The Police

The Police are going to be playing at HersheyPark Stadium and Christo and I are going to try and get tickets. I don't suppose it will be that hard to get tickets - The Rolling Stones played there and it was quite easy to get those tickets. And they are the most famous band in the WORLD.

I know what a lot of you are thinking - "Mike, you are handsome and slender, but I never knew you were a Police fan." Well, you are right, I am not much of a Police fan. I've always liked them, but never really went nuts for them. They are, however, an iconic band who were very very talented. And I think I want to see them just for that reason. Kind of like the Stones - the first time I saw the Stones, I didn't even own an album of theirs, but I wanted to see them. (And after seeing them live, I wanted to see them again... and if they tour again, I will want to see them again.)

For that same reason, I always wanted to see the Grateful Dead and Ramones. I can not stand the Dead, but they were legends and it would have been cool to have just seen them. Same deal with the Ramones - they started punk rock, you gotta go see a band like that. But, despite the oppurtunity to see both of those bands on several occasions, I never did.

And for that same reason, I am glad that I can say that I saw the following musicians/bands that I like but am not entirely crazy about:
Pearl Jam
Smashing Pumpkins (worst live band ever)
Arlo Guthrie
The Rolling Stones
Marilyn Manson

Here is the list of bands I've had the chance to see, but didn't, and will never get to see:
Nirvana
Grateful Dead

Band I wish I'd at least have been given the chance to see:
Led Zeppelin

Band I need to see at some point in my life:
U2

Bands who I could have seen and are considered 'great' but I think blow:
The Who

So, I will hopefully get to see The Police even though I don't particularly care that much for Sting himself... he seems like kind of a jerk and when he was on the 1988 Amnesty International Tour with Bruce Springsteen, Peter Gabriel, Yousou N'Dour, and Tracey Chapman, he always had this look on his face like he was better than everyone else on the tour.
Item 1: Musically speaking, he wasn't the most best person on the tour, that was Peter Gabriel.
Item 2: Sales-wise, he wasn't the most popular person on the tour, that was Bruce.
Item 3: Connection-to-the-suffering-of-people-in-the-third-world-wise, he wasn't even close to Yousou N'dour despite his trips to save the rain forest, etc etc.
Item 4: Popularity-wise, he wasn't the most most famous person on the tour - that would have been Yousou N'Dour. Yousou N'Dour couldn't walk down the street in any city in all of Africa without being mobbed. He is like Muhammed Ali over there.

One last list:
Musicians I have seen at the HersheyPark Stadium
Bob Dylan
Red Hot Chili Peppers with the Foo Fighters
Rolling Stones

I find it hard to believe that I have see this many great musicians in Hershey PA.

Peace

President's Day Weekend

So far we are having a great president's day weekend.

On Saturday we went to Bombergers and got a new battery for the Subaru. The old battery just was not cold-cranking like all the advertisements on TV say it should be. I took it out and threw it in the creek. Let nature take care of it, I say.



Then we went sledding at the park. Nona LOVED it.

click here to see a video of nona on her sled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLjUFpJDitU

Amy & Nona took naps and we went up to Reading to see Maureen and Andrew before they left for Massachusetts.


Sunday was another beautiful day. We mostly hung out at home. We did go to Target and then to Lancaster Breweing Company for lunch. You may remember from previous posts on this blog that I once asked for the beer sampler and got like 12 5-oz glasses of beer. I'm not as dumb as I was on Saturday July 14, 2005. I got one pint of Litening Lager and I enjoyed it a great deal.

We got home and Nona and Amy took a loooong nap as I worked on some projects. After they woke up, Nona and I watched the Daytona 500. She really seemed to like it.


I went to bed around 10:00 and slept great knowing that I did not have to be at work the next day. That felt great.


Here is a comic I 'wrote.' Maureen and Erin say I shouldn't be allowed to say that I 'wrote' a comic if all I did was draw some pictures with other people saying funny things. Perhaps I will say this: here is a poorly drawn representation of Me and Amy chronicling something funny that Amy said.



Peace
(Jesus Peace, Not Hippie Peace)
MPH

Morro Castle Maritime Disaster

I saw a book at the library called When The Dancing Stopped: The Real Story of the Morro Castle Disaster and its Deadly Wake. It is a piece of non-fiction about a shipwreck and something drew me to it. As I always do with a new book, I look at the pictures first. After a few ho-hum photos of the principal characters of the book, I came across this picture:

clearly that is the Asbury Park Convention Hall. As you all probably know, I saw Bruce Springsteen there in April. I thought it was pretty cool, and I was further intrigued by the book so checked it out.

Back at work, before actually getting to read anything more than the jacket of the book, I was flipping through the pages and came across the title of Chapter Ten: Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J. That, of course, is the title of Bruce's first album. I figured the author was throwing it out there kind of as a joke, like 'this would be a funny name for a chapter in the book and maybe some Bruce fans will get a kick out of it.' well, I certainly did get a kick out of it.

On my afternoon break, I started to read the prologue of the book... I won't relate to you the details of the prologue, as it has nothing to do with this blog entry, other than to say that there is a man on trial awaiting the jury's verdict in his murder case. At one point the defendant is thinking back to his days when he was nationally known as the hero of the Morro Castle disaster and enjoyed a brief speaking engagment recounting his heroics. What struck me was that on pabe xvi, author Brian Hicks, uses the phrase "he thought back to better days..." as opposed to "he thought back to a better time in his life" or "he thought back to his prime." He uses the words "Better Days." Better Days is a Bruce song. Of course, I thought that it was no coincidence.

