ANNALS OF FANDOM:

The Weird Al Experience

by Skylaire Alfvegren

IT WAS WITH A MIXTURE OF NOSTALGIA and trepidation that I approached the helium-filled figure looming over the midway at the Orange County Fair. Hawaiian shirtclad arms pointing heavenward, poodle perm plastered to plastic skull, he beckoned. I'd have thought that the accordion-playing satirist "Weird Al" Yankovic had fallen off the cultural radar, but looking up at his giant inflated likeness at the entrance to the Weird Al Experience, I began to realize that I must be mistaken. And then a docent confirmed it: "He's big, bigger than ever!"

Al's appearance at the fair two years ago had broken all previous attendance records. "He was so popular, people would stand in line for two hours just to get into the show," said Kevin Cable, a Yankovic look-alike from Santa Ana. "The line stretched all the way across the fairgrounds!" And this year's Experience, which combined a huge collection of memorabilia and a week's worth of sold-out appearances, broke records yet again: 163,000 people pushed through the turnstiles. Obviously, "Weird Al" deserved another look.

Inside the exhibition hall, a time line took us through Al's humble beginnings in Lynwood, California, straight through to the gold and platinum albums. An endless loop of videos, both old ("Eat It," "Like a Surgeon," "Fat") and newer ("Amish Paradise," a send-up of Coolio's "Gangster's Paradise" and "Bedrock Anthem," which melds the glitter-desert stylization of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Give It Away" with the story of the Flintstones), seemed to transfix all who entered. Most were long-time devotees -- like Amanda Cohen, the organizer of fan convention Alcon III, who flew out from Chicago -- but not all. "[The Experience] has shown a lot of Al to a lot of people," said Cohen. "Some of them know him, and some of them . . . their jaws are just agape! It's wonderful to watch people discover him."

You began to get a sense of "Weird Al"'s appeal when looking at the costumes used in his videos and stage show. The black, buckled "Fat" getup, the Devoesque hazmat suit of "Dare To Be Stupid," the torn jeans and blond wig from "Smells Like Nirvana" provide a sort of cracked illustration of pop music history in reverse. Yankovic's success, by and large, has outlived that of the artists he's parodied. His true accomplishment might well be, as one fan put it, "to humble all the big-egoed rock stars, knock them off their soapbox."

But can one seriously ponder an artistic legacy built from goofs on computer nerds ("All About the Pentiums"), Star Wars ("Yoda," "The Saga Begins") and processed-meat products ("My Bologna")?

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