‘Well I love that dirty water / Oh, Boston you’re my home’

Happy 40th anniversary Bruce Springsteen’s Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.

Listen to Ice Cream Headache—The Podcast with not-so-special guest me

I joined the ranks of Carlos Mencia, Weird Al Yankovic, and Ronnie Milsap this week as a guest on Ice Cream Headache—The Podcast. The hosts, Brian and Murdock, “best buds who love indie rock, comedy and TV” are so cool they didn’t even tell me which originally scheduled guest cancelled on them.

Download Ice Cream Headache—The Podcast’s episode 49 on iTunes or Podcrunch. “The guys get ready for the holidays and chat with travel/food writer Zach Everson about the art of the written word and why becoming a [Bruce] Springsteen super-fan was initially just an economic decision.”

We spent about 40 minutes in their studio chatting about stalking Pete Townshend (a smart move if you’re his would-be biographer), my getting stalked by Richard Marx (maybe), media theory (be provocative but without being a dick), the death penalty (abolish it), getting checks from Rupert Murdoch (cash them), Eater Louisville (read it), and what Jethro Tull does in concert that’s the apex of live rock and roll (listen to the podcast for that anecdote).

Thanks again to Brian and Murdock!

Bruce Springsteen and me: Together at Fenway Park

In the run-up to Bruce Springsteen’s Nov. 3 concert at Louisville’s KFC Yum! Center, I’m sharing five of my favorite videos on Louisville.com (having seen Springsteen in concert 50 times, I’m a subject matter expert).

I left off my very favorite live clip though: set to Bo Diddley’s “Diddy Wah Diddy,” this compilation from Fenway Park on Sept. 7, 2003 shows me jumping around like a 13-year-old girl at Justin Bieber concert (1:55, 3:48 and 3:51). But hey: Fenway Park. Second row. Springsteen.

Recommended Internet consumption: Springsteen, X-47B drones, and Olympic sex

David Remnick in The New Yorker, “Bruce Springsteen at Sixty-Two”—”‘When you are that serious and that creative, and non-trusting on an intimate level, and your art has given you so much, your ability to create something becomes your medicine,’ [Patti Scialfa, Springsteen's wife a member of the E Street Band] said. ‘It’s the only thing that’s given you that stability, that joy, that self-esteem. And so you are, like, “This part of me no one is going to touch.” When you’re young, that works, because it gets you from A to B. When you get older, when you are trying to have a family and children, it doesn’t work. I think that some artists can be prone to protecting the well that they fetched their inspiration from so well that they are actually protecting malignant parts of themselves, too. You begin to see that something is broken.’” Read more.

Graham Warwick in Aviation Week, “A Twist of the Wrist — How to Drive an X-47B”—”Standing off to one side at last week’s press unveiling of the US Navy’s X-47B unmanned combat aircraft system demonstrator at NAS Patuxent River was a guy with what looked like a Borg cybernetic implant on his arm.” “That guy” = my brother. Read more.

Sam Alipour in ESPN The Magazine, “Will you still medal in the morning?”—”At the 1976 Montreal Games, three-time Olympic diver and four-time gold medalist Greg Louganis, appearing in his first Olympics at age 16, developed a kinship with the boys on the Soviet Union diving team and soon found himself partying in their rooms. ‘Once events were over, our entire diet was caviar, vodka and Russian champagne. It was crazy,’ Louganis says. He was particularly struck by the Russians’ sense of sexual liberation. ‘Culturally, they’re more openly affectionate toward each other, which I just drank up, since I was still discovering who I was. But I had my eyes on one Soviet. I’d curl up in his lap; we’d hug and cuddle. I felt so protected.’ It didn’t progress beyond that, Louganis says. ‘He was hooking up with one of the other male divers on the team’ — not to mention married.” Read more.

More consumables after the jump…

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