Streaming Thoughts Back From Vacation

I told Tidal that I wanted to hear the greatest song in Fiona Apple’s catalog which is “I Know”, the closing track from the album When the Pawn.

Once we sent Tidal shuffling from that it was unbelievably sad shit. Right now I am hearing the longest story I’ve ever heard Phoebe Bridgers, it’s something about a prison graveyard. But I hit Elliott Smith, Ben Folds Five (Brick), Sarah Mclachlan, Feist and more. But now I have all sorts of questions I’d like to ask you, frankly not that rhetorically:

1. Do you hear a similarity between DJ Premier and Elliott Smith? They exert this control over their songs where every single detail sounds so. . .THEM! DJ Premier breathes so much of him into songs that start from samples, it is absolutely stunning. And Elliott Smith, it’s never a normal chord, it’s never a normal melody shape. Yet it never sounds forced. To me he’s one of those ones that just hears music different. Another artist who I think delivers that, Thao, from Thao and the Get Down Stay Down. I had the joy of seeing Thao play at the KEXP 50 Year anniversary celebration in Seattle this weekend.

2. Here are my questions about Brick. The “she” in Brick is his girlfriend, not the fetus correct. Rachel says it definitely is about the girlfriend. And does Ben intimate in pre chorus two that it’s not him who wants the abortion? Does their relationship break down and thus the abortion is the right move? Or does the abortion cause the end of their relationship? And if she has her own apartment, why are they afraid of being “found out” by her parents and glad they’re going to Charlotte? Rachel agrees it’s because it’s the day after Christmas, the parents are all up in their business. I think that makes sense.

3. Do you know that Sarah Mclachlan made a song with DMC? I discovered this when I reviewed DMC’s biography for the Current. So when Sarah McLachlan comes on I start to think about RUN-DMC. That honestly seems to be a group where there is NO consensus about who the most important member is. Or more accurately, I think there is critical consensus that the most important member is Jam Master Jay. But I thought it was a settled fact that Run was the bigger deal as an emcee. But I’ve had so many people point out that on so many points DMC is the HIGHLIGHT of the song. Run might do more lifting, but DMC does more heavy lifting. And DMC’s voice is the band, it’s the iconic. But I also believe that Run is one of the most electric front people in any genre, ever. He is also a front person for the MTV generation, the moments I know from him are the videos, not the actual live shows. He’s got something.

4. Have you listened to the song “Too Many Birds” with great friends in Minneapolis after playing cards and sharing songs all night? You simply must. Press play on this and find the song that the journey should start from, if it ends at this.

The song is just pure majesty. There’s no changes. It’s one part. It’s pure build. It’s pure blunt force of an idea you never had “too many birds” just delivered a bunch of times, teasing different things, a breaking ball, a fastball, a patience. There is something beyond songcraft here, which makes it the best songcraft there is. Sometimes artists don’t leave any coffee stains in their lyrics, they sanitize it, they maximize it. Everything is workshopped, everything is polished. And this is where I have to diverge from the idea that it all needs to be brought into the clarity that helps it shine the best. Sometimes I want a matte finish lyric, sometimes I want a baby sloppy thing. I’m deep into reading this amazing Dilla book by Dan Charnas. By the way, Dan Charnas simply doesn’t miss. He wrote a book about money in hip-hop. He wrote a book about Working Clean (Mise-En-Place for office workers). And now he wrote this Dilla book. And it ACTUALLY talks about the music. It paints a portrait of Dilla as an artist but it also talks about the 16th notes, and it does that lovingly. I hate when people act like music isn’t magic. Like music can simply explained. Like this isn’t something that can be fully quantified or quantized. There is something magical about music and if you don’t know that, I don’t know how it can be worth it to be a part of the industry, cause there’s no real perk besides being closer to the magic. Maybe every once in awhile, maybe you’re the magic. Maybe that day, you delivered the important part, but most days you are just doing your part. Dilla might be shoving snares backwards on the grid, he might be shaping the chord progression himself, he’s making the magic. But someday the part you’re playing is putting a Pharcyde song on at the liquor store you work. Maybe that’s what you did for the magic. But if you didn’t do anything for the magic, you aren’t doing it right. Thanks for the magic ones.

5. Do you know who can write his ass off? Howard Bryant! I’ve never read his stuff, just listened to him on Bomani Jones’ podcast. He’s always electrifying as a guest, encyclopediactic with the information and stats, but on top of that, these explanations, these connections and this ability to use exactly the right turn of phrase. Well Howard Bryant does that in his new work “Rickey”. Listen, the way he captures these 1980s baseball terms and turns of phrase that literally sit at the absolute back of my head, six years old, dad folding laundry for 3 hours, a game on and me asking questions incessantly about the game. Him explaining most of it, admitting when he didn’t quite get it, and generally just watching my brother also start to dance around baseball. I’m born in ‘81, I’m one of the last baseball kids in the sense of baseball being the biggest sport in America. If you’re 25 it’s been football your whole life. Interesting. Well these stories of Rickey Henderson in the 1980s are amazing. And thankfully, it’s not one of those things where it is just a collection of one off anecdote books. The most breathtaking writing is only distantly about basketball. Howard Bryant takes maybe 35 pages to just deliver a history of Oakland, which is the history of segregation, it is a tale of a crucible of middle school talent pulled from all over the American South now located inside a very small geographic range. And the way he contracts and expands from government states to single impressions from side players who have a slight connection to Oakland. It stretches the story so the canvas is clearly covering something more than Rickey Henderson. It’s always those books that do a bigger job than they say they will. Need to understand the 60s not exclusively from the over published flower power thinkers. . .my go to is Taylor Branch’s three volume Martin Luther King Jr. series. BOOK 1 BOOK 2 BOOK 3.

6. What musical group or artist has the most misleading hit singles, that are the most criminally unrepresentative of what their body of work really is?

7. Release and tour wise, what’s been the best year in music since you’ve been 16 years old?

8. I got a dear friend named Stone Blake who turned me onto “Smokey in LA” era Smokey Robinson. Okay wow, I had this man down wrong. I thought of Smokey as having a dimmer second half of his career. That might be true in raw influence, but as far as output he remained relevant, bankable and multi-talented. The tune I’m liking right now “Let Me Be The Clock”.

That’s all I got for now. Shoot those responses to s@heiruspecs.com

Bringing Good Energy

There are many horrible things happening in your backyard and all around the Earth right now. Your time, money, energy and concern can help alleviate some of that stress. It is always a good time to volunteer time and/or money towards pushing the world in the direction that you think is best.

But when you have determined at what level you can commit to that, it’s also time to try and give yourself good moments. Cook good food, work a job you love, masturbate, spend time with friends, read a book, make a song, make something that will last. This blog exists cause I don’t want to give all of my brain to twitter. I spent the morning listening to a podcast that was sending home the point that the medium we choose to communicate in dictates so much of what we say. And what we say on twitter is often just bait for a reaction. I’m here on this blog to share freely, to share slowly, to share in my own way. I would love to be able to comfortably do home maintenance and make my home life more beautiful, but I’m also creating words here that I hope I can look back on with a feeling that I made something that makes me smile, that helps me understand me, and might let readers feel some connection with. That’s a special thing. The podcast I was listening to is the latest from Ezra Klein.

The most inspiring podcast I’ve listened to lately is from Open Mike Eagle and Psalm One. I’ve known Open Mike Eagle and Psalm for quite some time. I guess I’ve known Psalm for about 18 years and Mike for maybe 10 or 12. Not close with either of them. But hearing not only about their journeys as rap artists, but their humanness as rap artists was pretty. . .affirming? I wanted to type inspiring but I guess in a weird sense it’s the opposite. I was affirmed to find out they too are petty, they too struggle with comparing themselves to the next artist, they too hit dry spells, they too need to slow down. These are artists where their recorded catalog gives us a sense that they are not super heroes, but something about hearing these two age mates and at times collaborators discuss their lives was a beautiful experience. I feel like Open Mike Eagle makes podcasts that only I care about, but the numbers make it clear that thousands of people also care about them.

Bring yourself joy, combat the bad things in the world, both in your neighborhood, in your city and internationally. But bring joy, put good music in your headphones and dive in, sleep enough, go to therapy and do what is best for you. And listen to podcasts, it’s the best media technology to come out since my birth (1981). Yes, even better than blogs on pink backgrounds.

Let’s Go On a Weekend Holiday

7/23/22

I woke up reminded that I had gone to bed uncharacteristically early and sober for a Friday night. I tend to pack a lot of living into my Fridays, perhaps an outgrowth of formerly working on Saturday and Sunday nights. But this week I was focused on getting a solid night of sleep and being all in for a first purposeful daddy/daughter exclusive trip with my five year old Sadie. 

After the usual uphill push to get the dog walked on a Saturday morning me and Sadie shoved off for Mille Lacs circa 9:15am. A five-year old has the capacity to plan, to fret, to analyze, to anticipate. So I know I don’t have a captive audience in the back of the Volvo, we have a schedule and snack commitments to keep to to maximize in the water time. 

Now I know it’s going to be a rainy day, but honestly, rain doesn’t change plans. It might ruin a planned pool trip, but if this is your day to go up North, then it’s your day to go up North. We start off the day listening to Jessica Paxton doing Teenage Kicks on the Current. As I’m listening to this “Swan Swan H” tune by R.E.M. I am thinking “I am barely generationally connected to this music, what must this feel like to my daughter, a foreign language?”. At this very moment she requests that we listen to “Down by The Water” by the Decemberists. And that means Sadie is really aware, Peter Buck plays guitar on both of those songs. The Decemberists are really into their R.E.M. sound on that tune. I’m elated Sadie is connected musical dots and I’m fine to start playing tunes for her from Tidal.

I lost my picking music steam and we flipped over to KVSC out of St. Cloud which never fails to bring me joy when I flip it on. Pro-gear, pro-attitude, college energy. A dude (Justin?) couldn’t get a technology thing to work this morning and he handled it so well. Made a joke, kept it moving, got it working. 

We stopped at a Target near Elk River. My shopping list was a hits list of “where the fuck is this located??” type items: sunblock, bug spray, life jacket and some shoes. We found the stuff but this was one of those bizarro Targets where the grocery stuff is on the left at which point you might as well just “Fuck You Pal It’s Your First Time at Target” sign outside. The guy at the register wore an N-95 and I promptly felt like a jerk for not wearing a mask. 

We did a lot of Jojo Siwa in the car. That’s my daughters favorite. But we also rocked the Power Loon. Do you know about the Power Loon? The minute I turned it on it was “Breakdown” by Tom Petty and it was on. Also, I heard a tune I had never heard by Journey (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFqXFE8OSG4) called Stone in Love. Well that song is amazing. I also caught a Billy Squier tune called  “My Kinda Lover”. I think I had heard that before, but it floored me. 

The next stop was the resort where I had bought the last hotel room available which Rachel thought I spent too much money on. Yes, she’s right. It was $250 for one night. It’s also July in Mille Lacs and I’m not camping alone with a five year old, I don’t have those skills yet. And if I was camping, I sure as shit wouldn’t be blogging in air conditioned bliss eating Trader Joe peanut butter pretzel bites. In the end, I’m glad we were at the fancy place. The pool was legit. And the restaurant had two older musicians playing country music quietly. If our $250 King Suite paid for those folks to play some good music, great for me. 

