Heard It in a Love Song

If I'm going to drive an hour plus in the driving rain, it helps to have a talkative architect of the right age at the other end.

My purpose in visiting him at his modernist Northern Neck office - glass front, soaring ceiling, table with sculptural metal pieces that began in the floor, went through the glass and ended at the ceiling - was to interview him for a story I'm working on.

After offering me espresso or tea (I chose peppermint tea, made in an electric tea kettle his Scottish wife chose), we sat down in front of the enormous window with the sound of rain falling on the metal roof. The sophisticated vibe was anything but small town, despite being in a hamlet of 400 people.

As we dispensed with the purpose of my visit, me asking and him answering, it didn't take long for the Irish Catholic (me) and the German Catholic (him) to realize we had loads in common. Partly, it was our similar ages, but partly it was everything else.

When he heard I had six sisters, he shared that his mother was one of 19 kids and his Dad one of 12. "Meaning I had close to 200 first cousins so I had to leave town just to find someone I could marry legally. And that's just first cousins!"

Talking about how he'd ended up in such a small pond, he admitted wanting to escape the unrelenting cold weather and boring people of the Midwest. When I asked about his current house, he pulled out a national magazine and showed me an 8-page spread on the bay-front house he designed.

When I asked about a huge watercolor painting of NYC's Chrysler building on a nearby wall, he explained that he'd traded his table saw for the painting after his wife worried about him losing fingers to the saw (which dimmed all the lights in the house when he used it) and being unable to have sufficient digits to continue as an architect.

There's a woman looking out for her man.

Hell, we spent 20 minutes just on nutrition, exercise and sleep. Rarely (or should I say never?) do I meet a man who cares, much less addresses in his own life, such issues. Based on how good he looked, he was obviously doing something everything right.

Probably our longest topic was the tectonic shift in the world that we've seen in our lifetimes.

Not the obvious stuff like cell phones and computers, but the fact that we began life in a world that no longer exists and got to live through the sea changes that resulted in this brave, new world we now inhabit. How it was easier for us as young people to adjust to the new world order than it had been for our parents who still embraced the old ways.

What a gift it had been to have to navigate college - choosing, applying and paying for it ourselves without parental assistance - on our own and come out of the experience with so much more than an academic education. He said his father gave him a book of stamps and told him to write. That's it. No advice, no help, just stamps.

P.S. He never wrote.

We gabbed about ourselves, sharing our similar and dissimilar memories (he had conservative parents while I was fortunate enough to be raised by two screaming liberals) for the rest of the rainy afternoon until finally I got ready to take my leave, my peppermint tea long gone.

He walked me to the door and thanked me for driving out on such a nasty day but mostly for all the conversation. As I scooped up my umbrella, I turned for one last talking point, my favorite.

His first concert was Marshall Tucker. "No one even remembers who that was anymore," he laughed. Looking at this extremely urbane and stylish man dressed in a European-cut suit with the kind of fashion-forward shoes and glasses unheard of on the Northern Neck, I never would have guessed.

Driving home, the rain had stopped but the swamps were shrouded with the ghosts of fog making its way across the landscape. Passing a junkyard, the sign out front read, "Go tell it on the mountain."

I had a far better time telling it in an architect's office, but that's probably just me.

It Is To Laugh

All it took was reading Chris Rock's opinion about cell phones in comedy clubs to get my interest.

Rock is not anyone I've paid much attention to, but that article raised some provocative points. In it, he'd worried that fans shooting video of comedians working out new material in clubs and then posting to YouTube were going to be the death knell for stand-up comedy.

The point, he said, of comedians trying out new stuff in public was to see what worked and what fell flat. What was groan-worthy. What was too offensive. The absolutely essential step of self-editing.

But with the ubiquity of phones as cameras, stuff is being published online that comedians never intended anyone beyond the first audience to hear. Instead of a hundred people being offended, now millions can and the fallout can be tremendous.

Significantly, he saw it as having the potential to be the death of stand-up comedy and naturally I agreed.

Honestly, I don't think cell phones should be allowed in any sort of performance spaces and I really mean any at all. But that's a rant for another day.

Tonight it was enough to make me look differently at Rock and decide to see "Top Five," the new film he wrote, directed and starred in (can you say "Prince"?), despite knowing little about it except that it was about a comedian and critics seem to be liking it.

I took a seat in my favorite row - the front elevated one- near a guy wrist-deep in popcorn and Milk Duds. Had he offered to share, I'd have gladly taken him up on it. After previews for every upcoming movie with a black actor in it (talk about racial profiling), we finally got to what I came to see.

What surprised me the most was that it was essentially a film about conversation. From start to finish, the comedian is being interviewed by by a New York Times reporter who questions him on everything- why he's not funny anymore, why he's marrying a reality star, how bad things got before he finally got sober - and, per their mutual sobriety, demands "rigorous honesty" in return.

The film got a little too raunchy for me (some sexual things I just don't need to hear or see) and occasionally sexist ("You can go all "k.d. lang" on me"), but Rock was funny, articulate and such a keen observer of culture, that I overlooked the overload.

All kinds of real life comedians people the film, including Adam Sandler, Whoppi Goldberg (warning him never to cheat on his wife because she'll know) and Jerry Seinfeld, looking noticeably older than the last time I saw him.

In a scene in a club for Rock's bachelor party, Jerry accuses a female dancer of taking his wallet. Referring to her negligible bikini costume, she asks where she could possibly be hiding it. "Do I have to say it?" Jerry says in that affronted tone we heard so much in the '90s.

And the film's title? That comes from his favorite question, which he puts to almost everybody. What are your top five hip hop artists? As someone who asks practically everyone I meet what their first concert was, I can appreciate having a stock question with which to get to know and understand a person.

Between reading his insightful comments about the future of stand-up and now seeing "Top Five," I'd say I have a much better grasp on what Chris Rock is about.

And given my cell phone-less existence, he's got nothing to worry about with me.

Okay, Miguel, Drake, Weeknd, The Roots, Outkast. Judge away.

The Swayziest Christmas of Them All

Sometimes you make sacrifices for the right people.

Among those I made this weekend were sawing off the sappy base of my parents' Christmas tree until my arm went numb. Twenty eight trips up and down three flights of stairs to dig out obscure holiday decorations from the storage floor, where dust mites are outnumbered only by the minutiae of a half century of marriage.

My parents had asked me to come down yesterday and help them get ready for Christmas, yet by early evening, they were suggesting I spend the night in order to provide more assistance today.

Putting aside plans to watch the boat parade of lights, catch "Holiday Inn" at Movieland, see musicologist Christopher King deejay gospel at Steady Sounds and attend a friend's Christmas party, I stayed.

If I can't be a good daughter at the holidays, then when?

After my final effort of the weekend - making a pound cake - I made a beeline for the great outdoors, determined to enjoy a riverside walk in the 60-degree late afternoon sunshine, returning to the house lomg enough to remove the cake from the oven and kiss my parents goodbye.

Much as I love them, I was more than ready for some outside contact beyond the man who'd greeted Dad and me at the dump this morning.

I needed Movie Club.

Tonight's installment was looking to be just the holiday boost I craved: "Mystery Science Theater 3000: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians." You better believe I was cleaned up, dressed for the city and walking over to Strange Matter within an hour of getting home from the country.

My parents would never understand.

I walked into the venue I've been to so many times to find a row of recliners lined up in front of a screen set on the stage. Behind them were small tables and chairs for a cafe-like cinebistro setting. I was right where I needed to be..

Ordering a bowl of vegan chili with Twin Oaks "chorizo", the only answer the bartender needed from me was whether I wanted real cheese or vegan cheese. Excuse me, but if it's vegan it technically isn't cheese (just like those vile individually wrapped American cheese food product slices, which are made with vegetable oil and no actual dairy. Blech!), although some would say I'm arguing semantics here.

Drink in hand, I found myself a table and chair directly behind the recliners and waited for the movie to begin. When my chili was delivered, I found it jalapeno-spicy and chock full of beans. Considering the massive cheeseburgers Mom had made for dinner last night, I could forego meat tonight.

While "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" had been made in 1964, the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" version had been made in 1991, meaning we were going to get cultural references from two entirely different periods. I was in heaven.

Host Andrew warned us that the original movie has consistently been listed as one of the 100 worst of all time and it didn't take long to see why.

For starters, they obviously didn't have budget for so much as a copy editor since the credits read "custume designer" not "costume." Yeesh. There was also a credit for "Martian furniture."  Somebody's mother must have been very proud.

And, given that it was 1964, Santa still smoked  a pipe. I guess he hadn't seen the surgeon general's warning yet. And speaking of, his elves all liked like miniature C. Everett Koops (for those who remmeber who he was).

I was glad we were seeing the MST version because all the best lines came from the exiled spaceman and his robots. "You know, elf tastes just like chicken." When a Martian asks what Christmas is, the MST robot says, "A Christian holiday ruined by commercialism." Bingo.

On the other hand, it didn't take long for me to begin wondering how many people in the room were getting the 1991 references.

Walking into the Martian spaceship control room, a cliched '60s idea of a high tech center with reel to reel tape machines lining the walls, the MST robot says, "But first a tour of Paisley Park." I laughed out loud at the Prince reference, but no one else did.

Ditto allusions to the book "Alive," the movie "Ice Station Zebra" and actor Larry Storch. References to Jimmy Durante and McGyver. Or when the robot sang in a whiny voice, "Old man, take a look at your elf, I'm a lot like you are."

I'm just saying that I seriously doubt many people in the room knew that the "whipped cream and other delights" reference was the name of an iconic Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass album. Or what "The Long Goodbye" was.

Some humor is timeless, though, such as, "And now for your enjoyment, some suggestive scenes of jets refueling."

There was no forgetting that the original film was from the '60s and had a finite budget because of things like an actor in a polar bear costume, the headpiece clearly separate from the body or a robot that looked like a tin foil box with a coffee can on top.

