Category: Twenty Years Ago Today

It was 12:25PM, August 8, 1991. It’d been two and a half days. since the labor had started – late Monday night, at the corner of First Avenue and Eighth Street, outside the Target Center. We’d been at the “KDWB Star Party”; one of the few bennies, at least for me, of working at KDWB…

It was Friday, August 2, 1991. After my second interview a few days earlier, I got a call very quickly asking me to come in for a third interview. That was good. I’d also found out from Joe Hanson – the keeper of all broadcast lore in Twin Cities radio – that I was on…

It was July 29, 1991.  It was exactly 11:30 AM. And after a four year drought, I had a shot at getting back into the game. After Joe Hanson sicced me on a lead for an “executive producer” at KSTP, I had had a phone interview with KSTP-AM’s general manager, Ginny Morris, the previous Monday.…

It was June 24, 1991.  I’d been working at KDWB/K63 for a little over six months.  It was my radio fix, of sorts; I got in maybe 24 hours a week, in and among my various nightclub gigs.  It wasn’t much of a living – but, I thought, it at least kept my toe in…

It was a Sunday afternoon, at my weekend gig at KDWB.  It was 5PM, and I was back at the pop machine.  Joe Hansen was grabbing a coke. “So, ah, the boss fired one of our board ops”, he said, in his typical indoor voice, which was loud enough to shush R. Lee Ermey. It…

It was February 3, 1991.  I’d been working my side gig at KDWB for a few weeks. It was a pretty menial gig by radio standards; come in on Sunday afternoons to work with Spyder Harrison and Kris Adams.  I did get the occasional call to come in on weeknights to produce Spyder’s weekday evening…

There’s something about every addiction.  Something that reminds the addict of the rush, the cool part, of their addiction. To me, it’s the faint smell of ozone  you get around electrical equipment that was part of the atmosphere, literally and metaphorically, in every radio station. I’ve noticed you get a lot less of it at…

It was Saturday, January 5, 1991. I was working at the Mermaid, the supper club, sports bar, bowling alley and nighclub in Moundview where I’d been spinning records, three nights a week, for a little over two years now. One of our regular features was the Saturday night live appearances from “Mister Ed”, a disk…

It was twenty years ago today that I most likely noticed that it’d been five years since I’d decided to move to the Twin Cities. Did I remember that booze-fueled night in September of 1985?  My drunken promise to a table of college friends at a homecoming party that I was leaving North Dakota in…

It was Friday, August 24, 1990. Payday. I was still working for the sleazy DJ service. You heard that right.  In the fifteen months since my last update to this series, nothing much had changed.  I was still spinning records in bars. And my ritual every other Friday was always the same; drive from my…

It was Monday, May 22, 1989. I woke up late at about the usual time, probably 9 or 10. I’d been working late the night before, at “Wallaby’s”, a horrible bar stuck under a strip mall in Columbia Heights. Since I’d moved into the little upper duplex, life had gotten less eventful.  Living without an…

It Tuesday, April 25, 1988. My band had a gig.  In the several months since we’d recorded a demo, we’d knocked around with a bit of this, a bit of that, a few practices, a few parties, a little schmoozing… …and, finally, our band – “Joe Public”, this time – had a gig.  Mark, Bill…

It was Monday, January 23, 1989. I woke up on Mark and Bill’s couch, and drove to Northeast Minneapolis. I hadn’t spent much time up there in the three years I’d lived in the Twin Cities – really, other than watching the occasional band at the occasional bar on Hennepin or Central, I’d never had…

It was Sunday, January 22, 1989. And every time I wonder if God is really watching out for me – keeping me from screwing up too irredeemably bad – I remember the events of this day, and sigh, and banish all doubts. Because it was only through the grace of God that I didn’t end…

It was Saturday, January 21, 1989. Just so you know, I have standards. I had ’em back twenty years ago, too. Examples: Steal my stuff? I could get upset. Trash my place? Don’t do it, buddy. Threaten me? Not a good way to make me happy. Bring a criminal trade – and plenty of criminals…

It was Friday, January 20, 1989. I worked at City Limits in Rosemount.  It was a pretty tame night. Bummer.  I’d hoped for a fight to break out. Because I wanted to hit someone. My heart raced, I think, all night; I seemed to be on a big adrenaline buzz, and for no good reason. …

It was Wednesday, January 18, 1989. I was getting ready to head out to one of my bars. Wyatt was about to head out to his.  He’d just sent one of his girls – a bartender from a bar on University where he worked – on her way before Teresa came over for the night. …

It was Saturday, January 7, 1989. You might recall a couple of weeks ago – Wyatt, my omni-addicted roommate, decided to start selling cocaine from our hovel on the East Side of Saint Paul, to “pay up what he owed me” among other things. I hadn’t had the highest hopes on that. Like most things…

It was Sunday, December 11, 1988.  I was working at the Mermaid.  It was my 26th birthday.  And my life was pretty much going nowhere.  And I was feeling very, very sorry for myself. I watched the small, desultory crowd in the bar – a few pool players, a few alcoholics, a few couples out…

It was Wednesday, November 23, 1988.  I was going to head back to Jamestown for Thanksgiving.  I didn’t want to miss Christmas in the bars; lots of extra money and tips for working the Xmas holiday, so I figured I’d tough it out.  So I worked out a Wednesday through Saturday “vacation” with my boss,…

It was Monday, November 21, 1988. Wyatt’s “plan” to “repay” the money he owed me involved…: a) …spending a few thousand dollars that his grandmother had sent him on… b) …a bunch of cocaine, that he would… c) …sell, to… d) …make money, to… e) …pay Shane and I. I suggested the obvious alternative – give us the $600 or so he…

It was Monday, November 7, 1988. I came back from New York feeling pretty upbeat.  And even if the stuff in NYC didn’t pan out, I had other irons in the fire, and of course my band was happening again.  Some of the things that made me me were starting, it seemed, to work out…