Jay Furr's Dreamwidth Blog

So now it can be told: Carole did a splendid job on the Star-Spangled Banner at the July 22 Vermont Lake Monsters game, and I suck at throwing out first pitches.

As I said, throwing out the first pitch at a minor league baseball game ain’t no thing. No one gives a damn how spectacularly well, or spectacularly awful, the first pitch is unless it’s a celebrity at a major league game… and this certainly wasn’t that. Heck, there was hardly anyone at Monday night’s game – 1,566 was the announced attendance, but at game start, honestly, I think it was probably half that. (That number may actually denote tickets sold, including season tickets, as opposed to butts-in-seats.) It was a gray day and it’d been raining off and on all afternoon and wasn’t really a great night for baseball.

A few minutes before the game, we (Carole and I and Carole’s dad Glenn, who was visiting from Ohio) were shown out onto the field along with some folks from the presenting sponsor for that night’s game (a pet supply company — the first 500 fans got a collapsible pet bowl) and briefed on our duties. Carole got to do a quick sound check, which eased her nerves, and for my part, I was reminded that I didn’t have to throw from the mound and that I could come as far forward as I wanted. Wish I’d paid attention to that.

I was a little surprised when it turned out that I wasn’t the only person throwing out the first pitch — they had five balls to throw out, one for me and one each for the two adults and two kids from the sponsor. The sponsors got to go first — and it quickly devolved to the younger of the two kids, basically toddler aged, wobbling cutely around holding a ball while the parents and a catcher from the Lake Monsters coaxed him to toss it. Eventually the kid did and the catcher snagged it from approximately two feet away. It was adorable. The adults and other kid just held on to their balls and didn’t throw.

In any event, I’d been standing a few feet off to one side, kinda awkwardly, and when they finally got the kid to let go of the ball and it was my turn, I wound up being my own worst enemy. Even though I’m quite sure that no one would have minded if I’d taken a few seconds to get myself squared away, I found myself kind of in a “must-throw-ball-NOW” mindset. Pretty much as soon as the catcher had stepped back to the vicinity of home plate (he’d come almost all the way out to the mound for the toddler), I stepped up and …

… basically lobbed the ball right into the ground a few feet to one side of the catcher.

Sigh.

The catcher alertly snagged it on the bounce. I got a handshake from the catcher, got the ball back for a keepsake, and then it was time for Carole to sing.

(As we were leaving the field after the anthem, one of the Lake Monsters players in the dugout cheerfully snarked “Nice pitch” — but he was smiling as he said it, and to my credit, I just smiled back and said “Thanks!”.)

The Indiegogo fundraising campaign to raise the necessary money to complete post-production on the “Orchestrating Change” documentary is about 58% of the way to its goal.

Please help with a donation and help make this documentary on the legendary Me2/Orchestra a reality.

Me2/Orchestra includes many musicians with mental illnesses and yet creates incredible music. The orchestra hopes to destigmatize mental illness through its performances and its message of unjudging acceptance.

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/orchestrating-change-phase-3-post-production

I don’t know how those of you who live outside major media markets stay in touch with current music — since I don’t watch TV or listen to commercial radio and am not exposed to it on the subway and so on, I’m kind of in a vacuum.

I’ve been working at home the last two weeks because absolutely nothing I’ve had to do has required me to be physically in the office, and so I’ve been trying to keep music playing to keep from being absolutely despondent with wintertime depression blahs.

Today I’ve been playing the 2015 Grammy nominees for Best Folk Album — starting with Eliza Gilkyson’s “The Nocturne Diaries”. I’ve never heard of Gilkyson before now (she evidently has managed to get along just fine without my notice; she has been releasing albums steadily since 1969), but so far, I like what I’ve been hearing.

I’m fond of our Amazon Echo and Amazon Prime subscription. I can just speak clearly and tune to whatever suits my mood, adjust the volume up or down, skip to the next tune, whatever. If out of a clear blue sky I decide I really need to hear Devo performing “Whip It” or the Ramones doing “Blitzkrieg Bop” I can, just by speaking clearly and loudly and bam, instant gratification. The Echo can also play music from Pandora, provided I can provide a decent ‘seed’ song to work from, or play radio stations from around the world via IHeartRadio or TuneIn. I can’t say that I’ve ever wanted to hear the local Catholic radio station in the French Pacific island possessions of Wallis and Futuna, but if the urge strikes me, it’s all a clearly enunciated request to Echo away.

But today isn’t a punk kind of day. Electric folk seems to be what’s working, and I’m not gonna argue.