When Santa said, "Falderal and fiddle dee dee," the robots chided him, saying, "Language, Santa, language!" Hysterical.

For those who don't know, the premise of the movie is that the Martian children are quiet, remote and very unhappy because they are fed information but never allowed to be children with freedom. Once the Martians kidnap two earth children who tell them where to find Santa, they nab him too. Then they're all taken to Mars, where the fat man makes everybody laugh because he's such a jolly fellow.

"It's the little signs of drug abuse," one of the MST robots observes about the corny laughter.

Patrick Swayze and the movie "Roadhouse" were a recurring theme throughout the commentary, probably because the movie was barely two years old at that point. Lines from it were repeatedly quoted and worked into the Martian story to hilarious results. You know, "my way or the highway" and "You're gonna be my regular Saturday night thing, baby" kind of stuff.

In Santa's Martian workshop, he had a machine instead of elves to help him make toys. When a load of baseball bats came out, the robot quipped, "Okay, those are marked for the L.A.P.D." Some black humor still resonates.

Eventually, the earth children get homesick, and the mother Martian explains to others that the kids miss their friends and family. "And Nintendo and sugar," an MST robot cracks.

By the time the movie ended with a singalong, I was pretty clear on why it had been so firmly entrenched in the worst of lists for 50 years. Which is not to say it hadn't been great fun, a real time capsule of two completely different eras. One of the robots even sang a violent Christmas carol about "Road House" to close out the MST part of the movie.

What's also notable is that Movie Club doesn't make a habit of showing perfectly awful movies. This had been a holiday selection (yet, in part chosen for its awfulness) while next month's will be something far superior, namely "Raising Arizona." I'll be there.

The funny part was that after the last of the trivia questions and prizes handed out after Santa conquered the Martians, host Andrew announced that, "Inspired by tonight, we're planning to show "Road House" in the future."

I. Can. Not. Wait.

We're talking about a film with the line, "That gal's got entirely too many brains to have an ass like that." It'll be a night of '80s splendor, I feel sure of it.

Should Mom and Dad ask me to stay over that night, I'm afraid their needs will have to be sacrificed on the altar of Patrick Swayze.

Oh, yea, Movie Club's gonna be my monthly Sunday night thing, baby.

It's Chritmas Time in the City

It's come to this: I had to join a group to find people to walk with me.

No, that's not a whiff of desperation you smell. I merely saw that there was a holiday light walking tour and realistically acknowledged that no one I know or love would be willing to do such a thing with me. When I told one of those people about it, the response said it all. "I bet you'll love it."

Yes and no.

The group met in front of New York Deli and I was one of several first-timers. The last thing I'd expected was anyone I knew and yet there was a woman I'd met at a restaurant last year, apparently a semi-regular in the group.

Interestingly enough, there were plenty of people who'd come because, like me, they enjoyed walking but couldn't find friends to do it with. So at least I wasn't odd man out.

We began by walking up Boulevard admiring lights and decorations before turning on to Stuart Avenue. By then it was already apparent that the group's members were going to move at wildly different speeds. I should have had a clue when the group leader told us that the 10K walk would take approximately 3 1/2 hours.

Seriously? I could walk to the Lilly Pad Cafe in Varina in less time than that.

Here's the thing: it's cold outside, a few degrees above freezing at best. And while I'd dressed appropriately for the weather, when it's cold like this, my walking speed picks up for the first few miles so I can warm up. A couple of women joined me at the front of the pack but the rest of the group lagged a block or two behind.

What this meant was that periodically, we'd turn around and shout to the group leader asking about the route he wanted to take. Since the goal was seeing decorated houses, our path was completely subject to change depending on which streets appeared to have lots of bling.

Someone observed that the popular decorating style seems to be that of strings of lights spilling off a porch or roof. "Hell, I could do that," one woman sniffed. It's not rocket science, that's for sure.

As we outdistanced the pack, one in our trio told me that men her age aren't active enough and can't keep up with her. But she doesn't want to date younger men because they don't have any money. Conundrum.

After Stuart, we went east on Hanover for a bit before switching to Grove and eventually Franklin to get us to the Jefferson, our first stop. No surprise, the hotel was packed to the rafters with a huge Christmas party in the Rotunda, a smaller party in the Flemish room and scads of families dragging squalling kids dressed in their Sunday best around the lobby for photo ops.

Santa must do a lot of self-medicating this time of year.

Our group leader gave us 15 minutes and told us to meet back by the desk. My two walking companions and I made a quick pit stop and then stood there waiting for the others to join us. One of the women pointed to Lemaire and said, "I got engaged there 40 years ago and had my reception there," pointing to a ballroom.

Her Daddy was in steel fabrication, no doubt the source of the checkbook that funded such extravagance.

Once the group reassembled, our speedy trio was ready to get walking again but first we had to pose for a group picture in front of the holiday-bedecked alligators outside. Twice.

From there, we headed down Franklin, turning on 8th Street to get to Cary and the splendor that is the Grand Illumination at the James Center. I knew we were getting close when traffic all but stopped alongside us.

Under the bright lights of all those illuminated reindeer, our leader told us we had 25 minutes to explore before reporting back for the return trip to Carytown. Only problem was, we were finally warmed up and none of the three of us wanted to spend 25 minutes getting cold again for the walk back.

That and the less experienced walker in our trio was starting to feel the effects of shin splints and was afraid if she stopped, she'd never get started again. We looked at each other and made the decision to start back.

"But we walked all this way to see this," our group leader said, gesturing toward the decorations. Truth be told, we'd come all this way to enjoy a night time walk and admire lights along the way. We'd done that.

Another guy in the main group overheard us saying goodbye and elected to join us on our return trip, so then we were four.

But to show our appreciation for organizing the tour, we took a few minutes to walk around the lit figures before heading back up the hill and westward ho, running smack dab into VCU graduation ceremony crowds spilling out of the Mosque Landmark Altria Theater.

Further along, we saw holiday parties through windows, in shops and closed restaurants, in stretch limos driving by.

Even our little splinter group eventually splintered, with the shin splint victim and the last minute addition electing to adopt a more leisurely pace coming back while my lively companion and I kept up a conversation as fast-paced as our steps.

She told me she's in training to bike across Iowa and shared details of biking across Barbados. We discovered a mutual love of quinoa, fried chicken and daily walking.

Before we knew it, we were back in Carytown in what seemed like no time at all. "How'd we do that so fast?" she asked, half joking. "I'm going on the group hike tomorrow at Dutch Gap. Are you coming?'

Nope, I have other plans tomorrow. Besides, I'm not entirely sold on all aspects of the group walk thing yet.

Earlier, a very tall, bearded man with long hair had said that he'd ended up on this walk solely because he'd seen it in Style Weekly, loved to walk and doesn't have anyone to walk with.

We might be walking soul mates since that about sums up why I was there. The question is, could he keep up?

So few can. Tonight that total came down to exactly one woman. And I'm not switching teams even for a fast walker.

But I'm willing to do tryouts for anyone who's interested in giving it a shot. Perhaps I'm more of the small group type.

Orange and Stout

Tonight's cultural walk took me across the railroad tracks to Hardywood.

That's right, I walked 1.7 miles in the dark and cold to a brewery despite the fact that I don't drink beer. The reason? I did not want to miss Samson Trinh and the Upper East Side Big Band performing music from their Christmas project.

Arriving at the brewery, the door was magically opened for me by a friend who greeted me with, "Good evening, young lady." I rewarded him with a hug from my cold hands. All I could smell was the overwhelming scent of hops, not a favorite of mine.

He'd just arrived, too, so we both caught the end of the big band's first set, namely the Beatles' "Oh Darling" followed by Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child," both sung by Laura Ann Singh (looking wonderful in a black dress with a red and green scarf) of Miramar, with backing vocals by Adrian Duke on keyboard.

During the break I chatted with a former neighbor who introduced me to the big band's sax player, saw a favorite actor kissing air and ran into yesterday's birthday boy, whom I immediately asked for a ride home. All around me, people clutched cups of gingerbread stout as if it were their lifeblood.

After repeated entreaties from the stage for the sax player to join them, the big band began a sultry take on Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" which soon morphed into a swingin' rendition.

Who wouldn't feel in the spirit listening to this?

The next song was penned by bandleader Samson and according to singer Laura Ann, was so catchy, "You might try to go to sleep and won't be able to after you hear it" After teaching the crowd the chorus so we could sing along, she instructed, "Don't be a turd! Sing it" and the crowd obeyed.

Except for the turd part, she'd been spot on; the song was poppy and infectiously catchy. An ear worm even.

Introducing "Christmas, Don't Be Late," a song I know because of the Chipmunks' version, Samson shared that they'd played it this morning on the radio with DJ Bill Bevins who'd called the song by the wrong name. Still, their version beat the Chipmunks' by a mile.

Asking, "Who's never heard of the Upper East Side Big Band?" a few people raised their hands, including the trumpet player, unbeknownst to Samson. I'd seen them before, so my hand stayed down.

He said that their Christmas project album had been eight years in the making and that they hadn't played the next song in eight years. It was irrelevant because the classic Charlie Brown tune "Christmas Time is Here" sounded fabulous live.

Their version of "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" was swinging in a way that the Carpenters' cover never did. I don't think Karen carpenter was the swingin' type. Well done, guys.

"When I brought in the charts for "Merry Christmas, Baby," our next song, everyone was scared of playing it," Samson said by way of introduction. Looking back at his band, he amended that. "Never mind, we're going to go on. I didn't put the music in their binders."

Oops.

Instead, they played a Beatles medley from Abbey Road, including "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window," closing out the night with the band whose altar Samson worships at. It was a fitting close to a terrific set of music.

Smelly hops aside, what could be a better way to get into the holiday spirit than listening to local musicians play songs from their brand-new Christmas album? I'd even say that the music was well worth the walk.

Walking out, I spotted Jackson Ward neighbors, gingerbread stout in hand, and paused to wish them happy holidays before catching my ride home. 1.7 feels a lot longer and colder after the show.

