Orel Family

I dragged myself on the bathroom scale this morning. It was reading kind of low. Good, good, I thought, I haven't seen that number in months. That's when I realized, the Springsteen diet works! Oh, I got that Fitbit and I track my steps and my climbs. But on Bruce show night, I walked twice as many steps and climbed twice as many floors. It starts with the 10 minute walk in. That can be tripled if the teenage daughter leaves her ticket in the car -- unplanned benefits! Then the show starts, and there are so many opportunities! Free weights, during "Hungry Heart." Lateral motion, during "I'm a Rocker." Hand grip exercises, for "Drive All Night"; bring your own cell phone or lighter. Aerobics, during "Dancing in the Dark"; the teenage daughter offers to take lead. Voice exercises, during "Backstreets." Jumping, during "Shout." And, of course, staying upright for three and a half hours with no break. Just keep...

Earlier today, Bruce Springsteen canceled an upcoming show in Greensboro, North Carolina. This is hardly the first time he's canceled a scheduled concert, not even on relatively short notice (the show was scheduled two days from now). Just 10 weeks ago, he postponed a show in New York just hours before the scheduled start time. In 2009, he canceled a show in Kansas City after some fans had already arrived at the arena for the show. In 1992, I traveled to California to see a pair of Springsteen shows in Mountain View, and they were both postponed, just a day before the first show. Of course, the circumstances were different each time. The New York show was postponed due to a major snow storm. The Kansas City show was canceled due to the death of one of Bruce's cousins who was also part of the crew for that show. The California shows were canceled due to illness. This time, it's different. This time, Bruce is choosing not to play the show. He's choosing not to play...

Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band at the Pepsi Center, Denver. March 31, 2016 Sometimes, opportunities arise unexpectedly. A trip that needs a change of planes. A tour that is stopping in a hub city. A chance, with just a bit of finesse, to make these intersect. That, more or less, is how I ended up in Denver this past Thursday night, as Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band continued "The River" tour there. A happy fan came a long way to get his wish. Unlike in many Eastern venues, ticket sales in Denver were relatively soft; tickets could be had for substantially below face value in the days leading up to the show. Turnout for the "pit" lottery was relatively light by some recent standards, as well. Inside the venue, the limited edition silk screen posters failed to sell out. Once the show started, none of that mattered. There may have been empty seats, but the Pepsi Center felt full, and it was hot and  loud.  Bruce seemed to feed off the ...

I was a college freshman when  The River  was released. It was the first record I remember buying for my own turntable, to play through my own receiver, and to hear on my own speakers. I still have that turntable, that receiver, and those speakers, too, and I still use them regularly. Felt like the best $150 I ever spent… until tonight's show in Cleveland, more or less. The ticket I bought to my first show on the original River tour was $12.50, tax included. I still have the stub, too. That first show, Bruce played "Independence Day" and introduced its meaning to him, about talking to his dad late at night: "I never once asked him what he was thinking about... and later I realized that what he was doing every night was, he was sitting there dreaming... but what happened to him was... he didn't have the strength any more, or the power to begin to make any of the things that he was dreaming about real." And  that  felt so real to me.  Now I know the thi...

Bruce Springsteen and Max Weinberg, earlier this evening at Madison Square Garden as seen on periscope. People using the mobile app can add comments and hearts. It's Wednesday night and I'm sitting at home in Michigan and I'm watching Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performing live in Madison Square Garden. Oh, it's not on TV, and it's not "official." The picture is somewhat awful, but the sound is pretty good through my computer speakers. Anyway, what can we expect from a cell phone? This day has been coming for many years. The day when an event like this would be fearlessly broadcast, live, from inside the event venue to anywhere in the outside world. Periscope , acquired by twitter in 2015 before it was even released to the public, was hardly the first app to enable broadcasts from smartphones, but so far it sure seems to be the best. Their slogan is, "Explore the world through someone else's eyes." A week ago, when Bru...

Graph 1: Ascending: The global temperatures of my life. (data source: GISS) January 9, 2016:  Last January, I posted a piece I titled, "Just a Little Bit Warmer," just after NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) released the final piece of data for 2014 global temperatures. As expected, the data showed that 2014 was the hottest year since the beginning of record keeping in 1980, albeit by a very small margin. In a few days, GISS will publish the final data for 2015. Once again, it'll be a new record. This time, by a wide margin. The data will be at  http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt . In October, the Global Land-Ocean Temperature Index crossed 1 full degree celsius above normal, for the first time ever. November became the 2nd month in a row above that mark, and December may well make it 3 consecutive. 2015 will also mark the 4th consecutive year of rising global temperatures; the last time that happened was 100 ...

A slow ballad plays. A soft soprano sax solo plays over the music. Then Bruce Springsteen sings: "River blood red with the years. You can flood this valley with a thousand tears. Wash away all that's been found. But you'll never wash away the sound of the stray bullet that shot my baby down." What is it really  about? Hell if I know. Was his baby shot point blank? Is the singer certain what's going on in his life? Or does he just ride by night and travel in fear? On Friday Bruce's latest box set album retrospective, The Ties That Bind: The River Collection will be released officially. The collections have grown ever more expansive: A decade ago, for the 30th anniversary collection for Born To Run: 30th Anniversary Edition it seemed a miracle to include a full video concert from England. But there were no outtakes included. Five years ago, the box set for Darkness On The Edge Of Town included a 2 disc collection of outtakes in addition to various video ge...