Dylan on Dylan

by Jeff Burger

  Back in Mt. Vernon, both Dylan and Victor were convulsed by the public square. “Hey, man, look at that cat,” Dylan said, pointing at a Civil War monument, “Who’s he?” Victor leaned out the window and squinted: “Don’t know—looks like General Custer from here.” “Fantastic,” Dylan said.

  When we finally got to the motel and into the room, Dylan turned on the television and began to tune his Gibson guitar and sing while watching Wanted: Dead or Alive. Dave Banks went to take care of the luggage while Victor and I walked to a public phone booth to call out for some food. Dylan only wanted a salad, but Victor told me to order him something else. “Fish or somethin’. And some greens. He’s gotta have some greens. Any kind, I don’t know.” The Rendezvous Restaurant, however, didn’t have any greens. Victor smiled, shaking his head. “Wow—we’ll just get him that fish plate or whatever it is. No greens—wow.” The food would be ready in half-an-hour, so Banks and I left Dylan and Victor in the room watching Steve McQueen tackle some evil-looking Mexicans. Dylan was now completely absorbed in the program; Victor was trying to sleep.

  When we returned with the food half-an-hour later, the television was still on, Victor sprawled on his bed, while Dylan clasped and unclasped his hands between his knees. The restaurant had cooked a good meal but had forgotten to include silverware. “Don’t make no difference,” Dylan and Victor said in chorus, “no difference,” so we ate everything from home fried potatoes to salad with our fingers. Dylan poked around at his fried fish platter, but wolfed down the salad. “Greek salad in Mt. Vernon, Ohio,” he said. “Crazy,” wiped his fingers on his azure dungarees, lit a cigarette, and poured himself some more of the Almaden wine. He was interested in the article I was planning to write about him. “There’s this one guy who writes for the Post, The Saturday Evening Post, you know, named Al Aronowitz. He was going to do this story on me for a year and a half but he couldn’t do it. He’s really a great guy. He knew it would be cut to shit by the Post and he wouldn’t get to say what he’d want to be sayin’, only what they wanted. And the guy really didn’t want me to come out like that, you dig? But we tried to write it anyway, you know, together. I went up to his place one day and we sat down and began to write this story, about me meeting him in Central Park and everything. But we had to stop, because the thing was getting really weird, surrealistic, and the story never got written. The only other cat he won’t do a story on is Paul Newman, because he don’t want to ruin him by gettin’ him all cut up.”

  While talking he constantly flexed his fingers and crossed and uncrossed his legs. Mentioning Paul Newman got him on the subject of acting. “For me, you know, acting is like the Marx Brothers, somethin’ you can’t learn. Like the Studio. In the early days it was good, before it became a big fad, but I went there and really got turned off. All these people—actors—they’re all themselves, really, tryin’ too hard to be someone else. You can’t learn to be someone else. It’s just gotta be inside. You dig what I’m tryin’ to say?”

  “Hey, Bob,” Victor interrupted, switching off the TV, “we better get movin’.” Dylan had been talking for forty-five minutes, and he had wanted to get out to the College before the concert to tune up. On the way, Dylan asked us to lock the door to the classroom he would be using to rehearse. He was worried about people coming in for autographs and an over-enthusiastic group of fans. Banks complied by driving his car across a space of bumpy lawn and up to the side door of the hall, where Victor hustled Dylan out and through the door past three or four gaping couples on their way to collect some early front row seats. We made sure the door was locked, and Victor and I took turns standing guard until Victor decided it was time to rig up the special microphones they had brought along. He went upstairs carrying a suitcase full of tubes and wire, while Dylan, in the next room, tuned up for three minutes by pounding out a wild rock and roll song on a grand piano and singing some gibberish lyrics.

  Dave Banks knocked on the door and told Dylan that two people who said they were friends of his were upstairs. They had given their names as Bob and John. “Fantastic,” said Dylan. “Hey Victor, go up and bring ’em down quick. Fantastic.” I went back to join Dylan, who was pacing around in a circle.

