New challenges facing the modern musician

A man came to the school yesterday ostensibly to inquire about our program. He looked thoroughly normal, recently washed hair, etc., with a tweed jacket -- probably a Larry or a Glenn. We'll call him Larry. Jesse had the...um...good fortune to be the one to speak with him at the front desk, and from my position back in the office I only heard snatches of the conversation, which nonetheless began raising increasingly large red flags as the discourse progressed.

It was an interesting conversation. The guy was definitely a little weird, but there was nothing to specifically pinpoint aside from a demeanor apparently carefully cultivated without the benefit of any understanding of basic social norms -- I consider it something of an accomplishment to be aggressively pompous and worryingly creepy simultaneously. Actually, there was almost a bit of the Senor Cardgage about Larry (aside: Senor Cardgage actually exists, did you know this? I discovered him working at A.G. Ferrari on Piedmont. I am dead serious) now that I think about it.

Anyway, things were going along nicely in said conversation, getting weirder by degrees more or less directly proportional to its duration, when the excerpt I am about to relate occurred. Here is a graph of our perceived sanity of the conversation with respect to time:

The conversation flowed more or less as follows.

Larry: Do you teach your students about the most important thing?

Jesse: [long pause] Um...I'm not quite sure what you mean.

Larry: How not to starve to death!

Jesse: [long pause] Well, I mean...

Larry: [getting excited] Here you are at this college, this college, you know, teaching people, and you don't even teach them...

Jesse: Well, I don't think you really...

Larry: Students need to know, you know! With times changing...our economy failing...

Jesse: Uh-huh...

Larry: ...fuel prices rising...

Jesse: Uh-huh...

Larry: ...the Stargate opening in 2012 allowing us to travel freely through any dimension...

Jesse: Um, I can't really follow you there.

Larry: [nods paternally] Don't worry about it.

So now you know. If you're a musician, don't get left out in the cold when the Stargate opens.