One of the very first things I learned about my wife when we started dating was her undying love for The Strokes. They are her all-time favorite band. She knows the lyrics to every song, the tracklist of every album, and a nearly-alarming amount about the band members themselves. I gained some major brownie points by singing along with “Reptilia” when it came up on shuffle on an early date. That combined with her obvious nerdiness for the band gave me clearance to open up to her about my nerdiness for baseball and baseball cards. Though she accepts them both, she still likes to tease me about it.
The Strokes put out a new album this spring, The New Abnormal. Before the release, they had played a few songs live, recordings of which had made their way to YouTube. One that I liked in particular was called “Ode to the Mets,” to which my wife says “of course you like the baseball song.” I used this as an opportunity to point out that, like her husband, her lifetime crush (Julian Casablancas) is a baseball fan. I was able to help her get her eyes back in place after they completely rolled out of her skull.
While my fandom will never rival hers, I was excited when the album was officially released in April and really cherished the chance to digest and experience a new album together with her. We learned the songs together, hummed melodies around the apartment, listened in the car and just kind of soaked the whole thing up during our quarantine. Through this weird and weary year, The Strokes shifted from being “her” thing to being “our” thing, with The New Abnormal being the artifact of that transition.
Fast-forward to yesterday when The Strokes posted an official video for “The Adults Are Talking” to their YouTube page. Suddenly, the “tequila sunrise”-inspired Strokes jersey we saw Julian wearing on Saturday Night Live made sense. The video shows the band squaring up against a team of Terminator-style robots on a baseball diamond. Though the whole thing is obviously green-screened, it’s impressively accomplished, including the guys’ athletic maneuvers. Julian, being the frontman, gets the most screentime as both the pitcher and the baserunner sliding into home for the climax. I suspect it’s also because he’s probably the most comfortable on a baseball field.
Now that Bivi and I have fully bonded over The Strokes, I took this as an opportunity to merge our nerd-realms and make some cards using stills from the video. As mentioned above, Julian gets most of the screentime and also the only frames good enough to take stills from. Luckily there’s one of him on the mound and also at the plate, so there’s a little bit of variety. I mimicked 58 Topps and 78 Topps pretty faithfully and then did a pair that evoke 84 Topps and 87 Topps without total replication. With those jerseys (and the image quality), I figured throwbacks were better than trying to do something modern.
I showed these to my wife and she loved them. She told me Julian would love them and I need to tag him on Twitter and this and that. I love her enthusiasm and optimism that he would see/like these. But more than that, I love how I was able to make something that so perfectly encapsulates the two of us and how dorky we are together.
Now I just need for the band to put those jerseys up on their merch site and I’ll have Christmas covered.