The Jedi Knight Before Christmas

'Twas the Jedi Knight before Christmas, and all throughout space
Not a creature was stirring, not a single alien race.
Lightsabers were hung by the X-Wing with care
In hopes that Luke Skywalker soon would be there.

The Ewoks were all nestled snug in their beds
While visions of Stormtroopers danced in their heads
And Leia in her headdress, and I in my ship
had just settled in for to catch us some kip
When the radar began flashing with such a loud clatter,

I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the cockpit I flew like a flash
Turned on the thrusters and banged on the dash.
The moons shone down on newly-fallen Hoth snow
Where AT-ATs and wampas go running, don't you know,
When suddenly out of the sky like a hurtling asteroid
Came the Millenium Falcon and a tiny blue droid
With a little old Jedi - and this is no fluke -
I knew in a moment it must be Sir Luke!
More rapid than speeders his thrusters they came
R2 whistled, Luke shouted and called out these names:
"Now Dooku, now Vader, now young Kylo Ren -
On Yoda, On Obi-Wan, who some people call 'Ben!'

To the hangar bay doors near the top of the wall
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!"
As the tumbleweeds fly in the Tatooine wind
Past Tusken Raiders all wrapped in their leathery skins
So up to the hangar the thrusters they flew
With a ship full of droids, and Luke Skywalker too.
And then, with a hissing, a noise came to my ear
Of the Falcon touching down on its three landing gear.
As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Quick came Sir Luke down the ramp with a bound.
He was dressed all in robes, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all covered in axle grease and soot.
A band full of droids he had at his back
That whistled and whirred and sputtered and clacked.
BB-8 rolled along, R2-D2 he shone!C3PO glistened like new-polished chrome!
His mouth was drawn tight like a black little cube
And he bowed low and asked nicely "How may I help you?"
The hilt of a lightsaber Luke held in his fist
(The hand was robotic all the way up to the wrist!)

Luke was a Jedi, he certainly was no rookie,
And he knew better than to play chess with a Wookie.
He looked old and wise, like old Yoda the elf,
And I laughed when I saw him in spite of myself
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.
He'd escaped from the Empire, from the worst of the worst,
The kind of situation where OF COURSE I'd shoot first.
With a wave of his hand this sage of the Force
Told us we'd all be safe for Christmas, of course.
He sprang to his ship and gave out a holler:
"Holiday greetings to everyone from my Father!"
But I heard him exclaim, ere he flew out of view
"Merry Christmas to all, may the Force be with you!"

Musings on the Movies

You'd maybe be surprised to learn that one of my absolute favorite works to study as I ran the gauntlet of higher education was the Old English epic Beowulf. Those unfamiliar with it, just imagine lots and lots of very testosterone-driven Vikings battling trolls and dragons and sea monsters across the frozen forests of ancient Scandinavia, and congratulations, you're pretty much there (and you Middle Earth fans out there saying, "huh, that sounds a bit familiar," know that Beowulf was J.R.R. Tolkien's obsessive passion from which he borrowed generously in the creation of his own fantasy epics). It's set hundreds of years before its already-dubious time of creation in the documentative black hole of the Dark Ages, right as Christianity was first making its way into the region, and is often categorized as an elegy, a sad mourning poem about a world that seems to be losing just a little bit more magic as time passes each and every day.
Beowulf originally existed as an oral work, an out-loud performance that villagers would have huddled around crackling campfires on cold winter nights to listen to, and has what I think is one of the very best openings to a text in the history of literature: the Old English exclamation "Hwaet!" Older translations interpret it as meaning "Harken!", modern presentations generally give it as "Listen!", and wily Irish poet Seamus Heaney (in my own personal favorite translation) gives it as "So!" It's an attention-demanding command, basically telling everybody within earshot to sit down and shut up... it's story time.

Unsurprisingly, I put a lot of stock in "story time." Some of my most formative memories as a child come from being read to, reading out loud has become far and away my favorite activity in my job as a substitute teacher, and I'm enrolled in an MFA graduate program at the moment with the sole intention of one day being able to crank out one or two stories of my very own. Stories are quite possibly one of the most distinctive and important traits we possess as a species: portals into which we can enter, alone or in a group, to escape from the troubles of the outside world, be they rival marauding tribes or terror threats on public transportation. Stories can teach, they can reflect, they can comment...most important of all, they can entertain. To paraphrase from one of the best storytellers of modern literature, stories are the most inexhaustible source of magic still left to us in the world.