Then it was on to the Blue Goat, a place I hadn't been since they abandoned nose to tail for a mainstream West end menu. The preppy crowd looked right at home while overhead, the sound system blasted the Galactica Pandora station, meaning plenty of funky soul, including forays into Edgar Winter. And, you know, it worked.

A suggestion from the staff led us to something different, namely Biggio Hamina Cellars Cougar's Mark Pinot Grigio, a substantial orange wine. Since Blue Goat has more than its share of cougars, someone mentioned the frequency of leopard print garments on any given weekend night. Easy to imagine, but not something I need to witness.

For dinner, I chose shrimp panzanella, a salad of bibb lettuce, bacon, shrimp, grape tomatoes, cornbread croutons and bacon vinaigrette, a satisfying melange of flavors but with an insufficient amount of lettuce. Come on, give me a full serving of greens if you're going to call it a salad.

The place was bustling - a group of suits at the chef's table, the bar almost entirely full, a couple sharing their bottle of wine with the manager - but the well-placed sound system ensured that the music was always front and center. For that, they get points. For the bland crowd, not so much.

We lingered so long blathering - what happened to journalistic integrity, should you confit or smoke chicken before frying, what happens to old bathing suits - that some last minute stragglers saw us and came in. Without telling them not to be a turd, the bartender warned them that they could have one round only. The guy in the white pants didn't look happy about that.

From where I sat, they looked like the types who had never heard of the Upper East Side Big Band. No surprise there.

They did look like they'd appreciate a good cougar, though.

Doesn't Matter Where You Been as Long as It Was Deep

Accidentally, I had the evening that I needed.

Still without a vehicle, it seemed prudent to find neighborhood activity rather than having to walk too far in the December cold. The Oscar-nominated documentary "Promises" at the main library filled the bill nicely.

Presented by Richmonders for Peace in Israel and Palestine, I was apparently easy to spot as neither a Jew nor an Arab. The women at the welcome table wasted no time in inquiring how I'd heard about the event (Style Weekly's calendar), delighted to have lured out an Irish Catholic.

Or maybe just someone who'd never been to their film series before.

I have to say, I go to plenty of documentaries and few have a spread like this one - rolls filled with pimento cheese and chicken salad, fruit salad, punch and six kinds of dessert. Food aside, I spotted only two people I knew (a poet and an artist), but was pleased to see wide-ranging age diversity in the makeup of the crowd.

The film was introduced by the professor of Middle Eastern studies at Randolph Macon, who said he shows it to his classes as a way to help them understand the deeply ingrained conflict.

The filmmaker had followed seven children  - Israeli and Palestinian - for five years to make the documentary back during a time when it had been possible to travel back and forth easily (for Israelis anyway) to the West Bank. Updates to the story had been done a few years later.

What was fascinating was how entrenched ideas about the so-called enemy were in children, most of whom came across far more savvy about politics in their country than a typical 10-year old American kid would be. No doubt it was a function of war being the norm their entire lives.

The children represented a spectrum of secular, somewhat religious, right wing and ultra-orthodox, but just about every single one knew firsthand someone who had been killed, in some cases a friend. Scenes of children at the grave site of another child felt unbearably sad, much like a scene of a Palestinian boy and his grandmother visiting the site of the home from which they'd been ousted and relocated.

Listening to children spout learned hatred led to the filmmaker setting up a meeting between Israeli twin boys and a group of Palestinian kids. They were chosen because they were the only ones willing to fraternize with the "enemy."

The scenes where the children finally meet each other were the most hopeful in the entire film. From a spontaneous burping contest to a pillow fight to soccer playing, once with the "enemy," they became just kids and forgot about politics. At last they saw the hated Israelis or Palestinians as actual people and not bogeymen.

But the most startling part of all was when the  filmmaker went back a few years later to see what was up with the seven. With age came adherence to the principles of hate they'd been taught.

All except one Palestinian boy who'd moved to Massachusetts to live with relatives. Not only had his English improved hugely, but his vitriol had faded. He made the point that if so many different kinds of people can coexist in the U.S., why couldn't his little country get along?

After the film was a discussion led by the professor and he requested that people not get on their political/religious soapboxes (although one woman did try to defend Israel's mandatory military service) but consider the issues raised in the film. It was fascinating to see how differently people had interpreted it.

The issue that had the most people in agreement was about how unequally the U.S. provides aid to Israel and Palestine and how our overt support of the former is a major problem. Granted, it was an audience of people already interested in the subject, but it was definitely one of the more thoughtful and intellectual post-film discussions I've attended.

By the time we finished, the security guards couldn't get rid of us fast enough.

It had been extremely satisfying for me because I'd learned so much about the conflict (maps and diagrams throughout the film were invaluable in absorbing the different stages of land grabbing, camps and occupation) but also because it had been a very well made film and I got to see it on a big screen.

Leaving the library, I was more than ready for some food. I considered Rappahannock, but couldn't stand the thought of going even three blocks out of my way, so I stopped at Saison Market.

There, I found the owner behind the register ("Hello, young lady!"), James Brown singing "Sex Machine" on the stereo and a good looking root vegetable winter salad on the menu. Just as I was signing my check, I noticed Abuelita hot chocolate on the chalkboard and ordered that, too.

Coincidentally, I'd just read about Abuelita on the Pioneer Woman's blog and finding it at a Latino market is on my to-do list. Here was my chance to try it. But rather than wait and have it for dessert, I sipped the cup of chocolate before my salad even arrived, licking the last bits of chocolate from inside the cup with my finger.

Chocolate, it's what's for appetizer.

Then came salad. Butternut squash, beets, watermelon radish, frisee, Maytag blue cheese, spaghetti squash fritters and apple vinaigrette sat atop squash puree for a plate that was as much eye candy as surprisingly filling.

The brain trust from Richmond Comedy Coalition came in and I saw one of their best comedians, whom I'd also seen at last night's birthday party. Trying to get the jump on humor, I told him I was following him.

"That's what you think, but I'm really following you," he said with raised eyebrows and a grin.

As I ate, I read an article from the department of inspiration in a summer issue of New Yorker magazine called "A Room of One's Own" about a woman who won a three week residency for a writer with a book contract at a swanky East Village hotel (including free breakfast and coffee). She went to work on her book of poetry.

The down side was she was awakened far too early every day by nearby construction and had to live on a writer's (read: tight) budget of $20 a day for food, not an easy thing to do in NYC. But she also wrote poetry, taking her greatest inspiration from late night walks in the city.

See? It's not that I'm car-less, it's that my night walks are for soaking up inspiration. And cold toes.

Holiday Antidote

Happy birthday and Merry Christmas all in the same night.

It was celebration time for a friend and former co-worker so he'd invited his dearly beloved to Pasture to fete him. I was just glad he'd picked Pasture and not someplace further afield since my vehicle is out of commission.

Walking by Rappahannock, I saw it was mobbed with suits (private party) and Pasture wasn't much less crowded with the birthday celebration coinciding with a Modern Richmond happy hour. I've been wanting to go to one of their events for a while and haven't yet, but I did get to meet the organizer tonight, where I was introduced as "Karen, a woman about town."

That's one way of putting it.

I'd brought my friend the gift of cookies, a nod to the first year we were friends when I left six dozen cookies on his desk at work and he about burst with pleasure at the unexpected gift. We've been friends long enough now that he knows to expect a doctored card (I fill in the speech bubbles to suit our history) and cookies.

After catching up with a theater-loving friend who'd missed seeing "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," I spent time chatting with a favorite music writer about the lack of local girl bands, upcoming shows we need to see and the importance of learning how to discourse rather than argue.

When you want to make a point, it's best to stay calm, we agreed.

To fuel our banter, I ordered pinto bean dip with garden salsa and hot oil for scooping with tortilla chips. I love me some beans.

When I couldn't finish the chips, I handed the little brown bag of remainders to the birthday boy who happily munched away after already having far too many birthday drinks bought for him. I foresee a hangover for him tomorrow, a shame since he has work training tomorrow.

Midway through my conversation with the music writer, I spotted a former restaurateur I hadn't seen in ages and took some time to catch up with her. Facebook had let me know that she'd met the love of her life, but I wanted to hear the story.

It was a doozy, beginning with a last minute invitation to a friend wedding in the islands, a persistently romantic man she met in the wedding party ("He said he knew the moment he laid eyes on me"), fireworks exploding over them on a darkened beach and now she's moving north to live with him happily ever after.

I couldn't have been happier for her happiness. She said she'd about given up at her age (34, pshaw!) of finding Mr. Right and getting the whole fairy tale romance when boom! It landed in her lap when she least expected it.

Heaven knows, I'm enthralled with a romantic love story.

After a couple of hours at the party, it was time to bundle up and walk over to the Speakeasy for a staged reading of Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge. The house was rapidly filling up when I asked a couple if I could join their table, followed by a noted dancer and a culture big shot and his wife.

The table's original occupants were there because their daughter was ushering and they had loads of questions about theater in Richmond since they'd only recently started getting out to see plays and readings with her. In short order, they wanted the scoop on Firehouse Theater and why everyone in the room seemed to know each other. Our advice was not to miss the Acts of Faith preview.

Then it was time for a seriously hilarious holiday mashup.

The story, a takeoff on A Christmas Carol was so politically incorrect, so irreverent and so funny that I felt it more than balanced the retro and wholesome Christmas vibes I'd gotten seeing "White Christmas" Sunday. Or walking through any store right now.

The performance had plenty of wicked asides as well as commentary about the play itself (the young Jacob Marley asking, "Why don't I have any lines?" after a long discourse by other characters). The play posits that Ebenezer Scrooge's habit of saying "bah humbug" would be considered Tourette's syndrome these days.

The Ghost of Christmases Past, Present and Future, written for a black woman and played to perfection by Katrinah Carol Lewis, got laughs when Scrooge tells her, "I don't think there even were any Negro people in 1843."

