On the Road with Bob Dylan (35 page)

Back at the hotel, the groupies are arriving in droves, young ones, ugly ones, fat ones, in fact, Lisa has managed to recruit every conceivable type other than good-looking ones. They’re roaming the halls in packs of twos and threes, ogling, pointing, whispering, giggling. Ratso laughs to himself as he escorts Rega and her two friends to the hospitality room.

Tonight, in lieu of the usual modest liquor offering, Imhoff has devised an elaborate spread and rented one of the banquet rooms for the Revue and their guests. Inside, most of the crew, a few of the performers, and guests like Albert Grossman and author Emmet Grogan are seated around tables. Ratso and Gary parade in with their catch and take a table at the rear. After a few minutes, Barry comes in with Peggy and orders Ratso to walk the dog.

The reporter grabs the leash and strolls barefoot around the lobby, a model of sartorial splendor in his white pants, orange Kinky Friedman T-shirt, and huge Norwegian Army hat delicately balanced on his head. And, as luck would have it, he stumbles upon the prettiest little coed Lisa invited, a dark doe-eyed art student. They talk a bit, he tells her to get rid of her friend, runs back to the hospitality room, pawns off the dog to security, grabs a bottle of Jack Daniels, picks up his waiting partner, and sojourns to the deserted game room.

Back in the hospitality suite, the party isn’t exactly raging. The hookers are all sitting together at one table, in their furs and slinky dresses feeling as comfortable as war resisters at a VFW convention. In fact, except for a few quickies, their pocketbooks will be the same size when they leave as they were when they came in. And as for the groupies, they keep their patrol up for a few hours, then drive back into town about dawn, with stories to keep their dorm floors enthralled for weeks. But Ratso would miss all this non-action. He was still in the game room, sprawled across the pool table, clutching the Jack Daniels bottle, passed out cold.

The next afternoon, Ratso wakes up, lurches off the pool table, knocking over the half-empty bottle, and stumbles back to his
room. After a shower, he picks up some novelty items he bought the previous night, reluctantly grabs the cowboy shirt, and walks down to Dylan’s room. He knocks.

“Who’s there?” a groggy voice responds after the third rap.

“It’s me, Ratso.”

The door slowly opens onto a dark room. Ratso cautiously enters and when his iris adjusts, he makes out the singer standing barefoot in the living room, wearing a huge Mexican poncho and his dark glasses. And nothing else. In the bedroom, he can see Sara huddled under the covers talking to Sally Grossman, who’s kneeling alongside the bed.

“Here, we got you a present when we went to the used clothing store yesterday,” Ratso proffers the green cowboy shirt.

“Thanks, man,” Dylan gushes. “Hey, I’m just getting up …”

Ratso gets the message and heads for the door. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, I think I’m gonna sell another feature article to another magazine. Fuck
Rolling Stone.”

“Great,” Dylan yawns.

“Far out, huh,” and Ratso puts out his palm. Dylan finally gets the idea and makes a feeble slap, with a herky jerky motion.

“No, schmuck,” Ratso screams, “this is the way you do it.” And he slaps Dylan’s palm with vigor, cracking up Sara and Sally, and then slips out the door.

That afternoon, Ratso visits with friends in Cambridge, and by the time he finds the gym at Brandeis, he’s missed the first half of the concert. Just as well, he thinks, as he picks his way across the sardined bodies. Festival seating in another musky gym. Ratso makes it to the sound board in the middle of the floor and grabs a seat next to Bernie Gelb, who tapes every set of Baez’s. Joan’s wearing basic beachcomber again, rolled-up jeans, barefoot, red tank top, appropriate attire for this sweltering gym. And, like all the other dates so far in the Boston area, she’s just about stealing the show from Dylan.

She plows through a searing “Diamonds and Rust” and the
crowd goes wild. Ratso leans over to Bernie. “What was that anti-Semitic shit she was saying at last night’s concert?”

“C’mon,” Bernie smiles, “some of her best friends are Jewish.”

She’s soaring through “Swing Low”
a cappella
now, ending on a wavering trill that sends these young Jewish students into ecstasy. Gelb cheers lustily. “Stand up Bernie,” Ratso tries to drag him to his feet. “Stand up! Then they all will.”

“I want to dedicate the next song to the United Farm Workers,” Joanie says solemnly and starts into the old Wobbly favorite, “Joe Hill.”

