Walt Whitman’s Bones and My Own by Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar

“If you want me again look for me under your boot soles.”

– Walt Whitman

“I am the man. I suffered. I was there.” – Walt Whitman

“A splendid old soul.” – Mark Twain on Walt Whitman

“Whitman is my daddy…Opulence is the end.” – Lana Del Rey

These are the words of Walt’s that first chilled my bones (when I was seventeen years old) (from “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry”):

“Closer yet I approach you, / What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you – I laid in my stores in advance, / I considered long and seriously of you before you were born. / Who was to know what should come home to me? / Who knows but I am enjoying this? / Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?”

And these are some of the words I read aloud from the pulpit at my mother’s funeral twenty-seven years later (from “Song of Myself”):

“This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old mothers, / Darker than the colorless beards of old men, / Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths. /

“O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues, / And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths for nothing. /

“I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men and women, / And the hints about old men and mothers, / And the offspring taken soon out of their laps. / What do you think has become of the young and old men? / And what do you think has become of the women and children? /

“They are alive and well somewhere, / The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, / And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, / And ceased the moment life appeared. /

“All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, / And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.”

….

PERSONAL DECLARATION:

Today on this day that is the day that is one day before the 207th birthday of Walt Whitman, I hereby formally declare myself to be a BLOOMIAN critic, which means I follow Harold Bloom, although not in all things, which would have made perfect sense to Harold, who, like Ralph Waldo Emerson, never wanted anyone to follow him in all things. Bloom has done more to boost Walt Whitman’s reputation than any other critic in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, by far.

The title of Walt Whitman’s book was/is so great that it matches Tolstoy’s WAR AND PEACE: LEAVES OF GRASS. His book itself is so great that it too matches Tolstoy, although in a different mode, the mode of poetry. (There is also a reason why they both had long white hair and long white beards.)

The other day I was observing my Siberian Husky mix, Boo, and I realized that he was individually sniffing every single blade of grass in the area in which he was standing in a field in northern Illinois outside Chicago. Let me repeat that: individually sniffing every single blade of grass. It was like Horton discovering a WHO! inside a clover, it was that mind-blowing.

Walt Whitman used to watch Abraham Lincoln walking around Washington during the Civil War. Lincoln knew who Walt was, and would nod to him, although they never spoke. But Whitman was studying Lincoln. Whitman was working, for free, as a volunteer nurse for both Northern and Southern soldiers in the hospitals of D.C. He saw the worst of the worst of the worst of the worst of the horrors of war (many, many times), and did things like write letters home for the incapacitated soldiers, hold them while they died, and write to their families (beautifully) after they expired. During this time, he was also working as a humble and lowly government clerk. He had numerous nervous breakdowns during this time, small and then large, and eventually a stroke at the age of 54.

Walt Whitman was very concerned with the way his beloved America would turn out. He lost much of his faith in the USA during the Gilded Age (named by Mark Twain). But he never lost all of his faith.

So let me say this:

There are many, and I mean many millions, of physically living human beings walking around among us now who have zero, and I mean zero (no), human emotion/s at all. They feel nothing but nothing (unless it’s a smoldering rage), and the occasional sneer (or a chuckle at someone else’s pain) is all they can muster. (See the President of the United States as well for this, as well as all of his henchmen and henchwomen.) (No wonder zombie and vampire movies are so popular.)

WATCH OUT!

There are also people walking around among us now who act like (or are) angels.

Saragun Verse: For JB on His 84th Deathday

Genius is fleeting, never breeding
Then the City Times sets the date
It let knives of style cut out the feeling
And leave it for the gulls on the quay

I remember his beauty
Eyes the color of absinthe
It recall it dissolutely
Wormwood verses of another Blythe

Cliches poison poems
They die only one way
Then we must rhyme alone
See how well the dead obey

My emotions were once real
But too fine for high words
So instead of reaching ideal
I’ll fall back into the herd

How to Convey the Professor to the Station by Geraint Jonathan

How to convey the Professor to the station? That was the question. Tell him a train was waiting for him – and for him alone? Remind him of his duty to the hopeless of Europe?

The landlady could not have been more obliging; she practically tiptoed around him. She blushed to remember his dancing naked in his room. But she knew an educated man when she saw one.

