Tag: Bob Dylan

October rambling #2: absquatulate

I have a stuffed lion with a wild mane which I named Lenny.

librarian.skeleton
The office move is mostly complete, but the inner offices are chaos. The recovery goes well, so now I’m trying to catch up on everything that got put on hold.

How Propaganda Works.

The Rise and Impact of Digital Amnesia.

Re: Hassan v. City of New York lawsuit against the NYPD over its surveillance program targeting Muslims. Plus the dreadful Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Greenland Is Melting Away.

MIT Technology Review: Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci

There are No Innocent Black People.

Buck Rogers and the Copyright Trolls.

Plus The Orwell estate is cracking down on people who dare to use the number “1984” without permission.

Pope Francis has NOT endorsed Bernie Sanders for President.

The 1,657 TV shows that spent less time on the air than the Hillary Clinton Benghazi hearing.

Pastor, former Arkansas governor, and current Republican candidate Mike Huckabee Suggests Poor People Should Be Sold Into Slavery For Stealing.

The Atlantic has a LOT of interesting videos on various topics, among them ‘Don’t Sneak’: A Father’s Command to His Gay Son in the 1950s.

Say “no” more often. You’ll be happier and healthier.

6 Phrases With Surprisingly Racist Origins.

Jim Crow-Era Travel Guides for Black Families Now Online Through Schomburg. Hey, I wrote about this.

Arthur does some Internet Wading: Truth and facts. I almost picked items 2 and 3 myself for this feature in my blog.

There’s an online petition to Congress to end Daylight Saving Time, which I signed, because DST makes no sense.

Happy 600th Anniversary of The Battle of Agincourt.

Cole slaw killed Ogden Nash.

I still need to see more films with Maureen O’Hara, the lovely actress who died recently at the age of 95.

Albany basketball legend Luther “Ticky” Burden died.

Marty Ingels, R.I.P. I watched I’m Dickens, He’s Fenster the year it was on. And Al Molinaro died, who I watched on The Odd Couple and Happy Days.

‘First Lady of Jazz,’ Lee Shaw, dies at 89. I talked with her a couple times during breaks in her sets. She was a wonderfully gracious, and an amazingly talented musician.

This month marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the passing of Leonard Bernstein. True: I have a stuffed lion with a wild mane which I named Lenny, in honor of the composer and conductor.

The Beatles “Revolution” Original Video, Remastered, New Audio Mix. My FAVORITE iteration of this song. Also, A Day In The Life.

LISTEN NOW, before it disappears. First Listen: Bob Dylan, ‘The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12’.

There’s a reason so many people love ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’

K-Chuck Radio: The Rocshire Memories. Featuring a song by Eddie Munster.

The three times Nasreddin was called upon to speak in public.

The word absquatulate came out of an odd fad in America in the 1830s for making playful words that sounded vaguely Latin. My spell checker recognizes it, too, Dan!

Now I Know: The Epidemic That Saved Lives and Winnie the Pooh-Poohed and Cattaxtrophy.

Advice From the Creator of Calvin and Hobbes; Comic by Zen Pencils. Words by Bill Watterson, art by Gavin Aung Than.

About comic book inking.

Ken Levine mentions Oscar Levant, confuses readers, comes up with a list of some people you might want to know.

Bob and Ray, and Dave Garroway, plugging the new show called TODAY.
hymns
GOOGLE ALERT (me)

The TWCQT gang reflects on which penciler/inker teams have had the most impact on them.

Alan David Doane Remembering His Mom on Her 90th Birthday.

GOOGLE ALERT (not me)

Would-be Bond: The naked truth. “Enter New Zealander Roger Green – ex-All Blacks rugby union player, ex-sheep farmer, and party animal.”

Colonial Heights (VA) mourns loss of Roger Green of the Chamber of Commerce. “Green had been battling Urachal cancer, a rare form of bladder cancer, for several months. He was 64 years old.”

Roger is 61

I love it when my birthday falls on Friday or Monday for that nifty three-day weekend,


Here’s a picture someone took of me at my mother’s funeral in February 2011.

This is the day in the year I get REALLY lazy – way lazier even than Ask Roger Anything, which will happen again soon enough – when I write almost nothing for my birthday. 

I love it when my birthday falls on Friday or Monday for that nifty three-day weekend since I’ve taken it off from work for at least two decades. Although it doesn’t matter if it falls on Saturday or Sunday, because I’ll STILL take off Friday or Monday. Maybe I’ll see a movie matinee and/or go out for an Indian food buffet.

How will I remember how old I am this year? Easy. ROGER Maris hit 61 Home runs for the New York Yankees in 1961, eclipsing Babe Ruth’s record. Of course, Maris’ record was demolished in the Steroid Era by Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, and Sammy Sosa. But I still remember Roger’s achievement.

Then there’s that Dylan song.

Bye until tomorrow.

Listen to my theme song.

ABC Wednesday – H is for Happy birthday to me!

Mavis Staples is 72

“I loved Bobby enough to marry him, but I just was not ready to get married.”


One of the great voices in music is Mavis Staples. First as the lead singer of the Staples Singers, with hits such as Respect Yourself and I’ll Take You There, and currently, with her blues/gospel fusion, she’s still performing.

