Why Going Back to Normal is a Trap
Last night, at the 331 Club in Minneapolis I got to host live trivia for the first time in 15 months. Microphone on, chatting to the crowd, not a ZOOM set up in site. I was so nervous leading up to it, not about the reality of being on the mic in front of people, but about setting up the PA, about handling the prizes, about remembering the details. I was also nervous about relating to people. There’s a guy named Erik who has played trivia with me every Tuesday night on YouTube for about 14 months. We interact for two hours online every Tuesday. . .but I don’t see video or hear audio from him, it’s all text. I walked right up to him and called him Dan (the name of his friend). That’s not 100% out of character for me, but it felt so shitty. But getting back into seeing each other is hard, but it’s comforting. For so long, so many people haven’t been able to do the things they do best. I love hosting trivia at the 331, I’ve been doing it every Sunday with the exception of tours since January of 2007. Chuck and I have built this into a COMPANY ASS COMPANY. I am writing this blog post from our reasonably well-appointed office space. We have employees in multiple states. But it goes back to what we were able to get started plugging in the microphones at 331 Club and reading questions. We connected with people, we engaged with people. We do this well. I do this well. It was something and it is something.
But this is just the moment where because I get my normal back and I get the glow of feeling like things are so much better than they were even six weeks ago that it’s time for me to put my head down and not rock the boat. The allure of normalcy is enticing. Why is it so enticing? Normalcy has worked pretty great for my 40 years as a white man from an upper class background. Normalcy has meant access to excellent public education where I was treated with respect inside. Normalcy has meant familial support with tuition and living expenses during college, living expenses after college and either support or offers of support for every big ticket purchase of my entire life. Normalcy has meant reasonable interactions with police for the most part. And anything that was not reasonable with the police was certainly not fatal and not immediately threatening to my physical safety. Normalcy has also meant a willingness to enjoy these privileges and thousands more without dedicating significant time or energy to fighting for these normalcies to be distributed equitably. All of these are normalcies are fraudulent, and on top of that if it’s remained clear and has come into closer focus that so many of my brothers and sisters in the United States live in a completely different normal. It is immoral to quietly walk back to normalcy without an eye toward changing these inequities. What does changing look like? It looks like a lot more than what I’m currently doing. I’m already checking the boxes that lots of wealthy white liberals are checking. . .reading lists, increased donations not just to non-profits but to mutual aid orgs, attending one single protest one year ago, sounding mighty on twitter, black lives matter sign on the garden bed of the segregated neighborhood I live in. That’s the new normal, and the new normal is still not enough. And I’m tired of twitter being the only way I feel I can make changes. I am starting to think of twitter as the new incarnation of second life. I respect the technique of the souls that go out every Friday (seems like every Friday) to either Summit and Snelling or Lake and River Road with their Free Palestine signs. I have no idea how that moves the needle on the cause they are embracing, but I wonder if they feel different than someone doing a solid 2 hour spew on social media before heading home for their dinner. They might just have their actions connected with more of their body, with more of their presence.
We can’t go back to normal. That’s been clear. But as the draw is truly on our doorstep with our first taste of normal, I want to imagine how much better normal can be. Think about how much better it would taste if you lived in a just world. If you lived in a country that ran Truth and Reconciliation, that paid reparations, that severely limited what situations armed police were used. If you lived in a state where police didn’t disproportionately kill unarmed black people. I do think a lot of my fellow white people believe it can never taste quite as good once we have this shit out in the open. And I mean the out in the open to say a societal level addressing: redistribution of wealth, reparations, voting rights, no more trappings of second class citizenry. Why do you think it won’t taste as good? Do you think a world where black people command the respect they deserve in the workplace, in the voting booth is somehow worse for you? How? Why? Do you think there’s one big pie and you have the right amount currently? That’s stupid. There’s no pie. This is not zero sum. I don’t even think there’s cautionary tales in the historical record of a society crumbling under. . .equity. Get out of here. One, you’re wrong. Two, you’ll be proven wrong.
So normal tasted good last night, drank about 8 hop waters (strongly recommend) talked to a lot of trivia players for the first time in a year plus. It felt good, but it can feel better, it can be better and that is where we are heading actively.
