MultiMedia and the Avant-Gardes

I had to help write an essay about multimedia performances a few years ago, and found a wonderful book by Richard Kostelanetz which gave me a clue to how to shape the piece.

I have just bought it through AbeBooks for a very good price, as the Amazon going rate seemed much higher (£20-30 for the paperback).

Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes.

Mr Kostelanetz has written a myriad of fascinating material, and his website is definitely worth a visit.

Admittedly, I bought the first edition (1993) - the one that inspired me - and he has updated the second edition (2001) - with the cover shown here.
Indeed, he has offered some draft updates, should a third edition ever appear.

What I found, to help me shape the essay/thesis (with a deadline of a week!) was his reference to mixed-means theatre. He analysed the various forms that he covers with that term (Happenings, stage performances, kinetic environments, etc) using what I assume he got from Aristotle's rather rigid 'unities' for theatrical performances:

• The unity of action: a play should have one main action that it follows, with no or few subplots.



• The unity of place: a play should cover a single physical space and should not attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one place.



• The unity of time: the action in a play should take place over no more than 24 hours.

However, to describe the wider variety of audience, performer, creator interactions of mixed media / multimedia performance (including circus, in my terms) he offered this table:

And that gave me all the structure I needed to help my friend shape his thesis. We simply worked through all the practical projects and shows he had done, and described them as involving:

• open or closed space



• fixed or variable time



• fixed or variable actions.

So I owe Mr Kostelanetz quite a bit (and the library for having a copy of his book available at the time).
On top of all that, I love dictionaries, and this remains a treasure trove of cross-references, eye-openers, and other fun. He doesn't only cover some of my own favourite artists: Duchamp, Cage, Jarry, Joyce; but other perhaps less expected ones like Burroughs, Dylan and Bucky Fuller; and also genres from Performance Art to Punk Rock to Hypertext, and groups like Fluxus and Dada.

She does it proud

I love my partner dearly, and we are coming up to ten happy years together, but I have to go off into my den if I want to crank up Dylan and play him (nearly peer group, and he always said what I wanted to say). If I tell her to listen to the lyrics it doesn't work, as she can't stand his voice and delivery (she's a singer). I point to Hendrix singing "All Along the Watchtower"...which she loves, and even Dylan does it that way now...but she didn't know he wrote that.

So when KT Tunstall came on at the end of a mostly drearily retro folky Dylan tribute tv programme - and blew the audience away with the first two tracks of Blood On The Tracks - I wanted to share it. Didn't have video recording access. On YouTube now you can see her doing the first track (did anyone record the follow up of "Simple Twist Of Fate" - please post it!) You can glimpse a clip at the BBC on the link above. Oh, and I liked Robyn Hitchcock doing Visions of Johanna, too. No disrespect to the folkies (I loved you once...)

YouTube has her doing it on Jules Holland's show, but you get the drift. Who else does write lyrics anything like this? Read this, maybe, but listen to KT's delivery at the same time...

Early one mornin' the sun was shinin',
I was layin' in bed
Wond'rin' if she'd changed at all
If her hair was still red.
Her folks they said our lives together
Sure was gonna be rough
They never did like Mama's homemade dress
Papa's bankbook wasn't big enough.
And I was standin' on the side of the road
Rain fallin' on my shoes
Heading out for the East Coast
Lord knows I've paid some dues gettin' through,
Tangled up in blue.

She was married when we first met
Soon to be divorced
I helped her out of a jam, I guess,
But I used a little too much force.
We drove that car as far as we could
Abandoned it out West
Split up on a dark sad night
Both agreeing it was best.
She turned around to look at me
As I was walkin' away
I heard her say over my shoulder,
"We'll meet again someday on the avenue,"
Tangled up in blue.

I had a job in the great north woods
Working as a cook for a spell
But I never did like it all that much
And one day the ax just fell.
So I drifted down to New Orleans
Where I happened to be employed
Workin' for a while on a fishin' boat
Right outside of Delacroix.
But all the while I was alone
The past was close behind,
I seen a lot of women
But she never escaped my mind, and I just grew
Tangled up in blue.

She was workin' in a topless place
And I stopped in for a beer,
I just kept lookin' at the side of her face
In the spotlight so clear.
And later on as the crowd thinned out
I's just about to do the same,
She was standing there in back of my chair
Said to me, "Don't I know your name?"
I muttered somethin' underneath my breath,
She studied the lines on my face.
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe,
Tangled up in blue.

