No Direction Home Part II

Part II of Scorcese's No Direction Home, a documentary about Bob Dylan aired on PBS last night. After seeing both parts, I feel conflicted. To counter my first part about this documentary, I don't think Scorcese was following Dylan's own autobiography, Chronicles, because he only focused on the 1960's Dylan. In Chronicles Dylan takes us up to the 1980's and his work with Daniel Lanois on No Mercy. Anyway, I'm struggling to figure out the point of Scorcese's doc.

He focused strictly on Dylan's life and work from 1960-1966, right after Dylan went "electric." Hasn't this already been covered? I'm not sure why he chose to only focus on this transformation. I was left feeling like it wasn't so much a documentary about Dylan's work, as it was about how Dylan essentially killed folk music, or protest music, when he turned his back on it and plugged in his electric guitar. So, all in all, it was flawed, and if people want to know about this era in Dylan's life and work, I would suggest the documentary by DA Pennebaker, Don't Look Back, which was released in 1967.

Even though I can't endorse Scorcese's film, it did leave me pondering this notion of Dylan killing folk music. Thy guy started out idolizing Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, and began his career as a protest singer, but once he started writing his own songs, he went out of his way to disassociate himself from this ilk, and to even deny his protest song past. Why? Is this a case of an artist strongly opposed to co-optation, and extremely fearful of being pigeonholed as an artist? Dylan also seemed to go out of his way to avoid being "the voice of his generation," a designation he abhorred, during the turbulent time of civil rights, the vietnam war etc etc. To my knowledge, once he went electric , he never spoke or wrote about political issues again. Should we fault him for this? Do we need to hold him to a higher political standard because of his position? I really don't know, but in the 1960's many people were pissed that he turned his back on protest music (Scorcese's film makes this point, again and again) and its message of community and the envisioning of a better world. Dylan, it would seem to me, was writing about the world as it actually existed, rather than as it could be. A world where people were on their own, "with no direction home, like a complete unknown." An individualistic take, yes, but perhaps a realistic one.

JB

Wasting Time, and Bob Dylan

Today is a rather low key day for me. It's one of those days when you wake up with good intentions for work, but find that you get sucked into the computer for hours on end, and before you know it, it's 3:00 p.m. Since I don't like to work in the evenings, I think today is going to be a total loss for accomplishing anything productive. Here are the few things I have managed to do today, and only one of them involves scholastic activities.

1. I hand delivered a check for $219. 56 to my new insurance agent , Blythe, for car insurance in New York state. I was bummed to discover that my monthly bill will jump from 54 (minnesota prices) to 71 here. I gasped when I heard this, only for Blythe to tell me, "everything's more expensive in New York. " True Dat. The sales tax in my county is a staggering 9.25, which makes my blood curdle, but that's a subject for another blog.

2. I did step aerobics/strength training in our family room for about 45 minutes.

3. I sent out a list of 7 job ads to three people who have agreed to write letters of rec for me.

4. I have cooked and eaten both breakfast (grits/coffee) and lunch (salad, leftover fish soup).

5. I have written about 5 emails today.

6. I am now updating my blog.

That's it. This is all I have accomplished. I haven't even managed to take a shower, despite my workout. That's next on the agenda. My good intentions of starting my prospectus for a book proposal have not materialized. Oh, well. There is always tomorrow.

Other than wasting time at the speed of light, I'm reflecting on Martin Scorcese's documentary of Bob Dylan (No Direction Home) which aired on PBS last night. Part II will air tonight. So far I am enjoying it, although I think it's a little uneven, and flashes back between early 1960's Dylan, and mid 1960's Dylan too much. He does a good job of tracing his influences in order to ascertain how Dylan wound up with that sound, and became such a good song lyricist. But, it seems this documentary is based on Dylan's own, Chronicles Vol. I, which focuses on certain highlights of his career - primarily in the 1960's. None of the reviews I have read suggest that Scorcese is basically adapting Chronicles for the screen, but it sure feels like it. I guess I expected the director to envision and present Dylan in a different way - almost like a Scorcese interpretation of the career of Bob Dylan, but no. Of course these observations are only based on Part I, and I look forward to seeing the conclusion tonight to see if he continues to adhere to the focus of Dylan's autobiography, or if Scorcese actually presents a vision of the artist from his own perspective.

