No Surrender: Ryan Chalmers Keeps Pushin’ ‘Til It’s Understood

Ryan Chalmers Pushes Across America

By Ryan Hilligoss, May 22, 2013

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage,” Anais Nin once wrote. If that is true, then Ryan Chalmers is a man with a never-ending world of possibilities before him. For Ryan is man of fiery courage, a man on a mission as he pushes across America, carrying a message of hope, courage, determination and the invincibility of the human spirit. Ryan is a world-class athlete who does more on wheels everyday than most people do with two feet. He is spreading his message from his racing chair one turn of the wheel, one mile, and one state at a time. His message comes across loud and clear in both actions and words, “Disability or not, if you are passionate about something and you set a goal for yourself, you can achieve anything.”

Ryan Chalmer’s hands after a hard day’s push

Ryan’s current journey started on April 6th in Los Angeles and will end June 15th after rolling through Central Park in New York City, but only after pushing himself 3,400 miles across America, through hundreds of towns and cities and 14 states and the District of Columbia, with a mission to raise awareness for the potential of all persons with disabilities and giving back to Stay-Focused, a non-profit organization that helps teens with physical disabilities. The organization has been a big part of his life and one that he deeply supports and believes in.

Ryan is travelling across the country with a support team, including Stay-Focused founder Roger Muller who says, ”We have a support team of 6 people, and now we have two more who are filming this and want to make a documentary of it. We’ve had cameras stuck in our faces every day and it feels like we are filming a reality series. Ryan has done really well. This is a huge challenge and no one has ever done it before. The amazing thing is he pushed 35 miles today, and then afterwards we drove back in the support vehicle at 50 miles an hour and it took about 30 minutes, but he pushed the whole thing in his chair with no gears. He is just pushing and pushing down the road .”

On the road, Ryan Chalmers and Roger Muller

On the day I talked to Ryan a few weeks ago, he had pushed 67 miles through Navajo territory in northern Arizona and was headed towards Colorado and the Rocky Mountains. The elements that really bother him are elevation, some as much as 22% incline, wind, rain and heat. He much prefers pushing in a cool environment because the heat messes with his head. According to Muller, ” He’s never questioned his ability to do it from a physical standpoint, but he said it’s a mental game, the ability dig deep when he has to. We were in death valley and it took him 7 hours to push 13 miles. And when he got the seven mile point, he thought he had 3 miles left and when he found out he had 6 miles he hit a mental wall. He stopped, got out of his chair, went into the RV and had a drink and a snack and refocused. And then I walked the remaining miles with him. But he’s a tough, amazing guy.”

‘There’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor’, Ryan and the Push Across America team in Utah

Ryan was born in upstate New York with spina bifida and has never had complete use of his legs. Beginning at a young age, Ryan played sports, focusing on basketball and track. He learned to scuba dive with Stay-Focused in the Cayman Islands and became a certified PADI scuba instructor. Eventually, he found his way to the Land of Lincoln to attend the University of Illinois in Champaign due to the school’s educational reputation and, more importantly, the university’s wheelchair track and basketball programs, only one of two schools in the country with those programs. Ryan earned a degree in sports management in 2011, while simultaneously preparing himself for theParalympics. In the summer of 2012, Ryan was one of ten Stay-Focused alumni to travel to London and represent the United States as members of Team USA in the Paralympic Games where he competed in the 400 meter, 800 meter, 4×4 relay and marathon races.

Ryan Chalmers, 2012 Paralympics, London

The idea of a journey across the country to raise awareness was a natural extension of his training for the Paralympics and everything he had been doing up until that point in his life. According to Ryan, training for this journey was relatively close to training for the Olympics, “There is a lot of mental work with 75% of the battle being mental and 25% physical. I felt recovered from the Olympics and felt prepared for the Push Across America. I worked in the roller room and did some lifting to increase my pushing capacity, and did some 30 milers outside. Due to the racing chair design, there is a lot of pressure and pain on my legs. Now that I have 500 miles or more under my belt, my shoulders are sore but I am happy with what we have done so far.”

Ryan Chalmers pushes Across America and into The Land of Lincoln

During the past week, Ryan passed the halfway point as he pushed across Kansas and Missouri and is currently crossing Illinois with a stop on his home turf of Champaign on Wednesday where he will be reunited with some of his training partners and faculty at the University of Illinois. According to Ryan, the reaction of the public throughout his trek has greatly helped him dig deep and stay focused on the task at hand, “ We are getting great responses on Facebook and twitter which provide great morale. Our purpose is to raise awareness for people with disabilities and it looks like we are accomplishing that based on the responses we are getting which is phenomenal. On the road, we are seeing people clapping and people honking. We were worried about backing up traffic behind us but people have been waving and smiling as they pass. It definitely helps you to get through the hard times in a day.”

When asked what keeps him motivated during the rough times, Ryan reflected for a moment and stated, “Thinking about the reason I started the journey in the first place, I’m really doing it for the organization and to raise awareness. It’s great to know that those things are being accomplished. When I’m going really slow or there’s a huge head wind or rain or something like that, you just stop and think of why you started this journey in the first place. And then your mind stops wandering and you are OK for the day.”

In the end, the message that Ryan is imparting to those willing and able to listen is this, “Never give up, stay focused. Find what you are passionate about, set a goal for yourself and just go and get it. That’s what is so great about the Push Across America campaign all long the way. Yes it is difficult. There are long days, 12 hour days, but I’m passionate about what I am doing. I get to put my passion for wheel chair racing and the organization together and do something great.”

