July 4, 2025 • 62 mins
Let’s get weird—Polka Party! weird. This week on the Beer’d Al Podcast, Lauren is joined by comedy musician, parody wizard, and all-around awesome human Insane Ian to dive into Side 1 of Weird Al Yankovic’s Polka Party! album.
We’re talking about everything from hernias to spuds, and we’re loving every minute of it. Tracks on the menu include:
Check out Ian's work:
YouTube
Bandcamp
Beer'd Al is a polka-tastic member of the OddPods Media Network.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/beer-d-al-podcast--5439475/support.
We’re talking about everything from hernias to spuds, and we’re loving every minute of it. Tracks on the menu include:
- The James Brown sendup “Living with a Hernia”
- The Talking Heads-flavored “Dog Eat Dog”
- The deep-fried brilliance of “Addicted to Spuds”
- The delightfully unhinged original “One of Those Days”
- And of course, the frantic accordion madness of the title track, “Polka Party!”
Check out Ian's work:
YouTube
Bandcamp
Beer'd Al is a polka-tastic member of the OddPods Media Network.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/beer-d-al-podcast--5439475/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Hello everybody, and welcome to the BEERDW podcast podcast Dot
Too the greatest things.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
In the world Beer and Weird Now. And I can't
believe that we.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Are already at the end of side one of Polka Party.
It is our Polka Party, party about Polka Party, and
it is side one of Polka Party that we're talking
about today. And as we have been doing now, as
is tradition here, I like making traditions happen on this show.
As a tradition, when we wrap up a side of
(01:03):
any weird al album, I bring in our good friend
insane Ian to help tie it all up and tie
it all together. So, Ian, how are you, my friend?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Oh, my goodness, I'm doing good And hello. Yes, that
is the most times I've heard this sir phrase Polka
party uttered in a spans of thirty seconds. That was incredible.
I think you said it five hundred and twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Times, at least at least uh.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Incredible, good, good stuff, great.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Thank you. Yeah, it's a it's my own fault.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
The nomenclature of this particular series of episodes is I've
called Polka Party colon a Polka Party party, and then
the name of the episode So the episode before this
where we had our friend poke Bob on to talk
about Polka party, it is Polka party colon a Polka
party party, hyphen polka party.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I don't think that's enough polkas and or parties.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
No, don't.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I don't there And actually I feel like this is
the time I need to mention. So I like to
have the just like the Wikipedia page of the album
or the song or whatever up just for like quick
and easy reference, you know, as we're having conversation.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
And when I type polka party.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Into ye old Google, Google does that thing where it
now has a section called people also ask, right, so
questions related to your initial search query. And one of
the people also ask questions when you type in polka party,
is when were polka parties popular?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yes? And and was the use of a hay boy
necessary for attending a polka party?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
You know that's not mentioned in the answer on that
Google gives.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Oh well imagine that.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
So no, this it makes me question everything that Google
has to deliver now, right, Yeah, So, just just just
for our amusement, this is the answer. The polka was
a European sensation before it swept America. In the eighteen forties.
The dance and his variations were already in the repertoires
(03:16):
of local musicians. By eighteen forty five, when Jackson Leland
penned a quick step for his Cleveland brass band Lively.
Polkas and romantic waltzes were popular throughout the Victorian era.
So I guess that's the heyday of poka parties. I
can't speak to hey boys at this point that.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Well that I suppose counts it off.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
These good golly, you know, I feel like I'd be
remiss if I didn't tell you that this episode. People like,
we're not recording it on the fourth of July, but
this comes out on the fourth of July.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Ah, yeah, so you know.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
A patriotic Polka party, if you will, It.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Is a patriotic poke party. So yeah, I'll take that.
This is poke a part.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
The only we're interested in right now.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Well, I mean, yeah, the page, that's that's that's true.
I'll tell I'll tell you this and this is this
is as far as I'm going with it. It's mostly
my beer snobbery more than anything that's happening here is
the canned crack.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Just full disclosure.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
People, The can crack that you all heard at the
beginning of this episode was an analog can crack, but
it was actually a Polar Seltzer Cranberry lime. Uh was
not a beer because the only beer that I have
in my fridge that was even like close to appropriate
for a recap of side one of Polka Party that
was coming out on Independence Day was one of the
(04:39):
handful of the real American beer that Hulk.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Hogan put out.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Oh my god, we we have it for wrestling reasons, okay,
like just the the amusement of that whole situation.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
But it is not good.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Well, I mean it's it's from Hogan, so I that's
what I would expect.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, I get that.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
So I feel like it's very important for me as
a person to make the distinction between like, I like
Hulk Hogan the wrestling character. I don't care for Terry
Terry Blaya the person, and like never have for various reasons.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah. No, that that that that's that's uh, that's fair.
That's absolutely fair.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, all this to say, we got a twelve pack
of this real American beer for again, for wrestling reasons,
because they released it here, We're like, well, we got
to try it.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
You know, by the way, the phrase for wrestling reasons uses.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Me to no end, thank you, and I and.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
The fact that it's beer for wrestling reasons, yeah, opens
up so many different things. Most people would think beer
for wrestling reasons is a stone cold thing. But you
know this is this is Hogan's Real American beer, which
already problematic in of itself given who Terry is. But also, yes,
(05:55):
he had that song real American in the eighties when
that they did a wrestling album.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Hey do you know who wrote real American?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I'm sure you're gonna tell.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Me, Rick Darringer.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Hey, tying it all together in ri p.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So you see, look at I'm But I have also
had the stone Cold Broken Skull I p A and
the Logger and stone colds Broken Skull I p A
is the best of all of the beers for Wrestling reasons.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
The beers for wrestling reasons. You need t shirts that say.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
That I don't don't threaten me with a good time.
I can make that happen.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Oh gosh. But yeah, so that's all I had in
the fridge for this.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
And I had one on an episode. Oh, I had
one on the Living with a Hernia episode appropriate, right exactly,
And I was like, Nope, I don't want to drink
any more of that.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
I don't I don't want this flavor in my face.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
No, I'll save that beer for cooking and or baking,
because I like cooking and or baking with beer.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
And this is but I mean, it's it's just I
like a good beer bread.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I'll put it in chili, you know, So anyway I digest. Yes,
So we're here to talk about side one of are
and it opens with the aforementioned Living with a Hernia,
which is a parody of Living in America by James Brown,
which was from the Rocky four YEP Rocky four And
(07:28):
just a little bit of information about that was when
it came time to pick a song to parody as
the lead single for this album, Scotti Brothers Records had
some very strong ideas and wish to have parody musician
who was signed to the same label, a type parody
a musician who was signed to the same label. So,
after Living in America became a hit, the record label
(07:51):
insisted that Al parody the song, and he obliged.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's a it's a good choice
for a song. It's a very Uh, it's really filled
with a lot of hernia knowledge, which you know is
part for the course for al when he writes, you know,
he he does delve deeply into a subject and I
have to see a little little bit of a side
thing here, a little bit of a personal anecdote, which
(08:16):
is sometimes what I bring to these little recaps we
do at the end. Not only did I cover this
song recently live performing at Mars Khan this past March
out in Bloomington, Minneapolis, but I performed it because currently
I have two hernias right now.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Oh gosh, so you are living with I.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Am currently living with not just a hernia, but two hernias,
one of which is mentioned in the song the Ingwinnel hernia.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I also have a a what's the umbilical hernia? But
and I by the time this airs, I have already
seen a surgeon to figure out what I'm going to
do about these hernias, but as of recording, I have
not seen one yet.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
You're gonna look at him and say, help me out, dig.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Gig, Yes exactly, Uh, and yeah, no, it's a it's
a it's a fun song. I think I I may
have if I didn't react to the video on my
Patreon insaney and dot Patreon dot com I or Patreon
dot com slash insaney and I should say, whoopsidoodle, I
messed up my own blug. I I reacted to a
(09:34):
bunch of Al videos and compared them to the original
videos with which he was parodying, you know, when he
was doing shot for shot remix and the like, and
this one, I think, doesn't this like use the same
stage that James Brown did? Yeah, so like he shut
it in the same location that the James Brown video
is shot and does a lot of recreations of of course,
(09:56):
you know the famous thing James Brown would always do
is he'd start off stage they put the cape on him,
but he turned around and starts singing even more and
like he throws the guy off of him. The video
really sells this song really well, and as a lead single,
it's a fantastic lead single.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I couldn't agree more. I absolutely couldn't agree more. And like,
I love this video so much. This is top five,
maybe even top three weird al video for me. I
love this video so very much and one of the
frequent topics of conversation in my house, which is again
why I love my house so very very much.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Is what is the notion that.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Like, I don't know that Al could get away with
making a video like this like today.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
You know, well, I.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Think I think that he can because he didn't do
something then that would have gotten him canceled for doing it.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
That's totally fair. No, I no, I get that. I
get that. You know.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It's just the the hair, the dancing, the mannerisms like
all this that and the Yeah, it's it's so close
to something that could like offend somebody, but he doesn't.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I think he's not really running on offense here. I
think imitation, as they say, is the sincerest form of flattery.
And although that's not the complete version of the quote,
it does kind of that section of it kind of
applies here. And he's doing a recreation. He's trying to
mimic the dance style that James Brown does, and in
(11:31):
doing that, there's nothing really offensive in my eyes to that. Now,
had he gone a little further with the quote unquote
look of things, yep, yes, that would have been problematic obviously,
But I think imitating dance moves, there's nothing particularly problematic
about it because you are embodying a character that.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I like that perspective on it, absolutely, Like this is
part of me feels like sometimes you're giving maybe give
more benefit of the doubted people than they may deserve. Yeah,
and I'm I'm i mean people's level of getting offended
by things, right.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Oh yeah, absolutely, No, I'm I'm very much a benefit
of the doubt kind of guy. Yeah, but I you know,
speaking as someone who is a performer myself, when when
doing something like this, when kind of aping the style
of somebody and aping their look as far as dance
moves or what have you. You know, let it be
a you know, a Michael Jackson type dance move or
(12:30):
a James Brown type dance move, or even a Madonna
style dance move. You you're you're really just kind of
embodying that that idea of Yes, this is a parody
of their work. So I'm not only parodying the song.
I'm going to parody their dance style, the way they move,
the way they behave. So you're embodying that character in
(12:52):
that parody.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
That's that's beautiful. I love that.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yes, thank you, You've actually made me feel better about
this I love this video so much, and part of
me is just like this is like it's it's again.
I said, it's probably like top three weird al video
for me, but it is like nowhere near the top
three videos.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Like I'll show somebody first.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, I mean, of course it's It's a great video.
And and one of the things I love about watching
other reactors react to it is that some jokes manage
to go over their heads, like even if they if
they clock it when they watch it, but they don't
say anything about it. That one point where it cuts
to a shot of his feet as he's dancing and
(13:31):
the one foot toes all the way around, most of
them don't don't say anything about that. I can't tell
if they're stunned by it or not, but they never
pointed out. And that's an amazing joke.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
It's a knees lapper for me every time, Like literally,
I'm not I'm not even joking, like I I literally,
I just I just slapped my knee. When I see that,
I was like, there it goes again, like this is just.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Doing so it's so perfect. The the uh in real
life shots, the IRL shots of him out on the
street still in the James Brown outfit, which is hilarious. Yep,
he's wearing that outfit to go to the doctor's office.
He's wearing it. He's wearing at least the jacket and
shirt to play tennis, but he's in shorts, and he's
(14:15):
when he's when he's walking and bowling, and the crowd
of people are not just running past him, but literally
running circles around him. The woman in the walker is
able to outpace him. All of these visual gags are
just so brilliant and they're They're one of the great
ways that I talk about a lot when I do
this show on YouTube. The comedy musician reacts, Hello, I'm
(14:39):
plugging myself all over the place here. Yes, But what
I what I talk about on this show is is
the idea that if you're making a music video for
a comedy song, you want that music video to help
enhance what the joke is you're already explaining in the
lyrics without detraction from the lyrics. You know, you want
(15:02):
the comedy in the visuals and the comedy in the
lyrics to kind of work in tandem to help enhance
the overall comedy of the song. And I think that's
something that Al has perfected in every one of his
videos and does so amazingly well that everyone else trying
to do that kind of thing basically just needs to
take lessons from him.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, he's the He's the prototype that can never be recreated.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Absolutely, all we can do is try.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
You know, And it's it's it's so much of these
are our visuals that are adding to the gag. Yes,
he's moving with a hernia, so he's moving very slowly
and just showing that visual of how not only are
they outpacing him, but literally running circles around him. Doesn't
pull away from the lyrics, doesn't make you not listen
to the lyrics, but it enhances the joke of the
(15:48):
song itself. And it's perfect.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
It's perfect.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I think that's a perfect note to move on to
another perfect thing.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Absolutely because track two.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
On this is an outstand dog eat dog style parody
of the Talking Heads about the mundane world of office work.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
A fantastic pastiche full of all of the earmarks that
one would expect for a Talking Heads pastige. It's phenomenal.
