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[jay-ell]

Just in case you guys have never seen this, it's the tamest, most upbeat VH1 Behind the Music ever.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=6D15FD3C0A330A60

The first part is worth watching if only because of what Mark Mothersbaugh says about Al. I LOL'd.

Also: The Weird Al Sex Tape.

[wombat]

Jesus Christ.  It's music.  It's to be listened to and enjoyed, not endlessly argued over as a result of the performers' ancillary cultural signifiers.

If only.

[pmcd9]

I don't get it.

Sad for you.

oh good lord do I hate me some Garrison Keillor.

It's even worse than I thought.  You are obviously dead inside.

[Nabubrush]

The difference between Post-Intelligencer New Roman and Weird Al is the difference between not taking things seriously as an affectation to seem cool and secretly seriously worrying about unserious you are seeming and... not taking things seriously just to have fun but doing it really really fuck*ng well because what's a fun time without going all out?

A lot of Al's covers are better performed than the originals and the guy's got a lot of great songs he wrote in the style of other bands without being direct parodies or totally original and just fuck*ng tremendously funny.

And his live shows use costume changes and multimedia songs between songs better than anyone in popular music basically ever? Yeah, basically ever.

It is the difference between The Fonz being cool because he desperately wants to be cool and Garrison Keillor being cool because he loves what he does and does it really fuck*ng well.

You'll get there, Dan, you'll see. I have faith in you. Al has faith in you. The Awesome has faith in you.

It's funny how you are talking about not taking things seriously and you are taking things so seriously.

It's the difference between something you like and something someone else likes, in the end.

[jay-ell]

Gracious!



I had to look pretty deep to determine that that photo is at least 2 years old and is, in fact, a wig job. But what a hell of a wig! When he holds still and isn't pulling a face, he actually...looks...well, kind of hot, to be honest. In that David Tennant kind of way that makes my knees buckle just a smidge.

[pmcd9]

It is okay, Dan.

When you get all this taking seriously bands ironically named after fonts out of your system, The Al will be waiting there for you.

I wonder if there's a generation gap here. I mean, I grew up listening to Weird Al, too, and I love it in part because it makes me laugh and in part because it makes me feel like a kid again. But I wonder if you had to be there. I wonder if you had to "know him when" he was just trying to get his tapes on Dr. Demento to truly appreciate the story of a class clown growing up to live the dream of getting millions of dollars just to be goofy and make people laugh.

I'm not so sure that's true.  As evidenced last night, those were people who were plenty old enough to have been raised on Weird Al as I was.  Also, there were plenty of people at the show that were Dan's age or younger. 

This is just simply a case of different strokes for different folks.

Moreover, JL, you aren't old enough yourself to "know him when."  How old again were you in 1976 when he first started appearing on Dr. Demento?

[pmcd9]

It's even worse than I thought.  You are obviously dead inside.

Oh, and by the way, that was a joke in case you were taking me too seriously.  I probably wouldn't have liked Garrison Keillor at your age either.  Although, I think you would like a lot of the music he plays.

[littlefallsmets]

Yes, just like the pmcd, I am exaggerating my position in this thread for comic effect.

I thought I was being very obvious about this.

I guess that is the thing I am worst at on the internet, tipping my hand that I am exaggerating a position I believe for comic effect.

Should I experiment with emoticons?

[jay-ell]

I'm not so sure that's true.  As evidenced last night, those were people who were plenty old enough to have been raised on Weird Al as I was.  Also, there were plenty of people at the show that were Dan's age or younger. 

This is just simply a case of different strokes for different folks.

Moreover, JL, you aren't old enough yourself to "know him when."  How old again were you in 1976 when he first started appearing on Dr. Demento?

Yeah, I was 3 years away from even being born then. But Al is 10 years older than my brother, who is 10 years older than me, so when he was in his early twenties, my brother was just the right age to be listening to Dr. Demento, so I literally was listening to Weird Al when I was still in diapers.

