[Day 19:2013] Weird Al Yankovic

Nice job!

It's kind of sad.

Don't you think obsessing over Weird Al is a poor way to handle your money and time?  There is so much music out there... I'd have a tough time paying to watch the greatest musician on the planet 52 times.  Let alone Weird Al.  I mean whatever floats your boat, but even you have to be able to look back and scratch your head a little.

No, not at all. I was serious as a teenager, serious in my 20's (completely failed to notice when Weird Al first broke big on MTV because i didn't have a TV and was only listening to the classical radio station), serious for most of my adult life. Now I've given myself permission to be silly and a little over-the-top. I'm having tremendous fun. I use tourchasing Al as an excuse to visit other parts of the country (I visited Mt. Vernon and saw the Everglades on different Weird Al tours). I've met a great bunch of fellow fans who are smart and have great senses of humor, and they've become good friends. And frankly, it just makes me happy to see Al, Steve, Jim, Jon and Ruben take the stage because I like them so much as people. I don't know Jon and Ruben all that well, but Al really does know who I am-- he's a warm, gracious person with an excellent memory for fans, and I've probably had more hugs than autographs from him (at his initiative, I'm not just launching myself at him). I've met his wife, and she's just as friendly and gracious as he is. And both Steve & Jim, at various times, have introduced me to other people as a friend of theirs. I wouldn't presume, but if they're willing to call me friend, I'll take it. From what I've seen of my fellow really really die-hard fans, there are very few (offhand, I can only think of one or two) who are "obsessed"-- with all those meet and greets, it's hard to have a "fantasy Weird Al" in your head because you're always meeting the real Al, and that's good enough. Al isn't one of those needy sorts of celebrities who has to be validated by his fans to feel OK about himself. He's genuinely happy, always has been. He has a loving family and close friends. So when he reaches out to fans, he's very good at keeping healthy boundaries. I do meet a lot of die-hards who fall into the categories of "difficult life" (I remember one fan who kept looping Al's song "Why Does This Always Happen To Me" the whole time she was evacuating ahead of Katrina) or "extremely stressful job" (among my Al friends are a prison psychiatrist, an ER nurse, a caregiver to an angry demented person). I'm one of the "stressful job" ones. And for us, a Weird Al show is a wonderful escape for a while from those realities. And yes, the band does rock.

And I do go to other concerts; I've gone to see many more musicians play since I became a Weird Al fan than I did before during my "serious" years. There are so many different kinds of music on any one Weird Al CD tht it kind of opens you up to considering things you might not have considered before. Although I will admit that chasing Weird Al has completely destroyed my sense of how far it's reasonable to go for a concert; last month I drove 800 miles round trip just so I could see Leonard Cohen for the first time. But that's not really a bad thing. I don't know yet whether I'm coming to Roo, still deciding if I can handle the weather and the crowds, but if I do come, you can bet I will find plenty of people to listen to and discover and enjoy who aren't Weird Al.