Snoozefest!

 New Jersey’s redundantly-named governor a break for closing his eyes during Bruce Springsteen’s “Rocky Ground,” “a kind of really spiritual song, “ according to Christie.  Snoozegate, the pundits (that trendy job choice is almost as obnoxious as entrepreneur, but not quite) are calling it. Sure, the lyrics that include Jesus, Canaan, and Hallelujah are “kind of really” spiritual, but maybe it was the 44 repetitions of the phrase “rocky ground” that the Gov found soporific. (Sorry, Bruce, but I remember counting the repetitions of “ridin’ in the backstreets” at an unfocused party in the eighties once -47.  It became a mantra.) Was Christie sleeping or in reverie? Is he just another state worker not living up to expectations? Come on up for the rising, Governor.  I’ve got your back!
There are a few New Jersey heresies worse than being born to snooze.  Perhaps ordering a salad at the New Brunswick grease trucks or asking for half a slice at Benny Tudino’s in Hoboken would be terrible.  Requesting a low-fat pork roll with egg whites would be an abomination.  Staying on the beach in Asbury Park during a hurricane?  Absolutely out! So catching forty winks in the Promised Land can’t really be that bad.  Chris Christie has been to see Bruuuuuuuuuce 128 times.  I don’t know if he has been awake every minute.  Bruce is the Energizer Bunny in a black leather vest, after all.  He mocks his entire broad demographic by letting us know that he is all up and perky when we have just come home from working all day at our daddy’s garage. And Monday when the foreman calls time, I’ve already got my Bruce tix on my mind.  I have never nodded off during the dozen times I have seen the Boss, and I didn’t even buy my tickets from Maureen Van Zandt.  It is unlikely that Chris Christie, a fellow survivor of the Nebraska album, fell asleep during last week’s paean to the 99%.
"When I was fist-pumping through “Badlands,” no one took pictures of that,'' Christie said when interviewed by the Newark Star-Ledger. "When I was singing to "Out in the Street" thankfully nobody took pictures of that. When I was contorting myself during "Because the Night," nobody took pictures of that."  Too bad.  I would much rather have seen Governor Chris “The Situation” Christie fist-pumping to “poor men wanna be rich, rich men wanna be kings, and a king ain’t satisfied till he rules everything.”  The contortions may have just been too much to bear, though.  Was he contorting himself because the night belongs to lovers and he forgot that his wife was at the concert, too?  These are the deeper questions that the journalists have missed and that only a true Bruce fan would pose.
Although Chris Christie and I were born to run, we have not.  We are both planted here off various exits of Thunder Road, riding on the backstreets looking for a parking space.  We are Jersey people.  We do not sleep during expensive concerts by iconic rock stars, especially the one whose pictures and guitars decorate our offices in the public sector.  We have hungry hearts, and we dance like spirits in the night.
Don’t bully the Governor of New Jersey if he entered the land of hope and dreams.  We all may be better off for it.

Keep reading and writing,
Maureen