One Perfect Swim

photo by Kelly Mayberry

The good news is the same as the bad news today. You will only get one perfect swim per child. For many reasons, a lot of parents won’t even get that. My Dad doesn’t swim, ergo no perfect swim. Some people work so hard to bring a child into this world and maybe that beautiful child doesn’t live long enough to get to her perfect swim. But me, I have two daughters and I’ll have total, two perfect swims. I had my last one August 9, 2025 at a cabin in Solon Springs, Wisconsin. That was with my younger daughter N, she’s five.

S is eight and my perfect swim with her was when she was five. Three years ago, Lake Lizzy in Minnesota by Pelican Rapids. The perfect swim comes from this alchemy that relies upon bravery, joy and dependency being meted out in exacting, but unmeasurable, proportions. It relies upon your child wanting something more than to cling to you, but wanting to use you as a home base so frequently that you might think it’s just clinging from a distance. It relies upon you wanting your child to swim away from you, but not too far and not too fast. You keep her so close that from a distance you might think it’s just clinging. . .but if you look close it’s a drawing out, it’s a bringing in. Her hand, still a little shivery from the cold water, holding and releasing your forearm while she kicks around, and while she looks at you. You loosen and you let her swim but your hand is at the ready, she will find your hand before she’ll find the absence of your hand if she goes looking. And she laughs and she talks. And then you don’t talk. You just tread. You laugh. You are a union. You are a union that I personally haven’t had as a father on dry land. I need nothing more than to hold her. She needs the same. Hours from now we’ll have a near perfect swim. But I will need something more than to hold her, I will tone down my dependency. She will too, she will bank on her bravery. We will be in a negotiation. It will be joyous. It will not be perfect. The bravery has moved from three parts to four parts, the dependency from two parts to one.

N splashes me always. Two weeks ago we were in the water and she splashed me too. It was at a water park, the water was warm, the splashes were timid. This weekend, we’ll be in Lake Superior and the splashes will be so arctic that I will be holding in a tirade of swears. But in Middle Eau Claire Lake in Solon Springs the splashes were comedic, refreshing and perfect. We play a game where I open my mouth as wide as I can and I start to talk and she splashes the water in my face. We make this strange eye contact. Eye contact like you had with your high school girlfriend for weeks two through three of your seven-week relationship when it was all new, and all familiar. In that water, I question why anyone bothered to invent a camera. The photo is useless. It doesn’t look like the moment unless the sun is drying your hair, unless the algae is low where you are and you are floating a little just for fun. The camera can never. The camera should never. I don’t think the perfectness can be recorded, and part of me is thankful for that. The part of me that is not thankful for that is writing this now, hoping that it can be recorded, if I remember it just right and if I tell the truth when I write.

I only realized there was one perfect swim when I swam with N this summer. When I swam with S three years ago, I figured this was just how swimming would be from here on out. She woke up early and she asked to go swimming. This had happened before but it would always be fits and starts. Maybe the water’s too cold. Maybe we can’t find the needed accessories. But that morning we went out with a floaty, and we stayed there for a long time, maybe thirty minutes. Floating, laughing, eye contact. S kept on wanting to go out a little further. She would ask if my feet could still touch. Her voice, her voice was just so different than it would be today. Her high pitched, on-the-eve-of-kindergarten voice; a joy and a curiosity so unbridled I imagine it would stay that way.

On these perfect swims, I was in a union wider and privater than I have found on solid ground. We were in harmony with everything, we were performing for no one, not even each other. I resented the idea of writing about it the minute the idea to write about it walked into my brain. I resented shaping the way I would tell you about it while it was happening. I softened on that. I started this blog to stop thinking about how I would later tweet or post about my life experiences. This blog worked. I don’t frame my life in tweets anymore. I frame it in these stories, in these images, on these screens. I start to think about one perfect swim and it fits one of my highest goals as a writer; can you read something for the first time that you’ve thought forever?

Why is it one perfect swim? Is it because of the blindingly fast pace of change that kids go through? Is it because of how often the lake is too cold, or the floaty has a hole in it, or because it’s too windy to be serene that weekend? Do I only have two perfect swims to give? I’m sure if we had a third or tenth child, I could dial up another swim for each of those babies. But maybe the cosmic and moral universe that the lake connects you with governs the amount of moments where you get to swim that close to the cosmos. What if you only get one perfect swim per child, because that is the only way it can be perfect? What if you only get one perfect swim per child, because it’s better to have to hunt for it? It’s better to long for it. It’s better to remember than to reenact it.

Steve McPherson Has Thought About This One a Lot

My brother Steve stepped in to join the Trivia Mafia podcast. I am not saying I am a thoughtless person. But in many ways he is much more thoughtful than me. He is also much better at trivia than me. We had fun. My roots with Steve run deep but you’ll hear that Chuck’s roots with Steve run pretty deep. Steve, as DJ McFierce, was one of the first DJs for Trivia Mafia back at the 331 Club. This is long before it was called Trivia Mafia. 75% of my personality is me just getting into things that I think would make Steve more interested in hanging out with me. I’m a younger sibling to my very core. Very fun to hang out with Steve given all these factors. Tune in and enjoy!