How I Start The Day
With my wife going back to work we’ve been polishing off the morning routine and tightening things up. I imagine you’re very curious how Sean McPherson gets the day started so let’s get right to it:
5:20am - turn off first alarm (which is just a bright light)
5:50am - snooze phone alarm
6:02am - get up, brush teeth
6:08am - do a one minute plank, a small routine of sit ups that go in different directions and a stretch your arms/legs while on your back
6:20am - Take Warren (our dog) for a walk
6:50am - Cook breakfast for the family (oatmeal, eggs, jelly toast for kids, butter toast and egg for wife, eggs peppers onion cheese for me)
7:30am - Put on real clothes, dress children.
7:50am - Leave for daycare
8:05am - Drop kids off at daycare
8:30am - get to work (today at MPR), make list of things I need to do, today numbering 15, some small, some big
8:50am - Turn on yourclassical.org/peacefulpiano (this is also made by MPR but I have nothing to do with it)
9:00am - Start doing things off of my list
When people describe the day as 8 hours of work, 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours for you. . .I think of those people as not having young children. I adore raising kids but it does have such a shape on your day, and in particular your mornings. I find the classical, the list and the coffee can kind of make me feel more connected to work duties.
That’s my morning. Posting this thing was #3 on my list. Gotta get cracking. It’s already 9:38.
What You Can Control
You have to do what is right for you. And that means making hard decisions. Supposing you got somebody in your life who doesn’t mean to make you feel bad, but they sure as shit do. They make you feel bad for the way you exist, for the way you raise your kids, for the way you keep your house, for the way you relate to the world. If you can control it, you can’t have them in your life. I have somebody like that in my life, and I don’t think there’s any getting around it in my life. But I’m done trying to make it different, and I’m done trying to pretend that isn’t how they make me feel. Maybe I make them feel great, maybe I’m neutral, but they make feel terrible. So remove your actual feelings from the equation as much as possible.
In Defense of the Rough Mix
I’m taking a break from watching Steve Ballmer’s red ass face every time the Clippers sink any kind of basket. I’m listening to the second mix of the new Heiruspecs record (I’m thinking December for release and the working title is “Low Key Whatever Happened to the Heiruspecs”. I’m feeling this raw excitement that comes basically only from the feeling of rough mixes. You’re gonna end spending a lot more of your listening life with the version that is almost the final mix. Have you ever thought about that? Probably once you dial in the song, and send it to mastering, and get artwork? I bet you you have listened to 75% of the total amount of times you listen to your own track before you get the mastered version.
The world? The world, if they do hear it, will hear the final version, and hopefully it will connect with people. But your memory will be the unmixed version, the version where the cymbals ring for a long time. Like a weird long time. Where DeVon’s keyboard goes on for a weird long time. You might remember the CDR with the sharpie more than the final artwork. And there’s a camaraderie about it right? You’ve got your own version. And shit, you might always grab that version even when the new one is out.
Having now spent 5 years doing DJ work full time, you connect with the music differently. I used to bring a advertising oriented musician into some workshops I ran at McNally Smith, great dude named Richard Werbowenko. This guy said that usually the thing the clients are drawn to is the thing with the mistake in it, the thing that is a bit jarring. I don’t want everything smoothed out. I just listened to a record from Pinegrove on vinyl that is basically a bunch of rough mix throw it up on bandcamp jams. This song Need 2. Are you kidding me? I just played along with it on bass, there’s something so exciting about the way the two acoustics at the top work like a bass drum and a snare. It’s such a percussive treatment of the guitar. I absolutely love it. There’s something so compelling it.
We’ve got a tune on the new Heiruspecs record called “Thunder Sounds”. It has relatively unlikely lengths to the verses, it’s got something that I’ve been missing for so long in hip-hop which is just the 8 bar shut the fuck up section. The beat’s not crazy different, it’s not a solo, it’s just a little breather. Those breathers were so well put in I’m gonna say ‘87-’95 era stuff. It was refreshing, it was resetting. It helped create some more appreciation for the stuff on either side of it. I’m glad we got one of those worked in. Those are sometimes hard to pull off live. We are kind of a little too grown to do heavy heavy crowd response. But we are a little too young for the rappers just to linger. But we find our way. I’m excited about so many of the tunes on the record.
