Reading journal entries written by your nineteen-year-old self can be excruciating. This was no exception. I won’t put you through reading the rest of the entry about going out with Weird Al, but I will tell you a little bit about it.
My interest in Weird Al started in third grade when my best friend got me hooked on Weird Al’s music. Ah, Weird Al on cassette, sleepovers, perms, and the 1980s. We memorized the lyrics to “Eat It” and “Fat” and belted out the best lyrics (“I’d rather clean all the bathroom in Grand Central Station with my tongue than spend one more minute with you”) karaoke-style before we even knew what karaoke was. Good times.
Well, just when you think you’re forever stuck in a rut something weird happens. You know what happened? Weird Al Yankovic happened!” Oct. 29, 1995
Fast forward to 1995 and you’d find me working at Saturday Matinee dressed in the store uniform: tuxedo shirt, cummerbund, bow tie, smile, and name tag. One Saturday while I was shelving VHS movies, Weird Al walked in. Naturally, I helped him find what he was looking for (laserdiscs– remember those?) and try not to smile too hard ‘cuz you know, Weird Al, guys!
While we talked about laserdiscs I confirmed he’s genuinely clever and ridiculously funny. As we neared the end of our conversation, he casually asked if I was going to his show that night and he wrote down my name “so you can come backstage and meet the band after.”
My friends and I immediately bought student rush tickets for his show at the Weidner Center. We had excellent seats but as his show went on, I was sure we wouldn’t get to go backstage. I was double sure after the show. The seats emptied. I felt sort of silly hanging around the stage of an empty and silent auditorium when the show was clearly over. An employee told us to take a seat because she’d have to see how many people were waiting to see him. My heart sank as more and more people showed up to meet him, but she came back and said very softly, “Follow me really quietly.”
A small crowd was standing outside the backstage doors, shouting his name and banging on the backstage doors to see him. We slipped by and waited outside his dressing room with a handful 0f other people.
Finally, my friend and I walked into his dressing room. We were greeted with a huge Weird Al smile, “You came! I missed you so much!” and gave me a huge hug. There was so much flirting. I had no doubt I wasn’t unique, but I didn’t care.
“What are ya doin’ now? Want to go out with us?” Um, yeah! We made plans to connect later that night and head out. We pushed our way through the crowd waiting outside the backstage doors to cries of “Did you talk to him? Did you touch him?! You did? Oh my God!!!” I felt a little like a celebrity myself.
And we did connect. At Coach’s Corner, a 1990s sports bar, of all places. There was lots of laughing, lots of goofing around, but as I mentioned earlier, he was super intelligent and interesting to talk to. Not that we got to talk much. Lots of people approached him, wanting to talk with him. I clearly wasn’t the only fangirl.
In true Green Bay fashion, a clueless drunk woman came up to us, dressed head to toe in Halloween-themed accessories, clothing, and spider acrylic nails, “Who are you?! Why does everyone want to talk to you?” Al, took it all in stride as I watched in horror. She groped his hair and hollered in her nasal Wisconsin accent, “You have really crunchy hair, you should use conditioner.”
It was a memorable night. He told me to visit him in Los Angeles, writing his address on my concert ticket stub. I laughed and promised to do that when I became rich and famous. (I’m still waiting on that to happen.) He and his crew decided to head to Oasis. He was disappointed that I wouldn’t join them, but I was underage and without a fake ID. What’s an underage girl to do? We parted ways with another hug. I left that night with a huge smile and a great roll of film to drop off the next day.
23 years later he’s performing in Green Bay again, this time at the Meyer Theater. Times have changed. I no longer work at Port Plaza Mall and something tells me he won’t be shopping for laserdiscs at my library. I’ve lost the ticket with his address on it, but I still have the photos and a great story to tell y grandchildren one day.
Fantastic story! I’m sure he would love to see the photos again sometime. I would have those framed, my goodness.