Dare to be Stupid: A Deep Dive - Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch

Grab a snack and get ready for a fun and fascinating deep dive! In this episode we’re serving up a hearty discussion on Weird Al’s Dare to Be Stupid classic, "Girls Just Wanna Have Lunch." Joining me at the table is author and musicologist Lily Hirsch, and together, we unpack the humor, the history, and the gendered music themes behind this quirky parody. Was Al truly hungry for satire, or was he just forced to take a bite? We chew on that, share some laughs, and explore the broader cultural implications of gender in music.

So grab a cold one (and maybe a sandwich) and tune in for another deliciously nerdy episode!

Beer'd Al is a girly member of the OddPods Media Network.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/beer-d-al-podcast--5439475/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Welcome to yet another fabulous episode of the beard Ol podcast,
the podcast about two of the greatest things in the world,
Beer and weird Al and guess what, there are no
dudes in the room today. This is an all girls
episode of the beard Al Podcast. I am Lauren, I
am always here because this is my show, and I
am joined by.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
It's true, it's true, it's my show.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Hi you.

Speaker 1 (00:59):
Oh no, But before I hit the record button, just
to give everybody context, Lily and I got all fired up.
So now we're starting the show hot. We're coming in
hot now. But I am joined by Lily Hirsch, who
if you're listening to this show, you know who Lily
Hirsh is, because I'm not even gonna mention like all

(01:20):
the weird al writing that you've done. I'm really just
because you've been on the show before, so people who
listen to the show should know who you are.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
On people know me.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
So, first of all, how are you.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
I'm so good. It's great to get to see you.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
I always love getting to visit and it is fun
having an all girl episode. I know there's this idea
that a lot of the weird Al space is male dominated,
but it's not totally true.

Speaker 4 (01:45):
What do you think of all that.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
It's not That's a good question, Like it's not totally true.
And as.

Speaker 1 (01:52):
I've found myself in a weird spot, I have had
some of the the younger non male weird al fans
refer to me as their cool weird al ant.

Speaker 4 (02:09):
Oh.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
I love that which I wear that, I wear that proudly.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
I like that.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
I like that. I like the notion that I and
you as well, by the way, like we're in that
place where the we make it okay to be a
girl that likes this stuff, just as weird Al for
all of us has made it like okay to embrace

(02:35):
those weird parts of yourself. There are parts of like
like like male nerddom. I'm using finger quotes here. People
can't hear them hear that, but I'm doing it that
that can feel exclusionary if you're not you know, if
if if you can't answer all the right questions all
the time.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Right, Yeah, I am proof and you are proof and.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
All of the other lovely young ladies that I have
talked to you on my journey doing the show, we
are proof that there is no.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
There is no cookie cutter weird al fan like, yes.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Yes, what there is what a majority of weird al
fans look like in R But you can't.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
You can't pigeonhole everyone.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
And I'm very excited to have this conversation with you
today as somebody who who just like me, takes weird
al and funny things very very seriously.

Speaker 4 (03:28):
Yes, and I'm happy to be part of this space.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
And I think weird Al is very inclusive in what
he does musically, so I've never felt excluded in that way.
So this is a great song for us to be
talking about today. I love being part of this weird
Ol space. I would love to be a weird Al
aunt as well.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
I think you like you kind of are ah, that'd
be so fun.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
Yeah, should I get us T shirts? Let's say that.

Speaker 2 (03:53):
I think I think you should. I think we need
to make a club.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
I think we need to make like a subgroup of
like of female weird Al fans like over the age
of like thirty five and up. I'm like, I'm going
to be forty this year, right, so like I'm the
you know.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
I turned, I don't know if I want to say it.
I'm older than you.

Speaker 2 (04:17):
That's Okay, you're younger than my husband, so it's all good.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Okay, I turned I turned forty five. You know, it's
open a little while ago. That's the beautiful month of October.
You're October two, right, and so it was weird.

Speaker 4 (04:28):
Aw that was weird. Al yeah, so got that connection. Yeah,
but forty five, wow, whatever, it's fine. The rough year.

Speaker 3 (04:36):
You know what happens when you turn forty five. I
don't know if I should turned this podcast into that
sort of episode, but.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
No, go on, is that the kolonoscopy year?

Speaker 4 (04:45):
Yes, that's what I was going to bring up on
your podcast.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
I've been on for five minutes and I've already brought
up polenoscopies.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
You want to just click off? You don't have to
keep talking to me. That's great.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
No, I mean, look, this is what this is where
we go because I don't know if girls necessarily just
want to have lunch, girls want to talk about all
the weird stuff we got to do once we had
a certain age.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
You know, No, because I just I found it.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
I just got a new like primary doctor and she's like, okay,
so like forty is gonna be the mammogram and then
forty five is the colonoscopy, and I'm like, oh great,
super you know, like I don't want to do it,
but as a person who thinks that like farts and
poop are especially funny, Like, I'm not even gonna be
mad at it.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
I love it.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
Well, you're gonna really enjoy if you go the cola
guard route.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
I don't want to ruin it.

Speaker 3 (05:33):
I don't want to spoil this, no spoilers. But if
you enjoy all that, you're gonna have a lot of fun. Okay, Anyways,
I like that you brought up like I don't know
if girls just want to have lunch. I can't wait
to get to all of this because I know this
is a fun song to be talking about, because I
know it's a song that people don't necessarily like, and
partly because weird al didn't necessarily want.

Speaker 4 (05:54):
To do it. Yeah, but I actually I actually like it.
That's a that's a spoiler.

Speaker 1 (06:00):
There's nothing wrong with there's nothing wrong with actually liking it,
And you're you're leading me to kind of the the
big piece of trivia that I have about the track anyway, right,
it's those who listen know that I get all of
my important factual data about the weird Al tracks from
the weird Al wiki fandom page for this so that's

(06:20):
what guides me in my fun factoids. But anyway, that
says that weird Al personally disliked this song, explaining why
it wasn't featured on the food album. He disliked it
because he was basically forced to do it. His record
label was dead set against releasing the Dare to Be
Stupid album unless Al had a Cindi Lauper parody on it,

(06:41):
and that explains the lackadaisical and growling vocals. That's what
the weird Al wiki fandom has to say about this song.
Now we're we're we're all locked in for a conversation
here about it. But before I go too far into this,
I would be a remiss. I would be a bad host,

(07:04):
Lily if I didn't let you plug things before we
got too far into the conversation. So, is there anything
you're working on we'll be working on, have worked on?
You know, did you make any good bake anything like
cool recipes lately? Anything you just want to plug?

Speaker 4 (07:21):
It's time.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
That's I don't know if I can plug my recipes.
But that's so nice of you to give me that opportunity.
I know last time I already talked about taking Funny
Music seriously, which I love that project so much, and
I am continuing to have fun and kind of follow
the things that I love and bring me joy. And
what happened with that is I got to my uncool roots.

Speaker 4 (07:45):
At first, I thought maybe I would do a rather
cool book.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
I had done this book about women and music, and
I was thinking about doing something kind of edgy.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
And then I thought, you know what, that's not me, right,
not cool?

Speaker 3 (07:59):
And I decided to really hone in on something that
really was me.

Speaker 4 (08:03):
And I decided that was Angela Lansbery. And I'll tell
you why.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Because when I was growing up, I loved Murder, she wrote,
and my brother, actually he was like traditionally cool, I
was not.

Speaker 4 (08:17):
It was really into classical music, all.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Of that, and we would have this epic fight over
watching Murder, she wrote. I always wanted to watch it
and he wanted to watch MTV, which you know makes sense,
and I probably would have discovered weird ow a lot
sooner if I had let him win.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
But this was the argument.

Speaker 3 (08:33):
You only had one remote control because, as you all know,
now I'm somewhat old. So this was our epic fight,
and I decided it'd be so much fun to do
a whole book about murder she row and then expanded
to Angela Lansbury and kind of the lessons we can
learn from this older woman. And I'm that's going to
be coming out in October of this year, in time

(08:55):
for her one hundredth birthday.