Thomas Paine long ago said that we have it in our powers to begin the world over again. And while I may only partially agree, I believe that sometimes, very special people have the power in their hands to spread a message and touch the hearts and minds of others. Ryan Chalmers is one of those as he spreads his message one spin of his wheels, one day, one month, one state and one journey at a time. He’s not going to retreat, he’s not going to surrender, and he’s going to keep pushing until it’s understood ‘from California to the New York islands.’ Keep on pushing Ryan Chalmers, America is listening.

Further information is available on the below links for both Push Across America and Stay-Focused. As you read above, he enjoys all the support the team can get including cheering along the way, so you can monitor his progress on the map in their website and plan to come down to see him in person if he comes close to your town. You can also follow Ryan on his journey through Facebook and twitter.

Push Across America

Stay-Focused

Ryan Chalmers pushes past the ghost of Mark Twain, Hannibal, Mo

Four Strong Winds: Song of the Week

The song of the week is an idea that hit me this week after hearing the mentioned song while sitting in a cafe earlier this week doing some work. Just a quick hit on random songs I run across that others might like and want to hear….no muss, no fuss, just the facts ma’m.

Four Strong Winds, written by Ian Tyson, recorded by Neil Young for Harvest album 1972.

Classic relationship gone bad song written by Canadian Ian Tyson in the early 60s. Recorded over the years by artists as far-ranging as Bobby Bare, The Kingston Trio, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Triny Lopez and hank Snow. In the same vein of Dylan’s It Ain’t Me Babe or Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right but without the sarcasm and irony, Tyson writes of  a love that has turned cold and the singer laments, “If the good times are gone, then I’m bound for moving on. Four strong winds that blow lonely, seven seas that run high.”

Recorded and sung by Neil Young in 1972, Young’s voice plays well with the lyrics and soaring pedal steel to carry the winds and high seas. I’ve listened to it about ten times since the initial exposure and can’t get enough. With apologies to Pink, Neil Young cries out to his lost lover to “blow him, one last kiss.” Listen for yourself and enjoy. Also below is a live version taken from the Heart of Gold documentary with accompaniment from Emmy Lou Harris and a stage full of guitars.

 

 

For Kenny Jones, MHS Class of 1960

For Kenny and Leagene Jones, Centralia, Illinois

Mattoon High School class of 1960 group shot, Bob Hilligoss 60th birthday party, 2002, Godfrey, Il

 

“I can’t. I can’t go on. It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another. I didn’t realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back- up the hill- to my grave. But first: wait! One more look. Good-by, Good-by, world. Good-by, Grover’s Corners…Mama and Papa. Good-by to clocks ticking…and Mama’s sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new-ironed dresses and hot baths…and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth, you’re too wonderful for anybody to realize you.” character of Emily Webb speaking in Thornton Wilder‘s Our Town.

 

By Ryan Hilligoss, May 18th, 2013

I have never been much of a social person due to my inherent shyness, personality and own faults. But throughout my life, I have been fortunate to be blessed with extended friends of my family. Friends of my brothers and father and mother have been my friends by default, more so than on my own merits. But I have been lucky to have gotten to know a lot of people over time through my parents including their own social circles, fellow teachers and ex students of my father and some of their high school friends. It is a testament to their generation that I have known so many decent, kind and generous people who went out of their way to treat me as an equal and to take the time and effort to get to know me. So my thoughts and concerns turn to the family of my father’s classmate Kenny Jones, Mattoon High School class of 1960, who passed away last week, preceded by his beautiful and kind wife, Leagene King Jones the prior year. Many of those classmates from 53 years ago maintain special friendships that have carried over the many years. I was reminded of Stephen Kings words at the end of Stand By Me, after the narrator’s childhood friend had been killed, when he wrote, “Some people come in and out of our lives like busboys in a restaurant. And even though I hadn’t seen Chris in ten years, I will miss him forever. I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anyone?”

Out of the class of 1960, I have been fortunate to spend time and get to know  a cast of characters and world-class personalities such as John David and Sarah Reed, Gene and Joan Clark, Hank and Luellen Weaver and Kenny and Leagene Jones, all fine people, each and every one. Kenny was a mountain of a man who had excelled at sports from a young age including basketball and football, and golf later in life. When someone I know passes away, I try to find a key moment in memory that I can use as a starting point to bring back other memories, and the one I have for Kenny is a snap shot of who he was a person in every way. I once read that someone’s character can be defined as their actions when no one else is watching. It’s easy to do the right things when other people are looking because that is what you are supposed to do in life based on social norms. But what people do in the quiet, personal moments are the true definition because it speaks to who they truly are.

Ryan Hilligoss and Kenny Jones, Robert Wadlow Golf Course, Alton, Illinois 2007

I was lucky enough to play a round of golf with Kenny, my father and another friend years ago at a golf outing at Rolling Hills golf course in Godfrey, Illinois. Kenny was a tremendous golfer who, with his tall, heavy, muscular frame, could hit a ball a country mile and do it with a smile on his face at the knowledge he had hit a perfect ball. Perfection is not something most of us come into contact on a regular basis, but Kenny was a perfect golfer that day and we enjoyed ourselves immensely with a lot of laughs throughout the day. And he was humble enough to give me kind words when I hit my prototypical bad shot on every hole and tell me to keep playing and not worry about it, saying things like, “You are ten times better than your dad. Look at him, he’s terrible.” All this was his way of deftly taking the pressure off of me and allowing me to just enjoy the day.