We are also doing a tune called “Four Werewolves Forever Ago”, there’s these incredibly quiet guitar parts that are absolutely goose bumping quality stuff that happens during Muad’dib’s verse. I mean so quiet that it doesn’t cut through in the car, even cranked. But if you get your ears next to the speakers you get these way understated Steely Dan meets The National spots. It’s exciting. I think Heiruspecs has had some amazing songs, but I don’t believe we’ve always cooked in enough ear candy stuff. There’s some serious ear candy stuff on this one. Can’t wait to share it with you.
Arlo Parks Prediction
Arlo Parks is the first post COVID artist to have a show moved from the Entry to the Main Room.
Collapsing Under the Work
I’ve clocked in a lot of good situations in the past couple weeks, minor wins, but still good wins. I have successfully changed my relationship with social media. Everything is off my phone. The posts I do for myself/trivia mafia and theoretically Heiruspecs on Instagram are done on my wife’s phone. I’m not scrolling past your beautiful lives anymore. I use twitter actively when I DJ. When I do other work on twitter I schedule it in advance so I’m not hunting for likes constantly.
In general during the pandemic I’ve been successful in keeping my health up. One of those metrics is my weight. I find being overly sensitive to weight, especially for people who may be close to their goal weight, is super dumb and can only hurt shit. I feel I have a good relationship with the scale and a nutritionist who is really supportive of that healthy relationship. But I know that when I had my first daughter in 2017 I ended gaining a legit 20 lbs across a year and a half. I didn’t go to the gym, my schedule changed, my energy for myself waned. I slept less. I wanted to see something different with my second child. And in that account I succeeded. I peeled off about 12 of those pounds. But I’ve been struggling the last couple weeks. Returning to life, returning to gatherings, entertaining, sitting down at restaurants. These activities bring me into some bad habits. But I don’t even want to call them bad habits. They bring me into some situations in which I enjoy the fuck out of a plate of food. But, I have to relearn limits, listen to where my body is. There was a time where two bottles of champagne and some plates of food was a great situation or so I thought. I eat different now, I drink different now. And, I need to recalibrate in regards to my father. He changed how he ate when he got diagnosed with diabetes, and he changed even more after my mom died. He changed for the better but I felt it was an abandoning of how our family ate. Seeing him split a fish entree and a garden salad with his new wife made me feel like an exchange student with some strange new family. But it’s his business, and I’m sure those fish entree splitting nights are part of why he is in good health now even though he’s getting up there. I can change how I eat and not change who I am, and so can my dad.
I didn’t even come here to write about food. I came here to write about collapsing under the work. I took on more work during the pandemic. Trivia Mafia was and is profoundly broke, so there was little outsourcing. I took on a YouTube trivia night, I took on a short IG video duty on Thursday nights. But there wasn’t much work to go around, we weren’t doing much trivia. You’d be amazed how easy it is to do payroll when you aren’t paying many people and it’s the same folks every two weeks. The Current had more work for me after a while in the pandemic. At first, it was thin times. No interviews, no live shows, no action. But working from home was a learning curve, I took on Wednesdays when Mark Wheat left. I started doing The Warming House on MPR News, I started doing more interviews, I took on the Local Show when Andrea Swensson left. I lost supports and help for Purple Current when other schedules got full. I volunteered to do cool shit cause a radio station should do cool shit and I had some cool ideas. So I get that all together, and where am I. . .I’m collapsing under the work. I work 4 days a week and one night for MPR. I work 1 day a week and one night for Trivia Mafia plus a little IG thing that doesn’t take more than 1 hour total. I am going to back to weekly live trivia starting next Sunday. I have two daughters, they are both in full time daycare but you know it’s still a lot. I am lucky to be in a healthy relationship with my wife, we share a lot of duties, but there are a lot to go around. I want to do this work, but I can’t enjoy any of it, I am doing things I always wanted to do, god I wanted to do the hip-hop show on The Current, now I get to with Sanni. I wanted to be the guy reading underwriting on MPR News, and now I am. I dreamt of getting to do a show on MPR News and I got to do that (and I hope to get to do it again). But, I don’t have the time to do it right, and I don’t have the time to think on it. It’s just keep firing, keep moving. I’m double booked and missing events I heartily endorse that I know I’ll never be able to go to. I work 48 Saturdays out of the year in a normal year. That leaves one date, one vacation, one Heiruspecs show and one wildcard most years. One of my days off is a Monday, so all those holidays on Mondays, I’m already off those