“Hello, Mr. Bagg.”
Horton Bagg looked up from the vinyl sofa where he’d been doodling on the back of a parking receipt. He then rose and crossed the paneled room as the vacated cushion hissed back to form.
“Doctor.”
Doctor Vandeberg Floss stepped back allowing entrance to his dark-wooded corner office.
Horton tossed the parking receipt into the wastebasket before entering, then took his customary position in the low-backed chair opposite his therapist. He was unshaven, but sporting far less growth than usual. The doctor had noticed an increased effort on Horton’s part to improve his appearance.
“Before we begin,” Floss said, “we need to go over something; Something I need to address as the senior doctor of this group practice.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Of course not,” Floss said. He paused. His brown hair was of an in-between length; not short, but certainly not long enough to justify the forced ponytail he obviously took pains to wring together each morning. “We need to discuss a matter that falls outside our patient/ therapist relationship.”
“I see.”
He didn’t.
“It’s rather delicate,” Floss said. “And I must insist that everything we’re about to discuss remain confidential.”
“Okay.”
Horton realized he was nodding his head a little too eagerly and stopped.
“Just between us,” Floss said.
“Agreed.”
Floss paused again, placing more weight on Horton’s scale of anticipation.
“Starting today, I’m going to ask that you enter and exit our building through the side entrance.”
Now it was Horton’s turn to pause. He narrowed his eyes and tried to think of something to say while processing what the doctor had said.
“Side entrance?”
It was the best he could come up with.
“I realize it’s an unusual request,” Floss said, “but I assure you there’s good reason.”
“You mean this door here?” Horton pointed toward a windowless door he’d always assumed was a closet. “Wouldn’t that dump me out onto Pillage Street?”
Floss looked over his shoulder as if he hadn’t considered where the door was or where it led. “Nobody’s dumping you anywhere, Mr. Bagg.”
“But I park on Braylon Avenue. It’s way over on the other side of the building.”
“I know it’s an inconvenience, but I need you to avoid our waiting room.”
Horton dipped his chin, pillowing his loose neck like a soft inner tube.
“Why?”
“We’ve had complaints.”
“Complaints? About me?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“What kind of complaints?”
“They say you skip merrily through our waiting room each week following your appointments.”
“They? Who are they?…I don’t skip.”
“They say you act as though you’re walking out of a comedy club.”
“Who? Who said these things?”
Another pause. Floss breathed deep like someone preparing to cross a narrow footbridge over a deep gorge. He was a decent actor.
“The people you pass in our waiting room each week.”
Horton’s eyes widened.
“Really? They talk about me?”
“Yes.”
“I had no idea they even noticed me. I mean most days they seem to just sit on those slippery sofas and stare at their shoelaces.”
Floss crossed his legs and folded his hands on his lap.
“Mr. Bagg, that waiting room is a sanctified haven. There needs to be some measure of civility and tranquility. Some of our patients have suffered, and continue to suffer, great emotional trauma.”
Horton wasn’t listening. He was looking out the room’s lone window, which offered an unobstructed view to an always-deserted courtyard. He raised an index finger as a thought occurred.
“Though, there was that one time, the skinny guy with the buckteeth, he seemed to look up and give me a quick flat-mouthed mourner’s smile. I remember because I left here thinking you don’t see many people with buckteeth anymore. Modern dentistry, I guess.”
“Mr. Bagg, I know this is awkward…”
“Huh?”
“The people in our waiting room, they’re unhappy with your conduct.”
“My conduct? What’s wrong with my conduct?”
“They say you behave inappropriately.”
“What did I do?”
“They say you whistle.”
Horton considered this.
“Yeah, sometimes. So?”
Floss continued, “They say you whistle happy songs. Last week it was The Beatles. A Ringo song, they said.”
Horton smiled.
“Octopus’s Garden,” he said. “It’s kind of funny because I hate that song. I like Ringo, but not that song. I must’ve heard it in the car. You know how a song can just take over like that.”
“They don’t find it amusing, Mr. Bagg.”
Horton’s smile disappeared.
“I’m trying to help them.”
“Help them how?”
“Just because I suggested ending my therapy last week doesn’t mean I’ve lost touch with how I felt when I first came here. I’m trying to demonstrate what things are like when you start to feel better.”
“Yes, I remember you sharing your views on terminating treatment. I agree you’ve made significant progress, but I’m not sure I follow…”
“Have you ever spent time in your waiting room, Doctor? I mean really sat down as if you were waiting for an appointment?”
“No, I can’t say as I have.”
“It’s like cold storage out there. Those people act as though they’ve been prematurely pumped with embalming fluid. They’re supposed to be here getting better, right? Well, I’m trying to show them that it’s possible.”
“What leads you to believe you’re qualified?”
“You remember when I first came to you? I was so paranoid someone was trying to steal my identity I almost erased myself. I paid for everything in cash, made most of my phone calls from payphones, and put my mail on hold. When bills arrived, I tore them up in long strips and drove them around to different dumpsters in a borrowed car. One night, I went back and recollected everything so I could burn all the traces, but got pulled over by the cops because there was so much trash in the car you could barely see in or out. When they asked me to identify myself, I got arrested because I didn’t carry a license or anything else that could prove who I was. They thought I stole the car and profiled me as an identity thief. It took four hours for them to locate the friend I’d borrowed the car from so he could vouch for me and bail me out. I lost that friend, my job, and, eventually, went on disability. Since then, that has become my identity; I’m basically a ward of the state whose paper trail runs through a health insurance policy that ends at this address.”
“But you’re driving your own car again, carrying your license with you.”
“Exactly, and that’s what qualifies me; I’m getting better. I’m even using curbside garbage pick up again. Things are turning around for me and part of my recovery has been the belief that I can help other people. People like the ones out in the waiting room.”
“So you feel compassion for them?”
“Yes, I do. In fact, I think I’m the only one who does. I’m setting an example. You should be thanking me.”
“Please explain.”
“If I walk out of here through that mausoleum you call a waiting room with my head down tracking that cheap, foam carpeting, it’s like an advertisement saying we’re stuck. It’s like saying to those people what’s eating me is hungrier than what’s eating them. You should be encouraging me to bounce out of here every week instead of sneaking off like some two-timing snake. Waiting room? Tell me, Doctor, what are they waiting for?”
“So, Mr. Bagg, you consciously bounce and whistle your way out of here in an provocative effort to draw attention to yourself?”
Horton folded his arms across his chest.
“I figured if they saw someone coming out of your office in a breezy state they might appreciate that it could one day be them.”
“Well, they don’t appreciate it, Mr. Bagg.”
Horton bit down, causing the muscles in his temples to pulse.
“What do they appreciate? You walk by them and they crinkle like crepe paper, like if you poured water on them, they’d wilt onto the floor as the color drained out of them. That one woman, with the black sweater, she wears it every week, she never shows any signs of improvement. What the heck are you doing for her?”
“First of all, she’s not my patient. Second, you shouldn’t be concerned with anyone’s treatment but your own.”
“Not your patient? You run this practice. Aren’t we all your patients?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes, but I’m not involved with every client on a one-on-one basis.”
“Was she the one who complained?”
“Actually, they all complained.”
“All at once?”
“They approached me last week after you left. We had a meeting.”
“Wait a minute, you’re telling me that those discontinued souls actually speak to one another?”
“Apparently, they’d been debating for some time.”
“Debating? They debate? About what?”
“About how to handle the situation. One of them suggested a physical solution. Of course, we couldn’t condone that.”
“Of course.”
Horton looked around then back at Floss and spread out his arms.
“Where was this meeting?”
“I’m sorry?”
“It’s not like you’ve got a conference room. Where did the four of you meet?”
“Seven.”
“What?”
“There were seven of us; three patients and the four doctors who make up this practice; Dr. Logman, Dr. Plum, Dr. Rawhart, and myself.”
Horton wrapped his left hand around his right wrist. He did this to prevent hand wringing; the effect was the same.
“Sort of like an underhanded, illegitimate intervention.”
“Not exactly how I’d put it, but I understand how you might look at it that way.”
“Except the interventee wasn’t invited. So, where did you go?”
“Mr. Bagg…”
“You must’ve gone somewhere.”
“We went just down the street. Place called Chloe’s.”
“You mean that place where they give you a mini fruit cup with every meal?”
“Yes.”
“I love that place. Was the guy with the British accent behind the bar? I think his name’s Stuart. He uses the word “bloody” a lot, as in, ‘you’re bloody well right, lad,’ and sometimes he swears, but never in front of women; bit of a hypocrite, if you ask me, but everyone seems to like him.”
“We didn’t sit at the bar, Mr. Bagg.”
“Oh.” Horton’s hand tightened around his wrist. “How did you settle the tab?”
“I don’t see how…”
“Did you split it seven ways?”
“The clinic paid the bill.”
“As a business expense?”
“We considered it business, yes.”
“Isn’t that fraud?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Was alcohol served?”
“Of course not, Mr. Bagg. Many of our patients are on prescription medications.”
“Not one drink? That big guy out there, wears the Cat Diesel Fuel hat, I bet he’s visited the bottom of the Yukon Jack bottle a few times.”
“What would that mean to you? If we’d had a drink or two?”
“It would mean that things probably got pretty loose at your business meeting. Tell me, Doctor, was there laughter?”
“What do you mean?”
“At the meeting, did anyone laugh?”
“I don’t recall anyone laughing.”
“Not even of the nervous variety?”
“I really can’t…”
“Because I don’t like it when people laugh at me.”
“No one was laughing at you, Mr. Bagg.”
“So, what did you talk about?”
“I’m not at liberty to discuss other people’s cases with you.”
“No, but it sounds like you’ve got an open-door policy where my case is concerned.”
“We only talked about the issues in the waiting room. We didn’t discuss anything that’s gone on in treatment. And Mr. Bagg, I must insist that you refrain from discussing this issue with anyone as it falls under doctor/patient privilege.”
“Privilege? What are they going to do sue me for being happy? I’m the only one trying to make a difference for those people and this is how they repay me?”
“Please, Mr. Bagg, keep your voice down and try to remain calm.”
“Why? Are you afraid I might bring them out of their comas? And stop calling me Mr. Bagg. We’ve been working together over seven months.”
“Okay, Horton, but please try to relax.”
“I was relaxed. Now I find the entire practice has turned against me.”
“You feel betrayed?”
