When I was ten or eleven, I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. The only career I had given serious thought to was writing song parodies.

I still remember some of the tunes that I wrote, and most of them are far too embarrassing to be mentioned here. One of the very bad but not totally mortifying songs I penned was called “The ‘92 Election”, set to the tune of Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire.” I won’t share the lyrics with you here, but rest assured, they are horrible.

My desire to be the next singing satirist of pop-culture was of course born out of my love for “Weird Al” Yankovic. And for the low, low cost of a self-addressed stamped envelope, you could mail a letter and become a “Close Personal Friend of Al”.

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