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.