Bernie loved concerts, but Bernie didn’t like just any band. Bernie turned up his nose at Bon Jovi, passed on seeing Pearl Jam and R.E.M. and absolutely refused to buy tickets for Keith Urban. For you see, Bernie was a fan of one band and one band only. Bernie was a Ween fan.

“Hey, Bernie!” his friends yelled. “Do you want to go with us to see Kittie? How about Live and the Scorpions? But Bernie just shook his head. “They’re not Ween,” he said. And in Bernie’s eyes, that was answer enough.

Then one day Bernie went to the sporting goods store and bought a pair of powerful binoculars. Then he went over to Ween’s neighborhood and climbed the tree in the field behind the band’s backyard. Once he found the perfect branch upon which to perch, Bernie trained his binoculars on the band’s lair. “Now I can have all Ween, all the time,” he said to himself.

But it didn’t stop there. Bernie kept track of the comings and goings of his favorite band. He followed them to the store on Wednesdays, to the laundromat on Saturdays and to church on Sundays. “Ha!” he said to himself in answer to the voices he sometimes heard in his head urging him to broaden his horizons by seeing other bands, such as Tears For Fears or maybe Gov’t Mule. “Someday, I’m going to have Ween all to myself. Just you watch.”

And then the day came when Bernie decided that watching his favs 24/7 and sending them cryptic emails declaring his love and obedience just wasn’t satisfying enough. He went to his local Home Depot and bought some rope, chains, duct tape and chloroform. “Robert Blake says you can never have enough duct tape,” Bernie said as he left the store. For once the voices in his head agreed.

When night came on the end of that fateful day, Bernie gathered up his ropes, his chains and his tape, climbed down from his tree, hopped the fence and made his way through Ween’s backyard, being very careful not to bump into the swing-set or stumble in the sandbox. But no sooner did his foot touch the steps to the back porch when alarms started ringing and floodlights lit the yard. A big security guard, even bigger than the ones at Korn concerts, handcuffed Bernie and took him to jail, where he sits to this day sharing a cell with a 350 pound Cher fan named Jack who insists on calling Bernie “Bernadette” and makes him sing Cher songs every single day.

Let this be a lesson to you. Bands, such as Eagles and Leftover Salmon are placed upon this Earth for your enjoyment. However, there’s a fine line between being a fan and being someone like Bernie. It’s quite all right to go to a show, say Drowning Pool or Unwritten Law, and rock the night away, but never, ever try to cross that line and make that band your own. Or you just might end up like Bernie, stuck in a prison cell with Jack and singing “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” morning, noon and night.

And that, boys and girls, is the story of Jack and the Ween Stalker.