So: how convey the Professor to the train station? ‘Collude lightly’ is generally the advice in these situations. But more was called for in this instance, it seemed to me. The Professor was excitable, his gestures expansive. The landlady did her best, but her voice tended to rise several modulations whenever she addressed the Professor, each word enunciated for maximum comprehension. “The – Professor – likes – to –take – long –walks. Don’t you Professor? Long walks?” On this occasion, however, the Professor replied with a kiss, and blood drained from the poor woman’s face.

It was the promise of flowers did the trick, the prospect of welcome down the line. And so, come dusk, the Professor was conveyed to the station. He laughed at the faces the houses made along the way. When he saw the train, he wept for the way it waited with such distinction.

Geraint Jonathan

(Image by CJA)

Those Summers in Nantucket by Adam Kluger (Artwork by Dreck) (Artwork featuring bare naked ladies warning for sesnsitive souls)

(Note-it is our serene pleasure to bring Adam Kluger on the site. He is a first rate writer and a fine fine artist despite the somewhat effacing name of the artist–The Eds.)

Paul had been heartbroken…

There was nothing better for a broken heart… than new pussy.

Paul started painting houses in Nantucket.

That’s where he met Kathy.

She had a big smile, blonde hair and a confident, easy way about herself. She was also really nice and pretty and intelligent too. She saw Paul on the roof of a house without a shirt on listening to the radio and painting a window frame. She worked down the street at a muffins shop. She would be attending Harvard in the fall. On Nantucket all the kids worked part-time summer jobs. At night they would go to the beach for bonfire parties or to summer houses for keg parties.

Paul and Kathy hit it off nicely. She would come back to his basement room and they would get busy. If Paul hadn’t still been pining over the girl who broke his heart he probably would have been able to give Kathy more. But there wasn’t anything to give. So it was just sex. And the sex was really good. For a straight-laced kind of chick she had a killer body and she was always so neat and clean and there was something about being on an island in the sun that makes fucking so much better.

Paul was already accepted to Bard.

This would be his summer for fun and Kathy helped him heal with terrific blowjobs and guilt-free sex. She seemed happy to have a good looking guy to bone and it was pretty uncomplicated.

The following summer, Paul would get a job scooping ice cream in town at the Old Corner Shoppe. He wore a fruity looking pink shirt and didn’t pay much attention when a pretty young blonde girl with short spiky hair started flirting with him. Her name was Stephany and she worked at a gas station pumping gas. Her uncle was a famous movie star and she had grown up on the Island. She was a smoking hot chick and Paul offered to give her a ride back to her house after his shift on the back of his moped. Granted, a moped is not nearly as cool as a motorcycle…but it’s also not nearly as lethal…when they got back to her house they quickly got undressed and jumped in a shower together. Paul couldn’t believe how sexy this chick was. Tanned and beautiful. He brought his “A” game with him into her bed because he wanted to be invited back again and again. Luckily, his enthusiasm was rewarded and he would end up fucking her throughout that summer.

One time on the beach he joined her and her girlfriend on their blankets.

He was asked to spread orange suntan lotion from France on both of them… Paul couldn’t help but notice how friendly and familiar the girls were with each other as they took off their tops to let Paul spread the lotion on their hot tan bodies. He suggested that If they were hungry that he would be glad to make a “sandwich” with them. The girls just laughed and nothing ever came of the idea…a little bit later Paul did take Stephany behind a dune and started fingering her. She could have fucked anyone she wanted on that Island. Before she met Paul she probably did…none of that mattered. She loved riding on the back of his moped and he loved rubbing baby oil on her body when they showered together after a torrid boning session. The sun, the surf. Hot blonde chicks, doobie and tooling around on a moped on a beautiful island.

It couldn’t get any better.

One serious bummer though was the day Paul almost drowned.

He had been with a work friend at Nobadeer beach. They tossed around a football and scoped out chicks. They listened to some of Paul’s cassettes on a portable boom box w/ cassette holder. UB40…reggae…the Specials..ska…anyway, Paul dove in to cool off…swam out and did a little body surfing…it was pretty mellow so he went out further and further

He could hear the caw of the seagulls and he felt great.

That is, until he saw a huge wave building to an enormous swale about 15 feet high almost 50 yards away. Quickly he looked around and realized he had made a huge mistake.

He wasn’t a great swimmer and panic shot through him like an icicle.

Quickly he started to do a mad crawl toward the shore…He didn’t look behind him.

