A Tribute To Bob Dylan

A Tribute To Bob Dylan

Working in the world of Comedy most definitely has its perks. My former home club, the Comedy Corner in West Palm Beach, used to be owned by Fantasma Productions, a South Florida Concert Promoter. If there was a concert in town that I wanted to see, all I had to do was pick up the phone and they were usually able to get me some great tickets. The highlight of those years occurred on November 15th, 1992 when I went to a Bob Dylan show and afterwards got to meet him. It was and still is one of the most surreal moments of my life. Bob Dylan is by far my all time musical hero. He is, in the truest sense of the word, a living legend. His road manager introduced me to him and told him that I was a local comedian. Bob Dylan shook my hand and said "comedian huh? wow - a comedian." He said it very slowly and with little emotion. He wasn't being negative. It was almost as though he was pondering to himself, "hmm, why is there a comedian showing up in the middle of my day?" This was obviously not one of the perks of his job. I was very frozen by the moment and had no idea what to say. So I told him that I had 60 of his albums. It was probably the stupidest thing I could've said. I wonder if he's ever heard that particular snippet of conversation before? How very original of me - to tell him how many of his albums that I had. But what else could I say? He said, "sixty huh? wow - sixty." He had to assume that since he hadn't yet released sixty official albums that either I was exaggerating or that I had a bunch of his unofficial bootleg albums. I did, in fact have a bunch of his bootleg albums. I had brought a few albums with me to the show just in case an autograph situation should arise. As Bob Dylan was walking away the manager said, "wait a minute Bob, he has something he wants you to sign." I had forgotten to ask for an autograph. So Bob Dylan turned around and I gave him a sharpie and one of his albums (his first one - entitled Bob Dylan). And he signed it. I have finally gotten around to buying a frame for that signed album and it will be up on my wall very soon.

I've been a fan of Bob Dylan since I was 12 years old. I got hooked immediately. My older sister had Greatest Hits Volume One and she said to me one time, "listen to these words." And then she put on Positively Fourth Street. That's the song that starts with "You've got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend." And in the middle it goes "You say you've lost your faith but that's not where it's at. You have no faith to lose and you know it." And it ends with "Yes I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you." Ya know that song? Well, I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever heard. I thought it was amazing that someone could do that by just using words. How did he DO that? I went out and bought Greatest Hits Volume Two. Now I had Greatest Hits One and Two. One of my other sisters had Nashville Skyline and Concert for Bangla Desh. I figured I had all the Bob Dylan I needed. I had no idea at the time that I was only just scratching the surface. But that Volume Two - I played that one over and over. And on January 7th, 1974 I was able to get tickets to go see Bob Dylan at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. He was backed by The Band. What a show. The whole thing was way over my head. I was only fourteen but on some level it really connected. That's the first time I heard It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding). That song killed me. It has that line in it that says, "he not busy being born is busy dying." It was also at the height of the Watergate scandal. And when he sang "But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked" the crowd went nuts. I thought at the time that he had written a topical political song. I had no idea that he had actually written the song back in 1965. When the album that chronicled that particular tour came out (Before The Flood) I got that one too. I still had no idea I was only scratching the surface.

I kept listening to those albums over the years but I eventually got in to other stuff and kind of lost track of Bob as he went in many different musical directions.

Then I got in to Comedy. And along about 1989 I read an article in CashBox Magazine that was laying around the offices of the Comedy Corner. There was an interview in there with Lou Reed. And in the article, Lou Reed said, "nobody turns a phrase like Bob Dylan." I was a very new comedian at the time and I had started hearing that expression as it applies to the craft of stand up comedy - "turn a phrase." That's a big part of what a comedian does. It's part of our job - to turn a phrase. I decided that I should start listening to Bob Dylan again. It was even better than I remembered, because by now, I was hooked on the process of playing with words. This guy's a genius.

And that's exactly why I like Bob Dylan. Nobody turns a phrase like him. It's true. A few of my favorites…
· Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now.
· He not busy being born is busy dying.
· Money doesn't talk it swears.
· When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose.
· The Ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face.
· She can take the dark out of the nighttime and paint the daytime black.
· Paying attention like a rattlesnake does.
· Crying like a fire in the sun.
· I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken.
· I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul.
· The keys of the guards clicked the tune of the morning.
· I bargained for salvation and she gave me a lethal dose.

