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| Mystery Man I'd mix a margarita for Jimmy Buffet. I'd down a fifth of rot gut with Tom Waits. I'd repair car engines with Bruce Springsteen. I'd split a case of PBR with Neil Young, sit out on the farm's front porch, and wax nostalgic. I'd run into mean 'ole Jack Nicholson in a basement dive and trade bourbon shots, constantly looking over the diminutive glass to make sure the guy remained emotionally stable. I'd smoke some pot with Tom Petty. I'd share moonshine with Merle Haggard, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson. Then smoke some more pot with Willie. I'd trip with Jimi, shoot with Jerry, flash audiences with Jim, and all three with Janis; assuming I didn't know any better. If he hadn't dedicated his life to recovering from everything including being funny, I'd even snort a little coke with Chevy Chase. At least, that's what I'd like to think. Those are unfair cliches instantly attributed — beautiful cliches they are, too.
I'll tell you though, I don't, for the life of me, have any idea what I would drink, think, inhale, say, or do around Bob Dylan. It's a mystery. The man is intentionally underdeveloped. He's gone through so many changes in his music no one caricature can come close to summing him up. His music's unknown persona is so three dimensional, his baffling legend seems paper-thin by comparison. Sure, anyone can imagine the reefer madness that could have inspired "Rainy Day Women 12 & 35." Just as anyone listening to Slow Train Coming can imagine the night of bingeing on the blood of Christ. And, just between you and me, I can imagine telling Bob I want to drink alone after trying to stomach a sloppy serving of Down In The Groove. How could anyone, however, be all of those things at once? Bob Dylan almost doesn't seem to exist after you strip away inaccuracies in the myths of his early years in Hibbing, Minnesota, the rumors of Big Pink and the lore of his current "Never Ending Tour." He's so personally detached in concert that echoes from those 1966 boos seem to bounce around completely empty halls in bootlegs. Dylan rarely even reacts. The man gave so much music and so many phrases to popular culture, and yet no one, even ardent Dylan fans, really knows anything about him. Ask most big Bob Dylan fans if they'd want to meet him. They'll say, after a moment's hesitation, "No." Because meeting Bob Dylan would be irrelevant. Maybe he'll listen to what you say and depart some compassion and caring. Maybe he'll listen to what you say and respond with words so devastating and brilliant that you won't be able to comprehend or respond. Or, most likely, he'll glare and sneer, "That's what you have to figure out. Not me. You." He's right. He can't tell you what to think or make the sun chicken. He may be a rock deity but he's not a Greco-Roman God. You'll get it in your own way, not his way. He knows that. Even Joan Baez, the ex-friend, ex-lover, and constant annoyance, seemed to understand after a few years failing to harmonize. "You were so good with words," she sang during the Bob/Baez/every-folk-singer-with-a-year-to-kill 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue, "and making things vague." But here's the catch. Most big Dylan fans don't care all that much about his birthday, children or favorite type of cigarette. Dylan actually means more than specifics. You can't get Dylan any more than you can intentionally catch a cold. You can fracture and figure, speculate and cite — you're never gonna figure it out. You know something's happening, but you don't know what it is, do you? Maybe three years after the first time you hear "Tombstone Blues," someone says something that meant nothing three years before, and now, suddenly you know what Bob was talking about when he sang something as innocuous as, "but the town has no need to be nervous." Then it all starts to make sense in a sick, positively paranoid way. Even then, you don't wish you could talk to him. You don't wish you could say, "Bob, I get it." You figured it out yourself. In the end, what you figure isn't even what Bob meant. It's what the song means to you. Bob, the perpetual hermit, wouldn't want his feelings to get in the way. Listening to a new bootleg, seeing him in concert, and reflecting on, not refracting, his lyrics are all personal experiences - your personal experiences, not Bob's. Those experiences, more than any idealized event with any celebrity, is the most personal gift of all. |
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| Jeff Rose is the Bob Dylan of NATN writers. He does his own thing and you never know quite what to expect from him. Yet, he has managed to produce an incredible body of work, including two or three great articles in the '90s. |
| more bob dylan at nude as the news Time Out Of Mind bob dylan links Official Site The Bob Dylan Critical Corner |
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