Showing posts with label bob dylan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bob dylan. Show all posts

No Direction: An Interview with Music Icon Billy William Sanskrit




By Bub 

Legendary performer and cultural icon Billy William Sanskrit is one of the most prolific entertainers and song writers of the past fifty years. One Year In Texas has an exclusive conversation with the reclusive and eccentric star:

Billy William agreed to do the interview in the gymnasium of a high school he had built on his estate. The school offers classes to carnival children on subjects as varied as cotton candying and corn balling to a three day seminar featuring Billy himself lecturing on the first two Punic Wars.

For the first fifteen minutes I was asked to sit in silence, focusing my attention on a lithograph of Civil War Major General Napoleon Jackson Tecumseh Dana while Billy William polished his belt and hat buckles.






When he was ready, his manager told me, Billy would sneeze holding one finger to his nose. This was trickier to gauge than I anticipated as Billy sneezed repeatedly while polishing his buckles, always covering his nostrils with two or more fingers to test my fortitude while I tried to make an accurate finger count out of the corner of my gaze, still directed toward the visage of the Major General.

Luckily I had gotten it right on the single finger sneeze as when I looked up from the picture I was not immediately escorted out off of the premises. I began the interview by asking, 'Zen and the art of... buckle polishing?'

Billy William: That was a book I wrote with Robert Pirsig when we were moonlighting as false prophets at a Moorish Science Temple in Dearborn, Michigan. Michael, as I called him, wound up stealing my ideas and changing every word in the book that originally read 'buckle polishing' to 'motorcycle momma'. He stole my motorcycle momma too, some years later, after he decided to change the word 'momma' to 'maintenance'. He was a dictionary publisher at the time, and I was an encyclopedia salesman, and well, you know what happened from there of course, that's why you're here.

Me: You became a star?

Billy William: Well, yes. In the literal sense. But years before I had become an artist.

Me: How did that come about?

Billy William: Well I already told you the Robert Pirsig story, but I guess that's just not enough for you media types. If you had any ideas in your head, instead of printing words you'd fill that magazine with pressed flowers and pictures of vomiting horses and a hologram of Jesus Christ crying from a broken heart in front of a Burger King. That's reality, but you wont see that in any magazine, because it doesn't exist. (Begins humming the Battle Hymn of the Republic, getting louder as I ask my next question)

Me: Tell me more about your reality?

Billy William: HMMM HMMM, HMMM HMMM, HMMMMMMM. (whispers) I don't need to tell you because I just wrote it as your epitaph on your misshapen headstone.

Me: Your conversion to Mormonism, mistake or mishap?

Billy William: I didn't convert to anything. The whole world uncoverted around me, and so I was left there holding the bag. The the fans tried to blame me for it, but it wasn't my fault. Quetzalcoatl set this whole wheel a spinnin' ages ago and it aint gonna stop until the year 2012. I wrote a movie about it, but James Cameron stole the script and changed the title to 'Avatar'.

Me: What wisdom has come with age?

Billy William: I didn't get any wiser, in fact I've regressed. I used to think thoughts like 'tire fire childrens' toys', and now I can only think about buckles and not even in an abstract way. That's not to say I don't appreciate the simple joys in life. I've got a buckle for every season, I eat at Burger King on Tuesdays and Sundays, and I ghost-write successful movie scripts.

Me: What about your music?

Billy William: I thought that's what we were referring to with all this 'buckle' talk.

Me: And the Hanukkah album?

At this point two chains drop down from the rafters and Billy's assistants fasten them to his chair. He is lifted up and is left suspended twenty feet above me where I can hear him whistling 'Disturbia' by Rihanna. I took this as my cue to leave.

........................................


Though I didn't take away a lot from our interview I learned a valuable lesson about brilliant enigmas. Don't try to understand them or you just may slip past the surly bounds of Earth, and wind up touching the face of God.

Talkin' New York

By Glenn 



New York City has changed a lot since I last visited in May 2001. A symbol of financial prowess and American decadence no longer exists - and with its disappearance came a renewed introspective outlook on life and certainly what it means to be a New Yorker. But whatever you think of old Yankee stadium, it's destruction pales in comparison to the terrorist attacks of 9-11. I remember eating dinner with my family at the top of the World Trade Center in the late 1990s. We couldn't get into Windows of the World on the 106th and 107th floor so we had to eat Pizza Hut instead. It wasn't the "authentic" World Trade Center experience but it still affected me greatly.

