{"id":170656,"date":"2025-12-31T08:00:53","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T13:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=170656"},"modified":"2025-12-30T09:24:04","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T14:24:04","slug":"paul-westerberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=170656","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I won&#8217;t apologize for trying to write for smart people.&#8221; &#8212; Paul Westerberg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/paul-westenberg-e1640783806720.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"734\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-172660\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\nIt&#8217;s Paul Westerberg&#8217;s birthday today.<\/p>\n<p>My brother Brendan is the Westerberg Fan, and I will always associate The Replacements with my brother, whose fandom began in high school and continued unabated until this day. I posted all of my brothers&#8217; music essays here on my site &#8211; because they were consigned to oblivion on his old blog, and I thought they were all just too good to lie there hidden. Many of the pieces have to do with the Replacements and\/or Paul Westerberg in his solo career. Brendan wrote about albums and he wrote about seeing The Replacements and\/or Paul Westerberg solo in concert. Being a Replacements fan is a certain kind of fandom. It&#8217;s its own thing. This is so much the case that an entire documentary was created about being a Replacements fan, and Brendan was interviewed for it (the director tripped over one of Brendan&#8217;s pieces and reached out!) Heres the trailer for <i>Color Me Obsessed<\/i>:<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yfSbPLABCyk\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\nBrendan describes his fandom &#8211; and why he is such a fan &#8211; so beautifully and his enthusiasm is catching. So here are the pieces he wrote. Enjoy!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=143340\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">50 Best Albums, #38. The Replacements, <em>Let It Be<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=143373\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">50 Best Albums, #31. Paul Westerberg, <em>Suicaine Gratifaction<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=149601\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Warsaw, Pt. 2: How He Became Paul<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=149615\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Legendary Boy In The Rafters<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=149635\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Element of Danger<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=149905\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Time Operator\/Answering Machine: Westerberg and Walker<\/a><\/p>\n<p><big>&#8220;It&#8217;s fun, but the fun is where it always was. I mean, it&#8217;s still fun to strap on my Les Paul in the basement and turn up the Marshall amp. I&#8217;m still 15. I still enjoy that as much as I ever did.&#8221; &#8212; Paul Westerberg<\/big><\/p>\n<p>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n&nbsp;<br \/>\n<small><em>Thank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here&#8217;s a link to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.venmo.com\/u\/Sheila-OMalley-3\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">my Venmo account<\/a>. And I&#8217;ve launched a Substack, <a href=\"https:\/\/sheilaomalley.substack.com\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sheila Variations 2.0<\/a>, if you&#8217;d like to subscribe.<\/em> <\/small><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/sheilaomalley.substack.com\/embed\" width=\"480\" height=\"320\" style=\"border:1px solid #EEE; background:white;\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s Paul Westerberg&#8217;s birthday today. My brother Brendan is the Westerberg Fan, and I will always associate The Replacements with my brother, whose fandom began in high school and continued unabated until this day. I posted all of my brothers&#8217; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=170656\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,39],"tags":[2756],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=170656"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":196441,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/170656\/revisions\/196441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=170656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=170656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=170656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}