Finding a Rhythm and a Format with No Brains, No Lightbulbs

Chuck, Brenna, Sean

The hit podcast No Brains, No Lightbulbs is now 3 episodes old. Chuck and I started really talking about the thing in January and we started recording in May. We’ve been working with Beth K. Gibbs as the producer and I feel we rounded a corner with our third episode. Better format, better pacing, shorter, funnier, better trivia. Chuck, Beth and myself come with plenty of experiences that position us to being good at doing a podcast. But that doesn’t immediately guarantee you a good podcast. This episode was the first one where I felt strong about the format, the vibe, the small talk.

There is no comfort or pride in thinking you are probably good at something. I kind of think I would be a good sample-based hip-hop producer given my background and knowledge. But that means a whole lot of nothing if I’m not actually making compelling music that I am proud of. Same goes for podcast. Like all porky white men in their forties who talk on the radio for a job I was pretty convinced I could “handle this here podcast thing pretty easy I ‘magine.” But the pride comes from doing it. Well, we’re doing it. It’s good and it’s worth listening to. I hope you’ll do just that this weekend and then I hope you’ll tell your friends (you have friends right?) about it.

You Can Now Order Your Own Copy of the Country Cabin Crapper Companion Volume 2

It’s on! You can now order your own copy of the Country Cabin Crapper Companion Volume 2. 150 Cabin Questions. How to not be an imposter! Red Flag Favorite Bands! Brackets! It’s all in there. Order your copy here.

The Legendary Summer Hooky Day

Chuck and I started doing trivia together in 2007. In pretty quick fashion we became friends and co-business owners. One of those first summers Chuck invited me to hooky day. Chuck’s friends named everything. His friends were an inverted bell curve of employment. Many had better jobs than any of my friends. They either ran the Zombie Pub Crawl (for a handful of the founders the single day Zombie Pub Crawl would legitimately require close to year round full-time work and would legitimately provide close to year round pay). Chuck’s friends were fun and adventurous and they generally just seemed to be much more down for some weird shit than my friends were. The crown jewel of their summer calendar was hooky day.

TUBING

You have to understand that I didn’t do anything like this growing up. My family was criminally indoors. Maybe some camping while I was with another family, but definitively, nothing like this. And you have to understand that when you join traditions in your 20s that have been happening for five years you feel like you are joining an ancient tradition. Five years is an eon in your twenties. It was just in 2024 that I realized that I was one of the old guard. I was a tuber. I love hooky day.

I’ve gotten sunburnt on hooky day. I’ve gotten very drunk. I’ve held on to my trunks desperately while my testicles and butt are assaulted by a Soul Train style dance line of rocks in four inch water. Tubing is arduous to my sensitive ass (and testicles). I’m sure there are many recreation activities that are far more arduous than tubing. But I don’t do most of those. This is different than a cabin day. This is different than a road trip. This is different than pickle ball.

TUBING

I don’t know everyone who comes to tubing day. A lot of them I just see that day. But I see them every year on this day for years and years. “Do you still manage the website for a bicycle equipment company” “how’s the library” “are you still working for the state and do you still get a half day of vacation every pay period?” These are morning questions but at some point the conversation turns to tubing. One time I asked a random life question while riding down to the spot in Taylor’s care. Taylor didn’t answer the question. . .he just paused and said. . . “that’s a good question for the river.” The conversation is the beautiful Cannon River scenery. We are haphazardly grabbing beers. We are laughing at things. We are singing made up songs. We are pulling over to enjoy some sweaty chartuberie. Some people roll with some coolers in a float-tilla. Some people are lone wolves on their own solo tube journey. I’m always next to Claudia. I don’t know if she appreciates it. But she lets me tie up with her every year. She doesn’t miss tubing day either.

TUBING

It’s important that it happens in the middle of the week. Everyone has taken this severe choice of a single day of vacation. You eat a little breakfast in the Twin Cities. You drive to Welch Village. You maybe get a burger on the way home and then you are back into regular life. This is just a special thing. It’s a special group. The ringleader is Taylor. He seems to be sort of a professional ringleader for a job, bouncing from thing to thing, bands, events, publications and more. We get a little universe here on the Cannon River for a day and Taylor is who brings us together. You flake too many years in a row. . .you’re not on the list anymore. But Taylor always assembles a crew.

TUBING

I’m a regular, but I’m still a visitor. Most of this crew met at the University of Minnesota. They’re mostly from North Dakota and Wisconsin; college transplants. I don’t understand all of the magic of hooky day, even after almost ten years in the mix. But ever since the first time I did this I knew I would love this tradition for as long as could. You can wake up in Saint Paul and by 11am be drinking a beer, lighting a joint and getting a sunburn in the middle of a river.

NOTE THE DRAGONFLY ON THOSE LEGS

At the start of this year’s journey someone asked me why my wife Rachel comes to this. Rachel would hate it. Rachel’s tolerance for stoned, drunk, idiots in the daytime is next to zero. Rachel’s tolerance for sustained periods of body wetness in trying environments. . .zero. This year a thunderstorm just parked on top of the river and unloaded rain on us for about fifteen minutes. Pouring rain. I looked over at Johanna and she was just getting assaulted by rain. Her foldy sun hat was soaked and folding around her face as she tried to balance in her tube. I think if I invited Rachel to an event where that happened. . .she might actually divorce me. Tubing is arduous. Hooky day is magical. I will tube forever.

