dot dot dot And I Feel Fine

When I was 8, there were two things I loved more than anything in the world:

1) Weird Al Yankovic
2) The Monkees

Every morning, I listened to Weird Al as I got ready for school. And every afternoon (when I didn't have to go to stupid hebrew school), I would watch The Monkees. I was also madly in love with both Mike and Mickey. First I had a crush on Mike, and then it went to Mickey, and then back to Mike, in a never-ending vacillation between the (clearly) best Monkees. (Sorry, Davy and Pete fans! They just don't do it for me).

One night at the dinner table, my dad asked me and my brother what our ideal concert would be.

"WEIRD AL! WEIRD AL!" we shrieked.

And then he asked us who our second favorite band was.

"THE MONKEES! THE MONKEES!" we yelped.

When my dad has very special information to share, he does this thing where he sort of angles one shoulder up and then shifts that shoulder down and brings the other shoulder up. He does this whenever he is trying draw out suspense.

"What if I told you," (shoulder shift) "That we were going to go to a concert at Great Adventure" (shoulder shift) "and we were going to see Weird Al" (shoulder shift) "AND The Monkees?"

To this day, I recall the frisson of almost agonizing joy. WEIRD AL AND THE MONKEES? IN CONCERT? IN NEW JERSEY? Dreams do come true.

I could tell you about how we ate lunch at the theme park and my dad held a Schwartz Family meeting to announce that it was very important that we were a Weird Al type of family because so many people who were also at Great Adventure were just there to see The Monkees.

I could also tell you how as we were leaving, my dad said hi to someone and the rest of us were like "What was that?" and he said, "Oh, Weird Al" and then we chased after him and he signed autographs for us and I told him he was my hero and I sang all of my own parodies (for of course, at age 8, I was writing song parodies like a motherfucker) to him and he listened patiently and then shook my hand and I swore I would never wash it again.

But the point of this story is that sometimes two things you love end up all smushed together like chocolate-and-peanut-butter.

And sometimes, two things you love end up all smushed together and it is more like crunchy-frog-and-nougat.

And that would be Julee Cruise singing R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World as We Know It."

You're welcome!