On the 8th hole, with just us three teammates watching, I witnessed a real athlete at work. I saw Kenny hit a perfect shot, the best one I have seen in person. We were about 30 yards off the green to the right. Playing in a best ball format, the three others of us hit our shots, badly I must say but par for us, as Kenny watched on to see how the ball bounced and rolled, with his hand resting on a club head in his bag. Being the best of the group, he was always the last to hit. And after watching us, Kenny calmly stepped up to his ball with a pitching wedge, took one small practice swing, lined up his feet and swung in a perfect arc. The ball landed softly on the green ten feet from the hole on a perfect line and rolled slowly to its destination and stopped at the bottom of the cup…clink clink. As the rest of us cheered in amazement, Kenny quietly smiled, shook his head, and said, “Well I guess that’s my one good shot for today.” Having heard stories all my life of Kenny’s various athletic achievements from his youth, I knew that he was just being humble and self-effacing as he had done this countless times in his life and that I had been lucky enough to see it and hold it in my memory.

As we go through life, people leave us and they, being singular, incredible people each and every one of them, cannot be replaced as much as we might try. So we remember their voices, their hands, their laugh, their stories and jokes and all of the memories and shared experiences over the years with fondness. We miss them but we take strength from their memory and rejoice. When the American folk singer and artist Woody Guthrie passed away after years of battling a terrible disease, his family had him cremated and spread his ashes in the ocean surrounding Coney Island which was one of Woody’s favorite places to  swim and relax with his family and friends. The family all gathered on that day, spread his ashes to great wide sea, and then went to Nathan’s Hotdogs for lunch which was one of Woody’s favorite places to dine. When asked why, his wife simply stated that is what Woody would have done if he was there himself. I will carry a lot of memories of Kenny and Leagene with me throughout my life. And I will remember them as kind, decent people who did their best for their family and their friends and left the world a better place for having lived. I will remember Kenny as someone who enjoyed a simple game of golf and every time I play myself, I’ll think of him hitting that perfect chip shot. The perfect shot made in the calm and quiet of a beautiful day with only a few on hand to witness the moment. A microcosm of his life. Thank you Kenny Jones and Leagene Jones, god bless you.

 Coda: Remember Me

 Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there I do not sleep

I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond’s glitter on snow

I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn’s rain

When you awake in the morning’s hush,

I am the soft uplifting rush, Of quiet birds in circled flight

I am the soft stars that shine at night

Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there I did not die

Robert Hilligoss and Kenny Jones, 2002, Godfrey, Illinois

Post Surgery: My Barbaric Yawp

I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of grass.

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me…he complains of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed…I too am untranslatable,

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

-Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

Ryan Barr Hilligoss at Delnor Hospital, Geneva, Illinois, April 2013

By Ryan Hilligoss, May 4, 2013

“May you live everyday of your life.” George Eliot

Two weeks ago, I was rushed into the emergency room for life threatening surgery and came out on the other side unharmed and ready for battle. So, much like Walt Whitman, I too celebrate myself today and from here on out, I plan on sounding my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world and to live everyday of my life. OK, enough already I hear you say. It wasn’t that bad was it? No, it wasn’t and I may have exaggerated a teensy little bit. I wasn’t rushed to the emergency room for life threatening surgery. Rather, I was driven to the hospital by my lovely wife for a scheduled out-patient surgery for my sinuses. But to me it felt like life or death since in my previous appointment with my surgeon he advised that the risks of operation included death, loss of eyesight or even an eyeball all together, bleeding from the brain, etc etc. You know like little, happy things.

During the entire 45 minute drive to the hospital and on through the check in process and the changing of clothes into the dreaded reverse kimono and meetings with the surgeon and the anesthesiologist, I kept insisting to Kim that I wasn’t feeling well and should just cancel and reschedule for another time, much later in the future. This ploy received no sympathy from my masochistic spouse who would rather see me writhe in pain and dread than allow me the chance to live another day. I was a desperate man on that day and the hospital that day was “angry my friends.” My fears were confirmed by one of my nurses who told me most people don’t get concerned about surgery but the natural human instinct is to be fearful anytime death is possible, fight or flight. See…..I told you so. To say the least, the powerful and commanding Kim was unswayed. Much like the sensei of the Cobra Kai dojo from The Karate Kid, she showed no mercy. I wanted to flee and tried to get up from the cot I laid on even as I was tied down by tubes and lines of every kind and all she did was ‘sweep the leg.’ I even went so far as to act as though I did not know where my wallet was and asked to go check in my jacket that hung in the locker across the hallway. I hadn’t so much as swung my left leg over the side of gurney when she was back by my side, looking down at me with pity in her eyes and a shake of her head. I felt like Ralph Macchio laying on the tournament floor clasping my hands around my wounded knee.

During the surgery, the weather was raging outside, in the midst of one of the worst springs we have seen, and the main power went out and the backup generators kicked in as planned and there were no hitches. But knowing that I was insistent that I was going to die, and knowing that she was the one who refused to let me leave, Kim spent much of that time feeling incredible guilty and worried that some major catastrophe would occur while I laid on the operating table. For obvious reasons, I would not have known any better, but boy wouldn’t she have felt bad if something bad had happened to me?? While my soul was bouncing across the universe, Kim would have been forever forced to introduce herself as the one who had marched her husband to an early grave. She should be forever thankful to Thomas Edison and Commonwealth Edison Power for modern technology and the electricity grid.