Even a sucker for the written word like me appreciates other forms of storytelling; I'd even go so far as to suggest that the definitive medium of storytelling in today's world has become the movies. I'll make no two ways about it, I LOVE the movies. Especially, I love movie theaters. I regard them as the modern equivalent of ye olde village campfires and mead halls, the meeting places where we can all gather to experience a good yarn in a community setting (popcorn's what's on tap now instead of roasting mutton). Hitting "next" on the home Netflix cue just can't cut it for me in comparison to wading through a carpet of half-eaten popcorn whilst I avoid straddling a complete stranger in the pitch blackness on my way to reach an upholstered seat which, were I to see it at a yard sale in the harsh light of day, would cause me to get back in my car and drive away in horror.
But popcorn droppings and frayed upholstery are a small price to pay to experience that magic I was talking about before. It's fleeting, and much of the time has nothing even to do with the movie I've just paid $57 dollars to see. No, it's those few precious moments when the lights suddenly fade out and the theater dims; there's nothing yet even on the screen, just the sound of the rheumatic breather four rows down on my left and the projection flicker cutting through the smoky blackness. If this were a wedding, it'd be the moment where everyone but the groom has seen the bride walk in, and he's turning to catch his first glimpse. For one hushed moment, time stops as everyone in the dark room anticipates the moment when that smoky flicker finally resolves itself into colors and shapes on the screen; it's modern society's very own "Hwaet!"

What breaks my heart, though, is what similarly vexed the anonymous writer of the Beowulf poem all those years ago: slowly but surely, the magic seems to be dying out.

I went with my family over the Thanksgiving holiday break last week to the local movie theater, wanting to see nothing in particular, but just looking for a nice afternoon out. Even though we arrived about a half hour earlier than the next movie showing, the ticket clerk told us all the theater seats had been sold out in advance: pre-selected seating had claimed all but the very front two rows beneath the screen (and really, what's even the point of those seats?). I was angry, surprised, and disappointed all at the same time, even though I guess I should just expect it at this point. There's no such thing as a spontaneous trip to the movies now: you can't just grab a date on a whim anymore -- public service announcement, you shouldn't be grabbing anybody, I'm fairly sure it's an arrestable offense -- and head down to catch a movie like the drive-in glory days of earlier cinema. If you want to see a movie now, it's an event, an occasion that has to be planned out three weeks in advance and run by a subcommittee for approval with all accompanying paperwork delivered in color-coded triplicate.
I desperately want to see the new Star Wars movie coming out in a few weeks, but I had to finally give in to the system tonight and order my tickets in advance, for fear of not seeing the movie for the first several weeks of its release; I could barely scrounge together two accompanying seats that wouldn't have my neck at a forty-five degree angle for the duration of the film -- AT A 9AM SHOWING!!

For a showing three weeks out. All spots in grey mean that seat has already been filled             ............!!!

I can't really begin to comprehend the thinking behind this new trend, nor can I explain it beyond the simple fact that it's disenchanting "story time" for me now; it would never have happened where two Anglo-Saxon villagers (thoughtfully stroking their bloody beard-braids) met each other out on the road,
**"Hey there, what'd you do last night?"
"Eh, I tried getting into to see Tormund's story about Beowulf and the Dragon, but all the mead hall seats were already reserved. I had to make a reservation instead to sit near the skewered pig next week when Olaf does his bit on Grendel's Mother." **   translated from authentic Old English (probably)

On a side note, my bone of contention with theatergoers who can't stifle their technology addiction enough to turn their smartphones off or whip open their screens at the merest hint of a text message could take up its own separate blog... but for now, I simply say to those people -- to that maddeningly-increasing demographic who seems so hellbent on jarring the entire theater around them out of an immersive "story time" experience -- I have trouble keeping my own phone from smashing into the floor most days, I guarantee you I'll have even less of a hard time doing it with yours.

