Bruce Springsteen's Wrecking Ball

What kind of relationship can a music fan have with their idols? What do they owe us and in return, besides for buying their product or getting it somehow-what do we owe them?

I first saw Bruce Springsteen in the spring of 1975 in Austin, Texas. The experience was as freakazoid as they come. A positively archetypal East-Coast band performing in one of the most laid-back venues (The Armadillo World Headquarters) there ever was, in front of cowboys, hippies, and me, for as long as I could handle it.

I left midway. The guitars, the drums, the assault of the band on stage seemingly coming out straight for the audience was too much for my Joni Mitchell-honed ears. I was into Neil Young and all things mellow and ponderous.

The Bruce Springsteen experience was something I wasn’t quite ready for, yet.  

Now, I’ve seen Bruce and his cohorts about forty or fifty times since that weekend so long ago. While I’ve left the house for most of the major album release tours, I’ve also been fortunate enough to see Bruce in small clubs (The Old Waldorf, SF and others) plus his departures and side-projects (The John Kerry concerts and showing up for friend’s gigs.)

So in a way, I feel like I know Bruce. Of course, I’ve never met the guy.

This past Tuesday, for the first time in years, I went down to my local record store and purchased Bruce’s newest CD, “Wrecking Ball.” It reminded me of the old days when Tuesdays were known for more than meeting with Morrie.

It was exciting and reminded me how much things have changed. While I walked the three blocks to the local record store, which happens to be one of the largest in the United States, my girlfriend downloaded the iTunes version to her phone. I was analogging it as my girlfriend’s digitized world barely blinked before her iThing was opening up with “We Take Care of Our Own.”

Okay, it’s been two days and here’s what I think…

On the initial listen, it sounds like a Greatest Hits package #6 or “Springsteen Essentials Vol. IV” from the very near future. The music is first rate and extremely likeable. That’s actually been the problem of some of Bruce’s music in the last decade, almost since the crucial mark of 9-11; his music is anthem-like and comforting in a very Bruce kind of way.

In the last couple of albums, the call and response that developed between Bruce and the live audience seemed a little forced. Maybe that’s not the correct usage. It felt like Bruce wrote songs to include the audience. That if there was a way to have the audience chime in, or figure out their part, it incorporated itself into that Parthenon of seemly endless other songs that connects Bruce to his audience and then back again to the stage. Besides for giving new life from the studio version, it further cements the bond between Bruce and his people.

I do not see any reason to write in the possible audience reaction when there are so many opportunities for that to happen organically with Bruce and his music. All Bruce has to do is with Oldsters like me is point the mic towards us and we’re singing the second verse of his old stuff when he says it is our turn.

The other noticeable drawback, if that is the correct choice of words, is the eclectic nature of the album. Again, here’s another example of not winning for losing. When Bruce does a session or theme album like the Depression Era-soaked “Nebraska,” we complain about how one-note it is. It becomes how we can’t get our little heads around what he’s trying to say unless each songs relates to one theme.

On Wrecking Ball, Bruce is all over the place, not really residing in one genre too long. I wouldn’t even attempt to break each song down and give my interpretation to what I think the author had in mind. I don’t think it is that kind of an album.

This is what it is like for me.

Being caught in the trappings of old age and what I bring to it.

With Bruce, it is like meeting an old friend whose first wife passed away from a long debilitating disease. We remember his previous life with reverence and the selfishness of our own thoughts of being a part of a young couple’s beginning journey and the times we shared together.

Not that our friend has remarried, to a great partner, we’re sure- we remain optimistic, happy for his happiness, and try not to let our feelings of missing something that’s not there, to get in our way of enjoying the moment.

With the passing of Clarence and Danny, there are shadows on the stage that may never go away for some of us. That we can’t enjoy what we’re seeing and hearing because of our love for what was, knowing that it is gone forever.

With Wrecking Ball, Bruce again is at the top of his game. It is really our problem with who he is that is the impediment. How can a rich guy sing about what’s it is like for the 99%? At one point a character in a song talks about if he had a gun, he’d shoot the bosses and bankers down. I believed him. And with much of the album, when Bruce sings and directs us to watch out for our own, and he has done consistently since he’s grown-up way down by the River, so many albums ago, I know he’s being serious.

I personally bring so much baggage now, I don’t even know if it is fair to review this album. I’d be remiss if I made snide comments about Bruce mostly just because I can?