Before he knew it, he felt the pull of the Atlantic Ocean and then the huge wave crashed over him. The power of the wave was shocking. It spun Paul like laundry until he felt the ocean floor. Immediately he pushed off. Disoriented, but sure that he needed to get back above the water’s surface…

He did that finally and gasped violently for breath.

Fuck! Oh my God. I’m in BIG trouble he thought as he turned his head.

He was still very far away from the shore. But he knew he had to recover quickly and keep paddling desperately toward the beach all the while sensing a new, even bigger wave approaching.

At this point he felt he might end up drowning.

But he was way too scared to scream for help.

It would have terrified him even more.

No one could help him now. He was too far out.

He was a small pink dot fighting against a roaring dark green swirling ocean with no concern for his life or his survival.

Paul decided he would try a risky maneuver. Instead of trying to body surf the wave forward and then be sent somersaulting under the water again…he would dive right into the wave at its middle and then swim underwater for a few seconds until he reached the surface.

As the large wave came up upon him, Paul took a quick gulp of breath and hoped that his gambit would work as he felt the awesome power of the water pull him toward the wave…he extended his hands in front of his head and dove for the middle of the wave. If it worked he might just survive this awful ordeal…if he had miscalculated that would be it.

He was done for

As it turned out he had made the right choice. The strategy worked. He avoided getting tossed head over heels underwater again and after using the same technique two more times on slightly smaller waves he felt the sand and pebbles of the shore line. Never had he ever felt such relief before. He made a mad sprint for the beach and was knocked down one more time by a wave. Paul laughed at the Ocean’s final message…don’t EVER fuck with me kid.

He collapsed on the beach in the sand with seaweed wrapped around his body and salt, sand and mucous pasted on his face as he blew bubbles of snot and gasped for breath. His friend Bram ran toward him and asked

“Dude, are you ok?”

“Yeah man… (Cough, cough)

Paul could taste the salt and sand in his mouth…his body was sore all over and he started to shiver…

“What the fuck happened to you?”

Paul leaned over and puked out some salt water

“Are you ok? Should I get a lifeguard?”

“No man, I’m cool… (Cough, cough) …just need a beer.”

Paul was neither cool or thirsty…what he was and what he would never forget, was that he was VERY lucky…he was a survivor. Sure…but more than all that he was a lucky son of a bitch.

Sure he felt invulnerable that summer. He was in his physical prime and he was getting laid and life was good.

On this day, however, he discovered first-hand just how unpredictable and tenuous life could be. He’d think twice from now on before he would wade out too far on anything. Leave the lunar fringe for those with a suicide wish. He’d get his kicks before the whole shithouse went up in flames but he’d exercise a bit more caution too.

Some rebel.

Red eyed and shivering Paul made his way up the beach on unsteady legs until he got to his beach blanket. Then he crumpled onto it and starting to puke out more salt water. A reggae song was playing on the tape deck and Paul could feel the warm sun caress his aching, shocked body…he lay there recovering, until he felt something cold and wet tap his shoulder. He slowly turned over and squinted into the rays of the sun as his pal Bram handed him a cold can of blue ribbon.

He felt like a new man. Like his past sins had been washed away. Like he had looked death in the face and survived. He had been given a second chance. He had guessed right in the face of disaster.

The summer was almost gone …and that beer tasted pretty damn good.

Later that Summer Paul would be living in a beach house with some other friends. One housemate named Werth was a deadhead and introduced Paul to shrooms. They had a keg party and Kathy was there…somehow Stephany heard about the party too and she came by to say hi…before you knew it…Paul hopped into her car without his shoes on and was off with Stephany. She kidnapped him and brought him back to her house on the edge of town for a hellacious boning session.

When he got back Kathy was gone…He made it up to her by fucking her the next night and then taking her to dinner at an Italian restaurant near the movie theatre. The film they watched later starred some English actor who would die years later at a bar in Malta.

There were other chicks that summer as well…there was a hostess at a restaurant where Paul worked part-time as a dishwasher…she was petite with black hair and she wore a lot of make-up. But she had a fine little body and she was always eager to tease Paul. Paul was lucky the night he drove her back to her place from the dance club. They were both pretty lit and when a cop asked Paul if they had been drinking. Paul admitted that he had had “one beer” but that he wasn’t drunk. Luckily, the cop was cool and let him off with a warning.

Paul almost backed up over a cliff shortly thereafter, but again luck was on his side that night…when he finally got the hostess back to her house for the bone, she got him so worked up with foreplay, that he shot almost on contact. Three strokes and that was it. Pretty embarrassing. He did his best to take care of her after with his hand. But the magic flirtation was over and that was the end of that.

