"Read Al Franken’s new book!” Bruce urges crowd (Summer closes with Bruce bringing down the house)

Bergen Record ^ | Monday, September 1, 2003 | JIM BECKERMAN

[muslims=borg]

Another rich communist.

[alisasny]

I was there last night with my husband and our 6 closest friends. We had a blast : ) Frankly I did not hear his commentary at all.

[AmishDude]

Al Franken's popularity is part of what I've been calling the "pretentia". Hating Bush is now seen as an indicator of profound intellect.

It's strange, in times past, someone like Springsteen would have encouraged people to buy the book of an intellectual or even a pseudo-intellectual polemic like Noam Chomsky. But now, the intellectual master of liberalism is an ersatz humorist whose jokes indicate a wholly unveiled psychosis of bitterness and anger.

[Paul Atreides]

Also, given the display put on by Fagonna, Britney Queers, and Christina Faguleira, some think that the ability to shock is a sign of brilliance.

[Cogadh na Sith]

I can proudly say I've always hated that f&^%ing guy.

[jaz.357]

Yo Bruce,,,Get off the feild. The NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS are ready to kick off!"GO GIANTS"!!!

[sully777]

I saw "The Boss" at Veterans Stadium in 1985. We came for a four hour musical show. What Bruce gave us was a lecture about poverty/homelessness in evil, greedy America before intermission. He concluded by insisting we contribute to some left-wing charity with the money we had left over from our extremely expensive tickets. Bruce claimed he would contribute $10,000 himself. WOW! Ten Thousand dollars man, like I mean Bruce, I know you're generous but can you really afford it? Don't want to put you out buddy. What was that Bruce? It's a tax write-off. Oh never mind then. Knock yourself out. But can I deduct my concert ticket? No? Crap!

He left the stage and the crowd was in a state of murmur. I've been to many concerts and never heard murmur before.

Bruce came back for the finale after a one hour intermission. Total performance time 1 1/2 hours+ 1/2 hour lecture+ 1 hour intermission= 3 hours wasted of my time that could have been spent working paying for all the useless social experiments in the world.

One final thought: I think his music has suffered tremendously over the years since The River. The Rising sounds like a good title for a Stephen King book!

[Paul Atreides]

WOW! Ten Thousand dollars man,

That is something that I have noticed about bleeding-heart celebrities: they are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, they give a mere pittance to charities, and then try to lay some guilt trip on the great unwashed about giving. Add to that, they will make appearances at those charities, only if they get a huge payment for doing so. Some spirit of giving, wouldn't you say?

[M-cubed]

BOSS backwards is SSOB...Stupid Son Of a Bitch!

[Wondervixen]

>>He then recommended that the audience read humorist Al Franken's "Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right"

You First, Bossy-Boy.

That should keep him (and a tutor) busy for a year or two.

[schlitzsmoke]

Yeah, from the same a$$-hat who wrote a song portraying the NYPD as murderers... what do you expect? Bruce is about as "common working man" as Michael "Sponge-Mike SweatPants" Moore.

[kb2614]

Springsteen has the intellectual capacity of dirt. Which makes him on par with the rest of the celebrity idiots.

[schlitzsmoke]

No, his most dreadful work was the awful song for Jerry Maguire... JEEZ! I got so sick of listening to the version with the crappy-sappy soundbites from the movie every damn time my clock-radio went off for about three months! "WE'RE GETTING MARRIEEED!!!" "You had me at hello." BARF!!! And the worst line of all..."You...complete me." If I wrote a song and someone inserted crap like that, I'd be gunning for the sound engineer and the studio hacks who came up with that idea!

[Paul_B]

Interesting that the writer saw fit to place the policial commentary, a tiny part of the article, at the very top. It was so germane to the story that it never was mentioned again.

[AmishDude]

The charity scam is even worse. It's publicity that allows the "artiste" to raise his profile, resulting in higher sales of records, DVDs, movie tickets, etc.

[AmishDude]

If I wrote a song and someone inserted crap like that, I'd be gunning for the sound engineer and the studio hacks who came up with that idea!

Do you know who was the first to do a song like that?

[Jackknife]

JEEEEEEEEEZ! Yet another braindead entertainer espousing their mind-numbing political reparte`. 'They call me BWOOOOCE'!

[Hildy]

Why can't some of you separate the artist from the stupid person inside? Bruce Springsteen is an icon, and always will be. He's just thoroughly misguided politically. Why don't we call the Dems for what they are? "The party of the shamelessly rich and out of touch?"

[Paul Atreides]

Barf!

[Hildy]

Well, who was the first to do it??!!!??