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" Let me start by saying: I&amp;#039;m an all-American, heterosexual Bruce Springsteen freak. He&amp;#039;s my blood brother, my muse, my religion. There&amp;#039;s nothing I&amp;#039;d rather do for three hours than be at a Springsteen concert. And when I say &amp;quot;nothing,&amp;quot; I do mean nothing.  It&amp;#039;s hard to believe Springsteen&amp;#039;s Born in the USA turns 30 this week. Anyone with a pulse knows this was the album that turned Bruce into a worldwide superstar. I was 12 when the album came out, and as with many others, it transformed me into a bona fide Bruce nut. It spawned seven Billboard top-ten singles (a record tied only with Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson) and has sold 30 million copies globally. The album&amp;#039;s cover shot by Annie Leibovitz has been immortalized and is still frequently parodied. It was also the first CD manufactured in the United States. While I never did get to see this tour live, in my 90 Bruce shows since, I have watched several of the full-album Born in the USA performances. Like all things Springsteen live, it rocks and gives me genuine goosebumps. &amp;quot;I can&amp;#039;t promise you everlasting life, but what I can promise you is life right now!&amp;quot; Bruce preached on his &amp;#039;99-&amp;#039;00 Reunion Tour. It&amp;#039;s why I have to go as much as possible. In the presence of Springsteen, your problems freeze, and all is right again. Yes, his songs are also about faith, hopes, dreams, and a better life, one day. But his other message from his &amp;#039;78 classic, &amp;quot;Badlands,&amp;quot; is: &amp;quot;It ain&amp;#039;t no sin to be glad you&amp;#039;re alive.&amp;quot; He beckons us to recognize it&amp;#039;s the moment you&amp;#039;re in that matters most.    The Boss crowd-surfs in the background.   The irony behind &amp;quot;Dancing in the Dark&amp;quot; is that it was never intended to be anything more than a &amp;quot;pop&amp;quot; single. Despite the 20-plus tracks Bruce had already cut for Born in the USA, his manager, Jon Landau, told him he still needed one more. Tired, frustrated, and despondent, Bruce headed back to his hotel room, alone, to craft one more song. The lyric &amp;quot;This gun&amp;#039;s for hire&amp;quot; summons the unwilling task required of him. In the end, Bruce delivered a simple, catchy tune with another lyric that said something we all need to hear from time to time. &amp;quot;You can&amp;#039;t start a fire without a spark... even if we&amp;#039;re just dancing in the dark.&amp;quot; No matter where we&amp;#039;re from, or how we think, we all grasp the poignant message. No matter how dark it may be seem, the next thing is just around the corner. Never give up. No retreat. No surrender. And most importantly, we&amp;#039;re all in this together. Bruce has repeated many times, &amp;quot;Nobody wins unless everybody wins.&amp;quot; For all of the praise doled out for the 2013 Ridley Scott-produced film Springsteen &amp;amp;amp; I, one critical error was made. Bruce was, is, and forever will be about &amp;quot;us,&amp;quot; not &amp;quot;I.&amp;quot; He&amp;#039;s spent his entire life searching for a connection, for him, and for us. We are the ties that bind. We are alive. We are each other. He inspires us, as much as we continue to inspire him. His writings, his songs, and his message are about us, our collective struggles, fears, and all of our desires. Non-fans ask me all the time why I&amp;#039;m so &amp;quot;obsessed&amp;quot; with Bruce. My answer is simple. Bruce matters. And we matter to him. Now, if I can only figure out what the hell I&amp;#039;m going to do with my life until the next tour. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a29011/bruce-springsteen-hardcore-fan/>