OH THE AGONY!!!

Ya know, my job can be pretty cool sometimes. However, there is one thing that I don't like very much about my job: the uncertain schedule. I never truly know when my next call will come, so it's hard to plan ahead for things. I very rarely make plans for anything, because I know I'll most likely be breaking them. It's tough, but that's the way it goes sometimes. I speak of this because yesterday, I was all set to go see "Weird" Al Yankovic perform at the San Diego County Fair when my plans came to a screeching halt after one phone call. I was to work a double shift at the Manchester Grand Hyatt in downtown San Diego, and I wouldn't be done until 10:00pm. Total buzzkill dudes.

So yeah, I didn't get to go see "Weird" Al yesterday, and since I don't have anything cool to report, I instead present to you the video that more or less introduced me to "Weird" Al in the first place...

Ah yes, many fond memories of this video. I was about eight years old when my brother and me sat down one morning to watch what we thought was Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video. We were only kids, but we really liked Nirvana, probably because they were so different than the other performers of the day. When we heard that iconic opening riff, my brother said "Crank it!" and our eyes were glued. Within seconds, we began noticing something was off. For starters, one of the cheerleaders was a dude and Dick Van Patton was among the unruly teenagers. Soon, we realized we'd been had by the greatest and were fans from that moment on.

"Weird" Al is genius (Seriously, he graduated high school as valedictorian when he was a sophomore, and was then valedictorian at freakin' Cal Poly!). He is also a supremely talented man. In addition to writing very clever parodies, he really goes all-out for his videos, getting many of the same sets and extras that appeared in the originals, including the video above. Those are all the same teenagers and janitor that mashed it up in the Nirvana video. Needless to say, it lends a huge degree of credibility to "Weird" Al's music. I think the thing I like the most about him is that he's funny without taking any cheap shots at the people he's poking fun at. It's a testament to his talent. Nirvana themselves were huge fans of the parody, claiming that that's how they knew they'd made it. Allegedly, Kurt Cobain gave "Weird" Al permission to lampoon him on the condition that the song not be about food!

Well, that's all for now. With Comic Con rapidly approaching, all posts from next week through the end of July will be Con-related. I'll be digging through my photo albums, not to mention Youtube, searching for some great Comic Con memories to share with all you fine people. And if you're in San Diego, be sure to head on over to Lindbergh Field to see the awesome six-panel mural that my good friends Matt Lorentz, Jim Whiting and Phil Yeh (among others) helped paint. It's up now through the end of Comic Con, so don't wait! Until next time, I'll catch y'all later!