Clerkmanifesto bloodied and whimsical

 

An experiment of dubious value?

Perhaps.

But we like to run the gamut here on clerkmanifesto, and this has pieces of animated versions of my paintings, Bob Dylan singing my promotional lyrics, and a result that slots in somewhere between "Way too much effort" and "Not nearly enough effort", which is one of my common themes here, and might make a nice t-shirt.

Or even a blog motto!

Anyway...

No matter what I tried, Bob insisted on singing it as "Clark Manifesto" insisting it sounded better like that.

Well, he's the pro I guess.

This has a song that goes a couple of minutes but the visual goes to black after about a minute, largely because if it didn't the file would be too big to host here. This very much has sound, so headphones on, or volume up, click on the video, enlarge it, and hit play:

Two moments with Bob Dylan

 

Bob Dylan's opinion of Complete Unknown

 

Some of you, knowing about my personal relationship wherein I go drinking with Bob Dylan, were perhaps disappointed that I covered my seeing the movie Complete Unknown in this space yesterday with no reference to what Bob thought of it. So I called Bob.

I don't normally call Bob.

Bob does not normally answer.

But expect the unexpected with Bob.

Except not too much of the unexpected, and once you work out the pattern, barely any at all.

Nevertheless, there was Bob.

"Hi Bob. I saw it!" I said.

"You saw what?"  He asked.

"Your movie."

"Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid?" He asked.

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is a movie he had a small part in in the early seventies. I ignored him. He knew what I was talking about. 

"I thought it was hilarious. Finally, they had the sense to make a comedy about you."

"A comedy?" He replied. I could tell he was thinking this interpretation over and kind of liking it.

"What did you think of it?" I asked, coming to the alleged heart of the matter.

There was a long silence.

"I think we should go out drinking sake the next time I'm in town." Bob said apropos of nothing.

"So you thought it was fairly accurate." I interpreted.

"I guess so." He said in an offhand way that sounded weirdly like Timothee Chalomet.

Then we talked of more important things.

Just kidding.

We made brief plans and hung up.

A complete unknown

 

I went on a date with my lovely wife, and after Japanese food, as part of the date, we went to a movie!

We don't go to many movies, which is why there was an exclamation mark there.

We saw the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. We liked it. I particularly thought it was very funny. But it's a little weird watching an entire biopic movie about someone you know personally, like I do with Bob. I mean, have you ever seen a major Hollywood movie about someone you know?

Oh, right, Clerkmanifestoland. So you know what I mean.

Pablo Picasso (I'm not)

 

For possibly the first time in around 4,000 of these posts, I don't much want to say anything about what I have here. For whatever it is, working or not, it's all there as it is.

So

As ever, click through the picture:

Ancient wisdom with Bob Dylan at the VFW

 

I was out having drinks with Bob Dylan at the VFW. Another guy was with us, but he spent the whole time quietly reading a blog on his phone. At one point later in the evening I said to Bob "I'm reading a book made up entirely of the accounts of people talking about what it's like to work with you."

Bob's head was over his whiskey and ginger and he didn't lift it up. He just eyed me sideways. He looked old and fey. Very old and very fey. "Why?" He croaked.

I took a sip of my whiskey and ginger, only to find it empty. "It's like that old Zen story where a bunch of blind men describe an elephant."

He gave me a slightly fuller look, no less fey, regarding me for a moment.

"Are you distant and aloof?" I explained. "Are you spontaneous and inspirational? Are you cold and selfish? Are you considerate and thoughtful? Are you wearied and cloistered? Are you whimsical and collaborative? Are you a tyrant? Are you a master?"

Bob said nothing.

"Maybe the secret of the story is that even if all the blind men could see perfectly, how could anyone ever describe an elephant?"

We were quiet for awhile. Then from out of nowhere Bob convincingly imitated the trumpeting of an elephant. 

The guy reading the blog, Neil, looked up a little crossly at us for a second. Then looked back down at his phone.

Bob and I burst into a fit of giggles.

Then we stopped ordering drinks and ordered some food instead.

Bob Dylan and Neil Young at the VFW

 

Bob Dylan was extremely interested in my account of my library job's social hour/farewell at the local VFW. Bob and I go out for drinks whenever he's in town, but more at cool cocktail bars and good smelling distilleries that serve, you know, good food and drinks. No shade on the local VFW, but... it doesn't.

