The Duke is an obsessive type, a sad fact which is painfully acknowledged by all who dare enter his anal, pernickety chasm of companionship. Some of these obsessions arrive, make themselves known, then scarper away into the realms of nostalgia with little or no fuss. Others, however, require slightly more accommodation.
The Great Bob Dylan Obsession of '98 is still talked about by some here at Mondo Towers, and is indeed showing no signs of abating. 38 Dylan albums were purchased in a matter of weeks, starting with the big names like The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and Blood On The Tracks, then delving further into the pits of obscurity, rising for breath every now and then clutching The Jesus Is Great Trilogy, or Hearts Of Fire.
Truth be told, this obsession has only dwindled in the last year or so on account of there being nothing new to investigate, at least nothing on the scale of those first 30+ purchases. But one item always remained selfishly out of reach, hidden away in some vault, refusing to make itself known lest The Duke get his obsessive digits upon it.
But those digits finally gripped the ungrippable, that slab of Dylan paraphernalia that stubbornly resisted all temptations, that refused to be Remastered For Your Viewing Pleasure, or allow for commentaries and featurettes to blight its hideaway in the ether.
And so The Duke sat down to watch Eat The Document, a document which indeed had seemingly been ingested by the cruel innards of popular culture, never to be tickled forth from the gargantuan organs on which it clung.
Eat The Document is one of the top five rockumentaries ever made, up there with the likes of that other Dylan flick, Don't Look Back, The Beatles Anthology, and N-Sync - Live In Paris.
Edited and Directed by Dylan himself, with D.A Pennebaker waving the camera about, Eat The Document follows Dylan and The Band on their 1966 world tour, in particular, the European and British legs of said jaunt. Don't Look Back obviously got a little too close to Robert Zimmerman for comfort, so here we are drawn back once more into the surreal, chaotic mind of Bob Dylan, poet, musical genius, and bohemian artistic type.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
Thanks Duke, very fine job on both of these. Welcome! Please space your parapraphs fro webby readability. Thanks again.
2 - Marcia Soprou
Funny joke about Bob Dylan might have ever taken drugs! I myself turned him into the DEA in 1989 for his heroin addiction, and actually because he had been making and distributing porn films of me in the 1980s without my knowledge or permission. Keith Richards told me about it, and then helped me with the Bob Dylan problem. Actually, nobody likes Bob Dylan. I am 54 years old and have listened to Bob Dylan's music since 1965. Bob has been a heroin addict and homosexual all his life, actually, and when I started a FBI investigation on him because of the porn, and because they then stole everything I owned as well, I was told by the feds that Bob Dylan is a kingpin member of the Mafia! Bob Dylan is a heroin addict and always has been, an off-and-on practicing homosexual, an always ON Mafia pornographer! When Bob Dylan said, "the 1980s is the age of masturbation," he was actually referring to exactly me! Who was masturbating, because Bob had given me reason to believe he was in love with me! But of course, he could not be a man. So he turned on me, and distributed porn films of me instead, thru wiretapping thru his Mafia connections. What do you think of that? I then was requested by the FBI to send all additional information about this case to the Director of the FBI, which I did, in 1992. Well, anyway, the reason why Bob never toured until the 80s for so long and now has been on-stop on tour since 1989, is because the DEA called me back on the phone and told me they had sent helicopters over Bob's house in Malibu (where I had been going to bring him letters), and in fact, asked me as to the exact layout of his property! So Bob then had to split, and pollute all of you with his wonderous shows for the last 16 years! Have your college friends been so polluted by him? Now you know why! I'd love to hear feedback on this, and I'd be glad to tell you more.
3 - AJ Weberman
Marcia -- I have some videotapes that I retrieved from Dylan's garbage cans that may interest you. E-mail me after you're back from the pharmacy. -- AJW
4 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
well hells bells, look at this, would you ever. i only just re-watched this the other night, too, and here i am from many moons ago waxing with regards it all.
Ha Marcia, what a maniacal screed that was! i loved it! you should write a book!
AJ, surely not the one and the same famous Dylanologist? i'm guessin that if Scorsese ever makes a flick about the NEXT four years in Dylan's life, you'll be featured heavily.
5 - AJ Weberman
Naw, I was just inspired to light lunacy by Marcia's REALLY inspired lunacy (hoo boy).
I'm not AJ Weberman; I'm actually the anonymous love child of Joan Baez and D.A. Pennebaker. Or maybe it was Donovan or Dave Van Ronk, those were confusing times for everyone. Bob Dylan won't sleep with me either.
Gotta run, there's a Mafia meeting tonight over clams al diavolo at our secret porn rendezvous in Brooklyn, and I need to strap on my wiretap.
6 - RogerMDillion
Marcia, those drugs seem awesome. Where can I get me some?
7 - Pam from the 60's
Hey, throw the bums a dime, will ya? I need some real Dylan info. How can a guy that prefers males fall in love with females and have all the kids this guy has/had? What? Alter ego? I am a freelance writer looking for some real Dylan info...now I am checking under my computer for cameras and wiretaps.
Pam
8 - Marcia Soprou
A.J. Weberman! This is Marcia with the more. I tried to e-mail you yourself last year, but my computer broke (Bobby didn't want me to). So much new news a year later, the Rolling Stones are almost electricuted after their "Bigger Bang" porn deal tour! Patti Hansen, Keith's wife, murders people for the CIA through witchcraft covens and spells, through the HAARP Program through the Black Ops Program from the Black Budget through the Aurora System for the CIA (and on up the line, actually for the still-existing Nazi Party and non-existing (we took them down 3 months ago, me and Bobby) Illuminati, but actually for the Order of the Skull and Bones Club of the Bilderbergs New World Order Agenda (80% of the human beings on the planet Earth must be murdered quickly to make way for the nephilim (sons of Satan) extraterrestrials (check your facts, AJ and you will see that this is true--it's all over the Internet as well, well, other than the "Patti Hansen" name. She works for the Krupp family of the 13 most powerful families in the world. Bobby told me that on July 3, 2006 Patti murdered 30 people in Iraq for the CIA that way, and then Patti herself showed me the 30 people in the dumpster (the shot with the metal on the top and the 30 bodies on the bottom, if you happened to see that one from Miss "something for your eyes" at night--that's Patti. Keith transferred a hit off himself with the CIA onto me, but Bobby since then has told me he has a CIA hit on him also for knowing all this stuff for many more decades than I have. I love Bobby now and he's helped me immensely this last year, actually, since I sent this e-mail to you, AJ Weberman! I know you're really Dylan Thomas, but George W. Bush attached Osama bin Ladin to me, and since then, there's been no attacks on America by either Osama or the Al-Quaeda network. These days I've been working for Robert Mueller, Dubya's choice for Director of the FBI. More later, at your webpage! Thanks for finding my comment and responding!