On the Road with Bob Dylan

by Larry Sloman

  After the show, Ratso runs into Faris from Columbia Records. Apparently, Columbia had sent up some very heavy executives to Boston to see the show, since the New York date hadn’t been announced yet. And leading the delegation was Irwin Siegelstein, the new president of Columbia Records.

  “It was really funny, we went backstage,” Faris twinkles, “and there were all these executives in suits and ties, lots of confusion, and Irwin introduced himself to Dylan as the president of Columbia Records. And Dylan grunted. They came out shaking their heads, just couldn’t understand. All he did was grunt.”

  After the show, the partying rages far into the night, with McGuinn, Neuwirth, and Blakley doing guest solos in the hospitality suite, Ronee belting out “New Moon Rising” just as the first rays of the Sunday sun streamed into the small room.

  The next morning, Ratso runs barefoot and fur-hatted through the dining area. It was a travel day, the tour going on to Enfield, Connecticut, for a Monday night date in Hartford, but Ratso was driving back to Manhattan to pick up Kinky Friedman, who’d be making his long-awaited appearance on the tour. So the reporter is scrambling around, trying to tie up loose ends, and simultaneously pack for the trip. He spots Dylan, and Sara and Sally eating breakfast and scurries over to the table.

  “Remember that article I mentioned yesterday?”

  Dylan nods. “Well, I spoke to them today and it might be a cover story.” Ratso offers his hand and Dylan wastes no time, resoundingly slapping it. They all laugh.

  “Oh yeah,” the reporter remembers and hands Sara a Hurricane T-shirt. “Great,” she holds it up, examining the picture, “now I can be a hooker, huh?” Dylan gets up to speak to someone and Ratso sits down. “Sara, Kinky’s coming onto the tour.”

  “Great,” Sara purrs, “I love Kinky. I saw him in L.A., he had this great fur guitar strap on.”

  “Listen,” Ratso whispers confidentially, “I want to do a scene in Connecticut or up in Canada with just you and Bob and Kinky in a room listening to some of Kinky’s new songs.”

  “Who knows if I’ll be alive,” Sara sighs.

  “C’mon, don’t put me on.”

  “Look, Ratso, what will happen will happen. I don’t want to plan anything.” Sara breaks into a slow smile. “But I think Kinky would be great in the film. He should play a priest.”

  Ratso bids them adieu and rushes up to his room, balances his three valises and a garment bag, and walks out to the car. He loads the baggage, and then saunters over to say good-bye to Dylan who had been talking over by his friend Larry’s van. Larry, who’s been confined to a wheelchair for years, is an old friend from Minnesota and had come out on the tour for about a week.

  Ratso rushes up to the van, in time to see Larry being wheeled into its interior. “Is Bob around?” the reporter asks.

  “He just left,” Larry smiles.

  “Hey, man, if I don’t see you, take care.”

  “You too,” Larry responds. “You just missed Bob though. We were just shooting a few scenes for the movie.”

  “Really?” The tape recorder in Ratso’s head clicks on. “What kind of scenes?”

  “Oh just fooling around,” Larry smiles, as the platform of the specially equipped van lowers. “We did some great scenes with me chasing Bob around the halls in my chair.”

  Ratso winces, whispers a quick good-bye, and rushes to his car, eager for the sanctuary and sanity of Manhattan and Kinky Friedman; a small, solitary figure wheeling through the night, hurtling from the frying pan to the fire.

  Ratso picked Kinky up at the Chelsea Hotel on 23rd Street and after a night smoking Kents and drinking tarry coffee at the all-night donut shop on Eighth Avenue, the two voyagers started for Hartford. But first, they stopped to pick up Lynn, a young girl who had caught Ratso’s fancy at the Waterbury venue.

  By eight, they were almost in Hartford and Kinky began to get finicky. “This may just turn out to be extremely unpleasant,” he frowns, and pulls his red-and-blue-sequined cowboy hat over his forehead. “If this whole thing gets too tedious, I’m just gonna bug out for the dugout.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ratso smiles, piloting the Monte Carlo through the worsening snowstorm, “everybody’s really excited you’re coming.”

  “Well, I just hope it doesn’t get too unpleasant,” the Texas Jewboy drawls, “I’m in no mood for a tension convention.”

