Pull My Puppet Strings and I'll Dance

Yep, that was me standing in the center of the Landmark stage tonight.

But I worked up to it gradually, beginning with music.

Certain bands play so infrequently out that when they do, I want to be there. Now Sleepyhead is one of my favorites of those.

They were doing an early show at the Camel tonight with Emily Peal. Except that when I arrived, it turned out that Emily had pneumonia.

She has my sincere sympathy for that, knowing, as I do, how that can unexpectedly scratch the record of your life mid-note.

But all was not lost because the show was going on with just Now Sleepyhead.

To pass the time, I bellied up to the bar and ordered nachos and chatted with the bartender whom I'd just seen at Balliceaux the other night for storytelling.

Just as my food arrived, a guy sat down next to me at the bar, knocking into me as he did so.

"Do you do a ton of drugs? How do you feel about drug confessions?" he immediately asked the bartender, who demurred.

Turning to me, he pointed to my nachos. "I'm a hippie. Can I have half of those?"

No, I told him, so he turned and ordered a margarita with "lots of salt and even more extra booze."

When the bartender handed it to him, he asked him, "What's your definition of a hippie? I say it's someone who has money but uses it for good."

The bartender said that that was not his definition of a hippie.

He turned back to me. "You're pretty. Can I buy you a drink?"

Luckily his attention span was short and he abruptly left (after asking the bartender if he had any peyote), leaving those of us who'd dealt with him to shake our heads.

"God speed," a guy near me said.

Just before Now Sleepyhead began playing, the owner asked him to step outside to talk and he wasn't allowed back in.

God speed indeed.

Once the band started playing, all was right with the world because the audience was made up of long-time fans of theirs, many grateful for an early show on a Thursday night.

The combination of keyboards, multiple guitars, French horn and xylophone makes for both an ambient and dreamgaze sound enhanced by multiple vocalists.

Warning that it was a soft song, they played "Use Your Bicycle as an Antenna" and their song for the ages, "Who the Fuck?"

As always, they traded instruments throughout the set and thanked the crowd repeatedly for coming when really we should have bee thanking them.

For my second act, my beekeeping friend had invited me to join a small backstage tour of "The Lion King" given by her friend, Bruce, whom I'd met a Balliceaux Monday evening.

No, I haven't seen the production (although I did meet a hyena at Secco), but how could I turn down an invitation to be at the Landmark stage door at 10:15?

Let's just say I've never been to a stage door before.

Like the eager beaver I am, I was there ten minutes early chatting up another invitee, telling him that no, I hadn't seen the show, but I had met a hyena.

Lo and behold, a woman walks by, looks at me and does a double take.

"I met you at Secco!" said the hyena's wife, assuring me that they'd used my suggestions about what to do in Richmond while they'd been here.

This town is even small when it comes to out-of-towners.

Before we knew it, we were being led through the stage door to the bowels of the Landmark Theater.

Once there, we saw the scads of costumes and puppets that fill twenty semi-trailers when the show moves from city to city (New Orleans is next).

We saw a wall of gazelle heads, all made of carbon fiber and weighing next to nothing.

Moving toward one of the make-up areas, a giraffe looked at our little group and noted, "Wow! You guys must be special. You got Bruce!"

I'd already been feeling like a pretty big deal just to be on this tour; knowing that Bruce never gave them just added another level of thrilling.

And then to get to walk out on to the Landmark stage, where I'd seen the likes of Prince, R.E.M., Paul Simon and Janet Jackson perform, well, it's a good thing there was a lot of head room.

But, as we learned from our guide, there really wasn't. The Landmark has been the most problematic of all the venues the production has used.

Its small doorways make it difficult to get tall giraffes and fat warthogs through inadequate openings.

Just as I was coming down from the high of looking in the orchestra pit from the stage, we walked into the room where Bruce and two others work their magic on the puppets.

A crew member inside stopped cold. "You guys are very lucky! You're the first touring group to come back to the puppet room!"

There we saw the Scar headdress and the separate mechanics and cables that make it move.

He passed just the headpiece around, warning us, "Be very careful with it. It's worth more than a baby."

We saw an entire cabinet of animal heads for the understudies, necessary because each is made exactly to the actor's head size.

I admired the Hyena Rack (labeled as such), knowing that I'd met a hyena.

Bruce explained about how "The Lion King" was conceived of as a double event, meaning the audience sees both the puppet's movement and the actor's simultaneously.

Looking at the warthog's costume, which weighed 40 pounds and had a separate fabric puppet for its tongue, we marveled at the skill of the actor in it.

