In my case, it’s where I dove head-first into a biosphere of music, comedy, and sheer bliss. When you’re ten, that’s where you learn the fundamentals of life. While everyone else was kicking balls and running bases, we hung out where the grass met the blacktop.

Through a mutual friend, I was introduced to this transfer student from the Catholic school down the road. Now, I believe if we were to tell this same story, they would be analogous, but I have an inkling there would be an argument over who had the more prominent bowl cut. A fellow fifth-grader with a blond bowl cut did. The first song of his that I had ever heard was a Star Wars: The Phantom Menace parody called “The Saga Begins,” the opening track on Scissors however, Weird Al didn’t sing it for me. I played those songs so much that the third track, “Pretty Fly for a Rabbi,” wouldn’t play right anymore, akin to a warped cassette left in a blistering Grand Am far too long.

That was my CD, and I cherished that like it was a family heirloom. I purchased it using my own money I would normally spend on junk at the local flea market. Weird Al’s 1999 album, Running with Scissors, was the first CD I had ever owned. I don’t think I’d be where I am right now – creatively and emotionally – had it not been for “Weird Al” Yankovic.

The saga begins