Bruce and Barack

My main man talking, singing and supporting THE main man of the hour and God-willing, the next eight years, Barack Obama.

Getting ready for DC. . .

Are you a fan of JOY?!?!?!!!!

Good news today on my PET scan, everyone! No new growth in the lesions on my spine and ribs. Some areas have resolved while others show less activity. There is still a significant bone fracture at the base of my spine and plenty of bone pain in the places where largest lesions were. That is just going to take time to resolve. But the good news is that this chemo shut down the cancer from spreading. The side effects sucked yes, and they are not going to disappear overnight, but that is not enough of a reason to keep me from planning a celebratory Springsteen trip. Quicklike.

Last week, Jon Stewart went to see Bruce and he opened his show talking about it -- just about the same way I would . . . "ARE YOU A FAN OF JOY?"

What cracks me up the most is Jon Stewart's reference to still wearing the clothes that Bruce had hugged him in. I was the same way about the cheek Bruce kissed while we were both backstage at Letterman last month.(Still haven't washed it!) As my friend (and witness) Gretchen said, I literally elevated off the ground after that!

ME SHARING BRUCE KISS LOCATION AT DINNER AFTER LETTERMAN


GRETCHEN TELLING OF "THE KISS"

To conquer NYC, stay at the Algonquin

I know many of you JILLABUSTER readers are wondering what happened at Jillfest 2007 -- my incredible trip to New York where I stayed in the Dorothy Parker Suite at the famed Algonquin. Well, to paraphrase an old Teri Hatcher line from Seinfeld, "It was real and the stories are spectacular." I'm still processing them all and frankly, resting from the grueling nature of the trip as far as my illness goes. The day before I left, a snarky nurse at my oncology office sniffed at my request to have a home health care nurse do a visit at the hotel part way through the trip so I could get a dose of the prescriptions that keep me going during treatment. " IF you are that sick, it sounds like you should not be traveling." So completely different from the nurses a few years before who celebrating with me for going to see Bruce Springsteen during my first chemo treatment. Never mind that my oncologist had said it could be arranged and was himself incredibly supportive of my taking this trip. He was out of town and all the sudden my trip of a lifetime was at the mercy of Nurse Ratchett. I asked to speak to another nurse and she was more sympathetic but that was about it. So, I got over it. I willed myself to not get sick or tired while I was there. It was just too great of an opportunity. But force of will can only get you so far in NY. That city is amazing, but draining. My last day, the most important one, I was an exhausted zombie trying to act excited for all my friends who were beside themselves at our good fortune. I was thrilled that my friend Dave Marsh was taking the train into the city to meet up with me backstage at Letterman, thrilled to be hearing Patti Scalfia sing, interested in seeing what Bill Clinton's latest project was (Oh if I could bottle some of that man's energy and share it with all us cancer patients.) and of course excited to be in the legendary Ed Sullivan Theatre and getting to see David Letterman do his thing up close and personal from behind the curtain. But an hour before we were due for a preshow tour, I hit the mother of all walls and just wept with exhaustion and disappointment in my inability to will myself strong and happy.

But enough whining. Yes, I felt tired and sick. But who cares. I met Bruce Springsteen. He kissed me on my cheek and told me to hang in there. I laughed with Patti Scalfia about meeting Vigo Mortensen (who was in my Dorothy Parker suite when I checked in) and our favorite horse movies. She is incredible . . . and charming as I'll get out. I met Dave's kind and caring wife Barbara Carr and felt like I had known her forever. Dave and I talked civil rights stories -- from my dad's clashes with the KKK to the acid in the hotel pool incident in St Augustine FL. As always, He got my mind going on things I could be doing, writing, accomplishing. And yet he called me on my "legacy angst." Something along the lines of, "Get over it. Let go of the pressure of planning and just live. Look around at all the people who came to be with you in New York. Your legacy is you." I swear I felt an exhale come from the bottom of my soul when I took that in. Thank God for that man's honesty and caring heart.

