How To Fabricate Bob: The Fake Spitoutyourgum Interview

I'm sure by now everybody's heard about Jonah Lehrer, the writer who got busted fabricating quotes from Bob Dylan for a book about creativity. The irony is of course multi-leveled. To fabricate quotes from the master fabricator about creativity, while somehow being blind to the fact that in this world a few score people seem to dedicate their lives to poring over every word Dylan utters, or allegedly utters, is flat out dumb. What really irks me about all of this is that the purported quotes, in addition to those poorly cut and pasted from famous Bob musings over the years, are so mundane and uncreative. Any quick perusal of a couple interviews with Bob reveals anything but the mundane. Bob's answers to the same old questions are full of red herrings, obfuscations, verbose shaggy dog meanderings, and not a little seemingly spontaneous poetry. If you're going to make up quotes from Bob, do the man justice and have some fun with the language. Instead, Lehrer has Bob saying this stupid nonsense when supposedly asked about creativity: "It's a hard thing to describe. It's just this sense that you got something to say." Huey Lewis, okay, but not Bob Dylan.

What follows, then, is a truly fabricated interview with Bob Dylan, with enough Bobesque bon mots for lazy writers to fill up several tomes. If Bob didn't say these things (and I can't swear that he didn't anymore than I can swear that he did), he should have, or, much more likely than the quote (sic) above, could have.

"Escargot," he answers when I ask, incredulously, "Bob? Is it really you?" We sit side by side in cars pulled to the side in that no-man's-land in the McDonalds parking lot where they tell you to wait while they process your complex drive-thru order. At first I hadn't thought much of the car in front of me in the line, a fire engine red Reliant with New Mexico plates, but now that I see that Bob Dylan is behind the wheel, I'm intrigued. "Nice car, Bob," I offer. Dylan, dressed in a white sleeveless shirt with either some barbeque or blood stains scattered down the front and a pair of bulky jeans, is on a short hiatus between legs of his Never Ending Tour. "I was in Topeka hunting down an old circus, when this car, this car, full of Mexicans pulled up and asked if I wanted to go for a ride." Four days later, it seems, Bob is driving the car, sans Mexicans, through a McDonalds drive-thru in South Euclid, Ohio. When I mumble a series of how's why's and what happened to the Mexicans, he retorts, "It's a hard thing to describe. Sometimes you just sense that a car has got something to say. So you just put it gear. The Mexicans bailed in Dayton. Hey, you know where I can find Michael Stanley's boyhood home?" For the next twenty minutes I sit shotgun in the red Reliant as Bob and I munch on our burgers--his arrive six minutes before mine--and talk.

Didn't they give you a napkin?

I told them to hold the napkin. Always do. Extra ketchup, hold the napkin.

What do you think about all this fuss over the guy who fabricated quotes from you?

I gave up thinking years ago. Along with earrings, Gatorade, and badminton. Thinking's for fools and businessmen and retired hookers. Are your fries cold too?

They haven't brought out my order yet.

Be patient. I learned a long time ago that fast food restaurant delivery systems are all mathematical. And of course, with all things mathematical, truth is the necessary end product. Trust in the mathematical. You won't lose any hair. Or sleep, because you won't need much sleep.

Is math spiritual for you?

Everything 'cept the media, politics, and all-star studded festivals is spiritual. That's not a Happy Meal, is it? I love them toys.

Bob, I gotta ask you. One of my favorite songs of yours is one no one ever asks about. 'Never Say Goodbye.' Where did that come from? How did you create such an amazing, compact tone poem?

I didn't create nothing of that one. Well, one line. I added the "my dreams are made of iron and steel," part. Originally it was 'cotton and silk,' which is understandable, coming from an angel and all.

Angel?

I was in Durango, making that movie. Or was it the other one? Anyway, some nights in Mexico, when it's no longer night but daylight all of a sudden, all you've got is what's left in the bottle, or the angel. That time I chose the angel. Gave me that song complete, 'cept for the iron and steel part. A minor angel, maybe, but at that time, any angel in any dusty town was a gift.

You know angels, personally?

A ton of them. Some of them are my best friends. Never can tell which are the Fallen ones or not. Not that it makes a whole lot of difference. Does it? Angels provide.

Give me an example of a song you wrote that wasn't provided by angels. One you actually worked on, created.

'Sally Sue Brown.'

You didn't write that one, Bob.

I didn't? Well, I should have. Great song. (He hesitates a minute and stares out the windshield.) It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry, I guess.

That wasn't an angel song? You wrote that one from scratch? I love that song.

What? Oh, the song? No, what? I was just stating the obvious. Armageddon and all. I'll give you a harmonica if you let me have half of that apple pie.

E flat?

Whatever. Hmm, apple pie.

We savor our separate halves of that apple pie while watching an old man put money in the newspaper box and then fail to get the thing open. "I could write a double album about that man and that newspaper box, if I wanted to. But I'd rather find a gas station selling gas for less than $3.75," Bob says, and I take that as my cue that my lunch with Bob is over. As I close the passenger side door of the Reliant and thank Bob for his time and company, he kind of winks and says, "I like the way you chew, man." The left he makes onto Mayfield Road in the middle of lunchtime traffic is sublime, and I'd like to think one of the many car horns that follow in its wake is Bob tootin' me goodbye.

For Bob On His Birthday: An Overlooked Greatest Hit

Happy 71st Bob Dylan. In your honor I'm posting a poem I wrote a few years ago about what to me is one of your greatest overlooked hits--the time you scored a free Andy Warhol painting as a gift and then later traded it away for a sofa. Genius. May today bring you all the comfortable gifts wise men and women may bring.


A Good Sofa Trumps a Work of Art Any Day



Practically speaking,
A good sofa trumps a work or art
Any day.
I mean, really, who wouldn’t trade
A Rembrandt
For a good nap or a nice quickie?

January 1966,
Zeitgeist summit meeting
At the Factory, New York City.
Bob and Andy,
Fifteen-minute shaded avatars
By way of Hibbing, Minnesota,
And Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, respectively.
The yin and yan of ‘transcendent’ artifice
And iconic hair
—dark and tornadoed
—white and, uh, straight.
By all accounts they’re both nervous,
Circling each other—“a solicitous kind of dance”—
Like effete boxers,
Bob seeing what he can wrangle out of Andy,
Andy actually fawning, a fan,
Fingernail nibbling.
Perhaps they’re looking at one of the
Double Elvis pictures,
The gun-slinging silkscreen that
Andy—fawner extraordinaire—
Gave away to Bob that day,
Then watched Bob tie Double Elvis
To the top of his station wagon
And drive him home to Hi Lo Ha,
Bob’s house in Woodstock.
Riding with the King, indeed.
Did Andy chomp his fingers to the nub
With visions of Bob
Hanging the work of art
Upside down in a cupboard?
No infinity trials there.
Did his hair turn whiter
When he learned that Bob
Eventually traded the Double Elvis
To his manager, Albert Grossman,
For something ‘practical’ for Hi Lo Ha,
A sofa?
Grossman, Big Bear Landlord, would say,
“I hope Bob found a lot of change
under those cushions.”
His widow Sally, in 1988, sold
Double Elvis for 720 thousand pieces of silver.

