On the Road with Bob Dylan

by Larry Sloman

  Ratso just smiles and thinks about the thousands and thousands of myths, rumors, gossip, and vicious pieces that have appeared about this little guy walking beside him.

  “Don’t worry, I tell it like it is,” Ratso smiles, “it’s all going in, all that shit with Rolling Stone, that petty bureaucratic shit about how much money you’re making …”

  “Well, use that before the book,” Dylan interrupts. “Why don’t you use that in a magazine piece?”

  Ratso just smiles and scribbles away in his pad, his hands freezing. Dylan looks concerned. “Hey man,” he says peeling off his gloves, “why don’t you wear these if you gotta write.” Ratso pulls on the gloves, and Dylan stuffs his hands into his pockets.

  “Great,” Ratso smiles, “I can sell these for one thousand dollars if I get desperate.”

  “Just remember,” Dylan pleads, “we’re counting on you with this book. We’re counting on you to set those bureaucrats straight.” They both chuckle and walk into the hotel.

  In the lobby, Sara is waiting with Helena Kallianiotes, a Hollywood actress who, along with Harry Dean Stanton, flew into Quebec to act in the movie. Helena’s a hard-edged Greek beauty, reminiscent of a female Brando. Today, she and Sara are going to be filming, but nobody seems to know what.

  They stroll out into the street, Sara in a funky brown leather jacket, Helena in denims and a low-cut blouse. “OK,” Dylan prompts, “this is gonna be an escape scene. Like from reform school, but you don’t have to mention reform school. Just think of it in your head as a reference.” The two women nod. “It’s great to get out. The guard never fed you right. He never delivered any letters out.” Sara and Helena confer among themselves and Dylan sets up the shot, the two girls running down the block to the safety of a boat-restaurant docked next to the street.

  They do two takes of the dash, Sara running like a fawn. “OK,” Bob announces, pleased, “I think we got it.” He walks into the restaurant and freaks. “Jesus, this is fantastic here,” he gushes, gaping at the huge side windows that look out over the water. Dylan directs Sara and Helena to a table and peers over Goldsmith’s shoulder as they set up the scene. “Man, we couldn’t buy this scene,” he whispers. “Let’s get some shots of them without drinks so we can see that view.” But the girls first depart for the ladies’ room, to do some last-minute makeup.

  “Where’d they go?” Dylan frets a few minutes later, worried about the late-afternoon light disappearing. “We’re losing it,” Goldsmith shakes his head. “We don’t even need dialogue,” Dylan marvels at the view. “Can we get those precious girls?” Ratso volunteers to run down to the bathroom. “This shit’ll break my heart if we don’t get it,” Dylan moans.

  “Where do I sit?” Sara wonders, as they file back in.

  “Just sit,” Dylan urges.

  “Aren’t we gonna talk to each other,” Sara seems confused, but Bob just starts the cameras rolling. After a while, they break, and set up the table with the usual settings. Sara demurely grabs a rose and places it in front of her, giving herself a contrast to the hard-edged toughness Helena projects. Dylan crouches down in front of them, and works out a quick improvised scene.

  “OK, you know a rock writer in Arizona,” Dylan suggests.

  “Let’s just take it from there,” Helena wants to wing it totally.

  “How about, ‘I know a rock writer in Arizona. Mr. Tambourine Man,’ can you get that in there any way?”

  “Sure,” Helena barks, “his name is Slim Tambourine.” She gnaws on her lip, thinking.

  They start the scene, apparently one of the girls is going to travel on, leaving the other behind. “I don’t know where I’m going,” Sara moans.

  “I’ll see you another time,” Helena quickly becomes tender.

  “When?” Sara whines. “Maybe never.”

  “Yes I will,” Helena comforts. “You see people.”

  “You’ll see me in Babylon,” Dylan whispers from the side.

  “It’s all a circle,” Helena adds.

  “It’s a spiral,” Dylan prompts.

  “Just go sit on the rock and put your thumb out,” Helena counsels. “That’s your weapon, use your mind.”

  “How do you get there?” Sara shivers.

  “OK, CUT!” Dylan shouts. Helena seems miffed. “I can’t see the development of character,” she fumes, then jumps up and stalks to the other side of the room, shaking her long thick mane. Dylan rushes over to stroke her.

  “Let’s do it once more,” he comes back. “How about this, man. Baran’s a truck driver.”

