Last night, I spent a bit of the evening with the inlaws and new brother-in-law; it was the first time we'd hung out since we'd returned from Belgium, and they were itchy to see pictures and all that. It was also ostensibly to post-celebrate the brother-in-law's recent graduation and my birthday, but that was slightly dimmed by the forgetting of several crucial parcels back home. Oh well; the in-laws are actually lovely people and really like me a lot or do a really brilliant job of feigning affection.

I'm not entirely clear on whose choice it was to go to a jazz club, however; I hate jazz. I know, I know: I'm a philistine, but listen: I don't hate every single jazz song out there--just almost all of them. Think what you may, it's cool, I've heard every possible variant on the it's-impossible-to-hate-jazz theme, and probably the only thing I can say in my defense is that I also hate reggae, which generally makes people give up on talking to me altogether. He probably steals from cripples, too!

With that said, I did have a reasonably good time; not for the music, which was, I was informed, swing-based jazz, but mainly for the musicians. There's something refreshing about the way they watch each other and grin and shout out things like "Damn!" or "Here we go!" or simply make gestures to indicate that that other guy over there is totally blowing my mind right now! I've been weaned on so much rock music, which seems to have brutally conditioned its every star not to dare to enjoy their own music, except in a vaguely glacial way, that to see people actively encouraging each other was really a treat.

Unfortunately, that sort of looseness was largely absent whenever the music stopped. There was a lot of sententious bunkum about how we--the audience--was doing something special with our time, by coming out and supporting this very important music, all with the rather gooey undertone that somewhere, a lot of people not quite as cool as us were unfortunately enjoying baser stuff, like TV or sports. It sounded like something I'd hear on a public television pledge drive: a little desperate, like maybe everyone was thinking, "Is our art form in danger or what?" Being involved in live theater, I've heard this tone of voice before.

Then there was the food. Having earlier spoiled my appetite with a Polish dog before watching Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, a fucking catastrophe of a movie that really destroyed my appetite*, I wasn't in the mood for anything heavy, so I ordered the Caesar's salad. It arrived--suspiciously--almost immediately, and it looked like something recently punched viciously in the face. It lay on the plate, oozing dressing wanly, and seemed to be composed mainly of Romaine spines denuded of actual leaf material. I stabbed it to put it out of its misery and absently shoved it into my mouth while the band softly did something weird to a Stevie Wonder tune. The piano player was making some entertaining taking-a-dump faces into his keyboard, but occasionally he'd cast a look out over the audience that was rather hunted. He looked like he suspected angry bill collectors were massing behind the bar, preparing to rush him at any time. "That would be so cool," I thought. I scooped up another forkful of the salad corpse.

A Claymore mine exploded in my mouth, cracking my teeth and rending my palate into tatters. "AAAAAHHH!" I howled like beaten geek. The waitress came rushing over. "Ssssh! Ssssh!" she hissed. "I bid indo a croudon!" She didn't care. "You'll have to be quiet! This is jazz!" I whimpered while blood pooled in my lap. "By boud willy huts," I whispered to the table, but they were engrossed in a really ripping trumpet solo that sounded like a car horn caught under a freight train.

But soon the set ended and I tortured my weeping tissues with a nice scotch--fuck you, mouth. Pictures were viewed, and all were happy, and as we made our way out, I saw a really cool thing: the musicians were hanging out near the bar talking to the fans. Chatting nicely, graciously accepting compliments, actually talking about music AND they had another set in half an hour . . . well, shit. I'd go back again just for that sometime.

*Seriously. This movie is astoundingly terrible. Don't be stupid. Stay away.