Uncovering Forgotten Memories: My Novel Journey and a Date with Weird Al
For years, writing a novel seemed like a sucker’s game to me, until an unexpected muse from my past nudged me to reconsider. I love to read and greatly appreciate the dedicated literary soldiers who battle on to secure publication, but the odds of getting published without resorting to pay-to-play publishing are abysmal. Having published four non-fiction computer books in the ‘90s with major publishers, I am not a novice to this world. However, all those book deals were hand-delivered to me. There was no hustle, no proposals, no pitch. I was simply in the right place at the right time.
Flash forward to March 8th, 2023 – the anniversary of Henry Post, a writer for New York Magazine, who visited me in spirit on March 8th, 1983, and who I pay tribute to here. I woke up ridiculously early on March 8th, 2023, with revelatory background from my past that I was compelled to write. With a day job running my own media and social media agency, time is at a premium. Nonetheless, for the next five months, I woke up every morning, writing from 6 am to 9 or 10 am on weekdays and 12 to 18 hours on Saturday and Sunday, and hammered out a novel.
Each morning I’d arise with vivid memories of scenes from my life that I’d largely forgotten or suppressed. Nothing was written sequentially, but a door was opened to my past that I had to walk through. I kept walking through that door and writing until the dreams no longer haunted my waking hours.
So, how does any of this bring us to the enduring nature of “Weird Al”? Well, one of those mornings, I woke up with the memory of having gone on a date with Al Yankovic! My book is a novel that includes both real and imagined experiences I’ve had. The dreams I woke up and remembered, however, almost always were long-suppressed memories.
Of course, I did my best to hammer out my recollection of the date via my book’s protagonist, Emily Adomaitis. After finishing the first draft of DELETED SCENES: An Almost Remembrance, I reached out to a developmental editor to help piece the disparate parts of Emily’s coming-of-age journey into a cohesive narrative. She did a brilliant job, but one of her notes dubbed the Weird Al story a non sequitur.
I ditched my date with Al chapter, but since he was out of my book, I decided to share a photo of Al and me from our date on my Facebook and Instagram channels. While I’m a marketer who successfully promotes my clients’ social media accounts and brings them tons of followers, I have spent little time building my author profile online. However, despite my social media channels housing more crickets than humans, my Instagram post about Weird Al drew an immediate like from an unfamiliar person who also sent me a direct message.
“Hi Nancy! I love your story about winning the meal with Weird Al! It would be awesome to have you tell the full story on our Weird Al podcast sometime!” –Dave & Ethan’s 2000” Weird Al Podcast.
My first thought was surprise that a Weird Al tribute podcast existed. Sure, I knew plenty of people listened to him and he’s a brilliant satirist and amazingly talented artist, but these podcasters seemed very young. How is it that they seem to know more about Al than he may possibly even remember about himself?
I dove deep into Dave & Ethan’s podcast library and was dazzled by their encyclopedic knowledge of Al Yankovic. Every guest has some connection to Al – from being Al’s veteran drummer, Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz, to directing a Weird Al music video, to being a costume designer on Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, and on and on.
Having been a guest on countless shock jock radio shows in the ‘90s when promoting my book – the first book on cybersex – I was treated to a misogynistic litany of abuse on-air including:
“So, you wrote this book to score a date?” one San Francisco-based Howard Stern clone asked.
“Is your dating life so bad you had to resort to bulletin boards to find a man?”
Hence, before agreeing to be a guest, I listened to Dave & Ethan’s podcast cautiously, listening for any note of potential misogyny. I found the opposite with their show. Both Dave and Ethan are extraordinarily funny but never at the expense of their guests. They treat each guest respectfully and are like dinner guests you hope to have who are also great listeners and who pose thoughtful, engaging questions.
But listening to the archive, I realized I would need to share every detail of a date I went on decades ago. How would I possibly regale this dynamic duo with date details that my editor found uninteresting?
Texting back and forth with Ethan, I had a eureka moment. It dawned on me that I had written about the date with Al for Columbia House’s internal newsletter. Content has always been king, even for internal newsletters, and when my boss, Sharon Kuroki, heard I’d had a blind date with Al, she demanded I write about it for the newsletter.
