Armageddon at Howick Beach

The Goodies And The Beanstalk

***CONTAINS SPOILERS ***

For some reason, one of the students in my Advanced English class wanted to see an English-language film of Jack And The Beanstalk, and this was the only one I could find.

So this morning we merged my Advanced class with Anna's Beginners’ class in order to hijack their video for 45 minutes. Just what would they all make of it? Well, every pantomime takes liberties.


Graeme, Tim and Bill - alias The Goodies of the title - have fallen on hard times and become tramps. They are forced to sell their beloved trandem, in exchange for a measly tin of baked beans. Well, you know what happens next.

As I mentioned in another post, The Goodies has aged extremely well. While a few of the “live-action cartoon” effects are in-keepingly cheap, (and would probably not work as well if they looked seriously real anyway) the sheer artillery of quality gags never fails to overcome and make the whole thing look quite glossy. They just wouldn’t let you make something so purely fun today. Even Scrubs has its serious moments.

And this is a tour de force of The Goodies at their finest. The Jeux Sans Frontières sequence, the fairy-tale world at the top of the beanstalk, and of course the classic final escape-sequence.

The fact that this is the one episode that they actually did make specifically for children (unpatronisingly featuring a nudist-camp without getting coarse) makes the whole thing quite enchanting, particularly their rare use of such magical incidental music, combined with shooting the whole thing on film.

The highlight would have to be the epic sequence in which the colossal beanstalk grows to gigantic proportions, propelling our heroes right across the country (and extremely close to my house in Twickenham) on its stem, wreaking mayhem in ever-more-bizarre ways.

As for the watching Chinese students, it got quite a few light laughs, being as it is so visual, with a great many signs to be read in English. They seemed quite happy.

But probably not as happy as I was.

After all, I’d just been paid for watching The Goodies. That hasn’t happened for a few employers.

This week Rhett pointed out to me a gun shop which a while back, it seems, someone tried to hold up.

1 Samuel 3:1-21

Cool Car Spotted Outside Food Town

The Mask Of Zorro

Tonight, the stress of working morning, noon and night whilst also squeezing in a fitness regime was really getting to me, so I numbed-out on the sofa and watched Zorro with Flatmates Dave, Cathy and Nicola.

If anyone gets something interesting to do here, if would be Antonio Banderas, as he makes the transition from bumbling drunk to suave superhero. Somewhere between the two, he gets to be a bumbling fool who can only defeat villains by accident, and throughout these scenes the film shows ingenious promise.

But then there’s Catherine Zeta-Jones as Elena, who is given so little motivation to work with, and surely rates as the definitive token girl.

I’m writing this 2 days later, and I can’t really remember how it finished, but they were nice people in a dry sort of world.


Available here.

Review of sequel - The Legend Of Zorro - here.

Weird Al and Me (part 5 of 5): Straight Outta Lynwood – “Weird Al” Yankovic

The following day, Weird Al’s concert, which for me had begun as a dream (get over it Herschel) was now a dream once more.

But better than a dream – a fresh memory.

Towards the end of the show I had found that I was not so much listening to the lyrics, as simply sitting there letting my mind wander. I wasn’t bored, or tired, or anything like that, far from it. I was happy to be in an environment that was as silly as I was. I was safe here, and for a few hours the world was exactly the sort of crazy place that I’ve always wanted it to be.

I often feel the same way each time I listen to a new CD by him.

And with that in mind, with the concert over, it was finally time to give his latest album its first listening - Straight Outta Lynwood.


For the first time Al’s CD comes with a bonus disc, which despite not including the Karaoke mixes advertised on the cover, does feature fascinating animated videos for a whopping 6 of the tracks. He could be just trying to get a foot-up on YouTube here, where home-made videos of his work are proliferate.

And commisioning 6 different directors to produce cheap animated videos to these tracks is, I think, a limited success.

It must be said, that once I’ve seen a video to one of Weird Al’s songs, I usualy find it impossible to divorce the pictures from the song in my mind, and these are no exception.

