(Personal reflections
inspired by Bob Dylan songs)
Song: “Visions of
Johanna”
Album: Blonde on Blonde
Release Date: June
1966
The woods.
Campfires. Hiking. Why was I thinking about these open-space archetypes
all week as I listened to “Visions of Johanna”? I mean, on the face of things,
the two worlds could not be more diametrically opposed. Listen to that Bob Dylan classic off the 1966
masterpiece Blonde on Blonde at any
level, and you only get an urban feel for place. A very urban feel. A New York City feel. Heat pipes, empty lots, all-night girls,
night watchmen, the “D-train”, museums, and fish trucks. They are all there in “Visions of
Johanna”. Nothing doing for trees,
streams and fire pits.
But here’s the thing: This song transcends
locale. It also transcends any specific
meaning, such as the longing for someone who is not there (although that is a
beautiful angle on the song). Much of the
reason for this has to do with trailblazing. “Visions of Johanna” and the album
it is on, was the thick icing on the cake that Bob Dylan had been baking since
he introduced himself to the world four years earlier. For many of us, we can’t
help but hear the far bigger and broader narrative. The song and the album were introducing a
significant moment in time; a counterculture period that would ultimately prove
to affect multiple generations, including mine, and now maybe even my children’s.
And yet, why the woods? To flesh this out, I’ll need to first go back
a ways. I grew up in a small town in the 60s and 70s. Indeed, Franklin, Massachusetts was quite
rural back in the day. There were
certain unique qualities in that town at that time that helped to shape who I
am, which can be hard to define. However,
over the years I’ve taken stabs at this, and I hope some of it has seeped through
in these blog writeups. I’ll be doing
more of that here as I try to explain the connection to “Visions of Johanna” ( https://vimeo.com/188544213 ).
Anyhow, that rural Franklin where I spent
my formative years is long gone, replaced by suburban sprawl. Fifteen years ago, though, I discovered a
modern-day Franklin of yore; Pepperell, Massachusetts. I did some exploring. No traffic lights. No long lines anywhere. A neighborly familiarity at the grocery
store. And lots of woods. After some
cajoling, I talked my wife Nancy into moving here - she having been raised in the
far-more urban Woburn, Massachusetts, where all the creature comforts were within
a few minutes driving distance. We have
since had the privilege of calling Pepperell our home.
Why the yearning? I mean, I can live just about anywhere. Cities work for me. So, too does the countryside. And the ocean. The mountains. Old. New. Even suburbia. Well, I yearned because I knew a good thing
when I experienced it as a kid, and I wanted my kids to have that same
experience. After moving to Pepperell, we
would take Charlotte and Peter out into the woods regularly, and as they grew
up, I’d tell them to get out there on their own with their friends. I’d also tell them that ‘out there’ on the
foot trails and under the canopy is where the real magic happens. They took me up on it and came to understand
what I was talking about.
What did I mean by this? I was not sure how to explain at first, but
over time I’ve gotten better at articulating it. In the woods, you get to experience the
dynamic side of your true nature more than anywhere else. You can probably find that dynamism virtually
anywhere and in any way if you are of open mind (as be the case with Bob Dylan
when he wrote “Visions of Johanna”), but in the woods, it can manifest itself
more readily.
I think an example or two will best get my
point across. Let me start with a
compare/contrast: The use of traditional maps to get from point A to point B
vs. the modern-day approach of commanding your car or smartphone to get you somewhere. I have a strong bias to the traditional approach,
although I will admit upfront that in a pinch and tight on time, I will turn to
new technology to find my destination. But
I do try to minimize that dependency. I
also realize that some people are simply not blessed with a sense of direction,
and so this technology is a godsend for them.
But some of us are blessed with the ability to navigate. I’m one of them, and I’ve managed to take
this God-given skill and make it a career, working as a computer mapping
specialist (GIS) at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) for over 30
years now. In this capacity, I’m
surrounded by others of similar ability.
About 15 years ago I was in Denver, and
after a long day of work, a group of us chose a place to eat which was a bit
off the beaten path. I reached for the paper map in the glove compartment when one
of these colleagues pulled out his cell phone and stated, ‘I got this’. He then proceeded to establish our location
using GPS and then punched in the address where we were going. Voila! Instant directions. We wouldn’t even have to think. A decade or so earlier, I had a sense on
where all this was going; long before digital directions became the widespread
technology we use today. In fact, the
work my colleagues and I were doing at that time were forging that path. And now, here we were at the transition moment,
heading to a restaurant in Denver. You
would think I’d have been ecstatic, but this was not my reaction. Instead, I looked at him and the words that
came out of my mouth were a half-joking “shame on you!”.
He didn’t get it, so I explained that he and
I had these natural abilities of orientation, and if he was not careful he was
going to see them erode. My colleague
begged to differ, arguing the technology had nothing but beneficial consequences. I don’t know.
I guess he had a point. Still, I
needed to think more about why I felt the way I did. Not long after, it hit me. I thought of the woods, just like I did this
week. And from there I thought of Native
Americans and other primitive peoples, their connection to the natural world,
and in turn their ability to see the God-given skills in their young people as
they experience the natural world. For
example, they can see the special ability in one child to track wild animals. They
see it in another one who has an uncanny knowledge of where groundwater can be
found. Another can understand the
communication among a murder of crows.
Yet another can decipher the medicinal properties of native plants. And to my point, another who has a detailed map
of their world ingrained in his/her mind.
This is all dynamic. We too have
uncanny, inexplicable skills like these.
Most of us will never get anywhere near our capabilities however. Our world is too contrived to allow it.
