While cousin Tim is stateside, his wife Michelle has updated their blog with an account of the earthquake and tsunami. The damage is worse in Pago Pago than initial reports indicated. Read Michelle's full account.

As I was fiddling with the computer, I looked out of the window, and saw the first tidal wave heaving all the boats in the harbor to and fro, like so much dead twigs in a pond. That's when I ran to the other window for a better view. It was a storm without the rain. A perfect sunny day, but with the damage of a hurricane. There were a series of waves that swept to and fro, and only later did I hear that the force was so strong that it literally sucked the water dry from the reef when it receded, and then smashed the water against the shore when it came back in. …

I drove through a landscape so unreal, so unlike the familiar, that it felt like I was driving on another land. There were so many cars that were stranded on the sides of the road, smashed up and beyond repair, that any Samoan who first looked upon them would probably end up sobbing. I counted 10 boats on people's lawns, and finally stopped counting; it was just too depressing.

And here's a blog post — titled "We're okay for now" — from the fiancee of one of Tim's colleagues at the Pago Pago hospital.

The main "city" (I use the term "city" very loosely here), Pago Pago, is just destroyed. I mean, we went to a small grocery store on Monday for a few things, and yesterday, that store was completely trashed. Everything destroyed. There are a lot of buildings that are just not *there* anymore–they were totally washed away. There are large boats lying upside down on the other side of tall buildings. No idea how they even got there. Smashed buses, wrecked cars flipped over, you name it. Rubble and thick dust everywhere. I don't know what the news networks are showing back in the States, but it's sort of like a managed chaos here, if that makes any sense. …

The earthquake itself hit a little before 7am Tuesday morning. It was intense, and it was *long*. I mean, it lasted a little over two minutes. If that doesn't seem long to you, try looking down at your watch and saying, "go!" Then wait for 2 minutes + and imagine your house shaking, stuff falling, dishes and lamps rattling, etc. Then tell me that 2 minutes doesn't seem very long. It was big.

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And other ways I thought of beginning my U2 Fedex Field review.

-The world's biggest band wants to be the universe's biggest band.

-My ticket was $120. It would've been worth $120 without the band.

-I got dizzy watching Vertigo on the screens, and it was awesome.

-Awesome.

-How is I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight that much better live?

-Only U2: Bono spots a turbaned Sikh fan waving a U.S. flag, pulls him on stage. They sing. Bono also pulls a child out of nowhere to run laps.

-I want a swinging light-up steering wheel microphone at my job.

-Live NFL directors used to impress me. Now they need to step it up.

-The Claw! At one point, I thought there was an invisibility effect.

-Only U2: The stadium of 80,000 felt like an arena of 20,000.

-It's possible nearly everyone I know was at U2 tonight.

(Running tally from Twitter and Fb, will update as needed: Carlos, Jeff, Mollie, Joel, Brian, Sean, Korina, Juan, Jon, Everett, Matt, Greg, Jessica, Lauren, Sarah, Mike, Julie, Mary, Sara, Tricia, Susan, Carl, Armen, Jim.)

A couple people have asked how my relatives in America Samoa — mentioned in this blog previously and linked in the blogroll at left — are after the tsunami there. Cousin Tim and wife Michelle are both okay. Tim's visiting stateside and headed to the Fedex U2 show tonight (as am I), and Michelle's checked in to report things are okay in Pago Pago. News reports indicate the city has only minor damage along the coast, but things are worse elsewhere on the island.

Update from the AP early Wednesday: "In American Samoa's capital of Pago Pago, the streets and fields were filled with ocean debris, mud, overturned cars and several boats as a massive cleanup effort continued into the night. Several buildings in the city — just a few feet above sea level — were flattened by either the quake or the tsunami."

As featured in ONA's pre-conference mailing and on this page: "At the USA TODAY booth, visit with Gannett, USA TODAY and USATODAY.com recruiters to find out more about openings, such as a Senior Web Designer/User Experience Architect who will be part of the Innovation team that is building some of the most high-profile and cutting-edge products in the company." I'm missing the conference for the first time in years (very sad) for a friend's Chicago wedding (very happy), but to get info beyond the listing, ask around for my boss, Joel Sucherman.

After soul Friday, Saturday's Glory Days symposium Pony show brought Willie Nile and Joe Grushecky to the stage, with special guest Danny Clinch, Mr. Springsteen's relatively official photographer and a badass harmonica player. My highlights: Nile's You Gotta Be a Buddha (in a Place like This), Grushecky's Swimming with the Sharks, Nile joining Grushecky for a loud and smoking All Along the Watchtower, Clinch for Folson Prison Blues, and of course Grushecky's main-set close, Down the Road Apiece.