Tom, a friend from the restaurant, always looked up to Paul because Paul was older and once rolled him a joint. Paul had a nice supply with him from Belsam’s, enough to last a few weeks. Anyway, out of the blue, while they’re smoking a joint after work behind the restaurant… the kid says,

” my younger sister wants to fuck you…”

Paul was surprised but interested and asked,

“Are you cool with that?”

.”Yeah, totally”

“I don’t know man. That could be kind of weird…you know”

…”dude, she won’t stop bugging me about it…will you just fuck her already?” or at least say hi to her?”

“Sure dude, bring her by…I’ll say hi.”

Paul felt like a rock star.

When she came by later that week, Paul was hanging out in his room with some work friends…a couple of guys and girls passing around wine and a joint.

“Hi, I’m Tom’s younger sister…Penny.”

“Hey Penny…nice to meet you.”

She had red hair and a nice little figure. Paul guessed she was almost sixteen.

Paul introduced her around and looked her in the eye from across the room…he recognized that look in her eyes.

Before long, she had worked her way over to where Paul was standing.

While obstructing everyone else’s view she casually reached behind her and grabbed the bulge that was starting to form in his shorts. Penny kept talking to the guy in front of her while at the same time she held firm to Paul’s now rock hard cock.

For a young girl, she was pretty bold.

Paul liked that about her.

When everyone else cleared out… she stayed.

Paul closed the door and turned around. Penny was already on her knees. She pulled down Paul’s shorts to his sneakers and then proceeded to give him a world class blowjob.

He didn’t fuck her though. That way, things never got weird with Tom for the rest of the summer.

Adam Kluger (and Dreck)

The Health Care Snare by Frederick K Foote

(Note: Frederick has recently published poetry with us. But  he is prominently a creator of short, trenchant, witty prose, which we are happy to present today–The Eds.)

“Good evening, I’m Mavis Williams of American Evening News. Our program has been preempted by a special message from the White House and President Amanda Jackson.

We now take you to President Jackson.”

“Over the last decade, the United States of America has been on the edge of economic disaster. As my grandfather would say, we are surviving by the skin of our teeth.

To make the nature and extent of this threat clear, let’s look back at our recent history.

A decade ago, our country, regrettably, entered an ill-conceived and unprovoked war with Iran. That misadventure has extinguished over 30,000 lives and wounded over 100,000 others.

The War has cost us over 600 billion dollars to date, and our compensation agreements continue to burden this nation.

And that war has cost us support and friendships with many, if not most, of our past allies. We are still repairing these relationships.

The cost of his War, combined with the rising cost of health care, especially health care under the federal Medicare and Medicaid programs, created an unprecedented budget challenge.

Our honest assessment of our health care systems was that they were the most expensive in the world, but other, far less costly health care systems in other nations had far better health care outcomes.

Under increasing dissatisfaction from the public, the growing frustration of health care providers, and the declining number of private health care insurers, we sought a meeting of all the players in our health care system. The past administrations were open to all approaches to extract ourselves from our cascading predicaments.

And as you all know, we initiated a Manhattan Project-style development that merged the resources of our technology, artificial intelligence, and vast libraries of health research and information.

And with sweat, blood, and tears, creativity, imagination, and dedication, we produce a modern miracle—the Internal Health Care Monitor, or as most of us call it, IHCM, or simply, the Chip.

The Chip is about the size of a quarter, but half the weight, and is most commonly inserted just under the skin layers on the inside of the upper left arm.

The Chip has a living battery that draws its power from the body. Under normal circumstances, the Chip does not have to be removed; it is updated online and sends its information the same way.

All your vital functions are monitored 24/7, 365 days a year.

And this encrypted data is sent to the Department of Health Monitoring Evaluation, or DHME, where robust AI systems evaluate your health status and notify you and your health care provider when necessary.

In essence, you have the world’s most experienced and knowledgeable healthcare provider at your service at all times.

This health care system is the envy of the world.

For the last three and a half years, we have been testing and evaluating this system on members of our armed forces.

Three months ago, our evaluation of this system was completed and is now available online for everyone. I encourage you to read at least the executive summary of this fascinating report.

One of the many amazing results found in this 1,200-page document is that during the first two years of using the Chip, our healthcare services’ military costs were cut by 50%.