What does this have to do with “Visions of
Johanna”? Well, first off, as with all
the music off Blonde on Blonde, this
is a deep song that pulled young people back in a dynamic direction. Music like this was simply not written in the
mid-60s, or any time before that, particularly in the genre of rock and
roll. But it blossomed after. In other
words, Bob Dylan brought intellect to rock and roll and to a generation of rock listeners. This was not just the type of intellect where
someone would say he was ‘well read’. The lyrics in all his songs play this
out, but all I have to do is use the lines in “Visions of Johanna to prove this
point. And so, it was also a philosophical
intellect (“But Mona Lisa musta had the
highway blues, you can tell by the way she smiles”). It too was faith intellect (“and Madonna, she still has not showed”). It was an intellect that explored deeper meaning
and emotion related to love (“Louise, she’s
all right, she’s just near, she’s delicate and seems like the mirror, but she
just makes it all too concise and too clear, that Johanna’s not here”), empathy
(“The peddler now speaks to the countess
who’s pretending to care for him, sayin’ ‘Name me someone that’s not a parasite
and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him’”), and quite often what it meant
to be American (“and the country music
plays soft, but there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off”). It was even
an intellect related to humor (“Hear the
one with the mustache say, ‘Jeez, I can’t find my knees’”). Most important though, it was an intellect
based on insight to our yearning for dynamics in our lives (“The fiddler he now steps to the road, he writes ev’rything’s been returned which
was owed, on the back of the fish truck that loads, while my conscience explodes”).
Bob Dylan could have kept his voice in the
folk world, and he would have done quite well there. But by ‘going electric’ he opened his brilliance
to mass appeal. In turn, he initiated a movement. The youth of the free world were not only
ready for his sound, they were also ready for his intellect. Say what you will
about the 60s counterculture, but one thing that can’t be denied, and which
resonates to this day, is that there was an underlying effort to grasp a deeper
meaning to life. To separate the real
from the fake. The essential from the
superfluous. The substance from the material.
One place I’ve always felt closer to the
flame is literally close to the flame:
Sitting around a campfire. We
have a firepit in the backyard here in Pepperell. As be the case in the many camping trips we’ve
enjoyed over the years with friends and family, this is the spot where you
really can unwind. It’s also where
people tend to open up, more so than usual.
And the intellect and dynamics of the conversations ramp up a notch or
two as well. Stare into that fire long
enough and all sorts of visions start jumping out. I occasionally find myself connecting with the
elders of some ancient tribe, passing the peace pipe. And, I find myself connecting with my younger
self; many moons spent under the stars, be it winter, summer, spring or fall,
with a fire crackling in front of me and my friends. All those great discussions about love, hopes and
dreams. My conscience exploding in those
moments.
My son Peter has spent many-a-night sitting
around that firepit with his friends when he was in high school. And he did this at his friends’ homes
too. But more importantly, he did the
same thing in the woods, like I did in Franklin in my high school years. As he grew,
and we talked, I could see the experience of dynamic life unfold in his
eyes. It was so cool to see. I was thankful. It guaranteed we could connect on many levels
for as long as time allowed.
I’m not sure of this next point, but I’m
thinking the 60s introduced a new/ancient atmosphere back into the American
culture: That peace-pipe circle and its meaning. As mentioned above, it happened outdoors, but
the indoors was not exempt. In this
case, the key ingredients were friends and loud music. Yes, maybe a bong was sitting in the center
of that circle, but it was not essential. What was essential was listening to that
music. There were lyrics to read in the
album sleeves. There was off key singing. There was air guitar. There was the requisite Hendrix poster on the
wall. There was nodding in
approval. There was intelligent interpretation. In those moments, I’m telling you, there was also
telepathy. Bob Dylan gets the credit in
my book for bringing it all back home: The peace-pipe circle that is.
As for my daughter Charlotte, well, the
fact that she’s hiking in some remote forest in Colombia as I type this speaks
for itself. I remember the moment when I
could begin to envision her path in life.
We were on an overnight ferry coming home from an amazing trip to Newfoundland. Charlotte was around 13 at the time. The week
there had a remote rugged feel to it. Puffins.
Icebergs. Fjords. Caribou. On that trip
home, all the cabins on the ferry were booked and so, as with many others, we
sprawled out on the comfortable reclining chairs in the general seating
area. Charlotte could not sleep and so
she roamed the deck. When the horns blew
to announce that we were soon docking, we gathered our stuff and headed down to
the car. As we loaded, Charlotte looked
at me and said “Dad, I saw poster a
poster on the wall last nite. It said, ‘you couldn’t be any further from Disney
than you are right now’”.
Today, I’d like to credit Pepperell and Bob
Dylan for that moment.
It’s good to have stability, but I think
there should always be more than a little room for the dynamic. So, if you know someone who is not married to
their smart phone. Or they drive a shit
box. Or they like to use paper
maps. Or, they find far more appeal to
identifying a plant than living in luxury.
Or they shake their head often at the greed around them. Or they see the
forest for the trees, literally and figuratively, then you might not have to
look any further than the effect that the ideals of the counterculture 60s had
on them. It’s all by choice, folks. And,
it may be the only way to leave sufficient mental space for dynamic life, an
open mind, and of course, those visions.
- Pete
Sunday, December 16, 2018
Saturday, December 8, 2018
Master Blueprints # 45: "How Many Roads Must a Man Walk Down, Before You Call Him a Man”
(Personal reflections inspired by Bob Dylan songs)
Song: “Blowin’ In the
Wind”
Album: The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
Release Date: May 1963
Pilgrimage 3 of 3
Back in early March I visited the town of
Bob Dylan’s upbringing, Hibbing, Minnesota, while on a work trip to
International Falls, Minnesota, which I wrote about in Master Blueprint #
10. I took another Dylan-related journey
to Woodstock, in the Catskills of Upper State New York in early September, in
search of inspiration from that geographic cornerstone in his life, which I
wrote about in Master Blueprint # 34. And
my trilogy of Bob Dylan-centric destinations was completed this past weekend
when I traveled with my wife Nancy to Greenwich Village, in the heart of
Manhattan, New York City.
