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c:orr1: l"lOLr11r1g vv a::; ve11vereu, oy L>Ieven Le\ry Page 1 6I'Z'~~

·~ -.

bobdylan._com
.ete.H
Nothing Was Delivered
by Steven Levy

Ill
''.
~·
·.
'
Bob Dylan changed my life. In the summer of 1966, I was 15 years old. My artistic
I tastes were, to put it kindly, as yet uuformed: I'd graduated from comic books but had
·.,, Y'.°Uo _matriculate anywhere else. My po'.itical consciousness was nonexistent; as the
13: ·· : c1v1l nghts movement raged, I was emotionally engaged with the fate of the
Philadelphia Phillies. When asked of career plans, I'd answer, "a lawyer," figuring that
it might be the only way a smart mouth like me could make a buck. And then, walking
on the Atlantic City boardwalk that July, I ran into a schoohnate who began raving
about Dylan. I listened, and thus began a life-long entanglement with a man I'd never
meet.
Until then, I'd known only vaguely of this weird guy with flyaway hair and a cutting
·voice. But then my mend launched, a capella, into the strangest tuue I'd ever heard,
sort of a dustbowl variation of what would later be knov;'Il as rap. This was "Talking
World War III Blues," a song about the Bomb. The song was funnier than Allan
Sherman and sadder than the collapse of the '64 Phils. I was hooked. Within days I was
listening obsessively to Dylan LPs, banging out chords on a $15 guitar swiped from
my sister, and purchasing a Wrangler jacket in an attempt to capture that elusive
ramblin' Jewish hobo look. Dylan's ultimate message sunk in: Don't follow leaders.
vVatch your parking meters. By the time I had memorized all eleven minutes of the
bleak masterpiece "Desolation Row" (that's the one where Einstein dresses like Robin
Hood and they paint the passports bro'\\'Il), an astute observer could no longer conclude
that I was destined for the Bar.
Being a Bob Dylan fan was not easy. I had the misfortune to discover him almost
precisely at the moment he cracked up a motorcyle and stopped touring. Even before
that, though, Dylan dished out tough love to his fans. (An alternate explanation would
be that he just didn't give a damn, but I refuse to believe that.) From the moment he
plugged in his guitar and stunned his folkie cult, it was clear that he wasn't a "give the
audience what it wants" type of guy. He was all about pursuing his private muse, in a
high speed chase straight out of Steve McQueen's "Bullitt."
If fans like me wanted to come along for the ride, we had to sit in the back seat and
shut up. I remember being desperate for reports of what he really thought. But to this
day I have no idea of what moves him. When he deigned to do the Playboy Interview
in 1966, I connived furiously to get a copy (Yes! I bought it for the articles!). But
instead of enlightenment, Dylan offered ludicrous tall tales. Nothing was delivered.
Ultimately, I came to understand the integrity behind this suspiciously juvenile
behavior. Dylan even gave us a catchphrase: "to live outside the law, you must be
honest." When applied to pop-star airs, it could mean, "Attitude is cool-but never" a
fake attitude. " Sure, in retrospect. Dylan might have been somewhat blithe in his
putdo'\\'Ils. But he remained true to himself. Through three decades of superstardom,
he's never coughed it up: no tell-all, no Oprah. So enigmatic is our hero that the
temptation always existed to regard his declarations as sacred texts that would yield
The Truth if properly decihphered. But some things simply cannot be parsed. I admit it,
though: in the early '70s, I taught a Free University course on Dylanology. But I never
considered going as far as the self-proclaimed leader of the Dylan Liberation Front
who spun elaborate conspiracy theories based on his deconstructions of the singer's

http://www.bobdylan.com/etc/slevy.html 4/11/99
 uuuu y n111:vo111: 1'!uu1111t; vv i:i~ vv11 vvr vu, u y 0 tvvv11 Lvvy l'age '2 ot 2
1'

garbage.
The turning point for Dylanites, certainly for me, came when our man returned to the
stage in his 1974 comeback tour with the Band. Actually being in an arena with him,
listening to a live rendition of "Like a Rolling Stone," was a release. Dylan was no
longer a pure engima; he'd met us halfway. I think that Dylan changed not only me, but
my whole generation. What was the Sixties about, if not Don't follow leaders? Even
Boomers who thought that his singing sounded like chalkscratches, his lyrics
gibberish, and his attitude insufferable got a firm dose of Dylan by osmosis. After all,
it was Dylan who turned the Beatles from nice boys who wore ties on stage to pot-
smoking poets who preached peace. It's mainly due to him that any of our pop music,
in fact, is intended to mean something.
I saw Dylan again, this past sununer. I was with a friend who had a backstage
connection, and a post-concert introduction was mentioned. But word came down that
Dylan wasn't in a receptive mood. Believe it or not, I was relieved. What would I have
to say to Bob Dylan but thanks?
Steven Levy is Senior Editor at Ne\VS\Veek. He is the author of four books: Hackers, The Unicorn's
Secret, Artificial Life, and Insanely Great, and plays really bad harmonica.
Questions?
bobdylan.com

http://www.bobdylan.com/etc/slevy.html 4/11/99
 ._....711..111 L/YL/ uc;.Jc;rvc;;:i 0 ::::i/JUL U/I L/le :'.:>!Jell
Page 1 of 1

~~ MSNBC.com

8 Dylan DVD deserves a spot on the shelf

'Bob Dylan World Tours 1966-1974' will appeal to obsessive fans

REVIEW
The Associated Press
Updated: 3:23 p.m. ET Dec. 20, 2004

Just when Bob Dylan fans thinks they've seen and heard it all, something like" Bob Dylan World
Tours 1966-1974" comes out of the woodwork.

Obsessive fans will savor the dozens of previously unseen photos brought to light from Dylan's
infamous 1966 world tour - when he shocked audiences by playing with an electric band - and
his 1974 North America jaunt with The Band.

But those same fans will also likely grimace at the antics of the narrator and "star" of the
documentary, Dylan cover band lead singer Joel Gilbert. Gilbert dresses like Dylan, uses his own
band's music as the soundtrack, and even takes to re-enacting Dylan's motorcycle accident on the
back roads of Woodstock, N.Y.

Michael Moore he's not.

When Gilbert makes himself the center of the story, the DVD becomes uncomfortable to watch. If
Gilbert would have let the photos and those who worked with and knew Dylan be the stars of the

•
show, the DVD would have been all the better .

But because he is such a Dylan fan, Gilbert is able to ferret out good information from his interview
subjects.

The main one is photographer Barry Feinstein, who took some of the most famous shots of Dylan
already in circulation, and was the official tour photographer in both 1966 and 1974.

Feinstein opens his Woodstock home, and photo archives, to Gilbert. Not only do we get to see
some exquisite shots - like Dylan trying on clothes in a London boutique in 1966 and a shot of him
smiling broadly on stage in 1974 - we also hear the photographer's memories.

Also interviewed are documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker, journalist Al Aronowitz and self-
proclaimed Dylanologist A.J. Weberman, who scrounged through Dylan's garbage searching for a
clue to his cryptic lyrics and later got punched out by Dylan for the intrusion.

Essential? For most, certainly not. But for Dylan completists, it deserves a spot on the shelf.

© 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast,
rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http: /lmsn bc.msn.com/id/6738534/

•
 '"(\..,,VY '-'1 TUI I '-' y '-' UV\....UJ rICI JL::l I JI:) Cl c::auvc:: r1eyucry Page 1of2

fredericksburg com

Return to story

New Dylan DVD documents his creative heyday

September 14, 2006 12:50 am

By CAITLIN DUFFY
By CAITLIN DUFFY

YOUTH CORRESPONDENT

In 1966, the already iconic folk singer Bob Dylan crashed his
motorcycle in Woodstock, N.Y. To rock historians, the accident
ushered in a period of both seclusion and extreme creativity. But
for the average fan, Dylan's "middle years" may have seemed a
mystery--until now.