Chronicles is a wonderful read, by the way. I also look forward to Part II of this as well.

okay, time for that shower.

JB

W's Oil, Rita and the Gulf Coast

We all know another major hurricane is set to hit the U.S. this weekend - right in the gulf coast again, where major oil refineries are located. How fucked up can this be? Let's review and connect some dots:

In 2003 G.W. Bush attacks Iraq to get his grubby hands on the second largest producing oil region in the world, and, in the process, set up U.S. hegemony in the middle east. People die and are dislocated, the U.S. government spends billions of dollars on the war effort, and most of the available military enlistees are sent to Iraq to secure the country. Oh, and Haliburton gets its billion dollar contracts, the oil flows and the resoration begins.

In 2005 a major hurricane hits New Orleans, located right at the end of the Mississippi River, major oil refineries and ports where much of the business in the U.S either enters or leaves. Gas prices soar, people die and are dislocated, military manpower is scarce and Haliburton gets contracts to rebuild this important city.

Now we have Rita approaching the Gulf Coast - Texas, W's homestate, and even more oil refineries are expected to be wiped out. According to news reports today, the economic fallout(particularly with energy) from this storm is predicted to be worse than Katrina. We can expect even more people to die and be dislocated, limited resources of manpower to assist recovery efforts, and Haliburton to get contracts to rebuild devestated areas.

Someone with the most fanciful imagination couldn't make this shit up. I wonder if W is benefiting economically from all this tragedy? Disasters are big business, and with energy prices as high as they are right now, I would assume his business interests are being served mightily.

But what about his political interests? Katrina revealed W and his administration to be the incompetent asses that they are. Will U.S. citizens finally wake up and realize that they elected the worst administration in the history of this country to another term? Kurt Anderson, who writes for New York thinks so. Check out this week's column: "W's Hurricane: Will Katrina Change what 9/11 Didn't"? http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/columns/imperialcity/14284/

Fundamentalism, Racism and Natural Disasters

Two weeks ago I went to visit my family in West Virginia. I haven't been home since November so I was excited to see everyone even though my visit had to be short because of committments in New York. I was curious to hear family members interpretations/responses to Hurricane Katrina and its devestation of New Orleans. I was dismayed and disturbed by some family members lack of sensitivity to the victims, and conservative interpretations of the federal government's response in the Crescent City. Here are some of the most disturbing reactions:

1. One family member, who I sometimes refer to as Jim Crow, blamed the victims for their ostensible unwillingness to leave. In hateful, angry tones he told me that if he didnt feel sorry for any of the people left there because they were told to evacuate and refused to go. He was unmoved by my comment that most of the people left behind had nowhere else to go, or any money to get them there. They were, in fact, stuck and at the mercy of nature and inept politicians whose inactions accentuated an already miserable situation.

2. Jim Crow (who is a 50 something white man) was also upset by "government handouts" to these victims. In a most inarticulate, insensitive manner, he compared his own troubles with trying to get government assistance (because his health, supposedly, prevents him from working) with the people of New Orleans, claiming that "it's easy for them (read: poor, black) to get anything they want." When I informed him that his situation was quite different from people who had lost EVERYTHING they ever owned or knew to a hurricane, he, again, was unfazed.

3. Jim Crow was also upset that the government was relocating some of the evacuees to different parts of the country, including West Virginia. He informed me that "the southern black" couldn't live in places with winter weather, as they were not used to it. He was adamantly against evacuees coming to his state, and felt they should be sent to warmer areas where they would feel more at home. After hearing this he suggested that Detroit would be a better place to send them than West Virginia. Last time I checked Detroit also had snow and freezing temps in the winter. Again, Jim Crow's irrational, contradictory ideas were stunted by his own racism.

