I apologize to my tens of readers for the long delay in posts, but you see, last night the wife returned home from her Connecticut safari, and really, thank God, because I was just about out of clean whiskey glasses. (Okay, you got me, I was way out of clean glasses. Having run through all of our bowls as well, by Monday evening, I was drinking Bushmill's out of an old tire. Which, I am happy to report, has been thoroughly cleaned now. By the wife. Her hands look like cooked shrimp now, but at least I'm not finding slivers of steel belting in my gums any more.)

It was fairly horrible while she was away, and not just because of the substandard whiskey receptacles: I possess, after all, a theater major, and so naturally spent a few years drinking moonshine directly from the rancid toilet bowls of hillbillies--we've all been there. (Any of you guys been to Hector's, down in the holla? You know the place--he's the guy who decorates his gin toilet with Chiquita banana stickers, and sometimes pisses on the back of your head when you're leaning down for a slurp. That guy!)

But I'm glad to say that it wasn't all horrible. This last Monday I took the old hacksaw to the prison-imposed ankle device that I assure you I wear only as a fashion statement, and went out for a rocking and rollery concert! A delightful band was playing nearby called the Go! Team, whom I do adore for their odd car-crash dancy songs that feature elements of practically everything--I wouldn't have been surprised had someone started playing a lawnmower onstage.

But first, of course, we had to endure the opening bands. Why? Why do we put up with these oafs? Nobody knows.

We got a weird rap band of sorts first up, which prompted this comment from me: "This is what Smash Mouth would be if they were a hip-hop group." For some reason, the DJ members of these bands always depress me. They're stuck there behind those damn turntables, unable to move or do anything interesting except exude utter coolness, and I always get this fantasy about going down and smashing all their records while they wail like Burgess Meredith when he busts his glasses at the end of the world, and he can't read any books after all.

I sure am a swell guy. Anyway, that went on for entirely too long. Then the next band that nobody in the whole building except for those skeevy blondes who inevitably crowd any stage cares about came on, and they performed what sounded an awful lot like old ABC songs to me. A couple of my friends announced their intention to go across the street to a local dive. "The beer is cheaper there, and it's not 1987 either. We'll come back at 11:30." Sigh. The crowd was clappable and nice and all that, but Jesus. Opening bands.

And you also have to understand what a deeply weird town this is when it comes to music: we are famous for NOT DANCING. For anyone. I swear to you that Bootsy Collins could show up in your private basement party and rip off some unbelievably funky bass riff that practically sets your nuts on fire, and most Seattleites would simply nod their heads up and down, standing in place. We should all be forced to wear monocles and starched collars in public. This is how non-dancey and hopelessly too-cool we are. The grunge sensation--for who wanted to dance to grunge? And who was even physically capable of it?--has a lot to answer for. It basically exsanguinated the entire musical community. How the fuck do you dance to the Screaming Trees?

I watched the Go! Team do their thing as I did--yes--my own chin-nod horseshit along to the great songs from the balcony. I started to get really into it, and, bless my soul, found myself jigging around with my hips, and shuffling my feet. Others around me were doing the same, and the band members were trading off instruments like they were baseball cards, and everyone played everything, except for that one hot drummer girl--for are not female drummers hot?--and besides, they had two drummers anyway!

And at one point--being on the balcony--I looked out over the crowd. It was thrilling. Because they were moving. Up and down, they were going crazy! Lester Bangs described in a great article about the Clash how pogoing is a totally natural reaction when you're in a crowd where lateral movement is not an option, and while I wasn't seeing Clash-like vehemence, what I was seeing was a transformation of a dead-eyed, head-nodding bunch of goobs into a very improbable mass of people moving, moving. It made me grin. And it made me jump up and down.

We ask a lot of things from music. It's rare that we get any of it. But sometimes you get to--have to--jump up and down.