Summer is Ready for You, Will You Return The Favor

We are in the thick of it. The sweat of it. The fun of it. Remember this feeling in January you jackass. It’s gonna be hot. But the grooves are going to be sublime on the outdoor stage of The White Squirrel in Saint Paul. Big Trouble is going from 6-8 tomorrow and The Angry Line Cook will be on hand slinging burgers. What a treat. Get involved! See you on Saturday.

New Podcast Episode: “It Was a Little Schvitzy Outside” with Claire Wahmanholm

Episode 2 of No Brains, No Lightbulbs is out. Our guest is my good friend and great poet Claire Wahmanholm.

As I write this I’m sitting in a little room next to a lake in Detroit Lakes. It’s my friend Jenna’s cabin and we’ve been coming here this weekend every year for over ten years. Chuck and I decided to release these episodes on Saturday because it was where we found a drought in our podcast consumption. Plenty to listen to on Tuesdays - Fridays and then a real shortage in the weekend and on Monday. We figure we are pretty close to the target market for this podcast so we’d answer our own needs with the content. If you find yourself wanting to hear Ezra Klein shoehorn “abundance” in a different tasteful and toned down blazer. . .why not skip it for today and turn this one on? It’ll much better align with what a Saturday should be. Enjoy.

It’s Actually An Honor

My basement is a navigable mess. There is not a method in the madness. There is method and there is madness. They live on top of each other. Madness taking over the top of the couch, method taking over the recently reorganized drumset area. As my daughter S practices her guitar before bedtime and I EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FUDGE through the treble clef I look around and look at what I will clean up and organize the next time I have time. I come down on Thursday nights and roll some joints for the weekend while listening to either Political Gabfest or Jazz88 and I think about how to make the room better. Bit by bit, and in fits and starts, I have made it better. The centerpiece of the basement is the music room. Heiruspecs rehearsed down there. Now we’re retired. . .maybe permanently. Big Trouble rehearses down here once a month. Rachel has a desk over in the corner. I do some work down here. S practices guitar. And I house the graveyard of recorded projects of yesteryear. I have an unconscionable amount of CD copies of the 2008 stone cold classic Heiruspecs. If you will take them all I will give them to you for free. T-shirts. Twinkie Jiggles records. Minidiscs. Some cleaning material called Borax that I believe Rachel spills on the merch on purpose every three months. Hanukkah decorations. Beers no one wants. A laundry area where items slowly move from dirty to clean and back again with a long liminal phase.

I find that liminal float between proud, disappointed, frustrated and ambitious. I find it in my basement. I dreamed of having a house with a basement where the band could practice. I dreamt of living next to grown-up assholes with weight sets and a 300 inch TV that is perfect for gaming in their stupid basement and I thought I would have a room full of keyboards, recording stuff, posters et cetera. I am in a room I dreamt of having. A room of merch. A room of posters celebrating and documenting the fact that I was in a band that traveled all around the country. That put out records. That got written about in magazines. I didn’t think the hoodies would have Borax on them. I didn’t think the Seagull acoustic would sit stringless on th wall. I thought I would still be writing songs into it. But I’m glad I have a basement for music.

Nowadays somebody orders a record, t-shirt or CD from Heiruspecs about twice a month. I dreamed about that too. Dreamed about being in a band with a PO Box. Dreamed about being in a band that had a little area to do shipping. A sharpie, a pile of records. A shelf with masking tape labels that read 2X, XL, L, M, S. I dreamed about it all. I might’ve dreamed about that more than I dreamed about being the band that has a warehouse. Pearl Jam has a warehouse. They have a batting cage. Eddie Vedder has tremendous collection of baseball shit. But I bet he dreamed more about the masking tape denoting shirt sizes for his rehearsal space. It’s a fucking honor to have t-shirts that people want to wear.

Ed. Note - What’s the word I’m looking for? Neigh. I’ll try neigh.

Neigh, it’s a higher honor that people in Imperial Beach, CA want to wear these t-shirts. I looked up to the guys at Burlesque. The poster rolls. The utility. The work of it all. I felt the same being at Paisley Park the first time I went after Prince died. Paisley Park is not even a temple to work. It is just work. It is a utility-serving place that made it possible for many people to make records, film videos, plan productions, launch careers. I don’t think Prince dreamed about masking tape shirt sizes, I think he dreamed about magnetic tape capturing a vintage Fender Rhodes being recorded while the deadest tom toms in the world are captured in high-fidelity by well positioned microphones. But it’s all work.

I have given my daughters S and N the duty of helping me with Heiruspecs shipping. S has an elaborate pricing technique but I basically pay her something like $3 or $4 per record and I give N maybe a $1 of $2. I pay them out my pocket. We look at the bandcamp order page. S reads me the addresses. I write em on the packages. N carries them upstairs. We end up always having to do it on Sundays. We take the small amount of packages out to the car, we drive to the airport post office to send them. There’s plenty of musicians who don’t know a thing about that post office. I know it well. Sending out new CDs. Promo CDs. Taxes at 10:49pm on April 15. It’s all an honor. It’s an honor to have spent part of my life trying to broadcast music I believe in. I’m not settled with Heiruspecs’ retirement. Our retirement doesn’t yet sit right with me. I don’t know how to explain to others or myself. And I resented doing the shipping. I resented the basement. It sits at the ready for a moment of rebirth that won’t come. It’s the Pompeii of a once active project.

