Jonathan Coulton

John Hodgman + They Might Be Giants / Weird Al Yankovic.

Work out this equation and you get Jonathan Coulton. Witty lyrics, but not clownish. Thoughtful subjects, and not obnoxious. He had a good line at last Friday's performance at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA: a young man in his early teen years in the 80s reading Omni magazine. Songs about moving to suburbia and owning a Shopvac; a love song between Pluto and its moon; mad scientist love and the stretch one takes to make a gift for his love: a half-monkey, half-pony monster. All done with dry wit and humor and touching sentimentality.

It was quite possibly the most entertaining evening I've had at a musical performance in a long, long time.

Here are some videos from my seat at the performance. I hope you enjoy. JoCo rocks!!!

Colonial Williamsburg

I fulfilled my inner (and outer) history geek today by spending the entire day walking the streets of Colonial Williamsburg.  It is so awesome.  I love it.  I donate every year to the foundation, but inexplicably it has been YEARS since I've paid a visit.  WTF?  No more.  I'm here, and will make a concerted effort to return more often.

Took a lot of pictures.  A LOT.  Not really much to go into detail here on the blog.  The photos tell the tale.  A great day exploring buildings, interacting with interpreters, eating tavern food, buying history souvenirs, then finishing it all with a harpsichord performance inside the Colonial Capitol building.

A great day.  A great, great day.

Summer vacation 2009 begins

Friday night you saw I took a drive down to Charlotte for a concert.  Saturday begins in earnest a week-long vacation to points northward.  But first, visitors....

Fraternity brother "Art" and Shelley and their kids stopped in town on their way home to Ohio. I'm starting a week off, they're completing one. They went down to Myrtle Beach last weekend; then on their way home, after 4 hours of driving, they stopped for lunch in Greensboro. I really had nowhere to be, so I delayed my own vacation departure until they got into town and we had some lunch. On the menu: Natty Greene's for some good food and good beer. It was great to see them! Always great to catch up with good friends, even if they're just passing through town. After two hours of kibitzing and hanging out, they went north and a smidge west, I went north and a smidge east.

My destination? Colonial Williamsburg.  Time to cash in some of that "hey I donate to your foundation" capital.  My room?  The Williamsburg Lodge.  Just gorgeous.




After settling in, it was a late dinner at one of the few "beer nerd" spots in town: Green Leafe Cafe.  Dominion Brewing's Oak Barrel Stout on-tap?  Yes, please.  Not as good as it once was (remember the brewery tour, James?) but still pretty tasty.  Sadly, it's only a matter of time until it disappears with the sale of the brewpub to Fordham, a subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch.  Yuck.

A good day.  And a busier one in store for tomorrow with a full day planned in the historic area.  Awesome!

We have a title.

From the artist herself:

No your heart will never be the same....it will be better. Sometimes you are asked to pivot...your choice or not and I firmly believe that one door slams shut another will open wide. those shapes are your pivot.

Pivot.


Lara, thank you. I love it.

Arts patron seeks commissioned piece

You may have heard of Lara before on these pages. She lives in James and Monica's neighborhood up in Alexandria. During my visits up there I've met her and become friends. She's a free spirit and creative and doesn't generally live life, she LIVES it. I first met her drinking James's homebrew in his backyard and found her to be a lot of fun.

Lara is an artist. Her locale is known as doubleWide art studio. Her pieces seem to JUMP out at me. The colors she uses are, as Dave Matthews screams in Grey Street, bold and bright. The textures are intriguing.

I now have a bare spot above the couch in the living room. A blank canvas so to speak. One of Lara's pieces pictured to the left, J, really "did it" for me and spoke to me. Just for kicks I asked if she ever sold her creations, and if so what the price would be for J. It really wouldn't fit the bill as J is a mere 8x11...inches. Not quite the size I'm looking for to fill the space.

BUT, she said, she could create a brand new piece for me. Just for me using J as a guideline and muse. SERIOUSLY? That would be so COOL! No one's ever made a custom art piece for me, let alone personally knowing the artist who created it from nothing.

