Thanks, Wil

Way back when the Internets were young, when wild FARKers roamed the tubes beating up newbies and making boob jokes, I started reading a ‘blog by a guy named Wil (old ‘blog linked to for historical nostalgia purposes). Wil, of course, was the guy who had played the loved-to-be-hated teen-genius Wesley on Star Trek: The Next Generation. The show had ended years before, and in the intervening time things hadn’t going so well for him – his agent had dumped him, he wasn’t getting much work, and he was kind of miserable (though he did have a girlfriend, which put him ahead of most other Internet denizens of the time).

Things started to turn around, though, as they often do, and he became a huge celebunerd due to all of the people in the darkest of the geek-tubes who increasingly read his ‘blog and sort of understood where he was coming from. He eventually even published a book about it all; the book did really well. He refocussed his career away from acting, and things took off every which way – and he’s still acting, because as the koan goes, things only come once you stop striving for them (which, despite being a huge basic tenet of zen philosophy is totally not fair and is actually kind of shitty, if you think about it for long enough.)

But this isn’t about Wil. It’s about one of Wil’s friends, Jonathan Coulton. Wil introduced me to him – me and probably a gagillion other geeks as well – through his ‘blog, and Jonathan Coulton is, shall we say, fairly awesome (Ok, well, he was also big on the other nerd staple Ze Frank’s “The Show”… remember him? Yeah). For those who have been sleeping under a boat that doesn’t get good Internet connectivity for the past four years, JoCo writes funny, smart and sweet songs about love and nerds (and nerd love), and about all the great things that come from understanding science, having had an awkward adolescence, working a shitty dead-end tech job, having hooked up at least one transistor in the hopes of building a robot to decimate your enemies, and the joys of knowing how to program its microcontroller in C. And also, zombies.

Anyway, I am a fan thanks to Wil (even though I hadn’t really listened to him in awhile – and just downloaded the new album. Woot!) but I never actually expected to ever see him perform or anything. Then, this week, Kimli told me that she had a spare ticket to see him. And that I could have it! WHUT?!?

So, we went to see Jonathan at the RIO last night. As predicted by Delphic seers at the dawn of the last millennia, it was awesome. Paul and Storm opened; I’ve listened to their podcasts but am not terribly familiar with their stuff. BUT I SHOULD BE. Because they’re hilarious. They opened with a song about being the opening band (“We’re probably not the band you came to see tonight/But it’s alright, ’cause soon we’ll go away”) and were able to harness the audience’s rowdiness and pump it up to ridiculous levels. I haven’t seen that much nerdy excitement in one room since the lineup to meet Nathan Fillion at the Toronto ComiCon. And they ended on a hilariously extended version of their famous song about seamen. I mean, sailors (“The Captain’s Wife’s Lament).

And, of course, there was JoCo. He played all the favourites, and got lots of audience participation (even when he didn’t want it), along with a mini chocolate cake (which was NOT a lie) from an adorable girl who looked like a goth-punk version of Bo Peep. He did many things, but the stand-outs include a fabulously extended version of Mr. Fancy Pants that involved loops of Beyoncé. I won’t say any more; you had to be there (or will have to watch the inevitable bootleg YouTube video that is probably going up as you read this.) He also introduced Molly Lewis, who kind of reminded me of a more overtly sarcastic Kate Micucci from Garfunkel and Oates (or maybe I’m actually just a ukulele racist, and all tiny, dark-haired sarcastic girls who play the uke look the same to me.)

I could go on, but instead I’ll just leave you with the song that the show closed on: The First of May (this version involves a giant Rick-Roll at the beginning, but IT IS WORTH IT.)