Last Friday night I got all Jazzed at the Fourth Annual Jazz Experience at the Quapaw Bath House in my hometown, Hot Springs, Arkansas. Jacqueline Beaumont – or Jacqui B. straight from Myrtle Beach, SC – joined the AJE Combo in a night of songs and stories for a mere $15. 

To make the night even more palatable, there was free finger food courtesy of the Jazz Society members and a cash bar. About half the audience were Village people (folks living at Hot Springs Village, the largest private community in the U.S., not the singers of Y.M.C.A.). Being among the 5 youngest in attendance made me feel young. At intermission, I won a gorgeous Razorback glass birdbath (or whatever I want to use it for…) for which I turned down an offer of hard, cold cash. The U of A is my alma mater , football season is right around the corner and this new addition  is a huge step up from my plastic pig snout. Woo Pig Sooie! Go hogs!!!

What a night! [Note to self: set higher entertainment goals.]

Even thought it was late and I was in bed, my mind was already working on my new goal. It emerged in the form of self-entertainment, which as an only child and a single for life, I excel at. Here’s my night as an “elevator pitch for a horror film.”

A “middle aged” woman like me (don’t laugh, surely someone has lives to be 122!!!), accepts an invite to an event in a historic bathhouse in Hot Springs, Arkansas. When she enters, it seems like a group of people like her (i.e., younger than Methuselah).

Halfway through the night she notices something (from the floor? from the air? from the beverages poured by excessively smiling wait staff?????) is traveling unseen about the room literally sucking the color (red, blond, brunette, black) from people’s hair leaving behind manes of total white. The whiter their hair, the more folks begin to groove to this music from earlier, much earlier days by folks long dead. She fears someone in this crowd is about to OD on time (i.e., die)!

Our heroine in distress realizes she recognizes many of these songs, but has no clue why (suspenseful riff of eerie minor chords). When she begins to bob her head and snap her fingers along she is totally freaked out! She pulls out her iPhone (yes, she has one!) and punches the reverse on the camera. Gray is leaking through at the temples of her youthful brown/blond mix. Eeeeeek!

Cue the last verse of Hotel California.