Anyone can say he’s an old out of touch, a silk-collar guy pretending he’s blue. But is he?

As Bruce does his thing unceremoniously as he always has- playing locally in Jersey and can be seen with Tom Morello’s latest project, and going out on tours with his big band sound-we Tweet and talk about him like we know what we’re speaking about.

How about that Wrecking Ball is a diverse and complicated project where Bruce Springsteen picked out 12 songs that he wanted to share with his peeps to show them where he’s at.

Done.

Leave it there.

If you need to hear Thunder Road in another form, it ain’t going to happen. For some reason, Wrecking Ball, the song, sounds most like old Bruce and I’m not even sure what that is anymore.

I heard that Bruce wrote most of this before the Occupy Movement was happening. That makes sense. Bruce has been writing stuff like this since Darkness. His message isn’t new. Maybe that’s why old dudes like me stay so close to him. He’s consistent and reliable.

The Stones are celebrating their fifty year anniversary this year. Name one song you would like to hear slow, stripped-down, between you and the band.

With Bruce that’s a given and you never know which song is going to be that game-changer for you. That one he did with Born in the USA, draining the anthem rock out of it and playing blues-style the way it was meant to be heard.

The real question other people ask is-Can Bruce Springsteen at this point in his career, still be the voice of the Common Man?

I don’t think that’s fair to ask. I think what may be truer is- Can you relate to Bruce and his music as you once did, or have you changed too much from the person who first jumped into that Camero with the Hurst on the floor to go racing in the streets?

I didn’t get tickets for Bruce’s upcoming concert. I thought about it and when I decided to do it, the show sold out. Life moves pretty fast.

Yesterday it was reported that Lady Gaga has the most followers on Twitter than any other human being or animal or mineral on this Earth. What did her monumental tweet say? “Check out the new Springsteen album.”

Another lifetime ago I walked out on Bruce. Now I can’t get a ticket.

But I’m content with my memories, all of Bruce’s music that I have stored and acquired, now with the eco-sound new CD I bought legitimately this past week, I have another entry for the Springsteen canon.

Bruce can really pick and choose like very few artists can. Those twelve songs on his new CD, they’re on there for a reason. To find fault or imperfection, I don’t know if it is worth it.

The very first listen, the very, very first hearing before I knew what I was hearing, I thought I was listening to the soundtrack to “The Waltons-the Movie,” if the movie remake had a two hundred dollar budget to work with and half was going to music production. It was like an Appalachian Spring Gone Baroque!  

I found it easy to find fault and mock. But mostly what I was doing was comparing. Comparing these songs of new to my old memories of yore and yesterday when I thought I really knew what was what.

I’ve barely been to New Jersey or to the behind the scenes of late-night carnivals or hunger strikes or being stranded on the beach cold and in love yet Bruce has taken me to all these places.

Dylan likes a relative who can do no wrong and I will always accept him as he wants to be.

Bruce challenges and then makes us decide for ourselves which way we want to go.

I resist the temptation to fit Bruce Springsteen into my world and tell you how his music is a certain way. That would be bullshit.

It is a journey. You have to find out some things on your own.

Wrecking Ball is a great album. If you can’t see that, you’re too close to something. Either your ego that is unwilling to change or the fear that the world changes and you can’t tell until someone tells you that it’s changed.

There’s a consistent message to Bruce. All great artists have a style or a theme that permeates their work since the beginnings. I do not see Bruce any different. The benchmarks change. The sounds and producers change. Band members are no longer with us.

When great art hits a certain level, maybe it is best to let it go, tell some friends what you think, but let the guy be if your message he’s old and too rich to feel.

Bruce puts himself out there on display with his words and music. Maybe it is no coincidence that the title of his latest album is a vehicle of destruction. Maybe the Wrecking Ball isn’t against society and the Man but it is against us and our beliefs that we want to believe are safe.

Howard Zinn said you can’t be neutral on a moving train.

When you listen to Bruce now-who are you? Someone who lives in Neverland, somewhere near the Jersey shore in a judgmental shack plastered with pictures of Rosalita, Jenny, and a bunch of Marys ? Or a person who has grown with Bruce and doesn’t resent change but grows and matures like a song that been played for forty years, finding new chords and notes to mined, giving the listener another point of view that always been there.

But that is the artist job.