I’ll Sue Ya is a track that I might not otherwise listen to again in a hurry (I don’t listen to music much to begin with), but with an animated Al dancing through graphics of so many household brand-names, I don’t think I’ll ever hear the song without recalling these pictures too, whether I want to or not.

Pancreas on the other hand, sounds beautiful with all its Beach Boys-esque harmonising:

My spleen just doesn’t matter,
Don’t really care about my bladder,
But I don’t leave home without my… paaan-creas.

Yet the video is so irrelevant, attempting to sync a limited amount of old black-and-white footage that just doesn’t quite fit the lyrics. It’s like watching TV with the sound off and the radio on – there’s a little overlap, but generally the two elements are coming from completely different places.

And that really defines the hurdle that these video-directors have to overcome – they have to make something that looks like it came from the mind of Weird Al.

A tall order.

Don’t Download This Song, I’ll Sue Ya and Virus Alert are all okay, but after watching the disc there were just two videos that I played a second time. The curious thing is that afterwards I read the sleeve notes and discovered that these were the only two videos that Al actually had some credited input into - the spell-binding Close But No Cigar, and the classic Weasel Stomping Day.

Yes, a classic. Usually its possible to track how an artist’s tastes and attitudes have changed over twenty years in the business, but this one really could be from any album since Al began! Oh yes, he’s definitely still got it.

Of the tracks with no videos attached, White And Nerdy (which ironically has a live-action video not included here) easily stands out as the best. Canadian Idiot is a great idea, but the wholly negative lyrics rather miss their target.

I’ve said before on this blog that I find Weird Al rather hit and miss, and his previous album Poodle Hat easily had more misses than hits. What a relief then that Straight Outta Lynwood firmly reestablishes him at the top of his game.

Weird Al continues to create his own brand of music whatever anyone else seems to think of him, and long may he get away with it.

Available to sample and buy here.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 1 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 2 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 3 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 4 of 5.

Weird Al And Me (Part 4 of 5): Photo Finish?

It was no good.

"Weird Al" Yankovic’s concert at the St James Theatre in Auckland had finished a good few minutes ago now, but there were still a heap of audience-members left inside the building when I came back downstairs, so it was time to check the stage door.

Outside, I discovered about a dozen people hanging around. They were a friendly lot, and I got chatting to a 40-something couple called Graham and Daphne. (I think) This was unexpected for two reasons.

Firstly because they were fans like myself, and for the first time in my life I was able to actually have an in-depth conversation with someone about Weird Al’s work. Many people are only aware of his famous parodies, but these two had all the albums I had, and knew all the trivia that I did too, plus more.

Secondly, they had been to see him perform in Sydney a couple of years ago, and were speaking to me about him in the same sort of special glowing terms that I would expect fans of someone like Neil Diamond to use.

I connected with the sparkle in these two’s eyes immediately – they had recognised the joy in Al’s zany humour, as had I, and they too knew how rare it was.

Over an hour passed, during which some of the other hangers-round unexpectedly turned out to be members of the band. I had quite a chat with guitarist Steve Jay, and took this picture of him signing Cameron’s UHF poster:


Gradually more and more stuff and people emerged – Al’s wife, kid (riding the Segway) and a huge box marked “FAT COSTUME.”

We figured he was probably post morteming the show somewhere inside with the others.

In the back of my mind was a gnawing suspicion – while we were all camping out here at the back of the theatre, was he quietly escaping through the front? (as they told us Jon Pertwee had back in Wimbledon in 1989)

It was now gone midnight, and I knew I had missed the last mainstream bus home. When this was over I would now either have to find a night bus, or if there wasn’t one of those, see if I could swing a comp bed back at my old youth hostel haunt a mere five minutes walk away.

Our numbers dwindled, presumably meaning that those of us who were now left were the ones who had come here specifically to see Weird Al, as opposed to just for someone famous.

Suddenly there was a look of recognition in one of the others’ eyes, and with no shame at all the small crowd surged as one hopefully forwards toward the stage door.

Apparently Al had actually come here looking for us.

