On the Road with Bob Dylan (61 page)

“Absolutely, absolutely, because of the new material. And the band was incredible, especially the violin. I loved the new material. It’s classic. I loved ‘Durango.’ The whole thing was just incredible.”

The reporter tries to draw Phil out but the folksinger was really not in the mood to talk and Ratso, being no stranger to the terrors of the dampening of the spirit, respects the emotional state that he found Phil in. Slocum wishes Phil well and hangs up, totally unaware that this would be one of the last times that he would ever hear that sometimes soft, sometimes vibrant voice.

Ratso gets restless again so he wanders down to the lobby for a breather, and five minutes later, Kemp comes out of the elevator, suitcases in hand. A curious bond had begun to grow between these two adversaries, an admission that beneath the built-in role conflict that set them at each other’s throats, beneath that automatic hostility, these two men still managed to share certain things. A deep admiration for Dylan, of course. And a love of lox and salmon, although Ratso could never stomach the other fishes Lou thrived on. And, a common respect for the merits of individual entrepreneurship whether it be supplying Sunday brunch to the multitudes or providing the copy in the newspaper that the masses read with their brunch. It seemed that they both instinctively realized that the next day that newspaper would hold only the bones from the fish of the previous day’s meal.

So it was a gesture of camaraderie when Ratso leaps out into Madison Avenue and waits five minutes, in the shivering cold, finally flagging down a Checker for the fish peddler. He opens the door.

“Well, Lou, this is it,” Ratso smiles.

“Yeah, well you behave yourself and don’t bother Bob.”

“You know, I think I’m going to miss you,” Ratso smiles again.

“Too bad I can’t say the same,” Louie cracks and starts into the cab.

“C’mon, don’t I even get a handshake?” Slocum pouts.

Louie pauses and grudgingly grabs Ratso’s fingertips giving them a short, firm squeeze with his own. “Take care, Ratso,” Louie half-smiles.

“Bye, bye,” Ratso waves as the cab pulls out and then he quickly runs back into the hotel, to prepare the bait and think about the biggest catch of them all, waiting up there in that room with the fishing season only seconds old.

But Dylan was no easy catch. For days Ratso tried to snare him for an interview, calling his room at all hours, hanging out by the hotel, hanging out with him at parties, at a film screening, even bringing Sara some chicken soup direct from the Lower East Side when she was bedridden with a cold. Then finally, Ratso got a bite.

It happened late one morning. Ratso woke Dylan up and the singer told him to call him back in an hour and they could do the interview then. Ratso took that to mean over the phone, and an hour later, with his equipment set up, he dialed the hotel and coolly requested Dylan’s room. Two rings go by.

“Ratso,” a bleary but cheerful voice floats downtown.

“Yeah, how’d you know it was me,” the reporter wonders.

“Listen, I’m talking with my beloved …”

“Oh, no,” Ratso curses.

“You just interrupted me again,” Dylan jokes, “every time I’m talking to her the phone rings and it’s you, or there’s a knock on the door and it’s you, every time I’m trying to talk to her and get some really serious discussion out of the way, the fucking phone rings and it’s you or the doorbell.”

“Hey, man,” Ratso gets indignant, “I haven’t been sucking on your soul today and I don’t want to get in between you and her at all.”

Dylan chuckles. “All right, so what do you want? What do you need right now?”

“Well, I have a list of questions.”

“OK,” Dylan says amiably enough, “give ’em to me.”

“All right, it’s the end of the tour, right …”

“What do you mean?” Dylan objects, “end of what tour?”

“Well, what is it?” Ratso probes, “a hiatus?”

“Hiatus? You mean Hyannis?”

“Oh, you’re starting in Hyannis again?” Two can play the game. “Playing for the hoi polloi? Is this is a resting point now?”

“What resting point?” Dylan laughs. “We never rest.”

“I know, man,” Ratso testifies. “Do you ever sleep? What are you doing now?”

“What am I doing right now?” Dylan pimps.

“No, not right now, I mean in terms of your public persona.”

“Public persona, huh?” Dylan spits the words out warily.

“In other words, you just completed a tour …”

“No!” the singer shouts. “Yeah, well we’re regrouping.”

“OK, a regrouping. And then what?” Ratso pries.

“Then we’re gonna hit it again,” Bob oozes enthusiasm, “we’ll be out there again.”

“People should be looking for you?” Ratso asks and Dylan laughs. “Where are you gonna be next?”

