Kaepernick, Mason Jennings + Why Communism Won’t Work + More

Kaepernick

I have been given very few jobs on my illustrious blog but one is to tell Chuck Terhark when there are uniquely good episodes on a podcast. Chuck let me point you to The Right Time with Bomani Jones. There is a beautiful four episode arc (ep. 1) providing some ten-years-after reflections on the legacy of quarterback-turned-activist Colin Kaepernick. It was ten years ago this August that Kaepernick decided to sit by the water cooler instead of stand for the National Anthem. That water cooler move transitioned into kneeling for the anthem and the response to Kaepernick’s activism then becomes part of the Black Lives Matter movement that is familiar to us all. Chuck and the rest of you, the most telling thing is looking backward from Kaep in 2016 and reflecting on how sports’ relationship with the United States changed after 9/11.

Within 18 months of that decision by Kaepernick it had been decided that kneeling during the National Anthem was a fireable offense in a way that killing dogs, obstruction of justice surrounding a murder case and a litany of domestic violence accusations and convictions were not. What a damning reflection of who we are as a country and how we feel about football.

I am a doofus about football but in Jones’ conversations with a tremendous group of non-doofuses it is immensely clear that Kaepernick had every football qualification to remain in the league after his protest in some form or fashion. I admire Colin Kaepernick for his bravery and his activism, I agree with the general consensus arrived at on “The Right Time” that it is quite likely that Kaep did not think his football career was over due to that activism. The NFL, and most specifically the owners of the NFL teams made an example of Kaepernick, one that likely muzzled other would-be acts of athletic activism. Some might say, myself very much included in that some, that Robert Kraft, and his fellow stadium owners who he colluded with, is doing the same thing right now to Ed Sheeran and Macklemore. Heartfelt speeches read from a teleprompter aside, it seems that Sheeran is on team muzzle-me-Bob! and Macklemore is on speaking truth to power and putting his money where his mouth should have been rapping. The freedom of musicians relative to athletes and the tenor of the time suggests that Macklemore might have a career renaissance compared to Kaepernick’s sidelining. I praise Macklemore for his largely successful attempts to keep the focus on the suffering of the people of Gaza and his attempts to widen the aperture away from his own story. Let us not make the mistake of believing that Macklemore’s act of courage crowns him the sole determiner of where the movement heads next, something that Jones and some of his guests believe happened with Kaepernick during and after his protests.

Mason Jennings

We are now a couple weeks past the state fair but I’m just getting the chance to write a post now so it’s going to be a long one. I caught Mason Jennings at the State Fair and got to see him and Dan Lawonn play tunes at the Current’s booth. I ordered the french fries from next door that my wife loves and then Kevin and I ate most of them as Rachel slowly trooped up to the concert with our children. Don’t worry, we bought her more fries when we got there. Don’t worry, we ate most of those fries too. Mason Jennings was one of the most universally beloved Minnesota musicians of the early 2000s. He was selling out the 400 Bar every Thursday. He was commanding big ass crowds in large swathes of America and everyone in my high school thought he was just perfect.

A note about overindexing. How big was anyone during the less measurable era of the 1990s and early 2000s? Mason sold “a lot” of records locally and regionally. He played to large crowds. But I thought of him as this JUGGERNAUT. He was a juggernaut when Martin Devaney opened for him at St. Olaf. He was enough of a juggernaut that I was gassed up when Traditional Methods, a short-lived live hip-hop group I was in, opened for his bass player, Rob Skoro, at the Entry. Mason came to that show wearing glasses and I think a hockey jersey. I think it’s fair to say Mason Jennings came to that concert in costume so as to not be recognized by his rabid fanbase. I bring all of this up to mention that Mason Jennings was hot bizness for some amount of years in the Twin Cities in particular and in the country in general. It is hard to quantify yesteryear’s success on today’s scorecard. Mason doesn’t have crazy Spotify numbers. Mason is not buzzing in any measurable way. But he has fans, he sells records, he has a career as a revered songwriter.

A note about personal connections. I don’t know Mason well. But Mason and Heiruspecs shared a manager for a number of years. This didn’t actually create that much shoulder to shoulder engaging but it did mean I had a lot of visibility to his career. I believe that local musician and radio host Doc once put out a post that read “So you can’t afford Charlie Parr? A guide to booking Doc.” It is fair to say that Heiruspecs picked up a lot of Mason’s runoff and we spent some memorable weeks opening for him in different parts of the country. But besides for throwing the football around once in Breckenridge, I have done nothing I would describe as hanging with Mason Jennings.

