Easter weekend feels like it comes earlier and earlier every year. Actually, no it doesn’t, it just feels completely random. I don’t know. Didn’t it used to usually be in like, the middle of April?
Well, I’m writing this on my laptop at my mom’s house, where I am visiting for the holiday. I’d like to talk about said laptop a little, because this is the first time in a long time I’ve used it, which has me thinking about its history.
My laptop is a Chromebook I bought used off of Amazon in 2019. I went with a Chromebook because I just wanted something for taking notes when I went to university, and I’d liked how the Chromebooks I’d used in school had touch screens. I’m maybe the only person alive who actually liked using Chromebooks in school.
For a long time I used this thing as intended and it did the job but also kinda sucked. ChromeOS is extremely limited. You basically only have access to software through Google Play, where most stuff is designed for Android phones, and runs awkwardly on laptops. The system is designed for you to just use Google’s web app suite, which was fine by me at the time, since I was still writing everything in Google Docs back then.
But then over the next several years I got a lot more interested in free and open source software, and started trying to get most of my stuff out of the Google cloud. I started doing basically everything locally on my desktop. This made using my Chromebook a bit more awkward, not to mention that it had started running slower and slower over the years.
So I thought, hey, maybe I can install a real OS on this thing? I hadn’t started using Linux at that point, but a lot of the programs I was liking on my desktop (specifically Zim Desktop Wiki and FocusWriter) had Linux versions. So I started looking into getting my laptop hooked up with Debian.
The thing is, Google really doesn’t want you to do this. The firmware that comes installed on Chromebooks does not let you install alternate operating systems. I ended up following a guide online to install custom firmware. For my model of Chromebook, this involved opening the laptop up and literally removing a physical screw that was there to prevent the factory firmware from being altered. No, I do not understand how that works. But with the screw removed I was able to install different firmware, install the Grub bootloader, and install Debian 12.
Now this crummy little laptop that was designed to basically just run Google Chrome is a fully custom computer that does everything I want it to. I’ve got FocusWriter, Zim, the Openoffice suite, and even REAPER (my DAW) on here, so it works basically exactly like my desktop workstation, but mobile. I bring this up by way of a recommendation. If you have a junky old computer running bad proprietary software, there’s a good chance that some beautiful nerd out there has written a comprehensive guide on hacking it and installing cool and useful stuff on it. Turning my Chromebook into a little Linux machine was easier than I think I’ve made it sound here, and as a result I get to update my blog from my mom’s house using all the same tools I would at home, without ever having had to buy a real, good laptop. Open source software is really cool!
We’ve arrived. The regular season is going, and as promised, I’ve spent the first week following an AL and an NL team. I will be following a different AL and NL team each week, until I’ve formed first impression-based opinions on the entire league, the end goal being to make a ranked list by which I will decide who to root for in the playoffs if the Blue Jays don’t make it. This week, I started off the opposite of strong by following the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants.
I’ve shared some of my thoughts on the New York Yankees before, and they all still apply. This is a team whose strategy is, essentially, “let’s get all of the tallest guys and swing for the fences on every plate appearance.” They’re not exciting to watch because of their propensity for solo home runs. And I’ve never liked Aaron Judge, because he looks like a high school bully got stretched out (yes, I realize I’m letting some personal derangement slip in there).
Now, though, after a week of watching the Yankees, reading about the Yankees, and keeping an eye on r/Yankees, I have more developed, and even worse, feelings about the Yankees and their oafish fans. Let’s start with the big man himself. Aaron Judge is a charisma vacuum. He was the bad vibes leader of Team USA at the WBC. His face never expresses any emotion more intense than “let’s all have a good time out here.” He is, I’m sorry, too tall. When he hits a home run, it never even looks like he had to try very hard. Baseball is a game of extremes, of chaos, of swings in emotion; Aaron Judge makes it look like grocery shopping. The best part of watching the Yankees this past week has been that his season is off to a slow start.
