Number Eleven: Darkness on the Edge of Pittsburgh

If you need to point the finger somewhere, blame the risotto. I tried real hard to remember, but I have the memory of a five-year old distracted by a piece of string. The car disappeared, the room was subsistence, it was a strange town, and I lost my hearing. I did my best, but my best just wasn’t good enough. Life is struggle, struggle is life, struggle is struggle. Therefore, without struggle life could not exist, and with life, one has an array of important consumer choices to make this holiday season.

Withering in the post-Thanksgiving cold front, the surviving petunias and snap dragons are biting the dust, though the massive growth of creeping Charlie seems unaffected. Fooled by the warmer than usual weather in November, a heartbreaking wave of young petunias sure to be short lived is sprouting in the front bed beneath the picture window. “Come back in the spring,” I plead. “You’re way too early,” I tell them. “Or much too late.” This house came with a mess of mostly violet and white petunias that bloom annually through the spring, summer, and fall, a botanical bonus I did not realize until several months after I moved in on a snowbound Super Bowl Sunday, the one national holiday we can all agree upon.

Last night I toyed with the idea of participating in Black Friday, particularly since I was still up at 4 a.m. when Target and Macy’s opened. But in the end, before I lost consciousness, I realized that I don’t like to be in stores during normal hours of operation, much less engaging in predawn hand-to-hand combat with other sleep-deprived customers. All I could picture was joining the mindless zombies drifting underneath the cold florescent light, searching for a crowded cash register or a furtive sales clerk, toting big boxes filled with Wiis and other electronic brain freezers, a hard look of murder festering in their otherwise dead eyes.

I had dined at Tom’s house for Thanksgiving, devouring several pounds of turkey and fixings while helping down a tasty bottle of Beaujolais Morgan. I’ve decided to incorporate more pumpkin pie into my diet, since I read somewhere that pumpkin is rich in something that’s supposedly good for you. The whipped cream and pie diet is not yet sweeping the nation, so I’m likely surfing on the leading edge of gastropop culture and better health. Recent studies also suggest that chocolate milk helps thwart arterial disease. Now if only we could discover that chocolate chip cookies prevent cancer, I’d be happy as a clam in a three-piece suit.

After dinner we watched part of the live Houston 1978 DVD from the new Bruce Springsteen Darkness box on Tom’s billboard-size television, and I finally confessed that I had neglected to buy the Kevin Youkilis beer in Pittsburgh. Halfway through “Racing in the Streets” I dashed out in the cold rain to see my parents at their retirement villa, where they had spent the holiday immobile and bored. On the way back I stopped at Tom’s to collect my Bruce box and watch the Rolling Stones thrash around live in 1972, with Mick Taylor sparkling on guitar, on VHI Classic.

By the time I arrived home, it was about 11, and I was tired. But I still had to change the litter and drag the trash to the curb. My television had died several days earlier, during Conan and right before Bruce appeared on Jimmy Fallon, and I mulled taking it curbside, but the carcass weighed 90 pounds and I had no appetite for potential hernia maneuvers while still digesting Thanksgiving. So the television resides on the floor in the family room, where it makes a dandy gathering spot for more clutter. I may be short on many things, but I’m long on clutter. The television has perished and Conan is alive, a fair trade perhaps, though the new show looks a bit down market, with network lead-ins that include repeats of Family Guy. The intended audience is either still living with its parents or smoking pot with its buddies.

Late night Thanksgiving I continued reading The Beatles, by Bob Spitz, a former manager of Springsteen. For nearly a thousand pages Spitz seeks to tell the story behind the myth, delivering a multitude of mop-top factoids. For instance, Ringo proposed naming the album that became Revolver “After Geography,” in response to the Stone’s Aftermath. Back in 1964, after the Beatles debut on Ed Sullivan in February, the Captain Jolly and Poopdeck Paul show out of Windsor on the CBC held a Fab Four lip synch contest. The Pizzo boys across the street were going to Canada to audition, with the oldest, Tony, playing John and the twins, Sam and Dave, who were my age, standing in for Paul and George, while little Johnny Ringo put on his mom’s jewelry and pretended to play the drums.

I was in the fifth grade and thought it would be cool to be on Poopdeck Paul, which televised Popeye cartoons every weekday afternoon. So I hired myself as manager of the Pizzo Beatles, impersonating Brian Epstein. Back in those days we did not know that he was a self-hating manic-depressive gay druggy alcoholic with masochistic tendencies, not that there’s anything wrong with that. With our Beatle wigs and air guitars (in my case, an electric broom), we were full of she loves you yeah yeah yeah and shake it shake it shake it baby now. Still reeling from the Kennedy assassination a few months earlier and eager to escape the community sense of doom, boys and girls all over America began rocking and rolling to that Mersey beat. The Pizzos did not see the need for an 11-year-old self-appointed manager and never made it past the audition. If they had listened to me, things might have turned out differently.

