Local man gives whole new meaning to being weird

Published 7:45 pm Friday, June 24, 2016

Jerry Tomlin lives a life that is weirder than most.

No, it’s not weird in a literal sense. In everyday life, Tomlin is just as normal as anyone else one would see on the street. He wears normal clothes, drives a run-of-the-mill car, and is polite and amiable in conversation. When musical and comedic icon “Weird Al” Yankovic goes on tour, however, Tomlin turns just about as ‘Weird’ as it is possible to be.

“As of now I’ve seen 28 shows. Eighteen last year, 10 so far this year, and 16 more still to come,” said Tomlin recently. “My very first one was last year in Las Vegas.”

For the past two years Tomlin has spent several weeks following Weird Al’s “Mandatory Fun” tour all over the continental United States, buying VIP and all-access passes to receive the full experience of the Weird Al tour. The tour is in support of Weird Al’s No. 1 album of the same name, whose album cover features a sarcastic tribute to WWII-era Soviet propaganda posters, in which a uniformed Yankovic decorated with fake war medals stares intently into the distance while soldiers and tanks march in the foreground.

Tomlin has taken the image a step further. An avid cosplayer and a veteran of numerous sci-fi and fantasy conventions, Tomlin has made and stitched a fantastic recreation of Weird Al’s uniform that he wears to every show he attends. The uniform garnered so much recognition and requests for photos among Weird Al fans that Tomlin invented a fictional alter ego to go along with it, which he named “Mandatory Fun Al.”

“I figured in the first 24 years of Dragon Con nobody had probably ever done this gentleman, and I was right. I did have two people that wanted to get confrontational with me and give me some grief for doing it, but I did Adolf Hitler. I had a pair of black wings on my back that looked like I was actually his angel that had come back to the Con. To make the Mandatory Fun uniform I just added the oak leaves, the epaulets, the aiguillette, and the ribbons and everything on it, and I had everything done.”

In essence, Tomlin has created a fictional representation of a fictional character, which is itself a representation of a man who has become internationally renowned for parodying other artists’ songs. The whole process has something of a fantastical air about it, but Tomlin’s creativity and skill in creating the Mandatory Fun Al costume has yielded some very tangible returns. At a recent show at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, Tomlin was filmed wearing the Mandatory Fun uniform for CBS Sunday Morning, which is to air this Sunday at 9 a.m. As if that weren’t enough, due to his Mandatory Fun Al persona and his status as a seasoned Weird Al tour veteran, Tomlin has gained notice from none other than the man himself.

“When I saw him in Las Vegas, I waited to be the very last person in line, and when I walked up to the table, the first two words out of his mouth were ‘Nice uniform!’ Since then, whenever somebody else tells me: ‘Hey, nice uniform’, I tell them those were the first words Weird Al Yankovic ever spoke to me. … The third time I met him last year, when I was again the last person to come up to the table, he said ‘“Oh Jerry, you’re back!’”

It would appear that Tomlin has reached the apex of Weird Al fandom. His creativity, perseverance, and love for Weird Al’s music has allowed him to realize the dream of nearly every music fan on earth: to be on a first-name basis with his musical hero. When asked why he chooses to support Weird Al over any other artist, Tomlin gave a compelling answer.

“I know there are folks that follow the Allman Brothers all around and go to the big theater up there in New York every year, but to sit there and watch them stand there and play their instruments is so boring compared to a Weird Al show. It’s just so animated and there’s so much stuff going on as far as showmanship and everything, that there’s really no comparison.”

Although Gregg Allman might take offense, Tomlin seems to have his mind made up.