 The Weird As All Fuck ROSSMANPeople often ask me if I think that I am the greatest man ever born onto God's green Earth. I say, "Yes, of course," but then I remember that there is another... One who's glory dwarfs even my own, just like I dwarf that midget who passes out shopping carts at the local Wal-Mart (Hey, Frank, we still on for Bocci Ball this Saturday?). Yes, the man who makes me look like a relative child, who outshines me in every possible way that a demi-god can, is none other than Mr. "Weird Al" Yankovic. And for this review, and this review only, I promise I won't wear those shoes. Just for you, Al.
For those of you too stupid to know, "Weird Al" is a master musician who plays the accordion (and likes to polka [who doesn't?!]). He tickles those keys and presses those bellows like a demon behind the wheel. He makes that accordion sing for him like a fat chick being pleasured by Pavarotti. He makes that accordion his bitch. But that's not all -- see, Al is most famous for making parodies of other people's songs (he's done Michael Jackson, Madonna, Nelly, and even the great Billy Ray Cyrus... I mean he's made parodies of their stuff... though I really can't speak for him on whether he's done other things as well). He'll make up some new song about a television show, or food, or some fucked up romance and masterfully insert his own lyrics into the original tune, just with more accordion. Now all you naysayers out there are all just shaking your heads, saying shit like, "That's just sad. That guy's got no real talent! He just rips off other people's crap and calls it his own." First of all, shaaaaaaaaaaaame on you! You just made Al cry. Al's like the nicest guy in the entire music recording industry. How dare you make him shed tears! Second of all, let's see YOU try and make a parody of a popular song, and actually make it BETTER than the original. Yes, I said it, most of Al's parodies are greater than the original songs that they mock. "Smells Like Nirvana," "Amish Paradise," and "Couch Potato" are prime examples. But that's not all! Also included on each of Al's albums are numerous "Al Originals"! Songs he wrote from scratch in the style of a certain genre or artist. It's these songs that rock me the most. Yeah, that's right, I said that too. I claim that "Weird Al" rocks. Think of the lyrics to "You Don't Love Me Anymore," "I'm So Sick Of You," and "Good Old Days." Seriously, like, right now. Think of them. Brilliant. They're sick and twisted, and inspired. If only Al wrote the lyrics to every song ever made. The world would be a beautiful place. Full of Twinkie-weiner sandwiches.
My love affair with all things "Al" began when I was like 6 or 7 years-old, and I first heard "Gotta Boogie." I swear to Satan that I never laughed any harder. I still laugh when I hear that ditty! And the video for "I Love Rocky Road" was so awesome that it actually made me think that Joan Jett ripped HIM off (back off! Like I said, I was 7!). Soon after, my older brother told me the best possible news that a young, TV-addicted, Twinkie-junky like myself could possibly want to hear, "Weird Al is coming out with a new album." I think I shit myself when I was told.
Not only did In 3D surpass my every dream and desire to make me laugh and rock me at the same time, but it also got all of America to realize how utterly wicked-awesome the greatest accordion player in the Universe truly was. "Eat It" blew them all away. The video was at the top of the MTV charts for months (back when MTV made it a point to show more than five and a half minutes of videos a day). It made the world beg for more. Well, at least it made me and my friends beg for more. And Al was listening.
In about 22 years, Al has released 11 full albums, one of the Greatest Movies Ever Made, a TV Show that actually made me giggle like a school girl getting licked on her rosey cheeks by puppies made of rainbows (a rarity these days), and numerous "Al TV" specials on MTV and VH1; which have to be the main source of entertainment for God and all his buddies up in Heaven. And it doesn't appear that Al is planning on calling it quits anytime soon. Which is good, 'cause if he did hang up his white-boy fro the cops would have to shoot me down with elephant tranqs after I went on my cross-town rampage flipping cars and kicking homeless guys out of exasperated fury. Al better wait till I'm old and feeble before he announces his retirement just to save the lives of untold numbers of street bums. There, I've given him fair warning.
As for Al's albums, I'd like to take a minute to look at them all. Each one has at the very least one song that just speaks to me like no other artist has yet been able to do with any of their comparable work (well, except for Gamma Ray's "Man on a Mission," but that's a gimme)... Except for Alapalooza. Seriously, Al, did you just shit that CD out on a dare?
- First up we have Al's self titled debut: "Weird Al" Yankovic. Like I said before, this is the one that started it all, for both Al and for me. "Rocky Road" and "Happy Birthday" are classics, and the low budget, accordion-filled videos for "Road" and "Ricky" were like nothing anybody had ever seen on MTV at the time. They actually entertained and they knew they were cheezy. They thrived on their cheeziness. They were glorious for it. And the amount of accordion in this album has sadly never been matched since.
 Then came "Weird Al" In 3D. This is the album that launched Al into the stratosphere. It came out right behind the gloved one's Thriller album, and its first release, "Eat It," made a mockery of Jackson's "tough" street-cred song and video for "Beat It." Yeah, it was hard to take Michael Jackson serious as a tough gang member in the first place, and Al just made it tougher. Holy shit, that "alien looking through the window" scene in the video makes me pee my pants just thinking about it. I have got to start wearing adult diapers.
- A little bit more than a year after In 3D came Al's 3rd album, Dare To Be Stupid. And it was good. Not as good as 3D, but that's a tough game to follow in somebody else's moccasins.. Wait, what? Anyway, Dare brought to us one of Al's greatest parodies of all time, "Yoda." Y-O-D-A Ya-hoe-da. The perfect combination of parody and characterization... Yeah, I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. Words just come out.