He has a knack for cramming so much meaning into so few words. Each phrase is like a little zip file. Once you open it, it explodes. In my book, he's one of the greatest wordsmiths of all time.

In between these great phrases he is singing about God and Love and Heaven and Hell and Spirituality and Mythology and Psychology and the Bible and Outlaws and the Old West and Mexico and everything else under the sun. He's complicated. He's perplexing. A lot of times, his lyrics don't make any sense. They're symbolic, surreal, enigmatic and impossible to grasp. But half the fun is trying to figure them out anyway.

And not only that, a lot of times he's really funny. I never get bored with any of it.

And what about that voice that everybody complains about? You know the voice that changes every few years? I think it's one of the greatest and most original voices in the history of Rock and Roll. I really do. Those songs have a way of getting up into your head and they just rattle around for a while. I discovered the world of bootlegs back in 1990. That's when my Bob Dylan obsession really took off. I always knew he was great. But I still only had a handful of recordings. I figured I had most of what I needed.

Then one of my good friends, a fellow comedian named Steve Johnson, gave me a bootleg tape of what was mistakenly referred to as the Royal Albert Hall show. The first half was acoustic and the second half was electric. It has since been officially released as Live 1966 and it's now known that the show took place at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England.

This tape changed my life. I know that's an overused phrase when people talk about music but there was something so magical in the acoustic portion of that tape. I couldn't stop listening to it. The sound of the voice and the words were almost mystical. And it was the first time I ever heard Visions of Johanna. If you ever get a chance, get Live '66. The electric portion is equally as mind blowing although for me, at first, it was an acquired taste. This tape captured a great performing artist at the top of his game.

For the next few years when I was working the road my hobby became going to used record stores and buying every Bob Dylan album I could get my hands on. And I stumbled upon a record store in Tampa that sold nothing but live bootleg albums. They had a ton of Dylan. I was like a little kid in there. I kind of went nuts with the whole thing.

Then the Internet came along and all hell broke loose. I discovered the Bob Dylan newsgroup (rec.music.dylan) that was populated with other similarly afflicted fanatics like myself. I starting trading copies of my bootleg tapes for copies of their bootleg tapes. And my collection kept growing and growing. There was always something new that I had to hear.

So what does all this have to do with comedy and my big move to LA? Well hold on now. More comedy perks are on the way. A couple weeks ago I worked at one of my favorite clubs, the Tempe Improv. And I forget how, but early on I found out that the co-owner and general manager of the club, Dan Mer, is a fellow fanatic. Bob fanatics are everywhere in the world of comedy.

All I ever talk to Dan Mer about is Comedy and Bob Dylan. During this recent appearance in Tempe, I worked with Jimmy Shubert, who is a good friend of mine and he's also good friends with Dan Mer. And a few days after we're done the week, Bob Dylan was scheduled to appear in Tempe at the Sun City West Sundome. So Dan Mer says, "hey you guys should come in to see the Dylan show. It's my fortieth birthday. I think I can get some good tickets." What an understatement that turned out to be.

So sure enough, Shubert and I made the five and a half hour road trip from LA to Tempe. Jimmy had recently gotten hooked in to the world of Bob Dylan when he bought the 1997 release Time Out of Mind.

Dan Mer is one of those guys who knows everybody, especially in Tempe. If you're out at a bar in Tempe and you're within thirty feet of Dan, you never pay for a drink. I've tried to pay for drinks in Tempe. It's almost impossible.

And because of the club, he's mega-connected. So he has a knack for trading out for perks. He got us hotel rooms, and we all rode to the show in a limousine bus. I've never seen anything like this particular vehicle. It was a huge limo on the inside and a minibus on the outside. And it had a great sound system. On the way to the show we mostly listened to Black Sabbath, The Band and Bob Dylan.

One of the people that Dan has become friends with over the years, is Nils Lofgren, an incredibly accomplished musician who also happens to be a huge comedy fan.