Nevertheless, Bob loved the idea of the VFW, so he flew in from... somewhere. I think the South, where he'd been touring.

He's always touring.

I met him at the VFW. He brought a friend, or an acquaintance. Bob knows a lot of people. I knew this person too, but only by virtue of his fame. It was Neil Young.

Bob didn't introduce us. And Neil had the slightly stunned look of a person who left a rare day off on his own tour in order to fly to Minnesota and go to a VFW because of god knows what Dylan told him.

We signed in, which I learned one does at a VFW, and we grabbed a table. No one recognized us. We fit the average age demographic, with me being the youngster. We ordered Bulleit Ryes and ginger ale. Bob looked super happy for some reason I could not fathom. Neil fidgeted, but settled down drinking. He finally noticed me. "Are you a musician?" He asked.

"No. I write a blog." I replied. "Clerkmanifesto."

"It's sort of good and read by no one." Bob commented drily, insulting at least six of you out there on the Internet who do actually read it. Look at you now! But I've never noticed any of you to take offense at this sort of thing. Also, Bob reads clerkmanifesto or we wouldn't have been sitting in a raw VFW in a Saint Minneapolis suburb.

Neil took out his phone and started fiddling with it, I assumed to conduct some personal or professional business, but no. He showed me the screen. It was clerkmanifesto. "Is this it?" He asked.

"Yes."

Neil started reading.

Bob and I drank and talked about what we always talk about, which is pretty much anything, and I won't go into these discussions in this particular post. Maybe in a future account. Every once in awhile I'd sneak a peak at Neil's phone. It was always clerkmanifesto. He was quietly reading slowly through, though the sheer volume of clerkmanifesto was bound to defeat him sometime in the evening.

After too many drinks and a wind down with barely tolerable burgers and fries, the VFW closed and spit us into the night. Neil put away his phone and politely said goodbye. He had to get going.

Bob and I went to a nearby swamp to go for a walk in the warmish night.

We didn't say much. We just walked along with the strange sounds in the water. Then I asked "Do you think he liked it?"

"Who?" Bob asked.

"Neil Young. He said nothing and read clerkmanifesto for five straight hours." I exclaimed. "Do you think he liked it?"

"Why would that matter?" Bob asked with genuine interest.

I thought about the question for awhile, but didn't answer.

We walked quietly for awhile more.

Then I started singing softly:

"Oh, the hours we'd spent inside the Coliseum

Dodging lions and a wasting time

Oh, those mighty kings of the jungle, I hardly stand to see em"

Usually when I start singing Bob Dylan to Bob Dylan he gets quietly and amusingly irritated. But for some strange reason he started singing along with me!

"It sure has been a long, hard climb

Train wheels running through the back of my memory

When I ran on the hilltop following a pack of wild geese

Someday everything is gonna sound like a rhapsody

When I paint my masterpiece"

Attention

 

A reader writes in to say:

It feels like it has been a while since you did one of those "Drinks with Bob Dylan" posts. Those are my favorites.

To which I respond here, before everyone, saying:

Even the most famous people in the world are just regular people like you or me. Everyone craves attention and praise, but also rejects it.

So, thanks for writing in, Bob. 

But, also to my point: At the front desk of my library, in a 9 x 12 Plexiglas frame, I keep a rotating collection of my trick photography pictures- lions in the library, crashed alien spaceships in the entryway, elephants marching out of the kid's room, and so on. These are popular. They stop people in their tracks. Small children visit them regularly and wonder over them. People with intellectual disabilities beg for copies and collect them like trading cards. Old men gaze at them for long, unbroken minutes. People ask, astonished, "Is that real?"

My colleagues are eager to pass these people over to me. "The person who knows a little bit about that is sitting right over there!" They offer like I'm some sort of delicious treat.

Yes, I made it. What am I supposed to say? I feel like anything I can say only detracts from the experience. I'm thrilled they like it, but I don't know what to do with that. It's not easy being the voice of my generation!

"Wait a minute!" A reader writes in. "You're not comparing your pictures of lions in the library to the work of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan, are you?"

Yes, Bob, yes I am.

