The Queen of...Nice?

There is a "gentleman's club" in Morrisville, PA that I pass by every so often when I drive into New Jersey via Route 1. It's called "Sugar 'n' Spice". Lord knows I've never been in there, but something about the place has intrigued me for some time, and I could never quite figure out what it was.

Finally, yesterday, it hit me like the proverbial ton of bricks...



It's good to see that Rosie O'Donnell has found some work. And that she let her hair grow out again. I thought the earrings were a bit much, though.

Paul.

P.S. Here's an unsolicited plug of what I'm listening to these days: Jonathan Coulton (www.jonathancoulton.com). Come for his David Wilcox-ian cover of "Baby Got Back"; stay for his smart, well-written and often subtly hilarious Fountains-of-Wayne-plus-two-parts-TMBG-ic pop songs, like "Ikea", "Dance, Soterios Johnson, Dance" and my personal favorite, "The Town Crotch" (which is easily the most touching song ever written with the word "crotch" in the title). Enjoy, and tell him Paul sent you.

The One That Got Away

Although we've been busy little beavers behind the scenes, if you've been coming to our website to see when we're coming to Your Town, you've probably noticed there isn't a heck of a lot happening.

There's a reason for that.

Every once in a while, you get an opportunity to do something exceptional. A monster project that will be fun, provide an opportunity for great exposure, and pay pretty well to boot. In fact, that gig is so great that it would be worth dropping everything and blocking off 2 1/2 months of time on the chance that you'll get it.

The Hollywood ending is that we got just such a gig, and this blog entry is to tell you that we're now on the fast track to fame and fortune. We're talking at least Federline fame, if not "Where's the Beef" big. We'd be saying how grateful we are to all of the fans who supported and believed in us, and that we would never forget that.

Alas, life is not always like the movies. But here's a script we'd love to pitch:

Let's say there was a musical/comedy duo, and they were contacted by some very nice people who were thinking about putting together an internet ad campaign for a major consumer internet product. Why don't we call the parent company "Doodle", and the product they want to promote is called "dmale". The specifics really aren't important. In fact, the only details the music/comedy duo knows are that it will involve traveling on the west coast for 3-6 weeks starting in January. And that they'd be followed around by a camera man the whole time.

Anyway, everyone involved, most especially the music/comedy duo, really, really, really thinks they're a good fit for the gig, and that the chances of it happening are pretty good. So they decide to roll the dice and put off all of their booking plans. No, there were never any promises made. But hope, she is a tough mistress. Not quite the whips-and-chains variety, but a rather saucy tart nonetheless. They're told the deal will likely happen quickly, maybe even a meeting in December, and the music/comedy duo and their management wait by the proverbial phone and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

You remember that scene from "Swingers", where the main character goes through an entire relationship with a woman's answering machine? It felt a lot like that, mixed with the 5 stages of grief:

1. Denial - "They're just waiting for the mucky-mucks to green light it" and "It hasn't been that long"

2. Anger - "If they don't hire us, they're just stupid stupid-heads" and "We'll write a song about them"

3. Bargaining - "Maybe we asked for too much money" and "What if we offered to give them our redundant organs, like one kidney apiece, our appendixes, and possibly a toe or two"

4. Depression - many milkshakes were had

5 Acceptance - this blog.

So what does it feel like to be here at big step 5? It's not bad, actually. Because even if that dream died, our sassy mistress Hope is still standing by with a feather tickler in hand. And we're sure that there's still a "Rocky" ending in this for us. Or at least "Rocky III". Maybe "Rambo". Possibly with a little dash of "Rudy."

Heck, even "The Jerk" had a happy ending.

Coming to Your Town soon,

Paul and Storm

Wrapping Up 2005, Plus Some Panties


We have been falling woefully behind in our trip reports, for which we apologize. Once again, rather than cover the remainder of 2005 in excruciating detail, we'll grab some of the December highlights and hold them up so everyone can get a good look at them.

But first, the panties.