Mrs. Bob Cratchit turned out to be a miserable woman who hated her life and was always leaving to get drunk and jump off of London Bridge. She belittled her children mercilessly, ignored their requests for food and barely tolerated her cheerfully sanctimonious husband, who tells his children, "Okay, on the count of three, everybody weep." And they do while the Mrs. rolls her eyes.

In a play full of references to other times, she bemoaned the absence of feminism. "I wish it were 1977 so I'd be admired for my unpleasantness," she wailed. No feminist stereotype there.

Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling put in appearances trying to involve Scrooge in a scam to sell "energy shares" and the ghost of Christmas past came dressed as a UPS delivery man. A scene from Scrooge's childhood ends up being a scene from "Oliver" with the plaintive, "May I have more, sir?" getting a big laugh.

The ghost of Christmas present scene had a Dutch couple exchanging gifts - a watch chain and hair comb - a tableau straight out of "The Gift of the Magi."

But eventually Clarence, the angel from It's A Wonderful Life, came along to help out the ghost and solve both Scrooge's attitude problem (after he supplies happy Meals for the Cratchit's Christmas dinner) as well as Mrs. Cratchit's misery.

But not before Mia Farrow takes 18 of the unwanted Cratchit children off their hands.

Todd Schall-Vess did a superb job as George Bailey, mimicking not only the timbre of Jimmy Stewart's voice but the exact cadence of the lines. No surprise there since the Byrd shows it every Christmas and Todd introduces it.

The twist that joins Scrooge and Mrs. Bob Cratchit in co-joined nastiness lands them in, when else, 1977, where they become Harry and Leona Helmsley. "Do something mean and let me watch," Scrooge tells her.

By the end of the play, the ghost is searching for a moral to the story, offering several possibilities and finally settling on this: If you're happy, you can be poor and if you're mean, you better get money.

Walking home in the cold night air, it hit me. Happiness must be the reason I can be so poor.

On the flip side, a mean person wouldn't have had to walk. Even so, I'll take it.

Play Ball

Albert Einstein said it best. "I have no talent. I am just passionately curious"

On a recent drive to the Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen, I'd noticed a small building with a red Coca-Cola sign that read "The Dugout Restaurant" near a softball field complex.

Like Albert, I am curious about practically everything. Why not see what it held in store? A restaurant, really? Sports types? A dive bar?

The answer was "C," one of those places where the main room is for smokers with a side room for those who value their lungs. Except that the door to that room was propped perpetually open.

A good dive bar always values its smokers over the pink-lunged crowd.

An intense-looking card game was going on back there while a pool table nearby sat empty. Out in the main room, plastic ashtrays lined the bar, paneling covered the walls and six screens ensured that something boring was on at all times. Overhead, two smoke eater machines whirred in tandem with ceiling fans.

Nice effort, but I think we all know that if you go to a dive bar, you're going to reek of cigarette smoke.

Judging by the bottles on the bar, it was a beer-drinking crowd but that didn't stop me from inquiring if they had any tequila. The bartender put down her cigarette long enough to look but had to have the Patron pointed out to her. At least they had something above rotgut.

The crowd treated each other like family with insults and offers to buy beers; a couple of guys even called goodnight to strangers when they left to go home. An old guy with a walker shuffled up and down the length of the bar, getting his butt grabbed by the woman he came with as he did so.

I'd call the menu team-friendly, testing it out with a pork barbecue sandwich (taking the big smoker out front as a good sign) with slaw and an order of wings. Requesting the hand-cut fries listed on the menu, the bartender said, "They're not hand-cut but they're good."

They don't worry much about descriptors at the Dugout.

In usual dive bar fashion, there was an abundance of screens (six to be specific), e-bowling and a jukebox. But here's the strange part: not once at any point during the night did anyone play any music. I'm sorry, but the best dive bars have a soundtrack, even if it's nothing more than the likes of Journey, country music and bad Top 40.

People kept leaving to go out to the parking lot, for what I can't imagine since you could smoke and drink in the bar. I overheard one guy saying they were going to the "trunk," which might have been code for any number of activities.

I had a guess - it was called the dugout, after all.

The absence of music meant that someone decided to turn on the volume for Monday Night Football, a regrettable choice in my opinion but I was probably in the minority. Sports lovers were overruled, however, when "The Voice" came on, a show I'd mercifully never had to sit through until tonight.

Let's see,a Justin Timberlake wannabe, an adorable nerd aping Bono note for note and a guy who looked like a Hasidic Jew (minus the curls) singing Taylor Swift. I didn't need to witness any of that.

On the other hand, it was at least music. I can only drink tequila for so long without tunage. Apparently I'd ended up in the one dive bar where music matters not.

I know there's no crying in baseball, but could it be there's no music in softball?

My curiosity carries me so many places that they can't all strike a home run. At least now I know.

Playing Old Maid

Sometimes once isn't enough.

Today began and ended in a theater with yard bird in between, because what better day for it than Sunday supper?

It was cold and windy when I walked to Movieland for my annual viewing of "White Christmas," arriving early enough to score a prime seat before the masses showed up. Plenty of people seemed to be newbies to the Movies and Mimosas concept (no previews, folks), showing up as much as 10 minutes into it and bumbling around in the dark looking for seats.

Many of them chose to sing along despite the fact that the crowd had come to hear the film, not them. Next to me was a much older woman who giggled at much of the movie's corny humor as if she were hearing it for the first time in a while. It was adorable.

In one of those overlap moments between film and real life, I spotted an army blanket on a cot in the medical tent scene, reminding me that just a few days ago, I'd ridden with my Dad in his ancient truck atop his folded up army blanket on the passenger side. It's probably the same army blanket we used to make a tent out of in the back yard as kids.

Then there were the charming 1954 period details: fishnets with seams, a match striker on a table, men's sock garters. A more stylish time in every way. I recall as a kid that the scene where the general rolls his own cigarette seemed so old-fashioned but of course now plenty of people do it.

I could say everything old is new again except I feel quite certain we'll never return to a time where people dress for dinner, spend so much time traveling on trains or use "gay" to mean cheerful and lively. Too bad, really.

It was while reading the Sunday paper in the living room and trying to catch the last of the day's sun through my south-facing windows that I decided on tonight's plan: dinner and a movie (again). Kind of like a date with myself.

My dinner destination was a no-brainer because Sunday is fried chicken night at Sasion, a short walk from home. I have to admit I was surprised when I walked in to find things very low-key with only four people at the bar.

On the speakers was Bob Marley, appropriate because the Wailers were playing at the John Marshall ballroom tonight. Sure, there's only one original Wailer remaining at this point, but eventually he'll be gone and then there'll be none, yet I bet someone will still tour under that name. And isn't one original better than none?

Soccer was on the TV, the bartender already knew my order, asking only light or dark (duh, dark) and letting me know that tonight's sides were cole slaw (peppery) and a biscuit with honey butter. Sign me up.

The bartender was refilling my water glass when I commented on how peaceful it was tonight. "For now," she laughed. "I never know with Sundays whether it'll be busy at 5 or 8:30." No doubt the holidays further skew any prognosticating.

I didn't quite qualify for the clean plate club, mainly because although I'm a biscuit hound, these weren't really my kind of biscuits. They were more of the refrigerator, flaky style while I prefer a more traditional dense and floury biscuit like the kind my Richmond grandmother made.

But I'm also a firm believer in the no biscuit left behind movement and given that the guy to my right had finished his in about three bites, I leaned over and asked if he'd want my remainder.

His eyes lit up asking if I was sure. "Seriously? I was  just going to order another biscuit," he said. Only problem was his friend looked envious, so I explained to friend that the offer had been extended to the closest person and he was entitled to half. Both were thrilled with any additional biscuit forthcoming.

After collecting the car, I returned to the Criterion to see "The Homesman," Tommy Lee Jones' latest directorial and acting endeavor. As usual, he's playing an ornery old SOB, in this case one who elects to help spinster-to-be Hillary Swank cart three mentally ill women from the Nebraska territory back to the relative civilization of Iowa.

Shot to make the territory and plains look like the most monochromatic and least welcoming place on earth, the film follows the quintet's journey from west to east through Indian territory, snowstorms and days without food.

I'll admit I haven't seen enough westerns to have a qualified opinion about them (both versions of "True Grit" and "No Country for Old Men" and not much else), but this one was atypical, I feel sure. Swank played a most unusual woman for the time (1850s): unmarried, a landowner who farms and not too proud to propose to (and be turned down by) multiple men in hopes of finding a partner and companionship.

Boy, if living on the frontier was tough, try being a spinster.

Hearing multiple men tell her she was too bossy and too plain ("plain as a pail" one phrased it) to marry was heart-wrenching. Remind me never to propose to a man for fear of how he might respond.

And maybe all westerns have a lot of plot twists and sudden mood changes, but I doubt it. This one was full of surprises and unsettling scenes coming out of nowhere. Yet there were moments of humor to leaven things. Add in Oscar-worthy performances by Jones and Swank and it turned out to be a most enjoyable night of cinema even without popcorn.

Walking out of the theater beside the couple who'd been sitting near me, the woman said, "Makes you glad you're not a spinster, doesn't it?"

Oh, contraire, my dear. I am an unmarried woman past the usual age for marrying who is considered unlikely to marry. Some would even say I'm bossy.

On the plus side, that's what gives me license to offer my honey-buttered biscuits to strangers.

I'm just glad he didn't turn me down.

Waiting is the Hardest Part

What's the point in doing something for ten years if it isn't getting better with every year?

Potentially deep question, but simple answer: absolutely none. Just look at tonight's tenth annual Ghost of Pop show at Gallery 5. Timely start, appropriate set lengths, stellar performances and scads of friends.

Walking over in the pouring rain, I got there right at 8, counting on the fact that a five band bill would necessarily start on time and positioning myself against the radiator hoping for warmth.

None was to be found, as noted by a guy standing nearby.

