fuck it. get your shoes on, we're heading out.
Okay. Ready?
Notes on the longest story ever.
1. It is very long. That whole 'longest story ever’ thing is not me being about the exaggeration as you typically find me. It’s much longer than anything I’ve ever written before. ‘Undercurrent’? This is more than three times as long. Yeah. And at some point, I just kind of came to terms with the fact that it was gonna be stupidly long regardless, so I started to indulge it. I gave myself free rein. That is a dangerous thing to give a kid like me. Anyway. Tendency to ramble.
2. It was not written in order. Extended sections were done as they read, but more often I skipped around like a punk, starting sections of dialogue and scenes and leaving them to be completed weeks later. This might account for some unevenness in the style, because I got better at it as I went along. The best written stuff was probably written later, although I did hit a couple of the early bits on the head.
3. It’s based on this (scroll down to the enterprise reporting winner Paula Bott) set of articles, as far as applies, which in part account for the length, because I always said if I was gonna write it, I’d write all of it. sigh. Also included is the surplus of extra info that Alex kept posting, because she hates me and wants to drive me crazy (this is all her fault, by the way). Some facts were willfully ignored and altered in the interest of finishing it before I die. The most egregious and yes-i-know-goddamn-it error is that Eric Chavez’s first marriage definitely lasted longer than is claimed. Sorry, dude, sorta made you look like a punk.
4. My Oakland/Eric Chavez bias shows through kind of clearly. It’s mainly just that I already know everything about my team, and am too lazy to get that knowledgeable about the Tigers, but it works, I think.
5. The parts played by Mark Mulder and Barry Zito in this-what the fuck, they will NOT LEAVE ME ALONE.
6. Apologies to the families of Eric Chavez and Eric Munson, who did not sign major league contracts and become public figures and thus open themselves up for this sort of thing. But you can’t write a story about that which matters in the course of a life without moms and dads, and brothers and sisters, so.
7. This was begun, when, sometime near mid-September. So, yeah, written really fucking quick, considering.
8. Various bits that are not mine litter the story without in-text attribution, but I tell you now that “you must be on guard against wickedness at all times,” and “i wanna say i’m sorry for stuff i haven’t done yet,” are John Darnielle. “michigan seems like a dream to me now,” is a big fat duh Paul Simon. “Alone So Far” is the Old 97’s, as is “Left Coast.” "The Church of Baseball" is from Bull Durham, though I doubt they were the first to coin the phrase, but that's from whence I'm getting it. “four sheets to the wind in arlington,” is a take on Tom Waits’s ‘Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen.’ “sleep outside in tents upon this unfamiliar land,” is Okkervil River. “go west, young man,” is a historical quote and anyone who can provide the source (hint: newspaper editor), gets a nutter-butter. Two Bible quotes make their appearance (hi, bible quotes!), the first about trust and being forsaken is Psalms 9:10, the second, the truth will set you free, is John 8:32. oh, and, um, hail satan, and stuff.
9. It’s a kind of return to form. The way I used to write? With the, you know, description and emotion and whatnot. Maybe I’m the only one who’s noticed a progression. But anyway. Former stylings fit the epic story better. Trying to reconcile the kid I was last year with the kid I am now. Hard work, man.
10. Could not have been written without the Baseball Almanac (Best. Site. Ever), the Baseball Cube (minor league stats, bee-yotch), and Baseball Reference. Not to mention Moneyball, the Baseball Encyclopedia, my buddy Tommy who said, “Fuck, it’s not like being in love is more important than going the distance,” my buddy the amazing punk rock king from Indiana who kept saying, “listen, forget about your boys, let’s go to Canada instead of class today,” high school road trips to Los Angeles, spring training on the horizon, and the music listed below, along with much much more.