And furthermore, if you want more posts about having drinks with you, just text me and we'll go out.

Drinking vermouth with Bob

 

Bob Dylan and I got together to drink vermouth. "I can't be drinking so much anymore. I'm in my eighties now." Bob said. "So let's taste vermouths."

"That's still drinking, I'm pretty sure." I replied.

Bob shrugged and sort of waved, like, why worry about these insignificant details.

So, sure, we can drink vermouth. Bob is off soon on a big tour of Europe, and, like he said, he's in his eighties. Who knows if we'll ever go out drinking together again!

Not that I told him this. He does not look kindly upon sentimentality. I merely ordered us a couple of Antica Formula Vermouths, by Carpano. This is not the vermouth you found in the back of your parents' liquor cabinet.

"This is not the vermouth you found in the back of your parents' liquor cabinet." I commented, sipping delicately.

Bob made no response. He doesn't respond during the first drink. He only gestures during the second. And he can do anything from grunting to becoming loquacious during the third. 

For our second vermouth we had Mancino Rosso Amaranto Vermouth. I've never even seen this one before. They charged us a lot for it. It was pretty good though.

"This is pretty good." I said.

"If you like oregano." Bob observed. 

I guess I was wrong. Bob does talk during the second drink, but only about oregano.

"I like oregano." I said.

Bob made some kind of body language that suggested there are certainly worse things than oregano, and he took another sip.

"I listened to a podcast about your Christian years." I told Bob.

"Why would you do that?" Bob asked.

"I thought they were leftists. I love leftist podcasts."

"The left is always doomed." Bob said. "They either lose and are destroyed, or they win and move to the right."

"You're no longer a Christian and now you're an anarchist."

"Is that what the podcast said?" Bob asked with a stirring interest.

"No." I replied. "They said you absorbed the fevered Christianity into your geniusy maw and carried on with it all now as a part of you. And that as far as motivation you currently love your audience and have wearily given yourself to them."

Bob expressed a kingly touch of disdain at the idea.

"A winks as good as a nod to a blind man." I said. 

We were now on our fifth vermouth. This one was a bit like what you found in the back of your parents' liquor cabinet. "I'm going back to the Caprano." I added.

Bob gestured that he would prefer to do that as well.

"What were we talking about?" Bob asked.

"Your revolutionary ideas." I replied.

"I'm a rich man." Dylan said.

"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." I quoted. It's my go-to New Testament quote.

Bob chuckled and smiled a tiny bit despite himself.

By the sixth drink he always starts to like me.

Nuts

 

Despite the title of this post, I will not be saying anything inappropriate about mentally ill people, with the possible exception of the implications of this first sentence, but that depends upon one's level of sensitivity. Rather, I am speaking of the food, the famous seed fruit known commonly as "nuts".

Bob Dylan was in town and we were drinking at The Bull's Horn, which is a faux dive bar in Minneapolis that is so committed to its concept that it is pretty close to actually being a dive bar. We were drinking George Dickel Rye Whiskey, which I would describe as a kind of cheap, but not quite cheap whiskey, with an eye catching name. For those of you drinking along at home, look for a bit of spicy marshmallow flavor, and maybe a faint hint of charred Autumn leaves.

I asked Bob if he watched the Grammys.

He looked at me.

"I didn't either." I said. 

He looked at me some more. 

"Maybe we should try the Four Roses on the menu." I replied to... nothing. Four Roses is a bourbon, for those of you still playing at home.

"I'm more of a Nobel Prize sort of guy." Bob finally said, drolly.

"You didn't even go!" I exclaimed. Patti Smith accepted his Nobel Prize for him.

"I was still worn out from my Academy Award speech."

"I know. It's like every 15 years there's something!"

We sipped and ordered the Four Roses.

"How's your blog?" Bob asked with uncharacteristic courtesy.

"I haven't hit that 15 year mark yet." I said ruefully.

"I like your blog sometimes, but it will never be popular." Bob said.

"Why not?" I asked. "I mean, I know it won't, but why not?"

"T'stoo...  interesting." Bob said. We were starting to get pretty smashed.

"People don't like interesting things?" I asked.

He shook his head.

The waiter came.

"Do you have any nuts?" Bob asked.

"Sorry." The waiter said. "We have some fried gizzards." He offered.

