Everybody has a snow day, except for me, for me, it’s a work day, but that’s okay.

Work means two things.

Well, work means three things, working work means four things when we get this right.

Work means four things, working, earning a living, finding some self worth as you know, a citizen contributing to society in meaningful ways, and of course, finding a moment to take a break to record your daily Lex anyway, that’s my cross to bear.

I work.

They don’t, it’s fine.

It’s fine.

Listen, they’re going to have to give back vacation days and I won’t because I don’t get vacation.

It’s okay.

Anyway, uh, I wanted to tell a story that I’ve probably told on this podcast before, but it’s been a long time and you may not remember it, but I do.

Uh, I don’t remember telling you the story, but I remember living the story, which I’ll now share with you.

And this is going to be the story of my first couple of times meeting pop parodist, Sultan of satire, King of musical comedy, Weird Al Yankovic.

Uh, so I was 15, I was an active participant in the news group alt.music.weird-al and when I saw that Weird Al Yankovic was coming to Hershey, Pennsylvania, uh, I arranged to go to that concert driven by my pal, Josh, who already had his license.

And because I was writing for the local section of the newspaper voices that was for teens by teens about teens, I arranged that I would interview Al, uh, for this publication.

I got that interview by emailing the drummer, the drummer connected me with the manager and the manager said, sure, you can interview Al, you have to be at the concert early at Hershey park and here’s how it all works and here’s what you’ll do.

So the big day comes.

I’ve got a, uh, one of those classic tape recorders, you know, the kind, if you are old, uh, you know, a big black tape recorder with like a big orange record button or something like that.

And I set up a, uh, I’m ready and I go to the appointed place before the concert, well before the concert and, um, a person comes out and there’s one other press person who’s going to be interviewing Al, but clearly everybody involved with Al’s team likes me more cause I’m a kid, I’m a 15 year old kid.

And uh, they say, Lex, you’re going to get to go first and I was like, great, uh, seconds go by and then Al walks up and we’re still kind of somewhere between outside and inside.

Like not where any fans are going to spot him yet, but a little bit outdoors and there he is and he’s six feet tall and I’m six feet tall and I’ve planned my intro line and I say to him, hi, I’m Weird Al Yankovic, you must be Lex Friedman.

And he gives me a courtesy laugh and we go into his dressing room, which was awful.

Like not because Al didn’t deserve the best, but because Hershey’s, uh, backstage area was terrible.

Um, but, uh, we’re there and they say, we’re going to give you 10 minutes.

They ended up giving me about 40 minutes, which was awesome.

And I remember very vividly the first question I asked him was, you know, if you had 10 minutes interview your hero, uh, what would you ask?

And he’s like, oh, come on Lex, that’s your job.

And I was like, oh my God, this didn’t go well.

He is questioning the legitimacy of my opening question, but it got better from there.

And even that was a good answer.

Uh, but we talked for a while at one point, his keyboardist Ruben came in and asked if he could borrow the phone.

Uh, it was a landline phone.

He was just stretching on a very long cord because that’s the era we were in.

Um, Weird Al of course was my first concert as well.

This was my first concert, but I get to spend a lot of time with him.

He was very gracious and thoughtful.

I got through every question I had made notes about and recorded it all on my cassette recorder and it was great.

It was great.

And I got a photo or three with him.

Very cool.

Uh, wrote a story that was the back page interview for the next edition of, uh, the kids, the team publication voices.

Um, so that was fun.

Several years later, I’m in college, uh, and I am going on a date.

Um, I’m somebody else’s plus one.

This person has tickets to a Weird Al show and she had backstage passes.

And so I’m not listed right on the plus one and we go backstage in this case after the show and Al looks at me and he’s like Lex Freedman, Hershey, Pennsylvania.

And it’s been years, but indeed that’s who I was.

And so, you know, I, uh, I saw Al a whole bunch of times after that, um, including, you know, uh, I was going to miss a show he was doing in LA because I was getting married, but then Lauren surprised me with a gift of tickets to see his, uh, show.

And so I had emailed the drummer who I knew for all those years from all music, Weird Al.

And I was like, Hey, I was going to miss the show, but now I got to see the show and, uh, they let me come say hi to Al in the band at that show, which wasn’t even what I was angling for.

I was just expressing my excitement.

Maybe it was what I was angling for.

I don’t know if I’m being honest, maybe, I don’t know, but they all said hi and they couldn’t believe that I was growing up.

I’ve taken my kids to see Al, which is cool.

Um, and they’re like, wow, now Lex has kids.

That’s what they’re like.

Um, and of course I did a business deal with Al, which was super cool where I got to record 70 plus concerts of his and release them all in suture premium, a service that no longer exists.

But all those doings got me on Weird Al’s Christmas card list at some point.

So pretty proud of that.

What a good accomplishment.

If I go back and tell 15 year old me, you’ll be on Weird Al’s Christmas card list one day.

I’d be like, yeah, that checks out.

Anyway, happy Tuesday.

Lex.

I want to be clear when I say that he’s six feet tall and I’m six feet tall, I meant at the time.

Now I am six two and a quarter, but then I was, okay, I just want to make, I want to make sure we’re all on the same page.

Okay.