Baez cedes the stage to Dylan and he maintains the intensity, ripping through the standard set, peaking to an incredible, “Just Like a Woman.” The crowd cheers, but in vain because as usual there would be no encore this night.

After the show, Ratso runs into Faris from Columbia Records. Apparently, Columbia had sent up some very heavy executives to Boston to see the show, since the New York date hadn’t been announced yet. And leading the delegation was Irwin Siegelstein, the new president of Columbia Records.

“It was really funny, we went backstage,” Faris twinkles, “and there were all these executives in suits and ties, lots of confusion, and Irwin introduced himself to Dylan as the president of Columbia Records. And Dylan grunted. They came out shaking their heads, just couldn’t understand. All he did was grunt.”

After the show, the partying rages far into the night, with McGuinn, Neuwirth, and Blakley doing guest solos in the hospitality suite, Ronee belting out “New Moon Rising” just as the first rays of the Sunday sun streamed into the small room.

The next morning, Ratso runs barefoot and fur-hatted through the dining area. It was a travel day, the tour going on to Enfield, Connecticut, for a Monday night date in Hartford, but Ratso was driving back to Manhattan to pick up Kinky Friedman, who’d be making his long-awaited appearance on the tour. So the reporter is scrambling around, trying to tie up loose ends, and simultaneously
pack for the trip. He spots Dylan, and Sara and Sally eating breakfast and scurries over to the table.

“Remember that article I mentioned yesterday?”

Dylan nods. “Well, I spoke to them today and it might be a cover story.” Ratso offers his hand and Dylan wastes no time, resoundingly slapping it. They all laugh.

“Oh yeah,” the reporter remembers and hands Sara a Hurricane T-shirt. “Great,” she holds it up, examining the picture, “now I can be a hooker, huh?” Dylan gets up to speak to someone and Ratso sits down. “Sara, Kinky’s coming onto the tour.”

“Great,” Sara purrs, “I love Kinky. I saw him in L.A., he had this great fur guitar strap on.”

“Listen,” Ratso whispers confidentially, “I want to do a scene in Connecticut or up in Canada with just you and Bob and Kinky in a room listening to some of Kinky’s new songs.”

“Who knows if I’ll be alive,” Sara sighs.

“C’mon, don’t put me on.”

“Look, Ratso, what will happen will happen. I don’t want to plan anything.” Sara breaks into a slow smile. “But I think Kinky would be great in the film. He should play a priest.”

Ratso bids them adieu and rushes up to his room, balances his three valises and a garment bag, and walks out to the car. He loads the baggage, and then saunters over to say good-bye to Dylan who had been talking over by his friend Larry’s van. Larry, who’s been confined to a wheelchair for years, is an old friend from Minnesota and had come out on the tour for about a week.

Ratso rushes up to the van, in time to see Larry being wheeled into its interior. “Is Bob around?” the reporter asks.

“He just left,” Larry smiles.

“Hey, man, if I don’t see you, take care.”

“You too,” Larry responds. “You just missed Bob though. We were just shooting a few scenes for the movie.”

“Really?” The tape recorder in Ratso’s head clicks on. “What kind of scenes?”

“Oh just fooling around,” Larry smiles, as the platform of the specially equipped van lowers. “We did some great scenes with me chasing Bob around the halls in my chair.”

Ratso winces, whispers a quick good-bye, and rushes to his car, eager for the sanctuary and sanity of Manhattan and Kinky Friedman; a small, solitary figure wheeling through the night, hurtling from the frying pan to the fire.

R
atso picked Kinky up at the Chelsea Hotel on 23rd Street and after a night smoking Kents and drinking tarry coffee at the all-night donut shop on Eighth Avenue, the two voyagers started for Hartford. But first, they stopped to pick up Lynn, a young girl who had caught Ratso’s fancy at the Waterbury venue.

By eight, they were almost in Hartford and Kinky began to get finicky. “This may just turn out to be extremely unpleasant,” he frowns, and pulls his red-and-blue-sequined cowboy hat over his forehead. “If this whole thing gets too tedious, I’m just gonna bug out for the dugout.”

“Don’t worry,” Ratso smiles, piloting the Monte Carlo through the worsening snowstorm, “everybody’s really excited you’re coming.”