Speaker 1 (08:57):
Wow, she's another October lady.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
Huh, yes, I know, isn't that weird? I wonder what
that's about.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (09:04):
I don't know. Yeah, but it's bringing me so much joy.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
And the one note I got from my publisher is
that they wanted me to make it a little funnier,
and I know no one's ever asked me to do that.
I was like, you want me to try to tell?
Did I try to write jokes into the book like normally?
People are like, could you take that out? And I
went a little far with that. I almost thought about
showing a few to my daughter to see if maybe

(09:27):
I'd gone too far, but I thought I wouldn't be
able to handle She's thirteen. Whatever she said, it'd be
too rough and I wouldn't recover anyways, that's what's happening.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
I think that's so cool.

Speaker 1 (09:38):
Like again, it's just you know, embracing the stuff that
made you who you are, right, I think, and the joy.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
It's the joy.

Speaker 1 (09:48):
And I think I think more adults need to embrace
the joy of their formative years because I don't know
most people I know that have done that. That's that's
where their successes happened. To lie.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
So not mad at it at all. I love it.

Speaker 4 (10:06):
Yeah, thank you. I'm having I'm having a lot of fun,
almost too much fun now.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
I had a friend recently say that I was one
of the happier people she knew, because a lot of people,
you know, you're raising kids or whatever you do, and
it gets hard.

Speaker 4 (10:17):
But yeah, I love what I do.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Well, that's that's yeah. I love what you do to
the point that other people are suspicious.

Speaker 4 (10:25):
I know what's.

Speaker 2 (10:26):
Going on over there?

Speaker 4 (10:28):
Yeah that can't be real. No, yes, what is she
up to? But thank you? Thank you for the plug.
I have no recipes to plug.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
That's okay, not to I'm not I'm totally not going
to derael it at all here. But if you are
looking for recipes, Russ and I found this fabulous YouTube
channel called Catherine's Plates. She's a she's an older empty
nester with her husband, and she's been doing recipes online
for like seven years and she's got a huge YouTube

(11:01):
channel and she's so incredibly relatable and the fact that
she and her husband are empty nesters. Now she does
a lot of like this is a great dinner for
two kind of thing, and so like we're taking to
making at least one of her recipes per week.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
And I I'm like a top.

Speaker 1 (11:16):
Fan of her Facebook page because every time I make
one of her things, I comment on it and.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
I put a post a picture.

Speaker 1 (11:21):
She always replies and she goes, looks delicious.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
I'm like, takes Catherine.

Speaker 4 (11:26):
Oh, that's wonderful. You're making connection.

Speaker 1 (11:29):
She's like, here are if I ever get to where
she is, because you know, she talks about where she
lives on the channel and stuff.

Speaker 2 (11:36):
But so like, if I'm ever in that part of Texas,
like I'm gonna hunt her down.

Speaker 1 (11:40):
I'm gonna be like, Catherine, I just need to give
you a hug because you've fed me without knowing it.

Speaker 4 (11:45):
Oh. I love that. I am finding you know I
should try that.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
I think I'm finding I do a lot of the
cooking because writing I can be at home and I
can cook, and.

Speaker 4 (11:54):
Then I get it gets boring and then I don't
want to cook.

Speaker 3 (11:57):
And on the weekends, my husband loves like getting the
kids in and they make these really elaborate dishes on
the weekends, like they made yoki from scratch.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
Oh that was a lot.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
Oh it was so good. So I'm really all about
other people's recipes right now. Yeah, and other people's cooking.

Speaker 4 (12:13):
Oh, I can't get enough.

Speaker 1 (12:15):
Well, I feel like us talking about food is ultimately
going to be a great segue into us talking about
what we like about this song. So I will say
that last week on a recipe that we found on
Catherine's Blades YouTube was it was a Tamali pie. So
it's a casserole that you make in like a cast

(12:35):
iron thing, so you brown your meat and like all
the like there was enchilada sauce and like taco seasoning
and like onion and pepper and stuff like all in
the meat.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
And then it's a.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
Corn bread mix that you put on top of that
and you just bake it all together. So it's like
the meat that would be inside of a Tamali, but
instead of being like the corn ramp, it's just corn
bread on top of it. And I like, I ate
like the whole I ate too much of it and
then left.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
I love that This is a good segue because you
know what I do like lunch. I like lunch a lot.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
So question then.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
As far as lunch goes, because I the only umbrage
I really take with the lyrics in that regard is
girls just want to have lunch like I want.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
I want all of the meals.

Speaker 4 (13:25):
But as far as before are we getting into it?
I love it. I'm ready for this, Okay, Oh I know.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
But as far as lunch is concerned, are you. I
feel like you can fall into several camps with lunch, right.
You can get stuck in a runt where it's like, well,
I'm just gonna buy a loaf of bread and I'm
gonna have like peanut butter and jelly, and that's just
what I'm gonna make every day, right. Or it could
be like I'm going to make sure that we make

(13:49):
enough of dinner so that I have leftovers to heat
up for lunch.

Speaker 4 (13:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (13:54):
Or you can get takeout for lunch.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yes, I oh yeah, there's too many options. I'm so
boring if we're actually going into what we have lunch.
I love like a special lunch out and all of that,
but normally I'm super boring with lunch.

Speaker 4 (14:10):
I shouldn't even say it's like a healthy smoothie. It's
so bad.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Oh, there's nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 4 (14:16):
There.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
We shouldn't take any shame in whatever it is we're eating.
I had a bowl of Raisin brand crunch for lunch today.

Speaker 3 (14:23):
See that I'm familiar with that. Also, oat meal, things
like that. I'm trying, especially after the holidays. I went
through this thing, this transformation that often happens during the holidays,
where before the holidays, you're like someone that just eats
a cookie, you know, sometimes in the evening, and then
you become a person that eats cookies after every single
meal as a snack.

Speaker 4 (14:43):
All of a sudden, cookies are snack food.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah, and then all of a sudden, you're pouring frosting
into a mug and just eating it like a soup.

Speaker 4 (14:50):
I got into that, and so I'm trying to Yeah healthy.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
It's a shift.

Speaker 4 (14:54):
Yeah, it's a shift.

Speaker 2 (14:56):
I get that. I feel that shift. I understand it.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
So I knew that was the end. The holidays needed
to end. Once I was like spooning frosting out of
a cup, like.

Speaker 1 (15:04):
Oh, this is too much to be on the pail.
I can't continue. Yeah, I can't continue with this.

Speaker 4 (15:08):
Holidays are over.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Holidays are over.

Speaker 1 (15:12):
It's true, man, See that's what bums me out. But
as far as the girls just want to have lunch song.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yes, let's let's let's.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
Stick with the positive stuff for now because we can
talk about the stuff that we think doesn't work after
I have.

Speaker 4 (15:28):
So many positives. Are you ready for my hostakee?

Speaker 1 (15:30):
I'm so ready because I feel like your take is
going to drive this bus.

Speaker 4 (15:34):
So okay, let's I'm ready for this. Okay.

Speaker 3 (15:37):
It starts back with Cindy Lapper, though it actually starts
back with Robert Hazard. Yeah, Robert Hazard original song, right, Okay,
So he's writing about girls just wanting having fun, but
he's like from this male perspective, like girls just want
to have fun and I want to like take advantage,
and it's you know, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 4 (15:55):
Okay, all right, calm down, sir.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
Then Cindy Laupper comes and read claims the song girls
just want up fun and becomes an anthem because she's
talking about it and she's giving women agency and she's
changing it. And then it becomes something better when she
takes this song. And at first she was nervous about
doing that song because of the original connotations, but she
take it, took it, she made it an anthem. She

(16:19):
was very inclusive in the video. All kinds of women
appear in this video, so lots of positive stuff there. Okay,
then we've got weird out, so I'm liking the song.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
He comes in. We know he doesn't really like the song.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
I get it, and you can really tell he doesn't
like the song, partly from his rhyming.

