| 21.4.17 14:10 | 
 | (1744 words)
One year ago I was at my desk in Roseville avoiding work by posting Neko Atsume screenshots and working on a Throwback Thursday post around a high school yearbook photo, thinking about the previous night at DRAGO and later at The Fremont when it started to come around Twitter that there was "medical activity" at Paisley Park. Then I saw the BREAKING tweet from TMZ and that pretty much stopped me for a week. I had been hit pretty hard in the past by other deaths (Donna Summer, Frankie Knuckles) but this was beyond a gut punch - my heart AND my brain just kinda slowed in a way I'd never felt before. The numbness wore off too quickly, replaced by an overarching and encompassing sadness that wrapped me up and smothered me. I wanted to say something - and a couple people wanted me to say something - but I pretty much shut down online. I changed my name, cover photo and profile photo and let it go. The Current started their wall of Prince and I streamed it while trying to get through the rest of my work day, wondering how I'd spend my night.
I ended up heading downtown to stand in the street with everybody else - LA texted me asking if I wanted to go to see a show she was going to, and I asked her if she wanted to come downtown instead, and she was game, so somehow we met in that swarm of people on 7th Street, decided there were way too many and went to CityWorks instead for fried pickles. After, we found Clifford at Seven for a round. After a series of poor decisions involving me trying to get my car, we finally ended up at Grumpy's at 1, just in time to do one Prince song each (Joel was down to "Alphabet St." by the time it was my turn) for a crowd which had dwindled down to Gera and her posse. After closing, we all decided to try again to hit the First Ave all-night party which was slotted 'til 7. The line was thick and moving very slowly but people WERE moving in and out. G&J gave up but we persisted and finally got in around 3 to take it in. I can't remember when we finally left (but it looks like I took some photos of the rapidly expanding shrine outside at 4.30, so probably then) and I'm not sure I even slept that night - I still had to work on Friday.
Friday I listened to my bootleg 12 inch collection at work. I was already going to the previously scheduled Bob Mould show having won a Twitter contest so I picked up my +1, we had a nice dinner with her friends at Roat Osha with service so slow we ended up heading to First Ave a little late - missing Fury Things but not Suicide Commandos. Bob Mould was great and loud as you would expect. By being fortunate enough to be in the building for the Bob Mould show, we were allowed to stick around for THAT night's Prince dance party without having to go outside and stand in the impossible queue. We ended up in a booth chatting with strangers from other states about this hard thing we were all experiencing.
So.....somewhere in here I said the wrong thing and hurt my friend so much that she stormed off, sent me a furious text and that was the last time we ever spoke. I'm still messed up about this, but the timing couldn't have been worse. Natalie was working the bar (although by that time it was juice and water, so not a lotta action) - I managed to ask her for a water and a hug before starting to lose it. I left First Ave and spent most of 7th Street crying into K-la's voicemail. Two days of under four hours of sleep, Prince dying, and ruining a friendship over a dumb joke had pretty much destroyed me. I went home and broke and I didn't get out of bed for 15 or 16 hours.
Fortunately I had a Nightosaur show to go to Saturday night or who knows WHEN I would have left the house. I decided I needed to walk, so I made the trek to the credit union and then to Reverie - one of my longer walks at 4.25 miles. I saw three fairly heavy bands (Auxons, Dead Skull and Nightosaur) which was also a nice contrast to all the Prince I'd been subjecting myself to over the past few days. I stuck to root beer that night. After Reverie, I walked a few blocks over to Mortimer's and was lucky to catch up with Krista & Smiley and play a little pinball - and even win a couple times! Then, I walked back home (3.86 miles). Over those 8+ miles of walking I had a lot of time to try to think about everything that had gone on but mostly I tried NOT to think - just to keep walking. My mind slowly started to empty.
I was home at 3 but having slept so long I wasn't really ready to go BACK to sleep. I had a Diet Dr Pepper and weighed my options. K-la had gotten off her shift and somehow I ended up offering to take HER to First Ave for the Saturday night dance party. No real line at 6am, but there wasn't a decent place to park with the cops having closed all the parking on First Avenue so I told her to just go ahead and go inside and look around and I'd stay in the car and do some people watching around the "shrine" while trying to figure out where to park. I think when she came in, they were playing one of her favourite songs, but I don't remember which one it was...but I think she posted a video. Anyway, she got a look around and decided she didn't need to stay, so I dropped her off and went back home.