Change under those cushions.
Perhaps Bob wrote or dreamt or received divine dictation
—however he comes up with his songs—
“I Shall Be Released” “Tears of Rage” “All Along the Watchtower”
“I’m Not There” “Apple Suckling Tree”
—all songs written around that time—
On that sofa.
Certainly “I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight.”

Give me that third-hand sofa
For my attic museum.
A good sofa trumps a work of art any day.

Mama's Pride

How cool is this? On a frazzled day of work which created a virtual media blackout for me, I was apprised of Bob Dylan's much-deserved Presidential Medal of Freedom award via a voicemail from my mother, a fan by osmosis, if not by stereo-hugging devotion. Oh, let's put it at proof #1235 of why mother is so cool. I'm as proud of her Bob fandom as I'm sure Bob's late mother Beatty (pictured above cheering on Bob and that Baez woman) is of her little boy. Congratualtions Bob and Beatty, and thanks for the news, mom.

Twosome: Year's Best Golf & Music In One Fell Swoop

Just the idea makes all my top ten lists for the year; the ad-lib lyrics push it way on top.

Ragged But Right Rigamarole, Or, More Garbled Nonsense

As happens, somebody used a colorful word the other day in my presence, and I've been obsessed with it ever since. Rigamarole, or maybe more properly, rigmarole, though I love that extra syllable. How can you not just quake in wonder at that word, a poem in and of itself? Rigamarole--any long, complicated procedure; a set of incoherent or pointless statements; garbled nonsense. Yes, "garbled nonsense" was a close also ran when it came time for me to bestow a name on this humble blog. Unfortunately, rigamarole seems to be a 100% pejorative term these days. "I don't want any of your rigamarole, Lou." "What's all this rigamarole then?" You don't ever really hear something like, "Oh, thrill me with your rigamarole, kind sir," do you? Too bad, because garbled nonsense has quite a literary tradition; I mean, where would the Western Canon be without Tristram Shandy, Finnegans Wake, and all of Jane Austen? And if half the tunes of Bob Dylan and The Band's Basement Tapes aren't the rockingest garbled nonsense of all time, then curse me with having to listen to Journey the rest of my days: nonsense without the essential garble is just nonsense.

But whence the word? Appropriately, its source is found in literature, 1700s literature. It comes from ragman roll: a list, probably a roll used in a medieval game, wherein various characters were described in verse, beginning with Ragemon le bon, Ragman the Good (and no relation to Simon, as far as I can tell). Ragman Roll to rigmarole to rigamarole--makes perfect nonsense sense to me. And, lo and behold!, eighteen months or so before those sainted Basement Tapes, Bob Dylan was beginning his own nonsensical description of characters, "Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again," with these lines: "Awww the Ragman draws circles, up and down the block/I'd ask him what the matter was, but I know that he don't talk." Coincidence? Or did Bob know all about the intricacies of rigamarole? I know my verdict.

Rigamarole. Sounds like what a proud trucker may declare as he sets off for the road in his newly loaded new truck: "Rig-a-ma-roll!" I'm sure some hip bakery somewhere has ripped off the deliciousness of the Everything Bagel and concocted something called a Rigama-Roll, right? And, of course, back to Bob Dylan. In 1972 Rudy Wurlitzer (is there a cooler, non-made-up name?) sent Bob his screenplay for Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, hoping Bob would write some music for the movie. Bob not only complied ("Knockin' On Heaven's Door" and the ineffable "Final Theme" among others), but he also was interested in being in the movie. Rudy and director Sam Peckinpah obliged and the character Alias ("Alias anything you please") was born. They rigged him a role.

Well, enough sense. Time to try my hand at a Ragman Roll.

Ragman the Good
Did what he should
Eschewed wood
Built a cabin of food

Bagman the Nasty
His lot cast he
With the mob, see
Now swims with the fishies

Lagman the Slow
Didn't wanna go
Exchanged his turbo
For a stick of pogo

Cragman the Klutz
Navigates the ruts
Up the rock he struts
Splatter go his guts

Hagman the Rich
Hankers for a witch
Nothing but which
Can ever scratch his itch

Dragman the Queen
Does nothing but preen
Never is he seen
In a dress sans sheen

Wagman the Dog
Got lost in the fog
Now that old bog
Has got quite a clog

Sagman the Fool
His pants did kinda drool
Skipped out of school
Tripped and fell uncool

Nagman the Twit
Didn't know how to quit
Started many a snit
Ended in a shallow pit

And finally, there's Riley Puckett, pictured above. With a face like that, but with a voice like his, he certainly knew what was ragged but right. Holy rigamarole, this song:

Dee-Li-Vah De Let-Tah

I mailed something other than a bill yesterday. I sent a small birthday present to a friend of mine. Chances are, with her living just across town, that she received it today. I hope she does, today being her birthday. When I stopped to think about the process yesterday, once again I was amazed by the U.S.
Postal Service. Despite all the technology, and despite the fact that the package is only traveling a few miles, it still wows me that you can put something in a slot one place and within a day or two it arrives exactly where it's supposed to, with nary a problem. I mean, how many times have you had serious problems with the mail? Once, maybe twice in your lifetime? For all the mail you've sent and received? Say what you will about the federal government, but can you imagine the hassles that would ensue if something like the banking industry took over the mails?

Sadly, I can't remember the last time I actually mailed something other than a bill. Multiply me a few million times and I guess it's no wonder we keep hearing about the financial problems of the Postal Service and how it's in danger of going under. What a pity. Is there a greater inexpensive thrill than seeing a letter or package in your mailbox? Is there better nervous excitement than waiting that day or two for something you sent someone to arrive and hear back from that person? I've never been a consistently prolific letter writer in my time, but I've had periods when I sent and received a lot of personal mail. It's a singular sensation that is vastly different from a telephone call (which has pleasures all its own) and one that emails and texts and tweets and such can't even touch.

Now I'm not here to rant about the disappearance of letter writing; times change blah blah blah. But, but. Maybe if we had a national day of letter writing/mailing, people might be reminded of the pleasures once again, and then maybe make the effort a bit more frequently to do so, and then maybe the Postal Service will survive better. And maybe pigs will fly and the Cleveland Browns will make the Super Bowl too. But I'm going to do it, dammit. I promise to mail a letter this Friday, November 18th. I don't know to whom I'll write or what I'll write about, but I'm going to do it because I love the USPS. Join me, won't you?

And while we're on the subject, I'm wondering what are the five most famous letters in rock music. Actually I have wondered for some time because I'm admitting a kind of defeat. I've long wanted to actually write those famous rock letters. It would be a great exercise in imagination and voice. How would the body of Paul's (it is Paul, isn't it, Beatles fanatics?) letter that ends so famously "P.S. I Love You" read? Or what kind of heartfelt sweet things did poor Elvis write in that letter that kept getting returned to sender/him? When you think about it, the words in the Box Tops' "The Letter" must have been pretty hot. I mean to send adolescent Alex Chilton scurrying to an airport because he "ain't got time to take a fast train," and not caring about the cost of it all, phew! All we get of the letter is that "she couldn't live without me." There must be more than that in the missive, no? What? I want to know.