But on Monday, when we took the thirty minutes we had after lunch and before canoeing to do the packaging, I started to find a different footing. This is what I dreamed about. It’s much worse than I thought it would be. Every time someone orders a shirt they order the one size and color combo we don’t have. I end up sending them three shirts they didn’t want in the same size, refunding their order, eating the shipping cost and paying my girls $7 for the assistance. But, it is an honor. I don’t know what the other guys in the band dreamed about. I don’t know what they got and didn’t want. Don’t know what they wanted and didn’t get. I am starting to understand those things for me. But as my daughters see me hold that Sharpie, and reliably fail to get the tape to stick right the first time, they are seeing me living a part of my dream. And they are hearing me say “F” cause I don’t say fuck in front of them but they know what I’m saying all the same. They are seeing some dream I had, that, through decades of modifications, I am now living. It is an honor to share the music I helped make with the people around the country who love it enough to buy it. It is an honor to drive to the post office, to explain to Sadie what a mercury warning is. We put our kids in front of screens to be entertained and to give the parents some respite from responsibility. But a couple times a year I park S in front of a full ass desktop computer and we punch in tracking numbers, she types thank you notes to the folks who bought them. Screens are for work to. Screens are for the nuts and bolts of sharing art, sharing culture, sharing community. It’s an honor to send those three shirts out to Imperial Beach and lose $7 to do so. I wanted this.

No Brains, No Lightbulbs Episode 1

New trivia podcast. Ver proud of what we’ve done and I hope you’ll give it a listen and a wildly positive rating and comment.

Does Tacky Still Exist?

Maybe the idea of tacky dies with my generation. There’s a way in which every winner of the YouTube era, every Instagram superstar, they all still comes off tacky to me. When I see a foxy lady on Instagram in a unique setting I think. . .who is taking the photo? Her friend? A professional? Her man? Sometimes when I go to a beach I see a couple hanging on the sand and all that’s happening is that the dude is taking pictures of the girl. She is telling him exactly what the fuck to do. She is bossing him around. She is reviewing the photos. They aren’t laughing. They are working. I don’t know if the dude is in to it. I feel the girl is into it. But like, if you want some fancy ass beach photos of yourself. . .this is what you do. It might look tacky to me and you, but it is in the only option. It’s not happening on accident.

I think I’m on the tacky side. In the hand-you-a-flyer era I would hand any fuckface on planet Earth a flyer. I was fearless yet not annoying. But I was a beast with the flyers. I think that actually did a lot to help build the audience for band’s I played in.

But in the “we should make a little video” era I’ve been lost. When ever I’ve been with Heiruspecs and most times I’ve been with Dessa when someone has said “we should make a little video” there’s a collective groan. They never turn out great. It’s a lot of people doing something plainly promotional, but attempting to downplay the promotional aspect. The camera phone follows the members of the band around the practice room, some engage, some ignore. It’s awkward, it’s fleeting. You don’t really know if it works or if it doesn’t. People come to the show but no one ever says “I was on the fence and then I watched you play that bass line in sweatpants in your basement and it was a done deal.” But there’s a collectively enforced tacky policing from the group. The easiest win is for the reluctant above-it-all type. That personality type is in great surplus in most musical groups. They have deemed it all tacky, they have no notes, they just don’t want in. I think in my entire life I wonder if I have ever been described as reluctant. I’m just not a reluctant person. I’m not above-it-all. I’m in it. We should make a little video.

I am tacky. Tacky won’t die on my watch. It’s important to share your shit, to shout your shit. Or maybe stop shouting. But find a way to share it. And find a way to share it that isn’t tacky. Why do I have a blog? In some sense it is cause long Facebook posts are tacky. You might know Zachariah Combs, NEW MC. One of my longest running partners. We’ve been in groups together since 2000. He’s a Southside Minneapolis legend. Rapper/festie/writer/town crier. He makes long facebook posts. Mostly this blog is my long facebook posts. . .but you know. . .long facebook posts are tacky. They are tacky to me. They are not the style that works for me. But this blog is how I stay not lost in the “we should make a little video” era. I share with you, on terms largely dictated by me.

There’s a hook here. This post is winding up to something. It’s winding up to tell you that Trivia Mafia is launching a podcast tomorrow. Me and Chuck are hosting. We started the Trivia Mafia thing in 2007. It’s big. It’s big in ways I don’t even really understand. Chuck and I have a really good relationship. He still runs Trivia Mafia. I work at Jazz88. I come to the holiday party for Trivia Mafia. If we come into some unexpected money and Chuck and Brenna are going out to a fancy dinner they’re bringing me and Rachel too. Every year when Trivia Mafia pays our taxes we go out for a fancy dinner, I like that night a lot. But now we are starting a new chapter. I’m not a silent partner. I’m making a podcast and it’s exciting. It’s also taking a shot at a thing I think I’ll be good at. I’m good on the radio. I’m good at hosting events. I’m good at running trivia. But all those checklists. . .you still might make a bad podcast. So you have to go in and make it.

So we’ve been going in and making a podcast every Thursday morning at 10am. It’s been weird. We’ve made four episodes. They keep getting better. Chuck and I are hitting a good stride after a bunch of completely predictable but truly unexpected, at least by me, conflicts in the process of getting this started. Just weird. And then shit started clicking. We started more easily agreeing on things. I would go back and listen to the podcast voluntarily even after we approved the episode. We’ve been working with a producer named Beth K. Gibbs. She does an impressive job and I’ve been admiring her work and admiring the vibe we have on the podcast. Here’s the first episode. Unless you’re reading this thing at like 11:47pm on a Friday, you can listen to this podcast now.