One of my mom's favorite songs. Actually, when I was
growing up and we were listening to this album. She
absolutely loved this one. Not that I ever knew her
to be a big Talking Heads fan, but she loved
the jokes in this song. And this song is chuck
(16:29):
a Lucke full of them.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Oh, the jokes absolutely land like oh for certain. And
just to you know, if if somebody's listening to this
because they only listen to the.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Recap episodes, which happens, I would urge you.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
To go back and listen to our dogg Eat Dog episode,
especially if you are a member of the Facebook group
the Close Personal Friends of Weird Al.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Because I got Jim Ellick, the admin of the close presser. Ye,
he made his podcast debut on that episode.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Excellent.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, he'd never been on any podcast before forever at all,
and he did a marvelous job.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
We had a wonderful time. And I will actually get
to as.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Of the recording of this, it hasn't happened yet, but
when this comes out, I will have gotten to finally
meet Jim in person because we're going to the same
Weird Al show at Pine Knab in Michigan.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Excellent. Excellent, Well I tell him insane, Ian says hello,
and yes, that's awesome. And of course I'm sure you
will enjoy the show, of course.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
So this is this is this is a weird place,
right because this episode's coming out where it's already happened
to me.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yes, I will have by the time this episode comes out,
I will have already seen al at Ravinia here in Illinois.
Uh and uh. And that will be a good time
as well. What's really funny is I go see weird
al and the day after I go to the hernia surgeon.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yea, what day do you see weird al Ty ninth?
Oh my gosh, okay, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, I've got July second, so so yeah, you get
there first.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
That will be my That will be my twenty eighth
time seeing weird Alan concert.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Oh man, you should have stopped.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I shouldn't stop, but I want to get to one
hundred and twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
That's the way to do it. That's the way to
do it.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Because I was like, hey, I've seen him twenty seven times,
maybe I should stop. Oh no, I can't. And now
my wallet's angry at me. Who cares gonna do it anyway?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Right right, I've I'm I'm sure if I like sat
down really hard and thought about it.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I could I could remember, well.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Sit down really hard, you'll hurt yourself.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
No, that's right.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
No, my cocsicks I would like have a big, big problem.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
But yeah I don't. I don't.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
I haven't seen him quite as many times as you have,
but it's it's close. But I've got I've got two
on this particular tour that I'll be able to make.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
So I'm I'm debating seeing him at riot Fest, ah,
because that would probably be the second one in this tour.
And I just have to say, as an aside, oh,
my coxsis is just an incredible phrase to just shout out.
It should be the episode title, but you're you're titling
it about the recap. Now you made wacky titles for
(19:09):
your podcast titles. That would be perfect. I fractured my
coxic in the high school high school, so that's always fun.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well so did my dad actually, which is why I
readily know that the cocsacks is your tailbone and like,
you know, anything with your butt, So like my dad
would be like careful watch of cocsicks, you know. So
like that's just I didn't even think about it when
it came out.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I was gonna say, there's a person there was some
knowledge because that is the exact bone that I fractured
in my tailbone. That was a fun year in high school. Yeah. Anyway,
doggy dog.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Speaking, yeah, d bones doggy Dog.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Oh my goodness, what a segue.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
I know, it's great. It's great.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
So so part of the conversation that we had on
the full episode that we did about Doggy Dog was that, like,
this is a perfect time capsule of a song, right
because office work has changed so much.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
That they're an update to this song. Having work at
home stuff would be brilliant.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah about like being on mute or like your dog
or cat ruining a zoom call.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Technically, I think I think we've done like the zoom
version of that. Devospicce Luke Ski and I did a
parody of brump she Sheika called zoom Meeting uh and
which won a Logan Award. It's it was DeVos song
and uh And that came out a couple of years ago,
right around the you know, the height of the pandemic
and twenty twenty. So so a zoom Meeting. All I
(20:40):
want to do is Zoom is Zoom Zoom perfect. Yes,
that one came out a couple of years ago, so
that's kind of BAEd on that idea, but not really
the dog eat Dog version, just more specifically about zoom meetings.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, and like, so what did what? So?
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I know that, like, you're not really like a traditional
office work kind of guy.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
I have been the I have been. I have worked
in an office before, and I find that, like the
culture definitely has changed greatly, at least from the time
of the recording of this song. This song, I will say, uh,
probably one of the most dated references occurs in this song,
(21:20):
and it's it's it's two things. It's the stupid human tricks.
Maybe I could get on David Letterman.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah. Uh so I have to tell you this.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
About a month ago, Uh, my step son and my
parents were in town visiting us. So my step son
from Detroit and my parents from Pennsylvania, we're all here.
My dad got a house in Saint Augustine and we
all stayed at it for a weekend.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
It was lovely.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
We went the five of us, yes, as five of us.
So we went to a diner for breakfast one morning
and we're sitting in this diner, and this diner has
some TV on, and you are showing a channel that
is playing nothing but stupid human tricks. And I'm sitting
there like waiting for my breakfast burrito, just like staring
(22:10):
at like people like turning their their lip like all
the way up over their nose or like I'm like,
oh my god, these are this is this is this
is what it is. Right, you can pin paper clips
in the shape of small animals.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Animals.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, so I was. I was. I was mesmerized.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
I completely missed out on the entire like breakfast conversation
because I was just watching the stupid human tricks.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, yeah, they were. They were definitely a fascinating era
of pop culture. Having having that be a segment on
Letterman Show was always very unique and very uh it
kind of grounded it into hey, he's a regular guy.
He has regular people on his show. Yep, you know,
(22:54):
so it was. It was definitely, uh, you know, kind
of endearing in that manner.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I I agree.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, But I mean this song is great, right, Like
it's it's a perfect talking head style parody.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
It's so great to see him perform it live because
he does it in the giant suit, the giant David
Byrne suit, which kind of adds to the pastiche there's
there's a lot of songs on this album. This album
only had technically two singles three if You if You,
if you uh count Addicted to Spuds, but that didn't
(23:27):
have a music video, right, But but you know, technically
there was only two real singles for this album, and.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I felt a song on it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
And I felt I felt there should be more and
and they were deserving of music videos. And there definitely
have been, you know, fan music videos for a lot
of these songs. But but you know, it's one of
those things where I feel like an official al video
would have really helped probably this album a little bit more,
because while it is kind of critically maligned and you know,
(24:00):
did not do very well on the charts. You know,
up to it only reached one hundred and seventy seven
on the Billboard Hot two hundred, which at least, you know,
he made it onto the charts, but still his his
lowest ranked album as far as Billboard is concerned. I
think more videos probably would have helped push this up
(24:22):
a little bit better better.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I absolutely agree like you know, and I've got the
full swath of the track listing of the album, like
right up in front of my face, and you know
you were here with me all through Dare to Be Stupid,
And I feel like this album is more balanced and
is more complete and has more highs than there to
Be Stupid does right.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
But I would I would say maybe not more highs,
but I say it corrects some things that you have
issue with.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It does do that. Yep, it does do that.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
And we'll get to that when we get to the
end of this side. But as far as Dog eat
Dog goes, it is definitely a song that the live
performances benefit from. Yeah, it's it's a great song. It's
a great song to have the audience sing along with.
And and again, as another weird, weirdly personal anecdote that
(25:18):
I bring to my appearances on this, Dog Eat Dog
is the song that wound up on the Weird Al
Yankovic tribute album that I produced that was actually by
Weird Al that Al himself actually was a part of
that I didn't know about until years later.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
It's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
So the track is attributed to a mac Heine and
the stupid jerks, and and it was sent to me
by a guy named Mike Heine out in New Jersey.
Now Mike, I think is a real guy named Mike,
but that might not be his last name. But who
(26:05):
actually sent it to me using this New Jersey address
was John Bermuda Schwartz and Bermuda sent me this track
and mack Heine. Of course, if you put those two
words together, it spells machine. This track is all electronic.
It is all electronic drums, bass, guitar, and the vocals
(26:29):
are the text to speech voice from your computer from
back in the day. That's the voice that's singing the
song Dog Eat Dog And come to find out years later,
Bermuda approached me at one of the shows one time.
He goes, did I ever tell you the secret about
your tribute album? And I went, you have a secret
(26:50):
about my tribute album? And he goes, yeah, So that
mac Heine and the stupid jerks that's me and Al.
We wanted to have a song on one of the
tribute albums. We came up with this name and we
did that that track that is basically we restructured Al's
demo for the song that he gave the band, we
restructured it, put that computerized voice on it, and sent
(27:11):
that in for the tribute album.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
That's delightful and it just makes complete sense. Like I'm
I'm amazed, but I'm like not at all surprised, if
that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
They wanted to be a part of the tribute album,
so so they they disguised themselves And I had no
idea about that until Bermuda told me about it. And
of course I've told this story on David Ethan's two
thousand inch wed Al podcast before I got permission from
from Bermuda now to talk about this. But yes, that
(27:48):
was that was kind of a hidden secret about that
tribute album for quite some time.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
What a joy that's that's that's perfect. That's beautiful. I
love that so much. Oh all right, we're gonna we're
gonna hit a date to the spuds and then we're
gonna throw it to some ads.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
The break would be yes, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Figured I feel like that. Well, we'll talk about the
potatoes first. If you like the ads, do want the
ads to come before or after the potatoes?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
You get your meat and then you get your potatoes.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Okay, so we'll throw the ads out there first. Okay, folks,
how can you have any pudding if you don't teach? No,
it's here's some ads?
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Right?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
What wrong? Wrong?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
One?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
I know?
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Oh yeah, we'll be back.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
If you're into comedy, game shows and improv, you should
come check out b f y t W. We are
an adult British inspired comedy panel show. New episodes release
every Thursday through your favorite podcast player or bfytwpod dot com.
We're also a founding member of the Odd Pods media
network and would love for you to join us for
some laughs.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
Hey Jeff, Yeah, Jeff, Remember yesterday I was telling you
how I wished I could have seen one of Billy
Joel's sold out shows at Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
I said, you should go see Taylor Swift instead. She's
the modern day Billy Joel.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Well, today my phone said I should read an interview
with Billy Joel where he talks about both retirement and
Taylor Swift.
Speaker 6 (29:25):
Oh man, it's always so creepy when that happens.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
We should do a podcast about how our devices are
always listening to us.
Speaker 6 (29:32):
We already do. It's called suggested Articles. A podcast we
talk about how technology is always spying on us. And
how those tech corporations are such big buttholes.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Dude, you can't say buttholes on a podcast promo.
Speaker 6 (29:44):
Dude, we already did twice.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
Join us every other Monday on suggested articles the podcast
on your favorite podcast app, part.
Speaker 6 (29:51):
Of the Odd Pods media network.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
And we're back, and.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
We're still off the rails.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Well we don't. We don't ever have rails here.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
That's where we're going. We don't need.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Rails exactly, exactly all right.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Our next track is Addicted to Spuds, which is an
already of Addicted to Love by Robert Palmer. Also rip,
Actually could I need I need before I say rip, because.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I mean it. I mean it.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
My my husband, Russ's mom, she uh instilled in Russ
like a big like Elvis fandom. Okay, so, like Russ,
Elvis is one of Russ's absolute favorites. And Russ's mom
would not take any criticism of Elvis like she was
(30:47):
just like no, she just wouldn't stand for it. And
apparently at some point in like the late seventies or
early eighties, Robert Palmer said somewhere in an interview that
some thing not complimentary of Elvis. Okay, so then when
Robert Palmer passed away, Rusz told his mom the news
(31:08):
and she goes, good.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Oh, my goodness, and that is holding a grudge.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, And I was like, okay, well that that tracks.