I was actually exposed to a lot of music that many people my age don't even remember -- stuff from just before I was born up through the time I was in Kindergarten (1977/78 - 1984). My brother had the radio on all the time, I still remember the first time I heard "Jump." I was about five years old, and it came on the radio, and we stood in front of the full-length mirror in the hallway. Every time David Lee Roth sang the word "jump" we would leap into the air to see who could get further off the ground.

Certainly, many people my age know that song, but I get the impression from talking to folks that they think of hair bands as "before their time" instead of "I remember that." Same with the '84 presidential election -- I remember it clearly even though I was pretty young; Dad let me stay up late to watch the election returns and explained in great detail how the Electoral College works. (I was five.) Pedro -- I suspect like most people born in 1979 -- is only aware of Reagan's re-election because he was taught its importance later; I remember watching it happen in front of me.

Still, your point is valid. Lots and lots of people like WAY who were not part of "the early years" or whatever. I was just looking for a pattern, as usual, but maybe there isn't one. Maybe musical taste just can't be accounted for.

After all, I don't really care for The Rolling Stones.

[Nabubrush]

Yes, just like the pmcd, I am exaggerating my position in this thread for comic effect.

I thought I was being very obvious about this.

I guess that is the thing I am worst at on the internet, tipping my hand that I am exaggerating a position I believe for comic effect.

Should I experiment with emoticons?

I just figured you were doing that thing you did last time, when you tried to convince Dan he shouldn't like the band he likes.

I never really got into Al. I think maybe I don't like jokey music, except for Allan Sherman (put a date on that).

[jay-ell]

That is beautiful, Nabu. I am going to have to look into that further. Reminds me of Danny Kaye, a bit.

Without googling the song or the artist, I'd guess...1956?

[Carlos del Vaca]

You know what's even better than Al's music? When he used to take over MTV for a couple hours at a time, call it "Al TV," and do all kind of goofy MTV-parody stuff. That shit was funny. For instance, this interview with Keith Richards.

[littlefallsmets]

AL-TV was amazing.

It was like a peek into an alternate world where popular culture made sense to me.

http://youtu.be/EDTGyjO56UI

[pmcd9]

I'll go so far as to say that Weird Al fans are a cult, like Trekkies maybe.  We are a nerd cult.  It's not for everyone, but that's alright.

I think maybe I don't like jokey music, except for Allan Sherman (put a date on that).

I'm pretty sure my case isn't typical, but I was spoonfed comedy records as a child by my mother.  The main godhead of comedy music in my mind is and will always be Spike Jones.  Even Weird Al agrees.

"Dare to be Stupid" got me laid.

Awesome!  Mashed potatoes can be your friend.

[theinevitable]

yeah, the more I thought about it, I do kind of think it is a thing you have to be into by a certain age.
I actually, Paul, thought about Star Trek in this discussion. I really liked it when I was younger, and recently I watched it and I couldn't stand it. I was really disappointed, because I have always thought of myself as a Trekkie... in middle school I literally read the Star Trek Encyclopedia cover to cover multiple times. I actually read things like that about Star Trek far more than I ever watched the show, which is a pattern in almost everything else I enjoy. Weird.

I love TMBG. I haven't listened to them in a while, but a few months ago I listened to Dial-a-Song and really enjoyed it. But I don't know if I would like TMBG if I were exposed to them for the first time tomorrow.

Garrison Keillor just drives me up the wall. I am trying to come up with an example of why he drives me crazy, and I cannot think of one. For some reason it is particularly offensive to me that LFM would like him. His humor just seems so... cornily snobby? Self-satisfied?
I love NPR, but Prairie Home Companion is everything that kind of bugs me about NPR rolled into one show.

I think one of my favorite little jokes in The Wire is when two of the drug-runners are driving around Philidelphia, and the first station they find on the dial is NPR. PHC is on, and one of them says something like "is this what [people] listen to in Philly??" And then for the rest of the scene, through all of the tense things that happen, Garrison Keillor is in the background.


LFM, the problem is that sometimes you say crazy things and are completely serious, and sometimes you say crazy things and you are being silly. I often wonder how we would interact in real life. I always imagine we would get along a lot better if we met in Bushwick over a beer. One day this should happen.