Speaker 4 (16:35):
Right, Normally, his rhymes are.

Speaker 3 (16:37):
Amazing, so clever, and in this you know you've got
lunch lunch, lunch lunch in one, yes you do. You
know it's not super clever or brunch lunch, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 4 (16:50):
Yeah, it's not maybe to the normal level.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
Also, But the thing I like about it is that
he has also kind of reclaimed it in a way.

Speaker 4 (16:59):
For Robert Hazzard. He doesn't give it.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
He's a man doing the song, so it could have
brought back kind of that negative energy from the initial
thing of like girls.

Speaker 4 (17:09):
You know, he could have made it sexual, but.

Speaker 3 (17:11):
Instead he did it girls just want to have lunch,
and so it's none of that initial kind of take.

Speaker 4 (17:18):
So I'm happy about that. And then the other thing I.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
Like about it is it's kind of accessible for someone like, well,
I don't know, someone older, or someone who likes to
be boring, or someone who likes to watch murder, she wrote,
because it's not like in Sydney Lauper's. I love the energy,
and I love the power and the message and the agency,
but these ladies are out at night having fun.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
Like what if I don't want to go out at night?
What if I just want to have lunch? That's brilliant.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
What if I don't want to go on at night?
What if I just want to have lunch?

Speaker 4 (17:52):
Yeah, so this is agency. That's more my speed. I
That's why I like this song.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
How I love that Now I have a question for
you in that regard.

Speaker 4 (18:06):
Then, yeah, it's a new take.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
It's a great take, gets very funny. Do you think
that the weird al lyrics? Okay is their room? Much
like the original? Then got reclaimed by Cyndi Lampert. This
one didn't swing it all the way back, but it
did swing it back to the point where it's a

(18:30):
man talking about women. Right, is there space here for
a female cover of this song?

Speaker 4 (18:39):
Oh? That would be fun. That would be fun. Yeah,
And you're right.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
He doesn't swing it all the way back like in
the start. He is And it's also giving some range
to women. It's not just like girls want to have
fun and I'm going to get in there.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
You know.

Speaker 3 (18:52):
He's saying some girls like to buy new shoes and
others like driving trucks and wearing tattoos. So he's got
a nice range of women. He's not like reducing us entirely.
I get it to just have one, you know, the
lunch thing.

Speaker 4 (19:05):
Just but it's not a total reduction. So I'm feeling
pretty good about this. And uh yeah, I feel will
cover would be interesting.

Speaker 3 (19:13):
I love the idea of covering weird al by the way,
in general.

Speaker 1 (19:17):
I do too, Summer Woods. I don't know if you
listen to this show all the time, but I feel like.

Speaker 4 (19:23):
Wonderful shout out to another woman in this space.

Speaker 1 (19:26):
I know, Summer please cover this song.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yes, no, I feel like.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
That needs to happen for somebody somewhere somehow.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Yeah, I would be funny too to have a video
where it's similar to Cyndi Laupers.

Speaker 4 (19:41):
But these are ladies that are just.

Speaker 3 (19:43):
Like wanting to cuddle up with a book and read
and then like pull out their snack.

Speaker 4 (19:47):
Oh damn.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
Yeah, I'm just like, hm hmm. This song, this song
does make me.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
What's it? Okay?

Speaker 1 (19:56):
So what's interesting? And I'm looking, I've got the lyrics
here in front of me. And what's interesting about this
song that that it's different from other weird al food
songs is this doesn't mention really any foods specifically.

Speaker 4 (20:14):
Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't have the same level of detail
that he often has. Right literally anything, no.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
No, because I don't know.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
I see this song, and I don't know about you,
but when I hear this song talking about girls just
wanting to have lunch, I picture the things that I
like to have for lunch. For instance, I'm not a
huge fan of mayonnaise. I can give or take tomatoes
in general, and bacon is probably my least favorite of

(20:47):
the breakfast meats.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
But I love a BLT.

Speaker 1 (20:51):
I love a BLT so much that that's confusing.

Speaker 4 (20:55):
We need to unpack that.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
We have a diner just down the road from the house.
It's great. It's you know. Every once in a while,
it'll be a week day, Russ will be like, hey,
do you just want to go down to the diner
and get lunch. I'm like, yeah, it's a great little diner,
and I love breakfast food. But I could eat breakfast
foods and only breakfast foods forever and be happy. Okay,

(21:24):
so this song is not about me. I am a
girl that just wants to have breakfast foods for lunch.
But sometimes we'll go to this diner for lunch and
I will have a really hard time. I'll be looking
at the menu and I'll look at all the breakfast stuff,
and then I'll look at the clock and it'll be like,
it's twelve thirty, but they serve breakfast the whole time
they're open, you know, And so I'm like, I could
get breakfast, but then it's twelve thirty and I'm like,

(21:47):
I should probably look at the lunch food, and then
I end up getting a belt. And I'm never upset
with myself for making that choice, because I love a
BLT sandwich so much, even though the toasted bread on
a belt always end up scraping the top of my
mouth on it, like like on a club sandwich or
anything that comes on toasted bread. It's just like I
skid it across. But there's something about the pain of

(22:10):
a blt that's.

Speaker 4 (22:11):
Like, this is interesting.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
You know if there was a cover of this song,
it would be funny if as we have the women
kind of nicely enjoying their homes and their little lunches
and whatever kind of activities that don't require them being
out all night, we also have all of that information
about the specific foods kind of running across.

Speaker 4 (22:31):
The screen, like the detailed this is what she can
go about lunch? Yeah, like elt if breakfast isn't available
for lunch and it just trolls.

Speaker 1 (22:41):
Across, I love it. Yeah, yeah, like what's your favorite lunch.
It's kind of like like the Harry Potter sorting hat
or or horoscopes or anything like that, Like what you
want for lunch says something about you.

Speaker 4 (22:55):
Oh that's interesting.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
That could definitely play into the video.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
And I feel like I'm not getting into things I
don't like about this song, but that's something that's missing,
the specificity.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
But we'll save that. Yeah, we'll save that after the.

Speaker 4 (23:08):
Our version for our new version or cover.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Even the general even even this version, though I wish
there was something more specific about it.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Yes, yeah, but I could see I wonder if that
was part of the you know, the protest of him
not wanting to do this song, that he didn't kind
of go into all of that.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
Maybe normal is this negative really a positive where like
like this doesn't suck?

Speaker 4 (23:29):
Right? Yeah, yeah, I think it's okay.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
I understand why it could have happened, and maybe it was,
you know, part of I know we've talked about or
it has been written that the kind of sound that
he gives is part of that protest, but maybe some
of the you know, the lack of specific specism.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
I got specificness, Oh.

Speaker 4 (23:52):
Wow, I know specific forget it. Cut all this and
we should probably cut really.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
Nor is that stace?

Speaker 3 (24:05):
But I actually think just like the simplicity of the
lunch and all of that, even though it's kind of
a departure in a way, like it is one of
the reasons that this song it's a favorite among kids.
I know that really very easy. Yes, it's a very
easy one. It's very accessible. Yeah, so this is an easy,
fun one for kids. So there's something to that and

(24:27):
that can be a pro.

Speaker 4 (24:29):
Oh.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
Another pro I can throw in is I like this
line here, I know how to keep a woman satisfied
because it almost harkens back to the.

Speaker 4 (24:37):
Original meaning behind all of this with Robert Hazard.

Speaker 3 (24:41):
But then he kind of negates it all when I
whip out my diner's card.

Speaker 4 (24:45):
You know, it could go sexual at that point, but
it doesn't. And I like that.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
It's like he teases the initial idea behind this original song,
but he he doesn't go there.

Speaker 4 (24:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
I like that.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Is that is interesting and I like that a lot too.