“Well, lookit, there’s no way of knowing that at this point, there’s no way of knowing nothing. I mean we just play, we don’t do the paperwork.”

“Right, I agree with you,” Ratso approves. “Talk a little bit about the spirit of the tour, because I’ve never seen such a great, I mean I’ve been on the road with a couple of groups and I’ve never seen such a close camaraderie and brotherhood and feeling of …”

“Well, that’s because we’re all brothers and sisters,” Dylan says half-reverently and half-caustically.

“I’ve seen that closeness before but all I’m saying is that I’ve seen less ego clashes on this tour than on any tour I’ve seen.”

“OK,” Dylan’s getting impatient, “what’s the next one?”

“That’s it? That’s the answer?” Ratso feigns shock.

“Yeah, what’s the next question,” Dylan grabs the offensive.

“How do you respond to the one tack that people take to attack the tour, namely that it’s the same old shit, that the original concept of playing for the people has been subverted and it’s the same crass commercialism?”

“Is this a question, Ratso?” Dylan sounds like he could fall asleep before the question is articulated. “Is this a question?”

“Yeah, what was the original guiding philosophy behind what you were doing?”

Bob whispers to someone in the room for a few seconds then comes back to the phone. “What’s the philosophy behind anything, Ratso? When a bricklayer goes to work every morning, what’s his philosophy?”

“Well, he’s probably got a pretty well-defined philosophy even though it may not be articulated,” the reporter remembers his sociology courses.

“All right,” Dylan yields, “lemme sleep on that one.”

“All right, sleep on that one,” Ratso allows, “because what I was leading up to, was, hello, are you still there?”

“Yeah,” Dylan yawns.

“The question was that people have attacked this tour—”

“They’ve attacked it?” Dylan sounds perfectly incredulous.

“Yeah, I’ve read attacks on it,” Ratso barks.

“Who?”

“Rolling Stone
, for example, after they ripped up my article and wrote their own bureaucratic garbage …”

“You know why they attacked the tour, Ratso?” Dylan leaps in, a
mile a minute. “Because they hadn’t seen it. They sit in their offices on their asses and can only fantasize about it. They are the establishment. OK, so you can’t be responsible for people that haven’t seen the tour, that’s like somebody who doesn’t know you.”

“What about that early publicity that it was only gonna be in small clubs?”

“I don’t know how that got started. I didn’t start any of that stuff.”

“Did you read the Paul Simon attack on you in
Newsweek
yet?” Ratso casually slips one in.

“No,” Dylan yelps, “read it to me.”

“OK, basically it says, ‘But Simon the cerebral and careful craftsman of some of pop’s most memorable melodies, “Bridge over Troubled Waters,” “Mrs. Robinson”’ …”

“Who remembers those?” Dylan jumps in. “What meaning have these songs in anybody’s life?”

“Wait, wait,” and Ratso continues to quote, “‘“Pop music is in a terrible state right now,” he says. “It stinks. Only a handful of people are doing something good … Dylan comparisons make me emotional,” says Simon. “There’s hardly a point of comparison except we’re the same age. He writes a lot of words. I write few words. In the sixties Dylan for the first time used the folk tradition of Woody Guthrie and sang a grown-up lyric. He single-handedly took the folkie emphasis on words and made it the predominant style of music in the seventies. But what he spawned is boring.” Pensive and soft voiced, Simon gazes out of his picture window overlooking New York’s Central Park. “When I listen to Dylan I think, Oh no, not the same three- or four-chord melody again …”’”

“Hey lookit, Ratso,” Bob bursts, “you can play a song with one chord.”

Ratso laughs. “‘Simon goes on, “The staple of American popular music is all three- or four-chord, country- or rock-oriented now. There’s nothing that goes back to the richest, most original form of American popular music—Broadway and Tin Pan Alley—in which sophisticated lyrics are matched with sophisticated melodies.”’”

“Hey, Ratso,” Dylan again, “you can play a song with one note.”

“‘Simon says, “When I started writing I didn’t think there was any space for me between Dylan and the Beatles—they had it covered. I was writing little psychological tunes based on wandering melodies. Now I’m trying to get closer to Broadway and Tin Pan Alley.”’”

“Well, I hope he gets where he wants to go,” Dylan laughs.

“But he’s not the only one. There are lots of people who say that you’re a great lyricist but you just don’t understand music.”

“Oh really,” Bob spits. “Well I don’t understand music, you know. I understand Lightning Hopkins. I understand Leadbelly, John Lee Hooker, Woody Guthrie, Kinky Friedman. I never claimed to understand music, Ratso, if you ever heard me play the guitar you’d know that.” The singer laughs. “I’m an artist,” he adds.

