DADA DYLAN

It’s all been about mama.

And rightly so.

Between Mother’s Day, my heart affections, and my mother’s current afflictions . . . my whole world has been my mother.

But today . . . I’m going to COME OUT about my dada.

Now . . . I have a step-father in the hospital and a supposed natal father who has been in the hospital for weeks with a serious mysterious illness brought on by a dose of AMOXICILLIN >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

More on that later . . . for AMOXICILLIN is ENEMY NO. 1 in this household!!!

But today . . . while my mama is too drugged up from surgery to read this . . . today, his birthday . . .  I am going to come out about my real dada.

You see . . . today is Bob Dylan’s birthday . . . and it doesn’t take a genius to realize that no . . . I am not the creation of my mother and the milkman, as I was so often told, but rather, I am the conception of my mother and the “Voice of A Generation.”

A TROUBADOUR!!!!

DUH!!!

Look at what I do?!?!

And then . . . there is the hair, the mussed Jewfro , the eye shape, the lips . . .

All a dead giveaway.

(And here, I must give thanks to two former girlfriends and TPIWSNS for their genetic analysis).

MY MOTHER ENGAGED IN SOME SERIOUS HANKY PANKY A COUPLE OF WINTERS AFTER THE SUMMER OF LOVE!!!!!!!

Oh, If I had been less resistant over the years, if I had really listened  to my mother’s pronouncements . . . I would have known much earlier about my lineage.

I would have understood myself so much better . . . self-actualized with accuracy and not meandered despondent for a decade.

My refusal to go to Law School and head up the ACLU . . . or teach Abnormal Psych at Harvard . . . or marry that nice Jewish guy I never did meet at The University of Michigan . . .

No . . . instead I followed my muse . . . and went through a name change (thank you mama) . . . I followed the words, the poems, the songs, the guitar strings >>>

Picking away  . . . musing away my days in reverie of change and human consciousness and esoteric philosophies . . .

Doing things “my way”  . . .

And introducing foreign instruments into dogmatic song formats  . . . and getting in trouble for it.

(and delighting in it!)

My mother made it perfectly clear.

I just wasn’t listening.

BOB DYLAN IS MY DADA.

I cannot remember a time when my mom, upon hearing the name “Bob Dylan,” didn’t spout off with a vehement:  “He’s no poet of my generation!” . . . . .

Which would devolve into my dada’s lack of merit . . . and navigate into his debut at some San Fran joint like the hungry i when my mom was a student at Berkeley . . . and he was a poor excuse for a folksinger. Oh . . . she had heard the whispers of hype . . . and having grown up at the knee of Pete Seeger . . . she went to check out the wee Jewish boy singing his blues . . .

AND SHE WAS NOT BLOWN AWAY.

Mr. Zimmerman did not do it for her.

Bob Dylan was no genius.

He was a bore . . . with a bad voice and cheap lyrics.

He was no Cavafy.

So . . . mama blew him off.

( I don’t believe the above is a double entendre).

And then . . . about 20 years later . . . there I was playing my guitar, thinking about humanity, plugging in . . . making black ink scratches on linen paper . . . channeling songs . . .

Feet planted firmly in the musical camp of songwriter BECK . . .

The wee boy suddenly hailed as “the new Dylan” . . .

Was that a coincidence . . . ?

I think not.

And there I was living in the apartment that spawned Beck’s first hit “Loser,”  . . . making songs for old A & R guys who worked with Dylan back in the day . . .

Gazing off into space with my mussed Jewfro and Dylan-shaped blue eyes . . .

And I still didn’t get it.

I didn’t get it when a famous photographer wanted to do a “faux Dylan shoot” of me for my band – or when my girlfriend took pictures of me in Berkeley, guitar in hand, and said excitedly : 

You Look Just Like Young Bob Dylan!

I didn’t get it when Sally Kirkland seemed to have an unnatural attraction to me . . . and had me play music at her art openings . . .

And I didn’t get it when TPIWSNS – who has quite an eye for detail – showed me pictures of my dada and me side by side and explained the geometrics of our eyes, our lips,  . . . >>>>>>>>>>

I WAS STILL IN DADDY DENIAL.

STILL IN DYLAN DENIAL.

Until TPIWSNS made me see a documentary on Bob Dylan and I heard him saying the same things I’ve been saying for years about art and expression!

TALK ABOUT FATHER ISSUES!

I’VE BEEN DENYING MY DADDY! MY HEREDITY!

I raced out and bought Dylan’s autobiography . . . I let go of my resistance and youthful rebellion . . .

I calculated the time line.

Placed my sexy Scorpio mama & Dada Dylan in several locations at the same time  during the early and late 60’s . . . pieced the story together:

How my mother was told she could never get pregnant again until . . . . . . .

TA-DAH!

She became pregnant with me!!!

I realized why I was always told that the milkman was my father – to hide the true story!

I understood why my supposed natal father “doesn’t deal with me.”

