Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Closets Are For Hangers...When You've Used The Door.

Update 9:30 a.m. 12/30: I forgot that this post needs a preemptive response to certain nitpickers who are sure to come along. I know that the lyric is supposed to be "Winners use the door". I've just always had this image of a shirt hanging from the doorknob, and my headline is the way I've always heard it. I'm sure Bruce would have written it that way if he'd thought of it. He's welcome to change it (without credit) if he wishes. I'm just generous that way.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I watched the Kennedy Center Honors tonight and I was surprised at how good it was. The part for Dave Brubeck was very cool. The presentation for Mel Brooks included a performance of Springtime for Hitler. Matthew Morrison is about to become a HUGE star and watching the Obamas' reaction to the performance was a little surreal.

The night was capped off with the presentation for Bruce Springsteen. John Stewart did the intro in which he surmised that Bob Dylan and James Brown had had a love child and abandoned him on the side of the NJ Turnpike -- That child was Bruce Springsteen. Great line.

I was struck by a few things.

1.) I realize that it's fashionable to think of Bruce as Rock for old people. Tough shit. I guess I'm old people.
2.) I wondered where the E Street Band was. Did they get dissed? Did they dis him? I have no clue. Maybe neither, but I was surprised they weren't there.

When Springsteen first showed up on the scene -- around the time I was 13 or 14, I was sure his name meant he was Jewish. I was pissed when I finally saw the spelling. I used to blast Greetings from Asbury Park out the back windows of the house and "shoot hoops" (in my case, the quotation marks really did apply), and hope that the two girls who lived in the house behind us would notice me. (They probably did -- and thought, "That dork is at it again".)

Anyway, here's something good to have come out of the 70's.

Rosalita from a live performance in 1975.

3 comments:

Steve Buchheit said...

We had just finished watching The Producers, the new one with Nathan Lane, not the classic with Zero Mostel (side note, Matthew Broderick is no Gene WIlder, although Lane does a passable job following Mostel), when we turned on the show in time to hear another rendition of "Springtime for Hitler." Mel Brooks face when the girls in the outfits came down the staircase was priceless (and I think he nearly cried when Gary Beach reprised his role as the singing Hitler).

vince said...

I love Springsteen! And Rosalita is probably my favorite of his early songs.

Music to work by for today.

Eric said...

Like I've said before: a decade that produced Dark Side Of The Moon and Born To Run can't suck. And I don't care how much ABBA someone uses to try proving differently.