Everyone automatically organised themselves into an orderly queue. Al politely met everyone, signed autographs, (some of them on clothing) and even appeared to be recording a special outgoing message for someone’s mobile phone. The couple I’d been talking to and I had already struck a deal to swap cameras and photograph each other with him, to ensure that everything went as smoothly as possible.

Their moment came, and with my usual “3 2 1” I photographed them all together on their digital. I made a mental note of Al’s expression, figuring that he would probably wear the same one for mine – it was just an ordinary friendly smile.

And then it was my turn.

Perhaps responding to my own, Al threw me a big smile and grinned “Hi!”

We went to shake hands enthusiastically and immediately missed each other and wound up catching each other’s thumbs instead, resulting in us both going “whoa!” and chuckling. I said “We got a linky-pinky thing going on,” which was a joke I’d got from Plug comic when I was six, and hadn’t expected to ever use.

I’d forgotten to bring my Straight Outta Lynwood CD for him to sign, but in fairness I wasn’t that interested in an autograph anyway. Still, it seemed like the thing to do, so I handed him my ticket and biro and asked him to make it out to me, spelling my surname. Graham was an absolute trooper and started taking pictures of us even at this early stage. Anyway I wanted a posed one too, and Al was happy to oblige.

Not sure if he would pull the same smile as earlier or go for the “weird” look that I’ve seen him pull in other fan photos on the net, I opted to just go for my usual smile, figuring that it would go well with either expression from him. In the event the crowd was laughing at him, so I figured he was pulling some sort of expression, but wasn’t sure what. All I could see was his mass of wavy hair out of the corner of my eye.

As it happened, the camera caught us just as Al looked away, so he suggested we take it again, which we did.

I thanked him, shook his hand again, said “Thanks for making me laugh...have a great tour” and we said goodbye.

Then, as the next person stepped up to meet him, it was time for me to say goodbye to my new friends who’d been taking the pictures for me. “I’ll see you two in two years time at the next one of these!”

I put the camera in my bag, and looked back at the last few members of our brief, friendly group. Al was still signing his last autographs, and some of the earlier enthusiasts seemed happy to hang around and watch. I wasn’t – I’d got what I’d come for, and now I had to head back to whatever it is I do.

I bought some food, and the night bus never showed-up, so I had to wait over an hour for the next one, but it didn’t matter.


When I finally crashed into bed at about 3am, I was utterly exhausted.

And very happy.

I’d had a fantastic evening, been very silly for a couple of hours, and achieved my three-point ambition for the day – I’d shaken Al’s hand, got the photo I wanted and even raised a laugh out of him.

Yet there was another reason why I felt so good.

I felt pretty good about myself.

Al Yankovic is the most famous person I have ever met. Yet this evening I proved to myself that I’ve finally shaken-off the inferiority that I used to feel at meeting people who are so much more successful than myself.

I guess that’s because, within the context of being forgiven, I allow myself to feel a little successful these days too.

Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 1 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 2 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 3 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 5 of 5.

Weird Al And Me (part 3 of 5): Not A Dream

My attempt to get to the St James Theatre in Auckland an hour before Weird Al Yankovic’s concert would start had failed.

I just had to keep stopping. At one point I bought my refreshments for the show and then had to go back to the shop to buy them again. Grrrrrr.

Locating where Auckland's St James Theatre was on Queen Street actually turned-out to be quite easy though. Sure – it’s hidden inside a block, but the two huge queues coming out of the small entrance sort of gave it away.

Flatmate Dave hadn’t been able to make it in the end, so as I filed down the pavement towards the door, I spotted a slightly depressed looking figure outside. He was an unlucky fan who hadn’t been able to get a ticket, so today was his lucky day! I declined his offer of payment, something I berated myself for afterwards, but I was in a pretty good mood myself, and was happy to make his day.

I had bought a stalls ticket, however once inside the theatre I was surprised to find that the seats were all grouped around circular dining tables. The area immediately in front of the stage was about 3 tables deep, behind which the rest of the stalls area was on a raised platform all the way to the back. I was seated at the front of this raised area on the right – on the same level as the stage and able to see right over the heads of everyone in front! The stage was about 5 metres away from me, if that, and the rail in front of my seat would make a perfect surface for my camera. Just like in my dream, I had pretty well one of the very best seats in the house.