Keep in mind that this was a physical newsletter. It was written prior to the commercial Internet. Had I kept a copy of it in my storage unit? Living in Manhattan, it’s a privilege to have storage units, but it’s also like entering the 7th circle of Hell. My building’s storage units are in the condo’s hot and stuffy basement filled to the brim with broken bicycles and dilapidated PlaySkool Big Wheel tricycles. On a quiet Sunday, I begged my spouse, Ron, to accompany me to the airless basement to help me forage for this newsletter.
Ron reluctantly accompanies me to the basement and opens one of our storage bins. He points to a giant cardboard box wedged in the back of the unit and says, “If it is anywhere, it’s in this box.” Casting a death ray side eye, he picks up the giant, heavy box and plops it down in front of me as I sat cross-legged on the basement floor.
Thrilled beyond measure – like a pig in mud – I foraged through the giant box. I began to forget what I was searching for as I was transported down memory lane looking at articles I’d written for Longevity, Penthouse, and ComputerLife magazines and reviewing press clippings from my book tours.
“Snap out of it,” Ron said. “You can stay here all day and night if you want but I want to get out of this dustbin. Start focusing on finding the newsletter!”
As if summoned by the legions of Al Yankovic fans, I suddenly spied the familiar yellow In-House newsletter. Avoiding eye contact with Ron who wanted nothing more than to return the giant box to the bin, I ravenously read my article on the date.
“OMG, this is so funny. I forgot how crazy and odd the whole date was,” I cried out.
With Ron’s side eye death ray stare growing stronger, I tucked the newsletter into a folder and signaled for him to return the box to the bin.
Upon returning to our condo, I immediately texted Ethan, who was excited to receive a digital copy of the newsletter. Not only was I now psyched to be a guest on the podcast knowing that the article totally jogged my memory on date details, but I also knew the date was no longer a non sequitur; it was now a must read and I’m enormously thankful to Dave & Ethan for being the catalyst for finding the newsletter. You can find my interview with Dave and Ethan here.
My Introduction to Al Yankovic
Growing up in the MTV generation, I discovered the satiric musical genius of “Weird Al” Yankovic sandwiched between heavy rotation plays of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” and “Beat It,” Madonna’s “Borderline” and “Lucky Star,” and The Police with “Every Breath You Take” and “Synchronicity II” along with other venerable artists including David Bowie, Prince, the Eurythmics, Billy Idol, and Duran Duran.
Growing up in a classical music household - where classmates signed my middle school and high school yearbooks with congratulations about being “married to your viola” – meant that MTV was not acceptable entertainment. With one TV in the living room, my only chance to tune in was when I played hooky from school or late at night when my parents were asleep.
With Yankovic’s 1983 MTV debut of “Ricky” – a parody of Toni Basil’s hit song “Mickey” – we first see a slickly styled Al fashioned as Ricky Ricardo from the “I Love Lucy” show. A door opens and we are introduced to Al with his trademark shaggy curly hair and glasses playing the accordion with his bandmates.
Later that year, as a fan of Joan Jett, I stumbled upon Al’s second MTV music video – “I Love Rocky Road” - a parody of Jett’s “I Love Rock & Roll.” As an isolated classical musician, I instantly jived with Al’s hearty nerd appeal. He was funny, talented and was breaking barriers by brilliantly parodying classic rock songs.
Weird Al’s Inclusive World
Weird Al Yankovic fans – who range in age from 8 to 80+ - have been chomping at the bit for new music. With his last studio album, his fourteenth – Mandatory Fun - released July 15th, 2014, his fans have been clamoring for a new album. But a new single and music video also feeds the beast with a new “Weird Al” drop this Friday, July 19th. How do I know this?
Thanks to Dave & Ethan’s Headline News Special Report #14 podcast and accompanying social media channels (Facebook, Instagram, X, Discord, YouTube and Patreon), I’ve gotten up-to-date on all things Al.
As Sam Anderson reported, “national economies collapse; species go extinct; political movements rise and fizzle. But — somehow, for some reason — Weird Al keeps rocking.”