What isn’t off to a slow start is the Yankees’ pitching staff. They’ve been completely lights out. Pretty impressive stuff. As a guy who enjoys watching good pitching, I’ll say this much for the Yankees: they’ve got good pitching. Max Fried has looked unhittable so far. I hate Cam Schlittler’s vibe even more than I hate Judge’s, but he has also looked incredibly good.
Basically, if you can bear to watch these guys, if you can get excited about their pitching, about their non-scrappy powerhouse offense, about their million miscellaneous strongmen in stark grey uniforms like Galactic Empire footsoldiers, then you’re probably bound to have a pretty good time. So surely the fanbase is really happy and normal right?
Good god. The two defining characteristics of Yankees fan culture are being incredibly full of themselves, and being ridiculous dorks. The whole “count the rings” thing is insufferable. They refuse to be happy with having objectively one of the best teams in the league, just because that team hasn’t won a World Series yet. They hate their own players more than they hate their enemies. They all really want Aaron Boone dead for some reason. Look at this poll the Athletic did. Despite having tied for the best record in the American League last year, having made it to the Division Series, and having not lost any big pieces of the lineup over the offseason, the Yankees fanbase is less enthusiastic about their team than the Marlins’ fanbase is about theirs. That is insane.
The flipside of the “count the rings” thing is this incredibly dorky veneration of all things Yankee. Yankees broadcasts can’t shut up about great historical Yankees, Yankees fans talk about Aaron Judge like he is God’s special-est boy, and there is this bizarre belief within Yankees culture that players need to be extra special and talented to be successful at Yankee Stadium. Yankees people are the only people I’ve heard who regularly make reference to their team’s “captain.” It is so, so corny. They still refer to Derek Jeter as “the captain.” They call Aaron Judge “the captain.” It’s Baseball, man. Get a grip.
So, in short, this team is really good, and I hate them more than anything.
The other team I followed this week was the San Francisco Giants. They are less exciting. Everything about them kind of screams average. Harrison Bader is fun to watch: I love it when a player commits to colourful gear, and he made a really cool sliding catch in the season opener. And I like how much gum Rafael Devers is always chewing. He’s always got this like, cartoon sized lump in his cheek. It’s great. Otherwise, though, not a lot stood out in my week of Giants spectating.
Really, the two biggest things swaying my opinion on this team are things I saw online. First, apparently during a game Matt Chapman told Casey Schmitt to “catch the fucking ball” after Schmitt botched a play at first base. As a Blue Jays fan who got on board during the “power of friendship” year, I really like it when the Baseball men are nice to each other. Chiding your teammate like that strikes me as A) rude, and B) not how you win a ball game. The other thing is new manager Tony Vitello’s take on Kanye West. Here’s a quote from a New York Times interview: “’I really don’t feel like there’s been a tightness, like waiting for bad things to happen, or guys yelling at each other,’ Vitello said. ‘I just think there’s been an emotional charge of really wanting to do well. If you ask Kanye -- I think he’s out with a new album -- if you try hard, you die hard. Strange fellow, but he don’t miss much on the music, not that you asked.’” I love this quote and its wonderful doofus energy. First of all, it seems like you kinda do have guys yelling at each other, based on that Chapman/Schmitt incident. But more importantly, it is such a move to insert Kanye West into a conversation like that. “Strange fellow” is such a funny thing to say about West, and I love that he follows it up with an acknowledgment that the interviewer did not, in fact ask. Obviously this is a bad look for Vitello. Being this eager to bring up Kanye West was kinda cringe even before the guy made his neo-nazi heel turn. Now it’s just...buddy, do you like, pay attention to things? Just, generally?
My experience with Giants fan culture is that they all seem like a bunch of sad sacks. I have thusfar neglected to mention that the Giants are off to sort of a bad start. Things looked better in the series against San Diego, but they got swept by the Yankees and were very nearly scoreless for the entire series. This put a lot of fans into sky is falling mode, which doesn’t strike me as entirely reasonable. I mean, as I said before, the Yankees pitching staff is nuts. That first series was as much or more a strong start for the Yankees as it was a weak start for the Giants.
