I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: “WEIRD AL” YANKOVIC-“Now That’s What I Call Polka” (2014).

I knew that Al wouldn’t make a video for his polka medley (always a highlight of his albums).

I was surprised that I knew so many of these songs (on the last album I knew hardly any of the apparently huge songs that made up the medley).  So either I listen to more mainstream music now (or, perhaps I have kids who know more mainstream music) or the music was just much huger this time around.

This batch includes: “Wrecking Ball” by Miley Cyrus “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster the People “Best Song Ever” by One Direction (I didn’t know this one, and I crack up at the childish way he makes the “best song” sound like gagging) “Gangnam Style” by Psy “Call Me Maybe” by Carly Rae Jepsen “Scream & Shout” by will.i.am featuring Britney Spears (I didn’t know this one) “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye featuring Kimbra (I can’t believe how different this one sounds) “Timber” by Pitbull featuring Ke$ha (I didn’t know this one) “Sexy and I Know It” by LMFAO (or this one) “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis featuring Wanz (or this one, amazingly) “Get Lucky” by Daft Punk featuring Pharrell Williams.

It’s in these medley’s that Al’s lyrics are the most graphic, because he’s actually singing other pop lyrics, not his own.

It’s always fun when he sings this live because he matches up the original videos to his new sped-up tempo.  Looking forward to Mandatory Fun Live in 2014 (or 15).

[READ: August 3, 2014] Petty Theft

I was intrigued by this story because of the strange cover art–two people in a book store–a hunched over guy and a pretty girl–both reading books.

The story is about Pascal.  He and his long time girlfriend have broken up and he is in a hellish limbo. He’s staying in a friend’s spare room and he is not drawing anymore.  In fact, he’s looking for a major change in his life–the whole cartooning thing isn’t working out for him.  The only comfort he has left is running, but on his last run he hurt his back and has been laid up practically immobile for weeks.

He goes to the chiropractor who helps him out some (although it hurts him as much as his back already hurts).  But she tells him that he cannot run for a couple of months.  He is despondent.  So he decides to go to the bookstore, his favorite local indie shop of course, and look around.  While he’s looking around he sees a girl pick up his own book (Bigfoot)…and steal it.  He is offended and intrigued at the same time.  He tries to follow her but loses her in a crowd.  And now he has to decide what to do.  Especially since he hears the clerks talking about how many books have gone missing lately.  And because he thinks the girl is really cute (and she likes his book!)

In the meantime, he needs money so he takes a job welding, something he used to do before the cartooning took off.  It proves to be much harder and far more backbreaking (literally) than he imagined it would.  Although he does feel some sense of satisfaction, the injuries (and insults) keep compounding and he is forced out of the job.  Which means he has more time to track down the book thief.

There are some interesting and funny things in this story–like the giant bobble head of his ex girlfriend that he gets in the mail (and the reaction it gets), the book reading that he goes to where he shushes a lady with a baby (utterly fairly, I might add) and how mad she gets at him (and how it pays off later).  In fact a lot of people seem to jump all over him and get mad at him very easily.  Or when he doesn’t try to help a toddler who trips and how made his mom gets are him.  It makes Quebec seem much nastier than it did when I was there.  Incidentally, the book was translated from the French by Helge Dascher  and I have to wonder if the translation makes things seem harsher than they were intended.

And then there’s the whole plot line of him stealing the books back from her to return them to the book store–no good deed goes unpunished.

The one really strange thing about this story though is that through the whole book, he makes the Pascal character look like he is an old man.  In the early scenes when he is running I would have sworn he was in his 60s and that this story was a bout an old man.  His posture is hunched over, his glasses are huge, even his actual drawn lines seem “old.”  So when I saw that he was in his 30s I was shocked. The crazy hostility he gets from everyone was weird and unsettling too.  I think it was meant to be an over the top funny thing but it seemed to come out of nowhere–even the bookstore owner that he tries to help gets mad at him.  It was like Woody Allen overload.

So I have mixed feelings about the book, there was enough funny stuff for me to enjoy but I couldn’t full get into it.  Although I was very intrigued that he writes about being a  cartoonist with writers block and even name checks his own book.  I am kind of curious to check out Bigfoot just to see what his non-autobiographical (assuming it is) work is like.