My Own Personal Jesus

I just had an important epiphany about religion, and I am personally shocked that it has taken me this long to come this realization. I am not Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or even Scientologist, nor am I an atheist, as some people believe (probably because I told them that). I worship a god of my own design, and belong to the church of David Usher. I know you may think that is a joke, or better yet, blasphemous, but I am quite serious: David Usher is my own personal Jesus. Think about it: I was introduced to Moist's music as a teenager, at that time in my life in which I was discovering my identity, and I found a certain undeniable connection with the music. That connection was shared with several of my closest friends, including my friend L, who was with me for that first David Usher sighting on Granville Street when we talked with him and Mark Makowy in Mcdonalds, my mother, who I was with when purchasing a skirt at my favourite (and long gone) store The Underground, and most recently, my friend V, who I was with when I last saw David Usher in concert 2 summers ago in my mid-sized Canadian city, and we shared a special moment when V coerced me into yelling "show us your tits" to David, which proved to be quite a humourous comment for David, me, and the other 200ish people in attendance. From 1994 to the present, I have seen Moist in concert more times than I can count (9?) and David Usher in concert nearly as many times (5 ?). Moist and David helped me through the tough teenage years when I was more than a little "alternative", helped me cope with my mother's death, helped me plagiarize for an english assignment for a university poetry class (yes I admit it, I'm a fraud - if the cute blonde teaching assistant from English 102 at SFU from 1996 is listening, here is my confession: I did not come up with the striking literary thought and if anger is the ending of the thing that we've become, for the mother and the father and the sister and the son, through the shallow without wanting realization to mistake, through the ugliness to open all the things we can't replace. The rest of the shitty teenage angst poem was mine, though - I think I was Emo before Emo existed), helped me realize the value of Canadian music, helped me spend a lot of money on tickets, tshirts and CDs, helped me create some unlikely friendships (online and otherwise), and helped me discover the true sexiness of the singer himself. Like worshipping Jesus or God, this has its drawbacks, as it's quite possible no man will ever measure up to David, and sadly, even though I may continue to come close to David from time to time over the years, he will never really be mine. He is a fantasy, not just because he is married (and gay, according to most guys I know), and even though I have made offerings to his church over the years (fan letters, a necklace with his name in alphabet letters on it at the Victoria show, and a large portion of my vocal cords), I will always just be one of many followers in his mind. Of course it is easy to fool myself into thinking, usually when being shone down upon by his radiant voice at a concert, that I am the only one, that he remembers me, hears my voice, and will sacrifice all other things in life to make me happy, but I know this is not true. What really matters, though, is that there is always a chance that could happen, like in any religion, and one day I could end up being the chosen one (or at the very least receive eternal salvation). Until then, I will continue to listen to his music, be comforted by it, try to convert some non-believers, and not give a shit about what anyone says about my religion, because the Church of David Usher has taken me in, and short of me doing something really blasphemous (like saying I don't like the black leather cord he wears around his neck or the ratty sneakers he insists in thinking are cool), I firmly believe it will look after me until I die.