Top 19 -- "Weird Al" Yankovic: Polka Party

We've come to the part of the Top 19 where I no longer talked about these albums on Facebook. Even though they're still in the Top 19  I guess you can consider them honorable mentions or runners up to the Top 10 Facebook list.*

* This preamble seems highly unnecessary but so is this list.

I can't be 100% certain of this, but if you grew up in the 1980s; there's a good chance you had a "Weird Al" Yankovic phase. I know that I did. I got Al's biggest album "In 3-D" (the one with "Eat It") back in 1984 and I listened to that tape a lot. In a lot of ways, it was a primer on classic rock due to his "Polka on 45s" medley. He mashed "Hey Joe" by Jimi Hendrix, "LA Woman" by the Doors and "Hey Jude" by the Beatles, among other songs, into one really hyper polka. It was a strange experience to hear one of those songs year later for the first time and think, "I know this song, but where do I know it from?"

So for me, Al is the source for my pop culture deja vu. 

My best friend at the time, had Al's follow-up to "In 3-D", called "Dare to Be Stupid". Even though I didn't own the cassette at the time, we listened to it a lot. And laughed a lot. That was the thing about Weird Al tapes, the musicianship was really good, but the lyrics were also really funny. For a guy that's labelled only as a "parodist", I am certain that Al and his band don't get a lot of credit for how well they play their instruments*, nor for how well Yankovic writes his songs. 

* I've read someone make the claim that Yankovic's band has to be the best touring bands ever due to the different types of music that they have to master. From hip hop to pop to country to metal to grunge to doo wop to punk, they need to be able to play these genres and make sure that they sound great. I don't know, this guy made a really good argument. 

For Christmas of 1986, I really wanted Al's follow up to "DtbS", entitled "Polka Party". I saw  the James Brown/Rocky IV parody video, "Living with a Hernia" all over MTV and needed to hear what other tricks Al had up his sleeve. December 25 came and under the tree was "Polka Party". I'm sure that I busted out the tape player and gave that bad boy a listen as I put together my He-Man and M.A.S.K. toys or while I was reading comics and looking at baseball cards--the 1986 Topps Traded Set, dontchaknow. 

I did a very brief bit of research on this album and found that it was one of Yankovic's worst selling albums ever. The release was met with commercial and critical silence. But I didn't care, I loved this album so much. At the time I owned probably about six tapes, two of them were Weird Al, two were Men at Work, one was a Billy Joel's "Piano Man" (I wanted "An Innocent Man" but I got this instead) and I'm not sure what the other album was. The only two that I ever listened to were from Weird Al. 

The influence that this tape had on me was pretty big. My favorite song was the El Debarge "Who's Johnny" parody, "Here's Johnny", which was about Johnny Carson's sidekick Ed McMahon. In 1986, I was 12-years-old and I doubt that I ever stayed up later than 10:00, but I laughed at that song like I've been watching Carson for 25 years. The only thing that I knew about McMahon was that he and Dick Clark used to host, "Foul Ups, Bleeps and Blunders" and he used to give away big checks once a year for Publisher's Clearing House. Al's song made me want to learn more about McMahon and his full-time job so that vacation, I stayed up to watch the Tonight Show. Since it was during the dead time between Christmas and New Year's, I was shocked to find a rerun. And if I remember right, I don't think that my hero Ed McMahon was even on the show that night. 

I can't tell you how long my Weird Al infatuation lasted. It probably wasn't much longer after that I decided that him and his music was "kids stuff" and that I needed to listen to more adult music like Poison or Mötley Crüe. You know, songs with real meaning in them. 

But a funny thing happened, people kept trying to bury him in the late 80s, but Weird Al Yankovic is still pretty popular. He has his ebbs and flows, but there are a lot of comedians that I respect who cite him as an early influence. And from what I've read, he's one of the nicest people in showbiz. 

My daughter's first music obsession was Weird Al and that was her first concert too. Al was great, he put on an awesome show and my daughter had a blast. It was really cool to be able to pass that down from one generation to the next and I know that it stuck. My daughter doesn't love Weird Al as much as she used to, but she can be as goofy as he can be. We still talk about "Christmas at Ground Zero" (first released on "Polka Party") and not a week goes by without one of us referencing "Just One of Those Days" (another "Polka Party" jam). It's like our own secret language and one that I love speaking. 