  They drive the next few minutes in silence, then enter Hartford. Ratso parks outside the modernesque Coliseum, another 10,000 plus date. They start wending their way to the seats, and, as if on cue, Neuwirth steps to the mike to introduce the next song. “Here’s a trucker song for Kinky,” he barks and the band breaks into a Country Western number.

  “I’m gonna bug out for a while, boychick,” Kinky announces, “get something to eat, relax for a while.” The noise and smoke seem to be fraying Kinky’s already frazzled nerves. Rather than lose him, Ratso grabs Lynn and the trio walk across the street to an Italian restaurant.

  They come back near the end of Dylan’s set, and again, almost magically, Dylan ambles up to the mike for a dedication. “We’re gonna send this out to all the people in the house from Texas,” and they break into “Durango.” Kinky looks a little paler.

  But he manages to survive through the show, and afterward, the trio walks backstage, Ratso introducing Kinky to everyone in sight, from the film crew to security.

  “Goddamn,” Kinky curses Ratso as he buttons his red, white and blue sport coat, “I don’t got to meet every single nerd on the goddamn tour. If you introduce me to one more person I’m gonna brody.”

  “Kinky,” Neuwirth rasps a greeting, putting a bear hug onto the Texas Jewboy, “c’mon on the bus with us, hoss.” Kinky goes with Neuwirth, and Ratso and Lynn follow Phydeaux in the car.

  In the crowded hotel lobby, there’s a carnival atmosphere in the air, generated by the well-received show and the arrival of Kinky and Rick Danko of the Band, who had played a short set during the first half of the concert. The reporter spies Dylan sitting on a bench and tries to drag Kinky over.

  “Let’s just get a room,” Kinky successfully resists, steering Ratso over to the front desk, “let’s get registered, get settled, relax a while.”

  As Kinky starts to sign for the room, Dylan comes charging toward the pair. “Hey Kinky, how ya doing.” “Real nice, how you feel, hoss,” Kinky smiles, tapping an ash off his long cigar. “How’d you like the show?” Dylan wonders. “I enjoyed myself immensely,” Kinky drawls, “I couldn’t hear too well, I was sitting all the way in the back of the Coliseum but you looked good up there, waving and stuff.” Kinky does a quick imitation of Bob’s gyrations during “Isis.” “Well, we’ll see you later,” Bob waves. “Hey, did you get a room? Barry, get Kinky a room.”

  Kinky gets two keys, passes one to Ratso and they grab their luggage and walk toward the elevators. In the coffee shop, Joni is about to do a scene playing a guitar and a number of people have gathered around to gawk.

  As soon as they enter the room Kinky flops onto a bed with, “I’m gonna nod out for a few minutes.” Ratso immediately gets to work, running down the hall looking for the film crew. He bursts into the hospitality room, where Rick Danko is singing with Ronson, Stoner, Wyeth, and Soles backing him. No cameramen. The reporter races back into the hall, spies Ramblin’ Jack, grabs him and rushes onto the elevator, nearly knocking down Joni Mitchell and Sam Shepard, who are emerging. “Hey, you going to the hospitality suite?” Ratso screams, “I’m bringing Kinky down there soon, we’re gonna film him singing some of his new songs.”

  “What? For a Jewish cowboy?” Shepard, who owns a ranch in California, frowns. “You kidding me?” He grabs Joni, and they hasten down the hall.

  “Are you gonna take that Jewish cowboy shit?” Ratso asks Elliot, whose real name is Adonopoz. Ramblin’ Jack shrugs and they enter the room.

  “Keno, wake up,” Ratso yells, “this is Ramblin’ Jack.”

  “Hi, Kinky,” Jack doffs his ten-gallon.r />
  “It’s good to see you,” Kinky squints half-awake eyes.

  “I got to tell you a funny story …” Jack starts.

  “Save it for the film,” Ratso interrupts.

  “Nah, it’s personal.” Jack delicately sits at the foot of Kinky’s bed.

  “We don’t want it all over America by tomorrow morning, now do we,” Kinky drawls in his peculiar wavering cantorial fashion.

  Jack leans over and picks up one of Kinky’s snakeskin cowboy boots, admiring the huge metal toeguards. “These toetappers are really good,” Jack drawls, “you can kick snakes up the ass.”

  “I can kick Slocum over there if he gets in the fucking way,” Kinky bellows. Ratso shudders involuntarily.