days. Why am I telling a blog this? Cause I’m pretty sure nobody reads it. I need to just type it out and say that it’s so frustrating. I took a lot on to try and make it work during the throws of the pandemic. And now I’m navigating how to live that, while also having family to come visit, and concerts to attend, concerts to play, rehearsals to have. There was this steadiness to pandemic life, it was monotonous, but you didn’t miss the good stuff that you had scheduled. There was a regularity to it. I’ve carved a schedule that is just kids and work. They’re fun kids, it’s fun work. But that’s it. I see Martin for coffee on Sunday mornings. I see my neighbors on Friday if things are decent at the homestead. That’s more than some people get. That’s more than Rachel gets some weeks. But that’s it. The rest of it is work. Most of it for MPR, plenty for these kids, some of it to help Trivia Mafia lose less money, But I’m collapsing, I feel my spirit draining cause I don’t have time to process. I think changing the relationship with social media is helping, but only to a point. Ultimately, I have to get realistic about what I can take on and still make quality work. But I’m so scared to ever take something off my plate cause entertainment and entrepreneurship is cutthroat. I have to take it, if I can do it I should do it. I trained in on what I consider two of the hardest shifts in the week for The Current. Morning radio is damn hard. Request radio is damn hard. Those were my first two shifts. I can handle a lot of different shifts on the Current. I’m proud of that, but it means I get called a lot. I’m proud of that, but it’s a struggle. I’m proud of all of it, but I can’t front, it's a struggle.
The Best Reading I’ve Done About Israel/Palestine
The news has probably reached you that there is a hot war goin on yet again between Israel and Palestine. The asymmetrical warfare that is leaving a death toll 20 times in Palestine than in Israel is unforgivable. Sovereign countries have a right to defend themselves, they do not have a right to commit war crimes and many (not all) believe that what Israel is doing is a war crime. It is also shallow to believe that any critique of Israel’s actions is a form of anti-Semitism. What a sad and illogical defense. Here’s some of the articles I’ve read on this topic:
Bernie Sanders - Senator Sanders recently wrote an Op-Ed for the NY Times that I got a lot from.
I’m sorry to say that the other compelling NY Times opinion piece I read this morning is no longer online. I’ll try to find it and re-share it when I can. Thanks for reading.
The Sum of Us - The Most Inspiring Book I’ve Read In Some Time
Last night I finished the book “The Sum of Us” by Heather McGhee. A couple months ago McGhee made the rounds on some of my favorite podcasts, Ezra Klein and The Political Gabfest. The book captured my interest primarily cause it felt like adding a new angle to an old problem. The book also did an incredible job speaking plainly and persuasively and helping me see some new angles on an old problem.
Old (and accurate) Angles:
Ending White Supremacy is Morally Sound - I believe this premise is accepted by the grand majority of people in the United States. Being willing to take steps to end it or sacrifice to end it is quite a different story.
The Responsibility of Ending White Supremacy Falls Squarely on the Shoulders of White People - I think there are less people who agree with this statement. I agree with it and find it hard to offer an alternative. If your claim is that it is dead white people who created white supremacy and they should’ve taken care of it. . .well they’re dead Elizabeth. So if a group is responsible to end an evil, it ought to be the beneficiaries of that evil.
New (at least to me) Angles:
White Supremacy hurts everyone - Though I have believed this in an internal way for a long time, I have never read an academic book that lays out clear data to establish it. At the policy level white voters will tighten their own belt and starve their communities of services to make sure they don’t have to share those services with black people. This is frankly worse than zero sum. This is a willingness to suffer to maintain white supremacy. The actions outlined in this book show the willingness of white leaders to limit their offerings to maintain a racial hierarchy.
The absence of white supremacy helps everyone - Black people struggling because of laws that are enforced differently on black bodies, loans that are not offered to black people, job opportunities that are never extended - none of this helps me whatsoever. None of this makes my life better as a white man for one minute. It makes my life worse, here’s why. 1) Everything I do achieve in life, no matter how hard I worked for it, is asterisked with this idea that I did it all on an unfair playing field. I can certainly still be proud of my achievements, but I can feel that asterisk in every step I take. (worked with my therapist a lot on this one). 2) People winning is just good. People getting a raise, people getting a job, people buying a house, people releasing a song. I love to see people win, that absolutely 1000% includes black people. What horrible kind of person are you if you don’t want to see EVERYONE win? What is wrong with you? Who taught you that?