Nowadays if you make a podcast you have two paths known to me by getting people to listen to your podcast. You can get a bunch of ratings. You need a lot. Or you can have good social media posts that get people electrified about listening. I thought Wosney Lambre looked like the fat kid from Juice. Audio is good. But people watch podcasts on YouTube. Chuck and I are confused by this. We are audio podcasts folks. We listen to the Political Gabfest, Bill Simmons, Blank Check, Bomani Jones, Juan Ep is Life. It’s audio. I don’t know what some of the hosts look like. But you have to make a spicy splash on the ‘Gram. Also, content from podcasts is some of the best stuff I see when I do relent and scan a little. Here’s the one we made for episode one. It took me like 6 hours to make this. It’s 32 seconds long.

Sweet jesus. I’m proud of that. I’m proud of knowing the year MLK was assassinated super quick. And proud for delivering it super fast. I don’t know Mia well, but she cracked my ass up with that one. And whenever I make Chuck laugh it’s a good ass day. I’ve had a lot of good ass days in that regard lately.

So, I’m tacky. I think this podcast is already good on its way to great. Chuck and I have a lot of chemistry. We did a trivia night together for 15 years. We have a purity to our trivia thing. Chuck and I got put together to run a trivia night. We didn’t know each other. I knew Rob Skoro, the bartender at 331. Chuck knew Jarret Oulman, the owner at 331. They both booked us to run trivia and figured they should just make us do it together. We met at the Dinkytowner in December of 2006 and got started with trivia in January of 2007. We had a MySpace page. It was that era.

Trivia Mafia now has logos, brand strategies, style guides, staff meetings. But at one point it was me and Chuck smoking cigarettes outside of the 331 Club with two sharpies. And there we were on Thursday morning ironing out our last to dos for this podcast launch. And we have a very vague sense that we should “do a promo.” Chuck feigns like he has no idea what I’m talking about. But to some extent. . .he doesn’t. Chuck is a social media lurker, but not a broadcaster. I’d bet $1400 that Chuck has never handed a flyer to a stranger in his 45 years of existence on planet Earth. But Chuck is a beast. Chuck is amazing. But we need to do “promo.” I position the camera. Chuck touches his hair, cause Chuck always gets his hair right. Earlier this week a designer frankensteined Chuck’s best hair photo onto his best body photo. And we ended up opting for a different photo altogether. Chuck is amazing. So is his body, so is his hair. I bet his body hair is amazing too.

Before we film, Chuck asks if we should ask everyone to rate the podcast with 5 stars. We talk about the details. We agree that’s an annoying boss move to say to all your employees. “Hey peasants, go listen to our recorded conversations and rate them highly.” No that won’t work. We don’t want to be tacky. And man, that move is unacceptably tacky. But you’re not my employee. You just read this blog. Subscribe. Give it five stars. If you don’t give it five stars I’m inclined to believe you’re a hater.™ Bomani Jones. Then we make a vanilla ass promo video and then we go back to our days. Chuck’s picking up his wife from an appointment. I have to walk the dog, eat lunch and go to work. We are decidedly adults. No sharpies. No cigarettes. No flyers. But I fear if I don’t shout my shit, if I don’t figuratively give you a flyer, if I don’t push this. . .maybe no podcast. Maybe no radio show. . .maybe I’d have to work a normal ass job. . .maybe no vanity magazine project. . .shouting is part of the work. . .tacky is part of the work. . .and fun is part of the work. I loved bumming an American Spirit off of our regular Dawn on sticky Sunday night in Northeast Minneapolis and making the team do a foot race for a tiebreaker. 331 trivia nights some of the best of my life. Met my wife there. But I’m not going back to a weekly trivia night. Can’t do it. Got those kids. Too old for it in my current understanding of what I can and cannot do.

But to be next to Chuck, making him pop his head back from a joke I stumbled into. To create. To make a little video. To make a little something to share. It’s what I’m about. It’s what this show is about. It’s about getting what you got out of your trivia night. And it was never just trivia that you got out of your trivia night. It was laughs, it was friends, it was perfect. Do you miss your trivia night? Do you still go to a trivia night and you just want a little more? We’ve got that. GIVE US 5 STARS.

The Country Cabin Crapper Companion Volume 2 is Here

Things have felt a little slow around the old mcpherson.club crew. I have been working away at completing the Country Cabin Crapper Companion Volume 2. Huge thanks to my brother for seeing through the final mile of properly inverting the pages to print properly after I tried to do so at 3:35am to little avail. Huge thanks to Meghan Mahar and Mike Haeg for writing pieces for the issue. And a huge thanks to everyone who stays involved in this blog and my offerings in general. I am humbled and grateful. I am also kind of hungry, a little sleepy and significantly over-caffeinated.

Big Trouble plays in four hours over at the White Squirrel in Saint Paul and I’ll have at least 5 copies with me. I’d like to charge you $5 for a copy if you are into such a thing. I had a big goal of getting these out by the first outdoor White Squirrel gig and I am very thankful to everybody who made that a reality. Wabadoo. Now we make a magazine every summer. That’s great news. Order it right here!

