I Suck at Blogging
I am not dead, I am just resting. Sometimes I don’t have anything to say, or at least anything that’s longer than 140 characters. My life has been a bit chaotic recently because earlier this year we moved into this new house, and over the last few months there’s been a lot of construction – drywall, tiles, table saws, plaster dust everywhere. I have no closet or real bedroom. Since April my wardrobe has consisted of whatever was in the one box of clothes that I unpacked and put next to the bed, which is in the room that is supposed to be the living room, but right now is the fake bedroom and soon will be my fake studio. All my gear is still mostly in boxes, though some of it is piled and tangled up on a desk that is covered with a plastic sheet. So that’s been nice. Not really the most inspiring environment for a sensitive creative soul like myself. Those of you who have lived through construction will perhaps understand: the chaos seeps into everything, so that every aspect of my life feels MAKESHIFT. Also the children repeatedly need to be fed and bathed and dressed and soothed, and they are frequently covered in plaster dust, or drinking paint, or eating drywall screws.
But I want to tell you a few things. Recent (and not so recent) shows have all been wonderful. And though I didn’t say anything about it here, the UK trip was pretty fantastic too. The last show of the year was last week in Brooklyn, and I look back now on yet another amazing stretch of touring, generously supported by all you people who continue to surprise me by showing up at all. I have made it through another year pretending to be a rock star. Thank you.
Thanks also for participating in my poll about the cruise idea. The investigation continues, but I can tell you that based on all of your very helpful feedback I’m now looking at options that are not as long and expensive. This means it probably won’t be this Summer, and it probably won’t be out of Seattle, so you can all resume planning your Summer vacations without me. I would really like to do it, I just need to find the right situation. I’ll keep you all posted and give you plenty of advanced warning.
Already it’s time to start talking about touring plans for 2010, and if you look over there on the shows page you’ll see it starts in mid January with Orlando, St. Petersburg, Atlanta, and then continues with San Francisco, and then Dallas, Austin, (Houston?), and LA and Seattle and Portland and yet another run at Vancouver. I’ll write a proper mass email soon, and of course you can subscribe to the mailing list or the RSS feed so that you are certain to hear about all the details.
Some new songs would be nice, don’t you think? It’s been a long dry spell for me and I’m not sure exactly why. No doubt part of it is the seeping chaos situation described above, but I’m sure it’s more complicated than that. I look back at some of the Thing a Week songs that happened in spite of whatever inconvenient circumstances I was dealing with at the time, and many of them are much better than they have any right to be. A few of them are great. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that I’ll ever get into that headspace again, that desperate, wide-open, WTF state of mind that leads to something like “Re: Your Brains,” which quite honestly I can no longer remember writing. The more distant those acts of creation become, the more they seem like accidents or miracles, things that happened to somebody else. It’s daunting sometimes. I worry that I can’t compete with me. And I know the way through it is to write, or as Merlin says, to make the clackity noise. If there’s one thing I learned from Thing a Week it’s that, but my lizard brain continues to resist the solution. And I can come up with any number of excuses, but they aren’t real; I haven’t been writing because I haven’t been writing. The why of it isn’t nearly as important as the physical act of sitting down and getting to work.
Whoops, gotta go, Robocop 2 is on!
JoCo Cruise Crazy
Thanks for all the comments on the cruise idea everyone, it’s incredibly helpful to be able to get such direct feedback from such a large group of people. I’m still working on this, trying to figure out the best way to make it happen, so please understand that this was just one possibility. It may end up being a different boat, destination, time of year, price, etc., but this seemed like a decent place to start taking everyone’s temperature. Obviously I can’t pick a location that works for everybody. I hear you that cost is a factor and I’m not surprised – that’s a hefty chunk of change. We’re trying to find the right balance between high awesomeness and low cost, and that means dealing with a lot of details and possibilities. Stay tuned. Remember this is all HYPOTHETICAL.