"Bob Dylan--1966-1978: After the Crash" does much more than

portray Dylan during the years following his fateful wreck. The
DVD documenta_ry shows both the struggles and triumphs that
Dylan went through as he reinvented himself again and again in
the years following his accident.

The DVD mainly focuses on the many albums Dylan released Click for larger photo and to order reprints
during this time period, including "Blonde on Blonde," "John
Wesley Harding," "Self Portrait," "Planet Waves" and "Desire." Although some were rejected,
others were said to be some of the greatest albums ever made.

The commentators for the documentary have extensive knowledge about Dylan's life and
works. Their well-informed thoughts and ideas give a fresh perspective on Dylan, who was
often trashed by the public and harsh critics, especially after the crash.

Throughout the film, bandmates and fellow musicians share insightful facts about Dylan that
help the viewer understand his real genius. These insiders share stories of tours, spontaneous
recordings and the many special things that Dylan said to them.

Although the two-hour documentary presents what may seem like a lot of information to take
in, it has a good balance of critiques, background knowledge, sound clips, pictures and video
clips. All of these elements keep the viewer from hitting pause.
l'lCVV LIYIOI [ LIV LI UVLUI I JC:I IL:J I ll:J LI eauve I 1eyudy !-'age 2 ot 2

One of the most interesting parts of the film is the story of Dylan's encounters with Alan Jules
Weberman. This Dylan enthusiast used "Garbology" to learn more about Dylan--that is, he dug
through Dylan's garbage to try to find out anything he could about him. He also tried to
decode Dylan's lyrics to see if he was ever sending messages to his listeners.

Although the documentary may be hard to follow at first if you don't know anything about
Dylan, after investing two hours, it is impossible not to appreciate this musical legend's
amazing recovery.

CAITLIN DUFFY is a sophomore at James Monroe High School.

Copyright 2006 The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company.

- I l l l..::J lX \......U/l.U/ C
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Dylan to English Dictionary by A.L. Weberman Bloomsda
A.J. Weberman's Dylan to English Dictionary is an unbelievably JNSA Sno
strange read. It has the veneer of a scholarly text, but the The Garia
substance of personal infatuation and scorned love. He offers Theater
detailed, near-religious analysis of Dylan's songs and poetry, AMC The
claiming to have found 600-odd words that mean the same thing Regal Cin
Wednesd
throughout all of the singer's work (rain equals, roughly, heroin,
for example). 'Mnery To
Shop at iT
Free 'Mil
It's the kind of treatment given to things like the Talmud and Advice Go
other religious works of supreme significance; here, however, it
carries a personal taint. "Bob Dylan is the poet laureate of his
generation; however. he is over-rated as a human being," says
Weberman on his publisher's Web site. In the volume's preface,
entitled "Where It All Began" - and before explaining the
significance of academic terms like "least ambiguous usage" and
"lesser-used meanings" - Weberman admits that the idea of
performing exegesis on Dylan originally came to him after scoring
"an unlimited supply of LSD." Weberman then offers a warning:
"If you think [Dylan's] poetry is just a surreal stream-of-
consciousness abstraction, put this dictionary back on the shelf
where you and it belong." If you're not as smart as Weberman is,
in other words, he doesn't want you reading his book. And in
Weberman's mind, there's no one as smart as Weberman.
That no one has yet recognized Weberman's genius after nearly
40 years of rhapsodizing about Dylan - least of all Dylan himself,
who once beat up Weberman for digging through his garbage -
is ultimately the injustice the Dylan to English Dictionary seeks to
rectify. Despite what Weberman says about the book's radical
new deciphering of "Dylan's secret language," this is Weberman's
~ f'"\J L,:) lX \...UILUI C - DUUI\. f"\.CVlt:::W Page Lot l

intellectual coming-out.

These personal threads are woven throughout, and if you read

the book with an ear for Weberman's secret language, it slowly
turns what should be a clinical analysis into something more
significant, sad and, ultimately, perversely touching. Behind his
painstaking cross-analyses whisper the ravages of age and, after
40 years of sifting through trash, utter futility. Ideally, this would
have been a dialogue between Weberman and his subject, but
the chances of that happening died probably around the time
Dylan pounded his face into the sidewalk at Elizabeth Street 30
years ago. The substitute for that is this, a work of profound and
unrequited love that, like most such works, will be read by very
few and hold meaning for almost no one besides the author.

Publication Date: 12/14/05

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Go to jGuardian Unlim
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Education > [ Mortar Board >

Wednesday April 26 2006

« A degree - because you're worth it [ Home [ Once in a lifetime with
the New York Times »

By Guardian Unlimited I Higher education 11:17am

\Mien it comes to the finer academic points of market research, the

• University of Western Australia teaches absolute rubbish. It's true .

Even the Aussie university's own promotional material says as much.

According to a recent issueof UWAnews, a high point for participants

in one of the institution's recent marketing research programmes was
being required to collect six old smelly bags of garbage from a
residential neighbourhood of Perth. Going by the facial expressions
in the accompanying photograph, they weren't entirely rapt with the
Advertiser Links
assignment, either.
Lifo Coach at Move Beyond
Do you want a more rewarding, successf
"The students were asked to sift through the rubbish to identify the coaching programmes will enable you to
want fast. Visit our web site for more infer
types of food and drink consumed, then make inferences about www .rnovebeyond.net
demographics and lifestyles of people living in those homes
Groat Life Coach -London Life Conchi
[including] household composition, nationalities and lifestyles of Happy? Balanced? Stressed? Successful
coach life purpose empowered personal,
different residents." executive performance, happiness, intuiti
www .greallifecoach.co.uk
According to UWAnews, the observation research methods under Life Coach Training Courses
Noble·Manhattan preparesa specialised I
trial is known as garbageology, which, along with something called programme for maximising your potential,
"pantry audits", is increasingly showing up in business education success and developing your communica
www.noble-manhattan.com
programmes these days.
Latest from our weblogs
Funny, that. We weren't able to find mention of any similar

•
Organ Grinder- Setting a new Standard
programmes at any other institutions of higher learning. Although
Organ Grinder- Life after Dirnbleby?
yes, it has to be said, Googling the concept does turn up a few hits to
do with the notorious 1971 incident when rock superstar Bob Dylan Mortar Board - The price of entry

caught an obsessive fan, A J Weberman, rummaging through his Gamesblog - Alternative funding models
 ., 1ne ur11ver~1Ly LrldL LedLite:::. ruuu1:::.11 1ru111 \.:Juaru1d11 u11111111Leu: 1v1urLar ouaru 1

discarded household items, whereupon the living legend proceeded Technology- Sarne more on our guestb

• to tap the violator's head on the footpath. Hmm. Perhaps Mr who pays him

Weberman was a market research student too? Culture Vulture -Art history
Technology- Google worried about Mier
Podcasts-Science weekly for May 1

News blog -Save our political souls

Technology- Watch your language- m

Technology- Google condemned for cli

Comments
Technology- Reading the New York Ti
Cullure Vulture -Cultural capital

John Dewey, the father of progressive education in America, Technology- How de!ighlfu!! We&apos;r
spammed
stressed learning through doing and experience. He left the
Technology- Microsoft shares take a bi
University of Chicago in part because of differences with its
infiuential President, who championed its Great Books
Programmme, which was based on an agreed interpretation of
the Western tradition. The sifting of garbage for clues is a kind of
progressivism in action. I remember a historical researcher in
Philadelphia asking friends of his thirty years ago to save every
scrap of paper that came through the postUunk mail) because
this miscellaneous collection would in the future illuminate some
aspects of contemporary life. "Books in the running brooks".
Posted by cktirumalai on April 27, 2006 07:31 PM.

•
Offensive? Unsuitable? Report this comment.

Garbology has nothing to do with ecology. It is a way of spying

on notables through their trash. It is a journalistic technique I
invented many years ago. For more go to http://garbology.com
Posted by AJWEBERMAN on May 2, 2006 01:42 PM.
Offensive? Unsuitable? Report this comment.

Please note: In order to post a comment you need to be registered

and signed in for Guardian Unlimited biogs.
You can register here.

