Riffraf is celebrating its second birthday!
Thank you for reading and sending your comments along. Keep them coming! This year promises to be even more exciting. The new series "Great Rock Photographers" will feature interviews with iconic photographer Mick Rock - "the man who shot the seventies" - and Ringo Starr's personal photographer Rob Shanahan among others.
I'd like to celebrate an exciting two years by reposting my first article (2/5/10):
"The Boss Likes His Chicken"
Last night while I was on the toilet bowl reading Grapes of Wrath, I got a text from my brother. It read: "hey fats. 2 things this sunday the fulcos r coming and if you and colleen want 2 come u r more than welcome. Also u like bruce springsten the song atlantic city who is the chicken man?" (I didn’t change a word, honest.)
By the time it took me to decipher his writing, he had already sent another three texts begging for the answer to his trivia question. I put down Steinbeck for this?
Two things about my brother: 1) his texts are not Steinbeckian (is that a term?) and 2) although his musical taste is limited, he has a fairly wide interest in music altogether. My brother knows a little bit about The Beatles, and what he learned he got from me. But beyond this little oasis of knowledge lies a virtual desert. His entire musical repertoire consists of Van Halen, Bon Jovi and Huey Lewis and the News. Yes, I said Huey Lewis and the News.
So, why in hell did he care about "Atlantic City,” this most sullen of Springsteen ballads? Who was the Chicken Man? Well, the Chicken Man was Philip Testa, a Philadelphia mob boss who died in an explosion in his house: “Well they blew up the chicken man in Philly last night, now they blew up his house too." As to why my brother needed the answer to this question at eleven o’clock in the evening, I have no idea.
I’m just happy that he didn’t ask me where Huey Lewis got his inspiration to write “The Heart of Rock and Roll.” Springsteen sings, “Everything dies, baby, that's a fact, but maybe everything that dies some day comes back." Let’s hope that my brother’s curiosity never dies and that Huey Lewis never finds a way back.
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