The Voice of the Thinking Man - 4/23
It’s almost time to go fishing. Mind you, it’s always time to go fishing here. As long as there’s water in the state and something that swims in it, you’ll find some hooligan in waders trying to hook it out.
But Paul, there’s something that happens to you when you start to write about fly fishing. You unlock a tier of folksy spirituality so thick that even Wendell Berry would choke between rips off his corn cob pipe. People can’t help but write with a breathless reverence about the fish, they flutter through endless passageways decorated with the symbiotic struggle of man versus nature versus himself versus nothingness. Whatever it is Paul, I hate it.
I am man, the predestined dominator of everything he sees. They are but fish, they can’t even drive a prius. Why should they get all the prime waterfront real estate? We don’t even need the whole fish, Paul, just the sticks.
Where is the writing for people like me? I see their wiley beauty and their freedom and I hate them for it and I want to take it from them and possess it because I fear those are two things that I do not have on my own and never will and the only way I can get them is to steal them from another living thing.
When it’s time to go fishing, I spend the whole day casting in the river. When I miss the first trout of the season and watch its shadow slip away, I remember just how clearly that I wish for nothing more than to yank them free from the water because of some abstract application of revenge. Outsmarted by a fish, as if. I work up and down the river, through the grasses and the mud, just for the one sweet moment where I hook something, when the fish truly surrenders to my superiority. The ire has built in me all day. The fish tries to fight me. I will inevitably prevail.
But then something breaks in me when I haul them up out of the water and I see their little faces and their entire body fighting me and gasping for air and I feel I’m at the brink of stealing something from the world that can never be replaced. The ones who cash the checks of war will never pay their price, after all. And for a moment I understand why those people write just how they write and I feel all the hate drain out from me from a small valve in the side of my abdomen, leaving emptiness in its place. I behold the entirety of the indescribable universe all condensing to a single point of now, I and the moment become inseparable. The fish becomes some sort of extension of my spirit - two are one are nothing and everything. I set the fish back in the water and watch it swim out as long as I can, then I just look down and take a small joy that I have much in common with all the rocks in the stream. Eventually I pack my gear and myself back into my car and make the drive back home. I think I will always feel that spike of hate strike out from me until I finally die. I don’t want to believe the hate and the ire is something that springs uniquely from me but instead just something terminal driven deep into my heart fighting it’s way out because it knows it does not belong there. It doesn’t matter how it got there, I suppose, and I’m happy that right now it feels so far away and I hope I get better at recognizing it when it comes back to greet me again and again in all its red and petulant ooze.
At home at the end of my day, I think how great nature is strictly because I am reminded of how much I hate the city and its noise and all the jags who can’t figure out a zipper merge. Sure, Minneapolis and St. Paul are very nice places, but really that feels to me about the same as saying the guillotine is a nice way to be publicly executed. Because all things considered, this all is probably one of the nicest ways it can possibly be.
100 Kilometer Ski Race - March, 2025
Here’s a story Paul did about a 62-mile ski race, with reporting assistance from Tamarack, Raven, Liam, Mirjam and Ingrid, one of whom also skied in the race
Brent Fuqua - March 12, 2025
Brent Fuqua came by the studios of Poetry, Science and Wrestling the day before he was set to play (with the Lake Monsters, and Mother Banjo and Steam Machine) a birthday party / CD release / benefit show at the Hook and Ladder — his latest single is called “Mississippi Rollin’”, which he played live for morning radio listeners, and told Paul a bit of the story. Then he played a few more… if you can’t make it to his birthday party, find him on Bandcamp!
The Voice of the Thinking Man - February 26, 2025
Who puts down the little bar at the grocery store? You know the one I’m talking about, that plastic divisor ensconced with meaning. The little guy you plop on the conveyor belts that signals to the cashier which one of us hungry little hippos wants to buy and eat these voluminous mountains of vittles aplenty? Certainly, the cashier shouldn’t have to slap the bar down. If anything, they already do too much. Should they also bag my groceries, carry them to my car? Should they send me away with a peck on the cheek and a little walking around money? Maybe they could leave the porch light on for me too, so when I slink back home, distraught and empty handed from my late night search for meaning at a Dave and Buster’s, I know there’s someone who loves me, waiting up to know that I’m safe. No Paul, not for minimum wage. Just scan me through and take my money and forget me as I waddle away.