So those three are among the top five most famous letters in rock history, we all can agree, right? The next one on my list is perhaps the most intriguing--the letter that appears at the end of  Bob Dylan's "Desolation Row." After verses and verses and verses and nine minutes, thirty-four seconds of Bob describing the weird goings on in/on Desolation Row, he pulls back a bit and begins the last verse talking about a letter:

Yes, I received your letter yesterday
(About the time the doorknob broke)
When you asked me how I was doing
Was that some kind of joke?
All these people that you mention
Yes, I know them, they're quite lame
I had to rearrange their faces
And give them all another name ...

God almighty how much for years I've wanted to write that letter! But how to do it justice? And how to solve its various conundrums (conundra?)? That parenthesis is used in the official Lyrics 1962-2001 book (which is hardly definitive, I know), but even then it still poses the question I've long had--was the letter concerning the time the doorknob broke, or did it arrive around the time Bob's doorknob broke? (Trust me, in the glorious world of Bobarcana, no small point to ponder). And "all these people that you mention"--specific to the letter, or are they the people (rearranged/renamed) Bob has just told us all about? How can one even attempt to write this letter with these questions unanswered? God I love it.

The fifth letter in my all-time Top Five Rock'n'Roll letters (and these are not in any kind of ranked order--I think you can tell what would be my #1) is one you're all probably saying, well of course, get to it, after all it's chronologically the first one your list. Ah, but there's a catch. Is there an actual letter in the Marvelettes' marvelous "Please Mr. Postman"? No, there isn't. She's waiting on/hoping for/begging for a letter from her "boyfriend so far away," but nothing (for all we know he's run off with the girl who keeps sending Elvis's letter back). Now isn't that sad, the poor girl pleading with the postman to look one more time in his bag to see if maybe there's a letter? Just like all of us in these days of no-more-letter-writing. So, do your part--not only for the USPS but for that someone pining near the mailbox. Someday soon write and actually mail a letter to someone. You'll make their day. And maybe inspire another great song--by my reckoning here, there hasn't been a great song about a letter--real or imagined--in nearly 45 years. Name me one.

Bob And Baseball

During my non-blogging August, I failed to address two main events of much import: The fact that I saw Bob Dylan in concert once again back on August 6, and the incredible fact that the Cleveland Indians are still playing meaningful games this late in the season, with an outside chance at running down the Tigers and winning the AL Central crown. Both wondrous events defy description, so you'll just have to content yourselves with this bit of whimsy--Bob Dylan song titles combined with baseball names and terms (can you spot the one football interloper?). Hail Bob, Go Tribe. 


A Bob Dylan Baseball Hall Of Fame


Open the Door, Homer Bush
Desolation Preacher Roe
From a Buick 6to Lezcano
Every Grain of Sandberg
Driftin’ Too Far From Ernie Shore
License to Killebrew
Chuck Rainey Day Women #12 & 35
Lay Lady Lay Down a Bunt
Watching the Mickey Rivers Flow
Maglie’s Farm
Under The Red Schoendienst Sky
Blind Willie McGee
When I Pitch My Masterpiece
Precious Angel Hermoso
Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dummy Hoy
Batter’s Up To Me
Subterranean Homestand Blues
Bud Black Crow Blues
Ballad of a Thin Manny Mota
Like a Rolling Steve Stone
Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie Montanez
Tiny Jeff Montgomery
Going, Going, Gone to the Bullpen
Solid Rock Raines
Buddy Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar
Obviously 5 Basestealers
Idiot Wind Blowing Out of Wrigley
Property of Jesus Alou
Just Like Tom Trebelhorn’s Blues
Visions of Joe Adcock
Absolutely Sweet Lou Piniella
4th Time Around the Order
Lenny Dykstra Bruce Kison
Song To Woody Fryman
Lily, Rosemary and Jack Clark
It Ain’t Me, Babe Ruth
I Pity the Poor ImmiGrant Jackson
Not Alvin Dark Yet
Shelter From the Storm Davis
Please, Mrs. Henry Aaron
Temporary Like Al Cowens
Million Dollar Bash Brothers
It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue Moon Odom
Stan the Man In Me
It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes Walter The Big Train Johnson To Cry
I Dreamed I Saw Saint Augustine Busch
The Ballad Of Frankie Frisch Lee May and Judas Priest Holmes
Honey Just Allow Me One More Dean Chance
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go Back to the Minors
Masters of Warren Spahn
Ballad of Ollie Brown
If You See Tommy Herr, Say Hello
Buckets of Chuck Rainey
Father of Ray Knight
My Back Mitchell Pages
Gates Brown of Eden
Ruben Sierra Remus
I Threw It All Away, (E 5)
Three Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
One More Cup of Coffee in the Big Leagues
Joey Cora
Saving Mark Grace
Are You Randy Ready?
Mel Queen Jane Approximately
Alvin Dark Eyes
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Clay Carroll
Ring Them Buddy Bells
Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Clyde Wright
Can’t Waite Hoyt
Boots Day of Spanish Leather
Restless Wes Far(ew)ell
Man In The Dale Long Bud Black Coat
David Justice Like a Woman
One More Ray Knight
Country Pie Traynor
Peggy Boots Day
Champ Summers Days
Never Say Hey Goodbye

Special U.L. Washington Wing:

I’ll Remember U.L. Washington
I Want U.L. Washington
Sweetheart Like U.L. Washington
To Be Alone With U.L. Washington
Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With U.L. Washington
`Til I Fell In Love With U.L. Washington
Something There Is About U.L. Washington
What Can I Do For U.L. Washington?

How Could I Have Gone 33 Years Without The Use Of The Word 'Zaftig'?

I finally finished reading a book last night that I started reading 33 years ago. The exact same copy of the book I bought, I'm pretty sure, on a trip to Washington, D.C., I made when I was fifteen. A mass market "pocket book" copy of Larry "Ratso" Sloman's On The Road With Bob Dylan, an insider's account of the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour. I know, I know: For shame, a self-proclaimed, supposedly well-read Dylan nut who up until now had not read the book--may I spend 100 years in Purgatory listening to nothing but Pat Boone renditions of Little Richard hits for my transgression.

Now I haven't been continuously reading the book all these years; that would average out to about four words a night. But over the years, through all the moves and infrequent bookshelf purgings (sellings off), the book has stayed with me, and every five years or so I'd say to myself, It's time to read this book. I'd start, but for whatever reasons never got through much of it. This time I did, and I wonder what took me so long. It's a fun, great read, loaded with lots of great scenes and wonderful stories about Dylan and his vagabond troupe of musicians, actors, poets, filmmakers, hangers on, etc. (as well as the most detailed glimpse at Bob's first wife Sara I've ever read).

Years ago I heard a woman at a bookstore tell her little son, who wanted two books, "You can only read one at a time, Henry." Which of course is bull. Most well-read people I know are always juggling three or four books at once. Then there's the usual question asked when somebody's looking over your bookshelves: "Have you read all these books?" Of course not, what would be the point in that? The point is, sometimes a book and its reader need to come together at the appropriate time; even, I now claim, if that time is 33 years after the reader acquires the book. With some books you need them spying you from the shelf, tempting you to dare their pages, mocking your specific illiteracy, knowingly winking and whispering, some day, when you're ready, you'll be able to read me. I'm sure we all have books like that, books we finally pulled out late one lonely night after years of neglect and suddenly discovered a new friend who speaks perfectly to you exactly where you are at that moment. Or books we've tried to read several times and failed, only to try once more and it finally conquers you as you conquer its pages. I don't know if Sloman's book quite qualifies as such a transcendent, now-is-the-appropriate-time read for me, but I'm sure glad I've finally read it.

