My hero, Bruce Springsteen, called me. He and I had met at a funeral of a mutual friend who’d died of a heroin overdose. I told him in the ten minutes we spoke that I had a lot of the same issues as the deceased and that I was trying to work them out. I was supposed to be clean at the time — though I wasn’t. I’d had no contact with Springsteen since, until my mother came into my room one night and in the same way she used to tell me my friends were at the door asking if I could come out and play stickball when I was twelve, said, “Bruce Springsteen is on the phone for you.” I couldn’t believe it, but it was true. Bruce had heard about what had happened, and he actually called — twice! The first time my mother didn’t wake me up! “Well, just call him back,” she said. “Ma, that’s not how it works,” I said. “You don’t call someone like that back. You wait for them to call you. I mean, he didn’t leave a number, did he?” “No, but it’s on the Caller ID.” “Ma, no believe me, I can’t do that. There’s an unspoken rule — you wait for the famous person to call you.” Anyway, the second time Bruce called, we ended up speaking for over an hour and he couldn’t have been cooler. “I’m thinking about you, just want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself, you know,” he said. “There’s a lot of guys who have what you’re dealing with and you can reach out and get help from a lot of people. There’s a lot of good people out there who can help you.” To be sitting in that bedroom in central Jersey and have my mom come in and say that Bruce Springsteen was on the phone helped me in such a profound way I can barely express it. I was 16 when “Born in the U.S.A.” came out and he was instantly my hero, as he is today. To be there at 43 getting a call that sincere from him was an instantly amazing moment and I remember thinking how much I hoped I lived long enough to be able to thank him for it in person one day. Bruce was so genuinely concerned. He ended the conversation by giving me his number and telling me that I could call him anytime. It was the first time I’d thought about living for months. -Artie Lange-
Posted on: Sun, 27 Oct 2013 15:56:43 +0000
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015