One of the reasons I like writing these blogs is to talk about obscure or forgotten movies that some people may not be aware of. For this entry, I'm gonna talk about a documentary that I haven't seen, about a musician I didn't even know about up until a few days ago. Credit must go to retroist.com, which brought Weird Paul Petroskey to my attention. When Weird Paul videotaped himself, showing him doing a McDonald's food review and uploaded it to his Youtube channel, the video went viral. That's only fitting because it's as if it were made just for that site even though it was 1984! Since then he's been posting something regularly from his personal video archives. Several of those videos show the young, budding musician playing his guitar and performing songs. Eventually, he started writing his own songs, releasing them and performing small concerts. Some might call him an obscure version of "Weird Al" Yankovic.
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| Cover art of Weird Paul documentary |
Fast forward a couple decades later and he's still at it. Petroskey has garnered followers in the underground music scene. In 2001, filmmaker Stacey Goldschmidt began filming the Pittsburgh native, culminating in the release of Weird Paul: A Lo Fidelity Documentary in 2006.
As I already mentioned, I've not seen this movie but after watching many of his videos and listening to several of his songs, it's piqued my interest.
What I'm most interested in seeing are the interviews with his parents and his siblings. His family is featured in several of his videos on his channel, most of the time as willing participants. Occasionally it seems Weird Paul got on his dad's nerves but for the most part, Pa Petroskey plays along, going above and beyond what most fathers would do for their kids. Even now, the senior Petroskey shows he is a good sport with this review of the film 12 Angry Men.
His two sisters often got in on the act as well, especially "Wacko Sheila" and it would be interesting to hear them reflect on growing up with their older brother.
Hopefully I'll get around to seeing this but until I do, I'll be watching Weird Paul and his crazy antics on his channel. If anyone else has seen this documentary, feel free to leave a comment and tell readers what you thought of it.
and now: the unveiling of the cover of my 28th album: STILL GOING STRONG Out this summer on Thick Syrup Records http://t.co/lHAl2OQ6YK
— Paul Petroskey (@weirdpaul) July 10, 2013
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