the art of the “Jam”
Now I know I might just go to hell for saying this, but I
realized what the purpose of jamming really is, and aspires to be. To
“jam” is a catchy action we all realize as little kids means to play
music, to groove, to jam some music in your face,
regardless of what you may or may not have asked for. Now, I have a new
job, at a place that I refuse to name at this moment, and tonight was
“Open Jam” night, which means that jamming will occur, and if your
little heart desires, you, too, can be linked up to the Jam circle, by
jamming your ass into the lineup, thus allowing yourself the right to
then “jam”. As the night progressed, I realized a few things. Number
one, this was more like an adult karaoke session with a live band
backing you up (if you were singing) and if you wanted to play some
other such instrument, you had to interject into the active jamming,
and jam away. The big problem was, that these people were your moms and
dads, grandpas and even your little 19 year old nephew screaming up to
belt out a few numbers from his barely pubesced body. And I realized
something.
To then “jam” in the classic sense is to gather all of your ugly
friends together, you know, the ones who always wanted to play music
but lacked the frosty veneer of someone, well, hot enough to be famous.
To jam is to accept your ultimate music failures, to pull your pants down
on public and then splatter your self-esteem and remaining shreds of dignity and
self-worth to sing such splendid hits as “On my Own” as well as honky
tonk favorites something something and something else, because I never
cared to know. The point is, that the term itself might need to be
relegated to back closets where words like groovy, keen, and
wowsers fill up the empty space. Bleh, to jam. I never wanna witness
the jam again. I prefer to “play”, because there are only a select
number of mismanaged impressions that can occur from such an event.
Jamming is ugly. Jamming makes me wanna tear my own eyes out and ignite
gas in large fireballs of filthy love for a word that used to mean a
sweet and summery sometimes surprise waiting in the belly of a
frosty Smuckers jar.
But anyways, as I slid out of my bartending pocket, I lept across sixth
avenue towards the Path train, an usually quiet and seemingly
un-splattered with vomit place where I rested my ass on the cold tiles.
I don’t care what you people say about people sitting on the
floor, because the crap, and I mean LITERAL CRAP you can find on your
feet that wipe on the floor which is then dusted up by my stealthy butt
is really no comparison to all manner of STD and creepy crotch crawlers
that inhabit your basic park bench, and nevermind bedbugs. I wouldn’t even really feel as if I
was stretching my imagination too much by saying that sitting on the
floor might even be better than sitting on a seat, especially during
the summer when the crotch condensation leaves wilted weird bug
outlines on the sleek orange plastic seat. Do you wanna sit on that
shit? No, thanks. Let me sit on your real smudgy fecal matter on the
floor, thanks.
Okay, so the real story was that Jimmy (Jimmy is one of the engineers
of the Path train, and I have known quite a few of them over the years),
Jimmy was driving that train down the tracks and I saw his illuminated
shadow in the front of the car as I got on at 23rd to be stunted to
33rd Street for a minute. Jimmy got out and made a big scene as usual
with me, kissing me on the cheeks and asking about holiday fun and all
that garbage, then had to run up front for our luxury ride to
WHOREBOKEN. I hate whoreboken primarily because I can’t tell the
difference between any of those people over there. They all dress the
same, they act the same, the girls hang out with the same stupid
fucking nimrod former high school quarterbacks, but not before they
spew lovely chunks of garbage not just out their mouths, but out their
proverbial asses (which of course, are all clad in black and black
boots and black leather jackets). I want whoreboken to never be a
destination stop for me ever again.
But god hates me, so life goes on.
Oh yes, so Jimmy, after whoreboken, sat up front with his door open,
chatting with me. The kid sitting next to me was freaking out, asking
Jimmy if green really meant to go in train conductor land because,
judging by speeding through all the red signs that Jimmy did (kidding),
what other conclusion could you make? And Jimmy gave me a
croissant out of a box of goodies given to him by a friend, and at 3:30
am I was stuffing a ham croissant down my throat. Yum. Go people like
Jimmy for making me feel special when all of my non-pretend friends
have tried to make me feel like impacted fecal matter.
Now, I know I can come off as crass and ineffective with both my subject
matter and my extravagant uses of fuck, but please understand my frustration
at having worked, 8 hours and walked out with less than $50 bucks. Not only
are they your parents people, but your parents and grandparents, and possibly
your 19 year old nephew, are just, well, cheap bastards. I get you people drunk
for money, and you ‘sposed ta give me dollahs. Instead, I stood there pretending
that my uterus wasn’t vomiting extra special pieces of meat that would drip down
my leg if I had absolutely no class. And I did a good job. Thanks.
THE END
And with that, I must sleep. Goodnight.