Sigh. I don't know what's to be done about these trends. More than likely, they're here to stay, and I'll just have to bite my tongue and learn to roll with it. In the grand scheme of things, admittedly, it's a pretty minor issue; the inconvenience of being turned away from a 2:30 matinee show pales a bit in comparison to, say, the inconvenience of being turned away from a safe-zone country as you and your family try to escape the devastation of Syria.
But don't the movies -- don't stories -- offer an often-necessary respite from those real world issues? If you take away the magic of being there when those theater lights go down, isn't a harsh, disenchanted reality all you're left with, the one the Beowulf writer so lamented? Personally, that question is one I'd rather hwaet and find out the answer to.

In the meantime, pass me the popcorn.

Life of Pie

Thanksgiving is a SERIOUS contender for the top spot of my favorite holiday every year, which is why I'm so annoyed when people seem hell-bent on passing over it to get straight to Christmas. No real fuss about Thanksgiving, no need to go out and buy presents for everyone (although that's fun in its time), just show up, watch some football, and literally eat yourself into a tryptophan-induced coma with family. You can't beat it.

One of the best traditions we've adopted over the past couple years has been the Thanks 4 Giving 5k/10k fun-run in our very own hometown of Lowell, MA. It's a pretty fantastic get out of guilt free excuse for all the shameful calories we're about to consume later on. We knew LOADS of people who'd left the comfort of their warm beds this morning to brave the cold, and here's just a partial record of our adventures with them all this morning! 

The E-Streeters are ready to run!

Clan Cassidy (plus one), the poster family of this year's race

This is seeming less and less a good idea as we're getting closer to the start

Boston Marathon teacher buds

A shameless start chute selfie (now repeat 5x fast)

Out on the course, a water stop courtesy of the STATE CHAMPION Lowell High Red Raiders XC team. Whatever they put in their water, believe me, you want some.

E-Streeters Barry Scanlon and John Piekos, the latter fresh off his adventures on the wilds of the African Savannah. No zebras here, John, just turkeys.  

When you've run 26.2, it's all smiles for a mere 10k

Ms. Heather Spence came all the way from the West Coast to run this. Hopefully we didn't disappoint!

Our own Ms. Heather Cook, on loan from Stonehill College for the week, seen here WISHING that she was on the West Coast and not slogging through a cold morning 5k

And now, a rarity: a literal step-by-step anatomy of a finish line photobomb. Children, take notes.

Step 1: The picture is set up. The photobomber is given a (frightening) verbal warning.

Step 2: The photobomber exits the picture, lulling his victims into a false sense of security. Some (Heather Cook) remain wary.

Step 3: Inevitability

Basically, we do these things for the food at the end

And now, the most important shot of all: in some circles, this is called the money shot, but we'll settle for pie!! (Insert geometry joke here about circle circumference and Pi... I'm an English major, we don't know these things)

My other favorite thing about Thanksgiving is that it reminds everyone to step back and reflect on and appreciate everything they've been given in life; no-one's is perfect, but the health to power through a 5k on a beautiful November morning surrounded by a core group of friends like this... yeah, it's not bad. THANK YOU, everyone in my extended circle, for making my world one that I wouldn't trade for anything -- know that you're in my thoughts and well wishes as I tuck into my plate(s) of turkey later.
Happy eatings, all!!

Sherlock's Home

Earlier in the month, the E-Streeters, the informal but take-a-bullet-for-you loyal friend group of my Dad's, lost a member from their fold. Martin Brewer, the English E-Streeter who was a proud dual-citizen native of his native UK and his adopted US, passed away after a short but brutal fight with a brain tumor. Martin was a Springsteen fanatic, a rock'n'roll historian, a Whovian, and, as an English teacher, a love of all things literary... yes, he and I had a lot to talk about in our many conversations. He was also one of the nicest, most genuine people I've ever met, with the single greatest zeal for life that I've ever encountered. If he wanted to go somewhere on a trip, he went; if he wanted to see a movie or a play or a concert, he went; didn't matter who else went with him, if anyone at all, the point was that he recognized how precious this world is, and wanted to experience as much of it as he could. It's a philosophy that I think a lot more of us would do well to adopt for ourselves.

