No Crying in Baseball (Warning: Cursing)

I have gotten to the point in my sports existence where I understand that teams do lose games. However,last night, the New York Yankees lost a game that made me react in a way that I haven't in a very long time.

I'm not going to bore you with the details of it, you can look those up. But, it brought out rage in me that I haven't really felt in a long time. I was angry at anything and everything at once. Usually, the losses don't bother me but the reaction to the losses by other fans does. This loss bothered me. Like no loss has bothered me in at least a few years. I actually cried (more like teared up). At a fucking baseball game. I ranted and raved, and people said I was nuts (and I probably am). That it's one game and it doesn't affect my life, just like my parents and my psychologist said.

But it did this time. And that in itself, bothers me.

In fact it made my mood so dour, that I had to stop my workout after a half hour because I was in such a dour mood. I wasn't mean to my trainer and I'm going back tomorrow for a half hour to make it up.

But it got to me. Not just in the mind, not just in my mood, but in what I do with my time. It affected my life. And that makes it even worse. So I've decided to come to you about this and tell you about it, so that maybe you guys can understand and help me understand.

When I was in high school, I was very introverted socially. I could not interact with people socially because I didn't know much about music, movies, pop culture etc. (I've gotten better at that in time). But I did start to become knowledgeable about sports. And that is what sports in general has meant to me. It has been my social lifeline, my link to the outside. Along with that notion comes my belief (wrongly, but it is innerly in there), that the sports team you root for is your representation. It represents you. I've read some reports on sports fan psychology and this is not unusual. A lot of sports fans believe that their team is an extension of themselves. So essentially, through a transitive property, if the team is doing well, you are doing well. If the team sucks, you suck. I know it sounds stupid and illogical, but in my subconscious and emotions, it seems to take root. That is point #1.

Point #2 is that in this day and age of social media, Twitter and sports talk radio becomes an echo chamber of negativity. So that if said sports team is not doing well, there is an echo chamber effect where people are talking about it. So to go along with point #1, in these echo chambers, there are a bunch of voices that are basically saying "You suck." through point #1. I've mentioned my problems with fanbases in an earlier post. This is an extension of said problem.

I should add that Point #1 has an addendum that sports is essentially my hobby and pastime so it takes up a lot of time in my life and space in my mind in general.

Now to Point #3. And this is something ethereal. I described my pain last night as having been "violated" Now that is not, in relative terms, close to what happened. But in my mind, it seems to feel that way and let me explain why. In looking at Point #1, along with a team representing you, it kind of represents your faith. You put faith in something, you expect it to come to fruition. But when it doesn't, you feel cheated and somewhat have your trust violated. Now putting your faith/trust into a group of overpaid men who are hitting a ball for fun and making gobs of money seems on the surface, stupid. But once again, it goes back to Point #1. And if they fail, particularly in the way that they did last night, you feel violated and angry. That is the way I felt last night.


It's a huge jumble of thoughts. but it seems to extensively come down to this. I believe that the New York Yankees represent me and so if they fail, I fail. Not only do I fail, my faith fails, which makes me question the whole point of faith to begin with. And because of the echo chamber of life now, this feeling get intensified and repeated. And it comes to the point where I feel violated and it does affect my life.

As I said before I am a very insular person and when the one extension that I have seems to go wrong, it affects me a lot. And if  I'm not going to blame the extension itself, it seems I lash out at the people on the other side.

And in terms of suppressing it, it takes up such a big chunk of my time and my mind that I don't know where to find a replacement that is currently at my fingertips, or a mental thing to replace it with that is readily available, cheap, and big enough to take it down.

So I am stuck in this cycle, which reminds me of a drug addiction. And I dont think there is something big enough and cheap enough that can get me out of it. And if there is, I hope somebody can tell me please. Thank you.

Rutbreaker: The Curious Case of "Run With Us"

Take a look at this video. It's of a mid 80s song called "Run With Us" and it looks pretty straightforward for the time. The singer, Lisa Lougheed, has the big hair and all and it is full with synthesizers and guitar riffs.

What makes this song unique is it's origin. If you notice in the title, it has in parentheses (The Raccoons). Obviously the Raccoons was the band who originally sung the song and this is a cover right?

Wrong.

This is the Raccoons that are being mentioned:

It's a cartoon and "Run With Us" is its end credits theme. 

   

Now 80s cartoons had some rockin' music to go along with all the guns and aliens and great characters (all of which in no way could and would be exploited for the toy market; no siree). But even then, the main themes of these cartoons were the star. This was the end credits theme, a theme that usually is a remix or instrumental of the intro theme. For these creators to create not only an original song for the end credits but a song that is supercharged with more angst and worry perhaps than the usual 80s cartoon song is interesting and quite frankly commendable. If they are willing to put that much effort into a cartoon when they could have easily slapdashed it, then they were truly devoted to the project and to making it work.

"Run With Us" was made into a single and didn't do all that much on the Canadian charts. That's right, Canadian. Now some things make sense.

Anyway, it got me thinking, in my ADD way, to arguably the most successful song that could have ever come out of a cartoon. Two come to mind.

- The theme of Bob The Builder hit the top of the charts in the UK in 2000. It not only was a #1, it was the highest selling single OF THE YEAR in the UK. I'm not going to post it due to potentially scaring away people, but I think most people know it and it is on YouTube.

- A song that was just put in as an insert in the cartoon The Archies and it ended up becoming a classic. I speak of course of "Sugar Sugar"

The difference between the two is that while the BTB theme was a hit in the UK, it did not make a peep in the US. "Sugar Sugar" was a hit everywhere and still remains a classic song fondly remembered in that era.

What about you guys? What cartoon songs do you think could have made a blip musically. Please comment or get me on Facebook. Thanks.