bouncing around the room

i went to a fundraiser on saturday night where a bizarre confluence of events left me staring out into a pool of rather attractive men without the expected contingent of thin, pretty women flanking them. while i choose to remain stymied by my inability to work this situation to my advantage, i actually know exactly what went wrong. for one thing, if i hadn't been so absorbed in making the pseudo-anthropologic obseravations that follow i might have faired a little better. sometimes there's honestly nothing better to do than to assess a situation from a blogger's perspective, entertaining oneself with bitter and witty condescension... but other times the right thing to do is probably to forget about the blog, have another drink, and go flirt with the boy in the northface fleece. if only i knew the difference...

on the other hand, it's really hard to catch someone's eye when everyone's eyes are closed. such is the case when every man in the joint is ensconced in soul-searching, meditative bliss under the mysterious power of the north mississippi allstars.

i have a long standing gripe with phish heads. not that i have any particularly beef with phish or widespread panic or any of the other granola jam bands, but i've always been a bit annoyed at the way the throngs of trust-fund hippies freak out and follow them around in the country in their jeeps, as if it's actually some kind of respectable endeavor. don't get me wrong, i'm sure it's exhausting to obtain and smoke that much weed, but i just don't get it. what is entirely clear however, is that in the absence of phish or widespread panic the jam band cohort will cling for dear life to the next closest thing. suddenly the concerts of your favorite new orleans funk band or the quintessentially preppy dave matthews band are bursting at the seams with the entire under 30 population of colorodo.

as it turns out, this is an aging population, and now these people have jobs and mortgages and are smoking less pot and drinking more blue moon. they ALL wear that black fleece northface jacket with the padded elbows (i should be careful here since i also wear that jacket), but they just don't have the time or energy to be full time fanatics. instead, they show up to see the north mississippi allstars the park west where yet again they become hard-core followers. they know all the words, recognize all the songs by the 2nd chord (you know they do when you see the one fist shoot up into the air as an act of recognition), and they dance, dance, dance, remembering their glory days. the result of this is my finding myself surround on all sides but a group of awfully cute, well-to-do guys, and bopping their heads in unison, way too captivated by the music to notice me.

oh how the mighty have fallen.