Bruce Springsteen is not the Boss of Me

I have a friend with a lovely and generous mother. This lovely and generous woman invited me to go along with her and her daughter and future son-in-law to see Bruce Springsteen. Though I've never really been into The Boss, I do have one of his albums, The Seeger Sessions, which is amazing and not his music. It is, in fact, Pete Seeger's music hence the name of he album and its ensuing awesomeness. I knew that none of the songs I like would be played at the concert, but I also knew that Bruce Springsteen is a musical icon and anyone who claims to be a music buff should, if given the opportunity, see him in concert just to see what it's all about. This is why I happily accepted the invitation of the lovely and generous woman.

I will say, Bruce Springsteen puts on a hell of a show. I may have only known two full songs and one refrain of "sha la la la, something or other," but the man busts his ass and he still nicely fills out a pair of Levis. And, as a longtime fan of Late Night with Conan O'Brien, it was pretty cool to see Max Motherfucking Weinburg panting and sweating and pounding away behind the drum kit. I've never watched The Sopranos, but Little Steven's, as in the guy who played Silvio, do-rag was a sight to see. The thing I liked most about the concert, though, was the same thing I like most about being out in public in general. The people watching, in general, was top notch. This one man in front of me, specifically, was amazing.

The man in front of me was, I think, a retired marine. I say this because he was wearing a tee shirt that said "jarhead," a jacket with patches all over it, one of which said "combat veteran" and a cowboy hat with some other mariney pins on it. Yeah, I'm sort of like Sherlock Holmes. So, Jarhead was there with either his wife or the woman he's cheating on his wife with (he was wearing a wedding band) and he could not have been more excited about seeing Bruce. As soon as Springsteen took the stage, Jarhead got a major emotional hard-on, and it became pretty apparent that he needed some sort of outlet for this pent-up, Bruce induced (should I say inBruced?) sexual energy. When The Boss sang, Jarhead immediately grabbed his girl and started giving her such an intense back rub that I thought he was going to pop the poor girl's head off like a cork from a champagne bottle. This went on for the first couple songs, then some love song came on, so he stood up and started serenading his lady friend and doing some sort of pantomime that I guess sunk up with the lyrics. My favorite part of the evening was about 3/4 through when the "sha la la la something or other" song came on and he stood up, turned around, and looked me right in the eye, "come on you know this one." I just nodded.

In the end, it was refreshing to see a grown man get that excited about something. I have always had this theory that once a kid stops believing in Santa Clause, there really isn't any magic left to be found in anything. Who would have thought that it would take an ex-marine with a man crush on a New Jersyite to re-instill hope that maybe someday I'll have something to be that excited about too.