soju77
DNA, your natural ability, studies about your craft,
the development of and devotion to the philosophy of aesthetics.
Balls.
Naked desire for fame, love, adoration,
Attention, ladies,
sex, money.
Then, if you want to take all the way out to the end of the night,
You'll need a furious fire in your belly
that just does not stop burning.
This is some of the elements that would be useful
You have to come face to face
with 80,000 screaming rock 'n' roll fans.
Because it is the fans who are waiting for you to pull something out of your hat,
out of thin air, something out of this world.
Something that, before the faithful gathered here today,
it is just rumor-fueled songs.
Now, I come from the city boardwalk
where everything is tinged with just a bit of a fraud.
Me too.
In 1972, I do not race-car-driving rebels.
I do not every street corner punk.
I was a guitar player in the streets of Asbury Park.
But I hold four aces clean.
I had a young child, I had a decade of hard-core experience bar Band
already behind me.
I had a great group of musicians and friends
who really know the style I play, and I had a magic trick.
Now I'm here tonight to give proof of life
with that ever-elusive, never really believed,
especially today, we are.
That's my magic tricks.
And like all good magic trick,
starting with the setup.
Now, I have never held a job fair â ???? â ???? in my entire life.
I've never done any hard work.
I have never worked nine to five.
I've never worked five days a week until now.
I do not like it.
I have never seen the inside of a factory, however, it's all I've ever written about.
Standing in front of you is a man
which has become wild and absurd success
write about something he has had ...
absolutely no personal experience.
I-- I made everything.
That's how good I am.
What now?
I'm sure you're wondering how this great miracle happen?
Well...
at first...
there is a great darkness over the water.
As a child, there is Christmas, your birthday, summer vacation,
but the rest of life is lifeless, sucking black hole.
A lifeless, black holes suck homework, church,
school, homework, church,
school, green beans,
green beans, green beans damn.
But then, in a blinding flash of light, holy,
human and only children,
just a kid from the sticks south.
But, a new type of human .... And he divided the world into two.
And suddenly ...
there is a new world.
That under your belt.
And...
above your heart.
On a Sunday night in 1956,
at 39 1/2 Institute Street, into a cold-water flat
and into the mind of a child seven years.
revolution has television!
Right under the nose
from the powers that be!
That is, if they're going to know what really happened
and major changes ...
changes to come,
they will shut this shit down.
Or more likely to sign it quickly.
Because we washed it, invisible, powerless, children,
want more.
Now more alive ...
more love and sex more and more hope ...
and more truth ...
and more power.
And more soul.
And most of all, more rock 'n' roll.
So I sat down with my mother, my mind a little seven-year-old on the fire,
staring into the blue tube as a fun place.
Fun, real type.
The fun, life-affirming, hip-shaking,
ass-shaking, guitar-playing,
mind-and heart-changing, race-challenging, soul-lifting happiness
of the existence of freer.
A free existence burst into the homes of unsuspecting
across America.
As usual Sunday night.
damn world has changed.
In a heartbeat.
In a sweaty, wet orgasm fun.
And all you have to do
to get a sense of it ...
is the risk of being your true self.
Because jin rock 'n' roll has been let out of the bottle
and he told us that if you ...
... My fellow citizens, these feelings, these freedoms,
This pleasant ...
is your birthright.
I listen to, I believe, and I heard the call of the mighty
to act.
So I learned my new hero.
I found out today he got the same two arms, two legs, two eyes I get.
Yes, he's a human Adonis.
And I ...
... depressing creepy.
But I will look for parts of it, okay?
One thing he was that I did not have it tied up
at the waist.
That guitar!
guitar, or as my father had christened it,
"The guitar shit."
But that damn guitar that's the key!
It is a sword in the stone!
It was the staff of truth!
And they sell 'em in downtown Auto West
for 25 bucks!
So I begged and I pleaded with my mother
just to hire me, because we can not afford to buy,
the guitar of Mike Diehl Music School on South Street.
One Saturday afternoon, I took it to the house.
And I sat on the living room couch,
I unlatched the case and alligator infested,
and I slowly opened it,
and the rise of the green velvet lining ...
came the sweet smell of ...
from cherry wood cocktail of power,
pleasure, safety,
dream and dream and dream.
So I took lessons, dedication.
I took lessons for two whole weeks ...
and I stopped.
It was too damn hard.
Learn guitar, not only is it fucking loud,
but the lessons are boring!
I only gave three magic chords, please!
And let me play ...
and shout!
But I was a child seven years old and my hands barely fit around the neck
and I can not waste your hard-earned cash week after week my mother,
so very long, I know. back that it would have to go.
But the morning before I came back, I was tied up at one time.
I took him out to the back yard where the kids neighbor,
and I put on my first show.
Whoo!
I slapped it, I shake it, I shouted,
I sing voodoo nonsense.
I burned a hole in the grass,
I shook my little ass seven years.
Most importantly, I am posing with it!
That dirt!
I danced with that, I did everything but play it.
I cant do that.
I sucked so bad and the kids laugh and laugh and laugh
my silly ass.
And we brought it back that afternoon.
But the ride back home with my mother in the car ...
I sat in the backseat and I am calm.
I think...
I was a little disappointed in myself.
But somewhere inside ...
Somewhere inside, I know that for a while,
briefly,
in front of the kids in the back yard ...
Um ... I smell blood.
And it's bye-bye, New Jersey,
I'll be the air!
Now, everyone ...
everyone has a love-hate relationship with their hometown.
It's just built into the equation grows.
