Dog Eat Dog - 1994

I'm climbing up, up the corporate ladder.
Watch out! It's dog eat dog.
Nose against the grindstone, it feels alright.
Watch Out! It's dog eat dog.

Song: Dog Eat Dog

Artist: "Weird" Al Yankovic

Album: Polka Party!

Year Released: 1986

Memory Date: 1994

When I was 9 years old I met one of the most intelligent people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. Jason, my now stepfather had been dating my mother for roughly 1 year before I was introduced to him. It was smart and a really good way to make sure that 9 year old Chris didn't get attached to a person who may not be around very long. My mother wasn't really the dating type, according to her, Jay was the first person outside of my father whom she had dated. I met Jay one night when he came by my mom's house, she told me that she was having a friend over and he would bring pizza and a movie. As promised Jay arrived with a freshly rented VHS of Ace Ventura Pet Detective and a large Pepperoni. When I say Jay is smart I don't just mean textbook. He knows how people think. Despite being just 25 at the time Jason knew exactly how to work his was into mine and Tony's hearts.
 

The night that I met him he offered to take us to a baseball game, which we did the following weekend. A few weeks later we went on a trip to Paramount's Great America. He would buy us all kinds of things, watch T.V. with is, take us to movies. All sorts of fun things that would make us look forward to spending time with him. One of the best parts about spending time with Jay was his collection of Cassettes that he had in his car. He was a big fan of hair metal, grunge and hard rock, but I didn't bother with those. Jay had a copy of Weird Al's In 3-D. I had never heard of Weird Al up to this point, I assume I had heard a few of his songs, but I never knew who he was. I was instantly hooked. Despite not knowing many of the source songs he was parodying I still loved everything on that album. We played it over and over in his car, every time we got in he would ask what song we left off on and pick it back up. Eventually he got tired of the album and offered to buy us a new one. He took us to Backdoor Disc and Tape, a local music shop that had a huge selection. After much deliberation we chose Polka Party!, Weird Al's 1986 classic. We went out to his car and put the fresh cassette in. It was short, but good. It stayed in for several weeks as we drove around. Tony really liked Living with a Hernia but my opinion was that the best song on the album was Dog Eat Dog. A great style parody of Talking Heads.

Jay continued doing spending time with us and without much effort he won us over without much issue. Eventually him and my mom got married. Years later I looked back on everything that he did when him and mother were dating and realized that he played the game correctly. I asked him later 

"Why did we do all that fun stuff when I first met you?" I asked

"I was trying to make you guys like me, get you in my corner." he told me

"What do you mean in your corner?" I asked

"I wanted you to pull for me if anything was to happen with me and your mom, you would tell her that you liked me."

Get the kid to fight for you...

Jason really is one of the smartest men I know.