The Obligatory Red Sox Post
Posted on October 9, 2003 at 10:40 am | No Comments
Alright, that’s it. I have to say something… I just can’t keep it in anymore. Non-sports-following types please indulge me for a moment here. I’ll try and make this quick (yeah, right).
My name is Brad and I am a Boston Sports Fan. There, I said it. It’s out in the open.
Growing up in Vermont, I loved baseball from a pretty young age. I followed the Blue Jays, the Reds (my dad was a die-hard Cincinnati fan), and the Expos… but the Red Sox were my team. Yaz, Pudge, Rice, Burlson, Dewey, Remy, Eck, Lynn… I felt like I knew them all. I was a little leaguer, a pretty ok pitcher, and a Topps baseball card collector right up until high school.
For some reason, as soon as I hit the 9th grade, I left that all behind. I traded the baseball cards for comics, focused on schoolwork and hanging out more with my non-jocky friends than trying out for any JV teams, and completely stopped following sports altogether. I did have a few friends that played football, baseball, and ran track… but it was just never my thing.
When I hit college and hooked up with the radio station kids, I couldn’t have been more sports-apathetic. I came close to buying into the whole ‘us vs. them’ mentality of the arty-types vs. the fratboy-jock-types, but my little league memories and sports-lovin’ friends kept me from going quite that deep. My post-college days were all about playing in bands, jumping from job to job, and playing a ton of video games. My sports-apathy even extended to console gaming… never once touched Madden or FIFA or High Heat or any of that stuff.
Everything changed when I moved to Boston. Blame my roommate (*cough* denny *cough*), blame my bandmates (*cough* chris *cough*) or blame this whole sports-crazy city… just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in. Their love of Boston sports was contagious, and even band practices would evolve into game-watchin’, pizza-orderin’ good times.
Then the Patriots won the superbowl and the crowd went wilder. There was so much enthusiasm around here … it was damn infectious. For the first time, I was working downtown, near the heart of the victory parade, at a job where most of my fellow employees were former-or-current jocks instead of former-or-current computer geeks. There’s so much sports talk in this office that my interest is almost a pre-requisite. Suffice it to say, I’m fitting in just fine. Working here even led to the fulfillment of a little-kid dream… I got to play a game on the Fenway field. A completely surreal and still-tangible experience. I’ll never,ever forget that afternoon.
And so here we are in the present (well, assuming you’re still reading… if so, you’re a trooper). It’s October, the Sox are playing the Yankees for the A.L. title, we’ve got brisk nights and beautiful fall days, it’s a near-perfect New England sports-fan scenario.
Here’s where I run into trouble, though. I may like watching Boston sports, but I can’t freakin’ stand your average Boston sports fans. The mob mentality, the posturing bullshit, the “your team sucks”, “no, your team sucks” crap. The testosterone overflow, the complete loss of perspective, the WEEIrdos on the radio, the howling monkeys mugging for the tv camera, the cell-phone morons wavin’ from the stands. Some of the players, too… the showboating, the cockiness, the “I’d like to thank my main man Jesus for helping me get that home run” idiocy. Being in the middle of all this madness makes me totally understand anyone who says, just as I used to, “Nah, I don’t follow sports. Couldn’t care less.”
That said, I’m enjoyin’ the hell out of this year’s playoffs. Even the most passive observer can’t deny that there have been some great moments, some killer games, some real nail-biting endings. Drama that you just couldn’t have scripted. The little leaguer in me is back in a big way, totally behind my team, a full-fledged Sox fan (which means that, yes, I’m hoping for the best and ready for the worst).
One win down, seven more ahead …
Go Red Sox!
Twenty Years of Bragging
Posted on October 8, 2003 at 1:38 pm | No Comments
I am an unabashed Billy Bragg fan, and the upcoming release of his double-disc, “Must I Paint You a Picture?” collection thrills me. It’s already out in the UK, and will be out from Rhino on the 28th. Early purchasers will get a bonus third disc of rarities, and I’ll be one of ’em.
Head on over to his UK label website,Cooking Vinyl, for a limited time free mp3 download of the classic, beautiful title track. That song never fails to tug at my heartstrings.
Hard to believe it’s been twenty years since he started singin’, strummin’, and poetically protesting. The BBC News marks the occasion with an article. An excerpt…
“Over the past 20 years Bragg’s career has encompassed everything from post-punk, one-man firebrand to Labour-backing agitator, to lovelorn poet, Woody Guthrie archivist and multicultural-England evangelist.
Along the way there have been truly classic pop songs, such as the spiteful Greetings to the New Brunette and the anthemic Accident Waiting to Happen.
It began in 1983 when a de-mobbed Bragg – a onetime punk pretender who had bought himself out of the army for �175 – began playing around London.”
Read the rest here.
I’ll offer up one of my favorite Billy Bragg lyrics …
“You keep buying these things but you don’t need them, but as long as you’re comfortable it feels like freedom.” – from North Sea Bubble