“The first record that I ever learned was a record called ‘Twist and Shout,’ and if it wasn’t for John Lennon, we’d all be in some place very different tonight,” said Bruce at a show in December 1980, a day after the murder of Lennon. In a recent issue of Rolling Stone, Springsteen voiced sentiment that seemed unrestricted and Lennon-like in its creative implications. Bruce concluded the interview, saying, “Do I know what I’m doing? No, that’s the point! That’s what we just got done discussing—no, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m smelling something in the air and I’m trying to find out what that is.” Perhaps he was explaining that he was remaining spiritually, thematically, and financially open to whatever the fates decreed at this particularly strange moment in time, when the most energized part of the electorate in a devastated economy is devoted to protecting the wealth and power of the high and mighty. Go figure.

Unexpectedly on the Springsteen trail earlier in November, I smelled something in the air, too, and it was the sixth floor hallway of a Low-Quality Inn in Pittsburgh. It had a penetrating musty odor, like a giant wet tennis shoe. The room smelled slightly better than the hall but it was also in decline, peeled and fraying around the edges and down the middle and on the sides, and in need of a good cleaning above floor level. I was certain Typhoid Mary was hiding on the television remote, the telephone, and every light switch, and that a rich bacterial stew was thriving on every surface. Sure, I had bacteria at home, but they were my bacteria. These were microscopic particles shed by hundreds, no thousands of weary travelers. The tiny bits and pieces had been granted free reign to organize into infinite and invisible insurgent armies by the neglectful or absent cleaning crew. Bacteria met other bacteria in my room on a Saturday night and after a little drinking and dancing, created new hybrids that, under the right circumstances, could devour guests, leaving no traces for the maid to ignore.

Sometimes I become anxious when I travel.

With Terri driving, we had headed down to Pittsburgh from Detroit on a Thursday afternoon, aiming for the Joe Grushecky and the Houserockers concert that night. The concert was celebrating the 15th anniversary of the release of Grushecky’s American Babylon, produced by Springsteen, who also performed on the album. Bruce was going to be the special guest at shows Thursday and Friday, a rare appearance this year. Mary Beth wanted to go too, but unfortunately she continues to have a “job,” which seems to occupy much of her time and gets in the way of spontaneous manifestation at out of town Bruce events. I miss my friends, and I miss working with my friends. I’m better than average at missing stuff. Some days I wake and miss things till I go to bed.

It keeps me occupied.

“We need to pick up a case of beer for my brother,” I said to Terri as we pulled on to the freeway. “Yinglicsious beer, Youkling beer, something like that” I said. “It’s the official beer of Pittsburgh,” I added. “We can’t forget the beer,” I concluded.

“What kind of beer,” asked Terri, “is that?”

“Starts with a Y something,” I replied. “Kevin Youkilis beer.” I made a mental note and vowed to not forget. Rock and roll may never forget, but I’m not so sharp anymore. Although given my general driftiness, it’s been no great loss.

Grushecky was a hometown hero, sort of the Bob Seger of Pittsburgh, but had never quite broken out of regional star status in the U.S., while enjoying wider popularity in Europe. Joe was introduced to Bruce 30 years ago by Little Steven Van Zandt, who was producing the Houserockers at the time, and a fast friendship had formed. “I can’t speak for (Springsteen),” gushed Grushecky, “but there was a bond that was easy and pretty instant as far as the writing and music went.” Noting that his career had stalled before Babylon, Grushecky recalled that “I was pretty much down and out. For the only time in my life, I was disgusted about music…. I didn’t have much going on. So for Bruce to come in and consent to do that — to produce the whole record and sing and co-write two songs and go out on tour with us — was a major shot in the arm. It gave me a second life, and I’m eternally grateful for that.”

So that’s what friends are for.

Lately various members of the E Street Band are signaling that a proper tour might happen sooner rather than later. Though Darkness was originally released more than 30 years ago, the themes of anger, despair, desperation, and resilience are kind of timeless and once again apt, and I don’t see any problem calling a new tour Darkness 2011 or The Promise Tour or We’re Back Again So What Tour. Talking about the box set, with its documentary on the making of the album, the live Texas show, and other goodies, Max Weinberg answered the obvious question.

“Why ‘Darkness’ now? Well, why not? It’s 33 years later and it’s sort of like the old Orson Welles line: ‘No wine before its time.’ There was footage that was filmed, it’s steeped in history and [so many years later], there’s a deeper resonance.”

