Straight No Chaser

Jam Session

one big disappointment of the week was that we didn't end up renting the aristocrats the way we'd planned to. for those who don't know, the aristocrats (not to be confused with a disney animated classic by a similar name) is sort of a comedy documentary, wherein several different comics take turns telling the same joke, whose skeleton remains the same each time, but which they are asked to fatten up with the filthiest, most obscene filling possible. all different kinds of comics, too. penn gillette, whoopi goldberg, george carlin.

od made it sound really stupid, as he tends to do. nobody trusts his cinematic judgment, because he only watches really low-budget indie films, not all of them particularly artsy. anyway, though, over christmas break i read an article about the documentary in entertainment weekly, and i was really interested in the way penn described the concept. basically, he likened the serial renditions to a jazz lounge jam session, wherein each improvisationalist is given the same snatch of melody, and invited to put his or her personal spin on it, for sixteen measures. kind of like what wynton marsalis is doing now, on my cd player, with "cherokee."

kind of like what the six of us are doing now, with od. approaching him, in turn, to hint that maybe krystle's affection doesn't quite match his; that maybe he's making too big of an investment too fast, and for someone who's not offering interest; that maybe he ought to chill before he gets his heart broken and wrecks our group. oh, and also that we know he lies about his achievements. each in our own way. marcha was blunt, because he's tired of the whole thing by now, ready to get back to the od who doesn't give a fuck about girls. chris was giggly, because he thinks it's hilariously pitiful for "a grown man," as he put it, "to tell his friends he's been places he hasn't." i was sensitive, because krystle's my friend and od's my friend, and i think it's stupid for any of us to be involved in the first place, and beyond anything else i just want to see things return to normal before od spends his entire life savings on a girl who wouldn't kiss him to save her life.