I like that story, you know, but uh, yeah, of
course we love Robert Palmer in this house.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Of course, you know, we.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Love uh, we love power Station. We love Robert Palmer.
We love everything that he does. And I love Addicted
to Love, and I love Addicted to Spuds.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Addicted the Spuds is another song that could have benefited
from a music video.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
And I recall years ago, many years ago when one
I think they were advertising Weird Al's Greatest Hits and
on TV. They were advertising the album on television, and
(32:02):
in this ad they're, you know, they're naming all the
songs that are on it, and they name Addicted to Spuds.
And with all the naming of the songs, they show
the video clips, but there is no video clip for
Addicted to Spuds. So instead they showed the clip of
Al playing Robert Palmer from the UAHF music video Oh,
(32:25):
with Addicted Spuds dubbed over it so that it has
that visual of oh yes, this is a Robert Palmer parody.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yep, yep, yeah, because it didn't actually have a video.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
He did perform this with potato dancers at some New
Year's Eve.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Yeah, it was either a New Year's Eve thing, or
it was the Doctor Demento twentieth anniversary thing, or both
one of one, one of the or both of those.
I don't know, but I feel like he also didn't
like he do like a more music video styled one
with the girls in potato head costumes on out on
(33:07):
the Weird Awl show.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
He might have done.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
He might have Maybe I'm thinking of the the UHF
video and that's combining with the potato head costumes from
a live performance. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
We could do conflating.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
It's fine, it doesn't really matter, Like, it doesn't really
matter that this song is great, and it would have
benefited from a video, absolutely, but I mean weird Al
has has gone on record talking about the song that
a music video has never made because there was a
strict budget for videos for this album and he felt
that the video would be one joke thing and not
(33:38):
really worth its own video. But yes, a parody of
this was later inserted into into UHF so yes.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
What else could he have done?
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Like? Well, I absolutely agree that he could have done
should have done a video for this, Like what would
that even look like?
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Other than being the one note that it is?
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Well, the song itself could be called one note in itself.
It is just you know it is. However, almost four minutes,
three minutes and fifty seconds of potato jokes. Now being
able to get that many potato jokes into a song
(34:20):
is incredible and you know, again another mark for Al's
skill as a songwriter. But I think you know the
original and visual of this video, especially since Robert Palmer's
videos are just kind of the two videos that I
can think of are both the same thing of him
(34:42):
and then the backup band being all women and with
the high heels and the short skirts and the glavin
but have an Al's version. Of course, they all have
the glasses and the mustache of Al in the UHF
video is a brilliant gag for that video because he's
(35:03):
parodying a lot of popular MTV stars in that music video,
since the song is not really a pastiche of any
particular one artist. But for for this video, yes, I
it would be a little one note to kind of
how many different potato gags can you do? Visually, I
(35:23):
think now it might be a little easier to do
because you could have it sung by Sam Wise Gamgee
from Lord of the Ringsto. Yeah exactly. I actually did
a parody of Dua Lipa's God what is it? I
(35:44):
can't think of what the Dua Lipa song is now
I'm levitating, and I called it I Love Potatoes because
that that that that chorus breakdown just becomes uh, Sam
Wise's speech and boil them, mash them, stack them, and yeah,
that whole thing. But yeah, anyway, regardless of that, uh,
and that's just a dumb parody idea. It was never
(36:05):
developed beyond that chorus. But but like you know, now
it might be a little easier to do that because potatoes.
Ever since this song, potatoes kind of became kind of
like bacon. It's a food that's very funny to bring
up in songs and other pop culture things. So, like,
you know, bacon had had kind of like a resurgence
(36:27):
as a popular dish, and people made songs about bacon.
Luke Ski has his Bacon song, and you know there
they put bacon in many different things. But now you
have the meme of Marge holding the potato. I just
think they're neat and having Sam wise talk about potatoes.
So making the video now would almost be easier than
it would have been to make that video.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Then that's a really good point. That's a good point. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
So who knows, like, because with all of this to say, right,
we retroactively got a video for your horoscope for today,
So who's to.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Say exactly exactly if we had if we could get
the Simpsons team to animated music video for this one
yet to be perfect?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, yep, all right, all right, let's let's get some
eyes on it.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Yes, Oh, a potato jokes, that's that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
So before we move on to the next song, though,
I need to ask you what is your what is
your favorite presentation of potato?
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Ooh, that's a good question.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
I'm I'm a big fan of French fries. I I
like I like French fries a lot. Uh. Uh. My
friend Wes, who I used to be in a band
with called Putting Capacity years ago, who's been a friend
of mine for literal decades, Uh, used to make fun
of me because uh he was hanging out with me
(37:56):
and my ex wife who was my wife at the time. Uh,
she was dieting, and she said, French fries are my
trigger food. And I said to her mind as well,
and he just brings up that phrase French fries or
my trigger food so often. Still so probably French fries.
Although I do like a good baked potato with all
(38:16):
the extra stuff on it, the butter and the et cetera.
That's always really nice, the butter and like the brown
sugar and yes, good stuff. I'm a big fan of
sweet potatoes.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Sweet potatoes are I've told the story before.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
When I was a first getting into solid foods, the
only one I would eat was the sweet potato baby
food and I turned orange and so I had to
get off of sweet potatoes for a while. But there's
the doctor literally looked at my mom and said, ma'am,
your baby is orange, and so I had to not
eat eat that for a while.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Yeah, that's too much. That's that's if it changes the
tint of your flesh, that's too my, that's too much.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
I was an for a period of time because of
the food.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
But yeah, I still love sweet potatoes so much like
I love sweet potato fries. I love a good baked
sweet potato. I don't like a sweet potato casserole because
I feel like it doesn't need marshmallow. Sweet potatoes are
sweet enough as it is. Why are you?
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Whenever I had sweet potato casserole until I got married,
I never knew people put marshmallow on it, because my
mom would make sweet potato casserole without.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Marshmallow, as the Lord intended.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
And I never knew. I never knew that that was
something that was on it. And then I had it
with her family and I was like, why is why
is this is a dessert?
Speaker 4 (39:36):
Now?
Speaker 3 (39:36):
What do you? Why is this the thing? It's still good? Ish?
I mean, because I like sweet things and I it's
a problem. But yeah, no, I love sweet potatoes. But
I'm sorry that oompa lumpa thing just put the worst
parody in my head. Oompa loompa, don't, buddy do your
child is orange? And so is there? Pooh, sorry, I apologize,
(39:59):
it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
No, that's fine, So right then you go. No more
sweet pot potatoes for you.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Yes, exactly, Oh my goodness. But yes, sweet ptatoes are excellent.
Sweptato fries are excellent. Uh and uh yes, French fries
in any of their shapes and as so far as potatoes,
they could be curly fries, they could be seasoned fries,
they could be the waffle cut, and it doesn't matter.
Potatoes yum.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah, okay, I'm right there with you. I do like
good breakfast potato.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
I like potatoes, like the little hashed brown Yeah, good stuff.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah, hash browns. I'm depending most of the time. I
prefer a home fry over ash.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Sure, but I do like the lattice cut kind of
like when you get a waffle house. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Now, when you go to waffle house, I'm a smothered
and covered person.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
The onion and the cheese. That's the way to be.
All right. So now we've exhausted our potato.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Uh now that now that we've had the potato famine,
let's move on.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Oh my gosh, right, I wish well done.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
You got to be quick in my house with the puns,
you know, Yeah, you get stepped on, so you know
it's good, okay.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Track four on.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Side is one of those days, which is a Yankovic
original about having one of those days, and uh, I
had our friend U aged jeff On to he uh,
this is a song that is.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Near and dear to his heart.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
He told a wonderful story on that episode that I'm
going to people need to just go back and listen
to it because we had a oh my god, we
were in the same place at the same time revelation.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
About it. So you know, that's that's that's and there
was some magic. But yeah, this song one of those days.
What's your take on it?
Speaker 3 (42:03):
This is one of my all time favorite weird Al songs.
This is this really speaks so much to Al's sense
of humor, Like his personal sense of humor. A lot
of the songs in an Al's ouvra in Al's catalog
(42:24):
are always songs that are sung by a narrator that
is not necessarily Al. They are always sung from their
perspective of a character that is telling this story, and
sometimes that character may be an actual character from a
film for example, like Obi Wan or Ian Malcolm or
what have you. This one seems like this is just
(42:47):
Al doing this song about a terrible day, and it
really really captures well just the not only the absurdist
sense of humor that he has. With a lot of
the weird things going on, but also like kind of
somewhere in his dark sense of humor. There's a lot
of dark jokes in this one too. And this one
(43:09):
also plays with the idea of what could be considered
a bad day as well, you know, like he's naming
all of these horribly terrible things and then also a
paper cut or you know, like just like something kind
of lame and mundane, as like the Kapper. And a
(43:31):
lot of these come in threes, which is a great
rule of comedy, you know, to have your jokes be
in threes. You have your first one, your second one,
the third one kind of like summarizes or like expands
on the comedy. But he does it in reverse, you know,
it does like a big thing, a bigger thing, and
then kind of a small, kind of mundane thing. And
that's brilliant, and that's really what makes this song work
(43:54):
so beautifully and why it's one of my favorites. Back
when we were doing twenty six and a half, the
Weird Al tribute album, I was doing two. I was
working on two songs and I finished that boy could
Dance cover the other song I was going to cover
(44:16):
more traditionally, was one of those days, and we got
most of it recorded, but we didn't get it finished
in time. But one of those Days is one of
my favorite songs of his. I even reference it in
another song of mine called Corey Can even I make
a reference, a lyrical reference to one of the lyrics
in one of those Days in that song fantastic.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Yeah, like this seems this is absolutely a fan favorite
song for like all of the reasons that you've said, right, yeah,
like this is this is the template. This follows the template.
This follows exactly that thing that Al does just so well,
where it's the big things and the small things and
either the the small things are right on par with
(45:02):
the big things and you don't see the difference between
you know, a paper cut and them dropping the bomb
or like you do.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
But it doesn't matter, you know, because you're equally annoyed, you.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Know, Yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
I love it, like this formula gets like redone again.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Why does this always happen to me?
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Exactly exactly?
Speaker 1 (45:23):
And I've said this before on the show, like during COVID,
I absolutely was why does this always happen to me?
Because they kept like preempting the prices, right, oh no,
and I'm like, how dare you?
Speaker 2 (45:35):
First of all, how dare you?
Speaker 1 (45:38):
But every day I was like, come on, you couldn't
have done this during Let's make a deal, you know.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
But all the Wayne Brady fans would be upset.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yeah, but my maiden name is Carrie, so I'm.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
A Drew pers Okay, all right, I get it.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Yeah, Wayne and Wayne Brady today when he signs off,
doesn't tell you that he loves you. So Drew Carrey
does every episode telling you to uh no, he ends
every episode telling you to, you know, pay attention to
your mental health, you know, talk to somebody if you
need to. And then he goes and people love you
and I love you, and then he signs off, and
I'm like, that's the way to do it, Drew, thank.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
You very much.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Drew carries the good people.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Yeah, well you know he's a Carrie of course. But anyway,
I digress. I did because one of those days it's
it's it's it's a fun song. It's great to listen
to and like, like truly it's it's a solid little
song like musically, it's it's super fun.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
It absolutely is. It'd be interesting if it like to
find out if it actually is a pastiche of something.
You know, like there's a lot of Al songs that
like are pastiches that you know, the layman, unless you're
into a lot of the things that Al has a
particular taste for, you wouldn't realize they are a pastiche.
(46:55):
Al has done two different tony Okay pastiches, and I
don't think this is a tony Okay pastiche. But I
wouldn't be surprised if this isn't supposed to be aping
the style of a song. And you know, the Al
fans out there haven't actually discovered what it's trying to
ape yet.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Yeah, that's very true.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
This is one of the few where it's like really,
it's like the Wikipedia doesn't say anything, and then the
fandom page just says glam rock and it's like, well, okay,
I guess.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Yeah, but that's kind of a little vague. You know,
Al Al doesn't if Al's gonna parody a a style,
he's gonna hone in on a particular artist usually when
doing that style, Yeah, he doesn't often go broad with
a style. So that's that's where like, you know, that's
(47:47):
where I'm like, maybe this is supposed to be one
particular artist. This is supposed to sound like a specific song,
and maybe we just haven't nailed it yet.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
I wonder, I wonder you know what.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
That's that's that's something we'll have to wait and ask
al ourselves once we get the chance.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Yeah, we might, I might, that might be my question.