He’s a hell of a songwriter and I can’t tell you why. I pride myself on being able to put my love, fascination or disdain for certain artists and certain songs into words. But I fall short with Mason and that’s why I’m trying to fix that here. I can’t tell you what works about the best Mason Jennings songs. I think some of it is nostalgia. Mason’s music was what a lot of us were listening to in those special early college-age years. The sky is the limit and whoever is the soundtrack sticks with you. You’d put the CD on and assume that you’d be the next Joe Local to sell out the 400 Bar every Thursday. I also think that Mason Jennings is unpretentious and non-clever without tracking as working class. Mason Jennings’ writing is also defiantly simple. Even when it’s about a complex thing like losing a son to a war, Mason finds the simple part. Does that make any sense at all? Let’s just do a quick report on some other songwriters.

Sufjan Stevens - without thinking about it you are aware he is pretentious, just be honest. Also, Sufjan is clever as shit.
Joni Mitchell - clever and complex.
Bruce Springsteen - not clever, tracks as working class in spirit
Marvin Gaye - unpretentious and tracks not necessarily as working class but as class and race conscious particularly as it applies to the uneven treatment Black people and poor people got when it came to Vietnam. Clever doesn’t feel right, but maybe coy. Especially when we are talking sex.
Phoebe Bridgers - clever, often complex, also able to weave relatively obscure pop culture references into universal songs. Far from a Mason Jennings strong suit.

For me, Mason Jennings sounds like what he is; a dude who worked at a burrito shop and wrote songs and thought it might be a better life to just focus on the songs part. This is why I think he first caught love from the surfer world of Jack Johnson et cetera. It was dudes who wrote what they knew and maybe they elected to not know much? I am okay with that as a reduction of the late 90s surfer rock ethos. So then how does Mason start getting name checked and ultimately signed by Isaac Brock from Modest Mouse who is not in the surfer camp whatsoever? How does he get love from the big songwriters of the day? I think it’s because the dude can write. When he’s on point he’s writing songs through focus and simplicity that give you a more unadulterated raw nerve of certain emotions than I can get from any other writer. When he’s off the mark it’s a god damn cliff because there is no cleverness, no artifice, no turn of phrase to save him. When a defiantly simple writer is on an off day, there is nothing to distract from it being an off day. Do you want to know Mason’s best songs? I got you.

To start a song about a love interest moving to California with the lyrics “don’t you know baby I’m a leading man” is a great beginning. I don’t find a lot of layers in this song, I just find that the single layer that the song represents is so well done. Do you remember the part in “Six Degrees of Separation” where the second grade teacher says she “just knows when to take the drawings away from them”?

Since the beginning of his career, and perhaps most strongly at the beginning, Mason Jennings has known when to take the drawing away from himself and share it with the rest of us.

“Sorry Signs on Cash Machines” makes me feel like if The Band listened to the Fray a lot. And now listen, I’m glad The Band didn’t listen to the fray but hell, it’s great. How about the lyric “I need something I can feel, cigarettes and a driving wheel”. Also, Noah Levy is on the drum kit and Rob Skoro is on bass, backup vocals and production. I remember Heiruspecs getting offered the opening slot for Mason at the Barrymore in Madison and his manager Vickie (soon to be our manager) told me to “advance” the show. I didn’t know what that meant. But I knew our career had just gotten a little more serious. During Mason’s set I sat downstairs and heard Noah Levy playing the drums upstairs and I thought I was gonna die it sounded so good. I was so convinced I was in the right place. What. A. Song.

This is the one. I was waiting to pick up my girlfriend from her job at Half Price Books in Highland on a Sunday. Andrea Swensson was DJing the Local Show on the Current. I hadn’t thought about new Mason Jennings music in some time. He wasn’t in my orbit. Didn’t share a manager and generally just didn’t see him around. And this song came on I just remember crying when I realized the plot. A father is seeking simply a heartbeat from his son who died in a war. Not a victory. Not vengeance. Not comfort. Just a heartbeat. And suddenly Mason doesn’t sound like a dude who wrote songs and worked a burrito shop. He sounds like a man who has pushed himself for decades to pull the drawing away at the right point and leave us with a masterpiece.

Why Communism Won’t Work

I actually think Communism might work if we all changed our spirits. But changing spirits is hard. When we think of the greater good we are going against the capitalist impulse to think of ourselves first. It’s number one. Everyone thinks of number one. People you love, people you think would give you the shirt off their back, some of those folks won’t even be in the back row for your funeral. Some of those folks won’t even chip in on the tip at the group dinner. Communism will never work.

Plowing - In St. Paul we have a stupid thing where the city doesn’t plow the alleys. Some sucker becomes an alley captain and drops slips of paper asking for usually about $20 per house to cover a private company to come plow whenever it snows. It is so weird and arcane a system that my friend who just moved on to the block verified with me that it wasn’t a scam. Turns out there are asshats who don’t pay their share. Maybe they just ignore the piece of paper. But some of them make sense of it: I don’t use the alley, what do you I care? OKAY. Where is your garbage can shitbird? Do you think you should pay less cause you don’t park your car back there? LESS THAN $20? It’s $20 dollars. $20 dollars! Communism will never work.

