An Ode to Justin Bieber

In the baseball card blogging world, getting a Justin Bieber card can only mean one thing: that you have received a card from the fabulous Frenchman, The Card Papoy.

In the past, I've never indulged Mr. Papoy's idolatry of the Biebs. In large part, that's really because I have honestly never listened to a single bit of Bieber's music. Not. A. Note. That's largely because I have never had much use for any of the teenie bopper teen idols -- dating back at least to New Kids on the Block and probably earlier. 

But, let's be honest: I'm not the target market for Bieber, or NKOTB, or 98 Degrees, or the Backstreet Boys, or One Direction, or any of those other teen heartthrobs. Middle-aged men are supposed to hate that music -- it's for the kids of middle-aged men.

I'm done fighting Papoy on this though. He wants to keep sending Bieber cards, well, the least I can do is give him an all-Bieber music selection to slog through listen to while reading my thanks for the cards he's sent to me.

Since I have no idea what songs of his are any good to anyone, I Googled "Justin Bieber's best songs." Here's what we get from that:

1. "Where are Ü Now" -- Skrillex and Diplo with Justin Bieber

Skrillex is actually someone I've featured before thanks to Matt F. of Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius being a fan. This song isn't completely awful, but it sure is incredibly repetitive. 

Then again, I shouldn't be so hard on repetitive songs, since repetition is the creator of earworms. Like this song. All I have in my head now is "Where are you now that I need you?"

Like any good earworm, the very simple parallels from the 1990s are tough to get out of your head. They are fairly numerous such that they can be found with a little looking, but, for the most part, you don't see them every day. I actually kind of like the Stadium Club Golden Rainbow parallel, even if that name is ridiculous and the nameplates on the front are just...terrible.

2.  "One Time"

This was apparently Bieber's first ever song. The video looks like the Sesame Street version of Snoop Dogg's "Gin and Juice." The fact that Usher is calling up Biebs to invite him to a party is just a little creepy too. I mean, it's actually a lot creepy.

*involuntary shudder*

I'm not a fan of this song. Sorry, kids.

Speaking of kids, here's Victor Roache. Roache was one of the Brewers three picks in the first and compensation round in 2012. They selected Clint Coulter, Roache, and Mitch Haniger. Being four years after that draft, we can see some hits and misses there already. Coulter was #27, Roache was #28 and Haniger was #38. Selection #35 was Mets catcher Kevin Plawecki. #36 was Cardinals OF Stephen Piscotty. #39 was Rangers uberprospect Joey Gallo. #41 was Astros P Lance McCullers.

Roache turns 25 in September. He has not progressed past Double-A Biloxi as of yet. In 367 plate appearances there, he's slashed at .246/.322/.435, and he has been passed by a number of players. He needs to hurry if he wants to get to the majors.

3. "As Long As You Love Me" featuring Big Sean




Michael Marsden starts out this video lecturing the Biebs about how Biebs should treat his hypothetical daughter. So the video goes from there to a church interspersed with Biebs in bed with some chick, then to a parking garage dance party. Real video from Bieber's arrest in Miami for dangerous driving is spliced in as well.

I'm trying to like this. To give it a chance. It's just not working. This is just overproduced crap. Big Sean's cut in the middle isn't bad, but why do I find myself waiting for Michael Marsden to give Bieber those fake bruises showing up in his face? Why do I start yelling "smack that little punk!"? 

I'm too old for this music, aren't I?



Apropos of nothing, here's a "silver starquest common" from 2009 Upper Deck of Prince Fielder and an Upper Deck Denny's Grand Slam hologram from 1992 of Greg Vaughn. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that Silver and Upper Deck go together like a horse and carriage.  

Similar to the Bieber song, though, I have yet to figure out the starquest common thing. I haven't tried too hard, but all my efforts have failed.

4. "Maria I'm Drunk" by Travis Scott f/Justin Bieber & Young Thug




Reading about this track, it seems that this was an odd pairing to a lot of folks. Bieber apparently reached out to Scott to see if they could work together. This song, to Scott, was perfect to have Bieber come on the cut. Originally, Atlanta's own Young Thug was the only "feature." Then, the song leaked out on to the internet, so Scott wanted to mix it back up. Scott sent Bieber the song, and, as Billboard has Scott tell the story, Bieber recorded his own rap verse overnight. 

So, my take on this song: it's disjointed and overdoes the autotune. I've never listened to Travis Scott before, and after this, I probably won't listen to any more of his music. It's a dirge. Billboard calls it a "hypnotic masterpiece"; I call it "music to listen to while stoned if you're thinking of jumping off a building because it's so boring it will destroy your will to stay awake and you'll fall asleep before you jump."



To follow that little rant, let's get paralleled. The card on the left is the 2012 Topps Museum Collection Green Parallel serial numbered 159 of 199. On the right is Yovani Gallardo's 2013 Topps Archives Gold Parallel serial numbered 80 of 199.

