About Jazz.

Assholes.

I hate jazz. There, I said it. I hate jazz, hate it to death, and I hate the people who listen to it. I hate every second of non-musical "hey guys, look at how many notes we can play in sequence" wankery it results in, and I hate the people who tell me that I'm supposed to "appreciate" that crap. More than anything, though, I hate the endless parade of uppity white people and resulting near-uselessness of a decent-sized chunk of Robinson Street that's going to happen when the annual Jazz in June debacle hits this town tonight. (The first night might already be over by the time I finish typing, but eh, details.) It's a true nightmare, the worst time of the year to live in this town, (or any of the other places that do it around this time of year, probably due to them thinking that alliteration is so clever and people being too unoriginal to do it in January or July) and a bigger celebration of unchecked whiteness than anything the Ku Klux Klan has cooked up so far. I mean, just look at this dude they've got playing on the first night, allegedly featuring the blues:

"Bring me a little water, Sylvie. In a factory-sealed plastic bottle. Thanks."

Now, I'll be honest. I don't know this dude right here from Adam, and for all I know, he can probably play the shit out of a guitar or whatever, but that ain't no blues man. He looks less like a dude who should be playing the blues professionally than he does the leather jacket-wearing kid from out of town who shows up as a new student at Bayside High to give Zack Morris a hard time, before it finally gets revealed that he was a geek at his old school, and the whole leather jacket tough-guy thing was just an act. That, or the coolest guy in the room at an all-gay German techno rave. But either way, that motherfucker ain't never had the blues. But you can rest assured that come Thursday night, a crowd full of people in golf shirts and tennis visors will pause from exchanging business cards long enough to stop and marvel at just what an "authentic blues experience" they're having, as they sip the wine they brought from home with the actual goddamn wineglasses they brought from home - I am being serious here, and they actually do that. Witnesses have confirmed this. But that's just the way things go at an event like this.

The Man, discussing the latest Miles Davis compilation with his peers.

You see, way, way back in the old days, jazz wasn't so bad. I mean, it was still pretty bad, but it wasn't the bullshit "look at how cultured I am" form of music, where people mainly just have the records around the house to be seen. I mean, let's face it - No one - NO ONE - ever listens to jazz in a room by themselves. Jazz is something that people can only listen to if they have someone around to witness the fact that they're listening to jazz. You see, Jazz People are insanely artificial people who are physically incapable of doing anything that's not grossly pretentious, and that's why when you go to a Jazz Person's house, you always get greeted with something like, "Oh, hello there. I was just relaxing to some rare recordings of John Coltrane. Would you like to step out on the balcony and smoke a clove cigarette while the Earl Grey steeps in the kettle?" Meanwhile, you'll never go to the house of one of your other, more "street-level" friends and get something like, "Oh, do come in. Gus and I were just perusing the latest GWAR compact disc. Would you like to step out on the porch and smoke some Kool menthols while we wait for the ice cubes to harden for the grape drink?" You'll never hear that shit, because Good People don't do that shit.

But before I got sidetracked, I was going to say that jazz wasn't always worthless crap it is now. It was an actual honest-to-god form of music, born from when the folks we dragged over here to pick our cotton got their hands on some European musical instruments and decided that The Man's music was a bunch of crap. Eventually, it led to pretty much every form of music alive today, but somewhere on the way there, jazz happened. And this whole vibrant culture popped up around it, and what with him not being vibrant at all, The Man hated it. To be involved with jazz in any form was a shameful and disreputable thing, only for street people and winos, and the Man's fear of this whole thing actually even helped lead to today's marijuana laws, because The Man figured if he could stamp that shit right out if he just started busting the people involved for those funny cigarettes they were smoking. But you see, somewhere along the line, something changed. Something changed, and the vibrant, freeballing jazz culture turned into a stuffy, stuck-up game of pseudo-intellectualism and "look how many more records I have than you do" dick-waving, and a form of music that sucked - but was at least creative and original - turned into one that just simply sucked with no substance to it at all. And what was it that happened? Same thing that happens to every form of music. White people stopped being scared of it.