If you take me.
Saya Mr. Born to Run.
I'm Mr. Guntur damn Road.
I was born...
to run, no place to stay.
My house, New Jersey ...
it was a death trap.
This is suicide rap.
Listen to the lyrics, right?
I had to get out, I have to hit the highway,
I'm a man walking paths, I got a white line fever in my veins.
I will bring my girl and I had enough
of filth that this place dishes out.
I will run, run, run, and I ...
well, I'm never coming back.
Currently I live ten minutes away from my hometown.
Tapi, eh ... "Born to Come Back" atau, eh ...
Who would buy that nonsense?
Nobody.
Nobody, nobody.
In our front yard, just a few feet from our patio
grandest tree stand in the city.
It is towering, beautiful copper beech tree.
And on sunny days, I lived under its branches.
Its root is a stronghold for army and stables for my horse.
And I was the first on my block
climb high to head it,
to leave the world a ...
I do not care for a lot already.
And near the top, I have the wind in my face
and I have all the space dream
what do you want.
On summer nights later, I would sit under the arm
with my friends like the cavalry in the afternoon,
just listen and listen ...
for the evening bells of the ice cream,
and the sound of my grandmother called me into bed.
I stayed at the Randolph Street with my sister, Virginia,
he is one year younger than me,
my parents, Adele and Douglas, my grandparents, Fred and Alice,
and my trusty dog ​​Saddle.
We live spitting distance of the Catholic Church,
priest rectory, convent nuns,
St. Rose of Lima Grammar School, all of it
just go throw the football,
in a field of weeds.
I actually grew up surrounded by God.
Surrounded by God ...
and my relatives.
'Cause we have cousins ​​and aunts and uncles
and grandparents
and great-grandparents and great-grandparents,
we all jammed into five small houses
on two side streets.
And when the church bells rang, the whole clan will crowd the road
to stand witness to every wedding and every funeral
who arrived as a state occasion
in our little neighborhood.
My sister and I, we will take the rice was thrown out of the wedding,
pack in a small brown paper bag and take it home and keep it,
and run around and throw it at the next wedding ...
and next wedding ...
and subsequent marriage.
We also have a front row seat to watch the city
Sunday suits them doing endless ...
dark wooden box
to sneak into the back of the funeral home that Freeman
Long black Cadillac
for short trips
St. Rose Funeral hill in the suburbs.
And there...
all Catholic neighbors, all Zerillis,
all McNicholases, all Springsteens who came before ...
they are patiently waiting for us.
On Sunday,
as my mother tend to our grave,
me and my sister ...
we played hide and seek among the tombstones.
Could.
Now, when it rains in Freehold ...
When it rains,
moisture in the humid air blanketing the entire city
with coffee powder smell wafting from the plant moist NescafÃ ©
on the east side of the city.
Now, I do not like coffee,
but I loved the smell of it.
It was entertaining. It united our city,
same as our carpets blowing factory,
in general sensory experience. There is no place here.
You can hear it, you could smell it.
A place where people make a living
and where they work and where they danced
and where they enjoy the small pleasures and playing baseball and ...
and suffer pain.
Where they have their hearts broken
and where they make love,
have children ...
where they died ...
and drank himself drunk in the spring night.
And where they do their best,
the best they could,
to resist the devil, outside and inside,
who sought to destroy them ...
and their homes, their families,
and their city.
Here, we live in the shadow of the tower,
tilt blessed in the good graces of God, one and all.
In the heart-stopping, pants-dropping,
race-riots, odd-hating,
soul-shaking, redneck,
love-and-fear-making,
city ​​heartbreaking ...
from Freehold, New Jersey.
My father worked as a child 16 years old flooring
in a carpet factory.
And then he went to war. When he came home, he married.
They shut down the carpet factory, and he went to work
on line Ford Motor plant in New Brunswick.
Then he worked in a factory NescafÃ © Freehold,
worked in a plastics factory in the city.
He is a truck driver, bus driver, drove a taxi.
He stayed mostly at home, except for second homes,
which is a small local bars in the city center.
Now, for a child, is a stronghold Freehold bar in this great mystery.
When you walk through the barroom door in my hometown,
You entered the mystical realm of humans.
On the rare nights that my mother would call my father back,
we will slowly pass through the city until we pulled to a stop
single lit outside of the door.
He looked at me and said, "Go and father."
It's good pleasure and fear.
I am happy, because I have been licensed
by my mother,
law...
... to go to the bar!
I am a child!
But it terrified me,
due to the entrance of the bar
enter a special room, private, and sacred father.
He was not to be disturbed when he was down in the bar.
Everyone knows it.
So, I will walk.
And I was waist-deep, and as Jack the beanstalk to climb some dark
a land of giants,
all I remember is a man who towered over me on their way out the door.
Now, once you are in, to the left wall
is the red leather booths line
filled with drinkers husband and wife tag team.
Now, they keep your hard-core,
there night after night after night, okay?
Now, to the right is the bar,
rows of seats filled by barricades broad backs of the working class,
clinking glasses, laughter was too loud, and very few women.
I'll be standing there lost in the noise and hustle of crowds
and I will drink in a faint smell of beer
and liquor and aftershave.
That, for children, the adult aroma.
That aroma maturity.
I want some of it, you know?
Eventually, someone will see me and pulled me to my pop.
Now, my view of the floor is the first thing I would see
is a chrome bar stool legs.
Then I would see black shoes, white socks, dark green work pants,
Strong legs and thighs.
My father, until the day he died, had a rhino legs and buttocks.