He was a willing conversational partner, though, who'd been at last year's Ghost of Pop.  Excited about tonight's Full Moon Fever set of Tom Petty covers, he shared that he'd seen Petty in concert in 1981 in Memphis.

He had me beat there. And then it was show time.

Adam Eubank and his band were up first and while his name rang no bells for me, his face did. I'd met him just last week at a Sound of Music show when he'd come to snag a beer from a bag stashed near where I was perched and introduced himself.

I was impressed from the opening notes of the band's tight, poppy set with the songwriting and performance they were delivering. How come these guys don't play out more? If they were first, the other bands were going to have to work to keep up.

The organizer of tonight's benefit for Home Again was the inimitable Prabir and he stopped by to chat with me during the first break. When I asked him what he was hoping for from tonight's show, he didn't miss a beat.

"I wanna see a couple making out while we're playing," he said. "Sure it's great that we're helping the homeless, but what I really want is to see some making out. So if we're on our last song and no one's making out, it's your duty to grab a dude and suck face. It's your duty, Karen!"

Curious about why this was required, he explained that at the first Ghost of Pop, a go-go dancer (that's a whole other topic right there) had thrown her arm with abandon and broken his glasses. When she offered to make it up to him, he suggested a make-out session.

Like I've said before, I couldn't make this stuff up.

Next up was Animal Beat, a band I hadn't seen in some time. Turns out this was a reunion show. Lead singer Travis looked like Eric Clapton in his post-drug, cleaned-up period (short hair, attractive glasses sliding down his nose) with just enough reverb on his amazing voice and a killer horn section beside him.

Despite that they hadn't played out together in a couple of years, they'd just finished a new album, "Piece of Cake" (because recording it had been anything but) which was for sale tonight and came with, what else, a piece of cake.

If only I'd brought more than the door price.

Favorite song: "Love In, Love Out," but I couldn't get enough of any notes out of his mouth or the soulful feel the horns added to the songs.

Break time brought more conversation with the guy next to me and his wife (who'd been getting a henna tattoo on her hand when our conversation had begun), namely about his first concert: Humble Pie with Roxy Music opening in 1972.

Said he'd gone in to the show never having heard of Roxy Music and been blown out of his seat by their sound and sky-high platform shoes. She recalled hitchhiking to see the Allman Brothers and getting to go backstage to meet them.

Ah, the good old days.

I was happy to see Long Arms take the stage because leader James is not just a talented musician but a nerd of the highest order (he later showed me a vintage Civil War photograph he is thinking of buying).

The band full-on rocked out, emoting all the way ("This is another song about our feelings") while breaking in a new guitar for James all the while.

"This tent is so cool," he said about the new drape atop the stage with lights above it for a softly lit effect. "You guys wanna have a sleepover in my tent?"

After their set, a WRIR DJ gave me a big hug and his yellow rain slicker wet my face in the process. I met the new squeeze of a long-time music loving friend, who'd shown up late expecting that the show would be running on Richmond time and instead had missed three bands.

As I told him, the sound guy had been extra efficient about how long he let each band play tonight. Too bad that doesn't happen more often.

My new friends were very much looking forward to seeing Andrew Leahy up next because they'd been so impressed with him and his Nashville band last year. This year was a reunion of his original Richmond band, including one of my favorite keyboard players, Ben Willson.

The band's alt-country sound was extremely well-executed but a lot of the comments were about Andrew's distinctive hair. One guy said he'd thought it was a wig, another warned that he frequently flipped it and another observed that if he cut bangs into it, he'd look like any number of '70s rock stars. guys, it's about the music, not the hair.

Several of the songs they did were written in Nashville, no doubt including "Silver Linings" about dealing with men in suits.

More familiar faces showed up while Full Moon Fever set up - the violinist I hadn't seen in months, the ukulele player, the lecture geek - leading the couple beside me to ask how I knew so many people there.

It's as simple as going to shows, friends. After a while, people just start talking to you and goodness knows, I never turn away from conversational opportunities.

When Prabir and his FMF crew began with "Listen to Her Heart," the crowd - not quite as big as earlier, but rabid Petty fans - moved closer and by "The Waiting" they were singing along to every word.

A friend came over and shared his opinion that Petty is the best songwriter who ever lived in this country, giving this lyric as proof:

Think of me what you will
I got a little space to fill

Before they closed with "American Girl," Prabir announced, "This song goes out to Erica if you're still here. If you're not, it goes out to the next girl."

I don't know Erica, so I can't say if she was there to hear her dedication or not. What I can say is that I decided against grabbing a dude and making out so Prabir could have his moment of pleasure.

If you want to keep things going after ten years like Ghost of Pop, it better be about feelings and momentary pleasure. Love in, love out, didn't you hear the man?

Pavilion of Lasting Amazement

Some calls you can make five days out.

When a prior obligation kept my friend from meeting up to take in "Forbidden City" at the VMFA with me, she countered with, "Saturday is supposed to be gray and raining - a perfect day for the museum."

The weather gods didn't let us down. It had been merely spitting when I'd walked this morning, but by the time I left for the museum - taking the long way around because of the remaining parade traffic - the rain was showing more intention.

Of course she was right; the museum was a lovely place to spend a gloomy afternoon. We met at the Boulevard entrance and made our way to the service desk for tickets. To my utter delight, there I was surprised with my Christmas gift from her: a VMFA membership since mine had expired.

Talk about the gift that keeps giving! I was absolutely thrilled at her thoughtful gift, knowing it will be well used for the next twelve months.

Then it was downstairs to see "Forbidden City: Imperial Treasures from the Palace Museum, Beijing," a collection of royal "stuff" from the 17th and 18th centuries. Its appeal was that commoners would never have been able to see most of it since the city was walled and had a moat to keep out the hoi polloi such as me.

While I learned some things from reading the signage next to the objects (favorite horse name: Thousands of Auspiciousness), too often I found myself left wondering about others. Like, how did an emperor have time to write 40,000 poems in his lifetime?

What was carried in a banquet box? Was the wooden box with metal grate the equivalent of 17th century Chinese Tupperware or did it have some ritual purpose?

Probably most fascinating was that Italian painters went to China and spent years as the court painters there, marrying eastern and western styles of art. The last names I expected to see on pieces of Chinese art were Giuseppe and Ignatius, but there they were. Surely there was a bit of a language barrier in the beginning.

Everything depicted, whether on a screen, scroll, canvas or object, depicted a detailed scene. One charming example was a paperweight (big enough to hold down the Dead Sea scrolls) on which was carved a scene of scholars competing for wine with recitations of poems.

It appears that wine and poetry have suited each other throughout the ages.

And speaking of verse, when we came upon one on a wall, my friend noted, "That describes the new Karen." It read:

I care not a jot for immortal life
But only for the taste of tea
~Poet Lu Tong

Clearly she wasn't talking about tea.

We both found it interesting how Chinese art of this era differed from western art. Perspective was often flawed - figures looked like they could slide right off the picture plane - and there was no accurate suggestion of bodies or musculature under the robes worn in the images.

Both a set of ritual bells with dragon motifs in a stand resting on crouched lions and a set of ritual chimes in a stand resting on swans were awe-inspiring for the intricacy of the components.

A piece depicting the emperor with all his many children celebrating the New Year with firecrackers was stunning (and again, by an Italian) in its use of color and composition. The way the father held his infant son reminded us of a classic Madonna and child pose.

On leaving the ornate exhibit, she admitted to an attraction for all the textiles - many of the ceremonial robes were intricate works of art - but said she felt unsatisfied. I knew just how to fix that.

Leading her upstairs, we spent the next hour lost in "Water and Shadow: Kawase Hasui and Japanese Landscape Prints," the show that had bowled me over a couple of weeks ago, here.

Because she's also an artist, her appreciation for the stunning prints was also for the technique involved; his depiction of night time rain and snow was a thing of wonder. Walking beside her as she experienced the exhibit for the first time, I knew instinctively that any dissatisfaction she'd arrived with was long gone.

Hasui's watercolors and woodblock prints from 1917 to 1923 display elements of Monet's water, Cezanne's buildings and Whistler's atmosphere and synthesize them through images of a rapidly eroding Japanese landscape, each more compelling than the last.

Before we were halfway through, she turned to me to say that she intended to come back. Since I was already on my second visit, I understood at once. It's a show that leaves the viewer utterly serene.

That and completely satisfied.

Let's just say had she been a smoker, I think she'd have pulled out a cigarette as we left the museum.

That kind of good.

Step in Time

Along with the decline of the art of conversation, chivalry and western civilization, let's add in parades.

Because they sure ain't what they used to be.

Admittedly, my only frame of reference is the annual Christmas parade, which I see every year as a take my usual morning walk the first Saturday in December. I could walk another route, but why not take in this harbinger of the upcoming season?

The light rain didn't seem to diminish the number of people patiently waiting along Broad Street and it certainly didn't affect the number of food vendors selling crap to children before 11:00, but it did crowd things a bit with so many umbrellas and canopies set up.

I never saw the pathetic Rudolph balloon that wore a Bandaid over its leak the past few years but I did see what looked like a several new balloons, although I wasn't much impressed with the fruitcake or Strawberry Shortcake versions.

When the handlers of the Tweety balloon tried to lower it to go under the traffic lights at Allen Street, they scraped the balloon on the ground for so long that a man behind me warned, "Step back! They're gonna pop that thing!" Instead, I just kept going.

My favorites were the Black Gum Saddle Club riding their steeds down the street and the Wells Fargo carriage looking just like the little metal banks they used to give away. The two Harlem Globetrotters I saw were working the kids on the sidelines magnificently, thrilling them with attention. That was impressive to see.

And, sure I can appreciate a good marching band or ten, although baton twirlers in pink Santa hats don't do anything for me.

When a school's corps of cadets went by, an older began yelling at them to step it up and look sharper like his corps used to do. "Get to it!" he instructed.

