Dishwasher Drama, Court Grudges & Massachusetts Pickleball | Lisa w/ Marblehead Pickleball

Forks up or forks down? The kitchen heats up with a full-on dishwasher showdown before we head to Marblehead, MA to meet Lisa—USA Pickleball ambassador and community builder.

She’s growing courts, welcoming new players, and showing how local pickleball can thrive.

Plus: Headphones during play—Dink or Destroy?  And the wild new flirting trend called … you’ll have to listen. :)

🎧 Tune in now and keep the dink soft and the energy BIG.
 #BigDinkEnergy #PickleballPodcast #KitchenTalk

Transcript

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GUY BEVERIDGE (00:00.046)
Like I never know what's gonna come out of your mouth next. This is Big Dink Energy, the pickleball podcast that's half insight, half nonsense, and all entertainment. If you love pickleball, don't take yourself too seriously and think a little trash talk makes the game better. Welcome home. This is the place where life and pickleball intersect. We celebrate the chaos, call out the nonsense, and put the fun back in dysfunction. You're either in or you're out. And if you're still listening,

You're in. So let's go. Big Dink Energy starts now. Welcome back to another episode of the Big Dink Energy podcast. This is our kitchen talk and I'm going to do some actual kitchen talk. And kitchen talk is just like for you all to get in early with us and just kind of like we're all sitting around having a chat. want you to feel like that, but I'm actually going to do some kitchen talk on this one, actual kitchen. Something that's been bothering me, at least in my household, I don't know how you are at your household.

but we're going to talk about loading the dishwasher. Dun, dun, dun. Yeah. Dun, dun, dun for you. I've heard this complaint. I know. So I personally think that there's a specific way the dishwasher is invented and made to be loaded. Anytime I open the dishwasher that you've loaded, and I don't know about you, paddle princess, how you do it at your house, we're going to hear for sure. I think it was just a wherever it goes is that's where it goes. Whatever fits.

It just, there's a blank space, put whatever there. It could be a cup, it could be a ramekin, it can be anything, wherever there's a space. If it fits, it ships kind of thing for you. I didn't go to dishwasher engineer school. Clearly. Clearly, yeah. But there's a fine line between just being savage with it and Tetris. Okay, I'm not savage. No, it is. It's completely savage. And what is your way of doing it?

The dishwasher is designed to be loaded a certain way. That's why the racks are a certain height. That's why they have certain spaces. Like all the dishes and flatware goes on the bottom. That's also where you can maybe put a casserole dish. I don't know why you wouldn't hand wash that anyhow, but certainly we're also shouldn't be putting our nonstick stuff in there, but you know, I see that in there from time to time. also a hiding place, I think. Yeah, you're hiding your poor ability to stack things. think sometimes it's like...

GUY BEVERIDGE (02:22.765)
just put them in here and we'll deal with them later. Just get it done. I feel like done is better than perfect. Yikes. And I also. She doesn't need help. Guy hates that saying. I also feel like we can just put another pot in and wash them again. No. What do you do at your house? Are you savage at your house as well? I I don't have really spoon in this cup to talk about. I don't do the dishes. I did the dishes every single day when I was growing up.

and the moment that my children were tall enough to do the dishes, I stopped doing the dishes. My daughter does the dishes, I don't do them. I put my dish in the sink. She does all of the dishes. Well, that's guy's problem is our kids do the dishes too, but I have shown them how to do it. And it's pretty much like, here's the dishes. Savagery. Here's the washer. The cavemen came in and they loaded the dishwasher. Every time my son loads the dishwasher, my daughter has a fit about it because he'll put...

the bowl facing the wrong way or something crazy, but she is like, this is not how you do the dishes. The dishwasher has to be loaded like this. And she goes absolutely insane about it. Yes, I love it. Okay, forks up, forks down, laces out, merino. I don't care. It's all gonna get washed. What difference does make? No. Because when you reach for it, like if a knife is up, like I'm very adamant about having not the knives up. I can agree with that. But that's about where my concern stops. No, I mean, this is ridiculous. This is not a free for all.