When you read this book you’re going to love it. The last 50 or so pages were just clear point after clear point delivered with optimism and honesty about what we are losing everyday by supporting white supremacy. Thank you Heather McGhee for this awesome book.
Rest in Peace - Milford Graves
Some months ago we lost the music legend Milford Graves. Milford Graves was a master percussionist and healer. He taught at Bennington College in Vermont. I went there for one year in 1999 and I had the chance to study with him. It was one semester but he connected me with a musical energy that has fed me throughout the next 20 years. On registration day I was trying to get into his improvisation ensemble. As a freshman that was a dicey proposition, but during orientation I had already endeared myself to some of the older players at the school and they knew that I wasn’t a total newbie on the bass. When I got up to Milford Graves in line I told him I’d like to register for his class but that it generally doesn’t include freshmen. He looked at me and said “can you play"?”. I said yes confidently, which was true, I could play. He registered me right there. I was very excited about the class.
The first session was such a rush. With a really large group of musicians on different instruments with different skill levels Milford Graves both conducted, reacted, suggested and encouraged. There was an openness and a joy in that room that was really different from the musical spaces I had been in. High school and college musicians can be relentlessly competitive, often to the detriment of the music. This was different, it was much more collaborative and inspired.
At the end of the first or second session Milford Graves held my electric bass and said this was the first time he had touched the instrument. He laid it on his lap, contemplated for a moment and coaxed sounds out of it I had never heard. He had a sense of harmonics, of physics that was audible. He understood music to the point where understanding feels like the wrong word. There was no friction observable to me.
Milford told amazing stories, including talking about saving a Cuban band that was struggling with nothing but a cowbell. Apparently the band couldn’t get their groove right and the bandleader asked Milford to stop their gig after Milford’s gig and help the band out. All Milford brought was a cowbell, but he said that was all he needed. He brought the right feel in and Milford said the dance floor filled up, the solos got more rambunctious. I didn’t understand the power a cowbell can over a have a 12-piece band or a dance floor but now I have no doubt.
Many of Milford’s guidances were very loose in the class, a little guidance to just get this or that started. On a night when the improvisation had kind of run dry Milford told the class “play like the cops are coming, play like you know the cops are coming”. He asked a drummer named Paul who was one of the more senior players in the class to set it off. Paul started smashing the cymbals and cooking up the loudest sounds we had probably heard since the class started in September. The class looked please with this development and we were ready to let rip. Abruptly Milford halted the class, “no no no! that’s not how it’s done”. This level of binary authority wasn’t common in this class. Milford simply added “when we were playing in New York, we didn’t want the cops to find us. If we knew the cops were coming we played as quiet as we could, but we had to keep playing”. For the next twenty five minutes we all played at this whisper level that’s unlike anything I’ve ever done. Solos came and went with saxophonists whispering into their reed, guitar players found out the volume knobs on their amps went down.
My story is one of the smallest ones. So many musicians connected with Milford Graves throughout his life and I am so thankful for the energy that he put into the world. I’m glad I got a chance to spend a semester studying with him. Rest in peace to you Milford Graves.
Heavy Joni Period
I’m on vacation from my radio job at The Current this week and I’ve been taking a break from listening to the radio for the most part. That’s pushed me back into album’s and I decided to do some Joni work this morning. Why? Well, on the final episode of Season 1 of the Warming House I played the record The Last Waltz from The Band. I had never really taken in the majesty that is Joni’s background singing (from backstage no less) on Neil Young’s rendition of Helpless.
And then seeing her do Coyote, I think she’s the best guest of the whole show. It’s incredible.
Then of course I went to the wikipedia page for the tune and found this amazing comment about the tune for Ruth Charnock: "either the most flirtatious song about fucking or the most graphic song about flirting ever written." That line comes from Charnock’s book “Joni Mitchell: New Critical Readings”.
I love this song. But it comes from one of the album’s from Joni that I wasn’t as connected with. As a bass player I should love Joni’s work with Jaco and with all the great players in the late 70s. But I have always preferred Joni pre her connection with jazz players. But, I knew it was time to give Hejira a listen after reading this entry on Princevault.com about Prince’s amazing fretless bass work on So Blue.