For those of you not intimately familiar with our entire oeuvre (and shame on you if not), our song "Opening Band" contains the following lyric:

We don't got a whole lout of fans
Nobody asks for our autograph
And sad to say, as of today, no panties have been thrown

Now, when we wrote that last line, we giggled together like a couple of 8th graders (or, for you Canadians, grade 8-ers) about how cool it would be if people got familiar enough with the song and that, at some point, someone did throw panties at us when we sang that line. At our Jammin' Java show on November 26th, in Vienna, VA, the inevitable became the actual. Several times over. And then twice more at Cafe Montmartre in Madison, WI three days later. The fact that almost half of the panties thrown were done so by males was an unsettling combination of flattering and disturbing, but as Wordsworth once famously wrote in an 1801 letter to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, "panties is panties."

And so, we proudly present the first installment of what we hope to eventually build into the Paul and Storm Rogue's Gallery of Lacy Underthings...


The Basic Black Panty; appropriate for any occasion.


These look disturbingly like the old gym shorts Paul had to wear in junior high. (With a little more lace, though)


Something a little more colorful--looks like it was made out of the extra fabric from one of Mrs. Roper's muumuus.


This pair was larger than the others, and we think they were thrown by a guy. These two facts are not necessarily related.


Our first thong. Thong tha-thong-thong-thong. Man, but this looks uncomfortable.


And while it's hard to top panties for excitement (did we mention that one of them was a thong?), there have been a number of memorable experiences that at least rival it:


11/28/05 (morning) - Back on Bob & Tom
Of the new material we debuted, our latest Schoolhouse Rock tune, "Count to Ten", worked the best, as well as our improvised song about Chick. Our personal favorite, "Gumbo Pants", was less successful. We'll have to see how it plays at live shows. As usual, it was great hanging out with the entire B&T gang and the guys at Static Shack. No steak dinner with Kristi this time, but...

11/28/05 (evening) - Paul and Storm Jump on the Colts Bandwagon
This time it was Tom who put the cherry on top of the visit. When he called Monday afternoon and asked if we liked football (and, of course, testicles = enjoys football*), we're thinking to ourselves, "Cool...Tom is having people over to watch the (then 11-0) Colts on his 80-kabillion inch-screen TV, and we're invited!" But that didn't happen. Nay-nay. In fact, he had two suddenly-available-at-the-last-minute tickets for that night's game against the Steelers, which turned out to be about 15 rows up and on the 47-FRICKIN'-YARDLINE**...

Never mind that Storm is a Redskins fan***; never mind that Paul has a Joe Paterno action figure**** on his shelf at home. With much careful preparation, studying, and the purchase of a few choice garments, we would (for the night) become COLTS FANS!

Before and After:

The Colts won and Storm got drunk, so the night was pretty much a success.


12/8/05 - "Wakin' Up with the Wolf" in Albany
The "Wakin' Up with the Wolf" show has been regularly playing our stuff for a while (and our DVN material before then), but we somehow never got around to getting on their show until now. Other than meeting the cast, the highlight of the show was probably the fact that their long-suffering engineer spent a good 15-20 minutes hooking Paul's keyboard up to the system--radio studios are not usually pre-set for musical guests, and he had to hook up an extra line, and haul in some equipment to make it all work properly. So the poor guy is climbing over us, under the table, etc.--all while we're on the air. So, of course, we ended up not using the keyboard at all that morning. We're betting that, after we left, the engineer made a little Paul-shaped voodoo doll and started stabbing it with a 1/4" plug.

But we had no time to dwell on bizarre religious practices, because we had our own to attend to. Specifically, we had to get to Syracuse to re-visit our current favorite-est barbecue restaurant, Dinosaur Bar-B-Que. We gave this place a full review previously; this time around, Paul had the big pile of food, while Storm dove into the REALLY big pile of food.


12/9/05 - Buffalo: Shredd & Ragan, and Music to Clean Up By
Working our way across NY one morning radio show at a time, we made it through a Buffalo snowstorm in time to do a few tunes for Shredd & Ragan. That evening, we had a gig where we were supposed to sing for a company party at 8:30 p.m., after the "formal" event had ended. Problem: everyone had already left by 8:15. Sang for the caterers, bartenders, promoter, and for ourselves. Bonus: met Lazlo***** from the Moxy Fruvous song "Lazlo's Career", and he's every bit as interesting as you'd imagine.