Nils Lofgren, in addition to having a long solo career has also played with Neil Young and is a current member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. He's also a friend of Bob Dylan. In case you're keeping track, that's not all that many degrees of separation. I had a feeling our Tempe seats were going to be pretty damn good. Pretty Good? We get there and show our tickets to the usher who says, "oh, you're way down there." That's always a good sign. Every usher along the way kept pointing us further and further down there until we ended up front row center. Yeee Haaa.

This was the 11th time I've seen Bob Dylan live but I've never been this close. It's a whole different experience from the front row. I've never been in the front row of ANY concert let alone for Bob Dylan. What an incredible show this ended up being. There were so many highlights. He did Masters of War and All Along the Watchtower and Blowin' in the Wind and Tangled Up in Blue and Like a Rolling Stone and It's Alright Ma and Just Like a Woman and Knockin' on Heaven's Door and The Times They are a Changin'. The whole night was a blast.

Bob Dylan is really on a roll these days. He is once again, at the top of his game. He's developed a whole new voice in the last few years. And it's as great as all the other ones he's had over the past forty plus years. If you ever get a chance to see him live, go. He tours constantly so getting a chance to see him is relatively easy. It's something you'll never forget and not only that, you'll be able to tell your grandkids about it. They'll all be studying his songs someday.

Some additional Bob Notes:

If you don't have any Bob Dylan in your collection, where do you begin? I would start with Bringing It All Back Home and maybe the recently released The Essential Bob Dylan. Listen to those about five times. Then go out and get Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, Live '66, Oh Mercy and Freewheelin'. And Good Lord, don't forget about Blood on the Tracks. This only scratches the surface but it's a good start. A new album, Love and Theft, is coming out September 11th.

There is a Fall U.S. Tour starting October 5th in Spokane, WA (see www.bobdylan.com for details). He's playing big arenas this time but it should still be great.

After the show, on the ride back to the Comedy Club, Nils Lofgren called Dan Mer on his cell phone. The cell phone got passed around and Nils said hello to each and every one of us in the limo bus. What a cool guy.

THESE ADDITIONAL THINGS WERE THOUGHT OF LATER

Bob Dylan is a lot like Sushi. Remember the first time you tried Sushi? Some friends of yours kept bugging you to eat some Sushi. And you said, "hey, I ain't gonna eat raw fish." But they kept bugging you. So you finally gave in. And you tried it and, well, it was kind of, well, different. It wasn't good. It wasn't bad. But it was different. And you were very happy that you made the leap and you got your friends off your back. Finally, they will stop bugging me. What a relief. And then about two days later you were busy living your regular old life. And in the middle of the day, this strange taste memory popped into your head for a few seconds. And you said to yourself, "hey, what was that?" That was different. But that was kind of a cool taste. And then it hit you like a ton of bricks. "Oh my God, that was that Sushi taste. What the hell is that doing back in my life? Ya know what? I hate to admit it but I kind of like that taste. Am I really saying this? Hmm, maybe I'll give this Sushi thing another try. And you do. And you can't believe that you have lived your life this long without this taste. And now you have become one of the friends who looks down on your non-sushi eating friends. You can't believe they won't give it a try." Well, I think the analogy is kind of obvious here. You've heard Bob Dylan. But you really haven't given him a good listen. Try it and see what happens. You'll see.

Hmm, there it is again. That's odd. But I think I kind of like it. Why can't I get this taste out of my head. It's still up there floating around and it refuses to leave. But I would definitely like to taste it again. And you definitely want to hear it again. And it goes from "Hmmm, that's kind of different" to "Hmmm, I guess I can see how somebody would kind of like that song" to "Hmm, I'll play it again. This has kind of an odd quirky charm to it" to "Wow. That's a great fuckin' song, and so is that other one... and that one too. I wonder if his other stuff is this good." And then it just becomes, "OH MY GOD. This stuff is unfuckinbelievable. I can't stop listening to it. How can people NOT like this?"