Speaker 4 (25:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
I mean they do say that with the way to
a man's heart is through his stomach. Yeah, so there
could be something to that. There absolutely could be something
to that, you know, because if girls just want to
have lunch then oh yeah, you know, yeah, it could

(25:21):
keep her satisfied.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
This song is.

Speaker 4 (25:24):
Yeah, but he doesn't go the other way. I like it.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
Oh, and the other line she eats like she got
a hole in her neck. That's another fun imagery for kids.
Kids love stuff like that.

Speaker 1 (25:32):
That's very true, and I you know, I it's been
a very long time since I thought about Weird Al's.

Speaker 2 (25:41):
Music for me, like, well, what would a kid think
is funny? Yeah, you know that's so strange.

Speaker 1 (25:48):
Like I'm almost mad at myself now for that, and
I'm not like in a bad way, but like one
of my favorite more recent Weird Now offerings is the
Captain Underpants theme.

Speaker 4 (25:59):
Oh yeah, oh my god, my son loved that so.

Speaker 5 (26:02):
Much trauma, Like it's so funny, like so good, that's
this this is the seed for that, you know, yeah, yeah,
I had.

Speaker 3 (26:13):
It like way back when I was able to go
into my son's kindergarten class. When he was in kindergarten,
I was just starting to work on the Weird Al
book and I brought in a song for all them
a talk them about parody and played weird And I
really had to think, like, what song can I I
bring in that they're really gonna dig? So I kind
of had to think of it. And now my son,
who was in kindergarten, he's now in sixth grade. What

(26:34):
and I got invited back to the classroom a different class,
So it's like he's in this gate class. He has
this really fun teacher that thinks humor is wonderful and
it's a sign of intelligence and so are puns.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
I basically love this teacher. So he invited me.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yes, that's the most correct thought process that ever existed.

Speaker 4 (26:53):
He is, but it's not always out there. So it
was just oh so wonderful.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
So he let me come back in and talk about
bunny music general and I brought a few different examples
and talked about all the cleverness behind it, and I
did poisoning Pigeons in the Park tolm Laire of course,
of course.

Speaker 4 (27:08):
And then I had to.

Speaker 3 (27:09):
Think again about what song would be right for this
class because I had to bring a weird like obviously,
so it was it was a debate and I actually
thought about this song. It's not it's not a bad choice,
but you know, I thought for my son, I should
maybe maybe I'll do something more general, not specifically folks
on a gender.

Speaker 4 (27:28):
And I ended up doing word crimes, which is a
great one. Yes, that's a great one for the kids.

Speaker 3 (27:35):
I did have to, like, I printed out the text
and I didn't add the you know, there's that one
reference to you know, cunning linguists, and I thought, yeah,
I don't know, I'm to get my son in trouble somehow,
but well, that's a good one. But I'm thinking from
a kid perspective recently, so that's why I was looking
at this song.

Speaker 4 (27:53):
I think, ooh, this is a good one.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
I like that. I really do.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
I really do like that, And I mean honestly, like
some of my some of my dearest, my dearest friends are.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Kids love me.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Okay, like I don't know, I don't have any, but
kids really really like me, and I have I have
this little I have a friend. Her name is Paisley.
She will be twelve next month, and we met because
of pro wrestling. She's a pro wrestling fan and so

(28:29):
that's our thing. Yeah, her her mom does. Her dad's
like big into it, but her mom doesn't totally get it.
So so when we were out I'm gonna make a
long story very short, but like we were out of
the thing and there was a wrestling thing on. She
ended up sitting next to me and like we were
enjoying all the same stuff at the same time, and
her mom was like, thank you for putting up with
my kid, and I'm like, are you kidding me?

Speaker 2 (28:46):
She's cool, you know. So we're watching this thing and
the next thing, you know, like.

Speaker 1 (28:52):
She's asking me if it's okay if she can have
my phone number so she can text me things like
when she you know, I'm like, as long as it's
okay with the mom, Like that's fine.

Speaker 4 (29:01):
Cool auntie. It's not just weird ow, cool auntie, it's
I'm just general.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
In general in general.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
So so yeah, So now Paisley's mom has taken to
calling Paisley my mini bestie because Paisley will tell her
friends like, oh, well, my friend Lauren said this, and
they're like, who's Lauren?

Speaker 2 (29:19):
And they're like, she has to.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
Explain who I am because I'm a grown person that
takes her seriously, right, And so anyway, I have been
trying to find my like, okay, so I know she
likes wrestling this thing. Then I also like, how can
I get her to also like weird ow? Like how
do I make this happen? I don't want to force
it on her or anything, you know, because that's not cool.

(29:43):
But if I can find something that like resonates with
like eleven twelve year old girl.

Speaker 4 (29:48):
Oh, there are so many here.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
There's a lot of potential depending on their type of humor.
Like I feel like my daughter, she's thirteen. Now she's
developing kind of a darker sense of humor. I think
maybe some of the ones like The Night Santa Went Crazy,
things like that, she would start to think she would
be into that, whereas when she was younger she found
that troubling.

Speaker 4 (30:09):
As well as should well yeah, but like that could work.

Speaker 3 (30:13):
But I feel like when my kids were a little younger, like, uh,
I want a new duck.

Speaker 4 (30:17):
Was weirdly popular.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
That's great or not weirdly, but that Yeah, I'm trying
to I don't know her sense of humor, but god potential.

Speaker 4 (30:26):
To play with.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Her favorite wrestler has a very dark like edge to her.
She's kind of like the you know, she's the toughie. Yeah,
so okay, so I'm getting.

Speaker 1 (30:36):
Yeah, the Night Santa Went Crazier, some of those more
that that.

Speaker 3 (30:38):
That's helpful, alk albut kirky, Like, yeah, she might really
like albums.

Speaker 4 (30:44):
She might, because there's a lot in there, and.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
It's just just the sheer length that makes my kids laugh.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
That's true. It's absurd. It's absolutely absurd because this I
feel like this is funny. Yes, is accessible?

Speaker 4 (30:58):
Yeah, younger maybe younger, even.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Younger, even younger, No, that's fine, I've got friends with kids.
This is This is very helpful to me because again
I need to my weird ale evangelism cannot begin with adults, right,
I need got to.

Speaker 4 (31:11):
Bring it to the next generation.

Speaker 3 (31:12):
I'm not normally a missionary type, but with something like this,
I approve and I maybe shouldn't be kind of passing
myself off as some great authority on what kids like.
I have made some terrible mistakes when it comes to
age appropriate for kids. I'm still living Down'm gonna tell
you a quick story. I like my kids were friends
with this were friends with this lovely family in my town,

(31:35):
and when their son was a first grader, he seemed
at the time he was older than my kids, and
I thought he seemed much older and wiser as his
first grader.

Speaker 4 (31:44):
But I was forgetting that he was a first grader.

Speaker 3 (31:47):
So what I did on April Fool's Day, because I
knew this kid really liked bagels, is I brought a
bunch of bagels to his house for him and for
the family. But I put one of the bagels with
white toothpaste like cream cheese, And I thought this was
an appropriate and hilarious thing to do to a first grader. No, yeah,

(32:08):
and I realized now that he was a little young
for that, Like he bit into it, and he thought
he had to be polite to me because his parents
raised him right and taught him to be polite to
adults even though the adults are being nuts. And brought
them my bagel filled with toothpaste. So he just was like, oh,
thank you, and then he like discreetly spit it out

(32:28):
and it's only you know. It took me a few
a while to realize how wrong this joke was for
this first grader. Although when he goes to college, I'm
planning to send him like.

Speaker 4 (32:39):
Bagels, like a care package of bagels.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
Oh my god, you shouldn't. That's fabulous. I mean, at this.

Speaker 4 (32:46):
Point, I still feel bad about this, you know.

Speaker 2 (32:51):
Oh my gosh, I love it. I love it.

Speaker 1 (32:53):
I think that's marvelous. Oops oopsyah, so woops.