Guardian Unlimited ©Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

•
 rilllL .:>Lury - LdlldUd.LUTTI r1eLWUrK Page 1of2

Friday » December
30 » 2005

• Dylan flick breaks mould

Expert notes singer's music isn't new to movies
David Spaner
The Province

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Spend a weekend watch!ng biopics and you might believe

every U.S. entertainer had lived the same l!fe.

It starts with a traumatic childhood, followed by a llfe-affirm!ng

embrace of showbiz, a conflict between love of career and love
of spouse, and a rousing, redemptive mus!cal finale. The
template began with 1946's The Jolson Story and, with biopics
more popular than ever, continues with everyone from Ray
Charles to Johnny Cash.

So, I was Interested to note that !n the new year a formidable

group of American independent-film personallt!es ls preparing
to shoot a particularly unconventional biopic -- I'm Not There:
Suppositions on a Film Concerning Dylan.

"It's a rad!cal reworking of a traditional biopic," says Its

producer, Christine Vachon, who also produced Capote. CREDIT: The Associated Press

•
Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan w!!l be the subject of a
It's the first biopic project approved by Dylan. Directed by Far radical reworking of the traditional biopic.
From Heaven's Todd Haynes, it features seven characters, each
embodying an aspect of Dylan's llfe and career. It stars Adrien Brody, Christian Bale, Ju!!anne Moore, Charlotte
Ga!nsbourg, Richard Gere, Colln Ferrell and Cate Blanchett.

No surprise a movie about Dylan would be the one to break the mould. "He's a genius, a freak of nature," says A.J.
Weberman, author of the new book Dylan to Engllsh D!ctionary.

Who better to talk about Dylan and the movies than Weberman. He's the creator of Dylanology, the study of the
subtext in Dylan's songwriting.

"Poetry," Weberman corrects In a phone cal! from New York. "Dylan !s underrated as a poet. He beats Ginsberg or
Ferlingetti or any of them."

Dylan Is not new to the movies, Weberman notes. In h!s poetry, "movie" often means "fantasy." And at last count
his music had shown up in 84 films, from his own creations (Renaldo and Clara) to documentaries (Don't Look
Back) to biopics (Walk the Line) to soundtracks (Easy Rider).

No surprise that Weberman's favourite is Pat Garrett and

Biiiy the Kid. "It's about Dylan being tracked down by somebody," he notes.

Weberman has been tracking Dylan, one way or another, since the late 1960s, to Dylan what critic Paul Verlaine
was to poet Arthur Rimbaud, what James Boswell was to Samuel Johnson.

Like many who came of age In the era, he became obsessed with Dylan, but he took lt just a little b!t further. "I
realized I had to look at how Dylan used a word In every context," says Weberman, who comp!led a "Dylan Word
Concordance" on an early computer.

•
The two would meet ("Dylan was fascinated by my obsession with h!m," says Weberman), but eventually had a
major fal!!ng out. Weberman turned to other Interests (!ncludlng a book, Coup D'Etat in America, about the
Kennedy assassination), but he recently returned to Dylano!ogy with new energy and a revised approach. The
result Js the Dylan to Eng!!sh Dictionary (available at Amazon.com). It's a culminat!on of a life's work -- a
meticulous, or!glnal work with a wealth of Insights into Dylan's words. It also Includes everything from a look at his
Impact on other artists to speculation about his health, welfare and rellg!ous bellefs.
 lllllL :::JLUIY - LdlldUct.LUlll JieLWUfK. f'age L O! L
·.

Next year's biopic and the book share the premise that, as Weberman says, "you have to took at the chronology of
Dylan's IJfe to understand his poetry."

• And creative movie exhibitors may soon have the opportunity to double blll Dylan and Weberman.

"They just got funding from the British F!lm Council for this movie they're doing on me !n England. It's called The
Ballad of A.J. Weberman."

dspaner@png.canwest.com

©The Vancouver Province 2005

Copyright© 2005 Can West Interactive, a dlvis!on o~anWest Med!aWo..rk_s_£_Y..!ili£_aj;.i.rul._s,-1Il.._c. At! rights reserved,

•
r1 II IL .:>LUI y - LCll IClUCl.l...UJ I I I le'.LVVUJ I\. t-'age .L or L

Friday» December
30 » 2005

Dylan flick breaks mould

Expert notes singer's music isn't new to movies
David Spaner
The Province

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

Spend a weekend watching biopics and you might believe

every U.S. entertainer had l!ved the same llfe.

It starts with a traumatic childhood, followed by a life-affirming

embrace of showbiz, a confllct between love of career and love
of spouse, and a rousing, redemptive musical finale. The
template began with 1946's The Jolson Story and, with biopics
more popular than ever, continues with everyone from Ray
Charles to Johnny Cash.

So, I was Interested to note that Jn the new year a formidable

group of American Independent-film persona!!ties !s preparing
to shoot a partlcularly unconventional biopic -- I'm Not There:
Suppositions on a Fiim Concerning Dylan.

"It's a rad!cal reworking of a traditional biopic," says Its

producer, Christine Vachon, who also produced Capote. CREDIT: The Associated Press
Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan will be the subject of a
It's the first biopic project approved by Dylan. Directed by Far radical reworking of the traditional biopic,
From Heaven's Todd Haynes, It features seven characters, each
embodying an aspect of Dylan's llfe and career. It stars Adrien Brody, Chr!st!an Bale, Julianne Moore, Charlotte
Ga!nsbourg, Richard Gere, Colln Ferrell and Cate Blanchett.

No surprise a movie about Dylan would be the one to break the mould. "He's a genius, a freak of nature," says A.J.
Weberman, author of the new book Dylan to English Dictionary.

Who better to talk about Dylan and the movies than Weberman. He's the creator of Dylanotogy, the study of the
subtext ln Dylan's songwriting.

"Poetry," Weberman corrects !n a phone cal! from New York. "Dylan !s underrated as a poet. He beats Ginsberg or
Ferlingett! or any of them."

Dylan is not new to the movies, Weberman notes. In h!s poetry, "movie" often means "fantasy." And at last count
his mus!c had shown up in 84 films, from h!s own creations (Renaldo and Clara) to documentaries (Don't Look
Back) to biopics (Walk the Line) to soundtracks (Easy Rider).

No surprise that Weberman's favourite ls Pat Garrett and

Billy the Kld. "It's about Dylan being tracked down by somebody," he notes.

Weberman has been tracking Dylan, one way or another, since the late 1960s, to Dylan what critic Paul Verlaine
was to poet Arthur R!mbaud, what James Boswell was to Samuel Johnson.

Like many who came of age in the era, he became obsessed with Dylan, but he took It just a little bit further. "I
realized I had to look at how Dylan used a word in every context," says Weberman, who compiled a "Dylan Word
Concordance" on an early computer.

The two would meet ("Dylan was fascinated by my obsession with him," says Weberman), but eventually had a
major fa\\ing out. Weberman turned to other Interests (including a book1 Coup D'Etat In America, about the
Kennedy assassination), but he recently returned to Dylanology with new energy and a revised approach. The
result ls the Dylan to English Dictionary (available· at Amazon.com). It's a culmination of a life's work -- a
meticulous 1 original work w!th a wealth of Insights into Dylan's words. It also Includes everything from a look at his
Impact on other artists to speculatlon about his health, welfare and rellglous beliefs.
r1 [[IL ...:JLVI y - L,.Q[ 1aua.1...u1 I [ J ICLWUI I\. 1-'age Lor L

Next year's biopic and the book share the premise that, as Weberman says, "you have to look at the chronology of
Dylan's !!fe to understand hls poetry."

And creative movie exhibitors may soon have the opportunity to double bill Dylan and Weberman.

