A Joyful Tension

Boston won the World Series last night, breaking a two year championship drought that repeatedly crushed the hopes and dreams of millions of residents of Red Sox Nation. Well, I guess you can only go there once. I didn’t cry last night like I did in 2004. I didn’t go out into my backyard and have a long conversation with my father, who passed away a year before the 2004 victory (Instead I did a Big Papi chestbump followed by a double-armed pointing up to the sky.) I think he understood.

Boston sportswriter Charles Pierce has a great piece on Slate.com where he compares the difference between the historical win of 2004 and the rather workman-like victory last night. Entitled “Red Sox Win Again. It Feels Great, Thanks For Asking,” the article debunks the theory floated by many that Red Sox fans were married to their angst and would never survive a championship. We can accept victories, I just hope we don’t emulate the worst of the Yankee fans (and management) and start viewing championships as entitlements.

I was brought up short by my wife after my mini-tantrum in Game Three when the Sox nearly blew a six-run lead, only to come right back and score four more runs. She asked me why I wasn’t more joyful, after all the Red Sox were playing in the World Series and doing real well. It was then that I realized that I was rooting for the victory, rather than rooting for my team.

Game Four saw me in a much better frame of mind, my wife even watched the last couple of innings with me. I did get a tad nervous when the Rockies pulled to within one run, but told my wife: “I’m O.K. A little tense, but it’s a joyful tension!” A little later, I jumped off the sofa, threw my hat in the air, did my Big Papi point for my dad and cranked up “Dirty Water” by the Standells, the official song of Red Sox victories.

How long till spring training?

A Couple Of Thoughts Heading Into Game 1

For only the fifth time in my forty years of fandom, the Red Sox are heading into the World Series. Here’s some thoughts a couple of hours before the first pitch.

Ceremonial first pitch tonight by my all-time favorite player Carl Yastrzemski, joined on the field by many of his 1967 “Impossible Dream” teammates. I caught the fever in 1967 while visiting my grandmother on Cape Cod during summer vacation. My father bought me a Sox Yearbook at the local grocery and then I followed the games down to the last day of the season. I remember that the TV broke into the telecast of Gentle Ben to announce that the Red Sox had won the A.L. pennant. My mom wondered why I was so excited and my father, a Giants fan since his youth, knew that I was lost to the “junior circuit”.

When the Sox went down 3-1 against the Indians, I changed my hat from the bright red Sox cap unveiled during this spring training and put on the white with blue bill model that I wore after the Sox went down 3-0 to the Yankees in 2004. So this hat is now riding an 11 game post-season winning streak.

I tend to wear my Sox caps obsessively. The responses to my cap in the middle of Yankee country have been interesting. My favorite happened this summer when we took a tour of the state capitol building in Albany. The guard at the metal detector stopped me and said I had to go to the back of the line. When I asked why, he said: “Because you’re a Boston fan.”

I’m living in a different house than the one I watched the 2004 World Championship unfold. My new house has the TV on the second floor, so my wife and doggies can more safely hide from my hand-wringing, pacing and occasional shouts of either joy or anger. Last time they had to huddle in the back room of our ranch house, the dogs shaking and hiding under beds, tables and desks.

Go Sox!

Some Bruce Juice

This site prompts folks to pick their top 10 Bruce songs. Here’s mine, at least tonight:

Racing In The Streets: (just look at my blog. I think its the distilled essence of second Generation, post BTR Bruce–more realistic, less romantic, still idealistic. “Some guys they just give up living/And start dying little by little, piece by piece/Some guys come home from work and wash up/And go racin’ in the street.”)

Kitty’s Back: (THIS is why they call Clarence the Big Man.)

Reason To Believe (first glimpse of the pessimism of Bruce’s later work–doesn’t get less romantic than the first line: “Seen a man standin over a dead dog lyin by the highway in a ditch . . .”)

Better Days: (when the song came out I had just fallen in love with my future wife: “I got a new suit of clothes and a pretty red rose/a woman I can call my friend.” Indeed.

Give The Girl A Kiss: (my favorite R & B-by-the-sea, bar band song.)

Thunder Road: (I think this is the best rock song ever, regardless of artist. Thunder Rd. has it all: poetry, passion and fervor.)

Adam Raised A Cain (favorite guitar work out. Play this if someone calls Bruce soft.)

American Skin (best political song. Play this for anyone thinking of voting for Guiliani.)