  “You know the first time I heard of you was that story that came out in Newsweek magazine about all the Jewish folksingers … Dylan, you,” Jack recollects. “I loved that date we played together in Texas.”

  “Yeah, that was phenomenal,” Kinky remembers.

  “They loved it, the audience kept going whoooo,” Jack hoots. “I wasn’t hip to the fact that Texas audiences like to get drunk and yell and I was trying to teach ’em how to be quiet, polite, listening motherfuckers. Houston was one of the first scary towns I’ve been in, I was shot at the first time I was there, the guy didn’t even know me and I didn’t know him.” Jack looks amazed.

  Kinky pulls one of his satin handmade cowboy shirts on, this one emblazoned with all sorts of Hebrew iconography. “That’s a great shirt. What do you call that, a menorah?” Jack marvels. “I was supposed to be a Jewish doctor like my dad, but I got so rebellious so early that I never even got bar mitzvahed, I never even got a chance to find out what it was. I was hanging out with cowboys who tolerated me, they said, ‘It ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re going.’”

  Kinky lights up his cigar and pulls on his boots. “My brother said that modern popular music was started by two Jewboys, you and Bob Dylan, one on the East Coast and one on the West.”

  “The only time my dad introduced me to a rabbi he was afraid I was gonna split again and he wanted me to meet this really groovy hip Texas rabbi who was in the Marine Corps and was really tough and he was in Brooklyn but he was raised in Texas …” Jack rambles on.

  “Texans are just complete assholes, that’s all there is to it,” Kinky pronounces.

  “Well, I used to think that sometimes,” Jack scratches his head, “but I met some groovy people there. I’m almost thinking about living there.”

  “Well, anytime there are that many assholes there are bound to be some good people,” Kinky decides with impeccable logic. “Hey, I got a couple of jokes I want to run past you guys. First booger is, What’s the recipe for German chocolate cake?” Kinky pauses. “See, the first step is you occupy the kitchen. All right. There you be. The first step is you occupy the kitchen. Pretty funny joke, huh?”

  “That’s the joke?” Ratso wonders.

  “I’ve heard suicide notes that were funnier than that,” Kinky admits.

  “What’s number two?” Jack drawls.

  “Oh, how do Germans tie their shoes? With little nazis. All right! Thank you very much. My jokes have little wheels on them.”

  “Kinky, why don’t you sing a little from ‘Asshole from El Paso?’” Ratso tries to rescue the Texan.

  “OK,” Kinky clears his throat, and begins his parody of “Okie from Muskogee”:

  We don’t wipe our asses on Old Glory

  God and Lone Star Beer are things we trust

  We keep our women virgins till they’re married

  So hosing sheep is good enough for us

  I’m proud to be an asshole from El Paso

  A place where sweet young virgins are deflowered

  You walk down the streets knee deep in tacos

  Ta Ta Ta Tacos

  And Wetbacks still get twenty cents an hour

  “That’s about it, boychicks, a mere skeletal version of the song.”

  “Great,” everybody choruses.

  “C’mon, Kinky, let’s go to the hospitality suite, the camera crew should be there by now,” Ratso urges, and they all head for the elevator.

  They enter the party suite and Ratso quickly scans the room but there’s no cameras in sight. Ronee Blakley is sitting at the electric piano, Ronson’s jamming along on guitar, Stoner has his bass out, and a circle of about ten people are listening to the proceedings. Kinky walks in about four paces and shyly retreats to a corner, adjusting his candy-cane-frame sunglasses.

  McGuinn is singing “Truck Driving Man,” and Danko and Kinky settle down to listen, which gives Ratso a chance to run to his room and call up Johnson. “Where the fuck are you, man?” the reporter shrieks, “I got Kinky all primed, he’s down in the hospitality suite, ready to play unrecorded songs, and there’s no fucking camera crew there.”

  “Look Ratso, Meyers is sick and Goldsmith is in charge of the other crew, they were down there and nothing was happening so they split to their rooms and went to sleep. Call him, but I doubt if he’ll be happy being woken up.”

  Ratso hangs up disconsolately, goes back to break the news to Kinky, who takes it pretty well, obviously enjoying Danko’s company. Gladdened, the reporter goes to bed early. Around 4:30 A.M.

  The next morning Ratso and Lynn make their way to the coffee shop.

  A few minutes later, Dylan and Sara walk in and find seats at the counter. Ratso waves hello. “You fell asleep last night, huh?”

