Ironman Arizona: Who's the Boss?

I enjoy making race signs to help cheer on fans, at least when I have a good idea for one. Arizona was Jersey Jill's first Ironman race, and although the day didn't work out the way we all wanted, we enjoyed cheering her on. I thought I had an easy concept for her race sign: she's a Bruce Springsteen fan, so I would just go to the local record store, pick up a Springsteen poster and add the words "Baby, you were born to swim bike and run". Yes, in my world I think of going to local record stores.

To my surprise, the music stores I went to didn't have posters of Bruce. Maybe Bruce didn't license (sell out) his likeness the way everyone else did? I tried a different strategy. I went to Hollywood, which has cheap souvenir shops all over the place and every one of them has a set of celebrity posters in the back. Surely I would have my choice of Bruce poses, right? Nope. Not a one. I saw posters of every musical act from the 70s and 80s but not a single Springsteen. If Jill was a fan of Kiss or the Doors or Boston or Elton John it would have been easy, but that wasn't to case.

Then I had a moment of enlightenment: In Hollywood, there are a bunch of cheesey shops (yes, one step below the tacky souvenir stores) that specialize in celebrity glossies. Basically, the walls are lined with WWII-era filing cabinets filled with photos of every celebrity you ever heard of. I went to one of those stores, asked about Bruce, and they pulled out his file. Sure enough, they had a folded Springsteen poster in there that probably came from Tiger Beat Magazine circa 1979. It was perfect!

Then I got greedy... I started thinking, "what if I could top the poster off with the actual album cover from Born to Run?" I went to Amoeba Music (which actually IS a record store) and there it was: Bruce Springsteen, Born to Run on vinyl, $3.99. It killed me a bit inside to think that such an important piece of music history was basically being given away but I wasn't complaining. And I did feel a LITTLE bit guilty that I destroyed the cover to tape it to my poster. But I think the end result worked and I think Jill enjoyed it as well:



But I'm telling any of you aspiring Ironman racers right now: if you're a Lady Gaga fan, forget it. I do have my principles to uphold.