Moments before some white people evicted him from his house and took his trumpet.

Somewhere along the line, The Man decided that jazz really wasn't so bad, took that shit, snatched it right up, called it his own, and then promptly fucked it all up until it was unrecognizable. Shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone, I suppose. The way I figure it, it's the same thing we did with the blues, (remember the dude from a couple paragraphs ago?) rock 'n roll, most of the major monotheistic religions, the vast majority of the North American continent, and the act of calling people "dog." Don't ask me why; I guess taking darker people's shit and eventually screwing it all up is just in our DNA somehow. I mean, we've been trying really hard on rap for about twenty years so far, too, and while we haven't completely taken it as our own yet, you must admit, we already have managed to completely cut its balls off.

"Cause yo' ass is grass cause I'ma blast / Can't bury rap, like you buried jazz"

But anyway, here we are in modern times, where jazz has become the single most absolutely white thing on the planet, pretending to be loved and adored by the absolute worst white people on the planet. Jazz People, who will be crawling all over this place soon. (In a shopping center parking lot, a few doors down from a Starbucks, appropriately enough) If you don't know how to spot Jazz People, it's easy. They're the people with entirely European ancestry whose homes are covered in a borderline-racist mishmash of vaguely Asian, vaguely African, and vaguely Native American decor. Jazz People are like that; they try really hard to be all "multicultural," and as far as it usually ever gets is pretending that the Dave Matthews Band is "world music" and accidentally driving through the black section of town once or twice, with their doors locked and their teeth chattering the whole time. Jazz People are the people who sit behind you in groups of five or more at the restaurant, and you can tell they're there, because every single person at the table laughs this forced, mirthless laugh at eerily, mechanically regular intervals, squinting their eyes, thrusting their faces forward, and baring all their teeth while doing so, in essence making the only face that Kate Plus Eight ever makes.

JAZZ FACE.

Young Jazz People all work at Starbucks. They also all have four-year degrees in something like sociology, English, communications, or philosophy. They all drive a Prius that they can't afford, because they all work at Starbucks. They spend most of their time driving around in their Prius, which they can't afford, wondering why someone with a degree in sociology, English, communications, or philosophy can only find work at a Starbucks. Jazz People drink Pabst Blue Ribbon to feel kinship with the working man, when the working man only drinks it because he's broke. Jazz people don't "like" music; they "appreciate" music. Jazz people claim to "appreciate" all forms of music, and hold their "diverse" music collections up as a shining example of this, but pretty much anything they have that's not just regular old pop music (and sometimes this even includes jazz) is almost always just a small handful of "greatest hits" compilations. Jazz people pretend to know what snooty indie rock reviewers are talking about when they mention "angular guitars," when the people who coined the term still probably haven't figured it out themselves. If you claim to not like jazz, Jazz People will you that you're not listening to it the right way, (which I always figured was with my ears, but who knows, really) and that you have to "listen to the notes that he ISN'T playing," as though that means anything at all. But you know what? I AM listening to the notes that he isn't playing. Because the notes that the asshole tootling away on the flute isn't playing just so happen to be the exact same notes that Judas Priest IS playing.

LEAVING A TRAIL OF DESTRUCTION THAT'S SECOND TO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE

So Jazz in June starts tonight, and you all have fun with that, Jazz People. Have fun with your bottled water, your boxed wine, and your stupid beret that you only wear once a year. Have fun using your iPhone to update your Facebook status with how much you're loving the show, secretly wishing you had planned ahead like the guy a few feet away who straight-up brought a folding table, a chair, and his iPad to do the same. Have fun with the mosquitoes, and have fun being bitten by them for three hours, because you had to be seen by your Jazz Friends at an outdoor show in 90-degree heat, while you probably could have just waited a few days and seen the same people perform for a five dollar cover charge somewhere up in the city. Also, have fun with the inevitable mountain of smash-ups and fender-benders that will inevitably result when minivans, SUVs, and wine coolers all converge in a small space.

Just stay the hell away from me.