The dishwasher was designed specifically to be loaded a proper way. feel like just confetti. Yay! Put them in. No, you're the person who goes into our Tupperware cabinet and sees something falling over, but you got to put something in. So you throw it in shove and then shut right away. Slam the cabinet. I think we're done with kitchen talk. I didn't want to make this about you, but it's about you. I'm also a pre-rincer. Apparently. I'm a pre-rincer too. maybe I'll... No, you are a pre...

Washer. See, I'm like, that dish is clean. Like, why even put it in the dishwasher? Because I know there's no little man in the dishwasher that comes out. I was taught at a young age to pre-rinse your dish. There's no little man in the dishwasher. Well, I didn't even have a dishwasher growing up. So maybe I'm just so excited. I just threw the dishes in there. So, I mean, there's obviously something wrong with my dishwasher. The problem is I just need to smack it around a little bit. Just a little bit more. It's time for Pickle Pound.

GUY BEVERIDGE (04:51.234)
All right, we're back to the part of the program that I like the most. That's meeting the fun people and places that surround Pickleball. And now today we're talking with Lisa from Marblehead Pickleball up in Massachusetts. Now, if you all know me, you know that that part of the country is near and dear to my heart. I grew up in Vermont and then in the Western New York area for a while. So I'm very familiar with the part of country that Lisa is in and I absolutely love it. Now.

I will just tell you all there's nine months of good skiing and four months or three months of okay skiing. I don't know how Lisa's doing it up there in her neck of the woods, but I'm gonna let her explain that. Lisa, thanks so much for being on the Big Dink Energy podcast. Thanks for reaching out. So up in Marblehead, Mass, right? So you're on the coast, obviously, in that neck of the woods, and you've got Marblehead Pickleball going on, and you're an ambassador for USA Pickleball. How did you come to Pickleball? Let's just start with that.

Uh, 2019, I was golfing with one of my best friends and she said, we have in, we have pickleball indoors at the community center. You have to come, you have to come. came, I got hooked. That same month, the courts were finished to be opened in marble head mass, six of them on a converted tennis court. And I slid right in.

I mean, I just picked up the game, the courts opened. It was havoc. Everybody was out. Everyone wanted to play. There was no rhyme or reason. There was no structure, no organization. So they all said, least do you want to be the ambassador and like keep us in tow and organize us? I said, do you want me to? And I applied and I, you know, I am it. And we were so busy. We went to the rec and park and got six more courts built. Wow. Different location. Wow. That's awesome.

We do still boast that we have the most in Eastern Mass, minensical courts, dedicated courts. That is fantastic. So I would imagine, you know, just like Pickleball over the nation, you have these courts and it's just a, it's a community, right? You're building a community around Pickleball and all walks of life are coming to the courts. Anything that just sticks out to you, where you're like, wow, this is, I didn't think this was going to happen, but you know, we've really made it, or one of those moments. Yeah. I think during COVID,

GUY BEVERIDGE (07:08.364)
We were able to play and be socially apart from each other, whatever, social distance. And I saw families come out in the winter, because we played 12 months a year there with weather permitting. And families were coming out. They couldn't afford to go skiing. Ski tickets were so much money. So there was a parent and kids coming out to play pickleball on Saturdays and Sundays. I'm like, this sport is really catching on.

And then all ages and all sizes and all abilities was coming out and we've grown a lot. now have open play in Marblehead. Then 2024, we started a summer league, very much like a coed softball league that happens in our town. So we did coed summer league and we've had 180 people play through both sessions. Holy moly. 180 new players come through. did two six week sessions.