But what galled me about the parade was the number of people participating in it with no regard for their role. If you're going to be on a float, you should be waving, not texting.

Just as bad, if not worse, were the people marching in the parade on their phones. I'm sorry, children are sitting on cold curbs in the rain to see a parade - maybe their first or maybe a very big deal to them - so you are like a character in a play or movie to them.

And you don't break character by being on your phone.

No, you should be totally in the moment of the parade or not in it at all. Can't we at least leave the phone alone long enough to give children a Christmas parade memory that doesn't involve watching people look at their screens?

A parade should be about the here and now. Look at me, sounding like  the Grinch of Christmas Past.

Meanwhile, I'll go back to obsessing about the death of artful conversation...

Suitcases of Memories

I'm back from the land of dial-up connections.

Today was part two of helping my parents reestablish some order in the house, another day of being around the most eccentric parents imaginable.

While Dad and I are in their bedroom emptying boxes, Mom comes in clutching a small handful, telling Dad that she has his stuff. What stuff, he wonders, in a house full of stuff?

"Your wallet, your calendar and your Constitution," she says in a tone of voice that says "duh!" Of course my ultra-liberal, political savvy father would keep a small, leather bound book containing the Constitution close at hand. Doesn't everyone's Dad?

Oh, and by the way, my parents really do still have a dial-up connection at their house. It took me hours to type my blog post last night using their computer.

They really do live in their own little world.

While the plumber -an old timer born and raised in the area - was there today, he brought up Hurricane Hazel in 1954, reminiscing about its devastating effect on the low-lying northern neck village where my parents now live. "There were chickens and cars floating down the road," he informed us, leaving me with a visual I'd never before considered.

My Dad tried to match his story by sharing that 2003's Hurricane Isabel had washed up a ham, an Adirondack chair and boxes of frozen peas on their property, but I gave the round to the plumber.

Of course, I didn't tell Dad that.

Driving home on a winding one-lane road, I was behind a blue pickup truck, its bed loaded with red plastic baskets full of oysters, no doubt the result of a full day's work on the gray Rappahannock. Even so, I doubt the oyster man was any more beat than I was after toting boxes of books down two flights, cleaning dozens of windows and moving furniture.

So while I was home in time for some kind of Friday night, I was too late for the book reception I'd hoped to attend and not sure I was up to a 10:00 shoegaze show.

I compromised with an early evening new grass show at Crossroads. While ordering my drink, the lead singer, Kelly, of Church Hill Music Co. informed the crowd, "Oh, there will be dancing tonight," making me glad I'd come. Her all-male band - upright bass, guitar, banjo - looked a little surprised at this news.

Since the show was just starting, I was able to find a seat on the long bench facing the band, making myself comfortable with the cushion I found there. The woman next to me had a camera in hand and was already taking pictures of the musicians.

When a couple of newcomers pulled chairs next to us, she suggested they sit in front of her for a better view. "I've seen them before," she said nonchalantly, admitting to me that she's schlepped instruments for them before.

A groupie, a girlfriend or a wife, take your pick.

One reason I enjoy music at Crossroads is because of how casual the staff is with the band and customers. Like if a server has a beer for a woman in the corner, she'll just hand it to the guitar player and expect him to pass it back to the drinker. We're all in this together, you know?

The band's repertoire was all over the map - Suzy Bogguss, Brandi Carlisle, Shania Twain - but she tied them together by saying, "This song is like so many of ours, about a woman trying to forget a man." Good luck with that, honey.

She looked to be younger than the guys in the band, confirming it when she mentioned "The Goonies" and called it the best movie ever and asked, "Anyone?" No one, absolutely no one. I've never even seen Goonies.

Saying the next song reminded her of the '80s, the woman next to me looked at me and we both laughed. Unless she has toddler memories, Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time" more likely reminds her of movies she's seen about the '80s.

We weren't unkind; we gave her credit for a soulful rendition of "Ain't No Sunshine" and her gender pronoun changes. And my favorite lyric of the evening came from a Trisha Yearwood song, "They Call It Fallin' for a Reason." Can't say I'd ever heard a Trisha Yearwood song before tonight so I was grateful for the exposure.

Tell me what are you supposed to do
When you've been kissed like that?

I did notice that every time she told us that the boys were going to do a number for us and stepped back, the trio kicked into some classic bluegrass, displaying their chops.

A glass got knocked over behind the band but they just played around it, leaving it to be cleaned up during the break. Everyone knows a broom is a buzzkill mid-set.

The guy next to me recognized "Hallelujah" from the first two notes and after a nice cover of it, the singer announced, "That's the best song ever." On the other side of me, the woman leaned in and grinned, "Every song is the best ever."

Dolly got representation with "Jolene" followed by the unlikely "One Love" by U2. No one could say CMC's set list (by the way, charmingly taped to the shoulder of the upright bass) wasn't eclectic and wide-ranging. After doing the Lumineers' ubiquitous "Ho Hey" ("I belong to you, you belong to me, sweetheart"), Kelly said, "That's our hipster song for all you hipsters out there."

She wasn't looking at me.

Because the songs covered so many genres and decades, anyone in the room was bound to like something at some point. When they did John Prine's "Angel from Montgomery," I saw one of the staff singing along to every word as she did her late night duties behind the counter.

There's something right about a world where people sing along to John Prine, don't you think?

Sometimes the guitarist John took over singing duties, say for a Springsteen song or the Beatles' "I've Just Seen a Face," lending a different energy and sound to the group. And while the bassist and banjo player got no mic time, both were talented musicians underpinning every song.

By the time they got to their last two songs, parts of the crowd had come and gone and come again but a core group (including one third of John's extended family, someone joked) held fast, including me and my photographer buddy.

We were rewarded with the one-two punch of Linda Ronstadt's "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" followed by the uplifting "I Can See Clearly Now" to close things out.

I'd been eased out of dial-up land and back into the land of the living. Love you, Mom and Dad, but glad to be back.

Only thing missing was that dancing I was promised.

Fear and Limas

My presence had been requested.

After six months in exile, my parents were finally back in their repaired house and asked me to come help them unpack and organize, apparently the oldest daughter's responsibility.

We spent a lot of the day pulling books out of boxes to go on the shelves of Dad's library, discarding unwanted titles such as "The King: Clark Gable" and "Bastard Out of Carolina" and scads of Readers' Digest anthologies from the '60s.

Who ever thought it was a good idea to read condensed versions of books?

While Mom and I were downstairs polishing silver she never uses, Dad called down wondering where the family coat of arms was. Given how many boxes and piles of stuff still crammed many rooms, it was anyone's guess.

I didn't say that, though. The first thing out of my mouth was, you mean the one that says "Huic habeo non tibi"? Given my lack of schooling in Latin, it came out pretty fractured and my mother - a Catholic school attendee who did take Latin- grimaced at my attempt.

But I was pretty impressed with myself because I hadn't seen that coat of arms in years. How I was able to pull that motto out of my ass the recesses of my brain is beyond me. I remember as a child staring at it with no clue as to what it meant, much less how to pronounce it.

Today I asked. "Have no fear," Dad tells me. So the naked man kneeling atop our family's coat of arms is fearless? Does that make us bold or idiots?

By late afternoon, they were running out of steam and I was ready to escape their overly warm house for a bit. When I announced I was going out for a walk before the sun set, my mother's reaction was typical. "I think you got plenty of exercise today!"

I'll be 90 and she'll still be telling me what I need to do. So I headed out to walk the road alongside the river, savoring the cold air, gray sky and mirror-like reflections of trees and houses on the still water. I even saw an eagle flying overhead.

Back at the ranch, Mom was ready to get in the car and do a few errands before meeting Dad for dinner at a local restaurant. She wanted me to drive since it was getting dark but didn't hesitate to critique my driving while I rolled my eyes.

Maybe I'll have to be 100 before she stops with the mother-knows-best routine.

Arriving at the restaurant before Dad did, she wouldn't so much as order something to drink until he arrived. I, on the other hand, had no such problem.

When he did get there, he was as excited as I was that one of tonight's specials was Brunswick stew, while Mom reminded us that she thinks lima beans taste like green paste. She's been telling us this since we were kids.

We each ordered a bowl anyway and she looked away.

The huge serving of stew was delicious, full of chicken, ham, limas, corn and tomatoes and better than the last batch I'd bought at the Frog Level volunteer fire department, although that jar of stew had been accompanied by an offer to find me a husband, unlike tonight's.

Maybe I should have taken them up on that offer.

Meanwhile, my Mom had decided to order chicken nuggets for one simple reason: she has not once in her life had them. Wasn't entirely sure what they were. And people think I live a sheltered life.

 Overheard at the bar: "He got up and put on Johnny Cash at 9:00 in the morning." I'm not sure what that's indicative of, but it didn't sound good. Maybe she just isn't a Johnny Cash fan.

We finished with a monster slice of coconut cake made by none other than our server, a nonstop smiling presence greeting, serving and chatting up customers.The kind of person who delivers an ice cold beer to my Dad because once, a few years ago, he'd asked for a beer from the bottom of the cooler. She never forgot that request.

Kind of like I never forgot that "huic habeo non tibi" business. Mom's just now eating chicken tenders and I'm just now learning the family motto. And yet, I think I absorbed it by osmosis.

Do I sound like I have any fear?

Waiting Game

Sometimes speed is of the essence. Other times, not so much.

A while back, a friend e-mailed to ask me to meet him for a drink. He caught me just as I'd stopped working so I told him I'd have to shower and get ready, so it would be about an hour and a half.

He made fun of me for months afterward for my pokiness even when I reminded him that women necessarily take longer because we have legs to shave and hair to dry. I also took his mocking to heart and streamlined my process so I can get it done in 45 minutes when necessary.

As it turned out, tonight was one of those times.

By the time I finished writing and looked at the clock, it was 6:45, not a big deal except I had no plans. A quick look at what was happening tonight and I saw that Banks was at the National, mere blocks away. Bingo! I could make this happen.

