There she was: the love of my life — the woman who helped me see through the painting, so to speak — dazed and bleeding on the floor of The 5 Spot. Panic gripped my brain, blood trickled from a gaping wound in her head, and a murmur went through the crowd as everyone turned their attention from the stage to the woman splayed on the ground. Frantic thoughts buffaloed through my consciousness: Was she OK? How did this happen? Were we gonna miss Jonathan Richman's second set?
She had to have known, even in her concussed state, that my loyalties would be torn. She may be my one true love but he, on the other hand, is Jonathan motherfucking Richman, patron saint of nerdy punks and quirky pop tunes. The first time she went to my parents' house — back in North Reading, Mass., right off 128, just past the Stop & Shop, natch — she had to take the very lengthy, very detailed "Modern Lovers Walking Tour." She knew that Richman is my Elvis, the performer who had most shaped my life and my skewed views on love and romance, and who taught me almost every trick I know when it comes to wooing a lady.
We went to Government Center — we didn't put any stamps on any ledgers — and we'd been through the Lonely Financial Zone by the sea. We had been to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, though we didn't have the money to see the room where they keep the Cézanne. We had walked through the Fenway in the afternoon, our hearts in our hands. We talked about how we would grow dignified and old, and how nobody ever called Pablo Picasso an asshole. We walked around on a summer morning, bop-she-bop-she-bop, enjoying the breeze and the smells of the dawning, bop-she-bop-she-bop — if ya catch my drift.
This woman — the one on the floor who couldn't connect her butt to a stool after only one beer — had listened to countless discussions between my roommates and me about the virtues of the 1973 demos with John Cale, released as The Modern Lovers on Beserkley, versus the Kim Fowley demos, better known as the Original Modern Lovers even though they were not in fact the original Modern Lovers. (It could be argued that even though the "Original" lineup was in fact the second lineup, it was original compared to the Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers lineup — hence the countless discussions.)
She'd endured repeated viewings of Richman's fine, fine filmography — though, to be honest, she never did see Kingpin, the Amish bowling epic with Randy Quaid and Woody Harrelson, as the cinematic masterpiece it is, but you can't really hold that against her. She'd spent every spring since we'd met being serenaded to the tune of "Hey There Little Insect" and "Buzz Buzz Buzz," Richman's stellar tributes to phylum Anthropoda. She even translated his forays into rock 'n' roll en español for me — though, truth be told, even my monolinguistic brain could probably figure out what's going on in songs like "No Más Por Fun," "El U.F.O. Man" and "Es Como El Pan." But it's the thought that counts.
She had been on hundreds of trips to the grocery store and endured searingly embarrassing renditions of "Rockin' Shopping Center" and "Abominable Snowman in the Market" as we strolled the aisles of Kroger — let's just say the housewives hadn't seen anything like that before. I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say that she had listened to so much Jonathan Richman that she wouldn't have been surprised if the Martian Martians rode up on their Martian bikes. (And she was so smart she could have told you what flavor of ice cream they like.) Certainly this woman, who shared this obsession by osmosis, would understand that I couldn't leave the bar without hearing "I Was Dancing in the Lesbian Bar," right?
All of this — from the first time I heard "Roadrunner" on a Sex Pistols bootleg to the first time this beautiful, bleeding lady and I drove down Route 128 in the dark — all of this flashed before my eyes in the seconds after she hit the floor. But as in a Jonathan Richman song writ large, there were angels watching over me. How could that be so, how could that really be? Well, they weren't angels, actually — they were bartenders. Todd and Travis were calm, cool and collected where we were dazed and/or panicked. They were clear-headed enough to remind me that even if I did miss "Dancing in the Lesbian Bar" that night, Richman was playing again the next. They called the ambulance, cleaned up the blood and sent me on my lovesick way to the Centennial emergency room with the Modern Lover's classic "Hospital" stuck in my noggin. Fortunately, my female protagonist was just there for a head injury and not a head-shrinker — thanks to Todd and Travis, there was no question she would let me back into her life.
Twenty-four hours and seven stitches later we were back on the East side, undeterred by the prior evening's bad fortune and acutely aware of the distance between our domes and the ground at all times. And though it might sound horrible, all the blunt trauma to my true love's skull was worth it: If her ass cheeks hadn't missed that bar seat, I would have seen only two sets from my own personal Elvis — instead, I got to see three. This year, we'll be there for all four, and we promise neither of us will end up on the floor.
Email music@nashvillescene.com.