We get to the resort and I have to pee with a blinding intensity I only discover as I stand up. That’s the best thing about being in your forties with young kids. You stand up and your body screams “EJECT THIS URINE FROM HOTEL PENIS ASAP” and your life screams “two kids, two car seats, three backpacks, don’t forget the water bottle, you might as well pee your pants bruh”. 

We walk into the hotel and of course there isn’t an obvious bathroom. Usually it’s right next to the lobby. Nope. It’s all hotel rooms on the first floor. So I’m just holding it and I’m behind one of the worse archetypes to be behind in a “have-to-piss-so-bad-i’m humming and tapping” situation. . .BROCHURES and QUESTIONS man! I absolutely hated to see it. He was leaning back, asking about fishing prices, check out times, and he was asking about enough dates that it was clear he was just a guy doing research for a trip in the very near future. I considered butting in and asking where the bathroom was, but I just didn’t think anyone would understand the position they were putting me in. When Captain Brochure finally wrapped up he only slid over a little and for a minute I thought I wasn’t going to get served at that moment. The disinterested midday high school-age hotel agent got me to the basement bathroom and also let me know it was kind of rich for me to be trying to check into a room at like 11:44am. Understood sir, I kind of wish I had peed my pants in your lobby. 

Umbrella in hand, rain largely under control, Sadie and I made our rounds and I was reminded of the newness of the world to Sadie; “that’s an amazing rock” “these birds are not ordinary” “that waterfall is worth a visit”. 

It was time for lunch and the lunch spot was closed at the resort. Good for me, we can drive to Garrison and I can remember the most important cabin of my 20s, Bill Caperton’s parents cabin just outside of Garrison. Ate at the Spotlite Cafe. I got the shrimp basket, Sadie got the French toast. The “you get a salad with your entree” culture is strong up by Mille Lacs. But the salad itself wasn’t. 

The head waitress Dan Quayle'd potatoe on the specials board when she updated it for a grilled ham and cheese with choice of potatoe. Potato was spelled properly on the homemade potato salad. Towards the end of our meal together a mother/daughter came in. Mom maybe 40s/50s, daughter late teens/20s. Daughter only had one arm, a thing you notice, but you don’t think about much after that. But, Mom (didn’t catch her name) and Olivia started making small talk with us (the small talk comes easy with a cute kid, especially if you’re a dad, it is still thought of miraculous to see dad’s doing anything resembling parenting in public). Olivia lost her arm in a terrible car accident while in basic training for the Marines in 2016. She made it sound like having formerly been in the Marines is her job now in a sense. They have her on disability, as well the fuck they should, they took her arm. They “retired” her. That’s her words. I don’t know what that means. But that made me think, a woman a generation younger than me, sacrificing more of herself for our country than I ever had. And now she’s pulling down a bacon cheeseburger in Garrison saying that she used to be a Marine. What are the next thirty years like for her? What are the next thirty years like for anyone? Are the Marines compelled to pay her. . .but not compelled to give her meaningful work? I know nothing. 

We drive back to the hotel and my mind is full of my memories of Bill’s cabin. I remember almost running out of gas in Kevin’s car one late Friday night on the way up. Playing soccer with a large group of people but primarily just rough housing down at one corner of the field with my ex-girlfriend Anna cause we were so mad at each other about everything. The crazy eagle that had a nest on their property and was loud, violent and truly dangerous. I remember hearing Sparklehorse for the first time out of the speakers of my family’s Dodge Caravan near the river. I remember seeing Martin Devaney get an amazing haircut. I had sex in an igloo shaped floaty on that lake. And “in” is a charitable world. I had sex while also “involved” with an igloo shaped floaty. I lived a lot of life at that cabin, and it’s coming back to me in that beautiful nostalgia-while-in-a-car-and-the-radio-is-on-energy while heading back to our spot. 

We get home and book ass to the pool since it isn’t raining. It is still cold outside. The pool water is a good temperature, but my head remains out of the water as I’m trying to make sure Sadie is safe and comfortable and my head is freezing cold. I have to pee frequently and every time I have to pee I have to pull Sadie out of the pool and bring her through a weird waiting area that unexplainably smells like cat dander (why would a public place smell like that?) into an explainably wet mens locker room. 

The relatively large hot tub is stuffed with adults in different states of undress (there is one man who I believe never set foot in the tub and was wearing a lined plaid shirt like you’d wear at a pumpkin patch on a crispy mid-October afternoon). The hot tub heroes are tangentially connected to two teenagers looking after maybe 3-4 kids in the pool proper. Also in the mix is two brothers who seem to be in a relentless state of running the length of the pool area before slowing down briefly and then jumping in to the pool. Sadie is floating and smiling, I’m trying to imagine some connection with these other families but I can’t find it. I freeze around teenage girls because I just imagine it must be the biggest drag for them when I start talking. Slowly, some of the big hot tub family starts coming out of the tub and they start congregating around a patio table. These fuckers start smoking cigarettes. I love it and I hate it. It can’t be allowed right? But, it’s basically a rain out, nobody is there to enforce it. And I love the smell of a cigarette. Maybe I’m supposed to hate it on behalf of my daughter who is easily 40 feet away from the offending Marlboro, but I don’t. But I want them to not smoke in front of their kids. But honestly, you aren’t gonna hide it are you? Maybe it’s cigarette o’clock no matter where you are. Around the time they are out of the hot tub, the sun starts to shine, more folks start to show up. I see they are starting to open up the pool bar and I’m feeling good on many counts:

1) the sun will make swimming more enjoyable

2) more people might mean someone for Sadie to play with

3) the pool bar opening means maybe the cigarette fam will stop smoking

But my fascination/anger with the cigarette family goes further than just the cigarettes. They are mostly fat people, I’m a fat person. I’m mad at them for smoking and drinking sugar sodas and wearing lined plaid shirts at a pool because I think it’s a bad look for fat people. I think it makes fat people look like we don’t care about our health at all. But this is 100% unfair. Those people are living their life, they don’t have a duty to represent well for Team Fat. You want to smoke cigarettes and be fat and do it all poolside I should be cheering you on or at least not secret hating you. There’s one dude in particular who seems to have perfected the always smoking thing. I never don’t see a cigarette in his lips. He starts helping the pool bar staff open up the wood window blockings to get the whole snack area open. . .he’s doing this with a cigarette in his mouth. The smoking will continue. Every useless, hateful thing I think about this family, I know someone is thinking about me, and it’d be a better if I could love this family, and if people could love me. It’s hard to get there, but we need to get there. 

After some turns in the hot tub and the swimming pool Sadie says she is ready to head back to the hotel room. I try to talk Sadie into a drive out to Bill Caperton’s cabin as I’ve figured he’s actually out here this weekend. Sadie poo-poos the drive and I realize that I need to make the whole day about Sadie (and to be selfish, also about this blog, at some point I realized I better write this one out and I got excited). I also showed Sadie some of Sponge-Bob Square Pants. I’ve never seen the show but she seemed to definitely enjoy it while I read the new J Dilla biography. 

We ended up just eating at the now open restaurant at the resort and it was a god damn delight. First off, I ordered one tap Modelo with dinner and they accidentally made two, and I purposefully drank two. There was that two piece group playing who were just a treat. It was an older man playing a Tele Squier, no charts, great harmonies and big fingers that don’t look like guitar player fingers. The woman sang a lot of the lead, played pick bass (didn’t catch the brand) and seemed to constantly adjust to any chord changes that the man tossed in. Shit was classic. 

The food was fine and I got recognized by a dude named Doug from Wayzata, loves the Current and wants to check out Jazz88 more. I’ve never gotten less Doug energy off of a Doug in my life. You give me a hundred guesses on Doug’s first name I would’ve guessed Dartagnan before I would’ve tried Doug. I guess sometimes you just name a baby Doug and you hope he grows into being a Doug. No such luck with this one. 

After dinner we headed back for more swimming. Sadie loves swimming, I love swimming and it works for us. And boy, the evening crew at pool was top notch. There was three girls who I’m gonna guess were early high school. . .lots of braces, fashion conscious swimsuits, but still breaking out in uncontrollable laughter when certain sets of boys got remotely near them. My favorite duo/trio/quartet was built around a woman named Heidi. I had talked to her earlier and she just screamed out with a vibe of “do I have a story for you!!!”. She was an older, muscular, blond woman who told me it took her a really long to make it to the resort. She met a woman named Noelle who was just, an awesome eavesdrop. She works three jobs. Her man was upstairs playing pull tabs and drinking too much. She had a legit suntan cooked up, a pink swimsuit, some single color tattoos on the back of her neck and her arm and she had the vibe of “I play hard and I work hard and that’s the correct order of importance”. Heidi and Noelle went from “hey what’s your name” to “here’s a photo of my dad who passed six months ago that I’ve been showing everybody” in sub 15 minutes. Noelle’s man won a nice little chunk of change doing pull tabs upstairs so it was a round of drinks for the new trio. It was a Long Island, but if you ask our girl Heidi it was a subpar Long Island. “Have you been to Fletcher’s, now that’s a Long Island”. I got to know Noelle and Heidi up close and personal in the hot tub. Noelle adjusted Sadie’s swim suit cause her nipples were showing. I know maybe one is supposed to have a “don’t fucking touch my kid” thing vibe, but a) I’d been listening to Noelle for going on twenty minutes and I had long ago decided she was a good lady and b) I’d been pulling that fucking swim suit up all day and I didn’t mind the help. The greatest part is when Heidi’s mom steps over and Heidi calls her “Nance”. She doesn’t call her mom, calls her Nance. And she says with the loud authority of someone who has just found their resort soulmate “Nance, this is Noelle” and points her open hand down quickly and then slowly raises it up as if to say “what are the odds I’d meet a real one at this god damn pool?”

I let Sadie swim as long as she wanted. I think a five year old who is somewhat locked into a 2 year old’s sleep schedule is getting shortchanged hours wise. So I was glad to let Sadie stay out there and enjoy herself. It was so great to see her just start talking to people who had no idea who she was or what the fuck she was talking about. Have you seen a five year old in a multi-color life jacket scream “I just did a diving skill!!!” at three utterly disinterested teenage girls???. . .it’s magical. 

We made it back to the hotel. I fed Sadie some pretzels and cheese puffs for her last food of the night. We watched the last five minutes of an episode of a Friends on TV before Sadie was thoroughly confused and said she actually did want “kid tv”. Five minutes of TPT later Sadie is going to bed and I’m out here blogging.

This was a special day, I talked to Sadie, I only saw Sadie, I engaged with Sadie, I laughed with Sadie, I bullshitted with Sadie. One honestly doesn’t get that many days that are 100% about just one of their children, but today, that’s what this was, and it was incredible. 

