The Replacements got together and played a gig last night (Aug. 24, 2013) in Toronto.  It was the first time they’d performed together since July of 1991, and for me, though I was not there, it was as if the Beatles got back together.  I never thought it’d happen.  I’m not the only one who thought that, rabid ‘Mats fans all over thought the day would never come.  Why do we people who love the Replacements give such a shit?

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Our slow ejection from the State of California was gradual at first, predicated on a string of unlucky events.  My mom’s boss had embezzled from the company she worked for and so everyone there lost their jobs.  Due to subsequent mounting bills, my family was kicked out of the Lido (my own personal sanctuary) in December of 1981.  I’d moved around a lot as a kid, but the two and a half years I spent at the Lido had made me feel safe and secure.  If I was a fool for feeling that way, then this was my fool’s paradise.

Though I supposed that not only Victor Kilian; but also the several residents assaulted inside and outside of the fortress walls; and even the unnamed guy who kept starting fires in the Lido lobby would not have agreed with me.

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Growing up without a male role model, I was forced to turn to the world of television.  It was 1980, and I was either looking in the wrong place, or there were not that many viable broadcast options for a 12 going on 13 year old wanna-be-rebellious mama’s boy.

I guess I was also a sister’s boy too, if there even was such a thing.

There were other boys at school, but, being my peers, they were equally uninformed – but hopefully not as pathetic as I considered myself to be.  Except for Mr. Bishop (who told a couple of harrowing stories of the Watts Riots), the teachers were all dicks and were therefore unapproachable.  Where would I turn to find an older guy to show me how to avoid the pitfalls of my teen years?  To show me how to, you know, just be a guy?

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New York’s typically mundane wooden water towers are actually among the most beautiful things in the world (no, c’mon, hear me out now!).  Their ubiquity tells a story of tradition and longevity that stretches back over a century. In fact, their very existence is crucial to the needs of Metropolitan residents.  Please indulge me while I both share a little history and present my case (through pictures) that New York’s water towers are wonderful little works of art.

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