The warm-up artist Sam Wills came on and did his routine, which I think everyone in New Zealand has seen by now, but it was still very funny. (I saw him do this twice down in Havelock North and Napier with Jamie) What a shame he hadn’t done his homework on who he was opening for though – Weird Al is a family-friendly performer and doesn’t swear, so there were probably kids in the audience.

The interval before the main show proper was due to start. It was hot, and I took the risk of heading out to the bar to get yet another drink. I stood in a short queue for absolutely ages, fretting everytime I heard a huge cheer from the theatre, which I later discovered were all false alarms.

Back in my seat with a fresh glass of fruit juice in my hand, the show actually started with a few surreal video-clips that I fretted the general public might not ‘get’.

Then the video-clips ended, and I don’t think there’s anyone else in the world who can get so much applause for walking onto a stage carrying an accordion.


As he launched into his opening medley of recent hits entitled Polkarama!, I had to take-in just how ironic the parody was. Weird Al is just not as young as he used to be, and watching a 47-year-old guy wrangling an accordion lent the entire silly parody a deadpan tone that suggested he was actually a genuine folk-player taking the whole thing quite seriously.

I listened hard. Having not really heard his most recent album yet, I had no idea if this track was from it, or a completely new one especially for the show. One thing I had definitely come hoping to hear was at least one song that had never been released, preferably because he hadn’t been granted permission.


In the event there were loads of tracks that I had never heard of. Partly this was because there were so many from the aforementioned latest album (which I had only watched the videos from), but also cropping-up were...


... You’re Pitiful (based on James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful which can be downloaded from his Myspace page) and...


...I’m In Love With The Skipper based on T-Pain’s I’m N Luv (Wit A Stripper), both of which were dropped from the same album.



A Complicated Problem:
"How was I supposed to know that we were both related?
Believe me if I knew she was my cousin then we never would have dated!
What to do now? Should I go ahead and propose,
and get hitched and have kids with eleven toes,
and move to Tasmania where that kind of thing is tolerated?”

(on the original CD “Tasmania” was “Alabama”)


The whole show lasted a whopping 2 hours+, and gave the impression that Al had been on stage constantly. In fact he performed so many costume-changes between numbers (frequently stripping-off to reveal his next bizarre outfit underneath) that many of these changes had been covered by the screening of various TV sketches of his from through the years. His fake interview with Eminem was one that I had seen before and had only found the first minute of funny, yet to watch it now on a huge screen, together with an even huger audience laughing at it, transformed the whole thing into something hilarious.


Many of his well-known chart hits were a bit like watching his pop videos being reenacted on stage, with Al wearing the same costume and repeating many of the same gags. In the circumstances I had to wonder what it was that made watching a live performance so much “better” than a carefully edited video one.


The excerpt from Couch Potato (based on Lose Yourself by Eminem) was particularly fascinating to watch from this perspective, given the way the video had had to be abandoned when only half shot due to a rights disagreement. This was therefore a glimpse of a video that we would never now see.

It must also be said that some of these well-known parodies surely owe their longevity and catchiness to the success and familiarity of the original. The final chorus of The Saga Begins (based on Don McLean’s infamous American Pie) had the entire theatre singing along like a football crowd.


We were singin'
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."



Finally, after over two hours, the weirdest live video reenactment took place by way of the finale.


On the huge video-screen, they showed us the opening black-and-white dialogue exchange from the video of Fat. Al shot this about 20 years ago now – back when he still had his then-trademark moustache and big glasses. Today he has neither, however when the old spoken video introduction finished and he came on stage to sing the actual song, in order to follow-on from the clip properly he was once again wearing his old glasses and a fake moustache! Now that’s nerdy!


Then, at last, the show was over. He introduced the individual band-members, we applauded and cheered, and they finally retreated off stage.

Well, you know the pantomime that played-out then.

