16 Going on 66

It's a tad disturbing the way the mighty Internets claim to be able to "read" you.

Without so much as asking me a single question, I was told the following about myself:
Age based on general knowledge: 66
Age based on taste in music: 16
Age based on preferences: 32

Meaningless as it is, I'm fine with having the knowledge base of someone older than me. I'm hardly surprised my musical taste is considered younger, although I think 16 is a stretch. But where I need clarification is on the preferences issue.

I mean, my preference is to live without air conditioning even when my apartment registers 90 degrees like it does right now. My preference is to lock my car doors from inside rather than using the key fob and causing unnecessary noise pollution when it beeps loudly to indicate that the car is safe. My preference is to choose car routes that take me down streets I enjoy rather than automatically opting for the fastest route.

And this means I come in at age 32?

Okay, then, that means that a 32-year old loves it when her evening begins with a compliment from a stranger.

Walking down Cary Street toward Chop Suey Books just after the pelting rain had let up, a man greets me and observes, "You didn't get caught in the rain because your hair still looks great." Thanks for the kind words, stranger.

I was meeting a favorite couple at Chop Suey to hear Bob Suren read from his book "Crate Digger" about the hunt for punk rock records. Actually, it turned out to be a memoir of growing up in Florida and about all things punk rock, not just digging for vinyl gems.

The friend and her cute husband met me upstairs where we took seats in the back row like the bad kids in school always did. My friend was concerned because the reading started in seven minutes and we were the sole occupants of the room. Her distress was short-lived, though, because before long every seat was taken and people were standing just outside the door to the room.

Bob explained that his odyssey had begun in 1983 when his sister's boyfriend had given him a mix tape called "Family Favorites," assuring him that, "This is better than the Scorpions," then one of Bob's favorite bands. There were no songs or band listings.

The mix tape became the soundtrack to his summer, but in order to identify the artists, he had to ask the one punk kid in his school to identify the bands for him. An obsession was born.

Reading chapters from the book, he shared memories of his first Ramones concert in Miami, an event that so impressed him he said that, "I thought 'Ramones' should become a superlative in every language." The post-concert antics - his drunk sister insisting on taking him and his terrified friends to an all-night go kart track - were even funnier.

We heard about some of the punk bands he'd played in, including one show opening for the Meat Men (and playing after the superbly-named Stevie Stiletto and the Switchblades), where his band decided it'd be a good idea to have a sandwich maker onstage and pass out sandwiches to the audience.

They threw them back at the band. "A piece of bologna landed on the drummer's thigh," may have been one of the funniest lines I've ever heard read. For years, they referred to the summer of '87 as "the Meat Men summer."

There were chapters about making his first record (with the advice, "Punk rock don't need no permission. Just figure out what you want to do and do it.") and in 1991, creating his own record label.

He told us about the triangular-shaped Confusion Records, the first place he took his record when it came out because it was local, but a place aptly named because there was no system for how records were filed (maybe by molecular weight or color of the album cover, he wasn't really sure).

It was interesting, when he talked about the rise of mail order records as a way to get obscure and imported albums - think Pillsbury Hardcore - in the '80s, someone asked whether he knew the bands and albums he was ordering or if he just took a chance on the unknown, which was, of course, exactly what he and his friends had done.

I know the concept is completely foreign to millennials who have never just gambled on unknown music based on a band or album name or especially compelling or gruesome cover art, but anyone over a certain age (ahem) recalls buying something you'd never heard of just because it spoke to you in some intangible way.

You have to admire someone who managed to be "employed" by punk rock for two decades, in one way or another. He was a shining example of doing what you love.

Because my friends had eaten before the reading and I hadn't, we parted company with my friend asking about my plans. "I like to think of you going off to do something fun and exciting," she said. Ah, the pressure, but I do what I can.

Tonight, that meant going to Dinamo for dinner and finding it packed with people, some even waiting on the bench outside. Ah, but therein lies the beauty of being a single because in moments I was escorted to the one and only open bar stool. Score.

The owner suggested San Vincenzo Anselmi for its fuller, citrusy flavor, which I sipped while getting to know my fellow bar mates.

Next to me was a guy who lives in Forest Hill, spends January and February in Florida and, along with his partner, had been the money behind a restaurant that just celebrated its one-year anniversary. His wife was busy talking to three recent transplants, including a couple who'd lived in Portland for ten years.

Hearing that I'd just come back, they wanted my impression since they'd just escaped from what they considered the smugness and precious nature of its populace. They'd already decided our food scene was better.

Since by then I was finishing up a white pizza (coincidentally, a friend who moved to Portland had already told me that no pizza there compares to Richmond's) before moving on to my cold seafood salad of mussels, clams, shrimp and calamari marinated in olives, onion and lemon juice, I had to agree.

When the topic of Halloween came up, the couple - dedicated bar sitters, just like me - knew of no festivities, so I stepped in to enlighten the newcomers on the annual Halloween parade through Oregon Hill and all it entails. Everyone at the bar was stoked about the big bike race and what it means for Richmond. Of course the Folk Fest was touted as a must-do for the newbies while I savored a Nutella and sea salt cookie, a divinely satisfying end to my meal.

The owner, standing behind the bar and joining in our lively conversation whenever she could, smiled widely at one point and said to the six of us, "It's a very good bar tonight."

Could it be she was saying that those whose preferences make them 32 are a key element of a good bar? Pshaw, I'd like to think I meet that criteria no matter what age you call me.