I watched the show in a sweet suite with my dear friend Gretchen, Dave Marsh, Barbara, a hilarious woman who works with them who had just flown in from London, and sat on a tiny loveseat next to Jon Landau, admiring his socks which were something out of a Dr Seuss story before giving him advice on how he should take a page from the Talking Heads Stop Making Sense tour and have Patti's band do a Tom Tom Club "show in the middle of a show" for Bruce's upcoming Magic shows. I told him no charge for the consultation. We laughed ourselves silly, getting another glare from poor Gretchen who was trying to watch her brother's show on the monitor. She had no idea who Jon Landau was. When we got back to St Pete and she was sharing stories with some of our Bruce-loving buddies in the newsroom, Pulitzer Prize winning feature writer Tom French figured out who this big funky guy was she mentioned and gently explained to her that she was in the room with a legend of titanic proportions. That's why we pay Tom the big bucks.

Anyway, yes I was sick and tired. But more than that, I was happy, grateful and after Bruce kissed my cheek, according to Gretchen, walking on air. It was, just like Bruce’s new album moniker, MAGIC.

Stay tuned for more NYC slide show over at jillwilson.com. I downloaded some more pictures tonight but haven’t labeled and captioned them yet. You can click on the title of this post to go to http://tinyurl.com/2r5eug and check out what is up so far. I'll try and finish in the next couple of days so keep checking back!

Let the Blog Wars Begin! The Boss vs. Ol' Ball Coach and Patti Scialfa too!

Springsteen or Spurrier? Gentleman or Jerk? RocknRoll Vs. College Football?

Normally these two worlds spin on separate axles but reading a little blip about the upcoming Springsteen release and tour in Sean Daly's St Petersburg TImes music column got me in a ranting mode. (Click on the title of this post to read what got me going -- be sure to read all the comments . . . )

It wasn’t Sean's words that got me -- he is very funny, entertaining and knows his stuff. (As opposed to the old music critic where I used to live: Dan McDonald of the Times Onion in Jacksonville. Dan would go to a bar to review a band and spend half his article talking about the chicken wings he ate. Dan wrote a column before the Born in the USA tour that was named something like "I liked Bruce better when he was skinny". It turns out that this musical "expert" had never seen Bruce in concert, yet felt confident in spending an entire column reminiscing about the good old days of Rosalita and what a great job Manfred Mann did with Blinded by the Light.

Here is the thing. I don’t care if you don’t like Bruce. I don’t like Celine Dion but I won't hold it against you if you have all her CDs (to your face, anyway). I can respect someone who has different musical tastes from me. But don't sit there like the great expert, licking the chicken grease off your fingers as you wax poetic about how great Bruce USED TO BE. And then admit you have never seen him in concert. Please.

Well of course Dan came back after having seen BorninUSA tour and of course he had changed his mind. He thought Bruce was great. But it was too late. I had already fired off a letter to the editor asking them to please get a decent music writer who was as passionate about music as Dan was about chicken wings. I probably said some other insulting things about Dan's taste that I can't remember now, but when I met him a few years later I said, "Yeah, I wrote you this letter after you blasted Springsteen BEFORE you went to see him in concert. I was pretty hard on you.” He was like, "You wrote that letter? I still have that letter!"

BTW, Dan is now the Food Critic for the Florida Times Onion. I kid you not.

But I have digressed. The point I wanted to make a couple of paragraphs ago was that my crazy meter goes off when someone says something uninformed about one of my heroes. A couple of dingbats wrote in the comments section of Sean's blog "Pop Music" about how bad Bruce had gotten . . .how political . . . how Pete Seger-ee. And I was off and running. It probably has to do a lot with the fact that the last couple of months have been really bad for me: my cancer has returned and spread to my spine and ribs so I’m back in treatment so my hair just fell out again . . . but that was nothing compared to losing my dad (my ultimate hero) on July 24, the day before my 46th birthday. Then last week I went to hang and mourn and rest at a friend's lake cottage and instead came home with a horrible infected abscess at the base of my spine that had to be surgically drained and yeah, I'm just looking for some poor smoe to make a dumb remark about the Boss.