At least twice in the book, Sloman, writing as a proud Jew, uses the Yiddish word zaftig. I can't say I had never seen the word before, but I certainly wouldn't have aced a vocabulary quiz it was on, and I know I had never used it before. Turns out zaftig means "pleasantly plump, buxom, full-figured, as a woman," and comes from the Yiddish zaftik and/or the German saftig, both meaning "juicy." What a wonderful word. Is there any other word anywhere containing the letters z,f,g? Surely any word beginning with a z is pretty cool, but when you caboose it with -aftig, my o my, poetry. Whereas "pleasantly plump" sounds patronizing at best, and rude at worst, how can you go wrong with zaftig? Do these jeans make me look fat? No, baby, zaftig, ooh la la!

Reading a well-written, fun, informative book about Bob Dylan makes my day. Reading one I've been trying to read for thirty-three years makes my week. Learning the word zaftig? Bring on 2012, my year's complete.

Rolls And Rolls And Rolls Of Coins For That Minstrel Boy

What to say to/about Bob Dylan on the occasion of his 70th birthday tomorrow, May 24th, that isn't already being said by thousands of others on the Internet, airwaves, and in the print media? How about, thank you, Bob?

I've been listening intently to Bob for nearly thirty-four years. Around Christmas in 1977 I used a record store gift certificate to buy Bob's first Greatest Hits album and Neil Young's Decade--pretty astute purchases for a 14-year-old, I believe. I'd give anything to go back to those first few hours lying on my bed listening to that first clutch of Dylan songs and be able to pick the brain of that young boy. What did that odd, dry voice, those variously quiet and raucous sounds, that torrent of words all mean to me then, what did it all do to me? Years later I read quotes from Bob about not trying to understand his songs but to feel them, and from Bruce Springsteen about Bob freeing the mind like Elvis freed the body and how the opening of "Like A Rolling Stone" sounded like busting out of jail (or was that Bob talking about hearing Elvis? who cares, it's all the same)--I wouldn't have been able to articulate thoughts like those at 14, but I guess all of that is probably pretty accurate to the effect. My initial exposure to Bob's music presented me with a set of doors (some opened, others ajar, more seemingly locked but with a promise that with time they'd be priable) I didn't even know existed. Over the years those doors have opened into mazes of hallways and further doors, and I'm happy to say I'm still delirious to be lost in the maze and hunting around corners for more doors, as long as they're not marked EXIT.

I remember a few months after the purchase of that Greatest Hits album, while I proudly held my latest acquisition, Highway 61 Revisited (still my all-time favorite album), which was probably about the fourth or fifth Dylan album I had bought, my sister said to me, somewhat critically, "Are you going to buy all of his albums?" I'm sure defensively, like most 14-year-olds, I muttered something like, "No!" but inside I'm sure I was thinking, that's not a bad idea; probably, I guess. Mission long since accomplished.

I could go on and on blathering about What Bob Means To Me (and I had kind of planned on it), but really, what's the point? Ultimately it's a personal thing, and a few thousand words here would only serve to show how inarticulate trying to explain What Bob Means To Me would render me.

For a lifetime of pleasure, provocation, education, and inspiration, thank you, Bob. And Happy Birthday.

Bob Dylan and The Band--Minstrel Boy

If I Had A Hat To Hang, Maybe I'd Feel More At Home In This World

I saw a guy in a beret today, and I instantly had one of those thoughts you have every once in a great while, one you've never consciously thought before but that you know is a lifetime thought--always been there, always will be. The thought today was, I will never wear a beret in my lifetime. Now I suppose I could say something nasty like, some guys can pull off the beret look; the rest of us are men, but it's Sunday in Lent, and I don't mean to be nasty. The truth is, some men can pull off the beret look without looking like a fool. I, and most other men, I would argue, are not in that club.

The further, more personal, truth is, as I've written somewhere before, I have searched my life for the appropriate hat. Now those who know me know I don't sweat the details of fashion all that much. I love words like sartorial and haberdasher, but the idea of "personal style" is not one I mull too much. Still, though, the idea of the appropriate hat is one that somehow has always appealed to me. But just what kind of hat? Certainly not a beret. Stetson? Fedora? Bowler? Derby? Pork pie? On and on, hats have some great names, and, worn on the right person, they simply but profoundly complete that whole person's aura. Jimmy Durante was naked without his hat--that's what I'm talking about. A hat so me that without it people would say, is that really you, Mr. spitoutyourgum? I'm not talking functional, everyday hats like a baseball one for the summer or a knit cap for the winter, but a hat to wear, to inhabit, not just use.

In the fantasy game, what would I say to Bob if I ever met him, the one all Dylan fanatics play, I have a set, unchanging answer/question: Bob, how important is the appropriate hat? I'd ask this because Dylan is one of the few people who can pull off putting on any kind of a hat and still look great, like the particular style of hat was made just for him. I'd hate to see it, but I'm sure Bob would look great in a beret. To my eyes, the only hat that didn't look right on Bob was that black cap he sported in his early New York days and on the cover of his first album (the cap writers are seemingly legally-bound to describe as a "Huck Finn" cap, which makes no sense to me as I could never picture the heroic Huck Finn wearing one of those caps, a Greek fisherman's cap, in my way of explaining [which reminds me of the great Arlo Guthrie line about songwriting being a lot like fishing, and too bad for the songwriter fishing downstream from Bob, he catches them all--somebody should write a song using that line]).

I don't know what all this means, just that I confess to craving the appropriate hat to complete my personal non-style and that today I have consciously, definitively, crossed the beret off my list. That isn't really progress, I know, but at least it saves me from ever following some ill-conceived notion and trying one on. Bob, if you're out there reading this, please advise.

                                                                        no

                                                                   hell yes

                                                                        yep

                                          even in a makeshift hat, Bob wears it great

                                      not many can make this headwear look this cool

                                             no one does the Jewish-cowboy                                              imitating an Amish farmer better

                                                             yes, somehow

                                                                yes, eternally

How Can You Hate His Voice When The Man Has Dozens Of Them?

Every man has his breaking point, I guess. This morning I reached mine. What I thought was an out of the blue gift to warm my soul on this (another) drearily cold day--someone put on Bob Dylan's Desire album at work--turned into just another cold slap in the face, one that I've endured for 30+ years now. But today's slap turned out to be the one that broke this man's long silence. Not silence about the merits of Bob Dylan; that silence, as regular readers know, is no silence. But the silence--shaking head, mutterings to myself about the rubes who surround me, internal lamentations about how alone we all are in this world--I've maintained when confronted, yet again, with somebody who doesn't like Bob Dylan because "I can't stand his voice." Well, the floodgates have been pried open; here comes the torrent.

