Tagged: Dana Jasmine
AND NOW FOR A MUSICAL INTERLUDE …
One year ago this weekend the GotMiLB household was in a state of suspended animation.
Some of you may remember (or even know) my daughter Dana, about whom I wrote back in June when she graduated high school.
Unlike her parents, who pretty much went the more traditional route when it came to applying to college, Dana had her heart set on one school and one school only: Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she hoped to major in songwriting as a singer-songwriter.
She’d interviewed and auditioned there in December and applied for early admission, but while most EA/ED kids around the country learned their fates before Christmas, Berklee didn’t send out its acceptance/deferral/rejection letters until Jan. 31.
Then, on Jan. 30, she got an e-mail informing her that due to computer problems, the decisions would be delayed another day.
Finally, approximately 4,789,432 “hit refresh” button jabs later, she got the acceptance e-mail (no thick or thin envelopes in this cyberage).
And now, a year later, she is the happiest camper I know. She loves college, loves Berklee, loves Boston, loves her classes (and had straight As in nine courses first semester), loves her professors, loves her friends.
Signed a lease on an apartment for the fall that plops her down less than a block from the edge of the Fens and less than a mile from Fenway Park (which means mom can come visit, watch some baseball and have a place to stay for free, free meaning the cost of a week’s worth of groceries for the girls).
She’s also recently updated her MySpace music page, redesigned it and uploaded some of her newer songs that she recorded in her dad’s studio over winter break (with more to come soon now that she’s just gotten ProTools for her computer this week).
Now I don’t think it will embarrass her or upset her too much if I say that Dana has never been big on self-promotion … maybe as the mom I’ve been guilty of trying to offset that now and again (understatement), during the almost-five years that she was in a local rock band, and to a lesser extent since they split due to the ever-popular “artistic differences” last year and she’s been focusing exclusively on her own material.
She’s not the type to sit at her computer for hours and send her link to everyone on MySpace, when she could be spending the time writing songs. She’s not the type to make the “first move” and get her stuff out there, though hopefully she will start doing more of that now that she’s settling into such a great and supportive music community.
It was actually a huge leap of faith for her to even allow me to post the link here on MY blog in hopes some people might check it out … and if you like what you hear, maybe share it with others who might like what THEY hear.
She defines her sound loosely as folk, rock, alt-country, indie and pop. Influences include Jenny Lewis, Aimee Mann, the Cardigans, Mike Viola and the Candy Butchers and the Beatles, among others.
I know I wear mommy goggles but she is one of my favorite singer-songwriters.
Thanks for bearing with me on this shameless plea. I promise I will now return to our regularly-scheduled baseball blog entries, with a Q&A with Arizona Diamondbacks pitching prospect Daniel Schlereth on deck for Monday!
INTRODUCING … BASEBALL HONEYMOON!
As parents of a college freshman, Got MiLB and Mr. Got MiLB have been hearing the following question quite a bit over the last several months: “So how are you dealing with the empty nest?”
And here, in all its glory, is our answer: by taking a Baseball Honeymoon.
We have launched (think bombs bursting in air, here) a podcast!
If you follow this link in the Baseball Honeymoon site you can find the link to the podcast at the Switchpod site, or one to the iTunes download (where you can also subscribe for FREEEEEEEEEE since this is an empty-nest-filler, not a money-maker).
Nutshell: about an hour long. I know, I know, that sounds really long, but the fact is the podcasts that we LOVE … such as Dan Levy’s sportscast “On The DL,” the amazing “Filmspotting” which is the BEST movie-centric podcast, and Ira Glass’ brilliant “This American Life,” just for starters, are all in the one-hour range. Plus you can put on your headphones and listen while you work out.
Content: Commentary. Opinions (lots of opinions … you think Got MiLB has opinions? She ain’t nothing compared to MR. Got MiLB). Interviews (majors, minors, field staff, front office, mascots, you name it, pretty much every walk of baseball life). Top 5 lists. Interactivity. Contests. Music (by Mr. Got MiLB aka Wayne Wilentz, a noted Washngton D.C. jazz musician and our daughter, Dana Jasmine, a singer-songwriter who left that nest empty to head to Berklee College of Music in Boston.). All the things we think make podcasts awesome to listen to, whether it’s while you’re driving on the highway, working out at the gym, sitting at your computer doing other work. You name it.
So, what makes us different from every other great baseball podcast out there?
Glad you asked. There are some GREAT baseball podcasts. Lots of them. There is no shortage of people with knowledge, time, technical ability and opinions. Most of them offer the following: Analysis. Statistical breakdowns. History. Fantasy baseball advice.