Spirit In The Night (most romantic, idealistic song, also full of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.)

Eyes On The Prize (he just nails this civil rights freedom song, my favorite from Seeger Sessions, his most underrated album.)

Shiny Happy People

According to Wikipedia, cognitive dissonance is “the uncomfortable tension that may result from having two conflicting thoughts at the same time.”

The Newsweek article ”Why Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness” summarizes the work of several psychologists in the relatively new school of thought, Positive Psychology, while comparing economic achievement with rates of happiness. The conclusion sent my cognitive dissonance rate off the charts.

Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert in his book “Stumbling On Happiness” argues that money improves your outlook when it lifts you out of poverty into the middle class, but that marginal increases after that point do little to improve your outlook. The argument is that the new Maytag means more to the person forced to use a washboard or a rock down by the river, than to the suburbanite upgrading to a newer model.

In their study ”Beyond Money”professors Ed Diener of Illinois and Martin E.P. Seligman of Penn argue that while traditional economic measures of personal economic status have been steadily improving throughout the developed world, surveys of personal satisfaction have remained flat or even declined. They further argue that corporations and government agencies should focus their policies so they can improve the things that do increase a person’s sense of well-being: personal autonomy, social relationships and the enjoyment derived from work.

However, the cognitive dissonance kicks in when the argument is moved from a more microeconomic level focusing on the state of the individual to a more macroeconomic level, focusing on the state of the economy. The article quotes Gilbert again: “economies thrive when individuals strive, but because individuals will strive only for their own happiness, it is essential that they mistakenly believe that producing and consuming are routes to personal well-being.”

So please, work extra hard so you can buy the new iPhone. You risk ever achieving your own true happiness, but you will help improve the bottom line of U.S.A., Inc. This in turn will drag more people out of abject poverty and throw them into the pool of middle class ennui, self-doubt and existential angst. Workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your therapy bills!”

Update: Martin E.P. Seligman is considered a demi-god in the new science of happiness. He was also the lead faculty resident at the College House I lived in at Penn from 1981-1983. We always speculated what the E.P. stood for, but his gruff manner and unwillingness to mix with the students (unless they were young and attractive female teaching assistants) led to the most popular theory: Martin Enormous Penis Seligman. His ego was such that he would have taken this as a compliment. I guess he was very happy.

Leveraging Stakeholder Buy-In, aaaggghhh!

While surfing the ‘net today I found a wonderful site: The Communications Network and its Jargon Finder. The site lists many of the over-used, unnecessarily vague and downright ugly words that creep into the writing and speech in the world of non-profits (largely by way of the for-profit world). It also has snarky and insightful takedowns of each jargon word’s distressing devaluation of both our language and the important work done by non-profits.

This site is for everyone who cringes at the kind of language in my post’s title and especially my number one pet peeve, impact used as a verb:

“With apologies to Vietnam, Watergate, and Iran, the most certain sign that modern civilization is going to hell is its invention of IMPACTFUL. The earlier arrival of the verb TO IMPACT, rather like that of Rosemary’s baby, was a birth so diabolical as to herald an imminent and near-universal perdition. Today, finding an evaluation in which nothing is IMPACTED would rank with bagging a live platypus.”

The only thing missing from the Jargon Finder, in my mind, was using quotation marks to imply that what is contained within is ironically not what the word means. Although, I must admit that seems to pop up more in academic works (especially by my homeboys, the left-wingers.)

Just Manny, Being Manny

From Manny Ramirez’s post-game interview after winning the second game of the Sox’s playoff series with the Angels by hitting a monster walk-off home run in the ninth inning at Fenway:

MANNY RAMIREZ: It feels great, man. It’s been a long time I don’t do something special like that. But I haven’t been right all year round. But I guess, you know, when you don’t feel good and you still get hits, that’s when you know you are a bad man.

Amen, brother! (thanks to Gen X at 40)

Keep ‘em Coming!

O.K., this is just freaking me out. We all know that Bruce is a prolific writer and recorder, but stingy with releases. Little Steven has been quoted as saying that Bruce is always walking around with at least half an album of new songs in his back pocket. Remember the rumor that Bruce had recorded an entire album of hip hop-influenced rock in the vein of Streets Of Philadelphia? His box set of 40+ previously unreleased songs “Tracks” only hinted at the depth of Bruce’s vault.

Well, now the rumor is this: Bruce already has another full album of songs recorded and ready to release after the furor of Magic and his tour dies down.