Slowed Down Over the Weekend

So much of my energy is dedicated towards additive work. Taking on new projects, diving into older projects, completing tasks, scheduling more time with friends, filling up the schedule. As it became clear that this past weekend was going to be a bit slower I didn’t do anything to counteract that. I didn’t reach out to friends I hadn’t seen to add a visit, I didn’t scramble to find shows to go to. I missed seeing my wife, I didn’t want to spend a lot of time in the heat, and I didn’t feel ambitious. Next weekend is Twin Cities Jazz Fest. I’ll be working a ton, both on-site and at the station. I’m looking forward to that, but that gave me the inspiration to breath a little bit.

I had time to chip away at things, my turntables really need to be in better shape before I do a wedding in early July. I reset my PA so I could actually practice on the turntables. I went through a couple records, I balanced a tone arm. That’s like 22 minutes total, but it feels great and I’m more excited to work down there in the future. I’ll give it time, and I’ll work it out, but just putting in that little chunk was such a treat. I also watched the 2004 double murder thriller Sideways. Okay, it’s not actually a double murder thriller. But I do believe the movie is mainly focused on characters about my age doing things that are familiar to me. If you think I haven’t been around a lot of soul searching and confused affianced or freshly divorcified people you are wrong. I am 41. I am surrounded. This reflection on intimacy, and love, and right and wrong. It was a really enjoyable watch. I also just don’t watch movies enough, so taking something in across two nights with Rachel was really great.

And Father’s Day was excellent. We went to a brunch in the morning at Jax Cafe and it was spectacular. There was a time when buffets were my favorite shit on planet earth. That had everything to do with eating too much and feeling empowered to do so because of the environment. I still have some struggles with eating, but going literally HAM at a buffet is not one of them. I was able to really enjoy a great bounty of food, treat the food and myself with respect and walk away with a full stomach, but nothing remotely painful.

Today I feel unclear about how to approach Juneteenth. Juneteenth is a day that should be marked, it’s a day that should be studied, and I believe some celebrations are in order. In fact, at my job at Jazz88, I’ve been working hard to do our part to celebrate the new Sounds of Blackness tune “Juneteenth Celebration”. But for what I won’t assume are obvious reasons, this holiday can’t be hastily added to a list of days off and leave it at that. Summer holidays scream for gatherings, for barbecue, for friendship. We don’t get enough days off in this life, we should cherish them.

But our holidays are riddled with problems. I believe the problems they are riddled with are not largely the problems of history, they are the problems of present. I celebrate Juneteenth with the feeling that a handful of decades from now Americans will say “I can’t believe they celebrated Juneteenth in the same breath they disenfranchised voters. I can’t believe they celebrated Juneteenth while not passing the John Lewis voting acts. I can’t believe they celebrated Juneteenth while the Senate hasn’t voted in the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021”. The era I will spend my adulthood in I believe is largely going to have the stain on it that the 1880s should. We are living through (and enabling) the reaction to Black agency. Not just of Obama, but of the promise of the 1960s and 1970s. In many measurable ways, things have gotten worse for Black America in the last 25 years. I’m thinking about home ownership, wage gap and more. There are many metrics that document Black America thriving in the same time period, but it isn’t the slam dunk it needs to be. It is not the corrective we need to see. The period after Radical Reconstruction was violent, it was intimidating and it set the tone for the early 1900s. And what I see in the post Obama period is an era that is so raw and regressive in regards to the race that is the wildest time imaginable for Juneteenth to become a Federal Holiday. Not every holiday is meant to mark progress, but in this case, the introduction of Juneteenth as a federal holiday (which was introduced by the Black Caucus I believe in the 1990s) marks progress backwards. We were unwilling to recognize Juneteenth as a federal holiday until something as terrible as George Floyd being lynched on camera came out. We have the day off because of how bad we have fucked up. I’m not saying Wells-Fargo needs to be open, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a barbecue, but I’m saying that if you celebrate with no reflection on the dynamics at play, I’m impressed, you’ve got silos higher than I care to build.

The Best Order for Instruments to Enter

Congratulations you’ve written a song. Here is the best order for the instruments from your song to enter. You might be curious if it matters what genre the song is, no, it doesn’t. This is the best order.

Piano
Organ
Acoustic Guitar
Voice
Bass
Hi-Hat
Bass Drum
Full Drum Kit
Back-Up Vocals
Sassy Single Note Electric Rhythm Guitar
Horn Section
Tambourine
Hand Claps

Top 6 Breakfast Experiences in the Twin Cities

Well damn. A big article just got posted today by Racket all about my former employer, MPR. To say it is a spicy meatball is an understatement, frankly, it’s a meatball of epic spice proportions. Previous spicy meatballs citations need to be reclassified as tangy meatballs occurrences or TBOs.. I’ve got all the thoughts, and all the feelings, and I’ll tell you what they are when I’m cold and dead! What I will tell you now is that I think that the author Jay Boller did an incredible job with the reporting and that I am really impressed with my former co-workers who spoke on the record about their experiences with MPR. Today, instead of speaking truth to power I’ll be speaking breakfast to blogs.

A couple notes before I get started:

1 - These breakfasts are currently available. If we were doing the historical best breakfasts in the Twin Cities I would just share a photo of the menu from Sunny Side Up on Lyndale. Do you think things will ever swing back to a restaurant like Sunny Side Up making a go of it in the Twin Cities. I think basically no. I love that place.

2 - I made a mistake early in life. I went to Al’s Breakfast in Dinkytown and ordered the grossest shit imaginable. It was a shrimp almondine omelette. When I tell people this they look at me like I am an idiot. Yes, I am an idiot. An idiot who loves shrimp. But it was so foul that I haven’t gone back ever. Everyone says “Al’s is the best in Minnesota” you know what they don’t say “try the shrimp almondine omelette”.

No. 6 - Pumpkin Pie Pancakes from Hope Breakfast Bar

Have you been to Hope Breakfast Bar? It’s amazing. They will make you feel like a monster for not having made a reservation. Even on a Tuesday at 9:37am when you imagine that not that many people could want breakfast. But they do a brisk business. They bring you coffee you can pour yourself. That’s key. And the pumpkin pie pancakes are spectacular. After the first bite you’ll think, “those don’t taste a ton like pumpkin pie”. After the third bite you’ll take a sip of coffee and you’ll realize you are getting the perfect amount of pumpkin joy. If you get the short stack you’ll even be able to do something resembling work later in the day!

No. 5 - Day by Day Cafe’s Earth Breakfast

Have you been to the backroom of Day by Day Cafe? With the books and wood booths? Did you cut school there with Bill Caperton while he was wearing overalls and a Dave Matthews band t-shirt in 1997? Stay with me. Did he order the Earth Breakfast and you thought he was the coolest human on earth? Absolutely. Do you always order it now unless the special sounds great. Amazing, what a coincidence. The Day by Day Cafe feels like the definition of what a breakfast spot should be. No distractions, it’s ran by recovering alcoholics and they don’t serve alcohol. They just do good breakfast in an amazing environment. Their back patio is such a gem. It’s this peaceful energy and if you can convince a couple friends to go there before the workday starts, you’ll be walking on cloud 9 all morning.

No. 4 - The Sausage and Cheese Swing Omelette at Mickey’s

You’ll note that most of my choices are located right in the fantastic city of St. Paul. St. Paul is a better breakfast city than Minneapolis. These are facts and the sooner you can confront them the better. What the hell is going on with the Mickey’s in downtown Saint Paul? I have no idea. But besides for two weeks when they served burgers out of a window in 2021 they’ve been closed since the top of the pandemic. But the Mickey’s by the airport is still killing it and that sausage and cheese (your choices include American and go f yourself) omelette is still classic. They drop the eggs in a milkshake blender which is both gross and spectacular. I am never getting a milkshake at Mickey’s but I am always getting that omelette. DO NOT GET ANYTHING ELSE. And don’t use your fork until you have to. Use the toast as your fork. Tell them Sean sent you, they definitely don’t know me.

No. 3 - The Uptown Diner in Minneapolis Tex-Mex

I would read a 4500 word oral history of the Tex-Mex breakfast. This is not a regional dish, this is a Minnesota thing in my estimation. And a lot of it derives from one family of restaurants that used to seem wildly aligned, like maybe even the same ownership. I’m talking about the Louisiana Cafe, The Grandview Grille, The Uptown Diner Minneapolis and a couple others. It seems like the influence of their menu expanded beyond their ownership and the Tex-Mex became a feature of many a breakfast spot in the Twin Cities. But the ultimate experience involves a spot that really feels like Grandview Grille (R.I.P.), Louisiana Cafe and the others used to feel: a little too bright, unexplainably uncomfortable padded booth seats, prompt water service and embarrassingly large servings. I am not a half-order kind of dude, but I have grown to become a half-order dude here, which by the way is still like 2/3s the size of a full one.

No. 2 - Petey’s Cajun Prime Rib Breakfast at Spring Street Tavern

I’m going to be 100% honest with you, I could take or leave the actual prime rib. That’s a lot in the morning. I don’t need all that. Plus, if I am at Spring Street Tavern I’m likely helping myself to a drink or three with my breakfast and steak doesn’t need to compete with all that. So I usually sweet talk them into getting the amazing cajun breakfast that is lying beneath that prime rib. CLARITY: The prime rib is good, I’ve had it. But what I’m after is the particular way they rock their cajun spices, their hollandaise and their potato set up. Bar none, best Cajun breakfast in the state. I would read a 2400 hundred word essay about the Cajun breakfast.

No. 1 - Maria’s Cachapas Venezolanas

This is it. This is the dish that you have to try when you’re getting breakfast in the Twin Cities. Corn pancakes with cheese and syrup. It doesn’t look great on paper, but thankfully we don’t eat paper. We eat these. I have so many fond memories of bringing friends to this place from out of town and tell them they must order the Cachapas Venezolanas. And they of course order something more savory cause people never listen to me. And then I give them a bite of my pancakes and they give me that face like they wish I was a person who was into splitting food with them. But I’m not. Sorry. So they miss out on great pancakes. Maybe this blog will stop that.

An Enjoyable Game to Play with the Rolling Stone Top 200 Rap Albums List

Rolling Stone, the paragon of fair and balance coverage of hip-hop music and culture on opposite day, has come out with what I am comfortable calling a very good list of the Top 200 Rap Albums of all time. Do they miss some things? Yes! Do they cover some stuff I need to learn about? Yes. Do they pick the wrong album by some of the greats? Yes. Did I play a weird game with some friends where we had to take ten records off the list that we were legitimately familiar with (you can’t just blindly pull some young artist off because you’re 41 years old and kind of an asshole). And then you get to put ten back on. Here’s what I got:

ADD:

Busta Rhymes: The Coming

2 Live Crew: As Nasty As They Wanna Be

Redman: Muddy Waters

Jay-Z: American Gangster

Aceyalone: Book of Human Language

Prince Paul: A Prince Among Thieves

Judgment Night: Soundtrack

Prodigy: HNIC

Outkast: ATLiens

Lupe Fiasco: Food & Liquor

REMOVE:

Chance the Rapper: Coloring Book

Handsome Boy Modeling School: So, How’s Your Girl

A Tribe Called Quest: People’s Instinctive Travels and the Path of Rhythm

Kanye West: Yeezus

Freddie Gibb and Madlib: Bandana

Childish Gambino: Because the Internet

Clipse: Hell Hath No Fury

The Roots: How I Got Over

Rick Ross: Teflon Don

Dr. Octagon: Dr. Octagynecologist

Out of Control

It was easy to feel out of control all weekend. I’ve struggled with what I’m eating, I’ve struggled to get the exercise I want. I didn’t realize what a blessing/curse/blessing again working on Saturday nights was. So first off, it sucked. I got to do an awesome thing on Saturday nights, but that means, no easy weekends for cabins, no easy weekends for just catching up. But I had this thing on Monday. . .I had a lunch meeting with the Trivia Mafia powers that be. Once a month I met with my nutritionist. Every week I met with my trainer. I had some time to open my mail, to touch base on Heiruspecs things. I’ve got none of that, I’m just out here. I get those hours in the weekday mornings. But if you’re trying to get to work in Minneapolis by 11am, you’re leaving like 10:40, and you have to make dinner, and you have to walk the dog, and you want to clean the house. What I’m trying to tell you is I haven’t really checked my mail since I started my new job. I haven’t done a project. I haven’t cleaned something all the way. And there is limited vacation at the new job, so I’m not going to be taking a day off to clean. If I take a day off I’m either going to go make money with Trivia Mafia or as a bass player or I’m going to go somewhere with my family.