"They just got funding from the British Film Council for this movie they're doing on me In England. It's cal!ed The
Ballad of A.J. Weberman."

dspaner@png.canwest.com

©The Vancouver Province 2005

Copyright© 2005 CanWest Interactive, a division o.(_a.ll.W_~s_t.1:1g_djaWorks__f@ll.@ll_Qn;;_Jn...c. A!! rights reserved,

 . ,. !-'age 1 ot 3

Main Identity

• From:
To:
Cc:
Sent:
Attach:
"Steven Conliff' <stevenconliff@hotmail.com>
<truth@freepress.org>
<office@freepress.org>; <bird-conliff.1@osu.edu>
Friday, December 02, 2005 6:11 AM
AJ01.rtf; AJ01.jpg
Subject: Suzanne - Dylanology Review

Review

Lethal Lyrics: The Machinery to Kill Fascists

Dylan to English Dictionary, by A.J. Weberman (Dylanologist). 2005. New

York: Yippie Museum Press.

560 pages. ISBN: 1-4196-1338-3.

www.booksurge.com
orders@booksurge.com

The consensual undergirding of American society (since capitulation to the

Slavocracy secured the fraudulent 1876 election) crumbled away (in the

•
1960s) under relentless kicking, hammering and headbutting from many
directions. Some who brought about a brief enlightenment were stubborn
plodders, some stubborn plotters, a few overarching narcissists, not a few
underappreciated geniuses. Through all the turmoil, among the latter stood
tall a lone truth-teller, exposing the hypocrisies, the hypno-crises, and
the hyperboles, indifferent alike to the carping of friends and the faint
praise of critics, his curly locks a-blowin' in the wind and his chiseled
Hebraic profile jutted at the fates. He and he alone crafted the archetypes
of our youth, the soundtrack of our lives, the images that carousel through
our noodles when we take drugs or have really good sex. Yes, the man (not
his fault he was born without ovaries or melanin) of whom I sing should
belong in the Hall of Fame of Social Rebellion, did such a Parthenon of
political rectitude but exist, though doubtless he would ruffle its
infrastructure and scorn its honors. For such is his essential dignity,
integrity and self-worth, so committed to the countercultural pillars of
periodic self-reinvention and the holy identity crisis is the Honorable Alan
J. Weberman.
Children and drones, unfathomable as it may be to contemplate, short decades
ago we did not even dream of believing our leaders were murdered by
conspiracies among corrupt government insiders. We did not understand the
mass media as pathetic little bureaucracies that could be stroked and
manipulated into promoting anorexics and imbeciles. We hardly imagined the
intellectual treasure to be amassed by simply pawing through celebrity

• garbage. But most retrospectively and dramatically disheartening of all, we

had no troubadour. Not one.
While still in college in East Lansing, Michigan, A.J. heard from his
roommate Dana Beal (whom he had turned on to marijuana) of a kid from

12/2/05
,- Page z of 3

Minnesota who had grafted his sophomoric poetry onto imitation folksongs in

•
the vain hope of a large advertising contract. So far Bobby Zimmerman had
only managed to attract the lewd attentions of various Bohemian writers.
But A.J. had an epiphany. He realized there once had been real folksingers:
Joe Hill of the Wobblies and Woody Guthrie with his guitar labeled "This
Machine Kills Fascists" had led people's insurrections. He understood that,
other than the anonymous tip to steal the name of a real poet, Zimmerman
needed but one thing to rocket starward: a celebrity stalker.
And so for many years, A.J. hounded Byron Zimmerman, Bob Chaucer, Sappho
Guthrie, and at last Bob Dylan. The subtlety of A.J.'s approach became
evident even then. He was the first underground press writer to use a
computer - he put every word of Dylan onto punchcards at NYU, finishing just
as his igor Aron "Pieman" Kay lugged in a stolen prototype of the Apple
Macintosh. Seemingly an obsessed neurotic, his indefatigable insistence
upon infusing Dylan's work with the wrong meaning challenged other literate
Bohemians to find alternative meanings. It was the very concept that
popular culture might have meaning that was so revolutionary. No one had
ever propounded it before. AZ-form lightening bolt shot across the
intellectual firmament. Soon teenyboppers the world over were squinting at
Sgt. Pepper and explicating Steppenwulf (the book). Star Wars and Harry
Potter remained but glints in God's eye when A.J. completed his Coup-d'etat
In America by installing as Kulturekampf Commie-czar the former doorman who
had bounced him out of his first gate-crashed Dylan concert, Abbie Hoffman.
As another great poet once wrote:

• "Ramma-damma ding-dong!"

Tragically, Dylan became a junkie and got AIDS, Zionists murdered Abbie,
Barbara Bush stole the secret of cloning and A.J. did a short prison stretch
when Norman Mailer ghostwriter Bob Singer planted $12 million worth of
Mailer's stash in the apartment they shared with Debbie Harry, Bette Midler
and Grace Slick. A.J. graciously took the fall. In federal custody, he had
a first-hand view of the unfolding 9-11 horror. That doubtless will be
another story. If you want to read that one, though, you'd better buy this
book first, because I'm pretty sure Beal invested the entire damn Yippie
treasury in it.

-Steven Conliff
www.stevenconliff.com

Sample Chapter: Dylan to English Dictionary

"It's unbelievable it would get this far (its unbelievable that Israel still
exists) I They said it was the land of milk and honey (lsra~l is described
as a land flowing with milk and honey in the Old Testament) I now they say
it's the land of money (a country that exerts tremendous influence on world
events. Also now they say it is the land of the American dollar) I Who ever

• thought they could ever make that stick/ It's unbelievable you can get this
rich this quick (produce sophisticated weapons and become a major arms
exporter) I All the sweethearts you can hold (someone who has arranged
things in private for the benefit of a few at the expense of many as in "a

12/2/05
,...... -- 1-'age 3 of 3

sweetheart deal" - the Israeli spies who can be put into position, keep

•
active) I That don't come back with stories untold, are hanging on a tree
(are being menaced by a harsh punishment. In the course of a false flag
operation that Israel ran against the Egyptians which turned into the Lavon
Affair after its cover was blown, Israeli spies, who carried out terrorists
acts in Egypt and blamed them on the Moslem Brotherhood were hung in Cairo,
after Israeli military intelligence disowned them)." (Unbelievable 1990)

•
12/2/05
 LVll'::J L:>JOllU r1c:::::i:::i. LVll'::J .L;:i1011u l"llC::YV:::ifJOJ-lCl 1 l'lt::W:::i 1 Clllt::fldllll!lt::llL 1 Kt::dJ t:STaie, ••. Page i or "I

.
.
. . .••. .· .
·q
·. jj.•

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Dylan to English Dictionary , by A.J. Weberman

(BookSurge Publishing, $32.99)

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onl:

• classi
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MSNHome Hotmail Web Search PeoRle & Chat

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msn~
Your buddy Jim ooes down ''" - ' ' ~· ''.:" • •
to the b~sement for e hemmer. . , .. · ·' l
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From: ARON KAY <pieman@pieman.org> Save Address - Block Sender

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To: nonetd@hotmail.com Save Address
Subject: ny post article
Date: Tue, 27 Mar 2001 20:27:23 -0500
Reply Reply All Forward Delete Previous Next Close

Times sure have changed for Dylan

BOB Dylan has a secret 15-year-old daughter

who was
born to one of his back-up singers, a new
biography reveals.
Researching 11
Down the Highw3.y: The Life of Bob
Dylan,"
British author Howard Sounes had heard of the
child born to
Carolyn Dennis in 1986 and her marriage to
Dylan five
months later. He was able to confirm the
existence of
Desiree Gabrielle Dennis-Dylan after he
located her parents'
marriage license, US Weekly reports. Dennis,
who divorced
Dylan in 1992, is keeping mum. "Mr. Dylan is a
very private
person, which is why the world has such a hard
time trying
to find out about his life,'' she told Sounes,
who reports that
Dylan toured extensively in the 1
90s to pay
her~

multimillion-dollar divorce settlement. Dylan,

who turns 60 on
May 24, is also the subject of a story in
Rolling Stone on
obsessive Dylanology scholarship. A.J.
Weberman, now
under house arrest on a pot-dealing charge,
recalled digging
through Dylan's trash iooking for evidence he
was controlled
by the government. Weberman also organized a
block party
on Dylan's 30th birthday where hippies
chanted, "Dylan's
brain belongs to the people, not the pigs!n "A
couple days
later, I'm on Elizabeth Street and someone
jumps me . . I

