December 7, 2009

When did Bruce Springsteen start looking like Robert De Niro?

Oh, strangely De Niro was there too. And Obama, of course. Obama said De Niro had "emotional audacity." I love when the Prez uses his own buzzwords to praise other people.

And why wasn't Robin Williams there? Because Springsteen appears to be wearing Mork from Orc suspenders.


31 comments:

paul a'barge said...

Rainbow suspenders. Rainbow. Gay. Homo.

vbspurs said...

The obligatory "we call them braces" comment reply.

Cheers,
Victoria

Bissage said...

What with the earring, soul patch and rainbow suspenders, the 60 year old Mr. Springsteen could be "the Boss" of the clown car.

kjbe said...

Seems that all of the honorees were wearing the Kennedy Center medallions.

Yes, the guy's gettin' old...

Fred4Pres said...

Bruce looks more like Jack LaLane than Robert DeNiro in that photograph.

Fred4Pres said...

Since rainbows (other than in a Leprachaun or Noah context) are supposed to be about diversity: Darleen from PW has a pretty good take on the racial issue in the Woods affair. I was somewhat skeptical myself when Ann raised this last week, but Ann and Darleen are starting to sway me on this.

Fred4Pres said...

The President saved his most personal story for Brubeck, 89.

"In the few weeks that I spent with my father as a child...one of the things he did was to take me to my first jazz concert, in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1971. And it was a Dave Brubeck concert," Obama said. "The world he opened up to a 10-year-old boy was spectacular."


What a failed and pathetic man Barack Obama's dad was to walk away from his son the way he did.

vbspurs said...

OMG, the pain of father abandonment that President Obama has is wrenching but also discomfits me enormously because it's so public. It's like imagining JFK publicly talking about how Rose Kennedy never hugged him (as he once told Ben Bradlee privately).

There are some things best left unsaid, Mr. President. The world doesn't have to be your shrink couch.

Wince said...

"On a day like this, I remember I'm the President, but he's the Boss," Obama said of Springsteen.

Note to Obama: Springsteen doesn't like being called "The Boss."

I stood stone-like at midnight suspended in my masquerade
I combed my hair till it was just right and commanded the night brigade
I was open to pain and crossed by the rain and I walked on a crooked crutch
I strolled all alone through a fallout zone and came out with my soul untouched
I hid in the clouded wrath of the crowd but when they said "Sit down" I stood
up.
Ooh-ooh growin' up

The flag of piracy flew from my mast, my sails were set wing to wing
I had a jukebox graduate for first mate, she couldn't sail but she sure could sing,
I pushed B-52 and bombed 'em with the blues with my gear set stubborn on standing
I broke all the rules, strafed my old high school, never once gave thought to landing,
I hid in the clouded warmth of the crowd but when they said "Come down" I threw
up
Ooh-ooh growin' up

I took month-long vacations in the stratosphere and you know it's really hard to hold your breath.
I swear I lost everything I ever loved or feared, I was the cosmic kid in full costume dress
Well, my feet they finally took root in the earth but I got me a nice little place in the stars
And I swear I found the key to the universe in the engine of an old parked car
I hid in the mother breast of the crowd but when they said "Pull down" I pulled up

ricpic said...

What the heck does emotional audacity mean? My guess is it means that Barry was wowed when he first heard the word audacity and his pea brain calculates that he wows the rest of us each time he utters it.

Wince said...

And Robin Williams looks like Bono?

Stop Clapping!

traditionalguy said...

That comment by Obama was a veiled "Italians are an emotional bunch" slur. Italy had sent its Army into Africa and strted by conquering Ethiopia at the time WW II began. Ital's next target was the British ruling in Kenya where the Obama family was in serfdom. I suspect that the real Obama hates the English and disrespects the Italians for emotional audacity that simply surrendered to the British.

Palladian said...

"emotional audacity" is the ability to chuckle and banter and golf your way through your presidency while more than 10% of the population is unemployed, soldiers are being dithered to death in Afghanistan, and you've added about 10 trillion to the debt. That's emotional audacity, baby!

John said...

If you like the girl next door look, Pam Dauber was really sexy back in the day.

Patm said...

Springsteen and Obama. Two of the biggest phonies in the world. Elitists who pretend that they identify with working people.

