The Grammy Foundation honors
Bruce this week with its annual MusiCares Person of the Year Award, recognizing
him for his lifelong achievements in music and charity efforts. Bruce is as
much the world class humanitarian as he is the accomplished musician. His
latest Grammy nominated single, We Take
Care of Our Own speaks to the core of his songwriting and ideals. The Boss doesn’t
just rock, he cares too.
From early in his career Bruce
built a deep connection with his audience, as he sought purpose, passion and
love in his own life. He invited us to join him on his journey. Seek out our
light. Live our dreams. All the while preaching, only together, will we truly
make it. In order to leave behind the Darkness
on the Edge of Town, traverse through the Badlands , and ultimately, reach the Promised Land, we need one another.
For men, Bruce sings perfectly
how we think about these things which give us meaning…about cars, about girls,
and about life. And like Bruce, we all just want to know if love is real. His
spirit fuels our hearts. His words entice our minds. His music lights our fire.
He’s tough. He’s sensitive. He understands. Bruce talks and walks like a man.
He’s the epitome of a “guy’s guy.” With all due respect to Jerry McGuire, it’s
The Boss who men want to be, and who women really want to be with.
This bromantic Boss affair
reaches all the way to the highest office in the land. During his first
national campaign, President Obama remarked, “I’m running for President because
I can’t be Bruce Springsteen.” Then, during the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors,
Obama reminded us that he may be the President, “but Bruce Springsteen is the
Boss.”
Ask Jon Stewart what he thinks of
Bruce Springsteen. Rolling Stone
magazine published a cover story last year where Jon spent an entire afternoon
convincing Bruce how much he meant to him. Or better yet, go to YouTube and
watch Jon’s incredibly humorous, yet poignant introductory remarks from those
’09 Kennedy Center Honors.
When it comes to our collective
“man crush” on Bruce, nothing about our adulation is meant to be funny, over-the-top,
or too dramatic.
NBC News’s Brian Williams,
perhaps the most ardent of celebrity Springsteen tramps, confessed to Wendy
Williams that “if there would happen to be some sort of chemical imbalance one
day that would cause him to go in the other direction, Bruce would be his guy.”
And he wasn’t joking.
Newsweek’s President Rob Gregory’s
license plate calls out “Bruuuce” to all on-lookers.
Author Peter Ames Carlin just
spent 494 pages detailed pages examining the life of Bruce.
An 18-year old Scottish Blogger who
tragically lost his Father 5 years ago and has found both consolation and
inspiration in Bruce’s music finally saw him in concert for the first time last
year. “In New Jersey
The two Eds, Norton and Burns are
smitten.
John Cusack could go for a soak
in his Hot Tub Time Machine with a certain Jersey boy.
And speaking of time travel,
Michael J. Fox has plenty of plutonium to power the flux capacitor anytime for
the Boss.
The coolest of the cool, Arthur
Fonzarelli is hot for him.
Zoolander Facebook stalks him.
Bababooey wants to share a
banana.
In 2008, Danny Devito gushed and
drooled like a little school girl while inducting his Asbury Hero into the New
Jersey Hall of Fame.
Robert Dinero’s signature line
“Are you talking to me?” came courtesy of Mr. Springsteen.
Tom Hanks belted out “Rocky
Ground” into my ear at the infamous Apollo Show earlier this year as if his
next Oscar depended on it.
Bono, Eddie Vedder and Tom
Morello all want Bruce to be their fourth.
Even Bruce’s current Manager Jon
Landau, who you would expect to have the deepest of crushes, wrote this when he
was just another music critic for The
Real Paper in 1974, BEFORE he became his lifetime business partner. “When
his two-hour set ended I could only think, can anyone really be this good; can
anyone say this much to me, can Rock ‘n Roll still speak with this kind of
power and glory? And then I felt the sores on my thighs where I had been
pounding my hands in time for the entire concert and knew that the answer was
yes.” And oh by the way, in that same column he also declared, “I saw Rock and Roll future and its name is
Bruce Springsteen.”
In a world filled with broken
promises, distrust and false idols one man continues to rise above and outshine
the rest. When people ask me why I love Bruce so much, or why I need to see him
perform in concert over and over again, I always say the same thing. He never
disappoints. And while I’ve never actually met him, I did touch his foot once
while he crowd surfed…I feel like I’m as close to him as any other man I’ve
ever known, outside my Father…who’s also in love with him…mainly because of
me. In all sincerity, I trust him. I know
I can count on him. He’s my best friend.
Another close friend and I use to
say to each other that if we could find a
woman to light up our lives like Bruce does, we’d be the two happiest guys in
the world. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.
If you want to see what it looks
like for a bunch of grown men to have tears of joy in their eyes with their
arms raised high, go to a Bruce Springsteen concert.
In Landau’s much quoted historic review
he also wrote, “There is no one I’d rather watch on a stage today.” I’ll call and raise that sentiment.
There’s nothing I’d rather be
doing than watching Bruce on stage today. And I do mean NOTHING. Well…I
wouldn’t mind throwing the baseball around with him and then having a beer.
I love you Bruce Springsteen.