I’m still stuck - should I divide my groceries from an oncoming contributor to the conveyor belt? Or, should I expect this new consummate consumer to demarcate their territory on the belt from mine? It’s important to note here Paul that in public these things must go unspoken. Can you imagine actually asking another human to use the divider? I feel sick even thinking about it. This is Minnesota after all, where anything socially essential cannot be spoken aloud. I could be on fire from tip to tail and the best I could do in public is muster up a polite “ope” if someone is standing between me and the only bucket of water in the world. I’ll hope they can scry the subtleties of the moment without me peeping word as I sizzle in silent panic. And how could I expect them to know what I need? If they look back and behold my porcine body engulfed in flames, what would they think? For all they know I am actualizing as a fresh slab of fatback.
So perhaps the answer to who places the bar is simple: you place the bar. But now we’ve reached a mesa of righteousness on the mountain of understanding and see there is higher yet to climb. When do we place the bar, and where?
I do not wish to be cruel, but can you imagine the cruelty this kindness might inflict? Imagine you walk up to the checkout lane and the person in front of you puts the bar down before you even get a chance. Do they think you’re some kind of a clown? Some kind of doritoed sycophant about to empty a basket of chaos into their reality? And what about the other way. What if I haphazardly amble my way up to an occupied line and without a single thought, slip the bar in between someone else’s blackberries and my own deluge of barbecue flavored everything I could find. I wouldn’t even give them a chance to be kind, perhaps shattering their one opportunity in their day to put any kind of good into the world. My own rushed selfishness extinguishes the light of good and I push us one step closer to a culture of cruelty.
I refuse to harm another with obvious but ill-timed generosity. Perhaps then the kindnesses we extend to others should be thankless and invisible. Every action, a silent note to the tune of a better tomorrow, and without them we succumb to the cacophony of now.
Reactionary and overt kindness is the cudgel of the weak, preparatory kindness instead is still a cudgel but for the strong. I believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that it is right and good to place the bar behind your own groceries as soon as you are finished unloading them from your basket whether or not there is someone in line behind you. And, should no one have arrived by the time your last item is scanned, place it back where it came from.
Thus speaks the voice of the thinking man.
The Jug Demons - February 19, 2025
Levi and a few other of the "Jug Demons" came by KFAI's studio to speak with (and attempt to bribe) P, S & W's Paul Brohaugh about the 2025 Minneapolis Battle of the Jug Bands, set to take place 12:30 to 7:00, February 23, down the street at the Cabooze (916 Cedar Ave, Mpls.) They spoke a bit about the 50-plus year history of jug band music, and competition, in KFAI's own Cedar-Riverside neighborhood.
Before taking to the airwaves, they played a little piece on local jug band history produced by KBEM’s Phil Nusbaum. They also warmed up studio 4 on a chilly morning with the historic tune "Save Me Some" and their own theme song, "The Rapture Came and They Didn't Take You."
Mother Banjo - February 5, 2025
Mother Banjo - AKA Ellen Stanley - came by P, S & W on a chilly morning for a sunrise interview and mini concert; she spoke with Paul Brohaugh about an upcoming show with Larry and Joe at The Cedar Cultural Center (Saturday, Feb 8, 2025), played some tunes and divulged some secrets about her many identities in the Twin Cities music world, as the longtime host of KFAI’s Womenfolk, as a citizen taking inspiration from the waters of Minneapolis, and as Mother Banjo herself
Soup for You! and The Grateful Fed - January 29, 2025
It’s been 10 years since Chef Judah started serving soup to anyone and everyone in the basement of a church basement not far from KFAI’s World Headquarters, and he, along with a cadre of Soup for You! volunteers, are still doing it. Judah came by Poetry, Science and Wrestling to invite the community to their anniversary party Friday, January 31, 12-1pm in their new location at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 2730 E. 31st St. in Minneapolis, just behind the East Lake Street Library. Of course he brought along the Tuesday house band, The Grateful Fed, who played a few tunes and introduced themselves in a little conversation with Paul Brohaugh.
