Dylan:” But American wasn’t the Roman Empire…”
Hello. Yes, today was a much better day at Owl Farm — worked in the garden (i planted more marigolds, geraniums, hollyhocks, did some overdue paperwork and correspondence too. Of course we’re still gloomy and sick about the Gulf Crisis. But finally, a flash of hope came over us when President Obama did show up (for the second time) to Louisiana and gave the authorities in charge of clean-up a direct line to his office in the event that the chain of command fails again. I doubt he gave them a false phone number. Only the coming months will tell us exactly who and what is working. As Hunter always said, It’s the Recovery that Matters.
If you haven’t read them already, The Wall Street Journal is publishing some very good investigative pieces and history on the BP actions and diversions.
Before some words from Bob Dylan, check out the link from Gonzo Foundation Board member and good friend of the family, Jim Caruso. He has an inspiring blog:
obviously. But Chronicles does indeed offer refreshing insights.
The following passage is after he was trying to get out of the rat race. It was difficult for him to go anywhere with his family. He had been in a motorcycle accident and been hurt, but he recovered. Having children changed his life and segregated him from just about everybody and everything that was going on.
Even the horrifying news items of the day, the murders of the Kennedy’s, King, Malcolm X were to him, not so much leaders being shot down, but rather as fathers whose families
had been left wounded. He was determined to raise his children with the ideals of what he loved most about America — the country of freedom and equality.
…I had a wife and children whom I loved more than anything else in the world. I was trying to provide for them, keep out of trouble, but the big bugs in the press kept promoting me as the mouthpiece, spokesman, or even conscience of a generation. That was funny. All I’d ever done was sing songs that were dead straight and expressed powerful new realities. I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of. I’d left my hometown only ten years earlier, wasn’t vociferating the opinions of anybody. My destiny lay down the road with whatever life invented, had nothing to do with representing any kind of civilization. Being true to yourself, that was the thing. I was more a cowpuncher than a Pied Piper.
People think that fame and riches translate to power, that it brings glory and honor and happiness. Maybe it does, but sometimes it doesn’t. I found myself stuck in Woodstock, vulnerable and with a family to protect. If you looked in the press, though, you saw me being portrayed as anything but that. I was surprising how thick the smoke had become. It seems likethe world has always needed a scapegoat — someone to lead the charge against the Roman Empire. But American wasn’t the Roman Empire and someone else would have to step up and volunteer. I really was never any more than what I was — a folk musician who gazed into the gray mist with tear-blinded eyes and made up songs that floated in a luminous haze. "
Bob Dylan, Chronicles
Indeed.
From Woody Creek,Anita Thompson
