Music and Baseball

I will assume you know that the San Francisco Giants are in the World Series this year.  Don't bother telling me if you were not aware of this fact.  You may also know that this season pretty much has been torture for Giants fans.  The team started strong, then began to falter, and later found themselves in contention to pass the San Diego Padres and win the National League West division title.  Nothing has been easy for the Giants or their fans this year, and the team clinched the division on the very last day of the season.

The last day.

Things got better, though.  The Giants bested the Atlanta Braves in the first round of the playoffs but then had to face the Philadelphia Phillies.  The Phillies would be a challenge, to say the least.  However, the Giants held their own and were up three games to one in the best of seven National League Championship Series as of last Thursday, when the two teams played at AT&T Park here in the City by the Bay.

Well, the Giants lost that game, and the series traveled back to Philadelphia for game six on Saturday.

I've been watching all the games, but I also have a life to lead.  So on Saturday, my Sober Nixon bandmates and I decided to kill two birds with one stone.  We transformed my living room into a make-shift studio to record some songs while we watched the game on my television.  The sound was on mute, of course.  Recording always takes a long time, but it takes even longer when you repeatedly stop to watch an at-bat or the end of an inning.  Given our set-up, I couldn't actually see the television while we were recording, but Jackie and Ho, Sober Nixon's guitarist and bass player, could.  It was almost as entertaining to watch Jackie's eyes get really huge when something dramatic would happen in the game (like the exchange of words between Jonathan Sanchez and Chase Utley that cleared the benches and resulted in a near-brawl) while she was trying to play.

When all was said and done, we managed to lay down four songs.  Plus, the Giants beat the Phillies and won the National League Pennant!  I don't know about you, but I would call that a very productive Saturday.  And that brings us to the World Series.

Aside from enjoying music and baseball this Autumn, other things have been going very well.  I'm skipping Halloween for all intents and purposes this year because, frankly, I hate it, but I will be going to a couple of live music shows this weekend.  Then I'm planning mini-vacations to Los Angeles and Las Vegas in November, and of course December will bring Christmas and that other major winter holiday: my birthday.  I'm thinking of a double punch birthday party this year with karaoke the night before and after-work cocktails on the evening that marks the anniversary of my birth.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves, though.  We still have to see the Giants through this World Series.