This was the 8th trip to the Big
Apple in my lifetime, all of which have been very memorable. Scattered among
them, I’d pretty much taken in all the major sightseeing locales: The Statue of
Liberty, the Empire State Building, Central Park, Rockefeller Center, Times
Square, the United Nations, the Museum of Natural History, Strawberry Fields,
Tribeca, Little Italy, Chinatown, Soho, Harlem, and of course, Greenwich
Village. I have written about a handful
of my excursions to NYC in these Music
and Memory blog pages over the past decade, including two indelible winter
road trips with my Canadian brethren back in the 80s, each of which was spent
homeless for a night (see Under the Big
Top # 7 here ). Another writeup that comes to mind was about
heading down with a crew of great friends to see the Who perform Quadrophenia at Madison Square Garden
(see Under the Big Top # 9 here ). And then there was the fantastic Ray Davies
show at the Westbeth Theatre that I witnessed with my great friend Mac, which
I’ve discussed here and there in these pages.
I drove through a blizzard to see that one.
One trip I’d not elaborated on was taken in
the spring of 2001, a few months before 9/11 (which, by the way is an event
which I have also written about….see Under
the Big Top # 37 here ). That was the last time I’d traveled to
Manhattan. I was with Nancy and the kids. Charlotte was only six at the time. Peter was two. I recently dug through the photos from that
trip, knowing I’d be heading back there soon.
One photo is of us on a ferry heading out to the Statue of Liberty. It was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the
sky. Behind us are the Twin Towers,
glimmering in the sunlight. It brings
back great memories, but it’s also eerie when I look at that photograph. 9/11 was also cloudless.
Seventeen years have passed since that trip. Our daughter is 24 now, our son 20. Empty Nesters, Nancy and I, with quite a bit
more freedom to hit the road. Not that I’m anywhere near there yet, but I now
have another angle on why people travel a lot in their retirement: Life on the road gets you to think out of the
box far more than life at home, which in turn can get the creative juices
flowing. From this perspective, travel
tends to feed itself. Nancy and I have
done a lot of travelling over the years, before and with children. Those experiences can now pay off in ways that
were unforeseen until these recent insights.
All we must do at this point is get back out there.
As mentioned in the last entry (Blueprint #
44), marriage is a blending of two individual’s values. which played out to a tee over the weekend,
seeing as Nancy and I tackled not one, but two locales for this trip, the other
being Asbury Park, New Jersey. This one was
Nancy’s contribution. She’s a big
Southside Johnny fan, he who is one of a handful of Jersey Shore rock stars who
got his feet wet playing at the local clubs along the boardwalk, including the
most famous of them all, the Iron Horse (where we got to spend some time
exploring that Friday evening). Nancy
and I have been to a good number of Southside Johnny’s shows in the Boston area
over the years, she more than myself.
He’s a helluva showman.
Anyhow, from a Bob Dylan ‘pilgrimage’ and
blog-writing perspective, this side trek rounded out the journey
perfectly. For example, Dylan’s image
was surprisingly cropping up all over the place in Asbury Park: Street art,
murals, postcards, and other depictions. I’m now thinking this must have had a
lot to do the man who inducted Dylan into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Bruce
Springsteen. The Boss is already a legend
in this neck of the woods. His image,
along with others in his E Street Band takes up about half the wall space at
the Iron Horse (Southside Johnny and the Asbury Juke cover a fair percentage
too). And so, if Bruce Springsteen looks
up to Bob Dylan, it must follow that so does most everyone else who lives
there.
Nancy and I strolled the lengthy boardwalk early
Saturday morning from the Asbury Park Convention Hall deep into neighboring
Ocean Grove and back, talking about Charlotte (now in Colombia), Peter’s
schoolyear, Hurricane Sandy, “Under the Boardwalk”, the value of sand dunes, and
the day ahead. Back at the Convention
Hall, which was just opening for business, (photo below) we split up for a bit
while shopping around. My mind wandered
to my blog world. I thought about Bob
Dylan getting detained by police while roaming the nearby streets in the
pouring rain about 10 years ago, looking into the windows of a property that
was for sale. It’s been speculated he
was in search of the home where Bruce Springsteen penned “Born to Run” ( Dylan-detained-Jersey-Shore ). I thought
about Dylan’s supposed ‘ode’ to Bruce Springsteen and his Jersey haunts, that
being the song “Tweeter and the Monkey Man” off the Traveling Wilburys first
album, which Joan Osborne performed brilliantly two nights earlier at the
Wilbur Theatre in Boston (again see Blueprint # 44). Was “Tweeter” and the Monkey Man” praise, or
parody? Bob Dylan’s not sayin’. Finally, I thought about the relationship
between these two men and the effect Dylan has had on so many of us,
Springsteen right there near the top of the list.