“Well, I just hope it doesn’t get too unpleasant,” the Texas Jewboy drawls, “I’m in no mood for a tension convention.”

They drive the next few minutes in silence, then enter Hartford. Ratso parks outside the modernesque Coliseum, another 10,000 plus date. They start wending their way to the seats, and, as if on cue, Neuwirth steps to the mike to introduce the next song. “Here’s a trucker song for Kinky,” he barks and the band breaks into a Country Western number.

“I’m gonna bug out for a while, boychick,” Kinky announces, “get something to eat, relax for a while.” The noise and smoke seem to be fraying Kinky’s already frazzled nerves. Rather than lose him, Ratso grabs Lynn and the trio walk across the street to an Italian restaurant.

They come back near the end of Dylan’s set, and again, almost
magically, Dylan ambles up to the mike for a dedication. “We’re gonna send this out to all the people in the house from Texas,” and they break into “Durango.” Kinky looks a little paler.

But he manages to survive through the show, and afterward, the trio walks backstage, Ratso introducing Kinky to everyone in sight, from the film crew to security.

“Goddamn,” Kinky curses Ratso as he buttons his red, white and blue sport coat, “I don’t got to meet every single nerd on the goddamn tour. If you introduce me to one more person I’m gonna brody.”

“Kinky,” Neuwirth rasps a greeting, putting a bear hug onto the Texas Jewboy, “c’mon on the bus with us, hoss.” Kinky goes with Neuwirth, and Ratso and Lynn follow Phydeaux in the car.

In the crowded hotel lobby, there’s a carnival atmosphere in the air, generated by the well-received show and the arrival of Kinky and Rick Danko of the Band, who had played a short set during the first half of the concert. The reporter spies Dylan sitting on a bench and tries to drag Kinky over.

“Let’s just get a room,” Kinky successfully resists, steering Ratso over to the front desk, “let’s get registered, get settled, relax a while.”

As Kinky starts to sign for the room, Dylan comes charging toward the pair. “Hey Kinky, how ya doing.” “Real nice, how you feel, hoss,” Kinky smiles, tapping an ash off his long cigar. “How’d you like the show?” Dylan wonders. “I enjoyed myself immensely,” Kinky drawls, “I couldn’t hear too well, I was sitting all the way in the back of the Coliseum but you looked good up there, waving and stuff.” Kinky does a quick imitation of Bob’s gyrations during “Isis.” “Well, we’ll see you later,” Bob waves. “Hey, did you get a room? Barry, get Kinky a room.”

Kinky gets two keys, passes one to Ratso and they grab their luggage and walk toward the elevators. In the coffee shop, Joni is about to do a scene playing a guitar and a number of people have gathered around to gawk.

As soon as they enter the room Kinky flops onto a bed with, “I’m gonna nod out for a few minutes.” Ratso immediately gets to work, running down the hall looking for the film crew. He bursts into the hospitality room, where Rick Danko is singing with Ronson, Stoner, Wyeth, and Soles backing him. No cameramen. The reporter races back into the hall, spies Ramblin’ Jack, grabs him and rushes onto the elevator, nearly knocking down Joni Mitchell and Sam Shepard, who are emerging. “Hey, you going to the hospitality suite?” Ratso screams, “I’m bringing Kinky down there soon, we’re gonna film him singing some of his new songs.”

“What? For a Jewish cowboy?” Shepard, who owns a ranch in California, frowns. “You kidding me?” He grabs Joni, and they hasten down the hall.

“Are you gonna take that Jewish cowboy shit?” Ratso asks Elliot, whose real name is Adonopoz. Ramblin’ Jack shrugs and they enter the room.

“Keno, wake up,” Ratso yells, “this is Ramblin’ Jack.”

“Hi, Kinky,” Jack doffs his ten-gallon.

“It’s good to see you,” Kinky squints half-awake eyes.

“I got to tell you a funny story …” Jack starts.

“Save it for the film,” Ratso interrupts.

“Nah, it’s personal.” Jack delicately sits at the foot of Kinky’s bed.

“We don’t want it all over America by tomorrow morning, now do we,” Kinky drawls in his peculiar wavering cantorial fashion.

Jack leans over and picks up one of Kinky’s snakeskin cowboy boots, admiring the huge metal toeguards. “These toetappers are really good,” Jack drawls, “you can kick snakes up the ass.”