So that's been successful and we're asking for approval for another year. But it's so much fun. It warms my heart. get goosebumps. Marblehead's located 20 miles north of Boston. It's tourist town. So if anyone does want to come out and play, they can reach out through USA Pickleball and get my email. It's on the website. Yeah, we want to make sure everybody gets connected in that way to come up and see you. And you're doing so many wonderful things for the community, right? You resurfaced the courts and there was a couple other things.

kind of touch on those initiatives that you got started and what you're bringing to the community. We bought two family packs, which means four paddles, four balls, a set of rules, put them in a backpack and we have them at the local library to rent out for families that want to try the game, not sure they want to invest in it. And then I think it's a two week loan. We've done a lot of fundraisers, one for glial blastoma, one to put a new football field in town. And now we're going to do a mental health fundraiser tournament.

And it's so much fun. I love organizing. I love seeing the players. I love seeing them on the podium. We give out medals. It's just heartwarming for me. Yeah, you know, and that neck of the woods where you are, you know, it's, I'll just say to people, you know, when you get into Massachusetts and you get up further north within, up in the main in that area, you know, the community can be a little almost standoffish to outsiders necessarily.

GUY BEVERIDGE (09:28.898)
But pickleball is just one of those sports and what you guys are doing, bringing people in and making sure that, you know, we're built, like I said, you're building a community around it. It's so wonderful to see that. That's so awesome. And we have a good vibe at our courts. You know, people will have music on. We're always welcoming. We do have open play if they want to check on the website to see what days, when they start. But we're welcoming. If someone reaches out, I'll definitely meet up with them and

be there and help them learn the basics too, which they don't know how to play. Yeah, let's talk about the ambassador role just a little bit. What does that mean to you? It sounds like you're telling me that the ambassador role is to welcome people into the sport, to tell people what the sport is and make sure, you know, there's a low barrier to just trying it, right? Right. It's easy entry. It's got a low learning curve, not expensive to get into and you're playing in like 20 minutes. But as an ambassador, I work

well with Marblehead Wreckin Park. for those that don't know, she's saying the word park, P-A-R-K. Park. So we work well together. We now are a 501c3 nonprofit, Marblehead Pickleball. Then we hold hands with them and they are very appreciative of what we're doing in town. We have built a community. That is so, so awesome. And that's what I love about Pickleball. So, you know, when I first saw Pickleball,

I was taking my son to football practice and they had some courts off to the side and I thought, what is that? And I just didn't give it another thought until someone brought me to my first game to play. I thought, well, this is definitely that I'm going to call myself an athlete now because this is the sport for me. I think, and your story was kind of similar. Once you did it, you were like, yep, this is it for me. And pickleball is just that.

People in Texas, we do cornhole a lot, but now pickleball is overtaking that, I'm pretty sure. It's the reaction time, I think, when you're on the court and the little firefights you get into. Yeah. So let's talk about that. You've got to have some characters that show up routinely, Well, we do have nicknames for people. One has that plunger on the bottom of his paddle to pick up the balls. Yeah, yeah. One funny instance was four men were playing with this woman. She went down splat.

GUY BEVERIDGE (11:48.846)
She didn't get hurt. It was just one of those splats. Went down on the court and the men kept, I looked over and they kept playing the point, playing the point like she was roadkill and it never stopped. That's Pickleball, Massachusetts right there for sure. We have some great, we have a maintenance crew that shows up in the morning with me. We drive the courts, we drag towels, we have blowers. And I love the idea and I hope more people pick this up. And if you're not sharing this globally, I hope you do.

And we'll get the word out too, but just having that backpack of paddles and balls for a family just to go grab from the library and get into it. Go try it. You don't have to go spend any money to do that. Drop your library card down, get the backpack and go try it. And I think we're seeing so many people come to Pickleball that way. And I absolutely love that you set that up. Yeah. And also we've donated a lot of paddles to the middle school and the high school this year.