I admit, upon probably my first exposure to Bob Dylan, as a pre-pubescent lad separating the wheat (Nashville Skyline) from the chaff (Chicago Umpteenth) in a carton of discarded cassettes from an older cousin, I called him Bob Dye-lan. I was eventually corrected. See, we all can learn and grow in our Bob knowledge/appreciation, if we are willing. I've always been willing. I should have heeded that good piece of wisdom this morning when my co-worker, an otherwise super-friendly, diligent, and most pleasant person, uttered the old standard, "I can't stand his voice" complaint. Instead, liked a wired Bob trying to figure out who threw the effing glass, I went kind of ballistic. In short, I told my co-worker I would no longer be speaking to her and that if she needed to communicate with me she should put her thoughts in proper Gregg Shorthand on a neutral color post-it and mail them to me General Delivery. I then hummed the first lines of "Positively Fourth Street" ("You've got a lotta nerve, to say you are my friend") anytime she came within ten feet of me all day long. I take it to be a sign of her desperate need to apologize and atone that she took to humming the resounding chorus of Handel's "Hallelujah" back at me. Thus, in a more civilized attempt at detente, I offer this primer on the many voices of Bob Dylan.

The many voices (not the voice of Voice of a Generation, but voice of, like, how it sounds) of Bob Dylan. Because he has sung/does sing with a multitude of them. You see, saying you don't like Bob's voice is like saying you don't like weather or food. Fine, you don't like sub-zero temperatures or mushrooms--who does?-- but what about sixty-eight degree mildly overcast and breezy days while chomping on some pistachios, hunh? See? Maybe the gruff growl of Bob's recent concert tours tries your patience a bit. Fine, but you can't then condemn him outright when the honey-sweet next-farm-over voice of "One More Night" or the wizened, wry, winking Groucho Marx crossed with Bob Newhart voice of "Talking World War III Blues" is just a click away on your i-Pod. Not in the mood for the careening, trapeze artist voice of the Rolling Thunder Revue tours? Fine, shuffle over to the tender heartbreak of the wounded puppy offering pillow talk in an empty bed of "Tomorrow Is A Long Time" or the mature, rueful, bittersweet croons of the soon-to-be ex of "You're A Big Girl Now" or the quiet howls of the rusty lusty fly (pants, not insect) of "Blood In My Eyes." And on and on and on. And then become an obsessive like I am and track down all the other versions of these and all the others and discover the different voices Bob sings them all with through time. Of course, in a freer, less technologically daunting America, I could provide you with audio samples of all of this, but that would be too easy. Easy like the voice of "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" when true Bob appreciation is a little more challenging, like the caterwauling battering ram of "From A Buick 6."

You want a voice that's attractive and infectious like a bloody lip? Try Highway 61 Revisited. A voice like ceiling climbing smoke from a wine-sodden mouth? Blonde on Blonde. A voice still warm from the last good night's sleep, weeks ago? Blood On The Tracks. Playful like a sugared-up lab rat in an Escher maze? Another Side of Bob Dylan. Wisecracking and avuncular? Under The Red Sky. Mixed-up damning and whimsical like the offspring of Jonathan Edwards and W.C. Fields? "Love and Theft." And that's just scratching the surface, not only of the man's many albums, but the many different voices on each of the albums.

Look, I could get all Marcusishly Significant on you and deconstruct Don McLean's apt phrase in "American Pie" that the voice does indeed "come from you and me," with all sorts of Emersonian/Whitmanesque uber-yawp gobbledygook tossed about, but the fact is you have to listen, not read. As Bob himself said about certain kinds of music, with his own you have to "lean forward" a bit. If you do, trust me, you'll soon get past the received notion of the "unpretty" voice and discover dozens of amazing voices, not one of which, thankfully, sounds anything like Peter Cetera.

Icebreaker

Beyond the usual--checking out the person's shoes, odometer, and choice of beer--when I really want to get to know someone, I ask them the following three-part, three-part question: You're just getting to know the person you think you might want to spend the rest of your life with. What three CD's, movies, and books would you give to this person in order to say, if you really want to know who I am, experience these. Not necessarily all-time favorties, but cultural stuff that means a lot to you in some kind of personal way. People are always intrigued by the question, but rarely are they able to come up with answers for all nine parts. For me, the answers change by the quarter hour, which might be telling. But as for this quarter hour, these are my picks (explanations can be provided if you send a SASE or simply e-mail me; what are yours?):

CD's

The Replacements, Let It Be

Van Morrison, Astral Weeks

Bob Dylan, Blood On The Tracks

Movies

The Big Lebowski



Dr. Strangelove




The Last Detail




Books

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Short Stories

David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest

The Replacements-Favorite Thing

Happy Birthday, Bob

Bob goes through changes...He can disappear with a car-load of Mexicans. No phase is the final one.
                                                                                   --Eric Clapton

Syd Barrett-Bob Dylan Blues

Minutemen-Bob Dylan Wrote Propaganda Songs

Loudon Wainwright III-Talking New Bob Dylan

One Picture = Priceless

Lord knows I don't ask much from the media. But I want this: a picture of these two icons, Bob Dylan and Muhammad Ali, today. Call Ken Regan, the photographer who took this shot back in 1975, and get him to get Bob and Muhammad together for another picture. Nobody's getting any younger, and these two are each pushing 70. Their faces, long past their pretty prime, are still works of art, and they need to be documented. Are there two more powerful, symbolic, mythical figures of a world--the 1960s--that still fascinates us and yet is quickly receding to memory and history than Dylan and Ali? Although I graciously offer my services to tag along and interview them, or better, simply hold the tape recorder as the two of them talk, somehow I feel that with Bob's legendary reticence and Muhammad's tragic loss of his verbal prowess, there wouldn't be much conversation, at least not much that these two would want to share with the public. But that's fine with me. I just want a classic, close-up photo of these two giants, in their older age. Something to study for years to come. Somebody get that picture now.

Kill Or Be Killed, For These Guys?

Did you see this story? A Scottish woman was sentenced to six years in prison for killing her husband. They had had a rather nasty fight (or row, to be more precisely Scottish), he pulled her to the ground, and she reached for a knife and stabbed him once, fatally. The authorities said alcohol was involved (no haggis, Sherlock). Apparently, though, what didn't come out in the trial but was reported is that the fight started over an argument about what music to listen to--Kenny Rogers or Bob Dylan (an argument for shuffle play on your music system if there ever was one). To me, though, the key aspect of this tragedy that isn't clear at all is which spouse--killed or killer--wanted which singer. Although the woman did get a relatively light sentence for manslaughter, not murder, I'm thinking, as a juror, the difference between Kenny and Bob is huge. But then again, I'm sure a good lawyer would have discovered my maximum Bob bias and had me tossed from the jury pool faster than a sane person punches the radio buttons upon hearing the first notes of Kenny's version of "Lady."

I don't mean to make a farce of this domestic tragedy, but it does raise some interesting questions to me. As great as my love for Bob is, I don't believe I would ever kill for that love or put myself in a position to be killed for that love, but still...