Speaker 3 (32:57):
Just keep that in mind when I make recommendations for
what's right for what age children.

Speaker 4 (33:01):
I'm like, I could be right. Well maybe I'm not.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
That's totally fair. That's totally fair.

Speaker 1 (33:06):
Like I'm not derailing all the way I feel like
this is this is all very relatable and still tangentially
connected to the song I.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
Am eating talking about eating bagels, so I could be
lunch at lunch.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
It could be lunch because I like breakfast too, and
I'll eat it for any meal.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
So there you go. But we uh, there's a a neighborhood.

Speaker 1 (33:26):
Tap room down here where it's very family oriented, which
it seems weird for it to be a tap room,
but it's like a place where the parents can go.
But they have like a little corner for kids to play.
There's like a porch swing inside the place. It's cute, right.
So we were there a couple of two ish weeks ago,
and the owners of the place have a daughter that is.

Speaker 4 (33:51):
Nine.

Speaker 1 (33:52):
I want to say, okay, and I've known her for
a little while, but I hadn't seen her in a bit,
and so then she she kind of I walked in
and she gave me this like I know you, but
I don't remember because like the last time I saw
her she was like five, So like, I get it right. Anyway,
we got to talking. Me and this little girl, Paxton

(34:13):
is me.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
Yeah, So I'm talking to Paxton. We're having a great
conversation and I asked her. I was like Paxton, what
do you think about Taylor Swift? And she goes, she
literally goes, eh wow. I'm like, okay, okay. Interesting. So
then I go, Paxton, who do you like? And you know,

(34:36):
she ran a list off and I was like, okay,
I can tell that your music taste is really shaped
by your mother. Still at this point, that's wonderful, Okay, yeah.
And then I was like, Paxton, have you ever heard
of Debbie Gibson? And she said no. And Debbie Gibson
was who I loved when I was a kid. Okay,
Debbie was my thing. And like now I'm a Debbie

(34:58):
Gibson like apologist, like she does all of her own stuff,
like don't ever come at me for Debbie Gibson.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
Right.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
So, so you know, about an hour goes by and
they're getting ready to leave, and they're all go out
to the car, and then Paxxton runs back in into
the into the into the tap room. She looks at
me and she like she she tugs on my arm.
She goes, what was that lady's name again? And I

(35:24):
said Debbie Gibson and.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
She goes, mom, play Debbie Gibson.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
So I think they probably listened to Debbie Gibson in
the car on the way home, and I hope that
that was okay.

Speaker 4 (35:34):
Yeah, Debbie Gibson should be fine. Well that's good. You've
got kids around that are ready for your weird asl message.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
Yeah, sounds like I feel it again next time you
see Paxson and be like, Okay, I said about Debbie Gibson,
we'll hold you hold the phone here, I get someone
else for you.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
I feel like you're right, that's I can't. I shouldn't
ever like start with the weird al of it, all right, I.

Speaker 4 (35:55):
Mean you could.

Speaker 1 (35:55):
I couldn't, but I have to establish trust first with
something that's a little more like closer to their baseline.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
Okay, hey, like here's.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
Maybe I feel like I got a lot of credit.
I am okay, so among children that I know. I
had a brief period where they thought I was cool,
and part of it was working on weird out and
the funny stuff and how silly and you know, I
want a new duck really helped me out there.

Speaker 4 (36:23):
That has long passed.

Speaker 3 (36:24):
I'm like, you know, I've got a teenager now, I'm
you know, this thirteen year old who it's so hard
on self esteem, but but the the making those jokes
and pulling out songs like this, it was it was
actually quite helpful.

Speaker 4 (36:37):
I went right for it a lot of times.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
This, Yeah, I'll do it. My one of my dearest friends.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
She's got a little boy who is four, So yeah,
I think I'm about to I'm about to hit my
stride with him.

Speaker 3 (36:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (36:52):
I think that's true. And it's also about what they've
been exposed to.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
It's funny, like you know what what works and what
is impressive to kids, Like I've interviewed differ people like
I got to talk to Amy Ray, the Indigo Girls,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 4 (37:04):
Like, there's been some cool people.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
I've talked to and my kids just don't know about
it and it's not gonna work. But I didn't interview recently.
It was just via email, but it was with the
man who played Grady on Murder. She wrote, if you're
familiar with the show, he's like the nephew that's always
in trouble. Okay, and my kids were exp exposed a
lot of murder, she wrote recently because of this project
and my son, they could not believe I got to

(37:28):
have contact Grady for Murder.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
She wrote it was you just never.

Speaker 1 (37:32):
Know what's gonna what's gonna tick on. That's fabulous.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
I love it.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
I feel like we've hit the time for me to
throw it to ads. Did you have anything okay, further
positive that you want to throw in about the girls
just want to have lunch because the second half is
us talking about what we think doesn't work and then
giving it a rating.

Speaker 4 (37:53):
Oh that's tough. Well, I just want to sum up
that I like it.

Speaker 3 (37:56):
It's my speed. He doesn't send it back to Robert Hazard.
He still keeps, you know, women complex and interesting. And
I actually think the repetition of lunch, hunch, all of
that is is kind of funny in its own way,
just the repetition of it, and it's good for kids.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
And I like this song boom.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
Well, there you have it, folks, that's what you came
for today. And on the other side we'll have a
slightly different but probably very much the same conversation about
the same song.

Speaker 2 (38:29):
So listen to these ads.

Speaker 1 (38:30):
And we'll talk to you again in just a moment.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Hey, this is Grebman Brisket Podcast. Join us every Monday,
where we talk about the latest trends in barbecue interviews,
with world top pit masters, celebrity.

Speaker 6 (38:42):
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Speaker 1 (38:47):
So check us out.

Speaker 7 (38:47):
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Speaker 3 (38:51):
A lot of people just burn their houses down for
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Speaker 6 (38:53):
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Speaker 7 (39:08):
Streetings. Fellow nerds, it's Garrett. You're host of the Node
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Speaker 2 (39:33):
Well, golly, weren't those ads fabulous?

Speaker 4 (39:37):
Love? I loved them.

Speaker 1 (39:38):
I know we didn't even know what they were for.
They were based on whatever it is you google, that's
what we you know. So if you know, if you
liked what you google, then that's what you heard about. Anyway,
I hope it was food related, though, I really do too.
I hear from a lot of people that they get
McDonald's quite a bit, so oh, perfect, Yeah, that's probably
all right.

Speaker 4 (39:57):
I'm loving it. Yes see, this is why I'm not
cool anymore.

Speaker 1 (40:09):
I had a Okay, so this is a really good
segue into something about lunch. I don't know there was
a period of time where McDonald's very recently was in
their happy meals.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
Their toys were Mario Kart. Okay, yeah, I didn't know
that this.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
Was what was happening until Russ was going he wanted
McDonald's for lunch. He goes, we got McDonald right across
the street, and he was like, I'm gonna run in
McDonald's for lunch.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
Do you want anything?

Speaker 1 (40:40):
And I was like, yeah, just give me a four
piece nugget happy meal because like that's enough, you know.

Speaker 4 (40:45):
Yeah, And.

Speaker 1 (40:47):
He comes back with the happy Meal and I get
bowser in a Mario Kart.

Speaker 2 (40:53):
I'm like, oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (40:55):
And so then I looked at the side of the
box and I saw all the different characters that they
were having. I immediately texted my mother. I'm like, Mom,
this is happening at McDonald's right now.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
And she was like, oh my gosh, she goes your
father's out of town this week. I'm gonna get a
happy meal every day.

Speaker 4 (41:15):
So I saw this picture that your whole family's adorable.
Is that true? It is?