Sarah Larsson - January 22, 2025
Sarah Larsson of Red Thread came by P, S & W for a sunrise radio moment in January of 2025; she had a banjo and a drum and played some wistful tunes for KFAI listeners in the Twin Cities, and for folks who might want to see the Red Thread at Berlin in Minneapolis (Wednesday, Jan 29) or in Northfield (Feb 7). Red Thread recently released an album called “Immigrantke”, which features folk tunes and harmonies from various traditions, including Yiddish, Balkan, Irish and Scandinavian tunes, and feelings.
Paul Brohaugh - Jan. 1, 2025
Paul picked the least likely time for anyone to be listening (Jan. 1, 6am) to try out some guitar tunes he had been playing recently in El Salvador - the first is from Salvadoran poet Oswaldo Escobar Velado, “Regalo Para el Niño,” made into a song by Yolocamba I Ta, and the second is from Nicaraguan troubadour Carlos Mejia Godoy - “Navidad en Libertad”
Pop Wagner - Dec. 11, 2024
Pop Wagner came back to the studio! This time he shared a few lively tunes, a poem about floating a horseshoe in coffee, and some stories about getting his acrylic nails installed at the beauty salon. He’s always up to something, find out more at popwagner.com
2024 Fall Pledge Drive
We have two special premiums this pledge drive: two bespoke small electronics kits! If you can build a lego set, you can build one of these. You don’t need to know how to write a line of code, you don’t even need to know what code is or does. You do need to know how to read and look at pictures. I guess if you can build a lego set OR you can read a Dr. Seuss book, you can build one of these:
Nonstop KFAI - You will set up a tiny little analog radio that's powered by a microcontroller. The radio module has a built in FM receiver and a 1/8" headphone jack output. You can listen to the radio without Wi-Fi when it's all assembled and powered on. It's kinda funny when you think about it - a computer powering an analog radio that doesn't need Wi-Fi. Whatever. The radio is set to one station (KFAI of course) and you cannot change that or the volume.
Hey Jay -You will make the light sing. You’re going to assemble a Hey Jay, a little device that I like to think of as a reverse light organ. Once it’s assembled and powered up, you can wave your hand close to the device and trigger the motion sensor. Then, the microcontroller takes a sample of the ambient light from the sensor, maps the measurements onto a digital synthesizer, and finally it outputs the music to an ⅛” headphone jack. Think of it like a sort of digital wind chime that plays when you strum the light.
Either kit is available to you if you pledge $90 to support KFAI. You can call 612-375-9030 or click the donate button on this page to donate on kfai.org.
The Ballad of Jessie Diggins Coming to Theodore Wirth Park in February 2024
Gonna sit here - on the hillside - till Jessie - comes by
I reckoned - we'd see her skiing - but we only - saw her fly
(as witnessed by KFAI's Paul Brohaugh, and recounted early Wednesday morning February 21 on Poetry, Science and Wrestling, with banjo)
Note: the original broadcast has been supplanted by Paul's "studio" recording of the same song. You can also find it on the internet's most popular video sharing service, complete with historic videos of Jessie Diggins, Bill Koch, and various members of Paul's family.
