F*ck Off and Boogie On

Never has the f-word been used so many times at the VMFA.

Okay, maybe amongst the staff, but definitely not at a marble hall event.

Secretly Y'All, Tell Me a Story had paired up with the museum to show a film silently while people told stories relating to the film's themes.

The movie was Jim Jarmusch's "Down By Law," a very southern black and white story of jail mates who escape.

Walking in early, I heard Tom Waites music playing (he also stars) and saw not only a bar but food for sale.

Since neither was yet on sale, I laid claim to my seat and went upstairs to Amuse for a quickie.

Standing at the end of the bar while my absinthe drip was prepared, a woman from Texas asked for a quick lesson in the green fairy.

Happy to oblige.

"Mmm, it smells so good," she said, eyes closed.

It is so good, I told her.

When I returned to the marble hall, a crowd had begun to gather with lots of familiar faces, many of whom I'd never seen before at a Secretly Y'All event.

Who wouldn't want to hear other people's secrets?

I took advantage of the southern food available, scoring a pork barbecue and cole slaw sandwich and a bag of Cheetos.

When I suggested to the food servers that pork rinds would have been more southern-appropriate, they agreed, saying that they hadn't been able to get them despite trying.

First up was Glynn, who'd impressed at a previous storytelling night.

Her theme was break-ups and her story was a doozy.

She mentioned the many red flags she ignored as she met and set up housekeeping with what turned out to be a seriously deranged man.

Within moments of starting, people in the audience were making empathetic noises as she told her incredible story of a mate who decides to take up with the woman next door (leaving a note saying "Do not try to find me") and move into her house.

Again, next door.

It's a brave woman who can share publicly a breakup story of that magnitude.

The best part was how she managed to move on, find a good man and live happily ever after. Next door.

Chris' story was about a scoop he got when working for the Times Dispatch about a divorce.

The wife wanted it known that her husband was a woman pretending to be a man.

Turns out he was also a liar, a cheat and a Republican.

In between stories, the sound would be restored on "Down By Law" and we'd get a few minutes dialog to keep us abreast of the story.

GWAR's lead singer Dave came next and he brought show and tell.

His first question of us was how many had been arrested and hands went up all over the room, although not mine.

He shared a tale of being arrested in Charlotte, N.C. for wearing the cuttlefish of cthulhu, an enormous phallic piece he apparently wears strapped to his loins during GWAR performances.

Feeling that he didn't deserve a prurient charge, he also pulled out a plastic penis, making the point that the cuttlefish in no way resembled it.

Guy came out and his first request was, "Please don't ever make me follow Dave Brockie again."

He had a point.

Explaining that he doesn't generally get into fights, he'd been in two in his life.

"The first happened when I accidentally joined the army," he deadpanned.

Most of us cringed when he told of a guy's leg being held and a pipe wrench brought down on it.

And the moral?

"If you don't like fighting, "Married with Children" is a bad influence, just like hard drugs."

Four-time Grammy loser Randy Blythe of metal band Lamb of God told his amazing saga of ending up in a Czech jail on manslaughter charges.

Seriously, here's the guy who made international headlines telling us his story at Secretly Y'All.

See why I don't miss this event?

His story of a cellmate who knew little English and whistled "Jingle Bells" incessantly provided one of the best lines of the evening.

"Come find me if the zombie apocalypse comes."

Will do.

Mark's story was called "The Hidden Man" and involved being an aide to an old man with dementia (who didn't like wearing pants) in Philly.

Despite non-sequiters like "You'll break your neck!" after Mark sneezed, he had some lucid moments when he gave Mark life advice.

It was actually a very touching story.

During the intermission, I bought another bag of Cheetos (don't judge) and stood in the endless bathroom line, where I overheard a girl tell Glynn how moved she was by the honesty of her story.

Not everyone would share such a difficult break-up, but Glynn's a Secretly Y'All pro.

Another Dave came out first once the movie was restarted.