Speaker 2 (41:20):
It's pretty true.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
So the next day I get this text from my mom.
She was like, I don't remember which one she got.
I think she got Yoshi or something, and she was like,
I will not rest until I get Toad get. She
wanted Toad right so much. Every day I'm getting a
picture of the Mario Kart thing that she got. So

(41:44):
then like two days go by and I'm like, Russ,
I think I need to get another happy meal.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
So we go.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
We get the happy meal. And my dad is on
a business trip and he is a driver. He doesn't
like to fly to the places he goes, and so
like if it's a long trip where like almost anybody
else would fly, he will drive because he likes to
be in control of his travel. So he had about,
I want to say, like a ten hour ish drive Okay. Yeah,

(42:13):
my mom had him stop for a happy meal in
a different state to see if she could get a
different toy. That is very sweet, and he did it
on the first try. He got the toad that it
took her a whole week to not find.

Speaker 4 (42:30):
Oh, that's so sweet. Although she was probably like both
touched and annoyed.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, because my dad was like, one try, what up?

Speaker 4 (42:39):
Oh, he rubbed it in a little bit.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
But then she got the toy she wanted.

Speaker 5 (42:44):
So everybody was happy, but everyone.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
It was quite the week.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
I had more chicken nuggets in that week than I think.

Speaker 4 (42:53):
That's so sweet. That's what we're talking about, though, the
joy what brings you joy?

Speaker 3 (42:57):
And you're staying in touch with the family and this
adore you know, in this fun way.

Speaker 4 (43:01):
I love it so goofy, so but I love it.
Don't you love the goofy things? I know you do.
I do.

Speaker 3 (43:07):
But my mom recently went to Mendocino and she stopped
at the Murder she wrote house, and she went with
a few friends and she took all of you know
where Murder she Wrote was filmed. Jessica Fletcher's house is
in Mendocino. It still exists, it's called the Blair House.

Speaker 4 (43:21):
Now or it always was.

Speaker 3 (43:24):
But my mom was there and her and her friends
posed with all these pictures like they were murdering each
other in front of this house, and my mom was
wearing a trench coat, and they were sending me all
of these pictures and it brought me so much joy.
What a way to connect, like she I don't live
in the same town as her, and I was just
getting all these pictures of her trying to murder her friends,
and oh, it's wonderful.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
That's fabulous. Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (43:45):
Yeah, whatever does it?

Speaker 2 (43:47):
I know it is.

Speaker 1 (43:48):
Whatever doesn't So now I got to go to the
wamp wamp portion Yeah the show.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
Yeah, what doesn't work?

Speaker 4 (43:57):
Oh okay, I guess we can do this. We are.
We have kind of talked about it.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
We touched on at the vocals and the rhyming and
some of the lack of detail. And it is unfair
too that he was encouraged Slash Force to do this
song or do Cyndi Lapper. So you know that's that,
you know, I have some sympathy and that's no good.

Speaker 1 (44:19):
Yeah, I think I think for me that's that's the
big bummer of it. All right, yeah, like, yeah, I
don't think that I'm not going to even call them
lazy rhymes because they rhyming lunch with lunch isn't even
a lazy rhyme.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
That's just the same word, right right.

Speaker 1 (44:33):
And I'm not even going to be mad at the
the the way the vocals are even And we talked
about this on the last episode where why is the
George of the Jungle straight up cover?

Speaker 2 (44:46):
There was that also the record.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
Label saying hey, you need to have a straight cover
on this album, right, Like there's a lot on side too.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
I'm there to be still there to be stup, but
it makes me go like what why?

Speaker 1 (45:00):
Right?

Speaker 4 (45:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Like side one of this album is a perfect ep
in my mind, like it's great, yeah, and then side too,
Like if I were to listen to this on vinyl,
I don't think I would ever flip it, you know.

Speaker 4 (45:17):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Yeah that raises an interesting point too, like just are
we being by pointing out some of the things we.

Speaker 4 (45:24):
Actually do like about this song?

Speaker 3 (45:25):
Are we being disloyal to al and what he went
through here would be pushed to do the song and
he didn't want to do it.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
I I don't know if that's a good point. I
don't necessarily know if it's if it's being like disloyal, right,
because like he put it out there, it's on his album, right,
this was.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
Good enough for now, you know.

Speaker 4 (45:45):
Yeah. Yeah, Like.

Speaker 2 (45:48):
If this is.

Speaker 1 (45:51):
Him saying I don't want to do this and I'm
only doing this because I have to, then this is
still better than some people who really try.

Speaker 4 (46:00):
Yeah. No, that's true.

Speaker 3 (46:01):
And we all have to in life do certain things
that we might not want to do, or teach a
class on a topic we're not actually interested in, or
whatever it is, and we try to find a joy
in it or try to make it to our liking.
And maybe he actually really enjoyed delivering it with that
kind of gruffer sound and it was kind of, you know,
fun to feel it like you're sticking it to the man.

(46:24):
You know, maybe there was some joy in.

Speaker 1 (46:25):
There, some some sort of catharsis like absolutely no. Like,
as we speak right now, it is my time, almost
nine thirty in the PM, and this semester I am
teaching classes that start at seven fifteen in the morning.

Speaker 4 (46:44):
Wow, yes, exactly. We all have to do these things
we don't want to do.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
Yes, I don't want to do it.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
I don't want to go teach a class that early.
But I did have a student walk out of our
first class session last week. Again, the class started at
seven fifteen in the morning, and he said, thank you
for bringing so much energy to.

Speaker 2 (47:03):
The classroom early in the morning.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
I'm like, idea, you found your own joy in that,
because that's the sort of person you are.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
I tried.

Speaker 4 (47:12):
Yeah, and so that's a good thing.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
So there's got to be some kind of a joy
in this.

Speaker 1 (47:16):
Even though this song this is not like if this
came up on shuffle, le'd skip it like nine times
out of ten.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
Yeah, even with the little things that I like about it.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
But if this was the only weird Al song on
some kind of playlist, I'd let it go.

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Yeah, you know.

Speaker 4 (47:32):
Yeah, it's true. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:34):
And also it makes me think too the things people
are forced to do and have to do as adults,
Like weird Al was forced or encouraged strongly to do
a parody of a Cyndi Lobber song, Like that's pretty awesome.

Speaker 4 (47:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Like, so here's an interesting question, right especially because at
the do you think if I'm formulating this question in
my head right now, as I'm asking it, so it's
gonna a little disjointed, but like a Surgeon was clearly
the thing from this album, right, Yeah, And because at
the time it was very much like, well, are you

(48:09):
a Madonna or are you a Cindy Lauper? That was
very much a like pick one kind of deal. Do
you think if like a Surgeon didn't exist, do you
think he would have been quote, you know, heavily suggested
to do a Cindy Lauper parody.

Speaker 4 (48:30):
Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, I didn't ask any of these things.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
Gosh, you know, it's so funny after the fact you're like, oh,
there's so many things I should have asked.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
I'm not saying that you have to know the answer.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
To this, it's just it's just one of those like,
if like a Surgeon didn't exist, would we have this song?

Speaker 4 (48:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (48:52):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (48:54):
Yeah, I certainly can't answer that. Yeah. And is he
team Madonna?

Speaker 2 (48:59):
That's interesting or did that just resonate more?

Speaker 1 (49:03):
You know, because like Cindy Lapper, I mean, he's weird
out and she's so unusual like.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
That that there was something there, you know.

Speaker 3 (49:12):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true. She has a nice empowering
vibe to her and be your own person all of that.
I just saw something on social media, someone recently criticizing,
and it somehow ended up on my social media. So
it must have been popular about her looking old at
a recent concert, and I felt furious for her. She's

(49:34):
out there doing it, you know, she's performing, she's awesome,
she's herself.

Speaker 4 (49:39):
It's wonderful. I hate seeing stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Yeah, so annoying. She's like seventy.

Speaker 4 (49:45):
Yeah, it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Let her Let her go, like, let her go, Like
I don't know, like we have a.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
It's not so much a running joke as it's just
a like, you know, because Cindy Lapper did those commercials
for that psoriasis medica.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Yeah right where it's.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Like see me, but she said it with your little
Cindy wuppa voice and she goes see me, see me,
you know, and so thank you.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
I'm Cindy, you know. But like so those commercials would
come up and like.