Yes, we all yelled, cheered, clapped and kept on yelling, cheering and clapping for what seemed like far too long, until they finally acquiesced and returned, pretending like children that they had no encore planned.

Al asked the audience which track they would like to hear, and suddenly everyone was yelling at the tops of their voices. Nothing was distinguishable. I think I yelled “Everything You Know Is Wrong” and “Bohemian Polka”, but only because I wanted to take part – I really didn’t care what he sang. Neither I think did the guy behind me who amiably got my attention because he could no longer see because, with most of the rest of the audience, I was standing up.

Ultimately everyone quietened-down and, and I discovered the answer to a long-held question.

Apart from his little-publicised sideline in recording instrumental tracks, Weird Al has spent his whole music career performing comedy songs – so does he ever perform serious ones in his spare time?

Look at this picture and guess what he’s singing:


It’s Close To You by The Carpenters. Whether this was actually a truly straight rendition, or whether he was just singing it straight for a laugh I don’t know, but in betrayal of my younger self, I chose to believe the former.

A verse of that over and he suddenly burst into his eleven-minute epic Albuquerque. Al’s shaggy-dog-stories have never really been worth a second listen for me, but this time it was different. It was live, it was exciting, and once more we were all screaming along to the chorus.

Al: “Give me an A!”
Crowd: “A!”
Al: “Give me an L!”
Crowd: “L!”
Al: “Give me a B!”
Crowd: “B!”
Al: “Give me a U!”
Crowd: “U!”
Al: “Give me a… … uh …”


Finally, it really was the end. They all got off stage and having been made to applaud for so long after the first ending, we had fallen into their trap and just didn’t have the energy left to make out that we expected yet another one.

The applause died-down, the house-lights came-on, and everyone began milling around to leave.

Well, everyone except me, apparently. Although there was a sign in the bar inviting everyone to an after-show party there, it became clear that this simply wasn’t true. They were closing up. Not wishing to cut-down my options, I headed-up a long staircase to take as long as possible going to the furthest-away toilet, hopefully until the number of members of the public still present was somewhat less-impractical.

Then maybe, just maybe, the last few of us to leave might be able to get an autograph, and that photo I wanted. There was no harm in politely asking.

The question on my mind was this:

Was he really a super-successful pop star with ten body-guards surrounding him constantly?

Or, was he just a guy working in a theatre?



Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 1 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 2 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 4 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 5 of 5.

Weird Al And Me (Part 2 of 5): That’s Shoebusiness

You can tell when I really want something to go well – I have nightmares about it all going hideously wrong beforehand. Like this one...

*******************************************************************

“Weird Al” is the only musician about whom I can honestly say that I have all their CDs… and tonight he was going to perform a special one-off concert in Auckland to launch his 2007 world-tour.


I was determined to arrive at the St James Theatre on Queen Street early – after all, it might be open seating. I really didn’t want to be struggling to see at the back, and barely able to make anything out from behind everyone else. I was early, heck, I was one of the first.

(I get strategic like this about getting good airline and coach seats too)

Entering the auditorium I made a beeline for the front-row, and, unable to decide exactly which seat was dead centre, picked the best one I could as the others surrounding it were filling-up quickly.

I sat down, my trusty rucksack in hand. There was some time to go until kick-off, and the stage looked bare and empty, waiting for people to finish getting ready to bring it all to life.

Apart from festivals like Greenbelt and Parachute, I hadn’t really been to a rock concert before. I didn’t know what the norm was. Weird Al might only be playing 20 minutes with the rest of the evening filled-up by supporting bands, for all I knew. The only act we could see now however was technicians and the like crawling around the stage.

Then, from the back, a whole 45 minutes before the show was about to start, Weird Al himself suddenly walked out across the stage!

… Weird … Al!!!

Seeing the already assembling audience, he turned to approach us and, as he was wearing one of those radio headsets that stage-hands and stage-managers wear to communicate with each other, he began acting like he was leading a keep-fit session, doing exercises and authoritatively commanding everyone to follow.

