Right to Bear Arms

You know what they say: love hurts.

That was tonight's theme at Lovebomb in Manchester where RAWFL (aka Richmond arm wrestling for ladies) was holding their second premiere event, this one a benefit for the James House.

It was billed as the brawny, brainy and ridiculously awesome women of RVA showing us just how much love hurts. They even promised it would hurt so bad we would love it.

I couldn't think of a better way to spend my Saturday night than watching women in costumes parading themselves around before going arm to arm.

Not so long ago, I'd seen the documentary about RAWFL, here, but in the same way that reading "The Happy Hooker" before I'd ever had sex didn't have the same, shall we say, effect, I felt sure that I needed to experience arm wrestling in the raw.

When I got to Lovebomb, the large space that three artists call theirs, the ticket taker who greeted me was the same smiling face who had been my server at Secco Thursday evening. Small world, RVA.

Further in, I found the man about town looking quite dapper in a three piece suit and holding forth from a stool. He'd been tapped to play emcee, but for now he was just enjoying a beer and chatting with all comers.

I was introduced to photographer Terry Brown who had been busy documenting the wrestlers and guests. Grinning as she shook my hand, she said, "I feel like a kid on a Make a Wish foundation trip!"

The array of eye candy was truly something to behold, alright.

At one point, she gathered me, the gallerist celebrating her 40th birthday and the emcee for a picture. I asked the emcee if he minded if I draped a leg over his lap for the shot, evidently a good idea because Terry snapped two.

Waiting for the festivities to begin, we joined others discussing how the space looked a bit like the setting for Fight Club and bad jokes ensued (vagina to vagina, mons to mons, mons-o to, never mind).

The inimitable Jamie, one half of the renowned Blood Brothers and a favorite of mine, was the DJ, meaning we heard gems like Alice Cooper's "18," a Korean version of "Love Potion #9" and a French one of "These Boots are Made for Walking." Is it any reason I love this guy's record spinning skills?

The show finally began with our host singing "lovebomb" to the tune of the "Loveboat" theme, segueing right into an introduction of the first wrestler, Queen Victorious, who arrived waving with her ladies in waiting behind her.

She was up against the all gold clad Camela Toe, who undoubtedly won that match because of all the fans chanting, "Let's go, Toe!"

To bring out the next wrestler, Pussy Power, our emcee began singing, "What's new, Pussy Power, whoa-whoa-whoa" to great effect and she arrived with an entourage, all of whom wore cat masks.

Her competition, Whammy, came out to "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" wearing a sweat shirt tucked into sweat pants and carrying a 40 ounce and a bouquet of flowers.

She lost to Pussy Power, a rematch was called for by an audience member and she won that, too.

Never underestimate pussy power seemed to be the lesson there.

Orangyna was a ginger (no surprise there) and her posse were, like her, roller girls and she went palm to palm with Phantom, a ghostly white sheet-clad figure who arrived to the theme from "Ghostbusters."

You can imagine how grueling it was watching all this hilarity, music blaring, corny emcee jokes abounding and the inevitable tension of who would win each bout, so our ref, Lily the puppet maker (looking like an escapee from Foot Locker) introduced the next performer.

A female impersonator who called herself Rosie O'Shite, her humor was about women stalking and trying to entrap men. She concluded by trying to remove her underwear to prove "she" was really a he. Fortunately, we were then back to the main event.

Amazonia, with her ankle-length hair and loincloth, arrived on a palanquin with animal attendants, but her contender Prancercizer about brought the room down.

With long blue hair, frosted pink lipstick, a unicorn horn on her head and a mincing dancey way of moving with hands in paw-like positions, she was every bit as hysterical as that awful Prancercize YouTube clip she was mimicking.

Amazonia beat her, a fan called for a rematch and she beat her again, much to the delight of her lion, who looked an awful lot like ukulele player Herschel after a few drinks.

Harry Squatter arrived on a broom to fight the geriatric Georgina Spectacle, a sight in a housecoat, slippers and smeared lipstick and requiring a walker to get slowly to the stage. Her attendants' shirts all read "Pineview Manor" as they assisted her on and off stage after her win.

By then everyone was in need of more alcoholic sustenance (and since the proceeds from beer and wine were going to Art 180, it was a good night to drink for the greater good), so Ref Lily took us through some RAWFL trivia, like which wrestler's first word was beaver.

Round two began with Camela Toe reading a treatise about giant vaginas before Pussy Power and her crawling kittens arrived to arm wrestle, with Camela taking Pussy handily twice.

Amazonia returned to challenge Camela and the two circled the table hurling insults at each other.

"Now I show you how we do a Brazilian wax in Brazil," Amazonia taunted and proceeded to rip off her braided pubic hair with her bare hands, causing Camilla to run horrified and screaming from the stage.

That left Amazonia to fight Phantom and the ghost took it.

All of a sudden there was a commotion as an interloper with a mallet arrived and demanded to wrestle. It was Miley Chugalo in her underwear and a heckler in the crowd yelled out, "Hey, Miley, will you wreck my ball?"

I don't know about that, but she couldn't beat Prancersizer, even though the blue-haired one kept prancing as she wrestled.

For the final round, Miley took on Georgina, a match so hot and heated members of the audience began getting up and stuffing bills in Miley's bra and underwear to try to give her support.

It didn't help, though, and Georgina won, but paid a price, soon collapsing onstage. When they couldn't revive her, a sheet was laid over her frail, old body and Phantom came out in his sheet to claim the victory for her.

The evening's bout concluded with Phantom being awarded the gaudy RAWFL belt as the evening's champ.