"Are those nutty?" I asked.

Bob made some hand flapping squinting gesture that could either have meant "Don't bother." or "Please bring a plate of those even though they're not nuts."

I said, nodding my head a bit, "What he said." I'm not proud of saying that now- messing with a fellow working man like that, but did that waiter ever read my blog? I don't know how often I need to remind everyone reading my blog about my policy on people who don't read my blog!

"See," Bob said. "That last bit you wrote about people reading your blog is just the kind of convoluted nonsense that is too much for the average reader. You should write about..." He gestured and in doing so knocked over his Four Roses. "Nuts" He grunted.

Here are my favorite nuts in order from most to least favorite:

1. Cashews.

I'm not saying I might not prefer another nut another time, but in terms of unbridled joy, elegance, consistency, and sheer delight, the cashew edges out, ever so barely, all the other nuts.

2. Pine Nuts.

This might be theoretical as I have not been able to afford a pine nut for several years now.

3. Macadamia Nuts

These could be number one on the list pretty easily, particularly when roasted and salted. They are only held back by their nut to nut inconsistency, which, since we were on the subject, could be a criticism leveled at my writing as well. But if I could be considered as good as Macadamia Nuts I would take it in a second!

4. The Noble Pistachio.

I'd like to note that though this is a ranking, we are already down to fourth place and have experienced absolutely no drop off in quality.

5. Almonds.

Possibly the most perfect nut.

6. The Pecan.

Why is the Pecan so much better than the Walnut? Some things we are perhaps not meant to know.

7. The Peanut.

Don't say it. It is too.

8. The Chestnut.

From the street sellers in Rome? And oh!, when you get a really good one!

9. The Hazelnut.

They're not bad. If only they tasted more like hazelnuts!

10. The Walnut

A lovely texture, with much excellent utility. 

That's my list of nuts. I know there are more nuts than these ten. But the great pleasure of running one's own blog, beholden to nobody, is that one does not have to discuss Brazil Nuts if one doesn't want to.

In which I instruct Bob Dylan on Bob Dylan

 

During a brief lull in our sparkling conversation, over some highly herbaceous cocktails, I mentioned to Bob Dylan that someone had donated a copy of The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan to our library.

"What's that?" Bob asked with tepid interest.

"Well, Rough Guides are a series of travel books, like Fodors or Frommers, but with the idea of being a bit more downscale and rough and ready."

"Travel books?" Bob asked.

"Yes." I replied. "Apparently you are like unto your own country now."

"Tell me about it." Bob groaned.

So I did.

Begging week: Day 3, The Dylan Collaborative

 

Welcome to Begging Week Day Three!

If you've been paying any attention, and responded to any of my begging, you will by now understand that each day of Begging Week will bring you to a different page of Life is a Fountain. I mean, if my begging works. And if you hit the link and go to said page you will find something SUPER ENTERTAINING.

Today I am begging you to visit the Dylan Page at Life is a Fountain,

 Dylan

Why?

To see our collaboration! Yes, Bob Dylan and I have collaborated!

Here's what happened:

Bob and I were drinking Cognac, again. We're kind of stuck on Cognac. We like it, there's a lot to try, I got Bob somehow to invest heavily in it, and it would be weird to waste super expensive cognac. So we drink it, and love it, but have started to talk about Scotch. We're both restless drinkers, always wanting to try the next thing. There's always next things.

I said "Have you checked out Life is a Fountain yet? It has a Dylan Page."

"There are a lot of Dylan pages." He said ruefully. "But yeah. I wish you wouldn't film me like that." He paused, and, strangely talkative, added "I like the cartoon characters in your library though. You should do that with one with one of my pictures."

Bob is very reticent about any use of his music, fame, lyrics, writing, persona, and history. But oddly he's always looking to get his visual art out there. It's okay. I went looking for the oldest stuff of his I could find and set to editing it on my phone. I knew he would enjoy not being talked to for half an hour.

I showed him a picture.

"Yeah. That's good!" He said to my surprise.

Check it out here, please?

Very old... Cognac

 

I was having a drink with Bob Dylan. It probably seems like I have drinks with Bob Dylan a lot because of how much I write about it here. But we just have drinks occasionally and I write several essays about each time we do.