But this is a fanbase that seems to have been driven to depression by several seasons of mediocrity. And I mean, I get it. Playing in a division with the Dodgers has gotta suck. It probably feels like competing for second place. But still, there’s stuff to like about this team, and stuff to be optimistic about. Logan Webb hasn’t looked totally dynamite, but he’s clearly a tenacious pitcher who can grind through even a shaky start. And this batting lineup has some pop. It isn’t all doom and gloom, or at least it shouldn’t be.
What this team needs is a good vibes guy or two. Somebody to lighten the clubhouse mood and get the fans happy. You know, an Ernie Clement type. For now, though, it’s an alright team that just isn’t super exciting, with a manager who seems like kind of a lunatic.
As of now, the ranking is Giants>Yankees. Congratulations to the Giants for being the first team to occupy the number one spot. It probably will not last.
Next week I’m going to cover the Seattle Mariners and the New York Mets, so that I can get the teams I already kinda like out of the way early. It feels a little disingenuous to give the Giants the number one spot knowing full well that I like the Mets and the Mariners (and probably even the Royals) better.
This week I listened to the new Snail Mail album, “Ricochet.” Snail Mail is the solo project of indie rock singer/songwriter Lindsay Jordan. I’ve never really gotten into Jordan’s stuff before, but I’ve enjoyed this album quite a bit. It’s a simple indie rock record with a relatively minimal sonic palette, economical and effective songwriting, mellow vibes, very 90s guitar licks, and good vocal hooks.
The lyrics are this album’s most distinctive trait. It’s a concept album, following the narrator as they reel following a breakup. Initially they claim to be happy, in a very “I think she doth protest too much” sort of way. Then towards the middle they admit to not actually being happy at all, before finally reuniting with the person they never actually stopped loving. Weaved through this narrative is a subplot about the narrator questioning and grappling with their mortality, which resolves neatly in the final songs as love helps quell their anxieties. All of this is told through pretty simple, direct lyrics. Individually some of these songs struck me initially as actually being too simple and plain spoken, with some moments that lean more towards basic declarations of feeling than interesting poetic depth. As parts of a larger whole, though, they work well together as a narrative.
Musically, nothing here will really surprise anybody who is familiar with 90s acts like Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair, or Sebadoh, or Jordan’s contemporaries like Phoebe Bridgers and the boygenius crew. There isn’t anything wrong with that sort of boilerplate indie rock sound, though, and Jordan is good at it. These songs are all built around simple guitar riffs that let the vocal melodies take centre stage, and Jordan writes really good melodies and hooks. It isn’t anything exceptional, but it all sounds great.
Some moments do stand out: I love the distorted guitar leads on “Agony Freak,” and how they’re traced by a theramin sort of synthesizer sound. I like the acoustic guitar swing of “My Maker,” and I like the string arrangements that hang around early on the album and return towards the end. Those strings actually tie into the album’s narrative in an interesting way, too. They only show up in the early songs that deal more directly with the breakup, and in the last couple songs that detail the narrator’s reunion with their lover. Thus, they function sort of as a motif representing the lover. That’s good musical storytelling!
My only real complaint about this album is that there are moments where I wish it would cut loose a little more, mostly from a production and arrangement standpoint. There are distorted guitars, but they never get truly loud or wild, and there are moments on here where it would be called for. The bridge on “Dead End” and the solo section on “Butterfly” are what specifically come to mind here. Both of these are big, loud moments that should just be a little bigger and louder, a little less subdued. This actually speaks to a problem I have with a lot of indie rock production these days: guitars can and should sound loud and crazy sometimes. It is possible to mix a song too well. A guitar sound can’t excite when it is mixed and compressed down to fit always just perfectly between the drums and the vocals.
That’s really just me nitpicking, though. “Rock music should sound worse” is a real hobby horse of mine that I should really elaborate on separately, instead of ragging on “Ricochet” for something I find is endemic to most modern music production.
All in all, this is a must listen for folks who like indie rock and appreciate narrative songwriting. Also I didn’t find a better place in this review to add this remark, so I’ll close by saying that this album’s closing track, “Reverie,” is a great, very sweet love song with an infectious melody. If we still made really great rom-coms it would go great at the end of one of those.
Rating: ☆