I sent Bruce a telepathic message, conveying my thoughts on the matter. Generally speaking, our communications are limited to the supernatural band on your radio dial, though when everyone’s mojo is locked on the same station, spectacular things can happen. For instance, I’m pretty sure I am responsible for Nils Lofgren being in the band. I first saw Nils live somewhere around 1974 in Virginia, at a show where he opened for guitarist Robin Trower and did back flips off a small trampoline while improvising on guitar. Of course, he’s flipping a bit less now with two artificial hips, implanted in 2008, proof that guitar gymnastics may ultimately not be good for you. In the last three years, 68-year-old Clarence Clemons has had both hip and back surgery, Max underwent open-heart valve repair, and Dan the Phantom Federici disappeared for good. Time is relentless and remorseless, crushing everyone eventually, even mighty rock and roll stars.

Except for Bruce, who is aging spectacularly well. Good genes, lots of exercise, a little Botox, small nip and tuck here and there and a hair plug or two, a shit load of money to aid in his self-preservation project, and he looks like a million bucks with the energy of a 30 year old. I don’t know how he does it, but I’m glad that he does. Ten years from now, we’ll be wheeled into E Street shows or wobbling in our walkers and Bruce will still be dancing in the dark on top of the piano, where Roy Bittan naps.

My friend Ciaran, who became a new father last night, mocks Bruce, calling him the singing auto mechanic, and thinks Frank Zappa is the greatest rock musician, ever. That’s okay with me. I like Zappa and make fun of Springsteen all the time. But I also continue to enjoy the pleasure of Bruce’s company. It’s like he takes the musical molecules in my head and turns them into records, an alchemic power that few others have. And he’s been doing it for decades. Bruce and the band know how to take a stage and conquer an audience. Any audience. And he’s funny. In the early days, the band was more or less the Marx Brothers armed with musical instruments and a New Jersey accent.

Roots drummer ?uestlove, after backing Bruce on “Because the Night” on Late Night with Jimmy, testified to the power of Bruce in the wake of his appearance on Fallon. “If you look at the last 20 seconds [of “Because the Night”], all of us are literally in a circle. It’s like no one else is in that room except Little Steven, the Professor, Bruce, and all seven of my guys. We’re totally disregarding the minute mark and the deadline. I’m surprised they got it all on there ’cause Lord knows we went 32 bars over. We were supposed to end after the end of the bridge, but we just kept going. None of that stuff was expected — the guitar solo.”

He added: “I mean, I’ve done some intense playing on our show, but that was the most intense playing I’ve ever done. He completely surpassed any expectation I’ve ever had for any mythical god of rock figure.”

So, today’s lesson is that passion is no ordinary word. To get through life, you need your enthusiasms. Though to be honest, I’m not sure why anyone would settle for just getting through life. You want life to be bigger than life before it becomes smaller, giving you some slack to work with, and you want to keep a photo collection of key moments, so that when you get real old, you’ll have irrelevant illustrations to bolster your made-up stories that you hope will somewhat entertain the help at the nursing home, who will briefly pretend to be interested. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve got it all figured out.

Terri had somehow overcome formidable Ticketmaster obstacles, like the lack of a proper presale password, and snagged two tickets in the third row to the biggest show on the Springsteen calendar this year. Then she invited me along. I figured this was one of those cosmic deals that would not be wise to resist. For 35 years, I’ve been showing up at Bruce shows whenever possible, and this seemed like a pretty good opportunity, what with the imminent release of the long-awaited Darkness box, the friendship between Bruce and Joe, the novel Pittsburgh location, and the chance to have another adventure with Terri. I liked American Babylon too, and I had never seen Grushecky live. Add it all up, and it spelled Pittsburgh.

Terri and I have a history of going to Bruce shows at remote locations, where things usually take a turn for the absurd and we end up laughing hysterically. Actually, it’s more of a slow-building giggle that grows and grows until it escapes with a breath-defying urgency. Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Chicago, East Rutherford, Minneapolis, Toronto. Neither one of us had ever been to Pittsburgh, though Gary, the editor of the encyclopedia we published several years ago (The Ties That Bind: Bruce Springsteen A to E to Z), is from there, and he seems to love his hometown.

Back in October 1975, I first saw Springsteen and the E Street Band at the Michigan Palace on Bagley downtown, a converted movie theater that’s now a parking structure. I wrote a paper for my freshman college English class describing the event. I was 22 and had been out of the Navy for about a month, and Born to Run had just been released. It’s kind of funny how everything has changed but for the things I love, which remain the same, though more deeply appreciated. “Like Dylan,” I wrote,

Springsteen has created his own cast of characters in his songs, but it is Springsteen’s style and ability that makes listeners want to believe in them, to become part of the music, rather than just listen. And he does this astonishingly well, intricately changing tempos and ever-building the tension, until the music just seems to explode. Yet is he is not prone to excess and always seems completely in control.

