Last summer, we saw a lot of Baltimore. Okay, to be completely factual here, we saw a little of Baltimore, a lot. You see, geographically speaking, Baltimore is located along the semi-straight line that is the route between our home in Southeastern PA and Washington D.C., and our nation’s capital played hosted to the better part of our summer last year (curse you, Mindy Thomas!)
That is not to say that the kids haven’t been to Baltimore proper. One of our D.C. trips, the one that didn’t include their mother due to a prior commitment, but did include Brandi Carlile, Josh Ritter and The Lumineers, also included a quick, hotter-than-the-sun-in-hell stop at the Inner Harbor for a Dragon Paddle Boat tour of the harbor. That was the singular dumbest decision I made in 2012. It is both metaphorical and literal to say that the experience is burned into my head forever. This is mainly because I am big and the kids are not, so the purple dragon was tilted so severely that the murky (and that doesn’t remotely do it justice) tourist trash can of an Inner Harbor was nearly introduced to my cargo shorts and good running sneakers. Oh, and the kids legs weren’t long enough to reach the pedals, so the paddling was all the job of the very tilted me. Fun!
The Bear & Mouse, just before our dragon boat, um, fiasco.
Amazingly, and despite our most recent visit there, the song “Baltimore” from the city’s own kindie band Milkshake, is the one track on the band’s massive new album Got A Minute? that stands out. And not because it brings us back to that glorious, sweltering afternoon. Personally, it takes me back further to the night I saw Wilson Alverez, then of the Chicago White Sox, throw a no-hitter against the Orioles in one of the final games at old Memorial Stadium and the only baseball game I have ever kept score during. Or, more recently, the night my dad and I took in an O’s game at Camden Yards and he, as he likes to do, slips a steward a few bucks to score us better seats. Of course there are other things in Baltimore than sinking dragon boats and Orioles baseball, a fact that Milkshake illuminates to perfection with a driving hard rock edge and brutal honestly about the Tale of Two Cities vibe that exists in the city a stone’s throw from the I-95 corridor.
By all rights, “Baltimore” isn’t a kid’s song. Not in the traditional sense. It is just a great song about a great, blue collar American city that “seems like heaven, especially in the Spring,” one with considerable charm and its fair share heartache, history galore, and stories of woe and wow around every corner, a rickety purple floating dragon and a baseball team with a rad logo and bitchin’ color scheme, where for a 20-spot, you too might score a pair of handicap lower level seats this coming season. That is, if my awesome dad is leading the way.
Listen to “Baltimore” for free on the February episode of the OWTK podcast.
**Also, brilliant album art!
Milkshake’s Got A Minute?, which will likely be the Grammy-nominated band’s final album, is due out on March 26th. Pre-order it now.
*A copy of Got A Minute? was provided to OWTK for review consideration. The opinions expressed above are honest and unbiased, as always.
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