a couple of funny dinner groups lately:

friday evening dan had a gig with black sea salsa at hampton beach, a resort town on new hamshire's tiny stretch of coastline. we drove up with the van and dogs, and after the show (i probably wrote something about them last summer - it's a funny hodge-podge of latin and armenian and other world/fusiony influences) we hung around to go on the town a bit.

the group included flautist lance, the band leader and his involved wife, along with a couple of others - i won't take the trouble to describe them all, but it was a bunch of characters. also amusing; sound guy (ex-notable intern) brian with his dad and sister, she a recent valedictorian headed to college next year in bio-medical engineering.

that information turned the topic of discussion over clamshack dinner (i just had a big bowl of chowdah) to a variety of vaguely-related subjects which she couldn't really enlighten us on much (mad cow, genetic engineering, etc.) and sort of smirked off. so they talked vegas instead.

walking back along the strip, stopped for ice cream (i had a rare hankering for hot fudge sundae) and then skeeball. we stayed to close the arcade, then slowly made our way home, listening to the rest of "pynched/promised" (that tape's gotten some good mileage lately) and part of the second portishead record (which is just downright unpleasant, at least next to the first one.)

the next night, dinner was japanese with an old friend of dan's (they hadn't seen each other in about a decade), with his wife and two blond kids: 6-year-old holden who was advertised as noisy but seemed pretty well-behaved, and11-year emily, a classic achiever (good in school, plays a dozen instruments, bright and polite), who rolled her eyes and made her concessions to immodesty in a knowing, teenager-ish, too-mature way that kind of annoyed me for some reason.

dad (long-haired at bearded, though apparently he'd been clean-cut back in the day), whose new involvement in marketing-nintendo-games-through-free-sample-plays-in-refitted-ambulances-in-public-places brought them to town, was enjoyably sardonic, obviously very smart but subtle about it - reminded me of my dad with a more biting sense of humor.

that meal ended with ice cream too, the delicious offerings (in my case, ginger and pineapple) at the local best-of-new-england joint, rancatore's.

to continue with the dinner talk (days are confined to the studio, mostly: today with mixing matt seckler's jazz album; yesterday with brandon doing vocal recording and so forth, admittedly after an adventure at ihop - by the way, the côte d'ivoirean reggae band that was supposed to be here all week obviously isn't, due to a visa snafu),

last night was leftover thai plus delicious new swordfish and beans, in front of the sunday-night hbo (my first time seeing "six feet under," which was quite intriguing, and "sex in the city," with which i was unenthused. and some other show too, about cops and gang members in balto or dc.)

and tonight was japanese once again, in a the porter square exchange, which is jam-packed with japanese shops and restaurants. daifuku too, mm. but enough about food.

if all goes well (especially if rebecca breaks her recent uncharacteristic uncommunicate-with-able streak) i'll be going to cape cod tomorrow for a few days, with rebecca, petar, and, (perhaps?) skelly. that would/will make me quite happy; i think we could be a very successful, though unlikely, fab foursome for a summer adventure.

other stuff: there are relationship-type issues around, the sort of stuff i am out of practice writing about here, and not sure whether i should or want to. a number of my good friends are in relationship-transition phases, including (but maybe not most-importantly, actually) me. heck, most of you readers probably know all about stuff anyway.

on second thought, i won't be a gossip-monger just yet. let me make a few e-mail enquiries to see if this stuff is blog-approved. then i'll get back to you, if i still feel like writing about it.

magic christians chew the rind
'cause bad girls are always bad girls