The Timon puppet was attached to the actor's feet with rods, to his solar plexus with a chest mount and his hands controlled the arms and mouth.

Big budget, meet Walt Disney Industries.

By the time we'd scoured the backstage area, I was in awe of a production I've never seen and likely won't.

But not because I wasn't bowled over by the creativity, ingenuity and sheer scope of the production.

No, it was more of a budget constraint than anything.

In any case, I got to stand on the stage of the Landmark and take a bow in my Berlin tights.

I like to think that had there been an audience, the Tights Queen might have even gotten some applause.

My only challenge then would have been to get my head out those inadequate doors.

My Idiot Heart Still Crazy After All These Years

My Random Life, episode 4,729: the Nice Neighbor.

In the almost three years that I have lived next door to this guy, we have had one very awkward conversation after he over-complimented me early on, here.

Since then we have merely exchanged greetings.

So imagine my surprise when, a few weeks ago, he asked if I liked Paul Simon and offered me a ticket to tonight's show.

At the time he offered, I a) didn't know Simon was coming and b) wouldn't have been able to pay $87 for a ticket anyway.

Tonight, he called as I was leaving to go to dinner and offered me a ride to the show. What, everyone doesn't have neighbors like this?

So off I went to dinner at the Magpie, where I ran into an acquaintance I hadn't seen in years as well as others on their way to the show.

"You're going in time for the opener?" one woman asked me, clearly surprised. Uh, yes.

After the past couple of shorts-wearing weeks, I returned to red wine tonight with Honora Vera Granacha, only to learn it's the owner's current favorite. One of the concert goers ordered it, too, making it a popular choice tonight.

Dinner was the sweetbreads with grilled pear and sage custard, one of those dishes I think could convert non-gland eaters with its wonderful texture and savory taste.

For the first time since Magpie opened, classic rock had been replaced by '80s music, so Wham!, Culture Club and Duran Duran were my dinner music.

Apparently the staff had revolted over so much classic rock. Heaven knows I would have joined that revolution had I known it was brewing.

I returned home to catch a ride to the show with my generous neighbor.

At the Landmark, the crowd's ages ranged from kids to oldsters and if it wasn't sold out, it was damn close.

Minutes after sitting down, the guy next to me told me I could put my coat on the seat next to him. I expressed surprise that he had an extra seat.

"It's a long story," he said ominously.

"What a shame," I said empathetically.

"Not really," he grumbled. Seems he'd driven all the way from Suffolk for the chance to see Simon for the first time, but no other details were given.

Carsie Blanton took the stage in a pretty red dress with a guitar and an upright bass player, announcing, "Hi, I'm Paul Simon. No, I'm the surprise opener, which is okay because I'm good."

She was correct and her clever songs ("He was the sweetest talker you ever heard but his motives were unclear") and beautiful voice got the crowd's attention.

She sang the title song from her new album "Idiot Heart," totally charming the audience and offering her CDs for pay-what-you-will. I bet she had a lot of takers.

Then it was Paul Simon who really came out and jumped into "The Boy in the Bubble" with an eight-piece behind him and three drummers to start.

The best thing about the show, besides how fine his voice sounded, was the varied takes on his own songs.

"Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover' got a funked-up brassy arrangement while "Mother and Child Reunion" had sort of a calypso sound.

Since today is the tenth anniversary of George Harrison's death, he did a beautiful rendition of "Here Comes the Sun" to far too many cell phone cameras.

In the moment, people, let's try to stay in the moment.

After a while, the aisles became crowded with enthusiastic fans dancing to songs like "Late in the Evening."

The last time I saw that much dancing at the Landmark was at a Prince show.

Personally, I could have melted at hearing "Hearts and Bones," the song he wrote when he was in love with Carrie Fisher.

The arc of a love affair
His hands rolling down her hair
Love like lightening shaking till it moans
Hearts and bones

There were two encores including an acoustic version of "Sounds of Silence" that garnered absolute silence from the crowd.

I found  it positively goosebump-worthy.

"Graceland" prompted a roar from the crowd, but "Still Crazy After All These Years" seemed to me like the ideal encore song from a 70-year old.

And unlike at some shows, no one seemed to be leaving early.

When they were really done, he appropriately introduced each of the band members, not surprising given how incredibly amazing they had been.

When the lights came up, the taped music immediately caught my ear: Frank Sinatra singing "Mrs. Robinson."