11. It gets better as it goes along.
Soundtrack for the longest story ever (and if there are those of y’all not partaken of the limewire or its equivalent, and not fabulously wealthy, drop me a line and I’d be down to send you that which you can’t acquire by your ownsome. For you see, getting people obsessed with this stuff is my hobby):
The Mountain Goats:
“Old College Try” (the most important song for the longest story ever)
“Oceanographer’s Choice” (best song ever)
“Pigs That Ran Straight Away into the Water, Triumph Of” (almost makes you wanna go to prison)
“Alphonse Mambo”
“We Were Patriots” (anything that references Dvorak wins)
“Your Belgian Things”
“Color in Your Cheeks” the trance remix so that mark mulder will be down
“Ultraviolet” (with the Extra Glenns)
“Going to Marrakesh” (also with the Extra Glenns, the other fucking key song for the longest story ever)
“There Will Be No Divorce” (it’s not the kind of thing that ends)
“Alpha Rats Nest” (sing sing sing)
“You’re in Maya” mp3 (off a John Darnielle-approved website and therefore guilt-free!)
“Going to Bridlington” (fucking spooky shit) mp3
“Commandante” (all those bridges can burn down to the ground) mp3 link
“Somebody Else’s Parking Lot in Santa Cruz” mp3
“Dance Music”
“Cubs in Five”
The Old 97’s:
“Just Like California” (this fucking coast)
“Only 19” (yes, Eric Munson, I’m talking about you)
“Won’t Be Home No More”
“The New Kid” (yes, Barry Zito, I’m talking about you)
“Jagged” (yeah, yeah, this is a kid to the bone)
“Designs on You”
“Bird in a Cage”
Red Hot Chili Peppers:
“Dosed”
“The Zephyr Song”
“Cabrón” (recommended despite the mention of Dodger blue, which means it’s really good)
“Tear” (you kidding me with the trumpet in this!)
(okay, really, the entire By the Way album, ‘cause it’s killah)
Everclear:
“Summerland” (it’s a real place. I’ve been there. It’s fucking beautiful.)
“Santa Monica”
“Strawberry” (heroin addicts . . . but draw your own conclusions)
Tom Waits:
(oh sweet jesus, everything Tom Waits has ever written. But more specifically . . .)
“Goin’ Out West”
“On the Nickel” (I forgot to run away from home when I was a kid)
“Innocent When You Dream” (don’t listen to this while sad)
“Come On Up to the House” (don’t listen to this if you miss your parents)
“San Diego Serenade”
“Falling Down”
“Big In Japan” (just for fun)
Modest Mouse:
“Out of Gas” (I was gonna write a story based on this song, and thirty pages in it started to suck)
“Sleepwalking” (high school’s the only time to fall in love, man)
“Baby Blue Sedan”
“Float On”
Okkervil River:
“It Ends with a Fall” (why’d it matter to me)
“Seas Too Far to Reach” (get your boys together)
“Okkervil River Song”
“Westfall” (did I mention that songs about murder rule?)
“Lady Liberty”
Leonard Cohen:
“Hallelujah” (or the Jeff Buckley version, for Jeff Buckley wins)
“The Future” (give me back the berlin wall)
“If It Be Your Will”
“Take This Waltz”
Dan Bern:
“Albuquerque Lullabye” (new mexico will make you cry)
“Turning Over”
“One Dance with You”
“The Day They Found a Cure for AIDS” (song just makes a kid smile foolishly and be like, yeah, that’d be good)
“Wasteland” (goddamn it, I hate L.A.)
Phantom Planet:
“California” (send me home, man)
Eddie from Ohio:
“Don’t Think Twice” (Dylan cover)
“If I Had a Boat” (Lyle Lovett cover)
“Twenty Thousand Hearts” (just so pretty you almost can’t deal)
Magnetic Fields:
“Come Back from San Francisco” (it can’t be all that pretty)
“I Don’t Want to Get Over You”
“When My Boy Walks Down the Street” (he’s going to be my wife)
“No One Will Ever Love You Honestly”
“Papa Was a Rodeo”
Concrete Blonde:
“Still in Hollywood” (fucking badass, how ‘bout)
“Come Sail Your Ships” (Nick Cave cover)
“By the Side of the Road”
Whiskeytown:
“Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart”
“Empty Baseball Park”
The Plimsouls:
“Everywhere At Once”
“A Million Miles Away”
“Oldest Story in the World”
Bright Eyes:
“Drunk Kid Catholic”
“Haligh, Haligh, a lie, Haligh”
“Motion Sickness”
“Lover I Don’t Have to Love”
“You Will. You Will? You Will. You Will?”
Pet Shop Boys:
“Go West”
(okay, i went a little overboard with song recommendations, but it really couldn't be helped.)