To show us what we’re afraid of seeing on our own.

The Great New Republican Test

The Great New Republican Test

1)      Only Democrats have abortions.

1. True
2. False

2)      The Wealthy are smarter.

1. True
2. False

3)      The larger the church, the closer to God you are.

1. True
2. False

4)      All problems in America started January, 20^th 2009.

1. True
2. False

5)      It is now acceptable to “bear false witness against your neighbor.”

1. True
2. False

6)      A Republican president has never increased the National Budget, only Democrats.

               a. True

               b. False

            7)  If Social Security was privatized as President George W. Bush requested, it would be gone now.

                        a. True

                         b. False

            8)  Family Values change yearly.

                         a. True

                        b. False

             9)   After three decades of tax cuts for the wealthy, these cuts have directly resulted in job creation and a better society for all.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            10)   The only redeeming benefit of Science is to know how to repair a fishing boat in Alaska; otherwise it is just a bunch of arguable facts.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            11)  The single greatest threat to marriage.

                        a. Gays

                        b. Gays

                        c. Gays

                        d. Divorce

            12)  The United States fought in Iraq and Afghanistan to:

                        a. To protect the Muslim people.

                        b. No fucking way?

            13)  The greater and more disastrous the event, (BP oil spill, Rupert Murdoch hacking 9/11 victims, Japan’s nuclear meltdown) the less it seems that it happen.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            14) The less intelligent states of America need to take legislative action against the possibility of Sharia Law being enacted in their state, because they’re actually that stupid of a state and in times of a crisis, lose their redneck minds.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            15)  All Republican presidents, once out of office, concern themselves with humanitarian affairs and work towards the betterment of the World.           

                        a. True

                        b. False

            16)  Any news that isn’t on Fox News is wrong.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            17) Americans are more than willing to pick fruit, clean hotel rooms and watch our children for minimum wage, if only given the opportunity.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            18) That the American flag is produced in China by slave labor is a perfect example of outsourcing.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            19) The Oklahoma City bombing was the work of four people.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            20) The World Trade Center attack was the work of:

                        a. 19 Operatives

                        b. al-Qaeda

                        c. The Entire Arab World

            21) Life begins at conception and Human Rights end at birth.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            22) Supporting the Troops only applies when the troops are overseas.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            23) The Constitution can be suspended in times of crisis.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            24) Italian and German Americans should have been intern in prison camps alongside Japanese-Americans during World War II, as was suggested by the military at the time.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            25) Republican administrations have been more successful for America than Democratic presidential administrations.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            26) Healthcare just isn’t for everyone.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            27) The poor can take care of themselves, the Rich need assistance in the form of subsidies and tax loopholes.

                        a. True

                        b. False

            28) America needs to return to an indescribable period of time that no one is sure of exactly when that is, but it is before now, when times were better and life was more suited to a Republican’s sensibilities. 

                        a. True

                        b. False

Emerald Triangle Bust

Comedy Day 2011

The Tea Party is Destroying this Country

I keep my sanity is by repeating over and over, “She was born in Iowa. She was born in Iowa.”

It goes against my inbred Minnesota ways to disparage Michele Bachmann, but I can no longer hold my northern tongue. I apologize in advance to the old school Minnesot’ns in our midst in might find problems with a fellow Gopherite bringing attention to the state.

I wouldn’t have done it unless it got to this…

When you start saying, “Just a few moments ago this nameless source just came up/spoke to/handed me some critical/secretive/ up to now mysterious information that I’d like to relate to America now.”

See, there is one reason a person can get away with a statement like that in America. It’s because they’re white.

It is because the bulk of the Tea Party is white that they’ve been as successful as they’ve been. It is also what will bring them down.

Think of any other social movement that has its origins in desperate beginnings. Gay rights groups, the Woman’s movement, the Anti-War movement, any group that needed representation to be heard.

I’ve been part of the Anti-War contingency since Viet Nam. I’ve subsequently been to many such marches against many wars since then. For the most part, I think I could rally a nice consensus of this nation stating that war is bad and we should get rid of it. I’m in my mid-fifties and I can barely remember a time we weren’t at war. It is almost like we like being in wars.

Why?  What is wrong with the Anti-war movement that it doesn’t catch on? Weren’t we vocal enough protesting the war. The wars? Didn’t we appeal to right emotion or logic center of the brain of the others who supported the wars?

