bob d documentary

by **robertdreed** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:10 pm

Bob Dylan's artistic worthiness- or his "social-artistic worthiness", as it were- isn't to be decided by plebiscite, binding on everyone who auditions him. For instance, proldic, you're allowed your opinion that he's "Judas." But that wasn't the question, really. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 9/28/05 2:17 pm

by **proldic** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:14 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>artistic worthiness isn't to be decided by plebiscite<hr></blockquote>

by **robertdreed** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:21 pm

The question at hand is whether or not one thinks that art has to be channeled toward ideologically didactic purposes in order to retain legitimacy, regardless of the wishes of the individual artist. At least, that's the question that I was offering up to the opinions of the audience. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 9/28/05 2:23 pm

by **proldic** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:24 pm

First, you should really refrain from your habit of using the edit function to change, or 'polish' your posts 5 minutes after you post them. It's quite disconcerting, and really seems kind of sneaky. Second, the thread was discussing the documentary, and I was quoting what a member of the audience shouted in the last scene of Scorcese's neo-liberal handjob. And it wasn't necessarily to reflect my agreement, just to point out what I saw as another level of the Dylan 'anti-mythos' that is barely considered.

by **robertdreed** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 4:46 pm

My first drafts often don't say exactly what I intend them to. Therefore, I edit. proldic, why do you feel compelled to cast a documentary about a musician as "neoliberal", as if it were made to serve a didactic political goal? Didn't Scorsese give some time to the people who were disappointed by Dylan, including those who criticized his turn away from writing overtly political "cause" songs? (Yeah, I edited again- this time, to correct my misspelling of the word "criticized." So sue me.) Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 9/28/05 2:51 pm

by **seemslikeadream** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:00 pm

I use to have this in my sign line at DU till a mod told me to remove it cause it was TOO LONG! Seems appropriate You walk into the room With your pencil in your hand You see somebody naked And you say, "Who is that man?" You try so hard But you don't understand Just what you'll say When you get home Because something is happening here But you don't know what it is Do you, Mister Jones? You raise up your head And you ask, "Is this where it is?" And somebody points to you and says "It's his" And you say, "What's mine?" And somebody else says, "Where what is?" And you say, "Oh my God Am I here all alone?" Because something is happening here But you don't know what it is Do you, Mister Jones? You hand in your ticket And you go watch the geek Who immediately walks up to you When he hears you speak And says, "How does it feel To be such a freak?" And you say, "Impossible" As he hands you a bone Because something is happening here But you don't know what it is Do you, Mister Jones? You have many contacts Among the lumberjacks To get you facts When someone attacks your imagination But nobody has any respect Anyway they already expect you To just give a check To tax-deductible charity organizations You've been with the professors And they've all liked your looks With great lawyers you have Discussed lepers and crooks You've been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald's books You're very well read It's well known Because something is happening here But you don't know what it is Do you, Mister Jones? Well, the sword swallower, he comes up to you And then he kneels He crosses himself And then he clicks his high heels And without further notice He asks you how it feels And he says, "Here is your throat back Thanks for the loan" Because something is happening here But you don't know what it is Do you, Mister Jones? Now you see this one-eyed midget Shouting the word "NOW" And you say, "For what reason?" And he says, "How?" And you say, "What does this mean?" And he screams back, "You're a cow Give me some milk Or else go home" Because something is happening here But you don't know what it is Do you, Mister Jones? Well, you walk into the room Like a camel and then you frown You put your eyes in your pocket And your nose on the ground There ought to be a law Against you comin' around You should be made To wear earphones Because something is happening here But you don't know what it is Do you, Mister Jones? <img src="http://www.haschrebellen.de/pics/usa/nweton.jpg" style="border:0;"/> a fave of Huey's

by **proldic** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:12 pm

Should I really have to explain that people are often responding to what you wrote initially? And nobody could honestly deny that tonation, choice of word, placement of a comma, makes a difference in what someone's saying, or what they put out there. Do I need to give you 10 minute- how about 24-hour -delay? Seems like that function could be abused, someone with enough concern about how people view them, might be motivated to go back and alter their past posts significantly (or subtly), to make themselves 'look better' than they originally did. In fact, it seems likely it would be abused. Anyway, seems to be an irrecconcilible difference here, huh: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>as if it were made to serve a didactic political goal?<hr></blockquote> um, like...yeah <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Didn't Scorsese give some time to the people who were disappointed by Dylan, including those who critized his turn away from writing overtly political "cause" songs?<hr></blockquote> Scorcese's "neo-liberal handjob" wasn't given to Dylan, necessarily, it was given to the audience I outlined in an above post. Dudes like you. In fact, his worst indictment wasn't "Pete Seeger freaking out and taking an axe to the cord, because his dad's hearing aid was freaking out because of the extreme unnanounced amplification", it was simply to simply remind all of us who didn't remember, what an asshole Dylan as a human being was-is. The documentary wasn't about Dylan, it was about you.

