Purple Mountains Peasantry

While on the job recently for NPR, I attended a Colorado Rockies game with none other than Bob Weston, fellow engineer and Indie-Rock legend. Bob was a member of Volcano Suns, is a member of Shellac and has produced scores of records for Archers of Loaf, The Coctails, etc. He's also worked live sound for Mission of Burma and - according to Jim DeRogatis, remains "one of the most in-demand bass players".

Bob and I were working in Boulder, Colorado for the gameshow Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me (WWDTM) when we found ourselves with a Wednesday night free. We drove into Denver, made our way to Coors Field and beheld the inept wonder that is the Colorado Rockies. It was a beautiful night to sit in a nearly-empty baseball stadium, drink beer, eat hot dogs and ignore the boring action on the field.

It's been years since I've been to a Major League game (I prefer catching the Brooklyn Cyclones or the Newark Bears) and I found myself annoyed at the constant racket coming out of the PA system. Every player has his own "theme" song, every play is yet another cue for a song tidbit, usually lunkhead rock like Jon Bon Jovi. When the crappy rock music wasn't blasting, the in-love-with-his-voice announcer was babbling inanely. I longed for one moment when I might hear the players  (we were just three rows from the field) but it never came. When we finally left I had a mile-high headache and the Milwaukee Brewers had won 2 - 0, racking up both runs in the first inning.

Comments

[Taso Stefanidis]

Last year, ESPN ran an article that listed many of the player's "Theme music." Most of it is repulsive, an interesting read though.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page3/story?page=atbatsongs/index#music

[Emile]

This post reminds me of a rant by Deaner of Ween on thier website (www.ween.com) from some months back. The original post has been taken down but I saved it and here it is. Brilliant stuff:

Make it stop

I had the privilege of attending the Eagles/Giants home opener yesterday in Philadelphia, my first time at Lincoln Financial Field (or the Linc as it's referred to around these parts.) It's a beautiful stadium and there doesn't seem to be a bad seat in the place. We had amazing seats in the Mercedes Benz vip area that my buddy bought for a small fortune on ebay and in many ways it was more like going to the mall or the boardwalk than attending a football game, and I don't mean that in a good way necessarily. The selection of food and activites at the stadium was out of control. I saw people eating prime rib, sushi, turkey legs, jambalaya, and freshly carved pork loin. In addition there were games, rides, photo booths (complete with the Eagles cheerleaders) and every piece of Eagles merchandise under the sun for sale. It was overwhelming and even impressive in many respects. The lasting impression of yesterday's gridiron experience unfortunately remains the fucking public address/jumbotron assault that started prior to kickoff and didn't stop ringing in my ears until long after I laid my drunken ass into bed last night. It was fucking relentless.

You ever sit in a bar alone and just stare at the tv while you drink, never really absorbing one second of what you're watching? That's what I found myself doing during the big game yesterday, only it was far worse than watching tv, because I pay 40 dollars a month for cable and I get to stay at home and turn it off when I want. Philadelphia fans are said to be the most knowledgeable sports fans in the country and I won't dispute that. Why then do we need to have our intelligence insulted with the non-stop flow of stats and ad-revenue driven propaganda on a 400 foot television for 4 hours when all we paid to see is live football? Was it not enough to have paid out the ass for tickets, only to be raped for 20 dollars parking, guzzle down 10 dollar drinks, buy 200 dollar jerseys and then wait in traffic for an hour to go home? Do we need to stand and cheer 12 different times for our armed forces, the reserves, the coast guard, the security guards, the postal workers and all the rest of America's heroes that many times? Did anyone go home after the game and call GEICO for a free quote on their car insurance after seeing their ad on the jumbotron? This is right after Terell Owens scored his 3rd touchdown of the game in his debut in an Eagles uniform. It was worse than going to mass when I was a kid---stand up, sit down, kneel on the pew, stand back up, scream out loud, sing along, now sit back down and shut up. My favorite part of yesterday was when a true drunken Philly fan sitting next to me was asked to again please rise and applaud an olympic gold medalist from the area who was paraded out during a tv timeout. He screamed "show us your fuckin tits bitch" at this little 15 year old gymnast. I turned around and high-fived him. Pretty much the only thing that balanced out the barrage of noise from the p.a. were the Eagles fans, the scummiest, most low down bunch of drunken maniacs in any NFL market in the country. Veteran's stadium used to be downright scary on gameday. I saw a Cowboys fan (stupid enough to come to the Vet on Sunday in his Aikman jersey) get beaten up beyond anything that could be considered reasonable, even in a pay per view Ultimate Fighting Championship one cold Sunday at the Vet a few years back and I was truly terrified. These are the same superfans forced to endure the PECO "player spotlight", and the Snicker's "Crunch of the Game", and whatever other bullshit they had playing up there. Is it like this at stadiums everywhere? I have a friend who has Rangers season tickets and we reciprocate every year----I take him to Flyers games, he takes me to Rangers games. I never see any of this shit at Madison Square Garden during the game, which is after all what I came to see. Ok enough.