Why It Is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL That You See Me at A Weird and Insane Afternoon With Nathan Rabin This Saturday, 3:30 at Dynasty Typewriter — It Turns Out the Naming Rights! Membership Option Was For Real and Someone Is Now Five Hundred Bucks Poorer Presents Nat

Look, I am going to be honest with you: I am not, generally, someone who enjoys leaving his home. Though I venture out of my condo for the sake of my dog, my wife and my two sons, otherwise I’d be a reclusive hermit who hides out from a world he does not understand and does not understand him.

I’d be a Howard Hughes-like figure, but without the money and with a more extensive collection of my own toenail clippings. But I am tethered to the world inextricably, if sometimes uncomfortably, through this website and also its very first book, Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place Presents The Weird Accordion to Al.

I will do anything I can, within reason, to spread the word about this very worthwhile book, an exhaustive deep dive into EVERY track on every single “Weird Al” Yankovic album, all 16 of them (14 studio albums, the odds and ends compilation Medium Rarities and Al’s collaboration with legendary electronic and trans pioneer Wendy Carlos). Yes, even the silly ones.

That includes not only leaving my home, which, honestly, is scary enough, but flying across the country on a big metal bird so that I can do a bunch of podcasts to promote it as well as my first big event in SEVEN years: A Weird and Insane Afternoon with Nathan Rabin at the Dynasty Typewriter at 3:30 PM on February 22nd, not long before Insane Clown Posse’s second and final Juggalo Days set.

There will be music and comedy from Jonah Ray and Joe Kwaczala and the great D.C Pierson will do an hour long interview with me about the new book and my career and life and then I will sign books from the boxes upon boxes I’m transporting from Atlanta to Los Angeles.

All in all, I am taking 70 pounds of books with me to the show. I hope to take substantially fewer pounds of books when I come home on Tuesday evening.

Will I return home in triumph or defeat? Will my pockets be flush with cash like a cartoon bank robber or will I return home wearing only a barrel with suspenders on it, having literally lost my shirt and my pants AND the rest of my clothing during my ill-fated promotional jaunt out west?

I’m hoping for the best and bracing myself for the worst. I did an event like this seven years ago at Nerdmelt with the same producer, Beowulf Jones, and it went really well. Whatever I remember most, other than the relief that everyone seemed to have a good time and not bitterly regret attending, was the sense of connection I felt talking to longtime readers.

Because when you’re a pop culture writer you tend to inhabit a weird little bubble and it’s easy to forget that there are real human beings out there who are reading you and connecting with you and identifying with your struggles and triumphs. But when people buy a book and stand in line and take a picture it all feels very concrete and very real and incredibly validating.

So please do come to the Dynasty Typewriter and vibe with a brother. It really would mean the world to me and I PROMISE a good time, and as a Juggalo I don’t take that shit lightly.

Buy tickets here for the big show here: https://www.dynastytypewriter.com/calendar/weirdaccordiontoalfeb22

And help ensure a future for the Happy Cast by pledging here https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace

And finally, you can buy a copy of the Weird Accordion to Al here and have it shipped overnight in case I sell out of all the copies I’m bringing to the show (ha!) over at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=weird+accordion+to+al&ref=nb_sb_noss_2