We've done donation drives, paddle donation drives at our fundraisers so people can bring their unloved paddles, drop them off, and we've brought them up to the schools. That's so awesome. They get rid of those antiquated wooden ones that they've been using. Yeah, so the next step is grab that spray paint and a logo for Marblehead Pickleball.

put it on there before you give them out, right? So they know how to get ahold of you. Good idea. Yeah. Well, we do have Instagram and Facebook. Yeah. What's the handles for the social media? It's called Marblehead Pickleball. Okay. Very good. Easy to find. And we're launching a new website around March 9th. So check that out. Yeah. Let us know because we'll put that on our social media for sure. So I'm coming up to Marblehead and we're hanging out and I'm playing some pickleball. Now, what do I have to go do? What do I have to see after that? What's the must see, must do things?

in the Marblehead area? A harbor crew, harbor, harbor crews around Marblehead Harbor, very historic. Okay. It's $10 right at the state landing dock. Okay. There's lots of pubs, there's a yacht club. It's just a fun, fun town. I hope people do come through. It's a big tourist town. Yeah. And I would imagine I, and I'll talk this language to you. I could probably get some bugs there while I'm there, right? Yeah. For the people who don't know, we're talking about lobster.

GUY BEVERIDGE (14:04.278)
You can get lobster while you're there in Marblehead. The best lobster rolls. Awesome. Lobster. For all the podcast listeners out there, make sure you're going out there when you're traveling, when you're going around the country, and you find yourself up in the northeast. Go to Marblehead and find Pickleball. Find Lisa out there. Lisa has all her social media. Marblehead Pickleball is where you can find Lisa. Lisa, I ask everybody this, and it's one of those things I think Pickleball is coming to as we see.

you know, traders like Tom Brady buy pickleball teams. What is, what's going to be the music that captures that? What's the one song that captures marble head pickleball? Hit me with your best shot. Okay. A little Pat Benatar. Yeah, maybe that one or the fight song. Okay. I like that one too. Lisa, thank you so much for spending some time with us here on the Big Dink Energy podcast. Our job is to make sure people can get to courts and then get to specific courts just like yours.

when they're out traveling around the country. And why wouldn't you go to Massachusetts? It's beautiful up there, whether you go in the winter, the spring, the fall, the summer, the one month of summer that they have, it doesn't matter. Get up there, go see Lisa at Marblehead Pickleball. Thank you again so much, Lisa, for being on here with us. You're welcome, and I hope you come through.

town too. I'd love to see you. Yeah, I got to bring my kids up into that neck of the woods. They didn't they never seen where I grew up and I've got to take them around New England and I'm definitely going to take my kid to Foxboro. I don't care who the quarterback is. I'm a I'm a diehard Patriots fan. You could stare at me, isn't it? Yeah, it is now. Yeah. So yeah, when I get up there, I'll make sure you know that I'm in the area. We can go have some lunch. Good lobster on me. Thanks, Lisa so much. I love what you're doing. Great ambassador for USA pickleball. Have a great day.

Thanks. You too.

GUY BEVERIDGE (15:53.262)
All right, this is the part of our podcast that we like to call Dink or Destroy. This is where we say, yes, thumbs up. This is something we're gonna definitely dink over the net or we're gonna destroy, which is nope, thumbs down, not for us. And we want you to get involved as well. So don't be afraid to go over to bdepodcast.com and tell us what you think, whether it was from the kitchen talk or from the Dink or Destroy or anything you hear, we always wanna hear from you. There's a way that you can scroll down and leave us a message or you can just message us on our socials.

I have something that I found the other day. Paddle princess stepping up. There was a of a debate online on Instagram about people playing pickleball with their headphones in. Some people were saying it's great for getting in the zone and others were saying it completely kills the social vibe. It makes you seem like you're standoffish and not approachable. So what do you guys think? I feel like it's the universal do not disturb sign.

