They blew up the chicken man in Philly last night

They'll pass you by, glory days.

9:33 AM

Having a weird music obsession lately.

It's not cool.

Not cult.

Not punk.

Not pushing the boundaries of taste with walls of screeching feedback.

It's music for Memorial Day BBQs and Fourth of July. For summer days in hot cars shopping with mom with the FM radio playing. For people older than me but younger than my dad.

But I seem to have come around to it again through the side door somehow.

Bruce Fuckin' Springsteen.

I find myself weirdly connecting to his Vietnam vet narratives in this strange post-pandemic vibe and the weird political vibe shift of the last half-decade. Of things coming to an end. Waking up in a country you don’t quite recognize.

Crazy how music hits when it's ready.

I drive county highways through the border towns of Indiana and Ohio every couple of weeks to meet up with my son. Places centered around gas stations and farm co-ops. Musty old churches and credit unions. Faded downtowns flying banners of locals lost in Vietnam, Korea, and the big one.

Change his Jersey oil refineries to Indiana corn towns and the message is the same. People you'll never see again. Mistakes you can't come back from. Hot cars and FM radio days that are gone now.

Guess I'm a long gone daddy in the USA now.

One who spent a lifetime chasing the open road to one wondering where the time went. How my kid got so tall and his voice so deep. How my parents went from capital-P Parents to real people with hopes and anxieties uncannily similar to my own.

It makes one do funny things like write a letter to the tiny Yorktown house we lived in when we were young. Or lean against the kitchen sink like I did yesterday with wet eyes while My Fathers House played and reminded me you can't ever go home again.

Honestly, I can't believe I'm pontificating on Bruce Motherfuckin Springsteen.

But the Boss was a sad man. A voice from the big empty.

And here I am somehow, with him in the darkness on the edge of town.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

What I’m reading: Born in the USA (Geoffrey Himes, for 33 1/3)

What I'm listening to: Nebraska (Bruce Springsteen)

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