How I Learned to Love the Game

When I was a kid, I hated baseball. I played one year of T-ball and that was it. My brother went a little further, but I don't think he really enjoyed it much. We went to Reds games as a family, but they bored me to tears. I didn't understand any of it and my dad couldn't ever be bothered to fill me in; he was too busy listening to the game on his little radio. My parents separated and the games got too expensive, so that was the end of that. But I really didn't mind. I hated the sport and I hated Cincinnati. It was over ten years before I went to another Major League game.

I tried watching baseball on TV, usually the Olympics or something like that, but it still seemed exhausting to me. It wasn't until my freshman year of college that I started taking any interest in baseball and sports in general. Since I hated my roommate, I spent a lot of time with my suitemates, one of whom was a huge sports fan. He actually explained things to me, so I enjoyed it more. We watched football, soccer, hockey, baseball. It was a good time. It helped that he had the best TV in the whole dorm too. Matt Gahris, my suitemate, actually just joined the staff at Blog Red Machine; do me a favour and look him up. He's a good writer and he knows his sports. After doing a semester abroad in the former half of my sophomore year, I transferred from Wright State University to Ohio Wesleyan University, so I no longer was able to watch sports with my suitemate. I still miss that a little. Some of my best times at Wright State were sitting around with Matt and his roommate, Tony, watching TV—whatever sport was in season or America's Funniest Home Videos (the original with Bob Saget) at 1AM.

When I got back from my semester abroad and started at OWU I developed a pretty strong friendship with someone I had known a long time from bowling and he officially made me a baseball fan. We went to a Cleveland Indians game together and I loved it. It was against the Yankees on a Sunday afternoon. We were sat in the second-to-last row in right field, near the bull pens if you're familiar with Progressive Field. Even though we were surrounded by Yankees fans and didn't make it in time for batting practice, we still had an amazing time, especially since the Indians won—even with Grady having just been put on the DL and A-Rod having just come off. I wanted to go to another game that season, but once he started soccer in the fall, we didn't have time. The next summer we went to another game—Saturday night against the Reds the night before my 21st birthday, seats just a few rows back from first base. We stayed the night in downtown Cleveland and got a free upgrade since our room wasn't ready when we went to check in; we scored a $365 a night room for $140. The next day we went to Cedar Point. Excepting when I puked all over the hotel bathroom, it was an awesome weekend. I've since learned to never consume chocolate while drinking cider. Sadly, I am no longer friends with that person, though am hoping we could change that.

That same summer I started watching my neighbour's grandson play Pony League; he's the fifteen year old best friend I've mentioned before. It was a lot of fun watching the kids play ball. Really made me wish I had. I took him to his first Major League game that summer: the Indians vs. the Toronto Blue Jays on a Monday night. I scored two awesome seats on Stub Hub for less than half the face value. He had an amazing time. The next summer (this past summer) we went to another four games, including Opening Day. We also were able to land front row seats on the first base line for less than face value. We were the only “kids” in the front row and didn't get much attention from our waitress. She introduced herself to everyone but us. Actually, I don't think she even talked to us. But it was still awesome sitting in the front row. I only missed a handful of games on TV that summer. If I couldn't watch it at home, then I was watching the play-by-play on my phone. To be honest, I really don't know how I ended up loving baseball so much when I used to despise it. But I'm glad I do. There's a reason why its America's favourite pasttime.

How I Met Kate Nash

This isn't going to be long and drawn out and featuring a goat like How I Met Your Mother. I met Kate Nash after seeing her in concert back in the fall of 2010; it was in October, I think, but I can't remember the exact day. I'd check the ticket stub (which is autographed), but it's on a shelf in my room and I don't want to get off the couch. The show was at the Newport Music Hall and was in support of her second full-length album, My Best Friend Is You. I didn't have anyone to go with me, but I wasn't going to pass up the chance of seeing one of my favourite artists live in concert, so I went by myself; it was no big deal.

The show was incredible. Easily one of the best I had seen. It was a little awkward because I was about the only guy there by myself. But I didn't care. I love Kate Nash. It was electric when she hit the first notes on the piano for “Foundations”. The crowd erupted. For lack of a better word, it was amazing. Occasionally she'd interject with some funny comments or explain some British slang used in her lyrics. Before one song, she told us about an interview where she was told she was a hot mess because she had scraped up knees. Her response: “Hot mess? What am I—Lindsay Lohan?”