Sunday I got the call from a paint-splattered Lara: the piece is done and do I like it? Do I like it? I took one look at it via our cellphones and again online to arrive at one conclusion: I absolutely LOVE it.

A personally commissioned 4' x 3' piece of art to go above the couch and stir up emotion, conversation, and generally just some plain old contemplation. It's untitled as of now, and the yellow may need to be touched up as it dries, but it is something created from the heart of an artist just for me. I can't wait to get up there on my next weekend off (that doesn't involve Cleveland Indians baseball) to pick it up.

What do you think of it?

Oh, and as an aside, she's throwing in J as an extra for me to give it a good home as well.

Inauguration Week Day Eight - Sun 1/25

Back to work on Monday, so it was a noonish departure from Alexandria to return back to NC in time to reacclimate and unwind and unpack. But first, a final nearly world famous Brannon Omelet in the morning. How DOES he do it????

A week's vacation to see the sights and visit friends and freeze and eat and drink and see history firsthand. Riveting, mind-blowing, awe-inspiring, joyous, and yet it had moments of surrealism to think that all 4 Gordons (dogs and humans) were in town, yet accommodations were adjusted so one human's want of being "alone" could be honored. Weird.

Still, even with some marital awkwardness it was a great historic week full of fun and games and all things DC.

Inauguration Week Day Seven - Sat 1/24

Saturday was a fun day of running around. In order:

- Lincoln Waffle House restuarant in DC on 10th and E across the street from Ford's Theatre for a greasy spoon breakfast. Then,...

- JR Cigars on 16th and L, or was it 17th and K, or was it the 1700 block of Connecticut? Either way, we got twisted around and picked up some cigars. Then,...

- back to Alexandria to pick up James's neighbor Paul, for we have other manly things to go to, like...

- the German Gourmet in Falls Church, VA for German mustards, brats, cheese, German potato salad, hunks of double-smoked bacon, Ritter candy bars, and the delicious jerky-ish landjäger. Then, the swag goes into the cooler and we make our way to...

- Dogfish Head Alehouse for a late lunch. Then, on our way home, in the same center as Dogfish Head, we stumble upon....

- Old Virginia Tobacco Co. to check it out.

Then we finally made it back to Alexandria for some homebrew, more Sweetwater growlers, and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on the telly. Quite the nice day.

Inauguration Week Day Three - Tue 1/20

'tis finally here. The big day. A restless night's sleep ends with me waking up by myself with no alarm needed at 3:00am; the 3:15 alarm is turned off without even using it. James offers to drive me to the end-of-the-yellow-line Huntington station so I won't have to park the Jeep there. "Naw," I say, "it won't be bad that early." Oh but it was. We pass the line of cars to get into the parking deck and I leap out at the Metro entrance. I am on the train at 4:05am and the train departs at 4:10am. Damn! Missed the first train of the day, but got on the 2nd. Getting dropped off was indeed a good idea.

My destination: the L'Enfant Plaza stop. I arrive at 4:45am. We are corralled through just one of the station exits onto 7th street. We make our way towards the Mall as one mass of humanity. It is COLD. The Mall entrance is gated off and cops are all around. For such an enormous crowd, patience rules the day. No one is bitter, no one is swearing, we're all just excited to witness history in a few (well, many) hours. Around 5:15am the gates open. Standing in the crowd awaiting this moment, we are all shoulder-to-shoulder and front-to-back; we are all touching. Once that gate opens, we move as one flowing blob onto the Mall; we shuffle our feet, but at no time did I stop touching those around me! No ricocheting off shoulders. No space in between the person in front of you. We moved as one gigantic mass of flesh. Surreal.



So now we're on the Mall. It's cold. It's 5:30am. The oath will occur at noon. There is some time to kill. So basically, me and 2 million of my closest friends shiver and hug and stay close and tell stories and share Obama sightings. One big kumbaya fest.

