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fleshuncovered
Jul. 5th, 2010 04:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ravensgurl211When I first got the letter I was to be inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame I was a little suspicious. New Jersey Hall of Fame? Does New York have a hall of fame? Does Connecticut have a hall of fame? I mean, maybe they don’t think they need one.
But then I ran through the list of names: Albert Einstein, Bruce Springsteen… my mother’s going to like that. She’s here tonight. It’s her birthday and it’s the only time she’s going to hear those two names mentioned in the same sentence, so I’m going to enjoy it.
When I was recording my first album, the record company spent a lot of money taking pictures of me in New York City. But…something didn’t feel quite right. So I was walking down the boardwalk one day, stopped at a souvenir stand and bought a postcard that said “Greetings from Asbury Park.” I remember thinking, “yeah, that’s me.”
[stuff about him and his wife Patti and kids and not leaving NJ]
That’s what New Jersey is for me. It’s a repository of my time on earth. My memory, the music I’ve made, my friendships, my life… it’s all buried here in a box somewhere in the sand down along the Central Jersey coast. I can’t imagine having it any other way.
So let me finish with a Garden State benediction. Rise up my fellow New Jerseyans, for we are all members of a confused but noble race. We, of the state that will never get any respect. We, who bear the coolness of the forever uncool. The chip on our shoulders of those with forever something to prove. And even with this wonderful Hall of Fame, we know that there’s another bad Jersey joke coming just around the corner.
But fear not. This is not our curse. It is our blessing. For this is what imbues us with our fighting spirit. That we may salute the world forever with the Jersey state bird, and that the fumes from our great northern industrial area to the ocean breezes of Cape May fill us with the raw hunger, the naked ambition and the desire not just to do our best, but to stick it in your face. Theory of relativity anybody? How about some electric light with your day? Or maybe a spin to the moon and back? And that is why our fellow Americans in the other 49 states know, when the announcer says “and now in this corner, from New Jersey….” they better keep their hands up and their heads down, because when that bell rings, we’re coming out swinging.
-- Bruce Springsteen
But then I ran through the list of names: Albert Einstein, Bruce Springsteen… my mother’s going to like that. She’s here tonight. It’s her birthday and it’s the only time she’s going to hear those two names mentioned in the same sentence, so I’m going to enjoy it.
When I was recording my first album, the record company spent a lot of money taking pictures of me in New York City. But…something didn’t feel quite right. So I was walking down the boardwalk one day, stopped at a souvenir stand and bought a postcard that said “Greetings from Asbury Park.” I remember thinking, “yeah, that’s me.”
[stuff about him and his wife Patti and kids and not leaving NJ]
That’s what New Jersey is for me. It’s a repository of my time on earth. My memory, the music I’ve made, my friendships, my life… it’s all buried here in a box somewhere in the sand down along the Central Jersey coast. I can’t imagine having it any other way.
So let me finish with a Garden State benediction. Rise up my fellow New Jerseyans, for we are all members of a confused but noble race. We, of the state that will never get any respect. We, who bear the coolness of the forever uncool. The chip on our shoulders of those with forever something to prove. And even with this wonderful Hall of Fame, we know that there’s another bad Jersey joke coming just around the corner.
But fear not. This is not our curse. It is our blessing. For this is what imbues us with our fighting spirit. That we may salute the world forever with the Jersey state bird, and that the fumes from our great northern industrial area to the ocean breezes of Cape May fill us with the raw hunger, the naked ambition and the desire not just to do our best, but to stick it in your face. Theory of relativity anybody? How about some electric light with your day? Or maybe a spin to the moon and back? And that is why our fellow Americans in the other 49 states know, when the announcer says “and now in this corner, from New Jersey….” they better keep their hands up and their heads down, because when that bell rings, we’re coming out swinging.
-- Bruce Springsteen
