In the nineties, MCA (Adam Yaunch) would spend a great deal of time snowboarding at Utah's Snowbird Retreat. For a time, he rented an apartment with pro snowboarder Mike Basich. At other times, he would have a barren apartment meant for suiting up, showering, and storing a beat-up Subaru to get to the slope lifts. Some sources state that he would use LSD as eye-droplets during this period, using them on lifts and then hitting black diamond slopes.

Writer Melissa Larsen remembers meeting MCA on the slopes in an ESPN article- here.

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Built in 1912 and designed by John E.O. Pridmore, the Vic Theatre (or more accurately, the Victoria Theatre) in Chicago was a vaudeville theater and is now a music venue that often doubles as a Brew and View second-run movie house.

In November 2003, Ween taped a live performance here for their May 2004 DVD/CD release Ween: Live in Chicago.

Other performances taped here include Bill Hicks' HBO special One Night Stand in 1991, Jim Gaffigan's Beyond the Pale CD, DVD and TV special in 2006, and Wilco's Kicking Television: Live in Chicago in May 2005.

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Outside of Mrs. Slack's 8th grade typing class, Mickey Melchiondo and Aaron Freeman (both born in 1970) started cracking each other up about an alternate universe where the god Boognish reigned supreme.

After an elaborate transformation, Dean and Gene Ween were birthed in the holy flames of Boognish, and the band, Ween, was created as the great one's mischief-making rock-surrogates on this plane of reality.

That first initial logo of Boognish is still the defining emblem of Ween.

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After the Beastie Boys released Paul's Boutique, they wanted to spend a serious amount of time getting instrumental before their next album.

Their manager at the time recalls Ad-Rock getting outfitted for his guitar at Westwood Music. Apparently, Ad-Rock wanted a guitar with a finish like the one Bob Marley had- consideration of tone wasn't the primary motivation for selection.

At the time of the release of Check Your Head, not many people realized that the Beastie Boys actually knew how to play instruments before they started rapping. The cover of Check York Head (taken by famed photographer Glen Friedman) is supposed to evoke an instrument-armed Beastie Boys version of the Minor Threat Salad Days cover (which Friedman also shot).

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It's billed as the "World's Largest Twine Ball," although since 1950 when Francis A. Johnson wrapped his twine ball in Darwin Minnesota there have been larger and heavier ones constructed in Kansas and Wisconsin. Also, Branson, Missouri supposedly has what is now the largest twine ball in the world, but of course Branson would have something like that. Let's just say the Midwest is amazing.

The twine ball in Darwin (pop: 350) that Weird Al is singing about in his song "The Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota" is under a gazebo in the center of town, and "Twine Ball Day" is held every year in Darwin on the second Saturday of August.

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