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in mental illness and abuse products of midwestern recalcitrance and repression that held the bond in a peculiar way, said frontman paul Westerberg, we hit it off in ways that normal guys don't, we understood each other back when they got their first little flush of fame, Westerberg would say as a cockeyed boast that they were losers, that there wasn't a high school diploma or a driver's license among them. They've never had any clear eyed ambition or direction they got as far as they did, only because they hungered for attention for love for sanction, for volume for chaos. The band's music filled the funeral chapel that day, an insulin soundtrack for a send off bob's mother, Anita stinson had asked Peter Jesperson, the man who discovered the group and bend their closest ally to make a tape of their early albums. He felt funny about a song like Fox school blaring in a mortuary, but you don't deny a grieving families request one x 1. The surviving replacements arrived, Paul Tommy drummer Chris Mars and guitarist Slim Dunlap. This was the reunion none of them had wanted and all of them had feared and there was bob still the center of attention lying in his casket. When Westerberg walked in, johnny's going to die was playing it hit him square in the face. Johnny always takes more than he needs knows a couple chords, knows a couple of leads. He had written those lines about the doomed ex new york dolls. Guitarist johnny thunders after seeing him looking wasted and sounding brilliant at a concert back in 1980 and everybody tells me that johnny is hot, johnny needs something, what he ain't got bob picked up guitar, learned how to play a few rock songs and then just beat the ship out of the thing. For all the frustrations in his life, noted Westerberg, he was a lot like thunders in his hands. The guitar didn't scream it, cried for help practically. We used to say johnny made a guitar sound like an animal in pain, bob had that too. 200 or so Mourners filled the pews, bob's acoustic guitar leaned against the casket in a quiet corner. The replacements gathered with Jesperson. The air was heavy for a moment. The group had fired peter then bob, then chris and they'd sniped at one another in the press and in song lyrics, all of that was forgotten. Now. They say Death brings you together. Said mars, I hadn't seen Tommy for a long time and I hadn't really seen paul for a long time. We were talking and shooting the ship for a bit, but it was bathed in this sad, sad thing mars had done an etching for the cover of the memorial program. A stratocaster with wings bob's mother had asked Jesperson to deliver the eulogy, but peter disappeared. He didn't think he could get through it. The duty went to local musician turned rock writer jim Walsh who had known the group since its early days. He spoke of stinson's great appetite for life and noted how UNb ob like the occasion felt. He would have laughed at us in our suits today. The pomp and circumstance, he would have wanted to know where the beer was, babes in Toyland drummer Lori Barbero, one of bob's close friends sobbed through a reading of the Lord's Prayer afterwards. People stood up and told bob stories among them. The young musicians he'd worked with after the replacements. Ray Rice's dad had played with bob for five years in static taxi. The band that had given stinson new life after the heartbreak of his replacements exit. That was like his new family said Barbero, they were all like brothers and they treated him really wonderfully. It covered up the sore spot. It was the only time I was ever laughing and crying at the same time in my life, said Rick's dad, mike Leonard who shared an apartment and a group, the bleeding hearts with bob for several years before his passing recalled. It was such a rock and roll funeral. Every musician that knew him was there paying their respects, Anita stinson sat stoically through it all. She had been gripped by terror when she got the call about bob a few nights earlier then that passed. I don't think I got sad until I bet a month after the funeral before the sadness and missing bobby really hit me. She said as she accepted condolences and sympathy heard and felt the stories of motion. A peculiar pride seized her as hard as bobby had it. He did amazing things. He was loved by a lot of people. Bob's sister, Lonnie would remember sadness because you'd always hoped for more for him, she said, and guilt, especially because of the way we were raised.