It would be sexist of me to assume the woman wanted Kenny while the man wanted Bob; I know too many intense Bob fans who are women to make that mistake. How do you think the man felt when his dying thoughts were, "I just lost my life because of my unstinting love of Kenny Rogers"? Or the woman, upon hearing her MacMiranda rights being read, thinking, "I just killed my husband and am probably looking at serious jail time for my unstinting love of Kenny Rogers"? Questions which, naturally, seem more surrealistic to me than if you substituted Bob's name in them. Would your fellow prisoners look at you and treat you differently knowing that you had killed someone over Kenny Rogers as opposed to Bob Dylan? Would a more creative judge had shortened the sentence to three years of listening to nothing but Kenny/Bob, whichever the woman couldn't stand?

(Paragraph for Bob freaks only): How sad would it be if the woman had wanted to listen to Knocked Out Loaded or Down In The Groove? How sadder if the guy had wanted to? Losing your life over Bob I can almost comprehend, especially if we're talking Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde On Blonde, Blood On The Tracks--the great ones--but to lose it over Bob's mid-80s nadir would be an irony that would kill me, even if the knife didn't.

(And speaking of Bob freaks, I recall a man in Australia, nearly twenty years ago, who killed his mother because she objected to his constantly playing "One More Cup Of Coffee" [a good song, but not a great one, and certainly no excuse for the crime of matricide]. A few years later the guy was in the news again when he requested a furlough in order to see Bob in concert [knowing those crazy Aussies, he probably got front row ducats and a satin touring jacket]. Which all leads me to remember that back in the Sixties the folks at Columbia Records had a big advertising campaign for a Bob album, the first Greatest Hits, I believe, with the tag line: "Nobody Sings Dylan Like Dylan." True enough, but I'm thinking those aesthetically-challenged Bob haters out there might get some mileage out of culling all these Bob-related homicides [as in Tiger, they gotta be thinking, where there's two, there's bound to be more] and launching a "Nobody Kills Like Dylan" campaign.)

But I think in the Scottish tragedy I have found a possible calling in my life: musical mediator. My credentials for marriage counselor are zilch, but I could sure step in and save the day in a domestic situation like the one those Scots experienced. Like a walking, talking, healing Venn Diagram, I--with my years of musical love and thousands of songs on my hard drive--could easily pacify any such situation. You want Kenny, and you want Bob? No problem, try some Willie Nelson, or Jerry Jeff Walker's Vera Terlingua! You want Madonna, and you want Van Halen? Try some New Order. You want Elvis, and you want Patti Smith? Try some Ike and Tina Turner (ironic, isn't it, that Ike and Tina could help quell domestic disturbances?). You want Susan Boyle, and you want Death Cab For Cutie? Listen, pal, open your mind, get a life, and just listen to Susan sing the Stones' "Wild Horses," you'll weep at the beauty. (Seriously.) You want Josh Groban, and you want Captain Beefheart? Who the hell allowed you two to get married? Opposites do not attract, got it? Now listen to Metal Machine Music for your sins and leave me the hell out of it. You want Michael Buble, and you want Michael Bolton? Good God, you take a crash course in Kenny Rogers, and you listen to nothing but Bob Dylan, and the both of you move to Scotland and start drinking, you scare the hell out of me.

No song today, this space reserved for a moment of silence.

Paraskevidekatriaphobia, anyone?

Yes, not to be confused with triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13), paraskevidekatriaphobia is the fear of Friday the 13th (although it seems to me by the time you manage to pronounce the word correctly, it will probably be Saturday the 14th or maybe even Sunday the 15th). I've only met one person in my life who suffered from paraskevidekatriaphobia, so I thought I'd take the opportunity of the date to tell you the story.

Coincidentally, the story takes place on this very date, November 13, in the year 1998, which also happened to be a Friday. I was settling down for my usual patty melt in Daffy's Bar & Grill, on the outskirts of Cleveland, waiting for the night's entertainment, Seether, a punk tribute band to the music of Pete Seeger, to take the stage when a disheveled guy walks in wearing black jeans and a dark gray anorak. He sits down unassumingly at the bar a few stools away from me and orders a chocolate milk and wheat toast. Nothing seemed odd until he called after Duffy (Daffy's twin brother who was minding the B&G because it was Friday evening and Daffy, who had converted to Judaism a few years prior, was home observing Shabbat), "And burn that toast good."

Can't be, I thought. Never in a million years. But that voice. I tried to look over nonchalantly and get a look at what just could be that famous profile, but the hood obscured even the nose. Well, I believe, I said to myself, and if nothing else I can tell the story for the rest of my life about how I sat three stools away from the man himself and quietly ate my patty melt as he drank chocolate milk and ate burnt wheat toast. And the toast, when it arrived, was very burnt. Smoking, even. "Hey man, you're an artist." Bingo. The way he said the word artist, the first syllable aggressive like a pistol shot, the second abandoned--it could be nobody else. Bob Dylan.

I'd rehearsed this moment in my dreams for years. I'd simply say, no introduction or anything, "Hey Bob, how important is finding the appropriate hat?"

Well, my courage was at best half-mustered when all of a sudden he turned to me, chocolate mustache beneath that nose and a well-gnawed burnt crust in his hands (it was Bob Dylan all right) and said, "Hey man, are you from around here?"

"Yes, Bob, I am." I felt there was no need to pretend I didn't know him.

"Man I been walking around all day, trying to find the place Alan Freed lived in when he lived here. Not my lucky day." He shook his head and gulped the last of the chocolate milk.

"Friday the thirteenth, what did you expect, Bob?" I had no clue where Alan Freed had lived when he lived here, but I had Bob Dylan, for the moment, hanging on my answer, so I wasn't going to make it easy for him.

"No," dragging the word out and running his crumb-laden fingers into the hood and through his famous hair, "shit." He burped then. "No wonder. I thought maybe it was Wednesday the 15th or something. Paraskevidekatriaphobia, man. I got it bad. Hey man," calling to Duffy, "get me something, anything, with alcohol in it."

"Tell me about it, Bob," I said, moving over to the stool next to him (not an "I know exactly what you mean" tell me about it, but an "I'm here, I will listen, unburden yourself" tell me all about it; hell, Blood On The Tracks alone had gotten me through at least 113 dark nights of the soul by then, I owed it to the man).

"In the wee hours of Friday morning, December 13th, 1963, I drifted off to sleep, and maybe it was the Beaujolais, but I had a helluva dream, my thirteenth, don't you know. A flat out nightmare. I was in a parlor somewhere in upstate New York, 1800s, and who was talking to me but Millard Fillmore, the former president of the United States. The thirteenth president, only because the twelfth, Zachary Taylor, had died of gastroenteritis. I mean, who doesn't get gastroenteritis just listening to the Eagles, but you don't die from it, man. Anyway, old Millard was retired by then, married an heiress, nothing to do but find Buffalo University, and he's bald, talking to me. Telling me all about his times with the Know-Nothing Party. Well, he wasn't all bald, he had a few hairs combed over across his head, you know? Like a bar code. Anyway, all of a sudden, one of the hairs, the thirteenth from the front, of course, stands up from his head and kind of points at me, like it's pointing a finger, and then the hair turns into some Texas lawyer named Wade from the present day, 1963, and he's pointing fingers and telling me I'm too young to know anything. Tells me I don't know shit. Man, I woke up sweating and I don't think I slept again for two nights. And, well, you know, that night, Tom Paine and all. Paraskevidekatriaphobia."

