Posted on 04/13/2020 11:24:24 AM PDT by billorites
Last summer, in the middle of what struck me as an otherwise very full life, I went to my first Weird Al Yankovic concert. Weird Al, for anyone reading this through a golden monocle, is the most renowned comedy musician in the history of the multiverse — a force of irrepressible wackiness who, back in the 1980s, built a preposterous career out of song parodies and then, somehow, never went away. After 40 years, Yankovic is now no longer a novelty, but an institution — a garish bright patch in the middle of America’s pop-cultural wallpaper, a completely ridiculous national treasure, an absurd living legend.
I have spent much of my life chortling, alone in tiny rooms, to Weird Al’s music. (“I churned butter once or twice living in an Amish paradise” — LOL.) And yet somehow it had never occurred to me to go out and see him live. I think this is for roughly the same reason that it has never occurred to me to make my morning commute in a hot-air balloon or to brush my teeth in Niagara Falls. Parody is not the kind of music you go out to see in person — it’s the joke version of that music. A parody concert felt like a category error, like confusing a mirror for a window. To me, Weird Al had always been a fundamentally private pleasure; I was perfectly content to have him living in my headphones and on YouTube and — very occasionally, when I wanted to aggravate my family — out loud on my home speakers.
< SNIP >
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
LOL- very funny video/song
...Dr. Demento would play his songs
Now THOSE were the days
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Fn36l_z3WY
They’re Coming to Take me Away
some facts abotu Al- pretty itnertesting- quite smart dude
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DvSvz2_d9R8
Not so much Allen Sherman because Sherman had pretty
much shot his wad by Al’s day. I’m thinking Dr Demento
an LA denizen was likely a bigger influence.
Somewhere in my storage, I have hours of vintage Demento shows on cassette that I taped off the radio back in the late 1970s. One of these days, I'm going to get around to digitizing them.
And Stanley Spadowski. Great movie.
Two of my friends- females - back in January dressed up as Al for the big group photo in this article. They’re so unrecognizable that they had to tell Al, who has known them for many years, who they were!
I used to create a fan magazine for Al in the 1990’s - knew him well back then and his career keeps going strong.
But that song’s a teaching instrument...
This dork seems to have no experience with any Weird Al Yankovic before he was tasked with writing this piece. It reads like it is straight out of a Wikipedia article.
like one of the comments said under the video there “If one is tired of Weird Al, One is tired of life”
>> Word Crime
Yeah. The entire album is fantastic. I couldn’t put it down for months when it first came out. It’s brilliant, and the lyrics and video for Word Crimes is extra brilliant.
Most (or at least a lot of) celebrities think they’re God’s gift to entertainment; Weird Al takes himself about as seriously as he takes his targets. I remember his scene in one of the Leslie Neilson “Policy Squad” movies - you could tell Weird Al was just having a great time essentially parodying himself.
[[We grew up in a much less politically correct world]]
It was Nirvana back then- almost anyways- it really was- much of today’s society sucks in my opinion-
I didn’t have that song in mind, just thought he might come up with one that’d be both funny and serious. But he could probably make that one work, if he chose to do it.
I’ve seen him live twice and it was a lot of fun.
>> Alan Sherman...
I just sent that video to my friends last weekend. Classic stuff.
I first heard it on my Rhino Records Funky Favorites that my parent’s bought for me when I was a wee lad.
I have a Dr. Demento CD. My kids really love “The cockroach that ate Cincinatti”.
Used to secretly listen to his show late a night on a small transistor radio in the 70’s.
I have one of those shirts, picked it up at one of his concerts. I like to say that shirt is my statement on communism:).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.