Freedom of '76.

I've been entirely hooked by the new album from one of my all-time favorite bands - Ween. La Cucaracha is catchy as all hell and easily is the sweetest listen since White Pepper. But I'm not here to do a music review; I'm here to take a walk down memory lane. I want to talk about two interconnected things that have been in my life a very long time, two subjects I cannot think of separately without remembering the other. Ween, and my friend Lyndsy.

Lyndsy the week I met her, NYC, August 1996

I discovered Ween at 15 and Lyndsy three years later. They both had and continue to have a huge, enormous, positive presence. Meeting Lynds was the greatest bomb to ever go off in my life. I was not the same person once we started hanging out; she became my soul mate. Our first year together in New York and Providence was a mad ride of hilarity and adventures, but when we parted, our friendship didn't fade or take a back burner like so many often do. Even when I moved across the country we kept in close contact, seeing one another more often than we saw our own families.

Lyndsy with "missing" brownie teeth, 1996

Now Lynds' family needs her, and I realize once again how much she has given me, year after year. Lynds, I fuckin' love you and I want to give you an enormous and public SHOUT OUT for being a strong, amazing, gorgeous woman who rises above the clouds of shitstorms again and again. YOU. ARE. INCREDIBLE.

Maybe you have to have been a 19-year-old girl to understand this, but Ween is so integrally tied into our friendship that I cannot separate my association with them and her. Ween WAS our soundtrack for years. I've seen them live more than any band (though never lately, when they only play huge outdoor venues and their crowd drifted over once Phish stopped touring).

Sophomore year. What a year!

I was in tenth grade when I picked up the Pure Guava cassette, hooked by the vanity of seeing my own name on the track list and of hearing "Big Jilm" on WMPG college radio. I'm twice as old now as I was then and I still have new Ween albums to pick up. Like my friendship with Lyndsy, drawing comics, and my affection for the weed, some things will always be. And now, I urge you to watch an amazing clip from 1993: Gene and Dean high out of their minds on the Jane Pratt show. Well done, fellows. Don't miss the final 10 seconds for the scream.