Even so, many members appreciate the sense of camaraderie and exchanged wisecracks with Mr. Nevola, the conductor.
He has, indeed, the air of a dispossessed monarch, nonchalantly exchanging wisecracks on the battlefield with the king himself.
Every Friday night from 11 to 11 15, this pale, laser-blasting muscle man exchanges wisecracks, non sequiturs and Dadaist dialogue with a motley collection of actual human "guests," pictures of whom are superimposed on an animated television monitor.
We were in search of lobsters, and the man to see on that score is Captain Bruce Borges, who can be found, tanned from hours on his boat and often exchanging wisecracks with customers, next to some neatly stacked lobster pots marking his spot.
But soon we are droning over the endless hills and valleys - over Five Finger Rapids, over a lake whose chemical constituents have turned it a beautiful mouthwash turquoise, Derek telling us about aspects of the scenery in our headphones or exchanging wisecracks with the pilot in the other plane.
Like a born politician, Riddick Bowe worked one of the capital's busiest intersections, pressing palms, signing autographs, kissing women and babies, exchanging wisecracks and even doing passable imitations of Eddie Murphy, Stevie Wonder and Muhammad Ali.
Whether he's making sly moves on Presley's girlfriend (Elizabeth Stanley, gamely playing window dressing) or exchanging acid wisecracks with Perkins, Mr. Kreis's Lewis has a brash goofball charm ("He looks like a demented Harry Connick Jr.," my companion accurately noted), and his thrashing keyboard style is an impressive approximation of Mr. Lewis's febrile dexterity.
Klea Blackhurst and her mother, Winkie Tedesco Horman, (both from Salt Lake City) exchanged brassy, amusing wisecracks and played ukuleles.
While Fabrice Santoro and Nicolas Escudé of France were exchanging hushed observations and louder wisecracks and reading each other's minds and moves at the net and elsewhere, their more decorated Russian opponents, Marat Safin and Yevgeny Kafelnikov, were avoiding eye contact and keeping the conversation and point-by-point celebrations to a minimum.
And while you may not be able to tell from the megawatt smile, or the tangerine tan, or the wisecracks he will no doubt exchange in that strangely amusing brand of Germanic English, it will not be a very happy ending: amid the pomp and circumstance is an ugly whiff of failure.
The wisecracks were flying.