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	A Tribute To Bob Dylan Working in the world of Comedy most definitely has its perks. My former home club, the Comedy Corner in West Palm Beach, used to be owned by Fantasma Productions, a South Florida Concert Promoter. If there was a concert in town that I wanted to see, all I had to do was pick up the phone and they were usually able to get me some great tickets. The highlight of those years occurred on November 15th, 1992 when I went to a Bob Dylan show and afterwards got to meet him. It was and still is one of the most surreal moments of my life. Bob Dylan is by far my all time musical hero. He is, in the truest sense of the word, a living legend. His road manager introduced me to him and told him that I was a local comedian. Bob Dylan shook my hand and said "comedian huh? wow - a comedian." He said it very slowly and with little emotion. He wasn't being negative. It was almost as though he was pondering to himself, "hmm, why is there a comedian showing up in the middle of my day?" This was obviously not one of the perks of his job. I was very frozen by the moment and had no idea what to say. So I told him that I had 60 of his albums. It was probably the stupidest thing I could've said. I wonder if he's ever heard that particular snippet of conversation before? How very original of me - to tell him how many of his albums that I had. But what else could I say? He said, "sixty huh? wow - sixty." He had to assume that since he hadn't yet released sixty official albums that either I was exaggerating or that I had a bunch of his unofficial bootleg albums. I did, in fact have a bunch of his bootleg albums. I had brought a few albums with me to the show just in case an autograph situation should arise. As Bob Dylan was walking away the manager said, "wait a minute Bob, he has something he wants you to sign." I had forgotten to ask for an autograph. So Bob Dylan turned around and I gave him a sharpie and one of his albums (his first one - entitled Bob Dylan). And he signed it. I have finally gotten around to buying a frame for that signed album and it will be up on my wall very soon. I've been a fan of Bob Dylan since I was 12 years old. I got hooked immediately. My older sister had Greatest Hits Volume One and she said to me one time, "listen to these words." And then she put on Positively Fourth Street. That's the song that starts with "You've got a lotta nerve to say you are my friend." And in the middle it goes "You say you've lost your faith but that's not where it's at. You have no faith to lose and you know it." And it ends with "Yes I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you." Ya know that song? Well, I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever heard. I thought it was amazing that someone could do that by just using words. How did he DO that? I went out and bought Greatest Hits Volume Two. Now I had Greatest Hits One and Two. One of my other sisters had Nashville Skyline and Concert for Bangla Desh. I figured I had all the Bob Dylan I needed. I had no idea at the time that I was only just scratching the surface. But that Volume Two - I played that one over and over. And on January 7th, 1974 I was able to get tickets to go see Bob Dylan at the Spectrum in Philadelphia. He was backed by The Band. What a show. The whole thing was way over my head. I was only fourteen but on some level it really connected. That's the first time I heard It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding). That song killed me. It has that line in it that says, "he not busy being born is busy dying." It was also at the height of the Watergate scandal. And when he sang "But even the President of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked" the crowd went nuts. I thought at the time that he had written a topical political song. I had no idea that he had actually written the song back in 1965. When the album that chronicled that particular tour came out (Before The Flood) I got that one too. I still had no idea I was only scratching the surface. I kept listening to those albums over the years but I eventually got in to other stuff and kind of lost track of Bob as he went in many different musical directions. Then I got in to Comedy. And along about 1989 I read an article in CashBox Magazine that was laying around the offices of the Comedy Corner. There was an interview in there with Lou Reed. And in the article, Lou Reed said, "nobody turns a phrase like Bob Dylan." I was a very new comedian at the time and I had started hearing that expression as it applies to the craft of stand up comedy - "turn a phrase." That's a big part of what a comedian does. It's part of our job - to turn a phrase. I decided that I should start listening to Bob Dylan again. It was even better than I remembered, because by now, I was hooked on the process of playing with words. This guy's a genius. And that's exactly why I like Bob Dylan. Nobody turns a phrase like him. It's true. A few of my favorites… · Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now. · He