but his friends call him karl

So, I may be a little behind on my work right now, but it was worth it to see Paul & Storm/Jonathan Coulton (early show) at Schuba's tonight.

I'm a longtime P&S fan, from back in the days when they were merely half of DaVinci's Notebook, but their music has gotten away from me--how is it that they have two albums out that I don't own? I walked away with Gumbo Pants, but News to Us will have to wait. And the liner notes? Are totally a who's who of people I know, famous ("Altman, gangliest of Jews") and non (Gordon!). Anyway, they were entertaining as always, playing my favorite commercial jingles ("...filled with shame--and cookie dough"), as well as some new (to me) ones ("Your Town," "Count to Ten," "Nugget Man"), and some old-but-finally-recorded ("Captain's Wife's Lament," arrrrr). And they did impressions, too, like James Taylor on fire, Aaron Neville losing his parking space at the mall... and, no joke, Michael McDonald as your server at Applebee's. This is a crazy, awesome, coincidental, so smooth world we live in.

It was my first time seeing JoCo, hopefully not my last--he's pretty awesome. Most notably, he played "Code Monkey," and THIS GIRL WAS THERE. DOING THE DANCE. ONSTAGE:



Paul commented that if someone filmed the performance and posted it on YouTube, perhaps the internet would explode? I believe it might. Watch out, kids. Anyway. We got a lot of favorites, including "I Feel Fantastic," "Skullcrusher Mountain," "Chiron Beta Prime," "Creepy Doll," "Re: Your Brains" (which I'm listening to in French at the moment), "Mr. Fancypants," and of course, "IKEA," which reminded me of my last excursion to the land of meatballs and magic, and this photo I've forgotten to post:



...yeah, maybe I am the target audience for these guys. Anyway, I laughed, lots and lots and lots, and now I have to get back to the net neutrality albatross paper that's hanging around my neck. Word on the street is that there might be pancakes to be had tomorrow if I wake up early enough, so that's incentive to get this thing done in the next couple hours. If I can resist the urge to make a half-monkey, half-pony monster, that is...