August 22, 2011
Birthday Bob
Fifty years ago two legendary musical figures arrived on the scene: Bob Dylan…and me. Okay, one legendary musical figure arrived on the scene. Sorry, Bob.
In a few weeks I will have a magic birthday number, the Big 5-0 coming up and it is the same number of years gone by that one Hibbing, Minnesota native named Robert Allen Zimmerman moved to New York City to join the burgeoning folk music scene and changed his name to Bob Dylan. As a birthday present, a friend of mine with some connections managed to get me a couple of free tickets to see Mr. Dylan this past Sunday night at The House of Blues, in Boston (Thanks, Kel!).
I hadn’t seen Dylan perform in many years and that was at what was then called Great Woods, although I haven’t a clue as to what it’s called now. On that show he shared the bill with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers and it was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen.
Dylan and Petty were clearly into it and having a good time (I have seen Petty mail it in, so to speak), with Dylan going so far as to say that the stop was the best one on the tour. Sure, you might expect the performer to say that, especially since on an episode of The Simpsons, Mick Jagger tells patrons of his Rock and Roll Fantasy Camp, “And no matter where you are, you always say ‘It's the wildest town in the whole damn world,’” much to their dismay.
Those familiar with Dylan will tell you that he very rarely talks to the crowd, so it seemed to be a genuine sentiment.
However, that was some 20 years ago and I know that Dylan’s performances have been known to vary in quality and effort from show to show. Thus, I didn’t know what to expect. The man is 70 years old and I feared that it would be like when I saw baseball legend Bob Feller pitch in an Old Timer’s game. Feller was 88 years old and doing well for his age, but when he wound up to throw his first pitch, he dropped the baseball in the middle of his wind up. It was embarrassing, as was watching Lucille Ball on her last comeback on a TV show in 1986; it just diminished her legacy.
Pre-show entertainment included a drunk guy standing (well, sort of) behind me and responding to the safety announcements with, “Blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah.”
Dylan came out and played the organ for the first several tunes (as he did most of the night) and indeed his singing is somewhat of a growl these days. Age, smoking cigarettes and I’m going to go out on a big limb here and guess the smoking of other substances, have all taken their toll on his voice. His arrangements of early songs coupled with the rabid werewolf-like growl made them somewhat unrecognizable until he spoke clearly enough a line in the song to let the crowd know that he was singing was, “Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat.”
Some would argue that he never was a good singer but to that I would suggest listening to some early folks albums or his his, “Lay, Lady, Lay.”
The band was good and then something strange occurred…either he started singing more clearly or I started being able to understand Dylanese.
On some songs he merely sang without a guitar or organ, playing just his trademark harmonica (or “harp” as some would call it), drawing cheers from the crowd, although I have learned from a friend who plays blues-harp what really good harmonica playing is, and it ain’t what Bob does, but that’s not the point.
Still, the arrangements of some of his classic songs were good and for what it was worth, Dylan seemed to be enjoying himself, but who can really tell?
After the show I met a friend-of-a-friend who is an immense Dylan fan and has been known to follow him around the world to see shows. Much as those who follow the Grateful Dead are “Deadheads,” I guess you’d call him a “Dylanhead.” I suppose that those who follow the band Little Feet around are “Feetheads” (Footheads?). Those who follow me around are called “stalkers.”
Anyway, he had seen the previous two shows in Maine and New Hampshire and ranked this as one of the best of the modern Dylan era. The fact that Dylan stayed for a second encore apparently indicated that he did indeed enjoy himself and the venue.
I also enjoyed Mr. Dylan and the venue.
Thanks again, Kel!
Posted by dmargarita at 3:16 PM
August 9, 2011
The Standard is Poor
Well, pack your bags America and be prepared to leave. China may just come calling soon and ask you to pay up the money we owe them or get out.
Everyone is panicking because Standard and Poor’s, a financial research and analysis company, has downgraded the United States credit rating from AAA to AA+. This means we have gone from the little batteries for which you always have no more then one item in your house to the batteries, which are far more commonly used. In other words, if we were batteries this would be a good thing.
If I understand it correctly, it means that the United States of America is no longer considered as good of a credit risk in terms of paying back a loan as it previously was, so now if we want to borrow more money from China, we may have to put up The Statue of Liberty as collateral.
Seriously, what would happen if we didn’t pay China back? Would they repossess Kentucky?
According to Wikipedia, the company traces it’s founding to 1860 when Henry Varnum Poor published the History of Railroads and Canals in the United States. I can’t believe that this hasn’t yet been made into a Bruce Willis movie. It’s somewhat ironic that perhaps the most important publication dealing with America’s financial status should be founded by a guy named “Poor.”
In 1906, Luther Lee Blake founded the Standard Statistics Bureau, aka the “Several Men Who Will Never See a Woman Naked” bureau.
In 1941 the two companies bumped into each other while rounding a street corner and merged to become Standard and Poor’s. If TV commercials are to be believed, his is also how Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups came into being.
In 1966 they were acquired by the McGraw-Hill Companies, who have long been publishers of school text books, meaning that at some point that members of the S&P board probably drew a mustache on a picture of George Washington in a McGraw-Hill school text book.
Another criticism of S&P is that Harold McGraw III, the CEO and President of McGraw-Hill, S&P’s parent company, has made donations to several Republican presidential candidates including George W. Bush, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney and the Republican National Committee. Gee, downgrading America’s credit rating, which might hurt the Obama Administration, would be a sheer coincidence, right?
I’m not sure why Standard and Poor’s gets to determine whether or not America is a good credit risk. They’re not the boss of U.S. They can make a recommendation but why would it necessitate that it be followed? That’s kind of like allowing Playboy to determine whether or not certain actresses are hot. Sure, that’s sort of their field but you should be able to decide for yourself if Pamela Anderson is hot. Okay, this analogy either clarified my point or went really far astray.
Mind you, companies pay Standard and Poor to rate their debt issues. That would be like Steven Spielberg paying Roger Ebert to review his next movie (A note to Mr. Spielberg, if you pay me $1 million I promise I will say wonderful things about your next movie, even if it’s total crap). This is what’s known as a conflict of interest.
Officials from the Obama Administration claim that the S&P numbers are flawed and that they overstated the deficit by $2 trillion dollars over the course of the next ten years. Hey, nobody ever said they were good at arithmetic.
Mistakes happen to everyone. Haven’t we all, at one time or another meant to write a check for $20 and instead written a check for $2 trillion dollars?
As is the case in school, there are different grades that S&P will assign different borrowers, from AAA through BBB and CCC all the way down to D. That would be the borrower that always skips class, smokes in the boy’s room and hangs out with the wrong crowd.
Oh, below “D” there is actually an “NR” or “Not Rated” category. These would presumably be borrowers who are skipping the theaters and going directly to videotape.
Perhaps most importantly, it would be just plain embarrassing for America to be out on a date and after dinner, and have it’s credit card denied.
Posted by dmargarita at 7:26 PM