She lit a burner on the stove and offered me a pipe
"I thought you'd never say hello," she said
"You look like the silent type."
Then she opened up a book of poems
And handed it to me
Written by an Italian poet
From the thirteenth century.
And every one of them words rang true
And glowed like burnin' coal
Pourin' off of every page
Like it was written in my soul from me to you,
Tangled up in blue.

I lived with them on Montague Street
In a basement down the stairs,
There was music in the cafes at night
And revolution in the air.
Then he started into dealing with slaves
And something inside of him died.
She had to sell everything she owned
And froze up inside.
And when finally the bottom fell out
I became withdrawn,
The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew,
Tangled up in blue.

So now I'm goin' back again,
I got to get to her somehow.
All the people we used to know
They're an illusion to me now.
Some are mathematicians
Some are carpenter's wives.
Don't know how it all got started,
I don't know what they're doin' with their lives.
But me, I'm still on the road
Headin' for another joint
We always did feel the same,
We just saw it from a different point of view,
Tangled up in blue.
Copyright © 1974 Ram's Horn Music

Lord knows, I've paid some dues, getting through... (yeah, I was going through the break up of a long term relationship at the time, too) Duh

All the people we used to know, they're an illusion to me now. Some are mathematicians, some are carpenter's wives. I don't know how it all got started, I don't know what they're doin' with their lives. But me, I'm still on the road headin' for another joint. We always did feel the same, We just saw it from a different point of view...

Go score Blood On the Tracks and listen to the stripped down, original version, of Tangled Up In Blue..

My Desert Island Dylan (can I take Blonde on Blonde, with me too, please? And maybe Planet Waves, and uh, oh well, fuck it...)

This lyric alone kept me going all these years:

The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keepin' on
like a bird that flew

Surprise! = Information!

Funny thing. I really love surprise. My favourite DJ doesn’t play my favourites, but plays stuff I never heard before. I still miss John Peel. Now I have DJ Bob Dylan to surprise me, and make me listen to stuff I never tried before.

My favourite authors offer me words I never heard before, or familiar words in surprising combinations, or both. Robert Anton Wilson edged me into Ezra Pound and James Joyce, and my respect for him made me work at it, give it time, overcome my pre-judgements, and try to get the context, the intent, the 'feel'.

Bob Dylan has turned up to open my ears (not with his own music, but music that he loves, and influenced his development) but the young things around me can’t even listen to his DJ voice, and his stories, and his musical anecdotes – and probably flip channels as soon as he plays something their prejudice says they don’t like.

Bob Harris used to do a great show for eclectic stuff, but ‘They’ let him go eventually.

He has turned up on the BBC again, and nowadays plays Country & Western (and even my hackles go up at the idea) and yet he finds all kinds of stuff I like. I keep saying ‘does this belong in that category? How come I like it?'

Hey ho. I grew up with voices (my dad did all the voices for his puppets, my mum sang and taught actors how to use their voices). I love vocal tones. For that reason (among others) I love W.C.Fields (a master of the drawl) and Bob Dylan (a master of vocal tones, like a great actor – I didn’t say he could ‘sing’ but few people can beat his delivery of his own material). I don’t have any musicianship, but even if I don’t like smooth tones (Sinatra, etc) I can appreciate phrasing and timing and delivery.

I like to feel surprised.

Robert Anton Wilson has pointed out that Information = Surprise (the very slogan of his online academy), but I won’t go into that now.

We just lost James Brown. How about him for a total package of show-biz, phrasing, rhythm, tones, and all?

Ah me, and back to the bland, and safe, and familiar world – no challenge, no surprise, no new information. Nothing to shake up yer world view, or stretch yer brain, as Chinese music did mine, or the Oud, or Flamenco, or just about anything I never heard before.

I don’t really care if no-one much shares my tastes around here. I can find people with equally weird tastes on the Internet.

Hello to all my long-distance friends old and new, and not yet met. Enjoy!

Be Seeing You!

It ain't a fit night out for man or beast

Ah me. In this Kafkaesque world where I do not understand how things work, I still put a foot wrong pretty often. For a life-long veggie, atheist, anti-capitalist the Turkey/Jesus/Shopping festival confuses me. In terms of family, my dad died in 1978, my mum in 1994, and my children and grand-child live too far away for me to visit right now...as do my sister and her children...

At least Bob's DJ show on Radio 2 [Listen again, here] came through with some wonderful, eccentric Xmas music. Julie works today and tomorrow, so it just seems like Sunday to me. Tomorrow (Monday) which the locals call Christmas Day, I only usually commemorate as the day W.C.Fields died (a good enough excuse for a drink).

