When interviewing a funny person, you just lob them softballs that they knock out the park. But the funniest thing about Weird Al was how radically unfunny he was during our interview. So unfunny that it was hilarious. Maybe not unlike his music?

I don’t use the word “genius,” but Weird Al bumps up against that title, in that, like Einstein or Prince, he could not be replaced. On the surface, his shtick is dumb, but Weird Al is actually a master musician and meticulous, passionate showman — as discussed in this really great recent New York Times piece.

I, however, couldn’t get him to make even one joke! “Have you ever gone to therapy?” I asked Weird Al, who had only recently shaved off his signature porn stache and gotten laser eye surgery, so that he no longer needed his signature glasses: a total makeover, from one type of nerd, into another type.

“No. No, I haven’t,” Al answered innocently. “Have never needed to, luckily.”

I laughed anyway, and tried again, “What do you think your therapist might say if you did go to therapy?”

“Oh wow.” He definitely seemed to think about it hard, but couldn’t come up with anything. “Jeez. I don’t know,” Weird Al finally admitted.

Michael Patrick Welch’s “132 Famous People I Have Met” series is FREE, but please consider donating to his VENMO (michael-welch-42), or to his PayPal account (paypal.me/michaelpatrickwelch2), so he can feed his kids, pay his mortgage, etc.