To Make Me Happy

My mother decided this morning was the time to lecture me about my life choices.

I worry about you traveling at night by yourself and with no cell phone. I'm not sure how much longer you can get by without a full-time job and a guaranteed income. I realize you're doing what you love but you're living with no security. End of lecture. I just want you to have a normal life. Love, Mom

Normal? Did she think I ever aspired to a normal life?

My abnormal evening began at Bellytimber, where I found Nate, an oddball local fixture on the scene sitting on the bench out front smoking a cigarette. He had one pant leg pushed up over his knee as if to catch some sun on his fish belly-white calf.

I met Nate years ago at 821 Cafe, but I have run into him at a dozen different city restaurants, usually drinking coffee and willing to talk to just about anyone.

He's a talented artist and I have one of his drawings framed in my living room, a reminder that you can't judge talent by coherent speech.

Today, he asked me what I did and informed me that sometimes he needs a writer, so he may be in touch about my services.

Then he rolled that pant leg down and I went inside to interview a cute, well-spoken and fast-talking scientist over a drink.

That's normal, right?

After a fascinating conversation about the intersection of science and art, I left for the Anderson Gallery's opening.

VCU students as well as local artists and even a VMFA curator had beat me to the shows, making for a lively crowd.

Esther Partegas' "You Are Here" was a black and white wraparound installation broken up by several large-scale color photos in light boxes showing city and nature scenes interrupted by rips and folds, proof that they came off of signs rather than reality.

Upstairs, LaToya Ruby Frazier's "A Haunted Capital" showed another kind of reality, this one that of the artist's hometown, Braddock, Pennsylvania.

Using herself, her mother and grandmother as models, the black and white photographs told a grim story of a once-bustling industrial town now a decaying home to the few people remaining despite unemployment and the destruction of the area's only hospital.

Part of "Race, Place and Identity," the multi-venue show currently happening all over town, it's a moving and evocative look at some people's reality.

As a woman said to me as we stood in front of a photograph, "It's hard to feel poor when you look at these."

Maybe I should take my mother to see the show for some perspective on my well-being.

Leaving VCU for eastward-ho destinations, I arrived at Globehopper Coffee and Lounge before even the musicians scheduled to play did.

Luckily, I found friends, got a cup of hot chocolate ("Whipped?" the barista inquired. Why wouldn't I? "No good reason," she concurred) and found a table near the front.

Soon singer/guitarist Josh Small and singer/harmonica player Andrew Ali took chairs in the front window and began the show.

Performing a variety of songs they'd each written, a standard or two and some collectively-written tunes, they proceeded to capture the attention of everyone in the room except the bored-looking children.

Josh is a self-taught musician, claiming that everything he knows he learned from his musician father who only knew one chord.

Josh knows far more than that and demonstrated it by playing songs inspired by cartoons, friendship and stories, songs like "South in My Mouth," "The Tallest Tree" (which he'd recently performed at SPARC's Live Art event) and Andrew's "My Stomp," a blues song about being able to write the blues despite being young.

They did an original called "So Long," which had my favorite lyric of the evening: I can try to make you happy with some music and a bottle of wine.

Before doing Howlin' Wolf's "44," Josh told us he'd been playing that song in Monroe Park during the "Occupy Monroe Park" demonstration when he'd heard the strains of a harmonica in the crowd; it was Andrew chiming in.

"That's how we met," Josh said before they sang the menacing song.

For two musicians, seems to me that's almost a meeting-cute story. not to mention the socially conscious angle.

They closed with "Front Porch," Andrew's ode to Richmond's abiding porch culture.

And aren't we the richer for it? Even those of us with limited income can enjoy porch-side pleasures in this town.

Page Bond Gallery was my next stop for painter Will Berry's opening, "I saw the Sun," a series of paintings on luminescent, gold, sort of an exploration of light reminiscent of ancient sun worshiping.

Black imagery, some organic-looking and some geometric, on shiny, gold backgrounds made for jewel-like panels on the wall, a rich effect.

I'd love to go back and see it in the daylight to see if it resonates any differently.

From there, I went to a friend's house for wine and dessert, a merely incidental gathering after an extensive happy hour on their part and a mere four stops on mine.

He is the only person I know besides my parents who still gets the Times Disgrace delivered and since the wine writer had recently raved about a South African wine, the Curator White, he'd purchased a few bottles.

I never have to be talked into drinking South African and this chenin blanc, chardonnay and viognier blend, described in the article as, "big, juicy, exotic fruit and mouth-filling" was more than fine by me.

Over dessert of vanilla gelato with a decadent homemade chocolate sauce, we listened to Fairport Convention ("Britain's version of Peter, Paul and Mary") and BBC recordings of the Kimks.

Our host's fave song on that compilation was "This Strange Effect," to which he played air guitar and I marveled at how un-Kinks-like it sounded.

I regaled my girlfriend with the story about my mother (a woman who met the love of her life at 22 and is still happily enjoying his company decades later) and her concern for my status and she bit her lip chuckling.

"That's so sweet," she said sincerely. "In an Eisenhower kind of way."

Bingo.

When they got ready to crash due to early morning wake-up calls for their real jobs, I still had time to get to Strange Matter to catch two bands of a four-band bill.

I tucked a $5 bill in my glove and walked in, handing it still folded to the door guy, who looked at it, cocked an eyebrow and asked, "Origami?"

Something like that.

I found the master of lighting, Dave, at the controls of his light set-up and took up residence next to him, centered in the room for best sound.

The room was solidly full with lots of new faces and just enough familiar ones to assure me that I'd know people. With VCU back in session, it looked like a lot of people had decided to check out some local music.

Clair Morgan, who had morphed from Clair and a female backup singer when I last saw him in October at, of all places, Globehopper, to a quintet with drummer (Michael, whom I knew from the long-ago Mermaid Skeletons), another guitarist, bassist and keyboard player (the backup singer from last time).

They were good, the kind of good where some people can't even pick out just one thing they like about them.

I was partial to the strong guitars while another friend was taken with a song with three drummers. But mostly it was how seamlessly they blended pop with more technical elements.

Listening to their take on '90s alternative, I couldn't help but think how the band members were evoking music from their childhoods.

No complaints from me; if I liked something the first time around, I'm always interested in hearing it interpreted by a generation who can fill in with influences from subsequent years as well.

They're definitely a band to watch.

Headlining were Snowy Owls, a band that won my musical heart years ago with their reverb-drenched sound.

The only thing that's changed over the years is leader Matt's hair gets longer (thus obliterating more of his face when he sings) and the band gets tighter.

Allen's bass still screams, much to my delight.

Lighting wizard Dave had a surprise in store tonight, adding into his usual colorful swirling geometric light effects a video called, "Kitten Party."

So amid psychedelic swirls of color and shape, we'd see a kitten licking itself. Or looking up at the camera adoringly.

This is notable mainly because Matt is known for two obsessions, his music and his cat. He posts as many pictures of his feline on Facebook as new mothers do of their offspring.

So if you knew Matt, it was particularly funny to see him playing fuzzed-out guitar and singing in his understated way with cat images peeking out behind him.

Dancing in place to my favorite kind of music-from-a-cave while a groovy light show featuring cats played behind the band, I have to admit, I was totally into what passes for normal in my life.

Absolutely loving it.

Oh, Mom...At least I'm happy!
Love, Karen