Yeah. So if I see somebody with headphones in, automatically assume like they want to be left alone. And it's, mean, I guess if you're doing practice, like if you're practicing your whatever hits against the wall and you have headphones in, that's one thing. But I mean, if we're playing.

doubles and you have like your personal Taylor Swift session going on in your ears. Like what am I tapping you to be like, is it our, I mean, how do we know what the score is? Cause I gotta talk to somebody cause I ain't getting it right. Right. And we brought this up in a previous episode. So go find that where we talked about radios or music on the court. But I think, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Headphones in tells me you don't want to be bothered, but I'm also playing.

as your doubles partner. So why don't you want to be bothered by me? Am I that bad or you're that bad or you just can't stand it when I'm grunting out there and trying to hit the ball? don't know. Yeah, it's such a social sport. Like dude, save that for Planet Fitness on your treadmill or something. I agree. I feel like it is such a social sport and just having your headphones in, it's like you're just by yourself. You're in your own little zone.

GUY BEVERIDGE (17:52.294)
and you're meant to be out there talking with your friends and having fun and laughing and talking smack, just having a good time. It's destroy for me. It's a destroy for me as well. Yeah, but okay, so let me bring a different angle to it. So you're just trying to get your reps in with with pickleball, you're on the court with your friends. But some of these headphones also work as microphones, and they also work for your phone. So now we're, know, and like, like one of the judges I know is he wears what looks like

AirPods, but they're actually hearing aids. Well, if you have hearing aids in and you're my doubles partner, I obviously know you're you need hearing aids. Hearing aids are a little bit different. I don't think we're talking about hearing aids. We're talking about like you listening to your favorite George Straight track. I was just trying to bring another angle at it. I can see people in their car yelling at the radio right now. Well, yeah, I use them as hearing aids or I use them for take phone calls. Maybe it's a doctor just trying to get a

get a couple of dinks and he's got to you know, he's for a liver transplant. don't know, then you're not going to be doing it on the court. You're not. That's too far. It's a destroy. I was yeah, being devil's advocate. It's a destroy for me to just the devil. Battle Princess destroy destroy no headphones when you're playing with other people, no matter how much you don't like them. Agreed. Tell us what you think. BD podcast.com

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GUY BEVERIDGE (19:54.235)
found, heard, and learned.

This is the part of the podcast that I absolutely love and I actually learned quite a bit on my own podcast, of all things. Something we found, something we learned and something we heard. I'm going to start something that I found. came across my social media this week and I thought it was interesting in a way, but it probably could have been a dink or destroy as well. Swing vision. Have you heard of swing vision? No. gosh, I'm about to school you. So swing vision, I'm...

What it is, you set up your phone as a camera, it's an app, and it links to your watch as well, your wearables, it's iPhone right now, and you have it set up on the court. Oh, so you can see the line if you're out or not. out, it calls I didn't know it was called swing vision. Swing vision, yeah. That's intense. I'm thinking. No, no, it's on the court. Okay, my watch is normally dead. Yeah, true. That's valid. I thought it was really cool, the way, you know, obviously their marketing is really good about it.

But you know, so you think I'm hitting killer line shots and it just comes back, it? No, there's about 12 miles an hour and it's clearly out. know, it's just holding you accountable by also making fun of you, I think, in a way. I don't think it does that, it is showing the line shots, showing where the ball landed. So it is giving you that feedback almost automatically. if the other side So like the instant replay of the football world, the baseball world. Yep, it definitely is.

Interesting. think part of the fun of pickleball is your opponents getting to be the ones that say whether it's in or out and then everybody arguing or nobody arguing or everybody laughing. But is it an official rule that your opponent has to cause the line shots or is that something we just do? No, no, that's how it is. It's like whoever side it goes to, they're the ones that call it. So it's trust, I think. And in our case, you're always hitting them out. mean, yeah, you're probably right about that.

GUY BEVERIDGE (21:54.641)
I'm just focused on actually hitting the ball. Yes. I have to learn how to do that first before I can care about swing vision. I am definitely not at that level. Nothing like WandaVision. Swing vision is probably like, hey, paddle princess, are you on the court? You set up the camera at your house and you're not even here. That's valid. Yeah, I thought it was really neat as far as technology advances. Obviously, it's going to be at all the major tournaments if they don't already have it. It's a good way for you to keep everybody honest, I guess.