Speaker 1 (50:17):
They were there was a period of time where they
were just on all the time, and so then anytime
Cindy Lauper happens anywhere, because we listened to a lot
of like old eighties.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
Kzy k some countdowns and stuff.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
So anytime Cindy Lapper goes, invariably one of us goes, hey,
I see her, I see you know, but like that's
not making fun of her, you know, that's just like, hey,
she's here doing her thing. I saw her what she was.
She just performed this at the last the past Glastonbury Festival.
I want to say, okay, and I'm obviously I didn't

(50:53):
go because I don't live in England, but I watched
a lot of it on YouTube, right, because I love
watching those festivals. I have no idea what all the
flags mean, but I love them. So you got all
these people waving the flags and Cindy Lapper's doing her
Cindy Lapper thing, and like she looks like she's having
a great time. She sounds pretty good. You know, she's
clearly singing live, which you know, excellent. You do what

(51:14):
you do, And.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
I'm sorry, like who cares what somebody like they're doing
their thing?

Speaker 3 (51:22):
I yeah, And you don't see the same criticism like
older men performing.

Speaker 1 (51:27):
You don't see the same criticism like older men performing.
And it's also very interesting, like is there a line
somewhere because like my girl. The reason my dog is
named Belladonna is because I love Stevie Nick so much, right,
and nobody I I have never seen it. Nobody's like, oh,
Stevie Nicks looks ragged.

Speaker 6 (51:46):
You know.

Speaker 4 (51:47):
Yeah, she was on SNL this last she was.

Speaker 2 (51:54):
With her.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
She's got a new song, and you know, I think
it's great. I love what she's doing and I love
her so very very much. But like Stevie Nicks is
what like seventy seventy seven right now? Yeah, okay, nobody's
being like, what's what like Stevie Niok's Nick looks terrible?

Speaker 4 (52:13):
You know that's a good point. Yeah, No, she.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Looks like a seventy seven year old woman out there,
you know, doing what she's doing. And she looks great
for a seventy seven year old woman out there doing
what she's doing. So I don't know, like if there's
a line between, like, is it because somebody like a
Stevie Nick's like gained popularity like with Fleetwood Mac before
the MTV era?

Speaker 2 (52:34):
Where or what?

Speaker 4 (52:37):
Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2 (52:37):
Because Sideelper was such a look Yeah, is it? Do
you know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (52:42):
That people still expect Cindy Lauper to look like Cindy Laupper,
Like nobody gives it a Harriet a bad time.

Speaker 3 (52:47):
She's eighty's that's true, Like you don't hear the same
thing like with Joni Mitchell, certainly when people are going
after how she looks, whereas like a Madonna. Geez, that's
brutal they're going after her. I know, yeah, yeah, that's interesting.

Speaker 4 (53:02):
It's a line.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
It's like it's also like it you can't win either way, right, Yeah.
Cindy Lauper hasn't done anything to her face. Madonna has
done things to.

Speaker 4 (53:12):
Her face, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
But neither one of them are wrong. They are reacting
to aging in their way, and like leave them both alone.

Speaker 4 (53:21):
I totally agree. I totally agree. Do what you want
to do. What's it's none of our business.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Like nobody's given weird Ala hard time, right.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
Yeah, yeah, but that's typical, like people don't normally give
it the guys a hard time.

Speaker 4 (53:35):
I know. Yeah, I can't wait for this next tour.
By the way, you have tickets, I'm sure.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
Yes, for two shows.

Speaker 4 (53:40):
Oh, I'm excited.

Speaker 2 (53:42):
We are going. I'm very excited too.

Speaker 1 (53:44):
I only have the I only have VIP for one,
because I I am not made of money.

Speaker 4 (53:49):
Yes, yeah, I get that.

Speaker 1 (53:53):
But like when the tour was initially announced, there were
no Florida dates at all. Yeah, and I was like, well,
this cannot stand. I need to go see we're now
so my husband's from Detroit and so we're actually going
up to Michigan.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
Fun to see.

Speaker 1 (54:06):
We're now at a concert venue that russl like absolutely loves.
So we're turning that into our like, you know, go
visit Michigan. Yeah trip and weird House part that's where
the VIP is happening. So Al's probably gonna be like, wait,
I saw you at Florida and Pennsylvania and now Michigan.

Speaker 2 (54:21):
Where do you actually exist?

Speaker 1 (54:23):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (54:23):
I love it. That's so fun.

Speaker 3 (54:26):
Though I'm not doing the multi concert but I did
like he's obviously not coming to Bakersfield.

Speaker 4 (54:30):
He did come, you know, but that's unusual.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
We're not like a destination tourist spot. But I'm driving
to Vegas. I'm gonna go to one of those early shows.

Speaker 4 (54:41):
Yes, I'm doing it. And that's a little wild.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
For me because you know, I'm a girl who wants
to have my lunch at home. You know I don't
want to, but I'm going. I'm gonna drive with my son.
My son really wanted to go, so just the two
of us are taking.

Speaker 4 (54:53):
A little road trip.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
That's so exciting.

Speaker 4 (54:56):
Yeah, we're gonna have a big night out lapper style.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
I love it. Oh my god, that's so fabulous. I'm
so stoked. I'm so stoked.

Speaker 2 (55:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
But then he announced Florida dates. Oh so he's gonna
be in Sane Augustine.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
So we're going to that.

Speaker 1 (55:11):
But like the date got announced and then they went
on sale the next day, and I'm like, you couldn't
have given me time to like gather my money.

Speaker 2 (55:21):
But I was able to get tickets.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
I got very very bad tickets, but I'm going, Okay,
I'm fine with that.

Speaker 1 (55:27):
It doesn't it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, like I'll
be in this. I had to like it was weird.
It was weird. Russ had to talk me down. This
is one of those moments where it's like when you
know you married the correct person, right, yeah, because I
was like, I haven't not done VIP for a weird
al concert I since I don't since I don't remember,

(55:47):
you know what I mean, Like that's what I do.

Speaker 4 (55:49):
I go.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
I'm like, hey, yeah, you know, but I couldn't. I
can't can't, couldn't afford to do it. But I needed
to go, so so I got the I just got
the cheapest tickets I could pass get and and that's
what I did. And Russ was like, he's like, it's okay.
He goes this way, we can like focus on other
things at the show, like if you want to, like

(56:11):
try and talk to any of the other guys, like
go to the bus at the end, like do whatever,
like have any of them signed your stuff, or just
like experience things in a way that.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
You haven't done in a long time. I'm like, yeah,
that's a really good point. Ye's a really good point.
I will be okay, I will be all right, yeah
you know, yes.

Speaker 4 (56:28):
Yeah, definitely, you shouldn't feel bad. I will.

Speaker 3 (56:30):
I am very, I'm very I have a real cheap streak,
and you know it probably comes from being a writer.
Believe it or not, writing non fiction in music is
not a super money maker.

Speaker 4 (56:41):
So I'm really I know, it's shocking. It's shocking. No, yeah,
I get it.

Speaker 3 (56:48):
Those are those are expensive. Yeah, I typically buy cheap,
cheap tickets. I'm just glad I'm there. It's yeah, just
gonna be fun, that's it. So it'll be fun to
experience it. I've seen Al at this particular venue before
twice before. It was actually the first I did the VIP,
but so this will be like kind of like my
third different section in this in this particular venue.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
So it'll be a good time. I'm very excited about
all of it either way, and I'm I don't know
what to expect from this tour, and I'm really really stoked.
I think a good way we have to rate the
song on a scale of one to twenty seven, whatever
that means to us, But I feel like something that
you need to know and a really good way to
like end this weird Al girl power moment that we're

(57:26):
having here. Yes, is this past weekend. I was wearing
my denim jacket and I had my two weird Al
enamel pins on it all the time, as I do,
you know, And I was paying our bill at the
rest at a restaurant that we went to, and the
cashier was like young girl, like eighteen, right, and she goes,
she goes, oh my god, I love weird Al. I'm

(57:47):
like really you do, and she goes, yeah, I'm seeing
him for the first time this year.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
I'm like, oh my god, really, and we had like
this moment. I was like, I'm so excited for you.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
I wish i could see him for the first time again,
like you're in for some thing like incredible. I kind
of like like Al dumped on her and she was like,
I'm really excited.