  All of a sudden the door crashed open and a soft-faced young man in black boots, trousers, coat, and gloves came running into the room screaming, “Hey, Bobby—hiya, baby,” his long hair flapping like banners behind him. “Wow, fantastic,” Dylan yelled, reeling backwards across the room, laughing and attempting to climb the wall, “whatya doin’ here, Bob?”

  “Driving out to the coast,” said the newcomer, pumping Dylan’s hand, “got this car and—hey, you know John. We’re drivin’ out together.” He reintroduced Dylan to a tall, swallow-faced boy who had an expensive Japanese camera hanging around his neck. “Look at this place—I don’t believe the set-up. Crazy.”

  “Yeah, I know. Hey, man, what’re ya doin’.”

  “Man, like we have this car belongs to Al, you know, we’re goin’ out to the Coast. A Cobra—wow. We drove six hundred and fifty miles yesterday in ten hours. Took us thirty-five minutes to get through Pennsylvania. VAROOM—wow!”

  Everyone laughed. “Hey listen, man, you gonna be out on the coast, give me a call. I’m gonna do some concert, Joanie [Baez] and me, so call.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Bob said. “What’s happenin’ out there?”

  “Oh, Joanie and me’s gonna do these concerts. Fantastic number of songs: we’ll be out there for a while, but after all this shit we took I don’t think it’s much use doubling up on the hotel bills anymore, do you?”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Bob said again. “Listen, did you see the pictures from New York?” Dylan said that he hadn’t. “Hey, John, I got ’em in the car. Go out and get ’em.” John giggled and went running out. Victor returned from upstairs, reported that the microphones were all fixed and that the hall was about full, and greeted Bob, who said, “Hey, how about all the faggots they’ve got in this place?” John came back from the car holding some large photographs in his hand which he thrust at Dylan with a smile.

  “Hey, these are really great,” he said, looking through them. “This one’s a little bizarre maybe, but I like it.” He handed it to me. It was a picture of Bob, his hair trimmed in bangs, standing in front of a feverish abstract mural dressed in a woman’s ensemble of matching [paisley] slacks and blouse, holding a tricycle in his left hand and turning the pedal. John grinned at me.

  As the time for Dylan to go on approached, he became more animated, more nervous. He paced and sometimes danced around the room gulping down wine from a small dixie cup and making large gestures with his hands. Around eight-thirty, Victor handed him his guitar, Dylan placed a black-wire harmonica holder around his neck, played a few chords, blew a few quick notes, and said “O.K. man, let’s go.” “Let’s go—I’m comin’ in through the graveyard, man.”

  We walked out and around the side of the auditorium, in front of the college cemetery and up some wobbly iron stairs to a fire exit. Several of the people standing near the door caught a glimpse of Dylan and began to nudge one another; one rather pudgy girl wearing an army surplus raincoat and blue tennis shoes even began primping her hair. Victor put his arm on Dylan’s shoulder. Dylan nodded, straightened his shoulders, and walked into the hall to enthusiastic applause. He made no introductions, starting in immediately to play his first song. But something was wrong with the amplifier system, and the music sounded like mosquitos caught in a net of Saran Wrap. Dylan finished the number and made a few sly comments while Victor replaced the microphone and someone from the college played with the amplifier system. Seemingly unfazed, Dylan proceeded, with better audio and the audience now completely with him. A predominantly conservative student body applauded at every derogatory mention of prejudice, injustice, segregation, or nuclear warfare. Dylan, who had intended to sing only six songs for the first half, was apparently enjoying himself and added two more to the set. At intermission, he got a big hand.

 
; Downstairs during the intermission, Dylan talked a lot, and drank more wine. He only half-jokingly spoke about the speaker system in the hall, about the songs and about the audience. There were a lot of people waiting to see him outside, but he was almost too wound up even to cope with friends who were already in the room with him. Victor said that except for the speaker system he thought it was going pretty well, although he was still worried about the crowds that would gather after the concert. “You’ll see, man,” he said, “you’ll see.”