So I just don’t know when I’m going to make some of the leaps I want in home management, in turntable joy, in a clean garage. And I think the reality is bit by bit, and it’s hard to acknowledge that. I have a dayjob that challenges me, nourishes me, and requires a lot of focus. That is all very good news. But, I have other pursuits that have checked those boxes for a long time and I can’t just let them go. I need to clear out the bullshit hours of my day. And those don’t come cascading in to my life in nice 15 minute chunks. Its the mindless re-checking of twitter (which I had weaned myself off of but I’m back), it’s the looking at the NYTimes Opinion. That could be a paragraph in a book. Instead it’s just this “hey give me the update” “hey did Andrew Broder like a new album?” “what is the funniest thing on twitter today”. It’s just a drain, a drain that is enjoyable per drip, but numbing per cup. I hate it. I’m happier when I stop, but in the micro what will one look do? What’s the problem with checking twitter sometimes? It’s A GOD DAMN SLIPPERY SLOPE IS WHAT IT IS.

So I want this peace. I don’t feel good about my body. My nutritionist has me not weighing myself, and since I’ve done that this is the first time where I feel like I’ve gained weight. And the truth is, if I feel that way, I want to address that. But if I got on the scale and didn’t lose weight would I just say. . .fuck it let’s party! Amber, my nutritionist, thinks even the “good” news I get out of weighing myself is part of a negative experience. I can feel that, I can believe that. But man, that’s an awful lot to navigate. Just a lot.

ARRRGH, what a great blog post. Glad to just spit something out, I can’t wait for the moment I’m fully rested and can give this two hours of my time. It’s not happening! WOWZ WOWZ WOWZZZZAAAA what a memory.

Since It Won’t Change

Everyday you day anything. Everyday that you bring your kids to school, that you shop for groceries. What you are doing is placing yourself and your children and your spouse and your elderly father in danger. You put them in danger of being there when someone opens fire. Today at the daycare I saw a dad look back and think about holding the door for me and my family as we were making our way into daycare. We were a solid eight steps away, he let the door close. That’s what the daycare wants us to do for every family, for every individual. If they don’t have the code, they don’t get in. Manners takes over when you see someone carrying a kid in -15 degree weather and you just want to let them in so the parent doesn’t have to take their hand out of their glove to punch in the code.

But it’s hopeless. Our hope for safety is wrapped up in Congress and that’s hopeless. And I tell you, I don’t think it’s exclusively because of the seven figure amounts that the NRA is funneling to a lot of our country’s Congresspeople. That’s not good, that doesn’t help. But I think that even though 90% of the country wants universal background checks, that 90% as a collective doesn’t have the appetite to go to war with the gun enthusiasts. There’s someone at NRA headquarters right now, throwing grounds in the coffeemaker, hoping there isn’t a shooting at their kids school today; hoping the grocery store their grandmother goes to doesn’t get shot up. They are part of the 90% that wants gun control. But I can tell you it’s not changing, they will sweat this out, they will take the shout downs from their constituents. They’ll take Beto O’Rourke’s moral high ground. In the end, there’s carnage we accept. And that carnage includes children. That carnage includes grandmother’s grabbing the groceries in Buffalo. And one day the carnage we accept will include your child, or my child, or your neighbor.

We can stop selling guns, but we won’t. We can start doing background checks, but we won’t.

I was born in 1981. I was raised in Williamstown, a college town in Massachusetts. Putting together what I saw and what my parents told me I thought we were on the part of the arc of the moral universe where things were getting better. I thought racism was dying a fast-enough-for-my-white-family death. I didn’t realize that Reagan and the movement that elected him was doubling down on racism. I didn’t realize that some of the most promising leaders of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movement had died violent deaths at the hands of our government. That some had been terrorized by our government, that some were in self-imposed exile. I thought this way for too long. I thought this way cause I’m an optimist, I thought this way cause I saw improvements in the corner of the world I live in. But there is a violence, an evil in this country that I don’t understand, that we won’t look directly at. Gun violence is just part of it. Our rates of violence, our justifications of wars, our tenure as the police force of planet earth, it will all be studied, and it won’t be favorable.

I’d like to change subjects cause I have nothing more to say at this moment about gun violence.

I don’t think we’ll be dealing with gun violence in fifty years. I remember talking to my dad about the grindingly terrible relations between Israel and Palestine. My dad said that he thought the conflict wouldn’t last 50 years. He couldn’t say what direction it was going, but it wasn’t going to stay put. And I feel the same about where we are in America. Are we going to be cataloging mass shootings by the hundreds a year in five decades. I’m apt to think no. We’ll be dead, or we’ll have moved to another country and only the armed, or they’ll be less guns, or more reasonable gun control. And I know the numbers of dead in mass shootings are paltry compared to suicides, compare to domestic violence. I also think that when people have some reasonable expectation that someone might open fire in their kid’s school, at their aunt’s grocery store, they’ll relate to the world different. These days when we are faced with reality I think about the Americans who have fought against all odds to make this country better. They have kept on going and pushed for change. There will be hundreds of such people today, at George Floyd Square, pushing Minneapolis and this entire country to live up to its ideals. But I don’t think we want to live up to our ideals. We want to conveniently cling to the ideals that better us personally. No one ever wanted to live up to the ideals.

We’ve been a democracy since the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Since then there’s been near constant agitation towards black voter disenfranchisement. Progress in the directions I’d like to see has been uniquely elusive in this time. I don’t think America is exceptional. I think Americans are exceptional. I think the reprehensible chattel slavery that thrived here and in a handful of other countries created amazing people, amazing music, amazing families. I’m not moving. I want to change America. But it’s not to make America live up to its ideals. Its to give America ideals and then start living up to them. There’s isn’t a back that is worth going to. Onward, and away from violence, and towards truth and reconciliation, towards reparations, towards an end to patriarchy, towards an end to disenfranchisement, towards a world where we treat our melting pot with the care, love and self-preservation that we see from some of the more homogeneous Scandinavian nations. Onward and afraid.

A Bad Five

This week in couple’s therapy I stumbled into a memory from kindergarten. My dad slept in, took a long shower and missed my first ever play. I don’t know if this is world ending stuff, but the therapist and Rachel gave me a look like “oh shit, that’s a lot”. Even at the time in kindergarten I knew how bad it hurt. I remember looking out into the surprisingly large classroom we were in and really knowing that he was not there. It was in the middle of the day, a lot of moms and dads weren’t there. But I’m guessing that a lot of those that weren’t there weren’t in a long shower instead. They were working jobs with a level of inflexibility that a professor of economics at an elite liberal arts college didn’t have to deal with. My dad was apologetic, but he also promptly informed me it wasn’t a big deal; there’d be other plays, and he’d be there, he’d just missed this one. It was probably 1986. He’s 38 or so at the time. A couple years younger than I am now. I guess I can say it was a big deal, whether it should be, or whether it makes sense for it to be. That memory is 36 years old. And it’s not just like it was yesterday, I don’t have a strangely photographic memory. I don’t remember the play, I don’t remember where my mom was. I just remember standing on some kind of stage for the first time in my life and looking for my dad and not seeing him.

The couple’s therapist, The couples therapist, I’m really stressed out about the apostrophe here. It’s not like it’s two couples.

The therapist, she has already been trying to get me to go into my own therapy for complex trauma. I have a hard time calling anything in my life complex or traumatic. So many boxes checked in my life; so much support, so many smiles, so much success. It’s hard. There’s trauma I’ve understood from others and haven’t faced myself, and my shit doesn’t hold a candle to it. But I’ve got things, things I don’t understand. Things that I thought were settled after doing a year of EMDR therapy. (Don’t worry, I didn’t know what it was either. Here’s a link.) But according to our couple’s therapist, that’s surgical. That’s working away the impact of one event. The event we focused on was also from that joyous rollercoaster of a year, 1986. I was allowed to go to church with my best friend Betsy on Sundays. My family wasn’t religious. I loved it, I loved going with Betsy. And yes, I fucking loved the snacks afterwards. And yes, I loved putting like six of those cube ass sugar-cubes in my tea. And I loved eating the Oreos and Nilla wafers they had laid out there. I came home one Sunday morning peppered in Oreo crumbles and my mom could see them from a mile away. She grabbed me angrily and brought me up to her bedroom. She stood me on the scale and told me if I was over 100 lbs I was never going to church again. I was 101. I still remember that green glowy digital scale reading it out. Spent a lot of time a couple years ago trying to make sense of that. Trying to talk to that young boy and tell him what grown Sean thinks of someone who would say that to a little boy. What grown Sean could tell him about what that Mom was probably going through at that time. Trying to give young Sean the love he wasn’t getting, trying to give that young Mom the forgiveness I had refused to give her even when she died.

I’m scared having a child who just turned five. Five is when I started gaining a “worrisome” amount of weight. Five is when my mom put me on the scale and said “no more Church”. Five is when Dad missed the play. I had a great childhood, good times, good laughs, good foundation. But I now understand that I had a bad five. And I had a bad six. And I had bad years dropped in throughout my childhood. I could take a long shower on Thursday May 12, 2022, miss a play at Sadie’s daycare and she could be blogging about it in 2053. We leave all sorts of shit in our childrens’ memories, nuggets of wisdom that will pay dividends for decades, and memories of bullshit that will also be on the emotional ledger sheet for annums. And somehow, realizing that my daughter is five, it’s all on the record now. I know it was on the record before, but I don’t remember much of my life before kindergarten. But now, the way I treat Sadie, that is part of her fabric. And I’m so scared I’ll mess it up. I’m so scared of what I’ll plant and I’m so scared of what I won’t plant.

I’ve got no answer, but it paralyzes me to think about it. In the moment, you do it, you talk with your children, you navigate their tantrums, you celebrate their joys. But when I pull back I’m so nervous that I’ve already planted something horrible, and of course I have. We all will, we all have. And that is paralyzing and there’s no stopping it.

