Friday, October 10, 2008

Like A Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads

This book was kind of lame. Not so lame that I had to rent a digiplayer on my flight home from New York, but that’s primarily because I slept almost the entire 5 and a half hours. And also because the only movie showing was "What Happens in Vegas" starring Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. Barf.

For years, Jeff’s family has been raving about a Bob Dylan biography they all read and for some reason I thought this was it. Why it didn’t dawn on me that Bob Dylan probably has like a bazillion biographies I’m not sure. In my defense, I bought the book after a lovely dinner in New York with friends (read – wine was consumed) and hardly read the back cover before purchasing. I have a long standing obsession with documentaries about Bobby D. and the cover photo on this book lured me in. Also, I will confess to feeling a little New-Yorky and like reading a book about Bob Dylan while hanging out in his old hood would somehow make me cooler. In fact, I think it might have had the opposite effect of making me look like a poser, but oh well. Hindsight is 20/20.

To be fair, after reading the first 60 pages or so, I mostly just skimmed the rest. But in my defense, I feel that you would have done the same. I wanted details about Bob’s childhood, love life, his friendship with Joan Baez and his misadventures in the 60s. Instead I got aimless ramblings about music in general and lots of quotes from random songs in particular.

Moral of the story – if you want to read a biography about Bob Dylan that doesn’t suck, check with Jeff’s parents first to find out the actual title of the book.

2 comments:

cranky rae said...

I wish I could convince you to read Eric Clapton's autobiography, Eric. It is SO GOOD. I know you're probably not a big fan of EC like you are of BD, but it really doesn't matter, because it's really just the most gossipy juicy book ever. It's filled with sexual obsession, drug abuse and alcoholism, and tons and tons of famous people. It's so enjoyable, seriously.

cranky rae said...

Also, the nurse hasn't called me back yet, so I'm probably going to die over the weekend.