And- and pants always look like they are stretched,
extends over the legs and buttocks somehow. I do not know how.
He always busting out, you know?
Uh, then I will see his black belt Garrison work,
green work shirt, and then his face.
By the time I got there, his face flushed red,
red as a tomato because she was Irish,
and whatever he drank went straight to his face.
OK? He could not hide when he comes home, you know? Uh ...
And it's not just red, but it was like ...
... it's, like, distorted, also became a kind of liquor mask, you know,
by ... by Mr. Schlitz and-- and ...
It was very strange for me as a kid, uh ...
Day...
Fuck, I do not know!
But it was scary, and she would peek down her shoulders,
down through the smoke and she would look at me like,
"I've never seen you before in my life shit."
I then utter the immortal words of which I was sent to deliver,
"I want you to go home."
I would hear, "Go outside. I'll be out."
And I will follow my breadcrumb trail back out the barroom door,
I'm going to jump into the back seat and I'll tell my mother ...
"Um, he'll be out soon. He will come out right."
Now, those who love us wanted but did not get,
we imitate them.
It's the only way we have in our power
for the closeness and love that we need and want.
So, when I was still a young man and looking for a voice
to blend in with me, sing my songs, and to tell my story,
well, I chose my father's voice.
Because there is something sacred in it for me.
When I went looking for something to wear,
I dressed factory workers,
because their clothes my father.
And all we know about maturity is what we have seen
and what we have learned
from our ancestors, and my dad is my hero
and my biggest enemy.
Not long after he died, I had this dream.
I'm on stage, I was in front of thousands of people
and my father back from the dead, and he was sitting in the audience.
And suddenly, I knelt down beside him in the hallway.
And for a moment, we both watch the burning on stage.
And then, my father, who for many years,
he sat at that counter, affordable,
in what I was too young
and I was too stupid to understand is depression.
Well, I knelt down beside him in the hallway ...
and I brush her arm ...
and I said, "Look, Dad,
man on stage.
That's how I see you. "
Now, my mother is a different story altogether.
I'm going to release you on suicide watch now.
Snap out of it! Come on.
Because my mother was a bright, happy.
He will cheerfully make conversation with a broom handle.
He believes that there is a good faith, a good heart, a good hope in all citizens.
He gave the world more credit, perhaps, than it's worth,
but that's how.
Now, at school mornings-- I hate school.
It's only Rock Star 101.
If you do not hate school in my business,
please keep fucking day you work, okay?
Because it's a sign. This is a sign that, brother,
You are going nowhere, man. Nowhere.
You must have hatred in your heart
to get to the top where I am, okay?
You have to hate, right? Uh ...
So, of course I hate getting up.
And, uh, she has perfected this technique in the morning
where he stood on my bed with a glass of ice water
and gave me 30 seconds.
You know, "Five, four, three, two ..."
Boom! Niagara Falls.
I'll get dressed, I'll fly down to breakfast,
where I will celebrate daily in a large bowl Sugar Pops.
A good product ...
... with only one problem.
They do not put enough sugar in their Sugar Pops.
So I'm not satisfied until I was snowed more sugar
on my Sugar Pops until they looked like the Himalayas.
- And then ... Mmm! - "Well!"
With a buzz and a kiss from my mother,
I go
with my sister, plodding on the road with our book bags
as her high heels clicked lightly in the other direction
Lawyers Title Insurance Company headed downtown.
She was a legal secretary.
It was the work he did since the day he got out of high school,
50 years that followed.
Go to work, do not miss a day, never sick,
never down, never complained.
Work seems not to be a burden to him,
but it is a source of energy and social pleasure.
Now, a couple of nights, I will meet my mother at closing time,
and we will be the last to leave the office,
and this is always a great honor for me.
I'll have my mother to myself.
And with empty buildings, high heel shoes will echo
down the long linoleum hallway.
And with neon lights out, a lawyer empty,
empty secretary's desk, typewriter closed,
still, the building was so still after all the noise of the day.
You know, it's so-- It got so quiet, as if ...
Modifiers is as if the building itself is at rest
after a long day of service in the interests of our city.
And then suddenly, we're going through the front door
and exit on Main Street
the five o'clock rush hour, and he will walk together,
sculpture, and I will walk beside the ...
trying to keep and I'll, you know, looking at her.
And, uh, it was a sight that I never, never forgotten.
My mom was walking home from work.
It has some ...
only some lasting impact on me.
You know? Uh ...
She-- He always has a very ethnic features.
He has...
coal-black hair, olive skin Italy, and when he was young,
he was wearing a very fashionable red lipstick
in the '50s.
And he would look at me with the view that, for me,
Mary as a gift, you know?
Make me understand, for the first time, what it was like
feel proud of someone you love,
and who loves you back.
You know, he let the city know that we are good-looking,
responsible members of the burgh's dirt-dog,
pull our own weight individuals
do what must be done day by day.
We have a place here that we have been getting!
And we have reason to open our eyes to rest every day
and breathe in the life of a stable and good.
Now, my mother is the truth, consistency, good humor,
professionalism, grace, kindness, optimism, decency,
fairness, pride in yourself,
responsibility, love, faith in your family,
commitment, joy in your work, and never-say-die of thirst
for life, for life and living.
And most importantly, to dance.
My mother and two sisters dancing machine, okay?
They grew up in '40 with big bands and swing bands
and they-- they learned to jitterbug and-- and ...
It's in their bones, you know?
My mother was seven years into Alzheimer's.
And he's 93.