On stage for three hours he crawls, jumps, writhes, sweats, leaps, dances, and springs from one end of the stage to the other, never slowing down, and all the while looking like he’s having the time of his life. He easily infects the audience with this fever, making it impossible to sit still in your seat. In fact, the audience reaction in the Palace registered near hysteria and disbelief at times; Springsteen and the E Street Band are that good…

Watching Springsteen perform and listening to his records is, quite simply, an exhilarating, fresh experience. You rejoice at his imagination and the fact there is new talent of “superstar” stature existing in the sometimes barren rock and roll landscape. As a matter of fact, Dylan and Jagger might be wise to get their myths in order, or they may soon find them eclipsed by the awe-inspiring Mr. Springsteen.

That was so sweet of me. I’ve always been fond of verbs. Pair ‘em up with a noun or two, throw a preposition and a couple of articles in there, and presto, instant sentence. I received an “A” and an “Excellent” for my paper. I had been kind of worried about making the grade in college, particularly since I took high school off, graduating with a mercy credit from my government teacher, who didn’t want to see me return for a fifth futile year. But with the Bruce story in English 101, I gained confidence and the admiration of my peers and never looked back, plowing through intermediate tennis and beginning chemistry with a newfound zeal.

Back then I had real dreams, big dreams, dreams like becoming ruler of the Upper Peninsula or the all-time greatest selling author hailing from Mt. Clemens or winner of the Kentucky Derby by a nose. Now, I just hope for the best and fear the worst, including being run over by a runaway Amish carriage or losing all my marbles to a gang of street-hardened toughs. What’s left of my self esteem I’ve invested in government bonds, which currently draw no interest. If I had one word to pass on to young people today, it would be “narcolepsy,” as in the sentence “I’m so sorry to tell you that one of your pet chickens has narcolepsy.” Or, one of my favorites, “amuck” (also, “amok”), as in “That one-legged chicken is hopping amok in the barnyard.” Perhaps, “fact of the matter,” as in “The fact of the matter, Martha, is that I never laid eyes on that sleepy one-legged chicken hopping amuck until tonight,” though I realize that breaks my rule on having just one word.

Driving from speed trap to speed trap on the Ohio and Pennsylvania turnpikes, we arrived in Pittsburgh in about five hours, allowing for a bit of catching up and additional random conversation. It was cloudy out in Pittsburgh. The blue sky had turned gray and a slight rain slicked the narrow hilly streets. The inn had lost my reservation. Lucky for me, they still had a room on the smelly sixth floor, just down the hall from Terri, located conveniently next to the ice machine and elevators.

Management had hoped to discourage occupants with a yen for collecting room souvenirs by bolting down everything. The television was bolted to the dresser top and the chest was bolted to the floor. Two picture frames were bolted to the wall. The telephone was bolted to the nightstand. Curiously, the clock radio was free range, but it didn’t appear to work, either. A sign above the bathroom mirror warned “Close door when taking a shower to prevent smoke alarm from going off.” I made a mental note while trying to avoid contact with any surface. I was surprised that the towels were not bolted to the rack.

The nonsmoking room had a balcony with a large traffic-cone ashtray. You could puff away for several weeks nonstop and not come close to filling the ashtray. The balcony door did not close tightly, nor did the latch fit into the door well. Instead, there was a flimsy u-shaped clasp holding the door to the wall, and the wind rushed in through the crack. Spider-Man or a moderately talented cat burglar would have no problem breaking in and stealing my valuables, which included my battery-powered toothbrush and a half gallon of apple cider. Not that Spider-Man would take my stuff. He’s busy on Broadway. There were five easier floors to reach with a grappling hook, so I didn’t worry much, instead concentrating on the bacterial assault.

The balcony overlooked a residential neighborhood built on several fairly steep hills. All of Pittsburgh seemed to be built on fairly steep hills, bisected by various rivers. If you walked out the front door of the houses on the hills, it appeared you could drop and roll for blocks. Sitting on my balcony perch chain smoking in the rain because I had a traffic-cone ashtray, I thought the city looked European and romantic, not the expected dirty old Rustbelt town. The nice thing about being from Detroit is that virtually every other city you visit is better and more intriguing than you expected.

Cleveland, for instance.

After ditching our stuff at the hotel, we needed to grab a bite to eat before the show. Given the rain and prospect of more dicey weather, we decided to drive toward the hall, which was about a mile away.

The concert was being held at the 2,300-seat auditorium in the Soldiers and Sailors Military Museum and Memorial, an epic 100-year-old National Register of Historical Places landmark located in the Oakland area of town, which is dominated by the University of Pittsburgh. The university was established in 1787, according to a sign I passed several times later in the evening.