not busy being born is busy dying. · Money doesn't talk it swears. · When you ain't got nothin', you got nothin' to lose. · The Ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face. · She can take the dark out of the nighttime and paint the daytime black. · Paying attention like a rattlesnake does. · Crying like a fire in the sun. · I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken. · I gave her my heart but she wanted my soul. · The keys of the guards clicked the tune of the morning. · I bargained for salvation and she gave me a lethal dose. He has a knack for cramming so much meaning into so few words. Each phrase is like a little zip file. Once you open it, it explodes. In my book, he's one of the greatest wordsmiths of all time. In between these great phrases he is singing about God and Love and Heaven and Hell and Spirituality and Mythology and Psychology and the Bible and Outlaws and the Old West and Mexico and everything else under the sun. He's complicated. He's perplexing. A lot of times, his lyrics don't make any sense. They're symbolic, surreal, enigmatic and impossible to grasp. But half the fun is trying to figure them out anyway. And not only that, a lot of times he's really funny. I never get bored with any of it. And what about that voice that everybody complains about? You know the voice that changes every few years? I think it's one of the greatest and most original voices in the history of Rock and Roll. I really do. Those songs have a way of getting up into your head and they just rattle around for a while. I discovered the world of bootlegs back in 1990. That's when my Bob Dylan obsession really took off. I always knew he was great. But I still only had a handful of recordings. I figured I had most of what I needed. Then one of my good friends, a fellow comedian named Steve Johnson, gave me a bootleg tape of what was mistakenly referred to as the Royal Albert Hall show. The first half was acoustic and the second half was electric. It has since been officially released as Live 1966 and it's now known that the show took place at the Manchester Free Trade Hall in Manchester, England. This tape changed my life. I know that's an overused phrase when people talk about music but there was something so magical in the acoustic portion of that tape. I couldn't stop listening to it. The sound of the voice and the words were almost mystical. And it was the first time I ever heard Visions of Johanna. If you ever get a chance, get Live '66. The electric portion is equally as mind blowing although for me, at first, it was an acquired taste. This tape captured a great performing artist at the top of his game. For the next few years when I was working the road my hobby became going to used record stores and buying every Bob Dylan album I could get my hands on. And I stumbled upon a record store in Tampa that sold nothing but live bootleg albums. They had a ton of Dylan. I was like a little kid in there. I kind of went nuts with the whole thing. Then the Internet came along and all hell broke loose. I discovered the Bob Dylan newsgroup (rec.music.dylan) that was populated with other similarly afflicted fanatics like myself. I starting trading copies of my bootleg tapes for copies of their bootleg tapes. And my collection kept growing and growing. There was always something new that I had to hear. So what does all this have to do with comedy and my big move to LA? Well hold on now. More comedy perks are on the way. A couple weeks ago I worked at one of my favorite clubs, the Tempe Improv. And I forget how, but early on I found out that the co-owner and general manager of the club, Dan Mer, is a fellow fanatic. Bob fanatics are everywhere in the world of comedy. All I ever talk to Dan Mer about is Comedy and Bob Dylan. During this recent appearance in Tempe, I worked with Jimmy Shubert, who is a good friend of mine and he's also good friends with Dan Mer. And a few days after we're done the week, Bob Dylan was scheduled to appear in Tempe at the Sun City West Sundome. So Dan Mer says, "hey you guys should come in to see the Dylan show. It's my fortieth birthday. I think I can get some good tickets." What an understatement that turned out to be. So sure enough, Shubert and I made the five and a half hour road trip from LA to Tempe. Jimmy had recently gotten hooked in to the world of Bob Dylan when he bought the 1997 release Time Out of Mind. Dan Mer is one of those guys who knows everybody, especially in Tempe. If you're out at a bar in Tempe and you're within thirty feet of Dan, you never pay for a drink. I've tried to pay for drinks in Tempe. It's almost impossible. And because of the club, he's mega-connected. So he has a knack for trading out for perks. He got us hotel rooms, and we all rode to the show in a limousine bus. I've never seen anything like this particular vehicle. It was a huge limo on the inside and a minibus on the outside. And it had a great sound system. On the way to the show we mostly listened to Black Sabbath, The