At 7:45, I left the house shaved and dry headed, wishing I could let my friend know how efficient I've gotten about getting ready. I bought a ticket and found my usual spot in front of the sound booth just as the lights dimmed for local band Cosby (unfortunate name these days).

A large blue-lit "C" graced the side of the stage as the Richmond trio came out, immediately letting the crowd know they were hometown boys. I'd heard of them but my impression had been that they were pretty mainstream, so I hadn't sought them out.

When one of the Cosby brothers pulled out a key-tar, the crowd started yelling, "Key-tar!" in recognition. "We missed the '80s," the guitarist said. "But we have key-tar!"

Although they said it was their third time playing the National this year, they don't seem to have teh hang of it yet. The lead singer was completely without personality, never smiling at the crowd, in fact rarely looking at us, and cutting off his brother every time he tried to banter with the audience.

Worshipers of the '80s, their sound was anthemic and totally absent anything I hadn't heard a zillion times before. What they did have going for them was how good the brothers' voices sounded together.

Before their last song, the singer took off two of the multiple bracelets on his arm and tossed them out to the crowd. They began the last song twice but technical difficulties reared themselves and they finally yelled, "F*ck it" and started packing up.

They didn't seem to mind any more than we did.

During the break, I looked around the room watching it get fuller but seeing no one I knew. Finally, the lovely Anousheh said hello,expressing the same confusion about why more people weren't at this show. "Banks is huge," she said before leaving to find a spot up front. She said she wanted to study her moves before her own next tour.

Some lame DJ from XL102, the sponsor of the show, took the stage to tell a bad joke. "Why doesn't Stevie Wonder see his friends?" she queried the crowd, who yelled out that he was blind. "No, you judgmental assholes, because he's married!" I'm inclined to think a millennial wrote that joke.

Banks' drummer and guitarist/keyboard player took the stage first and began playing before she danced onstage looking like a British 19th century schoolmarm in a black capelet over a long black skirt. Only her pale face and slender forearms showed outside of the voluminous ensemble as she began singing "Alibi."

Baby, I tied
I promise I'm usually better than this

Under five banners spelling out BANKS hanging from the light rigging, she proceeded to sing her downtempo R & B-laced pop while prowling around the stage pretty much non-stop. Her hands were the most expressive part of her body, floating around like a dancer's in graceful perpetual motion.

She shared that her Dad's side of the family is from Virginia before launching into the title track from her new album. "I think every single woman is a goddess and this song is called "Goddess." The devoted fans down in front sang along.

"I'm so glad my album is out. It felt like those songs have been in a little box for so long. This one is "F*ck Em, Only We Know"

We're just like magnets, baby, hypnotized,
Even addicted to your grumpy face

It was obvious Banks was feeling the powerful thrill of an adoring audience, often sticking the microphone out toward the crowd so she could hear them sing her lyrics. When she instructed, "Every single person in this room, put up your hands," they obeyed and swayed as if under a spell.

As she sang, she'd prance backwards into the shadows between the other two musicians and then sidle forward back into the light. And she wasn't hesitant to touch the hands of people in the front rows. "I love you!" a guy called to her as moved to the keyboard. "Love you back!" she said, no doubt delighting him.

Considering I went to the show having heard only one Banks' song, I was unprepared for the range of emotion and power she could alternate with sweetness and sorrow.

Saying, "You were perfect," she sang the terrific and soulful "Begging for Thread," a song that lays bare a woman hurt by her man and left the stage, saying goodnight.

The devoted crowd chanted till she returned and asked, "Do you guys know Drake? I want to do a cover of a song of his I've been listening to non-stop." It was an interesting choice because "The Motion" sounded like exactly he kind of beat-based R & B slow burner she writes but from the man's point of view.

She closed with "Stick" while moving along the edge of the stage running her hand up against the fingertips of anyone with outstretched hands, giving us one last chance to experience her vulnerable sound.

Her set lasted just a bit longer than it had taken me to get ready to go see her. Still, you want to look like a goddess when you go to see one.

Understanding the Melody

Today's weather was the evil twin of yesterday.

I wish I'd written that, but I didn't, I just read it and thought it was brilliant. Despite the cold, the rain and the persistent gray, I walked to Church Hill and back. And then promptly called a Church Hill friend to suggest we do dinner.

After getting so much done this afternoon that I was drunk on my productivity, I was ready for a good night. Friend picked me up in the fog and we spent several pleasurable hours catching up and chowing down.

Since I'd last seen him, he'd become an official old man - advised by his doc to take meds for high blood pressure and cholesterol and to get more exercise. Although he'd picked up the prescriptions, his plan was to hang on for a few years and then ignore the doctor's advice like his 80-year old mother does about her health.

This seems to be a trait that runs in middle-aged men. Tragic, really.

We compared notes on the InLight installations we'd seen in Monroe Park a few weeks ago, although he'd missed my favorite, the candlelit interior of the cathedral, a breathtaking sight I will never forget. But he had pictures of himself with various light pieces and I didn't, so he had better show and tell.

I tried to convince him to join me for a show afterwards, but he pulled another old man move, citing an early morning and dropping me off at Gallery 5 so he could go home and to bed. It was 8:00.

We all do what we have want to do.

Technically, the show was free, but I made a donation at the door because - I'm getting on my soapbox here - people deserve to be paid for sharing their talent and went inside.

There, I was unexpectedly greeted by Richmond Graphics' vintage poster show from the '70s and '80s. Besides the quality of the posters graphically (nothing computer generated here), it was amazing to see the shows that passed through VCU before I got here.

Like Nils Lofgren at the Empire Theater April 30, 1977 - tickets were $2 for VCU students and $4 for the public. While this poster probably only resonates with Springsteen fans these days, I was that girl who had Nils' first album and played it to death. Even bought a replacement copy of it two years ago.

Apparently VCU's Halloween Dance was a big deal back in the day. One year the Talking Heads played the new gym and another the Ramones played the old gym. Those must have been some dances.

Since I hadn't been expecting art tonight, I was pretty thrilled with such a stellar start to my evening.

Inside, I found a place to stand next to the radiator (merely warm, not hot, as I would have wished) and scanned the room for familiar faces. Slim pickins for friends tonight.

Manatree started playing minutes after 8, a fact I appreciated since so many shows punish the punctual and reward the tardy. I was amused to see that the bass player had draped his "Bieber" jacket across his amp.

Looking at these impossibly young musicians, I found something awfully familiar about them despite being quite sure that I'd never seen Manatree before.

Then it hit me. These guys used to call themselves Herro Sugar and I'd seen them many times, always impressed with their musicianship, energy and short, fast songs. A rose by any other name and all that.

At one point, singer Jack said, "Tristan, to my right over here, is going to sing the next one and do a fine job, too." The bass players crossed his fingers at this. For the record, Tristan did an outstanding job with his song.

During the slower song "Children," the bass player and drummer began fighting with plastic swords behind Jack as he sung, eventually laying down their arms and playing music again. It looked like everyone was having a great time.

Who knows why they changed their name (there couldn't have been multiple Herro Sugars, I wouldn't think)? All that matters is that they continue to develop into a band worth seeing.

During the break, I walked back over to look at the posters, overhearing an intense conversation. "You understand the melody in a more sophisticated manner," one intense bearded guy said to another. If you say so.

Back at my radiator, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned to find my favorite dulcitar player at my side. He'd played Gallery 5 just last night but I'd missed the show so it was a treat to see him tonight. Actually, it's a treat to see him any time.

The next band was Recluse Raccoon and consisted of simply a singer/guitarist and drummer. Clearly we were in for something completely different.

He had a fine voice and well-written sings but I couldn't put my finger on what the sound reminded me of. About the closest I could come was a stripped down Band of Horses or Fleet Foxes, no doubt because of that voice and dense guitar sound.

When they finished, we were joined by a bass player I've seen many times but never met. I told her how much I'd enjoyed her new project at the Sound of Music show last week and she looked pleased. Before that, I'd only seen her playing in Fear of Music, a cover band.

Like us, she'd come out for a good show on a Tuesday night. No more of a reason than that was required. The three of us talked about what a great scene Richmond has and why it's completely unnecessary to move to a bigger city to make it. Witness all the people who do and end up moving back. We're just saving ourselves the trip.

The main event was NYC's Friend Roulette, a collective of guitarist, bassist, drummer, singer/violinist and (as I learned tonight from my musician friend) an EWI player. It looked like an electronic clarinet to me but was explained as a breath controller, essentially an electronic wind machine with a synthesizer inside.

The result was almost chamber pop, with a dreamgaze element. I'm a sucker for a female-fronted band especially when you throw in lush, dense music too. Songs tended to be soundscapes, long and meandering journeys for singer Julia to work her vocal wiles on the crowd. I succumbed immediately. "Stoned Alone" was particularly appealing.

Taken from life experience? I guess I'll never know.

But I could have killed the cutesy couple who planted themselves directly in my sight line just as their set began because they were either talking or sucking face while I tried to see around them.

Matt, who played the EWI and came across as the bandleader, thanked us for coming. "This is the start of a two week vacation for us playing music every night," he said excitedly. That's about the best way to look at a tour I've heard.

Standing there against the radiator listening to this eclectic and dreamy-sounding band seemed like proof positive of what a great place Richmond is.

Oh, excuse me, does your city have free concerts with three excellent bands on a Tuesday night? In a city where you don't have to work two jobs to support yourself? Where you can actually make a difference in what happens?

Too bad. It must be the evil twin of Richmond.

Building a Dynasty

You think you know how things will go, but you never really do.

I thought I'd sleep in like I always do, but I awoke at 7:44 and never got back to sleep. Might as well get up.

My reward for not getting up at my usual time was a day already so gorgeous that I opened all the windows before I even made breakfast.

I got dressed for my walk as if it were December 1st, got as far as the front door and came back upstairs to change into shorts and a t-shirt. With the sun already making me warm, I headed over to Oregon Hill to pick up the North Bank trail to Texas Beach.

