Take a Chance on Me

I have found a man who doesn't watch TV and doesn't have a cell phone and as if that weren't enough, he's a musician.

Be still, my heart.

Granted, he's married and not the least interested in me, but it does my heart good to know that men like that exist.

Tonight he was playing a show at the Camel, so you can be sure I got there in time to get a ticket before the show sold out.

Waiting for things to begin, a friend approached me, lamenting that I hadn't been at the last Secretly Y'All, Tell Me a Story event ("Not to call you out, but..."), an evening she helps coordinate.

I explained that a hot date had kept me otherwise occupied, to which she responded knowingly, "I understand completely." There's a friend.

She shared her very own Jonathan Richman story, which took place the night before she was flying to Spain and involved him giving her a shout-out from the stage.

You can be sure she became a life-long fan that night.

Tonight she, like me and all the other people squeezed into the Camel, was just happy to have another chance to hear from the man who made an indelible mark with that first Modern Lovers album back in 1976 and has continued on doing things exactly his own way ever since.

With no fanfare at all, not so much as an introduction, Jonathan appeared from the back of the room, making his way to the stage and causing applause and shouts in his wake.

Onstage, he called to the sound guy. "Brendan or Brian, you asked if I needed anything. There's air conditioning going on up here. Turn that off. I don't do well in air conditioning."

My head was about to explode since I had no idea there were men out there who, like me, don't care for A/C.

First off, he laid down the ground rules, saying that he and drummer Tommy had played concert halls, but this wasn't one of those. "We may play quiet, but we don't expect you to be quiet. This is a party!"

While this got a lot of cheering, as soon as the duo began playing, everyone shut the hell up.

He began with "No One was Like Vermeer," the kind of song only Jonathan Richman would write.

Back in the days of old Rembrandt
Back in the time of Jan Steen
All of them giants of shadow and light
But no one was like Vermeer

Yes, all that's true and as an art history geek, I love hearing songs about Old Masters, but who else writes about such things?

In between verses he free-styled about the old days specifially the '30s and the '50s, somehow weaving in Kotex, Vermeer's daughter and women getting the vote, pausing finally to say, "Let's see what Tommy's up to on drums."

While we watched Tommy, he went to the back of the stage and took a swig from his silver thermos.

Water, I'd bet you anything.

Beginning with the uber-romantic lyric, "I asked the heavens to send me a girl who could challenge me inside," he did "I Took a Chance on Her," winning over every female in the room.

He sang in Italian, Spanish and French (eliciting a huge grin from the French musician standing in front of me) and reminded us that this was a party so we should be dancing, leading by example.

With his ever-present humor, he used a song lyric, "I know what," to segue into a mini-rant, saying, "I know what. What? You still haven't turned off the air conditioning!"

Putting his guitar down, he grinned and said, "We'll wait."

Owner Rand came up on stage to feel the air and left to turn it off despite fans calling out that they were hot.

Sorry, folks, Jonathan (and I, for that matter) don't like air conditioning.

That rectified, he went on, his guitar playing getting as much applause and hooting approval as his clever lyrics and singing.

And speaking of clever, "Keith Richards" was a hilarious tribute to the emaciated-looking guitarist with a nod to his velvet blazers, dirty jeans and ultimate cool.

Besides sliding in the riff from "Brown Sugar" a couple of times, he sang tribute to Keith's "internal melodies and minor sixth harmonies." It was brilliant.

It took barely a couple of notes before everyone recognized and reacted to "I was Dancing in the  Lesbian Bar" and Jonathan began swiveling his hips like he was atop a table in that lesbian bar while the crowd sang the lyrics back to him.

Everyone got so into it that he left the stage, dancing, almost limbo-ing he bent so far backwards, as he made his way through the room and the crowd parted to watch him pass, everyone clapping in time as he shimmied, shook bells and grinned like a kid.

Ditto with "Bohemia," where we did call and response to the chorus for his story of trying to make it in the big city.

Pretentious artwork in hand
They showed me the door to Bohemia

That song led to a reference about talking back to the Velvet Underground, sending him off about Lou Reed, whom he referred to as "my teenage hero."

He said that when he'd first seen the band, Nico was touring with them but not singing and Andy Warhol was there, too.

"I had to be near him," Jonathan said, "So I walked up and confessed to him that I didn't understand his art. And bless his heart, he said, kid, sure you do. He was a friend to youth."

Finishing the song, he told us goodnight and got a rousing ovation, only to stay for one more.

And just to seal the lock on my heart were his final words after he put on his jacket and put his guitar in its case to walk off stage.

"May we not have an air-conditioned life!"

Hallelujah and pass the deodorant. You gotta love someone who is completely comfortable in their eccentricity.

Or at least I do.

Marital status aside, Jonathan and I are practically soul mates.

Let It Bleed

Call me a killer queen.

I drank my Moet et Chandon in front of a pretty cabinet.

