6.5.13

On June 5th I listened to “Weird Al” Yankovic Dare To Be Stupid and Daft Punk Random Access Memories.

A few years ago I was in L.A. to produce Grammy coverage for a radio station I was working for in New York City. The Grammys have a media day on the Saturday before the broadcast and a hundred radio stations set up in a big room and wait for big stars and nobodies to drift around and talk to whoever is interested in their bullshit. It’s a long day, but there’s catering and you usually do get a couple cool interviews.

Towards the end of the day, one of the talent wranglers asked me if we’d be interested in “Weird Al” coming over. “FUCKING A!” was all I said and ten minutes later, there he was! I initially thought the two hosts of the show would give me some kind of shit for asking for “Weird Al,” but they were happy to have him. The interview went great and afterwards as we were taking pictures, I was like a little girl meeting that harry cunt from One Direction.

I was 12-years-old when “Weird Al” came into my life with “My Bologna,” “Ricky” and “Another One Rides The Bus.” I loved that somebody was skewering a bunch of songs that I had heard on the radio or watched on MTV way too many times! It was my first lesson in “building up and tearing down,” and I loved it! “Weird Al” was doing it in a G Rated format, but he was having a lot of fun poking at Rock stars.

A year later my mother was busting into my room to tell me to stop listening to “Eat It,” over and over again. “Weird Al” was a big part of my childhood and I followed his career for many years. I love his movie UHF, and still get down to his music once in a while.

Meeting him was definitely a treat and I wanted a cool picture to document the occasion. I've met a few Rock stars in my career and I got sick of boring pictures, so I usually ask if we could do a simple pose to make it more interesting. I told “Weird Al” I’d love to do something fun and asked if he’d pose like he’s really pissed off at me. “Oh, yeah! Definitely!” he said in his “Weird Al” voice. A little pee came out when he said that. The picture is one of my all-time favorites with a Rock star. 

I remember every song on Dare To Be Stupid, even though I may not have heard a lot of them in years. This was probably my last really big hooray with “Weird Al.” I was getting older and by 1985 I still liked him, but I was discovering a world of new music and wasn't sitting in my room listening to his songs on repeat anymore.

The Devo inspired “Dare To Be Stupid” is brilliant! “I Want A New Duck” is still unbearably lame. The Polka medley is inspired! “Like A Surgeon,” and “Yoda” are classics I still think about when I hear “Like A Virgin” and “Lola.” A couple of years ago I tried to eat five McRib sandwiches while listening to “Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch.” 

Dare To Be Stupid is me at puberty! It reminds me of that delicate time in the 80’s when I came of age. I was painfully immature, I just started getting some real pubes, I was a “Weird Al” fan, and I spent a lot of time desperately trying to get hand jobs from 14-year-old girls. Thank you “Weird Al!” You wrote the soundtrack to my burgeoning adulthood!

Here’s a dumb story. In the spring of 1988, I was a junior in high school and two of my best buds where Joe Bagodonuts and Judas Iscariot. (Not THE Judas Iscariot. Two years later he would give my girlfriend crabs, she would give it to me and somehow I would get blamed for catching them in the first place! So, he became known as Judas. Yes, I had crabs once! FUCK YOU!)

Regardless, Joe was only a sophomore and was recently dumped by a senior he was dating. At the time, Joe was a dopey pretty boy and the girl banged him a few times and dumped him in preparation for all the college dick she was going to get the following fall. God bless.

Joe wasn't handling the breakup well and was determined to win “Candice” back! One night while Joe, Judas and I were chilling at Joe’s house on a Friday night, he concocted a plan to make a video to recapture her love. His parents were out for the night, so we drank a few beers and made a set in his bedroom. Joe had a canopy bed in his room and we wrapped the whole thing up with white sheets. We set up the VHS camcorder at the foot of the bed and started shooting.  

In a pair of acid wash jeans, a loose fitting white tank top, and an awful teenage mustache, Joe laid on his bed and lip-synched “Careless Whisper” by Wham! It was fucking priceless! I still see it in my head. He was really selling it too! I believed he was never gonna dance again. He nailed it. The whole thing was touching and fucking hysterical.

I think he did three takes and each one was better than the last. After he was done, Judas decided he wanted to make a video for the pig he was dating. I say she was a pig because two years later, I’m 99% sure she was the source of the crabs that Judas gave to my girlfriend and she gave to me! Pffft! Anyway, Judas lip-synched a moving version of The Righteous Brothers “You've Lost That Loving Feeling,” for his little pig girlfriend. Given the material his video should have turned out a lot better than Joe’s, but his was cringe worthy without the ironic humor. 

I wasn't about to be let out of the whole thing, so I decided to make a video too. I had just broke up with a girl I had started dating that fall and decided for my video I was going to do  “Weird Al” Yankovic’s “One More Minute.” It’s a very moving break up song about all the things a man would rather do than spend one more minute with an awful ex-girlfriend who has already moved on. My favorite line of the song is “I’d rather clean all the bathrooms in Grand Central Station with my tongue, then spend one more minute with you.” Having picked my song, I put a jock strap on my head, hopped onto the bed and fired up the song. Once we got rolling, Joe and Judas started throwing everything in Joe’s room onto the bed. When they ran out of stuff, they started scouring the house and as the song came to its crescendo I was dodging a toaster, all the laundry that was in the dryer, and several two liter bottles of soda. I actually thought the whole thing was hysterical.

We eventually talked Joe out of ever showing “Candice” his video because she already didn't like him and that would definitely make it worse. Regretfully, Joe erased the whole tape and all that brilliance is gone forever! Believe me, if I had the tape it would have been online years ago!

Let me get this straight; a couple of frogs are bringing back Disco and the whole fucking planet is buying into it? Great. I believe it was Harvey Pekar who first opined, "Why does everyone have to be so stupid?" 

Speaking of stupid, here’s how ignorant I am about Daft Punk. I had no idea they guarded their identities like Kiss did back in the day. Apparently, some loser band posted a picture online of the “robots” without their helmets on the other day and it caused a big stink. (Get it? Stink? They're French.) Regardless, who cares? 

Whenever I listen to an unbelievably hyped album like this I think, “what’s the big deal?” The international hit lead single “Get Lucky” is all right, I get it. It's no "Hey Ya!" Am I right? I dunno, maybe? 

The disc's opener is the call to arms! "Give Life Back To Music," might as well  just be called "Disco Or Die." Is this a joke? Am I missing something? “The Game Of Love” and “Within” sound like porno music for robots. Boring robots that leave their socks on, only do it in one position and there's definitely no robutt sex. (HI-OH!)

Why does the album take a nine minute dump on track three? Some old school disco Eye-talian talks about how important disco dancing in Germany was in the 70’s and a jumpy old school synth track builds annoyingly under him. It's no "Everybody Should Wear Sunscreen." Am I right? I dunno, maybe?

After Julian Casablancas embarrasses himself worse than me wearing a jockstrap on my head lip-synching a “Weird Al” song, I wanna quit this record, but skip to the Paul Williams track. It is a delight! "Touch" is like a time capsule dug up from the past when songs were crafted and sang with honest to goodness showmanship. Paul Williams is an American treasure! I love you Little Enos!!!! 

God bless Daft Punk! Apparently they just saved the world from certain destruction and I was standing around going, “what happened?”

Up next... I listen to Elton John and The National.