“Of course I feel betrayed. Your job is to get those people well. But all you do is sit there in your superior chair playing this bizarre game of psychological ping pong feeling threatened whenever your opponent holds serve.”
“That’s an interesting way of looking at it.”
“No, it’s not. It’s far from interesting. I could do without your manipulative, condescending manner. And don’t start staring at me. I fucking hate it when you stare at me. Is that what they teach at the shrink school? Is it just one big staring contest?”
Floss waited.
“Maybe after you’ve mastered staring, it’s off to get your degree in contemplative finger steepling.”
“Horton we’re…”
“Or how about voice lessons? You’ve all got the same coach, right? Who is it, Bob Newhart? Teaches you that fair-minded tone, along with that charitable delivery, without the irony, of course. I wonder what you sounded like before the degrees started piling up.”
“Horton…”
“Call me Mr. Bagg, my father called me Horton. I hate that name.”
Horton grew silent at the thought.
“Tell me more about you father,” Floss said.
“Don’t change the subject. I’m not telling you anything.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I can’t trust you.”
“Everything you say here is confidential.”
“What about your sneaky little ad hoc meetings?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’re sorry? This whole building owes me an apology! And a free meal! How come I don’t get to go out to dinner?”
“Horton, you’re not responsible for the well-being of anyone but yourself. Each of our patients has a unique emotional make-up. We feel we know best how to deal with their treatment. This is a clinic, Mr. Bagg. My colleagues and I must establish some guidelines as to how our patients govern themselves.”
“What about how you govern yourselves? Taking patients out for a meal so you can all gang up on someone. And let me tell you something about this place you call a clinic; it smells. It smells of dread. Every week I walk in here and expect to find leaky pipes and bars on the windows. And those foolish white noise machines? They don’t filter out the bad things, Doctor. They don’t cover up those anguished, high pitched sobs that escape when you’re short of breath and don’t even realize you’ve made a sound until after it’s already out. They get through, under that door.”
Floss raised his eyebrows. “Please, continue…”
Horton didn’t need the prompt.
“And what about that daybed? It’s standard issue, right? Have you ever actually analyzed anyone? Seems to me it only serves as a coat rack and catch basin for your overflowing bookcase.”
“Go on…”
“You go on. Let’s hear what you think. You’re supposed to be nonjudgmental. Now I find out you’ve got an entire jury set up making observations behind my back. Deciding things.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
Floss’s eyes shifted up and to the left then back again.
“What was that?”
“What was what, Mr. Bagg?”
“Why are you checking the clock?”
“We have to stop now.”
“Fine.”
“I’ll see you next week.”
“What?”
“That’s all the time we have.”
“But, you said, ‘Before we begin.’”
“What do you mean?”
“When I first came in, you said, ‘Before we begin, we need to go over something.’”
“Yes.”
“We’ve been going over it since I walked in. We haven’t actually begun.”
“We can pick this up next week.”
“No we can’t. This has been your time. You and your back-stabbing committee. I’ve still got 45 minutes coming to me. You didn’t even take notes.”
“I don’t always take notes, Horton. I’m sorry, time’s up.”
“What is this, some kind of half-assed Monty Python sketch?”
“Mr. Bagg, I have a schedule to keep and patients to see.”
“Fine, I’m calling my insurance company and telling them not to reimburse you.”
“I wouldn’t advise that.”
“And what would you advise, Doctor? Another six months worth of visits? Keeps you downstream on the co-payment river, doesn’t it? Helps pay for that month-long vacation in August. What’s up with that anyway?”
“What’s up with what, Mr. Bagg?”
“Why August? I mean, is that off-season for mental illness? You’re not the first therapist I’ve been to; you all seem to take the month of August off. I don’t think it’s by accident, either. I’ve seen the word “august” used as an adjective in books; it means majestic; inspiring reverence. I think it was some doctor’s idea of a twisted joke; let’s take the month with a name worthy of our eminence.”
Floss rose from his chair signaling with an open palm for Horton to remain seated.
“Excuse me for one minute.”
He opened the door extending his head out into the waiting area.
“Wait!” Horton said, “What are you saying out there?”
Floss closed the door.
“I was just letting them know we’d be a few more minutes.”
“Just letting them know, huh? Don’t tell them anything. It’s none of their business. We’re done!”
Horton Bagg stood and headed for the main entrance.
“Horton, please use the other door.”
“To hell with that!”
“Will I see you next week?”
“You better believe you will, I’m not done with you yet.”
Horton opened the door and walked flat-footed to the middle of the waiting room, stopping long enough to look at each of the three people seated about the room. They were all in their customary positions; the man with the buckteeth by the door; the woman in the black sweater beneath the hanging plant; the man in the Cat Diesel Fuel hat on the long couch. They were spaced as far apart from one another as possible, but equidistant. Their posture was rigid like coach passengers on a turbulent flight. Horton shook his head and reached for the door. Then he stopped, turned around, and walked over to the wastebasket. Bending down, he noticed the liner had been changed. His parking receipt was gone.
Floss’s door was still open.
“Where’s your janitor dump the garbage?” Horton said.
“Mr. Bagg, are you alright?” Floss said.
“Where?!”
“The dumpster’s around back.” Floss swung in his chair. “It might be quicker if you go out this way…” But when he turned back, Horton was already out the door.
Inside his office, Floss’s phone rang.
“Doctor Floss…Yes, Doctor Plum…Everything went well…Yes, Mr Bagg is still my patient…A timely meeting, indeed…Almost lost one there, didn’t we?…Those three? He won’t confront them, he still thinks he can save them, he’s focusing on me now…Good day, to you, too…Oh, and Dr. Plum, let’s cancel that order for the new white noise machines…No, turns out the ones we have work fine after all.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
DOWN IN FRONT!
Ten Indicators That The Rock Concert You’re Attending Probably Won’t Be Everything You’d Hoped It Would Be
1.)A month before the concert, you receive a courtesy e-mail informing you that, due to historically high demand, rather than add more shows, the concert has been moved from the 5,000-seat performing arts venue to a nearby 60,0000-seat outdoor sports megaplex. In addition, the promoter promises to exchange your tickets for a comparable pair just as soon as every season ticket holder for every team that calls the megaplex home gets a shot.
2.)As you enter the concert hall, you look up and notice the performer’s name preceded by “AN EVENING WITH...” on the marquee. This usually means one, or all, of the following...
·The performer was once part of a great band and will be attempting to resurrect his or her career with new solo material.
·The performer will be playing his or her favorite cover tunes accompanied by a little known, but classically trained clarinet player.
·The performer no longer has the drawing power to attract large audiences, so they bill the show as “AN EVENING WITH...” to make it seem as though the intimacy was their choice.
3.)You approach the turnstile and realize the date on your ticket is not a match to the date on the calendar.
4.)You notice, as the band walks on stage, one of their founding members has been replaced by another member’s son or daughter.
5.)The crowd around you is drunk, rowdy, nearly out of control, and the nearest usher resembles your great-aunt Clara.
6.)After opening with a flurry of hard rock anthems, the lead singer steps to the mike, and says, “We’d like to try something a little different tonight...” Meanwhile, the roadies are placing stools in front of mike stands, and swapping out electric instruments for acoustic ones.
7.)The person beside, behind, or in front of you is an asshole.
For example...
General admission:
·Person beside you decides it’s a good night to introduce the one-man mosh pit.
·Person behind you likes to whistle and sing off-key and has breath like raw sewage.
·Person in front of you is wearing a baseball cap and keeps turning to talk to his friend obstructing your sightline with the cap’s bill.
Assigned seating:
·Person beside you constantly drifts into your personal standing space (for you drifters, that’s the area directly in front of your seat – use the armrests as your guide)
·Person behind you remains seated, yelling, “Down in front!” while everyone else stands during up-tempo numbers.
·Person in front of you brings a sign.
8.)The person beside, behind, or in front of you is an asshole and you paid for their ticket.
9.)You’re on the floor, halfway back, when some nitwit decides to hoist his girlfriend, who is 5 feet tall and can’t see, onto his shoulders, erecting what amounts to an eight-foot-high asshole-totem-pole in the middle of the floor.
*Standing on your seat creates the same effect – asshole!
10.)You arrive well before showtime to stake out an amazing spot down front, but when the lights go out, you find yourself drowning in a sea of assholes as wave after wave of stage divers and crowd surfers threaten to swamp you under.
Remember: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CATCH THEM...let the bodies hit the floor...let the bodies hit the floor...It’s not easy to crowd surf in a body cast.
I really do love going to rock concerts, and don’t mind sitting or standing alone, which, if you hadn’t already guessed, is how things usually end up.
1.)A month before the concert, you receive a courtesy e-mail informing you that, due to historically high demand, rather than add more shows, the concert has been moved from the 5,000-seat performing arts venue to a nearby 60,0000-seat outdoor sports megaplex. In addition, the promoter promises to exchange your tickets for a comparable pair just as soon as every season ticket holder for every team that calls the megaplex home gets a shot.
2.)As you enter the concert hall, you look up and notice the performer’s name preceded by “AN EVENING WITH...” on the marquee. This usually means one, or all, of the following...
·The performer was once part of a great band and will be attempting to resurrect his or her career with new solo material.
·The performer will be playing his or her favorite cover tunes accompanied by a little known, but classically trained clarinet player.
·The performer no longer has the drawing power to attract large audiences, so they bill the show as “AN EVENING WITH...” to make it seem as though the intimacy was their choice.
3.)You approach the turnstile and realize the date on your ticket is not a match to the date on the calendar.
4.)You notice, as the band walks on stage, one of their founding members has been replaced by another member’s son or daughter.
5.)The crowd around you is drunk, rowdy, nearly out of control, and the nearest usher resembles your great-aunt Clara.
6.)After opening with a flurry of hard rock anthems, the lead singer steps to the mike, and says, “We’d like to try something a little different tonight...” Meanwhile, the roadies are placing stools in front of mike stands, and swapping out electric instruments for acoustic ones.
7.)The person beside, behind, or in front of you is an asshole.
For example...
General admission:
·Person beside you decides it’s a good night to introduce the one-man mosh pit.
·Person behind you likes to whistle and sing off-key and has breath like raw sewage.
·Person in front of you is wearing a baseball cap and keeps turning to talk to his friend obstructing your sightline with the cap’s bill.