Big Trouble Begins Our Outdoor Residency This Saturday at The White Squirrel

Big Things for Big Trouble this Summer. We’ll be outside on the patio of the White Squirrel on the last Saturday of June, July and August. They’ll be food from the Angry Line Cook and jams from us truly. Bring your family and enjoy the outdoor splendor! What a treat.

Big Trouble on Saturday in the Lovely World of Saint Paul

Believe it or not, at some point May will end and it will be June. This has been a miraculously long month, the type of month where one of your paychecks doesn’t even have healthcare taken out of it. And this Saturday Big Trouble is celebrating the end of this month with an instrumental throw down at the White Squirrel. Looking forward to delivering the goods this Saturday. I don’t think I’ve ever really cried wolf about Big Trouble. I’ve said we are on a great run and if you’ve seen us the story checks out. So get your little butt down to White Squirrel to see us. Is it all ages? Yes! Do they have food? No. Is it free? Yes.

Quite The Blooper on The Current

Well, while trying to pay tribute to Archbishop Desmond Tutu I made quite a mistake. All love, reverence and respect to both Archbishop Desmond Tutu and his friends and family.

This is The Best Time of the Year

We are in the NBA post season. Today was the first day that I could hear a bird that was up before I was. When I wake up at 6:25 weekday mornings there is already strong sun. Children are preparing for final performances and final projects. Every week someone announces a new outdoor concert, event, offering. Good movies that people care about are coming out. A light jacket or hoodie will be enough in almost every situation. Vacations are being planned. The gym was full this morning with people sweating, lifting weights and enjoying themselves. We are going to get gravel put into half of our yard in preparation for easier and less dog-shit minefield hang out experiences. I’m gonna figure out how to cut my wood into smaller pieces so I can have more productive fires in the solo stove. When you run into someone on the street you can really talk to them for awhile without fear of frostbite. My wife has an e-bike. She can fit all the kids on that e-bike, I can ride on my not e-bike and we can go to places in the neighborhood. When I walk the dog right now I don’t want headphones in because I just want to hear the neighborhood. I want to hear some animals. I want to hear the sunshine (I am not high). I want to hear the energy of this time of year. There aren’t mosquitos yet. It’s not hot. You don’t need sunblock. There is still school. No one is bored. Projects can still get completed at work. It isn’t vacation time willy nilly at my job.
There is good in the world and this is a good time of the year. I know there is lots of shit. Mountains of shit! Independent of the morally bankrupt and corrupt leadership we have at the national level I am also afraid of what social media has done to my brain and to our world. We are facing trying times and I don’t think they will relent for some time. Bright lights will shine through. Counter-responses will be waged. Battles will be won. Battles will be lost. But there is something worth breathing in. So breathe it in with me once more. Post-season, hear the sunshine, outdoor events. Enjoy it.

Big Trouble/Big 44/Big Saturday at White Squirrel

Big Trouble is back at “it” this Saturday. “It” means playing two 45 minute sets at White Squirrel between 6p-8p on Saturday. We had rehearsal on Saturday and we got through another one of Peter’s new tunes and worked out some issues with a couple new Steve charts. Adding new songs into the mix has given me excitement about what this project can be about. I am blessed to be in the presence of musicians who are passionate about their music, my music and collectively, our music. And on top of that I have to make three turns from my house to get to a music venue with a caring sound person, charming bartenders and a crowd of people who get into this type of music.

I don’t always know how to describe Big Trouble’s music. It’s instrumental. But that is not a genre. To me we are a band that won’t shake off our personal histories and preferences even as we coalesce as a band. Peter Leggett, our drummer, loves evocative, harmonically dense ECM jazz with Scandinavian dynamics of quiet, loud and scary as hell. Josh Peterson, one of our guitar players, loves all the atmospheric guitar-centric outfits who build in textures and move methodically through techniques to support a song. Steve McPherson, the other guitar player, loves all that stuff but his fingers will always best know the alternative rock to blues pipeline that he came out of. Sean McPherson, our me, loves funky bass lines, the allure of a bass part that disappears and the experience of a bass note shifting the ground that a song is walking on. So we all do those things and cook it up to be good combination. Big Trouble is a “bring your whole self to the jam session” type of band. It works out. And we get to share that monthly at the White Squirrel. What a treat.

Tired of our faces? Who isn’t? Enjoy some pixels. Design by Steve McPherson

(if you don’t want to hear a man reflect on what he’s done with his life skip this next section and also the grand majority of this blog in general tbh)

Monday also marks my 44th birthday. At what age are you safe to have gotten past the midlife crisis? I’m sure it’s not 44. I’ve had so little time to think about my forties. The shit just keeps on going. Horrible pandemic? Struggles at home? The difficulty of raising children? Inept and cruel leadership at the national Level? Unresolved issues from childhood? Continuing to be a creative person in the face of diminishing enthusiasm from yourself and collaborators towards a project? I’ve had it all. It’s been hard. I’m spending time in good feelings and bad feelings.

The time I do spend reflecting back on my forties so far lean heavily on “pretty good, considering.” So much to consider. Can we have good years anymore as a world? As a country? Can these twenties roar? We can’t Make America Great Again. That’s a crock. That’s a weapon. That’s a shitty hat. But can we head somewhere better? I think we can. I don’t think there is some fundamental reason why America can’t grow, mature and become a better version of ourselves than we’ve ever been. Can the counter-response to the cruelty of this Trump administration usher us into something better. I think the answer is “why not?”