We drove up Forbes Avenue and over to Fifth in the gathering darkness before I stopped paying strict attention, gazing at a log cabin lodged incongruously amid a number of looming institutional structures financed by Carnegie and Mellon and Heinz millions. I also noticed a life-size brontosaurus loitering on the front lawn of a museum down the street. We parked in a lot that had a sign advertising it as parking for the Memorial. I figured that the hall couldn’t be too far away. The area was rich in monumental monuments and buildings, a regular festival of landmarks that soon became one big gray blur. I made a mental note on the nearest intersection to the parking lot, which I promptly forgot. From there we hiked back toward Forbes Avenue and Joe Mama’s, an Italian diner that had been recommended by the hotel clerk.

While waiting for our table Terri had a Jameson and I ordered a draft Ying Ling, figuring I’d discover what made my brother so fond of the beer. We both had grilled chicken breast with goat cheese and risotto. I don’t know if it was the combination of the beer and the risotto, but toward the end of the meal, I seemed to be inflating. Shoot, I thought, I can’t take me anywhere anymore.

(Intermission)

We left the restaurant and walked several blocks to the hall, dodging students as the Pitt campus rose up around us. Terri realized she had forgotten her local street map, which indicated where the car was parked, at the restaurant. I paid no particular attention to where we were going, still trying to control the amazing and expanding risotto.

The Memorial was hard to miss, with its Greek columns (well, they’re Greek to me) and imposing structure. As concert venues go, it was unique. We climbed the stone steps and entered a lobby filled with excited middle-aged rock and roll fans. The opening act, Jill West (aka Big Mama) and Her Blues Attack, was on stage when we arrived. They were a crafty band, sounding dynamic in the warm acoustics of the intimate hall. We were seated on the left of the main floor in front of a bank of speakers. The stage was back dropped by the Gettysburg Address, which I think made it one of a kind right there. Banners with the stars and stripes adorned the balcony, which extended from side to side in the small hall. An American flag on a pole was placed in front of the speakers. I was starting to feel slightly patriotic, imagining the number of rousing speeches delivered by deadbeat politicians to boisterous crowds here over the last hundred years.

The fella next to me explained that he had gone to his first Springsteen show in 1974 and had seen a lot of Grushecky at local bars through the years. He worked at a Pittsburgh hospital and had never been to a rock concert at this hall, and he was impressed. He also said that Big Mama was hard on the eyes, taking special note of her corn rows.

“She looks just like a blues singer named Big Mama,” I said. That seemed to end the conversation.

The thing about rock and roll shows is that the other attendees are often under the influence of various substances above and beyond risotto, in an attempt to maximize that dopamine rush, and not necessarily on their best behavior. The ones most out of control generally sit near me, so I keep an eye out. Across the aisle from us a woman stood up and tried to get past a man seated at the end of the row. He suddenly grabbed her and bent her backward over the chairs in front of him. I thought at first he was being drunk and playful, but he tossed her a bit too hard over the chairs, in what looked like a WWE move. She managed to scramble by him and then sat down in the next row in front. He reached over and began roughhousing her again. I was listening to Big Mama, who sang the blues with authority into a microphone wrapped in ornamental red pepper lights, but the ruckus to our right proved distracting. The band concluded and soon several police officers were escorting the guy, who was vigorously resisting, down the center aisle and out of the hall. Apparently, the dispute had been over seats.

“Now just wait until the giant dancing guy with a hat stands in front of us,” I cautioned Terri.

Fifteen minutes later Bruce, wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, walked onto the stage. “I’m going to open for Joe tonight,” he said, and played acoustic versions of “A Good Man is Hard to Find (Pittsburgh),” “For You,” and “This Hard Land.” The sound was excellent. Then he introduced Grushecky and ambled offstage. At this point a highly demonstrative tall skinny guy resembling Big Bird and wearing a ball cap suddenly appeared directly in front of Terri, dancing. She tried to look around him, but he kept darting this way and that, limiting the vantage point. “I don’t mind taking him down,” I said. “He’ll never know what hit him.”

“It’s okay,” said Terri. “I can still see the bottom of the microphone stands when he swings his arms.”

“I’ll do what I can to magically transport him to another section,” I said.

Grushecky and the Houserockers blasted into a searing “American Babylon” and “East Carson Street,” and my nose began to run and I realized I might be deaf by the end of the evening. We were right in front of the speakers, and they were way turned up. I like to hear my guitars cranked, but on the other hand, more than 40 years of hard core rock and roll had sort of damaged my ears. I think the turning point came when I sat too close (in the same hall) to Z Z Top back in the 1990s. I had mildly ringing tinnitus on good days and loud chiming on bad days. Putting my head in front of a bank of speakers would probably ensure a week or so of poorer than normal hearing and more nerve damage, but rock and roll demanded certain sacrifices. It was both enervating and liberating to get wrapped in the blistering sound.