Assigned seating:
·Person beside you constantly drifts into your personal standing space (for you drifters, that’s the area directly in front of your seat – use the armrests as your guide)
·Person behind you remains seated, yelling, “Down in front!” while everyone else stands during up-tempo numbers.
·Person in front of you brings a sign.
8.)The person beside, behind, or in front of you is an asshole and you paid for their ticket.
9.)You’re on the floor, halfway back, when some nitwit decides to hoist his girlfriend, who is 5 feet tall and can’t see, onto his shoulders, erecting what amounts to an eight-foot-high asshole-totem-pole in the middle of the floor.
*Standing on your seat creates the same effect – asshole!
10.)You arrive well before showtime to stake out an amazing spot down front, but when the lights go out, you find yourself drowning in a sea of assholes as wave after wave of stage divers and crowd surfers threaten to swamp you under.
Remember: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO CATCH THEM...let the bodies hit the floor...let the bodies hit the floor...It’s not easy to crowd surf in a body cast.
I really do love going to rock concerts, and don’t mind sitting or standing alone, which, if you hadn’t already guessed, is how things usually end up.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Star Search
(A short story)
In a little old house in a little old suburb north of Boston, Boyfriend and Girlfriend are enjoying a little old bottle of wine on Valentine’s Day night. We join them moments after Boyfriend has received his gift and is about to present Girlfriend with hers...
“Happy Valentine’s Day!”
Boyfriend hands Girlfriend a piece of colored parchment paper. She puts down her wine glass and examines the document with furrowed brow.
She says, “Thanks,” but it comes out sounding like a question.
“It’s your very own star, baby!”
“Oh,” Girlfriend says. “It is?”
“Yeah, I named a star after you with the Global Star Federation! That’s your certificate of authenticity. It’s all very legit and on record with the US Bureau Of Intergalactic Affairs.”
Boyfriend’s eyes, mouth and arms are open wide in anticipation. He can’t believe how masterfully romantic he’s become, stunning her with his ingenuity. Soon she’ll rush to his embrace.
“Is this that thing you hear about on the radio?”
Or not.
He straightens up a bit.
“No, those guys are frauds. This here.” He points at the paper. “This is the real deal.”
Still looking at the paper, eyes scanning up and down, left to right, Girlfriend says, “Gee honey, you shouldn’t have.”
“Think nothing of it,” he says, aware he may be aiming a little high.
“No, I mean you really shouldn’t have.”
A pivotal moment, Boyfriend attempts to rally.
“But wait till you see it. It’s beautiful.”
He hands her another piece of paper. She turns it over and back.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a sky chart, so you can locate your star.”
“Show me.”
Boyfriend moves beside Girlfriend.
“Well.” He squints at the chart. “It’s about a trillion miles...Oh, never mind. Come outside and I’ll show you.”
Boyfriend leads Girlfriend through a slider out onto the deck. It’s February in New England, about 15˚ above zero. Boyfriend walks Girlfriend to the far corner where a heavy-duty tripod with a fork arm mount supports a three-foot long telescope pointed toward the heavens.
“Viola!”
He’s excited again. All is not lost, yet.
She hesitates, unsure of what to do.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Just look through the viewfinder.”
Girlfriend inspects the end of the telescope closest to earth.
“No, no,” Boyfriend says, pointing. “The eyepiece is there, on the side.”
Sweeping her hair behind an ear, Girlfriend leans forward. A visible chill, more about winter than anticipation, runs through her.
“There’s just a great big cluster,” she says.
She backs away, examining the instrument.
“Let’s see what this does.”
She begins adjusting the pan handle, rotating the unit away from Boyfriend’s prefixed coordinates.
“NO! WAIT!”
“Now it’s all blurry,” she says.
Boyfriend moves over and not so gently nudges Girlfriend aside.
“That’s because you just pointed it toward another galaxy! It took me over an hour to find that star.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Girlfriend says, beginning to shiver steadily from the cold. “It was really sweet of you to go through all this trouble.”
Boyfriend peers into the telescope, spanning the cosmos.
“Where are you little star...”
“It’s really not that big a deal, baby. I’ve got my certificate right here.”
Fingers growing numb, Boyfriend doesn’t seem to be making any progress. Exasperated, he mumbles, “Stupid fuck.”
Girlfriend’s eyes narrow.
“What was that?”
“Huh?”
He looks at her innocently.
“Oh, I said, ‘Cupid’s luck.’ You know, losing the star and all.
“Uh-huh,” Girlfriend says, nodding, teeth starting to chatter. She looks up at the sky. “Well, you better hurry Galileo, it’s getting cloudy, pretty soon we won’t be able to see my present.”
“Well, maybe if you hadn’t messed up my calibrations we’d be back inside by the fire, all...what did you call it? Snuggy wuggy?” This last part drenched in sarcasm.
“Don’t be so sure of yourself. You keep this attitude up and you won’t be all snuggy wuggy with anyone.”
She fills her lungs with frigid air then exhales, watching her icy breath flitter away like ghostly vapor.
Going for one final attempt to salvage Valentine’s Day, and avoid frostbite, Girlfriend says, “It’s okay, really. I’m pretty sure I saw it somewhere up there.”
“Somewhere up there? That’s just great. Do you have any idea how much all this costs?”
“You mean your new telescope? Don’t tell me you bought that for me. Besides, I’ve got my proof of ownership right here.” She holds out the paper once again, points at the bottom line, tapping it with her finger. “See right here, it says, SCHMOOKIE BEAR.”
Boyfriend looks up from the viewfinder, rage creeping into his eyes.
“Perhaps I should’ve called it SHIT-FOR-BRAINS-BEAR!”
Silence.
Another pivotal moment arrived at during all Boyfriend - Girlfriend arguments: Boyfriend crosses a line, usually with a personal attack featuring language he wouldn’t use in front of Girlfriend’s mother. Sometimes Girlfriend cries and Boyfriend sleeps on the couch, other times Girlfriend digs in, eager to engage.
Eyes glistening, Girlfriend’s chin quivers. Then, in an Incredible Hulk-like moment, her jaw sets and the tears recede. She’s digging in.
“You bastard! I give you a Cartier Pasha watch for Valentine’s Day and you give me a fucking needle in a goddamned celestial haystack. Which, I might add, you can’t even find. Why didn’t you save some money and drive up to Good Harbor and name a grain of sand after me? For all we know there’s some other idiot over in the next town trying to show his girlfriend the same star, claiming she owns it. Or maybe somewhere out in Texas. Or Moscow. How could you fall for such a scam?”
“It’s morning in Moscow, genius. No one’s showing anyone stars in Russia at this hour.”
Boyfriend’s clearly lost his edge. If he quits now, he might still get the couch.
“Not the point,” Girlfriend says. “Did you even stop to wonder who the hell gave this...” she looks at the paper again, “Global Star Federation, the naming rights to the universe? What if some of those stars were already named by some other beings on some other planet? Such arrogance.”
The argument has reached the point where neither party has the slightest clue what the other might say next. They’re so angry they no longer feel the chill that has turned their lips blue.
“Let me get this straight,” Boyfriend says. “You’re making a political statement out of this?”
“NO, I’m making a final statement about THIS!”
Girlfriend waves the paper in an exaggerated arc, meant to take in the entire scene on the deck. She turns and heads toward the house.
“Looks like you bought yourself a nice telescope, honey.”
Boyfriend’s voice, softening, “Does this mean no snuggy wuggy?”
“Happy Fucking Valentine’s Day Asshole!”
And just before the slider slams shut.
“Same to you, Bitch!”
In a little old house in a little old suburb north of Boston, Boyfriend and Girlfriend are enjoying a little old bottle of wine on Valentine’s Day night. We join them moments after Boyfriend has received his gift and is about to present Girlfriend with hers...
“Happy Valentine’s Day!”
Boyfriend hands Girlfriend a piece of colored parchment paper. She puts down her wine glass and examines the document with furrowed brow.
She says, “Thanks,” but it comes out sounding like a question.
“It’s your very own star, baby!”
“Oh,” Girlfriend says. “It is?”
“Yeah, I named a star after you with the Global Star Federation! That’s your certificate of authenticity. It’s all very legit and on record with the US Bureau Of Intergalactic Affairs.”
Boyfriend’s eyes, mouth and arms are open wide in anticipation. He can’t believe how masterfully romantic he’s become, stunning her with his ingenuity. Soon she’ll rush to his embrace.
“Is this that thing you hear about on the radio?”
Or not.
He straightens up a bit.
“No, those guys are frauds. This here.” He points at the paper. “This is the real deal.”
Still looking at the paper, eyes scanning up and down, left to right, Girlfriend says, “Gee honey, you shouldn’t have.”
“Think nothing of it,” he says, aware he may be aiming a little high.
“No, I mean you really shouldn’t have.”
A pivotal moment, Boyfriend attempts to rally.
“But wait till you see it. It’s beautiful.”
He hands her another piece of paper. She turns it over and back.
“What’s this?”
“It’s a sky chart, so you can locate your star.”
“Show me.”
Boyfriend moves beside Girlfriend.
“Well.” He squints at the chart. “It’s about a trillion miles...Oh, never mind. Come outside and I’ll show you.”
Boyfriend leads Girlfriend through a slider out onto the deck. It’s February in New England, about 15˚ above zero. Boyfriend walks Girlfriend to the far corner where a heavy-duty tripod with a fork arm mount supports a three-foot long telescope pointed toward the heavens.
“Viola!”
He’s excited again. All is not lost, yet.
She hesitates, unsure of what to do.
“It’s okay,” he says. “Just look through the viewfinder.”
Girlfriend inspects the end of the telescope closest to earth.
“No, no,” Boyfriend says, pointing. “The eyepiece is there, on the side.”
Sweeping her hair behind an ear, Girlfriend leans forward. A visible chill, more about winter than anticipation, runs through her.
“There’s just a great big cluster,” she says.
She backs away, examining the instrument.
“Let’s see what this does.”
She begins adjusting the pan handle, rotating the unit away from Boyfriend’s prefixed coordinates.
“NO! WAIT!”
“Now it’s all blurry,” she says.
Boyfriend moves over and not so gently nudges Girlfriend aside.
“That’s because you just pointed it toward another galaxy! It took me over an hour to find that star.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Girlfriend says, beginning to shiver steadily from the cold. “It was really sweet of you to go through all this trouble.”
Boyfriend peers into the telescope, spanning the cosmos.
“Where are you little star...”
“It’s really not that big a deal, baby. I’ve got my certificate right here.”
