Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Lava,

It was a combination of the two.  In the spirit of those early Warhol
books like A, I carried a tape recorder with me everywhere I went. 
After awhile it became an appendange and the people around me didn't
even realize it was on.  I also filled up scores of tiny little
notebooks with scribbles.  Transcribing both the notes and the tapes
after the tour was a monumental pain in the ass.
  

    
Dan

The only difference between the first and second tours was the
addition of Kinky Friedman so you figure it out.

Just kidding.  I didn't see any of the second leg since I was hard at
work writing the book but I share your sentiments about Hard Rain.  
  

    
Hello old friend

What's the deal with Ratso Slocum, is he an alter ego?

Unfortunately, Al Giordano borrowed my copy of your fine book and had
it stolen along with your excellent business card that I had saved for
20 years (it was a folding card with your pic inside and a quote from
dylan).

Did Hunter Thompson inspire you in anyway when writing this book?
  

    
      Obviously certain artists -- perhaps all major artists -- need
handlers of some sort.  In hindsight, John Lennon could've used a big
one armed with an AK-47.  But I agree with Gans that often they're
excercising their own egos with no relation to their responsibilities
to the artist.  I JUST went through it again with the biggest and best
country rocker in America.  I wrote two features on him for major
magazines and his manager was utterly rude to me.  The artist was as
sweet as he could be; a real mensch.  The manager was not.
      Anyway, onward.  Rats, in your educated opinion, what was
Dylan's Christian phase about?  How could a man who represented free
thinking give himself so completely to Jesus? 
  

    

Has the prespective of time given you any additional insight into
Bloomfield's query, "Were there times on the tour when he seemed accessible,
stripped of that character armor, or is he just a very private person?"  In
your book you answer, "I just don't know."  Have the ensuing years (and any
further relationship with Dylan) given you a different take on that?
  

    
<Nick Gravenites once told me that Bloomfield realized that everytime
he signed a contract, he was agreeing to be INSPIRED at a given time
and place. The pressure was crippling.>

Sorry to backpedal, but that's such a beautiful, bittersweet, noble
statement.  They rarely make 'em like Bloomie.  Imagine all the shit
art that would never be made if one had to be inspired in order to make
art.  Sad.  And it explains the depth of pain that something like
heroin kills. 
  

    
Hey everybody.  I'm back from seeing my stepdaughter and taking in
"Adaptation".  Interesting film.  I saw it with my twin, Ratso Slocum. 
Anyway, hi Bill.  Nice to hear from you.  Sorry about the book. 
Slocum was a name that Dylan gave me on the tour.  Also called me Fatso
when I was rail thin.  Pretty prophetic guy.  Of course, Hunter was a
major inspiration.  I remember seeing him in '72 in Miami Beach
covering the conventions.  I was there for the Daily Cardinal out of
Madison, Wisconsin.  I was in graduate school then and Michael
Wilmington, who would go on to be a major film critic and myself sent
back dispatches.  My impression of Hunter was that he was really tall
and wore really odd outfits.  He had to be the only person at the
demonstrations wearing bermuda shorts, a garish Hawaiian shirt, and one
of those old man hats that they wore in "Grumpy Old Men".  He was also
chomping on a long cigarette holder with a butt invariably attached. 
I sidled up next to him to get some tips and saw that he had a huge
oversized notebook into which he was scribbling huge oversized notes
like "POLICE HELICOPTER WHIRRING OVERHEAD".  Depp just scratched the
surface of his weirdness in that movie.  But his writing was always an
inspiration and obviously an influence.  
  

    
Mikey and Dennis,

I'll have to postpone answering those questions because I've got to
catch a flight back home to NY tomorrow.  The Christian period is
really interesting and deserves more than a glib response.  
  

    


Welcome to the Well, Larry.  I'd like to add to the Christian period
question before you get a chance to answer it.  Dylan's conversion took
place just three short years after RTR.  Were there any inklings of
it on the tour?  The Jesus imagery on the Hard Rain album has always
seemed rather obvious to me, and the tour itself had a sort of revival
element to it.  Your thoughts?
  

    

And while we're tacking on addenda to the Christian question: I agree
with Dan that one can detect inklings of the conversion in some aspects
of Rolling Thunder. IIRC correctly, "Renaldo and Clara" has a sequence
of Dylan and Allen Ginsberg talking about the stations of the cross at
the Kerouac burial site. And of course, it was reportedly some of the RT
musicians (the Alpha Band guys, IIRC) that first got Dylan seriously
thinking about Christianity.
  