My Heart is Full, My Brain is Complicated

If you wait too long to write one of these posts it can just feel like there is too much to say. 2022 has a been a year of incredible change. My wife Rachel and I have faced a lot of medium difficulties and minor inconveniences throughout the year. I’ve navigated a big job and schedule change. I’m preparing to end my time as a weekly host of 331 Club trivia, a role I’ve held down for 15 years. My previous employer is also undergoing a tremendous amount of change. It impacts me as a listener to the Current but also as someone who is close with so many people on the staff. The world is a jumblin’ right now. But I’m in a pretty awesome place.

The work I’m doing at Jazz88 is incredibly satisfying. I’ve never worked as a Music Director with a capital M before. I did a lot of Music Directoresque work for Purple Current but the buck didn’t quite stop with me and I didn’t hold that title. Having the opportunity to review new music and dive into a truly impressive library of jazz music and figure out new ways to present it, organize it, celebrate it, expand it. . .it’s otherworldly. Sometimes I walk over to Andrew from Membership and point out that I can’t believe this is part of my job. Hilariously as I’m typing this Jazz88 is playing a the song Sidewinder for the second time this morning. Different artists, but I believe an ace Music Director probably wouldn’t be having that song air twice within the same four hours.

Here’s your inspirational Yearbook Quote:

“YOU LIVE AND YOU LEARN and you don’t play the smokin’ hot Lee Morgan standard more than once in a six hour period.” -Sean McPherson

The second half of my day is spent DJing and I love it. I talk to my mens Bob Jurek, Justus Sanchez or Mike Larson to get the skinny on traffic. We celebrate musical birthdays, we cover the news. I turn up the world’s greatest jazz quite loud and soak in the sound. I interact with listeners on email & twitter, but not with the intensity of a Radio Free Current. I get a couple phone calls, couple emails, couple tweets. I try to stay all business on twitter which I struggle with. I’m re-firing this here blog a bit cause I realized I was losing control over the social media again. Also I interviewed John Pizzarelli and he did a version of the Pat Metheny tune “Last Train Home” that I am obsessed with. Check it here.

LONG SOCIAL MEDIA ASIDE:
The company I co-own, Trivia Mafia, just spent $761 this morning on FB/IG ads. It feels terrible. I think some relatively large amount of that money goes back to Mark Zuckerberg, and I think he’s a garbage man who will be remembered very unfavorably in a world he will have completely changed. In the Atlantic the writer George Packer said that we are going to look at the way we permitted children to jump on social media at age 12 as one of the grandest mistakes we’ll ever have made as a society. I just wholeheartedly agree. I see this opportunity to treat the social media relationship that millennials and generation Z were permitted to establish as children as an aberration. My whole life is against the overuse of social media. I believe in live events, I believe in linear entertainment, I believe in print magazines. I’m no luddite, I believe in Google Maps, I believe in being able to listen to Soundgarden or Mobb Deep whenever I want in my car if I don’t like what the radio is playing. But I want social media to be a means to an end; an invite to something in the material world. When I open up the company wallet to be on social media I feel I am feeding a beast who deserves none of our hard earned money. It’s a transfer of money from an in person and linear event company to a company that en masse inspires people to stay home and hate themselves, no matter how many ads they put up about their hard of hearing basketball group on TV. ASIDE DONE.

We are settling into a better routine at home, the Timberwolves are still in the playoffs and someone else from Heiruspecs is in charge of completing the artwork for the album with our designer. So I’ll count that all as a win.

I turn 41 on Thursday and I feel blessed to be involved in so many great projects, to be a part of a great family and see horizons of more hours of reflection, of reading, of relaxation, of taking in concerts, of playing music, of existing.

A Couple Weeks off the Radio Reflections

I finished up my job at the Current on Saturday March 04 and it was just today (March 22) that I officially started off my work for Jazz88KBEM. I’d love to tell you that it was a joyous two weeks with no stress whatsoever, but we all know that our careers are often just the tip of the iceberg for stress in our life, especially when there’s a war going on. But I’ve got a completely random bag of musings, recommendations et cetera to share with you.

You Don’t Need My General Take About Ukraine, but I have a couple thoughts about why this reprehensible, unjustified assault on a sovereign nation is eliciting a unique response

Sovereign countries aren’t invaded everyday in our world. State violence, ethnic cleansing, many horrible things happen everyday, but a sovereign country being invaded is not all that common. Sometimes it’s America doing the invading, sometimes it’s us flying drones to kill people in countries we aren’t trying to occupy but need to do some killing in. Maybe we shut our mouth when it’s our country doing the killing. Am I equating the wholesale murder of civilians with poorly managed drone attacks that result in the death of civilians? No. I’m not equating, but I am comparing.

Here’s a thought exercise: how would we be acting if Indonesia was invading Australia? How would it be different? How would it not be? Part of why Western media has their eyes locked on this conflict is because of the obvious potential for this to balloon into a larger conflict that would REQUIRE the involvement of Western troops. But, another part of why Western media has their eyes on this conflict is because the country being invaded is. . .Western! It’s full of white people, largely Christian. Some people say that Western media is paying attention because it’s “in our backyard”. But you know what, Australia isn’t in our backyard, but it’s full of white people, largely Christian.

Flipside, we aren’t particularly afraid of Indonesia building an empire right? We don’t fear expansion in the same way we do from Putin. We (Westerners) aren’t fixated on Indonesia, right? I don’t know the name of the Prime Minister. I don’t know the political bent of the country. And maybe I wouldn’t be afraid that Indonesia would win. We are afraid Russia will win. We seem to be slightly less afraid that Russia will win today than we were 24 hours ago, but it’s still Russia. They’re huge. The nuclear weapons is a huge thing too. An unprovoked war between two countries without nuclear weapons? It’s easy to see the containment built right in.

Is it wrong to do thought exercises when civilians are being killed? When war crimes are being committed? I believe it is still acceptable to do a thought exercise. I am heartbroken for the senseless and depraved misery that Russia has exacted upon Ukraine. But I need to explore why my fear, my anger, my addictive reading of articles is on a different level here than when the story about the hidden casualties in American drone wars comes out (NYTimes December 2021). So I am exploring it.

There Are Unique Challenges to Being a Dad Today

I see something in myself and a lot of the dads I’m around right now, and I’ve been talking about it with my wife and with some of these dads. I’m gonna tell you my story, but I am starting to realize that this might be more generational than unique to me.

I bust my ass on parenting shit a lot more than my dad did. My dad wasn’t above it all, I saw my dad do plenty of dishes, I saw my dad bring me and my brother out every weekend while my mom worked a weekend job while I was in pre-school. But my mom ran the show, my dad traveled and my dad, by his own admission, only blossomed as a dad after his kids crossed that ability to really reason and communicate, which he said hit at about third grade for me and my brother Steve. But my competition for the Dad Olympics is my dad and maybe a bit my wife’s dad. All I feel with the dads of my generation is pure camaraderie; I have never once felt shown up by another dad at the playground. It’s not because I was doing a better job than them, it’s because I figured we were in a brotherhood, locked into competition not with each other but with our own father’s and our wives*. Why are we in competition with our wives? I’m in competition with my wife because I feel like if I’m kicking more ass at parenting than my dad is, I must obviously be making my wife’s life better immeasurably than my dad made his wife’s. So I should be fucking worshipped! But, reality interrupts this planned orgy of worship. Why?

Well, it was a real miscarriage of justice for our parents’ generation that mothers were expected to do the most demanding parts of parenting, handle the longest hours of parenting and deliver the goods in their career. The fact that many women did all that doesn’t make it okay that they had to. And when I lighten the load for my wife compared to what my dad did for my mama, it’s still not even, it’s still not fair. She’s still getting the short end of the stick.

But as I choke up on that stick and take more responsibility than my dad did, I am trading compensated, celebrated, CAREER WORK for domestic, emotional, thankless and largely invisible work. I am moving into work that we have relegated to be second class, to be beneath the station of the working man. And the narrative that I hear in my head is that I’m making a deal that pleases no one. The ghost of the Baby Boomer father is wondering: “why do you do so many diapers? why do you feel you can’t travel during the week? why can’t you catch a happy hour sometimes before you come home? can’t she do that?” And the very non-ghost of your real live wife is saying “you want a trophy for picking the kids up? a ticker tape parade for knowing how to take a temperature in the armpit, fuck off and grab a broom you bag of shit”.

So no one’s happy. And what Rachel opened my mind to is that there is another sphere of competition that looms larger in a young mom’s life than in a young dad’s: the competition with other moms. Rachel makes it clear she isn’t in a pure sisterhood with the mom’s at the park. There’s judgement about the quality of outfits, the healthiness of the snacks, the way you wear the yoga pants. There’s probably competition about how little your partner has to do. I think most of these wars are waged at public parks and on Instagram and I only go to public parks partially for that reason. AND GUESS WHAT ELSE: It’s obvious to anyone in the working world today, women aren’t in the minor leagues. They get paid minor league dollars which is absolutely bogus, but the expectations are high, the pressure is high, the self-generated competition is high. So there’s no relief.

Okay, I started this section by saying that dad’s have it uniquely hard and then of course circled around to realize that women have it worse. I knew that when I started typing. . .but I think dads have it hard because of this dissonance where they can look at an internal measuring stick and feel like they’re measuring up, but get really different input from both their partners and the pressures and expectations they likely received from their parents.

Reading Fiction is Excellent

I’m reading Karl Ove’s “My Struggle: Book 2” and it’s just spectacular. I just happened upon a five page description of a Communist uncle who fell under the sway of Heidegger and other thinkers but had no one to share this energy with, so he would unload a year of reading onto his young nephews on Christmas Eve every year. It was one of the most gorgeous things I’ve ever read in my entire life. I read it hours ago with a soundtrack of my 2 year old losing her shit 8 feet away and I was still transported to a dark Christmas Eve in Norway in 1986 and you can’t get that from a lot else besides a novel.

Reading About Sex is Excellent

Rachel found a book called “Come As You Are” by Emily Nagoski. This is a book that is challenging me to really think about some nuts and bolts of sex, some emotional components of sex and realizing that you’re doing it really wrong if you’re only looking at either half of that equation. I think letting sexual relationships age, mature and evolve is one of the hardest things to pull off. I don’t know, there’s some ideal image of sexual intimacy for me and it has very little to do with my current lived reality. But one doesn’t need to bang their head against the wall about that or resign yourself to a shit sex life. You need to do what you do about everything else in your life, READ A GOD DAMN BOOK ABOUT IT AND KEEP TRYING.