Martin's best friend here in the states, Barry Scanlon, announced that he'd be flying over to England for Martin's funeral services, and my Dad and I felt it'd be our honor to tag along with him. If you had taken a look at my travel bucket list a few weeks ago, you'd have seen England sitting right there at the very top, but I'd have given anything to alter the circumstances of this trip. Given the occasion, the three of us had a historic, absolutely unforgettable time over there, meeting Martin's friends and family, taking in all the local sights, and frequenting one or two (or three or four) of Martin's favorite watering holes. They can drink, those English can. Most of it's better left unsaid, but I' want to dedicate this post and the next one to detailing some of the more lighthearted moments of the trip, all done and experienced in Martin's honor.

First off, a bit of a surreal experience for your humble blog writer, in ye olde London town. One of those mentioned areas that Martin and I shared in common was a love of The Great Detective -- that's Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. I've read every single one of Doyle's original mysteries, and won't embarrass myself here by admitting how much time I've spent in watching derivative adaptations, from Basil Rathbone to Jeremy Brett to, most recently, Benedict Cumberbatch (I'm actually off later tonight to a local theater to watch Ian McKellen, Gandalf, take his turn in the deerstalker). When I found out that the London hotel we'd booked was an eight minute walk from BAKER STREET, Sherlock's very own digs... come on. There's no such thing as a coincidence that convenient.

My two traveling companions kindly kept their concerned glances to themselves as I all but skipped down Baker Street the night we arrived in London, newly refreshed with a hearty pint of real English ale after a long flight. I stopped a few passersby on the street for some directions, and they asked if I was looking for a tube (subway) stop; after all, what would be the point in looking for the home of a fictitious, made-up character?
Get away, heathens.
We walked along down Baker Street, which, hysterically enough, is the location of the only Dunkin Donuts in all England (it was Dad's turn to skip all of a sudden), and ticked down the addresses from 400 to 300 to 250, before finally, there it was. 221B.

IT'S REAL! IT'S REALLY REAL!

Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson had retired for the night, I expect, but that didn't stop me from knocking on their door like the grinning idiot I was.

For any other Holmes enthusiasts like myself wondering just what this Mecca is actually like, you can get very cheap tickets to go upstairs into the actual rooms of 221B itself -- Holmes and Watson are out chasing down London's criminal underworld, so it's just the rooms, alas, but still pretty fantastic. We unfortunately didn't have enough time during our cruelly-brief stay in London to make the trip upstairs, but some other time in the future: bet on it. Downstairs, there's a Sherlock Holmes museum and store, and your intrepid blogger walked out of it with a purchase of every item available for sale on the shelves (and a few perhaps that weren't). And if all of this near-religious experience tires you out, luckily, Hudson's Deli is the next door over for some nourishment. She's a landlady, not a housekeeper.

We were able to make a second trip over in the daylight, and on the way grabbed an incredible lunch at a pizza parlor a stone's throw away from Sherlock's digs.

As you can see from the decor in the background there, these people know how to capitalize on a target demographic

For anyone wondering the depths of my fandom, yes, that t-shirt I'm wearing there is in fact the entire printed Adventures of Sherlock Holmes text, in wearable form. It's part of a fantastic brand of clothing called Litographs, t-shirts that print whole classic novels for you to wear around. If you're a lit. geek like me, it's pretty much the universe's way of telling you your bookworminess is now socially acceptable. For anyone interested, you can check out the whole incredible line of them here: http://www.litographs.com/collections/t-shirts.

I wear a deerstalker now, deerstalkers are cool (sorry, wrong British fandom)

There was even a constable out front on loan from Scotland Yard to pose with (and provide that hat, which sadly wasn't mine). Inspector Lestrade, your best men are on the case.

A very, very cool moment in life, I'll be perfectly honest, and one that I know Martin would have appreciated more than anyone else. Next up: some runs for the ages!

Doctor's Orders

The Fall TV season is picking up now, with a slew of new shows about to take to the air, and some of you are maybe wondering about which ones deserve your precious time for a tune-in. If the opinion of this humble blog writer is worth anything, a show you should maybe check out isn't new at all -- it's about to begin its fifty-second year, and is still one of the single most worthwhile things you can populate your TV (laptop) screens with. "What?? What??" you're asking... Nope. It's "Who..."