Sunday I watched the Wild get eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs and wondered if I needed to keep growing my beard for the Sharks - and if you know me, you already know the story of my drivers' license photo, so let's move on. Natalie said I could hang with her that night, so I came over after buying her...something...at Lund's. I found out Billy Paul had died (as if we hadn't had enough death) and remember trying to get Natalie into him with some YouTube videos - I don't think it took. We hung out for a while and ended up leaving late to take last call at The Depot - all the First Ave workers were fairly exhausted from dealing with pretty much being open from the time Prince died until that Sunday night but everybody was holding up and getting through. Natalie ended up trying to help out a clearly distressed person outside but we ended up calling the cops instead - another sad story but we'd done what we could. We took photos at the shrine - the star still hadn't been painted gold yet. Went home in the rain.
Monday I went back to work but it still wasn't over, although my Twitter feed shows me the first time I tried to show Moon a Sparks photo she'd already seen a million times. That night was ALSO the very first time I hung out with Allison one on one - we hit the Richfield Pizza Luce and then decided, hey what the heck, let's go look at the Prince shrine. So for the fifth night in a row I found myself outside First Ave at the increasingly soggy from rain Prince shrine. It's hard to believe it's only been a year because Allison ended up becoming maybe the best friend I have, and it's hard to know if things would have turned out the same way if ALL of the previous week had ended up differently. We hit Mortimer's for more pinball but I have no evidence that I won this time, but I'll assume I did. Took her home and it was a rare "early night" for me - my sleep schedule was returning to - well, not NORMAL but more in line with how it usually goes for me.
Tuesday was Giorgio Moroder's birthday (God, he better NEVER die) and I met Rob at the Target Center for the Tom Thibodeau press conference, which of course meant I wandered by First Ave on my way out. There was now a T-shirt stand and it was starting to get tacky. Triviasco was at Jager that night and Ian played the Crap From the Past Prince megamix to go with some purple-themed topics. Gera and I competed as Team Alexander Nevermind - and won with 20 points out of 25.
Wednesday I went to Transmission but my streak of visiting First Ave was over.
That was some week.
If you've gotten this far - well, first, thanks - but you may be wondering what the point of it all is. Mostly my overarching feeling one year ago was "I need to talk about this" but I never did put it down. In other contexts and about other things, Kat's been telling me that writing it down really helps and is therapeutic - even if I never share it, I should be writing it down. Now, you know me - I've hardly ever written something I didn't immediately overshare with the world! But I do think that over the past year as I've slowly developed closer relationships with people I felt I could confide in, I've done a lot more sharing through private conversations than here on The Facebook as I did when I really felt alone except for when I was online. Most of you don't miss emo CRZ but at the same time most of you didn't mind hearing from him ONCE in a while. So here's something for you and I hope you like it.
RIP P - I have no idea why a complete stranger could take over my life. (This isn't true. I let it happen regularly!)
I love you all.
PS If I mentioned you and you wish I hadn't....I'm not sorry |
| 21.4.17 12:39 | 
 | Listened to DJ SLT - Across The Board 2017-04-21 |
| 21.4.17 12:24 |
 | Listened to Stateless - Fall Into You |
| 21.4.17 12:19 |
| Listened to Nik Kershaw - Cloak and Dagger |
| 21.4.17 12:17 | 
 |   U.S. Post Office (Minneapolis, MN) |
| 21.4.17 12:12 |
| Listened to Ovis - Regular Thang |
| 21.4.17 02:37 | 
 | Late nights with - I'm still happy to hear you shuffled up https://pic.twitter.com/FjnSaFXwh1 |
| 21.4.17 02:29 |
| Listened to Beanfield - The Season (video edit) |
| 20.4.17 22:34 |
|  Get higher with Joel - Grumpy's Bar & Grill (Minneapolis, MN) |
| 20.4.17 22:28 |
| Listened to Dean Carter - Jailhouse Rock |
| 20.4.17 22:26 |
| Listened to System 7 - Davy Jones' Locker (The Orb mix) |
| 20.4.17 22:07 |  |  | We're the BEST! |
|
| 20.4.17 20:18 |
|  Triviasco! — with Ian - The Country Bar (Minneapolis, MN) |
| 20.4.17 19:54 |
| Listened to Justin Warfield - Pick It Up Y'all |
| 20.4.17 19:49 |
| Listened to The Doors - Five to One |
| 20.4.17 19:45 |
| Listened to Yazoo - Don't Go |
| 20.4.17 19:42 |
| Listened to Salt City Orchestra - The Book |
| 20.4.17 18:31 | | By which I mean Dazed & Confused - good thing I have the correct teammate tonight |
| 20.4.17 18:27 | | Half Baked! |
| 20.4.17 18:25 |
|  | Changed my cover photo |
|
| 20.4.17 18:24 |
|  | Changed my profile photo |
|
| 20.4.17 15:54 |
 |  | Jan and I are doing important work - we are going to determine if I can tell the difference between Cheez-Its and their "Great Value Cheese Cracker" equivalent based solely on taste. I must close my eyes now. I'll be right back.
