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.

Bought the two Steel Mill Retro albums from Mad Dog in the hotel lobby and shook the hands that drummed Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. and The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle. Good guy. Long line for him, but he looked me in the eye to say hey and autographed both discs for "Pat." Met some cool fellow attendees in the line as well.

(Yes, if somehow you've ever wondered where this blog's "Greetings from Evanston, IL" title comes from, now you know half the story.)

Now: Psychiatrists! Smart ones!

The first academic panel gets underway. Yale prof Steven Southwick explains resilience theory, how people reconstruct their lives from turmoil and trouble: finding positive role models, seeking humor, fostering "signature strengths" and more. No mention of Bruce. Then Dennis Charney, dean of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, begins relating resilience factors to the music. Optimism/hope: Born to Run, Better Days, Working on a Dream, Land of Hope and Dreams. Acceptance and personal growth: Terry's Song, The Last Carnival. Embracing a personal/moral compass: Ghost of Tom Joad, American Skin, Devils & Dust, Long Walk Home, The Rising. Facing fear: Into the Fire. Others. Moving through stages of life… Children/family: Living Proof. Friendship:  Blood Brothers. Marriage: Kingdom of Days, If I Should Fall Behind.

Personal note: You know how much I use music as an emotion handler in this blog. Above, connecting these songs to these themes doesn't take a doctoral degree, but what's interesting to me is seeing songs fall across the scope of resilience and our seeking across the scope.

Charney moves onto discussing the resilient brain — overlap between where music affects the brain and where happiness, fear and anxiety live. Negative music bringing effects just like positive music. Obvious, but cool to see it in the brain imaging and to think about potential next steps — music as therapy for different medical issues, Charney notes.

Last up, Yale prof Linda Godleski uses her background with veterans in "telemental health" study — mental health care through remote video conferencing — and membership in Greasy Lake. She then digs into the Bruce boards, gratification theory, how people use the Web for coping, and emotional threads. Among them: "What songs make you cry," the meaning of life, debating Mary's Place, a poster hearing Independence Day after losing a father, saving Tillie, and dealing with Danny's death. Second part of the last item: "Danny Fund" charity fundraising online. Good close: Talking community, Godleski pulls out, "come home from work and wash up and go racing in the street." Unexpected quote.

Drive was four hours, no traffic, great radio, and now we're underway.

Intros from organizers, and now Grammy Museum chief and Bruce-tied author Bob Santelli is kicking off a cool panel with early E Street Band drummer Vini "Mad Dog" Lopez (wearing a Mad Dog T-shirt) and Tinker West, who built the Castiles, Springsteen's first band, and who had Bruce, Vini and the late E Street keyboard player Danny Federici live in his surfboard factory in the late '60s, long before Born to Run, before E Street became E Street. They're talking Danny's life and Asbury music. Santelli was working on a book with Danny when he died last year.

Update during: Vini begins by talking about his beginning in music — playing bugle in a drum+bugle corps. Santelli mentions Danny's start, with his mom booking him for accordion gigs. Vini talks about how fast he could set up his drum kit. "Still can. I can set 'em up in five minutes, boom." Describes how he and Danny went out to a club to see a guy named Bruce Springsteen play. Current E Street bassist Garry Tallent and early E Street keyboardist David Sancious already bouncing in and out of the scene in the stories. Tinker now on building their sound rig. Santelli mentions Danny's wild run-ins with the law. Vini: "We all had a problem with the law." Tells story of Danny pushing speaker over on police chief. Tinker calls police chief a Nazi. Vini talks about cops waiting to arrest Danny after a show, Bruce pulling the crowd up onstage, and Danny then slipping out as the show ended and everyone left stage. Tinker mentions how Bruce didn't know how to drive — "He had girls drive him everywhere" — until he forced him to help a drive to California. "I didn't sleep. I was petrified." Vini explains how Danny's station wagon got split up from Tinker and Bruce's car. Story involves Danny and Vini racing to catch up, then figuring they were ahead, then waiting by side of road for eight hours. Story growing shaggier. Vini: "Then we heard congas…" Pot brownies, phone book are involved.

SCORE: Just got floor tix with Jim for November D.C. show. Karma!

More from the panel: Q&A begins. Vini talking about Bruce and Danny as working out many of the early songs together. Regimentation came during BtR sessions. Vini: "Me personally, that's all well and good, but I'm still gonna do what I like." Santelli on time since: Bruce has respect for musicianship, and musicians work within the vision. Hmm. Question about why Danny was barely on BtR album proper. Santelli describes Danny as disappointed over that, felt that new piano sound from Roy had Bruce's attention during recording. "At the time, he felt shorted. He felt pushed aside." But Danny said he understood after he heard the finished album. Question about Danny and soul music. Vini: "We cut our teeth on the R&B stuff." Says Danny was more into jazz, but "he certainly knew where to go" when it was time to play blues. Bob, Vini talking about Southside Johnny's R&B record collection. Bob talks about Jersey Shore links to Philly soul. "In Iowa, when they played Greetings from Asbury Park, they had no reference point." … Vini again mentions his revived Steel Mill band, their new CD. Panel ends with reference to, I think, Crown Liquor. Vini: "We drank enough of it."

When you hit a Planet of the Apes moment while prepping an academic presentation late at night, it's time for bed. Mine tonight, as I prepared for next weekend's Springsteen symposium, paced the apartment and nervously ate my way through the fridge: Wait… I'm not making a case about Springsteen… I'm using Springsteen to make a case about us!