    
      As he told us, Ratso is en route back to NY from LA at the
moment but he'll be back on The WELL late tonight or early tomorrow.
  

    
Gary, what is IIRC?
      
  

    

Shorthand for "if I recall correctly" -- or, as I typoed the first time
up there, "If I recall correctly correctly."
  

    
Okay I'm back.  The Ginsberg conversations notwithstanding there were
no inklings of any "conversion" dynamics on that tour.  In fact, I
wasn't on the second leg of RT but with Kinky around I don't see the
genesis of the Christian period there either.  Rather, it always seemed
to me that all that Christian stuff came after "Street Legal" which
always struck me as an album written by someone who has come to the end
of his/her rope and would be open to a consciousness shifting
religious experience.  (See "No Time to Think")  I remember talking to
Ginsberg about Dylan's Christian period and Allen's take on it was that
it was fine that Dylan had a profound religious experience but he
didn't have to hold it onto it that long.  "I saw Blake when I was
lying on my couch one day, but I let it go!"   Dylan's conversion came
shortly after the dissolution of his marriage.  I'm sure that had a
huge impact.  We could speculate endlessly on why something like that
happens -- but in a strange way, the Christian period gave him a
renewed energy.  Some of the best Dylan performances I've ever seen
were the Midwestern dates on the "Saved" tour.  He even talked between
songs -- even if it was to denounce San Francisco as Sodom and
Gommorrah.
  

    
Dennis,

I think the answer to your question comes later in the book. 
Bloomfield's conversation took place late one night after another dirty
trick.  My experience of Bob on that tour was nothing like the person
Bloomfield described.  Not to say that that person didn't exist, but it
wasn't my experience. 
  

    

> Some of the best Dylan performances I've ever seen were the Midwestern
> dates on the "Saved" tour.

I saw Dylan on both the "Slow Train" and "Saved" tours, and I remember think-
ing that hge looked more relaxed, real and engaged on the latter than I had
ever seen him.
  

    

The Saved tour might have been Bob's vocals at their best.
  

    

I gave up on Dylan altogether after his abysmal performance on the tour with
Tom Petty.

Dan Levy commanded me to go to the Bay Area shows in 1995, and I've been back
on the bus with a vengeance ever since.
  

    

Yeah, whatever one thought of the content of the songs in the "Slow
Train" and "Saved" period, the performances were among the most soulful
and committed I've ever heard from Bob.

I was also lucky enough to be at the Warfield on a couple of historic
nights during Dylan's second post-conversion run, in 1980. Some Bob fans
had jumped ship after the first run, and ticket sales for this one were
soft. Bill Graham got Bob to back off a bit from his absolute refusal to
perform any of the pre-Jesus material, and persuaded some friends of
Dylan's to come down to the shows to sit in (and help jumpstart some
walk-up business). I was there on the night that Jerry Garcia played on
a coupla tunes, which was swell, but was far more thrilled by the
appearance of Mike Bloomfield (in his time ever on stage, I think),
playing on "The Groom's Still Waiting At The Altar" and, better yet,
recreating his immortal lead licks on "Like A Rolling Stone" (something
I never thought I would experience live).

Another nice moment I recall at that Warfield run -- Bob, at the piano
with Clydie King, doing the then-unknown "Let's Keep It Between Us"
(which Bonnie Raitt covered shortly thereafter on the "Green Light"
album, but which I don't think has come out on an official Dylan release
-- it isn't on "Biograph" or any "Bootleg Series" release, is it?).

I never gave up on Dylan, even when I was catching some of those less-
than-compelling performances in the mid-to-late 80s -- in part because
he earned a lifetime of slack from me with his earlier work, but also
because the "which Bob will show up tonight?" perversity that often
attends his appearances is, in a weird way, part of the thrill of it
all.  And that perversity is still there, to my ears... I have not
bought unreservedly into the "Bob's back, and better than ever!" hype of
recent years -- maybe because I never thought he was entirely gone, and
also because I just have to listen to the England '66 stuff or the
better "Before The Flood" material or Rolling Thunder to convince me
that "better than ever" is a shaky proposition at best. I have seen a
few really good Dylan performances in the Never-ending tour era, but I
have also seen my share of detached, uncompelling walk-throughs. But
like I said, the perversity is an integral part of the Art of Bob, I
think. Along with Van Morrison and a small handful of others, Dylan is
among the most convincing pretenders to the "Master of Suspense" title
vacated by Alfred Hitchcock.

