Dear Weird Al and Anyone Who Wonders Why I love Weird Al So Completely:
I've always been a fan of Weird Al but I never knew that I loved him, but after seeing him last night, I know for sure that I do. I love him heart and soul.
I was telling my husband and daughter about the concert this morning while I rocked the side ponytail and my brand new "Weird Al" T-shirt and my daughter said "why are you crying" and Daddy answered "when she really loves something she cries about it." Its true.
It is hard to give a short explanation of why I love Weird Al so much, so here is a long winded list of reasons why I love Weird Al right to my core:

Yes, indeed, that is me and Mac and Weird Al last night after his show at Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater.
1. Its A Small World: When I was 10 years old, my Dad brought my sister and I to Disney World. My parents divorced when I was 5 and my Mom moved us back to Massachusetts and my Dad stayed in Maine so I didn't get to see him but once or twice a year. This was the first big fun trip I'd ever taken. I took one camera with one roll of film. I still have the little scrapbook I made of the trip. Guess What? The entire album is photos of the fake animals on the Jungle Cruise! I'm serious. I loved that ride so much - I rode it more than once and in retrospect I don't think it was actually the fake animals that I loved, I think it was the cruise guides who told silly jokes and connected with me - they were just so much more personal than any of the other Disney employees - and they were more expressive than my father ever was and I was so desperate for time with him and that warm fuzzy feeling of love that he was never quite able to give given his nerdy (my sister thinks my late father had Aspbergers or something like it but we'll never know) personality. On the ride back to the airport on that trip I noticed that there were houses in Florida and I asked my Dad "Are those houses? Do people actually live in Florida? Why don't we live in Florida?" I decided then and there that as soon as I could, I would move to Florida as soon as I could. Truth is, I sort of forgot about all that when I was a teenager but I did get a scholarship to Eckerd College when I was 16 and when I found out it was in St. Petersburg, Florida, I decided to take a cue from the universe and go. I've been here for 25 years now and its where I met my husband and I'm raising my children. Looking back over my life, that Jungle Cruise really planted a seed for me and it actually changed the course of my life. I do believe that. So when Weird Al started singing about The Jungle Cruise Ride and dressed in a Disney uniform, I was delighted (since I hadn't ever heard it or known that he had such a song) and I couldn't stop crying - the happy tears are flowing right now just thinking about it. Someone else loves that ride as much as I do - and while he was singing about how fledgingly or failing comics get that as a job, I could tell he also loved it, and it just sort of got me. Instant complete love.

This ride changed the course of my life (for real); and here is my daughter in a full circle moment when the guy let her actually drive the boat - beyond awesome!
2. I love Nerds and I am a Nerd: I was a cheerleader in highschool and ran with the popular crowd so a lot of people overlooked the fact that I was actually a nerd at heart and I loved nerds. Junior year of highschool, I dumped my foot ball player frat boy boyfriend of about 4 years, for a nerdy guy who I thought was funny. The funny combined with the smart is what got me. I love that. My friends didn't understand it, some of them still don't - ie. stupid questions at the high school reunion. But while its been 25 years now since highschool, and I still admire both of the high school boyfriends and still know them on facebook and at reunions etc. It was that decision that really made me know that funny is an important quality to me - it is more important that appearance. That same combination of funny and smart showed up again for me when I was in law school. My torts and insurance professor was both smart and funny - he was a Harvard grad who taught law with a pony tail and used SNL skits and Star Trek references to teach about torts. Torts are personal wrongs and delicious sweet treats and I booked his class and went on to become a torts lawyer.
3. White and Nerdy: Since my kids were little, I've played "old" music on CDs in the car so that they are fully familiar with Elton John, Paul Simon and Queen. A few years ago, I was talking about creativity with my son who was then about 7 or 8 and I showed him Weird Al's "Another One Rides The Bus" on You Tube before school since he was familiar with Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust." That song was probably the first I'd known of Weird Al too and I was about 7 or 8 when I first heard it (ok it was actually 1981 so I was 11 but I vividly remember listening to it and discussing it at length with my elementary school friend Valerie and we even spent hours trying to make up another version - huh, I could have sworn that would have been 1977 or 1978). Anyway, I remember loving Weird Al from the very beginning of his popular fame on the radio (sidenote: I also loved the song Eugene which came out about the same time and we are now friends with the "Plain White Wrapper" who sang that one and his wife and son are our son's Godparents.). ... So I loved Weird Al as a kid and my son for the last 4 or 5 years has loved Weird Al too - he is now 11 years old (my son - Weird Al is actually 53 which also blew my mind since that's 2 years younger than my husband! plus Weird Al has a daughter the same age as mine - 9!) Anyway, White and Nerdy is by far my son's favorite song of all time and the lyrics are actually quite biographical for him (he plays chess, loves Renaissance Fairs, and spends a lot of time on the computer) and me too, and my Dad with the Star Trek references, plus I have loved Donnie Osmond forever and he's in the video (I had the Donnie Osmond Barbie Doll and recently got another one complete with the purple socks for my daughter and she plays with him all the time). Anyway, the song "White and Nerdy" is so much more than a parody for us, it is an anthem. Its an instant feel good.

4. My son has ADHD and over the past couple of years he's become more introverted when he's around other kids. I'm not sure where this comes from because I am an extrovert and I thought he was too - and then I gave him the Myers Briggs test for kids and sure enough, he is actually an introvert. Who knew! Other kids like him and gravitate to him naturally. He is on the verge of going to middle school and there are lots of feelings of social uncertainty. He desperately wants to be a comedian and I'm not all that funny I don't think (although some people tell me I am). I took an improv class a few summers ago (and applied it to scrapbooking - type "improv scrapbooking" into my blog search thingee on the right and you'll see the relevant posts). I want to get my son into some kind of improv camp or something so he can develop his comedy skills. Anyway, funny people are like super heroes to my son and meeting Weird Al was better than meeting Superman. It was just awesome, Weird Al is an awesome human. When we got to talk to him I he said "oh you were the most excited person in the audience!" and I probably was - not that I was hollering the whole time or anything but I think I smiled and cried the entire time. I burst out with "We love you Weird Al!" and gave him a hug and he hugged me back - like a real hug - not one of those polite tap tap kind of hugs. And he hugged my son and talked to us, like an actual conversation. It was amazing. Weird Al is my hero.

Plus there are lots of other reasons I could go on about but I've got this pet duck (did you know Weird Al has a song about a pet duck! too funny) that wants my attention and a new friend just called my son about a playdate so I'm going to get that all coordinated. We had the best time ever at the Weird Al Concert! Thank you Weird Al!
We love you Weird Al!
Katie and Mac.
P.S. As the wife of an avid drummer hobbyist who practices in the house, I really appreciated the SHORT Drum Solos in Weird Al's concert!

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