The first part of our journey complete, we then
drove north up the Garden State Parkway and Route 95, veering East on Route 78
into Jersey City, the Holland Tunnel minutes away. I’d never had this view of Manhattan before, usually
looking at it from the Northeast, North, or Northwest. It was impressive. The elevated highway view revealed the
immensity of the metropolis in front of us, from Battery Park to the George
Washington Bridge. There’s nowhere else like
it in the world to my knowledge. I
thought about Bob Dylan and what he must have felt like arriving here for the
first time, hitchhiking from the Midwest on a wing and a prayer, in the harsh
winter of 1961, a full year and a half before I was born. What was he doing
there amongst the populous right now, 57 years later, near the end of his
Beacon Theatre residency? I thought
about many of the other musicians and bands who adopted New York as their
home-away-from-home over the years, including British groups like the Rolling
Stones and the Who, and most notably, John Lennon. I thought about those earlier treks of mine
into New York. I thought about Spider Man
swinging from high rise to high rise, and all the great movies filmed there. Aside from those random thoughts, Nancy and I
were having fun, laughing at the cars in the cash lines as we cruised into the
tunnel, having just gotten our first ever EZ Pass the day before (we the
hapless ones to that date).
Arriving in Manhattan we veered north a few
blocks into Greenwich Village and immediately found a metered parking spot near
the intersection of Bleecker and LaGuardia. We were here! I thought I would be able to rely on my
earlier instincts with this area, but in many ways, it was as if I were tackling
the Village for the first time. The
familiarity was vague, which may have had something to do with coming at it
from a different direction. Anyhow,
right in front of our car was The Bitter End, where Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder
Review band took shape in the mid-70s.
Great place to start. It turned
out this was ‘open mic’ day. Musicians
and their guitars were signing up and lining up, waiting for the place to
open. Nancy and I got in line with them. When the doors opened, we took in the aura of
the place and watched the first musician perform. Her music was a bit of a downer, she obviously
struggling, singing about selling out to make ends meet. But she was singing from the heart and she
was passionate. Good luck there, young
lady. Many struggling musicians got
their start on that stage, some who became quite famous. Hopefully you will get to where you want to
be too.
As already mentioned, I was very much aware
of Bob Dylan performing that nite at the Beacon Theatre on the Upper West Side,
and we dabbled with the idea of heading that way later in the day to see if we
could scalp tickets. The fact of the
matter was that, like my Woodstock adventure, very little was planned for this
trip, partly because we were not sure until the last minute if it would pan out
due to other factors back home, and partly because… that’s the way we operate. Amazing things can happen when you wing it,
or they can fall flat. It’s a crap
shoot. But truthfully, the Dylan show was not my focus. Being with Nancy in Greenwich Village was my
focus; dining, shopping, doing whatever.
A melding of our values was my focus. Besides, I’ve seen so many great shows
over the years, including Bob on five occasions. And so, I vowed I was not
going to let that whisper get too loud in my ear.
Despite this inner declaration, the notion
was still tugging at me. However, at the
same time I was beginning to feel the effects of the prior 5 weeks; work travel
(see Blueprint # 41), concerts, Thanksgiving, burning the candle at both ends,
people hacking all around me all that time.
My body was yelling at me; cold, flu… something was happening. I was suppressing it, but for how long? We had not booked a place to stay yet. That was both good and bad. Good because it gave us flexibility. Bad because it seeped into our thinking more
than we would have liked. We are usually
good in this sort of situation, but Manhattan is a different beast than
virtually anywhere else we’d made last minute decisions like this over the
years. There were a few options for us;
places to stay. But they were pricey to
say the least. Worth it in most
situations was my thinking. But in my
state?
We chewed on our options as we roamed the
streets, taking in our surroundings, and soon found ourselves in Washington
Square Park (photo below) which was full of life. Then over to the Washington Square Park
Hotel, which is no longer the dirt-cheap place it used to be when Bob Dylan
used it as a virtual squat house upon arriving in the city. I thought about Joan Baez’ song “Diamonds and
Rust”, which is about her romance with Bob Dylan and which mentions this hotel. I thought about what that namesake Park in
front of it must have been like in the 60s. A few blocks further down we passed
the iconic location where Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo were photographed for the
cover of Dylan’s second album The
Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, the first song on it being this entry’s Blueprint. I was feeling the vibes.
As darkness settled in, we made our way
down to Soho for some Christmas shopping, and then up over to Little Italy,
where we found a nice Italian restaurant for dinner. My appetite was there, but I was fading, with
the rain now coming down hard too, and the forecast for Sunday being more of
the same. We were slowly concluding that
this was our last downtown stop of the day, and so, we took our time, and
enjoyed it. Then we headed back to our
car.
We flirted with the idea of stopping
somewhere on the way home and staying the nite, perhaps taking in some place in
Connecticut or upper-state New York the next day, but in the end, we drove all
the way back to our home in Pepperell Massachusetts. For a good stretch we listened to the
excellent soundtrack to the even more superb movie “I’m Not There”. Nancy is not as enamored by Bob Dylan’s
vocals as I am. Not by a long shot. But when the cover of “Ballad of a Thin Man”
came on she made the comment that she liked Dylan’s vocals in the original. I thought, ‘now that’s some very keen insight’, seeing as I’ve made the same
observation myself. There is hope!
My mind wandered again as we drove late
into the nite. I thought once more about
my last Blueprint entry (# 44) and the song of choice from it, “High Water (for
Charley Patton)”. It’s a song of such
foreboding. One contemplative aspect
related to the song is that the album it’s on, “Love and Theft” - which includes many other foreboding tunes - was
released on 9/11/2001. Even though I’ve
always known this fact, I did not bring it up for that entry, seeing as it did
not fit my storyline. It does here though.
How has the world changed in the 17 years
since I was last in New York, back in 2001, months before 9/11? I recalled a Rolling Stone interview with Bob
Dylan week’s after that album release and that catastrophic event. I searched for and found it a few days after
settling in back home this week. As I had remembered, this reread once again revealed
Dylan’s comments to be very poignant throughout the article. It’s a real time capsule of a piece. Near the end of the interview Bob Dylan was
asked about 9/11. First, he quoted a verse
from the Rudyard Kipling poem “Gentlemen-Rankers”, which goes:
“We
have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth
We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung
And the measure of our torment is the measure
of your youth
God help us, for we knew the worst too young!”