This segment from CBS Sunday Morning in April 2011 noted that she STILL doesn’t know what keys she sings in, even after 60 years of performing. The story also revealed this:

Mavis Staples has a lot of stories to tell, but here’s one you probably didn’t see coming: Bob Dylan asked to marry her.
“That’s true. It’s true. I may as well tell it now,” she said.
Yes, love was apparently in the air for the teenage singers. They “courted” (as Mavis puts it) for 3 years or so. But finally, Mavis says, she called it off.
“I didn’t think I wanted to get married right then,” she said, “And then another thing, you know, I would wonder about what would Dr. King think about me marrying a white guy?
“And so I told Pops about that, and Pops said, ‘Mavis, didn’t you see all them white people marching with us?’ All white people weren’t bad back then. I loved Bobby enough to marry him, but I just was not ready to get married.”

Some songs by Mavis Staples:
99 and 1/2
Eyes on the Prize
You Are Not Alone, acoustic version with Jeff Tweedy

Bob Dylan is 70

Feel as though I should come up with a list of my Top 10 Dylan songs done by Dylan himself. This is harder than it might seem because, often, someone else’s version tops his, in my mind.


A couple books (that I have not read) have come out about Bob Dylan recently, Sean Wilentz’s “Bob Dylan in America,” and “Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus, Writings 1968-2010” by Greil Marcus. Dylan will turn 70 today, which also, I read in Jon Friedman’s Media Web column for MarketWatch.com, marks “the 50th anniversary of his arrival in New York City’s Greenwich Village folk scene. He was a star when John F. Kennedy was our president.”

I’ve been writing a bit about him already this year, from a reinterpretation of his lyrics to cover versions of his songs.

But I feel as though I should come up with a list of my Top 10 Dylan songs done by Dylan himself. This is harder than it might seem because, often, someone else’s version tops his, in my mind. I actually like his “Blowin’ in the Wind”, but it’ll always be a Peter, Paul and Mary song; ditto the Byrds’ “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Willie Nelson doing “What Was It You Wanted”, even Joan Baez’s “Simple Twist of Fate”, and any number of others.

Links to the best videos I could find:
10. The Groom’s Still Waiting At The Altar – obviously from Bob’s overtly Christian period, I think I liked it as much because of its relative rarity – it was a non-album B-side of a single before it showed up in collections and the CD version of Shot of Love – as for that fascinating “church as bride” imagery. Not a great recording, I know.
9. Subterranean Homesick Blues – and I might like this more for the classic flashcard video than the song itself.
8. Hurricane – Bob was political from his early days, but this return to that issue, specifically addressing the trumped-up murder charges against Ruben ‘Hurricane’ Carter moved me.
7. Ballad Of A Thin Man – I’ll be honest: when I first heard Yer Blues on the Beatles’ white album, I had NO idea about the reference to “Dylan’s Mr. Jones”. Finally hearing it gave me a greater appreciation.
6. Summer Days – as I have noted, the Love and Theft album came out on September 11, 2001, but though I’d pre-ordered and purchased it, I didn’t listen to it until several days later. And when I did, it gave me such joy. No song more than this one.
5. Stuck Inside A Mobile With A Memphis Blues Again – I was initially attracted to the sheer length of the title, as well as the song’s merits. Couldn’t find a decent version online; this is the 2:22 intro from the movie about Dylan, “I Am Not There”
4. Highway 61 Revisited – if only for the dialogue between God and Abraham, it’d be worth it. This is a cartoon video someone put together.
3. Like A Rolling Stone – it’s anthemic. Love the Al Kooper organ.
2. I Want You – the very first Dylan song I ever owned, not from a Dylan album or single but from a Columbia compilation album The Best of ’66.
1. Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35 – from that Salvation Army intro to “everybody must get stoned”. Can’t resist.
***
The entire Highway 61 Revisited album.

D is for Dylan covers

There was a quite peculiar version of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer; I remain convinced to this day that was done in retaliation for a snarky S&G song.


Let’s face it: Bob Dylan didn’t/doesn’t have the prettiest voice in pop music. But his strength as a songwriter, especially early on, allowed listeners to become familiar with his songs through the performances of others.

Joan Baez, as noted previously, was an early advocate and performer of Dylan’s music, as were Peter, Paul, and Mary, who had two Top 10 songs written by Dylan way back in 1963, Blowin’ in the Wind which hit the charts in June and got to #2; and Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right, charting in September, and ending up at #9.

But it was 1965 that Dylan really broke through, both as a performer and an artist being covered. The Byrds’ Mr. Tambourine Man hit the charts in June 1965, reaching #1. Cher’s All I Really Want to Do started its climb to #15 in July, and It Ain’t Me Babe by the Turtles charted in August, eventually getting to #8. Meanwhile, Dylan had his first hit with Like a Rolling Stone, which started its ascent in July, eventually getting to #2 in September, blocked from the top of the charts by the Beatles’ Help!

Mojo magazine compiled a list of top 10 Dylan covers, while Paste magazine has listed what it considers the 50 Best Bob Dylan Covers of All Time. Meanwhile, Dylan Cover Albums.com boasts 30,000 covers. The podcast Coverville recently offered its fifth Bob Dylan Cover Story in seven years.

Of course, this cover thing can go both ways. Here’s a list of songs covered BY Bob Dylan. While quite a few were from his early career, there were also a bunch from the 1970 double album, Self Portrait. I know this very well because I bought that LP for my high school girlfriend; then we listened to it, not quite as impressed as we had hoped we might be. In particular, there was a quite peculiar version of Simon & Garfunkel’s The Boxer; I remain convinced to this day that was done in retaliation for a snarky S&G song called A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission), in which Simon parodies Dylan; “Albert” in the song is almost certainly Dylan’s manager at the time, Albert Grossman.

Bob Dylan Covers Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” (but doesn’t almost everyone?)

ABC Wednesday – Round 8

Ramblin' with Roger
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