Fingers growing numb, Boyfriend doesn’t seem to be making any progress. Exasperated, he mumbles, “Stupid fuck.”
Girlfriend’s eyes narrow.
“What was that?”
“Huh?”
He looks at her innocently.
“Oh, I said, ‘Cupid’s luck.’ You know, losing the star and all.
“Uh-huh,” Girlfriend says, nodding, teeth starting to chatter. She looks up at the sky. “Well, you better hurry Galileo, it’s getting cloudy, pretty soon we won’t be able to see my present.”
“Well, maybe if you hadn’t messed up my calibrations we’d be back inside by the fire, all...what did you call it? Snuggy wuggy?” This last part drenched in sarcasm.
“Don’t be so sure of yourself. You keep this attitude up and you won’t be all snuggy wuggy with anyone.”
She fills her lungs with frigid air then exhales, watching her icy breath flitter away like ghostly vapor.
Going for one final attempt to salvage Valentine’s Day, and avoid frostbite, Girlfriend says, “It’s okay, really. I’m pretty sure I saw it somewhere up there.”
“Somewhere up there? That’s just great. Do you have any idea how much all this costs?”
“You mean your new telescope? Don’t tell me you bought that for me. Besides, I’ve got my proof of ownership right here.” She holds out the paper once again, points at the bottom line, tapping it with her finger. “See right here, it says, SCHMOOKIE BEAR.”
Boyfriend looks up from the viewfinder, rage creeping into his eyes.
“Perhaps I should’ve called it SHIT-FOR-BRAINS-BEAR!”
Silence.
Another pivotal moment arrived at during all Boyfriend - Girlfriend arguments: Boyfriend crosses a line, usually with a personal attack featuring language he wouldn’t use in front of Girlfriend’s mother. Sometimes Girlfriend cries and Boyfriend sleeps on the couch, other times Girlfriend digs in, eager to engage.
Eyes glistening, Girlfriend’s chin quivers. Then, in an Incredible Hulk-like moment, her jaw sets and the tears recede. She’s digging in.
“You bastard! I give you a Cartier Pasha watch for Valentine’s Day and you give me a fucking needle in a goddamned celestial haystack. Which, I might add, you can’t even find. Why didn’t you save some money and drive up to Good Harbor and name a grain of sand after me? For all we know there’s some other idiot over in the next town trying to show his girlfriend the same star, claiming she owns it. Or maybe somewhere out in Texas. Or Moscow. How could you fall for such a scam?”
“It’s morning in Moscow, genius. No one’s showing anyone stars in Russia at this hour.”
Boyfriend’s clearly lost his edge. If he quits now, he might still get the couch.
“Not the point,” Girlfriend says. “Did you even stop to wonder who the hell gave this...” she looks at the paper again, “Global Star Federation, the naming rights to the universe? What if some of those stars were already named by some other beings on some other planet? Such arrogance.”
The argument has reached the point where neither party has the slightest clue what the other might say next. They’re so angry they no longer feel the chill that has turned their lips blue.
“Let me get this straight,” Boyfriend says. “You’re making a political statement out of this?”
“NO, I’m making a final statement about THIS!”
Girlfriend waves the paper in an exaggerated arc, meant to take in the entire scene on the deck. She turns and heads toward the house.
“Looks like you bought yourself a nice telescope, honey.”
Boyfriend’s voice, softening, “Does this mean no snuggy wuggy?”
“Happy Fucking Valentine’s Day Asshole!”
And just before the slider slams shut.
“Same to you, Bitch!”
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Upon Further Review...
(I wrote this shortly after The Who's performance at Super Bowl XLV)
After nearly a decade, we may have seen the last of Rock’s legends playing Super Bowl halftime. A fan of both football and rock & roll makes a case for why it should never have happened in the first place.
Picture this: There’s a sold-out stadium rock show featuring a band at the peak of their performing powers. The concert is televised to millions of people throughout the world. Halfway through the show, the band takes a break. While the boys are backstage, a group of NFL Hall of Famers takes their place, playing what amounts to a twelve-minute old-timers football game.
Sounds absurd, right?
Now, flip the scenario: There’s a sold-out football game featuring the two best teams in the NFL, their rosters packed with world-class athletes in their prime playing for the sport’s ultimate prize. The game is being broadcast to millions throughout the world. And for your halftime entertainment, a Hall of Fame rock band well past their prime plays a twelve-minute greatest hits medley.
The first scenario is pure fantasy, something the athletes wouldn’t dream of participating in. The second, however, in case it wasn’t obvious, represents what has become of America’s biggest sporting event, the Super Bowl.
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Growing up in New England in the 1970’s, I was a lover of both sports and rock & roll. I played football and I played drums, went to Bruins games and Bad Company concerts, collected baseball cards and KISS cards, read Sports Illustrated and Hit Parader. I was passionate about these activities, but never at the same time.
Sports and music were separate realms, but a small group of friends and I migrated freely between like keepers of an unspoken truce. We watched and played our sports in the afternoon and early evening, and on weekends, stayed up for Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert and The Midnight Special. We were knowledgeable and opinionated, and dismissed those who would attempt to cross over without proper credentials -- usually a drawer full of ticket stubs and a bookcase full of LPs and worn copies of The Sporting News were enough to gain admission. I suppose we were somewhat disliked, too, but we didn’t care; it was an important peace.
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A standard NFL halftime is 12-minutes long. But back in 1967, at the first Super Bowl, which wasn’t yet called the Super Bowl, someone decided that halftime of the biggest football game of the year should be a half-hour.
Not only did the extended break disrupt the natural rhythms of the league’s two best teams, making them wait two and a half times longer for the second half of the most important game of the season to begin, in later years, it also created an opportunity for rival networks to broadcast counter-programming and compete for a television audience bored by years of marching bands, Carol Channing, and Up With People.
Enter The King of Pop.
When Michael Jackson performed at Super Bowl XXVII in 1993, it marked the first time Super Bowl viewership actually increased during halftime. Thus, the modern-day Super Bowl halftime show was born.
Over the next several years, the NFL continued to target stars of popular music with Diana Ross, Boyz II Men, Stevie Wonder, and Phil Collins appearing among others. I was okay with this. Although I liked some of those artists, rock & roll was my passion and Super Bowl halftime remained for me nothing more than an extra long break between halves of a football game.
Even when Aerosmith traded verses with Britney Spears and ‘N Sync during a genre-bending halftime orgy at Super Bowl XXXV, I still wasn’t fazed; the Bad Boys from Boston hadn’t behaved badly for years, concentrating more on rap collaborations and power ballads than straight forward rock & roll. But things were about to change…
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When it was announced in the fall of 2001 that U2 would be the sole halftime act at Super Bowl XXXVI, I remember thinking it was a joke. Then, upon confirmation, I felt two mismatched worlds were about to collide.
Then Drew Bledsoe got hurt and Tom Brady got promoted and the hometown Patriots kept winning and I momentarily forgot about U2 until both ended up at the Superdome on February 3rd, and with the Patriots ahead 14-3 at halftime, U2 took the stage and played brilliantly and then the Patriots won their first Super Bowl and everything was great. And when Shania Twain, No-Doubt, and Sting played the following year, I thought, Okay, Super Bowl XXXVI was a one-off, once-in-a-lifetime event where my favorite team and one of my favorite bands stood together on top of the world.
But just for one day.
Two years after U2’s appearance, the NFL handed over the halftime controls to MTV, leading to Justin Timberlake’s liberation of Janet Jackson’s right breast. The next day, talk was divided between the Patriots’ second Super Bowl victory in three years and indecent exposure. The FCC slapped CBS with a $550,000 fine and the NFL banned MTV from future halftime shows. I thought back to 1985 and how my stomach whirled watching Joe Theismann’s leg snap in two on Monday Night Football; ABC showed it over and over. According to those who police the airwaves, a half-second of bare breast was obscene, while showing gruesome multi-angle replays of a career-ending, compound leg fracture was deemed good, hard football.
Perhaps MTV were the lucky ones.
The next season, Paul McCartney was summoned to clean up the Super Bowl filth. I had seen McCartney two years earlier in Boston, and the show was great. But with the halftime score Patriots-7 Eagles-7, I was too nervous and distracted to pay attention to Sir Paul’s performance.
On Monday morning, debates ranged from whether or not the victorious Patriots were a dynasty, to whether or not, at age 62, McCartney was too old. Both debates were about contextualizing recent events; the Patriots were being compared to great teams of the past, while McCartney was being judged on preconceived notions of age and reason.
Several years ago, I attended a party at which a friend was taking a headcount for an up-coming AC/DC concert. “Look,” another friend said, “I’m 35 years old, I don’t think I need to be going to any AC/DC concerts.”
He missed a hell of a show.
Afterward, I thought, man, can that really happen? Can people actually outgrow rock & roll? Then I remembered Mick Jagger’s famous quote; at 35, he said, “I’d rather be dead than singing “Satisfaction” when I’m 45.” And after playing “Thunder Road” at a show in 2002, a 52 year-old Bruce Springsteen said, “That line, ‘We ain’t that young anymore…’ I was 24 years old.”
The point is, rock & roll is nearing the end of its first lifetime, and no one, including the musicians, knew how far it would, or could, be taken, or how long people would pay attention. The early expectations for longevity were along the same lines as professional athletes; give it all you’ve got in your 20s, maybe maintain some popularity through your 30s, and if you’re real lucky, people might still think you’re cool when you’re 40.
But the rockers kept going, breaking every rule of acceptance and expectation, including their own, setting new precedents with each new album and tour. Some fans stayed on. Others, however, found themselves waning and chose to camouflage their own fears of mortality by openly resenting the rebels of their youth for continuing to sing of sex, drugs, and revolution. How dare you grow old and not go away, they seemed to be saying.
And when The Rolling Stones signed on for Super Bowl XL, I prepared myself to hear more from the ageist, Super-Bowl-square-yahoos about who should be doing what, and at what age.
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The Patriots had been knocked out of the playoffs early. Usually that means a leisurely, anxiety-free Super Bowl Sunday. So imagine my surprise when I found myself getting nervous as halftime approached. Looking down at my sweaty palms, I wondered, what is this? Then it hit me; my heroes were about to be judged by a worldwide panel of self-proclaimed experts just waiting to tear them down. It was like waiting for a family member to appear on American Idol.
