Thanks, Boss!

I've been trying to figure out how to write this for fourteen years now.  It initially started as a letter.  That didn't gel quite the way I wanted it to.  I've expressed it in a couple of different ways over the years.  I've never been satisfied with the end results and I'm not sure I will be now.

I've always hated symbolism. When I was in high school and college, my English teachers tended to focus on it a lot in the stories we would read. They would ask us what the author really meant when s/he said this or that. And of course my teachers, especially in high school, gave me the impression that theirs was the only correct answer. To add insult to injury, most of the time, the authors in question were dead and couldn't defend their works. My college professors were a little better inasmuch as they allowed for other people to have their own interpretations and opinions. Honestly, though, the whole thing kind of turned me off to reading for a long time. I still contend that the best thing I read in college was Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and that's just because I took it at face value. I refused to look at it as anything more than a great science fiction story about a guy who turns into a bug.

The one thing that symbolism did spark in me was an interest in writing my own stuff (and if you're still reading it, thank you). I was particularly proud of a poem I wrote in high school. On the surface it was about a relationship between two people, based loosely on my relationship with my best friend at the time. I won't share it here because it's a pretty bad poem. What I took pride in was the fact that if you took the last word of every line it read "There is absolutely no! symbolism in this poem whatsoever--I'm just being a smart-ass." I was also quite fond of the exclamation point after the word "no."

Somewhere along the line, I discovered that symbolism is entirely subjective, not to mention personal. What you get out of something may be completely different from what I get out of it. And both of those interpretations may have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what the author was trying to convey in the first place.

In retrospect, I may have actually discovered this around the same time I wrote that bad poem. It was during this time, that I was asked to give a report on the most recent movie I'd seen. The movie happened to be The Blues Brothers and I went into some b.s. about the religious and spiritual significance I had managed to glean from it (my English teacher liked to think she was actually teaching Sunday School). I highly doubt that's what Dan Aykroyd had in mind when he wrote the script for the film, but, after twenty-five years, I've reached the point where I actually believe my own line of b.s.

I came to the conclusion that symbolism is not something you should look for. If you are, any meaning you get out of it might ring a little hollow--at least it certainly does for me. As I said, it's subjective and personal. Instead, I think symbolism is something that should come to you organically. It could come to you gently or it could hit you upside the head like a ton of bricks.

For me, it was in the summer of 2002.  Not my best summer.  I was watching my best friend and the only woman I've ever truly loved prepare to marry someone else--for the second time in our adult lives (please refer to my post "Nice Guy Blues").  I was coming to the realization that I couldn't have her in my life without falling in love with her and I couldn't fall in love with her without getting hurt.  Frankly, I was tired of getting hurt.  I knew I had to walk out of her life as permanently as possible.  That was not the easiest thing to do given the fact that we had known each other since the age of five.

I had heard that Bruce Springsteen was releasing a new album.  It would be his first with the E Street Band since Born in the USA in 1984.  I was only beginning to realize the power of Springsteen's music (please refer to my post "Manual vs. Automatic Transmissions").  I heard the first single, "Lonesome Day," while stuck in traffic one afternoon and started to dig it immediately.  I decided I had to buy the album the day of its release.

So on July 30, 2002, I bought the deluxe edition of the Boss's new album, The Rising.  I took it home and listened to it.  I knew going in that much of the album was inspired by the tragedy that was September 11, 2001.  However, when I listened to the songs, they spoke to me in a way that had nothing to do with that horrible morning nearly a year earlier.  Most of the more somber songs seemed to sum up how I was feeling in the moment with all my personal drama.

Initially, I was just looking forward to a new album from an artist I liked, particularly when he was backed by one of the greatest bands in rock and roll history for the first time in eighteen years.  What I got was symbolism that I wasn't looking for hitting me upside the head like a ton of bricks.

The song that stands out the most to me (both personally as well as to prove my point about symbolism) is the album's closing track, "My City of Ruins."  Due to Springsteen's performance at a benefit concert after 9/11, the song came to symbolize New York after that day.  Personally, it symbolized my own broken heart in the wake of losing, quite possibly, the best friend I've ever had.  And yet, Springsteen wrote it about Asbury Park, New Jersey.  It's amazing how something can mean different things to different people.

In the intervening years, I've come to appreciate the Boss's music more than I ever had before.  After The Rising, I revisited 1978's Darkness on the Edge of Town, which became a staple in my late-night listening (and aimless driving) over the next year or so.  Every subsequent studio album he's recorded I've felt compelled to pick up the day of its release.  Each one seems to contain something that I can symbolically interpret to aid in my own current existence.  2012's "Wrecking Ball" has become something of an anthem--to the point that I actually want it played at my funeral (note:  this is "Wrecking Ball" by Bruce Springsteen--not Miley Cyrus... or Grace Slick, come to think of it).

I've just finished reading his memoir, Born To Run.  Aside from the Cubs winning the World Series, it stands for me as the only high point of an otherwise crappy year--it may even be as crappy as 2002.  While the reviews I've read seem to think he was a bit heavy-handed in his language, I have to admit that that was one of the things I loved about it.  As someone who loves language and the music of Bruce Springsteen, I can't recommend the book highly enough.