I never would have guessed that the first time that I listened to "Polka Party" under the Christmas tree that I'd be sharing a love of Weird Al 34 years later with my daughter. But it happened and that's good. 

Songs no New Englander Should Ever Karaoke

(I have no idea who is pictured above, I ran a Google image search for "New England Karaoke" and that's what popped up.)

As a rule, I don’t do karaoke. For one thing, it’s not the late 90s and the other is I can’t sing at all. Well, that’s not absolute true, I’ve done karaoke twice and each time I’ve been pretty hammered*. Once me and a couple of my buddies did the Doors “Alabama Song” at a newspaper Christmas party—and how a tune from a 1920s German opera didn’t get the crowd rocking, I’ll never know.

The other time was at a bachelor party—yes, this was probably the inspiration for both Hangover movies, I’m still working on suing the writers of the movie. While at a Cape Cod bar, a friend (the groom) put a bunch of our names in a hat and when the Karaoke DJ chose us, each one of us ambled on stage to sing our song. For the record I did Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer” and two things: it wasn’t that bad of an experience—I can see why Huey Lewis and Gwenyth Paltrow wasted a lot of money and did a movie** about this phenomenon. And two, I wasn’t half bad either, or at least that’s how I remember it.

* It’s amazing that I’m as old as I am and I still use the excuse “I’ve was pretty hammered”. I guess some things never change.

** I happened to catch this movie one lazy Sunday, why didn’t Huey Lewis sing “I Want A New Drug” or “Heart of Rock N Roll” or one of his jazzy tunes? Did the director think that the audience would be shocked out of the fantasy that the movie portrayed? Fuck that, half the time I was watching this flick I was wondering where Lewis had been for the last 20 years, why he chose this movie to mount a comeback and tried to figure out if he actually could be Paltrow’s father.

Anyhow, I was thinking about these experiences the other day and it occurred to me that there are certain songs that New Englanders should never perform under any circumstances. Let’s list them, shall we?

Heartbreaker by Led Zeppelin. Double whammy. Heart become “haht” and breaker becomes “breakah”. If Zeppelin had been made up of New Englanders, they’d have to steal a different blues song, wouldn’t they?

Hard Days Night by the Beatles. Ever hear someone from New England say the word “hard”? It’s the reason why there aren’t many famous Boston porn stars.

Hard Times by Run DMC, Achy Breaky Heart by Bill Ray Cyrus, Hard Charger by Jane’s Addiction, Heartbreak Hotel by Elvis Presley, Hard to Handle by the Black Crowes, Heart of Glass by Blondie, Kickstart My Heart by Motley Crue, Harden My Heart by QuarterFlash ... pretty much any song that has one of these two words in it.

Warm It Up by Kriss Kross. Not just for the pronunciation of the word “warm” in the title. But everyone knows that New England is where the East Coast Family was born. Back in the day, Kriss Kross messed with Another Bad Creation and got Bell Biv DeVoe, BoyzIIMen and the whole East Coast. Some feuds will never die no matter how many years go by. True fact: in some areas of Vermont, it is still legal to shoot someone when they are wearing their clothes backwards.

Piano Man by Billy Joel. Try a little originality on stage, my friend. Everyone sings Piano Man.

(You Got It) The Right Stuff by New Kids on the Block. This is true only in Roxbury.

Mr. Telephone Man by New Edition. This is true only in Dorchester.

Poker Face by Lady Gaga. Another mispronunciation miscue, however with dastardly results. You start singing polka face and the next thing you know, some asshole busts out his accordion. And unless that asshole is Weird Al, you’re in for a lot of trouble.

New York, New York by Frank Sinatra. You do remember what state you’re in, right?

You Give Love a Bad Name by Bon Jovi. Simply for the chorus alone. Also, don’t touch Living on a Prayer, either. That’s my song.

All Night Long, Hello, Dancing on the Ceiling by Lionel Richie. Lionel Richie? Fuck that guy.

Macarena by those two Spanish dudes whose names I’ve forgotten and are too lazy to Google. A New England accent in Spanish? No gracias.

There you go. Next time you find yourself in 1998 and stuck in a Massachusetts karaoke bar; remember these tips and you’ll leave the place with your life, a song in your heart and a lady on each arm.