Like a Boss?

One of the great things about election season is all the high-minded rhetoric that gets injected into the veins of our daily lives. Sometimes it even comes from non-politicians - case in point, Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen's admonition that "some things are more important than a rock show" when announcing the cancellation of a concert in North Carolina to protest a discriminatory law is a wonderful, headline-worthy example of this.

Which is why I wish I was a bit more impressed by his actions. Springsteen is right to use his celebrity to draw attention to what he feels in an injustice and right that some things are more important than a rock show. Has he considered, though, that there are people for whom this wasn't just a rock show, who would have been gainfully employed working at the concert and aren't getting paid as a result of the concert being cancelled - whether they oppose the law or not?

Springsteen's intentions are clearly noble, but his actions highlight a troubling fact about economic boycotts - they often yield collateral damage for those who can least absorb it. I can't help but think that a more constructive approach would have been to go ahead with the concert and take time out to voice his views on the issue (as he's been doing for issues that concern him for decades) and donating his proceeds from the concert to groups working to oppose the law. Both actions would have secured positive media coverage without messing with the livelihoods of those caught in the middle.

R.I.P. Big Man

I'll leave it to the pundits to decide where this past weekend's death of saxophonist Clarence Clemons ranks in the pantheon of rock music deaths. The one thing I can say for sure is that, while I'm probably a bigger fan of the Beatles than Bruce Springsteen, Clemons' death is sadder to me than George Harrison's was a decade ago. I think the difference is that, while George Harrison's relationship with the other Beatles seemed to be about the possibilities of music, the dynamic between Clemons and Springsteen was (in Springsteen's words) about the possibilities of friendship. Music may add dimension to a life, but a good friendship is life itself.