PW: Bruce Springsteen. The Boss. Blue Collar Rock King. He’s just a Jersey boy done good after years of working on the docks to make ends meet, just a common man breaking his ass to get by, who struck it lucky singing about his girl, his hometown and his Glory Days. My floppy, white ass. I’ve been fuming over the popularity of this faux working-class bozo for the better part of the last decade, and now, in what has to be the peak of the mountain of his current resurgence, I bring my unpopular opinion to you. As someone who has worked in shitty warehouses, print shops and glass factories for the bulk of my life, I can tell you, it’s no fun. In fact, it sucks. Badly. And to paint over the grim reality of that life with a romantic brush is insulting. The only people, I’ve found, who romanticize the up-at-dawn, back-breaking blue-collar lifestyle are people who’ve never lived it. Like the bearded, skinny jackasses I run into at parties I wasn’t invited to who lovvvvve Bruce because he’s “the realest” artist they or any one of their other freelance web designer friends have ever heard. MORE
PHILLY POST: When Bruce Springsteen dies, no doubt the flags of New Jersey will fly at half-mast. For months. Bruce Springsteen is a hero of the “Garden State,” and a symbol of all that it stands for. Well, I lived in New Jersey for more than a decade, and I’m here to tell you, it’s nothing to be proud of. New Jersey has four of the 12 most polluted beaches in the United States. Its slobbery governor, Chris Christie, who just asked Bruce Springsteen to help Atlantic City out (please don’t get me started on Atlantic City), and who recently vetoed the gay-marriage bill, is profoundly obese and seems to be proud of it. The state is home to Ancora Psychiatric Hospital, which houses some five dozen of the country’s most criminally insane. And New Jersey is more crowded than any other state in the nation. Ready to relocate? It’s no surprise that the best they could do was Bruce Springsteen. MORE