All the wrestlers returned to the stage and even the decrepit Georgina was risen from the dead for a group dance onstage before the whole room erupted in a dance party to Jamie's killer music choices.

The brawny, brainy and ridiculously awesome RAWFL ladies had proved a couple of things. Sometimes you just have to see it in the flesh.

Tonight's over the top entertainment had definitely hurt so-o-o good.

Supporting the Sisterhood

My night was 50% art, 50% film and 50% food. 150% right up my alley.

Starting at Candela Gallery for the opening of "Louis Draper: A Retrospective," I found dozens of other lovers of mid-century African-American photography snacking on salmon cakes and looking at exquisite black and white pictures.

A street photographer for the most part, Richmond-born Draper had an unerring eye for an interesting shot and walking the galleries, I found myself drawn in by faces of everyday people, whether on the streets of Harlem or working in the fields.

I ran into an old friend there, one I almost always see at openings and inquired about her itinerary for the evening; for the gallery portion, it sounded much like mine but we were to detour after that because she was going to La Parisienne for dancing and I was going for something a little rougher.

"That's gonna be fun," she said when she heard my plans. I was counting on it.

But first I went to Quirk Gallery to see Andras Bality's "Scenes from Virginia," a show of scenes, many of which I recognized- Goshen Pass, Hollywood Rapids, Huguenot Bridge complete with construction crane- done in a way that was part Cezanne and part Monet.

"Virginia Beach Pier in Fog" was a large-scale study in taupes and grays, evocative of a damp day at the beach.

Even closer to home, "Belle Isle Bathers" evoked Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte," except with the bathers far less clothed and proper-looking.

The large composition included 20 people, one dog and one guitarist, a pretty fair approximation of an afternoon on Belle Isle with the exception of insufficient canine representation.

I particularly liked "Spare Room for Artist," a depiction of a small room with three windows, a bed and a phone on a nightstand - all the essentials an artistic soul could need when staying over.

The refined part of my evening over, I made my way to Lovebomb, a collective artists' space in Manchester run by three talented women, one of whom is Lily Lamberta, she who puts on the annual Halloween parade with her massive puppets every year.

Tonight the filmmakers of "CLAW," a documentary about female arm wrestling, were going to show us why their film won the People's Choice award at the Virginia Film Festival.

Walking in next to a woman I know from music shows, she sounded relieved, saying, "I almost forgot about this tonight. I would've hated to miss a movie about female empowerment."

I hadn't thought of it that way until she mentioned it.

Lovebomb was ready for the crowd, with candles lit for atmosphere, mulled cider for sipping and a crowd of people curious about something described as "50% theater, 50% sport, 50% fundraiser. 150% awesome."

Heide, one of Lovebomb's founders and an arm wrestler herself introduced the evening in a gold lame bodysuit that was particularly, ahem, snug in certain places. Her wrestling name was Camela Toe, if that tells you anything.

Filmmakers Billy Hunt and Brian Wimer had done a great job (and used up nearly five years of their lives) following the ladies' arm wrestling phenomena that began in, of all places, Charlottesville.

We saw the woman who'd conceived of it all after her husband had died unexpectedly and she was looking for an outlet for her grief and healing process.

She found that she could lose herself in a character by arm wrestling and it turned out a lot of women felt the same way.

As one woman put it, "I love having a reason to put on a rubber nurse's uniform and have it not be totally self-serving."

Don't we all?

So, sure there were impressive costumes, but they didn't hold a candle to the names these women took for wrestling. Copafeelia. Punky Bruiser. Pain Fonda. Tragedy Ann.

As one wrestler was adjusting her costume, she said, "I wanna make sure I don't have a camel toe," bringing a shriek of "what?' from Camela Toe at the back of Lovebomb.

The film detailed the development of arm wrestling first in Charlottesville and then the subsequent leagues that began forming all over the country in Chicago, Washington, D.C., New Orleans, Austin, Durham.

The women involved did it for all different kinds of reasons - something diametrically opposed to their day job, a desire to be onstage, a love of dancing and/or burlesque, personal strength- but most of them mentioned how empowering it was to do.

And, of course, all the money raised by betting on wrestlers and bribing the refs went to a woman-based charity at every match, another reason many women were involved.

So the film was going along in a rough trade but feel-good kind of way when all of a sudden we were watching a match and a wrestler's arm broke badly as she was wrestling.

The room got silent as we realized what had just happened.

Then it happened again at another match and this time we even heard the pop as her arm snapped and sagged at the shoulder.

Meetings ensued among CLAW (collective of lady arm wrestlers) members in several cities as they tried to decide what to do about this unexpected and heartbreaking issue. Many didn't want to go on wrestling knowing that they could do that to someone or have it happen to them.

They compromised by shortening the period of the match, but the effect of two broken arms sobered them as well as the room of movie watchers.

The film finished with a championship match that included a round of rock, paper, scissors, but far be it for me to ruin the surprise of who won But even with shorter match times, I couldn't have been the only one nervous about the possibility of another on-screen break.

By the time we started applauding, I'm guessing everyone in the room understood why the movie had been such an audience favorite.

We'd laughed, we'd cried, we'd been engrossed. Now I was starving.

I stopped by Dinamo on the way home, finding a butt in every seat, but a friendly server persuaded me to wait a few minutes for a seat.

Which I did because I was craving crostini with chicken liver and Montepulciano, but honestly, I felt guilty taking up a two-top when people arriving after me were standing around waiting for a table.

Not so guilty that I was willing to forgo dessert, a simple chocolate tort with whipped cream, but enough not to dally over it, either.

Fortunately by that point, I'd had my 150% of self-serving entertainment.

Sorry my friend, tonight CLAW beat dancing hands down.