Category Archives: Baseball

Inappropriate Walk Up Music 2011

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: Frankie Ford’s “Sea Cruise”

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For an intro to this series, click here. For the original series way back in 2009, click here.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the goofy early rock n’ roll tune “Sea Cruise.” As such, I’m sure you’ll agree about its total unsuitability as walk up music. You may not know the artist who performed it, Frankie Ford. But I do. Boy, do I ever.

Pre-Katrina, I had a lot of friends who lived in New Orleans, so I tried to make a trip down there once a year because New Orleans is awesome. It is the only city in America other than New York that I can imagine living in, were it not for the complete lack of jobs and crippling humidity and floods.

One place we used to frequent was Rock n’ Bowl, a bowling alley far away from the French Quarter, where bands would often play. You could bowl, get decent local cuisine, and a beer for a criminally low price while also seeing a live band.

On one trip there, the featured artist was Frankie Ford, who is apparently also known as The New Orleans Dynamo. This was happening at about 5pm on a Saturday, but that didn’t mean Frankie wouldn’t bring his A-game.

On this occasion, The Dynamo crammed a 10-piece band into a space that was meant to comfortably accommodate five, at most. A three-man horn section, guitar, bass, drums, keyboard, and backup singers, all stuffed into the most unmanageable of spaces. There was no real stage per se, just an area where the bands set up behind the alleys, close to the wide, steep stairs that led up from the main entrance.

Mr. Ford looked a lot like he does in this video. Same grandma sunglasses, same John Waters mustache, same piano scarf.

He did not play the piano, however. He just grabbed the mike and belted for a good hour. Several times, he held a note loud, long, and quavering over several bars, just to prove he could do it. This was always greeted with enthusiastic applause.

He closed his set with “Sea Cruise,” of course. A 10-minute rendition of “Sea Cruise.” For real. The band just vamped on the ooh-wee bay-bee part for what seemed like hours. It went from impressive to annoying and back to impressive again, several times. Some nights, I still dream of it and wake up screaming.

But the most ridiculous part of the performance had nothing to do with Frankie himself. As soon as his set ended and he wished us all a good evening, I saw something flash out of the corner of my eye. It was one of the front entrances glinting against the sun as a woman burst through it. She bounded up the steps two at a time. She was a woman of a certain age, a little too tan and dressed to have a good time, in slightly-too-short shorts and a t-shirt with a sassy saying on it.

As soon as she got to the top of the stairs, she looked around desperately, then zeroed in on me. Naturally, I was terrified, and just barely resisted the impulse to run away.

DID I MISS IT?! she pleaded. DID HE PLAY “SEA CRUISE?!” Sadly, I had to be the one to inform her that, yes, she missed “Sea Cruise.” She was beside herself. Even though, had she arrived even 15 minutes earlier, she could’ve seen enough “Sea Cruise” to last two lifetimes.

So whenever I hear “Sea Cruise,” I think of Frankie Ford’s leathery voice, and the poor cougar who missed the longest rendition of any song in recorded history.

Inappropriate Walk Up Music 2011

Inappropriate Walk Up Music 2011: Brian Wilson

Ron Santo and the Black Cat at SheaTwo years ago, I did a series in the month leading up to Opening Day in which I picked songs that were thoroughly unsuited to be used as Walk Up Music. Walk Up Music are the tunes handpicked by baseball players to be played as they stroll to the plate. In MLB, batters typically pick songs that are intimidating, conveying an atmosphere of bad-assery just waiting to explode. I set out to find songs that were thoroughly unsuited for this purpose. The songs I picked were not necessarily bad. I just couldn’t imagine any baseball player staring out at the mound, knocking the dirt out of his spikes, as these songs blared through the PA.

Here’s a real life example: During the 2000 season, Robin Ventura apparently REALLY got into Bob Dylan. I have audio and video from the playoffs that year in which you can see/hear him striding to the plate along to “Positively 4th Street” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” Classics? I’d say so, and I’m not even a Dylan fan. Appropriate walk up music? Absolutely not.

With Opening Day looming once again, I’ve decided to do this series once again, because there’s no shortage of inappropriate walk up music out there. One difference: back in 2009, I picked three songs a day, but this time I’m limiting myself to one a day, because I have only so many hours in the day, and am lazy.

Our first entry is a tune I found online many years ago, from a Brian Wilson bootleg called Adult Child. It dates from around 1976/1977, roughly at the same time he briefly returned to The Beach Boys, and as such the album has a few appearances from bandmates like Mike Love. It was also recorded at a time when Wilson’s sanity was not at a high watermark. During this period, he liked to compose songs with the classic Beach Boys sound, but which had lyrics that were intensely simple and literal, even by his standards. Next to these tunes, Jonathan Richman’s lyrics sound like Cole Porter’s.

I only have one song from this ancient download: “It’s Trying to Say (Baseball).” It starts out with some sentiments about how Brian loves simple folk and their simple ways. More than a little condescending, but very Wilsonian. You’ll notice his voice is not in the greatest shape, a little scratchy. But that’s not the weirdest part of this song, not by a long shot.

After the first verse, the song degenerates into lyrics about baseball, for some reason, which sound like they were taken straight from marketing copy intended for season ticket holders. Upgrade now! Great seats still available! The lyrics don’t rhyme for the most part, and are delivered in a choppy style that suggests Brian was repeating something he just heard on TV. Take away the four part harmonies and instrumentation, and you could imagine Wesley Willis singing it.

[audio:http://66.147.244.95/~scratci7/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/brian_wilson_baseball1.mp3|titles=Brian Wilson, “Trying to Say (Baseball)”]
Baseball

When Life Gives You Ponzi Schemes, Make Ponzi-Ade

I have not written much about the Mets/Bernie Madoff cluster-hump on this site, or elsewhere, for a number of reasons. The biggest one is, I don’t know what to think about the whole mess. My feelings veer between terror and boredom, like it’s a movie about Zombie Accountants.

Also, I like to think I know a lot of stuff on a wide variety of subjects, but when it comes to finance, I’m lost without a map. (First clue of this fact: That I write way too much for for a site that actually costs me money to run.) I’m sure this affair will drag on for years, with many more revelations and finger pointing and lawsuits to come, so there will be no shortage of opportunities to pen something on the subject.

Plus, I am so sick of sordid items coming out about this team. If it’s not Ponzi schemes, it’s shirt-ripping front office guys or grampa-punching closers. When it comes to my favorite baseball team, it’d be nice to write about, you know, baseball.

metsmadoff.pngBut, if you are inclined to look at the lighter side of the biggest investment fraud in American history, and are also a Mets fan, you might want to consider purchasing one of the shirts pictured here. They can be found over at metsmadoff.blogspot.com, and are the perfect way to display both your support of and disgust with the team from Flushing.

I enjoy the shirts’ semi-distressed look, which in the makers’ words are supposed to evoke “that old Mets shirt you’ve had since the 80s and have washed several hundred times.” I also like the particular blue they’ve chosen, which reminds me of the kind used in the late 1990s unis. (Watch the first Subway Series game from 1997 on Mets Classics to get an idea of what I mean.)

I’ve been told the demand has been overwhelming for these shirts thus far, and that the creators already had to order a new batch. So get yours while you still can, or before some litigious team official takes notice. Sleeve tats optional.