Annotated Twitter: Move Closer To Your Walkup Music

July 3, 2015

700 KB. Imagine that. That line was from "How an Artist Fell Into a Profitable Online Card Business", a Wall Street Journal article from 2004 about Jacquie Lawson's email card empire.

Most of the time I remember what I meant by something. Not this time.

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July 6, 2015

Incidentally, I saw this commercial for the 800,001st time just the other night and thought to google them; this place, as you may or may not expect from its ubiquitous TV presence, is supergoddamn expensive, like $60,000 a month expensive.

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July 7, 2015

If I were to write a novel, I'd be very tempted to add a character named "eHow," who embodied attributes including but not limited to earnestness, obviousness, guilelessness and hustle.

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July 9, 2015

I have a feeling this is related to some kind of Hotmail spam, though I'm not totally certain.

I have a soft spot for non-traditional walkup music. Speaking of which, I have some suggestions for up-and-coming sluggers.

Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song," with a soaring bird-like Robert Plant vocal at 0:07, is really underappreciated:

Roger Miller's "Dang Me" is hot, though probably too close to home for a lot of big leaguers:

Dinosaur Jr.'s "Little Fury Things" swings for the fences in those first 30 seconds:

Similarly, Sonic Youth's "Death Valley '69":

Minutemen's "Joe McCarthy's Ghost" is unassailable:

Respectfully, I think Paula Abdul's "Promise of a New Day" works:

Lightnin' Hopkins' "Bring Me My Shotgun," because until about 0:45, it definitely works:

ABBA's "Take a Chance on Me" would be relevatory, especially in a pinch hitting situation:

Joy Division's "Disorder," because nothing strikes fear into an opposing pitcher like the cold, distant opening notes of Unknown Pleasures:

And finally, the Volcano Suns' "White Elephant," which, no joke, would seriously be the most brilliant walkup music in the history of walkup music:

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July 14, 2015

Not complaining or anything, but part of me is waiting with bated breath for something new and wonderful.

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July 15, 2015

And of course, as usual, Charlie Hustle gets the short end of the stick. Clearly those Skecher ads were a little too flippant:

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July 16, 2015

Do it and it will, never, ever cease to be hilarious.

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July 20, 2015

Actually, it makes sense: it's the place Cain was exiled to after murdering Abel, a land of whimsy and bedding.

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July 21, 2015

Olympic swimminer Michael Phelps gives a sick sixteen-year-old the day of a lifetime.

I'm sure we've been reading the wrong books.

It's like "Ooh, the dark, I'm sooo scared of the dark; boo hoo . . ."

An innocent query.

The kicker.

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July 22, 2015

WWE wrestler John Cena gives a sick seven-year-old the day of a lifetime.

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July 23, 2015

Major League Baseball star Andrew McCutchen gives a sick ten-year-old the day of a lifetime.

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July 24, 2015

WNBA star Maya Moore gives a sick 14-year-old the day of a lifetime.

Seriously, how on top of it is that?

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July 27, 2015

Like with most good shellfish, afterward it mostly felt like you somehow got away with one.

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July 28, 2015

Baby's first tweet.

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July 31, 2015

So bombastic, so timeless:

And apparently it used to mean "news".

Posted: December 23rd, 2015 | Author: | Filed under: Too Much Information | Tags: , , , , ,

They Took All The Walkup Music, Made It Seem Really Exclusive, And They Charged The People Ninety-Nine Cents Just To Rehear It

The other night I came across this article "What's Up With Former Baseball Player Royce Clayton?" and clicked on it because I actually was really interested in what was up with former baseball player Royce Clayton.

I suppose it says something when you have to specify "former baseball player." I didn't need the clarification, though — I totally remembered Royce Clayton. Clayton was one of the Giants' top prospects in the early 1990s. He came through Phoenix on the way up to the big leagues, back when Phoenix was San Francisco's AAA affiliate. He played there the summer I worked at Scottsdale Stadium selling programs. I remember watching Chris Berman call him "Royce-A-Roni The San Francisco Treat Clayton" when Clayton was called up and made some sort of big play.

Part of the fun of watching minor league baseball — for me, at least — is the possibility that you'll see "Tomorrow's Stars Today" (which was a Phoenix Firebirds slogan, if memory serves). I don't know that I saw many stars of tomorrow in the Giants organization — Clayton was probably the biggest — but I did see Mike Piazza and Pedro Martinez when they played for the Albuquerque Dukes.

If you click through to the article and read between the lines you'll glean that Clayton had a mediocre career:

I don't look back with any regrets. I played my ass off. I never cheated anybody. People can say whatever; I know I'm not going to the Hall of Fame. But a lot of guys did a lot of different things and I never had to do that, and I stayed in the league 17 years. I can tell my kids that's what I did and that's what matters to me.

I guess you don't really have to even read between the lines.

Anyway, besides acting in the recent adaptation of Michael Lewis' Moneyball, Clayton has been involved with something called Balltunes, which sounds like the sort of enterprise stoned characters in Judd Apatow films might come up with. Clayton explains how it works:

We create original content for walkup songs. We get input from the player and coordinate with the artists and the producers. It will be the players' original song. Like Xavier Nady has come up to (songs by rapper) DMX his whole career, so we have interest in getting those two together. They're both very excited. We're finishing up a deal with Derek Jeter, and we've talked to a lot of other players: Mike Napoli, Robinson Cano, Curtis Granderson, Ryan Braun, Ryan Howard. We're talking to some of the top players in the top markets.

Talk about commodifying just about everything! At the risk of sounding like an old frump, walkup music was one of the last remaining "authentic" things about watching baseball. Think about it — the messaging tends to be so tightly controlled and/or disciplined that you never get a sense of what players are actually like. It's the reason post-game interviews and newspaper quotes are so boring, and why unscripted Twitter moments are so interesting.

The only other way you see through to a player's core is his walkup music. You get a real feel for Jayson Werth, and that filthy flavor-savoring facial hair, when pivotal bars of Kings of Leon's "Sex On Fire" blast through the ballpark. Eric Byrnes' "Your Love" by The Outfield (get it?) showed how much of a goof he was. It's important stuff.

Some folks talk about what they would request if they were entitled to walkup music — and that's fun to ponder — but it just doesn't work that way. Walkup music seems thrust upon a player. It's cool because no player seems to overthink it. In this way, Chase Utley's "Kashmir" is as natural as it gets.

Maybe you want to believe Chase Utley sits up at night making walkup music mixtapes for himself, carefully choosing the exact right song for how he feels when he needs to hit something out to the alley in right field. But that's absurd. Chase has better things to do than worry about his walkup music. Plus, "Kashmir," while a nice groove, isn't really a unique song. It just fits.

Here's a list — from a few years back — of different walkup music. It's pretty funny.

But back to the point. Having your own original walkup music just ruins something. When Tino Martinez plays Stone Temple Pilots' "Interstate Love Song," you get a sense for what kind of man Tino Martinez is. Your own walkup music? That's just too slick.

And I don't like the sponsorship opportunities. Would Derek Jeter get a cut of the money from iTunes downloads of his own walkup music? After a point it seems a little unsavory.

Let walkup music be. It's one of the few ways fans get a sense of players as individuals and not gladiators. Because how can you really hate a guy who is that big a 3 Doors Down fan?

Posted: January 12th, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: Jukebox, M+/MR, Shiftless When Idle | Tags: , , , , ,
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