I love being a part of community radio. It matters to me. I am listening to Radio K right now and I feel like I’m listening an extended family of broadcasters and community members. I love Big Trouble. I feel like I got an incredible amount of growth in my therapy sessions towards resolving many of the issues that linger from childhood.

At 44, I’m past thinking that I’ll have to load some plan b career into my future that I will find disagreeable. Will I be fired or laid off from a radio gig in the future? Absolutely. Do I have fundamental skills in that realm that suggest I’ll be able to jump back in in a different role? I do.

I am the owner of Trivia Mafia. Trivia Mafia is very successful. Trivia Mafia has been so successful since I’ve left that a very small portion of me worries they’d be less successful if I had stuck around and kept on trying to help. I don’t question that fact that I was instrumental in laying the groundwork. I also think I helped laid groundwork that a bunch of other people would’ve fucked up. Chuck and I are responsible for the core identity/vibe of Trivia Mafia and I’m happy to tell you it’s an awesome core identity/vibe.

I don’t know what the next chapter for Heiruspecs will be but we do not have any shows on the horizon and it shall remain that way for quite some time. The door to new music is wide open at the moment and it remains to be seen how widely we will open that door. This development scares me. Heiruspecs is central to my identity. Playing shows is central to my understanding of what Heiruspecs gives to the world and to ourselves. I just have to give it time and it’s hardest thing to give. I wanted to be in a band that is an important part of the story of Minnesota music. That goal mattered to me years ago and it matters to me now. Heiruspecs did that. I was a very important part in doing that. That makes me proud. But thinking that most or all of our story is past tense is very hard for me. It should be hard for me. Transitions are hard.

I have a beautiful family. I love being a father and being a husband in ways I am not sure I ever would! I also hate being a father and being a husband in unique and special ways I never would’ve imagined. But that’s the deal. I don’t know what the next chapter of home life holds for me. I am just getting to the point where my 8 year old daughter S. is a little too big to be carried for much more than a flight of stairs. S. can also really hold her own in bed wrestling with me. We are Jewish so it was low-stakes but she did hit me with some “is that Easter Bunny business for real” material. Spoiler alert: I told her the truth. The bunny isn’t real. She is seeing her world, learning her likes, navigating her path. I’m terrified. Our five year old N. has turned some corner in her life where her relationship to the world and to the humans in her world is much deeper and compassionate than it was just months ago. And this is all built on a really strong relationship between Rachel and I. I couldn’t fathom being married period, let alone for 10+ years. And now I can’t imagine life without her. Life without us. We are partners in an amazing adventure and we are also just two humans who love each other.

At 44 I just don’t want to fuck anything up super bad and I want to keep on making awesome things and experiences that matter to people. Sometimes I’m worried to create the next set of awesome things I might have to fuck some things up on the way. And I want to celebrate again even though I just celebrated 3 years at Jazz88 a month ago. So I’ll celebrate at White Squirrel on the 26th. I hope it’s nice out and we can move the party to the patio after the show is over.

Sean of 44

Reuniting with Ela

I’ve never felt worse about being in an indie rock band when compared to post-hardcore/emo and post-hardcore/math rock as potential style descriptions

Bill Caperton has been making his way back into my life. He was one of the first people I befriended at Central High School. Right at first when I got there it was really Martin Devaney, Kevin Hunt, Tony Bell (R.I.P.), Felix from Heiruspecs and Bill Caperton. Bill Caperton to me is forever wearing a Dave Matthews Band shirt under some overalls. Caperton was already in a band. Caperton was already ruggedly attractive. Caperton was a sweetheart. I’ve never really thought about this before, but I’m probably Bill’s closest and most frequent collaborator. We’ve made a bunch of records. I love playing his music. I love the way he plays guitar. I love how he writes. And I love how he performs. He doesn’t fill up the room when he performs. He fills up your head. He can create intimacy in a room filled with people. It’s a gift and it starts with his creativity. Our main project together is with the group Ela. Ela made two records. Our first one, Stapled to Air, is pretty fucking great. It’s the strongest release I’ve even been remotely involved in. I think I pay about $75 a year to keep it up on streaming sites so help me defray some costs and listen to it now.

We made another promising record after that. Not the high water mark that number one was. It was too ambitious, and too many cooks in an over supplied kitchen. And we didn’t have the same singular focus we had on album one. But I still enjoy it.

A reunion is one thing. It’s beautiful to revisit the tunes you loved. The ones you played in the Uptown Bar. The ones you played at a Chinese restaurant in Dayton, OH to no one. The ones you played in New York City when you thought it was gonna happen for your band. “Happen” was always ephemeral, some sense of no more shitty jobs, people buy your records, a sound guy travels with you, you get your own hotel room, when your record comes out Pitchfork cares. I don’t know. Something in there. None of that happened for Ela, but the records stands up and the formula stands up. Bill writes amazing songs and Peter (drums) and I (bass) do a lot more than just trace em. We kind of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot em. Change em up. Break em down. Push ourselves to use our instruments in weird ways. FUCK I HATE THE WORD SYNERGY BUT HERE I GO. There’s a lot of synergy. There is care for what we’re doing. There is camaraderie. There is 20 plus years of shared history. There is years of sharing things we love and hate. But until you open up the notebook and start making new stuff it’s all just high school reunion stuff. But now we’re going somewhere.