In the meantime, I wanted to mention a couple other shows that just got set up. We added Pittsburgh in December:
Saturday December 5 at 8 PM
Rex Theater (Pittsburgh, PA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://bit.ly/3e75SA
And already plans are being made for 2010 (finally, Florida):
Thursday January 14 at 7 PM
The Social (Orlando, FL) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://bit.ly/3Teu0M
No service charge if you buy at the box office M, W, F: (407) 246-1419
$1 service charge if you buy at Park Avenue CDs: http://www.parkavecds.com
Friday January 15 at 8 PM
Nova 535 (St. Petersburg, FL) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://bit.ly/2Zr956
Saturday January 16 at 8 PM
Variety Playhouse (Atlanta, GA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://bit.ly/1Wfbbo
$2.25 service charge if you buy through the Variety Playhouse Ticket Club: http://bit.ly/1Wfbbo
No service charge if you buy with cash at the box office ($1 for credit cards): http://www.variety-playhouse.com/tickets.html
Friday January 22 at 9 PM
Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, CA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://bit.ly/3uE2HO
$1 service charge when you buy at venue box office: http://www.gamh.com/tickets/
Saturday January 23 at 9 PM
Great American Music Hall (San Francisco, CA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://bit.ly/2PAq8E
$1 service charge when you buy at venue box office: http://www.gamh.com/tickets/
Friday February 5 at 8 PM
Antone’s (Austin, TX) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://bit.ly/mhGdL
Hypothetical Question
Let’s just say that sometime Summerish 2010 there was a cruise. It lasted a week, it left from Seattle and went to Alaska and back. The first four days featured all sorts of activities and performances involving Jonathan Coulton and his circle of famous entertainment powerhouse friends – kind of a Jonathan Coulton and friends convention. And then lets say the official activities ended and there were another three days of just cruise. And let’s say that it cost around $1300-1500 depending on how nice a room you wanted. What would you say to that?
JoCo in the Midwest, UK, Ireland
Three notes:
First I must say thank you to They Might Be Giants and especially our Chicago audience for letting us do our Flood show at Park West. I think it went very well – I know that Paul and Storm and I certainly had a blast, and it even felt kind of important or historic or something by the time we were done. Many have asked about us making a recording for sale, and currently we don’t have any plans to do this, it feels better as a special live thing. But you know, never say never…
Second, I often get complaints about Ticketmaster service charges. You should know that I also find them inappropriately high, and that I and my booking agent try to avoid them when possible, but ultimately it’s not up to us. It really comes down to the venues and/or promoters, and sometimes we don’t have a lot of choice in what venue we book in a particular town. BUT: when we can, we try to get the venue to sell tickets at their box office for a smaller service charge (ideally, zero). I’ve indicated where that’s the case here and on my Shows page, so read carefully if you want to save a few bucks.
Third, the UK/Ireland trip is mostly together now, we’ve even ordered the new UK/Ireland tour shirt, which we’ll reveal later. There are two dates that refuse to resolve themselves: The Bongo Club in Edinburgh on Nov 9, and Oran Mor in Glasgow on Nov 11. There seems to be some sort of mixup with the promoter, I’m not sure exactly what the problem is. We’re doing our best to resolve it, and I’m pretty sure those two dates are going to happen, but don’t hold me to it.
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JoCo wraps up the Fall in the midwest:
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Friday October 23 at 7 PM
Beachland Ballroom (Cleveland, OH) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://tinyurl.com/nqelmy
NO SERVICE CHARGE if you buy with cash at the box office: (216) 383-1124.
Sunday October 25 at 8 PM
Majestic Theater (Madison, WI) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://tinyurl.com/yjuyq6l
Monday October 26 at 7.30 PM
Guthrie Theater (Minneapolis, MN) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://tinyurl.com/yexom7c
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JoCo Visits the UK and Ireland:
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Friday November 6 at 8 PM
Academy 2 (Dublin, IE) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://tinyurl.com/ykmyhjo
Sunday November 8 at 7 PM
The Bongo Club (Edinburgh, UK) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://bit.ly/2uDl1d
Tuesday November 10 at 7 PM
Classic Grand (Glasgow, UK) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://bit.ly/4Ak6WK
Thursday November 12 at 7.30 PM
Manchester Academy 3 (Manchester, UK) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://tinyurl.com/y8ptots
Friday November 13 at 7 PM
Union Chapel (London, UK) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://tinyurl.com/yhtgmf4
Sunday November 15 at 8 PM
The Tunnels Bristol (Bristol, UK) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://tinyurl.com/34moxs
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And still there is more:
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Thursday December 3 at 7 PM
World Café Live (Philadelphia, PA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://tinyurl.com/ndjahp
Friday December 4 at 8 PM
Rams Head Tavern (Annapolis, MD) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://tinyurl.com/n3jj83
ONLY $2 SERVICE CHARGE if you buy tickets at the box office: (410)-244-1131.
Saturday December 5 at 8 PM
Rex Theater (Pittsburgh, PA) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://bit.ly/3e75SA
Wednesday December 9 at 7 PM
Music Hall of Williamsburg (Brooklyn, NY) with Paul and Storm
Tickets: http://tinyurl.com/yk2jxge
NO SERVICE CHARGE if you buy tickets at the Mercury Lounge box office: (212) 260-4700.
And that is the truth.
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