(I recalled showing this to my Dad back in
those heavy, heavy weeks after 9/11. Dad
was quiet after reading this). Bob Dylan then went on to say, “If anything my
mind would go back to young people at a time like this”.
Young people. My son and my daughter
today. American, Iraqi, and Afghani youth, on the cusp of fighting their parents
and grandparents battles after 9/11 (I’m sure Dylan was referring to all of
them with that quote above). And of
course, Bob Dylan when he released The
Freewheelin Bob Dylan in 1963, at the tender age of 21, along with its
powerful opener, “Blowin’ in the Wind” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWwgrjjIMXA
) which was his true introduction to the free world. Unlike those Gentlemen-Rankers of yore, Bob
Dylan not only knew the worst too young, he expressed it, perfectly, in that
very first hit, and he never let it go. I
am grateful for having recognized this. My
visits to New York City, Woodstock and Hibbing contributed to that recognition. I’m grateful for that too.
- Pete
Sunday, December 2, 2018
Master Blueprints # 44: "I Can Write You Poems, make a Strong Man Lose His Mind, I’m No Pig Without a Wig, I Hope You Treat Me Kind”
(Personal reflections
inspired by Bob Dylan songs)
Song: “High Water (for Charley Patton)”
Album: “Love and Theft”
Release Date: September 2011
One of my favorite sketches on Saturday Night Live was back in the late 70s, when Don Novello would don priestly garb and morph into the fictional character Father Guido Sarducci, employed as the gossip columnist for the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano (this in and of itself is a hilarious thought). Sarducci poked fun at the Catholic Church, but in an enchanting way that often allowed for more than a hint of respect, and even reverence. One of his best skits was when he explained what it takes to be deemed worthy for sainthood by the Holy See, one criteria of which was that you needed to have performed at least 3 miracles to even be considered. He went on, in his classic straight-faced way, to complain of a European bias (particularly Italy) stating that in other parts of the world, someone can perform 10, 20 miracles and be ignored, where in Europe you perform just one miracle… “and they wave the other 2 miracles”. Funny stuff.
Other than learning of Jesus’ life in the catechism classes of my youth, this was my bizarre introduction to the concept of miracles, in terms of really thinking about it. “Miracle” is defined in the dictionary as “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency”. Do you believe in miracles? I do. I started to - from a grown up, analytical point of view - around the time of watching that Father Guido Sarducci skit. Such a strange way to start believing in miracles, huh? At the time, I began thinking along the lines of ‘well, if someone is true to their belief system, and if they are spiritually enlightened, they can do things that are indeed inexplicable’.
Now, I very much wish I could go all wiggy here and write about miracles that have happened in my life, but I can’t because those top tier miraculous moments have been elusive to date. However, I have gotten little tastes of it here and there; mini-miracles so to speak. Hard to explain phenomenon. Amazing experiences. Happenings. I’m sure everybody reading this has too. I mean, life can be incredible at times, can it not? We can all relate to this, be it in the context of love, prayer, dreams, coincidences, déjà vu, nature, travel, you name it. I’ve learned over the years that if you are attentive to these possibilities, great things can happen.
This year I’ve been zoned into these types of experiences at an accelerated rate, and I credit this Blue Print series. I’m sure that my reflecting and writing, as well as the intensity of listening to Bob Dylan’s music, have been what has made me more tuned to them (I’ll also credit some of the great feedback I’ve received from you all). This week was up there on the bizzaro-meter. What follows are a few 'telltale' examples.
Wednesday night (11/28) I attended a fantastic Joan Osborne concert at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston with my great friend, Mac. The show was a tribute to Bob Dylan, and his songs were all that Osborne and her band performed that evening. They tackled an incredible diversity of Dylan’s music, including highlights “Maggie’s Farm”, “Ring Them Bells”, and an intense extended jam of the tragic tale “Ballad of Hollis Brown” (proving to me that this singer and her band were serious).
For me the best head-shaking experience of the evening was when, between songs, Joan Osborne talked about the 2001 Bob Dylan album “Love and Theft”, which she stated has had a tremendous effect on her. I was sitting there thinking ‘ok, very cool…. not a highly recognized Dylan album in terms of covers, but that’s the disc I’ve homed in on this week’. I had bounced all over the place with a Blue Print song selection from it, each of the 12 being as magnificent as the other. Earlier that day - the day of Joan Osborne’s show - I’d finally made the decision, “High Water (for Charley Patton): ” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fdqF4XIUsE ). And wouldn’t ya know it; that was the song she announced, and then performed with passion. It was my favorite song of the show, partly because I’d felt I had made some sort of inexplicable connection with Osborne. I consider that a Happening. I'm sure anyone who has attended concerts routinely over the years can understand what I mean.
There was another bizarre moment Wednesday night; I got to see Bob Dylan disappear... for the second time in a week! This one obviously needs more detailed explanation than usual. I'll tackle the first event first, which many others saw too; no real shock here. So, I’ve recently found out that Dylan has a reputation for vanishing in crowds. I’m not surprised, seeing as I can relate (personal vanishing acts for another time). And, as Wade Boggs once stated when being attacked by a knife-wielding antagonist (ok, his wife), sometimes you just gotta “will yourself invisible”. Anyhow, I was reading about this Dylan alchemy in Sam Shepard’s mercurial The Rolling Thunder Logbook over the prior weekend. At the very same time, I had the T.V. blaring and an ad for that night’s The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon came on, which to my pleasant surprise, was going to include a rare Bob Dylan appearance. Would it be an interview? A performance? I could not determine. I stayed up and, sure enough there was a Dylan moment – a skit - which fascinatingly included a vanishing act: ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0hxHE_UK6Q ). (Side Note: The link is worth a watch. It’s short and sweet. Also note, I was particularly impressed by the steadiness in that 77-year-old hand as Dylan poured and drank whiskey with Fallon).