Perfect. Well, not for the guy next to me from Suffolk. Five songs into Simon's set, he had excused himself and left.

I'd have loved to have heard the story behind that hasty exit. A two-hour drive for five songs? What the...?

But then I'd been driven a half a mile to hear a legend, so I preferred to focus on that.

Lucky me, the good neighbor policy is in full effect in Jackson Ward.

She Tells Me What I Must See

I've seen Prince in concert twice, both times at the Landmark, of all places, and both times with the same person. She's a friend I met when I worked in radio and we immediately hit it off; she's smart, funny, an avid reader, music lover and die hard movie fan. And while we don't always share the same taste in books and music (there's more overlap in music than books), I absolutely respect her taste in movies. She sees far more of them than I do and when she raves, I listen.

So when she not only recommended Crazy Heart, but qualified it by saying that Jeff Bridges was certain to get the Oscar for his performance as the broken-down alcoholic country singer, I knew I needed to see it. And of course she was right on both counts.

Produced by T. Bone Burnett, it's a music movie for sure. But it's the character study of Bridges' Bad Blake, that was completely enthralling. I'm not an actor, so I don't know how difficult it is to play an alcoholic, but playing a dissolute and resigned human being has got to be challenging, and Bridges nailed it with his dead eyes and beaten posture. Every debauched choice of his life showed in his face and body. She was right, I needed to see this movie.

You have to figure out what your friends know better than you and follow their lead. Unless, of course, you're on the same page to start with and then you can just go forward jointly. Like seeing the Purple One together whenever he's in town; that she doesn't need to tell me.

Moshi Moshi + M. Ward = mmmmm

It was a firsts kind of a night all the way through. A friend had suggested that we meet at Moshi Moshi for dinner and, since I'd never been, I was game for a first trip there. I beat him to the restaurant and, as it turned out, was greeted by a hostess/bartender I knew, but didn't know worked there...she and I go way back and would laugh to admit to anyone else how we know each other.

My friend soon arrived, so we jumped right in with the pot stickers, moved on to miso soup and then shared the Spicy Beef Salad, a Tofu Curry dish and Spicy Salmon cut rolls, all extremely well executed. It was when that last course arrived, full of spiciness, that the subject of my sake virginity and the need to address it arose. My introduction was Momokawa Pearl sake, an old-style roughly-filtered sake, served cold and tasting tropical: pineapple, banana and coconut-like. My friend was well acquainted with sake, but even after my first glass, I felt inadequate to describe the experience. Accordingly, I attempted subsequent Pearl tastings to better solidify my sake understanding. Before we knew it, it was time for us to part ways.

And then it was time to go see M. Ward under the guise of the Monsters of Folk show at the Landmark. I'm not saying he was the focus of my evening, but, yes, I would have paid the same price to see him alone. As the usher was leading me to my seat, she turned around and said, "Wow, you have a great seat!" which was true: it was in the first row, as in, nothing but a stage in front of me, which meant plenty of leg room. Another couple of nice firsts- row and leg room. The night was getting better and better.

It was a listening-room environment, except for the occasional obnoxious Jim James fan yelling out stupid things like, "We love you Jimmy James!" and "You need me to kiss your feet, Jimmy?" But those idiots aside, it was a really good experience all around. Like the Neko Case show, no cells phones were allowed in use, not for texting, not for photographing, not for anything at all and they had attendants to keep watch over the audience to ensure that the policy was adhered to. I loved that.

The show was harmony heaven; when you have three vocal talents like M. Ward, Conner Oberst and Jim James, admittedly, you've got a lot to work with. Mike Mogis, the only member of the group not doing vocals, superbly acquitted himself on anything with strings. But the highlights for me were those songs that featured M. Ward singing lyrics like, "Love will get you in the end" and "What do you do with the pieces of broken heart?" Le sigh. Best of all, when he wasn't out front playing guitar, he was on the piano (and sometimes keyboard), banging his heart out a la Kermit the Frog. It was amazing to witness him standing, sitting, crouching and just tearing up those keys. And that voice of his, well, yes. Oh, yes.

More than one person, when I told them about the show, responded by saying that they didn't really like Conner Oberst much. I'm not the biggest fan, either, but he won a lot of points late in the show when he mounted the drum kit, balanced precariously and wailed on his guitar all the while; then during his dismount, kicked a cup of water out of his way. So rock and roll cute.

Although this was a "folk" show, the latter songs in the set allowed the band to jam in a most un-folk like way, noisily working up the audience as they went. That would be, I suppose, why they're called Monsters of Folk.