12/10/05 - Niagara Falls and Toronto: Arrogant Worms, The House of Trevor and the Littlest Worm, plus P&S Meet Canada
Stopped for an hour at Niagara Falls. It's big. Huge. Trump huge. (And in mid-December, frickin' freezing.) It also afforded us the chance to recreate our favorite old vaudeville routine (see photo). Two hours later, we arrived amidst TV sitcom holiday special snowfall at the house of Trevor Strong, one of the three maniacs who comprise the Arrogant Worms. Met his most manly, one-year-old offspring, Owen, who has the uncanny ability of knowing when a train will pass by the house. (Which is often, as they live near the subway) During our stay, we taught Owen to say "cool," and we understand he now says it once every 28 seconds now. You're welcome, Trevor.

Trevor also treated us to a whirlwind "greatest hits" walking tour of downtown Toronto. All the usual suspects were covered: the CN Tower, the no-longer-the Skydome, the underground walkways/malls, a clever meaty confection the locals call "back bacon," and most importantly, Tim Hortons...

FOOD REVIEW: Tim Hortons - Toronto, ON, Canadia
CATEGORY: Donuts (chain)(Canadian)
Rating: +1

It has been written that donut-making is "The Sweet Science". Actually, that's boxing. Not important. What's important is that Tim's donuts were really damn good. On a cold Friday night in December, the place was packed. Despite the crowds, the cheerful and effiencient staff made the line move faster than a butter-coated skunk shot from a catapult. Yes, it was that fast. And the fried treats (double chocolate for Storm, toffee glazed for Paul) were as fresh and tasty as you'd find at Dunkin' or Krispy Kreme. On top of all that, they were CANADIAN donuts, which we think means that they're cut from a different part of the pig. Hot chocolate was both hot and chocolate-y. In fact, it was McDonalds lawsuit hot, but we still managed contented smiles even after burning our lips and epiglottises. (Epiglotti?)


12/11/05 - Hughs Room, Toronto, Ontario, CANAD-I-A
The two shows opening for the Arrogant Worms at Hugh's Room were the whole reason for heading for the frozen tundra in the first place, and it really was everything we'd dreamed it would be. Both shows were jam-packed full of music/humor enthusiasts, and we're happy to say that we now have a lot of new Canadian friends. Best of all, we were finally able to see the Worms in their natural habitat, and them there's some funny and talented guys. By the way; next time you see Mike from the Worms, ask him, "How's your truss?" He'll thank you for it.


12/31/05 - "Friends of the Bob & Tom Show" Tour, Michigan Theatre, Jackson, MI
Long have we wanted to make the leap from "Acquaintances of the Bob & Tom Show" to become full-fledged "Friends"; and we finally got our chance on New Year's Eve. (And for those who don't know, the "Friends of the Bob & Tom Show" Tour is an ongoing series of concerts, each featuring 3-4 different comedians who appear regularly on the show) This particular show was at the Michigan Theatre in Jackson, MI--a town known for its, um, hospitality. The beautiful old 1500-seat former vaudeville & movie house built in 1930 (just in time for the death of vaudeville), while still undergoing renovations, had a great vibe to it: wood paneling, ornate chandelier, balcony ready to be packed with rowdies, and so on. And the show had been sold out well in advance.

And with good reason: the remainder of the bill included Tim Cavanagh (a very funny music-comedian whom we had met previously but never seen perform live) and Mike Birbiglia (another great comedian whom we had not met at all). And the evening was started off by the famous-among-Bob-and-Tom-fans "Donnie Baker," a unique, colorful character known for his strongly-held opinions, hatred of his boss, and inability to sell his boat.

From our perspective, the show could not have been better: everyone's set was top-notch (Donnie was like a redneck buzzsaw; Birbigs' showed why he's going to break out huge in 2006; and Cavanagh closed the show with Dennis Eckersley-style command), we had a great time with the audience (our largest to date), and it was the first theater show we've ever seen with beer vendors strolling the aisles. (Yes, really.) That, and the whole thing was over by 10:30 p.m., so we made it back to the hotel in time to watch the ball drop. A nice capper to a great year. Here's to 2006, y'all.

Happy New Year,

Paul and Storm.


* Descartes' 29th corollary
** Actually, Storm was on the 47; Paul was on the 47-1/2. It was like watching two completely different games from those vantage points.
*** Although, living in Maryland just as he was becoming interested in sports, Storm would have become a Colts fan if a certain team owner hadn't packed them up and shipped them out of Baltimore in the middle of the night way back when. Not that he's still bitter about that or anything. He's not.
**** Not a doll.
***** Yes, we had a groovy time with him.