And our sick leave absences decreased by 60%.

In 73% of cases where medical assistance was required, no visit to a physician or care facility was made or required. Our AI diagnostic systems worked to a tee, and medication was prescribed and quite often delivered within less than two hours of diagnosis.

I found the results of this report absolutely incredible, and I would like to give my thanks and appreciation to the thousands who worked tirelessly to make this vastly improved system available to everyone in this country.

Now, we are ready to make this remarkable system available to all Americans. No one in this country will be denied access to this Promised Land of quality care for all.

Understand that billionaires and fast-food workers will receive the same quality of care.

Those who have no income will have the same access as everyone else.

I know you wonder if this program is safe. I don’t know if I have the words or knowledge to convince you of the safety of this system; however, I have Dr. Lisa Limbaugh, who is an expert on this system and will provide any level of detail required, and she will be here to answer your questions, from the very technical to the very basic.

However, in this particular arena, I believe that actions speak louder than words. My husband Godfrey and I both have Chips, and we have had them for 18 months now. With no adverse experience and have recommended the Chip to our children. That’s how safe they are to me.

Now, I’m turning you over to Dr. Limbaugh to answer your questions and explain in more detail how the Chip works.

Please ask your questions, read the Report, and check with service members and women about their experiences with the Chip.

I hope you choose to join Godfrey and me in the greatest healthcare revolution in the history of humankind.

Good night, and may God bless America and this endeavor.”

***

A conversation in a secure room in the White House between President Jackson and her Chief of Staff, Bong Yee, immediately after the President’s message to the nation.

“Damn, Bong, I need a shower. I feel like a used car salesman. How did we get into this mess?”

“Ms. President, the Democratic Party followed State Craft, our AI’s suggestions—”

“Shit, more like directions.”

“—on developing the Chip and on selecting you as our candidate, and here we are. One happy family.”

“Yeah, I still wonder why you came along on this unjoyful ride.”

“You asked me to, and we have been friends since law school. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to peek behind the stage and see what is really going on.”

“You know curiosity killed the cat. Any new info on the fucking Chip?”

“Dr. Limbaugh and her stiff-lipped crew of medical grand masters believe the Chip is performing as designed, and we should trust the magic of AI and move ahead with implanting the chip worldwide.”

“Damn, Limbaugh scares me worse than that fucking AI. So, what are our reckless scientific rebels saying?”

“Well, they are performing their test beyond the scope of AI, and they have evidence that the Chip has abilities well beyond what Dr. Limbaugh claims.”

“Do they have any proof of their claims? As if that would make any difference. We have to move ahead with this, this questionable fucking experiment, or be in debt to China. When I was giving my sales pitch, I had a strong, almost irresistible desire to cancel the Chip and take our chances with China.”

“I, too, would rather deal with humans than AI, but if our rebels with a cause are right. It might be too late. We have already implanted the chip in the military. And the rebels believe the Chip can impact bodily processes, not just monitor and report on them.”

“What a mess. What a fucking mess.”

“Well, AI was right about you, you have that combination of warm grandmotherly caring and steel African American determination that made you appealing and electable.”

“Yes, but I wonder if my main attraction to AI was that I am controllable.”

“Amanda, I think they may be wrong on that one. The rebels will be here in a few minutes with their evidence. How do you want to play it?”

“We listen and learn and ask every damn question we can. We do not accept or reject the validity of their information at this time.”

“We leave them swinging in the breeze.”

“For now.”

There is a knock on the door.

“Bong, I hope that’s opportunity knocking.”

They smiled and bumped fists before they opened the door.

Today’s Bear Drills Differ From the Atomic Bomb Drills of My Day by David Henson

(We are always pleased to bring back David Henson –the Eds.)

When I was in school, we had atomic bomb drills. We crouched under our desks and clasped our hands behind our heads, a few of us giggling until the speaker crackled, and the principal declared the drill over. Sometimes the class clown walked around stiff legged, arms extended and said they were glowing. Today, bear drills have replaced those for the atomic bomb. Bears should never get inside a school, but it can happen if someone leaves a gate ajar or a guard nods off.

