Thursday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie held his first town hall since the revelation that senior members of his office had closed down part of the most trafficked bridge in the country for political retribution. The bridge incident never came up last night; New Jerseyans had other things on their minds, like Bruce Springsteen.
Christie returned from his vacation in Puerto Rico last week ready to take on the people of New Jersey. He took questions on all sorts of matters from the audience–from changing up the divorce law to several questions about Hurricane Sandy relief. One attendee wanted to warn Christie to stay away from inexplicably popular guitar mumbler Bruce “The Boss” Springsteen. The kindly local VFW member wisely told Christie to “destroy all of your Bruce Springsteen CDs,” because “he is not a friend of yours, Governor.” The crowd of sensible New Jerseyans cheered in support of the idea of distancing themselves from Bruce Springsteen.
Christie laughed and agreed to destroy the CDs: “I have it all on my iPhone now.” He then gave something close to a serious answer to a question that could only be serious in New Jersey: Yes, Christie knows he has a problem. Yes, Christie thinks Springsteen does not like him all that much, but he cannot help himself. “As a guy who has been to 132 Bruce Springsteen concerts,” Christie replied, “I don’t do drugs, I don’t drink. This is it for me, OK?”
Then came the saddest of sad unrequited expressions of admiration, yet again an affirmation of Christie’s love for this rock personality who hates him so much he rewrote “Born to Run,” one of his most famous songs about how he hates New Jersey, to make fun of BridgeGate. “I still live in hope that someday, even as he gets older and older, he’s gonna wake up and go like ‘yeah, right, he’s a good guy.'” Christie could not prevent himself from doing a little more than dreaming, and it was all Springsteen’s fault: “He actually told me we were friends,” he reiterated, which is true. What Christie left out is that Springsteen even added, “It’s official.”
“You are probably giving me wise, sage counsel I should accept,” he told the wise man who requested the existence of fewer Bruce Springsteen CDs in this world, “but my heart keeps telling me not to.” In happier times, Christie admitted to “crying” when he first spoke to Bruce Springsteen on the phone–and not because Springsteen threatened to perform one of his songs.
The Star-Ledger has video of the exchange, which you can watch below:
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