VERDICT: They tasted exactly the same and I don't know what to believe any more
FURTHER VERDICT: Bona-fide Cheez-Its are a little crispier when you're eating them by the handful, but they really do *taste* verrrrrry alike. I'd rather save a buck a box and get way more IN that box! (Also, I want to be fat again!) ALTHOUGH sometimes you want a different flavour and Great Value only has an additional "white cheddar" variety. I would miss Cheddar Jack Cheez-Its.
This has been your Cheez-It update of the day - back to you |
|
| 20.4.17 15:52 |
 | 1.5oz bag of Cheez-Its |
| 20.4.17 15:00 | 
 | SYMC closing quote: 30.50 ▲0.09 (Range: 30.35 - 30.62) |
| 20.4.17 13:29 | 
| Starbucks blend of 2 coffees |
| 20.4.17 12:18 |
 | YOGURT OF THE DAY: RAINBOW SHERBET |
| 20.4.17 12:13 |
|  Veritas (Roseville, MN) |
| 20.4.17 12:07 |
 |  So late - Walmart Supercenter (Roseville, MN) |
| 20.4.17 12:02 |
| Listened to System 7 - On the seventh night |
| 20.4.17 11:55 |
 | Listened to Giorgio Moroder - Lord (Release Me) |
| 20.4.17 11:46 |
|  U.S. Post Office (Minneapolis, MN) |
| 20.4.17 11:44 |
| Listened to Natasha Kmeto - Detox Saturday (Danny Corn Retox) |
| 20.4.17 02:44 |
| Listened to Fred Wesley & The J.B.'s - Damn Right, I Am Somebody (Parts 1 & 2) |
| 20.4.17 02:37 |
| Listened to Britney Spears - Piece Of Me (Friscia and Lamboy Radio Edit) |
| 20.4.17 02:32 |
 | Listened to Kraftwerk - Tour De France Etape 2 (Riga) |
| 20.4.17 02:28 |
| Listened to Balanescu Quartet - Robots |
| 20.4.17 02:19 |
| Listened to Supertramp - Crazy |
| 20.4.17 02:14 |
| Listened to L.U.P.O. Featuring Cathy - Keep It Up |
| 20.4.17 02:11 |
| Listened to UNKLE - unkle vs. perverts - unreal (perverted reconstruction) |
| 19.4.17 22:57 |
| Is something wrong with me? I just dethroned Erica as the Mayor of on !
https://www.swarmapp.com/crz/checkin/58f831a0d3cce8515173e9ee?s=1vezY9xT5ljhLumcGLlO-6aO6sk https://pic.twitter.com/PwYUBggPlM |
| 19.4.17 22:57 |
| Happy birthday, kids! - Clubhouse Jäger (Minneapolis, MN) |
| 19.4.17 22:42 |
| Listened to Keith Mansfield - Exclusive Blend |
| 19.4.17 22:38 |
| Listened to Fingers Inc. - Distant Planet (Distant Club Version) |
| 19.4.17 21:27 |
| Listened to Prefuse 73 - Storm Returns |
| 19.4.17 21:21 |
| Listened to The Human League - Toyota City |
| 19.4.17 19:22 | |  | It is LP Music featuring Mr. Eric Leeds |
|
| 19.4.17 18:56 |
|  LP Music! - Dakota Jazz Club & Restaurant (Minneapolis, MN) |
| 19.4.17 18:50 |
| Listened to Tears for Fears - Shout |
| 19.4.17 18:43 |
| Listened to Depeche Mode - John The Revelator (Tiefschwarz Dub) |
| 19.4.17 18:35 |
|  Spire Credit Union (Minneapolis, MN) |
