Hey, my name is Sam Anderson. I'm a staff writer for the New York Times magazine.

And today I would like to tell you about a story I wrote about someone I think is

one of the great defining geniuses of our time. And that is Weird Al Yankovic.

I'm just going to see my friend, I know they're all thinking I'm for wide and nerdy.

I'm just nerdy and thinking I'm just too wide and I'm not joking.

For anyone who doesn't know who Weird Al is, he is the most celebrated comedy musician of all time.

He is a quote-unquote novelty artist who makes ridiculous parody songs of popular music.

He has been around since the late 70s and first hit it big with

song parodies of super hits by Michael Jackson and Madonna.

He turned Michael Jackson's beat it into a song called Eat It.

And it's just like this food to eat.

And uh...

Just need it.

For me, certainly as a child in the 1980s, you know, I grew up like a lot of kids do feeling insecure,

feeling anxious about various things. And Weird Al leaped out of the radio to me in a way that

Michael Jackson and Nirvana and Madonna never did. And he touched something deeper.

Something that made that insecure, lonely little kid feel like he had a friend, feel like he had

company in the world. But even as an adult, I keep listening and I find that when I'm really,

really stressed out, I can put on Weird Al very loud in my house and it instantly makes me feel

better. I think part of that is like these, you know, harkening back to childhood and it's kind of

nostalgic soothing, but I think a bigger part of it is in some ways comedy represents our moment

better than any kind of serious art could. We live in absurd times. And so we need an absurd

...