But the dancing and the desire and need for dancing is something that ...
has not left it.
Continue to be a primal important part of who he is.
This is beyond language. This is more powerful than memory.
And when he came in the door, we make sure there was music.
He wants to dance, you know?
Uh, these things are the embodiment of my mother.
Their hearts.
He was taken and he was carrying on as if they had never been,
never leave it.
There is nothing like being young and leave the premises.
It is a feeling, oh,
I love.
Maybe that's why I became a musician.
A ...
Sleep late, stay up late.
And you do a lot left.
Freehold night I left for the last time,
I laid on the couch, perched high above the load
of junk furniture band
on the back of a flatbed truck open on a beautiful summer evening.
I was 19 years old.
Ooh ... that feels pretty good.
Gentle sea breeze of the beach that reaches all the way inland.
And as we pull through the city,
for the last,
we were stopped by the police ...
... that tells us that there are laws against moving after dark.
What the hell?
Who would know that?
Do not move your dirt after dark?
What are we running, antiques this big Freehold?
Sunset,
they will bust your ass in Freehold, son.
Anyway, they, uh ... They sent us on our way.
Glad to be rid of hippies town, I guess.
And so, I lay on my sofa
and I watch the tree branches rush over me
and the stars rolling in the night sky, and I remember
I feel absolutely wonderful.
I have nothing, no parents.
They have moved with my sister Pam
to California in 1969.
sister Virginia, a great soul that he is,
she became pregnant and had a baby at 18.
He left high school, married competitive bull rider
and they moved to the wilds of southern New Jersey,
because that is where the cowboy life.
I am not kidding.
Actual joke is, 50 years later,
they are still together and they still go to the rodeo.
Well, I had no money and no family and realistic future.
But yet, I remember laying on the couch with a summer breeze flowing over me
and, you know, it-- smell of saltwater in the air
from the beach come and think ...
I'm just happy.
I feel happy.
I got it all, you know? Maybe I am, you know?
Perhaps there is nothing like that moment in your life to be young and ...
leaving the place, all the young freedom.
You feel-- finally become untethered from everything I've ever known:
the life you've lived, your past, your parents,
Your world is familiar and that you have loved and hated.
You put your life before you as a blank page.
It's one thing I miss about getting older,
I miss the beauty of the blank page.
So much of life ahead of you.
promise, its possibilities, mystery, his adventure.
It was a blank page ...
just lay there.
Dare you to write on it.
So ... So, my 20 year old
and I stayed and played at the Jersey Shore
and I'm waiting to be discovered.
Now, I have confidence.
I've been around a bit.
And without a doubt,
I'm definitely the best thing I've ever seen.
I've played in front of every audience imaginable.
I have been playing exhibition firefighters,
midnight madness, opening supermarkets, drive-in movies,
uh, in front of the concession stand in between films.
I have been playing beach parties, club officers,
pizza parlors, coffee shops,
bowling alley, trailer parks, roller rinks, VFW hall,
CYO canteen, Elks Lodge, YMCA gymnasium,
Hockey arenas, fairs, carnivals, high school dances, weddings,
fraternity party, bar mitzvah ...
... soul revues, battle of the bands,
Sing Sing prison, and Marlboro Psychiatric Hospital.
Send me a murderer and maniac and let me entertain them, okay?
That's what I did. That's all right.
That was all before I was 23 years old.
I'm frustrated. I listen to the radio
and I thought, "I'm as good as him.
I'm better than him.
So why not me? "
Since I live in a remote shit, okay?
Let me explain this to you. I live in a secluded.
There are people here, and no one comes here.
This cemetery.
No Jersey, Jersey, Jersey Shore, Jersey Almighty dirt.
I found it.
Before me...
Jersey is Jeserkhistan.
Jeserkhistan!
One thing small -stan that nobody knows a damn thing about.
You know?
And New York is a million miles away
of Jersey Shore. In my small town as a child,
we know there are people who have been to New York City.
Jesus Christ, it was-- it was just one hour!
But no, you might as well say you're going to the damn moon.
"Hey, we're going to the Moon, you want to go?" "No, no, no.
No, New York. Not..."
Our province.
Everyone is afraid of the big city.
And there was no internet, no ET, or MTV,
or cable TV, or satellite, or ...
This is before the people and all the butt crack of Anyplace, USA ...
can be seen all over the world,
uh, should they choose, in the press of a button, in the next instant.
So who will come to Jersey Shore
to find the next big thing in 1971?
You are right.
No-damn-body.
All we hear there is a sound ...
clap with one hand.
It will not happen.
I've got one shot.
My girlfriend at the time, has been a big help.
Bring a man who had a successful recording band
to the Student Prince, our club in Asbury Park,
to find us.
We woke up on a small stage in a club that fits 150 people.
It was about half full.
And we play for these people
like we were at Madison Square Garden.
All that we have, throughout the night.
We played five sets, from 21:00 to 03:00
At the end of the night, I was drenched to the bones.
I came down from the stage, this guy walked up to me.
He looked at his eyes, shook my hand and said,
"You guys are the best unsigned bands that I've ever seen."
Then he slept with my boyfriend and left town.
That was the end of the story.
It is a sad end.
I mean, I don't-- But that was enough for me.
I hung out with people ...
and I said, "Sirs, we would have to leave
the boundaries of Jersey Shore
and venturing into the unknown ...
if we want to see,
heard by anyone or found. "
I found the manager manufacturer, surfboard from West Coast--
he moved East-- named Virgil Carl "Tinker" West.
