Useless Rant: Finding Peace With the Replacements

A lot of people find peace with god, or at least, their form of God: Allah, Jesus, Buddha, Shiva, or whomever.
I was raised Jewish by a Catholic mother (yeah she converted to Judaism, but only on paper) and an only somewhat traditional Jewish father. I attended hebrew school (it's like church, only with no crackers) every Sunday for my elementary school years, and twice a week during my awkward pubescent transition to prepare for my Bar Mitzah. Ever since that day, June 16th, 2001, I have never stepped foot inside my nor any other temple.
I guess you could say I never really found peace in the institution at all, and in fact, the whole thing was really just irritating. I was always looking forward to doing something else: playing with dinosaurs toys and stuffed animals when I was little, and finally skateboarding in middle school.
The first time I actually found something I could invest my faith in was when Damon Hardjowirogo (now of Starscream fame) introduced me to the Replacements when I was a sophomore in high school. The album was Tim, released in 1985.
Damon, genius that he is, previewed me the record with the track "Bastards of Young." Hearing Paul Westerberg's confessional, salty voice confided in the listener, "Wait on the sons of no one...Bastards of young," gave me something I could really believe in as a dorky, wannabe rock and roller just shy of 16, (later on, I would seek shelter through the song "Sixteen Blue" off of the outstanding record Let it Be).
After the album's opener comes the song's silly/sad sing-along, "I'll Buy", a track about someone who doesn't belong and doesn't care if he's being used. "Dose of Thunder" and "Lay it Down Clown" made me want to find a pool hall and wait until someone looked at me funny just so I could re-organize their face. Of course, at fifteen, you're never as tough as you wanted to be.
"Waitress in the Sky", a real "fuck you" to those with a power-trip authority complex, was one of the funniest songs I had ever heard and helped supply my know-it-all fuckhead attitude that I still possess today. There is no place like public high school where you really want to tell teachers and those in power exactly how you feel.
On the other end of the spectrum, "Here Comes a Regular", "Left of the Dial", "Little Mascara", and "Swinging Party" made me feel more assured about my future. Unlike everything my guidance counselors and health teachers were telling me at the time,"Don't worry, things seem hard here but they will get better", Paul Westerberg was saying, "Fuck all that. Of course it really is that bad." But if he got through it, so could I.
Tim was the album that first pulled me in and transformed me into a die-hard Replacements fan. Melencholy, throat-tearing singing with emotional, atmospheric guitars (Bob Stinson) that sounded good both on the slow tracks and the full-throttle drum beats (Tommy Stinson). Perhaps if I had heard it at a later time in my life, I wouldn't have confided in the group as much as I did... nay... as much as I still do to this day.
Most religious zealots try to find truth and sanctity through rigorous study of scripture. Paul Westerberg laid it all out in front of me at such a maleable, fragile age and saved me all of the trouble. And the greatest part is that if I someday confess to Paul Westerberg how much his music means to me, he would probably just laugh me out of the room.