Go Hard or Go Home

As romantic gestures go, it was pretty wonderful.

Not that I went to Richmond Comedy Coalition's "Richmond Famous" night for romance.

No, I went, as I always do, to see a local celebrity tell some personal stories and then be skewered for them by a talented bunch of improv comedians.

Tonight's willing victim was Marc Cheatham, he who does the popular "Cheat's Movement" blog.

That is, when he's not working his day job as Tim Kaine's scheduler.

"You're the first audience I can tell my Tim Kaine stories to," he laughed, explaining that he'd refrained until the election was over.

Good way to keep your job, Cheats.

He said that if Kaine hadn't had political aspirations that he'd have made a great DJ.

Marc mentioned some of the senator's favorite bands, like Gorillaz, and De La Soul, to which somebody in the crowd said, "What?"

When he mentioned "Gnarls Barkley, especially CeLo Green." another person shouted, "Awesome."

Apparently some people are surprised when politicians turn out to be real people with decent musical taste.

Cheatham's first story involved all the famous people he and Kaine had met traveling together over the years.

Well, that opened the door for Richmond Comedy Coalition to riff on Applebees ("Where you can get, like, five entrees for five dollars"), self-promotion ("I'll TMZ all over you"), sexual humor ("Please let two men be men") and hosting a talk show in your basement with your mother yelling at your guests ("Tell DJ Shadow those Bagel Bites aren't free!").

Marc told of "not being ashamed of wasting a ridiculous amount of time watching bad reality TV" with his girlfriend, of whom he also said, "And I'm not ashamed we met on an online dating site, Match.com."

Then he got sentimental on us, saying, "Sometimes you really do find the love of your life," before pulling out a ring box and calling his girlfriend to the stage.

There, he dropped to one knee and proposed and she said yes.

Naturally, the room went wild applauding at having been a party to the moment.

The RCC looked just as stunned, and yet they now were expected to make comedy out of that.

Kaine stood up from his seat in the front row, pointed at them and yelled, "Top that!"

It was impossible, although the moment when one of the comedians, David, grabbed his comedian girlfriend, Katie, and dropped to one knee was amusing for what he proposed.

"Will you scratch my itch?" he asked sincerely, pointing to somewhere between his legs.

They recovered enough to have a Match.com HQ skit with a guy complaining that he had signed up looking for an arsonist and had no luck finding one, despite years of looking at profiles.

They ended after one of the improv guys inquired of Marc's new fiancee, "Aren't you worried at all that you're marrying a guy whose last name is Cheats?"

It was a fine and funny way to end the comedic portion of the evening.

Then it was time for us to fold up our chairs and stack them to the side, "So we can get our grind on," as comedian David so eloquently put it.

I heard during the break that Cheats had actually proposed before the show after his Mom had warned him that springing a proposal on a woman in public is never a good idea.

But it didn't detract from the tableaux we'd seen since both were clearly still feeling the newness of it all.

And then it was music time.

Up first was Just Plain Sounds, with an emphasis on the Hon. Sleaze.

They got points for taking suggestions from the audience for words to rap with.

"Sasquatch" and "cigarettes" were chosen and damned if they didn't manage to rap using both repeatedly.

Favorite line: "When I'm in a pickle, I just relish it."

Now that's good stuff.

Playing second was one of my long-time favorite bands, Glows in the Dark and, as always, they never fail to impress.

The guy behind me was prepping the girls with him by telling them, "Nothing sounds like an electric hollow body. Just wait until you hear this."

And Scott Burton's guitar playing is a delight to hear, but so is Reggie's trombone and flawless percussion, the incredibly tight rhythm section of Cameron and Scott and John's wailing sax.

Add to that cinematic songs that seem to be scoring an imaginary film (or maybe just the life I'm living) and I'm in heaven.

As I'd reminded a music buddy of mine earlier in the evening, I fell in love with this band five years ago when several friends were telling me they just didn't "get" Glows.

Their loss if they're just now seeing the talent, but better late than never.

Glows finished with a couple of John Carpenter songs, no surprise to me since I've seen them do all-Carpenter sets on a couple of occasions and always marveled at Scott's mastery at turning keyboard-based music into a score for his keyboard-less jazz band.

Cheats had saved Photosynthesizers for last, a shame only because the crowd had thinned.

But the crowd that was left reveled in their live multi-instrumental hip-hop (minus one regular) and high energy set.

As as they like to do, they finished with "We go hard," as true a lyric as was ever sung/rapped.

Because going out for comedy and music and having a U.S. senator in the front row and a proposal on stage followed by three bands is about as hard as I need to go on this Saturday night.

But talk about relishing.