(from Princevault.com)
According to André Cymone, So Blue was inspired by Joni Mitchell's album Hejira released in November 1976 while Prince was working on his first album, and specifically the song Blue Motel Room which Prince has covered during the Nude Tour in 1990. The cover of Hejira can also be seen briefly during a scene in Under The Cherry Moon. This album has also been mentioned as one of the six records bought during the 2016 edition of the Record Store Day at the Electric Fetus along with a volume of Swan Silvertones' Inspirational Gospel Classics, The Chambers Brothers' The Time Has Come (1967), Stevie Wonder's Talking Book (released in 1972), a 1987 Best Of Missing Persons and Santana's Santana IV (the latter being released on 15 April 2016, the day before the Record Store Day and a few days before Prince's passing).
So I gave Hejira two run throughs this morning and it’s stunning. The arrangements are incredible, I probably didn’t like it as much the first time I tried cause I thought the fretless bass was cheesy. I was just wrong. The guitar work, the floaty energy, the vibe of the record is wonderful. But since the last time I listened I’ve learned to listen more closely to the lyrics from a song. And no surprise here, Joni doesn’t disappoint.
Why not go listen to Joni Mitchell, Prince and other amazing music today?
40 years old today
Today is my 40th birthday. I am doing some very 40 year old man things today. First, writing on a blog as opposed to twitter feels very gen X aspirational. I’m finishing the trim on painting the porch. I am going to buy some plants. On my 30th birthday I was driving in to Seattle with Dessa on her first headlining tour. I had no kids, no wife, no house. Life feels really really different and there’s no doubt that this period: global pandemic, glaring clarity over the disregard for black life by our government that has been with us forever, a louder and more public reckoning with how men abuse women. . .can’t really make this one a sentence. Our world is facing immense change right now. There’s no doubt that I am in a dark period right now, I have optimism about a lot, but the missteps of our country and of more specific communities I’m a part of are in broad relief right now. It is easy to see that we are facing a period of immense change. I believe we will come out better for it. But at this moment, I recognize that belief doesn’t do enough. I can take steps to be a part of this world getting better. I am taking those steps. 40 years old, a lot to learn, a lot to share. A lot of work ahead, and some porch to paint.
Project Listen To People
People tell you exactly who they are with their actions, their morals and their backbone or lack thereof. Listen to those actions and adjust accordingly. Advice from a vacationing DJ on the last day of his 30s.
Do you have home pants?
I went to the doctor today to have the progress of a vein surgery from last year reviewed. I swear to god the nurse’s first question was “do you have home pants?”. I said yes because I do have home pants, thin grey sweatpants that feel wonderful. Turns out she asked if I have home care. I do not. But man, these pants.
Die slow twitter long live Bing & Ruth
I’m trying to kick my Twitter habit using this blog to share thoughts. I get lost in a Twitter haze and twenty minutes disappears. I don’t mind disappearing into my brain or even into your brain for twenty minutes. But to spend twenty minutes in everyone’s surface, it’s not helpful. I’ve probably mentioned before that I love the band Bing & Ruth. I’m not listening to much radio this week so I thought I’d share what I am listening to. It’s this creepy climbing organ exploration. https://open.spotify.com/track/1SzxPH1bfrbkFexEVct5FL?si=9_LIM88rRdurB7jLjv4xMg And for the hipster record I own it on vinyl (actually two copies on accident). But I’m listening on the comp. okay see now I’m not on Twitter but I still shared what I’m feeling. Simple. Take that Jack.
During My Plank Today
I do a one minute and five second long plank every morning. During this time my 4 year old daughter Sadie often hangs out upstairs with me and also shows me yoga poses. This morning about 5 seconds in my plank she started poking a metal cookie cutter shaped like a bird into my sweat-pant covered butt crack, saying “chirp” “chirp” “chirp” while I kept on planking. Also, she think its called “blanking” not “planking”.
Because Our Kids Come From The Pandemic
Children of the depression were changed, they weren’t like their parents, and they weren’t like their kids. I think my daughters (4 and 1) are likely going to have similar relationships to this pandemic. They’ll have masks in their pocket throughout their lives. They’ll keep extra food somewhere weird (we keep it in the shower and we call the process ghostbucketing). I think we will all spend so much time in the coming years helping make sense of what this pandemic means to us. How it changed us. And we won’t be able to divide those changes from the social upheaval and realignment that we faced during the pandemic. Are you standing up the next time you can during the National Anthem? We don’t know exactly who we are as a country. And I don’t know how I relate to this country. I have so much hope for how this country can get better, can deliver better. Singing or not singing the National Anthem is a political act, and I don’t know if I’m ready to just do it cause everyone else is doing it which is where I’ve been at for years. I don’t really know who I’ll be when I get back out in person in a meaningful way. And I have no idea how big the memory of the pandemic will loom in our heads. I read that after the Spanish Flu everybody stopped talking about it, it didn’t show up in novels, it didn’t show up much of anywhere. I can’t see that happen. But maybe we will want to forget. We will force ourselves to pretend it didn’t happen. That’ll be a tragedy in and of itself, we have to learn from this, and we have to change.
