A Jam Session

I heard this tonight.

I think my new bosses are socialites of the Technology World. It's kind of nerdy and kind of endearing. Nerdy isn't that bad of a thing in my book--recall, if you will, that in high school I was captain of the chess team and math champion.

Today they said I could work less if I went out with them to a giant meeting of nerds, there would be cocktails and a post party that included a jam session. I don't drink, and I don't socialize well (I imagine many in the group aren't so great at the latter either). So I wasn't thrilled about this proposition--it's not often I feel like I'd rather be working--but I agreed to go out with them. I was informed that the jam session would include "David S., 'Mr. Model Driven Development' himself".

At this point I was worried that I was about to get sucked into some techno-groupie-after-party-thing where we all stand around worshiping David S. I had conjured up this image of Jabba The Hut with Princess Leia chained to his person. We'd walk by and bow to him as he spat out some computer science gibberish no one really understood and, if we were lucky, we could get near enough to throw grapes into his gaping mouth. So also, obviously, the jam session I imagined involved little aliens playing silly horns and drums. I was seriously starting to dread this after party.

Luckily it turned out nothing like what my imagination had concocted. David was a small, soft spoken man. I was introduced to him, we shook hands and he moved onto unloading his guitars and mandolin. Two other men who I hadn't been introduced to took two of his instruments and began the process of tuning them. Meanwhile, the sounds of computer science ultra geek speak filled the room. Then one of the musicians took the lead and started playing, the other two--David S. included--followed. After their first little jam, David S. brought out some lyrics with chords written above them and asked if he could sing this particular song. It ended up being a Bruce Springsteen song I'd never heard of. He couldn't say enough good things about it. At first I thought the guys were doing a pretty poor job with the song but then I realized I didn't have much to compare it to because this was the first jam session I'd ever been to. I've plenty of friends who play guitar and I have heard them do their own songs solo but I'd never experience a group of guys sitting down with little to no prior preparation and playing music as a unit. Maybe they did well, maybe they didn't, but I enjoyed it. They were all older gentlemen, probably in their 50s and 60s, so most of the music reflected their age: Bob Dillon, Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton and The Boss. Yet watching them play, and truly enjoying themselves, they were all still little boys--no where near as scary as Jabba.

I was reminded once again that I wish I could play the guitar.