  For the second half of the concert, almost seventy-five people had left their seats and were sitting on the floor close to the stage. A path had to be cleared before Dylan could get on, but passing by one girl, he reached out, said “Hi” and touched her hair with his hand, which caused the people around her to laugh and applaud, while the girl herself simply—but audibly—sighed. For the rest of the concert she stared straight at Dylan, who by now was a little drunk, although he was performing as well as in the first half. After his last song Victor and I met him just as he got off the stage, and led him to the exit. He had gotten a standing ovation, and while we were persuading him to do an encore he kept repeating “They don’t have to do that,” nodding at the audience. He had unfastened the leather shoulder strap of his guitar, and the pudgy girl in the surplus raincoat rushed up to him, asking for “All I Really Want to Do,” fumbling with the leather strap attempting to help him refasten it. He grinned at her, and went back on stage for the encore. Victor sent Bob and John downstairs to guard the entrance to the dressing room, he posted himself by the exit to block the pudgy girl and her companions and detailed me to get Dylan off the stage and through the crowd in the front row. Dylan finished up and, smiling, walked down into the audience and through the exit, Victor and I on either side.

  We got him inside just before the crowd. Dylan was happy about the way the concert had gone, poured himself several congratulatory cups of wine and began to wonder about getting out of the building through the crowd and into the car which was waiting outside. He decided finally to wait twenty minutes or so, then make a break for it. At the outside door, Bob, wearing a pair of dark leather gloves which he kept rubbing together and up and down his thighs, was talking to a tall blonde man who kept repeating “Listen, Bobby invited me afterwards to . . .” He bent down and began to whisper in Bob’s ear. Bob listened for a moment and pushed the man back.

  “Listen, man, I don’t want to hear about it. Go away.”

  “But, Bobby . . .”

  “Listen, just go away, man. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to hear about it. Just go away.” He turned his attentions to the crowd which now must have been a hundred strong.

  Victor meantime was packing the remainder of Dylan’s clothes and equipment, and sticking the one surviving bottle of wine into his pocket. He looked tired; Dylan looked exhausted and drunk. “O.K.,” Dylan almost sighed, “lead the way.” We walked out of the classroom and towards the main door. When the crowd outside saw Dylan coming, many of them came forward to press their faces against the glass. As soon as I opened the door, Dylan stepped out and they all pressed forward.

  “Bobby!”

  “Hiya, Bobby!”

  “Hey Bobby!”

  “Hiya, Mr. Dylan.”

  “Hello, kid,” Dylan said to a girl who was squirming against the door, “long time no see.” In reply, she giggled and coughed. Walking through the crowd Dylan waved and shook a few hands. Another girl followed him all the way to the car, “I’m Billie Dylan’s roommate from State,” she announced, “Bob, you remember.” Dylan said that he didn’t remember. “Billie Dylan. From,” the girl said, almost following him into the car. “Oh yeah,” Dylan said, not very convincingly, “how is she?” “Great,” the girl replied, “she says to tell you hello.” “Fantastic,” Dylan said. He slammed the door and we began to pull away. “Hey, Bobby, wait a minute,” someone said, running frantically along side the car, “wait a minute.” Bob looked around, rubbing his black leather gloves together. It was the blonde man whom he had pushed away a little earlier at the door. “Keep goin’” he said, “Keep drivin.”

  * * *

  The morning was cold. In the frost and dust covering Banks’s car, which had been parked outside Dylan’s improvised dressing room the night before, we could still see outlines of little inscriptions written by some of the girls all over the hood, roof and windows: “Bobby,” “Bobby,” “Bobby Dylan,” “Dylan,” “Dylan,” “Bobby Dylan.” No one spoke much during the trip to the airport. Victor looked still asleep, and Dylan a little fuzzy. About ten miles out of Mt. Vernon he folded his arms across his chest and, slinking down as much as he could in the Volkswagen, leaned his head back over the top of the seat and closed his eyes. All of a sudden, asleep, in that early morning, he looked very young.