He hung his head over the bar, buried his hands deep into the anorak, and just shook his head. Feeling buoyed by the trust he showed in me for knowing the arcana of his life, I took my left arm, patted him gently on the back and said, "Midnight's approaching, Bob. Saturday the fourteenth is nigh."

"Thanks, man."

And so we drank away the rest of the night knocking back Chocolate Russians, ignoring Seether, and telling each other knock-knock jokes. Just after midnight Bob turned to me and said, "Man I ain't stupid. I know it's not Wednesday the fifteenth. But that's the only way, one, two, three times a year, whatever, I can cope."

"I understand, Bob."

"And goddamnit, you know who Wade was?"

"Tell me, Bob."

"The guy who prosecuted Jack Ruby for killing Oswald. And the Wade in Roe versus. Put a couple innocent people in jail, I think, too."

"It's a small world, Bob."

"Yeah, screw Alan Freed." With that he pulled out a crumpled c-note from his jeans, put it on the bar and said, "The night's on me. I owe you so much more, though." Then he stood up.

"No problem, Bob. Sweet dreams."

"The best kind, man. I'm up to four thousand something umpteen by now."


Behind the Curtain:

I swear this is how it happened. I'm puttering around this afternoon, trying to think up something to write for Friday the 13th. For whatever reasons, my brain fixates on the story of a man's thirteenth strand of combed-over hair. And I get the notion of finding out who the Wade in Roe v. Wade is and working him into the story. I also think of telling the story of Bob Dylan's 13th dream (of course there are the songs "Bob Dylan's Dream" [1962] and "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream" [1965], so I figure there's got to be a 13th dream, somewhere in 1963). Then I start the research, find out Millard Fillmore was the 13th president (and Zach Taylor did die of gastroenteritis), there's actually a word for fear of Friday the 13th, and all about Henry Wade. Now I've got the ingredients. My last thought is to see if I can find out what Fridays in 1963 fell on the 13th. Two seconds later on Google I'm looking at a calendar for 1963. I see a Friday the 13th in December, and then, oh my God, I'm thinking. Could that have been the date? Run upstairs to find my Bob Dylan day-by-day book (you mean your house doesn't own one?) and hot damn, there it is, the very day!

Long story short: On December 13, 1963, Dylan received the Tom Paine award given by the Emergency Civil Liberties Committe at its annual Bill of Rights dinner. As Clinton Heylin tells it, Dylan, 22 at the time, was a bit uncomfortable and supposedly drank heavily. In his speech, he insulted the audience, among other things for their lack of hair, and infamously said he could sympathize with Lee Harvey Oswald, who of course three weeks earlier had killed JFK. Well, there was a bit of an uproar, and Dylan, "profoundly embarrassed by his behavior" (in Heylin's words), later wrote an apology and offered to reimburse the committee for any loss in donations they suffered.

Mesmerized by finding out all this happened on a Friday the 13th, and somehow connecting (a wee bit only, perhaps) with baldness and Wade, I Googled a bit more and found this amazing page, with a transcript of Dylan's remarks that night (I think Heylin is right; drink seems to have gotten the best of Bob that night), a letter from the committee's head defending the choice of Bob as recipient of the award, and--new to my eyes--Bob's typescript of the rather fascinating letter of explanation/apology. Great reading.

Finally, I recall watching the Dylan documentary No Direction Home a few years ago and being somewhat amazed, even a bit disappointed, that years later, Bob seems to have dismissed his own embarrassment (which is pretty obvious to me in his letter) and now regards the incident as a kind of proud, standing up to the establishment moment. Alas, I searched in vain for the clip from the documentary that talks about the episode, but I couldn't find one. Anyway, more lattice of coincidence stuff. Happy 13th.

Marley's Ghost-Bob Dylan's Dream

The Great Man Himself

Happy Birthday, Mr. Faulkner, born William Cuthbert Falkner on this day in 1897. The Great Man Himself, as crazy Ralph from Philadephia referred to Faulkner the summer I spent in Mississippi with sixteen other budding Faulkner nuts as we studied five novels and a slew of short stories. That's when my love affair with Faulkner's writing began, a love that continues to this day. I've read all the novels, most of the short stories, and taught several of them, and my appreciation of the complexity, vision, humor, humanity, and sheer fun of it all only deepens.

Where to begin to express to you the joys of Yoknapatawpha County? Maybe Luster's remark in The Sound and the Fury, when asked where he got that quarter: "Got it at the getting place." Or Ned William McCaslin Jefferson Missippi, dealer of the funniest fart in literary history in The Reivers. Or the mighty Flem Snopes, whose rise and fall, along with various stories of his many kinfolk (including one Montgomery Ward Snopes), is chronicled in the trilogy (The Hamlet, The Town, and The Mansion). Or Anse Bundren, who just wants some new teeth, aside from burying his wife among her people in As I Lay Dying. So many amazing stories overflowing with unforgettable characters: Dewey Dell and Dilsey, the two Quentin Compsons (one male, one female, a generation apart, though even an astute reader, unaided, can be forgiven for not realizing all this until 200 or so pages into The Sound and the Fury), Ike McCaslin, on and on. But I can only froth at the mouth. A good starting place is here.

I celebrated by re-reading the story "Was," the first story in Go Down, Moses. One of the funniest stories I know of (though like all of GDM, incredibly insightful about race), "Was" concerns the trials of confirmed bachelor brothers Uncle Buck (Theophilus) and Uncle Buddy (Amodeus) McCaslin as they endeavor to retrieve their runaway slave (and half-nephew, don't ask) Tomey's Turl, who's run away again to the Beauchamp plantation (aka Warwick) to see his lover, Tennie. Unfortunately for Uncle Buck, waiting at the Beauchamp place is Sophonsiba, the sister of another confirmed bachlelor, Mr. Hubert. Sophonsiba (she of the roan tooth and the very personal way of sweetening a toddy) wants nothing more than to marry Uncle Buck. Much amusement ensues, capped off by a great game of five card stud between Mr. Hubert and Uncle Buddy, with the lives of Buck, Sophonsiba, Tomey's Turl, and Tennie hanging in the balance of whether or not Buddy's hole card is the last three in the deck. I can't recommend the story, or just about any Faulkner you want to dive into, highly enough.

And to wish The Great Man Himself a most happy birthday, and to give "Brother Bill his great thrill," I provide you a snippet of his favorite TV show: Car 54, Where Are You? Yes sir, the Nobel laureate had a thing for Fred Gwynne and clan.

Mississippi John Hurt-Ain't No Tellin'

Mississippi Fred McDowell-You Got To Move

Bob Dylan-Mississippi

Bob Dylan-Tombstone Blues

Tonight: Follow The Music

Tonight: Follow the music. That's how my horoscope concluded today. Well...all right. Outside of bagpipes, which I tend to go in the opposite direction of, and anyone walking out of the 1980s with a boombox and an "awesome" Dead tape he wants to play for me, I'll come following the music, any jingle jangle time of day or night (especially if you've got an "E" harmonica, Any-body).

About a year or so ago I had a great idea for a poem bringing together some of the many magical, mystical, mythical places in popular songs. Coupled with one of my favorite lines from Melville's Moby-Dick, the poem had epic written all over it. Well, this ain't no epic. I never really liked how this came out, but it's a start, maybe. If nothing more, all you musical trainspotters can tally up all the allusions and direct references; best answer/comment will receive a musical gift from yours truly. Anyway, you could do a lot worse than following the music.

