The curious case of Altoona, PA’s Matt Harper has garnered attention from several esteemed medical journals over the past few weeks, as doctors all around the world scramble to make sense of the self-proclaimed man who “sort of likes Ween”.
Long considered by the medical community to be a love-or-hate band, Ween has largely managed to stay out of the headlines of modern medical journalism. However, the 34-year-old bartender who knows “that one song from Road Trip” is changing the narrative with his nonchalant acceptance of the band’s existence. “Matt”, as he’s commonly referred to in the healthcare sphere, is throwing precedence out the window with his steadfast insistence on only listening to Chocolate & Cheese and some of The Mollusk. Oh, and also a mix CD that he thinks has some Ween on there, but he’s not sure because his friend made it and there’s no tracklist.
The medical anomaly was first detected during a routine check-up, when his primary care physician first noted that he knows almost all the words to “Freedom of ‘76” but seemingly has no knowledge of The Boognish or its backstory, and then actually told the doctor to her face that “it didn’t matter”. Further lab results confirmed he was not down with the brown and knew nothing of the Stallion trilogy (which actually has 5 parts if you count the unreleased tracks from All Request Live and Craters of the Sac). Alarmed, his primary passed along the case to the brass at Johns Hopkins for further review. Based on his charts, their team of doctors unanimously gave Matt a prognosis of hating Ween and were getting ready to kick his ass when Matt revealed he thought Ween’s cameo in It’s Pat: The Movie was funny.
The doctors concurred – it was funny, mang. They agreed everyone should do nitrous and listen to Ween’s unused 2002 Pizza Hut jingle, “Where’d the Cheese Go?” and then alternate it with the version they ultimately sent Pizza Hut to get fired, “Where’d the Fucking Cheese Go?” on an endless loop. And then later they could get baked (or still do nitrous) and watch this 15-hour YouTube playlist of full live sets that Jared put together. However, doctors noted in his file that Matt got all weird and said he needed to “go to work.”
“I dunno, I just kinda feel like they’re more of a greatest hits band,” Matt incorrectly told us when we asked him what his deal was. We never did quite figure that out, but luckily for Matthew, some of the best doctors in the world are fighting for answers. Let’s just hope time is on their side.
