The sport just takes me back, aside from any innocence of its own, To when I was younger, when life set so many diamonds before me and I stood before life error-free.

Walsh is clearly channelling Chuck Knoblauch . . . but that's another story.

The song is also about my grandfather, who took me to my first games and showed me by example that the sport is much more than a game. He promised “this is our year” every April from ’80 to ’88 but didn’t deliver until seven years after he died. It was worth the wait; with the final put-out by Charlie Hayes in 1996 I kissed the dusty television screen of the Toms River Newmans and Pa was with me. (Sorry to get all Kevin Costneric on you but this shit moves me.)

“22d Birthday” . . . I’d like to say I discovered the sonic beauty of the open E string while experimenting with alternate tunings, but in fact this chord pattern was the indirect product of slamming my right hand in a car door after a particularly distracting Constitutional Law exam in 1993. The pinky was useless for a while, forcing me to discover a trick most folksingers learn at their first open mic night.

Lyrically I built the song around a line which I thought I heard in
“The Mortician’s Daughter” by the great Freedy Johnston.
Turns out I misheard Freedy, though I certainly tried to follow his example of simplicity and emotional directness.

I wrote “Now She’s A Doctor” after an odd dream which followed an evening listening to “History,” my favorite album by Loudon Wainwright III. That’s really no excuse though for unleashing such a goofy song. At the time I hadn’t yet heard of the Barenaked Ladies so I can’t even claim that I wrote it for them; though at this point I’d gladly pay them to take it off my hands.

“Christine” features some great six-string bass by Teo Graca, a talented musician and producer from Virginia I met at a gig at some strip mall in Rosslyn.

All the songs on Side II were originally meant for full production but yours truly ran out of time and money so we just did acoustic versions. "Promised You A Gravestone" is based on an overwrought film called "Ironweed" starring Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson and Tom Waits. I don't recommend the film, unless you're looking for material for a middling song with minor chords.

Oh yes, the “title track”. Well, some people get it and think it’s
hilarious, some people get it and think it’s stupid, all I know is I woke up with the idea one day and I had to see it to fruition. The lyric pretty much covers my view of boho cafe life, admittedly a narrow-minded one. I tried Birkenstocks myself for a year but drew the line at poetry slams.

This recording features Steve Decker on upright bass and superb spoken word performances by Amy Chazkel, Kerry Acker, Dorie Hagler, Michael Shorr and the incomparable
Daniel Roberts -- who once landed me a gig opening for
Ken Kweder in Philadelphia.