William said...

It seems to me that the old time song writers like Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, and Kurt Weill produced hits throughout nearly the entire arc of their lives. Springsteen, Dylan, the Beatles and others were in the zone for about five to ten years when they wrote songs that are just great. But the songs that they wrote after their big bang moment no longer connect. Some diehard Dylan or even Mick Jagger fan will write and say that nowadays their music has a rich emotional complexity or some such crap, but the fact is nobody listens to it....Perhaps, like lyric poetry, rock music is a young man's game, and you need all those hormones and resentments to keep the back beat going. Maybe the rock idiom only speaks to the young or to people who wish to remember their youth but, for whatever reason, the musicians I admired the most when young hit a bald spot in middle age that just kept spreading.

Peter said...

Those aren't suspenders, that's his
medal

vbspurs said...

Whatever happened to Pam Dawber? She was HUGE in England, back in the day. Didn't she marry Parker Stevenson, who also was huge during his Nancy Drew days.

vbspurs said...

Great pic of a patriotic looking First Gouple.

Phil 314 said...

I've had great difficulty with these Kennedy Center honors for some time. They seem awfully close to the "People's Choice Lifetime Achievement" awards.

And the design of the medal is hideous. It looks like the horse collar used in a Gay Pride parade.

Alan said...

Pam Dawber married (and remains married to) Mark Harmon. Kirstie Alley is the former Mrs. Parker Stevenson.

Methadras said...

It's that East Coast degeneracy.

Mike Smith said...

Al Gore looks more and more like Rodney Dangerfield every day.

Triangle Man said...

Not a rainbow coalition, but a rainbow conspiracy.

William T. Sherman said...

Anybody here naive enough to believe Springsteen would have received this "honor" if he'd campaigned for McCain/Palin?

And yes, the man can still write the occasional great song:


Cigarettes and a bottle of beer, this poem that I wrote for you
This black stone and these hard tears are all I've got left now of you
I remember you in your Marine uniform laughing, laughing at your shipping out party
I read Robert McNamara says he's sorry

You and your boots and black t-shirt, ah, Billy you looked so bad
Yeah you and your rock and roll band was the best thing this shit town ever had
Now the man who put you here he puts the familes in rich dining halls
And apology and forgiveness got no place here at all at the wall

I'm sorry I missed you last year, I couldn't find no one to drive me
If your eyes could cut through that black stone, tell me would they recognize me
For the living time must be served, life goes on
Cigarettes and a bottle of beer, skin on a black stone

High school pictures, paper flowers, ribbon red as the blood
Yeah as the blood you spilled in the Central Highlands mud
Now the limousines rush down Pennsylvania Boulevard as the rain falls
Apology and forgiveness got no place here at all

John said...

"Whatever happened to Pam Dawber? She was HUGE in England, back in the day. Didn't she marry Parker Stevenson, who also was huge during his Nancy Drew days."

Better than that. She married Mark Harmon. She had two kids and lived a happy well adjusted life, which of course meant she had no future in Hollywood. And she was in my mind, wildly sexy in her own way. The fact that Harmon, who no doubt had his choice of silcone bimbos, married her, says very good things about his taste in women.

vbspurs said...

Thanks for the info on Pam, Alan and John!

chuck b. said...

Mork looks totally coked out.

vbspurs said...

Chuck, kinda reminds me of this photo of a young GW Bush. Whoo-ee. He's totally yayed.

Cheers,
Victoria

Bill R said...

When 'Mork and Mindy' was a mega-hit, Pam Dawber (Mindy) was the most famous woman in the world.

When it canceled, she vanished like a snowflake in July. It must have been quite a letdown. Sic transit gloria Mindy.

She IS married to Mark Harmon. Which is a consolation, I suppose

Unknown said...

I love Bruce, but he's really got to stop with the transplants, he started getting them slowly from Human Touch & Lucky Town days and thats okay but lately he's going overboard (he sees the same team that do Tom Hanks) they have started messing with his temples and hairline and it's starting to look tony bennett, please Bruce revert to how you were looking during the rising, ie slim (vegan) and thinning Hair (rolling stone interview 2002), don't go surgery on us ie no eye jobs, moob tucks etc, stay man.