My wife and I were leaving a big family hang this summer, on our way to a Phillies game. We had our hats and shirts on, which would look totally normal within a few hours once we were at the stadium, but in the morning over breakfast we were decisively out of place. The kids' pajamas were quieter than our outfits. Such is sports fandom. Also, kind of a flex when some neon dinosaurs can’t beat your scarlet red.
I can't tell you exactly what my brother said, but it was something along the lines of, "I see you've got your church clothes on," and it made me laugh. We were pretty non-conforming as kids, even when it came to sports and group efforts, so the line took me back to a million other conversations in that half-a-second way only a sibling comment can. But inside it - and I'm sure I answered with a confident "well, yeah" and shared a laugh, we did go to church together too - there was a kernel of truth about performing identity that I've been noodling on ever since that morning. It's this idea that the second you put something about your inside on your outside, you've also signaled to the public that you're open to judgment. You don't want to be judged negatively, but you put yourself out there hoping to be loved, or at least not slammed.
After the game, back at our much quieter house, we were (re: have been) rewatching Portlandia. It's a comfort thing. In between baseball and other shows - especially post our Wire rewatch, which leaves a lingering sense of depression, Portlandia is strangely calming. Silly yet calming, really, and it tackles all this other thinky stuff too. There's an episode where a guy invites another guy over to see his home studio and keeps pointing out details that are from Pet Sounds. The first time it's nerd-cool. The third time it's weird. The fifty-seventh time it's clearly a bit, and yet somewhere in there some profound truths about fandom start to settle in.
If you’ve never seen it, at least preview it, you’ll get the joke in a fraction of the total run time.
For an obscure bit, that’s very much a Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein bit, because they’re music nerds who have hung out in studios with people just like this, I shouldn’t be surprised when I hear them in regular life talking about similar themes. The topic came up when Carrie and Fred were on an episode of Pete Holmes' podcast that popped up in my feed the other day. The deeper point they get to in the conversations with Holmes is over how when something small becomes an identity. Sports came up as an example, plus, how some people turn a weird little thing into their whole identity, which, think about it, you know some people, and yes, it is totally weird (remember Bronies? Stuff like that).
On sports, they agreed it was a kind of armor. Someone said something about how watching a person wear a jersey with somebody else's name on it just melts your heart a little. Nobody can hurt you. There's a sweetness to it. I put that in my notes. I feel it - and I agree with it.
Because that's all any of this is, right? Personal armor, worn in a personal arena, either at a ballpark or just walking through the mall hoping somebody notices the cool band shirt you picked for the day. We want to be seen, we want to not be hurt or threatened or dismissed, and we want our taste validated. There's always a risk in that. Even in just telling the Pet Sounds guy about your studio, you're handing someone the right to judge the thing you love.
But you’re still admitting you love something. That’s sweet. Even if sometimes it’s a little weird.
I like exploring this stuff. I like experimenting with parts of identity, expressed in different ways. Plus, a Phillies game in Phillies gear is just more fun. There's a sweetness to that, especially when you win, and part of life is finding the sweet bits, and laughing when it's absurd, too.
Which is, I think, what my brother was actually clocking at breakfast. Not that we looked ridiculous, or to take a potshot at the church clothes of our youth, but that my wife and I looked ridiculous on purpose, together, before we were in the crowd where we’d totally blend in. And seeing as I've watched him do the same thing a million times (with embarrassing pictures to prove it) I could confidently tell him, "Well, yeah."