Excuse me?
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Was one of those days of direct pestige of something
can you answer such for me?
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Please?
Speaker 1 (48:13):
Thank you and then also sign my poster thank you, yes,
and unless you have anything further out about one of
those days, I feel like we should dive into Polka Party.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
I think I think now is the time for the
party of Polka's.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Okay, Yeah, because side one wraps up with the polka
from the album, the only title track Polka.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
It's Polka Party, which is the pola.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
Once again, we'restoring balance and order to Lauren's life.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yep, this is how it should be.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
The side of the first sending the first side of
the album with the polka to kind of like lead
you into the second side, to encourage you to flipping
the album over. We had it happen in N three D,
and we didn't have it happened in there to be
stupid and there was much crying and mashing of teeth
on your behalf.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
There sure was, there sure was, and there there will
be until the end of time. But yeah, this polka
initial initial thoughts, right, because if people can just go
back to listen to the episode that came out two
weeks ago for the track by track listing of this,
but like, uh, this is such a snapshot of the
(49:28):
time that it happened, and let's just hit some highlights.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
It is. It is very much Hey, welcome to nineteen
eighty seven the Polka. Yeah, yeah, this this this puts
Madonna into two of the three p's. Yes, this this
album puts the Rolling Stones into two of the three
piece m and and there is so much uh, like
(49:59):
great songs shoved in here, and then there's also kind
of like one or two songs where you're like you
included that really Like I understand that it was a hint,
but it seems weird to have Eddie Murphy's party all
the time in this. Personally, I know it was a
(50:20):
popular song, but there's something in my brain that does
not parse the idea that a. Eddie Murphy had an
album and b that it wasn't a comedy album.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Oh no, I know, I know.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yeah, and having a comedy artist doing something non comedic
and then a al being a comedian, a musical comedian
covering that makes my brain short circuit for the couple
of seconds that it's in the polka.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
That's funny, like id yeah, I will tell you.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
I'm one of those people that learned about the Eddie
Murphy album from this polka, so I understand where you're
coming from. And then, of course learning that Eddie Murphy
had an album, then I learned that Bruce Willis had
an album which is really good the era of Brune. Yes,
(51:15):
you know, but yeah, I like this polka quite a bit.
I think this is a great polka. I like that
it opens with songs by two different lead singers of Genesis,
and then yeah, I think that's a good that's a
good way to do it. And then you get into
the weird stuff, you know, the Eddie Murphy thing, and
then they say, you say me, like I get having
Lionel Richie on here that song in particular, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yeah, yeah, that that one, that one in particular, although
it works really well in the polka because it's just
al saying that in that al way, Uh say you say,
ay just works great in this song. Uh. The thing
the thing that that really uh gets me, uh that
(52:01):
really kind of brings things home for me because venus
works good. Nasty is kind of awkward, but like pleasantly.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
So well the song is as well, So.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
Yeah, well of course, but I mean having that in
a polka being sung by al makes it. Yeah. No,
that's that's the part that that's what I'm getting Tomas
rock me amaedeas is is what sells the songs that
came before it, because it's just going to be a
mish mash of what is pop culture's biggest songs of
(52:36):
that year, and it is just like, yeah, they're all
over the place, they're all over the map, they're all
different styles, and we've made them a polka now and
ooh rock it is, ooh rock mem it is ooh.
It's just so it really just hones in on yeah,
you know, strap in folks and this is the end
of the song, but it's going to be all weirdness
(52:59):
and this uh like like makes it like authentically oh
we get it.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Now, yeah, oh for sure. Yeah, And I think legitimize.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
This that's the word I was looking for. It legitimizes
all the weirdness that came before it and all the
weirdness that's coming after it is by having rock meobidais
right after Nasty and Venus.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
I totally get that, absolutely, And I think the placement
of Nasty where it is leads into that weirdness because
the I like this part is a that.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
Was a a.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
Just an ad lib that Janet did in Nasty that
made the final cut that wasn't supposed to be in
the song.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
I'm dead serious, I believe you. And like the fact
that that's.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
The thing that Al pulled out to like really highlight
to lead you into rock Me amadaeis like that's the
genius moment, right, absolutely, the brilliance like taking that little
thing because it's just Janet like I like this part,
you know, and then I like this part like then
going oh, like that's that's brilliant. That's why I have to.
Speaker 3 (54:03):
Say, I don't think I've ever heard Janet say I
like this part Nasty, And now I'm rethinking my entire
life because I've always attributed that to just an al
ad lib about him liking rock me on my dais Nope, nope, nope,
that's amazing. That's so good.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Yeah, I have my husband is one of the foremost
like Jackson scholars that there is, and so like he
brought that information to me and I'm like, oh my god.
And then I heard it and I was like, oh
my god, like yes, like and it it just cemented
in me that everything Al does is like intentional and
(54:46):
oh yeah, just just so like he is playing three
D chess and like we're lucky to like know where
the checkers board is, right. I'm like, you know, like
it's just amazing what he's able to do. And like,
I don't know about you, but the Papa Don't Preach
(55:08):
is one of the best Polka endings.
Speaker 3 (55:10):
Yeah, it is absolutely one of the best Polka endings.
And we get the the Earbooker Polka version of it
at the very end with the repetition, which is like
you know, becomes the standard for all Polko's, at least
all Al Polko's. It's it's just it is really it's
(55:31):
just the great little button on the end of the song.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
Yeah, oh, it for sure is. And like it's it.
This is a good Polka.
Speaker 1 (55:38):
I think we and We made this point on the
episode about this particular song, but I would be remiss
if I didn't if I didn't say that, like this
is his third try like try at this genre, and
like you could tell that he's just tightening it up
and tightening it up and tightening it up and getting better.
And we'll talk about this as we kind of move forward,
(56:02):
right which this makes me even more upset that there's
not a polka on even worse, and it makes me
even more upset that the polka on anyway, Jeff, is
what it is, and that we don't get another true
like time capsule polka in earnest until poke your eyes out.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
So we will have all of.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
These discussions as these come, but I will say that,
like you know, he came back swinging with Poka your
eyes out like.
Speaker 3 (56:33):
That this one Rien really kind of like the first
polka established the format, the second polka kind of like
gave us a better idea of them being a time
capsule and gave us that structure, and then this one
kind of like cemented those more in place.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
Yep, and so like like like exactly, and so that's
why it's such a bummer that we don't like we
go from nineteen eighty six to nineteen ninety two before
we have this this format again, and I love that he,
you know, by and large with with with one you
know exception, UH stuck.
Speaker 2 (57:10):
To this format with the Polkas.
Speaker 3 (57:13):
Two exceptions.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Oh you're right, wait two two, because.
Speaker 3 (57:19):
The one on UHF and then the one on album.
Speaker 1 (57:21):
I meant after poke your eyes out. But yes, there's
two exceptions, but after poke your eyes out, like he
pretty much stuck with it. But the one on Alapalooza
is the except. Yes, there's two exceptions one one in
the eighties and one in the nineties. Yes, yes, so yeah,
but we love polkas in these parts. We absolutely do.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
Absolutely, that's why we're having this party.
Speaker 3 (57:41):
So and Polka party, this Polka party party.
Speaker 1 (57:43):
It's a Polka party party and we're talking about Poka party.
We've covered this album.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
We have covered this album, which, by the way, UH
took us much less time than it usually does because
this album as a whole, I think it's Al's shortest album.
Speaker 2 (57:57):
It might be.
Speaker 3 (57:58):
Yeah, like side one and two clock in together at
thirty four.
Speaker 1 (58:03):
Minutes, thirty four minutes and a whopping seven seconds. Yeah, yeah,
it even worse, doesn't have a polka, but that's still
thirty seven thirty two.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
It's barely longer, but it's longer.
Speaker 4 (58:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (58:14):
Well, this one also has I think the least number
of songs on it. This is only a ten song album.
Speaker 2 (58:19):
Yeah, that's also true.
Speaker 3 (58:21):
So usually I will go eleven or twelve, but yeah,
this one, this is I think the shortest album all around.
So yes, our conversation has been shorter this time.
Speaker 1 (58:31):
Yep, yep, it absolutely is. But hey, you know what,
we uh will live, We'll press on and do you
have anything because you know we're gonna get together again
after the end of side too, where uh, I think
we're gonna have some some some different kinds of conversations.
Speaker 3 (58:47):
We will definitely be having some more stronger worded things
to say.
Speaker 1 (58:52):
Yeah, well Side two tends to be the places where
those things happen.
Speaker 3 (58:56):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
But before before I let you go, uh is there?
You were doing some very nice seamless plugging throughout totally
seeless throughout the show. But is there anything in particular
you'd like listeners to check out right now? After all,
it is the fourth of July, so what should they
put throw on of yours for their for their barbecues.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
Well, if you're if you're feeling h patriotic, and if
you're feeling also u that you know you may have
missed Ghostbusters Day back on June seventh, you can celebrate
it again with my updated version of my song Bustin
makes Me Feel Good, the Ghostbusters Day twenty twenty five edition.
(59:39):
I've updated some of the lyrics to that to include
stuff about the two newest Ghostbuster movies, as well as
change the recording a little bit. Uh And that recording
is available now on all streaming sites. And if you're
feeling especially patriotic, I do have a song called woop
Mark six Pope which is out, which is a parody
of Pink Pony Club, which is out on the streaming
(01:00:00):
sites as well, if you're into that maybe a little
bit slightly political humor. But beyond that, of course, you
can find me on all the things at insane Ian
dot bandcamp dot com for all of my songs that
aren't on your other streaming sites, and for some of
that are or you know, if you like to purchase
music that's a thing, or you can find me visually
at YouTube dot com, slash Insanian or patreon dot com
(01:00:23):
slash Insanian.
Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Beautiful, Thank you so much, insane Ian.
Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
Well, thank you loony Lauren.
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Yeah no, See, nobody calls me that except for you,
And I like that because I literally on the screen
I know I only make here's.
Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
Your full government name, and it's.
Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
My full government name. I am looney Lauren. You are
insanean and this has been Polka party. So I think
I've exhausted my alliteration for the day.
Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
There's so much alliteration. I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Yeah, all right, well, folks, enjoy your Fourth of July.
Be safe the next time you hear us. I really
hope you still have all of the digits that you've
had when this started. Just be be careful today.
Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
Yeah, you don't want it to do one just one
of those days.
Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
No, you don't want it to be just one of
those days. Right, and yeah, we'll come at you again
with Uh. I'm not sure what the next thing you're
gonna hear is gonna be, but we're gonna start side
to very soon. I basically I'm just saying I haven't
decided if I'm going to do a concert recap or not,
but I may I may not either way, two weeks
from now, there will be some brand new, beautiful content
(01:01:24):
for you. Whether it's us kicking off side too with
Here's Johnny or me talking about the concert that I
just saw. You're just gonna have to wait and find out.
But either way, stay weird, be awesome, and goodbye
Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
Goodbye, good bye, good bye, good bye, good bye,
Hello everybody, and welcome to the BEERDW podcast podcast Dot
Too the greatest things.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
In the world Beer and Weird Now. And I can't
believe that we.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Are already at the end of side one of Polka Party.
It is our Polka Party, party about Polka Party, and
it is side one of Polka Party that we're talking
about today. And as we have been doing now, as
is tradition here, I like making traditions happen on this show.
As a tradition, when we wrap up a side of
(01:03):
any weird al album, I bring in our good friend
insane Ian to help tie it all up and tie
it all together. So, Ian, how are you, my friend?
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Oh, my goodness, I'm doing good And hello. Yes, that
is the most times I've heard this sir phrase Polka
party uttered in a spans of thirty seconds. That was incredible.