Now, together, him, Mad Dog Lopez, and my own
we live in a surfboard factory.
In the critical area of ​​industrial Wanamassa, New Jersey.
Tinker said he had some contact rock 'n' roll was left in San Francisco.
So we all got excited, and he said if we can get there,
something that might happen.
So we're saving all our money until we have $ 100.
All right?
And then I, Danny Federici, Mad Dog Lopez,
Little Vinnie Roslin, our bass player,
rigged out Danny station wagon to drive.
Placing the mattress in the back for the driver to spell each other
and sleep on the way out there.
We cheated the old '40s this Tinker flatbed to carry our equipment
and we have three days to make it across the country
for New Year's Eve gig at Big Sur, California.
Now, three days means
they are going to be a thousand miles.
You can make it, but you can not stop.
You stop for gas and for other things.
You driving, driving, driving, driving, 72 hours a day.
Someone driving all the time around the clock.
Now, of course, we lost Danny
and all of a station wagon full of drivers
di Nashville, Tennessee.
Now, there is no mobile phone.
young people, take time.
Let's try.
Imagine a world without mobile phones.
When you lose someone
in a world without mobile phones ...
oh, they are fucking gone.
No device.
You can not relate to them. They're gone!
Of your life!
Into the ether.
So now, it's just a Tinker and me, this Tinker dog,
thousands of miles to go,
and we had some problems. One is I do not have a license.
The second problem is I do not have a clue about how to drive.
And by that, I mean that man
that would be very, very long time to write "Racing in the Street" ...
That's how good I am.
Because, at 21, I had never driven the damn block.
Around 1:00 or 2:00,
Tinker's glasses on, and he said, "I'm cooking.
I need to get some sleep. Now it's your turn to drive. "
I went, "Tink, I can not drive."
He said, "Springsteen, nothing to it.
Idiot around the world do, okay? "
He pulled me into the parking lot. He put me behind the wheel.
I started grinding my teeth, pumping the clutch,
jerking the truck the whole lot-- this manual transmissions in the 1940s.
I can not get past the first tooth!
After a while Tinker said, "It will not work,
but I have another idea. "
He got in the driver's seat.
He slipped in the clutch. He smoothly shifted to first.
She ease out the clutch.
He will be trucks that occur in a small sweet roll,
looked at me and said, "Now let us switch seats."
And that's what we did.
I was fine in the second, third, and fourth and I could put it in between the lines
as long as I do not have to stop or go near the first tooth.
If I had to do one of those things, I have to wake up Mr. West.
OK? Now, do not care
because he wakes up,
because people who can not drive to drive!
You will not sleep through it!
So...
You will be surprised how far you can go all over this great country
without having to stop. You know that ...
it's a long way between things out there,
and, man, I drove my part
2,000 thousand ...
in second gear, third, and fourth.
Without killing anyone.
Uh ... And we made the right time, you know, but, uh ...
that trip was ...
... is where I see the United States in full
and as a young man, I was overwhelmed by the size and beauty, and ...
This is a short piece of a book about ...
ride across the country for the first time.
beautiful country.
And I felt great joy at the wheel as we crossed the western desert at dawn.
The blue, purple, dark valley.
Pale yellow morning sky
with all shades pulled out,
leaving only a black silhouette of the mountains
in your rearview mirror.
Then, with the sun rising in the east of our backs,
red and browns of the plains and hills
come to life slowly in front of us.
turn your palms on the wheel of the white sauce is aridity.
Morning wake up the earth into this muted colors.
And then came the flat light of the midday sun
and everything stands revealed as pure horizon.
only sky, sky, sky, and the sky.
Lose to the two-lane asphalt
and disappeared into nothing.
My favorite things.
Then at night with burning red sun in your eyes
and dropping gold into the hills west in front of you.
All felt like home to me.
And I fell in love with the timeless desert.
So it's-- it in 1980.
I am only 30 years old, I was in another cross-country trip with a friend of mine
and we stopped outside of Phoenix to gas up.
Go into the small-town pharmacy,
I was rummaging through the shelves of paperback books,
I found a book called Born on the Fourth of July
by a Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic.
Now, the book is a testimony of the experience
that he had as infantry combat in Southeast Asia.
One or two weeks later,
I bunked at the outside of the usual motel Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles.
Uh For the uninformed, it kind of upscale,
lowlife hanging rock star, right?
Uh, small world theory.
Small world theory proves itself once again.
I've seen a young man with shoulder-length hair
sitting in a wheelchair at the edge of the pool for a few days.
So, one afternoon he rolled up to me and said, "Hi, I'm Ron Kovic.
I wrote a book called Born on the Fourth of July. "
I said, "Oh my God. I just-- I just read it. And modifier it devastated me."
He spent the afternoon talking to me about a lot of the soldiers returned
who are struggling with various problems,
and he wanted to know if I'm going to take a drive with him to the vet in the center of Venice ...
satisfy some veteran Southern California.
So I said, "Sure." The next day, we headed out there,
and I am usually pretty easy with people, but once we were in the center,
I do not know how to respond to what I see. Uh ...
Speaking of my own life for these people seemed reckless.
You know?
There are homeless people and drug problems and post-traumatic stress and ...
Young people my age are dealing with a life-changing ...
physical injuries.
And it made me think about my own friends from back home.
Walter CICHON.
Walter CICHON is the greatest front man of rock 'n' roll
at the Jersey Shore in the '60s bar band.
He was in a group called The Motif,
and he was the first real rock star I have ever laid my eyes.
