Fallon/Young/Smith

A Meaningful Life

Bob Dylan Union Palace 20091117

I think that I have seen Him five times. And this show was solidly #2! #1 being in the early 80"s when Tom Petty and the HB's was his band and they opened for the Dead. Despite the heat ant the bad tab of acid, the show was amazing.

Last night, Dylan showed up at times Colonel Custer, mainly because of his flat brimmed hat and blue slacks with red stripes, and other times as Maurice Cheverolet, again the flat brimmed head cocked crooning in this Vaudville venue. He spent a lot of songs dancing behind the mic clutching his harmonica and green bullet harmonica mic.

His song selection was mainly up tempo from the modern catalog. He played some of my contemporary favorites...Tweedly Dee - Tweedly Dumb, Cold Irons Bound and Thunder On The Mountain ( "I wonder where in the world Alicia Keyes could be..".). One mid tempo song from Love and Theft called Po Boy which was never very memorable, may now be my new favorite.

His voice is strong. His pitch is dead on. Sure it's gravely, but to my ear, it's still enviable. His counter melody, though, could use some variation. But overall, Dylan danced like a cat content with the victory of conquest of a mouse... half eaten and the other half batting around boastfully. The audience lucky to be a spectator.

Set List

Cat's In The Well

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue

Beyond Here Lies Nothin'

A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall

Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum
John Brown

Summer Days

Po' Boy

Cold Irons Bound

If You Ever Go To Houston

Highway 61 Revisited

Ain't Talkin'

Thunder On The Mountain

Ballad Of A Thin Man

Like A Rolling Stone

Jolene

All Along The Watchtower

Betye Saar

Until The Day Is Done

Check other live outdoor versions of all your favorites at
http://www.blogotheque.net/takeawayshows

Poor poor pitiful me

Well I met a girl in West Hollywood
And I ain't namin' names
Well, she really worked me over good
She was just like Jesse James

She really worked me over good
She was a credit to her gender
She put me through some changes, Lord
Sort of like a Waring blender

Tabernacle

They got steeples, saints and holy water. I never noticed the ark which contains the sacrament. I am impressed with this lock box of wafers and wine. RIP Jimmy Oneill.

Farnsworth, the district health officer, was a man so grudging in what he asked of life that every win was a loss; yet he was not without certain plodding persistence of effort and effectiveness in his limited area.



Cities of the Red Night, William S. Burroughs

I cannot decide if it is the way the sentences are constructed or it is hearing Burroughs lilting tough guy delivery in my head or the portrait of self deprecation, but I am hooked.

The first chapter is jam packed with drugs, drunken clergy, exotic disease , rough terrain and our hero Farnsworth. Farnsworth is on a mission which finds him roughed up on a raft near his destination at the end of the first chapter. The writing is brillant a real page turner. Then as  I suspected the chapter ends in a rough sodomy. Shit. Check please.

I mean everyone knows Burroughs is a homo. That fact would not have any bearing in my interest, but homosexual sex shows up in a story I cannot continue. Intellectually, I know it is shallow. Think about how much great literature I am missing. I would feel much better with a censored edition.

CigaGratte

Costello, Helm, Thompson, Toussaint and Nick Lowe on on stage

Producer,"Do you want to see Elvis Costello, Levon Helm, Richard Thompson, Alan Toussaint and Nick Lowe playing TOGETHER?" Asked the aptly connected folk rock producer and co-worker.

Me,"Where,when and how much?

Producer,"Apollo Theater (10 subway stops way), tonight, free!"

Me, "Are you freakin' kidding me", I respond.

Producer, "just take this piece a paper to the will call window, be in line before 7:45 and don't dress like a schmuck."

Me, "fine, Are you going?

Producer, "umm well yeah but I've got to go into a special entrance."

Me, "I see"

Kicking the gong around

It was down in Chinatown,
All the cokies laid around,
Some were high and some were mighty low;
There were millions on the floor
When a knock came on the door,
And there stood old Smoky Joe.

He was sweatin', cold and pale,
He was lookin' for his frail,
He was broke and all his junk ran out;
Nobody made a sound,
As he stood and looked around,
And then you hear old Smoky shout:

Saying, "Tell me where is Minnie?
My poor Minnie!
Has she been here,
Kicking the gong around?"

"If you don't know Minnie,
She's tall and skinny,
She gets her pleasure
Kicking the gong around!"

[Scat chorus]

"Just tell her Smoky Joe
Was here and had to go."
And as he departed,
The curtains parted,
And there stood Minnie
Kicking the gong around!

SAAB totaled

Firefighter, allegedly DUI, totals the SAAB sedan at 2am Sunday morning.

Joni has to pee

I am waiting to change from the F to C train at Jay street. Despite my tardiness for  work, I am quite content sipping my large Mudd coffee and listening to a Joni Mitchell song on my Blackberry. Twenty minutes go by and I notice a hippie cougar with a flannel shirt and gray down vest, the first I've seen this season.  I am amused at the coincidence of the song and the cougar.

It's all quite pleasant until I notice a very expensive looking hard  black suitcase with wheels by her side. She then abandons the luggage and a voice inside my head says, if you see something say something. Could this hippie cougar really be some off the grid terrorist? With alacrity, I step ten paces away from the beauty product bomb in Joni's suitcase.

Now Joni is making her way to the trash can in the middle of the platform. Is she reaching for the remote which will trigger the explosion? No, it's a 32 oz. paper cup with a Pepsi logo. I am overcome with relief. She isn't a terrorist at all -she's a crazy homeless person. Phewww.

But wait, now Joni is unbuttoning her jeans. With great concentration, she  furtively jams the cup between her legs. Joni has to pee. I am empathetic having had a spastic colon condition when I first came to NYC. It would always kick in on the subway where bathrooms did not exist. I wonder. Is this physically possible. Can a woman, in the best circumstances, pee in a cup standing? I do not have Our Bodies, Ourselves handy.

Luckily, the train arrives and I hop on. As the A train pulls away from the station, I watch the dark blue cloud as is expands on Joni's jeans.

A Fan's Notes

"She was matchlessly vapid.


"Other Drunken Novels

Red Book

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/magazine/20jung-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=red%20book&st=cseA must......................

Grey Gardens

Lange and Barrymore get real close.