Shameless pun opportunity, taken, thank you very much.

Thing is, I think it's safe to say that everyone nowadays has at least HEARD of Doctor Who... has that friend who raves ad nauseam about it, maybe, has walked past big displays in mall windows, has seen it pop up in the Netflix cue. The general awareness is there in the periphery, but a lot of people still haven't made the jump to actually watching an episode. It's quirky, yes, and British, and can be heavy on the sci-fi side, but those things usually don't break the deal for most people. In my opinion, the problem is that a lot of people just don't know where to start. I said it myself earlier, the show's been around for fifty-two years -- A) How is that even possible, you're thinking, and B) How am I just gonna hop in now when there's that kind of a back catalogue I might need to catch up on? Add in the fact that, confusingly, there never seems to be the same actor in the main role, and it's no wonder that a lot of people just go no thanks and move on to the next show. But stay calm. I've got you covered.

To boil it down to a simple book report version for you: the eponymous Doctor -- no surname, it's not Mr. Who, M.D., his name is just "The Doctor" -- is a centuries-old alien who's stolen a time machine and uses it to travel across the universe for kicks, accompanied by "companions" who assist him on all his adventures. That time machine, the TARDIS, is the blue police phone box you've seen everywhere, and is famously "bigger on the inside" than the outside. Due to his alien biology, every time the Doctor suffers injuries serious enough to be fatal, he "regenerates" into a new body -- literally, every cell of his person changes and he becomes an entirely new individual. There have so far been twelve Doctors (and another incarnation who refused to call himself "The Doctor," but here I go again confusing you...), and it's for this reason that the show's been around since 1963; basically, regeneration is one of the most ingenious plot devices in TV history, since the show can find itself a new lead anytime the old one wants to move on, meaning it can carry on indefinitely. Its first episode was actually almost bumped off the air by news coverage of President Kennedy's assassination, but it's managed to overcome that rocky beginning to since become one of the most iconic television institutions in global history.

A baker's dozen Doctors. Pointy guy in the middle there with the angry eyes is the current Doctor, played by Scottish actor Peter Capaldi

The irony isn't lost on me that the "simplified version" I just gave took a whole lengthy paragraph to explain, but it's why most "Whovians" have learned to tell their friends with a wry smile "Just watch it. Trust me. Just watch one episode." The most agreed-upon starting point for newcomers is a 2007 standalone episode named "Blink." Strangely, the Doctor (played in this incarnation by David Tennant, who most people will recognize as the tongue-twitching Barty Crouch Jr. from the Harry Potter series) only appears in this episode for a few minutes, shouting worriedly from a TV screen. But it's the first episode I watched myself, and in all the years since, it still stands as one of the most brilliant hours of television I've ever watched. It utterly, utterly hooked me, and I have a suspicion it might just do the same to you.

The episode is also one of the best examples of a headlining feature for Doctor Who: the monsters on this show have been sending kids flying behind their couches or beneath their pillows for the last fifty years. The Doctor's travels bring him into contact with some truly nightmare-inducing species, from the robotic Cybermen to the genocidal Daleks. "Blink" introduces the Weeping Angels, statues who move whenever you're not looking at them and who entered the pantheon of all-time classic horror creations from their very first appearance.

"Don't blink. Blink and you're dead. Don't turn your back, don't look away, and don't blink."

No-one will deny that the show's production values haven't always been exactly...cutting edge, so to speak. The reason the Daleks look like trashcans turned upside down with a plunger sticking out is most likely because those were the resources on-hand in the BBC production shed when they were introduced back in 1963.

Silly or no, they've become one of the most recognizable pop culture symbols in history, with their synthetic EX-TER-MIN-ATE squawk resounding from global playgrounds for the last half century

The reason this exists is because...Well... I actually don't really know what this is, to be honest

But the show's really stepped up its game in the modern era, producing special effects on a weekly schedule to rival any Hollywood space epic

So that's a great hero, some iconic bad guys, and cutting-edge sci-fi writing that geniuses like Stephen Hawking have credited for sparking their imaginations (no, seriously); add on the fact that the "sandbox" to play in here is all space and time, with historical figures from Robin Hood to Van Gogh to Agatha Christie making the occasional guest appearance, and it's sounding like a pretty sweet pot. What I think is most poignant and worthwhile about this show, however, is its grasp of how the universe and everything in it is fleeting, and that's what makes it all more beautiful in the end -- just because you know something won't last forever doesn't mean you can't enjoy it while it lasts. If anything, the opposite should be true! For all its sci-fi geekiness, Doctor Who isn't afraid to explore these sadder, deeper themes, whacking its fans hard in all the feels.

