The Weird Accordion to Al Books: Now Officially 100 Percent Donald Trump-Free!

I have made many mistakes in my career as an author. For example, when I published my 2009 memoir The Big Rewind I did not show it to anybody other than my editor out of a curious conviction that what I wrote was way too personal to show to friends or family, and consequently something I should only share with the sum of humanity simultaneously upon the book’s release. 

If I had shown my book to colleagues and asked for constructive feedback, I might have discovered that the final third of The Big Rewind, the section devoted to my experiences on a poorly rated, increasingly reputable AMC basic cable panel show called Movie Club With John Ridley, was far less interesting and compelling than the chapters about my traumatic childhood and consequently could either be trimmed considerably or eliminated altogether so that my literary debut ended with me beginning work at The A.V Club. 

Instead I learned just how unpopular the Movie Club chapters would prove after the book had already been released and even exceedingly positive reviews, like a rave from The New York Times, singled out those chapters as a glaring weakness. 

By that point it was way too late for me to change my book in accordance with the universe’s wishes. When you’re a first time author on a prestigious literary imprint of Simon & Schuster the universe does not give you a big cosmic do-over. 

The same, thankfully, is not true of the infinitely less prestigious but more flexible and malleable world of self-publishing. I can go back and fix things if I think they need fixing. Now, roughly seven and a half months after the publication of the original version of The Weird Accordion to Al, I am beaten down to the point where I am not only willing, but eager to fix what a never-ending stream of nasty, unbecomingly personal Amazon reviews have deemed my book’s fatal flaw: that over the course of a 382 page labor of love I reference President Trump a handful of times in a less than glowing fashion. 

I went through draft after draft on both versions of the book, paring everything down to the bone. I thought it was worth occasionally addressing how Al’s long-standing satirical preoccupations with narcissists, television pitchmen and ugly Americans have a new resonance in the age of Trump but a whole lot of folks disagree with me with a passion, ferocity and intensity I honestly find a little disconcerting. 

I’m tired of going through the day dreading angry, scolding pans of a passion project I wrote and refined over a period of three years out of genuine enthusiasm and an idealistic desire to put something good and kind and worthwhile into the world.

I’m cutting Trump from the book partially because I don’t want him to date it unnecessarily. If I were to read a book about Al’s life and music from 1992 that includes even the occasional jab at George H.W Bush I would probably find that annoying and distracting despite my dislike of the first President Bush. So I can understand how even readers who share my hatred of the President might find it irritating to see him referenced more than once, or even to be reminded of his existence. 

A lot of Al’s fans see his world as an apolitical paradise of escapism and silliness, a nostalgic, warm, welcoming realm free from the division and tension of the outside world. There’s something beautiful and hopeful and true about that, even if, as a writer and a thinker and a man, the idea of “apolitical” doesn’t really exist for me in the time of Trump. 

But I understand how others might see things differently. Trump taints everything he touches. I’m not sure why I thought my book would be any different. 

The upside to occasionally referencing Trump in the book at this point is non-existent while the downside is huge. From a cost-benefit perspective it just does not make sense for him to remain in the book. I worked extraordinarily hard over a period of years to write something I love and feel passionately about. I don’t want my work and my brilliant illustrator Felipe Sobreiro’s work to be judged, and judged harshly, by a couple of paragraphs that can be cut without hurting the book as a whole. 

In the end, Donald Trump’s presence in the Weird Accordion to Al book is a lot like his presence outside the book. It’s controversial. It’s divisive. It makes people not just angry but apoplectic. Trump’s toxic presence in my book has affected my quality of life in a negative way. It doesn’t hurt Trump at all: it only hurts me and I am eager for the hurting to stop.

I sadly cannot snap my fingers and make Donald Trump go away forever. But I will be removing Donald Trump from both versions of The Weird Accordion to Al and hopefully making the world just a little less divisive and contentious in the process. 

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Also, BUY the RIDICULOUSLY SELF-INDULGENT, ILL-ADVISED VANITY EDITION of  THE WEIRD ACCORDION TO AL, the Happy Place’s first book. This 500 page extended edition features an introduction from Al himself (who I co-wrote 2012’s Weird Al: The Book with), who also copy-edited and fact-checked, as well as over 80 illustrations from Felipe Sobreiro on entries covering every facet of Al’s career, including his complete discography, The Compleat Al, UHF, the 2018 tour that gives the book its subtitle and EVERY episode of The Weird Al Show and Al’s season as the band-leader on Comedy Bang! Bang! 

Only 23 dollars signed, tax and shipping included, at the https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop or for more, unsigned, from Amazon here