The Waiting Game

There are so many ways this blog post could go.

I could talk about the afternoon spent at my parents helping my Mom prepare for today's bridge luncheon using Betty Crocker's 1969 cookbook "Salads" to craft the main dish, tuna/egg/olive salad in a puff pastry bowl.

When she took me upstairs, it was to give me her mother's ring, significant because my Washington. D.C. grandma and I were very close and she knew that despite my not being a jewelry person, I would want it.

I could write about going to the new Mott Gallery in Carytown to see Frederick Chiribog's fascinating work, an exhibit of ready-mades a la Marcel Duchamp, mobiles (one strung on fishing wire so it appeared to be flying unaided across the gallery) and detailed wooden dioramas.

But the real draw was guitarist/singer Samantha Pearl sharing her fierce guitar chops and lovely voice against a colorful mural of Cubist-like figures dancing and cavorting.

I probably ought to post about the Todd Rundgren show at the National, for which I arrived on time only to learn, along with the middle-aged masses, that Todd had hit traffic on I-95, so the show wouldn't start until 9:30.

It would make for hilarious reading if I blogged about the Deadhead couple from Dinwiddie County, long-time dedicated show-goers I befriended when they were looking for somewhere to have a drink besides Coda next store, and our sojourn to Greenleaf's Pool Room where I had Sloppy Joe sliders and they had mojitos and Don Julio.

The real subject should undoubtedly be the Todd show, a flashy, LED-lit performance with Todd, a DJ and two wig and costume-changing female dancers/back-up singers. This was not my mother's Todd show (although I'd been amazed when she'd told me she knew who Todd was) of yore or even like the show I saw of his 10 years ago at the Canal Club.

Instead, the highly-energetic 67-year old sang, danced, mimed lyrics and occasionally played guitar as he tore through a two-hour set of his most EDM-sounding material, adding in other material here and there and giving it the dance beat treatment.

There may have been disappointed Todd fans out there who were secretly wishing for a full band and note-perfect renditions of the hits, but I wasn't one of them. I was more than happy to dance in place - my usual: in front of the sound booth - to just about every song.

For one such as me, who's been a fan of Todd's practically since I bought my first records (45s, natch), the pure pleasure principle was just hearing that voice and how amazingly good it still sounds, even coming from a balding man in an overly tight sleeveless t-shirt prancing across the stage.

For sheer humor, I could write about going to Saison after the show, where I talked to a drunk man slurring his words, questioning my hair and critiquing how I wore my necklace (no, really) and watched as front and back of the house staffs from the Roosevelt and Metzger showed up for late night refreshment after closing their own kitchens.

Bathroom graffiti was outstanding: "Bring back pubes" and "If you ain't handcrafting shit in RVA, you ain't poppin'." Your pubes are your business, and I'm hand-picking words, so I hope that counts.

But, no, for the best possible story, what I should blog about is that as I was leaving the National, the guy who was holding the door open in front of me met my eyes and it may as well have been 1992 again. Standing in front of me was a featured player from my past, someone with whom I had a colorful back story and someone I hadn't seen in 20 years.

Cue "Hello, It's Me."

We met when we were both doing radio, a business I got out of in 2005 and he only escaped four years ago after years of considering himself a radio rat, to open a record store. No surprise there; the two of us had spent ridiculous amounts of time talking music and going to shows. Cue "A Long Time, A Long Way to Go."

Last night, we caught up as best we could walking down the block before he and his friend headed for their car to drive back to Tidewater. He made one last appearance as I was standing at my car. Cue "Something/Anything?"

He suggested I come down to his record store. My suggestion was that a conversation (or many) were in order. Cue "Parallel Lines." How do you run into someone you haven't seen in 20 years and just pick up the conversation?

Given the complete surprise of our meeting, it felt more natural than it had any right to be walking down Broad Street doing just that. Wow.

Cue "Can We Still Be Friends?" Hold on 1992, I'm about to find out...