He only had it in his bones. He had it in his blood.
It was the way he carried himself.
On stage, he just was lethal.
He was crude and sexual and dangerous,
and in our little area it teaches us, by the way he lived,
You can live your life the way you choose.
You can see the way you want to see,
You can play the music you want to play,
You can be who you want to be,
and you can tell anyone who does not like it
to go fuck themselves.
Walter has ...
guitar-playing brother, Raymond.
Raymond ...
high, high, awkward guy is kind of sweet,
one of the great people who just are not comfortable with his size.
You know, uh, he's always, like, "Ooh. Ooh."
Knocked into the dirt wherever he is. And wherever it is,
there simply is not enough room for Raymond, for several reasons.
And, uh ...
But the strange thing was he always dressed impeccably
with a pastel shirt, long pointed collars, sharkskin pants, nylon socks,
shiny, pointy-toed shoes, slicked-back hair black
with small curls will fall when he played guitar.
Hey, Raymond is my guitar hero.
He's just a shoe salesman day.
And, uh, Walter, I think, worked construction.
They are just a little older than us,
never had a national hit record, never did any great travel,
but they were gods to me.
And...
I spent hours standing in front of their band,
learning, learning, learning, class is in session.
Night after night, watching Ray fingers fly
more fretboard, and Walter will scare ...
dirt than half the crowd.
Oh man.
They are important for my development as a young musician.
I learned a lot from the Walter and Ray.
And my dream,
I dream I just want to play as Ray
and walk like Walter.
And then there was Bart Haynes.
Bart Haynes was the drummer of my first band, The Castiles.
He was the first real drummer I have ever played with.
He was a cute kid abysmal,
classic class clown, is good, a good drummer ...
with a strange quirk-- can not play "Wipe Out" by The Surfaris.
It may not seem so important to you right now, I understand.
But in those days,
Your skills, your courage,
yourself as a drummer and as a human being
tested in front of your friends after a night
by your performance of "Wipe Out."
Now, Bart can play every other damn thing,
but when it comes to "Wipe Out" ...
beyond its capabilities!
It was tragic.
You know, uh ...
One day he fell ...
rose from the drum stool, he joined the Marines, and ...
Walter and Bart ...
... they were both killed in battle in 1967 and '68.
Bart is the first youth of our hometown
to give his life in Vietnam.
So, I really do not know what to say to people that I met in Venice.
I sat there for most of the afternoon and I just listened.
Then in 1982, I wrote a story and I record my soldiers.
It is a protest song, GI blues.
The verses are simply accounting events.
Chorus is a declaration of your birth ...
and the right for all the blood and confusion
and pride and shame and mercy ...
that comes with the birth.
In 1969, Mad Dog, Little Vinnie, and my own,
we are all prepared on the same day.
The three of us.
We ride together one early Monday morning from the Selective Service Office
on the bus may unhappiest ever pulled out of Asbury Park,
because we were on the way
with what we believe will be our funeral.
We have seen already, up very close.
When we got to the Draft Council of Newark, we did everything we could not go.
And we succeed, the three of us.
When I went to Washington,
and I had the opportunity to visit Walter and Bart,
I'm glad that Mad Dog Little Vinnie,
in this case, my name is not up on ... on the wall.
But it was in 1969, and thousands and thousands of young men to come
will be called, simply sacrificed,
just to save face for the powers that be
who, at the time, already know.
They knew it was a lost cause.
And still, thousands of ...
boys younger.
So, uh ...
So I sometimes wonder who go in my place.
Because someone did.
Now...
a 'n' roll a real rock band evolved from a common place and time.
The band came out from the cities, from the town, from the environment.
And they come at a certain moment, you know?
The band is all about what happens when musicians
originating from the same streets,
with the same passion and influence, go looking for lightning and thunder!
They came together as a whole
which is greater than the sum of its parts.
They may not be the best player. That's not necessary.
They need to be the right players and when they play together,
if any fellowship of the soul
and natural brotherhood and fraternity manifests itself,
and search, the search begins.
You find something,
adventure undertaken.
And you ride shotgun.
In a real band, the principles of mathematics to get standing on their heads.
And one plus one equals three.
Now one plus one equals two, that happens every day.
It's not magic. That grind.
That's when you wake up, one,
go to work, one, go to bed ...
Two.
Two, genius, two.
But when one plus one equals three, that's when your life changes
and you see everything new.
And these are the days when you are visited by a vision ...
when the world around you bring down the spirit,
and you feel blessed to live.
This is an important equation of love.
There is no love without one plus one equals three.
This is an important equation of art.
This is an important equation of rock 'n' roll.
That's the reason the universe would not fully understood.
That's the reason "Louie Louie" will not be fully understood.
And that's the true reason rock 'n' roll
and true rock 'n' roll band will never die.
Now, Gary, Danny Little Steven, Mighty Max, Professor Roy,
Nils Lofgren, Patti Scialfa, who is one of my plus one equals ...
- Three! - Excellent, grasshopper.
But none of my audience's imagination
or their hearts like Clarence.
Clarence is ...
Clarence is a figure out of the rock 'n' roll story books,
and together, we tell a story that is bigger than ...
whatever I write in my songs.
It is a story in which, not only did the Scooter and the Big Man
Bust the city in half ...
but we remade the city.
We remade the city, shaping it into the kind of place
where our friendship and our love for each other
never as a matter of course.
The first night I saw Clarence, he came walking out of the shadows
toward the stage,
nodded to me, get up, stand up on my right side for the first time.
He takes his saxophone.