Part One
Notes on the longest story ever.
1. It is very long. That whole 'longest story ever’ thing is not me being about the exaggeration as you typically find me. It’s much longer than anything I’ve ever written before. ‘Undercurrent’? This is more than three times as long. Yeah. And at some point, I just kind of came to terms with the fact that it was gonna be stupidly long regardless, so I started to indulge it. I gave myself free rein. That is a dangerous thing to give a kid like me. Anyway. Tendency to ramble.
2. It was not written in order. Extended sections were done as they read, but more often I skipped around like a punk, starting sections of dialogue and scenes and leaving them to be completed weeks later. This might account for some unevenness in the style, because I got better at it as I went along. The best written stuff was probably written later, although I did hit a couple of the early bits on the head.
3. It’s based on this (scroll down to the enterprise reporting winner Paula Bott) set of articles, as far as applies, which in part account for the length, because I always said if I was gonna write it, I’d write all of it. sigh. Also included is the surplus of extra info that Alex kept posting, because she hates me and wants to drive me crazy (this is all her fault, by the way). Some facts were willfully ignored and altered in the interest of finishing it before I die. The most egregious and yes-i-know-goddamn-it error is that Eric Chavez’s first marriage definitely lasted longer than is claimed. Sorry, dude, sorta made you look like a punk.
4. My Oakland/Eric Chavez bias shows through kind of clearly. It’s mainly just that I already know everything about my team, and am too lazy to get that knowledgeable about the Tigers, but it works, I think.
5. The parts played by Mark Mulder and Barry Zito in this-what the fuck, they will NOT LEAVE ME ALONE.
6. Apologies to the families of Eric Chavez and Eric Munson, who did not sign major league contracts and become public figures and thus open themselves up for this sort of thing. But you can’t write a story about that which matters in the course of a life without moms and dads, and brothers and sisters, so.
7. This was begun, when, sometime near mid-September. So, yeah, written really fucking quick, considering.
8. Various bits that are not mine litter the story without in-text attribution, but I tell you now that “you must be on guard against wickedness at all times,” and “i wanna say i’m sorry for stuff i haven’t done yet,” are John Darnielle. “michigan seems like a dream to me now,” is a big fat duh Paul Simon. “Alone So Far” is the Old 97’s, as is “Left Coast.” "The Church of Baseball" is from Bull Durham, though I doubt they were the first to coin the phrase, but that's from whence I'm getting it. “four sheets to the wind in arlington,” is a take on Tom Waits’s ‘Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen.’ “sleep outside in tents upon this unfamiliar land,” is Okkervil River. “go west, young man,” is a historical quote and anyone who can provide the source (hint: newspaper editor), gets a nutter-butter. Two Bible quotes make their appearance (hi, bible quotes!), the first about trust and being forsaken is Psalms 9:10, the second, the truth will set you free, is John 8:32. oh, and, um, hail satan, and stuff.
9. It’s a kind of return to form. The way I used to write? With the, you know, description and emotion and whatnot. Maybe I’m the only one who’s noticed a progression. But anyway. Former stylings fit the epic story better. Trying to reconcile the kid I was last year with the kid I am now. Hard work, man.
10. Could not have been written without the Baseball Almanac (Best. Site. Ever), the Baseball Cube (minor league stats, bee-yotch), and Baseball Reference. Not to mention Moneyball, the Baseball Encyclopedia, my buddy Tommy who said, “Fuck, it’s not like being in love is more important than going the distance,” my buddy the amazing punk rock king from Indiana who kept saying, “listen, forget about your boys, let’s go to Canada instead of class today,” high school road trips to Los Angeles, spring training on the horizon, and the music listed below, along with much much more.
11. It gets better as it goes along.
Soundtrack for the longest story ever (and if there are those of y’all not partaken of the limewire or its equivalent, and not fabulously wealthy, drop me a line and I’d be down to send you that which you can’t acquire by your ownsome. For you see, getting people obsessed with this stuff is my hobby):
The Mountain Goats:
“Old College Try” (the most important song for the longest story ever)
“Oceanographer’s Choice” (best song ever)
“Pigs That Ran Straight Away into the Water, Triumph Of” (almost makes you wanna go to prison)
“Alphonse Mambo”
“We Were Patriots” (anything that references Dvorak wins)
“Your Belgian Things”
“Color in Your Cheeks” the trance remix so that mark mulder will be down
“Ultraviolet” (with the Extra Glenns)
“Going to Marrakesh” (also with the Extra Glenns, the other fucking key song for the longest story ever)
“There Will Be No Divorce” (it’s not the kind of thing that ends)
“Alpha Rats Nest” (sing sing sing)
“You’re in Maya” mp3 (off a John Darnielle-approved website and therefore guilt-free!)
