Here he goes again
Jumping into my next writing/blogging outlet to blab about pop culture
So you wrote your first book, Justin…
And now while I’m waiting for the wheels of industry to start turning and the presses to start putting my words on paper (or the pixel movers to start pushing dots around to make an e-book that resembles my thoughts), I realize, “I need to write about something else now.”
Wait, what?
You see, the fine folks at Bloomsbury Academic saw fit to approve my pitch to write a book in their 33 1/3 series on “Weird Al” Yankovic’s 1984 album, “Weird Al” Yankovic in 3-D. (It’s his second album, which introduced his radio-friendly approach and included the breakout single, “Eat It.”)
I was able to interview Al himself for the book, in addition to his manager and collaborator Jay Levey, his drummer and de facto archivist Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz, and his (de)mentor, Dr. Demento. Jon Schwartz even offered up photos from the In 3-D sessions and the “Eat It” music video shoot that didn’t make the cut for his two wonderful coffee table books Black & White & Weird All Over and Lights, Camera, Accordion!
I was extremely excited to write the book, and I’m even more excited for folks to actually read it. But it’s likely we won’t be seeing it on shelves (or loaded onto e-readers) until the end of the year or early ‘27 — a suitable release year for a Weird Al book, considering the long and storied history of “27”s in Al’s work.
So what do you do in the meanwhile?
Well, Substack seems like a happening place, right?
I’ve been in this place creatively before. In 2013, I made a tumblr of movie reviews based on the titles I was ignoring from my Netflix queue. It was partially to give structure to my movie watching habit (addiction?), and it was also partially to demonstrate to anyone who might be noticing that I could write cogently and make it entertaining too.
That tumblr was enough proof for John Sinnott at DVD Talk to let me join the motley crew of reviewers over there. I wound up writing 727 reviews for the site from 2013 to 2023. When it was shuttered, I moved over to High Def Digest but then stepped back to write my book. (I also wrote some pop culture pieces for my pal Garon Cockrell’s site, Pop Culture Beast, concurrently with DVD Talk.)
Before tumblr, Blogger/Blogspot was all the rage, and I created blogs to explore the music I was making and to promote the albums I was recording with Elastic No-No Band, in both 2007 and 2010.
So it’s little surprise that when I got back into “Weird Al” Yankovic’s music, after roughly a decade of staying away, I decided to make a Blogspot of Weird Al album reviews in the lead-up to Alpocalypse (2011). (Side note: I don’t agree with a lot of my old Weird Al takes from that blog, but it’s interesting for me to see how my thoughts have changed over time.)
I think it’s fun to go back through these old blogs, even if they are littered with dead links, missing videos, and photos that have watermarks on them now, thanks to Photobucket trying to shake me down for money to continue posting old random jpgs. For the most part, I think the writing’s still good (otherwise, why include the links here?).
So what are your intentions?
Well, I guess this whole post has been about formulating what this Substack, which I’m calling “Entertainment Frequently,” will be. Right?
And what I think Entertainment Frequently WILL be is a continuation of the instincts, desires, and interests that have fed all these other attempts I’ve made at serialized online writing.
That is to say, it’ll be a lot of things.
Reviews and features mostly about music and movies. Sometimes about books. Quite often about comedy.
I had to cut 10,000 words from my first draft of the Weird Al book, so there will definitely be some of those ideas resurfacing in different ways in the short term.
I will probably be including some material from the Skylight Books podcast, which I co-host and co-produce, too.
I hope it’s enough good stuff for you to make a little space in your inbox and your brain. If it gets real good, I might start charging. In the meanwhile, kick back and enjoy gratis.
See you again soon.