Ultimately this post (as well as its underwhelming predecessors) is meant to serve as a thank you letter to the man himself.  I doubt he will ever read this.  I'm sure he gets these sorts of things all the time.  But I want to take this opportunity to personally thank Bruce Springsteen for everything he's done over the last forty-five years.  His music (and now his literature) has meant so much to me, probably more than I can possibly explain here.  It's been a source of inspiration and a remedy for those things that make life almost unbearable.  Whenever I've been at my lowest, I can always come back to his work and feel a little better about my life and the things that trouble it.  For that I will always be grateful.

Thanks, Boss!

What the 2016 World Series Means to Me

This week has given me more than my fair share of opportunities to reflect on what it means to be a fan of the Chicago Cubs.  I've never really been a fan of sports in general.  However, the older I've gotten the more I enjoy the game of baseball and even that I've only been doing since my early- to mid-twenties.  But I've been a Cubs fan my whole life.

It's a hereditary affliction.  I get it from my dad who got it from my grandmother.  I've often said that the term "Chicago Cubs fan" is offensive and derogatory to the degree that only other Cubs fans can call each other Cubs fans.  I preferred to think of myself as a third generation "Masochistic-American."  When I told people this, I would be quick to point out that my American League team is the Cleveland Indians, which usually prompted statements along the lines of, "Boy, you really are a masochist, aren't you?"  Now it's no longer a laughing matter.

Some of the most important moments of my life, happy and sad, involve the Cubs.  When my grandmother died in 1989, my family was sitting around my grandparents' house.  It felt like a vacuum in that living room.  Someone suggested we do something.  The obvious question was what would she have done?  Someone (my aunt, I think) said that Grandma would turn on the TV and see how the Cubs were doing.  So we watched the rest of the game.  One got the impression that even they knew they had lost a fan that day.  The Atlanta Braves beat them 8-5.

At the age of 34, my father and I were asked to house- and dog-sit for my aunt while the women in our family took a trip to Holland.  Before I arrived, Dad suggested we go to a Cubs game.  I realized that this would be one of those great father/son moments that I would treasure the rest of my life and I jumped at the opportunity.  I wasn't wrong.  On 9 May, 2008, I attended my first Major League baseball game in the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field.  I felt like a little kid walking around that place.  So much baseball history.  So much money spent on souvenirs and concessions.  Phrases like "You can't quiet The Riot" and "Fukudome is my Homie" entered my vocabulary and I became a fan of the music of Steve Goodman.  I had an amazing day with Dad that I wouldn't have traded for anything.  And to make it even better, the Cubs beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-1.

In the intervening years, I followed my favourite team.  I would watch as they would have a promising season only to blow it in the playoffs, if they even got there.  Dad even bought a hoodie with the Cubs logo that read "Never October."

The worst came last season.  Jon Stewart had New York Mets' pitcher Matt Harvey on his program.  I'd been a fan of Stewart's since before "The Daily Show" was even on the air.  But, as a Cubs fan, I was mildly annoyed by the fact that he was always complaining about how the Mets let him down year after year.  So I made a fake radio broadcast which I posted on YouTube.  In it, I gave him what for and pointed out that for all of his frustration and disappointment, things could be worse for him in the baseball department.  I doubt he ever saw the video.  But after the Mets swept my Cubbies in the National League Championship Series roughly six months later, I stood behind every word (you can check out what I said below.  I'm still proud of that video).

This year, however, the video, the hoodie, the term "Masochistic-American," curses involving billy goats... they're all outdated relics of a bygone era.  At about half-past midnight this past Thursday morning, the Chicago Cubs won their first World Series since 1908.  They beat, of all teams, my Cleveland Indians.

It was everything a baseball fan could hope for.  It was Game 7.  There was a lead-off home run, a three-run lead that was tied up in the eighth inning, and a rain delay before the tenth inning.  It was a nail-biter.  And in the end, the Cubs won 8-7.  Like a lot of fully grown adults, I was so excited I cried.  I cried partially because of the excitement at seeing my favourite team finally shed the image of "lovable losers," but also because Dad died in May and wasn't here to enjoy it with me.

I find it interesting that one of the last things he did was buy two large screen televisions so that he could watch the Cubs play even though he threatened every fall to stop rooting for them.  Mom and I figure the Cubs won it all because Dad was probably haunting Wrigley Field most of the season.  I remember texting my sister after they won the NLCS (I cried over that too).  She reminded me that Dad actually claimed that they would never win the World Series in his lifetime.

I've spent the last six months trying to get a handle on everything surrounding Dad's death--dealing with the house we just bought, the estate, legal hassles, even just simple mourning.  All of that was like the eighth inning.  You Cubs fans know what I'm talking about.  Aroldis Chapman took the mound with two outs already secured.  But his arm was overworked.  He couldn't throw like he had in previous games and proceeded to let the Indians tie it up.  The more superstitious and cynical among us (myself included) thought, "this is where we're finally going to choke."  We could see the wheels coming off.  But they held on into extra innings and finally managed to win.  After that, I finally got a sense that everything will eventually be okay.