Band and Bob Dylan. One of the people that Dan has become friends with over the years, is Nils Lofgren, an incredibly accomplished musician who also happens to be a huge comedy fan. Nils Lofgren, in addition to having a long solo career has also played with Neil Young and is a current member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band. He's also a friend of Bob Dylan. In case you're keeping track, that's not all that many degrees of separation. I had a feeling our Tempe seats were going to be pretty damn good. Pretty Good? We get there and show our tickets to the usher who says, "oh, you're way down there." That's always a good sign. Every usher along the way kept pointing us further and further down there until we ended up front row center. Yeee Haaa. This was the 11th time I've seen Bob Dylan live but I've never been this close. It's a whole different experience from the front row. I've never been in the front row of ANY concert let alone for Bob Dylan. What an incredible show this ended up being. There were so many highlights. He did Masters of War and All Along the Watchtower and Blowin' in the Wind and Tangled Up in Blue and Like a Rolling Stone and It's Alright Ma and Just Like a Woman and Knockin' on Heaven's Door and The Times They are a Changin'. The whole night was a blast. Bob Dylan is really on a roll these days. He is once again, at the top of his game. He's developed a whole new voice in the last few years. And it's as great as all the other ones he's had over the past forty plus years. If you ever get a chance to see him live, go. He tours constantly so getting a chance to see him is relatively easy. It's something you'll never forget and not only that, you'll be able to tell your grandkids about it. They'll all be studying his songs someday. Some additional Bob Notes: If you don't have any Bob Dylan in your collection, where do you begin? I would start with Bringing It All Back Home and maybe the recently released The Essential Bob Dylan. Listen to those about five times. Then go out and get Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, Live '66, Oh Mercy and Freewheelin'. And Good Lord, don't forget about Blood on the Tracks. This only scratches the surface but it's a good start. A new album, Love and Theft, is coming out September 11th. There is a Fall U.S. Tour starting October 5th in Spokane, WA (see www.bobdylan.com for details). He's playing big arenas this time but it should still be great. After the show, on the ride back to the Comedy Club, Nils Lofgren called Dan Mer on his cell phone. The cell phone got passed around and Nils said hello to each and every one of us in the limo bus. What a cool guy. THESE ADDITIONAL THINGS WERE THOUGHT OF LATER Bob Dylan is a lot like Sushi. Remember the first time you tried Sushi? Some friends of yours kept bugging you to eat some Sushi. And you said, "hey, I ain't gonna eat raw fish." But they kept bugging you. So you finally gave in. And you tried it and, well, it was kind of, well, different. It wasn't good. It wasn't bad. But it was different. And you were very happy that you made the leap and you got your friends off your back. Finally, they will stop bugging me. What a relief. And then about two days later you were busy living your regular old life. And in the middle of the day, this strange taste memory popped into your head for a few seconds. And you said to yourself, "hey, what was that?" That was different. But that was kind of a cool taste. And then it hit you like a ton of bricks. "Oh my God, that was that Sushi taste. What the hell is that doing back in my life? Ya know what? I hate to admit it but I kind of like that taste. Am I really saying this? Hmm, maybe I'll give this Sushi thing another try. And you do. And you can't believe that you have lived your life this long without this taste. And now you have become one of the friends who looks down on your non-sushi eating friends. You can't believe they won't give it a try." Well, I think the analogy is kind of obvious here. You've heard Bob Dylan. But you really haven't given him a good listen. Try it and see what happens. You'll see. Hmm, there it is again. That's odd. But I think I kind of like it. Why can't I get this taste out of my head. It's still up there floating around and it refuses to leave. But I would definitely like to taste it again. And you definitely want to hear it again. And it goes from "Hmmm, that's kind of different" to "Hmmm, I guess I can see how somebody would kind of like that song" to "Hmm, I'll play it again. This has kind of an odd quirky charm to it" to "Wow. That's a great fuckin' song, and so is that other one... and that one too. I wonder if his other stuff is this good." And then it just becomes, "OH MY GOD. This stuff is unfuckinbelievable. I can't stop listening to it. How can people NOT like this?" close this window to return to the Tom Ryan writing page SHECKY! A magazine about standup... http://www.sheckymagazine.com ©Copyright 1999 Independent Together Brian McKim & Traci Skene Comics\Writers\Producers