Why don't you just play with better people? don't have to worry about honesty. Upgrade your friends. you go. Who's got the learned? I do. So something that I learned that I thought was really, really interesting was that the ball can bounce twice and still be in play in one case. So normally if the ball bounces twice, the rally's over. But if it hits the net post the first bounce and it bounces twice in bounce, then it's still live. I always thought that if it just...

bounced twice and it was dead. But if it hits the net first and then bounces twice, you can still play it. Yeah, because I mean, sometimes I second bounce counts for me. You always say that because you can't get to it in time. Twice is nice. That's what I say for bounces. That's my rule. That's how I play. It's my little rule that I have. for everything. Like the Monopoly cheaters edition, we need the pickleball cheaters edition. It's not cheating.

It's twice as nice. I call it before we start so everybody knows. I'm playing twice as nice, guys. No. It's like, Jacks are wild. No. No? Didn't know that. I didn't know that either. I thought it was really cool. Wait, so if it hits the net, then it's allowed to bounce twice? Correct. At any time? I think you need to, like, if you go and play with other people, you need to be like, hey, do y'all play with the twice as nice where it's like the net, you know? And if they're like, oh yeah, like they look at you like, duh, everybody knows that. Then you're like, okay.

But like you were to just come play with me and I wouldn't have known that rule and it happened. I would have been like, you just made that crap up. I can totally understand that. Double bounce counts. Double bounce counts twice as nice. Okay. Well, I have heard. So this is a new flirting trend that I saw on TikTok called sticky eyes. So basically it's like you just have a longer gaze to create attraction. That's called ogling. Yes.

GUY BEVERIDGE (24:17.331)
I feel like... They just came up with a new name for it? I'm like, we really rebranding basic human interaction? And then being like, look what we invented. Yes. So we're just rebranding conjunctivitis. Right. That's what I'm like, it sounds like an allergic reaction. brought my eyes to the wrong place and now I have sticky eyes. Yeah. And I mean, think about it. Like, if you're engaging with someone and you're trying to flirt with them and you're making eye contact, okay, that's basic human interaction. But if someone's like...

really making eye contact with you for a long time? Are you are you calculating my net worth? What are you doing? Are you trying to plan my demise? Are you looking to see if you can wear my skin as actual? Yeah, that's creepy. Puts the lotion on this. Or it gets the hose. That's what I'm saying. It's like, how long is too long to have sticky eyes? I don't know. It's weird. It's creepy. It is really weird. how long is too long? So.

Well, I mean, we have that barbecue place in town that's called Sticky Fingers. Maybe Sticky Eyes and Sticky Fingers could go together. Eyes and Sticky Maybe you got barbecue sauce in your eyes. I just, I just That seems weird to me. Yeah, I don't know. It's called Sticky Eyes. Yeah, in my day, was called Oogling and HR talked to you about it. Exactly. Like, there's videos on that. Yeah. So anyways, Sticky Eyes, it's like a new trend, but...

It's not. it based on the emoji where like both eyes are looking sideways? Like the Donald Duck, ooh, like that. That's ridiculous. I don't know. But anyways, sticky eyes. Interesting. Sticky notes. Tell us what you think about the found, learned and heard from this week's episode. Go over to our social media, bdepodcast.com. Find us on all of our social platforms. You can chime in there. Also, you can go to the website and you can scroll down and you can leave us a message if we use yours.

then you'll hear it. That's how that works. You'll hear it. You're not going to get anything. We're not big enough yet to start giving away stuff, but we will. Lord. That's it for this episode. Unless you've got something to say, think we got it wrong, have a better take. We want to hear it. Find us at bdepodcast.com or at bdepodcast on the socials. Drop us a message.

GUY BEVERIDGE (26:28.423)
We might just feature you in the next episode. If you had a good time, well, same-sies. If not, maybe try again. We grow on people. So you know the deal. Follow the show, tell a friend, and leave us a review. Or just pretend this never happened. Until next time, keep the dink soft and the energy big.