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