Anyway, we were pretty thick in it with Cognacs. Bob looked up from his snifter and said "I was thinking of retiring to Becketwood."

Becketwood is a retirement home on the Mississippi River here. I mean, it seems very nice, but not the sort of place one would go if one had, for instance, two hundred million dollars.

"It seems really nice." I said. "But it doesn't seem like the sort of place one would go if one had, for instance, two hundred million dollars."

"I don't have two hundred million dollars." Bob said a bit sullenly.

"A hundred fifty million then."

Bob had no counter to that. 

We sipped cognac.

"I don't think you've dealt with the wage slave service industry so much, uh, lately." I observed. "You might prefer a more bespoke assistance when you, um, er, get older." I suggested gently to my 80 year old friend.

He took it in stride with a begrudgingly accepting nod.

I took a sip of Cognac. "You have a hundred and fifty million dollars?" I asked in a hushed voice.

He didn't answer. But a couple weeks later he sent this fantastically beautiful $7,000 bottle of Cognac to me.

I saved some to drink with him the next time we were together. We were sitting over it when I said "You know what my favorite cover of one of your songs is?"

"All Along the Watchtower?" He guessed.

"Sign on the Window by Melanie." I said.

I played it on my phone as he took a sip of the deeply colored and subtly scented Cognac.

"Not bad." He said admiringly.

But I did not know whether he was referring to the Cognac or the song.

Orange cognacs with Bob

 

I'm afraid I introduced Bob Dylan to European Soccer. 

These things never go how you expect them to.

We were going through a period of sampling orange cognacs at the time. I like orange cognacs. Bob was willing to be convinced at that point, but wasn't quite...yet. We were getting very close with the Grand Marnier Louis Alexandre. We had a lot of special version Grand Marniers we were working our way through.

Then I tried to show Bob a soccer clip on my phone.

"Is this your Messi fellow again?" He rasped with that touch of irritation he likes to affect.

I ignored it and Messi commenced to do something bewildering. Suddenly Bob got attentive, but not at Messi.

"Who's that?" He asked with interest, pointing to an animated speck on the screen, not much contributing to the play, but bounding about like a puppy.

"That's Riqui Puig" (pronounced "Ricky Pooch") I replied.

After that it was all Riqui Puig all the time with Bob.

"Who is Riqui Puig?" you ask?

He is a young midfielder for the Barcelona team. He very rarely gets to play. The coach doesn't like him. The coach is grumpy, and finds Riqui's exuberance irritating. The fan base is split three ways on Riqui Puig. One group hates him in support of the coach who they feel deserves their devoted respect and protection because he is the coach and so must know what he's doing. One group tries to remain neutral and fails. And one group utterly adores Riqui Puig, devotedly, for his spirit, his passion, his darting runs, and his occasionally daring and brilliant forward passes.

Bob is in the last of these categories. 

"My next album is all about Riqui Puig." Bob told me the other day.

Yes, Bob, now 80 years old, is working on another late masterpiece. And apparently this one will be about Riqui Puig.

"How can that be any good?" I asked.

"No one will know it's about Riqui Puig." Bob said wryly.

"I will!" I exclaimed.

There was a lull in the conversation.

"Let's try the Grand Marnier Cuvee Quintessence." Bob suggested.

"Whoa. That's pretty." I said admiringly of the impressively elegant bottle.

It tasted like oranges, yes, but also of hazelnuts and peaches.

Ich bin Jojo Rabbit

 

I said "Bob Dylan once said 'Time can fix anything, but it will always break a little bit more'".

Bob peered up at me from his Meletti Amaro. He was looking just a bit like my Grandma Bernice- no dig on him, I've been looking a little like my Grandma Bernice lately too.

"I never said that." Bob said.

"I know." I replied. "I just thought it would carry more weight if I attributed it to you."

"It doesn't even sound like something I'd say." Bob rasped.

"Well neither does that." I said, misdirecting the small sting I felt. I thought it kind of sounded like something he'd say.

Bob sipped his drink and waxed philosophical. "I'm not sure I'm really Bob Dylan. I think I might be your imaginary friend Bob Dylan."

I shifted uncomfortably in my barstool. I always lose when Bob Dylan goes on the offensive.