The principal launches the drill by whispering Bear over the PA system. The teacher, who’s memorized the protocols, unlocks a drawer containing a spray can of Ursus Away and practices a two-handed grip. A pre-designated student locks the classroom door. Instead of hiding under their desks, the children pile them at the entry. The students pretend a bellowing, stinky bear is lumbering up and down the hallway. Everyone is supposed to be quiet, but although it’s only a drill, a kid with an overactive imagination might whimper. It probably doesn’t matter because a bear can smell a chocolate chip cookie from a mile away. A human can’t outrun a bear so the children lie prone, playing dead, trying not to sneeze from the dust bunnies. A couple students grip sharpened pencils … as if that could stop a bear. In the event of the real thing, the students know a few will be sacrificed, but even the hungriest grizzly will fill its belly before the whole class is devoured. When the speaker buzzes, and the principal announces All Clear, no one giggles; the class clown doesn’t act up. Hoping the next time is also only a drill, the children rise and drag their desks back into rows.

David Henson

The Drifter Presents: Happy Birthday Bob Dylan

“I is another.” – Rimbaud

“Say one more stupid thing to me before the last nail is driven in.”

– Bob Dylan

“Your best friends are my worst enemies – Angelina.” – Bob Dylan

Happy Birthday, Bob!

May you live as long as Willie Nelson is now and on and beyond (and same to you too, Willie; you two are kindred spirits).

But when Bob Dylan ever does pass on (not die), I will instantaneously think of what Bob himself said about himself after Elvis moved on: “After Elvis died, I didn’t talk for a week.”

I will not (probably) be silent that long, but my heart will break (in a certain way). And I will know (deep down) that times have changed.

I’ve seen Bob play live an uncountable number of times across five decades: in the ’80s, the ’90s, the ‘00s, the ’10s, the ‘20s.

I’ve seen him drunk (I mean me, although it was obvious that he was too at least a few times), I’ve seen him sober, I’ve seen him on drugs, I’ve seen him not on drugs, and I’ve seen him with my (now ex-) wife when she was preggo with the twins.

After the show she said: “It looked like you were studying him the whole time.”

That’s because I was studying him the whole time.

I’ve been studying the man (on and off) since I was thirteen years old.

I’ve seen him in Iowa, I’ve seen him in Missouri, I’ve seen him in Wisconsin, I’ve seen him in Kansas, and I’ve seen him in Illinois, many times, both in Chicago and at other locations.

(Side note: many folks don’t know that Iowa is our (the USA’s) Number One Agricultural State, which is true; it isn’t California. Reminder: Robert Zimmerman was born and bred in Minnesota.)

I’ve seen him with Tom Petty, I’ve seen him with the Grateful Dead, I’ve seen him with his own bands, I’ve seen him at the first Farm Aid in 1985, and I’ve seen him (and heard him) in my mind all the time, especially when all you beautiful ladies said goodbye.

(I never say “hi” and I never say “bye” to the beautiful ladies. They say hi and they say bye when the time comes: I’m still here; just don’t get too close any more; I don’t know why!)

(True beauty emanates from the inside outward and resides mostly in the eyes. Plastic beauty can be beautiful on the outside, but when you peer into the dead or predatory eyes, it chills the effect more than a little.)

The last time I saw Bob live he was with Willie and Mellencamp on the Outlaw tour, here in Illinois, two years ago.

He hid behind his piano wearing a hoodie the whole time and really pissed off a lot of the audience because he’d turned all his well-known songs into some sort of seemingly incoherent (but only seemingly) jazz.

Boos even started to go up here and there in the crowd.

I almost went over and told one guy to shut his fucking mouth.

I was ready to tear his head off if he didn’t listen to me.

But I restrained myself.

It was like some puny little fool in a football jersey standing there hurling rotten eggs at Mount Rushmore (even tho’ the dude was six feet three).

Because that’s what Dylan is: he’s as big as Mount Rushmore.

And maybe bigger. (Even tho’ he’s only five feet seven – or less.)

They say that when Dylan and Cash used to hang out together, they didn’t even talk.

As the great American fiction writer Barry Hannah (RIP Barry; your two greatest works are the short story “Water Liars” and the short novel Ray) once said: “I don’t need to meet Bob Dyan. He’s already shaken my hand.”

END NOTE:

For an answer to a full-scale nuclear war (which is becoming more likely by the hour, however unlikely that sounds), listen to “Let Me Die in My Footsteps” by Dylan, 1962. (And read the Bible and the Tao Te Ching.)

(Faulkner rightly said: “All it can do is kill us.”)

ONGOING NOTE: For a great song about public heroes dying, see and hear Waylon and Willie’s song “Heroes” (2:46) off their 1982 album WWII. Not to be confused with “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys” – which is also true.

