Magic with Springsteen

Goodbye, Big Man: Clarence Clemons, dead at 69, was always born to run

A photo taken of Clarence Clemons and Bruce Springsteen for the "Born to Run"album cover
Clarence Clemons and Bruce Springsteen

No one is indestructible, but damn it if Clarence Clemons didn’t seem that way.

Even as news filtered in about his stroke and the serious nature of it earlier this week, my mind kept travelling back to the first time I saw him live. It was back in 1999 in Philadelphia, in one of the first shows performed by Bruce Springsteen with the reunited E Street Band.

Even from my nosebleed seats, Clarence’s stage presence was undeniable. There were songs when he was just banging on his tambourine, and yet you couldn’t take your eyes off him. As the show progressed, it came time for The Boss to introduce the band, which he did during “Tenth Avenue Freeze Out,” his brilliant piece of self-mythology in which he and Clemons took on the alter-egos of Bad Scooter and The Big Man.

He introduced the band one by one during the bridge, and, of course, he saved Clarence for last.

Bruce began hopping slowly across the stage to where his sax man stood, as if the Big Man was a magnetic force pulling everything not nailed down him. Right when Springsteen got to him, the band kicked back in, Bruce sang the line, “When the change was made uptown and the Big Man joined the band,” and Clarence blasted away with a saxophone riff that seemed to shake the rafters. The crowd erupted.

That enduring image flashed like lightning into my head when I heard that Clemons passed away Saturday at the age of 69 of complications from the aforementioned stroke. One of the hardest parts of being a rock and roll fan is the bewilderment you feel when immortals die, and Clarence was as immortal as they come.

Bruce always played up the magic surrounding his association with Clemons, right from their famous first meeting when Clarence supposedly came into a bar as a gust of wind blew the door right off the place. All of the fantastical tales the singer would tell during his inimitable stage patter between songs somehow seemed perfectly believable when you looked at the towering saxophone player standing alongside nodding his head.

But Clemons was more than just an imposing presence. His impact can be found in the work. It’s in the breathless solo that energizes Springsteen’s magnum opus, “Born To Run.” It’s there in the jazzy solo that sends out Bruce’s biggest hit, “Dancing In The Dark.” From the joyous honk of “Rosalita” to the mournful moan of “Independence Day,” all the way to the glorious wail found in the coda of “Kingdom Of Days,” a gem from the band’s last studio album, Clarence is there, doing the work.

Springsteen has always recognized the importance of his bandmate. It’s Clemons on the cover of Born To Run with the Boss, Bruce literally leaning on him as they share an inside joke that all their fans somehow seemed to get. The Springsteen sound wouldn’t exist without Clarence’s saxophone, and the Springsteen stage show wouldn’t have been the same without Clarence as a seemingly unfazed foil for Bruce’s wild antics.

When I got out of work after hearing about Clemons’ death, I quickly turned on E Street Radio on Sirius XM in the car. Sure enough, Dave Marsh, Springsteen’s biographer and close friend, delivered the news in somber tones, leading into the opening violin strains of “Jungleland.” Here it was, Clarence’s finest moment on record, which means, by definition really, that it’s the finest moment for the saxophone as an instrument in the history of rock and roll.

As I listened to that majestic solo, a heartfelt benediction for a city of lost souls, chills formed and a tear hung stubbornly at the bottom of one eye. I felt like every E Street Band fan, still reeling from the death of Dan Federici a few years back, and now this, could identify with those poets in the song who “wind up wounded, not even dead.” And I grunted and howled along with the wordless cries Bruce lets loose in the final bars, a futile attempt at catharsis.

It turns out that The King of the World, The Master of Disaster, The Big Man Clarence Clemons was vulnerable after all. Where the hell does that leave the rest of us?

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Movie Review

Daniel Craig shines in Queer, an unapologetic tale of love and loss

Photo courtesy of A24

Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Queer.

As recently as the late 2010s, if a movie was made about an LGBTQ+ character, it was more than likely about their coming out experience. Romance, if it existed, was typically chaste, and actual sex was almost completely out of the question. Things have changed dramatically in the 2020s, to the point that a major movie star has no issue starring in a film called Queer.

Based on the 1985 novella by William S. Burroughs, the film features William Lee (Daniel Craig), whom everyone calls just Lee, a writer living in 1950s-era Mexico City who spends most of his time haunting local bars with friends like fellow writer Joe Guidry (Jason Schwartzman) and hitting on younger men. His early interactions in the film seem to indicate that Lee has a bad reputation within the local gay community, as multiple people avoid him or give him odd looks.

Lee senses an opportunity when he encounters a newcomer, Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey). Despite some awkward interactions, the two of them start spending time together, although Lee has much more invested in the relationship than Eugene does. Their hit-and-miss bond continues until Lee, who’s starting to get into drugs in addition to the booze, convinces Eugene to accompany him on a trip to South America.

Directed by Luca Guadagnino and written by Justin Kuritzkes (making their second straight film together after Challengers), early on the film seems to be mostly about the divide between an older person who’s grown comfortable in his ways and a younger person who’s living a relatively carefree life. The introduction of drugs into the plot changes things, though, with Lee searching out more ways to open his eyes to what the world has to offer.

Guadagnino and his team use some interesting visual storytelling techniques to introduce ideas that may not be present in the actual script. The most successful, demonstrated in multiple scenes, is the superimposition of movements by Lee over what’s actually taking place in the scene. The subtle overlay gives the audience insight into Lee’s true feelings, showing what he can’t or won’t say out loud.

Music also plays a big part in how the plot is perceived, with the use of anachronistic songs from Nirvana and Prince serving to heighten certain moments. The score by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross is not as in-your-face as the one they did for Challengers, but it complements the film well, especially when the plot starts to get trippy in its final half hour.

Craig, who appears sweaty and disheveled for much of the film, is about as far from the suaveness of James Bond as you can get in this role. He takes multiple risks with his performance and almost all of them pay off. Starkey’s character is subdued by comparison, but still comes off well. Schwartzman and Lesley Manville are given showy roles, with both using altered appearances that make them nearly unrecognizable to deliver memorable performances.

Queer is not as accessible as Challengers was storytelling-wise, but the fact that it tells a story about gay men living their lives as they see fit with no interference or questions shows how far the film world has come in a short period of time. It also continues Guadagnino’s streak of making audacious films in a way that few other filmmakers are willing or able to approach.

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Queer is now playing in theaters.

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