Image via Wikipedia

I was raised on The Boss.  Being born and raised in north Jersey in the 80s he was inescapable.  My mother and her entire family are die-hard fans so anywhere I went growing up I was hit with The Boss and I cannot thank them enough for that.  I consider Bruce to be one of the top 3 greatest songwriters in the history of rock music and one of the greatest performers alive.  Bruce has this amazing ability to capture emotion and convey it via song like very few people in existence.  Each album captures exactly what was happening in his heart, his life, his town, and his world while remaining amazingly concise.  He manages to do all of this and writs in a way that makes it all relate-able to every single person who hears it.  I wasn’t alive in the 70s, let alone alive and living in Asbury Park, but I get a feel for the climate of that time and place through his music.  When you combine this with the amazing E Street Band you get something rarely seen in music: the whole package.

So I pose the question:  Where have all the Bruce Springsteens gone?  Is he such a rare treasure we can never realistically expect to see another like him?  Or has the music industry changed and the great songwriters of our time are overshadowed by manufactured and/or generic rock and pop music?  I find myself having to look to indie and underground artists to find songwriting that even approached Bruce Springsteen‘s caliber.  They’re out there and I have found one group the approaches and even touches on Bruce in Arcade Fire but despite their popularity they aren’t quite what I am referring to in this article.  I am looking for an artist with the skills of Bruce that takes over the world in a sense.  I want someone to come out of nowhere and give a musical voice to the events of out time while somehow managing to top all of the charts.  Sadly I don’t think the music industry is built for that anymore.  The art of the album is lost in mainstream music.   In the end though, I think I’m just chasing a ghost.

Disclaimer:  I am hardly and expert nor am I aware of every chart-topping album from the past 20 years or so.  Though I am referring to someone who hits the mainstream and is Bruce-level of talented I would gladly take lesser known recommendations.  Like I said, I am hardly a reliable source and I most likely missing a lot of good music in my collection.  I was just pondering Bruce on the way to work and wondered why popular music can’t seem to life up someone similar to him these days.

Related Articles

• Bruce Springsteen: The Promise – review (guardian.co.uk)
• Bruce Springsteen Keeps His Promise By Embracing The Darkness (blogcritics.org)

Image by Marion Doss via Flickr

Hidden among the recent discovery of old documents that were found buried deep in the Library of Congress was a secret diary written by none-other than George “FIRST!” Washington (as in D.C. bitches!).   Several facts not previously known include that he had 12 toes, would kill British children for sport, and that he was a frequent cross-dresser.  These discoveries have brought to light even more information when applied to previously known information.  In fact a few theories are being developed around the idea that Martha Washington never even existed.  Supporting evidence for this theory include the fact that no known text in existence depicts George and Martha in the same place at the same time.  One popular alternate theory is that Martha died in a tragic horse accident and George cross-dressed to show his pain.  One thing is for sure:  George is now officially the first cross-dressing president.  Maybe in 100 years we’ll discover the identity of the second.

Image via Wikipedia

I am not a Kung Fu movie expert and I don’t read the forums or blogs concerning the movie genre;  I simply watch them for fun.  So anything said here is probably not original by any stretch of the imagination…. in this universe.  In the super-alternate universe where-everything-I-say-is-original-and-just-so-happens-to-be-the-universe-in-which-this-post-exists I am the leading source for information regarding kung fu movies.

Kung fu movies are like musicals for men.  A kind of manly poetry in motion.  I see people ask “Why don’t all the enemies just attack at once?” to which I always reply “Because it wouldn’t have been nearly as beautiful”.  That is a big problem I have with a lot of modern-day martial arts movies.  They still retain the “one man at a time” formula but they don’t do it nearly as eloquently.  It is simply a way to up the body count.  In classic kung fu movies each lackey that is fought off still gets the poetic treatment from the choreographer.  This attention to detail gives the viewer a sense of the care that went in to making the film.  The good fights always feel like a chess match between two grand masters who each refuse to give even an inch until that last blow delivers a deadly check mate.

So when ladies say that men can’t appreciate art or beauty they’re wrong.  Men just see beauty in different things.  Though we don’t call it “beauty”, we call it “badassity”.

Image via Wikipedia

It all started about a month ago when my doctor’s office messed up my prescription for Zoloft and didn’t give me any refills on a normally 11 refill cycle.  I waited a week for the pharmacy and doctor’s office to work things out and when I finally received my refill I didn’t want it any more.  I have lost ten years of my life to antidepressants.  Ten years wasted doing nothing because my brain was on autopilot.  I wasn’t completely myself, I had no desire to do anything, I had no sex drive hence no relationships in almost 7 years and the pills actually made me more depressed in the end.

So here I am, 27 days in and just hitting rock bottom.  They said it would be hard but every little thing makes my brain go into sad mode.  Don’t have time to talk?  Sad.  Didn’t return my call?  Sad.  Hanging out with someone who isn’t me? Sad.  It is a spiral that I can’t seem to stop.  I feel like I am destined for the crazy house.  Maybe those are MY people.  Maybe I relate to damaged goods better than real people.  The world may never know because I put on a good front.  I’ll either suffer through this life or end up dead one day.

Image via Wikipedia

I am lost.  I have no idea what is going on in my life and people keep pushing me away.  Thirty-six hours ago I was looking to hurt myself and still today that thought lingers.  Everyone I know keeps things from me and they all claim it is none of my business but I am the only person out of the loop.  On paper I look like a nice intelligent person to be around but there must be something about me that keeps people from wanting to get close to me.  People treat me like a novelty friend who is there to make them laugh.  A funny man.  I might as well be a clown.  I am also a placeholder until the bigger better deal comes along.  That’s my current role for most of my friends.  They’ll find more friends and boot me out of the friend loop and I will be left there sobbing.  A few months later when things don’t work out they’ll all be right back to me and I being the idiot I am accept them back like nothing happened.

I am not a baby everyone.  It’s the not knowing that makes me depressed.  You can’t just shelve me and pull me down when you need me.  I think the sense of bond you feel with people is a huge deal and at the moment I feel none of that.  I meet new people but they don’t want to know me.  I reconnect with old people and they don’t want to know me anymore.  Sorry people but from now on:  I’m Closed.

Starting today you'll notice a new feature at the bottom of all WordPress.com blog posts. We've enabled a "Like" button, which, when clicked, shows a Gravatar image for all the bloggers who like a post. When you "like" a post two core things happen. First, the blog post's author sees your "like" and can click-through to your Gravatar profile. Second, clicking "like" saves the post in your homepage dashboard (in the "Posts I Like" section), so you … Read More

via WordPress.com News