Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Oliver,

Thanks for the kindness.  Haven't had the time to dig in to your
Buckley book yet but loved your appearance on FMU, I think it was.  In
some ways the Rangers book was harder to do.  I was friends with a lot
of the musicians on the tour, the Ranger world, expect for two of the
players who I had met at the Lone Star at a Kinky gig, was alien
territory.  Methodology wise, they were pretty similar.  And in both
books I included the whole supporting casts, groupies and all, as
integral parts of the experience. 
  

    
RU

You may be curious but RU serious?  I'll never drop a dime on Dylan. 
Politically speaking though I think its fair to say that he's to the
left of Kinky Friedman.  But then again so was Genghis Khan.
  

    
Dgault,

Michael would have loved it only if the beer was Colt .45, tall cans.
  

    
Dan,

That Durango reference was to a trip he made there with Larry Keegan,
his old childhood chum, who was in the audience that night.
  

    
Ratso,
Glad you caught the FMU appearance. We broke out the treasure chest
for that one.

What did you think of RT Bootleg Series song choice? Don't get me
wrong, I loved the final product but there were a few songs I really
missed: "Masterpiece," "Never Let Me Go, "Dark as a Dungeon," and of
all, "Wild Mountain Thyme." With the extra space on each CD, some of
these coulda been shoe-horned in. I guess they went for the mimicking
of a real show rather than totality.

It also occurs to me how much Bob must have dug the whistle-stop
nature of RT. After all, hasn't the NET been a pared-down version of
the former?

-Oliver
  

    
Oliver,

The only song that I think is glaringly missing is Masterpiece.
  

    
Was wondering why the whiteface getup for the RT tour.. and by the way
did any of you see *this* bizzare picture of Dylan:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/030123/170/33m83.html&
e=6
  

    

<ratso>,  I've missed meeting Dylan by 15 minutes 3 or 4 times
in my life,  one of em was when Michael and I went down to the 
corner store in some scuzzy Lower Manhattan neighborhood in
79 for a sixer of,  you got it,  Colt 45 talls,  and missed Dylan's 
phone call.   Michael called back,  and whoever answered the phone
heard me playing Michael's guitar and asked who it was,  and
Michael said "oh,  that's Strummer Gault."  That's my 
Bob Dylan story.
 
Otherwise,  with Michael,  it was Stoli 100 proof over ice,  in very
large glasses.
My head hurts just thinking about it.
  

    
     Rats, it's interesting that you mention Kinkstah's
to-the-right-of-Genghis-Khan politics.  I can no longer discuss the
news with him without a tension convention convening.  And yet he's
always waxing about how yuppies have ruined the world and Abbie was a
hero and the current generation are a bunch of sheep.  I think Rambam's
a bad influence. 
      Saw Steve Earle last night at House of Blues in L.A. (sitting
next to fellow WELLian Barry Smolin).  He reminded me of Dylan in his
singular melange of American musics and the way his voice inhabits the
lyrics and slithers and snarls.  Great show.
      Rodent-boy, can you give us a hint of what's contained in the
Missing Chapters of OTRWBD?
  

    
Rambam?

I was a little late getting on the Steve Earle bus, but "Jerusalem" just
knocked me out and I can't stop listening to it.
  

    
I just read the passage in the Ratso book where Springsteen meets
Dylan backstage (first time, I guess), and The Boss' girlfriend asks
why he was wearing makeup. "I saw it in a movie once" says Bob.

I'm nearly halfway through,and I'm geniunely intrigued by what I see
as the central plot device: Will Ratso overcome the Evil Kemp?

Also liked the switch to third person after Baez dubs thee Ratso.

Question for Larry: A lot of the dialogue in here is presented as if
it were verbatim. Long-ass passages of seemingly direct quotes, as if
you were using a tape recorder, or swiftly taking notes, quoting both
yourself and the person you are talking to.

But then there's this passage where you are in your hotel room
chugging expectorant and working the phones between Rolling Stone and
Kemp. After a long passage of dialogue with Kemp, you say "Ratso
reluctantly gets out a pen..." Does that mean you weren't taking notes
before that? Should we assume a lot of this dialogue is done Woodward
style -- recreated later? I don't necessarily have a problem with it,
as long as it hews to the truth and manner of the conversations, which
I assume it does. But I'm curious.
  

    

I was curious at to why the circa-1975 description of the Bleeker Street
scene didn't include Art D'Lugoff's Village Gate.  That club was a pretty
big player in that area in the 1970's, all the way through to the closing
in 1993.
  

    
Dan 

I think I answered that earlier in the thread...I both took voluminous
notes and taped every damned conversation.  I still have both the
notebooks and the casette tapes.

Mikey

I can't remember what was cut out and I haven't looked at it in twenty
years.  But I'm sure it was good!
  

    
Dan

Art is a friend and I've been to the former Gate many times but when
Dylan came back in '75 none of the action was centered there.  It was
all at Colby's place and Menachem's restaurant around the corner.
  

    

I'm glad to hear that is was an omission of circumstance, rather than
anything else.  Art is a great guy, and the Village Gate was an institution
that did NYC proud.  There's a book waiting to be written about that place!
  

    
     Gans: Rambam is a friend of Kinky's, a character in his mystery
novels (along with Ratso, who is always the second lead character after
Kinky hisself, and occasionally me) and politically far right (as
opposed to far out).
     By the way, some of you may interested in hearing that, according
to an informed source, Dylan is a huge fan of our pal Stew's "Naked
Dutch Painter" solo album.
     I will entertain everyone (or try to) with one of my favorite
stories.  Me 'n' Ratso's mutual friend Downtown Cheryl (known as
Downtown Judy in Kinky's books) got into an office building elevator in
NYC several years ago.  A man got on the next floor and Cheryl looked
up and realized (or so she thought) that it was Ratso.  "Ratso?", asked
Cheryl.  "It's me, Cheryl."  The man looked at her and he wryly
smiled.  She realized that it wasn't Ratso.  "You think I'm Ratso?",
the bemused man inquired.  "Do I remind you of him?"  Cheryl phumphered
and apologized and said at first glance he looked like a friend of
hers.  "I'm not Ratso", said the man, now laughing, as he got off the
next floor.
       As the elevator doors closed, Cheryl realized that the man was
Bob Dylan and later found out that Dylan's lawyer had offices in that
building.
       Rats, aren't there other instances where people thought YOU
were Bob?
  

    
I wonder what Bob thought of being mistaken for Ratso!


> By the way, some of you may interested in hearing that, according to an
> informed source, Dylan is a huge fan of our pal Stew's "Naked Dutch
> Painter" solo album.

That makes me very happy!

I just got home from a gig here in Oakland, in which I opened for Stew, who
opened with "The Naked Dutch Painter."
  

    
i want to hear him sing absolutly french marie
  

    
Check out the reviews of Masked and Anonymous today.  It's a lynch
mob.
  

    

They're beating the devil out of a guy
Who's wearing a powder-blue wig
  

    
two masked clips on bobdylan.com
  

    
What is Masked and Anonymous?
  

    

http://www.maskedandanonymous-themovie.com/
  

    
How did it happen that the Hurricane benefit at Madison Square Garden was 
not filmed?
  

    
I'm sure it was filmed.  I don't remember whether they did a
sophisticated sound recording of the show like they did for the shows
that comprise the new album.  The film crew filmed everything.