Maybe My Hair Smells Good

"Wow," said the staring stranger, who looked like Colonel Sanders, except with a bow tie instead of a string tie. "You are exquisite." His girlfriend was sitting on the other side of him.

My evening was off to an odd start as I took one of very few available bar stools at Amuse before tonight's Friday Film. "Will you taste my absinthe?" he inquired, leaning in and extending his glass the moment I sat down.

Bartender Stephen raised his eyebrows in empathy and asked what I wanted to drink. An absinthe and a vaporizing gun perhaps? He set up the drip, but sadly offered me no defense.

"Why do you not have a boyfriend?" the Colonel asked, making a huge but correct assumption. I told him I was just getting back into dating and the reasons for that.

"Do not be quick to make your pick!" he lectured me loudly. "Do NOT be QUICK to make your PICK!" I assured him that I wouldn't, not sure why he should care.

"How many mistakes are they allowed to make before you eliminate them?" he asked in that way that made it clear it was a quiz.

"ZERO!" he said so loudly that the manager came over to diplomatically try to lower his decibel level. This was getting weirder by the second.

I kept wondering why his girlfriend continued to chat with the strangers on her other side when her man was so loudly flattering me. Finally, she turned to join our conversation and he introduced us.

"Look at those honest nails," he said, grabbing my short, un-manicured and unpainted fingernails and holding them up for her inspection. "And no jewelry, not even pierced ears!" he raved as if his girlfriend would be as worshipful of me as he was.

Nodding and smiling, she said, "Those kind of things really impress him!" We had just entered the Twilight Zone.

Further talk revealed his name, John Henry, and his location twenty minutes south. He told me extensive details about the restaurants he has owned, the art he has collected and even shared his motto, "Have Tools, Will Travel." I didn't ask.

What I did do was ask for a menu in hopes that that would give me a bit of breathing room. I chose the chicken, cheese and Chorizo-stuffed piquillo peppers, much to Stephen's surprise ("I know how you love the mussels and sausage").

The Colonel asked for the check and his girlfriend left to talk on the phone and it was at that point that he slipped me his card and suggested we get together (ahem).

When he got to the end of the bar, he stopped and smiled at me, as if we shared a secret. Actually he'd shared quite a bit with me considering we'd been strangers an hour ago.

With my new friends gone and my peppers arrived, Stephen and I were finally able to discuss what had been going on for the past hour.

Like any good bartender, he'd been eavesdropping and was appalled at the suggestions made and the graphic verbiage used. On the plus side, we agreed, it was quiet now.

Then Harry the wine rep arrived to have a beer before conducting the Art of Spanish wine lecture and tour downstairs. The poor thing heard us talking about the other guy and for a moment thought we were referring to him, when actually I was thrilled to have his charming and knowledgeable company while I enjoyed my mocha mousse tower with house-baked ladyfingers.

He tried to get me to join his lecture tour even though it was sold out, but I explained that I had a film ticket for the very same time. I did convince him to try his first absinthe, though, making me two for two in tempting friends to the dark side.

As I was finishing mine and he was starting his, Stephen came by with amuse bouches, saying to me, "I know you already had dessert, but here," presenting us with smoked salmon tartare with creme fraiche, beet and caraway seeds. It was the perfect savory bite after the sweet richness of my dessert; I was officially done now.

Tonight's film was "Picasso and Braque Go to the Movies" about the intersection of technology and art. The screening began with a performance by Slam Nahuatl.

I had two favorite lines: "Unhappy people avoid mirrors" and "One is a moment, the other forever; take your pick." Perhaps they resonated because I'm fine with mirrors and I have made my pick.

The movie, produced by Martin Scorcese, had a host of interesting people sharing their thoughts on how Picasso and Braque were affected by the rapidly changing state of the world.

Artists Julian Schnabel, Chuck Close and critic Adam Gopnik all weighed in on how and why these two kicked down the conventions of representational art.

The importance of the development of motion pictures on painters of the time was enormous and very much reflected in their work. Even Picasso's fractured faces could be construed as showing multiple angles in succession, much the way film could.

Likewise, the Cubist move away from color was considered a function of their exposure to and admiration of the black and white films of the time.

Afterwards, we were treated to a short interview with the director Jean Renoir, son of Impressionist Pierre Auguste Renoir, from a 1956 TV program, "Accent." Done in the garden of his childhood home in Montmarte, it was a fascinating glimpse into the world of his father and his friends, Cezanne, Utrillo, Monet et al.

After an over-eager admirer, the absinthe fairy and favorite dishes, slam poetry and two art films, I was ready to head back to J-Ward and a celebration.

Almost a year ago, one of my neighborhood joints, the Marshall Street Cafe, had had a run-in with a minivan, here. and tonight they were finally back in business.

I arrived to a full house and the band was in full swing playing "The Girl from Ipanema." Sidling up to the bar, I scored some wine, met the guys at the end of the bar (who offered me some fries) and was handed a long-stemmed rose by one of the proprietors. Not bad for five minutes in.

The band was having as good a time as the packed room was, grooving on vintage Motown and Stax courtesy of two keyboards, guitar, trumpet, sax, drums and two vocalists, one male and one female.

I was approached by a guy trying to unsuccessfully get the bartender's attention, so I took care of that for him. He introduced himself as Jessie and I learned he was a jazz musician, too. His band's keyboard player had been borrowed for the night and he was here checking things out.

When the bar table in the front window emptied out, we snagged it, just as the band broke into "Brick House" and the embarrassing white-people-dancing began. Now the entertainment was twofold.

During the set break, Jessie looked at me and told me to drink up because he was buying me more wine. "You're awfully bossy for a guitar player," I told him.