And most importantly, I finally understood my mother’s obvious:

“She doth protest too muchnesses!” 

Mama had a love affair with Dylan!

What I won’t know until mama is off narcotics , up and running again, and able to tell her story . . . is whether her doth protests were due to a falling out with dada Dylan  (which I suspect . . . mama doesn’t do well with Geminis . . . ) or due to actual disdain for the man.

But today, my dada’s birthday, Bob Dylan’s Birthday . . .

None of this matters.

I am found.

Actualized.

I belong.

And I want to wish Dada Dylan a very very Happy Birthday!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

MY MOTHER . . . OH THE GIFTS YOU HAVE GIVEN ME

I was driving yesterday .

In the bright May sun – having gone out to be “among the people” – because “it’s a good thing to do” when your world has been broken.

Windows rolled down – inhaling blue skies mesmerized by the blooming jacarandas – I found my self singing note for note the alto part of an old pop song >>>

Fingers tapping a 2 & 4 back beat on the steering wheel –

Suddenly . . .

I thought of my mom.

No . . . I felt  my mother in one big heart expanded wave.

And though it sounds dramatic – two tears popped out of my sun-squinty eyes . . . and I cried.

LOVE EXPANDED what’s been trying to close down.

My heart, valiant, doing best to remain open – and then the next moment moving to slam steel doors shut against an overload of pain – – –

EXPANDED WITH LOVE FOR MY BEAUTIFUL MOTHER.

I learned how to feel the music inside, how to be healed by sound and texture and rhythm, from my mother.

There was never a moment in our house without music. The classical station served as alarm clock.

No TV in the kitchen but Rachmaninoff and Liszt and Beethoven . . . and my favorite, Chopin . . .

And when I was tall enough to reach the record player – I served as DJ for the two of us: on wintry nights, cats folded into afghans, me on heater vent  conjugating French verbs while singing every note of harmony to “The Best of The Everly Brothers,” Seals & Croft’s Greatest Hits,” or anything Simon & Garfunkel. 

Music was our healing agent:  the sonic bond that eradicated the bad:

the money fears    divorce fears    the isolation in small town midwest

Our walls rang with sound  . . . and we felt joy.

Despite all:  we laughed, we listened, and we loved.

Driving yesterday, forcing myself out into the world to end a deep isolation . . . I realized all of these marvelous gifts my mother has given me.

The music, the joy, the dark comedy never tragedy, the knowing how to love, to not be afraid of love, of saying every single day of my life “I LOVE YOU” to someone in my life . . .

The art . . . the aesthetic appreciation of all the beautiful things.

The love of nature and animals – never a moment without an animal in our home  . . . a fur being to be loved, to be gentle with – no rough housing or tail pulling or yelling  or hitting animals . . . 

My mother imbued me with an utter respect for all living things.

I pulled onto my street, strewn with purple petals from the trees, still singing harmonies with the windows wide open . . .

THUNK!    IT HIT ME!   HARD!   In the solar plexus – I stopped singing.

The biggest gift my mother has given me is the courage to:

 REINVENT MYSELF.  

Pick up the tattered pieces of my dreams, shards of my broken heart and with some kind of inherited alchemy:

PUT MYSELF BACK TOGETHER

It’s funny what I cannot say directly to people – my inability to show my pain, speak into their kind blue eyes, brown eyes, open faces – and yet with ease draw out with pen and paper.

And this expression, this love of language, I also learned from my mother. How to feel the depths inside, and put wet ink to page.

I grew up in a home that revered words: where the bookshelves were king, where language and thought ruled, but never to belittle our neighbors, or tell each other to fuck off, or gossip . . . 

In our home I did not hear the annoying idiom:

“Actions speak louder than words.”

In our house I learned that though words can sting, they also can heal. Words and communication are sometimes the only bridge we humans have to peace and understanding. 

When there has been a damaging action – it is often language that can heal the wound.

And so . . . I write.

I write when I hurt. 

I write when I love.

I write when my heart expands with joy.

I write when I don’t understand so that I will come to know my truth.

And I write to grow, to feel, and to reinvent.

Today . . . Mother’s Day . . . I want to thank you mom, for being the woman I respect more than any other in the world.

You are wiser than wise, fair with an incredible capacity to listen with an open heart . . .  loving, joyous, funny, talented in so many ways it’s silly . . . your mind is brilliant and intuitive, logical and compassionate, you understand the nature of the soul and love, you are strong enough to express your emotions with broad strokes and shades of grey  . . . I have watched you grow and expand . . . reinvent and pick up the tattered pieces to laugh again.

I admire you so much words fail me. I love you so much that I could type that over and over again for a lifetime and never adequately express the infinity of my love for you.

My mother . . . I thank you from the bottom of my heart for being the most stellar example of how to go on . . . to keep my open heart and continue loving and learning and sharing with the world.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY MOM! 

LET US DANCE AND SING AND LOVE AND CARRY ON >>>

XO