Much to my chagrin, the surgery went well, very well compared to some of the horror stories I have heard from friends who had similar surgeries done. Much of this can be explained by my suregoen and ENT doctor Arkadiush Byskosh, MD. B Dog as he likes to be known, OK actually not, I just made that up, is the finest, most caring and professional doctor I have had the experience of meeting in all my years including doctors of my children, spouse, parents, etc. They should cast a bronze model of him to use for all others in the profession as well as taking video of his office nurses in action as they epitomize the proper techniques of medical staff. God bless you Dr. Byskosh. No packing of the sinus cavities for me or major complications. After only two weeks, I feel about 85% healthy and can already tell my breathing is better which will lead to better living and sleep once everything is fully healed.

In the big scheme of things, my surgery was nothing and I am just having a throw, as some people around the globe might say, at my own expense and how ridiculous my mind can be sometimes. Everyday, people all over the world have physical conditions and ailments that keep them from fully enjoying life. Millions of people struggle for food, shelter and clean water on a daily basis and people are killed every second of every day for one reason or another, so I have no reason to complain and have every reason to be grateful for having a good life surrounded my a loving wife, two great kids, father, mother, brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins and caring friends.

Louis CK has a new HBO comedy special entitled, Oh My God, in which he talks about how good we have it here on Earth and how we don’t even recognize it most of the time. He points out that for trillions of miles around us in every direction in space, life sucks to the point where your eyeballs are sucked from your head. But here on Earth, we have water and food and people. And we get to eat bacon and cheese, we get to have friends, and we get to have sex and we get to enjoy an innumerable amount of small things in life that we often times miss because we are busy whining about our lives and feeling sorry for ourselves. Yes, life throughout the universe is non-existent, so I am excited to once again ‘celebrate myself’ and the life I have and to enjoy it everyday and to sound my mighty yawp, like a sweaty toothed mad man, across the rooftops of the world. YAWP…YAWP…YAWP!!!!!!!

 

10 Reasons I Am Repulsed by Bruce Springsteen;) or Lester Bangs’ Hypothesis

It’s All About Me, Bruce Springsteen at work basking in the glow of his mindless minions

By Ryan Hilligoss, April 1, 2013

“If love is truly going out of fashion forever, which I do not believe, then along with our nurtured indifference to each other will be an even more contemptuous indifference to each others’ objects of reverence. I thought it was Iggy Stooge, you thought it was Joni Mitchell or whoever else seemed to speak for your own private, entirely circumscribed situation’s many pains and few ecstasies. We will continue to fragment in this manner, because solipsism holds all the cards at present; it is a king whose domain engulfs even Elvis’. But I can guarantee you one thing: we will never again agree on anything as we agreed on Elvis. So I won’t bother saying good-bye to his corpse. I will say good-bye to you.” Lester Bangs, Village Voice, August 29, 1977

Elvis has been dead for 35 years now and Lester Bangs, legendary rock critic and visionary, nailed it on the head. When he wrote those words, most listeners heard music in one of a few ways: recorded music on albums or 8 tracks played in the living room, radio, television, or in a live music setting. Hit the fast forward button on the ol’ cassette deck, and here we are living in Lester’s shadow as each of us, mostly alone, listen to whatever music we like, whenever and however through more devices than I can list including Sirius/XM, iTunes, ipods, ipads, computers, or, egads, even CDs amongst ones I have never even heard of. While we witness the fragmentation of listeners and popular music into far-ranging musicians in every style and sub genre possible, the crux of Bangs’ theory reigns true as not only do we not listen to a lot of the same music, but often times we feel a need to tear down other people at a personal level and their tastes as some sort of twisted rationalization of our own choices. And that is why I am choosing this time to break camp and cleanse myself of a passion that has gripped me for some time. Yes, today I say goodbye to what I once thought of as the ‘power and glory’ of the music of Bruce Springsteen.

I was ten years old in 1984 when my older, much cooler brother took me to my first rock and roll concert, Springsteen on the Born In The USA arena tour. This was before the album and tour turned into a woolly mammoth of shameless cult of personality. My memories are vague, but I was hooked from the start as I was juiced by the pounding music and delirious fans around me. As a kid, I must have thought, “Well if these people are going nuts like this, this guy must be doing something right.” As the years rolled by I purchased each album and went to one concert on each tour as it rolled through St.Louis. But I did not become a fanatic until 2008 when I saw Springsteen and the E Street Band on the Magic Tour play a now legendary show on a ‘hot august night’ in the Arch City. Since then, I have spent countless hours and days reading about Springsteen and his music, going to concerts, listening to his music, talking to friends about it and even writing about my obsession. In my quest to read about all things Springsteen, I recently stumbled across an enlightening, world view changing column written by phillymag.com writer Victor Fiorello in which he lists all the reasons he hates Bruce Springsteen and his music, fans and earring. I have now seen the light, and I have cast off the chains of totalitarianism and will start anew. Here are my reasons why.

#10 He’s been playing music for 47 years…. enough already

With a career that started at the age of 15 when he joined the Castilles, a local Jersey shore band named after bars of soap, and has stretched through 17 studio albums and ‘live’ and box sets, thousands of concerts, and millions of fans, it’s time to hang up those tired ass rock and roll shoes, or working boots in his case. Go play some boardwalk bingo or take a drive across the country in a rented RV like most people your age!

Springsteen driving a Chevy Bel Aire

#9 The man cannot draw an audience of his own

Seems like at most concerts, Springsteen has to drag some poor schlub like Brian Fallon from Gaslight Anthem, Eddie Vedder, Mike Ness, or an oldie like Paul McCartney out on stage just to prop up his own tired act. Jesus, at the age of 62, can’t you make it through a 3 hour show on your own? Sheesh!!

#8 He loves Canadians, what else is there to say, eh? 