Of course, the delightied audience joined in, and within seconds he had us all on our feet mucking about taking part. The evening was fun already. His impromptu improvisation over, he quickly popped down to the front to thank us for coming, bizarrely wearing a shoe on his head as though normal. Flip, Al was a lot nearer than I’d anticipated, and I was in the front row!

Suddenly he was actually shaking the hand of the guy in the seat next to me on my left (where I had nearly sat), and, turning to me, suddenly I was shaking his hand too!

Indicating the shoe he was wearing on his head, I joked “That suits you – it’s your colour!”

He chuckled, and moved on, briefly shaking a few other lucky early-comers’ hands before retreating back beyond the stage again to get ready for the show, now about a mere 44 minutes away.

This was an extremely good start to the evening. My deft time-management had got me a fantastic seat, AND I’d shaken the man himself’s hand, AND I’d cracked a joke and made “Weird Al” Yankovic laugh! The icing on the cake would be if, after the show, I could somehow get my picture taken with him to put on this blog. I’d come prepared with my trusty camera in my rucksack, and just as sitcom law clearly dictates must happen, now was the exact moment at which I remembered that I had run out of film before coming here and forgotten to bring another roll with me.

…

Stuff. I still had plenty of time to nip out and buy a film, but it meant giving-up my seat. Unless… if I left my coat or something here on the seat, the chances of anyone stealing my seat would be low, and of anyone stealing my old bag even less. I had about 43 minutes. What could possibly go wrong?

I got lost exitting the building.

Yes, you read that right. Forget OSH’s safety regs about how exits must be clearly signed so that patrons can get out quickly in an emergency, as I kept finding myself heading down blankish corridors and through doors, I wasn’t that sure that I could even find my way back to my section of the auditorium okay. It was all getting a bit like a nightmare I had once that I was showing a film that I’d made, but for several convoluted reasons couldn’t get the projector to work.

Outside, the streets were behaving in the same manner. All I wanted to do was find a simple convenience store to buy a camera film, and probably some snacks too, but such a normally common shop was proving increasingly hard to find among Queen Street’s maze-like back-roads.

And then it hit me – after I had bought the camera film, and the snacks, I would have to get back into the theatre through the main entrance… with my ticket. In one of those big dramatic cinematic zoom-ins I suddenly realised that I had left my ticket back in my bag… on my seat in the theatre.

My perfect dream evening going to see my favourite singer was all turning into some kind of crazy… spinning… awful… nightmare…

*******************************************************************

You can tell when I really want something to go well – I have nightmares about it all going hideously wrong beforehand.

But when I woke up from this nightmare, back in my bed in Howick, back in February with a few weeks still to go until March 10th when the real concert was going to happen, I actually felt on top of the world.

Sure, I’d just had a fairly horrendous, fairly vivid dream about screwing-up going to see one of my heroes, but I was on a high for days afterwards.

You see, I had met Weird Al. I had shaken his hand. And, I had made him laugh.

So, I wondered, without getting my hopes up, when the day of the concert actually did come around, could the positive part of my dream actually come true?

Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 1 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 3 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 4 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 5 of 5.

Weird Al And Me (Part 1 of 5): Who On Earth Is ”Weird Al” Yankovic?

So I said, “If it’s a choice between Weird Al or U2, I’ll pick Weird Al every time.”

So she said thoughtfully, “Yeeeeees, that probably says a lot about the sort of person you are.”

Guilty. When I was a kid, I could never understand why serious things even existed. I genuinely didn’t get why on earth people actually paid money to go watch a boring serious film with no jokes in it. Serious music, serious TV shows, serious books (really hard to fathom that one) – why not just inject some humour and make the whole thing, oh I don’t know - fun?

As I discovered in later life, Weird Al was the answer to my question, and the answer he told me was that I was right.


Look at this man in 1981. He’s now a world-famous millionaire rock-star. And it’s not because of any of yer boring glitzy-image, love songs or sex appeal. It’s because he’s funny.