A Hypothetical for White Readers
You receive your monthly water bill. It reads as follows:
Your water bill for the month is $56.22. Starting next month we are changing our policies. We are continuing to charge all customers and we will still use the power of collection agencies to seek remittance from all customers. But we are only going to provide water for our white customers. Please fill out this form and identify the race of all members of your household. Thank you in advance.
What do you do? With the bill, with the form, with your actions outside of this bill.
It Doesn’t Feel Good Anymore
I need a break cause the social media doesn’t feel good anymore. Just listened to Bomani Jones and Michael Smith on Bomani’s podcast and I just realize that I need to move away from the dopamine hit that I count on from social media. I don’t need to look at it. I also need to stop feeling that the only way I can be part of positive social activism comes from social media. That is not the only way I can make a change in my life. That’s not the only way I can get better.
I started paying the wildly expensive $12 a month for Squarespace to keep me off of twitter and IG, but it’s not working. I need to make it work. I like texting, I like seeing friends, I can also see more friends than I expected. I actually get too much dopamine, I get too much feedback, why do I want more. I got on twitter to get on things like the radio. Now I’m on the radio, but I have to stay on twitter to stay engaged and make sure people listen to the radio. But I think I can see the limits to that. And in addition to that, I just need to recalibrate, it used to be easy to know that I was on social media as a necessary duty to do my other music, but I don’t get to say that anymore. I’m on twitter for the feedback and the positivity. I’m on twitter to learn from people, to see people say good shit about me. I need to find a way to be inspired by thinkers, artists without the social media channel. I can find that. I also don’t have to make a monster statement every time I’m on my own website. Cool, this all wrapped up, what a treat.
Crush, Kill, Destroy Stress
I have a rambling brain today. At the center of my professional career is being a radio DJ. That’s been relatively true for the last 5 years but especially since COVID hit my job at Trivia Mafia has primarily been to observe the loss of thousands of dollars a month which doesn’t actually pay very well.
And being a DJ takes more time than it used to. The work is more important. For a lot of people, myself included, radio is some of the only social interaction time we get. Connecting with a song, with a fellow listener, with a DJ, that might be the big news headline for my day and that’s true for many of our listeners. Getting the music right matters more now than ever, I feel a mandate to offer better, more thoughtful and more adventurous programming. Additionally, I have heard loud and clear that there is so much more The Current could do to make Minnesota a better place. We could do more expansive programming, we could recruit a more diverse staff and let our offerings and organizations change thanks to the new voices and perspectives that come into our fold. We could rebuild trust we’ve chopped away in fits and starts throughout our history. In my non-management capacity I am working on a number of those goals. A lot of these goals don’t require management. They require the folks doing the work that I’m doing to do a better job. I’m listening to DJs in other cities, in other formats, and to curators outside of the radio world to get inspired about how to present music, what to present and beyond. One DJ I’ve gotten stuck on is Larry Mizell Jr. from KEXP in Seattle. He is on from 1-3pm Pacific time and that’s lined up nice as an end of the afternoon time for me in Central Time. I called this here blog entry “Crush, Kill, Destroy, Stress” because Larry’s programming last week absolutely did that for me and it was thanks in no small part to his use of the Organized Konfusion album “Stress: The Extinction Agenda” (note: not on Spotify).