Springsteen and Neil Young

In the picture above, Springsteen is shown rehearsing with inveterate Canadian Neil Young during the 2004 Vote For Change tour. Springsteen once performed Glory Days on the David Letterman Show along with The World’s Most Dangerous Band which is fronted by Canadian Paul Shaffer. And Springsteen recently performed a cover version of Canadian rocker Bryan Adams Cuts Like a Knife during a fundraiser. Why all the concern with Canada’s impact on Springsteen? One word: socialized medicine. It’s a slippery slope from Canada’s national healthcare system to the gulags of Soviet prison camps, and one I don’t care to tread or be led down by any musician, no matter the greatness of his stage presence. Plus Canada has produced the light weight comedy of John Candy, Eugene Levy and Dan Akroyd. Doesn’t that speak for itself? And if you are still confused, just remember that in Canada, they call ham bacon. Take off eh?

#7 The ‘Mighty’ Max Weinberg….the man who brings the power night after night

Back in 1975 when original E Street drummer Vinnie ‘Mad Dog’ Lopez was asked to leave the band and temporary fill in Ernest ‘Boom’ Carter left with David Sancious to form their own band, Springsteen famously put an ad in the Village Voice for a new drummer. According to legend, Springsteen spent countless hours over weeks and months auditioning hundreds of drummers. And Weinberg was the best he could do? Jesus H Christ, wasn’t someone like Ginger Baker available? As evidenced in the video above, Weinberg has difficulty keeping the most basic beat and his ‘skills’ can be described as sophomoric at best. I’ve had broken clocks keep better time than this guy. It’s too bad a better drummer couldn’t be used or else the E Street Band might carry the label as one of the most powerful, legendary, booty shaking bands in rock and roll history.

#6 He married his backup singer

Springsteen onstage with wife Patti Scialfa

Not much to say here except, if he was going to get hitched to someone in the band, couldn’t it have been someone ‘we the fans’ prefer like Steven Van Zandt or Roy Bittan? I mean Springsteen and Bittan seem to have been destined for each other musically as with a few tinkles of the piano from Roy, fans all over the world know what song is coming. Springsteen has been known to say that when they are in the recording studio, he tries to get the band members to work up their own parts before Roy gets started as he has an uncanny ability to know what musical direction Springsteen wants to go in. They seem to have a ‘marriage of the minds’, so why not just be married and cut down on the commute time?

#5 Politics in the Promised Land

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie at a Springsteen concert

Springsteen has long been in a love affair with conservative politicians and has lent his talents or songs to campaigns including Ronald Reagan, George W Bush and most recently Rick Santorum. Governor Christie has famously been to over 411 Springsteen concerts over the years and the pair often hold council after concerts to trade stories and policy ideas. For an artist who long ago did a fundraiser for George McGovern and often sided with the left, his views have turned for the worse, and I am sick of hearing about it.

#4 The Voice

Springsteen strains every vocal cord and neck muscle while in concert

OK, we get it. Springsteen’s voice can best be described as a cross between car tires over a gravel road and dogs howling down on main street. Springsteen has made a career trying to pass himself off as a pseudo blue-eyed soul brother with his “power and soul” effects like James Brown, Solomon Burke and Wilson Picket. But I hate to break it to him, but unlike Steve Martin’s character in The Jerk, he was not born a poor black child in the south. He was born to relatively well to do parents in Cherry Hill, NJ, far from the beaches he pretends to love. While singing in a style straight from gospel and soul music, he wants us to shut our eyes to the fact that he is as white as Mitch McConell. Today’s listeners want something more authentic: autotuned singers like Ke$ha. You’re white Springsteen, get over it and sing in the patrician, blue blood manner you come from.

#3 He loves communists, I told you so

I told you in #8 that socialism is a slippery slope. You start out with Candians and their soul crushing tyranny, and then slowly over time, you wind up sleeping with communists deep in the heart of the Kremlin. In his final political transformation, Springsteen has been cast under the spell of known communist agent Tom Morello, recently added to the E Street Band in place of longtime cohort Steven Van Zandt who has been exiled by the politboro to the cold and snow of Norway. Morello has made a career of hypnotizing millions of fans around the world who came to see either Rage Against The Machine or Audioslave and brainwashing them with Marxist dialectics, and now he is doing it to ‘The Boss.’ Springsteen long has been known to end his concerts with the phrase, “We’ll be seeing you up the road.” But for concerts recently played in Australia on the Wrecking Ball tour, Springsteen has now been sending his minions home with the old communist standby, “Workers of the world unite, all you have to lose are your chains.”

#2 Unlike most celebrities, he can’t give a decent speech

How many times have you watched the Grammy or Oscar awards and been blown away by the eloquence and verbal profundity of award winners who speak on the beauty of art, the state of world peace and pressing social issues? This is obviously rhetorical as it happens every year, much to my amazement. Meanwhile, given the opportunity, Springsteen fumbles through the English language more than George W Bush and Gerald Ford combined if they were conjoined twins coming out of sedation. Earlier this year, he gave a speech at the Musicares award ceremony that was a horrific train wreck that left audience members stone faced and confused. I read a transcript of it and haven’t seen that much crap on a single piece of paper since the last Sheryl Crow album. In 2012, Springsteen was given the opportunity to present the keynote address at the South By Southwest Music festival in Austin, Tx. While he had every opportunity to give an amazing seminar on modern music starting with its roots and sources, pay homage to all of his influences including Elvis Presley, James Brown and Bob Dylan, salute Woody Guthrie’s 100th birthday and pinpoint very specific inspirations he had over his career such as The Animals, in the end he did none of that. Instead, he chose to bore the crowd into tears with talk on his new pet projects involving Nintendocore and black death metal music. When presented with an opportunity to speak, Springsteen could rely on his well-known bank of ghost writers, but instead he chooses to display his ignorance and self promotion. What an ass hat!!