I think you said it five hundred and twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Times, at least at least uh.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Incredible, good, good stuff, great.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Thank you. Yeah, it's a it's my own fault.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
The nomenclature of this particular series of episodes is I've
called Polka Party colon a Polka Party party, and then
the name of the episode So the episode before this
where we had our friend poke Bob on to talk
about Polka party, it is Polka party colon a Polka
party party, hyphen polka party.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I don't think that's enough polkas and or parties.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
No, don't.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
I don't there And actually I feel like this is
the time I need to mention. So I like to
have the just like the Wikipedia page of the album
or the song or whatever up just for like quick
and easy reference, you know, as we're having conversation.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
And when I type polka party.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
Into ye old Google, Google does that thing where it
now has a section called people also ask, right, so
questions related to your initial search query. And one of
the people also ask questions when you type in polka party,
is when were polka parties popular?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yes? And and was the use of a hay boy
necessary for attending a polka party?
Speaker 1 (02:44):
You know that's not mentioned in the answer on that
Google gives.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
Oh well imagine that.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
So no, this it makes me question everything that Google
has to deliver now, right, Yeah, So, just just just
for our amusement, this is the answer. The polka was
a European sensation before it swept America. In the eighteen forties.
The dance and his variations were already in the repertoires
(03:16):
of local musicians. By eighteen forty five, when Jackson Leland
penned a quick step for his Cleveland brass band Lively.
Polkas and romantic waltzes were popular throughout the Victorian era.
So I guess that's the heyday of poka parties. I
can't speak to hey boys at this point that.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
Well that I suppose counts it off.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
These good golly, you know, I feel like I'd be
remiss if I didn't tell you that this episode. People like,
we're not recording it on the fourth of July, but
this comes out on the fourth of July.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Ah, yeah, so you know.
Speaker 3 (03:56):
A patriotic Polka party, if you will, It.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Is a patriotic poke party. So yeah, I'll take that.
This is poke a part.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
The only we're interested in right now.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Well, I mean, yeah, the page, that's that's that's true.
I'll tell I'll tell you this and this is this
is as far as I'm going with it. It's mostly
my beer snobbery more than anything that's happening here is
the canned crack.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Just full disclosure.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
People, The can crack that you all heard at the
beginning of this episode was an analog can crack, but
it was actually a Polar Seltzer Cranberry lime. Uh was
not a beer because the only beer that I have
in my fridge that was even like close to appropriate
for a recap of side one of Polka Party that
was coming out on Independence Day was one of the
(04:39):
handful of the real American beer that Hulk.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Hogan put out.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Oh my god, we we have it for wrestling reasons, okay,
like just the the amusement of that whole situation.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
But it is not good.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Well, I mean it's it's from Hogan, so I that's
what I would expect.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Well, I get that.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
So I feel like it's very important for me as
a person to make the distinction between like, I like
Hulk Hogan the wrestling character. I don't care for Terry
Terry Blaya the person, and like never have for various reasons.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
Yeah. No, that that that that's that's uh, that's fair.
That's absolutely fair.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, all this to say, we got a twelve pack
of this real American beer for again, for wrestling reasons,
because they released it here, We're like, well, we got
to try it.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
You know, by the way, the phrase for wrestling reasons uses.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Me to no end, thank you, and I and.
Speaker 3 (05:33):
The fact that it's beer for wrestling reasons, yeah, opens
up so many different things. Most people would think beer
for wrestling reasons is a stone cold thing. But you
know this is this is Hogan's Real American beer, which
already problematic in of itself given who Terry is. But also, yes,
(05:55):
he had that song real American in the eighties when
that they did a wrestling album.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Hey do you know who wrote real American?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
I'm sure you're gonna tell.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Me, Rick Darringer.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Hey, tying it all together in ri p.
Speaker 1 (06:09):
So you see, look at I'm But I have also
had the stone Cold Broken Skull I p A and
the Logger and stone colds Broken Skull I p A
is the best of all of the beers for Wrestling reasons.
Speaker 3 (06:22):
The beers for wrestling reasons. You need t shirts that say.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
That I don't don't threaten me with a good time.
I can make that happen.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Oh gosh. But yeah, so that's all I had in
the fridge for this.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
And I had one on an episode. Oh, I had
one on the Living with a Hernia episode appropriate, right exactly,
And I was like, Nope, I don't want to drink
any more of that.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
I don't I don't want this flavor in my face.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
No, I'll save that beer for cooking and or baking,
because I like cooking and or baking with beer.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
And this is but I mean, it's it's just I
like a good beer bread.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
I'll put it in chili, you know, So anyway I digest. Yes,
So we're here to talk about side one of are
and it opens with the aforementioned Living with a Hernia,
which is a parody of Living in America by James Brown,
which was from the Rocky four YEP Rocky four And
(07:28):
just a little bit of information about that was when
it came time to pick a song to parody as
the lead single for this album, Scotti Brothers Records had
some very strong ideas and wish to have parody musician
who was signed to the same label, a type parody
a musician who was signed to the same label. So,
after Living in America became a hit, the record label
(07:51):
insisted that Al parody the song, and he obliged.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Yeah, I mean, it's it's a it's a good choice
for a song. It's a very Uh, it's really filled
with a lot of hernia knowledge, which you know is
part for the course for al when he writes, you know,
he he does delve deeply into a subject and I
have to see a little little bit of a side
thing here, a little bit of a personal anecdote, which
(08:16):
is sometimes what I bring to these little recaps we
do at the end. Not only did I cover this
song recently live performing at Mars Khan this past March
out in Bloomington, Minneapolis, but I performed it because currently
I have two hernias right now.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Oh gosh, so you are living with I.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Am currently living with not just a hernia, but two hernias,
one of which is mentioned in the song the Ingwinnel hernia.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Go ahead.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
I also have a a what's the umbilical hernia? But
and I by the time this airs, I have already
seen a surgeon to figure out what I'm going to
do about these hernias, but as of recording, I have
not seen one yet.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
You're gonna look at him and say, help me out, dig.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
Gig, Yes exactly, Uh, and yeah, no, it's a it's
a it's a fun song. I think I I may
have if I didn't react to the video on my
Patreon insaney and dot Patreon dot com I or Patreon
dot com slash insaney and I should say, whoopsidoodle, I
messed up my own blug. I I reacted to a
(09:34):
bunch of Al videos and compared them to the original
videos with which he was parodying, you know, when he
was doing shot for shot remix and the like, and
this one, I think, doesn't this like use the same
stage that James Brown did? Yeah, so like he shut
it in the same location that the James Brown video
is shot and does a lot of recreations of of course,
(09:56):
you know the famous thing James Brown would always do
is he'd start off stage they put the cape on him,
but he turned around and starts singing even more and
like he throws the guy off of him. The video
really sells this song really well, and as a lead single,
it's a fantastic lead single.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
I couldn't agree more. I absolutely couldn't agree more. And like,
I love this video so much. This is top five,
maybe even top three weird al video for me. I
love this video so very much and one of the
frequent topics of conversation in my house, which is again
why I love my house so very very much.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
Is what is the notion that.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Like, I don't know that Al could get away with
making a video like this like today.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
You know, well, I.
Speaker 3 (10:43):
Think I think that he can because he didn't do
something then that would have gotten him canceled for doing it.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
That's totally fair. No, I no, I get that. I
get that. You know.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
It's just the the hair, the dancing, the mannerisms like
all this that and the Yeah, it's it's so close
to something that could like offend somebody, but he doesn't.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I think he's not really running on offense here. I
think imitation, as they say, is the sincerest form of flattery.
And although that's not the complete version of the quote,
it does kind of that section of it kind of
applies here. And he's doing a recreation. He's trying to
mimic the dance style that James Brown does, and in
(11:31):
doing that, there's nothing really offensive in my eyes to that. Now,
had he gone a little further with the quote unquote
look of things, yep, yes, that would have been problematic obviously,
But I think imitating dance moves, there's nothing particularly problematic
about it because you are embodying a character that.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
I like that perspective on it, absolutely, Like this is
part of me feels like sometimes you're giving maybe give
more benefit of the doubted people than they may deserve. Yeah,
and I'm I'm i mean people's level of getting offended
by things, right.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Oh yeah, absolutely, No, I'm I'm very much a benefit
of the doubt kind of guy. Yeah, but I you know,
speaking as someone who is a performer myself, when when
doing something like this, when kind of aping the style
of somebody and aping their look as far as dance
moves or what have you. You know, let it be
a you know, a Michael Jackson type dance move or
(12:30):
a James Brown type dance move, or even a Madonna
style dance move. You you're you're really just kind of
embodying that that idea of Yes, this is a parody
of their work. So I'm not only parodying the song.
I'm going to parody their dance style, the way they move,
the way they behave. So you're embodying that character in
(12:52):
that parody.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
That's that's beautiful. I love that.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yes, thank you, You've actually made me feel better about
this I love this video so much, and part of
me is just like this is like it's it's again.
I said, it's probably like top three weird al video
for me, but it is like nowhere near the top
three videos.
Speaker 2 (13:08):
Like I'll show somebody first.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Yeah, I mean, of course it's It's a great video.
And and one of the things I love about watching
other reactors react to it is that some jokes manage
to go over their heads, like even if they if
they clock it when they watch it, but they don't
say anything about it. That one point where it cuts
to a shot of his feet as he's dancing and
(13:31):
the one foot toes all the way around, most of
them don't don't say anything about that. I can't tell
if they're stunned by it or not, but they never
pointed out. And that's an amazing joke.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
It's a knees lapper for me every time, Like literally,
I'm not I'm not even joking, like I I literally,
I just I just slapped my knee. When I see that,
I was like, there it goes again, like this is just.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Doing so it's so perfect. The the uh in real
life shots, the IRL shots of him out on the
street still in the James Brown outfit, which is hilarious. Yep,
he's wearing that outfit to go to the doctor's office.
He's wearing it. He's wearing at least the jacket and
shirt to play tennis, but he's in shorts, and he's
(14:15):
when he's when he's walking and bowling, and the crowd
of people are not just running past him, but literally
running circles around him. The woman in the walker is
able to outpace him. All of these visual gags are
just so brilliant and they're They're one of the great
ways that I talk about a lot when I do
this show on YouTube. The comedy musician reacts, Hello, I'm
(14:39):
plugging myself all over the place here. Yes, But what
I what I talk about on this show is is
the idea that if you're making a music video for
a comedy song, you want that music video to help
enhance what the joke is you're already explaining in the
lyrics without detraction from the lyrics. You know, you want
(15:02):
the comedy in the visuals and the comedy in the
lyrics to kind of work in tandem to help enhance
the overall comedy of the song. And I think that's
something that Al has perfected in every one of his
videos and does so amazingly well that everyone else trying
to do that kind of thing basically just needs to
take lessons from him.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
Yeah, he's the He's the prototype that can never be recreated.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Absolutely, all we can do is try.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
You know, And it's it's it's so much of these
are our visuals that are adding to the gag. Yes,
he's moving with a hernia, so he's moving very slowly
and just showing that visual of how not only are
they outpacing him, but literally running circles around him. Doesn't
pull away from the lyrics, doesn't make you not listen
to the lyrics, but it enhances the joke of the
(15:48):
song itself. And it's perfect.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
It's perfect.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
I think that's a perfect note to move on to
another perfect thing.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
Absolutely because track two.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
On this is an outstand dog eat dog style parody
of the Talking Heads about the mundane world of office work.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
A fantastic pastiche full of all of the earmarks that
one would expect for a Talking Heads pastige. It's phenomenal.
One of my mom's favorite songs. Actually, when I was
growing up and we were listening to this album. She
absolutely loved this one. Not that I ever knew her
to be a big Talking Heads fan, but she loved
the jokes in this song. And this song is chuck
(16:29):
a Lucke full of them.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Oh, the jokes absolutely land like oh for certain. And
just to you know, if if somebody's listening to this
because they only listen to the.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
Recap episodes, which happens, I would urge you.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
To go back and listen to our dogg Eat Dog episode,
especially if you are a member of the Facebook group
the Close Personal Friends of Weird Al.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
Because I got Jim Ellick, the admin of the close presser. Ye,
he made his podcast debut on that episode.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Excellent.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, he'd never been on any podcast before forever at all,
and he did a marvelous job.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
We had a wonderful time. And I will actually get
to as.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
Of the recording of this, it hasn't happened yet, but
when this comes out, I will have gotten to finally
meet Jim in person because we're going to the same
Weird Al show at Pine Knab in Michigan.