"In fact," Bob said, warming to his idea "I think that's why you were so crazy about that movie Jojo Rabbit. I'm just to you like Imaginary Hitler was to that little Hitler Youth kid!"

"You're nothing like Hitler." I mumbled into my Amaro.

He may have rolled his eyes a little. He knew I was deflecting. I wilted a bit.

After a long pause for drinking he kindly said "It was a really good movie, wasn't it?"

"It was."

"Too bad I never sang one of my songs in German. I bet they would have used it in that movie.'

"I bet they would have." I replied.

We were quiet for awhile. Bob looked a little pensive, maybe even sad.

I said softly "Bob Dylan once said 'It's not dark yet, but it's getting there." 

"Yeah." He said. "I guess he did."

Bob Dylan's best friend

 

Bob Dylan and I were sampling orange cognacs. Well, drinking them.

"I like this Grand Garonne stuff better than the Cointreau Noir." Bob ventured.

I consulted some guide we'd printed out. "You're not supposed to." I said.

He gave me a look. The looks with that guy! I sipped and considered for myself. "I might even like it better than the Grand Marnier." I said.

He sipped it again and shrugged. Who cared really, it was good, smelled like oranges, seeped into your tongue, and intoxicated.

"I saw your book the other day." I said. I work at a library. I see a lot of books.

"Tarantula?" He asked, deadpan, referring to some poetry book he wrote like 60 years ago.

"I don't like spiders." I replied, refusing to be put off. "Chronicles, as if you don't know. You know, there's no "About the author" in it."

He shrugged.

"If they don't know who you are then what the hell are they reading the book for?" I proposed.

He shrugged.

"The book is the "About the author""? I suggested.

"I had nothing to do with it." Bob said, possibly lying, but who knows.

We tried another orange cognac in a grand, flat bottle, Grand Imperial maybe? Everything's very grand when it comes to orange cognacs. We both went back to the Grand Garonne, took a sip, and put on quizzical faces.

"I'm pretty much your best friend, aren't I?" I asked.

"No." He said.

I shrugged. Me shrugging too, we're so alike. "Then who is?"

He was glaring at me, but he wasn't saying anything.

"Aha!" I cried.

I would like to be a famous blogger!

You caught me. My defenses are down. I admit:

I would like to be a famous blogger.

One is not supposed to admit to a desire for fame. It is unseemly, a trait only for the child too young to know, or for the craven person who wants to be famous for fame's sake. 

Nearly every famous person wants to be famous, but they can't admit it, barely even to themselves. It's a terrible dance.

I asked my friend Bob Dylan "Do you want to be famous?"

"No." He replied calmly.

"Liar!" I yelled.

"Whoa. What's got into you?"

"I want to be a famous blogger!" I exclaimed.

"Like...?" He asked.

Oh shit. There aren't any.

So it's not my fault that I'm not!

"So it's not my fault that I'm not?" I asked Bob.

"I'm not sure you're taking the right message here."

"How about: The field is wide open?" I suggested.

"Keep working on it." He suggested gently.

I fell silent and thoughtful for a long time, which Bob really seemed to appreciate.

To live outside the law

 

 

 

Bob Dylan and I were drinking together. That's all we do. Well, sometimes we talk, but mostly we drink. Lately it's cognac. We were drinking cognac. I can't remember the name of the cognac, sorry. Cognac can get very fancy. This wasn't that kind of cognac.

"I read that book you told me to." Bob said.

"It's Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat it?" I asked. I hardly even knew he heard me when I recommended it. He just kind of grunts at a lot of what I say.

He grunted.

"Did you see where the author quoted you, as a way to talk about how his friend was about foraging?" 

He grunted again. 

Maybe you thought I was kidding about the grunting. 

I wasn't kidding.

"To live outside the law you must be honest." I quoted, referring to the Dylan line that the book we were talking about quoted.

"Eh." He said, though that might have been a grunt. Not that there's much difference.

"Oh come on!" I cried. "That might be your greatest line. It's biblical but also wise, insightful, and down to earth."

"I probably stole it somewhere." Bob mumbled.

"Did you ever read that poem by Emily Dickinson?" I asked. And then I recited the poem, which is one of the advantages of poems.

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today

Can tell the definition

So clear of victory

As he defeated – dying –

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph 

Burst agonized and clear!