Technically I was here one other time in the past nine years, but a Megabus brought me and upon arrival I was immediately whisked away for an evening across the river in New Jersey. My emotions were the same as the immigrants arriving at Ellis Island over a century ago, except my disappointment was missing an Oasis concert at Madison Square Garden - not the death of my first born son on the long voyage to the new country.

This time Oasis weren't playing, I skillfully avoided New Jersey and I was unencumbered by the shame of traveling with my parents. Stepping off the plane at Laguardia, I broke both of my legs (we hadn't yet reached the terminal) but it didn't phase me. I was too excited to be back and I knew I'd have time to heal on the $40 taxi ride into the city. I was only outside the airport briefly before getting into a cab but it was long enough to feel the wondrous chill of NYC in February: air not cold enough to anecdotally disprove global warming but not warm enough to associate with Spring's renewal.

First stop was the Upper West Side, near Columbia University. This is where my sister became a lawyer and where hundreds of college students, each day, experiment with LSD for the first time. Stuart and I walked past tons of places that I wanted to enter because through the window I could see "young people" or "college students." We ended up going to a small Mediterranean restaurant. Stuart sat at the bar with me while I devoured a delicious falafel sandwich with hummus. Afterward we went to what Stu called a bar where people to go to sleep with Columbia girls. We ended up having a threesome with the entire band Vampire Weekend - Columbia's most famous alumni that I count as one because that's how many times I've seen them in concert.

The next day I got to experience a wider breadth of New York City through bus and subway rides. We saw where John Lennon was shot, where Giuliani cleaned up the streets and Central Park. The first made me sad, the second made me angry and the third made me happy we were seeing it from a bus window and not while jogging. Going through the heart of the city, Times Square, memories of earlier trips rushed forth through my head like screaming teenage girls at a filming of the nearby now deceased Total Request Live. Do the bright lights and Asian photographers define the city? Every New Yorker would answer something different, as we found out after registering for photography, Asian studies and lightology classes at CUNY.

Have you ever been to a fancy restaurant? I hadn't until I went to Tabla, which is a place in New York that sells "Indian Fusion." Think of jazz fusion, but in food form and with a Hindi twist! It was overpriced, granted, but what kind of fusion product isn't? The most important part of the meal was the company I was with: a collection of army veterans, college drop-outs, princesses, reporters, and Ralph Lauren employees that represent some of my closest friends. We spent the entire evening talking about favorite memories from Family Ties and our time at the University of Missouri, where we all graduated summa cum-laude. Though I was in New York it felt like being back in the womb (or some other place that people usually think of as comfortable and familiar).

The next day was much more comfortable for me as I got to see a celebrity, a sky walk, and a famous New York City area. The celebrity was Ethan Hawke, the "sky walk" was actually Highline Park and the famous New York City area was the East River, where we put Ethan Hawke's body after we ran into him at Highline Park. Scott also brought me to Union Square, where Godzilla was filmed and where a crazy woman screamed at us. (It turned out to be Kirsten Gillenbrand campaigning for US Senate.) Union Square is the like the less touristy version of Times Square.

Tuesday night we went to Spanish Harlem to watch LOST, the show that in New York is named "Long Island" and subtitled in Yiddish. I thought of the Bob Dylan song "Spanish Harlem Incident" and the lyric "I am homeless, come and take me // Into reach of your rattling drums." This was probably because a homeless person was following me as I got off the subway and walked to Jon's apartment. The LOST episode was the best of the season thus far, and to celebrate we all had a glass of wine. I invited the homeless man up to join us and it turned out to be Bob Dylan himself.

This segues perfectly into Wednesday, my final day in the city that never sleeps. This was the day that Maddie took me on a tour of her bohemian neighborhood. I saw Bob Dylan's apartment! And the Stonewall Inn where the Stonewall Riots of 1969 ignited the "modern gay movement." Thinking about these two Greenwich Village landmarks I was wistful for days gone by that I never lived myself. Who is our generation's Bob Dylan? What is our generation's Stonewall?

I guess I could have been experiencing this in any city: in Chicago, it would have been "what is our generation's Mrs. O'Leary's Cow?"; in DC, "what is our generation's burning down the White House?"; even in Detroit, "what is our generation's ICP?" But there's something unique about these New York icons that makes the feeling that much more visceral. I could imagine Bob Dylan almost 50 years ago walk out of his apartment, look out onto the filthy-but-not-yet-the-modern-kind-of-filthy streets and write "Talkin' New York." Now I can't even imagine [insert famous and current New York based artist who has integrity and limited but sustained popular appeal] writing [insert iconic song from said artist].





