Mumbling, Wandering Paul Westerberg Draws Crowd of 10,000

MINNEAPOLIS — Minnesotans, like the rest of the country, have been so pent up and starved for live entertainment for the past year that they’ve gotten desperate. This might be a prime reason why when spotted in public, a massive crowd formed around an unsuspecting Paul Westerberg going about his day and talking to himself.

It’s unclear if Paul Westerberg, the frontman for The Replacements, was just talking to himself in the way someone normally would or if he truly had some things on his mind. This question could further explain why a crowd that would have sold out the Excel Center formed around Westerberg as he made his way through Loring Park. You could hear him mumble to himself “Diverse set of squirrels you got here.” This enigmatic sentence seemed to get the crowd going.

“Men Without Ties!” screamed a member of the crowd, perhaps hoping Paul would pull a guitar out of nowhere and start singing. Not this time, folks, Paul didn’t seem to notice he was being followed by a good chunk of Minneapolis. As he reached the downtown area, after having sworn at the “brutalist building structures surrounding us all”, Paul realized he wasn’t wearing a mask. He produced one from his pocket, remarking what sounded like “Ain’t got no plan, pandemic man”. And as if he had just rewritten Bastards of Young, these starved for content Gen Xers erupted into applause, and a bootleg of the musing made its way into heavy rotation on The Current. Again, Paul noticed nothing, ducking into a nearby skyway. 

“He took the Skyway!” cried another fan. Seeing this as a fitting end to an impromptu concert, everyone joined arms and started singing “You take the Skywaaayy. High above the busy little one-waaaayy”. 

Just then, Jeremy Mesersmith was seen leaving Chipotle. “Spice on the ole’ vox box” said Mesersmith as he became the new wandering, spoken word messiah…smith.