently residing in it.
We can now name the one we were in Boston. That was, we actually booked that hotel ourselves. It wasn't through the band. It was called, I think, Citizen M of Boston.
And you were about to cut loose on Citizen M. I, hey, you know, this is my verbal review. Okay, here's my verbal review. I did not like also the computers lined up to greet me to make my own key.
That was, it took us also, we were like, what the, I don't understand. I mean, we were confused. And also again, you and I, we're people who want to connect with, we want to connect, we are entering our home for the next 24 hours. We want to like connect to someone.
And yes, she was Kurt, right? Kurt. But using friendly language to like, as if that would mask the Kurtness or like, hey, friend, you know, and it's like, no, no, no, clearly, I'm obviously, I'm not your friend. You hate me.
I hate you. We're okay. Let's just great. So then no one's friends here, zero friendship, but you know, so that really sucked.
I feel like the elevator situation, what the fuck was that? There was something weird about that. Like, well, I mean, don't get me started about being an elevator with people and their keys trying to figure out, oh my God, I'm all racing to put our thing on the thing. Because they don't want just anybody going up in those elevators.
It has to be someone who has purchased a room for the night. And you then need to understand that you tap your key on wherever the fuck the pad is, whether people know the numbers or above the numbers. And I've walked, I mean, just in this tour alone, I've walked into several elevators with very confused people. Just almost like, wait a minute, and pressing the buttons like what is going to make this work?
And the last one is, you know, it's not just an age thing either. No, I know, exactly. I'm like, I'm trying to put my finger on it. It's yesterday.
It was a family. It was like, it was like a family. I think three kids, young kids, one in a stroller. Yeah.
Like this couple who like obviously have been through a journey together, they've got their big ass bags. They look like people who've just been on an airplane with small children. Yes. All day fucking long.
Right. Now they finally made it to their hotel and they're like, you can, but they can't figure out the key thing. And I come in, you know, I see them go up the elevator, but then I see the doors open and they're just still standing in the elevator. Like, and I'm like, oh, no, right.
So we're, me and this other guy are all trying to work together to get them to their room and get the right combination of key to. So I would take first and then you press the number and hopefully that works because it often does not often the key no matter what hotel it is, it doesn't register when you're okay. We can't wait. So we don't want to have employees, right?
This is, are these money saving things? Yeah. It was all about fucking money, right? Because didn't there used to be someone where they called the bellhop or something like someone actually used to be an elevator person, they would be like, how are you doing?
What floor are you going to think, you know, like how classy is that guys? I mean, like, and then you can greet them and then don't they do that? You know where they do do that? You know where they do in Milwaukee at that classy ass hotel, the fister, you guys, that sounds, it's a gross name.
Don't get your head out of the gutter, but it's not that it's like PF ISTER, right? Anyway, maybe you're like, what are we even talking about? What's fister? Never mind.
You don't know, you don't know, but if you do, you do, but it's not here's the thing to is like that place is probably half the price of these of these fucking that too. It's a good deal. Yeah. But they, they make a point of saying like, we kind of value certain things that didn't seem to be broken, right?
Within the hotel system. And so they're still employing people. They're reading people. I think eliminating employees is the that's what's happening.
And it's been happening for a long time. But in this case, in this case, it's like you are creating more work for the employees and that's why they're agitated. Yeah, they really don't even know. And the funny thing is that this place, there is actually, I realized today there's actually like three, there was actually three employees just kind of hanging around the lobby.
Just, you know, and someone's like on like a laptop and they're all employees and you have to so then you have to just after the more of this like what they actually do seems really amorphous. So it's like, is so the person that's going to help you when you fuck up at the machine is also just also supposed to like, I don't know, they just sit at these sort of pseudo bar areas. And then you, it's just, I hate this. Well, maybe, maybe the young people, maybe this is the way they like it, you know, they want to minimal interactions and they're and they just naturally know how to is this a gen Z thing?
I don't know. If we have any gen Z listeners out there and I, there might be a couple, just a small handful. Can you please let us know, is this really the way? What's wrong with us?
I can't but so let me go back to Citizen M. All right, so the other thing that for me was extremely claustrophobic. Right. First off, Citizen M and Boston is expensive.
All right, I'm going to just say it's not it is not a cheap hotel. This we did it as honestly, like a splurge because it was like, I don't do this often. Lou and I, we actually don't go out very much. We we're at home, we don't go places, we don't have like a fancy life.
So I'm like, oh, I'm in the state of nice hotel in Boston. I'm gonna stay somewhere convenient to the TD garden, right? Like yada yada. Okay, it's it's too much money, too few employees, my bedroom, my bedroom, my room, my hotel room was very small, very small, modular, and it was like a Japanese foster phobic as F guys is I'm like, am I in France?
This is unnecessary. Like this is so tiny. So the bed, the head in the foot both hit the wall, it was like wedged into the wall and that I just kept thinking like it's closing in on me, it's closing in me. I mean, that scene in Star Wars when the trash compactor starts closing in on them, and I'm like, I mean, it still haunts me just that thought of the trash compactor.
I'm like, I'm in the trash compactor, except it's a bed. And then the one employee who didn't want to help us to begin with was like, trying to fucking like help us with the computer and just, oh, you got to have the city view and I'm like, oh, okay, whatever, I don't really care. There was no view. No, it was not that she gave us, she suggested a room plugged in, I mean, because she did have to step forward like, like move, you know, yeah, because again, we didn't know what the fuck you're doing.