[images from The Fatal Glass of Beer]

Mr Dylan offered a cool yule quote from Dickens' The Pickwick Papers (chapter 28):
Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home!

As Bob said "written in 1836, and a far cry from Bah Humbug!"

I fell at the last fence

Oh well, I tried. I nearly made it too!

I said I would try to stay happy through the Christmas frenzy, make no snide comments, etc.

I didn’t make it. I have a friend with a bad back, a friend who separated from his wife and gets a crappy Christmas handed to him as his gift, even a friend who tries to escape the frenzy, who breaks her arm and can't get on the plane to Borneo. The S.A.D kicked in, and I came home to collapse into five days of rest, only to mess it up and spoil any possible fun going. Sigh. I'm told I do it every year. Spoil the turkey festival. I really must ask Pete Brown (if I can find him) where he goes for his Buddhist retreat, and next year just disappear to meditate on my 'true nature' as a terrible spoilsport.

The news stays full of murder and mayhem, the local priest gets busted for child abuse, the rich (anyone with credit, these days) get stuck in airports instead of making their way to sunny beaches, the Brits carry on photocopying their bums on the office copier, getting too drunk and having sex with office colleagues, before drunk-driving home to randomly kill innocents and spoil Christmas for dozens of other families. The shops can’t give stuff away, as people slightly cut back on their extravagance (4 million in the UK haven’t paid for last Christmas yet, apparently) – so bring the Spring Sale forward to before Christmas has even happened (heh).

When people get upset at my anti-religious rants, and claim it as a 'national holiday for families' I ask why all the stress at seeing the parts of the family they spend the year avoiding, and the sense of pressure and obligation. I don’t think of a holiday as a few days that end with a ‘thank God that’s all over for another year!” I think of it as a time to catch up on my sleep. That may just reflect hitting sixty, of course (grandpa dozing in front of the fire).

I quite like the idea of potlatch. In some tribal communities the richest people re-distribute their accumulated surplus of wealth. They get the prestige, kudos, respect and gratitude of the rest of the tribe – and demonstrate their total confidence that they can generate more wealth (and don’t feel the need to stockpile – always paranoid of thieves) – they disarm any resentment from those poorer than themselves – and the game starts even for next season. This went on within, and between different tribes – and although it generated a reciprocal bond (if you did better next year) it doesn’t really resemble the guilt we often seem to build up (even over a card sent or not sent, let alone the relative value of presents exchanged). The Christian missionaries (surprise!) banned the practice.

What a great model, though! Give your belongings away, take no heed for the morrow, consider the lilies of the fields – Wait a minute! That sounds like Jesus! He’d feel disappointed by a lot of the stuff done in his name these days, I suspect.

Thank goodness we actually manifest a Mithraic festival at this time of year that has little to do with Jesus, so he might not notice when he eventually comes back… [follow link, and scroll down to 'Similarities to Christianity'. The parallels remain disputed by Christian theologians, but 'they would say that' to paraphrase Mandy-Rice Davies on Establishment figures in denial. ]

I feel amused everytime someone does “Bah Humbug” at me – given that the phrase comes from the rich miser, Scrooge, who doesn’t want to share. To me I obviously belong in Bob Cratchit’s family. (underpaid clerk, or library worker). The only real reason I can’t quote that tale, of course, arises from my lifelong vegetarianism. I survived quite well (my mum did her best, most of the year, to keep me well-fed) but I still think of Christmas as the festival where people stick a dead animal in the middle of the table. My cat loved it!

Meat-eaters simply don’t see how off-putting that appears and smells to me (puts me right off my food!) so I can only try to appal them by asking how they would feel at a festival with (say) a dead dog as the main attraction. And then, of course, I get told to stop spoiling 'the fun'.

It got worse since I gave up sugar (no mince-pies, chocolates or Christmas pudding for me, thanks) and simply don’t like (have a lacto intolerance for) cream. So the big meal for me consists of roast potatoes, sprouts and carrots (mmm, delicious, and quite enough to satisfy me).
At least I took up drinking again, after I stopped working as a juggler, so I can share in that.

Hey ho. If you want the rest of the rant (it goes on for hours) just check out the Archives for the blog, in December months of previous years.

Phew I feel better for that. Might even go treat myself to a glass of red wine, before settling down to listen to Bob Dylan as DJ, finally reaching British ears on BBC Radio 2 at 7pm this evening. Cheers Bob! (sometimes he sounds like a fellow curmudgeon, but even he celebrates Christmas tomorrow with a two-hour special).