The sun begins to rise. The chance of possible warmth is exhiliarating. Flags are passed out to the crowd by volunteers. A couple next to me peeters out and actually leaves by 7:00am; they did not dress appropriately and were icicles in short order. Cardboard from recycle bins is comandeered and flattened so we can stand on it; standing on the ground itself begins to feel like standing on a block of ice. We begin to feel terrible. Standing for hours in the cold with no hope of an end for hours and hours.

The previous Sunday was a concert at the Lincoln Memorial. U2, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, etc. all performed. As we approach 9:00am, the Jumbotrons warm up and we are entertained by the taped HBO broadcast of the concert. At least now we have something to look at besides each other; we're starting to lose steam and almost run out of things to say to each other. The concert allows us to wave our flags and dance the morning away. The dancing was great to get the blood flowing and feeling back to our legs!



Then, once the concert is over, military bands begin to play to entertain us. The official program has begun. On the huge Jumbotrons, cameras cut away to motorcades and tinted windows making their way to the Capitol. We have no idea who is in these vehicles, but once the screens show sunglassed Secret Service agents and black tinted windows, the crowd goes wild. Eventually, the announcer states the arrival on the dais of various legislators. Senators, Representatives, dignitaries, and finally....former Presidents. Then, once and for all, a particular attendee arrives on the Capitol steps....


Wow.

Now things move quickly. Introductory remarks, a prayer, and then, the big moment....


In my video , if you can actually hear over the roar of the crowd, you can hear me babble like a baby with joy as I cry. Instant tears stream down my face. It hurts. My face is virtually frozen and the tears plow tracks through the icy cheeks. Joy that words cannot entirely express. "Congratulations, Mr. President." Unbelievable.


Then about 12:30pm, there is a reading by a poet, and a concluding prayer. Then, it's over. It's all over. The Inauguration proceedings are over. By 1:00pm, I begin to make my way to the Metro to try to get to the north side of the Mall where most of the restaurants are. I've been up for 9 hours now and haven't had anything to eat or drink for fear of having to go to the bathroom. I switched my brain over to "Pharmacy Retail" and hypnotized my bladder into a zen-like state. But now, it would really be good to grab a bite to eat.

There are people everywhere. 2 million leaving the Mall at the same time. With no exit information or signs to guide us. The line to the ONE Metro stop near us (L'Enfant) is enormous. It would be suicidal to try to get to the Federal Center SW stop closer to the Capitol. So, I make my way on foot to try to find a spot to cross Pennsylvania to the north side of the Mall.

The parade will be down Pennsylvania from the Capitol to the White House. 2 miles. 1st Street to about 17th Street. Follow the black line I drew on the Mall map from my viewing spot at 4th Street to see my impossible path to a possible lunch and a beer. Click on the image to make it larger and just see the route I had to take.
My circuitous route finally gets me to the L'Enfant Metro stop at 3:00pm. Two hours of meandering and wandering. Another mob of humanity shuffling their feet as one mass down to the trains. By 5:30pm I am back at Huntington station and James and the boys pick me up. Frozen and hungry, they take me to Old Town to an open (this time) Bilbo Baggins for soup, dinner, and bottles of Delirium Tremens Belgian beer.

Satiated and relatively warmer, we make our way back to the Brannons to split three nightcaps of celebratory 18% ABV (or sometimes 20%) Dogfish Head 120-Minute IPA. Two bottles aged in the Gordonian "cellar" from 2003 that were thick and malty like a barleywine, and a "fresher" bottle from 2006 that still kept plenty of its hoppy bite. 120-Minute. Get it? 120. 1/20. January 20. Far too clever for my own good sometimes.

Exhausted. Full. Buzzed. It's bedtime. A long day, but truly an AWESOME day. One I may never forget. "May" never? Hell, I WILL never forget!

President Barack Obama.

Wow.

