It’s clear to me, soon everything is gonna be virtual, we will not move from our house or our bed anymore, and it’s really disturbing to me. However, it’s much easier to come up with a virtual museum than a real one, housed in a real building, plus imagine the convenience of such a thing, the world has access to it in a click of a mouse.
That’s why Blinded By The Light, an online Bruce Springsteen museum, will open next month just in time for the 30th anniversary of the Boss’ iconic album ‘Born in the USA’, according to Rolling Stone. The website will feature 300 artifacts such as handwritten lyrics, pictures, concert posters, awards, report cards…. and the site has already a Facebook page with several of these uploaded. You can browse through random things like Springsteen’s 1976 vehicle registration, 1975 car insurance, driving license, service card classified 4F showing he could not serve in Vietnam due to medical reasons, early letter from his former manager Mike Appel to William Morris Agency, terminating contract,… if I understand the appeal of the handwritten lyrics (a few are shown on the site), I don’t really see the interest of the other ones, but I suppose that, when you are a die-hard fan, anything is sacred and attention-worthy.
The only piece that really drew my attention was Springsteen’s first grade report card. Of course he was not a brilliant student, why am I not surprised? Over and over, the school system has failed to recognize kids who stand out of the crowd, and this has not changed believe me! So he got a lot of Fs (Fair if you read correctly the legend) in writing and some Bs (Below grade Level) and Ps (Poor) in Math! I love (hate) how religion was a subject at the time and Bruce was just average in reading,… he was probably totally bored. Nevertheless he had a lot of ‘Satisfactory’ marks in personal and social qualities, in study and health habits whatever this means,… of course, the boss has always been very healthy right?
Do you know that ‘Born to Run’ was originally called ‘Jimmy’s Dream’? That his first band was called The Castiles? That he was in a band called ‘Child’ in 1969? That his song ‘Henry Boy’, would later evolve into ‘Rosalita’? We learn every day…
For fans, the contests are probably the best part of all this:
‘ The “LIKES” allow us to stay connected to the fans and offer the most up to date information on Bruce, museum events and contests which will run every 6 weeks. The first contest is for album artwork autographed by the Boss, valued at over $12,000. Bruce’s 1957 Chevy Bel Air Convertible will be a featured item in one of these contests and you do not want to miss out.’
Wow, his cool car for real? I am really impressed by this one! And if I were you I would not hesitate to like this Facebook page for this reason:
‘As a bonus to our fans, once the site goes live in about a month we will provide a downloadable font application to each person in the first 3,000 “LIKES” which will actually enable you to type in the handwriting of the Boss himself. There are so many exciting things lying ahead, we look forward to taking this ride together. ‘
Done for me! On the Rolling Stone page, there is a discussion going on about Springsteen being a hypocrite leftist, but this is another story and who cares when you can have an app that writes like the boss’ handwriting.