It Felt Good To Say Goodbye to Spotify Just for Me

I’m not taking Heiruspecs’ music off of Spotify. I’m sticking with Spotify on that end. But I want to feel really good right before I press play on music. I feel great telling me phone to play KBEM, or the Current, or KEXP or WBGO or WWOZ. I feel great dialing up an album I paid for on Bandcamp. But I stopped feeling good about hitting Spotify. I didn’t want to press play. So I wanted to stop paying. I switched up to Tidal. Tidal is not making bands rich, but I’m paying the highest price I can for the highest quality I can pay (that’s $30 a month for a big ass hifi family plan). I can really hear the difference on rock albums especially. I can hear it on jazz records too. In fact, I can hear it on a lot. And the curated playlists on Tidal are a lot smarter, a lot less predictable, a lot more inspired. And I do like the idea that they’re gonna give one artist I bump hard a full on $10 of my subscription. That sounds small, but man, what if it’s Pharaoh Sanders and not Beyonce? Pharaoh doesn’t need $10, but if it all starts to move towards the artists of the world getting a taste, getting a bigger taste, that’s a good look. And some billionaire is gonna get some money off of me streaming music. I’d rather have it be an unbelievably talented black rapper who hasn’t given Joe Rogan $1 million, let alone $200 million to talk his shit. That’s Danny Ek’s choice, but I don’t have to keep on sending him $14.99 a month to bankroll it.

I was on a podcast called Bedroom Beethovens

I appeared on a podcast called Bedroom Beethoven’s with a dude named Marcello. I got so overwhelmed with the “Sean is leaving the Current” fanfare and pulling every tweet into my ego like a twine ball that I haven’t pressed play on the final product yet, but Marcello had done an impressive amount of research and he had a great tone and angle. It’s here.

The Podcast “Plain English” with Derek Thompson is Amazing

I don’t think anyone is talking about this podcast but I have no idea why. Derek Thompson is a writer from the Atlantic who is insightful without using the “I’m so insightful voice” that Ezra Klein and Michael Barbaro do. It’s not pretentious, it’s well researched and it’s efficient. It takes the attention and intelligence of its audience seriously which is as rare as a unicorn in podcasts.

Sometimes Very Simple Things Make You Happy

I have a visceral, emotional connection with the coffeeshop J&S on Randolph right by my house. They technically want you to call it JS because I guess J got a divorce from S so now it’s Just Steve’s. But everyone calls it J&S. Michelle and Dakota are the baristas on Sunday mornings. I go in there every Sunday with Martin Devaney and we make a little small talk with them and then sit and sort it out. And it is my oasis, my moment to talk about my life with my best friend. But it’s so special that even a coffee from there during the week can turn my day around. It’s like walking into that building gives me the invitation to relax, reflect and appreciate life. I was having a horrible day maybe about a week ago. I was in a funk and it was shit news every hour on the hour. But man when I took that first sip of coffee that day got a solid 21% less bad.

Here’s the other thing: I ended up having to buy a new car because the water pump started leaking. But the reason I already knew what I wanted (Volvo S90) is because I wanted a smooth ass sedan that would make it easier for me to stream radio stations from other markets in my car. Mainly, I’ve been focused in on KBEM, doing my research and loving the jams. But I am an outspoken fan of Larry Mizell Jr., the afternoon DJ on KEXP. And that first day I got my Apple Pay dialed up and pressed play on that and there was some funky music coming out of KEXP. It was simple, it felt good. Bring it on. And listen to Larry sometime.

The Spelling Bee is Coming Back

COVID was bad to trivia, but it was lights out for the Drinkin’ Spelling Bee. That’s a situation where you are sharing a microphone, having lots of loose boozy energy and generally just navigating a lot. But we are feeling good about doing a “you gotta be vaccinated to compete” spelling bee this Saturday at Amsterdam Bar and Hall. I’m gonna be there hanging out, cheering on my team and rocking out. It would be awesome to have you there. And it’d be great for you to buy a ticket. What a treat. It starts early, and starting early on a Saturday is a genius move.

Buy a ticket to this event and drink Summit with me on Saturday.

I’m Diving Right in with KBEM
I’m going to be on the air soon soon soon with KBEM. I am so elated to spend my afternoons with you spinning jazz. I’m finishing up orientation on Wednesday and I’ll probably be helping out a bit on Thursday and then taking over as soon as Friday with 3-7pm Central for the Afternoon Jazz Cruise. You can listen here, and I sincerely hope you do. I love the station and I can’t wait to bring my flavor to it. This is a very exciting moment for me and I hope it’s going to be something you enjoy.

*My whole center of the argument here is a very heteronormative space. This doesn’t fit the reality I live in, but especially at the kids playground I need to confess to you that if I see a dad hanging alone on a Saturday I am pre-thinking that he has a wife at home. I’m not considering it possible that he’s a single dad or that he is a couple with another man. That’s not fair, that’s not right, but I’m trying to give you where my brain is at about it, and that’s where I’m at.

The Surreal End

54 minutes til I’m done at The Current. The music is cranked and I’m done looking at social media. I’ve felt all the good feelings I can feel and I’ve picked all the songs I can pick. I’m gonna get a drink at the White Squirrel on the way home, but it’s so icy I’m not sure any friends will come. The thing for me is it’s right on the way home. And I need a drink.

I’ve changed so much in the years I was at the Current. Rachel and I had kids, Trivia Mafia became a very serious business, I became an adult and I learned how to do radio. I made lifelong friends, learned life lessons. I’ve worked almost every hour of every day of the week on this Current. A journey, I don’t have anything say, I Just need to babble. I learned so much about music, how to present, but also what it can mean, how it can help, how it can be weaponized. I saw musicians who were completely checked out, no interest in being at a radio station, but it’s their job to be there. I saw musicians who exploded with enthusiasm, so eager to connect, not even necessarily because it was good business, because it was good talking.

I love talking with Jill on the air. Doing the Morning Show. I’ve fallen in love with doing radio. I think it’s beautiful. I think it’s a great way to spend a life. I think I’m doing the right thing with my life. And that’s comforting. Truly comforting in a way I can’t explain. That’s all I have. I’m about to walk out of this building for the first time for a long time unless I forget something stupid.

Thank you for the memories. Onward.

8:26 is when I Sit Down

This is my second to last Radio Free Current shift before I move on to become host at KBEM Jazz88 in Minneapolis. I thought I’d lift the hood on Radio Free Current and my emotions right now.

I like to stand up when I DJ. But right around 8:26 most Saturday nights I sit down for about five minutes and get re-centered. They’ll be another rush of calls maybe at 9:15 but between 8:30 and 9:15 it’s more of an email affair and a little more mellow. I look at how the show is going so far. . .am I going down a rabbit hole? Am I stuck in an era? Are the rotation songs fitting with the theme songs? Are there songs I’m skipping for no good reason?

I feel emotional tonight cause it’s the second to last night I’ll be the host on Radio Free Current. This is a gig I slid into unexpectedly. Dave Campbell (dear friend, broadcast legend, someone who stuck is neck out for me at The Current and showed me the ropes, I’ve tried to do the same for folks walking in the door since I got a couple years under my belt), he quit fast and within maybe six weeks I was behind the boards on Saturday night. It’s quite possible in the mind of most staff that the two hardest shifts to pull off from the technical view of things at the Current are the Morning Show and Radio Free Current. Granted, Jill and Jade were doing the heavy lifting during my early era on the Morning Show, but that’s high pressure cause Morning Radio is a big deal.

There’s nothing better than getting tossed into the fire. You learn fast, you fail loudly. In my early years at the Current friends would go “it’s great to get to listen to you learning how to do radio”. I knew it was serious, but I knew it wasn’t a compliment. It hurt cause I wanted to be good right away, but I wasn’t. But I kept on getting better. I accepted a whole bunch of critiques. I had made the mistake of my 20s for confusing success with talent. Heiruspecs was doing good, in fact by some measures we were doing great. . .but I didn’t have my fundamentals down as a bassist. I didn’t grind hard to improve the shortcomings. I thought if the formula was working, the formula was right. I haven’t made that mistake with radio. I’ve practiced styles I would never use, formats I wouldn’t excel at. I took every shot they gave me at MPR. And I’ve gained better radio muscles than I’ve ever possessed on the bass.

And the crucible was Radio Free Current. The crucible was faking it til I made it on artists I didn’t know, front-selling a set of music that I had already played, reading all the underwriting for the 7am-10am hours instead of the PM. I made all the mistakes and now the show rules. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect. That doesn’t mean the next person who takes this shift won’t blow me out of the water, but I know good radio and I know shit radio. I’ve made both. This is good radio.

And I’m scared to leave it because I feel so connected to this shift. I love talking to the folks who request songs. I know there’s plenty of people who listen and don’t request, but I just feel this energy different from a regular shift on The Current. When I’m pressing play on songs I know we’re sharing the adventure together. There are people who think in the Spotify era request radio makes no sense. . .you can play what you want immediately who cares about the radio? I understand that those people have never looked at a sunrise and had a song just appear that they hadn’t heard in twenty years. I know the people who don’t understand request radio have never smiled for no reason. Request radio isn’t for logical people, it’s for the magic people and I love the magic people.

I broke one of the good rules today and played Heiruspecs. That’s the band I play in, can’t really imagine you reading this blog and not knowing that but here I am talking too much. It’s good that people can’t play their own music on the radio. It’s tacky. But I’m one week away from moving on from this gig. I’m ready for tacky. But playing Heiruspecs tonight on the radio, it made my night and I know it at least made Andy Holmaas’s night too. He’s the friend who requested it. I’ve lived a small, magical life making cool indelible memories for a shockingly small amount of people. Regional and magical. And now I’m past the age where you’re supposed to be cool, but I’m cool. I get some love from the younger generation of movers and shakers. Part of that is because I have been entrusted with a platform. But the other thing is that I have used that platform well, I have supported promising artists and found new avenues to get more music to potential listeners. And I’m a joy to be around. So back to my head in my hand and Heiruspecs on the speakers. I feel good about life. I have a wonderful family. I work a job that is cooler than I can possibly imagine and I am leaving that job for one that feels even better to me for my career goals and my musical proclivities. God damn I love that word proclivity. And it’s like I just see little windows of the joy I feel overall about my life. Because everyday there are things to do. Today I bought a car, I drove it home fast, to eat lunch, to start naps, to go to Target, to get a gift card for the family that let us borrow the car, to come home, to marinate the chicken, to warm the pitas, to empty the recycling, to empty the garbage, to load the dishes, to park downstairs, to forget your charger, to pick the music, to read the underwriting. And then at some point you are hearing music you worked really hard on about 19 years ago blast out of speakers at a station you grew up listening to and you breathe different.

For the past 48 hours people I know and don’t know have been saying really nice things to me. They say they’ll miss hearing me on the Current, they say they’re excited to hear me on KBEM. I can’t address every person on social media, not because I don’t have time, god I will cancel anything on my calendar to read nice things about me on the internet, but it gets so vomitty when you see a person who has decided to every person who reaches them. It just gets annoying. But I’m responding to every email. It means so much that people care. I care about who is on the radio. I was there losing my shit when Bob Collins signed off with Mary Lucia. I remember hearing Jade crack the mic for the first time at 10am after The Current let Barb Abney go. A great DJ becomes your friend who you don’t know, that’s pretty amazing. Getting all this positive feedback is amazing, and it’s why people stay on social media forever, hoping they’ll hit a vein and find a sea of people who love them. I’ve tried to stay off of these sites, and as the praise and enthusiasm dries up I’m left with deciding if I love myself. When Heiruspecs’ song played tonight I was able to realize I can tell myself I’ll miss me at this station. I’m proud of the work I’ve done on the Current. I’m proud of the way I connected The Current, YourClassical and MPR News socially. I am proud of the work I did with The Current unionizing (we are unionized and I am soon to be a former member of the Union bargaining committee). I was hear for a significant chunk of time and I made a significant contribution.