  “Yeah,” Dylan’s voice is real gruff, “what happened? What did I miss?”

  “Not much. The fucking film crew fell asleep before we got a chance to shoot Kinky. Maybe we can do something in Montreal. Sara, you gonna be in Montreal?”

  “I don’t want to hear about any more scenes,” she attempts to head Ratso off.

  “Don’t you want to hear Kinky’s new songs?”

  “If they happen, I’ll look at them.”

  Ratso grabs Lynn and drags her over to the counter. “Did you meet Lynn?” he asks them. “Isn’t she beautiful? She’s a shiksa.”

  “They’re the best kind, Ratso,” Dylan laughs. “Don’t forget, you met her on the Rolling Thunder.” He smiles at Lynn. “You couldn’t have met a nicer guy.”

  Just then, Raven walks in with a megaphone, trying to round people up for the bus.

  Chesley joins Ratso and Lynn, and a few minutes later, a harried-looking Joni Mitchell wanders by. Ratso invites her to sit down. “Is there time for something to eat?” Joni frets, obviously upset. She orders an omelette and orange juice.

  “Are you staying on?” Ratso asks.

  “I can’t,” Joni mumbles, nervously playing with her silverware, “I was going to, but my house just got burglarized in the city over the weekend, so I got to go back for inventory. It was an inside job, it was like someone who knew where everything was. They were very selective in that they took guitars and a collection of Edward Curtis photographs which are very valuable and don’t look valuable. And Indian baskets.”

  “I can see why you seem so upset,” Ratso commiserates.

  “I’m not uptight about losing the possessions,” Joni says with her soft Canadian accent still rearing up every once in a while, “I’m uptight about everyone calling me like crazy and telling me and inflaming it. Like they’re in the middle of it and I’m out here with a toothbrush and I could just keep on going.”

  “But it’s an invasion of privacy,” Chesley starts to lecture.

  Joni nods agreement, “I said to John that I could dig him being more upset than me because I’m surviving out here with nothing. They were so neat, man. They swept up after themselves, knew where things were in drawers, that’s the source of irritation, not the loss of the things but the loss of a friend.” Joni sips some orange juice and sinks into gloom.

  “Hope you come back, Joni,” Ratso says softly. “It’d be nice seeing you in your native environment.”

  “This is more native to me. Have you ever been ripped
off?”

  “I certainly have,” Chesley pipes in.

  “Every place I ever lived …” Joni shudders.

  Raven rushes in with a last call for the buses and Joni and Chesley hurry out.

  So Ratso and Lynn head back up to the room where Kinky is still peacefully sleeping.

  “Wake up, Kinky, don’t you want to see the scene downstairs?”

  “What scene downstairs?” the Kink mumbles.

  “The buses are pulling out,” Ratso announces dramatically.

  Kinky jumps out of bed, his sarong wrapped tightly around his midriff. He pulls his fingers through his curly moss a few times, then scratches the sleep out of his eyes. “Yes the buses are pulling out,” he affects the manic tones of a news announcer, “the people are shouting and waving good-bye.”

  “Seriously, Kinky, what’d you think of the show?”

  “Has everybody left yet? No, I had a nice time last night,” he burps, pulling on green suede cowboy boots. “I couldn’t hear too well at the show, though. Listen, I’ll tell you what I don’t like. Bringing people in here when I’m sleeping or leaving that goddamn door open when there’s some schmuck talking in the hall when I’m trying to nod out. It’s not when I’m trying to sleep, it’s when I wake up that I wig out. It doesn’t bother me when people wake me up, I just don’t like to be introduced to people when I’m on the nod. Then you left the door open five times with Negroes walking in here …”

  “Isn’t Ronee Blakley great?” Ratso tries to change the subject.

  “In what capacity?” Kinky snaps.

  “She’s a great lady. We were sitting eating this morning and she picks up the Sweet ’n Low and sings “Sweet and Low, Sweet Chariot.” Ratso chuckles again. “I forgot to tell Dylan that I thought he should re-record ‘Desire,’ the material’s great but the versions now are so much hotter.”

  “You think he’ll take your opinion into consideration and change it?” Lynn wonders.

  “He’ll do one of two things,” Kinky puts on his sport coat, “either re-record it or throw you off the tour. He threw Phil Ochs out of a car for that.”