The release of Bob Dylan’s No Direction Home has allowed me to spark giddy Dylan-obsessing conversations with any Best Buy customer who so much as looks at the DVD in the store. One gentleman had picked up the documentary and I immediately showed him this scrapbook that we’ve got, too. I’m flipping through the pages and telling him about the various time periods it goes through, when he interrupts me…
“Yeah. I know all about that. My dad was in the band when Dylan went electric.”
I slammed the book shut. “Your dad….your dad was in The Band? The Band, The Band?”
“Yep. My dad is Levon Helm.”
df;lakfjwae;lkfizxcfkjae;rlkcv/amer;lksduf;aldkfjae!!!!!
(And for all of you who don’t know The Band…in which case immediately go out and watch The Last Waltz and prepare to have your mind blown… everyone knows the song “The Weight”, aka “Take a load off, Fanny,” and Levon is the guy who sings the vocals.) Anyway, I freaked out and tried to resist my natural inclination to ask lots of questions…who knows what the relationship with his dad is like, etc. etc. I wanted to ask him about stories his dad has told him. I wanted to say really dorky things, like “MY dad got stoned and listened toYOUR dad!” But it was cool. He said I was such a good salesperson (??) that he gave me a ticket to a show at the Bluebird on Saturday. Which I can’t go to. But that was nice.
Good story.
Bob Dylan is mentioned in some shape or form in FIVE posts on this page alone. I need to stop.
September 29th, 2005 at 10:12 pm
i’ve been watching ‘no direction home’ on endless repeat since i got it. there are no words.
i’ve seen bob dylan live eight times but like so many other things it never got better than the first one. it was in deluth in 1999, outside, right on the lake, on the fourth of july, and they introduced him as “local recording artist bob dylan”–you know cause he’s from near there. paul simon played first,which was insaine in its own right, and then bob wandered out and he looked like someone had just woken him up. they sang this lonely plantive maritime version of “sound of silence” together. dylans voice sounded metallic and his eyes keep focusing piercingly on different people in the audience and then he’d do this big joker smile every once in a while at someone. also he was dressed like a new orleans gambler, like a pimp, like arsineo hall.
oh and at that same concert two different girls peed on my favorite sweater. i wasn’t wearing it at the time and i don’t blame bob for that.between songs bob said: “my first girlfriend was from here. she was so selfish i used to call her mimi.” (me-me)a joke. and it killed. was this a reference to his possible romance with joan baez’s less talented but somehow more fetching younger sister?
that’s mimi on the right here.
don’t you wish 60s era bob dylan would pop into your sears style family portratures too?
its been a while but i’m remember this all vaguely from the fantastic book positively fourth street. written by someone.
my other bob dylan story, since you asked, is the man himself came into a bookstore in that i was working in in terre haute, in, on my day off. this would have been 1998. for the record he was wearing a hoody and shorts that showed off his little old man legs and his purchases consisted of a valentines day card and some micheal jordan commerative coins we sold at the counter. weird. i can’t verify the validity of that personally. but i did extensively interview the 50’s-ish ex hippy little guy with a white mustache that was bob’s cashier at this mythic encounter. it so happened he was a big fan and couldnt help being obviously dumbstruck. and thats when this happened: bob looked up and then deep into the trembling man’s eyes and said: “a lot of people stare at me…but i’m not him.”
and with that he took his commerative coins and valentines day card and hoped onto the gigantic tour bus that was parked right outside. well done sir, well done.
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September 29th, 2005 at 10:17 pm
mimi’s on the left, of course.sleepy. i misspellt allvrything.
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September 29th, 2005 at 11:27 pm
okay, so the baez’ werent from minneapolis, and everyone knows that bob’s first girlfriend was named echo hellstorm or something.
but my thesis still stands: mimi baez was ten pounds of sexy in a five pound daisy print skimmer!
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September 30th, 2005 at 5:35 am
haha, what fantastic stories.
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October 1st, 2005 at 10:35 pm
That’s it. I’m photoshopping Bob Dylan into all of my family portraits.
And thank you for this comment. Those are indeed great stories. I can’t believe you saw Simon AND Dylan. I fucking hate you. And how did those girls pee on your sweater?
