Or Why I Hate Bruce Springsteen

The undeniable fact of my life is that I have to admit that my mother is cool. After all, how many other 29-year-olds can claim that they were reared on David Bowie and Queen or that their moms would dance around to virtually every song off the Valley Girl soundtrack? How many moms made outfits to dress their little girl like Cyndi Lauper because that was her hero or sat around watching U2 concerts on cable with them? I assume, not many.
Despite my mother's innate hipness, there are some artists that she loved during my youth that drove me to screaming, baby music geek tantrums-- namely Phil "But, Lizzie, he was in Genesis, like Peter Gabriel!" Collins and Bruce Springsteen. Out of those two, it was the latter that remained victim to my ire over the years.
When I was a kid, my family would drive up to Fresno no fewer than three times a year to visit my dad's brother and his clan. Fresno, the major city in the San Joaquin Valley, is basically the midpoint on a V-formation trek from Los Angeles to San Francisco. The drive is roughly four hours, depending on whether or not we can talk my dad into stopping in Bakersfield for breakfast, which was usually the logical decision since we almost always left the house at 5:00 a.m. It is perhaps the most miserable drive through the Golden State that one can fathom (excluding drives involving traffic, which can also include this route heading through Grapevine on a holiday weekend). Back then, Magic Mountain, twenty minutes north of my house, was the last sign of civilization. Now, there are enough new housing developments to extend life as we kind of know it for that first hour of the trip.
After Grapevine, you veer off on Highway 99 through fields of nothing save for the occasional cow herd and maybe a shack here or there. Then you hit Bakersfield, stop at a McDonald's and get back on the road for another three hours of nothing.
My mom always said that the only album suitable for such a drive was Born in the U.S.A., that this album, the American Idiot of 1984, truly encompassed what it was like to drive through the vast lands of America. On every single one of those excursions for a three or four year period following the release of the album, my parents would blare the Boss from the tape deck of the Stanza wagon.
I have been a mix tape junkie ever since I learned how to use a tape player. This is no exaggeration. My family can probably attest to my tendency to bring the ghetto blaster out into the living room and force silence upon them so that I could tape the themes from my favorite shows (Bosom Buddies, Square Pegs, Greatest American Hero), selected Kids Inc. numbers and tons of stuff off MTV, Video 1 and Nick Rocks. Soon I learned that taping off the TV made for poor sound quality. I was better off dubbing Rick Dees' Weekly Top 40 off KIIS F.M. I had piles of tapes filled with nothing but the hits. "The Reflex," "Shout," "True,"etc. All songs appeared with the first two to four bars missing and half a station ID at the end. After all, I was only in second or third grade at the time. During our trips to Fresno, I would whine to try and get my parents to play the tapes. Alas, it was always the Boss. No escaping it. Eventually, they bought me a Walkman, which sort of satisfied my need for badly dubbed copies of the Top 40. Even then, though, Bruce just had this way of interfering with my Tears for Fears listening sessions.
What I remember most about those rides was that bombastic keyboard line that opens the album's title track and how that would mesh with the scorching inland California sun penetrating through the window. The Boss would belt out the tune in a fashion only suitable for stadium events just as the smell of cow pies seeped in through the air conditioning vents. My sister and I hated it. Hell, even our little brother, who was born only one year before the release of the album, probably hated it. But, what could we do? At least it wasn't John Cougar Mellencamp. At least.
We go to Fresno rarely these days. In fact, I think today will be my first trip up there in four years. Still, there is that car ride mixed with the fact that I can't find my Discman and I don't have an iPod. Instead, I have picked a selection of cds that I think will be mutually agreeable. Depeche Mode. Scissor Sisters. Blur. Franz Ferdinand. I'm pretty sure that my mom never bought Born in the USA on cd and I think she got over the Boss years ago, so maybe there is a chance, just a small one, that the ride won't be as horrible as usual.