people who love bruce springsteen

hello, friends,

good pal and theater maker david bradley published this piece in the philadelphia daily news and it certainly bears a reprint here.

i was at the october 6th concert in philly (my 34th!) and will be attending the show on november 11th in DC. bradley's words resonate deeply...enjoy.

michele

Bruce Springsteen Sounds the Alarm

By David Bradley

The 2008 presidential campaign made a two-night stop at the Wachovia Center last weekend. Instead of a bevy of candidates there was a band of musicians. Instead of a smiling front-runner there was a strutting front-man. And instead of massaged messages, there was open talk of lies and lost liberties.

It wasn't Hillary or Barack or Rudy or Fred onstage. It was Bruce. Springsteen, that is, along with his comrades from the E Street Band. It was rock 'n roll not politics, but only someone who wasn't listening closely could say it was only rock 'n roll. And I liked it even more because it wasn't.

Springsteen mentioned no candidate, and, unlike the "Vote for Change" tour that backed John Kerry, offered no endorsements. Instead he used the metaphors and imagery of art to sound an alarm, singing in a new song, "Woke up Election Day, skies gunpowder and shades of gray." The song is called "Livin' in the Future," and you can tell Springsteen hopes this ominous forecast doesn't come true.

That number has a bright bounce to go with a sunny refrain: "Don't worry darlin'…none of this has happened yet." But it's a false shine, and that's the point. This song's about denial, about how we proclaim success in the face of defeat and impugn as doomsayers those who disagree.

He might not admit it, but Springsteen's framed the debate of the next year for us. It's all about telling the truth, counting the cost and living up to ideals. "Is there anybody alive out there?" screams his new song "Radio Nowhere," a tone-setter for his current tour. Saturday night, I heard it as a wake-up call to see the shadows surrounding us and hold our leaders, and ourselves, accountable.

Springsteen's music came of age alongside the betrayal of Watergate and the admission of American malaise from perhaps the last real truth-teller in the White House. But his characters didn't need a president to tell them things weren't working. They saw it in the factory and felt it behind the wheel as they raced towards a promised land fading from reach. Somehow, though, they still believed they'd get there.

If the music grew up in the dark night of the seventies, it flexed its muscle in the gleam of the eighties, against the glossy façade of Ronald Reagan's morning in America . Reagan tried to co-opt the grit of the Boss's "Born in the U.S.A. " in his 1984 campaign, blithely ignoring the cutting irony of the lyrics and embracing only the patriotic-sounding title. Springsteen's been on guard ever since, his songs less anthems of faith and more cautionary tales of surviving falsehood.

So there he was Saturday night, giving a shout-out to the Constitution in its hometown, pointing his telecaster and taking aim at the truth-twisting of those in power. But with his legendary knack for fusing rock 'n roll revival with a tent meeting for serious business, he enlarged the conversation past party or personality, which he never discussed.

Instead, he sang of a fallen soldier mourned by his buddies, a huckster illusionist ready to saw us in half and the "long walk home" between the choices we've made and the values we profess. He closed the show with " American Land ," a Seeger-esque tribute to "the hands that built the country" that are "still dyin' now." There was no mistaking the gap he sees between where we stand as a nation and where we could be.

A long time ago, the young rebels in Springsteen's songs had faith in spirits in the night, whose magic held forth the possibility of change, the idea of transformation. Saturday night, introducing the title song of his new album Magic by criticizing politicians who would turn truth into lie and lie into truth, Springsteen exposed the underside of the enchantment. "This ain't about magic," he stated, "it's about tricks."

Be warned, he seems to be saying. We're in the shadows of a precarious night, and it's an open question as to whether we can really change. Are we up for a fight or content with a show? In what will we put our faith--real transformation or hollow tricks?

Is there anybody alive out there?

David Bradley is a writer, theater artist and educator who lives in West Mount Airy

bulletproof glass

Michele just sent me an email about this blog which read:

update it.you have some things to say.say them.

Umm. Ok.

It's 1:00 AM Monday night. I just got back from an open mic at a bar called Fergie's, on 12th and Sansom in Philly. I played three songs accompanied by the drummer of the house band. We had never played together before, he had never heard the songs. But it went ok. Better than last week, my first performance since being back Stateside, which was less than stellar.

But the details of my music career are quite inconsequential.

Well, sort of.

I ride my bicycle through the streets a lot. I generally enjoy it. If I have my iPod in, I'm rocking out. If I don't, I'm usually either running through some of my songs, or thinking about riffs and lyrics and melodies for new ones.

