On a chilly Kansas night on a road that is endless, 65 mile
per hour wind whips through my veins as the stars start a riot. The flatlands
are best experienced in the bed of a truck. Though the skin is cold, the organs
are in-tune. Warm. Whiskey soaked. Tobacco cured. Harvest moon knows my name,
but settles for my face, only speaking through beams that fall like dandruff
onto my shoulders. And underneath God’s skirt, all is right with the world.
This is what his voice sounds like to me.
Bob Dylan interrupted my ears and my soul. I wasn’t looking
for him anymore than he for me. His revolution happened a little over a decade
and a half before I was born, but his words and arrangements have a clamshell
encased-like freshness to it that made sense to my ears; ears that had heard
very little of the world outside of Motown and soulless pop country. I wanted to believe in him before he
strummed his guitar on that late night forgotten television tribute to someone
or something. I pointed to the screen, speaking aloud to anyone who would
listen, “This man is important. This man means something.” You hear names like
“Dylan” spoken with the same reverence as “Lincoln” when growing up on the East
Coast. Though I had sung his songs in an educational setting, I never heard the
gravel under the tires (feet). And when the band kicked in through rabbit ears
and mono sound, I invited the noise into my heart. I knew I had been changed. I
realize not many people have these moments, but I sure as hell had mine.
“Religious” would not encompass the experience properly, but “belief” sure
would. I believed in myself like I never had before. I believed that the heart
inside of me that wept the way 7th grade hearts can only weep did
not do so in vane. In short, if Bob Dylan was important, then so was Caleb
Braudrick.
The picture painted above is with the purist of emotions. It
is necessary to carry out the rest of this piece, as painful as it is for me.
You see, Bob Dylan feels as holy to me as tears. His words and music are so
important to me that I have found myself several times in my life completing
writing people off if they had a negative word to say about the man. Any sane
person with a breath in their body and blood in their heart couldn’t help but
see the genius. The truth of the matter is, however, Dylan didn’t turn water
into wine, and he just pisses some people off. A very common sentiment among
the masses is this: great words, awful voice. I take immediate issue with this,
because his voice is unique, but the argument over vocal talents in regards to
Dylan is fruitless. The hard truth that this jaded writer is forced to face
goes way beyond my affection for Robert Zimmerman. The realization that my
allegiance to people is dependent on whether or not they see the truth and
beauty in the same things that I do is sickening to me.
How often have I shunned someone based on his or her
non-acceptance of what I find acceptable? Am I that much of an elitist? I
detest elitism with a gagging sound that is not unlike the sound my dog makes
after eating too many lawn clippings. Elitism makes me so sick that I stopped
attending shows in certain parts of our fair state just to avoid the
hippster-scenester kids with interesting hair and judgmental ears; the
individuals (and I use that term loosely) who have certain rules for being a fan.
I shall never forget the evening a certain rail-thin boy-creep in jeans made
for a 3rd grader named Lucy told me I had committed a fashion “faux
pas” by wearing a t-shirt celebrating the very band I had paid good money to
see that night. Apparently, there is also a rule chastising anyone for wearing
a concert t-shirt the day after buying said shirt. Things like this made me sad
to be a fan of independent music and I swore never to turn into such a beast.
Then I lost respect for someone because they “couldn’t stand”
Bob Dylan.
It doesn’t end with Dylan, however. My hypocrisy branches
out much farther. I’ve also developed a pension for holding people in lower
esteem if they happen to enjoy things I find foolish and shallow. For instance,
the second I find out someone watches reality television or listens to
Nickleback, I have a tendency to question their intelligence. I find it
impossible to believe that someone who rocks out to “Photograph” before
watching “The Hills” doesn’t have some sort of restriction on their driver’s
license. Unfortunately, these
types of shallow entertainment permeate the eyes and ears of people I genuinely
care about. To consider them a lower life form is no better than my greasy
faced friend who questioned my common sense for wearing a certain t-shirt. It’s
all elitism and it all has to go.
In the end, I don’t know if I’ll ever get to a point where I
completely embrace people who can’t stand Bob Dylan, but enter an orgasmic
state of bliss at the sound of Chad Kroeger’s post-grunge drivel. I think the
fact that I’m aware of my hypocrisy is a step in the right direction, however.
Will I ever advance past this point of realization? I’m really not sure. Maybe
one day in my geriatric years, I’ll be able to live and let live. Maybe it’s
best in the mean time to wear my passions on my sleeve and save my disgusts for
circles that share them.
I’m trying to find an eloquent and a profound way to end
this that will bring solace to many and stability to the rest, but
“Subterranean Homesick Blues” just came on the old iTunes. In other words…
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