His story of camping out at a quarry involved silent bloodhounds, supposedly teaching a blind girl to scuba dive and torrential rain.

Turns out the scuba was a ruse and the guy was really staking out the lesbians on the hill.

I kid you not.

Another Chris began his tale by saying, "I still camp out with my family despite the story I'm about to tell you."

He's a better man than I am because if I'd been forced to hike ("more of a traipse") ten miles as a six-year old, over a yellowjacket nest and after being charged by a  bull, I might have ended my family camping adventures.

On the plus side, he did learn that day that his Dad was not all-knowing and we all need to learn that lesson.

James, whom I know from the James River Film Society, got up to share next.

His tale of a road trip to NYC when he was in college with his buddy Rodney Honeycutt included many humorous asides ("There was dinner and supper, no lunch, in the world I grew up in") in his drawling North Carolina accent.

He told of stopping at his grandmother's house on the way north, where she loaded them up with biscuits with ham and sausage.

Ah, pig.

And as anyone (like me) who's ever had a southern biscuit-making grandma knows, there is nothing like homemade biscuits.

When they arrived early in NYC, they killed time because, "I was taught a lot of things and one was that you don't show up to someone's house four hours early."

I was taught the same thing, James.

The two North Carolina boys found kindred souls in the Bronx with two divorced women singing show tunes and the trip turned out better than they could have hoped.

By this time, the movie was going faster than the stories, so it had to be paused for us to catch up.

Richard came up saying, "Boston cream pie is not a pie. It's a cake."

That was a lead-in to his story of teaching in jails.

As he explained, that meant teaching to people like the woman who had microwaved her baby.

And the UR professor who'd killed her husband.

Not exactly a plum teaching job.

He told of how women in jail use moistened M & Ms as make-up, a garish visual image if ever there was one.

Richard said it was DeAntonio (Tony) who had originally made the Boston cream pie observation, which led to several other philosophical discussions between teacher and pupil.

He'd even tried to teach his students the Robert Frost poem, "The Road Not Taken," which dovetailed nicely with the movie's ending, where the two characters  part ways at a fork in the road.

Well, all except Roberto Benigni's character, who conveniently happened on a beautiful Italian woman and stayed put in the bayou.

Some people might call that a night, but I was having none of it.

After a phone call to help a kindred soul resolve some matters of the heart, I was off to Balliceaux for music.

It was already crowded and the band wasn't even starting until 11:30.

No problem. I ordered Cazadores and found a good spot to enjoy the DJ collective that had come up from Miami with the band, Psychic Mirrors.

Chris, who'd booked the band, told me that he'd like their sound, that it reminded him of K.C. and the Sunshine Band.

Enough said to know it was going to be fun.

The music the DJs were playing was Miami-sounding boogie, right down to the covers.

And let me tell you, a Miami-fied version of "Cheek to Cheek" is a far cry from Fred Astaire.

When the eight members of Psychic Mirrors took the stage (guitar, bass, drums, percussion, keyboards/vocals, synths and two vocalists), it was to force Richmond to shake their collective booty.

Front man Mickey Introducing the band, said they were from Miami (duh) and began with "Money Crazy," a song that jump-started the night.

Somehow, they managed to infuse "Rapper's Delight" with enough funk to make the few people in the crowd who remembered the Sugarhill gang forget them

They introduced one of their own songs, "Midnight Lover," saying it was on a D.C. label, but qualifying that they were doing it "Miami gangster style."

Honestly, it just sounded as dance-able as everything else they'd played, a very good thing if you ask me.

Their whole set was like that; if you weren't dancing or shaking your booty, something was wrong with you.

But nothing was wrong with me and I found it impossible not to dance, despite some of the people around me more interested in checking their phones than moving their groove things.

Tragic.

Their all-too short set ended with a song off their 12" EP before another Miami DJ kicked it back into overdrive to keep the party going.

Tell me stories and I'll dance until the band stops. Promise.