salsa geeks

you've all seen 'em. painfully white, earth-music-loving, tofu-eating, took-a-class-in-college-and-now-they-think-they're-latino folk who worm their way into the latin dance halls around the country, making us cringe with sympathetic embarassment.
i encountered these miscreants at the old town school of folk music last night- i went there in there in the hopes of recreating the same good feeling i had the last time (refer to "his name is wally and he likes to mambo" for the back story). boy was i disappointed! the lead guy would have been good as an afro-cuban salsa guy had he actually been willing to 1) stop talking and 2) play salsa. seriously, he wouldn't shut up about how we all need to love each other and love the planet and love cuba and love america. he occasionally interrupted his sentimental ranting to play bad songs that he had written or bad arrangements of good songs that other people had written. it sounded like elevator music and for-love-of-god he couldn't get in sync with his back up singer who kept on back up singing without the front guy singing. painful.
finally, there was the incredibidly unattractive shouldn't-an-afro-cuban-band-have-sex-appeal? factor. to the right was the middle aged white guy/ill-timed back up singer. in the back was the canadian drummer who had grossly miscalculated his hair into a slicked back pony-tail situation that made his head look VERY small. finally, on the right was the bass player who was just wrong. jeans too short. hawaiian shirt too hawaiian. hair too long. sunglasses too dorky. dancing WAY too badly.

fortunately, my faith in music and musicians was restored today by the arrival of a (drumroll) NEW HOT CLOWN who strolled around playing lovely guitar music, nearly lulling me to sleep, and certainly causing me to all but forget my former clown love.