Actually, it was a giant safe made over into a wine cabinet, but you get the point.

I was at the new 525, the restaurant in the old Berry Burke space catty-cornered from Center Stage.

Turns out it was their first night of official business and it's where I was meeting a dapper couple for dinner.

I arrived to find the bar in complete disarray since their first liquor order had just come in so they were busy stocking the back bar.

No matter, we took a bar table in the window that faces Grace Street.

Friend suggested the Moet et Chandon Imperial Brut Reservet to keep us occupied until his beloved arrived and who am I to argue with dry, French bubbles I can't afford?

We sipped while checking out the new restaurant, him noticing the absence of art on the walls and me commenting on the music being played (Maroon 5, Norah Jones).

The space is packed tight with tables and banquettes, so it looks to be noisy when full. Menswear accents aside, the design is spare.

Once we moved to a table, we were fronting 6th Street, with a picture perfect view of CenterStage's impressive facade.

A bottle of Rooiberg Sauvignon Blanc was a thoughtful concession to my fondness for South African wines.

The menu made it clear that it was an opening night menu only, so we chose from what was available.

A shrimp cocktail sauteed in butter and garlic came with tartar sauce and was a generous six pieces.

Asparagus with crawfish and shrimp salad followed and then an obscenely rich cream cheese/red pepper shrimp dip with crostini.

Beef medallions ordered medium rare came out well done and just as we finished them, our server arrived with another round of them, these medium rare.

Clearly someone had caught the error, 'cause we hadn't said a thing.

Scallops with pea and lobster risotto got mixed reviews; one hated the green color (and peas) and the other thought it lovely.

Fried green tomato Napoleons with a layer of crabmeat had a corn and pepper relish that was my favorite flavor combination of the evening.

We finished with an array of desserts: chocolate molten lava cake (I know), caramel ice cream and apple crisp a la mode.

The dense, buttery caramel ice cream got the biggest thumbs up from me.

We were on the dessert course before anyone else sat down in the dining room and the absence of humans had made the air conditioning feel excessive, but when I mentioned how cold I was, our affable server made it stop.

By the time we left it was going on 8:00 and the dining room was still filled with light but not yet people.

But it was almost curtain time for the three of us.

Over at Richmond Triangle Players, we got the last three seats together for "8," a play about the suit filed against the state of California for banning marriage for gay and lesbian couples.

The performance, a staged reading, was a benefit for the American Foundation for Equal Rights, so we were also doing good.

The story centered on the closing arguments of the trial, particularly poignant when it dealt with the two women who'd brought suit and had their two sons at the proceedings.

There's really no way to prepare kids to see their parents in a courtroom arguing for the right to be legally married.

Some moments of the script were basic truths, like "Marriage is hard work" and others were laugh out loud funny.

Wait, that one was both.

The reading was short, the actors were strong and the audience receptive to the message, making for a satisfying evening of theater.

After I left the boys, I beat feet to the Camel for the sold-out Jonathan Richman show.

How RVA ended up with the godfather of punk and founder of the Modern Lovers on a Thursday night, I have no idea, but I wasn't missing it, either.

The Camel was packed to the rafters and the room was incredibly hot without air-conditioning.

I'd begun the night shivering and ended it with my dress stuck to my sweaty body.

Even so, I wedged my way up to the second row center, the better to experience this man.

Richman was performing, as he has since 1993, with drummer/percussionist Tommy Larkins and the two were like an old married couple they were so in sync.

After a brief intermission so Richman could go outside and cool off, he did "I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar."

Well, in the first bar things were controlled
But in this bar, things were rock and roll.

And they were most definitely rock and roll at the Camel tonight.

The people there were fans: dancing fans, singing fans, cheering fans, all thrilled to have Jonathan Richman so up close and personal.

When there were issues with his guitar mic, he came down off the stage and into the worshipful crowd, strumming his guitar and singing "Santa Lucia."

Allow me to state the obvious. It was frickin' awesome.

I was one person away from him then and could make eye contact as he sang.

What female doesn't want a man to strum his guitar and sing in Italian in her direction?

When he began an extended "Bohemia," he insisted we join in for the chorus and the adoring audience obliged.

"They showed me the door to Bohemia," we sang again and again.

And isn't that a door many of us want to be shown?

Between songs, someone near me lost control of his glass and it crashed to the floor at my feet.

"You okay?" Butterfingers asked.

Looking down at the glass surrounding my sandals, I saw blood on my ankle.

I raised my leg to show him and a nearby artist friend took note.

"It's so Jonathan Richman of you to bleed," he said with admiration in his voice.

When the show ended with a children's song comprised of foreign words of multiple languages sung a capella, the crowd moved outside, gasping for cooler air like fish in a scummy pool.

Outside in the light, I got a few more comments on my blood-stained leg before saying my goodnights.

Sometimes a little blood is the price you pay for having walked through the door to Bohemia.

Fine. I'm completely okay with that.