Speaker 2 (58:06):
I'm like you should be.

Speaker 4 (58:08):
Yeah. It was so I love it.

Speaker 3 (58:13):
I love that people keep discovering him. It's so wonderful.
It's like the fan base is just ever expanding.

Speaker 4 (58:19):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (58:20):
And it's just you never know what it looks like.

Speaker 4 (58:21):
It's beautiful, yeah, yeautiful. It's true. Yeah, it's such a
joyful audience too.

Speaker 3 (58:26):
I sometimes like like, Okay, on the last concert, weird
Al got me seats really nice. So I had good seats.
I know, it was really really nice. I don't normally
get treated that way. It was pretty cool. It was amazing.
But the concert before that, I bought just the cheapest
tickets I could, and I just love being like just
with the like just checking people out what they were wearing,

(58:47):
and like just I was almost distracted from the show,
just like checking in with all the people around me
because it was so fun and joyful and so many
fun patterns and clothing and yeah, there's a lot to
love there.

Speaker 2 (59:00):
So much love.

Speaker 1 (59:02):
So this is also I'm like, you know what, I
also just get to experience the audience and like enjoy people.

Speaker 4 (59:07):
It is so fun.

Speaker 1 (59:09):
And then it's been a while since i've since I've
done so I'm excited for that too.

Speaker 3 (59:15):
The first content I went to a weird Al and
you know, I wasn't a fan to begin with, so
in writing that book, I started going to the concerts
and learning about weird Al. So the first one I
went to, there was a young woman like in the
bathroom and I just she had this super colorful outfit
and she had these amazing shoes that had weird Al signature.

Speaker 4 (59:34):
She'd gotten them signed, and I was like, oh my god,
I love your shoes and she's like thank you, and
you know, just like genuine excitement and warm. I feel
like that's what I encountered there, and I just I
can't get enough.

Speaker 2 (59:46):
I'm so stoked for it.

Speaker 3 (59:48):
Yeah, I know we can't pigeonhole fans and they're all genders,
all types, but there's a lot of joyful, creative fun fans.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Yeah, I'm so excited for it.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
This is gonna be a good year. It's a good
year to be a weird al fan. I think I'm excited.

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
Yeah, and we need it with all the disasters and
been on Mary California and Conyle Meyers and it's like
we need the joy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:00:08):
Yeah, it's not something I think sometimes people feel guilty
indulging in joy, like you know, when people are struggling,
like like somehow it's disrespectful.

Speaker 4 (01:00:15):
But I do not agree with that, Like, we need that.
That's part of mental health, that's that's part of survival.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
I think the only reason I've gotten this far is
because of finding the pockets to embrace joy whenever.

Speaker 2 (01:00:29):
Whenever it happens.

Speaker 1 (01:00:30):
Yeah, for sure, not to I'm gonna very abruptly switch
gears and say that on a scale of one to
twenty seven, Yes, I'm going to give this song a
fifteen fifteen.

Speaker 4 (01:00:42):
Oh man, I have such it's so hard to rank
and it's so subjective. I have such a hard time
with this.

Speaker 2 (01:00:48):
This doesn't matter.

Speaker 3 (01:00:50):
I think I want to give it both a one
and a twenty nine.

Speaker 4 (01:00:54):
Can I do that.

Speaker 1 (01:00:56):
Yeah, I mean twenty nine is even two higher than
twenty seven. So well, let's average that out, right, what's
so fifteen if you're giving it a one and a
twenty nine.

Speaker 4 (01:01:07):
Yeah, then from your perspective, I could go a lot
of different ways.

Speaker 2 (01:01:11):
So then average that out. You're at fifteen just like me.

Speaker 4 (01:01:13):
Okay, that works.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
I like that because we're here together, we're doing the
girl power. Yeah, we're representing female fandom, and we're embracing
Cindy Lawbern a girl pal message and the fact that
weird Al did not go back to the earlier message
of Robert Hazard.

Speaker 4 (01:01:29):
So yes, girlpower continues.

Speaker 1 (01:01:32):
Yes, and hopefully most of you are listening to this
over lunch because or we're about to eat lunch, because
I do drop these episodes in the morning, So.

Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
That's perfect people, Can people ready?

Speaker 2 (01:01:43):
Lunch is nine my friends? Whatever that means for that means.

Speaker 4 (01:01:48):
For you, Nie, good use of the word Ni, Thank.

Speaker 2 (01:01:53):
You so much.

Speaker 1 (01:01:55):
I would also be remiss if I didn't mention that
since this is the Beardall Podcast, I have enjoyed the
last of my Sweetwater Brewing Company gummies IPA pack, and
I had the fruit Punch one because punch rhymes with lunch.

Speaker 4 (01:02:09):
And oh that's perfect. That's so in keeping.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
I felt like I didn't have to stretch too far.

Speaker 4 (01:02:14):
That's great. There's a good rhyme there right in the mix.

Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
See, this is what happened.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
I loved it well, Lily, thank you so much for
being back on the show.

Speaker 2 (01:02:22):
I love having you here.

Speaker 3 (01:02:23):
I love being here. I always have so much. This
is just my excuse to come busit you.

Speaker 4 (01:02:27):
I love it all right, No.

Speaker 2 (01:02:28):
It's very true.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
We need to do Yeah, when are you moving to California? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
This first.

Speaker 1 (01:02:34):
This is every conversation I have with my mother is
when are you moving to Florida?

Speaker 4 (01:02:38):
So? Oh, it's a lot of pressure. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:02:40):
I know it's fine. I don't need you know. It's
it is, It is what it is. No, I'm pressuring
her to move to Florida. I'm not moving anywhere.

Speaker 4 (01:02:47):
She Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:48):
My mom posts on Facebook every day about how many
days left until summer because she lives where it snows.
And I'm like, you realize your daughter lives in Florida, right,
you know?

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
Now where is she? So? Your husband's family's in Michigan,
and are they in Pennsylvania? Your parents yeah, that's that's
some snow.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Yeah. No, So we're both like, look at no, no, no, no, no,
yeah we can. We can deal with hurricanes and the
repercussions from that. Everywhere has its issue, you know. And
you're true, there's nowhere you can live that you're not
going to have a weather problem.

Speaker 4 (01:03:21):
That's true. I agree.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
So you pick your poison and you do you do
what you do with it, right.

Speaker 4 (01:03:27):
Yeah, I agree. So you can have home anywhere.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
That's it.

Speaker 4 (01:03:31):
You can have it as long as you've got weird playing.
Oh was that nice? Could that be an end?

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
That is?

Speaker 4 (01:03:36):
You can? I help?

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
You did help? Thank you, Lily, you very much helped.

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
Next episode, we're going to move on to the next
track on side too of the Dare to Be Stupid album.
This is the Life, and my guest will be the
effervescent and wonderful uh Jeff who says hi, by the way.

Speaker 4 (01:03:55):
Oh I say hid too. I love these people.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
Good people anyway. So yeah, so you just heard of
good people and stay tuned next time for some more
good people. And yeah, that episode's coming out on Valentine's Day,
I don't know, so you get to hear me talk
with Jeff for Valentine's Day. Oh this is the life anyway, folks. Uh,

(01:04:19):
that's the show. Have a great time, Okay, bye, well Fallen.

Speaker 4 (01:04:25):
I thought it would be, I know, the show