“Going to Bridlington” (fucking spooky shit) mp3
“Commandante” (all those bridges can burn down to the ground) mp3 link
“Somebody Else’s Parking Lot in Santa Cruz” mp3
“Dance Music”
“Cubs in Five”
The Old 97’s:
“Just Like California” (this fucking coast)
“Only 19” (yes, Eric Munson, I’m talking about you)
“Won’t Be Home No More”
“The New Kid” (yes, Barry Zito, I’m talking about you)
“Jagged” (yeah, yeah, this is a kid to the bone)
“Designs on You”
“Bird in a Cage”
Red Hot Chili Peppers:
“Dosed”
“The Zephyr Song”
“Cabrón” (recommended despite the mention of Dodger blue, which means it’s really good)
“Tear” (you kidding me with the trumpet in this!)
(okay, really, the entire By the Way album, ‘cause it’s killah)
Everclear:
“Summerland” (it’s a real place. I’ve been there. It’s fucking beautiful.)
“Santa Monica”
“Strawberry” (heroin addicts . . . but draw your own conclusions)
Tom Waits:
(oh sweet jesus, everything Tom Waits has ever written. But more specifically . . .)
“Goin’ Out West”
“On the Nickel” (I forgot to run away from home when I was a kid)
“Innocent When You Dream” (don’t listen to this while sad)
“Come On Up to the House” (don’t listen to this if you miss your parents)
“San Diego Serenade”
“Falling Down”
“Big In Japan” (just for fun)
Modest Mouse:
“Out of Gas” (I was gonna write a story based on this song, and thirty pages in it started to suck)
“Sleepwalking” (high school’s the only time to fall in love, man)
“Baby Blue Sedan”
“Float On”
Okkervil River:
“It Ends with a Fall” (why’d it matter to me)
“Seas Too Far to Reach” (get your boys together)
“Okkervil River Song”
“Westfall” (did I mention that songs about murder rule?)
“Lady Liberty”
Leonard Cohen:
“Hallelujah” (or the Jeff Buckley version, for Jeff Buckley wins)
“The Future” (give me back the berlin wall)
“If It Be Your Will”
“Take This Waltz”
Dan Bern:
“Albuquerque Lullabye” (new mexico will make you cry)
“Turning Over”
“One Dance with You”
“The Day They Found a Cure for AIDS” (song just makes a kid smile foolishly and be like, yeah, that’d be good)
“Wasteland” (goddamn it, I hate L.A.)
Phantom Planet:
“California” (send me home, man)
Eddie from Ohio:
“Don’t Think Twice” (Dylan cover)
“If I Had a Boat” (Lyle Lovett cover)
“Twenty Thousand Hearts” (just so pretty you almost can’t deal)
Magnetic Fields:
“Come Back from San Francisco” (it can’t be all that pretty)
“I Don’t Want to Get Over You”
“When My Boy Walks Down the Street” (he’s going to be my wife)
“No One Will Ever Love You Honestly”
“Papa Was a Rodeo”
Concrete Blonde:
“Still in Hollywood” (fucking badass, how ‘bout)
“Come Sail Your Ships” (Nick Cave cover)
“By the Side of the Road”
Whiskeytown:
“Excuse Me While I Break My Own Heart”
“Empty Baseball Park”
The Plimsouls:
“Everywhere At Once”
“A Million Miles Away”
“Oldest Story in the World”
Bright Eyes:
“Drunk Kid Catholic”
“Haligh, Haligh, a lie, Haligh”
“Motion Sickness”
“Lover I Don’t Have to Love”
“You Will. You Will? You Will. You Will?”
Pet Shop Boys:
“Go West”
(okay, i went a little overboard with song recommendations, but it really couldn't be helped.)
Part One