Fellow J-Ward lover and resident, not to mention musician, Prabir came in with a friend and I brought him up to speed on what he'd missed. Three of the five really bad dancers had just left, so he'd missed his chance for the full show.

The well-chosen musical nuggets continued in the second set ("Respect," "What's Goin' On?" "Neither One of Us") with the crowd chiming in on the choruses and Prabir talking about chord progressions, as if I understood such.

Marshall Street Cafe has added "& Jazz Bistro" to its name and are doing live music practically every night now. It was exciting seeing the place hopping like it was tonight and no doubt that'll continue as word gets out about all the music. They're even doing a jazz brunch on Sundays.

I just may have to take my honest hands and un-bejeweled self over there some Sunday and see what happens. I'm not counting on being called exquisite again, but I like the sounds of that quarter-cut fried chicken and Belgian waffle.

Watch how quick I make my pick for that.

R.I.P. Marshall Street Cafe

How's this for irony?

On the eve of Broad Appetit, with 25,000 people expected in Jackson Ward tomorrow to eat, we lost one of our neighborhood restaurants this afternoon.

And by lost, I don't mean went out of business, I mean gone.

The building is in rubble.

I lost power briefly this morning, so I didn't think anything of it when it went out again an hour or so ago.

But the sirens that followed were a sure sign that something major had happened and it wasn't long before a neighbor called and told me to get over to the Marshall Street Cafe...or what was left of it

Approaching the corner where the restaurant used to sit now sat a crumbling building with a car squarely in the restaurant and the one that hit it right behind it.

It was like a cross-section of a building diagram; you could see the remaining part of the apartment above the restaurant and where the Marshall Street Cafe used to be was a tangle of cars surrounded by brick and debris.

Sadly, it seems likely that the building will have to come down completely.

It was one of those classic corner buildings with with two walls of windows converging at a corner door.

While it wasn't a trendy spot, but it was a reliable neighborhood place, here, and had a devoted happy hour crowd. I

A place that will be missed in the neighborhood, for sure.

And on top of that, we've lost an historical commercial building in a neighborhood built on commerce as well as residences.

The restaurant business is a notoriously tough one, but what happened to the Marshall Street Cafe amounts to nothing more than the worst kind of luck.

Someone ran a red light, caused an accident and now a local business is destroyed.

I sincerely hope the owners of Marshall Street Cafe reopen somewhere else in J-Ward, but the fact is, that corner will never look the same.

Sadly, Jackson Ward may have lost another piece of its history this afternoon.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that it can be rebuilt.

Spoon-Fed and Satisfied

Can you really have too much music in one evening?

And what about if some of it is unintentional; what if you just stumble into music before your planned music?

And aren't I the wrong person to pose this question to?

Our challenge was a limited amount of time to eat before going to see Spoon at the National tonight.

I wanted to catch at least part of the first opening band and all of the second, so we didn't have much time and decided to choose a place between my house and the venue, a distance of less than a dozen blocks.

That's how we ended up at Marshall Street Cafe, a restaurant I hadn't eaten at in at least a year and a half.

It's small but attractive with white tablecloths and flowers on the tables.

And, as we found out on walking in, they had live music tonight.

It was a three-piece, consisting of Skip Gailes on keyboard and sax, Wayne Short on guitar and Kat on vocals, which were mostly from the Great American Songbook.

I wasn't familiar with her, but the other two have been around for ages and their talent is already a given.

Given some excellent happy hour specials on beverages, including $2 off on any appetizer, I was surprised that more people were eating than drinking.

I ordered the tarragon chicken salad on a bed of mixed greens and my friend got a Philly Cheese Steak, but helped himself to my excellent chicken salad while I scored a few of his sauteed onions.

Both dishes were tasty and satisfying and they helpfully got us in and out quickly.

As we walked in, we caught the last few notes of the Strange Boys, so I can't really speak to their performance at all.

A musician friend there dismissed them as "fifties-sounding rock; both of us were eagerly anticipating hearing Deerhunter, though.

And they didn't disappoint with their significantly pop version of shoegaze and post-punk.

The first few songs stayed closer to the pop realm and then they were off and running with their more ambient punk sound.

Around this time, the guy standing next to me in an already overcrowded room struck up a conversation and within five minutes, we had discovered our three degrees of separation.

It's so true that you barely have to scratch the surface in RVA to discover mutual acquaintances and unexpected connections.

In this case, we had a radio connection (he's till in it); he somehow even knew one of my exes from the early '90s and pulled his name out of thin air.

What are the chances?

Then it was Spoon time and since they define the band's sound as simply as 'rock and roll,' we got an evening of rock and roll.

Britt Daniel started on the stage alone with his guitar (as my friend noted, "That takes balls."), then was augmented by the keyboard player and soon the entire band, which, after seventeen years, were incredibly tight.

The thrill for me was hearing his voice with its gravely resonance; the charming grin doesn't hurt, either.

As expected (finally!) it was a sold-out show, although most fans seemed to be of the fairly recent variety, reacting most strongly to the most recent material.

Of course, there were a number of people there for some reason other than to hear the music, including two guys who simply walked a path through the masses the entire evening, every ten minutes or so, they looped around by us again.

Personally, I was thrilled to hear "Everything Hits at Once" from 2001's Girls Can Tell.

They ended their encore with what is undoubtedly one of their hardest rocking songs, "Jonathon Fisk" from 2002's Kill the Moonlight, scoring major points with long-time fans in the audience.

For me, it just capped off a superb evening of music that began at dinner.

Because, the truth is, I really can't have too much music, especially when I can incorporate dinner and making new friends into the mix.

Or, as Spoon would sing, "That's just how we get by."