Some Highlights from the Pilot

An amazing Wednesday was had by all on June 7, 2023. A magical day turned into a magical night. Magical times share a unique ratio of mandatory and leisurely. The greatest nights of my life were not 100% free form. Those days where it’s just friends all day, there’s no friction, there’s no story of minor hardship. A day of moving an apartment is usually a subpar experience. Too much sweat, not enough laughs. The day where it’s one hour of moving one mixing board, a ping pong table. That’s a good ratio. And sometimes just having a plan . . .like we have to pick someone up at the airport at a slightly inconvenient time like 10:50pm on a Tuesday. It’s a simple action, but it gives the night a contour. And the contour of the night counts.

For Wednesday the fun started early. Business meeting with Chuck for a trivia thing at 10:00am. Haven’t done a business meeting with Chuck in months. There’s a “just like old times” vibe for Chuck and I. Chuck and I have done a fair amount of meetings with a lot of the “PEOPLE” in this town. Event people, media people, private party people, political people. What I’m saying is Chuck and I have been “forgot to bring business cards” cowboys for about fifteen years. But this level of cool is very subjective. There is a small sliver of this town who knows that “I met with Alexis on the Sexes at Northeast Social” is Minneapolis lingo for “I’m over thirty five”. So a memory lane vibe. I like owning a company with Chuck, some great times making Trivia Mafia really go. That’s big to me.

I got to a hang out with an old co-worker who had also left the radio station. Shop talk. When’d you last see him? Did you hear? Do you think that’s why? Is that what they said? Had two Cavas. One coffee. You have to take the day off to have two Cavas before Jeopardy airs, but it’s fun when you can. One coffee refill. So sunny that day that no one even offers to move if you put your face all the way over your face to shade someone. If I move over there, it’s the same, the sun is still right there. Sitting outside, construction all over. Goodbyes.

Time for a fish sandwich you’ve known about for years but have never had. When people say “first you eat with your eyes” I have to say, for folks with young kids. . .you eat with your ears for years before your eyes have a taste. People will say “we have to visit that bakery again with the sour cream glazed donuts” and I’ll hear that three times at three different parties across two years before I so as much see a to go bag from this place. I’ll follow the whole story of a restaurant that was open for two years that I never, once, never once (sic) went to. I can say things like: “and that’s when they tried to go mostly vegetarian right” even though I don’t even know what color their toilets are. I just know the place from all the words my friends said about them and the plates of the food that I would see on Instagram.

Anyway, World Street Kitchen has a beautiful Tofu Yum Yum Rice Bowl. And it so alluring and so rare for me to get over there for a meal that I end up always going back to that Tofu bowl. I just want it again. But I love a fish sandwich. I know I’m kind of on the rare side. If you tell your friend “we have to go to my favorite fish sandwich spot . . .”, your friends might come but at best one of those guys is getting the fish sandwich.

That’s right, that’s not photoshop, those sesame seeds tasted amazing and they look even better. Love a tasty fillet, quote me on that shit. Quote me on any of this.

If you are from Saint Paul and you have elected to raise your kids in St. Paul you have also resigned yourself to see your former classmates as co-parents. You will be talking to someone at a full backyard elementary school gathering with food trucks and be thinking “did we see each in Winona when you were a senior at college and you came to a Heiruspecs show”? Now just imagine if the response is “I’m from Portland, I moved here in 2018, what is Iron specs? I don’t understand what you’re saying”. But mostly it’s just meeting people and trying to remember what class you had together. I went to class, but my memories are all outside of class. I don’t always remember the people that I had a particular class with. Especially with science. I never did anything in science class. Or rather I did the bare minimum and made sure it was known to my teacher and my group that I would be doing the recording of results for the experiments thank you very much. But we are at one of these gatherings and it’s great, you meet a couple people, eat Kowalski’s deli food. Which, by the way, is nor worth every penny, but it is still, pretty honestly nice for a little outdoor situation. There’s always the weird overlap that very few people can follow due to siblings, where a mom will say “your oldest was in the summer program with my oldest as the counselor and the youngest as a camper” . . . “no, again, I never went to Winona”.