Companions who die, or get trapped in alternate timelines, or simply move on with their lives, and the Doctor's regenerative biology being what it is, means that you'll get very attached to these characters before having to part ways with them in just a few short seasons.
But trust me. You're in for a heck of a ride through it all. All of time and space awaits...Geronimo.

40 Years Down the (Thunder) Road

FINALLY sitting back down here at the keyboard, after what's been about a month-long hiatus now. My apologies for not chronicling the remaining escapades of the Cook family on their Western voyages, but at this point, I'd say it's time to move on to greener pastures. For anyone still wondering how we fared in Yosemite National Park and the City by the Bay, keep a watchful eye on my dad's A Wicked Good Blog - you're probably in better hands over there anyway, they don't call him the Blogfather for nuthin'.

Besides blogging, there's a slew of other things the two of us also overlap on: running, comic book geekiness, and dashing good looks (just to name a few), but one particular area of shared interest is celebrating a milestone birthday today, and that's just what I'm here to talk about. 

Ladies and gentlemen, Bruce Springsteen's landmark Born To Run album turns the big 4-0 today... yes, that's four whole decades since Columbia Records released one of the most iconic pieces of Americana ever created by the music industry into the hazy heat of a late August afternoon in 1975. The world's become a different place since then, and the man behind that album has changed and grown accordingly with the times; nevertheless, something about this particular album was lightning in a bottle, and I'm gonna try here to find out why. Now, I get it: to most people my age, Springsteen is A) the title of a crazy popular country song that I've never personally been a fan of but has spawned infinite Instagram captions regardless, or B) that guy your dad listens to at barbecues with friends where everyone's wearing their best pair of dad jeans (any bespoken dads offended by that, just trust me, I'm on your side here). But don't go away just yet - this is a story both personal and epic in its scope, and I have a feeling it's gonna be a good one...

Let me set the scene: it's early 1975, and at this point, Bruce has released two studio albums. He's an unshaven, rag-tag Jersey shore tramp, with a backing band of similar origin (and appearance). His first album was created largely with the use of a rhyming dictionary, to be honest, and even though the second album was critically hailed as genius, it was a big commercial flop. In other words, that's two strikes; in the music business, that's one strike away from oblivion.
So, Bruce takes pen to paper, and after making a few key lineup changes in the band, composes eight songs that put his personal troubles and anxieties on full display for the listening public. This is it - it's his "last chance power drive," a Hail Mary full-court press that will either make him or break him. He bought his first guitar at age thirteen from a pawnshop, and now, at age twenty-six, he has no plan B. Either this album succeeds, or the dream that's consumed literally half of his life thus far comes to a crashing end. Forty years later, we're lucky enough to say the rest is history.

The E-Street Band, circa 1973 - a bunch of Tramps if ever there were any

The E-Street Band, circa 1975. 

The E-Streeters gang, circa 1988 -- but wait, my bad, this is a different group of guys. Looking at you, Patrick Cook et al. To be honest, these guys look like the shadiest of the entire lot.