I remember being in the photos for the Current’s Ten Year Anniversary and holiday card. A lot of the folks marking the tenth anniversary had been around from very close to day one. It was on that day that I said I would throw myself into my work at the Current and my life at MPR. I served on committees, I volunteered for things. I studied our output even if I wasn’t purely involved. I wanted to make sure that I was putting in the work that I could be proud of on the day that I leave. I wanted to make sure I had helped the station be even better in my opinion. I’m proud and I’ll miss me at this station. And being able to really say that to myself feels amazing.

It’s time to go home. It’s 12:12am and it’s been a long week and right around now I head home and crash.

For Your Consideration

I think this is the funniest help ticket opened in the history of opening help tickets.

What I Did With My COVID19 Summer

I got a pretty manageable version of COVID19, testing positive on Tuesday February 1, being in good shape by Friday and stepping out of quarantine on Monday morning. I was scared shitless regardless of my mild symptoms because this disease does kill people, lots of people, people you know, people I know, people we both love. But, with my double vax and boosted status I started to relax when I didn’t feel any significantly trying symptoms. The first night was rough, but just rough like having a seriously bad cold. I spent that night and the next six nights sleeping on Martin Devaney’s air mattress in my basement. I spent the grand majority of my time in the basement sleeping and consuming fiction based media which was an absolute treat. I also spent a lot of time hearing my wife try to control two kids and I had the sad knowledge that I couldn’t come to help. NOTE: I did clean the shit out of the first floor of the house and prepare a re-heatable lunch every night after everyone went to bed. And turns out you have plenty of energy to clean if you’ve spent the day watching TV. Okay.

Remind me again why people don’t like Lost? I read something years ago that called this particular episode (The Constant) one of the greatest episodes of any TV show ever. Guess what? That article was right. It’s awesome. Daniel Faraday, Locke, they are all delivering the goods in the episode and Desmond, are you kidding me? I watched it, I liked it. I like Lost. I wish we still planned our lives around it the way we used to (I remember watching one of the episodes at the Turf Club and they weren’t going to start the show til the episode finished). Unbelievable.

Station Eleven. It’s on HBO Max, it’s about a pandemic. The pandemic is vastly more severe than COVID19. It was a dumb thing to watch in the condition I was in. It was incredibly enthralling. I watched the whole thing. I listened to the not super good podcast they made about the show while I was trying to organize the absolute mountain of kid’s clothes that we store in our basement. I loved the show. Like Lost, the show moves in non-linear steps between different elements of the story. There is not a time travel element, but it has some jarring similarities. Also, I’m a big sucker for a “play within a play” thing and that goes really well. I would’ve benefitted from a deep knowledge of the Shakespeare play “Hamlet” which I definitely do not have.

I put off seeing this movie for an inexcusable amount of time because I was hoping to catch it in a theatre. As I sat in my basement not even able to see my own family I didn’t think waiting until a larger screening option came up made sense. Wow. This documentary sounds so incredible. It’s some of the best live recordings I’ve ever heard, in any genre. And the 60s wasn’t always hospitable to high quality live recordings, why is this one so good? I don’t know if it was great source material or great modern day mixing or a combination. But man, what a joy to witness these performances. The context, the significance, the defiance with which Harlem organized a cultural concert series that went largely ignored outside of the Black community. It was a powerful story and it was weaved so well. And it was the rare music documentary where the talking heads truly supplemented the performances. I feel bad for not having jumped in and watched it sooner, but I’m glad I caught up with it and dug in.

Every fan of hip-hop is supposed to have seen the movie “The Warriors”. It is constantly quoted, referenced and it is just one of those movies that has become part of the culture. It’s not specifically about hip-hop, and apparently the studio did the studio thing of adding way more white characters to the film than were in the book version. But frankly, it was just magical to see this movie that I have heard quoted for my whole life. It was a treat to see the movie in its entirety. Also, I just never take in whole movies and it was so great to get it. I also rabbit holed deep into the movie and its actors on wikipedia.

Jesus that’s a huge photo of Karl Ove. I’m reading the second installment in his hyper biography “My Struggle”. I still don’t get why the shit it is titled that, but I will say that the first book found me at this perfect time in my life where I needed to understand how trying and confusing being a young father can be. I started to read Book 2 immediately afterwards and I just couldn’t catch the plot, I wasn’t interested, it didn’t grab me. Flash forward five years and I’m ready to hear more about this chapter in Karl Ove’s life. If you haven’t given his a work a chance I strongly recommend you check it out. I find it so calming to read about the mundane details of some Norwegian dude in Sweden as a way to make sense of the struggles in my life.

I have a vinyl collection but I really struggle to listen to it. I have a couple records I go to all the time but I never branch out. During my COVID19 time I was able to alphabetize the whole collection, put it in a nice set of storage and finally I can comfortably thumb through my shit and find things. It sent me to check out records I hadn’t in years or that I never had! I am loving it.

That’s about all I did. I had a couple meetings. I slept a lot. I tried to watch the Scorsese film “Mean Streets” but it was wild violent and I fell asleep. But now I’m back on fiction and movies and I’m loving it.

RIP To Anomaly

Anomaly behind the boards. Taken from his FB page.

A fixture in the Minnesota music scene just passed away. His name is Jason Heinrichs and for quite some time he was known professionally as Anomaly. Anomaly had a recording studio in his basement in South Minneapolis and a lot of folks recorded some of their first work there (Atmosphere, P.O.S, Oddjobs et cetera). Jason’s biggest impact in music is likely his work in the dance world where he was a force as a DJ and a producer. I always knew he knew what he was doing in the dance world, but I’ve never been very conversant in those scenes. Beyond a couple basslines for other artists, I never recorded at his studio, but when Heiruspecs was strictly a high school band he spent a couple months as our drummer. It was a really wonderful experience for me, and I hope for him. The older musicians (he was probably 23 at the time) who took the time to be a part of Heiruspecs’ story were really important to me and the band.

A solid 70% of being in a band when you’re young is actually just learning how to be an adult being sifted through the process of learning how to be in a band. Some of the stories I’m about to tell you can only really be understood if you remember the information desert that was the world before the internet. If you never survived without the internet, there is a world of things you learned in front of a computer screen by yourself that me and my generation learned looking like complete total losers in front of other humans. Jason was a guiding hand towards me not being a total fucking asshole musician. It helped me immensely.

Jason was the first person I ever interacted with who had roommates. I’m so glad I was basically an adult before cell phones came into my world. I booked my first tour without a cell phone. I booked my first 300 rehearsals without a text message.It was a different time. If you liked somebody’s music you got their phone number, there wasn’t even really email yet. I dug how Jason sounded on drums and he dug what Heiruspecs was doing musically. I asked him if he was interested in doing something with Heiruspecs. I frankly had been thinking more along the lines of him doing a remix or playing one special show with us. He just mentioned he’d love to play the kit more and I was elated. This resulted in me parting ways with our drummer (and my neighbor) Alex in a hasty, rude fashion. But I loved what Jason did on the kit. I wanted to connect.

Jason gave me his house number and told me to give him a call. I called him and a woman answered. I asked for Jason and she ended up just taking down my phone number and letting me know he’d call back. I learned that that was his roommate. A roommate? A woman? In a house? I was blown away. I knew about roommates like in college, but I had no idea that people had roommates in real life post college, I thought that was just in Friends. We ended up connecting and making plans to play music together. But I just remember being in awe of this WHOLE ASS ADULT, who lived with a bunch of people in a house, wanting to play music with me and my ragtag group of friends.

I Didn’t Know That People Drank a Lot on the Night Before Thanksgiving Until Jason Told Me

Jason came from up North in Minnesota, I’m not sure where. We were standing outside before some gig and he mentioned that he’d head home for a couple days around Thanksgiving and offhandedly he mentioned “and I’ll see everyone from my high school on Thanksgiving eve cause there’s only one bar in town”. WHAT? I had no idea. Since he was already in his mid 20s he had to tell me it was overrated, that it wasn’t very fun. But, I asked him if it was cool to come back to Northern Minnesota and be the cool guy who produces records and plays in bands and he said absolutely. He kind of gave me a look like “if you keep on playing music, you’re always going to be the cool guy at the bar the night before Thanksgiving”. He was right.

Jason Taught Me To Loosen Up Just a Little

I ruled Heiruspecs with an undeserving iron fist for the first 8 years of our history. I thought the only way to be a good bandleader was for me to be a relentless asshole. But I couldn’t be an asshole to Anomaly, he was old and he was cool. I would tell him exactly what I wanted him to do on drums and he would do about half of it. And he just didn’t care. He cared sincerely about making good music, but he didn’t care about stopping for a dotted 1/8th note on measure 29 of Felix’s verse. Didn’t care. If he did it, great, if he missed it, who cares? Nobody cares. This attitude was only acceptable to me because he sounded great on drums, he was old enough to have roommates and what the hell else was I going to do about it.

First Time I Played on Stage at the Mainroom was with Jason

The first time I ever played music on the stage of First Avenue’s Mainroom was on January 1, 1999. Rhymesayers had a big ass event called Soundset (obv. later it became an outdoor festival) and they had Heiruspecs play. I can’t remember if we played criminally late or criminally early. But we played to very few people and we played through like two microphones. Since the club thought it was a rap show they hadn’t rented the necessary microphones to accommodate a live band. We made it through and I remember being so elated to be throwing down on this legendary stage where I had already seen some of my heroes play music. That memory was with Jason. I get the feeling like it was far from the first time Jason had ever played the Mainroom but he seemed happy to match our energy.

Jason Flaking on Heiruspecs Was How We Got to Record Our Album Antidisestablishmetabolism

I think pretty quickly the polish of playing in a high school band as someone in your mid twenties wore off for young Jason. He politely quit the band and gave me the numbers of many drummers he thought could fit the bill if we needed. The shitty part was, we finally had studio time booked. We had at first tried to record in a church in Woodbury with some agemates doing the engineering. They couldn’t get keys to the Church on the night we were supposed to record and when we finally did get into the Church their equipment wasn’t working right. Jason was unimpressed with this whole situation and spent the majority of the non-session sitting in his SUV presumably wondering what the fuck he was doing in front of a Church in Woodbury with a bunch of 17 year olds. So instead, Heiruspecs booked some discounted days of the week over at the Terrarium (when it was on Washington Ave). I ended up having to fly my drummer friend from Massachusetts in for the sessions cause we didn’t have a drummer. Conor Meehan, the drummer, was a masterful player and that record is really the sound of a brand new drummer being dropped into a band that was incredibly well rehearsed and then Felix freestyling on top of it. It doesn’t always work as a sound, but man when it does. Check this one out.