When I see The Stones in concert, there’s no concern for how they’ll be received; we’re all there for the same purpose. This was different. Most of the people at the game were not Rolling Stones fans. In fact, according to a friend who once attended, most people who go to the Super Bowl barely qualify as football fans. And the contest-winners who flood the halftime field? Nothing more than props, really.
Three songs in twelve minutes is closer to a glorified soundcheck than an actual show, but The Stones, who were in the middle of a world tour, gave a pretty good account of themselves. They even had a few lyrics censored for old time’s sake. But it wasn’t until Mick, who, at 62, had long outlived his death-wish regarding “Satisfaction”, introduced that very song, saying, “This one we coulda done at Super Bowl I,” that I realized what was so wrong with this latest union of football and rock & roll.
The Rolling Stones practically wrote the rulebook on why sports and rock & roll don’t mix. Drugs, arrests, drug arrests, tax evasion, deportations, dead guitar players, Altamont, more drug arrests – such debauchery has always been publicized and glorified in the rock world, while professional athletes, teams, and the leagues they represent go to great lengths to cover up scandals such as gambling, amphetamine abuse, and steroids.
So, I say, No, Mick, you could not have played “Satisfaction”, or any other song, at Super Bowl I. Even if the NFL were hiring rock bands in 1967, they wouldn’t have looked your way if you were wide open on a desperation Hail Mary pass. You were dangerous. They would have waited you out. Forty years. Until we’d reached a point where you and Keith were considered a safer option than Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson.
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The term “sell-out” is a tired, overused expression when applied to rock & roll musicians. A lot of older stars, whether victims of unscrupulous management or fast-talking lawyers, missed out on the rewards honest publishing deals would have brought. Who could blame them for cashing in when the moneyman comes calling with an offer for a commercial, theme song, or corporate sponsorship?
Super Bowl entertainers do not receive appearance fees. Supposedly, they do it for the exposure, which, according to the sales-tracking system, Soundscan, leads to a spike in album sales and digital downloads. But just how much money a “spike” represents has never been made clear, making it difficult to accuse entertainers of playing the Super Bowl for the money.
Tom Petty was one of the last corporate holdouts, so it was a bit of a surprise when he agreed to play the Bridgestone halftime show at Super Bowl XLII.
“I’m not sponsored by Bridgestone,” he said. “My deal is with the NFL.”
On Super Bowl Sunday, New England was back in the big game. The halftime scoreboard read:
(Heavily favored and undefeated) Patriots-7
(NFC wildcard) New York Giants-3
I watched Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 4-song set, but while hearing “I Won’t Back Down” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream”, I saw flashes of Giants’ linemen Michael Strahan and Jason Tuck standing over a crumpled Tom Brady. And while those flashes were nothing more than subliminal reminders that the Giants were a serious threat to the Patriots’ perfect record, the flashes of the Bridgestone logo in the corner of my TV screen were very real.
The next day, we New Englanders mourned our less than perfect Patriots, while the rest of the nation celebrated the Giants’ great victory. And in a planned attempt to cash in on their Super Bowl exposure, tickets for Petty’s 2008 tour went on sale.
Demand was high with many dates selling out in minutes. In other words, the 2008 tour would be the same as every other Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers tour of the past thirty years when they didn’t play the Super Bowl.
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Early in his career, Bruce Springsteen grew weary of the restrictions and lack of respect he received as an opening act for other musicians. In 1974, after a blistering 80-minute set at a show in Central Park, he watched headliner Anne Murray perform while most of the partisan Springsteen crowd filed out. Having turned the tables, Bruce decided he’d played enough supporting gigs and a reputation began to form.
With the freedom to play as long as he wanted, and then play some more, there wasn’t a crowd or curfew that could outlast Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Starting in the late ‘70s, shows regularly pushed past the 3-hour mark as encores piled up one on top of the other. The band and their fans took pride in the spontaneity – setlist changes on the fly -- and length of the shows, and that Bruce Springsteen would never be the opening act for anyone.
I have seen Bruce nearly seventy times since 1980, and when I heard he and the E Street Band would be playing the 2009 Super Bowl halftime show, I wondered why he would relinquish his hard fought freedom for twelve minutes of scripted over-exposure.
When asked a version of that question at the pre-game press conference, Bruce described what they were going to attempt as “the last twelve minutes (of their 3-hour show); that’s what you’re gonna see.”
I know many Springsteen fans and if any of us missed the first 2:48:00 of a show, it would be looked upon as a complete disaster.
When asked the standard question, Why now? Bruce explained that “initially, (playing the Super Bowl) was sort of a novelty and didn’t quite feel right” he then added, with a chuckle, “We have a new album coming out, dummy!”
Keeping those explanations in mind on the night of Super Bowl XLIII, I watched the band cut verses, choruses, and solos in order to cram four songs into twelve minutes. Included in the set was a total of 90 seconds of material from that new album. There were plenty of fireworks, though. And as the band rushed off stage to make way for the headlining Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals, it felt strange to know they couldn’t play an encore if they wanted to. It felt sort of like a novelty.
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During their late-‘60s to mid-‘70s prime, The Who were arguably the most exciting band in the history of rock & roll. Twirling microphones, windmilling guitars, exploding drums, and, most of all, great songs – The Who had it all. Each member played as if they held the lead instrument, but somehow it meshed, and a band is what you heard. And they were loud -- the loudest band on record to that point. The Who pushed things further than any other band, employing an impossible-to-maintain level of intensity in doing so. Perhaps that’s why, of all the rock legends to play the Super Bowl, The Who, who were not going on tour, or releasing a new album, had the least to gain.
If you’d been following The Who for the last eight years, you would have recognized the band that took stage at halftime of this year’s Super Bowl. Since John Entwistle’s death in 2002, the band has toured as consistently as in any period since the early ‘80’s. You would have known Roger Daltrey’s voice doesn’t quite rise to where it used to and that Pete Townshend looks more the writer/composer than rock star. You would have known the sidemen and rhythm section are no match for Entwistle and Keith Moon, and who would be? Entwistle set the standard against which all rock bassists are measured and Moon remains the most unique and impossible-to-replicate musician in rock history.
But The Who are survivors. And on the Monday after the Super Bowl, they took a beating unlike any previous halftime performer. “They’re too old.” “They look like hell.” “They need to hang it up.” Everyone weighed in, and most were in a big hurry to see The Who go away, taking them to task for once singing “Hope I die before I get old”. Wasn’t that the line that made us love them in the first place?
I was pissed-off.
Pissed-off at the Patriots for getting shellacked at home in the divisional round and for no longer being a dominant team; pissed-off at the halftime producers for putting The Who on an outstretched circular stage, 95% of which was girders and lights, completely inaccessible to the band, separating them by fifty yards from the nearest spectator; pissed-off at Bruce, Petty, The Stones, and The Who for agreeing to assist the NFL and its network affiliates in their annual ratings-grab by climbing into the giant musical dunk-tank known as the Super Bowl halftime show; and I was pissed-off at U2 for making me once believe that it might not be such a bad idea.
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I recently visited the world’s video replay booth, YouTube, to review U2’s Super Bowl XXXVI performance. I hate to admit that, even without the context of the Patriots’ eleven-point halftime lead, the three-song set still gives me goose bumps. I am, however, happy to announce that I figured out the three reasons why it stands alone.
The first is a circumstance that, hopefully, will never again be presented to any artist. U2 played to a politically and spiritually unified America and seized the moment by performing three songs – “Beautiful Day” “MLK” “Where the Streets Have no Name” --that fit perfectly in tone with a nation still healing from the 9/11 attacks. The second reason was the relative youth of the band. All four members of U2 were between forty and forty-one years of age, that’s a full generation younger than the rockers who would follow. In fact, U2 are the only rock band to appear as the sole act at the Super Bowl before being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Third, U2 were in the midst of a second career-peak behind their latest album, All that You Can’t Leave Behind, and the just-completed, hugely successful Elevation Tour.
Apply the last two factors — relative youth and revitalized popularity — to those who would follow and it might’ve looked something like this…
1982 - SB XVI - Rolling Stones - album: Tattoo You - tour: between American and European legs of no-name tour
1983 - SB XVII - The Who - album: It's Hard - tour: six weeks after final date of Farewell Tour
1988 - SB XXII - Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band - album: Tunnel Of Love - tour: one month before opening of Tunnel Of Love Express Tour
1992 - SB XXVI - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - album: Into The Great Wide Open -tour: between American and European legs of Touring The Great Wide Open
Certainly the above scenarios would have added much-needed life to the Super Bowl in an era where the average margin of victory was 19 points. But, of course, it didn’t happen. And in the years between then and when they actually played halftime, each band lost an original member; Bill Wyman left The Stones in ‘92, drummer Stan Lynch was fired by Petty in ‘94, The Who lost Entwistle, and E Street Band organist Danny Federici died of melanoma in 2008. U2 is the only band to play the Super Bowl with its original lineup intact and not looking as if they were there to receive a lifetime achievement Grammy Award.
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So what would I say to my rock & roll icons if given the chance?
To Bono:
In a 2005 Chicago Tribune interview in which Bono tried to explain his “vision of what rock is” he responded to criticism over appearing at the Super Bowl saying, “…to me the Super Bowl was our Ed Sullivan moment. It just came 25 years later.”
The problem, Bono, is that Ed Sullivan moments don’t come 25 years later. For rock n roll, they came in the ‘50s and ‘60s and were like lunar landings for bands of the era. I remember U2’s Ed Sullivan moment, it came in1981, on a new television network called MTV. The song was “I Will Follow”. I’ve been a fan ever since and U2 has been selling out stadiums for decades. Back in the day, an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show earned you a ticket to stardom. In 2002, stardom earned you a ticket to the Super Bowl.
To Mick Jagger:
At the Super Bowl XL press conference, Keith Richards was asked how he would outlive the cockroaches since the running joke was they would join him as the only survivors of nuclear war. “That is so bad,” Mick Jagger said, before Keith answered, “I’ve got to eat ‘em.” Mick then decided to take one final question, as things were “getting too silly.”
I wonder, Mick, if that was just a fleeting moment, or if you realized how silly the whole Super Bowl halftime process is. From the embarrassment of facing the unimaginative mainstream press, to the organizers alienating most of your fanbase, banning anyone over age forty-five from the on-field audience (the ban was later lifted, but the message was clear: The Rolling Stones were deemed too old to attend their own performance); was the anticipated spike in sales worth the indignities?