I was determined to meet Kate Nash after the show. One of my friends (he lives in London) has a tendency of meeting the band after the show and then always rubs it in my face—the worst was when he saw The Blanks and met Ted from Scrubs. I asked him for some tips and he told me to find the stage door and just wait after the show. I did just that. It worked. Me and a handful of others stood in a single-file line along the tour bus anxiously waiting for the redhead Londoner to walk out the stage door and down the olde stairs to the alley that lie behind the Newport. She came out and quickly went by the line, stopping to inform us all that she would be right back. She retreated to the tour bus, but returned in a matter of moments with a Sharpie in hand.

Kate Nash was superb. She was so friendly and welcoming. She went down the line one person at a time, signing ticket stubs and posters and CD booklets and talking to each person. All I had with my was my ticket stub, having forgot my CD booklet for Made of Bricks at home. Her signature is a bit... incomprehensible, but I know what it says. I had no idea what to say to her when she got to me. I was wearing my England soccer shirt, which she quite liked. The whole thing was like when in a movie or TV show when a guy meets the super pretty girl and can't utter a single word. Finally I said “great show” and got a picture. But, alas! My phone was nearly dead, so the picture didn't save. It was disappointing, but gave me a reason to get back in line. I asked a girl to take my picture with her camera and send it to me and she agreed. Kate was quite alright doing another picture. I was glad my phone died too because I ended up standing in the alley with Kate and a few others just talking and hanging out for the next half hour or so. It was such a surreal experience. She told us some jokes and anecdotes and stories. Her sister, or at least I think it was her sister, kept telling her to hurry up so they could get back to the hotel, but Kate kept telling her she needed to tell us an important story. One of them was about a dream she had, something about a kitten. I got two or three hugs, I think, before I finally left. It was a night I would never forget.

Kate Nash has had a big impact on me. I can (and have) listen to her music nonstop and never get bored. I bought Made of Bricks on a depressed impulse buy my freshman year of college and listened to it more or less nonstop for the next three or four days, much to my roommate's and suitemates' displeasure. Occasionally I took a break to listen to Regina Spektor. Kate Nash's voice was soothing during a depressing time in my life, having lost a best friend over something stupid, something I had never dealt with before.

The Definition of Colorshow

I have almost the entire Avett Brothers discography on my iPod. There are a couple EPs and live albums I'm missing, I think. Ones that were self-produced and are now out of print and super hard to find. When it is really cold outside (which has been seldom this winter so far), I like to put them on shuffle; they make for good wintertime music. Though, they make for good anytime music, really. I know most of their songs, but since their discography is several hundred songs, there are still a few I've never heard. Occasionally one of those songs comes up and takes me by surprise. “Colorshow” was one of those songs. It is off the album Four Thieves Gone: The Robbinsville Sessions, released in 2006. It was the start of the Avetts getting a little... “heavier”. Drums became a regular addition and the boys plugged in their guitars. The Avetts recorded the album in about ten days; they didn't use a traditional studio, but rather recorded the album in a rented house in Robbinsville, North Carolina. I think it's awesome when bands record in weird places like that. Sufjan Stevens used to record in an old church until his mic fell over and picked up some creepy voices. Or at least that's what he once told Rolling Stone.

When “Colorshow” started playing I was a bit perplexed. It was unlike any other Avett Brothers song I had heard. It was almost angry in tone, which the Avett Brothers never are, and features screaming from Scott and Seth I could only compare to that of Lennon and McCartney in the later years of The Beatles. In its most basis sense, the song is about being yourself: “Be loud, let your color show/Try to keep the madness low/If they hear and it's wrong/And they come with torches on”. The first verse, and really just the first line, is awesome. Be loud, let your color show. That's an anthem, a mantra, words to live by. That's why I named this blog after it. That's what this blog is about. It's about being yourself and following your dreams. It's about letting your color show.

Be loud let your colors show
Try to keep the madness low
If they hear and it's wrong
And they come with torches on
Yeah come on

Be loud let your colors show
Try to keep the madness low
I tell them no with my hands
Make them understand the plan of it
Bright and gone

And I'm done forever
It's you and me forever
Cause I'm done forever
It's you and me forever

Be loud let the others know
First a whisper then it grows
I tell them go with my hands
Make them understand the last of it
Yeah come on, pain and all

Leave out pack your things and go
Leave the baby makers home
There's a time (now) and a place (now)
Someone built to take the race
When it calls you go head down

Head down don't you make a sound
Keep your plans all to yourself
They'll come true they follow you
They're what you're obligated to
Don't you listen to nobody else

And I'm done forever
It's you and me forever
Cause I'm done forever
See it's you and me forever