Speaker 3 (17:19):
Excellent. Excellent, Well I tell him insane, Ian says hello,
and yes, that's awesome. And of course I'm sure you
will enjoy the show, of course.
Speaker 2 (17:31):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:32):
So this is this is this is a weird place,
right because this episode's coming out where it's already happened
to me.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
Yes, I will have by the time this episode comes out,
I will have already seen al at Ravinia here in Illinois.
Uh and uh. And that will be a good time
as well. What's really funny is I go see weird
al and the day after I go to the hernia surgeon.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yea, what day do you see weird al Ty ninth?
Oh my gosh, okay, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, I've got July second, so so yeah, you get
there first.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
That will be my That will be my twenty eighth
time seeing weird Alan concert.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Oh man, you should have stopped.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I shouldn't stop, but I want to get to one
hundred and twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
That's the way to do it. That's the way to
do it.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Because I was like, hey, I've seen him twenty seven times,
maybe I should stop. Oh no, I can't. And now
my wallet's angry at me. Who cares gonna do it anyway?
Speaker 1 (18:24):
Right right, I've I'm I'm sure if I like sat
down really hard and thought about it.
Speaker 2 (18:31):
I could I could remember, well.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
Sit down really hard, you'll hurt yourself.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
No, that's right.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
No, my cocsicks I would like have a big, big problem.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
But yeah I don't. I don't.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
I haven't seen him quite as many times as you have,
but it's it's close. But I've got I've got two
on this particular tour that I'll be able to make.
Speaker 3 (18:48):
So I'm I'm debating seeing him at riot Fest, ah,
because that would probably be the second one in this tour.
And I just have to say, as an aside, oh,
my coxsis is just an incredible phrase to just shout out.
It should be the episode title, but you're you're titling
it about the recap. Now you made wacky titles for
(19:09):
your podcast titles. That would be perfect. I fractured my
coxic in the high school high school, so that's always fun.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Well so did my dad actually, which is why I
readily know that the cocsacks is your tailbone and like,
you know, anything with your butt, So like my dad
would be like careful watch of cocsicks, you know. So
like that's just I didn't even think about it when
it came out.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
I was gonna say, there's a person there was some
knowledge because that is the exact bone that I fractured
in my tailbone. That was a fun year in high school. Yeah. Anyway,
doggy dog.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Speaking, yeah, d bones doggy Dog.
Speaker 3 (19:46):
Oh my goodness, what a segue.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
I know, it's great. It's great.
Speaker 1 (19:49):
So so part of the conversation that we had on
the full episode that we did about Doggy Dog was that, like,
this is a perfect time capsule of a song, right
because office work has changed so much.
Speaker 3 (20:04):
That they're an update to this song. Having work at
home stuff would be brilliant.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, oh my god.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
Yeah about like being on mute or like your dog
or cat ruining a zoom call.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Technically, I think I think we've done like the zoom
version of that. Devospicce Luke Ski and I did a
parody of brump she Sheika called zoom Meeting uh and
which won a Logan Award. It's it was DeVos song
and uh And that came out a couple of years ago,
right around the you know, the height of the pandemic
and twenty twenty. So so a zoom Meeting. All I
(20:40):
want to do is Zoom is Zoom Zoom perfect. Yes,
that one came out a couple of years ago, so
that's kind of BAEd on that idea, but not really
the dog eat Dog version, just more specifically about zoom meetings.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
Yeah, and like, so what did what? So?
Speaker 1 (20:53):
I know that, like, you're not really like a traditional
office work kind of guy.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
I have been the I have been. I have worked
in an office before, and I find that, like the
culture definitely has changed greatly, at least from the time
of the recording of this song. This song, I will say, uh,
probably one of the most dated references occurs in this song,
(21:20):
and it's it's it's two things. It's the stupid human tricks.
Maybe I could get on David Letterman.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Yeah. Uh so I have to tell you this.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
About a month ago, Uh, my step son and my
parents were in town visiting us. So my step son
from Detroit and my parents from Pennsylvania, we're all here.
My dad got a house in Saint Augustine and we
all stayed at it for a weekend.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
It was lovely.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
We went the five of us, yes, as five of us.
So we went to a diner for breakfast one morning
and we're sitting in this diner, and this diner has
some TV on, and you are showing a channel that
is playing nothing but stupid human tricks. And I'm sitting
there like waiting for my breakfast burrito, just like staring
(22:10):
at like people like turning their their lip like all
the way up over their nose or like I'm like,
oh my god, these are this is this is this
is what it is. Right, you can pin paper clips
in the shape of small animals.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
Animals.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, so I was. I was. I was mesmerized.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
I completely missed out on the entire like breakfast conversation
because I was just watching the stupid human tricks.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Yeah, yeah, they were. They were definitely a fascinating era
of pop culture. Having having that be a segment on
Letterman Show was always very unique and very uh it
kind of grounded it into hey, he's a regular guy.
He has regular people on his show. Yep, you know,
(22:54):
so it was. It was definitely, uh, you know, kind
of endearing in that manner.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
I I agree.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Yeah, But I mean this song is great, right, Like
it's it's a perfect talking head style parody.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
It's so great to see him perform it live because
he does it in the giant suit, the giant David
Byrne suit, which kind of adds to the pastiche there's
there's a lot of songs on this album. This album
only had technically two singles three if You if You,
if you uh count Addicted to Spuds, but that didn't
(23:27):
have a music video, right, But but you know, technically
there was only two real singles for this album, and.
Speaker 2 (23:35):
I felt a song on it, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
And I felt I felt there should be more and
and they were deserving of music videos. And there definitely
have been, you know, fan music videos for a lot
of these songs. But but you know, it's one of
those things where I feel like an official al video
would have really helped probably this album a little bit more,
because while it is kind of critically maligned and you know,
(24:00):
did not do very well on the charts. You know,
up to it only reached one hundred and seventy seven
on the Billboard Hot two hundred, which at least, you know,
he made it onto the charts, but still his his
lowest ranked album as far as Billboard is concerned. I
think more videos probably would have helped push this up
(24:22):
a little bit better better.
Speaker 1 (24:24):
I absolutely agree like you know, and I've got the
full swath of the track listing of the album, like
right up in front of my face, and you know
you were here with me all through Dare to Be Stupid,
And I feel like this album is more balanced and
is more complete and has more highs than there to
Be Stupid does right.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
But I would I would say maybe not more highs,
but I say it corrects some things that you have
issue with.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
It does do that. Yep, it does do that.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
And we'll get to that when we get to the
end of this side. But as far as Dog eat
Dog goes, it is definitely a song that the live
performances benefit from. Yeah, it's it's a great song. It's
a great song to have the audience sing along with.
And and again, as another weird, weirdly personal anecdote that
(25:18):
I bring to my appearances on this, Dog Eat Dog
is the song that wound up on the Weird Al
Yankovic tribute album that I produced that was actually by
Weird Al that Al himself actually was a part of
that I didn't know about until years later.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
It's fantastic.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
So the track is attributed to a mac Heine and
the stupid jerks, and and it was sent to me
by a guy named Mike Heine out in New Jersey.
Now Mike, I think is a real guy named Mike,
but that might not be his last name. But who
(26:05):
actually sent it to me using this New Jersey address
was John Bermuda Schwartz and Bermuda sent me this track
and mack Heine. Of course, if you put those two
words together, it spells machine. This track is all electronic.
It is all electronic drums, bass, guitar, and the vocals
(26:29):
are the text to speech voice from your computer from
back in the day. That's the voice that's singing the
song Dog Eat Dog And come to find out years later,
Bermuda approached me at one of the shows one time.
He goes, did I ever tell you the secret about
your tribute album? And I went, you have a secret
(26:50):
about my tribute album? And he goes, yeah, So that
mac Heine and the stupid jerks that's me and Al.
We wanted to have a song on one of the
tribute albums. We came up with this name and we
did that that track that is basically we restructured Al's
demo for the song that he gave the band, we
restructured it, put that computerized voice on it, and sent
(27:11):
that in for the tribute album.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
That's delightful and it just makes complete sense. Like I'm
I'm amazed, but I'm like not at all surprised, if
that makes sense.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
They wanted to be a part of the tribute album,
so so they they disguised themselves And I had no
idea about that until Bermuda told me about it. And
of course I've told this story on David Ethan's two
thousand inch wed Al podcast before I got permission from
from Bermuda now to talk about this. But yes, that
(27:48):
was that was kind of a hidden secret about that
tribute album for quite some time.
Speaker 1 (27:54):
What a joy that's that's that's perfect. That's beautiful. I
love that so much. Oh all right, we're gonna we're
gonna hit a date to the spuds and then we're
gonna throw it to some ads.
Speaker 3 (28:09):
The break would be yes, Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Figured I feel like that. Well, we'll talk about the
potatoes first. If you like the ads, do want the
ads to come before or after the potatoes?
Speaker 3 (28:17):
You get your meat and then you get your potatoes.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Okay, so we'll throw the ads out there first. Okay, folks,
how can you have any pudding if you don't teach? No,
it's here's some ads?
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Right?
Speaker 2 (28:28):
What wrong? Wrong?
Speaker 3 (28:29):
One?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
I know?
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Oh yeah, we'll be back.
Speaker 5 (28:37):
If you're into comedy, game shows and improv, you should
come check out b f y t W. We are
an adult British inspired comedy panel show. New episodes release
every Thursday through your favorite podcast player or bfytwpod dot com.
We're also a founding member of the Odd Pods media
network and would love for you to join us for
some laughs.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
Hey Jeff, Yeah, Jeff, Remember yesterday I was telling you
how I wished I could have seen one of Billy
Joel's sold out shows at Madison Square Garden.
Speaker 6 (29:15):
I said, you should go see Taylor Swift instead. She's
the modern day Billy Joel.
Speaker 4 (29:19):
Well, today my phone said I should read an interview
with Billy Joel where he talks about both retirement and
Taylor Swift.
Speaker 6 (29:25):
Oh man, it's always so creepy when that happens.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
We should do a podcast about how our devices are
always listening to us.
Speaker 6 (29:32):
We already do. It's called suggested Articles. A podcast we
talk about how technology is always spying on us. And
how those tech corporations are such big buttholes.
Speaker 4 (29:41):
Dude, you can't say buttholes on a podcast promo.
Speaker 6 (29:44):
Dude, we already did twice.
Speaker 4 (29:46):
Join us every other Monday on suggested articles the podcast
on your favorite podcast app, part.
Speaker 6 (29:51):
Of the Odd Pods media network.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
And we're back, and.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
We're still off the rails.
Speaker 2 (29:58):
Well we don't. We don't ever have rails here.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
That's where we're going. We don't need.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
Rails exactly, exactly all right.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Our next track is Addicted to Spuds, which is an
already of Addicted to Love by Robert Palmer. Also rip,
Actually could I need I need before I say rip, because.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
I mean it. I mean it.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
My my husband, Russ's mom, she uh instilled in Russ
like a big like Elvis fandom. Okay, so, like Russ,
Elvis is one of Russ's absolute favorites. And Russ's mom
would not take any criticism of Elvis like she was
(30:47):
just like no, she just wouldn't stand for it. And
apparently at some point in like the late seventies or
early eighties, Robert Palmer said somewhere in an interview that
some thing not complimentary of Elvis. Okay, so then when
Robert Palmer passed away, Rusz told his mom the news
(31:08):
and she goes, good.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Oh, my goodness, and that is holding a grudge.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, And I was like, okay, well that that tracks.
I like that story, you know, but uh, yeah, of
course we love Robert Palmer in this house.
Speaker 3 (31:23):
Of course, you know, we.
Speaker 1 (31:24):
Love uh, we love power Station. We love Robert Palmer.
We love everything that he does. And I love Addicted
to Love, and I love Addicted to Spuds.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Addicted the Spuds is another song that could have benefited
from a music video.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
Yep.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
And I recall years ago, many years ago when one
I think they were advertising Weird Al's Greatest Hits and
on TV. They were advertising the album on television, and
(32:02):
in this ad they're, you know, they're naming all the
songs that are on it, and they name Addicted to Spuds.