- Next was Polka Party. Now, lots of people get down on Al over this album saying that it was rushed and not a great seller so soon after Dare, but I couldn't disagree more. True, it didn't sell well, but I honestly believe that this is one of the curly-haired one's best collections of songs he's done. Just think, it's got "Dog Eat Dog," "Good Enough For Now," and the holiday favorite, "Christmas At Ground Zero" on it. Plus the video for "Living With a Hernia" is probably the best goddamn impersonation of another celebrity that the boy has ever attempted. So just BACK OFF!
- A year and a half later came Even Worse. Al picked on Michael Jackson again, and people started to wonder if that was his "thing." But I knew better. "Fat" was a great song making fun of fat people. The best in fact. Plus "You Make Me" and "Good Old Days" let the world in on Al's more sensitive side. Babba Booie! Babba Booie!
- The summer of 1989 gave the world many good things: Tim Burton's Batman, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and most importantly UHF. Al's first (and sadly, only) feature film. Also, along with the movie UHF came the album UHF. Both were funny, though the movie had Stanley Spadowski in it, which made it that much more funny. Funny "ha ha," and not funny "weird," like in "Weird Al." Anyway, the final song on the album UHF, "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota," proved that Al was among the finest lyrical storytellers ever born. He's up there with that guy who wrote that long song about that girl he knew in high school, but then left and lived his life, always wondering if she was the one for him, but then he met her again like 20 years later and she was all fat and shit, and the guy was like "Whoa! Dodged the bullet on that one!" Al's as good as that guy.
- Then there was a big gap. Al was disappointed by the low box office results for UHF and he wisely waited for the next big musical thing before even attempting another album. What he ultimately waited for was the start of the grunge revolution, and more specifically, the debut of a little alternative rock group from Seattle named Nirvana. "Smells Like Nirvana," from the 1992 released Off The Deep End, was the kick to the crotch that Al and his fans needed. It had rips on Milli Vanilli, MC Hammer, and that "Rico Suave" guy. Plus it had what I consider to be the greatest anti-love song ever written, the aptly named "You Don't Love Me Anymore." I remember pissing Just Kidding off back in high school when I was able to recite the whole thing to her when it came on the radio... Hmmm, in hind sight she really only got upset when I spoke the line "I lost a little bit of self esteem; That time that you made it with the whole hockey team..." Kind of makes me wonder.
- Alapalooza never really happened. Seriously, Al, what were you thinking? This is my only gripe with the years and years of great entertainment you gave us, and so as such, this shouldn't hurt you too bad; but it was a disappointing CD to me. "Traffic Jam" is the only good song here. But that's okay, 'cause soon Al went and gave us:
 Bad Hair Day. And all was forgiven. The main release on this puppy was a parody of Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise," which took itself waaaaaay too seriously, and was just easy pickens for Al to make his "Amish Paradise." One of the funniest videos ever; but it's still below "Fish Heads," though that's only because that video had talking fish heads in it. Eat them up, yum. "Everything You Know Is Wrong," "I'm So Sick Of You," "Gump," "I Remember Larry," and the new holiday favorite, "The Night Santa Went Crazy" all contribute to making Hair Day Al's (arguably) best CD evah. The "rated R" version of "Night" is even better than the album version, FYI.
- Al once again had a LOT to live up to after his last album, and he did fairly well with '99's Running With Scissors. Yeah, "The Saga Begins" was kind of weak (it was no "Yoda"), but I think that's only because the movie it was singing about blew the big one -- it was no fault of the song's lyrics themselves. "It's All About the Pentiums" is now the national anthem for computer geeks everywhere, and "Albuquerque" is the longest, most bizarre, story-song every produced. The first time I heard it I had no idea if it was ever going to end or get to a point. Yet the whole point of the song turned out to be much deeper than I thought possible. It brought new meaning to my pathetic, miserable life. And it was good.
- And that leads us right to Al's newest album (as of this review), Poodle Hat. Very entertaining. It makes good songs of some of the most overplayed, overhyped pieces of shit that the radio shat out in recent years. "Ebay" actually makes me like a Backstreet Boys melody, "Couch Potato" makes me not hate Eminem as much as he deserves, and "Complicated Song" makes Avril Levine's prototype hummable. Toss in "Why Does This Always Happen To Me?" and you have yourself a dem fine album. A dem fine album, indeed.
So, Al's albums are (mostly) all great, but his concerts are even better. The man knows how to put on a fucking show, let me tell you. He's so full of energy even at his age (he's older than me, and I got no energy, so that's a compliment). He's constantly running around the stage and the audience, changing costumes between each song, doing elaborate dance sequences and yodeling with his band, and in between each major set he plays a bunch of his "celebrity interviews" on a huge hanging screen in which he asks people like Ozzy Osbourne if he just cut the cheese, and Celine Dion if she'll stop stalking him... And the celebrities are always open and completely honest with him. I guess it's because (like I said earlier) Al is the nicest guy in real life. He'll probably disapprove of my shitty page and my review of him just because I fucking curse like a sailor with the clap. I understand, and that's why I love the guy so damn much. In fact, I was kind of ticked when I found out that he got married for the sole reason that I was planning on having him marry my sister, Jaime, so that I could then have them breed "Little Al Juniors" in order for the man's legend to continue far past our little insignificant point in history.
All good things must come to an end, but let's all hope that Al continues singing and accordioning much longer than even the Stones or Paul McCartney. He lives clean, so there's a good chance in that. But let's hope that his band continues with him; they're the perfect combination. But I hope they stick together mostly 'cause I like saying "Jon 'Bermuda' Schwartz." It's fun!
What did
I think of Mr. "Weird Al" Yankovic? If there ever was a man whom I wished I could be instead of me, it would be he... But then I think of how I'd actually be expected to do shit, and be creative, if I was in his shoes, and I smash that thought right out of my head with a tire iron. I still give Al 5 out of 5 Golden Stars of Rossman Parody. He is a god among men... And women and children.
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