My New York City trip is probably best compared to the blackout of 2003 (pictured above). It short and sweet, doing everything I wanted to happen and seeing everyone I wanted to see. The only problem is that, like the blackout of '03, it felt like it had been done better and more intense before I even got there. In the blackouts of '65 and '77, people died. People rioted. Bob Dylan wrote songs and the Talking Heads released their debut album, respectively. I'm not as scared to live in New York after this visit and deeply love the people I know there now.

You can't get a true feel for a place just from visiting for four days, but I think I got close. I walked to Dunkin Donuts. I took the subway. I ate at Subway. I converted to Judaism. Most importantly, I got to spend time with people who truly live in New York the right way. It's an expensive place (like most of our biggest cities) but probably has enough going for it to justify living there, which I request that we all do by the end of the year. Hopefully this article gave you a good idea of why people like me visit New York City. It's the same reason the Republican Party held their convention there in 2004: craven desire to score political points off of innocent blood.

Together Through Modern Times


By Bub

The album Together Through Life felt like watching Woody Allen act in Picking Up the Pieces alongside Andy Dick and Fran Drescher, and liking it. Sure, he had already done Small Time Crooks, but that was in the past right? And David Schwimmer was in the prime of his career! It was something I anticipated (admittedly much less so [than Together Through Life that is) and it left me with the uncomfortable task of having to apologize for when the crap that was on the screen (metaphorically) hit my grandmother’s cerebral cortex (my grandfather had fallen asleep before the movie started). Even the most challenging and interesting songs on this album are drooping with schmaltz, which I recently learned is a real thing (pure animal fat used for cooking…). Case in point - Life is Hard. It is the only song on the album that I didn’t feel like I heard at the Cajun Fest’ in Amana, Iowa, bobbing back and forth with my deep-fried corn on the cob (seriously) next to drunken hay-bailers, dream-catcher dealers and biker chicks widowed by Army Reservists (and my wife and child, and I honestly enjoyed Cajun Fest’ [and deep-fried corn on the cob]…). But still I felt like it didn’t say anything that Bob didn’t already say better on Oh Mercy.

I saw that Jolene was on the track-list and was actually excited to hear a Dolly Parton cover for the first time since I camped out in front of the theater at the opening of The Bodyguard. Alas, even though it was not an actual cover it felt like a fake cover of something not even worth covering. “Baby I am the King and you is the Queen”.

At this point I want to put in the disclaimer in rock criticism that I have always been waiting to read but have not yet seen – that no matter how harsh my criticism is, I can never make anything worthy of licking the nose of this album or even the worst album that Bob Dylan has ever done (and this is still far from that). This is an amazing contribution to the art form of music and will change the landscape of… you get the idea.

But still, is Hell really your wife’s home town Bob Dylan? Jeez she sounds pretty awful then. Or are we supposed to feel sorry for her? I can’t tell because I was too busy shaking my hips to the twelve bar blues.

I like the idea of having to walk right if I ever go to Houston. But when he started talking about when if I ever go to Dallas, I could only think about Patrick Duffy and Larry Hagman and about how I better pioneer the TV series Dream Season.

Beyond Here Lies Nothin’, Forgetful Heart and It’s All Good are all brooding, foreboding and existential in scope. But at the same time they’re all smaller than what Dylan accomplished with his last three albums. It’s All Good may deal with the end of the world, but it does it in a way that makes it sound like a 70-something-year-old man is trying to communicate in a hip manner with teenagers, and not in a cute way like when he referenced Alicia Keyes in Thunder on the Mountain. Beyond Here and Forgetful Heart deal with powerful issues but they come out through the device of romantic melodrama. And that’s hard to get past. Especially since he didn’t make us get past anything with recent doomful tomes like Aint Talkin’ and High Water.

So this was a horrible disappointment. But still a great album. And by far the best album of 2009! I can’t wait to see Dylan live one more time. Stay alive Bob! I loved the album, really. (And please, my criticism was more for entertainment value than substantive judgment, so don’t argue with me about it like that one time I talked about Kanye West and Eminem, I agree Dylan is the Master of the Universe and everything he does is uranium nitrate gold.).