(All images provided–brilliantly–by DWB)

A Bard of the Old School by Dale Williams Barrigar and “Bonus” Material by the Goatfooted Balloonperson

(Note–Bob Dylan’s 85th (!) is tomorrow. A Great many words have been written about him, but I feel that this essay by Dale, which first appeared in Literally Stories UK, is as fine as anything you will find in print!-Leila)

Bob Dylan is a bard of the old school, and also of the school that never gets old. Long after every single Hollywood movie ever made will be penned by androids, computers, zombies, vampires, and “AI,” scattered humans everywhere will still be searching out the work of Bob Dylan, whether to read or listen to it. When Dylan released “Murder Most Foul,” his longest song, in the middle of the Covid Pandemic, he proved every critic who’d ever said he didn’t deserve the Nobel Prize in Literature wrong.

With a terrifying title from Shakespeare, this long song and short fiction is a mini-novel about the Kennedy assassination. And all assassinations, and all murders ever committed, now and in the future. Almost as if to prove that he’s a poet and story-teller more than a musician, Dylan doesn’t even sing this song. He speaks it. He tells the tale like an ancient bard, maybe even going as far back as Homer.

Dylan is often compared to Shakespeare, and for good reason. It could be that a more apt comparison is with the older writer. Homer, like Bob, spent his life traveling from town to town and speak-singing his story-songs to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument. This image of Homer has been accepted for so long that it’s become a fact of fiction that tells the truth, as real as any other Greek mythology, from Zeus to Athena.

Dylan has always cited literary writers as some of his most important, if not his most important, influences. He claimed that “Blood on the Tracks” was inspired by Anton Chekhov’s short stories. He listed his two favorite writers as Emily Dickinson and Arthur Rimbaud. He read T.S. Eliot and James Joyce in high school. He resurrected Charles Baudelaire in “Idiot Wind.” He said that all writers and artists should read John Keats and Herman Melville.

He acknowledged Walt Whitman’s genius. He went to the grave of Jack Kerouac and read Kerouac’s poetry aloud with Allen Ginsberg. He wrote his songs on a typewriter. He created an absurdist book of prose poems, and he composed a memoir that isn’t his best work but is highly readable, filled with signs of the times, then and now.

Someone once compared Bob Dylan to Ernest Hemingway, another writer for whom Dylan has expressed his approval. Both writers diagnosed their times, and fought the wars of their times. While Hemingway went to Italy as an ambulance driver, Dylan went to Mississippi as a liberal Jew who stood out in an open field and sang Civil Rights protest anthems, surely as dangerous as Hemingway heading to the front as a non-combatant who wanted to help injured soldiers.

Dylan has already entered the canon of great American authors. When we look back at history, we see that there are many authors who did not deserve the Nobel Prize, and many authors who did deserve it who didn’t receive it (James Joyce, Leo Tolstoy, and Jorge Luis Borges are a famous three of these). A hundred years from now, Dylan will be seen as a writer who deserved this prize, and then some. His humanity, and his ways of expressing it in English story-language, will last a very, very long time, even, or especially, as the rest of the mainstream world continues to become more and more robotic, tyrannical and inhuman.

The forewarned Bonus Material

Happy Birthday Bob D a Prose Poem

I believe that the first two dorky looking guys to make being dorky looking guys cool were you and Buddy Holly. Can’t imagine Steve Reeves singing Peggy Sue on AM or Dash Riprock getting all Positively Fourth Street on the weird radio. Thank Zimmerman you have traveling angels on your side. Seems an obscenity that all that time flew by. But if I could play God and select people to have it all to do again, far off, in distant years, to clean up the future, amongst such I’d have you and Buddy headlining a cold winter night concert in Clearlake, Iowa. And I would replace the airstrip with a seven star hotel, a temporary home til just spring, inhabited by goatfooted balloonmen and bellboys, fey and wee.

Stroke Out by Dale Barrigar Williams

(All images produced by DWB)

“It was just like a song being played on the radio in my mind.”

– Richard Brautigan

One of these pictures is the countdown: less than sixty minutes until STROKE time two years ago.

Another picture is a view from my hospital room in Chicago. Without access to the futuristically good health care services of the Second City, I would probably have ended up quite a bit worse off than I was and am.

Another pic’ is me contemplating my situation and reliving many memories, since I can see the University of Illinois Chicago from my window, the place where I taught for fifteen years and completed my PhD in English and Creative Writing. And I’m realizing again that I possess a certain fearlessness, and have always possessed a certain fearlessness.