Stave 5: The End of It from A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

"A merry Christmas, Bob," said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year. I'll raise your salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop, Bob. Make up the fires, and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!"

Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

And just to explain the reference (from a page offering Dicken's own recipe for punch):

A final note, if you feel tempted to imbibe somewhat too freely of these splendid beverages: while he did not hold with "the Total Abstinence Principle" (A Christmas Carol, Stave Five), Dickens was a great believer in moderation (he should have followed his own dictum when it came to a certain young actress named Ellen Ternan). "The widespread assertion that drunkenness was the cause of many evils rather than a result of already existing ones angered him, as if eradicating a symptom in any way dealt with the disease" (Fred Kaplan, Dickens [1988], 198). Although Dickens respected the Temperance movement's goals, in "A Plea for Total Abstinence" (1860) he expresses little patience with those who sought eradicate the consumption of alcohol. His many references to liquor often prompted letters denouncing what appeared to be his advocacy of inebriation. In a letter of 25 March 1847 he answered one such complaint thus:
I have no doubt whatever that the warm stuff in the jug at Bob Cratchit's Christmas dinner, had a very pleasant effect on the simple party. I am certain that if I had been at Mr. Fezziwig's ball, I should have taken a little negus -- and possibly not a little beer -- and been none the worse for it, in heart or head. I am very sure that the working people of this country have not too many household enjoyments, and I could not, in my fancy or in actual deed, deprive them of this one when it is so innocently shared. (Letter , Nonesuch Press, II: 20-21)

DJ Bob

Good to hear that Bob’s Radio Show will arrive in the UK.

Listening whenever I can get Wednesday afternoon off, and having to offer a new email address every time for an XM Radio 3-Day Trial has exhausted me. I don’t intend to act like a cheapskate, but I can’t receive satellite transmissions this side of the Atlantic (so I don’t buy their hardware) and can’t buy an online subscription. I did ask them about my options, but got no reply. I used all my email addresses up, ended up making a quick Yahoo one today, just to get in (sorry, ‘bout that).

So anyway – Radio 2 goes out over the Internet, so you can all hear it in December, and 2007, I reckon. You don’t even have to play at timezones, as the BBC follows a live show with 7-day-anytime access to their programmes.

Slightly more informative writing (grabbed from web):

Called Theme Time Radio Hour each programme has a different focus, such as the weather. The track list for that theme, selected by Dylan, features A Place In The Sun by Stevie Wonder, The Wind Cries Mary by Jimi Hendrix and Keep On The Sunny Side by The Carter Family.

Other themes include cars, dance, police and whisky.

Dylan first tried his hand at being a DJ earlier this year with a show on XM Satellite Radio in the United States. He said: "A lot of my own songs have been played on the radio, but this is the first time I've ever been on the other side of the mic."

6 Music and Radio 2 [BBC Press Release with details of broadcasts]will air the shows in 2007 - with a sneak preview of six shows on Radio 2 over the Christmas period, starting on Saturday, 23 December at 7pm running through to Thursday, 28 December (all at 7pm except 5pm on 24 December).


Dylan's show will then launch at 9pm on 31 December on 6 Music and will be on every Friday night from 12 January at 9pm

You can't share everything

I admit I have listened to, and watched live, Bob Dylan since my youth.

Just today one of my younger friends said "Bob Dylan? Oh yeh, the 'Blowing in the Wind' guy".

I can't believe that the 'folk singer' thing still hangs around him. I know he gets no radio play, and if you don't own the albums you won't hear him, but did they miss Highway 61 Revisited, and Blonde on Blonde? Maybe they don't even know about Blood on the Tracks. He had his ups and downs creatively over the decades, but maybe young people just don't get Time Out of Mind...and as for Love and Theft with his most recent band, well, I can't even put it in a category of contemporary music, but it cheers me up just to hear it.

Can't convert the people who just don't like his voice. Even when I say, well, think of him as a poet and songwriter, and listen to other people interpret him...

My partner (younger than me) didn't even know that Hendrix's "All Along The Watchtower" came from Dylan's pen...or "Wheels on Fire" (music for Ab Fab). What can you do? (sigh)

So what a delight to hear KT Tunstall doing beautiful renditions of the first two tracks of Blood on the Tracks for the Talking Bob Dylan Blues tribute concert. Fantastic stuff! Tangled Up in Blue, and Simple Twist of Fate versions to die for. Actually, I felt quite touched by Robyn Hitckcock's take on Not Dark Yet, as well.