Many thanks go out to the Card Papoy for the great cards he sent my way. There were a bunch more, but I'm not sure I can listen to any more of Justin Bieber's best songs. But, to meet the title of this post, I give you Gilly W's Hon Eng 10 Site (I'm guessing that means Honors English...). Gilly wrote an ode to the Biebs that I thought Papoy would enjoy:

Come on everyone. Let's all get Bieber fever.

Thanks for getting through that with me. And, on another note, thank you to all of you for the now well-over 100,000 hits here on Off Hiatus! I am humbled that you would take the time to read this.

Thanks everyone.

Headin' for a Heartbreak

A few weeks back, Matt F. from Heartbreaking Cards of Staggering Genius was the recipient of one of my attempts to reduce my staggering number of baseball cards that are not Milwaukee Brewers.  I sent him a bunch of those 1972 minis from the 2013 Topps effort which were essentially collecting dust in a box in a cabinet in my house.  

Matt was kind enough to send me some cards and other items recently in return for those. Even in the midst of war with Hazel Green -- and trust me when I say that JBF has sunk to monstrous levels in the war -- these cards from Matt are far too good to wait.

In the spirit of another theme post, how about we use Matt's "Heartbreaking Originals" for the theme here?  Matt hasn't added to them in a while, though they are excellent and with the perfect sense of dry/gallows humor that Midwesterners are known for.  

Let's start with #12: an Allen & Ginter original 2008 "World's Greatest Victories" featuring Skrillex at the 54th Grammy Awards.  Skrillex is Sonny Moore, a 27-year-old from Highland Park, California, who has said he is influenced greatly by the Warp label, whose artist stable includes Squarepusher and Aphex Twin.  

Here's a little Skrillex for you:

That is music that may not be familiar to a lot of you. To be fair, I don't listen to much Skrillex myself, but there is a lot worse out there.  

Speaking of the unfamiliar, this card was in the envelope from Matt:

This Sports Kings Gum card from Series E is a card from a set that I have never even heard of before. It does not appear that Sports Kings Gum got very far, seeing that their website has not been updated for quite some time.  It's too bad -- who wouldn't want to have a dual memorabilia card featuring Joe Sakic and Sasha Baron Cohen on the same card? Or Terry Sawchuk and Paula Creamer? Or, more saliently, Maurice "The Rocket" Richard and Paul Molitor?

The next Heartbreaking Original is a 1975 Kellogg's 3-D Superstars card of Brett Favre's Lil Brett (NSFW, perhaps) that he texted to Jenn Sterger, the former Florida State "cowgirl" who, of course, was discovered and became famous in the time-honored tradition that made a name for Katherine Webb -- Brent Musburger perving over her in the stands while a national TV audience watched.

How about a real Kellogg's 3-D Superstars card instead, of Davey May (Derrick May's dad):

While Brett Favre will always have a place in my football fandom for bringing my Green Bay Packers back to the Super Bowl and winning it, Lil Brett should have stayed under covers.

What's next?

How about the 2009 Topps Heritage of Thom Yorke from Radiohead?  This one may be my favorite Heartbreaking Original.  It's an iconic set design from 1960 that works perfectly for Yorke.

Yes, we need Radiohead here:

In the mid-1990s, I really liked 'Fake Plastic Trees" a lot. Speaking of plastic...

Two plastic-protected Topps Coins from 1971 -- one of former Brewers announcer (and later Indians announcer), the late Mike Hegan and one of former bonus baby Lew Krausse, who made his debut in 1961 with the Kansas City Athletics and, in his first appearance fresh out of high school at the age of 18, threw a 3-hit (and 5-walk) shutout of the Los Angeles Angels (then not of Anaheim) and went 2-for-3 at bat to boot.

One of the sardonic cards in the Originals is the 2009 Allen & Ginter Hoaxes card called "Book Value."  Believing in book value and then bidding on eBay is a dangerous game.  You will outbid almost everyone on every auction.  I mean, think of how dangerous believing book value would be with these two cards?

I made the decision to subscribe for a little while to the Beckett price guide online when I first got back into collecting.  I wanted it as a reality check of sorts, and because the first thing people always ask when they hear that you collect cards is, "oh, yeah, I have a couple of cards.  What's this one worth?"  

One of my first experiences with that was trying to help a neighbor who has a bunch of cards from the early 1960s in really great shape to determine how much his cards might be worth.  I looked at Beckett, and then for a sanity check I looked at eBay.  Beckett was always high by at least 10% and sometimes 25% or more.  As I looked further, it got worse for the so-called high-end cards like Triple Threads -- even the non-relic base cards -- and the serial numbered cards.  These Molitors would be amazingly overvalued -- or at least they were then.  

After all, it is one of the world's greatest hoaxes.

I'm left now with two cards that do not have decent analogs on the Heartbreaking Originals. So, let's play one more Radiohead song in honor of the second Thom Yorke card -- this time, a 2008 Allen & Ginter.

This is what you get when you mess with Jean Segura or Dave May.

Matt, I thank you very much for the great cards. I assume that the Heartbreaking Originals may make a comeback when you have the time and the inspiration to undertake a few more cards. I hope that you do that.

Thanks again.