Sipping on a glass of tequila, in which he dipped his fingers in and sprayed the crowd, Bruce then came back on stage and stayed for the rest of the evening, as the band meshed Grushecky tunes, mostly from American Babylon, with Springsteen songs, mostly from Darkness. What almost all the songs had in common was a sense of primal reckoning, the kind delivered by the man with no name played by Clint Eastwood who rides into town and delivers justice. Inspired by the hard-driving song list, Springsteen went medieval on his guitar, shredding with the fierceness of young Bruce. I was staggered. Soon the two women in front of me twirled glow sticks, which they swung around in an excited fashion like majorettes at halftime. Between Big Bird and the Glow Stick Girls and the wall of sound blasting at my head, I was getting sort of distracted. Also, something seemed to be breaking up in my ear canals, crackling.

The 23-song set included goofy rarities like “Fire” (last heard live in the seventies) and the new “Save My Love,” a classic-sounding E Street song written for Darkness and recorded this year. Plus “Murder Inc.,” “Atlantic City,” “Adam Raised a Cain,” “The Promised Land,” “Darkness on the Edge of Town,” “Code of Silence,” “Down the Road Apiece” (featuring a digression into “Wipeout”) and a mess of Grushecky tunes that toasted the place. The Houserockers more than lived up to their name. At times there were five guitarists on stage, including one guy who looked like a lead character in a cartoon. Joe’s son Johnny nearly levitated with his plugged-in acoustic at the rear of the stage on our side.

“Johnny looks like Jack White up there,” I said.

“Jack Black,” corrected Terri.

Much more Jack Black than Jack White. It’s easy to get your Jacks confused.

“We’re witnessing a band,” I said to Terri as the band began to roar again, “having the greatest night of their lives.” I’m fond of obvious and pointless pronouncements. Soon, in spite of the odds, my mental telepathy worked on Big Bird, and he flew the coop, though the glow stick girls kept a twirling. They were less a nuisance then a small threat to public safety, mine in particular, should they lose their grip on one of those sticks. After a raucous and rambling “Twist and Shout,” Bruce ended the show with a solo “Thunder Road,” softly humming the horn and guitar parts, a benediction for the blissed out middle aged and newly deaf before they departed for the wilds of downtown Pittsburgh.

As we exited Soldiers and Sailors auditorium, we yelled at each other about what a great show it was and more or less headed down the street straight away, to where we assumed the car would be parked. The rain had stopped, replaced by an evening  chill, and we kept walking and talking, excited by the show and digging the city, which still had a lot of kids hanging out. Soon, we were walking in a part of town I had no memory of seeing before, with fewer people on the street, and Terri seemed to be losing confidence in her sense of direction. Since we hadn’t originally walked from the parking lot to the hall, but had strolled to the restaurant instead, I really had no idea where one was in relationship to the other. Pittsburgh was a deepening mystery. I figured we could take a taxi back to the hotel and then grab another cab at daybreak and search for what remained of the car.

We walked and walked, becoming more concerned with each step. “I remember driving by the Stephen Foster Memorial,” said Terri. Pittsburgh was full of memorials. Dead songwriters seldom get their posthumous due. I asked a passing multicultural group of students if they could direct us to it. They could not, and started walking faster after encountering me. We stopped at a gas station and explained as best we could that we were from out of town and our car was lost. Hiding on the backstreets. Terri thought that we were off of Fifth on a street that began with an “M.” The clerk at the counter scratched his chin and then said that he could not make a recommendation, though if he were us, we or he would go thataway. The guy collecting spare change out front had never heard of Foster or his memorial, shaking his cup for emphasis.  We seemed to be at a dead end, with no real sense of which direction to go.

“This is no time to panic,” I said. “We should wait another five minutes or so.”

We were lost, and in the classic position of becoming more lost with every step we took. I started having flashbacks. As a youth in search of a merit badge I had led a squad of Boy Scouts, including my brother Mike, deep into the woods and could not find my way out, finally surfacing hours later in a suburban backyard, where a kind-hearted woman took pity and drove us back to camp in her station wagon, which wasn’t part of my hiking through the woods heroic merit badge fantasy. Humiliated, I vowed never to get lost in those particular woods again, a promise I’ve kept to this day.