The album's set in a nameless (read: any) factory town in New Jersey with the bright, glittering lights of the Manhattan skyline beckoning from across the Hudson, hailing from the same universe as Marlon Brando's On the Waterfront or Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets; mobsters, waifs, and perfumed beauties continuously drift in and out of the lyrics. Musically, "guitars flash just like switchblades," there are sweeping piano riffs, and the whole thing is held up by the earth-shattering saxophone notes of the Big Man, Clarence Clemons. If such thing as a cinematic album exists, this is it.
The veneer of the album centers on efforts to escape, get out, leave this confining hometown environment behind, and I actually wrote my college application essay on this subject. Lowell has the kind of blue-collar background that Springsteen would appreciate, and the 17 year old kid about to embark on his college adventures empathized with this "time to see the world" mentality. But now that I'm HAPPILY back in Lowell (and plan to be for a while) and a few years wiser, I think I have an even better appreciation of the album beyond its preliminary "we gotta get out of this place" ambition. At its core, I think Born To Run is about passion. Not "passion" in the *adopts French accent* "ma cherie... my love for you... it is a flame... A BIG, ROARING FLAME," kinda way, but in the sense of "that thing that you were put here on Earth for."
Springsteen's passion, the thing that literally got him out of bed every morning - and still does, probably - was music, and he imbued the recording sessions for BTR with every possible ounce of energy and effort he could muster; he had a spark, and he was gonna keep it alive at all costs. Hearing some firsthand eyewitness accounts, he was an utter taskmaster and a nightmare to anyone who got in the way of that vision. But all that taskmastery (yes, it's a word, I've decided) was simply another manifestation of all the times in his lyrics where he tries to leave the factory life of New Jersey behind: an attempt to keep this passion alive. To stay or to settle is to have it crushed, to become just another cog in the machine, to have his dreams sacrificed... now that's something anyone can sympathize with.

Bruce would go on to write about what happens if these dreams aren't realized: in Darkness on the Edge of Town and The River, he learns to make do with "adult" life, living for the weekend, as it were, and later stuff like Nebraska and Born in the USA makes beautiful art out of bleakness. But for Born To Run, Springsteen's optimism is still there (if only just), riding into the sunset in a blaze of glory. "If I play my chips just right," he seems to hope, "and if I have the right person there in the passenger seat with me, then maybe, just maybe, this dream's still got a chance. Let's ride."

Forty years later, and the ride hasn't stopped for Bruce. Born To Run transformed him into a household name, especially on the merit of his live shows; a kind of catalogue of epic tall tales surround Springsteen's concert career over the decades, from the time he "broke a stadium" in Sweden for packing in too many people and playing too hard, to the time he allegedly "ended communism" in Germany by playing a concert to both the East and West factions (these all may or may not be true, depending on which rock historian you talk to). It's believed that The Boss burns about 5000 calories per concert; with sets that last about four hours or so, it's not hard to see why. I saw him play in Orlando back in 2008 on an ordinary Tuesday night, to an audience that was full but not quite sold out (Florida's never been Boss central...their loss); in short, it would have been pretty understandable if he had simply played to par. We had seats one row behind the stage, so we were able to see him exit once he'd finished for the night. Springsteen emerged from beneath the stage literally dripping sweat, his eyes shut, all but stumbling down the tunnel to his room. To an unremarkable Tuesday night crowd, he had just emptied his tank 1000%, left it all out there for everyone to see, and was utterly spent now because of it. THAT is passion, ladies and gents. THAT is the thing that he was hoping for back in the summer of 1975, and that's kept him going all these years later.

I had a professor at school who saw him in 1975 promoting Born To Run - in his words, "It was like nothing I'd seen before. He was James Dean with a guitar."

Now. This has all been very long-winded and pedantic, some of you may be thinking. Heck, it's probably even delved into a bit of hero worship. But what started as an heirloom interest from my dad has turned into something that's significantly shaped my own worldview. I and several million other wide-eyed, idealistic graduates have recently entered into "the real world," every one of us nourishing our own little passions and dreams. Well, "the real world" can be a nasty, harsh place - I think Born To Run knows that, deep down. But you don't have to like that fact, or accept it. Dreams are some of the most important things worth having, and they need to be fought for.  It's very easy to be cynical, or pessimistic, and more often than not, "Just give up and lie down, it's easier" seems to be the prevailing viewpoint.  But BTR is a celebration, a last call to arms, for passion, to show enthusiasm for that thing (whatever it may be) that matters to you more than anything else in the world. Dress that message up with the most lavish wall of sound this side of Phil Spector, and THAT'S something I can (and do) buy into - in Springsteen's own words, "THAT's rock'n'roll!!"

Sprung from cages out on highway 9, 

Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and steppin' out over the line 

Oh-oh, Baby this town rips the bones from your back 

It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap 

We gotta get out while we're young 

`Cause tramps like us, baby we were born to run