#1 Born In The USA…Thanks for ruining a perfectly good war, dude

Yes, I know, I know. Many think this is his most iconic song of his long, illustrious career, but it’s his most misunderstood song and let me tell you of the song’s real meaning. In one sense, the Vietnam War ended in 1975 when the last of the helicopters lifted off the embassy building in Saigon, but in many ways, it has never ended. After the troops came home, they were greeted as liberators and welcomed back into society as the heroes they were. Their stories were told and sung by hundreds of authors and artists. Then Springsteen came along and tried to ride on the coattails of all that had come before him. What the country could have used at the time was an artist willing to take hard look at the rough treatment that some of the veterans received and the difficult lives they led. Instead what we got from the “poet of New Jersey” was a rose-colored fairy tale backed by Bittan’s heavy synthesizer and Weinberg’s militaristic crescendo of drums that became an anthem of blind support for political and military leaders. Springsteen’s USA is at the heart of darkness of this Land of Hope and Dreams we call home. (For anyone who wants a crystal clear understanding of the song and its’ meaning, please read George Will’s riveting account of his one Springsteen concert experience.)

Well, that’s all I have for now and hope many of you agree with me and are willing to stop being ‘blinded by the light’ of an obviously flawed American artist. While we may not listen to each other’s music, let us unite in our repulsion to the music of Bruce Springsteen. All we have to lose are our chains. And as we cast off our chains to Bruce, I will say goodbye to you.

Springsteen yelling at his fans for not liking him enough

Honorable mentions: The above were my top 10 reasons I vomit a little in my mouth when thinking of Springsteen and his bandanas and work shirts, but I could have easily come up with 10 or 20 more without even thinking about it and maybe you readers can help me. Below are the ones I anguished over and had to leave off for purposes of this post as I will publish another list when Springsteen comes through town later this year in the hopes of juicing my readership:

- The live show: Yeah, yeah. He comes out on stage with the house lights down where nothing exists and then counts down one, two, three and….. presto….. magic happens as over the next 3-4 hours, he gives everything he can of himself in every which way including vocally, musically, lyrically, stage presence, crowd interactions, bonding with everyone until he is left in a state of dripping wet, spent exhaustion. How cliché.

- The fans- They are loud, stupid and obnoxious Coors Light swilling grunts. I spend my time being a cool hipster hanging out with my hipster friends. If I wanted to be amongst the unwashed masses, I would go visit them at the unemployment line.

-He won’t leave us alone: Can’t we have a national tragedy without this guy showing up to hog the spotlight while acting like he is trying to help out the best way he knows?? Just in the last 12 years, he has appeared on every televised fundraiser including 9/11, the Haiti earthquake, and the 12/12/12 concert for Hurricane Sandy. Hey Bruce, just watch the show on television at home like the rest of us and send a nice check, eh?

Airborne Toxic Event: Timeless

Timeless, Airborne Toxic Event EP 2013

By Ryan Hilligoss, March 13, 2013

The Airborne Toxic Event, Timeless EP, Island Records

Rating: 4 1/2 gold records on the wall

“Elvis fell apart with grief when Gladys died. He fondled and petted her in the casket. He talked baby talk to her until she was in the ground. It seems fairly certain that Glady’s death caused a fundamental shift at the center of the King’s world view. She’d been his anchor, his sense of security. He began to withdraw from the real world, to enter the stage of his own dying.” White Noise, Don DeLillio

In 2011, The Airborne Toxic Event released their second album, All At Once, and the title track serves as a microcosm of the band’s sound, fervor, lyrical content and musical purpose. Standing as a musical metaphor for life, the song begins quietly with an uptempo guitar click clacking away like a clock passing time with keyboards lightly undercutting lead vocalist Mikel Jollett singing:

We were born without time/Nameless in the arms
Of a mother, a father, and God
When the world would wait for us/A thousand years in the crush
Of our eyes, fearless, in awe/So quietly we’d fade into sleep
With nothing on our mind

And then, just as in the struggle of life he describes, the song takes off with a galloping, pounding drum beat and bass line, the music moving along rapidly propelling us along just as in life, ‘wishing for more time’ but just wasting our opportunities. In the third verse as the waters rise around us the rhythm builds and builds as the drummer smashes the cymbals over and over, Jollett sings:

We get old all at once/And it comes like a punch
In the gut, in the back, in the face/When it seems someone cried
And our parents have died
Then we hold onto each other in their place
Yeah, I feel the world changin’ all at once/ I guess it’ll be OK

With the final verse, the tempo and levels slow and grow smaller as ‘we all hope that someone was looking down as we return our bodies to the ground.’ It started soft and quiet just as in childhood before we understand the concepts of time and mortality, goes crashing through the bulk of the song in a mad dash to the quiet end. Jollett as lyricist and the band seem to have a deft, great feel for the fears that we all have but most people and musicians refuse to address or even acknowledge.

The band has released a four song EP, Timeless, as a precursor to the April 16 release of their third album, Such Hot Blood. The four tracks released will be included in the full album and include The Secret, Timeless, The Storm and Safe and play as an epic take on the same themes that have run through all of their work; topics of life,the passing of time, love lost and found, and the pain, wonder and puzzlement that is human existence. The band consists of Jollett on guitar and vocals, Steven Chen on lead guitar, Noah Harmon on bass, Darren Taylor on drums and Anna Bulbrook on viola and vocals. They often also use orchestration of some level to add strings and backing heft. The overall sound is that of a 21st century Phil Spectoresque ’wall of sound’ with Jollett’s vocals reminding me somewhat of a plaintive Adam Duritz of Counting Crows but with more soul and muscle ala Bruce Springsteen.