Another pic’ is one of the verses that helps reinforce my so-called certain fearlessness, a fearlessness that is not without its failings and is not always as evident (to myself and even others) as I might want it 2 B.

But many people are afraid of me, especially on the street when they see me and the wolf I walk around with (and sometimes a second wolf and a pit bull).

Picture five is the REUNION: I had an incredibly vivid nightmare while in the hospital that he would forget me while I was gone. I was wrong.

At one point I said to/asked one of my doctors, “I had a MINOR stroke, right?”

His answer was (and I quote it directly): “There are no minor strokes.”

I was in the hospital for one week; one neck surgery; a million tests, pokings, and proddings; and tons of gratitude about being alive with zero paralysis or facial drooping or any of the other horrors that often come with a stroke.

(I also have Stage One Emphysema, which I can sometimes feel burning a little bit at the tops of my lungs. Quite an accomplishment for 59.)

The nurses and various attendants (and some of the doctors) who took care of me were like human angels.

One wonders why the ones seemingly working the hardest were also the ones being paid the least (or at least too little in comparison).

The same was true the last time I was in the hospital for a week twelve years ago (same hospital, different issue, what they sometimes euphemistically refer to as a “mental breakdown”). (I recovered quickly then too and ended up smarter than when I went in, both times.)

But this pay issue $, or lack of good pay issue, it’s like the so-called leader of the free world at the moment, who spends (obviously) the vast majority of his time golfing and re-posting total crap on the internet; or re-posting total crap on the internet while golfing; or telling endless lies about how he won the 2020 election and didn’t start an insurrection; or consuming vast quantities of Mickey D’s and diet Coke while viewing propaganda TV featuring none other than himself.

Hey people who like this guy! The free world really needs a president who’s willing to do a little real work around here once in a while.

The best you can say for him is that he both does, and does not, back down.

He makes Dick Nixon (Nixon the dick) look like Abraham Lincoln.

His actual presence in a room is overwhelming, especially to weak-minded sycophants.

He isn’t a racist in the sense that he values absolute loyalty over skin tone every time.

He hires some really good-looking women.

He’s married to one who appears to want to have zero to do with him (can’t say as I blame her).

He falls asleep in the meetings all day long because he stays up all night long posting crap on the internet and talking on the phone if he can find anyone who will answer.

He NEVER shuts up.

Him and his pals are the ravenous nihilists Dostoevsky predicted.

Sometimes he’s kinda funny and almost likable for some reason!

The uniform (or costume) he’s concocted for himself is hilarious.

I just wish all these other fools wouldn’t keep wearing the same thing.

If he invited me to the White House I would probably go and try to talk some sense into him, not that I would hold my breath about the results.

But I would never travel the country singing his praises like Kid Rock, who I used to think was a kind of genius. Same with Snoop Dog. Come to your senses y’all!

A hundred and forty-six years ago, the great Russian saint-and-sinner Dostoevsky wrote: “Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself, and others. And having no respect, he ceases to love.”

Except for the love of money.

Solvitur Ambulando y Dr. Dale Williams Barrigar

(All images taken by DWB)

Solvitur ambulando: it is solved by walking.

Kierkegaard, the great Danish philosopher, Christian Existentialist before there was such a thing, and wild-hearted comedian bachelor, said: “Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts; and I do not know of any thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.”

The fact that he also, quite literally, collapsed into the gutter and died while walking at the age of 42 in 1855 has nothing to do with it. He died while he was out doing what he loved. What better way can there be to expire!?

He was writing to his sick sister-in-law who was having trouble getting out of bed because of clinical depression. He was throwing down the gauntlet in an effort to try and get her to do something to save herself.

His most famous quote comes from a private letter.

Because that’s the kind of writer he was.

All dogs in all times and all places and of all sizes and all kinds, obviously agree very heartily with these sentiments, at all levels.

Dogs literally possess the wisdom of philosophers (maybe without knowing it but don’t be so sure).

It is said (and I have seen it) that they can also accept their own bodily deaths with perfect equanimity; because they know that this too is only part of the world; and they love the world – but not too much.

End Note: Thanks to the great Michigan poet Jim Harrison from whom I first heard this quote some time in the 1990s.

And, of course, co-starring, the one and only Boo!

Dr. Dale Barrigar Williams