To Tom Petty:
In 1980, Tom Petty told Rolling Stone, “I find it difficult to believe anybody really cares that much about what I have to say. I mean, it’s only rock & roll – just disposable crap that won’t mean much in 10 years.”
Tom, as a fan of both your music and rock & roll, I’m so glad you were wrong. I’m guessing you’re glad, too. As far as I’m concerned, those early Heartbreakers’ records mean even more 30 years later. Every time you release a new record or head out on tour, the intrinsic value of everything that came before goes up. Having said that, I sometimes miss that young, cynical Tom Petty; the guy who bared his teeth when he sang, punched walls out of frustration, fought to keep record prices down so I could afford them when I was 16 years old, and who would’ve scoffed at the thought of playing the Super Bowl. What I’m trying to say is, the Bridgestone logo didn’t really bother me, what did bother me is that it didn’t seem to bother you.
To Bruce Springsteen:
In another answer to the “Why now?” question during the 2009 Super Bowl press conference, Bruce recounted a dinner conversation with an unnamed “young musician” that led him to reconsider his past reluctance to the halftime show:
Young musician: Hey, why don’t you play the Super Bowl?
Bruce: Well, you’re kind of playing in the middle of a football game.
Young musician: Man, I hope one day my band’s big enough to play the Super Bowl.
Bruce: Hmm, let me think about that…
Bruce, you blew it! You had a chance to set the young lad straight. Super Bowl? When did that become the goal? What about Madison Square Garden? Or Glastonbury? Or Bonnaroo? You were on the right track, too. Accept you’re not kind of playing in the middle of anything. When you play Super Bowl halftime, you are in the middle of a football game. And I know you had a blast, but I wish you hadn’t done it. I wish you’d stood your ground, and maybe that conversation would have gone something like this…
Young musician: Man, I hope one day my band’s big enough to play the Super Bowl.
Bruce: Son, I don’t know much about football, but we’re musicians, so if you’re ever big enough to play the Super Bowl, you better be wearing cleats, shoulder pads, and a helmet.
To Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend:
“If my hearing is going to be a problem, we’re not delaying shows,” Pete Townshend recently told Rolling Stone. “We’re finished, I can’t really see any way around the issue.”
You guys have said farewell more times than Brett Favre. But unlike Favre, I was always glad to hear you were coming back. Now, after your March 30th performance of Quadrophenia at Royal Albert Hall, the end could really be here. For those in attendance, it must have been a treat to see you one last time, playing complete songs the way they were originally conceived. For those of us in The States, and the rest of the world, however, we’re left with a twelve-minute medley between halves of a football game.
In his tribute to Bruce Springsteen at the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors, Jon Stewart said, “Whenever I see Bruce Springsteen do anything, he empties the tank...every time.” With the exception of Super Bowl XLIII, where the gas gauge barely had time to move, I would agree. But I’m talking to you, Roger and Pete. Throughout your career, the Who also made a habit of emptying the tank. Along the way, you also flattened the tires, broke the windows, and lost a couple passengers, all while driving the loudest and fastest car in the race. If Royal Albert was indeed the finish line, the Super Bowl was nothing but an unnecessary stop along the way.
Don’t agree?
To All:
Next year’s Super Bowl will be broadcast on Fox. In a recent LA Times interview, Fox Sports CEO, David Hill, was asked if the halftime act will be under the age of 60.
“Oh, please, God, yes,” he said. “If I saw Pete Townshend’s belly again I was going to throw up. In his younger days, it might have been rippling muscle, but now it’s like mine – rippling fat.” As for Roger, Hill said, “…poor old Roger had one of the purest voices, but it’s history.” And in case his point wasn’t clear, he added, “From the conversations I’ve had with the NFL, we won’t need oxygen.”
So, there you go. I’m not sure if I want to thank Mr. Hill for providing the voice of reason, or kick him in the teeth for providing the voice of disrespect. Either way, it looks like it’s over. And it wasn’t your decision, but a 63 year-old television executive’s. He went to high school around the same time you all did. You wouldn’t have hung around with him then, and he’s not going to let you hang around with him now. In fact, he’s just the type of person Keith Richards was referring to in a 2002 Rolling Stone interview; when asked, How do you deal with criticism about the Stones being to old to rock & roll?
“People want to pull the rug out from under you, because they're bald and fat and can't move for shit. It's pure physical envy -- that we shouldn't be here. How dare they defy logic?”
I remember back when the Monday after the Super Bowl was a daylong exercise in football rumination and deliberation. Over the last several years, however, I’ve spent a good part of my days-after listening to unqualified, scornful recaps of the compressed, halftime macro-concerts given by my favorite musicians. Since I didn’t really agree with what my idols were doing, it hasn’t been easy to defend them. In my opinion, by playing halftime of a football game, they were the ones defying logic.
I don’t know what Hill, who isn’t bald, but is fat, has in store for next season’s Super Bowl halftime show. But I can take solace in the knowledge that if any of rock & roll’s legends show up at the game, they’ll be in the stands, and not on the field.
After nearly a decade, we may have seen the last of Rock’s legends playing Super Bowl halftime. A fan of both football and rock & roll makes a case for why it should never have happened in the first place.
Picture this: There’s a sold-out stadium rock show featuring a band at the peak of their performing powers. The concert is televised to millions of people throughout the world. Halfway through the show, the band takes a break. While the boys are backstage, a group of NFL Hall of Famers takes their place, playing what amounts to a twelve-minute old-timers football game.
Sounds absurd, right?
Now, flip the scenario: There’s a sold-out football game featuring the two best teams in the NFL, their rosters packed with world-class athletes in their prime playing for the sport’s ultimate prize. The game is being broadcast to millions throughout the world. And for your halftime entertainment, a Hall of Fame rock band well past their prime plays a twelve-minute greatest hits medley.
The first scenario is pure fantasy, something the athletes wouldn’t dream of participating in. The second, however, in case it wasn’t obvious, represents what has become of America’s biggest sporting event, the Super Bowl.
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Growing up in New England in the 1970’s, I was a lover of both sports and rock & roll. I played football and I played drums, went to Bruins games and Bad Company concerts, collected baseball cards and KISS cards, read Sports Illustrated and Hit Parader. I was passionate about these activities, but never at the same time.
Sports and music were separate realms, but a small group of friends and I migrated freely between like keepers of an unspoken truce. We watched and played our sports in the afternoon and early evening, and on weekends, stayed up for Don Kirchner’s Rock Concert and The Midnight Special. We were knowledgeable and opinionated, and dismissed those who would attempt to cross over without proper credentials -- usually a drawer full of ticket stubs and a bookcase full of LPs and worn copies of The Sporting News were enough to gain admission. I suppose we were somewhat disliked, too, but we didn’t care; it was an important peace.
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A standard NFL halftime is 12-minutes long. But back in 1967, at the first Super Bowl, which wasn’t yet called the Super Bowl, someone decided that halftime of the biggest football game of the year should be a half-hour.
Not only did the extended break disrupt the natural rhythms of the league’s two best teams, making them wait two and a half times longer for the second half of the most important game of the season to begin, in later years, it also created an opportunity for rival networks to broadcast counter-programming and compete for a television audience bored by years of marching bands, Carol Channing, and Up With People.
Enter The King of Pop.
When Michael Jackson performed at Super Bowl XXVII in 1993, it marked the first time Super Bowl viewership actually increased during halftime. Thus, the modern-day Super Bowl halftime show was born.
Over the next several years, the NFL continued to target stars of popular music with Diana Ross, Boyz II Men, Stevie Wonder, and Phil Collins appearing among others. I was okay with this. Although I liked some of those artists, rock & roll was my passion and Super Bowl halftime remained for me nothing more than an extra long break between halves of a football game.
Even when Aerosmith traded verses with Britney Spears and ‘N Sync during a genre-bending halftime orgy at Super Bowl XXXV, I still wasn’t fazed; the Bad Boys from Boston hadn’t behaved badly for years, concentrating more on rap collaborations and power ballads than straight forward rock & roll. But things were about to change…
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When it was announced in the fall of 2001 that U2 would be the sole halftime act at Super Bowl XXXVI, I remember thinking it was a joke. Then, upon confirmation, I felt two mismatched worlds were about to collide.
Then Drew Bledsoe got hurt and Tom Brady got promoted and the hometown Patriots kept winning and I momentarily forgot about U2 until both ended up at the Superdome on February 3rd, and with the Patriots ahead 14-3 at halftime, U2 took the stage and played brilliantly and then the Patriots won their first Super Bowl and everything was great. And when Shania Twain, No-Doubt, and Sting played the following year, I thought, Okay, Super Bowl XXXVI was a one-off, once-in-a-lifetime event where my favorite team and one of my favorite bands stood together on top of the world.
But just for one day.
Two years after U2’s appearance, the NFL handed over the halftime controls to MTV, leading to Justin Timberlake’s liberation of Janet Jackson’s right breast. The next day, talk was divided between the Patriots’ second Super Bowl victory in three years and indecent exposure. The FCC slapped CBS with a $550,000 fine and the NFL banned MTV from future halftime shows. I thought back to 1985 and how my stomach whirled watching Joe Theismann’s leg snap in two on Monday Night Football; ABC showed it over and over. According to those who police the airwaves, a half-second of bare breast was obscene, while showing gruesome multi-angle replays of a career-ending, compound leg fracture was deemed good, hard football.
Perhaps MTV were the lucky ones.
The next season, Paul McCartney was summoned to clean up the Super Bowl filth. I had seen McCartney two years earlier in Boston, and the show was great. But with the halftime score Patriots-7 Eagles-7, I was too nervous and distracted to pay attention to Sir Paul’s performance.
On Monday morning, debates ranged from whether or not the victorious Patriots were a dynasty, to whether or not, at age 62, McCartney was too old. Both debates were about contextualizing recent events; the Patriots were being compared to great teams of the past, while McCartney was being judged on preconceived notions of age and reason.
Several years ago, I attended a party at which a friend was taking a headcount for an up-coming AC/DC concert. “Look,” another friend said, “I’m 35 years old, I don’t think I need to be going to any AC/DC concerts.”
He missed a hell of a show.
Afterward, I thought, man, can that really happen? Can people actually outgrow rock & roll? Then I remembered Mick Jagger’s famous quote; at 35, he said, “I’d rather be dead than singing “Satisfaction” when I’m 45.” And after playing “Thunder Road” at a show in 2002, a 52 year-old Bruce Springsteen said, “That line, ‘We ain’t that young anymore…’ I was 24 years old.”