  Victor checked his baggage at the airport and we went for something to eat. Dylan, who looked a little more refreshed, spoke easily and with humor about his upcoming concerts. “Tomorrow we’re goin’ to Princeton, and Sunday to Bangor, Maine. Man, I don’t know what’s in Bangor, Maine. It’s not a school or anything.” I told him I didn’t think the Chamber of Commerce had booked him, and he threw back his head and laughed for a long time. “Yeah, the Chamber of Commerce—wow!” For the first time since we had met him the day before he seemed completely at ease. “I’m gonna do these concerts out on the Coast, and Joanie’s gonna be with me. Pretty soon we’re gonna get billed together.” He smiled that friendly vulnerable smile of his, but this time without a trace of nervousness. “I’m gonna be out there for a while.”

  The flight to New York was announced, and Banks and I walked them to the gate. The businessmen were staring again. When one of them turned to his companion nudging him and pointing at us, Dylan looked over his shoulder and waved. “It’s alright man,” he said, “I make more money than you do.”

  Banks thanked them both, and apologized for any embarrassing incidents that might have happened the previous evening. “That’s O.K. man,” Dylan replied, “wasn’t nothin’.”

  “Look,” Victor said, “we’ll see you again, huh? If there’s a concert somewhere, come back and see us.”

  We said we would if we could get past the crowds we hadn’t thought would be around.

  “Well, so long,” Dylan said. “And thanks.”

  Banks and I watched them get on the plane. On their way, they passed two T.W.A. groundcrewmen wearing coveralls and white crashhelmets who turned and stared. One of them came up to us. “Hey, wasn’t that that folksinger?”

  We said that it was.

  “Which one? The short one?”

  Banks nodded.

  “What’s his name?” he asked.

  “Bob Dylan,” I said.

  “Hey,” he said, turning to his friend, “That was Bob Dylan.”

  DYLAN ON

  Whether He Has an Important Philosophy to Share with the World

  “Are you kidding? The world don’t need me. Christ, I’m only five feet ten. [Actually, five feet seven. —Ed.] The world could get along fine without me. Don’cha know, everybody dies. It don’t matter how important you think you are. Look at Shakespeare, Napoleon, Edgar Allan Poe, for that matter. They are all dead, right?”

  —from pseudo-interview with J. R. Godard,

  published in the Village Voice (New York), March 3, 1965

  BOB DYLAN AS BOB DYLAN

  Paul Jay Robbins | March and September 1965 (interview) | September 10, 17,

  and 24, 1965 | Los Angeles Free Press

  The Los Angeles Free Press’s Paul Jay Robbins first met Dylan at a Columbia Records party on March 26, 1965, less than five months after the Kenyon College appearance. Just four days earlier, the label had issued his fifth album, Bringing It All Back Home—his first Top Ten hit in the United States and his second chart-topper in the United Kingdom—which contains “Mr. Tambourine Man,” “Maggie’s Farm,” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue.”

  That would be plenty
for most artists in any one year. As Robbins notes in his introduction, however, Dylan had already prepared album number six, the monumental Highway 61 Revisited, which would follow Bringing It All Back Home a mere five months later.

  In part one of his piece, Robbins draws a vivid picture of how Dylan acts and talks at this stage of his career; the journalist also witnesses an early press party and press conference and a concert appearance with the Band. Then, in parts two and three, he offers the transcript of his extended and unusually straightforward March 27, 1965, conversation with the artist. —Ed.

  Part One

  In Dylan’s sixth album, which will shortly be out, he sings a major poem called “Desolation Road.” [“Actually, “Desolation Row.” Highway 61 Revisited, which contains it, in fact appeared less than two weeks before this article. —Ed.] One stanza has to do with Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot sitting in the captain’s tower arguing for power while calypso dancers leap on the deck and fishermen hold flowers. The image is relevant to any interview with Dylan, for it illustrates his basic attitude towards showplace words. It has to do with experiencing life, partaking of its unending facets and hangups and wonders instead of dryly discussing it. A typical Dylan interview is more an Absurdist Happening than a factfinding dialog. He presents himself in shatterproof totality—usually a somewhat bugged and bored mode of it—and lets components fall out as the interviewer pokes at it. He’s not taciturn, he’s simply aware of his absurd situation and the desperate clamor of folks who want to know how many times he rubs his eyes upon awakening and why.