Inauguration Week Day Two - Mon 1/19

Woke up early for a trip into DC. Planned to meet NC-friends Jim and Cecile at Gordon Biersch brewpub for lunch. But first, a quick trip to the National Portrait Gallery for some sightseeing. The original "Hope" painting of Barack Obama's likeness was on display, with a good 45-minute wait to see it and snap a photo. Of course I had to do so:

Gordon Biersch is a favorite of Jim's, so it did not take any arm-twisting to meet him there. Yummy meatloaf plus their "InaugurAle" frosty beverage made for a satisfying afternoon.

Then, it was a tour of the National Mall. I wanted to hit the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, but the line was 90-minutes long. By the time I would enter, it would leave me with just an hour to see the entire museum. As this was a must see for me this trip, I opted to hold off for another day later in the week. So instead, the Mall it shall be. Had to see the layout, the preparations, the news organizations camped out, the port-a-potty locations. A brisk afternoon's walk around the Mall. Then, making my way closer to the Capitol, it was a quick visit to the Newseum to tool around and check out the exhibits.

Back to the Metro and the Brannon household to unwind and generally relax. A big day tomorrow! Plans are to wake up at 3:00am! An early retiring by 9:30pm occurred to just TRY and get some sleep. Inauguration Day is here....

Inauguration Week Day One - Sun 1/18

Drove up from Greensboro rather early, making good time even with Maxie requiring TWO stops for whatever reason. Got to the Brannons' in Alexandria, unpacked, decompressed, then hit up Old Town for a mid-afternoon lunch/brunch somewheres.

First stop: Stardust Lounge. Cocktails and lounge. Sounds fun! Closed at the time we got there. Drat. (At least a James Carville sighting, James's FOURTH, occurred in a flash on the street.)

Next try: Bilbo Baggins for some fare. Again, closed at the time.

Curses! We don't want to wait for dinnertime, so we try yet a third spot in Old Town: Overwood. FINALLY, a spot open for our oddly timed meal. Delicious.

Then a leisurely walk around the waterfront and finally back to the Brannons' for a quiet evening. Ahhhh.....

Dissertation on Belgian Tripels and portraits

Drove up to Alexandria for a brew session, and on the way (right near where fraternity brother "Bones" used to live)....Gordonian history occurs. Observe, and view in awe (but sadly the Chesterfield water tower does not come through well on the digital camera at 80 mph):



With Kimberly in Minneapolis for the AANA national convention, Chris, Sam, and Maxie traveled northward with all the brew equipment loaded in the Jeep. (Maxie of course filling her requirement of sitting on the highest peak possible.)



Lunch at Rustico in Alexandria fit the bill for some tasty grub and a great selection of craft beer. De Ranke XX Bitter and a Bluegrass Brewing Co. Jefferson's Reserve Bourbon Barrel Stout were consumed heartily by your faithful blogger. The BBC was served a smidge too cold, so it took a bit for the bourbon flair to rear its head, and the Belgian IPA was a winner as usual. Sadly, the point of even going was to get a pizza, but the damn waitress offered up a softshell crab sandwich that she described as delicious, so Chris bit...and instantly had buyer's remorse. I mean, come on, the duck confit pizza there ROCKS. At least James ordered one. But next time...

Smoke from the meat smoker, and steam from the brew kettle. Ahhhhh....



The NC-VA collaboration brew was completed, with a mere 2 hours between transfer to the primary fermenter and a bubbling, airlock-ticking fermentation. TWO HOURS! So, so sweet. Indeed, quite the vigorous fermentation with all the accompanied "Jupiter clouds" swirling about in a tsunami of hops and yeast floaties. Sadly, in a raging fit of obvious stupidity or patent drunkenness, no actual photos of the rusty gold brew in the carboy were taken. Your humble blogger apologizes immensely.