“I like your guitar playing, man,” Ratso steps to his defense. “I love your harmonica playing too. George Lois’ secretary, Blanche, says you’re the greatest harmonica player she’s ever heard.”

“She’s probably right then,” Dylan giggles.

“Maybe. I think you’re a great harmonica player and—”

“You’ve seen the show, Ratso, how many times? Thirty? Forty?” Dylan interrupts. “Have I ever let you down onstage?”

“Never, man, never,” Ratso knows without having to think.

“OK, so why don’t you tell them that,” Dylan shouts.

“I will man, I will,” the writer promises.

“You saw the show,” Dylan continues. “Well, it goes without saying, we’ll follow anybody.”

“What do you think of that charge, though, that Simon is making? That your music is boring …”

“Well, maybe he’s just bored, you know. I really can’t tell ya, I don’t know the man.”

“Like you’re making a new kind of music now I think …” Ratso says.

“Well, I’m always changing, always moving around, forging new paths. I’m blazing a trail. I don’t know what Paul Simon’s doing.”

“What are you listening to nowadays?”

“What am I listening to?” Dylan pauses. “Uhhh, you know who’s really good? Oum Kalsoum.”

“Who’s that?” the reporter wonders.

“C’mon, Ratso,” Dylan mocks.

“I’m not hip to him, man,” Ratso confesses.

“All right,” Dylan laughs. “First of all, it’s not a him.”

“Who is it?”

“Well, you asked me and I told ya. Otherwise I don’t listen to nothing. I play my own music and I listen to that.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I like ‘Earth Angel,’” Dylan says impishly.

“I know you loved ‘No Woman, No Cry’ by Marley when I played it. You loved that, you asked me for the fucking lyrics.”

“Well, I like that the same way that I like When A Man Loves a Woman.’ Same thing.”

“Jerry Wexler says your music is—”

“My music is pagan,” Dylan interrupts.

“He didn’t say that at all,” Ratso resents the interruption, “he said it was cantorial.”

“Well, I don’t know what that means but you’re getting it right here from the horse’s mouth.”

“Cantorial means possessing the qualities of a cantor in the Jewish religion,” the scribe turns Webster.

“No, no,” Dylan disagrees, “cantorial means that which has to do with food and banquet ceremonies.”

“No, that’s not cantorial. That’s gustatorial. Anyway, what kind of direction is your music taking?”

“Well, you’ll see. We’re gonna keep it a surprise and everybody’s gonna be surprised because everybody thinks the music boom is all over. They don’t know, they just don’t know where it’s gonna come from next. That’s all, they’re all looking to find somebody in some little folkie town that’s gonna bring it to ’em, be the new Paul Simon. They’re all looking for a new Paul Simon. Or a new Bruce Springsteen, you know.”

“What do you think of Springsteen, by the way?”

“I met him and I liked him. I played ‘Born to Run’ on a jukebox and he’s a great singer and he’s got a great band. But I haven’t heard his music so much recently.”

“Haven’t you heard the
Born to Run
LP?”

“No, but I been meaning to play the whole LP. I mean how many hours in the day is there, Ratso? There aren’t that many hours for me to sit around listening to record albums.”

“What about when you’re home, you listen then don’t you?”

“Nah, I don’t,” Dylan drawls.

“What do you do?”

“I’m working all the time, man, just doing what I’m doing. You been seeing me for the past six weeks. You know.”

“Oh, man, I hardly see anything,” Ratso whines. “I see such a small segment of your life. I see a very public segment of your life. I don’t know what goes on behind closed doors, that’s a good song by the way, and the first time I was on the camper was last night.”

“So what?” Dylan snaps impatiently.

“So I learned a little more about you.”

“OK, keep going,” Dylan interrupts. “What else you got? I think we’re doing pretty good. I think it’s almost wrapped up, right?”

“Almost,” Ratso lies, “I got a couple more. You’re doing new songs and a lot of people in the audience are expecting the old ones …” Ratso hears a muffled sound of conversation at the other end. “Is this boring you, man,” the reporter screams, annoyed, “‘cause if it is …”

“Hey, you never get what you expect, Ratso,” Dylan is back, “ultimately you’re let down. That’s one of the first rules, basic rules, expectations you know. If you have big expectations you’re gonna be let down. You can’t have any expectations, you know. You stay on the borderline and then you move when the space unfolds.”