A walk home from the school brings us to the babysitter connecting with our kids while Rachel and I disappear to take in the Saints game in under the CHS lights. This night is vaguely a “Trivia Mafia” night. There was a ticket code. We are running trivia on our app. There are some reasonable amount of Trivia Mafia enthusiasts, like maybe seventy. This is absolutely insane when you take it in. I’m not involved in the company in any day to day way, but damn if I miss a cool event we are a part of. I got into this for holiday parties and gatherings. That refills my cup. There’s also a moment when I realize that it’s just a perfect amount of people you kind of know. I walk around and just talk it up, or grab a pretzel for the wife. But at some point I decide to just do a walk around the field. That’s an undertaking at a Twins or a Timberwolves game but here, it’s just nice walking, not too long. And today I had rekindled my love with the Pusha T album “Daytona”. I popped the song “The Games We Play” and hit the loge. Don’t they call it the loge? I don’t know what they call it. I ran into a couple folks who listen to Jazz88. It warms my heart, I feel like we spend quality time together. We listen to great music, a nice variety, hear the news together, get through the afternoon together. I love being the Captain of the Afternoon Cruise. Had a medium length hang with Christopher Proczko and my new fast friend Trevor McSpadden. Trevor and Mary Cutrufello run a happy hour weekly at the White Squirrel which has turned into one of those weekly that asks you about: “have you been to the White Squirrel on a Tuesday”? McSpadden has his kids, Girls maybe 11, 6 and 3. Whatever kind of night we’re having, they’re having twenty times that right? Little helmets filled with soft serve, the first time you see the unique light of a minor league baseball game. The inside jokes. Seeing your daddy playing guitar outside for the people as they’re walking into the ballpark. That sibling energy. The snacks. The short ride home taking turns picking out songs on the phone. It’s after this moment that I might be having one of the great nights of my life. My wife is making time with the Trivia Mafia set, I’m walking the outfield, with doses of Pusha T, McSpadden and some solid base hits. I don’t think the Cubs ever had much a lead but it was a close game with excitement. I am very thankful for the culture Trivia Mafia has created. I am grateful for our employees, I believe we are good employers and we are receptive to suggestions for how we can be better. We try to look at things that are patently stupid at other companies and not do them. We try to make the experience of working for us reasonable, fun and kind of hilarious. I love that all. I feel it all. A woman who works basically full time for Trivia Mafia laid this compliment on me about Trivia Mafia: “everyone cares the right amount”. Damn, isn’t that what you want at a job? And on the flip side. I think we provide a beyond solid service for our customers. Our hosts are the best. Our questions are the best. Our ideas about how to solve your needs for events are the best. When we can crack a joke we will crack it. Guaranteed. And I ran into this “on every stage in town” player named David Feily. This man gets all the calls, plays all the guitar and bass and delivers the goods with a scary efficiency and enthusiasm. And turns out the dude is in on Trivia Mafia and his lady friend and her friend is in on an even bigger way. And Feily tells me that him and his crew can feel the love from what we’re doing over at Jazz88. That they see the spins, the interviews and the enthusiasm. It feels really good. Trying to make this as awesome a town as possible to be a musician in. And some of what we are doing is being felt by some fine players.

Had one of those great things. My lady says “we gotta get going and head home, we only have the babysitter til 9:30”. But you point out that for this one you started a half hour later and then hit that with a 10pm end time. It rings a bell and she realizes we got that nice extra 23 minutes to be comfortable. Perfect. Wrapping the farewells. A couple folks clearly diving into the baseball side of things. Chuck and this guy David Cava can actually talk about the players on our team. They are active Twins, they’ve been in Target Field this season, they’ll be back in there. It’s great conversation, I can follow almost none of it. But I’m in, just enjoying the cadence, if you can’t appreciate two folks talking just a little baseball, I don’t know what to tell you.

When we get home I make a beeline for that neighborhood happy hour. Since the pandemic, like so many people, the neighbors are the backbone in a way that feels really good. Actual friends, actual trips, not lip service. So a small version of a happy hour crew with one wild card is assembled on the porch of the cross the streeters. We are basically a dorm of forty year olds. And the wild card is a visiting friend of Silas. And you get to bounce new ideas off the wild card. You toss one wild card in a conversation of constants and you still arrive totally different places than you would without the new guy. And at some point, we get into the business about neighbors exploring polyamory, long ass sex sessions, ethical non-monogamy. These ideas are no longer laughed out of the hang and that’s for the better. Online dating has changed shit. There’s going to be this line in the sand in my opinion between the “we met online” generations and the “we met through a place in the real world” generation. A thick line. I know the young people are having less sex than they did 20 years ago. But, man, the single folks my age are ruining the curve. In the best way. Get those cheeks. Live that life and get out there. Why not? Why not? Have some more fun, feel some more things. But there’s laughing, there’s hypotheticals, there’s asides, there’s that exploratory porch evening energy. The night ends with the short steps across the street to the home at the very late Wednesday hour of 1:13am. It’s all just a little bit more special tonight. The whiskey went a little higher in the dram tonight. The doubles became triples for the Saints. The world lifted up a little like it is wont to do on a Wednesday in early June when you least expect but most appreciate it.