And with all the naming of the songs, they show
the video clips, but there is no video clip for
Addicted to Spuds. So instead they showed the clip of
Al playing Robert Palmer from the UAHF music video Oh,
(32:25):
with Addicted Spuds dubbed over it so that it has
that visual of oh yes, this is a Robert Palmer parody.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yep, yep, yeah, because it didn't actually have a video.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
He did perform this with potato dancers at some New
Year's Eve.
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Yeah, it was either a New Year's Eve thing, or
it was the Doctor Demento twentieth anniversary thing, or both
one of one, one of the or both of those.
I don't know, but I feel like he also didn't
like he do like a more music video styled one
with the girls in potato head costumes on out on
(33:07):
the Weird Awl show.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
He might have done.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
He might have Maybe I'm thinking of the the UHF
video and that's combining with the potato head costumes from
a live performance. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
We could do conflating.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
It's fine, it doesn't really matter, Like, it doesn't really
matter that this song is great, and it would have
benefited from a video, absolutely, but I mean weird Al
has has gone on record talking about the song that
a music video has never made because there was a
strict budget for videos for this album and he felt
that the video would be one joke thing and not
(33:38):
really worth its own video. But yes, a parody of
this was later inserted into into UHF so yes.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
What else could he have done?
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Like? Well, I absolutely agree that he could have done
should have done a video for this, Like what would
that even look like?
Speaker 2 (33:55):
Other than being the one note that it is?
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Well, the song itself could be called one note in itself.
It is just you know it is. However, almost four minutes,
three minutes and fifty seconds of potato jokes. Now being
able to get that many potato jokes into a song
(34:20):
is incredible and you know, again another mark for Al's
skill as a songwriter. But I think you know the
original and visual of this video, especially since Robert Palmer's
videos are just kind of the two videos that I
can think of are both the same thing of him
(34:42):
and then the backup band being all women and with
the high heels and the short skirts and the glavin
but have an Al's version. Of course, they all have
the glasses and the mustache of Al in the UHF
video is a brilliant gag for that video because he's
(35:03):
parodying a lot of popular MTV stars in that music video,
since the song is not really a pastiche of any
particular one artist. But for for this video, yes, I
it would be a little one note to kind of
how many different potato gags can you do? Visually, I
(35:23):
think now it might be a little easier to do
because you could have it sung by Sam Wise Gamgee
from Lord of the Ringsto. Yeah exactly. I actually did
a parody of Dua Lipa's God what is it? I
(35:44):
can't think of what the Dua Lipa song is now
I'm levitating, and I called it I Love Potatoes because
that that that that chorus breakdown just becomes uh, Sam
Wise's speech and boil them, mash them, stack them, and yeah,
that whole thing. But yeah, anyway, regardless of that, uh,
and that's just a dumb parody idea. It was never
(36:05):
developed beyond that chorus. But but like you know, now
it might be a little easier to do that because potatoes.
Ever since this song, potatoes kind of became kind of
like bacon. It's a food that's very funny to bring
up in songs and other pop culture things. So, like,
you know, bacon had had kind of like a resurgence
(36:27):
as a popular dish, and people made songs about bacon.
Luke Ski has his Bacon song, and you know there
they put bacon in many different things. But now you
have the meme of Marge holding the potato. I just
think they're neat and having Sam wise talk about potatoes.
So making the video now would almost be easier than
it would have been to make that video.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Then that's a really good point. That's a good point. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:52):
So who knows, like, because with all of this to say, right,
we retroactively got a video for your horoscope for today,
So who's to.
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Say exactly exactly if we had if we could get
the Simpsons team to animated music video for this one
yet to be perfect?
Speaker 2 (37:13):
Yeah, yep, all right, all right, let's let's get some
eyes on it.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Yes, Oh, a potato jokes, that's that's yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
So before we move on to the next song, though,
I need to ask you what is your what is
your favorite presentation of potato?
Speaker 3 (37:32):
Ooh, that's a good question.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
I'm I'm a big fan of French fries. I I
like I like French fries a lot. Uh. Uh. My
friend Wes, who I used to be in a band
with called Putting Capacity years ago, who's been a friend
of mine for literal decades, Uh, used to make fun
of me because uh he was hanging out with me
(37:56):
and my ex wife who was my wife at the time. Uh,
she was dieting, and she said, French fries are my
trigger food. And I said to her mind as well,
and he just brings up that phrase French fries or
my trigger food so often. Still so probably French fries.
Although I do like a good baked potato with all
(38:16):
the extra stuff on it, the butter and the et cetera.
That's always really nice, the butter and like the brown
sugar and yes, good stuff. I'm a big fan of
sweet potatoes.
Speaker 2 (38:30):
Sweet potatoes are I've told the story before.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
When I was a first getting into solid foods, the
only one I would eat was the sweet potato baby
food and I turned orange and so I had to
get off of sweet potatoes for a while. But there's
the doctor literally looked at my mom and said, ma'am,
your baby is orange, and so I had to not
eat eat that for a while.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
Yeah, that's too much. That's that's if it changes the
tint of your flesh, that's too my, that's too much.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
I was an for a period of time because of
the food.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
But yeah, I still love sweet potatoes so much like
I love sweet potato fries. I love a good baked
sweet potato. I don't like a sweet potato casserole because
I feel like it doesn't need marshmallow. Sweet potatoes are
sweet enough as it is. Why are you?
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Whenever I had sweet potato casserole until I got married,
I never knew people put marshmallow on it, because my
mom would make sweet potato casserole without.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Marshmallow, as the Lord intended.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
And I never knew. I never knew that that was
something that was on it. And then I had it
with her family and I was like, why is why
is this is a dessert?
Speaker 4 (39:36):
Now?
Speaker 3 (39:36):
What do you? Why is this the thing? It's still good? Ish?
I mean, because I like sweet things and I it's
a problem. But yeah, no, I love sweet potatoes. But
I'm sorry that oompa lumpa thing just put the worst
parody in my head. Oompa loompa, don't, buddy do your
child is orange? And so is there? Pooh, sorry, I apologize,
(39:59):
it's terrible.
Speaker 2 (40:00):
No, that's fine, So right then you go. No more
sweet pot potatoes for you.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Yes, exactly, Oh my goodness. But yes, sweet ptatoes are excellent.
Sweptato fries are excellent. Uh and uh yes, French fries
in any of their shapes and as so far as potatoes,
they could be curly fries, they could be seasoned fries,
they could be the waffle cut, and it doesn't matter.
Potatoes yum.
Speaker 1 (40:23):
Yeah, okay, I'm right there with you. I do like
good breakfast potato.
Speaker 3 (40:27):
I like potatoes, like the little hashed brown Yeah, good stuff.
Speaker 1 (40:31):
Yeah, hash browns. I'm depending most of the time. I
prefer a home fry over ash.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
Sure, but I do like the lattice cut kind of
like when you get a waffle house. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Now, when you go to waffle house, I'm a smothered
and covered person.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Absolutely, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
The onion and the cheese. That's the way to be.
All right. So now we've exhausted our potato.
Speaker 3 (41:01):
Uh now that now that we've had the potato famine,
let's move on.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Oh my gosh, right, I wish well done.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
You got to be quick in my house with the puns,
you know, Yeah, you get stepped on, so you know
it's good, okay.
Speaker 2 (41:28):
Track four on.
Speaker 1 (41:29):
Side is one of those days, which is a Yankovic
original about having one of those days, and uh, I
had our friend U aged jeff On to he uh,
this is a song that is.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
Near and dear to his heart.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
He told a wonderful story on that episode that I'm
going to people need to just go back and listen
to it because we had a oh my god, we
were in the same place at the same time revelation.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
About it. So you know, that's that's that's and there
was some magic. But yeah, this song one of those days.
What's your take on it?
Speaker 3 (42:03):
This is one of my all time favorite weird Al songs.
This is this really speaks so much to Al's sense
of humor, Like his personal sense of humor. A lot
of the songs in an Al's ouvra in Al's catalog
(42:24):
are always songs that are sung by a narrator that
is not necessarily Al. They are always sung from their
perspective of a character that is telling this story, and
sometimes that character may be an actual character from a
film for example, like Obi Wan or Ian Malcolm or
what have you. This one seems like this is just
(42:47):
Al doing this song about a terrible day, and it
really really captures well just the not only the absurdist
sense of humor that he has. With a lot of
the weird things going on, but also like kind of
somewhere in his dark sense of humor. There's a lot
of dark jokes in this one too. And this one
(43:09):
also plays with the idea of what could be considered
a bad day as well, you know, like he's naming
all of these horribly terrible things and then also a
paper cut or you know, like just like something kind
of lame and mundane, as like the Kapper. And a
(43:31):
lot of these come in threes, which is a great
rule of comedy, you know, to have your jokes be
in threes. You have your first one, your second one,
the third one kind of like summarizes or like expands
on the comedy. But he does it in reverse, you know,
it does like a big thing, a bigger thing, and
then kind of a small, kind of mundane thing. And
that's brilliant, and that's really what makes this song work
(43:54):
so beautifully and why it's one of my favorites. Back
when we were doing twenty six and a half, the
Weird Al tribute album, I was doing two. I was
working on two songs and I finished that boy could
Dance cover the other song I was going to cover
(44:16):
more traditionally, was one of those days, and we got
most of it recorded, but we didn't get it finished
in time. But one of those Days is one of
my favorite songs of his. I even reference it in
another song of mine called Corey Can even I make
a reference, a lyrical reference to one of the lyrics
in one of those Days in that song fantastic.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Yeah, like this seems this is absolutely a fan favorite
song for like all of the reasons that you've said, right, yeah,
like this is this is the template. This follows the template.
This follows exactly that thing that Al does just so well,
where it's the big things and the small things and
either the the small things are right on par with
(45:02):
the big things and you don't see the difference between
you know, a paper cut and them dropping the bomb
or like you do.
Speaker 2 (45:07):
But it doesn't matter, you know, because you're equally annoyed, you.
Speaker 3 (45:11):
Know, Yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
I love it, like this formula gets like redone again.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
Why does this always happen to me?
Speaker 3 (45:21):
Exactly exactly?
Speaker 1 (45:23):
And I've said this before on the show, like during COVID,
I absolutely was why does this always happen to me?
Because they kept like preempting the prices, right, oh no,
and I'm like, how dare you?
Speaker 2 (45:35):
First of all, how dare you?
Speaker 1 (45:38):
But every day I was like, come on, you couldn't
have done this during Let's make a deal, you know.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
But all the Wayne Brady fans would be upset.
Speaker 2 (45:48):
Yeah, but my maiden name is Carrie, so I'm.
Speaker 3 (45:49):
A Drew pers Okay, all right, I get it.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Yeah, Wayne and Wayne Brady today when he signs off,
doesn't tell you that he loves you. So Drew Carrey
does every episode telling you to uh no, he ends
every episode telling you to, you know, pay attention to
your mental health, you know, talk to somebody if you
need to. And then he goes and people love you
and I love you, and then he signs off, and
I'm like, that's the way to do it, Drew, thank.
Speaker 2 (46:12):
You very much.
Speaker 3 (46:13):
Drew carries the good people.
Speaker 1 (46:14):
Yeah, well you know he's a Carrie of course. But anyway,
I digress. I did because one of those days it's
it's it's it's a fun song. It's great to listen
to and like, like truly it's it's a solid little
song like musically, it's it's super fun.
Speaker 3 (46:34):
It absolutely is. It'd be interesting if it like to
find out if it actually is a pastiche of something.
You know, like there's a lot of Al songs that
like are pastiches that you know, the layman, unless you're
into a lot of the things that Al has a
particular taste for, you wouldn't realize they are a pastiche.
(46:55):
Al has done two different tony Okay pastiches, and I
don't think this is a tony Okay pastiche. But I
wouldn't be surprised if this isn't supposed to be aping
the style of a song. And you know, the Al
fans out there haven't actually discovered what it's trying to
ape yet.
Speaker 2 (47:13):
Yeah, that's very true.
Speaker 1 (47:15):
This is one of the few where it's like really,
it's like the Wikipedia doesn't say anything, and then the
fandom page just says glam rock and it's like, well, okay,
I guess.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
Yeah, but that's kind of a little vague. You know,
Al Al doesn't if Al's gonna parody a a style,
he's gonna hone in on a particular artist usually when
doing that style, Yeah, he doesn't often go broad with
a style. So that's that's where like, you know, that's
(47:47):
where I'm like, maybe this is supposed to be one
particular artist. This is supposed to sound like a specific song,
and maybe we just haven't nailed it yet.