The point is, rock & roll is nearing the end of its first lifetime, and no one, including the musicians, knew how far it would, or could, be taken, or how long people would pay attention. The early expectations for longevity were along the same lines as professional athletes; give it all you’ve got in your 20s, maybe maintain some popularity through your 30s, and if you’re real lucky, people might still think you’re cool when you’re 40.
But the rockers kept going, breaking every rule of acceptance and expectation, including their own, setting new precedents with each new album and tour. Some fans stayed on. Others, however, found themselves waning and chose to camouflage their own fears of mortality by openly resenting the rebels of their youth for continuing to sing of sex, drugs, and revolution. How dare you grow old and not go away, they seemed to be saying.
And when The Rolling Stones signed on for Super Bowl XL, I prepared myself to hear more from the ageist, Super-Bowl-square-yahoos about who should be doing what, and at what age.
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The Patriots had been knocked out of the playoffs early. Usually that means a leisurely, anxiety-free Super Bowl Sunday. So imagine my surprise when I found myself getting nervous as halftime approached. Looking down at my sweaty palms, I wondered, what is this? Then it hit me; my heroes were about to be judged by a worldwide panel of self-proclaimed experts just waiting to tear them down. It was like waiting for a family member to appear on American Idol.
When I see The Stones in concert, there’s no concern for how they’ll be received; we’re all there for the same purpose. This was different. Most of the people at the game were not Rolling Stones fans. In fact, according to a friend who once attended, most people who go to the Super Bowl barely qualify as football fans. And the contest-winners who flood the halftime field? Nothing more than props, really.
Three songs in twelve minutes is closer to a glorified soundcheck than an actual show, but The Stones, who were in the middle of a world tour, gave a pretty good account of themselves. They even had a few lyrics censored for old time’s sake. But it wasn’t until Mick, who, at 62, had long outlived his death-wish regarding “Satisfaction”, introduced that very song, saying, “This one we coulda done at Super Bowl I,” that I realized what was so wrong with this latest union of football and rock & roll.
The Rolling Stones practically wrote the rulebook on why sports and rock & roll don’t mix. Drugs, arrests, drug arrests, tax evasion, deportations, dead guitar players, Altamont, more drug arrests – such debauchery has always been publicized and glorified in the rock world, while professional athletes, teams, and the leagues they represent go to great lengths to cover up scandals such as gambling, amphetamine abuse, and steroids.
So, I say, No, Mick, you could not have played “Satisfaction”, or any other song, at Super Bowl I. Even if the NFL were hiring rock bands in 1967, they wouldn’t have looked your way if you were wide open on a desperation Hail Mary pass. You were dangerous. They would have waited you out. Forty years. Until we’d reached a point where you and Keith were considered a safer option than Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson.
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The term “sell-out” is a tired, overused expression when applied to rock & roll musicians. A lot of older stars, whether victims of unscrupulous management or fast-talking lawyers, missed out on the rewards honest publishing deals would have brought. Who could blame them for cashing in when the moneyman comes calling with an offer for a commercial, theme song, or corporate sponsorship?
Super Bowl entertainers do not receive appearance fees. Supposedly, they do it for the exposure, which, according to the sales-tracking system, Soundscan, leads to a spike in album sales and digital downloads. But just how much money a “spike” represents has never been made clear, making it difficult to accuse entertainers of playing the Super Bowl for the money.
Tom Petty was one of the last corporate holdouts, so it was a bit of a surprise when he agreed to play the Bridgestone halftime show at Super Bowl XLII.
“I’m not sponsored by Bridgestone,” he said. “My deal is with the NFL.”
On Super Bowl Sunday, New England was back in the big game. The halftime scoreboard read:
(Heavily favored and undefeated) Patriots-7
(NFC wildcard) New York Giants-3
I watched Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ 4-song set, but while hearing “I Won’t Back Down” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream”, I saw flashes of Giants’ linemen Michael Strahan and Jason Tuck standing over a crumpled Tom Brady. And while those flashes were nothing more than subliminal reminders that the Giants were a serious threat to the Patriots’ perfect record, the flashes of the Bridgestone logo in the corner of my TV screen were very real.
The next day, we New Englanders mourned our less than perfect Patriots, while the rest of the nation celebrated the Giants’ great victory. And in a planned attempt to cash in on their Super Bowl exposure, tickets for Petty’s 2008 tour went on sale.
Demand was high with many dates selling out in minutes. In other words, the 2008 tour would be the same as every other Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers tour of the past thirty years when they didn’t play the Super Bowl.
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Early in his career, Bruce Springsteen grew weary of the restrictions and lack of respect he received as an opening act for other musicians. In 1974, after a blistering 80-minute set at a show in Central Park, he watched headliner Anne Murray perform while most of the partisan Springsteen crowd filed out. Having turned the tables, Bruce decided he’d played enough supporting gigs and a reputation began to form.
With the freedom to play as long as he wanted, and then play some more, there wasn’t a crowd or curfew that could outlast Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. Starting in the late ‘70s, shows regularly pushed past the 3-hour mark as encores piled up one on top of the other. The band and their fans took pride in the spontaneity – setlist changes on the fly -- and length of the shows, and that Bruce Springsteen would never be the opening act for anyone.
I have seen Bruce nearly seventy times since 1980, and when I heard he and the E Street Band would be playing the 2009 Super Bowl halftime show, I wondered why he would relinquish his hard fought freedom for twelve minutes of scripted over-exposure.
When asked a version of that question at the pre-game press conference, Bruce described what they were going to attempt as “the last twelve minutes (of their 3-hour show); that’s what you’re gonna see.”
I know many Springsteen fans and if any of us missed the first 2:48:00 of a show, it would be looked upon as a complete disaster.
When asked the standard question, Why now? Bruce explained that “initially, (playing the Super Bowl) was sort of a novelty and didn’t quite feel right” he then added, with a chuckle, “We have a new album coming out, dummy!”
Keeping those explanations in mind on the night of Super Bowl XLIII, I watched the band cut verses, choruses, and solos in order to cram four songs into twelve minutes. Included in the set was a total of 90 seconds of material from that new album. There were plenty of fireworks, though. And as the band rushed off stage to make way for the headlining Pittsburgh Steelers and Arizona Cardinals, it felt strange to know they couldn’t play an encore if they wanted to. It felt sort of like a novelty.
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During their late-‘60s to mid-‘70s prime, The Who were arguably the most exciting band in the history of rock & roll. Twirling microphones, windmilling guitars, exploding drums, and, most of all, great songs – The Who had it all. Each member played as if they held the lead instrument, but somehow it meshed, and a band is what you heard. And they were loud -- the loudest band on record to that point. The Who pushed things further than any other band, employing an impossible-to-maintain level of intensity in doing so. Perhaps that’s why, of all the rock legends to play the Super Bowl, The Who, who were not going on tour, or releasing a new album, had the least to gain.
If you’d been following The Who for the last eight years, you would have recognized the band that took stage at halftime of this year’s Super Bowl. Since John Entwistle’s death in 2002, the band has toured as consistently as in any period since the early ‘80’s. You would have known Roger Daltrey’s voice doesn’t quite rise to where it used to and that Pete Townshend looks more the writer/composer than rock star. You would have known the sidemen and rhythm section are no match for Entwistle and Keith Moon, and who would be? Entwistle set the standard against which all rock bassists are measured and Moon remains the most unique and impossible-to-replicate musician in rock history.
But The Who are survivors. And on the Monday after the Super Bowl, they took a beating unlike any previous halftime performer. “They’re too old.” “They look like hell.” “They need to hang it up.” Everyone weighed in, and most were in a big hurry to see The Who go away, taking them to task for once singing “Hope I die before I get old”. Wasn’t that the line that made us love them in the first place?
I was pissed-off.
Pissed-off at the Patriots for getting shellacked at home in the divisional round and for no longer being a dominant team; pissed-off at the halftime producers for putting The Who on an outstretched circular stage, 95% of which was girders and lights, completely inaccessible to the band, separating them by fifty yards from the nearest spectator; pissed-off at Bruce, Petty, The Stones, and The Who for agreeing to assist the NFL and its network affiliates in their annual ratings-grab by climbing into the giant musical dunk-tank known as the Super Bowl halftime show; and I was pissed-off at U2 for making me once believe that it might not be such a bad idea.
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I recently visited the world’s video replay booth, YouTube, to review U2’s Super Bowl XXXVI performance. I hate to admit that, even without the context of the Patriots’ eleven-point halftime lead, the three-song set still gives me goose bumps. I am, however, happy to announce that I figured out the three reasons why it stands alone.
The first is a circumstance that, hopefully, will never again be presented to any artist. U2 played to a politically and spiritually unified America and seized the moment by performing three songs – “Beautiful Day” “MLK” “Where the Streets Have no Name” --that fit perfectly in tone with a nation still healing from the 9/11 attacks. The second reason was the relative youth of the band. All four members of U2 were between forty and forty-one years of age, that’s a full generation younger than the rockers who would follow. In fact, U2 are the only rock band to appear as the sole act at the Super Bowl before being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Third, U2 were in the midst of a second career-peak behind their latest album, All that You Can’t Leave Behind, and the just-completed, hugely successful Elevation Tour.
Apply the last two factors — relative youth and revitalized popularity — to those who would follow and it might’ve looked something like this…
1982 - SB XVI - Rolling Stones - album: Tattoo You - tour: between American and European legs of no-name tour
1983 - SB XVII - The Who - album: It's Hard - tour: six weeks after final date of Farewell Tour
1988 - SB XXII - Bruce Springsteen and The E Street Band - album: Tunnel Of Love - tour: one month before opening of Tunnel Of Love Express Tour
1992 - SB XXVI - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers - album: Into The Great Wide Open -tour: between American and European legs of Touring The Great Wide Open
Certainly the above scenarios would have added much-needed life to the Super Bowl in an era where the average margin of victory was 19 points. But, of course, it didn’t happen. And in the years between then and when they actually played halftime, each band lost an original member; Bill Wyman left The Stones in ‘92, drummer Stan Lynch was fired by Petty in ‘94, The Who lost Entwistle, and E Street Band organist Danny Federici died of melanoma in 2008. U2 is the only band to play the Super Bowl with its original lineup intact and not looking as if they were there to receive a lifetime achievement Grammy Award.