.. ./getmsg?curmbox=FOOOOOOOO 1&a=09e380b5 Ocdd93 93 9db9345209ac516f&msg=MSG9 8 57433/28/01

 Hotmail Folder: Inbox Page 2 of2

turn around and it's like - Dylan. I'm

thinking, 'Can you
believe this? I'm getting the [bleep] beat out
of me by Bob
Dylan! 1
n

Reply Reply All Forward Delete Previous Next Close

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This !s a printer friendly version of an article from The Detroit News

•
To print this art!de open the fl!e menu and choose Print •

Back

<let news com

Radio

Bob Dylan's show will debut next month

Susan Whita!l I The Detroit News

April 20, 2006

Bob Dylan's debut as a radio show is now set to debut on May 3 on Xl\'I Satellite Radio .
Called 0 Theme Time Radio \Vith Your Host Bob Dylan, 11 the show will air on Xl\!I's Deep Tracks, )Qyf 40, at 10 a.m.
Wednesdays.
For years, vve never heard a peep from the guy apart from his music. But now we won't need Dylanologist A.J. \Veberman
to go through his trash and analyze it.
Dylan 1s first \Vords as a DJ, in that inimitable lazy growl, are to say the name of the shO\\', then he puts on a IVIuddy Waters
tune: "Curious about the \Veather? Just go over to your \Vindow and take a look outside here1s :tvfuddy \Vaters, one of the
ancients now, that all modems prize from the Windy City of Chicago, Muddy Waters, 1Blo\v Wind Blo\V 1
Each shovv \Vill be based around a theme, and the first sho\V1s theme is 1\veather. 11 Other songs played include 11 The Wind
Cries Jviary 11 by Jirni Hendrix , 11 A Place in the Sun,'1 sung in Italian by Stevie \Vonder , and 11 Keep to the Sunny Side 11 by the
Carter Family.

•
Future show themes \Vill include 11 cars,1 1 11 dance/' 11 police' 1 and 1\vhiskey ,'1 \Vhich are in themselves excellent clues to Dylan's
preoccupations.
Dylan \Vill ans\ver e-mails from listeners, \Vho may buzz the Bard electronically at bobdylan@xmradio.com. Special guests
on upcoming sho\VS \Vill include Elvis Costello, Charlie Sheen, Penn Jillette, Sarah Silverman and Jimmy Kimmel.
Each vveek, XM also \Vill post a complete track list for each sho\v.
' Theme Time will be repeated through the vveek on Deep Tracks and on the satcaster's folk music channel, The ''illage
1 11

(XM 15 ).

Left, right and center

Are listeners growing \Yeary of AM talk radio's angl)', partisan edge? Maybe.
According to 11 Talk Radio in America," a study by Benchmark Co. cited in the radio industry trade Friday :tvioming
Quarterback found that a gro\Ving number of listeners are describing themselves as political nmoderates/ 1 although talk radio
has never been so sharply divided bet\veen left and right. The survey of more than 1,000 adult talk radio listeners in the
nation's top 125 markets found that listeners prefer local talent over syndicated programs, too. The percentage of listeners
describing themselves as 11 1noderate11 politically rose fro1n 5 percent to 34 percent, vvhile listeners \Vho self-describe themselves
as 11 conservative11 declined to 39 percent, and the number of those vvho say they 1re 11 liberal 11 has stayed flat at 21 percent.

Play ball if you can hear it

Baseball season has barely started, and complaints are already rolling in from fans vvho find \VXYT -AtYI (1270) 1s signal
too vveak in their area, especially for night games. It1s a far cry from the days when fans all over Jviichigan could tune in to
listen to the Tigers on the Great \Toice of the Great Lakes, WJR-AM (760). Similarly this season, the St. Louis Cardinals
S\Vitched from a generations-long association \Vith KMOX, with a 50,000-watt clear channel signal, to the much \Veaker

•
KTRS. The Cards 1 inany fans outside of St. Louis vvere furious. Now, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Cardinals
will try to soften the blow by offering free XlYI radios to 50,000 fans in its database \Vho are outside the ne\v station's reach, or
that of the other radio affiliates. Xi\1 carries all of Major League Baseball's games.
 , ~~J''lLVV..:J r1 II ILC:J-1 [ 1c;11u1y QI LJLIC: JJO!:JC:: 1-'age Lor L

;IDick Kernen elected to national board

Dick Kernen , vice president of industty relations for the Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts in Southfield, is the
.f:;.c, ' first male to be elected to the National Board of Directors for the American Women in Radio and Television (A \VRT). Don't
.
l!f
,:,_'
•A:~
laugh; back in, 1969, s_~ill the dark ages for \Vornen in radio, at \VRIF-FM (101.1) , Kernen \Vas one of the first program
./(:J< directors in town to hire \Vomen for nontraditional jobs: Cindy Felong as news director, and Jennifer l\'liller as ·a full-time air
personality.

Satellite radio highlights

XM: The Complete Roy Orbison will air again at 4 p.m. \Vednesday on The 50s, XM 5. High\vay 16, XM 16, will play all
13 tracks from 11 1'.1e and My Gang, 11 the new Rascal Flatts album, from 6-7 p.m. Friday. And on Sunday, Bluesville, XJVI 74
will air Part 2 of blues singer Keb' Mo's series "Country Blues, 11 from 10-11 p.m. Keb 1 Mo \Vill take listeners to the
Mississippi railroad platfdim \Vhere \"\1.C. Handy first heard the blues, and the birth of recorded blues by greats such as Blind
Lemon Jefferson and Son House is documented.
On Sirius Satellite·~dio this Saturday, Sirius 1 Lime channel (healthy living \Vith a t\vist), Sirius 114, v.1ill be all over
Earth Day, of course, \Vith programs about sustainable agriculture, 11 50 ways to save the ocean," Dell Computers 1 program to
recycle computers; and other green topics. Then a week from Saturday at 8 p.m., \ 1innie Paul and David Allan Coe are
intervie\ved on the Outla\V Country channel, Sirius 63.
Radio You can reach Susan Whitall at (313) 222-2156 or swhitall@detnews.com.

•
 T
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Trying to figure Bob Dylan out is a tough task-just ask the man himself.

• In a 1984 European press conference, Dylan told reporters: "I don't think I'm
gonna be really understood until maybe 100 years from now. What I've done,
what I'm doing, nobody else does or has done. When I'm dead and gone, maybe
people will realize that, and then figure it out. I don't think anything I've done has
been even mildly hinted at."

But it's not for lack of trying, judging ADVERTISEMENT

from the number of books about

Dylan out there. His work has been
dissected from every angle in
biographies and analytical treatises.
His career has been carefully - even
obsessively - documented in words
and pictures. It seems like we're
entering a period of re-examination of
his works, fueled in part by Martin 1 e
Scorsese's documentary No Direction •
Home and Dylan's own
autobiography Chronicles Vol. 1. I
The Bob Dylan Scrapbook, 1955-

•
1966 (Simon & Schuster) is, at heart,
nothing but a giant pop-up book for adults. This companion to the aforementioned
documentary has reproductions of ticket stubs, pencil-scrawled lyric sheets on
ersatz notebook paper, promo photos and miniature record store stand-up
displays. There's also a CD with interviews with Dylan. The text, written by
Experience Music Project muckety-muck Robert Santelli, is lively and informative.
It's total eye (and mind) candy and a great way to engage in some serious Zimmy
fetishism.

Another hulking hardcover, Dylan: Visions, Portraits, & Back Pages (DK) takes
a comprehensive and career-spanning approach. Edited by Mark Blake, it's a
collection of articles from the excellent British magazine Mojo (including
contributions from the Motor City's own respected rock-crit Ben Edmonds). Most
of the best books out there deal with Dylan's early career, while this book takes
us through Dylan's enigmatic later works in a thrilling overview.