Apart from that I felt fairly disappointed. A bunch of old folkies, perpetuating the 'Blowing In the Wind' myth, as though he had never abandoned them 40 years ago. And, I guess, the readings from his autobiography Chronicles did put him back in the folk spectrum, when he talked of the power of those old, honed songs, and why he felt the urge to take them up and run with them...for the modern age.

Worth yet another sleepless night to catch the repeat on tv so late in the night...(I don't have a working video machine no more...) but, as ever, I preferred the young folks. And I really couldn't work out why Roy Harper chose "When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease" as his second song...except that he always was unpredictable, to say the least...and that seemed to have nothing to do with folk, protest, the USA or anything in particular for a Tribute Concert to Bob. Hey ho.

Learn Something New!

I'd call that one of the tricks I know for keeping young at heart.

Right now I have started an intensive online course about the 8-Circuit model of the bodymind that Leary originally conceived, and that Robert Anton Wilson promoted. The facilitator of the course, Antero Alli, also wrote an excellent book based on this model. Still, the average reader of this blog might not feel a lot of interest in this subject, so forgive me if I occasionally stick some notes up here (I just find it more convenient that carrying around USB sticks, etc).

I also want to learn a little more Japanese, hopefully because of the possibility that I might find myself visiting again, but also because of the mental exercise of learning new languages, and getting to understand different cultures a bit better.

Keep going forward!

Just heard from John at Grateful Dead radio, because I linked to his site (streaming 24/7 music from GD, Dylan, Zappa, Umphrey's McGee, etc.) Find the link on my Home Page - but be aware that some of the pirated GD music may prove of lesser sound quality...if you don't like it, come back later...

You can be in my dream, if I can be in yours...

I enjoyed the Scorcese films of Dylan for the last two nights...not just Bob but social history for those too young to remember it - and if you don't remember the impact of Martin Luther King saying "I have a dream" try this speech from Etan Thomas at an anti-war demo in Washington:

'Giving all honor, thanks and praises to God for
courage and wisdom, this is a very important rally. I'd
like to thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts,
feelings and concerns regarding a tremendous problem
that we are currently facing. This problem is
universal, transcending race, economic background,
religion, and culture, and this problem is none other
than the current administration which has set up shop
in the White House.

In fact, I'd like to take some of these cats on a field
trip. I want to get big yellow buses with no air
conditioner and no seatbelts and round up Bill
O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Trent Lott, Sean Hannity, Dick
Cheney, Jeb Bush, Bush Jr. and Bush Sr., John Ashcroft,
Giuliani, Ed Gillespie, Katherine Harris, that little
bow-tied Tucker Carlson and any other right-wing
conservative Republicans I can think of, and take them
all on a trip to the hood. Not to do no 30-minute
documentary. I mean, I want to drop them off and leave
them there, let them become one with the other side of
the tracks, get them four mouths to feed and no
welfare, have scare tactics run through them like a
laxative, criticizing them for needing assistance.

I'd show them working families that make too much to
receive welfare but not enough to make ends meet. I'd
employ them with jobs with little security, let them
know how it feels to be an employee at will, able to be
fired at the drop of a hat. I'd take away their
opportunities, then try their children as adults,
sending their 13-year-old babies to life in prison. I'd
sell them dreams of hopelessness while spoon-feeding
their young with a daily dose of inferior education.
I'd tell them no child shall be left behind, then take
more money out of their schools, tell them to show and
prove themselves on standardized exams testing their
knowledge on things that they haven't been taught, and
then I'd call them inferior.

I'd soak into their interior notions of endless
possibilities. I'd paint pictures of assisted
productivity if they only agreed to be all they can be,
dress them up with fatigues and boots with promises of
pots of gold at the end of rainbows, free education to
waste terrain on those who finish their bid. Then I'd
close the lid on that barrel of fool's gold by starting
a war, sending their children into the midst of a
hostile situation, and while they're worried about
their babies being murdered and slain in foreign lands,
I'd grace them with the pain of being sick and unable
to get medicine.

Give them health benefits that barely cover the common
cold. John Q. would become their reality as HMOs
introduce them to the world of inferior care, filling
their lungs with inadequate air, penny pinching at the
expense of patients, doctors practicing medicine in an
intricate web of rationing and regulations. Patients
wander the maze of managed bureaucracy, costs rise and
quality quickly deteriorates, but they say that managed
care is cheaper. They'll say that free choice in
medicine will defeat the overall productivity, and as
co-payments are steadily rising, I'll make their
grandparents have to choose between buying their
medicine and paying their rent.

Then I'd feed them hypocritical lines of being pro-life
as the only Christian way to be. Then very
contradictingly, I'd fight for the spread of the death
penalty, as if thou shall not kill applies to babies
but not to criminals.