What is about the Tea Party that has struck such a deep chord in America’s hearing that in two short years, they come to dominate the national dialogue?

I say, it’s because they’re white.

 America has been stealthy ruled by the likes of the Tea Party since the first white people came crashing onto Plymouth Rock. The ruling class, the rich, the old white men in power, has always been the minority to the vast majority of those around them that wasn’t white. But through fear, money, manipulation, whatever the means, the select few have made the many feel that they are at a loss. That there is something they should fear if they do not follow the rules. That all a simple being needs to do is put their collective noses to the grindstones, put in their time and because of a network started hundreds of years ago, you’ll advance simply by being part of the status quo.

If you do what you’re told. Do not question your station, sexuality, your morals or basically who you are, we will see that you get ahead, while others not like you, will meet a greater silent resistance.

This barrier will be unseen and won’t be malleable nor solid, the evidence only imagined and never confirmed.

If you’re white, or a close facsimile of that, we shall promote you befitting your station and your education.

And that worked for a long time.

Then there was a Black President. This is also coincide with the greatest economical downfall America’s experienced since the Great Depression that had left a generation of our grandparents scared and fearful even when telling them it was going to be okay here in the suburbs of the Sixties and Seventies.

Now what every minority member had been facing since answering an employment ad, was happening to Whites, too. Whites weren’t being hired. There were no more jobs for White people. It didn’t matter that nearly all businesses weren’t hiring. It only matter that now, White people couldn’t get a job on demand.

Let’s go back to Minnesota for a moment, Michele Bachmann’s district in Minneapolis in particular. It isn’t fair to pick on the metropolitan burg now that there’s a clash of values happening in the Senator’s borough. For the past years, many LBGT students have committed suicide because of bullying and taunting from other students. How to approach this issue is under fire because one side says Gay is bad and the other side wants students to be protected from any danger or harm, whoever the maligned student may be.

Leaving that issue alone, I think one can assume that Michele Bachmann’s district supports her political and spiritual beliefs. Today, they’re almost one in the same. I know these people, or I should say… I used to know these people.

That is one of the points I want to make. I used to know these people and today…I have no idea who they are, even though they’re still Minnesot’ns. See... I think that’s real crazy.

When I was growing up, change was all around. Guys were growing their hair out. Women were entering the workforce more. And religion was opening up.

When I was a kid, a guitar was a big thing in church or synagogue services. It began a new trend to become somewhat modern and in the process, attract a younger crowd. Another trend in the Sixties I remember happening was this open invitation that houses of worship had for inclusion. It was very common for my Catholic friends to experience one of my Jewish services and in turn I’d spend a Sunday with them in their Church. Many a Friday night in our Temple, there were people of color attending from the local Baptists churches over by Selby and Dale, from the hood.

We had a cultural exchange happening like there was a thirst for understanding that can only be quenched by the reality of seeing.

Now Churches are like forts. The word ‘Christian’ means to me, that once again, as a Jew, I’m on the outside. After fifty years of trying to bridge the gaps and promote and foster understanding between groups of people who only fear each other out of mostly ignorance and unawareness, we’re back where we started from.

The Tea Party has circled the wagons because they’re scared and they don’t care who knows it.

Because of harsh economic times, the Tea Party is where most everyone but them has been since the beginning of time. But because it is happening to them, now there’s a problem in America.

They feel betrayed. They were told in no uncertain terms, at least terms that can be repeated, that if they do what they were told, it would be fine. Well, it isn’t fine for them.

The world has changed. There isn’t an immigration totem pole like in their parent’s generation. In the old days, when someone came to this country, they started out as a janitor or worked in a factory for forty years sending their kids to college so they could become nurses and engineers. Now the new immigrant might start off at Google or Facebook. They get a big house, an American wife, maybe even become a politician. There isn’t a waiting period any more. They’re not paying their dues like they used. They’re hooking up to the American Dream and driving it down the road with them to another local.

The Tea Party in terms of a business model has always been McDonald’s or John Deere, just a quieter version of these landmarks. The Tea Party members feel disenfranchised like the rest of America, what they don’t realize is that they are the last franchise to go. The rest are gone but since they don’t care about anyone else, they didn’t notice.

Because the Tea Party members are scared and desperate, they are in the perfect state to be manipulated, like the Silent Majority before them.