  Baran who had been sitting at a table, drinking coffee, reluctantly agrees. “You’re driving a truck from Nova Scotia to Arizona.”

  “For Kemp Fisheries,” Jack joshes.

  “Anything you want,” Dylan seems impatient. “You ask the girls if they want a lift. Which goes with you?” Dylan strokes his chin.

  “I’ll leave Sara,” Helena suggests, “then she gets involved with talking to Jack.”

  “Right,” Dylan seems displeased, “I hope it works.”

  That night Ratso rides to the concert with Sara and Helena, who seems to be a bit bummed out by the scene. Inside the Gardens, he’s all over the place, interviewing vendors, talking to ushers, getting the concession office opened up so he can buy some Maple Leaf souvenirs, including a hockey stick that he gets autographed by Leafs’ captain Daryll Sittler that he gives to Dylan’s son Jesse.

  At the finale, Ratso runs up to the front and gapes at an amazing sight. Somehow Beattie has made her way onstage and is up there front and center, leading the troupe through their paces. The reporter marvels at the sight of this display of family unity then joins the troupe for the mad dash to the bus. Tonight there’s at least thirty kids waiting at the backstage entrance, all cheering as the musicians file onto the bus. Ratso runs with the pack, and jumps onto the crew bus.

  But in the lobby, a surprise was in store. The CBC producer that had been hanging around the hotel earlier that day had evidently gotten permission to go ahead with his parody of a Hollywood opening and the lobby is filled with shills, curious onlookers, Thunder groupies, and hotel patrons who are drawn to the myriad of klieg lights and the fat woman in evening gown who calls herself Sheila Shotton, and who looks like a cross between Kate Smith and Hy Gardner.

  “This is Sheila Shotton, covering the Bob Dylan concert. We’re waiting breathlessly for Bob Dylan and his revue to arrive here after their concert in the Maple Leaf Gardens and here they come right now …” She’s almost screaming as the first arrivals stomp off the bus and walk into this surreal scene. Huge cheers arise from the crowd and Sheila starts to grab at the nearest Thunderers, snaring a film crew member who claims to be Bob. After a few seconds, she gives up on him and grabs Ronnie Hawkins, who’s also claiming to be Bob and who pulls Ginsberg into the camera. Allen immediately starts an impromptu song about being in Toronto, to the cheers of the heterogeneous audience.

  Ratso is just now coming off the bus, unaware of the proceedings, when Howard Alk and Mel Howard come running up. “Ratso,” Howard grabs the reporter, “go in there and be Bob. Do the whole shtick, it’s that BBC parody and you should be Bob.”

  Ratso just nods and grabs David Mansfield’s violin case. He pulls his Norwegian hat over his brow, adjusts his scarf, buttons his long army coat and lopes over to the waiting interviewer.

  “And here he comes now …” she starts, and the shills from the film crew start screaming “Bob,” “Bob,” “Hey Dylan.” The place is in a frenzy.

  “Great to be here, great to be in Toronto,” Ratso says in his best Dylanesque.

  “Are you really the real Bob Dylan?” Sheila looks a little baffled. “Everyone’s been giving me such a hard time …”

  “Well, nobody’s the real Bob Dylan,” Ratso gets the inflection right on the button, “but I’ve got a Toronto Maple Leafs shirt on, though.” He pulls his coat open to reveal the T-shirt.

  “Well, that’s great,” Sheila bubbles,
“what number are you?”

  “Well, what’s your name?” Ratso peers at her, as if seeing her for the first time, rocking back and forth like he’s seen the singer do countless times.

  “My name is Sheila,” she coos.

  “Sheila, huh, what do you play, Sheila?”

  “I play myself.”

  “Not who do you play …” Ratso frowns.

  “What I really want to know is what the real you is,” Sheila gushes.

  “Highway 61,” one shill screams out.

  “The inner part, the true Bob Dylan,” Sheila continues.

  “You’re getting a little personal there, Sheila,” Ratso/Dylan blanches.

  “Well, what is the first song that you wake up to in the morning?” the interviewer tries again.

  “Uh, ‘Early Morning Rain’ by Gordon Lightfoot,” the singer shoots back.

  “What’s the first thing you eat in the morning?” she continues.

  “Hot chili peppers,” Ratso smiles, and looks knowingly at Louie Kemp, who’s been observing the interview from a vantage point right off camera, “then I have some smoked salmon. Then I’m inspired enough to write.”