Then I'd introduce them to those sworn to protect and
serve, creating a curb in their trust in the law. I'd
show them the nightsticks and plungers, the pepper
spray and stun guns, the mace and magnums that they'd
soon become acquainted with, the shakedowns and illegal
search and seizures, the planted evidence, being
stopped for no reason. Harassment ain't even the half
of it. Forty-one shots to two raised hands, cell phones
and wallets that are confused with illegal contrabands.
I'd introduce them to pigs who love making their guns
click like wine glasses. Everlasting targets surrounded
by bullets, making them a walking bull's eye, a living
pinata, held at the mercy of police brutality, and then
we'll see if they finally weren't aware of the truth,
if their eyes weren't finally open like a box of
Pandora.

I'd show them how the other side of the tracks carries
the weight of the world on our shoulders and how
society seems to be holding us down with the force of a
boulder. The bird of democracy flew the coop back in
Florida. See, for some, and justice comes in packs like
wolves in sheep's clothing. T.K.O.d by the right hooks
of life, many are left staggering under the weight of
the day, leaning against the ropes of hope. When your
dreams have fallen on barren ground, it becomes
difficult to keep pushing yourself forward like a
train, administering pain like a doctor with a needle,
their sequels continue more lethal than injections.

They keep telling us all is equal. I'd tell them that
instead of giving tax breaks to the rich, financing
corporate mergers and leading us into unnecessary wars
and under-table dealings with Enron and Halliburton,
maybe they can work on making society more peaceful.
Instead, they take more and more money out of inner
city schools, give up on the idea of rehabilitation and
build more prisons for poor people. With unemployment
continuing to rise like a deficit, it's no wonder why
so many think that crime pays.

Maybe this trip will make them see the error of their
ways. Or maybe next time, we'll just all get out and
vote. And as far as their stay in the White House, tell
them that numbered are their days.'

I don't feel alone any more

For all the traumas and expense and angst of the last few weeks (mostly involving computers) I have slowly rebuilt my life (OK internet access) and at least have a glimmer of hope of recovering the data that I didn't have backed up (on a five year old computer, quite a lot!)

I didn't have internet to research on, so I have swung wildly around, so finding that someone else had similar symptoms, and that even the Expert's Exchange couldn't come to a conclusion about cause or cure, made me feel less alone. You have to join to see the solutions, but you can take my word for it...

Anyway. Autumn arrived. Dylan / Scorcese on the box last night, and more tonight. I enjoyed last night - as much a social history document as flashbacks of just one man's life. Excellent stuff. I pre-ordered the DVD sight unseen because I figured it would have stuff I might want to see again.

Greetings to regular visitors, sorry so little updated on the website this year, but I intend to rectify that. I have gone back to studying and books, and online socialising with an interesting gang over at the Maybe Logic Academy (I could brag that I was one of the first dozen to join). I just wrote them a piece on Time, which
could have done with a proof-read before getting posted, but the combination of computer AND internet problems (different problems, as it happens - the cable modem died at the same time my hard drive died, so I couldn't even use J's Mac or my little old laptop) caught me out, when packing for the trip to Barcelona. You can't do it all.

Rock On...

The Pentaphobe sent me this, and I had forgotten about it. It seems appropriate on several levels right now:

"What's money anyhow? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do." - Bob Dylan


Click pic to see larger

Just to prove how old I am

I recently heard Bob's "4th Time Around" again, and remembered that it was a kind, satirical(but more honest) echo of John Lennon's "Norwegian Wood" (still singing in code about almost getting laid, while married to someone else). Bob's is so much closer to the stoned relationships of the 60s (getting laid, and then trying to get away - after 'liberating' any drugs lying around, and smuggling them over to someone 'kinder'). You have to hear the arrangements to hear why I think the songs are related. Here are the words, anyway (what the hell, everyone knows I am an old fogey by now). They were all at it then (Let it Be - Beatles /Let it Bleed - Stones)

Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)

I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.
She showed me her room, isn't it good, norwegian wood?
She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere.
So I looked around and I noticed there wasn't a chair.
I sat on a rug, biding my time, drinking her wine.
We talked until two, and then she said, "It's time for bed".

She told me she worked in the morning and started to laugh.
I told her I didn't and crawled off to sleep in the bath.
And when I awoke, I was alone, this bird had flown.
So I lit a fire, isn't it good, norwegian wood.