Another new volume with great visual appeal is Forever Young (DaCapo), which
features photos by a Michigander, Holland native Douglas R. Gilbert. In 1965,
Gilbert was fresh out of MSU. He was on assignment shooting a pre-
superstardom Dylan for Look magazine. In a moment of spectacular squareness,
his editors killed the piece, leaving the photos unseen until now.

And what a treasure this collection of photos is. Young Dylan is handsome,

•
confident, at ease. We see him teaching guru-ji Allen Ginsberg how to play his
harmonium; we see him jamming on electric bass with a fresh-faced, pre-
Spoonful John Sebastian. There are images of the pair tooling around Woodstock
on Dylan's infamous Triumph 750 motorcycle that would put him out of
 I ouu;:, UQL.I\. }JQ~CJ 1.._1v1eu u 111 I re:::i Ut::U UILJ Page Lor 4
'

commission a couple years later.

• What makes the book even more valuable is the accompanying text by Detroit-
bred music writing force Dave Marsh. Marsh deftly provides context and subtext
for the photos. His greatest strength as a writer has always been his ability to
show the humanity of his subjects and to connect music to real life. He does both
here, and, coupled with Gilbert's photos, the reader comes away with a deeper
understanding of Dylan.

Marsh writes that "these pictures suggest that, maybe, instead of describing the
young Dylan as purely mercurial, capable of whipping right around from Blonde
on Blonde to John Wesley Harding to Nashville Skyline, we ought to see him as
someone who was many contradictory things at once: roving bohemian, young
folk idealist, rock 'n' roller on the make, poet, jokerman, romantic magpie,
attentive lover and budding family man. As complicated as anyone else, maybe
more so, but not out of human range."

And that's what Dylan has been trying to tell us for years. The biggest deal in
recent years was Dylan's autobiography, Chronicles Vol. 1 (Simon & Schuster).
I had a hard time finishing the book when it first came out - it seemed dreadfully
boring. Now, in my second pass, I'm enjoying it more. It's good to hear these
stories told in Dylan's own voice, and the overwhelming impression you get is just
how suffocating the whole "voice of a generation" thing was for him. But

•
Chronicles is better understood when read alongside the late Robert Shelton's
No Direction Home (DaCapo). Originally published in 1986, the DaCapo edition
is a 2003 reprint. It's an affectionate document that's thoroughly researched and
includes interviews with Dylan's parents, high school friends, ex-girlfriends and
other insiders. It gives the straight facts where Dylan supplies color.

Shelton penned a 1961 review of a Dylan performance for The New York Times
that is widely credited with giving the young folksinger a big early break. It's
through that early connection that Shelton was granted rare access to Dylan, and
it gives the book a perspective of a peer rather than a fan.

The result is a straightforward journalistic account - sympathetic but not

sycophantic, with plenty of insider scoop on the early days, when Shelton was a
bona fide insider. As the book traces Dylan's career through the '70s and into the
early '80s, it becomes a little more perfunctory, suffering from the Jack of insider
insight. Shelton died in the mid-'90s, so sadly we don't get to hear his take on
Dylan's renaissance of recent years.

For analysis of the brand-new Bob Dylan and Philosophy (Open Court), I
turned to my wife Heather (who, aside from being a big Dylan fan, is brilliant and
holds a degree in philosophy). Her take? This collection of essays is hit-and-miss.
Some pieces are transcendent while others are so ivory tower that it takes all the
fun out of liking music. High points include Doug Anderson's meditation on the

• theme of love on Planet Waves, Martin Van Hees' discussion of free will in
Dylan's work, and James S. Spiegel's take on God, St. Augustine and Socrates.
Low points? Another (yawn) feminist critique of "Just Like a Woman."
 DUU" UdU<. (Jd!jeO> ,,v1eu u 11111e0> ueUUILJ
Page 3 of 4 ___,- !

A.J. Weberman is a self-styled "Dylanologist" and the inventor of the form of

•
journalism known as "garbology" for picking through Zimmy's cans. In his new
Dylan to English Dictionary (Yippie Museum Press) he presents a reference
work that attempts to get at the hidden meanings happening in Dylan's songs.
The book is demented, whacked-out, nigh-on unintelligible and a good
advertisement for why unlimited access to LSD in one's youth is probably a bad
thing. It's also wildly entertaining. I have long believed that if Weberman hadn't
appeared, Dylan would have had to invent a gadfly like him. He plays the role of
the Greek chorus, pointing toward a deeper level of meaning behind the
language Dylan uses. Definitely one for the semiotics buffs out there.

Like the Night (Revisited) (Helter Skelter) is CP Lee's account of the famed
1966 Manchester Free Trade Hall concert (aka the "Judas" show). It does an
excellent job decontructing why Dylan going elctric was so shocking. The British
folk scene then was led by people like Bert Lloyd and Ewan MacColl and was rife
with rules dictating what songs a person could play, and how they should be
performed. Lee also gives a blow-by-blow of the concert, including interviews with
the young gals who passed Dylan a note telling him to send the band home.

Also of note:

• Keys to the Rain (Billboard): This reference tome by Oliver Trager bills itself as
"The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia," and it lives up to that boast. It is an
invaluable resource that this writer finds himself turning to frequently .

• · Tarantula (Scribner): Dylan's first book, 1966's Tarantula, has long been
reputed to be unreadable. This 2004 trade paperback edition proves that that
reputation is largely deserved.

• Crawdaddy founder Paul Williams opines that Dylan's work is best understood
as the artist performs it himself. He has written a trilogy of books in the Bob
Dylan Performing Artist series covering the years 1960-73, 1974-86 and 1986-
90 (and beyond). He takes an analytical approach that is obsessive, detailed and
borderline geeky. Not recommended for beginners.

• The Definitive Bob Dylan Songbook (Amsco): What better way to dig deeper
into Dylan's songs than to try to play them yourself? Try wrapping your lips
around lines like "Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn, suicide remarks are torn
from the fool's gold mouthpiece the hollow horn plays wasted words proves to
warn that he not busy being born is busy dying." It ain't easy!

·Rolling Thunder Logbook (Da Capo): Playwright Sam Shepard gives a

gripping and artistic account of Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder tour, which was
perhaps the greatest manifestation of the lineage between beat poetry, hippie
mysticism and rock 'n' roll. It was a masterpiece in high-concept high-art high
jinks. Shepard was hired on to write a script for a film to come out of the tour, and

•
he accompanied the group as it played live shows and took side trips to film
scenes for the movie.

•Mayor of MacDougal Street by Dave Van Ronk with Elijah Wald (DaCapo):
' .
. ·' .. DVU .:::> UOLI\. JJO':::JC:'.:I \ l"lt::LI u r 1111e:::i ueLr UILJ
Page4of4 -

\!Vhile not entirely about Dylan, folk superstar Van Ronk was a major player in the

•
Greenwich Village fplk scene. He and his wife Teri put Dylan up in his earliest
days in the Village; Though the book gives some anecdotal insight into Dylan, its
main strength is it.s portrait of those wild 'n' wooly days, when there really was
music in the cafes at night and revolution in the air.

The Beat Reader is a column about music books. Brian J. Bowe is editor of
Greem magazine. Send comments to letters@metrotimes.com .