Though geographically perplexed in Pittsburgh, I was reasonably certain that we had walked too far. So we proceeded back in the direction we had come, while Terri made an aborted attempt to get assistance from GM’s OnStar. Dialing up satellites is much easier than it used to be. With the right number you could probably launch a missile attack with your cell phone. We decided that our best bet was to flag down a taxi. In Pittsburgh, you sometimes cannot distinguish a pizza delivery car from a taxi. Flagging down pizza delivery cars proved demoralizing. We turned a corner and ran into the brontosaurus or whatever they’re calling it these days (Apatosaurus), along with a plaid triceratops that I had not noticed before, on the lawn of what I think was the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Soon we encountered the log cabin, in surprisingly good shape for having been deposited in the midst of a major American city, like Dorothy’s farmhouse in the Land of Oz.  Grateful to see a familiar structure at last, I spread my arms and said “I remember this.” Which was good, because I now only vaguely remembered what the car looked like. It was black, I knew, and had tires. We both then noticed the big building honoring Stephen Foster next to the cabin.

“Cool,” I said. “We found Stephen Foster.”

“And a bunch of dinosaurs.”

“I think the car is right around here somewhere,” said Terri.

The cabin, I learned, had nothing to do with Foster though it dates from around 1830. It was transported to its current location for the University of Pittsburgh’s bicentennial in 1987. I would give you more descriptive material, but midnight approached and the car was missing.

We had been looking for the Foster Memorial for the better part of an hour. Born on the fourth of July in 1826 in a white cottage high on a hillside above the Allegheny River in Lawrenceville, east of Pittsburgh, Stephen Foster wrote “Oh Susanna,” and “Hard Times Come Again No More,” covered by Bruce on tour in 2009. And he penned “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” said to be inspired by his wife, Jane. One of Springsteen’s recurring characters is named Jane or Janey, making an appearance in “Spirit in the Night,” “Incident on 52nd Street,” “Breakaway” (from the new Promise set), and “Janey Don’t You Lose Heart,” a family favorite. Both Terri and I have Jane daughters. Mega Jane was converging like Godzilla on Pittsburgh. Foster also composed “Camptown Races,” “Old Folks at Home (Swanee River),” “My Old Kentucky Home,” and other immortal tunes before dying at the age of 37 in New York City alone and virtually penniless, carrying a scrap of paper in his otherwise empty wallet on which he had penciled “dear friends and gentle hearts.”

Foster was America’s first great popular songwriter and its first great prematurely dead one, arriving before a music industry existed that could pay him properly, earning money only through sheet music sales, a notoriously slipshod way of doing business. Bootleg editions of his work abounded. Buried in a Pittsburgh cemetery, he left behind almost 300 musical compositions. One of his best-loved songs, “Beautiful Dreamer,” was written in 1862 and not published until after his death in 1864. But it was now his mission to help us locate our car that we had parked somewhere in town earlier in the evening in order to attend a concert featuring Springsteen, another great American songwriter having much more financial success with his art, thanks in part to the sacrifices of writers like Foster. Two hearts, I reckoned, are better than one.

We hiked past the memorial building, which houses a museum and the university’s department of theatre arts. Stopping down the street at a bus stop shelter, we looked at a map on the wall, hoping to get our bearings. Soon, two young multicultural students stopped and asked if they could help.

“We can’t find our car,” said Terri. “It’s on a street that begins with M.”

“We’re from Detroit,” I added, trying to be helpful. “And apparently alphabetical.”

They listened patiently to our tale of woe, but didn’t have any good guesses as to where the car might be hiding. A taxi cab pulled up slowly, cautiously, and we flagged it down. Terri jumped in the front seat and attempted to explain where we needed to go.

“Look, here’s the deal,” she began earnestly, as the driver turned off the meter, paying rapt attention as Terri began to explain our odyssey. “We’ve lost our car. We went to a concert at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial and now we can’t find our car. Could you just drive us around this neighborhood and see if we can find it? I think it’s on a street that starts with an M.”

The taxi driver, who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent, glanced quizzically at Terri.

“I don’t think I understand,” he said, politely.

“Our car is lost,” said Terri. “But if you drive around here, maybe we can find it.”

The driver looked at me in the back seat, as if I was going to make better sense of the situation. I shrugged. “We’re not from here,” I explained.

“I know,” said the driver.

“We’re from Detroit.”

“So if I am hearing you correctly,” he said, turning to Terri. “You want me to drive so you two can look for your car?”

“Yes, yes, that’s right. It’s somewhere right around here,” said Terri. “I’m certain of it. We’ll pay you whatever it costs.”

“Just around the corner. Light of day. Bruuuce.” I was getting delirious.

“Okay,” he said somewhat reluctantly. I’m no expert on body language, but I’m pretty sure his was saying “What have I gotten myself into this time?”