And frankly, combining the calming effect of music and the NPR announcement on Saturday that Biden was our President-Elect I have felt some stress roll off my body in ways that are very strange to me. I am reading the Resmaa Menakem book about body stress and white-body supremacy and it had me more ready to imagine bodily reactions to big news, but not this ready. I feel better rested, I can notice things from further away when taking the dog for a walk, music sounds better than podcasts, I am reaching for my phone less. I am not diluted in thinking that Joe Biden is the panacea for all of America’s woes. What is clear to me is that for four years Donald Trump moved between being a constant troubling hum to a pounding message that succeeded in capturing my attention at every level. His missteps, his lawsuits, his comments, his tweets, his dominance of the news cycle, it was not good for me, and I don’t believe it was good for the American people. I understand that many people believe his policies were good for the American people. I don’t feel that way, but that’s an argument I’d entertain far quicker than the idea that his demeanor, his absence of decorum, his style was remotely good for the American people. But to bring it down to the micro, he made the last four years harder for me. Did he make them unimaginably harder for other people? Absolutely. Did I wade in the national news with little to show for it for four years. 100%. In fact, one reason I’m not through with Resmaa’s book yet is that every night I felt it was more important to read the top five stories from the Strib and NYT than to knock out 10 more pages of the book. I don’t think that was true, but as I settled down to bed I wanted to see the last headline more than I wanted to learn something or enjoy something.
Now, I’m thumbing through books, I’m thinking of new recipes, I have a desire to play my bass, I want to reset my turntable, I think I should make some pies for friends, I’m reading Resmaa’s book, I’m listening to Larry Mizell Jr.’s show. I am less stressed, but what I do with that absence of stress cannot be purely selfish. As a white man living in a society that is designed to support and protect white men every single piece of media yells out “be selfish!!!”. I am never considered as part of a voting bloc, if I am interested in mainstream political ideas I am not identified as engaging in identity politics, they just call them politics for me. If I choose to stay selfish I can still expect many years of me and my children not being targeted by police for petty reasons. I can expect a quite cushy life, with a spectacular job and a currently failing business that I think will recover. But, that requires the tunnel vision and short-term thinking that has plagued the last four years of my life. I’m going to die within fifty years of today and I don’t want to think: you did the bare minimum to make your world better. You did the bare minimum to make the Twin Cities more equitable in the arts in general and the music industry in particular to unapologetically black voices. You did the bare minimum to make sure that the organizations you worked for or started served all the people they claimed to serve. You did the bare minimum to make sure that the political leaders of your city, state and country worked to dismantle white supremacy, counteract climate change and provide equitable economic opportunities for all people in our country. I’m going to die within fifty years of today and I do want to think: you made pies, you read and wrote amazing articles, the organizations you worked for or started became more equitable during your tenure, you worked hard to bend the arc of the universe towards justice cause you stopped believing your leaders are oriented towards bending it. I want the joy that comes from doing the most I can with the absence of stress I have been afforded.
I fall short all the time. I disappoint myself and I let down the people I want to serve. The pain stings and it slows me down in the right way and speeds me up in the right way. I try to digest it with a diet of self-love, pride in the things I’ve done right. If I just think that I’ve been doing a great job my whole life and have been flawless in making the world a better place I would be completely out of touch with how to make the second half of my life more useful and better. At this moment I can feel this roadblock of constant headline vigilance being lifted as the “Trump is President” era ends (I fear the era of “Trumpism” is far from over). I’m writing this to remind myself that headline vigilance needs to be replaced with mission vigilance. If I want the Twin Cities music community to be a more equitable, profitable and hospitable place for black artists and fans, and for women artists and fans, and for transgender artists and fans, I can’t take this respite from stress and just bring the relief back into my headphones, into my kitchen, into my family. If I want Minnesota to stop having reprehensible achievement gaps I can’t take this respite from stress as an opportunity to alphabetize my records. If I am going to destroy stress it is going to take much more than a clear mind.
Working Harder to Get Fatter
Sat my nutritionist and plain as day for the first time in my life I said this simply in one sentence: I work really hard and aim to be successful so that people seem as successful first and as fat second.
It’s a fact I’ve known for a long time, it’s a thing I’ve said in paragraph form, but never just this plain. And it leads me to also some shitty eating behavior. I work late, I feel entitled to a snack, cause I’ve been working my ass off. But then of course, you’re going to eat those calories, crash, wake up and work hard. That’s all I’ve got, but what a thing to notice and take. I get a lot of working with Amber and finding the right way through these problems. I love working hard, and I love my body. But it’s toxic to push my mind, my career and at times my body hard into extra hours of work just to obscure a thing I should be comfortable with in the first place, which is my body. A lot to think about. I need a better relationship with sleep, a better relationship with late nights, a better relationship with my career identity and with my body.
But getting through that thought in a simple way felt like a good step.