Maniacs… zzzz…

Anyone got a bed near Monmouth? Got news late Sunday about this:

Dear Mr. Patrick Cooper,

I'm pleased to let you know that your abstract titled "Springsteen and the struggle with the distributed narrative" has been accepted for the Glory Days Symposium to be held September 25-27 in New Jersey. …

Don't know yet if I have to write a paper. Hoping a Powerpoint deck and some good arguments will do the job. Guess I'll find out…

I went back and forth for weeks on whether to submit an idea for the fall's planned Glory Days Symposium. The idea started as a comparison of Springsteen storytelling to the evolution of narrative journalism into crowd journalism (with narrative existing now and crowd existing then, just in different proportions). Then it became more about how Bruce's life development mixed with change in storytelling challenges. Then it became how a storyteller living in the real world felt the content and connected/isolated identity pressures of that world today. And there it had to stop because with about two minutes to go before the already-extended midnight deadline last night, I had to submit an abstract. 

The worry that had sent me back and forth was being unsure how I'd compete with the academics who drive things called symposiums. I can do Powerpoint at conferences, but my longest college paper was at most 25 pages. And it was the longest by a mile. But the tipping point on this trouble was e-mailing the coordinator late Sunday night and getting a great, friendly response within minutes. Sure, he said, we've had some non-academics before who did fine, so give it a shot.

So, okay. Why not? Even if the abstract falls big-time to Harvard and Monmouth, playing with the ideas and trying to focus them was fun.

Anyway, if you don't know the reference (tight Main Point '75 audio and ridiculous L.A. '85 video with fortune-teller and bear costumes):

I stood stone-like at midnight suspended in my masquerade / I combed my hair till it was just right and commanded the night brigade / I was open to pain and crossed by the rain and I walked on a crooked crutch / I strolled all alone through a fallout zone and came out with my soul untouched / I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd but when they said "Sit down" I stood up / Ooh-ooh growin' up…

Abstract:

The clouded wrath of the crowd is a lot more cloudy than it used to be. Enveloped in this century's wealth of societal conversations, we hide by fact, not by choice, and we have to grow in a paradoxically connected world where everyone and no one notices our story. Do we sit down? Stand up? It's hard to tell the actions apart anymore. 

The challenge for the narrative follows closely. How does the storyteller begin to speak for the masses or even for self? Cultural and personal lenses come in a diversity that exceeds our comprehension. Unable to take it all in, we each push a great deal away and turn inward, observing ourselves and publishing these observations more than ever. Technology for self-expression — in e-mail, blog, song, video, comment, or tweet — has driven the propagation of lenses and perspectives but also allowed us this placement in the narrative sprawl. The storytellers among us, the ones who want to look across the land, have to collect, interpret and filter before even beginning to create the narrative — and far before any storytelling can occur. 

The challenge for the storyteller has always been to live in the world, and now the world is distributed and crowded. For Springsteen, he's seen both aspects in his career but never at the same time until now. The wild, bicoastal cast of characters in his early work came in his first decade of music, and the true crowds came in the second. As the masses packed in, the characters became archetypes or angled examainations of self. 

But in this decade, as the crowds have stayed and as new-media researcher Jay Rosen's "people formerly known as the audience" have amplified themselves to new levels, we have seen Springsteen's song storytelling run in three previously unexplored directions: to deep character minutiae, to a place beyond character and — in a flip of part of the '80s approach — to self as angled examinations of characters. Springsteen the storyteller has always lived deep within the crowd, but decreasing visibility there has forced new narrative resolutions. 

While Springsteen may claim to stay away from the Internet proper, digital's social explosion and its narrative effects have clearly influenced a vinyl troubador's new stories.

What you said about phases once, I can't get back… I said your comment about phases reminded me of a string of Springsteen albums, and I try to hold back on Springsteen analogies, I really do. (I'm so much better than I used to be. Believe me.) But this analogy doesn't come from me originally, so I figure that makes it more okay. Narrative journalist/hero Tom French is also a Boss fan and is the originator here (long story but he bought me a good hot dog once), and I've just kind of extended it. If you'll indulge me, maybe this will be a blog post someday…

The first album is starting to put your thoughts out there, even though most don't make any sense. The next album, your thoughts are words or phrases, and they begin to make some sense. You start to see how you're more than your words. The next album, you can put together that first brilliant picture of yourself, innocent and flying and powerful. The next album is the fall, the introduction of darkness (yes), which once introduced to a passionate person can pour into every corner. Your power and hope are still there, but the challenges rise equally.

The next album, as time passes and the darkness isn't so new, the picture is more even. The highs and lows are balanced, more nuanced, more lively in all directions. The next album is a pause. Shut off volume and look to see what's really there. Happy or angry, no matter — who are you when you think as you fall asleep at night? What do you have?

The next album is release, breathing, trading inward look for outward rush. The pattern then goes on. There are some wobbles as different elements of life arrive. But after having learned the lightness and the darkness in a certain stretch of life, you breathe through what comes.

… but the thing is… since that's all that was in the folder… the question is, which are you? You me or you you. I can't answer, but you can't ask.

I'm very tempted to submit a proposal to Glory Days, the Springsteen symposium coming this fall, with abstracts due in a week. My working concept: "Springsteen and the struggle with the distributed narrative."

The storyteller swings a broad social scope to capture scene properly, with observation serving as evidence of his existence, before needing to go inward for evidence as this world complicates, and upon turning outward again finds the world's tale is beyond scope and requires the inner tools applied to the crowd. Vinyl troubador vs. social explosion.

Thing is, I'm not sure I could write that paper academically. Between my headphones and my work, it would come from a personal theory.