Down the street half a block he drove, very slowly. Then he made a right, at Terri’s command. “I think that’s the parking lot!” said Terri, pointing to a street immediately on the right. He made another right and sure enough, there was the car in the parking lot, on Rankin Street, which starts with an R, within shouting distance of the Memorial. Total traveling time in the cab was less than a minute. The driver, happy to be liberated from the search party, refused to take any money. We climbed in Terri’s car, pleased with our good fortune, and then spent another 15 minutes riding in circles trying to locate the hotel, where I had a couple of ordinary beers stashed in my stinky room. We drank to victory. Obviously, our mojo minder had sent the taxi driver to save us. Halleluiah.

Weary from the long drive and the midnight stroll and wary of bedbugs, I went to bed in several layers of clothing and my old catcher’s mask, while the wind howled through the crack in the balcony door. The bed was surprisingly comfortable, though there were no blankets, just a cover sheet and a bed cover. Luckily, we were on the sixth floor, somewhat minimizing the noise from the road below. Still, at around 5 a.m., I thought I was under attack by garbage trucks.

Several hours later we met downstairs at the Panera restaurant, where I ordered a bread product containing an egg and sausage patty and cheese, known in many countries as a breakfast sandwich, and a small orange juice, which really was quite large. The menu said that the egg was all natural and had been cracked that morning. I prefer all natural eggs, as opposed to partially synthetic, and having them cracked on the same day that I eat them just seems like a bonus. It’s good to have standards. I applauded the visionary Panera management. The bread was ciabatta, named for Pieface Paulie Ciabatta, legendary baker to the imperial court of Little Anthony, son of Big Anthony and king of Italy for nearly a week in the summer of 1622.

“Can’t forget the Kevin Youkilis beer,” I said, chewing on breakfast.

“I don’t think they’re charging us for your room,” said Terri. “They took it off my credit card.”

“Well, that would be kind of fitting,” I said. “Let’s blow this joint.”

Back to Detroit we drove. On the Ohio Turnpike, I remembered the beer.

“I forgot the Ying Ying beer,” I said. “So close but so far away,” I added. “Tom’s going to be disappointed.”

“Well, you tried. I think getting lost affected our brains.”

“My brain was already infected.”

Before checking out of the hotel I had picked up the courtesy notepad and ink pen, intending to write myself a polite note about not forgetting the beer. Then I forgot to write the note. I still have the pad and pen somewhere around here.

Though there was another show that night, Terri had to make it home in time for a surprise 40th birthday party for her sister. I had cats to feed. Leave them more than a day and they turn on each. After we got back, and I was trying to blog my way through the experience, since that is what I do now, I asked Terri what she recollected from our visit to Pittsburgh, which according to my sources on the Web, is also called Iron City.

“Hmm, one of my stand-out Pittsburgh memories was that it was probably the most animated, the most affected I’ve ever seen you at a Bruce concert. You were whooping and cheering, and I would turn around and check that it was you, because I just always remember you seemingly to prefer to enjoy your Bruce quietly. But you were especially inspired and joyful that night, which was cool not only because the show was worthy of that reaction, but because you’re not normally known for your outward expressions of delight, especially lately, and I personally was truly happy for you that you’d let yourself go enough to have a full-bodied Bruce experience.”

Maybe it was the risotto. Usually I’m good for one or two whoops per show. Small whoops, but whoops nevertheless.

“The other thing that I surmised from the trip is that our conversation there and back — 10 hours in the car, essentially — was a reflection of the things we take from Bruce in terms of topic and tone. I mean, we covered politics, family, youth, love, music, fun, friendships, work, parents, etc. We are him, he is us. Except he’s richer.”

A working class hero is still something to be.

I checked my credit card when I got home on Friday afternoon. I was not charged for the room. It felt good to be home. I’ve reached the stage where even a trip to the dentist brings on a bout of homesickness. On Saturday I spent much of the day answering imaginary door bells and phone calls. Resolved to be more grateful and keep to the sunny side, at least until tomorrow. Continued deliberating on best way to break news to Tom that I didn’t have his beer. Inspired by the show, I thought I should either write or vacuum. Instead, I resumed reading the Beatle book. I came across the part where the group is about to land in Memphis in 1966 during the debacle drummed up by Lennon’s misrepresented “We’re more popular than Jesus now” quote. The Deep South had been the epicenter for the violent reaction to John’s remarks, as conservative churches went on the usual nutty warpath, denouncing the Beatles and burning their records in protest. Epstein was very nervous about Memphis, fearing that some religious crazy would take a shot at John. Tension was high as the plane descended into the city, home of Elvis and maniacal evangelists. “So this is where the Christians come from,” John said to Paul. “You’re a very controversial person,” answered Paul, obviously worried. As they taxied to a stop, George broke the silence. “Send John out first,” he quipped. “He’s the one they want.”