For a change, I came back not along the river but on South Lombardy Street, a stretch I'd never been on. Of note was a street where every street light had a solar collector, a pile of fragrant new wood-smelling roof trusses in front of a house being built and the elaborate Petronius Jones Park which I'd never laid eyes on.

Walking back toward J Ward, I was plotting how to best use this gorgeous day. A drive to Merroir for lunch? A book in the park? Some gardening? How to make the most of 71 degrees in December?

It didn't matter. I got home to e-mails from three editors and spent most of the afternoon addressing their needs. "Stamping on ants," as a former boss used to call it. By the time they'd been satisfied, it was time to shower and go do an interview.

But when that was finished, I was free. My first stop was 8 1/2 for dinner - roasted red peppers and Mozzarella followed by a white pizza - which I did get to eat outside to enjoy the last of today's warmth.

With serious garlic breath, I headed to Balliceaux, parking five blocks away (parking restrictions until 9) but enjoying every step of the walk to get there, even if I did pass far too many houses already decorated for Christmas. The sidewalks were alive with dog walkers and joggers sweating almost as much as I had this morning.

Inside, I joined the line to pay my five bucks (to be donated to Richmond Conexiones) to hear strangers and friends over-share at Secretly Y'All, Tell Me a Story, with tonight's theme being "Plot Twist."

You have to understand, I go to this event because I am fascinated to hear strangers (and occasionally friends) share stories I have no business hearing. Simply put, I am nosy.

The crowd was huge although I saw very few people I knew. Okay, less socializing than usual. But as a long-time regular, I know enough to arrive before 7 so at least I'm assured of a seat. Let the first-timers sit on the floor.

And then we began with the plot twists, so many plots twists.

The first storyteller was Mack, a tattooed hairdresser whose true love was Shakespeare, sharing "I Owe You a Bullet." His saga involved taking his Dad's gun apart in 7th grade and putting it back together incorrectly.

This only became an issue after his Dad took in Steve, a recovering heroin addict, who isolated his Dad once he began dying and then stole and pawned many of his dad's possessions after the funeral, causing Mack to hate him. Back on heroin, Steve decided to end his life using the malfunctioning gun. See the plot twist there?

"The one person I'd most like to kill and I saved his life," Mack concluded. It was a fierce start to the evening.

Next came Sylvia telling "Steering Wheels and Circles" about her belligerent Dad and how he was always yelling at her, whether she was driving the boat and he was trying to water ski behind it or when he was teaching her to drive (and wasting 36 cents of rubber) and she hit pot holes.

After her Dad died and was cremated, she picked up his ashes to drive them home and had to brake suddenly, sending the box with Dad inside careening around the back seat. "He didn't say a word," she said to laughter. After that, she swerved on purpose just because she knew he couldn't yell at her anymore.

Katelyn's "How Did I Get Here?" was about her bad ass stepmom Anne whom she worshiped as a 14 year old when she saw her take a handful of pills with no water ("Why do you think men like me so much?" she asked the traumatized teen. Awkward).

She recalled how much fun she saw her Dad have with Anne, who called him the great love of her life. Ah, but Anne strayed and had an affair with Glen after he presented her with a 72-page PowerPoint presentation. End of marriage.

Then Anne got sick and sicker with ALS and died and Katelyn was asked to speak at the funeral. "Glen showed his 72 page PowerPoint and I wanted to scream at him that this was about Anne, not how big his penis was. That's what the PowerPoint was about," she shared.

Wow.

Host Colin got up to introduce the next storyteller, saying drolly, "I wooed my girlfriend with a PowerPoint presentation but it was only two pages." Ba dum bum.

Shannon told "Cop Land on Repeat," about getting the call that his dad was dead while he'd been watching Cop Land on the IFC channel. FedEx delivered the ashes which Shannon managed to spill on the kitchen counter, a fact he wasn't eager to share with his roommates.

What helped him deal with the pain of losing his Dad was telling stories - at Richmond Comedy Coalition, at a pocket park -like the one he told tonight. He called 2014 the best and worst year of his life because although he'd lost a parent, he'd found beauty in life.

"It's so easy to be cynical," he said sagely. "There's no such thing as guilty pleasures, just missed opportunities and regrets."

Now there's a twist.

Austin's "The Awesome Story" happened after a night of cocaine and drinking Tuaca when he and a friend got home and found a possum in the dog's mouth. Managing to remove it, they saw it was half dead and decided to finish it off with a ceramic boot planter.

"We didn't realize it was playing possum. Apparently that's a real thing," he said to much hooting and hollering. After beating it with the sharp end of a tiki torch, he tried throwing it over the fence but twice it hit his brother's girlfriend's window.

His conclusion was, "Don't do drugs, guys."

Richard's story, "The Rose City" involved a low point in his life with an aborted move to Portland ("Before "Portlandia." It was a northwest backwater"), marrying a girl because they challenged each other to and winding up in a mental institution ("Westbrook, it's not there anymore") because he needed sleep.

Fortunately, at 47, he has since met his current wife and is not crazy. "Don't let people tell you that you can't run away from your problems. You can for a while."

During the intermission, hosts Kathleen and Colin told us that tonight was the fourth anniversary of Secretly Y'All and that in that time, they'd raised nearly $10,000 for various charities and non-profits. I like to think my regular attendance and all those $5 contributions helped that a little.

A friend came over to chat, asking why I didn't get up and share a story. "You blog every night," he reminded me. Not the same, I reminded him. "Just cover your face while you talk." Nope.

The two people sitting next to me were considering leaving during the break, but I warned them that often the best stories come from the hat when anyone can put their name in for a shot at being called. They stayed.

First up was Herschel with one of his distinctive rambling and tangent-heavy memories. This one involved running into a friend at Balliceaux ("Men come here because the women are attractive") before he was headed to an afterparty at Tavares' house.

On their way to the car, a man asked to use his phone and stole it. Over the next two days, he went through six cell phones trying to find a replacement for his stolen one. Apparently, Craig's List and soldiers shipping out the next day to Afghanistan aren't the best sources of replacement phones.

"I Will Survive" was Jessie's title and she began by telling us she was a confident woman who loves life and singing karaoke, even when sober.

Problems arose, however, when her boyfriend cheated on her and she found out from a woman at the bar he was cheating with. Sure, she threw a glass of water in his face but she also sought karaoke therapy.

At her favorite karaoke bar ("I'd built a dynasty of five years at this bar and he'd lived in this town for six moths"), she sees him come in and responds by singing "I Will Survive," pointing at him the whole while. She even sang part of it tonight.

"It was cathartic," she concluded. "He moved after that. Left the city." Damn, girl, well done.

Denise's story involved her last night at home before leaving for college, cough syrup loopiness and going dancing. Seems she ended up sleepwalking to her parents' bed, waking up with Mom and Dad beside her. "Honey, we're going to miss you, too," Mom says. She's since given up cough syrup entirely.

Somehow, and there's no good explanation for why this happens given the randomness of a drawing, the best story was saved for last. Rocky was a first timer and had assumed that the stories after intermission were somehow lesser storytellers than those in the first half. He'd already seen that that wasn't the case so he was a tad nervous.

Raised in a small (population 170 then, 140 now) town between Missouri (he pronounced it "Missoura") and Iowa where, according to him, gender roles were set in stone.

While he knew that it was traditional for 7 year old boys to get a gun for their birthday, he wanted roller skates. "I was the kid who wanted to sing the Snow White song to get birds to land on my fingers," he said sincerely. "F*ckers never did."

When a neighbor gave him a ride from school, he was asked how many quail he'd shot so far. None. "What kind of boy don't hunt?" the man had asked him. "I don't know, you tell me, " the young Rocky said, honestly curious. "I asked for roller skates."

But when his birthday rolled around, he saw a long box and hoped it was roller skates that needed to be assembled. When it was a gun, his disappointment showed and his Dad's face fell so he pretended to love it. Ricky's voice broke as he told this part of the story.

While his Dad plowed, the 7 year old pretended to hunt, telling his Dad he'd shot four birds but when asked to produce them, he couldn't and his Dad understood. "You don't want to kill anything?" he asked. No, he didn't. "What do you want?" Roller skates.

Three days later, red, white and blue roller skates arrived at the farm.

The applause was thunderous for Rocky's story. Between the telling and the tale, it had hit everyone in the room right between the eyes, which is the whole point of a Secretly Y'All evening.

Plot twists, we've all got them.

Walking to the front room to use the loo before I left, I ran into the photographer just back from the beach and enjoyed catching up with him. He wants to start a movement to add some lighter food to the Thanksgiving menu. I'd started with a big salad this year for the first time and loved the addition.

Waiting to use the facilities, a man asked if I was the end of the line and joined me. It took him no time to start quizzing me so I answered.

Do you know that the bathroom door opens in? Cause I once stood here for five minutes thinking it was occupied. I do. But I saw two women go in.
Did you see "Pulp Fiction"? I did.
Then you know what two girls do in the bathroom? I do.
Where do you live? Jackson Ward.
Where do you live? The Warsaw.
What do you do? I'm a freelance writer.
What do you do? I'm an architect.
You know, you're gorgeous. Even better, I'm fast in the bathroom.

On my way out, I stopped to say hello to tonight's DJ, the multi-talented "Can't Stop, Won't Stop" Reggie Pace, whom I've known for at least six years now. In no time at all, we got into how welcoming Richmond's music scene is, how many free shows there are and where No BS is playing New Year's Eve.

When he brought up a recent article I'd written, I explained that I try to write about people and events that I think are worth knowing, trying to stir up interest. "Tastemaker," he proclaimed. Just sharing what I enjoy. "Tastemaker," he confirmed.

When I went to say goodnight, he extended his hand, changed his mind and said he wanted a hug. First a compliment from a stranger, then a hug from a friend. I was liking the twists my plot was taking tonight.

There's no such thing as guilty pleasures, just missed opportunities and regrets. I want neither.