I am way past my days of relating every blessed thing to Bruce, or every use of the number 37 to Cool Hand Luke, but this book was begging me to tally the Bruce Springsteen references... and there were a lot!

I counted 17. Some are a stretch, but I am taking them anyway and I will offer an explaination of each.

1. Page xvi - Better Days

2. Page 20 - "in the summer" as in "in the summer all the lights would shine..." from Mansion on the Hill

3. Page 51 - St. Mary's - Hicks speaks of a priest onboard the Morro Castle and specifically mentions he is from St. Mary's Church. In "independance day" Bruce says "We're leaving this morning from St. Mary's Gate..." and in "linda let me be the one" he says "in the basement of St. Mary's" I know - you are thinking that this is a little bit of a stretch, but I don't think it was necessary to mention the name of his home parish other than to make a Bruce reference.

4. Page 131 - he uses the word "darkness", as in "Darkness on the Edge of Town." again, one word does not a reference make, but when it is an iconic word of the Bruce lexicon, I gotta throw it in there.

5. Page 131 - chapter title "Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J." Nuf said.

6. Page 161 - Fourth of July - as in the song "Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" again, a popular holiday as a Bruce reference? Yes, I am going to take it.

7. Page 161 - Calliope - as in "The calliope crashes to the ground" from "Blinded by the Light."

8 Page 161 - the palace amusement hall - as in "beyond the palace, hemi-powered drones stream down the boulevard" from Born To Run.

9. Page 162 - Madame Marie - as in "did you hear the cops finally busted Madame Marie for telling fortunes better than they do?" from Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy). (It should be noted that when the Morro Castle was shipwrecked in Asbury Park, Madame Marie would have been there for less than 2 years and would have hardly been the icon of the boardwalk that she has become." Here is a picture of Me, Noel, & Nathaniel at Madame Marie's "Temple of Knowledge."

10 - Page 163 - now here is the quote that made me realize I was right all along. Concerning the scene on the deck of the Morro Castle after the fire, Hicks makes reference to "the skeletal frames of burned-out deck chairs." In Bruce's song "Thunder Road" he sings of "the skeletal frames of burned-out Cheverolets." Now, if that is not a direct reference to Bruce, I don't know what is.

11. Page 164 - Hicks refers to the 1930's Asbury Park as a "city of ruins." Bruce referred to Asbury Park as a 'city of ruins' in his song about Asbury Park called "My City of Ruins."

12. Page 232 - ambulance pulled away - as in "no one watches as an ambulance pulls away..." from Bruce's best song - Jungleland. (Jungleland was the first song Fiona ever heard. I played it for her when she was like 10 minutes old.)

13. Page 256 - Jersey Girl - technically, this is a Tom Waits reference, but Bruce kind of made the song his own on his live album.

The rest are just scattered words that bring Bruce to mind:

14. Page 176 - Rumble "There's gonna be a rumble out on the promenade..." - Atlantic City (and the title of Bruce's wife's first album - Rumble Doll)

15. Page 176 - Thunder - Thunder Road

16. Page 181 - Midway - "He carrys him off down the midway..." - Wild Billy's Circus Story

17. Page 281 - Deserted - 4 songs - Independence Day, Wreck on the Highway, Waitin' on a Sunny Day, Sinola Cowboys.

I know that some of them, like the places in and around Asbury Park, might just be coincidence, but he only mentioned 6 or 7 specific place, and 5 of them were mentioned in Bruce songs. He talked about the a ride called the Calliope... were there not 20 other rides that he could have mentioned?

ALSO - he mentioned the Asbury Park Casino (which was torn down 2 weeks ago). Bruce filmed a couple of videos in there. And he mentioned the intersection of Ocean Ave & First Ave - There is a somewhat famous picture of Bruce taken at that corner - he is leaning against the street sign that says "ocean ave/first ave" with a ferris wheel behind him.

So, if you think I am crazy and am still hyper-obsessed with Bruce (as opposed to just being regular-obsessed) please read this:

After finishing the book, in the afterword, Hicks says when he first saw the picture of the Morrow Castle that is at the top of the page, he felt like he knew where it was without knowing where it was. He knew where it was because he remembered the Asbury Park Convention Hall from a trip he and a friend took to Asbury Park... a trip to see what Bruce was singing about. ALSO, in his thank yous as the end of the book, he thanks Bruce Springsteen and says that Bruce provided the soundtrack for all his travels while researching the book.

IN CONCLUSION: This book was really good - with or without the Bruce references. I only enjoy non-fiction, and I generally only enjoy that when it is a decent story. And this book certainly was a good story. Intrigue, suspense, heroics, psychopaths, commies, unions, and a lot of interesting characters - some weirdos, some very endearing.

peace

mph

Stylish New Glasses

In my last post, I put up a comic I wrote about my stylish new glasses and Chris' reaction to my stylish new glasses. Maureen asked to see a picture of my stylish new glasses, so here is a picture of me celebrating my 35th birthday with Fiona while wearing my stylish new glasses. Under which, I have included a picture of Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of Weezer and half of the inspiration for the comic about Chris' reaction to my stylish new glasses.

Me and Nona

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Rivers Cuomo, the lead singer of Weezer.

.

Peace

MPH