A wide variety of meats were smoked during the brewday: boneless chicken thighs, ribs, and some sort of pork loin. Between the smoker and the brewing, the Brannon backyard smelled abso-frickin-lutely divine. It was a gorgeous Northern Virginia day, with no humidity to speak of. The Sweetwater growlers were dispatched with utmost haste, as were growlers of Chris's Carolinian Smoked Porter concoction. It worked out well to carbonate some Carolinian Smoked Porter in the empty Sweetwater growlers Chris had to return anyway, so why not return them with beer enclosed? Seems ideal.

For a trip into DC, a visit to the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery was the destination. Visiting exhibitions included "Ballyhoo! Posters as Portraiture", a nifty collection of movie posters, election posters, and general poster mania; and "Herblock's Presidents: Puncturing Pomposity", a collection of political cartoonist Herb Block's critical work from FDR to Clinton; and finally "Recognize!: Hip-Hop and Contemporary Portraiture", with photos and paintings of current and "old school" hip-hop artists. There was a required LL Cool J sighting, but sadly, not one visage of Q-Tip. Damn.

Then it was a viewing of all portraits historical, to appease the nerd in Chris. Presidential portraits, revolutionary war portraits, just general historical portraits. James sadly had to withstand a mini-rant from Chris where the portraits of Revolutionary War figures Henry Knox, Horatio Gates, and William Moultrie were displayed, yet no framed countenance of General Nathanael Greene. James was a good sport in dealing with the mini-rage, and consequently mentioned that Greene's portrait would in fact be displayed in the very next room...no matter what the topic or era. Grrrr....

Also in DC was a trip to the National Museum of Crime and Punishment, a homage to all things criminal and the justice that is served them. Bonnie and Clyde's bullet-riddled 1934 automobile was a treat. As was the goofy picture taken with the heat-seeking video camera in the forensics portion. It was a pretty good tour, but like the International Spy Museum, it is not free with an $18 entry fee. A good 3 hours was spent there observing crimes and punishments from medieval times to today.

In addition to Rustico, the gastronomic portion of the trip was covered by breakfast (again) at the Lincoln Waffle House, and then a return trip to the famous Ben's Chili Bowl, which on August 22 will be celebrating their FIFTIETH anniversary of serving the finest chili, chili-burgers, chili-dogs, and half-smokes in the land. Deeeeeee-licious. A chili-cheeseburger with potato salad was ordered by your faithful blogger and consumed in a rather messy fashion with wild abandon. It's like heroin. It's that good.

The trip concluded with some bocce next door to the Brannons with Chris, James, Paul, and Dave throwing throughout the sprinkles. Sadly, Dave and Chris won the first match but lost the final two to James and Paul. I think it was Dave's devotion to Coors Light rather than the growlers of Sweetwater beer that led to our downfall. Afterward, it was the 4 & 1/2 hour drive back home and back to reality. Another successful Alexandria and DC trip under the belt. And in 5 or 6 weeks, some bottles and maybe a growler or two of "Joe Jackson Tripel" will be available for consumption. (Shoeless Joe hit a lot of triples, and his outfield play earned him the nickname "Where triples go to die", and the name of the Belgian brew is "tripel", so you can follow along with the nomenclature.....)

In closing, one of the niftiest displays at the National Portrait Gallery (and available on a t-shirt, another one of Chris's addictions...come on, Kimberly, we get 20% off in the gift shops for being Smithsonian contributing donors!) is the following. Click it to enlarge it and read the plates. Awesome:

The Gordon Brewery hits the road.

Kimberly is off to Minneapolis for the AANA national convention, so what is Chris to do? Hmmmm....

Sawhorses, plywood, tote-o-supplies, 6 & 1/2 gallon carboy, propane, brewpot, cooler, burner, ingredients. All packed up and ready to go...with plenty of room for dogs too. The first collaboration of North Carolina and Virginia homebrewers named Gordon and Brannon is set to occur. The Jeep is packed. The excitement mounts. The brewing will be fierce.

Two different recipes are being lugged up in that brown cardboard box. James gets to choose which one we brew. Two totally different styles. Two totally different colors. Two totally different yeast strains. I would leak the info here, but James is one of the only 4 people or so who actually READ these posts so I cannot reveal them now.