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So what would I say to my rock & roll icons if given the chance?
To Bono:
In a 2005 Chicago Tribune interview in which Bono tried to explain his “vision of what rock is” he responded to criticism over appearing at the Super Bowl saying, “…to me the Super Bowl was our Ed Sullivan moment. It just came 25 years later.”
The problem, Bono, is that Ed Sullivan moments don’t come 25 years later. For rock n roll, they came in the ‘50s and ‘60s and were like lunar landings for bands of the era. I remember U2’s Ed Sullivan moment, it came in1981, on a new television network called MTV. The song was “I Will Follow”. I’ve been a fan ever since and U2 has been selling out stadiums for decades. Back in the day, an appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show earned you a ticket to stardom. In 2002, stardom earned you a ticket to the Super Bowl.
To Mick Jagger:
At the Super Bowl XL press conference, Keith Richards was asked how he would outlive the cockroaches since the running joke was they would join him as the only survivors of nuclear war. “That is so bad,” Mick Jagger said, before Keith answered, “I’ve got to eat ‘em.” Mick then decided to take one final question, as things were “getting too silly.”
I wonder, Mick, if that was just a fleeting moment, or if you realized how silly the whole Super Bowl halftime process is. From the embarrassment of facing the unimaginative mainstream press, to the organizers alienating most of your fanbase, banning anyone over age forty-five from the on-field audience (the ban was later lifted, but the message was clear: The Rolling Stones were deemed too old to attend their own performance); was the anticipated spike in sales worth the indignities?
To Tom Petty:
In 1980, Tom Petty told Rolling Stone, “I find it difficult to believe anybody really cares that much about what I have to say. I mean, it’s only rock & roll – just disposable crap that won’t mean much in 10 years.”
Tom, as a fan of both your music and rock & roll, I’m so glad you were wrong. I’m guessing you’re glad, too. As far as I’m concerned, those early Heartbreakers’ records mean even more 30 years later. Every time you release a new record or head out on tour, the intrinsic value of everything that came before goes up. Having said that, I sometimes miss that young, cynical Tom Petty; the guy who bared his teeth when he sang, punched walls out of frustration, fought to keep record prices down so I could afford them when I was 16 years old, and who would’ve scoffed at the thought of playing the Super Bowl. What I’m trying to say is, the Bridgestone logo didn’t really bother me, what did bother me is that it didn’t seem to bother you.
To Bruce Springsteen:
In another answer to the “Why now?” question during the 2009 Super Bowl press conference, Bruce recounted a dinner conversation with an unnamed “young musician” that led him to reconsider his past reluctance to the halftime show:
Young musician: Hey, why don’t you play the Super Bowl?
Bruce: Well, you’re kind of playing in the middle of a football game.
Young musician: Man, I hope one day my band’s big enough to play the Super Bowl.
Bruce: Hmm, let me think about that…
Bruce, you blew it! You had a chance to set the young lad straight. Super Bowl? When did that become the goal? What about Madison Square Garden? Or Glastonbury? Or Bonnaroo? You were on the right track, too. Accept you’re not kind of playing in the middle of anything. When you play Super Bowl halftime, you are in the middle of a football game. And I know you had a blast, but I wish you hadn’t done it. I wish you’d stood your ground, and maybe that conversation would have gone something like this…
Young musician: Man, I hope one day my band’s big enough to play the Super Bowl.
Bruce: Son, I don’t know much about football, but we’re musicians, so if you’re ever big enough to play the Super Bowl, you better be wearing cleats, shoulder pads, and a helmet.
To Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend:
“If my hearing is going to be a problem, we’re not delaying shows,” Pete Townshend recently told Rolling Stone. “We’re finished, I can’t really see any way around the issue.”
You guys have said farewell more times than Brett Favre. But unlike Favre, I was always glad to hear you were coming back. Now, after your March 30th performance of Quadrophenia at Royal Albert Hall, the end could really be here. For those in attendance, it must have been a treat to see you one last time, playing complete songs the way they were originally conceived. For those of us in The States, and the rest of the world, however, we’re left with a twelve-minute medley between halves of a football game.
In his tribute to Bruce Springsteen at the 2009 Kennedy Center Honors, Jon Stewart said, “Whenever I see Bruce Springsteen do anything, he empties the tank...every time.” With the exception of Super Bowl XLIII, where the gas gauge barely had time to move, I would agree. But I’m talking to you, Roger and Pete. Throughout your career, the Who also made a habit of emptying the tank. Along the way, you also flattened the tires, broke the windows, and lost a couple passengers, all while driving the loudest and fastest car in the race. If Royal Albert was indeed the finish line, the Super Bowl was nothing but an unnecessary stop along the way.
Don’t agree?
To All:
Next year’s Super Bowl will be broadcast on Fox. In a recent LA Times interview, Fox Sports CEO, David Hill, was asked if the halftime act will be under the age of 60.
“Oh, please, God, yes,” he said. “If I saw Pete Townshend’s belly again I was going to throw up. In his younger days, it might have been rippling muscle, but now it’s like mine – rippling fat.” As for Roger, Hill said, “…poor old Roger had one of the purest voices, but it’s history.” And in case his point wasn’t clear, he added, “From the conversations I’ve had with the NFL, we won’t need oxygen.”
So, there you go. I’m not sure if I want to thank Mr. Hill for providing the voice of reason, or kick him in the teeth for providing the voice of disrespect. Either way, it looks like it’s over. And it wasn’t your decision, but a 63 year-old television executive’s. He went to high school around the same time you all did. You wouldn’t have hung around with him then, and he’s not going to let you hang around with him now. In fact, he’s just the type of person Keith Richards was referring to in a 2002 Rolling Stone interview; when asked, How do you deal with criticism about the Stones being to old to rock & roll?
“People want to pull the rug out from under you, because they're bald and fat and can't move for shit. It's pure physical envy -- that we shouldn't be here. How dare they defy logic?”
I remember back when the Monday after the Super Bowl was a daylong exercise in football rumination and deliberation. Over the last several years, however, I’ve spent a good part of my days-after listening to unqualified, scornful recaps of the compressed, halftime macro-concerts given by my favorite musicians. Since I didn’t really agree with what my idols were doing, it hasn’t been easy to defend them. In my opinion, by playing halftime of a football game, they were the ones defying logic.
I don’t know what Hill, who isn’t bald, but is fat, has in store for next season’s Super Bowl halftime show. But I can take solace in the knowledge that if any of rock & roll’s legends show up at the game, they’ll be in the stands, and not on the field.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Photographs and Memories
In loving tribute to David Migliorini 1966-2010
The last time I saw David Migliorini was at the Stoneham High School Class of ’84 tenth-year reunion. I graduated in 1983, but was dating a classmate of David’s and had accompanied her to the event. David and I hadn’t seen much of one another since high school. It didn’t matter. Friendship has the power to dissolve years, make them feel like weeks, even minutes.
When I heard of David’s passing on August 29th, I thought, as I’m sure many did, there was no chance to say goodbye. Then I thought of one of the many things David and I had in common back in our youth: we both kept photo albums overflowing with pictures of our misguided adolescent experiences. (If memory serves, David called his albums “Beer Books.”) I went to my bookcase and took a turn down Memory Lane.
I flipped through the shiny Mylar pages expecting to find a few scattered shots of my old friend. What I found, however, were countless images of David’s smiling face. There he was at a party in my parents’ basement. Another shot showed him in the cafeteria at Stoneham High. There were a few stills of us posing with our dates before the Twirp Twirl Dance. I found a nice action shot of David jumping on the beds at the Koala Inn on the night of the Maggot Prom – an invention of our very own, created so that cheap, single guys could celebrate Prom night without having to buy tickets or rent a tuxedo. And in a later volume, there were pictures from that tenth reunion.
The last time I saw David Migliorini was at the Stoneham High School Class of ’84 tenth-year reunion. I graduated in 1983, but was dating a classmate of David’s and had accompanied her to the event. David and I hadn’t seen much of one another since high school. It didn’t matter. Friendship has the power to dissolve years, make them feel like weeks, even minutes.
When I heard of David’s passing on August 29th, I thought, as I’m sure many did, there was no chance to say goodbye. Then I thought of one of the many things David and I had in common back in our youth: we both kept photo albums overflowing with pictures of our misguided adolescent experiences. (If memory serves, David called his albums “Beer Books.”) I went to my bookcase and took a turn down Memory Lane.
I flipped through the shiny Mylar pages expecting to find a few scattered shots of my old friend. What I found, however, were countless images of David’s smiling face. There he was at a party in my parents’ basement. Another shot showed him in the cafeteria at Stoneham High. There were a few stills of us posing with our dates before the Twirp Twirl Dance. I found a nice action shot of David jumping on the beds at the Koala Inn on the night of the Maggot Prom – an invention of our very own, created so that cheap, single guys could celebrate Prom night without having to buy tickets or rent a tuxedo. And in a later volume, there were pictures from that tenth reunion.
David and Rosie the lunch lady, SHS cafeteria 1983 (Ron Ponti in background)
There was sadness, but I found myself smiling in spite of the loss. All those ‘80s fashions: hospital pants, half shirts, bandanas, Nikes, bad suits, bad hair. We wore them with pride. In my head I heard the music we bonded over: new wave, punk, The Clash. Mostly though, I heard David’s infectious laugh and imagined it had grown warmer over the years.
L to R: Mike Veno, John Marquard, David and me
display our tickets to the Maggot Prom (1983)
David was one of those rare individuals who not only transcended the preconceived separateness that can keep one group from socializing with another, but encouraged others to do so as well. As a result, our two graduating classes formed an unusual kinship that, in many ways, continues over 25 years later. Several enduring friendships of mine can be traced back to those days, back to when I first met David.
L to R: Robert Guida, Me and David at SHS class of '84 tenth reunion 1994
On the night of David’s wake, I observed the many photographs displayed throughout Finnegan’s Funeral Home. It did my heart good to see that his smile had never changed, and I knew his laugh had indeed grown warmer, and that he was well loved as both a husband and father.
When an artist leaves us, the beauty they created in life, whether in a song, a story, or a painting, remains forever as a reminder of how they touched our lives. I have my pictures; every one of them a song, a story, a watercolor.
I had not seen David in over fifteen years. I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye, but part of him is always with me, in memories, in lasting friendships, in photographs.
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