My Positive Take on Jason

I don’t know much about Jason’s passing. Felix from Heiruspecs, who stayed in closer contact with him said it might have been an unexpected heart attack. Regardless, my biggest comfort for Jason is that he got to do music professionally for his whole life. I don’t know if he held other gigs, but whenever I ran into him he was talking about licensing music, making new beats and loving DJing. I fielded a call from Zach Combs shortly after Jason’s passing cause he wasn’t sure I knew of his death. I shared with Zach my optimism about Jason and also about myself and so many of my fellow musician friends of a certain age: we didn’t become household names, we didn’t attain the fame we at one point were certain was coming our way; but well into adulthood we were able to make money from making music. We were able to share music with audiences, to record albums, to travel with the music. It’s a beautiful thing and so many people just want that, and Jason got that, and he was damn good at it. And he had a roommate.

Welcome to Minnesota

I Care A Lot About Comfort

In the last eight years, I’ve thought a lot about comfort in many different settings in my life. I’ve thought about comfort because I find it’s a word I don’t lie about. I tell a lot of people I’m good when I’m far from good. But if I say I’m comfortable, I legitimately am comfortable.

And in the last couple years I’ve been hearing more and more about people who aren’t comfortable doing basic things I feel comfortable doing. That might be something like trying to buy an expensive item in a store without getting the third degree from a clerk that doesn’t think you have the money because of your race, or because of the way you dress. That might be something like me correctly being referred to as a “he” because I look to a great percentage of the world as a he. I think feeling comfortable leads to being able to be a more productive member of society. So I care.

At some point I realized that the comfort of the people around me is a paramount concern. Is my friend having a good time at this event? Does my friend wish another friend would stop using the word “bitches” all the time about women? It’s my hope to make people comfortable. Mainly this shit is simple, if you’re doing something that makes someone uncomfortable and it’s not a central tenet of your life, just stop it. If it’s a central tenet to your life, you gotta fight for it. If it’s a truly defensible position, I think that makes sense. If the main goal of your action is to create discomfort for people, you’re an honest to goodness asshole.

I really like listening to a podcaster named Mike Pesca and his podcast “The Gist”. He is one of those commentators I disagree with all the way to the bank. I disagree with a lot of his views. I disagree with a lot of his tone. I think he’s an incredible broadcaster and thinker and I value listening to him. For many years he was with Slate. He got fired. One of the primary reasons for his firings was he that he came to the theoretical defense of the science editor Donald McNeil who got fired from The New York Times for saying the n-word in a conversation with a teenager on a NY Times sanctioned trip. Pesca didn’t type the “n word” in the company Slack, he was questioning whether it was reasonable for Donald McNeil to get fired. Ultimately Slack and Pesca parted ways. I don’t think it was exclusively about Pesca’s communication on Slack, but I think it was the clarifying moment. I can’t really know if it was the exclusive reason Pesca got fired, because neither side will share all of the juice. Having been around some high profile firings in the last couple years, the “big event” is usually the last straw not the first occasion for worry.

I am in general glad that Pesca got fired. At the time of his firing I read almost everything I could about Pesca and he seemed like someone who liked to ask all the right, needling insightful questions on most topics and couldn’t deal with the third rail that is the N word. I believe that needling curiosity makes him great on his podcast, but I find it harder to accept that spirit in a Slack channel at work. Some topics are profoundly asymmetrical in the potential trauma they can pose. That doesn’t mean they can’t be talked about, but I think we can safely recognize they are asymmetrical. Joel Anderson, a great sports and beyond writer/podcaster and Slate employee was quoted as saying: “For Black employees, it’s an extremely small ask to not hear that particular slur and not have debate about whether it’s OK for white employees to use that particular slur,” he said. I find this to be a reasonable position. Slate is trying to provide a rewarding, challenging work environment and I don’t think it’s some sort of paternalism to do what it takes to keep that word and the defense of that word out of the work Slack. Do I think it is a reasonable argument position to say that Donald McNeil shouldn’t have been fired if his sole offense was saying the n-word in a clarifying sentence once? Yes. Do I feel like this is an okay thing to discuss in a newsroom Slack? No, I don’t. And I’m not going to jump to the defense of someone who did think that. That’s a scary tip of the iceberg. And I do believe that is one of the reasons why people don’t come to the defense of the Pescas of the world. I honestly think that going hard on being able to use the n-word is a really bad indicator of what else you are in support of.

So back to comfort. Not having come up as a journalist, not having sharpened those skills, I don’t have this same knee jerk defense of the idea that “all ideas are open, nothing is forbidden”. I understand the value of this as the default but I don’t believe that carve outs within private companies are unreasonable. Again, I think I’ve experienced pretty fantastic levels of comfort in my life and it’s given me the space and support to share my music, my feelings and myself with the world. Why not try to extend that comfort to as many humans as possible? There’s an obvious counterpoint here: who am I to decide what makes other people comfortable? I think this is a reasonable concern. I know that John McWhorter and other thinkers are arguing, often convincingly, that the mandate to police certain words is infantilizing for the groups it claims to be policing on behalf of. I think this is a gray line issue. I think it is possible for overly enthusiastic ally folks to go too far, to create an environment where pins and needles are required for every sentence uttered. But I don’t think it’s reality. I don’t think we are there. I also don’t think we’ll get there because generally, being able to speak freely is what makes most of us comfortable. So, the couple limits that private organizations put on speech won’t balloon beyond reason. Or at least, the stakes of controlled speech that will balloon won’t be on the level of a fireable offense.

Again, if Pesca had some angle where he thought he could advance the culture or his work if he got the green light to say the n word that’d be one thing. But I think he just did it cause he wanted to keep his brain sharp. It’s just so asymmetrical when one person is arguing for sport and the other party is arguing for safety or comfort. I’ll never know everything about Pesca’s situation, neither Slate nor Pesca seem keen to talk in formal ways about it. Pesca talked about it a bunch here. But really, I think Pesca wanted to poke around cause he wanted to poke around. I don’t necessarily think Donald McNeil shoulda been fired, but I also don’t think I’ll ever know the whole story. It’s also not the biggest deal if someone gets fired. It’s not the worst thing on Earth. Don McNeil and Pesca have been introduced to new guard rails, to new concerns and how to navigate them. They’ll survive, they’ll be comfortable, and I think they’ll be more attuned to others’ comfort. And that’s a good thing.

You Need Some Trusted Barometers

The input of other humans you trust is one of the most valuable things you can have on this Earth. You cannot be swayed by the random opinions of buttholes on the internet, but you also can’t be one of those “I only answer to God” people. The input of the humans you trust should be central to how you move in this world.

Why am I bringing this up? Because Neil Young should be one of those artists for Spotify. Is Neil Young always right? Hell no! Has Neil Young generally aimed towards improving the world, raising money for good causes and pushing the best artists on the planet to be better and do better? Yes. Does Spotify not realize that cool points can cost you some money sometimes? Spotify is decidedly not cool. Have you looked at the playlists on Tidal? They are better programmed, with better names, with better artwork and with a musician’s touch. It really does feel different. I’m a current subscriber to Spotify, it is integrated into my family’s life, across our speaker systems et cetera. I pinch my nose and send Spotify way more money per month than they send me through royalties. But, they clearly have gotten too big to follow their trusted barometers. If you are trying to be the biggest, most universal music service in the world you have to listen to people like Neil Young and Joni Mitchell. They come from a generation that doesn’t push as many streams as younger generations but they have the respect of their peers. Spotify’s claim to fame was getting all the music. They got the Beatles, they got Pink Floyd. They got all the bands that were reluctant about streaming. And now they are losing them to appease a single cash cow. No doubt, Rogan will make Spotify more money in the next year than Young will make them in the next twenty-five. But they aren’t looking at barometric nature of an artist like Neil telling your service to go fuck itself. And they aren’t looking at the fact that Warner Bros. will ride with Neil on this. And Joni’s label is riding on it too. They don’t have to. They could stay loyal to Spotify, who has lined the major label pockets for years with piles of money that the indies aren’t getting. But I think the major labels are, contrary to what we all say all the time, willing to play the long game for some artists.

So Spotify, you need to listen. I’m not saying you need to move. You might look at your business and realize that appeasing Joe Rogan is more important than being able to advertise yourself as having an almost complete collection of recorded music in your collection. You might not be risking your cash cow, but you’re risking your brand identity. If your catalog starts to get Swiss cheesed by the artists with morals, you’re gonna keep losing subscribers. But Neil Young’s disapproval should be a red flag, get the team together and make sure you’re making the right decision. To me it seems like you’re playing a short game which is never a good move for a company that has employees. You’ve got yachts to buy, small time musicians to screw over, dumb playlists to secretly profit from, you ready to lose all of that over what is clearly already a middling stance re: COVID19 misinformation.

I’d like to shout out some of my barometers. A good barometer is frustrating cause they tell you the truth or at least their take when the others in your circle aren’t.

Peter Leggett - Peter’s the drummer in Heiruspecs. Peter is also in charge of press for Mayor Melvin Carter. In my music work with Peter he can often deliver a lot of nos. He’ll look at a pretty well constructed beat and tear the whole thing apart. He will tear stuff down to the studs long after the rest of the band is planning an arrangement. But Peter won’t let bad stuff get out of the door. Peter will make sure it meets his standards. If Peter is liking it, I know it’s good. If Peter isn’t, I know it isn’t, even if I disagree with him in the moment.

I-Self Devine - I Self Devine is an elder statesman in the Twin Cities music scene. He has a history that goes back to the mid-80s as a visual artist and as an emcee. We aren’t particularly close but we’ve worked together a number of times and have spent time socially as well. A couple times he’s gone out of his way to let me know his negative thoughts about some way or another that I was moving within the hip-hop scene. The critique was always clear but was never absolute. But I knew that whatever I was doing was at least worth reevaluating if it wasn’t sitting right with him. Did I always change my plan after his guidance? No. But I always massaged it, always reevaluated it. I just don’t believe Spotify is doing that with Neil & Joni.

Derrick Stevens - Derrick is the production manager at the Current. If you make a mistake or are coming up short on something he’s got no problem letting you know. If you are doing incredible work, he’s got no problem letting you know. That’s the barometer I’m looking for, someone who will give you an honest read on where you’re at with something. The compliments I’ve received from Derrick mean so much to me because I’ve gotten the sober, clear critiques as well. God bless a barometer.

You have to ignore these barometers sometimes. I want to be doubly clear about that. You do have to chart your own course, but you need those trusted advisors, the circle that you believe in. And man, if Neil Young isn’t in that circle, and you’re trying to be the biggest music service on Planet Earth, you need some new barometers. If you’ve lost touch with your barometers you need to think about why. Imagine going back time-machine style to a meeting with the managers of Spotify in 2010: “you’ve lost access to the catalog of Neil Young because you paid $100 million to the guy from Fear Factor to do a podcast and he frequently questions the safety of a life-saving vaccine for a global pandemic”.

*I’m not taking Heiruspecs’ music or my own music down from Heiruspecs. I have a couple reasons.

1: I have no idea how the rest of the band feels about this stuff.
2: I actually think Spotify might get their shit straight about this and taking music off and back on of streaming service is expensive
3: I do believe Spotify has the right to support Joe Rogan over legendary artists with high morals. I feel a clear mandate to walk as a consumer, but I feel more conflicted as an artist, I surrender my spot on this platform because of other providers on the platform? I am working on my views there.