McCartney/Lennon)
Recorded: October 12, 21, 1965, Abbey Road Studios, London
Discography:
- Rubber Soul
- The Beatles/1962-1966 (The Red Album)
© 1965 Northern Songs. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.
complete sample here

4th Time Around Bob Dylan

When she said,
"Don't waste your words, they're just lies,"
I cried she was deaf.
As she worked on my face until breaking my eyes,
Then said, "What else you got left?"
It was then that I got up to leave
But she said, "Don't forget,
Everybody must give something back
For something they get."

I stood there and hummed,
I tapped on her drum and asked her how come.
And she buttoned her boot,
And straightened her suit,
Then she said, "Don't get cute."
So I forced my hands in my pockets
And felt with my thumbs,
And gallantly handed her
My very last piece of gum.

She threw me outside,
I stood in the dirt where ev'ryone walked.
And after finding that I'd
Forgotten my shirt,
I went back and knocked.
I waited in the hallway, she went to get it,
And I tried to make sense
Out of that picture of you in your wheelchair
That leaned up against . . .

Her Jamaican rum
And when she did come, I asked her for some.
She said, "No, dear."
I said, "Your words are not clear,
You'd better spit out your gum."
She screamed till her face got so red
Then she fell on the floor,
And I covered her up and then
Thought I'd go look through her drawer.

And, when I was through
I filled up my shoe
And brought it to you.
And you, you took me in,
You loved me then
You never wasted time.
And I, I never took much,
I never asked for your crutch.
Now don't ask for mine.

Copyright © 1966; renewed 1994 Dwarf Music
Small sample here

Music - Muzak "One man's meat is another man's poisson"

It's such a lock-in, music. The associations and the generations... and the imprints.

I started playing Country Joe and The Fish to Julie, but all it reminded her of was Jefferson Airplane...sure, West Coast rock...but her 'best of' compilation is in the wrong order for me - who thinks they only made "Surrealistic Pillow" and then sloped off to be fat, rich and coked out - (although I quite like "Bless it's Pointed Little Head" - and went to see them live in the rain on Hampstead Heath) - ever-changing their sleeping-together patterns, hiring and firing each other...doing stadium rock. Don't get me wrong - I loved 'em, I ended up living on the beach in Bolinas...the time I was going to swim in Grace Slick's pool I was told the kids had peed in it, so it wasn't on for the day (sure). I even went with El Circo del Sol all the way to LA to do a 'circus' act at the opening ceremony for Big Grunt records and hear them live again...on acid (not a great plan) and so on. The music still got less and less interesting as time passed.

And now Frank Zappa is on the box downstairs - again, don't get me wrong, he can be funny. I loved Freak Out! but telling me he made 50 albums since then doesn't help. To me he's a control freak Capricorn, sarcastic, bombastic, smug and self-satisfied - didn't even let his musicians smoke dope, then killed himself with cigarettes (huh?) - just doing his 'Frank' thing. Sure he was some sort of genius (aren't we all?) Oh, and I like "Titties and Beer" (sounds like they're having a laff), but that's just because it was the first thing I heard when Herman put the elecricity back on in Castellar (by tapping power from the pylons). Yeh, it's funny - but how many times are you going to listen to funny?

I know Julie just hears Bob Dylan as mr.constipated whiny voice (she thought Jimi Hendrix wrote "All Along the Watchtower")...and I gave up saying he was a genius of popular music - broke the 3 minute record mould, said you could write yer own songs to The Beatles and The Stones and David Bowie and everyone - mastered folk, rock, gospel, blues - drawing on old traditions, and creating new ones for 40 years, hanging out with great musicians, and even outlived clean-living Frank(!) But no. He's that bloke with the strangled vocal chords. Fair enough.

Reality tunnels and imprints rule us all...


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More fun for the consumer in me....

Bob has written the first of a series of 3 autobiographical books.

The Dylan Chronicles Vol 1 is going to be published in October.

Is It Rolling Bob?

Yeh, they made a record of Bob songs in reggae. Sounds great and I can't wait...

I seem to be a Bob fan: Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Bob (RAW himself) and I guess even Bob Dobbs, though I hate to take the name of the SubGenius in vain.

Then there's Bill Hicks, Bill Bailey, Bill Burroughs (Mr Burroughs to me)...

Hey ho, back and silly as ever from my short break...gotta get on with my online Academy stuff...homework!
PS on September 3rd

Sorry about the comment that was attached (I have hidden it now) - it's a bunch of dodgy URLs, and when I find the idiot who abused my comments system I'll do something unpleasant to them. At least sign it, and don't do it anonymously. And if it is an automated thing, and happens again, I'll just switch off the comments. Phew, I managed to write this without swearing...