So I've got an idea for a new song. It is called Bulletproof Glass. I conceived it waiting on line at the post office. A thought along the lines of "why the fuck is there fucking bulletproof fucking glass across the fucking counter at the fucking post office? Who the fuck is robbing the fucking post office?"

It was probably hot, I'd probably spent a frustrating day pounding the pavement looking for a job (speaking of, if anyone reading this would like to employ me in any capacity whatsoever, I am open) and running errands and trying to put a life together here in America. Easier said than done, and it's not even easy to say. Just looking at that sentence makes me cringe, makes me think about the DMV and other such sucky places.

So let's get back to the bike. I ride my bike.

In Sapporo, I also rode a bike. A heavy silver metal one with a basket like all the old Japanese ladies ride. I'd go blasting through the downtown area with the iPod on at all hours of day or night, in all states of consciousness, and never once worried about anything or anyone, ever. Period.

The other night I was riding along on my way to go eat Mexican food with my friends down in South Philly. I was heading into what was obviously a "rough" neighborhood. My bicycle is old, and creaky. When I've got the iPod in, I forget how much noise I'm cranking out as I barrel on and off the sidewalks. So anyway, I come up behind this black kid, probably a teenager. And I've got the earphones on but I must be making one hell of a racket, the old rusty frame straining against the tires, the pedals going round and round defying ten years beneath my parents' back deck.

So as I pass the kid, he turns, and swings. Closed fist. That is his instant, and natural, reaction. He does not hit me. He stops himself when he sees my face, when he sees that I am not . . . . I don't know who or what he thought I was. A threat, obviously. I mutter (or scream, probably, in order to hear the apology over Tupac, who I think was playing on shuffle at the time) an apology, pedal hard, and do not look back.

Moments later, I make a decision to get out of that neighborhood and onto Washington Avenue, a well-lit main drag.

Buddy Evan Young, a magazine editor and comic book writer and almost novelist, provides a startlingly accurate description of the smell of Philadelphia somewhere in the pages of his unfinished novel. I won't even attempt to reproduce it here.

The point, though, is that I would like to somehow figure out a way to describe how the streets of Philadelphia feel.

There are a great number of wonderful things about this city. Say what you want about the sports fans, but they are among the most knowledgeable in the country. The musicians at Fergie's pub on Monday nights, to a man (or woman), are kind, open, funny, welcoming. The art museum rocks, the traffic doesn't seem to bad, the skyline is well on its way.

But when I ride my bike through the city, day or night, I am afraid of almost everyone I encounter.

Perhaps I am a big pussy. Or perhaps my sense of what is safe is skewed. Perhaps I am misinterpreting multiculturalism for racism. Perhaps I have been living in Japan too long.

Let me ask a question. There is a lot of talk about rights these days. What we should be allowed to do as citizens, what our government should be allowed to do as a body. But in the year 2007, at the pinnacle of civilization and culture and technology and awareness of diversity, shouldn't everyone on the planet, and not just those in Japan and a few other countries around the world, have the basic right to walk outside of their home and go somewhere without having to worry about "rough" neighborhoods?

Travelers to foreign lands, historically, have always had to worry about safety. From the first hunter-gatherers all the way up. Fear of an unknown person or entity is a natural human reaction.

But there are very few unknowns anymore. At least not in America. We're all very well aware of whites and blacks and hispanics and Asians and other. We have a pretty good understanding of what each race is about, what they eat and how they interact with each other and how they get married. It's all right there in front of us everyday.

So why am I afraid riding my bicycle through the streets? Where does that energy come from?

Please don't tell me I've been away too long, that I don't know what "reality" is. And please don't tell me that it is only my perception of things because I've been out of the country for so many years. People who live and work in the city and have been here for a long time have told me which neighborhoods are safe and which ones are not. They've told me to watch my back, to be careful, to avoid talking to strangers. Somebody offered to buy me a can of mace, and somebody else told me that I should not be so "aggressively friendly".

I don't want to expand this into a broad comment about fear and anger and race in America, because not all the facts are in, and because I am not yet informed enough about these topics. I am simply talking about how I feel a lot of the time. And why there is bulletproof glass at Taco Bell, and at filling stations, and, as I said, at the post office. It has become, I suppose, necessary.

One final point. Living in a safe world is a basic human right. But often rights must come with responsibility.

In a word, the safety of our world is all of our responsibility. So, like, what are we going to do about it?