October 4, 2007

"Carelessness. I lost my one true love. I started drinking. The first thing I know, I'm in a card game."

"Then I'm in a crap game. I wake up in a pool hall. Then this big Mexican lady drags me off the table, takes me to Philadelphia. She leaves me alone in her house, and it burns down. I wind up in Phoenix. I get a job as a Chinaman. I start working in a dime store, and move in with a 13-year-old girl. Then this big Mexican lady from Philadelphia comes in and burns the house down. I go down to Dallas. I get a job as a 'before' in a Charles Atlas 'before and after' ad. I move in with a delivery boy who can cook fantastic chili and hot dogs. Then this 13-year-old girl from Phoenix comes and burns the house down. The delivery boy — he ain't so mild: He gives her the knife, and the next thing I know I'm in Omaha. It's so cold there, by this time I'm robbing my own bicycles and frying my own fish. I stumble onto some luck and get a job as a carburetor out at the hot-rod races every Thursday night. I move in with a high school teacher who also does a little plumbing on the side, who ain't much to look at, but who's built a special kind of refrigerator that can turn newspaper into lettuce. Everything's going good until that delivery boy shows up and tries to knife me. Needless to say, he burned the house down, and I hit the road. The first guy that picked me up asked me if I wanted to be a star. What could I say?"

"Top Ten Most Incomprehensible Bob Dylan Interviews of All Time."

26 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Ann Althouse said...

What do you want? He was talking to Playboy. What's reality going to get you in Playboy?

Anonymous said...
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Trooper York said...

Someone's got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press
Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out but when they will I can only guess.
They say I shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy,
She inherited a million bucks and when she died it came to me.
I can't help it if I'm lucky.

People see me all the time and they just can't remember how to act
Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts.
Even you, yesterday you had to ask me where it was at,
I couldn't believe after all these years, you didn't know me better than that
Sweet lady.

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth,
Blowing down the backroads headin' south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.
(Bob Dylan 1974)

Anonymous said...
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Trooper York said...

Hey jane,sometimes old song lyrics and movie quotes come back to bite us in the ass. That's my whole rice bowl.

Trooper York said...

The more you remember the scarier it gets.

Anonymous said...
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Trooper York said...

If there's nothing wrong with me...maybe there's something wrong with the universe!
-Beverly Crusher, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Remember Me"

Anonymous said...
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Stephen said...

In one corner of the Althouse universe, tea-sipping etymologists debate the distinction between "gantlet" and "gauntlet". And light years away we have Bob Dylan (or is it really a computer impersonator stringing together a random series of subjects and predicates to confuse and confound the cognoscenti?)

Trooper York said...

Capt. Picard: Make it so Number One.
(Star Trek the Next Generation 1987)

Laura Reynolds said...

I thought it was just lost verses to Tangled Up in Blue.

I lived with them on Montague Street
In a basement down the stairs,
There was music in the cafes at night
And revolution in the air.
Then he started into dealing with slaves
And something inside of him died.
She had to sell everything she owned
And froze up inside.
And when finally the bottom fell out
I became withdrawn,
The only thing I knew how to do
Was to keep on keepin' on like a bird that flew,
Tangled up in blue.

Kevin Lomax said...

Forgive me, but at first I thought I reading a quote from the one interesting part of Clarence Thomas' life we hadn't heard about in the confirmation hearings.

Anonymous said...

Hahahah, me too!

Anonymous said...
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Trooper York said...

Kirk: Come on. Spock, why didn't you jump in?
Spock: I was trying to comprehend the meaning of the words.
McCoy: It's a song, you green-blooded...Vulcan. You sing it. The words aren't important. What's important is that you have a good time singing it.
Spock: Oh, I am sorry, Doctor. Were we having a good time?
McCoy: God, I liked him better before he died.
(Star Trek V: The Final Frontier)

Anonymous said...
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amba said...

Kinda like Finnegans Wake, only American.

Anonymous said...

"...the quivers of scaly silver and their clutches of chromes of the highly lucid spanishing gold whilst, as hour gave way to mazing hour, with Yawn himself keeping time with his thripthongue, to ope his blurbeous lips he would, a let out classy, the way myrrh of the moor and molten moonmist would be melding mellifond indo his mouth." (Joyce)

PeterP said...

Visions of Johanna, aged thirteen and a quarter?

Why wasn't I having sex at thirteen?

Ann, where were you when I needed you!

reader_iam said...

Hey life, look at me
I can see the reality
'Cause when you shook me, took me, outta my world
I woke up
Suddenly I just woke up to the happening

When you find that you left the future behind
'Cause when you find a tender love
You don't need to take care of
Then you better beware of the happening

One day you're up
When you turn around
You find your world is tumbling down
It happened to me and it can happen to you

I was sure, I felt secure
Until love took a detour, yeah!
Riding high on the top of the world it happened
Suddenly it just happened
I saw my dreams torn apart
When love walked away from my heart
And when you lose a precious love you need to guide you
Something happens inside you, the happening

Now I see life for what it is
It's not a dream
It's not a bliss
It happened to me and it can happen to you
Ooh, and then it happened
Ooh, and then it happened
Ooh, and then it happened

Is it real?
Is it fake?
Is this game of life a mistake?
'Cause when I lost the love
I thought was mine for certain
Suddenly it starts hurting
I saw the light too late
When that fickle finger of fate
Yeah! It came and broke my pretty balloon
I woke up
Suddenly I just woke up

So sure, I felt secure
Until love took a detour
'Cause when you got a tender love
You don't take care of
Then you better beware of
The happening

reader_iam said...

No idea what Jane said, apart from the last comment, in this thread, by the way. This is the one Althouse thread of today that I hadn't visited at all until just now.

Visited all of them otherwise the last couple of days, unusual in recent times.

Amexpat said...

Kinda like Groucho Marx high on some really good weed.

lee david said...

Ann,

Thanks for the links and laughs. I love this stuff.

I don't think that Dylan likes interviews much, but why should he?
Interviewers ask dumb questions, looking for some deep meaning that never was. Dylan answers straight. They don't believe him. They think, it can't be that simple. They ask a follow up dumb question. The interviewer wants the magician to reveal his tricks. Dylan realizes that they want a story and they aren't really interested in what he said. They are only interested in what they think he should say. Dylan make up a story for them. End of interview.

rhhardin said...

No sewing machines met umbrellas, apparently.