Flash forward several days back to that Joan Osborne show. This guy is sitting in the front row and I’m telling you, he’s a spitting image of Bob Dylan: Curly puffed hair, wiry in mannerism and the way he walks, slender, dressed in classy, star studded garb. Face, nose, everything. I spotted him right off and joked with Mac that the band hired this Dylan clone to sit there, who was nodding in appreciation to most every song. So, there’s a break in the action, just before intermission, and I seize the moment to head down to the restroom before the crowd. Mac takes the initiative as well. The two of us are there in the men’s room, no one else around, when, wouldn’t you know it, the Bob Dylan clone strolls in and ponies up at the 3rd urinal. This was too good to be true. I made a comment about having the opportunity to take a leak with Bob. I thought I spotted a smirk. Then, we all head back up to the main event, but this guy makes a beeline outside. It ends up he would be gone for the night. I just caught him out of the corner of my eye as he maneuvered out the venue. Vamoose! “I’m Not There” folks; “I’m Not There”!
This kinda thing has been happening to me all year, from Big Pink, to Hibbing to Albuquerque, to Baltimore, to my commutes to and from work, to my weekend activities at home. The blog stories are coming to me now too. Several months ago, I was concerned about inspiration and fresh ideas, but not anymore. Things are rolling in at a quick pace. Carrying on this Happening theme: After finishing Sam Shepard’s book, I picked up the thought-provoking Robert M. Pirsig’s book Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, which was the long-awaited sequel to his master work Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
I’m still early into Lila, which, as stated in the title, is a tale woven around the concept of morality (where Zen is woven around the concept of quality). One of the narratives that Pirsig introduces early in the book relates to how modern American culture is a blending of Native American and European values, personified in the Midwesterner. American’s who live in that region of the country have shared experiences with Native American people the most. All of this, Pirsig argues, has played out in our attitudes toward Europe and in our politics, to this day.
I would not do justice to explaining this further other than to suggest you read the book. What I will state however, is that this Pirsig narrative had me harkening back to my most recent blog entry before this one (Blueprint # 43); that cowboy-hat-wearing escapade of mine with my wife Nancy to Big Bend National Park in Texas many years ago. In that entry I suggested that, in wearing the hat, I was in search of an America that once was, or maybe never was.
Sometimes you just reach a point reading a book where your mind begins to wander way too much. Obviously, I’d reached that point as these thoughts floated in several nights back, so I closed the book, turned off the night light and reflected on all this. Suddenly what came to mind was how I met Nancy; at a Halloween party. She was dressed as a Native American woman! The cowboy hat, the quest, the Pirsig insights. It all dovetailed in that moment. This was a beautiful thing I thought: Modern American culture as a blending of Native American and European values transitioned to a personal analogy of marriage as a blending of two individual’s values. I would never have pulled this thought process together without having written that blog entry last week. Another Happening is my conclusion. And what’s more fascinating is that this value-system all played out wonderfully on a road trip Nancy and I took this weekend to Asbury Park and Greenwich Village (the 3rd and final Dylan pilgrimage of my Dylan year). I’ll have to save the elucidation on that one for next week, seeing as it’s in need of a blog entry all its own.
I’d like to close with some thoughts related to the album “Love and Theft”, as well as this week’s Blueprint from it: “High Water (for Charley Patton)”. If any album epitomizes Bob Dylan’s sleight of hand, it should be “Love and Theft”. The Dylan look-alike who vanished into the night air halfway through the Joan Osborne set on Wednesday, as well as the real Bob Dylan’s escapades on The Tonight Show last weekend, pretty much sums up the effect of this album. Dylan produced it under his pseudonym ‘Jack Frost’. He also released a cool little commercial for it with card shark Ricky Jay ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRo3r8g-w30 ). It all fits, including the lyrics to every song.
When I first heard “Love and Theft” I was not overly impressed. It sounded like an old-timer album to me. Images of a late career, overweight BB King sitting on a bar stool danced in my head. I simply was not ready for that type of sound back in my early 40s. Not enough high water under the bridge I suppose. It took a while, but I’m certainly all the way there now. I wrote about “Mississippi” way back in Master Blueprint # 2, one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs of all time. “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” has been climbing my personal fav ladder too, as has “Po’ Boy”. “Things Have Changed”, a song not on the album, but a prelude to its attitude, is also extraordinary ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9EKqQWPjyo ). I’d love to figure a way to do a writeup on that one. Side Note: Has anyone else out there tuned into the ominous hissing sound that rears its head off and on during “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum”. It sounds like either 1) someone breathing through his teeth to convey anxiety 2) a balloon deflating and/or 3) a snake hissing. One place you can hear it is at the beginning of the 8th verse while Bob Dylan sings the line “Tweedle Dee’s on his hands and knees”.
And now “High Water (for Charlie Patton)” has seeped its way deep into my inner consciousness. The song is loosely about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 (as well as an ode to one of the original bluesman, Charlie Patton), but more to the point it’s about sin and redemption. Most of the song drags the protagonist down into those nasty proverbial floodwaters. But in the end, there’s some hope for this lost soul. Yessiree, Bob, everyone, there’s always a little room for redemption.