The Airborne Toxic Event

Springsteen’s influence can be heard in the big, full sound that fills in the spaces when needed but often packs a rock hard punch, and that is no coincidence. In a recent Rolling Stone interview by Steve Baltin, Jollett says he watched recent documentaries on the making of Springsteen’s classic and learned some necessary lessons on artistry. Born To Run and Darkness on the Edge of Town albums. (The movies Wings For Wheels and The Promise, respectively, are both fine films made by Thom Zimny and well worth the investment in time and attention for those interested in the process of artistic production, whether you are a fan of Springsteen or not). Jollett says,  ”I asked myself, ‘What would Bruce Springsteen do?’ If you want to do something that’s important, you can’t fake it. I remember thinking, ‘You can do a lot more: you can learn to play piano for real, you can learn to sing for real, you can take what you know about songwriting and forget it and then remember it. You can learn other forms, you can rewrite your lyrics 20 times so they’re exactly right. So yeah, it was a choice to try and grow and to push to grow.”

The band takes their name from the above quoted novel, White Noise, which focuses on college professor Jack Gladney, teacher of Hitler studies at a small liberal arts school, and his family. Jack and wife Babette live their lives with a soul crushing fear of death with such force that Babette prostitutes herself with a drug manufacturer rep to obtain a test drug called Dylar in the hopes to treat her fear. The book is split into three acts, the second of which is The Airborne Toxic Event in which an industrial accident unleashes a black chemical cloud that floats over their city and forces Jack and Babette to confront their fears. Jack describes the cloud as ‘ a towering black mass like a shapeless growing thing, a dark breathing thing of smoke.’

That black mass forms again with the EP’s four songs and may possibly form the “four corners” of the full album once it’s released. The four corners represent the sequence of songs used with vinyl LPs  and would have been the first and last songs of each album side. In many cases, the four corners of the album formed the foundation of the artist’s and the album’s musical, lyrical and meaning in content. This EP starts with The Secret, with siren-like keyboard sending out a warning or distress signal with Bulbrook’s viola adding a counter measure with a driving bass line underneath as Jollett sings:

The sound of the engine/The feel of the tires

Your hands on the rail/The smell from the tires

Streetlights and headlights on a road that goes nowhere

She left you she left you/But you know she’s still out there

And somehow it always seems/Like you were waiting for something

But the secret’s out now

The secret may be out now in the song, but I am still trying to decipher what that secret is: who was driving that car that left the narrator behind, where are the fires and what is burning, where did she go, what is the something he’s been waiting for and what is the secret?

In Timeless, the narrative continues as the same “she” disappears into the darkness and the spurned lover can still feel her spirit in the room. The narrator wonders ‘what is this whole in my heart that I cannot abide.’ Jollett sings:

I wish that our lives are just endless/’Cause it’s all too short and I’m leaving soon

I want to hold onto all the people I lost/I want to keep them with me/ We would never part

We are timeless/We are, we are timeless, timeless/Everything we have, oh my god

I feel like I could live forever with you, my love

It’s  like their lives were over/Before they had even begun

Like many of their songs, the tempos, levels and sound arrangements perfectly match the lyrics and vocals and build the narrative and meaning of the songs. On this one, it starts with a mellow sound but builds throughout the song and goes into a funky bridge with heavy guitar chords backed by matching orchestration that works well as the drums crash and fade out.

In The Storm, the missing lover comes back in the door after 25 days, or 25 weeks, or 25 months and announces they are here to stay and the worst of the storm is over. The actual amount of time is unclear because the road opens before the narrator and goes on forever so the concept of time doesn’t really exist and speaks to the heart of many of their songs. The final track of the EP, Safe, is replete with Springsteenesque influences, and I was left with the feeling that this is an updated, 21st century version of Thunder Road as it opens with a Roy Bittan like piano line, tinkling away as Bulbrook’ viola sways lightly in the background. I imagine Springsteen’s Mary on the front porch as the screen door slams and the driver asks her to get into the car but advises that the ride, it ain’t free.

It was early for summer/All the people and the music from the bar

You in your grey dress/Your arm on the window/You said what’s the difference

Just say it to me, just say it to me

Let’s not make it a thing, it’ll be ok babe

The tempo speeds up quickly with the viola rapidly calling out as a siren, the drums ticking away the time just like Al Jackson’s drums on Otis Redding’s Try A Little Tenderness, and the guitar and bass clashing together as the drama builds and the two lovers decide if they will take that ride together. Then Bulbrook begins singing in a haunting, ghostly fashion, “Do you really want to hear it, did you really think this was real?” Jollett sings back that they can’t slow down now since it’s not safe for travel. Finally, they get to an unknown location and arise from the car and “she” leaves her bag in the backseat and he sees that as a sign of love and confirmation of his hopes. Act four of the drama has come to an end, but questions abound for characters and listeners alike.

In The Promised Land, one of Springsteen’s penultimate songs that encapsulates much of his career’s intent, his character faces down the storm of life as he watches ‘a black cloud rising from the desert floor and packs his bag and heads straight into the storm.’ Airborne Toxic Event faces that storm of life and death with each album and each song with pride, strength and determination, and I highly anticipate the release of the completed album so I can hear them do it again with ‘Such Hot Blood.’