But I got that out of my system and even was able to work in a little dig at old visor boy himself -- Steve Spurrier. And get this -- the guy who posts after me is so mad I bashed Spurrier he told me to go jump off the Skyway Bridge. Nice! Some people just don’t know how to express their anger in a proper forum. Harrumph.

So please, go read the comments and add your own outrage to the fire. In a couple of weeks, I will be in NYC listening to Patti Scialfa sing her heart out on the David Letterman Show. Mrs. Springsteen and I have both been told to jump off a few bridges before, so I am sure she will inspire my next rant and rave. Stay tuned.

Back with a Vengeance

I know, I've been off the ranch for a while, but I'm back! Between Bush's foibles, a new Springsteen CD and, uh, Spring . . . I actually might have a take for a change. Stay tuned!

Loser Republicans Refuse to Honor Springsteen

By DONNA DE LA CRUZ, Associated Press Writer Fri Nov 18, 8:33 PM ET

Bruce Springsteen famously was "born in the USA," but he's getting scorned in the U.S. Senate.

An effort by New Jersey's two Democratic senators to honor the veteran rocker was shot down Friday by Republicans who are apparently still miffed a year after the Boss lent his voice to the campaign of Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry.

The chamber's GOP leaders refused to bring up for consideration a resolution, introduced by Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine, that honored Springsteen's long career and the 1975 release of his iconic album, "Born to Run."

No reason was given, said Lautenberg spokesman Alex Formuzis. "Resolutions like this pass all the time in the U.S. Senate, usually by unanimous consent," he said.

Telephone calls to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's office seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Lautenberg said he couldn't understand why anyone would object to the resolution.

"Even if the Republicans don't like (Springsteen's) tunes, I would hope they appreciated his contributions to American culture," Lautenberg said.

Corzine said he, Lautenberg and other Americans appreciated Springsteen's contributions to American culture.

"We'll never surrender looking for ways to honor our local hero who made it big in this land of hopes and dreams," Corzine said.

Springsteen endorsed Kerry last year, and made campaign appearances that drew huge crowds who came to hear music described in the resolution as "a cultural milestone that has touched the lives of millions of people."


Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

A short tour of my long journey with the Boss

So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore. Show a little faith, there's magic in the night. You ain't a beauty, but hey you're alright. Oh and that's alright with me.

Aaahhh, Springsteen's Thunder Road says it all. We are all older and maybe wiser these days...Who ever thought we would see ourselves with a touch of gray (or for some of us, a touch of bald!) a middle-aged paunch (where beer bellies go to retire), or wearing the dreaded "mom jeans?"

Back in 1984, My concert buddy Anne Turner and I were young silly teachers who decorated bulletin boards in their classrooms and wore black armbands when Bruce married that actress. We are still going to concerts together. Tonight will be our tenth. For Springsteen's concert in Tampa this evening, the St. Petersburg Times is running fans' memories of their first Bruce concert.
go to Times story


I thought I would share my memories on my web site, jillwilson.com. Go to Glory Days on the menu or click on the title of this post to link directly.

Its Bruce week

This Friday Bruce Springsteen comes to Tampa Bay for a solo tour appearance. The Times will be sharing people's recollections of their first Springsteen concert, so I wrote mine to post here... its way long, so I may post a bit each day. But first I have to share a little picture from my most harrowing Springsteen concert experience, which was appropriately enough, on December 7, 1984 (A Day that will Live in Infamy!) I LOST not only my ticket, but the tickets I was holding for my friends and family members who were also going... After my mom made some calls (I know, it is sad and pathetic -- but she got us the stolen ticket vouchers) they gave us seats and I was on the floor for the first and only time. I crawled over 10 rows with people giving me hands up to get this picture. I found the "Stolen" tickets on top of my refridgerator when moving two years later.