 

"Hey, that's good." Bob said drily. "Maybe I'll steal that too."

"To try slowly and humbly and constantly to express, to press out again, from the gross earth or what it brings forth, from sound and shape and colour which are the prison gates of our soul, an image of the beauty we come to understand- that is art." I replied.

"What does that mean?" Bob asked.

"I don't know." I admitted. "It's by James Joyce."

"We're in one of your blog posts again, aren't we?

"I apologize." I replied.

"Eh." Bob grunted. "S'al'right." And then he swirled his cognac and peered into it as if divining secrets.

"C'mon man." Bob said. "I just like the color."

 

Why Bob Dylan sold his catalog

 

 

 

I'm not usually one to be on the cutting edge of breaking news. So my natural inclination is to nurse my secret information, maybe sell it to a tabloid.

Are there still any tabloids?

Who buys meaningless but revealing information these days?

It doesn't matter anyway. It all goes against my ethos. I believe in the free exchange of information. When it comes to the Internet I'm not just old school, I don't even believe in school. 

Burn down the school! 

We don't need no education! 

TEACHER, LEAVE THOSE KIDS ALONE.

No, I don't know what any of that means here either. I'm just excited.

What happened is that I woke up to the bombshell news that Bob Dylan sold his entire catalog of music for like, 300 million dollars. It was big news. All the major news media were reporting it and speculating on it. Even that 300 million dollar amount was just a guess. And just as I was reading and wondering about it I got an email from Bob: "Zoom amaro, 3:00?"

As you know Bob Dylan and I get together for drinks, usually on Thursday afternoons, at boutique cocktail bars, divey pubs, or, if we can find one, inspired microbreweries. But with the pandemic we, like many besides us, have had to resort to awkward zoom meetings that only become unawkward on our second drink. Lately we've been tasting amari together. It takes a fair bit of amaro for us to loosen up with each other, but once done we really get along together.

Or at least that's my interpretation.

As to Bob, Bob tends towards the inscrutable.

So the big news broke, Bob emailed me, and we got together for amaro. And I found out the answer that Rolling Stone Magazine would have killed for.

Well, maybe they wouldn't kill for it, but I bet they're mildly interested. I mean, it's not 1966 any more.

Why did Bob Dylan sell his entire catalog of songs to some bloated mega publishing and own everything company?

After four amaros, of which we both liked the Montenegro the best, I impudently asked. 

"Why did you sell all your songs for 300 million dollars?" Just like that.

"297." Bob said, looking down into his brown liquid.

Bob suddenly seemed super shy.

"What's 297?" I asked.

"Million dollars." He mumbled.

He's not usually shy. I don't know if I've ever seen him shy, and it gave me an idea.

So I guessed.

"You're trying to raise money to buy another Caravaggio, aren't you?"

"Mmph." He mumbled.

"That's nothing to be ashamed of." I said softly.

He smiled a little and looked relieved. 

He's not so tough.

Dylan and fame

Bob Dylan and I went out for a cocktail at a new place on Grand Avenue in St. Paul called Hyacinth. The drinks sounded good and we were instantly delighted with how the hospitality was included in the prices. The downside was that because we were new there Dylan's fame caused a small ruckus. He handled the small spate of questions, autographs, and lingering people a little better than usual. To a neutral observer he would have appeared thinly polite, begrudging, and churlish, but there weren't any neutral observers. There never are.

Dylan had a Black Manhattan, black because it was made with an Italian liqueur called Averna. I had an Ultimate Parola, finding the pineapple tequila and Yellow Chartreuse irresistible. After we ordered I said to Bob "I used to want to be famous."

He sort of scoffed "When did you stop wanting to be famous?"  Bob is not exactly my nicest friend from The Iron Range. My nicest friend from The Iron Range would be Richard Tomassoni, who would ask the same question maybe, but without any scoffing. He doesn't drink cocktails though. But I have to admit that either way those Iron Range people are pretty interesting.

"Three days ago." I answered.

Bob looked more seriously at me, like if I stopped wanting to be famous three days ago it wasn't deserving of scoffing. "I used to want to be famous too." He said.

It sounded very poetical when he said it. He's like that. 

"How's your drink?" I asked.

He perked right up, and then he talked about it for a pretty long time.