Starting with the color-coded fears of the Bush-Cheney administration during the first eight years of the new millennium, while others mocked the primary color scare system, for fifty percent of our country, it worked. They were kept scared.  But the inherent problem of the Tea Party is ‘Intellectual Dishonesty.’

Intellectual Dishonesty is at the heart of every campaign and every movement that has sprung forth in the last years when dealing with the Tea Party.

One of the easiest tests of this is to give a Tea Party member a quiz. Have the test comprise of quotes. The quiz would consist of quotes from Ronald Regan to Al Gore, except they would have to identify who said what. When you’re average Tea Party member realizes that Ronald Regan raised taxes and others who they support have acted in ways that best could be describe these days as Democratic: They’re going to freak out.

Intellectual Dishonesty is what allows Big Business and the Rich to manipulate the Tea Party and their minions at will. In these days of outrageous corporate profits and the disparity among the rich and poor growing faster every month, the Tea Party members are led to believe and believe they do, that the poor are the reason everything is happening the way it is. That if somehow we could cut off one of our legs or arms, do away with an appendage that we blame, even though this will leave us somewhat weaker, it is better for us to hobble in the long run.

It is Intellectual Dishonesty that creates Death Panels and the last two wars. It is Intellectual Dishonesty that states it is un-American not to support the troops, that is until they come home. We’ve been in Iraq for almost ten years without question. The Tea Party is against spending or assisting other Americans. Why? Because money is tight and they feel it could be better spent or used in protecting the rich or the corporations.

Realize that for some reason, America needs enemies. We need a bad guy to blame or someone else to be our scapegoat. It doesn’t play into Tea Party politics to take accountability for your actions.  

That is another branch of the Tea Party strategy. Never admit when you’re wrong. And never admit to anyone outside the party, that the candidate really does just get onto the bus before it heads into town, otherwise she takes a private plane. They’ve taken an oath that’s much like the Mafia or the gypsies’ pledge that one doesn’t talk outside of the family. If you’re not one of us, we don’t respect you and you don’t deserve the truth.

Sadly, this also trickles down to their own. They’re told that this grass roots movement is purely funded by the people, for the people. That the agenda of the Tea Party and the Koch brothers with their multinational corporate interest are one and in the same and will yield the same equalitarian benefits. That it benefits the average American that jobs and manufacturing are shipped out of the country because of the tax codes and the burden that is put on our rich for having to think for all of us each day.

See the Tea Party still feels like they are still on the inside. The Bus-side speeches and the lawn chair talks keep them at bay and in tow. They argue for State’s Rights like it was handed down by the Lord until it goes against their national beliefs. Election time it is all about jobs. Once in office, it then becomes about abortion and the Gays.

The Tea Party wants the country to back to a time that never existed. If we could turn the clock back some three years, they believe we wouldn’t have any of the problems we’re facing today.

That’s why things never change for them. They want something that doesn’t exist. They are being led to Land of Broken Promises and because they’re scared and feel betrayed, they’ll believe anything that makes sense to their majority.

They have resonance on their side. They can be heard and not questioned. When it is their turn to be sick, will they remember the hearty applause Ron Paul receive when he said, “Let the uninsured die. That is the cost of Freedom.”

Will they remember that when it comes to them or their children or parents?

Will the Tea Party be responsible for the change in American politics that they’ve caused? Or like always, blame someone else for their troubles?

I cannot in my history remember any political party having this much influence in such a short time. Like snobby teenagers they mock others and laugh at the uncool kid’s pain. They move unabated and without consequence as they propel America deeper into a morass, keeping their sweaty hands on the rudder while blaming others for the direction of this political ship.  

The status quo has never been without a say. White people have always had the upper hand in the sway of where we’re going as a nation. When’s the last time you heard an African-American or Mexican or Asian child was missing?

I grew up ten minutes from Michele Bachmann’s district. It hurts me as a Minnesot’n to say this. But I don’t know those people anymore. They are not the good Christians or Minnesotans that I grew up with.

The Tea Party reeks of desperation. They’re like bad gamblers who pull in Vegas betting the last of their money on the hopes that a game of chance can cure their ills.

The bottom had dropped on a certain segment that has traditionally always scraped by. Now they’re back on the ground floor like the rest of us. In better economic times, they wouldn’t have to rub elbows with some many unknowns.

Now, we’re in this together and they don’t know what to do.