Should be fun. Growlers will be drained. Cigars will be ablaze. A large slab of some sort of animal meat will be smoked during the session, followed by a feast fit for kings. What better reward after concocting our malty elixir? And to top it all off, it will only be in the low 80s so it will be actually comfortable outside...

U.S. Presidents #'s 4, 5, and 3

For those of you playing along with the home game, that would be James Madison, James Monroe, and Thomas Jefferson. This would also be the order of visitation of their homes that occurred today. Wha???

Chris + a day off + Google Maps = a full day of travel.

An early morning rise. The dogs were fed, watered, and bladders emptied. The Jeep was gassed up and ready to go. Let's hit the open road...


Stop #1: 217 miles northward from Greensboro to James Madison's Montpelier.

$14 entrance fee.

Book purchases? One. Fife purchases? One. (Yes, a fife. Of "fife and drum". Chris bought a fife.)

The furthest of the three destinations from Greensboro, Chris hit this one first then would backtrack southward. Montpelier is undergoing a massive reconstruction project 4+ years in the making. So it was ever so exciting to tour an empty house with plastic sheeting covering doorways, fresh paint everywhere, the smell of plaster, and not one iota of furnishing within the house. Oh, the poor tour guide; trying so hard to liven up an empty construction zone. "This is President Madison's bedchamber. The bed upon which he died would have been here." Or statements such as "The study of nail marks on the walls indicate where the portraits would hang." Construction on the house proper will not be completed until September 2008; and a 100% furnished home will not occur until sometime in 2010. So make your travel plans accordingly, OK?



Stop #2: 29 miles south of Montpelier to James Monroe's Ash Lawn-Highland.

$10 entrance fee.

Book purchases? None. The gift shop was rather cruddy. Beanie babies? Crystal sun catchers? Come on. Not even a commemorative ticket here. A purple-inked register receipt that is given to the tour guide as your proof of entrance. No trinket. No chochki. No souvenir. Sigh...

A simple home for a president from relatively meager means. No family wealth paraded around. No lap of luxury. A basic plantation farmhouse. An odd, post-death addition of a two-story structure that in no way, shape, or form adds to the beauty of the home. All the "Victorian addition" that the tour guide raved about was lost on Chris; it looks disjointed and out of place. I mean, look at it! At least this home was furnished and fully constructed. 2008 is also the 250th year of Monroe's birth, so the big celebration of this monumental birthday is to have period dress throughout the home illustrating mid 1700's clothing. Really? Not too much of a 250th birthday "celebration" in my book. But to each their own. Easily the least of the three visits today.


Stop #3: a meager 3 miles southeast of Ash Lawn to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. By far the gem of the bunch.

$15 entrance fee.

Book purchases? Two. DVD's? One. (I mean you can't take any pictures INSIDE the house, and there are so many cool, cool things inside that a DVD was a must have! You buying the argument?)

Gorgeous. Stunning. Beautiful. A home that frankly looks smallish on the outside, but is so jam-packed with rooms and gadgets and studies and books and furniture it is amazing. Honest to goodness Lewis and Clark mementos on the walls, scientific gadgets abound, it is really a celebration of the genius, if a bit distracted, mind of Jefferson.Why have a home that is all one "style", when all sorts of items pique your interest? Native American souvenirs, classical European artwork, new fangled technology such as automatically-closing doors, closet-sized lazy susans, and dumb waiters in the side of the dining room fireplace! All a hodge-podge, but all tied together somehow into the home of a rather intriguing man. This would be an EASY revisit with Kimberly, with a plantation tour, a winery tasting, and more exploration of the gardens involved. A romantic weekend getaway in Charlottesville would seem to be in order in our future...

Today was indeed a hectic, whirlwind tour of mountainous central Virginia and the history that just drenches the landscape. A bunch of fun. Plenty of pictures can be found here. Now, exhausted, sleep beckons. But not the "permanent" sleep depicted below: