0516blog
Dylan the Great
I gobble up the smallest, most benign, meaningless, frippery and minutia about Bob Dylan, from his songs and their multiple layers and hidden meanings that offer all the answers to life to his height and weight, past marriages and kids and this fixation bordering on fetishism concerns me and this is no way for a 71-year-old man to behave.
Like every one who lives in idolodulia, I know in my brain that this is a false idol, that I have absolutely no idea what Dylan is really like, whether he is a nice guy or a schmuck, whether he looks in the mirror every morning and gawks at Bob Dylan in self-reverence or whether he thinks he’s been the biggest and baddest phony and charlatan that the world has ever known. I’ve read about how he never speaks with his bandmates and a friend who was part of the private security entourage at one concert was told to never, ever look Dylan in the eye and of course, there are the persistent rumors that he used to beat his first wife, Sarah, before she finally had enough and dumped him and out goes that sad-eyed lady of the lowlands.
But his songs were works of art crafted by a master that had meanings that touched me deeply to the core and I have always worshiped him for seemingly never backing down and always being honest to a fault, facing off against the worst that society has to offer even though I will be on my deathbed and still won’t understand why the ragman was drawing circles and I am utterly uncritical and would buy a record of Dylan badly singing Christmas songs, which he has done or a collection of song that border on babble, which he has done, but so what, he is Dylan and he can do anything and do no wrong.
Dylan will soon turn 80 which seems unreal in itself and the thought of him dying is almost incomprehensible because gods do not die. The Dylan of today is a mammoth, money making machine and I could probably find a way to rationalize that and still keep him on his pedestal as the professor of all that is honest and wise. But I must admit that the continuing blitz of commercialization is embarrassing, as if Jesus himself signed autographs and sold T-shirts about his crucifixion.
There are the non-stop Dylan compilations albums with earlier and earlier and earlier versions of songs, out-takes, photos of Dylan smoking, Dylan walking, Dylan playing the guitar, Dylan with his first girlfriend, Suzie Rotolo, Dylan with his dog, Dylan with George Harrison and Tom Petty. And all of this from the man who channeled Woody Guthrie, refused to be labeled, wrote dizzying tales of love and sadness, railed against materialism and was about as anti-hero as you can get and meanwhile he’s reportedly worth between $400 million and $500 million. I am on Dylan Facebook groups. “Bob Dylan & Friends,” “Bob Dylan discussion group,” “Bob Dylan Art” and “Dylanology” and I once bought a denim jacket and ironed the pockets open just like the jacket that Dylan wore on his the 30th Anniversary Concert held in 1992 at Madison Square Garden and I carefully restrung my guitar and left the ends long, just like I saw Dylan do on an album cover.
I know I am not alone in my obsession over Dylan and I remember in the 1960s there was a forgettable guy by the name of Alan Weberman, who would routinely sift through Dylan’s garbage to find clues about the music and the man outside of the bard’s MacDougal Street home in Greenwich Village.
And if you Google Bob Dylan you will find 4,090,00 search results and that is a lot of mania. Talk about being packaged and sold, available on Dylan’s website are dozens of books about the bard, from “Bob Dylan: The Drawn Blank Series” to “Bob Dylan: The Brazil Series,” “Bob Dylan: The Nobel Lecture,” “Bob Dylan: The Essential Interviews” and more. There is Dylan’s own line of alcoholic beverages, “Heaven’s Door Double Barrel Whiskey,” Heaven’s Door: Straight Rye Whiskey” and “Heaven’s Door: Tennessee Bourbon.” There are Bob Dylan “Desire” T-shirts and sweat shirts, “The Times They Are a Changin” hoodies, “One More Cup of Coffee” mugs, “Crawl Out Your Window” caps and tote bags, not to mention “Beyond Here Lies Nothing” bumper stickers and “Bob Dylan Blowin in the Wind” nautical bandanas and that’s just the tip of the commercial iceberg that includes beanies, key rings, coasters, postcards, IPhone cases, and also, the “Bob Dylan Fan Club Deputy Marshall” badge.
The Bob Dylan Center will soon open in Tulsa, Okla., and maybe I will save my pennies and go and I am sure admission will cost a lot because this is Bob Dylan.