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October 2nd, 2005 at 7:41 pm
we got there something like 12 hours ahead of time and it was a huge outdoor area–you know where its just you right up on the stage but then you look back and there is this endless biblical breathtaking sea of people in all directions behind you, that piled in sometimes while you werent look and you know if you have to pee youre never coming back nor will you ever see your friends again. so you would think that these people up front humping the proscenium would be the biggest fans. thats about 33 % true. whats truer is that people on the most drugs magnetically levitate up to the front like the children of the corn. but fun. or maybe they just alienate everyone from the back up individually until its just them staring and dancing up front eye to eye with the stage security guard.
the first young lady in our story just walks up next to me and drops trou and to be honest my knee-jerk reaction was i was into it with internal monolouge overtones of “hey i can totally see her butt” and only once she scampers off do i remember that i had delicatley folder and placed my favorite burgandy jumper, a “woobie” of sorts, down at that exact spot.
but fine, i role with it. im a big boy.
the next woman to come into my life is more of a free spirit. this is some time later. she has a long hippy-fied, you know patches and whatnot, dress on and shes dancing as her people do, you know hippies, which is to say stoned and waving her arms in circles cause it feels good. but still, and yes my then girlfriend is standing next to me this whole time– but this girl has a quality, im saying there is a vibrance and a youth there so i’m looking at her and i’m spell bound as whats then fated to go down goes down. have you done this move?
she doesnt even bother to squat all too much, this girl. she just takes a plastic beer cup and sort of positions it under her long loose dress and then, you know, peeing in a plastic cup is its own sound (insert your favorite bob dylan song over top…just like a woman?). but once again i’m mesmorized because apparently up front at this concert has declared itself its own civilization. i keep waving off little yellowed roach joints, clip and all, being passed down the line, clearly long lost to the original owner. and so then this girl puts the cup down by her feets and starts up again immediatley with her crazy hippy dancing and thats when i snap back into it: “hey, my already girl pee covered favorite sweat–!”
kick. sploosh.
and then anyway the crowd pushes up and shifts little by little over time like a tetonic plate and the ground goes more mud, and i never saw that sweater again.
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October 2nd, 2005 at 7:42 pm
and i’m sorry but there is just one more thing i have to say here because i remembered that i’ve actually seen dylan nine times but i think i blocked the last one out because it was pretty lame and horrific. but again not bobs fault.
the short version: i almost got in a god honest fist fight with a pony-tailed ex-hippy art proffesor looking like 50-ish dude because i wouldn’t extinguish my cigarette. seriously. and okay i was kinda drunk and someone throwing down to you in front of bob dylan is kind of like that happening in front of your dad i think. you know: you cant back down. not that this got grandoise past the point of it catching the attention of just our immediate unfortunates. but i lean over and whisper, or yell, which is the concert equivilant, in this guys ear: “hey its a rock show, man, not a p.t.a. meeting.” i know, i know. i feel slimy just repeating it but i think he trigger some sort of art proffesor issues that i have. so then he yells something in my ear like, i swear to god,”i’ll end you” or “i’ll take you out” or “mess you up man” or something just really antisocial and then then or a bit later he shoves me really hard into my friends. and time just stops you know and its a flash point where i see the other thing happen where this turns into a full on brawl with teenagers and hippies braking barstools over each others backs (i’m not sure where they would get barstools). and then once again the dad analogy: i think mostly i would have felt ashamed to be the guy that started the brawl that killed the music and then dylan up there shaking his head or something.
so i put out the cigarette and go back and stand next to the guy.
and right then. next song. i swear on my life:
dylan goes into a cover of “old man” by neil young.
you know: “old man take a look at your life, i’m a lot like you were.” i swear. and i look over at the guy and i want to say we hugged right then but he was the same rage-aholic hippy and totally oblivious to the beautiful moment we were sharing. and i know it must sound like i’m making this up but its true and magic things just happen to me when i’m around bob dylan. that and i’ve gotta say also all the drugs everyone is on.
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October 2nd, 2005 at 7:44 pm
i’m not crazy i just work overnight as a security guard and i enjoy creative writting.
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October 7th, 2005 at 5:56 am
I read this entry when I was high, and wasn’t entirely sure it was real. So I went to bed, and forgot to comment.
That’s a fantastic story, though.
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