Pop Wagner - February 14, 2024
Pop Wagner popped into the station on Valentine's Day with a six-string guitar and a couple new CDs - you can hear him around town various places this winter, and listen here as he plays "Annabel", live on Poetry, Science and Wrestling
The Grateful Fed - January 31, 2024
Soup For You!, a "radical soup kitchen" in the basement of the church at 2511 E Franklin Ave, Minneapolis, was about to celebrate nine years of serving free and delicious soup for anyone every weekday between 12 and 1 -- Chef Judah and Soup For You's house band, the Grateful Fed, came over to KFAI's Poetry, Science and Wrestling on January 31, 2024, with a few songs and a conversation with Paul. Everyone's welcome for soup, and anyone is also welcome to donate at the Soup For You! website
Robin Kyle - January 31, 2024
Robin Kyle was set to play Tuesday nights (9:30) in February (2024) at the 331 in Northeast Minneapolis, trading songs and stories with other musical friends and family members - he stopped by Poetry, Science and Wrestling with a few tunes, and a conversation with Paul Brohaugh
The Roe Family Singers - January 29, 2024
Poetry, Science and Wrestling took a field trip to see The Roe Family Singers at their secret rehearsal location, preparing for a big show at the Parkway Theater, Thursday, February 1, 2024. They were set to release a new album, "Sisters and Brothers" -- Paul Brohaugh spoke with Quillan Roe about it, and listened in on a few tunes in the living room of two of the band's members
Larry Long and Fiddlin’ Pete Watercott - January 10, 2024
Warming up for their American Roots Revue at the Dakota (Jan 13, 2004), Larry Long and Fiddlin’ Pete Watercott graced the studios of Poetry, Science and Wrestling with some tunes and stories, including one about the time, decades ago, they fiddled their way out an “incident” in the freight yard of Missoula, Montana, and a song about a Minneapolis violin maker. What’s become an annual show at the Dakota will feature Barbara Cohen, Robert Robinson, Tonia Hughes Kendrick, Alana Dickenson-Gaabay Aniikwaad and a band led by Michael Bland and Billy Steele
John Gorka - November 15, 2024
John Gorka came to KFAI's P, S & W on an early Wednesday in November to talk with Paul Brohaugh, and play a few songs, including one he wrote (and once performed) for a herd of bison
Riley Skinner - Surrender
Even in my darkest moments, I hope you know, there is a spark here.
Riley Skinner’s new record Surrender encourages us to love ourselves for who we are and who we might become.
She describes this record that, “...embracing myself fully as a queer person has been an act of surrendering fully to who I am. It’s meant allowing myself to fall apart and feel out of control, but also to embrace that place of chaos and find some ease and joy there.”
Lyrically and sonically, she wanders on Surrender and is never lost, a journey for the sake of itself where the destination is exactly where you are right now, but you’re just facing the dawn of a new tomorrow. The record showcases her range as a songwriter, Skinner departs from the textures of her previous work and here she glides between moods sonically and lyrically. Slow, ethereal ballads hover just off the surface of a rugged earth before they drift away and reveal the grit and the groove. The moves feel subtle, intentional, and never out of place. She allows the listener access to the most intimate parts of herself. She tells the story of what was, is, and will become from where those three overlap. No moment exists in a vacuum, all is connected and illuminated by a simple spark of hope.
The band around Skinner builds the record a sturdy foundation. Colleen Burns and Shannon van der Reck fill out the rhythm section and seem expertly to hold back the weight of the world and keep the center clear for Riley to unspool on each track. The record features additional guitars from Cooper Stoulil, flute from Margo Ramsay, and pedal steel from Zack Warpinski. The band embeds a sort of sonic grit on Carnal Otherness and Friend. They bring power that’s never overpowering. Then, deftly switch gears on tracks like Surrender and Swallow Song, a song which opens to a minimalist, graceful vignette until it crescendos with flutes and chorus into a wall of sound and wonder and memory that crashes softly back onto its own shores. The band wanders with Riley, all comfortably restless and completely steady, never settling on a single sound but always choosing the right one.
I may not ever be in the right place at the right time, but I have something worth holding onto
01 - Dirty
Great song for when you can’t tell if your searching for yesterday or tomorrow, but know that it’s right around the corner anyways
05 - You Go a Long Way
Great song for when the heat of the day has been unbearable, for when you can finally slink out into the night and feel reborn in the cool silence
08 - Guarded
Great song for when you see yourself in the mirror and recognize the person you will become
** Some of the writing in this doesn’t belong to me - I lifted some lines from Riley’s record and if you want to figure out what came from the record well you better go listen to it cause you’re done reading this.
The OK Factor - October 10, 2023
The OK Factor, AKA Olivia and Karla, prepared for their fall 2023 midwest "Traditions" tour (and corresponding EP release, in collaboration with the Swedish band Jaerv) by visiting Poetry, Science and Wrestling - Paul Brohaugh got to ask them a little about their history, and future … fortunately, part of their answer was live music right in KFAI’s studio 4