•
..JLI a1y11L.l..U[ Ir VOi IL.UUVC::I I VI I Ut::C1L I uuer-eLLt:l JLflL ~drou1ug1sI aecoaes uyran Page 1 ot 2

Offbeat Offbeat Archives I

Uber-eccentric garbologist decodes Dylan
By Alexander Varty
Publish Date: 9-Feb-2006

If
A.J, Weberman has any regrets about the year he spent in jail, he
hides them well. In fact, he wears his prison record like a badge
of honour: as a first-generation h!ppie and long-time political
activist, he's honour-bound to flout the laws of society. And as a
connoisseur of irony, he no doubt sees the circumstances of his Single of the Week
arrest as delicious beyond all imagining. - Mwita

Departments Weberman, you see, is the inventor of garbology, the art of

Home psychoanalyzing public figures based on what can be found in
their trash. But six years ago, the garbologist got garbologized:
Back Issues FBI agents watched the New York City resident toss a susp!c!ous
Letters package in his neighbourhood Dumpster, and when they
investigated they found materials that had been used to ship a
News and Views significant amount of industrial-strength marijuana.
Health
Technology "I kind of knew something was up," the raspy-voiced author and
conspiracy theorist confides, on the line from his Manhattan
Contests home. "I got the v!bes when I was walking down from my office
Features and putting the wrappers in the garbage can on the corner. I felt
like someone was watching me, but I attributed !t to having
Travel smoked this Canadian pot. It was real strong, man; it was
Style supposedly grown in trailers that were buried underground, and
then they had the lights and the water and everything-a real
Dining underground operation. 11
Arts
Books He laughs. Maybe it's the coffee he's drinking or the joint he
extinguished only minutes before taking my call, but Weberman's
Movies feeling good. Then again, perhaps this former Georgia Straight I am seeking
Music contributor !s just thinking about the outcome of his time in stir:
his just-published Dylan to English Dictionary (Yippie Museum jMi jF ij
Clubs Press; US$32.99), a fascinating if utterly eccentric attempt to Zip/Postal Code
Time Out Events decode the writings of the world's greatest living songwriter.
(Who, it should be noted, was the first subject-or victim-of
Cartoons Weberman's garbological research.)
Homeless Pets
Golden Plate Awards Dylan obsessives will find much to admire, and perhaps even
more to argue about, in the 536-page tome, which features at
City Singles least as many off-the-wall opinions as it does penetrating
Classifieds i.nsights. Weberman !s probably right, for instance, to insist that
the tunes Dylan wrote during his born-again-Christian period are
Best of Vancouver covert expressions of Jewish self-loathing-a phenomenon we!!
known to Freudians worldwide, not to mention Woody Allen.
Magazines Elsewhere, though, his insights are less trustworthy. Rather than
Georgia Straight Living conduct an objective literary analysis of his idol's lyrics, he's
combed through hundreds of songs to find justification for a pair
Georgia Straight Style of controversial theses: that Dylan was, for much of his career,
MindBodySoul addicted to opiates 1 and to heroin in particular; and that he
contracted AIDS, probably through unprotected sex, during the
late 1980s.

"Of course 1 I could take anything out of context and make it seem
Ul..I ur~111...1....v1 [I VOi 11....VUVCI I VI I UCOL I UUCJ -cLt...t:::r Ill IL yar uu1uy1::;L uecuoes uy1an r'age Lor L

like it's about something," says Weberman, who allows that Dylan
~ppears to have beaten h!s supposed drug problem. "But if you
look at all the CDs that he's done since World Gone Wrong you'll
see that a·similar theme can be extrapolated-and that there's ~-a.c_~g~_DJ$_p.Q.s_alJn.HY.

·something very wrong as far as Dylan's health goes." Full service debris disposal
and garbage dumpster
rentals 10-30 yd.
It is well documented that Dylan suffered a dangerous brush with
www.RubbishRemoved.com
histoplasmosis-a fungal chest infection particularly prevalent
among AIDS patients-in 1997, and Weberman claims to have
had bis diagnosis confirmed by one of his subject's close friends.
But he won't reveal his source, and without hard evidence there's
no saying whether his theories_ are true. o_u_mp_sj_eLB..em:_<U.s_
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Not surprisingly, the famously reclusive artist has yet to comment
Many Sizes
on the Dictionary or !ts author's claims. Dylan wasn't always So
i-eticent, however: he once attacked Weberman on a Bowery www. Trash BeeG one .com
sidewalk, following an incident in which the singer's self-
appointed Boswell disclosed the great man's address to a crowd
of g~wking acolytes.

The tw6' could be described as having a true love-hate

·r€!ationship. As a revolutionary activist, Weberman remains
d!sappointed that Dylan chose not to lead the '60s countercultUre
· into batt)e. ·Albums like Self Portrait and Nashville Skyline, he
argues, "were des!gned not to offend the establishment so that
he could shoot heroin !n peace, basically, which was h!s major
goal in life".

Meanwhile, Weberman's man in Dylan's camp has apparently

reported that the singer has come to a grudging appreciation of
his would-be amanuensis. "Dylan told him, 'I don't hate
Weberman. ·He did a lot of bad things, like bring people around
my house and go through my garbage and stuff, but he also sold
a lot of pot, and I think everybody should get .stoned.'

"At the same time," Weberman notes, "I don't think Dylan
particularly likes me, because I'm revealing his innermost
thoughts, and also'revealing the fact that he's HIV-positive. But
he puts all that in h.is poetry for me to find.

"I could never have invented this on my own," t;te adds. "I'm just
not that creative a person, but Dylan's an amazing guy. He's a
totally unbelievable genius, beyond people's comprehension."

That, at least, Is one conclusion the singer's admirers won't want

to dispute.

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:::iearcning crasn ror wmDswne rnues - 1-'nm version - internat1ona1 Hera/ct Tribune Page 1 of 2

INTERNA'.rIONAL

llttralli ~rihmu
Searching trash for tombstone blues
By Colin Moynihan The New York Times
TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2006

NEW YORK Standing near the corner of Bleecker and Elizabeth Streets, A.J. Weberman recently
told the story about how Bob Dylan got mad at him. It was the spring of 1972, according to Weberman,
when Dylan grabbed him and shoved him angrily before riding off on a bicycle.

For years, Weberman had been rooting around in Dylan's refuse, looking for insight into the
songwriter's sometimes oblique lyrics. He had promised to stop the snooping, but had been visiting
the trash cans again, he said, incurring Dylan's displeasure.

"I deserved it," Weberman said the other day. "I don't hold it against him."

The anecdote, to whatever degree accurate or apocryphal, provides a prism through which to view two
main themes in the life of Weberman, 61, a Yip pie, author and longtime "Dylanologist," who also
helped to popularize the practice of "garbology," or searching through trash for journalistic clues.

In November, Weberman's book, "Dylan to English Dictionary" was published by the Yippie Museum
Press, with an initial print run of 1,000 copies. In the 536-page book, he seeks to analyze the
metaphorical and allegorical language used by Bob Dylan.

"All these years I've been looking for some kind of code sheet," he said. "I'm looking for a Rosetta
stone to understand Dylan."

Weberman said that he spent two years cataloguing Dylan's lyrics and identifying consistent ways in
which the songwriter uses words, then applying those ideas to interpret songs. For instance, "As J
Went Out This Morning," which was released in 1967, opens with the lines: "As I went out this
morning!To breathe the air around Tom Paine's/I spied the fairest damsel!That ever did walk in
chains." Weberman contends that the lines describe Dylan's experience in 1964 of receiving an award
named after Tom Paine and feeling politically exploited.

Once in a while, Weberman sees himself in Dylan's words. He wrote that "Where Are You Tonight?"
released in 1978 - which contains lines like "There's a neon light ablaze in this green smoky haze,
laughter down on Elizabeth Street," and much later in the song, "It felt outa place, my foot in his face,
but he should-a stayed where his money was green" - was a reference to the 1972 encounter.

Of course, it is impossible to know for sure. Dylan did not respond to a request for comment made
through his record company.

For more than 40 years, Weberrnan has been a gadfiy and obsessive questioner. He has written two
other books, "Coup d'Etat in A~erica" (The Third Press, 1974), in which he and a co-author, Michael
Canfield, speculated about the murder of John F. Kennedy; and "My Life in Garbology" (Stonehill,
1980), in which he described looking through trash belonging to public figures, like J. Edgar Hoover
and former Attorney General John Mitchell.

But Weberman's most enduring fascination is with Dylan. In 1969, Weberman said, he used a
computer at a university to cross-reference all the words Dylan used.

Howard Sounes, the author of "Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan" (Grove Press, 2001 ), said
that at one point Dylan tried to befriend Weberrnan to try to get him to leave him alone, but stopped
because he was alarmed by Weberman's behavior. "He sort of pursued Dylan as a stalker," Sounes
said. "He was the most unpleasant and notorious of all Dylan's obsessive fans."