  Sheila starts into another question but Ratso/Dylan is too quick. “Hey we gotta go now, Sheila, it’s been great. Take care,” and the reporter-cum-singer scurries through the crowd, to a torrent of cheers, whistles, oohs and ahs. Ratso lingers a bit until the final scene is shot, Sheila being carried away by security, and then he wanders back into the crowd. Several of the film crew are in the midst of congratulating him when a small Toronto woman comes up and asks him for an autograph for her son. He complies by signing one of her checks. After a few minutes of this, he scoots upstairs to his room and rings up the real Dylan.

  “You shoulda seen this scene we just shot,” Ratso screams, “a big Hollywood-opening-type thing in the lobby for CBC. I played you, man, it’s on TV tomorrow.”

  “On TV? Where? They thought it was a real Bob Dylan interview and it’s going out all over the world?” the singer moans.

  “No, just CBC. It was a parody. But I imitated you great,” Ratso boasts.

  “Oh yeah,” Dylan sounds bored. “Well, what was it like?” His voice seems to be an equal mixture of ennui, weariness, and sarcasm. “What was it like being Bob Dylan? I wish you’d tell me.”

  The next day Ratso recuperates in the wonderful whirlpool. He just lies there for an hour, joined at times by Chesley who is drying himself out by going from the whirlpool to the pool to the sauna and back out to the Jacuzzi. Ratso just lies there in the whirlpool and mumbles every once in a while to punctuate Chesley’s far-ranging anecdotes about life with the Grateful Dead, a group he was associated with before he linked up with Jamblin’ Rack, as Chesley liked to call the folksinger.

  “Where’s Fritz Perls when we need him?” Ratso moans, as he and Chesley paddle around in the whirlpool.

  “Are you kidding? This is Fat City baby,” Jack’s road manager smiles contentedly, “fat fucking city.”

  Just then, Sara strolls in, wearing a Rolling Thunder T-shirt and looking just like a ghost. “I’m wiped out,” she moans and sits down at the desk near the pool. Ratso regales her, Chesley, and Ryan the masseur with his story about the Jamaican Jewess. “That’s nothing,” Ryan frowns, “the best Jew is a Scottish Jew, then they’re wild and tight.”

  Ryan blows on a while, talking about the massage he gave Baez, the therapeutic value of sex in Jacuzzis, and about the strange living relationship he has with his wife. They both live with other lovers and get together on the weekend. Suddenly he turns to Sara.

  “Are you famous?” he asks.

  Sara just frowns and turns to Ratso. “Am I famous?” she smirks. Ryan doesn’t pursue it and starts talking about her husband without realizing who he’s talking to. “I don’t like that Dylan. He’s got that little adenoidal whine.” Ratso finds it hard to suppress a giggle but Mrs. Laundry comes to the rescue. “Yeah,” she smiles, “he is kvetchy isn’t he?”

  Ryan gets up and heads into the locker room and Ratso and Sara start back toward their rooms. “I’m sick of wearing him on my chest,” Sara joshes, looking down at her Rolling Thunder T-shirt. “When is he gonna wear me on his chest?” They head up to Sara’s room, since Ratso is out of shampoo. She disappears into the bathroom and re-emerges with a bottle of Head, an organic shampoo. “Take this, love, it’s all I’ve got, there’s not much left in the bottle.”

  “Sara,” Ratso coos wide-eyed, “can I tell anybody you gave me some Head?” She frowns and he peeks into the bedroom. “Jeez, I wish I had my tape recorder with me,” he sighs. “You must have it under your bathing trunks,” Sara cracks. “I can’t believe you’re a reporter. I hate the press.” She shakes her head.

  Ratso seizes the opportunity to peek under the hot platter at the remains of Bob and Sara’s dinner last night. “Ratso,” Sara screams. “Bob’ll kill you if he finds out.”

  “I’m just hungry,” Ratso whines, “I just want something to eat. These fucking potatoes are cold.” He picks up a mushroom, peers at it for a while, then plops it into his mouth. He grabs a bottle of wine.

  “Not bad,” the reporter whistles, “1971. This shit—”

  “Take it, take it,” Sara’s screaming. “C’mon, Ratso, go take your shower.” The reporter dutifully complies, with his wine and Head in tow.

