CleverDonkey.com …Musings, Commentary, Opinions, and Drivel

One of the wonderful things about a friendship and relationship is the glorious dance of discovery and compromise that comes about as you mix and match your preferences, likes, and dislikes with those of your mate. Often, your similar likes are what bring you together in the first place: a shared reverence for the Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique album, the ability to quote from The Princess Bride, a fondness for wry humor and a well-turned phrase, a love of technology.

Then, as you get to know each other better, you find that some of your tastes don’t always match up. I remember being a bit taken aback when I first learned Scott found my morning staple of NPR pretentious and tedious, and instead revealed that he had been a Howard Stern listener. I was surprised by his look of pained endurance (much like a faithful hound dog getting a medical procedure) as we watched one of my favorite all-time movies, the Burt Reynolds / Dolly Parton musical The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. In turn, I’m sure he was disappointed when we watched one of his favorite movies, What’s Up, Doc? and I was irritated and impatient with the female character’s nasal voice and intrusive meddling.

However, this experimentation also leads both parties to the wonderful broadening of experience and taste as you are exposed to things your mate likes that you also find delightful. I now love the movies So I Married an Axe Murderer (“We’ve got a piperrr down!!”) and Doctor Strangelove (“I do not avoid women, Mandrake… but I deny them my essence.”). He and I now both watch his favorite show of Seinfeld together constantly, and I even loved Howard Stern’s movie Private Parts. Similarly, Scott now listens to Eminem and Busta Rhymes with me and even enjoyed 8 Mile after we saw it together. He loves the short-lived cartoon show The Critic that I introduced him to and watched The South Park Movie at my urging (loved it).

Over the years of our friendship, relationship, and marriage, Scott has always loved Weird Al Yankovic. God forbid the Coolio song “Gansta’s Paradise” be played, lest Scott feel the need to belt out Weird Al’s parody, “Amish Paradise”:

It’s hard work and sacrifice

Living in an Amish paradise

We sell quilts at discount price

Living in an Amish paradise

That parody annoyed the hell outta me! First of all, I liked Coolio’s song, and the Stevie Wonder song on which it was based. Weird Al’s song spoiled it for me! Because, after enough repetitions of Scott singing or playing the Weird Al version, I would hear the Weird Al lyrics in my head even if I was listening to the Coolio version.

Years ago, when Scott bought the album “Running with Scissors” and played the song “The Saga Begins” (about Episode One of the Star Wars series), I thought the lyrics were mildly clever but I wasn’t a big Star Wars fan, so it didn’t really do much for me (sung to the tune of “American Pie”):

Oh my my this here Anakin guy

May be Vader someday later; now he’s just a small fry

And he left his home and kissed his mommy goodbye

Sayin’ “Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”

“Soon I’m gonna be a Jedi”

Then he played a song I thought was pretty funny, because it hit me squarely in my mid-20′s demographic: an original zydeco ditty called “My Baby’s In Love With Eddie Vedder”.

She says the way he grinds his molars is really sexy

She thinks he’s so darn dysfunctional and Generation X-ey

…

Now, every time I see him, well, he looks so grim

I guess it really must suck to be a rock star like him

What a pain in the butt to have so much success

Spending all his time moping and avoiding the press

But my girl can’t get enough of his sullen demeanor

Like he’s some big tortured genius and I’m some kinda wiener

I have to say, I found that one to be pretty hilarious. He pretty much nails Eddie Vedder right on (only Weird Al would think to describe him as having a “walleyed stare”) and aptly makes fun of how hilarious it was that Pearl Jam was so popular and fiscally successful as they seemingly eschewed material things and boycotted the music “machine” of MTV and Ticketmaster. And I thought that the song “Jerry Springer,” a rapid-fire parody of the song “One Week” by the Barenaked Ladies, was sorta funny.

So, at this point, I thought Weird Al could be funny in a hit-or-miss kinda way. Some of the songs were amusing but goofy — clever, but not genius.

Then… I heard… “All About the Pentiums”. It was a hard-rocking parody of a Puff Daddy song I’d never heard of called “All About the Benjamins”. “All About the Pentiums” is about technology, and I found it hilarious! To wit:

Hey fella, I bet you’re still livin’ in your parents’ cellar

Downloadin’ pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar

And postin’ “Me too!” like some brain-dead AOL-er

I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller

You’re just about as useless as Jpegs to Hellen Keller

It’s tacky and crude, but completely funny! The song is laced with references I would categorize as “true computer geek” talk, the kinda stuff you can’t just sit down and write about unless you truly are a computer and Internet person:

Got a flat-screen monitor forty inches wide

I believe that yours says “Etch-A-Sketch” on the side

In a 32-bit world, you’re a 2-bit user

You’ve got your own newsgroup: alt.total.loser

So, “All About the Pentiums” became one of my favorite songs. I even put it on my Flash card for going running — it’s got a pretty good fast beat! Then, Scott bought Weird Al’s most recent album, Poodle Hat, and I realized that Weird Al is truly a genius.

The song, “Ebay” (parodying a Back Street Boys tune, or so my embarassed stepdaughter informs me), again nailed me right in the demographics. I’m a pretty regular Ebay shopper and seller, and the song made pretty clear that Weird Al had done his homework about Ebay:

I am the type who is liable to snipe you

With two seconds left to go, whoa

Got Paypal or Visa, what ever’ll please

As long as I’ve got the dough

And then… I heard the song “Bob”, an original Weird Al composition in the style of Bob Dylan. I chuckled as we listened to the nonsensical lyrics in the style of “Subterranean Homesick Blues”. The the last line of the song played, and Annalisa sputtered from the back seat, “that line, that’s one of … those… things!!!!” We listened to the words again:

Ah, Satan sees Natasha

No devil lived on

Lonely Tylenol

Not a banana baton

No “x” in “Nixon”

O, stone, be not so

O Geronimo, no minor ego

“Naomi,” I moan

“A Toyota’s a Toyota”

A dog, a panic in a pagoda

Yep, that’s right. Not only was the song a dead-on homage to Bob Dylan with its harmonica and strange crooning style, but every single lyric in the entire song is a palindrome. And so is the song’s title, ‘Bob’. I felt a series of synaptic explosions as the sheer genius of the song really struck me. And I was officially converted to being a full-time Weird Al fan.

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