Rant-Man's Notebook

By Jim "Rant-Man" MacQuarrie

Got your Poodle Hat?

Last week, Weird Al Yankovic's new CD came out. Me and Al go way back, but of course he doesn't know that. Way back in the early seventies, when polyester ruled the Earth, I was a regular listener of the Doctor Demento radio show. I was also a regular listener of the National Lampoon Radio Show ("Catch It and You Keep It!" The game show where we throw prizes off the observation deck of the Empire State Building; catch it and you keep it! Our first prize, a full set of Samsonite luggage! Are you ready down there? Here we go! She doesn't know it, but that luggage has an extra prize... each piece is full of real gold bricks!), the Flo & Eddie Show (Flo & Eddie were two former members of both Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention and the Turtles), but I never sent them fan mail. I used to send Dr. Demento stuff all the time-- newspaper clippings, strange letters, request lists-- all signed "Crazy Jim." Occasionally he would read something I sent on the air, and mentioned my name more often than was probably healthy. Fortunately for him (and the audience), I never had any musical ambitions. I'm as musical as a train wreck, and my singing has always cleared the room faster than a skunk. I still remember my fourth grade teacher telling me to just lip-sync in the Christmas pageant. So I never sent in any tapes to annoy the masses.

Needless to say, when some young upstart came along with his home-recorded tapes of song parodies, calling himself "Weird Al" no less, I was more than a bit peeved. To be quite accurate, at the time I was emerald with jealousy. The only thing standing between Weird Al's fame and my utter obscurity was the trifling detail of a complete lack of both talent and ambition. Why should that stop me?

So I ignored Weird Al's stuff, muttering under my breath when "Another One Rides the Bus" or "My Sharona" invaded my space, emanating from the previously wonderful Dr. D show. I groused about how the inferior new stuff was pushing out classics like Soupy Sales and Benny Bell. Never did I admit my real motivation.

Then came MTV, and Weird Al proved that he was not just a fluke; he was really talented, with a gift for satire and a truly twisted view. All was forgiven by the early eighties, once he began picking on the likes of Michael Jackson and Madonna, neither of whom I could stand for a second. It also didn't hurt that a friend and former co-worker, cartoonist Rogerio Noguiera, did the cover art for one of his earliest albums.

I really expected that Weird Al would eventually disappear from the public radar in much the way that his predecessors, Allan Sherman, Tom Lehrer, and Doodles Weaver had over the years. He didn't. In fact, by the beginning of the nineties, Weird Al had achieved enough fame and success to get a film made, the cult classic UHF. I got to attend a pre-release screening of the film, and wearing what was at the time my usual attire, an ugly hawaiian shirt, too much hair and a cheesy moustache, I was at one point mistaken for Al by some members of the audience, despite the fact that we bear very little resemblance to one another. He has a chin, for example.

So now, a couple of decades down the road, I find myself living with some second-generation Weird Al fans. Then again, I have inflicted a lot of my odd tastes on my kids; they're probably the only ones of their generation familiar with the likes of the Smothers Brothers and the aforementioned Allan Sherman, not to mention Spike Jones, Louis Prima, and the Roto Rooter Goodtime Christmas Band. This despite the fact that none of the local radio stations carry the Doctor Demento show anymore.

So last week, I got to drive my oldest kid, Ashley, down to the Virgin Megastore on Sunset to meet Weird Al and get an autographed copy of his new CD. They had a wristband thing going, where people who had preordered and paid for their CD got a wristband that was supposed to guarantee them preferred status in the line, ahead of all those johnny-come-lately types. turned out they apaprently had no intention of enforcing it, since nobody ever asked to see ours, nor was there any indication that people were being separated on the basis of these bands, meaning that our trip to another Virgin store earlier in the week was an exercise in futility.

So we stood in line for almost two hours behind some scary young people. Three teenage girls, utterly devoted to Al, all wearing the requisite hawaiian shirt, one of whom was toting a four-inch-thick notebook of pictures and magazine clippings of her hero. They spent the time in line slapping each other, yelling nonsense, and just generally being unbearable. We felt sorry for poor Al, since they, or at least one of them, seemed to be stepping awfully close to the line that separates fandom from something requiring a restraining order. I was curious to see what would happen when they got to the head of the line.

As we expected, the line stopped dead when they got to the table, and the would-be stalker took her time showing Weird Al EVERY BLOODY PAGE of her scrapbook, scaring him silly in the process. "Oh, wow," he said over and over. "Holy moley." He smiled politely, but his eyes were silently crying out for the security guards. Finally, after an eternity of picture-taking and pledges of undying love for the man and his music, they reluctantly departed, leaving the rest of us to get on with it already.

At last we arrived at the table, chatted a bit with the guy (I asked him if he's seen Rogerio lately, since I lost track of him years ago), got him to sign the CD booklet, and went on our way. Ashley told him about Monkey Spit and gave him a card with the URL, so it's possible he's actually reading this. Possible, but unlikely.

So that was an adventure. If you haven't heard it yet, you should go give a listen. There's some fun stuff on it, among his best work. My favorite track is "Bob," a tribute to Bob Dylan, sung in his style, and like the name Bob, each lyric is a palindrome. (Oh, go buy a freakin' dictionary already.) Truth is, some of Yankovic's best stuff is the original songs he does, not the parodies. "Party at the Leper Colony" is about as sick as his earlier "Christmas at Ground Zero," and "Genius in France" is also pretty droll. The parody stuff, "Ebay," "Ode to a Superhero" (the story of Spider-Man set to the tune of Billy Joel's "Piano Man"), and "Couch Potato" are all well-done and clever, but I find that I tend to like them about as much as I like or dislike the songs on which they are based. Eminem's "8 Mile" is just as annoying no matter what the lyrics are. Not being a fan of him, Nelly, or the Backsync Boys, I tend to ignore those tracks, though "Ebay" is pretty funny really.

I have no idea what the phrase "Poodle Hat" refers to, except that for some reason Weird Al has a poodle sitting on his head in the cover photo. Must be an inside joke. Either that or he really is weird.

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