One of the cooler parts for me was seeing Grushecky as his own man. Playing acoustic and having to talk all Bruce in a late Friday session, he struck me at points like Caden's double in Synecdoche, New York. But up there with the Houserockers, he was distinct and good night out.

A highlight that wasn't caught? Great friend/host Sheri spotting a little guy with big hair under a big Mad Hatter hat. As she said, "Sometimes I wish I could take pictures of people without them knowing." Me too.

Friday night: I got out of my car two blocks down the street and heard Jillian Rhys singing. I started walking faster. Halfway between Ronnie Specter and Christina Aguilera, super-pretty yes, she had an amazing voice and a tight band to match. This girl, a few guitars and a trumpet at the Stone Pony can do no wrong. Hear Jillian Rhys on MySpace.

Rhys' band at work. I don't remember the band having a name. And I don't think that's 'cause I was distracted. Pretty sure it had no name.

Later Friday: Gary U.S. Bonds, age 70, moving well while drinking wine on stage and still bringing the house down with Quarter to Three, now nearly 50 on its own. Great set included This Little Girl, Jole Blon (video to come), Out of Work, Dedication, Rendezvous, and newer stuff holding its own. Murder in the First Degree was a band-proving romp, and in a show with so much joking around, slow soul on All I Need (that audio doesn't do it justice) was the most underrated moment of the night.

In the crowd on Pony night one, we had a crowd of all ages (over 18). Yes, she was that good-looking. Yes, he was that old. Good for them.

Exhausted but made good time home from Jersey today — no rain and fog like pre-dawn Friday, although the Redskins made up for it — and caught the tasty end of Cousin Tim's brief homecoming from American Samoa. As the Monmouth wifi situation never got better, there's much to post, like symposium session write-ups from notes, some photo sets and videos. Sunday's highlights stretched from the latter hours of Joe Grushecky's show at the Stone Pony to a Springsteen meets Flannery O'Connor meets Walker Percy session meets… but first, sleep.

I have more posts on today coming, for sure, but those posts won't come today. We were at a Sheraton this morning and at Monmouth University this afternoon, and the hotel industry is apparently beating the heck out of higher education when it comes to guest wireless. I'm coming to you now from a Monmouth computer lab, jacking an Ethernet line and power outlet from a desktop, referred by a friendly security guard, surrounded my underclassmen who may or may not be working hard but are at least quiet. Good for them. It's hard to be young and quiet. Anyway. Finally finished ppt tonight, more or less. I decided to leave some ends open. Off to the Stone Pony in a bit to hear Gary U.S. Bonds. Cool to see Bloomberg covering the symposium (thanks to my dad for sending along the link). Will post much more tomorrow.

Prof and author Jim Cullen, whom I've read on Springsteen somewhere beyond the usual works listed for him, asks the provocative question in the day's next talk. He has his text online here. Highlight arguments:

Bruce Springsteen's success in the 1980s is a function of him being at heart a conservative artist. Period. It is no accident that the Age of Reagan corresponds to the Age of Springsteen, and I'll even go so far as to say that in some important respects Springsteen has been a more thoroughgoing conservative than Reagan ever was.

…

The choices he's made are not so much of a man who seeks to embody his time as to incorporate himself into the broader musical flow of history. If this isn't conservatism in the most elemental sense of the term, I don't know what is.

Crowd responses hit on:  rock and roll's rebellion vs. accommodation, personal caution vs. conservatism, a claim to Bruce bringing a new use of gravitas to rock, the political split of the fanbase (Cullen, to knowing laughs, after discussing religion earlier, "like Jesus, we tend to see him in our own image"), activism in Catholicism ("simultaneously the most left and the most right," among U.S. faiths, Cullen responds in part), the breadth of the Born in the USA album opening itself to misreading (and beyond — Cullen cites Darlington County's "I've seen the glory of the coming of the Lord" as how religion winds its way into common speech), symbolism and dogma (whatever remarks anyone may toss off on personal beliefs, "the symbols only have life" in the degree of doctrinal infrastructure that holds them up, Cullen says), and criticism of our systems' excesses vs. belief in the systems ("no Springsteen character goes off and lives on a commune or has a green website.")

Last one dislikes Bruce-Reagan comparison, draws claps. What's the alternative to BitUSA, Cullen asks? God Save the Queen. Good debate.