I have also heard wildly varying accounts of Bob's level of engagement
and interest during Rolling Thunder, and wouldn't be surprised to learn
that they are all true. Ratso, did you perceive that perverse, mercurial
side of Dylan at work during the tour?
  

    

> Along with Van Morrison and a small handful of others, Dylan is among the
> most convincing pretenders to the "Master of Suspense" title vacated by
> Alfred Hitchcock.

Ha!  Excellent.
  

    
The last verse of "Where Are You Tonight," the final cut on _Street
Legal_, is easily as "born-again"  as anything on _Slow Train_ or
_Saved_. 

I've always thought that the so-called Christian records get short
shrift, and furthermore that they don't diverge in theme much form most
of the other records. The religious messaging is just overt rather
than being a subtext.

The Saved tour was pretty damned good for D. vocally.  The Street
legal_ tour  featured a band that was a really interesting amalgam of
disco and gospel that I'm not sure has ever been repeated, by Dylan or
anyone else!
  

    
The best Dylan show I've ever seen (IL State Fair) was during his
worst period as a live performer. I think it was in 88 or 89.
  

    
Adam

I beg to differ on your interpretation of "Where Are You Tonight?" as
I don't think you can take that last verse out of context of the whole
song, which, I think can be read as a song of secular longing.  In
fact, some have argued that that particular song refers to the Rolling
Thunder revue.
  

    
Gary,

As I wrote in the book Dylan never let me down onstage that whole
tour.  I think it might have been the second leg of RT where he began
to lose interest.
  

    

>Dylan never let me down onstage that whole tour

That's great to hear! Missing Rolling Thunder remains one of the very
few regrets of my very blessed concert-going life (up there with never
seeing Coltrane, Monk or Ellington live, and not catching the insane
double bill of Bruce Springsteen and The Wailers at Max's Kansas City).
Missing that first leg was especially galling, as I had just emigrated
to California from New England the year before, and here I was stranded
on the West Coast as Dylan and this amazing hit-and-run carnival was
playing all these little halls right in my former neck of the woods.

To make an awkward segue... someone else who missed Rolling Thunder was
Phil Ochs. Phil was an early hero of mine, and I got to know him
through my regular attendance at his shows, running into him at
demonstrations and Yippie events, and so on, and still miss him. Phil
toiled throughout his career in Bob's shadow, of course, and the
relationship between the two men seemed to be an often uneasy one --
there are some stories of the younger, pre-accident Dylan being pretty
damned mean to Ochs, in fact -- but there seemed to be a mending of
fences between them in the early 70s, culminating in Dylan's surprise
appearance at the Salvador Allende memorial show organized and headlined
by Ochs in 1973.  At the very start of the RT Revue, at the birthday
party for Mike Porco at Folk City, the was a reportedly very awkward
encounter (or, rather, avoidance of encounter) between the two: Phil,
quite clearly, desperately wanted to be invited on the tour (there are
some accounts of Ochs having been partially responsible for planting in
Dylan's head the notion of a spontaneous, unstructured small-venue tour,
and Phil envisioned himself as part of it); Dylan, just as clearly, did
not want to invite Phil, and wanted to avoid a confrontation with him at
Folk City. Evidently, he succeeded -- Phil was left behind when the
circus left town, and was, by all accounts, devastated, sinking even
deeper into the depression and drinking that would soon swallow him.

Larry, you might be unable to answer this, or reluctant to speculate,
which would be understandable, but I'll ask nonetheless: did you know or
spend much time with Phil? Did you have any kind of decent vantage point
from which to observe the Dylan/Ochs dynamics at Folk City or elsewhere,
or get any sense of how others in the Rolling Thunder entourage felt
about Phil and his exclusion from the tour?  I know that speculation on
such a thing is futile, but as someone who knew and loved Phil, I've
long wondered whether anything could have been done to pull him out of
his downward spiral, and particularly whether being part of Rolling
Thunder could have helped repair his shattered self-confidence (I last
saw Phil in 1974, just before I moved to California, and so missed the
swiftest, steepest part of his decline). I don't expect any clear-cut
answers, of course, but any insight you might have would be greatly
appreciated).