Selected videography and notes

More than coincidence: Airborne Toxic Event’s debut album, self titled and released in 2009, contains a bonus track entitled The Girls In Their Summer Dresses which is very close in title to Springsteen’s Girls In Their Summer Clothes released on Magic in 2007.

Airborne Toxic Event bio page

The Mavericks: In Time and En Fuego

By Ryan Hilligoss, February 28, 2013

The Mavericks, In Time, Valory Music Co.

Rating: 4 out of 5 gold records on the wall

Like a lot of other music and bands that have become my favorites over time, I stumbled upon The Mavericks by happy accident. While driving around in 1999, I happened upon a review on NPR of a new tribute album coming out of country-alt-rock legend Gram Parsons entitled Return of the Grievous Angel which included covers from The Pretenders with Emmy Lou Harris, Gillian Welch, Wilco, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle and The Mavericks, among others. I was stunned to hear The Mavericks bring The Flying Burrito Brothers song, Hot Burrito #1 to full, alt-country life with a blend of a steady rock drum beat, steel pedal guitar and the soaring vocals of lead singer Raul Malo. For my money there are a few singers in modern American music that have been pure, smooth and powerful such as Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jackie Wilson, Trisha Yearwood, and you can add Raul Malo’s name to that impressive list. If you have any doubt, just listen to the below clips of him singing a fine cover version of Etta James’ At Last, Johnny Cash’s I Still Miss Someone, or one of my favorite Springsteen covers, All That Heaven Will Allow. (Malo can also be seen singing I Told You So with Scotty Moore on guitar and DJ Fontana on drums by clicking this link.)

The Mavericks released their first album in 1991 during the height of the ‘Garth Brooks’ country sound and blazed their way through six albums with a fine amalgamation of sounds ranging from country, old school rock and roll, mariachi horns and accordion, up tempo rock, Latin based rhythms  and everything in between. The band broke up in 2003 but is back in style with their new release In Time. If you have ever wondered what Buck Owens and The Buckaroos would sound like backed by the surf rock group The Ventures playing guitar behind a ska beat, here it is in all it’s glory.

The lineup includes Malo, Paul Deakin on drums, Robert Reynolds on bass, Eddie Perez on guitar and Jerry Dale McFadden on accordion, organ, piano and arrangements, with various others helping out on strings, horns and additional percussion. All thirteen songs are original works written by Malo with some help from writing partners. The thirteen songs are drenched in Latin beats, showing their Miami roots as always, like samba and bossa nova, and include two versions of Come Unto Me, in Beatlesesque fashion, one sung in English and one in Spanish over the same backing tracks. The band rips through the entire album like they hadn’t been apart all these years, and they don’t miss a beat or leave a stone unturned.

Appropriately, the album begins with the ska beat opener of Back In Your Arms Again with the lyrics: Once I said I’d never want your love again/You showed up tonight and proved me wrong/ Things I said I’d never do since you and I were through/But here I am back in your arms again. It’s true they have been gone for a while, but now they’re back in their listeners and fans wide open arms. Next up is Lies with a powerful ,rolling, tempo and full on Duane Eddy guitar sound supplied by Perez, and at the end, Malo asking the band to keep rolling as he repeats the last line ‘I believe in all your lies’ three times like he is just happy to be back in the studio with the band and doesn’t want the good times to end.

Come Unto Me is a funky mashup of styles of Ventures guitar sounds, calypso beat, and fluttering accordion threading through the love struck lyrics. Throughout the album, this listener hears influences abound that have fueled their bands highly distinct style throughout their career. Orbison’s Blue Bayou beat can be heard behind In Another’s Arms, a quick tempo runs through Fall Apart with Marty Robbins horns, All Over Again is a testament to the power and glory of Buck Owen’s Bakersfield sound, Forgive Me is drenched in Patsy Cline vocal stylings, and Stevie Ray Vaughn’s guitar work can be heard in the start to Dance In The Moonlight before the song takes off into an infectious samba beat. Through the entire album, Malo’s voice is as pure, powerful and sultry as ever. The man could sing the alphabet, Russian folk songs or David Foster Wallace’s 1,000 page Infinite Jest from start to finish and I would hang on every word and syllable.

But the highlights for me are That’s Not My Name and As Long As There’s Loving Tonight. In the former, Malo seems to be having playful fun with the Ting Tings song from 2008 when he sings: Lonely, Mr. Lonely/That’s what they’ll call me/That’s not my name. In Loving Tonight, it opens with a piano lead straight from Elvis Presley’s All Shook Up and rolls into a boogie woogie, up tempo number that could have been recorded at RCA’s Nashville studios in the 1950s replete with Chet Atkins playing a ‘galloping guitar’, Boots Randolph on the yakkety sax and the Jordanaires supplying the backing oohs and ahhs as Malo complains of his lover: ‘She’s always getting her way/With little or nothing to say/When I know she’s wrong, that’s alright/ As long as there’s loving tonight’. As Dewey Phillips used to say on Memphis radio, “That’ll get it man, that’ll flat get it.”

But, this is not simply a matter of a cover band paying homage to their influences worn on their sleeves. Like true artists, the band and singer are able to pay tribute to those who came before while finding their own voices and own styles, and The Mavericks create their own sound in buckets and spades.  Go out and get this album, and tell em’ Phillips sent ya’.

Coda

And if someday, you just have one of those days and need to get away for a few minutes, take a listen to the superlative Dream River from The Mavericks album, Trampoline. Close your eyes, listen and float away down the Dream River. ‘Don’t wake because I don’t mind.’