The Armadillo World Headquarters, the first real road trip I ever took with the E Street Band. We got in a motor home and drove from New Jersey to Austin, Texas. I remember we got out in the parking lot of the Armadillo, and they were cleaning up from the night before. There was nothing but Dixie Beer and paper cups on the floor. We played that night, packed house, and I remember during a song, Bruce turned around and kind of faced me. Then he turned back around, and as he turned around, somebody tossed a cowboy hat from out in the middle of the audience. They threw a cowboy hat, and the thing landed on the head of his guitar. And he looked at it, looked at the audience, took the cowboy hat, and put it on his head. It was just one of those moments. If you had to do it in a movie, you'd have to try like 40 times to get it. So there you have it, the Armadillo.
Okay, look, the Onion tweet nor the outrage isn't that hard to understand. But I can explain quickly.1) It's clear the intent was straight irony, because it *should* be true that Quvenzhané Wallis is so clearly adorable that saying otherwise is a joke, like saying, "Man, that Al Gore needs to start caring about the enviroment." 2) Sadly, the author clearly didn't realize that in our sexist and racist environment, the adorableness of Quvenzhané Wallis is, in fact, controversial and a lot of people actually do deride her. 3) The joke was made assuming one context that wasn't true, and upon realizing this, it was retracted and apologized for. End of story. This isn't hard to understand. We've all said things we thought were clear irony only to find out otherwise. It happens.
