Welcome to Jewel Case Journal! One of the first challenges was choosing an album to kick off this project. Could I pick one CD out of hundreds that would best represent the collection? Maybe, but not without weeks of agonizing over the choice. It certainly wouldn’t be an Arrested Development record. I do like early 90s rap, but it’s not my favorite type of music, nor are they one of the best representations of the genre. They sound like the backing music to a D.A.R.E video with a lot of neon colors and random geometric shapes, played on a TV cart in elementary school, about how to say no to drugs.

When I excavated my CDs from the basement to start JCJ, I decided to organize them alphabetically by album title, with numbers before letters, hence “3 Years, 5 Months, and 2 Days in the Life of…” For example, if I want to listen to Nine Inch Nails, I have to look in the Ds for “The Downward Spiral,” or the Fs for “The Fragile.” I have Miles Davis albums under eight or nine different letters.

Under no circumstances do I recommend this unless you want as much randomization as possible without fully embracing disorganized anarchy. For the purposes of JCJ, it will keep things fresh without getting bogged down in one artist or style for too long. I’ll have to do something special when we get to G for “Greatest Hits,” or L for “Live in (Insert City Here),” but that problem is a few years down the road.

In college, I auditioned for a band that was reminiscent of Arrested Development. It wasn’t a straightforward hip hop group; there was a mix of rapping and singing with a backing band that had a world music feel. Both had lyrics with a vibe of positivity, which is nice, if a little corny, and sometimes ill-fitting the genres. It worked better for Curtis Mayfield and Sly and the Family Stone.

The problem with this audition was that I was trying out for hand percussion instead of on the drum set. I’m not a trained percussionist, and I wasn’t confident going into it. There are congueros and timbaleros in Latin music styles who spend a lifetime mastering just one specific type of percussion, whereas I was a punk rock primate trying to translate from the drum kit’s dialect.

I spent more of the audition apologizing than playing. I made all kinds of excuses for why I wasn’t any good. Was that actually true? I might have played well enough, but psychologically, it was more important to me to give myself a safety net in case I failed. I didn’t get the gig, of course. How could I after I spent the whole time telling them that I was wrong for the job? 

I learned a life lesson from that audition that transcends music and has served me well in all endeavors: Whatever you do, do it with confidence, even if you have to fake it. If you’re not good enough, they’ll tell you, but never talk yourself out of a gig, or a job, or a date, or anything else you seek. Act like you belong in the role, and you’ll significantly increase your chances of getting it.

That came out a little cheesier and preachier than I intended, but that’s what happens when I listen to Arrested Development.

Before starting JCJ, almost all of my writing experience had been about baseball. I wrote my first blog post in 2017, and nine years later, I’m an established writer in the industry who has contributed to multiple book projects. Earlier this year, I was honored with the SABR Analytics Conference Research Award for an article about center field defense, which was a real “pinch me” moment.

Even though it’s a side job and not my career, I’ve written hundreds of baseball articles by now, and possibly over 1,000. When I look back at the very first one I wrote, published on March 16, 2017, on a blog that (sadly) no longer exists, I cringe at all the mistakes of inexperience I made. I hope someday I’m able to look back at this first JCJ post the same way.

(Well… there will eventually be archives. This is the first issue, so there’s nothing to see, but I’m keeping this section as a placeholder.)