Blink 182's First Date Video

I'm not sure why, but one day I got on a binge watch of late '90s into early '00s alternative rock videos.  Music, for me, has always been a way to bookmark years.  Most times, almost a little Rain Man-ish, I can tell you the exact year a song came out.  The songs I was listening to took me back to my late teens and early 20's.  I guess I do the same thing with cards but that stops around the mid '90s because that's when I stopped collecting, so I'm unable to connect a card design to a year.  Music gives me a broader timeline in which to recall the who/what/whens of my life.

One video I've always liked was Blink-182's "First Date" off of their 2001 Take Off Your Pants and Jacket.  Actually, I like the video but I don't much care for the song.  I like that video because it's funny.  I always like videos that have 'rock stars' who aren't taking themselves super serious.  Set in 1974, Blink plays this sort of immature slacker El Segundo, CA garage band.  The concept stemmed from Tom DeLonge's (whom also "Fist Date") reaction to an over-the-top Bee Gees documentary where he recounted them "on top of a mountain, singing face to face, with the sunset behind them".

I thought it would be funny to make a card from this video with a 1974 Topps baseball inspired design.  I did a mash-up of a horizontal base card and a multi-play rookies card. 

1974 Topps baseball

The information on the back came from the end of video where they did a Fast Times at Ridgemont High style still frame of each member catching you up on what they've been up to since the events of the video.  There's three characters in the video, but obviously DeLonge's "Boomer" is the star.  A  random thought though... DeLonge was "Boomer", Mark Hoppus was "Spaulding" but Travis Barker is just..."Travis"?

2 Legit 2 Quit

Personal note... in 5th grade me and two friends wanted to lip sync Naughty By Nature's OPP for the school talent show. We auditioned with my cassette single of the song but the powers that be didn't  approve of the lyrical content. They knew what OPP stood for where we were just dumb kids. So, we went with Hammer's 2 Legit 2 Quit. It's was a cringy as it sounds but none of us knew magic tricks so there ya go.

Did you know that MC Hammer, Oakland California’s favorite son, was a batboy for the A’s from 1973-80? An 11 year old Hammer, real name Stanley Burrell, would hustle outside the stadium and his entrepreneurial spirit caught the attention of Athletic’s owner Charlie Finley who gave him a job as a batboy with the team.  Hammer eventually worked his way up to basically being the eyes and ears for Finley while he was in Chicago running his insurance business. Hammer was eventually given the title of executive vice president as a teenager. Finley even had a hat made for him that had “VP” in place of the A’s logo.

It was as a batboy that A’s players nicknamed Burrell “Hammer” due to his resemblance to Hammerin’ Hank Aaron.

This card finally gave me a chance to use the 1974 Topps design. I’ve been wanting to add it to my custom card portfolio for quite some time but haven’t had a subject that made enough sense with it until this card. I appreciate the vintage looking rounded corners and the uncluttered straight forward design. It just looks very classic to me.