How to Get to the Truest Places in Popular Song Without a Map

It’s not on any map; the truest places never are.
Herman Melville

Put your cat clothes on
And ride the summer wind west
On Thunder Road out of town
But don’t count the cars on
The New Jersey turnpike
Rather
Catch the number 12 bus
In the parking lot of the tree museum and
Fall asleep in Brooklyn
And don’t wake until you reach
The Tecumseh Valley between
The Sugar and Big Rock Candy Mountains.
Once there, wade across Cripple Creek
To the banks of the Ohio
Walk a mile in somebody else’s shoes
Then hop the Friendship Train
Riding the blinds past Folsom Prison
Parchman Farm, Maggie’s Farm, Tupelo, Ipanema
Through the eternal echoes of whippoorwills
And steel hammers
Chat with the three admirable men
Until you reach the coast
Then ride a pony onto a yacht
And Sail Away all the way to Ta hi ti
Where you’ll catch a wave to Caledonia.
Refresh yourself at the Dew Drop Inn
Before mounting a white bicycle
Acoustic variety,
And peddle your way past all
The fat-bottomed girls
Till you reach Fujiyama
(though do call ahead to tell
your Big Mama you’ll be rollin’ in).
After tossin’ and turnin’ and
Rockin’ and rollin’
On her big brass bed
Slip away at dawn
And in the early morning rain
Leave on a jet plane
Bound to some rain grey town
Where, upon disembarking,
Dis Harry in his taxi
And settle into a long black limousine and
Tell the driver the name of the place is
I Like It Like That
Adding that if he combs his hair right
And wears tighter pants, he could be a star.
Once in da club doff your hat
To the gin-soaked barroom queen
And imbibe your Coca-Cola flavored champagne
And when you eventually get bounced like a red rubber ball
Run up the nearest hill and flag a ride
On a magic carpet to the sea
Where you’ll take the plunge
Way down below the ocean
And come out the other side stomping wet in Bron-Yr-Aur.
Now you’re making progress.
Across the Village Green and just over Muswell Hill
You’ll spy a cathouse:
Put on some new blue jeans and hi-heel sneakers
And knock three times and ask for
Madam Roux.
She’ll tell you to take a hike
Down country roads to the crossroads
Just past the hedgerow with a bustle
Take a left (not a right, you don’t want to
Go to Chelsea) a left on Highway 61
And start crawling past the mansion on the hill
And the chicken shack with the pink Cadillacs out back
And the shotgun shack and the house of blue lights and
The Surf Ballroom, Belzoni’s sawmill,
The Piss Factory, Lodi, Hammersmith Palais,
The charred pyre at Joshua Tree,
Trenchtown and Rockaway Beach.
When you can finally see the Las Vegas Hilton
In the misty mountain fog,
Take the next right onto Cyprus Avenue
Where, at the dark end of the street,
`Neath the lone apple suckling tree,
You’ll find me lazing,
Waiting for you,
My I-Pod on random eternally.

Ken Boothe-Mr. Tambourine Man

Rolf Ableiter & Band-Shelter From The Storm

More Absurdity: 9/11

Yesterday I wrote about nonsense absurdity in life. Today's absurdity is much more complex. Without going into all the difficult details, on September 11, 2001, amid all the horror of that day, I experienced undoubtedly the most emotionally happy moment of my life, when I learned that someone I knew, who was in the World Trade Center when the planes hit, was safe.

It was so strange to be so elated, giddy really, while so much tragedy was occurring. I certainly can't feel guilty about my reaction, but when I think about the day I'm always struck by how gnarled life and life's experiences can be. Absurdity to the nth degree.

So it goes, I guess. My prayers for all those who lost loved ones that day.

Aimee Mann and Michael Penn-Reason To Believe

Bob Dylan-Where Are You Tonight (Journey Through Dark Heat)

Spit Out Your Gum

"Did you just spit?"

"Yeah, I love to spit."

She was the most beautiful tomboy I've ever known, and she had just expectorated a rather throaty gob on the sidewalk right next to the main doors of the venerable all-girls private school where I taught and she learned. Hundreds of girls in requisite plaid skirts were jamming the narrow entrance-way after a routine fire drill when I first heard then saw the spit.

It truly was "the spit" of my time at that school. After years of teaching at a similarly venerable all-boys school where there was "a spit" about every 90 seconds (so much so that the head maintenance guy would inform faculty meetings about the astronomical costs of spit removal around campus), including the rite of passage attempt to spit down six flights of steps and hit bottom rather than a banister (oh the demerits meted out for such salivary, phlegmatic infractions), my time at the girls school was happily spit-free, until that glorious moment when that particular girl let go.

Her spit shocked me, but her response delighted me. Instead of some blatant quick lie, "No, I didn't just spit," or some long-winded excuse about asthma, bronchitis, or accidentally inhaling a mosquito, the girl's no-shame, matter-of-fact, nearly proud declaration or her love of spitting just made me chuckle, and maybe shake my head a bit (no demerit was issued).

Shaking not in any "kids these days" impotent dismissal, but shaking in an almost awed respect for her honesty and, most important, her wisdom. Because really, who doesn't love to spit? I had thought it was just a guy thing, but as in so many other ways at that school, the girls--in this case, the girl--taught me a thing or two about the ways of the world. Yes, hopefully we all do move on from the twelve-year-old boy "I spit, therefore I am" ethos, but still, a good spit when needed, or in the right situation, just for the hell of it, is wholly satisfying.

But yes, gum. The girls might not have spit spit, but they sure chewed a helluva lot of gum, which under my vigilant watch entailed a lot of spitting out of gum. I'm sure by the time I taught girls, the boys had taught me the conniving trick of walking to the wastebasket and very demonstratively pulling out a long string of gum, snapping it off, then loudly dropping the gum into the trash--all the better to distract the teacher from the fact that there was still a good-sized hunk of gum in the offender's mouth. "All of it, Sara or Maya or Sarah or Eva or Marcella or whoever."

Some of them were armed with statistics about chewing gum and burning calories, others pleaded the age-old girls-school lament about being "so stressed out." Others just smiled, disposed of the gum, and I'm sure were chewing a fresh piece thirty seconds later.

When chaperoning a dance, it was easy to tell the kids you had to keep an eye on: the ones sloppily chewing a wad of gum.

One of my childhood friends, Tom, and I developed a ritual around the age of ten, when bubblegum chewing was a quasi-religious experience. After an hour or two of gnashing gum and replenishing the wad with fresh pieces every so often, one of us would pull out the well-masticated slab of whitened gunk and announce proudly, "Man, I chewed the HECK out of that gum." To this day, I can't get rid of a piece of gum without looking at it and saying softly, "Man, I chewed the HECK out of that gum."

But mainly for the great line in Bob (Uncle Bob) Dylan's "4th Time Around," his devastating parody of John Lennon's "Norwegian Wood." "Your words are not clear/You better spit out your gum."



Bob Dylan-4th Time Around

Robyn Hitchcock-4th Time Around

Chris Whitley-4th Time Around