by **robertdreed** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:21 pm

Since I don't want this discussion to be about me, I'll just lay out for awhile.

by **proldic** » Wed Sep 28, 2005 5:38 pm

whatever I may think of your web-personality sometimes, I honestly didn't intend (at least consciously <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/ohwell.gif ALT=":\"> ) that last sentence to be grouped as to come across as trying to say that you were an asshole, the point was that the documentary was more geared to shaping today's viewer (you being imo representative of the target audience) than candidly looking at Dylan, in crucial context with the era. Seperately, the documentary reminded me what an asshole of a human being Dylan was. And this here's my idea of correction. No need for white-out. That way it's "all there for history", ahem. Unless you like your history redacted?

by **robertdreed** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 4:02 am

[Warning: the following is linked from Counterpunch, suspected "gatekeeper" website. RDR) Bob Dylan: A Direction Home by Dave Marsh I found this while doing research on Dylan in 1963-64. I was writing a text for a book to be published next month as Forever Young, by Douglas Gilbert, the photographer who made some of the most amazing pictures of Dylan in the summer of '64. Part of the context for what was happening was his 'renunciation' of politics. I went looking for what I could find about Dylan's apology to the Emergency Civil Liberties Committee, for making a speech when he accepted the group's Tom Paine award, where he compared himself to Lee Harvey Oswald and attacked bald politicians for being bald, and bourgeois Negroes for wearing suits on the platform at the Great March on Washington, and generally pissed on liberalism. That's a remarkable statement of its own-based on the transcript, he's pretty clearly drunk and trying to avoid what he winds up doing, which is to tell these people a certain set of truths about themselves and the world. But this apology letter is more amazing than that, by half, and I don't think I've ever read it before. I've seen a line or two quoted here and there but never the whole thing. (I'd love to be proved wrong about this so please let me know if so.) As a piece of writing, I'd judge it better'n any of his liner notes pre-Bringing It All Back Home. As to content, the stuff about coming to New York (and growing up in Minnesota) directly foreshadows Chronicles, Volume One; I don't know anything else by him that does, certainly not this plainly. It's funny (man, he was funny then), but then it has to be because in a sense, he's being more self-revelatory than he is in Chronicles, even. ( See especially the passage about his moods.) Most important, perhaps, it is not so much a farewell to protest politics but extremely political in a different way: His allegiance to the radicals of SNCC, and to the kids in the Venceremos Brigade, which I presume is what he means by "the folks who went to Cuba." Note that he mentions Selma almost eighteen months before Bloody Sunday-a message to those who believe Dylan paid only lip service to his civil rights involvements. (Foreman spoke to me in late 2003 about having actively recruited him as an ally for SNCC and several SNCC people, notably Bernice Johnson Reagon and Cordell Reagon emphasized that Dylan remained close to them after his protest apostasy.) The last reason finding this gave me joy, and it truly did, was that it showed Dylan acting out (in advance of its articulation) the principle over which SNCC 'broke'-that white people needed to be addressing the problems of white people in their communities, not trying to solve problems for black people in black communities. You can read a different version of the rest of his '60s career (at least that much) in this. Maybe of his whole career: Why he's sometimes seem unanchored and why he seems so completely on target and sometimes both at once. Maybe I see it, a little bit, as Bob's ultimate link to Elvis: Bob able to articulate what Elvis never could say but always enacted. Something like that... <a href="http://counterpunch.com/marsh10012005.html">counterpunch.com/marsh10012005.html</a>

by **Gouda** » Mon Oct 03, 2005 5:55 pm

Yep, I read it this morning (after scanning St. Clair's latest piece for any signs of gatekeeping, of course!) Remarkable letter, despite all the "t"'s. "when I spoke of Lee Oswald, I was speakin of the times I was not speakin of his deed if it was his deed. the deed speaks for itself.." ... "if a Negro has t wear a tie t be a Negro then I must cut off all ties with who he has t do it for." ... "I've been told about people all my life about niggers, kikes, wops, bohunks, spicks, chinks, an I been told how they eat, dress, walk, talk, steal, rob, an kill but nobody tells me how any of 'm feels..."

bob d documentary

Dylan's artistic worthiness

but of course...what was I thinking

the question...

Dreed

proldic...

Re: Re:Ballad of a Thin Man

Dylan

Re: personal ego trips

clarification

Bob Dylan apology letter to the ECLU

Re: Bob Dylan apology letter to the ECLU

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