4. Lastly, Jim Crow informed me in a rambling, incoherent way that New Orleans was a "wide open" city where anything goes - prostitution, public drunkenness etc etc and what the government should do is take a bunch of bulldozers and just dump all the remains of the city into the gulf. This, of course, is a reaction fueled by religious fundamentalism. God is giving New Orleans hell because of its sinful ways. To this I simply said that New Orleans was my favorite city in this country, and was the most culturally interesting places in the U.S, and that prostitution was not, in fact, legal there. Oy-Vey. What can you do with such supreme ignorance? This man wouldn't be out of place in 1960 Mississippi. I chalked this up to his lack of education, and the fact that he lives in an area that is 95 % white that has had it's share of race problems over the years.

And then one of Anne's family members (educated, professional - a man of color) came to visit and made similar observations ...........

I'm astounded by the lack of compasssion above all else. How can you watch scenes of dead people on a street in the U.S. or people crying out of such a deep sense of loss and frustration and not be moved or sympathetic? Racism is a powerful thing, and it is alive and well in the U.S. as the reactions to this hurricane have proven.

Natural Disasters

when i posted yesterday, i had no idea how bad the situation in new orleans really was. i critiqued the u.s. media for ignoring serious coverage about iraq, and instead focusing on u.s. situations through human interest stories. our media is bad, and servile to the current administration and establishment. we all know that. however, my critique of the media wasn't meant to downplay the seriousness of the situation in new orleans.actually, i'm heartbroken, and have wept as i see pictures of that wonderful city (in my view, the most fun, unique place in this country) and people (mostly poor and black) in such utterly desperate situations. i fear that new orleans is history, and will never be able to be rebuilt. how can it with the cesspool of toxic wastes, human wastes, diseases etc that is swimming around there now? it's a human and ecological nightmare.

this morning i heard on npr that the new orleans newspaper (the picyane, i think it's called) has been writing articles about the levee that broke since last year. many expressed concern (in light of last year's hurricane season) that if a hurricane came their way, the levee may, indeed, break. the newspaper was critical of the u.s. government because money that had been allocated to fortify the levee around new orleans was redirected to the war in iraq and homeland security! we all knew there would be domestic repurcussions for bush's decision to invade iraq, but who knew it would be of such gigantic proportions? it's interesting that when we experienced our other, recent national emergency (sept. 11) that bush was whisked away to louisiana immediately after the first attack on the twin towers. i hear he's going to visit new orleans on thursday to see the disaster first-hand. funny that.

why is the mainstream news so preoccupied with the looting, and the fact that a "renegade" school bus was one of the first to arrive (apparantly hours before expected) at the relief shelter formally known as the houston astrodome? yes, it's unsettling that so many more guns are on the street, and in the hands of desperate people, but who gives a fuck about walmart being looted? it should have opened its doors wide to let people get clean clothes, water, food and other supplies in such an extreme emergency as this one. i hear all the people (including the ones hauling out food and diapers) will eventually be prosectuted. unbelievable.as far as the "renegade" bus goes, who cares that it wasn't a part of the designated fleet that was to take people to houston. this was a school bus that had "orleans parish" on the side, driven by a 20 year old, and chock full of evacuees. if someone commandeered a school bus to take people who had lost their homes and all possessions away from a flooded, toxic waste site, who cares? i'm just glad that the people at the astrodome let them in, although i heard the "authorities" will have lots of questions for that driver and the people on the bus.

there is so much to say about what is happening there - so many ways to interpret this event, and to connect it to other political matters. i just hope those dislocated will receive help, but i don't have a lot of faith in this government to come through - especially with all the billions needed to fund this disgraceful war.