Larry Campbell plays an incredibly authentic banjo on “High Water”. It sounds as if he were channeling a far distant Blues period. I connected briefly with Campbell earlier this year after catching one of his shows (with Teresa Williams) at the Bull Run in Shirley Massachusetts. I pulled out an inner sleeve album photo of him playing poker on the tour bus, sitting next to Bob Dylan, who appeared to be raking in the chips (it occurred to me just before the show to bring it in from my car). I asked Larry Campbell what he may have been thinking at that moment. He laughed and said, “I can’t tell you”. This was the perfect reply, all that mystique still intact: Sleight of hand, vanishing acts, cowboy hats. Happenings cropping up all around him at a torrid pace; too fast to make sense of.
Yeah, after the past week, I’m not ruling out anything.
- Pete
Song: “High Water (for Charley Patton)”
Album: “Love and Theft”
Release Date: September 2011
One of my favorite sketches on Saturday Night Live was back in the late 70s, when Don Novello would don priestly garb and morph into the fictional character Father Guido Sarducci, employed as the gossip columnist for the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano (this in and of itself is a hilarious thought). Sarducci poked fun at the Catholic Church, but in an enchanting way that often allowed for more than a hint of respect, and even reverence. One of his best skits was when he explained what it takes to be deemed worthy for sainthood by the Holy See, one criteria of which was that you needed to have performed at least 3 miracles to even be considered. He went on, in his classic straight-faced way, to complain of a European bias (particularly Italy) stating that in other parts of the world, someone can perform 10, 20 miracles and be ignored, where in Europe you perform just one miracle… “and they wave the other 2 miracles”. Funny stuff.
Other than learning of Jesus’ life in the catechism classes of my youth, this was my bizarre introduction to the concept of miracles, in terms of really thinking about it. “Miracle” is defined in the dictionary as “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency”. Do you believe in miracles? I do. I started to - from a grown up, analytical point of view - around the time of watching that Father Guido Sarducci skit. Such a strange way to start believing in miracles, huh? At the time, I began thinking along the lines of ‘well, if someone is true to their belief system, and if they are spiritually enlightened, they can do things that are indeed inexplicable’.
Now, I very much wish I could go all wiggy here and write about miracles that have happened in my life, but I can’t because those top tier miraculous moments have been elusive to date. However, I have gotten little tastes of it here and there; mini-miracles so to speak. Hard to explain phenomenon. Amazing experiences. Happenings. I’m sure everybody reading this has too. I mean, life can be incredible at times, can it not? We can all relate to this, be it in the context of love, prayer, dreams, coincidences, déjà vu, nature, travel, you name it. I’ve learned over the years that if you are attentive to these possibilities, great things can happen.
This year I’ve been zoned into these types of experiences at an accelerated rate, and I credit this Blue Print series. I’m sure that my reflecting and writing, as well as the intensity of listening to Bob Dylan’s music, have been what has made me more tuned to them (I’ll also credit some of the great feedback I’ve received from you all). This week was up there on the bizzaro-meter. What follows are a few 'telltale' examples.
Wednesday night (11/28) I attended a fantastic Joan Osborne concert at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston with my great friend, Mac. The show was a tribute to Bob Dylan, and his songs were all that Osborne and her band performed that evening. They tackled an incredible diversity of Dylan’s music, including highlights “Maggie’s Farm”, “Ring Them Bells”, and an intense extended jam of the tragic tale “Ballad of Hollis Brown” (proving to me that this singer and her band were serious).
For me the best head-shaking experience of the evening was when, between songs, Joan Osborne talked about the 2001 Bob Dylan album “Love and Theft”, which she stated has had a tremendous effect on her. I was sitting there thinking ‘ok, very cool…. not a highly recognized Dylan album in terms of covers, but that’s the disc I’ve homed in on this week’. I had bounced all over the place with a Blue Print song selection from it, each of the 12 being as magnificent as the other. Earlier that day - the day of Joan Osborne’s show - I’d finally made the decision, “High Water (for Charley Patton): ” ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fdqF4XIUsE ). And wouldn’t ya know it; that was the song she announced, and then performed with passion. It was my favorite song of the show, partly because I’d felt I had made some sort of inexplicable connection with Osborne. I consider that a Happening. I'm sure anyone who has attended concerts routinely over the years can understand what I mean.
There was another bizarre moment Wednesday night; I got to see Bob Dylan disappear... for the second time in a week! This one obviously needs more detailed explanation than usual. I'll tackle the first event first, which many others saw too; no real shock here. So, I’ve recently found out that Dylan has a reputation for vanishing in crowds. I’m not surprised, seeing as I can relate (personal vanishing acts for another time). And, as Wade Boggs once stated when being attacked by a knife-wielding antagonist (ok, his wife), sometimes you just gotta “will yourself invisible”. Anyhow, I was reading about this Dylan alchemy in Sam Shepard’s mercurial The Rolling Thunder Logbook over the prior weekend. At the very same time, I had the T.V. blaring and an ad for that night’s The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon came on, which to my pleasant surprise, was going to include a rare Bob Dylan appearance. Would it be an interview? A performance? I could not determine. I stayed up and, sure enough there was a Dylan moment – a skit - which fascinatingly included a vanishing act: ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0hxHE_UK6Q ). (Side Note: The link is worth a watch. It’s short and sweet. Also note, I was particularly impressed by the steadiness in that 77-year-old hand as Dylan poured and drank whiskey with Fallon).
