Here I Am Drinking a Grape Ape and Doing Ja Rule Karaoke
The whole week has been a blues song. Repeating the words you believe in twice, over different chords. Closing each complaint with a different conclusion. Finding new ideas in old repetitions. Watching an invasion of your city while also watching a bonding of your city. An ability to meet the moments and the needs with care and efficiency. And haunting, physical, unavoidable reminders. Tonight on Randolph almost to 35E by the Trader Joe’s. A car haphazardly parked with hazards on. Six weeks ago it was someone picking up a friend who hadn’t seen the text message so you had to go knock. Tonight maybe it means someone isn’t coming in to work tomorrow, isn’t going to see Minnesota again, is not going to be the one to turn the hazards off on the car.
Earlier today I got the elusive “down time” hang with my father. He’s in town for the weekend and he spent the afternoon with my family including a guitar lesson. He got to see my daughter vivisect a heart shaped boston kreme donut. We returned home and the afternoon played out with “down time.” Screens. Dog walking. Some talk. Mostly silence punctuated by cartoon characters. We talk about the response to Operation Metro Surge. It floats out there. You know that even if you change the subject, it will change back. There’s a comfort in that knowledge. If we do veer away, we will be pulled back. For certain. We will not be distracted for long, nor do we want to be.
We played at White Squirrel and all the money from our tips went to Immigrant Law Center. All the profits from the bar sales also went there. Everyone does what they can, and there’s a lot more we can do, and many things we already do, than playing music, but it feels special. Music serves a purpose and we served it beautifully tonight. It wasn’t that we played perfect. I’m glad we didn’t. But when we were dialed in correctly on a song I felt like I was in a Spike Lee double dolly shot as I navigate the scene. We ended up raising close to $1500. Josh is kicking the money over now. I felt a purpose in my fingers. Our drummer Peter’s birthday. I’ve made so much music with him. I’ve made so much life with him. Happy birthday. Thank you for the gift of your work on the drums, of your work in the music, of your sounds.
I had snuck the volume on my bass amp up just a little. Maybe more than just a little. The music felt like talking to people. Things like arrangements coming naturally, the spirit of the songs showing up kind of bright and undiluted, more like my younger years of playing. Less thinking and more just feeling. Holy shit there’s Greg Norton from Hüsker Dü here to check it out. Holy shit.
Greg Norton, Sean McPherson (Steve McPherson)
I want to tell you how good it feels to play and play at a moment where nothing else works the way it used to. And the music works so good in a sense you have to agree it doesn’t work the way it used to. But the amp, like I said, is just a little loud. And the snare just cracks. And the solos always start a weird note that starts to feel normal. And no matter how somebody counts it off it’s exactly where you want it to be, come to think of it. And in a tune called Cloquet Then you play this one bass fill in Bb pentatonic that was just so fast. And you’ve never done it before. You hope you’ll do it again.
After the show the producer Lucky Tiger gives me the new tape/USB he made with Muja Messiah. I love Muja Messiah. I guess Muja told Lucky Tiger to make sure to get me the tape tonight. I like rap. I like rappers. I like Minnesota rappers. We have amazingly talented rappers and Muja is at the top of the heap in my opinion. Load out is easy every month, I use the house amp.
After the set my family goes to Burger Dive. My dad orders a perfect manhattan. That’s a real drink. You didn’t know that. You’ve never ordered one. Or you certainly haven’t ordered one twice. It’s perfect cause it’s equal parts both types of vermouth. Half sweet vermouth, half dry vermouth. It looked delicious. I got a Cobb salad. Me my dad and brother Steve were joined by Matt. Matt brought a lot to the conversation. A lot of questions. A lot of comments. A lot. Dad and brother saw their way out and I focused on Matt.
We ended up sitting at the bar, talking, enjoying karaoke. We tried the fried cauliflower. At the end of the night a party comes in from a different era. Ladies night celebrating a 40th and some of the women are old Heiruspecs fans. Fans I remember. They remember me in a different era, and I remember them in a different era. It is ludicrous to think we could have even imagined a 40th birthday party when we last saw each other, 2003 probably, a show probably. We would have been thinking of 30 as impossibly old. But these women were bona fide fans. We didn’t have a lot of them. But we remembered them. Even the markers of coolness are from a completely different era. They bragged to me that we had a picture of them on our website. Just a website. Pre IG, Pre FB, Pre Myspace, Pre Friendster. They mention a set of monthly shows we did called First Fridays at the Quest. Wild turnouts actually. Like 300 people. Very special memories for me and for these women I believe. One of the women also sees me prepare fish with my family on the internet on Sunday nights. That’s a sentence. That’s the now era. We are talking and they are all dolled up. Matt is still just pouring over the details of a relationship that is ending. We engage in conversation with neighbors or people I run into and after two minutes of conversation Matt goes back in: “do you think they’re all crazy? Every woman I’ve ever been with. . .some level of crazy?” I am sucking down half tonic/half soda with bitters. I get the text about the amount of money we raised. I’m grateful. I hope people go home after the concert and do something good for their world tomorrow. Some will. Some won’t. I will and that’s what I can do.
But tonight as these blast-from-the-pasters arrive at Burger Dive and hold court they have an energy. It’s about six girls. They have walked in to a bar and owned it before. It’s been some fucking years since the last time they did that sure. Like 12 years. But they’ve done it. They know the routine, the requirements, the basic outline. Somehow their karaoke song is the unbelievably long Ja Rule Jennifer Lopez song “I’m Real.” I didn’t know what the most perfect song to communicate that it was a 40 year old birthday party until the tune started. Three years in either direction and one of your homegirls does not know the words. BUT THIS IS THE GOD DAMN JA RULE SWEET SPOT. YOU HAVE HIT THE MAIN ENGINE ROOM, NOT A DRILL, IT’S JA AND J-LO AND THEY ARE THE FUCK HERE FOR IT.
I think the birthday girl might’ve dated someone who was really close friends with Eyedea. This was St. Paul bar-goers of a certain age. If you think you’ve heard of DJ Duz It before, or if you were a host at Ferns or Dixie’s, you understand the scene. Have you knocked a cue ball off the table at Costello’s? Do you always reference a coffee shop on W 7th called Rudy’s? Did you date a boy who went to Open School? Have you smoked a cigarette outside of Green Gecko on Grand? Did you ever smoke Kamel Reds? You can fill in the blanks, skip ahead please. For those of you who can’t, I’ll do my best. There is a lot of karaoke observers doing the mom age lady-at-a-wedding dance where the core down to the feet stay almost motionless, the hands go up in the air and go from left side to the right side on quarter notes. You have to have a huge smile on your face. The song is mercilessly long. Four minutes and fifty-eight seconds. So much repetition. To no one, except for possibly me, a woman in a snug, curvy dress announces “here I am drinking a grape ape, doing Ja Rule karaoke.” It’s all factual. It’s all happening. The world is not okay and tonight is not okay but tonight was good and people got together and M. turned 40 and M. wanted to sing Ja Rule and M. did. And M. might be about to sing Tenacious D. but I am going home. Radio K is playing Alice in Chains and then Bomani Jones discusses Kobe’s 81 point game on his podcast. I will open my eyes tomorrow knowing that we are in the still fight of our lives, but tonight I finish the blues song with a 12/8 outro and I see what song is next.