And when he played ...
While he was playing, he whispered in my ear story.
And then we whisper into your ear.
And we bring together for a long time ...
a very good time.
The Big Man is great.
Everything about him.
his personality, his size, his laugh ...
His saxophone sound.
When I first heard it, I thought it was the greatest sound I've ever heard.
And that is.
and his heart problem, they were great.
But it is the element of my life.
And losing him like losing the rain.
If my mystical ...
If I mystical, I guess Clarence and my friendship
would lead me to believe that we-- we stand together
at other times older.
You know, in the, uh ...
in another life.
Along other rivers.
In other ancient cities.
In other fields ...
working side by side,
at sunset,
doing our modest version of the Lord's work.
I'll see you in the next life, Big Man.
Ladies and gentlemen, let's hear it for the greatest people you will ever see.
Clarence "Big Man" Clemons!
And legendary ...
- E ... - Street Band!
There he is!
Okay, okay, she is the queen of my heart!
He is my beauty lit up!
- Patricia! - My Jersey gadis.
He is a great songwriter.
He is one of the most beautiful sound I've ever heard.
She's smart, tough ... but fragile.
Do not forget that part.
If we love people in the company that reflects the best of us,
That is the light that he shines on me.
In 1984 one night, I was hanging out at the Stone Pony
and this beautiful redhead appeared, sat down with the band Sunday night home.
And that was the night I fell in love with the sound of Patti.
He went on stage, this blaze of red.
She performed a great version of the hit song The exciters' 'Tell him.'
So the first line of the first song I ever heard that Patti is ...
She did. Ladies and gentlemen, Patti Scialfa.
thanks.
Yes, believe ...
Trust in a relationship is a fragile thing.
Uh ... Always be a little complicated for me
because trust takes letting others
to see ourselves as real as we have the courage to reveal.
But, I mean, uh ...
I do not want to see my real self. Why should...?
- Why would anyone want to? - You know? But...
But it means allowing others to see behind the many masks,
masks we wear, to overcome that fear.
Or rather, to learn how to love and how to believe in spite of it.
That takes a bit of courage ...
and a very strong partner.
Because in this life, you make your choice,
You take your position,
and you wake up from the spell of immortality young
where it feels like the road will last forever.
And you walk with your partner selected by the clock is ticking.
And you realize that life is finite, that you have so much time.
And together ...
You name things that will give your life at that time its meaning,
its purpose, its fullness, it is reality.
And this is what you build together. This is...
what you love consists of.
This is what you ...
This is your life, you know?
And these are things that you can hold
when the storm comes,
because they will.
Patti Scialfa!
Dia badass a!
Will add this song to set our night.
Well, these are the last days of the first pregnancy Patti.
I received a surprise visit from my dad at my house in LA.
You know, he had driven 500 miles, without notice,
to knock on my door.
That's his style.
So at 11:00 am, we sat
in the sunlit dining room and we are nursing a beer in the morning.
That's his style.
It's my dad breakfast champion.
When my father, never a man to talk, right, exclaiming,
"You've been very good to us."
And I nodded that I had, you know? And, uh ...
And then he said, "and I was not very good for you."
And the room just ...
well, stand still ...
as a shock to me, unacknowledgeable being recognized.
If I...
If I did not know better, I would swear an apology ...
of some sort is being made.
And that is.
Here, in the last days, before I ...
to become a father, my father visited me ...
to warn me about the mistakes he made,
and to warn me not to make them with my own children.
To free them from the chains of our sins,
My father and I and our fathers before.
That they may be free ...
to make their own choices and to live their own lives.
We are a ghost or we are fathers in the lives of our children.
We both lay our fault, we load them
and we haunt them.
Or we help them in place under the old burdens,
and we freed them from the chains of our own flawed behavior.
And like ancestors, we walk with them,
and we help them to find their own way
and some transcendence.
My father ...
on that day was petitioned me
to the role of ancestors in my life
after becoming a ghost for a very long time.
He wanted me to write a new ending to our relationship,
and he wanted me ready for a new start
that I would experience.
It was the greatest moment of my life with my father.
And that's all I needed.
Ya.
All right.
I never believed that people come to my shows
or for rock shows in general to be told anything.
But...
I believe that they came to be reminded of things,
reminded of who they are at their most encouraging,
in their deepest when life feels full.
This is a good place to connect with your heart and your spirit.
It's great to be among the crowd,
reminded of who we are and who we can collectively.
Music do things pretty well.
Sometimes, they can come in very handy.
And especially today, when some warned
of who we are and who we can is not a bad thing.
You know?
I-- I refer back to the weekend of March for Our Lives
when we look at all the young people in Washington,
and citizens across the country,
remind us of what faith in America
and what real faith in American democracy
and how sacred it.
You know...
weekend, you only see what actually looks and feels like.
It only encourages
to see all the people out on the street
and all the passion of true life in the service of something good.
To see it still there,
in the center of the heartbeat of our country ...
and...
regardless of what we have been through. And it was a good day, you know?
That is only...
it was just a good day.
But it is a necessary day.
Since this is the moment when we also saw people lined up,
and in the highest offices of our land, who wanted to speak with our dark angel,
you want to call the ugliest and most divisive specter
America's past. And they want to destroy the idea
of America for all. It was their intention.
That which we have seen, in anger
broken families on the border,
and hateful parade in the streets of America this year.
Things I never thought I would see again in my life.
Things that I thought was dead and gone ...
forever, in the ash heap of history.
You know...