Bill’s making a poetry book which is a plausible thing for Bill to do. He’s been bringing in these poems and we’ve been songing them. Finding how they breathe, finding where they break, finding out what they need. And I didn’t know if we’d play them live. Because playing live is strange and Peter has limited nights to do it. Same for me. I like to see my family if I take my day off from the radio station. So not a lot of options to rock a Thursday. But the right night came along and now in a couple weeks we’ll be playing at Cloudland. I hope you’ll come. Bill’s new music deserves to be heard. It’s excellent, it’s beautiful and I’m eternally grateful to get to play on it.

Big Trouble Video From White Squirrel

My main job is cooking dinner for my family, doing dishes and raising two beautiful daughters and aspiring to be a great husband to my wonderful wife. On the side of that I am the Afternoon Host and Musical Director at Jazz88. And on the side of that I am a member of Heiruspecs, but we are relatively inactive at the moment. And when I say relatively inactive I really mean like all the way inactive. I send out records in the mail. I limp through paying our taxes. I tell folks who want to book us that we aren’t playing live at the moment. That doesn’t scratch my itch of being in a band.

But thankfully Big Trouble is having a bit of a renaissance. On the last Saturday of the month we are at the White Squirrel playing music from 6-8. If we were just rehashing the Big Trouble songbook of yesteryear that would be one thing but we are churning out new songs. And when I say churning I mean churning. My brother and Big Trouble guitarist Steve is probably averaging one and a half charts a month, me and guitarist Josh are probably hitting one a quarter and our drummer Peter Leggett just put two new ones together! Peter is a special writer who is deeply steeped in the harmonies and textures of ECM. The love of ECM sounds comes through loud and clear on his new original “Beneath the Mississippi.” The recording turned out great and I’m happy to share it with you here. Our next show is on April 26 over at the White Squirrel.

Indochin’s Shrimp Panang Curry Refuses to Stop

Did you grow up with panang curry? I sure didn’t. I don’t think I hit a panang curry until maybe late 2010s. I don’t even remember checking for it when I started going deep on Thai food in my twenties. Panang curry is creamy, nutty and the vegetables just sing in the dish. They don’t seem beat down or soaked in a too thick sauce. During the pandemic my wife Rachel and her friends would often go to grassy area of Hidden River Middle School and all bring take out, sit far apart and visit for a couple hours. It was a treat and I started to ignore every other option for food for those visits and just got serious about panang curry from Indochin.

Also, have you tried shrimp? Shrimp is amazing. My family is Jewish and it is our policy to not have shellfish or pork in the house but all rules are off when we are out of the house. I have grown to believe it’s kind of awesome to not be able to eat one of your favorite foods in your own home. I will get shrimp anywhere. I would buy shrimp off the street if a person had a laser printed sign that said “SHRIMP 4 SALE!”

So look, I like the Shrimp Panang Curry. I like to put most of the rice in early so it grabs up the sauce and makes it a whole tasty involved thing. And that’s what I did today. In fact, I forgot to take the photo until after I had riced up. But listen, get the shrimp panang curry. It’s $16.95. It’s worth it. It’s a lot of shrimp and a lot of vegetables. I had never had their wonton soup before today either and wow, it was stuffed with vegetables and it was great. It was the most vegetable forward wonton soup I had ever experienced.

Saint Paul Lunches

I had two really good Saint Paul lunches this week that you should consider adding to your repertoire.

The BBQ Black Bean Burger from J. Selby’s

Goddammit I love a Black Bean Burger. Acadia at one point held the crown. The Depot at one point held the crown. But I think at some point I got out of touch with both of those burgers. I went to J. Selby’s a bunch during the pandemic but it has been a long ass time. They have a great Big Mac rip off but I wanted to get the Black Bean burger. I also wanted to get the crispy cauliflower but I’m not made of money, that would’ve been a $31 lunch. But the BBQ Black Bean Burger was $15. And that comes with fries. (My wife thinks that it should be illegal to serve a burger without serving fries with it for no additional cost and I completely agree. We can accept chips instead if they are real good chips that are housemade).

This was a fine ass Black Bean Burger. The fake cheese tasted real good because fake cheese is actually pretty legit. Technology has really brought us some good fake cheese. The BBQ flavor was not overbearing and the whole scene was great. I wish I had gotten a side of ranch for the fries cause the ketchup wasn’t cutting it but I have no notes for the burger situation itself. Spectacular.

The Tarragon Chicken Salad from Yum!

Greens tossed in a tasty understated vinaigrette is some of the best. French Meadow might do it the best. But the chicken salad sitting on top of these nicely dressed greens is out of this world. Yum! is a big clean fresh ass feeling place and when they walk over this plate you feel like you are a smart media consultant who makes a lot of money and has a super clean house and a dog named Cinnamon who smells amazing.

I think tarragon is one of those fake ass spices that doesn’t do anything much of anything special when I use it but whatever they’re doing here is working I mean wow really working. Dive in and enjoy. This is an elite eat and keep going lunch. And at $12.95 you’ll feel like an asshole for eating it but not a huge asshole.