Yeah, and then she got us a city view, but it was actually a view of a brick wall. It was, it was, and I'm like, okay, thank you. So then the bathroom is literally like a, it's like you're camping, it was almost like a tent inside of your room, everything was inside of the room, instead of there being like a wall, really like an actual wall. It was probably like a camera.
You had a bathroom and we have the toilet here and here's the, you want privacy if you're like sharing that room and you're shitting and you're like, you are in it, you are, you are there for the whole experience of that person. Imagine if that was like your first overnight date with somebody. No, what if you're excited? We're going to spend the night together and the hotel is going to do it and we're going to spend the night and it's going to be romantic.
We're like super sweet weasel fans. Getting to know each other. It could have happened. It could have happened.
Like this young couple from Maine could have been like a real. Came down to the show. Came down to the show at TD Garden. Maybe they're waiting to have a hard time finding places of their own like in up in Portland where they're from.
You know, they've, they both live with roommates. They're like, you know, we can finally have our own room, but the shitter's in the room. Right there. Surprise.
It's right there and it's not only it's like a tiny little curtain and then like a little thin plasticy shell around the shitter and yeah, you're going to get to know each other real fast. And then the shower was tiny and then the pump wasn't even working on it because like when I went in there, I was like, what happened to it? And you're like the pump's not working. So you had like dismantled the.
I unscrew the shampoo bottle. Totally screwed it. Everything was operating through an iPad. I didn't like it.
You guys. Okay. I'm trying to figure out how to shut off the TV. Yes.
Because the TV of course was just on. Yeah. Then why can't I'm figuring out how to turn that off? I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm.
But you know what? I like, I like, you really struck on something agist. Ages. It felt ages to me and.
Oh, oh, oh, oh. And we are, we are, we're officially middle-aged and you're going to be a senior citizen. So hey, I don't know. Middle-aged senior.
I don't know. Senior 55 plus. I did. I did.
AARP crap on my. So, but I'll say this too. When I got into the elevator the next morning to go have my breakfast, which I had prepaid for the two older gentlemen, probably in their 60s, look like business kind of, you know, they were there for work. Got into the hotel or into the elevator with me.
Bitching, bitching about it. They were like, what the fuck is with this place? Like my internet's not working, the shower thing. What is that?
I mean, they were like, oh, that's okay. Yeah. And I was like, I'm going to just quietly agree. Like I didn't feel like engaging, but I.
I was silently nodding. I was like, I'm feeling this so deeply, sirs. And so then, you know, went down to the lobby for the breakfast and I have a lot of complaints about citizen M. What I did think they did correctly.
I really liked the breakfast buffet. So. That's endless on a positive note. Yeah, I would like to say that I appreciated the, I thought for the lack of care that's in the checking in the weird elevators and your stupid rooms, your restaurant breakfast situation was actually very thoughtful.
Everything was like in his beautiful style, like in lockers, that style, like cast iron. It was very nice. Like actual eggs scrambled, actual bacon, you know, like beautiful. You did the next year.
But you know what I'll say this, the breakfast was not that expensive. It was only like $20 for the breakfast buffet that you add on. So. Oh, okay.
They really, but I'm not going to just go there. I mean, that makes no sense. It's like you should be matching that kind of courteousness to the whole place. And the food was good.
I had an oat milk latte that also was included. I could go back and get as many as I wanted. And what? Yeah.
So they made it for me. Like I had an espresso bar and everything, espresso machine, fresh squeezed juice. I had fresh sweet fruit juice. I like this positivity that you're making me think of good things where as we started this.
It was dark. It was a little dark and so I would like to say I'm going to end on high. I'm like, I was. I'm like mashing in.
Panicked, Princess Leia. What's happening? Spits into a control panel trying to get these shades coordinated. I actually don't even know how I did this.
I managed to get now, pull up the blackout curtain. I don't even know how I did it. I'm a fair person. I like to say that.
I think I'm very fair. I will. Well, usually on the design team for something like this. Why don't they have me be a private shopper there?
I could like give them invaluable like specific critique. Like those guys. I want it to be. I've been, you know, someone who travels a bit, you know, to give them some like unfiltered, you know, like travel a lot.
They should be hiring all traveling musicians. Yeah, Starbucks 7192 in Huntsville, Alabama off exit 62. Non-Chiosk free-standing Starbucks. Lubarlo says, and this goes to corporate.
This is not a Yelp review. I'm giving my unfiltered opinion on my visit to store 7192 in Huntsville, Alabama. Okay. Well, wasn't great.
Oh, okay. I was like, got him dying to know. Great. Okay.
Great. Well, same with Citizen M's Breakfast Biffet. Really good. Lots of places to sit clean.
So yeah. Well, just don't stay in the room. Guys, let's wrap this up. Let's wrap it up.
Yeah, I'm going, I'm going to go shut tonight. I'll be back in the stuffy bunk. Mm-hmm. Salt lake.
Say hi to your buddies. Yeah, I'm flying from Salt Lake to Seattle. Yeah. I can't.
It's happened. How about fuck you, Lubarlo? You fucking diva.