Culture on My Mind
A Weird Al World
February 3, 2023

This week, I’m thinking about weird things.

We all know who “Weird” Al Yankovic is. We all know of his parody songs. We even know how many comedy songs on the internet are incorrectly attributed to him. He is a favorite artist of mine and many geeks worldwide. It only makes sense for the Dragon Con American Sci-Fi Classics Track to talk about him and his legacy.

On January 19th, Joe Crowe was joined by James Palmer (@palmerwriter on Twitter), Kevin Eldridge (The Flopcast), Kyle McCraw (a man with no verifiable internet presence), and Mike Faber (The ESO Network) for a celebration of his legacy and their favorite memories of his pop culture skewerings.

These Classic Track Quarantine Panels are typically held once every two weeks (or every fortnight, if you will). If you want to play along at home, grab your internet-capable device of choice and navigate the world wide webs to the track’s YouTube channel and/or the group on Facebook. If you join in live, you can also leave comments and participate in the discussion using StreamYard connected through Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch.

Gary can also be found on A Podcask of Amontillado, a horror-themed podcast that he co-hosts with Erin McGourn.

If you want to connect with the track, Joe, and/or Gary on the socials, you can find them on Twitter (ClassicTrack, JoeCroweShow, and sneezythesquid) and Instagram (SciFiClassicTrack, JoeCroweShow, and Gary_Mitchel). And, of course, to celebrate more pop culture awesomeness, you can find Dragon Con all year round on the internet, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

You can find those discussions and more every other Thursday as the American Sci-Fi Classics Track explores the vast reaches of classic American science fiction.

The episode art each week is generously provided by the talented Sue Kisenwether. You can find her (among other places) on Women at Warp: A Star Trek Podcast.

Culture on My Mind is inspired by the weekly Can’t Let It Go segment on the NPR Politics Podcast where each host brings one thing to the table that they just can’t stop thinking about.

For more creativity with a critical eye, visit Creative Criticality.