The Best 30 Minutes of My May

May 25th. The last Saturday in May. The last Saturday of every month I play with my group Big Trouble at the White Squirrel in Saint Paul. Turns out many of us had had an uneven gig in April. Not unanimously terrible, but it wasn’t the slam dunk it often is when we play. But by all of our accounts May was nice. The songs felt good, the audience was enthusiastic, the laughs at my between song banter was mild but real.

My dad was in town and me, my brother Steve and him went to the Tavern on Grand for one more walleye hurrah before they close on the first Sunday in June. I was the only one who got walleye and the rest of my family are the dumbs cause it was very tasty. My dad has a pact with himself where if his wife isn’t around he gets meatloaf with a blinding quickness and I respect that. Some guys have Ashley Madison. My dad has meatloaf.

I’ve already had a good gig and fried fish and I haven’t gotten to the best 30 minutes yet. After those Big Trouble gigs I have carte blanche to stay out and enjoy the night if I am so inclined. That means my wife Rachel has given me the greenlight to stay out and she’ll get the kids to bed. No small feat with a four year old and a seven year old. I frequently want to get back to the White Squirrel to enjoy the rest of the evening, but in this instance I really wanted to get back cause my friend Tim was DJing. I love Tim and I adore his girlfriend, the Trivia Mafia OG Katie. But given that I had arrived at a stopping point in my evening after fish it seemed right to check in with Rachel before I went back out to the White Squirrel. What if the kids were driving her crazy? What if bedtime had been a bust and the kids were still up? So I made my way home and checked in with Rachel. Turned out that she was doing good but that she was super thankful that I had the thought of seeing how the family was doing in person. This successful spousal interaction prompted me to liberate a marijuana cigarette from my basement and plan a celebration of my own.

I made my way down Randolph listening to Jazz88, the station for which I am a music director. The music was good and I was thinking about things to change about the station, things that are amazing about the station. I thought about my workplace the way you think about yours: what’s working? what could be better? what does this feel like to the outside world? But I was overwhelmed with the fact that my workplace is an awesome jazz station on an FM dial in a major metropolitan area. I was beaming with pride. What an amazing opportunity for me to get to work at this station. And guess what? I’m doing a pretty great job, I’m really proud. I can always do better. We can always do better, but we’ve made some great progress.

I parked in front of the White Squirrel and smoked that joint listening to the radio. (if you introduce a joint in the third paragraph you have to smoke it in the fifth). I listened and I felt happy in my life. I get to play music. I get to play music on the radio. I have two beautiful children. I have an amazing wife. I love my neighbors. I love my city. I love Heiruspecs. I helped start a trivia company that is an essential part of Twin Cities culture. Music sounds great on a Saturday night with a joint in your hand and a radio station you work at on the speakers.

As I entered the White Squirrel the scene was great. Maybe twenty five people in there. Conversation. Pretty dim dark lighting. Weird TV on a weird projector. Tim playing a series of obscure electronic-adjacent music on stage and grinning his ass off. I feel great but I harbor that curiosity if when I start talking with Katie will we really talk or do the surface talk. If my serious ass boyfriend was DJing at a spot I might sort of just want to small talk with other guests so I can enjoy the music and keep track of him, but I’m just not sure. As I’m milling about, feeling a little high and feeling absolutely magical I see that some random lady is wearing a Trivia Mafia t-shirt. I can’t tell you how cool that is, but I guess if I have a blog it’s my hobby to try to. Here goes something. Seeing some random person wear a t-shirt that is about something you built it is this gratifying feeling that the things that bring you joy bring others not only joy but an urge to support and broadcast that love. It makes you feel like the sweat, passion and attention you and hundreds of other people have given has paid off because when some lady in south Minneapolis was deciding what to wear on her way out to the bar decided to wear a shirt that probably was at some point in a strange tupperware container in a building you have the keys to. I’m now smiling like an idiot near, but not at the bar. That’s a classic me-high-at-a-bar move. I stand like three feet away from the bar, ruining everyone’s good time and feng shui except for my own.

But it’s in this random position when the most magical moment of the best thirty minutes of my May happens. One of the primary bartenders at White Squirrel is named Dinah. She is straight out of central casting for a bartender at a hipster bar. Tall, blonde and one of those skeleton keys permanently in her back jean pocket. She has a smile that she flashes rarely cause she’s a good ass bartender but when you get that smile you feel like she’s wearing a Trivia Mafia t-shirt. Dinah calls me a little bit closer to the bar and simply says “I heard the show was really great tonight”. I can’t tell you how this feels. This is the most scene-from-a-movie thing that has happened to me in life. I’ve been playing in bars for legit twenty-nine years. I got started when I was fourteen. A bartender has said “nice job”. A bartender has said “that drink ticket won’t cover that”. A bartender has said “my boss has the money and I think he’ll be back”. But in my gigging ass life no bartender has ever said “I heard the show was really great tonight”. I am currently rolling this statement around in my head and it feels so good. We did play good. But for it to make it into the staff rumor mill at the White Squirrel??? Are you kidding me.

I go over to strike up a conversation with Katie and I am immediately aware that this night is going to be awesome. Katie knows the Trivia Mafia shirt lady and we talk for awhile all together and then I recirculate. But when I get back to Katie we end up talking for a long ass time. We talk outside. We talk about the crossroads we are both at in different ways in our life. We are honest, we are going deep, but we are also aren’t pretending that the meeting is anything but a snapshot. We are not going to turn into meet for coffee friends. We are cool, we are friendly and tonight we are really talking, but it’ll be the exception not the rule to our friendship. But it’s magical, the night is magical. Dinah heard the show was really great tonight. That lady bought a t-shirt. You got the walleye. Your wife appreciates you. The Timberwolves are still in the post season. The windows are rolled down. The radio is on and sometimes you hear your own voice.