WITH SPOOFS CAME SUCCESS FOR `WEIRD AL'.

Byline: David Bloom Staff Writer

From a back bedroom in blue-collar Lynwood to headlining major concert venues, it's the kind of music story that warms one's heart. But would you believe it's ``Weird Al'' Yankovic's story?

Certainly His Weirdness wouldn't, not that he'd ever complain about the turns his life's taken.

``I'm doing all right,'' Yankovic said from his Hollywood Hills home above the Sunset Strip. ``Every day I don't have to wake up and take the garbage out for people and get their lunches, I count that as a good day.''

The good days have been plenty the past 16 years, making goofy parodies of every puffed-up musical ego this side of Caruso.

``I thought by now I'd be an adult and have a real job,'' said Yankovic. ``I never thought I'd be able to make a living out of being Weird Al.''

But make a living he has, most recently with the just-released, self-produced album ``Running With Scissors,'' tons of airplay for his ``Star Wars'' spoof ``The Saga Begins,'' and a national tour this fall. He's even getting significant international attention for the first time.

``I'm doing interviews in Singapore and Indonesia,'' Yankovic said. ``But it's very bizarre to do interviews there because I can barely understand what the questions are about: `So, you do parody? You do parody?' Um, yes.''

It's a little tougher to parody his own life, which has been largely devoid of the career and personal crashes Hollywood has come to expect from someone who has made 10 albums.

``VH1 did a `Behind the Music' special on me,'' he said. ``I tried to get hooked on crack so they'd have something to talk about. I was the first artist on that show who didn't have a dramatic downward spiral.''

His own spiral, more or less upward, started in high school, noodling in his bedroom with an accordion and writing parodies for friends. He would send the resulting tapes to idol Dr. Demento, whose off-kilter radio show played ``My Bologna'' (spoofing the Knack's execrable ``My Sharona'') and others.

After getting a college degree in architecture, he took a mailroom job at Westwood One, the big radio syndicator.

``I got to meet Frank Zappa'' in that job, Yankovic said. ``I used to think, `Wouldn't it be cool if Frank Zappa knew who I was,' that I had an effect on his life.''

Then he landed a record deal - and a big hit, 1984's spoof of the then-omnipresent Michael Jackson in ``Eat It.'' Though he never got to live out his Zappa dream, Yankovic did it one better with another musical hero, Paul McCartney.

``I couldn't resist going up to him to say hello'' at an event both attended, Yankovic said. ``I said, `Excuse me, I'm Al,' and he turns to me and said, `Weird Al! Look, Linda (McCartney), it's Weird Al.' At one point, he said, `I like your stuff.' ''

Yankovic has other fans, too, joking they are ``predominantly geriatric Asian women.'' More recently, that rather limited demographic has been expanded by heavy airplay on the kid-centric Radio Disney chain.

``I'm the Elvis of Radio Disney,'' Yankovic said. His latest Star Wars spoof, ``The Saga Begins,'' based on Don McLean's anthemic ``American Pie,'' topped the chain's charts and is played heavily.

Other new songs mock Puff Daddy (``All About the Pentiums''), the Offspring (``Pretty Fly for a Rabbi'') and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder (though his liner notes say ``Eddie's ... actually a pretty cool guy'').

Yankovic usually picks songs with a distinctive lyrical or musical hook, but sometimes, as with the Eddie Vedder song, creates original music. He's getting choosier, though, about the songs he does pick.

``Now I'm choosing songs I actually like,'' Yankovic said. ``I don't want to be doing `The Macarena' on stage when I'm 80.''

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PHOTO ``Weird Al'' Yankovic's ``Running With Scissors,'' is getting airplay on Radio Disney, of all places.