Flash forward several days back to that Joan Osborne show. This guy is sitting in the front row and I’m telling you, he’s a spitting image of Bob Dylan: Curly puffed hair, wiry in mannerism and the way he walks, slender, dressed in classy, star studded garb. Face, nose, everything. I spotted him right off and joked with Mac that the band hired this Dylan clone to sit there, who was nodding in appreciation to most every song. So, there’s a break in the action, just before intermission, and I seize the moment to head down to the restroom before the crowd. Mac takes the initiative as well. The two of us are there in the men’s room, no one else around, when, wouldn’t you know it, the Bob Dylan clone strolls in and ponies up at the 3rd urinal. This was too good to be true. I made a comment about having the opportunity to take a leak with Bob. I thought I spotted a smirk. Then, we all head back up to the main event, but this guy makes a beeline outside. It ends up he would be gone for the night. I just caught him out of the corner of my eye as he maneuvered out the venue. Vamoose! “I’m Not There” folks; “I’m Not There”!
This kinda thing has been happening to me all year, from Big Pink, to Hibbing to Albuquerque, to Baltimore, to my commutes to and from work, to my weekend activities at home. The blog stories are coming to me now too. Several months ago, I was concerned about inspiration and fresh ideas, but not anymore. Things are rolling in at a quick pace. Carrying on this Happening theme: After finishing Sam Shepard’s book, I picked up the thought-provoking Robert M. Pirsig’s book Lila: An Inquiry into Morals, which was the long-awaited sequel to his master work Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
I’m still early into Lila, which, as stated in the title, is a tale woven around the concept of morality (where Zen is woven around the concept of quality). One of the narratives that Pirsig introduces early in the book relates to how modern American culture is a blending of Native American and European values, personified in the Midwesterner. American’s who live in that region of the country have shared experiences with Native American people the most. All of this, Pirsig argues, has played out in our attitudes toward Europe and in our politics, to this day.
I would not do justice to explaining this further other than to suggest you read the book. What I will state however, is that this Pirsig narrative had me harkening back to my most recent blog entry before this one (Blueprint # 43); that cowboy-hat-wearing escapade of mine with my wife Nancy to Big Bend National Park in Texas many years ago. In that entry I suggested that, in wearing the hat, I was in search of an America that once was, or maybe never was.
Sometimes you just reach a point reading a book where your mind begins to wander way too much. Obviously, I’d reached that point as these thoughts floated in several nights back, so I closed the book, turned off the night light and reflected on all this. Suddenly what came to mind was how I met Nancy; at a Halloween party. She was dressed as a Native American woman! The cowboy hat, the quest, the Pirsig insights. It all dovetailed in that moment. This was a beautiful thing I thought: Modern American culture as a blending of Native American and European values transitioned to a personal analogy of marriage as a blending of two individual’s values. I would never have pulled this thought process together without having written that blog entry last week. Another Happening is my conclusion. And what’s more fascinating is that this value-system all played out wonderfully on a road trip Nancy and I took this weekend to Asbury Park and Greenwich Village (the 3rd and final Dylan pilgrimage of my Dylan year). I’ll have to save the elucidation on that one for next week, seeing as it’s in need of a blog entry all its own.
I’d like to close with some thoughts related to the album “Love and Theft”, as well as this week’s Blueprint from it: “High Water (for Charley Patton)”. If any album epitomizes Bob Dylan’s sleight of hand, it should be “Love and Theft”. The Dylan look-alike who vanished into the night air halfway through the Joan Osborne set on Wednesday, as well as the real Bob Dylan’s escapades on The Tonight Show last weekend, pretty much sums up the effect of this album. Dylan produced it under his pseudonym ‘Jack Frost’. He also released a cool little commercial for it with card shark Ricky Jay ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRo3r8g-w30 ). It all fits, including the lyrics to every song.
When I first heard “Love and Theft” I was not overly impressed. It sounded like an old-timer album to me. Images of a late career, overweight BB King sitting on a bar stool danced in my head. I simply was not ready for that type of sound back in my early 40s. Not enough high water under the bridge I suppose. It took a while, but I’m certainly all the way there now. I wrote about “Mississippi” way back in Master Blueprint # 2, one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs of all time. “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum” has been climbing my personal fav ladder too, as has “Po’ Boy”. “Things Have Changed”, a song not on the album, but a prelude to its attitude, is also extraordinary ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9EKqQWPjyo ). I’d love to figure a way to do a writeup on that one. Side Note: Has anyone else out there tuned into the ominous hissing sound that rears its head off and on during “Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum”. It sounds like either 1) someone breathing through his teeth to convey anxiety 2) a balloon deflating and/or 3) a snake hissing. One place you can hear it is at the beginning of the 8th verse while Bob Dylan sings the line “Tweedle Dee’s on his hands and knees”.
And now “High Water (for Charlie Patton)” has seeped its way deep into my inner consciousness. The song is loosely about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 (as well as an ode to one of the original bluesman, Charlie Patton), but more to the point it’s about sin and redemption. Most of the song drags the protagonist down into those nasty proverbial floodwaters. But in the end, there’s some hope for this lost soul. Yessiree, Bob, everyone, there’s always a little room for redemption.
Larry Campbell plays an incredibly authentic banjo on “High Water”. It sounds as if he were channeling a far distant Blues period. I connected briefly with Campbell earlier this year after catching one of his shows (with Teresa Williams) at the Bull Run in Shirley Massachusetts. I pulled out an inner sleeve album photo of him playing poker on the tour bus, sitting next to Bob Dylan, who appeared to be raking in the chips (it occurred to me just before the show to bring it in from my car). I asked Larry Campbell what he may have been thinking at that moment. He laughed and said, “I can’t tell you”. This was the perfect reply, all that mystique still intact: Sleight of hand, vanishing acts, cowboy hats. Happenings cropping up all around him at a torrid pace; too fast to make sense of.
Yeah, after the past week, I’m not ruling out anything.
- Pete
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