Yank Blog

Two more great items on eBay to benefit Weird Al Star Fund!

Monty Python, Time Life, 12 VHS set NEW
Item number: 6364065306
Ends Feb-06-05 10:52:45 PST
Contains lots of classic Monty Python sketches.

Besta Polka CD, Weird Al Yankovic & Frankie NEW Sealed
Item number: 4071589716
Ends Feb-06-05 11:07:24 PST
Weird Al and Frankie Yankovic team up and duet on “Who Stole The Kishka.”
Also contains “Bohemian Polka.”

Bid early, bid often!

WeirdAl.com – Go there, go there right now! A new set of pictures are up! Woo!

Steve Jay, what a guy! Have a great birthday Steve!

It’s not really centered around Al unfortunately, but it’s still an amusing little diversion…

Go to Tall or Not, enter in your height and click ‘Next’, then choose Weird Al Yankovic and see how you would stand up against the man himself. Yeah, this truly is the next best thing to actually getting backstage passes. You can almost feel him shaking your hand, autographing your forehead, and then smiling at the camera with you.

Sorry for being late on this, but check out the latest “I Love The 90′s: Part Deux” series on VH-1. Don’t worry if you missed the premieres. It’s VH-1, it’ll be played 30 more times by the end of the week. Anyway, to help you keep track of what’s important, check out the TV and Film Appearances section on Al-oholicsAnonymous.com for the list of segments Al appears in.

SPONGEBOB… SQUAREPANTS!!! Ha ha ha!

All right! Time for some content around here! Today we bring to you a really nice in-depth interview with Al from all the back to September 1999. Around this time, Al and the band were traveling by bus, bringing top-quality live entertainment and promoting his latest album Running with Scissors to fans across the country.

Ink 19 :: Weird Al Yankovic

The interviewer, Julio Diaz, really goes beyond the typical “Who inspires you?” and “Is that your real hair?” questions to give the readers an excellent look into the artist’s mind. Learn how Al went about writing the lyrics to “Albuquerque”, HOW he gets permissions for his parodies (and not just asking IF he gets them), discuss his style parodies like “Everything You Know Is Wrong” and TMBG’s comments, who was the first person to hear the completed polka for the album, his take on raunchy comedy, and much much more.

[Julio:] On the same topic, it obviously takes a very talented band to play such a wide variety of diverse styles. Do you think you and your band get the respect you deserve musically?

[Al:] I definitely think my band is underrated. I think that because what we do is comedy that it’s maybe not looked upon as highly as some angst-ridden rock group [laughs], but my band, I think, is one of the greatest bands in the world, just because they’re able to pull off so many different things, and do it all so well. They’re all extremely well-skilled musicians, and you’re right, they probably don’t get the respect they deserve.

In January 1995 Al-oholics Anonymous became the first webpage on the Internet fully devoted to Weird Al. It has now been on the net for over 10 years. In honor of this anniversary, some changes have taken place.

1. Al-oholics Anonymous has been moved to a faster server. No more slow downloads of your favorite video clips, sound bytes and desktop calendars. They’re all nice and speedy. Even for dialup users you’ll probably notice some sort of increase.

2. “You Don’t Know Al” the trivia game launched in 1997 has finally been retired. Thanks to everyone who has played over the years. The game served over 17 MILLION questions and there nearly 150,000 complete games played.

3. Replacing the vacancy left by YDKA is the new Al merchandise page. This is no ordinary merch page with albums. This has a VERY extensive list including movies Al has appeared in, all the books he’s appeared in and some other goodies. Did you forget to pick up a copy of “Tenacity of the Cockroach” with Al’s interview or never found time to see him in the Judy Tenuta film “Desparation Boulevard”? Well, now you have a good reminder to buy it any time. You can purchase with confidence since it is all run by Amazon.com and it’s affiliates.

4. OOPS! Ok, fine! You folks were right! The video clip of “Patterns” that was donated to my site years ago apparently DID become corrupt at some point, as so many of you have emailed about. Sorry about that. To make it up, a newer cleaner copy of the Patterns video clip has now replaced the old one. HOPEFULLY more videos AND cleaner versions of the existing ones will come soon. Then again, that claim gets made alot and well, it doesn’t happen much.

5. This is just for fun! Shortly after “Poodle Hat” was released, there was discussion by long time fans saying, “Wow, I have no idea what any of these songs are in the polka medley. I wish I knew how the originals sounded.” Well, a de-polkafied medley was quickly created and now, you can listen to it too! Just look for it in the Sound Bytes seciton.

There will be some other updates as the year continues.

Thanks for the fun over the years, and here’s to the next 10 or 17.

Keep your eyes peeled because word on the street is that Weird Al is in a commercial for Jeopardy. The commercial shows a series of musicians playing the infamous theme song, and of course saving the best for last with Al and his accordion for the final 5 seconds.

This was a Google alert, but worth sharing.

Top Music, Sports, News and Talk Personalities to Be Featured in XM Satellite Radio Booth During 2005 CES
Wednesday January 5, 7:31 pm ET
Ludacris, Cal Ripken, Jr., Greg Maddux, NASCAR’s Kyle Busch, Motley Crue’s Vince Neil, Ted Nugent, Al Jarreau, Bob Edwards, Opie & Anthony and Playboy Radio Hosts Julie and Tiffany Among Those Scheduled to Appear

# LAS VEGAS and WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — XM Satellite Radio (Nasdaq: XMSR – News), the nation’s leading satellite radio provider with more than 3.2 million subscribers, will host several notable music, sports, talk and news personalities in the XM booth during the 2005 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Beginning Thursday, January 6 through Saturday, January 8, the XM Performance Stage, located in the XM booth (CES Booth # 4604), will feature interviews, live performances and fan “meet-and-greets” from numerous celebrities.

Saturday 1/8

3:00 PM “Weird Al” Yankovic

All performance times are Pacific. Schedule subject to change.

I don’t know if any of this will be broadcast, but it’s probably worth keeping an ear out for if you have XM radio.