I read that you graduated from high school as valedictorian at 16 and played the accordion. Factor in Holy Grail recitations, and if that’s not a recipe for getting beat up, I don’t know what is.
[Laughs] Yeah, I was the kid that you would copy off of during math and then beat up at recess.

You directed the “Rockin’ the Suburbs” video for Ben Folds, a man who wrote a song—“One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces”—that basically says “fuck you” to all the people who teased him when he was growing up. Are there any similar vendettas on Lynwood, your own homage to suburban life?
Not as such. I just take personal joy in knowing that people that would beat me up in junior high probably are still working at 7-Eleven, and I get to travel with a rock band across the country.

I saw a bunch of photos on your website of you going back and visiting Lynwood. How was that?
It was really nice. I got to see my old ninth-grade math teacher, Mr. Morris. In fact, I went back earlier this year and gave him a gold album for Straight Outta Lynwood when it was finally certified as gold. He was one of my favorite teachers. He really encouraged the smart people in class to try new things, and he’d assign all sorts of fun extracurricular projects, which I would always do. Like, he’d say, “Figure out how to make a pentadodecahedron out of a single piece of paper, and I’ll hang it from the ceiling for the rest of the quarter.” So, of course, I did.

I enjoyed your work on UHF. Have you ever thought about pulling a Paul Reubens and reinventing yourself as a serious actor? Minus the masturbation, of course.
Yeah, I certainly wouldn’t turn down a serious film role if one would be offered to me. But I’m lucky enough to get offered comedic roles, and I think I’m certainly better suited to comedic roles. Although, I have to say that the few comedic roles I’ve been offered over the years I’ve turned down, just because I didn’t think they were very good. I don’t want to mention the names of the movies…some were highly successful comedy movies. I just thought they were mediocre, and I stand by my decision. It’s a problem I’ve always had. I don’t get offered the roles that I like, so I have to generate them myself.

Do you think that’s because you’ve been a writer, an actor and a producer? Are you a control freak?
I just have high standards in comedy, I like to think. I’d hate to lower my standards just so I can work.

So I understand that Coolio got angry when you released “Amish Paradise.” He was quoted as saying that “Gangsta’s Paradise” [ironically ripped off from Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise”] was “too serious to be parodied.” Do you think that’s ever the case?
Well, I’d like to say no, that satire has no limits, but I do have certain lines that I try not to cross. I mean, generally the more serious the song is, the funnier a parody will be. Having said that, I won’t do a “Tears in Heaven” parody. You have to decide in your own head what’s good taste and what’s bad taste.

“Weird Al” Yankovics our chain Saturday 29.