All of which are valuable. And frankly none of which we really touch on that much …
So, you may ask, who are you and what makes you different?
Who we are and what makes us different: We are a husband-and-wife team that will be celebrating our 25th anniversary this spring. Our first date was at a New York Yankees-Toronto Blue Jays game in the summer of 1983. The day after our spring 1984 wedding (two months before we took our REAL honeymoon) we both cut work to attend the Mets home opener. Baseball was the initial glue that bonded us but obviously a happy marriage for a quarter-century is based on more than mutual fandom.
That said, we’ve spent more than a few hours every morning over boxscores, coffee, fighting for the sports section, discussing and bemoaning how our mutual fantasy league teams had done (but no more, Got MiLB has gone cold turkey on fantasy baseball this year!).
You know who I am, I guess, if you’re reading my blog but if not, here’s the scoop: I’ve covered baseball for more than 20 years. I currently cover Minor League Baseball for MLB.com, as writer, reporter, columnist and multimedia correspondent, as well as maintaining a presence in the “blogosphere” with “Got MiLB?” on the MLBlogs site. Before coming to MLB, I was the Minor League editor at USA Today/Baseball Weekly-Sports Weekly for more than a decade. I’ve been a dugout reporter for the All-Star Futures Game (below, that’s me with Elvis Andrus at the 2008 Futures Game in New York) and Triple-A All-Star Game, a frequent guest on radio and TV sports talk shows around the country, and was the original host of the Fox News Channel’s live sports talk show, Fox on Sports Sunday. Oh, and I’m also a member of the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame. AND a graduate of MLSB Scout School!!!
But here is why my better half is so well-qualified, if not BETTER-qualified, to do this with me: WAYNE WILENTZ is a professional musician (with a gold record to prove it) who has been a baseball fanatic since he was 7, despite the fact that his family forced him to watch football all the time. His main qualifications for this gig are a BS (seriously) in Radio, TV and Film from Northwestern, the technical know-how to understand this podcast stuff, and a lot of opinions.
So yeah … every other week we will be posting a new episode of Baseball Honeymoon, and hopefully each episode will get better and funnier and smoother and have fewer “ums” and “uhs” and “um hums.”
And hopefully you, our readers, will continue to download the episodes, or even better SUBSCRIBE to the podcast on iTunes, and even even better, will give us the kind of feedback you’ve been giving Got MiLB, either via the blogspot, or the e-mail at feedback@baseballhoneymoon.com, or here on Got MiLB.
The show will always kick off with our “Bagels and Boxscores” segment as we just “talk baseball” about whatever is timely or floats our boat, before we move on to our interview with that episode’s special guest (or first special guest … we’ll usually have two!).
We’ve got some extremely cool themed episodes coming up … just a hint, we’ll be talking about favorite baseball books, movies and songs, favorite players when we were kids, most prized memorabilia, most bizarre or unusual moments experienced at baseball games, which prospects we’d pick first in our minor league fantasy drafts, favorite places to go during spring training and various other “lists,” with some VERY cool relevant guests to give THEIR lists as well. (Teaser: among the upcoming guests for the next two months we hope to have a few of MLBlogs’ MOST POPULAR author/bloggers).
Well, I don’t want to give TOO MUCH away here. But I hope you will check out our inaugural episode (a little rough around the edges but we are nothing if not quick learners). And that you will keep listening to future episodes.
If we don’t kill each other first.
But here, courtesy of Mr. Got MiLB, is a synopsis of the first episode … please note the trivia contest at 35:45 and REMEMBER … the deadline for the FIRST Baseball Honeymoon trivia contest is MONDAY, JAN. 19 to have your answers (or answer, if you only know one) by e-mail to win!
The next new show will be up on Monday, Jan. 26, and I’ll be sure to throw in a (much shorter) reminder about it!
I hope you will listen and share your thoughts, opinions, and ideas for future episodes, themes or lists and if you like it, or know people you think will like it, I hope you’ll share the love and pass the link along to baseballcentric friends!
Needless to say, the podcast is our hobby and empty nest filler and will certainly not be taking the place (or the time invested) in my writing or my blog. But baseball is a busman’s holiday for me so what better way to spend what spare time we have?
Coming tomorrow to Got MiLB … a further introduction to Dana and her newly-updated music site … and Friday, the next in our series of Beyond the Boxscore: Getting to Know ... well, you’ll have to come back to find out! (Hint: He’s got game).
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