  That night, before the concert, Ratso decides to go shopping on Yonge Street, Toronto’s equivalent of Greenwich Village and Times Square combined. He wants to get some books as presents for the performers for their train ride to Montreal tomorrow, and he also promised Dylan he would look for some elk buttons for Bob’s winter coat. After a half hour’s search he doesn’t find them, but he winds up with a huge furry burnt-sienna vest, and an authentic raccoon hat complete with tail, making the reporter look, as Dylan would later describe him, like a sheep in wolfs clothing.

  Ratso grabs a cab, rushes back to the hotel, drops off the three shopping bags of books, and speeds back to the Gardens. As he comes in, Roger McGuinn is onstage.

  “What’d I miss?” he screams at T-Bone, who looks especially odd tonight.

  “Nothing, man.”

  “How come you’re not up there?” Ratso suddenly realizes the guitarist usually plays on this number.

  “I took myself out of the show,” Bone groans, “I was too weird.” Up onstage, Neuwirth puts his arms around Baez after McGuinn concludes his number. “Let’s show them some positions,” Bob ogles, as Goldsmith and Michael Wadleigh shoot the proceedings from the pit. Neuwirth’s arm goes around Baez forming some weird sort of position, somewhere between the Kama Sutra and a hammerlock. Joan blanches. “There goes the ol’ Madonna right down the tube.”

  Neuwirth just chuckles and pats Baez’s belly. “I’m not pregnant,” she gets mock-offended, and some people begin to clap their displeasure. “You must be drunk,” she leers at Neuwirth, “they’re filming you, that’s why you’re so weird.”

  Neuwirth just continues to pat her belly. “She’s hard as a rock,” he notes approvingly.

  “Too bad I can’t say the same for him,” Joan sneers and brings the house down. “We could have a very interesting meditation at this point,” she continues in perfect guruese, “I think perhaps we could be spiritually, er, I think that the Western country needs more spiritual concentration, more spiritual concentration on the material. If everyone would turn to the person next to him and say something disgusting I think perhaps the spirituality of the entire nation could be raised.”

  The crowd titters and Baez returns to normalcy and introduces Gordon Lightfoot, who gets an amazing ovation. He lights into his huge hit “Sundown,” and everybody starts to clap along. Especially the silver-haired sixtyish-looking woman in the front row, who at the first notes is bouncing up and down on her white go-go boot heels, waving her arms in wild abandon, and shouting at the top of her lungs, “Gordon, Gordon.” Lightfoot looks down and smiles at the grotesque near-senile teenybopper.
And she’s really going at it, dancing on the pit rail, flinging her fur hat off, kicking high like a Rockette in her flaming red outfit. Ratso rushes over and cracks up at her long underwear that gets revealed every time she does a high kick.

  But it apparently isn’t that funny to the management and after a few minutes of this, an officious young usher goes to escort her back to her seat. And gets met with a solid pocketbook in the head. The documentary crew rushes over and gets a few feet of film, but even they get met with curses and a few roundhouse rights.

  Which prompts Gene, the burly security man, to make a headlong dash across the front of the audience, snatch her up as if she were an offside kick, never breaking stride until he crosses the goal line on the other side. At which point he gently deposits her down, right next to Ratso.

  “Those fucking bastards,” she’s screaming incoherently, just as the Stadium security in the form of huge lumbering Royal Canadian Mounted Police come up.

  “OK, let’s go, you’re going with us,” they collar her and head for an exit.

  Ratso runs along, screaming out a request for an interview, and promptly finds himself booted out along with her.

  After a half hour talking to her, and getting booted out of the first restaurant they encountered, Ratso’s still puzzled that this obviously notorious public enemy was able to penetrate the defenses of the RCMP elite. “How’d you get into the Gardens in the first place?” he queries the celebrated deviant. Margaret, as she’s called, just smiles and slyly looks down at her white go-go boots. “It was easy. They just let me in when I told them I was Bobby Dylan’s mother.”

  Ratso waves farewell to Margaret and starts back to the Gardens. Walking in the rain, he sings to himself and walks around the corner to where the campers are parked. The show won’t break for about a half hour but already there are at least twenty people waiting by the stage door. Mostly young tennyboppers waiting for Ronson, or McGuinn or Dylan or Lightfoot, but Ratso gravitates to one neatly dressed guy, around thirty, who’s waiting all alone. The reporter sidles up to him.

  “Are you waiting for something here?” Ratso asks innocently.