One night in my late teens/late 80s (by which I mean I was a teenager in the late 1980s, okay?) I found myself with a group of mates watching a video of Rock Around The Clock - a music marathon that had been transmitted by the BBC a few years earlier. Most of it was the same boring dry dull waste-of-time-and-money serious (ya-a-awn) music that had totally failed to grab me throughout my teenage years.

But then, in the middle of all this misery, there was suddenly this parody.

Better, it was a parody of a serious video that we had been watching about an hour earlier – Michael Jackson’s Beat It. And it was a good parody too. Pretty well shot-for-shot every bit of the earlier video had been re-filmed and lampooned. The self-pretentious lyrics had all been re-written to be about food. I swear I was thinking about that video for literally years and years afterwards, mainly because I (understandably) couldn’t remember the artist’s name.

But I did remember the song’s title - Eat It.


You better listen, better do what you're told,
You haven't even touched your tuna casserole,
You better chow down or it's gonna get cold,
So eat it. Just eat it.

One day, via a BBC database, I found out the identity of this funnyman – “Weird Al” Yankovic. Now at last I could start scouring Our Price for popular music records that had been improved with comedy. All I had to do now was remember how to spell the guy’s name.

Alas, after many attempts at checking under Y for Yankovic, J for Jankovic, WE for Wierd, WI for WEIRD, A for Al and even through the HUMOUR/COMEDY sections, I had to admit defeat. People were vaguely aware of Al Yankovic, but he just hadn’t made it big in the UK. Apart from a brief glimpse of him performing a bit of Fat on America’s Top Ten in the small hours, I only had my memory to prove that he had ever really existed. And as far as I believed at that stage, he only parodied songs by Michael Jackson anyway.

I went to the library to check on the information super highway, but they told me that their futuristic server was down, and wouldn’t be up-and-running for about another 12 years.

1996 – I was 25 and wandering about Gastown in Vancouver, Canada when I spotted Granville record store. Yes!

Inside I gasped as I found tons of his stuff on CD. I wanted to buy them all, but quite apart from the expense, I figured I’d better pace myself. After all, I only had a faded memory to go on. He might actually be rubbish.

I bought three. As I was on holiday, I had no CD player with me. When I got home, I think I left it about 3 months before finally finding a good moment, taking the sellophane off, and hoping that there were actually CDs in the cases. (no taking them back to the shop now)


The very first track was entitled Jurassic Park and came in a case designed to parody the movie’s poster. The song was based on MacArthur Park. It was great, but not as great as that album - Alapalooza - ‘s finale, the tantalisingly entitled Bohemian Polka. Deep down, inside, I really wanted this to turn out to be a full-length rendition of the whole of Queen’s infamous Bohemian Rhapsody, only played as a polka number.

It was far beyond my wildest hopes, with accordion, tuba, swanee-whistles and thigh-slapping galore. Even the backing-vocals had been carefully polkarised. At last. There was an artist out there in the world who ‘got’ what I found funny.

Over the next decade I set about slowly completing my collection, mainly by asking long-suffering friends like Herschel to pick up some more CDs for me whenever they were stateside. Over time I became more analytical, finding his later album Poodle Hat to be a bit of a disaster (barring the hilarious home-movies extra) and realising that the tracks I really liked were the ones in which he was positive and celebrating, like White And Nerdy.

Finally, having amassed every mainstream Al CD, a VHS of his 80s movie UHF, and watched Flatmate Dave’s DVD of all his videos, tonight I found myself outside the St James Theatre on Queen Street here in Auckland. Musically, there was only one thing really missing from my collection of his work.

Attending one of his live concerts.

It was a collection I was about to complete.

Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 2 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 3 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 4 of 5.
Click here for "Weird Al" And Me part 5 of 5.

Entertaining screengrab from Channel 4's 50 Greatest Dramas. It was number 26 by the way, well, that's what they told us.

Romans 12:1-2

Melissa and I presenting Romans 12:1-2 in three parts at Cession Church tonight, as part of the current God Is Closer Than You Think series.

None Of These People Got Married Today

As you can tell, I like to take photos.

So what better way to spend the afternoon than at a colleague (and friend)’s wedding. Taking photos. Really should get one of the happy couple next time though…