Category: Album by Album
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Bruce and the blessings of compromise on a Tuesday night
Bruce Springsteen was talking about compromise last night. Adult compromise, as viewed by the kids startled to first discover Mom and Dad had hopes and dreams. The world takes some of those away. You choose to let go of others. These aren’t easy choices. What the kids don’t see, Bruce said, are “the blessings of compromise.” […]
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Your new Springsteen desert island disc(s)
A few weeks ago I drove out to Astoria to help my pal Matt Love tape a pilot episode for a radio show about writers and writing. We talked Springsteen and he asked me something along the lines of, “What’s your favorite record? Which record would you take to the desert island?” “Well, those are […]
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‘Born to Run’ turns 40
Forty years ago today, Born to Run was released. Was finally released. Was unleashed. Born to Run changed everything for Bruce Springsteen. It’s full of hopes and dreams and desperate lust for a future somewhere other than here–wherever your particular here might be. It’s a hot summer night. It’s a screen door slamming. It’s a car speeding off […]
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“You give them the best, and the world takes care of the rest” (Or: Thanks again)
Happy New Year, friends. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love a good sunset, and if I had to pick one day from 2014 to take with me into the new year, it’d be a perfect evening at the beach with a bonfire, and great friends and family. If I had to take two days, […]
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Old Gold office hours, kind words from New Jersey and beyond
Reminder: If you’ve got a book you’d like signed for yourself or someone else, I’ll be hanging out at the Old Gold tonight starting at 6:30 p.m. It’s casual, not remotely a “book signing.” I’ve been calling it office hours, but really the Old Gold is one of my favorite bars in town and it’s […]
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Office hours: Come get books signed, hang out
See that guy right there? That’s the fantastic Redray Frazier. Fantastic singer. Fantastic writer. Above all, fantastic human. And I say that not just because he sent me that photo via text from the coast just before Thanksgiving. He’d be all those things even if he hadn’t bought a copy of the book. Go check […]
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Just to buy you some shoes …
I saw a local media outlet promoting a reporter whose job it is today to help the dear readers sort out the Black Friday chaos–as if Americans needed help buying stuff. It’s just about all we do well these days, and of course we’ve fetishized it and commoditized the oddest hours of the day. It’s […]
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Speaking Freely with Sheila Hamilton on KINK FM
It was a strange and fun thing to hear–myself sounding not completely stupid on the radio, a lead-in to “Trapped.” It was nice to hear “Trapped.”
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‘One of the great quotes in American literature …’
“We live in a post–authentic world. And today authenticity is a house of mirrors. It’s all just what you’re bringing when the lights go down. It’s your teachers, your influences, your personal history; and at the end of the day, it’s the power and purpose of your music that still matters.” —Bruce Springsteen, SXSW keynote, […]
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Scenes from a book party
Book party. Book party. Book party. So, book parties are fun. Thank you to everyone who came out to Mississippi Pizza last night, and sorry to those who couldn’t get in because it was packed. Like, unexpectedly packed. It was nice. It was a lot of fun. As I said on Facebook and Twitter, for […]
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