All the while, Weberman sifted through items discarded by Dylan. In November 1971, Esquire
magazine published a story by Weberrnan in which he described going through Dylan's garbage.
.:>ee11L.11111':::1ue1:::i111u1 Lu111u:::iLu11e u1ue:::i - r1111L ve1:::i1u11 - i11Le111e1uu11e11 nere11u 1 rruune t-"age LOT L

Weberman, who grew up in Brooklyn, New York, and lives on the Upper East Side in Manhattan,
began his dictionary in Febnuary 2001 while he was beginning a sentence of a year and a day for
money laundering connected to the sale of marijuana. Some evidence in the case was found by
federal agents who went through his trash.

"The garbologer was garbologized," Weberman said. "I was hoisted on my own petard."

His current book is the first to be published by the Yip pie Museum Press. This summer the press will
publish a second book, called "The Pie and the Mighty," by Aron Kay, a Yippie known for fiinging pies
at elected officials like Jerry Brown, the former California governor, and James Buckley, the former
New York senator.

Weberman said that he did not expect widespread endorsement of his book - certainly not from Dylan
- but insisted that the songwriter should be grateful that he was around.

"I'm like Verlaine to Dylan's Rimbaud," he said. "There's a natural tension between the poet and his
critic."

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IHT Copyright© 2006 Tht"! Intt"!rnational Herald Tribune I www.iht.com

The Yippie! Museum Press
9 Bleecker Street I New York, New York
10012
212-677-4899

announces its Fall 2005 publication list:

November 2005: Dylan to English Dictionary

by A.J . Weberman (the inventor of Dylanology)
ISBN: 1-4196-1338-3
Binding: Trade Paper
560 pages $32.99

December 2005: The Pie And The Mighty

by Aron Morton Kay ( Yippie! Pie Thrower)

You are receiving this message because we have mailed you the Bob
Dylan to English Dictionary, or because we wish to know if you wish to receive
a copy. We hope you will review or mention this book or pass it on to someone
who will.

I DO BELIEVE WE ARE ON THE EVE OF DECONSTRUCTION

The ads for the Martin Scorsese film No Direction Home claim that the
movie would supply the missing puzzle pieces in Bob Dylan's life. With all due
respect to Scorsese, it did no such thing. What it did was to document to a much
greater extent than ever before what we already knew about Dylan's pre-1966
history. ·

Only the new, fresh from the press Bob Dylan to English Dictionary by
AJ Weberman could piece those missing puzzle pieces together. For the first
time, Dylan's thoughts, couched in mind-boggling cryptic poetry, have been
translated to everyday English using what Weberman calls the "Dylanological
method." For example, should we take Dylan literally when he wrote about an
accident in January 1987 that could not have happened in January 1987? In his
book Chronicles, Dylan refers to the tour with Tom Petty and the concerts with
The Grateful Dead "the previous year". Dylan says "the shows with Petty finished
up in December" when actually the last date of the Petty tour was October 17,
1987 at London's Wembley Arena. He also mentions the 200 show dates to have
started "in the spring" when so-called "The Never Ending Tour" actually started in
June 1988 and would run to 71, not 200 dates that year. The tour with Petty and

1
the concerts with The Grateful Dead occurred in 1987, so the January after that
year would have been 1988.

The 'January' that Dylan writes about when he was walking around "with a
cast on my hand that went nearly to the elbow," and "realized that my playing
days might well have faded out" must have been January 1988. Agreed? But
hold on a minute. On the 20th of January 1988, Dylan appeared on the Rock and
Roll Hall of Fame. He played the guitar and jammed with George Harrison and
Mick Jagger after shaking hands with Bruce Springsteen. It was all caught on TV
for posterity, but no hand to elbow cast can be seen. So, perhaps it wasn't
January 1988 after all. Confused? Do "with a cast on my hand that went nearly to
the elbow" and "realized that my playing days might have well faded out" have
meanings other than literal?

The answer to this question is found in the translations of Dylan's poetic

language supplied by Weberman in the Dylan To English Dictionary.
Essentially, what Weberman has been saying all along is that Dylan should not
be taken literally, even at what seems at first, a literal level. Almost always, Dylan
comfTlunicates metaphorically and that Weberman's Dylan To English
Dictionary demystifies Dylan's language.

While many of Weberman's views about Dylan are controversial, he

contends that future literary historians will eventually come to realize that Bob
Dylan is the poet laureate of his generation and that the relationship between
A.J. Weberman and Dylan is similar to what existed between Paul Verlaine and
the opium-addicted poet Arthur Rimbaud. The dissimilarity begins with the fact
that Verlaine shot Rimbaud due to a disagreement over Rimbaud's poetry. The
only violence that happened between Weberman and Dylan involved Dylan
assaulting Weberman near the Bowery when he banged Weberman's head
against the pavement. This incident led two derelicts afterwards to ask
Weberman if Dylan "got much money" as they thought Weberman was a drunk
who was being rolled.
"The perfect book for Dylan fanatics." --Paul Krassner, author of One
Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative Satirist.
"A fascinating, meticulous and hilarious study of Dylan's lyrics, written by
his arch-fan and stalker, the one and only Weberman" - Boaz Gaon, Maariv,
Israeli newspaper

A.J. Weberman is best known for his analysis of Dylan's garbage and for having
been beaten up by Bob Dylan on Elizabeth Street in Manhattan in the early 1970's. Dylan
viewed this incident as the "laughter down on Elizabeth Street I And a lonesome bell tone
in that valley of stone I where [he] bathed in a stream of pure heat" {Where Are You
Tonight, 1978). A.J. is featured on Joel Gilbert's DVD Bob Dylan World Tours 1966 to 1974,
and will appear on Gilbert's next DVD. Chromedreams in the UK released Weberman's
legendary telephone conversations with Dylan. Rolling Stone Books will soon publish an
interview Weberman did with Dylan. Weberman was a character in Don Delillo"s
Underworld, "Detwiler had been a fringe figure In the sixties, a garbage guerilla who stole

2
and analyzed the household trash of a number of famous people. He issued mock-
comintern manifestos about the contents, with personal asides, and the underground
press was quick to print this stuff. His activities had a crisp climax when he was arrested
for snatching the garbage of J. Edgar Hoover from the rear of the Director's house in
northwest Washington and this is what people remembered" and he his featured in Mark
Jacobson's book, Teenage Hipster in the Modern World. AJ is mentioned in numerous
articles and books about Bob Dylan and an independent film company in the UK is
currently putting together The Ballad of AJ Weberman. AJ is the author of My Life In
Garbology (Stonehill Press, 1980) and Coup D'Etat In America: The CIA and the
Assassination of JFK (The Third Press, 1975, Quick Publishing Co 1992). The latter book is
in Its fourth edition and also available from amazon.com as is The Dylan To English
Dictionary. Joan Baez related in NO DIRECTION HOME: "Dylan would always say, 'What
do you think of this?' 'I didn't understand the thing at all but I loved it so I said, 'Okay, I'm
gonna figure this one out.' So I read it and gave back my interpretation of what it was
about and he said, 'That's pretty fuckin' good.' And he said 'Years f rom now all these
people, all these assholes, are going to be writing about all the shit I wrlte ... and what it
means ... "' A Dylan Data Base is available at http://dylanology.com/wrtwrddb.htm

The Yippie! Museum (photo above) and The Yippiel Museum Press are dedicated
to preserving the works and artifacts of the leaders and members of the Youth
International Party, a loose-knit organization founded in 1968 by Abbie Hoffman, Jerry
Rubin, Paul Krassner, Stew Alpert and others. Dana Beal, an organizer for Cures-Not-
Wars, serves as Curator and the Board Members include: William Prop of WBAI radio,
John Sinclair, former Prisoner Of Weed (POW) and founder of the White Panther Party,
Stewart Albert, founding member of the Yippiesl and Vietnam Day Committee, Paul
DeRienzo, radio journalist, Steve Conliff, historian of Native American History and several
other surviving political activists.

For More Info call 212-987-8659 or 917-374-7024 anytime or

yippiemuseumpress@nyc.rr. com .