Education - I really enjoy the writing of Nikole Hannah-Jones though I haven’t gone as deep with her signature piece (1619) as I should. But when I see her name in the New York Times I know I’m in for a great piece of writing. She just bared her soul and talked about how she made some decisions that aligned with her values for her kid’s education but realized that some of them were a disservice to her kid. The brief summary is that Nikole Hannah-Jones elected to send her child to a non-selective public school that served a poor and largely Black population in New York City though Nikole and her husband had the tangible money and know-how to make a “better” decision. The writing is beautiful. The hurt is raw. It’s clear that Nikole Hannah-Jones and her husband made some decisions that they regret. And I understand that. I also understand where their values are coming from. BUT I MADE THE DUMB DECISION TO READ THE COMMENTS. People just find it absolutely absurd that you might navigate some decisions surrounding your kids life with the larger community in mind. HOW DARE YOU NIKOLE? Just think of number one. Just do what works for your family. Communism will never work.

A.I. and Billionaires - Don’t you wish Big Brother existed right now so somebody could just go unplug the thing? This technology is good for such a small amount of human beings. If you are making your decisions based on questions of how many humans benefit you just aren’t picking A.I. under any circumstance. We are racing toward a future that will suck. Why are we racing to suckville? It’s complicated. There’s China. But I just can’t listen to it anymore. I can’t listen to another podcast about it. I can’t listen to another podcast about the way that these companies are racing with China and there’s no way to slow down. I have never felt more out of step with general societal sentiment in my 45 years on earth. We are going for this? We all just want the very minuscule upside that bad? No, we don’t. But we throw our hands up cause we can’t imagine us working together to change it. Communism will never work.

One Year at City Cast

A handful of days ago I celebrated one year at City Cast. With the exception of full-time touring with Heiruspecs and Dessa I’ve never worked this closely with a team before. With Anna, Tiffany and Adam we’ve made hundreds of podcasts. It’s an absolute whirlwind of a job. Sometimes I don’t feel like I have time to tell the Twin Cities what we’re working on because we’re working so hard on it. I love the team. I love the work. I love the challenge. Humbly, I think we’re a clear net positive for media coverage in the Twin Cities. Arrogantly I think we’ve created a great way for people to go deeper with the metro area they live in. A way to bring the good and the bad into bold relief. I’d love to have your ears on some of our episodes and hear what you think of what we’re doing. I believe in it, but it’s really only gonna work if you believe in it too. Please also don’t think because you see some of our social media coverage that you’re connected with everything we’re doing. We are making great social media content. But social media is a small slice of what we’re making and honestly, social media is such a limited scope for communication. Dive into our newsletter. Give a podcast a try. Check one out.

Playing Music with Big Trouble + Bill Caperton on Saturday

My midlife crisis is knowing that Big Trouble is making some of the best music I’ve ever been a part of and it disappears the minute we unplug our amps cause it’s fleeting and it’s special and it’s live and it’s site specific. We might even release a nice recording one day, but we are locked in to something special that I believe you have to see live. It’s a level of responsiveness and comfort with one another that translates to this one little bar at W. 7th and Randolph and I don’t know what else is supposed to happen but I know what is happening is special.

Music Trivia on Gorman in the Morning with KQ Every Wednesday

Now that I’m making this the longest blog of my blogging ass life I want to make sure you know that every Wednesday morning circa 8:25 a.m. I’m running trivia on Gorman in the Morning on KQRS. The show features my dear friends Steve Gorman, Ryder and Fletcher as well. I’ve known Ryder for the longest and I adore her. She’s awesome on the mic and a dynamo behind the scenes in the world of radio. Fletcher was my lunch room buddy when Jazz88 was at iHeart and he accidentally taught me so much about programming a music station. I didn’t know Steve Gorman til landing this gig, but shit, he was THE drummer in the Black Crowes. I’ve been with him kinda since 5th grade. I just finished reading his book “Hard To Handle” and wow, great rock memoir. We have a bunch of fun every Wednesday morning with trivia but also just shooting the shit and sharing a love of music. They sound like they’re always having fun. Join us!

Ran an Hour of Trivia on the Power Trip Morning Show

Chuck and I got a nice call from Cory Cove with KFAN to provide an hour of trivia on the KFAN morning show. This is a big deal for us for reach. This show has great reach and to get to share an hour of what we love doing is a spectacular amount of real estate to play with. Chuck absolutely killed it with some ingenious rounds with really special formats. I brought some vanilla love to the mix but I’m still happy with how it all played out.

Thanks for reading this massive missive. Go Lynx.