Speaker 2 (47:55):
I wonder, I wonder you know what.
Speaker 3 (47:58):
That's that's that's something we'll have to wait and ask
al ourselves once we get the chance.
Speaker 2 (48:02):
Yeah, we might, I might, that might be my question.
Excuse me?
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Was one of those days of direct pestige of something
can you answer such for me?
Speaker 3 (48:12):
Please?
Speaker 1 (48:13):
Thank you and then also sign my poster thank you, yes,
and unless you have anything further out about one of
those days, I feel like we should dive into Polka Party.
Speaker 3 (48:27):
I think I think now is the time for the
party of Polka's.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Okay, Yeah, because side one wraps up with the polka
from the album, the only title track Polka.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
It's Polka Party, which is the pola.
Speaker 3 (48:39):
Once again, we'restoring balance and order to Lauren's life.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
Yep, this is how it should be.
Speaker 3 (48:48):
The side of the first sending the first side of
the album with the polka to kind of like lead
you into the second side, to encourage you to flipping
the album over. We had it happen in N three D,
and we didn't have it happened in there to be
stupid and there was much crying and mashing of teeth
on your behalf.
Speaker 1 (49:07):
There sure was, there sure was, and there there will
be until the end of time. But yeah, this polka
initial initial thoughts, right, because if people can just go
back to listen to the episode that came out two
weeks ago for the track by track listing of this,
but like, uh, this is such a snapshot of the
(49:28):
time that it happened, and let's just hit some highlights.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
It is. It is very much Hey, welcome to nineteen
eighty seven the Polka. Yeah, yeah, this this this puts
Madonna into two of the three p's. Yes, this this
album puts the Rolling Stones into two of the three
piece m and and there is so much uh, like
(49:59):
great songs shoved in here, and then there's also kind
of like one or two songs where you're like you
included that really Like I understand that it was a hint,
but it seems weird to have Eddie Murphy's party all
the time in this. Personally, I know it was a
(50:20):
popular song, but there's something in my brain that does
not parse the idea that a. Eddie Murphy had an
album and b that it wasn't a comedy album.
Speaker 2 (50:33):
Oh no, I know, I know.
Speaker 3 (50:35):
Yeah, and having a comedy artist doing something non comedic
and then a al being a comedian, a musical comedian
covering that makes my brain short circuit for the couple
of seconds that it's in the polka.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
That's funny, like id yeah, I will tell you.
Speaker 1 (50:55):
I'm one of those people that learned about the Eddie
Murphy album from this polka, so I understand where you're
coming from. And then, of course learning that Eddie Murphy
had an album, then I learned that Bruce Willis had
an album which is really good the era of Brune. Yes,
(51:15):
you know, but yeah, I like this polka quite a bit.
I think this is a great polka. I like that
it opens with songs by two different lead singers of Genesis,
and then yeah, I think that's a good that's a
good way to do it. And then you get into
the weird stuff, you know, the Eddie Murphy thing, and
then they say, you say me, like I get having
Lionel Richie on here that song in particular, I'm not.
Speaker 3 (51:38):
Yeah, yeah, that that one, that one in particular, although
it works really well in the polka because it's just
al saying that in that al way, Uh say you say,
ay just works great in this song. Uh. The thing
the thing that that really uh gets me, uh that
(52:01):
really kind of brings things home for me because venus
works good. Nasty is kind of awkward, but like pleasantly.
Speaker 2 (52:11):
So well the song is as well, So.
Speaker 3 (52:14):
Yeah, well of course, but I mean having that in
a polka being sung by al makes it. Yeah. No,
that's that's the part that that's what I'm getting Tomas
rock me amaedeas is is what sells the songs that
came before it, because it's just going to be a
mish mash of what is pop culture's biggest songs of
(52:36):
that year, and it is just like, yeah, they're all
over the place, they're all over the map, they're all
different styles, and we've made them a polka now and
ooh rock it is, ooh rock mem it is ooh.
It's just so it really just hones in on yeah,
you know, strap in folks and this is the end
of the song, but it's going to be all weirdness
(52:59):
and this uh like like makes it like authentically oh
we get it.
Speaker 2 (53:04):
Now, yeah, oh for sure. Yeah, And I think legitimize.
Speaker 3 (53:07):
This that's the word I was looking for. It legitimizes
all the weirdness that came before it and all the
weirdness that's coming after it is by having rock meobidais
right after Nasty and Venus.
Speaker 1 (53:18):
I totally get that, absolutely, And I think the placement
of Nasty where it is leads into that weirdness because
the I like this part is a that.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
Was a a.
Speaker 1 (53:33):
Just an ad lib that Janet did in Nasty that
made the final cut that wasn't supposed to be in
the song.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
I'm dead serious, I believe you. And like the fact
that that's.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
The thing that Al pulled out to like really highlight
to lead you into rock Me amadaeis like that's the
genius moment, right, absolutely, the brilliance like taking that little
thing because it's just Janet like I like this part,
you know, and then I like this part like then
going oh, like that's that's brilliant. That's why I have to.
Speaker 3 (54:03):
Say, I don't think I've ever heard Janet say I
like this part Nasty, And now I'm rethinking my entire
life because I've always attributed that to just an al
ad lib about him liking rock me on my dais Nope, nope, nope,
that's amazing. That's so good.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Yeah, I have my husband is one of the foremost
like Jackson scholars that there is, and so like he
brought that information to me and I'm like, oh my god.
And then I heard it and I was like, oh
my god, like yes, like and it it just cemented
in me that everything Al does is like intentional and
(54:46):
oh yeah, just just so like he is playing three
D chess and like we're lucky to like know where
the checkers board is, right. I'm like, you know, like
it's just amazing what he's able to do. And like,
I don't know about you, but the Papa Don't Preach
(55:08):
is one of the best Polka endings.
Speaker 3 (55:10):
Yeah, it is absolutely one of the best Polka endings.
And we get the the Earbooker Polka version of it
at the very end with the repetition, which is like
you know, becomes the standard for all Polko's, at least
all Al Polko's. It's it's just it is really it's
(55:31):
just the great little button on the end of the song.
Speaker 2 (55:34):
Yeah, oh, it for sure is. And like it's it.
This is a good Polka.
Speaker 1 (55:38):
I think we and We made this point on the
episode about this particular song, but I would be remiss
if I didn't if I didn't say that, like this
is his third try like try at this genre, and
like you could tell that he's just tightening it up
and tightening it up and tightening it up and getting better.
And we'll talk about this as we kind of move forward,
(56:02):
right which this makes me even more upset that there's
not a polka on even worse, and it makes me
even more upset that the polka on anyway, Jeff, is
what it is, and that we don't get another true
like time capsule polka in earnest until poke your eyes out.
Speaker 2 (56:23):
So we will have all of.
Speaker 1 (56:25):
These discussions as these come, but I will say that,
like you know, he came back swinging with Poka your
eyes out like.
Speaker 3 (56:33):
That this one Rien really kind of like the first
polka established the format, the second polka kind of like
gave us a better idea of them being a time
capsule and gave us that structure, and then this one
kind of like cemented those more in place.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
Yep, and so like like like exactly, and so that's
why it's such a bummer that we don't like we
go from nineteen eighty six to nineteen ninety two before
we have this this format again, and I love that he,
you know, by and large with with with one you
know exception, UH stuck.
Speaker 2 (57:10):
To this format with the Polkas.
Speaker 3 (57:13):
Two exceptions.
Speaker 2 (57:14):
Oh you're right, wait two two, because.
Speaker 3 (57:19):
The one on UHF and then the one on album.
Speaker 1 (57:21):
I meant after poke your eyes out. But yes, there's
two exceptions, but after poke your eyes out, like he
pretty much stuck with it. But the one on Alapalooza
is the except. Yes, there's two exceptions one one in
the eighties and one in the nineties. Yes, yes, so yeah,
but we love polkas in these parts. We absolutely do.
Speaker 2 (57:39):
Absolutely, that's why we're having this party.
Speaker 3 (57:41):
So and Polka party, this Polka party party.
Speaker 1 (57:43):
It's a Polka party party and we're talking about Poka party.
We've covered this album.
Speaker 3 (57:49):
We have covered this album, which, by the way, UH
took us much less time than it usually does because
this album as a whole, I think it's Al's shortest album.
Speaker 2 (57:57):
It might be.
Speaker 3 (57:58):
Yeah, like side one and two clock in together at
thirty four.
Speaker 1 (58:03):
Minutes, thirty four minutes and a whopping seven seconds. Yeah, yeah,
it even worse, doesn't have a polka, but that's still
thirty seven thirty two.
Speaker 2 (58:12):
It's barely longer, but it's longer.
Speaker 4 (58:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (58:14):
Well, this one also has I think the least number
of songs on it. This is only a ten song album.
Speaker 2 (58:19):
Yeah, that's also true.
Speaker 3 (58:21):
So usually I will go eleven or twelve, but yeah,
this one, this is I think the shortest album all around.
So yes, our conversation has been shorter this time.
Speaker 1 (58:31):
Yep, yep, it absolutely is. But hey, you know what,
we uh will live, We'll press on and do you
have anything because you know we're gonna get together again
after the end of side too, where uh, I think
we're gonna have some some some different kinds of conversations.
Speaker 3 (58:47):
We will definitely be having some more stronger worded things
to say.
Speaker 1 (58:52):
Yeah, well Side two tends to be the places where
those things happen.
Speaker 3 (58:56):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 1 (58:57):
But before before I let you go, uh is there?
You were doing some very nice seamless plugging throughout totally
seeless throughout the show. But is there anything in particular
you'd like listeners to check out right now? After all,
it is the fourth of July, so what should they
put throw on of yours for their for their barbecues.
Speaker 3 (59:18):
Well, if you're if you're feeling h patriotic, and if
you're feeling also u that you know you may have
missed Ghostbusters Day back on June seventh, you can celebrate
it again with my updated version of my song Bustin
makes Me Feel Good, the Ghostbusters Day twenty twenty five edition.
(59:39):
I've updated some of the lyrics to that to include
stuff about the two newest Ghostbuster movies, as well as
change the recording a little bit. Uh And that recording
is available now on all streaming sites. And if you're
feeling especially patriotic, I do have a song called woop
Mark six Pope which is out, which is a parody
of Pink Pony Club, which is out on the streaming
(01:00:00):
sites as well, if you're into that maybe a little
bit slightly political humor. But beyond that, of course, you
can find me on all the things at insane Ian
dot bandcamp dot com for all of my songs that
aren't on your other streaming sites, and for some of
that are or you know, if you like to purchase
music that's a thing, or you can find me visually
at YouTube dot com, slash Insanian or patreon dot com
(01:00:23):
slash Insanian.
Speaker 2 (01:00:24):
Beautiful, Thank you so much, insane Ian.
Speaker 3 (01:00:27):
Well, thank you loony Lauren.
Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
Yeah no, See, nobody calls me that except for you,
And I like that because I literally on the screen
I know I only make here's.
Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
Your full government name, and it's.
Speaker 1 (01:00:38):
My full government name. I am looney Lauren. You are
insanean and this has been Polka party. So I think
I've exhausted my alliteration for the day.
Speaker 3 (01:00:46):
There's so much alliteration. I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Yeah, all right, well, folks, enjoy your Fourth of July.
Be safe the next time you hear us. I really
hope you still have all of the digits that you've
had when this started. Just be be careful today.
Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
Yeah, you don't want it to do one just one
of those days.
Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
No, you don't want it to be just one of
those days. Right, and yeah, we'll come at you again
with Uh. I'm not sure what the next thing you're
gonna hear is gonna be, but we're gonna start side
to very soon. I basically I'm just saying I haven't
decided if I'm going to do a concert recap or not,
but I may I may not either way, two weeks
from now, there will be some brand new, beautiful content
(01:01:24):
for you. Whether it's us kicking off side too with
Here's Johnny or me talking about the concert that I
just saw. You're just gonna have to wait and find out.
But either way, stay weird, be awesome, and goodbye
Speaker 3 (01:01:36):
Goodbye, good bye, good bye, good bye, good bye,
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