This rumor comes from Brendan O’Brien, his producer on The Rising and Magic. The Billboard article also states that O’Brien was sought out to produce both for his musical ideas and for his ability to help Bruce let go of songs and release them. The recent Springsteen release schedule would seem to back up this theory.

One last “Magic” note, Billboard is also reporting that Bruce’s new release will debut at Number One on the Top 200 Album Chart next week–as did both “The Rising” and “Devils & Dust.” Acolytes of the Church of Bruce always seem to buy early, as the albums usually tumble after the first week. Tramps like us, baby we were born to buy on Day 1!

A “Magic” Night

The Magic/E-Street tour opened last night in Hartford, Ct. and I spent the night listening to both “Magic” and Patti Scialfa’s new album Play It As It Lays.

I have to admit, like most Springsteen fans I have been relatively ambivalent towards Patti’s solo work: a couple of good songs, a little overproduced for my tastes. I only bought the new album because I noticed that the E Streeters had worked up a version of her song “Town Called Heartbreak” for the new tour. However, the album is excellent: bluesy, heartfelt and loose. It’s really a shame that the release came so close to Bruce’s, it will be swamped by the release of “Magic” and the tour. Of course, I guess that’s why the Patti song is being performed on tour, to get sexist slobs like me to pay attention to the album. It’s worth it!

As for “Magic”. I’m up to about seven complete run throughs. That’s enough to get the Livin’ In The Future’s chorus stuck on a continuous loop in my head: “Don’t worry darlin’/baby don’t you fret/we’re livin’ in the future/and none of this has happened yet.”

As I mentioned in the prior post, the big three political statements “Last To Die”, “Long Walk Home” and Devil’s Arcade” are appreciated not for the music, but mainly for the intensity of the lyrics and their condemnation of the insanity of the Iraq war and Bush policies on torture. However, as songs, “Magic” and “Gypsy Biker” are just as disdainful of current events, but are encased in tunes that accentuate the message, the creepy sense of evil that permeates the current administration and its policies.

The song that most intrigues me is “Your Own Worst Enemy”, a lush orchestral pop tune (with many violinists and cellists added to the E Street mix) that Kelefa Sanneh of the New York Times calls “a new song that bears a pleasing and wholly unexpected resemblance to the work of the indie-pop band the Magnetic Fields. “ I think Bruce mentioned during his Today Show appearance that he indulged his love of Brian Wilson’s “Pet Sounds” on a couple of tunes–I would guess this one and “Girls In Their Summer Clothes.”, a pure pop confection whose lyrics hint at melancholy.

The best description of Bruce’s approach to the new album was also in the New York Times, by A.O. Scott, who usually reviews movies for the paper. In the article ““In Love With Pop, Uneasy With the World“ Scott writes:
“You can always trust what you hear on a Bruce Springsteen record (irony, he notes, is not something he’s known for), but in this case it pays to listen closely, to make note of the darkness, so to speak, that hovers at the edge of the shiny hooks and harmonies. ‘I took these forms and this classic pop language and I threaded it through with uneasiness,’ Mr. Springsteen said.”

Happy Bruce Day, 2007 Redux

Didn’t we just do this back in June?

Anyway, enough with the soft openings and the opening gifts on Christmas Eve. You may have been able to download some tunes and video, even be lucky enough to see one or more of the rehearsal concerts. However, TODAY IS THE DAY. The new CD is on the shelves and the tour starts tonight in Hartford, Ct.

You have to give it up for Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell. He officially declared today Bruce Springsteen Day in the state of Connecticut.

As for the album, I’ve managed to listen to the entire album listening in my car on the way back from the record store and finishing up on lunch hour. My initial take is that the lyrically powerful political songs (Devil’s Arcade, Last To Die and Long Walk Home) are sort of what Devils & Dust would sound like with a full band–lyrics that do not flow and not much concern for melody. The pop songs (Magic, Livin’ In The Future, Girls In Their Summer Clothes) are perhaps even better political statements, not as much agitprop, more wistful and bittersweet. Making pop safe for adults, magic!

Sometimes You Get What You Need

New Springsteen album is coming out tomorrow. A.L. East Champion Red Sox start the playoffs on Wednesday. The weather is warm and sunny during the day and cool at night. I’ve got tickets to see Bruce in Albany in November.

Now if we could just end the war, stop government torture and fix up our city . . .