The Vig

Springsteen: There’s not a lot to add that Jack hasn’t said already (Part 1, 2, 3). It probably escaped most folks’ notice, but Rose Garden Poo Bah Mike Scanlon was at the north entrance as fans entered the arena on Friday night. That guy runs a tight ship. Few details get past him. As for the show… I laughed, I cried, I called Betty with Sunglasses. The highlights for me were “Lonesome Day”, “She’s the One”, and “Lost in the Flood”. Oh, and I may Xanax is fairly easy to Buy vicodin Buy Adderall
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Tall in the Saddle:  There was a Star Wars-esque plot twist in the fifth act wherein it turned out the hottie I was hoping The Duke would end up with was actually his cousin.  Instead he got Ella Raines.  Not a bad consolation prize, I suppose.  The movie also featured Gabby Hayes as “Dave”, one of the few times he played a character not named Gabby.  As usual he got the best line of the movie.

“She’s meaner than a skillet full of rattlesnakes.”

As Pete in Parkrose mentioned, I think I may have dated her at one point.

Man City:  The Blues have slid all the way down to 9th place in the table.  Safely out of relegation, but also safely out of European contention.  They’ve been a frustrating team all season.  They’ve shown an ability to go run with the big dogs, but then they get beat 3:1 at bottom-dwelling Birmingham.  I don’t get it.

Jim Norton:  I should have known it wouldn’t be my kind of show when I saw all the KUFO banners hanging in the lobby of the Winningstad Theatre.  But I was such a fan of his HBO special, I wanted to get out and support him.  I thought he was a young up and comer.  Turns out, he’s a regular with Opie and Anthony.  Now that’s a show I don’t get.  I knew we were in trouble when he went straight to relationship talk straight out of the chute.  He does the same thing on his Letterman appearance.  Lame, lame, lame.  And from there it just got worse.  And by worse, I mean the little old ladies who were acting as ushers were shocked.  It was the first night for one of them.  Two other ladies had to reassure her that not every show and not every crowd was “this bad”.  Norton did have a pretty good opener though by the name of Al Jackson.  You can see him here.  Comedy is a tricky thing.  There’s not a lot that separates them from musicians like Springsteen.  Every joke to a comedian is like a song to Springsteen.  The difference is while I love to hear Bruce break out the old tunes when I see him, I don’t want to see a comedian break out the same jokes every time I see them.  The only exception I can think of is Andrew Dice Clay.  Hmmm….  Just something I’ve been rolling over in my head.

Major League Baseball:  Diamondbacks over the Red Sox in six.  That’s based on nothing but pure speculation.  And any guess you make is based on the same thing.

The Big Lebowski:  I made the mistake of having three White Russians before the show last night.  I couldn’t get off the couch at all today.  Yes, this makes me a lightweight.  I don’t drink.  Like ever.  I figured if Jeffery Lebowski could guzzle Caucasians by the bucket load in that movie, then certainly I could do the same in real life.  Turns out I was wrong.  Lesson learned.

Since middle school, the release of a new Bruce Springsteen album has been a reason to celebrate. I can remember listening to Born in the USA on cassette while pretending to do homework in my room. The tinny little speakers I’d hooked up to my Walkman pumped out the first side of that album hundreds of times. “Cover Me” remains one of my favorite Springsteen tunes to this day.

Every album since, Tunnel of Love, Human Touch, Lucky Town, and even The Ghost of Tom Joad, were each treated as holy writ. Songs like “Valentine’s Day”, “Spare Parts”, “Real World”, and “Human Touch” can all affect me as much as “Badlands”, and (my personal favorite Springsteen tune of all-time) “She’s The One”.

The Rising marked a bit of a departure, at least in production, as Brendan O’Brien, known to my generation as the producer of several Pearl Jam albums, replaced longtime Springsteen producer Jon Landau. The result was spectacular. Gone was the perfectionism of the Landau-era. It was replaced by a much warmer yet still ragged sound. The Rising will go down along with Born To Run and Born in the USA as one of his greatest accomplishments. O’Brien is a huge reason for that.

Both Springsteen and O’Brien have teamed up on a new effort, due to hit the store shelves in early October. It’s called Magic. According to Springsteen’s website,

Bruce Springsteen’s longtime manager Jon Landau said, “‘Magic’ is a high energy rock CD. It’s light on its feet, incredibly well played by Bruce and the members of the E Street Band, and, as always, has plenty to say. It’s also immensely entertaining. ‘Magic’ is the third collaboration between Bruce and Brendan O’Brien and is a culmination of their very productive creative relationship.”

Landau should know.

So it was with great anticipation that I tuned into Little Steven’s Underground Garage tonight to hear the first single, “Radio Nowhere.” The mere title of the tune scared the crap out of me. I mean they’ve been blasting radio since before Elvis Costello did “Radio, Radio” on Saturday Night Live. A stunt which, by the way, got him banned from the show for more than a decade. More recently REM and Tom Petty have both taken aim at the current state of radio. And both did it very well.

Alas, Springsteen has not. I pulled over to listen to it and from the opening chords, there’s just something wrong. Near as I can tell, the tune was left on the cutting room floor from the Human Touch sessions and somehow brought back to life. It’s way overproduced and way muddy. It’s a bunch of guys trying to play over Roy Bittan’s organ with very little success. And God bless Bruce, but the “is there anybody alive out there” line in the chorus is nearly 20 years old. We’ve heard it a hundred times in live shows going all the way back to the Human Touch tour, and probably before that.

I wanted something new and fresh. I got a ball of lint.

After the tune played, Little Steven promised the rest of the record would sound just like “Radio Nowhere”. If true, October 2 will be a sad sad day. Is Bruce bored? Has he, as he did in 1991, run out of things to say? I really hope not. But who knows.

Little Steven also promised a tour and I’ve already begun saving my pop bottles and mowing extra lawns in anticipation. If this record is as bad as I fear it is, I hope he lays off it in concert and gives me some of the stuff I want. I’ve never seen him perform “She’s the One” live. If I could just get that, maybe this will all be worth it. Maybe.