Borrow This Book

For those of you who are not up to speed, and think I am a juggler, or a film puppeteer (same people who think Bob Dylan is a protest singer) - I now work in a library. I am proud of a library that offers books like "Steal This Book" by Abbie Hoffman.

It's a new edition, but it is as subversive as it ever was - and means more when you realise that we didn't have an Internet back in the 60s, so naughty suggestions (how to steal from your place of work), useful tips (how to grow grass plants), sensitive areas (self-defence techniques to use when grabbed by policemen) and straight dangerous info (how to make a Molotov Cocktail) were not freely available anywhere. With jokes!

Some of it just doesn't seem to have dated. "Avoid all needle drugs, the only dope worth shooting is George W Bush" (well, he said Nixon...)

Excellent stuff for the younger generation who often seem to think we were all just a bunch of weekend hippies fluffing around in beads, waiting to turn into Yuppies.....

But seriously though, Bob....

It cheered me up to come across the Playboy Interview with Dylan, back in – oh, 1966.

Good jokes, of course, and funny locutions. More importantly – I like his refusal to answer a question until he has examined the underlying assumptions and implications of the question.

This is way before NLP, but long after General Semantics had analysed the way language hypnotises us – although people like R.D.Laing were already challenging the boorish assumptions of ‘everyday thought’ and ‘common sense’ – and back then it was considered flippant and smart-ass and rebellious whereas I read it as trying to answer the question (and its assumptions) accurately….

But then I’m a wise-ass, too.

And there's a definitive collection of interview material here.

Impermanence and Rain - 16 Gidouille 132 E.P. Saint Inventaire, poète

I got a great package from the Impermanent Press yesterday - some tapes of RAW, a book about PKD, and a book called MFU.

Sorry about the TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms - that is a self-referential one).

It's always nice to hear Bob's voice (Mr Wilson, that is) - and this tape also has laughter, rain and thunder on it, like an echo of Glastonbury....

And I stumbled across the site dedicated to Bob (Mr Dylan, that is) called Expecting Rain - and had forgotten how good it was.

Bob gets people's knickers in a twist

I came across a thing yesterday, that Bob was not just selling one of his tunes to advertising, but actually appearing in a Victoria's Secret ad!

Well weird, but quite funny. Why people are shocked, I don't know. Perhaps because they still describe him as Bob Dylan the protest singer (!) which is only a 40 year out of date description...and they forget he has a sense of humour, or might just fancy hanging out in Venice with a load of models (could do worse).

This is it. And here's a slightly saner comment on the uproar...emphasising that there are more important things to be getting upset about...as for the real hysterics, hinting that it is a paedophile ad - ah come on people, not all paedophiles are over-60, and those models are certainly not under 16 (Adriana Lima is 23) so what ARE you on about? Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones together in a movie? (even bigger age gap than Michael Douglas the husband...) These are grown-ups for goodness sake...and Bob ain't claiming to be wiser (that was the arrogant speed freak adolescent) - he seems to be having fun. Is that so bad?

And it could be as simple as this:

"Behind it all, this is a very funny joke, and those who would criticize Dylan for what he's done should lighten up. At a December 3, 1965 press conference in San Francisco, Dylan was asked: "If you were going to sell out to a commercial interest, which one would you choose?" After a brief pause, the 24-year-old Dylan replied, "Ladies garments." It was funny then, and it's even funnier now, nearly 40 years later, in light of the Victoria's Secret commercial. Dylan is an immortal artist of Shakespearean stature who has always walked to his own drummer, and anyone who expects him to nurse a guilty conscience over something so inconsequential and amusing will be disappointed."
Brantley Brock

And here's the track list of the CD you can buy at VS shops....

And advertising is getting people talking. it worked, didn't it? I hope Bill Hicks would allow Bob to be an honorary Willie Nelson.....for the gag...or is that for the gaga?

Dylan was very funny last night

As Julie doesn't like Bob Dylan, I bought her tickets to Dylan Moran instead...(I'll go see Bob with someone who appreciates him).

He was excellent, very funny. Touches of Bill Hicks (onstage drinking and smoking in front of an audience who can't, general misanthropy), and (the rambling approach) Eddie Izzard...but I don't really like comparisons.

He is hilarious in Black Books, anyway, and a lot of the crowd had come because of that television show...but we had both seen him do ten minutes of stand-up on tv, before...so a whole evening was a real treat. Only problem, I drank too much wine (in honour of the occasion) so it's a little hard this morning.