We have come too far and worked too hard,
Too many people are either paying too high a price,
paid with their lives, to allow this to happen now.
You know...
There has been too much hard work done,
and sacrifice.
There is a wonderful quote by Dr. king
who said, "The arc of the moral universe is long,
but bent toward justice. "
It is important to believe in the word and to bring themselves
and to act accordingly, to live with compassion.
And have faith that what we see now,
The chapters are hard ...
in a long, long, ongoing battle
for the soul of the nation.
I always-- I always thought I was a typical American,
and so I fought all my life, and I learned and I play
and my work,
Because I wanted to hear and I want to know the whole story of America.
I wanted to know my story and your story.
I feel like I need to understand as much as I can
to understand myself.
You know? Who am I? And...
where I come from and what it means.
What does it mean for my family? Where would I?
Where we will be together as a people?
And- and what it means to be an American?
And become part of the story in this place and at this time.
I want to be able to celebrate and honor the beauty,
strength.
And I want to be a critical voice
when I think that that is referred to.
But most of all,
More than anything, I want to be able to tell a good story for you.
That young promise to myself.
And this is the promise of my youth to you.
From when I was very young,
I take very seriously my delight.
You know?
And this is what I pursue as my ministry.
I still believe that. This is what I presented to you
many years as a long prayer and my noisy,
as my magic tricks.
I want...
I want to rock your soul!
And you take it home and spread it and ...
I want sung and modified by you and your people and your children,
should they be interested.
I want to be something that you can call
when things are good.
And, uh ...
and when things are not so good.
You know, that might strengthen, helping to make sense ...
Your story and your life the way you strengthen me and help me
to make sense of my life. You provide me with a purpose,
with meaning and with a great amount of joy.
I hope I've done it for you
and that I've become a good traveling companion.
Remember that the future is not yet written.
So, when things look dark, do as the mighty mother I would insist,
lace your dancing shoes and start working.
There's a joke here somewhere.
When I find out, I'll tell you.
Whoo!
thanks.
Please...
sit.
It was a beautiful autumn evening November. It was during the writing of my book.
I drove back to my neighborhood where I grew up,
look, uh ...
I still do not have a fucking clue.
All right?
But, uh ...
All I know is the streets are dead empty
and the whole place looked like it had been locked since 1955.
Church corner and I still did not change,
no weddings, no funerals. I...
slowly rolled another 50 yards on my block
to visit my large trees, and it was gone.
It was cut to the road since the last time I passed.
So I got out of the car and I looked down and there was ...
musty earth square which holds the remaining snakes from the roots
on the edge of the parking lot.
So I reached down and I picked up a handful of dirt
and I just kind of ran through my hands.
And my heart sank as ...
such as children who have suffered some losses can be fixed.
You know, like some ...
some part of me away.
A ...
I do not know. I guess I ...
It's just that existed long before me.
I suspect this is going to be there long after I'm gone.
And I like it.
Modifiers was immortal.
It was at the center of our street and it is rooted
Our environment is so long.
So I sat there for a while just to condemn county.
And listen to the night comes,
and I looked again and I realized it was missing, but some ...
some important part of it is still there,
and the air space above the roots.
I can still feel the life and soul and light
My childhood friend there.
Only the leaves, branches and trunks of enormous
now described, shot through,
by the stars at night and the sky.
But the great tree of life I can not end or be removed so easily
from this place, because it's history,
and historical things.
footprint was too big.
It was too old and was too strong, and it's been there too long ...
should be done away with so easily.
It has stood witness
for all that has happened in the small streets under the arm.
All joy ...
and all heartbroken.
And all life.
And we live in a ghost, always trying to reach us ...
of that shadow world.
They were with us every step of the way.
You know, still his father who had died with me every day.
I miss him, and if I have a craving ...
Oh man...
I wish he could be here to see this.
But I visit with him every night.
A little. That is something that is full of grace.
And Clarence, I can ...
I could see and Clarence bit every night.
Then Danny ...
walter,
Bart.
my own family, so many of them go ...
of these houses are now filled by foreigners, but the soul ...
soul is stubborn.
It did not disappear so quickly.
The soul remains.
They remain here in the air,
in an empty room,
dusty roots,
on the sidewalk as I know every single inch
like I know my own body
as a child ...
and in the songs we sing.
You know ... That's why we sing.
We sang for us and for the blood of our people.
Because it's all we have at the end of the day.
Each other, and ...
maybe that's what I was looking for when I go there.
I just want to communicate ...
with the old spirit,
standing in front of them,
feel their hands on me ...
one more time.
Anyway, once again, I stood in the shadow of my old church, you know?
You know what they say about Catholics?
Yes, there is no exit.
No, no. You know, once they get you, they got you.
Asshole gets you when the gettin 'was good.
They are doing their hard work and they do it well.
'Cause the words were very strange but all too familiar blessing
come back to me that night.
And I want to tell you, these are the words that as a child,
I murmured these things, I singsonged them,
I ... shout them, bored out of my fucking mind
the endless drone before class
every damn day.
Every day, a green blazer, a green tie, green pants,
green socks all the students did not want St. Rose.
You know?
But for some reason fucking
as I sat there in my path that night,
You know, grieving, mourning my old tree,
and once again surrounded by God,
those were the words that came back to me and they are different flows.
The "Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done on Earth
like in Heaven.
Give us today.
Just give us today, and forgive us
our sins, our sins,
as we can forgive those who trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,
we all,
forever. Amen. "
May God bless you, your family, and everyone you love.
And thank you for coming this evening.
thanks.